Questions tagged [editing]

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49 votes
2 answers
1k views

Nudge: the new Stacks editor has significant implications for this site

You have probably seen already a link, on the Featured on Meta sidebar, to an announcement of an upcoming upgrade to the text editor on Stack Exchange, Opt-in alpha test for a new Stacks editor. As a ...
Emilio Pisanty's user avatar
37 votes
2 answers
558 views

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. ...
Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine's user avatar
37 votes
3 answers
730 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
25 votes
5 answers
2k views

Updated: Is it time to replace links to the UCDavis arXiv frontend?

This question from March 2020 points out that many questions/answers link to papers at the http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/ frontend instead of at the arXiv itself, but that the frontend had been down a ...
Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine's user avatar
24 votes
2 answers
1k views

Editing etiquette

What are some general guidelines for editing a MathOverflow post? Are there some "do"s and "don't"s I should know about? (The material that was previously in this question box has been moved to an ...
Todd Trimble's user avatar
  • 52.3k
23 votes
1 answer
783 views

Update on "Who owns my MathOverflow posts?"

I saw the question previously asked in: Who owns my MathOverflow posts? Unfortunately, I was not able to get a clear answer by reading the responses to that question, as other people had commented ...
Mahdi Majidi-Zolbanin's user avatar
20 votes
1 answer
1k views

What to do with links to arXiv front end?

There are quite a few posts which link to some paper at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/ rather than directly at https://arxiv.org/ The front for arXiv at UC Davis seems to be down for some time. (I ...
Martin Sleziak's user avatar
20 votes
2 answers
974 views

Can (and should) Project Euclid links be replaced in bulk?

In February 2021, Project Euclid made some changes on their website: Project Euclid Platform Migration FAQs. It is probably a consequence of this that the links starting with ...
Martin Sleziak's user avatar
16 votes
5 answers
1k views

Do we have an unofficial quota on how many old questions one should bump for minor edits in a single day?

I noticed tonight that a well-intentioned user has been doing a lot of minor edits of formatting of old questions with the effect of filling most of the active question list with old questions bumped ...
Benjamin Steinberg's user avatar
16 votes
1 answer
600 views

Correcting links with university proxy (especially MathSciNet links)

Let me first say, that I consider links to papers referenced in MO posts a useful things. And so do other users, judging by an older discussion on this topic: Is it worth editing old posts to add ...
Martin Sleziak's user avatar
14 votes
1 answer
367 views

Any policies around Dead links?

I have been reviewing a lot of older posts (~10 years old) and there are quite a few with links that are either dead or links that point to sites that no longer contain the relevant information that ...
JimN's user avatar
  • 255
14 votes
2 answers
413 views

Illustrating posts of others

This issue arose in connection to the question Is this a $C^0$ foliation of $\mathbb{R}^2$? where a foliation is described formally. I thought it would help to have a picture of it. Initially I wanted ...
მამუკა ჯიბლაძე's user avatar
14 votes
1 answer
530 views

Interpretation of Time-limit for Editing Comments

Yesterday I had written a comment and, after 4 minutes began editing it. After having finished my editing, I tried to save the comment and was prompted with the message, that editing is only possible ...
Manfred Weis's user avatar
  • 12.6k
14 votes
0 answers
602 views

To which extent can one modify another's question?

One highly off-topic question of real analysis was asked in the main site by a new user. One user sent, 1 hour later, a long answer going far beyond the the question, and then, 12 hours later, edited ...
YCor's user avatar
  • 60.1k
13 votes
1 answer
779 views

Best way to correct "Cauchy-Schwarz" misspellings

I would like to apologize because the top questions page is currently overrun by questions I just edited. I just noticed that Cauchy-Schwarz is often incorrectly spelled Cauchy-Schwartz and so I made ...
coudy's user avatar
  • 18.5k
13 votes
0 answers
815 views

Vandalism edits by apparently-anonymous users

There is an answer to an old community wiki question that was edited about 45 mins ago to make it sexually explicit, with a second attempted edit pending approval to make it even more so. I rejected ...
Alec Rhea's user avatar
  • 8,977
12 votes
1 answer
501 views

Altering the question in a way that makes an answer obsolete

I've seen that several times: an answer makes OP want to change the question in a way that would damage the answer. Obviously this should not be done. In fact I think it is better to delete the ...
მამუკა ჯიბლაძე's user avatar
12 votes
1 answer
351 views

May I borrow the question/answer editing/preview gadgets?

That is, I really like the feel and responsiveness of these gadgets (much better than LyX, for instance) and would like to use them offline. Is this actually possible? Are there licensing issues? ...
Jesse C. McKeown's user avatar
12 votes
1 answer
366 views

Tell what's been modified

On the page of "top questions" that opens when I go to mathoverflow.net, each question is accompanied by information about what happened to it most recently. The information consists of "asked" or "...
Andreas Blass's user avatar
12 votes
1 answer
650 views

Problem with posts and comments relying on macros defined elsewhere

MathJax supports possibility do define macros. (Using \newcommand, \DeclareMathOperator, \def...
Martin Sleziak's user avatar
12 votes
0 answers
183 views

Why can't I edit my own deleted questions?

I recently asked a question, thought about it, decided to delete it, and I wanted to add a short note after deleting it explaining why I removed the question. It turns out, I couldn't edit the ...
Asaf Karagila's user avatar
  • 38.1k
11 votes
1 answer
581 views

Are edits performed by external, non-SE robots allowed?

During my reviewing of Suggested Edits, I have encountered several of them attempted by user @Glorfindel. Upon closer examination, all were performed by a robot written by him and all consisted of ...
Alex M.'s user avatar
  • 5,207
11 votes
0 answers
347 views

One more reason to reject an edit: too much alteration

I encountered this now, and have seen it quite frequently before: I would like to reject an edit, and the reason is something between "attempt to reply" and "clearly conflicts with author's intent". ...
მამუკა ჯიბლაძე's user avatar
10 votes
1 answer
585 views

What is the policy on "shortening titles" on MO?

A MO user (Myshkin) has just edited the title of a question of mine (here) to make it shorter. The old title was: Ref request: If the natural density (relative to the primes) exists, then the ...
Salvo Tringali's user avatar
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 ...
Ricardo Andrade's user avatar
9 votes
5 answers
283 views

Is it possible to temporarily comment out part of a post?

Scenario (true story): after posting something I became doubtful about certain claim there, so I want to hide it until I clarify my doubts. Of course I could just move that part to a temporary file, ...
მამუკა ჯიბლაძე's user avatar
9 votes
4 answers
659 views

Is it a bad practise to add details (limited) to some one's answer?

A user X answered my (some one else's) question in a compact way (less than $10$ lines). Upon discussion, user X has explained somethings in comment which made answer clearer. Is it considered to ...
Praphulla Koushik's user avatar
9 votes
4 answers
708 views

How acceptable is prosemirror-math as an editor style for this site?

This is a follow-up to one of the possible answers to the recently-announced changes to the editor. Prosemirror-math is a math editing framework that allows for direct editing of a rich-text preview. ...
Emilio Pisanty's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
273 views

Editing old question, can't submit as title is too long

I'm editing Is there a canonical map from the cohomology of orbifold Chiral de Rham on an orbifold to the cohomology of Chiral de Rham on a crepant resolution? as there was a broken arXiv Front link (...
David Roberts's user avatar
  • 33.8k
8 votes
6 answers
1k views

How to discourage excessive self-edits?

My question is prompted by the reappearance of this post on the front page. A glance at the edit history shows that the OP has edited his own question thirteen times. This user has a history of ...
Nik Weaver's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
142 views

Autosave of drafted questions or answers

So there I am, typing a new question (or an answer). As it appears $\LaTeX$'ed in the preview frame, I keep improving it... and then I realize that there is some detail I need to think more about ...
Wolfgang's user avatar
  • 13.2k
7 votes
2 answers
598 views

What to do if an answer was subjected to a minor formatting-only edit?

Recently an answer of mine (https://mathoverflow.net/a/20820/402) was edited (or rather, a suggested edit was approved by two other users). The edit consisted exclusively of minor formatting changes, ...
Dmitri Pavlov's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
248 views

Enable saving draft questions and answers

As in the title - please, enable saving drafts of questions and drafts of answers, and returning to them on my next visit to MO. I am very slow in putting my thoughts into print. I Leave them for ...
Adam Przeździecki's user avatar
7 votes
0 answers
173 views

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 "$<x,y>$ -> $\langle x,y\rangle$" <...
LSpice's user avatar
  • 11.3k
7 votes
0 answers
374 views

Misspelling of Cauchy-Schwarz

As a comment of Dennis Serre, the correct spelling of Cauchy-Schwarz is Cauchy-Schwarz (not Cauchy-Schwartz): The spelling is Cauchy-Schwarz, from Hermann Schwarz. If you are interested in Fourier ...
Mahdi's user avatar
  • 1,991
7 votes
0 answers
232 views

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 ...
Michael Albanese's user avatar
6 votes
4 answers
1k views

Formatting Sandbox

The purpose of this thread is to enable people to check if their formatting works and to play around with their MathJax code. Quoting from Bill Dubuque's Formatting Sandbox on meta.math.SE: To use ...
6 votes
1 answer
164 views

Reputation displays after an edit even if opted out

I mentioned this in a comment on the main announcement regarding not automatically displaying reputation, but perhaps it is worth making into a formal bug report. After I edit a post, reputation is ...
LSpice's user avatar
  • 11.3k
6 votes
1 answer
278 views

About the option of editing comments - a different algorithm?

There is a 5 minute limit on editing comments. Perhaps the idea is to keep the flow of the thread faithful (to avoid distortions--or even manipulations--of a discussion). However I happen to be quite ...
Włodzimierz Holsztyński's user avatar
6 votes
0 answers
110 views

Suggest edits while over 2000 rep

At 2000 rep, users gain the privilege that edits are applied immediately, and loses the ability to suggest edits. However, sometimes I find that I would prefer to suggest edits and leave it up to the ...
user44191's user avatar
  • 4,961
6 votes
0 answers
632 views

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 ...
efs's user avatar
  • 3,099
5 votes
0 answers
144 views

How can I see the line length available for long mathematical expressions in posting on MO?

In typing up a question (or answer) on MO, I try to format a long mathematical expression so that it fits in one line. When I meet with apparent success, as shown in the wysiwyg box underneath the box ...
John Bentin's user avatar
  • 2,427
5 votes
0 answers
364 views

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 ...
user44191's user avatar
  • 4,961
5 votes
0 answers
106 views

Screwed up LaTeX when presenting edited posts for approval [duplicate]

In about one of every 4 cases when I am asked to approve an edit, the comparison page that shows the suggested edits suffers from incorrect rendering of LaTeX, which often makes both the original and ...
fedja's user avatar
  • 59.5k
4 votes
4 answers
1k views

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. ...
user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
383 views

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 ...
coudy's user avatar
  • 18.5k
4 votes
2 answers
189 views

I deleted my post, but now want to view its source

I asked a question, but it was noted in the comments that it was a bit too elementary for this site, and it was suggested that I delete and then post it to Math.SE. I deleted it, and still have the ...
Christopher King's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
213 views

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 ...
John Bentin's user avatar
  • 2,427
4 votes
0 answers
69 views

MathJax in edited question title gets badly mis-parsed in diff view

A recent question received an edit to its MathJax, including in the title. Viewing the diff in the edit history, the edited MathJax in the title gets very badly mis-parsed in the diff view, as shown ...
Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
267 views

Is it possible to change the author of a problem on mathoverflow?

By a mistake I have written the problem Is "weakly good" series in a finite-dimensional Banach space "good"? from my account instead of writing it from the account of Lviv Scottish ...
Taras Banakh's user avatar
  • 40.8k