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.
847
questions
18
votes
1answer
558 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 ...
2
votes
1answer
231 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.
...
3
votes
1answer
231 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 ...
12
votes
0answers
444 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 ...
1
vote
2answers
247 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 ...
32
votes
6answers
957 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
302 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
95 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
392 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
391 views
Bounty from Community
This question has an outstanding bounty from the Community user.
How does that happen?
24
votes
0answers
980 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
367 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
176 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 ...
-7
votes
1answer
213 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 ...
20
votes
2answers
677 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:
...
1
vote
0answers
122 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
819 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
247 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?
53
votes
4answers
5k 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
141 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
582 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
264 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
441 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 ...
0
votes
0answers
63 views
Is it bad practice to edit my own question with details from the paper provided in the top answer?
I asked a question and received a helpful answer that showed me work that I did not know how to search for. The answer was a link to the author's paper and some context on its relevance. While I could ...
12
votes
1answer
339 views
On convexity tags
The tags on convexity are convex-geometry ($\times$560), convex-analysis ($\times$ 266), convexity ($\times$ 420). Here the number is the current (2019/02/23) number of uses and I ignore some more ...
9
votes
4answers
618 views
Is it a bad practise to add details (limited) to some one's answer?
A user X answered my (some one else's) question in a compact way (less than $10$ lines).
Upon discussion, user X has explained somethings in comment which made answer clearer.
Is it considered to ...
21
votes
4answers
1k views
Publicizing conjectures on MO
This question
Positive integers written as $\binom{w}2+\binom{x}4+\binom{y}6+\binom{z}8$ with $w,x,y,z\in\{2,3,\ldots\}$
is basically just a statement of a few conjectures by the asker. The "...
3
votes
0answers
101 views
What if I posted a (perhaps…) nice answer, but to the wrong question?
First of all, I apologize for asking this question if the topic has already been debated on the MO.meta, but I did not succeed in finding anything similar: and now the question.
Nearly a year ago I ...
1
vote
0answers
193 views
What do you see to upvote an answer?
Question is as in the title?
What makes you to up vote an answer?
Most of my answers are with $0$ upvotes. I am trying to understand the reason. One of the reasons could be that mathematics that I ...
10
votes
2answers
335 views
Papers, articles, books and other resources discussing MathOverflow
There already is a post asking about published works which started on or were inspired by posts on MathOverflow: Best of MathOverflow, or papers inspired by MathOverflow. It might be interesting to ...
15
votes
0answers
410 views
Studying the MathOverflow data dump with Mathematica
This is just a mention of some work Wolfram has done recently, allowing you to import a database dump of MathOverflow and analyse it within Mathematica.
The Data Science of MathOverflow
Their ...
7
votes
0answers
460 views
When answers are primarily opinion based, should the question be CW?
A question was just asked about whether or not we still need model categories of spectra (vs working with the $\infty$-category). To me (and Fernando Muro at least), it is reminiscent of a previous ...
6
votes
0answers
212 views
No reputation change signals if subtracted from bounty?
Right now I am observing the following.
Usually every time I get an upvote somewhere, I get a signal about it in the upper right corner. Recently I declared a bounty (and awarded it for an answer) at ...
-9
votes
1answer
355 views
Why is this answer about naming deleted?
My answer for Naming in math: from red herrings to very long names has been deleted. According to Why and how are some answers deleted?, the only two relevant reasons are:
commentary on the question ...
0
votes
0answers
88 views
reminder for comments/responses
Suppose a user commented on my post and due to some reason I overlooked and then forgot.
As it is my question, the one who responded for my question would not care to write another comment if I do ...
12
votes
1answer
451 views
Problem with posts and comments relying on macros defined elsewhere
MathJax supports possibility do define macros. (Using \newcommand, \DeclareMathOperator, \def...
3
votes
1answer
315 views
Try “question feed”
From another meta question here, I guess this is a little-known feature.
Look at a question page on MO. On the right, below BLOG, HOT META POSTS, Related etc., ...
-2
votes
3answers
242 views
Is it ok to ask for explanation of content in question?
I can not explain with out taking an example.
See this question Gauge theory on schemes.
I hear "Gauge theory" every now and then and wanted to know what it is about. I did not enjoy reading ...
-2
votes
2answers
402 views
Why does Mathoverflow not like opinions?
I've learnt that mathematics is largely about people and their experiences. The mathematics and the people are entwined in a way that should be celebrated. So with this in mind, why does Mathoverflow ...
18
votes
1answer
377 views
Noncommutative rings/algebra tags
I'm suggesting to make noncommutative-rings a synonym to noncommutative-algebra, in the same way as commutative-rings has been made to ac.commutative-algebra.
Initially asked there, I'm asking it ...
2
votes
2answers
187 views
Triangle commutative diagram does not work here at MO
I frequently tried to draw a triangle commutative diagram similar to the definition of projective modules for this question.
A module associated to an endomorphism of a vector bundle
so I ...
3
votes
1answer
86 views
What is the procedure to initiate merging of questions?
My previous question What to do with useful answers to questions closed as duplicates (or by some other reasons)? got an answer which satisfied me entirely: if a duplicate question has got a nice ...
1
vote
2answers
360 views
Problem with this (or any) basic research question?
At the end of 2017, I posted a question here. I was looking for references for something that is very clear and intuitive, but not really mentioned ANYWHERE. I got no answer, but a few comments which ...
-3
votes
1answer
167 views
Giving “bountied questions” more visibility weight
What community thinks about idea giving "bountied questions" more attention ?
I almost never look on the tab "featured", I guess I am not alone. So I guess such questions deserve little attention.
...
-9
votes
1answer
244 views
Let Mathematics be a wild beast
I think the mathematics is a subject that should not hesitate to question any of it's old truths, as it enjoys the status of being foundation of the truth for most other sciences.
However, I'm seeing ...
