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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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26 votes
1 answer
358 views

Opt out of the new upvote/downvote buttons?

I guess most of you have noticed by now the new upvote/downvote buttons. This seems to be in line with all the other SE sites (though I admit I haven't checked each and every one of them). Does MO ...
M.G.'s user avatar
  • 6,469
1 vote
1 answer
229 views

Clarifying an answer that was deleted by moderators

I recently posted a controversial answer to a question, then spent a few days off site life-tending while things cooled off. When I returned with the intent of seeing how the controversy had been ...
Alec Rhea's user avatar
  • 8,294
22 votes
1 answer
650 views

Policy toward GPT-generated conjectures?

The recent MO post, A number theoretic conjecture by Chat GPT, posed a conjecture that was generated by ChatGPT. In my opinion, it was not a particularly interesting conjecture. For me at least, the ...
Timothy Chow's user avatar
  • 72.9k
16 votes
1 answer
482 views

imgur will remove some content soon. Does MathOverflow need to save images?

It has been reported that "Hosting site Imgur will remove explicit and anonymous content next month". Are there possibly some images linked in MathOverflow questions or answers, attached to ...
Zach Teitler's user avatar
  • 5,460
9 votes
1 answer
332 views

On the tag [bitcoins]

Since several questions under the tag bitcoins have nothing to do with Bitcoin per se, but, rather, are related to proof of work, why not rename the tag cryptocurrencies or proof-of-work?
Rodrigo de Azevedo's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
497 views

Repeated re-open/close votes (Tate conjecture)

The question Tate conjecture (Proved?) was asked yesterday, and quite quickly closed; it was then re-opened, and then closed (by, I think, a different set of 5). Questions about proofs of correctness ...
Carl-Fredrik Nyberg Brodda's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
169 views

Difference between Mathematics SE and MathOverflow

If I post a question that I invented myself on Mathematics SE, I receive comments like "did you do homework?" and, eventually, "why do you ask if you know?". Fair enough. It seems ...
FirstName LastName's user avatar
7 votes
3 answers
427 views

What should we call a tag on point-free topology?

The tag currently used for point-free topology (aka “pointless” topology) is “locales”. I think the name is a bit restrictive: while writing this question (which, indeed, does not contain the word “...
Gro-Tsen's user avatar
  • 26.5k
24 votes
2 answers
758 views

Revisiting our policies on thank-you comments

Despite the little notice in the comments section telling us that comments along the lines of 'thank you' aren't welcome because they don't move the discussion forward mathematically, I have always ...
Alec Rhea's user avatar
  • 8,294
-3 votes
1 answer
233 views

Rule against asking the same question that was once asked in the past (on another forum, yet)

In its relatively early days, MO was an organic and dynamic website — it encouraged active discussion among its members, that in almost all cases was extremely fruitful. But now, even if a similar ...
Daniel Asimov's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
86 views

Can’t vote to close question as duplicate of question without an answer

I tried to vote to close Einstein problem; on mirror symmemtry as a duplicate of Aperiodic monotile without reflections?. But the software gave me an error I wasn’t expecting: it said because the ...
Sam Hopkins's user avatar
  • 20.7k
23 votes
1 answer
712 views

Update on "Who owns my MathOverflow posts?"

I saw the question previously asked in: Who owns my MathOverflow posts? Unfortunately, I was not able to get a clear answer by reading the responses to that question, as other people had commented ...
Mahdi Majidi-Zolbanin's user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
504 views

The number of MO users

Is there any statistics/diagram that shows and compares the number of MO users in the course of time?
Ali Taghavi's user avatar
8 votes
0 answers
325 views

2022: 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 ...
JNat's user avatar
  • 101
7 votes
0 answers
167 views

How is TeX rendered in edit summaries?

I recently edited a question Dynkin type classification for 2-dimensional hypersurfaces in non-commutative space, and entered as my edit summary "$<x,y>$ -> $\langle x,y\rangle$" <...
LSpice's user avatar
  • 9,947
0 votes
1 answer
359 views

MathOverflow in the classroom

My belief is that it is legitimate to cite some posts of the main site MathOverflow in the classroom of some course. Under this assumption I've wondered about the following question. I don't know ...
user142929's user avatar
18 votes
0 answers
549 views

Posting multiple "answers" to an already answered question

This question was asked and correctly answered three weeks ago. Since then another user has posted, as of today, five other "answers" describing his thoughts about related questions, ...
Nik Weaver's user avatar
  • 40.5k
1 vote
0 answers
79 views

Should this question have been CW?

Yesterday I asked a big-list question (Examples of errors in computational combinatorics results). The question is naturally big-list because it asks for various examples. Now I am not quite familiar ...
Jukka Kohonen's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
126 views

Gaining points for posting

How do I earn 50 points to comment if I am not allowed to comment or post? So my problem is as described as far you can see.
Buster Solomon's user avatar
13 votes
6 answers
2k views

Let us wear hats

Many of the other stackexchange sites enable a festive wintertime custom every year in late December, the Winter Bash, in which user profiles are accommodated with fanciful hats, earned for various ...
Joel David Hamkins's user avatar
15 votes
1 answer
643 views

Should we flag suspected ChatGPT posts?

Another meta question raised the issue of AI-generated (by ChatGPT or similar) posts. I have a more specific question. If we see a post that we suspect to be of this genre, would the moderators like ...
Jeremy Rickard's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
37 views

How should we respond to user profiles (as opposed to questions or answers) that appear to be spam? [duplicate]

I've come across 10 different MO user profiles that all have very similar usernames that contain the name of a company. None of these users have any activity on the site except for filling out their ...
tparker's user avatar
  • 1,213
0 votes
0 answers
133 views

Is this question about partition numbers too broad/vague?

Here's my proposed question (edit: now posted) (edit 2: posted version now edited): I have found an algorithm for counting partitions, and I've been able to express it into a mathematical formula, $P(...
user1113719's user avatar
-3 votes
1 answer
192 views

Can a question be muted from showing up to the front of the page so answers can edit their response as much as they please?

I liked the answer to this question: An algebra of "integrals" by @anixx Which had a very detailed table attached. My understanding is the answerer had updated the question some 35 times to ...
Sidharth Ghoshal's user avatar
9 votes
2 answers
206 views

Should tags be removed from spam?

When flagging spam, I usually delete tags and replace them by tag-removed as well. I just received a comment suggesting that this is not useful. It probably doesn'...
Neil Strickland's user avatar
54 votes
2 answers
3k views

ChatGPT strikes MathOverflow

The user (or a bot) https://mathoverflow.net/users/496085/canvas123 appears to be posting ChatGPT-generated text on MathOverflow. Two “answers” by this user already got accepted (!): When is a ...
Dmitri Pavlov's user avatar
14 votes
1 answer
308 views

Mathoverflow for finding the name of mathematical concepts

I am used to posting on MathOverflow problems with questions. However, now I am looking for the name of a mathematical object that I think already exists (and I would be happy to find reference ...
Penelope Benenati's user avatar
19 votes
1 answer
583 views

Creation of "procrastination" tag

One user has created the tag procrastination: see this question. In principle I would have immediately deleted it as totally irrelevant (in the same way I would delete "Stupid question" or &...
YCor's user avatar
  • 56.2k
4 votes
1 answer
222 views

The tags (publishing) and (journals) - maybe change direction or cancel the synonym

At the moment there is a synonym publishing $\to$ journals. (With the tag journals as the master tag.) I think that at least for some questions tagged journals: Using a tag called publishing might be ...
Martin Sleziak's user avatar
54 votes
8 answers
3k views

We have our first user with more than 200K reputation!

Congratulations to Joel David Hamkins who on (I think!) the 27th November 2022, was the first MathOverflow user to pass 200k reputation! Since Joel joined on the 19th November 2009, he has supplied ...
9 votes
0 answers
282 views

New tag for "stochastic partial differential equations" (SPDEs)

Since there are separate tags for a) ODEs, ca.classical-analysis-and-odes and differential-equations and for b) ap.analysis-of-pdes but only one tag for stochastic-differential-equations, I was ...
Thomas Kojar's user avatar
  • 2,820
2 votes
1 answer
223 views

Why is this question locked?

This question has only two downvotes, which is not enough to keep it off the front page. I'd therefore like to downvote it, but can't, because it is locked for mysterious reasons. Because this does ...
Steven Landsburg's user avatar
-6 votes
1 answer
279 views

Where did the reputation go?

Some time ago, it was decided that reputation should no longer be displayed by default, but users had the possibility to opt in to see it, as explained by Ben Webster. I had opted to see reputation, ...
Alex M.'s user avatar
  • 5,055
14 votes
1 answer
355 views

Why was my question deleted?

Why was my question Is the Frog game solvable in the root of a full binary tree? deleted? It was a cross-post, but I followed all recommended advices when doing so. It was also decently upvoted (12+). ...
Vepir's user avatar
  • 591
4 votes
1 answer
382 views

Migrated question returned to MO - how to handle?

The question I am referring to is Is all complicated modern math intuitively understandable? (See the user's math.SE account to see that the question was at one point migrated to math.SE.) I think the ...
Yemon Choi's user avatar
  • 24.8k
-5 votes
2 answers
485 views

If it doesn't interest you, don't read it!

As an algebraist, if I see an analysis question on Mathoverflow that falls outside my expertise, I probably won't read it in details, and if I do read it, I certainly won't judge its "level",...
Mahdi Majidi-Zolbanin's user avatar
11 votes
4 answers
525 views

What to do with the erdos tag?

This was discussed before but that discussion is outdated. Tags related to a specific person are generally bad. (This is not the same as specific topics named after a person, e.g. Galois theory is not ...
François G. Dorais's user avatar
46 votes
0 answers
1k views

2022 Election results: Congratulations to our new moderator!

The election is over, the votes have been counted, and on behalf of the current team and board, I'd like to welcome David Roberts to the moderators team! I'd like to thank Carl-Fredrik Nyberg-Brodda ...
Asaf Karagila's user avatar
  • 37.1k
14 votes
0 answers
209 views

Which questions should be tagged “reference-request”?

The reference-request tag is currently described as: “this tag is used if a reference is needed in a paper or textbook on a specific result.” I have found current usage of this tag too broad to be ...
user avatar
-13 votes
2 answers
592 views

Why my nomination for 2022 Community Moderator Election withdrawn without convincing reason?

I was honored to participate in the elections for moderation in MO 2022 , but I am sorry to say that my candidacy was withdrawn today without any convincing reason, frankly, I did not find it ...
zeraoulia rafik's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
273 views

Can I ask this question on Math Overflow? (Advice on how to get started)

I am thinking of applying for a maths PhD programme. I have more or less an idea of the subfield I'd like to research, but not much more than that. I'm looking for suggestions on how to properly ...
Nicola's user avatar
  • 101
19 votes
2 answers
963 views

Nominating other community members

Is there no mechanism to suggest other community members for nomination? If I remember correctly, last election there was some mechanism in place to suggest community members other than ourselves who ...
Alec Rhea's user avatar
  • 8,294
7 votes
1 answer
532 views

2022 Community Moderator Election

The 2022 Community Moderator Election is now underway! Community moderator elections have three phases: Nomination phase Primary phase Election phase Most elections take between two and three weeks, ...
20 votes
2 answers
825 views

MathOverflow conferences

What would the appropriate initial steps be to host a MathOverflow conference? Back in 2019 I hosted a party for the 10th anniversary of MathOverflow, and it was a blast.$^*$ Since then I've ...
Alec Rhea's user avatar
  • 8,294
18 votes
11 answers
884 views

2022 Moderator Election Q&A – Question Collection

The purpose of this thread was to collect questions for the questionnaire. The questionnaire is now live, and you may find it here. MathOverflow is scheduled for an election next week, 2022-09-19. In ...
Catija's user avatar
  • 101
5 votes
0 answers
214 views

Partial answer accepted, thinking it could have been easily extended and provided enough insights

Some days ago I posted a question and I accepted an answer, "although it’s only a very partial answer," as the answer author wrote in a comment. I accepted it because I thought that it ...
Penelope Benenati's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
189 views

Should we allow link-only answers that point to stable, well known and respectable sites?

I have just been presented with an answer in the VLQ queue that consisted essentially in a link to a preprint on arXiv. The user having posted it is a high reputation user, so he definitely knows the ...
Alex M.'s user avatar
  • 5,055
0 votes
0 answers
157 views

Asking if a post about a mathematical characterization of gravitational geons can be potentially interesting for the main site MathOverflow

I would like to ask about if a question about the following subject can be potentially interesting and on topic on MathOverflow. I would like to ask on the main site of MathOverflow about the ...
user142929's user avatar
23 votes
0 answers
912 views

Upcoming election announcement (2022)

It has been quite some time since the last moderator election, and we decided that it would be a good idea to hold one soon. This is just a preliminary announcement to let you know that this is going ...
Asaf Karagila's user avatar
  • 37.1k
5 votes
0 answers
223 views

Would such a "big list" on known bounds for distances between $2^S-3^N$ be appropriate for MO?

After new questions and/or activities on older questions on "bounds for distances $2^S-3^N$" appeared in MO I thought whether a [BigList] or [CommunityWiki] on known such bounds (their ...
Gottfried Helms's user avatar

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