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134 votes
60 answers
20k views

Best of MathOverflow, or papers inspired by MathOverflow

This is a place to collect MathOverflow success stories! Was some of your research inspired by something on MathOverflow? Do you know questions & answers that led to interesting research? ...
118 votes
23 answers
9k views

MO-Hard Questions

The term "MO-Hard" has entered the mathematical vocabulary, describing interesting questions that were asked on MathOverflow but haven't been answered in spite of efforts by many community members. ...
116 votes
2 answers
3k views

Anton's departure as moderator

Does outgoing moderator Anton Geraschenko deserve our heartfelt thanks, or what?
Tom Leinster's user avatar
  • 27.2k
88 votes
3 answers
2k views

Stack Exchange moderation strike

You may or may not have heard that there are some controversies around moderation on the network, specifically in relation to the moderation of GPT-produced posts, but more generally around lack of ...
Ben Webster's user avatar
  • 43.9k
85 votes
3 answers
2k views

Should this site be "a shortcut to substitute for literature searches"?

On Reference for invariance of essential spectrum under relatively compact perturbations, Michael Renardy voted to close with the comment "This site should not become a shortcut to substitute for ...
Nate Eldredge's user avatar
84 votes
0 answers
2k views

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) ...
Scott Morrison's user avatar
83 votes
3 answers
4k views

MathOverflow user jailed

I know this is off-topic, not even being a question. MathOverflow user Kıvanç Ersoy has been jailed, apparently for signing a petition. Edit: As mentioned in comments, there is a petition about ...
Jeremy Rickard's user avatar
82 votes
4 answers
26k views

Is there a way to discuss the correctness of the proof of the RH by Atiyah in MO?

I just made a question in MO to discuss the correctness of the proof provided by Prof. Atiyah for the Riemann hypothesis (link here: Is there an error in the pre print published by Atiyah with his ...
Héctor's user avatar
  • 515
82 votes
3 answers
3k views

Should we exercise a bit more tolerance towards newcomers?

What bothers me quite a bit is that many people come to MO to get some help with their mathematical problems and are met with nothing but our standard "closed as not research level" verdict and a few ...
fedja's user avatar
  • 59.5k
77 votes
4 answers
3k views

Why all the negativity?

I've been on this site for several years and I appreciate the site a lot but I don't like to post here anymore because no matter what I write I get some kind of sarcastic comment, or put-down, or ...
user avatar
72 votes
1 answer
5k views

Who owns MathOverflow?

Is MathOverflow a subsidiary of Stack Exchange? Did MathOverflow lose its independence when it migrated to the Stack Exchange network?
François G. Dorais's user avatar
68 votes
6 answers
2k views

Happy 5th anniversary, MathOverflow!

MathOverflow first came online on September 28, 2009! Let's celebrate five years of MO! I bought a delicious cake from the best bakery in the area to have with dinner tonight. I'm sure you will also ...
François G. Dorais's user avatar
67 votes
7 answers
8k views

At what point should MO recognise it needs to leave Stack Exchange Inc?

Edit Please note this is not me posting with my moderator hat on (I've signed the letter), and I didn't discuss this with the mod team before posting this. It's not within shouting distance of being ...
David Roberts's user avatar
  • 33.4k
67 votes
6 answers
3k views

The Association Bonus

One new feature that's come along with the transition is the "association bonus", which allows members of Math Stackexchange --- and other sites that are much further removed from the mission of MO ---...
Steven Landsburg's user avatar
66 votes
1 answer
10k views

Why is "what is the difference between mathoverflow and math.stackexchange?" not prominently displayed?

It is a truth not-quite-universally acknowledged that a newish Stack Exchange user in possession of the knowledge that there are two sites named "Math Overflow" and "Math.StackExchange" will be in ...
Foo Bar's user avatar
  • 101
63 votes
0 answers
10k views

PhysicsOverflow just [in 2014] went live [closed]

The new site is now up and running (outside the SE network) here https://www.physicsoverflow.org/ PhysicsOverflow is meant to be some kind of a rebirth of the untimely passed away Theoretical Physics ...
Dilaton's user avatar
  • 408
62 votes
3 answers
1k views

Is there a software solution if we do cut the cord from SE?

There has been some recent concerns about MathOverflow's relationship with StackExchange: see What is MathOverflow's "agreement" with Stack Exchange? How much is MathOverflow exposed to ...
Willie Wong's user avatar
  • 36.9k
58 votes
2 answers
3k views

Mugs, Stickers And Shirts - Now With 100% More MathOverflow!

The MathOverflow Foundation has given Stack Exchange permission to print and ship (at our expense) free gifts for outstanding users of the site that want them, or that will be attending conferences ...
Tim Post's user avatar
  • 101
56 votes
4 answers
4k views

How much is MathOverflow exposed to recent events on StackExchange?

[Long-time 10k+ MO user here, asking this question anonymously for reasons that should be obvious. Added Oct 16: My access to this account will self-destruct in 3, 2, 1 .... (sorry, won't be able to ...
Burn this account's user avatar
56 votes
5 answers
11k views

What happened to the dear user "quid" (9072), they appear deleted?

What happened to the dear user "quid" (9072), they appear deleted? Noticed this by edits I remember were from them. Google still remembers them and the user page of user number 9072 returns 404 (...
joro's user avatar
  • 24.2k
56 votes
2 answers
3k views

ChatGPT strikes MathOverflow

The user (or a bot) https://mathoverflow.net/users/496085/canvas123 appears to be posting ChatGPT-generated text on MathOverflow. Two “answers” by this user already got accepted (!): When is a ...
Dmitri Pavlov's user avatar
56 votes
4 answers
7k views

Flood of Similar New User(s)

The following thirteen(!) users: goingfullscheme valua_aint_no_galois going-full-isomorphic logicians_rule, martintzar royalroadtogeometry bundlist compactbut faptoint you_dont_mess_with_ron ...
Steven Landsburg's user avatar
56 votes
1 answer
2k views

Deleted answered question / arXiv posts based on unacknowledged MO posts

I'd like to mention here two possibly related facts: (a) Soon after this question was answered, there was an arXiv paper posted providing the same answer (b) Soon after this closely related ...
YCor's user avatar
  • 60.1k
56 votes
1 answer
734 views

Minor edits, subject to review

Now that MathOverflow has moved to 2.0, there is a potential solution to the long-standing tension between people wanting to make minor improvements to old posts, and others not wanting the 'active ...
Scott Morrison's user avatar
54 votes
8 answers
3k views

We have our first user with more than 200K reputation!

Congratulations to Joel David Hamkins who on (I think!) the 27th November 2022, was the first MathOverflow user to pass 200k reputation! Since Joel joined on the 19th November 2009, he has supplied ...
53 votes
1 answer
732 views

Can we have the window title for a question start with the question?

The title attribute in the page of a question like Comparison between $E_2$-terms of Leray and “second hypercohomology” spectral sequences is currently set to "ag.algebraic geometry - Comparison ...
Omar Antolín-Camarena's user avatar
51 votes
52 answers
28k views

News of potential interest to the MO community

Occasionally, there has been a suggestion to start a meta question to collect information that might be of interest to the MO community. This is an attempt to start such a thread. Is there any news ...
51 votes
4 answers
4k views

How to write a good MathOverflow question?

How do I write a good MathOverflow question? Got any advice for me?
Scott Morrison's user avatar
51 votes
2 answers
2k views

Formatting citations to the literature on MathOverflow

We'd like to make it easier to cite articles from the literature, on MathOverflow. I propose adding a single button to the edit toolbar while writing posts, which will pop up a search dialog, allow ...
Scott Morrison's user avatar
50 votes
7 answers
3k views

What do you want to do in September for MO's tenth anniversary?

On Sep. 28, 2009, MathOverflow went online, and has almost ten years of almost constant operation, thanks to StackExchange. There will be an obligatory post observing the anniversary. The board of ...
Gerhard Paseman's user avatar
49 votes
17 answers
5k views

Interesting (and not sufficiently answered) questions on math.SE

In light of the generally positive response to this meta-thread, I am creating this to help advertise (and hopefully fully resolve) "interesting" questions on math.SE. I'm not really certain what the ...
user642796's user avatar
49 votes
3 answers
2k views

Appropriate or not: "To what extent are the results in Paper X correct?"

I have found a counterexample to the main theorem of a 20-year-old paper. The paper does not seem to be well known but it was written by reputable mathematicians and published in a highly regarded ...
Frank Thorne's user avatar
  • 7,199
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
48 votes
4 answers
3k views

On discussion of published papers at MO

There is an interesting discussion taking place at MO over the suitability of this question: Complex structure on $S^6$ gets published in Journ. Math. Phys. The question is about the correctness of a ...
Todd Trimble's user avatar
  • 52.3k
48 votes
1 answer
4k views

How is this site different from Mathematics Stack Exchange?

I've just spotted this site on the blogs. At least that's where I think I saw it first. How is this site different from math.stackexchange.com?
AncientSwordRage's user avatar
48 votes
1 answer
2k views

Why was the whole math jokes thread deleted, and should it have been?

[Topic very similar to several other recent questions, but the central question is I think not a duplicate.] The meta thread Should these sexually suggestive jokes be kept or deleted? raised the ...
Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine's user avatar
48 votes
0 answers
943 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 ...
David Roberts's user avatar
  • 33.4k
47 votes
1 answer
850 views

I don't like the new design and I am not the only one

MathOverflow isn't some experiment in website design. I knew where everything was and what colour it was meant to be. The tabs are now small and harder to click on. The colours are different shades ...
Ali Caglayan's user avatar
  • 1,185
46 votes
6 answers
2k views

Should graduate students be encouraged to participate in MO? If so, at what stage?

When I started graduate school ten (!) years ago, a more senior Ph.D student at the time told me about MathOverflow and encouraged me to participate. Ever since then I have found it immensely useful. ...
Stanley Yao Xiao's user avatar
46 votes
2 answers
1k views

arXiv vs MathOverflow - popularity of disciplines

Inspired by the comparison of programming languages by GitHub and Stack Overflow activity (e.g. this one for 2015) I decided to look at the popularity of mathematical disciplines by using data from ...
Piotr Migdal's user avatar
  • 1,592
46 votes
0 answers
1k views

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 ...
Asaf Karagila's user avatar
  • 37.9k
45 votes
4 answers
2k views

"Stack Overflow Isn’t Very Welcoming." --- are we?

There is a new posting on the Stackoverflow blog, entitled Stack Overflow Isn’t Very Welcoming. It’s Time for That to Change. A quote: Too often, someone comes here to ask a question, only to be ...
Carlo Beenakker's user avatar
45 votes
0 answers
1k views

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, ...
Ilmari Karonen's user avatar
44 votes
2 answers
2k views

How to cite comment by unknown user disproving Erdős conjecture?

I believe that fedja has disproved a conjecture of Erdős et al. when commenting on my question Almost monochromatic point sets, but I'm unable to contact fedja regarding this. What shall I do? Shall I ...
domotorp's user avatar
  • 18.3k
44 votes
2 answers
1k views

Restoring Bill Thurston's figures in an answer

The question Floating polyhedra with fair equilibria was answered by Bill Thurston, but his (typically amazing) answer contains links to 7 figures, all now broken. I don't know how to retrieve those ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
44 votes
0 answers
1k views

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 ...
Piotr Migdal's user avatar
  • 1,592
43 votes
4 answers
2k views

MO "memorial" questions

In the past, when a famous mathematician passes away, many community members feel that they should be remembered on MathOverflow in some way or another. For obvious reasons, such memorials need to be ...
François G. Dorais's user avatar
43 votes
2 answers
3k views

Have any MO-hard problems ascended to "real" open problems in their fields?

Have any questions first proposed on Mathoverflow attracted enough interest from experts in their field that solving them would be considered a significant advance? I don't want to count problems ...
Will Sawin's user avatar
  • 135k
42 votes
2 answers
1k views

Who owns my MathOverflow posts?

Does Stack Exchange or MathOverflow own my posts? Can I reuse my posts elsewhere? Do I need to cite MathOverflow if I want to reuse my posts elsewhere?
François G. Dorais's user avatar
42 votes
6 answers
1k views

A blog for MathOverflow

Amongst the moderators we've recently been discussing starting a blog for MathOverflow. The immediate goal is to have a good place to describe the current 'institutional setup' of MathOverflow (e.g. ...
Scott Morrison's user avatar

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