Unanswered Questions
500 questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
84
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Donations to MathOverflow, Inc
Long time followers of MathOverflow will know that as well as the website, hosted by StackExchange, and moderated by the moderation team with all of your help, there is an independent 501(c)(3) ...
- 7,800
50
votes
0
answers
859
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How do we fit in with Stack Exchange’s new AI agreement with Google?
Stack Exchange has some kind of new AI agreement with Google, as announced in their blog.
I’m just trying to get caught up myself here on what exactly is going on, but one real possibility is that ...
- 64k
48
votes
0
answers
963
views
Moderation strike update 1
As announced a little while back, MathOverflow moderators are participating in a network-wide moderation strike (currently at 121 moderators striking; see the background post for more details). The ...
- 35.5k
46
votes
0
answers
1k
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2022 Election results: Congratulations to our new moderator!
The election is over, the votes have been counted, and on behalf of the current team and board, I'd like to welcome David Roberts to the moderators team!
I'd like to thank Carl-Fredrik Nyberg-Brodda ...
- 39.8k
45
votes
0
answers
1k
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ImageShack images turning into ad banners
It's been fairly well known for some time that ImageShack is a poor image host for Stack Exchange, because they frequently delete old images and replace them with placeholders.
Recently, however, ...
- 1,299
44
votes
0
answers
1k
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An interactive graph of MathOverflow tags
I created a graph of tags from Stack Exchange sites (including MathOverflow), TagOverflow.
It is a continuation on my previous project - plots with static graphs and (sadly) without MO (due to API ...
- 1,612
40
votes
0
answers
1k
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Moderation strike update 2
There has been movement at the station. Reposting an update on how the negotiations are going from this answer on meta.StackExchange, which also gives details on other updates over the past fortnight.
...
- 35.5k
37
votes
0
answers
1k
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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 ...
- 35.5k
36
votes
0
answers
795
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Can/should we tell people that AI cut and paste answers are not welcome?
We now commonly see new users pop up and post a string of nonsense, AI-generated answers to a bunch of questions, before their accounts are eventually banned.
In order to counteract this, could we ...
- 24.2k
35
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0
answers
1k
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Upcoming election announcement (2025)
As some of you have noticed, Tim Campion and Todd Trimble have stepped down from their moderator roles lately.
Consequently, the MathOverflow Board and the Moderator Team have agreed that it would be ...
- 39.8k
35
votes
0
answers
459
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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
34
votes
0
answers
773
views
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 ...
- 2,089
34
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0
answers
619
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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.
...
- 39.1k
33
votes
0
answers
598
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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 ...
- 35.5k
33
votes
0
answers
646
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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 ...
- 35.5k
31
votes
0
answers
987
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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 ...
- 39.8k
29
votes
0
answers
522
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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 ...
- 35.5k
26
votes
0
answers
613
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The color of links in comments
In the following image, depicting a piece of a comment on MO.se
the words «this link» are a link to some URL, yet the styling makes it quite not apparent; the only styling I can see is a ...
- 47.3k
25
votes
0
answers
1k
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Unregistered Users (in Theory and in Practice)
There's been past discussion (e.g. here) about whether MathOverflow should allow posts from unregistered users. I am fully on board with the apparent consensus that the answer is yes, because of the ...
- 23k
23
votes
0
answers
923
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Upcoming election announcement (2022)
It has been quite some time since the last moderator election, and we decided that it would be a good idea to hold one soon.
This is just a preliminary announcement to let you know that this is going ...
- 39.8k
23
votes
0
answers
1k
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Request to keep an eye out for PROMYS admissions problems
Many of you may be familiar with PROMYS, a camp based out of Boston University which teaches number theory to high school students each summer. Students applying to the program are asked to submit ...
- 156k
23
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0
answers
790
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Should "The probability for a streak when tossing a coin" be reopened?
The question "The probability for a streak when tossing a coin" is on hold. [Edit: It has been reopened.] I disagree with closing the question and voted to reopen.
This problem may sound like it is ...
- 28k
22
votes
0
answers
214
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Questions containing my "favorite tags" are barely distinguishable
I liked the fact that in MO v1, any question which contained one of my list of favorite tags was noticably highlighted (a brown-orange color, if I remember correctly).
In the new version, such ...
- 27.2k
20
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0
answers
766
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Which "non-arxiv" tags are de facto top-level tags?
The tag system on MathOverflow is designed in such way that each question should contain top-level tag; these are the tags which correspond to subject areas on arXiv and generally have format such as ...
- 4,713
20
votes
0
answers
229
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Visited / unvisited links in the questions / answers
I just posted a question and I noticed that unvisited links use a color that is difficult to distinguish ... but visited links are even harder to recognize. See the snapshot below from my Firefox 41....
- 1,602
20
votes
0
answers
311
views
Make edit history more accessible
Once a post has been edited once, there is a direct link to the revision history of the post that is visible to everyone as in this example:
However, when a post has not been edited, this link is not ...
- 44.4k
19
votes
0
answers
888
views
Are we making it too tempting/easy to send inappropriate posts to MSE?
This "question" (asking for generalized help with a long list of elementary topics) is clearly going to be unwelcome almost anywhere, yet two users voted to close with a suggestion to "see math....
- 23k
19
votes
0
answers
1k
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Increase in unexplained downvotes on (old) questions/answers?
I recently received a downvote without comment on a question and all of its answers, which are good independent of the value of my question imo. I’ve also had two other questions receive similar ...
- 10.1k
19
votes
0
answers
420
views
The message "User was removed" can be ambiguous
You could save me a few heart attacks :-) by changing the message to the more clearer "Voter was removed" (or whatever you see fitting). I first thought I was removed (maybe on another suboverflow, ...
- 4,829
19
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0
answers
1k
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Passing of John Nash
I'm sorry to report the sad news that John Nash has died.
Requiescat in pace.
- 47.5k
18
votes
0
answers
647
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goo.gl is closing down
goo.gl, a URL shortener service from Google, is shutting down, and in one year it will no longer work: https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/07/18/216211/google-url-...
- 20.2k
18
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0
answers
1k
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"In the past one and half years, Stack Overflow has lost 50% of its traffic."
In a tweet by Mahesh Sathiamoorthy, I saw a chart showing a substantial recent drop:
Two questions: (1) Is this accurate? (2) What does the analogous chart for MathOverflow show?
(I can't remember ...
- 151k
18
votes
0
answers
584
views
Posting multiple "answers" to an already answered question
This question was asked and correctly answered three weeks ago. Since then another user has posted, as of today, five other "answers" describing his thoughts about related questions, ...
- 42.8k
18
votes
0
answers
827
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Why is the "last seen 96 years ago" feature gone?
User homepages used to display the information "last seen ... (min/days/...) ago". It appears this feature is gone now.
I found it useful, and while it does divulge some otherwise ...
- 24.2k
18
votes
0
answers
440
views
Three-vote close?
MO users might be interested in this StackExchange experiment:
Testing three-vote close and reopen on 13 network sites.
There has been considerable discussion around close-votes in MO Meta over the ...
- 151k
18
votes
0
answers
552
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Removing questions after answers
I recently gave a simple counter example to a question posed (I'm sure the mods can see the question). Probably the user was embarrassed by this. The question was promptly deleted and with that my ...
- 7,583
18
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0
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527
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What "lattices" do we need?
The tag lattices is a problem since a long time. Over the years there were varied discussions about this, but no clear resolution emerged, though some things were done to better the situation. This is ...
user9072
18
votes
0
answers
3k
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Can we replace client-side MathJax with server-side MathJax?
One of the (many) problems with MathJax is that
formulas are rendered using a client-side JavaScript.
Apart from the process itself being ridiculously slow,
this also means that the entire page must ...
- 37.8k
18
votes
0
answers
164
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Making it easier to access hidden comments
This is a follow-up of this recent post, and hopefully a feasible suggestion.
Problem: If a question/answer has many comments (say more than fit on my screen) and I decide to read them all, in ...
- 13.4k
17
votes
0
answers
298
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Possible MathJax upgrade
Since not all interested MO users frequent meta.SE, here’s a heads up that some work is underway towards the possibility of upgrading MathJax v2 to v3 or v4 on Stack Exchange sites including ...
- 47.8k
17
votes
0
answers
262
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 ...
- 4,713
17
votes
0
answers
581
views
Effects of the Stack Exchange 'update to Terms of Service' on MathOverflow
Do the recent changes to Stack Exchange Terms of Service affect MathOverflow in any way -- and if yes, what are the concrete effects?
Stefan KohlMod
- 19.6k
17
votes
0
answers
594
views
The existing deprecated tags should be blacklisted
TL;DR: I suggest to blacklist the deprecated tags that still exist on some questions, in order to prevent them from being added to new questions.
There are a few tags which are deprecated and should ...
- 4,713
17
votes
0
answers
260
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Reviewing first posts that are answers or late answers
When reviewing first posts that are answers or late answers to questions that have existing answers I invariably go to the original question to see these answers since I want to check if these new ...
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17
votes
0
answers
385
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Booth at Joint Mathematics Meeting?
This is identical to my misplaced "answer" here, written while attending JMM. I am reposting a fresh question at François G. Dorais's request.
I wonder if it make sense, at some future Joint ...
- 151k
16
votes
0
answers
484
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Studying the MathOverflow data dump with Mathematica
This is just a mention of some work Wolfram has done recently, allowing you to import a database dump of MathOverflow and analyse it within Mathematica.
The Data Science of MathOverflow
Their ...
- 7,800
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0
answers
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Can we please reopen the colorful language in mathematics question?
A long time ago, the question
What are some examples of colorful language in serious mathematics papers?
was closed because someone posted a copy of Spencer Bloch's review of Milne's Étale ...
- 19.6k
16
votes
0
answers
462
views
Site statistics: Effectivity of the advice to edit a question which is closed as "unclear what you're asking"
When a question is closed as "unclear what you're asking", it gets
attached the following message:
Please clarify your specific problem or add additional details to
highlight exactly what you ...
Stefan KohlMod
- 19.6k
16
votes
0
answers
611
views
Recurrent posting about «Matrix polynomials» and so on
MO is currently being the focus of what I guess to be a single particular individual R.T.Man sporting multiple unregistered users identity (like Eskand or H.night). S/he's asking multiple very similar ...
- 5,438
16
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area 51 proposal - Math review
Recently I created a new proposal at area 51; it's called Math Review (http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/90443/math-review), and it is intended to be a Q&A site concerning troubles one ...
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