All Questions
1,807
questions
4
votes
0
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279
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Can I ask this question on Math Overflow? (Advice on how to get started)
I am thinking of applying for a maths PhD programme. I have more or less an idea of the subfield I'd like to research, but not much more than that. I'm looking for suggestions on how to properly ...
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11
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2022 Moderator Election Q&A – Question Collection
The purpose of this thread was to collect questions for the questionnaire. The questionnaire is now live, and you may find it here.
MathOverflow is scheduled for an election next week, 2022-09-19. In ...
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4
answers
1k
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Examples of mathematical exposition arising from MO answers
I could imagine that several very long Mathoverflow answers have eventually turned into expository papers. For example, I have posted this (unpublished) expository paper on the arxiv about various ...
- 814
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votes
2
answers
191
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Should we allow link-only answers that point to stable, well known and respectable sites?
I have just been presented with an answer in the VLQ queue that consisted essentially in a link to a preprint on arXiv. The user having posted it is a high reputation user, so he definitely knows the ...
- 18.9k
5
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0
answers
216
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Partial answer accepted, thinking it could have been easily extended and provided enough insights
Some days ago I posted a question and I accepted an answer, "although it’s only a very partial answer," as the answer author wrote in a comment. I accepted it because I thought that it ...
- 1,657
1
vote
2
answers
758
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Triangle commutative diagram does not work here at MO
I frequently tried to draw a triangle commutative diagram similar to the definition of projective modules for this question.
A module associated to an endomorphism of a vector bundle
so I ...
- 4,588
0
votes
0
answers
161
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Asking if a post about a mathematical characterization of gravitational geons can be potentially interesting for the main site MathOverflow
I would like to ask about if a question about the following subject can be potentially interesting and on topic on MathOverflow. I would like to ask on the main site of MathOverflow about the ...
24
votes
4
answers
802
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What is the deal with changes to the front page?
It appears that today Stack Exchange has changed the appearance of the MathOverflow front page. It now looks more similar to Stack Overflow. The most noticeable change is that the counts of answers, ...
CommunityBot
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1
vote
1
answer
81
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Long post fails to render
In one MathOverflow answer by me, the MathJax code added latest fails to render correctly. Instead, one $ tag is ignored and for the rest on the line, code inside <...
- 4,588
3
votes
1
answer
396
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I lost my three questions
About 3_4 days ago 3 questions of mine got down vote but they were not "closed" or "onhold". After these downvotes, each of them became -1 vote, totally. Now I can not find these question. Where are ...
- 4,588
6
votes
1
answer
161
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How to find highly upvoted comments?
My question is simple: is there a way to find the most highly upvoted comments on mathoverflow?
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23
votes
0
answers
913
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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 ...
- 37.5k
5
votes
0
answers
228
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Would such a "big list" on known bounds for distances between $2^S-3^N$ be appropriate for MO?
After new questions and/or activities on older questions on "bounds for distances $2^S-3^N$" appeared in MO I thought whether a [BigList] or [CommunityWiki] on known such bounds (their ...
- 5,166
16
votes
1
answer
835
views
Should moderators in some cases remove a question from the network-wide hot questions list?
Not too long ago - in March 2019 - some changes have been made to the Hot Network Questions (HNQ). Some of the new features are the limit on the number of hot questions from a single site, or limit on ...
- 75.9k
3
votes
1
answer
227
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Is there a way to `@` exactly one of two users whose names differ, if at all, only by whitespace?
I recently approved an edit to Zeroes of characters of general linear group induced from certain characters of parabolic subgroups by user @math seeker. I approved the edit, which was otherwise ...
- 101
2
votes
2
answers
161
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When, precisely, should history of math questions be CW?
I don't have much experience with "history of math" questions or the ho.history-overview tag. I tried to distill an answer to my question from looking at existing questions, but failed to ...
CommunityBot
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7
votes
1
answer
201
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Reputation number not visible on main page
This is a very minor bug, but the reputation number seems not to be visible on the main site:
Interestingly, it is visible in meta:
- 37.5k
2
votes
1
answer
349
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What about talking about life? How to work, manage, organize, and so forth?
My question comes from a general an recurrent observation on MO (and more generally in the real academic life):
doing research (in mathematics) is a whole ecosystem, full of different tasks and ...
4
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0
answers
68
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Occasionally reproducible bug with macro definitions in a draft post affecting macro use in comments
In the course of a discussion involving using MathJax to re-define macros, I couldn't recall if MathJax obeys a \newcommand for an already-defined macro, and so ...
- 10.3k
4
votes
1
answer
380
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Hyperlink in a comment?
How do I add a link to an external published article in a comment? I don't see the edit frame with the link button. What is the syntax I can use? (I did search Meta but did not see ...!)
- 4,588
15
votes
4
answers
875
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Hiding reputation
In MathOverflow 1.0 we had the ability to hide other users' reputations. Can we get that again?
(Also, I had to rewrite this question several times to get past an annoying box that said my question ...
- 956
3
votes
0
answers
153
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Planar geometry on MO
"Planar geometry" here is 2-dimensional Euclidean geometry, usually used as Olympiad geometry problem, its objects just be a bunch of lines and circles, it has no Combinatoric aspect and not ...
- 1,245
11
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0
answers
359
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To which extent should spam posts on meta be considered a problem?
MathOverflow is one of the few sites in the Stack Exchange network where users with reputation 1 can post on meta.1 Clearly, this has some advantages2 and some disadvantages. Probably one of the ...
- 4,588
7
votes
1
answer
317
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Comment / Down-vote / Vote to close -- in what order, with what delay?
If I see a post that I think belongs on MathStackExchange, what should be my first response?
a) Comment to the user
b) Down-vote
c) Vote to close with suggestion of migration
And how long should I ...
4
votes
3
answers
357
views
Is asking for good review papers a good question?
I think that generally speaking asking for papers might be a non-research issue. If it's merely a google issue, then it shouldn't be in MO.
What about Survey/Review papers? Obviously those are hard ...
3
votes
1
answer
111
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Why is there unexpected space at the beginning of a paragraph in an answer?
In @GabeK's nice answer to @JonBannon's question Each mathematician has only a few tricks, there is unexpected space at the beginning of the third paragraph:
My first thought was that there might be ...
- 34.7k
10
votes
4
answers
291
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Is it possible to see the source for a comment?
Although this question seems to be new to M.MO, @MartinSleziak points out several related posts on Meta.MSE.
I was curious about the diagrammatic magic of @YaakovBaruch's recent comment, and so ...
- 4,588
14
votes
2
answers
892
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Revamping the closure reasons in 2022
Prompted by Gro-Tsen's recent meta question, it appears that now may be a good time to rethink our site-specific close reasons here on MathOverflow.
Background:
If you have sufficient rep, you can ...
Tim CampionMod
- 56.7k
8
votes
2
answers
545
views
Are there policies to respect in order for MathOverflow Q&As to be tracked back in relevant zbMATH Open reviews?
Are there policies to respect in order for MathOverflow Q&As to be tracked back in relevant zbMATH Open reviews?
I am asking this since I noticed that all questions and answers to which I ...
13
votes
2
answers
593
views
Questions about correctness of published papers
A recent thread brought up the issue of the appropriateness of discussing correctness of a published paper on MO.
Correctness of Thierry Aubin's argument about positive Ricci curvature
I did a ...
- 7,963
4
votes
3
answers
642
views
Local vs. Global MO in relation to "Polymath" efforts
Certain polymath-flavor questions appear on MO, and are not really appropriate for the forum. Such questions are probably posted (I can only be sure for my own such posts) because MO captures a huge "...
- 4,588
1
vote
1
answer
93
views
Icons for MO/metaMO in community list changed?
I notice that in the community list under the SE hamburger in the top right, the icons for MO and for meta have changed:
clearly having the MO logo attached to meta.math.SE is an issue, but we are ...
- 32.9k
5
votes
1
answer
157
views
Serial voting was reversed
I was recently noticed "serial voting was reversed" on MO. I am curious about how this works, and what this exactly means (I don't have the feeling that I did something wrong).
Note that I ...
- 2,723
12
votes
1
answer
560
views
Was the custom close reason mentioning Math.SE removed?
For a long time, these two custom close reasons used to be available:
This question does not appear to be about research level mathematics within the scope defined in the help center.
MathOverflow ...
Tim CampionMod
- 56.7k
25
votes
5
answers
2k
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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 ...
- 101
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2
answers
961
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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 ...
- 101
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votes
0
answers
151
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Can we recover old MathOverflow Meta "Tea" discussions?
Today I flagged a question as needing to be made community wiki. I thought about why, and found this old question of mine here. Carlo Beenakker helpfully linked to a thread on the old tea. Link ...
- 4,588
8
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1
answer
538
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When answers are primarily opinion based, should the question be CW?
A question was just asked about whether or not we still need model categories of spectra (vs working with the $\infty$-category). To me (and Fernando Muro at least), it is reminiscent of a previous ...
- 24.8k
11
votes
0
answers
360
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Keeping a question on track or allowing people to chime in with stuff they'd like to mention?
I am slightly unhappy with the direction of drift to answers to this question. On my reading, the OP mentioned a phenomenon and asked how editors should react to it. This seems to have been taken by ...
- 25.1k
1
vote
1
answer
249
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Why are some non-research questions so highly upvoted?
It is not difficult to find soft questions on the website which do not clearly strike as research level. To give examples of some: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Yet some of them are upvoted so highly that even many ...
- 4,588
11
votes
0
answers
266
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New community close vote reason
While doing some cleanup on the home page just now, I noticed that we have a new community specific reason to close.
The second option in the list is new, and leaves me slightly confused. While I ...
- 8,768
8
votes
2
answers
466
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Flagging Low Quality Questions
For questions of extremely low quality that are sure to get closed anyway, do the moderators still want flags? Or is that just cluttering up their mailboxes to no purpose?
- 57.8k
6
votes
2
answers
354
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Citing papers in questions/answers
Is there an established policy for how to cite a paper you link to in a question/answer? If not, what does etiquette dictate appropriate for citations?
I used to be careful to include full citations ...
- 4,588
24
votes
5
answers
2k
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How should we react to the existence of Math Educators SE?
As was previously announced at meta, there is now an SE site for mathematics education (MESE).
My broad questions is this: Should we react to this somehow?
(More specific questions are below.)
Does ...
- 4,588
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votes
10
answers
3k
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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?
- 86.4k
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0
answers
609
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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 ...
CommunityBot
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1
answer
376
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How to make it easier to moderate blatantly off-topic questions?
As many of you have noticed, there's a lot of new users asking basic mathematics questions. This is not the only site in the network with this kind of problem; on Meta Stack Exchange we get all kinds ...
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votes
3
answers
692
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Has MO traffic decreased a bit since the invasion of Ukraine?
I check the review queues several times a day, each day. I have noticed a significant drop of posts in the queues that I am watching (First questions, First answers, LQP, Late answers). Even the ...
- 4,588
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Downvote and vote to close of a recent question
I recently asked the following question on God's number for higher dimensional sequential move puzzles. It was downvoted once and has a vote to close, even though it is in my eyes a perfectly good ...
Stefan KohlMod
- 18.9k
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1
answer
265
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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 (...
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