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8 votes
1 answer
310 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. ...
Martin Sleziak's user avatar
8 votes
1 answer
483 views

Answering my own question

As a typical scenario, assume I ask for examples of some mathematical phenomenon and somebody answers my question and provides 2 families of examples. After several months, I figure a third family of ...
user avatar
8 votes
1 answer
425 views

Chatroom links disappeared

I like to hang out in the homotopy theory chatroom. I used to navigate to this and other chatrooms using a link on the main site. This seems to have disappeared. Is there a reason for this change? I ...
Thomas Rot's user avatar
  • 7,463
8 votes
3 answers
904 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 ...
Thomas Kojar's user avatar
  • 4,579
7 votes
1 answer
1k views

How to ask multiple very specific questions about a paper?

I'm slowly going through some topos theory papers by Lawvere. In almost every paper, there are many small sayings and sometimes entire sentences which I do not understand and have never explicitly ...
Arrow's user avatar
  • 10.4k
7 votes
1 answer
1k views

Is it possible to use tikzcd code in MO posts?

Question : Is it possible to use tikzcd code in MO posts? There are information for drawing diagrams using AMScd ...
Praphulla Koushik's user avatar
7 votes
2 answers
576 views

Are there policies to respect in order for MathOverflow Q&As to be tracked back in relevant zbMATH Open reviews?

Are there policies to respect in order for MathOverflow Q&As to be tracked back in relevant zbMATH Open reviews? I am asking this since I noticed that all questions and answers to which I ...
Daniele Tampieri's user avatar
6 votes
2 answers
2k views

What does research-level mathematics mean?

My understanding of this is that mathematics is research-level if: you could conceivably write a paper on some aspect of it; it could be taught in a grad-level course; it is not widely known ...
Albert Zhang's user avatar
6 votes
0 answers
152 views

Merging old duplicates?

New to meta, so apologies for any breaches of etiquette. I've just noticed that these two old questions are duplicates: Smallest permutation representation of a finite group? Smallest n for which G ...
Robin Saunders's user avatar
6 votes
4 answers
300 views

What should the "hover text" for the MathOverflow link on all SE sites be?

If you go to the bottom of any page in the SE network (e.g. this one!), you'll see a list of SE sites. In particular there's a link to MathOverflow, that is potentially seen by a large number of ...
6 votes
2 answers
748 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 ...
Manfred Weis's user avatar
  • 12.9k
5 votes
1 answer
556 views

On the top-level tag ra.rings-and-algebras

I'm confused about the scope of the ra.rings-and-algebras The problem is related to the ambiguity of the word "algebra", which essentially has two (rough) meanings the meaning "ring&...
YCor's user avatar
  • 62.6k
5 votes
3 answers
648 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....
YCor's user avatar
  • 62.6k
4 votes
1 answer
236 views

Should we have standing bounties?

There have been proposals to stop the bounties from expiring. On meta.SE these have been received rather badly, but would be most likely welcome here, as offering rewards for unsolved problems has a ...
domotorp's user avatar
  • 18.6k
4 votes
2 answers
2k views

Mailing lists / Usenet groups for research math

For Category theory there is a well known and quite active research mailing list https://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ Do similar mailing lists or usenet groups exist for other branches of mathematics? For ...
lor's user avatar
  • 437
4 votes
1 answer
410 views

Undelete request, question 23943

NEVER MIND --- the same moderator who suggested I post here has solved the problem by deleting my copy-paste job and undeleting the answer we wanted undeleted. [or maybe it got undeleted by some other ...
Gerry Myerson's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
318 views

Bounty policies

When you propose a bounty, these points are immediately subtracted from your score, and can never return, even if there is no satisfactory answer. I think this is unfair; can someone explain the ...
Alexandre Eremenko's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
139 views

Garbled MathJax in some old questions [duplicate]

In several old questions/answers I have seen in MathJax the combination \\, where it obviously should be \, and also ...
მამუკა ჯიბლაძე's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
614 views

Some proposals for modifications of the process of closing/reopening questions

I wish to make a modest proposal on closing/reopening questions. Let me begin by noting that by far the most frequent reviews are Close votes -- almost 37,000, and looking quickly most of the close ...
Lucia's user avatar
  • 43.6k
2 votes
3 answers
1k views

Winter Bash on MO?

I noticed that the Stack Exchange sites are having a Winter Bash, and one of my friends received a hat on MSE. Why isn't this on MO? It'll be fun to have something like that here, wouldn't it? (I ...
user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
477 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 ...
Gerhard Paseman's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
257 views

Migration site list lacks entries

The question What is the integral of temperature over space called? obviously belongs elsewhere. Most probably the proper place is physics.SE, but in any case not here on meta, not on math.SE, and not ...
მამუკა ჯიბლაძე's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
172 views

Should there be Anonymous Comments?

I currently got a downvote for my question Making a Graph Eulerian for Applying TSP Heuristics, but unfortunately the downvoter didn't leave a comment explaining what the motivation was, thus ...
Manfred Weis's user avatar
  • 12.9k
-2 votes
1 answer
163 views

Restriction on editing closed questions

Guidelines to prove that $2^{\sqrt{2}}$ is a transcendental number? question bumped into https://mathoverflow.net/ after making an edit. I am not sure if that adds anything to the question. Should ...
Praphulla Koushik's user avatar
-3 votes
1 answer
435 views

Should we create an Erdős tag?

I was thinking about creating tags for some famous or important people, like Erdős (that already exists, as pointed out by Joonas: erdos), that could be used for questions related to their work. ...
domotorp's user avatar
  • 18.6k
-4 votes
2 answers
371 views

Area 51 Mathematics Open Community Reviews

Following the discussions in Area 51 community peer review and links therein, I have created the following proposal Mathematics Open Community Reviews hoping to get things started. The proposal ...
Thanasis Stylianou's user avatar
-5 votes
1 answer
651 views

Restriction on Number of edits

Book about fluid dynamics asked Apr 13 '10 edited 1 hour ago Are there examples of conjectures supported by heuristic arguments that have been finally disproved? asked 21 hours ago edited 2 hours ...
Praphulla Koushik's user avatar
83 votes
3 answers
4k views

MathOverflow user jailed

I know this is off-topic, not even being a question. MathOverflow user Kıvanç Ersoy has been jailed, apparently for signing a petition. Edit: As mentioned in comments, there is a petition about ...
Jeremy Rickard's user avatar
73 votes
4 answers
4k views

Why all the negativity?

I've been on this site for several years and I appreciate the site a lot but I don't like to post here anymore because no matter what I write I get some kind of sarcastic comment, or put-down, or ...
user avatar
68 votes
6 answers
2k views

Happy 5th anniversary, MathOverflow!

MathOverflow first came online on September 28, 2009! Let's celebrate five years of MO! I bought a delicious cake from the best bakery in the area to have with dinner tonight. I'm sure you will also ...
François G. Dorais's user avatar
55 votes
8 answers
3k views

We have our first user with more than 200K reputation!

Congratulations to Joel David Hamkins who on (I think!) the 27th November 2022, was the first MathOverflow user to pass 200k reputation! Since Joel joined on the 19th November 2009, he has supplied ...
51 votes
59 answers
30k 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 ...
50 votes
0 answers
835 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
  • 63.2k
48 votes
4 answers
3k views

On discussion of published papers at MO

There is an interesting discussion taking place at MO over the suitability of this question: Complex structure on $S^6$ gets published in Journ. Math. Phys. The question is about the correctness of a ...
Todd Trimble's user avatar
48 votes
0 answers
955 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
  • 34.9k
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
  • 38.9k
46 votes
6 answers
2k views

Should graduate students be encouraged to participate in MO? If so, at what stage?

When I started graduate school ten (!) years ago, a more senior Ph.D student at the time told me about MathOverflow and encouraged me to participate. Ever since then I have found it immensely useful. ...
Stanley Yao Xiao's user avatar
44 votes
2 answers
1k views

Restoring Bill Thurston's figures in an answer

The question Floating polyhedra with fair equilibria was answered by Bill Thurston, but his (typically amazing) answer contains links to 7 figures, all now broken. I don't know how to retrieve those ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
44 votes
2 answers
2k views

How to cite comment by unknown user disproving Erdős conjecture?

I believe that fedja has disproved a conjecture of Erdős et al. when commenting on my question Almost monochromatic point sets, but I'm unable to contact fedja regarding this. What shall I do? Shall I ...
domotorp's user avatar
  • 18.6k
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
  • 1,612
41 votes
4 answers
3k views

Catering to professional appearance a bit much?

[In case of hurry, please scroll down to the suggestions at the very end.] The deletion of the Math Jokes thread (mirrors: html or pdf), most likely provoked by the meta.MO debate about some specific ...
darij grinberg's user avatar
38 votes
2 answers
1k views

Deleting others' work

Recently a question was posted on MathOverflow, which received (I think) more than an average number of upvotes. There was an answer to the question, by someone other than the OP. Next day, the ...
Iosif Pinelis's user avatar
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 ...
Timothy Chow's user avatar
  • 81.7k
37 votes
3 answers
732 views

Discreet editing

After I edited someone's Question or Answer, it feels real awkward to see my name mentioned in front of the author of the respective Q. or A. I feel that instead of displaying editor's name there ...
Włodzimierz Holsztyński's user avatar
36 votes
1 answer
1k views

How is it off-topic to ask whether the normalization of a local complete intersection is Gorenstein?

This question (which I did not ask) is whether the normalization of a local complete intersection domain is Gorenstein. Why was this closed as "off-topic"? Especially when this one, which asks ...
Gro-Tsen's user avatar
  • 31.9k
35 votes
1 answer
3k views

Grothendieck's passing

I think it would be a healing ritual for the MO community for someone of appropriate stature (which excludes me) posting an inviting cwiki question that elicits responses from the users to this ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
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 ...
Federico Poloni's user avatar
33 votes
0 answers
590 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
  • 34.9k
33 votes
0 answers
639 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
  • 34.9k
32 votes
4 answers
2k views

How does one cite a MO post with an anonymous author?

I asked the question "Averaging $2^{\omega(n)}$ over a region" because this is a necessary step in a research paper I am writing. The answer is detailed and does exactly what I need, and it would be ...
Stanley Yao Xiao's user avatar

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