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.
869
questions
22
votes
2answers
834 views
MO policy regarding pseudonyms that are other people's real name
I have noticed just now that a user has chosen as pseudonym "Alexander Grothendieck", which I'm a bit unconfortable with (the probability that it is also that user's name is extremely low, hence my ...
-4
votes
0answers
163 views
Please, use fewer subscripts!
Lately I have often seen excessive subscripts in posts. Please, use fewer subscripts!
A post with $j_1$ and $j_2$ but no other subscripted $j$'s would be easier to read with $j$ and $k$ instead.
...
48
votes
4answers
2k views
How much is MathOverflow exposed to recent events on StackExchange?
[Long-time 10k+ MO user here, asking this question anonymously for reasons that should be obvious.
Added Oct 16: My access to this account will self-destruct in 3, 2, 1 .... (sorry, won't be able to ...
0
votes
0answers
133 views
Should this be moved to math.stackexchange?
I posted Lower bound on Carmichael Function
and just assumed it belonged here, but after thinking about it for some time I'm not so sure. The Carmichael function itself might be encountered by other ...
13
votes
2answers
458 views
What to do if you want up-to-date answers to an old question on technology
One issue with the site lasting as long as it has is that technology has changed quite a bit since its early days, and so discussions of technology are extremely out of date. In particular, when ...
-1
votes
1answer
134 views
Should there be another tag for vector bundles in Algebraic geometry (over schemes)?
Should there be another tag for vector bundles in Algebraic geometry (over schemes)?
Some questions about vector bundles in the sense of algebraic geometry are given the tag whose tag description ...
6
votes
1answer
585 views
Why can't I post my question on MO anymore
It seems that my account in MO has been blocked. My post is no more accepted, saying that
we are no more accepting post from this account.
How can I get my account unblocked?
7
votes
0answers
341 views
MathOverflow in the news
What are some instances of MathOverflow being mentioned in the media?
Now that MathOverflow has recently had its tenth anniversary, I would be interested to learn of any mentions of it in the mass ...
11
votes
3answers
851 views
Happy tenth anniversary! How did you celebrate?
Question 1 was a test question posted about ten years ago from this one (give or take about an hour). There's been a bit going on since then with the main forum. This post is a place for celebrants ...
36
votes
1answer
1k views
How to cite comment by unknown user disproving Erdős conjecture?
I believe that fedja has disproved a conjecture of Erdős et al. when commenting on my question Almost monochromatic point sets, but I'm unable to contact fedja regarding this. What shall I do? Shall I ...
2
votes
1answer
129 views
Wouldn't it be nice to have subforums on MathOverflow dedicated to learning certain books/papers/etc.?
Oftentimes, I read something and start to ponder questions of the form "Does the formula on pg. 87 have a typo?" or "Isn't this a gap in the proof?" or "Why does the definition have this extra ...
11
votes
0answers
292 views
What should the tag (open-problems) be used for?
Since this issue came up in comments to another questions on meta, I'll ask about the intended issue of the open-problems tag.
Question. What is the intended usage of the open-problems tag? Should it ...
12
votes
1answer
431 views
Can we get rid of the “featured on meta” main meta links?
As you know, MathOverflow has a special status in the Stack Exchange family, and (by a special agreement) it doesn't display any kind of ads nor links to the hot network questions in the sidebar.
...
11
votes
1answer
413 views
Can I ask about entry-level questions (understanding and definitions) of research-level topics?
I am currently doing a reading on Teichmuller space and I am having trouble understanding some basic definitions. So I asked these two questions on MSE first:
Understanding Teichmuller equivalence of ...
9
votes
0answers
316 views
Suggested tag: approximation-property
I'm relatively new to MO (but have been on MSE for a longer time), which means that I don't have enough reputation to create new tags. Which is probably a good thing.
Lately I've been puzzling with ...
12
votes
0answers
531 views
Appropriateness of proposed question on applications of number theory in dynamical systems?
Update: the question has now been asked on the main site - Applications of number theory in dynamical systems
I am considering asking a reference-request type question on MO about significant and/or ...
44
votes
1answer
2k views
Why was the whole math jokes thread deleted, and should it have been?
[Topic very similar to several other recent questions, but the central question is I think not a duplicate.]
The meta thread Should these sexually suggestive jokes be kept or deleted? raised the ...
2
votes
0answers
95 views
Collaborate to answer
Question: If the question is about proving $P$, which, pointed out in comments, follows from $Q$ and $R$. Is it acceptable to write an answer only containing the proof of $Q$, as part of collaboration?...
14
votes
1answer
380 views
Links with IP adresses rather than website names
I have noticed several posts with links to pdf files where IP address is used instead of domain name the url.1 (I will list them below.) Several of them seem to be dead. Moreover, this type of url ...
-4
votes
2answers
335 views
Area 51 Mathematics Open Community Reviews
Following the discussions in
Area 51 community peer review
and links therein, I have created the following proposal
Mathematics Open Community Reviews
hoping to get things started. The proposal ...
32
votes
4answers
2k views
Catering to professional appearance a bit much?
[In case of hurry, please scroll down to the suggestions at the very end.]
The deletion of the Math Jokes thread (mirrors: html or pdf), most likely provoked by the meta.MO debate about some specific ...
15
votes
5answers
3k views
Should these sexually suggestive jokes be kept or deleted?
There are a few jokes in "Do good math jokes exist?" that I think are inappropriate.
Specifically:
Nov 21 '09 at 9:01 item (1)
Oct 19 '09 at 16:03
Dec 10 '09 at 23:14
Dec 15 '09 at 1:31
All of ...
20
votes
1answer
694 views
Will ads appear on MO?
It looks like the Stack Exchange network is trying to monetize the various stack sites as much as possible, to the dismay of users across the board.
Will this affect MO?
If I recall correctly we ...
3
votes
1answer
273 views
Rules for deleting one's own question
Today (2019 July 6) a new user had posted a question that received some upvotes The problem is from contest.Please flag it for removing it and I had provided an answer that didn't solve the problem.
...
2
votes
1answer
278 views
Does MathOverflow help people get past paywalls?
I just came across the following question: Kaczorowski's paper on Distribution of Primes
In case the question gets deleted or closed in the future, the OP asks for a specific reference, which is ...
45
votes
2answers
1k views
Restoring Bill Thurston's figures in an answer
The question Floating polyhedra with fair equilibria was answered by
Bill Thurston, but his (typically amazing) answer contains links to 7 figures,
all now broken. I don't know how to retrieve those ...
13
votes
0answers
470 views
Should moderators in some cases remove a question from the network-wide hot questions list?
Not too long ago - in March 2019 - some changes have been made to the Hot Network Questions (HNQ). Some of the new features are the limit on the number of hot questions from a single site, or limit on ...
0
votes
2answers
273 views
Not accepting answers
In my opinion, there is a moral obligation on those asking questions to do something with the answers: Either accept one, or to explain why none of the answers is satisfactory. I do not see this ...
49
votes
7answers
3k views
What do you want to do in September for MO's tenth anniversary?
On Sep. 28, 2009, MathOverflow went online, and has almost ten years of almost constant operation, thanks to StackExchange.
There will be an obligatory post observing the anniversary. The board of ...
-6
votes
2answers
336 views
Should we encourage non-professionals to ask hard questions if that is good for the future development of the mathematics? [closed]
There is a story about Gauss being "unimpressed by FLT, pointing out (after finding a proof of the n=3 case) that in number theory it’s very easy to come up with problems that are very hard.".
But, ...
0
votes
0answers
102 views
A questions about “on hold” status of a question and about “closed” status
I have a question that´s been put "on hold". And I have some questions.
Who can see that this question is "on hold"? Can that see all users of the site or even some people who browse this site "...
15
votes
1answer
396 views
Enabling arXiv trackbacks for [other] SE communities
I recently became aware of MathOverflow arXiv trackback feature that was custom implemented by @ScottMorrison. This is just awesome and certainly serves very well MathOverflow community.
I was ...
6
votes
1answer
401 views
Bounty from Community
This question has an outstanding bounty from the Community user.
How does that happen?
25
votes
0answers
1k views
Unregistered Users (in Theory and in Practice)
There's been past discussion (e.g. here) about whether MathOverflow should allow posts from unregistered users. I am fully on board with the apparent consensus that the answer is yes, because of the ...
11
votes
0answers
381 views
Primarily opinion-based questions/answers
One closing option is primarily opinion-based: Many good questions generate some degree of opinion based on expert experience, but answers to this question will tend to be almost entirely based on ...
-2
votes
1answer
185 views
How to edit tags correctly?
I attempted to edit the tags for this question. I got the message:
This edit introduces tags that do not help to define the topic of the question. Tags should help to describe what the question is ...
-8
votes
1answer
218 views
Answering off-topic questions
What is MO's exact policy on answering or not answering off-topic questions? Assuming there is some well-defined policy. My guess is: you are allowed to answer off-topic questions and if somebody ...
21
votes
2answers
695 views
Stack-exchange devoted to research problems, the suggested approaches and updates
The idea is to have a database of open research problems where the answers will be updates or suggested approaches. One research problem per post. This is in the spirit of Polymath.
Reasons:
...
2
votes
0answers
124 views
Bounties for Answers?
What are your feelings about offering a bounty for deciding or evaluating an answer to a MO question?
Background of this post is that I have provided two answers to a highly upvoted question with ...
20
votes
0answers
834 views
Are we making it too tempting/easy to send inappropriate posts to MSE?
This "question" (asking for generalized help with a long list of elementary topics) is clearly going to be unwelcome almost anywhere, yet two users voted to close with a suggestion to "see math....
-5
votes
1answer
252 views
The reason for putting on hold a question
Why was this question put on hold? It seems to be fairly specific and it is about mathematics. You could argue that it is slightly meta-mathematical; would it then be appropriate on meta MO?
54
votes
4answers
6k 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
...
1
vote
0answers
142 views
Ask for help in proofreading a book
In case, one had written a book manuscript, but it was not possible to find, by other means, proofreaders mathematically knowledgeable enough to proofread the manuscript, would it be appropriate to ...
12
votes
0answers
585 views
How to “cite” MathOverflow answer?
I am writing a paper at the moment and for one proof I use an idea which I got from a MathOverflow answer (at the time I was asking idle questions but later of course found a way to use it). I of ...
19
votes
0answers
1k views
Increase in unexplained downvotes on (old) questions/answers?
I recently received a downvote without comment on a question and all of its answers, which are good independent of the value of my question imo. I’ve also had two other questions receive similar ...
2
votes
1answer
268 views
I lost my three questions
About 3_4 days ago 3 questions of mine got down vote but they were not "closed" or "onhold". After these downvotes, each of them became -1 vote, totally. Now I can not find these question. Where are ...
1
vote
0answers
80 views
Display of differences between revisions
Being impressed by the visualisation of differences between revisions on this site (and MSE as well) I cannot resist to ask: what javascript libraries are used for this? I know that MathJax is used to ...
1
vote
4answers
460 views
Creating tag “small-uncountable-cardinals”
Looking through meta-MO I have found a proposal of Martin Sleziak to create a new "small-uncountable-cardinals", which I liked since many of my (and not only my) questions fall under this tag. So, I ...
9
votes
1answer
494 views
Traffic follows work-week and holiday schedules
This is not a question; more an observation from the "site analytics" below.
I am surprised/impressed by the regularity of the traffic,
which reliably plummets on the weekends, and shows a
...
0
votes
0answers
100 views
MO links chopped in gmail pdf viewer
Currently I am preparing the text for a paper (together with two coauthors) where we cite help from MO on two occasions. I am doing this using the cite button. It ...
