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Donations to MathOverflow, Inc

Long time followers of MathOverflow will know that as well as the website, hosted by StackExchange, and moderated by the moderation team with all of your help, there is an independent 501(c)(3) ...
Scott Morrison's user avatar
48 votes
0 answers
943 views

Moderation strike update 1

As announced a little while back, MathOverflow moderators are participating in a network-wide moderation strike (currently at 121 moderators striking; see the background post for more details). The ...
David Roberts's user avatar
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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
  • 37.9k
45 votes
0 answers
1k views

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, ...
Ilmari Karonen's user avatar
44 votes
0 answers
1k views

An interactive graph of MathOverflow tags

I created a graph of tags from Stack Exchange sites (including MathOverflow), TagOverflow. It is a continuation on my previous project - plots with static graphs and (sadly) without MO (due to API ...
Piotr Migdal's user avatar
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40 votes
0 answers
1k views

Moderation strike update 2

There has been movement at the station. Reposting an update on how the negotiations are going from this answer on meta.StackExchange, which also gives details on other updates over the past fortnight. ...
David Roberts's user avatar
  • 33.4k
38 votes
0 answers
427 views

How do we fit in with Stack Exchange’s new AI agreement with Google?

Stack Exchange has some kind of new AI agreement with Google, as announced in their blog. I’m just trying to get caught up myself here on what exactly is going on, but one real possibility is that ...
Tim Campion's user avatar
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37 votes
0 answers
1k views

Moderation strike update 6 and last : back to work

As you probably were aware, since early June moderators around the whole SE network have been striking, including at MathOverflow. We appreciate your patience through this time, and there has been a ...
David Roberts's user avatar
  • 33.4k
36 votes
0 answers
458 views

Happy 4th anniversary, MathOverflow!

As some will cerainly know today (September 28th) is MO's anniversary, its fourth to be precise. Since this year it appears there is no system-message to celebrate the event, I thought I create this ...
user avatar
34 votes
0 answers
771 views

Richard K. Guy, the centenarian mathematician

Professor Richard K. Guy, the great number theorist had passed away long before in March. Since there were no posts to commemorate him on this site (as far as I saw), I decided to post this question ...
vidyarthi's user avatar
  • 2,007
34 votes
0 answers
618 views

Revamping the closure reasons

Motivation 1 Currently the custom off-topic reasons for MathOverflow read: This question does not appear to be about research level mathematics within the scope defined in the help center. ...
Willie Wong's user avatar
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33 votes
0 answers
588 views

Moderation strike update 5 : the results of negotiations

The negotiations over the strike have ended with agreement addressing all the issues raised by the striking moderators. The post on meta.StackExchange was vetted and agreed to by both sets of ...
David Roberts's user avatar
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33 votes
0 answers
636 views

Moderation strike update 4

This update is to point to two posts by the company on the platform-wide meta site, Meta Stack Exchange. The post (Historical) Policy on the use of GPT Generators is a copy of the private policy on ...
David Roberts's user avatar
  • 33.4k
31 votes
0 answers
979 views

2013 Election Results

The election process is over, and now it is time to declare the winners: Good luck in the new position, I'm sure that you'll prove to be a great addition to the community and its moderators! On ...
Asaf Karagila's user avatar
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29 votes
0 answers
515 views

Moderation strike update 3

There was a lull in the negotiations, for various innocuous reasons that are not relevant. But on 20th July 2023, the following update was posted to Discord by negotiator Mithical, and reposted at the ...
David Roberts's user avatar
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25 votes
0 answers
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 ...
Steven Landsburg's user avatar
23 votes
0 answers
917 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
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23 votes
0 answers
1k views

Request to keep an eye out for PROMYS admissions problems

Many of you may be familiar with PROMYS, a camp based out of Boston University which teaches number theory to high school students each summer. Students applying to the program are asked to submit ...
David E Speyer's user avatar
23 votes
0 answers
770 views

Should "The probability for a streak when tossing a coin" be reopened?

The question "The probability for a streak when tossing a coin" is on hold. [Edit: It has been reopened.] I disagree with closing the question and voted to reopen. This problem may sound like it is ...
Douglas Zare's user avatar
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20 votes
0 answers
757 views

Which "non-arxiv" tags are de facto top-level tags?

The tag system on MathOverflow is designed in such way that each question should contain top-level tag; these are the tags which correspond to subject areas on arXiv and generally have format such as ...
Martin Sleziak's user avatar
19 votes
0 answers
884 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....
Steven Landsburg's user avatar
19 votes
0 answers
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 ...
Alec Rhea's user avatar
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19 votes
0 answers
418 views

The message "User was removed" can be ambiguous

You could save me a few heart attacks :-) by changing the message to the more clearer "Voter was removed" (or whatever you see fitting). I first thought I was removed (maybe on another suboverflow, ...
Hauke Reddmann's user avatar
19 votes
0 answers
1k views

Passing of John Nash

I'm sorry to report the sad news that John Nash has died. Requiescat in pace.
Georges Elencwajg's user avatar
18 votes
0 answers
569 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
18 votes
0 answers
803 views

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 ...
Christian Remling's user avatar
18 votes
0 answers
439 views

Three-vote close?

MO users might be interested in this StackExchange experiment: Testing three-vote close and reopen on 13 network sites. There has been considerable discussion around close-votes in MO Meta over the ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
18 votes
0 answers
541 views

Removing questions after answers

I recently gave a simple counter example to a question posed (I'm sure the mods can see the question). Probably the user was embarrassed by this. The question was promptly deleted and with that my ...
Thomas Rot's user avatar
  • 7,333
18 votes
0 answers
527 views

What "lattices" do we need?

The tag lattices is a problem since a long time. Over the years there were varied discussions about this, but no clear resolution emerged, though some things were done to better the situation. This is ...
user avatar
17 votes
0 answers
943 views

"In the past one and half years, Stack Overflow has lost 50% of its traffic."

In a tweet by Mahesh Sathiamoorthy, I saw a chart showing a substantial recent drop: Two questions: (1) Is this accurate? (2) What does the analogous chart for MathOverflow show? (I can't remember ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
17 votes
0 answers
581 views

Effects of the Stack Exchange 'update to Terms of Service' on MathOverflow

Do the recent changes to Stack Exchange Terms of Service affect MathOverflow in any way -- and if yes, what are the concrete effects?
Stefan Kohl's user avatar
  • 19.5k
17 votes
0 answers
259 views

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 ...
Chris Ramsey's user avatar
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16 votes
0 answers
477 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 ...
Scott Morrison's user avatar
16 votes
0 answers
1k views

Can we please reopen the colorful language in mathematics question?

A long time ago, the question What are some examples of colorful language in serious mathematics papers? was closed because someone posted a copy of Spencer Bloch's review of Milne's Étale ...
Harry Gindi's user avatar
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16 votes
0 answers
581 views

The existing deprecated tags should be blacklisted

TL;DR: I suggest to blacklist the deprecated tags that still exist on some questions, in order to prevent them from being added to new questions. There are a few tags which are deprecated and should ...
Martin Sleziak's user avatar
16 votes
0 answers
462 views

Site statistics: Effectivity of the advice to edit a question which is closed as "unclear what you're asking"

When a question is closed as "unclear what you're asking", it gets attached the following message: Please clarify your specific problem or add additional details to highlight exactly what you ...
Stefan Kohl's user avatar
  • 19.5k
16 votes
0 answers
610 views

Recurrent posting about «Matrix polynomials» and so on

MO is currently being the focus of what I guess to be a single particular individual R.T.Man sporting multiple unregistered users identity (like Eskand or H.night). S/he's asking multiple very similar ...
Loïc Teyssier's user avatar
16 votes
0 answers
585 views

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 ...
Conrado Costa's user avatar
16 votes
0 answers
657 views

Help! Help! The colors are off!

I have a deja vu. Are the colors wrong, completely?
Asaf Karagila's user avatar
  • 37.9k
15 votes
0 answers
677 views

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 ...
Steffen Plunder's user avatar
15 votes
0 answers
1k views

Suspected foul play with a triple of questions

A little while ago someone asked (now deleted, but link still here: https://mathoverflow.net/questions/314572/advice-on-how-i-can-i-publish-my-solution-of-the-riemann-hypothesis?noredirect=1#...
Stanley Yao Xiao's user avatar
15 votes
0 answers
406 views

How to re-ask an old question?

I would like to know whether there has been progress in the last five years on the 2011 question H^4 of the Monster. Given the discussion there (and also given what else I know of the field), it seems ...
Theo Johnson-Freyd's user avatar
15 votes
0 answers
460 views

Question was deleted, I'd like to know the answer or contact the poster

This question (now deleted) asked for a way to compute generators for $I \cap \mathbb{Z}[z_1,\ldots,z_n]$ as an ideal of $\mathbb{Z}[z_1,\ldots,z_n]$, given generators $f_1,\ldots,f_m \in \mathbb{Z}[...
Gro-Tsen's user avatar
  • 29.8k
15 votes
0 answers
691 views

"Questions" of the type "I have written something, please give me feedback"

I have now today seen several questions (this and this) which asks for feedback on research articles, rather than stating explictit questions. There is of course a gray zone, but I wonder a bit what ...
Per Alexandersson's user avatar
15 votes
0 answers
382 views

Area 51 proposal: History of Science And Mathematics

I've created a new proposal on Area 51 for a Stack Exchange focusing on the history of mathematics and science. As a math student, I am constantly studying the history of the subject. I feel that ...
Jack M's user avatar
  • 633
15 votes
0 answers
708 views

The 6 semi-essential meta questions of every SE 2.0 upgrade

In the spirit of The 7 Essential Meta Questions of Every Beta I realized that there were a few things that needed to be decided by a large site that has suddenly gone SE 2.0. Initially I planned to ...
Manishearth's user avatar
14 votes
0 answers
215 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
14 votes
0 answers
337 views

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 ...
JNat's user avatar
  • 101
14 votes
0 answers
1k views

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). ...
Sam Hopkins's user avatar
  • 22.5k
14 votes
0 answers
601 views

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 ...
YCor's user avatar
  • 60.1k

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