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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Incentivizing ‘bad’ questions

As a 5+ year member of MO, I remember the old days when upvotes on questions only netted you 5 points as opposed to the current 10. While I was generally glad to see good questions being rewarded in a ...
3 votes
0 answers
131 views

MathOverflow answers and peer review

Sometimes, the asker does not have sufficient background to verify an answer. How should one handle such cases? Some of the signals on whether to accept such an answer are whether it 'looks' good, ...
1 vote
0 answers
33 views

Ordered rings tag

I've noticed that while there are tags ordered-groups and ordered-fields, there is no tag ordered-rings. The issue is that there was a little amount of questions with this tag. So it got deleted. I ...
15 votes
1 answer
397 views

Is it fine to repost questions from a paper

Is it fine to re-ask open questions from ones paper on mathoverflow? On the one hand, I am interested in finding an answer to the question, and it might help if it is more publicly available. But if I ...
51 votes
53 answers
28k views

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 ...
43 votes
0 answers
670 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 ...
15 votes
1 answer
532 views

Request to consider undeleting an answer

Apologies if this should go in the "requests to undelete questions" thread but this seems to be technically different. I noticed that this answer https://mathoverflow.net/a/465960/ has ...
0 votes
0 answers
16 views

I am seeking a solution to an Abel equation of the first kind with f0=0. y’=f3(x)y^3+f2(x)y^2+f1(x)y. f3,f2, and f1 are are given in the body [migrated]

The Abel equation of the first kind with $f_0=0$. $$ y'=f_3(x)y^3+f_2(x)y^2+f_1(x)y \tag{1} $$ where \begin{align} f_3(x)&=(12x^2-2)/x,\\ f_2(x)&=(14x^2-1)/x^2,\\ f_1(x)&=3/x. \end{align} ...
-4 votes
0 answers
148 views

Closing via - "review queue"

For those who missed (like me) - there exists "review queue" - and some questions can be closed via that pipeline. So even old questions can be closed without any activity, which is unusual. ...
38 votes
4 answers
2k views

Most important results of the year - appropriate or not?

The question Most important results in 2023 has been posted to MO, and as in previous years, has had a mixed reception. (EDIT: As of this writing, the post has been deleted by the author, presumably ...
7 votes
8 answers
2k views

Specialized chat rooms

Would there be an interest in having more specialized chat rooms, like the one for homotopy theory that currently exists? So far, the homotopy theory one seems to be fairly successful, and it seems ...
1 vote
2 answers
331 views

Why was my spam flag declined on an answer that does nothing but promote the answerer's book?

I recently encountered an answer that does nothing but refer to the poster's book: Please look pages 141-147 of the book: S. Saitoh and Y. Sawano, Theory of Reproducing Kernels and Applications, ...
15 votes
2 answers
790 views

Suggestions for the design of a font for math articles/books

Recently I've resumed work on a font I'm currently developing, meant to be released as a completely free, open-source, OFL-licensed font designed specifically for use in papers, theses, books, lecture ...
8 votes
1 answer
291 views

Should there be a banner with some basic info about MO in the right sidebar?

A recent discussion about customizing the "Draft your question" panel reminded me of an older one here: Feature request: add short "about MathOverflow" section to the front page. ...
19 votes
1 answer
808 views

Using mathoverflow as a blog

In the past, I’ve seen instances where a user has been accused of ‘using mathoverflow as a blog’; the specific criteria for when this accusation is leveled vary, but generally the following are ...
4 votes
1 answer
198 views

A MathJax/LaTeX question

In This question, the following appears: $$[0,2] \times \left[0,4-\sqrt{3}\right] \times \left[0,4-\sqrt{3}\right] \times \mathop{\Large\times}_{i=1}^{k-3}[0,2]$$ Thinking that that last $\times$ ...
13 votes
2 answers
756 views

Is there a way to measure the effectiveness of MO?

One way to measure the effectiveness of MO is to track how often it leads to publishable research. That angle has been discussed before. I'm wondering if there are other metrics that can be used to ...
2 votes
1 answer
105 views

Is there a way to see the up/down vote spread on all questions asked by a given user?

When you as a user get some sufficiently high reputation, you can see the up/down vote spread of any question/answer. Now suppose there's some user, X, you're interested in. On their page you can sort ...
9 votes
0 answers
206 views

2023: a year in moderation

It’s that time of the year again! As we wave goodbye to last year and welcome the new one, we have a tradition of sharing moderation stats for the preceding calendar year. As most of you here might be ...
3 votes
2 answers
216 views

How often are questions "successfully" migrated to MSE?

I rarely use MSE and so I don't have a good feel for what it's like overall. I was slightly surprised by a recent comment by Christian Remling which characterizes MSE as a "homework factory with ...
16 votes
1 answer
647 views

Are "has this been studied before" questions on topic?

I have a fairly elementary question but rather than feeding it straight to the wolves I thought I would ask it here. Well, via a more general question: Are questions of the form "has $X$ been ...
2 votes
0 answers
69 views

Should community wiki answers be eligible for bounties?

I posted an answer to this question Kepler conjecture: Are there only two most efficient packings or could there be more than two? summarizing various points made in the comments into a coherent ...
1 vote
1 answer
168 views

Why isn't "Nobody has answered" on the multiple-choice list of reasons for a bounty?

When one is asked "Why are you starting this bounty?" the multiple-choice list of answers does not include "Nobody has answered the question." Choosing the answer that says it has ...
8 votes
3 answers
894 views

Feature: Making the MO-guidelines visible while editing questions?

I noticed that some of the MO questions that get closed are clear-cut going against the MO-guidelines eg. "here is the link to my new result" or "here is the jpg file of my homework ...
4 votes
3 answers
573 views

Creating theories-of-arithmetic logic tag

It seems to me that a tag for "arithmetic logic" is missing while it concerns a significant number ($\sim 500?$) of questions, which currently have no common tag other than the very broad lo....
1 vote
1 answer
412 views

Procedure for requesting a complete removal from MathOverflow

With any online community, as the users and the company owning the domain change, it is inevitable that some users will want to exit the community. For example, many Facebook users deleted their ...
26 votes
2 answers
1k 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 ...
0 votes
0 answers
187 views

Is asking for the status of Vandiver's conjecture suitable for MO?

I wonder what the current status of Vandiver's conjecture in number theory is? An internet search revealed the paper "Vandiver's conjecture via K-theory" by Alexander Stolin from 2020 on the ...
1 vote
0 answers
210 views

Should this question be reopened

Given the comments, should this question be reopened Is |A| < |B| possible if A->B is surjective? With a negative score, no answers and closed it will be automatically deleted, losing the ...
18 votes
3 answers
1k views

Comment template for questions more appropriate for MSE

I think it would be nice to have a comment template that everyone could use when a (new) user asks a question on the site which is clearly more appropriate for MSE. Here's what I've been using today: ...
2 votes
1 answer
208 views

Should we be more polite when closing non-research-level questions?

We get many questions from students (usually in high school, or less-advanced undergrads) that are clearly off-topic since they’re well below research-level. Mods and high-rep users are generally ...
49 votes
17 answers
5k views

Interesting (and not sufficiently answered) questions on math.SE

In light of the generally positive response to this meta-thread, I am creating this to help advertise (and hopefully fully resolve) "interesting" questions on math.SE. I'm not really certain what the ...
7 votes
2 answers
598 views

What to do if an answer was subjected to a minor formatting-only edit?

Recently an answer of mine (https://mathoverflow.net/a/20820/402) was edited (or rather, a suggested edit was approved by two other users). The edit consisted exclusively of minor formatting changes, ...
17 votes
4 answers
1k views

Opting out of reputation

[Disclaimer. I'm making this feature request not because I want it nor because I think it's a good idea, but because I heard it so often that there is need to discuss it. Please don't shoot the ...
1 vote
0 answers
163 views

Why is it taking so much longer than it used to for MathJax to get rendered?

These last few days when I click on a posting it sometimes takes more than a minute or even two, for MathJax to get rendered. It used to be a couple of seconds. Is anything being done to correct this?
1 vote
1 answer
447 views

What about talking about life? How to work, manage, organize, and so forth?

My question comes from a general an recurrent observation on MO (and more generally in the real academic life): doing research (in mathematics) is a whole ecosystem, full of different tasks and ...
15 votes
1 answer
318 views

affiliation or association (in the wording of the promotion help page)

There is a little discussion in the comments of a recent MO question on the meaning of the word "affiliation" in our promotion help page. If you promote one of your own publications in a ...
1 vote
0 answers
122 views

On documents found over the internet and sites that make them available

Yesterday on MO I saw this question and gave this answer by posting a link I found by googling (more precisely, I used DuckDuckGo). The sought for paper is from a series of preprints issued by the ...
17 votes
2 answers
772 views

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 ...
67 votes
7 answers
8k views

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 ...
2 votes
0 answers
231 views

Undelete request, question 455497 [duplicate]

I'm asking if question 455497 could be undeleted. It was about multiplicative persistence. Even if the question itself was not that well-prepared, it was a valid question about research (at some level ...
4 votes
1 answer
277 views

Mystery popup window

Last week or so, when I get into an SE site (MO in particular), a popup window appears in the lower left corner for few milliseconds. Some kind of clickable button there, with not enough time for me ...
8 votes
0 answers
725 views

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 ...
3 votes
0 answers
214 views

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 ...
0 votes
0 answers
118 views

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 ...
12 votes
1 answer
285 views

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, ...
0 votes
0 answers
206 views

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?
23 votes
1 answer
558 views

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 ...
27 votes
2 answers
1k views

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 ...
1 vote
0 answers
116 views

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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