Add "SE is not a social networking site" to the list of what-site-is-not in the FAQ

Question

In reading the endless discussions of the acceptability of postings by particular users (e.g., are six postings per day too much for one person), or by users in particular situations (e.g., should people be "allowed" to post questions only if they have not been assigned those questions as schoolwork), I find the following slogan helpful:

-- "Math.SE is not a social networking site."

That is, the focused Q & A, low-discussion framework of SE means that although people are users of the system, structurally the site is not set up to directly create relationships between users, but only between questions and answers. For example, the software does not provide a facility for users to send each other messages.

Corollaries of this principle include:

1. imagining the questioner as an AI is a good habit for reducing the incentive to flamewars.

2. whether a posting is homework (the answer recipient will be paid in grades), job-work (the recipient will be paid in money), or research work (the recipient will be paid in status), or even math.SE-work (the recipient is trolling for reputation points) doesn't matter. Certainly a questioner can try to make it more attractive to others to spend time answering, by explaining why he wants an answer, what he has done, relevant references and sources, etc. But if the asker does not provide this, it seems to me to be out of bounds to interrogate aggressively for such information or to close a question. The correct solution to the "problem" of homework or other seemingly exploitative postings is to improve the rating and filtering mechanism for questions in ways that make it irrelevant to determine whether anything is homework or not.

Though the above is less a question than an unsolicited answer, and math.SE is not a discussion forum, the beta-test version of meta.math.SE certainly is a discussion forum as it concerns questions of policy and FAQ content, so I assume it is OK to post it here.

Answer 1

I largely agree, except that, from my position as a professional teacher, I'm not opposed to an atmosphere that discourages blatant homework cheating. On the other hand, I see T..'s point that interrogations on this point, as on any other, have the possibility of igniting flame wars.

My hope is that, through polite commenting and appropriate (i.e. non-accusatory/non-speculative) use of the homework tag, a polite atmosphere encouraging honesty about homework can be created. At the same time, people should err on the side of civility rather than judgmentalism, otherwise flame wars may well erupt. I'm open to the suggestion that I'm being too idealistic; if convinced, I would fall into even stronger agreement with T..'s position.

Answer 2

I agree with Matt that we should be less accusatory and speculative about questions being homework. We only need to ask about whether a question is homework when it really looks like it. It is certainly not irrelevant if a question is homework - then we know to just gives hints. Often we won't be able to tell if the question is homework - then we will just have to trust the asker. For other specific questions that are unmotivated, we should simply ask about motivation instead and what they have tried.

With regard to questions focusing on individuals, those are also general questions as well. The general questions are valid, even if the question focused a bit too much on individuals.

Answer 3

The correct solution to the "problem" of homework or other seemingly exploitative postings is to improve the rating and filtering mechanism for questions in ways that make it irrelevant to determine whether anything is homework or not.

So, the idea here is to ignore the problem (not to close such questions etc) and wait for better rating system?

Well, probably, [waiting for] the elixir of life is the correct way to heal any disease... just not too practical, one might say.

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Nevertheless, I agree, that it's

out of bounds to interrogate aggressively for such (whether it's a homework, what's the motivation for asking etc —G.M.) information.

The obvious suggestion is

• if the question is bad — just downvote it (see numerous discussions of what questions are good/bad elsewhere; I certainly don't want to start a new one here);

• if "it's difficult to tell what is being asked here; this question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form" — it's a valid reason to close, one don't have to "interrogate" the OP for missing details;

• if it's not clear, whether the question is homework, it's OP's problem — we should just rate the question as it's stated (or close as "too localized", if it is); but if giving complete answer doesn't feel right — just post some useful hint.