I would like to enquire about this post I have made on StackExchange Physics- Conformal group in 2D being a subgroup of Diff x Weyl - Polchinksi's 'String Theory'

This post was closed very quickly after being posted, for being unclear, though one of those who voted to close it left an answer in the comments (which indicated that the person understood what I was asking). Subsequently, there were two other users who discussed the question and provided solutions and references. I had also edited the question several times for clarity and detail.

On the 3rd of August, Qmechanic commented, 'To reopen this post (v5), consider replacing the word Weyl group with group of Weyl transformations'. I made this change, and replied accordingly to Qmechanic in the comments section. However, instead of the post being reopened, I found that Qmechanic's comment and my reply were deleted.

I waited patiently, and reread my question several times hoping to make it clearer, and made another edit to this end. However, there is still no response.

It is really strange that a question which has elicited detailed responses from four other users can be closed for being unclear. Moreover, the question is about an important point in string theory, and an answer would be helpful for students. Finally, it should be noted that the question has received one upvote, and has been favorited by two users.

I believe such a question which has spurred a healthy discussion involving several users should be reopened. I would be more than happy to make further improvements to the question, I am just trying to help myself and future users learn something important. Thank you.

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    $\begingroup$ Good of you to bring this to meta. I'll try to bug the people who closed the question to comment on whether their problems have been addressed. That being said: this is not a discussion site, so the fact that the question has spurred a healthy discussion is not an argument for reopening it. It's actually kind of a bad thing. We want questions to be answered, not (just) discussed. Similarly, votes and favorites have no bearing on question closure. Finally, it's normal that when the change suggested by a comment has been made, the comment gets deleted. $\endgroup$ – David Z Aug 6 '16 at 14:46
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    $\begingroup$ @DavidZ Thank you for the clarifications. Based on what you said, I think I should point out that the two users had actually provided answers to the question, only that they were left in the comments section. $\endgroup$ – Mtheorist Aug 6 '16 at 15:53
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    $\begingroup$ Has the post been edited to make it clear? Another of our oddities is that clarifications in the comments should be incorporated into the text of the question: don't just respond in a comment, but edit. $\endgroup$ – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten Aug 6 '16 at 18:05
  • $\begingroup$ Mtheorist (2 comments up) that was rather irresponsible of them; answers should not be placed in the comments section, they should be posted as answers. I'd hope that if the question is reopened, someone will transfer those comments into answers. But anyway, that's not relevant to the matter of whether the question should be reopened in the first place. $\endgroup$ – David Z Aug 6 '16 at 20:27
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    $\begingroup$ @dmckee Yes, I have edited the post for clarity several times (it's v6 now), and I incorporated as much of the discussion as I could without actually answering the question myself. $\endgroup$ – Mtheorist Aug 7 '16 at 2:03
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    $\begingroup$ @DavidZ I don't think they had a choice, since the question was closed before they got a chance to answer. $\endgroup$ – Mtheorist Aug 7 '16 at 2:05
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    $\begingroup$ @Mtheorist Of course they had a choice. The choice is to not answer the question. $\endgroup$ – David Z Aug 7 '16 at 8:03

Just to wrap this up, the question has been reopened by community review.


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