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.
1,210
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Are these close-votes cast correctly?
I asked this question on MSE. It received up-votes and one answer that seems imprecise and unsatisfactory to me. Then I posted it here on MathOverflow for answers of higher quality, and it was also ...
17
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0
answers
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Reviewing first posts that are answers or late answers
When reviewing first posts that are answers or late answers to questions that have existing answers I invariably go to the original question to see these answers since I want to check if these new ...
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3
answers
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VIndictive downvoting--what can be done about such childishness, errh, lack of professionalism?
Clearly, from my reputation record, there has been some vindictive downvoting in the last three days or so. MathOverfflow is a community of people, not saints, and things like this are expected to ...
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Are interdisciplinary questions about mathematics of musical instruments on-topic here?
I have some mathematical questions that lie between music and mathematics, particularly applications of mathematics in building musical instruments.
As an example see this paper: The Mathematics of ...
20
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2
answers
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It's been another year...MO exists since six years!
As provable by Question Number 1 the site started to exist almost exactly six years ago.
Everybody who feels like saying something on this occasion, feel free to post an answer.
8
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0
answers
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Downvoting and Closing of a Good Question
This seems to be a perfectly good (i.e. interesting and nontrivial) question that was downvoted and closed for mysterious reasons. As far as I can tell, the main objection is that the author ...
28
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12
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Site updates are live
A majority of the changes are not be visible; these tweaks go along with recent updates that were made to Stack Overflow:
We have updated the site's CSS to a newly refactored LESS system, so that it'...
9
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2
answers
249
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Next badge appeared and disappeared
A few days ago I noticed that under the recent achievements tab there were two status bars showing how far along you were to the next privilege and next badge. I liked this but it has now disappeared. ...
8
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1
answer
469
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What points should someone think about before joining MathOverflow?
What points should I tell to someone whom I'm encouraging to join MathOverflow for a better contribution to this site and avoiding problems of any type as much as possible?
9
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1
answer
535
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Is it good to ask somebody else's question on MathOverflow?
It happens for me in the face to face meetings or emails that my friends ask me about some mathematical questions that I don't know their answer. In such cases I sometimes ask their questions on ...
13
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1
answer
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What to do when the answer makes details of the question moot?
In this question I asked about a theorem in an old paper. I gave many details explaining the difficulty I was having in following the proof. The author of the paper kindly replied, pointing me to a ...
13
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4
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Archiving of MathOverflow threads
We've had some discussion of adding an archiving feature to MathOverflow on the private moderators list, and I thought I should report on the current situation. (You might also read earlier threads ...
11
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2
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Should top mathoverflow threads get DOIs and be permanently archived?
Josh from The Winnower (thewinnower.com) here. I wanted to reach out and see if users of mathOverflow would be interested in permanently archiving and assigning DOIs to top threads with The Winnower. ...
4
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0
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My question is flagged as being potentially subjective and therefore liable to be closed. Opinions please
I have a 'soft' question as follows:
'How did you first become interested in becoming a mathematician?'
The sort of answers I'm seeking are factual rather than subjective,
e.g.
I first ...
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1
answer
399
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Why so heavy downvoting?
For this question I received 7 upvotes and 9 downvotes. Why is so heavy downvoting?
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0
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OpenScience Q&A just went live
Perhaps you are aware of the fact that there was an Open Science private beta at StackExchange that did not quite manage to develop enough traction so it was closed down recently. Some people want to ...
18
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4
answers
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What areas/aspects of mathematics are underrepresented on MO?
The question:
What areas/aspects of mathematics are underrepresented on MO?
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1
answer
550
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Can I get a promotion?
What activities, if any, are currently being done to promote MO? Have opinions changed from two years ago with this post?
12
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1
answer
576
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Should I delete my own question if it turns out trivial after a comment?
I had not given this question enough thought before asking it. I went straight to looking for a reference without thinking about it. Somebody pointed out the obvious solution in a comment. Should I ...
7
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1
answer
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Ignore this question no more
There is an odd question on the main site:
Ignore this question*
The question is no longer required to fulfill its purpose as stated in the body.†
Perhaps it ought to be deleted outright.
As it is ...
4
votes
2
answers
236
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Why was "Awfully sophisticated proof for simple facts" closed (two years ago)?
Most likely veterans became bored with Awfully sophisticated proof for simple facts but for newcomers it is such a delight!
My actual question is: what happens with closed questions? Do they become ...
24
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4
answers
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What makes you vote to close a question?
Some recent exchanges and observations suggest to me that users not only have different thresholds for voting to close a question yet still applying the same criteria, but that they even apply so ...
32
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2
answers
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early graduate level questions: MO or Math.SE?
When I first began on this site MathOverflow took questions at all levels. Then Math.SE was created and the level of MO has crept up steadily with Math.SE not necessarily absorbing the remainder ...
16
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0
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area 51 proposal - Math review
Recently I created a new proposal at area 51; it's called Math Review (http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/90443/math-review), and it is intended to be a Q&A site concerning troubles one ...
4
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0
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Migrating question from Math SE
I posted this question on Math SE a month ago but it has had no responses even though I also placed a bounty on it.
Whilst it is at graduate level, I'm unsure whether to ask it here since the ...
45
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0
answers
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ImageShack images turning into ad banners
It's been fairly well known for some time that ImageShack is a poor image host for Stack Exchange, because they frequently delete old images and replace them with placeholders.
Recently, however, ...
16
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0
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Help! Help! The colors are off!
I have a deja vu.
Are the colors wrong, completely?
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1
answer
494
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Can we change the reference to "professional mathematicians" on the main page?
I'm personally quite bothered by the statement on the MathOverflow main page (when not logged in) that "MathOverflow is a question and answer site for professional mathematicians." It seems both false ...
7
votes
1
answer
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Is the use of hierarchic tags too redundant?
Is there a policy which tags to use when there is an obvious hierarchy? For instance, questions with tags random-matrices or matrix-analysis could also be tagged more generally matrices to make ...
46
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2
answers
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arXiv vs MathOverflow - popularity of disciplines
Inspired by the comparison of programming languages by GitHub and Stack Overflow activity (e.g. this one for 2015) I decided to look at the popularity of mathematical disciplines by using data from ...
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votes
1
answer
257
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Can the Math Overflow look be changed? [closed]
I love the math sites but I rarely visit this MathOverflow site because of its look. The color and appearance is not appealing. I know this will sound weird but the mathematics is cool, maybe they can ...
5
votes
1
answer
940
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Examples of MathJax codes of directed labelled graphs to use in a MathOverflow Question
I need some examples of MathJax codes of directed labelled (with loops or multiple edges) graphs to use in MathOverflow Questions so that I could easily change them to my graphs.
Here is my try to ...
0
votes
3
answers
743
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Down vote without comment
I received a down vote on this question without any comment.
Can one help me to understand how this question could be improved?
I think that a moral and implicit policy of MO is that a comment ...
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3
answers
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Freedom of speech in scientific discussions - An invitation to more tolerance in Scientific debates
I hope this post enjoys some tolerance, and don't get closed or put on hold immediately.
I believe that freedom of speech in scientific discussions is one of the key values which enriches the debates ...
1
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1
answer
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Is this physical motivation appropriate for the question? (or any such question in general)?
In this question, I have two ways of reconstructing signal from finite Fourier coefficients (0 to 4kHz only), one being the Fourier partial sum $S_f$ and other (math motivation of question) lets call $...
9
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0
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502
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Questions on Mathematical Writing
Where should I ask about how to approach Mathematical paper writing? For example, the question [How to write an abstract for a math paper? ] was put on hold? Which stack exchange site should I have ...
12
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0
answers
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2% of viewers vote?
Maybe this is not possible to quantize accurately,
but might it be the case that
Q. Approximately 2% of those who view a posting on MO vote +/- on the question?
That's approximately true for my ...
4
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0
answers
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Is this measure theory question suitable for MO?
A moderator at Mathematics StackExchange asks if this question would be suitable for migration to MO: https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1331258/using-a-sequence-of-measures-to-create-simple-...
48
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4
answers
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On discussion of published papers at MO
There is an interesting discussion taking place at MO over the suitability of this question: Complex structure on $S^6$ gets published in Journ. Math. Phys. The question is about the correctness of a ...
10
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1
answer
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Delete wrong answers or leave them for instructional purposes
It is tempting to just delete a wrong answer on mathoverflow.net. However, some errors are subtle, and it might be instructive to label some wrong answers as such, but leave them on MO to highlight ...
28
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2
answers
673
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Migrating to Math.SE: too many close reasons [duplicate]
As everyone knows, we get a fair number of questions on this site that are not research level, but would be appropriate for http://math.stackexchange.com. As a frequent Math.SE user, I have an ...
3
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1
answer
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Reposting a Deleted Question
What are the opinions about reposting a question that come up with the discovery of a new algorithm, but had to be deleted because an "interested party" wanted to do some checking before deciding on ...
7
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1
answer
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Maximal bounties
Which question in MO has had maximal total bounties among other questions? I mean the total bounties which are given by the asker or other participants.
12
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1
answer
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Using MathJax for formating (**bold**, *italics*)?
Some users use MathJax to get italicized or bold text. This is sometimes done in titles (where MarkDown is not available), but some users do this also in body of a question, where MarkDown is used. ...
9
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1
answer
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A (type of) question which falls between MO and academia.SE?
This question Style of mathematical writing vs. too many lemmas seems like it may get closed. I am somewhat torn as to whether it should stay open or be closed (and so I have neither voted up nor down ...
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2
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Would you like to see a MathOverflow Mods' Office?
Recently Math Stack Exchange created the Math Mods' Office with the following room description:
For informal chat with the site moderators about moderation, spam, troublesome users and other ...
4
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1
answer
574
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Is this thread really discussing mathematics or some technology?
The activity going on in this thread, I do not think it can be constituted as mathematics. It think it is image processing, but still not the mathematical aspect of the image processing but purely on ...
0
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1
answer
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How to get better response on a problem (specific case study) and suggestions from mathematicians?
Why not enough response for this question. I guess there is too little interest in classical Fourier analysis. I have given enough motivation, which is about proving a possibly new result in Fourier ...
3
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2
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Appropriate to ask question regarding choice of "magma" to describe simple algebraic structures?
I just started reading Bourbaki's Algebra, and posed a question regarding the choice of the word "magma" (which I came across on the first page of Bourbaki) on History of Science and Mathematics SE.
...
8
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1
answer
338
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Sticky vote controls at MO?
This SE meta post mentions a test of sticky vote controls.
I couple of days back I remember that I had sticky vote controls for a short while but then it returned back to normal.
The linked post ...