Questions tagged [discussion]
The question you're asking is designed to solicit opinions or best-practices on a particular topic, with the goal of reaching community consensus.
988
questions
5
votes
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Request to keep an eye out for PROMYS admissions problems
Many of you may be familiar with PROMYS, a camp based out of Boston University which teaches number theory to high school students each summer. Students applying to the program are asked to submit ...
15
votes
1answer
494 views
What does the graph of MO questions-and-links look like?
Consider the graph $G$ whose vertices are MO questions and edges are links between the questions. What does $G$ look like?
I'm happy to define a "link" in the same way the SE software seems ...
26
votes
3answers
533 views
Which Latex / MathJax features do we need or want to have supported on the site?
As we've started discussing, Stack Exchange is planning to redo the editor for all questions and answers across all their sites. As articulated by Emilio Pisanty, these changes will have significant ...
49
votes
2answers
924 views
Nudge: the new Stacks editor has significant implications for this site
You have probably seen already a link, on the Featured on Meta sidebar, to an announcement of an upcoming upgrade to the text editor on Stack Exchange, Opt-in alpha test for a new Stacks editor. As a ...
31
votes
6answers
2k views
How can we attract more grad students?
To quote an answer to a recent meta.MO question:
Here are some examples of people we would like the site to be
welcoming to:
Prominent mathematicians who are less "online" than the typical ...
34
votes
3answers
1k views
Answers in comments are increasingly more common
I have checked a random sample of questions in the main page, and it seems that almost every one of them has some form of answer in the comments, apart from completely unanswered/untouched ones.
This ...
7
votes
0answers
255 views
2020: a year in moderation
As we say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new one, we have a tradition of sharing moderation stats for the past 12 months.
As most of you here are aware, sites on the Stack Exchange network ...
8
votes
2answers
656 views
Do we use the downvote button more than other sites?
Is there data available (besides crawling thousands of questions) on how often we use the downvote button, and how quickly?
The motivation for this question is Carlo Beenakker's recent answer on MOM.
...
10
votes
9answers
2k views
What do we mean by welcoming when we're a site aimed at researchers?
I was just browsing the main page this morning, and I decided to look at some of the posts by new people. One of the questions had garnered three votes to close and a comment from a regular user to ...
14
votes
3answers
847 views
Scope and mission of MathOverflow
I followed with much interest the recent discussions on Meta about the community being perceived as unwelcoming to outsiders and the importance of looking for solutions (if any).
In order to do this, ...
-8
votes
1answer
488 views
A radical proposal on votes and reputation
I was trying to explain the current controversy how “welcoming” MO is to a non-mathematician friend. The current best hypothesis for why MO is either attractive or repellent in general is that it has ...
17
votes
5answers
2k views
MathOverflow policymaking and transparency
There goeth rumours abroad that some off-site groups are seeking a private forum together with the moderators here in order to make policy for MO.
I hope that the moderators will commit to ...
21
votes
4answers
559 views
Customize the modal window for the first-time askers
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 ...
5
votes
1answer
276 views
Once a thread is deleted, is it really too late to bring it back?
I was under the impression that "deleted" threads were still visible by moderators or other high-level members of the community. Is this correct? If a post was deleted that shouldn't have ...
1
vote
0answers
77 views
Appropriateness and cross-posting
I am interested in this question on math.stackexchange. To me it is interesting because while it looks "obvious" that there isn't a solution with 6 turns (I have some very partial results ...
0
votes
2answers
203 views
A question of notation: what does $x\lt y\in S$ mean? [closed]
I've seen expressions like $x\lt y\in S$ used on this site to mean "$x\lt y$ and $x\in S$ and $y\in S$." This has me worried because I sometimes use $x\lt y\in S$ to abbreviate "$x\lt y$...
26
votes
3answers
2k views
What are our procedures if a user complains about harassment or abuse?
Context for this question: I am writing an article on MathOverflow for the Notices of the AMS. One thing I try to address is the apparent gender skew of our website. One of the readers of my draft ...
0
votes
0answers
77 views
Can I ask for advice or opinions about the choice of a variant of a theory?
Basically, I have 2 versions of a theory. This is like having two competing theories of complex numbers, one where $i^2=-1$ and the other where $j^2=1$ (hyperbolic numbers) or extending reals with $+\...
8
votes
5answers
258 views
Is it possible to temporarily comment out part of a post?
Scenario (true story): after posting something I became doubtful about certain claim there,
so I want to hide it until I clarify my doubts.
Of course I could just move that part to a temporary file, ...
12
votes
1answer
242 views
Should we have a tag for second-order logic?
There are a number of questions on this site about second-order logic (admittedly I may have asked a few more of them than is reasonable). For example, searching "second-order logic" (in ...
11
votes
0answers
385 views
Utility of Mathematics: Is this question appropriate here, and if not/if so, how can I phrase it better?
I would like to know if this question is appropriate for Math Overflow, and if so, how I can phrase it better to get the best results.
Question:
I recently spoke with a very nice mathematician who ...
4
votes
0answers
334 views
Question on topic for Mathoverflow?
My question, asked months ago, was well received. Now...
I'm wondering if this question is on-topic for MathOverflow:
Consider a semi-Riemannian manifold $\zeta^{2,2}$ with metric, $g=\frac{dxdy}{xy}+...
2
votes
1answer
219 views
Questions seemingly/apparently/ostensibly too elementary for overlfow
Well I don't really get notifications of flag responses sooo...
Nov 6 at 14:01 helpful - I suggest you take this up in meta; there is not enough space to answer here. But there are a number of ...
0
votes
0answers
90 views
Please help me improve my Q&A and possibly reopen certain questions
Prepare to downvote me. But don't think of not downvoting me just because I pre-emptively self-deprecated myself to put a show of humility. Just pretend I'm as arrogant as I may be perceived to be in ...
1
vote
0answers
59 views
Why is the ‘mathematical logic’ tag spelt [lo.logic]? [duplicate]
On MathOverflow, questions about mathematical logic bear the tag lo.logic, which has a synonym of logic.
Where did this lo.logic spelling come from? Why is it not ...
13
votes
0answers
801 views
Vandalism edits by apparently-anonymous users
There is an answer to an old community wiki question that was edited about 45 mins ago to make it sexually explicit, with a second attempted edit pending approval to make it even more so.
I rejected ...
-1
votes
1answer
108 views
Site for reviewing articles, formulas, theorems, etc?
This question might be weird, I wouldn't feel bad if it is closed.
I know that MathOverflow is for mathematicians and math StackExchange for people studying math at any level. But questions like "...
0
votes
0answers
86 views
Why did my profile picture disappear?
I discovered few days ago that my profile picture is gone, had to reupload it.
Did anybody else encounter this? Do you know the reason?
0
votes
1answer
240 views
Are new users with inappropriate questions given help or rudely dismissed?
I often see questions like this: co.combinatorics - Given index $i$, what element is at position $i$ in sorted subsets that are obviously better suited for the Math.SE site.
This particular question ...
15
votes
2answers
434 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 ...
10
votes
0answers
504 views
Bounty awarded to an immediately deleted answer
Something peculiar has just happened. A week ago a 300 point bounty has been added to this question (I think its content is hardly relevant to this meta question) [note: the bounty was added by a user ...
6
votes
2answers
344 views
Creating theories-of-arithmetic logic tag
It seems to me that a tag for "arithmetic logic" is missing while it concerns a significant number ($\sim 500?$) of questions, which currently have no common tag other than the very broad lo....
0
votes
0answers
183 views
I want to answer a closed question
Please reopen this question:
A problem of an infinite number of balls and an urn
I have a nice answer.
(Added (DR): now re-opened. Please note there are ten deleted nonsense answers, which I imagine ...
-1
votes
2answers
147 views
Should “does anyone access this paper” questions be community-wiki?
Should questions consisting in barely asking for a copy or link to some given paper be community-wiki?
A recent example, among others, is and Reference of J.L. Waldspurger's paper on Shimura ...
10
votes
0answers
301 views
What should you do if you find old duplicates?
Sometimes I discover that "old" MO questions are duplicates of even older MO questions.
Two examples:
Embarrassingly, I found out that my own question: Formula for number of permutations ...
2
votes
0answers
256 views
Is asking about name of a curve a research level question?
In my opinion this post is not a research level topic but surprisingly it has been received 22 votes.
Is the linked post a research level question and appropriate for MO?
I think it is more ...
14
votes
1answer
326 views
Any policies around Dead links?
I have been reviewing a lot of older posts (~10 years old) and there are quite a few with links that are either dead or links that point to sites that no longer contain the relevant information that ...
14
votes
1answer
308 views
Can I retag questions to get a topic badge?
This is just something I was wondering: I currently have 19 non-CW answers in real-analysis. Could I just go through my old answers looking for a question which involves real analysis but hasn't been ...
1
vote
1answer
110 views
Updated questions
The following question of mine frequently appears as recently updated question so I frequently find it at front page. But neither me nor other participants did any revise or edit on this post and its ...
44
votes
6answers
2k views
Should graduate students be encouraged to participate in MO? If so, at what stage?
When I started graduate school ten (!) years ago, a more senior Ph.D student at the time told me about MathOverflow and encouraged me to participate. Ever since then I have found it immensely useful. ...
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votes
1answer
196 views
Why are votes secret?
It would be more correct if at least those who receive a vote know who it comes from.
It would be even more correct if the vote were motivated.
13
votes
1answer
606 views
Did spacing increase recently?
Yesterday I noticed that line spacing in questions & answers is bigger than before, something like 1.5
Is there some global change, or is it a bug? Or maybe I do have a bug or something?
Can I ...
0
votes
0answers
99 views
Can I delete one of my posts that has been closed as off topic and received an answer with positive up-vote?
Can I delete one of my posts that has been closed as off topic and received an answer with positive up-vote?
Should I delete all my posts that has been closed as off topic? (with/out answer)
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votes
2answers
2k views
Why have I been suspended from the ICM chat? General remarks about unwelcoming behaviour on MathOverflow
Although the below obfuscates the context which is undoubtedly relevant to what has happened, the following comments appeared to be reason enough for the moderators to ban me from the ICM chat.
...
10
votes
5answers
2k views
Questions, answers, comments or discussions on aspects of politics relevant to mathematicians on MathOverflow (main or meta)
Given the recent question here on meta about the deletion of a
comment stating a political opinion on an answer which also stated
a political opinion which sparked a lively debate, let me bring up the
...
1
vote
0answers
88 views
Why is an MO front-page question greyed out? [duplicate]
Why is symmetric monoidal double categories? on the MO front page greyed out?
19
votes
1answer
4k views
Why was my dissenting viewpoint in a post about diversity censored?
In a question about special lectures for the ICM, the following answer proposed that a lecture on how to make the mathematical field more diverse be given. The answer contains some rather bold ...
6
votes
1answer
307 views
Is it reasonable to expect that the number of upvotes is greater than the number of favorites?
Am I mistaken to think that logically the number of upvotes to a question should be greater or equal to the number of favorites?
The small difference between these two numbers in this post: Examples ...
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votes
1answer
467 views
What is the best way to ask for comments on your proposed proof of some known theorem on MathOverflow?
Firstly, I apologize in advance if this post in not suitable for MO, but in my personal circumstances, I have no other place where I could post it.
Suppose one is fairly convinced that they have found ...
22
votes
1answer
1k views
One person creating multiple Riemann Hypothesis-related accounts
I have been flagging these posts individually, but I thought maybe a meta question would be a good follow-up, in case the moderators are not aware of the behaviour. As @YemonChoi points out, the ...
