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Asaf Karagila Mod
Asaf Karagila Mod
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Tim Campion asked:

I understand that you are a moderator and extremely active user at MSE, while also being an active and respected member of the MO community. Could you expand a bit on the similarities and differences between MO and MSE, both in general, and with regard to the way you personally use them? If elected moderator, how would you split your time between the two sites? Also: for how long have you been a moderator at MSE?

Let's start from the top. Both sites are of course sites about mathematics, but MathOverflow is a site [mainly] for professional mathematician. We should, of course, be welcoming to everyone, but the main target crowd is professional mathematicians (academic or otherwise).

As such, MO is much more a friendly interaction between colleagues, whereas MSE is closer to office hours, in some extent. (Of course, in reality neither is an accurate description and many exceptions on both ends of the spectrum can be easily found on both sites.)

In terms of my personal usage the most striking difference is that I hardly ask questions on MSE at this point. I find it easier to answer questions on MSE, simply by sheer volume of questions and their level (where I can easily pull an answer out of a hat, as opposed to thinking about it for longer in the case of MO).

Finally, if elected moderator, the time splitting is not going to be any different. I tend to check both sites very very often most of the time. I will simply have more to interact with on this site, even when there's no new set theory questions for me to look at.

I've been a moderator on MSE for just over two and a half years now. I expect the moderation on MO to be very different: less intense in volume, but perhaps more intricate in the subtle issues as dealing with people.

Tim Campion asked:

I understand that you are a moderator and extremely active user at MSE, while also being an active and respected member of the MO community. Could you expand a bit on the similarities and differences between MO and MSE, both in general, and with regard to the way you personally use them? If elected moderator, how would you split your time between the two sites? Also: for how long have you been a moderator at MSE?

Let's start from the top. Both sites are of course sites about mathematics, but MathOverflow is a site [mainly] for professional mathematician. We should, of course, be welcoming to everyone, but the main target crowd is professional mathematicians (academic or otherwise).

As such, MO is much more a friendly interaction between colleagues, whereas MSE is closer to office hours, in some extent. (Of course, in reality neither is an accurate description and many exceptions on both ends of the spectrum can be easily found on both sites.)

In terms of my personal usage the most striking difference is that I hardly ask questions on MSE at this point. I find it easier to answer questions on MSE, simply by sheer volume of questions and their level (where I can easily pull an answer out of a hat, as opposed to thinking about it for longer in the case of MO).

Finally, if elected moderator, the time splitting is not going to be any different. I tend to check both sites very very often most of the time. I will simply have more to interact with on this site, even when there's no new set theory questions for me to look at.

I've been a moderator on MSE for just over two and a half years now. I expect the moderation on MO to be very different: less intense in volume, but perhaps more intricate in the subtle issues as dealing with people.

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Asaf Karagila Mod
Asaf Karagila Mod
  • 39.7k
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  • 69

UK timezone. But I'm active most of the time.

UK timezone.

UK timezone. But I'm active most of the time.

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Asaf Karagila Mod
Asaf Karagila Mod
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  • 69

  1. For pseudonymous candidates, Are you a professional mathematician? In what capacity?

I am using my real name. I am a professional mathematician. I recently started a permanent position.

  1. Should there be a term for which moderators are elected? If elected, how long do you envision serving as a moderator?

No. I think that moderators should serve for as long as they want, provided that they do a good job. There are protocols in place for moderators to be removed, and these can and should be used when appropriate. But if a moderator is doing a good job overall (even if infrequent a times), that's not a problem.

  1. There has been extensive discussion on MO Meta on how to make the MathOverflow community more welcoming and inclusive. How do you think the community should approach this issue, and what role (if any) do you think moderators should play in this regard?

I think that the moderators should lead by example. But I think that the moderators' role is probably more focused on making sure that users with history of harassment are dealt with, since this is in part the main power difference of moderators from standard users.

In the context of MO, however, inclusiveness can also be understood as also being more welcoming to graduate students and perhaps advanced hobbyists. This is a razor thin line, and I think that the moderators' role here is probably more fundamental in shaping policy via meta discussions.

  1. What time zone are you in?

UK timezone.

  1. Assuming a notion of "culture" as explained here, what would a newly elected moderator do to preserve it? Will there be more efforts to preserve the culture, or more to steer it toward things nearer to "what a Stack Exchange forum should be?"

I am a very firm believer that the culture of MathOverflow is great, and that it should keep this identity rather than becoming a "more normative SE site". That means allowing somewhat more open-ended questions, for example.

At the same time, we need to remember that as time passes by and the community grows bigger the culture changes. From a village to a town to a city. Nevertheless, I think we can preserve this culture. But this requires participation from all the core members of the community, not just the moderators. So far we're doing a good job.

  1. As MathOverflow is growing, the diversity of the moderator team might become an issue of interest. As I understand, the present moderators have much in common, and women are, to say it that way, underrepresented. In which way do you think would you contribute to the diversity of the moderator team?

I lived in Israel until I finished my Ph.D., so my cultural background is very different from those who grew up in the English speaking world. I think that with respect to the current moderator team, I'm a "generation younger", at least in academic terms.

  1. What do you see as the biggest challenge for MathOverflow as a site and as a community in the next few years?

The preservation of the unique community that we have here. I wrote more in the answers to questions 3 & 5.

  1. Do you think women are underrepresented in the MO community compared to the mathematical community as a whole? Is this a problem for MO? If so, what would you do about it as a moderator?

Yes, and I think that women are underrepresented in the mathematical community to begin with. I think it's a problem for the same reason that the low numbers of women in mathematics is a problem.

Unfortunately, I don't think there is a lot that a moderator can do about it. We can, should, and presumably do remove content that can be viewed as offensive (e.g. some jokes from the old math jokes thread), and we should try to make the site more hospitable. But having a nice restaurant is not enough to guarantee that people show up to buy the food.

  1. How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

If this is a continuing issue, escalate in the standard procedure of warnings and suspensions. If this is a relatively new issue, I'd try to contact them first to see if everything is okay or if something happened.

  1. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?

I've experienced that before on Math.SE. The solution is simple: open communications. Unless something is in a time crunch, don't override other moderators without discussing it first.