Timeline for Replacing the homework policy 1: what existing questions should be on/off topic?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
55 events
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| Jun 4, 2020 at 15:34 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
Commonmark migration
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| Mar 16, 2017 at 16:03 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
replaced http://meta.physics.stackexchange.com/ with https://physics.meta.stackexchange.com/
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| Mar 16, 2017 at 16:03 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
replaced http://meta.physics.stackexchange.com/ with https://physics.meta.stackexchange.com/
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| Aug 23, 2016 at 9:10 | history | edited | David ZMod | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
add link to questionnaire
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| Aug 4, 2016 at 16:44 | answer | added | snulty | timeline score: 0 | |
| Aug 1, 2016 at 12:46 | answer | added | Emilio Pisanty | timeline score: 3 | |
| May 18, 2016 at 13:48 | answer | added | David ZMod | timeline score: 2 | |
| May 10, 2016 at 8:11 | comment | added | David Z Mod | @tpg2114 At this point, I plan to post an analysis of the answers this weekend and then we can move on to the next phase, and discuss it in the next chat session. I had hoped to do it a couple weeks ago, but I was too busy with work. | |
| May 10, 2016 at 5:03 | comment | added | tpg2114 | @DavidZ Did you have a timeline in mind for this phase of things? I know we're only just over a month, didn't know if you wanted more time/exposure or if you had a specific deadline in mind. | |
| May 8, 2016 at 12:19 | answer | added | Emilio Pisanty | timeline score: -1 | |
| May 7, 2016 at 0:34 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
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| May 2, 2016 at 23:31 | answer | added | Emilio Pisanty | timeline score: 2 | |
| May 2, 2016 at 13:02 | answer | added | David ZMod | timeline score: 4 | |
| S Apr 30, 2016 at 7:58 | history | mod moved comments to chat | |||
| S Apr 30, 2016 at 7:58 | comment | added | David Z Mod | The discussion about whether we should be closing questions is getting off topic for the comment section here, so I've moved it to a chat room and deleted those comments from the post. Please feel free to continue the discussion in chat. | |
| Apr 30, 2016 at 4:43 | answer | added | Bill N | timeline score: 2 | |
| Apr 27, 2016 at 14:50 | answer | added | sammy gerbil | timeline score: -3 | |
| Apr 27, 2016 at 14:17 | answer | added | sammy gerbil | timeline score: -3 | |
| Apr 18, 2016 at 13:14 | history | edited | David ZMod | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
some clarifications
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| Apr 18, 2016 at 13:13 | comment | added | Floris | @DavidZ - yes my point was really about the prominence of the instructions - I should have said "on topic" but the edit window has closed.. Anyway - you did it right (IMO) in your answer on 3d harmonic oscillator. | |
| Apr 18, 2016 at 13:11 | comment | added | David Z Mod | @Floris well, this is not about homework, it's about what we want to consider on topic vs off topic. The question could be homework and still be totally fine. That being said, it probably is worth making sure these instructions are prominently featured. | |
| Apr 18, 2016 at 13:06 | comment | added | Floris | I think the "vote UP if you want it to be ON TOPIC" instruction needs to be made MUCH BIGGER AND CLEARER. Otherwise the data you get from this exercise may be seriously flawed. Not saying that our community doesn't know how to read, but when the top-rated (at time of writing) answer says "I think this is homework" and it gets +13/-4, I wonder whether people say "Yes this is homework" or "no it's not"... I wonder what our friends on the UI stack would say about it :-). David Z's answer makes it more explicit... "vote up if...". | |
| Apr 17, 2016 at 23:29 | answer | added | peterh | timeline score: -4 | |
| Apr 14, 2016 at 8:15 | answer | added | David ZMod | timeline score: 5 | |
| Apr 13, 2016 at 14:32 | comment | added | Jon Custer | Re: a physics homework site - unless we all went over there and answered homework questions (which nobody really wants to do or else we would not be having this discussion), there won't be anybody over there to help and folks will keep coming here. I'm not quite sure why it is tolerated on the Math side of the house, but they are a different community... | |
| Apr 13, 2016 at 7:58 | comment | added | DanielSank | Everyone please notice how DavidZ is not calling this the "homework" policy any more. The fact that we're using the word "homework" in the close reason and help center is one of the big problems here. Let's try to stop using that word. See my previous post about this issue. | |
| Apr 13, 2016 at 6:34 | comment | added | David Z Mod | @CountIblis That has been considered many times before. There was never enough support for the proposed site to get it going, but you can check on Area 51 to see how it's going. | |
| Apr 13, 2016 at 0:38 | comment | added | Count Iblis | Perhaps we need to create new StackExchange site for homework help for all the different subject (physics, chemistry, biology etc. etc.) and then impose strict rules for posting homework there. This then keeps non homework questions free from being judged using inappropriate homework standards, also the responses can be more adequate. In general, you go about helping a student with his/her homework in a different way than responding to a non-homework question. | |
| Apr 12, 2016 at 19:46 | answer | added | Count Iblis | timeline score: 11 | |
| Apr 12, 2016 at 10:32 | answer | added | Kyle Kanos | timeline score: -2 | |
| Apr 11, 2016 at 9:43 | answer | added | David ZMod | timeline score: 19 | |
| Apr 7, 2016 at 20:32 | answer | added | Count Iblis | timeline score: -10 | |
| Apr 7, 2016 at 19:27 | answer | added | Emilio Pisanty | timeline score: 7 | |
| Apr 7, 2016 at 14:16 | answer | added | Jon Custer | timeline score: -3 | |
| Apr 7, 2016 at 12:25 | answer | added | David ZMod | timeline score: 21 | |
| Apr 7, 2016 at 9:02 | answer | added | David ZMod | timeline score: -4 | |
| Apr 6, 2016 at 17:57 | answer | added | Bill N | timeline score: -8 | |
| Apr 6, 2016 at 17:18 | comment | added | David Z Mod | @tpg2114 I don't remember us ever having that close reason. Any chance you can find a question that was closed with it? | |
| Apr 6, 2016 at 17:07 | comment | added | tpg2114 | Is there a problem with bringing back the old "low effort/no research" close reason that used to exist? Or just having a generic "Not up to expected quality standards" that can be used for all kinds of questions? | |
| Apr 6, 2016 at 16:16 | comment | added | Jon Custer | @DavidZ - Oh, I think I got the general gist of it. Our biggest problem (and I'm a relative newcomer here I readily admit) is that it is unlikely that the askers of homework-like questions would be satisfied even with an infallible algorithmic process (they would spend more time reverse-engineering the algorithm to tweak their question than they would on working through the physics). But maybe I'm just a cynical old scientist/manager at this point... | |
| Apr 6, 2016 at 15:08 | comment | added | David Z Mod | @JonCuster That kind of describes our existing policy: we tried to define some criterion describing what we should treat as homework-like, but we never really pulled it off and wound up relying on spidey-senses. The thing is, everyone's sense was different, and a lot of people gave up on trying to decide whether something was homework-like and just closed questions as low-effort. We're basically trying to make that official now, so that we don't even have to decide whether something counts as homework-like or not in the first place. | |
| Apr 6, 2016 at 14:34 | comment | added | Jon Custer | Ultimately, I do not think it is possible to have a well defined algorithm that will determine what is homework/homework-like or not. I rely more on my spidey-sense tingling that the OP just wants an answer to write down. It is ultimately a community-standards thing like smut - you know it when you see it. The problem for many posters running afoul of the policy is that they haven't seen a million similar questions before in problem sets, yet most of us have. And, before the internet, we beat on the problem and developed our physics intuition/tools that way. | |
| Apr 6, 2016 at 9:55 | answer | added | David ZMod | timeline score: -7 | |
| Apr 6, 2016 at 7:30 | answer | added | John Rennie | timeline score: 13 | |
| Apr 6, 2016 at 7:08 | answer | added | John Rennie | timeline score: 18 | |
| Apr 6, 2016 at 5:32 | comment | added | David Z Mod | I agree with @tpg2114 that we will probably never see the end of people complaining that we don't answer their questions, no matter what our policies say. This update is targeted at the existing members: we should have clear guidelines regarding what to close. | |
| Apr 6, 2016 at 1:56 | comment | added | Kyle Kanos | My $0.02: hopefully the notion that "how to solve this isn't a concept question" would be cleared up with whatever comes of this. | |
| Apr 6, 2016 at 1:43 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackPhysics/status/717528047147212800 | ||
| Apr 5, 2016 at 23:04 | comment | added | tpg2114 | @AlfredCentauri I'm willing to bet that eventually, hopefully this time, we can come up with a clear policy that makes all of us grumpy folks happy and is clear enough that we can point somebody to it and say "This is exactly why we closed it" and they understand and acknowledge that their question should have been closed under the policy. I suspect, however, that we will never rid ourselves of people who complain that the policy exists at all and are upset we refuse to answer their questions. | |
| Apr 5, 2016 at 22:16 | comment | added | Alfred Centauri | "I'm hoping to finally put the issue to rest by doing this." - kudos for optimism and effort. I wish I could be more optimistic and less cynical but I suspect that rest is not in the future of this issue though it might asymptotically approach it. | |
| Apr 5, 2016 at 20:11 | comment | added | tpg2114 | @dmckee Maybe we can team up to do our best Statler and Waldorf impressions from a virtual balcony on this whole thing. | |
| Apr 5, 2016 at 19:30 | comment | added | dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten Mod | I've actually got a bad case of fatigue on this. I'm too tired to think and write carefully about it. It's clear that the current policy is too nebulous and not well understood by all active members much less new askers, so I suppose it still needs doing, but ... uhg! | |
| Apr 5, 2016 at 16:15 | comment | added | David Z Mod | @tpg2114 Yeah, I understand being tired of it. We have beaten this topic to death. But we didn't really have an actionable plan until now. I'm hoping to finally put the issue to rest by doing this. | |
| Apr 5, 2016 at 15:59 | comment | added | tpg2114 | I mean... I guess it can't hurt to revise things with everything we've learned since the last time, but man I'm worn out on talking about homework. Maybe to put an optimistic spin on things, it's good that things are all running well enough elsewhere that this is all there is to discuss? | |
| Apr 5, 2016 at 13:54 | history | asked | David ZMod | CC BY-SA 3.0 |