text:
Liability of Ac.SE for defaming?
I was wondering what is the responsibility of the site with regard to content posted by users that could potentially be defaming? This question was prompted by https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/29282/are-conferences-organized-by-iact-like-icke-fake I have no idea about that conference, but there is a basically a post on our site clearly associating this conference with fake ones. What would happen if the organisers would complain about it?
I'm assuming Ac.SE falls under US law, which I'm not particularly familiar with, and, to the best of my knowledge, this problem has not happened yet, but should we take precautionary measures?

I don't know how this applies to questions, but I did think it was part of the reason why we don't answer questions about a specific institution, journal, conference, professor, etc.

@ff524: I agree, but the content remains nonetheless (are duplicate questions deleted by default?)

Legal issues are handled by Stack Exchange, neither the community nor the moderators are typically qualified to judge the legal issues. Unless SE intervenes, there is usually no reason to try and enforce perceived legal issues.
Anyone having a legal complaint about a post on an SE site has to contact SE directly, and SE employees will handle the issue from there.
That said, the community is of course free to enact rules on this kind of question. If this kind of content is considered too problematic, or simply not a good fit for the site, it can be disallowed regardless of the legal situation.

The reason we don't do questions asking for recommendations is that they're too subjective; we don't do questions about individual programs and institutions because they're too narrow in scope.
As for the issue of SE being held responsible for the content of its users, in general web sites have protections under the law from being responsible for such attacks, so long as they respond to them. Otherwise, it would be very easy for someone to maliciously get a website shut down.

I'm completely fine with us not doing such questions, my question is whether we should delete them or simply close them?

I refer you to the following excerpt from the SE Network Terms of Service:

Indemnity

Subscriber will indemnify and hold Stack Exchange, its directors, officers, employees, agents, consultants, contractors, partners, vendors and service providers (including, without limitation, hosting and telecommunications providers) harmless, including costs and attorneys' fees, from any claim or demand made by any third party due to or arising out of Subscriber’s access to the Network, use of the Services, the violation of this Agreement by Subscriber, or the infringement by Subscriber, or any third party using the Subscriber's account, of any intellectual property or other right of any person or entity.

Limitation of liability

In no event shall Stack Exchange, its directors, officers, shareholders, employees, members, agents, consultants, contractors, partners, vendors and service providers (including, without limitation, hosting and telecommunications providers) be liable with respect to the Network or the Services for (a) any indirect, incidental, punitive, or consequential damages of any kind whatsoever; (b) damages for loss of use, profits, data, images, Subscriber Content or other intangibles; (c) damages for unauthorized use, non-performance of the Network, errors or omissions; or (d) damages related to downloading or posting Content. Stack Exchange's and the Network's collective liability under this agreement shall be limited to three hundred United States Dollars. Some states do not allow the exclusion or limitation of incidental or consequential damages, so the above limitations and exclusions may not apply to Subscriber.

I had a look at the ToS, and I wasn't sure whether those terms are just protection of SE from the users (i.e., you can't basically complain if anything happens), but it's not clear to me that it protects SE from some users.

@CharlesMorisset "Subscriber will indemnify ... from any claim or demand made by any third party due to or arising out of Subscriber’s access to the Network, use of the Services" says a user indemnifies SE from legal responsibility for any claim any third party makes related to the user's use of SE. Seems to apply to the scenario you describe.

This is an example of a highly broad indemnity term within an "adhesion contract".  Such broad exclusion terms are often found to be invalid in legal cases, so you shouldn't necessarily take the legal implications of the clause at face value.  As a general rule, you cannot exclude legal liability merely by stipulating that you are not liable.

Since SE has its own legal representatives, it might be useful for moderators to report posts of this kind directly to relevant SE personnel so that they can scrutinise the material and make a decision.  Moderators can certainly take unilateral action under moderation policies, but they should not assume that SE staff will know about the post unless they draw it to their attention.
In terms of what could happen if defamatory material is posted, the person defamed could sue both SE and the poster for damages, and obviously they would have access to all the normal legal defences for such an action (e.g., truth, fair comment, etc.).  (Courts have complex rules for "choice of law" that depend on factors including the location of the defamed, the places where the message was broadcast, etc., so it would not necessarily be a US action.)  While the SE terms of service specify broad exclusions of liability, these types of exclusion clauses in an "adhesion contract" are often ruled invalid by courts, so even with the presence of a contractual term for use, there is legal danger in defamation on the site.

Mods don't have any responsibility to report these sorts of things. For a bunch of reasons mentioned in https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4762/policy-against-questions-making-allegations-against-named-individuals-or-organis there is a policy against many of the questions that might be an issue for this sort of thing. It's fine for mods to act under this policy, but they aren't doing so for legal reasons. It's up to SE and solely up to SE how to manage their own liability according to their understanding of the law.

Same goes for plagiarism and copyright violations. If someone has a legal problem with any content, they can use the "contact" link at the bottom of any page.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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Can I ask about school boards here
I am on a school board for a small private elementary school, and we're having some trouble between one of our teachers and the administrator which I won't go into on meta, but would like to ask about.  Would academia be an appropriate forum (doesn't seem right, but I don't know where else to ask) to ask about interactions between faculty and staff?

I was going to say initially that this question was off-topic, but I'm actually not so sure. It really does depend on the issue.
The rule that we have is that questions that aren't set at the postgraduate level are off-topic unless they'd also be relevant here. So it really does become a question of what the specific problem is. If it's something that could also take place between a professor and staff at a university, then it could be on-topic.
Alternately, you can take a look and see if this might be appropriate over at Workplace.SE.

If you frame it generally enough, it would be on topic, as it's a general question. However, do note that this forum is intended for university-level discussion, so the responses may not actually be relevant to your situation. That said, I would post it and see what answers you get. Good luck!

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

sort: votes


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Link to commercial products
The question Free, open-source substitutes for Mendeley? attracted several answers, included one by the OP https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/8476/102, which combines both a commercial solution (for hosting) and a free open-source solution. I can't help but think that the entire question was a disguised advertisement for that product, although it could be perfectly genuine.
Should we delete answers linking to commercial solutions, in order to avoid disguised advertisement?

I don't think it was disguised advertising since there was a 4 month gap between the question and the self answer. I cannot tell if the OP's answer really is FOSS.

@StrongBad: I'm not entirely convinced it is disguised advertisement, although the fact that the only two answers from that user are about the same product is not helping (but both answers are relevant).

Also consider the user's posting history: http://stackexchange.com/users/1622666/jonas-stein While his answers here are related to the product, it's not like he's a shill for it. It is likely that he created this solution as a result of not being able to find one. Self-answers like this are encouraged on other websites, if you eventually do find a suitable solution, even if, in this case, it sounds shilly.

I think our primary concerned should be to get good answers to our questions. Answers that show how a product is the best at solving the problem should be encouraged regardless of if the answer is posted by a regular user of the site, a new user, or a representative of the company that sells the product. If someone who has a vested interested in a product provides a good answer, great. One line link answers, as always, should be discouraged by down votes. Answers touting products that do not provide an answer to the asked question should also be down voted.
It would be nice if answers always state if there is/isn't a conflict of interest, but that is hard to enforce. I see no issue with leaving a comment asking for a statement about potential conflicts of interest when the answer is not clear about it.

If a commercial product is a relevant answer to a question, then it should be posted as an answer. I'd rather err towards more complete answers (with possibly some hidden advertisements) than less complete answers. I care more about the end result (is it a good answer?) then the motivations of the person posting it.
I consider a product mention spam only if it's not a valid answer to the question (in which case, it should be flagged and deleted).
Certainly, users should follow the disclosure policy; but I don't think a heightened level of suspicion is a good thing. It leads to comments like the one on this answer, which I find unfriendly and not particularly helpful.
Now, if an answer mentioning a commercial product was getting upvotes from sockpuppets to make it appear more popular than it really is, then I would be concerned.
Note: the description of the spam flag says that it should be applied to a post that is:

effectively an advertisement with no disclosure. It is not useful or relevant, but promotional.

An answer that is useful or relevant is not spam.

I don't mind comments that ask the user to state if there are/aren't conflicts of interest.

As long as it's not shameless self-advertisement and done in good faith, I don't believe there is any issue with providing a full disclosure and software as an option, in accordance with most SE policies.
I know that a lot of research benefits from using open-source technology, but commercial technology is also useful and practical, and helpful to the user, and sometimes a person may have made software that genuinely is beneficial for the user.
That being said, the product should be addressed to be as close to the request as possible.
Appropriate

Question: How can I farm potatoes?
Answer:
Potato Farmer, which I made, can help you since it plants, cultivates and harvests potatoes. It uses patented technology based on astrology to determine the best time to plant. It is capable of planting 4000 potatoes a minute. Harvesting is based on echo location and the free Potato Farmer 1000 can only harvest 1 potato a week, but the full version Potato Farmer 2000 can harvest 42 potatoes a day. Note that it really isn't helpful for carrot farming.

Inappropriate

Question: How can I farm pumpkins?
Question: How can I make mashed potatoes?
Question: Where can I buy potatoes?
Question: Can someone explain to me the benefits of potatoes?
Answer:
Potato Farmer, which I made, can help you since it plants, cultivates and harvests potatoes. It uses patented technology based on astrology to determine the best time to plant. It is capable of planting 4000 potatoes a minute. Harvesting is based on echo location and the free Potato Farmer 1000 can only harvest 1 potato a week, but the full version Potato Farmer 2000 can harvest 42 potatoes a day. Note that it really isn't helpful for carrot farming.

The software should be directly applicable to addressing the problem for me to be okay with it.
A few weeks ago, we had a user promoting a sort of course management system of some sort. On some questions, it worked, but on others, it was noted that the user had searched for the tag and submitted the answer as the product, without ever addressing the question. For some, it was an appropriate solution. For others, it was way off mark or ignored the question entirely and proposed an alternative.
Also, if the only thing the person is doing is answering about Potato Farmer, then that falls into the spam category for sure.

I find anything mentioning a commercial solution extremely dubious, especially if it is one that I have not already heard of.  In fact, in my short time at the site, I've already been involved in the cleanup of one apparent commercial spammer.  On the other hand, some prominent and well-known products like Web of Science are often brought up in reasonable contexts.  The question is, how do we determine the difference between marketing and legitimate recommendation?
My thoughts:

If something is already large and significant (e.g., has its own wikipedia page), then it is an established fact of the scientific world and there is no need for special scrutiny.
For anything else, a heightened level of scrutiny is important, and in particular a person needs to make a clear and convincing disclaimer about their relationship (or lack thereof) with a product.  Only posts by a convincingly unrelated advocate should be retained. New pseudonymous posters may have a hard time being convincing...

Hmm, this answer is inconsistent with the general SE policy, which explicitly allows mentioning own product with disclosure: "Post good, relevant answers, and if some (but not all) happen to be about your product or website, that’s okay. However, you must disclose your affiliation in your answers."

-1 Many of the questions that need "product recommendations" are looking for small products. People affiliated with a product are in a good position to say how the product solves the problem so it seems silly to not let them answer. Further, the issue isn't really about commercial products and I see no difference between recommending free and proprietary products. As you say we want legitimate answers and not marketing.

Perhaps I'm much more suspicious about commercial advertisement than the norm... I'm happy to follow the community consensus, though.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


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Not enough contrast for link text
I like Academia's site design. It is very pretty.
I don't like the link text color. It does not stand out very well. Perhaps it is my computer so here's a snapshot Tell me if you can see the link text without having to see the image that underscores it below.

If everyone sees roughly this shade I recommend increasing the contrast a bit. A lot actually.
Related: Not enough distinction between visited links and unvisited in the questions list

I say, bump the contrast!  I too find it slightly too subtle for my taste.

Indistinct colors cause eye strain. Source: my eyes.

By default, here are the colors of links from Academia, pulled from the CSS:
Unvisited: #5e939f
Visited: #252525
Hover: #DB786A
The hover color is the red of the leaning book in the logo, which is actually quite noticeable.
Instead of increasing contrast, increasing the saturation by increasing the blue, similar to the cyan that is used in meta, should be sufficient in differentiating the links from the text. Making the text darker and keeping the link the same color, or making the link darker or brighter, will be less noticeable if they are the same relative saturation. It is relatively easier to notice differences in color and contrast than solely differences in contrast.
Also possibly problematic, mousing over a link in Academia Meta makes it turn the same color as the text.
Edit: Does this go to a web developer for Stack Exchange? Do we need to do anything special? I know on Stack Overflow, the web devs literally fix things within seconds. This isn't crucial, but because we have no feedback, there's really no way to tell whether a person who can change this (and it's not a big change AFAIK) has actually seen it <_<

Well, whatever the technical aspects are, I just want to be able to see it better than I can now.

The way to get these posts noticed by the right people is to tag them with "feature-request" and "design", as had been done here. I'm told the design team has a backlog to deal with, which is why we have so many outstanding design issues. I can remind them again next week, though.

Not sure what's going on, but the cyan on my screen is much more clearly distinct from the main text than what you're showing. I think it might be something to do with your browser, perhaps?

Well, on meta it is much more cyan colored. The problem seems to exist only on main. http://i.stack.imgur.com/gcZW7.png

In general, with any colours in web design, your mileage may vary. The actual colour displayed to the user depends on the browser, graphics card, and screen. But it does seem a significant fraction of the site's users find the displayed colour to not be distinct enough.


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What is the process to delete an account?
I asked a couple of days ago to delete my account, using the form https://academia.stackexchange.com/contact provided on the page https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/deleting-account. I haven't received any answer at the moment, so I'm wondering if there is something else I should do, or if something went wrong in the process, but I'm not really sure to understand why it is not trivial to delete an account (which would not delete the data posted).

Per the network-wide FAQ:

Please note that account deletion is not instant. It might take several days for your request to be processed.

I have brought your meta post to the attention of the community team, hopefully you will hear from them soon.

Thanks for the feedback, this information does not appear on the account deletion page!

Well, they weren't kidding on the several days ...

@userxxxxx It is the holiday season so don't be too hasty. I am shocked that you want your 18.9k reputation deleted! Don't leave us!

They just got in touch with me, apparently, they tried to contact me earlier, but I probably messed things up with changing my contact address. So, sorry, my bad!


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Are questions specific to a university acceptable?
I'm interested in applying to ETHZ for my master degree in mathematics, and for this reason I would like to know some details on the program of the bachelor degree in mathematics held at this institution. Such details should be written in German on the website of ETHZ. However, I cannot read German at all. Would it be okay to ask here for those details? More in general, is it okay to ask for explanations on the curricula of specific universities?

In general, questions about specific programs, courses, curricula, projects, and research topics are considered off-topic here, as they tend not to satisfy the "helpful to others" criterion for Stack Exchange questions.

However, I should add that it is very common that English-speaking students apply to ETHZ for their master degree: so the question would be helpful to someone else at least.

A quick web search turns up this outline of the bachelor's program written in English. However, just because English-speaking students might be interested, the idea of not talking about specific programs and topics is an important one. We want to keep the discussion at a higher level than having tons of questions about individual departments, classes, and programs.

I understand. Thank you for the link. I had found that too, but it seems not specific enough (I mean, at least at my university there is a far more specific description of the courses).


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Why exactly was my question off-topic?
A while ago, I asked this question. As pointed out in the comments or edit revisions, I initially geared the question slightly more towards undergraduates. However, as pointed out by commentors, the issue is still relevant to graduate students, and the question was edited to ensure that the focus was more general.
Given this, why exactly was my question off-topic? Is this a result of me poorly scoping it initially, or are, instead, questions on student life not completely related to research or academics subject to more scrutiny?
I'm not sure if I want to argue that my question was actually on topic, but the reason cited in the close vote is confusing, and if the latter reason for which I think the question might have been closed is true, I'd like to know that for future reference.

As one of the people who voted to close, let me give you my answer: in the beginning, it seemed very much an undergraduate-focused question---your examples were about undergrads, and I had never heard of graduate students having a required meal plan before (though of course academia varies greatly).
Then I stopped paying attention and didn't notice the edits that removed the undergraduate nature.
Looking at it again... I guess that it could be reopened, but it still seems a fairly borderline question for me.  The reason is that I'm not sure what sort of answer will actually satisfy the question (how do we measure "primarily"?  Especially given that StrongBad's answer about the UK apparently wasn't what you were looking for), and from the answers given so far, it seems like it may devolve into a "big list" kind of question with a whole bunch of people chiming in to say "Some schools in Country X do it this way!"  Finally, even though it apparently does apply to some graduate students, it's still something that is very largely an undergraduate experience.
All told, none of these are strong enough to be a "definite close" to me, but they are a bunch of different weaknesses that wouldn't encourage me to re-open.  Given what I see as the borderline nature of the question, I wouldn't oppose others reopening it, but would not be particularly motivated to do so myself.

While I agree with your analysis, I am not sure we should "punish" the question just because people are giving poll like answers. I am not particularly happy with my answer as it only provides one data point, but I felt a single counter example was valuable. The other answers by saying where there are not meal plans, seem to add little value.

@StrongBad I agree --- poll-like answers isn't a big problem, but it's a small problem.  Put together with other small problems, it makes it a messy question that I have a hard time seeing how to clearly improve.


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Watchlist at stackexchange?
Sorry, for asking here. I know it is the wrong place. I am new to Stackexchange. I wanted to ask at the meta page (that is where the help button lead me). But over there I need 5 point, which I do not have.
I have searched the help pages but I have not found a hint. My question is:
Is there something like a "watchlist" at Stackexchange, where I can add questions I am interested in and get noticed if one of those question gets an answer?
Sorry^2: I had to add an invalid tag to post this question. :-(

Thanks for helping me and moving this post to the right place.

at the bottom right of the question page, you find a "question feed" button to which you can subscribe with an rss reader. the right place to ask would have been this page, where you might already have found an answer

you will also be notified about answers to question that you have marked as favorite.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is more suitable on Meta SE.

Flagging the mods for consideration of migration to Meta SE.

Click the star underneath the score on the question to add it to your watchlist, then go to the favourites tab on your user page to see which questions are in your watchlist.

See first:
http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/53585/how-do-favorite-questions-work
Then:
http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/83343/adding-favorites-to-the-stack-exchange-global-inbox


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How to prevent academic questions from searchengines
This is just a general question. How can I avoid an academic question (that I’ve posted in this forum) form turning up on google and similar search engines? I would think that if I code the text then it would
be impossible to get it from a google (or similar search engine search)?
Thanks for answering.

You may want to edit your question to indicate why you want that. StackExchange is expressly built to facilitate later people coming along and finding an answer to their question by searching.

Yes, unless you have an exceptionally good reason, attempts to keep a question here from being indexed by search engines would be considered vandalism (and would be undone).  If you don't want a question to be found via search engines, then this site isn't the right place for it.

What do you mean by "code the text"?

@SimonW OP probably means writing search engine disallow rules into the body of the question to prevent them from indexing the content. However, that's not how search engines work, so OP is out of luck even if StackEx. allowed something like that in the first place.

You can't, other than by deleting or editing the question. If you edit, the text will still be publicly available, but unlikely to rank highly on a search engine. However, in this case you should ensure the text remains viable as a question (ie, you should remove the specific information you don't want found by a search engine, rather than the entire question). Deleting a question may not be possible, but in these cases you can flag for moderator attention and explain why you would like it to be deleted.

Deleting a question is highly looked down upon unless it includes personal information, confidential information, and so on. Typically, SE staff must become involved if actual scrubbing is required.

When you write a post here, you grant Stack Exchange a permanent and irrevocable licence to use that material. That material should be indexable by a search engine, so don't code it and don't hide it in any way that would hinder that.
If those conditions aren't acceptable to you for some specific material, then don't post that material anywhere on Stack Exchange.

Why do you want this?  I can only think of a few reasons:

You're a student and you want to get some kind of help but don't want your professor to know that you asked the internet.  I doubt your professor is googling your work to find that out.  And either way I doubt it would reflect poorly on you as long as it looks like you're honestly trying to figure something out.
You're asking a question about your research and don't want anyone to steal your ideas.  Asking about research is a two way street.  You can't expect to keep your a research a secret if you're asking for help.  And that's the ironic reason why it's not a great idea to work in secret in a vacuum.  You usually take so long to figure everything out that you're sure to get scooped, and you'll probably have an error.  Whereas if you collaborate you're more likely to finish faster and be correct.

I can think of a third reason: 3) You are the victim of a particular type of harassment or problem and you need a solution without alerting the perpetrator.


text:
Can I ask about the business end of providing educational material to universities?
I work for a company that records medical conferences and have the license and copyright to a great deal of material that doctors value for the needs of their practice and sometimes for their continuing educational credit too.
I've been approached by a mid-sized university regarding one of the items and how we might work out licensing to provide this for their students.
I have questions about what I should expect. Basically, they're asking for the content for free, but being a business, free is not a price we can offer. Is this normal? Should I press them for what the value really is, less a discount perhaps? How does this kind of thing usually work with other post-graduate educational material, such as medical journals? Do they offer subscriptions wholesale for free like that?
May I ask these questions on this site?

Lol. Went to ask this again just now.

I think in general those types of questions are fine. Just make sure you split things up into manageable pieces and do not get too focused on your details.


text:
Can question x be marked as a duplicate of question y if x predates y?
A recent question was asked for which I wondered if it hadn't already been asked by somebody else. In searching, I found a more specific, unanswered question. It seems appropriate to merge the unanswered question into the recent question, but the description of the "duplicate" flag says:

This question has been asked before and already has an answer.

Is this meant to imply a temporal connection between the questions, or is it fine to merge an older question into a newer one?

'before' strictly means 'elsewhere', to be pedantic

The highest voted answer to a canonical question on the system-wide meta site recommends keeping the question with the better set of answers, regardless of which question was asked first. It also discusses how to proceed in some edge cases.
Sub-sites, like academia, are free to handle certain details differently from how the system as a whole tends to act. In this case, however, it seems good advice to de-emphasize the temporal aspect (despite the description you quote which appears to imply otherwise).

I was not aware of these canonical questions, or even the system-wide meta site. Thank you.


text:
Closure: How can a reader effectively discern changes in a newer edition of the same book?
In response to this comment which incorrectly describes my question, I have now changed https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/58976/13306 to clarify  that I am asking in general, for books that are not available computerised.
Is my question on topic now?

Note that there is no need to take this to Meta (yet). If you edit your question within a certain time after closure it will automatically be queued in the reopen queue and users with the close privilege can decide about exactly what you are asking here.

@Wrzlprmft Bringing it to meta is entirely legitimate if the OP feels confused about the reasons for closure.

@jakebeal: Sure, but that did not seem to be the problem here.

No, it's still a shopping question, and it's still not about academia.


text:
Do we want questions of the form "My professor is bad. Right?"
We seem to get a lot of questions that seem to boil down to this: "My professor is bad. Right?" Two recent examples:
Expecting students to use a code base that is known to be buggy?
How to deal with dramatic drop in grade due to strict attendance policy
Do we want to allow these? If not, then what is the appropriate reason for closing? Would it be a good idea to add a new, specialized reason for closing questions such as these?

Usually either "unclear what you're asking" or " strongly depends on individual factors" works.

@ff524: In both of these examples, it seems to me that it's clear what they're asking -- they're asking whether their professor is bad.

I think that it is a very case-by-case basis.  Generally asking for commiseration is probably not interesting: we close a lot "My advisor is bad, right?" questions too.
On the other hand, a lot of these questions end up illuminating interesting aspects of pedagogy, giving a professor's eye view of a situation, or offering an interesting comparison of different approaches.
For example, the first question you list, on buggy code bases, I liked enough to answer myself, and think it has brought a number of other interesting answers too.  I'm surprised that it was closed and have voted to reopen.  Likewise, I see no issue with the second linked question that would make me feel it should be closed.

We also close non-questions from the other side: "Kids these days, amirite?"

I disagree slightly with @jakebeal's answer. These questions, as posed, are almost always written as a rant, and rants are not welcome here.
That said, with edits, these questions should stay. I am a big proponent of requiring the edit for the question to stay open, though... the unassuming reader would come to the conclusion that these questions are acceptable here, whereas we only really accept them because there's a hidden nugget of pedagogy to be explored.

I've no objection to editing for clarity: in fact, I often think that we should be more vigorous about this than we sometimes are, particularly when the OP seems to have abandoned a question.

@jakebeal - Well then, I guess we agree :)  More seriously, I very much agree with your edit... I think we should edit more often than we do. However, given the existing voting and editing patterns on this site, I didn't think this answer would get a lot of upvotes. Guess I'm vindicated there.

As eykanal stated, a rant is not allowed, but there can be legitimate questions about ethics/legality. For the buggy code question, interpreting it as "is it ethical for a professor of a course on X to have some issue that makes a lot of the coursework / grades being based on the ability to use/understand Y" is an interesting question that is worth discussion.
On the other hand, the attendance question is mostly a rant. There are related questions that can and should be asked. For example, asking why some professors care about attendance is fine. Also asking about whether it's ethical or against (standard) university polices for a professor to base a certain amount of one's grade on attendance is fine. And even the question of should professors care about and grade student attendance is an interesting pedagogical question.
However, I don't think "How to deal with _____" questions should be allowed since they usually have standard answers. Did the professor break policy? Gather evidence and tell a higher authority. Was no policy broken? Talk to some friends, get some support, and try to do as well as you can given the situation you're in.
I don't know of a clear and concise way to put this distinction.


text:
Are questions about a university counselors on-topic?
I have a problem/question about a university counselor who seems to be unprofessional to me. I'd like to ask about it on academia stack exchange. Will it be on-topic?

What is your question, in particular? How is this question different than "I do not get along with a co-worker/boss?" that occurs in every workplace, inside and outside academia? If the question is more focused on why this particular question is academic in nature, I believe it will be on topic for the academia.se.

In general, such questions are on-topic, as they clearly relate to academic life. However, you have to consider the following:

The individuals concerned should not be identifiable from your post. See also: Should we name names when talking about bad publishers and researchers?
You should ask a question that you can reasonably expect to be answerable by us without knowing all your details and that may be helpful to others in a similar situation. In particular your post should not just be a rant. See also these Meta posts:

Do we want questions of the form "My professor is bad. Right?"
"Here's my situation, any suggestions?" is not an answerable question
Time to Expressly Ban "I want to do X, Here's My Life Story..." questions?


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Should I leave multiple comments to say thank you to professors who commented on my question?
Or is this considered "noise" on the SE network and should be avoided?
For example, my last question on Academia.SE, I got very candid and useful comments and suggestions from at least four professors.  I want to say "thanks, professor X" to each one of them in the comments section.  Should I refrain from this and instead just upvote the comments?

Please don't. Instead up vote answers that are helpful and accept the one that best answers your question. I am sure there is something about this somewhere, but cannot find it right now.

Ok, will do.  What if there are plenty of helpful comments, some of which can be turned into answers for me to accept, but none of the commenters have done so?  Should I encourage the best commenter to post it as an answer?  Or leave that to the moderators to do so?

@user58865 If you see that a comment actually constitute a good answer, you can certainly suggest posting it as an answer.

Ok, will do - thanks @MassimoOrtolano :)

Sidenote: A considerable number of users here are not professors (though in your specific case, the commentators may be – I cannot know).

Ok, got it - thanks @Wrzlprmft :)

You've posted four 'thanks' comments on this page!

Hi @JessicaB please see my comment below to J.R.'s answer :)

Short thank-you comments are generally frowned upon by the Stack Exchange. The 15-character minimum aims to keep comments substantive.
Some other things to consider:

On the main site, only five comments are shown on the page. Adding a "thank-you" comment could push down a more meaningful comment and make it harder to find on the page, like the comment that is hidden here:

Moderators get flagged every time a question gets 20 comments or more. So, by using four comments to thank four users, you are using 20% of that quota just to say thank you.
I realize this isn't addressing the exact situation as you describe, but I still think the overall philosophy applies:

If you really feel compelled to leave a thank-you comment, I suppose you could so do "responsibly" by saying thank you – but then go back a day or two later and delete those comments. That way, the four professors get notified of your  gratitude, but the thread gets tidied up without any moderator intervention, too.
Note also, though, that a busy SE user might prefer to NOT get such a notification in their inbox. It can be a distraction to go check a notification that says nothing more than, Many thanks, J.R. :), with the name and emoticon added just to reach the 15-character minimum. I know I have other things I'd rather be doing.

Awesome answer :).  Thanks for going into some detail about the moderator's PoV, too.  I'm just afraid that great contributors might stop answering my questions because I come off as "ungrateful" for not thanking them.  Saying "thanks" is such a natural reaction in real life - and naturally expected by the ones who are helping - that it's weird to refrain from doing so, just because the interaction is online and not face-to-face.  It kind of induces a guilt trip, too - like I am just taking great advice from others, without gratitude...

@user58865 Great contributors to SE understand that the accepted method of showing appreciation here is to upvote good answers, accept the ones that accurately and fully answer your questions, and in general contribute to the site in ways that make it a better resource for others. They won't consider you ungrateful for not explicitly thanking them - in fact, if anything, they might be a little annoyed by you posting a comment just to say thanks, because it shows a lack of respect for the conventions of the site! Granted, this does take a bit of getting used to.

@DavidZ, ok got it.  I will keep this in mind for the future - thanks :)

@user58865 if they are in chat you can always say "thank you" to them there!

A simple "thanks" comment is considered "chatty." A comment that explains why you think an answer is useful, however, would be OK, as it clarifies and furthers the utility of the answer.

Ok, will do - thanks :)


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How should the reference-request tag be used?
My expectations for how the reference-request tag should be used are based on how the same tag is used on mathoverflow:

This tag is used if a reference is needed in a paper or textbook on a specific result.

Academia.SE currently has this somewhat vague definition:

Questions requesting a supporting document or citation for a specific query.

In a recent discussion in comments on this question, it became clear that ff524 and I had different understandings of how the tag was to be understood on academia.SE.
My understanding was that it should mean the same thing as on mathoverflow, so that it would be narrowly defined, and would only be for questions where the entire answer would simply be a reference. For instance, the question might be, "Can anyone point me to some references on the history of the German university system?," and a typical answer would be a pointer to a book on that topic.
ff524 says: "My understanding is that many answers here are based on personal experience, and that reference-request distinguishes questions that seek answers that are substantiated by reliable evidence (with citations to said evidence). I agree that it would be a good idea to clarify on meta."
The current definition on academia.SE seems ambiguous to me. How should we clarify the definition of this tag?
related:
Disambiguating reference-request tags
Is it apropriate to use the reference-request tag to prevent discussion-like questions from being closed?

To quote myself:

My understanding is that many answers here are based on personal experience, and that reference-request distinguishes questions that seek answers that are substantiated by reliable evidence (with citations to said evidence).

When I ask a question tagged reference-request I am requesting that answers be based on reliable evidence (not anecdotal evidence or personal experience) and should include citations to said evidence.
There are many good answers on Academia.SE that are not supported by citations. For example, consider many of your answers which do not have citations, but are still very good answers.
Furthermore, there are many questions that can potentially be answered either from experience, or with an answer based on research. For example, Impact of slide quality on student learning. My answer to that question is based on research, another is based on personal experience.
I find it useful to be able to specify that I am looking only for answers based on research. For example, in this question I ask about the career path of professors after they are denied tenure and request "answers that briefly summarize the results of a study on this subject, with a reference to said study". If I hadn't explicitly requested a research-based answer, I would have gotten a lot of answers like the ones here (or actually, it would have just been closed as a duplicate of that).
I also find the reference-request tag to be useful for identifying questions that I might like to answer, because I happen to like answering questions that seek evidence-based answers. It is one of my "favorite" tags.

Yes, this has always been my interpretation too, and I think this is quite reasonable in a general context like that of this community.

I will generally agree, but also find that reference-request is often used when unnecessary.

@jakebeal A possible abuse of the reference-request tag is to avoid the closure of a question as opinion-based.

@MassimoOrtolano Indeed, per the discussion in one of the links above.  I also find it being used in a non-abusive but sloppy manner as well.

I think answers to questions with reference-request need a reference. That said, a reference only answer to me is like a link only answer (although, potentially less likely to rot). Ideally, the reference should be accompanied by either the key information in the reference or why the reference is a good choice.

a reference only answer to me is like a link only answer If the question is "Can anyone point me to some references on the history of the German university system?," then the only possible answer is a reference-only answer. An answer describing the entire history of the German university system would be much too long to be appropriate for the SE format. I think this is pretty much what reference-request is used for on mathoverflow: questions where what is desired is a reference-only answer, and nothing else is possible within the SE format.

@BenCrowell sure you do not need to give the whole history of German universities, but you could answer with "I like A because it covers 1940 to present in depth while B covers 1440 to present, but not in any depth."

Yes, good point. I think this is how the tag is used on mathoverflow: you point to a reference, and you also discuss the reference (e.g., why you like it). I've edited my answer to include this idea ("and information about the reference").

I think the definition on academia.SE should be disambiguated to be effectively the same as the definition on mathoverflow:

Questions requesting a source of information on a topic. Answers are only expected to supply a reference and information about the reference, not information about the topic.

A significant fraction (half?) of questions on academia.SE are requests for factual information. Answers to these questions should be based on facts and evidence. We shouldn't have to use a special tag to say that in response to a factual question, we want factual answers. If we did that, the reference-request tag would be used so often that it would become essentially useless. A secondary benefit of conforming to mathoverflow's usage is that we will avoid creating confusion. We shouldn't have identical-looking tags with radically differing definitions on different SE sites.
Many low-quality questions on academia.SE are "Dear Abby" questions: a long, detailed personal story of woe (I'm pregnant with a two-headed love child by my student who is on the water polo team) followed by "what should I do?" These could be answered by personal anecdotes or with advice based on individual values or experiences. But most of these are ill-suited to the SE format, because they are too specific to the individual's circumstances. SE questions and answers are supposed to be of value to more people than just the OP. If reference-request is interpreted to mean "please answer based on facts and evidence," then there would be a great deal of overlap between (a) the set of Dear Abby questions (which should be closed) and (b) the set of questions without a reference-request tag.

I agree with your first paragraph, but I'm confused by your second ("Many low-quality..."). The Dear Abby questions—and I love that phrase—are terrible, I'm with you. However, how does that problem relate to the reference-request tag?

@eykanal: What I'm trying to say, maybe not very clearly, is that SE is designed for questions that have answers based on facts and evidence. It's not designed for opinion-based questions, open-ended debate, or personal advice.  For questions that have answers based on facts and evidence, we shouldn't need a special tag to say that answers should be based on facts and evidence.

Ah, I see and I agree. I think your one-sentence explanation in the previous comment does better justice to the concept than your current post, though :)


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I notice that if I downvote an answer, I lose reputation points - how come?
How come I lose reputation points for downvoting?
Is reputation sort of like a "currency" and that it "costs" me reputation points to downvote an answer?
I currently upvoted back that answer, since I don't have that many points to squander :(

I personally only use downvote sparingly, only if I feel that the post is strictly against my views but it complies with the associated StackExchange site's regulations and cannot be flagged otherwise.

Once you pass the minimum required to comment, reputation is just worthless imaginary internet points. You only gain the right to do more unpaid moderator work. So feel free to squander it, downvote when you wish and don't worry.

Here's the FAQ on how reputation works. The one-point cost is simply to discourage massive downvote campaigns. Honestly, you should ignore it... it's more worthwhile to both yourself and the community if you upvote good stuff and downvote bad stuff. If you're concerned about reputation, give good answers to questions over time. If you're not concerned about reputation, then who really cares anyways? :)
Do note that voting on Meta works differently.

Yes, reputation can be interpreted as a sort of currency: you earn some by asking and answering with quality. You can award bits of your reputation for bounties, or to draw more attention to a specific question. Since knowledge and science are cumulative, I understand why positive actions result in a reputation gain (or none), to encourage quality. However, downvoting should be taken with care, and I believe the point loss is quite symbolic. Alternatively, you can edit the post which, if accepted, may provide you with a little reputation gain.
And the first downvote gives you a critic badge. If a question or answer poses serious problems, you also have the possibility to flag it. Useful flags also earn a badge.

It is also worth noting that if a post you down vote eventually gets deleted, you get your reputation back.


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Why are comments critical of moderators simply deleted?
Yesterday I posted a comment on an answer to this question questioning moderator ff524's behavior of selectively moving comments to chat. My comment was in no way impolite and I think it raised a good point. Now it is entirely gone (not just moved to chat).
It has often been said that comments are 'ephemeral' by nature. But a moderator deleting criticism against herself (that's what I have to assume) is a different matter. Is this acceptable behavior for a moderator of this site?
For me, this is the clearest possible abuse of moderator powers, although I don't quite understand the motivation behind it.

In general, as moderators, we try and not moderate discussion on our moderator actions for exactly the reasons you alluded to. In this case, I deleted your comment not because it was critical of another moderator's behavior, but because it was additional discussion that was not appropriate to be left as a comment. It would have been fine in meta or chat.
The ability of moderators to move comments to chat are limited (we can only do it under certain circumstances and only once per answer). The only options I had were to either leave or delete the comment. There was a "warning" prior to your comment that the discussion had been moved to chat. You also should have received a ping from a comment that ff524 left as a response (which I also deleted). I decided that if the response was insufficient, that you wanted to follow it up in meta or chat.
For completeness your comment was:

@ff524: Why did you single out two comments and not move them to chat? These weren't the only ones directly responding to the answer. Are you not thereby narrowing down the (published) range of opinions, and hence inadvertently abusing your moderator powers?

and her response was:

@Stefan I undeleted the two that seemed were correct use of comments and also highly upvoted. People interested in the range of opinions are strongly encouraged to visit that chat room.

The comments she left were one by me:

Do you have any evidence to backup your claims?

and one by a high rep user

-1: When you base your answer (even partially) on sarcasm, you lose (your) credibility and (my) respect. Your argument is that imposing some instances of "X only" inherently works against "equality (or some acceptable bounds on the proportions of) X and Y". That is clearly wrong: if things are highly skewed away from the proportions you want, you don't correct with equal proportions, you correct by skewing in the other direction. Let me ask you this: what do you think is the percentage of female speakers at the most recent International Congress of Mathematicians?

Both of these are attempting to enable the answer to be improved and not discussion. Looking at the chat transcript with the other comments, I don't see any that obviously are trying to improve the answer.

"You also should have received a ping from a comment that ff524 left as a response (which I also deleted). " AFAIK that would depend on the timeline. It is not clear if you believe this to be a general feature of the site (it is not AFAIK) or mean this for the particular situation (where it might be true, e.g., if you knew OP was online in between posting and deletion).

@quid comments by mods are different then regular comments: http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/231668/how-do-notifications-on-deleted-posts-work The details are confusing to me and I am not sure if the ping makes it through and stays around in this case.

I was aware that moderator comments on deleted posts behave differently. However, this is not the current scenario.

I definitely did not receive a ping. Even if I had, I would have been surprised not to find the comments.

@Stefan I just checked and you should have gotten a notification in your inbox with at least a portion of ff524's comment. I could have pinged you in chat to let you know what was happening, but that seemed overkill for deleting a comment after a previous comment that said "move this to chat". I am sorry you were confused.

It probably was there but got deleted with the comments before I went back online. I haven't activated e-mail notifications. But, ok, if I had been notified, I'd have been more or less ok with the deletion of the comments.

To expand on StrongBad's answer, here are some reasons why questions or complaints about moderator actions belong here on meta, not in comments on the main site:

As meta posts, they have visibility to people who are interested in participating in the governance of this site (i.e. meta users), who can then chime in with their own answers and votes. As comments buried on an answer on the main site, they do not. If you have a problem with moderator actions, you should want to bring that to the attention of people who care about such things, not bury the discussion where hardly anybody will see it.
As comments on a main site question, they are distracting to future readers ("I came here via Google search to find an answer to this question, why am I reading about moderator policies?"). This is contrary to the Stack Exchange philosophy, which is all about a focus on Q&A, no distractions. (Note that the instructions in the help center say not to use comments for "Discussion of community behavior or site policies; please use meta instead.")

Criticism of moderator actions is 100% acceptable on Academia.SE, but please put it on meta, where it belongs.

Sorry for wrongly suspecting you, but it did look bad from my point of view. I understand the role of meta, but sometimes you see something you want to comment on without spending hours to formulate a self-contained question.


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What will happen to the daily reputation over 200 units?
Assume, someone's reputation within a day exceeds the threshold 200 units.
What will happen to the rest of it?... Will it be considered for the next day to be applied or it will be lost?

this may help you http://meta.physics.stackexchange.com/questions/4473/what-is-the-logic-behind-the-daily-reputation-cap-of-200

Also from the main SE meta

I always thought that they are used to cross-finance the association bonus… Or are donated to users in need…

No, upvotes received after you hit the reputation cap will not be applied the next day.
From What is the daily reputation cap and how can I hit it?:

The maximum amount of reputation you can earn in one day from upvotes and approved suggested edits is 200. Any upvotes you receive after reaching that number no longer award any points.
You can still earn rep beyond the cap by winning a bounty, accepting an answer, or having one of your answers accepted. Downvotes will also still count against you, but the rep lost can be reclaimed from new upvotes.


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Request for closure
Are non-citizen Muslim professors and students going to be removed from US universities and subsequently deported by Trump's ban?
This post has several problems:

It mischaracterizes the problem, in a manner akin to the question "have you stopped beating your wife?"
It is incredibly localized, involving a rapidly changing event, and is highly unlikely to be useful to anyone visiting the site weeks, or even days, from now.
It has absolutely nothing to do with Academia.  You could replace the words "professors," "students" and "universities" in the post with words from other professions or groups, and the question being asked would be exactly the same.
It's a highly-speculative question involving legal matters that haven't happened yet.  Any answer provided is almost certainly going to be purely opinion.

Adding to the fodder of instant-twitter news and general hysteria over the Trump administration is not what this, or any other site on the Stack Exchange network is about.  Stack Exchange is for answers, not discussion, and already a moderator has had to truncate comments not once, but twice on this post.
It's a magnet for bike-shedding, and it's unlikely to produce any actionable information that an academic can use.  Even the highest voted answer proclaims: "Stack Exchange is not a news service."
Please close.

It's not so incredibly localized, after all, given that it's affecting a lot of people around the world (e.g., my group).

Note also that, in some sense, we have a lot of questions that mischaracterize a problem: it's the answers that shouldn't mischaracterize it.

I agree with the complaint about speculation and that answers will likely change/become invalid in the future. I disagree that this has nothing to do with academia: immigration and visitor status for academics is not always the same as for other groups, and this is an issue that concerns many people. I also disagree that this is "incredibly localized": many questions here concern individual countries, this one concerns developments in one country that affect individuals from multiple countries.

@BryanKrause: It's not specifically about academia.

I'd also like to point out that while you are active on StackExchange, you have only been an occasional commentator here, not an active participant in asking or answering questions related to academia, and although there is some consistency across the StackExchange community, the individual SE sites vary on how they interpret and implement the guidelines.

The question specifically asks: "are academics somehow protected."

@MassimoOrtolano: It's localized in the sense of "Why is that green car parked in front of my house?" (15 minutes later) "Is it still there?"

I don't know if you made a tour of this site before posting this, but we have a number of localized questions in that sense. I don't claim that that is a good question, but I don't find your post convincingly enough to VTC. It seems to me more a personal agenda than a sincere interest toward the quality of our community.

@MassimoOrtolano: A personal agenda?  If there is one, it is the distaste for the saturation in the media with minutely, mostly useless information.  I don't think we should be a part of that.  If that's what you mean by an agenda, damn right.

-1: I see that the only 4 rep points you have earned in this academic community come from two approved edits on the main page, so I think it is not really appropriate for you as an outsider to request closures of questions in this community. Also please realize that scientific and academic communities are rather different and may have different culture and norms from what is valid on StackOverflow. In particular for scientific/academic communities the approach of trying to make them and their policies/rules exactly isomorphic to StackOverflow is rather unfortunate to say the least...

In fact scientific/academic communities would work much better, if SE would just provide its software (which is truely amazing) and hosting but otherwise not interfere with the rules, standards, norms of the individual (in particular high-level adacemic) communities.

@Dilaton: You're perfectly within your rights to write your own software and start your own insular, ivory-tower elitist community elsewhere, free of any pesky interference by outsiders. As far as appropriateness goes, I have the absolute right to ask for whatever I wish. Your community, on the other hand, has the absolute right to say no. You sound like one of those so called "free speech" advocates in Berkeley, who considers speech free until it's no longer convenient for you.

I disagree that this has nothing to do with academia: immigration and visitor status for academics is not always the same as for other groups, and this is an issue that concerns many people. The OP specifically asks whether there are any exceptions/protections for academics: if these existed, it might mean that the answer to this question would differ from answers given to a more general audience.
I also disagree that this is "incredibly localized": many questions here concern policies or standards in individual countries; this one concerns developments in one country that affect individuals from multiple countries. In fact, users are frequently asked/encouraged to tag their questions with particular countries and to mention their country, type of institution, and field of study to go with their questions, because so many answers depend on that information.
I see you have edited your OP to mention bike-shedding: I assure you, for anyone who may be affected by the issues described in the post you reference, this is far, far from a trivial issue like building a bike shed. My first read of your post was that you might have some good points about the fluidity of the situation and the appropriateness of such questions on this site; now, I feel like you are entirely disconnected from the issues facing students and professors in academia, particularly those from other countries.
I also strongly disagree about your mention that this regards legal matters that haven't happened yet: people have already been held up in their source countries or detained at airports, there are reports of people who have been coerced to surrender their documents permanently by signing papers they did not fully understand.
Even though the original OP had some misconceptions about the current implementation of the executive order, there is indeed some immediately actionable advice that academics can use or provide to affected students that are wondering, specifically: there is currently no policy to deport students/professors who are in the US, but people from the affected countries may not be able to return if they do leave regardless of their immigration status. That information can lead to specific, practical advice for potentially affected members of the academic community.
I would also add that other posts related to policies of the current U.S. administration have been rejected by the community when they were too speculative, for example here. In comparison, the question you linked refers to an executive order that has already been issued.

I proposed an edit; please roll back if you don't like it.

I forgot to explain, the word "actionable" was a bit confusing in its second mention, so I edited that too.  "Actionable" sometimes means that legal action could be taken.  Here, I think you meant that the part in bold points to a specific action step that could be taken.

@aparente001 I have no problem with the edits; the second use of "actionable" was not necessary to the coherence of the paragraph - I used the word "actionable" only because the post I was responding to used that word; my assumption is that the definition intended was "able to be done or acted on; having practical value" rather than legally actionable, because I think it goes without saying that answers on Academia.SE need not always refer users to legal action.

Well, the important thing is that you're okay with the edits. // Sometimes legal points do come up here, and I wanted to remove the ambiguity.  I was confident I had understood what you were getting at -- although I did have to read your post carefully to make sure.  So I wanted to make your post a more effortless read.  (It didn't take much tweaking to do so.)  // Thanks for the post.


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Is a general question discussing differences in research methodology in different fields too broad?
This question pertains to the issue raised from this post. I basically asked a question about the differences in generating ideas, writing and publishing an academic journal in different fields. I thought this question was suitable for Academia SE because it is on-topic, and it may help others who may wonder on this question. However, this question is now on the verge of being closed with 4 votes, because it is too broad.
I've included my sample answer for the field of Economics, and I doubt that it is too broad that it is unanswerable, as exemplified by many comments and my own answer. How can I change the question to make it more specific, or can someone explain why it may be too broad? Or are questions that asked about differences in various fields not welcomed in Academia SE?

Your original question contains

I'd like to see how this process may differ in various fields.

In this question you say

I've included my sample answer for the field of Economics

It sounds like you are envisioning an answer for each (or many) fields. These are generally big-list questions and are covered, indirectly, on the don't ask page. Basically, you should avoid asking question where every answer is equally valid: “What’s your favorite ______?” While your question is not asking for a favorite, all the answers will be equally valid.
If the question was phrased to be looking for a single answer, that answer would be too long (and hence too broad) since it would have to encompass all fields, their histories and comparisons. Asking for a single comparison of related fields can be beneficial, but also may be too technical. For example, EE and CS people often take different approaches (and value different outcomes) despite often being housed in the same department. A question asking about comparing those fields would be on topic in my opinion. Similarly, although completely outside my expertise, asking about differences between economics and political science (or any other related field) would potentially be on topic.
While it seems circular, the question needs to be specific, but still broad enough to apply to academia in general, and it cannot be so specific that it is better answered in a field specific SE. This can be difficult, but read through our past questions and you will see it can be done.

Your understanding of my intention is completely on spot. I was asking for answers that would be equally valid, and I understand that it's not a good question. I'd then think that this question is not really suitable for Academia SE. What do you do in this case, especially since someone has posted an answer? Do you just leave it to be closed, or do you delete the question?

@Hosea having strict rules about the type of questions we allow makes SE the place to go to get good information, but it can also makes asking good questions difficult. That is why we have our [help] (and chat and meta).  Since there is an upvoted answer on your question, you cannot delete it, as that would destroy the work that someone else did. High rep users periodically look at closed questions and either try and edit them to fit or delete them. Don't worry about have a close question floating around, you have asked a bunch of good question (and hopefully gotten some good answers).


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Why did a “related post” link get edited into my answer?
This answer got edited to have a link to a related question at the top. I have since rolled it back.
The question is sort of related, but not the same situation. I don’t see how the link adds anything to this answer. Even if it did, it seems like such an edit isn’t legitimate, because it’s not clearly in line with my intent.
The owner of the edit is the Community user. Looking into this, that’s because it was proposed by an anonymous user.
Is this a legitimate edit?

If you ask me, it clearly isn’t; the suggested edit should have been rejected.
Even if the link were related to your answer, you should decide whether this link really reflects your intentions. I only consider others adding links to a post appropriate when it is for providing prerequisite information (e.g., linking to the Wikipedia article for some not commonly known term) or when the author asked for it (“I know we had a question about this recently, but I cannot find it right now”). In cases such as yours where this doesn’t apply, the link can be mentioned in a comment and you can decide whether you want to include it or not.
However, the linked post does not seem to be related to your answer (in particular not more than the question) and therefore this edit should have been a comment on the question, if anything.


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"delete account" documentation is out of date
https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/deleting-account
But the top bar is now different.

What do you mean the top bar is now different?

No, the bar is consistent.

I have heard on another site that the appearance of the top bar changes at a certain reputation threshold.

The top bar is the same: "Profile   Activity   Edit Profile & Settings".
However, I see "Job alerts" and "OTHER \ Privileges" in my account. These items are missing in the image. So, some action might be needed, but it's not urgent.


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What to do with non-answers that are accepted as answers?
The posting How to find a gap in knowledge, for my PhD? asks "How to find the gap of knowledge" (denoted by Q in the following). The posting (denoted by R in the following) says, essentially, "don't do it, at least not now". R is not an answer to A, at least logically or linguistically speaking. However, R has apparently been so helpful to the author of Q (denoted by A in the following) such that A marked R as an accepted solution. I guess, this is because R is an answer to a different question, namely, how to start the PhD studies properly, and this different question is, probably, much more important to A. As an answer to "how to start the PhD studies properly", I like R, and do like it a lot. But as an answer to Q, the posting R illogical.
The particular case is exacerbated by the fact that A has shown no wish to reformulate the question such that it actually fits his or her real question (here: how to start working towards a PhD) rather than the issue formally written in Q.
There is an inadequacy of the pair "question - answer" here. I am sure that such inadequacies pop up every once in a while. Not sure how the community should address these pairs exactly, but being aware of these issues or addressing them would probably raise the quality of the site.

For that question, each field has a different answer, and that is an answer, at least for some fields. For instance, if a student asked me how to find a gap of knowledge in my field (metrology), I'd tell them that, as "newbie", they wouldn't be able to find a workable gap within 4-5 years, well beyond any reasonable time allotted for the PhD (because after you find the gap, you would need other 3-4 years to fill it). So, the answer for my field would be: "It's the advisor that tells you which gap you'll work on".

I guess ([meta-tag:accepted-answer]) would be a suitable tag for this question. (Not enough rep to edit, so I am suggesting this in a comment instead.)

R is not an answer to A, at least logically or linguistically speaking — Yes, it is!  "How do you learn to juggle three balls?" "First, put down two of the balls and learn to throw one of them." "But I want to juggle three balls!" "Yes, and the right way to do that is to put two of them down."

Only the original poster can accept an answer, and that’s not something the community can change. It may be a flaw, but that’s the way the system is set up.

There has to be some room for analyzing why the questioner asked the question they did, and maybe indicate some less-than-ideal steps along the way that lead to the question. Sometimes our preconceptions/naivety/received wisdom lead us to ask the wrong question. (See also the XY Problem - the questioner's real question here is clearly how to pick a research subject.) In that case, being told about the misconceptions behind the question is often more important than getting your question answered: the fact that the original poster marked this as the accepted answer is a strong indication that it was actually the most useful to them.
Taking some kind of action against this type of answer would reduce the overall value of the site, IMO.

Why should we care...? I don't know about you, but I'm here because I want to help people. Sometimes, taking the question at face value is not the most helpful thing. Imagine someone asks "Why does santa give nicer gifts to children of rich parents than to children of poor parents?", are we not allowed to raise the point that santa does not exist because it questions the assumptions of the explicitly stated question?

And not reformulating the question is not bad either: there will surely be future students making the same confusion, who will look for this formulation, and be able to follow the arguments questioning the question. Erasing all trace of the process will make it opaque to future readers.


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How narrow should narrow be?
Some folks considered the prior installments of the question Worst cover-letter mistakes of continental-European applicants for tenure-track assistant professorship positions in CS in USA as too broad. I narrowed it, many times, last time after the question has been put on hold. I'm wondering how often should the narrowing happen.
I'm under the impression that the expertise is not present here at ac.se in sufficient numbers anyway, so the question was already narrow enough and is now even narrower, potentially not admitting too many answers or votes from really informed folks, but rather mostly junk (=uninformed) answers and junk votes. So far, I have not even seen any useful comments to the contents either.

These concerns were mentioned in the comments (now in the chat room linked from a comment):

This, unfortunately, looks like a "make a big list" question that likely too broad for effective answers.

and

In this community, the consensus is generally against big list questions

That is the reason your question was closed. Making the scope of the list narrower (by specifying the field, or specifying the part of the application you're asking about) doesn't help; the fundamental question is still asking us to compile a list. When a question is posed in such a way that it can't be answered well in one answer, but needs many separate answers to give a complete answer, it is "too broad", even if the situation referenced is very narrow. This community has decided that we don't want those kinds of "list" questions (with some exceptions, that are discussed on meta before the question is posed).
You also make the situation a bit worse by asking for people's opinions about which mistakes are most serious. (See the help center.)
Your question could be improved by framing it to be about your specific situation, instead of asking for a list of anecdotes from other people's situations, and by not soliciting opinions. Instead of

In your opinion, what are the most serious common mistakes that continental European candidates for tenure-track assistant-professor positions in Computer Science in the US commit in their cover letters?

You could ask,

I am a continental European candidate applying for tenure-track assistant-professor positions in Computer Science in the US. What common cover letter mistakes are made by people in this situation, that I need to watch out for?

This could potentially have a single "best" answer, and doesn't ask for subjective opinions on which mistakes bother people the most. The "best" answer would not just be a one line answer enumerating a mistake that has been judged "most serious" by the votes of other users; the "best" answer would be a comprehensive answer that describes the common problems and explains more about them.

@Abra What matters is not what you would be happy with (since nobody but you knows...), what but kind of answers the question invites. For example, if you explicitly invite answers based on opinion the question is likely to be closed as too subjective, even if you would be happy with answers that objectively recount things that they have seen in applications and how the search committee reacted to them.

@Abra Having said that, in the comments you seem to have gotten feedback that there aren't really any "common" mistakes, so I don't think the question is likely to be reopened - people might think that the revised version would just be closed as "depends on the specific situation".

The big problem is that your question boils down to asking for a list of things, and that’s not a good fit for this site.
Moreover, the narrowing isn’t making the question any easier to answer. I can’t really say “continental Europeans do X that other international applicants don’t,” and I don’t think there’s anything that is a CS-only kind of mistake, either.
Also, when asked to clarify what you want, you came up with “the worst ones.” This doesn’t help us understand what you want, which brings us back to an unfocused list question.
To a degree, to paraphrase Chekhov: “every declined application is unique.”

Note that your question was not closed by a moderator. But let’s also address the second issue: most applications don’t fail because you did one thing wrong. There are hundreds of applicants in the US per position. Only a handful get interviews. Your “error” might be that you’re not in the subdiscipline they want.

@LeonMeier: Most applications fail because there are so many, and so typically only the most qualified or most impressive applications can make the cut. Your application can be mistake-free and still not lead to an interview!


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Spamming the front-page for the purpose of creating a tag
Is it appropriate to edit many questions at once for the purpose of creating a tag? At the moment, 12 (!) questions are on the front-page because of this, all edited within the last hour. (Some even appear to have been edited because they merely contain the word in question, even though the question is clearly not about this subject.) I have to say that I find this rather disruptive, the front page is not in a usable state.
Update: now it's 13. Update 2 (a few seconds later): now 14. Update 3: guess what. You get my point, I'll stop updating this (I can't keep up anyway).

I also have some doubts about the actual usefulness of the tag in question. Indeed, it does not appear that the user's thought process went further than "I'll search for questions containing this word and add the tag to it." But if the question can be found by searching for the word, then what's the point of the tag? But that's another discussion

Possible duplicate https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1246/suggestions-for-avoiding-disruption-when-retagging

Creating a new tag is reasonable, front-page effects are a byproduct
I'll provide a (biased) response as the person who created the tag.
Occasionally on one of the StackExchange websites, the idea for a certain tag forms in someone's mind. It could be because of a question they asked where a tag was missing that they had assumed should exist; or because an existing tag covers too much and someone feels it needs to be split up into subtags; etc.
What then happens (again, often, not always) is that the proponent of a tag:

Finds relevant questions which should have the said tag
Tags said questions
Makes an initial tag wiki edit

If the community doesn't like the tag, it can get removed (and the tag wiki edit could be disapproved etc.)
On small sites, this has the side-effect of bringing many of these questions to the front page (on SO or SU that won't last more than a few seconds or minutes). That's unintended, and one should perhaps note that it doesn't increase the tagger's reputation.

Or you could edit maybe 2-3 questions at once and then wait a few hours. It's not like adding the tag to all questions is urgent. Math.SE is a much bigger site, and this kind of front-page hogging is not tolerated there.

@NajibIdrissi: Does it really matter if the front page gets 2-3 questions because of tagging, every hour for a day, rather than getting 12-13 questions once? After all, by now the monograph questions are only 3 of the top 7 on the "active" pane.

Yes, it matters... For example, a few questions were asked just before your flurry of edits, and now these questions are way deep into the "active" queue and will not receive much attention. In any case, you can't unilaterally decide whether it "matters" or not.

@NajibIdrissi: 1. On many sites on the network, a question gets bumped off the main page display in a heartbeat, or the equivalent thereof.   2. If I could avoid bringing those questions back up to the main page I would. Having said that - I see your point about a site such as this one.

A full day later and seven of your edits are still on the front page, FYI.

@NajibIdrissi: If you scroll down again and again and again. By the way - I've been active on academia.SX for several years, and never have browsed the front page (as opposed to asking a question, searching for a question/answer, or coming in through a link to a question).

And of course if you behave in a certain way, then everyone should follow suit? There is one approved way to use the website, and you decide what it is? Do you even listen to yourself?

@NajibIdrissi: I'm claiming you are massively overstating your concern.

"It doesn't affect me so it's no big deal"

"It affects (almost) nobody, but I don't like it, so it's terrible."

And you know it affects almost nobody... how exactly?

"What then happens (again, often, not always)..." What should happen in a site which isn't in the very early states of its beta is that the proponent posts a question on meta to get feedback about whether the community agrees that the tag is desirable and if so what it should be called, because retagging is disruptive however it's done, and retagging twice ("If the community doesn't like the tag, it can get removed") is doubly disruptive.

@PeterTaylor: I could see why this would be a good idea for some lower-traffic-volume SX sites. But - the interface lends itself towards individual autonomy in tagging. If it had been suggested to me it's customary to suggest new tags on meta first, I probably would have done that. I disagree with the claim that the retagging is meaningfully disruptive.


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How to improve closed question?
What can I do, to make How can I seek permanent Personalised Assessment Arrangements, rather than applying each year? helpful to others? I don't think that PAA is specific to my case. Many others at other universities probably face this dilemma too...

I'm just guessing that the primary issue is the leasing stuff. That's really your issue, and one that we can't give you any guidance on. If you just focus on why you want and need a permanent PAA, you might be able to get an answer. But right now it's a little too unfocused.

I have edited the question to bring the basic question into better focus, but leaving the contextual details in the question, for anyone who finds them helpful, optionally.  And I have voted to reopen.


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Is it okay to ask this question?
I want to ask a question asking whether I should go for a PhD or not depending on many factors, if I ask this question would it be on-topic?

As long as you are very specific what you want and what are your 'strengths' that people can accept you for, I don't see why not. However, it is likely such a question already exists. Also, advisors at your insitution can give way better answers that random people on the internet

There are a few problems with such questions:

There are really a lot of factors weighing into such a decision. It is very unlikely that you are able to accurately communicate all this information – mostly for the reason that a lot of information such as your skills cannot be accurately quantified or you do not even perceive it as relevant even though you subconsciously take it into account.
Such decisions do not only depend on observables but also on how important you weigh your academic career, money, ethics, job security, family, and so on.

Therefore, we cannot and do not like to make such decisions for you. What we might be able to answer is what factors you have to consider, i.e., we can help you making a decision that is as informed as possible. However, at the end of the day you have to make the decision yourself.
Even then, a question asking for all factors to consider here is very broad. If you can, narrow down your question to some specific aspect that strongly influences your decision, e.g.:

I want to do a PhD in underwater basket weaving, but I really don’t like to write longer texts. How relevant and prominent can I expect writing to be during such a programme?

Also see: Why was my question put on hold for depending on individual factors?


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Should the tag [united-kingdom] be removed, and replaced with its 4 countries?
https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/united-kingdom contains the warning:

Note that the UK does not have a common legal system across its jurisdictions - consider using [scotland] or [england-and-wales] or [northern-ireland].

Yet many posts with this tag still neglect this distinction, and answerers must ask the questioner or express their confusion about the intended jurisdiction.
Wouldn't removing it teach posters  and spur them to choose jurisdictions? From Tom Bolam, Senior Associate (as of 1-29-2018), Fladgate (Solicitors' firm):

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (to give it its full name) has three separate and distinct legal systems: (i) Scotland; (ii) England and Wales; and (iii) Northern Ireland.

There are some questions that are unique to a particular country, but many issues in academia are UK wide and others are EU wide. I wouldn't replace the tag, but it might make sense to create a Wales tag if there are enough Welsh specific questions. That said, it seems you want the tags to make a statement and that probably is not a valid reason.

So, Tldr: keep UK, add subregions when needed.


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Closure: Which academic subjects examine human reading?
Can Which academic subjects examine human reading?. please be reopened? I've tried to edit it for clarity. Please LMK how else I can improve?

In general, we can't just reopen a question on request because a user would like it reopened. If there is a specific reason to do so, that should be explicitly mentioned in the question. (This is different from the other question you asked about, since that question is originally yours and was auto-deleted.)

The question title and body still do not match. The question in the body seems very broad, opinion-based and possibly not within our scope.
The existing answer matches the titular question. It would be good if you could edit your question to match that answer. You can ask the question in the body separately, but I do not consider this a good question (see above).
You can cast reopen votes on your own questions pushing them to the reopen queue. There is no need to make a Meta post for this. This is what happened after your last edit. Three reviewers voted to leave the question closed in its current state.
What you can use Meta for is to debate the closure, but then you would have to bring arguments. Arguments (delivered in comments) may also help you to get your question reopened through the regular mechanism.


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Why are the majority of questions here related to either CS or mathematics?
I have been here for about 1-2 months, and clearly see that most of the questions come from mathematicians or computer scientists.
Am I wrong? Is it because these disciplines are on their computers more, relative to a chemist or biologist?

are you sure that is not just sampling bias? I have seen questions from a wide variety of disciplines here. but yeah, people working in CS fields naturally spend more time on their computer, so...

Related: https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/q/2159/20058

By "PC," do you mean "politically correct"?

@JoelReyesNoche PC stands for the personal computer in my question.

Do you mean "on PC" is that these fields are more related to programming, which are easier to know this site because they have to visit Stack Overflow regularly?

@Ooker yeah, even though I am a chemist, I also know here from Stack Overflow, whenever I have a problem with Fortran or even MS Excel macro formula, still even if they don't do programming, through surfing it is still more likely I guess.

It seems that the claim that number of computer scientists and mathematicians on this site is higher, compared to other disciplines, is supported by results of Academia Community Polls from 2013. (Of course, things might have change since then, in either direction.)

As Aeismail points out in their answer, the Stackexchange network grew out of the StackOverflow site - which is for programming queries. Therefore, people who program in their daily lives, i.e. people in STEM subjects, will be more likely to think of coming here.
But it's perhaps also worth noting that a huge number of questions that are closed for being off-topic are from computer scientists; for some reason they seem to assume that "academia.stackexchange" means a place to ask academic computer science questions. This has always baffled me. Maybe it's for the same reason?

While there is an actual prevalence of people from those fields here (due to reasons elaborated in other answers), this even gets emphasised due to the fact that they are somewhat peculiar due to their subject of research and history, for example:

The research process in many subfields of mathematics and computer science can be quite different from, say, an experimental field.
Publications in mathematics are put to special scrutiny (for a reason).
Computer science has a mostly unique tradition to publish at conferences.

Compared to this, many other scientific fields are rather homogeneous – they form the default backdrop, against which the above peculiarities can be seen. Therefore, for mathematicians and computer scientists, their field is more likely to be a relevant factor to mention in a post – and thus more visible.
Note though, that there are other fields with similar peculiarities such as law, which you will hardly ever read about here, because they are indeed underrepresented.

+1, has this feeling too. Biology, medicine, etc. feels almost "generic", people mention this less often (and it seems to matter less often) than CS or math.

I'm note sure I agree with this, given the prevalence of assumptions that also exist on this site like "Everything will be written in LaTeX" or "arXiv is where pre-prints go." The CS and math folks seem to be perfectly content to assume they're field-specific quirks are the default.

@Fomite: 1) I am not disputing that there is a prevalence of those fields; I am just saying that the effect may seem larger than it actually is (see my first sentence). 2) Your examples least also apply to Physics. 3) Actually, the examples you gave are rather unusual in my experience. Most people in the ArXiv and LaTeX fields realise that those things are special to their fields. What happens more often is that things like publishing at conferences or review times of a years are assumed as the norm.

On 3, it may be just my biased observation, but I find them to be relatively common and assumed to be the default.

As its name suggests, the Stack Exchange network grew out of CS-based websites, so there is likely to be a lot more questions from scientists than from the humanities, because that reflects the user base.
It’s also worth noting that there aren’t nearly as many resources geared toward STEM faculty: most of the books I’ve seen addressed to faculty have been written from the viewpoint of someone who is working in the humanities rather than the sciences.

As its name suggests, the Stack Exchange network grew out of CS-based websites Well, it could also suggest that it comes from finance-based websites, as the pun in the title suggests... :)

If you have no  CS background whatsoever, it wouldn't be obvious to you the words "Stack Exchange" have anything at all to do with CS.

*muttermutter* CS isn't programming, just as creative writing isn't word-processing.

Not to forget that mathematicians use LaTeX, and at some point it becomes impossible to use LaTeX without using Stack Exchange.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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Why has D.Hutchinson been banned for 28 years?
@scaaahu noticed in the Ivory Tower chat that https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/91603/d-hutchinson?tab=profile has been banned for 28 years. Incredible! I took a look at D.Hutchinson's posts at academia.SE and found nothing bad. Really nothing. I might be missing something, but which kind of offense would lead to such a long ban? In practical terms, this is "forever". The way we know the stackexchange site today, it need not even exist for such a long time span. Some of us might even be happily pushing up the daisies by then.
What I could imagine is that the user might be way too young to discuss academic issues, say, 5 years old. Then, about 20 years might make sense.

We will probably never know the details of what happened because moderators cannot reveal them, but since the ban is network wide, the offense might be related to his activity elsewhere and not specifically to that here on Academia. Afaik, common issues that can bring to long suspensions are sockpuppeting, repeated rude behaviour and such.

Voting on Meta is different. Questions about the suspension of a specific user are usually not answerable. and the downvotes probably just reflect this. I don't think anyone has taken your question personally.

Every community has its own personality, and reactions to the same type of inquiry can be quite different. Maybe it also depends on the degree of affection between the community and the suspended user.

I will just mention that this question on Meta Stack Exchange is (to some extent) related to this specific suspension: Could network-wide suspensions last longer than 10 years?

The first chat message regarding this topic is here, in case you are interested with it.

Stack Exchange's policy on this kind of issues is "no, we won't tell you the details. Trust the moderators or find yourself another website". Just so you know.

Apparently another user just got banned and I can not really understand why. I think he had annoying & paranoid behaviour.

The suspension is network wide. This means the suspension was issued by a stack exchange community moderator employee. As for what the offense was, it is unlikely to be made public. Suspensions that long are rare and in my experience do not have common underlying behaviors beyond being unwelcome. It is unlikely to be useful to look at the user's activity since there is likely deleted content spread across multiple sites. Avoiding a suspension like this is not something you likely need to worry about as users receive numerous warning prior to such a suspension.

I took a look at D.Hutchinson's posts at academia.SE and found nothing bad. Really nothing.

The vast majority of suspensions is issued for either vote abuse or posting delete-worthy content (usually lots of it), such as offensive posts, spam, etc. Either way, regular users won’t see what is problematic, because it was either never visible to them or, well, deleted. Even the privilege of seeing deleted posts won’t allow you to track down deleted posts, since it doesn’t allow you to search for deleted posts by a given user. Looking at it the other way round, if you could still find suspension-worthy content by the user, this would be worrisome or it was missed during cleaning up (either way, flag it).
Admittedly, there are some suspended users whose undeleted content exhibits borderline behaviour or otherwise gives you a strong hint at why they were suspended, but these are only about half of the suspended users.
And even this is only half the reason why you cannot find anything; the other half being that this is a network suspension.