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2025-03-21T12:54:49.002857
| 2023-03-21T08:49:52 |
5269
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
Mass downvoting of a well referenced pertinent answer: Why is an answer that is a complement to others considered so bad?
I spent many hours writing this answer and many days preparing it.
Is it fair to desk-reject the above paper based solely on this one
sentence?
The question primarily asks if it is fair to desk-reject heretical ideas if they run counter to the established knowledge (an antithesis in my opinion; knowledge should always be open to challenge, never established, in my humble opinion).
Others have explained well why it may not be a good idea to desk-reject on the basis of contrarianism alone. I added some historical examples where exactly this stand of not even considering contrarian ideas turned out to be strongly unfair.
It is an attempt at a proof by counterexamples, and intends to complement other answers which are well written and cover all of the important points.
Yet the SE community unkindly engaged in mass downvoting without explaining, and have made the answer invisible.
Why is an answer that is a complement to others considered so bad?
The highest upvoted answer says:
That procedure would remove the ability to overturn incorrect mainstream results.
I only provided supportive examples for this statement.
As a matter of fact, one of my examples (3rd) is mentioned in multiple highly upvoted comments. I wanted to add the complete story, while also adding 2 more examples. How is that so bad?
Why do you spend hours and days preparing answers for an online forum? It feels like there is better things to do with your time...
@Sursula True. It is a learning experience for me. Sorry for that and thank you for caring for my best (which is quite rare online)
I spent many hours writing this answer and many days preparing it. – How could you spend many days preparing an answer to a question which was only asked yesterday?
@Wrzlprmft The answer was prepared over many days of reading and studying. Originally, I had written a part of the text to a friend (with 0 references and only 2 examples). For the SE answer, I adopted that text which I had sent to the friend and added all references and an additional example, while also elaborating on the 2 existing examples.
@Wrzlprmft Please forgive me, but I feel pained that I am being made to answer unimportant issues. My only point was that the answer is well researched and highly referenced and involved considerable investment of time and effort to create.
So, you spent effort to prepare a text on a topic which you adapted into an answer to a question that happened to go in roughly the same direction. In that case it’s not surprising that the question has a different focus than your text – which is what I think happened here. You answer can be well researched and on an important topic, but you also need to post it on the right question.
@Wrzlprmft I understand, thank you. I will try to write better answers in future.
Seems odd to me that this question was downvoted. I'm not suggesting that the original answer being referenced by the OP was a good answer ... but it does seem reasonable as a new comer, to ask for assistance in understanding why the original answer was down-voted. I imagine that the accepted answer to this question, which would not exist but for this question, will be helpful to lost of new-comers.
@CrimsonDark Thank you for your kind supportive comment. I believe you will also agree that the answer in its current form is not as bad that to be made invisible, which the community has done by mass downvoting.
Your answer seems well-supported (though I haven't gone through the references in detail) and you make a good point: some crazy ideas today may well be accepted science tomorrow.
The question, however, asked something else. The question asked about the right balance between being open to new ideas, and rapidly shutting down "crackpot" papers. And this is precisely the dilemma: if you desk reject papers that make impossible claims, you might reject a great breakthrough. But if you send out every crackpot paper for full peer review, you will quickly have problems. So, OP was asking whether one "rule of thumb" was fair.
I'm guessing the downvotes were because it seems like you didn't appreciate this dilemma. It's as if someone asked: should we give money to charity or save for retirement? and your answer said "there are some amazing charities doing amazing work, such as these three." It might be a correct, well-written answer, but it's not really helpful toward the theoretical OP, who still has to make a difficult decision about helping others vs. saving for their own future.
Some downvotes may also be because of how replete the early versions of the answer were with trivia details that are irrelevant both to the question and the point made in the answer, such as causes of deaths.
@cag51 I understand, thank you. I will try to write better answers in future.
@Anyon Please forgive me, for some reason I felt that the mentioning the manner of deaths helps me connect with the humanity of the scientist in question. I can see how that could be considered distracting and irrelevant. I will not include it in future. However, most of the downvotes were after I had removed the manner of death (I removed it after only the first downvote).
@cag51 I understood the dilemma. My answer only tries to emphasize that under no circumstances is it best to reject heretic claims based on their contrarianism alone, without going through the reasoning. It may still have to be done due to other constraints of time and effort, but it is never best.
@Anyon The answer continues to be down-voted even now, long after removing the trivia details after the 1st downvote, as well as adding sufficient text to fit the evidence with the question. So, it does seem to me that it is mass downvoting to punish a political disagreement, rather than the quality of the answer.
Once the downvote train gets rolling, it’s hard to apply the brakes. I wouldn’t worry too much about it at this point.
@cag51 Thank you so much for this guidance. As an inexperienced writer on SE with only a few attempts, I believed that I should try to continue to improve the answer to make it acceptable to the community.
|
2025-03-21T12:54:49.003460
| 2018-02-25T10:45:05 |
4003
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
Academia questions from posters below certain age off-topic?
In a question asking How to stop sexual harassment by teacher? there was a lot of down-votes so I asked why. A comment was made that
(1) We do not handle high school problems. (2) The post contains sh*t qualified for rude/abusive flagging. The question is automatically downvoted by the flags
I am shocked about this for a number of reasons.
As another person commented, bad language is easily edited. On top of that, you could just put a quick pointer into the comments to inform a new member about their language.
High school is within academia as defined in any dictionary (see OED, or Merriam-Webster for examples)
The tour page doesn't mention this. It says
Academia is a question and answer site for academics of all levels.
The question on what's on-topic for asking questions here within the help pages doesn't mention anything.
The introduction to the site mentions nothing about it
The don't ask list doesn't have anything about high school problems, and above all,
The topic within the question affects not just high school but every level of academic study.
What is the situation with those in high school who have a question regarding their studies? I can understand that homework questions should be avoided, but when you have situations such as sexual harassment or assault going on, why shouldn't they be able to ask the academic community what they would do?
To me, having down-votes in this manner can be damaging to someone in a vulnerable position.
Edit
I have just been pointed to a related question (public school teaching grades 7-12 considered "academic"?). Now if certain levels of academic study is not on-topic, shouldn't this be highlighted, especially on the tour page where it says for academics of all levels
Related: "public school teaching grades 7-12 considered “academic”?".
Can you briefly outline to me the basis of your theory that it may be a troll attempt? If it is, it was a very poor attempt in my opinion
Good point @Nat
My own judgement is that it's a troll. If someone used a fake id to send messages, how could the OP tell it was that teacher?
Maybe you should read just one sentence further on the on-topic page. And high school students are definitely not considered academics.
I can give you plenty more examples with this example of "high school academics"
That's not the OED you're linking to; that's ODO. This (you'll need a subscription to see it) is the OED, and for the record it does not include high school in its definition: "The academic community; the world of university scholarship".
I think there are two issues here. The first is our definition of academia. From our on-topic page
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.
So our working definition of academia/academics starts at graduate school research. On the teaching front, we consider undergraduate teaching on topic, but don't consider high school teaching to be on topic. While this definition may not match some dictionaries or the general public, I think it is fairly consistent among experts.
As this releases to the question at hand, sexual harassment of high school students is very different than sexual harassment of undergraduate students. High school students are generally minors and sexual harassment of a minor is different than sexual harassment of an adult. The systems in place in a high school are very different than at a university. This means are our experts are not able to answer these types of questions since they are off-topic.
The second issue is that the teacher has already been fired. While there may be some nauce of high school education, the school no longer has an affliation with the teacher and the harassment did not start until the student-teacher relationship ended. This makes it seem like it has nothing to do with academics.
Finally, if the user is a minor and is reporting a crime, that sets off all sorts of warnings. I have alerted the SE team their procedures require them to do.
I think that the linked question is off-topic, but not because of age.
There are certainly questions related to high-school education that remain valid also at higher levels, but this is not the case. In fact, the question states clearly that the teacher had been already removed from the school and, thus, the alleged facts are happening outside of the school environment.
I am the one who made the comment. I'll answer your question to the best I can. I'll leave the things that I cannot answer to the mods.
In our Help center
However, please do not ask questions about
•Undergraduate admissions
•Undergraduate life and culture (sports, nightlife, dorms, leaving the nest, etc.)
So, no, we do not handle high school problems, to the best of my knowledge.
Next, sh*t is not allowed on our site. It's up to the user, you can either flag it or edit it out if the post is salvageable.
Whether it is a troll is up to individual judgement. The Mods may have more clues to tell if it is. I already flag this to the mods.
I think StrongBad has already done a good job of explaining why the question isn't within the topic of "academia", as explicitly defined for this site. I'd just like to address your final assertion a little more thoroughly.
The topic within the question affects not just high school but every level of academic study.
The topic within the question affects many areas of human life outside academic study too. Sexual harassment can be experienced by pilots, gardeners, emacs users, TeX users, writers, and puzzle enthusiasts. There are SE sites for all these topics, but the question wouldn't be on-topic there either. Harassment questions can be on topic here if they're occurring within an academic environment, but topic X isn't automatically appropriate here just because "X also occurs within academia".
|
2025-03-21T12:54:49.003930
| 2018-04-27T16:47:13 |
4116
|
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}
|
Stack Exchange
|
Hot Network Questions is now a bulleted list
Something changed, and now the HNQ list in the sidebar is a bulleted list:
This looks a little awkward to me, since the site icons already do the job of a bullet. I don't see this happening on any other site, either (it's only Academia and Meta Academia).
Is this a bug?
I see it also. Am asking around.
......... Yuck.
It appears to be specific to Academia. Other sites are not showing this.
@Hosea I asked the SE team to look at it. I will try and follow up again in a couple of more days. The SE team periodically checks on questions tagged bug
Thanks for reporting. There was some weird custom styling for UL and OL elements in sidebar. Should be status-completed with next build (in couple hours probably).
Looks fixed to me. Thanks for taking care of us.
But why does it happen specific on Academia?
|
2025-03-21T12:54:49.004063
| 2023-07-06T09:06:30 |
5304
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
Spam attack on Academia Stack Exchange?
I've noticed that in the past week or so, numerous questions pop up that are spam. I flagged around 30 of them so far (or more) but they keep popping up in the Questions section, shadowing proper questions users have that are indeed related to Academia. Is there a way to solve this problem?
I find it amusing that they think academics are the best marketplace for loansharks and pimps. Surely there is a better target... :-)
@BrianTompsett-汤莱恩 I don't know, given the state of academic pay in the UK, I imagine they could be a good target....
They are getting up-votes now!
@Brian at least one of them now has 200+ rep so they they've got the 101 association bonus for all sites and could start upvoting and post spam comments on all SE sites
@BrianTompsett-汤莱恩 Academia StackExchange is so flooded by spam that it's almost unusable by now :/
(Thinking like an academic). Hmm. Perhaps there is a paper on this? Collect the data. Analyse. Build a map. Can I match it to Earth Sat images...? Internet traffic analysis...
@BrianTompsett-汤莱恩 they are probably upvoting each other
This is a consequence of the moderation strike, and of the community-built and community-run spam detection tool SmokeDetector having shut down as part of the strike. To quote from @cocomac on the main meta:
We have extremely good community spam protection. Or, we used to. Normally, there’s a number of tools used to fight spam and get it flagged very quickly 24/7. This means most spam gets deleted extremely quickly.
A number of users (myself included) object to recent actions by SE and are now on strike. As such, when the subset of the community dedicated to fighting spam stops fighting spam, there will be more spam visible. That is ... kinda the point. People notice when less moderation means more garbage (spam). Notably, the strike includes the primary system used for spam fighting.
The question of whether StackExchange itself should improve its own anti-spam system was raised here. In the meantime, users can either flag the spam posts, or leave them alone and hope the presence of spam serves as motivation for StackExchange to proceed with negotiations. Some progress has been made.
I would also suggest users refrain from editing out the spam in spam posts. This is not particularly productive, and can even slow down future conscientious flaggers; see Should spam posts be edited? for more details.
Additionally, we Academia mods are usually VERY quick to destroy spammers that slip through SmokeDetector (posts deleted and accounts destroyed within minutes), which usually discourages them. With the strike, some posts are staying up for hours, and accounts are not being destroyed.
Dealing with the spam by flagging (my only option) is getting burdensome for your GOAT. I'll also guess that it is an AI generating this stuff, which should send its own message about policies.
It also helps to both flag as spam and downvote (which will give it together two downvotes) to make it invisible.
I'm out of flags for the day. :/
FYI, we got a note from staff a few hours ago that says: "the worst has [probably] passed." Not sure what that means technically, but good news I hope.
@cag51 Today I used up my quota in less than an hour, a miserable 12 flags. Is there a way for users who have earned >20K in three or more sites to have that number increased? I didn't realize that I had such a tiny number of flags available so I made the mistake of flagging some spam answers as well
@Mari-LouA The more you flag, the more quota you have. Just keep flagging when you see spams. My limit is 100 spam flags. That's because I have >900 helpful spam flags.
@Nobody I think the quota is based on the size of the rep. I have only 332 whereas you have >13k
There's no way I can reach 200 spam flags in less than 20 days. Users who have raised hundreds (even thousands) of helpful flags on different sites, should be trusted to use up to 50 or 100 flags responsibly on sites where they are less active.
@Mari-LouA I kinda agree. I just hope the strike will be over soon. It doesn't look like so to me, though.
@Mari-LouA The flag limit starts out as 10, and is raised by 1 bonus flag for every 10 net helpful reports, and by 1 bonus flag for every 2,000 reputation.
Agree that users trusted on certain sites should be trusted network-wide when it comes to spam. Not something we as academia mods can fix, though.
Not an answer but a bump.
I guess some desperate academics must be taking loans from them, because they have come back. Obviously there are lucrative customers among us somewhere, because otherwise why keep going in this backwater.... (rhetorical).
I'm just indulging in irony.
I guess an effective way to deal with them is to upvote them.
It will force SE to filter them out and because of transparency SE should declare what tools they are using to filter them out.
During a firefighter's strike, is the solution to outbreaks of arson to pour gasoline on the fire to prove a point?
@YemonChoi
a) I would not define SE life-emergency service;
b) if the firefighters are protecting the fancy silk depot of the king, and the king is an absolut(ist) egoist, why not?
|
2025-03-21T12:54:49.004528
| 2019-03-15T16:16:24 |
4464
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
Yet another list question: Collection of links to LaTeX templates repositories acceptable on Academia SE?
My recent question LaTeX template collection for scientific conferences has been put on hold for being too broad. Apparently, there has been a discussion about whether "big-list questions" (1, 2) are desired or should be avoided.
What I asked myself and probably should have asked first here, is:
Does the question suit better to Tex SE or Academia SE?
Whether it should be a community wiki like: The variance of peer-review types across research disciplines.
As to 1, I found that it is rather on the application side, i.e., it should be posted where academics discuss things. Regarding 2, I decided to just ask a regular question and see how it goes from there.
So here we are. (The question should be still available to read, right?) My goal is to provide LaTeX templates for conferences and make sure that work is not duplicated. Users can add answers where they specify a certain conference. Probably they wanted to submit something there and did not find a suitable template. They can discuss in comments whether a template is available on the web. They can update the answers and add the new information.
Can we do this on Academia SE? Or, alternatively, what would be your suggestions to accomplish this?
Edit: The collection idea has not really found supporters so far. What do you think about questions like "Is there a LaTeX template for the International Conference of Plum Pudding?" instead? Such questions could lead to answers like A1: "There is one on the website of the last conference, but with questionable quality" and/or A2: "I found a repository on github, here is the address.". Then, A2 could be voted up if users find it useful.
It seems like if you think this would be sufficiently useful, you should create your own website repository of this type of information. If that seems to you to be too much work, then that is probably a good indicator that it is not sufficiently useful.
@BryanKrause According to that logic, all users here should create websites repository for their answers. Otherwise they would not be useful. The point is that interaction can take place here that reaches a larger amount of people and possible collaborators.
No, this site itself is a repository for Q&A (which, given its popularity, I would say has been worth the effort of creating). What you are proposing isn't Q&A anymore, in my opinion. It's another type of repository that you are asking to sneak in to a Q&A format.
@BryanKrause Maybe I should clarify that not the templates itself are collected but rather links to their repositories. But anyway, the solution marked with Edit in the updated question seems more appropriate. What do you think of this one?
Please see the edit of my answer in response to your edit. Also, the question still stands: What problem are you actually trying to solve here?
Is this suited for this site?
I see several problems with the proposed question:
If we go for one conference per answer, there are hundreds of possible answers, neither of which is better than another. How would you say that the template linked for the Conference of Definite Articles is better than the one for the International Symposium on Theoretical Lepidopterology? Also, the answers will be difficult to search.
If we go for a single answer, it will be a huge difficult-to-edit wasteland.
If we go for one question per conference and this actually catches on, we have a huge number of questions that are highly individual and can only be evaluated by a very low number of people in the world. For many conferences, you will likely not have more than one user on this site who actually cares about the template.
The answer(s) will essentially be a database that needs to be maintained. Information can be outdated very easily. Essentially, each conference would need a dedicated maintainer. This site is not really suited for this.
This site is not really suited for discussions, though I am not really sure what discussion one would have on templates in the first place: Either they exist or they don’t.
What problem does this solve?
I am not in a field that publishes at conferences, but I expect the situation to be similar to that for journal citation styles and similar: Either somebody got through the trouble of creating a template, in which case it’s easy to find on the Internet (ideally on a repository suited for code like GitHub) or nobody did, in which case there is nothing.
A database is also nice if there is a need for having some information compiled, but I really don’t see somebody needing a bunch of conference templates all of a sudden.
OK I can see that this database, collection, list,... approach has its drawbacks. What just crossed my mind is a question for each conference. Possibly even better in terms of visibility. What would you think about this?
The problem is that if someone went through the trouble it must be assured that other people find their work. I thought (well actually still think) academics.SE would be a good place to share such knowledge for future reference.
@carlosvalderrama if people put their cls files on ctan, they will get included in TeX distributions. Isn't that the best outcome?
@StrongBad Ideally yes. But facing reality, who will go through the trouble of putting it on ctan? In the best case it ends up on github, which is fine. But the problem is -- in my opinion -- that people just don't know about the existence of such a repository. This is what I would like to improve.
@carlosvalderrama: If I am looking for such a template, I would not go to CTAN, GitHub, or whatever first, and search there, I would just use a general Internet search engine (Google, DuckDuckGo, …). These are usually capable of searching all kinds of repositories and find such templates. Having extra questions on Academia for this would even be harmful here, since they would rather be noise in such a search.
@Wrzlprmft The thing is that I could not find my own templates with typical queries. Apparently this can be improved in github by setting certain keywords, I have to try that. People will use a search engine and the contributions of motivated people should show up there, that is the main point. I thought that using SE would help as well.
|
2025-03-21T12:54:49.005012
| 2021-10-04T13:20:41 |
5021
|
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Stack Exchange
|
Are baseless allegations of racism allowed here?
Recently I have posted this answer to this question. I was accused of racism (source: "And, expecting everyone in the world to accept western ideas and practice is also racist/classist and there is no way around this.") & ethnocentric chauvinism (source: one of the last comment on my answer now. "Religious intolerance is not a "liberal view". Neither is ethnocentric chauvinism.").
Anyone who reads my answer is absolutely clear about the truthfulness of these comments: I do not criticize any race, or suggesting that one race is better than the other, neither explicitly or implicitly, not between the lines, not in any other way. My post has absolutely nothing to do with race.
I generally support free speech, and I am ok to be ciricized. I think being falsely accused of racism is serious, and it tells more about the user who made those claims, than me.
Is this behaviour allowed here?
I don't think it is allowed, so I flagged those comments for moderator attention. I might well be wrong. I don't mind, I am able to handle criticism & reason for my views, but I am curious about this community's stance on this issue.
EDIT: the first comment mentioned above got removed.
Not an answer, but I will note that posting blanket statements that accuse wide swaths of the globe of "sexism" without acknowledging that the definition of sexist behavior varies widely between cultures and time periods is simply asking for trouble. I appreciate that you have a view on what constitutes sexism, and I also appreciate that others can reasonably disagree with you. Your post is, at best, mildly inflammatory, and at worst fairly insulting.
I find it important to mention here that you first called the OP, or at least his behaviour, sexist in your answer. In that sense I find it slightly disingenuous that you now frame the resulting unpleasantness as a CoC violation - OP could have very easily used the same line of argumentation to flag your answer (not sure if he did).
I was just typing up a comment similar to what @xLeitix has said. As an example: "if you accept handshakes with people of a certain sex but not with people of the opposite sex, your behaviour is sexist, and there is no way around this" could just as easily be written as "accepting handshakes with people according to their sex can be perceived as sexist, even with a religious justification". This is, in fact, quite similar to how Arno's answer approaches things.
Two things: 1) I gave reasons why that behaviour is sexist. Accusing me of racism with explained reasons would've been entirely different than just a plain accusation, as it happened in my case. 2) @BryanKrause thank you for the improvement, I have edited my answer to incorporate your suggestion.
@zabop The problem is that the difference between your reasons and the reasons of the commenters is that you agree with one set of reasons but not the others ;) anyway, I guess what I'm really trying to say is if you start slinging dirt (even if you feel it's justified dirt) you can't really complain that you will also get dirty.
I can’t see your answer or the comment, and I won’t comment on them. But: your complaint seems to be based on an arbitrary and limiting definition of racism. In particular, you seem to be repeating the canard that racism is only about one arbitrary facet of the made-up concept of “race”, and doesn’t encompass other facets such as discrimination based on religion, ethnicity and culture. To say that that definition of “racism” is useless would be an understatement: in general it’s just wrong. In other words: things such as islamophobia are a subset of (any useful definition of) racism.
Thank you. I deleted my post on the main site because although it's final state was ok I believe, it's history indeed contained parts which now (after reflecting on comments) seem not ok to me.
(Cannot delete just the history so deleted the whole thing.)
"In other words: things such as islamophobia are a subset of (any useful definition of) racism." - I disagree, but most people here probably agree with you. I agree with the main concern, that parts of my answer was not ok.
(I still don't think it was racist, but too unkind.)
(note: I'm writing this in my personal voice rather than with my moderator hat on, nothing here is endorsed or pre-approved by other moderators)
Generally, accusing others personally of racism, sexism, bigotry, or pretty much anything else is not in keeping with the Code of Conduct; the soundness of the foundation of any evidence used to support those accusations is not particularly relevant here.
However, on this particular site we frequently encounter situations in which it is necessary to describe behavior with one of these labels. I do not see a way around this without denying that behaviors that are racist, sexist, or bigoted exist in the real world. In those circumstances, the better practice on this website would be to ensure that these labels are placed on the behavior, rather than the person. It can be tempting to go a step further and extend those labels to the person, whether the goals in doing so are malicious, rhetorical, or merely sloppy writing; I certainly will not claim to be personally innocent of this though I try to be more thoughtful.
When encountering content that is itself blatantly racist or otherwise violating the code of conduct, in many occasions better approach would be to flag that content rather than raising an accusation (which is likely to spark an argument). In other circumstances, when it seems someone else may have written something inadvertently or that they have not fully thought through their position, I think it's okay to raise those concerns in a comment, but be mindful of what your goals and intentions are: if you're honestly hoping for the other person to see your point of view, starting with a serious accusation is not likely to be fruitful and put the other party on the defensive instead.
I'll end by acknowledging that there are counter-arguments to this stance in other venues. There are arguments that it is necessary to call out and name bigotry when it occurs and to refuse to allow people to be separated from their behaviors that impact other people negatively. I think there is room for academic scholarship on both understand why that is so important to people and also to understand what the implications are for making progress on these issues, and it's far from settled. With respect to this particular site, though, we're better off staying away from personal accusations.
I think it's a fairly complex issue. In general, and going strictly by the CoC, the comments as well as the original answer should be removed. The comments for obvious reasons that zabop lays out in their question, but if we are being honest the answer is also a pretty transparent personal attack on the original poster (prior to a recent edit, it plainly said "your behaviour is sexist").
That said, I am somewhat against deleting the answer. Mostly because it is a line of thinking that OP should be prepared for, because like it or not many of his colleagues will be thinking like that (even if few will be as direct about it). Pretending that none of OP's future colleagues will find his religious beliefs highly sexist and disagreeable would be a disservice to OP. So I think it is actually a useful answer for OP, even if other answers provide better solutions to the actual question that was being asked.
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2025-03-21T12:54:49.005976
| 2019-09-12T07:10:15 |
4549
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Stack Exchange
|
Why is Stackexchange Academia so unwelcoming to new users?
For a site about academia and helping users out with academic related questions, I have tried posting 6-7 times on that forum and each time have had my questions flagged as off topic or too specific. Despite me specifically stating I was looking for general direction and not specifics. I have had one user on that site, solar mike or something, following me around and flagging everything as off topic. I have also asked several times that if it's formatted poorly or too general, that I would appreciate being pointed to a more appropriate forum. Instead of helping out with that, just get a yellow "put on hold" notification from Stackexchange.
Before I came to stack exchange, I had heard a lot of negativity about it from Reddit users. How the site was over the top with toxicity, removes everything for being a duplicate, locking threads, etc. I wanted to see for myself, and at least in my experience, it seems to be true. Example: https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/8ewwjc/is_it_just_me_or_is_stack_overflow_an_incredibly/
TL;DR: Why do Stackexchange Academia users act with such hostility?
It might be worth reading the comments on the thread you linked from Reddit; of course there is some complaining (consider selection bias, however), but many of them are explaining and defending the SO/SE model and explaining a bit about what makes a good question here. For people that want SE to be Reddit, well, that already exists and is a different site. It's also worth noticing that the Academia.SE community and the StackOverflow community are not the same. There are some shared concepts but they are different sites.
It is disappointing that Nathan's question did not seem to recognize the comments and the advice given on his question. I think this reflects the high level of distress and avoidance to approach overseas institutions while demanding a Japanese perspective. Seeking the "best" answer for a specific issue is far from appropriate as well.
One analogy that might be helpful is having a very sick patient demanding answers from a discussion forum. The answer to the question is to see a doctor or a clinician for help. That no matter how expert the discussion forum is, no answer will ever be adequate enough nor appropriate for the specific complex illness that a specific person has. The same way as if a person has a specific career or academic counselling issue, no answer or discussion forum will ever be satisfactory imo. Referring people to other forums will not be satisfactory either.
A friend once told me a ( good, in my opinion) analogy for Stack Exchange: Imagine you are going to a foreign country (=StackExchange) where they speak a complicated language they are very proud of which has complicated (and partly, historical, seemingly arbitraty) rules for the outsider. If you only speak English to them, they ignore (and downvote you). If you try to speak the language, but don't know all the rules, you get no help, but meta comments and snarky comments until you finally give up. But if you spend a lot of time learning all the rules, they will help. I think it fits perfectly!
While I agree with the answers that people have given here, and while those questions of Nathan's that I can see (i.e. not deleted ones) wouldn't be a great fit, I do think that people in academia.SE are over-eager to close questions - sometimes reaching rather far for a slightly-relevant close reason, when what they should be doing is downvoting a question, or simply ignoring it.
Eh. Probably not much use saying that here, TBH ;-)
This theme bubbles through just about every stack meta site I've been to. Is anyone aware of a stack that hasn't seen this criticism?? If not, my tongue-in-cheek suggestion is to re-tag this status-by design.
Having read through your questions, it appears that you are misunderstanding the purpose of this website. Academia.SE is a place for academics to discuss academia, in general. There are many concepts that are common to all academics—dealing with grants, working with administrators, getting stuck in research, teaching, etc.—that newcomers (or even veterans) have difficulty dealing with. This site acts as a forum for discussion on those types of topics.
However, no one on this site really knows each other. As such, any time people are asking questions very specific to them—what types of courses should I take based on my specific goals, how can I improve on my specific resume, how can I personally be more competitive for X—we can never help them sufficiently. As such, those questions are routinely closed as "too specific".
I fully appreciate that there is nuance here, as the distinction between "how do I get a good letter" and "how can I improve my application" are sometimes subtle. This is often frustrating for newcomers... you're not the first to have a closed question of this type. That said, since we really can't answer these questions, for the health of the overall community we close them.
I'm sorry your experience has been so negative, but hopefully this will help you understand how this site can be useful in your academic life.
The phrase "too specific" can easily be misunderstood. How about changing it to "too individual"?
@aparente001: The motivation and rules for that close reason are actually mostly about specificity, not about individuality. There are some great individual questions on this site. The problem with some specific questions is that this is not a good place to answer them.
@Wrzlprmft - Thanks. Can you share a couple of examples of questions that were closed for specificity, where a "too individual" euphemism would be a gross mismatch?
@aparente001: That was not the direction I was arguing. Almost all questions closed with depending on individual factors (i.e., specificity) are too individual. But not all individual questions should be closed for that reason. For example, “Is this very weird way my paper was handled ethical?” is very individual but usually fine. (Finally, I don’t get why you denote too individual as an euphemism
@Wrzlprmft - I just thought that OP and others might feel less indignant with the proposed euphemism. OP explained that he feels "damned if he does and damned if he doesn't."
The other answers try to explain why your posts were closed as "off topic", but I want to address other parts of your question:
I have had one user on that site, solar mike or something, following me around and flagging everything as off topic.
I understand that it can feel like you're being targeted when the same name appears over and over on the list of those who voted to close your post. But if there's a user who votes on many posts, you'll see their name a lot - not because you're being followed, just because they're a frequent voter
I have also asked several times that if it's formatted poorly or too general, that I would appreciate being pointed to a more appropriate forum.
Users of this site may not know a more appropriate forum to direct you to. They're frequent users of Academia Stack Exchange, they don't necessarily know what's in scope and out of scope on sites that are not Academia Stack Exchange. It's kind of like if the item you wanted was out of stock at a store, and you asked a store employee, "Excuse me, but if you can't sell me this item, can you at least tell me what other store nearby has it in stock?"
I don't think the last sentence is a good analogy. At least where I life, employees of a shop would indeed try to help and point out a neighboring shop (even a concurent one!) or a date when it is possible to buy the item. At the least, they would apologize. They would not be silent or scold/downvote the questioner.
It is not really the people but rather the tools we have and the expectations of new users. The Stack Exchange system is unabashedly a question and answer site and not a discussion forum. The system works great when a user asks a question that fits the format well. When a question is a poor fit, it gets put on hold. The hope is that while it is on hold the person who asked and other community members will work together to make the question a better fit. The problem is that we don't have particularly effective tools to help a new user understand what makes a good question different from a bad question.
From the new users perspective, you have a question and the experienced users are shutting you down. That is obviously going to feel hostile. From the experienced users perspective, if the question is not a good fit, it needs to be shut down to keep the signal-to-noise ratio high. Sometimes they just shut it down, but often, they will try and point you in the correct direction. That direction is often read the help and a bunch of questions to try and learn what makes a good question. As hard as it might be to see, we are not trying to be hostile. We have a good idea about what works and what does not work.
In regards to your questions, I see three problems. The first is that the answers need to apply to lots of people and not just you, second we like questions to have "right answers", and third the right answer for your questions depends entirely on you.
For example, what classes should you take to prepare for a PhD in Political Science depends on obviously what classes a particular department requires, but more importantly on what classes you have taken, what you enjoy and what your specific goals are. In order to give you a good answer, we really need to know you. That of course means the answer is not useful to anyone else. If instead we give you a generic answer, then we are not really accomplishing our goal of providing high quality answers. The odds are the answer would just be excepts about admission requirements and required courses pulled from a few Political Science departments websites. Again, this does not help you or anyone. So instead of wasting our time and your time, we put the question on hold.
We are a site about academia in general but not the specifics of individual fields. There are specialist sites on the SE network where you can sometimes get helpful information (e.g., Biology and Physics), but there isn't one for Political Science. This means that the SE system doesn't really have a place for questions about Political Science. If you can frame your questions to be more field agnostic, while still asking what you want, it might help.
First, I am aware that I am the fourth moderator to answer your question. This probably happens because only we can easily see all your deleted posts. It is not our intention to pile up on you or similar. I am also aware that some of my points may be a bit redundant to the existing answers, but I want to keep the whole story in one place.
We close questions for the following reasons (amongst others that are not relevant to your case):
You ask multiple, distinct questions at once. This can usually be solved by reducing your post to one question. While other platforms tend to accept or even encourage questions being asked this way, I fail to see how this is an advantage.
It is unclear what you are asking. In this case you can solve this by clarifying your question. There is no point in pointing you to other sites here, because we would first have to understand your issue and if we don’t, there is no reason to expect that others will.
You ask for the recommendation, comparison, or evaluation of individual courses. We call this a shopping question, and the linked FAQ explains why we do not like them. You may find other platforms that accept these questions, but beware that the answers may be wrong since they are usually only based on the experience of a single person choosing a single path in life (which is one of the reasons why we disallow such questions).
Questions that depend on your indvidual history and preferences. Similar to shopping questions, you may find somebody who will give you an answer, but beware that giving you a useful answer requires somebody to familiarise themselves intensively with your specifics – which takes more time than most people are willing to spend for a stranger on the Internet. At the very least, this requires an intensive back and forth with you, which a question-and-answer platform is not suited for. For the career questions you have, the best person to ask is probably a professor at your alma mater, because they are somewhat familiar with your target field, already know your undergraduate programme, and know at least know you a bit.
Duplicates of canonical questions. We use canonical questions to cover up some general information about basic topics that come up a lot and where we got tired of providing the same answer again and again with little variation. Sometimes it can happen that we close as a duplicate of a canonical question, because we cannot figure out from your question whether you know the basics. If you completely understood the canonical question, use it as a starting point for your question, in particular by showing us that it did not solve your problem.
One of the points I am trying to make here is that while we may be able to point you to another platform which accepts your question indiscriminately, what you want may not be what you need. From another point of view, if we thought that asking these questions anywhere on the Internet would be a good idea, we would probably not have closed them in the first place.
Another problem is that you appear to be treating question closure like whack-a-mole (with you being the mole): Once your question is closed or somebody comments that it should be closed in its current form, you delete it – instead of trying to edit the question to address the problems mentioned in the problems. You then post a question that often has the same problems, but is different in other respects, introducing new problems.
For example, your very first question (“How can I get some idea of how qualified I am to do a PhD in International Relations”) can be turned into a good one if you remove the surplus questions and streamline the convoluted details a bit.
However, it never came to this since you deleted the question after a comment that guided you to get to know the site and improve your question and that your question might be closed (it never received a single close vote).
Finally, our users have been giving you a lot of helpful advice on how to improve your question and links to FAQs what question we close and why – which you mostly ignored. For example, we were advising you several times that your posts are difficult to understand due to being convoluted; yet you self-assess your most recent question to be rambling.
In my experience, the issue is that new users have not read, understood, and followed the information on this page:
https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic
Flagging your question is not actually hostile. It's just following the local customs.
As for Solar Mike following you around, I'm sure he reads every question posted here and flags all the ones that should be flagged.
Finally, if you don't enjoy the content of this site, go elsewhere. This thing is basically a computer game, it's not really important. Personally, I do not even bother playing to win.
I don't know where else to go to have my question answered. Gradcafe is a graveyard.
@NathanSmithJr. Faculty at your university that you know in real life.
@NathanSmithJr: But why should the people here know? This is not a forum for helping people, this place is about writing interesting questions and answers. New users are assumed to have a very thick skin.
@user114084 "New users are assumed to have a very thick skin." I would disagree with that. Instead, I would say they are expected to follow the site rules the same as everyone else.
Already tried that @anonymousphysicist.
The forum definitely exists to help people.
@NathanSmithJr: where is your proof for that?
No, @NathanSmithJr., it exists to make a profit for the owners.
@NathanSmithJr. "The forum definitely exists to help people." Not fully: this forum exists to help people in rather specific ways. And this is true of all the stackexchange sites. Not every good question related to academia is appropriate here, any more than every good question related to math is appropriate at math.stackexchange. (A common objection is that there is a dearth of "successful" sites with a broader focus, and so the SE sites should fill that role, but that's a nonsequitur even when it's true: the lack of one type of site doesn't mean that another type of site is inappropriate.)
@noah, correct, it exists to help people. In specific ways, but it’s not fair to say “it’s not here to help people”.
It is not specific to Academia forum, all StackExchange forums follow similar policies which are way stricter that other Q&A sites. That helps to keep discussion on the topic, yet new users often feel unwelcome.
In past, the administration took a serious effort to make StackExchange, mostly its flagship forum StackOverflow more welcoming. Yet I believe moderation is mostly performed by veteran users, who are not employee of the StackOverflow, and are accustomed to written and unwritten policies, and is not so those efforts were sometimes challenged by the community, who might felt that their hard moderation efforts are underappreciated.
That said, moderation is important, and I feel more comfortable in being moderated by more experienced users and domain experts rather than some spurious algorithms, as it is done by some popular social networks.
So I figure, as already recommended, you should carefully read the Academia policy and FAQ, and with time you will learn to ask right question right way.
The gist of the answers so far is "Stack Exchange Academia is not actually unwelcoming." I've marked your question as useful because I think it's valid and deserves to be examined openly and nondefensively for the benefit of users. The "Welcome" page states, "We hope you find Academia.SE enjoyable, interesting, and fun, and we welcome your contributions to the site." If someone feels unwelcome, that's an indication that the site's mission isn't being fully achieved.
You ask, "Why is Stackexchange Academia so unwelcoming to new users?" I'm not sure it's unwelcoming specifically to new users. I participate in a number of Stack Exchange categories. Academia is by far the strictest when it comes to knowing and following the fine points of the rules, and getting rapped on the knuckles when you unintentionally break them. Sometimes answers are a bit acerbic, bordering on hostile.
In other Stack Exchange categories, the conversation is more natural and people aren't called to task for failure to observe rules that actually aren't part of normal discourse. In normal discourse, there aren't a lot of rules about what questions you can ask and how you can ask them.
A further issue is power dynamics among users, leading to predictable patterns of removal of questions, downvoting, etc. between people who've taken a dislike to each other. The structure of Stack Exchange may contribute to this, with all the badges, privileges, and reputation scores that encourage competition.
Now I'm going to answer your question by framing it in the larger context of conditions in the field of academia and academic institutions. My answer pertains to the U.S. and Canada, the countries I'm familiar with. Academia (the profession, not this Stack Exchange) is a difficult environment, and it has become much more so in the last 20 years or so. Colleges and universities are now viewed as businesses that should be financially self-sustaining. To do that they've had to increase class sizes. There have been large cuts in government funding to higher education. As a result, colleges and universities have had to slash their budgets. Tenure-track positions have been cut and the bulk of the teaching load has been massively shifted to very low-paid adjunct teachers who must scramble to earn a living by piecing together positions at several different institutions, with no job security from year to year.
Those conditions make for intense competition for teaching jobs. And yet, universities continue to turn out an oversupply of PhDs who have very poor job prospects, increasing the problem. In recent years, many smaller colleges have closed due to lack of funding or financial mismanagement, releasing another stream of job hunters to compete with the new PhDs.
On top of this, in the U.S. there has been a degradation of education in general. Today's first-year university students are less skilled than several decades ago. They remain underskilled through the PhD because there is always an assumption that they mastered academic literacy at lower levels, even though that wasn't taught at any level. Oddly, PhD students are expected to teach courses with no training in teaching. When those new PhD graduates land their first teaching position, they discover that they lack adequate academic, teaching, and research skills. Soon the pressure to teach, research, serve on committees, attend conferences, and publish papers and a book for tenure has them in despair.
Meanwhile, older scholars are engaged in the battles you would expect when there is competition for limited resources and a power hierarchy that allows sometimes pathological people to control other people's careers. They feel overworked---with job cuts there are fewer people to do the work---and have little time to support the graduate students they supervise.
These working conditions create a great deal of hardship, stress, unhappiness, bitterness, anger, and jealousy. Academia is divided into haves and have-nots with respect to full-time tenure-track jobs, salaries, grants, and power. People turn on each other. Often it's graduate students and new scholars who are on the receiving end of all this bitterness, but bullying between senior colleagues is also a known phenomenon.
In short, academia today is not a fun profession and it can be very hard to make it work as your career. My hypothetical answer to your original question is this is what is being manifested in the Academia Stack Exchange. When people can't control the big things in life---whether they have a job, their salary, working conditions, how they're treated by people who have power---they naturally turn to other, smaller things that give them a sense of control. This might partially explain the pedanticism among academics and rigid adherence to rules here. Sadly, some people also become less nice to others.
I think it's really that simple. Any internet forum is a closed environment (meaning able to set its own rules, not subject to the usual rules of public social interactions due to anonymity) where people can act out subconscious feelings toward others. Their behavior makes them feel a bit better somehow, while making you feel a bit worse.
Upvoted, this was interesting read, even though IMHO all the stackoverflow forums are overly strict, the level of hostility varies among forums wildly.
Please provide examples where episodes of hostility and unfriendliness have occurred. If comments have been deleted by the moderator team that shows the community is under control by its members. Anyway, in my limited experience on this site I do not recall stumbling on any answer that treated the OP with disrespect or sarcasm. I see that, rarely, on Workplace and fairly often on Meta (sometimes the jaded enthusiasm and air of cynicism is justified by the management's plans) but not here.
@ Mari-Lou A I will decline to give specific examples of hostility as it would only add to the hostility. I found this thread rather easily by googling "hostility in stack exchange academia forum" because I have long wondered about this. Scrolling through the results clearly confirms the poster's experience.
P.S I didn't receive a notification because my username is detached from the @ symbol. Of course you're going to find hits for "hostility Stack Exchange" on the Internet, but my comment was referring specifically to Academia.SE. I don't visit every single day but I've been visiting for years and I don't recall any instances of disrespect, curmudgeonry, sourness etc. compared to StackOverfow, Workplace, EL&U and Meta (the last one above all).
|
2025-03-21T12:54:49.007825
| 2020-12-15T21:20:11 |
4843
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|
Stack Exchange
|
Is "US" the default location here?
Edit: In the question I linked to, the dublicate was accepted by the OP. However, there are other questions like this one How do academics (faculty members, PhD students, etc.) balance their work and life? which are closed as dublicate of an US question. The current answer here talks only about the other question (which was closed by the OP), not about the other question or the general case. So the question is still unanswered.
Today, the following question was closed as a duplicate within an hour: How will several Cs and one F affect my chances of gettting into a PhD program?
The questioner forgot to mention their country and the question was closed as a duplicate of a question "How to get into US PhD programs with bad grades".
What I find strange about that is that there was no mention at all of some country, yet it was closed in favor of a question which has "US" in the title. The same happened last week with a question about work-life balance.
I find this really strange. I mean, even if it is statistically likely that the question is about US, shouldn't one give the questioner a few hours to edit in their country before closing as a duplicate of an US question? Or close it as unclear because the country is missing? Or is "US" somehow the default country we assume when there is no other information?
Just a note: I remember some answerer saying (about another student) something like "I assumed this was about the US because teaching assistants are mentioned". I don't think this is a good argument - in an English speaking forum, I would probably also use "teaching assistant", "grades A to F" and so on even if my home system does not use those words (when the details are not important).
The OP continues to be able to edit the question, which would then go into the re-open queue.
@JonCuster: But is this how we want things to be? First close as duplicate of some related question and then "hope" that OP edites it? If I was a new user and this was how I was welcomed, I would probably not edit (are you even sure that it is known to all, especially new, users that this is what they should do and that this reopens the question?)
I agree that it went a little fast, being under 2 hours (which is 'a few' mind you) from posting to closure. Perhaps better to request a larger fraction of a day. Still the OP, if they find their way here, should know the question remains editable by them. A look at the timeline shows only 2 close votes, one by the Community moderator, so it likely went faster than normal resulting in the quick close in less than 2 hours.
@JonCuster and user111388 - the vote by the Community user is what happens when the question asker agrees that the duplicate answered their question. The OP themselves caused this question to be closed (you can see this if you mouseover "Community" in the timeline: https://academia.stackexchange.com/posts/160060/timeline ). Also, this is a bit of a special case IMO, where that "How does the admissions process work for Ph.D. programs in the US" canonical Q&A contains a ton of content that is more broadly applicable.
@BryanKrause - I did not know that is how it appears. Thanks!
The vote by the Community user is what happens when the question asker agrees that the duplicate answered their question. The OP themselves caused this question to be closed (you can see this if you mouseover "Community" in the timeline) by accepting the duplicate.
Also, this is a bit of a special case where that "How does the admissions process work for Ph.D. programs in the US" was created specifically to be a dupe target for this sort of question: What should we do with the "Can I get into X program with 3.xx GPA?" Although the Q&A mentions the US and has some very US-specific content, other parts are more broadly applicable.
It's been raised on Meta before that perhaps there should be other versions for other places: Do we need a “borderline admissions” question for countries other than the US?
If the question were not closed as a duplicate, it should have been closed as depending on individual factors; the dupe closure is a community decision to redirect rather than close these questions.
Okay, if the user themselves closed the question, then it's of course okay. Thank you! Could you check if it is the same with the question https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/159946/how-do-academics-faculty-members-phd-students-etc-balance-their-work-and-li/159950 ? I don't know how to open this timwline.
@user111388 No, it's not the same. To open the timeline click on the clock icon below the vote count.
@MassimoOrtolano: Thank you. I did not found the icon because it does not seem to be avaible on mobile version.
@user111388 If you're on mobile, I suggest you to scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on "full site". It activates the responsive version with (almost) all the site functionalities.
|
2025-03-21T12:54:49.008244
| 2020-01-29T02:10:18 |
4651
|
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Stack Exchange
|
Why do faculty in the sciences seem dismissive of the humanities on this site?
Why do so many of the CS and STEM members on here treat humanities and social science disciplines as if they were useless? Where does this overt prejudice come from? And why does Academia seem to give it free reign?
Recently, I saw the latest example when a student in CS asked about getting a master’s in sociology. A respondent argued that a master’s in “the humanities” was “worthless” and claimed he would be unable to do anything with it “at least in the professions”. First, sociology is a social science, not a humanities discipline, and this respondent seemed to think there was no difference. Second, anyone who wants jobs involving public policy, government, polling, etc., needs training in social science methodology, and sociology is paradigmatic for it. I could go on, but why does this bigoted, ignorant perspective persist here?
I have some thoughts that I'll try to write down in the next days, but first and foremost when you see comments condescending or diminishing of a discipline, please flag them.
Please add a link. 2. Do you have further examples, or is it just an isolated case? 3. anyone who wants jobs involving public policy, government, polling, etc., needs training in social science methodology [citation needed]. I am not sure we want to start debating about the accuracy of this claim here, and it does not seem central to your argument.
"so many" -> Evidence needed.
@lighthousekeeper I can't say many, however, there are quite a few in the past based on my personal experience on this site. I happen to be the one who has done thousands of reviews. Just a few minutes ago, some one downvoted https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/143598/546 I upvoted it to compensate the down vote.
I am not sure if I violated our site rules, if I did, I would take the penalty for what I did. But, I feel that it's something I should do.
@scaaahu I don't think a downvote on that question necessarily suggests any disrespect towards the humanities.
@lighthousekeeper: I upvoted that one too, much earlier.
@frederico Poloni: Since this is Meta, I do not think the same level of evidence for factual claims is called for. This is speaking from personal experience, as these fields tend to hire people trained in the quantitative methods taught in sociology, including how to design survey questions. And, finally, if it were only one isolated case, it would not be worth mentioning. I encounter these attitudes regularly in Academia, but I'll begin flagging them.
I think the required level of evidence for claims would be lower than in a research paper, but it's not zero. One example (and a single downvote as a second example) is not enough evidence for saying that it's many.
And why does Academia seem to give it free reign?
Bashing other disciplines is clearly against our code of conduct and I do not have the impression that it happens often.
If you see any posts that do this, please flag them as rude or abusive (questions and answers) or harassment, bigotry or abuse (comments).
If you think that the rudeness is not obvious, use a custom comment (in need of moderator attention) and explain.
A responded argued that a master's in "the humanities" was "worthless" and claimed he would be unable to do anything with it "at least in the professions."
I presume you are referring to this comment, which says:
Why do you need a PhD degree in the humanities? An online program (if you could find one) would be of no use professionally (in any profession). Just study as much sociology as you like. Online courses are a possibility.
In my interpretation, the author of this comment:
asks the question’s author what they want to achieve by obtaining a PhD as opposed to (online) self study without a degree.
This is not related to the field.
In my opinion, this is a completely legitimate question as few people do a PhD its own sake, i.e., the diploma, and we get many similar questions, where it turns out that the asker wants a PhD but actually needs something different.
claims that online PhD programmes are of no professional use.
Whether professional use pertains to the actual qualification obtained through such programmes or their recognition by potential future employers is unclear, but does not really matter for your question.
This is claimed to apply to any field/profession (“in any profession”), not just to the humanities.
In particular, this does not claim humanities to be useless.
Finally note that it was the question’s author who first classified sociology as humanities; the commentor probably just went along.
Most such categorisations are horribly vague and country-specific.
For example, there exist no accurate German translation of the term humanities that would capture the same disciplines.
STEM faculty
While a considerable portion of users of this site are from the STEM fields or faculty, another, equally considerable portion is not.
For example, I am not faculty, and the question which prompted the comment in question was answered by a sociologist.
If anything, I think the question was more dismissive of the humanities (and sociology) than that comment (though I think this is clearly out of naivety rather than malice), and although closed the existing answer also points this out pretty directly, making it clear that a sociology PhD isn't just something easy you pursue as a hobby on the side.
Thank you, Wrzlprmft. I'll start flagging them, as you suggest.
I think many scientists (myself included, sometimes) tend to assume that science==academia and forget that many non-science things are also studied academically. That's accidental, and should be called out.
When people, as in the quotes above, are being actively insulting to other fields - sure, we have existing ways of highlighting abusive content :-)
When people, as in the quotes above, are being actively insulting to other fields – Can you please elaborate why you consider the quoted comment actively insulting? As I tried to argue, I do not think this is the case and nobody argued against that, so I would be honestly interested in the opposing stance.
|
2025-03-21T12:54:49.008837
| 2020-08-26T11:58:05 |
4782
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
Low contrast of post titles are making them hard to read
The color #3FABC4 of post titles is very difficult to read against a white background. It only produces a contrast ratio of 2.68:1. Can we use a darker color, that is easier on the eyes?
Or, better put perhaps, this should be on meta.stackexchange.com
@BryanKrause: This colour is specific to this site’s design. (And even if it weren’t, SE policy is that you can post general problems on every per-site meta.)
@Wrzlprmft Thanks, didn't realize that particular color was different here than elsewhere.
@Wrzlprmft - fair enough, but it might be worthwhile bringing it up on Meta since readability issues should be made obvious to all sites.
@JonCuster: On Meta SE this will almost certainly be closed for being specific to a particular site.
Good question, lets hope we get an answer from the moderators soon.
@user111388: We moderators cannot do much about it, except forwarding it to SE staff, in case there appears to be sufficient demand for fixing this (in particular indicated by upvotes). Right now, this doesn’t appear to be the case.
|
2025-03-21T12:54:49.008968
| 2024-05-10T17:08:29 |
5461
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
What to do when you disagree with close reason?
I'm relatively new here. Compared to Math Overflow, I've noticed that Academia has more frequent "tug of war" situations with closing and reopening questions. A question of mine was just closed as a shopping question but I think it's clear that it's not a shopping question, according to the definition of "shopping question". So, I would like to ask how to have my question reopened.
The link above (which I read before asking) defines a shopping question as:
A shopping question is a question that appears to seek help choosing,
finding or assessing an individual journal, an individual publisher,
an individual university, an individual academic program, an
individual field, an individual research topic, an individual funding
agency.
In most cases a shopping question can be identified by fulfilling one
of the following criteria: Naming one or more of the above would be an
answer to the question. Evaluating, criticising, or comparing one or
more of the above would be an answer to the question.
The definition goes on:
Note that questions about how to make such a choice in general – that do not involve naming any of the above – are not considered shopping questions and may be welcome here.
My question was seeking general resources for how to write an op-ed, which is of course something that academics sometimes do, but do not receive any training on. Seeking general resources is not like the list above that defines shopping questions. It seems to me that there are plenty of other questions seeking resources, that do not get closed. I would like some clarity on this issue. Thanks!
Agree on the tug-of-war (in general). We do have a high closure rate because many of the questions are manifestly off-topic -- but there are also many borderline questions that IMO should be left open. At any rate: to the title question, posting on meta is the right thing to do. I'm posting this as a comment in case you want to edit this meta question accordingly (e.g., "Should we reopen the question about ____?").
Also relevant: https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4984/shopping-question-vs-resource-request
I haven't voted one way or the other on that post, but it did strike me as a possible "boat programming" question.
What kind of convinces me that this is indeed a shopping question is that the only two answers are basically link-only answers (which is also not the type of answer we want to have here, it is written somewhere, don't want to spend time looking for it). I actually was really torn and decided to skip it in the reopen queue when it came up because I wasn't sure how to decide. It is pretty borderline.
@Sursula Perhaps if the question had remained open, it might have attracted fuller answers. Closing a question quickly after it was asked because it has so far only attracted links as answers, does not seem reasonable to me personally.
@DavidWhite yeah, but the question wasn't closed quickly at all - from what I can see it was asked 9 days ago and closed only 2 days ago, so a full week has passed before it was closed, that is actually far from being closed quickly. Many closed questions are closed within hours of asking. And also the amount of new answers being posted after a week has passed is also quite low.
As this is one of the busiest weeks for professors (with end-of-semester meetings, final exams, grading, etc.), I think a week is a short time to stay open. I myself have two dozen tabs open that I need to get to, once I get through all the other tasks that have build up over the course of the semester.
@DavidWhite while you might be especially busy, others are not (its the middle of the semester here in Germany). But that nonwithstanding, this is just not how closing works. Noone thinks, "Ah this question might benefit from being left open for a while and if it didn't attract enough good anwers I'll come back in a week and vote to close!". People stumble accross questions (mainly the new ones) and decide that the question doesn't fit the scope and vote to close. Really, I think it is extremely long for a closed question to be left open for a whole week.
After a post-strike account deletion I don't have the rep to do close/open votes any longer. So, I wanted to take a brief moment here to endorse the thought that this question isn't a shopping question.
Some of the discussion in the comments involves whether to close questions which seem borderline on first reading, but on the basis that the subsequent answers fit the type of answers we expect from that close reason. I've been thinking about this reasoning off and on for some time, especially as it relates to our "opinion-based" close reason.
Just as a suggestion that I hope people find persuasive or at least entertain: I've come to personal criterion that closing a borderline question because of the answers it gets should only happen when the activity on the question overwhelms our other moderation tools.
As an example class that merits closure under this criterion: Most commonly this happens on borderline questions which hit the Hot Network Questions list. Perhaps the question seems okay at first, or borderline, but then the flood of HNQ activity spawns a ton of opinion-based or otherwise bad answers along with upvotes that the community here isn't big enough to regulate.
David's question is an example that I think would not merit closure this way. The answers that the question received were, to my mind, bad answers. They are short and link-only. But there are only two of them. If instead of voting to close we simply downvoted those, that seems to me a happier equilibrium.
Thanks for the support! As the question is closed, I cannot add what I learned over the past 13 days about writing op-eds. But, I can share that, I was able to successfully write one and get it published: https://www.nydailynews.com/2024/05/16/cooperation-can-end-violent-protests/
@DavidWhite Congrats on the publication! Where any of the learnings in any way related to you being an academic or would apply especially to academics? Because if the don't (and I really don't mean that in any way negatively), this again would be an argument against the question being reopened, see Anyons comment on the question itself about boat programming. If you truly have any experiences to share uniquely valuable to academics, I will vote to reopen.
@Sursula Yes, absolutely. I even had discussions with the university communications team and the president of the university. But, these days I am extremely busy. I cannot promise to immediately take the time to write up all I learned as a self answer, and I don't really see the point, since clearly others are not that interested.
|
2025-03-21T12:54:49.009481
| 2021-10-11T05:01:40 |
5027
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
Contacting a user to share very valuable info with them
I want to notify a user that would I am worried will flabbergast his education opportunity, having more chance of if the answers also forget this. I maybe overreacting, sorry.
An user asked this question that his about a draft that seems to be plagarized from a book; and now he is finding advice: My PhD advisor sent me a plagiarized draft
A condensed version of his question:
While working on a paper, my PhD advisor sent revisions that included
three pages plagiarized from a book. Thankfully I caught this before
the paper was submitted,it could have had terrible consequences.
I've brought up the issue with my advisor, who claimed it was an
accidental mistake. We only talked once besides a few emails. Whether
or not this was a mistake, I feel hurt, cheated, and I have lost trust
in my advisor.
Am I overreacting to the situation? I know I was in a vulnerable state
before this happened, so it's definitely hitting me hard. But I'm also
trying to not overreact.
My options at this point are to:
quit my PhD
change advisor and research field
find a co-advisor and stay in the same field
Option 1 is very appealing. Option 2 is scary to me. Option 3 would be
easiest in terms of finishing my PhD, as long as I can get my
productivity back up while regularly interacting with my current
advisor.
I am not gonna advice about what he is going to do with the 3 options, But all 3 is made on the state of "He plagiarized from a book".
What I am worried is this comment:
It's someone else's book. The three pages were almost copied verbatim,
with only slight changes to fit in our paper. As I was working on
improing the text, I noticed that some of the language didn't really
fit with the rest of our paper, so I googled a few sentence bits. I
found it was copied from the book. A plagiarism detection tool then
showed that three whole continuous pages were plagiarized.
So how did he find out that the paper was copied?
Searched few sentences on Google (why: because the language didn't fit in (?))
I found it was copied from the book
Then used a plagiarism detection Tool and found out that
that three whole continuous pages were plagiarized.
I know for a lot of time that half of the tools in the world (online) are either false or not exact.
If he used something like findplagiarismcheck.com; The site will show false reports to show it is working and to preferably say to buy its premium version/license. So It might be the case that This asker is going to lose its PhD (and a job, if you know what I mean) based on false results.
I am not worried if he used a reputed service like Turnitin.
So what should I do? do nothing or notify him? (I don't have the rep level do it)
By design, Stack Exchange does not allow direct messaging between users, but only communications through comments and chats, which, however, require a minimum of reputation.
However, you’re overthinking this and missing an important bit from the linked question:
I've brought up the issue with my advisor, who claimed it was an accidental mistake.
That is, the advisor recognised that that piece of writing was plagiarised, even though they claimed to be accidental plagiarism, and there’s no need to warn the OP that anti-plagiarism tools and searches on the Internet may be imperfect (something the OP probably knows already).
+1. Not a exact comment about your answer: Don't you think that the word accidental is a bit Gothic or an-overkill-adjective-for-apologizing? I mean how is copying accidental? the advisor clearly had to think and do it - Our brain doesn't inject things-we-have-read randomly to what we write? Also word mistake is a bit non-aligning...
By design, Stack Exchange does not allow direct messaging between users, but only communications through comments and chats, which, however, require a minimum of reputation I knew the both :); not sure about direct-messaging however, there is this thing called "gallery", anyway.
"By design, Stack Exchange does not allow direct messaging between users" Technically, if the OP were to become a moderator, they would be able to direct message users.
@EkadhSingh-ReinstateMonica It would be highly unusual to use the moderator message tools for this sort of thing.
|
2025-03-21T12:54:49.009810
| 2022-01-28T09:09:52 |
5115
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
Why is "Opinion-based" listed separately within the Close vote dialog, instead of under "A community-specific reason"?
Why is "Opinion-based" listed as a close reason in its own right in the Close vote dialog, and not instead found under "A community-specific reason" (along with other, similar reasons like "strongly depends on individual factors")?
Aren't opinion-based questions not also not in line with Academia SE's guidelines? At least for me, it would make much more sense to put it under the umbrella "community-specific reason".
The opinion-based closing reason is part of the network-wide closing reasons, and these cannot be customised at site level. That is, it’s a closing reason that can be found in any site of the network. The network-wide closing reasons were decided by the Stack Exchange staff.
The custom close reasons are those that can be customised by each site and they are shown in a separate menu. You can read the discussion about our current custom close reasons here.
|
2025-03-21T12:54:49.009914
| 2015-05-04T15:57:34 |
1729
|
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Stack Exchange
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Should the [grades] and [grading] tags be merged?
We have both grade and grading, witho 83 and 50 tagged questions respectively. I am afraid I am responsible for this mess because I created grading 2 years ago, when grades already existed.
Could the two be merged?
There is an existing tag synonym proposal for those, with a current score of -1. Users who have an opinion on this are invited to vote on the tag synonym.
There is a discussion about that downvote here.
(Note: It looks like the mentioned synonym proposal no longer exists, now that several years have passed...)
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2025-03-21T12:54:49.009991
| 2014-10-27T19:12:50 |
1319
|
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Stack Exchange
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Why would a user downvote an obvious tag synonym?
I recently re-tagged a question with the grades tag. I then looked at the synonyms and there is the grading tag. I can't vote it as a synonym because my rep on either of these is probably 0. But there is a down-vote on the synonym suggestion, see:
https://academia.stackexchange.com/tags/grades/synonyms
What are the possible reasons for this? Isn't it the consensus to try to clean up these tags?
Presumably the user who downvoted believes the distinction between grades (the quantitative measure assigned to a piece of work) and grading (the act of assigning a grade) is worth preserving.
For example, a question on how grades affect graduate admissions would be about grades but not grading.
If that's the intended distinction, then perhaps the tags should be renamed to clarify the intent (e.g. renaming [grading] to [grading-process] or similar; I'm not sure what [grades] would be renamed to). And the tag excerpts/wikis should probably be edited to clarify the distinction as well.
I have updated the tag descriptions.
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2025-03-21T12:54:49.010108
| 2022-06-15T20:06:10 |
5170
|
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Stack Exchange
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Passing the torch
Twelve years ago I stumbled across a proposal on Area 51 for a site called "Academia". As a soon-to-be-graduated grad student at the time, I was super intrigued. My own experience as a grad student had been... shall we say, "challenging", and I was excited at the prospect of a site where students could ask the sorts of questions I never got answers to myself. I was an active participant from the very beginning.
Once the site entered Beta I asked a whole bunch of questions. By that point in my grad student career I already had answers to most of them, but felt it important to ensure that they were here, searchable, so that others could find them. I spent a lot of time answering a wide range of questions, hoping to help other students avoid the confusion I had experienced. All this procrastination from doing actual research community effort helped me become a Moderator Pro Tempore, which motivated me to double down on my site contributions, not just as a participant but as an active moderator as well.
I kept my moderator badge after I left grad school and completed my postdoc. I kept my badge when I entered industry, and switched roles, and switched roles again, and switched roles again. I took on a consulting gig. I was co-led a startup for a brief bit. Throughout all this, the community was kind enough to actually vote me into a diamond moderator role and work with me as I and my fellow moderators—diamond mods and high-rep mods, all volunteering their time—tended to the site. It's honestly not a stretch to say that, family aside, this site has been one of the most enduring constants throughout the past twelve years of my life.
My most recent work transition has given me less time to attend to the site than before, and in the interest of not being an absentee moderator I'm relinquishing my diamond. However, I am definitely not leaving.
Academia.SE has become quite a resource. Tens of thousands of questions, nearly a hundred thousand answers, and a whole heck of a lot of daily visitors... it's been quite a journey from that original proposal on Area 51. It still brings me simple joy to see students interacting with professors, postdocs, industry experts, and more than a few retirees on the site, asking questions, getting a range of opinions, familiarizing themselves with the social mores of a strange—and sometimes scary!—new world. I'm really proud of what we've built together over the years and look forward to helping continue to develop it in the years to come.
We'll be sorry to lose you as a moderator, but glad you are sticking around in the community. With none of the original mod team left, this is the end of an era. Thanks for all of the work over an entire decade!
Also, if anyone is wondering: no moderator election is planned; we anticipate that the remaining moderation team will be sufficient for the foreseeable future.
I've featured this post, because stepping down after 12 (or so) years of being a mod seems worthy of recognition. (Feel free to have another mod unfeature it if you don't want it featured.) Thanks for all your contributions to the site! :)
You are one of the founders of this community, and if about eight years ago I found it a nice place to stay, it's certainly due to the hard work that you and the other founders put in shaping this community the way it is.
So, thank you for the great job!
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2025-03-21T12:54:49.010407
| 2021-10-11T18:17:10 |
5029
|
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Is a question about the Nobel Prize committee/awardees on-topic here?
A question was recently asked about the gender distribution of the 2021 Nobel Prize laureates. I cast the deciding "close as off-topic" vote on this question. I felt this question was off-topic for two reasons:
There are many a number of Nobel prizes, some of which are only very tenuously related to Academia. Similarly, there are many areas of Academia for which there is no Nobel prize.
Nobel Prizes are awarded to individuals working in all sectors, including government, academia, industry, and individual work. - Mea culpa... research-adjacent fields are on-topic
The Nobel Committee is in no way "academia"... it is a small set of people who make decisions based on their own set of criteria, and their metrics don't necessarily align with academia's idea of success.
The specific question asked above—asking about gender distributions—is clearly off-topic, as that has nothing to do with academia, academic achievement, or the award. It's a general critique of a decision-making process for a specific non-academic award-granting committee.
I'm posting this here to start a discussion on whether I was wrong to close this question and to solicit reasons in both directions.
Do you want to ask about “a question” in general or “this question” specifically?
I'd definitely like to ask first about this question, which I think is much easier. The title question is definitely more broad and worth answering as well.
What is "academia's idea of success" anyway?
The question wasn't about "gender distribution". I was about what the Nobel Committee has to say about its choices. I think you've made a mistake here.
@Anyon - As I wrote that I realized its not the best sentence. I dunno... Pubs? Tenure? Making an actually useful discovery? Abusing grad students? Very few, if any, academics would list "getting a Nobel" as a typical goal for an academic [citation needed].
@JoelReyesNoche The question was closed and then reopened after some discussion here. There's a record of it in the timeline. Not sure why you don't see it.
@eykanal Yeah... "getting a Nobel" isn't a very realistic goal to pursue. Anyway, my comment was somewhat rhetorical as academics make for an eclectic bunch, with diverse goals and desires. Still it's interesting that you mention "an actually useful discovery" since that's quite close to the criterion Alfred Nobel stipulated for the science prizes. I think there is some common ground there, in the pursuit of important and enduring work.
@Anyon, I can see the timeline now. I misunderstood how to view the timeline. Thanks.
@Anyon: I'm assuming Joel was confused by the question not having a revision history displayed (which is because it hasn't been edited); however, as you mention, the closure and reopening is still noted in the question's timeline.
@V2Blast yes, exactly.
My two cents....
To the title question: yes, absolutely. When in doubt, we should try to accept questions, not try to close them.
There are many a number of Nobel prizes, some of which are only very tenuously related to Academia. Similarly, there are many areas of Academia for which there is no Nobel prize.
Physics, economics, literature, medicine, and chemistry covers a wide swath of academia.
Nobel Prizes are awarded to individuals working in all sectors, including government, academia, industry, and individual work.
So is this site.
The Nobel Committee is in no way "academia"... it is a small set of people who make decisions based on their own set of criteria, and their metrics don't necessarily align with academia's idea of success.
This is perhaps the strongest argument; how much "expertise" can we offer about Nobel prizes? I doubt we have any laureates among us. Still, I suspect that we have enough expertise to handle many questions...and if not, the fact that none of the academics here were able to answer a question is probably also a meaningful outcome.
But, it is less clear to me what we should do with this specific question. This is a Q&A site, and the Q in this case was:
I'm wondering if the Nobel Foundation has said anything about this.
I guess this is answerable, but the only way to find out is to Google around and then report "I found something" or "I couldn't find anything." So, this does not seem like a great question to me (what can we do that OP couldn't do themselves?). On the other hand, it's possible that this question will lead to some interesting answers from which we all learn something; if so, then great.
I agree with your take here. I disagree with your last paragraph, though... if a question is bad, I would rather close it sooner than wait for it to accrue bad answers.
On that, we do not disagree. I personally am not sure whether the question should be open or closed; I don't plan to vote either way. But if we decide to close, I agree sooner is better than later.
what can we do that OP couldn't do themselves? Because the topic is relatively new + topical, it's something that I would expect articles to be written on. Not at once, but eventually. Other people searching for the same issue would 1) find articles written after I searched and 2) possibly find things that I would not have found, because they use different and possibly better search terms. I did find something before I asked the question, but it didn't answer the question.
Also repeating the search now, I clearly should've used Google instead of Ecosia, and searched only for results in the past week.
"Physics, economics, literature, medicine, and chemistry covers a wide swath of academia." Hmm, I'd argue that - in the specific context of the Nobel prize - "literature" is actually less directly related to academia than the other disciplines you've listed. The reason is that the prize in literature is not given to people who study literature (which would clearly belong to the realm of academia), but to people who produce literature (as opposed to, say, physics, where the prize is given to people who study physics).
To repeat my comment here: awards are on-topic. We even have an awards tag. If awards are on-topic in general, major awards like the Nobel prize surely are on-topic as well. Regarding the individual points raised in the meta question about why the Nobel prize should be treated differently:
there are many Nobel prizes that are "related to academia". Those are on-topic
Nobel prizes are often enough awarded to academic researchers and they carry huge prestige in academia (as well as outside)
award committees and other bodies that matter for academia aren't always populated by members of academia, but that doesn't mean questions about their decisions are automatically off-topic (e.g. publishing companies, accreditation bodies, government agencies in education)
My argument against this is pretty much that this is a bad question. Questions in the "awards" tag tend to discuss more practical aspects of awards (listing on CV, flying to receive, application), not a general critique of the process. This specific question is more of a societal complaint. I highly doubt we'll get a member of the Nobel Committee answering here.
Yes, I see where you're coming from. Perhaps not a question that will attract a very satisfactory answer. Still hardly off topic.
Users argue all the time across StackExchange that their very obviously off-topic question should be allowed because there is a tag for it... it's not a particularly convincing argument in my view. There is an awards tag here not because awards are on-topic in general; there is an awards tag here because some questions that are on-topic because of the site's scope happen to be related to awards
@Bryan Krause regardless of the tag, I don't see how awards are not generally on-topic here.
Simply having a tag, especially one used so little, is not a good argument. Someone could request to burninate the tag and then it could disappear, or it could be renamed, or probably a dozen other things that eventually eliminate this as an argument at all. That's a pretty shaking foundation.
This is a bit of background only. I hope it is more appropriate here than it would be for the question it refers to.
The Nobel prizes have a couple of problems, the first, at least, recognized from the very beginning. The first issue is that Nobel's original intention was to award it to young researchers at the start of their career, who showed promise, in order to give them funds for their research. But it was immediately recognized that there were a lot of old academics/scientists/etc whose work was so important that it was decided to first start with them. But it never changed back to the original purpose. Note that the prize is only given to living persons and so Stephen Hawking never "earned" one in spite of his contributions to physics and the understanding of the universe. Some of what he theorized was only verified after his death.
The second problem is that the prizes are heavily, though not entirely, biased towards the sciences, and it is the sciences themselves that have a problem recognizing women's contributions. The imbalance in STEM fields is well recognized. There have been examples of prominent scientists (I think a Nobel winner) whose reputation was due to the work of an female member of his lab and he just appropriated her ideas as if they were his own. Clear plagiarism, unrecognized at the time.
Perhaps you are thinking of Francis Crick and James Watson, with the excluded contributor being Rosalind Franklin? Although I don't doubt that they are the only example.
Franklin is best known for her work on the X-ray diffraction images of DNA while at King's College London, particularly Photo 51, taken by her student Raymond Gosling, which led to the discovery of the DNA double helix for which Francis Crick, James Watson, and Maurice Wilkins shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962.[10][11] Watson suggested that Franklin would have ideally been awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry, along with Wilkins but, although there was not yet a rule against posthumous awards,[12] the Nobel Committee generally did not make posthumous nominations.[13][14]
Her contribution was poorly recognized, the Nobel prize exactly a bit less clear (see above).
The most clear-cut case of a someone stealing a student's Nobel-worthy discovery was Anthony Hewish claiming credit for the discovery of pulsars by Jocelyn Bell Burnell.
@Buzz She wasn't treated fairly, but her case still seems to fall short of the "clear plagiarism" line mentioned in the answer, since she still was on the papers. I wonder who Buffy has in mind.
Lise Meitner also deserved one, but this wasn't plagiarism either https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lise_Meitner#Nobel_Prize_for_nuclear_fission
|
2025-03-21T12:54:49.011291
| 2024-03-19T10:18:35 |
5425
|
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Stack Exchange
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Rethinking "opinion-based"?
I recently asked a on academia.se "[If] people still read monographic dissertations (in the Natural Sciences)?", which was fairly well received. It seemed to have hit a nerve as it sparked a lot of discussion and over 2k klicks in quite a short time. Unfortunately however, nobody tried to answer it, or at least they didn't have the chance to do so, because eventually, the question got closed for supposedly being "opinion-based".
Why opinion-based?
I was pretty surprised by that, also because there was no further information provided. I'm supposed to change my question to make it less opinion-based, but how? What makes it opinion-based? Different voters may have different opinions for voting to close a question, and it feels like grasping at straws trying to figure out their motivation and how to correspondingly change the question. So I would suggest that if you vote to close a question for being opinion-based, you have to give a reason for why you think that is.
How certain are you?
There are probably many questions where it's pretty clear that they are opinion-based, but I don't think my question is; it's just difficult to answer, and there may be many like it that were similarly misjudged. Here's what I explicitly asked in my question: "Are [there] any studies that have done research on [scientist's reading behaviour regarding monographic dissertations]?" This is a clear yes-or-no question. Either (some) research has been done, or not. If members of this community think that there is none, or cannot find any, I think that should be an answer, and not a reason for voting to close my question as opinion-based (assuming that that was one of the reasons why my question was closed for being opinion-based).
Additionally, proving the non-existence of something is impossible, so I don't think that the believe that something does not have an (objective) answer, should be enough reason to close a question. Instead, I think that this insight is valuable information that is much better shared: You can only really make such an assessment if you're an expert, and if you're an expert, you have good reason to believe so, and it would be interesting to know those reasons. So I think before you vote to close a question for being opinion-based, you should be sure that you are qualified enough to make such a call. Just because it may seem opinion-based does not mean it actually is.
Regarding my case specifically, I did a lot more research trying to find an answer, and I actually found relevant works. None of them address my very specific question explicitly, but I think they are certainly quite relevant. Since so many people seemed to be interested, I would like to share this knowledge, but because my question is closed, I cannot. So I would like to ask to re-open it.
Here's a summary of what I found:
In the Natural Sciences, the monograph has long been replaced by the journal article as the primary means of scholarly communication (e.g., Mabe 2009, 2010; Mabe et al. 2011; Ware et al. 2015; Johnson et al. 2018; Tenopir et al. 2019; Dietz 2022).
Additionally, monographic dissertations are increasingly replaced by cumulative dissertations, which is a common format by now (e.g., Dong 1998; Wilson 1998; Sharmini et al. 2015; Autry et al. 2016; Frick 2016; Anderson et al. 2020, 2021; Donner 2021; Kubota et al. 2021; Paltridge et al. 2023).
Even in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, where monographs still play an important role beyond the dissertation, the demise of the monograph is extensively debated (although the reasons for it are manifold and it's not just due to a lack of readership, e.g., Steele 2008; van der Weel 2015, 2016; Thomas et al. 2016; Crossick 2016; Mrva-Montoya 2016; Gould 2016; Paré 2019; Clark et al. 2020; Shaw et al. 2022).
The human attention span (or at least the time that we allocate to any specific activity) may have significantly declined over the past two decades (e. g., Duffy et al. 2022; Ducharme 2023; Mark 2023; niplav 2023), while the number of scientific publications per year has massively increased over the same period.
Consequently, it has never been more crucial to decide what to read and how much of it (e. g., Nicholas et al. 2004, 2007; Baron et al. 2021). As Baron (2015) aptly puts it: “One of the major effects of digital screens is to shift the balance from continuous reading to reading on the prowl ... The result? The meaning of ‘reading’ increasingly becomes ‘finding information’—and often setting for the first thing that comes to hand—rather than ‘contemplating and understanding’.”
So in conclusion, there are in fact studies on the reading behaviour of scientists (Nicholas et al. 2004, 2007; Baron et al. 2021), and they find that long-form reading is in decline. They don't address monographic dissertations specifically, but there is no reason to assume that this finding doesn't also apply to them. Additionally, the vanishing relevance of monographs in the Natural Sciences and the increasing popularity of cumulative dissertations show that there is a clear lack of interest in monographic dissertations.
I admit that this is still not a conclusive answer to the overarching question of my post "Do people still read monographic dissertations (in the Natural Sciences)?", but I think there is much evidence that people are likely not reading monographic dissertations in meaningful numbers anymore, at least not in the way that monographs are supposed to be read, which is front to back. Monographs derive their strength from their overarching coherence: ideally, every part was written with the whole in mind. That way, they should provide a better/more comprehensice picture to a reader than a cumulative dissertation might ever be able to achieve. But if monographic dissertations are not read as a whole anymore, they lose their defining strength. And in that way, I think it is fair to say that, indeed, people do not read monographic dissertations in a meaningful way anymore (at least in the Natural Sciences).
In fact, given that monographic dissertations only emerged in a form comparable to the current format during a time (around the 19th century, e.g., Allweiss 1979; Meadows 1980; Bazerman 1988; Kruse 2006; Paltridge et al. 2020) when journal papers began to completely replace monographs as the primary means of scientific communication in the Natural Sciences, I would even doubt if monographic dissertations were ever read in a way similar to how papers are read today.
Researching this took a lot of time and effort, and so of course I would never expect anybody else to do it for me. But that's not to say that there aren't any experts that already know all (or most) of it, and I think I have shown that there is sufficient information out there that my question can be answered to a (I believe) satisfying degee, even if there may be no research that addresses it explicitly. So again, while my question is difficult to answer, a seeming lack of research shouldn't be reason to close it for being "opinion-based".
Why close at all?
Finally, who benefits from closing a question for being opinion-based? Even if true, does that mean we cannot learn something from people's opinions? Wouldn't it be valuable to see the different opinions reflected in different answers? Why not instead of closing the question, just tag the question as opinion-based, and make it clearly visible/distict, maybe with a different background color or similar. Interface-wise, stating your opinion on an "answer-level" is also typically necessary, because you need the space and functionality to build your argument.
Concerning the last part of your question, why close at all. Allowing questions that are mainly answerable by opinions, not facts will in most cases very likely lead to dicussions on what and who is correct, especially if the topic is slightly more controversial than the reading behaviour of academics. There are already quite a few questions on the site that probably should have been closed for the "opinion based" reason, but haven't (for whatever reason, the reviewers aren't perfect). Many of these are protected due to excessive discussions and other not so nice behaviour. If you want opinions and discussions, please look for a forum, which this site is not.
Another thing about closing and the reasons for it. I sometimes have a hard time identifying the "correct" reason to close a specific question from the limited categories that are out there. Some questions (like yours) are kind of in between, but nevertheless don't feel quite right, so you pick the reason you deem most fitting, even if the fit is not 100%.
And a third point: the extensive research you did to "kind of answer your own question" doesn't really answer it, but rather a different question, namely:
Is there any evidence that the reading behaviour of academics has
switched to a preference of shorter publications?
or something along these lines. Which is /would have been a perfectly adequate question for this site as it asks a specific question answerable with facts.
Hi, thanks for your explanation! I understand your first two points, but I disagree about the third. First, I explicitly asked a question similar to what you are proposing in my original post, and I address it again in this post and answer it. Second, you seem to imply that my overarching question is inadequate for this site and cannot be answered by facts, but that is not true. It could very much be investigated by e.g. a self-report study that asks researchers if they still read monographic dissertations. That such a study may not exist doesn't mean that the question cannot be answered.
You ask "Do People still read..." that is a question that can only be answered by yes or no. And honestly, the answer can only be "yes", because someone somewhere is for sure still reading them. It is the phrasing of the question that makes the question flawed.
I get what you're saying, but my original question is obviously not meant in the strictest sense because as you say, there might always be somebody still reading monographic dissertations. It would be pointless. I could rephrase it to e.g. read "How did the relevance of monographic dissertations change over the years?", or "Is the readership of monographic dissertations in steady decline and has it approached near zero?" But that's just semanticts. It doesn't change the essence of my question or that of a potential answer. It doesn't change what I would like to know.
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2025-03-21T12:54:49.011986
| 2024-01-16T07:57:58 |
5412
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Stack Exchange
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If I write the description of an image, then I do not see where they appear
When I introduce an Image in my answer, there is a description to be given. But then it does not appear in the published version, not even when hovering over the image (would be cool to have something xkcd style).
Is it a bug or is it a feature?
It is a feature; see this post on the main meta.
The short version is that the description isn't used for a XKCD-style mouseover text, but as a replacement text in case the image cannot be displayed, e.g. by screen readers or if the image doesn't load. That is, the description matches the intended use case for the alt attribute in the HTML spec. Even though the XKCD mouseover text is often called an "alt text", it really uses the title HTML attribute.
One way of including a mouseover text on Stack Exchange sites is as follows
[![Underwater basket weaving - description for screen readers ][1]][1]
[1]: https://i.sstatic.net/ngekA.png "Underwater basket weaving - description showing up when hovering over image"
which results in
Inspecting the picture element in my browser, the corresponding HTML is
<img src="https://i.sstatic.net/ngekA.png" alt="Underwater basket weaving - description for screen readers " title="Underwater basket weaving - description showing up when hovering over image">
The "description for screen readers" ("alt") also shows up when images don't load for any reason (e.g., network firewall or disabling images to save data).
|
2025-03-21T12:54:49.012115
| 2021-09-15T07:10:15 |
5008
|
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"so sa"
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|
Stack Exchange
|
About saving one question for others access (google index and ...)
I think I have asked a good question which could be useful for others, and be in google index.
But the question has been recognized as a shopping question, as you can see below:
Finding a classmate to achieve access to academic learning process and connection for non-registered learning enthusiasts [closed]
So if possible I like to know which part of my question must be deleted to become open and its information could be used for others via Google search or direct access?
Update 1:
so I am trying to add more details and will answer to the below question:
What is your plan for after the program finishes? Will you apply to
the program again? Will you try to get jobs by claiming that you've
done all this self-study?
Why do you need to follow along with a particular course at all? Why
not just buy some textbooks?
If you succeed in connecting with a student who got admitted to a
university in your field, what do you want them to do for you?
So :
1- I am working as a freelancer and studied the M.Sc. at Biomedical engineer which like continuing my academic education with is related to my job field, so I will apply for University entrance exam in the Cognitive science with my new trained wights (or will apply for another academic field exam. The reason for this action is online academic opportunity and my eagerness to be updated and connected with university and its connection (teachers, students, facilities like labs and ...).
2- As I described, the connections and facilities of university and being in an academic environment is important for me (One of our masters had said every 4 year engineering science fundamentally would change, and I have seen this in my 10 years
Absenting and not being in academic programs).
3- In this connection I Hope to have access to :
accessing to public and predefined program contents, like course
syllabus, references, power points.
Also, if they don't have copyright problem or ... accessing to class
video recorded, but we could cover the course information on the internet
source from online course equivalents like said at the question
answer (Coursera, EDx, or ...).
And be in connection with them for team working on their exams and
course experiment by our more desired field of study and courses,
this features give us more access to the teachers and academic
facilities and help us to newer connection and networks.
Also, if possible, I like to have some connection with them for
reviewing the course or asking about the misunderstanding parts
of courses by creating some online group like skype for some meeting
at the end of weekends.
Thanks.
I think the "it could be useful for others" part is a red herring. A recipe for tiramisu is also useful content, but this site is not the best place for it. "How can I modify my question to make it on-topic here" is a reasonable question, but do not start from the assumption that your question has a right to appear on academia.se just because it is useful. :)
Let's start with the good news: I don't think your question is a shopping question. If you had asked for a specific forum where you could "advertise" for a partner, then your question would be a shopping question. But you are asking for more general advice.
Now for the more difficult part: your post is quite confusing. I considered trying to help you by editing it, but I just kept getting more confused.
So: some questions. Don't reply to me; instead, edit the answers into your post. I (or anyone else) may suggest some additional edits, and then we'll see where we are.
What is your plan for after the program finishes? Will you apply to the program again? Will you try to get jobs by claiming that you've done all this self-study?
Why do you need to follow along with a particular course at all? Why not just buy some textbooks?
If you succeed in connecting with a student who got admitted to a university in your field, what do you want them to do for you?
Not having seen any follow-up, I have updated the close reason to "unclear what you are asking." I think we can consider this matter closed (as it were).
Thanks, @cag51, I have updated the question and as I guess the SE don't send any notification I have written this comment.
|
2025-03-21T12:54:49.012760
| 2020-10-23T23:26:19 |
4817
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
Comment vs Answers: how to use and moderation
Why people use comments to answer the questions? I am already read this question, which is very close to what I am saying here. But I want to go further because I don't get how the community uses the answers and comments. So why regulators censor answers that could be comments? Why don't ask to migrate the answer to a comment?
Sorry, it is just a specific case that was happened to me. But seems like another "no written regulation" on the community. Wich is very difficult for new members like me to get it.
Besides some "culture" of answering on the comments, that is somehow common for people censor the answers that may be posted in comments? If that's the case, why people don't do a double check (Besides that how the moderation could be double-checked?) or do feedback to the user migrate the answer to the comment?
What I mean is: Instead of using a comment, I used the answer to try to contribute a question. I advised a site with academic research tools (it was a tool to discover the network of existing connections with a specific academic text), but my answer was quickly denounced and my contribution was seen as website marketing!
I tried to use the edit to see if I received feedback from my replica. But the answer disappeared and I didn't have or couldn't find
I believe somebody (Massimo Ortolano?) once said that he doesn't want to leave questioners hanging and answers are more difficult on a mobile phone. Can't find it now, so I cannot post it as an answer.
@user111388 Yes, I may have actually said something like that. It was probably referred to a time where I used the mobile app (now discontinued) and the responsive design wasn't fully developed. For some reason, with the mobile app interface, I found it easier to comment rather than answer. Now, there is no longer such a difference if you use the full site view on mobile. It's still true, though, that sometimes users may not have the time to write a full answer (see Louic's answer) and answer in comments. Indeed, this is referred to my experience because I access a lot the site from mobile.
It's not only here; all the Stack Exchange sites are notorious for making the rules hard to find. Even when you do find them, they are arcane. Look at the big original site, Stack Overflow. There's nothing on the home page to indicate what the site is about or how to use it. If you are lucky, you'll find a small "?" in the upper right corner, and that might lead you to take their "tour", which helps a little but not much. New users will have many of their early posts downvoted or rejected. (Old users also get rejected, but not as often.)
@RayButterworth: Oh yes, I tried for a long time to find out what Code Golf is about, but then I gave up;)
(1) Why people use comments to answer the questions?
They shouldn't. This bypasses the voting mechanism; further, popular comments are often more visible than answers. The photography stack has a nice write up of why answers-in-comments are discouraged.
I can't quite follow the rest of your post, but I'll try to break this down.
(2) How do moderators handle answers in comments?
This is tricky. Some of the possible ways we can deal with answers-in-comments include:
Encouraging authors to turn answers-in-comments into proper answers (everyone can do this, not just mods!)
Move answers-in-comments and other off-topic comments to chat (the system only allows us move comments to chat once per post)
Linking this FAQ which warns people that future answers-in-comments may be deleted
Deleting answers-in-comments
Declining to take any action
Determining which of these to use in a given case is a tricky business: comment-writers get angry when we delete their comments, but answer-writers get angry when we don't! We had some discussion of this a year ago, and while we did arrive at some general guidelines, we generally tailor our approach to each situation.
That said, there is no automatic answer-in-comment detector: if no one raises a flag, and we mods don't happen across it ourselves, then no action will be taken. This is one reason why it might appear that answers-in-comments are allowed.
(3) How do moderators handle comments in answers?
In my experience, most are extremely low-quality and are just deleted. In rare cases, we can convert answers to comments (but not the other way around)
(4) What I mean is: Instead of using a comment, I used the answer to try to contribute a question. I advised a site with academic research tools (it was a tool to discover the network of existing connections with a specific academic text), but my answer was quickly denounced and my contribution was seen as website marketing!
So in fact, this example really has nothing to do with the distinction between answers and comments!
I believe you are referring to this deleted answer (link for users with >10K reputation). In this case, the user had asked some specific questions about Google Scholar. You ignored these questions and wrote:
Although Sorry if my answer isn't such precise. However, I think everyone needs to know this website. That is a wonderful tool to follow and do the net of bibliography that apparently you want with Google Scholar features. [url redacted]
This does look a lot like spam. You didn't address any of OP's specific questions, instead recommending a totally different tool with no justification. I believe you when you say that you are not spamming, and I'm sorry you had this negative experience. However, if you are going to recommend a tool, you need to be very specific about why the tool solves OP's specific problem. We get a lot of spam here (often for predatory tools, journals, or conferences) and so it is natural to question the motivation of those who recommend a particular tool (and even moreso when the author is a new user).
This is very clear. I did not see any spam yet but agree with you. I'm will improve my other contributions to be more precise.
@Rodrigues Note also that if you want to advertise websites, papers and whatever that can be of interest for this community, you can link them in chat. This would be a quite appropriate use of the chat.
Nice. I don't know how my question went there. But I will read about the chat on FAQ's page. I even didn't knew the chat existence. Tnks
Possible reasons to place answers in comments (as far as I have encountered them):
On stack overflow people use comments to post answers because they do not want to "pollute" their credibility: they do not wish to get reputation points for the easier answers: potential employers watch their account, so this is understandable there. This is probably less relevant for academia, but the behaviour may exist.
People may answer in comments because they wish to help OP, despite the question being off-topic, a duplicate, or a shopping question.
The answer is incomplete: it includes one suggestion that could be seen as an answer by some, but the actual answer is more complex. The person who answers realizes this, but does not have the knowledge, time or motivation to post a full, detailed answer. If he still wishes to contribute or post a hint for the one who will write the full answer, comments are used.
Even though these may not be the intended use of comments, in many cases it helps OP and the website so I see no reason to forbid or prevent it, but that is a matter of opinion of course.
|
2025-03-21T12:54:49.013429
| 2021-12-14T12:36:08 |
5074
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
tag cleanup and harmonization of country/region/continent tags
I have some suggestions for tag cleanup and for the harmonization of location-specific tag wikis, what are your thoughts?
Tag
Wiki entry
issues
Suggested Action
Decision
industrial
no
tag only used twice, once industry is correct and the other works just as well without
deletion
deleted
mobility
no
not necessary in the only two instances where it is used (1) and (2)
deletion
deleted
nursing
no
only one closed (!) question
deletion
deleted
minority
no
only 5 questions (2 of which are closed), could be replaced in all instances with the inclusivity tag which has a wiki entry
deletion, replace with inclusivity or at least link with inclusivity
socializing
no
only 4 question, two of them duplicates of one of the other two (which is kind of a duplicate of the 4th, could be replaced with interpersonal-issues
deletion, replace with interpersonal-issues
keep tags separate, created wiki entry
country/region/continent specific tags
partly
Where existent, tag wikis differ and are sometimes very western-centric. Example: germany "On standards or conventions specific to Germany's higher education system, which differs in structure and style from the systems in North America, Asia, or elsewhere in Europe." South America, Africa and Australia/Oceania are not mentioned in this comparison! By not referring to specific somparison regions, those tags can be more inclusive.
harmonize all country/region/continent-specific tag wikis to: On standards or conventions specific to the higher education system in specific country/region/continent, which differs in structure and style from the systems in other parts of the world.
finished, will keep an eye on emerging new location tags
Hi Sursula, thank you very much for undertaking this (and, more generally, thank you for what you do in curating the site)! I definitely agree with all your suggestions: will start looking soon to the easy ones. For the last one, we will see how we can harmonize the tag wikis.
Thanks so much! Feel free to propose tag synonyms as you see fit.
+1 to Daniel, from the suggested-edit message, I was not able to judge what is the justification behind it. It is usually good to give a link to the Meta discussion in the suggested-edit message to inform reviewers. But in general, I support the initiative as I know more about it.
BTW, I just happened across the (sole) nursing question and deleted it. I agree with Buffy that having the tag may make sense ("nursing" is an on-topic part of academia), but I didn't see the value in keeping a closed question with no answers.
coming from a country where a nursing degree ins't an academic one, I might be biased in my opinion to delete the "nursing" tag, if you (cag51 and Buffy) think it makes sense to keep it I would not oppose.
See this about two different doctorates in nursing: practice and theory. https://www.gradschools.com/doctorate/nursing
@DanielHatton I think ot should be decided by people familiar with the UK system(s) if splitting the UK into the single countries will be necessary.
@DanielHatton Who knows, maybe with the whole Brexit misery and all we might be faced with a situation where the UK is not so united any more and the question to separate the countries also here might become more relevant than it is now...
Revisiting this. The country tag wiki suggestion is approved; looks like that has already been done? If any remain undone, we should do them. I created a wiki entry for "socializing" to hopefully clarify the positive connotation (as opposed to interpersonal-issues, which is more negative). There is still enough disagreement about "minority" that I haven't taken any action....if I were to make an executive decision, I would probably make "minority" a synonym of "inclusivity" as suggested above....thoughts welcome.
@DanielHatton When chancing the tag Wiki, I only replaced the descriptor about the country, not any additional info that was already there. But you're totally right, the Bologna info could either be omitted or added to the other applicable countries as well.
I'll add to this as I consider further.
I think nursing should stay provided there are any questions validly using it - even if closed. It is a valid field even if not common here. There are both research and practice (clinical) doctorates: https://www.gradschools.com/doctorate/nursing. Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_doctoral_degrees_in_the_US
I think industrial should go or be a synonym to industry.
I really think that all the country tags need to stay since many of our questions depend on country specific policies. Even eu and europe can be distinguished.
I'm worried about minority being a synonym of inclusivity. They don't really mean the same thing.
socializing and interpersonal-issues are used very differently. One has a positive impulse and the other almost always negative. Maybe they both need to be synonyms of something else like personal-relations or such.
Note that I've been scanning for single question tags and editing where it makes sense. The mobility tag is now moot (not my fault). I also scan frequently for new tags and try to replace/remove them.
More....
I am not proposing any of the country tags should go, I am simply proposing to harmonize them so that they contain an interchangeable, identical text where only the country, region or continent name is changed.
Sounds good, then.
Note that [tag:nursing] was used for just one closed and now deleted question. If in the future there will appear other questions it can be reintroduced.
@MassimoOrtolano, no problem. The issue is moot.
I had a look into the few questions tagged minority, which is the only tag not yet handled in the list:
How can faculty best telegraph work-life balance challenges under COVID to our administration? For this one, I think that the tag is unnecessary.
Gender, Independence, and Authorship This one is closed as opinion-based.
Non Anglo and older grad school applicant This one is closed as duplicate, it doesn't have any answer, and the duplicate target doesn't have the tag.
Do US universities publish an official definition of what constitutes a particular race/ethnicity in the context of scholarships or admissions? For this one, it seems to me that the inclusivity tag would be OK.
How do I incorporate/emphasize my experiences teaching at an HBCU? Here's the tag seems OK (thanks to Buffy for clarifying the usage in a comment).
Are universities strongly associated with ethnic minority groups a thing outside the USA? For this one, there are also the tags ethnicity and diversity, and probably minority is redundant.
In view of the above, I'd be in favour of deleting the tag minority—replacing it with inclusivity in the very few instances where it is appropriate—because at the moment there's not enough base of questions to have it around.
If in the future questions genuinely needing the tag appear, we can always reintroduce it.
Note that HBCUs are "minority" in the classic sense: Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
@Buffy Thanks, I was misunderstanding the usage. That's why I'd have liked to see a bit more discussion on this.
Still the same six questions. No further usage. The first one is peripherally about minorities. More attrition there is a concern for the OP.
For the third one, the dup didn't cover all the issues, just age. Non-Anglo is "minority". Oddly, in 50 years, Anglo will be minority in US.
@Buffy I don't know. If I were to move to the US, I wouldn't probably consider myself as part of a minority. The Merriam-Webster defines a minority (in the sense of interest to us, I guess) as "a part of a population thought of as differing from the rest of the population in some characteristics and often subjected to differential treatment". So, being non-Anglo doesn't imply that one is subjected to differential treatment, and thus a minority.
If you are from Sicily or Calabria then in my immediate area you wouldn't be a minority at all. Bologna probably yes, except politically. I've never been to Torino, though.
@Buffy I find it curious that you'd consider me part of a minority in the US if around the area there weren't any Italians of my current area. Actually I spent several months in the US and I also have a number of past students who moved there, and none of us have never felt to be a minority, regardless of the number of other Italians around (which was typically around zero). The key point is that we have a privileged job in which, furthermore, the colleagues are willing to help in case of difficulties. And all this put us foreigners aside from any minority.
Actually, I only meant "numerical" minority, not "disadvantaged" minority. But there was a time in the US when Italians were definitely discriminated against, considered non-white. Same for Irish, oddly (or not) enough. We have a lot of derogatory words for people from different places: Spain, Poland, Italy, China, etc. etc. etc. The terms seem to be dying out many places, gladly.
For historical reasons, however, this region has a huge southern Italian population. Partly due to conditions in Italy and partly due to (late 19th century) employment needs in certain industries here, like railroad building, for example.
|
2025-03-21T12:54:49.014148
| 2024-03-19T04:56:25 |
5424
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
Would it make sense to be able to close for being "too trivial"?
I have sometimes wondered if it wouldn't make sense to be able to close questions just because they are either too unimportant (asking for very, very minor things like e.g. "Should I have put a question mark at the end of the subject line on an email inquiring about a position?", things along these lines sometimes get asked) or that are really, really easy to find out just by googling the thing (e.g. this very recent question which definitely took longer to write than a quick web search for the same issue would have taken).
Basically, I wonder if it would make sense to have a close reason for questions being to trivial/minor etc.?
If you mouseover the downvote button, the text reads:
This question does not show any research effort; it is unclear or not useful
I would think about whether this description fits the trivial question asked. For your given example, I think it does. MLA, like other popular style guides, has numerous resources to help with using the guide as well as the official guide/manual itself. Someone asking a question like this here has not, in my opinion, shown any research effort. It's certainly possible to ask a good, well-researched question about MLA: I'd expect the asker to show their research effort by, say, identifying what seems to be the most relevant entry in the MLA style manual and explaining why their situation does not fit the format or examples given.
So, in summary, I don't think we need a close reason for these questions, we can use the downvote button instead. The problem is not that the question is off-topic, the problem is that the asker has not put in enough effort to identify the specific question they have. You might point the asker to https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-ask in a comment, though this is optional. The first item reads:
Have you thoroughly searched for an answer before asking your question? Sharing your research helps everyone. Tell us what you found and why it didn’t meet your needs. This demonstrates that you’ve taken the time to try to help yourself, it saves us from reiterating obvious answers, and above all, it helps you get a more specific and relevant answer!
Let me try to factorize this into two questions:
Can we add a new pre-defined close reason?
My understanding is that there are only 3 slots for pre-defined close reasons. These are already taken by: shopping, individual factors, and out-of-scope. It's possible to replace one of these with a more important reason, but I think that's unlikely.
But these pre-defined close reasons are only there for convenience; those are not the only reasons questions can be closed. You can use the "other" option to specify any other reason.
Should we use the custom reason to vote-to-close trivial/minor questions?
I don't believe we have ever achieved a firm policy here. There is one view that if the internet already contains many sites that explain a simple concept, we don't need to rehash the ground here. The alternative view is that our site should be self-contained; if the question is valid, we should answer it once and then we have an internal duplicate target for future.
Beyond that, I suspect it would be difficult to quantify "trivial." Many of the questions here seem trivial to me (to quote one of my favorite comments: "There are so many questions on here like, 'how do I tell someone I don't want to wibble?', and the answer is simply to say, 'Hey Joe, I don't want to wibble'"), and yet go on to incite significant discussions. So my inclination is to leave such matters to the voters. But that's just my opinion; people with the close vote privilege can use it as they see fit, within reason.
I had a good laugh when reading the quoted comment, thanks for sharing! and thanks for the answer, you are probably right.
|
2025-03-21T12:54:49.014463
| 2024-01-15T09:51:13 |
5409
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
Should we create the tag open-source
In the wake of another recent question about tags (Specific tags for subfields: desirable?) and the suggestion in the answer to discuss new tags here first, there was a new tag created here today, open-source. A quick search for the term "open source" finds over 700 results. While I generally think that we have already quite a lot of tags, this tag might actually be a sensible one to create, as there are alreay a ton of questions related to open source solutions in the context of academia. Or is there another, existing tag that open-source could be a synomy of?
What do you think?
A search for "open source" is:q, which is supposed to pick out only questions, finds a more modest 241 hits. 2. Even so, there is substantial variation in topics, so I think it's unlikely they should all be given the same tag. I thus think any proposal for such a tag should define the scope of the tag.
@Anyon Faair enough, but even if only half of those question can be gathered under an open source tag, this tag will still have substantially more questions under it than the bottom half of the existing tags.
I don't have a strong opinion, but given the silence so far, I'll take a stand....
Sure, let's do it. (Just one guy's opinion, let's see how others vote on this answer).
Perhaps the scope of the tag could be:
Queries on the benefits and drawbacks of contributing to or using open source tools, and advice for doing so.
|
2025-03-21T12:54:49.014628
| 2021-08-16T21:35:39 |
4992
|
{
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"authors": [
"Bryan Krause",
"Buffy",
"Massimo Ortolano",
"Phil Nguyen",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/144345",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/15646",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/20058",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/63475",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/75368",
"user112358"
],
"include_comments": true,
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"provenance": "stackexchange-dolma-0000.json.gz:7426",
"site": "academia.meta.stackexchange.com",
"sort": "votes",
"url": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4992"
}
|
Stack Exchange
|
How to get the notification when someone edits their answer?
Yesterday I posted a post here. I saw that @Buffy edited his answer but I did not receive the notification about the edited answer.
Is there any way to get the notification in the inbox when an answer in your post is edited?
You can use the Follow feature below the answer.
See The Follow Questions and Answers feature is now live across the Network for more information.
Hi @Bryan, I am wondering if there is any option that I can follow every question that I ask rather than hitting the " follow " button at the bottom left corner of every question
@NoviceMindset No, there is no feature like that in the SE software. https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/319353/401068 has some more info about what triggers a notification and what doesn't; the one you ask about is included in the list of "things you might think triggers a notification but doesn't". It's likely someone else has requested what you have on the main meta (meta.stackexchange.com), but like Massimo I'm on mobile right now and it's a bit of a pain to search. Otherwise you could make your own feature request, but I think you'll probably just be pointed back to the Follow feature.
@NoviceMindset And in case you decide to post your own feature request, beware that the main meta is a kind of a minefield for new users where one might get heavily downvoted in case of a duplicate request.
Yeah, that's an important caution. A lot of people post there without doing their homework and it makes the locals a bit restless and short to frustration.
I thought the OP on a question got a flag for every answer, answer edit, and comment on their question as well as comments to answers. Not so?
@Buffy No, the OP is notified neither of answer edits nor of comments to answers.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.470419
| 2012-05-27T09:16:31 |
134
|
{
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"None"
],
"authors": [
"Artem Kaznatcheev",
"David LeBauer",
"Ryan",
"eykanal",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/1119",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/258",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/260",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/66",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73",
"utopianheaven"
],
"include_comments": true,
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"provenance": "stackexchange-dolma-0000.json.gz:7427",
"site": "academia.meta.stackexchange.com",
"sort": "votes",
"url": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/134"
}
|
Stack Exchange
|
Publicity Poster
I was browsing through the Meta questions and among other things, a publicity poster seemed to be appearing a lot.
This question seemed to have a lot of poster suggestions.
Eynakal had a sample poster as an answer to a Meta Question. The link to his poster is here.
I thought of putting forth my creation.
A few points:
I sorted questions by votes and simply chose the ones that (I felt) appealed to a greater audience.
I created this in 2 hours so it has many rough edges. The reason I am putting it up now is to get (constructive) criticism on it (or hints that it is too bad and drop it).
I don't care about copyrights and credits and I'll gladly give away the XCF (GIMP) file to whoever is interested. I'll put it up on github or something.
The reason I created this as a separate question rather than answering the one above is to allow for a dedicated question (maybe community wiki?) for all poster designs.
I think this poster is very dark and would be hard to print.
@ArtemKaznatcheev, I assumed that people have access only to BnW printers; Black text over White Background seems a little boring for my taste. But, you have a perfectly valid point. I'll try to fix the colors.
I agree with @Arteem; the white on black is very hard on printers. The layout is nice, though... I would suggest using a white/gray/bold black color scheme for simplicity.
What is the point of this "design?" Where do you plan on posting it? Print or online only? I am a professional designer that can give a lot of feedback if you give me more insight to what the goal and specs are. Right now it is pretty bad for a number of reasons.
@Ryan. I didn't have an intention of use per se. Just started off making it as it came to me. I'd love to hear your criticism.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.473129
| 2012-06-23T20:18:43 |
142
|
{
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"None"
],
"authors": [
"JRN",
"Sam Lisi",
"dmeister",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/279",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/281",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/64"
],
"include_comments": true,
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"provenance": "stackexchange-dolma-0000.json.gz:7428",
"site": "academia.meta.stackexchange.com",
"sort": "votes",
"url": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/142"
}
|
Stack Exchange
|
"Patent" tag - Why we don't have it?
Why does this site doesn't has a "patent" tag? Is that completely unrelated to the site?
How come it is unrelated? There are many papers which presents ideas that can be patented.
As @eykanal commented here, there is a StackExchange site called Ask Patents.
If a tag doesn't exist, it doesn't mean it's not important or unrelated to the site. It's probably because nobody's asked a question about that topic yet.
In the present instance, we have the "intellectual property" tag, which would presumably cover patents as well.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.477361
| 2012-10-01T08:38:36 |
199
|
{
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"None"
],
"authors": [
"Noble P. Abraham",
"Nobody",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/1580",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/546"
],
"include_comments": true,
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"provenance": "stackexchange-dolma-0000.json.gz:7429",
"site": "academia.meta.stackexchange.com",
"sort": "votes",
"url": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/199"
}
|
Stack Exchange
|
What's the difference between down-vote, vote to close and flag ?
For some questions, I'm not sure whether I should down-vote it, vote to close or flag for moderator attention? Which one should I choose?
I've seen recently some moderator flags that weren't completely justified, so here is some general guidelines about when to use what.
From the general guidelines:
When should I flag?
If anything happens on our site that makes you feel uncomfortable -- that clearly does not belong here, in your opinion -- please flag it and bring it to our attention!
When should I vote down?
Use your downvotes whenever you encounter an egregiously sloppy, no-effort-expended post, or an answer that is clearly and perhaps dangerously incorrect.
When should I close a question?
Questions that are sufficiently off-topic, as outlined in the FAQ, should be closed by casting close votes. Questions that are sufficiently similar to older questions should be closed by casting close votes.
Note that once you gain the reputation to vote to close, you should no longer flag for moderator attention to have questions closed or migrated. It is your responsibility to vote now.
In general, the point is that in the long-term the community should moderate itself. In other words, vote as much as you can (in particular, down-votes on questions are free, you won't lose any reputation!), when you have enough rep, vote to close.
I just saw a spam question "Why are you so dumb". It's obviously a spam. I flagged it, down voted it and voted to close. Do I really need to vote to close and down vote it? Please clarify.
@scaaahu voting down does not necessarily alert the community or the moderators. But vote to close enables users of enough high reputation (and the mods) to have a look at it using review tool. If you have voted to close, you need not necessarily flag it. That's what @Charles is trying to convey.
@scaaahu: Noble is right, the point is whenever you flag, to also use the other mechanisms you have. In that particular example, you did right to flag, because this content was clearly to be removed and not just closed. Then, the point was to down-vote it, because below a certain score, the question does not appear, which is good. The vote-to-close was not bad, but not strictly speaking mandatory, since it was clearly spam. Anyway, thanks for the participation :)
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.480496
| 2012-02-15T20:41:06 |
16
|
{
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"None"
],
"authors": [
"Aarthi",
"OldTroll",
"abatkai",
"dmahr",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/17",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/30",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/31",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/37"
],
"include_comments": true,
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"provenance": "stackexchange-dolma-0000.json.gz:7430",
"site": "academia.meta.stackexchange.com",
"sort": "votes",
"url": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/16"
}
|
Stack Exchange
|
Scope Questions
Are the following questions within our scope:
Questions regarding a particular region or university
X vs Y questions with subjective answers. Like "Where do I get my PhD from USA or Europe"
List Questions like "Labs which do Machine Learning"
Software pertaining to Academia (Mendeley or otherwise)
Predicaments one gets caught into. Like "My advisor is leaving his job and I'm in 5th year of PhD"
Questions regarding a particular region or university
yes
X vs Y questions with subjective answers. Like "Where do I get my PhD from USA or Europe"
As is, it's too broad. With more specifics it may actually be interesting, and in my opinion should stay open.
List Questions like "Labs which do Machine Learning"
Too broad, but if more specific it definitely should stay open. If I want to find the academic expert in one sectorial topic, this SE is definitely the place to go.
Software pertaining to Academia (Mendeley or otherwise)
absolutely yes.
Predicaments one gets caught into. Like "My advisor is leaving his job and I'm in 5th year of PhD"
Absolutely yes. Such questions may involve legal and administrative issues requiring others' experience to navigate. This SE is about navigating through the jungle. These situations are the trees. If you stay in the savanna, the whole thing is a mere exercise in time-wasting.
Very well answered !
Ha, I like it: short, sweet, direct, no-nonsense. :D
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.482492
| 2012-02-20T14:31:51 |
34
|
{
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"None"
],
"authors": [
"Artem Kaznatcheev",
"JRN",
"JeffE",
"Singh",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11056",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/64",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/66"
],
"include_comments": true,
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"provenance": "stackexchange-dolma-0000.json.gz:7431",
"site": "academia.meta.stackexchange.com",
"sort": "votes",
"url": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/34"
}
|
Stack Exchange
|
PreApproved Community Wiki for Reference Request?
I was wondering if we could have a community wiki (pre-approved) for questions pertaining to reference requests. Before that, let me define "reference requests". In Math.SE, SciComp.SE or SO or wherever, a frequently used tag is the "reference request" tag wherein the users ask for books or other reference material to learn a certain topic.
Within the scope of academia as well, there are many "topics" one may wish to learn about through reading.
In the same spirit as this, could we have a community wiki for topics like
Pre-Grad School
Grad School (Like This)
Grad School > Professorship (Like This or This)
As a professor (Like This)
Academic Writing (Like This)
Public Speaking (Like This)
This will serve 2 purposes:
It will check the number of "Can you suggest a place where I can improve my writing skills" type questions.
It will be a great resource at 1 place. (In true CW spirit?)
I apologize for all the "This" links but the titles of the books are rather off putting to be put here.
This might be a bad idea but I just wanted to try suggesting it.
Sorry for the downvote, but I just don't feel like the organization of the question/answer format these types of lists work very well. They don't age well, keep maintenance to make links up to date, need forum moderation to prevent trivial, late add on answers, the voting doesn't work very well, etc...
I do think they have value to the community though (although to make them excellent takes alot of work, and you have quite a list yourself you have made).
Other venues that people from this site can contribute lists in such a way;
Lists on meta for FAQ's. Examples are the meta.SO FAQ or the list of support for statistical software linked at the stats site. Such lists are useful when questions arise of off-topic (e.g. This is off-topic but look at this Question for help).
Tag wiki's. People can list suggested readings in tag-wiki's as far as I'm concerned (or other useful information).
Blog posts (if the community wants to start a blog in the future).
List type questions can be useful if done well (see Robert Cartaino's post on said topic). They are just IMO more work than they are worth on the main site.
Fair Enough. I agree with the fact that maintenance will be a major pain for such posts.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.485663
| 2012-02-26T23:11:47 |
64
|
{
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"None"
],
"authors": [
"Adam Lear",
"Andy W",
"Chris Gregg",
"Fomite",
"Joost",
"Mad Scientist",
"Mike Lawrence",
"eykanal",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/118",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/130",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/139",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/201",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/23",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/3",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/4461",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73"
],
"include_comments": true,
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"provenance": "stackexchange-dolma-0000.json.gz:7432",
"site": "academia.meta.stackexchange.com",
"sort": "votes",
"url": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/64"
}
|
Stack Exchange
|
Contacting/Referring to another member of SE outside of a comment thread
I've noticed that it's only possible to mention another SE user using the "@" symbol in a comment thread where the user appears, and I was wondering if it was a feature or a bug. In particular, I couldn't find any easy to refer to another member, or just to draw the attention of another member to a particular question. Similarly, on this question, eykanal mentioned my name in a comment, but I didn't receive any message, although I would have liked to.
I know that the point of SE is not to create a mail platform, and clearly there should be some kind of regulations, but I wouldn't mind indicating a list of users who can "refer" me (or say, put a default level of reputation), so that I don't miss out a potentially interesting question.
I don't know if such a mechanism already exists, but somehow it could be nice (with an opt-in mechanism, so that by default, nobody can refer to you).
I just posted something to SE Meta about this. Check it out.
@eykanal I just replied to it, and as I said, I think we can know about that with the auto-completion. But an explicit message could be better.
There are no plans right now to introduce any sort of notification feature along these lines. Stack Exchange is by design avoiding social networking features, including things like this.
Adding a feature that'd allow someone to ping a user from anywhere would go against the design philosophy we've adopted here. Comment notifications are a concession to the fact that the intended use of comments is for clarifications and they often involve some amount of back-and-forth communication.
In the example you give, eykanal should've posted that comment on your answer instead of on the question. It's unfortunate that you didn't get notified, but it's entirely by design.
Whether or not SE has an intent to do it, I find the ability not to flag specific people who likely are experts to be irksome, and the community is somewhat less for it. In a site for experts, it would be nice not to have to pray that GuyIKnowProbablyKnowsTheAnswer stumbles across a post.
@EpiGrad That might be nice for you, but not so nice for GuyIKnowProbablyKnowsTheAnswer who'd be spammed with unsolicited "please look at my question" notifications.
@AnnaLear That's why I'm suggesting to have an opt-in mechanism, and to be able to limit (either explicitly or by level of reputation) those who can contact you. I'd say that a great feature of communities is the interconnection between members. There are many ways one could emulate this feature (we could exchange emails, we could create specific tag, like charles-tag, we could have a specific comment thread where one could post an answer, we could use the chat), but somehow, it would be nice to have it integrated.
@AnnaLear Just out of curiosity, is there a special reason that SE wants to avoid social networking features? I mean, I can understand the risks you're mentioning, and clearly, the point is not to create a big IRC, but, at least in academia, I'd say that referring is pretty much a standard way: "I don't know, but I know someone who might know". But to be clear, I don't want to insist or anything, I'd just like to understand :)
@AnnaLear With all the clever programmers at Stack Exchange, I'd be astonished if you guys failed to come up with an unobtrusive way to implement it.
@CharlesMorisset In a nutshell, because this is a Q&A network, not a social network. There is more information in this answer on MSO. Plus there's no need to add the complexity of a private messaging system when we value communication out in the open and already give users the ability to comment on posts, participate in chat, and include contact information in their user profiles if they wish to be contacted privately (effectively creating an "opt-in" system).
@AnnaLear OK, thanks for the explanation :)
If you want to be available for contacting at any time, just hang out in the main chat room of the site. As long as you were recently in a chat room, you can be pinged there and the notification will land in your global inbox.
Yes, that's my point exactly, as I mention in my comment to Anna's answer, you can already emulate this feature, but it's more complex, and you can't restrict the list of users who can contact you. So, basically, I'm just saying: if we can emulate it, why can't we have directly integrated, in a better way?
Seems like a reasonable solution, if I put any @username in chat do they always get a notification in their inbox?
@AndyW As long as they were in that chat room recently, yes.
I think notifications are really beneficial. I think private messages are not generally useful and go against what I like about the SE network. There might be a few cases where a private conversation would be useful, but I think that they are few and far between.
Chat provides a means of alerting a user while keeping everything out in the open. I personally think it is much better than @user type notifications buried in comments.
We did try setting something like this up on Physics.
It's a question on meta, where people who want to be pingable, each give a single answer, in which they state the specialities on which they want to be pinged.
And then, in theory, if anyone wants to ping you about a question, they can just leave a comment on that meta answer, with a link pointing to the question. Once you've answered the question, the comment can then be deleted.
Nice theory, huh?
Only thing is, it's almost never been used.
It's also worth quoting what David Z said in a related meta.physics question:
Sure, having a meta question where people can "register" their interest in being pinged sounds fine - at least, there's no rule against it. It wouldn't hurt to try it and see if it helps at all. It wouldn't be featured forever, but we could probably put faq on it if you word it the right way (e.g. "How can I ask someone specific to answer a question?").
However, I would encourage anyone who would be interested in participating in such a system to also do the following three things:
Include your areas of expertise (those in which you would like to be "pinged" if a pinging system were available) in your profile text blurb. If you have enough reputation to have a "user card" (the thing that pops up when the mouse hovers over your gravatar), then make sure your areas of expertise show up there.
Also include those areas in your chat profile.
Stay logged into our chat room as much as possible, and check it periodically to see if you've been "requested." Let's make that the central place to recruit people to help with specific questions.
I think this is the best way to use the existing system to accomplish the goal here - and at worst, it's not going to interfere with the meta post.
(I've amended the links to point to academia rather than physics)
This recent question:
Is it my responsibility to point out that a paper has been plagiarized from another researcher's blog?
seems like a good reason to provide moderators (at least) the ability to ping a particular user. For those who haven't read the thread, the OP has a question about alerting a blog owner about plagiarism against the blog owner, and it turns out that the blog owner is @Suresh, a member of this community.
Obviously, there are other methods (the OP can contact @Suresh through his blog, or more sneakily through a previous comment where "@Suresh" would send Suresh a message), but I think it would be a good idea to allow moderators the ability to email/ping a user (and maybe this is already the case).
Moderators have access to the email address used for registering to SE, so I guess that in this case, we could contact Suresh directly. But this example is so coincidental that I'm not sure we can generalize it :)
Fair enough -- this is a particularly coincidental one!
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.487374
| 2012-03-09T19:37:08 |
86
|
{
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"None"
],
"authors": [
"Amy",
"David Ketcheson",
"Martin Scharrer",
"fileunderwater",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/166",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/167",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/168",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/7223",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/81",
"luispedro"
],
"include_comments": true,
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"provenance": "stackexchange-dolma-0000.json.gz:7433",
"site": "academia.meta.stackexchange.com",
"sort": "votes",
"url": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/86"
}
|
Stack Exchange
|
When should an answer be deleted?
I was checking the answers that have been deleted, and I noticed that Do journals in general have any kind of policy regarding papers submitted by someone without a research affiliation? has been deleted by Anna Lear. Not that I complain particularly about deleting this answer, but I'm not sure to see the reason why. I mean, the answer should probably have been given as a comment to my answer, since it was a comment on something I wrote, but apart from this, it was correctly written, and it wasn't a spam. Was it flagged by someone?
Sorry to ask, but I'm a bit of a newbie on Stack Exchange, so I'd just like to understand the policy, and what we should expect from the moderators (should they delete each answer that does not really address the question?). In general, when should an answer be deleted as opposed as just downvoted?
Also, I'm not sure who can see the actual answer, so for the sake of this question, here it is:
Some journals implement a double-blind reviewing process, meaning that the reviewers are not aware that the authors are from academia or not
In theory this is true, in practice I think its different.
Most academic fields are quite closed off and small. The possible reviewers and people likely to be published is very small. For example, when I worked in academia we would know who reviewed our papers, and they would know it was us reviewing theirs.
If it was deleted by a moderator, the moderator should have listed a reason (as a comment on the deleted question). I can't see the deleted answer, so I don't know what actually happened.
I imagine that answer was deleted because it was an "invalid answer"; it was a comment, and should have been posted as such. Hopefully Anna can stop by and confirm that for herself.
Yes, I was suspecting something like that, but I was curious about the process for this answer, like if it was flagged before.
OK, I just noticed that the answer was now actually a comment of my answer, so somehow, it has been moved from answer to comment. I'd still be curious to know what triggered it (i.e. if the poster moved it, and then flag his answer for deletion, or if Anna moved it herself).
@user102 It was probably flagged by a user for being a comment and not an answer, and subsequently moved by a moderator. This is one of the standard reasons you can choose when flagging.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.489000
| 2012-10-16T20:06:09 |
215
|
{
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"None"
],
"authors": [
"Atilla Ozgur",
"F'x",
"Noble P. Abraham",
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Which of these posts should be deleted?
There has been some discussion recently here about deletion. What I could suggest, in order to avoid having one question here for each content we might want to delete, is to post as an answer to this question any other questions, answer or comment one would like to delete.
If you have at least 2000 reputation, you can directly vote on posts for deletion: please do so as appropriate. You will also be able to see recent posts that have accrued some delete votes: click on the most votes and recent votes headings to see them all.
If you do not have at least 2000 reputation, then please vote on the proposed deletions below: An upvote on the answer means that the post should be deleted, a negative one means that the post shouldn't. All comments are welcome. By default, if after a few days, there has not been any comment against deletion, the post will be deleted.
What do you think of such a process? It can also allow to keep track of the deletion, and the reason pro/against. Furthermore, it would move some parts of the deletion discussion from the hidden mod room to a more open space.
As F'x pointed out, good candidates for deletion can be found here
Good suggestion. Good way to keep track of deletions.
One can visit this page of closed and downvoted questions. Quite a few of them are good candidates for deletion.
Okay, I've finally found the quote I was looking for that summarizes the SE policy on closed questions. See my edit there. In short: closed questions should be, after some time, either reopened or deleted. This is a temporary state, and they should not accumulate. Each site is free to adopt its own policies, but I believe the reasons that make the SE policy desirable on the other sites make it the right choice here.
Quoting Grace Note: “It is often spoken of that a closed off-topic question could be left on the site "as an example of what doesn't belong". This sounds great on paper, but in practice it doesn't work out.” (source)
@F'x (and @ everyone else as well) As per my edit on the original meta question discussing deletions, I think this question is fundamentally correct, but looking at it from the wrong angle. The question should be, "which of these posts can be salvaged?", with the implicit understanding that unsalvageable posts should be deleted.
eykanal: I maintain my personal deletion policy stated in the question you mention, i.e., I will keep using my mod privilege to directly delete offensive/spam. However, as I have not been elected, and since we've been talking about deletion, I felt it could be a good thing to bring the deletion discussion in a public place, rather than as simple flags "should be deleted". Hopefully, one day, we'll have elections, and some mods might be elected on their deletion policy. In the mean time, we can discuss openly about it.
@Charles - I respect that, and I think this discussion has been constructive so far. I know I've learned a few things about how SO works. Check out my revised answer here and see if you agree/disagree; I'm going to delete my answer here, as it's no longer relevant.
My main concern is the audience we drag from search engines. If you google "UEP-graph", Academia.SE is in the top links. I don't think we gain anything by that, on the contrary. Hence, I'd be in favor of deleting it.
I would also see this thread as a chance to explain why we don't want to delete a question. I don't really like the fact that you can't explain a user why you dismiss a flag.
@eykanal Good, I think the rewording would make things much friendly. But, I think let's keep the word 'deletion' in question in title itself, so that people get more cautious in framing their question and making the suggested edits. People would act fast, if a deletion note is put.
@eykanal: I agree with you, it might have been better to ask which one we could salvage, with the implicit idea that the others would be deleted. When I started this thread, I was still on the idea of deleting as little as possible. Now, for the sake of consistency (i.e., upvote on an answer means deletion), I'd rather keep "deleted" in the title, but we can also start over a new thread.
Actually, Charles, you can send an explanation. You have to click through "Declined," and then select "other." Then you can specify a short reason for dismissing it. (The notice is only about 200 characters long, so you have to be brief!)
@aeismail: yes, you're right, I noticed that afterwards. But I guess I prefer it in the open anyway :)
I wonder if this question has now served its purpose. I believe when the question was asked we really hadn't come up with a consensus of when to delete. I didn't even realize closed questions could/needed to be deleted. The number of undeleted closed questions is relatively small, and none are more than 3 weeks old. I personally have decided to let questions set in the closed state for at least a couple of weeks to see if they get edited.
By not using this question we would lose some of the discussion, but I would hope the discussion would happen at the close stage and not the delete stage.
I agree with you, the original purpose of this question was to avoid the scenario "someone flags for deletion, and one moderator does it because they aren't enough high-reps users." I believe there are now enough users taking care of deletion, so perhaps we don't need this question anymore. Anyway, any question can be brought to meta in case there is a need for deletion.
I was very active on this question, pushing toward deletion of quite a few questions. I think it has served its purpose, and it's time to retire it. Maybe one thing we could do instead is open a thread of “questions that could do with a good editing”?
https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/7722/2700
This question has been closed because it's not really answerable. Clearly, the level of difficulty for studies is something very subjective, and it wouldn't make sense to quantify it. Also, the point here is not to post (non constructive) opinions, and an answer such as "I found my master quite hard" is not suited for here
A rhetorical question What is IRDAM Journal?, where I am the only answerer.
Should the community keep it? IMO, the question could have been edited, but eventually closed.
I'm not sure this question should be deleted. I'm not even sure it should have been closed in the first place. It’s OK to Ask and Answer Your Own Questions. In other words, I don't believe it's a rhetorical question (i.e., asked in order to produce an effect or to make a statement rather than to elicit information), but simply a question where the OP knows the answer.
I guess I want people looking for the acronym IRDAM to eventually arrive on Academia.SE, and to find the question and the answer. Noble, I guess your edit suggestion is good, I guess you can go ahead with it, it would be a pity to delete your answer too.
I tried to improve question as requested. Feel free to edit if you think it can be improved.
@AtillaOzgur: I think the improvement is enough, I'm going to reopen your question.
@AtillaOzgur The edit is good. I have voted to reopen the question. Please vote down this post so that it is not deleted. Charles, Thank you for your feedback.
And now, we have a good question, but the only existing (upvoted and accepted) answer doesn’t match the question any more :(
accepted??.....
I think this answer can be deleted now since the question has been reopened.
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2025-03-12T15:57:28.490653
| 2012-11-02T20:54:57 |
265
|
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Abusive content
Maybe some of you have notice that we've had some abusive content lately, which was caused a particular user. I have destroyed all of the corresponding accounts, including some content that might not have seemed abusive in the first place. However, I have reason to suspect that this user puts non abusive content to somehow game some automatic detection mechanisms, and therefore is probably irrelevant.
Please do not hesitate to flag for moderator attention if you see something suspicious!
As a side note: when users flag content as abusive (which is a different checkbox than “needs moderator attention”), it can be destroyed without moderator action (enough “abusive” flags will simply delete the post). So, if the content is clearly abusive, we can flag as such (and avoid some work for the mods)!
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.504645
| 2013-04-03T09:33:16 |
455
|
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The more comments, the better!
There has been a few questions recently which have been closed and then reopened (How to physically handle hundreds and hundreds of papers, How to deal with the frustration of doing PhD at a low-ranked university). As a moderator, it was particularly difficult to deal with these questions because there were not enough comments explaining the motivations of each "side".
Of course, it's ok to vote to close a question, but if you believe this question can be improved, leave a comment explaining why it should be closed and how it could be improved, or upvote a comment left by a previous user. If nobody edits the question, then it's ok to delete it.
Similarly, it's ok to vote to reopen a question, but if the nobody edited the question, please do so, or leave a comment explaining how you believe it could be improved.
Also, feel free to use up/down-votes! The more information you provide (in addition to your votes), the better.
"If nobody edits the question, then it's ok to delete it." - I am sure if I agree with it (unless with additional remark "with no [good] answers.").
@PiotrMigdal: F'x pointed once to this answer from Grace Note. Basically, closed questions should be deleted or reopened. If there is a good answer, then the question should be edited to fit with that good answer.
Editing a question to fit an answer really seems like a solution hunting for a problem.
To add to this: if a discussion is getting long, don't hesitate to bring it here - a meta thread can give folks a lot more room to discuss a closed question, and make it much easier to find past discussions if a similar issue arises in the future.
Just don't forget to provide a link to the discussion in a comment on the question being discussed.
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2025-03-12T15:57:28.510423
| 2013-04-23T14:14:20 |
487
|
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Duplicate question deleted by Community
It was recently brought to our attention that this question has been automatically deleted by the Community user, which also deleted some comment on this question. To the best of my knowledge, the Community user is not controlled by the moderators of this site, and I would guess it's either automated or controlled by a global moderator. I was aware that Community could delete comments of destroyed users, or automatically flag some content, but I didn't know that it could delete such content.
Since the normal rule is to say that we do not delete duplicate questions, I'm not sure why this question has been deleted, could a global moderator (or someone who knows what happened) provide some explanation?
We just had a long discussion about this in mod chat (mod-only, sorry), which led to me posting this request on Meta.SO.
Long story short, it was closed because Community deletes closed, downvoted questions.
Thanks, I found the mod-chat so hard to read through that I practically never go there.
@CharlesMorisset Heh, you mean you find seven simultaneous conversations to be confusing? No way! :)
yeah ... it's a shame, if only there was system where mods could ask questions to each other and answer them, and where the mods could up vote/downvote them ... if only such a system would exist ... :)
The question has now been undeleted. I just gave it an up vote so it shouldn't get auto deleted again. I guess as individuals we need to think about up/down voting duplicates.
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2025-03-12T15:57:28.513306
| 2013-05-21T10:25:01 |
524
|
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How do you use tags?
There has been several questions recently about tags, and topic related tags in particular. I was wondering: how do you use tags? Why do we care about them?
Personally, I don't use them at all, I only search for questions through the search bar. It would therefore be helpful to see what kind of usages the community has for tags.
I think the usefulness of tags varies across different SE sites. Besides StackOverflow and Academia, I am active in Sports.SE, and occasionally drop by English.SE, Fitness.SE and Arqade.
Based on my experience, tags are very handy in Sports.SE where you can easily filter the questions based on your interest and knowledge of the discipline in question. I have tags that I have identified as favorites, and tags I ignore. Makes things much easier...
Arqade is just as self-explanatory as SO, since pretty much every game has its own tag. One simply needs to search for questions tagged with a game of interest, and BAM! you got everything you asked for...
With Academia.SE I think most of the tags are pretty useless, IMHO, since an overwhelming number of questions can be assigned to one of the following:
research
admissions
phd/masters
publishing/publications
There is a whole lot of (at least partially-) redundant tags (e.g. publishing/publications/writing)
Pretty much everytime I ask a question I am bothered to find the "right" tag(s), so I feel a clean-up of the existing tags would be beneficial for the site (at least from my perspective)
I see the main purpose of tags as two-fold:
Allow users who are interested in specific topics to quickly identify/have emailed to them questions on those topics
Allow for topic-specific searching
It's not as useful for the first purpose, as all of Academia is basically one large topic, but I've found them very useful for the second purpose.
Do you have an example of information you would find by tag search but not by a regular search? Most of the time, the tag name is contained in the question/answer.
Not off the top of my head. I've used it in the past to find questions about papers, and I remember using it to find one about bibliographies. Maybe I'm the only one using it like that :)
I often find tag searches much more helpful than regular searches. To follow on to a comment made by Charles to Eykanal, I rarely find anything with a tag search that I do not find with a regular search. The key difference is I find a lot less (not so much on our site yet, but definitely the bigger sites). A tag tells me the question is really about the topic. Just because a word is used tells me very little.
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2025-03-12T15:57:28.514503
| 2013-06-19T19:29:48 |
549
|
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Stack Exchange
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Would I be allowed to link to my own published papers, if relevant to the question?
If strictly to do with the topic, could I give a link to one of my own published papers as an example?
Wouldn't this be so exceptional that the question would be closed as "too localized" anyway?
perhaps, it is unlikely that it would be needed to be done.
Yes.
So long as the paper and the link coherently fit into your answer, as well as the topic of the question, I don't see a problem with this. You can make a disclaimer if you want, and I think that would satisfy any concerns.
Good idea about the disclaimer - I would imagine that this would be a very occasional occurrence.
+1 for disclaimer. I think thats an important step.
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2025-03-12T15:57:28.515077
| 2013-06-28T21:56:07 |
557
|
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Stack Exchange
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What is wrong with my question
A question, if I may, about my question about data backups and security here, (which has now 5 upvotes, 1 downvote = 23 rep; 2 very full replies- also upvoted) based on my understanding that asking questions relating to academic tools were okay.
It seems to have attracted a comment discussion about where to move it to - why is not alright here?
But if you decide to move it to ux.SE or wherever (another suggestion in the comments was superuser.SE), a practical question if I may - does it mean that the 23 rep that I have earned would be lost, especially as I am not a member of either of these sites? (seriously not sure how that works).
Well, that is now 2 downvotes for the question - so please, if you are going to migrate/delete/close the question, just do what you want to do. (I'll just stick to answering questions)
Downvotes are not the same as close votes.
The issue is that you haven't done anything to make the question specific to this board. The situation you describe, as you've described it, could apply to anyone.
Asking, however, if universities offer tools to help with this, however, would make the question more relevant to this board.
so, it is going to be migrated, deleted or closed?
I have added in specific references to PhD and journal-research.
I can't guarantee anything—this is a community board, after all—but the fact that you already have several answers makes it an unlikely candidate for any of those fates.
I've also added a bit asking if universities offer the services you're looking for. (For instance, in grad school, my school's IT service allowed us to back up our on-campus machines, and it turned out to be a lifesaver!)
fair enough. A bit of background - the reference to my MSc submission was about when I was due to submit my thesis, I was right in the middle of the Queensland floods of 2011, and was in one of the worst hit areas - almost lost everything (including my own life).
I think this question does have academia-specific sides to it and thus is relevant for this site. For example, see my comment there on how publishing your work is, in a way, the "ultimate" backup.
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2025-03-12T15:57:28.515484
| 2013-07-04T09:00:05 |
561
|
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"sort": "votes",
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Stack Exchange
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Reopening of a question closed without comments
Recently, the question How often should one evaluate a plan for an academic career? has been closed without a single comment explaining why it should be closed, while there was already an upvoted answer.
I decided to reopen the question, because the next logical step is to delete the question, and I have no idea why it should be the case, and it's likely we're stuck with an "on hold/closed" question. As I already stated here, comments are very helpful to maintain the site, especially that we are still on beta, and that we don't exactly have hundreds of questions each day. Helping a new user understanding why his/her question is too broad or off-topic is important to help the community grow.
To be clear: I'm not saying that this question should necessarily be kept open or should be closed, but if you know why you're closing the question, then leaving a comment should not be that difficult, and if you don't know why you're closing the question, then perhaps you should not be voting to close in the first place.
Expecting users to offer justification for why they're closing questions is part of the spirit, if not the letter, of the new "on hold" policy. I think questions need to have some constructive comments for improvement. Otherwise things can get out of hand.
Fair enough, sounds like a good plan.
The close reasons provide explanation of why a voter is voting to close.
Nowhere on Stack Exchange do up-votes, down-votes, close-votes, re-open votes or delete votes require comments from non-mod voters.
And there's no reason why Academia.SE should be an exception.
The re-opening was an unfortunate mis-judgement: one that's reversible. The question still asks "How do you plan your career?" which is ludicrously broad for a Q&A site, as evidenced by the answers so far: do any of those look like an identifiably correct answer? No, they don't. A whole book might (but probably wouldn't) provide an identifiably correct answer.
I do not agree with your assessment, just because something is not required of you doesn't mean that there's no reason to skip it. I mean there's no law that requires you to say "sorry" if you bump into someone on the street, but you still do (I hope). It's good manners, and in this particular case, it helps a new user get acclimated with the site.
Personally, I think it is not only polite, but also potentially helpful for the member.
Sure, it does not have to be done, but look at it this way - put a question on hold, the member may not know the reason exactly why, even with the close reason dialogue, it does not hurt to comment some suggestions so that the member may edit and improve their question and things can get back on track.
The same especially applies to downvotes - a downvote without a comment explains nothing.
Just because the established members know the nuts-and-bolts of writing a question, does not mean a new member will automatically know these.
In any case, this is what I am going to be doing from now on.
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2025-03-12T15:57:28.515927
| 2013-07-13T13:54:33 |
569
|
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Stack Exchange
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Undergrad question but with postgrad implications
I am referring to this question about the application process - it is something that often happens for postgraduate, as well as undergraduate applications, so it could be useful for anyone reading it.
The specified question is on-topic for German graduate students as well. I've posted a note to that effect on the question, and would therefore "overrule" a motion to close. (Granted it helps that I know the German system well enough, and someone else might not. However, the important thing is that it is relevant for the board.)
it has also been upvoted - so, is useful.
It appears that the question is now 'on hold', I have submitted to reopen.
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2025-03-12T15:57:28.516013
| 2013-07-16T10:36:03 |
572
|
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Stack Exchange
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Why was my upvoted answer deleted?
This is quite discouraging. Why was my answer to this thread deleted?
It says converted to comment, but I do not see it anywhere. This is the 2nd time (according to my reputation record) that an answer of mine has been removed in a week (and I am using the term in the aforementioned record 'removed').
I like to think that I am making some contribution to this site, but clearly this seems not to be the case.
Just to echo Charles's point about rankings, your contributions are clearly very highly valued; both your questions and answers are highly upvoted. Looks pretty useful to me! I strongly encourage you to reconsider your standing in the community; one deleted answer does not a bad contributor make.
To answer the other part of your question, your other answer was deleted because the question as a whole has been deleted. This question was downvoted twice, closed by 5 users, and deleted by 3 different users (I personally cast the final deletion vote). The side-effect of deleting a question is to also delete all answers. So no need for paranoia here.
As for your contribution, if you care about reputation, then you could see that you were the 3rd in the league rank for june, and you're still third for July: http://stackexchange.com/leagues/191/month/academia
That means that the community values your contribution. You can of course decide to "stick to reviewing", it's entirely up to you.
please do not label me as being paranoid. As I said in my last comment to your previous answer "Got the message"... which means, I got your message. I assure you, that I am not obsessed with rep - but it is not difficult to notice when 2 lots of 'removed' reps occurring in the past week. But, as I said, I got your point before, accepted your point, with the my last comment to your previous answer.
@Damien: Well, you come and claim that we "remove" your contribution. That's not the case. The first time was because the entire question was removed, the second time it was transformed into a comment (and, apparently, a bug then deleted your comment). Since you seem to have a very defensive attitude, I just want to point out there is no need to be paranoid. In the future, don't automatically assume that it's against you.
when the only information I had on hand was in the rep table stating "removed", hence why I used the word. Please, I take offense at being labelled 'paranoid'.
I transformed your answer to a comment, because it didn't any new comment w.r.t. the other answers. Your answer was basically "It happened to me. The other answers are good. I dislike plagiarism.", which is fine, but is more a comment than an actual answer.
I do not know why your comment was deleted, the way it appears to me is that you deleted the comment yourself:
EDIT: original answer:
I have experienced this first hand as well - not a very nice feeling at all. I can only share what I did in response and it largely echoes the great advice given in the replies here. Contact the institution's dean and present the evidence, which isn't hard to do as your work is published. Plagiarism is probably the biggest peeve of mine, I find that it is a deliberate and wilful act of intellectual theft - laziness and even ignorance are not valid excuses. Any incidence needs to be tackled head on and through the right channels.
I assure you, I did not delete the comment. computer went a bit haywire (cursor froze). But it may as well stay deleted as it does not add to the question. I'll just stick to reviewing.
@Damien: Well, I do not know what happened. I'm tagging it as a bug so that the SE mods can have a look at it. In the mean time, I'm copying your original answer here, so that you can put it as a comment yourself.
That's fine, as I said, it clearly does not add to the thread. I will stick to reviewing.
@Damien: Please avoid passive-aggressive statements such as "I'll just stick to reviewing" (you already used a similar formulation here. If you cannot stand any form of correction on your questions/answers, perhaps you should not consider being involved in a community-based site in the first place. You have highly voted questions and answers, so it's not like everything you say is rejected.
okay, no problems. Got the message.
I would say that the answer is not a particularly good answer. Had it been the first answer it would have added something new, but as the 3rd answer it doesn't add much. That said, I think that it being deleted without a comment or chance to edit is a bit "harsh" and not a good behaviour shaping experience. I personally would like to see you expand the answer with your personal insights into the process as you experienced it. My guess is that a modest improvement would lead to it being un-deleted.
@Charles I appreciate the work you and the other diamond mods do. I am struggling with not making this comment sound super negative, so please read it with a grain of salt and realize I am not complaining much. In general, I think the diamond mods are pretty careful. For example, you only tend to cast close and delete votes when only one more "regular" vote is needed or the question/answer is clearly spam. In this case I would have liked for the community to have been given some more time to comment/flag the answer. Maybe even highlighting the answer in meta/chat to help get non-diamond mods into the act of managing the site. Again, I appreciate your work.
That's a fair point. I didn't think about it much, because the point was not to delete the answer, but simply to move it as a comment of the question (I don't believe to be responsible of the subsequent deletion of the comment, it might be a bug), which is something done on a regular basis. But you're right, I should have left a comment on the question, explaining the move.
If I was asked to improve the answer with more detail, I would have been more than happy to.
I appreciate people's concern and the discussion this has generated.
As I said in my final comment to the first answer:
okay, no problems. Got the message
I assure you, I got it, I understand, hence why I said 'I got it'.
I offered my final comment to the 2nd answer as explanation (emphasis added):
when the only information I had on hand was in the rep table stating "removed", hence why I used the word. Please, I take offense at being labelled 'paranoid'
Reputation table is reference to this (do not know what else to call it), where the word "removed" is used (without explanation), hence why I used it in my question (as I explained).
I would have liked an opportunity to fix the answer (especially in light of a new incidence that occurred a couple of hours after posting the answer), but that point is moot now.
Your answer has been undeleted so that you can improve it :)
@CharlesMorisset I have modified the answer.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.516911
| 2013-07-24T08:48:44 |
581
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
Other than flagging them, what can we do about blatant advertisers
There is a lot of spam in the replies here, the reply from Ian Pack is a blatant one as a quick search shows he works for the company that he is "recommending", I would not be surprised if more are spamming.
Another one in the thread, David Foster, is the Training Manager of the company he is touting.
I don't want to link to these spammers' websites.
I did a search of the name, product and company and both cases are employees spamming their products.
also, both have no accounts other than here and 1 rep point... that is hat got me suspicious in the first place.
If you see one, flag it. If you see more than one of them by the same author/company (it has happened on Chemistry, for example), flag it and alert the moderators in case they didn't notice that it was the same author/company (by a meta post or custom flag with explanatory text).
I think it is fair to report this andso adding a comment like "This seems like advertisement" in some form should be enough to alert others. The OP can then object if they need to with some facts to the contrary.
I'm not sure it is our responsibility to "report them to their company bosses".
What you did was I guess the right move: flag them, and bring them to meta. One of the answer you mention has been deleted by the community, and the other one is down-voted. The answers were technically on topic, and although it would be better for the users to state their affiliation, it's not necessarily spam.
don't worry, I have not gone on a corporate-warpath (I have edited out that part). I vehemently hate with every fibre of my being, advertising in general, let alone these false 'recommendations'.
Every question asking for some recommendation is bound to have some kind of advertising, which is why there are not always welcome here.
I agree wholeheartedly on that, the last thing any SE site needs is a spam-storm...erm... I mean 'recommendations'.
The question at hand happens to be a good target for spammers, due to the nature of the question. I've protected the question, which should make it marginally more difficult; if the problem continues, we can lock the question as well.
If other questions like similar to this one (i.e., where answers will contain product recommendations) experience similar issues, flag it and we'll protect/lock as necessary.
The FAQ addresses this
Avoid overt self-promotion.
The community tends to vote down overt self-promotion and flag it as
spam. Post good, relevant answers, and if some (but not all) happen to
be about your product or website, that’s okay. However, you must
disclose your affiliation in your answers.
If a large percentage of your posts include a mention of your product
or website, you're probably here for the wrong reasons. Our
advertising rates are quite reasonable; contact our ad sales team for
details. We also offer free community promotion ads for open source
projects and non-profit organizations.
I think the SAMS answer actually answers the question and is not spam despite the obvious advertising aspect of the answer. I think a down vote and a comment are the right way to go. I am not sure flagging is particularly helpful because I don't think the diamond mods should be deleting answers which answer the question. The AccusAQL answer does not answer the question, so down voting and flagging is the way to go.
Actually, the answer on AccuSQL seemed to be way too generic (it's not really for attendance monitoring only, it seems to be a solution for managing an entire academic server), which is why I deleted it. I believe the other answer (SAMS) was actually quite relevant, but three other users deleted the answer.
@CharlesMorisset fair enough looking more closely at AccuSQL I can see how it is spam.
I can't see the deleted answers. However, I'll add my 2 cents from elsewhere:
If a new user with no previous activity blatantly advertises a product/website/..., treat it as spam. Don't forget, besides flagging, to downvote the answer: sufficient number of downvotes with no upvotes deletes the post at one moment.
If it's clearly spam, edit the answer, remove the contents and add spam content deleted. (However, that applies only when it's very clearly a spam with no discussion about it.)
I don't recommend editing the spam answers. Just leave them as they are, and let the existing spam system work to cause them to be deleted.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.518304
| 2013-07-25T15:05:26 |
594
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
Text in comment box
When I want to type a new comment, there is some text already present in the text box, which disappears when I start typing my comment. However, this text is not complete, and only shows: "Use comments to ask for more information or suggest improvements. Avoid comments like":
Am I the only one with this bug? For info, it shows both on Safari and Firefox, on Mac OS.
I don't have the issue exactly as you describe it, but I do see the problem in the alt text on the "add comment" link:
I'll report this to the SE admins and they can take a look. Thanks!
EDIT: It appears they already know about this issue and it's already been fixed. The fix may take some time to propogate to all sites, so you may not see the changes for a few hours.
Yep. No need to post an additional "official" answer because it would be exactly what this one says.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.520528
| 2013-09-05T20:15:38 |
629
|
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}
|
Stack Exchange
|
Are realistic hypothetical situation based questions permitted?
The question would have to be very specific and answerable, but would hypothetical (and realistic) questions be permitted?
What I mean by this is, would situations that do not necessarily happen to the person asking the question, but could happen (and may have happened) be permitted?
As long as you're able to provide any specific details if requested, I don't see any problem.
@CharlesMorisset thank you, I would base any hypotheticals on events that I have heard of occurring in passing (i.e. not privy to the exact details) and would be possible to occur again.
I don't see any reason why they should not be permitted, and judged by the same measure as all questions. If they are a good fit for the site (which probably requires that they be realistic), they add value and should be allowed!
Moreover, I don't think you can prevent them efficiently. There's no way you can tell, when I ask a question, whether it's really happened to me. Sometimes, I ask what I think are good questions from my past experiences (in that particular case, I added a PS, but I don't always). Sometimes, I make up questions… (based on real-life circumstances that have happened, or could have happened to others)
For example, if you look at my questions, you may realize that I am:
an undergrad student
a post-doc
a research group leader
editor of a journal
a senior researcher who chairs session in prestigious conferences
and my name is John Smith
I can tell you (in confidence): not all of these are true!
You're not John Smith? But thank you for your point there, that a hypothetical should not be obviously a hypothetical.
No, they are really not a good fit to the site at all.
The reason is, that however good your imagination is, there may be crucial details that would relate to a real-life situation, that you just haven't anticipated.
That makes the answers much less useful to anyone with a real-world problem that looks broadly like what you made up.
The Help Cente explicitly states that you must Try to extract the fundamental question from the specific problem at hand.
If you don't have that specific problem, don't ask about it. Fake questions are as bad as fake answers, and the site is better off without them.
The tour, that all new users of the site are directed to, is very explicit about this, and it's a principle that applies across all Stack Exchange sites:
Focus on questions about an actual problem you have faced. Include details about what you have tried and exactly what you are trying to do.
(emphasis as in the original)
I'm not sure what you refer to as “fake answers”, but using the Q&A format, within its limit, to share knowledge (e.g. by self-answering) is, and has long been, allowed and even encouraged on Stack Exchange.
Regarding the main point of your answer, @UV-D specifically stated “realistic” and “very specific and answerable” questions, i.e. they concern a real-world problem, even though it may not have occurred to you (or occurred yet, or occurred in this particular alternative universe :)
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.520987
| 2013-09-13T09:23:57 |
640
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
What is the policy on keeping bad questions with useful answers?
Say, a question that is not a perfect fit for the site was posted - mostly some consider it to have some merit, some do not.
What if said question generates some very useful answers (not just upvoted, but generate comments that indicate the usefulness). Will the question (hence, useful answers) still be deleted eventually (if not improved)?
Comparing a bad question with no answers (or bad answers), and a bad question with good answers, my view is that in the case of the good answers, it gives us (the community) more motivation to actually edit the question into a better shape, even if the OP doesn't do it.
After all, if a question gets a good answer, it means that there is a diamond somewhere in the rough of that question (maybe not always a diamond, but at least a decent enough gemstone).
topaz? sapphire? citrine?
@UV-D or chrysoprase, clinohumite, kornerupine, dumortierite… (“look honey, you said you wanted a jewel, I've got you a dumortierite necklace”)
Ignoring duplicate questions, I believe the SE philosophy was that there are two fates for closed questions (editing and deletion). I think the On Hold terminology was designed to highlight that the "closed" state is temporary. A question needs to be closed before it can be deleted. Closed questions that have a negative vote total are deleted by the community user (Duplicate question deleted by Community). A number of us look at closed questions regularly and either edit or vote to delete (e.g., Which of these posts should be deleted?).
So, an option would be to reword the useful answer(s) perhaps as a self answered question?
This is the most correct answer, I believe. Think of it this way: if this site contained nothing other than great answers to off-topic and otherwise inappropriate questions, it wouldn't be very useful as an Academic knowledge repository, would it? If the question can be edited to be more relevant, please do so, but otherwise it's exactly what it is: a great answer to a wrong question.
@eykanal thank you for that, just clarifying.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.527133
| 2014-01-04T17:39:44 |
731
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
consistency in voting to close
I'm not sure if this is the appropriate place to raise this issue, but:
The stated purpose of the forum seems to be that the questions should benefit both undegraduates, graduate students and academicians.
A question about writing a cv for an internship was put on hold on vote because it was deemed off-topic and unhelpful to the rest of the community Preparing a curriculum vitae for an undergraduate internship
Fair enough. However similar questions about obtaining research jobs What options does college dropout with great grades, research projects and CV have to return to university (or thinktanks)? or getting into grad school without an undergrad Is it possible to be admitted to a Master's program after not completing Bachelor's degree due to academic dishonesty? seem to be accepted without question, or relevance to the stated purpose of the forum.
So my question is, what is the policy (if any) to ensure consistent moderation? It's not fair for some questions to get put on hold/deleted for being irrelevant when other equally irrelevant questions are allowed to stay up.
I would like to welcome you to AC.SE. I am sorry your initial contact has been so unpleasant. This is the right place to ask these type of meta questions about AC.SE. You could also use chat, although it is generally pretty quiet. Ideally when questions get put on hold, the voters will provide a little more information about why they are closing it.
Some people here feel anything undergrad related is off topic. I am not one of those. I think your question could have just as easily come from a grad student and hence be on topic. I haven't voted to reopen your question because I think it currently is too localized and the answers will only help you. There are also a lot of different questions that you are asking. A better, in my opinion, question, would ask about the theory of the different sections of the CV and not one so focused on your specifics skill set which no one else will have.
If you edit it to be more general, I will be happy to vote to reopen it. In the absence of an edit, I will think about it.
@rocinante I think this answer is great and I have nothing to add other than this is a young site and from what I've read of your answers and comments you do have valuable insights and I, for one, hope you continue to contribute (despite recent disagreements). I would also vote to re-open the question you mentioned, if it were made more generic and thus more applicable to others.
the voters are really biased, they like what they like to hear.
I changed the title of the question because the issue is not one of "moderation."
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 appreciate the way the moderators behave. I think it is hard because a are still small and getting a consensus can take a while.
I agree with the previous answers, and there are just a couple of points I'd like to add.
If you look at the FAQ, the topic 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, and as such, undergraduates questions are deemed relevant only when they are related to entering graduate studies or could be easily applied to questions related to graduate life. Hence, a question that benefits only undergraduates is not necessarily on-topic.
Secondly, I think any argument like "this question should be open/closed because this other question is open/closed" is not particularly constructive, since it's quite hard to compare questions and the reasons why they are closed or not. I've asked in the past for people to put comments when they vote to close, but unfortunately not everybody does (and in the case you point out, none of the closers left a comment to explain why they voted to close). It is possible that multiple reasons led this question to be closed, for instance, it's very specific (the OP listing his/her own skills), and looks like "help me do my CV" (which is off-topic) rather than "what is a good CV" (which could be on-topic, as aeismail pointed out). But I would be very careful in calling two questions "equally irrelevant".
Finally, this is a community site, so feel free to edit any on-hold question, that's why they are on-hold and not deleted yet. If you think a question should be open, then you have every right to launch a campaign to reopen it, even if it's not yours.
I'm saying you shouldn't compare questions between them. Any question should be analysed with respect to its own merits. I have never said that the question was not welcome, and as a matter of fact, I didn't vote on it. There is no higher power here, just a bunch of users voting on what they like and what they don't. Complain if there is some abuse, otherwise just make the changes you want to see.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.527712
| 2014-01-05T15:22:14 |
735
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
mass up-voting yourself with a second account
How to prevent that from happening? For example, I definitely do not believe that this surge of reputation actually happened:
https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6393/espanta?tab=reputation
Don't worry too much about it, our Cybord Overlords are taking good care of it :)
There is a series of scripts which Stack Exchange runs to try to find suspicious voting patterns. If they are in fact the same user, then this will be detected over time. For now, though, I would suspect that the two users at least definitely know each other, although from what I can tell this doesn't appear to be a sockpuppet situation.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.545682
| 2014-03-07T07:18:03 |
838
|
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"sort": "votes",
"url": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/838"
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|
Stack Exchange
|
Where do I ask questions about specific graduate schools and chances of admission?
I am currently a sophomore, but just looking for some statistics on graduate school admissions, and if possible chances tailored to my own statistics.
You can flag the moderators to migrate your question to meta. I just did it for you.
There are dozens of forums on grad school in general and for schools in specific fields in particular, where you can ask such questions. Try searching Google for "What are my chances of getting into university [X]" and you will find plenty of them.
Whether you will find this exercise useful or not is another question entirely. See: http://forum.thegradcafe.com/topic/23061-before-you-ask-what-are-my-chances/
The reason I'm asking is that the particular program I am most interested in is a small program that does not post statistics online, but is at a very well-known university nonetheless. So, there isn't really much data to go from - I really don't know anything about my chances, or even if I have a chance.
Actually, this isn't true. In many academic fields it is extremely hard to find information about PhD program admissions. TheGradCafe is a little sparse.
It seems like this could be a good question for the main site. I am not sure why it was migrated to meta. It would take a little bit of work to make it clear that your are not asking on AC.SE for your chances for acceptance, but rather how to evaluate your chance for admission. My other concern would be that the question would become a poll type question asking for recommendations of other forums.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.551162
| 2014-04-20T16:35:05 |
903
|
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"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/9807"
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"sort": "votes",
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|
Stack Exchange
|
Recent spam for sport blog
Recently, there has been a surge of spam posts for a sport blog, broadcasting illegal streaming. Although such posts have always been correctly flagged as spam and the corresponding accounts destroyed by the moderators, an extra action to help prevent this kind of posts is to report the blog to blogspot.
I've done it, but I guess the more people reporting it, the more likely it is that google takes action. I won't put the link of the blog here, but next time a similar post arises, please keep it in mind!
As a quick update: the blog in question has now been removed from blogspot, so it works!
Here's a direct link to the Blogspot reporting page.
Thanks for the link to my post :-)
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.551272
| 2014-04-22T18:26:24 |
904
|
{
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"site": "academia.meta.stackexchange.com",
"sort": "votes",
"url": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/904"
}
|
Stack Exchange
|
Who decides when an answer is correct?
There are some questions here on 'being nice when down voting' or 'when closing'. Here's my experience.
I just want to say that I feel I have been unnecessarily downvoted for a simple opinion on a simple question.
SE says
Use your downvotes whenever you encounter an egregiously sloppy, no-effort-expended post, or an answer that is clearly and perhaps dangerously incorrect.
I have come to conclude that this site is not so much focused on hard and fast answers, but that it is more like a meta site in the network. Trusted users and modes should take this post a lot more seriously.
There is just much appreciated exception: https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14410/okiharaherbst You make my day! Even though you don't agree, you at least try to understand.
No offense, but here is my experience. I think certain community members (including the downvoters) have done an awful job in welcoming me here.
You will only see the back of me.
When to downvote is something that individual users and the site culture as a whole has to determine for itself. I will note that the excerpted passage is listing sufficient conditions for downvoting, not necessary conditions, and I think that -- provided you believe in downvoting at all, which not everyone does -- they are clearly good reasons to downvote. I will disclose that I downvoted your answer for reasons that are within the spirit of the quoted passage: I thought it was sloppy and has the possibility of being not only incorrect but dangerously incorrect.
When people ask "What should I do in this situation?" type of questions, downvotes serve a very useful answer: they indicate that community members feel strongly that you should not follow the advice given in that answer. In this case, though I am sorry that it is your first answer here and that it has given you a bad impression of the site, I'm glad that your answer has so many downvotes: that's a big hint to the OP that many people think s/he should not follow the advice.
If you like, I would be happy to leave as an answer here more detailed reasons for why I downvoted your answer.
+1 for a beautiful question. My friend, please do not take it personally. People do not always agree with our advice. That is not offensive to you as a person. I do not know you (and I never will). So, regardless of the downvotes on this one question, I would love to hear your opinion on anything and you know what? You can downvote as well!!!
For reference: http://academia.stackexchange.com/a/19653/64
I will say that I neither upvoted nor downvoted your answer, even though I disagreed with it.
However, the basic rules that apply to more traditional Stack Exchange sites really can't apply here: a lot of the questions on this site tend to be experience-based, rather than having strictly factual answers. The consequence of this is that it's hard to say that an answer is "clearly" incorrect. However, if the reader believes that the answer is wrong, and following that advice could cause more problems than it solves, that is a logical reason to downvote, per the quote given above.
Indeed, you have confirmed my suspicion. This is a forum: "the basic rules that apply to more traditional Stack Exchange sites really can't apply here." Hence the academia site is ironically maybe one of the most biased ones in the network. Not my cup of tea.
I am sorry you feel that way. However, interactions between people—which is fundamentally what the practice of academia is—don't have definitive answers. There's a lot of gray area, and a lot of questions don't have binary right-wrong answers. Some things are clear-cut, and many things aren't. Holding questions and answers here to the same standard as a programming site (such as Ask Ubuntu) isn't practical.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.553687
| 2014-04-29T13:04:02 |
929
|
{
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"sort": "votes",
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}
|
Stack Exchange
|
Moderator election
I was under the impression that with graduation came the election of moderators, since the current moderating team has been nominated by SE. Does anybody know the exact process?
They usually wait a week or two after graduation, I'd just ask someone from the comm team in TL if you want to know more.
About a month after graduation, elections take place. They'll initally start with three positions. All current (pro-tempore) mods will need to run for re-election at that point.
(Source: this discussion in TL, only accessible to moderators)
Well, current mods will need to run for reelection only if they want to keep their positions. ;-)
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.556728
| 2014-05-08T13:51:36 |
966
|
{
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"sort": "votes",
"url": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/966"
}
|
Stack Exchange
|
Increased urgent privileges when moderators are unavailable
In these times of elections, the question was raised by @scaaahu of what happens when no moderator is available, typically at certain time intervals: if all moderators live in the same timezone, then they might share the same unavailability. In addition, academics might need to travel often, and it could be the case that for a few days, 1 or 2 moderators only are available.
Many moderating operations are not particularly urgent, but some are, in particular deleting spam or intervening against vandalism. Could it be possible, if mods can declare their unavailability, to increase the privileges of high rep users if needs be? For instance, if I know I won't have time during one week, I could easily set it up on the site, so that it is certain that I won't be able to act as a moderator during that time. In the worst case scenario, if all mods are unavailable, then users with high-rep should be able to act as moderators (suspending spammers and vandals, removing/hiding offensive content, etc).
Not sure if this should go here or to the Stack Exchange meta site...
@eykanal: Not sure either, but I think the SE overlords watch the "feature-request" tag, and since we are running the elections now, I thought it was quite relevant to have it here. But I'm happy to move it.
Do we have actual evidence of significant non-overlap in moderator coverage, or a particular problem with spam in the time window folks seem to be worried about?
@Fomite: I don't have concrete evidence, although when we were only 3 moderators, I remember times where flags could linger on for a few days, because no moderator was available to take care of them. I don't think it was critical, but at the same time, the feature I'm suggesting is rather cheap to implement, on a voluntarily basis, and can only help.
I think the answer to this in the long run is probably to increase the number of moderators.
It has been pointed out by F'x on the chat that:
3 spam flags hide a question, and 6 spam flags = instant delete, whether it's Q or A (source)
so, if spam posts survive, it just means that we just have very few users in this timezone, whether they're mod or not
which, I think, means it's not so much of a problem right now (and it will disappear as the site grows)
In short: mods are not the first line of defense, other users have powerful tools for clear-cut cases (spam, offensive speech, etc.)
In addition, eykanal mentioned that:
people who flag often, and have their flags ranked as "helpful", have their flags weighted higher
So it seems there is enough built-in mechanisms to deal with spams, even if no moderator is available. I would therefore suggest to first document cases where spam was effectively visible by new users for an extended period of time, and then to request a feature only if it is shown to be a consistent problem.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.567331
| 2014-05-28T14:27:28 |
1049
|
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"John Slegers",
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|
Stack Exchange
|
Why are there so many "Is it appropriate to..." questions on Academia.SE?
I am not an academic, I am however a regular SE user. I see several Academia.SE questions in the "hot questions" sidebar. It seems that many of these questions go something like:
"Is it appropriate to... ?"
"Is it polite to... ?"
"Is it normal to... ?"
Why are there so many etiquette and protocol type questions at Academia.SE?
Is this unique to Academia.SE or are there radically different standards for civility in real life academia?
Some numbers from the SE API. There are 4614 total questions, a search for "appropriate" returns 665 results. Roughly 14%.
Because subjective questions are both easy to ask and easy to answer.
Your 14% figure is quite misleading—it includes all questions and answers containing a variant of the term "appropriate," regardless of the topic of the question. Actually, the number of questions with "appropriate" in the title is less than 1% of the total, which I think is entirely reasonable.
As I've stated elsewhere, though, academia is about interpersonal interactions—what you might think is reasonable (and what might pass for so in everyday life) might not be so well received in the academic world (for "diplomatic" as well as legal reasons). Asking about etiquette situations is therefore an appropriate use of this board.
I think that answers my question. I'm getting a skewed picture from what I see in "Hot Questions" and the rules in academia are different from the private sector.
Yeah, there's been a bit of a run on "appropriate" questions in the last few days.
Compared to the world of business, academia has a much less well defined hierarchy.
For example, I am line managed by one person, academically managed by another but the actual money for my paycheck comes from a third, fourth and fifth. At any one time I can be collaborating with a bunch of other people answerable to completely different (but equally complex) management structures. And I don't even have many teaching responsibilities to factor in at the moment! But the question of who takes credit/blame for outcomes (publications/funding) will have a major impact on my career.
This is no bad thing, indeed it's part of why academics are regarded as independent thinkers (hopefully).
Bearing all this in mind, though, sometimes you have to know the boundaries of what is considered acceptable behaviour. It's a bit different to business where you just do what your boss says.
(Admittedly that's a slightly simplistic portrayal of the business world but I have worked there as well and the difference is certainly tangible to me).
Colleges used to be havens for freethinkers. Today, they've become havens for totalitarianism. This probably explains why so many people seem to be so afraid of offending people with inappropriate words or behavior.
Whether or not that's true, it's a different issue: your link is about what academics can say to students and the public, while my answer is about hierarchy and relations between faculty.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.567596
| 2014-05-30T15:50:33 |
1051
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
Asking about ettiquette for confusing exam questions?
This question on the Computer Science SE involves an example exam question which is very unclear. I was wondering if it would be on-topic (including not "bad subjective") here to ask what a student should do when faced with such questions in an exam (or homework).
(A related question might be how to grade such questions. Knowing how an answer to a seemingly unclear question will be graded may give hints at how such should be answered.)
If it is on-topic, what tags should be used. (I am guessing etiquette and exams would be appropriate.)
The poster of the question on CS.SE is in an awful position: the professor 'is known for [possessive pronoun extracted] "unclear" questions'.
I think both
what a student should do when faced with such questions in an exam (or homework)
and
how to grade such questions
are reasonable questions. The latter would obviously relate to learning that the question was ambiguous after giving the exam.
You will probably need some type of example to narrow down the issue since there is a difference between a question without all the information needed to answer and a question that has multiple correct answers. You can use the link question, but you will want to explain the issues so no CS people can understand.
As for tags exams and etiquette seem reasonable for the first question and exams and grading for the second question.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.567741
| 2014-06-02T15:38:20 |
1053
|
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"sort": "votes",
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|
Stack Exchange
|
Bug in number of review tasks displayed
Since graduation, I've observed that quite often, the number of tasks in the review list is not consistent. For instance, in the attached screenshot, the top-menu bar displays 3 tasks to review, while I can't see any to actually review.
I've tried to open the site in a new browser, to avoid any cache issue, the problem remains the same.
Note that this behaviour does not last, and after a while, the number disappears. Intuitively, it would seem like a refresh problem.
This is by-design. From the SE meta:
The review indicator in the top-bar is not calculated on a per-user basis, but on a per-site basis. The counts in the review queue itself are calculated on a per-user basis.
So, when there are reviews that you've already acted on but still need action from more users, they'll still show in the indicator bar.
I'm not a design expert, but that seems quite bad ... I'll comment on the thread you linked, thanks!
I found the following answer posted by @Shog9:
In other words, you're being given a birds-eye view of the actual state of review. It's one thing for the majority of reviewers to plow through their own tasks and move on, but someone needs to keep an eye on things to make sure stuff is actually getting done.
If that number is high or growing, then there's a problem. I've heard this lament from many different sites over the past year: "I do all I can, but there aren't enough of us and it just doesn't seem to have any effect!"
If this is happening on your site, if that number is getting bigger in spite of everything you do... Then it's time to raise a call for action. Don't wait for the cruft to clog the streets before getting folks organized to clean it up.
On the other hand, if it's staying steady at a reasonably-small number (and chances are, you know what "reasonably small" means for your site better than I do), then there's nothing to worry about. In fact, you can probably skip clicking on it entirely unless or until it changes, and get along just fine.
For info, I posted the following comment:
I find this indicator quite confusing. All other notifications follow the same graphical pattern: number in red square for inbox, number in green square for rep, number in blue square for mod actions. All these notifications are actionable, so clicking on them allow me to do something to remove them. Not only the review notification does not show me what I can do (which could be useful), but show me stuff I can't do anything about. This is not consistent, and should be moved away from the main page (perhaps in the tool sections)
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.578528
| 2014-07-30T12:06:55 |
1140
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
What is a "rant" as far as Academia.SE?
I have used other stack-exchange websites successfully (there are about 100 of them) to get answers to my questions.
Here on Academia.SE the word rant is being used in a way that I have not seen on other websites and I would like some clarification.
There are some guidelines in the help section of Academia.SE and even a small section on what not to ask. I still confused and find the use on here very subjective.
Example Possible "not a question" post
Recently, someone posted the question "Fee surcharge for international students", which was an undisguised rant.
Let me look up this word to see what it could mean:
rant to talk loudly and in a way that shows anger : to complain in a way that is unreasonable
This definition characterizes most online behavior, unfortunately.
That anger is also very real - what should unsuccessful posters do with it?
Specifically, I am concerned that "rant" is just a trope used by high-ranking users on this site to close/delete questions they don't like.
Presumably you have not seen the text of the question in question.
I think this is a perfect example. The way this question is worded, it doesn't seem like a rant, but if it started off with "my question was closed as a rant because the high rep users hate me" it could easily be perceived that way.
BTW there exists a tag called (rant) on mathematics meta and christianity meta. So on some metas rants in the sense "posts complaining about something and urging users to behave differently in connection with some issue" are tolerated. You can have a look a this tag-wiki, which discusses how a rant on meta-site can be constructive.
I think the help center definition pretty much gets it right: your question is just a rant in disguise: “______ sucks, am I right?”
What is a “rant” as far as Academia.SE?
It's a rhetorical question, where the OP has little interest in the actual answer (if there is any); Often asks to explain a rather subjective situation, e.g., "Why is my advisor so bad? Why the reviews from this journal are unfair? Why is the cost of that abusive?".
In particular, the question does not aim at understanding whether the qualification of the subjective situation is correct or not, but states it as fact.
That anger is also very real - what should unsuccessful posters do with it?
There are plenty of places on the Internet where people can share good/bad experiences and discuss about them, for instance forums, sharing sites (e.g., Reddit).
Yes, I'd second the point that a "question" is merely a rant if the questioner is not interested in an answer.
In many circumstances, the chat rooms of this site can be a good place to discuss such matters - as long as the tone is civilized and respectful, of course.
In the help center, you will find the following text:
If your motivation for asking the question is “I would like to participate in a discussion about __”, then you should not be asking here. However, if your motivation is “I would like others to explain __ to me”, then you are probably OK. (Discussions are of course welcome in our real time web chat.)
A "rant" is a special case of a question whose motivation is "I would like to participate in a discussion about __", where the motivation of the asker seems to be "I would like to complain and/or share my ideas about __".
If a question
has a strong negative tone or a strong ideological tone, and
does not have an objective answer, or the answer would not be helpful to anybody
it is likely to be characterized as a "rant".
What are some indications that my question might be a "rant"?
If your question is any of the following:
Is there any point to X?
Why are academics so X?
Why did/didn't X do Y in this situation?
this may be an indication that it is a rant.
If your post is seen by others as a "rant," what should you do?
Try editing to make the text of the question less subjective and/or more neutral, and to clarify how the answer will be helpful to you.
How about this: You should allow questions to contain rants, but not answers, that would prevent discussion logorrhea, and prevent annihilation of potentially important issues that have no other way to be voiced.
@MarkJ this isn't a site for voicing issues (no matter how important they may be), it's a site for asking and answering questions. Questions that are rants tend to not lend themselves to the question and answer format, so they are better voiced at a site that isn't dedicated to Q&A.
What is a “rant” as far as Academia.SE?
I think the definition of "rant" in Academia.SE is pretty much the same as everywhere else (you even cite a pretty good definition). The only difference I see is that around here any sort of complaining (warranted or unwarranted, blindingly obvious or more subtle and backhanded) often gets called a rant - simply because Academia.SE usually does not want to get into discussions about various ethical concerns regarding highly ideological issues (sometimes we can't help ourselves, of course).
Specifically, I am concerned that "rant" is just a trope used by high-ranking users on this site to close/delete questions they don't like.
I don't think that it is a trope thrown around by high reputation users to willy-nilly kill questions - it is just a valid reason to quickly explain why something that may sound like a good question for Academia.SE to the OP is in fact not, similar to (for instance) the "boat programming" trope on the original Stack Exchange. The Academia.SE community has simply decided that questions that are perceived mainly as a place to vent or complain are out of scope.
Here on Academia.SE the word rant is being used in a way that I have not seen on other websites
The word has not been invented here, but is quite common slang in many online communities. Other SE sites probably don't have use the term as much because, well, most sites don't get as many rant-y questions as we do here. However, from cursory observation, I have the impression that other more soft-question oriented SE sites have exactly the same issue (and term!).
Since the original question that spawned the original meta question has been deleted, I am reposting it:
I am an international student in the United States and have been here
in a PhD program for roughly 5+ years. Last week, my university's
board of control proposed charging international students a surcharge
of $250 per semester based on the fact the my public university hasn't
been getting enough funds from my state (Michigan).
Most of the international students find this rather discriminatory. I
am unable to find the federal or state rule or letter of the law that
is being "exploited" in this case, to impose this surcharge. This
surcharge, apparently, cannot be paid off with a GTA/GRA appointment.
The rationale given is that the "cost of education has been
increasing".
Any help in this regard would be useful. I bring this to academia.SE
since this has an amalgamation of academic voices from all over the
world which might provide better perspective to the (un)fairness of
this "surcharge" situation.
What is the legal precedent for such surcharges without enough notice?
I am not sure how this could be described as anything but a rant in the traditional definition. The fact that other SE networks have less of an issue with rants is probably related to the fact that the questions are more "factual" in nature and we tend to have softer questions.
I see how this could be too narrow (country = US, state = Michigan, university = whatever). But I think the OP expressed this in a tone is between neutral and disappointed, rather than spitting hatred. The OP may not have understood how the university funding works (nobody does, though, hence the calls for "greater transparency" in US higher education), and a reasonable answer would have explained the in-state and out-of-state tuition levels as an example of how university "discriminates" between different groups of students.
The futility of the OP's attempts to do something with situation, though, are to some extent typical to the weird constraints academia has to operate within. I am sure the university lawyers have looked into the "federal or sate rule or letter of the law", and these are better lawyers than what international student body can produce. So they would have zero chance in producing any sort of a meaningful protest against the proposed fee.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.580223
| 2014-08-07T09:04:14 |
1157
|
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"provenance": "stackexchange-dolma-0000.json.gz:7459",
"site": "academia.meta.stackexchange.com",
"sort": "votes",
"url": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1157"
}
|
Stack Exchange
|
Closing a question with an open-bounty?
This question popped up recently: IRB guidelines for secure online data storage, backup, and syncing?, which I personally believe is off-topic either because:
This particular IRB has an official policy about data storage, in which case the question is very localised
This particular IRB has no official policy about data storage, in which case the question is interesting, but becomes a secure data storage question, perhaps more adequate on security.SE.
Regardless of whether this question should be closed or not, I could not cast a vote, because there is an open-bounty on it. Is that a bug or a feature? I find it a bit weird that a question is "protected against closure" simply by adding a 50 rep bounty on it.
The SE-recommended way to deal with a question with an open bounty that needs closure is to flag for a moderator.
You might leave a comment on the question to indicate you've done so, and that others who want to "cast close votes" should flag instead. If there are enough flags (indicating that the community wants to close the question), a moderator could refund the bounty and close the question.
Agree, but this still does not really explains why a simple 50 rep bounty protects a question against closing. Personally, I have no idea.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.581901
| 2014-08-13T02:18:21 |
1172
|
{
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"Wrzlprmft",
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"site": "academia.meta.stackexchange.com",
"sort": "votes",
"url": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1172"
}
|
Stack Exchange
|
Which font does 'Academia Stack Exchange' use?
Does anyone know the font name?
Reference link: Why aren't all research articles on PubMed?
In addition to the info from celeritas, you can use http://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/ to use images to find fonts in the future. Here is an example from this font.
This is the font-family defined in the main stylesheet on the Academic Stack Exchange website:
font-family:Consolas,Menlo,Monaco,Lucida Console,Liberation Mono,DejaVu Sans Mono,Bitstream Vera Sans Mono,Courier New,monospace,serif;
The font-family css property lists specific fonts and font styles in order of descending priority; e.g., if a certain browser can't display the first-choice font, it will try the second font in the list, etc.
do you also know the title's font size? I tested 12px 14px 16px, however the font size is a little bit different, I have Consolas installed in my PC, any idea?
Hard to give an exact answer because the font size is not set in pixels on that stylesheet; the size in pixels will depend on the resolution of your screen.
hmmm... I think that enough already to know the name, thanks
Note that this is only the monospace font; most text is obviously not monospaced.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.583139
| 2014-08-27T17:38:40 |
1195
|
{
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"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
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"authors": [
"JosephDoggie",
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"site": "academia.meta.stackexchange.com",
"sort": "votes",
"url": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1195"
}
|
Stack Exchange
|
What should be done about "advice" answers?
Do mathematics researchers regularly solve problems like the ones from Project Euler? asks a very objective answer: is it possible to be a professional researcher working on topics similar to contest maths. There has been some good answers, stating that (to sum up very briefly), it could be possible, but hard (since it's quite hard to be a professional mathematician in general). In that regard, I believe it's a good question, that attracted good answers.
Now, this answer is more like a piece of advice, stating (again, summing up briefly) that one should keep an open mind, and that there are plenty of jobs where you can use critical thinking, citing a specific example of a programmer (even though the OP stated that he didn't fancy becoming a professional programmer). To be honest, I think it's a good piece of advice (but at the same time, it's very general, I don't see someone giving the advice of keeping a close mind ...), and would be a good comment, but it's too long to be a comment. This answer has been up voted several times (which is not surprising, it's a good piece of advice).
My question is the following one: what should we do with answers that do not answer directly the question but can still be seen as interesting?
If we allow them, then we take the risk to become a discussion board, where everybody comes to share their own experience, and discuss the question instead of answering. If we forbid them, then we could lose some useful content.
EDIT For that particular example, it's worth mentioning that the advice applies well to the particular situation of the OP (who is in high school), but wouldn't apply well (at least, in my opinion) to a 40 years old programmer who is tired of his job, and would like to know whether there is a possibility to live from something he enjoys doing (and the question, as it is now, would be a perfect fit for that situation too).
what should we do with answers that do not answer directly the question but can still be seen as interesting?
I think due to the nature of our site (questions being mostly rather "soft", and advice-related more than asking for specific facts), we literally cannot strictly "forbid" what you call advice answers. Relatively often, we get questions that ask how to best do a specific X, where it is clear that X is something that the OP should really better not do. In these cases, strictly answering the question, without explaining that one should not do X but rather alternative Y, is a dis-service to the OP.
So, what I generally do when reading answers that don't really answer the question, is roughly the following:
If the answer is still really good, I upvote it anyway.
If the answer is still good, but more or less ignores the question, I don't vote up or down. Maybe I'll leave a comment.
If the question asks for a very specific advice, which the poster ignores and berates him instead, of if the post seems like bad advice otherwise, I downvote and leave a comment.
If the advice is just really bad and entirely misses the point, I downvote and flag as "Not an answer".
Agree with this answer 100% -- well that would be 'hard' not 'soft' -- but you get the idea!
I think this is something that hasn't been a big problem so far. For now, I'm content to let users flag answers they think aren't helpful or on-topic.
If we start getting a rash of unhelpful answers, we can revisit things. But for now, I don't see how a blanket policy—either restrictive or permissive—solves the problem.
I don't think it's a problem either (although I think I remember we discussed in the past about answers questions the question rather than addressing, but I can't really remember when), and I didn't flag this answer. I just wanted to know what the community was thinking rather than establishing a blanket policy :)
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.583443
| 2014-08-29T07:53:05 |
1198
|
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"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
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"site": "academia.meta.stackexchange.com",
"sort": "votes",
"url": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1198"
}
|
Stack Exchange
|
What happened to the new custom close reason?
Recently, we added a New custom close reason. However, I cannot see this reason anymore:
Was it removed?
It should be available now. Let me know if it is not.
It's available now.
It was edited in response to your suggestion and is awaiting approval from another moderator before it can be reactivated. I don't think it shows up in any of the review queues so I will ping the other moderators.
Oh OK, I didn't know the reason was removed while being edited. Thanks for implementing the suggestion!
@CharlesMorisset It seems strange to me also. I may have clicked something I wasn't supposed to in the process, but I don't think so.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.594194
| 2014-10-01T18:34:41 |
1282
|
{
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"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"None"
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"authors": [
"Ben",
"Bryan Krause",
"Mad Jack",
"ff524",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11192",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/63475",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/87026"
],
"include_comments": true,
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"provenance": "stackexchange-dolma-0000.json.gz:7463",
"site": "academia.meta.stackexchange.com",
"sort": "votes",
"url": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1282"
}
|
Stack Exchange
|
Liability of Ac.SE for defaming?
I was wondering what is the responsibility of the site with regard to content posted by users that could potentially be defaming? This question was prompted by https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/29282/are-conferences-organized-by-iact-like-icke-fake I have no idea about that conference, but there is a basically a post on our site clearly associating this conference with fake ones. What would happen if the organisers would complain about it?
I'm assuming Ac.SE falls under US law, which I'm not particularly familiar with, and, to the best of my knowledge, this problem has not happened yet, but should we take precautionary measures?
I don't know how this applies to questions, but I did think it was part of the reason why we don't answer questions about a specific institution, journal, conference, professor, etc.
@ff524: I agree, but the content remains nonetheless (are duplicate questions deleted by default?)
Legal issues are handled by Stack Exchange, neither the community nor the moderators are typically qualified to judge the legal issues. Unless SE intervenes, there is usually no reason to try and enforce perceived legal issues.
Anyone having a legal complaint about a post on an SE site has to contact SE directly, and SE employees will handle the issue from there.
That said, the community is of course free to enact rules on this kind of question. If this kind of content is considered too problematic, or simply not a good fit for the site, it can be disallowed regardless of the legal situation.
The reason we don't do questions asking for recommendations is that they're too subjective; we don't do questions about individual programs and institutions because they're too narrow in scope.
As for the issue of SE being held responsible for the content of its users, in general web sites have protections under the law from being responsible for such attacks, so long as they respond to them. Otherwise, it would be very easy for someone to maliciously get a website shut down.
I'm completely fine with us not doing such questions, my question is whether we should delete them or simply close them?
I refer you to the following excerpt from the SE Network Terms of Service:
Indemnity
Subscriber will indemnify and hold Stack Exchange, its directors, officers, employees, agents, consultants, contractors, partners, vendors and service providers (including, without limitation, hosting and telecommunications providers) harmless, including costs and attorneys' fees, from any claim or demand made by any third party due to or arising out of Subscriber’s access to the Network, use of the Services, the violation of this Agreement by Subscriber, or the infringement by Subscriber, or any third party using the Subscriber's account, of any intellectual property or other right of any person or entity.
Limitation of liability
In no event shall Stack Exchange, its directors, officers, shareholders, employees, members, agents, consultants, contractors, partners, vendors and service providers (including, without limitation, hosting and telecommunications providers) be liable with respect to the Network or the Services for (a) any indirect, incidental, punitive, or consequential damages of any kind whatsoever; (b) damages for loss of use, profits, data, images, Subscriber Content or other intangibles; (c) damages for unauthorized use, non-performance of the Network, errors or omissions; or (d) damages related to downloading or posting Content. Stack Exchange's and the Network's collective liability under this agreement shall be limited to three hundred United States Dollars. Some states do not allow the exclusion or limitation of incidental or consequential damages, so the above limitations and exclusions may not apply to Subscriber.
I had a look at the ToS, and I wasn't sure whether those terms are just protection of SE from the users (i.e., you can't basically complain if anything happens), but it's not clear to me that it protects SE from some users.
@CharlesMorisset "Subscriber will indemnify ... from any claim or demand made by any third party due to or arising out of Subscriber’s access to the Network, use of the Services" says a user indemnifies SE from legal responsibility for any claim any third party makes related to the user's use of SE. Seems to apply to the scenario you describe.
This is an example of a highly broad indemnity term within an "adhesion contract". Such broad exclusion terms are often found to be invalid in legal cases, so you shouldn't necessarily take the legal implications of the clause at face value. As a general rule, you cannot exclude legal liability merely by stipulating that you are not liable.
Since SE has its own legal representatives, it might be useful for moderators to report posts of this kind directly to relevant SE personnel so that they can scrutinise the material and make a decision. Moderators can certainly take unilateral action under moderation policies, but they should not assume that SE staff will know about the post unless they draw it to their attention.
In terms of what could happen if defamatory material is posted, the person defamed could sue both SE and the poster for damages, and obviously they would have access to all the normal legal defences for such an action (e.g., truth, fair comment, etc.). (Courts have complex rules for "choice of law" that depend on factors including the location of the defamed, the places where the message was broadcast, etc., so it would not necessarily be a US action.) While the SE terms of service specify broad exclusions of liability, these types of exclusion clauses in an "adhesion contract" are often ruled invalid by courts, so even with the presence of a contractual term for use, there is legal danger in defamation on the site.
Mods don't have any responsibility to report these sorts of things. For a bunch of reasons mentioned in https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4762/policy-against-questions-making-allegations-against-named-individuals-or-organis there is a policy against many of the questions that might be an issue for this sort of thing. It's fine for mods to act under this policy, but they aren't doing so for legal reasons. It's up to SE and solely up to SE how to manage their own liability according to their understanding of the law.
Same goes for plagiarism and copyright violations. If someone has a legal problem with any content, they can use the "contact" link at the bottom of any page.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.596289
| 2014-10-21T02:34:59 |
1302
|
{
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],
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"provenance": "stackexchange-dolma-0000.json.gz:7464",
"site": "academia.meta.stackexchange.com",
"sort": "votes",
"url": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1302"
}
|
Stack Exchange
|
Can I ask about school boards here
I am on a school board for a small private elementary school, and we're having some trouble between one of our teachers and the administrator which I won't go into on meta, but would like to ask about. Would academia be an appropriate forum (doesn't seem right, but I don't know where else to ask) to ask about interactions between faculty and staff?
I was going to say initially that this question was off-topic, but I'm actually not so sure. It really does depend on the issue.
The rule that we have is that questions that aren't set at the postgraduate level are off-topic unless they'd also be relevant here. So it really does become a question of what the specific problem is. If it's something that could also take place between a professor and staff at a university, then it could be on-topic.
Alternately, you can take a look and see if this might be appropriate over at Workplace.SE.
If you frame it generally enough, it would be on topic, as it's a general question. However, do note that this forum is intended for university-level discussion, so the responses may not actually be relevant to your situation. That said, I would post it and see what answers you get. Good luck!
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.600860
| 2014-11-05T11:02:39 |
1351
|
{
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"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
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"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"jakebeal"
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"site": "academia.meta.stackexchange.com",
"sort": "votes",
"url": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1351"
}
|
Stack Exchange
|
Link to commercial products
The question Free, open-source substitutes for Mendeley? attracted several answers, included one by the OP https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/8476/102, which combines both a commercial solution (for hosting) and a free open-source solution. I can't help but think that the entire question was a disguised advertisement for that product, although it could be perfectly genuine.
Should we delete answers linking to commercial solutions, in order to avoid disguised advertisement?
I don't think it was disguised advertising since there was a 4 month gap between the question and the self answer. I cannot tell if the OP's answer really is FOSS.
@StrongBad: I'm not entirely convinced it is disguised advertisement, although the fact that the only two answers from that user are about the same product is not helping (but both answers are relevant).
Also consider the user's posting history: http://stackexchange.com/users/1622666/jonas-stein While his answers here are related to the product, it's not like he's a shill for it. It is likely that he created this solution as a result of not being able to find one. Self-answers like this are encouraged on other websites, if you eventually do find a suitable solution, even if, in this case, it sounds shilly.
I think our primary concerned should be to get good answers to our questions. Answers that show how a product is the best at solving the problem should be encouraged regardless of if the answer is posted by a regular user of the site, a new user, or a representative of the company that sells the product. If someone who has a vested interested in a product provides a good answer, great. One line link answers, as always, should be discouraged by down votes. Answers touting products that do not provide an answer to the asked question should also be down voted.
It would be nice if answers always state if there is/isn't a conflict of interest, but that is hard to enforce. I see no issue with leaving a comment asking for a statement about potential conflicts of interest when the answer is not clear about it.
If a commercial product is a relevant answer to a question, then it should be posted as an answer. I'd rather err towards more complete answers (with possibly some hidden advertisements) than less complete answers. I care more about the end result (is it a good answer?) then the motivations of the person posting it.
I consider a product mention spam only if it's not a valid answer to the question (in which case, it should be flagged and deleted).
Certainly, users should follow the disclosure policy; but I don't think a heightened level of suspicion is a good thing. It leads to comments like the one on this answer, which I find unfriendly and not particularly helpful.
Now, if an answer mentioning a commercial product was getting upvotes from sockpuppets to make it appear more popular than it really is, then I would be concerned.
Note: the description of the spam flag says that it should be applied to a post that is:
effectively an advertisement with no disclosure. It is not useful or relevant, but promotional.
An answer that is useful or relevant is not spam.
I don't mind comments that ask the user to state if there are/aren't conflicts of interest.
As long as it's not shameless self-advertisement and done in good faith, I don't believe there is any issue with providing a full disclosure and software as an option, in accordance with most SE policies.
I know that a lot of research benefits from using open-source technology, but commercial technology is also useful and practical, and helpful to the user, and sometimes a person may have made software that genuinely is beneficial for the user.
That being said, the product should be addressed to be as close to the request as possible.
Appropriate
Question: How can I farm potatoes?
Answer:
Potato Farmer, which I made, can help you since it plants, cultivates and harvests potatoes. It uses patented technology based on astrology to determine the best time to plant. It is capable of planting 4000 potatoes a minute. Harvesting is based on echo location and the free Potato Farmer 1000 can only harvest 1 potato a week, but the full version Potato Farmer 2000 can harvest 42 potatoes a day. Note that it really isn't helpful for carrot farming.
Inappropriate
Question: How can I farm pumpkins?
Question: How can I make mashed potatoes?
Question: Where can I buy potatoes?
Question: Can someone explain to me the benefits of potatoes?
Answer:
Potato Farmer, which I made, can help you since it plants, cultivates and harvests potatoes. It uses patented technology based on astrology to determine the best time to plant. It is capable of planting 4000 potatoes a minute. Harvesting is based on echo location and the free Potato Farmer 1000 can only harvest 1 potato a week, but the full version Potato Farmer 2000 can harvest 42 potatoes a day. Note that it really isn't helpful for carrot farming.
The software should be directly applicable to addressing the problem for me to be okay with it.
A few weeks ago, we had a user promoting a sort of course management system of some sort. On some questions, it worked, but on others, it was noted that the user had searched for the tag and submitted the answer as the product, without ever addressing the question. For some, it was an appropriate solution. For others, it was way off mark or ignored the question entirely and proposed an alternative.
Also, if the only thing the person is doing is answering about Potato Farmer, then that falls into the spam category for sure.
I find anything mentioning a commercial solution extremely dubious, especially if it is one that I have not already heard of. In fact, in my short time at the site, I've already been involved in the cleanup of one apparent commercial spammer. On the other hand, some prominent and well-known products like Web of Science are often brought up in reasonable contexts. The question is, how do we determine the difference between marketing and legitimate recommendation?
My thoughts:
If something is already large and significant (e.g., has its own wikipedia page), then it is an established fact of the scientific world and there is no need for special scrutiny.
For anything else, a heightened level of scrutiny is important, and in particular a person needs to make a clear and convincing disclaimer about their relationship (or lack thereof) with a product. Only posts by a convincingly unrelated advocate should be retained. New pseudonymous posters may have a hard time being convincing...
Hmm, this answer is inconsistent with the general SE policy, which explicitly allows mentioning own product with disclosure: "Post good, relevant answers, and if some (but not all) happen to be about your product or website, that’s okay. However, you must disclose your affiliation in your answers."
-1 Many of the questions that need "product recommendations" are looking for small products. People affiliated with a product are in a good position to say how the product solves the problem so it seems silly to not let them answer. Further, the issue isn't really about commercial products and I see no difference between recommending free and proprietary products. As you say we want legitimate answers and not marketing.
Perhaps I'm much more suspicious about commercial advertisement than the norm... I'm happy to follow the community consensus, though.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.603395
| 2014-11-23T21:13:35 |
1374
|
{
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"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"None"
],
"authors": [
"Chris Cirefice",
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"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/15360",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/820"
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"site": "academia.meta.stackexchange.com",
"sort": "votes",
"url": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1374"
}
|
Stack Exchange
|
Not enough contrast for link text
I like Academia's site design. It is very pretty.
I don't like the link text color. It does not stand out very well. Perhaps it is my computer so here's a snapshot Tell me if you can see the link text without having to see the image that underscores it below.
If everyone sees roughly this shade I recommend increasing the contrast a bit. A lot actually.
Related: Not enough distinction between visited links and unvisited in the questions list
I say, bump the contrast! I too find it slightly too subtle for my taste.
Indistinct colors cause eye strain. Source: my eyes.
By default, here are the colors of links from Academia, pulled from the CSS:
Unvisited: #5e939f
Visited: #252525
Hover: #DB786A
The hover color is the red of the leaning book in the logo, which is actually quite noticeable.
Instead of increasing contrast, increasing the saturation by increasing the blue, similar to the cyan that is used in meta, should be sufficient in differentiating the links from the text. Making the text darker and keeping the link the same color, or making the link darker or brighter, will be less noticeable if they are the same relative saturation. It is relatively easier to notice differences in color and contrast than solely differences in contrast.
Also possibly problematic, mousing over a link in Academia Meta makes it turn the same color as the text.
Edit: Does this go to a web developer for Stack Exchange? Do we need to do anything special? I know on Stack Overflow, the web devs literally fix things within seconds. This isn't crucial, but because we have no feedback, there's really no way to tell whether a person who can change this (and it's not a big change AFAIK) has actually seen it <_<
Well, whatever the technical aspects are, I just want to be able to see it better than I can now.
The way to get these posts noticed by the right people is to tag them with "feature-request" and "design", as had been done here. I'm told the design team has a backlog to deal with, which is why we have so many outstanding design issues. I can remind them again next week, though.
Not sure what's going on, but the cyan on my screen is much more clearly distinct from the main text than what you're showing. I think it might be something to do with your browser, perhaps?
Well, on meta it is much more cyan colored. The problem seems to exist only on main. http://i.stack.imgur.com/gcZW7.png
In general, with any colours in web design, your mileage may vary. The actual colour displayed to the user depends on the browser, graphics card, and screen. But it does seem a significant fraction of the site's users find the displayed colour to not be distinct enough.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.611761
| 2014-12-17T22:43:51 |
1433
|
{
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"None"
],
"authors": [
"Austin Henley",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/746"
],
"include_comments": true,
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"provenance": "stackexchange-dolma-0000.json.gz:7467",
"site": "academia.meta.stackexchange.com",
"sort": "votes",
"url": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1433"
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|
Stack Exchange
|
What is the process to delete an account?
I asked a couple of days ago to delete my account, using the form https://academia.stackexchange.com/contact provided on the page https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/deleting-account. I haven't received any answer at the moment, so I'm wondering if there is something else I should do, or if something went wrong in the process, but I'm not really sure to understand why it is not trivial to delete an account (which would not delete the data posted).
Per the network-wide FAQ:
Please note that account deletion is not instant. It might take several days for your request to be processed.
I have brought your meta post to the attention of the community team, hopefully you will hear from them soon.
Thanks for the feedback, this information does not appear on the account deletion page!
Well, they weren't kidding on the several days ...
@userxxxxx It is the holiday season so don't be too hasty. I am shocked that you want your 18.9k reputation deleted! Don't leave us!
They just got in touch with me, apparently, they tried to contact me earlier, but I probably messed things up with changing my contact address. So, sorry, my bad!
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.622165
| 2014-12-23T12:01:45 |
1447
|
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"sort": "votes",
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}
|
Stack Exchange
|
Are questions specific to a university acceptable?
I'm interested in applying to ETHZ for my master degree in mathematics, and for this reason I would like to know some details on the program of the bachelor degree in mathematics held at this institution. Such details should be written in German on the website of ETHZ. However, I cannot read German at all. Would it be okay to ask here for those details? More in general, is it okay to ask for explanations on the curricula of specific universities?
In general, questions about specific programs, courses, curricula, projects, and research topics are considered off-topic here, as they tend not to satisfy the "helpful to others" criterion for Stack Exchange questions.
However, I should add that it is very common that English-speaking students apply to ETHZ for their master degree: so the question would be helpful to someone else at least.
A quick web search turns up this outline of the bachelor's program written in English. However, just because English-speaking students might be interested, the idea of not talking about specific programs and topics is an important one. We want to keep the discussion at a higher level than having tons of questions about individual departments, classes, and programs.
I understand. Thank you for the link. I had found that too, but it seems not specific enough (I mean, at least at my university there is a far more specific description of the courses).
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.635459
| 2015-05-07T08:38:59 |
1732
|
{
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"sort": "votes",
"url": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1732"
}
|
Stack Exchange
|
Why exactly was my question off-topic?
A while ago, I asked this question. As pointed out in the comments or edit revisions, I initially geared the question slightly more towards undergraduates. However, as pointed out by commentors, the issue is still relevant to graduate students, and the question was edited to ensure that the focus was more general.
Given this, why exactly was my question off-topic? Is this a result of me poorly scoping it initially, or are, instead, questions on student life not completely related to research or academics subject to more scrutiny?
I'm not sure if I want to argue that my question was actually on topic, but the reason cited in the close vote is confusing, and if the latter reason for which I think the question might have been closed is true, I'd like to know that for future reference.
As one of the people who voted to close, let me give you my answer: in the beginning, it seemed very much an undergraduate-focused question---your examples were about undergrads, and I had never heard of graduate students having a required meal plan before (though of course academia varies greatly).
Then I stopped paying attention and didn't notice the edits that removed the undergraduate nature.
Looking at it again... I guess that it could be reopened, but it still seems a fairly borderline question for me. The reason is that I'm not sure what sort of answer will actually satisfy the question (how do we measure "primarily"? Especially given that StrongBad's answer about the UK apparently wasn't what you were looking for), and from the answers given so far, it seems like it may devolve into a "big list" kind of question with a whole bunch of people chiming in to say "Some schools in Country X do it this way!" Finally, even though it apparently does apply to some graduate students, it's still something that is very largely an undergraduate experience.
All told, none of these are strong enough to be a "definite close" to me, but they are a bunch of different weaknesses that wouldn't encourage me to re-open. Given what I see as the borderline nature of the question, I wouldn't oppose others reopening it, but would not be particularly motivated to do so myself.
While I agree with your analysis, I am not sure we should "punish" the question just because people are giving poll like answers. I am not particularly happy with my answer as it only provides one data point, but I felt a single counter example was valuable. The other answers by saying where there are not meal plans, seem to add little value.
@StrongBad I agree --- poll-like answers isn't a big problem, but it's a small problem. Put together with other small problems, it makes it a messy question that I have a hard time seeing how to clearly improve.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.643811
| 2015-06-24T10:38:52 |
1806
|
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"sort": "votes",
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}
|
Stack Exchange
|
Watchlist at stackexchange?
Sorry, for asking here. I know it is the wrong place. I am new to Stackexchange. I wanted to ask at the meta page (that is where the help button lead me). But over there I need 5 point, which I do not have.
I have searched the help pages but I have not found a hint. My question is:
Is there something like a "watchlist" at Stackexchange, where I can add questions I am interested in and get noticed if one of those question gets an answer?
Sorry^2: I had to add an invalid tag to post this question. :-(
Thanks for helping me and moving this post to the right place.
at the bottom right of the question page, you find a "question feed" button to which you can subscribe with an rss reader. the right place to ask would have been this page, where you might already have found an answer
you will also be notified about answers to question that you have marked as favorite.
I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is more suitable on Meta SE.
Flagging the mods for consideration of migration to Meta SE.
Click the star underneath the score on the question to add it to your watchlist, then go to the favourites tab on your user page to see which questions are in your watchlist.
See first:
http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/53585/how-do-favorite-questions-work
Then:
http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/83343/adding-favorites-to-the-stack-exchange-global-inbox
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.647342
| 2015-07-09T11:30:22 |
1835
|
{
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"sort": "votes",
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|
Stack Exchange
|
How to prevent academic questions from searchengines
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.
You may want to edit your question to indicate why you want that. StackExchange is expressly built to facilitate later people coming along and finding an answer to their question by searching.
Yes, unless you have an exceptionally good reason, attempts to keep a question here from being indexed by search engines would be considered vandalism (and would be undone). If you don't want a question to be found via search engines, then this site isn't the right place for it.
What do you mean by "code the text"?
@SimonW OP probably means writing search engine disallow rules into the body of the question to prevent them from indexing the content. However, that's not how search engines work, so OP is out of luck even if StackEx. allowed something like that in the first place.
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, but in these cases you can flag for moderator attention and explain why you would like it to be deleted.
Deleting a question is highly looked down upon unless it includes personal information, confidential information, and so on. Typically, SE staff must become involved if actual scrubbing is required.
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.
Why do you want this? I can only think of a few reasons:
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.
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.
I can think of a third reason: 3) You are the victim of a particular type of harassment or problem and you need a solution without alerting the perpetrator.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.665103
| 2015-10-14T23:40:33 |
2006
|
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"sort": "votes",
"url": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2006"
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|
Stack Exchange
|
Can I ask about the business end of providing educational material to universities?
I work for a company that records medical conferences and have the license and copyright to a great deal of material that doctors value for the needs of their practice and sometimes for their continuing educational credit too.
I've been approached by a mid-sized university regarding one of the items and how we might work out licensing to provide this for their students.
I have questions about what I should expect. Basically, they're asking for the content for free, but being a business, free is not a price we can offer. Is this normal? Should I press them for what the value really is, less a discount perhaps? How does this kind of thing usually work with other post-graduate educational material, such as medical journals? Do they offer subscriptions wholesale for free like that?
May I ask these questions on this site?
Lol. Went to ask this again just now.
I think in general those types of questions are fine. Just make sure you split things up into manageable pieces and do not get too focused on your details.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.666638
| 2015-11-10T13:44:21 |
2023
|
{
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"smci"
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"sort": "votes",
"url": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2023"
}
|
Stack Exchange
|
Can question x be marked as a duplicate of question y if x predates y?
A recent question was asked for which I wondered if it hadn't already been asked by somebody else. In searching, I found a more specific, unanswered question. It seems appropriate to merge the unanswered question into the recent question, but the description of the "duplicate" flag says:
This question has been asked before and already has an answer.
Is this meant to imply a temporal connection between the questions, or is it fine to merge an older question into a newer one?
'before' strictly means 'elsewhere', to be pedantic
The highest voted answer to a canonical question on the system-wide meta site recommends keeping the question with the better set of answers, regardless of which question was asked first. It also discusses how to proceed in some edge cases.
Sub-sites, like academia, are free to handle certain details differently from how the system as a whole tends to act. In this case, however, it seems good advice to de-emphasize the temporal aspect (despite the description you quote which appears to imply otherwise).
I was not aware of these canonical questions, or even the system-wide meta site. Thank you.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.670936
| 2015-11-27T22:24:36 |
2068
|
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"jakebeal"
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"sort": "votes",
"url": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2068"
}
|
Stack Exchange
|
Closure: How can a reader effectively discern changes in a newer edition of the same book?
In response to this comment which incorrectly describes my question, I have now changed https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/58976/13306 to clarify that I am asking in general, for books that are not available computerised.
Is my question on topic now?
Note that there is no need to take this to Meta (yet). If you edit your question within a certain time after closure it will automatically be queued in the reopen queue and users with the close privilege can decide about exactly what you are asking here.
@Wrzlprmft Bringing it to meta is entirely legitimate if the OP feels confused about the reasons for closure.
@jakebeal: Sure, but that did not seem to be the problem here.
No, it's still a shopping question, and it's still not about academia.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.688782
| 2016-03-28T23:28:10 |
3259
|
{
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"sort": "votes",
"url": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3259"
}
|
Stack Exchange
|
Do we want questions of the form "My professor is bad. Right?"
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?
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?
Usually either "unclear what you're asking" or " strongly depends on individual factors" works.
@ff524: In both of these examples, it seems to me that it's clear what they're asking -- they're asking whether their professor is bad.
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.
We also close non-questions from the other side: "Kids these days, amirite?"
I disagree slightly with @jakebeal's answer. These questions, as posed, are almost always written as a rant, and rants are not welcome here.
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.
I've no objection to editing for clarity: in fact, I often think that we should be more vigorous about this than we sometimes are, particularly when the OP seems to have abandoned a question.
@jakebeal - Well then, I guess we agree :) More seriously, I very much agree with your edit... I think we should edit more often than we do. However, given the existing voting and editing patterns on this site, I didn't think this answer would get a lot of upvotes. Guess I'm vindicated there.
As eykanal 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. 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.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.689691
| 2016-04-08T10:34:46 |
3272
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
Are questions about a university counselors on-topic?
I have a problem/question about a university counselor who seems to be unprofessional to me. I'd like to ask about it on academia stack exchange. Will it be on-topic?
What is your question, in particular? How is this question different than "I do not get along with a co-worker/boss?" that occurs in every workplace, inside and outside academia? If the question is more focused on why this particular question is academic in nature, I believe it will be on topic for the academia.se.
In general, such questions are on-topic, as they clearly relate to academic life. However, you have to consider the following:
The individuals concerned should not be identifiable from your post. See also: Should we name names when talking about bad publishers and researchers?
You should ask a question that you can reasonably expect to be answerable by us without knowing all your details and that may be helpful to others in a similar situation. In particular your post should not just be a rant. See also these Meta posts:
Do we want questions of the form "My professor is bad. Right?"
"Here's my situation, any suggestions?" is not an answerable question
Time to Expressly Ban "I want to do X, Here's My Life Story..." questions?
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.706093
| 2016-08-21T20:23:11 |
3436
|
{
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"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/7734",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/9807"
],
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"sort": "votes",
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|
Stack Exchange
|
Should I leave multiple comments to say thank you to professors who commented on my question?
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?
Please don't. Instead up vote answers that are helpful and accept the one that best answers your question. I am sure there is something about this somewhere, but cannot find it right now.
Ok, will do. What if there are plenty of helpful comments, some of which can be turned into answers for me to accept, but none of the commenters have done so? Should I encourage the best commenter to post it as an answer? Or leave that to the moderators to do so?
@user58865 If you see that a comment actually constitute a good answer, you can certainly suggest posting it as an answer.
Ok, will do - thanks @MassimoOrtolano :)
Sidenote: A considerable number of users here are not professors (though in your specific case, the commentators may be – I cannot know).
Ok, got it - thanks @Wrzlprmft :)
You've posted four 'thanks' comments on this page!
Hi @JessicaB please see my comment below to J.R.'s answer :)
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:
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:
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, J.R. :), with the name and emoticon added just to reach the 15-character minimum. I know I have other things I'd rather be doing.
Awesome answer :). Thanks for going into some detail about the moderator's PoV, too. I'm just afraid that great contributors might stop answering my questions because I come off as "ungrateful" for not thanking them. Saying "thanks" is such a natural reaction in real life - and naturally expected by the ones who are helping - that it's weird to refrain from doing so, just because the interaction is online and not face-to-face. It kind of induces a guilt trip, too - like I am just taking great advice from others, without gratitude...
@user58865 Great contributors to SE understand that the accepted method of showing appreciation here is to upvote good answers, accept the ones that accurately and fully answer your questions, and in general contribute to the site in ways that make it a better resource for others. They won't consider you ungrateful for not explicitly thanking them - in fact, if anything, they might be a little annoyed by you posting a comment just to say thanks, because it shows a lack of respect for the conventions of the site! Granted, this does take a bit of getting used to.
@DavidZ, ok got it. I will keep this in mind for the future - thanks :)
@user58865 if they are in chat you can always say "thank you" to them there!
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.
Ok, will do - thanks :)
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.706756
| 2016-08-29T00:21:51 |
3441
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
How should the reference-request tag be used?
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:
Questions requesting a supporting document or citation for a specific query.
In a recent discussion in comments on this question, 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
Is it apropriate to use the reference-request tag to prevent discussion-like questions from being closed?
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 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 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. My answer to that question is based on research, another 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 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 (or actually, it would have just been closed as a duplicate of that).
I also find the 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.
Yes, this has always been my interpretation too, and I think this is quite reasonable in a general context like that of this community.
I will generally agree, but also find that reference-request is often used when unnecessary.
@jakebeal A possible abuse of the reference-request tag is to avoid the closure of a question as opinion-based.
@MassimoOrtolano Indeed, per the discussion in one of the links above. I also find it being used in a non-abusive but sloppy manner as well.
I think answers to questions with 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.
a reference only answer to me is like a link only answer If the question is "Can anyone point me to some references on the history of the German university system?," then the only possible answer is a reference-only answer. An answer describing the entire history of the German university system would be much too long to be appropriate for the SE format. I think this is pretty much what reference-request is used for on mathoverflow: questions where what is desired is a reference-only answer, and nothing else is possible within the SE format.
@BenCrowell sure you do not need to give the whole history of German universities, but you could answer with "I like A because it covers 1940 to present in depth while B covers 1440 to present, but not in any depth."
Yes, good point. I think this is how the tag is used on mathoverflow: you point to a reference, and you also discuss the reference (e.g., why you like it). I've edited my answer to include this idea ("and information about the reference").
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.
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.
I agree with your first paragraph, but I'm confused by your second ("Many low-quality..."). The Dear Abby questions—and I love that phrase—are terrible, I'm with you. However, how does that problem relate to the reference-request tag?
@eykanal: What I'm trying to say, maybe not very clearly, is that SE is designed for questions that have answers based on facts and evidence. It's not designed for opinion-based questions, open-ended debate, or personal advice. For questions that have answers based on facts and evidence, we shouldn't need a special tag to say that answers should be based on facts and evidence.
Ah, I see and I agree. I think your one-sentence explanation in the previous comment does better justice to the concept than your current post, though :)
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.707557
| 2016-09-02T02:14:10 |
3449
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
I notice that if I downvote an answer, I lose reputation points - how come?
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 :(
I personally only use downvote sparingly, only if I feel that the post is strictly against my views but it complies with the associated StackExchange site's regulations and cannot be flagged otherwise.
Once you pass the minimum required to comment, reputation is just worthless imaginary internet points. You only gain the right to do more unpaid moderator work. So feel free to squander it, downvote when you wish and don't worry.
Here's the FAQ on how reputation works. 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.
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, 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.
It is also worth noting that if a post you down vote eventually gets deleted, you get your reputation back.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.710763
| 2016-09-21T18:12:00 |
3470
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
Why are comments critical of moderators simply deleted?
Yesterday I posted a comment on an answer to this question 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.
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 ff524 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:
@ff524: 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?
and her response was:
@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.
The comments she left were one by me:
Do you have any evidence to backup your claims?
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?
Both of these are attempting to enable the answer to be improved and not discussion. Looking at the chat transcript with the other comments, I don't see any that obviously are trying to improve the answer.
"You also should have received a ping from a comment that ff524 left as a response (which I also deleted). " AFAIK that would depend on the timeline. It is not clear if you believe this to be a general feature of the site (it is not AFAIK) or mean this for the particular situation (where it might be true, e.g., if you knew OP was online in between posting and deletion).
@quid comments by mods are different then regular comments: http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/231668/how-do-notifications-on-deleted-posts-work The details are confusing to me and I am not sure if the ping makes it through and stays around in this case.
I was aware that moderator comments on deleted posts behave differently. However, this is not the current scenario.
I definitely did not receive a ping. Even if I had, I would have been surprised not to find the comments.
@Stefan I just checked and you should have gotten a notification in your inbox with at least a portion of ff524's comment. I could have pinged you in chat to let you know what was happening, but that seemed overkill for deleting a comment after a previous comment that said "move this to chat". I am sorry you were confused.
It probably was there but got deleted with the comments before I went back online. I haven't activated e-mail notifications. But, ok, if I had been notified, I'd have been more or less ok with the deletion of the comments.
To expand on StrongBad'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 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.
Sorry for wrongly suspecting you, but it did look bad from my point of view. I understand the role of meta, but sometimes you see something you want to comment on without spending hours to formulate a self-contained question.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.720207
| 2016-11-09T22:12:25 |
3528
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
What will happen to the daily reputation over 200 units?
Assume, someone's reputation within a day exceeds the threshold 200 units.
What will happen to the rest of it?... Will it be considered for the next day to be applied or it will be lost?
this may help you http://meta.physics.stackexchange.com/questions/4473/what-is-the-logic-behind-the-daily-reputation-cap-of-200
Also from the main SE meta
I always thought that they are used to cross-finance the association bonus… Or are donated to users in need…
No, upvotes received after you hit the reputation cap will not be applied the next day.
From What is the daily reputation cap and how can I hit it?:
The maximum amount of reputation you can earn in one day from upvotes and approved suggested edits is 200. Any upvotes you receive after reaching that number no longer award any points.
You can still earn rep beyond the cap by winning a bounty, accepting an answer, or having one of your answers accepted. Downvotes will also still count against you, but the rep lost can be reclaimed from new upvotes.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.740534
| 2017-01-31T21:04:44 |
3659
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
Request for closure
Are non-citizen Muslim professors and students going to be removed from US universities and subsequently deported by Trump's ban?
This post has several problems:
It mischaracterizes the problem, in a manner akin to the question "have you stopped beating your wife?"
It is incredibly localized, involving a rapidly changing event, and is highly unlikely to be useful to anyone visiting the site weeks, or even days, from now.
It has absolutely nothing to do with Academia. You could replace the words "professors," "students" and "universities" in the post with words from other professions or groups, and the question being asked would be exactly the same.
It's a highly-speculative question involving legal matters that haven't happened yet. Any answer provided is almost certainly going to be purely opinion.
Adding to the fodder of instant-twitter news and general hysteria over the Trump administration is not what this, or any other site on the Stack Exchange network is about. Stack Exchange is for answers, not discussion, and already a moderator has had to truncate comments not once, but twice on this post.
It's a magnet for bike-shedding, and it's unlikely to produce any actionable information that an academic can use. Even the highest voted answer proclaims: "Stack Exchange is not a news service."
Please close.
It's not so incredibly localized, after all, given that it's affecting a lot of people around the world (e.g., my group).
Note also that, in some sense, we have a lot of questions that mischaracterize a problem: it's the answers that shouldn't mischaracterize it.
I agree with the complaint about speculation and that answers will likely change/become invalid in the future. I disagree that this has nothing to do with academia: immigration and visitor status for academics is not always the same as for other groups, and this is an issue that concerns many people. I also disagree that this is "incredibly localized": many questions here concern individual countries, this one concerns developments in one country that affect individuals from multiple countries.
@BryanKrause: It's not specifically about academia.
I'd also like to point out that while you are active on StackExchange, you have only been an occasional commentator here, not an active participant in asking or answering questions related to academia, and although there is some consistency across the StackExchange community, the individual SE sites vary on how they interpret and implement the guidelines.
The question specifically asks: "are academics somehow protected."
@MassimoOrtolano: It's localized in the sense of "Why is that green car parked in front of my house?" (15 minutes later) "Is it still there?"
I don't know if you made a tour of this site before posting this, but we have a number of localized questions in that sense. I don't claim that that is a good question, but I don't find your post convincingly enough to VTC. It seems to me more a personal agenda than a sincere interest toward the quality of our community.
@MassimoOrtolano: A personal agenda? If there is one, it is the distaste for the saturation in the media with minutely, mostly useless information. I don't think we should be a part of that. If that's what you mean by an agenda, damn right.
-1: I see that the only 4 rep points you have earned in this academic community come from two approved edits on the main page, so I think it is not really appropriate for you as an outsider to request closures of questions in this community. Also please realize that scientific and academic communities are rather different and may have different culture and norms from what is valid on StackOverflow. In particular for scientific/academic communities the approach of trying to make them and their policies/rules exactly isomorphic to StackOverflow is rather unfortunate to say the least...
In fact scientific/academic communities would work much better, if SE would just provide its software (which is truely amazing) and hosting but otherwise not interfere with the rules, standards, norms of the individual (in particular high-level adacemic) communities.
@Dilaton: You're perfectly within your rights to write your own software and start your own insular, ivory-tower elitist community elsewhere, free of any pesky interference by outsiders. As far as appropriateness goes, I have the absolute right to ask for whatever I wish. Your community, on the other hand, has the absolute right to say no. You sound like one of those so called "free speech" advocates in Berkeley, who considers speech free until it's no longer convenient for you.
I disagree that this has nothing to do with academia: immigration and visitor status for academics is not always the same as for other groups, and this is an issue that concerns many people. The OP specifically asks whether there are any exceptions/protections for academics: if these existed, it might mean that the answer to this question would differ from answers given to a more general audience.
I also disagree that this is "incredibly localized": many questions here concern policies or standards in individual countries; this one concerns developments in one country that affect individuals from multiple countries. In fact, users are frequently asked/encouraged to tag their questions with particular countries and to mention their country, type of institution, and field of study to go with their questions, because so many answers depend on that information.
I see you have edited your OP to mention bike-shedding: I assure you, for anyone who may be affected by the issues described in the post you reference, this is far, far from a trivial issue like building a bike shed. My first read of your post was that you might have some good points about the fluidity of the situation and the appropriateness of such questions on this site; now, I feel like you are entirely disconnected from the issues facing students and professors in academia, particularly those from other countries.
I also strongly disagree about your mention that this regards legal matters that haven't happened yet: people have already been held up in their source countries or detained at airports, there are reports of people who have been coerced to surrender their documents permanently by signing papers they did not fully understand.
Even though the original OP had some misconceptions about the current implementation of the executive order, there is indeed some immediately actionable advice that academics can use or provide to affected students that are wondering, specifically: there is currently no policy to deport students/professors who are in the US, but people from the affected countries may not be able to return if they do leave regardless of their immigration status. That information can lead to specific, practical advice for potentially affected members of the academic community.
I would also add that other posts related to policies of the current U.S. administration have been rejected by the community when they were too speculative, for example here. In comparison, the question you linked refers to an executive order that has already been issued.
I proposed an edit; please roll back if you don't like it.
I forgot to explain, the word "actionable" was a bit confusing in its second mention, so I edited that too. "Actionable" sometimes means that legal action could be taken. Here, I think you meant that the part in bold points to a specific action step that could be taken.
@aparente001 I have no problem with the edits; the second use of "actionable" was not necessary to the coherence of the paragraph - I used the word "actionable" only because the post I was responding to used that word; my assumption is that the definition intended was "able to be done or acted on; having practical value" rather than legally actionable, because I think it goes without saying that answers on Academia.SE need not always refer users to legal action.
Well, the important thing is that you're okay with the edits. // Sometimes legal points do come up here, and I wanted to remove the ambiguity. I was confident I had understood what you were getting at -- although I did have to read your post carefully to make sure. So I wanted to make your post a more effortless read. (It didn't take much tweaking to do so.) // Thanks for the post.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.747128
| 2017-04-21T18:34:02 |
3717
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
Is a general question discussing differences in research methodology in different fields too broad?
This question pertains to the issue raised from this post. I basically asked a question about the differences in generating ideas, writing and publishing an academic journal in different fields. I thought this question was suitable for Academia SE because it is on-topic, and it may help others who may wonder on this question. However, this question is now on the verge of being closed with 4 votes, because it is too broad.
I've included my sample answer for the field of Economics, and I doubt that it is too broad that it is unanswerable, as exemplified by many comments and my own answer. How can I change the question to make it more specific, or can someone explain why it may be too broad? Or are questions that asked about differences in various fields not welcomed in Academia SE?
Your original question contains
I'd like to see how this process may differ in various fields.
In this question you say
I've included my sample answer for the field of Economics
It sounds like you are envisioning an answer for each (or many) fields. These are generally big-list questions and are covered, indirectly, on the don't ask page. Basically, you should avoid asking question where every answer is equally valid: “What’s your favorite ______?” While your question is not asking for a favorite, all the answers will be equally valid.
If the question was phrased to be looking for a single answer, that answer would be too long (and hence too broad) since it would have to encompass all fields, their histories and comparisons. Asking for a single comparison of related fields can be beneficial, but also may be too technical. For example, EE and CS people often take different approaches (and value different outcomes) despite often being housed in the same department. A question asking about comparing those fields would be on topic in my opinion. Similarly, although completely outside my expertise, asking about differences between economics and political science (or any other related field) would potentially be on topic.
While it seems circular, the question needs to be specific, but still broad enough to apply to academia in general, and it cannot be so specific that it is better answered in a field specific SE. This can be difficult, but read through our past questions and you will see it can be done.
Your understanding of my intention is completely on spot. I was asking for answers that would be equally valid, and I understand that it's not a good question. I'd then think that this question is not really suitable for Academia SE. What do you do in this case, especially since someone has posted an answer? Do you just leave it to be closed, or do you delete the question?
@Hosea having strict rules about the type of questions we allow makes SE the place to go to get good information, but it can also makes asking good questions difficult. That is why we have our [help] (and chat and meta). Since there is an upvoted answer on your question, you cannot delete it, as that would destroy the work that someone else did. High rep users periodically look at closed questions and either try and edit them to fit or delete them. Don't worry about have a close question floating around, you have asked a bunch of good question (and hopefully gotten some good answers).
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2025-03-12T15:57:28.748477
| 2017-05-20T05:57:13 |
3729
|
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Stack Exchange
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Why did a “related post” link get edited into my answer?
This answer got edited to have a link to a related question at the top. I have since rolled it back.
The question is sort of related, but not the same situation. I don’t see how the link adds anything to this answer. Even if it did, it seems like such an edit isn’t legitimate, because it’s not clearly in line with my intent.
The owner of the edit is the Community user. Looking into this, that’s because it was proposed by an anonymous user.
Is this a legitimate edit?
If you ask me, it clearly isn’t; the suggested edit should have been rejected.
Even if the link were related to your answer, you should decide whether this link really reflects your intentions. I only consider others adding links to a post appropriate when it is for providing prerequisite information (e.g., linking to the Wikipedia article for some not commonly known term) or when the author asked for it (“I know we had a question about this recently, but I cannot find it right now”). In cases such as yours where this doesn’t apply, the link can be mentioned in a comment and you can decide whether you want to include it or not.
However, the linked post does not seem to be related to your answer (in particular not more than the question) and therefore this edit should have been a comment on the question, if anything.
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2025-03-12T15:57:28.759646
| 2017-10-20T17:06:25 |
3837
|
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|
Stack Exchange
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"delete account" documentation is out of date
https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/deleting-account
But the top bar is now different.
What do you mean the top bar is now different?
No, the bar is consistent.
I have heard on another site that the appearance of the top bar changes at a certain reputation threshold.
The top bar is the same: "Profile Activity Edit Profile & Settings".
However, I see "Job alerts" and "OTHER \ Privileges" in my account. These items are missing in the image. So, some action might be needed, but it's not urgent.
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2025-03-12T15:57:28.763481
| 2017-11-07T17:30:40 |
3865
|
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Stack Exchange
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What to do with non-answers that are accepted as answers?
The posting How to find a gap in knowledge, for my PhD? asks "How to find the gap of knowledge" (denoted by Q in the following). The posting (denoted by R in the following) says, essentially, "don't do it, at least not now". R is not an answer to A, at least logically or linguistically speaking. However, R has apparently been so helpful to the author of Q (denoted by A in the following) such that A marked R as an accepted solution. I guess, this is because R is an answer to a different question, namely, how to start the PhD studies properly, and this different question is, probably, much more important to A. As an answer to "how to start the PhD studies properly", I like R, and do like it a lot. But as an answer to Q, the posting R illogical.
The particular case is exacerbated by the fact that A has shown no wish to reformulate the question such that it actually fits his or her real question (here: how to start working towards a PhD) rather than the issue formally written in Q.
There is an inadequacy of the pair "question - answer" here. I am sure that such inadequacies pop up every once in a while. Not sure how the community should address these pairs exactly, but being aware of these issues or addressing them would probably raise the quality of the site.
For that question, each field has a different answer, and that is an answer, at least for some fields. For instance, if a student asked me how to find a gap of knowledge in my field (metrology), I'd tell them that, as "newbie", they wouldn't be able to find a workable gap within 4-5 years, well beyond any reasonable time allotted for the PhD (because after you find the gap, you would need other 3-4 years to fill it). So, the answer for my field would be: "It's the advisor that tells you which gap you'll work on".
I guess ([meta-tag:accepted-answer]) would be a suitable tag for this question. (Not enough rep to edit, so I am suggesting this in a comment instead.)
R is not an answer to A, at least logically or linguistically speaking — Yes, it is! "How do you learn to juggle three balls?" "First, put down two of the balls and learn to throw one of them." "But I want to juggle three balls!" "Yes, and the right way to do that is to put two of them down."
Only the original poster can accept an answer, and that’s not something the community can change. It may be a flaw, but that’s the way the system is set up.
There has to be some room for analyzing why the questioner asked the question they did, and maybe indicate some less-than-ideal steps along the way that lead to the question. Sometimes our preconceptions/naivety/received wisdom lead us to ask the wrong question. (See also the XY Problem - the questioner's real question here is clearly how to pick a research subject.) In that case, being told about the misconceptions behind the question is often more important than getting your question answered: the fact that the original poster marked this as the accepted answer is a strong indication that it was actually the most useful to them.
Taking some kind of action against this type of answer would reduce the overall value of the site, IMO.
Why should we care...? I don't know about you, but I'm here because I want to help people. Sometimes, taking the question at face value is not the most helpful thing. Imagine someone asks "Why does santa give nicer gifts to children of rich parents than to children of poor parents?", are we not allowed to raise the point that santa does not exist because it questions the assumptions of the explicitly stated question?
And not reformulating the question is not bad either: there will surely be future students making the same confusion, who will look for this formulation, and be able to follow the arguments questioning the question. Erasing all trace of the process will make it opaque to future readers.
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2025-03-12T15:57:28.769440
| 2017-12-21T17:12:26 |
3916
|
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|
Stack Exchange
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How narrow should narrow be?
Some folks considered the prior installments of the question Worst cover-letter mistakes of continental-European applicants for tenure-track assistant professorship positions in CS in USA as too broad. I narrowed it, many times, last time after the question has been put on hold. I'm wondering how often should the narrowing happen.
I'm under the impression that the expertise is not present here at ac.se in sufficient numbers anyway, so the question was already narrow enough and is now even narrower, potentially not admitting too many answers or votes from really informed folks, but rather mostly junk (=uninformed) answers and junk votes. So far, I have not even seen any useful comments to the contents either.
These concerns were mentioned in the comments (now in the chat room linked from a comment):
This, unfortunately, looks like a "make a big list" question that likely too broad for effective answers.
and
In this community, the consensus is generally against big list questions
That is the reason your question was closed. Making the scope of the list narrower (by specifying the field, or specifying the part of the application you're asking about) doesn't help; the fundamental question is still asking us to compile a list. When a question is posed in such a way that it can't be answered well in one answer, but needs many separate answers to give a complete answer, it is "too broad", even if the situation referenced is very narrow. This community has decided that we don't want those kinds of "list" questions (with some exceptions, that are discussed on meta before the question is posed).
You also make the situation a bit worse by asking for people's opinions about which mistakes are most serious. (See the help center.)
Your question could be improved by framing it to be about your specific situation, instead of asking for a list of anecdotes from other people's situations, and by not soliciting opinions. Instead of
In your opinion, what are the most serious common mistakes that continental European candidates for tenure-track assistant-professor positions in Computer Science in the US commit in their cover letters?
You could ask,
I am a continental European candidate applying for tenure-track assistant-professor positions in Computer Science in the US. What common cover letter mistakes are made by people in this situation, that I need to watch out for?
This could potentially have a single "best" answer, and doesn't ask for subjective opinions on which mistakes bother people the most. The "best" answer would not just be a one line answer enumerating a mistake that has been judged "most serious" by the votes of other users; the "best" answer would be a comprehensive answer that describes the common problems and explains more about them.
@Abra What matters is not what you would be happy with (since nobody but you knows...), what but kind of answers the question invites. For example, if you explicitly invite answers based on opinion the question is likely to be closed as too subjective, even if you would be happy with answers that objectively recount things that they have seen in applications and how the search committee reacted to them.
@Abra Having said that, in the comments you seem to have gotten feedback that there aren't really any "common" mistakes, so I don't think the question is likely to be reopened - people might think that the revised version would just be closed as "depends on the specific situation".
The big problem is that your question boils down to asking for a list of things, and that’s not a good fit for this site.
Moreover, the narrowing isn’t making the question any easier to answer. I can’t really say “continental Europeans do X that other international applicants don’t,” and I don’t think there’s anything that is a CS-only kind of mistake, either.
Also, when asked to clarify what you want, you came up with “the worst ones.” This doesn’t help us understand what you want, which brings us back to an unfocused list question.
To a degree, to paraphrase Chekhov: “every declined application is unique.”
Note that your question was not closed by a moderator. But let’s also address the second issue: most applications don’t fail because you did one thing wrong. There are hundreds of applicants in the US per position. Only a handful get interviews. Your “error” might be that you’re not in the subdiscipline they want.
@LeonMeier: Most applications fail because there are so many, and so typically only the most qualified or most impressive applications can make the cut. Your application can be mistake-free and still not lead to an interview!
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.779100
| 2018-02-17T10:31:51 |
3996
|
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Stack Exchange
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Spamming the front-page for the purpose of creating a tag
Is it appropriate to edit many questions at once for the purpose of creating a tag? At the moment, 12 (!) questions are on the front-page because of this, all edited within the last hour. (Some even appear to have been edited because they merely contain the word in question, even though the question is clearly not about this subject.) I have to say that I find this rather disruptive, the front page is not in a usable state.
Update: now it's 13. Update 2 (a few seconds later): now 14. Update 3: guess what. You get my point, I'll stop updating this (I can't keep up anyway).
I also have some doubts about the actual usefulness of the tag in question. Indeed, it does not appear that the user's thought process went further than "I'll search for questions containing this word and add the tag to it." But if the question can be found by searching for the word, then what's the point of the tag? But that's another discussion
Possible duplicate https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1246/suggestions-for-avoiding-disruption-when-retagging
Creating a new tag is reasonable, front-page effects are a byproduct
I'll provide a (biased) response as the person who created the tag.
Occasionally on one of the StackExchange websites, the idea for a certain tag forms in someone's mind. It could be because of a question they asked where a tag was missing that they had assumed should exist; or because an existing tag covers too much and someone feels it needs to be split up into subtags; etc.
What then happens (again, often, not always) is that the proponent of a tag:
Finds relevant questions which should have the said tag
Tags said questions
Makes an initial tag wiki edit
If the community doesn't like the tag, it can get removed (and the tag wiki edit could be disapproved etc.)
On small sites, this has the side-effect of bringing many of these questions to the front page (on SO or SU that won't last more than a few seconds or minutes). That's unintended, and one should perhaps note that it doesn't increase the tagger's reputation.
Or you could edit maybe 2-3 questions at once and then wait a few hours. It's not like adding the tag to all questions is urgent. Math.SE is a much bigger site, and this kind of front-page hogging is not tolerated there.
@NajibIdrissi: Does it really matter if the front page gets 2-3 questions because of tagging, every hour for a day, rather than getting 12-13 questions once? After all, by now the monograph questions are only 3 of the top 7 on the "active" pane.
Yes, it matters... For example, a few questions were asked just before your flurry of edits, and now these questions are way deep into the "active" queue and will not receive much attention. In any case, you can't unilaterally decide whether it "matters" or not.
@NajibIdrissi: 1. On many sites on the network, a question gets bumped off the main page display in a heartbeat, or the equivalent thereof. 2. If I could avoid bringing those questions back up to the main page I would. Having said that - I see your point about a site such as this one.
A full day later and seven of your edits are still on the front page, FYI.
@NajibIdrissi: If you scroll down again and again and again. By the way - I've been active on academia.SX for several years, and never have browsed the front page (as opposed to asking a question, searching for a question/answer, or coming in through a link to a question).
And of course if you behave in a certain way, then everyone should follow suit? There is one approved way to use the website, and you decide what it is? Do you even listen to yourself?
@NajibIdrissi: I'm claiming you are massively overstating your concern.
"It doesn't affect me so it's no big deal"
"It affects (almost) nobody, but I don't like it, so it's terrible."
And you know it affects almost nobody... how exactly?
"What then happens (again, often, not always)..." What should happen in a site which isn't in the very early states of its beta is that the proponent posts a question on meta to get feedback about whether the community agrees that the tag is desirable and if so what it should be called, because retagging is disruptive however it's done, and retagging twice ("If the community doesn't like the tag, it can get removed") is doubly disruptive.
@PeterTaylor: I could see why this would be a good idea for some lower-traffic-volume SX sites. But - the interface lends itself towards individual autonomy in tagging. If it had been suggested to me it's customary to suggest new tags on meta first, I probably would have done that. I disagree with the claim that the retagging is meaningfully disruptive.
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2025-03-12T15:57:28.789627
| 2018-03-22T02:28:07 |
4065
|
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|
Stack Exchange
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How to improve closed question?
What can I do, to make How can I seek permanent Personalised Assessment Arrangements, rather than applying each year? helpful to others? I don't think that PAA is specific to my case. Many others at other universities probably face this dilemma too...
I'm just guessing that the primary issue is the leasing stuff. That's really your issue, and one that we can't give you any guidance on. If you just focus on why you want and need a permanent PAA, you might be able to get an answer. But right now it's a little too unfocused.
I have edited the question to bring the basic question into better focus, but leaving the contextual details in the question, for anyone who finds them helpful, optionally. And I have voted to reopen.
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2025-03-12T15:57:28.789730
| 2018-03-23T10:44:49 |
4071
|
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Stack Exchange
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Is it okay to ask this question?
I want to ask a question asking whether I should go for a PhD or not depending on many factors, if I ask this question would it be on-topic?
As long as you are very specific what you want and what are your 'strengths' that people can accept you for, I don't see why not. However, it is likely such a question already exists. Also, advisors at your insitution can give way better answers that random people on the internet
There are a few problems with such questions:
There are really a lot of factors weighing into such a decision. It is very unlikely that you are able to accurately communicate all this information – mostly for the reason that a lot of information such as your skills cannot be accurately quantified or you do not even perceive it as relevant even though you subconsciously take it into account.
Such decisions do not only depend on observables but also on how important you weigh your academic career, money, ethics, job security, family, and so on.
Therefore, we cannot and do not like to make such decisions for you. What we might be able to answer is what factors you have to consider, i.e., we can help you making a decision that is as informed as possible. However, at the end of the day you have to make the decision yourself.
Even then, a question asking for all factors to consider here is very broad. If you can, narrow down your question to some specific aspect that strongly influences your decision, e.g.:
I want to do a PhD in underwater basket weaving, but I really don’t like to write longer texts. How relevant and prominent can I expect writing to be during such a programme?
Also see: Why was my question put on hold for depending on individual factors?
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2025-03-12T15:57:28.790148
| 2018-03-24T03:18:04 |
4075
|
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|
Stack Exchange
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Should the tag [united-kingdom] be removed, and replaced with its 4 countries?
https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/united-kingdom contains the warning:
Note that the UK does not have a common legal system across its jurisdictions - consider using [scotland] or [england-and-wales] or [northern-ireland].
Yet many posts with this tag still neglect this distinction, and answerers must ask the questioner or express their confusion about the intended jurisdiction.
Wouldn't removing it teach posters and spur them to choose jurisdictions? From Tom Bolam, Senior Associate (as of 1-29-2018), Fladgate (Solicitors' firm):
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (to give it its full name) has three separate and distinct legal systems: (i) Scotland; (ii) England and Wales; and (iii) Northern Ireland.
There are some questions that are unique to a particular country, but many issues in academia are UK wide and others are EU wide. I wouldn't replace the tag, but it might make sense to create a Wales tag if there are enough Welsh specific questions. That said, it seems you want the tags to make a statement and that probably is not a valid reason.
So, Tldr: keep UK, add subregions when needed.
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2025-03-12T15:57:28.793544
| 2018-04-26T05:18:11 |
4107
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
Closure: Which academic subjects examine human reading?
Can Which academic subjects examine human reading?. please be reopened? I've tried to edit it for clarity. Please LMK how else I can improve?
In general, we can't just reopen a question on request because a user would like it reopened. If there is a specific reason to do so, that should be explicitly mentioned in the question. (This is different from the other question you asked about, since that question is originally yours and was auto-deleted.)
The question title and body still do not match. The question in the body seems very broad, opinion-based and possibly not within our scope.
The existing answer matches the titular question. It would be good if you could edit your question to match that answer. You can ask the question in the body separately, but I do not consider this a good question (see above).
You can cast reopen votes on your own questions pushing them to the reopen queue. There is no need to make a Meta post for this. This is what happened after your last edit. Three reviewers voted to leave the question closed in its current state.
What you can use Meta for is to debate the closure, but then you would have to bring arguments. Arguments (delivered in comments) may also help you to get your question reopened through the regular mechanism.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.804395
| 2018-05-23T09:02:04 |
4184
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
Why are the majority of questions here related to either CS or mathematics?
I have been here for about 1-2 months, and clearly see that most of the questions come from mathematicians or computer scientists.
Am I wrong? Is it because these disciplines are on their computers more, relative to a chemist or biologist?
are you sure that is not just sampling bias? I have seen questions from a wide variety of disciplines here. but yeah, people working in CS fields naturally spend more time on their computer, so...
Related: https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/q/2159/20058
By "PC," do you mean "politically correct"?
@JoelReyesNoche PC stands for the personal computer in my question.
Do you mean "on PC" is that these fields are more related to programming, which are easier to know this site because they have to visit Stack Overflow regularly?
@Ooker yeah, even though I am a chemist, I also know here from Stack Overflow, whenever I have a problem with Fortran or even MS Excel macro formula, still even if they don't do programming, through surfing it is still more likely I guess.
It seems that the claim that number of computer scientists and mathematicians on this site is higher, compared to other disciplines, is supported by results of Academia Community Polls from 2013. (Of course, things might have change since then, in either direction.)
As Aeismail points out in their answer, the Stackexchange network grew out of the StackOverflow site - which is for programming queries. Therefore, people who program in their daily lives, i.e. people in STEM subjects, will be more likely to think of coming here.
But it's perhaps also worth noting that a huge number of questions that are closed for being off-topic are from computer scientists; for some reason they seem to assume that "academia.stackexchange" means a place to ask academic computer science questions. This has always baffled me. Maybe it's for the same reason?
While there is an actual prevalence of people from those fields here (due to reasons elaborated in other answers), this even gets emphasised due to the fact that they are somewhat peculiar due to their subject of research and history, for example:
The research process in many subfields of mathematics and computer science can be quite different from, say, an experimental field.
Publications in mathematics are put to special scrutiny (for a reason).
Computer science has a mostly unique tradition to publish at conferences.
Compared to this, many other scientific fields are rather homogeneous – they form the default backdrop, against which the above peculiarities can be seen. Therefore, for mathematicians and computer scientists, their field is more likely to be a relevant factor to mention in a post – and thus more visible.
Note though, that there are other fields with similar peculiarities such as law, which you will hardly ever read about here, because they are indeed underrepresented.
+1, has this feeling too. Biology, medicine, etc. feels almost "generic", people mention this less often (and it seems to matter less often) than CS or math.
I'm note sure I agree with this, given the prevalence of assumptions that also exist on this site like "Everything will be written in LaTeX" or "arXiv is where pre-prints go." The CS and math folks seem to be perfectly content to assume they're field-specific quirks are the default.
@Fomite: 1) I am not disputing that there is a prevalence of those fields; I am just saying that the effect may seem larger than it actually is (see my first sentence). 2) Your examples least also apply to Physics. 3) Actually, the examples you gave are rather unusual in my experience. Most people in the ArXiv and LaTeX fields realise that those things are special to their fields. What happens more often is that things like publishing at conferences or review times of a years are assumed as the norm.
On 3, it may be just my biased observation, but I find them to be relatively common and assumed to be the default.
As its name suggests, the Stack Exchange network grew out of CS-based websites, so there is likely to be a lot more questions from scientists than from the humanities, because that reflects the user base.
It’s also worth noting that there aren’t nearly as many resources geared toward STEM faculty: most of the books I’ve seen addressed to faculty have been written from the viewpoint of someone who is working in the humanities rather than the sciences.
As its name suggests, the Stack Exchange network grew out of CS-based websites Well, it could also suggest that it comes from finance-based websites, as the pun in the title suggests... :)
If you have no CS background whatsoever, it wouldn't be obvious to you the words "Stack Exchange" have anything at all to do with CS.
*muttermutter* CS isn't programming, just as creative writing isn't word-processing.
Not to forget that mathematicians use LaTeX, and at some point it becomes impossible to use LaTeX without using Stack Exchange.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.805318
| 2018-06-03T16:57:29 |
4194
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
Why has D.Hutchinson been banned for 28 years?
@scaaahu noticed in the Ivory Tower chat that https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/91603/d-hutchinson?tab=profile has been banned for 28 years. Incredible! I took a look at D.Hutchinson's posts at academia.SE and found nothing bad. Really nothing. I might be missing something, but which kind of offense would lead to such a long ban? In practical terms, this is "forever". The way we know the stackexchange site today, it need not even exist for such a long time span. Some of us might even be happily pushing up the daisies by then.
What I could imagine is that the user might be way too young to discuss academic issues, say, 5 years old. Then, about 20 years might make sense.
We will probably never know the details of what happened because moderators cannot reveal them, but since the ban is network wide, the offense might be related to his activity elsewhere and not specifically to that here on Academia. Afaik, common issues that can bring to long suspensions are sockpuppeting, repeated rude behaviour and such.
Voting on Meta is different. Questions about the suspension of a specific user are usually not answerable. and the downvotes probably just reflect this. I don't think anyone has taken your question personally.
Every community has its own personality, and reactions to the same type of inquiry can be quite different. Maybe it also depends on the degree of affection between the community and the suspended user.
I will just mention that this question on Meta Stack Exchange is (to some extent) related to this specific suspension: Could network-wide suspensions last longer than 10 years?
The first chat message regarding this topic is here, in case you are interested with it.
Stack Exchange's policy on this kind of issues is "no, we won't tell you the details. Trust the moderators or find yourself another website". Just so you know.
Apparently another user just got banned and I can not really understand why. I think he had annoying & paranoid behaviour.
The suspension is network wide. This means the suspension was issued by a stack exchange community moderator employee. As for what the offense was, it is unlikely to be made public. Suspensions that long are rare and in my experience do not have common underlying behaviors beyond being unwelcome. It is unlikely to be useful to look at the user's activity since there is likely deleted content spread across multiple sites. Avoiding a suspension like this is not something you likely need to worry about as users receive numerous warning prior to such a suspension.
I took a look at D.Hutchinson's posts at academia.SE and found nothing bad. Really nothing.
The vast majority of suspensions is issued for either vote abuse or posting delete-worthy content (usually lots of it), such as offensive posts, spam, etc. Either way, regular users won’t see what is problematic, because it was either never visible to them or, well, deleted. Even the privilege of seeing deleted posts won’t allow you to track down deleted posts, since it doesn’t allow you to search for deleted posts by a given user. Looking at it the other way round, if you could still find suspension-worthy content by the user, this would be worrisome or it was missed during cleaning up (either way, flag it).
Admittedly, there are some suspended users whose undeleted content exhibits borderline behaviour or otherwise gives you a strong hint at why they were suspended, but these are only about half of the suspended users.
And even this is only half the reason why you cannot find anything; the other half being that this is a network suspension.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.810207
| 2018-07-09T15:33:51 |
4237
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
Why questions about race is on topic, but about LGBTQ not?
Latino is not even race, Is this statistic about how many Latinos/Hispanics have a PhD in the USA correct?
and it was only referenced via social media,
my question Is there any relible evidence of underrepresentation of LGBTQ scientists in STEM fields?
even after referencing Nature and New Your time is off topic?
Is there some issue with LGBTQ on this part of SE?
P.S.
in my opinion the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, NASA, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Department of Transportation),
are not part of Academia
@Nicole Hamilton, Buffy, user3209815
Hmmm... - most of the places listed in your PS hire quite a number of people from academia, and interact closely with academia at conferences, on journal boards, and through research collaborations. Excluding them seems a bit misplaced. For the hold, I would consider paring down the question (note that your quote is tangential at best to the question, and frankly laughable in my experience - I've known many STEM people who are extraordinary musicians. Math and music seem particularly entwined).
@JonCuster are you telling me that those federal agencies are part of academia and they represent how work and organization is done in academia?
All PhDs, whether at a university, government lab, or government agency, all come from the same pool of people, all of whom have been through academia and all of whom keep interacting with each other throughout their careers. Further, you seem to be trying to argue that, say, the NSF is not intimately connected with academia. Good luck with that!
@JonCuster again I dont understand how is that relating to academia?
I can think of dozens of questions about LGBTQ issues here. Your assertion that this is considered off topic is simply wrong.
Further, the question about underrepresentation in STEM is a question for the main site, not the meta.
I will cede that the issue is somewhat light on tags, though
But I put it on main.
@Stefan Ignore the "off-topic" close reason. It looks more like it was closed because people couldn't understand what you were asking. The system to put questions on hold leaves much to be desired. I think the comments your question elicited pretty much describe the situation.
how to reopen is there any mechanism?
After some thought, I think that there is a core issue here that Academia should be interested in. That issue closely parallels concerns about under representation of (females, Hispanics, ...) in higher education, either as students or faculty. I would say that, having run a few journal queries, that the topic of LGBTQ demographics in academia is pretty new, and in general the topic of LGBTQ in overall society is still pretty new (consider the wide range of various estimates for simply the number of LGBTQ individuals in the general population).
However, the question as asked contains various elements that made it possible to vote as unclear or off-topic. These included
That "people in STEM tend to be more feminine"
The whole second half of the question about hiding piano playing
A fairly aggressive tone insisting on 'academia' relevance and ignoring comments asking to clarify things.
(I'll note in passing that the linked Nature item is a commentary, not a technical article)
So, given that, I would suggest that a simpler, broader question on LGBTQ in academia would still be appropriate. One more focused on what do we know now about LGBTQ demographics at least through undergrad -> faculty (actual data). A second question might revolve around what, if anything, is out there pointing to acceptance of LGBTQ in academia (perhaps focused just on faculty, may differentiate based on area).
I would like to clarify something, I expressed my personal opinion, but I put it clearly that it is just opinion. and I asked if people have sources that indeed STEM academia is homophobic, please let me know for such reaserch, I find STEM more accepting towards LGBT then Arts. but again that is my opinion, the piano quote is from popular litterature that claims how possition is very very tense. Which again, never in my short lifetime I experienced.
I didnt understand any comment in that question :( i tried to see again, but I dont see how is related to close vote?
@Stefan In reading your question I got the impression that you were on a bit of a poorly-disguised rant against LGBTQ folk, especially phrases like "so called" that are often used to discredit claims of under-representation. If this was your intent, your attitude is unlikely to be welcome here. If this was not your intent, you should read carefully the suggestions JonCuster makes here, edit your post to remove that content, and request a reopen. I agree fully that it is a relevant question to this stack if that is removed.
As Scott pointed out above, the specific close reason is not that helpful; it only shows the plurality reason that close voters gave - it may be that most of the votes came for other specific reasons. This is a known issue with close vote reasons in SE as a whole. You should pay more attention to the feedback you are getting here on meta rather than the specific wording of the close vote.
@Stefan - the piano quote, I think, detracts from the core question. In my (likely longer it seems) experience in STEM the anecdote rings patently false. One institute where I worked arranged a trip to Paris for everyone to hear one of our grad students play in an orchestra putting on one of Bach's Passions in Notre Dame - nobody would have batted an eye at somebody playing the piano (other than asking them to join a trio or whatnot). So: focus on the core question.
@BryanKrause NO!!! I am LGBT no intention, I just wanted to point out that STEM filed is most openminded, how can you do science if you are not?
@jona Custer, comment on Piano was made by famoust matematician who works in academia and is part of LGBT. I think it is relevant bcs it depict one feelings toward academia, and connect not haveing hobby to heteronormative
@Stefan - I get it, you really like that quote. It is an anecdote that reveals that LGBTQ people can have negative interactions in many different ways. But, it is not the data you are looking for.
Here is a possible edit, incorporating comments from both the main question and this question, that might help clarify your point and address concerns about the question. I'm not going to just make the edit because there's only one chance at getting put into the post-edit re-open queue, but please feel free to adopt any of it that you think is useful.
Note that I did add the second footnote wholesale, to address questions about "what does representative mean?" Of course you are free to edit or ignore that bit (or any other part of the suggested rewrite) if it doesn't match your intent.
What the edited question would look like:
According to the Nature article "LGBTQ scientists are still left out"
there are some "heteronormative assumptions" in the STEM field which artificially suppress the number of LGBTQ people in the field. This view of the sciences1 doesn't match my own experience and anecdotal evidence. (I have seen evidence of a sexism issue but it is a separate issue from LGBT.) In my (admittedly subjective) experience, people in STEM tend to be more open-minded than any other profession.
The Nature article cites a few studies, but none seems to be directly on-point (one study focused on government workers rather than scientists in academia-proper, and another had results that were not statistically significant and whose authors admitted they had made mistakes). Again maybe I'm wrong, but I would like to see a more relevant peer review study (gender studies or social science) explaining this problem.
**What robust studies exist on the representation of LGBTQ individuals2 in STEM fields within academia?
1 The idea that STEM fields are especially constrained comes up in other contexts, too. For example, according to an opinion piece by Manil Suri published in the New York Times, in science it is also not appropriate to talk about hobbies.
Manil Suri is a famous scholar, his description of the situation in academia is worrying, and gives the impression that behavior is constrained and under close scrutiny.
Being too expressive of personal identity can be viewed as running counter to scientific neutrality. In competitive venues, where complete immersion in one’s field might be the promoted ideal, the mention of an extracurricular pursuit can even be seized upon as a lack of commitment. I remember a young mathematician at a prestigious research institute sharing his love for piano playing after hearing I wrote fiction. “Don’t tell anyone in my department I own a piano,” he requested in the next breath.
This is a shock to me because I perceived the STEM field as most openminded.
2Representation could measure the percentage of LGBTQ faculty in STEM fields in comparison to other academic disciplines, or something like dropout rates for LGBTQ students in STEM fields compared to dropout rates for other students.
thank you. Done.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.816605
| 2018-08-21T10:46:34 |
4274
|
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Stack Exchange
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My reason to quit
I closed my account and it will be effectuated within 24 hours. I received an indirect personal attack on my posts. I also do not like how quickly sincere questions of (new) participants are downvoted or labelled as a duplicate because a couple of years ago a similar question was asked. These responses are mostly targeted at questions that criticise (or question) current practices in science.
Current practices work for those affiliated to established research groups. Current practises do not work for minorities like me, and practising science comes at high personal costs.
For those personally criticising or downvoting participants who have the courage to raise their voice, I would like you to ask yourself the following questions first:
• I am working in an established research group?
• Does my group’s or supervisor’s reputation benefits how my work is received?
I really hope, one day you will experience the joy of being generous, the joy of lifting those in your circle of influence. Yes, science works for you but that does not devaluate the experience of others.
I also hope, some day you will understand that we all go to processes in which we search for how relate ourselves to experiences and circumstances. Do not judge too quickly. This is a necessity for human growth.
I especially want to thank some participants. @Allure for your honesty and ongoing search for truth and improvement. @Buffy for your quest for humanity. You have to reach a certain level of experience to practise such wisdom. I am not there yet but I promise I will shepherd those in my care. @Scientist for your brutal honesty, courage and believe in righteousness. Science needs people like you. I will remember your response: “do not fear (…).” . @user3209815 for your sincere response to one of my questions, which many would see as a rant.
Finally, I want to thank all the other community members who lifted me up or provided useful feedback. May your lives and careers prosper.
This will almost certainly be closed and deleted, but before it is, I'd ask you to reconsider. While I may not always agree, I've found your posts thought provoking, which is something we all need. I've attracted some "extreme dislike" here and been called vile names - posts removed, of course. You might ping me in the chatroom if you want to chat about this.
Any post that you feel is inappropriate, especially attacks should be flagged. The moderators can intervene though they tend to be permissive here, I think, compared to other SE sites.
Come visit https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/2496/the-ivory-tower, the main chat room.
@Alice To draw more attention to your question, maybe change the title to "Why I've closed my academia.stackexchange account and what you should do about it" or something similar.
Although I do think we can do better with (new) participants, any participant that asks a duplicate question is devaluing the usefulness of this site, because information is then distributed, rather than centralised. But perhaps you have a different perspective? Regarding trolling/attacking users, I completely agree, I have experienced it myself. I wish you all the best for the future.
It may not be your aim to explain your experience and reasoning with this particular post, but just in case it is: I, as someone who has little involvement with the community or individual participants, lack a lot of context and therefore hardly understand what's wrong, in your perception, and how one could improve. In other words, your post may not be "accessible" to a wider audience here, but if that's not your intention, then that's fine too as far as I'm concerned.
But if there are trolls here, don't let them win by chasing you away making the average contribution worse.
@Buffy I am either not controversial enough or the site has gone badly downhill since I was really active around here (multiple years ago by now), because I literally can't remember more than 2 or 3 instances of people actively being rude to me despite posting multiple times a day.
@xLeitix, I think it is pretty rare. A few newcomers in their first days haven't yet absorbed the culture and say inappropriate things. Once the trolls learn they can't troll they are likely to go elsewhere or else clean up their comments. But on some topics like copyright people can get pretty hot. But if you never get down voted you aren't working hard enough. :) I sometimes give answers that, while likely correct, say things people just don't want to accept. They want to bend the world to their will.
I don't know what the personal attack was, but I noticed that the person who made it apologized and deleted the comment (assuming it was the one you described as such in a comment).
I'd also add that some of the struggles that are themes in your questions and answers about problems in science particularly around peer review are not exclusive to you, nor has it been my perception that this stack has much of a bias in favor of the status quo - if anything it seems to be the opposite. It seems like you are having some personal issues with academia as a whole, and yet you talk of publishing 3 papers during your PhD - many people would see that as highly successful, so I think it's worth taking a careful look at where your dissatisfaction is arising.
Yes dupe questions are not 'bad' at all, in fact SE encourages dupes to live - they enhance accessibility to the original question. There's a meta post somewhere on SE meta main.
If you wish to discuss specific events/questions, please start with providing a link to them and explaining what you think is wrong with them. For instance "my question was marked as duplicate because a couple of years ago a similar question was asked" seems like things working as intended, to me.
One observation; I think this shows how many of the frequent accusations of unwelcoming behavior (throughout all the stack exchanges) are not driven by explicitly rude comments, but by how the SE process itself (up/downvoting, closing dups, enforcing topic guidelines, etc.) can often SEEM like an attack on the poster's value.
@kbelder Not only that, but the system doesn't notify you (for some godforsaken reason) when your question is closed or marked as a duplicate or whatever, and you aren't told what it means or how to fix it, so a lot of users get their question closed unknowingly, they don't get any responses, and if they check in later, their question is locked and they don't understand how to fix it. When was the last time a new user had their question closed and they fixed it and got it reopened? Plus, no one goes back and checks on things they voted against
I only saw this now. A pity, because as it is I don't even get the chance see this user's ancient name. I do agree that there is resistance against status quo, which is exactly why it exists as a concept. Passive-aggression is the general rule in higher circles, such as in the Academia. I wish this user had made this discussion available prior to deciding to leave. Always put up a fight: fighting is the best of medicines.
The current system is unjust and broken in many ways. But complaining about it on here isn't going to fix that.
@Flyto Maybe that's why he left. He realized there is no use complaining and just wanted to state the reasons so that the people still left maybe understand why some choose to leave. Complaining is not same as explaining.
@Scientist OP's nickname used to be is Alice.
@FranckDernoncourt: Is it possible to search for her questions and answers?
@user3209815, there are some who are insanely obsessed with reps, so they falsely downvote others. It is best to pass no heed to them. Try to grow a thick skin, as it is essential for withstanding hostility in hubs and workplaces.
It's a pity to see you leave, but as somebody who has been around this community (at times more, at times less) for a few years now, I feel you are misjudging the intentions of the community.
Particularly, I am talking about this paragraph:
I also do not like how quickly sincere questions of (new) participants are downvoted or labelled as a duplicate because a couple of years ago a similar question was asked. These responses are mostly targeted at questions that criticise (or question) current practices in science.
The reason why these questions tend to be closed as duplicates isn't that people hate to challenge the status quo (I would wager that the average community member here is significantly more progressive than most of our colleagues), but that we literally had all of these questions before, usually multiple times.
You may respond that some of these questions are important enough that they should be revisited every so often, but that's unfortunately not at all how a Stack Exchange works. Once a question is asked and answered, the topic is done. I would argue that this is primarily what differentiates a Stack Exchange from a forum. I agree that this does not work well for certain types of questions, but those tend to not be overly well-suited for a Stack Exchange in the first place.
You may also respond that the fact that the person asking the question is a minority makes it a different question which should not be closed. This is absolutely a fair comment. If the circumstances of the poster are made clear in the question (ideally already in the title), and these circumstances actually make the situation and likely answers differ from previous questions, I would personally be more than happy to leave a question open or vote for re-opening it. In fact, I would argue that questions related to problems minorities face in academia are generally handled pretty well. Take, as a recent example, this question about whether not being able to apply for state funding is a problem on the academic job market.
Personal attacks in answers or comments are of course not ok. These can and should be flagged and removed. However, closing a question as duplicate or downvoting a question is not a personal attack, even if you disagree with the closing or voting (not saying that this is what you meant with "indirect personal attacks", but I have seen cases where posters were offended when their question was closed).
Great answer but I disagree with Once a question is asked and answered, the topic is done. If you know something has changed, then a question can be revisited. If you think something has changed you can start a bounty because answers are out of date.
@StrongBad I feel this is the aspect that does not work well, at least here. Can you think of a case where this actually happened, because I certainly can't. To me, the subjective impression is that once a question is asked and answered, the topic is for all practical purposes dead.
@StrongBad "Start a bounty" also has an obvious drawback -- you need to have enough rep to "spend" on the bounty. Perhaps not a consideration if you have 10k+, but if you're a new user on the site who feels an old question is not adequately answered or feels a new take is needed, you're SOL because you're not "rich" enough to endow a bounty. (Or doing so would substantially affect where you are on the privilege track.)
@R.M. I bet we have a fair number of users besides myself who are happy to start bounties for new users. They just need to ask in chat or a comment or someplace that someone will see (which of course is not easy if you are new to the system).
@StrongBad I think a new user won't be aware of this strategy out of inexperience
A community can not have intentions. The creators of a community can have intentions and the users can have intentions or maybe some third. So which do you mean?
@mathreadler The collective behavior of a community might show intentions, which might or might not be known for its induvidual members.
@peterh but that can also be because of a loud/"pro-active" minority of moderators which actually does not reflect the member base particularly well.
@mathreadler Exactly. But I didn't experience too much bad from the Academia SE, at least compared to other top sites. Well, I was once 6-times insulting-flagged for a not enough PC answer to a political post, and this was also boosted with a 1-month suspension of a mod. I had also a brutally nit-picked and downvoted answer which made clear that I am strongly opposing any legalization of drugs (but not this was the essential part). Except these, no one harmed me and my answers have got typically many ups, actually much more than I expected.
You are mainly right, but deleting your account is a bad strategy. With it, you give up all your hard earned privileges. You could use them to make the system better.
Between the SE sites, the Academia SE seems to me mainly friendly, except some... sensitive, mainly political topic.
It is the internet. Here people can anonymously give, what they want to, without any too serious retorsion. It doesn't have always the best effect.
The best what you could do, in my opinion, would be that you don't delete your account, but silently become inactive. On this way, you could have the possibility to once go back and start to fix.
Furthermore, after so many work, it would be better if you wouldn't deattach it from your name in a sudden upset. I would suggest, think a week and go away only if you think the same after cooling down.
Having more than 2000 rep, you are only from steps away from the last really useful privilege, you could cast close and reopen votes. The real influence of the users with much higher reputation is not much bigger. With these votes, you would have some saying to move the whole system into a better direction, if you are unsatisfied with it.
No he probably can't. If it is obvious to him that some people are there just to make the place toxic... In that case the best strategy can simply be to just gtfo.
@mathreadler It depends on, what he wants. I believe that making the world a better place deserves some effort from our side, even if there is no visible reward.
Yes of course, to some extent. But one also has to pick where and when to try to do that as one usually does not have unlimited energy and time.
"Between the SE sites, the Academia SE seems to me mainly friendly" <- Really? After SO, this is the second most cut-throat site in my experience. And at least at SO they can justify their criticism on technical merit even if it is derisive. "except some... sensitive, mainly political topic" <- Issues involving a large group of people are inherently political, and many (most?) questions fit this criterion at least somewhat IMHO. "You could use them to make the system better." <- Barely.
@einpoklum Your top sites are imho friendly. My top sites (SO, PSE, SF, MathSE) are hostile (or at least they were as I was there active). Behind the political psychopathy I see the political psychopathy of the whole western civilization, which started around in 1968 and became particularly asphyfixicating in the last decades. I use euphemisms to avoid the insulting flags, and I live with the downs together. In general, euphemisms help a lot to deal with the psychos, while you don't need to change the essential meaning of your posts. On the SO I typically don't get technical critics (or if I
@einpoklum get, I fix them), my posts are simply voted down (example), to close and so on. I experience also often revenge downs after I criticize them on the meta sites. PSE doesn't do revenge downs, there is only a generally super-hostile atmosphere on the meta. Academia SE didn't do any of these (although I was not ever very active here).
What you describe is a common phenomeon here (and even worse on many other SE sites - I myself experienced it under a different account). You may not know me but I liked your questions and answers. I wish you all the best!
(I do not know if I am allowed to say this here, but "AskAcademia" on Reddit is a very good resource - in my opinion, the quality is not as high as here (in this regard, Stack Exchange is really extraordinarily great) but the atmosphere is really, really welcoming and friendly which makes up for this.)
Thank you!
It unfortunately took me too long to find this discussion: user93911 has already committed 'digital suicide' by now.
I have a few comments that might help others in a similar situation, or even our dear ex-user93911 reading this from another plane of existence.
(i) I always say that one should be ready to quit in order to feel stronger. Being ready to leave makes you ruthless: never leave without a good fight. Fighting makes you feel swell, and helps improving the world. When you think you've brought out all you could and you loose interest, then you may leave holding your chin up -- however, usually you will find that your enemies are cowards and that there is still more war to be fought. On the other hand leaving suicide notes intended to bring tears will instead bring out the laughter of your aggressors and further lower local standards. Fighting in social & business circles cannot kill you, whilst depression will.
(ii) As someone said, you left at the brink of exerting the power of voting for closing/keeping/editing posts. All your issues could vanish just with a tad more patience. This is how life works. I have just now voted to keep this post open, while writing my answer!..
(iii) Modern Academia is unfortunately full of opportunistic gamblers and abusers, worldwide. I have probably seen the worst of them. Don't lower your gaze: look at them straight in the eye. So many colleagues believe in playing sheep and goose to succeed in the field, out of cowardice and brainwash. This is making the weak oppressors stronger with little effort -- any veiled threat and all of their wishes are granted. They are not many, but they may look powerful and confident. Experience though will show they are scared to the bone inside, all too aware of their incompetence. This is why any opposers and potential rivals are quick to be targeted with passive-aggressiveness, cold treatment, lies, scooping. These guys are desperate! Listen, don't give them a good time: resist, don't play minion. They won't stop using you and everyone else. Play smart, see through the lies, sabotage their goals (usually petty and in the short-term). And the most important: never leave a good colleague alone. If someone asks you for help, help them in whatever way you can.
Anyway, this is getting too long. Hopefully this user will come back, stronger. I will proceed with sapping some bad guys. You know where to find me, here. You might find me in the real world as well, next door.
Fight the good fight!
It's difficult to look them straight in the eye once your fixed-term employment expires....
If it is easy, it means you’re not from fighting.
A few thoughts about this:
This is Academia SE, which means it's read mostly by academics. Academics as a demographic have certain characteristics, e.g. they're liberal as opposed to conservative, they think their profession should be paid more, etc. So if anyone expresses a contrary view, they can expect to be downvoted.
Ultimately, answering questions on Stack Exchange is a recreational activity. I do it because I find it fun, and I suspect most others think the same way as well. It's not appropriate to dictate what others should or should not find fun. So I think questions such as this one should not be closed. The 19k views and 10 answers indicate people find the question fun. Besides the stated close reason is "unclear what you are asking", which is ironic because at least ten people do understand what the question is asking. That's not to say that no question should be closed, but I do think we should err on the side of leaving questions open, especially if they've attracted lots of views and / or answers.
About marking as duplicate: I personally don't think it's a problem because if it's indeed a duplicate then the question suddenly has multiple answers already. Still, unless the question is an exact duplicate (not common), to actually close the original question seems rather unnecessary.
Personal attacks are unfortunate and it's very possible that one person finds something offensive while others can't see what the problem is at all (example). It's a pity we don't have an ignore option.
Downvotes are sometimes necessary but bad. To go from 0 to -1 is significantly worse psychologically than going from +10 to +9, even though in both cases it's just one downvote. So I've been upvoting things if they're negative just to get them back to at least zero. It's a good thing that it takes rep to downvote (I'd even increase the amount required), and a single upvote outweighs multiple downvotes.
In the end everyone has a right to their own happiness, so if you find you no longer enjoy participating here, you should absolutely leave. Best wishes!
A side comment on your last point: there is also a "mob effect" (not sure what to call it) on votes: most people are sheep, meaning they merely follow the lead. From my experience here and elsewhere, from the moment you are the only one in a thread with a -1, you should expect more to come. Also top answers seem to be automatically upvoted, so they keep climbing up the rankings. If you manage to stay on top of the thread for long enough in a highly-popular post, you will earn a lot of reputation with minimal effort. BTW I have upvoted here: you had the -1.
+1, when I encountered this answer, it also was -1. @Scientist is all over it.
I completely agree with you. I feel like all my questions are automatically down voted. I also hate that questions are marked as duplicates. Everyone's situation is different and these people are reaching out for help online, because maybe they don't have anyone else their life to ask. They want professional help from others in academia. Even if it's duplicate maybe you would help someone by answering and their situation is probably different. I understand if it's duplicate and the question is something that does not change through time, like for example "how can I get into grad school?" but the majority of people who are new are reaching out and asking for help for something they probably couldn't find answers for online easily.
I don't understand this negative energy people have here.
This place has the opportunity to be a ask and answer platform that can help new graduate students or in general everyone in a academia and instead the people who are ancient here spend all their time trying to get more points by editing other new user's questions, marking duplicates that are probably not duplicates exactly, and belitting others.
If you want and need professional help (in the sense that some professional counsellor gives you advice tailored to your individual situation), consult a counsellor who is willing to spend hours to assess your individual situation in an interactive back and forth and ideally is familiar with the mechanisms of your institution. This site is not a good place for this. All we can do is help you to help yourself by showing you new perspectives to look at your situation or similar. So, yes, every situation is different, but if those differences matter, we are not the right place to ask.
The reason why duplicate questions are frowned upon is it because it makes it harder to find and curate good answers, which is the mission of SE. We are not a bulletin board-style or Reddit-style forum and the goals are different. If there are already good answers for a question, the user should be pointed to the page where the answers already are.
Furthermore, reputation for experienced users is earned by asking and answering questions, not for edits or marking duplicates. We are not here to harass new users. And also note that the up- and downvotes on Meta work differently. It's a statement of agreement or disagreement rather than a vote of quality.
If that is the case then I guess I'll delete my account too. There is no point in having an account on a website that just points you to similar questions from ten years ago every time you ask a question. If it can't adapt and grow over time and the same old people keep censoring everything with so many rules then what is the point of having an account. It would be great if there was a place new recent grad student could ask for help and advice and reach a larger online community for help instead of talking to some one specific counselor who has only one opinion.
There are just so many rules here. You can't post a question without someone pointing you to 10 pages of rules, regulations, and formatting. It will take someone new so many months to get used to it. It's not worth the effort, especially if users just point you to older questions from years ago. We can't just have one version of a question, it's too narrow of a view.
What you’re looking for—while laudable—isn’t really the intended purpose of Stack Exchange. It’s a curated Q&A site. Good questions should have value to someone visiting the site at a later date and beyond the original poster. You may find that people have already asked similar questions to yours. If there’s a significant difference, then you can mention that as part of your question. But if the differences are minor, why would someone who’s already answered a question here give you a different answer? That’s when we point to duplicates.
I don't know what happened, and I'll offer no advice on whether to delete your account or not. Judging by what you wrote about minorities, I probably disagree with you on a lot of issues. However, I also strongly agree with what Scientist wrote. The only path to earning the respect of those who actually matter is through fighting injustice, even when the task seems thankless. I strongly, strongly, strongly hope you keep fighting evil even when it's hard and bears no rewards. It's the only good fight there is.
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| 2018-08-24T22:31:06 |
4288
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Can I ask a question about guidance for looking for a PhD?
I have an engineering background but I want to do a Ph.D. in psychology. Can I ask a question about this giving the details?
There are lots of existing questions on "if I have a degree in ____ can I apply for a PhD in _____" - I'd look through those before posting any question of your own. They get pretty dull and uninteresting and usually end up depending a lot on individual factors so many get closed.
"I have background X and want a PhD in Y" questions are both fairly common here, and often get closed because they depend on individual factors we can't know - like how receptive a particular lab or labs would be to someone with that background, etc.
If you want advice, I'd strongly suggest you refine your questions more to things that are specific and that can be answered generally (at least within a field).
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| 2018-08-29T16:09:09 |
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Why was my question closed to death?
See this: How does the admissions process work for Ph.D. programs in the UK, particularly for weak or borderline students?
And, compare it with this: How does the admissions process work for Ph.D. programs in the US, particularly for weak or borderline students?
I am not understanding why the former was closed while the later one bagged 110 votes.
USA and UK are two big and popular higher education destinations with slightly different systems. Both have a good number of followers. For instance USA=>{Switzerland, Canada, China, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and so on}, and UK=>{former British colonies and vassals, and compatible with most part of Europe}.
UK is world leader in producing research papers (on the 3rd position after USA and China. But, produces way more as compared to its population size). Also, because of its past empire, it has a large follower, probably larger than the USA in terms of population.
So, What is fundamentally wrong with my question?
If you (or anyone) is interested in writing a comprehensive answer, which might help clarify how this question would be helpful, flag it (or ping a moderator in chat), and we can briefly reopen it to allow you to post a pre written answer.
The highly-rated question you linked was created as a community wiki as a way to close numerous related questions as duplicates, since these types of questions are quite common here. As such, it includes an answer to a question that would ordinarily be far too broad to be accepted.
See this meta discussion.
Had that question not been created as a community wiki question based on a discussion in meta, it would have been closed just like yours.
Exactly. This is not a typical example, but was created to serve a specific need: so that we don't have to answer each "how do I get admitted" question individually. I can see having a similar question for the UK, but that only makes sense if the answers would be substantially different to the US version. I personally don't think this is the case, but I don't know the UK admission system enough to be able to tell.
They probably would be different. The question may be whether it's answerable for the UK, where (at PhD level) such things tend to be decided entirely by individual universities or departments according to their own rules. Perhaps an experienced academic would be able to generalise enough to make it broadly applicable without being so vague as to be useless...
The thing that is fundamentally with your question about the UK is the same thing that is fundamentally wrong with the one about the US. The questions are both too broad and too narrow at the same time. The admissions process in both countries is a huge topic with books and books written about it. At the same time a good answer depends on the individual department and individual student.
I am not understanding why the former was closed while the later one bagged 110 votes.
Your question on the UK was closed for that reason (i.e., not a good fit for the SE system). The one on the US was not closed, most likely, because it was the result of a meta discussion that concluded that the community wanted to make an exception for the US. As for the up votes, my guess is a lot of people found it helpful and some people up voted it simply because it helped solve the problem of the influx of bad admissions questions.
There is nothing special about the US question and we can make another exception. All it would take is a clear demonstration of the problem and how the question would solve that problem. As it stands now we do not get a lot of UK admissions questions. This means that there may not be a problem to be solved.
I don't know about the UK system, but as I gather from the comments below your question, there might not be a sufficiently uniform admission process there, and there may be not specific advice that can be given for weak students.
For instance, if you asked the same question about my country (Italy), I'd have voted to close too, because there are probably as many different admission processes as universities, and the criteria may even change year after year (the admission process for me 20 years ago was completely different from the current one in the same university, and we changed the process at least another couple of times). And I wouldn't have any specific advice to give to a weak student before the application, it would be too late to do anything.
you have to understand that UK is world leader in producing research papers only second to the USA. Also, because of its past empire, it has a large follower, probably larger than the USA in terms of population.
@yahoo.com I understand that, but that has nothing to do with the admission process and doesn't change the fact that there may be not a sufficiently uniform admission process around the country.
@yahoo.com Nitpicking: no, the UK is not "world leader in producing research papers only second to the USA". China is second. (Other charts compiled with different criteria seem to confirm.)
@FedericoPoloni, Okay. My bad! Corrected in the main question.
It's called American exceptionalism.
This doesn't seem to add value and makes no argument that links the referenced question with this idea (which I'm presuming is your opinion).
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What is the main goal of academia stackexchange?
I'm deleting my academia stackexchange account so I don't really care if this my last question will be marked as duplicate or off-topic. The reason why I'm asking this question is that I feel the academia stackexhange community right now heavily focused on hierarchy of this forum such as preventing duplicate, off-topics, etc. rather than actually answer the people's questions. I think every-time if someone, whom specially is new in this forum, asks a question a lot of experienced people will rush to the newly posted question in order to edit its content and discuss its relevance and find duplicates when it is applicable. I think this rush created a censorship, which does not allow new users to express their questions or ideas. Furthermore, I believe every question, which is asked by unique person, has some originality even if it shares its topic with other similar questions and I think it's not fair to mark every question as duplicate or off-topic because his/her questioner is not an experienced user in this forum. I know, even this my last question will be marked as duplicate, off-topic and will be closed, on hold, or even deleted. But, I'm happy that I just expressed my ideas and I don't really care if even I don't receive any response because my account will be deleted anyway.
Note that your last question has four of five votes needed to reopen it (i.e., not consider it as a duplicate anymore). Also please note some answers to this question.
My experience is not formed solely based on my personal experience, which I had for my last question. I saw in many other questions, which is asked by new users, despite of originality of the question, people did not answer it or at least not in the satisfactory way, because the question has a little chance to get high views count and high reputation for those who answered this question. That's really sad when some (not all) educated people are thinking about answering questions in this forum as a game to get more reputation or privileges.
I don’t think our users are as motivated by views and reputation as you think. It is just that the things that are interesting to new users are not necessarily what is interesting to longstanding users who have seen many of these questions before.
The goal of Academia.SE (similar to the other stack exchange sites) is to develop a useful Q&A that applies to a broader audience than the individuals asking questions. This is why we close questions that are too specific to a single individual, or mark as duplicates questions that have already been answered.
These approaches filter out the messy individual circumstances and give the best chances for other people to find answers here without having to ask their own question.
Closing a question as duplicate is never an attempt to censor a particular question or questioner, it seeks to point you toward information already here. Additionally, we can't really answer "what should I do?" questions: you have to make your own decisions based on what you value. Your advisor is likely to be a better place to get information when you need to make a particular decision, because they know you and your circumstances better (though even then you may disagree).
I'm sorry you feel that way, and thank you for taking the time to post your experience. Looking over your posts, I'm not sure I understand why you feel that way... your last question (>10k users) was pretty well received and good discussion helped improve the question even more.
There is a well-recognized phenomenon of older users rushing to close questions, but try to view it from their side... many new users post without checking history, and in many cases the answer has already been discussed. This site has been around for over six years at this point, we have quite a body of knowledge built up. Sometimes mistakes happen, but overall it tends to work fairly well.
That said, as you point out, it's not perfect. I'm sorry you're not feeling welcome, and I really would urge you to reconsider your decision. You've only been a member for a few weeks now, but in that short time you've contributed a few pretty interesting questions. Don't let one bad experience ruin that for you.
Thank you for your kind answer! At the beginning, I really liked this forum and I thought it serves research community as a problem solver. But, I think like many other communities the goal of this forum is buried under rush for editing or marking questions as duplicate or off-topic and people don't answer questions, when there is a little chance for getting high reputation or views, which in my opinion it is really sad for adult and educated people to behave like this. I'm not saying all the people here behave in the same way but always bad reputations have more impacts unfortunately...
@MehrdadYousefi Why did you delete the linked question? I have now no chance of evaluating the general context of this situation. That, for me, is a total opportunity-killer of adding a more personal answer.
@Scientist - I just re-opened the question.
Thanks! Now I see and can add an answer. I have personally voted to close this linked question. Clearly a duplicate. Can't see why someone would take some kind of personal offence in being directed to FAQ?.. And I couldn't care less care about reputation (e.g. getting downvoted) as several of my answers demonstrate.
I suspect by the time I post this answer here, you will be gone already. Still, my answer might serve someone else feeling likewise.
I am a regular SE user. I think the main objective of the database is to provide a Q&A search interface for specialists in different fields. Meaning that if one has a problem, there might be a dedicated SE discussion for it, freely available and still open for additional discussion. I follow and participate different topics in SE, and I can say this website has helped me beyond measure.
Now, there is the matter of the main goal of users in SE Academia. I believe your question was meant to highlight a distance between what I wrote in the paragraph above and what users are actually seeking here. You seem believe most users are just selfishly hunting for reputation, and one of their strategies is nitpicking at selected questions what won't bring them any more views or points. My answer here is based on this personal interpretation, and I am afraid you won't be here to reply or edit the question anymore.
I do not seek reputation in SE Academia. My profile is anonymous, and many of my answers oscillate between controversial and unpopular. Perhaps I often state facts and opinions many academics engaged here don't want to see or be seen in public? I don't know, and I don't care. Because my main personal objective here is (in answering) to contribute to colleagues here who seem to need help in situations I may know about, and also (in questioning) learning what colleagues elsewhere think/advise about a certain topic or situation.
I should state I have voted to close one of your questions, linked in another answer here. It seemed and still looks like a duplicate of another, Frequently Asked Question (FAQ). I did not seek to censor you, not understand why anyone would do that on such a trivial question. Being directed to FAQ is a very helpful outcome, as you may find a suitable answer among many other discussed aspects, or else reformulate your question more specifically on a details you still quite don't understand.
I do believe some users may occasionally misuse this platform on occasion, mostly by passive-aggressively attacking others in comments (or even edits) and by downvoting and voting to delete material they personally disagree with without clear technical or objective reasons. This may be interpreted as a form of censorship, and is unfortunately very common everyone in the real world as well. However I do not think this is widespread in SE Academia (and I would say if I did) and I do not think you seem to have been a victim of such situation.
I agree with you again!!! Nothing is more frustrating then literally having a question and being in need of help and the first responses on your account are people editing your original content, and making it something else entirely by changing your tone and diction, and/or people saying your post is irrelevant. It is rare that you will actually get help.
Try to go reddit. I'm thinking of going there when I need help now.
Hi! This looks like a comment, not an answer. I know, rules are a pain, but this is how more structured places work. Try living in Switzerland. Now, on your feelings, I think you can seek help in different places at same time. These are different communities, and I am sure SE has a lot to offer. I've found a lot of help here. And a few scumbags. Good luck!
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.831493
| 2019-06-14T14:34:46 |
4503
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
Disclosing one's field and privacy issues
I've been using academic.stackexchange quite enthusiastically during a rough postdoc devoid of mentorship. However, since I am a young researcher and since some of the questions I want to ask are rather sensitive, I am careful about what information I disclose, my field being one of them. My specific field is small, and it wouldn't take much effort to figure out who I am if I disclosed my field on top of the other personal clues I've given in my questions. I've noticed others doing the same, probably for similar reasons. However, some would-be-answerers rather aggressively insist that I disclose my field in order to answer my question. I'm wondering if there is some way around this-- i.e., how to guard my privacy while still offering enough information for an apt answer?
I've already hidden other SE groups that I'm a member of, and changed my username (but I doubt that would deter an eager detective; at some point SE was even storing old usernames publicly, and @ tags to old usernames remain). I completely understand that practices change from field to field (and even from subfield to subfield). Yet there are real privacy issues at stake. I'm even considering just deleting questions after I get a satisfying response, but I know that defies the point of SE.
This question is related, but does not deal with privacy.
I'm sorry you think the responses are aggressive. Generally they are trying to tailor an answer to your field or sub-field. There is a lot of variation in norms between fields, countries, etc.
I understand this completely. I just wish there were an easier way to be specific and also protect my privacy. After perusing related issues in meta.SE I'm realizing that hasn't been a major component in the development of SE sites.
When people are asking for your field they mean something like "applied math" or "history" rather than your narrow research interest.
It looks like you're using the default avatar, which may be a privacy concern. Changing it may help.
Deleting a question after you get an answer is only possible if the answer does not have any upvotes. If you delete your question after getting an answer before it gets an upvote, that is a sure way to get a warning for a moderator and an eventual suspension.
The SE system allows you to create unregistered guest accounts and even multiple registered accounts (although you need to create new email addresses) for exactly this reason. All we ask is that if you create multiple accounts (registered or unregistered), is that the accounts never interact (i.e., no voting for yourself or leaving comments from one user on another users posts). The reputation you gain on these accounts will not be linked.
However, some would-be-answerers rather aggressively insist that I disclose my field in order to answer my question. I'm wondering if there is some way around this-- i.e., how to guard my privacy while still offering enough information for an apt answer?
I haven’t checked the comments on your questions specifically, but my general impression of these comments (and my intention when I make them) is to allow us to give you a more helpful or to-the-point answer.
If you accept that we cannot do this or sometimes your question is too broad, I see no problem with you omitting this information.
To pre-emptively avoid these comments, I suggest that you explicitly state an your question that you will not name your field to avoid identifiability.
Note that if you can give a broad hint to your field (STEM, humanities, etc.; experimental, theoretical), this can still be helpful at times.
I've already hidden other SE groups that I'm a member of
Note that this (sadly) does not make you completely unidentifiable.
Everybody who knows where to look can get to your network profile from a hidden account. (But not vice versa.)
@ tags to old usernames remain
As StrongBad already noted, if you want to avoid detection via this, it is legitimate to use a sockpuppet to ask questions.
On this and more legitimate tricks to avoid detection, see this Q&A.
I think you mean "throwaway" (one use account) not "sock puppet" (account which appears to be a different person which you use to respond to your main account).
@NoahSnyder: For whatever it’s worth, the sockpuppet is used for all kinds of secondary accounts on SE. A throwaway account would not necessarily be correct here, since it would be reasonable to re-use the second account for other “private” questions.
SE offers a feature to disassociate your account from a question upon request, as mandated by the CC-BY-SA license it uses. However,
the procedure is rather cumbersome (you need to contact support, and I suppose your query is handled by a human);
it is not guaranteed that all references to your username will disappear: it takes a while for the username to be deleted from the database, and then it will still be present in older data dumps, in the internet archive, etc. Your question has already been linked to your username and to all your other questions on the SE network, and, as the old meme says, one does not simply delete something from the internet.
Hence it is best to post sensitive questions anonymously from the start, if it happens again in future. I agree that the user interface does not make it easy: a "post anonymously" button in the Ask Question page would help.
Now that you have already posted the question, a crude workaround to prevent further information leaks from your future activity on the SE network is: make a new Stack Exchange account and use that in future. I know it feels bad to lose all your reputation, but in the end it's just imaginary internet points.
Unfortunately, dissociating my account from a question and getting a new account do not solve the problem. The issue is comments made by other people to my username at the time. I've since contacted admin, who instructed me to flag each comment (thankfully there weren't many) and ask for changes or removal.
The best precaution one can take is to dissociate SE Academia account from outer hints that would give away his identity. Also avoiding disclosing too much of specific details is the safe path.
Nonetheless, you know what? My bet is that in most cases, the fear of being identified is almost complete paranoia. This website has apparently few users per institution, and the most active ones do not seem eager to investigate into other user's private details. Stalking isn't as trivial as it may seem to the common user, and plus, most academics are still unaware of the existence and power of such Q&A websites.
Unless you're really bashing a hot shot in some online-savvy department in the US or UK, I think you have little to fear. In case you work in a non-English speaking institution, you ought to just chill.
Well, if you've been stalked before, your paranoia might be founded. Also, this website is viewable even by non-users. It's quite common to reference an SE site without ever making an account.
I was, and I am stalked. I’ve been in the bitter side of internal enquires as a whistleblower. Colleagues will gossip, and that’s it. SE academia is as much open access as many papers I’ve written to nice journals, and Wikipedia entries I’ve created about them. No effect. I guess everyone really is looking at cute cat videos and on instagram. Reality is, most ‘bad guys’ are flat dumb & lazy and usually nobody truly cares about us. Give whoever you think hates you a few months of shunning and you’ll become part of the landscape again. Take minor precautions and chill out.
Do not post questions that put you at risk.
|
2025-03-12T15:57:28.833545
| 2019-08-06T07:37:47 |
4513
|
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|
Stack Exchange
|
How to save the question "Daughter wants to advocate physician-assisted suicide as her life goal. Shall she be professor?"
Many apologies for Daughter wants to advocate physician-assisted suicide as her life goal. Shall she be professor?. How do I edit it and make it on-topic? Thanks!
There's a legit question about whether/which academic jobs facilitate advocating for social/political change.
For example, advocacy is a terrible fit for most science departments: even departments that don't mind the attention will be vastly more interested in the professor's ability to run a successful research program (i.e., land grants and publish papers). Political science might be an option, but I think most departments focus on how policy decisions are made rather than the policies themselves. I know even less about philosophy/bioethics, but those areas do seem more interested in staking out a position. I think this could probably be fleshed out into a more complete answer with examples, though I don't know enough to do it myself.
I am not sure you can, but your question is pretty unclear so maybe you can. It seems you are looking for recommendations about undergraduate programs to prepare your daughter for something. This is likely off topic. You say you think she wants to be a professor, but I am not sure how that relates to the rest of the question. Even if she wants to be a professor, a question about the best career path for becoming a professor is going to lead to opinion based answers. You should take a look at our help center and familiarize yourself with our community.
|
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