Timeline for Are professional Physicists, Computer Scientists, Engineers, Economists... not allowed to ask questions at MO?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
12 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 30, 2014 at 8:10 | comment | added | user9072 | 2. The target audience used to be "mathematcians" but this then caused issues as people did not understand the scope of site and then complained to us why we do not make it more precise. So, after considerable and repeated discussions the target audience was changed to what it is now, not out of some 'snobbery' but to solve a specific problem, that of people understanding (wrongly!) the site to be just about any reasonable math problem (somewhat like Stack Overflow for coding). The 'professional' specifically was agreed on also as it is also used by other SE sites. | |
| Apr 30, 2014 at 8:06 | comment | added | user9072 | Two points: 1. every SE site has a "target audience" and an "on topic", as variables in some database, and various parts of the documentation are not free form but coded as: This site is for [target audience] to ask about [on topic], Is you question abou [on topic]? and so on. Of course things like this also can be changed. But still it is worth noting that not everything is free form and this also has some advantage for maintainance. In any case we need to specifiy a "target audience", which is currently professional mathematicians, while the "on topic" is research-level mathematics. | |
| Apr 30, 2014 at 4:36 | comment | added | The Masked Avenger | I am for encouraging people to ask good questions using good wording, but to insist that everyone get it right on the first or second go seems a bit too extreme to me. That may not be your position, but it is part of my take on your initial comment @Andy. | |
| Apr 30, 2014 at 4:32 | comment | added | The Masked Avenger | To beat this issue into the ground, suppose I ask "Hey, I got this neato idea! Instead of looking at the dynamics of euclids gcd algorithm a_i+2= a_i mod a_i+1, howzabout we mix it up and look at how long it takes to get to zero usin a_i+1 = a_0 mod a_i? Can u help me?" I won't do it for two reasons: I am still reeling from adopting that style of asking, and it would get closed as a duplicate as Jeffrey Shallit has already asked it, in a for me more acceptable fashion. | |
| Apr 30, 2014 at 4:16 | comment | added | The Masked Avenger | Regardless of paycheck size, I take issue with the part of your comment that suggests to me that a questioner must from the start ask questions in the way professional mathematicians would. My observations are that Joseph O'Rourke and others on MathOverflow ask questions that are engaging, and could easily be presented by nonprofessionals. Further, such questions contribute to this forum and eventually to professional mathematics, but they don't start out that way, nor should they. | |
| Apr 30, 2014 at 4:10 | comment | added | The Masked Avenger | Not the ones I know. They may be paid to teach and assist in projects. Some few may get research assistantships. Based on insufficient data I would say less than half are paid to "create mathematics", and most who are paid are paid to make studying economically feasible until they reach the point of creating mathematics. I am willing to look at well founded studies that say otherwise. | |
| Apr 30, 2014 at 4:04 | comment | added | Andy Putman | @TheMaskedAvenger : Aren't they being paid to do mathematics? | |
| Apr 30, 2014 at 3:20 | comment | added | The Masked Avenger | If first year graduate students are "professional mathematicians", what is all this fuss about oral examinations and dissertations? I think I should agree to disagree with you on this matter. | |
| Apr 30, 2014 at 3:01 | comment | added | Andy Putman | PhD students are "professionals". They just aren't being paid very well. | |
| Apr 30, 2014 at 2:58 | comment | added | The Masked Avenger | Except part of the goal is to service people who are not yet professional mathematicians (those in Ph.D. programs) and need help that is likely to come only from people who "smell like" professional mathematicians. It may be an improvement (and still inaccurate) to say the content is about professional mathematics. | |
| Apr 30, 2014 at 2:33 | comment | added | Andy Putman | The problem is that non-mathematicians have no idea what "research-level" means. And in my opinion the phrase "research-level" is also not quite accurate. I don't think it is necessary that a question arise from research, but rather that it of an appropriate level of difficulty and asked with the sophistication that one would expect from a professional mathematician. | |
| Apr 30, 2014 at 1:28 | history | answered | Gordon Royle | CC BY-SA 3.0 |