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.

290 questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
Filter by
Sorted by
Tagged with
82 votes
0 answers
2k views

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) ...
52 votes
0 answers
1k views

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 ...
  • 33.2k
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 ...
  • 36.9k
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, ...
43 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 ...
  • 1,592
36 votes
0 answers
457 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
767 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 ...
  • 1,781
34 votes
0 answers
612 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. ...
  • 33.2k
31 votes
0 answers
975 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 ...
  • 36.9k
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 ...
23 votes
0 answers
910 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 ...
  • 36.9k
23 votes
0 answers
945 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 ...
23 votes
0 answers
734 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 ...
  • 27.6k
20 votes
0 answers
882 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....
20 votes
0 answers
749 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 ...
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 ...
  • 7,847
19 votes
0 answers
414 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, ...
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.
18 votes
0 answers
532 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, ...
  • 40.1k
18 votes
0 answers
759 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 ...
18 votes
0 answers
436 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 ...
18 votes
0 answers
523 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 ...
  • 6,830
18 votes
0 answers
525 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
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?
  • 18.6k
17 votes
0 answers
258 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 ...
  • 3,894
16 votes
0 answers
469 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 ...
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 ...
  • 19.1k
16 votes
0 answers
570 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 ...
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 ...
  • 18.6k
16 votes
0 answers
608 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 ...
16 votes
0 answers
578 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 ...
16 votes
0 answers
654 views

Help! Help! The colors are off!

I have a deja vu. Are the colors wrong, completely?
  • 36.9k
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#...
15 votes
0 answers
397 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 ...
15 votes
0 answers
449 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}[...
  • 25.4k
15 votes
0 answers
675 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 ...
15 votes
0 answers
378 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 ...
  • 633
15 votes
0 answers
702 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 ...
14 votes
0 answers
207 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 ...
  • 18.7k
14 votes
0 answers
652 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 ...
14 votes
0 answers
330 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 ...
  • 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). ...
  • 20.5k
14 votes
0 answers
589 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 ...
  • 55.3k
14 votes
0 answers
509 views

Thank you letter!

I am quite aware that meta has not designed for what I am about to write, but I cannot help myself. This concerns a recent "question" on MO: US editors and reviewers vs Iranian Authors? Indeed, it ...
  • 2,269
13 votes
0 answers
811 views

Vandalism edits by apparently-anonymous users

There is an answer to an old community wiki question that was edited about 45 mins ago to make it sexually explicit, with a second attempted edit pending approval to make it even more so. I rejected ...
  • 7,847
13 votes
0 answers
786 views

Diminished activity during pandemic?

There has been a reduction in "traffic," but not nearly as much as I anticipated. This chart is maybe a few days behind a fast-moving situation, but I find it somehow comforting that math "goes on." ...
13 votes
0 answers
1k 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 ...
  • 939
13 votes
0 answers
632 views

Users with many questions having negatives votes

I am a bit hesitant to bring up this issue, but since it does bother me a good deal here goes. It has similarities with this other meta question but with a more objective edge maybe. It is a fact ...
  • 873
13 votes
0 answers
512 views

Should this teaching question about Graph Theory be reopened?

Should What (fun) results in graph theory should undergraduates learn? be reopened? In the comments, Andrej Bauer suggests that it is should be moved to Math Educators Stack Exchange, while Fedor ...
  • 29.7k
13 votes
0 answers
575 views

Is this question appropriate for MO? (Recognizing cohomological ideas)

About two weeks ago I asked this question on MSE: https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1085946/when-should-i-be-doing-cohomology. (Short version: what are some ways I can tell that some sort of ...

1
2 3 4 5 6