# Tag Info

37

Isn't this just a form of gatekeeping, where you only get to ask a question about mathematics if you've already learnt enough of mathematics to rigorously formulate your problem? This question seems to be built on some rather binary thinking: either (the question asserts) a question remains open and the asker is helped when people post answers, or the ...

24

18

The first obvious issue (which I feel is what may have triggered this post, and has been identified by other users in the comments) is that experts can guess the context from a question, and appreciate why it is relevant, even if there is zero detail given in the original post. They may also know most of the background and guess what the motivation behind ...

16

Closed questions can be deleted more easily. They also send a message to the other users of the site "this is not how you are expected to ask a question". Moreover, closed questions contribute to "negative participation score" which can lead to rate limits (e.g., being blocked from asking questions for some time). So yes, bad questions ...

14

Here is a thought. If you, an expert in a topic, see a problem-statement-question that is interesting, and if you know this question is not a duplicate, and if you judge that adding some context would increase the value of the question to MSE (in part by increasing the chance that someone would be willing to write a good answer before those pesky non-experts ...

13

No question in mathematics is unmotivated or intrinsically interesting. Despite the fact that I, myself, often use the phrase "this is a natural question," no question in mathematics is actually natural. A question becomes interesting or natural once one has enough of a background to appreciate where a question comes from. For example, I think ...

12

A question can have more than one duplicate target. You can find some examples in this SEDE query. As far as I remember: This happens if various users choose various duplicate targets when voting to close. And also if the list of duplicates is subsequently edited - this can be done by moderators or by user with a gold badge in the specific tag. So to ...

12

It is important to keep in mind that a question cannot be bountied immediately. It first needs to "survive" for some time on the site. I think there is some point to preventing closures of bountied questions. The points is they get more visibility by being bountied and thus also more exposure to potential votes to close. That said, if a question is ...

7

This is really a double-edged sword. I agree that it is frustrating to see good posts being closed, especially when the close-voters don't seem to have the background to understand the given contexts (even when explicitly given in the post). However, it is equally frustrating to see low quality/no context posts not being closed. This could happen if the ...

6

It is definitely a judgement call - so various users might have various views on a specific question. One issue is whether you consider this a question about the inequality $$\frac{x}{y^3+2xyz} + \frac{y}{z^3+2xyz} + \frac{z}{x^3+2xyz} \gt \frac{15}{2} \tag{1}$$ or whether you consider this a question whether about the inequality xy^2+yz^2+zx^2 < \frac{...

6

I'm somewhat sympathetic to your surprise, first at having your Question marked as a duplicate of an apparently different problem (in this case by a "golden hammer wielding" single user), and then at having your Question deleted. I've upvoted your meta Question accordingly. There is a commonality of technique in solving your problem and the one it ...

5

The short is that nobody looked at the post (or maybe somebody looked but nobody took action). Why exactly this was the case is impossible to know. The longer version. First, to be clear, you did take the correct action, which was that you raised a "close" flag. This is the equivalent of voting to close for users that do not yet have that ...

4

The tooltip for downvotes says "this question does not show any research effort; it is unclear or not useful." Not taking the time to formulate the question well often indicates a lack of research effort, definitely makes the question less clear, and wastes everyone's time because then potential answerers have to spend time deciphering the question ...

3

Regarding the closed question, which I voted to close, the guy specifically asks about a code problem with R, which has nothing to do here. Maybe the question could be rephrased to be on topic, but as is, it's not. That he asks for another algorithm is only tangential, his main problem, is with code, and his question "Can anyone understand why this is ...

2

For post reopening: Post owners receive an inbox notification when their closed question is reopened. See Are users notified when their questions are reopened?. Post followers receive an inbox notification when a closed question they follow is reopened. See How can I get a notification when someone else's question is reopened?. For post closure: See “...

1

I doubt we will actually get rid of reputation points -- they're pretty deep in the StackExchage DNA, and I think they do play a role in engaging people. But how about this: Only report reputation score to one or two significant figures?

Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible