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In most cases, a homework has a much shorter time limit. If it is longer, it needs also a lot of work, which won't be done here.

I think, if a such question could be answered with a such delay, it were practically impossible to mis-use the site for cheating, and thus eliminated the main reason behind the actually harsh homework policy.

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    $\begingroup$ Given that a large majority of users think HW questions are off-topic, what would your proposal accomplish? $\endgroup$
    – Kyle Kanos
    Jul 15, 2014 at 17:10
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    $\begingroup$ @KyleKanos It is not the problem of the homework, it is the problem of the repu==1 users, which is coming, asks a question and never reacts again. It is a clearly not goodstanding behavior. But not all beginner falls in this category, and currently you are practically kicking them out of the site mercilessly, without any deeper consideration. $\endgroup$
    – peterh
    Jul 16, 2014 at 9:06
  • $\begingroup$ The people who post and leave are the ones who want answers to their homework. I personally don't want those people. StackOverflow sees this 'problem' in 100-fold numbers, do you complain if this behaviour there as well? $\endgroup$
    – Kyle Kanos
    Jul 16, 2014 at 10:30
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    $\begingroup$ I deleted some comments that were borderline inappropriate and their responses. $\endgroup$
    – David Z
    Jul 17, 2014 at 5:55
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    $\begingroup$ @KyleKanos Sometimes no. Sometimes there are goodstanding beginners. Sometimes they have high-quality questions needing only grammatical fixes ( physics.stackexchange.com/q/113034). They will be closed very fast, but their reopen can't happen even if they were closed admittedly unfairly (see meta.physics.stackexchange.com/q/5868). $\endgroup$
    – peterh
    Jul 17, 2014 at 8:00
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    $\begingroup$ @KyleKanos Maybe after 10 homework or low-level question, there is a psychological effect, that you are voting for close/deletion much easier. This phenomenon is called "robo-closing". My goal is somehow to convince you, to not throw out the (relatively) few goodstanding beginner with the legion of bad questions as well. It is my only goal. Don't robo-close! Please. That's all. $\endgroup$
    – peterh
    Jul 17, 2014 at 8:04
  • $\begingroup$ @PeyerHorvath: you've started on numerous occasions that there is a hostility here, yet all you have shown stew questions that the community felt was not appropriate for the site. Where is the supposed hostility? That's all I'm trying to point out: that there is no such bad behaviour. I don't robo-close, I look at each question, read it and decide if it's worth keeping our not. No harsh or evil thoughts about it. And, once again, if you think a question was unfairly closed, nominate it for reopening. $\endgroup$
    – Kyle Kanos
    Jul 17, 2014 at 10:47
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    $\begingroup$ @KyleKanos On my experience, the reopening is only a theoretical possibility. Practically it simply doesn't work, even if the question was closed admittedly unfairly (question here: physics.stackexchange.com/q/113034 , discussion about it here: meta.physics.stackexchange.com/q/5868). In this question you were also one of the close-voters. I am sorry to say, but on my opinion, that was a mistake from you. $\endgroup$
    – peterh
    Jul 17, 2014 at 12:14
  • $\begingroup$ @PeterHorvath: That has to be the 10th time you presented that one question. What do you say about this question that was reopened? Or this one? Or this one? Contrary to your experience, the reopen queue does work. $\endgroup$
    – Kyle Kanos
    Jul 17, 2014 at 13:21
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    $\begingroup$ @KyleKanos These questions are very good examples, that somehow a reopen can be reached, although I don't know, how. The around 10 times, when I worked hard for a reopen (only on this site!) were totally hopeless. I use around 4 reference questions, as clear references to show, that the system is a little bit buggy. BTW, did you see this question in the reopen queue? Did you voted to reopen it? I don't know the exact mechanism of the reopen queue, but here you can show that the topologic extensions of the GR are mainstream. $\endgroup$
    – peterh
    Jul 17, 2014 at 15:30
  • $\begingroup$ @PeterHorvath: The closure system isn't perfect sure, which is exactly why the reopen queue exists. I did not see the "rotating black hole to another universe" in the reopen queue, likely because no one has voted to reopen it (haven't I told you to do so a dozen times now? You realize that things don't just happen because you wish it to happen, you actually have to do something, right?) $\endgroup$
    – Kyle Kanos
    Jul 17, 2014 at 15:34
  • $\begingroup$ @KyleKanos (you answered my comment while I majorly reworked that, sorry) $\endgroup$
    – peterh
    Jul 17, 2014 at 15:36
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    $\begingroup$ @KyleKanos This is what I currently do: I am constantly tracking for closed/held questions which where (on my opinion) mistakenly closed, and try to let them reopen. This work means re-editing them, and trying to contact the close-voters to change their vote. I never reached any success, this is primal cause of my actual laments as well - and as I see, I am not alone with this opinion. $\endgroup$
    – peterh
    Jul 17, 2014 at 15:37
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    $\begingroup$ @KyleKanos An ask: please, stop this subjectivist attack, the moderators can decode its secondary meaning just as well, as you and me. And I really don't like to risk a commentflag decline. $\endgroup$
    – peterh
    Jul 17, 2014 at 15:41
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    $\begingroup$ @KyleKanos Then why I wasn't able to let reopen until around 10 questions, even if I worked hard to let them reopen? $\endgroup$
    – peterh
    Jul 17, 2014 at 15:42

1 Answer 1

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$\begingroup$

From what I gather, whether students use Physics.SE to cheat or not has never been our primary concern when considering the homework policy.

The main reason behind the "harsh" homework policy is that the SE is not a forum where nice people come around and solve your problems for you. It is intended to be a community of more or less knowledgeable physicists answering each other's questions so that other people asking themselves the same thing may learn from it.

We are not primarily about helping the OP, though a heartfelt thank you can make the day of an answerer. We are about answering questions in a way that might be useful to other physicists or interested laypersons as well, and solving problem No. 34.23(iii) from some book is not going to do that. That's also the reason for the "harsh" requirement that an allowed homework question should ask about a conceptual problem, not the solution as such.

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    $\begingroup$ Indeed. And one might object that we are not currently a community of knowledgeable physicists (I'm not claiming this objection is necessarily true, only that one might make it), but we are working toward that goal nonetheless. $\endgroup$
    – David Z
    Jul 15, 2014 at 20:05
  • $\begingroup$ @DavidZ I think that no matter how you rate the community we have on the "knowledgeable" metric it is true that we are not a community of beginners who focus on questions suited to the introductory classroom. $\endgroup$
    – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten
    Jul 15, 2014 at 21:12
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    $\begingroup$ @dmckee: I think you may underestimate the number of site members who fall into the beginner category. It seems to me that simple answers to simple questions have recently (within the last six months or so) started attracting large numbers of votes while complex answers to complex questions have a tendancy to languish in the doldrums. $\endgroup$
    – John Rennie
    Jul 16, 2014 at 7:16
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    $\begingroup$ I don't think this site were an elitist, professional-only site, as (for example) mathoverflow.net . It could be, but there is nothing about that in the site rules. On math, there is a mathoverflow.net for professional mathematicians, and there is a math.stackexchange.com for the common people. Maybe a such diversion were useful on the field of the physics as well. $\endgroup$
    – peterh
    Jul 16, 2014 at 14:28
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    $\begingroup$ @Peter Horvath: If you peruse the archives, you will find that that has been tried and failed. This is not about "elitism" though, it is about the fact that solving specific (instead of conceptual) homework problems for one person has very little potential to enhance the understanding of anyone but the person asking the question. We are not math.SE, and we are not MO. We allow beginners, but we expect them to show work and interest in what they are asking, to be interested beyond that one particular problem. This becomes increasingly clear in the "bize-siting homework" topic. $\endgroup$
    – ACuriousMind Mod
    Jul 16, 2014 at 14:36
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    $\begingroup$ @ACuriousMind I can't see why it couldn't work, if in the case of math it was possible. Can you show a link about the failure of the split? About the handling of the beginners: yes, I know that most of their questions should be moderated out, but it is not always so. I think, moderating out the legions of really low-level questions, this site gone in a direction, where also a lot of good questions will be moderated out - maybe if you see this question ( physics.stackexchange.com/q/119562)... $\endgroup$
    – peterh
    Jul 16, 2014 at 15:46
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    $\begingroup$ @Peter Horvath: Here's the post about migrating the posts from the failed TP.SE. Basically, there weren't enough people around to maintain the level of activity SE demand from now proposals. And what you linked is a horrible question. The OP indicates no level of detail at which the question should be answered, and it is absolutely unclear what "in another universe" precisely means (that some people nevertheless talk about that is no excuse). $\endgroup$
    – ACuriousMind Mod
    Jul 16, 2014 at 15:48
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    $\begingroup$ @ACuriousMind ...I don't think the Penrose-diagrams or any topologic extension of the GR were "non-mainstream" (although the question is really unclear and low-level). $\endgroup$
    – peterh
    Jul 16, 2014 at 15:48
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    $\begingroup$ @Peter Horvath: If you look closely, you see that only 3 of the 5 closers cited "non-mainstream" as the closing reason, so it's not as if there is consensus about that. I heavily suspect the others chose "low quality" or "unclear what you're asking", but that information is not accessible for us. The "non-mainstream" is also probably just because "What about other universes?" is non-mainstream without proper context (which a Wiki link to Penrose diagrams only barely qualifies as) $\endgroup$
    – ACuriousMind Mod
    Jul 16, 2014 at 15:52
  • $\begingroup$ @PeterHorvath TP.SE did not "fail", it was a very nice community with good high-level content. The problem is that the SE network is not appropriate to maintain and support such smaller highly spezialized and rather closed communities with slower traffic and activity. In fact, TP.SE has been some kind of revived outside the SE network where it is not under pressure to fullfill externally predifined activity criteria. $\endgroup$
    – Dilaton
    Jul 16, 2014 at 19:01

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