Timeline for close/reopen wars on Mathoverflow
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
22 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 1, 2018 at 11:41 | comment | added | Adam Epstein | @AsafKaragila Yes. But careerism sustained by serial peer review failure is even less okay. Contact me privately if curious. | |
| Jun 27, 2018 at 16:23 | comment | added | Asaf Karagila Mod | @Dima: If I were to ask questions for the sole purpose of my papers ending up in the answers, written by my coauthors, and if I were to edit and bump these posts regularly, so I can claim that my research is always on the front page of MO, then I would be using this website in a very insincere way. Wouldn't I? Again, you think in a very naive way, about mentioning your research in an answer, or writing a follow up question related to your work. That much is fine. Working very hard to make sure that your research is visible to people on the front page, however... Not as fine. | |
| Jun 27, 2018 at 15:59 | comment | added | Dima Pasechnik | @AsafKaragila - lists are fine, sure. If you ask me, high MO rating should count for something in your CV, yes. Do you mean to say you'd like to moderate honest QA for own research vs self-promotion? This sounds like very a hard task; a good question on your research or a good answer using your own research are self-promoting activities, for they increase rating, isn't it? On the other hand I know about people getting grants to study MO! This is something I find a bit unethical... | |
| Jun 27, 2018 at 15:25 | comment | added | Asaf Karagila Mod | @Dima: And do you think it's okay for a user to use MO to make their research more visible, and as a leverage point of "oh, look, so many people think what I do is important, so give me money"? If cults are okay, we should also start a list of scammers and abusers. Don't you think? | |
| Jun 27, 2018 at 13:51 | comment | added | Dima Pasechnik | @MichaelGreinecker - I certainly think that maths is getting more and more about grant money, fashion ("everyone is doing X nowadays, we should also do X, or die" attitude), politics and power, than science :-( | |
| Jun 27, 2018 at 13:33 | comment | added | Michael Greinecker | @DimaPasechnik If someone has a question related to that work, it is of course appropriate to point out that the work is flawed. But MO is not retraction watch, it is a Q&A site for research math. | |
| Jun 27, 2018 at 13:25 | comment | added | Dima Pasechnik | @MichaelGreinecker there is a difference between honest mistakes and deliberate riding on a mistake. As we know that from a falsehood one can derive anything, so it suffices to insert one wrong lemma somewhere and go on building a beautiful (or not so beautiful) career. E.g. there was a Clay scholar who was forced to retract all the publications that got him that post, and to leave maths. This half-killed the area he was active in, too. Are we supposed to be quiet about it, as to not hurt his feelings? | |
| Jun 27, 2018 at 12:45 | comment | added | Michael Greinecker | Pointing out mistakes is not the same thing as "mocking the failings of others".@DimaPasechnik | |
| Jun 27, 2018 at 12:43 | comment | added | Michael Greinecker | @DimaPasechnik I don't think one gets into trouble here for pointing out that someone made a methodological gap. That is far away from "cargo cult science". Of course, this doesn't differentiate between current math research and history. Or do you think nowadays math is about timeless truth, but fifty years ago math was mostly about politics and power? | |
| Jun 27, 2018 at 12:40 | comment | added | Dima Pasechnik | @MichaelGreinecker - and he commented to me later on that "this is not to be said" or something along these lines. So the next step would be to start to put on hold posts pointing at errors in papers of living mathematicians, just cause they would be upset? | |
| Jun 27, 2018 at 12:34 | comment | added | Dima Pasechnik | @MichaelGreinecker - one may say that writing negative things about people who are no longer alive is not good, as they cannot respond to you in any way. So this is all very much a question of taste and cultural upbringing. E.g. someone who grew up under an oppressive, intolerant to critics, regime would either never criticise anyone openly, or to the contrary, take pride in criticising anyone whom they see as deserving critique. I still remember the chair (Dutch, if it matters) of a conference session attempting to cut me short as I pointed out a methodological gap in a presentation. | |
| Jun 27, 2018 at 11:25 | comment | added | Michael Greinecker | @DimaPasechnik Even though this is not explicit in the current answer, I'm pretty sure there is a major difference between writing negative things about Pythagoras and people who are still alive. | |
| Jun 27, 2018 at 8:49 | comment | added | Dima Pasechnik | @GilKalai I went and edited out the most judgemental part of the question. I am still at loss trying to understand how to weed out ethics and politics in the history of maths, for it cannot be disconnected from persons being the results, conjectures, and errors. And these persons were affected by e.g. hiring and funding politics a lot. | |
| Jun 27, 2018 at 8:00 | comment | added | Gil Kalai | Dima, it is not impossible to seperate and in any case Niel's concern is that here "shaming" and "mocking" are central. (This is not just matter of word choice.) Indeed mentioning and understanding errors is important both in mathematics itself and in history of mathematics. | |
| Jun 27, 2018 at 7:24 | comment | added | Dima Pasechnik | @GilKalai - history of mathematics is impossible to separate from ethics and politics of and in mathematics. I read Neil's reply as he is opposed to the latter topics on MO. Perhaps he merely is unhappy about the world choice. Or perhaps he belongs to the school that teaches that mentioning errors explicitly is bad... | |
| Jun 27, 2018 at 6:16 | comment | added | Gil Kalai | @DimaPasechnik In my view History of math questions are very valuable for MO. I dont see how you infer from Neil's answer anything against history of math questions. | |
| Jun 27, 2018 at 6:09 | comment | added | Gil Kalai | Usually, I dont like open/close wars and I usually suggest that people will be tolerant to questions thay do not like and on several occasions I voted to open questions that I did not upvote but felt that they need to stay open. In this particular case, Neil raised a valid concern: that the answers may mainly shame and mock some individuals. (I had some similar concerns about the notion of "Cargo Cult" but Mikhail explained me that this is a widely used and accepted notion.) I think that Neil point is valuable. @MikhailKatz what is your response? | |
| Jun 26, 2018 at 14:30 | comment | added | Dima Pasechnik | Hmm, where would a history of maths question on, say, opposition to complex numbers belong to? | |
| Jun 26, 2018 at 14:18 | comment | added | Gerhard Paseman | There is a history of science and mathematics forum. Unfortunately, (if we are to take the post at face value), the question of Mikhail Katz does not belong there either. Gerhard "May Look Into Reclose Option" Paseman, 2018.06.26. | |
| Jun 26, 2018 at 13:49 | comment | added | Dima Pasechnik | then MO should forbid history of maths questions, in fact I would be happy if there was a separate venue on SE for this topic. | |
| Jun 26, 2018 at 13:34 | comment | added | Andy Putman | I would upvote this 100 times if I could. | |
| Jun 26, 2018 at 13:30 | history | answered | Neil Strickland | CC BY-SA 4.0 |