Timeline for What do we mean by welcoming when we're a site aimed at researchers?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
21 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 29, 2021 at 18:16 | comment | added | Harry Gindi | Dhy isn't really pseudonymous though. Those are his initials (and his identity isn't a secret). This was an aside adding to Francesco's post not yours. | |
| Jan 29, 2021 at 18:14 | comment | added | Yemon Choi | @HarryGindi I'm not quite sure what's the intended point of your parenthetical aside in the previous comment -- and of course I am sure "dhy" is well aware that they are pseudonymous here, so I'm not sure what your comment is getting at or hopes to achieve | |
| Jan 28, 2021 at 14:44 | comment | added | Harry Gindi | @dhy In fact, aside from the fact that I happen to know who you are through a common friend, you're also pseudonymous. | |
| Jan 27, 2021 at 2:39 | comment | added | Yemon Choi | @dhy just to say FWIW that your observations/hypotheses make a lot of sense to me - in terms of explaining the actions of grad students who feel discouraged, regardless of whether established users like me feel that we would be welcoming to such potential users | |
| Jan 26, 2021 at 18:34 | comment | added | dhy | @FrancescoPolizzi I am not disagreeing that this is a possible solution. I am just giving some reasons why some grad students might hesitate to join this website. | |
| Jan 26, 2021 at 18:29 | comment | added | Francesco Polizzi | @dhy You can also use a pseudonym. Many high-reputation users opted for this solution, too (abx, GH from MO, Lucia, fedja, misha, sasha, etc). Regarding "caring about the opinion of faculty", sooner or later one should try to become intellectually independent. I do not see any way to take action here, since it is not something directly depending on MO. | |
| Jan 26, 2021 at 18:24 | comment | added | dhy | @FrancescoPolizzi But this is more or less explicitly discouraged by MO when signing up. (Also, this doesn't apply to my sentence starting "They are also conditioned...") | |
| Jan 26, 2021 at 18:05 | comment | added | Francesco Polizzi | @dhy People that do not want to show their identity can register as anonymous users. | |
| Jan 26, 2021 at 17:24 | comment | added | dhy | @BenCrowell I doubt this has anything to do with differences in generations. An advanced grad student is likely going to be on the job market in the next few years. As such, they are more likely to fear (rationally or irrationally) looking stupid in front of people who may be judging their applications. They are also conditioned (for the moment) to care unduely about the opinions of faculty (e.g. their advisor.) The amount of math they know is irrelevant. | |
| Jan 25, 2021 at 6:59 | comment | added | Francesco Polizzi | On the other hand, reactions like the ones in this question: mathoverflow.net/questions/382003/… make me proud of being part of this community. | |
| Jan 25, 2021 at 6:17 | comment | added | Francesco Polizzi | "Possibly the young 'uns have more fragile egos than my generation". This is something that could be true: on the long run, over-protecting people make them less able to handle criticism. But criticism (also harsh one) is part of life. Regarding your second point, I cannot say that this does not happen here (I do not read all the questions) but I never witnessed this in 10 years of MO. | |
| Jan 25, 2021 at 1:28 | comment | added | user21349 | I find it surprising/unreasonable that advanced grad students find this site too scary. They have far more knowledge of math than I do (I'm a physicist), and I have never found it scary. Possibly the young 'uns have more fragile egos than my generation, or possibly people come down harder on them because they know they're grad students. | |
| Jan 22, 2021 at 8:04 | comment | added | Francesco Polizzi | @YemonChoi: I agree. I in fact suspect that many mathematicians are just happy to find the answers they are looking for by browsing MO, but are not interested to become an active member. On the other hand, I also suspect that many of those who complain do this on the base of a single experience, and never tried to be seriously involved with the site and its mechanism. It is a bit like politics: there are few activists, while the majority of people just wait and see what happens. And many of the people complaining about politics have no idea what active politics really looks like. | |
| Jan 21, 2021 at 22:01 | comment | added | Yemon Choi | @FrancescoPolizzi I think there is some truth to the last sentence, but then one has to weigh up whether the positive/neutral opinion about MO is "the good outweighs the bad, but we would like it to be better in certain directions" or "I like it as it is, and would be uncomfortable with changes". (Taking the arithmetic mean rather than a Boolean/Hamming distance) | |
| Jan 21, 2021 at 6:23 | comment | added | Francesco Polizzi | It is true that on the social media we often witness the tyranny of the vocal minority. One should be careful and check that the data are not biased. For instance: how many mathematician after all have a positive or neutral opinion about MO, but stay silent? | |
| Jan 20, 2021 at 18:34 | comment | added | Harry Gindi | @NoahSnyder I agree that the reputation of the site with mathematicians who don't use it is important, but I think we should exercise extreme caution with regard to certain mathematicians who use twitter to (disingenuously) kick up a fuss about everything. We shouldn't put ourselves at the mercy of a vocal minority who are, frankly, not making criticism in good faith. I have in mind a particular group of people who, to me, come off as a bunch of online bullies. I think criticisms from these people ought to be disregarded wholesale. | |
| Jan 19, 2021 at 13:58 | comment | added | Noah Snyder | @SamHopkins: As regular users, yes, but the reputation of the site with mathematicians who don’t use it regularly does still matter. | |
| Jan 19, 2021 at 10:01 | comment | added | ARG | @MattF. This may depend on the field, but in some areas, I have the feeling it's really hard to answer a question (before someone else does it). Not that it's a bad thing, but I doubt it helps attracting graduate students. | |
| Jan 17, 2021 at 17:25 | comment | added | Sam Hopkins | I agree with this, but I think those in group #1 might be hard to recruit to the site, while those in group #2 should be gettable. | |
| Jan 15, 2021 at 19:29 | comment | added | user44143 | Can the graduate students ease into MO by answering questions anonymously? | |
| Jan 12, 2021 at 1:58 | history | answered | Noah Snyder | CC BY-SA 4.0 |