Maximum limits on PTIJ questions per user

Question

In another post, suggestions for improving the quality of PTIJ material were discussed. In the highest voted answer there, one suggestion was to impose a limit of how many PTIJ questions each user may post in one PTIJ season.

The post also included another detail, which was included in at least one of the suggestions for updating the policy. However, the detail of user-caps was not included in any of the suggestions (as of the posting of this question).

Is there community interest in having a cap on PTIJ questions per user per season? If so, what should those caps be?

Please only include one suggestion per answer, for voting purposes.

Answer 1

This option was implemented on Feb. 24, 2017.

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Low-key alternative:

Instead of making a rate-limiting rule, just include a gentle reminder to not post junk, and then remind any users who post many low-quality posts to try to adjust their quality/quantity balance.

The reminder could go at the bottom of the "What" section of the policy, and could take the form:

Please try to put as much attention into question quality, answer quality, and above all, Being Nice!, as you would for regular Mi Yodeya content.

Answer 2

I like this limitation. I think a reasonable cap would be one question per day per user, without roll-over questions.

This would both cause users to weigh their PTIJ posts for selection of their best material, and create some built-in spreading of PTIJ posts over the season, so that they aren't all flooded in at once.

PTIJ season lasts about 16 days, so this doesn't seem like an overly-restricting limit. I think only someone pushing the bounds of desirable PTIJ traffic would run into this limit.

Answer 3

Though I still think that the implementation of a limit on PTIJ questions is unnecessary per my other answer to this question it seems that my position is not the majority based on how voting has gone so far on this question. The currently top-voted answer proposes a minimum waiting time between posts.

If we do go this route, I'd like to propose suspending that minimum waiting period starting on Taanit Esther. The reason for this proposal is because right before Purim is when people are likely to be thinking about Purim Torah the most and if you come up with 3 great questions during the day of Purim, there's not going to be enough time to post them all if there's a minimum waiting period.

Answer 4

I support YEz' proposal of a 1-day waiting period. Slowing people down is, I suspect, more likely to result in higher quality than putting a cap on total posts. I think a 1-day waiting period is the most intuitive, easily-stated, and easily-followed of the proposed rules.

Most of the enforcement would probably be self-regulation. If someone notices someone else asking within 24 hours of their last PTIJ question, they can comment, and hopefully, the over-poster will respond by temporarily deleting the new question and then reposting it after waiting long enough. If someone flagrantly over-posts or ignores peer suggestion, mods can step in and delete as necessary, perhaps with an eye to preserving whichever posts are higher-quality.

Here's a possible formulation for insertion into the PTIJ policy:

Add to the "When" section:

After posting a Purim Torah question please wait 24 hours before posting your next Purim Torah question.

Add to the "Moderation stuff" section:

• In cases of flagrant over-posting of Purim Torah questions within 24 hours of each other, moderators may selectively delete questions to bring a user closer to one per 24 hours.

Answer 5

msh210 provided some very helpful analysis from the 2015 Purim season (here with user IDs). In the context of question limits, I see the following take aways in that data

• asking more than 7 questions produces low overall quality (but sample is small)
• the top 6 users by average score all asked 2 questions or less
• if one goes in the detail of the questions asked by the top posters (by nr of questions), one sees some very good quality (high scores) and lots of low quality
• a limit to the number of questions would imply that users with lots of questions would be able to guess in advance which of their questions are strong - otherwise we will lose strong questions

In this context I would be very supportive of

• limiting users to 5-7 questions per Purim season
• or possibly, doing the same with an exemption that as long as one maintains a positive question record (e.g., average vote per question >=4), one can keep posting more questions

The deletion of question with negative scores could be done once a day by the moderators. Enforcing the limit of 5-7 questions could be done via flags from the whole community.

Note that DoubleAA came up earlier with a similar policy proposal strengthened by the idea to remove questions with negative scores after e.g., 12 hours.

What does the community think?

Answer 6

Why I disagree with a limit

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A premise of this proposal is that there is a negative correlation between number of questions that a user asks and the quality of the question (or at least that this is true for some number of questions greater than N). The problem is, the data do not support this premise. I created a SEDE query (h/t to msh210 on whose query this one is based) that plots the average of all of the average question scores for a given number of questions asked (e.g. if there were 3 people who answered 5 questions and the average score of the 5 questions was 3, 4, and 5 for the 3 users respectively, the average score for 5 questions would be 4). Looking at the data, there is AFAICT no correlation between number of questions asked and question quality for N <= 7. But the data set for N > 7 is far too small to make any generalized statements (seven questions in one season has only been exceeded 3 times ever and two of those times were by the same user). I take a couple of points out of this:

1. People generally do a pretty good job of self-regulating
2. Any number that is chosen for a hard limit would be completely arbitrary. We have no reason to believe that it's impossible (or even particularly difficult) for someone who asks 15 PTIJ questions to maintain a high average score.
3. Related to the previous point: any hard limit would basically be targeting one or two individual users. I think that's generally a Bad Idea^tm. It's not our job to make regulations for individual users. This is really just a sneaky way of telling a couple of users to quit posting so much.

One proposal here suggests an exemption to the hard question limit. I think this idea avoids most of my issues in theory; however, I still do see a few problems with it.

1. The proposed minimum average score threshold of 4 could be difficult to maintain, especially if someone asks one question that he or she thought was funny but turned out to be a dud. A score of -1 or -2 can do some serious damage to an average of 6 or 7 scores.
2. Enforcement is difficult. It would require someone to manually tally a user's average score whenever he or she posts a new question. That's annoying. Plus, if that information is not communicated publicly, multiple people will end up doing this. Finally, that tally becomes outdated every time someone votes on one of the user's questions.
3. It's easily circumventable. A person who has been capped can simply delete some posts and write some new ones. This doesn't help reduce noise in any way because by the time the question is deleted, the damage is already done.

My Proposal

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I propose that we have no limit on PTIJ questions. The data don't support it and it would really only affect a very small number of people. Instead, when we see that someone is posting lots and lots of low-quality PTIJ questions, let's just point them to this discussion. People generally seem to be pretty good about self-regulating so hopefully they would comply once they become aware that people are getting annoyed. If they do not tone it down at that point, I would not be opposed to limiting that user from posting more PTIJ questions. I simply think an arbitrarily-chosen limit won't help.

Answer 7

Note that this answer was penned before the 2016 PTIJ season.

I suspect that the proposed change to the PTIJ policy, in a form like Daniel's or Isaac Moses's, will suffice, and no question limit will be necessary. We should not impose one now. If we find (perhaps this year) that those changes did not suffice, we can impose a question limit for the following year (or make some other change: whatever we decide at that time).

The downside of a question limit is, of course, the possible loss of some good questions. Oh, and the annoyance of some users.

Answer 8

Hybrid proposal:

1. So long as your average score per question this season is at least 4 (I'm open to changing this number), no limit. People who are good at the PTIJ game can keep doing it. (Inspired by option 2 here.)

2. Otherwise, you must wait at least 24 hours after your last question, per this answer.

Monitoring would be by the community; if you see what you think is too many PTIJ questions from somebody, check and speak up as needed. You can search questions by tag + by user + within a date range, and then do a little arithmetic.

I don't have specific policy verbiage yet.

Answer 9

Since I seem to be the main "culprit" this year, I'll chime in...

First, my apologies if I was a nuisance, this year.

I'm not great at stats, so I have to implicitly trust Daniel's expertise, here. (It's always hard for me to say no to someone who has the same 1st name as me, anyway.)

I think that when people see downvotes on many of their questions, it tends to discourage them from posting that quickly - most of the time. I think that in my case, there were a few days when I posted several questions, and some days, esp. almost when approaching Purim, when I posted none at all. Personally, I have no problem if a moderator steps in and requests me to stop. I also have no problem with the one per day disclaimer. I think that most people are willing to follow a policy that's pretty clearly stated esp. in a disclaimer. For the few that really don't obey the policy, you can always contact them, directly.

BTW, doesn't the system auto delete questions that have a huge negative vote number? In most cases, when I see a large negative number, I usually will delete the question, myself. Depends if I notice / remember and also I will read the comments to get a sense of why the negative votes are there. (Sometimes, but rarely, I strongly disagree, and will still leave the question there even with a low number.)

While I don't suggest that moderators close or delete a question that is lower than some number (say -5 or less), I have no problem if any of you want to do that with any of my questions, whether PTIJ or not. So, go ahead - consider me your "exception"!