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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A StackExchange website aimed at graduate students?
There has been a lot of discussion about questions that do not get answered on MSE, but are not considered 'research level' on MO and thus get closed. The problem seems to be that certain questions ...
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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 ...
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Big list of feature requests and suggestions for a fantasy MO 3.0
I feel that MathOverflow is unique in the StackExchange network. There are features which we might want which might be unique to this site, and which might not be immediate feature requests or ...
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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 ...
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Viewing reputation and badges is now opt-in and compatible with the new front page
This announcement is a little late (see the discussion here), but in response to discussions over many years, we (the moderators and board) have implemented a change to the site where by default, ...
Ben WebsterMod
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History of MathOverflow
What is history of this site? When and by whom was it created?
What were the important milestones of this site?
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Is it worth editing old posts to add links for references?
I always appreciate when citations to papers in MO answers/questions have a hyperlink — it’s very convenient for the reader, especially in cases where the referenced paper is non-trivial to find.
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Improving citations of MathOverflow posts
There are already a lot of citations of MathOverflow in the literature. Nevertheless, there is some resistance in the greater mathematical community since MathOverflow is not a traditional medium. ...
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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 ...
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Moderation strike update 6 and last : back to work
As you probably were aware, since early June moderators around the whole SE network have been striking, including at MathOverflow. We appreciate your patience through this time, and there has been a ...
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On the role of anonymity in a site dedicated to research-level mathematics
My questions is whether there is a good reason to allow anonymous users in a site dedicated to research-level mathematics. In theory, most users of this site are professional mathematicians and ...
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Welcoming new user: on a recent question about connections
I think that the history of this question about connections is unfortunate. I would like to discuss (respectfully, without throwing blame around) whether/how a better outcome might have been achieved....
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MathOverflow to the rescue -- not in the usual way
Every now and then we get a post to meta about ways in which MathOverflow has improved the quality of someone's research. One way I haven't seen mentioned is one that just now happened to me, and (...
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Using ideas found in MO and MSE in a paper
If there is an answer to a question that I have asked on MathOverflow or MathStackExchange which helps me to prove a result appropriate for a published paper, what should I do:
(1) Cite the MO or MSE ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
user9072
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Answers in comments are increasingly more common
I have checked a random sample of questions in the main page, and it seems that almost every one of them has some form of answer in the comments, apart from completely unanswered/untouched ones.
This ...
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Opt out of the new upvote/downvote buttons?
I guess most of you have noticed by now the new upvote/downvote buttons. This seems to be in line with all the other SE sites (though I admit I haven't checked each and every one of them).
Does MO ...
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Creating a "math.SE needs your help" thread
From time to time questions get asked on math.SE which may be quite suitable for MO. Given the current climate of math.SE, such questions may not receive the attention they are due: e.g., they ...
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How can we attract more grad students?
To quote an answer to a recent meta.MO question:
Here are some examples of people we would like the site to be
welcoming to:
Prominent mathematicians who are less "online" than the typical ...
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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 ...
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How can we visually differentiate MathOverflow from MathStackExchange within the constraints of the new design themes?
The new design theme introduced for MO here is now live. Several issues with the new theme were raised in that discussion. I'd like to discuss one of them, which is sort of buried in my answer and ...
Tim CampionMod
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Long-term archiving of MathOverflow
Suppose 'the worst' happens. Stack Exchange folds (commerical entities have been known to), and at the same time the moderators lose all interest and/or decide the despise mathematics. Where would ...
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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 ...
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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.
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Is MO connected?
Is it the case that MO is actually split into several communities which only communicate with each other through meta-activity but have no actual mathematical interests in common?
This is not sheer ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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early graduate level questions: MO or Math.SE?
When I first began on this site MathOverflow took questions at all levels. Then Math.SE was created and the level of MO has crept up steadily with Math.SE not necessarily absorbing the remainder ...
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Encouraging student users?
I recently made the transition from student to professor, and now I have a research student of my own. She keeps coming up with wonderful ideas, and I keep feeling like "surely this has been ...
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Problematic phrasing of Stack Exchange terms of service
There's a problem with how the Stack Exchange terms of service are phrased. Currently, they include the following paragraph:
In the event that You post or otherwise use Subscriber Content outside ...
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Is MathOverflow saturated?
I am playing with the Stack Exchange Data Explorer to compare some MathOverflow stats to arXiv stats. I was surprised to see, that in the last 4 years there was almost constant activity (measured by ...
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Couldn't the comment vote rate limitation be made more ergonomic?
Quite often I read a comment thread, and then decide which comments I vote up.
As soon as this is more than one comment, I get an error message
that I can cast only one comment vote every 5 seconds. --...
Stefan KohlMod
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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). ...
user9072
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What MO is for and what is *your* aim in participation?
Q1: What is your view on the purpose, aims and benefits of MO?
Q2: What are your specific aim, targets and benefits in participation at MO?
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Privacy of software-generated links to questions and answers
Recently I noticed that the software inserts the id
of the currently logged in user in the “share” link
of any MathOverflow question or answer.
When one is logged out, the “share” link comes out ...
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Has there been a recalculation of reputation?
At the risk of being too venal: yesterday I had over 8500 and now I am under 7900. Anyone else experienced changes with similar orders of magnitude?
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Can I see who voted for what after I die?
I would like to know who has up- and (most importantly!) downvoted my questions. Will I find out after I die? What do different religions/beliefs say about this? I would happily convert to see the ...
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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 ...
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How can a nonacademic with research level questions know which questions are research level?
I am actually still in High School, but I enjoy some more advanced forms of mathematics. I asked a question, and it generated a great response, and I really enjoyed the process, so must have come of ...
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Celebrity usernames
The question "naive de Rham cohomology fails for singular varieties" (naive de Rham cohomology fails for singular varieties) recently received an apparently useful answer from a user with the name "...
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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 ...
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Using MO as a platform to discuss papers in math?
A use case scenario: I am reading a paper and I get stuck on some point. It is obvious to me that everyone else who tried to understand this point would get stuck. I ask around, people either haven't ...
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Moderation strike update 3
There was a lull in the negotiations, for various innocuous reasons that are not relevant. But on 20th July 2023, the following update was posted to Discord by negotiator Mithical, and reposted at the ...
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What would be the disadvantages of a (hypothetical) MOexit?
The hypothetical possibility of MO leaving StackExchange was mentioned here on meta.MO a few years ago and was mentioned again recently. In a comment, Sam Hopkins asked what I think is a good ...
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Asking questions with out answering any one else’s question
Here I only ask questions and do not (can not answer for lack of knowledge) answer any of the questions.
Sometimes I feel it is bad. Some questions that I know answer to are either closed as not ...
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Drastic locking of the question "Examples of common false beliefs in mathematics"
The question Examples of common false beliefs in mathematics, was one of the best and most successful questions in the history of MO. When we discussed closing it, it was argued that after 164 answers ...
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Site updates are live
A majority of the changes are not be visible; these tweaks go along with recent updates that were made to Stack Overflow:
We have updated the site's CSS to a newly refactored LESS system, so that it'...
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