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### How to ask a good question.

How to ask a good question. This thread has advice on the following aspects of writing a good question on this site. Each item in this list links to an answer below about that specific aspect of ...
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### List of Generalizations of Common Questions

Bill Dubuque raised an excellent point here: Coping with abstract duplicate questions. I suggest we use this question as a list of the generalized questions we create. I suggest we categorize these ...
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### Proposal: Discourage questions that are nothing besides a problem statement

This is a very clear followup to Qiaochu's question: http://meta.math.stackexchange.com/questions/9180/proposal-ban-verbatim-homework-questions The reason that I create a new post is because I want ...
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### Coping with abstract duplicate questions.

Any longtime reader cannot help but notice that we get many abstract duplicate questions, e.g. this recent question on partial fraction computation, which is not essentially different from many other ...
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### A plea to consider “unclear” questions.

Some questions are so ill-defined that one has no idea what the questioner is asking, and it is reasonable to close such questions. In other cases, although the question is ill-defined, it reveals a ...
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### Requests for Reopen & Undeletion Votes (volume 07/2018 - 12/2020) [duplicate]

The purpose of this thread is to help focus the attention of the community on posts that may require reopen and undeletion votes. A request should be posted as an answer below (one request per answer)....
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### On the inclusion of pages-of-text-as-images in questions

This is to ask if there is and if there should be an official position of math.SE about the inclusion, as images, of pages and pages of printed documents in questions. For a recent example of the ...
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### Requests for Reopen & Undeletion Votes, etc. (volume 10/2012 - 12/2014) [duplicate]

The purpose of this thread is to help focus the attention of the community on posts that may require exceptional handling. This includes requests for reopen and undeletion votes. A request should be ...
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### Is it appropriate to close every question that doesn't show efforts and/or lacks of context?

Yesterday this question was asked: Finding solutions to $2^x+17=y^2$, then it was closed and finally it was reopened. My concern is about if every question showing no effort or lacking of context ...
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### Questions deleted right after receiving an answer: where to flag the users?

I know there have been several questions about users who delete their question immediately after receiving an answer. I have seen this abusive behavior many times. This and this are two examples. Many ...
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### Best way to “revive” a question (which does not abide by the Math.SE rules) [duplicate]

There exists a question which looks interesting to me, given that I scribbled some attempts to solve it and, in spite of the fact that it "seems" like an easy application of Rolle's theorem, couldn't ...
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### Closing Questions for Low Reputation Users

Today I found myself in a bit of a discussion (if I'm being honest, it seemed more like an argument) with a user who closed a question. I am reasonably new to contributing to the site, and the user ...
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### Editing closed questions to add answers

Recently we have seen quite a few instances of users editing questions that are closed to add their answers to the body of the questions themselves. That is a clear subversion of the rules and an ...
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### Is deleting a question while it is still on hold too quick?

This is a follow-up (not a duplicate) to an old question on Meta: Are we too trigger-happy about deleting (relatively) new posts? I have noticed recently that there are lots of on-hold questions ...
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### Requests for Reopen & Undeletion Votes (volume 01/2021 - today)

The purpose of this thread is to focus the attention of the community on posts that may require reopen and undeletion votes. A request should be posted as an answer below (one request per answer). ...
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### What happens to otherwise good answers when their question is closed?

I answered this question the other day. It was one of those cases when I just happened to see it right as it was posted and it was a fun question that I knew something about. So I gave an answer (...
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### What to do when a specific user's posts are always flagged for a closing?

I have been surfing the close votes portion of the review queue and after going through maybe $5$ - $10$ posts, I noticed that a specific user's questions kept coming up to be closed. Most of these ...
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### Why was my Question Offtopic?

I ask yesterday this Question and today it is marked as off-Topic. After that I read the help Center Guidelines, but I miss the point why my question is not in the scope. I hope someone can explain ...
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### Should I edit a question everytime I see an image in it?

I often encounter questions (or even answers!) which contains text-&-latex in an image. Now, should I edit them even if they are 2 years old, already have an answer, just to remove the picture ...
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### Reopening closed questions with good answers

I often come by questions that are closed because of lack of context, but that still have good answers. It can be questions that contain nothing more than What is this integral $\int \ldots dx$? ...
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### What can I do if the problem is deleted when I tried to edit my answer?

Yesterday ($8$ hours ago) there was a problem asking to find the residue of $\exp (\csc(1/z))$ at each of its singularity. I answered that problem and then today morning, I thought to edit my answer ...
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### Can the site-design be improved to be more welcoming to new users?

I think that the design of MSE could be more welcoming to new users. I don't know how much effort it would take and of course that should be considered. My view is as someone who is relatively new to ...
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### Is there an “undelete queue”?

Now Undeleted I have a question deleted by Community due to RemoveAbandonedClosed. I tried editing it so that it becomes on-topic, and I casted "undelete" and "...
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### How to see questions time line?

How can I see question timeline? For example, when it is reviewed when it get an answer when it is vote up. And if I can't see it yet in which reputation I can? Because when I do it it doesn't work.
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### Closed as off-topic after asking and answering own question

I came across a question by a new user where he had asked a question and answered it himself right away (since he had read the guidelines that says that this is encouraged). The question which was a ...
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### A proof-verification is a duplicate? [duplicate]

I asked the community to check my proof for correctness. After reading a comment today I believe the proof is not correct. But I can't do anything because my question was closed as a duplicate. It ...
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### Enable FAQ sidebar on the meta

A little known feature of meta sites is that they can have a sidebar with a few most frequently asked questions: for example, Programmers Meta does. For a description of how it works, see FAQ ...
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### Appropriate way to place sound arguments when reopening a duplicate marked question

The possibility to reopen a duplicate marked question is a nice feature. This action is usually based (at least I do hope so) upon sound arguments. Is there a way to attach or combine these ...
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### What to do when OP deletes a question right after you have posted a correct answer [duplicate]

Just a moment ago I answered a basic question that involved finding the derivative of $\sin(1/x)$. A comment hinted at the chain rule, the likely best way of going about it. I took my time to spell ...
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### Whether, when, and why to have a new reopen and undelete request thread

Over two years old and with 230 "answers" (some deleted) is the original Requests for Reopen & Undeletion Votes, etc. (volume 10/2012 - 12/2014). Some were interested for several reasons in ...
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### What should a $<3000$ user do when a question is good enough to reopen.

What should a $<3000$ user do when a question is good enough to reopen. Consider a question was bad but it get better by editing now what should a $<3000$ user do when it is good enough to ...
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### Book recommendation opinion based? [duplicate]

The question Recommendation for books on topology (light reads) was closed as opinion based. What is the purpose of the book recommendation tag if not for exactly what it was used for here?
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### How avoid aged away flags?

I flag the posts that I consider aren't useful for the page and always the flag says "helpful", but sometimes the flags aren't validated and they become "aged away". How can I avoid my flags become ...
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### I edited an “on hold” question but it is still closed

I edited this question today to provide some context for things I've tried but it was still closed. Is this because the original poster posed the question too simply or is it still in a state to be ...
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### Why was this post deleted [duplicate]

I figure this is a long shot, but I recently came across this post. It was deleted by several users over a month after it had been posted, answered, and closed as a duplicate. Does anyone know why ...
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### Question about moderation

You flag a question for moderator attention. You provide information to support your request. Within what time period is the request handled? Will the moderators inform you by email about their ...
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### Should I wait before posting in “Requests for Reopen & Undeletion Votes”?

I was just criticized for posting in Requests for Reopen & Undeletion Votes, etc. (volume 01/2015 - ) [current version] without waiting for the reopen review queue process to unfold. Another user ...
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### How to recover unsaved in-progress text from my answer to deleted question, still visible in my local client?

I was in the midst of a lengthy edit to my answer to a question, when the question was deleted before I had saved the new text. The webpage was dynamically updated in my browser tab with an overlay ...
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### How can I submit the question that's on hold for review again?

One of my questions were put on hold and I was told to edit it so that it fits the website, so I did edit it. Now how do I submit it for review?
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### Why this question on AC in proof of FLT was marked as duplicate? [closed]

Why this question was marked as duplicate of this one? The former asks if AC can be removed from Wiles's proof of FLT. The latter asks ...
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### What to do in case of unsuccessful duplicate close vote (or flag)?

Consider a situation when a user votes to close a question as duplicate (or flags it as a duplicate if they do not have sufficient rep to cast close votes), and then the post is not closed. If the ...
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### Is it OK to post images/text from a textbook?

I'm self studying a textbook and sometimes I do not understand the explanation the author is trying to give for a concept. Is it OK for me to write out what the textbook says verbatim and/or take an ...
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### A few high quality duplicates

Suppose we have a small number of very close duplicates on some particular question. Suppose also that the questions are high quality and have high quality answers - at least, as measured by the ...
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### Metrics for questions

Lately I had a case that one of my questions was marked "as an exact duplicate". Projection, rotation and skew-symetry in N-dimensional space Commutativity of projection and rotation But what the ...
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### Why were these questions closed as duplicates?

The question Need Examples to Understand Choice Function and Choice Structure is in no way a duplicate for the following question: (P(X),CR) may be a choice structure even if R is not a rational ...
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### Should questions be marked as “duplicate” if answered before, but a possibly better/simpler approach now used?

How to prevent possibly better/simpler approaches to a previously answered question from getting buried as a duplicate question ? Number of ways to arrange identical coins in a ring
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### Would like to dispute Duplicate Label-Chain Rule of Limits [duplicate]

I asked a question looking for a epsilon-delta proof for the Chain Rule of Limits, however the question was marked as a duplicate for a similar question but it does not provide the proof I was looking ...
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### Request of suggestion for improving an answer about evaluation of $\lim_{n\rightarrow\infty} \frac{n\cdot 2^n }{3^n}$

My question is related to the following OP How can I evaluate $\lim_{n\rightarrow\infty} \frac{n\cdot 2^n }{3^n}$? The answer is $0$. But how? I've searched some links but all of them just quite ...