text:
Did this question get closed too quickly? Doesn't it actually have a good answer that's now impossible to post?
Why aren't Russell Alan Hulse and Joseph Hooton Taylor credited as the discoverers of gravitational waves in 1974? was first written a bit enthusiastically and I made some small edits summarized in this comment:

+1 There is a good question in here, possibly here in Astronomy SE but perhaps in Academia SE. But the leading and confrontational language such as "but so what?" and "Why the double standard?" tends to turn people off and result in closing rather than answering. If you are really interested in finding out the reason and not just complaining, it's better to remove those and just stick to the question in an objective way. I'll make a (hopefully) helpful edit to keep the question's focus.

The OP has been active for a little while in other SE sites as well and based on their question activity in Physics they can ask some good questions.
I think this is a great question, and I think it can have a good and instructive answer as well.
But we unfortunately have some knock-on close votes after the edit, including one that's accompanied by the accusatory comment:

Unfortunately, you cannot vote to keep open. You can merely decline to vote to close. You can vote to reopen if it is closed, which it should be. This is a question asked in bad faith. (my bold)

Of course

There really is a "stay open" vote recorded when we click it, and it has a real effect, though it's second order as explained there.
We can not get inside other users' heads and should be very careful to accuse a user of asking in bad faith without hearing from them first and using comments effectively to address a concern.

In this case the OP drew an interesting comparison between these two astronomer's discovery of a binary pulsar and pulsars in binary systems can speed up (presumably) due to gravitational wave radiation, and the discovery of certain peaks or in high energy collision cross-sections that happen to occur at the energy and with the decay products that Higgs predicted.
The question can have an excellent answer. Higgs and Englert didn't discover the Higgs Boson!**

A subatomic particle with the expected properties was discovered in 2012 by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland. The new particle was subsequently confirmed to match the expected properties of a Higgs boson.
On 10 December 2013, two of the physicists, Peter Higgs and François Englert, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their theoretical predictions.

An examination of the blurb about Higgs and Englert's Nobel Prize makes this very clear:

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2013 was awarded jointly to François Englert and Peter W. Higgs "for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider."

The situation is very similar, almost symmetrical(!) for Hulse and Taylor's Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prize in Physics 1993 was awarded jointly to Russell A. Hulse and Joseph H. Taylor Jr. "for the discovery of a new type of pulsar, a discovery that has opened up new possibilities for the study of gravitation."

So while the OP perceived there was a mismatch in the way that "giving credit for discovery" was aloted and asked about it, they could have received an answer showing that in fact it wasn't the case.
However, for whatever reason the close voters couldn't see this and at least some of them wanted the question shut down and all answers prevented.
I think the insta-close should be reserved for serious problems, things that are causing the site harm.
In this case the question was closed after only 10 hours. The OP was responding to comments and could have responded further if we'd given 24 or 48 hours for the discussion to take place but a pre-judgement was made by pre-crime that "This is a question asked in bad faith." and now neither I nor anybody can post an answer.
In my opinion, this insta-close was a bad choice, the question is sound, reasonable and has a good answer. But I'd like to hear what others think:
Question: Did this question get closed too quickly? Isn't there actually a good question here and should the OP have had a chance to respond to comments before the five answer-blocking close votes were cast?

That five people thought that question was bad in only ten hours on a site that doesn't receive all that much traffic is a big sign that the question was indeed a bad question. The notion that there are no bad questions is 100% BS.

If you had posted an answer using Peter Higgs and François Englert as an analogy, I would have downvoted that answer as a bad analogy. Hulse and Taylor did not develop the underlying theory. It was Albert Einstein who provided the theoretical background. The Nobel Prize committee never recognized Einstein for that monumental body of work. He did win a Nobel Prize, but it was for one of his lesser discoveries. Why that happened is a different question, one that has been asked and answered multiple times across the SE network.

@DavidHammen Reread the OP's question, and then see how you have once again misrepresented what I've said The OP"s question forwards the analogy, so an answer must start by explaining why the analogy doesn't work. That's what I outline here and would have done more fully by way of an answer post if given the chance. The OP would then have an opportunity to consider the inappropriateness of the analogy.

I agree with the answers posted by James and David Hammen, but there are some facets I don't think have been discussed yet or stated explicitly:

The analogy you draw isn't great. Higgs and Englert - as well as the host of other folks working on the same problem - were theorists, and made predictions which were subsequently confirmed by the LHC. Hulse and Taylor were observational astronomers, just like the folks at LIGO, not theorists - their work didn't have anywhere near as strong an influence on the direct detection experiments of LIGO and other groups, and they didn't lay any theoretical groundwork. I wouldn't say there's symmetry here, as you put it, and I wouldn't say it's an excellent answer.

Choosing Nobel laureates is a inherently a subjective process, which is why there have been controversies over the years (e.g. the recognition of Lee and Yang's theoretical work in the 1957 Nobel Prize, but not the experimental work of Wu and others, or the decision to omit Jocelyn Bell from the 1974 Prize while including her supervisor Anthony Hewish). Even so, it's possible to make educated guesses about the rationales behind those decisions, but this question even goes beyond that. It asks why Hulse and Taylor weren't recognized - and they certainly were! The OP then effectively wanted to know the 1993 Nobel committee chose a particular phrasing. That's not something we can say with any certainty, unless a member of the committee decides to swing by our site 28 years later and was allowed to write about the decision. I'd bet you anything that won't happen, and while I'd love to be proven wrong, I don't think I am.

If there are significant problems with a question, it should be closed, and sooner rather than later. If someone thinks it can't be fixed, that's totally fine - close away. If someone thinks it can be - and uhoh falls into this category this time around - it should still be closed so we don't get answers that misunderstand or misinterpret the question, because the requisite edits stand a good chance of invalidating them, and fixing the subsequent debacle can be a pain in the neck. I have a couple of flags on Worldbuilding I have to resolve because a question wasn't closed quickly enough, and they're not simple to resolve. Of course, this is all moot if a question simply can't be fixed - see point 2, and what other folks have written in answers to this meta post.

The OP compared the cases of rotating pulsar discovery to the Higgs particle discovery (using "discovery" flexibly here) and my proposed answer starts from where the question was asked. My answer in a nut shell is that GW weren't discovered or seen in the first case of recognition and the Higgs wasn't discovered in the second. In both cases the major recognition was to contributions that lead to a better understanding, to gravitation in the first and Higgs mechanism in the second. I still think it would make for a pretty good answer to the OP's question.

Since I'm prevented from posting a real answer there, I've only partially fleshed it out above, just enough to illustrate that answers are possible. Anyway, let's see what happens next. Thanks for your thoughtful answer!

Upon second reading I certainly do appreciate the points you make about the problems caused by answers that might no longer match the question after the OP responds to the comments (or similar scenarios). I wonder how often those kinds of problems actually happen here in Astronomy SE compared to high question-rate or soft-question sites like Worldbuilding?

@uhoh I don't have numbers, but I suspect it's quite a bit higher on Worldbuilding thanks to a higher question rate and, yeah, more answers per question. But it's also certainly an issue that can and does happen across the network - the case on Worldbuilding stuck in my head because it happened just the other day.

This was a poor question and appropriately closed.
I downvoted and commented (however Prof Rob's comment was the same as mine so I deleted my comment). The downvote was for "Lacking research effort", as minimal research would have shown that the Hulse and Taylor were credited, in the most public way possible, by the award of a Nobel prize for the discovery of a neutron star binary radiating GW.
I also downvoted as "Not useful". The tone was not merely "enthusiastic" but conspiracy theory, with the implication that "Big Science" was shutting out the little guys.
I didn't vote to close at first. Perhaps an answer could be written that would challenge the framing of the question, however later and after reflecting on the question I did vote to close. The only possible answer to the question is "I think they were sufficiently recognised", or "I think they weren't sufficiently recognised".  This is ultimately a matter of opinion and I voted to close on that basis.

I still don't understand why immediately blocking the possibility of anybody posting an answer is the best thing to do. The only guaranteed effect of question closing is answer prevention. What harm would have been done letting the question stay open a day or two to allow answers and importantly to allow the OP time to respond the comments and the edit I'd made. Why was answer prevention the best course of action above all other possibilities?

Because, having thought about it, I think that only an opinion can be expressed as an answer.  Either  "I think you are wrong and Hulse and Taylor were appropriately recognised" or "I think you are right and this is unfair". It might be possible to write a great answer on the history of Gravitational Waves, or the formal and informal processes of recognition, but such a response wouldn't answer the question.  Hence the vote to close.

Have you read the answer that I've included above in my question that I've been prevented from posting as an answer there? I think it's pretty fact-based. We have to be careful when we think we can be sure that nobody can write a fact based answer just because we can't think of one ourselves off-hand.

As for allowing answers: I hoped to prevent poor answers.  As for allowing the OP to respond, the OP already has, in comments, before the question was closed.

Indeed I don't think it answers the question.  It is a good answer to a different question from the one that the OP posted

But it's the OP that gets to make that call, right? Why deny them an opportunity to see my or any other answer and have a chance to think about it? Why was answer prevention the best course of action above all other possibilities?

@uhoh I have heard and read many times that there is no such a thing as a bad question. That is BS. There are bad questions. There are also questions that aren't necessarily "bad" questions but nonetheless are not a good fit for StackExchange. Questions across the SE network are supposed to have definitive answers. A question that allows diametrically opposed opinion-based answers is not a good question for this site.

@DavidHammen your comment puts words in my mouth that aren't there. It raises a false flag that I've suggested something that I haven't, and deems to explain something to me that I've said probably 100 times myself. I wonder if you are really commenting in good faith here or if you are trying to divert the discussion so that a self-gratifying comment can be posted that sounds clever and admonishing?

You don't like closed questions, period, @uhoh. Other people don't have a problem with closure. I looked at the question multiple times before I decided to join the herd and vote to close. Closing poorly asked questions can improve the quality of a site.
As an extreme example, the Earth Science SE was getting inundated with "Identify this rock!" questions before deciding to make those questions off-topic. Those questions were driving our experts away.
The problem with poorly asked questions is that the Stack Exchange network strongly emphasizes the concept of accepted answers, with the mere hope that the accepted answer is correct. I have seen too many poorly asked questions where the OP has accepted an answer that is dead wrong. Some web site readers only display the top answer. Having dead wrong answers be the top answer makes our sites look bad.

"You don't like closed questions, period, @uhoh. Other people don't have a problem with closure." It turns out that I've cast 686 close votes, raised 409 helpful flags and have edited 2,077 posts to improve their quality I think I stack up quite well against "other people" when it comes to being very concerned about post quality. Where I differ from some is in my concern about helping folks get used to the site and working with them to get their questions answered for future readers to see.

You can read what I wrote about identify-this-rock questions in my meta answer where I emphatically express my concern about "The high flux of low quality questions..." which was a problem specific to that particular kind of question; people would find something and upload a photo with little more than "What rock is this?" There's no comparison to the question we're discussing here about binary pulsars and the Higgs Boson. You comparison to What rock is this? makes no sense.

I just realized those are the statistics for Space SE, here in Astronomy I've also cast an additional 402 close votes, raised 167 helpful flags and have edited 751 posts to improve their quality. So that's over 1100 close votes, not what one would expect for someone who doesn't "like closed questions, period" is it @DavidHammen?


text:
Pile-on down voting without a single comment explaining why or how to edit, is this how a site should work? How close was my guess?
The question Why isn't Eris considered a planet despite being the body of dominant mass? received three down votes in its first three hours, but with none of the down voters leaving any clues as to why, what the problem they perceive is, or how the post might be improved in their thinking.
Is this how a Stack Exchange site should work? Or should someone clue the OP in as to where they think the problem might lay?
I did not vote either way but I left a comment for the OP suggesting why I thought it might be happening, but I don't yet see a down-votable problem with the question myself, it's only a guess.
It's not actionable because I'm making behavioral estimations of the voters rather than actionable comments.
Question(s):

Is this how a site should work? Or when we are pile-on down voting should at least someone clue the OP in as to what might be down-votable and how the post can be improved in their opinion?
How close was my guess to the real reason(s)? Why are people down voting this question?

Thank you for coming up with it. My other question on the length of day of celestial bodies was also downvoted one time, with no apparent reason. I think it is because of my criticism of the 2006 planet definition. Not just here but generally people seem to be hated for criticizing it. There seems to be more to it than just whether Pluto is a planet or not.

@user30007 It is also possible that there are issues that have been addressed in other questions and answers here and so your question might be perceived as "re-litigating" the same issue.  Nonetheless comments should accompany at least some of the downvoting. We won't know until somebody steps up and says something actionable.

You're right but I have a strong feeling that I'm hated for the planethood case. A certain user on the stack exchange insulted me once for it and now I've poured oil into fire by stating that Eris must obviously still be a planet even if they stretch their definition.

@user30007 Since you feel that you've "poured oil into fire" and used a question post to push an agenda rather than to ask a question, I too will down vote. I'm glad we've figured out what's going oin.

It is a question on why Eris is excluded from planethood because if you stretch the definition so that Pluto wouldn't be a planet, then Eris obviously still must be a planet. I would say there is an agenda going on to not allow for any criticism of the 2006 definition which includes questions that may prove its weaknesses. Were you in Room 101 or something?

@user30007 This is Stack Exchange, it's not a place for criticism. The internet is full of places to do that, but SE is narrowly focused on good answers to on-topic questions. It just is not the proper site to make arguments or post positions.

Others have also done that.

@user30007 it's discouraged and people who keep doing it will get increasing levels pushback. It could be that SE can't provide you the level of contention that you'd like. There are plenty of other places to argue on the internet.

Mike G linked to this question in a comment to my meta question Can we make arguments that Pluto should be considered a planet off-topic?.

I suspected that I was one of those who downvoted without a comment. I was not. That is no longer the case. By the time user30007 had posted the question in question, I had had it up to here, and beyond, with that user. He or she had posted far too many questions and answers in extreme bad faith, so much so that I told the site to ban him or ban me. I should have downvoted the linked question at the time it was asked, sans comment. That "there are no bad questions" is fallacious. Some questions are asked in extremely bad faith.

If I was to guess why the downvoters downvoted, it's because user30007 is repeatedly bringing up the issue with little meaningful discussion coming of it and has garnered a bad reputation.
Examples of contributions criticising the IAU definition of a planet
1
2
3
It's a case of the boy who cried wolf. The user has repeatedly made an issue of it and now people are just ignoring and downvoting what they have to say.
This is in addition to the fact that some of the beliefs the user has are slightly controversial.

The 2006 definition is based on the big bang and evolution theory ("hydrostatic equilibirum" and that "Neptune forced Pluto's orbit") rather than Creation science. I'm sure that the orbits in our planetary system didn't change since Creation about 6,000 years ago. So the definition is evolution-biased. Dr Stern instead is speaking of tri-axial ellipsoids rather than "bodies in hydrostatic equilibirum". What a planet is and isn't is objective and not to be decided by democratic voting (and most of the IAU were anyway absent during the notorious voting)

1.
Is this how the site should work? Probably not, but in this case, it's more based on context. If a user is believed to repeatedly ignore the feedback/answers provided, why should the other users be expected to engage with them constructively?

The stack exchange doesn't force a liberal point of view. There's nothing "controversial" on Creation science. It confirms Scripture the word of God. Of course my statement wasn't fully correct because Earth was created first and the other planets and stars on the fourth day. So our planetary system surely didn't change since the fourth day of Creation week essentially.

@user30007 You have a right to believe that and associate with others who do, but this community is rather committed to concepts which can be tested by experiment or observation.

I have now added a comment explaining my downvote.
When I receive a downvote, I try to learn from it.
That's easier if a reason is offered, but sometimes I don't get one. That's life.
This site is for learning and teaching, not for influencing opinion.
The distinction between major, dwarf, and minor planets would be nice to clarify, but the people who could do so are unlikely to read a discussion here.
The definition tag originally on this question hinted at such an agenda, which subsequent questions appeared to confirm.
I hoped David Hammen's vehement yet learned comments here and answer here would put the matter to rest, but no such luck.
These comments may not have helped.
I bear no malice toward user30007; I would like to see more posts from them on other topics.
The physical properties and dynamical history of Eris are far more interesting to me than its size classification.
Several scientists and science writers have expressed similar views about Pluto.

Mr Hammen obviously is a radical liberal who insulted me directly or indirectly some times and didn't try to lead a contructive debate on planethood any longer.

@user30007 Sorry you had a negative interaction. If you seek extended debate, this site is not a good fit.

@user30007 Stack Exchange is not for debating. As mentioned above, it's "...not for influencing opinion."

I think there  might be two possible reasons for the downvotes. I am, however, not a psychologist, so these are just my guesses.

The topic has been discussed before often enough. Some people are "fed up" with discussions about the definition of a "Planet" and might think that this question has been answered before on SE or the information is easy to find elsewhere.
In that case it would, of course, be better to point others to that answer. Either by linking to the duplicate or just writing a short answer.
The tone of the question was seen as inappropriate. Formulations like "these guys" or "anti-Plutoers" might be seen as derogatory or as a personal attack. And instead of pointing that out or maybe suggesting an editing, people just gave a downvote.

In both cases, I would say, just downvoting the question without a clear reason is not how SE should operate and this is a symptom of lazy users. And therefore something one has to live with.

"These guys" was not meant to be insulting in any way. "Anti-Plutoers" is a name that the Eris discoverer, proud 2006-definition-proponent and self-proclaimed Pluto-demoter Michael Brown surely would love. He calls himself even worse on Twitter (I won't tell you).

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

sort: votes


text:
How to use the tags specific-tag and tagging tags here in meta? Do we need all of them?
I've tagged I think that we have no good tags for solar-system-evolution or asteroid-formation or asteroid-evolution. Should we? with tags, specific-tag and tagging because I don't know which ones to use and none of them have any guidance.
Interestingly, mine is the only question tagged with tagging though I do not think I've just created it. Usually tags with no questions fade from view in a day or so, no?
Question: Anyway, how shall we use all of these tags, do we need all of them, should some be combined?

Some or all of these may be auto-generated meta tags.

I think they are suggestions of helpful tags for the site. It'd be nice if they had more clarity, but I think they're left general so each site can define them as necessary.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Strategy for getting the best answer(s) to my question about electron-multiplying CCDs?
How often are electron-multiplying CCDs used in telescope focal planes? Will Nancy Grace Roman be the first use in a space telescope? has been around almost two months but so far there are no answers in sight.
I've given it a bump and the next step is a bounty.
But if I bounty now, when the bounty expires I think the question will be too old to migrate to Space Exploration SE.
But it's not off-topic here so maybe migration is not an option to begin with.
I wish we had some kind of cross-site visibility option!
Question: Strategy for getting the best answer(s) to my question about electron-multiplying CCDs?

Bounty?
Try to close it and request for migration?
Sit tight?
Advertise?


text:
Tag definitions for solar-flare and solar-storm?
The solar-storm tag has 8 questions and no usage guidance.
The solar-flare tag has 32 questions and the following guidance:

Questions regarding a sudden brightness increase due to the release of magnetic energy from the sun.

which seems incomplete.
Questions:

What would be better usage advice for the solar flare tag be?
What would usage advice be for the solar storm tag be?


text:
high-energy-astrophysics tag usage guideline, could this be improved?
There is a proposed edit to provide users with the following guideline when choosing the high-energy-astrophysics tag. This is the message that would pop up when someone started typing "high-ener..."

Questions touching the field of elementary particle physics, which require high energies to be studied. Use this tag if you are asking about quarks, gluons, mesons, hadrons, leptons, etc.

Does this do a good job of advising users when to use their tag? Could a better one be formulated?
I chose to reject the edit because I felt there should be more emphasis on high as opposed to low energy, and less emphasis on naming particles. Questions about electrons are not necessarily about high energy astrophysics just because electrons are leptons.
How do others feel?

When writing the above mentioned words for [tag:high-energy-astrophysics], I vividly remembered my courses on nuclear astrophysics where our professor kept stretching that the high depends on whom you ask. Atomic physicists have a different definition than nuclear physicists than string theoretician, obviously. I tried to be as general as possible.

The reason for naming the particles was to avoid tags for all different particles. [tag:neutrinos] is an example for a particle-based tag, but should we eventually have tags for all particles?

@B--rian I can understand the "how high?" debate, but shouldn't "energy" at least appear somewhere in the excerpt as well? It's not that leptons are involved per se, it's that a high energy process produced particles of types and/or energies that aren't observed otherwise, no?


text:
Should we delete this closed, cross-posted Spaceflight question and get rid of the Kerbal Space Program tag at the same time?
Multiple aerobraking from 2016 was closed as off-topic but the OP reposted the same question in Space SE before it could be migrated.
It was very well received there and has several good answers, including a clone of the answer here.
Since questions about heat shields for reentry are off-topic here and there's nothing here that's not also there in Space SE, I think this should just be removed.
Why?

While it is currently closed, there's always the danger of getting five re-open votes (which is one of the reasons why we stress close/migration over reposting)
The question is now attracting low-quality tags.kerbal-space-program has only three questions counting this one. In addition to deleting this post (ideally by first asking the answer author to delete their answer) we should also get rid of the rocket ship game tag. While universe-sandbox can simulate and illustrate serious serious Astronomical phenomenon, the KSP game really can't. It's literally little green aliens flying around in models that keep fall apart and blowing up.

Question: Should we delete this closed, cross-posted Spaceflight question and get rid of the Kerbal Space Program tag at the same time?

I went ahead and removed it.

I've just gone ahead and removed the other two instances of the KSP tag.


text:
Tag usage guidelines are being copy/pasted with WIkipedia definitions insensitive to astronomical context and unhelpful when needed most
There have been several tag Wiki and Wiki excerpt edits in the last half-day that appear to be copy/pasted from Wikipedia without regard to the astronomical context of the terms.
I've voted to reject several and I advise others to do so as well to put a speedy if at least temporary hold on this activity until it's reviewed/discussed here.
The reason that the Wiki and excerpt exist are to provide usage guidelines for users deciding how to tag their question. They start typing a tag's name and the excerpt appears. What it's supposed to do is to help them decide if this tag belongs on their question in this site, not to give a general or humorous definition for general information or entertainment.

Usage guidance, also known as a tag wiki excerpt, is a short blurb that describes when and why a tag should be used on this site specifically.

These rejections were on things like

doppler-effect
sky-survey
interferometry
comets
angular-resolution
particles

Enthusiasm is wonderful, but let's make sure each change improves the function of what's being changed!

Just to disclose: It was me who made those edits. I admit that parts are coming from wikipedia, but mostly only the "long" definition part of the tag page. For the "usage guide" I tried my best to improve the ease of tagging correctly, and I did think about whether or not the formulation is suitable for astronomy.

@B--rian I really like your use of meta questions for tagging conundrums, maybe for some of these they can be proposed here first.

I am happy to discuss the recent tag suggestions, but I just thought that having at least some somewhat reasonable hint for a tag is better than not having any.

@B--rian if the tag has been around for a year or three without it, and you haven't discovered it appearing on the wrong questions, then it is not in dire need of a new usage guideline. Better to get some new ones right than to add a whole bunch that are sub-optimal I think.Your Wiki Excerpt for Comet was almost not even serious. In fact there is a real issue between comets and asteroids: Do astronomers generally agree that the distinction between comets and asteroids is not so clear? WIkipedia is not always trustworthy and accurate.

Point taken about [tag:comets].

@B--rian I, too, appreciate the enthusiasm, but please do not copy anything from Wikipedia into tag excerpts or wikis in whole or in part.

For that matter, the excerpts should never be copied from elsewhere, or even quoted really since they are too brief to properly cite quotes. And the wiki is not really for general information about the topic, but for more information about the tag and related tags, so it's not really helpful to borrow much information from elsewhere there either.

@B--rian I've just asked high-energy-astrophysics tag usage guideline, could this be improved? I still think that you are missing the whole point of the function that Wiki excerpts should serve and their target audience.

@uhoh Thanks for asking on Meta. About the user guidance, I am trying to be both precise and concise about the usage of the tag, defining the tag. In the wiki excerpts, I tried to follow what I have seen on many stackoverflow- tag definitions.

@uhoh Speaking about what the purpose of the Wiki-part of a tag, let's have a look at the tag html on stackoverflow, https://stackoverflow.com/tags/html/info - there (and for many, many other tags) I find a lengthy discussion about what HTML is, etc. but nothing about where to use the tag or where not to use the tag. If I understand you correctly, that is what you are missing in my long-text parts for each tag, correct?

@uhoh I quoted the html tag above since this is an example for an entry, I did not find too useful - do we agree on that matter? Differently put - could you please tell me a tag or two where you find both user guidance and wiki-part well written?

@B--rian I never look at the Wikis and i think most people don't, but question-askers and editors constantly see the excerpts when choosing or changing tags, so let's discuss those. It doesn't matter if they are "well written", what matters if they function well; if they suit their purpose. For example traffic signs along a highway must be short and unambiguous and allow users to quickly decide on a course of action. It matters much less if they are well written apart from that. ROAD NARROWS, SLOW AHEAD, DEAR XING...

@B--rian Here is an example (on Space Exploration) where the tag wiki is well-written: https://space.stackexchange.com/tags/spacex/info

@B--rian I have rejected as "causes harm" several of your very recent Wiki excerpt proposals. The are simply unhelpful and confusing. As mentioned above, the excerpts are the things that askers and editors see when deciding which tags to add or remove from questions. They must be very clear and concise and actionable. Many of yours are vague, insensitive to the context of Astronomy or this site, and ambiguous. "the loudness of an object" and "sudden bright lights of different kind" for example.

@uhoh I am sorry to hear that you consider that it "causes harm" - I did not have any bad intentions, plus I did try hard to "be clear and concise and actionable", just as in the tag mentioned by called2voyage. Maybe I stick to much to the paradigm that "a definition should not contain the word which it defines"?

@B--rian here is a suggestion. For the full Wiki's go ahead and keep doing what you are doing. They seem pretty good and considered, and since they are rarely used they are less contentious. But for the excerpts, why not at first leave them blank and collect say five at a time into meta questions, "I've finished the Wikis for V, W, X, Y and Z, now what are good excerpts?. Then post an answer as a community Wiki answer, and paste your five candidate excerpts. Then let others comment and edit until some consensus has been achieved.

@B--rian since the community directly benefits/suffers from good/bad excerpts, why not open them up to discussion. From the looks of things you enjoy the full Wikis, and the excerpts seem like rushed afterthoughts, so no need to do them right away or at the same time as the full wikis.


text:
Do we need a tag for merging? I struggled to find something suitable for supermassive black hole mergers in galaxy collisions
I wanted to add a tag like black-hole-merger to How do we know that supermassive black holes can gain mass by means other than merging with other supermassive black holes? but couldn't find anything close.
Considering the number of gravitational wave questions we have and the ever-expanding observational capabilities of current and future devices, mergers are going to be regularly posted questions.
Would black-hole-merger or mergers or merging-events or something similar be a good idea? Should it be specific to a pair of black holes? What about a black hole/neutron star or two neutron star merger?

I think a general merger tag would be useful.

I am wondering in how far the [tag:collision]-tag is overlapping here.

@B--rian for questions also tagged black-hole, very little.

@B--rian I've just asked What is the difference between the terms collision and merger? How are they used differently in Astronomy? I think that the collision that formed Earth's Moon and two black holes or neutron stars or plain-old stars spiraling in to each other eventually forming one object are too different to share the same tag. I've been "proactive" and created the merger tag.

@B--rian I think that once we can articulate the difference I can do a retagging campaign and tidy things up, but I'm open to arguments to the contrary.


text:
Why does SE hide the "stellar-dynamics" tag from us when we type "stella..." and leave a blank spot instead? ("stellar..." behaves differently)
When looking for the stellar-dynamics tag in the autocomplete box after stellar-astrophysics had been selected, the suggested tags concealed it from me for "stell..." and "stella...", choosing instead to leave a blank space.
Only when "stellar..." was entered did it appear, seemingly because "constellation" was now not an option.
Is the withholding of this tag from visibility, and instead leaving a blank spot:

"by design"?
the most desirable behavior?
workaround-able?

Third time's a charm:

potentially related in Space SE meta: I don't understand why - by design - “ion-thruster” tag remains hidden when I start typing “ion…”

From a support perspective, it seems the answer to this is roughly the same as the answer to your question over at Space SE. It's prioritizing tags with higher usage that match (regardless of how close of a match they are). I don't think there's room for a better support answer. Since your problem spans two sites, it may be time for a feature request over at Meta SE.

@called2voyage yes perhaps the time as come, I'm less scared of the main meta these days :-)

My question is about the "hiding" rather than the order of prioritization. I'll have to figure out how to ask in a positive way, perhaps just ask about how the algorithm works exactly, mentioning that I got interested because some tags didn't appear as I'd initially expected they should. I'm not sure I'm up to suggesting that something be changed unless I can make a really good case for it. Perhaps I can assemble more examples. I'll give it some thought.

But the hiding is already addressed at your linked discussion. It's because under certain conditions the SE tag suggestions only shows the top five results: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/273448/why-isnt-the-tag-autocompletion-suggesting-6-tags-while-they-are-at-least-6-ava

@called2voyage okay I'll "dig in" tomorrow and see if I can wrap my head around it.


text:
Should we link to the PDF or to the abstract or source page for scholarly references? Does it matter which?
We strongly discourage link-only answers for several reasons, one of which is that if/when the link breaks or rots the answer becomes useless and future readers are left with a non-answer.
In this Space SE answer (using because it's a good and recent example) there are three scholarly articles cited. The OP linked to PDFs, I modified the links to make them the source/abstract page rather than the PDF, and the OP changed them back to the PDF links again.
I'm asking this question here because there are more users familiar with linking to scholarly papers here than there, and where this is done in answers a lot more frequently.
Question: Should we link to the PDF or to the abstract or source page for scholarly references?

Original iinks:

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/pdf/1986CeMec..39..365C
http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1988CeMec..43..127J&defaultprint=YES&filetype=.pdf
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/911/1/012018/pdf

My suggested (and rejected) alternatives:

https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1986CeMec..39..365C/abstract
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1988CeMec..43..127J
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/911/1/012018

We have a FAQ on this over on Physics: https://physics.meta.stackexchange.com/q/11400/123208 (IMHO, it should be the policy network-wide to link to abstracts rather than directly to PDFs).

I'm usually in favor of linking to the abstract rather than the pdf. On Stack Exchange, chances are good that unless someone is looking for a figure (which should arguably just be in the answer), they're unlikely to read the entire paper; therefore, sending them directly there seems like overkill. Plus, abstracts can provide additional useful information about the paper without effectively shoving an entire wall of text in your face - links to other versions, papers that cited the paper, other ways to view it, etc.
For what it's worth, this is considered good practice among the academics I work with for basically those reasons - there was recently a micro discussion about the same issue. Etiquette might differ among other groups - this is only my corner of a corner of the scientific community - but I was raised, so to speak, on linking to abstracts rather than pdfs.

How do you feel about some PDFs being large and some readers worldwide having limited mobile data plans? Should that be a consideration as well?

@uhoh I agree with that logic as well, yes.


text:
Am I a sea lion?
I've been told that I am sealioning.
From my perspective this answer is general screen shots and a bit of block quoted text tangentially related to the topic, but in no way addresses the question. The last line:

Nothing will flow to /dev/null.

makes no sense at all to me at least.
I first added the comment:

I don't see your math. These are just pasted images. There will ultimately be 7,000 SKA-mid dishes, and each dish will have its own fiber. Have you calculated that?

and then after ~five days with no improvement, I voted to delete and left a second comment:

Question asks for a comparison of two numbers and asks which is larger. That wasn't even attempted here. I'm voting for this to be deleted as it doesn't attempt to answer the question.

I was told:

The comments, that were deleted to clean up your question, addressed that. Now you are Sealioning. You've done that previously and I've complained about it directly to you, thinking that you might have changed I elected to give you another chance. Vote or flag as you wish.

Am I really sealioning here?

I can't say that I'm particularly familiar with the concept and practice of sealioning, but from what I can tell, no, your comments were not unreasonable. They seem to me to be sincere enough, and they're not rude. Your comments appeared constructive to me - and I hope that most folks can agree on that. Asking for clarification on an answer is never inappropriate.
I suppose I can see how Rob might have been a bit annoyed by the situation (and I'd absolutely welcome his perspective on the matter), perhaps partly by the edit/rollback disagreement between the two of you. Also, I can see how your second comment could have come across as a bit harsh or even brusque ("That wasn't even attempted here" does stand out to me), and I wonder if alternate wordings might have been better. That said, again, as I understand the definition of "sealioning", I don't believe this is an example.
As for the answer itself . . . well, as I wrote in a comment of my own, I believe it would strongly benefit from the deletion of much of the copied (though I believe quite properly attributed) images and text. The right answer to your question might be buried in there, buuuuut . . . well, it's buried, and I'm not sure it's even there. Perhaps this is a stylistic view on my part - while I used to quote sources a lot, now I rarely do - but the fact that you also couldn't see an answer in it might be telling.
The comments Rob wrote (and subsequently deleted, and referenced in their recent comment) do seem to have held some relevant information, I would recommend that they include that information in their answer, if they can.
I've deleted the comments (the ones you quote in your question) below the answer that called out specific behavior; they're not really serving any purpose, and one was a bit belligerent/rude. I've also written a comment asking people to drop the matter, and suggesting that Rob edit the answer. If not, it might end up deleted.


text:
What does "This RSS feed URL is deprecated" mean in chat?
I had the Observatory chat window open and when I looked at it I saw four copies of the message

This RSS feed URL is deprecated

What does this mean? The link in the messages is just https://news.google.com/news.

We had a Google News feed for Astronomy set up, but it appears to be no longer functional. I'm removing the feed now.


text:
Would this question have been better to ask in Astronomy? Could it be split it into two? Something else?
I've asked the question What might the first deep space telescope using the Sun or Jupiter as a gravitational lens be like? in Space Exploration SE. I chose that site because it involves propulsion and coordination of possibly an array of space telescopes. I left a message in The Observatory (chat) as well as a "heads-up" to whomever actually checks there.
But the question also about telescope instrumentation, data analysis, and image reconstruction from a gravitational lens which do not work the same as "normal" lenses (deflection varies as $r^{-1}$ rather than $r$).
I wonder, should I split this into two, and ask the imaging part here? Or perhaps just ask an open-ed up, basic question about image reconstruction from gravitational lenses here instead? (do algorithms exist, how hard would it be, what would need to be measured, etc.)

Your question there seems well-received. I would leave it as is, and if you would like, ask a new question here tailored to this community to gather further detail.


text:
Should this question be reopened or a new and improved version of the question posted?
The question Do stars come on like LEDs or wick lamps? was closed as duplicate of Timescale of ignition of a protostar?.
A comment says

Actually, it's not the same question, because this question is about how the star "turns on" like a light, and exhibits confusion between that and the onset of fusion-- which is completely different. Fusion onset does not change the luminosity of a star, it merely allows the star to achieve equilibrium and a more gradual evolution rate. So this should be emphasized in the answer to this question-- regardless of the timescale for fusion to begin, the star is already bright.

There is now a vote to reopen and I'd thought about clicking "edit and reopen" but the question is by an unregistered user who has not been active since the moment the question was posted on May 12 2019.
In this particular case is it better to make a substantial edit and vote to reopen with the risk that a good answer will never be accepted, or to instead for someone (ideally the first reopen voter) to post a new question?

In this case since it is a year old and the user appears to be no longer with us, I would advise strongly against making substantial edits to the question. If you would like to reopen, please cast your vote based upon the current form of the question.


text:
Should we update definitions and remove the 100 GHz hard limits on radio astronomy related tags?
I just noticed that some of the following tag definitions include upper limits on frequency:

radio: Questions about the part of the electromagnetic spectrum between 10 MHz and 100 GHz.
radio-telescope: Questions related to the instruments used to perform observations in the radio frequency range (10 MHz to 100 GHz)
radio-astronomy: Questions about observation performed in the radio frequency range of the electromagnetic spectrum (between 10 MHz and 100 GHz).

I've just asked Is there work underway to push the long baseline capabilities of the Event Horizon Telescope to sub-millimeter wavelengths? which links to How does ALMA produce stable, mutually coherent ~THz local oscillators for all of their dishes?.
Apparently per the Tag Wiki excerpts my questions are not about radio-astronomy, radio-telescopes or radio because they are about frequencies above 100 GHz.
Questions:

Should we update those definitions and remove the 100 GHz hard limits?
Considering that these days astronomers will comfortably use the word "light" in the context of what has been traditionally called radio astronomy and there is instrumental capability on Earth or in space at so many points in the radio, millimeter wave, far infrared and infrared realms, how should tags for these best be distinguished going forward?
What is the radio tag for? Is it redundant?

radio by itself is useful in a narrow set of cases. For example, questions about theory (not observation) that discuss radio emissions. Since observation wouldn't be part of the question, radio-astronomy wouldn't really apply.

@called2voyage I see, I'm not sure if radio-astronomy applies to How do we know that comets definitely mase and not just fluoresce? or not, so I've added both tags, and I've removed radio from Is there work underway to push the long baseline capabilities of the Event Horizon Telescope to sub-millimeter wavelengths?

@called2voyage see this comment does this ring a bell?

It looks like from James K's analysis that the radio tag is not used on any questions that really need it right now, so I agree with his assessment that we could just discard it. If we need it in the future for the cases I mentioned above, we could always create it.

@called2voyage oh goodness, that's the conversation I was looking for! Yikes, thanks, etc.

update: I checked and discovered that following this answer there's been an unmentioned edit to the two tags with frequency specifications, so I'm mentioning it now.

Should we update definitions and remove the 100 GHz hard limits on radio astronomy related tags?

Yes
There are plenty of dishes that focus into waveguides or horns that feed antennas connected to electronic amplifiers using transistor amplifiers connected to heterodyne down-conversion with balanced mixers and then analog-to-digital conversion, where intensity images are produced by interference implemented mathematically in a computer (rather than in wavefronts incident on material producing intensity signals in the form of electrons (CCDs) or phonons (bolometers)) which work up to circa 1,000 GHz, so the 100 GHz limit is obviously wrong!
But what's a better definition?
Hmm...
to go further I've just asked What's the highest frequency that's been imaged by a radio telescope?

Absorption by the atmosphere increases from 100GHz to 1Thz, which can be partially avoided by putting telescopes at high, dry places.
But any line is going to be arbitrary. I don't see any real benefit in writing any particular number.  "radio" should be synonymous with "radio astronomy" (I don't care which way the synonym works, but there are 13 [radio] questions and [178] radio astronomy ones) And the hard limits should just be removed to leave:

Questions about observation performed in the radio frequency range of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Of the 13 questions tagged "radio", 12 are about radio astronomy, and one is a misplaced space exploration question "what was the transmission time of Mars insight probe"
I may be bold.

Okay I guess we agree that specifying a frequency is not a good idea. About the radio tag, I remember having a conversation recently about it with someone (one of the mods?) but I can't find it now. It may have been in association with How do we know that comets definitely mase and not just fluoresce? I felt it was redundant but the other conversant felt it had a narrow but unique space and was useful as a separate tag. Maybe there's a (now invisible) chat about it?

I don't think that is enough reason to keep the tag.  You could argue that "astronomy" is redundant in "radio-astronomy" as all questions but the weighting (178 - 13) makes it easier to keep radio astronomy.  wrt comets masing, cometary masars are known through radio telescopes, so I see no issue with that being tagged "radio astronomy".

Perhaps then everyone is in agreement. I found the conversation I mentioned and it was right up there under my question.


text:
Is it possible to recover the text from my polarization-dependent apodization question about CHIME?
Canada's CHIME radio telescope is a unique design which is discussed at some length in this answer. I a comment below the question there I link to a question (presumably of mine) titled How does Canada's radiotelescope CHIME manage polarization-dependent apodization of the fast f/0.25 optics? but the link is now broke. I think that suggests the question had zero votes (or at least no up votes) and perhaps little activity so some SE bot deleted it. Not checking my recently deleted questions frequently enough, it eventually moved beyond my personal event horizon.
Is there any way to recover this question or at least the text thereof, perhaps with moderator help? I promise to spell "radio telescope" as two words this time!

You should be able to see it, even though it has been roomba'ed as you thought. If you have a link, you can always see your own deleted posts, and we both have enough reputation to see all deleted posts (as long as we have a link to it).
Anyway, the link is working for me, so I saved the body of the question as a GitHub gist now.

Thanks for your speedy reply and help! Hmm... this is what I see: https://i.sstatic.net/bdMse.png and now that I look more carefully at that screen (beyond the big "404" I see that it says "for reasons of moderation" which now has me more puzzled. Maybe Github is not the right place to post the text until we find out more about why it was deleted? (I've grabbed the text, thank you!) Since you can see the question, can you double-check the deletion reason; was it in fact roomba'ed like I guessed it was, or is there some other reason given?

That screenshot shows you're not logged in, which explains why you cannot see the deleted question. The banner says 'automatically deleted by Community', hence I blame Roomba.

Oh, just a sec, ya this browser does that... YES, it's this stupid browser that makes me re-log in each time I right-click and open a link in a new tab. Yes I can see it now!! @@ It was roomba'ed and I've now given it a reopen vote. Hopefully it will get a few more so I can put a nice bounty on it. Thanks!

update: ha! It was reopened, I added a bounty, and it's been re-roomba'ed again! :-D Roomba'ed as abandoned question was found, undeleted, bountied, and then was re-roomba'ed all within one day, is this "by design" behavior?


text:
What is the best way to tag questions about Xuntian, the Chinese Survey Space Telescope?
What is the best tag for China's Xuntian, i.e. the Chinese Survey Space Telescope?
It's schedule to be launched this year in the Tiangong space station orbit (but phased away from it) and the questions here have already begun.

How will China's Xuntian space telescope use its Terahertz capability? THz Spectroscopy? Imaging? Something else?
Details on the telescope(s) on the Chinese Space Station 天和

For me, an important feature of tags is that they should appear as autocomplete options when people start typing the words they think of, so typing either "Xuntian" or "Chinese" should ideally make the tag appear, with a name that makes it obvious.
One option is of course xuntian-chinese-survey-space-telescope but there may or may not be issues of character count.
Question: What is the best way to tag questions about Xuntian, the Chinese Survey Space Telescope?

Tag it with [csst], as this tag already exists.
We have tags for specific telescopes that use the name of the telescope or mission:  Eg [gaia] or [chandra].  Hubble is treated differently, as [hubble-telescope] probably to disambiguate from Edwin Hubble.
You may create tag synonyms [xuntian] and [chinese-survey-space-telescope] if you have a score of 5 or more on the [csst] tag.    Both fit in the 35-character limit. But this is probably jumping the gun. Nobody has the required score yet, and this isn't likely to attract hundreds of questions that would need to manually retagged, so let's not overthink this.

Thanks, sounds good! I'm just curious; is there any downside to being proactive about synonymization?  I have a giant blind spot when it comes to "tagging theory"; the reason I suggested it is that some folks may not start typing x..u..n... and failing to see an autocomplete may start a new tag like csst or chinese... and then we have questions split over two tags that someone has to corral back together later. Where's the down side to being proactive and avoiding that scenario? Why should proactivity and foward-thinking behavior be discouraged?

The S.E. model of tags makes creating synonyms quite hard.  Tags are a big part of Stack Overflow, but they less significant on quieter sites.  In terms of numbers, we have 6 questions tagged [chandra] I'd expect a similar number about xuntian

...not counting the questions that get mistagged. Does synonymization much of an intrinsic cost that makes it "expensive" to use them for anything except tags with a large number of questions? Isn't tracking down and fixing mis-tagged questions ex post facto more work than avoiding it in cases where the helpful synonyms (for autocomplete) are pretty easy to identify (i.e. ounce of prevention...)?

I don't disagree, feel free to propose the synonym, if you want to.  I won't judge you if you don't

I've made some edits, because I noticed that csst already exists.  Also to mention the score 5 or higher on a tag that is required even to propose a synonym.


text:
We've got at least 26 generic i.imgur.com image links that might break on May 15, 2023; should/could they be updated to i.stack.imgur.com?
Below the Math SE meta question Imgur's "old, unused, and inactive content"

Imgur plans to change its Terms of Service on May 15, 2023. Part of this will be the removal of "old, unused, and inactive content".
Many of the images on Stack Exchange have imgur links. What will happen to those?

a comment says:

We have 1,970 generic imgur images subject to this (i.e. which don't don't use SE's corporate stack interface stack.imgur.com).

Astronomy SE has 26 posts with generic i.imgur.com links, many are excellent, well received answers.
Question: We've got at least 26 generic i.imgur.com image links that might break on May 15, 2023; should/could they be updated to i.stack.imgur.com? Is there a way to update or convert these without necessarily bumping all to the active queue (not that that would be a bad thing necessarily)

also asked in space

Final Update (29-05-2023): Updated the links
Thank you for writing this. I was about the write the same thing yesterday until my computer started to act weird.
There are two ways we can proceed:

Making a meta post and sharing the images there
Fixing the posts manually

The former method is followed where the number of posts is too many (ELU meta followed this approach) while latter method can be followed where number of such posts is not that many (or) the traffic is way less (Anime & Manga meta followed this approach). Since the number of posts is not too many, we can proceed with approach #2 and if you noticed, I have already started this activity although I am doing it in batches to avoid spamming the homepage.
I have used this query which returned 39 posts. I invite everyone to help fix the remaining posts (active owner of the posts can make the changes -- there are two posts from @uhoh and 7 posts from our mod @HDE 226868). Please update the list here once it is done.
Posts fixed by me:

Is this photocomposition of Andromeda's galaxy and the Moon accurate?
How to deal with shifting CCD bias (zero exposure) levels?
Why aren't concentrated solar power plants use for astronomical observations of some type?
Why can't moon light (reflected sun light) turn the sky blue?
Is it possible for planetary rings to be perpendicular (or near perpendicular) to the planet's orbit around the host star?
Why does this twilight sky flat field have a grid of dark pixels?
Ionization Fraction of Helium in alternate, He dominated early universe
What do these coordinates mean: MW - VP101 3° 12' 43.2'' S 5° 12' 39.6'' W?
"What was that spot in the sky?" - How to identify satellites
Why did they decide to hit Dimorphos in the retrograde direction rather than prograde; was it a "coin-toss" or were there implications for observing?
If light has no mass, why is it affected by gravity?
What caused the “rake marks” in moon photos?
Code for getting the pixel coordinates of an object with known RA DEC not working
Exoplanet radius density relation according to NASA exoplanet archive
Is there a significant temperature difference on the moon from apogee to perigee or vice-versa?
On a log-log plot of surface gravity to planet mass, what is the meaning of the y-intercept?
Does the earth spiral around the sun's movement/motion path? (non available Imgur images were removed)

Below posts couldn't be fixed due to Image/GIF too large

Does the relative motion between planets other than Venus and Earth form shapes such as the Flower of Venus?
What is this cluster of light trails captured on long exposure images?

Below posts wasn't fixed due to discrepancy in the images (Imgur hyperlinks didn't coincided with the stack images) or it is embedded text hyperlinks:

Problem with Dobsonian reflector telescope
Why don't we have 2 Summers and 2 Winters?
Exactly how elliptical is Mercury's orbit, visually, without exaggeration?
How does gravity affect a physical clock?
2017 Eclipse intersection with I-95
How much of carbon, sodium, silicon, and magnesium does the Sun have?
Rendering asteroid orientation as seen from Earth


text:
One tag for LIGO, Virgo and KAGRA or three, or none?
We have

ligo: 14 questions

Questions about the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), a large-scale physics experiment and observatory to detect cosmic gravitational waves.

but nothing for the two other gravitational wave detectors on Earth

Virgo
KAGRA

nor the observational/instrumentational collaboration of all three.
What's a good way to address these three related observatories with tagging? One? Three? None, and how to be proactive in our thinking considering that space-based gravitational wave detectors may come on line and in some cases work together with these Earth-based observatories in the future? (e.g. LISA and/or DECIGO)

I suggest using the gravitational-wave-astronomy tag that hasn't really caught on yet. It seems to capture the case where the topic involves collaboration quite well.

so for example [gravitational-wave-astronomy] for questions involving any/all GW observatories, measurements and data analysis/reduction, and [gravitational-waves] for the phenomenon itself (e.g. how they occur and propagate) and sort-of a moratorium on tags for individual GW observatories? I think that can work. We have tags for "polyglots" like Hubble and JWST because they are so prolific and different and have such a diversity of applications goodies inside and [space-telescope] for all the rest but I agree one tag might be enough.

If in five years someone wanted to look for LISA they can search "[gravitational-wave-astronomy] lisa is:question". But doing this will require going through 164 questions currently tagged [gravitational-waves] and deciding which should have [gravitational-wave-astronomy], which will be a retagging campaign similar to this one. If this seems to be a solution others agree with I can propose a new question along that line describing the "algorithm" to decide which gets which, and if folks then agree again I can volunteer to do it.

@uhoh Yes, that's what I had in mind. Thanks for spelling that out.


text:
Is insta-closing of potential duplicates always the best way? In low Q-rate sites? Is there something to be said for slow-closing or eventual closing?
Constellation search from April 22 2007 received three good answers before it was correctly closed as duplicate to our canonical Where can I find the positions of the planets, stars, moons, artificial satellites, etc. and visualize them? which was cultivated and cared-for by the late @user21.
Two of the three answers there are not found in the canonical answer (in-the-sky.org, skyandtelescope.org); we might not have found that out had that question been closed earlier, the Sky and Telescope answer was added only 40 minutes before the insta-close.
Closing as duplicate is a very important tool as it directs future readers to answers they should see, I'm just asking about the speed.
The Sky and Telescope answer is the first post from a new answer, the only up vote the've received is mine, and only because I stopped by to check on the question. Had the question been given another day or two before closing, perhaps by letting the community do it, they might have picked up another vote or two.
New users are a low question rate SE site's life blood. They are to be encouraged and nurtured.
To review:

had closing been only ~40 minutes earlier we would have lost a valuable answer not found in the duplicate
had closing been a day or two later, a new user may have received some precious first up votes for that new and valuable answer.
Even if they go and add it to the community wiki of the duplicate, they can't receive up votes, and would be discouraged from posting a separate answer where they could.

Question: Is insta-closing of potential duplicates always the best way? In low Q-rate sites? Is there something to be said for slow-closing or eventual closing?

note: at some point those two answers should be added to the duplicate's community Wiki.

When closed because of duplicate, a question has a clear link to the original question:
This question already has answers here:

[Link to original question]

So had he came after closure, the 'Sky and Telescope user' would still have been able to post his answer, but under the original question, which is actually better. After all, it is the goal of closing duplicate questions:

The fundamental goal of closing duplicate questions is to help people find the right answer by getting all of those answers in one place.

Once posted there, his answer could have get upvotes forever, and there would be no need for moving the content from one question to the other. So all in all, I don't really the issue of fast-closing, as long as there is a clear link to the question where answers belong.

You've just written a generic explanation of how closing as duplicate works

I've mentioned that in this particular case the answer to the target for the dupe is a community wiki so no upvotes, and said it should be closed but just not so quickly, and explained why I think that. I don't think you've really addressed the question as written yet.

You mentioned you were concerned about the speed of closing, like if it was preventing people to answer. I explain how it does not prevent people from answering.

Also, if you ask specifically about duplicates of community wiki questions, maybe you should make it clearer? I understood your question as more general. (But it does not necessarily mean the question is badly asked; maybe I understood it badly.)

it has the specific question tag and the specific question is literally the first words of the first sentence and agrees it should eventually be closed.. The title "Is insta-closing...  always the best way? ...something to be said for slow-closing?" explains the question is about the rapidity rather than the inevitability.

It's not what I meant. Anyway, I told you my opinion: I don't see speed as an issue. Actually it would have been better to close faster: it would not have prevented anyone from answering, and the answers would have been posted at the right place.

I guess the difference is in the weight we put on the first experiences of new users. For long term health of an SE site and its community the "welcoming" policy can't be underestimated. To me questions are more than just photons, we shouldn't treat them identically.

I am just one member of the community, but in my opinion, closing questions for correct reasons quickly is always desirable even in the rare case that the duplicate linked question has a wiki answer. In my opinion, the risk of discouragement to new users is not a sufficiently good reason to delay closing clear duplicate questions.  As @uhoh notes above, the new answers now should to be migrated to the original duped question.
Also, I don't think this question was insta-closed.  It was closed about 17 hours after opening.  I try to be extra careful as a moderator when closing questions since we can close in a single vote. If the closure is ambiguous, I would prefer the community closes it with 5 votes.  In this case it appears that my closure was unilateral, but I hit the wrong button when first closing it, so I reopened and then closed it correctly as a dupe.  There were several votes for closure prior to my close vote.

Thanks for your answer! I'm always interested in exploring "Stack Exchange Theory" because SE works so incredibly well. I like to understand what makes it tick. When you say "...closing questions for correct reasons quickly is always desirable..." and "...not a sufficiently good reason to delay..." I'm left not understanding why quickly is so important? Also, my metric for "quickly" is anything that doesn't allow a post to go at least once around the Earth i.e. 24 hours giving most daily users a crack at answering and the OP a crack at responding when there's no substantial risk to the site.

I wish there was a "slow close" option for questions that don't particularly need a sub-24-hour insta-close. Something like "This question is scheduled for closing and therefore prevention of further answers in 3 days." Some examples of perfectly natural slow closes: What does "most of mathematics" mean? and Why is Sesame Street's Count von Count's favorite number 34,969? The Math SE community is quite mature and can self-slow closes where probably needed but answers should be allowed first.

Most SE site communities are not up to that level, so a slow-close or eventual-close vote option might be a great idea; it gets folks better used to the idea that some really need to be closed and answer posts prevented quickly, while others present no clear and present danger to the site, so answer-blocking isn't really needed.

no further thoughts on the reasons behind  "...closing questions for correct reasons quickly is always desirable..." and "...not a sufficiently good reason to delay..."? From  Stack Exchange Theory point of view there must be some underlying principle at work here.

I have a lot of thoughts but they are not coming out as very coherent when I write them down or edit a response.  My non-response to your comments is due to me being a bit out of my depth.

Yes I know exactly what you mean. So much of SE heritage comes from SO where the question rate has always been sky high. We have inherited a lot of principles and habits from SO, and so quick-closing is probably intuitive, instinctive or reflexive. So I've asked a hard question on purpose, we learn about not only "SE theory" but any theory by poking at it and challenging its premises.

If it should be closed, it should be closed. If it shouldn't be closed, it should not be closed. There is no sense in having something halfway in between. Either it should be answered or it should not - leaving it to receive only quick answers and then sealing it off helps nobody.


text:
Is "But really you would do better to ask your teacher. They are paid to answer this kind of question." in an answer the wrong message and anti-SE?
This answer to When can Moon occult Venus? feels to me to be the worst possible message. To me it looks like "you are wrong, you used the wrong number, here's the right number, and instead of thinking about it (as your teacher must have thought was a good idea) our seeking out advice in SE you should have pressed your teacher harder."
I think this was just plain bad in two ways:

To me it's clear that the teacher left the student with a challenge. That's great teaching! That's doing exactly what a teacher is paid to do!
Turning to Stack Exchange for assistance is excellent! There's a basic "homework question" policy in place here, we generally try to provide insight and advice how to look at a problem, and avoid just plain answering them.
This does the opposite. It just blurts out the answer without teaching anything (against our homework policy) and the only guidance seems to be 'you should not have asked here' after answering.

I've added another answer that provides guidance and insight how one can approach this whole class of synodic vs sidereal period problems, included links to several other related SE questions and answer where even more can be learned, and congratulated the OP for turning to Stack Exchange!
Question: Is "But really you would do better to ask your teacher. They are paid to answer this kind of question." in an answer the wrong message and anti-SE?
If we believe that SE is a good thing, why not promote good use of it at every turn?


text:
Should we add the eyepiece tag to all questions that are about eyepieces? Or instead delete it since tagging would be a hopeless, quixotic quest?
I've just asked How does eyepiece exit pupil diameter affect image clarity and viewing experience? and added the eyepiece tag. It turns out this is only the 2nd question to use this tag, the first was only several months ago.
The search eyepiece is:question currently returns 141 questions and a lot of these are squarely about eyepieces and are great candidates for this tag.
I estimate that roughly 50 questions are really about eyepieces, including those about Barlow lenses or image inversion prisms that would accompany an eyepiece.
The mature tags telescope, amateur-observing and optics all sort-of cover this class of question as well, but adding a specific eyepiece tag to questions specifically about eyepieces seems helpful to the extent that any tag is helpful.
Alternatively, if we don't add the tag to proper eyepiece questions, I think we should delete it for two reasons:

Tag hygiene: tags should be either healthy and useful or gone. Dead tags should be sent to the cornfield so they don't clutter or end up misused/misapplied.
An existing tag which is absent for many question for which it applies is deceptive, it can lead people to think we don't have many questions on that topic.

Question: Should we add the eyepiece tag to all questions that are about eyepieces? Or instead delete it since tagging would be a hopeless, quixotic quest?
I'm happy to go ahead and over the next several weeks add eyepiece to questions specifically about the eyepiece end of an amateur telescope (includes Barlow lens questions and those about eyepiece projection) using the usual 10 or 20 question per week retagging so as not to flood the active queue unduly.
But I just want to see what folks think first.

I say: go for it!

Voting on the question is currently +3/-0 and there's an affirmative comment with two upvotes as well.
If there are no further objections, I'll go ahead and start adding the eyepiece tag to the estimated 50 questions where it's appropriate. As usual I'll do it in smaller groups so as not to overwhelm the active queue.

I estimate that roughly 50 questions are really about eyepieces, including those about Barlow lenses or image inversion prisms that would accompany an eyepiece.

There will be a few about eyepiece projection and I think those can be included as well.


text:
"Just Google it" answers
I didn't notice anything that really leaned one way or the other on this, but let me know if this is redundant or irrelevant.
Should answers such as Jack R. Woods's answer on this question be permitted? What practical considerations are there for amateur observations of transiting exoplanets?
Google results change frequently, and also depend on where you are in the world and your search history, so I don't think this is a valid answer.  At the very least, hyperlinks ought to have been provided.
Alternatively, (although I don't this suggestion has any chance of actually being accepted) it would be nice to reduce (or remove) the points minimum required for commenting on answers.  In cases like above, it doesn't take a frequent contributor to realize that the answer is substandard.

In case anybody is wondering, it looks like the answer I referred to above has been deleted.  It said something along the lines of "Google _______" (with the blank filled in with the appropriate search term).

No, that post did not answer the question, and it has been deleted.
In regard to your question about changing the points. We can't change the points locally for our site, so that is technically a question for Meta Stack Exchange. I think some explanation is in order though. Stack Exchange sites are not really meant to be discussion boards, and so the comments are a secondary communication medium intended for use only to discuss changes to posts and then eventually be deleted. In practice, many comments often go on for a while without deletion, particularly where the comments are brief and do not result in much distraction from the subject matter.
In any case, new users are typically still learning the written rules and culture of the site, and in order to avoid the site turning into a forum Stack Exchange has implemented a reputation point limit for making comments. If you have an idea on how this situation can be improved, I highly recommend that you post a question about it on Meta Stack Exchange.

Thanks for the clear answer.  I suppose I should've realized that it's a Stack Exchange thing, but I guess I didn't think that through.  Is there already some policy against answers like that, though, which yield results that are subject to change?

@BenSandeen Not against all answers that yield results which are subject to change (though it is preferred that answers are not too time-dependent), but specifically against answers that rely on outside sources to answer the question with incorporating the critical bits of information into the body of the post.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
Why am I being blocked from asking questions?
I tried posting a question just now, and this is what I got:
It looks like you might need a break - take a breather and come back soon!
You've asked 4 questions recently, some of which have not been received very well by the community. Everyone learns at their own pace, and it’s okay to make some mistakes. However, the reception your questions have received thus far might ultimately block your account from asking questions entirely.
I have in fact posted 4 (four) questions here, and their scores are +6, +3, +1, and -1.
Exactly how can this be interpreted as "some of which have not been received very well by the community"?

Do you have any deleted questions? Unfortunately, they can contribute to a question block.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
Is "what star did I see?" on topic?
What do we do with questions that can be answered easily by opening Stellarium or other similar software, such as

Several stars in line
Which Planet/Star is it?
What's that very bright star (south-oriented, appearing at 5 p.m.)?

and that basically ask "what [star/planet] was in the [N/E/S/W part of the sky] at [date] in [location]?".
The answer to these questions also follows a common pattern: "Using in-the-sky.org/Stellarium/... with the data you provided, this ought to
The questions following this format are potentially infinite, but the answers to these questions will most likely never be of direct use to anyone other than the OP. As a result, I don't think that having a plethora of questions following this pattern is a good look for the site.
Instead, answers to a question such as "How can I determine what star I saw" will bring an answer to all the questions in the above format, and can be useful for many people.
Should questions that follow this pattern be marked as duplicates of another question (which one)? Should they be considered off-topic? Should each one be answered individually?

It's a good question and possibly a good idea! I think you are thinking of something like this wiki answer to the question Where can I find/visualize planets/stars/moons/etc positions? Do you think answers there are sufficient, or would a new community wiki answer for a the question "What star did I see?" be helpful? If so, could it be placed there, or might it need a new question?

@uhoh That wiki answer is pretty much what I had in mind. If the "what star did I see" questions are linked to that answer, that should probably be enough, I guess

Is “what star did I see?” on topic?

Yes, it is absolutely on-topic!

...potentially infinite... plethora of questions following this pattern

This is not happening.
These questions are infrequent and have all kinds of answers, some are stars, some are planets, some are satellites or rocket bodies, some are aircraft, balloons, high-flying drones.
As long as the question is asked in good-faith, reasonably well written or is improved after a helpful, positive request is made in comments, then there are no Stack Exchange reasons to close them.
There are situations when the high frequency of a certain kind of identification request question puts a community under stress, but nothing like that is happening here, not even close.
Instead, its an opportunity to bring in new users, and the process of writing the question is potentially beneficial to the author and other readers of the answer because they are not all based on "Using in-the-sky.org/Stellarium/..." and even for those answers that are they often contain extra information or techniques that may be unique.
One special situation deserves separate consideration; we might some day need a notice about, or at least a consensus how to deal with billionaire space ventures since there are going to be regular launches of groups of 60 satellites each that will start out traveling in a line, but we're not there yet.


text:
How do we handle questions with answers on other sites?
I asked a question about black holes that already had an answer on the Physics Stack Exchange. This has raised quite some discussion in the comments, as to how questions that are on-topic for several sites should be addressed.
Should they be closed with a link to the other site? (Need an additional mechanism to enable this, though)
Should it be migrated to physics?
Something else?
How do we deal with questions that are on topic for more than one site?

If the question is on topic here and is not copy/pasted from another site, then it should remain open here. Answers may reference the answers on other site(s) if they want.
If you have not yet asked a certain question and it is on topic on more than one site, you get to pick which site you would like to tailor it to. In a handful of cases, it may be appropriate to tailor it to more than one site--as long as you're not just copy-pasting it shouldn't get closed for cross-site posting.


text:
What is the present expertise of astronomy beta
What is the expertise of this site and how far it is change from beta to normal?What's preventing it to change from beta?

One of the differences between a beta site and a graduated site is that upon graduation, the rep requirements for various privileges go up. The top critical permission (trusted user) is 4,000 rep on beta sites and 20,000 rep on graduated sites.
Typically, sites won't graduate until there are some minimum number of users with more than 20k rep. At the rate we're going, we should hit that mark in about two years. Though as time goes on, the number of voting users the gradually increase, so perhaps not quite that long.
Everyone can help the site reach that point by asking, answering, and voting.

And what about the knowledge base to answer some of the broad concepts like cosmology and astrophysics

That part I don't know about. I'm not actually an astronomer myself, I just work for them.

@r2_d2 I would expect to graduate would not necessarily require covering every knowledge area, but having a critical number of experts in general. Once the site matures it will continue to attract experts for each area.


text:
Make no prior research or effort a reason to close?
We've had a question about a homework tag before and the consensus was to not have one.  However I'm a little bothered that we're getting questions that have absolutely no effort to answer from common sources (not just this site but e.g. Wikipedia or a simple web search).  Some questions also do sound like straight "do my homework for me" requests (although not indicated as such).
So I'm asking for opinions on whether we should make an absence of effort to do prior research to try and answer a question a reason to close.
For example I'd suggest that "I checked Wikipedia but I don't quite get why X implies Y, please explain." would be fine (minimal effort and needs help understanding a concept) but "Name three X type objects" would not (no effort and a trivial web search gets the answer).
One objection (playing devil's advocate) is that we may discourage people genuinely trying to learn.  In some ways this question is also asking to what extent we view Astronomy SE as a teaching site, I suppose.  I confess I'm ambivalent about this.
Opinions ?  Alternative ideas ?
Note : not suggesting adding a homework tag, just looking for a community consensus on certain types of questions.

In my opinion, no research effort does not necessarily mean that the underlying question is bad, just the post--which to me means downvote, not close (unless you want to close as unclear).
However, I think what you're ultimately getting at is something like the History SE custom close reason:

This question is too basic; it can be definitively answered by a single link to the relevant topic on Wikipedia or another standard reference source. If you are instead questioning the correctness of a reference source, please edit the post to supply a link and explain what you find unclear, or why you believe it to be wrong or incomplete.

I do think there could be some value to having this type of close reason here.


text:
New name suggestion: Astronomy & Astrophysics
I had the idea that we could include Astrophysics in the name of this SE because it better reflects the nature of questions we receive. As well as being about observations of the sky (Astronomy) we also get asked many questions about the physical interactions of stars, galaxies, black holes etc (Astrophysics). I have nothing wrong with the title of the SE as it is but I thought adding Astrophysics not only sounds better but also is a better representation of this SE. Your thoughts and comments are most welcome and I encourage discussion.

Astrophysics is a branch of astronomy. It would be redundant to include it in the title.

I have no problems with the name as it is but I just thought it might help clarify what we talk about. Maybe there would be copyright issues with http://www.aanda.org/ if we changed it tho :P

I would agree with this. Reasons above are good, and also if people are searching for information on astrophysics we want this site to be somewhere they visit even if they don't link the terms "astrophysics" and "astronomy" in their search.


text:
Data analysis projects fora newly renovated desktop?
I just renovated a desktop that had been in storage for a while, and I'd like to come up with some big data analysis projects to run on it in the background. Does anyone have any ideas, know of any data sets, or algorithms or processes that could be cool to check out?
Thank you!

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it does not seem to related directly to astronomy.

ditto @Hohmannfan's reason for downvote, this should probably be in a computing related stack exchange


text:
Are Questions related to Cosmology and ancient history of astronomy allowed in Astronomy SE?
I am newcommer on this site ,  and would like to know whether we can ask questions relating to cosmology on this site?. As I am a enthusiast in both subjects. But these are not my professions. It is quite possible that I might be asking a non related question. Also I would like to know that ,can we ask question's related to ancient astronomy and it's findings?.As they are not scientific questions, but will be relating to history of astronomy. So requesting calrification.

Yes, scientific cosmology is perfectly acceptable here, and ancient astronomy (note: not astrology) is generally regarded as on topic as well, though we don't have many with expertise in the topic of ancient astronomy, to my knowledge.
History of astronomy is also covered to some extent at History SE.

No problem. Welcome to Astronomy Stack Exchange!

I'd like to point out that questions about the history of astronomy can also be asked on History of Science and Mathematics SE, hsm.stackexchange.com. They may fit better there since, as called2voyage points out, this site doesn't have many with expertise in the topic of ancient astronomy.


text:
Is this question acceptable?
I want to ask a question about amateur observing but I am little concerned that it could be considered opinion based and closed. Below is my question, please do not try to answer it here but instead provide comments and critiques of the question so that I may improve it.

Title: How do I prevent or reduce shake when observing with binoculars?
I have some 16 x 50 binoculars that my parents bought me years ago. Recently I have tried to do some basic lunar and planetary observations with them but I am seriously struggling with shaking. This was most noticeable tonight while attempting to observe the ISS.
While I accept that keeping the image of a moving target stable is going to be next to impossible, I would like to know how I could reduce my shaking while observing the moon and other objects.
Is anyone able to provide some simple techniques to reduce shaking?
Tags: TBC

If anyone could also suggest tags I'd be very grateful.

The policy about "opinion based" questions is mostly intended to prevent questions that garner dozens of different answers with little or no objective standard to judge their relative merit.
This question might get multiple answers, but each answer would be a suggestion, not an opinion, and it would be easy enough for people to try the different suggestions and see how well they work. Thus, an objective standard would exist and the best answers would get voted to the top - which is exactly how Stack Exchange is supposed to work.
For tags, I would consider amateur observing and binoculars.

I would also find that question completely acceptable.

Thanks guys! The question is now posted here: http://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/15063/how-do-i-prevent-or-reduce-shake-when-observing-with-binoculars


text:
How does Astronomy, amateur and professional, contribute to humanity and a better world?
I think this is a good question to ask.
There are possibly many aspects to this question. Astronomy and seeking knowledge has lead to the development of space probes, space science, development of technology, it provides and evidence based view of our universe and context to societal and cultural understandings, it provides intellectual interest and pursuit to many, particularly at amateur level, to suggest a few.
What would a full list include of the positive aspects of contribution? How has an interest in Astronomy, or an answer to an Astronomy question, made a positive difference in your life?
Seeking specific answers and examples, not discussion.

By the way, one more point of advice, unless we create a community wiki answer that combines the positive scored answers, you probably shouldn't accept any single answer.

I'm not sure I agree with the migration. It's not a question about Astronomy Stack Exchange; I don't think we should just shunt opinion-based/too broad questions to meta. It's not at all a bad question; I just don't see where it fits in.

Incomplete list of ways astronomy has helped humanity:

The study of astronomy in ancient times was necessary for predicting the seasons and aided in farming as calendars were (and still are) based on astronomical events. (source)
In ancient times (and still today) studying astronomy was greatly important for navigation. Sighting on stars or the Sun can tell you your position in the world. (source)
Studying astronomy has helped humanity answer some of it's most basic questions of our place in the universe. Examples include Galileo's evidence that we are not the center of the universe (source) or the Shapley-Curtis debate which ultimately proved humanity was even smaller than we thought. This fulfills certain philosophical needs that I believe everyone possesses.
Using spectroscopy, we first found the existence of Helium in the Sun before we knew about it from chemistry or discovered it on Earth (source). Helium has become immensely useful for a variety of technologies including various science technologies and medical devices (source).
Astronomy has helped us prove General Relativity, one of the important theories describing our universe. Practical uses of GR include GPS technology (source).
Astronomy may help us answer the question of whether we're alone in the universe. Obviously this is highly presumptive, but I would not be surprised to learn that within 30 years we will have some evidence of the existence of (microbial) life outside our solar system using the future missions TESS and JWST (source).
The entire realm of space physics, a sub-category of astronomy, has resulted in, arguably, the largest impact on humanity. Our ventures into space have resulted in an explosion of technology that needed to be developed to overcome hurdles of space travel which then found applications in our every day life. NASA even publishes a magazine called Spinoff which documents these many technologies.
In the same vein as the last point, humanity's space race and technological feats related to space have inspired generations of students to become scientists and engineers. Don't have a source for this directly, but I'd be surprised if no one was inspired by the space race.
In many ways, concepts in astronomy guided work in particle physics. The need to conserve energy in fusion reactions in the Sun ultimately led to the proposal for the existence of the neutrino (source). Furthermore, neutrino oscillations were a proposed solution to the Solar Neutrino Problem.
Astronomy helped to predict the existence of dark matter. This is somewhat presumptive as well, but if we can prove dark matter exists, and understand it in more depth, there's no telling what technologies may result from that. There's not so much a source for this as this is just a hopeful statement.

I wonder if a valid answer could include, Astronomy helped inspire Star Trek and its fun. Star Trek itself challenging traditional societal divides and inspiring many into science and engineering careers, adding to technological development and prosperity.

@Cam_Aust Eh, that leans a little too speculative to me.

I'd stress what astronomy was the only calendar source in ancient times!

Also two examples that I think you might want to add to the list:

Observing Venus revealed a huge amount of green house gases (mainly CO2). Studying its atmosphere and weather helped us form models on how the CO2 raising levels will affect earths atmosphere and weather.
It helped confriming and better understanding electromagnetism and its relation to light (electro magnetic waves) because there are objects that have some very extreme electro magnetic properties out there (like neutron stars)

Historically in the last late 20th century, Astronomy requiring access to observations and study from both hemispheres, was one avenue of tentative international collaboration between politically opposed and competing nation states, helping melt some of the intense political divides of the times. Astronomy provided a relatively safe and first trust step in greater cooperation and collaboration.
Article(s) relating to this view:

International co-operation in astronomy (Abstract)
About the International Astronomical Union (IAU)

Just one answer, one I hope others may not think about. I am hoping for several good answers.

I agree, and I would add that it still serves this purpose today.

Amateur astronomy provides a relatively low level and easy access for ordinary people to learn, explore, participate, and possibly contribute to an area of science and the development of human knowledge.
Amateur contributions include:

Early identification of new comets. eg David Levy, Gene and Carolyn Shoemaker
Early identification of new nova and supernova. eg Robert Evans
Data collection and monitoring of individual variable
stars. Top 12 naked-eye variable stars
Monitoring and location of ground zero of meteorites that
reach the ground. eg Meteorite tracking network Australia
Monitoring of changes on planets, such as dust storms on Mars, or changes on Jupiter for the Juno mission. Junocam