Customize the modal window for the first-time askers [duplicate]

Question

When a user asks their very first question on a Stack Exchange site, they are shown a modal window with a short advice. The content can be either a generic message or it can be customized for a specific site. This was announced in March 2020 in this post: The new ask page is now live on the network!

On MathOverflow this modal window contains a generic text:

You’re ready to ask your first question and the community is here to help! To get you the best answers, we’ve provided some guidance:

Before you post, search the site to make sure your question hasn’t been answered  to make sure your question hasn’t been answered

• Summarize the problem
• Provide details and any research
• When appropriate, describe what you’ve tried

For comparison, this is what it looks like on Mathematics:

To improve chances of your question getting an answer make sure that it:

• Uses MathJax formatting for math formulas
• Has an interesting, specific title that summarizes the question
•  Describes what you know and what you don't understand (don't just copy a textbook problem!)

Here are some additional tips:

Before you post, search the site to make sure your question hasn’t been answered

• Summarize the problem
• Provide details and any research
• When appropriate, describe what you’ve tried

As you can see, Mathematics doesn't use the general boilerplate, but customized wording. You can also see the screenshot from some other sites where the modal window has been customized in the MO chatroom. (This is a part of a longer discussion about this topic.)

The post on Meta Stack Exchange has a section What's per-site customizable, and what's the procedure to get it live? which says in the bullet point about the modal window:

The "welcome modal" for new askers (seen with the default text in screenshot 1), everything between the title and "Before you post..." (this is only custom on 4 sites at the moment, such as EL&U.

Question: Should MO also create a customized version specific for this site? If yes, what would be used as the text?

So the intention of this post is that we should

1. Discuss whether changing the modal window for the first-time askers might be actually useful for the site.
2. And we could discuss what wording could be used in this modal window.

If some consensus is reached, hopefully moderators will take some action to make this happen. (I'll add that it is now easier for moderators to escalate various issues to Stack Exchange staff, AFAICT the initial step in the process is basically just adding the status-review tag to the question.)

On one hand, the focus of MathOverflow is somewhat different from what somebody would expect just from the site name - so it is good to advertise this somewhere. This would be a place visible to the first-time askers. On the other hand, while the how-to-ask page existed, it does not seem to make much difference on the sites it was actually used. See also: Should folks have to click through an interstitial page to ask questions on Server Fault? on ServerFault and How much did “advice for first-time askers” help? on Mathematics.

^{Some time ago I posted a somewhat similar suggestion: Should users be shown some basic information before posting the first question?. It gained some support from the local community - judging from the comments and upvotes - but not enough to persuade the MathOverflow moderators. That feature request is now moot, since the /aks/advice page is no longer used in the network. Possibly something similar to the text proposed there could be considered - but we would need to shorten it a bit, since here we have less space.}

^{Here is another older post which is - to some extent - related: Why is “what is the difference between mathoverflow and math.stackexchange?” not prominently displayed?}

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Similar discussions I was able to find on other per-site-metas:

• Let's update the modal for new askers on Code Review Meta.
• New ask page: How do we want to use it to help new users specify their system? on Role-playing Games Meta.
• Suggestions for the Welcome Modal on Physics Meta.

(I found also these, but they are not specifically about the modal window: How should SFF's “Ask Question” page be customised?, How should M&TV's “Ask Question” page be customised?, Use of new screening tool from SE.)

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Here is a screenshot showing this modal window on MathOverflow:

For comparison, this is what you get on Mathematics:

Answer 1

We used to have a page about how to ask a question on MO back on MO 1.0 that was quite good. The current one is kinda crap. I would suggest bringing back the old text explaining how to ask a question on MO (maybe a summary with links for further information).

That is the wisdom of the past, for all wisdom is not new wisdom.

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Edit: I also want to point out that the 'how to ask' link was featured quite prominently in the old layout: .

Answer 2

Let me give some initial suggestion. (I hope that somebody proposes a better version - seeing many well-written posts both on main and on meta, clearly many MO users are able to do so.)

I have tried to keep it short - after all, the window is not very big. So I did not include some suggestions from the comments - such as a note about cross-posting. I did not link to Mathematics Stack Exchange - but there is a link to the same list of sites which is included in the help-center.

It is a bit similar to an older suggestion from here: Should users be shown some basic information before posting the first question? (But the text proposed there was a bit shortened.)

I have also included the default version after the three MO-specific bullet points. (The wording is based on the version Mathematics Stack Exchange is using.) As explained by a CM the wording in this part cannot be changed (although the third one can be omitted if needed). You can find the whole conversation in the MathOverflow chatroom.

The text includes several links. It is clear that many users will simply read the text without clicking on them - but since various FAQ posts are available here on meta, it is useful to make such links accessible to new users. In this way, the links are available here at least for those who want to have a look.

I have changed research-level mathematics to a different wording (although I am not entirely happy with the current version). As David Roberts pointed out in a comment, it could be confusing to have the word research in this short text in two different meanings.

To improve the chances of your question getting an answer make sure that it:

• Is about mathematics at graduate or higher level. (Use other sites for general mathematical questions.)
• Includes the necessary background and has an informative title. (See also: How to write a good MathOverflow question?)
• Is properly formatted - use MathJax (TeX-like syntax) for writing mathematics.

Before you post, search the site to make sure your question hasn’t been answered

• Summarize the problem
• Provide details and any research
• When appropriate, describe what you’ve tried

Answer 3

I'd add that the current help page on "What topics can I ask around here?" probably isn't helping.

After the bolded phrase

mathematical questions related to current research in mathematics

I would add something like

which you are well-placed to ask if you've had graduate-level training in mathematics or another mathematical discipline. (If you haven't had that training, the question is likely to be off-topic.)"

which is a warning that does not appear anywhere on the page now.

This key content is also obscured by the first two paragraphs on the page, which showcase such details as

It’s also OK to ask and answer your own question

and

If no site currently exists that will accept your question, you may commit to or propose a new site at Area 51, the place where new Stack Exchange communities are democratically created.

Those two comments are so rarely relevant that I'd put them much lower on the help page, to let the more relevant comments float to the top.

Answer 4

Perhaps the following ideas are outside the scope or the original question. But in an ideal world, I think it would be useful to make the question editing window a bit more interactive for first time or beginner users. It is already the case that when you type the title of the question, the site dynamically matches the keywords in it and brings up links to possibly relevant past questions. Obviously, such functionality could be greatly expanded. Here's a list of dynamical suggestions the user could see depending on what they are typing into the question box.

0. Reminder that it's nice to use your real name or an easily recognizable alias (no value judgment here, just thinking of any alternative to 'user####'). Though, the question box may not be the best place to do this.

1. Reminder that formulas can be typeset using LaTeX notation (link to documentation if the user is not aware how). In the same vein, remind about basic Markdown syntax/features.

2. Suggestions for potentially appropriate tags. I can imagine a "latent keyword" approach here, based on the question text and how the existing tags match up to the extensive existing question database.

3. If there's any hint of homeworkness or of an uninformed elementary question, explain the scope of MO and that there exist other SE sites where the question could be asked (math.SE, stats.SE, scicomp.SE, cstheory.SE, etc.).

4. A small checklist of ways to improve the question (question clearly stated? reference included if needed? your level of understanding? type of answer expected? etc.)

5. Some words about how to interpret reputation.

In the ideal world that I have in mind, these suggestions would be raised automatically, possibly by a clever AI/machine learning component integrated into the site. Then, as the user gets more acquainted with the site (by some metric, e.g., reputation), the suggestions can be phased out.

These are all things that currently the responsibility of other more experienced users, supplied in comments or answers as perceived needed. Sometimes, though, that kind of interaction feels aggressive and unwelcoming. I suspect that it would be received much more neutrally if coming from an automated system. Obviously, we don't live in an ideal world, but perhaps some day some of these features will be implemented by the SE platform.