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2015/06/17 | 425 | 1,721 | <issue_start>username_0: Are questions about journal statistics on topic here?
e.g.
* what is the impact factor of *journal x*? (probably shouldn't need to ask it here as this info is widely available)
* what is the average review time for *journal x*?
* what are the average times from submission to acceptance/publication for *journal x*?
* what are the current (2015) rankings for journals in the field of x? (such info can be found for older rankings, but recent info is generaly behind a paywall... [example of rankings](http://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php?area=1100&category=1105&country=all&year=2013&order=sjr&min=0&min_type=cd))
Personally I think they could be on topic because they are objective (rather than subjective shopping questions) requests for information which is highly relevant to academics.<issue_comment>username_1: The questions you have listed are indeed not shopping questions. However, they are still not appropriate for the site, because they fall under the "too specific" category. If we allow such questions for an arbitrary journal X, then we have to allow similar questions for every journal. We don't want to have the site flooded with such questions, so this would be off-topic.
On the other hand, questions about **how** to determine these statistics in general would be OK, since they are not tied to individual journals.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: In addition to what Aeismail said, if the answers to the first three questions aren’t available on the journal’s website, they are very difficult to obtain (unless you work for the respective journal). Therefore most of such answers are either very easy to answer or very unlikely to ever be answered.
Upvotes: 1 |
2015/06/22 | 587 | 2,598 | <issue_start>username_0: A [recent question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/47519/22733) is wondering whether there exists any good forum for getting peer feedback on academic job application material. It was closed as a "shopping question," which I really do not understand.
I think that shopping questions are essentially of the form:
>
> There are a whole bunch of academic things of this sort; can you tell me which one fits my needs?
>
>
>
This seems very different to me, since it's asking whether a rather general sort of resource (an online peer feedback environment for academics) exists at all. I think this is a good question and should be reopened.<issue_comment>username_1: I had the same thought when I saw it closed. The problem with this type of question is that I think its quality depends on how many "answers" exist. If there are a large number of potential answers, then it seems like a typical shopping question. It seems like it is only a useful question if here are only a couple of potential answers.
In the case of the specific question, asking it as a how question, might make it a better fit. If someone knows a good on line forum, that would be a good answer. Other answers might focus on talking to your friends and advisors.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: To answer the more general question, I think some of us do not realise or disagree that we only close questions shopping for certain types of answers:
>
> "Shopping" questions, which seek recommendations or lists of individual universities, academic programs, publishers, journals, research topics or similar as an answer or seek an assessment or comparison of such, are off-topic here. (See this discussion for more information.)
>
>
>
Nothing in that list even closely resembles the online resources the question in question was asking for.
In order to have more clarity regarding this, I suggest to set up a separate Meta question asking which types of shopping questions we want to close, as determined by what answers a question asks for. Each answer to this Meta question would represent one type of answers and explains why the corresponding questions are not a good for this site. Votes determine whether we accept questions “shopping” for such answers.
This question may then double as a FAQ for users whose question gets closed as it helps them to understand where the problems with their question lie.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Perhaps the policy should be that such questions are converted to community wikis by mods whenever they're encountered?
Upvotes: 0 |
2015/06/26 | 601 | 2,296 | <issue_start>username_0: I am still unsure why this question:
[List of 2013 US National Merit Scholars](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/46914/list-of-2013-national-merit-scholars/46915#46915)
was closed.
Here's the close reason used.
>
> "Shopping" questions, which seek recommendations or lists of individual universities, academic programs, publishers, journals, research topics or similar as an answer or seek an assessment or comparison of such, are off-topic here. (See this discussion for more information.)"
>
>
>
I'm sure the quote here:
>
> Does anybody know of a list (preferably online) of how many 2013 National Merit Scholars attended each university?
>
>
>
didn't help things, but this appears to have been a reference request for actual data, potentially related to academia.
If anything, it could have been closed as outside the scope, but it still falls within that realm in terms of academic metrics and statistics.
So, how exactly was this defined as a "shopping" question as opposed to a reference request?<issue_comment>username_1: You're right. It should not have been closed as a shopping question. It should have been closed for being unclear.
No country is specified. It's still unclear, and should remain closed while it is.
By the way, the question has clutter, with a sign-off and signature. When you edit a post (in this case, you retagged it), please remove that clutter at the same time as you make other edits.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: I find the line of argument in EnergyNumbers' answer (and the accompanying comments by EnergyNumbers, <NAME>, and scaaahu) disappointingly pedantic.
We don't see the same objections when questions or answers refer to NSF grants, even though "National Science Foundation" is just as unclear as "National Merit Scholarship". This is the **title** of an organization, hence the capital letters; you might find it self-centered of the NSF to not name themselves "United States of America National Science Foundation", but they didn't.
Since there is (as <NAME> points out) no other prize with the title "National Merit Scholar", it is hard to imagine any future internet user being confused by the question or its answer. I would vote to reopen if I could.
Upvotes: 3 |
2015/06/29 | 829 | 3,601 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm Max (<NAME>), and I've not used the chat for a long time.
Well, maybe it's just me, but I have to admit that I find the SE chat pretty annoying from the point of view of the user experience (if it's just me, apologies to whoever designed the chat), and I find it hard to follow the threads or even the simplest announcements.
To reduce the possibility of overlooking important information about the daily life of Academia.SE, I'd propose to open a couple of dedicated chat rooms:
1. One dedicated to discussions and announcements about deleting, closing or reopening questions.
2. One dedicated to discussions about edits.
Would this be feasible and useful?<issue_comment>username_1: Feasible? Sure. Useful? Doubtful.
Most discussion surrounding post moderation, including large-scale edits, takes place in Meta, which has far more activity than chat. The question/answer/voting interface makes Meta pretty well suited to these needs. Even more so, you're far from the only person who isn't a fan of Stack Exchange chat; I know a few members of our community who never set foot in chat, no matter what. Given history, my perception is that making some minor changes to how chat is used—such as creating dedicated chat rooms as you suggest—would only solve a minor subset of the problems they have with the chat platform. (These people can definitely speak for themselves, though... not trying to put words in their mouth, just sharing a feeling I've seen shared before.)
Long story short, not sure that would be a useful addition to the community.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I like the idea of having diverse chatrooms in this website, but the problem is that the community here is not much interested in doing chats. At the time of posting my answer to your meta post on July 01, the last activity on the Academia's chatroom was on about nine days earlier June 22. That is why I think that the Academia's community does not find chatrooms useful indeed because it is not using it very often; so making more chatrooms seems not to be feasible.
Despite the fact that username_1 correctly mentions that most of the discussions take place in Academia's meta; I see no interest in organizing chat events too.
About your first question; at our current chatroom, unfortunately very few discussions happen about closing or reopening posts on our main site. Those are discussions usually made not by the people who vote to close/reopen posts, but by the users who think that their post should not be closed/edited.
So, at our current state opening a new chatroom will not encourage users to join chatrooms just to discuss moderation activities which happen on Academia's main site.
These are the signs that bring me to the point that although your suggestion is perfect, the community seems not to be interested in doing chat in Academia.
However, in order to improve our community here, we can think about how we can attract more people to the chatrooms (for example, by organizing events, which I suggested before but never received enough attention by our community: [Event Proposal: Decide on Unanswered Questions](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1698/event-proposal-decide-on-unanswered-questions)) or think about why people here are not really interested in doing chats compared to other Stack Exchange sites.
After chatrooms had a minimum number of users who think that chatrooms are useful on Academia, and discussions needed more specific moderation attention, then it will be feasible that we make more chatrooms.
Upvotes: 2 |
2015/07/02 | 1,043 | 4,239 | <issue_start>username_0: I have noticed a tendency on this site for people to post answers as comments. I don't know why this is, but it happens often, and then the comment gets many "up-votes" as an "answer."
My approach to this has been to ask people to convert their comment into an answer, then once this is done vote it up and flag the original comment for deletion. [Here is a recent example (where I haven't flagged for deletion, in support of this question).](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/48207/22733) I'm not happy with that solution, however, because it ends up throwing away the associated comment-votes.
I'd like to understand why people do this, whether others feel it is a problem as well, and if so, is there a better way to handle it?<issue_comment>username_1: The reason is that one-sentence answers are frowned upon as independent answers on Stack Exchange sites. Therefore people tend to view material that firs into a comment as too short to be a free-standing answer. I don't think there's an easy fix for this, as it's a cultural issue.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: At least for me, it is (for some reason) psychologically easier to just drop into a question a leave a short comment than to write an answer. If I write an actual answer, I usually try to put down at least ~15 minutes of writing time (I try to not write very short answers), and sometimes I just don't have the time. For comments, 5 seconds are enough.
However, I usually just leave a short comment-as-answer when I think that the answer is obvious enough that somebody else will write the same as an answer anyway. Hence, I usually don't think in these cases that I have some sort of magical special knowledge that isn't available to many other members of this community.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: "*I'm not happy with that solution, however, **because it ends up throwing away the associated comment-votes***"
**Good!** You should be happy, you are doing the question (and Academia) a favour!
Answers as comments are *damaging* to SE because they circumvent the quality assurance mechanisms put in place by SE.
1. The community can’t down vote a comment.
2. The community can’t edit a comment.
3. A comment doesn’t move up and down based on votes (i.e good ones to the top, bad ones to the bottom).
4. A comment can’t be marked as the accepted answer.
5. A comment doesn’t show a question as having an answer.
6. The moderation options for dealing with a comment aren't the same as the moderation options for dealing with a comment (including review queues and the like).
All those up-votes you see could just as feasibly be outnumbered by double, *triple*, **octuple**, ***even more!*** down-votes had the answer-as-a-comment been made as it should have been: as an answer.
The users of Academia do seem to do this a lot, even the high rep members, so it is nice of you to prod people into moving them into answers first. If you don’t mind coming back to the question again then by all means leave a ‘grace period’ between prodding and flagging but if you don’t want to then just flag with a custom moderator flag of ‘Answer in comments’ and the mods will normally clear out the comments and leave a reminder message of what comments are for. After having a handful of "good" answers-as-comments deleted users generally stop doing so.
You could even add a link to the page for the comment privledge into your proddding comment to help remind users what comments are for: <https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/comment>
Here are a couple of the key points from that page (some emphasis mine):
**When should I comment?**
You should submit a comment if you want to:
* Request clarification from the author;
* Leave constructive criticism that guides the author in improving the post;
* Add relevant but minor or transient information to a post (e.g. a link to a related question, or an alert to the author that the question has been updated).
**When shouldn't I comment?**
Comments are not recommended for any of the following:
* **Answering a question or providing an alternate solution to an existing answer; instead, post an actual answer (or edit to expand an existing one);**
Upvotes: 1 |
2015/07/08 | 1,497 | 5,696 | <issue_start>username_0: Somewhat over a month ago I flagged a posted by Dr. <NAME> and explained that he had been stalking and harrassing me and had posted an irrational and dishonest ad hominem attack against me in extraordinarily rude language in comments under a question.
The user called "StrongBad" later wrote this about that flag:
>
> We saw the flag, discussed it amongst ourselves and the SE employees. We decided that it would be best if an SE employee handled the issue. I believe when the flag was cleared, you received a message saying essentially "give us some time". The SE employees are busy, but I am sure they will get to the issue.
>
>
>
I haven't heard anything from them.
Let us note <NAME>'s words:
>
> @MichaelHardy Is this about your same rant on mathematical fraud? Because it sure sounds like it, and you're ranting in the comments again as well. Please go set yourself up a blog or something where you can explain your views in a clear long-form format rather than trying to shoehorn them into the StackExchange format. – jakebeal May 18 at 5:12
>
>
>
That is about as rude as people ever get, with no apparent motive besides the fact that he didn't like an opinion I expressed in a DIFFERENT question on a DIFFERENT topic. And it referred to a question in which I made no attempt to defend the opinion he considered "ranting" but I was only asking for advice about where to publish it. Nonetheless he considered the question "ranting".
At one point I was told I should not contact <NAME> by email. The fact is, I did so exactly once, on May 18, 2015, and the email was polite and very short. It said this:
>
> Dr. Beale,
>
>
> You need to understand this answer:
>
>
> [Should one down-vote a question because one disagrees with the questioner's views expressed on a past occasion not mentioned in the question?](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/256697/should-one-down-vote-a-question-because-one-disagrees-with-the-questioners-view/256698#256698)
>
>
>
That was my entire and only email to him. It apparently inspired him to complain to moderators that I was "stalking and harrassing" him. "Stalking" and "harrassing" correctly describe what he did, quoted above.
"StrongBad" wrote the words I attribute to him or her above: "I am sure they will get to the issue". I haven't heard from them. Will the matter be dealt with?
**PS:** I now find a moderator mistakenly informing me in comments below that I had some other means to contact the moderators besides posting this present question. That same moderator earlier actually recommended posting here as a way of contacting the moderators.<issue_comment>username_1: Regarding
>
> "I am sure they [StackExchange community team] will get to the issue". I haven't heard from them.
>
>
>
I have just flagged your profile for attention from the community team (my first time using this [new feature](http://modnewsletter.stackexchange.com/2015/05/june-2015-newsletter/#contactus)!) so hopefully they will reach out to you as a result.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I’ve reviewed all the posts involved once again, and it seems that there were actually no updates at all since I had last checked aside from this new meta post. The text quoted above from StrogBad was from [an answer](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1778/32458) posted on June 4th, and I did reply to your messages sent to our team via the contact us page. I replied to two of them, each pertaining to different matters. I sent these replies back to you on June 5th, and you replied back to one of them on the next day and got a reply back to that one two days later (the weekend got in the way). I ended one of the messages with the following paragraph:
>
> I hope to, together with the moderator message exchange and the feedback you got on the Meta post you created, have addressed all of your concerns. But please let me know if there's anything else I can help make clearer.
>
>
>
That still stands: **if there’s *anything* I can help make clearer, please let me know.**
I’m not sure if the messages got sent to your spam folder, or if something else happened, but they did get sent. If you cannot find them, let me know and I’ll personally make sure to send them out again. That being said, I think most of the issues were indeed addressed either on the message I sent to you, on the previous replies to your earlier meta post, or on the message exchange between you and the moderators. Once again, though, **do let me know if there was anything left unaddressed or unclear**.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: We as mods have been lucky to have not had to deal with too many sticky situations where we have had to communicate with users via mod messages so we are not experts on the process. I apologize for this short coming and we have created a new [FAQ](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1831/how-should-a-user-with-a-problem-contact-a-moderator) covering how to get in touch with moderators and CMs.
In regards to the issues leading up to and following on from your suspension, we think the issue is being well handled by the SE team and are handing off future issues arising from this incident to them. You are still welcome use AC.SE and we hope you will continue to offer your expertise. If you have new questions and issues unrelated to the above mentioned incident, feel free to post on meta or in chat. For new issues related to or arising from your suspension, please use the *contact us* link to contact the SE team directly. We are happy to accept any recommendations by the CMs after they have reviewed any new information.
Upvotes: 3 |
2015/07/09 | 618 | 2,581 | <issue_start>username_0: Compared to other Stack Exchange website, we do not have many questions under the [FAQ tag](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/faq) (only 3 posts, compared to 17 FAQ posts on [TeX.SX](https://tex.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/faq) or [Mathematics.SX](https://math.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/faq)). These questions really help users (newly registered or older ones) to get more familiar with site policies and disciplines.
What are the characteristics of a good FAQ post? What issues do we need to be covered on this website as FAQ? What topics are not covered in the current FAQ posts? Do we need a wiki-type answer to this question as a *to-do list* of topics which need to be answered in form of FAQ? Or kind of tag on meta for posts which propose a FAQ issue?
Also, I think that it does worth if users find some good questions in meta; (if these questions have minimum characteristics of a FAQ post) propose them to be tagged with such FAQ tag to make them easier to be found by other users.
As an instance, Mathematics.SX has a tag on its meta under which users can propose FAQ topics called [faq-proposed](https://math.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/faq-proposed).<issue_comment>username_1: Well... what Questions actually get Asked here Frequently?
I think your heart is in the right place here, but you're probably overthinking things a bit. FAQ entries can be generated on an as-needed basis, just like tags are, and things seem to be running just fine around here at the moment. It doesn't seem to me like actively looking for FAQ entries to write would be a particularly good use of anyone's time right now.
As you may know, a moderator is needed to apply the [faq](/questions/tagged/faq "show questions tagged 'faq'") tag, but there's nothing special about the [faq-proposed](/questions/tagged/faq-proposed "show questions tagged 'faq-proposed'") tag; its usage is just a convention. If and when you (or someone else) do produce a proposed new FAQ entry, it would probably be better to just flag for moderator attention than to use a special tag, at least for now.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: One thing I would like to see answered in the FAQ is the difference between good and bad opinion based questions. I think some questions that seem to be asking about opinions are really asking about academic culture, while others are asking for personal opinions. I think we have covered this in a couple of meta questions already, but having a nice answer would be great
Upvotes: 1 |
2015/07/09 | 565 | 2,325 | <issue_start>username_0: This is just a general question. How can I avoid an academic question (that I’ve posted in this forum) form turning up on google and similar search engines? I would think that if I code the text then it would
be impossible to get it from a google (or similar search engine search)?
Thanks for answering.<issue_comment>username_1: You can't, other than by deleting or editing the question. If you edit, the text will still be publicly available, but unlikely to rank highly on a search engine. However, in this case you should ensure the text remains viable as a question (ie, you should remove the specific information you don't want found by a search engine, rather than the entire question). Deleting a question [may not be possible](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5221/how-does-deleting-work-what-can-cause-a-post-to-be-deleted-and-what-does-that/5222#5222), but in these cases you can flag for moderator attention and explain why you would like it to be deleted.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: When you write a post here, you grant Stack Exchange a permanent and irrevocable licence to use that material. That material should be indexable by a search engine, so don't code it and don't hide it in any way that would hinder that.
If those conditions aren't acceptable to you for some specific material, then don't post that material anywhere on Stack Exchange.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Why do you want this? I can only think of a few reasons:
1. You're a student and you want to get some kind of help but don't want your professor to know that you asked the internet. I doubt your professor is googling your work to find that out. And either way I doubt it would reflect poorly on you as long as it looks like you're honestly trying to figure something out.
2. You're asking a question about your research and don't want anyone to steal your ideas. Asking about research is a two way street. You can't expect to keep your a research a secret if you're asking for help. And that's the ironic reason why it's not a great idea to work in secret in a vacuum. You usually take so long to figure everything out that you're sure to get scooped, and you'll probably have an error. Whereas if you collaborate you're more likely to finish faster and be correct.
Upvotes: 2 |
2015/07/11 | 1,085 | 4,664 | <issue_start>username_0: In some questions on Academia, it happens that some questions should be closed for more than one reason. For instance, a questions is about undergraduates, and at the same time it should be closed because of it's content for asking a shopping question. Which one do you choose, being off-topic because it is about undergraduates or being a shopping question?
This also applies to broad questions. I mean, some questions ask about a list of relevant websites or journals in an area of science; this question may be closed for being too broad or for the reason of being a shopping question. Which reason do you choose to vote to close a question? Being a shopping question or being too broad?
My question here is, as a person deciding to close a question; how do you give priority in choosing such reasons? Which reasons are more important to be checked and to be in mind when judging on-topicness of questions?<issue_comment>username_1: I don't know about others, but the way in which I have approached this question is to think about which issue is the most salient for any attempt to fix the question.
Close votes put a question on hold, at which point the asker is encouraged to try to repair the question if possible. Thus, if the question has multiple problems with it, I try to select the one that I think will pose the largest problem for attempting to reopen it.
As I see it, then, there are three "high priority" reasons where we usually expect the question to not be re-openable via editing:
* "Not about academia" has highest priority: it doesn't matter if a question about debugging a Java program has other problems; it still doesn't belong on this site.
* "Undergraduate only" is similar (though occasionally it can be fixed)
* "Duplicate" also generally can't or shouldn't be fixed by editing (though occasionally clarification will make it clear that it is more distinct than it first appears).
The remaining reasons ("Shopping", "too individual", "too broad", "unclear", and "opinion-based") are all generally fixable if the original poster cares to do so. As I see it, these get superseded by the high priority reasons, but then we should just pick the one we think is most problematic with the particular post, i.e. will best guide the person in editing toward reopening.
If the OP then edits to fix only the one reason without dealing with the other, we can guide them further in the comments.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: It depends.
* If any issue makes the question **clearly unsalvagable**, e.g., if it is blatantly off-topic, select the corresponding close reason. Keep in mind that you may err about unsalvagability. If there is any doubt, better leave a comment.
* If there is only **one underlying issue** that is captured by two close reasons, select the more helpful close reason. For example, for most shopping questions that are also too broad, making them non-shopping will also automatically make them not too broad anymore. In this case, the shopping-question close reason is probably more helpful to the asker.
Remember that an individual comment explaining what’s wrong may help the asker to salvage the question before it’s closed in the first place and give them more specific information as to what is problematic than a canned close reason can (see also [here](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1772/7734)).
* If there is **more than one separate problem**, e.g., if the question is unclear but from what can be understood you suspect that it’s also too individual, by all means leave a comment explaining all that is wrong with the question. It is very frustrating for an asker if they put effort into fixing a question and then get told that it has another issue which they may not be able to fix.
Select the most problematic issue to ease the job for future reviewers.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: My (not at all well-defined) approach is usually to select the close reason that is most evident. I do not have a "taxonomy" of close reasons in my head, in which some count more than others. At the end of the day, a close is a close, and any single reason alone is sufficient to close a question.
If multiple close reasons seem equally pronounced (interestingly, there are many questions that are at the same time very localized and very broad, AKA the notorious "here is my life story, what can I do?" questions), I typically just select one at random if there are no previous votes on the question. Depending on how much time I have and how realistic I see the question being fixed and re-opened, I *may* explain the other problem in a comment.
Upvotes: 1 |
2015/07/11 | 451 | 1,934 | <issue_start>username_0: It happens when I open the review page of the website, there is a question which is in both lists of *First Posts* and *Close Posts*. The problem here is that, if somebody first opens the *First Posts* review page, and he raise a vote to close to that specific question; when he continues his review to the *Close Posts* page and see the same question there, he will not have the option to agree with the raised flag for closing such question. The only option he will have is to retract his close vote which he raised in the previous review session.
When I faced such problem, I decided to first open the *Close Votes* review page. Because then I will not fail to review that question which is also on the *First Posts* page.
Also, the other strategy is that I do not vote to close a question even I find an off-topic question on the *First Posts* review page. I first, review such post for convenient grammar, title and tags, not being spam, etc; and when my review is complete, I go back to the question and vote it to be closed.
In these very rare moments, how do you decide on such question?<issue_comment>username_1: I think it's OK to vote to close a question when you review it in "First Posts." So far as I can tell, it then gets removed from your "Close Votes" review queue, which is OK.
The thing that I think is important when voting to close while doing "First Posts" review is to welcome the person to the site and make sure to suggest how to improve their post.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: In the rare case, in which you cannot select the appropriate choice during a review because you already made this choice elsewhere, you should skip the review.
Note that this situation should only arise if engage multiple review queues simultaneously, e.g., if you go to the *Review* page and open all queues in new tabs. Going through the reviews one-by-one should avoid this.
Upvotes: 0 |
2015/07/21 | 196 | 676 | <issue_start>username_0: I was hoping we could start a [gradcafe](http://thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php?q=computer%20science%20&t=a&o=) style post for STEM Graduate Applications including:
School (or Description):
GRE: Q/V/W
GPA:
Major GPA:
Accepted/Denied:
Extracurriculars/Research:<issue_comment>username_1: I disagree with this, because you'd need separate posts for each discipline, and the answers won't "curate" well—what suffices for acceptance one year may result in denial the next.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I disagree with this because it isn't a question. This site is for questions and answers. Let's leave things like this for forums.
Upvotes: 4 |
2015/07/29 | 1,092 | 4,293 | <issue_start>username_0: I have observed the following on several occasions:
* New user posts a very broad, subjective, and/or open-ended question (and not the "good subjective" type, either).
* When the question is closed, the user says something like, "But they told me on X.SE that X.SE is only for questions about X, that Academia.SE is for soft questions, and I should post it here."
Obviously, it's very frustrating for a new user to be told to post here, only to have the question downvoted and closed.
What can we do to help avoid this situation?
To clarify: I was thinking about how to educate the High-Rep User of Other SE who says to Brand New SE User there, "Hey, you should post this soft question on Academia instead."
(Brand New SE User, even if he reads our help center, is likely to trust High-Rep User of Other SE more than his own understanding of our somewhat confusing help center. And High-Rep User of Other SE is already familiar with the SE way, and may be more capable of understanding our policies than Brand New SE User.)<issue_comment>username_1: I get the sense that a lot of the problem comes from people having never read the "What can I ask?" page in the help center. There's nothing we can do to improve our educational material for those people who never think to read it in the first place.
So, how about we try to make it really easy for them to encounter the educational material at the right time. A simple way would be to force new user accounts to get put through [the tour page](https://academia.stackexchange.com/tour) upon signup.
Better, though, would be to put the review of the rules right at the point of question submission. Maybe before the submission of the first question there could be a "review your own question" prompt that puts the key bullet points from the help page up for somebody to click on saying that they think it passes them all? This would require implementation by SE staff, but might help a lot.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: If you can find the original comment made by the high-rep user where this was suggested, post a comment replying to that high-rep user educating them about Academia.SE. At least that one user might know for the future. No, it doesn't scale, but it's basically the best mechanism we have right now. I don't know of any better way.
This problem is not unique to Academia.SE; it pops up on other sites, too, and as far as I know, they don't have any better solution, either.
And as far as the new user, about all we can do is be sympathetic but firm and informative when letting them know about why their question must be closed.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: Programmers SE have [a bot in their chatroom](https://codereview.stackexchange.com/users/51786/duga) which scans Stack Overflow for references to Programmers. If they see someone inappropriately recommend Programmers to a user, they step in.
Actually, the same bot works for Code Review SE. Either the remit of the bot could be expanded (address a query to the current owners & operators), or its code could be forked to create a new bot for Academia SE.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Related to [TRiG’s answer](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1911/7734), something that we could do very easily is linking the feeds of tags on other sites that are prone to this phenomenon into our chat. In a quick search, I could find:
* *[career-development](https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/career-development)* on Math
* *[career](https://mathoverflow.net/questions/tagged/career)* on MathOverflow
* *[career](https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/career)* on Theoretical Computer Science
* *[physics-careers](https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/physics-careers)* on Physics
* *[careers](https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/careers)* and *[academia](https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/academia)* on Cross Validated
* *[university](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/university)* on Programmers
If you know of other such tags, please let me know.
This may be a good thing for other reasons as well, as we may offer another perspective on such questions or link to relevant questions on Academia.
Upvotes: 2 |
2015/07/29 | 628 | 2,677 | <issue_start>username_0: I already know, that META Academia is not the perfect place to start, but my original question which I did not post yet is related to academia - to the specific research I need to make. The Academia is about the process of making the research, not the research content itself.
I would consider this question thus to be about the process of the research, because I am not asking about the research itself, but the process - *looking for a way to continue the research* Thus Meta Academia (asking about asking about research) seems to be at least partially appropriate place to ask.
So background to the question: I have a research in which I need to find a big amount of textual data, which have some type of content. In my case, I am looking for texts, that are written in aggressive way, to process it later. I am having severe difficulties looking for such content and I believe there must be an appropriate stack exchange website to ask for a suggestion on how to look for such content, or - directly - where such content can be found.
Question being - how can I find out which stack exchange website is appropriate to post such a problem? It is related to computer science since the texts will be algorithimically processed. It is related to linguistics, because the type of processing and purpose is natural language processing. It is related to Academia in the sense that I am looking for some research material and I do not know how to look for it efficiently... But none of it is quite a good fit.
Is it likely, that there is no such stackexchange page, that would fit this type of question? Should I just pick one and hope for not getting downvotes?<issue_comment>username_1: I just looked around for you. I found a question
[Where can I find free spatio-temporal dataset for download?](https://datascience.stackexchange.com/q/997/10960) on Data Science SE,
which is similar to what you want to ask. You may want to post this question on their meta to see if they are the right place.
Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: First, there is not a stack exchange site for every question. If you cannot find an appropriate site, you can always propose a new site on Area51. It is a long process, but it is an option,
Second, you are correct that it does not seem like a good question for us. Looking through the [list of all SE sites](http://stackexchange.com/sites#name) it looks like cogsci, data, linguistics, open data, and philosophy might provide a reasonable fit, depending on the specifics. You should take a look at their help centers and if you have questions about scope ask in their meta or chat.
Upvotes: 0 |
2015/08/02 | 516 | 1,779 | <issue_start>username_0: [A link get to a 404 error page.](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/25721/is-there-a-reason-to-prefer-one-country-over-another-for-phd-study/25733#25733)
A sinuous wave coming from the pedal. The bicycle is lacking its first wheel, its last wheel has something in it. There is a green cloud at the end of the wave.
Why the bike, the wave and the cloud? What does the image mean? And how does it relate to the bottom image?
<issue_comment>username_1: I think it is a broken-down bicycle. In my interpretation, it was locked up to the bike rack (grey wave) by the bush (green cloud) in working order and then had its front wheel stolen, leaving it non-functional. This is an unfortunately common sight on college campuses.
I think it relates to the 404 because when you come to get your bike and see it like that, it's incredible frustrating, and you know you aren't going anywhere just now.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I think it's a play on...
**404: Route not found**
That varies a little, in a technical sense, from the 404 error's resource not found meaning, but the humor certainly seems to come from a bike being the transportation (routing) method of a poor student... and this is roughly the age when you realize your tire needs to be locked up too.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: Its a common 404 theme to supplement the Not Found with a connoted broken link. Wit the front wheel spirited away the bike is of no help in getting to the bus (at the bus stop)
Thus the meaning would be, We are unable to find you the information you requested or to get you to B where you wanted to go.
Upvotes: 1 |
2015/08/06 | 711 | 2,812 | <issue_start>username_0: I have recently asked this question [Knowing that most students submit assignments right around the deadline, is it advisable not to set deadline that is very late at night?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/50035/knowing-that-most-students-submit-assignments-right-around-the-deadline-is-it-a) on Academia. It has attracted several very interesting answers, high-quality IMHO and that have been abundantly up-voted by the community.
There are two specific answers that I feel address complementary aspects of an "ideal" reply. Naturally, I have up-voted both, since both are of interest to a potential viewer of the question.
My question is: what strategy to adopt when choosing which *most helpful* answer to accept?
I have been considering several options:
1. Choose between one or the other. This would not be fair to either in my view, since their replies are truly complementary, i.e. make sense when taken together.
2. Choose neither, and post my own solution "cannibalizing" elements of both. Not my favorite choice from a moral standpoint.
3. Choose somebody else's answer. There are several other very good answers, but they just do not show the completeness of these two.
4. Choose not to choose, accepting no answer. But this would leave the question eternally open, when in fact I think the elements given in the answers go quite a long way to solving the original question as posed.
There is no immediate hurry, since the question has only been up for around 12 hours. However, I would appreciate any thoughts on making my final choice.<issue_comment>username_1: I think it is a broken-down bicycle. In my interpretation, it was locked up to the bike rack (grey wave) by the bush (green cloud) in working order and then had its front wheel stolen, leaving it non-functional. This is an unfortunately common sight on college campuses.
I think it relates to the 404 because when you come to get your bike and see it like that, it's incredible frustrating, and you know you aren't going anywhere just now.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I think it's a play on...
**404: Route not found**
That varies a little, in a technical sense, from the 404 error's resource not found meaning, but the humor certainly seems to come from a bike being the transportation (routing) method of a poor student... and this is roughly the age when you realize your tire needs to be locked up too.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: Its a common 404 theme to supplement the Not Found with a connoted broken link. Wit the front wheel spirited away the bike is of no help in getting to the bus (at the bus stop)
Thus the meaning would be, We are unable to find you the information you requested or to get you to B where you wanted to go.
Upvotes: 1 |
2015/08/08 | 653 | 2,564 | <issue_start>username_0: [Academic systems and cultures vary widely between countries](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1212/7734), and answers will depend heavily on this context.
I have come across many questions, where the country has not been stated – presumably because it had not occurred to the poster that this information was relevant. Now one can of course ask in the comments to add this – but this causes a delay and gets a bit repetitive.
Is there a way to encourage posters to state the country which is relevant? I was envisioning something like a drop-down menu when asking a question, or at least a line reminding posters that it might be relevant.<issue_comment>username_1: What we (or actually Stack Exchange employees) could do is to add a **tag alert** for tags that are prone to be country- or field-specific.
Tag alerts are special, tag-specific info messages that pop-up whenever the author adds certain tags to a question they are composing. To such an alert in action, begin [asking a question on Stack Overflow](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/ask) and add the SQL tag to it. You can read more about tag alerts on [here](https://meta.stackoverflow.com/q/274632/2127008). I know that at least [Graphic Design](https://graphicdesign.meta.stackexchange.com/q/2353/19174) and [Anime & Manga](https://anime.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1084/14905) also have tag alerts.
As for tags to which we could consider applying this, [graduate-admissions](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/graduate-admissions "show questions tagged 'graduate-admissions'") and [phd](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/phd "show questions tagged 'phd'") come to mind. In particular [graduate-admissions](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/graduate-admissions "show questions tagged 'graduate-admissions'") could do with a tag alert anyway, as I have the feeling that we are closing a lot of questions with this tag and a tag alert could help askers to ask appropriate questions or see that their question is not appropriate for our site in the first place.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Reminders don't work. On [CS Theory](http://cstheory.stackexchange.com), they modified the greyed-out text that appears in the subject line when you start a question, so it emphasizes that questions should be research-level questions about theoretical computer science. It made zero difference: they still get just as many questions about undergrad exercises and fixing Windows as they always got.
Upvotes: 2 |
2015/08/09 | 1,031 | 3,732 | <issue_start>username_0: When you try to edit the tags when asking a question (or edit the tags of a question when having less than 2 k), a box *how to tag* appears on the right, showing some general help on tagging. The content of this box is site-specific, for example it is individualised on [Anime & Manga](https://anime.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1141/14905).
Now, we have a handful of tags that are prone to being misused, namely [phd](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/phd "show questions tagged 'phd'"), [masters](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/masters "show questions tagged 'masters'"), [thesis](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/thesis "show questions tagged 'thesis'"), [research](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/research "show questions tagged 'research'"), [publications](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/publications "show questions tagged 'publications'"), [university](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/university "show questions tagged 'university'"), [students](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/students "show questions tagged 'students'"), [professors](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/professors "show questions tagged 'professors'"), [conference](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/conference "show questions tagged 'conference'") and [graduate-school](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/graduate-school "show questions tagged 'graduate-school'"). In fact I removed the [research](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/research "show questions tagged 'research'") from what feels like 100 questions in the last months.
Would it be possible to add a paragraph or two to the how-to-tag help box warning users not to misuse these tags, do we actually want this and if yes, how should this help text be worded? With respect to the latter, you might want to cannibalise [this help text](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1679/7734) I wrote on *Welcome to Academia SE* on the same topic.<issue_comment>username_1: I propose the following wording:
>
> Use tags that describe what your question is about, not what it merely relates to. For example almost every question on this site is eventually related to research, but only questions about performing research should be tagged [research](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/research "show questions tagged 'research'").
>
>
> Use tags describing circumstances only if those circumstances are essential to your question. For example, if you have a question about citations that came up during writing a thesis but might as well have arisen during writing a paper, do not tag it with [thesis](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/thesis "show questions tagged 'thesis'").
>
>
>
***Implemented June 6th, 2017:***
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/FZw4h.png)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I think we don't need to worry about high-usage tags, if they are for general categories. A post can have multiple tags, so it's OK if one or two are quite broad.
For comparison, consider the following statistics on the top four tags of our site vs. a couple of the other major sites;
* Academia.SE: publications (18%), phd (16%), graduate-admissions (12%), research (9%)
* StackOverflow: javascript (9%), java (9%), c# (8%), php (8%)
* SuperUser.SE: windows-7 (14%), linux (11%), windows (10%), osx (6%)
275K
We're somewhat more concentrated, but not so much that I think it's worth worrying about.
Upvotes: -1 |
2015/08/13 | 430 | 1,688 | <issue_start>username_0: *Academia* says **For academics and those who enrolled in higher education**.
I just wanted to know that if I can ask a question related to **How** and **Why** to pursue a course (country specific) ?<issue_comment>username_1: Unfortunately "how" and "why" questions about a particular course are likely to be [off-topic](https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic) for the following reasons:
1. "How" is usually either exceedingly generic or else highly dependent on a particular institution's processes and regulations. For example, we cannot hope to tell you what to do in order to be admitted to a do Ph.D. in anthropology at Oxford.
2. "Why" is usually very opinion-based and individual in nature. For example, my reasons for pursuing a degree in computer science were quite different than those of my office-mates.
That said, there may be cases where something is answerable; it's hard to know without knowing more about the question that you want to ask.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Try to reword a question if it uses "how" or "why" and keep a few things in mind:
1). Is this only applicable to undergrads? (will be closed)
2). Is this question too broad? If there are a lot of working parts to your question or a lot of possible answers that could all be correct then you are likely to get closed (your question that is)
3).Is it opinion-based? @username_1 did a good job at explaining this.
I have asked a "how" and "why" question before, but rewording the information and title is what kept me from getting closed. However, not every question that is a "how" or "why" question will be accepted even if it is reworded.
Upvotes: 1 |
2015/08/16 | 3,262 | 12,070 | <issue_start>username_0: Introduction
------------
In another discussion, a Stack Exchange employee [indicated](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1873/how-can-we-encourage-posters-to-mention-their-country-of-study-work?cb=1#comment7785_1876) that we might get so-called tag warnings, if we want them.
These warnings are meant to provide users with just-in-time information to help them avoid common mistakes in the tag they’re using (e.g. SQL questions should mention the engine they use).
Here’s what they look like:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AZhJW.png)
(More information on this [here](https://meta.askubuntu.com/q/14237/145802), from which the above text and image were taken.)
Question
--------
For which tags, if any, do we want such tag alerts? I suggest following [this procedure](https://meta.askubuntu.com/q/14237/145802):
If you want a tag to have such a warning, post an answer to this question containing the tag, the corresponding warning and a rationale. Upvote suggestions you agree with, downvote suggestions you disagree with. Post one answer per warning.
General ideas and inspiration
-----------------------------
* The whole suggestion came up during the discussion: [How can we encourage posters to mention their country of study/work?](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/q/1873/7734) So, a hot candidate would be tags used for questions where we often have to ask for the country, such as [graduate-admissions](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/graduate-admissions "show questions tagged 'graduate-admissions'").
* Relatedly, we can remind users to state their field for questions where answers are often field-specific.
* You can use [this query](https://data.stackexchange.com/academia/query/78395/most-closed-tags-in-stackoverflow-top-20) to obtain the tags for which we have most closed questions, i.e., possible problem tags. Note that [this excludes deleted questions](https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/78025/255554) and thus certain tags may be misrepresented (depending on the ratio of closed question that are deleted). Also remember that some tags are just misused. The current leaders in this query are [phd](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/phd "show questions tagged 'phd'"), [graduate-admissions](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/graduate-admissions "show questions tagged 'graduate-admissions'") and [publications](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/publications "show questions tagged 'publications'").
* We could use tag warnings to prevent the misuse of rather [general tags](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/q/1201/7734) such as [research](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/research "show questions tagged 'research'"), [phd](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/phd "show questions tagged 'phd'") or [thesis](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/thesis "show questions tagged 'thesis'"). Even if you regard this as overkill, consider it for tags where you want a warning for other reasons.<issue_comment>username_1: [graduate-admissions](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/graduate-admissions "show questions tagged 'graduate-admissions'")
>
> Before asking your question on graduate admissions, please consider the following:
>
>
> * We cannot predict the success of your application and answer questions like: “Can I get into [program] with [prerequisites]?”. [This question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/38237/7734) may help you though.
> * We do not know details of procedures – such as deadlines, required formats and handling times – any better than you. Probably only the admissions office or similar can answer you such questions.
> * Please state country and field as answers may strongly depend on this.
>
>
>
This tag has a very high number of closed questions, absolutely and relatively, (146 closed questions with 1222 questions in total) and that despite the tag not being prone to spurious use and that I would guess that a high number of questions fall victim to the roomba deletion bot.
The [linked question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/38237/7734) was [explicitly created](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/q/1560/7734) as a master duplicate for a certain type of question. As of now, it is the duplicate of 49 questions.
Questions for details on procedures are one of the main reasons for the following close reason (at least in my understanding):
>
> The answer to this question strongly depends on individual factors such as a certain person’s preferences, a given institution’s regulations, the exact contents of your work or your personal values. Thus only someone familiar can answer this question and it cannot be generalised to apply to others.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_1: ### TL;DR
Equip tags that are frequently used for off-topic questions about the contents of an academic discipline with warnings that inform askers about the nature of this site and where such off-topic questions should be asked instead.
### General
[some-academic-field](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/some-academic-field "show questions tagged 'some-academic-field'")
>
> If you have a {{field}} question, please do not ask it here – ask it on {{field.se}} and please check {{their guidelines}} before asking.
>
>
> If your questions is about academic standards, conventions and life specific to the academic field of {{field}}, however, you are at the right place.
>
>
>
For example:
>
> If you have a physics question, please do not ask it here – ask it on [Physics SE](https://physics.stackexchange.com/) instead and please check [their guidelines](https://physics.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic) before asking.
>
>
> If your questions is about academic standards, conventions and life specific to the academic field of physics, however, you are at the right place.
>
>
>
We get a lot of blatantly off-topic questions that are about the teachings or contents of an academic field instead of academia. Many of these questions are tagged with the respective field’s tag. A tag warning could prevent some of those questions from being asked in the first place and direct the asker to the right place (and make them read the guidelines before asking).
### Specific
The above scheme can be straightforwardly applied to the following tags:
* [biology](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/biology "show questions tagged 'biology'"),
* [chemistry](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/chemistry "show questions tagged 'chemistry'"),
* [computer-science](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/computer-science "show questions tagged 'computer-science'"),
* [economics](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/economics "show questions tagged 'economics'"),
* [engineering](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/engineering "show questions tagged 'engineering'"),
* [electrical-engineering](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/electrical-engineering "show questions tagged 'electrical-engineering'"),
* [law](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/law "show questions tagged 'law'"),
* [linguistics](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/linguistics "show questions tagged 'linguistics'"),
* [mathematics](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/mathematics "show questions tagged 'mathematics'"),
* [medicine](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/medicine "show questions tagged 'medicine'") ([Health SE](https://health.stackexchange.com/)),
* [philosophy](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/philosophy "show questions tagged 'philosophy'"),
* [physics](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/physics "show questions tagged 'physics'"),
* [political-science](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/political-science "show questions tagged 'political-science'") ([Politics SE](https://politics.stackexchange.com/)),
* [psychology](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/psychology "show questions tagged 'psychology'") ([Cognitive Sciences SE](https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/)),
* [statistics](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/statistics "show questions tagged 'statistics'") ([Cross Validated](https://stats.stackexchange.com/)),
Note that I explicitly do not link to [Math Overflow](https://mathoverflow.net/) and [Theoretical Computer Science](https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/), as they are limited to research-level questions and very unlikely to help somebody. Also, I refrained from referencing more specific sites such as [Math Educators](https://matheducators.stackexchange.com/) or [Computational Science](https://matheducators.stackexchange.com/) as well as other sites such as [Stack Overflow](https://stackoverflow.com/) that are the right place for some questions misposted under one of the about tags as they are mentioned on the on-topic helps of the sites directly corresponding to the tags, which give a much better guidance than what we can fit into a tag warning.
The following tags require slight changes:
* [social-science](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/social-science "show questions tagged 'social-science'")
>
> This tag is for questions about the academic standards, conventions and life specific to the social sciences.
>
>
> Note that questions on the contents or teachings of a social science are off-topic here (unless academia is targeted as a research subject).
> They **may** be on-topic on
> [Economics SE](https://economics.stackexchange.com/),
> [Politics SE](https://politics.stackexchange.com/),
> [History SE](https://history.stackexchange.com/),
> [History of Science and Mathematics SE](https://hsm.stackexchange.com/),
> [Law SE](https://law.stackexchange.com/) or
> [Linguistics SE](https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/).
> Please check their guidelines before asking.
>
>
>
* [science](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/science "show questions tagged 'science'")
>
> If you have a science question, please do not ask it here – ask it on the [respective field’s site](http://stackexchange.com/sites#science) and please check their guidelines before asking.
>
>
> If your questions is about academic standards, conventions and life specific to the sciences, however, you are at the right place.
>
>
>
* [programming](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/programming "show questions tagged 'programming'")
>
> If you have a programming question, please do not ask it here – ask it on [Stack Overflow](https://stackoverflow.com/) or one of the other programming-specific Stack Exchange sites. Please see [this Meta post](https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/129598/255554) to find the appropriate site.
>
>
> If your question is on the interplay between programming and academic research, teaching or learning, however, you are at the right place.
>
>
>
* [code](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/code "show questions tagged 'code'")
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> This tag is for questions on the licensing, ownership, sharing, distribution, and formatting of source code in an academic context.
>
>
> Programming questions are off-topic here. They may be on-topic on [Stack Overflow](https://stackoverflow.com/) or one of the other programming-specific Stack Exchange sites. Please see [this Meta post](https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/129598/255554) to find the appropriate site.
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Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: For "copyright" and "plagiarism," could we please have a message like:
>
> Questions which are primarily about copyright law may be more suited to <https://law.stackexchange.com/>. Questions about academic integrity customs and plagiarism ethics in academic settings are appropriate for this site.
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Upvotes: 2 |
2015/08/16 | 963 | 4,048 | <issue_start>username_0: I believe this question about wanting to have a undergrad humanities course requirement exemption to be off-topic as it is primarily about undergraduate life.
* [Is it reasonable to request an exemption from certain degree requirements?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/51529/is-it-reasonable-to-request-an-exemption-from-certain-degree-requirements)
Apparently others believe that because the OP believes that this will lead to a better grad application, that it is on-topic.
Isn't this just a variation of "[boat programming](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/14470/what-is-the-boat-programming-meme-about)?" If we follow this route, then an OP can make the argument that it is on-topic just by mentioning "grad school."
So a question about "*Why do I have to stay in a dorm?*" would be on topic if the OP added "*... I won't be able to study hard enough to get into grad school.*"
Isn't that the very core of boat programming?
Thoughts?<issue_comment>username_1: I strongly agree with your conclusion, though hadn't been able to phrase it so well. Undergraduate breadth requirements have very little to do with graduate school. In addition, the strength and particulars of their enforcement is also very institution-dependent, which *also* makes it a poor question for this site.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: In my country, there is no comparable distinction between undergraduate and graduate, and thus I rarely, if ever, select this close reason (and rather skip reviewing questions that are deeply rooted in this system).
Nontheless, I agree with you seeing this as boat programming. With the same argument, we could allow all sorts of question on school education, as it may be relevant for university admissions – at least in my country, where said distinction between undergraduate and graduate does not exist.
---
Moreover, despite me not caring about the undergraduate close reason, I voted to close this question with the following close reason (which did not make it into the close notice):
>
> The answer to this question strongly depends on individual factors such as a certain person’s preferences, a given institution’s regulations, the exact contents of your work or your personal values. Thus only someone familiar can answer this question and it cannot be generalised to apply to others.
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>
>
More specifically: This question depends on your institution’s regulations on graduations or how the exception handlers will decide. Thus you have to look into your regulations or ask whoever takes care of this at your institution.
Note that this does not only apply to the first question (Is it reasonable to ask?) but also the second (What should I say?), as the arguments also depend on the regulations, preferences of the decider and other individualities.
I consider the existing answers to confirm this judgement and reflect exactly the problem why this close reason exists, namely that answers can only guess or say “it depends”. Sure, there is content going beyond this in the answers:
* *You request will fail and instead you should …*
* *What you want is unethical/bad for you, because …*
* *The answer is probably no, but trying does not hurt.*
* *If I were to decide, I would say no because …*
In neither case do the additions really answer the question.
Except for the cynical remark that the course the asker wants to avoid would have taught him to answer this question themselves, only few answers address the second question at all and only very generally. This information may actually be worth keeping but rather to some much more generalised form of the question (e.g., “What are general strategies to argue for an exemption from some examination regulation?”), which may may indeed be a good fit for our site.
So, we are left with a lot of answers that do not really compete except for the yes/no part and mostly answer different questions that weren’t actually asked. This alone strongly suggests a bad, closeworthy question.
Upvotes: 2 |
2015/08/16 | 1,162 | 4,678 | <issue_start>username_0: Moderator aeismail cast one of two reopen votes for the following question:
[Is it reasonable to request an exemption from certain degree requirements?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/51529/is-it-reasonable-to-request-an-exemption-from-certain-degree-requirements)
In my view, this question has several problems:
1. It deals with an undergraduate problem which cannot be generalized to graduate students,
2. Any answers related to increasing OP's likelihood of success strongly depends on institutional policies, and
3. A really interesting take suggested by RoboKaren [here](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1888/undergrad-course-exemption-with-interest-in-grad-school): the question is a "boat-programming" question.
It is interesting that moderator aeismail cast one of only two reopen votes, when he clearly explains his view on such matters [here](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/731/consistency-in-voting-to-close/732#732). In the linked meta question, aeismail states:
>
> Stack Exchange sites are community-driven. Therefore, as much as possible, the moderators try to leave decisions to the general community. We will act unilaterally in clear-cut cases (abusive or spam posts, duplicates, completely off-topic questions such as programming questions, and so on). Otherwise, we prefer to wait until there's a consensus.
>
>
> In this particular instance, the close votes were entirely from regular users; the moderators played no role in closing the question. Personally, I agree that the question you've cited should be reopened, and would support a reopening "campaign"; I've indicated this in the comments section. However, as I also pointed out above, the moderators here prefer to work from a consensus standpoint, so I'd rather if several users voted to reopen instead of acting unilaterally.
>
>
>
I agree with what aeismail wrote in his answer above. But, unfortunately, that is clearly not what happened in the case of the "undergraduate-trying-to-get-out-of-a-humanities-requirement" question.
I like to assume that there are good reasons for things which happen on Academia SE, and that I've probably missed something.
Can someone explain why aesimail's actions on this question are good for this community-driven site?
---
**Edited to add:**
It seems that I've misjudged the value that the community places on the "undergraduate" question that started this thread. As of this writing, there have been only 3 close votes recast (not to mention several additional upvotes). I'm not going to stand in the way of this question: I have retracted my close vote.
*Hats off to aeismail for seeing the value in the question that I did not.*<issue_comment>username_1: I reviewed the question based on it being flagged for moderator attention.
The main reason citing it being closed was that it was "undergraduate focused." However, the fundamental question relates to requesting the exemption in the context of applying to graduate schools, which makes it relevant for this board. (Again, I will also note that I have said on multiple occasions that the undergraduate flag is overused.)
In that spirit, I viewed that the original basis for closing the question was no longer valid, and cast a reopen vote. I do not feel that this is an "abuse" of moderator power, as it came out of a direct request for intervention, not as a "drive by" reopening.
.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: >
> Can someone explain why aesimail's actions on this question are good for this community-driven site?
>
>
>
I think the simple answer is, because username_1 does an excellent job of moderating the site. Based on the responses, he probably jumped the gun a little on his reopen vote. Note that he wasn't obviously wrong in his actions since the question has still not be reclosed. In fact, had I seen the edit and not had a mod vote, I would not have hesitated on voting to reopen. Overall, I like how username_1 moderates, and it seems a little harsh to ask him to justify himself for such a minor issue.
As a mod, I think there is a difference between mod hammering a question to close it versus to reopen it. Further, we tend to have a high bar for reopening questions and a few users are very against under graduate questions. The cost of reopening it, means a few people need to vote to close it again, the benefit is a new user.
Finally, I think this is where comments about closing can help. Had we been clearer about what needed to be fixed, I would have been less ikely to vote to open, and hopefully we would have gotten a better answer.
Upvotes: 2 |
2015/08/18 | 980 | 3,665 | <issue_start>username_0: It is interesting to learn what is the viewpoint of Academia.SE community on the following situation.
There is an [Area 51 proposal for OpenScience](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/65426/open-science) which recently went into the private beta. As we have learned today, [it will be closed this Friday](http://meta.openscience.stackexchange.com/questions/69/open-science-will-be-closing-on-friday-8-21).
There are now two alternatives:
* [Second start](https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/21596/the-second-start-up-what-can-we-do-better) (think what we can do better and retry by starting another Area 51 proposal [here](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/90201/open-science))
* [Use Academia Q&A](https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/21605/alternative-migrate-to-academia-stackexchange-com) (this is not suggested for the first time, similar idea already has been expressed [here](https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/19864/open-science-is-a-duplicate-subset-of-academia-se))
Please follow the links from this question to read further details, but to keep all discussion in one place, I suggest to express your opinions as answers to this question here.<issue_comment>username_1: Looking at the [proposal questions for OpenScience](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/65426?phase=definition), virtually all of those would be on-topic here, as they all relate to academic-level research—specifically, open-access academic research, but still academic research. Heck, some of those questions have [already](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17740/open-source-the-project-code-before-or-after-publication) [been](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2158/how-to-identify-predatory-publishers-journals) [asked](https://academia.stackexchange.com/search?q=open+access).
So, with that background, I suggest that people looking to ask those types of questions just post here. If it turns out that there's a subset of questions that I'm missing that are distinctly *not* related to academia, we could bring that subset up in Meta for inclusion in our [on-topic](https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic) list at that time.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Looking at the questions posted on the private beta site, it looks to me like the vast majority of the questions there would fit quite well on Academia.SE. Perhaps they could even simply be migrated over here?
Examples of questions that would fit well:
* What should I do if I cannot afford a journal Article Processing Charge?
* How to protect scientific open research from being patented?
* How to deal with sensitive individual data in open science?
* How do I get a DOI for a dataset?
* Percentage of the world population with subscription journal access?
* What is the difference between “Green” and “Gold” Open Access?
Others look like they'd currently be closed here for being too broad, too dependent on particular regulations, or too opinion-based, but could probably be adjusted to be answerable within the rules and customs of this site. Examples include:
* How much does it cost to publish an academic article?
* What criteria does a research project need to match to be called open science?
* How can one share data for open science?
Only a few appear to be too far off-topic for this site, primarily because they concern technical details, such as:
* Using knitr to produce multiple output documents
* Publishing location based data in Easting and Northing, Longitude and latitude, or Addresses?
* Is there a specification for versioning a dataset?
Upvotes: 3 |
2015/08/26 | 579 | 2,450 | <issue_start>username_0: Hope that my question fits to this site (as it is the first time that I ask a question here.)
I feel guilty when I don't say thanks to a very good comment or answer given by users on academia.stackexchange.
I know very well that some questions are protected for saying thanks, me too ! etc.
But does it really matter if I don't say thanks ?
How users on this site consider this issue ?<issue_comment>username_1: I think the general SE policy is against trivial "thanks" and "me, too!"-type comments. If you want to add information about why you like the answer, or explain what's relevant in your own case, you're adding information to the system, which is a different matter.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: From what I understand the SE community (at least academia) is not supposed to be like everyday speech when phrasing your question, answer, or comment.
Every question on this SE is not just a resource for the OP but also for anyone with a similar question (hence why no duplicate questions are allowed) a person with the same issue can refer to the original question to see the context and refer to answers to possibly find a solution to their own problem. A comment such as "Thanks" may be polite but it has no value to the question or the answee for someone looking back at the question.
Instead of saying "thanks" I phrase my comments as "+1 for ..." to show appreciation for the answer or a unique part of the answer that other members may not have addressed.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: This site is a resource not only for you but for others. Part of what makes the site so useful is that the signal-to-noise ratio is high: there's a lot of useful information, and it's not cluttered up with other stuff.
So, the etiquette on Stack Exchange sites tends to be: Don't write "Thanks". Don't write "+1". Not even "+1 for the second sentence." Instead, thank the answerer by upvoting their answer, and accepting the best answer that most helped you. That's the most effective way you can thank them and help others.
It might seem polite to write "Thanks" for "I really liked your second sentence", but when you take into account that your remarks will be read by many other people other than the answerer and you are effectively wasting their time by cluttering up the page, arguably refraining from posting such comments is actually the more polite thing to do.
Upvotes: 3 |
2015/09/09 | 401 | 1,690 | <issue_start>username_0: I was drafting a question entitled, "How to make a group or department women-friendly?" when I noticed that the wonderful "Questions that may already have your answer" feature was pointing me helpfully to a related existing question: [What is being done to make the academic environment more women friendly?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2113/how-can-we-make-the-academic-enviroment-more-women-friendly).
Unfortunately, the existing how-can-we-make question received very little attention. I would like to start a bounty on that question. My only hesitation is that a user found fault with the question as written.
**What would be more effective -- set a bounty on the original question, or write a new question?**<issue_comment>username_1: I would only ask a new question, if it is new. If you ask a duplicate question, it will get closed. The original question is not great, but it is not awful either. I would try a bounty, if the question addresses the issue you are after.
I do not think my answer is great, but what type of answer are you looking for?
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I think the real question is this: why aren't you satisfied with the answers to the original question?
* If you think that the original question would receive good answers if people paid more attention to it, then set a bounty.
* If you think that the original question didn't receive the answers you're looking for because it wasn't focused on the particular aspect of the problem you want, then ask a new question. In the new question, link to the existing question and say why it doesn't answer your question already.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer] |
2015/09/10 | 1,199 | 4,608 | <issue_start>username_0: From time to time my comments get deleted (sometimes right after being posted). For me it is very frustrating - I feel chaotic in an environment in which my things change without a notice. I refresh things a few times, double check if I posted a comment on the right post, question my sanity for a short time... and then only realize that it has been removed for a reason I do not fully understand.
Please, if you have to remove my comment, DO inform me. I don't claim that all of my comments have high value. I only claim that I don't want to participate in a place where my things disappear at random.
And for the last 2-3: could you write them (I don't have access to them) and present some rationale? (Hopefully the benefit for the community is bigger than the cost of frustrating a user (i.e. me), and potentially discouraging him for good.)<issue_comment>username_1: >
> And for the last 2-3: could you write them (I don't have access to them) and present some rationale?
>
>
>
I think it's useful for the the community to see what kinds of comments get flagged, and why. So here goes (these are listed most recent first):
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Comment: "@DeboraWeber-Wulff It would be cool to carry a scythe."
Post: [Presentation time is out in a scientific conference](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/54147/presentation-time-is-out-in-a-scientific-conference/54150#54150)
Flagged as: too chatty
---
Comment: "[Best wishes for the overzealous comment deleter.]"
Post: [PhD application denial - Is it usual to ask reasons/recommendations?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/44902/phd-application-denial-is-it-usual-to-ask-reasons-recommendations)
Flagged as: not constructive
I handled this flag, so I can comment further on the rationale. This post is not an appropriate place for a complaint about comment deletion. It's entirely possible that the "comment deleter" would never even see it, since it's not directed @ anyone. Instead, every future visitor to this post would have to read it... for what purpose? It does not improve the post in any way. If you want to start a constructive conversation about comment deletion, meta is the place to do it.
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Comment: "You don't mention a country/system in which you applied. If you applied to a particular professor, you can get some informal feedback; if to a university/department - it's unlikely to get any feedback (see answer)."
Post: [PhD application denial - Is it usual to ask reasons/recommendations?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/44902/phd-application-denial-is-it-usual-to-ask-reasons-recommendations)
Flagged as: It wasn't flagged. It was deleted after the user added the requested information to the post, presumably making the first part of your comment obsolete.
---
Comment: "@xLeitix I turned it into an answer, thanks."
Post: [Is there a lack of oversight of how professors interact with students?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/41337/is-there-a-lack-of-oversight-of-how-professors-interact-with-students/41338#41338)
Flagged as: obsolete.
I handled this flag, too, so I can comment on the rationale. This comment is meant to notify a user of something but has no additional purpose beyond this notification. Generally when handling this kind of flag, , I check to see if the user it's directed @ has been on the site since the comment was posted. If so, I will delete it. Otherwise, I wait a little longer.
---
>
> Please, if you have to remove my comment, DO inform me.
>
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>
Since the purpose of removing comments is to remove "noise," it would be counterproductive for moderators to inform you by adding a comment. Also, there is no way in the moderator interface (when dealing with comment flags) to add a comment, so it would involve extra work to go to the post and add a comment.
I think a better way would be for the website to notify you automatically when a comment of yours is removed. If you want, you can suggest this as a feature request on Meta Stack Exchange (if it hasn't been suggested already).
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: There's a general principle on Stack Exchange sites that comments should be considered ephemeral and will be removed without warning or notification when the community feels they are not helpful or no longer needed. This is global across the whole Stack Exchange network and the SE staff have shown no signs of considering changing this. So if you want to participate in SE sites at all, I think you have to live with "your things disappearing at random".
Upvotes: 4 |
2015/09/11 | 1,032 | 4,146 | <issue_start>username_0: >
> For the reasons above, I have locked this question. If anyone wishes to dispute the lock please feel free to discuss on Academia Meta. – eykanal♦
>
>
>
In reference to [this thread](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2113/how-can-we-make-the-academic-environment-more-women-friendly/54163#54163).
A couple questions regarding this lock:
* "For the reasons above" - is above the lock notice, or the comments. Because the lock notice is just "this isn't considered a good, on topic question". That isn't really a *reason*. And the comments are fairly vauge in terms of actually figuring out a reason - the largest one, for example, is a suggestion that was incorporated into the question.
* How is this question distinct enough from [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/16545/what-can-academics-and-students-do-to-reduce-racism-in-academia/16559#16559) or [this one](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/29018/how-to-remove-gender-bias-from-an-academic-job-search?rq=1) which have been protected, rather than locked?
* There are answers that provide solid, non-opinion information (admittedly not my answer, which is somewhat more opinion based). The question got 19 upvotes, 4 favorites, and a substantial number of upvoted answers. While I understand that's not in and of itself evidence that the thread is good, it does seem to show that the community thought this question was worth looking at - it's well above the mean and median number of votes for questions on the front page, etc. At the very least, even if it wasn't left open, shouldn't this have been posed as a vote to close rather than a unilateral moderator decision?
I'll say for my part I found this question to be much more interesting and potentially useful to the community than a number of other types of questions we get and answer on a daily basis, such as the "I have no idea how to interact with my supervisor in this surreal edge case..."<issue_comment>username_1: If I had to guess, I would speculate that it was locked in an attempt to protect it from getting highly polemic answers that don't *directly* address the question. (This tends to happen in the [gender](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/gender "show questions tagged 'gender'") tag.)
I don't think locking the question is the correct response, as this also prevents it from getting good answers.
Personally, I think the appropriate response to those answers is to downvote and leave a comment if you disagree with it or believe it doesn't answer the question. I don't like deleting the answers that contain unpopular or slightly tangential content, because:
* Leaving a strongly-downvoted answer in place is a useful signal to readers showing what the community apparently thinks is a wrong or bad approach to the question. Leaving the comments in place (as long as they don't get personal) shows the community's counter-arguments to the answer.
* If the answer is deleted, other users with the same approach see the question, don't see their viewpoint represented in the answers, and post a new answer expressing this view. Deleting the answer leads to *more* of them being posted.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Sorry for making a (small) mess! My concerns is that the question is very old; it's actually from when the site was still in very early beta. We've since defined policies around questions, and if that was asked today, would be closed almost immediately as one of "too vague/unanswerable in current form/too discussion-like in nature". There isn't even a direct question present, it's a "what can we do about X" question, thinly hiding behind "what is being done".
The lock was because it has good content. I didn't want to delete, but I didn't want it to continue to garner new responses, particularly likely it seemed (to me) that it would just generate lots of discussion (as it has; there are many deleted tangential comments).
The "for the reasons above" was intended to point to the three existing comments directly preceding mine. I guess that wasn't clear; my fault.
Upvotes: 4 |
2015/09/14 | 1,150 | 4,482 | <issue_start>username_0: Josh from The Winnower (thewinnower.com) here. I wanted to reach out and see if users of Stack Exchange Academia would be interested in permanently archiving and assigning Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) to top threads with The Winnower. We’ve begun to offer DOIs and permanent archival to blogs, scholarly reddit AMAs, and we think various Stack Exchange is equally deserving of such services, services that are typically only afforded to traditional scholarly publishers. In short we’d love to make these great Q&As citable in the scholarly literature and count on users CVs for credit in the workplace/academia. But of course, we’d like your feedback before we do anything. We’ve met with some great people at the Stack Exchange offices and based upon your feedback they are willing to help. So…
Do you think top threads in Academia should be assigned a DOI and archived permanently via The Winnower?
If so, what threshold would you set
If not, why?
For background here is some more info on why we are offering DOIs to new media and how we’re doing it.
**What is a DOI?**
<http://www.crossref.org/01company/16fastfacts.html>
**Why we assign DOIs and archive scholarly reddit AMAs**
<https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/3finu8/doi_assignments_for_science_amas/>
And for those curious we archive content via Portico, the same method used for many leading scholarly journals.
Thanks!
Josh, founder of The Winnower (<EMAIL>)<issue_comment>username_1: While this seems like a nice idea, I think this is something that needs to be addressed across the full Stack Exchange network. I could see that multiple sites (particularly some of the hard science sites) being interested, and thus it would be useful to have the central Stack Exchange employees make the decision if it can be made available across the network to sites that want it.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: What would be the purpose? I suppose it is rare that a StackExchange thread (and even rarer that an Academia StackExchange thread) reaches the level of a significant academic production that one would like to cite it. No desire to cite a thread would equate to no need for a DOI.
In any case, it would be useful to have empirical evidence that having a DOI would be useful.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> In short we’d love to make these great Q&As citable in the scholarly literature and count on users CVs for credit in the workplace/academia.
>
>
>
Assigning DOIs does absolutely nothing of the sort. Questions and answers here can already be cited with no need for DOIs. (Many documents people cite don't have DOIs, and that doesn't stop anyone.) And the idea that this will make them count for credit on CVs is ridiculous. I can't imagine any university department saying "We didn't think participating in Q&A online should count for anything, but now that your contributions have been assigned DOIs by The Winnower, that make them Genuine Scholarly Contributions™ worthy of respect and credit."
Under the Creative Commons license used on this site, nobody can stop The Winnower from archiving whatever they'd like, as long as they comply with the license terms. However, I do not believe the site should officially endorse these activities:
1. It comes uncomfortably close to endorsing The Winnower overall. So far, I see nothing to indicate that it's a service I'd like to endorse.
2. It feeds into the DOI fetish, which I think is something we should strongly oppose. (There's nothing wrong with DOIs, and they are a useful organizational tool, but they should not be presented as a symbol of scholarly legitimacy, and the question here already does that)
The other aspect of this is archiving via Portico. That's not bad, but I don't think it's necessary for this site. (If The Winnower decides to do it anyway, I can't stop them and wouldn't want to, but I don't think it's worth an endorsement.)
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: How does one even archive a dynamic site like SE? If I write an answer/question and it gets deleted, do you issue a retraction? Do you issuse a new DOI/ update the archive everytime an edit is made?
Maybe it is naive, but to the extent I value my contributions here, I trust how SE is archiving the data. If they go bankrupt I think they will provide the data for a bit. I find URLs, almost as easy as DOIs and again trust SE not to break links too badly.
Upvotes: 3 |
2015/09/15 | 741 | 2,926 | <issue_start>username_0: Not all the SE sites are in the option when flagging a question as off topic. It would be nicer to suggest the exact SE site when flagging off-topic questions. Or am I missing something? Is such an option available in addition to notifying it in the comments section?<issue_comment>username_1: To suggest migration to another site, you have to add a custom comment. I was confused by this myself at first, but apparently this is a deliberate choice by design due to the very large number of SE sites that now exist (see [this meta question](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/96205/more-options-when-flagging-for-migration/110996#110996) for some history).
I would recommend adding a comment manually, and then using the "Blatantly off-topic" flagging reason.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: There are two ways for migration:
* **(Flagging →) Closing → Off-Topic → Migration** – This is only available for frequent migration targets. Academia has only its own Meta as target as this is activated by default.
Adding new migration targets here is possible in theory, but as far as I can tell, there is no site to which we are migrating very often. Most questions we get that are on-topic on another site are still closeworthy there (due to being unclear, opinion-based or similar) and thus they should not be migrated. Also such a target should only be established if close voters can be expected to have a clear idea as to what is on-topic on the target site, which does not hold here in my opinion.
Also note that if you flag for closure (and do not have the close privilege), the only effect closure has is that the close voters see this and may thus need less time to find out what shall be wrong with the question.
* **Migration by moderator** – If you are sure that a post needs at most minor tweaks to be a good fit for another site, you can use a custom flag to alert a moderator to migrate it.
In this case, you can also flag to close. While custom close reasons exist for users with the [close privilege](https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/close-questions), they are not available to flaggers (see [here](https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/185873/255554)). So, all you can do is flag as *blatantly off-topic,* leave an explaining comment.
Two side notes:
* If you think a question is generally a good fit for another site, but has issues, advise the asker to improve these issues and read the other site’s guidelines.
* If you are not sure whether a question is a good fit for another site, state this in your comments and advise the asker to check the other site’s guidelines (or do so yourself). A considerable amount of users get frustrated because they are recommended other sites when their question does not actually fit there (we have this problem ourselves, see [here](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/q/1860/7734)).
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer] |
2015/09/25 | 1,108 | 4,242 | <issue_start>username_0: Hello one and all academics. I'm Sam and I work at Stack Exchange Overflow. I come here before you because I'm not sure where else on the network to go! There isn't a Stack Exchange site for K-12 teachers, and I think they could benefit massively from one.
I think this because I live with a teacher and I see day and night how tirelessly she works. I see how little support from colleagues she receives. Unlike a lot of jobs (like mine), when she's in the heat of battle, she can't ask for reinforcements. Her job is so. damn. hard.
To make her job a little easier she's begun to implement Google Classroom at her school. After a couple weeks, it's showing promising returns. She's making fewer trips to the photocopier. Grading is easier. Students are engaging more.
But a lack of teacher-focused documentation almost led her not to adopt it. Outdated how-to's made implementation more difficult than it ever should have been.
This is a problem I think maybe we can solve, and that's why I created a site proposal:
**[Classroom Tech](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/90679/classroom-tech?referrer=p6Sj9uYUMG7oXm3CuwYaPg2)**
I don't know if the site is scoped right. I don't know if it will work. A couple weeks ago I tweeted at a prominent Google Classroom advocate asking for her opinion. [She said](https://twitter.com/alicekeeler/status/641625665784180736):
>
> most T's don't use stacks.
>
>
>
I think maybe that's true because we don't have one yet. Curious what you think.<issue_comment>username_1: I think it could work. There is definitely a need for it. There is definitely enough teachers in the world. I think the issue is bringing in teachers t the network. There have been a couple of proposals over the years for both K-12 teaching, undergraduate education, and e-learning sites. They have all failed in the early stages of area 51.
I think a motivated individual who is willing to promote the proposal and knows how the system works, stands a chance of getting one off the ground.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: My qualifications to answer this consist of two kids who just finished their second week of elementary school. So don't take me too seriously.
As [username_1 writes](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1951/4140), we have had quite a few K-12 focused site proposals, none of which got off the ground. (If my kids' teachers are representative, I understand that. None of them are tech-affine.) So I'm very skeptical that a site that doesn't even focus on K-12 education as such, but a *sub-aspect* of K-12 education (namely, technology) would be viable.
I'd rather have a working K-12 education SE site which explicitly includes technology in its on-topic list.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I think it would be far easier to have a teacher's mailing list. These probably accomplish 90% of what educators need, with half the technical challenges, and 10% of the work it takes to administer a complex site like SE.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_4: If we consider Moodle, Google Classrooms, or any other Learning Management System, I find it quite restrictive to target the site only for K-12 teachers, as these tools are also used in higher education by teachers that may not be tech-savvy.
On another aspect, if the objective of the proposal is to *only* provide help on how to use, implement or adapt said LMS, I feel like the questions better be directly asked to the support teams whose job is to actually answer these kinds of questions.
The problem you have identified is a very classical one in the field of technology-enhanced learning: teachers' acceptance of technologies. Just put this sentence in [Google Scholar's search box](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=teacher%20acceptance%20technology%20classroom) and you will find plenty of studies. What some of these studies tell is that, basically, teachers will continue to use technologies that they perceive useful and easy to use. Since LMS are designed for educational purposes, I can only hope teachers find them useful. Improving the user experience is another issue though, and I am afraid we cannot do much about it on a website like StackExchange.
Upvotes: 2 |
2015/09/25 | 955 | 4,019 | <issue_start>username_0: On several occasions, moderators have suspended an account (your's truly) for making mere *questionable* comments or providing answers that are not with convention. Now, SE has a voting model, yes? What is the legitimacy for scolding other users when it can only result in the inbreeding of already established and perhaps all-too-conventional practices? And then to suspend them, as if the threat to the eyes of ears of other PhDs is of such enormity, that a moderator must be called in to take the helm and whisk the offenders out of the room.
Is it the case that A.SE is a place where people can get answers that have already been asked somewhere within Academe and here provided a forum for publishing such answers online, or is it also the place for developing different types of rapport, for developing best practices in academia which are not perhaps yet universally agreed upon, and otherwise for keeping a bevy of PhDs in line by online (i.e. harmless) banter?
By that last question I mean, to make a place where the Doctors can come and push each other a little rather than merely reinforce each other at their weakest points, which seems to be where moderation is taking the site. For there hardly is any other place within Academe or on the Internet itself to cross-fertilize standards of conduct across fields or across Universities themselves.
So the question is: When is moderation here done by actual wisened masters of the original ***ideals*** of Academa, rather than poseurs (that while having all the apparent credentials, act like children throwing a tantrum just because they still have their bit of power to wield)?<issue_comment>username_1: Academia.SE is a question and answer site. Quite a bit of cross-fertilization occurs here, given the breadth of disciplines represented. There is also a lot of discovery and refinement of thinking about academia as a side-effect of the question and answer process---I know that I've learned a lot here, and I have heard others make similar remarks.
However, it is not (in general) a place for debate and discussion---for that, you want to find an forum, blog, or other such medium. Likewise, the community has developed fairly strong expectations regarding "collegial" interactions, which are generally expected to be civil, courteous, on point, and lacking in ad hominem attacks.
It seems that you have been finding that things that you consider "keeping in PhDs in line" and "pushing each other" do not fit with the standards of the community. Most moderation on this site is done by the community, following the general principles of the Stack Overflow system as laid out in ["A Theory of Moderation"](https://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/05/a-theory-of-moderation/), so if you're having problems, it's not that you are being singled out, but that members of the community are flagging your behavior as problematic in various ways.
It's hard to say more since you've declined to provide any specifics in your original post, but if you cared to point to a specific post or incident, it is likely that people will be able to provide a more precise and informative response.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I figured out what's happening. The SE Badge system here at 500pts makes users into cops -- nitpicking everything that's going on ***regardless of their personal expertise on the topics or interest***.
When users are checking out everything from a priveleged position like that, they tend to use the power. It's exactly like what happened in the Stanford prison experiment (c.1971) where students were given power to monitor and affect everything other students were doing. In that experiment it ended up traumatizing many of the students, *so take heed*. (There's even a documentary about it.)
SE really needs to change this. It will help the site tremendously and reduce moderator abuses. (One could never tell how many good users have been turned away from SE, could they?)
Upvotes: -1 [selected_answer] |
2015/09/25 | 2,682 | 10,753 | <issue_start>username_0: I would like to discuss the comments to <https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/54888/958>.
I am a bit puzzled by the way the discussion has evolved. In my view, aeismail's comment is sloppy, since it just claims that this is not "correct usage", without backing up the claim with a reference. It is basically equivalent to writing "you are wrong". This is not how a polite discussion should start.
TheDoctor's answer, albeit sarcastic, aims to point this out this in a playful way: what does "correct" mean? Who are you to be able to say what is correct and what is not? I don't find it out line at all (no more than the first comment, anyway). In fact, when confronted with a real argument against his suggested practice (rpattiso's comment), TheDoctor acknowledges it and answers like a sensible person.
I have some issues also with the following comment by <NAME>. The first thing it does is throwing a professor title in front of TheDoctor. I find it a highly questionable behavior. Is the argument here "aeismail is correct because he is a professor"? That is the exact opposite of science, and in my view academia should frown upon these appeals to authority as a general practice. I have rarely seen people pointing out each other's title in the university world.
Then <NAME> puts on a moderator hat (without being one -- I don't see a black lozenge next to his name) and threatens TheDoctor with a suspension. This puzzles me, too. We have appointed moderators; acting like one without being one promotes vigilante behavior. <NAME> is a valued member of this community, as his reputation proves, but I really feel like he is the one acting out of line here.<issue_comment>username_1: >
> The first thing it does is throwing a professor title in front of TheDoctor. I find it a highly questionable behavior. Is the argument here "aeismail is correct because he is a professor"?
>
>
>
I am pretty certain, the argument here is *only* that Aeismail should not be called *young padawan learner* because he is a professor.
By the way, I think that nobody on this site should be called *young padawan learner* because using this term is either patronising or irony; and irony is not very well communicable over the Internet. Moreover, the term is very young in everyday conversations and has yet to find its position. Due to this, people across the world may interprete it differently and are more likely to fail to see any irony.
On the other hand, when I say that nobody should use this term, I do not consider it “outrageous”, “highly uncivil” or sufficiently offensive to flag as such – if I would, I would have to flag a lot. Also, I do not consider think that the addressee’s rank plays into this.
>
> Then username_3 puts on a moderator hat (without being one -- I don't see a black lozenge next to his name) and threatens TheDoctor with a suspension. This puzzles me, too. We have appointed moderators; acting like one without being one promotes vigilante behavior.
>
>
>
Depending on how to interprete your first *and,* we may have the same opinion here, but let me write it with my own words: Stack Exchange lives from community moderation and in this includes that non-diamonds address borderline behaviour in a respectful way. This does not, however, include the capacity to utter officially seeming warnings (”You have been warned...again.“). Suspensions are entirely at the liberty of diamond moderators and are usually not discussed in public. Moreover, even diamond moderators are urged not to threaten with suspension or similar.
---
As a sidenote, I suggest to delete all three comments, as they have at the very least been made obsolete by the existing answers.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> I am a bit puzzled by the way the discussion has evolved. In my view, aeismail's comment is sloppy, since it just claims that this is not "correct usage", without backing up the claim with a reference. It is basically equivalent to writing "you are wrong". This is not how a polite discussion should start.
>
>
>
It is, perhaps, not the best comment aeismail has ever written. There are however infinitely many ways to respond to that without being condescending. For that matter, the original answer doesn't actually have any reference either.
>
> TheDoctor's answer, albeit sarcastic, aims to point this out this in a
> playful way: what does "correct" mean? Who are you to be able to say
> what is correct and what is not? I don't find it out line at all (no
> more than the first comment, anyway). In fact, when confronted with a
> real argument against his suggested practice (rpattiso's comment),
> TheDoctor acknowledges it and answers like a sensible person.
>
>
>
It's well beyond sarcastic and into condescending. Asking on what basis aeismail made that argument would have been appropriate. Speaking down to them isn't.
>
> I have some issues also with the following comment by username_3.
> The first thing it does is throwing a professor title in front of
> TheDoctor. I find it a highly questionable behavior. Is the argument
> here "aeismail is correct because he is a professor"? That is the
> exact opposite of science, and in my view academia should frown upon
> these appeals to authority as a general practice. I have rarely seen
> people pointing out each other's title in the university world.
>
>
>
If you say "Just who do you think you are?" in a condescending tone, one should probably expect to have the person's credentials thrown back at them. If a poster doesn't want an argument by authority, they shouldn't help feed one.
As for rarely pointing out each other's title in the university world - I'd suggest your experience is not necessarily generalizable.
>
> Then username_3 puts on a moderator hat (without being one -- I
> don't see a black lozenge next to his name) and threatens TheDoctor
> with a suspension. This puzzles me, too. We have appointed moderators;
> acting like one without being one promotes vigilante behavior. <NAME>.
> Clark is a valued member of this community, as his reputation proves,
> but I really feel like he is the one acting out of line here.
>
>
>
He threatened no such thing. He noted that last time TheDoctor posted something like this, Pete gave him a warning (not in the formal sanction sense of the word but the actual, real English sense) that he was likely treading on thin ice, and that warning proved accurate. He's giving him the same warning again, perhaps in hopes that his advice will be heeded this time. There is more to building a community than black diamonds by someone's names, and "Hey buddy, this didn't go well for you last time..." is, on occasion, part of that.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: @username_2's answer explains my perspective very well. But let me amplify a bit:
1. My dealings with this user are based on a pattern of behavior beyond any one posting. I think this is only rational. When someone behaves badly enough on a forum to be censured, then comes back and starts evincing the same behavior again, it would be strange not to keep the past behavior in mind.
2. This user is across the board disrespectful of academia and academics. I won't try to hide that this really bothers me. In the last few days alone this user has been ridiculously dismissive of other users....and then most recently he blamed academia for the worst terrorist incident in American history. (That is way too stupid to really anger me, but when someone says something that nuttily contrarian, I think it would be irrational not to start thinking in terms of correcting the behavior or extricating them from the situation.) In another deleted answer this user made a comment saying that one of the brilliant, benevolent veteran mathematicians who frequents this site just didn't understand mathematics as deeply as he did...this was in an answer explaining that there is no such thing as "theoretical mathematics".
My memories of what this user said before his suspension are slightly vague: it is in the nature of the deletion process that the worst stuff goes away, and therefore someone who did not read and remember can have a different reaction to new content posted by a formerly problematic user than someone who did. But the bottom line is that by no means do I interpret the "young padawan" comment as being playful. I view the comment as someone who has, apparently, no experience whatsoever in peer-reviewed science articles taking a gratuitous swipe at an established scientist.
>
> Is the argument here "aeismail is correct because he is a professor"? That is the exact opposite of science, and in my view academia should frown upon these appeals to authority as a general practice. I have rarely seen people pointing out each other's title in the university world.
>
>
>
No, the argument is that because aeismail is a professor, the belittling comment is manifestly inappropriate. It wouldn't be a kind thing to say to anyone you don't know personally, but if someone actually does have more expertise and seniority than someone else then they do get to call attention to that if they want to. Aeismail is correct because....well, I don't know what the "cause" is, but he manifestly is correct. I agree that his answer would be better if it were sourced, and if someone for whom I could reasonably assume good faith responded to his answer by challenging it, then I would certainly not have reacted in the same way.
3. I didn't threaten anyone with a suspension. As has been pointed out, I don't have the power to do that. However I told the user that he is repeating past behavior that led to a suspension before. I think it is productive and healthy for users of this site to interact with each other directly as much as possible. Moderators have some responsibility to stay "above the fray" to the extent that they may not respond as directly to individual attacks as other users. Also I think it's better for a non-moderator to come to the defense of a moderator precisely because it's *less threatening*.
Having said all that: I really think it's time for the moderators to have a conversation with this user. It just doesn't seem plausible that this user's future behavior will become constructive, or even not problematically negative and a big waste of everyone's time and energy, without course correction. If this seems in doubt we could discuss it in a separate meta question...but is it actually in doubt?
**Added**: As a sign of recognition that my comment was not ideally worded, I have deleted it. I think there's a good chance the answer itself will get deleted, so really why not...
Upvotes: 4 |
2015/09/25 | 629 | 2,493 | <issue_start>username_0: **UPDATE**: I have edited my question and have added more specific details.
I have posted [this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/54976/what-information-to-share-and-what-to-hide) question today. It is on hold saying
>
> There are either too many possible answers, or good answers would be too long for this format. Please add details to narrow the answer set or to isolate an issue that can be answered in a few paragraphs.
>
>
>
I think this question is logical and is similar to many other questions like [this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/54765/what-to-do-with-students-coming-to-office-hours-asking-to-check-their-homework) and [this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/54874/how-to-explain-to-a-student-that-it-is-common-to-include-a-supervisor-as-a-co-au). I agree my question will have many answers , so do other questions I mentioned. What kind of specificity you are looking for ?<issue_comment>username_1: Your question also includes the statement:
>
> I know this will depend on kind of research you and your rivals are doing but still is there any commonality ?
>
>
>
which already indicates that the question is likely to be considered "too broad" (and indeed, the answer could vary greatly from field to field).
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: There are simply so *many* types of information and so many different fields. I would suggest narrowing your question to a specific field (e.g., "In theological studies, what types of information...") or a specific class of information (e.g., "When is it a good idea to share anonymized experimental subject databases?").
If you have multiple areas that you would like to ask about, you can ask multiple questions (though I would not suggest asking too many all at once---you will likely get better quality answers if you ask a few at a time).
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: Even with your edited question Dexter, it's going to be difficult if not impossible to answer. For example, does your work come from a specialized data set that would be hard to replicate? Is it work in progress, or near its final form? Is the manuscript ready for submission? Is your group powerful another that someone running off with a conference result of yours would blow back on them?
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: I think it might mean that there are moderators that want their peeps to answer the question rather than the general public.
Upvotes: -1 |
2015/09/26 | 1,190 | 4,981 | <issue_start>username_0: We often get questions from people who are not aware how a journal works and do not understand some step in the editiorial process[¹](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/48446/7734), think some step takes too long[²](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/23655/7734) or are just very worried[³](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/45375/7734). We also get some questions where a step in the editorial process took ridiculously long[⁴](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/12497/7734). (e.g., a month for initial quality check) or questions asking for expected times for each step for a specific journal[⁴](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/51796) (10 k only link).
The problem with these questions is that we can answer most of them only by reiterating one of the following:
* *We cannot possibly predict the editorial decision.*
* *Depending on the field, publisher and journal, that’s normal / outrageously long.*
* *The status message probably means that [the editor has to evaluate the reviews].*
As different journals or editorial systems use different status messages, and review times vary greatly across fields, this leads to questions that aren’t exactly duplicates of each other but could all be duplicates of a non-existing master question. **I here propose to create such a canonical question.**
We may use it as a duplicate for questions such as the above, which does not only avoid us dealing with such questions but also helps the asker. It may keep some askers from asking in the first place or help them to focus their question on what is not covered by the canonical question.
This question and answer shall be a community wiki and cover:
* What is the typical workflow of a journal?
* How are the individual steps of this workflow named in different editiorial systems?
* What are the typical durations of individual steps, if they can be given at all? How do they roughly depend on the field?
---
This is a [feature-request](/questions/tagged/feature-request "show questions tagged 'feature-request'"), i.e., you can indicate approval or opposition by voting on the question.<issue_comment>username_1: I agree with the comments that there are multiple topics in the proposed question. In this case, I think this is not only fine, but actually desirable.
Because this question will deviate from our general "policies" in a number of ways, that is why having a meta discussion first is helpful. There is nothing wrong with breaking our own rules when we as a group want.
People will always point to exceptions and use it to justify why their question is a good fit. Hopefully we will be able to steer then to meta posts that will explain how things work.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Put them as three separate questions. Put links in each, to the others.
Then go through old, related questions, and where appropriate ruthlessly close them as duplicates of the new canonical questions.
Creating a triple-question in one would create a broken window. It would linger and create problems from then on, until we relented and broke it up into separate questions. So let's just start with separate questions in the first place, and cut out all of the intervening nonsense.
No amount of disclaimers about "special questions" or "unique exemptions" will prevent a multi-question question from being cited by others as a precedent. And they'd be absolutely right to do so: a precedent is exactly what it would be.
We already frequently get multiple questions in one. Let's not encourage it, and let's not justify it.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: I am also in favor of separate questions with links to one another, as suggested by Energy Numbers, but for a different reason.
I think pointing a user to a canonical question whose answer is very long, with many parts, is confusing for users. It's a little bit like if a student asks me a question about the Fourier transform, and in answer, I hand them the signal processing textbook. I would prefer to hand them a copy of just the relevant chapter, possibly with an additional comment noting the most relevant subsection...
I always feel a little bad pointing a user with a very focused graduate admissions question to the lengthy canonical "admissions process" question, for this reason.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: I created the question and an answer as proposed:
[What does the typical workflow of a journal look like?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/55665/7734)
I think that this actual realisation demonstrates that splitting this question would not be beneficial as it does not increase the additional information on alternative names and durations do not diminish the readability and can be easily skipped by readers who are not interested in them.
Please contribute by improving question and answer and in particular by filling the list of alternative names of steps in the journal workflow.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer] |
2015/10/01 | 391 | 1,445 | <issue_start>username_0: Title says it all, and I don't have privileges to post on the meta forum. If there's a better place to post this, it'd be really helpful to hear about.<issue_comment>username_1: If the "beginner" questions are within the scope of the site as defined in the [help center](https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic) and also are consistent with the general guidelines on [what not to ask](https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask) then yes, this is a good place for them.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I am extremely confused by this question, but here goes.
>
> Is this a good place for beginners
>
>
>
Yes, definitely. I would say most of our questions are asked by relatively junior academics (assuming that this is what you mean with "beginners" - if you mean beginner in another sense, you should clarify).
>
> to seek information as they learn
>
>
>
Isn't that what most questions are about? Of course, as per Stack Exchange standard rules, you will need to do some basic research on the topic yourself first, the question needs to be generalizable to others, it needs to be in scope topic-wise, and it cannot be a duplicate of an existing question.
>
> or is that type of discussion completely (or mostly) discouraged?
>
>
>
*All* "discussions" are discouraged here. This isn't a forum. It is not supposed to be a back-and-forth between the OP and the community.
Upvotes: 3 |
2015/10/03 | 1,071 | 4,543 | <issue_start>username_0: On [the "unethical restaurant research" question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/55314/22733), a new user made a low-quality answer consisting entirely of:
>
> No!!!!!! No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>
>
>
Obviously, this is a poor answer and needs to be either improved or changed into a comment, and it received notes (and presumably flags) to this effect. One of the moderators, however, acted instead by only rapidly deleting the answer.
I think that this is a problem because it is very discouraging for a new answerer, particularly one who might be a genuine expert and simply unfamiliar with our community (this response is basically my own first response---I've just been around long enough that I knew to put my first response as a [comment on another answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/55315/22733) instead).
Can this please be moved to a comment instead?<issue_comment>username_1: If I am following the [timeline](https://academia.stackexchange.com/admin/posts/timeline/55376#flag_41652) correctly, there were 6 flags raised against the question and a reviewer recommendation of not an answer before the question was deleted. One of the flags was autogenerated, but at least 6 community members asked for mod intervention. All the flags were handled by the same mod.
The mod did not delete the answer until there were two comments left to the poster, one by another mod and one by an active user. I think the comments could have been nicer and more welcoming, but I think the community was pretty clearly saying (1) we do not want this answer and (2) we do not want to be nice.
I think it is reasonable for a mod to delete a repeatly flagged low quality answer when there are two comments explaining the situation. I am not even sure if it is nicer to add a 3rd comment about why the answer is inappropriate.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: * As the moderator who deleted the comment, username_1's answer was exactly my thought; there were a few comments left immediately after the answer was posted suggesting improvement, which received no response. Even more so, there are numerous prompts to new users indicating that this is not the type of answer we are looking for. When a user ignores all that and leaves an answer of that type anyways, and then ignores comments suggesting improvement, there's really not much we can do.
* I would not convert something like this to a comment, because that type of comment would likely simply get "too chatty" flags or "not constructive" flags by itself.
Answers like that are typically from users who read a popular question, post their first thought without reading any FAQ, warnings, or even necessarily the entirety of the question itself, and then never return to the forum.1 I'm basing this on the global experience of the StackOverflow moderation team, who sees answers like this very frequently. If there was any evidence that the new user was interested in joining the forum, I would definitely act differently, but in this case I simply see someone leaving a reddit- or 4chan-style comment and moving on with their life.
1 Case in point: the user in question has yet returned to the site since posting that answer.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I initially commented on the answer mostly as a notice of *why* I was going to delete it - I fully intended to delete it, then got distracted by something else. (Comments left by a moderator on a post just before post deletion still appear in the user's inbox.)
I don't really understand the "too fast" thing.
Clearly the answer was not suitable in its current form - I don't think anybody disagrees with this - so it should be removed as quickly as possible. Leaving unsuitable answers up just encourages more unsuitable answers, especially on popular questions.
If a user chooses to come back and improve a deleted answer later, they can flag for a moderator to undelete. The edit will also bump the question to the top of the "active questions" list (even for deleted posts), so high-rep users who can see the answer can also flag for a moderator to undelete.
I also don't see why this post should have been a comment. I mainly use the "convert answer to comment" tool in the following scenario: User posts question with unregistered account, user registers account, user doesn't see any way to respond to answers to his/her question (since it's not owned by the registered account), user posts responses to other answer as an answer.
Upvotes: 2 |
2015/10/10 | 914 | 3,562 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm struck by the willingness of some contributors to this site to express, either consciously or unconsciously, views about the U.S. higher educational system that are little more than thinly vailed anti-American rants. For a specific example, see some of the comments left under the recent posting, [Why are most of the top universities American?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/55792/20825)
What might explain these attitudes among otherwise well-educated folk? Is it just basic envy of the U.S. educational system? Sour grapes because they applied but didn't get admitted to a graduate program at a U.S.-based university, possibly years and years ago? A general inability to have non-polemical conversations? Plain old ignorance? Or is it actually considered to be good form to rail against anything and everything in and from the U.S.?<issue_comment>username_1: I think you might as well ask: "What causes occasional outbursts of pro-Americanism on this site?" A number of the answers on that question also indulge in poorly justified American exceptionalism (e.g., invoking "American spirit") or rank speculation. Basically, it's an inherently highly polarizing question and humans tend to have fairly parochial views on such things. I don't think it has anything to do with anti-Americanism per se.
Mix that with [online disinhibition effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_disinhibition_effect), and personally I'm quite happy at the degree of civility that's being maintained.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: >
> I'm struck by the willingness of some contributors to this site to
> express, either consciously or unconsciously, views about the U.S.
> higher educational system that are little more than thinly vailed anti-American rants.
>
>
>
In general, I think that the regular users of Academia.SE are quite respectful of each other. The problem is that we work in several different educational systems that might value different qualities in their students or in their research, or they might be different in the paths chosen to reach their objectives. Sometimes, we simply don't understand or accept these differences, and sometimes we fall into the trap of trying to convince others that our system is better than theirs.
Let me make a totally unrelated example. It's 1998, and I am a PhD student at his second trip to the US. A colleague of mine and I land in New York. Since we are both hungry, we decide to head for the nearest place to the hotel where we can get food: it's a McDonald. We look at the menus, and we find that something is missing. So from the middle of the queue, I ask loudly to one of the clerks: "Hey, do you have beer?". The room falls dead silent and everyone stare at us in disgust. The answer of the clerk is a sharp no, as though he can't even imagine how we dared asking such a thing (in many European countries you can buy beer in McDonalds). A few days later, we received the same look when in a supermarket we had asked where they kept the beers (then, we got the hint ;-) ).
So, it is clear that Europeans and North-Americans do not understand each other when it comes to buying alcohol: for most of Europeans it's quite normal to drink beer while eating a hamburger, or to buy beer, wine, whisky etc. in a supermarket, but for many North-Americans this sounds shocking.
In the same way, I think that there are things that we don't understand of our respective educational systems, and, sometimes, we find it difficult to accept.
Upvotes: 3 |
2015/11/06 | 585 | 2,332 | <issue_start>username_0: The question ["What are some good ways to keep students coming to lectures?"](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/57619/what-are-some-good-ways-to-keep-students-coming-to-lectures) has been posted here at Academia.SE and simultaneously over at [Matheducators.SE](https://matheducators.stackexchange.com/questions/9932/what-are-some-good-ways-to-keep-students-coming-to-lectures). When I noticed this I commented on both questions and gave the link to the respective other site. I guessed that mods or high-rep users would take care of this issue. Now what happened is that on Matheducators.SE there is a comment by aeismael asking to keep the question open on Academia.SE and here on Academia.SE my comment with the link to the Matheducators.SE question is deleted.
While I have no particular feeling where the question should be open I think that only one of these questions should be open as long as they are asking precisely the same thing. Keeping both questions open results in exactly the things that crossposts do: Duplicate work on different sites and also an inferior collection of relevant answers on both sides.
My question is: Is the current status OK for the mods here and on Matheducators.SE? How should questions like this, i.e. question that fit on two sites and may receive good answers from both communities, be handled?<issue_comment>username_1: The consensus on StackExchange seems to be that [you shouldn't cross-post questions, even if they are on-topic for both sites](https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/64068/256777).
In this particular case, the question is certainly more general than for math alone. (Note that most answers are not specific to math.) Thus, I'd strongly support closing it on Math Educators and leaving it open on Academia. (Unfortunately, I can't vote over there.)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I closed the question on MESE (I am a moderator there) and migrated it here. In addition I *flagged it for moderator attention* here so that they can be merged.
By contrast, no-one raised any moderator-attention flag on MESE (while for a migration a moderator is needed regardless). The situation would have been handled quite a bit earlier had there been a flag (or other information via dedicate channels) instead of several comments.
Upvotes: 3 |
2015/11/09 | 1,647 | 6,153 | <issue_start>username_0: A [recent question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/57676/how-to-deal-with-gpa-related-questions-in-standardized-job-application-forms-if) of mine was apparently put on-hold with the following motivation:
>
> "The answer to this question strongly depends on individual factors such as a certain person’s preferences, a given institution’s regulations, the exact contents of your work or your personal values. Thus only someone familiar can answer this question and it cannot be generalised to apply to others. (See this discussion for more info.)" – <NAME>, Wrzlprmft, gman, Fomite, scaaahu
>
>
>
Quite frankly I think that's nonsense; there are thousands of people who go through the same graduate education as I did and the companies I was referring to are multinational giants that employ in the tens of thousands (if not more) globally.
The importance of GPA in application processes has been up and debated my many here over the past years, not the least by JeffE with his famous example from his own career. So the two main components of the question are clearly relevant to many others than myself, these [53 pages full of hits](https://academia.stackexchange.com/search?q=GPA) certainly say so..
So if the reason my question is off-topic due to being too specific, then I ask where do we draw the line? I, for instance, don't feel like I'd [ask dumb questions](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/51631/how-to-ask-dumb-questions) in seminars/conferences, study/work in an American university where I would question the [use of funds for sports](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/16367/why-do-american-colleges-and-universities-have-sports-teams), nor have I had an overly [ambitious student thinking highly of him/her-self](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/56220/what-to-do-when-your-student-is-convinced-that-he-will-be-the-next-einstein), and thankfully I have never had to [deal with sexual advances from students](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8194/how-to-deal-with-sexual-advances-from-students).
Should I flag these questions off-topic because we cannot know the intricate details of the situation the people asking these questions? Because surely the answer depends on each and every specific case which may not apply to the general audience?<issue_comment>username_1: I draw the line for this close reason as follows:
>
> Can answers to this question be expected to significantly go beyond saying “it depends” or “ask your supervisor, university, employer, etc.”? If no, vote to close.
>
>
>
For example:
* If somebody asks about how to write a certain aspect of a thesis, the best answers should almost always include “ask your supervisor and check your university’s regulations”, but often we can give general advice on how to choose if those source do not dictate a choice. If we can’t, then the question should be closed.
* The [highest voted answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/51635/7734) on [How to ask dumb questions](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/51631/7734) essentially says “it depends”, but it details **how** it depends. Such answers being conceivable makes the question on-topic.
* The answers to [Why do American colleges and universities have sports teams?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/16367/7734) do not list the motivation of each individual university to have a sports team, but give general motivations that can be expected to cover the motivations of most, if not all, such universities. If the motivations were indeed vastly inhomogeneous across universities, the question would be closeworthy with the above close reason.
* I voted to close [your question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/57676/7734) because I could not conceive an answer going significantly beyond “ask the employer“. And in fact [a comment](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/57676/how-to-deal-with-gpa-related-questions-in-standardized-job-application-forms-if#comment135040_57676) and the first sentence in the answer you received (in the grace period after closing) say exactly this.
While the answer’s second paragraph does add something beyond this, it does not feel like what the question has been looking for to me (I guess you could have thought of that yourself). The answer’s third paragraph is rather a comment on the question and would not make for a standalone answer.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: As with username_1, given I was one of the people who voted to close the question, it's probably worth be talking about why I voted that way. And essentially, it's because the answer I'd write in my head is either "It depends" or "Ask them".
A couple factors that influence this:
* Is there a screening criteria based on GPA, or is this just because someone without a PhD did up the form. Will putting something like '99' cause my application to be round-filed? Is there a threshold GPA I need?
* Is your "Pass/Fail" GPA convertible to a numeric GPA? For example, I have been at an institution that *did* have a conversion system for this, and one that didn't. Does the employer have such a system?
These are things we can't necessarily answer. I vote to close questions (among other reasons) if I don't think there's the possibility of giving an answer besides "Well did you ask?" where the answerer can be comfortable of the utility of their answer absent other information.
I'll note that in my mind, jakebeal's answer falls in this category - it essentially boils down to "Ask, and go from there", which while perfectly correct is both very broad and not particularly actionable.
To address a comment you made in one of the other answers, since this one largely mirrors it:
>
> With the same rationale I'd say half of the questions here on Academia.SE would fall into the same category as the answers essentially boil down to "talk to your supervisor"
>
>
>
Somewhat (but only somewhat) flippantly, if I had infinite power over Stack Exchange, "Have You Asked Your Supervisor?" would be a mandatory popup before submitting a question on Academia.
Upvotes: 0 |
2015/11/10 | 1,495 | 5,820 | <issue_start>username_0: Can someone please explain the philosophy of stackoverflow and why [such questions](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/57903/should-i-tell-the-instructor-that-i-will-miss-the-next-class) get upvotes?
Is it appreciated that people shut down their brains and get totally paralyzed until someone tells them how to do thing? Like really context specific things where no general answer exists and rather personal.
Because that is the impression I am having recently especially on Academia. [This question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/56543/is-it-considered-cheating-if-i-purchase-an-essay-but-then-dont-use-it) with impressive 33 upvotes is another example.<issue_comment>username_1: The voting model of the stack exchange system is entirely subjective. A user believing a question should be up-, or downvoted is free to act based on their personal philosophy. This will result in posts where you might wonder how the net vote score ended up being what it is; but, by definition, there are no *wrong* scores. If you feel that the underlying question, answer, or comment violates one of the site's stated restrictions (e.g., bigotry), flag for moderator attention. Other than that, any score is perfectly in line with the site's rules and philosophy.
On the other hand, the site has a [rule to be nice](https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/be-nice). Examples for discouraged behavior include to avoid "belittling language" and "name-calling," and users are asked to "assume good intentions." I would thus argue that your question, as currently stated, is counter to the site's spirit.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> Can someone please explain the philosophy of stackoverflow and why such questions get upvotes?
>
>
>
Whatever the philosophy, questions and answers are upvoted and downvoted by whoever wish to do so, for whatever reason they fancy. I can upvote a question just because I like the way it is written; or simply because the poster is new to the website and I can give them a few reputation points so that they can comment; or because they made a joke that made me laugh; or because, however stupid it is, their problem had been my problem many years ago; or because I think that, anyhow, the poster might be a kind person because he or she wants to be courteous to their teacher; or ... yes, we can go on forever.
>
> Is it appreciated that people shutdown their brains and get totally paralyzed until someone tells them how to do thing?
>
>
>
Random thoughts below:
When I was a student at high-school, we used to assemble tube circuits powered from 500 V supply voltages on unisolated bread boards, so that every now and then a student could get the thrill of an electric shock.
When I was a student at the university there weren't (almost) any university policies. It was just student against professor. If a professor wished to fail you because you, guy, were wearing an earring, there wasn't anything you could do; a professor could throw chalks to you because you were chit-chatting during a lesson; or they could take pictures of the class just to see at the exam if you skipped a few lessons; and the fact that a professor used to yell at students was, well, taken as normal.
It can't be denied that proceeding, or barely surviving, in such an environment required students to turn on their brain. However, modern safety rules (what about the "it's hot" band around the coffee cups? what about the "don't put the cat in the washing machine" warning?) and university policies forbid all the above niceties to protect people from electric shock, harassment, discrimination etc. Do you consider this a bad thing?
The price to pay -- of course there's always a price to pay -- is that people nowadays has become more cautious about doing things that can possibly break a rule. And so, yes, with the fear of doing something wrong, people sometimes ask questions whose answer seems pretty obvious to others.
That said, as [my most voted comment](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/52509/should-i-let-my-professor-know-that-i-cited-a-text-written-by-him-that-i-pira#comment121696_52509) highlights, sometimes I'm puzzled too.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: In contrast with the other answers, I think there's often actually a good reason that "bad" questions get voted up. I tend to vote for a question when I think that the answers are likely to be interesting or useful, whether or not the question appears to come from a bizarre or foolish place.
It's very easy for us, looking back from many years distance, to forget some of the confusion and anxiety that can be experienced by people who aren't as experienced---not just in academia but in dealing with people in general.
For example, I have up-voted both of the questions that you link. My reasons were:
* For [the question on missing class](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/57903/22733), students---even early graduate students---often have a remarkable degree of anxiety tied to perfectionism and rule-following. This question of how to balance conflicting needs is thus likely to be be helpful to others in the same situation, and drew a number of careful answers.
* For [the question on purchasing an essay and regretting it](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/56543/22733), I thought it was actually an interesting question how exactly one draws the the boundary, which could be useful not just for students but for professors thinking about some of the screwy situations that students present them with. The answers ended up taking a number of different perspectives and making very interesting reading.
In short, I try to remember that a vote on a *question* is not the same as voting on the *questioner*.
Upvotes: 3 |
2015/11/16 | 701 | 2,502 | <issue_start>username_0: When googling to understand a recent question better, I came across a web site whose entire focus is to scoop from Academia SE; [here](http://newtips.co/academia/questions/56389/job-advertisement-liaise-professionally.html) is an example for the question I looked into. It's attributed (if somewhat wrongly; the quotes mention "stackoverflow.com").
I've come across this before, either as a question on the site-wide meta, or the one of mathematics; but forgot if SE takes action in such cases. Despite the attribution, it just doesn't seem right. It's one thing to quote a favorite question in your blog, or tweet it; another completely if it turns into a massive copy and paste operation to generate content.<issue_comment>username_1: See [A site (or scraper) is copying content from Stack Exchange. What do I do?](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/200177/a-site-or-scraper-is-copying-content-from-stack-exchange-what-do-i-do). This post details:
* When to report such sites,
* When not to report such sites,
* How to report such sites
The site you have given as an example does not meet the attribution requirements, so you should report it.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: You can easily find on their website [an answer of yours](https://web.archive.org/web/20151128220425/http://newtips.co/academia/questions/58128/student-wants-to-show-everybody-how-much-he-knows.html) which has
* no link whatsoever back to your post,
* no mention of your username or name,
* no mention of the license, even less a link to it.
This is an egregious copyright violation and you, as an author, can and should send a DMCA takedown notice to defend the commons. Follow the [DMCA instructions of the registrar](https://godaddy.com/agreements/showdoc.aspx?pageid=TRADMARK_COPY), which is based in USA and can shut down the domain.
StackExchange has less power than you in this matter, though it's nice to notify them with the general procedure linked above.
**Update**: newtips.co is responsive to DMCA notices, they removed a post of mine; pcusernet.com is still up; bighow.org is still up, I now sent a notice to their host ramnode.com as they are in violation of [AUP](https://clientarea.ramnode.com/aup.php).
**Update 2**: pcusernet.com is blocked on Firefox and Chromium as malware site, bighow.org continues business as usual but has removed my post. Do send complaints for every plagiarism of your own posts, eventually they'll give up!
Upvotes: 3 |
2015/11/22 | 746 | 2,860 | <issue_start>username_0: The [lecturer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/lecturer "show questions tagged 'lecturer'") tag is supposed to be for questions about the job of lecturer, a specific academic job title that exists in some parts of the world.
However, users keep applying this tag to questions about lecturing, in the sense of "[continuous exposition by the teacher](http://derekbruff.org/?p=3126)."
What can we do to clarify the use of this tag?
We could create another tag that *is* about "continuous exposition by the teacher," but I don't know how to name the tags so that the distinction will be clear to taggers.<issue_comment>username_1: Some ideas that come to mind:
* Replace the second sentence of the tag-wiki excerpt with:
>
> Do not use this tag for questions about lecturing.
>
>
>
* Install a [tag warning](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/q/1886/7734).
* Remove all wrong uses of the tag and regularly monitor it for new mistagged questions, hoping to better exemplify the usage of this tag. I have did this for some time with [research](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/research "show questions tagged 'research'") and had the feeling that the number of new mistagged questions was reduced (but I have no solid numbers on this). However, I guess that this effect was only due to people seeing this tag less often on the front page.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: In my view, it would be better to include a "lecturing" tag as suggested by @jakebeal.
As discussed, this would be different from the sense of the [teaching](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/teaching "show questions tagged 'teaching'") tag in the sense that it covers only the classroom lecturing aspect, while the description of the tag states
>
> This tag is related to the role and duties of a teacher, an academic instructor, tutor or a teaching assistant.
>
>
>
Although the description of a "lecturing" tag may be a subset of the [teaching](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/teaching "show questions tagged 'teaching'") tag, it would have a more specific aspect rather than a synonym.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> The lecturer tag is supposed to be for questions about the job of lecturer, a specific academic job title that exists in some parts of the world.
>
>
>
Does it even make sense to have a tag for a specific job title when the meaning of the job title varies from country to country? I suggest that renaming the tag to [junior-faculty](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/junior-faculty "show questions tagged 'junior-faculty'") would give it a more cohesive identity (i.e. one which is more likely to interpreted uniformly by people from different academic cultures) as well as removing the ambiguity.
Upvotes: -1 |
2015/11/22 | 753 | 2,975 | <issue_start>username_0: [research](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/research "show questions tagged 'research'") is frequently used for almost all sorts of questions only marginally related to research, such as publishing a research paper.
In hope to reduce this misuse, I suggest to rename it to [researching](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/researching "show questions tagged 'researching'"), which has the advantage of excluding the product of research, but still includes performing research, which the tag is about.
This should happen **without** synonymising [research](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/research "show questions tagged 'research'"), because the change would be pointless otherwise.<issue_comment>username_1: Some ideas that come to mind:
* Replace the second sentence of the tag-wiki excerpt with:
>
> Do not use this tag for questions about lecturing.
>
>
>
* Install a [tag warning](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/q/1886/7734).
* Remove all wrong uses of the tag and regularly monitor it for new mistagged questions, hoping to better exemplify the usage of this tag. I have did this for some time with [research](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/research "show questions tagged 'research'") and had the feeling that the number of new mistagged questions was reduced (but I have no solid numbers on this). However, I guess that this effect was only due to people seeing this tag less often on the front page.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: In my view, it would be better to include a "lecturing" tag as suggested by @jakebeal.
As discussed, this would be different from the sense of the [teaching](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/teaching "show questions tagged 'teaching'") tag in the sense that it covers only the classroom lecturing aspect, while the description of the tag states
>
> This tag is related to the role and duties of a teacher, an academic instructor, tutor or a teaching assistant.
>
>
>
Although the description of a "lecturing" tag may be a subset of the [teaching](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/teaching "show questions tagged 'teaching'") tag, it would have a more specific aspect rather than a synonym.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> The lecturer tag is supposed to be for questions about the job of lecturer, a specific academic job title that exists in some parts of the world.
>
>
>
Does it even make sense to have a tag for a specific job title when the meaning of the job title varies from country to country? I suggest that renaming the tag to [junior-faculty](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/junior-faculty "show questions tagged 'junior-faculty'") would give it a more cohesive identity (i.e. one which is more likely to interpreted uniformly by people from different academic cultures) as well as removing the ambiguity.
Upvotes: -1 |
2015/11/27 | 318 | 1,205 | <issue_start>username_0: I asked a question
[picture on the academic page of a PhD candidate seeking postdoc](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/58955/picture-on-the-academic-page-of-a-phd-candidate-seeking-postdoc)
and it got many downvotes soon, without any comment.
I don't know the reason.
Is my question off-topic on Academic Exchange?<issue_comment>username_1: I have no idea why it's picking up down votes: I thought it was a pretty good question and so I voted it up and answered it.
I will note, however, that somebody flagged it for possible closure as "primarily opinion based", so it may be that some people are thinking it might be too much of a personal choice. From my answer, however, you will see that I think there *is* a fairly general approach that can be taken to this sort of question.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I think the line "people won't see my nips anyway" is just the sort of throwaway line that doesn't add to the post, and is just the sort of thing we've seen from previous posters who just posted silliness in order to prompt any kind of reaction.
If you don't want to be mistaken for one of those type of posters, don't write like them
Upvotes: 3 |
2015/11/29 | 2,164 | 8,684 | <issue_start>username_0: Occasionally we get questions that *are* about the on-topic areas listed in the [help center](https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic), but that are considered off-topic here because an expert answer to such a question would come from an expert in something else (not academia.)
For example,
* [Are Harvard-style open access policies lawful under civil law?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/58972/are-harvard-style-open-access-policies-lawful-under-civil-law) is about academic publishing, which is on-topic, but needs expertise in law (not expertise in academia) to answer.
* [How does one determine he has a learning disability?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/59007/how-does-one-determine-he-has-a-learning-disability) is about life as a graduate student, which is on-topic, but requires expertise in adult learning disabilities (i.e. from psychologists, educational specialists, etc.), not expertise in academia, to answer.
Should we add another item to this list in the help center
>
> However, please do *not* ask questions about
>
>
> * Undergraduate-specific issues that could not apply to graduate or post-graduate academicians
> * Suggestions or recommendations for a university, journal, or research topic (a "shopping question")
> * Preparation for a non-academic career ("What graduate degree will help me get a job as X?")
> * The content of your research, rather than the process of doing research
>
>
>
>
>
specifying that this kind of question is off-topic?
For example, we might add
>
> Subjects that require expertise from another domain, that could not reasonably be answered by experts in academia. For example, questions about [legal-issues](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/legal-issues "show questions tagged 'legal-issues'") affecting academics that require expertise in law to answer should be asked at [Law Stack Exchange](https://law.stackexchange.com/), not here. Similarly, questions about [health-issues](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/health-issues "show questions tagged 'health-issues'") affecting academics that require medical expertise to answer should be asked at [Health Stack Exchange](https://health.stackexchange.com/), not here.
>
>
><issue_comment>username_1: I feel like these are fairly rare cases, and that each tends to be unique---they're just very perceptually prominent to us right now because we happened to get two in close succession. As such, I think that the current system (identify as off-topic, migrate if well-formed) is fine for dealing with them.
Complementarily, I would worry that a scaring off people who have a *good* question to ask on topics like law and health, since many times there is sufficient practical expertise to handle these questions, as can be seen when browsing those tags.
In many cases, in fact, I believe that the highly technical questions of these types are [XY problems](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/66377/what-is-the-xy-problem). For example, [this question on legal rights to demand information from a university](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/42196/do-i-have-the-legal-right-to-demand-information-on-plagiarism-of-my-work-from-an) drew many strong answers that pointed out that the legal approach was not the right way to approach the problem and suggested better ones instead.
In short: let's leave them be and see if they accumulate enough that it's actually a critical mass demanding action.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Just because we cannot answer them, does not make them off topic. I think we should leave them open. I think we should also help get them answered, possibly by posting in another SE site's chat or even someplace like REDDIT. If they remain unanswered for a while, we could offer bounties to try and help get an answer.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: In general, I think an on-topic question on this site should at least have a significant component which can be answered by those with expertise in academia. While abstractly it need not be so, in reality this site is populated by a relatively temporary community of questioners and a relatively permanent community of answerers (I would like it better if there were more give and take, by the way, but the SE model seems to push things in this direction). If the answerers, as a group, answer most questions well (as I think we do) then over time the site itself acquires a reputation of legitimacy and expertise in certain areas.
When we get asked questions which are *set in academia* but academics are unqualified to answer, I think everything is set up for much worse answers. SE is designed precisely to condition people to participate more, rather than less, and so such questions are very likely to attract answers anyway...just with the absence of expertise. When the locus of expertise is too remote, it becomes difficult even for the community to evaluate answers, which is a key step of the process. When it comes to, say, legal and medical advice, it is hard for me to tell the difference between someone with knowledge and someone who googled the keywords and is reporting the search results.
I think that these issues should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, and it is the serious users of the site who should determine what is on-topic. (I strongly doubt that most users determine what questions they should be asking using the help center, but let met not digress.) For the two sample questions above, the first one looks like it requires both academic and legal expertise, and moreover academic experts -- enough of us, anyway -- should have some level of professional expertise in the law as it pertains to academic publication. I think the second sample question is a clear mismatch for our site. I *don't* think it is about student life in an essential way: the way a graduate student goes about determining if he has a learning disability is the way any other educated adult goes about determining if he has a learning disability...right? By the way, I don't really know: as a lifelong academic I have **precisely zero training** in diagnosing learning disabilities in myself and others. Rather I have been trained not to pretend that I know how to do this but rather to refer interested parties to the appropriate resource centers on my university campus. I think we serve our clientele well by making a similar referral rather than taking a shot at answering questions like this.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Half in response to a [comment](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2075/should-we-specify-that-questions-where-expert-answers-are-from-experts-outside#comment8188_2076):
>
> It seems a little unfair to me that we close these questions without saying anywhere in the help center that they're off topic. That is what I perceive as the "gap" in the current system.
>
>
>
You cannot specify a site’s scope so precisely that you list everything that is off-topic somewhere. What we do list in the [help centre](https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic) is (boldface mine):
>
> If you have a question **about**...
>
>
> * Life as a graduate student, postdoctoral researcher, university professor
> * Transitioning from undergraduate to graduate researcher
> * Inner workings of research departments
> * Requirements and expectations of academicians
> * University-level pedagogy
>
>
> ... then you're in the right place!
>
>
>
The argument for closing the example questions (whether you agree with it or not), is essentially, that they are not **about** any of the above but about crafting a copyright policy or psychiatric assessment, respectively. With other words: Boat academia.
Of course, drawing a clear line between on-topicness and off-topicness here is impossible, as the questions are not entirely not about academia. But this would be the case with your proposed extension as well. Therefore closure is eventually opinion-based to some point.
I thus do not think that we need a line in the help centre covering such questions as it could rather do harm in form of people feeling obliged to close questions with this argument, even though nobody actually considers them off-topic and they are best fit on our site (rather than, e.g., Law or Health). (On German Language SE, we had a some quarrel and confusion about a close reason that said that some specific type of question was off-topic under certain conditions, which most people did not really agree with, and eventually solved it by making the close reason more fuzzy and less prescriptive.)
Upvotes: 2 |
2015/12/05 | 1,390 | 5,671 | <issue_start>username_0: For example:
* [Student doesn't want to take credit for his own extraordinary paper](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/59403/7734) – 269 views and +9/−0 votes in 11 hours.
* [My paper was too revolutionary - reviewers at a top journal rejected it "by simply reading the title". What now?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/58929/7734) – 3141 views and +15/−8 votes in 8 days; closed as a duplicate.
These questions are about extraordinary stories (which are thus likely to attract viewers and votes) that are at least on the edge of plausibilty. In both example cases, there are some details which are fishy and leave the impression that the asker is not really as familiar with academia as they claim to be.
Now the [help center](https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask) states:
>
> You should only ask practical […] questions based on actual problems that you face.
>
>
>
which would make these questions officially closeworthy, if the situations are indeed made up. Also, as these questions are naturally attracting a considerable amount of votes and views, they could be part of a scheme to game the system. On the other hand, it’s impossible to determine with high confidence whether these situations are really made up.
Thus I ask:
* What should we do about such questions?
* If we should close them, what is a good way to determine the plausibility threshold?<issue_comment>username_1: These sorts of questions do not worry me too much, for the following reason: we judge questions here based on whether they are likely to have durable value to others, not based on whether the original poster is likely to find the answer valuable. Thus, it doesn't really matter all that much whether the OP is sane or real (I think more of this is crazy than trolling, personally). Instead, it matters whether we think the question is interesting and answerable. If it's interesting and answerable, we keep it; if not, we close it. Strange and inappropriate origins of questions can still produce good answers, and that's the real measure of a question in my view.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I can recommend you apply one or more of the following strategies:
* Downvote them. If they seem unlikely to be true and not useful to the site, downvote them. If trollers find that their questions are downvoted, eventually they will get the message and move on.
* If the troll-question is covered by an existing question, vote to close it as a duplicate of the existing question.
* Ask a new question that is a more reasonable, generalization of the troll-question. Choose a new question that will actually be useful and that gets at the heart of the troll-question, but without the silly click-bait dramatics. Then, once your new question gets answers, vote to close the troll-question as a duplicate of the new question. This way, you have improved the site by posting a new, useful question that might be useful to others.
* Do nothing. Move on, and answer some other question.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I think that some people here are perhaps a bit overly skeptical about what exists out there in academia. (I know that my own eyes have widened quite a bit in the time I've spent on this site.) I think that many posters here are quite confused / distressed either about academia in general or about their specific issues. It is clearly also the case that people are writing from all over the world, and sometimes there are serious language issues and/or cultural differences in play.
The fact that (say) graduate students can be quite confused, even to the extent of not correctly understanding the basic facts of their situation, is unfortunately quite recognizable to me from my real world academic experience. So many times I have seen students troubled because they are getting contradictory information / advice from different faculty members. When I talk to the faculty members, very often the contradiction disappears. Clearly a lot of students are not comfortable asking "What do you mean?" and similar basic clarifying questions, so they can live in quite counterfactual worlds. (This describes me as a student, by the way.)
In particular I find the second question quite believable. I think that if I were to meet the OP in real life and could brush aside linguistic differences, the way I would describe his situation would be quite different from the way he has described it, but I find the overall sentiments very sincere.
The first question is a bit different: it's a highly unusual situation combined with an OP who doesn't sound like a faculty member and thesis advisor to me. I stayed away from it because it seemed, if true, to be too exceptional to be worth wading into.
Anyway, I agree with @username_1: we don't have to believe that the OP is in the situation s/he claims in order to accept the question. We have to believe that the question is a useful one for others in academia. Hypothetical or bizarre questions can be silly or bait for arguments, but not necessarily so: sometimes they elicit very interesting and useful answers.
By the way, I have always found the SE-wide policy
>
> You should only ask practical […] questions based on actual problems that you face.
>
>
>
to be off-center enough not to take too seriously. In sites based on branches of academia like mathematics or philosophy, what is a "practical question" or an "actual problem"? I take this to mean that people asking questions should be asking them in good faith and out of a sincere desire to know the answer. I would urge others not to read too much more into this than that.
Upvotes: 5 |
2015/12/07 | 593 | 2,529 | <issue_start>username_0: In a question ([Can I write a paper on a method that is novel but yields similar results compared to existing methods?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/59389/can-i-write-a-paper-on-a-method-that-is-worse-than-existing-ones)), someone edited the title and introduced the word "wrong" which I believe was entirely unwarranted by the question. How do I flag this? From the discussion I have had with the person who made the edit, I anticipate that if I roll the title back, that person will just un-roll it -- and then where will we be?
The OP wrote, "In some cases our previously proposed method which uses 2 images gives inaccurate results compared to 3 image solution." Clearly, the OP sees the new method as mildly superior to the previous approach which used two images. However, the person who edited the title created the following title, which I believe is an inaccurate expression of the OP's question: "Can I write a paper on a method that is worse than existing ones?"
The original title was "Can I write a paper to solve a problem which uses 3 images instead of 2 images approach discussed in literature?"
The person who made the edit meant well, I believe, attempting to help the OP keep the question open by making the question more general. But I see nothing anywhere in the thread to suggest that the OP wanted to write a paper on a method that is ***worse*** than existing ones.
I don't think one should introduce one's judgment about the merit of a question, or judgment about matters mentioned in the question and its associated clarifying comments.
But I don't know how to flag the comment.<issue_comment>username_1: To answer the question, this is the right place to bring it up. If two users, or groups of users, get into an editing war, a mod will lock the post until things can get sorted out. Hopefully, by raising the issue in meta the issue will get sorted. I am not sure what the right answer is in regards to the title in question. It might be best to ask a specific question on meta about that question and link to the meta question in a comment on the main question. This current question is probably fine, but not ideal, since it has the needed details.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In addition to username_1's answer, you can also attempt to "flag" the question for moderator attention, and then provide information about what's wrong under the "in need of moderator intervention" box at the bottom of the pop-up menu.
Upvotes: 2 |
2015/12/12 | 757 | 2,678 | <issue_start>username_0: Some members expressed concerns and criticized RG network,
is it alowed to open special topic about Researchgate, and to discuss about this problems?
Examples:
>
> There is actually an old ResearchGate question about this suggestion.
> – agold yesterday
>
>
> Why would you prefer ResearchGate? They have a terrible reputation for shadiness and spamming. – MJeffryes yesterday 1
>
>
> No. No, no, no, no, no. Absolutely not. Do not post your data set on a site that spams its user base. – JeffE yesterday
>
>
> @JeffE: Could you explain more about the spamming, I'm intrigued to know. – <NAME> yesterday 2
>
>
> ResearchGate are a commercial company with no clear method so far for making money. At some point, they're going to make a grab and try
> to monetise whatever you do there, and it'll be a mess; there's no
> guarantee that your content will remain there or remain accessible.
> This is leaving aside the spamming problems that Jeff alludes to. –
> Andrew yesterday
>
>
><issue_comment>username_1: We have already a bunch of [questions and answers](https://academia.stackexchange.com/search?q=%5Bsocial-media%5D+researchgate) about ResearchGate. So, if you have a new question, you can probably go on and ask. Be sure, however, that your question can be answered by the usual bunch of strangers on the Internet, who are just users of that service and for which certain details of its workings are totally unaccessible.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The specific question you described in a comment,
>
> Why Researchgate have bad reputation according to members of this site?
>
>
>
sounds like it would be closed as an opinion-based question - it's basically an invitation for others to share opinions, which is off topic here as described in the [help center](https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask).
Besides, existing questions like [ResearchGate: an asset or a waste of time?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/16870/researchgate-an-asset-or-a-waste-of-time) and [Should I send a "cease-and-desist" letter to ResearchGate?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/24127/should-i-send-a-cease-and-desist-letter-to-researchgate) already explain in great detail why so many academics dislike them.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: No, you can't ask a question with the intent of having a discussion about *any* subject.
We're not a forum, and we're not here for discussion. We're here for specific questions with specific answers.
If you just want to chat, we have [a separate place for that](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/2496/academia).
Upvotes: 0 |
2015/12/13 | 311 | 1,305 | <issue_start>username_0: [Should a dismissal from PhD in graduate application be listed as academic misconduct?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/15067/14341)
I find the background part in this question doesn't give useful information, or at least the answers don't use it. Should I delete the whole part to make the question short and to the point?<issue_comment>username_1: I see no issue with removing that section, personally. I agree that it doesn't add anything substantiative to the question.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: In you specific example, I agree with removing the background.
However, in general, I would be very careful to remove background information, because [academia varies more than you think it does](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1212/7734): What you consider irrelevant from your experience may be relevant in other fields, countries and similar. Moreover, we encourage new users to rather give us too much background than to little, as they often even know less what’s relevant. It might thus be discouraging if we remove the background early on.
As an alternative to deleting consider moving the background under some subsection such that the relevant parts of the question are streamlined and the background isn’t lost.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer] |
2015/12/15 | 1,357 | 5,411 | <issue_start>username_0: Currently there are two tags that have the same function, however they are not set as synonyms:
1. [statement-of-purpose](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/statement-of-purpose "show questions tagged 'statement-of-purpose'")
2. [personal-statement](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/personal-statement "show questions tagged 'personal-statement'")
Should we re-tag the "personal-statement" questions (only 7 questions) with the "statement-of-purpose" tag (177 questions). Or should someone with a higher reputation than myself, set these tags as synonyms to each other?<issue_comment>username_1: **TL;DR**: The [personal-statement](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/personal-statement "show questions tagged 'personal-statement'") tag was created to represent a non-standard meaning of the phrase. Tags should be unambiguous words or phrases used according to their *most common* usage in an academic context. So let's synonymize [personal-statement](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/personal-statement "show questions tagged 'personal-statement'") to [statement-of-purpose](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/statement-of-purpose "show questions tagged 'statement-of-purpose'"), its most common usage.
---
The [personal-statement](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/personal-statement "show questions tagged 'personal-statement'") tag was created by a user to distinguish questions about a "personal statement" required for graduate school admissions that was *distinct* from the "statement of purpose."
The problem, of course, is that "personal statement" is used more often as another term for "statement of purpose" than to refer to a *different* kind of statement. So the likely result of having two tags is that users will be confused as to how to tag questions, and we'll end up "splitting" questions about the same document into two tags - which is a bad thing.
For the reason stated above, I personally am in favor of making [personal-statement](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/personal-statement "show questions tagged 'personal-statement'") a tag synonym of [statement-of-purpose](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/statement-of-purpose "show questions tagged 'statement-of-purpose'"), and using [statement-of-purpose](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/statement-of-purpose "show questions tagged 'statement-of-purpose'") for:
* questions about a statement of purpose
* questions about a personal statement AKA statement of purpose
* questions about a personal statement that is *not* the same as a statement of purpose, just because we don't have any good way to distinguish this case from the previous one (and the previous one is much more common). We can edit the tag wiki excerpt to specify that [statement-of-purpose](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/statement-of-purpose "show questions tagged 'statement-of-purpose'") also includes questions about personal statements.
But that's just my opinion, we'll see what others think.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: As someone who create the tag, I of course think it necessary to have a distinguished tag (in fact, 3 of 7 questions in [personal-statement](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/personal-statement "show questions tagged 'personal-statement'") are mine). You can read the whole difference between these two statements in [How to structure the personal statement?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/56772/14341), but in short, in universities that require both, the SOP/research statement focuses only to your research, while the personal statement is only to tell about anything else that reveals you as a person.
If we synonymize them, we need to make sure that for questions that ask about this specific case, the answerers should be **aware** of this unusual. If we synonymize them, and when the asker has specifically told what meaning they are mentioning, the answerers find no problem with that, then I happy to have them synonymized.
Unfortunately, this is not the case. In the linked question in paragraph 1, you can see that the top voted answer (not the accepted one) had mistaken the concept, *even when I had told what meaning I used* (to be fair, I didn't add the note line at first). The number of vote indicates that not only that answerer, but also the voters mistook that too. Answers are pearl, so an off-topic answer is badly wasteful.
**>>** That's not the fault of them, after all there is no agreement among the schools. Some separate the two, some don't. For who lives in the latter, we need to educate them that there exists the former. And there is no way to teach about something better than creating a noun, a name, a concept, a category for it. [We cannot see the blue color, unless we have a name for it](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2976405/Could-ancestors-blue-Ancient-civilisations-didn-t-perceive-colour-didn-t-word-say-scientists.html). [We also don't have any bias for people who have pendulous earlobes, because we don't have a name for them](http://nautil.us/blog/how-our-words-affect-our-thoughts-on-race-and-gender).
So this case, I propose to keep the tag. All it needs is the detailed description below.
Upvotes: -1 |
2015/12/21 | 901 | 3,678 | <issue_start>username_0: I tend to lack coherence and get stumble when talking in thoughtful topics. Unless I really take note, cat always got my tongue, even thought I know what to say. My writing is, nonetheless, not having that problem.
Is it on-topic here? Since most thoughtful topics I meet are in academic setting, I think that asking this question on Academia is on-topic. But I'm afraid that it may be considered to be a boat programming question.
---
**Example:** say I need to talk about game theory to persuade a speaker. I have read about it, and I know that to successfully persuade them, I need to use point a and b. When I thinking about what to talk in my head, both a and b are thought carefully enough to the point that I believe that they will work. However, when I don't take note and get straight to speak, cat got my tongue and eventually point a is spoken in a way that it's hard to understand, and I completely forgot point b.
This is the extreme case, I not always get to this level of this problem. But it persists.
[I have asked this on the big Meta](https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/271509/260800), and it seems that Academia is my only choice. The body of question is the same so you can skip to the answer.<issue_comment>username_1: There have been a couple questions about speaking on the site (for instance, [here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/12904/good-book-on-english-for-academic-writing-and-speaking-for-non-native-speakers) and [here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/55683/tongue-slip-problem-in-presentation-even-after-a-good-amount-of-practice)). I don't think, however, that any question regarding your proposed example is really applicable. The common element of the speaking questions that have been asked before is that they are either reference requests for resources to use (or point others towards) when learning the language, or are specifically about how to communicate in academic presentations.
Otherwise, it's a not-well-defined topic that doesn't really fit the site or the audience. Even in this meta post, you haven't really been able to conceptualize what the question you want to ask is. Basically, it boils down to something like "How do I communicate what I think better?", which is an incredibly broad and impossible-to-answer question. Even if you could get a reasonable question out of it, it becomes a pretty clear case of boat programming to me. Communication is essential to a lot more than academia, and unless the question involves communicating in specific academic situations I don't think it would be on-topic.
Ultimately, the best advice I can give you is to work on your English, practice thinking and speaking, and continue to familiarize yourself with the topics. Working on your writing will help as well, you have very good English for a non-native speaker, but there is a lot of room for improvement in terms of clarity and structure.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Academic communications, including speaking, are most certainly on-topic at this site. The challenge is making an answerable question out of your concerns.
For example, what you have expressed above is not quite answerable. My key questions would be:
* What is the context of the communication? Informal setting? Planned discussion? Prepared talk? These strongly affect the answers you might get.
* What exactly is the help you want? Are you wanting to know how to prevent the problem, how to recover from it, how serious it is, something else entirely?
In short: ask away, refine as best you can, and be prepared to refine further in response to "unclear what you're asking"
Upvotes: 1 |
2015/12/28 | 1,007 | 3,919 | <issue_start>username_0: Currently there are two tags that have the same function, however they are not set as synonyms:
[europe](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/europe "show questions tagged 'europe'")
[eu](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/eu "show questions tagged 'eu'")
Should we re-tag the [eu](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/eu "show questions tagged 'eu'") questions (only 5 questions) with the [europe](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/europe "show questions tagged 'europe'") tag (81 questions). Or should someone with a higher reputation than myself, set these tags as synonyms to each other?<issue_comment>username_1: I see the following:
* Significant parts of Europe, such as Norway and Switzerland, are not part of the EU
* Europe is likely to remain coherent for a long time, whereas it is possible that near-future political events might significantly change the definition of the EU.
* All of the questions that I see tagged with EU appear to be fine to tag with Europe.
I would thus recommend re-tagging, and not creating a synonym.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The EU and Europe are not the same. The tag usage, in my opinion, is pretty good and demonstrates a need for two separate tags (and possibly a third tag).
There are questions which apply only to the EU. All the questions currently tagged EU seem correctly tagged. There are few EU specific questions tagged Europe.
There are questions that apply to all of Europe. This seems to be the vast majority of the questions tagged Europe.
There are a few questions that apply to non-EU countries in Europe.
I propose three tags: [europe](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/europe "show questions tagged 'europe'"), [europe-eu](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/europe-eu "show questions tagged 'europe-eu'"), and [europe-non-eu](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/europe-non-eu "show questions tagged 'europe-non-eu'") (I don't really like that name/hyphenation). Then we could make [eu](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/eu "show questions tagged 'eu'") a synonym of [europe-eu](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/europe-eu "show questions tagged 'europe-eu'").
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I am for creating a synonym, for the reasons already perfectly stated in @ff524's comment:
>
> you are suggesting that eu questions are a subset of the europe category, and that the broader tag (europe) is a good enough classification and the eu sub-classification is not necessary. Is that accurate? If so, why not create a synonym? That's what we usually do for "subclasses" for which we don't want to maintain a separate tag, because otherwise the separate tag will probably just be recreated soon.
>
>
>
I realize that EU does not coincide with Europe. Still, keeping track of the full hierarchy between the various European supernational entities is [quite complicated](https://i.stack.imgur.com/1q8sa.jpg), and in my opinion the advantages do not offset the inconvenience of having multiple tags, especially if they are used only for five questions or so.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_4: The current situation is fine. [eu](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/eu "show questions tagged 'eu'") is specific to grants and administrative aspects relating to the political entity of the European Union, and [europe](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/europe "show questions tagged 'europe'"), although a very vague tag since academia varies vastly between European countries, describes the geographic entity. [europe](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/europe "show questions tagged 'europe'") can be used to exclude the American or Asian context. They are not synonyms
Upvotes: 2 |
2015/12/30 | 1,964 | 7,222 | <issue_start>username_0: The following questions seem to be on topic and some are highly upvoted:
[IEEE vs ACM membership](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/44461/ieee-vs-acm-membership)
[Is Academia.edu useful?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/44632/is-academia-edu-useful)
[ResearchGate: an asset or a waste of time?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/16870/researchgate-an-asset-or-a-waste-of-time)
[Is the Encyclopedia for Life Support Systems (EOLSS) a legitimate source?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/42664/is-the-encyclopedia-for-life-support-systems-eolss-a-legitimate-source)
[How are scholars supposed to use LinkedIn?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/38490/how-are-scholars-supposed-to-use-linkedin)
[Do graduate schools pay attention to joining Phi Kappa Phi or other honor societies?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/18193/do-graduate-schools-pay-attention-to-joining-phi-kappa-phi-or-other-honor-societ)
and we have a whole tag for questions about [google-scholar](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/google-scholar "show questions tagged 'google-scholar'") such as:
[Do you let Google Scholar index popular science articles, conference abstracts, etc.?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/60176/do-you-let-google-scholar-index-popular-science-articles-conference-abstracts)
According to [this meta discussion](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1462/are-questions-about-the-reputability-of-individual-journals-publishers-or-confe), questions about the reputability of *individual journals, publishers or conferences* are not on topic.
In closing and commenting on [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/60869/is-honorsociety-org-legit),
Mod ff524 expands this policy to also apply to websites and large US national or international membership organizations, which I think are different and should be treated differently. **Are they different? Should they be treated differently?**
If we're limited to one general question, why even have a tag for [honor-societies](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/honor-societies "show questions tagged 'honor-societies'") or [online-resource](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/online-resource "show questions tagged 'online-resource'") etc.?<issue_comment>username_1: **Yes.**
If it were an organization or site limited to one specific university/local chapter, then it might not be useful to enough people to warrant Q & A here.
However, I think username_2's rule that "we generalize questions to provide answers that teach people how to judge for themselves any journal, university, honor society. etc." is too broad, limiting questions and answers to only those too broad to be useful for the specific question being asked.
General assessment questions are helpful, but specific ones about sufficiently large organizations or websites should also be permitted, as evidenced by the reception to the questions linked to above (feel free to expand the list if you know of other examples beyond my quick search).
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: I didn't say that I was expanding [this policy](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1462/are-questions-about-the-reputability-of-individual-journals-publishers-or-confe) to apply to *all* websites and large membership organizations. I believe it applies to questions about individual honor societies, including [your question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/60869/is-honorsociety-org-legit) asking about the legitimacy of a specific honor society.
For questions of the form "Is honor society X legitimate?" "Do graduate schools care about membership in honor society X?" "How to specify membership in honor society X on my CV?" and "Does membership in honor society X carry any professional weight/recognition?" I believe the rationale [here](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1477/11365) still applies and they should be asked and answered in a general way as stated in that answer.
The question [Do graduate schools pay attention to joining Phi Kappa Phi or other honor societies?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/18193/do-graduate-schools-pay-attention-to-joining-phi-kappa-phi-or-other-honor-societ) *is* a general question (see "or other societies") that happens to give a specific example in the title. The most upvoted answer on that question gives advice about honor societies in general.
Regarding other instances of questions about specific professional associations, websites, etc. I think it's worth evaluating them on a case-by-case basis. Services like Google Scholar, ResearchGate, and Academia.edu and associations like ACM, IEEE, AMS, etc. are very different from any individual honor society with respect to the magnitude and reach of their impact on the academic community.
As a rule of thumb, I think if you can rephrase the question to ask "about X and other things like X" without it being ridiculous, then you should. Asking a question about "ACM or other huge academic society and publisher for computer science" on the other hand sounds like asking about "Holy Grail or some other famous cup" (to borrow a [great phrase from <NAME>. Clark](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/18496/11365)). I don't think we need to generalize to the point of ridiculousness.
I'll also address
>
> If we're limited to one general question, why even have a tag for [honor-societies](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/honor-societies "show questions tagged 'honor-societies'") or [online-resource](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/online-resource "show questions tagged 'online-resource'") etc.?
>
>
>
Because people may ask *different* generalizable questions about these topics. If you look at the four existing (open) questions in [honor-societies](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/honor-societies "show questions tagged 'honor-societies'"), you will see that there are multiple general questions asking different things.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I am with username_2 on this one. To me, one useful rule of thumb for "too localized" is if we could easily end up with an array of near-identical questions that differ only in the subject. This could happen if we encouraged questions about individual journals (*"Is journal A legit?"*, *"What about journal B?"* etc.), and the same is also true for individual honour societies. This is no real danger for the likes of Google Scholar or ACM. There simply are not all that many of these systems or organisations out there. This is, I think, also what Pete meant with his "Holy Grail or some other famous cup" statement.
I do agree that not all of the questions that you cite above are great questions - I would have no issue with some of them being closed. However, SE is not case law - just because you found one or more comparable examples that kind of slipped through (and not all that you mention qualify, in my opinion) does not mean that your question also becomes fine. I agree with closing your question.
Upvotes: 2 |
2016/01/10 | 1,379 | 4,897 | <issue_start>username_0: [On-topic-ness of questions on legal issues related to academia?](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/q/1340/452) seems to say questions pertaining to legal issues are on-topic.
However, the question below got closed on the grounds that it is a legal question.
Has the stance on questions pertaining to legal issues changed?
---
<https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/31806/452>
>
> Is consent required by law to take a picture or to record audio / video of a conference talk in France?
>
>
> Provided that the conference does not explicitly prohibit unauthorized audio and visual recordings of the presentations, and ignoring ethical/political/any other non-legal issues.
>
>
> I am aware of the question [Is consent required to record audio of a conference talk in the US?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/17005/452), but as the question indicates it focuses on the USA only.
>
>
>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/dqVte.png)<issue_comment>username_1: Most [legal-issues](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/legal-issues "show questions tagged 'legal-issues'") questions on Academia.SE are not about the law per se, but rather about the de facto interaction of academic standards and practices with issues regarding the law. That sort of thing is completely within scope of this site.
Your linked question, on the other hand, explicitly says that it is:
>
> "ignoring ethical/political/any other non-legal issues"
>
>
>
in other words, focusing explicitly on the law. This is very different, and requires a precise technical answer, making it on topic at Law.SE but not here.
Presumably, you gave it this focus so that it would not be closed as a duplicate of "[Is consent required to record audio of a conference talk in the US?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/17005/22733)", since the top and accepted answer to that question says that the legal issues are less important than the academic standards and practices around the issue. So either:
1. You have some reason to believe that the standards of the academic community would be different when international conferences are held in France than when they are held in the United States, and should modify the question to explain that, or
2. The question belongs on Law.SE and not Academia.SE, or
3. Something I have no understanding of is going on in your question and I would advise you to explain it better.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: The stance on questions pertaining to legal issues has not changed.
The most upvoted answer in [On-topic-ness of questions on legal issues related to academia?](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/q/1340/452) clearly says:
>
> I believe questions asking for general legal background about a particular academic issue should be considered on topic here.
>
>
>
The question <https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/31806/452> is therefore on-topic.
---
There exist a number of questions that clearly ask for the legal side only, and are not closed, e.g.:
* [Is "Assistant Professor Position (Tenure Track) for a female Researcher" illegal in Austria?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/100529/452)
* [Is it legal to use sci-hub.cc in Germany?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/86414/452)
* [Is it illegal to share publications not in the public domain with collaborators?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/10340/452)
* [License of code accompanying a published article](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/59121/452).
* [Is it okay to upload the PDF of my non-open access papers in academia.edu or research gate?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/51195/452) (the question clearly focuses on the legal aspect only)
* [Do Universities have a right to stop students from talking about questions on tests?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/36438/452)
* [Who owns the intellectual property for work you do on weekends?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/29951/452) (the question clearly focuses on the legal aspect only)
* [Do Nature journals wrongly claim copyright in their published pdfs?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/65934/452) (the question clearly focuses on the legal aspect only, and was asked several months after the question mentioned in the meta question got closed)
* [Correctly licensing someone else's photo for publication in open-access journal](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/72788/452) (the question clearly focuses on the legal aspect only, and was asked several months after the question mentioned in the meta question got closed)
* [Is it legal to upload preprint on ResearchGate?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/72809/452) (the question clearly focuses on the legal aspect only, and was asked several months after the question mentioned in the meta question got closed)
Upvotes: 2 |
2016/01/15 | 2,701 | 9,012 | <issue_start>username_0: It's 2016 now, and we've [made some changes to the sidebar size](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/272563/were-standardizing-the-sidebar-width-at-300px-on-all-sites). As such, we can now restart the Community Promotion Ads for 2016!
Keep in mind, we have updated some of the guidelines compared to previously - the changes are marked in bold in the Image Requirements section.
### What are Community Promotion Ads?
Community Promotion Ads are community-vetted advertisements that will show up on the main site, in the right sidebar. The purpose of this question is the vetting process. Images of the advertisements are provided, and community voting will enable the advertisements to be shown.
### Why do we have Community Promotion Ads?
This is a method for the community to control what gets promoted to visitors on the site. For example, you might promote the following things:
* the site's twitter account
* academic websites and resources
* interesting campus story blogs
* cool events or conferences
* anything else your community would genuinely be interested in
The goal is for future visitors to find out about *the stuff your community deems important*. This also serves as a way to promote information and resources that are *relevant to your own community's interests*, both for those already in the community and those yet to join.
### Why do we reset the ads every year?
Some services will maintain usefulness over the years, while other things will wane to allow for new faces to show up. Resetting the ads every year helps accommodate this, and allows old ads that have served their purpose to be cycled out for fresher ads for newer things. This helps keep the material in the ads relevant to not just the subject matter of the community, but to the current status of the community. We reset the ads once a year, every December.
The community promotion ads have no restrictions against reposting an ad from a previous cycle. If a particular service or ad is very valuable to the community and will continue to be so, it is a good idea to repost it. It may be helpful to give it a new face in the process, so as to prevent the imagery of the ad from getting stale after a year of exposure.
### How does it work?
The answers you post to this question *must* conform to the following rules, or they will be ignored.
1. All answers should be in the exact form of:
```
[![Tagline to show on mouseover][1]][2]
[1]: http://image-url
[2]: http://clickthrough-url
```
Please **do not add anything else to the body of the post**. If you want to discuss something, do it in the comments.
2. The question must always be tagged with the magic [community-ads](/questions/tagged/community-ads "show questions tagged 'community-ads'") tag. In addition to enabling the functionality of the advertisements, this tag also pre-fills the answer form with the above required form.
### Image requirements
* The image that you create must be **300 x 250 pixels**, or double that if high DPI.
* Must be hosted through our standard image uploader (imgur)
* Must be GIF or PNG
* No animated GIFs
* Absolute limit on file size of **150 KB**
* **If the background of the image is white or partially white, there must be a 1px border (2px if high DPI) surrounding it.**
### Score Threshold
There is a **minimum score threshold** an answer must meet (currently **6**) before it will be shown on the main site.
You can check out the ads that have met the threshold with basic click stats [here](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/ads/display/2148).<issue_comment>username_1: [](https://twitter.com/StackAcademia)
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: [](http://www.zotero.org)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: [](http://retractionwatch.com/)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: [](http://arxiv.org/)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: [](http://arxiv.org)
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: [](http://detexify.kirelabs.org/classify.html)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: [](http://thecostofknowledge.com/)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: [](http://www.physicsoverflow.org/)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: [](http://crypto.stackexchange.com)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: [](http://dissem.in)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: [](https://pubpeer.com/)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: [](https://hsm.stackexchange.com/)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: [](http://arxitics.com/)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: [](https://scirate.com/)
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: [](http://scicomp.stackexchange.com)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_8: [](http://chemistry.stackexchange.com)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: [](http://archive.org/web/)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: [](http://archive.org)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: [](http://opensciencefederation.com/)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: [](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_9: [](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/82841/language-learning?referrer=sg-MbJAGOjNnNFDS7ptHjQ2)
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_10: [](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/90327/geomatics-and-remote-sensing?referrer=8G2asYAyI_To9RoVf1VtPg2)
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_11: [](http://earthscience.stackexchange.com)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_12: [](https://law.stackexchange.com/)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: [](https://openscience.ub.uni-bielefeld.de/)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_13: [](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/auto-latex-equations/iaainhiejkciadlhlodaajgbffkebdog?utm_source=academiaSOAd)
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_14: [](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/90201/open-science?referrer=dD9JBmhmXjEM__yBBhYtaA2)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_15: [](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/97583/effective-altruism)
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_16: [](https://scifundchallenge.org/)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: [](http://doai.io)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_17: [](https://tldrlegal.com)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: [](https://socopen.org/)
Upvotes: 1 |
2016/01/16 | 873 | 2,994 | <issue_start>username_0: When I read questions like [this one](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/61749) I wonder if we are aware of the fact that Academia.SE, and the whole Stack Overflow network, might be totally unknown to a large fraction of the academic world, especially outside fields like computer science or mathematics. And even if they knew, they might be totally unimpressed.
For instance, my nearest colleagues know about it just because they happened to look at my computer's screen seeing Academia.SE opened in the browser. And then the conversation typically goes like this (yeah, real kindergarten conversation from 50 years old people!):
>
> Colleague: Academia? What's that, another one of your nerdy sites
> like [...]?
>
>
> Me: This one's international!
>
>
> Colleague: Ha! Academia?
>
>
> Me: It's about the academic world: teaching, papers, PhD students etc.
>
>
> Colleague: So, not only do you pester us and your students, but also them?
>
>
> Me: Yes, you know that the main goal of my life is to annoy as many people as possible.
>
>
> Colleague: I know, I know. But do they listen to you?
>
>
> Me: It appears that I'm a top user... I'll probably even [get a t-shirt](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2102/academia-top-user-swag)!
>
>
> Colleague: Gee.
>
>
> Me: I'll wear it.
>
>
> Colleague: ...
>
>
> Me: I'll ask you to take a picture in the lab.
>
>
> Colleague: Can't wait!
>
>
>
Hence, the titular question: do we have any data, even very rough, or general idea, on how much Academia.SE is known in the academic world? What is your impression?<issue_comment>username_1: My impression is that Academia.SE is virtually unknown, but that this is not a problem for three reasons.
1. The goal isn't to be famous, it's to help people by building good curated answers, and a lot of people do get helped by our answers, judging by the views and votes. If you google for random academia-related questions, Academia.SE actually shows up fairly often amongst the professional advice-givers.
2. This community isn't all that old yet, and it is still growing.
3. The larger StackOverflow community *is* fairly widely known, and I find it easy to explain Academia.SE by saying it's a topic site as part of that network.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Last semester, one of my MS students (an international student from India) asked me a question, and I wanted to point him to an answer I had written on Academia.SE that I thought addressed his question. (And I thought that the other answers to that question would also be helpful to him.) I started to explain to him about the Stack Exchange network and Academia.SE, and he told me he had heard of it, and had used it extensively in navigating the graduate school admissions process.
I don't have any data, but having met someone in real life who used Academia.SE *before* meeting me made me think we're not as unknown as I had previously thought.
Upvotes: 3 |
2016/01/22 | 1,131 | 4,810 | <issue_start>username_0: I have the very strong suspicion that [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/62129/where-can-i-find-academics-who-need-statistical-help) is essentially a thinly veiled promotion for the OP's business. That is, it seems to me that the OP is not primarily looking for an answer to his question, but mainly uses it as a vehicle to promote his services.
Are we ok with this? And if not, what can we do? The question, while rather uninteresting to me personally, does not really appear to be out of scope based on our rules.<issue_comment>username_1: Hm, the user is a high-rep user on cross-validated...which actually makes the question particularly odd, because I don't really understand how the user doesn't know how to find academics who need help - he's answered over 1600 questions on Cross Validated alone. I too suspected something might be 'off' here, but I figured it would be best to close as "Unclear what you are asking".
It could be a valid question, but in its present state I think it could be closed anyway. But if it turned out to indeed be an attempt to advertise a commercial service or gain leads, then certainly it could be closed as "spam" - but we don't have that as a close reason, so indeed I wonder how these should be handled? Just closed as 'other', or do we need something more specific?
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: As someone who started in [CV](https://stats.stackexchange.com/). I can vouch for this questioner as he has been nothing but a wonderful participant at CV. He always provides very apt and helpful answers.
Though, I think the question can definitely use some clarification. The deep root is about networking in academia, which I believe is a valid question for this board.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: If the question was asked from the other side of the table and was about finding a reputable paid statistical consultant, I think it would be fine (assuming on topic otherwise).
The question itself reveals the potential conflict of interest with the "advertising" discreetly mentioned in his profile. This is exactly what we ask for in situations like this.
While he might be looking to gain clients here, it reads to me like he is trying to improve his networking/advertising efforts. So in general, I think questions with this level of "advertising" are okay.
Specifically, I am not sure the question is particularly clear or really answerable. I am not sure it is so unclear that it should be closed.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Though I don't question the OP's statistical knowledge and his capacity as a consultant, I think that leaving this question open as is can cause a flood of questions advertising a variety of consulting services or offers of collaborations.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: To take yet another point of view and to address the more general question:
I do not think that we can distinguish whether such a post was created for purposes of self-promotion or from a genuine interest in learning about new ways of finding customers, jobs or similar. Therefore we should apply the presumption of innocence to such posts (maybe unless we are overrun by them). In this specific case, I find it plausible that the asker is honestly interested in what he is asking for. Therefore I do not think that it should be closed for this reason.
Moreover, I do not see how this question is much different from many questions from users who are looking for a position. Both imply that the asker has certain skills and is available for hire.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_6: I think trying to project motives onto a posters question, and then closing it because it *may* be self-promoting, is flawed. The post is far from an egregious case, and honestly, even if it is a thinly veiled bit of self promotion, it involves the following chain of logic:
* Someone searching StackExchange for statistical help will somehow *miss* CrossValidated and come here instead.
* Having failed to find the proper StackExchange site, rather than just asking their question (and getting it migrated or closed), they'll search for, I don't know, "Statistics Help".
* They'll find Peter's question.
* They'll read Peter's profile.
* They click on his link, contact him, and this ends with a doubtlessly lucrative consulting contract...
That's a chain of events that I'm pretty sure will never actually happen.
If instead we read this post as a legitimate question, I think it's a much more reasonable one. Connecting people who need statistical expertise with the people who have it is a problem for people *in the same university* (I know this from experience). Working outside that system strikes me as harder, and something worthy of discussion.
Upvotes: 3 |
2016/02/02 | 1,932 | 7,238 | <issue_start>username_0: In [this answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/62646/is-it-appropriate-for-an-undergrad-student-to-ask-a-professor-to-sign-a-non-disc/62658#62658) I used the blockquote markdown syntax to emphasize the few sentences that contain the gist of the answer. <NAME> commented that this is bad practice and his comment got some upvotes. On the other hand, I've seen others using the same practice, see, e.g. [this answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/7973/529), [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/60612/529) or [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/17988/529) So I like to ask:
>
> Is is bad practice to use the blockquote syntax to highlight a tl;dr?
>
>
>
(Oops, I did it again…)
A bit related:
>
> Would the use of blockquotes confuse some machines that read the site? (And would this be good or bad?)
>
>
>
(He did it again!)<issue_comment>username_1: >
>
> >
> > Is is bad practice to use the blockquote syntax to highlight a tl;dr?
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
Yes, because now we have a double block quote, but only the outer one is a real quote: sometimes, yes, you might need to reproduce the original formatting too.
Since questions can be edited in time, and there other ways of highlighting a part of the text (e.g. italics or bold), I think it's useful to have a clear marker of what's a real quote and what's not.
**Note:** I have to admit, though, that I'm kind of obsessive for this sort of things (as my PhD students kindly like to remind me).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: In the absence of block quotes, I am pretty sure your two uses in this question and the examples you link to should be offset with quotation marks (although my grammar is atrocious). The example where people complained, however, should not be offset with quotation marks. As bad as my grammar is, my understanding of typographical style is worse, but I think anything in quotation marks can be typeset as a block quote.
I do not think we should limit the use of block quotes to quotes taken directly from the text of the question (or even answers or other sources), but we should reserve them for quotes. I think bold and/or italic can be used to provide emphasis.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I'll answer my own question with my view:
In view of the [very few possibilities](https://stackoverflow.com/editing-help) that markdown offers to format answer and basically no customizability of the markup, one can barely speak of a markup language (there even is not syntax for *emphasis*, only commands for typesetting such as italics, bold, and bold italic). Moreover, logical markup is not used to parse answers by algorithms (other than rendering). Hence, my view is that markdown shall be used to format the posts to appear as needed.
Finally, other SE sites seem to use blockquotes for other purposes than quotes: A comment to username_2's question over at english.stackexchange states that
>
> …the main use of block quotes here is to format and separate examples of word usage.
>
>
>
Over as tex.stackexchange I also noticed the pattern that people used blockquotes to emphasize paragraphs.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_4: ### TL;DR
Yes, it is bad practice. Use either boldface or headlines to highlight TL;DRs. Use blockquotes only for text that could have otherwise been set in quotation marks.
### Regarding the examples
* The blockquotes in [your answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/62658/7734) are irritating. From my first glance at the answer, I expected something like: A brief introduction; a quote from the question; some elaboration; a suggestion on how to phrase something. Thus when I actually read the answer, I lost some time to being flummoxed.
Even, if we ignore the fact that the formatting of blockquotes is intended and designed for quotes, your answer is badly formatted. About half the text is emphasised and it would be much easier to read, if you integrated the blockquotes in the respective sentences, e.g., like this:
>
> My interpretation of the situation is that this is not an academic issue since you are approaching somebody who leads some business with some business-related issue.
>
>
> The fact that that somebody is also a professor and that somebody who you know has a class with this professor seems unrelated. So my advice would be to handle this as if it were a business meeting and not an academic meeting.
>
>
>
* In [this answer by Aeismail](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/7973/7734), the blockquotes are not needed, but as the text is actually a quote of some sort and could be legitimally enclosed in quotation marks, it does not cause any kind of dissonance while reading.
* In [this question by Electrique](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/60612/7734), the blockquotes have no reason to exist at all. The list is already visually detached from the rest of the text anyway.
* In [this question by ff524](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/17988/7734), the blockquotes are not needed either. The question is already emphasised through the boldface. In my opinion, the best way to format this question would be using headlines, such as *Background; Actual Question; Related questions.* This way the main question is highlighted as intended and there is no extensive use of boldface.
### In general
We are trained to read quotes as quotes and their design is tailored towards this purpose. Therefore abusing them decreases readability and should be done as rarely as possible.
Alternatives are:
* If you want to emphasise a sentence or a shorter amount of text: boldface.
* If you want to emphasise a longer amount of text: Use a headline that communicates the importance of this part.
* If you want to communicate that a portion of the text happens is different (but not more important), e.g., meta information or a digression, use italics.
*Before somebody comes along and complains that you may want to use italics for other purpose: Upright is the italics of italics. LaTeX’s* `\emph` *works* exactly *like this.*
* Not emphasising at all. Often it is just not necessary.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_5: In my opinion, the biggest issue here is that misusing blockquotes as a form of emphasis happens because:
1. they look too emphatic. The yellow background is too flashy. The black-on-grey used here on Meta seems a better alternative, or also the schemes commonly used on e-mail (intented text with a thin colored vertical bar on their right).
2. there is no alternative syntax in Markdown for the same purpose.
To fix #1. I have submitted a feature request for [changing the color scheme for blockquotes](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2206/removing-emphasis-from-blockquotes).
I would appreciate a fix for #2, too, but it would require adding Markdown syntax, which of course cannot be a decision specific to academia.se, and shouldn't be taken lightly (I am definitely against a further Balkanization of Markdown). A possibility, anyway, could be using exclamation marks:
```
This is normal text
! This is a paragraph with emphasis
This is normal text again.
```
Upvotes: 0 |
2016/02/08 | 955 | 3,620 | <issue_start>username_0: I noticed some users like to ask opinion-based or discussion-like "questions" and systematically use the [reference-request](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reference-request "show questions tagged 'reference-request'") tag to prevent them from being closed as such.
I'm talking about cases where, clearly, there can't be any research or publications about the subject such as:
[Reference on how often "To the best of our knowledge" assertions turn out to be false](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/32510/10643)
[Impact of the visit weekend weather on the admitted graduates' grad school decision in the US](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/30031/10643)
[What motivates researchers in industry to publish their results?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/32436/10643)
etc.
These questions typically do not get accepted answers because, well, there is no such research. While I'm not necessarily against us discussing these topics, I find the use of the tag to sneak through closing a bit annoying. Is that sentiment shared by other users of this site, or is it just me?
---
**Edit**
I mean, seriously:
[How often can the reviewers correctly guess the identity of the authors when the review is double-blind?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/62341/10643)<issue_comment>username_1: To be honest, I think you are a little too quick in inferring nefarious motives ("to sneak through closing") to posters. Regarding your three examples:
* [Reference on how often "To the best of our knowledge" assertions turn out to be false](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/32510/10643) - I agree that I find it hard to believe that there is actual research on this, already because *finding* this kind of verbiage in papers is hard enough, and then finding out whether such a claim is false or not is at least as hard.
* [Impact of the visit weekend weather on the admitted graduates' grad school decision in the US](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/30031/10643) - I'm working on including weather information in retail sales forecasts, and I find it quite possible that someone somewhere has done such an analysis.
Not that I think the question is very interesting. But I find that different people find surprisingly many things interesting that would bore me to death.
* [What motivates researchers in industry to publish their results?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/32436/10643) - and for this one, I would definitely not be surprised if some sociologist had done surveys on exactly this kind of question.
Conversely, I don't see a "polling" aspect to the questions you refer to, even if they do generate some discussion in the comments.
Bottom line: If you disagree with a tag, edit it away and see whether the poster insists. If you feel that a question is not useful, downvote it. A tag does not prevent you from voting. I'd trust the voting system to make sure useless questions sink.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I too, find this use of the "reference-request" tag annoying, particularly because in some cases it seems to unnecessarily preclude providing an answer based on experience (see, for example, my comment and then answer on the "[What motivates researchers in industry to publish their results?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/32436/10643)" question).
My approach has been, whenever possible, to either:
1. Ignore the "reference-request" tag when used by this particular user and to answer anyway based on experience, or
2. Explain why no such study is likely to have been created.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer] |
2016/02/09 | 226 | 978 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm planning the curriculum for my first graduate level computer science course. Are questions related to appropriate expectations for incoming knowledge and course coverage allowed here?<issue_comment>username_1: I believe that such a question could be entirely within scope. Some key information to include in order to make it clear enough to be answered would include:
* What country you are in
* What sort of graduate program (e.g., M.S., Ph.D.)
* What level of institution (e.g., world-class research university, vocational college)
* What the general goals of the course are
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Questions about how to plan curricula in general are fine: planning curricula is an important thing that happens in academia. Questions about what the curriculum for a particular course should be would be off-topic, since you'd be asking about (in this case) computer science, rather than about academia.
Upvotes: 3 |
2016/02/14 | 1,880 | 7,345 | <issue_start>username_0: Are questions on features offered by a website related to academic research on-topic?
Some are closed, some are open, so I wonder what the scope of this Stack Exchange website is on that kind of questions.
Examples:
* [Is there a more user-friendly way to download multiple articles from arXiv?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/55626/452)
* [Bulk download Sci-Hub papers](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/63330/452)
* [Bulk download of arXiv (or other publication data set) with metadata AND citations](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/59093/452)<issue_comment>username_1: What I have observed in this community's collective judgement is that the axis that you propose to consider ("Is this question about features offered by a website?") does not appear to be a useful discriminator for question quality.
The problem is that both "feature" and "website" cover way too broad a spectrum:
* "Website" can mean anything from [google-scholar](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/google-scholar "show questions tagged 'google-scholar'") and [arxiv](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/arxiv "show questions tagged 'arxiv'") (clearly considered [interesting](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/62480/22733) and [useful](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/31800/22733)) to the details of a specific graduate program's online application form (clearly a "too specific" closure).
* "Feature" can mean anything from the DOI question above to the transient and proprietary details of how a particular search engine is currently ranking its results (clearly a "too specific" closure) to obvious [boat programming](https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/14470/289613) like "As a visually impaired scientist, how should I access arXiv?"
Instead, I would propose the following three-prong test with regards to questions related to the use of academia-related websites, apps, and similar systems:
* **Is the website academia-specific?** (e.g., Google Scholar is, Yahoo Answers is not)
* **Is the website well-established and widely used in a significant number of disciplines?** (e.g., arXiv is, CrazyEddiesPreprintShack.com is not)
* **Is the question about functionality that is both long-term stable and academia-specific?** (e.g., curating one's publications on arXiv is, search-engine result orderings are not)
If a question passes all three of these tests, then it is likely to be on topic (though it may fail in other ways); if it fails any of them badly, then it probably should be closed as off-topic.
Now, as with every judgement of on-topic-ness, there will be boundary cases in which the judgement is not obvious. I think that the two arXiv questions that you link are a little bit toward that boundary: they obviously pass the first two tests, and while the functionality is long-term stable, it's a bit questionable whether it's necessarily academia-specific. On balance, though, they were simple enough questions with simple enough answers, and there's no reason to be nit-picky.
For your Sci-Hub question, on the other hand, while I believe it can pass the first two tests, for the third test both the stability and the specificity of the functionality seem *extremely* dubious. You are asking how to yank many, many terabytes of data from Sci-Hub or from the organizations that it pirates. That's not a scientific problem, that's a rather blatant abuse of shared network resources, and any method for doing so will likely soon be defended against by Sci-Hub.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Questions on websites
---------------------
Yes, in my view, questions on the usage of websites that target academics should be considered **on topic** on academia.se. Using websites such as arxiv.org, google scholar, and article submission systems is a part of the work of a professional researcher, and questions on this aspect should have full citizenship here.
Of course, there are other conditions for a question to be acceptable: if a question is too localized (for instance, a very specific website on a single research topic with a tiny audience, or an unknown startup), then it should be closed, and the same if it has nothing specific to academia (for instance, if it is a general question on the usage of a browser --- these are known as "boat programming" questions in the stack exchange culture).
OP's question mentions sci-hub.io, a website which has gained much popularity recently, despite its dubious legal nature. It is 100% targeted on academics, and it satisfies the notability criterion, so I find little justification to close it on the basis of its content.
If any, the only reason for which I could consider closure is if we agree on a very strict policy on questions involving copyright infringement. But this is a different issue than the one on "on-topicness".
Questions on copyright infringement
-----------------------------------
Since the discussion in the other answers and comments has diverged into legality and copyright infringement, I should probably give my opinion on this part, too.
Lots of sites can be used to infringe copyright, including [Twitter](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/61423/958) and [Google](http://mashable.com/2009/04/20/google-torrent-search/#a5PWpZ9Cr5q1). Some of them are used *prevalently* to infringe copyright, but ultimately the guilt lies with the usage, not with the website itself.
In addition, some forms of copyright abuse are widespread in academia, and a non-negligible part of the community recognizes them as illegal but does not consider them ethically wrong.
My stance is: **if a user asks a question on how to infringe copyright, we leave the question open**, and point out that it is illegal and/or wrong in the answers and comments. Closing questions does not make the asker aware of the legal and ethical issues; it only creates an illusion of control and censorship, and drives the user away.
If, as @MassimoOrtolano wrote, "the only possible ethical answer to a question about how to bulk download Sci-Hub papers is: *You don't*.", then we leave that question open and answer *You don't*. We don't say *sssh, we don't speak about this sort of stuff here*, because it sends a wrong message.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I think that we should not publicly support, in any case, the usage of services that are at the edge, or beyond the edge, of legality, however widespread they are in academia, and even if we privately think that they are ethical because they might constitute a form of protest against the publishing industry. Doing otherwise would open to a number of shaky possibilities that probably Stack Overflow Inc. would not be willing to support (e.g., linking papers or books on the SE sites directly to Sci-Hub or Libgen).
Thus, I think that the only possible ethical answer to a question about how to bulk download Sci-Hub papers is: *You don't*. Other answers can be interpreted as a tacit, *public*, support of such a service.
We can then discuss what is the more appropriate close reason for such questions or if we want to put a canonical answer, but I think that the above should stand.
For what concerns clearly legal services, instead, I agree with [username_1's answer](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/2220/20058).
Upvotes: 1 |
2016/02/29 | 2,118 | 8,331 | <issue_start>username_0: Based on earlier [discussions](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1902/shopping-questions-revisited) on [defining shopping](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2038/defining-shopping-questions) (in a specific case), I suggest that the Shopping needs to be expanded. At the moment, the [Asking](https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic) section suggests not asking shopping questions of certain types:
>
> Suggestions or recommendations for a university, journal, or research
> topic (a "shopping question")
>
>
>
However, often there are questions doing the very same thing asking about existing research (i.e., not asking for a topic or venue, but the research itelf). This is same as asking others to do the work for you. For instance, I'd think that a [good question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/49163/what-rough-percentage-of-universities-required-ancient-greek-and-latin-from-whe), on the other hand, asks for a specific information. Questions that are explicitly about finding whether a prior research exists or not are shopping for ideas. So, a question that asks for providing evidence of prior research should be treated as shopping question. A hypothetical example would be:
>
> Is there any research that have studied the the impact of such and
> such?
>
>
>
On the other hand, if the above does not fall under shopping, then, one can argue that asking for a research topic should also be removed from the criteria since both are *asking* (read: shopping) for guidance.<issue_comment>username_1: What I have observed in this community's collective judgement is that the axis that you propose to consider ("Is this question about features offered by a website?") does not appear to be a useful discriminator for question quality.
The problem is that both "feature" and "website" cover way too broad a spectrum:
* "Website" can mean anything from [google-scholar](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/google-scholar "show questions tagged 'google-scholar'") and [arxiv](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/arxiv "show questions tagged 'arxiv'") (clearly considered [interesting](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/62480/22733) and [useful](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/31800/22733)) to the details of a specific graduate program's online application form (clearly a "too specific" closure).
* "Feature" can mean anything from the DOI question above to the transient and proprietary details of how a particular search engine is currently ranking its results (clearly a "too specific" closure) to obvious [boat programming](https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/14470/289613) like "As a visually impaired scientist, how should I access arXiv?"
Instead, I would propose the following three-prong test with regards to questions related to the use of academia-related websites, apps, and similar systems:
* **Is the website academia-specific?** (e.g., Google Scholar is, Yahoo Answers is not)
* **Is the website well-established and widely used in a significant number of disciplines?** (e.g., arXiv is, CrazyEddiesPreprintShack.com is not)
* **Is the question about functionality that is both long-term stable and academia-specific?** (e.g., curating one's publications on arXiv is, search-engine result orderings are not)
If a question passes all three of these tests, then it is likely to be on topic (though it may fail in other ways); if it fails any of them badly, then it probably should be closed as off-topic.
Now, as with every judgement of on-topic-ness, there will be boundary cases in which the judgement is not obvious. I think that the two arXiv questions that you link are a little bit toward that boundary: they obviously pass the first two tests, and while the functionality is long-term stable, it's a bit questionable whether it's necessarily academia-specific. On balance, though, they were simple enough questions with simple enough answers, and there's no reason to be nit-picky.
For your Sci-Hub question, on the other hand, while I believe it can pass the first two tests, for the third test both the stability and the specificity of the functionality seem *extremely* dubious. You are asking how to yank many, many terabytes of data from Sci-Hub or from the organizations that it pirates. That's not a scientific problem, that's a rather blatant abuse of shared network resources, and any method for doing so will likely soon be defended against by Sci-Hub.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Questions on websites
---------------------
Yes, in my view, questions on the usage of websites that target academics should be considered **on topic** on academia.se. Using websites such as arxiv.org, google scholar, and article submission systems is a part of the work of a professional researcher, and questions on this aspect should have full citizenship here.
Of course, there are other conditions for a question to be acceptable: if a question is too localized (for instance, a very specific website on a single research topic with a tiny audience, or an unknown startup), then it should be closed, and the same if it has nothing specific to academia (for instance, if it is a general question on the usage of a browser --- these are known as "boat programming" questions in the stack exchange culture).
OP's question mentions sci-hub.io, a website which has gained much popularity recently, despite its dubious legal nature. It is 100% targeted on academics, and it satisfies the notability criterion, so I find little justification to close it on the basis of its content.
If any, the only reason for which I could consider closure is if we agree on a very strict policy on questions involving copyright infringement. But this is a different issue than the one on "on-topicness".
Questions on copyright infringement
-----------------------------------
Since the discussion in the other answers and comments has diverged into legality and copyright infringement, I should probably give my opinion on this part, too.
Lots of sites can be used to infringe copyright, including [Twitter](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/61423/958) and [Google](http://mashable.com/2009/04/20/google-torrent-search/#a5PWpZ9Cr5q1). Some of them are used *prevalently* to infringe copyright, but ultimately the guilt lies with the usage, not with the website itself.
In addition, some forms of copyright abuse are widespread in academia, and a non-negligible part of the community recognizes them as illegal but does not consider them ethically wrong.
My stance is: **if a user asks a question on how to infringe copyright, we leave the question open**, and point out that it is illegal and/or wrong in the answers and comments. Closing questions does not make the asker aware of the legal and ethical issues; it only creates an illusion of control and censorship, and drives the user away.
If, as @MassimoOrtolano wrote, "the only possible ethical answer to a question about how to bulk download Sci-Hub papers is: *You don't*.", then we leave that question open and answer *You don't*. We don't say *sssh, we don't speak about this sort of stuff here*, because it sends a wrong message.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I think that we should not publicly support, in any case, the usage of services that are at the edge, or beyond the edge, of legality, however widespread they are in academia, and even if we privately think that they are ethical because they might constitute a form of protest against the publishing industry. Doing otherwise would open to a number of shaky possibilities that probably Stack Overflow Inc. would not be willing to support (e.g., linking papers or books on the SE sites directly to Sci-Hub or Libgen).
Thus, I think that the only possible ethical answer to a question about how to bulk download Sci-Hub papers is: *You don't*. Other answers can be interpreted as a tacit, *public*, support of such a service.
We can then discuss what is the more appropriate close reason for such questions or if we want to put a canonical answer, but I think that the above should stand.
For what concerns clearly legal services, instead, I agree with [username_1's answer](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/2220/20058).
Upvotes: 1 |
2016/03/03 | 1,098 | 4,666 | <issue_start>username_0: [A recent question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/64430/22733) received a number of rapid down-votes, which I guess was likely due to annoyance of voters because it was the third in a sequence of effectively duplicate postings by the same author with different new accounts. The first two (less coherent versions) have since been deleted, but the down-votes remain on the third.
In comments, a question was raised: should down-votes be used to publish bad behavior by a questioner? I see an argument either way:
* Argument for: down-votes mean "I think this is a bad question", and indeed, one reason to think something is a bad question is because the person just asked the question already.
* Argument against: votes should be on the question, not its context. Bad questioner behavior should instead be addressed through flags.<issue_comment>username_1: There are limited rules regarding how users can use their votes. The only constraints I can think of are that the system prevents, or at least tries to prevent, systematic down voting of a user and sock puppet accounts. This means that if a user can down vote whatever they want for whatever reason they want and there is nothing the mods can do about it. Any "policy" we decide on in regards to down votes (and up votes) is completely unenforceable.
I do not think systematically down voting a user's questions to punish them is a good idea. First, they will likely get reversed by the system bot, although in this case with multiple accounts, they probably would not. Second, if a user eventually asks a good question even if it takes multiple tries, we want to encourage the good question.
There is also a big difference between a down vote with a flag and one without a flag and also between a down vote with and without a comment. If you are going to down vote, it is best to leave a comment to help the user, often a new user, understand what they have done wrong. In all cases of bad user behavior, you need to raise a flag alerting the mods. We have extra tools to deal with things like multiple accounts, rude users, and duplicate questions. If you do not flag us, we do not know.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I understand that in the current system, votes on questions and answers are both a way for higher reputation and then more privileges, and a way to punish the poster for any *other* reason. Probably there should be a punishment (down-vote) mechanism (other than flags) independent of the question/answer votes (e.g., in the user profile page).
If the system wouldn't change, I suggest that question/answer votes should only blindly address the quality, as much as possible, not the context, of the question/answer. As a future content reader I wouldn't care about the context, nor about whether the user is/was rude. I would suggest that the moderators encourage users not to vote for anything other reason than the post quality.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: As in every StackExchange site, the rules are pretty simple. **You should downvote bad questions**.
You could read [this blog post by <NAME>](http://codeblog.jonskeet.uk/2010/08/29/writing-the-perfect-question/) referring to this issue (it's a bit more focused on programming, but the general rules apply everywhere).
If you downvote a question because the user who asked has done something reprehensible, this is not desirable in SE. The reason is, that a question is a question, no matter who asks. Also, "hating" on a user (even if someone promotes or attemps piracy or whatever), is not constructive. A terrible person, can ask a good question that is helpful to others. **Judge the question, not the user**.
Furthermore, downvoting should always be revised. Downvoting is not the same as in reddit or other websites. It's not simply a means to indicate poor quality, but a means to provide **meaningful feedback**, and *lead to the improvement of a bad question* (or its removal).
By downvoting a user, the aforementioned goal is not satisfied. A user that asks a bad question, may learn that it is not constructive and improve, he also has the right (and should) delete or edit bad questions into good ones. Such behaviour should be applauded, not reprimanded because of past "sins".
The aforementioned question is a good one, and even if previous questions indicate that this user is interested in copyright infrigment (I have no idea about this user, hypothetically speaking), it does not matter. This website is about people coming to read answers to their questions, already posted by others, not about a community and its members' relationships.
Upvotes: 3 |
2016/03/14 | 579 | 2,081 | <issue_start>username_0: I suggest to use an *h-index*-style to indicate SE users performance. As with publications, it gives a direct indication of activity level and users interest.
The *h-index* for answers (for example) is calculated by arranging the answers in descending order and stopping at the answer that has an equal number or higher of votes as its order. For example, a user with 15 answers with the following votes: 50, 43, 42, 20, 15, 14, 14, 11, 10, 10, 8, 4, 2, 2, 1 will have an *h-index* of 10, while a user with 1 answer of 246 votes will have an *h-index* of 1 (although both has same number of total votes).<issue_comment>username_1: Citation metrics are flawed for...lots of reasons. Especially when they're pegged to something like "indicating performance", presumably with the usual rankings and the like that come with it.
Just using StackExchange related problems:
* It utterly ignores other contributions, such as questions (never underestimate the importance of good questions to a site), comments, etc. As an example, whether you like it or not, JeffE's "Run, don't walk" comment is a cultural item on this site, and an "h-index" wouldn't really see that at all.
* External votes become a thing. "Hot Network Questions" get lots of traffic, even if they're not particularly good question. Which means that, by strategically answering those, you could boost your "h-index". At the same time, diligent, workman-like answering of lots of questions that are likely to be helpful, but not flashy, and get a few upvotes and an accept, would be discouraged. That's the opposite of a healthy community.
* *We already have reputation*
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: This has been proposed before: [Modified h-index for questions and answers?](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/103735/modified-h-index-for-questions-and-answers)
To me it does not seem all that useful. If you want to look at users based on their H-index, you can use this [data explorer query](http://data.stackexchange.com/academia/query/66081/what-is-my-h-index)
Upvotes: 2 |
2016/03/16 | 1,503 | 6,224 | <issue_start>username_0: **Premise**
I recently posed [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/65062/getting-a-pet-during-a-phd) asking whether or not it is advised to get a pet during the PhD process. The major premise was if the time/energy-cost of raising a puppy, let's say, is too detrimental to research or if it can in fact increase productivity by providing companionship during a trying process.
This topic provoked some pretty vehement arguments as to whether or not it was considered on-topic or well-posed, as evidenced by the commentary and oddly balanced number of up/down votes. Even though the [help center](https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/closed-questions) explicitly names questions about "life as a PhD student" as within the scope of the Academia site, and the "[work-life-balance](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/work-life-balance)" tag exists to cluster these types of questions, many close votes followed after a high-profile user warned that the question veered into "[boat programming](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/14470/what-is-the-boat-programming-meme-about)" territory. The consequence of that post was a lot close votes in what really seems like a follow-the-leader effect.
While I understand the boat programming concern, and on stack overflow boat-programming-type questions are obviously too broad and vague, for "work-life-balance" questions on Academia, they actually seem relevant, if not appropriate. Furthermore, there is a strong precedent for these kinds of questions in Academia, primarily the ones inquiring about [marriage](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9192/points-to-consider-when-deciding-whether-to-get-married-during-a-phd?lq=1) and [kids](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/11421/advice-for-having-children-during-graduate-school?lq=1) during a PhD; that is, other questions pertaining to the graduate student lifestyle. In my question I linked to these.
**The point of this meta post is twofold:**
1. For one, I would like to have my original pet post reopened. I have struggled with wasting time due to a sort of "isolation daze" during my PhD and I think having a canine companion could help me break out of that funk, but first I would like to hear from the community's experiences as to whether it may be ill-advised to do so.
2. Secondly, I would like to start a conversation about the whimsicality of close votes. On many occasions duplicates, hyper-specific questions, and other violations of the help center's policies stay open and are answered, while other times questions that seem that they should be valid are closed quickly. It often seems that the idea of "relying on the community" devolves into follow-the-leader: a high-reputation user votes to close and others follow suit. While in theory that should be fine, I believe there is an inherent arbitrariness to that method. For one, this process assumes that these leaders see every post. But more importantly, it also assumes that these users abide by the defined guidelines of the site. I would argue that often long-time users have developed their own opinions as to a questions validity, and, to be honest, I think it's one that is often biased by viewing a lot of crappy posts. As a result, the bar for entry ends up being inappropriately raised and shifted away from what is stated by the terms of the site.
**Question**
Is there any disagreement to these points? If to my first point, please articulate why my post was off-topic and justify it with a clear guideline. If to my second point, I am eager to understand how we can fix this, whether by appealing to change the stated site rules or by adjusting the voting system.<issue_comment>username_1: In regards to point 2, first I want to that historically SE communities do not like when users cherry pick example questions as justification as to why their question is on topic. Second, the apparent follow the leader effect is an artifact of the review queue. When a user votes to close a question or flags it, the question is added to a review queue that is available to high rep users. These users can then agree or disagree with the close vote/flag. The same thing happens when someone votes to reopen a question.
Finally, community moderation is not perfect. Sometimes (fairly often) the community misses questions that should be closed. This is one of the reasons we don't like when users cherry pick example questions. Sometimes (on our site fairly infrequently) a group of users close something the community thinks is on topic. Apart from duplicates, the system does not let regular users act unilaterally and it provides mechanisms to undue the effects. As you have done here, it is perfectly reasonable to ask in meta or chat what is going on with a question. You can even flag it for moderator attention.
In regards to your first point, I would suggest you edit your question to demonstrate why it pertains to life as a graduate student and not just to life in general. The questions about marriage and having children are not truly about those massive open ended topics, but rather the specifics of how marriage and having children affects being an academic.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: As the "high-profile user" mentioned in the question, I want to point out my thought process.
I worded my comment very carefully, saying that it was starting to veer into boat programming, rather than saying it was definitively boat programming. What I should have added to my comment was that I wasn't seeing the academic-specific nature of the question that would make the question on-topic here instead of one of the other SE sites, such as [The Workplace](http://workplace.stackexchange.com). Getting married and having kids are not quite comparable, because these are "major life events" that also have very specific and unique ramifications in the academic world—extension of deadlines for "early career" applications, adjustments to teaching and research schedules, time to defense, and many others. The change between a grad student owning a pet and, say, a Wall Street financial analyst owning a pet is not as clear to me.
Upvotes: 3 |
2016/03/19 | 547 | 2,293 | <issue_start>username_0: I have posted a couple of questions on this website. Based on this small dataset, there seem to be a trend that hard-to-answer questions get downvoted, and even closed for some random reason (too broad, opinion-based, etc.). Even though from time to time there actually exists a good answer, which is hard to share when the question is closed or roomba-removed. Voters are free to do whatever, except serial serial voting, but I'd encourage genuine voters to think twice about whether they are downvoting/closing a question because it seems difficult or impossible to answer.<issue_comment>username_1: I am not sure if this answers your question in general, but it is related to the questions you tend to ask on the main site.
While I do not tend to down vote your questions,when reading your questions I often struggle with how they fit with our [don't ask](https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask) "policy":
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> You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face.
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While your questions tend to be practical and answerable, I don't always see how they could be about actual problems you face.
As a side note, I am not sure "actual problems" should be a requirement.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: The voting rules aren't very strict (as opposed to closing for example) but I don't think the fact that a question is hard to answer is a reason to down-vote. A question should "show research effort be useful and clear" to warrant an up-vote but it's also a matter of personal interests.
I don't think that the issue with the questions you mention is that they are "hard" but rather that they look very much like advertisement for your opinions and pet peeves\* that you tried too hard to make look like questions.
My guess is that some users doubt that you genuinely think there are possible answers that would fit this site's format but rather hope for extended discussions in comments supporting your opinion.
Sometimes the click-bait works and you gather many votes, sometimes it's too obnoxious and the opinionated undertone triggers down-votes.
---
\*Ok, so you dislike that some people pay to read articles. We get it.
Ps. Many of your other questions are fine in my opinion.
Upvotes: 3 |
2016/03/21 | 1,884 | 7,103 | <issue_start>username_0: This question is potentially related to [Should seemingly hard-to-answer questions be downvoted (and closed)?](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3249/should-seemingly-hard-to-answer-questions-be-downvoted-and-closed)
Our help center [don't ask section](https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask) includes some generic text that is used SE wide:
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> You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face.
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In a pervious question: [Are realistic hypothetical situation based questions permitted?](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/629/are-realistic-hypothetical-situation-based-questions-permitted) it seems clear that the community thinks that to an extent hypothetical questions are okay.
A number of the [reference-request](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reference-request "show questions tagged 'reference-request'") questions do not provide the practical problem that the requested information is needed to solve. In some cases the applicability is obvious, but in other it is not clear.
Should [reference-request](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reference-request "show questions tagged 'reference-request'") questions that are merely asking for a reference, and not asking a bigger question, be off topic?<issue_comment>username_1: I don't think that line in the help center applies to [reference-request](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reference-request "show questions tagged 'reference-request'") questions.
In most cases, if you really had to, it is trivial to connect those questions to an actual problem.
For example, the most recent [reference-request](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reference-request "show questions tagged 'reference-request'") is [How random is the graduate admission process in the United States?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/65519/how-random-is-the-graduate-admission-process-in-the-united-states). This question corresponds to the actual, real problem (for example):
"I am interested in reducing the randomness of the graduate admissions process in computer science PhD programs, but in order to convince anyone to act, I need some reliable, verifiable data to show how bad the problem really is."
In other cases, such as my [reference-request](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reference-request "show questions tagged 'reference-request'") question [What is the origin of the “underwater basket weaving” meme in Academia?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/38571/what-is-the-origin-of-the-underwater-basket-weaving-meme-in-academia), where it is very difficult to connect the question to an actual *problem*, the community didn't seem to mind. (That question currently has 79 upvotes and 0 downvotes.)
So, it seems that a question does not necessarily need to be explicitly attached to a problem. I think [reference-request](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reference-request "show questions tagged 'reference-request'") questions that are clear, specific, and relevant to the topics in the help center *are* on topic here. (As evidenced, perhaps, by my being a [top answerer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/tags/reference-request/topusers) and one of the top askers in that tag.)
I interpret
>
> You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face.
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mainly to exclude hypotheticals *that lack context*, where the answer depends very much on the specific circumstance.
To take your question [Can I teach in the nude?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/48796/can-i-teach-in-the-nude) as an example (I hope you don't mind), I commented there
>
> Also, per the help center: "You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face." This does not seem to qualify. – username_1♦ [Jul 14 '15 at 16:54](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/48796/can-i-teach-in-the-nude#comment112894_48796)
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and further clarified that I find the question problematic because it is a hypothetical given without context:
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> I don't think it would be a bad question if it was given in the context of a specific scenario, like [this one](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/05/11/it-legitimate-pedagogical-tool-art-professor-ask-students-be-nude-one-class). As a general question, I still think it's terrible. – username_1♦ [Jul 14 '15 at 17:06](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/48796/can-i-teach-in-the-nude#comment112898_48796)
>
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That's the kind of question I think is excluded by "practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face."
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I think that the "practical answerable questions" line should be interpreted quite permissively. I think that its real value is to permit closing of questions that are basically silly wastes of time because they aren't even vaguely close to the real world, e.g.,
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> What would happen if PhD programs required students to switch what professor they were working for every two weeks, and you couldn't go back to a professor?
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> Would a scientific paper still count on your C.V. if it got published, but then the journal was shut down by the government and you could only get copies of the paper through WikiLeaks?
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Likewise, sometimes a question is unanswerable because it depends on too many particulars that can't be filled in since the situation doesn't actually exist.
There will not be a clear black and white about which hypotheticals are OK and which are not, but I think that we should be fairly permissive, since many hypotheticals are close enough to real situations to be readily answerable.
I think the issue that comes up with many [reference-request](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reference-request "show questions tagged 'reference-request'") questions is not about being hypothetical, but rather is often some sort of XY problem, in which the asker has refined down to a request for a highly specific piece of research that has probably not been carried out, when a slightly less precisely targeted question would likely have been readily answerable.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: A potential policy: "Stack exchange is not a suitable tool for literature search. Questions solely requesting literature search are off-topic."
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_4: I think hypothetical questions to better understand common rules/policies of universities should be accepted. For example, while one could ask for a reference to better understand "what is the NIH policy on \_\_\_\_\_\_\_", it can be much more natural and illuminating to ask the hypothetical "If a PI submits a paper with \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_, but \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_, is the PI following policy?". Sometimes this could be acceptable even if the applicability is unclear if the question helps one understand what the policies actually mean.
Upvotes: 1 |
2016/03/24 | 251 | 974 | <issue_start>username_0: Where can I ask a question about arrangement of numbered lists of axioms in a mathematical manuscript?
* tex.stackexchange.com? (i think no, because it is not specific to TeX)
* academia.stackexchange.com?
* writers.stackexchange.com?
* other?<issue_comment>username_1: What is the thing that you want to know?
* If you're asking about how to actually lay things out typographically using LaTeX, then it would be appropriate for TeX.SE.
* If you're asking about typical customs in how such things are presented by scientists, then it would be appropriate for Academia.SE.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Academia is not for domain-specific questions about academic subjects. It's for questions about academia itself.
And just because a Stack Exchange looks like it ought to be the closest fit for a question, does not mean that a question belongs there. Most questions don't belong on any Stack Exchange site.
Upvotes: -1 |
2016/03/28 | 889 | 3,424 | <issue_start>username_0: We seem to get a lot of questions that seem to boil down to this: "My professor is bad. Right?" Two recent examples:
[Expecting students to use a code base that is known to be buggy?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/65749/expecting-students-to-use-a-code-base-that-is-known-to-be-buggy)
[How to deal with dramatic drop in grade due to strict attendance policy](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/65857/how-to-deal-with-dramatic-drop-in-grade-due-to-strict-attendance-policy)
Do we want to allow these? If not, then what is the appropriate reason for closing? Would it be a good idea to add a new, specialized reason for closing questions such as these?<issue_comment>username_1: I think that it is a very case-by-case basis. Generally asking for commiseration is probably not interesting: we close a lot "My advisor is bad, right?" questions too.
On the other hand, a lot of these questions end up illuminating interesting aspects of pedagogy, giving a professor's eye view of a situation, or offering an interesting comparison of different approaches.
For example, the first question you list, on buggy code bases, I liked enough to answer myself, and think it has brought a number of other interesting answers too. I'm surprised that it was closed and have voted to reopen. Likewise, I see no issue with the second linked question that would make me feel it should be closed.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I disagree slightly with @username_1's answer. These questions, as posed, are almost always written as a rant, and [rants are not welcome here](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1140/what-is-a-rant-as-far-as-academia-se).
That said, *with edits*, these questions should stay. I am a big proponent of requiring the edit for the question to stay open, though... the unassuming reader would come to the conclusion that these questions are acceptable here, whereas we only really accept them because there's a hidden nugget of pedagogy to be explored.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: As username_2 stated, a rant is not allowed, but there can be legitimate questions about ethics/legality. For the buggy code question, interpreting it as "is it ethical for a professor of a course on X to have some issue that makes a lot of the coursework / grades being based on the ability to use/understand Y" is an interesting question that is worth discussion.
On the other hand, the attendance question is mostly a rant. There are related questions that can and should be asked. For example, [asking why some professors care about attendance is fine.](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/65868/why-do-some-instructors-care-so-much-about-attendance) Also asking about whether it's ethical or against (standard) university polices for a professor to base a certain amount of one's grade on attendance is fine. And even the question of should professors care about and grade student attendance is an interesting pedagogical question.
However, I don't think "How to deal with \_\_\_\_\_" questions should be allowed since they usually have standard answers. Did the professor break policy? Gather evidence and tell a higher authority. Was no policy broken? Talk to some friends, get some support, and try to do as well as you can given the situation you're in.
I don't know of a clear and concise way to put this distinction.
Upvotes: 0 |
2016/03/30 | 358 | 1,358 | <issue_start>username_0: This is a pretty uncommon scenario here, but it appears that [someone has posted what looks a lot like a homework question to the site](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/66007/73). The twist here is that the question itself is very relevant to the site, and if the OP would have put any effort into modifying the question to appear as if it was their own, we would never have noticed. Is there any issue with leaving this question open?<issue_comment>username_1: Personally, I say **leave it open**.
1. There's really no way to police this.
2. The question is interesting; removing it punishes ourselves.
3. This happens so rarely that doesn't really need a policy.
---
EDIT: I posted this before @ff524 found the exact question, along with answers, already online. Given that update, I'm a bit more hesitant... as @Strongbad says, we don't need to repost stuff from other sites just for the heck of it.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: As the question has been copied from some [APS material](https://www.aps.org/programs/education/ethics/upload/Ethics-Case-Studies-Student-Edition.pdf) and they [provide an answer](http://www.aps.org/programs/education/ethics/undergraduate/plagarism-discussion.cfm). I do not see a place for this particular question. It seems weird to just repost material from other sites.
Upvotes: 3 |
2016/04/09 | 1,417 | 5,301 | <issue_start>username_0: I've seen a lot of posts on here where someone is in a PhD programme, and they're very stressed and unhappy, and want to know if they should quit. Typically, there are a number of complicating factors, such as: They're away from home, and haven't made any friends yet AND they suffer from depression or panic attacks or some other mental health problem AND there's a sick relative or some other family situation that they're stressed about AND they're worried about money...
Usually these questions are closed because they aren't a good fit for our Q&A format. However, I think we could offer some useful general answers to a canonical question. E.g., address the mental health issue before making any big decisions, if possible; maybe see the student counselor; think about YOUR goals rather than just trying to please parents/advisors; realise that a PhD programme is very different than anything you've likely done before, so don't expect to feel comfortable in it for the first N months; try to think about each problem in isolation; consider a leave of absence; etc.
Here are some examples of the type of questions I'm talking about.
* [I want to quit PhD after 4 months. Should I?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/66563/i-want-to-quit-phd-after-4-months-should-i)
* [Leave of Absence from PHD](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/47443/leave-of-absence-from-phd)
* [Should I quit my PhD - workload, self-esteem and social life](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/39017/should-i-quit-my-phd-workload-self-esteem-and-social-life)
* [My PhD situation is giving me anxiety attacks. Is quitting (and losing 2 years) my only option?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/48552/my-phd-situation-is-giving-me-anxiety-attacks-is-quitting-and-losing-2-years)
* [Is feeling lonely and uncomfortable in my (foreign) country of study a valid reason to drop out of a PhD?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35352/is-feeling-lonely-and-uncomfortable-in-my-foreign-country-of-study-a-valid-rea)
* [I am currently debating whether to leave my PhD program- any advice](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9827/i-am-currently-debating-whether-to-leave-my-phd-program-any-advice)
---
I've created the question and provided an answer: [Should I quit my PhD?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/66846/should-i-quit-my-phd/66847#66847) Additional answers are welcome.<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, this sounds reasonable, and you seem to have enough material to write a good answer to your own question (which is encouraged on SE, when appropriate). Go for it!
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I think it is hard to provide a canonical answer to "should I quit". I am worried that it is such a personal question that the answer(s) will not help the majority of people and only lead to discussion in the comments.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_1: This deviates from normal StackExchange logic but I prefer to think of the question this way: the question is *going* to be asked. It's a very good question for anyone affected by it and people obviously google all sorts of questions, the trivial and the deep. I would prefer this community be charged with posting as nearly a comprehensive answer as possible to this question over anyone else.
I prefer this for all sorts of reasons:
* The alternative is letting people find their way to sites like, say, the Ph.D. Comics discussion forums, where I really don't think they're going to find a fair and balanced discussion of life as a continuing grad student. (I love the comic, but I've experienced the attitude you can get from having your head in it too much.)
* I *actually* think a thorough, well-written, well-vetted answer is possible. All you people make a professional career out of writing dense, comprehensive answers to hard questions. I know it's a broad question by StackExchange standards but have a little faith here.
* I generally like the Q/A format with decoupled upvotes and downvotes as well as the wiki style of the question.
* It *pulls in visitors.* This may be growth hack-ish but it's important. We're not trying to build a walled garden here.
* In the "real world" sense of "good question," it's a good question. Of course it's a good question - it faces people, it has real consequences, it can be thought through in a somewhat rigorous manner.
* It's 2016. People tend to google good questions they have.
* In my experience this community has had a pretty darn healthy worldview between "follow your dreams at all cost!" and "academia is part of the broader context of life, so let's take that seriously too." We have a [two-body-problem](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/two-body-problem "show questions tagged 'two-body-problem'") tag. We take both succeeding in academia and succeeding in life, whatever that means to "you" or the OP, seriously.
I'm glad we're discussing this seriously because StackExchange communities like StackOverflow have taken a draconian stance against open questions, and rightly so, for the natures of their communities and their scale. I think academia.SE is well positioned to put up a good answer to a big and hard question like this and will benefit for doing so.
Upvotes: 3 |
2016/04/13 | 544 | 2,132 | <issue_start>username_0: [According to this question,](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/66687/why-is-discrimination-based-on-citizenship-allowed-in-phd-funding-in-the-uk)
UK is not providing funding for international student, which is malicious and not true, all my advisory team, mentor and two co-mentors, all 3 of them, plus head of department and her husband, and other academic stuff in 50%, they finished PhD (with scholarship) inUK, and they are all from ASIA!!! country very close to Vietnam, I cannot believe in his words. Is he playing racist card? or political situation changed?<issue_comment>username_1: I would like to point out the problem that you do not know how many international students applied for these positions received by your colleagues who were rejected. You also have not clarified whether your colleagues are not funded through the university and I suspect you don't have a clue.
I *strongly* encourage you to not accuse someone of "playing the race card" when you admit you do not understand the situation at all.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The question says:
>
> Most of the funding I applied for were strictly 'UK/EU citizens only', and it is rare to have full funding for international students. I have applied to a lot of places, and received a lot of responses in the form of "... you are a good match, but I don't have funding for overseas students...".
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then goes on to ask why it is considered acceptable to limit some sources of PhD funding to its own or EU citizens.
The OP never claims that "UK is not providing funding for international student" as you seem to believe, so the fact that some international students complete funded PhDs in the UK does not contradict any claims in the question. The OP says only that in his experience, there is less funding available to applicants who are not UK/EU citizens.
If you have some reliable (not anecdotal) data showing that the ratio of available funding to PhD applicants is identical for UK/EU students and non-UK/EU students, by all means, please provide that data. I suspect that you do not.
Upvotes: 3 |
2016/04/13 | 1,368 | 5,086 | <issue_start>username_0: In my mind, this [comment](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/66824/is-there-any-obligation-for-authors-of-a-paper-to-provide-the-dataset-used-in-th#comment161781_66824)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/CcQFI.png)
is suggesting that gender specific terms should be avoided. I do not know how the community feels. The comment itself was flagged by a user as offensive (which seems extreme to me). Are terms like "man-hours" acceptable, or should we be holding ourselves to a higher standard?<issue_comment>username_1: I think using many gender specific terms like "man-hours" is fine.
We should strive to use the more gender neutral ones where we can (e.g., "firefighter" over "fireman"), but I don't think we need to explicitly avoid words that are well understood and are normally not considered to be offensive.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Gendered terms are bad, but I don't think we have adequate tools at hand for policing or otherwise creating a culture change for this. If you are reading this, I would suggest you refrain from using them totally ("man-hours", "he" when unspecified, "you guys", etc.), but I don't believe there's much more for anyone to do other than leading by example. I'm open to ideas though.
As for why I think gendered terms are bad: I do not say man-hours. There are women on my team. It is quite simply an incorrect term and I'm pedantic enough of a grammarian to end the question right there. Many in industry go through unconscious bias training where we experience the physical cognitive strain that comes in connecting "woman" and "scientist" in the same sentence (the number of people who feel no such strain is frighteningly small). Hofstadter's [satire paper on the argument](https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html) is the best evidence I know that gendered pronouns and default terms are harmful. I really can't write a conventional persuasive argument on the topic better than he illustrates it in this satirically-voiced essay, so I simply won't.
How much vigilante policing we should do via comments is another question, and I think the answer is not much. I would actually really like to hear a solution that helps us de-gender our Q&A besides comments that tend to pester and look more like (or are just indistinguishable from) trolling. The status quo is a bit unfortunate, but I don't see the available tools for policing being productive at all.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I am in favor of encouraging clarity above all else, and leaving other matters of language and style up to the author of the post.
As long as the language of the post is clear and it is consistent with the [be nice policy](https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/be-nice), we should let authors express themselves as they prefer. If you don't like gender-specific terms or pronouns, don't use them in your own posts, but don't insist that others refrain from using them.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: Given the increasing acceptance of "[singular they](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they)," there are very few places where using a gendered term is actually necessary. Furthermore, I do think that avoiding them is good practice for an inclusive community, as otherwise we are contributing with no good reason to the still-quite-strong ["men are the default"](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MenAreGenericWomenAreSpecial) environment.
Of course, when one is talking about a *specific* person where the gender is known, it's always appropriate to use that person's preferred pronoun.
As for how to approach is as a community: I would recommend treating unnecessary gendering just like we do blatant grammatical errors. If you notice it, edit to fix; no special criticism necessary.
Thus, if you run into a sentence like:
>
> Somebody can told me figuring how many man-hours project need?
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>
just change it to a better one like:
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> Can somebody tell me how to figure out how many person-hours a project needs?
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to fix it and move on.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_5: "man-hours" is not actually gender specifc. "man" is synonymous to "person", "worker" here.
Think about "mankind". That's everybody.
Imagine a female firefighter saying "I'm not a fireman!" as if it were an insult. Half her colleagues will feel slightly insulted. Fat lot of good that'll do for gender equality.
It's even worse in languages like French or German, where the "feminists" put a female form with gender-specific article next to the old one with a male *grammatical* gender. Now no macho captain has to suffer that a female can carry the same title, because she's not a "Kapitän", she's a "Kapitänin"!
Congratulations, you've made it *easy* for people to be sexist.
How can I, as a male, stand up for women's equality, say that it *doesn't matter* in professional life, when all the time people come up with new vocabulary that cements differences? Honestly, I'm rather fed up with it.
Upvotes: 1 |
2016/04/22 | 781 | 3,133 | <issue_start>username_0: A remarkable point of this community is that it makes people realize that [*academia varies more than you think it does*](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1212/20058).
One of these variations is the structure of the different education levels. While the PhD level has a somehow clearly distinguishable character everywhere, the structural difference between the Bachelor's level, which counts as undergraduate education, and the Master's level, which counts as graduate education, might be more fuzzy.
In many European countries, before the [Bologna process](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna_Process), there was not really such a thing as an undergraduate education: you would have studied for 4-5 years straight and got a Master's, without getting any Bachelor's.
After the Bologna process, many things have changed, but in several cases the way in which education is organized at the Bachelor's and Master's levels is exactly the same. Master's courses are just more advanced, and you don't get an advisor until the very end, when, once exams are almost completed, you start working on your Master's thesis.
Thus, from my point of view, most of the undergraduate questions are automatically generalizable to graduate education at the Master's level. If a student asks about something that happens in a course, there's no difference whether this course is at the Bachelor's or at the Master's level.
What kind of undergraduate questions are not really generalizable to graduate education then? *How can we draw a universal line?*<issue_comment>username_1: I think questions on undergraduate admission exams (e.g., SAT and ACT) and application process (e.g., US common application and UK UCAS) are not generalizable.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I agree with <NAME> about the similarity between Masters and undergrad courses, but I disagree with what's off-topic. I think a more important question isn't so much the difference between undergraduate and graduate, but what constitutes academia.
>
> This site is for academics of all levels—from aspiring graduate and professional students to senior researchers—as well as anyone in or interested in research-related or research-adjacent fields. ([What topics can I ask about](https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic))
>
>
>
It looks like academia is primarily defined by research, not taking classes. I personally think any course-related questions that don't have to do with research or admissions to a research position are off-topic.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: Going by [this answer](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1363/7734), questions specific to undergraduate life (“sports, underage drinking, living in dorms, being able to make your own choices for the first time, etc.”) should be off-topic.
Admittedly there isn’t such a thing as a specific *undergraduate life* in many countries (including mine), but that’s not really a problem, as this also means that there are no questions to ask about it – not that we get many questions about undergraduate life at all.
Upvotes: 3 |
2016/04/29 | 205 | 814 | <issue_start>username_0: There's a new tag called `wetlab`. There seems to be only one (but rather popular) post tagged with this tag. I don't suppose it could generalise to any other question asked so far in Academia.SE.
Is such a tag necessary?<issue_comment>username_1: Personally, I do not find that the tag 'wetlab' is necessary. A main point of a tag is to be able to search through questions more easily. I'm not sure that a future searcher would necessarily link that question with 'wetlab' which could more easily be applied to chemistry (for example).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I think the wetlab tag is useful or might become so in the future if this site gets more attention in the natural sciences circles.
Besides, I don't think it's hurting the site in anyways to keep it.
Upvotes: 2 |
2016/05/03 | 1,799 | 6,969 | <issue_start>username_0: A few weeks ago I have asked a question that I believe is about a major challenge that academia faces today and will increasingly face in the future (I deleted it since then because of the reactions it got):
[How can we fight junk science? [closed]](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/64840/how-can-we-fight-junk-science)
The question was closed as unclear but I think that question is pretty clear and there are some answer-worthy comments with very practical points.
Is there a political correctness component or something else that I'm missing?<issue_comment>username_1: I think there might well be a good question in there, but right now, it's way too broad and poorly defined. Some issues that I see are:
* It's not clear whether the question can be *answered* per se, or whether in the current state of the world it's more a matter of discussion, debate, and experiment. This makes it like an "I would like to have a discussion about..." question, which of course are off topic.
* The definition of the focus is very broad:
>
> "junk science I mean pseudo-science (i.e. work done with flawed or frivolous methodology), deliberately faked results, and generally very low quality research"
>
>
>
The issue that I have here is that pseudo-science, fraud, and general boring crap appear to arise in different ways, and attempting to address them all together is extremely complex.
* The motivation of the question is unclear. Are you more concerned about punishing "bad scientists" or being able to find what you're looking for or about some sort of general societal collapse?
I would thus suggest this might be best addressed not as a single question, but as a collection of more focused questions that tease out particular aspects of the more general topic that are narrow enough to possibly be answerable.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Because it's so broad and vague. It could mean one, some or all of sixty things:
1. how can we individually avoid committing bad science?
2. how can academics avoid... peers committing bad science?
3. ... their department committing bad science?
4. ... their university committing bad science?
5. ... fellow members of professional societies committing bad science?
6. how can we *advocate* for doing some/all of the above?
Your question also mutates. You start by saying a) *"junk journals and articles... pompous titles, pay-to-publish [etc.]"* but then you say b) *"by junk science I mean pseudo-science (i.e. work done with flawed or frivolous methodology), deliberately faked results, and generally very low quality research"*.
These are each very different things, some of which have no answers, some of which have clear well-known answers. There will always be bad or VLQ research. Peer-review can prevent people publishing e.g. bad physics in recognized physics journals, but it totally can't prevent people splintering off and forming a new field/journal/conference. Grant applications are another thing too, and each grant source has different criteria, levels of rigor, punishment for bad behavior (or lack of). (Peer-review is not perfect either: it's slow, political, fallible and ridden with cliques.)
"Deliberately faked results" constitutes academic fraud, but it's comparatively rare, and I submit to you that many papers simply **have no results at all**, which is again bad but in a different, passive, way, since it obscures scientific method - unless they're review papers, which they're generally not. There is no shortage of such papers, in most fields.
There are also authors who crank out 10+ papers on essentially the exact same finding - would you call that VLQ? Then again, given reject rates and unpredictable backlogs, who can blame them...?
"Pay-to-publish" is again bad in a different way, not per se, but because it sidesteps peer review, disclosure, replicability, standard use of terminology, which are again all cornerstones of scientific method, so it generally results in a tsunami of crap, and cliques who manufacture plausibility by citing each other.
So, you asked at least sixty different and contradictory questions. The tl;dr is clearly we can't prevent someone setting up the Abkhazia Open Institute of Antigravity and spewing out junk, but we can monitor and publicize any misdeeds, and try to limit them getting access to serious funding. But you knew that already. There is no blunt hammer to prevent the rest of the things you list. Wherever there are economic incentives, however slight, people will respond to them...
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I think the answer [you wrote somewhere else](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/3253/452) applies here as well:
>
> The voting rules aren't very strict (as opposed to closing for
> example) but I don't think the fact that a question is hard to answer
> is a reason to down-vote. A question should "show research effort be
> useful and clear" to warrant an up-vote but it's also a matter of
> personal interests.
>
>
> I don't think that the issue with the questions you mention is that
> they are "hard" but rather that they look very much like advertisement
> for your opinions and pet peeves\* that you tried too hard to make look
> like questions.
>
>
> My guess is that some users doubt that you genuinely think there are
> possible answers that would fit this site's format but rather hope for
> extended discussions in comments supporting your opinion.
>
>
> Sometimes the click-bait works and you gather many votes, sometimes
> it's too obnoxious and the opinionated undertone triggers down-votes.
>
>
>
>
> ---
>
>
> \*Ok, so you dislike that some people pay to read articles. We get it.
>
>
> Ps. Many of your other questions are fine in my opinion.
>
>
>
I think that your question on junk science is much more important than the vast majority of questions on this Stack Exchange website. However, my own experience in posting questions and getting >100 of downvotes is that questions pertaining to improving the research system are often not well received.
I wish questions on the research system were posted on a different Stack Exchange.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: After reading it, I can tell you exactly why.
According to the article "[What questions can't I ask here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask)" in the help menu, there's this powerful quote:
>
> To prevent your question from being flagged and possibly removed, avoid asking subjective questions where …
>
>
> * .. [four others removed] ..
> * your question is just a rant in disguise: “\_\_\_\_\_\_ sucks, am I right?”
>
>
>
Simply put, your question is a rant in disguise which is specifically on the do-not-ask list.
That's not to say the thing you're ranting about isn't a problem. But the question that is linked here doesn't appear to be a answerable question (at least, not in this venue.)
Upvotes: 2 |
2016/05/08 | 391 | 1,419 | <issue_start>username_0: Sometimes, malicious (usually new) users post
* a question that is obviously not about a real situation or even a hypothetical situation that the asker is honestly interested in (note that I am not talking about [possibly made-up clickbait](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/q/2085/7734) but more blatant examples such as [this one](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/q/3293/7734) or worse);
* an answer that technically addresses the question but is obviously not honest advice, but intentionally bad advice.
How should I deal with such posts or posts that I strongly suspect to fall in the above category?<issue_comment>username_1: * If you are sure, [flag as abusive](https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/58032/255554) (it’s abusing our site) and move on. [Do not downvote.](https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/193916/255554) [Do not engage.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll) Six *abusive* flags will automatically delete the post and impose some bans on the poster. These flags will also alert the moderators (having highest priority). Under most circumstances this is the fastest way to get rid of the post.
* If you only suspect, flag for moderator attention. Flag for closure or deletion as appropriate.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Also downvote so that the questions or answers get moved to the review queue for faster handling.
Upvotes: -1 |
2016/05/09 | 754 | 3,112 | <issue_start>username_0: [One of our community promotion ads](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/2158/10643) redirects to a website listing people who have strong opinions against a publisher. This ad pops up frequently on the homepage, alternating with useful, fun and politically neutral ads, and could give the impression that a majority of users of this site endorse these opinions. Only experienced users know that a very low threshold of up-votes will trigger these ads to show up.
Notwithstanding the fact that I don't think it's helpful to anyone to gather academics to that cause, I think it might tarnish the reputation of users of this site who sometimes use their real names. Especially early career academics certainly don't need that kind of negative publicity.
**Should we really use our SE for this kind of promotion?**
---
Note: I'm looking for answers on the generic issue, not for posts or comments trying to convince me said website is the only thing that stands between civilization and obscurantism. I have already endured hours of vociferous campaigning along that line.<issue_comment>username_1: To me the best ads are for web resources which I would want to visit many times. This means that I think "product" ads (e.g., the one for [Zotero](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/2151/929)) and "political" ads (e.g., the one for the [Elsevier Boycott](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/2158/929)) are not particularly useful. The issue is the static and one-off nature of the material. Having ads be to unchanging webpages (e.g., political blog posts, new articles, or products) which you can digest fully in a single reading seems strange to me.
That said, if the product and political ads point to something that is important to academics (and in the case of political ads, regardless of which side the ad one supports), then I think they are fine to let the community decide on.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The whole point of ads on this site is to allow the community to advertise what they, collectively, find useful and relevant. I disagree with your "low vote threshold" comment... the ten-vote threshold on meta for a site like ours is a pretty steep requirement, as the vast majority of our users don't visit meta, ever. For an ad to have accumulated ten votes meant that a non-negligible subset of the *active* community agrees with that ad.
As such, I think your question is somewhat rhetorical; clearly, the community feels that we *should* use the site to advance these types of arguments.
However, if you feel differently, you are welcome to campaign against the ad through a meta post. This question seems somewhat broad ("Should our ads involve political content"), which seems to have been your intention given the "edit to add" blurb. However, a question specifically asking about this ad ("Should we allow that particular ad") would give you a chance to voice your concerns very directly and allow for discussion on that ad specifically, and possibly drive others to downvote it and thereby remove it from the rotation.
Upvotes: 3 |
2016/05/11 | 891 | 3,648 | <issue_start>username_0: Higher ed systems differ quite substantially between countries, and we have country tags like [united-states](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/united-states "show questions tagged 'united-states'") or [germany](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/germany "show questions tagged 'germany'"), which serve to indicate questions that are *specific* to certain countries.
[Workplace.SE](https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions) is in a similar position. [It has recently been suggested there to make country tags visually distinct](https://workplace.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3631/should-we-make-country-tags-visually-distinct), essentially so answerers actually see that the question is specific and don't jump in with answers that may not apply to the specific country asked about. The current top-voted answer suggests adding a stylized globe to Workplace country tags.
Question: should we also (try to) make country tags visually distinct? If so, which design would be useful?
---
*Edit*: At Workplace, [StrongBad notes that this would also apply to other SE sites](https://workplace.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3631/should-we-make-country-tags-visually-distinct?noredirect=1#comment9175_3631), and anyway, [it would require SE development work](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/3328/4140). So I have [asked the general question about visually enhancing country tags at Meta](https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/279254/256777), linking here. We could still use this thread to discuss whether we would want to actually use such a feature if it is implemented.<issue_comment>username_1: This is something that has to be taken up with Stack Exchange paid staff—this is not something that we as moderators or individual community members can change. So if there is a consensus to request that they do so, we can bring it up with them.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I m not sure this is a big issue for us. Further, you can only make so many tag stand out. I think more often people ignore the "field" tag (e.g., math or history) than the country tag. If we were only going to highlight one type of tag, field might be more important. I am not sure how I feel about highlighting multiple types of tags.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: If the question is specific to one country or field, that should be included in the question title, or at least in the body. This will be more noticeable than the appearance of a tag, and would make modification of the tags unnecessary.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: In my opinion, I don't think this would be such a useful feature. For two reasons.
1. If the target location is not the US, UK or some other country that is well-known for its institutions, it might lead to too many specialised requests and not enough people to answer them. In other words, potential answer-writers might not consider a question because they can see it does not apply to the country that they have experience with.
2. I think the separation is unnecessary and that many answers to questions that DO mention the country and field, still refer to another country, such as "I know you ask about country X, but in country Y it is usually the case that..." which can be relevant, informative and even help the OP simply by widening the horizon.
I feel I have benefited from reading about the different fields and situations that have differing norms. Introducing country tags would try to tackle the problem of people asking unclear questions- I am not convinced that these users would then go and use country tags.
Upvotes: 1 |
2016/06/12 | 422 | 1,797 | <issue_start>username_0: Imagine a graduate student who is struggling to complete a thesis. The subject of his/her thesis is a relatively new subject in the field and is yet to be discussed widely. It even lacks a scientific model.
Is it alright for him/her to turn to Academia.SE to ask for guidance on where to begin the research.
Is it OK for him/her to ask for resources?<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, questions about the *process* of doing research are allowed, while questions about the *content* of your research are not allowed. When you ask about the process of performing graduate level research, this will be applicable to many newcomers who may have the same question. Questions about the content of your research will be of little value to most people, and this is the type of question to work with your advisor.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Going by your description I find it quite likely that your question is a typical off-topic question. However, without knowing your question, it’s impossible to be sure and there is a small chance (let’s say 10 %) that your question is a good fit for this site. Even then, I consider it very likely that you will obtain better results by asking your supervisor.
Please consider the following:
* If your question requires any knowledge about your specific field, it is off-topic.
* Question on this site should be requests for information. If your question is asking for a decision, it is not a good fit for this site. So, instead of asking “Where should I begin?”, rather ask, e.g.,: “What are possible approaches?”
* If your question can be expected to have plenty of answers, it is too broad. “What are possible approaches?” is very likely to fall into this category, if you do not narrow it down.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer] |
2016/06/15 | 623 | 2,481 | <issue_start>username_0: There are a number of questions related to Brexit on this site. I have lots of questions related to Brexit, but I don't ask them because nobody can answer them. I propose we close those questions, because:
* Although the electorate voted to leave the European Union, it is still not formally certain that Brexit will happen.
* *Nobody* knows yet what will happen now that the referendum resulted Brexit.
Therefore, any answer to such questions is speculation at best and giving false hopes/promises at worst.
Some affected questions:
* [Could Brexit negatively affect PhD students in the UK who are EU nationals?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/71304/could-brexit-affect-negatively-phd-students-in-uk)
* [How would the UK leaving the EU affect academia and PhD admission?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/64963/how-would-the-uk-leaving-the-eu-affect-academia-and-phd-admission)<issue_comment>username_1: There is a high frequency of questions that ask "How can I best navigate some future event?" most of which are perfectly acceptable to answer despite people needing to account for an inordinate number of unpredictable variables.
"How do I best apply for school."
"How do I best respond to so and so."
All of those types of questions would ideally require a knowledge of the people involved at least but people still answer them based on, at best, a bit of data generalized to an almost entirely unknown situation.
Estimating the exact impact of a global, national, or local economic trends is no easier than estimating the exact impact of a global, national, or local interpersonal trend. Brexit at least has a news cycle that can update the question. But this forum isn't designed to keep people current, it is designed to entomb information and then is misapplied to things that are changeable.
If you are trying to form some sort of consistency then no keep it open, or block both. If you are going to on a whim block things that appear too frequently, then sure, but it shouldn't be on the pretense that they are unanswerable.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: The questions may not be answerable now, but they will be answerable in the future. Leave them open, maybe with an answer or comment that we don't know yet, and then they can be answered when the time comes that the answer is available.
Article 50 has been triggered and the process of figuring out the answers has formally begun.
Upvotes: 3 |
2016/07/05 | 518 | 2,085 | <issue_start>username_0: I don't understand what the following question got closed as too broad. It simply asks for some studies on a specific question. Since no close voter left a comment regarding the "too broad" issue, I am asking here.
---
[Research studies covering the reasons why faculty applicants accept or reject academic jobs?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/72300/452)
>
> Is there any research/study/survey that tried to quantify the reasons why faculty applicants accepted or rejected academic jobs that have been proposed to them? (e.g., location, salary, the current faculty, college ranking)
>
>
> I am mostly interested in the United States and the field of computer science, but curious about other countries and fields as well.
>
>
>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/SvRBA.png)<issue_comment>username_1: It seems the title 'what are the reasons why faculty applicants accept or reject academic jobs' is too broad to be answerable in the SE format, however, the question asked by Franck 'is there research study that determines why applicants accept or reject academic position that have been proposed to them' is quite answerable. I have edited the title to be more specific, and I suggest the question to be re-opened.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: A key reason that I voted to close is that the question did not show evidence of research, per <NAME>'s comment. This is an incredibly broad topic, and as the help page says:
>
> Your questions should be reasonably scoped. If you can imagine an entire book that answers your question, you’re asking too much.
>
>
>
Did you try plugging in some related terms on Google Scholar, like Bill suggested? It certainly seemed to me that there were some useful possibilities in the literature that came back from a simple keyword search. If you didn't find that literature useful, what was unsatisfying to you about the results that came back? That might help narrow things down enough to be meaningfully reopened.
Upvotes: 2 |
2016/07/05 | 722 | 3,113 | <issue_start>username_0: I provided an answer to this question ['Consequences for publishing final version PDF, in violation of publisher policies?'](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/72321/consequences-for-publishing-final-version-pdf-in-violation-of-publisher-policie) which was closed for being a duplicate of this question: ['How often do publishers sue researchers for copyright infringement for putting their articles on a personal website?'](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/51941/how-often-do-publishers-sue-researchers-for-copyright-infringement-for-putting-t) I believe we can reopen the first question for the following reasons:
* Question 1 asks a more general question while Question 2 asks specifically about copyright infringement.
* Question 2 is specifically about a specific action, authors being sued for copyright infringement, while question 1 is much more general
* Question 2 is about publishing specifically on Author's personal website, while Question 1 is much more generally about publishing online (author's website, but also online repositories such as academia.edu, researchgate and ArXiv.org)
I believe for these reasons, Question 1 should be re-opened and my question is now focused when this type of situation arises.
My Question: If an answer is located within a 'closed' question for being a duplicate, should the member delete the answer in the duplicate question and relocate the answer (perhaps modified) in the first accepted question?<issue_comment>username_1: You're not *required* to do anything with your answer. You got it in before the question was closed, fair and square, and if the community really didn't want anyone answering that question they should have been quicker to close it as a duplicate. But it is in the best interest of the site if answers are placed on the "original" questions as much as possible.
With that in mind, I'd suggest the following: if you believe the question isn't a duplicate, make your case for reopening it by going through the usual channels. Offer counterarguments in the comments (to a limited extent), discuss on chat, and post on meta if you think it's really egregious. If, in the end, you don't win that argument, you should accept that the question is going to stay closed as a duplicate. In that case, it would be *nice* (though not mandatory) if you remove your answer to the duplicate and post the equivalent answer to the original question.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: In my mind the process is as follows. Post a question on meta or chat to make a case for why the question is not a duplicate. This is essentially what you have done here. If the community feels the question should remain closed, a mod can merge the new answers into the old question. If you want two questions merged, flag the question for moderator attention.
We don't merge that often (I don't think I ever have) and I think it might be irreversible. This will keep the vote totals and revision history intact. If we decline to merge the answers, then you can provide an answer on the other question.
Upvotes: 2 |
2016/07/06 | 1,844 | 7,642 | <issue_start>username_0: What advice do you have for users who have just discovered the edit capability? What makes a "good edit" on Academia.SE?
*Note: I have made one suggestion per answer, so that people can vote on them individually. This way we can measure (to some degree) how strongly the community feels about each of these.*<issue_comment>username_1: ### Fix *all* the problems in the post
Try to fix everything that is wrong with the question all at once. For example, if you are editing a question to fix a grammar error, also check if maybe some tags are not applied correctly and remove those, remove [thanks and greetings](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1621/thank-you-sentences-and-greetings-under-posts-should-they-be-edited), etc. (See the [help center](https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/edit)). If the author of the post has provided new information in the comments that is necessary to answer the question, incorporate that information into the post with your edits.
If you notice that people are making further edits to posts you have edited, try to learn from them for the future to see what else you could have done. Definitely be careful not to introduce new errors!
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_1: ### Make posts better, but don't impose your personal style
Usually we try to leave style up to the author of the post, and edit mainly for spelling/grammar, clarity, and readability (e.g. break up walls of text).
If you have a preferred style for your own posts, that's great, but it's not necessary to impose that on other users' posts.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_1: ### Edits bump posts
Keep in mind that edits bump posts back to the front page. It's not a big deal to bump recent posts, and also not a big deal to bump old posts if it's only a few.
But if you ever have the urge to edit 100 old posts all at once, it's probably a good idea to ask about it on meta first. Many users don't like when the front page is full of old questions that were bumped for some minor edits.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_1: ### Suggested edits by editors with <2k rep
If you have less than 2k rep, all of your edits have to be reviewed by multiple reviewers. Also, further edits to the post are blocked until your edit has been reviewed and either applied or rejected.
That is another reason not to suggest a huge number of edits all at once, and to make an effort to fix everything that is wrong with the post in one edit, since we have a limited number of active reviewers. If you're suggesting lots of edits to old posts and the review queue backs up as a result, that might mean that more urgent edits to new posts aren't being reviewed.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_1: ### Avoid edits to "on hold" questions that will *never* be reopened
Editing a post that is "on hold" pushes it into a review queue for reopening.
If you make cosmetic edits to a post that is "on hold" and is irredeemable (is inherently off topic for the site and won't be reopened), then it just wastes reviewer time: people have to review your edits if you have less than 2k rep, *and* people have to review the post for reopening even though the edits don't fix the reason that the post was closed.
(See [this meta post](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1226/editing-weak-questions-that-are-closed-for-being-off-topic-without-resolving-t) for more details.)
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: ### Leave the problems you're not certain how to fix alone.
If a post has multiple things wrong with it, some may be easier to fix than others. Fix only the problems that you are certain that you have a good solution to, and leave the others for later.
Doing this makes an incremental improvement and easy approval. If your edits stretch too far, however, it can make a mess of good and bad improvements that is difficult for reviewers to sort out and your entire edit may be rejected.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: ### Be aware of culturally different spellings and word usages
It is well known that there are different, but correct, spellings for certain words. Examples are *color* and *colour*, *behaviour* and *behavior*, *analyse* and *analyze*. An editor should not change the author's version of the spellings to their own.
However, it may be acceptable to make the spellings consistent with one form if it is clear the author can't spell; but you should be confident with spelling in American, British or Canadian etc.
Culturally variant vocabulary is more difficult, and to avoid the semantic differences in words between readers it can be helpful to stick to a more academic style of writing. As this is Academia.SE we should be able to use language forms that might be acceptable in a disertation or journal paper. This often avoids those semantic variations that occur in more casual language.
If an article already contains typos and other errors, formalising the language may improve its universal readability.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Add Missing Body Questions
==========================
Sometimes, an asker will put a question in a title, but never actually put the question in the body, treating the two as though they were a single piece of prose.
For readability, it is best that both the title and the body be able to stand alone. Thus, it is good practice to add such a "missing body question" into the beginning of the body.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_1: ### Don't engage in edit wars
If your edit is rolled back (either by the original author of the post or another user), *don't* get in an [edit war](https://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/03/the-great-edit-wars/).
* If the edit is minor, let it go.
* If the edit is substantial and you think the user may have reverted your edit accidentally, or without understanding why you have made it, you can leave a comment explaining your position and asking for clarification.
* If the edit is important, you have left a comment, and the issue still has not been resolved, you can raise a flag asking for a moderator to take a look.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Don't edit; ask questions or make suggestions
---------------------------------------------
I generally prefer not to edit other people's posts, so as not to inadvertently change their meaning/nuances and because I have better things to do. If something is unclear, or I have a suggestion, I generally just make it in comments (though the OP does not always address this). This is not a blanket rule--I don't literally mean no one should edit anyone else's posts (I've occasionally edited posts of new users)--it can be more efficient/effective for an experienced/insightful user to edit rather than the original author. But if you're not sure of what you're doing, use comments and let the OP or someone more experienced edit if they think it's necessary.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_4: Leave a comment about your significant (particularly uncertain) edits
---------------------------------------------------------------------
If you made a significant edit, particularly if you're not sure if you've preserved the author's meaning, leave a comment for the author saying what you did, possibly asking if it's what they meant. This may make the author more appreciative of your edits and mitigate reactions like this: [Why can another user edit my answer to a completely different content without my review or permission?](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1828/why-can-another-user-edit-my-answer-to-a-completely-different-content-without-my?rq=1)
Upvotes: 3 |
2016/07/12 | 344 | 1,366 | <issue_start>username_0: What is our stance on questions asking about MOOCs? Are they on-topic or off-topic?
To put it otherwise, are MOOCs regarded as part of academia by this Stack Exchange community? (or do you prefer to wait a few years before?)<issue_comment>username_1: It depends on what the question is about. Questions asking about pedagogy, organization, and similar matters that aren't course-specific are fine. Questions that are too closely tied to a given course are probably not, as would be questions that are platform-specific. ("How do I enable feature X in course Y?" is probably not appropriate.)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: In my view, MOOCs are services that are sometimes used in academia and sometimes used in a totally non-academic context (e.g. for self study for fun, for training in the workplace.)
I consider questions that are directly relevant to those using MOOCs in higher education to be on topic. I **don't** consider questions about MOOCs outside the context of academia or academic people to be on topic.
This seems consistent with the community history here. For example, [is it possible to master one topic by starting with a MOOC course?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/16969/is-it-possible-to-master-one-topic-by-starting-with-a-mooc-course) was closed by the community for this reason.
Upvotes: 2 |
2016/07/14 | 732 | 2,877 | <issue_start>username_0: Should the "Black Nodes Matter" question, which mocks the Black Lives Matter protesters, be removed?
Here's the link:
[Is it appropriate to make a pun that references a highly charged topic in current events, in a lecture on an unrelated subject?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/72764/when-discussing-red-black-trees-in-lecture-is-it-appropriate-to-use-the-phrase)<issue_comment>username_1: There are three main paths by which a question can be deleted.
* Flags: If a question receives enough spam or abusive flags, the community bot will automatically delete the question and feed the spam/abusive detection algorithms. While this question is not spam, the [abusive flag](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/234032/why-dont-we-treat-rubbish-the-same-as-spam/234035#234035) can be used for trolling. The question has only received a single abusive flag, which is not enough to trigger the community bot.
* Delete votes: Users with enough rep can vote to [delete questions](https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/5222/209097) when the question has either been closed for long enough or is sufficiently down voted. The question in question, is has neither received enough down votes nor been closed long enough for users to delete the question
* Moderators: Moderators can unilaterally delete a question. We tend to try not to do this and let the community take care of things, but sometimes we need to step in. That said, during the [mod elections](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/990/2014-moderator-election-qa-questionnaire) we were asked about our thoughts on unilaterally deleting things. All the elected mods basically said *let the community decide*, so we tend to be conservative when deleting things.
As for why I haven't deleted the question. I did not see the question prior to it being closed. It was closed by 5 high rep users rather quickly. The question only has a single flag and there are not a large number of comments. I think the community is handling the issue well and there is no need for a moderator to step in at this point.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I think the question shows utter incompetence as a lecturer, but it's a valid question and should not be removed because I've had lecturers who were actually this socially incompetent, and as such it's a legitimate question. Hopefully someone will learn from some of the excellent answers it's attracting.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: *Converted from a comment on the main site question (which I now have deleted):*
I am European so I probably know very little about this movement and the controversies that surround it, but I am strongly against the deletion of this question. In my view, merely discussing a topic in a civil way should never be censored because someone finds it offensive.
Upvotes: 4 |
2016/07/14 | 1,159 | 4,075 | <issue_start>username_0: On the sidebar of this page, just now I saw 3 of the 6 "hot topics" were about "appropriateness" or "offensiveness" (image attached).
A search in this site for questions containing "methodologies" returned 539 results. "Appropriate" returned 2,397 results. "New research" was behind "appropritate" by 3 questions.
Have education and academics taken second place to something that tends to repress and stifle the free exchange of learning and ideas? If so, how to restore free exchange?
If not, what is the explanation for this apparent unbalance in discussions among academics?
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/RPyyN.gif)
**EDIT**
*A commenter pointed out that the screen shot was of "related questions" not of "hot network questions". My bad - this would explain the high number of articles about "offensive" and "appropriate" in the image, since the question I was looking at contained this vocabulary.*<issue_comment>username_1: This site does not show what is a priority among academics because "the content of your research" is off-topic here.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Note that a lot of the questions containing the word "appropriate" have nothing to do with things that could "repress and stifle the free exchange of learning and ideas".
For example,
* [What is appropriate number of keywords for conference paper?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/49093/what-is-appropriate-number-of-keywords-for-conference-paper)
* [How to decide the appropriate level of explanation for math in academic papers?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/37947/how-to-decide-the-appropriate-level-of-explanation-for-math-in-academic-papers)
* [How to find out the terms used for a topic, so that I can find the appropriate literature on it?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28633/how-to-find-out-the-terms-used-for-a-topic-so-that-i-can-find-the-appropriate-l)
* [Help picking an appropriate citing style](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19237/help-picking-an-appropriate-citing-style)
Also, you wrote
>
> A search in this site for questions containing "methodologies" returned 539 results. "Appropriate" returned 2,397 results. "New research" was behind "appropritate" by 3 questions.
>
>
>
But on [my search](https://academia.stackexchange.com/search?page=2&tab=relevance&q=is%3aquestion%20%22appropriate%22), "appropriate" returned only 597 questions. I suspect you were searching across all posts (including answers), not only questions.
Regarding the sidebar, as pointed out in a [comment](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3391/does-an-unbalanced-focus-on-appropriateness-and-offensiveness-suggest-educat#comment10019_3391):
>
> Which sidebar? I see only two on my account: "related questions" and "hot network questions". Given that I see only academia.se questions in your screenshot, I assume you are speaking about the first. But, of course, those include only topics related to what you are browsing at the moment, so it is normal that you see there only appropriateness-related questions if you are viewing an appropriateness-relating one. This is by design
>
>
>
In other words, the "evidence" you supply in support of your claim that there is an unbalanced focus on "appropriateness" and "offensiveness" is based on a flawed methodology.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: People tend to focus on the wrong, the crime, more than the average, the normal.
That's the normal psychology, not anything wrong.
But sometimes, it does make trouble.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Questions about appropriateness or offensiveness fit in with [Parkinson's law of triviality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality). Everyone can have an opinion on what's appropriate or offensive, even if they're not otherwise interested in academia.
It probably "helps" that one of them is about sexuality (the dress one), and one of them is about a hot political topic in the US.
Upvotes: 2 |
2016/07/30 | 1,161 | 4,356 | <issue_start>username_0: Is a "*What are the attitudes of academics towards X?*" question on or off -topic?
The question in question:
[What are the social norms associated with stealing free coffee?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/73477/what-are-the-social-norms-associated-with-stealing-free-coffee)
OP says:
>
> Note: I'm not 100% sure that this belongs on Academia Stack Exchange, but this is not a question about the ethics of stealing coffee; I am interested specifically in the attitudes of academics towards stealing free food.
>
>
>
To me this question seemed off-topic and I flagged it as such, as per
>
> The fundamental rule is you can't just stick "for programmers" on a question to make it programming related.
>
>
> At the time, SO had a lot of questions that were, essentially, "What is as a good such-and-such for programmers?" (e.g. "What is your favourite food, as a programmer?", "What is the best movie for programmers?") After a long debate on the SO blog (since Meta didn't exist at the time) it was eventually decided that all questions like this are not programming related.
>
>
>
in [What is the boat programming meme about?](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/14470/what-is-the-boat-programming-meme-about)
but what do others think?<issue_comment>username_1: I voted to close the coffee question because:
* It is not specific to academia and in fact none of the answers found an academia-specific angle to answer that question. All the ethical considerations can be equally translated to other contexts.
* Apart from the title, the question is essentially a poll, which are not a good fit for Stack Exchange in general:
+ >
> So, how do you think people judge the stealing of free food, and how have you formed these perceptions?
>
>
>
+ >
> I am interested specifically in the attitudes of academics towards stealing free food.
>
>
>
+ >
> […] I was wondering what others' experiences have been as regards stealing free food.
>
>
>One could consider this as a request directed only at answerers who are very knowledgeable about the norms in question (professional conference organisers?) or asking for surveys of this issue (which probably don’t exist), but the way the question was written, it was inevitably taken and answered as a poll, leading to the plethora of largely redundant answers that we now have.
* There is a clear ethical dilemma (stealing vs. wasting) without an apparent solution, on which people will inevitably have varying opinions, which makes the question attract opinion-based answers, unless carefully warded against those.
In general, I think that ethics questions can only work on this site (and SE in general) if they refrain from poll-like elements altogether and instead ask for an ethical analysis of an issue in an established framework (such as authorship ethics, codes of conduct, etc.) or under clear paradigms (such as fairness or neutrality). Any question containing a sentence along the lines of “What are the attitudes of academics towards X?” fails to do this and should be edited early or closed.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: This kind of question is just "outside" of what I would consider to be "Academia," but I believe the ethical sentiment behind it has merit.
A slightly more on topic question would be an ethical question directly related to Academia: for instance, "what kind of content usage would Academics consider plagiarism, even though it technically doesn't violate copyright laws?"
Confucius did say in his "Analects" that "goodness was the chief of all virtues (followed by wisdom and courage), so questions about ethics that routinely (as opposed to incidentally) affect Academics are probably good things.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: If X is part of academic life or relates very closely to academia (e.g. X = "The notion that the US federal government should should more/less of the budgestary burden of higher education"), then on topic. Otherwise generally off-topic.
But - if the poster can spin the question well enough, it could become on topic, e.g. X = "The claim that the Turkish coup attempt was a false flag operation" would be off topic, but if you add "in light of its use in a blanket travel ban for academics" then it becomes borderline on-topic. Maybe.
Upvotes: 1 |
2016/08/15 | 1,185 | 4,736 | <issue_start>username_0: I'll keep this very short: I believe there is a tendency here to label every similarity between questions as "duplication". This seems to harm the intention of this site and is overall unjustified. Questions that are "similar" can still vary in a very substantive way.
Recent example:
[Publishing: quality vs. quantity](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/72299/publishing-quality-vs-quantity)
was tagged as duplicate. But it seems to me as different than the alleged original. (See my comment there).<issue_comment>username_1: When a question is marked as a duplicate, it doesn't necessarily mean that the exact question asked is the same. (The text of the duplicate notice is misleading in this respect.) Rather, it means that members of the community believe that some or all of the answers to the marked duplicate directly address this question, and there is nothing useful to say other than what's already in the answers to the other question (or could be added as an answer to the other question).
Or, to quote [another meta post](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1237/11365) here,
>
> I think it is important to consider closing as duplicate as "these are very similar questions, to the extend that the answers will be pretty much the same", and not "these are absolutely identical questions".
>
>
>
So, a *question* being different from "duplicate" isn't necessarily a good reason not to close it as a duplicate, if the *answers* will be the same.
What to do if you disagree that "the answers will be pretty much the same"? Easy: edit the post to highlight the difference, and explain why you believe that this difference could potentially lead to different answers. Then cast a reopen vote, if you have the privilege. (Even if you don't, your edits will push the question into a reopen queue where others can cast votes.)
For example, if the post was previously "Publishing: quality vs. quantity", in the body of the post, note what the marked duplicate says and why you believe the considerations are different when not asked in the context of a single project. Then it will go through the reopen queue where, if community members actually think the answers will be different, they will vote to reopen.
The benefits of this approach are:
* if the answers to the marked duplicate *do* answer the OP's question, they get (multiple, very good) answers very quickly.
* if the answers to the marked duplicate *don't* answer the OP's question, then by focusing the question on the different aspect, the OP gets advice targeted to the differences in their situation, rather than just having the answers to the other question repeated (which would of course be pointless).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: First, let's see if your premise, that is that there is a trend towards closing more questions as duplicates, is backed by the [site closing stats](https://academia.stackexchange.com/tools/question-close-stats?daterange=last2days) (status on 17/Aug/16):
```
Period | # closed as dup. | % of all closed | % of total asked
last 90d | 159 | 22.36 % | 8.82
last 30d | 53 | 23.14 % | 9.41
last 14d | 22 | 23.16 % | 8.39
last 7d | 12 | 26.09 % | 8.45
last 2d | 5 | 29.41 % | 9.43
```
It seems indeed, that the last week has seen an increased percentage of closed question for which the reason was duplicate, but the percentage of duplicates per question asked is relatively stable. I'm not sure that there is such a trend.
I spend time and effort identifying duplicates, and I'm "guilty" of identifying the one you mention. Whenever I feel I'm reading the same question again, or that the question is so common that I feel we *must* have had this question before (for example: [What to do if I'm afraid that my idea will get stolen during review process?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/75028/10643)) I search the existing questions and re-read them. I then indicate that I believe the question to be a duplicate.
This does not mean that the question is automatically closed as other users or a community moderator have to agree. If you see a question that you feel should be kept open, use your reopen vote privilege.
>
> This seems to harm the intention of this site and is overall unjustified
>
>
>
I disagree, identifying duplicates is beneficial to the community as it ensures all answers are archived at the same place. It prevents the scattering of information in many posts, ultimately leading to users missing useful content. This is in my opinion more crucial than missing a subtle nuance between two questions.
Upvotes: 2 |
2016/08/16 | 194 | 661 | <issue_start>username_0: I like asking questions on random sites to figure things out and pick other people's brains, but I'm new to this site so I'm trying to figure it out so I don't get my questions shut down all the time.<issue_comment>username_1: 1. Go to top questions.
2. Sort by votes.
3. Read the highest rated questions and see what they have in common.
4. ???
5. Rep points!
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: * Read [Welcome to Academia.SE](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1203/welcome-to-academia-se).
* Read [What topics can I ask about here?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic) in the help center.
Upvotes: 3 |
2016/08/16 | 1,155 | 3,835 | <issue_start>username_0: Our [chat room](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/2496/academia) has the default name of *academia*. Some sites have come up with [creative names](http://chat.stackexchange.com/?tab=all&sort=active) for their chat rooms. It was suggested that we [rename our chat room](http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/31720109#31720109).
Should we rename our chat room and if so to what?
**UPDATE** the chat room has been renamed. We can change it again whenever we want, so keep proposing names and keep voting for the ones you like.<issue_comment>username_1: I propose ***[The Ivory Tower](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ivory%20tower)***, as this is the place where academics of all sorts clichéically and metaphorically live.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I propose... ehm, cough cough... *The procrastinators' den*.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: What about [**the common room**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Room_%28university%29)?
>
> Exist[s] to provide representation in the organisation of college or
> residential hall life, to operate certain services within these
> institutions [...], and to provide opportunities for socialising.
>
>
>
Seems to cover it to me. Every UK university I tried Googling used it (or a derivative such as JCR, MCR and/or SCR) in some form, most in the above sense ([Bristol, Cambridge, Durham, Exeter, Kent, Lancaster, Leicester, Nottingham, Oxford, Reading, St Andrews, Southampton, York](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Room_%28university%29#United_Kingdom), [UCL](https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ascr), [Birmingham](http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/maps/buildings/edgbaston-campus/red-zone/staff-house.aspx), [Hull](http://www2.hull.ac.uk/student/pdf/Accom%20Hull%202871.pdf)), some as the name of a physical social space ([Imperial](http://www.imperial.ac.uk/food-and-drink/catering-outlets/senior-common-room/)) or events facility ([Cardiff](http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/business/facilities/meeting-facilities/university-hall)). Some universities have named their online student communities or e-learning sites after it ([Manchester](https://www.google.co.uk/#q=manchester+university+virtual+common+room)).
It is also used in the US, although less common. Where used it seems to carry similar connotations, for instance the stated purpose of MIT's recently opened Quantum Information Science (QIS) Common Room is as a
>
> venue for impromptu technical discussions and [...] social
> events
>
>
>
([link](http://www.rle.mit.edu/iquise/qis-common-room-grand-opening/)).
My only concern is that it might be biased towards the UK and other English-speaking countries.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: As much of academia (profs, TAs) has them (or uses them in the case of undergrads), another option might be '*Office Hours*.'
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: I propose [The Quad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrangle_(architecture)) as they are often a popular hangout on university campuses.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_6: Let's go all Oxbridge and make it a **Senior Common Room**....
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_7: If we're leaning a little more towards a research theme we could go with *The Lab*.
>
> I'm sorry I wasn't able to get your homeworks graded today, I was up late working in *the lab*.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_8: ***Academia Secrets***, since people in the room seem to provide each other the scoop on things occurring at their respective institutions.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_1: To throw another suggestion into the den:
***The social event*** typically¹ refers to the excursion or similar at conferences, where attendees can talk about things other than the topic of the conference.
---
¹ at least in the my fields
Upvotes: 0 |
2016/08/18 | 1,658 | 6,136 | <issue_start>username_0: I am sorry for this contentious question, but I couldn't help but noticing lately that many answers and comments here are, to my perception and understanding and experience in academia, completely wrong :) If the answers were a bit modest and reserved it would be mildly okay. But it seems that the more wrong some answers are the more assertive tone they use!
**Question**: Is there anything a user can do about this? Is there a way to advise major users here to reserve their answers a bit more, as to avoid giving people a possibly wrong advice by mistake?
---
Here is a recent example, where people are claiming, e.g., that the student cannot ask to waive his/her conference fees by contacting the organizers (this is in comments, though).
[Is it ok to show up to a conference without registering if I don't eat any meals?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/75358/is-it-ok-to-show-up-to-a-conference-without-registering-nor-having-conference-me)
Or another example: [Would it be rude to ask a famous professor who doesn't know me personally for a recommendation letter if I have published in a high ranking journal?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/75318/would-it-be-rude-to-ask-a-famous-professor-who-doesnt-know-me-personally-for-a)
Where people claim that it is inadequate to ask for a reference from a senior professor unless he/she *knows you personally*!<issue_comment>username_1: This site is a forum for academics from all fields, all nationalities, and all cultures to speak with one another. We have had many questions where the answers have contained the types of contradictions you mention—[this one stands out in my mind](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/644/73), mostly because I was one of the answerers. I was right, for my field (and some others), and he was right for his field (and some others). There are lots of differences between fields and these differences frequently come out in the answers.
To that extent, if you think an answer is incorrect, or if you think it's representing only a subset of academia, post a different answer and call out those differences. Even if the answer gets no votes people should know that there are other ways of doing things.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I am actually having trouble understanding the examples you give as evidence.
[This comment](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/75358/is-it-ok-to-show-up-to-a-conference-without-registering-nor-having-conference-me#comment183350_75360), which seems to be one of your examples of the problem you are asking about, does not appear to me to be written in an assertive tone:
>
> *You can of course email the organisers and ask if you can participate without paying* I would not actually recommend this unless you have a reason much more compelling than "I couldn't get funding". I think it will simply annoy the organizers, who are usually influential people whose bad side you don't want to be on.
>
>
>
Frankly, I don't see any assertiveness in its tone. It actually includes several qualifiers - "I would not recommend this", "I think", "usually".
Whereas to me, [your response](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/75358/is-it-ok-to-show-up-to-a-conference-without-registering-and-not-eating-any-meal#comment183352_75360) *does* seem to have an assertive tone. Instead of saying in a more reserved way "in the conferences *I* attend this is different from what you report, and here's how", or "this is not true **as a general rule**", you appear to deny the other person's experience by saying it is "certainly not true":
>
> @NateEldredge, certainly this is not true. The organizers are usually not influential, but local academics which are not influential. The most influential people are usually the PC members and especially chairs. Not organizers. Emailing the organizers with a reasonable reason is a good advice.
>
>
>
Your main proposal seems to be that users should use a less assertive tone. Perhaps you could rewrite that first comment you gave as an example to indicate how you would write it in a less assertive way?
Finally, when a user asks about how something will be perceived by other academics, I think it is useful for them to know if the response will be emphatic, and if different people have passionate and diverging responses. To quote a [comment by user2390246](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/75318/would-it-be-rude-to-ask-a-famous-professor-who-doesnt-know-me-personally-for-a/75319#comment183410_75347) on one of the other threads you find objectionable,
>
> Yes, very nice answer. The range of (quite passionate!) opinion expressed on this page is a clear indication that your mileage may vary. So, OP needs to find out a) will such a letter help him/her in their particular situation, and b) will the professor be able to write them a strong letter? @BenWebster's suggestions for how to do this are spot on.
>
>
> Note also the element of "gamble". There clearly (as evidenced here) exist people who would look very favourably on such a letter, and others who would consider it very negatively. So having canvassed opinion, OP needs to decide whether it is worth gambling, or whether they are better off going for a set of "standard" (but hopefully strong) recommendations.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Of all the answers on that [recommendation letter question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/75318), **yours** is the one that uses the **most** bold print. Moreover, in that answer, not only do you disagree, but you "*completely* disagree with *all* the other answers" [emphasis added].
I don't see what you're driving at. You've made your comments (12 of them); you've put forth your opinion in an answer; presumably, you've voted your conscious as well. I don't see any need to raise the matter here in meta and accuse your peers of being "assertive, threatening, and intimidating." (That seems to describe your behavior as much as anyone's.)
You've had the chance to make your case and the community has heard you out.
Upvotes: 2 |
2016/08/21 | 570 | 2,198 | <issue_start>username_0: Or is this considered "noise" on the SE network and should be avoided?
For example, my last question on Academia.SE, I got very candid and useful comments and suggestions from at least four professors. I want to say "thanks, professor X" to each one of them in the comments section. Should I refrain from this and instead just upvote the comments?<issue_comment>username_1: A simple "thanks" comment is considered "chatty." A comment that explains why you think an answer is useful, however, would be OK, as it clarifies and furthers the utility of the answer.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Short thank-you comments are generally frowned upon by the Stack Exchange. The 15-character minimum aims to keep comments substantive.
Some other things to consider:
* On the main site, only five comments are shown on the page. Adding a "thank-you" comment could push down a more meaningful comment and make it harder to find on the page, like the comment that is hidden here:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/hKV3o.png)
* Moderators get flagged every time a question gets 20 comments or more. So, by using four comments to thank four users, you are using 20% of that quota just to say thank you.
* I realize this isn't addressing the exact situation as you describe, but I still think the overall philosophy applies:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/hnKmP.png)
If you really feel compelled to leave a thank-you comment, I suppose you could so do "responsibly" by saying thank you – but then go back a day or two later and delete those comments. That way, the four professors get notified of your gratitude, but the thread gets tidied up without any moderator intervention, too.
Note also, though, that a busy SE user might prefer to NOT get such a notification in their inbox. It can be a distraction to go check a notification that says nothing more than, `Many thanks, username_2 :)`, with the name and emoticon added just to reach the 15-character minimum. I know I have other things I'd rather be doing.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer] |
2016/08/29 | 1,638 | 6,492 | <issue_start>username_0: My expectations for how the reference-request tag should be used are based on how the same tag is used on mathoverflow:
>
> This tag is used if a reference is needed in a paper or textbook on a specific result.
>
>
>
Academia.SE currently has this somewhat vague definition:
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> Questions requesting a supporting document or citation for a specific query.
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>
>
In a recent discussion in comments on [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/75573/1482), it became clear that ff524 and I had different understandings of how the tag was to be understood on academia.SE.
My understanding was that it should mean the same thing as on mathoverflow, so that it would be narrowly defined, and would only be for questions where the entire answer would simply be a reference. For instance, the question might be, "Can anyone point me to some references on the history of the German university system?," and a typical answer would be a pointer to a book on that topic.
ff524 says: "My understanding is that many answers here are based on personal experience, and that reference-request distinguishes questions that seek answers that are substantiated by reliable evidence (with citations to said evidence). I agree that it would be a good idea to clarify on meta."
The current definition on academia.SE seems ambiguous to me. How should we clarify the definition of this tag?
related:
[Disambiguating reference-request tags](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/954/disambiguating-reference-request-tags)
[Is it apropriate to use the reference-request tag to prevent discussion-like questions from being closed?](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2209/is-it-apropriate-to-use-the-reference-request-tag-to-prevent-discussion-like-que)<issue_comment>username_1: I think the definition on academia.SE should be disambiguated to be effectively the same as the definition on mathoverflow:
>
> Questions requesting a source of information on a topic. Answers are only expected to supply a reference and information about the reference, not information about the topic.
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>
>
A significant fraction (half?) of questions on academia.SE are requests for factual information. Answers to these questions should be based on facts and evidence. We shouldn't have to use a special tag to say that in response to a factual question, we want factual answers. If we did that, the reference-request tag would be used so often that it would become essentially useless. A secondary benefit of conforming to mathoverflow's usage is that we will avoid creating confusion. We shouldn't have identical-looking tags with radically differing definitions on different SE sites.
Many low-quality questions on academia.SE are "Dear Abby" questions: a long, detailed personal story of woe (I'm pregnant with a two-headed love child by my student who is on the water polo team) followed by "what should I do?" These could be answered by personal anecdotes or with advice based on individual values or experiences. But most of these are ill-suited to the SE format, because they are too specific to the individual's circumstances. SE questions and answers are supposed to be of value to more people than just the OP. If reference-request is interpreted to mean "please answer based on facts and evidence," then there would be a great deal of overlap between (a) the set of Dear Abby questions (which should be closed) and (b) the set of questions without a reference-request tag.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I think answers to questions with [reference-request](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reference-request "show questions tagged 'reference-request'") need a reference. That said, a reference only answer to me is like a link only answer (although, potentially less likely to rot). Ideally, the reference should be accompanied by either the key information in the reference or why the reference is a good choice.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: To quote myself:
>
> My understanding is that many answers here are based on personal experience, and that reference-request distinguishes questions that seek answers that are substantiated by reliable evidence (with citations to said evidence).
>
>
>
When I ask a question tagged [reference-request](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reference-request "show questions tagged 'reference-request'") I am requesting that answers be based on reliable evidence (not anecdotal evidence or personal experience) and should include citations to said evidence.
There are many good answers on Academia.SE that are *not* supported by citations. For example, consider many of [your answers](https://academia.stackexchange.com/search?tab=votes&q=user%3a1482%20is%3aanswer) which do not have citations, but are still very good answers.
Furthermore, there are many questions that can potentially be answered either from experience, or with an answer based on research. For example, [Impact of slide quality on student learning](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/72833/impact-of-slide-quality-on-student-learning). [My answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/72837/11365) to that question is based on research, [another](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/72862/11365) is based on personal experience.
I find it useful to be able to specify that I am looking *only* for answers based on research. For example, in [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/37780/research-on-career-path-after-tenure-denial) I ask about the career path of professors after they are denied tenure and request "answers that briefly summarize the results of a study on this subject, with a reference to said study". If I hadn't explicitly requested a research-based answer, I would have gotten a lot of answers like the ones [here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2553/what-to-do-after-being-denied-tenure) (or actually, it would have just been closed as a duplicate of that).
I also find the [reference-request](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reference-request "show questions tagged 'reference-request'") tag to be useful for identifying questions that I might like to answer, because I happen to like answering questions that seek evidence-based answers. It is one of my ["favorite" tags](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/19173/what-do-favorite-tags-and-ignored-tags-do).
Upvotes: 3 |
2016/09/02 | 403 | 1,677 | <issue_start>username_0: How come I lose reputation points for downvoting?
Is reputation sort of like a "currency" and that it "costs" me reputation points to downvote an answer?
I currently upvoted back that answer, since I don't have that many points to squander :(<issue_comment>username_1: [Here's the FAQ on how reputation works](https://stackoverflow.com/help/whats-reputation). The one-point cost is simply to discourage massive downvote campaigns. Honestly, you should ignore it... it's more worthwhile to both yourself and the community if you upvote good stuff and downvote bad stuff. If you're concerned about reputation, give good answers to questions over time. If you're not concerned about reputation, then who really cares anyways? :)
Do note that [voting on Meta works differently](https://stackoverflow.com/help/whats-meta).
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Yes, reputation can be interpreted as a sort of currency: you earn some by asking and answering with quality. You can award bits of your reputation for [bounties](https://stackoverflow.com/help/bounty), or to draw more attention to a specific question. Since knowledge and science are cumulative, I understand why positive actions result in a reputation gain (or none), to encourage quality. However, downvoting should be taken with care, and I believe the point loss is quite symbolic. Alternatively, you can edit the post which, if accepted, may provide you with a little reputation gain.
And the first downvote gives you a `critic` badge. If a question or answer poses serious problems, you also have the possibility to flag it. Useful flags also earn a badge.
Upvotes: 2 |
2016/09/17 | 598 | 2,444 | <issue_start>username_0: Why are questions on citation style on topic? They are mechanistic rules that only tangentially have to do with academia.
Whether you choose to have sentence capitalization or word capitalization, use a comma instead of a colon, or have the citation inside the quote or outside -- the answer is the same: look at your style guide.<issue_comment>username_1: >
> They are mechanistic rules that only tangentially have to do with academia.
>
>
>
Preparing the list of references is certainly a major task when writing an academic publication, whether a report, a paper or a book: thus, I would not consider citation style only tangential to academia.
>
> the answer is the same: look at your style guide.
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>
>
Here you assuming that every university or every journal have a style guide, and that that style guide covers all possible citation cases. Both assumptions are generally false: many universities around the world don't have a style guide (as many universities don't have policies on certain aspects of academic life, or don't have a student health office, psychological help etc.), and many style guides, even journal ones, don't cover all cases.
Thus, I think that questions about citation style should be on topic.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> They are mechanistic rules that only tangentially have to do with academia.
>
>
>
While I agree that they somewhat differ from the majority of questions here, citation style is something that primarily concerns academics. Hence, I do not see why it should be off-topic. If you specifically do not want to see such questions, you can simply ignore the tag.
>
> Whether you choose to have sentence capitalization or word capitalization, use a comma instead of a colon, or have the citation inside the quote or outside -- the answer is the same: look at your style guide.
>
>
>
Taking a brief look at the [questions tagged *citation-style*](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/citation-style), I found none that looked as if it could be answered with “look at your style guide”. Rather the questions are, e.g., about handling rare cases not covered by some style guide, the rationale behind certain styles, or the exegesis of a popular style guide.
If a question could only be answered with “look at your style guide”, I would indeed consider it a case for closing as depending on individual factors.
Upvotes: 4 |
2016/09/20 | 622 | 2,495 | <issue_start>username_0: It's the second time in less than a week that a question attracts only junk content and youtube-quality comments war. We failed to close this one soon enough:
[If you're black, how do you answer "Oh you're a professor? So you teach African Studies?"](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/77024/10643)
Can we act swiftly on that one?:
[What is the purpose of women-only meetings, panels, conferences, etc. in academia?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/77123/10643)
Deletion would be the best but closing would already help.
Please note that in a typical meta fashion, up-votes on this question mean in favor of closing/deleting said question and down-votes against.
**Edit:**
Question 2 has now being closed and then reopened after edits. And a major clean up of comments helped a lot. Thanks to the moderation. I'm leaving this question up for a more general consensus discussion about closing such questions.<issue_comment>username_1: Just because something attracts junk comments, doesn't mean it's a bad question. Personally I think the question is legitimate and should stay up.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I have mixed feelings on this. I think the questions address legitimate issues in academia that can be answered. The questions attract a lot of discussion in the comments and bad answers. I think we should moderate the comments and answers and not slam the door on relevant questions.
I would rather see comments flag as too chatty and bad answers either flagged as not an answer or down voted into oblivion.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: I felt that much of the problem with this question was the presence of a personal story that did not bear on the question being asked, so I edited the question to remove the story.
The resulting question (i.e. the underlying question of the original post!) strikes me as much more reasonable.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: I think that controversial questions are fine, but require a much higher level of care in community attention and moderation.
In particular, they typically rapidly shoot to the "hot questions" list and start attracting low-quality answers from new site users. I typically protect such questions as soon as I am able, in order to keep the trash-answer rate down, but there is a significant delay (maybe a day?) before non-moderators can protect.
Flagging early to ask the moderators to protect can thus help a lot in mitigating quality issues.
Upvotes: 3 |
2016/09/20 | 1,064 | 4,264 | <issue_start>username_0: This question <https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/76733/6526> presents the problem where the OP has a problem with his teacher telling him to crack software despite the fact that he knows it's illegal.
One of the more highly upvoted answers encourages him to use the cracked software despite the fact that it's illegal and the user has said it makes him feel morally uncomfortable.
I flagged with a custom flag saying that we can't condone the use of cracked software, but my response was -
`declined - flags should only be used to make moderators aware of content that requires their intervention`
So... what? We are going to tell people it's ok to crack software from other countries because 'hey the companies there are rich enough and it's not a big deal here cause... culture, even though it ***is*** against the law;' which is basically the stance taken in the answer?
As a software dev I find this highly troubling.
---
Note I don't think this is a dupe of [this question](https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/127892/181695) I know we aren't the licence police, but at the same time actively encouraging someone who *hasn't* already cracked software to crack software is, I think, far different from trying to police someone who already has done it.
Also I think not a dupe of [this question](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/8492/should-an-answer-that-encourages-illegal-activity-be-marked-as-offensive), accourding to international treaty which China is party too cracking Mathmatica there is illigal. That's not at question here.<issue_comment>username_1: So... what do you want to happen here?
The answer isn't providing instructions for cracking the software. The answer isn't linking to cracked software, or suggesting possible search terms for finding cracked software.
The answer boils down to, "if you want to take a class run by a teacher who instructs you to crack the software you'll be using, then follow the teacher's instructions."
That... Isn't actually all that unreasonable. It may still be bad advice for exactly the reasons you cite - but the *answer itself* is hardly illegal.
If you disagree with the advice given in that answer, then downvote it and upvote a different one. For instance, the answer which describes how one might complete the course without actually using Mathematica, or the one which suggests buying a license. Or write your own answer.
That's how Stack Exchange is supposed to work: bad advice gets downvoted, good advice gets upvoted. Perhaps it would benefit your cause here to find out why so many people seem to think that answer provides good advice...
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: We have discussed what our stances are on legality in regards to questions [What is our stance on questions that can be used for legal and illegal purposes?](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3411/what-is-our-stance-on-questions-that-can-be-used-for-legal-and-illegal-purposes) This is not necessarily the same as for answers, but my opinion is the same. *I am hesitant to provide answers that will likely be used to break the law, even if there is a technically legal way of using the information.* For answers, I would not go so far as delete them, but would like to see answers about ways to break the law down voted.
I am not a lawyer or expert on international copyright law as it pertains to software. That said, the answer does not particularly focus on the act of "cracking" the software, but rather on the use of cracked software. As I said in [this answer](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/3425/929) I think there is a difference between distributing material that is in violation of copyright law and using the material. The answer also presents a case why using the cracked software may not be unethical (which is another aspect that is important in my opinion). I do not like answers which promote legal, but unethical, behavior either.
Overall, I do not like the answer and have down voted it. There is a comment, left by you, expressing concerns about the legality of the answer. Apart from leaving an additional comment about the ethics, or writing a new answer, I do not see anything else that needs to be done.
Upvotes: 2 |
2016/09/21 | 1,141 | 4,523 | <issue_start>username_0: Yesterday I posted a comment on an answer to [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/77123/what-is-the-purpose-of-women-only-meetings-panels-conferences-etc-in-academi) questioning moderator ff524's behavior of selectively moving comments to chat. My comment was in no way impolite and I think it raised a good point. Now it is entirely gone (not just moved to chat).
It has often been said that comments are 'ephemeral' by nature. But a moderator deleting criticism against herself (that's what I have to assume) is a different matter. Is this acceptable behavior for a moderator of this site?
For me, this is the clearest possible abuse of moderator powers, although I don't quite understand the motivation behind it.<issue_comment>username_1: In general, as moderators, we try and not moderate discussion on our moderator actions for exactly the reasons you alluded to. In this case, I deleted your comment not because it was critical of another moderator's behavior, but because it was additional discussion that was not appropriate to be left as a comment. It would have been fine in meta or chat.
The ability of moderators to move comments to chat are limited (we can only do it under certain circumstances and only once per answer). The only options I had were to either leave or delete the comment. There was a "warning" prior to your comment that the discussion had been moved to chat. You also should have received a ping from a comment that username_2 left as a response (which I also deleted). I decided that if the response was insufficient, that you wanted to follow it up in meta or chat.
For completeness your comment was:
>
> @username_2: Why did you single out two comments and not move them to chat? These weren't the only ones directly responding to the answer. Are you not thereby narrowing down the (published) range of opinions, and hence inadvertently abusing your moderator powers?
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>
>
and her response was:
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> @Stefan I undeleted the two that seemed were correct use of comments and also highly upvoted. People interested in the range of opinions are strongly encouraged to visit that chat room.
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>
The comments she left were one by me:
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> Do you have any evidence to backup your claims?
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and one by a high rep user
>
> -1: When you base your answer (even partially) on sarcasm, you lose (your) credibility and (my) respect. Your argument is that imposing some instances of "X only" inherently works against "equality (or some acceptable bounds on the proportions of) X and Y". That is clearly wrong: if things are highly skewed away from the proportions you want, you don't correct with equal proportions, you correct by skewing in the other direction. Let me ask you this: what do you think is the percentage of female speakers at the most recent International Congress of Mathematicians?
>
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Both of these are attempting to enable the answer to be improved and not discussion. Looking at the [chat transcript](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/45675/discussion-on-answer-by-gorchestopher-h-what-is-the-purpose-of-women-only-meetin) with the other comments, I don't see any that obviously are trying to improve the answer.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: To expand on username_1's answer, here are some reasons why questions or complaints about moderator actions belong here on meta, not in comments on the main site:
* As meta posts, they have visibility to people who are interested in participating in the governance of this site (i.e. meta users), who can then chime in with their own answers and votes. As comments buried on an answer on the main site, they do not. If you have a problem with moderator actions, you should *want* to bring that to the attention of people who care about such things, not bury the discussion where hardly anybody will see it.
* As comments on a main site question, they are distracting to future readers ("I came here via Google search to find an answer to this question, why am I reading about moderator policies?"). This is contrary to the Stack Exchange philosophy, which is all about a focus on Q&A, no distractions. (Note that the instructions in the [help center](https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/comment) say not to use comments for "Discussion of community behavior or site policies; please use meta instead.")
Criticism of moderator actions is 100% acceptable on Academia.SE, but please put it on meta, where it belongs.
Upvotes: 3 |
2016/09/25 | 788 | 3,021 | <issue_start>username_0: I propose to rename the tag [sexual-misconduct](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/sexual-misconduct "show questions tagged 'sexual-misconduct'") to [sexual-conduct](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/sexual-conduct "show questions tagged 'sexual-conduct'"), with a redirect. This is because "misconduct" already implies a judgment that the behavior is inappropriate, and in some questions this is a premature conclusion; for instance, the question may be \*Is doing X OK?".
This proposal follows from an exchange with user @ff524 in the comments
to [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8194/sex-worker-student-offering-her-legal-services). TL;DR:
* The question was initially tagged [sexual-misconduct](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/sexual-misconduct "show questions tagged 'sexual-misconduct'")
* I initially retagged the question [sexual-misconduct](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/sexual-misconduct "show questions tagged 'sexual-misconduct'") -> [sexual-sphere](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/sexual-sphere "show questions tagged 'sexual-sphere'"), out of this concern.
* She reverted the change arguing that [sexual-sphere](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/sexual-sphere "show questions tagged 'sexual-sphere'") is ambiguous and too broad, and we need a tag for this concept.
* I agreed with her thought, but I also suggested making it explicit in the tag wiki for [sexual-misconduct](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/sexual-misconduct "show questions tagged 'sexual-misconduct'") that no judgment is implied. We have now edited the wiki.
After pondering on it for a while, I now think that this proposal is the best course of action.<issue_comment>username_1: I disagree with the tag renaming.
Sexual misconduct is often more about power or the abuse of power than it is about sex.
Rape was once seen as a subset of 'sex' but is now appropriately being seen as the vicious form of abuse and crime that it is.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: The term for this concept in English is "sexual misconduct"; this is a [term of art](http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Term+of+Art), whose meaning cannot necessarily be broken down to its constituent parts.
Those who have chosen to tag questions with this label assumedly meant to use this term, and not some other term with different connotations. Therefore it would be inappropriate to rename this tag to some other term.
Regarding the proposed alternatives:
* "Sexual sphere" is not a phrase in English.
* As for "sexual conduct", the OP may be relieved to learn that this is a term found largely in legal codes that criminalize certain sexual behaviors such as statutory rape or bestiality. Therefore if his goal is to avoid stigmatizing the hypothetical individuals who are tagged with this label, his proposed term would actually be far worse!
Upvotes: 2 |
2016/09/29 | 2,739 | 11,409 | <issue_start>username_0: One of the community members has approached the moderators with a concern about gendered pronoun usage amongst our Academia members. Specifically, this individual felt that calling out gender in discussion—e.g., "he said…" or "as she commented…"—risks introducing bias and may affect the quality of the discussion.
As such, I wanted to ask the community on behalf of this member... **should we, as a community, discourage the use of gendered pronouns in discussion?**<issue_comment>username_1: I think we should discourage the use of gendered pronouns in discussion (as well as in questions and answers). The use of gendered terms generally does not add clarity and has the potential to be offensive/upsetting when the wrong term is used. As very few of us list our preferred pronoun in our profiles, we generally have no way of knowing what the correct pronoun is.
The issue is, how do we want to discourage the use of gendered pronouns. I do not think policing usage is the way to go. In other words, we should not systematically remove all usage of gendered pronouns. Instead, I think we should bring up in chat and meta that we strive to use gender neutral language when possible.
I also think if users list preferred pronouns in their profiles, then they can flag posts for moderator attention to "fix" references that use a non-preferred pronoun. I am not exactly sure how to handle edits for individuals who are gender fluid or who's preferred pronouns change with time.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: I'll repeat what I said in the [other thread](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3280/how-do-we-feel-about-gender-specific-terms), which seemed to be supported by the community (as indicated by their votes):
>
> I am in favor of encouraging clarity above all else, and leaving other matters of language and style up to the author of the post.
>
>
> As long as the language of the post is clear and it is consistent with the be nice policy, we should let authors express themselves as they prefer. If you don't like gender-specific terms or pronouns, don't use them in your own posts, but don't insist that others refrain from using them.
>
>
>
In response to username_1's suggestion that
>
> if users list preferred pronouns in their profiles, then they can flag posts for moderator attention to "fix" references that use a non-preferred pronoun
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>
>
I disagree completely. Moderators editing comments does not leave any edit trail, so the user appears to say whatever the moderator wrote. It is used with extreme care in exceptional cases involving comments that can't be deleted (e.g. because they are an integral part of some exchange), but have *offensive* content that violates the [Be Nice](https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/be-nice) policy. (Gendered pronouns are not offensive content with respect to the [Be Nice](https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/be-nice) policy that all Stack Exchange users are required to follow.)
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: It seems to me there are two different issues here:
1. The original question by eykanal asks whether we should "as a community, discourage the use of gendered pronouns in discussion" because this "risks introducing bias and may affect the quality of the discussion".
2. username_1 raises an entirely different issue, claiming that it is difficult or impossible to write correctly using pronouns, arguing that "as very few of us list our preferred pronoun in our profiles, we generally have no way of knowing what the correct pronoun is" and "the only way to know what is correct is to be told."
These are really very different points, and it muddles the discussion to confuse them with each other. For example, the second issue would be obviated in a situation where all participants had specified their preferred choice of pronouns, while the first question would remain equally relevant.
---
In any case, I do not think it matters much: **neither issue is within the bailiwick of the community/moderators/meta readers**.
As with any SE network, contributors have the right to write their questions/posts in the form they desire, and neither the community nor the moderators should attempt to externally impose a particular style or preference. This seems close in spirit to edits to change e.g. British spellings to American, which has always been an invalid reason to edit someone's post.
If someone wants to try to convince contributors that a particular style would be better, that's fine; one can always try to convince people to agree with oneself -- although doing it in comments might be off-topic, since comments are not for extended discussion. But I would be especially wary of such efforts from moderators, since they might give the false impression that they represent a collective norm of the community, rather than one person's opinion. (If moderators can post without the mod diamond, that would remove this problem.)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: I think that, for all the reasons noted elsewhere, it is valuable to *encourage* the use of gender-neutral pronouns where peoples' preferred pronouns are not known, or when talking about a generic person rather than an individual.
It should be mentioned somewhere in help or on meta that this is the preferred behaviour, and some people will hopefully make a point of commenting and pointing to that policy where applicable. My reasoning here is that it avoids potential offense, and avoids potential bias of the "I assumed that all researchers in $field are $gender" type, and (as far as I can see) has no downsides[1].
I am far less clear, however, on whether (or to what degree) this policy should be actively enforced. Are people politely asked to edit their posts? Do community members edit others' posts just for this reason? Is it something for moderators?
(I would probably argue not the latter, except in cases of clear and deliberate misgendering where a complaint has been made - in which case it should fall under anti-harassment policies anyway)
[1] yes, sometimes gendered pronouns can remove ambiguity in a sentence, but so can rewording the sentence to not be ambiguous
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Having thought about this a bit more, and reflecting on comments, I thought I'd add a second answer rather than heavy editing on my old one.
I think there are *three* slightly different matters that are being talked about here.
1. Referring to a user whose name or icon suggests a gender
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In an ideal world we would not make assumptions based on these things, but in reality, at least for now, this is going to happen, and the number of people for whom it will be wrong, as a proportion of the population, is very small. Except in the case where somebody is being deliberately misgendered (which would come under anti-harassment rules), I think this is something to leave alone.
2. Referring to a user whose gender is not suggested by name or icon
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Here, users should make every effort to refer to that user by gender-neutral pronouns. It must be pretty offputting for a woman to post here under a neutral name (for whatever reason) and be assumed to be a man - or, probably less common, vice versa. It is not appropriate to make assumptions, which may tend to reinforce stereotypes.
I believe that this should be noted in the help, and people should make an effort to remind askers and answers of this policy in comments.
3. Referring to a generic person
--------------------------------
I mean here when somebody is not talking about a specific SE user, but is referring to, for example, "a student" or "a postdoc". Here I think that it is really important to remain gender-neutral, lest we reinforce the idea that all researchers in $field are $gender.
I think this is by far the most important of the three items here. I think that correcting gender-specific terms used in this sense should, in itself, be grounds for editing a post. If there is argument over this on a specific post, then preferring gender-neutrality in generic people should be the guidance for moderators.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_5: I strongly object this would-be "politically correct" thought police, which is only done to hide real problems. A person so unstable it get's offended by a mere wrong pronoun needs help, by a therapist, not a thousand "friends" who really just find it unsettling to see a guy breaking to pieces over a trivial misconception.
I add this much: If I have not hint as to what pronoun could be right, I also use "they" to refer to an individual person. It's a bit crude, but the other has solicited for it, and it is embarrassing for both having to correct me. Otherwise *"he" implies "she" unless otherwise mentioned*. If I need a lawyer, it does not matter to me if he's a man, woman, transsomething, or this very clever aarvark my second cousin refered me to.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_6: >
> Should we, as a community, discourage the use of gendered pronouns in discussion?
>
>
>
Do you mean
1. Should we discourage users from using gendered pronouns in general? or
2. Should we avoid assuming a particular gender, when one hasn't been indicated in the question, username, profile, avatar or discussion?
For #1: No, that would be absurd; #2: yes, **we should avoid making unsubstantiated gender assumptions.**
I will share two reasons for my answer to #2:
When musicians audition for orchestra jobs, they play behind a screen, and their names are not provided to the committee. This practice was developed in order to remove gender bias. Compare youtube videos of historical vs. modern orchestra concerts. The contrast is striking. The gender make-up of the big orchestras has changed dramatically, thanks in part to this gender-free audition process.
When I was a child, anti-Semitic neighbors made assumptions and nasty remarks to me, based on my surname. Well, my surname came from my father, who had been raised Catholic (but who, except from his name and some books sent on random birthdays, was entirely absent from the scene). Jewish law and custom says you are Jewish if your mother is Jewish. Mine was (although not through religious practice). Where did that leave me? Uncomfortable with unwarranted assumptions.
Perhaps a new, more clearly posed question would be helpful for the site.
(I would not suggest an edit to the question, given that a lot of very confusing discussion has taken place based on the question in its original form.)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: I think it's more important to try to avoid bias based on gender, rather than using gender pronouns to hide the reason for bias.
The first (which I agree is more complicated) is the actual issue we deal with.
The latter is only covering up the problem, but lets it proliferate.
So, if someone is or feels clearly male or female (name, photo, information) then let's use gender pronouns and let those that have problems with the specific gender reveal themselves and be stigmatized.
In the case that the question refers to the gender that a generic student or post doc should have, I don't see it as a big problem either. We can write he/she, or the student, or they...
Upvotes: 0 |
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