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.
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Where should I start studying topology? [closed]
I'm entering college and I'm interested in the field of topology. The problem is, I don't know where to start and what I should already review to make sure I don't miss anything important. I have ...
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How to make it easier to moderate blatantly off-topic questions?
As many of you have noticed, there's a lot of new users asking basic mathematics questions. This is not the only site in the network with this kind of problem; on Meta Stack Exchange we get all kinds ...
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Downvote and vote to close of a recent question
I recently asked the following question on God's number for higher dimensional sequential move puzzles. It was downvoted once and has a vote to close, even though it is in my eyes a perfectly good ...
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Revamping the closure reasons in 2022
Prompted by Gro-Tsen's recent meta question, it appears that now may be a good time to rethink our site-specific close reasons here on MathOverflow.
Background:
If you have sufficient rep, you can ...
Tim CampionMod
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Are there policies to respect in order for MathOverflow Q&As to be tracked back in relevant zbMATH Open reviews?
Are there policies to respect in order for MathOverflow Q&As to be tracked back in relevant zbMATH Open reviews?
I am asking this since I noticed that all questions and answers to which I ...
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I have a question which is a near fit for MathOverflow. What are some other resources I might consult?
What are some other resources which might be useful for somebody considering asking a MathOverflow question, especially if their question is not quite a perfect fit here?
In asking this, I have ...
Tim CampionMod
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Could we add another reason for closing that's more appropriate for "check this (dis)proof of RH"-type questions?
I wanted to vote to close this question which claims to disprove the Riemann Hypothesis, but I realized that, even though we get questions of this kind occasionally, none of the reasons to close is ...
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Might featuring some FAQ posts on meta be useful?
Among the things on the site which can be directly influenced by the site moderators (without any involvement of Stack Exchange staff), probably the community bulletin has the most visibility. The ...
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1000 Questions by Dominic van der Zypen!
Amazing milestone! Our first $1000$-question user.
Question # $1000$:
"Edge sets on 𝜔 maximal with respect to chromatic number".
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Would this question be appropriate on the main site?
I would like to ask a "big list" style question on the main site.
The question would be "How do we pronounce the names of famous mathematicians?".
Each answer would be an audio ...
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Do we have a privacy problem when people try and leave the mathoverflow community?
Do we have a privacy problem when people try and leave the Mathoverflow community?
Due to my objections regarding MO I deleted my profile. While I understand not deleting my questions and answers, I ...
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Can (and should) Project Euclid links be replaced in bulk?
In February 2021, Project Euclid made some changes on their website: Project Euclid Platform Migration FAQs.
It is probably a consequence of this that the links starting with ...
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Mystery popup window
Last week or so, when I get into an SE site (MO in particular), a popup window appears in the lower left corner for few milliseconds. Some kind of clickable button there, with not enough time for me ...
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Citing a mathoverflow comment
One can easily cite a mathoverflow answer as there is an option "cite" below every answer. But there is no cite option to any mathoverflow comment to a question.
One is then forced to cite ...
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MathOverflow related ICM satellite event (2022)?
I read in Terence Tao's blog about the 2022 ICM satellite coordination group.
As the ICM is now online,
the IMU encourages grassroots efforts to supplement the core program with additional satellite ...
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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 (...
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What should I do if I believe to found the answer to my question but I'm not sure?
Four months ago I asked one question in MO and had no expected answer. After following the clues from comments of other users I realized that, in that time, I didn't even know how to properly ask what ...
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How to respond to well-known sockpuppeters
Frequent sockpuppeter/spammer Wolfgang Muckenheim is back, and across multiple SE sites (philosophy, mse). This leads me to ask:
Is there anything specific we should do in a situation like this, ...
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Automatic comments by Community
There seem to be automatically generated comments by "Community".
As an example, this question by a new user has
Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to ...
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Has MO traffic decreased a bit since the invasion of Ukraine?
I check the review queues several times a day, each day. I have noticed a significant drop of posts in the queues that I am watching (First questions, First answers, LQP, Late answers). Even the ...
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Best way to correct "Cauchy-Schwarz" misspellings
I would like to apologize because the top questions page is currently overrun by questions I just edited.
I just noticed that Cauchy-Schwarz is often incorrectly spelled Cauchy-Schwartz and so I made ...
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Feature request: add short "about MathOverflow" section to the front page
Until a few years ago MathOverflow front page had a short section at the top describing what the site is for. I am not sure when it disappeared or why but I would like to see it restored. Currently ...
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Is this soft question acceptable?
Edited version: What are great examples of comprehensively archived mathematical correspondence (including both handwritten and electronic items)?
Previous version : How should mathematicians archive ...
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Bringing back the old front page with custom CSS: a guide
As mentioned in a recent meta question, the Stack Exchange development team pushed changes to the front page affecting how views, vote counts, and answer counts are displayed. A few hours ago, these ...
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Bountied question has already been answered elsewhere
This question, while somewhat old, recently had a 250 point bounty placed upon it by David E. Speyer. However, as I remarked in the comments, it has already been answered by Harry West, but in the ...
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Why has my question on Aristotelian Spaces been closed for being 'insufficiently focused'?
My question on Aristotelian spaces begins with a motivating preamble and ends with a specific and focused request as to a property which I say would help characterise these spaces.
I've bolded this ...
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New Stack Exchange site for proof assistants and automatic theorem provers
Stack Exchange will soon create the Private Beta site for Proof Assistants and Automatic Theorem Provers. If you want to see what a Stack Exchange site is like in its initial beginnings, want to help ...
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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 WebsterMod
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2021: 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 preceding calendar year.
As most of you here are aware, sites on the Stack Exchange ...
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Asking the same (subjective) question on Math.SE and MO
I asked a question a couple of years ago on MathStackexchange which was quite popular. I would like to ask it on MathOverflow as well, since I'd be interested in the answers there. But I'm never ...
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Top-voted questions for the year?
This link shows the top-voted questions:
https://mathoverflow.net/questions?tab=Votes
In a New Year's spirit,
how can I restrict this query to top-voted ...
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How to make welcoming comments on "homework-like" posts that will be closed?
We get posts here that are phrased as if from a textbook or homework; the one I have in mind is Find the recurrence relation, but my question is more general. Such posts will certainly be closed.
A ...
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Hinting votes for CW contributions
I would like to learn about opinions about visually indicating votes for contributions to community wiki; what I have in mind is something analogous to the green button in the "menue-line" ...
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Welcoming new user: on a recent question about connections
I think that the history of this question about connections is unfortunate. I would like to discuss (respectfully, without throwing blame around) whether/how a better outcome might have been achieved....
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What if I'm not sure about what area of math a problem lies?
One student asked me how to solve a problem and the only way of solving it that came to me seems hopeless to find an answers. It occurred to me that I may using a wrong approach to it. How could I ask ...
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Is this partial differential equation on topic for Mathoverflow?
I came across this differential equation. I'm not sure if it's research level, but I think it might be:
$$u\frac{\partial}{\partial u}\left(u\frac{\partial f}{\partial u}\right) + v\frac{\partial}{\...
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Why is the question about SO(4) embedding into SU(3) attracting so many troll answers
This question: Is SO(4) a subgroup of SU(3)? has already attracted 5 rude spam answers (most of which have been deleted by the time I posted this, but if you have enough reputation you can see them). ...
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Two traffic observations and questions
The MathOverflow traffic (page views, visits, new visits) shows steady and possibly increasing activity
over the last $2+$ yrs. The chart below runs from 2019-Jul-07 on the left and 2021-Nov-04 on the ...
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"overestimates topoi" and research level
I wonder now and then, why this question is still open
Did Grothendieck overestimate topoi?
Usually, MO's members tend to be very strict about what is and what isn't a good question.
But why is this ...
user366545
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A super easy way to speed up MathJax loading with LocalCDN add-on
I found a very neat way to speed up MathJax execution times and I thought about sharing it with everyone here. Typically whenever I start my browser I have to load up all of these MathJax resources ...
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To which extent can one modify another's question?
One highly off-topic question of real analysis was asked in the main site by a new user. One user sent, 1 hour later, a long answer going far beyond the the question, and then, 12 hours later, edited ...
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I can not find one question I have already asked
I had already asked a question as follows:
"Is there a one dimensional foliation of a two dimensional manifold whose foliation groupoid is diffeomorphic to a 3 sphere with two north pole. The ...
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Criteria for Top question?
I posed a question on Mathoverflow which got no votes, but it made it to Top question.
I supplied an answer, while nobody else proposed an answer.
How come it made it to Top question?
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How to find out why a post was deleted
It would help to know why a post was deleted, I believe in this case automatically by a MO monitoring robot. I am not judging the decision, but would like to know why, to avoid asking such questions ...
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Answer converted to comment, then reverted to answer
Earlier today, this answer to this question was converted to a comment by a moderator. The same moderator subsequently reconverted the comment back into an answer an hour or so later. One of the ...
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Updated: Is it time to replace links to the UCDavis arXiv frontend?
This question from March 2020 points out that many questions/answers link to papers at the http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/ frontend instead of at the arXiv itself, but that the frontend had been down a ...
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Why was my probability question closed?
Why was my question closed here? Probability every team successfully presents a solution
At a summer math program a contest is held for $n$ teams. Each team, composed of $n$ individuals, is given the ...
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Why is the "last seen 96 years ago" feature gone?
User homepages used to display the information "last seen ... (min/days/...) ago". It appears this feature is gone now.
I found it useful, and while it does divulge some otherwise ...
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Questions on the mathoverflow newsletter
Good morning, everyone...
I have a little question about the mathoverflow newsletter.
Ever since I subscribed to it, I used to find it every Tuesday in my gmail inbox, but I have not received the ...
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Asking a question you know the answer to, but not answering
There has been an apparent case where the question poster asked a question that had been answered in their own paper from about 10 years before the question. This would not be a problem if the ...
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