-1

Why was this question closed? As the poster pointed out, a near-identical quesiton--but about irrational numbers, rather than Fibonacci numbers--was left open as a PTIJ last year.

The closer of the Fibonacci-numbers question defended leaving the irrational-numbers question open. I have no idea what the difference is. I could understand closing both, or leaving both open, but what is the sense in closing one and approving the other?

Also: he Fibonacci question has 4 reopen votes, and a net score of +3. No one will say how many close votes it received. I'd love to know that. (It would be very troubling if there were fewer than 4 close votes from the community, and a moderator closed it anyway.)

7
  • 2
    "It would be very troubling if there were fewer than 4 close votes from the community, and a moderator closed it anyway." Why would that be troubling at all? That's what moderators are supposed to do
    – Double AA Mod
    Feb 26, 2018 at 3:52
  • 1
    "Why was this question closed?" Isn't there a clear reason for why it was closed listed in the comments there? What do you find lacking in that reason? Do you mean to ask here why the irrational numbers question was not closed? I don't see why you are advocating opening a question which clearly does not meet the stated guidelines of the Purim Torah policy.
    – Double AA Mod
    Feb 26, 2018 at 4:17
  • 1
    @DoubleAA 1) No, and 2) it's not clear at all. I have no idea what motivates you to close questions the community clearly likes and wants to answer. The point of Purim Torah is fun, no?
    – SAH
    Feb 26, 2018 at 6:14
  • 1
    @DoubleAA How many close votes were there, please?
    – SAH
    Feb 26, 2018 at 6:14
  • 2
    @SAH, you can see how many votes effected a closure: all the relevant voters will be listed. (It's possible in general though that some older closure votes aged away.)
    – msh210 Mod
    Feb 26, 2018 at 6:44
  • @msh210 So it looks like 1 user (a moderator) voted to close. 4 users voted to reopen. It remains closed. Does the community's opinion mean nothing here?
    – SAH
    Feb 26, 2018 at 6:53
  • 1
    @SAH, the community's opinion means precisely enough that five of its members can reopen a question that was closed by a moderator. That's the way Stack Exchange designed the system; if you don't like it, I recommend you suggest a change on Meta Stack Exchange. (I should note that, although any moderator can close if in his judgement the question should be closed, I have never known one to do so after the community reopened a moderator's closure. (On Mi Yodeya, that is. I can't speak for other Stack Exchange sites.))
    – msh210 Mod
    Feb 26, 2018 at 13:19

1 Answer 1

2

The question was closed as it does not qualify as Purim Torah under the Purim Torah policy. This was stated explicitly in the given close reason and repeated in the comments. I'm not sure what is unclear about that. The given close reason is:

This question does not fulfill the requirements of a Purim Torah post, such as being distinctly 'Purim' (not serious), distinctly Torah, and distinctly Q&A. For details, see the Purim Torah policy.

Indeed the question does not obey the policy which requires that questions:

  • misinterpret a real Torah concept or Jewish text

or

  • apply a distinctly Torah style (e.g. Talmudic analysis) to an irrelevant topic

So clearly the question should be closed. No one has provided any argument against this.

You note that you think that "It would be very troubling if there were fewer than 4 close votes from the community, and a moderator closed it anyway." This would not be troubling at all. Moderators are supposed to close things without waiting for community input if they are supposed to be closed. Why else do they have the power to do so?

The question of why a different question remained open in a previous year is somewhat interesting, but it's important to remember that its being open last year doesn't mean that it would be open this year or should have been open last year. We simply need to check if that question fulfilled the above criteria.

It seems to me, as I described in the comments there, that asking about any irrational number is absurd because there are so many of them. Indeed trivially almost all of them are clearly not significant at all. But I would personally not reopen the irrational number question if someone closed it. It seems like a borderline case to me.

Asking about the Fibonacci numbers as a set (not just any number in that set) isn't funny or absurd at all. It's actually an interesting question IMO. There's no room for debate that I can see about the Fibonacci question. If anyone sees any way the Fibonacci question fulfills the Purim Torah policy please let me know.

1
  • Would the downvoter care to explain to me how it does fulfill the PT policy?
    – Double AA Mod
    Feb 27, 2018 at 13:50

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .