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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6 votes
2 answers
501 views

Suitability on MO of question on teaching engineers mathematical thinking skills

Recently, I asked a question on MSE about teaching engineers mathematical thinking skills. Would this question be suitable for MO, where it might reach more professionals involved in teaching ...
16 votes
6 answers
2k views

Questions about applied mathematics

There's a discussion taking place at this question Mathematical study of Mpemba effect? where the author UwF is arguing that this question isn't clearly off-topic and would like some explanations for ...
29 votes
6 answers
1k views

MathOverflow at the Joint Mathematics Meetings, Baltimore, January 2014

The 2014 Joint Mathematics Meetings will be held January 15-18, 2014 in Baltimore, with hundreds thousands of mathematicians attending. It happens that I plan to attend, and since I'd enjoy going to ...
1 vote
1 answer
261 views

What happens to reputation when I get merged?

A while ago I sent an email to the stackexchange team on recovering my account https://mathoverflow.net/users/21278/ben-lim. They said I should create a new account and merge it with the old one. This ...
16 votes
5 answers
346 views

What statistics would be interesting for a usage report?

Suppose MathOverflow were to start having quarterly or annual usage reports. What statistics would you like to see reported there? Some are obvious — new questions, new answers, new users, etc. ...
32 votes
1 answer
606 views

Potential "technical" obstacle to migrations, and suggestion for a solution

Practical advice: If you want to/vote to migrate something to another site (especially math.SE) please make sure that at least one of the tags on the question exists on the target site (math.SE). ...
34 votes
3 answers
1k views

Easy research-related questions, and closure reasons again

I am a bit confused by the close reason for https://mathoverflow.net/questions/154235/minimum-l1-norm-may-not-obtain-the-sparsest-solution?noredirect=1#comment395410_154235. It is an easy question ...
11 votes
4 answers
937 views

Development of the MathOverflow community

From the Stack Exchange Data Explorer one can obtain the following data: Number of people who joined MO in the last 4 years and have collected at least 10000 points: 96 Number of people who joined ...
19 votes
4 answers
2k views

Dealing with possible incorrectness

I have seen a few responses on MO that I think are either incorrect or possibly incorrect. What is the best way to draw attention to possible incorrectness? (I provide two examples below; if this is ...
2 votes
1 answer
366 views

MathOverflow vs other measures of mathematicians' interests

How closely does MathOverflow track the interests of mathematicians as measured in other ways? For instance, the Tags page here suggests that $$\frac{\text{interest}_{tags}\text{(algebraic geometry ...
9 votes
0 answers
485 views

Is this question appropriate? (Counterexamples in Universal Algebra)

I have a question which I'd like to ask, but I'm not sure it's appropriate for MO, and I wanted to get some feedback. The reasons I'm worried it might be inappropriate are: (1) there are already ...
1 vote
0 answers
476 views

Reference Requests: Good Ways and Bad Ways

I would like to know of types of bad examples of MathOverflow questions that are tantamount to reference requests. I can think of two: a) A reference request for something that is properly outside ...
4 votes
1 answer
398 views

Soft questions without reputation

I would like to ask two soft questions, but i would not like to gain reputation from this. What do you think about the following procedure: I write my question in advance. I post a question named [...
-5 votes
2 answers
2k views

Why was this question about axiom of choice and the Wiles's proof of FLT deleted?

Why was this question about axiom of choice and the Wiles's proof of FLT deleted? Namely the question was as follows: Does the Wiles's proof of Fermat's last theorem rely on axiom of choice? [I ...
8 votes
2 answers
256 views

When to add post notices

Mods have a new option to add post notices. There are three basic notices currently available but MO specific notices could be added: citation needed - This post does not cite any references or ...
21 votes
2 answers
628 views

Data on voting by 'association bonus only' users

There's recently been some discussion of the potential impact on voting of users whose only MathOverflow reputation comes from the network association bonus. I asked the SE team about this, and ...
8 votes
2 answers
667 views

"Answer your own question – share your knowledge, Q&A-style": is there consensus among MO moderators?

I have the impression, that there is no concensus among MO moderators about sharing knowledge on MO; the impression is based on quite contradictory reactions to offering to share such a knowledge, ...
22 votes
3 answers
1k views

Answering not research level questions

I just commented the solution to a question that was obviously not research level. Then I deleted the solution again since providing it might encourage people to again asking such questions. ...
4 votes
0 answers
422 views

Non-research level question

I just gave an answer to the following question: https://mathoverflow.net/questions/153157/a-lemma-on-the-growth-of-the-number-of-certain-edge-paths-for-a-given-train-trac/153170 but I think the ...
3 votes
3 answers
789 views

Why this question is not welcomed but others are welcomed in MO?

May I wonder why this question is not welcomed: accidental-unplanned-breakthroughs-in-mathematics see the votes-down. And unfriendly responses. but many others are even more broad or more opinion-...
6 votes
2 answers
742 views

Appropriate Reaction to a Failed Reference Request on MO

This follows Amir Asghari's advice concerning my comment on the answer to Answering my own question: Background of my question is, that I can envisage different reasons for reference requests on ...
1 vote
0 answers
247 views

Preferred Conciseness of Contributions

This is a followup question to Appropriate Reaction to a Failed Reference Request on MO related to Reference Request for Integer factorization with LP/ILP I'm about to prepare an answer that ...
18 votes
5 answers
1k views

On the recent question "Is Euclid dead?", or: Is it considered good practice to use MathOverflow for a campaign?

Yesterday, a question entitled Is Euclid dead? has been asked in which the OP states: "Currently I am leading a campaign for the return of EG to the syllabus of the high schools of my country (...
22 votes
3 answers
1k views

Measures to separate math overflow from the rest of the stack exchange network

It seems that there is a widespread concern about the influence that in many ways the switch to the stack exchange network has on this site. I infer this from the many questions on meta on this ...
6 votes
5 answers
251 views

How to avoid prepending a blank line or indenting the first line of a post when using \newcommand?

When \newcommand is used, it is somewhat common that it is used in such a way that the (rendered) post starts with a blank line. While this is minor, it is still ...
8 votes
1 answer
486 views

Answer to what was an open question

I vaguely remember reading a question on main about a possibly "open question", which got an answer which started by affirming that the question is indeed open, and then proceeded to provide a ...
9 votes
2 answers
547 views

Meta Question: Asked in Math Stack Exchange, Unanswered: Can I move it Here?

My apologies in advance if this is off-topic; I searched to see if this question was acceptable here, but could not find a clear answer. Anyways: I posted a question on Math Stack exchange two weks ...
20 votes
2 answers
447 views

Voting on meta questions to indicate agreement or disagreement

We've previously discussed the meaning of a downvote on meta, and I think that's worth reading before discussing anything further here. I don't at all like that perfectly reasonable questions (...
8 votes
4 answers
1k views

Does the point system encourage flooding the site with questions?

Presently, it may well seem to users who are not yet familiar with MathOverflow that flooding the site with questions is desirable and encouraged behavior -- at least this is what the point system ...
4 votes
1 answer
902 views

Can I ask whether or not a paper that proves P=NP is correct?

I found a paper on arXiv.com that claims that P=NP is proved. The paper is written by a professor in Russia and it looks well-writen. http://arxiv.org/pdf/1208.0954v31.pdf Can I ask whether or not ...
25 votes
1 answer
1k views

Using Math Overflow to check whether or not a proof is correct

A user named Jürgen Böhm recently posted two questions which boiled down to checking whether or not his proof is correct. I left a comment on the second one saying that I don't think this is ...
22 votes
6 answers
2k views

Homework and migrating to math.se

As many people have noticed, one of the main functions of math.se is to be a place for students to get other people to do their homework for them. Obviously we do not want to facilitate such cheating....
5 votes
1 answer
549 views

new home single topic MathSciNet

Does anyone know anything about the new offer from the AMS of getting home access to single topics in MathSciNet? http://www.ams.org/publications/math-reviews/math-reviews damn it, now i can't ...
4 votes
3 answers
470 views

Problematic wording of the TOS, take two

The Stack exchange terms of service have been recently changed since a sentence in them was perceived as too strict by many users. The change was in this paragraph: In the event that You post or ...
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. ...
10 votes
0 answers
262 views

When reviewing suggested edits, cancel rejection and approval votes

I have seen many edit suggestions approved which I consider to be minor edits to old posts (which bump them to the front page), or to actually reduce the quality or readability of the post. Other ...
1 vote
3 answers
374 views

Are questions related to mathematicians appropriate for MO?

Is it acceptable to ask questions that are more concerned with mathematicians (women and men alike) as persons than with their contribution to mathematics? Those questions could be related to the ...
10 votes
2 answers
774 views

"What is known about" considered harmful?

I have noticed that those of my questions with downvotes are exactly those beginning with the words "what is known about..." or "is anything known about...." For example: Stationary many subsets of $...
8 votes
0 answers
316 views

Asking two questions, one of which implies the other

I have two statements, A and B, and I want to ask on MO whether they are true. They are not obviously related, but I have a (simple) argument to show that A implies B. Should I: Ask about both in ...
4 votes
1 answer
423 views

What are our copyright policies?

Interesting questions, answers and ideas overflow everywhere in MathOverflow. Users can use them in their lectures, papers, teachings, etc. Of course it is the main propose of this free math ...
22 votes
5 answers
2k views

What should be the policy on "open problems" on MO?

The subject of this discussion are questions on "open problems" on MO. There is an existing policy on "open problems" reproduced from the (old) FAQs, which involves an open-problem tag. The ...
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 ...
22 votes
1 answer
716 views

Should OEIS links be updated?

Historic links to the OEIS are of the form http://www.research.att.com/~njas/sequences/A097048. These links no longer work: Neil has retired from AT&T, and in the meantime has set up the OEIS ...
20 votes
7 answers
2k views

What is needed to succeed in keeping up the level of the site and retaining the good contributors?

MathOverflow is a nice high-level communitiy with a good collegial academic atmosphere. I'd like to know about how this can be achieved; for example how does MathOverflow keep up the good qualitiy of ...
7 votes
1 answer
370 views

What kind of soft questions are acceptable?

I have come to understand that this site is mostly used by researching mathematicians. I'm a math undergrad, but I have a few questions I'd like to ask researching mathematicians regarding approaching ...
3 votes
1 answer
278 views

Question unanswered on MSE

Would a question that is not addressed in usual standard texts on a subject and which remains unanswered on MSE be on-topic on Mathoverflow?
9 votes
1 answer
471 views

Is it considered good practice to clean up one's "useless" comments?

Hovering with the mouse above the upvoting arrow of a comment shows the text "this comment adds something useful to the post". Therefore arguably the number of upvotes a comment receives equals the ...
27 votes
3 answers
2k views

Do your own homework

Occasionally, we get questions on main taken from old contests, such as Olympiads and Putnam exams. These questions are inappropriate for MO, and they get closed, which is as it should be. However, ...
15 votes
2 answers
670 views

How to wake up an old question?

Suppose there is an old question on mathOverflow, asked by someone else, which has been voted up a quite decent number of times, and received several answers which have also been voted up, but no ...
3 votes
0 answers
220 views

Bumping of obviously offtopic questions

Today, https://mathoverflow.net/questions/28487/is-there-a-concept-equivalent-to-factorial-that-uses-addition-rather-than-multip was on the front page. I was about to flag the question, only to ...