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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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 ...
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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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Adding \LaTeX to old questions and answers
Maybe some context in the beginning. It is my second year in university so I am far away to be good enough to answer questions here, but from time to time I enjoy reading questions and answers. I ...
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Is it possible to get an internship or may be admission to a graduate program on the basis of activity at MO?
Well, it is amazing to find some of the greatest figures of mathematics at MO (including Field medalists) and even more startling is the fact that they have put queries too.
So, I was left wondering ...
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What are reasons for allowing anonymous voting?
What reasons for anonymity of voting overcome the following objection?
A down-vote fails to communicate what is thought to be wrong. Suppose I post a question that says "Doesn't the fact that $2+3=5$...
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On: Graph Theory is the s(c/l)um of Topology (?)
Recently a question got asked that effectively asked for the origin of the quote "Graph theory is the scum of topolgy" indicating it might not be the exact quote but something along these lines.
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edits with links to material under restricted access
I have seen several times people editing a post to add a link to an article under restricted access/behind a paywall. By this I mean that the article is on some site requiring a login/payment before ...
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Could I have some help improving a history-overview post?
First off, a link to the post in question.
It has been marked as "too broad".
What could I do to improve my question? Should I break each sub-question down into its own question? Should I repost it ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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782
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Strange username
We have a new user called Asian but no Chinese. It's not spam, and I guess it's not offensive, but it seems … weird. I couldn't find a tag related to username issues on the only other post I ...
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What should I do about a wrong tag added by an editor?
I posted a question and tagged it "infinite-sequences". A high-reputation editor added a more general tag: ca.analysis-and-odes. Now, in principle, having a more general tag is fine---but this tag is ...
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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 $\times$ ...
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moving questions between MO and math.SE
How does one decide if a question is good for MathOverflow or Math.StackExchange?
I've been using the criterion of being "research-level" but that can be subjective. An expert may consider a ...
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Order of answers
Looking at the answers on a recently closed CW post about applications of pure math, I noticed that the answers were ordered by time posted, and not votes. Is this a new change? Is there a way to ...
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Does review feature encourage closing and flagging errors?
The new review feature is interesting, and I have experimented with it. I have a number of concerns- I wonder whether my concerns are shared, and whether there is anything that can be done to address ...
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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....
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Blocking some words in question title to prevent silly questions
Is there any way to block some words in question title?
Need help with a equation. Help me please, its pretty urgent :) (now deleted by the OP)
May be blocking some words such as "please","urgent". ...
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Annals of mathematics, why "second series"?
I'm not sure if this question should be posted on overflow. So I put it here first.
I see the abbreviation of the journal Annals of mathematics is always like Ann. of Math. (2). I'm confused why it ...
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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 ...
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Is asking for good review papers a good question?
I think that generally speaking asking for papers might be a non-research issue. If it's merely a google issue, then it shouldn't be in MO.
What about Survey/Review papers? Obviously those are hard ...
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Is this question appropriate? (What features should a mathematician look for in a tablet computer)
I'm getting ready to buy my first tablet computer and I have some fairly specific things I need it to be able to do so that it can be an effective tool for my research. I need it to be able to compile ...
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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 [...
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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 ...
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How long will it take for all my badges to turn up?
By current count I have 3 silver and 4 bronze badges. This is a lot less than I had before. Do they just turn up in dribs and drabs over 24-48 hours, or what?
Not that I'm driven by badges, but I'm ...
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Migrate questions without disagreeing on their research status
Sometimes mathematics and statistics (as well as mathematics and TCS, or mathematics and computational science) overlap.
There are times (such as for this question) when I'd like to be able to ...
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Voting on suggested tag synonyms
I created a suggestion for the tag synonym 'mg.metric-geometry' <--- 'classical-geometry' two weeks ago. However, it appears to have received no votes yet, up or down. Is this delay to be expected? ...
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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 ...
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How are hot meta posts decided?
I'm curious about the exact mechanisms behind the 'hot meta posts' blurb on the right hand side of the main/meta page.
I have been monitoring it for the past few days to see if my recent question ...
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To contact moderator who responded for flag
Suppose I have raised a flag and moderator has responded for that flag, accepted/declined it.
I am happy/not happy with their decision and would like to thank/explain the point to the moderator who ...
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Can’t vote to close question as duplicate of question without an answer
I tried to vote to close Einstein problem; on mirror symmemtry as a duplicate of Aperiodic monotile without reflections?. But the software gave me an error I wasn’t expecting: it said because the ...
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Why was "Awfully sophisticated proof for simple facts" closed (two years ago)?
Most likely veterans became bored with Awfully sophisticated proof for simple facts but for newcomers it is such a delight!
My actual question is: what happens with closed questions? Do they become ...
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Posting a technical/narrow open question on mathoverflow?
I am a bit confused on our policy for open-problems. Are we allowed to post a technical/narrow conjecture/open problem on MO?
For example, here is a type of a beautiful question that I have in mind ...
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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 ...
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Should [tag:feynman-integral] be a synonym of [tag:path-integral]?
The question is in the title: I see no benefit from having these two tags for essentially the same concept (particularly as the path-integral wiki excerpt refers to the path integral formulation of ...
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Searching via site:mathoverflow.net: a puzzle
I was searching for an answer I posted, using Google. I knew I mentioned "beltway," "homometric," and "Skiena." But none of the Google searches ...
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Answer converted to comment, then reverted to answer
Earlier today, this answer to this question was converted to a comment by a moderator. The same moderator subsequently reconverted the comment back into an answer an hour or so later. One of the ...
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Should be simply "no answer" among bounty reasons
I am going to declare a bounty on a question simply because I hope it will additionally stimulate at least somebody to think harder on it.
Among the reasons I could choose is "Draw attention", which ...
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Tag [upper-bounds] is nowhere to be found
At the moment, MathOverflow has tag lower-bounds (100 questions), but no tag upper-bounds. Are lower bounds that much harder to compute? Or that much more interesting?
Worse, due to the non-existence ...
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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 ...
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Is this thread really discussing mathematics or some technology?
The activity going on in this thread, I do not think it can be constituted as mathematics. It think it is image processing, but still not the mathematical aspect of the image processing but purely on ...
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The tags (publishing) and (journals) - maybe change direction or cancel the synonym
At the moment there is a synonym publishing $\to$ journals. (With the tag journals as the master tag.)
I think that at least for some questions tagged journals:
Using a tag called publishing might be ...
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Migrated question returned to MO - how to handle?
The question I am referring to is
Is all complicated modern math intuitively understandable?
(See the user's math.SE account to see that the question was at one point migrated to math.SE.)
I think the ...
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Rules for deleting one's own question
Today (2019 July 6) a new user had posted a question that received some upvotes The problem is from contest.Please flag it for removing it and I had provided an answer that didn't solve the problem.
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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 ...
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Is this non-technical question appropriate?
I am interested in asking the following question, and would like some indication as to whether it is appropriate or not before I do. The question would be entitled something like 'Mathematical ...
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MathJax \newcommand appears persistent across the whole page
Probably this is known.
MathJax \newcommand appears to be persistent
across the whole page, including the question + all answers.
This potentially might cause ...
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Soft question on history of Cohen Macaulay rings
A user over at MSE flagged https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/455506/why-cohen-macaulay-rings-have-become-important-in-commutative-algebra#question suggesting that it is suitable for MO.
The ...
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A mathjax issue with stars in super/subscripts
I encountered Topos associated to a category with glowing-red \*s in it. When trying to edit them out I discovered that whenever I try to replace an ...
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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 ...