Linked Questions

12 votes
7 answers
599 views

Help fix the documentation!

Moderators have started incorporating the old faq material in the new help system. It wasn't a perfect fit, a lot of stuff is no longer relevant, redundant, missing or broken. You can help by going ...
François G. Dorais's user avatar
16 votes
6 answers
2k views

Questions about applied mathematics

There's a discussion taking place at this question Mathematical study of Mpemba effect? where the author UwF is arguing that this question isn't clearly off-topic and would like some explanations for ...
Todd Trimble's user avatar
  • 52.3k
10 votes
6 answers
448 views

Revising the help page on "What topics can I ask around here?"

This is a freestanding post taking its content from a previous discussion on the modal window for first-time askers. Thanks to Martin Sleziak and Tim Campion for the encouragement to post it ...
user avatar
16 votes
5 answers
746 views

What should the modal window for first-time askers say?

When a user asks their very first question on a Stack Exchange site, they are shown a modal window with some introductory advice. As explained in the March 2020 announcement of this feature, there is ...
Tim Campion's user avatar
  • 60.6k
77 votes
4 answers
3k views

Why all the negativity?

I've been on this site for several years and I appreciate the site a lot but I don't like to post here anymore because no matter what I write I get some kind of sarcastic comment, or put-down, or ...
user avatar
56 votes
4 answers
7k views

Flood of Similar New User(s)

The following thirteen(!) users: goingfullscheme valua_aint_no_galois going-full-isomorphic logicians_rule, martintzar royalroadtogeometry bundlist compactbut faptoint you_dont_mess_with_ron ...
Steven Landsburg's user avatar
25 votes
4 answers
1k views

Should users be shown some basic information before posting the first question? [duplicate]

In an answer to another question discussing possibilities how to decrease the number of off-topic questions1 it was mentioned that: Perhaps we should force a person to read the rules before posting ...
Martin Sleziak's user avatar
21 votes
4 answers
779 views

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

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 ...
Martin Sleziak's user avatar
85 votes
3 answers
2k views

Should this site be "a shortcut to substitute for literature searches"?

On Reference for invariance of essential spectrum under relatively compact perturbations, Michael Renardy voted to close with the comment "This site should not become a shortcut to substitute for ...
Nate Eldredge's user avatar
40 votes
3 answers
3k views

What shall we do with stone soup?

Sometimes, a question is asked that isn't up to the standards of MathOverflow. Maybe it's worded vaguely, maybe it's too open ended, or maybe the asker fundamentally misunderstood something important. ...
Scott Morrison's user avatar
8 votes
3 answers
894 views

Feature: Making the MO-guidelines visible while editing questions?

I noticed that some of the MO questions that get closed are clear-cut going against the MO-guidelines eg. "here is the link to my new result" or "here is the jpg file of my homework ...
Thomas Kojar's user avatar
  • 4,414
4 votes
3 answers
585 views

Blocking some words in question title to prevent silly questions

Is there any way to block some words in question title? Need help with a equation. Help me please, its pretty urgent :) (now deleted by the OP) May be blocking some words such as "please","urgent". ...
Praphulla Koushik's user avatar
14 votes
2 answers
521 views

Is there left any way to highlight part of text after all?

Currently we have quotes, but the quoted text looks more faint than the surrounding text The vertical bar hardly helps, I believe. In fact I think (although I cannot explain it) that this bar ...
მამუკა ჯიბლაძე's user avatar
10 votes
2 answers
774 views

"What is known about" considered harmful?

I have noticed that those of my questions with downvotes are exactly those beginning with the words "what is known about..." or "is anything known about...." For example: Stationary many subsets of $...
Trevor Wilson's user avatar
-4 votes
2 answers
582 views

How do people determine if other people's questions are research level or not?

I post a question here: https://mathoverflow.net/questions/159016/on-convexity-of-function-in-c10-infty (now deleted). Obviously, those who closed it think it is too elementary. But how do they know ...
user47622's user avatar
38 votes
1 answer
2k views

Viewing reputation and badges is now opt-in and compatible with the new front page

This announcement is a little late (see the discussion here), but in response to discussions over many years, we (the moderators and board) have implemented a change to the site where by default, ...
Ben Webster's user avatar
  • 43.9k
11 votes
1 answer
502 views

Writing a proper MathOverflow question

I am in uni and I'm struggling to write a proper question for this site. I always end up writing too little and people say they need more detail. Sometimes I get a bad rep and criticised for being ...
geocalc33's user avatar
10 votes
1 answer
585 views

What is the policy on "shortening titles" on MO?

A MO user (Myshkin) has just edited the title of a question of mine (here) to make it shorter. The old title was: Ref request: If the natural density (relative to the primes) exists, then the ...
Salvo Tringali's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
273 views

Editing old question, can't submit as title is too long

I'm editing Is there a canonical map from the cohomology of orbifold Chiral de Rham on an orbifold to the cohomology of Chiral de Rham on a crepant resolution? as there was a broken arXiv Front link (...
David Roberts's user avatar
  • 33.8k
8 votes
1 answer
469 views

What points should someone think about before joining MathOverflow?

What points should I tell to someone whom I'm encouraging to join MathOverflow for a better contribution to this site and avoiding problems of any type as much as possible?
user avatar
8 votes
1 answer
417 views

Is asking a question on the applicability of cellular automata to solving PDEs on closed curves appropriate?

Being a low rep user who is somewhat unfamiliar with the workings of this site, I would appreciate it if I could get some feedback on a question I am considering asking. It would be a reference ...
bzm3r's user avatar
  • 398
3 votes
1 answer
198 views

What are the Frequently Asked Questions on meta?

Some questions on meta are tagged faq. What does this mean? I wanted to tag a questions faq but it does not work and I wonder why and how I could get this tag on my question? Relatedly, what ...
user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
665 views

Are there ways to lessen amount of "bad" questions?

Not so easy to formulate what I want to ask... Lots of questions on MO are being (sort of) rejected as more appropriate for SE or not belonging here in some other way. Not only does this distract ...
მამუკა ჯიბლაძე's user avatar
-3 votes
1 answer
514 views

Why MO community forbide me and discourage me to do my research and to post my questions?

I'm confused why MO community forbids me many times to ask question however the last question that I have posted wasn't negative , Really this method of dealing is discouraging me and discourage all ...
zeraoulia rafik's user avatar
-11 votes
1 answer
181 views

Limiting the length of questions?

Many questions on MO are not formulated as concisely as they could be. I would propose a limit of characters (to be discussed, say 500 characters), and you can "buy" more space by sacrificing some of ...
Dominic van der Zypen's user avatar
12 votes
0 answers
1k views

Why is my question apparently not research-level?

I just posted this question a few hours ago, and it's already had two votes to close for being off-topic (i.e., not of "research-level mathematics"). Considering it's ultimately a question about ...
Kieren MacMillan's user avatar