Questions tagged [feature-request]

You have an idea for a new feature, or for a change to the existing functionality.

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3 votes
1 answer
70 views

How do I follow a tag on MathOverflow?

I am probably missing something, but I would like to follow a tag on MathOverflow, so that I get emails about new questions with this tag. How do I do this (I read MathOverflow help and Googled this ...
2 votes
0 answers
138 views

Question regarding the StackPrinter site

Does anybody here know whatever happened to the StackPrinter site? It seems to me that it is not working anymore. Do you know of a currently working version/link of the site? Please let me thank you ...
12 votes
0 answers
250 views

Retroactively add linked questions

Any question on MathOverflow (or other Stack Exchange site) shows the list of linked questions in the sidebar on the right. A question is added there if there is a link between the two questions ...
1 vote
1 answer
128 views

Leveraging MO to organize mathematical research

I am currently studying an existence lemma that appears to be simple yet powerful. From what I know about it, it is applicable in combinatorics, topology, graph theory, probability, percolation theory,...
1 vote
1 answer
101 views

Feature request: displaying all answers of a given user

It frequently happens that I want to find my old answer. The list of answers on my page consists of 35 pages, so searching in it using my browser search is too time consuming. On the other hand, if I ...
4 votes
1 answer
177 views

How to follow a question?

Basically, is it possible to follow a question by another user? Meaning whenever there are new answers or comments on it, I get a notification in my inbox, the same way the original poster of the ...
20 votes
7 answers
2k views

Can MO go back to +5 rep for questions? Should it?

In case you missed the news, upvotes on questions now grant +10 reputation instead of +5, and the change has been implemented retroactively (most if not all users have already had their reputation ...
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 ...
3 votes
1 answer
188 views

Is here something like blog service or just sand-box to store notes ?

Sometimes when I find something interesting on MO it would be convinient for me to store it somewhere here, something like small personal blog, or may be just sand box. Is here something like that ? (...
2 votes
0 answers
142 views

Merge the closing reasons "needs details" and "needs more focus"

I usually find unclear how to choose between the closing reasons "Needs details or clarity" and Needs more focus. Moreover the reasons "Off-topic because..." seem much more ...
24 votes
1 answer
1k views

"A year in moderation" post on MathOverflow?

You might have noticed than many Stack Exchange sites have some statistics about both community moderation and moderators' activity posted on meta under the title "2018: a year in moderation". Here is ...
4 votes
0 answers
126 views

Possible additional option for "See Math.Stackexchange" close vote [duplicate]

Some of the most common close votes are for people who have posted homework questions, to which the usual appropriate response (to my understanding) is to flag as off-topic with the message "...
3 votes
1 answer
186 views

Wouldn't it be nice to have subforums on MathOverflow dedicated to learning certain books/papers/etc.?

Oftentimes, I read something and start to ponder questions of the form "Does the formula on pg. 87 have a typo?" or "Isn't this a gap in the proof?" or "Why does the definition have this extra ...
25 votes
5 answers
1k views

Community Peer-Review in Mathoverflow

I was recently surfing around the Physicsoverflow and I have to admit I was impressed by their Review section. I could not help myself from thinking how -and if- such a feature could also be ...
11 votes
0 answers
532 views

Primarily opinion-based questions/answers

One closing option is primarily opinion-based: Many good questions generate some degree of opinion based on expert experience, but answers to this question will tend to be almost entirely based on ...
2 votes
0 answers
129 views

Bounties for Answers?

What are your feelings about offering a bounty for deciding or evaluating an answer to a MO question? Background of this post is that I have provided two answers to a highly upvoted question with ...
-3 votes
1 answer
166 views

Remove the upper bound on the number of bounties a single user can have at any moment

This question is about the maximum number of active bounties one user can have at any given point of time. Why do we have such a limitation? Why only 3 bounties? I have asked some questions on this ...
14 votes
2 answers
648 views

Why is it not possible to offer a bounty for longer than 7 days?

I had offered a bounty for the following question that expires in 7 hours: What did Gelfand mean by suggesting to study "Heredity Principle" structures instead of categories? The results ...
5 votes
0 answers
119 views

When we close questions and suggest MSE, should we link to their How to Ask? [duplicate]

When we close questions by saying MathOverflow is for mathematicians to ask each other questions about their research. See Math.StackExchange to ask general questions in mathematics. ...should the ...
14 votes
3 answers
520 views

Forbid (or rewrite) proxy links in answers

One can see from the recent discussion Correcting links with university proxy (especially MathSciNet links) that some users add in their posts links that only work for people behind a specific proxy, ...
-18 votes
1 answer
316 views

Proposal for a new rule for down-vote

As I see it, the most common causes for down-voting a question should be: The question is completely incomprehensible, or makes no sense ("Are all prime numbers green?"); The question has a trivial ...
-8 votes
1 answer
416 views

Remove down-voting or show down-votes in the separate counter

I have been reading this question and answers and I have submitted the answer there which is really a question. I have added it there, because it come to my mind after reading the questions and ...
0 votes
0 answers
97 views

reminder for comments/responses

Suppose a user commented on my post and due to some reason I overlooked and then forgot. As it is my question, the one who responded for my question would not care to write another comment if I do ...
10 votes
1 answer
432 views

Reword "What topics can I ask about here?"

Another time recently, an user has asked a question which is very far from research level, and has been reprimanded for not reading the FAQ. However, I realize that there might be a problem in the ...
-3 votes
1 answer
177 views

Giving "bountied questions" more visibility weight

What community thinks about idea giving "bountied questions" more attention ? I almost never look on the tab "featured", I guess I am not alone. So I guess such questions deserve little attention. ...
11 votes
1 answer
376 views

What about temporary design changes just to make better distinction from other sites?

It seems that the most common complaint about the new design is that the site looks very similar to other sites. (Especially Mathematics was mentioned a few times, probably because there are many ...
12 votes
1 answer
323 views

Being notified of the comments under the answer of someone else to your post

Sometimes a lot of good things happen as the comments under an answer to your post. Though we are notified of the answers given or the comments under the body of the post, it seems that we are not ...
0 votes
0 answers
168 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 ...
15 votes
0 answers
234 views

Change reputation required to post on meta back to 5 reputation points

Typically, Stack Exchange sites have the restriction that only users with at least 5 reputation points on the main site can post on meta. In this regard, MathOverflow is different. (It is listed also ...
11 votes
1 answer
230 views

Who should be allowed to create a new tag?

There is a recent post on MO that includes two new tags: Beer and Bet! The problems of these two tags aside, I don't think it is a good practice to add new tags unless it is absolutely necessary. Is ...
4 votes
0 answers
137 views

Chat does not appear in the sidebar

The chat doesn't seem to appear in the sidebar on the main site (although it does on Meta). ManishEarth has suggested that this might be due to the no-ads agreement. I think it would be useful to have ...
3 votes
1 answer
225 views

Seems like right margins in answer texts need to be increased

It is a very minor thing but still - it seems that answer texts have zero right margin which shows somehow unpleasantly with colored background of accepted answers: (This is with latest Chrome on ...
22 votes
1 answer
1k views

Why do we link to Twitter, Facebook or Google+ below every question?

I edit this old feature request of mine, in the hope that mentality have evolved and some consensus can be reached and some action be taken: After each question on MO (with no answers yet), we can ...
15 votes
1 answer
353 views

Could there be a warning when a new tag is created?

It is rather easy to make a typo and create a new tag by mistake without even noticing it.1 Could we have a warning saying that the user is creating a new tag so that users can notice such mistakes ...
1 vote
0 answers
128 views

Ability to flag for migration to other stackoverflow sites

Currently on mathoverflow, flags can be set for questions to be migrated to meta.mathoverflow, math.stackexchange, and stats.stackexchange. However, there are often questions that belong on other ...
12 votes
0 answers
426 views

Removal of the "symplectic" tag

There is a symplectic tag on MO that currently contains just two questions. The first question so tagged dates from March 26 2017, so this makes this tag at least 1 year and 4 months old. I believe ...
-5 votes
1 answer
241 views

Close votes of different types

Sometimes when a question is closed, different people have a different reason for closing it. You can see this while voting: there is a count in the margin saying how many votes of a given type have ...
14 votes
1 answer
657 views

Why can't we close questions that have a bounty?

I just cast the 5th vote to close the question Was Cauchy so obstinate?, but the system said that it's impossible to close a question with an open bounty. It seems to me that this question is ...
3 votes
1 answer
138 views

Why is log-in hidden

On the front page I looked in vain for "log in" button. Eventually found to my surprise that clicking on "sign up" takes me to a page where I can choose between "sign up" and "log in". Do I have any ...
-2 votes
5 answers
1k views

close/reopen wars on Mathoverflow

Sometimes one sees a situation like with this question: Cargo Cult Science in mathematics? which goes on hold and back again a number of times. Should there be a limit to the number of such rounds? ...
4 votes
0 answers
192 views

A markdown question: are custom list number formats possible?

For list numbering, 1., 2., ... are used. Could I change this somehow, to use, say, (1), (2), ... or i), ii), ...?
1 vote
1 answer
152 views

Tags "riemann-zeta-function" and "zeta-functions" are almost identical

I have discovered that the following two tags are too similar to each other: riemann-zeta-function, with 299 questions tagged, has the description The Riemann zeta function is the function of one ...
4 votes
1 answer
372 views

Migration to Physics.SE

Several times, including perhaps this question today I would have liked to suggest migration to Physics.SE. Similar to this question I would like to ask for this feature to become available as a ...
1 vote
0 answers
115 views

Recommending to move the question to another site

I am trying to recommend to move the question to another SE site. When I press the corresponding button, the menu pops up which offers me choices: meta, MathSE, stats. And no more choices. How can I ...
1 vote
0 answers
81 views

Does it make sense to have both "surfaces" and "curves-and-surfaces" tags?

I have noticed that there currently exist tags surfaces (with description "A surface is a two-dimensional topological manifold. The term can also be used to describe a smooth surface, depending on the ...
1 vote
1 answer
402 views

Serial downvoting

I received 4 downvotes within a short amount of time, I suspect it has been the same person. I think a mechanism should be installed that no user $u$ can downvote more than one post with a positive ...
0 votes
0 answers
53 views

What if I want to increase bounty by somebody else?

I found an exciting question that somebody gave bounty of 50, and I would like to increase it. Seems there is no way to do it. Why? Also, I never tried this so I don't know: can I increase my own ...
0 votes
1 answer
200 views

MathOverflow feature: facilitating collaborations (algebra & other sciences)

One of my goals as an academic is to facilitate collaborations between my field ("pure algebra") and other sciences. We can't expect administrative staff (for instance, the Dean of Science) to help ...
7 votes
1 answer
192 views

How to cut and paste

It has happened a few times that I have wanted to move someone else's answer from the comments to an answer, when the poster implicitly does not wish to do so (by not responding after a days-old ...
1 vote
3 answers
191 views

How to find the meta-thread of an MO-thread at hand? Is there one? Should there be?

Questions. (0) How to find out for an MO question at hand whether it already has anything like its canonical meta-thread? (1) Should, in your opinion, every MO question automatically generate a meta-...