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Hey I am wondering where 5PM is? I enjoyed reading his posts on partial differential equations and am just curious.

The account seems to be deleted.

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    $\begingroup$ You're right, it seems to be deleted. 5pm's posts now belong to anonymous user53153. For example…. $\endgroup$ – MJD Mar 10 '13 at 18:45
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    $\begingroup$ I just noticed his account was deleted as well. I, too, enjoyed his posts (specifically those in meta, for my part). He will be missed. :( $\endgroup$ – apnorton Mar 10 '13 at 18:46
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    $\begingroup$ -1 If he deleted his account silently let it alone rather than making a fuss. $\endgroup$ – user58512 Mar 10 '13 at 18:51
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    $\begingroup$ @user58512 I don't intend on causing a fuss. But his presence on PDE was huge and will be very much missed. $\endgroup$ – maximumtag Mar 10 '13 at 18:53
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    $\begingroup$ ok. I think this is inappropriate use of meta and doesn't respect the user. $\endgroup$ – user58512 Mar 10 '13 at 18:55
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    $\begingroup$ In my opinion, it is ok to ask this on meta. It is a similar question to Where is Arturo Magidin? But I doubt that some relevant answer can be given in situations like this; only perhaps if the user in question mentioned somewhat in a comment or on chat; when this can be mentioned (and relevant link may be added). Of course, we should respect user's privacy and his decision to delete his account. $\endgroup$ – Martin Sleziak Mar 10 '13 at 19:29
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    $\begingroup$ I noticed an interesting sequence of actions that took place yesterday in fairly rapid succession and was curious, so I checked his profile. Shortly after that it showed up with "please delete me". However, connecting these actions to the decision to delete the account would be (mere) speculation. $\endgroup$ – cardinal Mar 10 '13 at 19:53
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    $\begingroup$ For 10K: I suspect this has something to do with recent events on meta related to homework questions and integrity. In particular this comment and this answer, along with its comments. Perhaps 5pm just decided to give up on the site, he did mention awfully many times that the site is turning into a huge homework and no-effort questions. $\endgroup$ – Asaf Karagila♦ Mar 10 '13 at 19:58
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    $\begingroup$ In case he happens to browse to this, I would just like to add that I too appreciated his presence, and thank him for his time here. He was probably the most active user in meta questions, from an apparent set of values which weren't those of any faction, just always appeared to come from being willing (and able) to think about such questions on their own merits. While numerous posts claim that it is not true, it's a very small circle of people running this site, $\endgroup$ – gnometorule Mar 11 '13 at 15:22
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    $\begingroup$ I think it is sad that this happened, but I think it is very likely that 5pm did this before, he knew too much about MSE right from the beginning. I will not speculate on what his or her previous MSE identity might have been. $\endgroup$ – Michael Greinecker♦ Mar 13 '13 at 9:01
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    $\begingroup$ There is an anime convention's worth of people who can solve the homework. Research problems are harder, and are probably getting a higher rate of answer per visitor-who-can-answer. $\endgroup$ – zyx Mar 14 '13 at 20:32
  • $\begingroup$ I really hope my thread didn't catalyze Pavel's departure from SE. $\endgroup$ – Rustyn Mar 15 '13 at 6:59
  • $\begingroup$ For the record I value everyone's input to this site and am super thankful for all of your help in answering my questions now that I am not doing math for homework's sake. That includes 5pm, who also had activity on my questions. I don't know where else I would ask these middling, curiosity-type questions. $\endgroup$ – bright-star Mar 18 '13 at 8:59
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    $\begingroup$ @Peter: I see few research questions, but questions about graduate- and research-level mathematics are pretty consistently not ignored in the fields that I watch closely. Of course the more elementary questions attract more and quicker answers; it could hardly be otherwise. But I very much doubt that they’re siphoning off answers to more interesting questions by people who are capable of answering those questions. $\endgroup$ – Brian M. Scott Mar 19 '13 at 1:49
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    $\begingroup$ This question appears to be off-topic because it is not our business... $\endgroup$ – draks ... Jul 17 '14 at 12:32
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Just for references to answer zyx's concern.

  1. Searching user53153 + key word site:math.stackexchange.com will give you 5pm's posts.

  2. Use this StackExchange data query, just type 5pm's username placeholder user53153 into the parameter box and hit enter, you will get all the answers by 5pm.

Also there are several users that answer question like 5pm (yet there is no direct evidence showing they are 5pm, or a mimicking persona created by 5pm's admirers).

These users show superb familiarity with various literature of different branches of analysis (complex, real, harmonic, pde, etc), as well as a great amount of knowledge of the StackExchange site itself (even more than moderators), like to answer old questions nobody would ever care, offer bounty to old tumbleweed questions, and use up their daily vote limit to remove questions from the unanswered queue.

Some of these users never logged back in MSE again after a short period amount of active participation.

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The deletion makes it hard to search his old postings.

Does anyone have a link to the one with the graph of close vote (maybe it was downvotes) rates by site?

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  • $\begingroup$ It appears in my comment above, but the answer it was was deleted. So you'll have to wait another 1,046 points before reading it again. It was taken from a blog, though. $\endgroup$ – Asaf Karagila♦ Mar 13 '13 at 0:31
  • $\begingroup$ No, it was a blog of one of the SE sites, I think that maybe ELU. $\endgroup$ – Asaf Karagila♦ Mar 13 '13 at 0:34
  • $\begingroup$ english.blogoverflow.com/files/2013/02/Chart2.jpg $\endgroup$ – David E Speyer Mar 13 '13 at 1:13
  • $\begingroup$ @DavidSpeyer: thanks. $\endgroup$ – zyx Mar 13 '13 at 1:14
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    $\begingroup$ Always puzzling what these downvotes are about. The graph was not by 5pm himself and is worth keeping accessible, independently of any deletions. $\endgroup$ – zyx Mar 13 '13 at 8:32
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    $\begingroup$ We can undelete useful answers. It just takes three (I think) users with enough points or one moderator to do so. I'm not sure which answer we're talking about but I voted to undelete this one, and one other user has so far. $\endgroup$ – Jonas Meyer Mar 13 '13 at 15:01
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    $\begingroup$ The graph is also stored locally. $\endgroup$ – robjohn♦ Mar 18 '13 at 2:04
  • $\begingroup$ Here is the link to the post containing the graph: meta.math.stackexchange.com/questions/8703/academic-integrity/… $\endgroup$ – Martin Sleziak Jul 18 '14 at 19:38

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