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+8 −1
Meta What is our position on picture identification with no research?

Yesterday a user posted two picture identification questions with no apparent prior research. The same user did this a couple of months ago too. At that time, I spent a few minutes with Google Ea...

4 answers  ·  posted 2y ago by Olin Lathrop‭  ·  last activity 2y ago by TextKit‭

Question discussion scope
#8: Post edited by user avatar Monica Cellio‭ · 2021-11-12T02:13:59Z (over 2 years ago)
I've pared this down a lot to focus on the question of what to do with these picture-ID questions. There are other issues entangled here and they're important too, but I'm trying to help the community focus on this core issue here. I'd like to see answers from more people.
  • Picture identification with no research
  • What is our position on picture identification with no research?
  • Yesterday a user dumped two picture identification questions on us with no apparent research whatsoever. The same user did this a couple of months ago too. At that time, I spent a few minutes with Google Earth and was easily able to find where a couple of the pictures were taken (see <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/282768">here</a> and <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/282765">here</a>). Clearly even the basic obvious research wasn't done.
  • The site guidlines have this to say about researching questions before posting:
  • <blockquote>In addition to just making sure your question hasn't been asked already here, take a few moments to search beyond the site. If you put your question title into a search engine, can you find the answer to your question in the first three results? If so, perhaps consider alternative ways of sharing that information here on Codidact, or writing a self-answered question to share that knowledge.</blockquote>
  • Since I was able to find the location in a few minutes in Google Earth, it was clear that no research had been done. When the two new questions appeared yesterday, it looked like the same thing. If any research was done, it was certainly not mentioned in the questions. They appeared to be just picture dumps, like two months ago.
  • I downvoted both questions and left comments about the lack of research. Those were deleted by a mod.
  • I then wrote a <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/284293">meta question</a> this morning about the deleted comments. The purpose was to have a community discussion about whether the mod actions were appropriate, and what should have been done, if anything. That whole meta question has now been deleted, and I got a nasty-gram warning about being rude. The comments weren't rude, but I suppose that's a judgement call. However, the mod response was very heavy-handed in that it shut down community discussion of what appropriate mod actions should be. That's always a valid discussion to have. Mods aren't supposed to be dictators, and they certainly aren't supposed to squash public discussion of what the best mod responses should be.
  • In any case, this question is about how we want to handle picture-identification questions with no research. How much should individual users be allowed to comment on what they think the OP should do, especially if the individual user downvotes a question? What should the mod response be to such questions? To comments pointing out problems with the question?
  • <hr>
  • 2021/9/24
  • <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/284321">Another one</a> appeared a few hours ago. Once again, absolutely no research effort was shown. This appears to be just a dump from a screen shot of some video on the net.
  • I left the comment:<blockquote>What research have you done?
  • You need to show some research effort on your own. What do you know
  • other than this picture? What have you tried? Why didn't it work? -1 for just dumping this on us.</blockquote>
  • How should we collectively deal with such no-research questions? How should that differ when the OP has history of such things, and has been warned before?
  • <h3>Update</h3>
  • The comment shown above has now been deleted by a mod. This is an abuse of mod powers. There is nothing in the comment against any rules. Even if others think dumping pictures like this is OK, I still have the right to tell the op that I don't think it's OK, and why I downvoted the question. Mod powers are for enforcing the rules, not personal preferences.
  • <hr>
  • 2021/9/27
  • <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/284352">Another</a> plain dump showed up. Clearly we're not getting thru to this user. The previous comments getting deleted probably aren't helping. This new post is currently at +1 -3, so consensus disapproves of this unresearched picture dumping.
  • This time I left the comment:
  • <blockquote>What research have you done to narrow this down? Why was it unsuccessful?</blockquote>
  • We'll see what happens.
  • <h3>Update</h3>
  • The comment shown above has now disappeared, so must have been deleted by a mod. Same as before, this is an inappropriate mod action.
  • This time I left a comment referring to the help page:
  • <blockquote>See the <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/help/how-to-ask">help
  • page</a> on asking questions. Quoting in part:
  • <i>In addition to just making sure your question hasn't been asked already
  • here, take a few moments to search beyond the site.</i></blockquote>
  • Hopefully this stays there long enough for the user to see it.
  • <hr>
  • 2021/11/6
  • Another perfectly valid comment to a <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/284781">lazy identification question</a> got deleted. The comment was
  • <blockquote><b>Try looking youself</b>
  • Run Google Earth, go to Shelton CT and look around. There can't be that
  • many lakes of this size in one small town. Look for a thin strip of
  • built-up area on the shore, with a wooded hill beyond that. Perhaps we
  • can help if you get stuck, but you need to show some research effort of
  • your own. We aren't here to Google everything for you.</blockquote>
  • This is again an inappropriate mod action.
  • <hr>
  • The above is especially troublesome in that the moderators won't engage here to defend or explain their reasoning. It is even more troublesome that public discussion of such policies get squashed by meta questions silently disappearing.
  • Yesterday a user posted two picture identification questions with no apparent prior research. The same user did this a couple of months ago too. At that time, I spent a few minutes with Google Earth and was easily able to find where a couple of the pictures were taken, so I conclude that even the basic research wasn't done.
  • The site guidelines have this to say about researching questions before posting:
  • <blockquote>In addition to just making sure your question hasn't been asked already here, take a few moments to search beyond the site. If you put your question title into a search engine, can you find the answer to your question in the first three results? If so, perhaps consider alternative ways of sharing that information here on Codidact, or writing a self-answered question to share that knowledge.</blockquote>
  • Since I was able to find the location in a few minutes in Google Earth, it was clear that no research had been done. When the two new questions appeared yesterday, it looked like the same thing. If any research was done, it was certainly not mentioned in the questions. They appeared to be just pictures, like two months ago.
  • I've left comments asking what the poster had already tried, but these comments were deleted.
  • This question is about how we want to handle picture-identification questions with no research. What should we expect of people posting questions, and what should we expect of people commenting on these posts? Does our response differ if there is a pattern of behavior?
discussion
discussion scope
#7: Post edited by user avatar Olin Lathrop‭ · 2021-11-06T20:37:36Z (over 2 years ago)
  • Yesterday a user dumped two picture identification questions on us with no apparent research whatsoever. The same user did this a couple of months ago too. At that time, I spent a few minutes with Google Earth and was easily able to find where a couple of the pictures were taken (see <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/282768">here</a> and <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/282765">here</a>). Clearly even the basic obvious research wasn't done.
  • The site guidlines have this to say about researching questions before posting:
  • <blockquote>In addition to just making sure your question hasn't been asked already here, take a few moments to search beyond the site. If you put your question title into a search engine, can you find the answer to your question in the first three results? If so, perhaps consider alternative ways of sharing that information here on Codidact, or writing a self-answered question to share that knowledge.</blockquote>
  • Since I was able to find the location in a few minutes in Google Earth, it was clear that no research had been done. When the two new questions appeared yesterday, it looked like the same thing. If any research was done, it was certainly not mentioned in the questions. They appeared to be just picture dumps, like two months ago.
  • I downvoted both questions and left comments about the lack of research. Those were deleted by a mod.
  • I then wrote a meta question this morning about the deleted comments. The purpose was to have a community discussion about whether the mod actions were appropriate, and what should have been done, if anything. That whole meta question has now been deleted, and I got a nasty-gram warning about being rude. The comments weren't rude, but I suppose that's a judgement call. However, the mod response was very heavy-handed in that it shut down community discussion of what appropriate mod actions should be. That's always a valid discussion to have. Mods aren't supposed to be dictators, and they certainly aren't supposed to squash public discussion of what the best mod responses should be.
  • In any case, this question is about how we want to handle picture-identification questions with no research. How much should individual users be allowed to comment on what they think the OP should do, especially if the individual user downvotes a question? What should the mod response be to such questions? To comments pointing out problems with the question?
  • <hr>
  • 2021/9/24
  • <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/284321">Another one</a> appeared a few hours ago. Once again, absolutely no research effort was shown. This appears to be just a dump from a screen shot of some video on the net.
  • I left the comment:<blockquote>What research have you done?
  • You need to show some research effort on your own. What do you know
  • other than this picture? What have you tried? Why didn't it work? -1 for just dumping this on us.</blockquote>
  • How should we collectively deal with such no-research questions? How should that differ when the OP has history of such things, and has been warned before?
  • <h3>Update</h3>
  • The comment shown above has now been deleted by a mod. This is an abuse of mod powers. There is nothing in the comment against any rules. Even if others think dumping pictures like this is OK, I still have the right to tell the op that I don't think it's OK, and why I downvoted the question. Mod powers are for enforcing the rules, not personal preferences.
  • <hr>
  • 2021/9/27
  • <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/284352">Another</a> plain dump showed up. Clearly we're not getting thru to this user. The previous comments getting deleted probably aren't helping. This new post is currently at +1 -3, so consensus disapproves of this unresearched picture dumping.
  • This time I left the comment:
  • <blockquote>What research have you done to narrow this down? Why was it unsuccessful?</blockquote>
  • We'll see what happens.
  • <h3>Update</h3>
  • The comment shown above has now disappeared, so must have been deleted by a mod. Same as before, this is an inappropriate mod action.
  • This time I left a comment referring to the help page:
  • <blockquote>See the <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/help/how-to-ask">help
  • page</a> on asking questions. Quoting in part:
  • <i>In addition to just making sure your question hasn't been asked already
  • here, take a few moments to search beyond the site.</i></blockquote>
  • Hopefully this stays there long enough for the user to see it.
  • Yesterday a user dumped two picture identification questions on us with no apparent research whatsoever. The same user did this a couple of months ago too. At that time, I spent a few minutes with Google Earth and was easily able to find where a couple of the pictures were taken (see <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/282768">here</a> and <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/282765">here</a>). Clearly even the basic obvious research wasn't done.
  • The site guidlines have this to say about researching questions before posting:
  • <blockquote>In addition to just making sure your question hasn't been asked already here, take a few moments to search beyond the site. If you put your question title into a search engine, can you find the answer to your question in the first three results? If so, perhaps consider alternative ways of sharing that information here on Codidact, or writing a self-answered question to share that knowledge.</blockquote>
  • Since I was able to find the location in a few minutes in Google Earth, it was clear that no research had been done. When the two new questions appeared yesterday, it looked like the same thing. If any research was done, it was certainly not mentioned in the questions. They appeared to be just picture dumps, like two months ago.
  • I downvoted both questions and left comments about the lack of research. Those were deleted by a mod.
  • I then wrote a <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/284293">meta question</a> this morning about the deleted comments. The purpose was to have a community discussion about whether the mod actions were appropriate, and what should have been done, if anything. That whole meta question has now been deleted, and I got a nasty-gram warning about being rude. The comments weren't rude, but I suppose that's a judgement call. However, the mod response was very heavy-handed in that it shut down community discussion of what appropriate mod actions should be. That's always a valid discussion to have. Mods aren't supposed to be dictators, and they certainly aren't supposed to squash public discussion of what the best mod responses should be.
  • In any case, this question is about how we want to handle picture-identification questions with no research. How much should individual users be allowed to comment on what they think the OP should do, especially if the individual user downvotes a question? What should the mod response be to such questions? To comments pointing out problems with the question?
  • <hr>
  • 2021/9/24
  • <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/284321">Another one</a> appeared a few hours ago. Once again, absolutely no research effort was shown. This appears to be just a dump from a screen shot of some video on the net.
  • I left the comment:<blockquote>What research have you done?
  • You need to show some research effort on your own. What do you know
  • other than this picture? What have you tried? Why didn't it work? -1 for just dumping this on us.</blockquote>
  • How should we collectively deal with such no-research questions? How should that differ when the OP has history of such things, and has been warned before?
  • <h3>Update</h3>
  • The comment shown above has now been deleted by a mod. This is an abuse of mod powers. There is nothing in the comment against any rules. Even if others think dumping pictures like this is OK, I still have the right to tell the op that I don't think it's OK, and why I downvoted the question. Mod powers are for enforcing the rules, not personal preferences.
  • <hr>
  • 2021/9/27
  • <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/284352">Another</a> plain dump showed up. Clearly we're not getting thru to this user. The previous comments getting deleted probably aren't helping. This new post is currently at +1 -3, so consensus disapproves of this unresearched picture dumping.
  • This time I left the comment:
  • <blockquote>What research have you done to narrow this down? Why was it unsuccessful?</blockquote>
  • We'll see what happens.
  • <h3>Update</h3>
  • The comment shown above has now disappeared, so must have been deleted by a mod. Same as before, this is an inappropriate mod action.
  • This time I left a comment referring to the help page:
  • <blockquote>See the <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/help/how-to-ask">help
  • page</a> on asking questions. Quoting in part:
  • <i>In addition to just making sure your question hasn't been asked already
  • here, take a few moments to search beyond the site.</i></blockquote>
  • Hopefully this stays there long enough for the user to see it.
  • <hr>
  • 2021/11/6
  • Another perfectly valid comment to a <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/284781">lazy identification question</a> got deleted. The comment was
  • <blockquote><b>Try looking youself</b>
  • Run Google Earth, go to Shelton CT and look around. There can't be that
  • many lakes of this size in one small town. Look for a thin strip of
  • built-up area on the shore, with a wooded hill beyond that. Perhaps we
  • can help if you get stuck, but you need to show some research effort of
  • your own. We aren't here to Google everything for you.</blockquote>
  • This is again an inappropriate mod action.
  • <hr>
  • The above is especially troublesome in that the moderators won't engage here to defend or explain their reasoning. It is even more troublesome that public discussion of such policies get squashed by meta questions silently disappearing.
#6: Post edited by user avatar Olin Lathrop‭ · 2021-09-27T15:59:20Z (over 2 years ago)
  • Yesterday a user dumped two picture identification questions on us with no apparent research whatsoever. The same user did this a couple of months ago too. At that time, I spent a few minutes with Google Earth and was easily able to find where a couple of the pictures were taken (see <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/282768">here</a> and <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/282765">here</a>). Clearly even the basic obvious research wasn't done.
  • The site guidlines have this to say about researching questions before posting:
  • <blockquote>In addition to just making sure your question hasn't been asked already here, take a few moments to search beyond the site. If you put your question title into a search engine, can you find the answer to your question in the first three results? If so, perhaps consider alternative ways of sharing that information here on Codidact, or writing a self-answered question to share that knowledge.</blockquote>
  • Since I was able to find the location in a few minutes in Google Earth, it was clear that no research had been done. When the two new questions appeared yesterday, it looked like the same thing. If any research was done, it was certainly not mentioned in the questions. They appeared to be just picture dumps, like two months ago.
  • I downvoted both questions and left comments about the lack of research. Those were deleted by a mod.
  • I then wrote a meta question this morning about the deleted comments. The purpose was to have a community discussion about whether the mod actions were appropriate, and what should have been done, if anything. That whole meta question has now been deleted, and I got a nasty-gram warning about being rude. The comments weren't rude, but I suppose that's a judgement call. However, the mod response was very heavy-handed in that it shut down community discussion of what appropriate mod actions should be. That's always a valid discussion to have. Mods aren't supposed to be dictators, and they certainly aren't supposed to squash public discussion of what the best mod responses should be.
  • In any case, this question is about how we want to handle picture-identification questions with no research. How much should individual users be allowed to comment on what they think the OP should do, especially if the individual user downvotes a question? What should the mod response be to such questions? To comments pointing out problems with the question?
  • <hr>
  • 2021/9/24
  • <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/284321">Another one</a> appeared a few hours ago. Once again, absolutely no research effort was shown. This appears to be just a dump from a screen shot of some video on the net.
  • I left the comment:<blockquote>What research have you done?
  • You need to show some research effort on your own. What do you know
  • other than this picture? What have you tried? Why didn't it work? -1 for just dumping this on us.</blockquote>
  • How should we collectively deal with such no-research questions? How should that differ when the OP has history of such things, and has been warned before?
  • <h3>Update</h3>
  • The comment shown above has now been deleted by a mod. This is an abuse of mod powers. There is nothing in the comment against any rules. Even if others think dumping pictures like this is OK, I still have the right to tell the op that I don't think it's OK, and why I downvoted the question. Mod powers are for enforcing the rules, not personal preferences.
  • <hr>
  • 2021/9/27
  • <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/284352">Another</a> plain dump showed up. Clearly we're not getting thru to this user. The previous comments getting deleted probably aren't helping. This new post is currently at +1 -3, so consensus disapproves of this unresearched picture dumping.
  • This time I left the comment:
  • <blockquote>What research have you done to narrow this down? Why was it unsuccessful?</blockquote>
  • We'll see what happens.
  • Yesterday a user dumped two picture identification questions on us with no apparent research whatsoever. The same user did this a couple of months ago too. At that time, I spent a few minutes with Google Earth and was easily able to find where a couple of the pictures were taken (see <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/282768">here</a> and <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/282765">here</a>). Clearly even the basic obvious research wasn't done.
  • The site guidlines have this to say about researching questions before posting:
  • <blockquote>In addition to just making sure your question hasn't been asked already here, take a few moments to search beyond the site. If you put your question title into a search engine, can you find the answer to your question in the first three results? If so, perhaps consider alternative ways of sharing that information here on Codidact, or writing a self-answered question to share that knowledge.</blockquote>
  • Since I was able to find the location in a few minutes in Google Earth, it was clear that no research had been done. When the two new questions appeared yesterday, it looked like the same thing. If any research was done, it was certainly not mentioned in the questions. They appeared to be just picture dumps, like two months ago.
  • I downvoted both questions and left comments about the lack of research. Those were deleted by a mod.
  • I then wrote a meta question this morning about the deleted comments. The purpose was to have a community discussion about whether the mod actions were appropriate, and what should have been done, if anything. That whole meta question has now been deleted, and I got a nasty-gram warning about being rude. The comments weren't rude, but I suppose that's a judgement call. However, the mod response was very heavy-handed in that it shut down community discussion of what appropriate mod actions should be. That's always a valid discussion to have. Mods aren't supposed to be dictators, and they certainly aren't supposed to squash public discussion of what the best mod responses should be.
  • In any case, this question is about how we want to handle picture-identification questions with no research. How much should individual users be allowed to comment on what they think the OP should do, especially if the individual user downvotes a question? What should the mod response be to such questions? To comments pointing out problems with the question?
  • <hr>
  • 2021/9/24
  • <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/284321">Another one</a> appeared a few hours ago. Once again, absolutely no research effort was shown. This appears to be just a dump from a screen shot of some video on the net.
  • I left the comment:<blockquote>What research have you done?
  • You need to show some research effort on your own. What do you know
  • other than this picture? What have you tried? Why didn't it work? -1 for just dumping this on us.</blockquote>
  • How should we collectively deal with such no-research questions? How should that differ when the OP has history of such things, and has been warned before?
  • <h3>Update</h3>
  • The comment shown above has now been deleted by a mod. This is an abuse of mod powers. There is nothing in the comment against any rules. Even if others think dumping pictures like this is OK, I still have the right to tell the op that I don't think it's OK, and why I downvoted the question. Mod powers are for enforcing the rules, not personal preferences.
  • <hr>
  • 2021/9/27
  • <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/284352">Another</a> plain dump showed up. Clearly we're not getting thru to this user. The previous comments getting deleted probably aren't helping. This new post is currently at +1 -3, so consensus disapproves of this unresearched picture dumping.
  • This time I left the comment:
  • <blockquote>What research have you done to narrow this down? Why was it unsuccessful?</blockquote>
  • We'll see what happens.
  • <h3>Update</h3>
  • The comment shown above has now disappeared, so must have been deleted by a mod. Same as before, this is an inappropriate mod action.
  • This time I left a comment referring to the help page:
  • <blockquote>See the <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/help/how-to-ask">help
  • page</a> on asking questions. Quoting in part:
  • <i>In addition to just making sure your question hasn't been asked already
  • here, take a few moments to search beyond the site.</i></blockquote>
  • Hopefully this stays there long enough for the user to see it.
#5: Post edited by user avatar Olin Lathrop‭ · 2021-09-27T12:41:54Z (over 2 years ago)
  • Yesterday a user dumped two picture identification questions on us with no apparent research whatsoever. The same user did this a couple of months ago too. At that time, I spent a few minutes with Google Earth and was easily able to find where a couple of the pictures were taken (see <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/282768">here</a> and <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/282765">here</a>). Clearly even the basic obvious research wasn't done.
  • The site guidlines have this to say about researching questions before posting:
  • <blockquote>In addition to just making sure your question hasn't been asked already here, take a few moments to search beyond the site. If you put your question title into a search engine, can you find the answer to your question in the first three results? If so, perhaps consider alternative ways of sharing that information here on Codidact, or writing a self-answered question to share that knowledge.</blockquote>
  • Since I was able to find the location in a few minutes in Google Earth, it was clear that no research had been done. When the two new questions appeared yesterday, it looked like the same thing. If any research was done, it was certainly not mentioned in the questions. They appeared to be just picture dumps, like two months ago.
  • I downvoted both questions and left comments about the lack of research. Those were deleted by a mod.
  • I then wrote a meta question this morning about the deleted comments. The purpose was to have a community discussion about whether the mod actions were appropriate, and what should have been done, if anything. That whole meta question has now been deleted, and I got a nasty-gram warning about being rude. The comments weren't rude, but I suppose that's a judgement call. However, the mod response was very heavy-handed in that it shut down community discussion of what appropriate mod actions should be. That's always a valid discussion to have. Mods aren't supposed to be dictators, and they certainly aren't supposed to squash public discussion of what the best mod responses should be.
  • In any case, this question is about how we want to handle picture-identification questions with no research. How much should individual users be allowed to comment on what they think the OP should do, especially if the individual user downvotes a question? What should the mod response be to such questions? To comments pointing out problems with the question?
  • <hr>
  • 2021/9/24
  • <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/284321">Another one</a> appeared a few hours ago. Once again, absolutely no research effort was shown. This appears to be just a dump from a screen shot of some video on the net.
  • I left the comment:<blockquote>What research have you done?
  • You need to show some research effort on your own. What do you know
  • other than this picture? What have you tried? Why didn't it work? -1 for just dumping this on us.</blockquote>
  • How should we collectively deal with such no-research questions? How should that differ when the OP has history of such things, and has been warned before?
  • <h3>Update</h3>
  • The comment shown above has now been deleted by a mod. This is an abuse of mod powers. There is nothing in the comment against any rules. Even if others think dumping pictures like this is OK, I still have the right to tell the op that I don't think it's OK, and why I downvoted the question. Mod powers are for enforcing the rules, not personal preferences.
  • Yesterday a user dumped two picture identification questions on us with no apparent research whatsoever. The same user did this a couple of months ago too. At that time, I spent a few minutes with Google Earth and was easily able to find where a couple of the pictures were taken (see <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/282768">here</a> and <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/282765">here</a>). Clearly even the basic obvious research wasn't done.
  • The site guidlines have this to say about researching questions before posting:
  • <blockquote>In addition to just making sure your question hasn't been asked already here, take a few moments to search beyond the site. If you put your question title into a search engine, can you find the answer to your question in the first three results? If so, perhaps consider alternative ways of sharing that information here on Codidact, or writing a self-answered question to share that knowledge.</blockquote>
  • Since I was able to find the location in a few minutes in Google Earth, it was clear that no research had been done. When the two new questions appeared yesterday, it looked like the same thing. If any research was done, it was certainly not mentioned in the questions. They appeared to be just picture dumps, like two months ago.
  • I downvoted both questions and left comments about the lack of research. Those were deleted by a mod.
  • I then wrote a meta question this morning about the deleted comments. The purpose was to have a community discussion about whether the mod actions were appropriate, and what should have been done, if anything. That whole meta question has now been deleted, and I got a nasty-gram warning about being rude. The comments weren't rude, but I suppose that's a judgement call. However, the mod response was very heavy-handed in that it shut down community discussion of what appropriate mod actions should be. That's always a valid discussion to have. Mods aren't supposed to be dictators, and they certainly aren't supposed to squash public discussion of what the best mod responses should be.
  • In any case, this question is about how we want to handle picture-identification questions with no research. How much should individual users be allowed to comment on what they think the OP should do, especially if the individual user downvotes a question? What should the mod response be to such questions? To comments pointing out problems with the question?
  • <hr>
  • 2021/9/24
  • <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/284321">Another one</a> appeared a few hours ago. Once again, absolutely no research effort was shown. This appears to be just a dump from a screen shot of some video on the net.
  • I left the comment:<blockquote>What research have you done?
  • You need to show some research effort on your own. What do you know
  • other than this picture? What have you tried? Why didn't it work? -1 for just dumping this on us.</blockquote>
  • How should we collectively deal with such no-research questions? How should that differ when the OP has history of such things, and has been warned before?
  • <h3>Update</h3>
  • The comment shown above has now been deleted by a mod. This is an abuse of mod powers. There is nothing in the comment against any rules. Even if others think dumping pictures like this is OK, I still have the right to tell the op that I don't think it's OK, and why I downvoted the question. Mod powers are for enforcing the rules, not personal preferences.
  • <hr>
  • 2021/9/27
  • <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/284352">Another</a> plain dump showed up. Clearly we're not getting thru to this user. The previous comments getting deleted probably aren't helping. This new post is currently at +1 -3, so consensus disapproves of this unresearched picture dumping.
  • This time I left the comment:
  • <blockquote>What research have you done to narrow this down? Why was it unsuccessful?</blockquote>
  • We'll see what happens.
#4: Post edited by user avatar Olin Lathrop‭ · 2021-09-24T15:17:40Z (over 2 years ago)
  • Yesterday a user dumped two picture identification questions on us with no apparent research whatsoever. The same user did this a couple of months ago too. At that time, I spent a few minutes with Google Earth and was easily able to find where a couple of the pictures were taken (see <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/282768">here</a> and <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/282765">here</a>). Clearly even the basic obvious research wasn't done.
  • The site guidlines have this to say about researching questions before posting:
  • <blockquote>In addition to just making sure your question hasn't been asked already here, take a few moments to search beyond the site. If you put your question title into a search engine, can you find the answer to your question in the first three results? If so, perhaps consider alternative ways of sharing that information here on Codidact, or writing a self-answered question to share that knowledge.</blockquote>
  • Since I was able to find the location in a few minutes in Google Earth, it was clear that no research had been done. When the two new questions appeared yesterday, it looked like the same thing. If any research was done, it was certainly not mentioned in the questions. They appeared to be just picture dumps, like two months ago.
  • I downvoted both questions and left comments about the lack of research. Those were deleted by a mod.
  • I then wrote a meta question this morning about the deleted comments. The purpose was to have a community discussion about whether the mod actions were appropriate, and what should have been done, if anything. That whole meta question has now been deleted, and I got a nasty-gram warning about being rude. The comments weren't rude, but I suppose that's a judgement call. However, the mod response was very heavy-handed in that it shut down community discussion of what appropriate mod actions should be. That's always a valid discussion to have. Mods aren't supposed to be dictators, and they certainly aren't supposed to squash public discussion of what the best mod responses should be.
  • In any case, this question is about how we want to handle picture-identification questions with no research. How much should individual users be allowed to comment on what they think the OP should do, especially if the individual user downvotes a question? What should the mod response be to such questions? To comments pointing out problems with the question?
  • <hr>
  • 2021/9/24
  • <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/284321">Another one</a> appeared a few hours ago. Once again, absolutely no research effort was shown. This appears to be just a dump from a screen shot of some video on the net.
  • I left the comment:<blockquote>What research have you done?
  • You need to show some research effort on your own. What do you know
  • other than this picture? What have you tried? Why didn't it work? -1 for just dumping this on us.</blockquote>
  • How should we collectively deal with such no-research questions? How should that differ when the OP has history of such things, and has been warned before?
  • Yesterday a user dumped two picture identification questions on us with no apparent research whatsoever. The same user did this a couple of months ago too. At that time, I spent a few minutes with Google Earth and was easily able to find where a couple of the pictures were taken (see <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/282768">here</a> and <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/282765">here</a>). Clearly even the basic obvious research wasn't done.
  • The site guidlines have this to say about researching questions before posting:
  • <blockquote>In addition to just making sure your question hasn't been asked already here, take a few moments to search beyond the site. If you put your question title into a search engine, can you find the answer to your question in the first three results? If so, perhaps consider alternative ways of sharing that information here on Codidact, or writing a self-answered question to share that knowledge.</blockquote>
  • Since I was able to find the location in a few minutes in Google Earth, it was clear that no research had been done. When the two new questions appeared yesterday, it looked like the same thing. If any research was done, it was certainly not mentioned in the questions. They appeared to be just picture dumps, like two months ago.
  • I downvoted both questions and left comments about the lack of research. Those were deleted by a mod.
  • I then wrote a meta question this morning about the deleted comments. The purpose was to have a community discussion about whether the mod actions were appropriate, and what should have been done, if anything. That whole meta question has now been deleted, and I got a nasty-gram warning about being rude. The comments weren't rude, but I suppose that's a judgement call. However, the mod response was very heavy-handed in that it shut down community discussion of what appropriate mod actions should be. That's always a valid discussion to have. Mods aren't supposed to be dictators, and they certainly aren't supposed to squash public discussion of what the best mod responses should be.
  • In any case, this question is about how we want to handle picture-identification questions with no research. How much should individual users be allowed to comment on what they think the OP should do, especially if the individual user downvotes a question? What should the mod response be to such questions? To comments pointing out problems with the question?
  • <hr>
  • 2021/9/24
  • <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/284321">Another one</a> appeared a few hours ago. Once again, absolutely no research effort was shown. This appears to be just a dump from a screen shot of some video on the net.
  • I left the comment:<blockquote>What research have you done?
  • You need to show some research effort on your own. What do you know
  • other than this picture? What have you tried? Why didn't it work? -1 for just dumping this on us.</blockquote>
  • How should we collectively deal with such no-research questions? How should that differ when the OP has history of such things, and has been warned before?
  • <h3>Update</h3>
  • The comment shown above has now been deleted by a mod. This is an abuse of mod powers. There is nothing in the comment against any rules. Even if others think dumping pictures like this is OK, I still have the right to tell the op that I don't think it's OK, and why I downvoted the question. Mod powers are for enforcing the rules, not personal preferences.
#3: Post edited by user avatar Olin Lathrop‭ · 2021-09-24T13:12:25Z (over 2 years ago)
  • Yesterday a user dumped two picture identification questions on us with no apparent research whatsoever. The same user did this a couple of months ago too. At that time, I spent a few minutes with Google Earth and was easily able to find where a couple of the pictures were taken (see <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/282768">here</a> and <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/282765">here</a>). Clearly even the basic obvious research wasn't done.
  • The site guidlines have this to say about researching questions before posting:
  • <blockquote>In addition to just making sure your question hasn't been asked already here, take a few moments to search beyond the site. If you put your question title into a search engine, can you find the answer to your question in the first three results? If so, perhaps consider alternative ways of sharing that information here on Codidact, or writing a self-answered question to share that knowledge.</blockquote>
  • Since I was able to find the location in a few minutes in Google Earth, it was clear that no research had been done. When the two new questions appeared yesterday, it looked like the same thing. If any research was done, it was certainly not mentioned in the questions. They appeared to be just picture dumps, like two months ago.
  • I downvoted both questions and left comments about the lack of research. Those were deleted by a mod.
  • I then wrote a meta question this morning about the deleted comments. The purpose was to have a community discussion about whether the mod actions were appropriate, and what should have been done, if anything. That whole meta question has now been deleted, and I got a nasty-gram warning about being rude. The comments weren't rude, but I suppose that's a judgement call. However, the mod response was very heavy-handed in that it shut down community discussion of what appropriate mod actions should be. That's always a valid discussion to have. Mods aren't supposed to be dictators, and they certainly aren't supposed to squash public discussion of what the best mod responses should be.
  • In any case, this question is about how we want to handle picture-identification questions with no research. How much should individual users be allowed to comment on what they think the OP should do, especially if the individual user downvotes a question? What should the mod response be to such questions? To comments pointing out problems with the question?
  • Yesterday a user dumped two picture identification questions on us with no apparent research whatsoever. The same user did this a couple of months ago too. At that time, I spent a few minutes with Google Earth and was easily able to find where a couple of the pictures were taken (see <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/282768">here</a> and <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/282765">here</a>). Clearly even the basic obvious research wasn't done.
  • The site guidlines have this to say about researching questions before posting:
  • <blockquote>In addition to just making sure your question hasn't been asked already here, take a few moments to search beyond the site. If you put your question title into a search engine, can you find the answer to your question in the first three results? If so, perhaps consider alternative ways of sharing that information here on Codidact, or writing a self-answered question to share that knowledge.</blockquote>
  • Since I was able to find the location in a few minutes in Google Earth, it was clear that no research had been done. When the two new questions appeared yesterday, it looked like the same thing. If any research was done, it was certainly not mentioned in the questions. They appeared to be just picture dumps, like two months ago.
  • I downvoted both questions and left comments about the lack of research. Those were deleted by a mod.
  • I then wrote a meta question this morning about the deleted comments. The purpose was to have a community discussion about whether the mod actions were appropriate, and what should have been done, if anything. That whole meta question has now been deleted, and I got a nasty-gram warning about being rude. The comments weren't rude, but I suppose that's a judgement call. However, the mod response was very heavy-handed in that it shut down community discussion of what appropriate mod actions should be. That's always a valid discussion to have. Mods aren't supposed to be dictators, and they certainly aren't supposed to squash public discussion of what the best mod responses should be.
  • In any case, this question is about how we want to handle picture-identification questions with no research. How much should individual users be allowed to comment on what they think the OP should do, especially if the individual user downvotes a question? What should the mod response be to such questions? To comments pointing out problems with the question?
  • <hr>
  • 2021/9/24
  • <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/284321">Another one</a> appeared a few hours ago. Once again, absolutely no research effort was shown. This appears to be just a dump from a screen shot of some video on the net.
  • I left the comment:<blockquote>What research have you done?
  • You need to show some research effort on your own. What do you know
  • other than this picture? What have you tried? Why didn't it work? -1 for just dumping this on us.</blockquote>
  • How should we collectively deal with such no-research questions? How should that differ when the OP has history of such things, and has been warned before?
#2: Post edited by user avatar Olin Lathrop‭ · 2021-09-22T15:49:41Z (over 2 years ago)
  • Yesterday a user dumped two picture identification questions on us with no apparent research whatsoever. The same user did this a couple of months ago too. At that time, I spent a few minutes with Google Earth and was easily able to find where a couple of the pictures were taken. Clearly even the basic obvious research wasn't done.
  • The site guidlines have this to say about researching questions before posting:
  • <blockquote>In addition to just making sure your question hasn't been asked already here, take a few moments to search beyond the site. If you put your question title into a search engine, can you find the answer to your question in the first three results? If so, perhaps consider alternative ways of sharing that information here on Codidact, or writing a self-answered question to share that knowledge.</blockquote>
  • Since I was able to find the location in a few minutes in Google Earth, it was clear that no research had been done. When the two new questions appeared yesterday, it looked like the same thing. If any research was done, it was certainly not mentioned in the questions. They appeared to be just picture dumps, like two months ago.
  • I downvoted both questions and left comments about the lack of research. Those were deleted by a mod.
  • I then wrote a meta question this morning about the deleted comments. The purpose was to have a community discussion about whether the mod actions were appropriate, and what should have been done, if anything. That whole meta question has now been deleted, and I got a nasty-gram warning about being rude. The comments weren't rude, but I suppose that's a judgement call. However, the mod response was very heavy-handed in that it shut down community discussion of what appropriate mod actions should be. That's always a valid discussion to have. Mods aren't supposed to be dictators, and they certainly aren't supposed to squash public discussion of what the best mod responses should be.
  • In any case, this question is about how we want to handle picture-identification questions with no research. How much should individual users be allowed to comment on what they think the OP should do, especially if the individual user downvotes a question? What should the mod response be to such questions? To comments pointing out problems with the question?
  • Yesterday a user dumped two picture identification questions on us with no apparent research whatsoever. The same user did this a couple of months ago too. At that time, I spent a few minutes with Google Earth and was easily able to find where a couple of the pictures were taken (see <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/282768">here</a> and <a href="https://outdoors.codidact.com/posts/282765">here</a>). Clearly even the basic obvious research wasn't done.
  • The site guidlines have this to say about researching questions before posting:
  • <blockquote>In addition to just making sure your question hasn't been asked already here, take a few moments to search beyond the site. If you put your question title into a search engine, can you find the answer to your question in the first three results? If so, perhaps consider alternative ways of sharing that information here on Codidact, or writing a self-answered question to share that knowledge.</blockquote>
  • Since I was able to find the location in a few minutes in Google Earth, it was clear that no research had been done. When the two new questions appeared yesterday, it looked like the same thing. If any research was done, it was certainly not mentioned in the questions. They appeared to be just picture dumps, like two months ago.
  • I downvoted both questions and left comments about the lack of research. Those were deleted by a mod.
  • I then wrote a meta question this morning about the deleted comments. The purpose was to have a community discussion about whether the mod actions were appropriate, and what should have been done, if anything. That whole meta question has now been deleted, and I got a nasty-gram warning about being rude. The comments weren't rude, but I suppose that's a judgement call. However, the mod response was very heavy-handed in that it shut down community discussion of what appropriate mod actions should be. That's always a valid discussion to have. Mods aren't supposed to be dictators, and they certainly aren't supposed to squash public discussion of what the best mod responses should be.
  • In any case, this question is about how we want to handle picture-identification questions with no research. How much should individual users be allowed to comment on what they think the OP should do, especially if the individual user downvotes a question? What should the mod response be to such questions? To comments pointing out problems with the question?
#1: Initial revision by user avatar Olin Lathrop‭ · 2021-09-22T15:35:52Z (over 2 years ago) 
Picture identification with no research
Yesterday a user dumped two picture identification questions on us with no apparent research whatsoever.  The same user did this a couple of months ago too.  At that time, I spent a few minutes with Google Earth and was easily able to find where a couple of the pictures were taken.  Clearly even the basic obvious research wasn't done.

The site guidlines have this to say about researching questions before posting:

<blockquote>In addition to just making sure your question hasn't been asked already here, take a few moments to search beyond the site. If you put your question title into a search engine, can you find the answer to your question in the first three results? If so, perhaps consider alternative ways of sharing that information here on Codidact, or writing a self-answered question to share that knowledge.</blockquote>

Since I was able to find the location in a few minutes in Google Earth, it was clear that no research had been done.  When the two new questions appeared yesterday, it looked like the same thing.  If any research was done, it was certainly not mentioned in the questions.  They appeared to be just picture dumps, like two months ago.

I downvoted both questions and left comments about the lack of research.  Those were deleted by a mod.

I then wrote a meta question this morning about the deleted comments.  The purpose was to have a community discussion about whether the mod actions were appropriate, and what should have been done, if anything.  That whole meta question has now been deleted, and I got a nasty-gram warning about being rude.  The comments weren't rude, but I suppose that's a judgement call.  However, the mod response was very heavy-handed in that it shut down community discussion of what appropriate mod actions should be.  That's always a valid discussion to have.  Mods aren't supposed to be dictators, and they certainly aren't supposed to squash public discussion of what the best mod responses should be.

In any case, this question is about how we want to handle picture-identification questions with no research.  How much should individual users be allowed to comment on what they think the OP should do, especially if the individual user downvotes a question?  What should the mod response be to such questions?  To comments pointing out problems with the question?
discussion