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
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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 ...
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Collatz Question
I voted to close this question about a "5n+1" version of the Collatz conjecture because it appears to be entirely unmotivated, with no heuristics and not even any substantial numerical evidence.
I ...
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Tag for Fragments of Peano Arithmetic
There are quite a few questions on the main site related to (first-order) Peano Arithmetic and its fragments. Here are two examples: 1, 2 (but there are many others).
It would be nice, and feels ...
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2022: 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 ...
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What happened to the fonts?
It appears that MO (including MO Meta) has recently changed the display fonts:
I couldn't find any topics on MO Meta pertaining to this new change, hence this question. SO has also switched the fonts,...
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2021 Community Moderator Election
The 2021 Community Moderator Election is now underway!
Community moderator elections have three phases:
Nomination phase
Primary phase
Election phase
Most elections take between two and three weeks, ...
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Is there such thing as "typical user reputation curve"?
This question is driven by sheer curiosity - maybe even vanity?
My reputation curve acquired curious shape lately:
I can even guess reasons (mostly personal) why the pace is so slow ever after June ...
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MathOverflow in the news
What are some instances of MathOverflow being mentioned in the media?
Now that MathOverflow has recently had its tenth anniversary, I would be interested to learn of any mentions of it in the mass ...
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Between math stack exchange and mathoverflow
Suppose that I posted a question on mathstack exchange and no one has answered it. In my opinion it is not enough reason to post it on mathoverflow but if I also awarded a bounty and still didn't get ...
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Downvoting and Closing of a Good Question
This seems to be a perfectly good (i.e. interesting and nontrivial) question that was downvoted and closed for mysterious reasons. As far as I can tell, the main objection is that the author ...
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Can we bring back the question about Gauss-Legendre nodes and weights?
The question
Computing Gauss Legendre Quadrature for Large N
was voluntarily removed by its author, after I implied (with a link to Wikipedia) that the answer was trivial and well-known. I have ...
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How does MathOverflow deal with the liability for the content of the site?
As can for example be read here and here, creators or webmasters of websites are responsible for the content of their website, even if the material leading to legal issues (for example disputes ...
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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 ...
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Users with multiple accounts
In the old meta we had a very useful thread where one could point to moderators multiple accounts to be merged. Since things have changed, would there be a point on having such a thread here, or what ...
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Appropriate procedure for removing little used tags which are too specific
What is the correct procedure for removing tags which only have a single question, and would be better off with a less specific tag?
My example is a question which was tagged 'relative-entropy'. ...
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How is TeX rendered in edit summaries?
I recently edited a question Dynkin type classification for 2-dimensional hypersurfaces in non-commutative space, and entered as my edit summary "$<x,y>$ -> $\langle x,y\rangle$" <...
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`positive-characteristic` and `characteristic-p` are synonyms
I thought that tag synonyms were meant simply to be proposed and left to survive or die on their own, but I see another question in HNQ about tag synonyms, so maybe one is supposed to raise a ...
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2020: 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 past 12 months.
As most of you here are aware, sites on the Stack Exchange network ...
- 101
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0
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Editing an old post to add MathJax
Sometimes I come across an old post which does not use MathJax. Is it OK to edit such a post if the edit improves readability?
This question (and its answers) motivated this post. I know some users ...
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Are these questions of mine, (seemingly too hard for MSE?), suitable for MO?
The questions at issue are this and this. If they get no answer even after the end of bounties, might I post to MO?
And how about evaluating $\displaystyle \sum_{m=0}^\infty \sum_{n=1}^\infty \frac{(-...
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Might featuring some FAQ posts on meta be useful?
Among the things on the site which can be directly influenced by the site moderators (without any involvement of Stack Exchange staff), probably the community bulletin has the most visibility. The ...
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Nominate bountied question for closure
Bountied questions cannot be closed: this prompted this meta-MO question. In the answer to that question, the reasons for this feature are explained (closure would shorten the bounty period, possibly ...
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Only one addtional @user
Why do we have this restriction?
There are many circumstances where it is natural to
cite several users (especially when several=two) in one comment.
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Should I give a new answer or change the old one?
Related, but not exactly the same, to this question: "Should I rewrite my question, or create a new one?"
Recently I gave a "quick and dirty" answer (in fact I just googled for getting it) to this ...
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Compulsive question editing
There is a user that is modifying a lot of question in the last couple of hours, in particular, converting to latex any plain text that he considers that should be in math mode. It is getting annoying ...
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No reputation change signals if subtracted from bounty?
Right now I am observing the following.
Usually every time I get an upvote somewhere, I get a signal about it in the upper right corner. Recently I declared a bounty (and awarded it for an answer) at ...
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What is the correct way to handle questions with deprecated tags?
Occasionally some tags on MathOverflow are deprecated - it is decided that they should no longer be used.
If a deprecated tag is only used in a few questions, then it can be removed manually - the ...
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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 ...
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What are the precise steps of processing a feature request?
There are many feature request posts on meta. Some of them turned into special features of Mathoverflow after receiving positive feedback of the community but most of them never became anything more ...
user82800
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Requesting solutions to graduate textbooks is off-topic?
Today this question was put on Hold as off-topic
https://mathoverflow.net/questions/186117/solutions-for-categories-for-the-working-mathematician
I wander if this is a disservice in fact. I suspect ...
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What are mirrors of mathoverflow?
I am looking for mirrors of mathoverflow.
Searching for questions so far found:
http://lfhck.com/site/mathoverflow/1
http://mathdiscussions.aircraftdata.net/
http://hwnvoc.youdegreeearn.com/...
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Should this question remain closed?
The OP of How to project a vector onto a very large, non-orthogonal subspace has written to complain that the question was closed unfairly. The question is too far from my area of expertise to be ...
Todd TrimbleMod
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Must I be precise when asking questions, or will readers fill gaps based on context?
Suppose I asked a question about graphs; do I always have to precisely define, what kind of graph I mean (directed/undirected, with/without parallel edges, with/without loops, connected or not, with ...
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Editing of the help center and about
Try to add some meat to the on topic page. Also, in the about page, you can edit the site target audience, the example question, and the bullet points that define what to ask about/what not to ask ...
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Partial answer accepted, thinking it could have been easily extended and provided enough insights
Some days ago I posted a question and I accepted an answer, "although it’s only a very partial answer," as the answer author wrote in a comment. I accepted it because I thought that it ...
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Would such a "big list" on known bounds for distances between $2^S-3^N$ be appropriate for MO?
After new questions and/or activities on older questions on "bounds for distances $2^S-3^N$" appeared in MO I thought whether a [BigList] or [CommunityWiki] on known such bounds (their ...
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What should I do if I believe to found the answer to my question but I'm not sure?
Four months ago I asked one question in MO and had no expected answer. After following the clues from comments of other users I realized that, in that time, I didn't even know how to properly ask what ...
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How to find out why a post was deleted
It would help to know why a post was deleted, I believe in this case automatically by a MO monitoring robot. I am not judging the decision, but would like to know why, to avoid asking such questions ...
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Help center text references a thread but doesn't indicate which one
In the "What about open problems?" section of https://mathoverflow.net/help, the last line says "To join the discussion about how MathOverflow should deal with open problems, go to this ...
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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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Deprecating an old link
This question comes from this list of edits: https://mathoverflow.net/posts/86827/revisions
An old answer included a link to a now-deprecated website (which has been taken over by a porn website); a ...
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Recent question considered off-topic?
I recently posted this question, which was flagged as off-topic:
How to approach the stigma of not having a math degree?
I'm not sure why it was flagged. MO asks for questions about research-level ...
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On a question previously posted on Math .SE
Some days ago I have asked this question but I got no response. Will it be ok if I post this question in this site (I am asking this because crossposting isn't generally welcomed in this site)? Also ...
user57432
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I think I solved an old problem, can someone please check it for me?
Sorry if this is inappropriate to ask on meta, but back in April I updated an old answer of mine that is over two years old here, on the existence of a zero sum subset problem. I suspect due to how ...
user49545
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Would this M.SE question that has received no answers be appropriate for MO? (or could it be tweaked into being appropriate?)
https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/667830/modern-research-into-grassmans-theory-of-forms
When I first posted it on MO, it received a downvote, so I figured there might be something wrong with ...
user45695
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Why was this question (sorting a countable infinite set) deleted?
A recent question on the complexity of sorting a countable infinite set (Sorting of countabe set) was apparently deleted. I'm curious why.
(Certainly, the question was poorly written, with no ...
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Can I ask this question on Math Overflow? (Advice on how to get started)
I am thinking of applying for a maths PhD programme. I have more or less an idea of the subfield I'd like to research, but not much more than that. I'm looking for suggestions on how to properly ...
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1000 Questions by Dominic van der Zypen!
Amazing milestone! Our first $1000$-question user.
Question # $1000$:
"Edge sets on 𝜔 maximal with respect to chromatic number".
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Is this soft question acceptable?
Edited version: What are great examples of comprehensively archived mathematical correspondence (including both handwritten and electronic items)?
Previous version : How should mathematicians archive ...
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Criteria for Top question?
I posed a question on Mathoverflow which got no votes, but it made it to Top question.
I supplied an answer, while nobody else proposed an answer.
How come it made it to Top question?
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