Is CRUDE healthy?

Question

The chatroom CRUDE stands for Close, Reopen, Undelete, Delete, Edit. Is the way this room is currently used healthy for Maths Stack Exchange?

There is a core of users which can be counted on one hand, who use this room to transparently coordinate their hard work, given freely, to clean up the site of the material they don't want on it - and in large part, in my opinion, doing a lot of good things.

Although this substantial cleanup operation is transparent, it takes place largely unnoticed, without reference to the vast majority of users and not receiving a level prominence commensurate with its importance.

Activities also appear to take place which may or may not be in the spirit of MSE:

• Corralling additional downvotes on material upvoted by the community in order to reduce the score to a level where deletion is possible
• Calling users "nuts", "cranks", and "Producers of BS" (to which I recently changed my username in protest)
• Corralling additional down, close and delete votes from each other on the same material, having already voted themselves
• Calling for others to cast such votes on their behalf, when one user has used his own quota (not a great example but the best I can find in limited time)
• Targeted downvoting of upvoted material from certain users because that user has a different view of mathematics to them; and because they consider the upvotes were made by other users who weren't fit to judge
• Rapid-fire downvote-close-delete before the community has time to review and consider saving material (I don't have the tools to see but perhaps here)
• Proactively resisting the improvement of questions
• Targeted downvoting of specific users
• Is it likely the level of scrutiny is being maintained when users are exhausting 50 close votes in a day?

To some degree, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the impression questionable activity is tacitly supported by some of the most senior moderators who may feel the remedy is at least better than the illness - i.e. the deluge of low quality material.

When our most senior users are deeply concerned about the quality of material on the site, we must surely listen and act. But I wonder if the community at large should have more awareness of what is going on, be more engaged with the process, or give clearer guidance on what kind of coordinated activity is, and is not, acceptable, and make this process more accountable.

Answer 1

I agree with a lot of the comments and the other answer, but wanted to add (my own) expanded answer to the question. I've tried to include some balance of analysis of both the benefits and the harms of CRUDE, and the very short version of my final claim is that

CRUDE is an unfortunate symptom of an unhealthy site, not a disease in and of itself.

There are some deep structural problems on MSE that tend to express themselves as serious disagreements and arguments here on meta, as well as increased toxicity and negativity on main. We have an absolute deluge of do-my-problem questions, and a large community of rep-farmers who are happy to answer them, consequences and quality control be damned. The result of this is that many view MSE as a homework mill and don't want to be associated with it. On the other hand, there are well-intentioned people that simply want to teach and to help, and they get lumped in with the rep-farmers who are actively circumventing quality control. A brief perusal of some of the most downvoted meta posts may convince the reader that a lot of toxicity and anger comes from these issues.

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So given the disproportionate power between answerers and quality controllers, we get CRUDE. As I remarked recently it takes a rep-farmer a minute to fire off a quick answer, while it takes five 3k+ users to close a question and three 10k+ users to delete it. Without some level of coordination between voters, there is simply no way to stem the tide. So in that sense, CRUDE is a natural and arguably necessary development.

On the other hand, CRUDE has some serious negative effects. The chief of these, IMHO, is the fact that the actions of CRUDE tend to prevent question improvement. There are frequently questions that go through closure and deletion in a matter of hours, whereas the on-hold status should give an opportunity for an asker to improve the post.

Another issue is that CRUDE represents the moderation viewpoints of a relatively small cadre of users (self-selected from the already small group of meta users), rather than the community as a whole. This has lead to a lot of friction in the past, where the few people with the strongest views on both sides of the PSQ debate have completely drowned out moderates.

As far as most of the other allegations in the post here, I don't think they're relevant to this post. I don't see CRUDE coordinating votes to get around vote caps (which would be a problem), and any insulting comments should be dealt with as per the recent guidelines.

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For full disclosure: I am not active in CRUDE, nor any other chatrooms here. But I am a reasonably prolific down- and close-voter.

Answer 2

CRUDE, as described in its description, is an incredibly helpful tool. There is nothing unhealthy about "feedback/discussion/requests of Close/Reopen/Undelete/Delete/Edit for questions and answers on Math SE". People are conflating what CRUDE actively is and what it is described to be, imho.

For instance, the close queue is not appropriate to the handling of controversial cases. "Extended discussions", for example, are not appropriate in comments. CRUDE can be a good place for that. The times I've used CRUDE, it was mostly with this intention in mind, as far as I remember.

More practically and close to the daily reality, the extreme inflow of poor-quality questions also makes the ability of swiftly dealing with them imperative, and CRUDE can be a tool for that. There can be objections with this: for example, the subjectivity of "poor-quality", or the circumvention of some core aspects of the close queue. However, I believe that it is "worth it". Again, that doesn't mean there is no objection, and we should hear those.

However, CRUDE, as is used, has a fair share of toxicity (imho). What I can't understand is why people think that this is "needed":

"Until the site stops being unhealthy there will be increasingly unhealthy responses to that."

"I agree with Hurkyl's diagnosis. The site became ill for having an unhealthy diet of PSQs and their answers for many a year. C.R.U.D.E. is the foul tasting medicine."

etc.

It is almost implied that in order to be effective, it has to be unhealthy. I don't understand this at all.

That said, I agree a hundred percent with @rschwieb here:

Now, when a problem and solutions exist, it is a simple matter to play the watchdog and complain about solutions you don't like. Having watchdogs is of limited value, though, when no serious competing solutions are apparent. (Given what's at stake here (digital content) I don't count "do nothing" as a competing solution.)

So, what are the "alternatives"? None. There is no need for one. We don't need to replace CRUDE. We just need to stop being toxic in an irrelevant way, and use it for its proposed topic: which is the discussion of questions and answers, as per its own description, and not users.

I believe what is "rude/polite" should be common sense. Apparently it is not, so I have the obligation to elaborate. Rules of thumb, which people can obviously disagree or not:

• Avoid sarcasm.
• Avoid adjectivizing users.
• If you are talking to X in a specific way because they are X, chances are you are being biased. So, if you disagree (or even dislike) X, do a mental check that your communication does not fundamentally rely on the fact that it is X that you are talking to.
• Assume good intentions.

Now, specifically to CRUDE, my suggestion is:

AVOID REFERRING TO USERS.

If you think some user is so disruptive that they warrant special treatment, flag them. Moderators are supposed to handle users. I don't think users should be able to, in effect, "moderate" other users directly. And I think the system agrees, since "targeted downvoting" is wrong, for example.

EDIT: I've seen arguments implying that adhering to politeness can conflict with accurately pointing out to users that they are wrong/that they are missing something etc. This is very far from true.

I present a few examples where I point that someone is incorrect or that someone points out that I am incorrect, and I don't see anyone perceiving even a glimpse of rudeness (note that they adhere to the "rules of thumb" I mentioned): [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], etc.

Furthermore, the interactions are rather short and straightforward.

Of course, as anything in this world, there are the exceptions. But this is what they are: exceptions. If you are not being rude, you will hardly have to handle resistance when you tell someone that they are wrong and properly justify it. $^{1}$ If you often face such resistance, maybe it is time to consider the possibility that yes, you are probably being rude.

There are cases, however, that interactions are not so simply a matter of correct/incorrect. For example, when they are related to perception (of MSE, of mathematics, of science etc). Even in those cases it is possible to offer criticism while avoiding being rude. Let me give some examples.

This is a case where I disagreed with how the user was using the website. A short discussion ensued, but I believe it was constructive and polite, and I would guess that the other user has the same impression.

This is a case where I thought the question was overwhelmed with information, and tried to point it out to OP.

Again, my suggestion is: when in doubt, follow the rules of thumb.

$^{1}$This is the impression I have with experience in this site and life itself, which is also corroborated by the links as evidence of such, at least w.r.t. the site.

Answer 3

Updated: put this suggestion at the top, since I felt it became important. Original answer follows below that.

My challenge to anyone who "doesn't like CURED":

Join the room and take actions at posts you see posted. You can react in whatever way you want as long as it is in good faith (i.e. not simply robo-voting everything open because you can't be bothered to change your bias about the room.)

1. It is not an exclusive room. You can use it for your own ends, and if there really are that many people out there that feel differently, the answer is to participate, not "riot," which is often what we see in posts like this.
2. If you don't participate and you still complain, I put it to you that you are "all talk." A person who really wanted to improve the situation would just take action to improve the situation in the form of voting, not merely complain about how others were acting.
3. Please follow all established stackexchange rules for chatrooms, and stick to the topic. Anything related to Closing, Undeleting, Reopening, Editing and Deleting is on-topic for sure, and there is some leeway for idle chit-chat, but the room does have a topic and a purpose.
4. Take time to listen to others' rationale as you would hope others would do for your rationales that you write. Everyone keeping their minds open and talking civilly will lead to more understanding. (As opposed to now, where people have a dim perspective and strong feelings about something about which they really do not have a realistic understanding.)

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The site is faced with a content quality management problem$^1$. The number of questions outstrips the number of curators, so consequently the proportion of poor quality questions which live on grows ever more rapidly$^2$.

Now, when a problem$^3$ and solutions exist, it is a simple matter to play the watchdog and complain about solutions you don't like. Having watchdogs is of limited value, though, when no serious competing solutions are apparent. (Given what's at stake here (digital content) I don't count "do nothing" as a competing solution.)

So now that the discussions in this post have served their purpose, I propose the next step is something about real approaches to dealing with the problem$^3$. Surely if another, better, solution were found in such discussions, it would replace CRUDE.

Let's hear the alternatives.

Thanks for your attention.

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$^1$ Unless you, the reader, are someone who denies even this, which would change the conversation considerably.

$^2$ One can also argue that the "broken window" of existing poor quality questions and those who cater to them emboldens less diligent posters to not bother with quality standards, exacerbating problem.

$^3$ Just so there is no confusion, the problem I speak of is "how do we increase good quality content and decrease poor quality content?"

Answer 4

Is CRUDE healthy? You mean right now!? I dunno. Heck, I don't even know when right now is!

Perhaps the more important question is

Can CRUDE be healthy? Certainly. Though it would probably be more healthy with a more diverse group of users taking part in it. That and the users involved must hold themselves to high standards, and remember that they are part of a larger community.

But there certainly have been some friction between some avid CRUDErs and others. This very fact is somewhat problematic, and perhaps CRUDErs should pause for a bit of self-reflection on how things are handled in that chatroom.

As a starting point, I'll point to Stack Overflow's SO Close Vote Reviewers chatroom, which serves an (almost) identical purpose. I am not exactly aware of the entire history of the chatroom, but there has likely been similar conflicts arising there as we've seen from CRUDE, as the SOCVR users have put up a small webpage dedicated to that chat room. Of particular interest is the FAQ, which includes a code-of-conduct of sorts for users. A couple of highlights include:

Stay nice and professional in chat:

1. Keep it professional, keep a high standard.
2. All discussions are public. Anything you say can and will be used against you on meta. The RO team has an offline/private lounge for sensitive subjects if necessary.
3. In absence of all room owners, the members lead by example.
4. De-escalate in case of disagreement.
5. When chat flags are raised
   • Take them seriously.
   • Consider whether or not the flagged conversation should continue.
   • Be Nice, and be sensitive to others' feelings.

Don't moderate users:

18. Moderate the post, not the user. Keep the discussion on the merits of the post, not on behavior of the user.
19. Do not post multiple successive moderation requests for posts of the same user. It will be considered as targeting a user which is explicitly forbidden.

What sort of behavior is expected?

We love this community. Our goal is to get rid of the "crap" so the good content can be found with greater ease. As room owners we are sensitive for the needs of the community on Stack Overflow and encourage our members to help us create a guidance toolkit that enables all of us to fulfill those needs.

No matter what is asked from us, we moderate the post and educate the user, the be nice policy is our bible.

...

Make sure you are OK with exerting your power, but understand when it is necessary to do so to keep the peace.

We are open for any critic, feedback, and guidance received from the community as we are a part of it.

Room owners step in the moment we notice site users are targeted by any room member. This goes without warning.

Answer 5

No, it's not.

Cranks, nuts, newbies, PSQ-askers, PSQ-answerers, rep-farmers, donut-eaters, people making wrong assertions. How can we make them stop doing those things, or get them to leave?

A self-appointed panel of inquisitors should do the trick. If you are unjustly mentioned as a person of interest in the court transcript, post here in meta.SE to clear your name, simple as that. We know the difference between a good poster with proper motivations and one of those other types.

So, yeah, no healthy community works like that. Maybe that's old-fashioned and SE is now just a repository of canonical answers and not a community at all. In that case, do we really want to antagonize unique contributors like OP with naming-and-shaming? If he leaves we might be left with only PSQ-askers.

What gets me is that SE already implements a technological solution, ranking by votes. If you don't like something, downvote it, and it loses visibility. But for some reason wrongthink requires organized extermination.

Answer 6

I was going to write just a comment, but there are several points to be made here so I decided to promote my 2 cents to an answer.

My observations regarding CRUDE, the state of MSE, and this topic:

1. Most people are in agreement that there is a problem with the average quality of a new question (the severity of the problem is subject to dispute);
2. Some people wanted to do something, and got together to form CRUDE to try and mitigate the consequences of 1.;
3. Inevitably, the strain of caring deeply about MSE's quality and seeing the influx of problematic posts leads to emotional responses (the "exceptions") and the application of heuristics in assessing quality;
4. This topic is concerned about how the evolution of 3. is going and whether the community should have any say in it;
5. Those active in CRUDE feel attacked in their caring about the site and doing something about it, leading to strong emotions on both sides.

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Now I am proud that there is a selection of users who are collaborating in a shared goal, to improve MSE's quality. Their efforts must not be underestimated. To all of them: thank you!

However, over time, certain patterns may evolve and feelings may pop up that, while they can be understood from the history of being active in CRUDE and what one sees there, are ground for a call for reflection. And it is exactly this what I take this topic to be doing: calling for reflection.

As to a suggestion towards the outcome of the reflection, I can recommend Aloizio Macedo's answer, which seems balanced and reasonable.

Answer 7

I am active in CRUDE, not as active as some other users (although I quite respect them). I agree how CRUDE operates is perhaps a bit unhealthy. However the site is unhealthy.

Until the site stops being unhealthy there will be increasingly unhealthy responses to that.

We need to fix the issue of rep farming and PSQs. CRUDE is just one reaction, and until the issue gets solved there will be stronger and stronger reactions.

Answer 8

The room CRUDE is relatively tightly overseen by per-site moderators.

The activity that happens there has my full support, and if I am not all that active there myself, it is on the one hand for lack of time and since I believe in the principle that the site is community-moderated and thus to the extent possible users should do the moderation tasks. (This belief is not mainly based on 'ethical' considerations, but practical ones.)

This does not mean that I agree with each and every action or comment written (this would also be an unreasonable expectation in various ways), and there were and likely will be cases where per-site moderators intervened in one way or another to influence activities we felt might go in a wrong direction.

Indeed, focusing on specific users can be a problem; this can even happen unintentionally if one is not careful. As referenced in OP I cautioned against this, for example.

There is arguably also room for improvement with regard to the tone, but this might be true more broadly and does not strike me as problem specific to that room.

Either way, the overall activity is in my opinion in line with the philosophy the SE network and highly useful for the site, while ideas of keeping basically everything around are not.

Answer 9

This is too long for a comment, but several of your links to my own words are being quoted out of context or entirely misinterpreted (willfully misrepresented?). To wit:

• You say that I am

  Corralling additional down, close and delete votes from each other on the same material, having already voted themselves. [1]

  In fact, I think that this displays some ignorance about how the room works. Often someone will post a large number of questions. Typically, those questions are objectively terrible, and the point is collecting them in one place so that their status can be monitored (to see, for example, if they have been improved and should be reopened, or if they should be deleted after having been closed for two days). Since the janitors need to know which floors need to be mopped then need to remember to go in and wax those floors later, such lists of questions are often pinned in the chatroom, then unpinned once they have been dealt with.

  In stating that some of the questions were deleted and that another needed more votes, I was indicating the status of questions mentioned by another user, so that the list of questions could be unpinned. I was not "corralling votes", but giving a status update on a group of questions.

  By the way, just for reference, the original list (of 16 low quality questions) can be found here. Please read through those questions. Do you honestly believe that any of them should be kept? Do you honestly believe that keeping track of such terrible questions is an abuse?

• You ask

  Is it likely the level of scrutiny is being maintained when users are exhausting 50 close votes in a day? [2]

  You do realize that I only have 5 delete votes in a given day, yes? (Actually, it might be as many as 6 now!) I occasionally hit my limit of 50 close votes (maybe twice in my time here since last summer?); it is much easier to burn through 5 delete votes, particularly when someone provides a list of 16 very poor questions. Again, I think that this betrays some ignorance of how the site works in general, and how CRUDE works in particular.

• You say that I am

  Proactively resisting the improvement of questions. [3]

  First off, note that there is an emoticon at the end of that message, indicating that it should not be taken overly seriously. Second, if you watch the "Suggested Edits" review queue, you will notice a pattern: some newbie user starts putting in a lot of time making very minor edits to terrible questions in order (one presumes) to earn a couple of reputation points.

  For example, a couple of months ago there was a user that had clearly simply searched for a common typographical error, then spent his or her days spamming the review queue with edits to fix that typo, often bumping questions from the very early days of the site; I ended up rejecting a large number those edits with the message that was more or less "Hey, slow down. When you edit a question it is moved to the top of the homepage. It is great that you are trying to fix this one typo, but maybe do it only a few at a time so that you don't spam the front page with really old questions."

  In other cases, users propose edits that attempt add TeX or otherwise try to "fix" errors in a question in a way that might be an improvement, or might be contrary to the wishes of the original questioner—if the original question is unclear, adding little bit of TeX isn't fixing the deeper flaws, and does nothing to substantively improve the question. Because such a question is unclear, it is hard to know how to edit it to make it better. I have this problem myself—when going through the low quality queue or the first post queue, my gut reaction is to try to improve things with an edit. Unfortunately, editing is not always enough, and the right course of action in such cases is to vote to close (for clarity, typically).

  Note, also, that voting to close for lack of clarity puts a question "On Hold." This is a slightly privileged status over simply "Closed" and gives the poster the poster the signal that the question needs to be improved by the original poster.

In short, I think that you honestly believe that there is a problem on MSE (no disagreement here), and that the name of the problem is CRUDE (this is where I disagree). In an effort to prove this point, you are cherry-picking some scary-sounding sound (text?) bites in an effort to paint CRUDE as some kind of conspiracy theory. However, when you examine the context in which those things are said, it seems apparent that the problem is not with CRUDE, but with the deluge of low-quality questions that appear on MSE. As others have said, CRUDE is not the problem, it is just the bitter-tasting medicine.

That said, if you think that there is a problem with CRUDE, perhaps you would like to participate a bit more? Why not speak up when someone "corrals downvotes?" Aloizio Macedo and I had what I think was a productive conversation starting here-ish. I'm not sure that we came to a consensus (though I'm not sure that we disagreed all that much, either), but he brought up something about CRUDE that was bothering him and the general style of CRUDE seems to have shifted because of it.