Timeline for Why was my question about the Devil's problem deemed a homework question?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
13 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 30 at 1:14 | comment | added | Vincent Thacker | @knzhou I totally disagree that this is interesting. It is a standard energy conservation and force balance technique, and the reason it became a HNQ was the name "devil's problem". | |
| Jun 30, 2020 at 17:59 | comment | added | BioPhysicist | @Mitsuko The "popularity" is invalid because your question made HNQ. I think your problem is very interesting. But the way you posted it, what you chose to focus on, etc. made it not ideal for PSE. However, no one is saying the question is poor in general. It is an interesting question. | |
| Jun 30, 2020 at 17:42 | comment | added | Mitsuko | Sure, an interesting question about biology isn't on-topic on Physics SE, but why wouldn't an interesting question about physics be on-topic there? My question is about physics and is interesting, as evidended by its popularity. I agree that most homework-like questions should be considered off-topic, but only because they are boring and uninteresting. To put it simply, homework-like is a code word for uninteresting. | |
| Jun 28, 2020 at 19:11 | comment | added | ACuriousMind Mod | @Mitsuko While everything that is on-topic should be interesting to someone, just being interesting does not make something on-topic. Neither does being popular. | |
| Jun 28, 2020 at 19:03 | comment | added | Mitsuko | I think the real criterion is, or at least should be, whether a post is about a boring textbook-like problem of interest to few users of this website, or, on the contrary, about something quite interesting. And many users found my question interesting. | |
| Jun 28, 2020 at 18:55 | comment | added | Mitsuko | The OP wanted a qualitative solution, whilst I wanted a quantitative one, but I don't think it makes a principal difference. Fundamentally, many questions on the Physics SE are solve-this-for-me questions. | |
| Jun 28, 2020 at 18:53 | comment | added | Mitsuko | >> Your question does not ask a conceptual question about physics, it simply asks users to solve the exercise you call "the Devil's problem" << Let's open the most popular question on the Physics SE. The question reads: What is the fastest method to cool a cup of coffee, if your only available instrument is a spoon? Like me, the OP didn't ask a conceptual question about physics. Like me, he or she wanted people to apply physics laws of their choosing and come up with a solution. | |
| Jun 28, 2020 at 16:45 | history | edited | ACuriousMindMod | CC BY-SA 4.0 | deleted 338 characters in body |
| Jun 28, 2020 at 16:44 | comment | added | ACuriousMind Mod | Whether or not the question is "clickbait" wasn't relevant to anything in the rest of my answer, so I've removed that passage to avoid tempting users to discuss that instead of whether or not the question should be closed. | |
| Jun 28, 2020 at 16:39 | comment | added | knzhou | I don't think it's clickbait. I literally teach Newtonian mechanics for a living and have seen thousands of problems, and this one was novel and interesting to me. | |
| Jun 28, 2020 at 16:17 | comment | added | Mitsuko | >> does not exactly endear me to claims that this question's exceptional popularity is due to some "mystical appeal" rather than simple clickbait mechanisms << If it were just a click-baity title, why would many users upvote my question and make it favorite? | |
| Jun 28, 2020 at 14:38 | history | edited | ACuriousMindMod | CC BY-SA 4.0 | added 1024 characters in body |
| Jun 28, 2020 at 14:31 | history | answered | ACuriousMindMod | CC BY-SA 4.0 |