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I normally only come when clicking on some questions from other StackExchange sites. Every time the questions are protected by userQmechanic. Is that something like theCommunity user? I don't see this at other StackExchange sites.

Qmechanic's user avatar
QmechanicMod
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askedSep 30, 2017 at 8:51
Vladimir F Героям слава's user avatar
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    $\begingroup$The Physics Stack Exchange questions which you see other Stack Exchange sites, are theHNQs (Hot Network Questions). Those question attract a large number of spam answers and hence need to be "protected".QMechanic is an elected moderator on this site. And no, it is not like the SECommunity user (which is a bot).QMechanic is not a bot.$\endgroup$CommentedSep 30, 2017 at 9:08
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    $\begingroup$@Blue: spoilsport! :-)$\endgroup$CommentedSep 30, 2017 at 9:08
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    $\begingroup$Well, there are a few AIs capable to talk on a natural language nearly indistinguishable from a human. But none of them cananswer physics questions on post-grad level. :-)$\endgroup$CommentedSep 30, 2017 at 10:15
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    $\begingroup$He is delocalized$\endgroup$CommentedOct 1, 2017 at 2:59

2 Answers2

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  1. HNQs with $\geq 3$ answer are often protected by a moderator to prevent "thanks!", "me too!", or spam answers by new users. Questions can be flagged to let moderators know that they should be protected/unprotected.

  2. I doubt it would make a difference if I claim that I'm not a bot, so let me just point to thelist of current Phys.SE moderators.

answeredSep 30, 2017 at 9:56
Qmechanic's user avatar
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    $\begingroup$Woah, this bot can respond to meta questions and even tries to convince us it's not one! The future is now.$\endgroup$CommentedSep 30, 2017 at 13:17
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    $\begingroup$This bot is alsoquite an articulate answerer of questions.$\endgroup$CommentedSep 30, 2017 at 13:37
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    $\begingroup$Does that mean that the questions are protected preventively, as soon as they become HNQ? Are physics questions more affected by low quality answers than other sites? Some crackpots with weird theories?$\endgroup$CommentedSep 30, 2017 at 17:50
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    $\begingroup$We have our share of crackpots with weird theories :-)$\endgroup$CommentedOct 1, 2017 at 6:26
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    $\begingroup$@Vladimir Maybe other sites have a higher tolerance for bad answers on HNQs? We can't really speak for other sites, but this is simply a feature of site culture, like the fact that we don't take all that kindly to outsiders who, despite significant experience with SE, can't be bothered to click through to a site moderador profile before accusing them off being a bit, and then go on to criticise the site culture. We're happy toexplain site culture if your intent is toask about it.$\endgroup$CommentedOct 1, 2017 at 14:01
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    $\begingroup$If you're bothered by the question protections because you're looking for something to answer, I would suggest actually using the site instead of just going for whatever junk-food threads get picked up by the SE-Wide Advertisement for General Enlightenment list.$\endgroup$CommentedOct 1, 2017 at 14:01
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    $\begingroup$@EmilioPisanty If you are bothered I am acusing someone of something why you can't be bothered to check that my reputation allows me to answer all questions, including the protected ones?$\endgroup$CommentedOct 1, 2017 at 14:04
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    $\begingroup$@Vladimir No, I am bothered by the fact that you seem to be visiting only the junk-food threads that get picked up by the HNQ list and using them to form opinions about this site, despite having enough experience with SE to know just how much of a skewed picture they paint of any given site.$\endgroup$CommentedOct 1, 2017 at 14:12
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10k users can see the statistics of all protected questionshere. Here are some screenshots for the rest of users:

enter image description here

enter image description here

Let's play a game: some of these users are human, and the rest are AI's. Which is which?

answeredSep 30, 2017 at 10:31
AccidentalFourierTransform's user avatar
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    $\begingroup$Well, Community is a bot.ACuriousMind is an established AI. We don't know about QMechanicyet.It might as well be. We all know that it is not humanly possible to edit questions at the rate QMech does. *-)$\endgroup$CommentedSep 30, 2017 at 10:36
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    $\begingroup$ooh! that's my question!! :)$\endgroup$CommentedOct 1, 2017 at 2:57
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    $\begingroup$This answer paints somewhat of a misleading picture. Qmechanic does much of the question protections on the site simply because s/he does a huge fraction of the moderation to begin with, with similar order-of-magnitude differences in, say, tag edits, or in adding "related: ..." comments. The list as presented here is subject to a huge sampling bias (like, say, observing that Virgos crash cars more often than Scorpios) that makes it useless unless it's compared to other moderation metrics. Cf. e.g.physics.meta.stackexchange.com/q/7508.$\endgroup$CommentedOct 1, 2017 at 14:13
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    $\begingroup$@EmilioPisanty ok? are you perhaps, once again, taking thing much more seriously than what the situation requires?$\endgroup$CommentedOct 1, 2017 at 14:33
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    $\begingroup$What? I never do that, my seriousometer is always perfectly calibrated. With this one, accusations of improper protection are notable for being the most unfounded way for people to cry censorship, mostly because the bad answers that cause the protection tends to get deleted (causing another sampling bias). That's why I don't think that sharing information that's this incomplete is particularly helpful, moreso when it e.g. makes people like Hernan think that they now have the full picture.$\endgroup$CommentedOct 1, 2017 at 15:51
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    $\begingroup$This SEDE query provides all the useful/relevant data on that stats sheet without the 10k-rep requirement.$\endgroup$CommentedJan 3, 2018 at 11:50
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    $\begingroup$@EmilioPisanty Thanks!$\endgroup$CommentedJan 3, 2018 at 11:53

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