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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Does anyone remember seeing this answer/comment? (A famous result known earlier than believed)
I remember seeing the following interesting exchange recently on MathOverflow:
someone asked a question about something,
another person ($X$) answered (or commented) that the answer is such-or-such ...
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Is this an AI bot? Can't tell if answer is from a real person
This question of Baez is getting a string of strange answers. I can't tell if the author is a mathematician, but their answers don't make much sense to me.
Which finite abelian groups aren't ...
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For irrational √(1+(1/n)) n integer, what are the best Stack Exchange Sites for proofs: direct calc, Euler's, Taylor Series (also √(1+(m/n)), m<n)
In solving a different problem, I came across three different proofs that if:
$$S_{root} =
\begin{cases}
\begin{aligned}
\sqrt{1+\frac{1}{n}}, \quad \text{for n } \in \{\text{Set of Counting Integers} ...
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What happened to my MathOverflow account?
I posted this question from my account two days ago. Now suddenly, I saw I don't have an account any longer. I tried to log in and Overflow created a new account. Can someone please shed some light on ...
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Should the dots used in lambda-calculus notation be typographically treated the way binary relation and binary operation symbols are?
Within this question we find the notation $\lambda f . \lambda g . \lambda x.f(g\ x)$, and that causes me to wonder about a point of LaTeX and MathJax usage.
The code ...
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How to recommend that a question is better suited for another SE site that isn't listed in the close reasons?
Today I found MO questions where commenters recommended that Proof Assistants or History of Science and Mathematics would be preferable to MO. Other better placements I remember include Mathematica, ...
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May I Offer Money to People Who Answer My Question on MathOverflow?
Erdos and others have offered prize money to people who answered their questions.
May I offer money to people who answer my questions on MathOverFlow?
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Drive-By Deletion of Answer to Own Question by Moderator
I'm a bit confused by some moderator action. I posted a question asking for a direct proof of a certain fact. A superb answer was provided by Jochen Glueck. (Thanks again!)
I came across another proof ...
Stefan KohlMod
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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 ...
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There is no any answer box for this post
I would like to add an answer to this question but there is no any answer box for this question.
What is the reason?
Nonequivalent definitions in Mathematics
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Posting a technical/narrow open question on mathoverflow?
I am a bit confused on our policy for open-problems. Are we allowed to post a technical/narrow conjecture/open problem on MO?
For example, here is a type of a beautiful question that I have in mind ...
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Is deleting posts a good practice?
In principle, MO posts can be cited in papers; on the other hand, MO posts get deleted sometimes. There is a risk, then, of referring a MO post which no longer exists. Is deleting posts a good ...
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The tag (elementary-number-theory) - yes or no?
The tag elementary-number-theory was created and removed a few times in the past. And recently it was created again - it is still listed among the new tags.
Should there be a separate tag for ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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"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 ...
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Are questions about mathematical writing acceptable on the main site?
I have a question concerning mathematical writing, a draft of which is posted below if you are interested. The question I wish to ask on Meta however is about whether questions concerning mathematical ...
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News of potential interest to the MO community
Occasionally, there has been a suggestion to start a meta question to collect information that might be of interest to the MO community. This is an attempt to start such a thread.
Is there any news ...
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What would be the disadvantages of a (hypothetical) MOexit?
The hypothetical possibility of MO leaving StackExchange was mentioned here on meta.MO a few years ago and was mentioned again recently. In a comment, Sam Hopkins asked what I think is a good ...
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Transferring a misplaced question after it has a positively received answer
I recently goof'd and forgot that hsm.stackexchange exists, and posted a history of mathematics question here.
This was kindly pointed out to me by a user here, but the question already had a ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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Remove [tag:slick-proof] or make it a synonym of [tag:alternative-proof]
@YCor made a suggestion in an answer to another post (What is the intended use of the (proofs) tag?) a bit over a year ago. It received several upvotes, but does not appear to have been acted upon. ...
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Will the closure of Gfycat affect MO?
Gfycat is a hosting service for (animated) GIF files, which will close on September 1st, 2023. Since some MO users might have included GIF files hosted on Gfycat in their posts, does the service's ...
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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.
...
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1
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How can I improve my posts to attract responses?
This is a follow up to this post:
I haven’t received a response from either this or this post, since, according to @Asaf Karigila:
"The longer, more detailed, more effort that is required to ...
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2
answers
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What is the tag [derivations] for?
Since the tag derivations has no usage guidance at the moment, I do not know when it should be used, which is unfortunate.
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At what point should MO recognise it needs to leave Stack Exchange Inc?
Edit Please note this is not me posting with my moderator hat on (I've signed the letter), and I didn't discuss this with the mod team before posting this. It's not within shouting distance of being ...
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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 ...
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Stack Exchange moderation strike
You may or may not have heard that there are some controversies around moderation on the network, specifically in relation to the moderation of GPT-produced posts, but more generally around lack of ...
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Why suspend a user for 100 years instead of deleting his/her account?
I have just discovered that users can be suspended for 100 years. This raises the question: why suspend for such a long duration (which practically means banning), instead of simply banning (i.e. ...
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Making my post easier to read
I tried to make this post easier to read but find it extremely difficult to get through grammatical-wise.
I'm wondering if there is someone who can correct the grammar of this post or rewrite the ...
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Problematic phrasing of Stack Exchange terms of service
There's a problem with how the Stack Exchange terms of service are phrased. Currently, they include the following paragraph:
In the event that You post or otherwise use Subscriber Content outside ...
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Is there a software solution if we do cut the cord from SE?
There has been some recent concerns about MathOverflow's relationship with StackExchange: see
What is MathOverflow's "agreement" with Stack Exchange?
How much is MathOverflow exposed to ...
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34
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1
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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 ...
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24
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 “...
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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?
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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 ...
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Best of MathOverflow, or papers inspired by MathOverflow
This is a place to collect MathOverflow success stories!
Was some of your research inspired by something on MathOverflow? Do you know questions & answers that led to interesting research? ...
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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 ...
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Jean-Christophe Yoccoz
I've heard today that Jean-Christophe Yoccoz passed two days ago:
Le mathématicien français Jean-Christophe Yoccoz, médaille Fields, est mort [archived], Libération, 05.09.2016.
I think people would ...
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I have a question which is a near fit for MathOverflow. What are some other resources I might consult?
What are some other resources which might be useful for somebody considering asking a MathOverflow question, especially if their question is not quite a perfect fit here?
In asking this, I have ...
Tim CampionMod
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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Celebrity usernames
The question "naive de Rham cohomology fails for singular varieties" (naive de Rham cohomology fails for singular varieties) recently received an apparently useful answer from a user with the name "...
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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 ...
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