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I recently asked a question that was heavily down voted. I am not fairly convinced that the question that I asked was indeed off topic. I happen to provide a link to a question that was based on undergraduate academic internships.

Avoid spam filters when applying for academic internships

However, it applies to all the students from masters courses too and not just undergrad students.

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Personally, I disagree with the close votes on the question. There is a possible case to be made that it is only about undergraduates, but since such academic internships are frequently pursued with an aim towards graduate school, I think that still makes it sufficiently on topic.

I think that your question is based on mistaken assumptions and aims at a rather obnoxious behavior. My feeling is that many of those close votes may have been influenced by a dislike of internship spamming and the attitude that goes along with it (which is reflected in your question as well). However, just because a question is wrong-headed or reflects an odious attitude doesn't make it a bad question. In fact, I think that it is a very good question for that very reason, because maybe some fraction of students who go looking good methods of spamming professors will come across it and realize they are using the wrong tactic.

If others show agreement with this position, then I would vote to reopen.

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  • Exactly. Thank you. I can accept that my question is unethical to ask. However that doesn't mean that it should be closed. Further, I was looking for a possible solution to the problem which has been suggested in one of the answers. Just because someone's approach to a question is wrong doesn't mean it can't be discussed.
    – user
    May 18, 2015 at 15:37
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The question you have asked is, at its root, not about internships. The reason you have asked it is based on trying to secure an internship, but I could just easily replace "applying for academic internships" with "hawking laboratory supplies" or "soliciting manuscripts for an open-access journal."

Your question can be reduced to "how do I avoid spam filters?" It can't be reduced to "how do I apply for an academic internship?"—at least not in its present form.

(For what it's worth, I've provided an answer for you in that question, but I suspect it's not one you're going to like.)

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