Timeline for Revising the help page on "What topics can I ask around here?"
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
28 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 6, 2022 at 15:53 | answer | added | Tim CampionMod | timeline score: 4 | |
| May 1, 2021 at 4:31 | review | Close votes | |||
| May 6, 2021 at 3:02 | |||||
| Apr 28, 2021 at 21:29 | comment | added | Joel David Hamkins | I think most users who post low-level questions know that a PhD-student level question is not what they have, even if they don't know what "graduate-level" means. This is precisely why I suggested "PhD-student level". | |
| Apr 28, 2021 at 21:23 | comment | added | Joel David Hamkins | There isn't such a uniformity amongst PhD-level topic as you describe---there are literally hundreds of PhD programs in the US, all independent and with extremely divergent curricula. Similarly, there isn't a uniformity of what counts as a suitable level of question on MO. We don't need an exact match, and "PhD-student level" is accurate enough, as far as I am concerned. If the functional analysts are closing graduate-level questions, then I would encourage them to stop doing that, but I don't think we need a big change in the general focus of MO, which is definitely on graduate-level topics. | |
| Apr 28, 2021 at 21:16 | comment | added | Dmitri Pavlov | @JoelDavidHamkins: Functional analysis and smooth manifolds are PhD-level topics in the US, but elementary questions about functional analysis and smooth manifolds will get closed quickly on MathOverflow. Also, how is this description going to be helpful for somebody who is not familiar with a PhD degree in mathematics, like the overwhelming majority of users asking low-quality questions? Those of them who do read this description (a minority, it seems) often mistakenly think (for a variety of reasons) that their question is PhD-level, e.g., because they think PhD is similar to B.Sc. | |
| Apr 28, 2021 at 20:21 | comment | added | Joel David Hamkins | I suggest "PhD-student level" as a substitute for "graduate level," which addresses @DmitriPavlov's objections (which I think are overstated), while also suggesting the needed degree of sophistication. | |
| Apr 28, 2021 at 20:09 | answer | added | Joel David Hamkins | timeline score: 1 | |
| Apr 28, 2021 at 17:38 | comment | added | Tim Campion Mod | I think that if somebody is in the intended audience of the accepted answer on the post I just linked to, that post may be the place to send them. If they're not in that intended audience, then they might not really be able to judge for themselves whether their question is on-topic. It will be a bit of a crap-shoot for them. I don't think we really have a mechanism for dealing with this, other than to accept the reality that if somebody is not a "member of mainstream mathematical society" in some sense, they may just have to accept that probably some of their questions here will be closed. | |
| Apr 28, 2021 at 17:35 | comment | added | Tim Campion Mod | There are other places on the site with other information about asking questions on MO, e.g. this faq question. Perhaps material from somewhere like that should be incorporated or at least more prominently linked to. | |
| Apr 27, 2021 at 19:27 | answer | added | Neil Strickland | timeline score: 0 | |
| Apr 26, 2021 at 18:58 | answer | added | Will Sawin | timeline score: 20 | |
| Apr 24, 2021 at 21:40 | answer | added | Federico Poloni | timeline score: 0 | |
| Apr 24, 2021 at 21:12 | answer | added | Dmitri Pavlov | timeline score: 5 | |
| Apr 24, 2021 at 17:10 | comment | added | Tim Campion Mod | @DmitriPavlov If the term "graduate-level" is as problematic as you suggest, perhaps you might weigh in on its use in the current modal window suggestions (unless you are so pessimistic about users reading the modal window that you don't think it matters there :). | |
| Apr 24, 2021 at 13:04 | comment | added | Dmitri Pavlov | @StefanKohl: “but which single word can be such?”: I really do not think you can do anything better than “current research in mathematics”. You may have better success with explaining what not to post, e.g., homework in calculus, linear algebra, differential equations, etc. | |
| Apr 24, 2021 at 12:59 | comment | added | Dmitri Pavlov | @StefanKohl: The article that you cited clearly states “The German Habilitation and, to some extent, the French habilitation à diriger des recherches (HDR) are comparable to it”. Indeed, even the process itself is quite similar to the German process. (As I understand, the Soviet government simply copied the German 2-level system, but gave different names to degrees for political reasons.) | |
| Apr 24, 2021 at 12:56 | comment | added | Dmitri Pavlov | @MattF.: We do say something, namely, “current research in mathematics”. Appealing to graduate-level mathematics or PhD degrees is useless, since the users who would understand such an explanation (basically, PhD students and higher) do not cause any noticeable problems in the first place. It is undergrads with low-division mathematics questions that post most of the off-topic questions, and they have no clue what “graduate-level” means. | |
| Apr 24, 2021 at 12:51 | comment | added | Stefan Kohl Mod | @DmitriPavlov Then maybe I misread the explanations in the Wikipedia article on this. And of course "PhD-level" is not quite a perfect description of what is on-topic here -- but which single word can be such? -- Maybe you have a better suggestion on what to write. | |
| Apr 24, 2021 at 12:19 | comment | added | Dmitri Pavlov | @StefanKohl: Russia does not have a “two-step PhD system”. There is a PhD degree and a Habilitation degree. Your proposal would be unsuitable because MathOverflow does allow questions below the PhD level as it is practiced in countries like Germany and Russia. | |
| Apr 24, 2021 at 9:07 | comment | added | Stefan Kohl Mod | @DmitriPavlov Maybe replacing "graduate-level" by "PhD-level" would make that sentence more universally understandable? -- Or would the meaning then still be unclear in Russia (which, as I understand, has a 2-step PhD system -- Kandidat Nauk / Doktor Nauk)? | |
| Apr 24, 2021 at 8:52 | comment | added | user44143 | @DmitriPavlov, I think it's helpful to say something. I'm open to other phrasings. | |
| Apr 24, 2021 at 8:47 | history | became hot meta post | |||
| Apr 24, 2021 at 2:51 | comment | added | Dmitri Pavlov | @MattF.: Only if one is familiar with the US system. How is one supposed to know what US graduate schools in mathematics are like if one had no interaction with the system? Even if one is familiar with the US system, this still leaves too much ambiguity. For instance, what is the minimum allowed level of questions on category theory? There are relatively few graduate schools in the US where category theory is taught formally, and even then it is unlikely to be mandatory. | |
| Apr 24, 2021 at 2:43 | comment | added | Tim Campion Mod | Ok, good news! It looks like it is quite easy for moderators to edit that help page. So once we reach some consensus on what changes should happen, I think it should be easy to implement. I just checked: for me it is indeed as simple a clicking a little "edit" button on the page and then it's similar to the question / answer editing interface. | |
| Apr 24, 2021 at 2:36 | comment | added | user44143 | @DmitriPavlov, do you have a phrase to suggest? Would "training in mathematics or a mathematical discipline at the level of US graduate school" be substantially better? | |
| Apr 24, 2021 at 2:19 | comment | added | Dmitri Pavlov | “if you've had graduate-level training in mathematics”: Does not make sense outside of North America and a few other countries. In Europe (e.g., Germany, Russia), this would correspond to a Bachelor's degree in mathematics, i.e., undegraduate-level training. | |
| Apr 24, 2021 at 0:21 | comment | added | Tim Campion Mod | Thanks for posting this. I for one think these are great suggestions. The tricky thing might be figuring out the process for editing that page. | |
| Apr 23, 2021 at 22:17 | history | asked | user44143 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |