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Community: Relation between MO & MSE?

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    I am not optimally positioned to pose nor comment on this issue, because I neither participate fully in MO nor especially in MSE. Many others exceed my participation in both forums, and I respectfully defer to their more informed opinions. But from my limited perspective, I sense that these propositions may hold true:

    1. MSE absorbs recently more of the homework (or HW-like) questions, reducing those on MO (sometimes via referrals).

    2. MO retains an undiminished level of "soft questions"---MSE has not mitigated this "problem" (in so far as it is a problem---opinions vary).

    3. MSE attracts a number of high-quality research-level questions that formerly would be directed to MO; and MSE responses are sometimes indistinguishable in expertise from MO responses.

    I am least certain of #3 above, and that is my main concern. There are several highly knowledgeable users who participate in one of {MO, MSE} but not the other. I am wondering if the research mission of MO is somewhat fractured in this respect by the existence of MSE? I have no suggested solutions to offer, just a vague worry to convey at a potential fracturing of the scarce resource of knowledgeable and willing contributors.
    • CommentAuthorHarry Gindi
    • CommentTimeNov 6th 2010 edited
     

    Dear Joseph,

    I'm not aware of MSE attracting a high number of research-level questions that don't originate from Akhil Mathew, Qiaochu Yuan, or a few other high-level undergraduates here who, as a sign of (false?) modesty, have decided to ask their questions there rather than here.

    At least as far as those two are concerned, I think that if MO requests that they ask questions here rather than there, they would happily return to asking questions here.

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    Thanks, Harry. I defer to the opinion of those who have paid more attention to the daily traffic on MSE than I have.
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    I think it's inevitable and fine that there be some overlap between the hardest questions on MSE and the easiest questions on MO. If we ever become a SE 2.0 site then it would be possible to migrate questions between sites and it might be more reasonable to want a bright line, but as it is I think it's fine that the two sites have overlapping distributions as long as the average question on each site is different enough that the sites feel different.
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    It's not a question of modesty; for most of the questions I ask on MSE, I would be genuinely uncomfortable asking them on MO. I think the level of MO is a lot higher than it used to be, say, a year ago -- there are much fewer soft questions, and most of the questions that do exist require considerable expertise. There are plenty of graduate students that ask their questions on MSE instead of MO. If I ask an elementary question, I would rather ask it on MSE first, because if it turns out to have a simple answer, it will be a much less embarrassing situation.

    (I actually find it interesting that the level on MSE has also bumped up considerably since its founding days. I remember that in the first week, I could answer almost all the questions without much thought, but now I am able to answer very few.)
    • CommentAuthorEmerton
    • CommentTimeNov 6th 2010
     

    In fact almost all the high-ranked (say top 20) contributors on Math.SE seem to also participate in MO, so there doesn't seem to be much danger so far of expertise being lost to one site or another.

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    MSE has now posted 23,993 questions, surpassing MO's 23,992 questions. I don't know the exact birthdates of each forum, but MO is roughly twice as old as MSE. Like the porridge, I find MO's question-rate, which I guess to be 40 questions per day, just about right. MSE's at about 100 questions per day is too hot for my tastes, and CSTheory's 10(?) per day too cool. :-)

    • CommentAuthorquid
    • CommentTimeOct 13th 2011 edited
     

    Not being active on MSE (and only looking there on occassion) I am neither well placed to judge this in detail.

    However, it is from an MO persepective my opinion that a certain type of question that in my opinion used to be more present on MO, and I assume this is precisely the type that now might be asked on MSE, starts to be lacking on MO. What I mean are perhaps too vaguely described "solid graduate level questions" (not the most standard textbook-excercise question from some graduate Analysis or Algebra course but, quoting the FAQs emphasize mine, "the sorts of questions you come across when you're writing or reading articles or graduate level books"; in other words question that are a bit beyond what one can find in any book on the subject but questions that might come up when thinking beyond what one read).

    I believe that, ultimately, it is the smaller number of this type of questions that causes the at first glance paradoxical situation that on the one hand some people say that the level of MO significantly increased while at the same time I see some (at the strict/high-level end) users say that MO used to be better.

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    I think quid's comment is exactly right.

    • CommentAuthortheojf
    • CommentTimeOct 13th 2011
     

    Echoing quid: when we started MO, I know I asked a number of (naive) graduate-level questions. I am, of course, still "graduate level", but the questions I've been thinking about more recently are more focused, and either things I would like to think about privately, or things that I know the one expert to email and ask. I do hope that MO has (or continues to have) "graduate level" questions; for example, questions of the form "this came up in my class on ..., and the professor didn't know the answer off the top of her head" are, I think, very appropriate.

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