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2 votes
1 answer
210 views

Mystery popup window

Last week or so, when I get into an SE site (MO in particular), a popup window appears in the lower left corner for few milliseconds. Some kind of clickable button there, with not enough time for me ...
15 votes
1 answer
504 views

Does anyone remember seeing this answer/comment? (A famous result known earlier than believed)

I remember seeing the following interesting exchange recently on MathOverflow: someone asked a question about something, another person ($X$) answered (or commented) that the answer is such-or-such ...
5 votes
0 answers
337 views

Is this an AI bot? Can't tell if answer is from a real person

This question of Baez is getting a string of strange answers. I can't tell if the author is a mathematician, but their answers don't make much sense to me. Which finite abelian groups aren't ...
0 votes
2 answers
81 views

How is it possible to format a right-aligned sequence that has single and double digits so that the alignment is correct?

I have this MathJax sequence that I want to format properly in MathOverflow: $$S_m = \begin{cases} \begin{aligned} 1, \quad\text{for m=1}\\ 12, \quad\text{for m=2}\\ 123, \quad\text{for m= 3}\\ ...
5 votes
1 answer
98 views

Account merging

I have an issue with account merging form in the help center. The 'Your other profile link' does not accept any link to the second my account. Picture 1: Completed help form Picture 2: Outcome of ...
-8 votes
0 answers
125 views

For irrational √(1+(1/n)) n integer, what are the best Stack Exchange Sites for proofs: direct calc, Euler's, Taylor Series (also √(1+(m/n)), m<n)

In solving a different problem, I came across three different proofs that if: $$S_{root} = \begin{cases} \begin{aligned} \sqrt{1+\frac{1}{n}}, \quad \text{for n } \in \{\text{Set of Counting Integers} ...
2 votes
0 answers
61 views

Editor is not rendering the equations correctly

I haven't asked a question on Mathoverflow or Mathstackexchange but after while I decided to do so I have realized that the editor has got significantly worse. First of all it is significantly slower ...
5 votes
0 answers
114 views

Is there a way to recover old account without email?

I would like to recover my account https://mathoverflow.net/users/2029/andrey-gogolev I don't seem to remember the email associated to it. Even if I did I probably don't have that email address ...
2 votes
0 answers
174 views

What happened to my MathOverflow account?

I posted this question from my account two days ago. Now suddenly, I saw I don't have an account any longer. I tried to log in and Overflow created a new account. Can someone please shed some light on ...
0 votes
0 answers
83 views

Should the dots used in lambda-calculus notation be typographically treated the way binary relation and binary operation symbols are?

Within this question we find the notation $\lambda f . \lambda g . \lambda x.f(g\ x)$, and that causes me to wonder about a point of LaTeX and MathJax usage. The code ...
11 votes
1 answer
274 views

How to recommend that a question is better suited for another SE site that isn't listed in the close reasons?

Today I found MO questions where commenters recommended that Proof Assistants or History of Science and Mathematics would be preferable to MO. Other better placements I remember include Mathematica, ...
0 votes
0 answers
157 views

May I Offer Money to People Who Answer My Question on MathOverflow?

Erdos and others have offered prize money to people who answered their questions. May I offer money to people who answer my questions on MathOverFlow?
23 votes
1 answer
535 views

Drive-By Deletion of Answer to Own Question by Moderator

I'm a bit confused by some moderator action. I posted a question asking for a direct proof of a certain fact. A superb answer was provided by Jochen Glueck. (Thanks again!) I came across another proof ...
27 votes
2 answers
1k views

MO policy regarding pseudonyms that are other people's real name

I have noticed just now that a user has chosen as pseudonym "Alexander Grothendieck", which I'm a bit unconfortable with (the probability that it is also that user's name is extremely low, hence my ...
1 vote
0 answers
110 views

There is no any answer box for this post

I would like to add an answer to this question but there is no any answer box for this question. What is the reason? Nonequivalent definitions in Mathematics
3 votes
1 answer
286 views

Posting a technical/narrow open question on mathoverflow?

I am a bit confused on our policy for open-problems. Are we allowed to post a technical/narrow conjecture/open problem on MO? For example, here is a type of a beautiful question that I have in mind ...
-6 votes
1 answer
180 views

Is asking to verify my P=NP proof appropriate?

Is providing link to my (8 pages) proof of P=NP and asking to check my proof appropriate for a MathOverflow question? The proof is on professional mathematician level (uses advanced logics) and does ...
0 votes
0 answers
103 views

Is deleting posts a good practice?

In principle, MO posts can be cited in papers; on the other hand, MO posts get deleted sometimes. There is a risk, then, of referring a MO post which no longer exists. Is deleting posts a good ...
5 votes
1 answer
234 views

Long display style formulae extend too much to the right with some renderers

In the following screen capture, take a look at the region delimited by the red rectangle: notice how it extends too much to the right, such that a part of it becomes hidden by the yellow page element....
6 votes
0 answers
135 views

FirefoxCP Isolated Web Content CPU overdrive

Just recently, MathOverflow has started to cause Firefox to use massive CPU resources, at least on my machine. In particular, I'm on a Macbook Pro 2.3 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9 running Ventura 13.4.1 ...
13 votes
2 answers
356 views

The tag (elementary-number-theory) - yes or no?

The tag elementary-number-theory was created and removed a few times in the past. And recently it was created again - it is still listed among the new tags. Should there be a separate tag for ...
1 vote
2 answers
178 views

Writing personal notes on specific questions

It would be nice to be able to add non-public notes for oneself on interesting questions on MO (of which there are very many), for later remembrance and further thinking on it. These notes can remain ...
33 votes
0 answers
578 views

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 ...
37 votes
0 answers
961 views

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 ...
17 votes
0 answers
816 views

"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 ...
0 votes
1 answer
112 views

Are questions about mathematical writing acceptable on the main site?

I have a question concerning mathematical writing, a draft of which is posted below if you are interested. The question I wish to ask on Meta however is about whether questions concerning mathematical ...
51 votes
48 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 ...
27 votes
4 answers
1k views

What would be the disadvantages of a (hypothetical) MOexit?

The hypothetical possibility of MO leaving StackExchange was mentioned here on meta.MO a few years ago and was mentioned again recently. In a comment, Sam Hopkins asked what I think is a good ...
1 vote
0 answers
43 views

Transferring a misplaced question after it has a positively received answer

I recently goof'd and forgot that hsm.stackexchange exists, and posted a history of mathematics question here. This was kindly pointed out to me by a user here, but the question already had a ...
33 votes
0 answers
628 views

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 ...
-4 votes
1 answer
362 views

Should Mathoverflow take a stand against AI?

I am a mathematician with a PhD from 2016 and a long-term user of this website, though I've not been active of late. I am wondering, should Mathoverflow take a stand against Stackexchange for their ...
2 votes
1 answer
106 views

Why would an equation render on preview and in an external TeX compiler, but not in post?

I know the general phenomenon is that rendering of previews differs from rendering of posts, but, presumably, the goal is to minimise unnecessary discrepancies—and that, in particular, non-esoteric ...
29 votes
0 answers
505 views

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 ...
3 votes
1 answer
119 views

Why does a table work on preview but not on post?

In waterstreamer's recent post, they used a table to present the possible Jordan normal forms of a $3\times3$ matrix. As they comment, and I checked, the table looks just fine on preview, but ...
8 votes
1 answer
215 views

Remove [tag:slick-proof] or make it a synonym of [tag:alternative-proof]

@YCor made a suggestion in an answer to another post (What is the intended use of the (proofs) tag?) a bit over a year ago. It received several upvotes, but does not appear to have been acted upon. ...
7 votes
0 answers
375 views

Will the closure of Gfycat affect MO?

Gfycat is a hosting service for (animated) GIF files, which will close on September 1st, 2023. Since some MO users might have included GIF files hosted on Gfycat in their posts, does the service's ...
2 votes
0 answers
50 views

How do backticks, escaped backticks, and math mode interact, in posts and comments?

I know I can escape backticks, like `. I though I could escape backticks within backticks, as I did in a comment, but it's not working here: a\b`. See a comment ...
5 votes
2 answers
183 views

Why do `* *`s and `** **`s stop being recognised at some point, and how can I fix the resulting inadvertent vandalism?

I recently submitted an edit to Another notion of exactness: how to refine it, and where does it fit? to replace hand-rolled commutative diagrams with AMScds, since ...
40 votes
0 answers
1k views

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. ...
2 votes
1 answer
100 views

Custom filter is stuck on

I had a custom filter for questions in tag co.combinatorics with no answer. It seems to be "stuck" in the sense that if I go to the "generic" page for that tag, https://...
2 votes
1 answer
103 views

Writing a bar on top of a number

I want to write a question in which I have a bar on top of a number or letter to represent a recurring digit. however, I can't find any options to write the particular digit, even when I search the ...
2 votes
1 answer
342 views

How can I improve my posts to attract responses?

This is a follow up to this post: I haven’t received a response from either this or this post, since, according to @Asaf Karigila: "The longer, more detailed, more effort that is required to ...
9 votes
2 answers
309 views

What is the tag [derivations] for?

Since the tag derivations has no usage guidance at the moment, I do not know when it should be used, which is unfortunate.
64 votes
8 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 ...
47 votes
0 answers
926 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 ...
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 ...
87 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 ...
14 votes
5 answers
995 views

Public dumps for mathoverflow?

As far as I remember, there was supposed to be a public dump of the MO database just before the migration: http://dumps.mathoverflow.net/ . Not an urgency by any measure, but something that would be ...
2 votes
1 answer
284 views

Why suspend a user for 100 years instead of deleting his/her account?

I have just discovered that users can be suspended for 100 years. This raises the question: why suspend for such a long duration (which practically means banning), instead of simply banning (i.e. ...
1 vote
0 answers
90 views

Making my post easier to read

I tried to make this post easier to read but find it extremely difficult to get through grammatical-wise. I'm wondering if there is someone who can correct the grammar of this post or rewrite the ...

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