Primary reason for ANY publicly accessible "site" is to make money.
Like everyone else contributing here, I do so as a volunteer, without concern for making money, but only to help others gain a better understanding of mathematics, because we feel education in mathematics is an important endeavor. A population better educated in mathematics is going to be a more productive society, all other things being equal.
For obvious reason it is seldom stated in "read before post". A person usually signs-up for personal reasons and it is nobody business to know the reasons.
It is implied that people registering on a site dedicated to providing help with math are doing so to get help with mathematics. Sure, there are some who sign up to spam, or be disruptive, etc., but they are thankfully the minority.
I have made it a habbit to "read the mail" BEFORE is sign -up.
However, only AFTER few posts if became obvious that THIS site is not what I expected.
It is also obvious that this site is "run by" few so called administrators primarily interested in policing instead of solving mathematical problems.
That is not that uncommon on many sites, however , that is not an excuse to do same on this iste.
A well run site is of course going to include those who are charged with maintaining order. Topics should be posted in appropriate areas, duplicate topics need to be merged or otherwise condensed to ensure we are not squandering the time of our helpers by duplicating their efforts.
What is really interesting on this one is that replies from these administrators are so predictable, one must wonder if they are using "cut and paste templates " for their posts.
For example " tell us what you have done so far..." , which irrelevant post since it is NOT an answer to question posted.
By far my favorite is "kindergarten approach" practiced here - "did you draw youself a picture?? " and general belittling "suggestions " such as " can you solve this ? ..."
But enough (useless) ranting, it could overload poor unapreciatied volunteers.
We are here to help, we are not here to do your work for you so that you may submit and receive credit for the work of others.. This isn't helpful. Having a student show what they've done, so we can see where they may be going astray, and see where they are stuck is vital in order for us to provide judicious help allowing the student to do the heavy lifting and actually learn. This is indicative of a quality math help site. It would in fact be much easier for us to simply provide full solutions, but this does the student no good. We are not here to do your work, we are here to help you do your work, to help you actually learn.
When user ask to have his / here account deleted it should be done WITHOUT conditions and not passed back to the user asking him / her to "log out".
There are no guarantees that site owner won't sell the inactive user info or "accidentaly " pass it to some obscure memory location... (S... happens )
T
I've been involved with a large number of sites over the years, and none of those sites was ever in the business of selling user information. There have been occasions that I have found I am no longer interested in participating on a particular site. I close the tab and don't return. It's really just that simple. Administrators should not be expected to delete accounts on request. Some sites may do that, but that's their choice to do so. Nothing should require this. It's not something I have ever felt compelled to do as an administrator.
