Datasets:

ChuGyouk

/

StackExchange-Medical

like 0

[ { "answer_id": 627, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think we are doing very well, with a very good quantity and quality of contributions from many people from many different backgrounds. Of particular note are the amount and quality of answers provided and the general comfortable and friendly nature of this site.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 628, "author": "Suresh", "author_id": 346, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/346", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think it's time the site came out of beta ! it's a very healthy and thriving community. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 635, "author": "F'x", "author_id": 2700, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2700", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'll also add a fresh plot of <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/283/keeping-track-of-our-stats\">Academia traffic</a> (red symbols) as a function of time:</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/BoupF.png\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></p>\n\n<p>Notice how a 7th order polynomial fit (in blue) to the recent data highlights that the site is literally taking off.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 636, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<h1>Final Results</h1>\n<ul>\n<li><p><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/11388/what-does-a-plus-sign-mean-in-journal-abbreviations\">What does a plus sign mean in journal abbreviations?</a></p>\n<p><strong>Net Score: 8</strong> (Excellent: 8, Satisfactory: 6, Needs Improvement: 0)</p>\n</li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/11336/how-much-vacation-time-is-typical-during-a-phd-in-the-united-states\">How much vacation time is typical during a PhD in the United States?</a></p>\n<p><strong>Net Score: 10</strong> (Excellent: 10, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 0)</p>\n</li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/11607/advisor-dies-suddenly-advice-needed-for-research-students\">Advisor dies suddenly, advice needed for research students</a></p>\n<p><strong>Net Score: 10</strong> (Excellent: 10, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 0)</p>\n</li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/10999/how-long-is-reasonable-to-wait-for-reply-from-an-editor\">How long is reasonable to wait for reply from an editor?</a></p>\n<p><strong>Net Score: 3</strong> (Excellent: 5, Satisfactory: 5, Needs Improvement: 2)</p>\n</li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/11260/how-strict-are-listed-minimum-requirements-for-admission-to-a-graduate-degree-pr\">How strict are listed minimum requirements for admission to a graduate degree program?</a></p>\n<p><strong>Net Score: 8</strong> (Excellent: 8, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 0)</p>\n</li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/11323/how-do-phd-admissions-committees-view-double-majors\">How do PhD admissions committees view double majors?</a></p>\n<p><strong>Net Score: 6</strong> (Excellent: 6, Satisfactory: 6, Needs Improvement: 0)</p>\n</li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/11398/starting-a-massive-open-online-course-mooc\">How does one go about starting a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)?</a></p>\n<p><strong>Net Score: 0</strong> (Excellent: 5, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 5)</p>\n</li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/11621/repositories-of-funded-research-projects-in-different-countries\">Repositories of funded research projects in different countries?</a></p>\n<p><strong>Net Score: 1</strong> (Excellent: 3, Satisfactory: 7, Needs Improvement: 2)</p>\n</li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/11037/are-tuition-subsidies-taxables-for-research-staff\">Are tuition subsidies taxables for research staff?</a></p>\n<p><strong>Net Score: 3</strong> (Excellent: 3, Satisfactory: 8, Needs Improvement: 0)</p>\n</li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/11294/mooc-video-integration-into-classroom-schedule\">MOOC / video integration into classroom schedule</a></p>\n<p><strong>Net Score: 4</strong> (Excellent: 4, Satisfactory: 6, Needs Improvement: 0)</p>\n</li>\n</ul>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/626", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 630, "author": "F'x", "author_id": 2700, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2700", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p><strong>I don't see any reason why they should not be permitted, and judged by the same measure as all questions.</strong> If they are a good fit for the site (which probably requires that they be realistic), they add value and should be allowed!</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>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 <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/7200/2700\">from my past experiences</a> (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)</p>\n\n<p>For example, if you look at my questions, you may realize that I am:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/13137/2700\">an undergrad student</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/8800/2700\">a post-doc</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/12372/2700\">a research group leader</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/11926/2700\">editor of a journal</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/11854/2700\">a senior researcher who chairs session in prestigious conferences</a></li>\n<li>and my name is <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/12235/2700\">John Smith</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I can tell you (in confidence): not all of these are true!</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 634, "author": "410 gone", "author_id": 96, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/96", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>No, they are really not a good fit to the site at all.</strong></p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n\n<p>That makes the answers much less useful to anyone with a real-world problem that looks broadly like what you made up.</p>\n\n<p>The Help Cente explicitly states that you must <strong>Try to extract the fundamental question from the specific problem at hand.</strong></p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n\n<p>The <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/about\">tour</a>, 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:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Focus on questions about an <strong>actual problem</strong> you have faced. Include details about what you have tried and exactly what you are trying to do.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>(emphasis as in the original)</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/629", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 630, "author": "F'x", "author_id": 2700, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2700", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p><strong>I don't see any reason why they should not be permitted, and judged by the same measure as all questions.</strong> If they are a good fit for the site (which probably requires that they be realistic), they add value and should be allowed!</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>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 <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/7200/2700\">from my past experiences</a> (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)</p>\n\n<p>For example, if you look at my questions, you may realize that I am:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/13137/2700\">an undergrad student</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/8800/2700\">a post-doc</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/12372/2700\">a research group leader</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/11926/2700\">editor of a journal</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/11854/2700\">a senior researcher who chairs session in prestigious conferences</a></li>\n<li>and my name is <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/12235/2700\">John Smith</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I can tell you (in confidence): not all of these are true!</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 634, "author": "410 gone", "author_id": 96, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/96", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>No, they are really not a good fit to the site at all.</strong></p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n\n<p>That makes the answers much less useful to anyone with a real-world problem that looks broadly like what you made up.</p>\n\n<p>The Help Cente explicitly states that you must <strong>Try to extract the fundamental question from the specific problem at hand.</strong></p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n\n<p>The <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/about\">tour</a>, 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:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Focus on questions about an <strong>actual problem</strong> you have faced. Include details about what you have tried and exactly what you are trying to do.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>(emphasis as in the original)</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/631", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/49/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 641, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>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 (<a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/487/duplicate-question-deleted-by-community\">Duplicate question deleted by Community</a>). A number of us look at closed questions regularly and either edit or vote to delete (e.g., <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/215/which-of-these-posts-should-be-deleted\">Which of these posts should be deleted?</a>).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 642, "author": "F'x", "author_id": 2700, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2700", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>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, <strong>it gives us (the community) more motivation to actually edit the question into a better shape</strong>, even if the OP doesn't do it.</p>\n\n<p>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).</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/640", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 646, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>To use this question as a discussion on the proposed synonyms, the <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/writing\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;writing&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">writing</a> --> <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/scientific-writing\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;scientific-writing&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">scientific-writing</a> one doesn't seem like a good idea to me, as not all academic writing is scientific writing; from my understanding of the term \"sciences\", there are many academic fields outside of the sciences. Not sure if that's how the tag is used, but from simply a semantic standpoint I'm not a huge fan of this.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 650, "author": "Peter Jansson", "author_id": 4394, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/4394", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>To follow up on eykanal's post with another suggested synonym. There is a suggestion to equate <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/bibliometrics\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;bibliometrics&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">bibliometrics</a> and <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/h-index\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;h-index&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">h-index</a>. This is a bit like equating chemistry with oxygen. Bibliometrics is a research field and the h-index is just one parameter used in bibliometrics. We then would need to equate also citation index and impact factor with bibliometrics. Hence, I don't think this synonym is very constructive.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 678, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It appears to me that <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/references\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;references&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">references</a> and <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reference-request\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;reference-request&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">reference-request</a> have a split personality. In my opinion the questions should either be <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/recommendation-letter\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;recommendation-letter&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">recommendation-letter</a> or <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/citations\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;citations&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">citations</a>. Should we systematically re-tag the questions and then make <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/references\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;references&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">references</a> and <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reference-request\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;reference-request&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">reference-request</a> be synonyms for <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/citations\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;citations&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">citations</a> or <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/recommendation-letter\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;recommendation-letter&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">recommendation-letter</a>, and if so, which one?</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 859, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I made a proposal for <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/phd-committee\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;phd-committee&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">phd-committee</a> to be a synonym of <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/advisor\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;advisor&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">advisor</a> back when there were a few questions tagged <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/phd-committee\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;phd-committee&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">phd-committee</a>. They have all been retagged, but the synonym has not been created. Do we want the synonym?</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 860, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I made a proposal for <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/mba\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;mba&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">mba</a> to be a synonym of <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/masters\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;masters&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">masters</a> back when there were a few questions tagged <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/mba\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;mba&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">mba</a>. They have all been retagged, but the synonym has not been created. Do we want the synonym?</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 861, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I made a proposal for <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/ms\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;ms&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">ms</a> to be a synonym of <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/masters\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;masters&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">masters</a> back when there were a few questions tagged <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/ms\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;ms&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">ms</a>. They have all been retagged, but the synonym has not been created. Do we want the synonym?</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 862, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I made a proposal for <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/phd-thesis\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;phd-thesis&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">phd-thesis</a> to be a synonym of <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/thesis\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;thesis&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">thesis</a> back when there were a few questions tagged <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/phd-thesis\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;phd-thesis&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">phd-thesis</a>. They have all been retagged, but the synonym has not been created. Do we want the synonym?</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 864, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/references\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;references&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">references</a> -> <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/citations\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;citations&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">citations</a></p>\n\n<p>(Or the other way. I don't have a strong feeling which name is better. Just <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/citations\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;citations&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">citations</a> is more popular.)</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/645", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2700/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 648, "author": "Oded", "author_id": 5978, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/5978", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>That question would have gotten closed on Stack Overflow.</p>\n\n<p>It is a <em>bad</em> question - OP is asking people to do his work for him and would have gotten shot down rather quickly.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>That is orthogonal to your question though - there are up to 5 slots for migration on every Stack Exchange site - sites still in beta only have a migration path to their child-meta (for obvious reasons), but no others. </p>\n\n<p>Why is that?</p>\n\n<p>Because it is not clear when a site starts what the best 4 other options should be - this takes time to find out as off-topic questions accumulate and people want to migrate them.</p>\n\n<p>Now, for this site, I doubt that Stack Overflow should take one of these slots - how often would programming come up here? Not often, I suspect.</p>\n\n<p>It is better to use these slots for sites that will actually make a good migration path - for topics that come up fairly often here but are not in the site scope but are in another site scope.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 661, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>An alternate solution is to leave the proposed migration site as a comment, and allow the mods to do the migration (we can always do this, regardless of status).</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/647", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/4461/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 653, "author": "F'x", "author_id": 2700, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2700", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I wanted my question to be relatively neutral, so I'm posting here (as an answer) one argument I can think of for allowing fun questions (in addition to, well, having fun): it can help us attract some more traffic and possibly some of the users who discover the site through these questions may stay on.</p>\n\n<p>Also, on possible way we could use to avoid being overrun is to make a selection here on Meta: <strong>we could suggest ideas of fun questions, and say post one of them every Friday</strong>. That would be regular at enough, yet one question a week (at most) is not going to be too much.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 654, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I quite agree with the blog post you mention, especially with the 3rd bullet: </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Does this question teach me anything that could make me better at my job? Can I learn something from it?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>In other words, it can be fun, as long as it is somehow useful. In this case, I think your first and third examples (what's your favorite research abstract? paper title? TOC graphics? conference title / what's the most ridiculously harsh review you've ever received?) are good ones, while I'm not entirely sure about the second one (what is the most bizarre/extravagant/longest position title you've ever encountered?). </p>\n\n<p>The crucial point remains to decide when to allow for such questions. I'm not sure a fixed date would be good (e.g., the 1st of April), because we could have an overflow of fun questions on one day. Perhaps we could do something like around the anniversary of joining the site? Or every 100 days? It would also \"reward\" users who stick around. </p>\n\n<p>Finally, I think putting them as community wiki is definitely a good idea, to avoid gaming the system. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 655, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I disagree. One thing that I like about AC.SE is that it is not \"fun\". There are already a to of academic forums where fun questions can be discussed. Our questions are already on the soft side and I think blurring the lines further would be bad.</p>\n\n<p>What about a monthly fun chat room? It wouldn't be as archival, but I think that is not only okay, but maybe better. I like the concept of a fun chat better for a number of reasons. I think one of the hopes of doing \"fun\" things is to attract new people. With questions we are attracting new people in a deceptive manner since fun questions are an exception. I also like the idea of a chat room since I think the questions will benefit from more discussion which the QA style isn't great for. It also might get people to use chat more which would be good for us. Finally, once we allow/encourage fun questions, going back will be hard. If fun on chat flops, we can then rediscuss the issue and then potentially try questions on the main board.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 656, "author": "410 gone", "author_id": 96, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/96", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There are two questions here, that are really important to separate out:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Do we want to have fun?</p></li>\n<li><p>Do we want this to be the sort of site where people feel free to add frivolous material?</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>The first question is one of those meaningless questions like \"do you want some free money?\" It implies that we can get something good, without any negative consequences.</p>\n\n<p>That is an illusion.</p>\n\n<p>The second question is what this is really about. Stack Exchange sites have a successful identity, and a prosperous niche in the web ecosystem, precisely <strong>because</strong> there is so much level-headed professionalism about the questions and answers.</p>\n\n<p>There are lots of places for fun. All of the fun questions suggested in the question above can be asked and answered on chat, to your heart's content. Or at a thousand other places on the web.</p>\n\n<p>Academia Stack Exchange has a unique place, for its level-headed professionalism. If we start allowing questions that are outside the scope of the current guidelines, because they're frivolous, bad-subjective, and/or lack a definitive right answer, we will devalue all the content.</p>\n\n<p>Not everything in life has to be frivolous, fluffy and fun. Some things are just better when they are sober and useful.</p>\n\n<p>So let's keep academia.SE as the sober and useful place.</p>\n\n<p>For the other stuff, get a kitten.</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/g2wrq.jpg\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 662, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'm not against this, so long as:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>There's some semblance of structure to the fun, and </li>\n<li>It's constrained to a certain time period.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>My recommendation would be to hold such an event near the semester demarcations, when there's an air of \"time to relax for a bit\" in the air already. Personally, I would aim for two or three times a year <em>maximum</em>, with those times being end of April/early May (end of semester) and late August/early September (beginning of year), with the optional third being near beginning of January.</p>\n\n<p>For those periods, I would use the tag \"Aca-dumb-ic\" (I just made that up) and allow anything in that tag, so long as it relates to academia in some tangential way. If it gets too out of hand we could add more restrictions to ensure the site still looks like a professional Q/A site with a fun undertone, rather than the opposite.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/652", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2700/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 658, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>They don't quite fall under that category—yet. However, if you start to feel that way, the solution is to downvote those questions and vote to close them.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 659, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I share your feeling about these questions, although as aeismail said, they are not too hypothetical to be closed right away. However, I'm mostly annoyed by the fact that most questions look like the introduction of a paper rather than a genuine question. They somehow have the form \"let's all agree that X is true\", followed by \"Why is it the case?\" or \"How to deal with X?\". </p>\n\n<p>For example, <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/13007/how-long-the-curse-of-bad-education-remains-in-academic-career\">How long the curse of bad education remains in academic career?</a> states that transcripts are always asked, which is not true, they are sometimes asked. Similarly, <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/13022/why-is-headhunting-uncommon-for-academic-positions\">Why is headhunting uncommon for academic positions?</a> states that academic recruitment is only application based, which is true in some cases, but not always. </p>\n\n<p>In general, I'm curious about the motivation behind all these questions. Clearly, the user is not currently facing all of them, and it would be surprising that All faced them in the past (or similar situations). I think that each question is OK as such, but as a whole, it brings a bunch of vague questions, but I don't know if there is much we can do about it. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/657", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 667, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think that I would not be nearly so categorical as Jeff—or perhaps I'm viewing what he perceives as \"academic research\" to be more expansive than my definition. Questions about how to prep for the Intel science fair would be off-topic, but asking how to design a research topic would certainly be fair game. </p>\n\n<p>I think the correct rule to apply in such matters is if it's a question a PhD student (or higher) could reasonably ask. If so, then it's appropriate. So I very much disagree with the close votes, and would support reopening the question.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 668, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I believe that research questions should be on topic. I also believe that questions about \"research\" projects that are part of the requirements for an undergraduate degree are off topic. I feel this way because in my opinion these types of projects rarely make a sufficient contribution on interesting projects to warrant authorship on the resulting outputs (in the cases where there are any). In this way I don't think of these questions as research questions, but instead as undergraduate course work questions. These types of \"undergraduate\" questions can be on topic if they are asked in regards to transitioning from undergraduate to graduate researcher. In this way questions about working as an undergraduate in a research group (e.g., the US REU program) in preparation for graduate school would be on topic.</p>\n\n<p>As for the argument that both an undergraduate and a Phd student might ask the same \"question\", in the case of proc/cons of choosing your own topic, the answers are very different.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 669, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If the question is about <em>research</em> or anything <em>research-related</em>—e.g., publishing, presenting, literature, professional networking, etc.—it's on topic. If the question is not about research—coursework, specific software questions, generic career advice, homework, etc.—it's off topic.</p>\n\n<p>Undergraduate research, industry research, amateur research; these are all research-related, and therefore on topic.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 674, "author": "Fomite", "author_id": 118, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/118", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think questions about research are on topic. I dislike the idea that any \"magic word\" (be it the dreaded 'homework' on other sites, or 'undergrad' here) automatically makes a question less valuable, off topic or not worthy of being answered.</p>\n\n<p>Research, even research that will get published in good peer-reviewed journals, presented at conferences, etc. is not the exclusive domain of post-bachelors students and faculty. To give a brief personal example, if this site existed when I was an undergrad, I could have asked questions about how to deal with co-authors who weren't pulling their weight, how long it's reasonable to wait for a journal article to come back from review, what to expect from your first conference presentation, how to handle some drama around publishing, and how to handle some press coverage of your work.</p>\n\n<p>The idea that I wasn't yet in graduate school shouldn't apply to any of that.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/666", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2692/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 682, "author": "F'x", "author_id": 2700, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2700", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Hеllo</p>\n\n<p>And this is a community wiki answer, so people can try things out.</p>\n\n<p>Test est Test</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 709, "author": "yo'", "author_id": 1471, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/1471", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p><code>Hello World\\</code></p>\n\n<p>Single ` back-quote, and a bunch ``` of them.</p>\n\n<p>Backquote marked inside code: <code>`ABC`DEF`</code> (Does anyone know how to make a code start or end by a backquote?)</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Numbered</li>\n<li><p>List</p>\n\n<pre><code>with a code \n</code></pre>\n\n<ol>\n<li>and with sublist</li>\n</ol></li>\n<li>Well, you can add\n<ul>\n<li>bullet sublist, if you wish</li>\n</ul></li>\n</ol>\n\n<h1>Please, don't forget</h1>\n\n<h2>Proper titles</h2>\n\n<h3>And subtitles</h3>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p><strong>Pieces of text can be seperated by horizontal rules, too.</strong> <em>(And the previous text is bold, huh!)</em></p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Last, but not least, you can quote someone,</p>\n\n<pre><code>even with a code\n</code></pre>\n</blockquote>\n" }, { "answer_id": 710, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Do you mean <code>\\</code>foo``, <code>\\The answer is [here](http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/55437/how-can-the-backtick-character-be-included-in-code). In questions/answers you do double backticks with spaces, but in comments you need</code>` to escape <code>\\</code>foo``, <code>bar`</code>, and <code>`foobar`</code></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1077, "author": "padawan", "author_id": 15949, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/15949", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>$2x + 8 = 4$ Why not LaTeX tag?</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 3792, "author": "Stevoisiak", "author_id": 72245, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/72245", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<h1>Testing YouTube URL Embedding</h1>\n\n<p><strong>Regular</strong> <code>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gocwRvLhDf8</code></p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gocwRvLhDf8\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gocwRvLhDf8</a></p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p><strong>Timestamped</strong> <code>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gocwRvLhDf8&amp;t=22</code></p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gocwRvLhDf8&amp;t=22\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gocwRvLhDf8&amp;t=22</a></p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p><strong>Shortened</strong> <code>https://youtu.be/gocwRvLhDf8</code></p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://youtu.be/gocwRvLhDf8\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://youtu.be/gocwRvLhDf8</a></p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p><strong>/Embed</strong> <code>https://www.youtube.com/embed/gocwRvLhDf8</code></p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/gocwRvLhDf8\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://www.youtube.com/embed/gocwRvLhDf8</a></p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p><strong>Embedded HTML</strong> <code>&lt;iframe width=\"854\" height=\"480\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/gocwRvLhDf8\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;</code></p>\n\n\n\n<hr>\n\n<p><strong>Mobile</strong> <code>https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gocwRvLhDf8</code></p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gocwRvLhDf8\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gocwRvLhDf8</a></p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p><strong>Flash Player</strong> <code>https://www.youtube.com/v/gocwRvLhDf8</code></p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/v/gocwRvLhDf8\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://www.youtube.com/v/gocwRvLhDf8</a></p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p><strong>YouTube TV</strong> <code>https://www.youtube.com/tv#/watch/video/idle?v=gocwRvLhDf8</code></p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/tv#/watch/video/idle?v=gocwRvLhDf8\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://www.youtube.com/tv#/watch/video/idle?v=gocwRvLhDf8</a></p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>_{See <a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/298854/351462\"><em>Which sites have YouTube embedding on?</em></a>}</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/681", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2700/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 684, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>A single tag should have one primary purpose. However, there are enough similarities between different kinds of applications that it seems to me unwise to have completely separate tags for each different kind of application.</p>\n\n<p>What I would recommend is \"linking\" the subsidiary tags as \"synonyms\" of the application tags. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 685, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think and have previously proposed that <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/application\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;application&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">application</a> should be a synonym of <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/graduate-admissions\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;graduate-admissions&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">graduate-admissions</a>. This has no up votes on the <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/tags/synonyms\">synonyms</a> page, so maybe other disagree, but then again it has no down votes either. I also think that <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/faculty-application\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;faculty-application&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">faculty-application</a> is a synonym of <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/job-search\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;job-search&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">job-search</a>.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/683", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/4394/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 687, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think a fairer search is to limit yourself to questions and not questions and answers.</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/search?q=evaluation+%2B+teaching+is%3Aquestion\">https://academia.stackexchange.com/search?q=evaluation+%2B+teaching+is%3Aquestion</a></p>\n\n<p>Limiting the search to questions only gives 12 hits, some of which don't seem like they would be relevant for <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/teaching-evaluation\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;teaching-evaluation&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">teaching-evaluation</a>. I could imagine in the future such a tag could be helpful, but until the questions are asked, I don't see a need for the tag.</p>\n\n<p>As for the linked question, it doesn't seem to be about teaching evals.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 688, "author": "F'x", "author_id": 2700, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2700", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>We have <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/assessment\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;assessment&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">assessment</a>, which Noble P. Abraham introduced in an edit to <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/3575/2700\">a question of mine</a> a year ago. It currently has 5 questions, and I think it would be fitting for your questions.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/686", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/7223/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 690, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This is probably a SE-level limitation; we don't have control over how the \"close\" reasons are populated. However, there <strong>are</strong> limits for the number of default choices available. Therefore, this might fall into one of those cases where there aren't enough options available to list every reasonable option.</p>\n\n<p>However, the \"other\" box is always there if needed.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 692, "author": "Robert Cartaino", "author_id": 100, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/100", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This is deliberate&hellip; because it's not very helpful to the author who wrote the post or those trying to figure what the heck is going on. If you read <a href=\"http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2013/06/the-war-of-the-closes/\"><strong>War of the Closes</strong></a>, it talks about redesigning the closure system to be more helpful to the author &mdash; and everyone who would accuse you of being unhelpful &hellip; about <em>why</em> the question might not be a good fit for the site.</p>\n\n<p>It is exceedingly unlikely the author simply mistook this site as a place to ask about \"bats\" or \"breakfast cereals\", so when you say [not about Academia], it comes across a overly dismissive and unhelpful. What is it that isn't a good fit for this site?</p>\n\n<p>When the moderators added some of the more-common Adademia-specific close reasons to that dialog, it removed the catch-all, generic close reason entirely. It simply becomes too easy to reach for that generic \"off topic\" close reason, so it becomes the most overused path of least resistance. </p>\n\n<p>If one of the standard close reasons doesn't fit the concerns you have about the post, it is better to spend a few seconds to explain <em>why</em> you're voting to close rather than simply clicking on the functional equivalent of <em>\"didn't you read the FAQ?\"</em></p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/689", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/958/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 690, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This is probably a SE-level limitation; we don't have control over how the \"close\" reasons are populated. However, there <strong>are</strong> limits for the number of default choices available. Therefore, this might fall into one of those cases where there aren't enough options available to list every reasonable option.</p>\n\n<p>However, the \"other\" box is always there if needed.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 692, "author": "Robert Cartaino", "author_id": 100, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/100", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This is deliberate&hellip; because it's not very helpful to the author who wrote the post or those trying to figure what the heck is going on. If you read <a href=\"http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2013/06/the-war-of-the-closes/\"><strong>War of the Closes</strong></a>, it talks about redesigning the closure system to be more helpful to the author &mdash; and everyone who would accuse you of being unhelpful &hellip; about <em>why</em> the question might not be a good fit for the site.</p>\n\n<p>It is exceedingly unlikely the author simply mistook this site as a place to ask about \"bats\" or \"breakfast cereals\", so when you say [not about Academia], it comes across a overly dismissive and unhelpful. What is it that isn't a good fit for this site?</p>\n\n<p>When the moderators added some of the more-common Adademia-specific close reasons to that dialog, it removed the catch-all, generic close reason entirely. It simply becomes too easy to reach for that generic \"off topic\" close reason, so it becomes the most overused path of least resistance. </p>\n\n<p>If one of the standard close reasons doesn't fit the concerns you have about the post, it is better to spend a few seconds to explain <em>why</em> you're voting to close rather than simply clicking on the functional equivalent of <em>\"didn't you read the FAQ?\"</em></p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/697", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/5674/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 713, "author": "F'x", "author_id": 2700, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2700", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I don't think anyone <em>requested</em> details… but people are curious, especially went it sounds like a good story! So they <em>ask</em> for details.</p>\n\n<p>Don't feel pressured to reveal anything, if it's not public knowledge.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 722, "author": "Shion", "author_id": 1429, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/1429", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I would venture to add that, specifically, if we are considering anecdotes, if said anecdote is public information, then I don't think that it is a breach of privacy to reveal their names and other details (affiliations, gender etc.)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 737, "author": "Humble_J", "author_id": 10519, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/10519", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If their story is published, you would have to cite them as the authors… in that case, revealing their names and credentials would be fair ground. If the information you have is privileged meaning you have access to the info because you are friends, you happen to know them personally or they asked you to proof read some papers. It would not be ok to use such info especially on a public site.\nIf you are truly concerned, go on and ask for their blessing/permission. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/711", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/1471/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 732, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I changed the title of the question because the issue is not one of \"moderation.\"</p>\n\n<p>Stack Exchange sites are <em>community-driven</em>. 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.</p>\n\n<p>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. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 733, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>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.</p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 734, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I agree with the previous answers, and there are just a couple of points I'd like to add. </p>\n\n<p>If you look at the <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic\">FAQ</a>, the topic is <em>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</em>, 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. </p>\n\n<p>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 <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/455/the-more-comments-the-better\">put comments when they vote to close</a>, 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\". </p>\n\n<p>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. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/731", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 741, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I believe Stack Exchange's position on MathJax support is on an \"as needed\" basis. First we have to demonstrate that there is a substantial need for it. Then we can make an argument to ask for it. Without a substantial number of questions actually requiring it, it's unlikely to go through. (You could generate a PNG of the LaTeX code and upload that instead, for instance.)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 743, "author": "410 gone", "author_id": 96, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/96", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>No, we should not have Mathjax.</p>\n\n<p>There are several reasons why not, but the nub is that it's unnecessary. This isn't a site for maths questions.</p>\n\n<p>It adds bloat to the page. And it really messes up formatting when you innocently put the dollar symbol twice on one line. So you end up having to explain to people that they should escape the dollar symbol with a prefixed backslash every time they want to display a dollar.</p>\n\n<p>Wanting to display a dollar symbol does happen now and again. Whereas displaying an equation is incredibly rare here. Making it easier to display equations is only going to encourage off-topic questions. Adding an arcane barrier to the sane display of dollar symbols is only going to annoy posters.</p>\n\n<p>If we do get some incredibly freaky circumstance where a formatted equation is essential to a question, then just stick an image of the equation in. Most mathjax &amp; latex renderers allow you to capture the equation as an image. The equation isn't going to be any use to search engines anyway.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/740", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/10633/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 745, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Using my Super Sekrit Mod Tools, I can assure you that this is something that happens to everyone; old mods, new mods, red mods, blue mods. While I wasn't involved in this particular questions, there have been questions I closed due to my skimming the question and not getting the nuances. If I would ask about this in the mod chat room, I doubt there would be a person there who hasn't done this themselves, probably more than once. Your response—posting a well thought-out, not too accusatory post on meta—is the appropriate way to deal with this, and I really commend you for it.</p>\n\n<p>To that extent, after reviewing the flags and the discussion, I've undeleted your answer; I can't see any reason why it should have been deleted. For what it's worth, the answer doesn't really directly address the question, so you may want to consider either revising to make it more directed to taking a different direction with the answer. However, your point about the unfairness in deletion makes sense to me.</p>\n\n<p>If anyone has issue with this undeletion, please post in the comments below this answer so I will receive notification of your comment.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 746, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Let me preface these comments by saying that they are an attempt at explanation, not excusing behavior. Your answer was fine, but I could also see how it could be misconstrued, because I did the same thing as the other voters. </p>\n\n<p>Looking back at the history of the question, the issue is that you went back and added the section about \"a sign of mental health.\" It might be a minor thing, but I read that question and had a similar reaction to the users who voted to delete the question. (Note: a mod cast the <em>last</em> vote, not the only vote. Multiple votes were cast to delete the question, so more than one person had the same issue.)</p>\n\n<p>While your sentence is perfectly reasonable, writing \"a sign of mental health,\" the almost-Pavlovian instinct is to mentally tack on \"problems\" or \"issues.\" The votes to close came following the change (obviously), and I can see how they came about. But, as eykanal mentions, what you've done is the right way to do this. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 747, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>While a diamond mod cast the final vote, I cast the first delete vote and threw the flag. As soon as I saw your edit, I threw another flag saying I was wrong. I also left a comment so it would be clear why I was voting the way I was. I would have voted to undelete, but I am not allowed to vote to undelete diamond mod deleted answers. I checked back soon there after and the answer was restored. If it hadn't been I would have followed up in chat/meta to make sure it got taken care of. Once the answer was undeleted, I added a comment apologizing for the mix up.</p>\n\n<p>Having an answer downvoted/deleted can clearly be off putting to a new user. Having an offensive answer (or even one that can be easily misread as offensive) is also offensive to new users. The nice thing about the SE system is that we can fix screwups. The voting and flagging systems can fix most problems and the chat and meta systems can help with the difficult issues.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 748, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I was the moderator who deleted this answer, and after reading the different points here, I agree with the reversal of the deletion, and I'm sorry, I indeed assumed it was offensive. </p>\n\n<p>To answer your point of \"careless reading\", I actually read your answer, but let me go through the different reasons why I took it at the time (if only to show that we don't randomly delete posts). </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>It's hard to see how you answer the question. You mention \"<em>On the ethical question, I think you have to ask that to yourself and find what your moral code is (I am a nihilist)</em>\", so basically, you answer by saying that the OP should answer him/herself. The fact that you personally are a nihilist is particularly irrelevant here. You said in the comments that you expect the same care than in academia, well, we expect the same in answers. Any good, constructive, motivated, justified answer is welcome here, how dissident or controversial it can be. As far as I can tell, the answer you provided is rather a subjective comment than an objective answer, and I'm not convinced how it can help the OP in any way. </p></li>\n<li><p>Your tone is quite pedantic, especially at the end: \"<em>someone like you who feels unsure is even less likely at all to graduate with a PhD than someone who goes in thinking R1 Tenure or death</em>\", or \"<em>I'd say screw it and act rationally, take what I could.</em>\". It is hard to convey a tone on a website, and so it is not necessarily clear whether your tone is motivating or just condescending. In this context, reading \"mental health\" was indeed perceived as something negative. </p></li>\n<li><p>At the time of the answer, you basically just joined the site, and you had no reputation at all, and although, ideally, it should not matter, you also have to understand that quite frequently, we have people coming to the website for the only sake of insulting other people, vandalising the site, etc. They usually take anonymous usernames and have no reputation. Hopefully, you shouldn't see much of them, since we try to remove any offensive content as soon as possible, but unfortunately, your profile at that time could have been easily categorised as such. </p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>The different points above led me to believe that this content was offensive, and should be deleted, which was supported by the fact that the answer was flagged. It was a mistake, but I wanted to clarify why I took that decision. Deletion can be reversed (and as a matter of fact, it was), so I'd rather delete content interpreted as offensive, and clarify things later, rather than letting it linger. </p>\n\n<p>I'm glad to see that the process is working, and that you came to the meta to protest about it, which is the correct way to handle it!</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/744", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/10739/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 753, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>We shouldn't be posting unauthorized links, if at all possible to avoid doing so. I don't want to say \"absolutely not,\" because it can serve a useful purpose under limited circumstances. But \"probably not\" is eminently reasonable.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 760, "author": "Flyto", "author_id": 8394, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/8394", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I agree with others that we shouldn't host links to copyright-infringing copies of papers. However, since different journals permit reproduction of different stages of the publication process in different circumstances (e.g. some allow authors to put a copy on their personal website), it isn't necessarily straightforward to determine what is a copyright-infringing copy. </p>\n\n<p>Therefore, I think that we should refrain from flagging this unless it's very clear that the version being linked infringes, and perhaps add something to the Help for the site pointing out that we don't want dodgy links.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 762, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think we <em>should</em> allow links, regardless of the legal status of the content they link to.</p>\n\n<p>As a general rule for the Internet, I would prefer to keep as little self-censorship as possible. </p>\n\n<p>Moreover, having too strong policy on removing alleged links to piracy will result in removing some links that are legal (e.g. self-archiving that is legal).</p>\n\n<p>EDIT:</p>\n\n<p>While I think that it is a good practice to use an official link (preferably arXivID (<code>http://arxiv.org/abs/...</code>), DOI (<code>http://dx.doi.org/...</code>), or another id-based link), the direct access <em>is</em> important (without it some questions, or answer, may be incomplete).</p>\n\n<p>So how about using an official link plus (if it is not open access) <em>another</em> link (not synonymous with <em>illegal</em>!)? If it might be illegal, still - IMHO it should be on the conscience of the person who has uploaded it, posted the link or entered the link.</p>\n\n<p>(Again, on the Internet, I prefer under-policing to over-policing.)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 763, "author": "E.P.", "author_id": 820, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/820", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Regarding posts that contain links to freely-available versions that are not obviously pirated: I don't see the point to <em>removing</em> links to content. While there is indeed an argument for the permanence of the journal version (though this is only valid if it's a DOI link!), I don't see why both types of link can't coexist.</p>\n\n<h3>If a post already has an ostensibly legitimate link, <em>add</em> the journal (DOI!) version instead of replacing the eprint.</h3>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/752", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 757, "author": "earthling", "author_id": 2692, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2692", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I only see one of your questions put on hold and that appears to have supporters who want it re-opened. While I did not vote to close it I am not sure I can vote to re-open because of the structure of your question.</p>\n\n<p>The problem, as I see it, with your question is that it has an unsupported premise that large egos or perhaps arrogance is a better term is overwhelmingly present in academia. The lack of support for the negative premise comes off as a rant. I think this is what is \"turning people off.\"</p>\n\n<p>If you could structure your question in a more constructive way, I suspect you could get some very useful answers from the community here. I know I have.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 758, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Questions can be good questions and <strong>still</strong> not be appropriate for Stack Exchange.</p>\n\n<p>The guidelines of Stack Exchange sites state that questions should not be \"opinion based\"; they should also ask a clear question. One of the questions you are referring to fell into each category, respectively.</p>\n\n<p>I will note that the questions have gotten many negative votes, as well as close votes. That means the general consensus of the community is that they are not good fits for the site. However, close votes and downvotes are <strong>not</strong> \"abuse.\" They are how the site expresses itself—and this is a community-driven site. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 759, "author": "F'x", "author_id": 2700, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2700", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Questions are put on hold when the community deems that they do not adhere to the site's rules and format. It gives time for <strong>you and other people to improve them</strong>, if possible, into a more fact-based answerable question. If not, they will be deleted in the future. In fact, <strong>one of your questions “on hold” was edited, improved and people then voted to reopen it</strong>. Which shows that the process works, even if it can be a bit frustrating sometimes!</p>\n\n<p><em>“there are really no right to judge other people's question as no question is stupid”</em> — This site has a limited scope and format, and not all sensical questions are suitable here. The community decided on the scope, and how best to manage it. As the “owner and manager” of this site, it has every <em>right</em> to judge whether a question is appropriate here. But if it judges a question is not, it doesn't mean it's stupid.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>Finally, regarding <em>“just go away please”</em>: I'm not sure coming to an established community, and say “if you don't like the way I do things, please go away” makes a lot of sense :)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 764, "author": "410 gone", "author_id": 96, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/96", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The community decides what are low-quality contributions, and have various means of dealing with it. As you've found on most of your contributions to date, that includes a combination of editing, downvoting, closing and deleting.</p>\n\n<p>That's exactly <strong>how and why</strong> this site is so successful: the experienced posters can and do assess the quality of contributions, and use the moderation tools available to them to maintain the site's well-defined scope, and its quality.</p>\n\n<p>You have walked into someone else's house, started throwing things around, and shouting.</p>\n\n<p>You've been told that this is not acceptable behaviour.</p>\n\n<p>And now you're asking the other tenants to move out?</p>\n\n<p>Most of your posts have been about your dysfunctional relationship with your supervisor (and maybe with others). And now you've written about it inappropriately here, creating dysfunctional patterns with other posters here.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/756", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/10694/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 766, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This is an example of a <a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/14470/what-is-the-boat-programming-meme-about\">\"boat programming\" question</a>. You could replace \"for academics\" with anything and it wouldn't meaningfully change either the question or the answers. Therefore it's off-topic.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 767, "author": "earthling", "author_id": 2692, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2692", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I am also concerned about that question. However, I think it is still valid. The cost of using performance enhancing drugs in academia is not the same as in the medical field. For example, an academic who is primarily a teacher would normally have significant breaks during the year which could be used to recover from the effects...that is, to detox.</p>\n\n<p>I do think this question is on the line but not because it applies equally to all professions (I do not think that). I think this question is on the line because it could easily lead to some promoting damaging drug use. At the same time, we can all give our thoughts, referencing relevant research showing the negative long-term effects.</p>\n\n<p>In the end, I would vote to leave it open....but as I wrote, it is right on the edge for me about what should be allowed here.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 774, "author": "Wakem", "author_id": 10739, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/10739", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Perhaps a better question would be, \"Do long hours spent intensively on (math) research, beyond the normal physiological capacity of the human brain, have a marginal benefit to research quality, above that of substituting periods of non-sleep relaxation, in the long run?\" </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/765", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/1010/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 770, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<blockquote>\n <p>The problem here is the sequence. It's not at all clear to me that the\n answers are being taken to heart at all: one piece of evidence is that\n not one of the questions has an accepted answer.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Just because the OP doesn't take the answers to heart doesn't mean other people with dysfunctional relationships with their advisor won't. That is why we don't like localized questions since we want our answer to be able to help lots of people. As for not accepting answers, over at TeX.SE they have some <a href=\"https://tex.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/430/text-building-blocks\">text for common comments</a> including</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Since you have some responses below that seem to answer your question,\n please consider marking one of them as ‘Accepted’ by clicking on the\n tickmark below their vote count (see <a href=\"https://tex.meta.stackexchange.com/q/1852\">How do you accept an\n answer?</a>). This shows which\n answer helped you most, and it assigns reputation points to the author\n of the answer (and to you!). It's part of <a href=\"https://tex.stackexchange.com/about\">this site's idea to\n identify good questions and answers through upvotes and acceptance of\n answers</a>.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I think the bigger issue is the sequence of questions. Looking at the votes for each question in isolation some are okay and some are down right bad. Thinking about the okay questions in the light of the entire series makes me think that they are not particularly good questions either. That said, I think we can let the community decide with voting, it is not like the OP is asking hundreds of questions. We can also try and improve the questions through comments and editing.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 771, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>For better or for worse, the nature of the StackExchange platform explicitly discourages that sort of interaction. The \"SE way\", if there is one, is to provide answers to well-formulated, generalizable questions. User-to-user communication is not only discouraged, it's simply not even possible on the website.</p>\n\n<p>Within that framework, I would suggest that the answer to your question is that you should just ignore questions from users whom you feel are not taking your answers seriously. There's no real problem with users not accepting answers to their questions, and if the user doesn't continuously post bad questions the mods won't take action. Just ignore stuff you don't want to answer.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 772, "author": "410 gone", "author_id": 96, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/96", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In this particular case, the user in question would appear to be just using academia.SE as their personal blogsite to rant about their supervisor (and now, it would seem, to try to <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/16335/96\">find reasons to get them dismissed</a>). At some point, the moderators' tolerance will run out, and the user will get suspended. Given that the moderators here are more active and interventionist than on most other SE sites I'm on, I'm surprised this hasn't happened already. But it's surely just a matter of volume and time now.</p>\n\n<p>But that the user is oblivious to the help they are given, doesn't matter, as long as the user is continuing (intentionally or despite themselves) to provide content that is valuable to others.</p>\n\n<p>The community does have the power to downvote, close and delete poor-quality contributions. It's up to those of us with those specific privileges to be active in using them.</p>\n\n<p>And flag one of the user's lower-quality posts for a diamond moderator's attention, and let them know about the disruptive nature of the user's behaviour.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 773, "author": "Irwin", "author_id": 5944, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/5944", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Unfortunately, we're a Q&amp;A site, not a mentoring site or a counseling site or a support group. If an individual user wants to help this poster in his or her particular situation overall, then I think that an individual should be welcome to do so (and to mention it in answers as appropriate) but I don't know if there should be some kind of site-wide announcement to \"try to help user10694 in a certain way\".</p>\n\n<p>Some people are beginning to catch on to this user's pattern of posting and are calling him/her out on previous posts as well, especially with a lot of \"Run, don't walk\" posts. I think that's fair to do.</p>\n\n<p>Basically - I don't think anything should change with respect to this user.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/769", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/346/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 777, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Just asked about this in the mod chat room, they linked to <a href=\"http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/08/the-future-of-community-wiki/\">this blog post</a>, which pretty clearly states that posts like this should not be converted to CW. The whole post is pretty interesting, actually.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 778, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I don't think it is a good question for CW. Any specific advice is going to be too localized. For example, if you are teaching at an undergrad only institute, your lab is going to be filled with RAs and postdocs while if you have access to strong PhD or MSc students you will want those in your lab. Same thing for equipment and resources. It depends on the existing departmental resources, your startup package, and needs.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/776", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 780, "author": "earthling", "author_id": 2692, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2692", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I believe the linked question (and other similar questions) is on-topic and if it is not, then it should be. I do not see why we would consider \"How to improve oneself as a teacher\" or pedagogical / classroom management issues and we would not consider \"how to research\" or research management issues.</p>\n\n<p>My vote is to keep the linked question and support these kinds of questions in the future.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 781, "author": "Penguin_Knight", "author_id": 6450, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/6450", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It's an interesting question and I have no problem with where it should be posted. My approach is always if there is a question, then let's try to answer. (And I walk the walk; I just told a user <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/16607/polite-and-professional-phrase-to-resend-an-email-mentioning-correction-in-the-s\">how to interact with a visa officer</a>). However, I have a hard time with the OP insisting that \"this question is for Academia\" = \"this question cannot be posted on anywhere else.\" They are fundamentally two things.</p>\n\n<p>I expressed in the comment that the question is suitable for CV, but got immediately shot down by a comment that \"CV is <strong>absolutely not</strong> the right place.\" I will be very surprised that a site called Cross <strong>Validated</strong> will reject a technical question about the definitions of validity and reliability.</p>\n\n<p>And as I have said, I am only expressing my comment on the \"This question cannot be posted on anywhere else\" bit. I believe Academia would have enough users who are familiar with this idea of validity and reliability to answer the question. And hence this is <strong>one of the</strong> right homes. I was just very surprised by the declaration \"This is not all about statistics!! So, it cannot be posted on a statistics board!!\" While the question itself is mostly related to definitions, and the scenarios are also applied.</p>\n\n<p>Anyway, I might have misunderstood your motive. Perhaps you didn't want just an answer, perhaps you thought of getting an in-depth discussion on the deeper meaning of this two concepts. My motive is to provide a suggested place for you to get the answer... and the suggested board needs not to be the origin of that knowledge. Just like if I want to know which of the two floor cleaners I should buy, I will have no problem asking a janitor working in our office, and I bet he/she does not have a PhD in chemical engineering (but more wonderful if he/she does). For this reason, Academia is fine, CV is fine.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 782, "author": "David Z", "author_id": 236, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/236", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I don't agree with the premise of this question. The information about theory and philosophy of science, including the linked question, seems to me to be utterly irrelevant to day-to-day life of many academics. A more apt comparison than that provided in the question would be to hacking circuits without knowing Maxwell's equations, which is perfectly reasonable.</p>\n\n<p>Of course, questions about how grad students can better understand why they are doing things wrong, or about how professors can better explain to grad students why they are doing things wrong, or so on, should be on topic. I have no objection to that. But I can't see how the kinds of theoretical/philosophical topics that this meta question is about fit that description.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 784, "author": "rumtscho", "author_id": 103, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/103", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>A clarification on the comment I made under the original question about validity, </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>CV is absolutely not the right place. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>It has created some misunderstanding, because I formulated it badly. It was a hastily written comment, in a moment when I was anticipating my question getting closed before it gets an answer - if you've been there, you know how it feels. Now I wish I had thought more before writing. </p>\n\n<p>Sometimes a question will have a topic which is interesting to more than one type of expert. Then it is up to the asker to decide where to post it. But an experienced asker knows that it will get a different answer, depending on where it is asked, so he chooses the place according to this. </p>\n\n<p>As an example, we had a <a href=\"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/41757/determining-sugar-content-of-liqueurs\">question</a> on Cooking recently, \"determining the sugar content of liqueurs\". Now, this is a question a chemist or a physicist can answer too. And indeed, after some discussion in the comments, I posted a <a href=\"https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/8293/are-refractive-or-density-based-brix-meters-better-for-use-with-alcoholic-drinks\">question</a> on Chemistry.SE, because I wanted to know which existing measuring tool is better, density or refraction based. </p>\n\n<p>But I think that it was a very good decision on the part of the OP to ask on Cooking first. Because we were able to tell him that, while there are tools for measuring the sugar content, they won't let him solve his original problem of deciding how much sugar to add to alcohol-containing truffles, because sweetness perception depends on much more than just sucrose content. I think that a cook's perspective was more helpful in this case than a chemist's perspective. </p>\n\n<p>Similarly, when I asked my question on Academia, I already knew that I am interested in a theory-of-science perspective. And that while there surely are statisticians who are well-versed in theory of science, I figured that I have a much better chance of getting this type of answer on Academia. So my comment should have been worded something like \"please don't migrate it to Crossvalidated, because for this specific question, I know they will not give the kind of answer I am interested in.\" I didn't mean to suggest that questions about validity are generally not a good topic for statistics, although now that I re-read the comment, I understand why many people thought that I am saying that. </p>\n\n<p>I agree with Penguin_Knight that in general, Crossvalidated is one of the right homes for questions on validity and reliability. I created the current meta question because I think that Academia is another one, (and because there are other questions on scientific theory not concerned with validity), not because I think that it is the single right place for questions of this type. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 786, "author": "cbeleites unhappy with SX", "author_id": 725, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/725", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I mostly agree with @Penguin_knight, but want to add a slightly different direction:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>I'm active both on academia and on cross validated.<br>\nI'd have given the same answer to the same question regardless where it ended up.</li>\n<li><p>As the question is worded, I'd have agreed that it should be moved to cross validated. Not because validity and reliability are not relevant in academia, but because cross validated is the <em>more specialized</em> forum where it is appropriate. That is, it is <em>more on-topic</em> there. </p></li>\n<li><p>There is one very important point in the meta question here that is relevant for the decision where the question is most on topic: you explain here that you are interested less in an explanation of what exactly constitutes validity and reliability than on the general implications for research. I think if that had been spelled out in the question, the whole move-to-crossvalidated-or-not discussion would have been avoided. </p></li>\n<li><p>I'm still slightly in favor of cross validated as the most appropriate place. My reasoning why academia is not automatically the right place even if the intended point of view will be more than just statistics is that validation is far from being an exclusively academic question. It is of huge importance in industry.<br>\nMaybe not the most compelling reason, but a slight indication: the answers you got so far could perfectly stand on cross validated as well.</p></li>\n</ul>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/779", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/103/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 788, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This is not the behaviour I see. When I click flag>>it should be closed>>off-topic I get:</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/OhWLt.png\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></p>\n\n<p>Note that in addition to the \"other\" option the button is \"Vote To Close\" and a vote counts against my vote count and not my flag count. It is exactly the same screen I see if I vote to close instead of flag. Presumably this is because you currently do not have the reputation required to vote to close. When I flag a question I get the following window</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/uapSL.png\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></p>\n\n<p>again I have an \"other\" and this could be use to handle close>off-topic>other type situations (although potentially slightly less efficiently).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1065, "author": "410 gone", "author_id": 96, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/96", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Yes, this is status-by-design. If you are flagging, rather than voting, to close, then you have very limited options.</p>\n\n<p>But it doesn't matter. The flag will get handled through the usual queues, as an off-topic flag. So the specific nature of the off-topicedness doesn't matter for the flag. Those reviewing it, will make their own call on whether it is on or off topic, and if the latter, why it is off-topic.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/787", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/8394/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 790, "author": "Layla", "author_id": 6144, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/6144", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If I can say something:\nMOOC courses are followed by people not only in their undergraduate degrees, but also at master's level. In those cases if one gets a certificate of accomplishment one can get extra credits for the course</p>\n\n<p>So I really still not see why MOOC is considered as something out of the academic world</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 791, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Questions about MOOC's are not <em>prima facie</em> off-topic. This question, however, does not ask a question relevant for our forum. \"Can I learn a subject using a MOOC\" is too broad for an SE site.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 794, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This is a forum about academia, not education. MOOCs are directly related to education, but not necessarily academia. A question would <em>not</em> be on-topic simply by virtue of it's pertaining to MOOCs. The inverse is not necessarily true; an academia-related question may include some content about MOOCs.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/789", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2692/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 796, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Yes—and no. </p>\n\n<p><strong>Yes,</strong> you acted inappropriately in the sense that the discussion was still very much ongoing at the time. I would not delete <em>informative</em> comments so quickly—you have to allow people the chance to read them at the time that the discussion is going on. Otherwise, you could remove useful information which might actually lead to improved questions or answers.</p>\n\n<p>However, if you had waited a few days before deleting the comments, then I would suggest that <strong>no</strong>, such behavior is appropriate. In the long run, Stack Exchange sites are not just about answering people's questions, but providing long-term curating of the answers. Extended side discussions that are not germane to the topic at hand detracts from that mission and should be removed when no longer pertinent to the discussion at hand. </p>\n\n<p>Of course, we don't want to cut off relevant communications among users of this site; such \"off-topic\" discussions can always take place in chat rooms.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 797, "author": "F'x", "author_id": 2700, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2700", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I can see aeismail and Pete's answers, but in my opinion we need to keep comments short or the site becomes a chatroom (which we also have, of course!). In the example given, the number &amp; length of comments mean that many newcomers will probably not scroll down enough to see answers below Pete's.</p>\n\n<p>And the right time for clearing comment is the current time, because a) most people view the question when it's still active, b) we may not get around to doing it later.</p>\n\n<p>In short, in my opinion: <strong>having a prolonged comment discussion should only be very temporary</strong>, and should only lead to improving the question or existing answers. If the comments come to a useful conclusion, <strong>it should be incorporated into the answer</strong>. In all cases, the comments should be removed as soon as possible, <strong>by their authors</strong>.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 799, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In complement to the other answers, from <a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/19756/how-do-comments-work\">How do comments work?</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><strong>How do comments work?</strong></p>\n \n <p>Comments exist so that users can talk about questions and answers without posting new answers that do not actually answer their parent questions. Comments are often used to ask for clarification on, suggest corrections to and provide meta-information about posts.</p>\n \n <p>Comments are intentionally short, having maximum length of 600 characters, and allow only limited markup. URLs in comments automatically become hyperlinks. Each user may post only one comment every 15 seconds.</p>\n \n <p>Comments are disposable: unlike posts, there's no revision history, and they can be deleted without warning by their authors, by moderators, and in response to flags. </p>\n \n <p><strong>When should comments be deleted?</strong></p>\n \n <p>Comments are temporary \"Post-It\" notes left on a question or answer. You should not expect them to be around forever: Once a clarification has been made, an edit added to the post to include new information, or the issue in the comment is otherwise resolved, it is subject to deletion. In reality, many obsolete or chatty comments remain untouched due to the high volume of comments posted, but this does not mean that they can't or shouldn't be deleted in the future.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>In the case mentioned here, the comments were not made to ask for a clarification or suggest a correction, but to ask a new question, quite different (the original question is on acknowledgment, the comment asks about top journals). Hence, the comment <em>should</em> be deleted, and the conversation should be made in the chat, or a new question should be asked (although I would suspect that the corresponding question would likely be closed, due to its opinion-based form). Note that the search does not work on comments, making this information basically inaccessible to other users interested in the topic. Either this information is useful for many users, and should be converted into accessible content, or it is not, in which case it should be deleted. </p>\n\n<p>Hence, the proper form of communication on this site should have been: <code>just-learning</code> should have a left comment to <code>Pete L. Clark</code> asking to join a chat conversation to discuss about the top journals, and this comment should have been deleted once the conversation had started. </p>\n\n<p>There has been some discussions on the past on the possibility of contacting directly another user (<a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/64/contacting-referring-to-another-member-of-se-outside-of-a-comment-thread\">Contacting/Referring to another member of SE outside of a comment thread</a>), and this has been declined, for the reason that <em>Stack Exchange is by design avoiding social networking features</em>. </p>\n\n<p>Now, we can discuss about what should be StackExchange, and how we can improve it, and perhaps in this particular case, it could have been useful to have an option to automatically turn the conversation into a new chat room, instead of just deleting the comments. Perhaps it could have been smoother to first leave a message indicating that the comments are off-topic, and to delete then only when another solution has been found. But in the end, deleting them was the right decision with regards to the site. </p>\n\n<p>-- </p>\n\n<p>On a side-note, I personally find particularly non-constructive the attitude <em>\"if this is the way it works, I will stop contributing\"</em>. No user is forced to contribute, and no user gains from contribution, apart from the collective gain of getting great answers to great questions. It is perfectly fine to question decisions made by mods, and to offer new solutions to solve problems, but someone threatening to stop contributing if they don't get it the way they want is not helpful. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 804, "author": "Pete L. Clark", "author_id": 938, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/938", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Let me respond to Charles' answer.</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Thank you for including the link to the source of your excerpted passage about comments. That makes clear that it does not originate with this site and is not directly espoused by the users of this site: it is a message from some of the creators and adminsitrators of the hardware that explains how they intend it to be used. </p>\n\n<p>However, any particular SE site is a group of people allied around building information and answering questions in a certain focused area. Like all communities, we have the right and obligation to make our own norms. If these norms diverge too far from those of the SE administrators...well, we can cross that bridge if/when we came to it. We came very close on MathOverflow.net, but after a long period of time, the SE administrators agreed to some very site-specific features and philosophies. Note that this was done in part because of the MO community being clear that certain things were necessary in order to ensure their long term commitment to the site. </p>\n\n<p>I disagree that this passage should be used prescriptively across all SE sites. Some people at SE would want it to be: that's their perspective, which obviously carries a good deal of weight...as does ours, since both parties are equally necessary in order for the site to exist at all. But from a factual perspective it is clear that this \"ephemeral\" notion of comments is <em>not</em> the one which is practiced on MathOverflow.net, and to a lesser extent not on math.SE. Just to give an example, on MO the primacy of comments is so extreme that there are many questions which are <em>only</em> answered in comments. (In my opinion this is <em>too</em> extreme, and I have sometimes left community-wiki answers to such questions just to make sure that questions get answered in the technical sense. But I'm describing how things are at the moment, not how any one person wants them to be.) </p>\n\n<p>What follows most strongly from the previous paragraph is</p></li>\n<li><p>There is certainly no uniform agreement across all SE sites on the precise purpose and usage of comments. On any given site this is something that evolves culturally: all users participate in it, and respond to what they feel is \"inappropriate\" participation by others. No one person on academia.SE gets to say what comments are for and how they should be used. Thus I am disappointed that Charles tried to do this in his answer:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Hence, the proper form of communication on this site should have been: just-learning should have a left comment to Pete L. Clark asking to join a chat conversation to discuss about the top journals, and this comment should have been deleted once the conversation had started.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Please don't phrase your opinions as telling me and others what is the \"proper form of communication\". That is for all of us to judge. For my part I do not use the chat features of the site. I do sometimes contact people via email off the site, and since my email address is available they are free to contact me. When I make comments, I have chosen to do so. One difference is: comments are <em>public</em>; emails are private; chat is somewhere in between (I think; anyway it is not available to those who are reading the content that prompted the comments). </p>\n\n<p>Can comments get out of hand? Yes, of course. It has happened to me on many sites, including on this one. In the sites math.SE and mathoverflow that I have participated in (and, I don't want to make a measuring contest about this, but I do have <em>very extensive</em> participation on these two sites, as anyone can check; in particular, I believe that I can claim to have as well-formed idea of what I want to use comments for as almost anyone), sometimes comments spiral out of hand by either (i) getting personal or (ii) getting confrontational / impolite. In such situations it is great to have moderator intervention. My understanding is that moderators spend a lot of time (on certain sites, anyway) intervening in such matters, and that seems like the best use of their time. </p></li>\n<li><p>Concerning idea that comments which range off-topic from the question/answer should be deleted, I respond: it depends what is meant by off-topic. If it ranges outside of the scope of the site, then yes, it is a good time to curtail the conversation. However, if it just switches from one on-topic issue to another: well, that's what happens when professionals are having a profitable interaction. To me that is exactly the sort of positive interaction that sites like this are supposed to be encouraging. If you disagree, that's your right, and it's your right to try to act on it. But there are various ways to do that. You could act on it by leaving a comment saying, \"Hey guys, maybe you'd like to move this discussion to....\" In the case at hand that would have been a very appropriate and positive contribution: probably the OP <em>should</em> have asked a new question. But my point is that a short exchange in the comments is a positive move in the direction of such a new question. Flagging the comments and then deleting them is an incredibly negative move to make. This brings me to:</p></li>\n<li><p>I get personally as well as professionally annoyed when my speech is deleted without a record made.</p>\n\n<p>I am an academic mathematician, and though in many ways the latter is more definitive of my professional identity, in other ways the former prevails. This is such a time: valuing others' speech and writings is a sacred principle of academia. Academics agree that censorship is bad more strongly than they agree on almost anything: this was passionately argued for in Milton's <em>Areopagitica</em> in 1644 and has been well-accepted in the Western academic world more or less ever since. To me <strong>there is almost nothing which is more offensive than simply removing my text</strong>. (Seriously: if you want to respond to my comment by saying, \"Hey, you asshole, why are you wasting my time and cluttering my page. Nobody cares!\" then not only am I not that much annoyed by that...but it is much more likely to get me to remove or reformulate my comment. When you delete my comment, I think you are almost denying my personhood and wonder why I should even be associating with you.) This idea is well-understood on the two math sites mentioned above. It would be pretty ironic if this academic principle were felt less strongly on academia.SE....but let's see how people feel about it, I suppose.</p></li>\n<li><p>We do need to push back in contemporary fora when our concepts of personal and academic freedom are being comprised. It is clear to me that the founders of SE do not value these freedoms as strongly as I do or most academics do. Those who have known me for a while know that several years ago (SE cofounder) Jeff Atwood deleted two of my comments on meta.math.SE. I said then what I said now: if that continues to happen, I must leave. Jeff Atwood was at the time very uncompromising, and I did take a break from contributing to that site...during which time I honestly think that my action was felt and taken into account. Jeff Atwood quickly became much more reasonable in his efforts as a \"policeman\" (his word; I think it's silly) on math.SE....and in fact he is no longer associated with the company at all. </p></li>\n<li><p>Charles also writes:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>No user is forced to contribute, and no user gains from contribution, apart from the collective gain of getting great answers to great questions. It is perfectly fine to question decisions made by mods, and to offer new solutions to solve problems, but someone threatening to stop contributing if they don't get it the way they want is not helpful. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Whoa there: you are really devaluing your product. Users can gain from contributions to this site in the following other ways:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>They can get their questions answered in a timely manner by an expert audience.\n[Questions are contributions, and getting <em>your</em> question answered when you need it answered is much different than the collective gain of an agglomeration of answers.]</p></li>\n<li><p>Users can gain experience about how academia works in a worldwide, field-independent context, whereas most academics' (I mean me...) day-to-day life is mostly confined to their department in their university in their country. This is one of my main reasons for being active on this site: I have a lot of experience with my corner of academia, but I know very little about how HCI people do things or how people do things in India. Knowing this will be both directly and indirectly valuable to me: for instance it could make me a better department chair in the future. </p>\n\n<p>[In order to get the most benefit out of interacting with academics around the world and the academic spectrum....you need to <em>actually let us interact a bit</em>. The idea that anything other than \"The answer to Question X is Y\" is idle chit-chat is really not helpful in this respect.]</p></li>\n<li><p>Participation on globally active sites like this promotes me, my department and my university. My activity on MO and math.SE has done more for graduate admissions at UGA than anything else I have done or could do...I can really see the difference it's made. </p></li>\n<li><p>Dually to the previous point: participation the site puts students in contact with professors: maybe by participating on this site I meet a math student in a faraway land who turns out to be really promising. My contact with this student could be really helpful for her (and hers for me). Please think about that when you delete comments between me and other students and young mathematicians. </p></li>\n</ol></li>\n</ol>\n" }, { "answer_id": 813, "author": "Suresh", "author_id": 346, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/346", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'm coming late to this party, but I am puzzled by the desire to remove comments. If a comment thread starts getting excessively involved, the system automatically encourages people to move to chat. If they still don't want to, is that so terrible ? </p>\n\n<p>I agree that a comment might reference an edit that once made makes the comment moot. But in such cases I've often highlighted the edit as an update, so that the comment continues to make sense. </p>\n\n<p>I've also deleted my own comments when I felt they were no longer necessary. But I wouldn't delete others comments unless they crossed the line into abusive/obnoxious/spamming behavior. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/795", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 801, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>My gut answer is: <em>no</em>, you shouldn't. </p>\n\n<p>A user who wants to follow up with a migrated question can join our site. If not, it's wrong to take somebody's question and pass it off as your own. </p>\n\n<p>However, you could certainly choose to \"adopt\" a question, and be responsible for its curating over time.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 803, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<blockquote>\n <p>This question was asked by someone without an A.SE account (I think that's the case) so, for example, the username shows up but there is no link. I'm not sure if that user will get comments or answers. I also wonder if that user can (or would) ever accept an answer.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Your intuition is correct; the individual does not exist on our site, so they would not be alerted to new responses and cannot accept answers.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>When non-A.SE-users are the asker of a question, should we delete and re-ask the question so that it belongs to someone who can actually answer clarifying questions and who can accept answers?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Remember, this is a community-owned site. We can discuss the question in the question comments, and anyone can then edit the question to clarify confusing content. There's no need to delete and re-ask just so that we can accept the answer.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 817, "author": "Fomite", "author_id": 118, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/118", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The only way I could see this working and, as aeismail has stated, not having it end up feeling like we've repackaged questions asked by others for our own benefit, is to have a dedicated account, somewhat ala the \"Community\" account for owning those answers, which the mod staff has access to.</p>\n\n<p>I think in that case, it's still somewhat problematic, as the \"Accepted\" answer then becomes the moderation staff's <em>best guess</em> at the correct answer, rather than the answer the user truly would have accepted. This has two problems in my opinion:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>It substitutes no information for potentially wrong information, which always makes me nervous.</li>\n<li>It creates the potential for a kind of \"cultural homogeneity\" as the large number of ownerless questions have their answers then dictated by a relatively small group of users. If these \"Super Answerers\" all come from a particular perspective, the same field, etc. I think you create a fall sense of there being community norms where none actually exist.</li>\n</ul>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/800", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2692/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 806, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>SE is an information system, which means that information is structured in certain way. It's by nature different from a message board or a link sharing website.\nComments are structurally volatile in the way the site work because they don't appear in the search, they cannot be downvoted, and only the top-voted appear at first, regardless of their initial position in the thread.</p>\n<p>You can argue that we need some kind of persistent comments, and I will argue that there are plenty of other sites offering that possibility (e.g., reddit). SE is a Q&amp;A website where the point is to have questions answered, in the most understandable way possible (i.e., without having to parse a thread of 20+ unstructured/unformated comments). Now, if enough other users are willing to change the way SE works, then so be it, and let's bring the SE developers on this. As long as the comments are managed the way they currently are, they should be considered as ephemeral.</p>\n<p>Also note that, since you mention that I <em>found a statement of [yours] similar to the above &quot;unconstructive&quot;</em>, I was referring to this statement of yours:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Deleting this comment because you personally think it is &quot;irrelevant&quot; is a bit offensive. If this happens again I will have to reconsider my activity on this site. (<a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/17053/102\">https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/17053/102</a>)</p>\n<p>But if you delete my communication while I'm communicating, then it is very disruptive and does not make me want to volunteer my time and expertise on a site like this (which would clearly like to have more involvement from career academics, not less, unless I drastically misapprehend the situation). (<a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/796/102\">https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/796/102</a>)</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Discussing about what is on topic is on topic. Threatening to withdraw your <em>time and expertise</em> is not constructive.</p>\n<p>I also take the problem of censorship very seriously, and I'm trying to be as inclusive as possible. You don't want your content to be removed? Here is a simple trick: don't put in a comment! Update the answer accordingly. If it doesn't fit in the answer, then create the question for which such an answer fits. If no such question can be created on this site, then it's off-topic.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 807, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>As Charles mentions in his answer, comments are not considered the equal of questions and answers. If somebody stumbled across the discussion two weeks from now and marked it as off-topic and recommended deletion, it probably would have been deleted, and that would have been the end of the matter. As I've said before, the goal is preserving the questions and answers for future users. If a comment has served its purpose, it can (and should) be deleted. </p>\n\n<p>Ultimately, it's a matter of utility. While some commentary and feedback related to the question is always useful, off-topic feedback left as comments don't help users. Moreover, your helpful information is going to get lost, since it's not indexed and not searchable. So unless it's in an appropriate venue for the topic, it's going to get lost in the ether. Without the other question, nobody would know to look in the question on excluding authors to see your comments about the best math journals. You <em>can</em> put it there—but why would you want to have it stuck there where it's going to be almost guaranteed to go unobserved?</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 808, "author": "Mad Scientist", "author_id": 201, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/201", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Every site that allows contributions from the community has to remove content occasionally if that content violates the rules of the site. The only difference is how many rules the site has and how strictly they are enforced. Never removing any content from contributors under any circumstance is not a viable strategy, you need the ability to deal with spam, offensive content and abusive behaviour at the very least.</p>\n\n<p>Stack Exchange is a more rigid format than most comparable community-run sites like forums. A significant part of the value of the Q&amp;A format is due to this rigidity and the rather strict rules attached to it, but it is certainly also a source of frustration if you use SE sites for something that does not fit well to the SE model.</p>\n\n<p>The Q&amp;A format is simply not possible without what you consider \"censorship\". Non-answers for example are routinely deleted, and the sites would be worse if we didn't do that. The attitude towards comments varies a lot between SE sites, MSE and MO are on one extreme of the spectrum here. </p>\n\n<p>But I'd like to use MO as an example, because they actually do a significant amount of what I'd count as \"censorship\" under your view. They don't remove comments like other SE sites, but they are very strict with non research-level questions and with crank posts. As a mathematics professor you're very unlikely to be censored on MO, but someone posting \"too easy\" math on MO is very likely to have their contributions deleted quickly. </p>\n\n<p>There is still a lot of room between the extremes in terms of comment deletions, and this is something that each community can discuss and come to their own conclusions and policies. I'm personally <em>very</em> strict in removing any comments that are likely to escalate or that attack other users personally, as a Skeptics moderator where we tend to deal with controversial topics this is simply necessary to keep the peace on the site. And dealing with those often causes collateral damage as the least problematic action is very often to remove all comments on a post. I'm far less strict with unproblematic, but also not that useful comments. </p>\n\n<p>There are many valid postions between the extremes in terms of retaining or deleting comments, but I'd also like to add that I consider the MSE extreme to be harmful to a certain extent. I think this changed somewhat, or maybe it is simply more quiet on MSE now, but there were many very heated discussions on MSE meta including personal attacks in the past that were not deleted or only deleted much later. This lead to a rather hostile atmosphere there which is something I consider much more harmful than the removal of all those comments would have been.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 809, "author": "F'x", "author_id": 2700, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2700", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p><em>First, thanks for raising this issue… though I do not exactly like the choice of words in your title and some of your post, it is an interesting issue of site policy, and something we should indeed discuss as a community.</em></p>\n<hr />\n<p>I'll add a short answer here, as moderator of two other sites somewhat related to Academia SE (similar clientele): Chemistry SE (which I currently moderate) and French Language &amp; Usage (of which I was a moderator for a year).</p>\n<p>The “comment moderation” on both sites is somewhat more strict that it is here, and certainly not like MathOverflow at all. The policy, on both sites, is as follows:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Comments should be used to <em>comment</em> on a question or answer, and in the longer term, all information in these comments should be integrated into posts: integrate new information into the question, improve the existing answers, or provide an expanded point of view as a new answer. The only comments viable in the longer term are short ones, which do not necessarily warrant full new answer.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>^{(it's not an actual quote, but since it concerns other sites, I wanted to clearly mark it as such and used the “quote” formatting).}</p>\n<h1> </h1>\n<p>As others have said, <strong>there are plenty of places to <em>discuss</em> about academia</strong> in general: forums, discussion boards, mailing-lists, chat rooms (including StackExchange's own chat server)… but <strong>the SE sites were not designed for that purpose</strong>. That's factual. That's what the SO and SE designers tried to avoid.</p>\n<p>Now, <strong>whether this situation should be changed is a matter of discussion</strong>. In my opinion, it shouldn't. We shouldn't have SE sites become mainly discussion-based, because <strong>their different nature plays a big part of their success</strong>. I love the community here, I chat sometimes on the chat room, but <em><strong>if the site were to turn into something closer to a discussion board, I would not invest time in it any more</strong></em>.</p>\n<hr />\n<p>PS: yes, part of moderation (not only by diamond moderators, but by all power users on SE sites) is censorship in its broader definition. I believe that your question would be more appropriately titled <em>“What should the community's standard censorship/deletion of comments be?”</em>.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 810, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I have a very hard time taking this seriously.</p>\n\n<p>We have here a user who has <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938/pete-l-clark?tab=reputation#pete-l-clark?tab=reputation&amp;sort=graph&amp;_suid=139281210099406410589236180915\">only been really active in our community for about two weeks</a> who was upset about <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/795/removing-useful-but-not-immediately-on-topic-comments\">comment deletion</a>. He posted as such, a <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/795/removing-useful-but-not-immediately-on-topic-comments\">meta thread was made discussing the point</a>; the community had agreed that the comments should have been deleted at a later date instead of immediately, apologies were made, and the matter should have ended.</p>\n\n<p>However, instead of accepting the community's approach, this user posted a long, grandstanding thread about censorship, and started questioning whether the community—which the user had just joined two weeks prior—was well-run. Never mind that, <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/283/keeping-track-of-our-stats\">by all measures, this community seems to be doing just fine</a>; never mind that the bit of moderating in question is performed numerous times daily; never mind that the moderators of this site have been pretty willing to <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/425/possible-not-a-question-post\">engage</a> <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/39/what-to-do-about-belligerent-users\">the</a> <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/718/whats-up-with-academic-dismissal-from-phd-program-what-next/719#comment2161_719\">community</a> <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/199/whats-the-difference-between-down-vote-vote-to-close-and-flag\">when</a> <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/215/which-of-these-posts-should-be-deleted\">taking</a> <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/205/what-should-happen-to-closed-questions\">moderator</a> <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/258/when-is-an-edit-not-an-edit-any-more\">action</a>.</p>\n\n<p>This all seems to be the grandstanding of a new user who is unused to the way our community is run and doesn't like what he is finding. While we <em>are</em> still in beta and the community can change, we've just passed the two year mark; this community has definitely matured significantly since inception. I fail to see any direct, convincing arguments being put forth in favor of change.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 811, "author": "posdef", "author_id": 5674, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/5674", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Ok, so here's the disclaimer: I am not really up-to-date on the discussion at hand so take my answer with a pinch of salt. I am giving my $0.02 to the question: <em>\"Is deleting comments a form of censorship?\"</em></p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p><strong>TL;DR:</strong> </p>\n\n<p><strong>Yes</strong>, it is... just as removal of any spoken/written communication would be censorship.</p>\n\n<p>And, <strong>no</strong> it is not a deal-breaker for communication exchange. It might not suit everyone but it works in the bigger picture, evidently.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>SE sites have a very specific structure and they attempt to reinforce a community moderation in a very specific manner. </p>\n\n<p>I recall the first time I decided to ask a question on SO I was very frustrated with all the expectations that were put on a new user all of a sudden. It is also very hard to not take immediate and strict moderation personally. </p>\n\n<p>But, if you can pass beyond that SE sites are amazing, in the sense that they connect people that would not, in a million years, be able to find one another and exchange ideas. In my day-to-day work, I am never scared of technical (i.e. programming) problems as I trust in my skills of searching, and reaching out to others with significantly greater expertise in the matter at hand; whether that is the proper use of a library, programming language or algorithm. That's is both a lifesaver at times and a miracle of the modern internet, in its own right. </p>\n\n<p>However, much like all awesome things in life, internet has its downsides. Trolling is one for instance. Another one being people going off-track. There will always be clutter on the interwebs, and without moderation of weeding out things it would be a complete jungle out there. At SE sites, there is community moderation, meaning other users get to tag, retag, edit and even remove questions, answers and comments. It's not a water-proof way of doing things, but it <strong>is</strong> a valid way of keeping it tidy. If you feel that you have been unjustly treated, you take up your case with others in the community in meta (which is exactly what we are doing right now), and I have yet to meet a moderator that has been utterly and completely unreasonable. </p>\n\n<p>Sometimes the structure imposed on a SE site might hinder the progress of the site, or your own participation in it. A relevant example I can give from my own experience is Sports.SE. I was thrilled when it started, and was very active for a while. Later on I had some disagreements with the way things are done there (with respect to scope, subjectivity and discussions) which I took up on meta, and the community did not have a clear opinion on the matter on way or another. So things were kept as they are, and I just realized that I did not have much to gain in sticking around. I check the site occasionally to see if there is anything that tickles my interest but more often than not I do not spend beyond 15-20 mins a week on Sports.SE. </p>\n\n<p>So the take take-home message: if the community moderation principles do not work for you, then noone is forcing you to participate. It would be sad to lose users based on personal issues however it is also inevitable to some degree when so many people are communicating purely through textual messages (i.e. all other \"cues\" like body language, intonation etc are missing). </p>\n\n<p>One advice, if I may, is to see to discourse here on SE sites as if you'd have a serious conversation with peers in real life. Nobody likes ever-branching discussions, and have the subject trailing off to other subjects when the matter at hand is yet to be answered. </p>\n\n<p>Again, I am not sure what got you so frustrated but I hope you don't take it personally and choose to stay around for a while longer anyways. :) </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 812, "author": "Noah Snyder", "author_id": 25, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/25", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I have always found the active comment deleting policy at many SE sites rubs me the wrong way. I understand that it's the usual policy so I don't usually complain about it, but I do think it's misguided. In particular, I don't like that comments can be deleted with essentially no record that they were ever there and no way for high rep users to evaluate whether the moderator was behaving reasonably.</p>\n\n<p>Part of this may be mathematician culture, where it's natural to think of answers and comments as being at different levels of formality and so comments play a more crucial role. Part of it is also that as an academic I'm used to having more control over my speech than one would have in industry.</p>\n\n<p>One thing MO does, is that when comments are deleted from the main page, a record of them is kept and linked at the meta site (well actually at tea.MO, but a thread on the meta site with an answer for each time this happens would work just as well).</p>\n\n<p>I'd be very curious to hear from anyone who knows about cstheory.SE. My guess would be that since they're academics they have a similar policy to MO on comments, but I'm not sure. If it turns out that all the academic sites (MO, cstheory, the late theoreticalphysics) have a different policy from all the non-academic sites then it might be worth academia considering having a policy environment more similar to the academic sites than the non-academic ones.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 814, "author": "F'x", "author_id": 2700, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2700", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'll repost here as standalone post (not a good practice in general, but we're on Meta!) a comment I left earlier when Pete asked <strong><em>“is the site doing just fine?”</em></strong>.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><strong>By all the metrics we have, yes…</strong> growing user back, growing number of frequent flyers, very good self-evaluations, me being very happy. Like all metrics, these should be take with a grain of salt (e.g., the last one), but I generally consider this site quite successful — though we should still strive for improvement! In fact, the site has been ready for graduation for a few months now, and is held up (along with a few others) because there's a queue at the “site design” stage.</p>\n</blockquote>\n" }, { "answer_id": 2135, "author": "Jay", "author_id": 31056, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/31056", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>\"Censorship\" is a loaded word. It's not like anyone is stopping you from expressing the thoughts you expressed which were deleted here in some other forum.</p>\n\n<p>But that said, I agree that deletion of comments should be VERY limited. If someone posts a comment that is clearly totally irrelevant to the purpose of the site -- \"I make $10,000 a week working at home\" or some such -- sure, that should be deleted.</p>\n\n<p>But moderators on many of these StackExchange sites are way more aggressive than that. They talk a lot about \"this isn't a discussion board, we are trying to build a database of quality questions and answers that can serve as a reference\". Well sorry, but that's never in a million years going to happen. </p>\n\n<p>The whole structure of the site is that questions are posted by random visitors. So there is no pattern or organization to the set of questions. This is not a well-organized FAQ carefully put together by a team of experts. The moderators do not create the questions and do only limited work to organize them.</p>\n\n<p>The rules say that questions should not be general reference. That is, if you can find the answer by searching a dictionary or Wikipedia then you should not post it here.</p>\n\n<p>So we have a stated goal: We are trying to build a database of general reference questions. Then we have a rule: No general reference questions allowed. Hmm.</p>\n\n<p>Questions are then answered by random visitors, not by a team of certified experts. This practically guarantees that there will be contradictory answers, or at least answers that run at tangents to each other. i.e. there will be discussion in some sense.</p>\n\n<p>So again, we have a stated goal: No discussion, no controversial opinions, just straightforward answers. Then we have a format that only makes sense if we expect contradictory answers.</p>\n\n<p>So is this site for posting of alternative answers to questions, i.e. to discussion and debate ... or not?</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/805", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/938/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 820, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Personally, I say <strong>yes</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>The problem with asking questions you <em>don't</em> face is that you end up with many philosophical questions that don't actually occur in real life. However, what you describe is events that do happen in real life, and are practical issues, but happened to other people instead of you. (I once posted a question on behalf of my wife, who was a first-year graduate student at the time, and didn't worry that I was violating the site guidelines.) So long as the problem is practical and something that you (or others) have faced, I say go ahead.</p>\n\n<p>I'm very curious to hear an opposing viewpoint.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 821, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I agree with eykanal, I don't see any problem in asking questions you found on a blog. To some extent, the problem is similar to: <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/629/are-realistic-hypothetical-situation-based-questions-permitted\">Are realistic hypothetical situation based questions permitted?</a></p>\n\n<p>So as long as the question itself fits the scope of the site, it should be fine. One reminder: it's <strong>ok to answer your own question</strong>, so if the blog provides an interesting answer, please feel free to post it as well. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/819", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 831, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In general, I like shape of Academia.SE. And I am still being surprised, that with so many subjective questions, this site is a nice resource.</p>\n\n<p>However, in my personal opinion:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Too much of life-story/life-choices/coaching/etc\n\n<ul>\n<li>often associated with <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/personal-advice\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;personal-advice&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">personal-advice</a>) - just please, no (I understand that newcomers may treat SE as a forum, but it is our job to help them shaping their issues into questions which work well in SE system)</li>\n<li>quote: <code>In this site I have seen questions that sound like \"what should I do with my career\" with little or no \"question-ness\".</code> (@Thanatos)</li>\n<li>examples:\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17576/should-a-ph-d-be-done-with-a-low-h-indexed-professor\">Should a Ph.D. be done with a low h-indexed professor</a> (typical, not particularly bad)</li>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17775/going-to-gap-a-year-before-reapplying-for-cs-phd-any-advice\">https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17775/going-to-gap-a-year-before-reapplying-for-cs-phd-any-advice</a> (a typical bad one)</li>\n</ul></li>\n<li>why it is a problem?\n\n<ul>\n<li>hard to generalize,</li>\n<li>hard to answer (as there are many treads, which is the one most important to the OP?),</li>\n<li>hard to compare answers,</li>\n<li>not much re-use value,</li>\n<li>even hard to read the original question,</li>\n<li>it is harder to find answer (as someone can ask question with the same title, but different - background)</li>\n</ul></li>\n</ul></li>\n<li>Too much of <em>soft</em> answers\n\n<ul>\n<li>I mean, if someone asks a question about chances of being admitted\nsomewhere (or anything else) I think that we, as the community,\nshould put more value on at least trying to use any data, objective\nreferences, links to other materials, etc. Sure, sometimes answer is\n\"yes\" (or \"no\"), which is obvious for any insider; but it many cases\nit isn't.</li>\n<li>example:\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17694/\">Is it more difficult to score a Tenure Track position in the US when applying from outside?</a> (answer is fine, but without any data or third-party insight it may be \"calming, yet uninformative\")</li>\n</ul></li>\n</ul></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>IMHO we should have much stricter comments and moderation for questions:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>capturing one's life story,</li>\n<li>asking a few questions at the same time,</li>\n<li>too long (IMHO they can be as long as one wishes, but the question, or the overview, should in in the first paragraphs).</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>And for answers (just comment-bugging may suffice), when:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>it seems that some data, research papers or essays can be linked,</li>\n<li>the answer seems to be specific for a given region or discipline. </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>(And less strict for the comments :).)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 847, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 2, "selected": true, "text": "<h1>Final Results</h1>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/16076/potential-post-doc-supervisor-visit-should-i-give-a-talk-or-just-have-a-meeting\">Potential Post-Doc supervisor visit: should I give a talk or just have a meeting?</a></li>\n</ul>\n<p><strong>Net Score: 19</strong> (Excellent: 19, Satisfactory: 7, Needs Improvement: 0)</p>\n<hr />\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/15596/retrieving-the-references-in-a-publication-automatically\">Retrieving the references in a publication automatically</a></li>\n</ul>\n<p><strong>Net Score: 16</strong> (Excellent: 16, Satisfactory: 10, Needs Improvement: 0)</p>\n<hr />\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/15930/could-i-change-part-of-my-paper-after-acceptance\">Could I change part of my paper after acceptance</a></li>\n</ul>\n<p><strong>Net Score: 13</strong> (Excellent: 14, Satisfactory: 11, Needs Improvement: 1)</p>\n<hr />\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/15700/should-each-chapter-in-an-extensive-paper-start-with-an-overview-of-the-chapter\">Should each chapter in an extensive paper start with an overview of the chapter&#39;s contents?</a></li>\n</ul>\n<p><strong>Net Score: 13</strong> (Excellent: 13, Satisfactory: 12, Needs Improvement: 0)</p>\n<hr />\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/16256/can-a-literature-review-be-a-masters-thesis\">Can a literature review be a &quot;master&#39;s thesis&quot;?</a></li>\n</ul>\n<p><strong>Net Score: 9</strong> (Excellent: 10, Satisfactory: 16, Needs Improvement: 1)</p>\n<hr />\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/15978/travel-grant-for-summer-conference-between-phd-and-first-job\">Travel grant for summer conference between PhD and first job?</a></li>\n</ul>\n<p><strong>Net Score: 3</strong> (Excellent: 6, Satisfactory: 15, Needs Improvement: 3)</p>\n<hr />\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/15316/what-options-does-college-dropout-with-great-grades-research-projects-and-cv-ha\">What options does college dropout with great grades, research projects and CV have to return to university (or thinktanks)?</a></li>\n</ul>\n<p><strong>Net Score: -1</strong> (Excellent: 7, Satisfactory: 11, Needs Improvement: 8)</p>\n<hr />\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/16250/online-tool-for-receiving-student-files\">Online tool for receiving student files</a></li>\n</ul>\n<p><strong>Net Score: -1</strong> (Excellent: 3, Satisfactory: 18, Needs Improvement: 4)</p>\n<hr />\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/16108/are-professional-body-certificates-any-helpful-in-getting-into-academia-if-i-do\">Are professional body certificates any helpful in getting into academia (if I don&#39;t have any undergraduate education)?</a></li>\n</ul>\n<p><strong>Net Score: -2</strong> (Excellent: 7, Satisfactory: 10, Needs Improvement: 9)</p>\n<hr />\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/16141/best-ways-to-obtain-a-scholarship-for-a-masters-in-financial-mathematics-quanti\">Best ways to obtain a scholarship for a Masters in financial mathematics/ quantitative finance</a></li>\n</ul>\n<p><strong>Net Score: -9</strong> (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 12, Needs Improvement: 10)</p>\n<hr />\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/822", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 824, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Not all typos and misspellings are created equal.</p>\n\n<p>Typos in question titles should always be fixed, in my opinion, as they're what a user initially interacts with. Lots of typos makes the site look less professional.</p>\n\n<p>Beyond that, however, \"small\" corrections should be avoided <strong>unless</strong> the typo corrects the meaning of a sentence by replacing an incorrect word with the correct word. Otherwise, the changes should be more than just fixing one or two words. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 827, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Note that when someone with high reputation edits a post, it is instant (I call it being a <strong>demi-mod</strong>). When someone with low or mid reputation, it <em>blocks</em> further edits, until it is resolved (by a mod, or maybe also a demi-mod).</p>\n\n<p>I guess the rationale behind not making too small changes is:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>not blocking a question (you've spotted <code>spoted</code>, while someone else has spotted that the title is unrelated to the question's content),</li>\n<li>not wasting time over trivial things (though, personally, I think that is someone <em>wants</em> to change an annoying typo, we should not block her/him); and if (s)he is a (demi-)mod, I don't see any reason for discouraging making this site better. </li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4093, "author": "aparente001", "author_id": 32436, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/32436", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>At Academia SE, the level of English proficiency varies a great deal. I've noticed that participants here are quite tolerant of non-standard English in all types of posts, but especially in questions. I see this as a good thing, because it encourages international participation.</p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, sometimes I find myself scratching my head a bit to understand what the poster is trying to convey, and once I've figured it out, I edit for clarity, so that other participants can capture the poster's intended meaning more quickly.</p>\n\n<p>I also tend to edit for mistakes like \"it's\" when it should be \"its\" because I'm happier working with clean text. This is a person idiosyncracy of my own (although over at ELU it's not an unusual one).</p>\n\n<p>I can see @PieterNaaijkens' point that this type of editing can clutter up the Active list. If this is a significant problem, I guess we should put in RoboKaren's proposal as a feature request (a \"Minor edit\" checkbox à la Wikipedia that would not bump the question up).</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/823", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 835, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Answers questioning the question are ultimately non-constructive.</p>\n\n<p>Such things should be dealt with on of the following, instead of posting answer:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>comments under question if someone asks for more details,</li>\n<li>down votes,</li>\n<li>close votes.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>One of powers of StackExchange is that is is <em>not</em> a forum.</p>\n\n<p>However, I remember some questions when the correct answer was that someone is interpreting situation incorrectly. (But it is rather an exception than rule.)</p>\n\n<p>And what we should do with such answers?</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>If it is \"not even an answer\" then should comment suggesting posting it as a comment to question (and delete the answer).</li>\n<li>If it has parts of an answer (just plays down the importance of issue, or anything) - do as with any other answer we think that adds negative net value: downvote (it's better to stay democratic here). </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>(A separate issue, perhaps worth a different question on <strong>meta</strong>, is whenever to provide direct examples. In some cases, for example the \"clearly offensive clothing\" it might cut some idle discussion (though, I would advice to use <em>different</em> example of a similar calibre, for the sake of anonymousness). For example in question <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17815/what-to-do-if-assignment-is-against-students-religion\">What to do if assignment is against student&#39;s religion?</a> an example helps in avoiding \"guessing game\".)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 836, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 6, "selected": true, "text": "<p>A fundamental rule of flags is: <strong>flags are NOT to be used to delete <em>incorrect</em> or <em>bad</em> answers.</strong></p>\n\n<p>That is, if there is an actual attempt to engage the question, you cannot ask the mods to delete the question just because you think it is inaccurate, gives bad advice, or challenges the assumptions in the question instead of accepting them as fact. </p>\n\n<p>The correct way to express your displeasure with such a question is <strong>to downvote it.</strong></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 837, "author": "Suresh", "author_id": 346, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/346", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think commenting and downvoting are probably the best options here. I suspect flags will be ignored for the reasons @aeismail mentions. The problem is that the \"community\" (defined as readers who vote) appear to have conflicting views on the matter, and what you're asking about is a form of minority protection that SE doesn't really have a mechanism for. </p>\n\n<p>But I know that I read comments very carefully, and that I'd be influenced by comments pointing out that the answer is not answering the question as stated. I tend to be less likely to downvote (and I'm not sure why), and maybe that's part of the problem.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 841, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>As one of my <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17658/is-it-ethical-to-apply-different-criteria-for-graduate-admissions-based-on-count/17675#17675\">answers</a> was pulled out as an example, I think I should chime in here. Let me start by saying I think this is an important question and needs to be discussed. Further, to be clear, I do not feel attacked, singled out, or defensive. I think that the highlighted answer is a good example of the issue.</p>\n\n<p>The issues with these types of answers is that the person writing the answer may be convinced that they are not denying the situation and think they are providing a helpful answer. The votes on answers like these are not particularly meaningful. As you say, </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>those answers seem to get support from part of the community because of their attitude towards the controversial issue in question</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>but I would also claim they get down votes because of the controversial issue in the question. Flagging the question doesn't generally work since most answerers will not see the flag. It also doesn't provide a place for discussion and puts mods/high rep users in a difficult situation. It seems to me that the comments to the answer and/or chat (and possibly meta) is the place to discuss and figure out what is going on. It might be informative to go back to my answer to see how I thought about it.</p>\n\n<p>The title of the question is:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Is it ethical to apply different criteria for graduate admissions based on country of undergraduate study?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The only statement within the body of the original question (and current version) with a question mark is </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Is it fair to apply different criteria to students from different countries in admissions decisions?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I think that the number of up votes on the question suggest it is an important question for our site. Despite my up vote for the question, I don't think the question is a particularly good fit for the SE format since the question \"is X ethical/fair\" is essentially a yes/no question and providing an evidence based answer is difficult. I think this is confirmed by the number and variety of answers as well as the up votes and down votes of the answers.</p>\n\n<p>Moving on to my answer and the \"charge\" levied against it:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Instead of answering, some answers were suggesting that the statistics and the research they did must have been wrong and the results are not valid.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>We need to first decide if I answered the question. My first sentence could (and probably should) be reworded to be</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I would argue that you are using the results in an unethical and discriminatory way because you are interpreting your data incorrectly</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>That seems to me to be a pretty clear answering of the question. I answered \"No, it is not ethical\". I then tried to provide reasoning for why I answered the way I did. My answer is not particularly great in that there is little evidence to support my claim. I don't want to clarify/defend my answer here as it is too far removed from the answer itself, but I am happy to continue to clarify/defend my answer in either the comments to the answer or in chat. At the heart of my reasoning is that based on the original question, the edits to the question, the comments, and my chat discussion with the OP suggests that the classic mistake of interpreting correlation as causation is being made. I tried very hard in my answer to not claim that the statistics were wrong, but purely focused on the interpretation. In summary, I disagree with both claims about my answer (not answering the question and denying the situation).</p>\n\n<p>Currently the answer has 3 down votes and three people made \"negative\" comments prior to the last down vote being cast. From the negative comments it is clear that my answer is confusing to people and could use an edit. The up votes (and one positive comment) suggest to me that some people see the value in my answer. Based on the mixed feedback, I would normally edit my answer to try and improve it. In this case, I feel it is better to leave it be at least for a while so that this discussion about the issue of answers that miss/deny the point can be addressed.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 846, "author": "Hal", "author_id": 9263, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/9263", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>IMO, this is a species of a more general problem on discussion forums. Members too often want to contribute when they don't have anything to contribute. Those members often write posts that either,</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>tell the OP that they should not give too much thought to their concern,</li>\n<li>tell the OP that they should go about things an entirely different way that happens to render the question moot,</li>\n<li>tell the OP that they're wrong about a subjective matter, or</li>\n<li>question the OP's reasons for wanting to do what they want to do.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>In any case, these replies suck. We should ban them. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 865, "author": "Wakem", "author_id": 10739, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/10739", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think you have to be careful to not eliminate the best possible response to some questions. Many times the best response to a question is simply not an answer (or JUST an answer). For example, if someone asks for the best way for a high school freshman to break into math research, the best response must at least include some sort of serious challenge to the OP (whether or not it gives the most plausible way for the freshman to break into research). This is an extreme example, but in general many responses should challenge the assumptions of the OP, while also giving an answer. Because these are often human matters that are extremely emotionally charged, it is important to challenge the OP if they are in false dichotomous thinking, for example. But in almost every case I think this should be accompanied by an ANSWER, GIVEN THE ASSUMPTIONS OF THE OP. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 3297, "author": "Wetlab Walter", "author_id": 28355, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/28355", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The behaviours you are seeing of <em>questioning the question</em> is due to the enormous prevalence of X-Y questions in the original StackOverflow and other STEM StackExchange sites. Questions where the thread is \"how do I do X\", but experienced users see that the OP has a more fundamental misunderstanding, and should really be doing Y. The SO model is so popular because follow-up comments let us determine the true nature of the OPs intent, get to the bottom of the question, and answers can either target the question-as-asked, or the OPs fundamental issue if it deviates. <strong>This is a good thing.</strong> Answering all questions at face-value is not helpful -- otherwise why was the OJ Simpson thread closed?</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/834", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/4249/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 835, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Answers questioning the question are ultimately non-constructive.</p>\n\n<p>Such things should be dealt with on of the following, instead of posting answer:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>comments under question if someone asks for more details,</li>\n<li>down votes,</li>\n<li>close votes.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>One of powers of StackExchange is that is is <em>not</em> a forum.</p>\n\n<p>However, I remember some questions when the correct answer was that someone is interpreting situation incorrectly. (But it is rather an exception than rule.)</p>\n\n<p>And what we should do with such answers?</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>If it is \"not even an answer\" then should comment suggesting posting it as a comment to question (and delete the answer).</li>\n<li>If it has parts of an answer (just plays down the importance of issue, or anything) - do as with any other answer we think that adds negative net value: downvote (it's better to stay democratic here). </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>(A separate issue, perhaps worth a different question on <strong>meta</strong>, is whenever to provide direct examples. In some cases, for example the \"clearly offensive clothing\" it might cut some idle discussion (though, I would advice to use <em>different</em> example of a similar calibre, for the sake of anonymousness). For example in question <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17815/what-to-do-if-assignment-is-against-students-religion\">What to do if assignment is against student&#39;s religion?</a> an example helps in avoiding \"guessing game\".)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 836, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 6, "selected": true, "text": "<p>A fundamental rule of flags is: <strong>flags are NOT to be used to delete <em>incorrect</em> or <em>bad</em> answers.</strong></p>\n\n<p>That is, if there is an actual attempt to engage the question, you cannot ask the mods to delete the question just because you think it is inaccurate, gives bad advice, or challenges the assumptions in the question instead of accepting them as fact. </p>\n\n<p>The correct way to express your displeasure with such a question is <strong>to downvote it.</strong></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 837, "author": "Suresh", "author_id": 346, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/346", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think commenting and downvoting are probably the best options here. I suspect flags will be ignored for the reasons @aeismail mentions. The problem is that the \"community\" (defined as readers who vote) appear to have conflicting views on the matter, and what you're asking about is a form of minority protection that SE doesn't really have a mechanism for. </p>\n\n<p>But I know that I read comments very carefully, and that I'd be influenced by comments pointing out that the answer is not answering the question as stated. I tend to be less likely to downvote (and I'm not sure why), and maybe that's part of the problem.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 841, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>As one of my <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17658/is-it-ethical-to-apply-different-criteria-for-graduate-admissions-based-on-count/17675#17675\">answers</a> was pulled out as an example, I think I should chime in here. Let me start by saying I think this is an important question and needs to be discussed. Further, to be clear, I do not feel attacked, singled out, or defensive. I think that the highlighted answer is a good example of the issue.</p>\n\n<p>The issues with these types of answers is that the person writing the answer may be convinced that they are not denying the situation and think they are providing a helpful answer. The votes on answers like these are not particularly meaningful. As you say, </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>those answers seem to get support from part of the community because of their attitude towards the controversial issue in question</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>but I would also claim they get down votes because of the controversial issue in the question. Flagging the question doesn't generally work since most answerers will not see the flag. It also doesn't provide a place for discussion and puts mods/high rep users in a difficult situation. It seems to me that the comments to the answer and/or chat (and possibly meta) is the place to discuss and figure out what is going on. It might be informative to go back to my answer to see how I thought about it.</p>\n\n<p>The title of the question is:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Is it ethical to apply different criteria for graduate admissions based on country of undergraduate study?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The only statement within the body of the original question (and current version) with a question mark is </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Is it fair to apply different criteria to students from different countries in admissions decisions?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I think that the number of up votes on the question suggest it is an important question for our site. Despite my up vote for the question, I don't think the question is a particularly good fit for the SE format since the question \"is X ethical/fair\" is essentially a yes/no question and providing an evidence based answer is difficult. I think this is confirmed by the number and variety of answers as well as the up votes and down votes of the answers.</p>\n\n<p>Moving on to my answer and the \"charge\" levied against it:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Instead of answering, some answers were suggesting that the statistics and the research they did must have been wrong and the results are not valid.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>We need to first decide if I answered the question. My first sentence could (and probably should) be reworded to be</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I would argue that you are using the results in an unethical and discriminatory way because you are interpreting your data incorrectly</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>That seems to me to be a pretty clear answering of the question. I answered \"No, it is not ethical\". I then tried to provide reasoning for why I answered the way I did. My answer is not particularly great in that there is little evidence to support my claim. I don't want to clarify/defend my answer here as it is too far removed from the answer itself, but I am happy to continue to clarify/defend my answer in either the comments to the answer or in chat. At the heart of my reasoning is that based on the original question, the edits to the question, the comments, and my chat discussion with the OP suggests that the classic mistake of interpreting correlation as causation is being made. I tried very hard in my answer to not claim that the statistics were wrong, but purely focused on the interpretation. In summary, I disagree with both claims about my answer (not answering the question and denying the situation).</p>\n\n<p>Currently the answer has 3 down votes and three people made \"negative\" comments prior to the last down vote being cast. From the negative comments it is clear that my answer is confusing to people and could use an edit. The up votes (and one positive comment) suggest to me that some people see the value in my answer. Based on the mixed feedback, I would normally edit my answer to try and improve it. In this case, I feel it is better to leave it be at least for a while so that this discussion about the issue of answers that miss/deny the point can be addressed.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 846, "author": "Hal", "author_id": 9263, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/9263", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>IMO, this is a species of a more general problem on discussion forums. Members too often want to contribute when they don't have anything to contribute. Those members often write posts that either,</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>tell the OP that they should not give too much thought to their concern,</li>\n<li>tell the OP that they should go about things an entirely different way that happens to render the question moot,</li>\n<li>tell the OP that they're wrong about a subjective matter, or</li>\n<li>question the OP's reasons for wanting to do what they want to do.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>In any case, these replies suck. We should ban them. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 865, "author": "Wakem", "author_id": 10739, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/10739", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think you have to be careful to not eliminate the best possible response to some questions. Many times the best response to a question is simply not an answer (or JUST an answer). For example, if someone asks for the best way for a high school freshman to break into math research, the best response must at least include some sort of serious challenge to the OP (whether or not it gives the most plausible way for the freshman to break into research). This is an extreme example, but in general many responses should challenge the assumptions of the OP, while also giving an answer. Because these are often human matters that are extremely emotionally charged, it is important to challenge the OP if they are in false dichotomous thinking, for example. But in almost every case I think this should be accompanied by an ANSWER, GIVEN THE ASSUMPTIONS OF THE OP. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 3297, "author": "Wetlab Walter", "author_id": 28355, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/28355", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The behaviours you are seeing of <em>questioning the question</em> is due to the enormous prevalence of X-Y questions in the original StackOverflow and other STEM StackExchange sites. Questions where the thread is \"how do I do X\", but experienced users see that the OP has a more fundamental misunderstanding, and should really be doing Y. The SO model is so popular because follow-up comments let us determine the true nature of the OPs intent, get to the bottom of the question, and answers can either target the question-as-asked, or the OPs fundamental issue if it deviates. <strong>This is a good thing.</strong> Answering all questions at face-value is not helpful -- otherwise why was the OJ Simpson thread closed?</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/838", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/12655/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 843, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Question posters should provide as much useful detail <strong>as they feel comfortable sharing</strong>. If people are posting anonymously or via a pseudonym, then they would like to maintain at least some level of privacy and confidentiality. The more details you reveal, the easier it is for others to piece together exactly who you are and who you're complaining about. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 844, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think that examples in potentially subjective questions <em>encourage people to pass judgment on the examples</em>. </p>\n\n<p>If the question is one that asks people to pass judgment on the examples (\"Is <em>this</em> kind of thing acceptable?\") then giving an example of <em>this</em> is constructive. </p>\n\n<p>If the question is \"What should I do, given <em>this</em>?\", then the example can become a distraction.</p>\n\n<p>In <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17739/should-professors-intervene-if-a-student-is-wearing-offensive-clothing-in-their\">Should professors intervene if a student is wearing offensive clothing in their classroom</a>, I felt strongly about not giving the specific slogan not because of anonymity, but because I thought</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>some people might feel upset reading it (even in the context of an illustration), and </li>\n<li>a few people might post things like \"What's the big deal, that shirt is funny and you ladies should lighten up!\" which would also upset readers.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I considered adding a link to the shirt in question (so as not to post the objectionable content on academia.SE directly) but even that seemed not constructive to me.</p>\n\n<p>I think my characterization of the slogan in question as \"indubitably demeaning and hostile towards women\" was specific enough to answer the question, and indeed this question did get quite a few high-quality answers.</p>\n\n<p>In any event, we got comments like:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>AFAIK, mysogynic ideas came only from old, embittered thinkers, and are unlikely to be seen on someone's T-Shirt</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>and even a comment:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Without the content of the slogan in question, anyone attempting to make any judgement on said slogan is left chasing gremlins</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The question didn't ask anyone to make a judgment on the slogan! Comments like these make me suspect that posting the slogan (or a specific example of one) would lead to people passing judgment on the offensiveness of the slogan, which isn't what the question was about.</p>\n\n<p>In the other questions you mention, the example is unlikely to upset anyone reading it, so there is less of a downside to posting one (if the asker wants to). However, examples still lead to people passing judgment on the example . </p>\n\n<p>For example, in <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17815/what-to-do-if-assignment-is-against-students-religion\">What to do if an assignment is against student's religion</a>, we had an answer that said: </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Refusing to draw the human figure = ignorance and superstition. Avoiding listening to or playing music = ignorance and superstition.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>And a comment:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>How is music \"bad\" or \"haram\" is beyond me. Violent music could still be considered \"haram\" or even avoidable. But how do you justify neutral music by Beethoven as \"haram\" ? </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>both of which constitute nonconstructive judgment.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/842", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/49/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 851, "author": "Suresh", "author_id": 346, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/346", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think the cited question should be closed for being too localized, but NOT for being about med school. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 852, "author": "Pete L. Clark", "author_id": 938, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/938", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In the help center, the first question is \"What topics can I ask about here?\" and the first sentence of the answer is</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>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. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>To me this is unambiguous: questions coming from aspiring professional students are on-topic. </p>\n\n<p>If the site consensus has moved away from the acceptability of these questions, then it has moved pretty far, and some kind of referendum may be in order to make a policy change at this basic level.</p>\n\n<p>I have several comments:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>The site is really not overrun with questions from professional students. On the contrary they seem to come up quite rarely. (This is not really surprising because the entire SE community is strongly tilted towards CS, math and other STEM types. What percentage of questions asked here specifically concern the humanities: 10%? Less?)</p>\n\n<p><strong>Added</strong>: It is good for theoreticians to try their hands at experiments now and then, so I searched for \"medical school\" (in quotes) on the main site and got 5 matches. By way of comparison, I searched for \"HCI\" (i.e., Human Computer Interaction, a fairly narrow academic subfield that I had not even heard of until I arrived at this site): 30 matches. I am convinced that we are not overrun with questions about medical school.</p></li>\n<li><p>The sentence could be more clear that undergraduate level questions are excluded. Do undergraduate students not comprise part of \"academics of all levels\"? And technically any undergraduate could be an \"aspiring graduate or professional student\".</p></li>\n<li><p>The use of the word \"research\" and \"researcher\" in the sentence confuses me. It does not seem even approximately synonymous with \"academic\" because (i) reseachers can work in industry or for the government or for themselves or be unemployed, whereas academics work in an academy, and (ii) academics do a range of research, teaching, service and administration, the mixture of which varies wildly from job to job. Probably the majority of Americans who self-identify as \"academics\" are not spending a significant amount of their professional life on research. Questions about university-level teaching are among the ones which are being migrated and otherwise directed here from content-area sites in the highest volume, so it would be nice to see some word like \"pedagogy\" appear even more prominently in the answer to this question: it does get its own bullet point, but the word \"research\" is repeated again and again, even to the extent of \"research department\", which is a strange term to my ear.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>I am also surprised that the word \"faculty\" does not appear. In general the relatively low percentage of involvement from university faculty seems to be one of the elephants in this particular room...but I had better not try to get into this here.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 853, "author": "Nobody", "author_id": 546, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/546", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think professioal students include law and medical students. However, I'd like point out that this is somewhat location dependent.</p>\n\n<p>For example, medical school and law school students in Taiwan have to pass the very same college entrance exam as other undergraduate students when they enter law/medical school. They stay in the school longer time (medical school is 7 years) to get different degrees when they graduate.</p>\n\n<p>If those students ask questions about the issues they encounter in school, do we say those are undergraduate related questions or graduate school related questions?</p>\n\n<p>I am concerned that we do not have enough experts to answer the medical/law school related questions when they come up. This is more or less chicken and egg problem. Those experts will not visit us if they have nothing to do with the Q&amp;As on our site. Law school/medical school people will not ask questions if they will not get good answers.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/850", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 858, "author": "Pete L. Clark", "author_id": 938, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/938", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I certainly agree that \"undergraduate research\" is a subset of \"research\". But \"research\" is so broad -- it seems to apply to maybe 1/3 of all questions asked on this site -- that narrowing it would be helpful.</p>\n\n<p>The vast majority of undergraduate research is supervised by a graduate student or a faculty member. This seems to make undergraduate research squarely on-topic for this site in the same way as undergraduate teaching questions certainly are. In that supervising undergraduate research has many issues distinct from supervising other research, it seems appropriate to have a separate tag for it. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 863, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I agree with Pete that the <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/research\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;research&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">research</a> is very broad and that splitting it into \"sub tags\" could be helpful. That said, I am not sure what <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/research-undergraduate\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;research-undergraduate&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">research-undergraduate</a> would be. Potentially better would be a set of tags like <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/research-supervison\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;research-supervison&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">research-supervison</a>, <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/research-advisor\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;research-advisor&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">research-advisor</a>, and <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/research-funding\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;research-funding&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">research-funding</a>.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/855", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/96/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 867, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Such questions are usually poor fits, but there's not a single canonical reason to reject. For instance, they might be <strong>too specific,</strong> so that they're not applicable to other users or <strong>focused on purely undergraduate institutions</strong>. In both of those cases, the specific reasons listed should be cited as grounds for closing. However, otherwise, it's because list-based questions are a poor fit for the site.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 871, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>2/3 don't from our <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/about\">About</a> page:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Don't ask about: [...]</p>\n \n <ul>\n <li>Questions that are primarily opinion-based</li>\n <li>Questions with too many possible answers or that would require an extremely long answer.</li>\n </ul>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Questions asking about best department to study a given field fell into both. In terms of close votes it is <strong>too broad</strong> or <strong>primarily opinion-based</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>For more general reading, <a href=\"http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/01/real-questions-have-answers/\">Real Questions Have Answers</a> from the StackExchange blog. In particular, polling questions are not seen well.</p>\n\n<p>Also, for recommendations (or even queries - i.e. when there is a list of objective answers, given a set of restrictions), in general it is tricky - see <a href=\"https://gaming.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1491/what-should-be-done-with-questions-asking-for-game-recommendations/\">What should be done with questions asking for game recommendations? - Gaming.SE aka Arqade</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <ul>\n <li>Close all game-recs unconditionally as shopping recommendation: 74</li>\n <li>Allow game-recs that are specific enough (withdrawn): 70</li>\n <li>Only allow game-recs with accessibility constraints: 42</li>\n <li>Unconditionally allow them: 41</li>\n </ul>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>(That is, initial policy, <em>Close all game-recs unconditionally as shopping recommendation</em>, <a href=\"https://gaming.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1493/12106\">has been withdrawn</a>.)</p>\n\n<p>However (IMHO), we should allow questions asking for how to search or ones where there answers are meta (pieces of advice on the search, links to listings/rankings/etc), e.g.:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/10688/\">How to search for graduate schools that have Masters in Complexity Science/Complex Systems?</a> </li>\n</ul>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/866", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 875, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Your answer received multiple flags from the community indicating it as <em>\"not an answer\"</em>, and was therefore deleted by a moderator. Indeed, your answer appeared more as a long comment, empathizing with the OP, rather than as an actual answer to the question, which is \"what to do in this situation?\". </p>\n\n<p>Academia.SE is a place for questions and answers, and although your answer would have some merit on a more traditional forum, it is not really a good fit for the format here. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 878, "author": "Pete L. Clark", "author_id": 938, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/938", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I found the OP's answer to the linked question to be interesting. I didn't understand all of it, and I didn't agree with every part of it that I understood, but overall it was one of the more thoughtful and thought-provoking answers I've encountered on the site.</p>\n\n<p>I am disappointed that your answer was deleted, especially on the grounds of being \"not an answer\". Of course it was an answer! Empathizing with the OP and giving extended advice about how other people may perceive his work and indeed his mental processes in a different way from his own is a very relevant and penetrating answer. To claim that this thoughtful post was \"not an answer\" is a bit insulting to Mr. Hayward. Maybe you don't agree with it; maybe you don't even think it will be helpful to the OP (though I think it could be); okay. But to think that it is not an answer is a distressingly bad faith position to take.</p>\n\n<p>I also want to point out a nuance in Charles' answer. He wrote:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Your answer received multiple flags from the community indicating it as \"not an answer\", and was therefore deleted accordingly. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This seems ambiguous to me. An answer which gets flagged enough times <em>by the community</em> will be automatically deleted, and then it can be undeleted by community members as well. But this is not what happened here. Rather, the answer was deleted by a moderator, with the effect that no community member can vote to undelete the answer. Thus I find the description of this as a community reaction a bit disingenuous. I also don't understand or agree why moderators need to act in this way to delete content. In my opinion moderators should only delete posts which are <em>really</em> not answers, e.g. \"Buy VIAGRA at this website\". </p>\n\n<p>I am also not sure that there has been complete honesty about why the answer was deleted. So many answers on this site primarily empathize with the OP and give bigger picture information rather than specific advice. If this is done well, such answers usually get upvoted, and in fact the vote count on this deleted answer is +2/-0. When I saw the answer deleted, my guess was that it had something to do with the Mr. Hayward's reference to something on a personal webpage. I didn't find this linking practice to be inappropriate myself but the idea that it might be seems more defensible than the actual reasons given for deletion. If that is the real reason, we should get it out in the open.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/874", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11992/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 883, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>What you've done here is probably the best way. The Stack Exchange sites are set up to answer questions, not really to share cool stuff across sites.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 884, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Meta is a good place to bring attention to interesting things. You could also link the discussion in chat. If you have an answerable question about the discussion that is relevant to academics you could ask that question on the main site.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/882", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/739/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 892, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>A few comments on the design so far:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>The \"medals\" icons should perhaps be closer to mortarboards, with gold, silver, and bronze tassels. </li>\n<li>I would personally prefer a somewhat more assertive font for the main body text. </li>\n<li>Because of the abovementioned mortarboards, standard black is also an appropriate \"academic-themed\" color—as are strong \"standard\" colors (blue, red, green, yellow, purple, etc.) in the \"hoods\" awarded to master's and doctoral degree recipients.</li>\n<li>The pen nibs are a little too reminiscent of the <a href=\"http://tex.stackexchange.com\">TeX SE site</a>.</li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 893, "author": "410 gone", "author_id": 96, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/96", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I find the question-page's low contrast quite tiring on the eyes. The question body text, and the \"share | edit Edited ...\" link text, aren't that comfortable to read.</p>\n\n<p>Oh, and the circle of buildings on some of the swag just looks weird.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 894, "author": "F'x", "author_id": 2700, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2700", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Thanks for the design… and soliciting feedback: it's not easy, and you'll sure get lot of helpful yet contradictory advice from all around…</p>\n\n<p>So, while trying to avoid the nefarious “design by committee” effect, here's some of my “gut reaction” to the look:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Very positive first reaction: elegant, clean design… calming effect</li>\n<li>My eyes first went to the buildings. They don't shock my as <em>odd</em> or <em>foreign</em> on the site's design, but <strong>I do not associate them spontaneously with “campus” buildings</strong>. Maybe because campuses all around have very different styles, and it's hard to draw a “universally recognized campus look”.</li>\n<li>Then I looked at the logo, and title font. Love both: nice logo, I immediately saw books; almost geometric font (academia, maths, geometric drawings), yet subtly rounded.</li>\n<li>Front page is well balanced, clear focus on the questions… however, the questions lists seems somewhat unbalanced to me: I wonder what was feeling <em>weird</em> about it, but I think it's 1. <strong>the large amount of vertical white space</strong>, 2. the fact that <strong>numbers</strong> (votes and views) <strong>are so much larger that the question title</strong> itself.</li>\n<li>Question page: not much to say, looks very good. I noticed a resemblance in “up and down” pen nibs with TeX site, but it doesn't bother me at all. Maybe one thing: the style of the “accepted” mark is a bit too geometric, or it's simply too large.</li>\n<li>One final detail: the gold/silver/bronze chevrons should be bolder, as they're not very visible as it.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Thanks again for your very nice work!</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 895, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I love it! The images, the fonts, the color palette. I particularly like the hint towards books in the site logo.</p>\n\n<p>My one suggestion has to do with the medals. Not sure how the open triangle shape fits with the theme, and the thin lines make it blend in. I agree partly with what was suggested above... I think the medals should be mortarboards, similar to what is shown <a href=\"http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1f393/index.htm\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">here</a>:</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/NDA1u.png\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></p>\n\n<p>I would suggest, though, to color the entire cap gold, silver, or bronze; the small icon size does do away with details. That being said, this sort of thing did work fairly well with the android community (see their little <a href=\"https://android.stackexchange.com/users/12442/dan-hulme\">android-themed medals</a>). I think we could do something similar here.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 896, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Very small point. I think of the clock tower as a quintessential icon of university campuses and in the design it captures my vision, which is a good thing. When the sky line is presented in a circular fashion the position of the clock tower at 2:00 invokes thoughts of the Mars gender symbol for males. I would suggest rotating the skyline so that the clock tower faces a different direction, maybe 10:00.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 897, "author": "Flyto", "author_id": 8394, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/8394", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I like it a lot. Thank you!</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>I especially like the \"fallen book\" logo.</li>\n<li>I think the colour scheme, font choices and text layout work really well, but I question the way that lines that are not the first line in a bulletted list item appear to lose the indent that the first line has (does that make sense?)</li>\n<li>I don't love the buildings, but I don't hate them either. There's a risk that trying to make them too \"college campus\" risks making them too twee and \"My idealised American undergrad experience\" ;-) I like the way that the logo and links are integrated vertically with the buildings picture, either side of the tower. Will this still work in narrow browser windows? (or more to the point, will it fail gracefully?)</li>\n<li>I don't like the nibs for the upvote and downvote buttons. There's no handwriting or fountain pen motif anywhere else in the design, and it seems to reflect a view of academia that is... perhaps archaic? As well as, as somebody else mentioned, being a tad reminiscent of tex.stackexchange. I don't have any bright ideas for what to use instead, though. (<em>maybe</em> the mortarboards? Not sure... maybe just arrow in a circle, to reflect the !-inna-circle that you have in the top right for \"Community bulletins\"?)</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Thanks again for all the work :-)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 898, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Thanks for the design, it looks quite neat! Just to echo what was said in other answers: </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>I like the mortarboards a lot for the badges. </li>\n<li>The colour theme and the logo are quite nice. </li>\n<li>The buildings do not really talk to me, they do not have a particular \"academic\" feeling, and although I think the idea of representing a campus is good, the current designs are a bit too neutral. But at the same time, I don't have any better idea. </li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 899, "author": "posdef", "author_id": 5674, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/5674", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>First off, thanks a lot for the work so far, it looks pretty amazing. A few comments: </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Love the color scheme, I certainly see the association with autumn, and semester start. I think it's pretty cool whether it was a design criteria or something that came up after you had an working concept already. </p></li>\n<li><p>Logo: The concept with the books and the simplified representation is clean, neat and will work fine in many context, my only concern is whether or not it resembles <a href=\"https://www.google.se/search?q=Ericsson%20logo%20-sony&amp;safe=off&amp;es_sm=91&amp;source=lnms&amp;tbm=isch&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=nCtNU5LDMcSR4ASwjIE4&amp;ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&amp;biw=1374&amp;bih=1009\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">the logo for the telecom company Ericsson</a>. Although the coloring and the orientation of the bars create enough distinction, so I suppose it's not an issue really.</p></li>\n<li><p>Logo text: I feel that the font used for 'ACADEMIA' is a bit weak when used side by side with the logo. The line height of the logo and the text is not the same, so that the text looks like the little sibling, both on height and weight. Considering that we are going with all caps I find it slightly disturbing geometrically. Maybe that's just me with my symmetry obsession. Did you consider experimenting with bolder fonts?</p></li>\n<li><p>Badges: I was going to suggest that the \"book\" resemblance with the badges wasn't really coming through, but many have already commented on it. I love the mortarboard concept! :) </p></li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/KDSU6.png\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Main page</a>: I agree with the previous assessments on the votes/answers are taking too much space in comparison with the title. Otherwise it's really nice</p></li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/zSLMh.png\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Question page</a>: I also agree with the criticism regarding the use of fountain pen illustrations for up/down-votes. It both resembles Tex.SE and lacks any direct connection with doing research (IMHO). Unfortunately I don't have a better suggestion at this point. I will get back to this answer, if I do come up with something.</p></li>\n<li><p>I have to mention that the general idea of a campus is a bit lost on me when I look at the main illustration. Despite being very crisp and elegant, I do not associate it with a campus, a university, or being a student/academic in any way. </p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Maybe an illustration with some items commonly used in academia could be a better fit? Some suggestions: a blackboard, a microscope, textbooks, computers...</p>\n\n<p>Overall great stuff, looking forward to the end product :)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 900, "author": "Suresh", "author_id": 346, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/346", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I have a thought regarding the up/down indicator. Since we spend most of our time grading, why not have a check mark for up, and an X for down. For an accepted answer (which used to have a check mark), we could instead use a gold star. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 910, "author": "Jeromy Anglim", "author_id": 62, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/62", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Great work. A few small suggestions:</p>\n\n<p><strong>Reduce the vertical space taken up by each question</strong> on question listing pages. It seems that currently (24th April 2014; only about half the number of questions can fit on the screen as beta sites or stack overflow. Perhaps the vertical white space could be dramatically reduced. This is important when you want to quickly scan questions.</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/MhvlN.png\" alt=\"enter image description here\"> <img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/fgMAF.png\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></p>\n\n<p><strong>Increase contrast in between followed and not followed links</strong>. See for example the following two links. The bottom one I have followed; the top one I have not followed.\n<img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/2XWBp.png\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 925, "author": "David Richerby", "author_id": 10685, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/10685", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Overall, I like the look a lot. One criticism: in the related questions list, the white question score on a pale grey background is almost impossible to read.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 926, "author": "Suresh", "author_id": 346, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/346", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Is there a way to increase the contrast between the text and background ? or use a darker shade of gray ? Maybe it's my (not-yet-!!)-old eyes, or maybe others have the same problem ? </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 936, "author": "Raphael", "author_id": 1419, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/1419", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I just noticed a layout bug (?) on FF 26.0 (running Ubuntu):</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/4RNkZ.png\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></p>\n\n<p>The green box indicating an accepted answer is badly positioned; the text should be vertically centered:</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/hiUwR.png\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></p>\n\n<p>I notice that your screenshots above look more like this than the bad one above, so maybe it's a platform-specific thing?</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1549, "author": "Cape Code", "author_id": 10643, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/10643", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I suspect the discussion over the design is over, but if it's not I personally find the yellow-ish highlighting of quoted text quite unpleasant. I understand it's part of the color theme, but I think it's esthetically sub-optimal in this context.</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/eLh9K.png\" alt=\"quotation example\"></p>\n\n<p>Alternatively, we could use a larger indent, a smaller font and quotation chevrons.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/891", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/10587/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 908, "author": "Grace Note", "author_id": 72, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/72", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"https://twitter.com/StackAcademia\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/fzfxu.png\" alt=\"Help this community grow -- follow us on twitter!\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 909, "author": "F'x", "author_id": 2700, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2700", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/3eT2R.png\" alt=\"Chemistry - Stack Exchange\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 911, "author": "user31782", "author_id": 13359, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13359", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"https://archive.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.imgur.com/Wz9cLQB.png\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></a> </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 912, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://phdcomics.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/Z06qs.png\" alt=\"PHD Comics\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 931, "author": "Mangara", "author_id": 8185, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/8185", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://arxiv.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/2G8JO.png\" alt=\"arXiv.org -- Open access to over 900,000 e-prints!\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 974, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"https://okfn.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/QUz6C.png\" alt=\"Open Knowledge Foundation - see how can change the world\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 978, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://opensciencefederation.com\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/WplS3.png\" alt=\"Open Science Federation\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 980, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"https://archive.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/n4PMq.png\" alt=\"Internet Archive\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1045, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"https://archive.org/web/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/PXirF.png\" alt=\"Internet Archive WaybackMachine\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1046, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://arxiv.org\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/VoMdO.png\" alt=\"arXiv.org: the biggest open-access e-print repository for maths and physics\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1124, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://expatriates.stackexchange.com\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/smddc.png\" alt=\"Expats.SE\" /></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1125, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"https://scirate.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/LyjNt.png\" alt=\"SciRate\" /></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1186, "author": "E.P.", "author_id": 820, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/820", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/sbgse.png\" alt=\"PMC is a free full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the U.S. National Institutes of Health&#39;s National Library of Medicine\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1187, "author": "E.P.", "author_id": 820, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/820", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://europepmc.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/09K85.png\" alt=\"Europe PubMed Central: a free information resource for biomedical and health researchers\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1188, "author": "E.P.", "author_id": 820, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/820", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://cogprints.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZHVTa.png\" alt=\"Electronic archive for self-archive papers in any area of Psychology, Neuroscience, Linguistics, and any sciences pertinent to the study of cognition\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1189, "author": "E.P.", "author_id": 820, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/820", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/MS94u.png\" alt=\"Explore the Creative Commons licenses for your Open Access content\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1190, "author": "E.P.", "author_id": 820, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/820", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://www.zotero.org\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/LSRYV.png\" alt=\"Zotero reference manager: free and open source\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1191, "author": "E.P.", "author_id": 820, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/820", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://www.qiqqa.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/z9tAx.png\" alt=\"Qiqqa: Essential software for PDF and research management\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1199, "author": "E.P.", "author_id": 820, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/820", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"https://stackedit.io\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/92jtF.png\" alt=\"StackEdit\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1238, "author": "soliton", "author_id": 21790, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/21790", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://arxitics.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/xvnEG.png\" alt=\"arXiv Analytics: another web portal dedicated to reading &amp; discussing arXiv eprints\"></a></p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/907", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/72/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 908, "author": "Grace Note", "author_id": 72, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/72", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"https://twitter.com/StackAcademia\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/fzfxu.png\" alt=\"Help this community grow -- follow us on twitter!\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 909, "author": "F'x", "author_id": 2700, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2700", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/3eT2R.png\" alt=\"Chemistry - Stack Exchange\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 911, "author": "user31782", "author_id": 13359, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13359", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"https://archive.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.imgur.com/Wz9cLQB.png\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></a> </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 912, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://phdcomics.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/Z06qs.png\" alt=\"PHD Comics\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 931, "author": "Mangara", "author_id": 8185, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/8185", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://arxiv.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/2G8JO.png\" alt=\"arXiv.org -- Open access to over 900,000 e-prints!\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 974, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"https://okfn.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/QUz6C.png\" alt=\"Open Knowledge Foundation - see how can change the world\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 978, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://opensciencefederation.com\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/WplS3.png\" alt=\"Open Science Federation\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 980, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"https://archive.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/n4PMq.png\" alt=\"Internet Archive\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1045, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"https://archive.org/web/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/PXirF.png\" alt=\"Internet Archive WaybackMachine\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1046, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://arxiv.org\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/VoMdO.png\" alt=\"arXiv.org: the biggest open-access e-print repository for maths and physics\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1124, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://expatriates.stackexchange.com\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/smddc.png\" alt=\"Expats.SE\" /></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1125, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"https://scirate.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/LyjNt.png\" alt=\"SciRate\" /></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1186, "author": "E.P.", "author_id": 820, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/820", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/sbgse.png\" alt=\"PMC is a free full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the U.S. National Institutes of Health&#39;s National Library of Medicine\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1187, "author": "E.P.", "author_id": 820, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/820", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://europepmc.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/09K85.png\" alt=\"Europe PubMed Central: a free information resource for biomedical and health researchers\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1188, "author": "E.P.", "author_id": 820, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/820", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://cogprints.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZHVTa.png\" alt=\"Electronic archive for self-archive papers in any area of Psychology, Neuroscience, Linguistics, and any sciences pertinent to the study of cognition\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1189, "author": "E.P.", "author_id": 820, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/820", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/MS94u.png\" alt=\"Explore the Creative Commons licenses for your Open Access content\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1190, "author": "E.P.", "author_id": 820, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/820", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://www.zotero.org\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/LSRYV.png\" alt=\"Zotero reference manager: free and open source\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1191, "author": "E.P.", "author_id": 820, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/820", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://www.qiqqa.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/z9tAx.png\" alt=\"Qiqqa: Essential software for PDF and research management\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1199, "author": "E.P.", "author_id": 820, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/820", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"https://stackedit.io\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/92jtF.png\" alt=\"StackEdit\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1238, "author": "soliton", "author_id": 21790, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/21790", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://arxitics.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/xvnEG.png\" alt=\"arXiv Analytics: another web portal dedicated to reading &amp; discussing arXiv eprints\"></a></p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/914", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/5674/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 918, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Not sure what power users get to see. I know moderators have the ability to migrate anywhere on SE. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 919, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I don't think this is planned. I know I put in a <a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/96205/more-options-when-flagging-for-migration/110996#110996\">feature request for this a long time ago</a>, but it was closed as <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/status-declined\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;status-declined&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">status-declined</a>. So, I'm thinking not.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 920, "author": "Mad Scientist", "author_id": 201, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/201", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Unless it is very obvious, each migration path is typically discussed separately. SE also requires in most cases that there is already a bit of a history of successful mod migrations to that specific site before enabling a path for community migrations.</p>\n\n<p>So I'd start by looking at the migration statistics, I think only mods can see those, and see if there are any sites where a migration path might be useful. Then you can post a feature request and ask someone from SE to take a look at it.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 921, "author": "F'x", "author_id": 2700, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2700", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>To give some insight into why this probably isn't needed (at least right now): <strong>we have very few migrations, and they are “all over the place”</strong>. Among 20 questions migrated (away from Academia) for the last 3 months, the most common target was <a href=\"http://stats.stackexchange.com\">CrossValidated</a>, and it accounted for only 3 migrations. Then we have our own Meta site (2), then all other sites have had only one (successful) migration. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/917", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/346/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 941, "author": "Fomite", "author_id": 118, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/118", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'm noticing it too, and would like some better/bolder visual seperation - I was comparing this site to CrossValidated, now that I've had some time to use the new site design extensively, and I am noticing that the \"beige on slightly lighter beige\" color scheme, while soothing, is letting my eye slide down the page without registering a transition from Question to Answer, and between answers.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 968, "author": "Sam", "author_id": 13778, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13778", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>An alternative to reinforcing the visual divider (making it bold would do wonders) would be to have the questions and answers alternate between white and perhaps the beige in the logo/header bar. Optionally the question itself could have a 3rd distinct colour. This makes delineation (e.g. whether you are reading a very long question/comment string or the start of an answer) immediately visually obvious.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/922", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/7746/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 928, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There might be a correct answer, which might not necessarily but absolutely true, but which might at least quote enough literature on the topic. The problem of student engagement is not particularly new, and is probably well documented. There might even be several, conflicting, correct answers. </p>\n\n<p>Now, what should we do with answers of the form \"<em>I tried that, and it (didn't) work</em>\" or \"<em>I think that this should be the right approach because that's how I like it</em>\"? That's a good question, I don't really know. The problem has been already raised in <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/603/evidence-based-answers\">Evidence based answers</a> or <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/12/dealing-with-in-my-experience-answers\">Dealing with &quot;In my experience...&quot; answers</a>. </p>\n\n<p>Personally, I tend not to up vote answers that do not provide any sound/motivated/justified argument, regardless of whether I agree with them. But as a moderator, I wouldn't necessarily delete such answers (although I might transform an answer into a comment, if the community asks for it). Similarly, I wouldn't close the question, but I wouldn't reopen it either (so basically, I wouldn't act as a moderator on it). </p>\n\n<p>Perhaps a constructive approach would be to at least edit the question to remove the part asking for \"<em>what do you think about that?</em>\" and replace it \"<em>do you have any objective references on the topic?</em>\". </p>\n\n<p>I think this is an important question, especially now that we have graduated. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 939, "author": "Fomite", "author_id": 118, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/118", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This is something I've struggled with, because outside of the occasional \"Philosophy of Data Analysis\" questions that crop up on CrossValidated, there's usually <em>a</em> way to critically evaluate answers, and I think Programmers deals with things...a little too harshly. Especially given we're a new site, I'd like to see a slight bias towards helpfulness and traffic.</p>\n\n<p>I think it's probably most useful to flag and comment such questions if they <em>can</em> be tuned towards more specific answers - for example, \"What are some of the pitfalls of X method\" instead of just \"Should I use X?\"</p>\n\n<p>If they can't? I think there's a valid question about whether or not to keep useful but inherently subjective questions open. They seem like prime candidates for something like Community Wiki and, like Charles, I'd seriously encourage folks to vote for the answers that have grounding behind them.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/927", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/5674/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 934, "author": "JRN", "author_id": 64, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/64", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Under what conditions will you delete comments?</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 935, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>How will you use your \"binding vote\" moderator privileges?</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Let the community weigh in first on most close, reopen, delete, undelete, etc. operations. That is, I won't use diamond mod privileges to <em>unilaterally</em> perform operations that can be done by the community (with a few very rare exceptions).</li>\n<li>Let the community decide on things that could conceivably be subjective, but for things that are definitely not going to be controversial (e.g. closing a question on \"Why doesn't this code compile\") I will use diamond mod privileges. Why prolong the inevitable?</li>\n<li>Vote as if I was a normal user. That is, I'll vote to close/delete/open/etc. according to my understanding of how this site works, without much special consideration for the fact that my votes are binding.</li>\n<li>Use diamond mod privileges deliberately to keep the direction of the site on track. I have an idea of what this site is all about and I was elected because others agree with this idea, now it's my job to enact it.</li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 944, "author": "Fomite", "author_id": 118, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/118", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>How would you moderate postings where your opinion or the community's opinion and official SE policy disagree?</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 945, "author": "Fomite", "author_id": 118, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/118", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>What change would you like to make in how the site is currently moderated, and how would you go about implementing that change?</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 946, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>A user posts something you find (off-topic/wrong/offensive) and you (close/delete/migrate) the (question/comment). The user posts about it in Meta and the post gets a lot of upvotes. Answers are posted both in favor of you action and and criticising your action; both get upvotes. How do you decide what to do next?</p>\n\n<p>(In case you're wondering, yes, this happens all the time.)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 947, "author": "Nobody", "author_id": 546, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/546", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>What is your time zone? What is the time period you are available for moderating our site everyday? Please specify the answer in UTC format.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 963, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>A quite specific question: <strong>what is your position with respect to undergraduate questions?</strong></p>\n\n<p>A significant part of my moderator actions have been to arbitrate if a question was on-topic or not, because it was somehow related to undergraduate studies. It can often be argued that some questions can however easily generalise to graduate studies, which would make them on topic. So, what is your position: </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Anything related to undergraduate should be off-topic. If a question can be generalised, then it should be generalised first, and then it can be made on-topic. </p></li>\n<li><p>Anything related to academia should be on topic, regardless of the level of studies. Other factors should decide if the question should be closed or not (too localised, too broad, subjective, etc). </p></li>\n<li><p>Undergraduate questions could be on topic, but \"shopping-list\" questions are not (e.g., \"which degree should I choose?\", \"which university should I go to?\"). </p></li>\n<li><p>Any other position. </p></li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 964, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>What is your position on the <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/796/102\">following statement from aeismail</a>: <strong>\"In the long run, Stack Exchange sites are not just about answering people's questions, but providing long-term curating of the answers\"</strong>? </p>\n\n<p>We have some very active users who look at old questions/answers, and curate them, for instance by flagging for comment removal (typically because they are obsolete, too chatty, not constructive, etc). Will you support them in this task? Or do you rather think that content should be left unchanged as much as possible? </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 965, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>What is your position on <a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/14486\">boat programming</a> questions?</strong></p>\n\n<p>Whereas some questions are clearly off-topic (e.g. \"what is 2+2?\"), some questions could be on topic, in that they are related to academia, but Ac.SE might not be the <em>best place</em> for the question. We have had several complex situations where a question could technically be asked on different sites, with some users asking for migration, while others asking for the question to stay. In such a situation, what would you do? (especially considering that only mods can migrate questions). </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>If it's not 100% academia-related, then it should be migrated. </li>\n<li>As long as it is academia-related, it could stay. </li>\n<li>I'll wait for the question to be closed to decide whether to migrate it or not. </li>\n<li>I'll migrate it only if the OP wants to. </li>\n<li>Other approaches? </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p><strong>EDIT</strong></p>\n\n<p>As suggested by aeismail, some examples of questions (for which I don't think there is necessarily a right or wrong decision): </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p><a href=\"https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/49395/representing-experimental-data\">https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/49395/representing-experimental-data</a> was migrated to CrossValidated. The point is made in the comments that it is relevant to many academics, and the question on <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17533/grid-lines-on-graphs\">Grid lines on graphs</a> was not closed as off-topic.</p></li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/24046/carrying-poster-tube-on-amtrak-trains\">https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/24046/carrying-poster-tube-on-amtrak-trains</a> was migrated to travel.SE (by me, actually, under request), while <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2448/flying-with-a-poster-tube-as-a-hand-luggage\">Flying with a poster tube as a hand luggage</a> was deemed on topic. </p></li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/99886/is-et-al-used-as-a-singular-or-plural-subject\">https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/99886/is-et-al-used-as-a-singular-or-plural-subject</a> (on how <em>et al.</em>) was migrated to ELU, while a question about the formatting of citations <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/12703/what-does-year-nnff-means-in-research-papers-eg-1965-47ff/12705#12705\">What does YEAR: NNff means in research papers? eg 1965: 47ff</a> was not closed.</p></li>\n<li><p>As mentioned <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/459/workplace-se-and-boat-programming-questions\">here</a>, <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9104/is-it-more-difficult-for-teetotalers-to-develop-academic-contacts\">Is it more difficult for teetotalers to develop academic contacts?</a> received some closing votes and comments to migrate it to WorkPlace.SE, but stayed on. </p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I think that in general, we have many intersections with, e.g., WorkPlace (is working in Academia that specific?), ELU (is writing an academic paper that specific?), CrossValidated (many academics use stats for work), etc. </p>\n\n<p>Some of the questions could have been migrated, some could have stayed, it probably wouldn't have been a problem. But a significant responsibility of the moderator is to arbitrate the migration, and since there is no strict on/off-topic line, it would be good to know on which side of the line our moderation team is. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 967, "author": "Fomite", "author_id": 118, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/118", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>What activities on the site suggest that you would be a good moderator? If you are currently a moderator, do you believe you've carried out the role effectively?</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 986, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>What should be done with the popular <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/975/dont-walk-dont-run-either\">\"<strong>Don't walk. Run.</strong>\"</a> comment that shows up on questions. If a user begins systematically flagging the comment as \"non-constructive\" what will you do?</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/932", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/72/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1029, "author": "Suresh", "author_id": 346, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/346", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It seems like we have four winners ! Congratulations to aeismail, eykanal, ff524 and StrongBad (if I ran the correct algorithm for determining the results)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1031, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>For those who are interested, here is a visualization of the raw votes:</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/TZOg7.png\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></p>\n\n<p>(Thanks to our friends over at <a href=\"https://stats.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1804/41284\">Stats.SE</a>)</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/933", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 938, "author": "Fomite", "author_id": 118, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/118", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I don't have that option either - the closest thing I can see to it is just \"It needs moderator attention\".</p>\n\n<p>It would be nice to have either a close vote or flagging option for that. I personally find \"this is too hard to render into a non-single use question\" much more common than \"Too Broad\" as a reason I want to see things closed or edited.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 940, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>\"Difficult to generalize\" is now found under the Flag option by selecting \"another reason,\" then \"off-topic.\" It's a bit buried, but now you have more options to choose from.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/937", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/10643/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 951, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Not sure who the \"we\" is in your question. Assuming you're referring to people who answer questions on this site...</p>\n\n<p>In answering questions, \"we\" are trying to provide hints as to how the student/advisor relationship <em>should</em> work. Is that idealized? Yes, and intentionally so. In most cases, the question is asking whether the behavior is normal (\"ideal\") or abnormal (\"not ideal\"), and the answer provide that clarification.</p>\n\n<p>The comment you quoted, though, suggests that \"we\" intentionally avoid posting any criticism of academia and/or academics. This is far from the case, as can be seen by simply browsing the front page at any given day. Many academics are wonderful people, and many are absolute jerks, just like in any other environment. If the commenter has a problem with a specific question, they can definitely bring it to our attention via flags or posting here on meta, but the general accusation seems unfounded (to me, at least).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 952, "author": "F'x", "author_id": 2700, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2700", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I don't think so… while some questions &amp; answers deal with <em>“what should happen in this situation”</em> (theoretical and ideal workings of academia), the site also abounds with questions on real life in academia, the system's shortcomings, how to handle them, etc.</p>\n\n<p>To be more specific, and follow your example: we have plenty of useful questions and answers on how to behave in certain specific situations which are very far from the norm (crappy colleagues, cheating students, unhelpful supervisors, professors that try to evict you from the university, ethical shortcomings and utter failures, etc.).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 953, "author": "Fomite", "author_id": 118, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/118", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>To echo the sentiments of other posters, I don't think we're presenting an idealized view of academia - and indeed, regularly acknowledging that academia is full of petty nonsense and bad behavior.</p>\n\n<p>What are <em>are</em> often presenting in answers to \"What should I do...\" questions is a general stance that abuse, exploitation and poor mentorship are not normalized behaviors that, if someone is experiencing, they should just accept as their fate.</p>\n\n<p>I don't think that's a bad thing.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 955, "author": "Mangara", "author_id": 8185, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/8185", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>When someone comes here to ask for advice in dealing with others, it often falls into one of two cases:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Everyone acted in good faith, but due to miscommunication or other circumstances, problems arose.</li>\n<li>Someone acted in bad faith and caused problems.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>While Case 2 does happen from time to time, the large majority of answers here address Case 1 (the 'idealised' scenario). There are good reasons for this:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>For someone answering the question, these two cases are nearly indistinguishable. The questioner is usually the 'wronged' party and as such naturally biased, so even if the questioner is convinced that others are acting in bad faith, this is not necessarily true. In fact, the easiest way to discover that the problem is in Case 2, is to try and apply the Case 1 solution.</li>\n<li>The appropriate response to Case 2 is typically to escalate the problem by appealing to a higher authority, or to get out of the situation altogether <em>(Don't walk. Run.)</em>. This should be a last resort, as it can easily burn bridges.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>As such, I think that yes, most answers present a somewhat idealised view of academia, but that's because it results in <em>better answers</em>.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 956, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think that sometimes \"we\" do.</p>\n\n<p>I do understand very well that some people may have not met certain problems (either they had careless personal experience or their faculty or group didn't have such problem). But it does not mean that they are non-existing.</p>\n\n<p>Similarly, if someone has issues with advisor (I know little people who have none... every relationship has its own problems) I dislike answers implying that advisor does and wants the best. Sure, some of the answerers are great advisors but it does not yet mean that it is true for all others.</p>\n\n<p>There are many very symptomatic answers (or comments), of the form <em>\"Just ask your advisor.\"</em>. Well, I guess if it were the case this site would not be needed that much. </p>\n\n<p>Or another short example: <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/20419/49\">https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/20419/49</a>. You had great PhD experience? Great! All of your friends as well? Great! But it does not imply that it is true for everyone.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 958, "author": "xLeitix", "author_id": 10094, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/10094", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Chiming in on my own question after reading previous answers and giving this a bit more thought.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Are we in fact presenting an idealised view of academia?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I think we do. Don't get me wrong, most of what is posted here is fully accurate, but I do think there are some neuralgic topics on which the general opinion here seems to be much more optimistic than my honest impression of the reality:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Advisors generally have the best for the candidate in mind</li>\n<li>Researchers generally are really concerned about research ethics</li>\n<li>The chances that certain applicants have in the gradudate school / postdoc / tenure track market</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>The reasons for this may be three-fold. </p>\n\n<p>Firstly, I would argue that people that made terrible experiences in academia are by and large underrepresented among our top posters, simply because those people usually <em>leave</em> academia pretty quickly. The people that stay (and choose to engage in a network like academia.SE) are the ones that have not been burned by terrible advisors or some such. That does not mean that counterexamples are rare out there.</p>\n\n<p>Secondly, at least for myself, I can certainly see that I am sometimes posting how I would <em>want</em> the academic world to work, and not how it always presents itself. It is hard to admit that, e.g., in my work life, the question of who becomes a co-author often has much more to do with politics than the absolute merit of contributions.</p>\n\n<p>Thirdly, I think the more theoretical fields (maths, theoretical CS, etc.) are a bit overrepresented here, and I <em>think</em> that hard reality in these fields approximates the academic ideal more closely than, e.g., in applied CS.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>If so, is this a good or a bad thing?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I have thought long and hard about that, and I tend to agree with Fomite, Mangara and others that this is in fact <strong>not a bad thing</strong> in itself, at least as long as it does not lead to actively bad advice. In the end, there is no point in by default assuming that something abusive or unethical is happening whenever somebody comes for advice, as, in all of these cases, the suggestion will be the same (JeffE's trademark <strong>Don't Walk. Run.</strong>). </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 959, "author": "Suresh", "author_id": 346, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/346", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In my time in grad school and beyond, I've seen my share of strife and suffering, to the point where even though I've been lucky enough not to struggle too greatly myself, I can appreciate (if not necessarily empathize) with people having troubles. </p>\n\n<p>Therefore when I answer, I try to distinguish as far as possible</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>what we would all like to happen</li>\n<li>what typically happens </li>\n<li>what should NOT happen under any circumstances (even if it's sadly not rare)</li>\n<li>what is completely abnormal. </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>And in all cases, the evidence presented for the actual situation should be more important than abstract principles, mainly because every situation is different in important ways, and concrete evidence should carry weight. </p>\n\n<p>Coming now to the actual cases, </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>The first element is not so much idealized as wishful thinking (\"I wish my advisor would give me research problems all ready to solve\") or (\"I wish my advisor behaved like a rational robot all the time\") and so on. </p></li>\n<li><p>The second element is the one most susceptible to bias, in that we're talking about what we <strong>think</strong> is the typical case, and as I've discovered, different communities have very different notions of <strong>typical</strong>, and that's a good thing to be aware of. In that sense, I've learnt a lot. </p></li>\n<li><p>The third and fourth elements are very important though especially for students going through something relatively alone. It's very important that there are people who can tell them that a situation is just wrong as opposed to being \"normal\", and I think we can fairly do that even if these wrong situations are not unusual. Pointing that out isn't presenting an idealized view but is identifying (a) dysfunction and (b) ways to \"<strong>Run, don't walk</strong>\". </p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Ultimately many of us on this site are academics. We wouldn't be in academia if we didn't at some level perceive value in the profession we're in, and so we can't help but take a rosier view of things. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 970, "author": "Faheem Mitha", "author_id": 285, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/285", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'm not sure who the \"we\" is in the question. There are broadly two categories of people on this site, namely senior people (faculty) and junior people (postdocs and students).</p>\n\n<p>A lot of questions here seem to be by students and post-docs who have problems with their advisors and P.I.s. Often these problems seem quite major. It is difficult to draw any conclusions from this, however, since the people writing this are after all self-selecting, and may not be representative. (After all, junior people relatively rarely write to talk about how wonderful their advisors are, and how well things are going.)\nOne hopes such questions are not representative, of course. In any case, it is possible one gets a worse than actual view of how bad academia is from more junior people. </p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, I think perhaps the senior researchers have a better than average view of how good academia is. For at least a couple of reasons.</p>\n\n<p>First. senior academics are people for who things, in general, have gone well much of the way. Maybe there has been some bad stuff, but not much. My observation has been that in academia, partly because it is quite stratified and hierarchical, that it can be difficult to recover from bad things. If you have a couple or more bad things happen, it can easily seriously jeopardise your chances of a good career. For the obvious reasons, because bad things makes the probability of more bad things in the future, and conversely good things happening make the probability of more good things happening in the future. Of course, this is true of life in general, but in academia, in my experience, it is particularly true. You are expected to be in a particular place at a particular time in your life, given certain educational attainments, and people are intolerant if you are not. In any case, people who have had a reasonably good time in a system tend to think the system works well, because it worked well for them.</p>\n\n<p>Second, the senior people who post here are, sort of again by a process of self-selection, not your typical academic. Typical senior academics typically don't spend time on a question/answer site about academics. Virtually all senior academics I've known would have fainted dead away with surprise at the suggestion that they do so. For lack of a better word, I think the senior academics here are \"nicer\" than average. Therefore, I think there is a tendency for them to think the better of the academic world in which they reside. Basically, they tend to think other academic people are nice too. Maybe because the other academics they choose to associate with are also reasonable, functional, people? I know this is a bit speculative, but I think I have observed this phenomenon on this site.</p>\n\n<p>I don't think that presenting a unrealistic or distorted view of academia is a good thing, of course, but I think some distortion in inevitable, if only for the reasons I mentioned.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1526, "author": "Ben Bitdiddle", "author_id": 24384, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/24384", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think this will always be a problem as long as most top-ranked users link to their department website in their bios. Most academics don't want their colleagues reading their controversial, academia-related posts, so they keep their posts idealized and benign.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/949", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/10094/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 957, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>On Stack Exchange sites <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reference-request\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;reference-request&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">reference-request</a> has the first meaning. I think that it should have the same meaning on Academia.SE.</p>\n\n<p>See:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://mathoverflow.net/questions/tagged/reference-request\">https://mathoverflow.net/questions/tagged/reference-request</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://cs.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reference-request\">https://cs.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reference-request</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>So for reference letters, why not <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reference-letters\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;reference-letters&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">reference-letters</a>?</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 961, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>As I have said <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/645/vote-on-tag-synonyms/678#678\">before</a> I agree that <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reference-request\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;reference-request&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">reference-request</a> and <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/references\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;references&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">references</a> have split personalities and needs to be cleaned up. When I looked in the past the questions pretty cleanly fell into <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/recommendation-letter\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;recommendation-letter&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">recommendation-letter</a> and <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/citations\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;citations&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">citations</a>.</p>\n\n<p>Despite the meaning of <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reference-request\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;reference-request&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">reference-request</a> on other SE sites, I think we should either blacklist <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reference-request\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;reference-request&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">reference-request</a> and <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/references\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;references&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">references</a> (which is pretty extreme or make them synonyms of either <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/recommendation-letter\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;recommendation-letter&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">recommendation-letter</a> and <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/citations\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;citations&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">citations</a> since it is ambiguous here. Being a synonym of <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/citations\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;citations&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">citations</a> would be more consistent with other SE sites, but I am not sure that is how we use it now. Maybe doing a count of the question before re tagging them would be useful to get a feel for how the tag is being used.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/954", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/118/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 976, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Actually, \"don't walk—run\" is a shorthand for a different situation, in my opinion:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"Don't walk. Run.\" is a signal that the questioner is in a situation where the status quo is completely unsustainable.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Such situations are usually ones where things have deteriorated to the point where leaving is likely a better option than just \"toughing things out.\"</p>\n\n<p>So perhaps a little bit of caution is in order before using the line, but I wouldn't say it is always unacceptable.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 977, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Initially I liked the <strong>Don't walk. Run!</strong> line. However, it may be more fun as an inside joke for the Academia.SE community than for the person who is experiencing the problem.</p>\n\n<p>Imagine when an already confused student or young researcher gets such comment. Is it that helpful and actionable? Especially as academic market is not very flexible and typically you can't start a new position the next day (or have savings to get you past unemployment). Also, as recommendation letters are crucial, in many cases enduring outright mistreatment might be \"the lesser evil\" to burning bridges. (I don't say it should work that way, but we are <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/949/are-we-presenting-an-idealised-view-of-academia\">dealing with real, not idealized, academia</a>.)</p>\n\n<p>So for <strong>Don't walk. Run!</strong> (for anything below an advisor asking a student for their kidney) now my immediate though is <strong>Great! But how and where?</strong>.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 979, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I read <strong>\"Don't walk. Run.\"</strong> as an acknowledgement that the difficult situation described in the question is drastically wrong and needs to be addressed quickly. As the answers to the questions often eventually point out, the correct \"answer\" is rarely to quit then and there. The key to the <strong>\"Don't walk. Run.\"</strong> meme is that it is saying: your interpretation is correct and there is a problem you need to go talk to a trusted colleague NOW instead of waiting for answers (but it is using a lot less words).</p>\n\n<p>Now the question becomes how do new users who are potentially inexperienced academics interpret a highly up voted <strong>\"Don't walk. Run.\"</strong> If they are quitting their jobs, we have a problem, but if they are seeing it as encouraging comment then it is serving its purpose. As I have never seen an OP question the meme, I don't think we have a problem.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 981, "author": "Christian Clason", "author_id": 13852, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13852", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I've always understood it to mean \"Don't walk <em>to wherever you need to go to deal with this</em>, run!\", i.e., a pithy way of stressing the urgency of the situation; it was only by reading this question that I became aware of the possible interpretation of \"Don't walk out, run away!\"</p>\n\n<p>Now, internet communication is a narrow-bandwidth medium, internet comments doubly so; hence that subtlety might get lost. I think having this discussion is already quite helpful -- now whenever JeffE leaves his trademark comment, and someone is afraid that it can be misunderstood, they can give a link to this Meta post explaining the implied (or to be inferred) meaning and demonstrating that it's not (just) a snarky comment.</p>\n\n<p>(Being able to give a link to an accepted consensus answer as a sort of FAQ entry would be even better.)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 982, "author": "410 gone", "author_id": 96, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/96", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It's not a constructive comment: i.e. it doesn't seek clarification on the question.</p>\n\n<p>So when you see it, flag it as non-constructive.</p>\n\n<p>This should get the comment deleted, when the flag is reviewed. Comments are ephemeral here (just as across almost all Stack Exchange sites), and need little reason for deletion. A single flag prompting it should, in almost all cases, be sufficient.</p>\n\n<p>If your flags get declined, then come back to meta and post about it, and we'll discuss moderation policy.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 985, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I agree with aeismail's answer, in that <em>\"Don't walk. Run.\"</em> somehow indicates that if you've reached this point, the problem is unlikely to be fixed. </p>\n\n<p>However, a disclaimer I'd like to add on the site: </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><strong>Don't follow advice from strangers on the Internet</strong></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I think Ac.SE should be seen not as a place to get advice, but as a place to receive objective answers. Most questions where Jeff's catchphrase applies usually correspond to bad/dysfunctional relationships between advisor and advisee. </p>\n\n<p>Of course, the problem can be cultural (<em>that's just the way we do it here</em>) and there can be strong constraints (<em>I have invested so much, I cannot leave now</em>), but I honestly think that in such cases, there is no good answer from strangers on the Internet. We should probably have a template answer: <em>Talk to you advisor; Talk to a mentor; Talk to the administration; Talk to colleagues; Talk to a lawyer; Talk to a psychologist/therapist; Talk to your family and friends; Talk to anybody who has a good understanding of the particular situation you are in. Don't listen to people who are 10.000km from you, in a different system and a different culture.</em></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 989, "author": "JeffE", "author_id": 65, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/65", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I use the response \"Don't walk. Run.\" to mean exactly two things, neither of which is intended as a joke.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p><strong>You are being abused. Get out now.</strong> Further engagement will only hurt you more. Seek professional (and possibly legal) help, but from a safe distance, after you extract yourself.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Your relationship with your advisor/colleague/department is broken beyond repair.</strong> The situation has progressed beyond the point where it can be salvaged. Further engagement will not be productive, and may do you permanent professional harm.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>In retrospect, I really should distinguish between these two responses, and I will certainly be more careful in the future. The latter is probably better summarized as \"<strong>Walk away.</strong>\"</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I sometimes find it uncomfortable</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Good. It is uncomfortable.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>There was another example I can't find right now where a student mentioned that in their school, they require the permission of their supervisor to publish. This was met with \"Don't walk. Run\" from JeffE which seemed entirely inappropriate.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I stand by my response. Forbidding researchers (students or otherwise) to publish without their supervisor's permission, in an academic environment, is unethical bordering on abusive. Of course, research should only be published with the agreement of all <em>contributors</em> (or as they are usually known after publication, <em>coauthors</em>), and it's entirely appropriate for equipment owners to restrict access to their research equipment, but those are completely separate issues. If your students' poor-quality publications are sullying the reputation of your department, it's your responsibility to mentor and reward them more effectively, not lock them up.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Folks using this meme should have some respect for the fact that they're advising another human being to quit their job/studies ... and they should keep in mind that they are simultaneously communicating with thousands of vulnerable people from a variety of areas who see such questions and who might project themselves as being in similar situations.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This is absolutely correct. I am indeed advising another human being to quit their job, leave their department, or at least find a new advisor. And I am communicating that message to thousands to vulnerable people who might believe themselves to be in similar situations. Which is <strong>exactly</strong> why I give that answer.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1731, "author": "299792458", "author_id": 17534, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/17534", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I know this is old, but I'll focus on OP's last paragraph, and propose a work around. </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Folks using this meme should have some respect for the fact that they're advising another human being to quit their job/studies ... and they should keep in mind that they are simultaneously communicating with thousands of vulnerable people from a variety of areas who see such questions and who might project themselves as being in similar situations.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I agree that the meme doesn't become clear right away to total newbie's on the site. It takes a while to get acquainted. And while <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/989/17534\">Jeff is not aiming to patronize, his remark his well intended</a>, it can potentially be misread. </p>\n\n<p>The easiest resolution is to post <em>Don't Walk, Run</em>, as <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/q/975/17534\"><em>Don't Walk, Run</em></a>, i.e. link to this post. </p>\n\n<p>This will serve three purposes at once: </p>\n\n<p>1 The meme doesn't get killed.</p>\n\n<p>2 The context and underlying intention becomes clear even to first timers.</p>\n\n<p>3 Possibility of anyone taking offense gets eliminated. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/975", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/7746/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 984, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Questions on university facilities should be on-topic if they pertain directly (as you point out) to \"life as a graduate student, postdoctoral researcher, university professor\" etc. </p>\n\n<p>Questions about facilities that aren't specific to academia or academic life (e.g., \"What kind of lighting is best for an office environment?\") would probably be off topic as \"boat programming\" questions.</p>\n\n<p>We've had some questions related to facilities before:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17200/what-are-some-good-ways-to-provide-computer-labs-for-the-students\">What are some good ways to provide computer labs for the students?</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17859/best-practices-for-keeping-a-campus-computer-network-from-getting-brought-down-b\">Best practices for keeping a campus computer network from getting brought down by inappropriate use?</a></li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1015, "author": "Nate Eldredge", "author_id": 1010, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/1010", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I would just add that I think this should be limited to a campus's <strong>academic</strong> facilities. For the question at hand, a glass shop directly supports a university's academic mission (by producing equipment for research) so it's fine to ask about here. The same can be said for computer labs and networks.</p>\n\n<p>But campuses have lots of other facilities, and I wouldn't support a question about a university's dorms, cafeterias, swimming pools, squash courts, medical clinics, parking garages, boiler plants, or electrical substations. These may affect the lives of students and professors, but I don't think they should be on-topic here. I don't see this community as having the relevant expertise.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/983", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13420/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 988, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 1, "selected": true, "text": "<p>To answer the <strong>why</strong>, there isn't much of a reason anymore; the added feature of \"suggested edits\" made it mostly superfluous (<a href=\"http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/08/the-future-of-community-wiki/\">source</a>). Nowadays, questions almost never would be marked community wiki (CW), and only the very rare answer that truly requires the community to comprehensively answer would be converted.</p>\n\n<p>To answer the <strong>how</strong>, just flag a question and a mod can convert it. But we would probably decline the flag as it would not almost certainly not be necessary.</p>\n\n<p>To address the specific question at hand, the question is highly relevant to Academia, and the answers are all very appropriate and stand on their own. I don't think that should be marked CW.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 991, "author": "Pete L. Clark", "author_id": 938, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/938", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The accepted answer neglects an important feature of community-wiki questions: they do not confer reputation on the asker. This is an important feature, because some users do not want to gain lots of reputation for questions which tend to be high-traffic and highly upvoted but (often) convey less subject-area acumen. </p>\n\n<p>On many other sites, questions are routinely made CW. For the first several years of SE's existence, on SE sites one had the option of making a question CW upon asking it. Many longtime SE users (like me) view the removal of this feature as slightly obnoxious. It was slightly obnoxious provided that requests to convert questions to CW were routinely granted. If they are not being granted, then I at least view the change as a very obnoxious loss of functionality. For a platform whose motto is \"We don't run XXXX, you do!\", SE has been slowly but steadily moving towards a model which micro-manages user contributions. I would welcome moderators who push back against this a bit, as do most or all of the moderators on the other SE sites I frequent.</p>\n\n<p><b>Added</b>: There are further nuances of CW which are not discussed in the accepted answer. A non-CW question is attached to a single user. Although high rep users can edit the question, in the culture of many sites -- including this one -- edits to questions are done sparingly, mostly at the level of copyediting, adding links and removing obviously problematic content. There is the sense that a question is still being asked by a specific person and that one should not mess with it too much without their consent. Making a question CW is a clear signal that everyone is encouraged to edit it as much as possible. Losing this feature is...is a loss. I can't understand why that would not be desirable on a site like this.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/987", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/10643/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 988, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 1, "selected": true, "text": "<p>To answer the <strong>why</strong>, there isn't much of a reason anymore; the added feature of \"suggested edits\" made it mostly superfluous (<a href=\"http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/08/the-future-of-community-wiki/\">source</a>). Nowadays, questions almost never would be marked community wiki (CW), and only the very rare answer that truly requires the community to comprehensively answer would be converted.</p>\n\n<p>To answer the <strong>how</strong>, just flag a question and a mod can convert it. But we would probably decline the flag as it would not almost certainly not be necessary.</p>\n\n<p>To address the specific question at hand, the question is highly relevant to Academia, and the answers are all very appropriate and stand on their own. I don't think that should be marked CW.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 991, "author": "Pete L. Clark", "author_id": 938, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/938", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The accepted answer neglects an important feature of community-wiki questions: they do not confer reputation on the asker. This is an important feature, because some users do not want to gain lots of reputation for questions which tend to be high-traffic and highly upvoted but (often) convey less subject-area acumen. </p>\n\n<p>On many other sites, questions are routinely made CW. For the first several years of SE's existence, on SE sites one had the option of making a question CW upon asking it. Many longtime SE users (like me) view the removal of this feature as slightly obnoxious. It was slightly obnoxious provided that requests to convert questions to CW were routinely granted. If they are not being granted, then I at least view the change as a very obnoxious loss of functionality. For a platform whose motto is \"We don't run XXXX, you do!\", SE has been slowly but steadily moving towards a model which micro-manages user contributions. I would welcome moderators who push back against this a bit, as do most or all of the moderators on the other SE sites I frequent.</p>\n\n<p><b>Added</b>: There are further nuances of CW which are not discussed in the accepted answer. A non-CW question is attached to a single user. Although high rep users can edit the question, in the culture of many sites -- including this one -- edits to questions are done sparingly, mostly at the level of copyediting, adding links and removing obviously problematic content. There is the sense that a question is still being asked by a specific person and that one should not mess with it too much without their consent. Making a question CW is a clear signal that everyone is encouraged to edit it as much as possible. Losing this feature is...is a loss. I can't understand why that would not be desirable on a site like this.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/990", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/72/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 993, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I don't like big list question in general. In this particular case, I like it even less. My guess is someone has done a meta analysis, and if they haven't they should, on the authorship requirements of different societies/journals. A question about where to find and how to interpret field specific authorship norms would also be useful, but I think a list of excerpts and/or personal opinions about authorship will be of limited value.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 994, "author": "Fomite", "author_id": 118, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/118", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'm rather in favor of this particular big list question for a couple reasons:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>\"Necessitate constant revision as facts change\" and \"My guess is someone has done a meta analysis\" are actually mutually contradictory objections. Either a single, authoritative, static source can (or should) exist, or it's in constant need of changing. It can't be both.</li>\n<li>There's a steady drumbeat of exactly these questions, and I think there's definitively a place for a thread we can point to and say \"Find your field, consult the excerpt, and ponder whether or not you think you have a problem or not\". This is, as far as I can tell, our \"What book should I pick up to learn C/C++...\" question.</li>\n<li>\"a list of excerpts and/or personal opinions about authorship will be of limited value.\" I don't think a list of excerpts from authoritative sources would be of limited value, and I'm particularly interested in knowing how that would differ from @Strongbad's proposed systematic review.</li>\n<li>The list has the advantage of being potentially very wide ranging in terms of fields. My concern for these types of questions is always that the answer for one field might not match another, and if we don't have anyone in X field on while the question is active, we lose that information. A persistent collection of said information would avoid that problem.</li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 995, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>My thoughts are that these types of questions are not useful:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>They necessitate constant revision as facts change</li>\n<li>They are of questionable use, as few would use that question as the authoritative source</li>\n<li>The ease of scope creep for the question makes it difficult to manage and requires constant maintenance to keep it clean</li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 996, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>CW for a list of things is tricky. (Personally I do like some big lists on SE if they are objective (e.g. list of software to do X).)</p>\n\n<p>CW for a list of subjective things is very tricky. The same things holds for things that cannot be shortened to a single sentence. (While the problem is interesting, I don't feel it will work with SE system; however, I would like to see what happens rather than close it prematurely.) </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 997, "author": "Mad Scientist", "author_id": 201, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/201", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>\"Lists of things\" is a rather broad category, and there are many different kinds of list questions, I'll restrict my answer to this specific example and similar questions.</p>\n\n<p>The important questions in my opinion here is whether the topic is better handled by a single CW question as proposed here, or by an individual questions for each field.</p>\n\n<p>One large disadvantage is that the big CW question is unordered, the answers are sorted by score, which is pretty much meaningless in this specific case. To find the specific field you have to scroll through the entire list manually.</p>\n\n<p>Another aspect is that I'm not convinced that just the statements of scientific societies are enough to actually answer such questions fully. While I think a good answer to such a question should reference such sources, it often should go above that. The official statements are rather general and might need more clarification or explanation to be really useful.</p>\n\n<p>I think this subject would be better served by individual questions, with appropriate closure as duplicates if the situations and fields are similar enough to an existing question.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1001, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'm not necessarily against big-list questions, <strong>as long as every answer is potentially interesting for all readers interested in the question.</strong> For instance, the C++ question mentioned above, or <a href=\"https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/339/latex-editors-ides\">this question about latex editors</a>, if you're interested in the question, then all answers are potentially interesting. </p>\n\n<p>In the case of the question <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20901/compiling-ethical-standards-for-coauthorship-across-academic-fields-and-regions\">Compiling ethical standards for coauthorship across academic fields and regions</a>, I believe that apart from people who are fundamentally interested in comparing different fields/regions, in general at most one or two answers are relevant to each individual reader. Hence, the voting on each answer does not necessarily reflect the quality of the answer, but more likely the relevance of the answer to the reader. </p>\n\n<p>So as such, it's not particularly constructive, and I think a better place to compile such a meta analysis could be <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_authorship\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">on Wikipedia</a>, where there is no need for a voting mechanism. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/992", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1006, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I personally agree with the <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/editing\">global SE policy on editing</a>:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><strong>When should I edit posts?</strong></p>\n<p>Any time you see a post that needs improvement and are inclined to suggest an edit, you are welcome to do so. The original author of a question or answer may always edit their own post, regardless of reputation level.</p>\n<p>Edits are expected to be substantial and to leave the post better than you found it. Common reasons for edits include:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>To fix grammar and spelling mistakes</li>\n<li>To clarify the meaning of the post (without changing that meaning)</li>\n<li>To include additional information only found in comments, so all of the information relevant to the post is contained in one place</li>\n<li>To correct minor mistakes or add updates as the post ages</li>\n<li>To add related resources or hyperlinks</li>\n</ul>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Note that it is always clear when a post has been edited, and the edit history always shows who is responsible for the added content, so the &quot;endorsement&quot; problem should not really be one.</p>\n<p>However, I'm not sure if the OP is always notified that an edit has been made on his/her post, if it's not the case, then it should be, to allow the OP to rollback the edit in case he/she disagrees with it.</p>\n<p>That said, the option 3 is also completely acceptable, especially if the added content is substantial. I'm not sure how it brings us close to CW territory: CW only means that anybody with &gt;100 rep can edit directly all posts, while a regular post requires users with &lt;2K to suggest edits, which then need to be approved.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1007, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In the example you linked to for Option 3, that is actually the correct option to use. You are not editing their answer—because it's providing a new viewpoint that the other respondents missed. Moreover, it was a substantial answer in its own right, so doing what you did is exactly correct.</p>\n\n<p>For smaller-scale edits—correcting facts, adding links or appropriate qualifying statements, and so on, either option 1 or 2 works, depending on your comfort level with editing posts directly or not. I personally use option 1 as the default, but that's in part because of having \"privileged\" status as a moderator.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1039, "author": "E.P.", "author_id": 820, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/820", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If you would like an answer to contain additional detail, which you feel will likely be endorsed by the poster, but you are worried that they may not be notified or may not quite approve, one option is to edit the post directly and add a comment along the lines of </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Good answer, XXX! I have added some detail on YYY because ZZZ, but of course feel free to roll it back.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This makes immediately visible to anyone that there's content that's been edited in, and what that content is. It also ensures the poster will get an inbox notification next time they log in, and I feel it is more polite than a blunt edit.</p>\n\n<p>Of course, this still has disadvantages and should only be done if you really are only adding details to which the post's owner likely won't object.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1005", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/10094/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1017, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There are questions that clearly are out of scope and there are questions that are clearly in scope. I think the mods do a great job handling the questions that fall into the grey area. Yes you can find grey area questions that have not been closed. It is much harder to find the examples of the numerous \"boat\" questions that have been closed. This means what you see is a biased example.</p>\n\n<p>Don't look at your question as being dead. If it gets a good answer there, great, problem solved. If it doesn't, we can migrate it back, or you can ask a follow up. The whole point of the SE network is to get the best possible answers as efficiently as possible.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1018, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I would prefer to see a gray-area question be closed (and possibly migrated a little later) rather than migrated immediately.</p>\n\n<p>Migration is qualitatively different from other kinds of closure. Assuming we don't have accounts on the target site,</p>\n\n<h3>Closed Questions</h3>\n\n<ul>\n<li>High-rep users can vote to reopen</li>\n<li>Users can continue to discuss the closure in comments</li>\n<li>OP can edit the question to make it a better fit</li>\n</ul>\n\n<h3>Migrated Questions</h3>\n\n<ul>\n<li>High-rep users on the original site cannot vote to reopen</li>\n<li>Users on the original site cannot comment</li>\n<li>OP cannot edit the question to make it a better fit for the original site</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I still don't really understand why a tag-cloud generator for an academic is different from a tag-cloud generator for anyone else (\"logic programming\" in an academic paper seems the same to me as \"Asian cuisine\" in a cooking blog, for example). </p>\n\n<p>But given that more than a few users who <em>can</em> vote to close saw this question and chose not to, I'd prefer not to migrate right away.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1019, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I was the mod who migrated that question. I didn't realize it would cause any issue, I apologize if it did. In that case, I migrated for two reasons:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>The question was off-topic here, as it was asking for a particular piece of technology. As stated by @ff524, the fact that it related to academia was entirely tangential and unrelated to the question. By the time I got to it there were already three other close votes on the question.</li>\n<li>There is an entire SE site dedicated to software recommendations, which (like all other SE sites) does not require any registration for the user to interact with the question.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Given the nature of the question and that site, my immediate assumption was that the user would appreciate that move, as it would lead to more answers. Seeing how many upvotes are on this meta question, it appears that more people feel that it is on-topic here than off-topic.</p>\n\n<p>Given all that, <strong>the question has been re-opened</strong> for the time being. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1025, "author": "Jukka Suomela", "author_id": 351, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/351", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It takes approximately <strong>12 seconds</strong> (and exactly <strong>4 mouse clicks</strong>) to log in to a new StackExchange site and create an account there.</p>\n\n<p>Migration is harmless. StackExchange sites are extremely well integrated. User accounts on new sites do not cost anything. There is a unified system through which you will get notifications related to your questions on any of the sites.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1016", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/7746/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1017, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There are questions that clearly are out of scope and there are questions that are clearly in scope. I think the mods do a great job handling the questions that fall into the grey area. Yes you can find grey area questions that have not been closed. It is much harder to find the examples of the numerous \"boat\" questions that have been closed. This means what you see is a biased example.</p>\n\n<p>Don't look at your question as being dead. If it gets a good answer there, great, problem solved. If it doesn't, we can migrate it back, or you can ask a follow up. The whole point of the SE network is to get the best possible answers as efficiently as possible.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1018, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I would prefer to see a gray-area question be closed (and possibly migrated a little later) rather than migrated immediately.</p>\n\n<p>Migration is qualitatively different from other kinds of closure. Assuming we don't have accounts on the target site,</p>\n\n<h3>Closed Questions</h3>\n\n<ul>\n<li>High-rep users can vote to reopen</li>\n<li>Users can continue to discuss the closure in comments</li>\n<li>OP can edit the question to make it a better fit</li>\n</ul>\n\n<h3>Migrated Questions</h3>\n\n<ul>\n<li>High-rep users on the original site cannot vote to reopen</li>\n<li>Users on the original site cannot comment</li>\n<li>OP cannot edit the question to make it a better fit for the original site</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I still don't really understand why a tag-cloud generator for an academic is different from a tag-cloud generator for anyone else (\"logic programming\" in an academic paper seems the same to me as \"Asian cuisine\" in a cooking blog, for example). </p>\n\n<p>But given that more than a few users who <em>can</em> vote to close saw this question and chose not to, I'd prefer not to migrate right away.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1019, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I was the mod who migrated that question. I didn't realize it would cause any issue, I apologize if it did. In that case, I migrated for two reasons:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>The question was off-topic here, as it was asking for a particular piece of technology. As stated by @ff524, the fact that it related to academia was entirely tangential and unrelated to the question. By the time I got to it there were already three other close votes on the question.</li>\n<li>There is an entire SE site dedicated to software recommendations, which (like all other SE sites) does not require any registration for the user to interact with the question.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Given the nature of the question and that site, my immediate assumption was that the user would appreciate that move, as it would lead to more answers. Seeing how many upvotes are on this meta question, it appears that more people feel that it is on-topic here than off-topic.</p>\n\n<p>Given all that, <strong>the question has been re-opened</strong> for the time being. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1025, "author": "Jukka Suomela", "author_id": 351, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/351", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It takes approximately <strong>12 seconds</strong> (and exactly <strong>4 mouse clicks</strong>) to log in to a new StackExchange site and create an account there.</p>\n\n<p>Migration is harmless. StackExchange sites are extremely well integrated. User accounts on new sites do not cost anything. There is a unified system through which you will get notifications related to your questions on any of the sites.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1020", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/5674/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1024, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I agree with this policy, I would like to extend it to consider the case <strong>where the OP asks for the migration</strong>. If a question is on-topic, but after discussion in the comments, it appears that the question would receive a better audience at another site <strong>and</strong> the OP wish to migrate the question accordingly, then the question should be migrated. </p>\n\n<p>In other words, if you think that a question would be better suited on another site, then leave a comment. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1033, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Given <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/q/1016/11365\">this</a>, I would add:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>If there is reason* to suspect that the answer to <strong>1. Is the question on-topic at your site?</strong> will be controversial, let the question be put on hold (and give a chance for OP to edit, high-rep users to vote to re-open, people to comment, etc.) before considering migration.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>* For example, reasons might include: if the question has more than a couple of upvotes, if there is an answer with more than a couple of upvotes, if there is a healthy debate in the comments as to whether it's on topic, etc.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1036, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>For the sake of keeping everything related to migration in this question, shall we apply the same criteria whether the question already has (good) answers or not? </p>\n\n<p>For instance, my question <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/109/non-linear-note-taking-software\">Is there any efficient non-linear note-taking software?</a> was recently suggested to be moved to SR.SE, which didn't exist when the question was asked. Although the question was not migrated, because it is somehow relevant to Ac.SE, I was wondering whether it should have been the same if there was no answers (there are currently 10 answers, and 44 up votes). </p>\n\n<p>Intuitively, I would rather not move questions with several good answers, because that means that somehow, the question is a good fit, especially that migrated questions are automatically deleted after a while, right? </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1023", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1027, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It appears that you flagged that multiple times. I cleared one of those flags because of the discussion we had <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/805/is-deleting-comments-a-form-of-censorship\">here</a>. The comment is borderline offensive, but personally (and, apparently, the other mods agree) I didn't find that it was so bad that it warrants deletion. We have a rather open attitude towards commenting here, and to be deleted I think we've generally held that the comment has to be more directly and blatantly insulting.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>Edit: Do note that the mods clearing the flags are just acting based on essentially \"statutory law\", which is what we think we've done in the past and how the community wants us to behave. As always, if we'd like to act differently please post here, as @ff524 has done.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1028, "author": "Mad Scientist", "author_id": 201, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/201", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>While I think this comment can be considered offensive, I'm approaching this from a bit of a different perspective. I think that \"not constructive\" is the more useful argument in this case.</p>\n\n<p>Criticizing the sources of a specific answer is certainly something that should not be discouraged. There is a rather large spectrum between pointing out a bias of a certain source and a plain <em>ad hominem</em> attack, and while the former can be very valuable information, the latter is not useful at all.</p>\n\n<p>I would personally hold the users of this site to a higher standard than the one exhibited in this specific comment. So I think deletion of this comment would be warranted as it is not a constructive way to criticize this source, but a rather offensively worded <em>ad hominem</em> attack.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1030, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>To answer my own question, I remain convinced that this comment should be deleted.</p>\n<p>Our <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/behavior\">help center</a> says that we expect users to</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><strong>Be nice</strong>.</p>\n<p>Civility is required at all times; rudeness will not be tolerated. Treat others with the same respect you’d want them to treat you because we’re all here to learn, together. Be tolerant of others who may not know everything you know, and bring your sense of humor.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>A comment calling another individual (whether a member of Academia.SE or not, it doesn't really matter in my opinion) a &quot;known, rabid male-hating feminist&quot; has no place in respectful discourse. It seems to me like a clear violation of the above policy.</p>\n<p>StackExchange is different from many other &quot;communities&quot; on the Internet because we enforce certain standards of behavior, and I believe we are better for it. Offensively worded <em>ad hominem</em> attacks (to borrow a phrase from Mad Scientist) should not be tolerated here.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1026", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1040, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think this is a relatively simple fix—it's the extra padding around the question. However, I also think that the fix shouldn't be to go something <em>quite</em> so dense as <a href=\"http://stackoverflow.com\">Stack Overflow</a>. (Currently, I can fit about 7 questions from Academia.SE on my screen compared to about 10 SO questions in the same space. However, SO seems <em>too</em> crowded in comparison.</p>\n\n<p>I think perhaps we can reduce the padding a bit, but we should still keep some just so that it remains easy to read.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1043, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I also would prefer to see more questions at a glance (less scrolling => I am more happy).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1047, "author": "Pete L. Clark", "author_id": 938, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/938", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>When I look at the two screenshots side by side, I prefer the academia spacing. All in all, it is remarkable how much more pleasing to my eye the academia format is than the SO format: some really nice work was done in the design of our site.</p>\n\n<p>It looks to me that the height of each question could be slightly reduced, perhaps to the point of being able to fit one more question on the screen. But I wouldn't want to mess with it too much: all in all, I think that what has been pointed out here is truly a feature rather than a bug.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1038", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/746/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1050, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 6, "selected": true, "text": "<p>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 <em>questions</em> with \"appropriate\" in the title is <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/search?q=title%3Aappropriate+is%3Aquestion\">less than 1% of the total</a>, which I think is entirely reasonable. </p>\n\n<p>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 <em>appropriate</em> use of this board. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1063, "author": "Sideshow Bob", "author_id": 13793, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13793", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Compared to the world of business, academia has a much less well defined hierarchy. </p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n\n<p>This is no bad thing, indeed it's part of why academics are regarded as independent thinkers (hopefully).</p>\n\n<p>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. </p>\n\n<p>(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).</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1049", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1055, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>This is by-design. From the <a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/233535/review-counts-in-top-bar-and-review-dont-match\">SE meta</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>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.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1056, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I found the <a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/230802/179702\">following answer posted by @Shog9</a>:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>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.</p>\n<p>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: &quot;I do all I can, but there aren't enough of us and it just doesn't seem to have any effect!&quot;</p>\n<p>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.</p>\n<p>On the other hand, if it's staying steady at a reasonably-small number (and chances are, you know what &quot;reasonably small&quot; 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.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>For info, I posted the following comment:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>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)</p>\n</blockquote>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1053", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1058, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This question and the answers is really hard to follow, due to too many comments deleted, making other comments obsolete. EnergyNumbers' and aeismail's answers, that might have been relevant at some point, no longer answer the question (no mention to the career). </p>\n\n<p>I think the moderation team should have a deeper look at this question and tidy it up. </p>\n\n<p>Concerning your points: </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>but even more important, I see harsh judgments (e.g. this answer but also in the comments of @krammer which I cannot link) for which I do not see proper grounds based on the available information. This is not only rude, but it is IMHO also bad scientific practice.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>As said in the comments, if you see non constructive comments, flag for deletion. \nThat said, the OP explicitly comes to ask for judgement (<em>is it good/bad?</em>), so it is not really a surprise that people provide some judgment. As far as I can tell, no answer is supported by data, only by the opinion/experience of the answerers.</p>\n\n<p>I'm not by default against such question, but if they can't be managed properly, perhaps they should be closed a \"primarily opinion-based\". </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1059, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In hindsight, there is a fundamental problem with the question, in that the top-level question and the body subject ask two fundamentally different questions. I responded to the top-level question, rather than the questions posed in the body.</p>\n\n<p>The most equitable solution right now, I think, would be to split the question in two. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1060, "author": "xLeitix", "author_id": 10094, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/10094", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Yes, this question IMHO escalated quickly, and is certainly not the best showcase of the academia.SE community. Clearly, mistakes have been made, both by the OP and some of our community members - from the OP's knee-jerk follow-up comments and edits to EnergyNumber's very derogatory answer (which I downvoted). I originally also wanted to provide an answer this question, but the current state of the discussion leaves me with no desire to get involved.</p>\n\n<p>However, I don't think that this is an inherent problem of our Stack Exchange. I am pretty much daily around here (apparently I am bored at work), and this is one of the few, maybe even the first time, I see this happening to this extend. I would not say that we are in general overly fast to jump to conclusions. The \"bad advisor\" tag certainly gets thrown around a bit too loosely here, though. Imho, we should indeed watch ourselves a bit in that regard.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1057", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/725/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1067, "author": "mhwombat", "author_id": 10529, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/10529", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think one way to salvage the question is to ask how other universities have dealt with similar situations. Answers might comment on the history of affirmative action programs in the U.S., intended to redress the lack of minorities in higher education.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1068, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I don't think that particular question is salvageable for this site. However, how to challenge an unfair institutional policy from <em>within</em> would be a reasonable question for this community.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1066", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1072, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If you don't see evidence of reverse sexual discrimination in this scenario, you can write as much in your answer. We often answer questions here where people have misread the situation they are in.</p>\n\n<p>The question is \"What should I do, given I think I was the victim of prejudice in this situation?\" and that question is answerable even if the OP has misunderstood the situation.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1073, "author": "blankip", "author_id": 11420, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11420", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Well it was directly related. I wanted people to answer based on the facts as I heard them at the time and not be influenced by later revelations. At the end of the semester the department head told me that she has had numerous issues with males in her classes and that he was looking into it with the Dean. </p>\n\n<p>He also said that she said that she was intimidated by me because I was a big male and he even confirmed with other students that I was never aggressive around her. He apologized. I got my papers back. He told me that I would have gotten A's on them. Said I would receive P's on report card. </p>\n\n<p>She left the school for undisclosed reasons after the spring semester as a tenured professor. </p>\n\n<p>The question is more about how I should have handled it in that situation. She was sexist. There was an outcome. But I didn't state those in the question because it would taint the responses/answers.</p>\n\n<p>Also as far as your mod powers to close a question you need to lay off. I find it abusive that you don't like a sentence so you close a question. <strong>I don't have to write my question for your personal PC views.</strong> No offense because you could be a great mod and great person but I feel this sort of censorship is the opposite of SE philosophy. </p>\n\n<p>I didn't say I had this \"feminist bitch teacher\". No I just represented facts. There was no opinion in my whole question. I am sorry that if you hear the word feminist and all of a sudden it conveys horrible things to you. That is something you need to keep under control if you are going to be a mod.</p>\n\n<p>I would personally like to hear how you would reword the sentence that offended you.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1074, "author": "Alexandros", "author_id": 10042, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/10042", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think you went overboard with your moderation on this post. The situation as it is described by the OP is a perfectly valid one and if you needed clarification or the question needed editing, you should ask so. Also, closing a question which already had been upvoted is something I have never encountered in a SE site.</p>\n\n<p>Another issue with your moderation is that it was very fast. If any question is a not a good one, waiting for an hour or so is usually enough for any SE community to judge its merit. Closing sooner than that, especially in grey area questions is something that should be generally avoided. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1075, "author": "xLeitix", "author_id": 10094, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/10094", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Thanks for opening this meta question.</p>\n\n<p>I have to say that the quick closing of this question was a surprise to me. Yes, the question seemed relatively biased and had a bit of an anti-feminist touch to it. However, this kind of questions (\"My advisor / professor did something unfair. How should I react?\") are almost always biased, fragmented, confusing, and (I would assume) oftentimes not factually correct as written. We usually do not close down these questions, but point out what inconsistencies we see, and what we think the OP should do based on the given information. StrongBad seemed to hold this question to much higher standards than comparable earlier questions.</p>\n\n<p>In my opinion, I would prefer if the mods would use their power to unilaterally put a question on hold only for more clear-cut cases. A good example was a question put on hold by ff524 today, but I can't find it anymore. This question was about 15 fundamental questions in one, so it was entirely clear that it will be put on hold. blankip's question was much less obvious.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1076, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Just a remark from someone who was on the other side not so long ago: <strong>you did not abuse your mod powers.</strong> We have had some problems in the past with posts related to gender discrimination, where questions could quickly turn into flamewars. Considering the lack of clarity in the original question, <strong>closing it quickly was a correct thing to do.</strong> </p>\n\n<p>A question on-hold, even by a mod, does not disappear, people can add comments, edit it, and can discuss about it on meta, which is exactly what happened. No reputation was lost in the process, no harm was done. <strong>This was not censorship</strong>, and that's why we have elected mods, to avoid having potentially problematic posts. </p>\n\n<p>That said, one thing that could be held against you, is that you said in the <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1009/102\">questionnaire</a> that: </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>As a mod I would try and shape the site with up votes, down votes, comments, meta questions/answers, and chat instead of using close/reopen votes (excluding blatant spam). I would not generally just mod hammer questions, but when the voting is clear (e.g., one or two more regular user votes are needed to close a down voted answer, I would happily hit it with a mod hammer vote).</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>As for the question itself, since we only have only one side of the story, it's hard to make any judgment, and all the details make it look like a rant rather than an objective question. I agree with you that there are two interesting questions: </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>I feel I've been discriminated, what should I do? (and it's not up to us to judge whether there was indeed discrimination or not.)</li>\n<li>I think I'm intimidating my professor, what should I do? </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Somehow, the question is a mix of both, which is not ideal to provide a clear answer. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1071", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1081, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There is a lot in your question and I am only going to tackle a bit of it now. There is a big difference between locking a question and putting a question on hold. Any user with sufficient reputation can vote to reopen a question that is on hold even if the question has not been edited and was closed by a moderator. This is a nice safety net in case the moderator acts in a manner that goes against the views of the community. Your question currently has no reopen votes or up votes, so it seems the community thinks your question should stay on hold until it is improved. At this point you should consider using the comments, chat and meta to look for ways to improve the question, or rally support to reopen the question. All you need it 5 users to vote to reopen it.</p>\n\n<p>That said one moderator and one regular user voted to close the question, another moderator voiced support in the comments that the question needed to be improved, and a third moderator is now chiming in that the question seems too broad. That said the 4 of us could be wrong, and if you can find 5 people to support your cause the question can be reopened.</p>\n\n<p>The question seems too broad to me because \"online\" really encompasses a huge number of activities. I search for research online, I mark papers online, I teach online, I review papers online, I do committee work online, I waste time on AC.Se, etc. trying to sum up the time spent on all these activities, doesn't seem right. I think the question would be better if it was narrower and only focused on one online activity.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1082, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>One of the issues raised in this post is</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>they should be advised to be more polite to the users (regarding to the words they use and they way they treat them and their actions).</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Since I have cleaned up comments on the original question, I am posting them here for the sake of transparency, so others can decide if anybody needed to be more polite here. See image below.</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/qU7ww.png\" alt=\"comment transcript\"></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1083, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Coming to the question, I would have likely voted to place it on hold because I don't understand what your question is. Let's look at the last paragraph, which I think is where your question is defined:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Keeping in mind that each academic person has some careers and responsibilities, but he has to be up-to-date and pay enough attention to online life and internet; does being online improves our career or is it just a waste of time and the person will be more successful being focused on hard copies of the publications; how much is it normal for an academic person to be online?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>You're asking us to answer way too many different questions: should one be online at all? Should we avoid internet use? How much should someone be online, if they're online? </p>\n\n<p>Asking people how much they're online is a poll question, which is not what the Stack Exchange question-and-answer format is designed for. Similarly, there's no \"experience-based\" answer for if being online is a good thing—unless you're looking for a list of useful activities (which is <em>also</em> against the general guidelines).</p>\n\n<p>The question is not a bad one <em>in general principle</em>, but it is a poor fit for <em>this site</em>.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1086, "author": "410 gone", "author_id": 96, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/96", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Asking questions on a Stack Exchange site isn't obvious. And it's not a right. It's a privilege; and there's <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-ask\">a right way to do it</a>, and <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask\">many wrong ways to do it</a>.</p>\n\n<p>In order to maintain the site's usefulness and purpose, there are a bunch of moderation tools available; in order of increasing access: to low rep users, high rep users, moderators, and SE staff.</p>\n\n<p>When questions aren't a good fit, then a question is put on hold, giving the original poster, and the community, chance to put it into shape.</p>\n\n<p>Warning signs that the community might choose to put a question on hold are:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>several questions in one: indicating that the question is too broad, meaning that it should be split into several concise separate questions, posted one at a time;</li>\n<li>a lot of text in the question, little of which pertains to a specific question: indicating that the OP has used the privilege of asking a question to post a rant that would be better put as a blog post;</li>\n<li>or soliciting opinions: indicating that there won't be a right answer, and that this would be better asked in chat or on a forum, not a Q&amp;A site.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Your question has managed to trigger all three of those warning signs for me. Others agree that the question should be put on hold. If it's not edited into shape, it will get deleted.</p>\n\n<p>And please don't read into other people's intentions or motivations. You're not telepathic. Accusing others of acting on emotional responses is unconstructive.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1080", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/15723/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1088, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Unfortunately, it's really just mostly searching. You can limit your search using tags—just include the tag name, surrounded by brackets, when doing your search (e.g., \"<a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/search?q=%5Bphd%5D+grades\">[phd] grades</a>\"). That helps limit the search. You can also use \"<a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/search?q=%5Bphd%5D+grades+is%3Aquestion\">is:question</a>\" to only search only questions (e.g., not answers). Past that, it's just making sure you use good search terms. Good luck!</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1089, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This is too long for a comment ...</p>\n\n<p>Before asking a question it is best to have a quick search for similar questions. If you don't find a match and then ask a question that eventually gets closed as a duplicate, it is not an awful thing. While most closed questions eventually get deleted, duplicates are special and tend to get left on the system. This means that a duplicate question makes finding the original question a little easier for the next person.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1090, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Note that when you start typing a new question title into the \"<a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/ask\">Ask a Question</a>\" box, it lists some possible duplicates immediately underneath. Read through these questions to make sure you are not asking a duplicate.</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/zWO1q.png\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1092, "author": "xLeitix", "author_id": 10094, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/10094", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In addition to all the correct answers, I have to agree that the search features of StackExchange are not exactly inspiring. I myself often think \"I think we have seen this question before\", but when I go and look for it, I can't find any duplicate. It always seems to me that I am only able to find a duplicate if I remember at least some words of the question title.</p>\n\n<p>As such, for a new user, I would propose to do a quick search, and if you can't find a clear answer, just go ahead and ask your question. If it is closed as a duplicate, you at least know where to look. Always remember that a question being closed is not an insult, and does not cost you reputation on the site.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1087", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/15723/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1094, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The fewer unique criteria and guidelines we have, the better, in my opinion, If questions can already be handled under existing rules, then I'd rather proceed that way, rather than introducing special categories. \"Don't ask this, don't do that,\" is not a god way to run a site like this.</p>\n\n<p>Besides, such an approach will lead to some potentially useful questions being placed on hold just because of the way the question writer approached it, rather than being a bad question.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1097, "author": "xLeitix", "author_id": 10094, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/10094", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>As a counterpoint to aeismail's statement <em>\"The fewer unique criteria and guidelines we have, the better\"</em>, I would say that there are very good reasons for having somewhat redundant specific bans for common questions. The point of having rules in the first place is so that users, specifically new users, know what questions are in scope and which are not. The fact that we get so many of these questions clearly shows that new users are <em>not</em> able to tell that these questions are not in scope from the current rules.</p>\n\n<p><strong>I am very much in favor of adding a specific ban for this kind of question.</strong></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1103, "author": "Adam Davis", "author_id": 11901, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11901", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The problem with defining very specific bans is that it's very difficult to nail something down so well that it's easy to understand and apply it. There will always be a way to approach the ban so closely that it's hard to outright reject it, but it's still essentially the same type of question we are trying to avoid.</p>\n\n<p>In general, where possible, it's better to define the community guidelines as principles that would also catch these problematic questions, rather than go down the path of writing a specific exclusion for each and every type of question we don't like.</p>\n\n<p>Then, once the principles are defined, lead by example. Close these questions appropriately, add comments to teach others the principles that guide closing and encourage them to close such questions as well. </p>\n\n<p>Over time the community will become aware of and accept that the principles cover certain types (or \"smells\" if you will) of questions and rather than having a hard line that you're constantly arguing with others about, you'll have a nice wide gray area that the community will define for you, and you shouldn't have to worry about it. </p>\n\n<p>Great questions posed in this manner might succeed. Bad questions posed in this manner will generally be closed.</p>\n\n<p>Everyone will be happy, and you won't be extending the battle over words for months and years, adding more and more language to the definition as you go along.</p>\n\n<p>Teach them correct principles, and let them govern themselves.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1112, "author": "Kogesho", "author_id": 7773, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/7773", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>When a user wants to do X and asks for help without giving life story, users automatically ask for details regarding the professional life as comments and the author edits the question and adds asked details. So it is essential for us users to read a life story or detailled paragraph to consider different aspects and give a good answer.</p>\n\n<p>The part you refer to as life story of course can include unrelated information, however most of the time it also requires what potential answerers require to post useful advice. While the life story makes the question very specific, the key information in it (such as I am doing post doc, I am x years old, I have been an advisor for y years at z university z area) also makes the question also very general. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1113, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I know I'm new here, but here's a proposed wording for a custom close reason that I hope will be helpful:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>This question appears to be off-topic because it is not answerable by the Academia community; you may need to ask an advisor, an admissions committee, or some other internal group, as it is not answerable by the general public. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Or, alternately, if you don't want to mention specific groups (\"But mine isn't on the list!\"):</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>This question appears to be off-topic because it is not answerable by the Academia community; you may need to ask someone specific to your situation, as the general public cannot completely answer this question. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This, I think, covers the point of what you're asking. It's not really about the life story, but about the answerability of the questions. </p>\n\n<p>It's generally alright on Stack Exchange to have a long question, as long as it's clear, readable, and answerable. This completes the trifecta of moderation tools that captures questions which fall out of these criteria. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1093", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/118/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1094, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The fewer unique criteria and guidelines we have, the better, in my opinion, If questions can already be handled under existing rules, then I'd rather proceed that way, rather than introducing special categories. \"Don't ask this, don't do that,\" is not a god way to run a site like this.</p>\n\n<p>Besides, such an approach will lead to some potentially useful questions being placed on hold just because of the way the question writer approached it, rather than being a bad question.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1097, "author": "xLeitix", "author_id": 10094, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/10094", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>As a counterpoint to aeismail's statement <em>\"The fewer unique criteria and guidelines we have, the better\"</em>, I would say that there are very good reasons for having somewhat redundant specific bans for common questions. The point of having rules in the first place is so that users, specifically new users, know what questions are in scope and which are not. The fact that we get so many of these questions clearly shows that new users are <em>not</em> able to tell that these questions are not in scope from the current rules.</p>\n\n<p><strong>I am very much in favor of adding a specific ban for this kind of question.</strong></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1103, "author": "Adam Davis", "author_id": 11901, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11901", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The problem with defining very specific bans is that it's very difficult to nail something down so well that it's easy to understand and apply it. There will always be a way to approach the ban so closely that it's hard to outright reject it, but it's still essentially the same type of question we are trying to avoid.</p>\n\n<p>In general, where possible, it's better to define the community guidelines as principles that would also catch these problematic questions, rather than go down the path of writing a specific exclusion for each and every type of question we don't like.</p>\n\n<p>Then, once the principles are defined, lead by example. Close these questions appropriately, add comments to teach others the principles that guide closing and encourage them to close such questions as well. </p>\n\n<p>Over time the community will become aware of and accept that the principles cover certain types (or \"smells\" if you will) of questions and rather than having a hard line that you're constantly arguing with others about, you'll have a nice wide gray area that the community will define for you, and you shouldn't have to worry about it. </p>\n\n<p>Great questions posed in this manner might succeed. Bad questions posed in this manner will generally be closed.</p>\n\n<p>Everyone will be happy, and you won't be extending the battle over words for months and years, adding more and more language to the definition as you go along.</p>\n\n<p>Teach them correct principles, and let them govern themselves.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1112, "author": "Kogesho", "author_id": 7773, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/7773", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>When a user wants to do X and asks for help without giving life story, users automatically ask for details regarding the professional life as comments and the author edits the question and adds asked details. So it is essential for us users to read a life story or detailled paragraph to consider different aspects and give a good answer.</p>\n\n<p>The part you refer to as life story of course can include unrelated information, however most of the time it also requires what potential answerers require to post useful advice. While the life story makes the question very specific, the key information in it (such as I am doing post doc, I am x years old, I have been an advisor for y years at z university z area) also makes the question also very general. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1113, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I know I'm new here, but here's a proposed wording for a custom close reason that I hope will be helpful:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>This question appears to be off-topic because it is not answerable by the Academia community; you may need to ask an advisor, an admissions committee, or some other internal group, as it is not answerable by the general public. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Or, alternately, if you don't want to mention specific groups (\"But mine isn't on the list!\"):</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>This question appears to be off-topic because it is not answerable by the Academia community; you may need to ask someone specific to your situation, as the general public cannot completely answer this question. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This, I think, covers the point of what you're asking. It's not really about the life story, but about the answerability of the questions. </p>\n\n<p>It's generally alright on Stack Exchange to have a long question, as long as it's clear, readable, and answerable. This completes the trifecta of moderation tools that captures questions which fall out of these criteria. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1101", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/15723/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1110, "author": "Pete L. Clark", "author_id": 938, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/938", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>\"However, one of the users thought this question is basically opinion based and became so angry with it.\" I explicitly commented that I was not angry. \"His main problem seems to be that if the person asking question is not a faculty member, it is not his duty to ask why something seems odd in the university and because he is a student, he should never think about the logic behind the actions.\" That is again something that I mentioned in a comment that I was not saying. I am starting to wonder if there may be language issues here.</p>\n\n<p>Anyway: a discussion about whether opinion-based questions can indeed have objective answers is surely not going to ensue. If the community feels the question is too opinion-based then it will be closed; if not, it won't. </p>\n\n<p>As is -- in my opinion, obviously -- the question lacks nuance in a fatal way. There is not an abstractly, globally best relationship between advisor and student. Thinking that there might be is: well, I can't think of a word other than naive. A similar naivete applies to the person who thinks that there is a best way to teach or TA a class, or that all women (or all men) want the same thing in a dating relationship, and so forth. What a master's degree is, and what constitutes a master's thesis, is probably the most highly variable quantity in all of academia. Even within my own department, the variation in standards and approaches to master's theses is extreme. In fact, with respect to the dichotomy that the OP proposes, most people who have advised several students have done <em>both</em> practices, because each is appropriate in some situations. Many advisors and students adopt a combination of the two alternatives within the course of the thesis work. The idea that advisors do not act based on some globally held \"strong reasons\" is an important nuance that the OP seems to be missing. </p>\n\n<p>My discussion in the comments with the OP as a master's student was an attempt to find an acceptable question behind the question asked and an attempt to find out how the answer to the question would actually be useful to him in his current situation. (As written, the question is either from an \"abstract\" perspective -- which, as I have tried to explain above, I find almost wholly vacuous -- or from the advisor's perspective. Since the OP is not actually advising master's students but in fact <em>is</em> a master's student, there is a certain disingenuousness here.) This did not go well: he did not want to do this. That's fine, but of course it makes the question more likely to get closed. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1111, "author": "Nate Eldredge", "author_id": 1010, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/1010", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If your question simply asks \"Which is better, X or Y?\" then it is vague and should be closed for that reason. It does not make clear what you mean by \"better\". Here are some ways that it could be clarified, and the likely results:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>\"Is there a general consensus in the community as to which of X or Y is better?\" That may be a reasonable question, but very likely the answer is just \"No, there is no consensus\". If you already know a significant number of apparently reasonable people preferring each alternative, that pretty much establishes that there is no consensus and you don't need to ask.</p></li>\n<li><p>\"Would lots of people please state their preferences between X and Y, so that I can try to get a sense as to which is more preferred?\" This is a poll question. Not acceptable.</p></li>\n<li><p>\"Have controlled surveys been done to determine what fraction of people prefer X over Y?\" A reasonable question, but may not get an answer if no such surveys exist or nobody here knows about them. (You might get an answer <em>explaining</em> why nobody is likely to ever to have done such a survey.)</p></li>\n<li><p>\"What are some arguments in favor of X and Y, respectively?\" Probably an acceptable question, but note that it does not attempt to give a conclusive answer as to which is better.</p></li>\n<li><p>\"Is there objective evidence as to which of X and Y is more likely to result in desirable outcome Z?\" Here you have an objective question that may have an objective answer. Notice that the subjective term \"better\" has been replaced with a specific criterion. In the question at hand, for instance, one could ask \"Is one of these approaches to choosing thesis topics associated with higher graduation rates?\" Or, higher job placement rates, more publications, etc. Note that you could get different answers depending on which criterion you choose: maybe one approach makes it more likely that you will graduate but with fewer papers. And in many cases it may be that no study has been done, or nobody here knows about it, and in that case you will probably not get an answer. (You might get an answer <em>explaining</em> why such a study is not likely to exist.)</p></li>\n</ul>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1106", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/15723/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1117, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think there are two issues at play here:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>None of the above edits are substantial. They are all adding very general, basic knowledge, which doesn't really serve to add anything to the page.</li>\n<li>For some of the edits there seems to be a language barrier as well. The education and reference letter ones specifically stand out to me as containing awkward verbiage and grammar.</li>\n<li>For the NSF tag specifically, you seem to have removed useful information. Not sure why you did that.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>As with other types of edits, tag edit should substantially improve the content. Wordsmithing and/or minor changes will likely not pass the bar as a useful edit.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1118, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I rejected <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/12334\">education</a> because the questions in this tag (and in general, the word <em>education</em>) are not about \"period of time in a person's life when he attends academic institutes.\" They are about education as \"the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction\" (Merriam Webster's definition). Therefore, the suggested edit is incorrect.</p>\n\n<p>Other edits were rejected because they did not constitute a substantive improvement (as eykanal explained). (It shows that I rejected <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/12329\">homework</a> for being incorrect, but I meant to reject it for being minor; just clicked the wrong button.)</p>\n\n<p>The criteria I apply for deciding whether an edit is a \"substantive improvement\" or not is as follows:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Is the new tag excerpt/wiki better than the old one <em>at helping users understand how/when to use the tag</em>? Then accept.</li>\n<li>Does the new tag excerpt/wiki fix a <em>major error</em>? (Not just a matter of style, but something that is actually not correct). Then accept.</li>\n<li>Else, reject.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>The other edits you list did not meet either of the criteria for being a \"substantive improvement,\" and so they were rejected for being \"minor.\"</p>\n\n<p>Finally, some edits were rejected because they remove useful information. I'm not sure why you would do that. If you think the information could be better, then improve it, don't just remove it.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1116", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/15723/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1121, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Based on multiple reactions we have had from closing questions, I would be careful and avoid saying \"the question <strong>cannot</strong> be answer\". Most of the time, it is actually very possible to answer the question (<em>do X, don't do Y</em>), the problem is that there is no way to know whether the answer is a <strong>good answer</strong>. </p>\n\n<p>I am not entirely convinced why the reason \"cannot be generalised to others\" or \"primarily opinion based\" is not enough, but if we must have another one, I'd rather go along the lines</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>This question appears to be off-topic because it seems to seek specific advice for a very specific situation, which is unlikely to yield an objectively correct answer. We would recommend to first ask the question to people with a good understanding of your situation. </p>\n</blockquote>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1122, "author": "Fomite", "author_id": 118, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/118", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>How about:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>This question appears to be off-topic because it is not answerable by\n the Academia community; you may need to ask someone with specific\n knowledge of your situation, as it may involve internal policy,\n institutional norms or other information that is not widely known.</p>\n</blockquote>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1180, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>To avoid any confusion with my previous answer, I would like to suggest to amend the text, to drop the \"recommending\" part, following djechlin's comment. More specifically, I would suggest the following text: </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>This question appears to be off-topic because it seems to seek specific advice for a very specific situation, and it's likely that only someone with a good understanding of your situation will be able to provide an objectively correct answer.</p>\n</blockquote>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1120", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1121, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Based on multiple reactions we have had from closing questions, I would be careful and avoid saying \"the question <strong>cannot</strong> be answer\". Most of the time, it is actually very possible to answer the question (<em>do X, don't do Y</em>), the problem is that there is no way to know whether the answer is a <strong>good answer</strong>. </p>\n\n<p>I am not entirely convinced why the reason \"cannot be generalised to others\" or \"primarily opinion based\" is not enough, but if we must have another one, I'd rather go along the lines</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>This question appears to be off-topic because it seems to seek specific advice for a very specific situation, which is unlikely to yield an objectively correct answer. We would recommend to first ask the question to people with a good understanding of your situation. </p>\n</blockquote>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1122, "author": "Fomite", "author_id": 118, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/118", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>How about:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>This question appears to be off-topic because it is not answerable by\n the Academia community; you may need to ask someone with specific\n knowledge of your situation, as it may involve internal policy,\n institutional norms or other information that is not widely known.</p>\n</blockquote>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1180, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>To avoid any confusion with my previous answer, I would like to suggest to amend the text, to drop the \"recommending\" part, following djechlin's comment. More specifically, I would suggest the following text: </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>This question appears to be off-topic because it seems to seek specific advice for a very specific situation, and it's likely that only someone with a good understanding of your situation will be able to provide an objectively correct answer.</p>\n</blockquote>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1128", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/15723/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1136, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>My preference would be to improve the tag wiki excerpt for <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/website\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;website&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">website</a> rather than create a new tag. For example, the <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/website\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;website&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">website</a> excerpt could be changed to:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Websites for a research group, conference, project, or individual academic; social media and academic community sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, PubPeer and ResearchGate; or sites and blogs about academia and higher education.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This, because I find it ambiguous as to whether certain sites are \"social\". It's easy to say Facebook is social, but is a blog social? What about a class forum on an online LMS? In academia, there are many cases like this where one person might categorize a site as social and another person wouldn't.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1139, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I agree that it may be good to have a related tag. How about <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/social-media\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;social-media&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">social-media</a> or maybe even better <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/web-presence\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;web-presence&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">web-presence</a> (or <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/internet-presence\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;internet-presence&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">internet-presence</a>)?</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1145, "author": "Marxos", "author_id": 19703, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/19703", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I would strongly recommend against a tag, and instead go the other direction: have only a tag called \"internet\". </p>\n\n<p>Let academia SE stay specific to larger academic issues.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1146, "author": "enthu", "author_id": 15723, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/15723", "pm_score": -1, "selected": true, "text": "<p><strong>Tag Title Suggestion</strong> suggested in <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1139/15723\">this answer</a> and <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1135/lack-of-a-tag-related-to-social-media-on-academia/1147#comment4208_1136\">this comment</a></p>\n\n<p>After a few answers are posted to this question with positive vote rate, it seems that the <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/social-media\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;social-media&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">social-media</a> is a good choice to be created. </p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p><strong>Tag Excerpt Suggestion</strong> suggested in <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1147/15723\">this answer</a></p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Use of social media (e.g. Facebook, blogs, ResearchGate) by academics to engage with other academics or students and to disseminate their research.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p><strong>Tag Wiki Suggestion</strong> </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Social media is a collaborative internet website through which users (both administrators and visitors of the website) can exchange and share ideas and information such as academic topics.</p>\n</blockquote>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1147, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If we are going to have a <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/social-media\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;social-media&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">social-media</a> tag, I think the tag excerpt should describe social media in a way that reflects <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/search?q=social%20media\">the kinds of questions people ask about it here</a>. For example:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Use of social media (e.g. Facebook, blogs, ResearchGate) by academics to engage with other academics or students and to disseminate their research.</p>\n</blockquote>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1135", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/15723/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1141, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<blockquote>\n <p>What is a “rant” as far as Academia.SE?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>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?\". </p>\n\n<p>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. </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>That anger is also very real - what should unsuccessful posters do with it?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>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). </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1142, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In the help center, you will find the following text:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>If your motivation for asking the question is “I would like to participate in a discussion about <strong>__</strong>”, then you should not be asking here. However, if your motivation is “I would like others to explain <strong>__</strong> to me”, then you are probably OK. (Discussions are of course welcome in our real time web chat.)</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>A \"rant\" is a special case of a question whose motivation is \"I would like to participate in a discussion about <strong>__</strong>\", where the motivation of the asker seems to be \"I would like to complain and/or share my ideas about <strong>__</strong>\".</p>\n\n<p>If a question</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>has a strong negative tone or a strong ideological tone, and</li>\n<li>does not have an objective answer, or the answer would not be helpful to anybody</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>it is likely to be characterized as a \"rant\".</p>\n\n<p><strong>What are some indications that my question might be a \"rant\"?</strong></p>\n\n<p>If your question is any of the following:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Is there any point to X?</li>\n<li>Why are academics so X?</li>\n<li>Why did/didn't X do Y in this situation?</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>this <em>may</em> be an indication that it is a rant.</p>\n\n<p><strong>If your post is seen by others as a \"rant,\" what should you do?</strong></p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1143, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Since the original question that spawned the original meta question has been deleted, I am reposting it:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I am an international student in the United States and have been here\n in a PhD program for roughly 5+ years. Last week, my university's\n board of control proposed charging international students a surcharge\n of $250 per semester based on the fact the my public university hasn't\n been getting enough funds from my state (Michigan).</p>\n \n <p>Most of the international students find this rather discriminatory. I\n am unable to find the federal or state rule or letter of the law that\n is being \"exploited\" in this case, to impose this surcharge. This\n surcharge, apparently, cannot be paid off with a GTA/GRA appointment.</p>\n \n <p>The rationale given is that the \"cost of education has been\n increasing\".</p>\n \n <p>Any help in this regard would be useful. I bring this to academia.SE\n since this has an amalgamation of academic voices from all over the\n world which might provide better perspective to the (un)fairness of\n this \"surcharge\" situation.</p>\n \n <p>What is the legal precedent for such surcharges without enough notice?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1144, "author": "xLeitix", "author_id": 10094, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/10094", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<blockquote>\n <p>What is a “rant” as far as Academia.SE?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>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 <em>not</em> want to get into discussions about various ethical concerns regarding highly ideological issues (sometimes we can't help ourselves, of course).</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>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.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Here on Academia.SE the word rant is being used in a way that I have not seen on other websites </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>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!).</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1140", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1149, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I might recommend <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/disreputable-actions\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;disreputable-actions&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">disreputable-actions</a> or <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/disreputable-practices\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;disreputable-practices&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">disreputable-practices</a>, as I would think that questions about degree mills and other shady actions could fit into the same category.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1150, "author": "Wrzlprmft", "author_id": 7734, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/7734", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I suggest <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/disreputable-publishers\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;disreputable-publishers&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">disreputable-publishers</a> as name, which has the advantage of comprising all <em>predatory, scam, fake, shady.</em> (Not every shady or predatory publisher is a total fake or scam and fake and scam publishers are more than just shady.)</p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, it has the disadvantage of not being frequently used in this context.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1175, "author": "E.P.", "author_id": 820, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/820", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1150/820\">current accepted answer</a> strikes a nice middle ground with <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/disreputable-publishers\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;disreputable-publishers&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">disreputable-publishers</a>, but it has the disadvantage that few people posting questions to which the tag will apply will search for such a tag. I propose setting up <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/tags/synonyms\">synonyms</a> for this tag, along the lines of <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/fake-journal\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;fake-journal&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">fake-journal</a>,<a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/fake-conference\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;fake-conference&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">fake-conference</a>,<a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/predatory-publisher\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;predatory-publisher&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">predatory-publisher</a>. </p>\n\n<p>These will be activated when users start typing \"fake...\" or \"predatory...\" in the tag selection box, and will guide them to the appropriate tag. For example, typing \"pay\" currently guides users to <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/tags/salary/synonyms\">the accepted synonym</a>, <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/salary\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;salary&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">salary</a>:</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/sbtgF.png\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></p>\n\n<p>These synonyms <a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/70710/what-are-tag-synonyms-how-do-they-work\">can be set up by popular vote</a>, but the easiest and cleanest way to get them going (and in particular to avoid questions getting tagged with the subsidiary tags, which changes the behaviour (<a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/NnPx3.png\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">example</a>) is via moderator action - if this is OK by the community, of course.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1148", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/7734/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1161, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Answers that merely run against general sensibilities should not be flagged as abusive or offensive. The correct way to handle such questions is to <strong>downvote them.</strong> However, questions and answers that clearly are hostile to a particular individual or group of people can be marked as abusive or offensive.</p>\n\n<p>As for the matter of cursing, I think having a somewhat flexible policy is OK. It may be appropriate to have a mild profanity in context. (If people are squeamish about using them, they can always obfuscate.) However, \"hard\" curses and profanities should <strong>not</strong> be allowed, and should be subject to a warning. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1162, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<ul>\n<li><p>About expletives: if you could formulate your post without them, then they should be removed. We are not a bunch of teenagers who need to swear to look cool. In that particular answer, the sentences \" <em>there are a lot of assholes out there</em>\" could easily be replaced by \"<em>there are a lot people who enjoy harassing others</em>\" without any loss of accuracy. However, swearing alone might not require a deletion, and the post could be edited. </p></li>\n<li><p>About that particular answer, the abusive flag is also related to the content itself: <em>\"Straighten up yourself, get confident and make your student's life a misery, until he learns that he's the puppy-dog.\"</em>; <em>\"Fight him with your weapons you've got as a teacher, hate him.\"</em>; those are abusive statements. </p></li>\n<li><p>The combination of these two elements makes the post offensive/abusive, and if you add the fact that the user has no reputation, I believe this answer is a troll, not a genuine but poorly formulated answer, and should be deleted. The comment from the poster confirms that feeling. </p></li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1164, "author": "Pete L. Clark", "author_id": 938, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/938", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Thanks for asking this question. I was about to open up a meta thread on the same topic. I flagged the cited answer as offensive, and I commented:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I have flagged this answer as \"offensive / abusive\". I did not do this because of the use of words like \"damn\" and \"asshole\": these do not offend me (and do not offend most adults I know). Rather it is because the answer explicitly advocates that a teacher hate a student. As a former student and current teacher, I am certainly offended by this, and I hope others agree. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Professor Ismail responded with the following comment:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>@PeteL.Clark: The correct way to express violent disagreement with an answer is to downvote it, not to flag it as offensive. I also find the thoughts expressed repugnant, but I am quite sure you can find many faculty members who are cavalier to the whole concept of mentoring.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This confuses me. As indicated, I <em>did</em> find the answer offensive. The text for this flag reads:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>it is offensive, abusive, or hate speech This answer contains content that a reasonable person would deem inappropriate for respectful discourse.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This is a faithful description of my feelings about the answer. (I am making the implicit assumption that I am \"a reasonable person\". If I am mistaken in that, please do let me know!) This leaves me confused at the transaction. It might be that the moderator in question simply does not agree that the answer is offensive -- reasonable people can, and do, disagree -- in which case I understand why the flag was declined but not the comment: just because a flag is declined does not make it not \"correct\". However, the comment also expresses repugnance. It is my understanding that <a href=\"http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/repugnant\" rel=\"nofollow\">\"repugnant\" is a synonym for \"offensive\"</a>, so given that Prof. Ismail feels this way, I am confused not only by his explanation but by his declining of the flag.</p>\n\n<p><b>Added</b>: As one might have guessed from the comments above: no, I do not feel the need for a \"no nonsense you curse you get warned policy\". No academic I know includes \"curse words\" in their writing without a good reason. But some academics do include curse words in their writing (I have done it on occasion). The syllogism ends: we have good reasons for doing so. An outright ban thus seems \"unacademic\" to me.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1165, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'll state in an answer what I suggested in a comment; if you see expletives, simply edit them out. They do not belong in any answer, and the same point can invariably be made without the cursing. If, after editing, the answer is <em>still</em> offensive, then it's time for the flag.</p>\n\n<p>In this case, as Pete points out in <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1164/73\">his answer</a>, even after removing expletives the answer is still advocates that it is appropriate for a teacher to hate a student. That's pretty offensive, bring out the flags and it will be dealt with.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1160", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1173, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This is the <code>font-family</code> defined in the main stylesheet on the Academic Stack Exchange website:</p>\n\n<pre><code>font-family:Consolas,Menlo,Monaco,Lucida Console,Liberation Mono,DejaVu Sans Mono,Bitstream Vera Sans Mono,Courier New,monospace,serif;\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>The <code>font-family</code> 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.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1174, "author": "Joel Sharin", "author_id": 20831, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/20831", "pm_score": 1, "selected": true, "text": "<p>In addition to the info from celeritas, you can use <a href=\"http://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/</a> to use images to find fonts in the future. Here <a href=\"http://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/results?ch%5B0%5D=W&amp;ch%5B1%5D=h&amp;ch%5B2%5D=y&amp;ch%5B3%5D=a&amp;ch%5B4%5D=r&amp;ch%5B5%5D=e&amp;ch%5B6%5D=n&amp;ch%5B7%5D=%27&amp;ch%5B8%5D=t&amp;ch%5B9%5D=a&amp;ch%5B10%5D=l&amp;ch%5B11%5D=l&amp;ch%5B12%5D=r&amp;ch%5B13%5D=e&amp;ch%5B14%5D=s&amp;ch%5B15%5D=e&amp;ch%5B16%5D=a&amp;ch%5B17%5D=r&amp;ch%5B18%5D=c&amp;ch%5B19%5D=h&amp;ch%5B20%5D=a&amp;ch%5B21%5D=r&amp;ch%5B22%5D=t&amp;ch%5B23%5D=&amp;ch%5B24%5D=&amp;ch%5B25%5D=&amp;ch%5B26%5D=&amp;ch%5B27%5D=e&amp;ch%5B28%5D=s&amp;ch%5B29%5D=o&amp;ch%5B30%5D=n&amp;ch%5B31%5D=P&amp;ch%5B32%5D=u&amp;ch%5B33%5D=b&amp;ch%5B34%5D=M&amp;ch%5B35%5D=e&amp;ch%5B36%5D=d&amp;ch%5B37%5D=&amp;ch%5B38%5D=&amp;wtfserver=wtf_e_41&amp;id=00204b4a535186d5000a40200000712c&amp;glyphcount=39&amp;imageid=0&amp;x=88&amp;y=35\" rel=\"nofollow\">is an example</a> from this font.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1172", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1179, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In general, I'm happy to close with <em>\"This question appears to be off-topic because it seems to seek specific advice for a very specific situation, and it's likely that only someone with a good understanding of your situation will be able to provide an objectively correct answer. We would recommend to first ask the question to people with a good understanding of your situation.\"</em></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1181, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I don't think we need a closure reason, but we could modify the help center to make this cleaner so that when we suggest people look at the help center there is a clear example.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1183, "author": "gman", "author_id": 12454, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/12454", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>As a lower rep user I try to flag off-topic questions as much as I can. Of the ones that I believe to be shopping questions I usually flag in the other for moderators attention box with a note saying I think it's a shopping question. I am not sure if I am putting undue work on to the moderators by doing it this way. I think either a close reason as per aeismail's suggestion might be a good idea or alternatively a community decision on using one of the other closing reasons for such questions.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1207, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I agree that currently, there is no single close reason that applies universally to shopping questions.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Sometimes they are <strong>too localized</strong> or <strong>seek specific advice for a very specific situation</strong> (\"Here is my profile, what university should I attend?\") but not always.</li>\n<li>Sometimes they are <strong>too broad or have too many potential answers</strong> (\"I want to do an M.S. in Computer Science, which universities should I apply to?\") but not always.</li>\n<li>Sometimes they are <strong>opinion based</strong> (\"What are the best departments for this subfield?\") but not always.</li>\n<li>Sometimes they are none of these things, but just straight-up shopping (\"Is there an inexpensive online MS in CS that's a reputable degree?\")</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I often find myself closing shopping questions with \"off topic\"->\"Other (add comment)\" and writing out a comment with a link to <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/871/11365\">this meta post</a>. I would very much like to see a \"real\" close reason for shopping questions. </p>\n\n<p>I would suggest to replace the undergrad close reason, since I find myself closing \"shopping\" questions a <em>lot</em> more often than undergrad questions.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1178", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1193, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This is a perfect example of a <a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/93669/please-kill-some-meta-tags\">meta-tag</a>, and I think it should definitely be blacklisted. If there are others that should also be torched please add to the list.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1194, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'm all for deleting bad tags. However, there is a caveat that we should check if any of these tags should have been assigned to <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/advising\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;advising&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">advising</a> instead. Then the remaining can be \"nuked\" as needed.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1192", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/4140/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1196, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>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. </p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1197, "author": "xLeitix", "author_id": 10094, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/10094", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<blockquote>\n <p>what should we do with answers that do not answer directly the question but can still be seen as interesting?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>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 <strong>cannot</strong> 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.</p>\n\n<p>So, what I generally do when reading answers that don't really answer the question, is roughly the following:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>If the answer is still <em>really</em> good, I upvote it anyway.</li>\n<li>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.</li>\n<li>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.</li>\n<li>If the advice is just really bad and entirely misses the point, I downvote and flag as \"Not an answer\".</li>\n</ol>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1195", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1202, "author": "xLeitix", "author_id": 10094, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/10094", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think the problem is more general than just those specific tags.</p>\n\n<p>I would be extremely interested in usage statistics of our tags. Not how often tags are being used for questions, but how often somebody actually searches for a specific tag. My underlying assumption is that many of our tags are essentially useless, as they are so general, and their use so ill-defined, that nobody actually uses them for their intended purpose (to find questions fitting their interest). For instance, I can hardly imagine the person that would be interested in questions tagged <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/phd\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;phd&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">phd</a>, but not all other questions on academia.SE.</p>\n\n<p>To address your concrete question:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Can anyone offer specific guidelines on how to apply these and other very general tags so that they will be useful?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I cannot. What I would encourage, though, is a deeper discussion about how tags are being used in this stack exchange, and whether we can and should clean this up from ground up. I could, for instance, imagine having a smallish number of fixed tags, a la meta, with really well-defined semantics and which are only changed based on meta discussions.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1267, "author": "Wrzlprmft", "author_id": 7734, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/7734", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I have been retagging some new and old questions lately and found much too many questions tagged with one of the mentioned tags, which do not even contain this word in title or body. Due to this, I think that the only way to keep these tags clean is to control every single new question.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Can anyone offer specific guidelines on how to apply these and other very general tags so that they will be useful?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>When retagging, I have been going by the philosophy to keep those tags only, if they can be expected to be essential to the question or answer, for example, if the situation necessarily involves some of the respective persons to be a professor (and not just any supervisor) or if it was crucial that a university was involved and not a research lab or some other institution.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1359, "author": "David Richerby", "author_id": 10685, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/10685", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The \"University\" tag seems to be completely redundant. At least in British English, \"academia\" and \"universities\" are synonyms: it's impossible to ask a question about one that isn't a question about the other.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1201", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1204, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<h3>Write <em>one</em> question per post</h3>\n\n<p>If you have several questions about a problem or situation, but the questions can be asked independently, please split them up into multiple posts.</p>\n\n<p>There are several reasons for this:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>From <a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/39224/254250\">Meta.SE</a>: \"That way it's easy to select a correct answer. If you ask several questions in one question you risk having answers that are both correct and wrong at the same time.\"</li>\n<li>If your question has many parts, it is likely to be closed for being <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask\">too broad in scope</a>.</li>\n<li>If a user only knows the answer to some of your questions but not others, they may refrain from answering entirely. Asking one question per post makes it more likely that each of your questions will get answered.</li>\n<li><p>Writing one question per post makes it much easier for future visitors to find existing questions like their own. Imagine you're a future visitor and you'd like to know whether a publication in an unrelated field will be helpful in graduate admissions. Would an existing question be easier to find if </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>It's a sub-question of a very, very long post titled \"Advice for admissions to graduate school?\" along with four other sub-questions, or</li>\n<li>It's in dedicated post with only one question, titled \"How does a publication in an unrelated field affect graduate admissions?\"</li>\n</ul></li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1205, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": 6, "selected": false, "text": "<h3>\"Here's my situation, any suggestions?\" is not an answerable question</h3>\n\n<p>Sometimes questions on Academia.SE involve a user describing the situation they find themselves in, and asking a very general question (e.g., \"any suggestions or advice?\"). Instead of asking questions like this, you should highlight the <em>specific</em> question you want answered.</p>\n\n<p>For example, suppose your question is \"My advisor does X, what should I do?\"</p>\n\n<p>Without further clarification, we can't tell whether you want to know:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>How to gracefully switch to another advisor?</li>\n<li>Whether your advisor's behavior is normal?</li>\n<li>How to talk to your advisor about changing this behavior?</li>\n<li>How to mitigate the effect this behavior has on you?</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>So, please <strong>make sure you specify the <em>question</em> you want an answer to</strong> in your post, and not just the situation.</p>\n\n<p>If you don't describe your specific question, you won't necessarily get answers to that question. It's also highly likely that your post will be closed as \"unclear what you're asking.\"</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1206, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<h3>Look before you leap.</h3>\n\n<p>The best way to avoid having your questions placed on hold is to know what a good question looks like. And the best way to find out is to look at good questions. Click on a tag related to what you want to ask, and see what's already there—and what's been highly upvoted.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1210, "author": "xLeitix", "author_id": 10094, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/10094", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<h3>Give yourself time to proofread before submitting</h3>\n\n<p>Even if what you want to ask weighs heavy on your heart, don't just get your feelings out there. Collect your thoughts, consider what we need to know about your situation (and, more importantly, what we should not know, for instance specifics that could identify you), and ask a nicely formulated question in grammatically correct english, with paragraphs, and a single, explicit question item. If your question is overly long, this is an indicator that you are likely including too much personal backstory into your question.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Remember, in order to answer your question, people here first need to read it. The chance that your question is read carefully is strongly correlated with how clear and well-presented it is.</strong></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1211, "author": "Jeromy Anglim", "author_id": 62, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/62", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<h2>Think about how to make your question a useful ongoing resource for the internet</h2>\n<p>This generally means thinking about what is general about your question. You may have a problem that is highly specific to your situation but think about how can it be generalised so that the answers will be helpful to others.</p>\n<p>Basically, stack exchange is here to make the life of the Googling masses so much better. The answers you receive will hopefully help you, but more importantly a good general question will help hundreds or often thousands of future people who google the question. The more that you can frame your question in a slightly general way, the more likely a question is to help the Googling masses.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1212, "author": "Wrzlprmft", "author_id": 7734, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/7734", "pm_score": 7, "selected": false, "text": "<h3>Academia varies more than you think it does</h3>\n\n<p>Academic customs and procedures vary greatly across countries, universities, fields, subfields, workgroups and so on. Therefore always consider that what you assume to be general in your question or answer is not. It is very helpful if your question includes at least your field and your country.</p>\n\n<p>Some examples:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>In some fields, publishing papers at conferences is the default; in other fields, it is unheard of.</p></li>\n<li><p>In some fields, a peer-review process of one year is quick; in others it is outrageously long.</p></li>\n<li><p>How the order of authors of a paper is determined varies greatly across fields.</p></li>\n<li><p>The role and relevance of the corresponding author differs between journals, fields and countries. [<a href=\"//academia.stackexchange.com/q/84476/7734\">1</a>], [<a href=\"//academia.stackexchange.com/q/10062/7734\">2</a>].</p></li>\n<li><p>The rate of papers per author and citations per paper vary strongly over fields and subfields.</p></li>\n<li><p>The distinction between undergraduate and graduate students doesn’t exist in some countries. For example, it isn’t even possible to accurately translate the corresponding words into the German language.</p></li>\n<li><p>In some countries, PhD students are typically university employees; in others they are not and live on a stipend, which they need to apply for and may not get.</p></li>\n<li><p>In some countries, prospective PhD students apply directly to potential supervisors; in others, they apply to a department.</p></li>\n<li><p>In some countries and fields, getting a PHD involves coursework; in others, it doesn’t.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Please consider having a look at <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/q/4471/7734\">Academia varies more than you think it does – The Movie</a> for a more extensive list.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1213, "author": "Fomite", "author_id": 118, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/118", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<h3>Don't take constructive feedback personally; see if your post can be improved with some editing</h3>\n<p>Stack Exchange is designed around being helpful, and the people here who are volunteering their time to answer questions are doing it because they <em>want</em> to answer them, and be helpful.</p>\n<p>Close votes or other suggestions are not judgements on you, your character, or your situation. They are an attempt to make a question capable of being answered, or steer the question into a place where it can reasonably be answered. A question being closed means we're not sure it can be answered as it is currently written - not that your situation doesn't deserve our attention.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1215, "author": "enthu", "author_id": 15723, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/15723", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<h2>Don't run, Walk!</h2>\n\n<p>Gaining reputation may be something really interesting for the low-experienced users. They may try to add to their reputation by posting numerous questions or answers which do not have any meaningful content. This may probably reduce their reputation or cause down-votes to their posts. If you take a look at users with higher reputation, you can see that they have posts which have gained many up-votes just because the content is of good quality. They just don't post something; they answer the questions indeed.</p>\n\n<p>As a newly registered user, I recommend you to:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Visit the <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/tour\">Academia's tour</a>;</li>\n<li><p>Read the content provided in the <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/help\">Academia's Help Center</a>; Specially the following topics: </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic\">What topics can I ask about here?</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-answer\">How do I write a good answer?</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask\">What types of questions should I avoid asking?</a></li>\n</ul></li>\n<li><p>Take a look at <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/tags\">tags</a> list and read some questions and answers which attract you more.</p></li>\n<li>Do not go instantly to use your moderation privileges such as edit features.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Understanding what's wrong or right, what's the website's policy about on-topic or off-topic content and how this website works need time. So be patient.</p>\n\n<p>and one last advice;</p>\n\n<p>If your post which may be a question or an answer, is put on hold or even deleted, or your suggested edits are rejected; do not become angry. Ask your questions about the website's policies on <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/\">Academia's Meta</a> and do your discussions on the <a href=\"http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/2496/academia\">website's chat room</a>, not in the comments or answers.</p>\n\n<p>Try to ask the users with higher reputation, why your content is down-voted, put on hold or deleted and try to learn from your mistakes. So, in future, you will post questions and answers which meet the site's policies and this way, you will not only learn things, but also you will enjoy being on a site in which many graduate students and faculty members collaborate.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1273, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<h3>\"I couldn't find a better SE site for this question\" is not necessarily a reason to ask it here</h3>\n\n<p>The <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic\">help center</a> describes what kinds of questions are considered on-topic here, as well as some kinds of questions that are outside the scope of this site (as defined by the community).</p>\n\n<p>We welcome your on-topic contributions. But, if you ask a question that is not within one of the on-topic areas, or that falls within one of the out-of-scope areas, it will be closed.</p>\n\n<p>This is true even if there is currently no StackExchange site (or other site) at which you may ask the question. Off-topic-ness everywhere else does not imply on-topic-ness here.</p>\n\n<p>Furthermore, while some users may suggest a better site¹ to ask your question if they know of one, we aren't necessarily experts on all the websites out there. So if you ask in a comment</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>well, what site can I ask this question at, then????</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>you may or may not get a response - because we don't necessarily know the answer. But it definitely won't get the question reopened. </p>\n\n<p>If you think you've identified a gap in the coverage of current StackExchange sites, you can visit <a href=\"http://area51.stackexchange.com/\">Area51</a> to propose a new site, or support an existing proposal. </p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>¹ <a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/64068/is-cross-posting-a-question-on-multiple-stack-exchange-sites-permitted-if-the-qu\">Cross-posting is against StackExchange policy</a> and is liable to get your question closed and deleted. If you think your <em>own</em> question would be more appropriate on a different site, use the \"flag\" link and ask a moderator to migrate it from Academia to your preferred site. If you think <em>someone else's</em> question would be more appropriate on another site, <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1024/11365\">write a comment</a> suggesting that the OP use the \"flag\" link to ask a moderator to migrate it (and, also vote to close <em>if</em> it's also off-topic at Academia).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1289, "author": "enthu", "author_id": 15723, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/15723", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<h2>Useful tips for more interested users who want to be an asset to the site</h2>\n\n<p>If you are a new user, and after asking some questions and answering some others, want to stay on this site and collaborate more, I encourage you to read the <a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/\">Stack Exchange network-wide Meta</a> content to become more aware of the functionality and usefulness of some features existing on the website.</p>\n\n<p>Especially the questions listed under <a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/faq\">FAQ</a> tag will help you act more wisely and efficiently. Mostly when you gain reputation and have access to some moderation tools, these questions and answers will help you indeed.</p>\n\n<p>I'll link to some of these questions here and will be thankful to other users if they also add some more valuable questions to read.</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p><a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/7931/faq-for-stack-exchange-sites\">FAQ for Stack Exchange sites</a></p></li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/155538/what-are-the-guidelines-for-reviewing\">What are the guidelines for reviewing?</a></p></li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/146949/when-is-tag-creation-appropriate-and-how-does-it-work\">Can we please have the [foo] tag on our site?</a></p></li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/135360/theres-an-election-going-on-whats-happening-and-how-does-it-work\">There&#39;s an election going on. What&#39;s happening and how does it work?</a></p></li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/126829/what-is-serial-voting-and-how-does-it-affect-me\">What is serial voting and how does it affect me?</a></p></li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/130046/when-should-i-vote\">When should I vote?</a></p></li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/126180/is-it-acceptable-to-write-a-thank-you-in-a-comment\">Is it acceptable to write a thank you in a comment?</a></p></li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/57537/how-do-i-contact-other-users\">How do I contact other users?</a></p></li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/10647/how-do-i-write-a-good-title\">How do I write a good title?</a></p></li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/17038/what-is-a-rollback\">What is a &#39;rollback&#39;?</a></p></li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/48578/what-can-cause-my-question-to-be-bumped\">What can cause a question to be bumped?</a></p></li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/64068/is-cross-posting-a-question-on-multiple-stack-exchange-sites-permitted-if-the-qu\">Is cross-posting a question on multiple Stack Exchange sites permitted if the question is on-topic for each site?</a></p></li>\n</ol>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1679, "author": "Wrzlprmft", "author_id": 7734, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/7734", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<h2>Use tags that are relevant to your question</h2>\n\n<p>When tagging your question, go by what the question is actually <em>about,</em> not by what it is only <em>related</em> to. This way, you can help future users to find questions addressing their problems.</p>\n\n<p>For example, almost every question on this site is somewhat related to research, because that’s what academians do. If you are asking about, e.g., how to best cite something, you are probably doing so because you are publishing your research. Such a question would only be <em>related</em> to research, but not <em>about</em> it, and should thus not be tagged <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/research\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;research&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">research</a>. If you are however asking on how to best organise your research, the question is actually <em>about</em> research and thus deserves the tag.</p>\n\n<p>In another example, when you have a question about how to cite something that came up when writing a thesis, the same question might as well have arisen when writing a paper. In this case the question is not about theses and should thus should not be tagged <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/thesis\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;thesis&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">thesis</a>.</p>\n\n<p>The following tags are often used spuriously: <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/phd\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;phd&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">phd</a>, <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/masters\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;masters&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">masters</a>, <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/thesis\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;thesis&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">thesis</a>, <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/research\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;research&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">research</a>, <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/publications\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;publications&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">publications</a>, <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/university\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;university&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">university</a>, <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/students\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;students&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">students</a>, <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/professors\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;professors&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">professors</a>, <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/conference\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;conference&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">conference</a>, <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/graduate-school\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;graduate-school&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">graduate-school</a>.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1203", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1216, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I was not the moderator who deleted the answer, but had I gotten to it first, I would have. I do not think it answers the question in its current format, although it has the potential to be the basis of a great answers. Without the quote it does not meet the minimum number of characters required for answers suggesting it may be too short. To be a good answer you would really need to explain why the behaviour would result in a loss of self respect.</p>\n\n<p>As for a moderator deleting the question, this is one area where our community moderation really let's us down. What happened was that two users raised the \"not an answer flag\". A moderator agree and performed an action on the flags and deleted the questions. In my opinion the correct way for the community to handle these things is for regular users to down vote the answer so that it has a negative vote total which would then allow users with sufficient reputation to cast a delete vote. This would keep the moderators out of it. That said, historically we have not moderated ourselves in this way and instead users tend to flag and not down vote, or even comment, which to me is a strange combination leaving moderators looking like they are acting unilaterally.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1217, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Answers that don't answer the question may be deleted. This includes:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Posts asking for clarification on the question</li>\n<li>Posts commenting on a related topic but not answering the question</li>\n<li>Sarcastic/witty one-liners</li>\n<li>Rants</li>\n<li>Abusive posts</li>\n<li>Spam</li>\n<li>...?</li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1223, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I \"deleted\" the answer, although it was actually converted to a comment (which you then in turn deleted). The reason the answer was deleted was because of length, not because it's not an answer. Unfortunately, the mod interface (where this was done) doesn't give the option to leave feedback after such an operation, and I forgot to put it in manually.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1214", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/81/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1216, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I was not the moderator who deleted the answer, but had I gotten to it first, I would have. I do not think it answers the question in its current format, although it has the potential to be the basis of a great answers. Without the quote it does not meet the minimum number of characters required for answers suggesting it may be too short. To be a good answer you would really need to explain why the behaviour would result in a loss of self respect.</p>\n\n<p>As for a moderator deleting the question, this is one area where our community moderation really let's us down. What happened was that two users raised the \"not an answer flag\". A moderator agree and performed an action on the flags and deleted the questions. In my opinion the correct way for the community to handle these things is for regular users to down vote the answer so that it has a negative vote total which would then allow users with sufficient reputation to cast a delete vote. This would keep the moderators out of it. That said, historically we have not moderated ourselves in this way and instead users tend to flag and not down vote, or even comment, which to me is a strange combination leaving moderators looking like they are acting unilaterally.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1217, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Answers that don't answer the question may be deleted. This includes:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Posts asking for clarification on the question</li>\n<li>Posts commenting on a related topic but not answering the question</li>\n<li>Sarcastic/witty one-liners</li>\n<li>Rants</li>\n<li>Abusive posts</li>\n<li>Spam</li>\n<li>...?</li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1223, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I \"deleted\" the answer, although it was actually converted to a comment (which you then in turn deleted). The reason the answer was deleted was because of length, not because it's not an answer. Unfortunately, the mod interface (where this was done) doesn't give the option to leave feedback after such an operation, and I forgot to put it in manually.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1221", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/15723/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1227, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I would restrict editing to the <em>titles</em> of closed questions, since this is the information that is most readily visible to the user (in Web searches, internal searches, and the front page).</p>\n\n<p>My argument is that the front page is your \"advertisement\" to stick around. If there are a lot of typos and poorly worded titles on the front page, it gives a bad impression of the site overall.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1228, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think too often closed questions that are salvageable do not get the attention that is required to reopen them. In my opinion anything that people are willing to do to try and move a question closer to being reopened is a good thing. Editing the title and tags can help attract attention from the \"right\" people who may be able to edit the question even more. Editing grammar and formatting can also be helpful. Sometimes questions are so poorly written that it is difficult to know where to begin in terms of salvaging the question. Other times the question is going to need rephrasing and improved grammar/formatting before it can be reopened.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1720, "author": "David Richerby", "author_id": 10685, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/10685", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>We recently <a href=\"https://cs.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1007/trivial-edits-to-closed-on-hold-questions\">discussed this on Computer Science meta</a>. Consensus was that edits to closed/on-hold questions that do nothing to address the reason for closure should be avoided and, if made, they should be rejected as \"No improvement whatsoever.\"</p>\n\n<p>For me, this applies even if the question could be suitable for reopening if improved. We don't close questions just because they're badly formatted or have poor grammer. By the same token, we shouldn't refuse to reopen a question that's been edited to make it appropriate for the site, even if it's still badly formatted or still has poor grammar. To be honest, it seems unlikely that somebody would make the question appropriate for reopening without also improving the formatting and grammar but, if they did that, somebody else can always come along and fix those minor issues once the question's been opened again (or even while the reopen vote is in progress).</p>\n\n<p>In my experience, people who do make grammar and formatting improvements to on-hold questions are usually well-meaning new users. A polite \"Thanks but please don't do that because XYZ; here are some useful things you could do instead\" message always seems to redirect their energies to something productive.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1226", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1234, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I don't think \"shopping\" is generally a subtype of \"Questions that cannot be generalized to apply to others in similar situations.\"</p>\n\n<p>Many of the shopping questions we get are very general. For example, </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/18283/cheapest-online-degrees\">What are the cheapest online degrees in Computer Science?</a> </li>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/18289/where-can-i-take-online-mba-courses-without-being-admitted\">Where can I take online MBA courses without being admitted?</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/27436/good-chemical-engineering-schools-in-us-for-ph-d\">Good chemical engineering schools in US for Ph.D?</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>The fundamental problem with these questions is not just that they are too broad, because if they were narrowed down a great deal they'd still be off topic. The problem is that they are shopping questions. I don't think that \"shopping\" is a subtype of any of our existing close reasons.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1236, "author": "Flyto", "author_id": 8394, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/8394", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>On some other sites I might agree, but I suspect that on academia.SE, the biggest cause of the \"cannot be generalised\" closure is \"Here is my specific situation in great detail. What course should I take / how should I deal with my supervisor / what colour of pen is it best to use?\". Answering that with something that might be interpreted as \"don't ask shopping questions\" will just confuse.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1233", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1237, "author": "xLeitix", "author_id": 10094, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/10094", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>My pragmatic proposal would be to just leave it open. While it may be a duplicate of Question 2, Question 2 is closed and hence \"does not really exist\". It should be closed if it is a duplicate of Question 1, but as you say it isn't, I see no reason to mark it as duplicate.</p>\n\n<p>More generally, I think it is important to consider closing as duplicate as <em>\"these are very similar questions, to the extend that the answers will be pretty much the same\"</em>, and not <em>\"these are absolutely identical questions\"</em>. With the first, more practical, definition in mind, it becomes clear that being a duplicate is not necessarily a transitive relationship (that is, it is possible that A is a duplicate of B, B of C, but A not of C).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1243, "author": "David Z", "author_id": 236, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/236", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I don't think the fact that question 2 is itself a duplicate of something is a reason not to close question 3 as a duplicate of it. If you do close Q3 as a duplicate of Q2, it keeps the \"duplication graph\" sensible in case question 2 is reopened sometime in the future. And if that doesn't happen, someone browsing the questions is still going to be pointed to Q1 in the end. The only thing you give up by closing Q3 as a duplicate of Q2 rather than of Q1 is a slight amount of convenience on the part of the reader.</p>\n\n<p>So I would recommend closing question 3 as a duplicate of question 2.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1235", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1240, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If you click on a tag, you get a list of questions using that tag. Before applying the tag, ask yourself the following question:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Would I expect to see this question in a list of questions using this tag?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>For example, I removed the \"grades\" tag which you applied to <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28204/what-if-any-roads-are-open-to-graduate-schools-for-athletes-with-borderline-gr\">What, if any, roads are open to graduate schools for athletes with borderline grades?</a> because the question is not about \"grades\" and \"grading.\" I would not expect to see such a question come up in that context. I would expect to see it in a question about graduate admissions. I might also expect to see it in a list of questions about athletics. </p>\n\n<p>However, <strong>don't tag or retag a question</strong> if you're not certain if a tag should apply. It's better <em>not</em> to edit tags, particularly on old questions, if you're not positive the tags you're adding are relevant. If you think something needs new tags, then you could suggest it as a comment instead of retagging.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1241, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The guidelines I recommend are:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>First read the tag wiki excerpt for the tag you are thinking of <em>very carefully</em>. In particular, some words have dual or ambiguous meanings (e.g. our <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/law\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;law&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">law</a> is about the academic discipline of law, as described in the tag wiki, not about legal problems faced by academics.) The tag wiki excerpt is supposed to define the scope of how the tag should be applied. If the tag wiki excerpt does <em>not</em> do this, either propose an edit to it (if you think you know how the tag should be used) or ask about that tag on meta (if you don't). If you think the excerpt does not match the way the tag has been applied, ask about it on meta.</li>\n<li>If you're going to apply a tag, first check if there are multiple tags that cover the same meaning and scope (in their tag wiki excerpts and/or in how they are applied). If so, apply the better one (the one that's been used most consistently so far). Then <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/admin/create-tag-synonym\">propose a tag synonym</a> (or if you don't have enough reputation to propose a tag synonym, propose it on meta).</li>\n<li><p>Don't add tags that are tangential to the fundamental question at hand. For example, </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>If there is a question about teaching, and the OP mentions that the class is a physics class, but the question and answers would be exactly the same if the OP was teaching engineering, don't add <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/physics\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;physics&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">physics</a>.</li>\n<li>If there is a question about applying to a PhD program, and the OP asks \"I saw on the program's website that applicants are encouraged to contact potential supervisors directly - what to write on first contact?\" - this is <em>not</em> a question about a <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/website\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;website&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">website</a>.</li>\n</ul></li>\n<li><p><em>Re-tag</em> only if you are adding meaningful information by doing so. For example, almost all of the questions on this site <em>could</em> potentially have <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/phd\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;phd&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">phd</a>, <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/research\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;research&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">research</a>, <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/university\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;university&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">university</a>, or <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/professors\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;professors&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">professors</a>. But adding these to a question after the fact - even if it's not really <em>wrong</em> - often adds no useful information. (This is, unfortunately, a somewhat subjective judgment call that not everybody will always agree on.)</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Finally, as with everything else on this site, don't be upset if someone disagrees with your tags, changes them, or applies tags you think are wrong. If someone changes or removes a tag you've added, take some time to read the tag wiki excerpts, look at the questions the tag has been applied to, review the above guidelines, and try to understand why. After doing that, if you still don't understand, ask on meta. (I suggest to ask on meta, rather than in a comment or in chat, so that the discussion is preserved permanently and <em>everybody</em> can learn from it.)</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1239", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/15723/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1260, "author": "enthu", "author_id": 15723, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/15723", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>After a good discussion went on between some users of the site about the need of having <a href=\"http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/17738787#17738787\">some strategies</a> when we edit the tags, as a clear and working strategy, <a href=\"http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/17738816#17738816\">strongbad suggested</a> that a good strategy to tag edits might be something like the following:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Would it be better choosing a tag you would like to improve and\n removing it from questions that do not need it and adding it to those\n that do? That way you only have to keep a good mental representation\n of one tag at a time. Your approach seems to require you to understand\n all the tags.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Also, <a href=\"http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/17739208#17739208\">ff524 supported</a> such strategy by</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I also think that since many tags are currently not well-defined in\n scope (see several ongoing meta discussions), it's not even possible\n to \"properly\" tag every question right now</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>To conclude that discussion, the strategy that <code>each user is better to pick a tag and add it to or remove it from the questions</code> seems to be a good strategy, minimizes double works on tag edits and makes the tag edits an efficient and a less time-consuming work.</p>\n\n<p>However, we have no clear job distribution between users. One user may have edited a question and brought it in a good shape but after a while, another user double edits the question and ruins previous revisions.</p>\n\n<p>As stated in the discussion, <a href=\"http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/17741610#17741610\">I suggested</a> having the following approach which makes tag edits more clear;</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Isn't it better to make a meta question with a title like \"Tags under\n edit\" and each person working on a tag post an answer to the question.\n So, we will have a list of tags under edit, and a list of off-on topic\n questions relatively?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>By having a meta question in which each user states that s/he is working a particular tag, so another users do not waste their time re-editing the questions with that tag; it is obvious that another user may edit that question for another tag. This way, we solve <a href=\"http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/17741628#17741628\">the problem of multiple works</a> on any tags.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>This helps with the problem of multiple users working on tags, since\n if it's obvious what should be done it's unlikely someone will ruin a\n good edit; and if it's not obvious, the community should weigh in\n first anyways</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Also, in her/his answer to that question; s/he can edit and ask about on-topic or off-topic questions and after her/his is completed, we have a list of on/off-topic questions in each answer which will be a valuable list, will help users in future to learn more about the off-topic questions and helps them become aware about the site's policies about each tag. Another benefit would be the discussions which can be made in the comments of each answer (each tag) or in a separate chat-room (with similar name) which will improve the user's vision about the tags.</p>\n\n<h2>Proposal:</h2>\n\n<p>We need following spaces on the <a href=\"http://academia.stackexchange.com\">Academia website</a> to manage our edits to <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/tags\">tags</a>:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>A <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/ask\">question</a> on <a href=\"http://meta.academia.stackexchange.com\">academia's meta</a> with a title like <code>Tag edits\nmanagement page</code> in which each user posts an answer to take the\nresponsibility of editing one (or two) tag(s) (no more, when s/he\nfinishes his edit with a tag; the s/he can pick another tag).</p></li>\n<li><p>A chat-room with similar name to that meta question in which users\ncan bring further discussions about question. This way, we will not\nmiss our discussions between normal chats in our <a href=\"http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/2496/academia\">main\nchat-room</a>. Also, we can mention a link to the chat discussion\nabout questions and tags in front of it's answer in the edits-page\non meta; so users can easily follow the discussions.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<h2>Benefits:</h2>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Editing the tags systematically and avoiding multiple and\nunneccessary revisions;</li>\n<li>User will be focused on only one tag and his mind will not be\ncrowded with many definitions of multiple tags;</li>\n<li>Concentrated discussion and good archiving to the off-topic and\non-topic questions on each tag will help the users of the site\nbecome more familiar with the site's proffered policies on each tags\nand helps the users better choose tags for their questions.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<h2>Considerations:</h2>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>We should take care and encourage users, if they want to do any edit\nto any tags; they post their proposal in a comment to the\nresponsible's answer on the edit's question in meta, so users will\nbe rejecting such edits instantly if their suggestions are\nirrelevant; however, the comments to each answer will be so crowded\nafter a while; so we should think about the following issue:</p>\n\n<p>After one round of edits is finished to each tag, what procedure\nshould be proposed to new tag edit? Should we ask users not to edit\ncompleted tags or we should ask them send a proposal to each edit\nthey want to make in a separate question in meta?</p></li>\n<li><p>What should we do about the problem of bumping question to the\nactive questions list? We should think about it too, we can announce\na period of six month for editing the website's tags. Or even, one\nday a week for editing the questions' tags. This way, users will not\nface a list of questions bumped in to the top list every day; Only\none day per week we will have the bumping problem which will be\ncompletely reasonable. During this period of time, we can apology\nthe users for some inconsistency by showing them a message in the\nfirst page; something like: Sorry for inconvenience, the site is in\nthe tag edits period; for a list of newest questions please visit\n<a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions?sort=newest\">the list of newest questions</a>.</p></li>\n<li><p>Edits suggestions to the excerpt and wiki of each tag may be made as\nwas in the past (suggesting edits in meta in separate questions).</p></li>\n</ol>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1266, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think the best way to minimize disruptions is to make sure the changes to the tags are correct. Removing needed tags or adding unneeded tags is a huge disruption and requires intervention from people. Further, if a particular users edits/efforts are not highly reliable, this can cause other users to want to constantly review the user's edits. This seems hugely disruptive. On that note</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>when bumping an old post for retagging (or when someone else bumps an old post), fix everything else that's wrong with the post at the same time: correct typos, remove incorrect tags, etc. This way, we won't have to bump it again to fix something else.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>While this is laudable, I think it is incredibly hard to fix all the tag issues in one go. In order to do that the editor would need an in depth understanding of the entire tag taxonomy. I think this type of approach leads to more mistakes. I think the cost of these mistakes would easily offset the advantages associated with the decrease in the total number of edits.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>only bump 5-6 old posts at a time</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I am not sure if bumping 5-6 old posts a couple of times every day (potentially by different users) for weeks on end is more or less disruptive then a single large disruption during a period of low use. A single large disruption would flood the front page, but we would then be fully recovered with a day or so.</p>\n\n<p>The mod only analytics show that our total page views consistently spike early in the week and then drop to the lowest point on Saturday (about 60% of the peak). How the number of questions and answers varies is less clear, but I think the weekends are also the low points.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Proposal</strong>\nUsers that want to improve the tagging should chose a problem tag and create an list of questions that need the tag added and a list of questions that need the tag removed. Post this list to meta for some discussion and community agreement and then make the changes in a single session.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1246", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1253, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>To summarize David Richerby's comments:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Everybody knows where to find those sites so the links aren't useful...\n I'm not convinced that bulk-editing to add links to sites that are way more famous than this one is worthwhile. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>More specifically, I (DR) think it's very unlikely that somebody reading a post here on Academia.SE will think, \"Ooh. Twitter. That sounds like an exciting site. I think I'll follow this link to their front page.\"</p>\n\n<p>And when they cause the question to be bumped,</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>This kind of trivial edit of a rather old answer is harmful because it moves the question up to the front of the Active list, displacing some other question onto the second page. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>EnthusiasticStudent has pointed out that the questions were on the front page anyway when the links were added, so the bumping issue isn't very significant in this particular case. (Though it still means that the edited question will fall off the first page later than it would have done without the edit.)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1254, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>To summarize Enthusiastic Student's comments:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I just do such edits, to make links clickable to the users and readers of the posts. This may seem to be useless, but having links on the post is far more attractive for the user than having a simple text. The only benefit is having clickable links on posts, nothing more. </p>\n</blockquote>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1255, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Personally, I find these links to well-known sites distracting more than helpful.</p>\n<ul>\n<li>They're in a different color, so they pull my focus</li>\n<li>They make posts &quot;feel&quot; kind of spammy</li>\n<li>I click on them accidentally more often than I do on purpose</li>\n<li>They make the more useful, non-obvious links stand out less</li>\n</ul>\n<p>(I also do not like edits linking to a user's Academia.SE page whenever they are mentioned by username in a question or answer, or linking mentions to other answers on the same page, for the same reasons.)</p>\n<p>I brought up this issue on <a href=\"https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/64463/are-hyperlinks-to-well-known-sites-useful-in-the-context-of-a-blog-post-or-stack\">User Experience Stack Exchange</a>.</p>\n<p>As an <a href=\"https://ux.stackexchange.com/a/64467/53842\">answer</a> there points out,</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Do you think users have a need to visit Facebook while reading your site?</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>I do not think we generally <em>want</em> users to click on these links while reading Academia.SE posts (unlike, say, links to useful outside resources, which we <em>do</em> want users to click on), so they shouldn't be clickable.</p>\n<p>Another <a href=\"https://ux.stackexchange.com/a/64472/53842\">answer</a> advises,</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>I found little empirical data for UX hyperlinking best practices (couldn't link to it anyway), but find the practice of gratuitous links to everything, including well-known sites, to be annoying, distracting, confusing, and to serve little purpose.</p>\n<p>Unless you're linking to specific, relevant information or citing a source from that well-known site, there's no need for a hyperlink. If you're using the internet and are over the age of 12 you know what Facebook is.</p>\n</blockquote>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1252", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1264, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I don't think that the <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/pedagogy\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;pedagogy&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">pedagogy</a> tag, as currently defined, will be useful.</p>\n\n<p>\"Relates to the method and practice of teaching\" seems liable to confusion with <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/teaching\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;teaching&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">teaching</a> to me. </p>\n\n<p>I don't think <em>I</em> could reliably determine which questions should be tagged pedagogy instead of/in addition to teaching, and I suspect I'm not the only one. (And the upvotes on <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28670/how-do-you-choose-a-textbook-for-a-new-class#comment61831_28670\">this comment</a> suggest that others agree.)</p>\n\n<p>This is not to say that I think \"teaching\" and \"pedagogy\" mean exactly identical things. But, I'm concerned that in practice, the distinction is too fine for many users (and the excerpt is not very helpful in clarifying the distinction). </p>\n\n<p>I don't think it's productive to have a pair of tags that only a small portion of users on the site can actually distinguish between. Tags that are subject to misinterpretation or misuse are bad for the site.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1265, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I created the <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/pedagogy\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;pedagogy&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">pedagogy</a> tag yesterday so there is currently only one question with the tag, but I would imagine that all, or nearly all, questions that are suitable for the <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/pedagogy\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;pedagogy&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">pedagogy</a> tag would also be suitable for the <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/teaching\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;teaching&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">teaching</a> tag. While most of the questions with the <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/teaching\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;teaching&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">teaching</a> tag are also about pedagogy, there are some that seem clearly not about pedagogy. Looking at the first 50 questions with the <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/teaching\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;teaching&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">teaching</a> tag sorted by votes, the following 7 questions do not seem to be about pedagogy in even the widest possible sense.</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/15136/is-it-ethical-to-profit-by-having-my-students-buy-my-textbook\">Is it ethical to profit by having my students buy my textbook?</a></p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/26971/do-student-reviews-of-teachers-matter\">Do student reviews of teachers matter?</a></p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9140/do-teaching-evaluations-lead-to-lower-standards-in-class\">Do teaching evaluations lead to lower standards in class?</a></p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/12910/is-it-ethical-to-share-the-knowledge-for-free-that-ive-learned-at-the-universit\">Is it ethical to share the knowledge for free that I&#39;ve learned at the university?</a></p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/14235/how-did-modern-western-post-secondary-education-become-tied-up-with-research-and\">How did modern western post-secondary education become tied up with research and publications?</a></p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/183/is-there-a-correlation-between-being-a-good-teacher-and-being-a-good-researcher\">Is there a correlation between being a good teacher and being a good researcher?</a></p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7297/is-it-okay-to-use-students-as-a-reference-when-applying-for-a-teaching-position\">Is it okay to use students as a reference when applying for a teaching position?</a></p>\n\n<p>That to me suggests that we needed a narrow tag on teaching to alert users to the fact that it is addressing pedagogical issues of teaching. I think we have a number of umbrella tags that fully encompass other tags. For example I cannot see any questions with the <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/journals\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;journals&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">journals</a> tag that should not also be tagged <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/publications\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;publications&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">publications</a>. Similarly <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/job-search\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;job-search&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">job-search</a> seems to include everything in <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/faculty-application\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;faculty-application&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">faculty-application</a>, but also many other questions.</p>\n\n<p>I would propose that the above question be tagged teaching and the vast majority of the questions currently tagged teaching be retagged to include both teaching and pedagogy (although from a technical standpoint it might be easier to retag everything and then remove the pedagogy tag where needed).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1275, "author": "Village", "author_id": 600, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/600", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>These seem different to me.</p>\n\n<p>Questions with the \"teaching\" tag will just refer to questions involving situations relating to the teacher's role in courses they teach. This might include classroom management, assessment, etc. For example, a question written by a TA who wants to know how to discipline some cheating students would use \"teaching\".</p>\n\n<p>Questions with \"pedagogy\" should refer to questions relating to the teaching methodology. Perhaps \"pedagogics\" or \"teaching-methods\" is a more precise term, and more relates to the details of how one frames the content or skills for effective delivery to students. I can find no examples of this on Academics, but that maybe is not a big surprise, because most tertiary instructors just lecture and transfer the learning responsibility onto students.</p>\n\n<p>Most questions tagged \"pedagogy\" are going to also have the \"teaching\" tag, but the reverse will not always be true.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1276, "author": "Raphael", "author_id": 1419, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/1419", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>A tag the specifically denotes questions that ask \"how do I present X in the best way?\" (which is a proper subset of <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/teaching\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;teaching&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">teaching</a>) would be useful.</p>\n\n<p>I propose to use <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/didactics\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;didactics&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">didactics</a> which is, imho and afaik, a better term for what happens at universities.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1263", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1274, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I don't think that list (\"journal, conference, or university\") was ever meant to be exclusive. </p>\n\n<p>In any event, now it reads:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The perception of the quality of a journal, conference, university, or other academic entity by a specific community or the general public. Also: how reputation develops and factors influencing reputation.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>so as to not exclude questions about the reputation of: an individual, research group, department, group of universities, type of journal (e.g. open access), publisher, preprint repository, or anything else that might be relevant to academia.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5145, "author": "Buffy", "author_id": 75368, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/75368", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There are currently (April 2020) 94 questions with this tag and it is used inconsistently. The alternatives seem to be to edit the wiki to include <em>personal-reputation</em> as well or to create a new tag for that. At the moment the solution is tractable either way. But journal reputation and personal reputation or academic reputation seem very different.</p>\n<p>I suggest that this needs some resolution. The <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1274/75368\">answer of ff524</a> suggests expanding the definition. I'd be fine with that, but would like some guidance first.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1268", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/15723/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1272, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Here are <a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/48578/what-can-cause-my-question-to-be-bumped/48579#48579\">all the reasons</a> a post could end up on the top of the \"Active Questions\" list:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>New question (also visible at top of \"Newest Questions\" list), which hasn't gotten any attention/answers at all yet.</li>\n<li>New answer (to an old or new question), which users should vote up or down to show whether it's a good answer or not.</li>\n<li>Major edit to clarify or add new information to a question or answer, that might make users want to revise their original up/down/close/delete votes.</li>\n<li>A question that was closed (and therefore, didn't get any answers before) has been fixed, and so it's reopened.</li>\n<li>User added bounty to question to get it more attention (also visible on \"featured\" questions list)</li>\n<li>Unanswered old question is automatically bumped by Community user to get it more attention.</li>\n<li>An edit to an old question that already got a lot of attention and has good answers (or an edit to one of its answers) that is a non-trivial edit or retag that adds value. This is bumped to the top so users can review the edit and make sure it was correct, and revert it if it was not.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>All of these kinds of posts/edits <em>need</em> some kind of attention from other users, and <em>should</em> be bumped to the front page. </p>\n\n<p>But the things at the top of the list are generally considered more in need of attention than category #7. It's fine (even good!) if a few questions in category #7 are bumped here and there, but not if it's so many that most of the questions in categories #1-6 are pushed down the front page.</p>\n\n<p>For example, imagine you spent 45 minutes composing a <em>great,</em> well-researched, targeted answer to a question. Then, immediately after you submit the answer, someone else bumps 20 old questions to add a tag. Nobody sees your answer now that it's all the way down the \"Active Questions\" list, and you don't get any upvotes for this amazing answer that you worked really hard on. This is obviously discouraging and demoralizing, and makes a good contributor not want to contribute anymore.</p>\n\n<p>Or imagine you're a new user, and you posted a question because you really want an answer. But the question needed improvement, and was downvoted and closed. You work really hard to understand why the question was closed, and put in a lot of effort to improve it. Finally, after four days of working on the question, it's reopened! But 20 old questions that were edited right after your question was reopened have bumped yours all the way down the \"Active Questions\" list so it doesn't get any answers. As a new user, you feel discouraged, and wonder if the time and effort you put into learning how to use the site was a waste.</p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, if those 20 old questions were spaced out a little so they didn't flood the front page and knock posts in categories #1-6 too far down, I can't think of any negative effects.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1280, "author": "Journeyman Geek", "author_id": 22394, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/22394", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'm a mod at one or two of the other sites, and in my experience it comes down to how people use the site. This is entirely unscientific and anecdotal</p>\n\n<p>Most people skim the front page, and look for new questions to answer. <em>One</em> bump pushes off a newer question off the front page. I generally do say 5 in the space of an hour (which is ok). If you did 20, the front page is nearly entirely unusable. Nearly no one actually uses the <em>newest</em> questions tab by default. Humans are lazy, and the front page, by being the first port of call is the place most people will be.</p>\n\n<p>I think another issue you should consider is <em>why</em> the edits, and how you can minimize the disruption. In <em>normal</em> situations, you come across a question, see something that needs a fix and you do it. Things that need edits in bulk are uncommon, and are rarely urgent. There are exceptions of course, but even then its something for the <em>community</em> to decide, organise, and carry out.</p>\n\n<p>Trickling edits are <em>polite</em> - you get to do edits that are needed and <em>other</em> folks aren't inconvenienced in any way. You can't expect folk to change their behavior, but you can adjust and <em>make a difference</em> </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1270", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/15723/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1279, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I'm not sure whether a question that asks </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>What background do I need to do research in specific field X?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>is considered a general Academia question, or a domain-specific question about X (which would be off-topic here). I couldn't really find any questions like this on the site.</p>\n\n<p>Perhaps we can find out now :) vote this answer up if you think this <em>should</em> be on-topic, and vote down if you think this should <em>not</em> be on-topic.</p>\n\n<p>(Since I can't vote on my own post, here's my opinion: I think such a question <em>should</em> be on-topic.)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1551, "author": "Ooker", "author_id": 14341, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/14341", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Coincidentally, recently I had asked <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34941/how-can-physicists-help-in-theoretical-biology-besides-math-and-fresh-perspecti\" title=\"How can physicists help in theoretical biology, besides math and fresh perspectives?\">a question</a> which I believe that it is closely related to yours. It was closed as off-topic, the main reason was indicated in <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34941/how-can-physicists-help-in-theoretical-biology-besides-math-and-fresh-perspecti#comment77691_34941\">this comment</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>the question concerns the subject matter of persons within academia, not academia itself</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I asked the reason why <a href=\"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1486/where-is-the-line-between-a-question-about-doing-research-and-a-question-abou\" title=\"Where is the line between “a question about doing research” and “a question about the content of research”?\">in the meta</a>, and I can inferred that user jakebeal agreed that this kind of question is on-topic. However, when I ask if my question could be reopened, the answers were no. The answerers suggested me to ask on Reddit, Quora or in biology.SE. </p>\n\n<p>The result? Biology.SE was the best to ask, I was saluted with the <a href=\"https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/27450/what-physics-knowledge-can-be-applied-to-biology-of-organisms-and-ecosystems\">answer in there</a>. You can also see <a href=\"https://biology.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/808/will-this-question-on-collaboration-be-on-topic\" title=\"Will this question on collaboration be on topic?\">the meta question in biology.SE I asked</a>. The <a href=\"http://www.quora.com/How-can-physicists-help-in-theoretical-biology-besides-math-and-fresh-perspectives\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">question on Quora</a> attracted low quality answer. I didn't ask on Reddit, but I think if you are patient enough to read all the comment, you will find somethings useful thought.</p>\n\n<p>So my advice to your question: stick to linguistic.SE. People in here will find a reason to close your question ;)</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1277", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/12904/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1283, "author": "Mad Scientist", "author_id": 201, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/201", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>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.</p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1284, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>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.</p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1285, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I refer you to the following excerpt from the SE Network <a href=\"http://stackexchange.com/legal\">Terms of Service</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <ol start=\"8\">\n <li>Indemnity</li>\n </ol>\n \n <p>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.</p>\n \n <ol start=\"9\">\n <li>Limitation of liability</li>\n </ol>\n \n <p>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.</p>\n</blockquote>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4989, "author": "Ben", "author_id": 87026, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/87026", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>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.</p>\n<p>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 &quot;choice of law&quot; 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 &quot;adhesion contract&quot; 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.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1282", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1287, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>The best possible alternative I can think of is <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/emotional-responses\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;emotional-responses&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">emotional-responses</a>.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1300, "author": "jakebeal", "author_id": 22733, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/22733", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If one were inclined to poetry, I would suggest <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/the-gauntlet\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;the-gauntlet&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">the-gauntlet</a> or <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/leaky-pipeline\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;leaky-pipeline&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">leaky-pipeline</a>, but I suspect those wouldn't be considered appropriate.</p>\n\n<p>More seriously, perhaps <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/emotional-challenges\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;emotional-challenges&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">emotional-challenges</a>, implying that these are difficulties, but normal ones that can be overcome.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1286", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1291, "author": "ff524", "author_id": 11365, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11365", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I don't think it's necessarily a contradiction.</p>\n\n<p>Presumably, listing an article you published in a predatory journal shows a lack of experience or understanding of the publication process. </p>\n\n<p>The advice to you, as the person evaluating these CVs, is not to punish the student for this lack of understanding. The <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7908/value-of-light-to-none-peer-reviewed-pay-to-publish-articles\">answers there</a> suggest giving the student the benefit of the doubt, since he/she may have had an inadequate advisor who didn't train them in this aspect of academia.</p>\n\n<p>But students can't count on everyone who evaluates their CV to be so understanding of their naïveté. Thus, <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/29543/should-i-list-my-papers-which-are-published-in-less-known-journals-in-my-cv\">the advice</a> not to list it on the CV - since the reader's negative impression of those who publish in predatory journals can outweigh any favorable impact the content of the paper may have.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1293, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Pay to publish ≠ Lesser known journals</p>\n\n<p>There are thousands of perfectly legitimate but low-impact journals. Publishing in those is by no means a negative reflection on one's character, skill, or whatever. There are also thousands of predatory, pay-to-publish journals. Publishing in those is almost always a bad idea, and may reflect negatively on an individual.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1301, "author": "xLeitix", "author_id": 10094, "author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/10094", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Aside from whether this is a contradiction or not, I think it is ambitious to assume that the answers given here are necessarily internally consistent. Different persons answer different questions, and the underlying assumptions etc. are not necessarily the same. That is, I am pretty sure that one would be able to find two related questions where the most upvoted / accepted answers are indeed contradictory, but I see absolutely no way to prevent this.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1290", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929/" ]