All Questions
624
questions
11
votes
2
answers
5k
views
How does one type mathematical formulas on this site?
I can see that the posts on this site contain nicely displayed mathematical formulas. How can I get such formulas in my posts? What syntax is used to typeset them?
Note: This is an attempt to make at ...
9
votes
6
answers
439
views
Revising the help page on "What topics can I ask around here?"
This is a freestanding post taking its content from a previous discussion on the modal window for first-time askers. Thanks to Martin Sleziak and Tim Campion for the encouragement to post it ...
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 ...
5
votes
1
answer
1k
views
What are reasons for allowing anonymous voting?
What reasons for anonymity of voting overcome the following objection?
A down-vote fails to communicate what is thought to be wrong. Suppose I post a question that says "Doesn't the fact that $2+3=5$...
3
votes
1
answer
267
views
Searching for comments
Is there a method to search past comments only. I'm interested in a comment I read years ago that was not specific to the question or answers, so it wouldn't be in the normal search. Keywords: ...
2
votes
2
answers
566
views
Completely Unexplained Downvotes
I came across this question recently and asked the OP to explain some notation (see my comment below the question). As the OP was addressing my concerns, there was suddenly a down-vote (along with the ...
1
vote
2
answers
372
views
Is there a way to check all questions/answers posted from a deleted account
Suppose I know an account number, say user313948.
Is there any way to check all questions/answers posted by that user?
81
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 ...
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 ...
46
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 ...
37
votes
2
answers
544
views
Is it worth editing old posts to add links for references?
I always appreciate when citations to papers in MO answers/questions have a hyperlink — it’s very convenient for the reader, especially in cases where the referenced paper is non-trivial to find.
...
23
votes
1
answer
657
views
Why are MO accounts not listed among other SE accounts?
When I go look at my accounts in SE network, mathoverflow is not listed there. (You can get to the list of accounts, for example, from your profile page. Other SE accounts are listed on profile page.) ...
23
votes
4
answers
2k
views
Editing titles to include $\mathfrak{LaTeX \; Math}$
Should question titles, which sometimes intentionally avoid LaTeX math for those who choose faster rendering, be edited to insist upon LaTeX math? A recent instance that prompted my question is "two ...
22
votes
13
answers
2k
views
2021 Moderator election: suggestions for nominees?
As you may have seen, the nominations for the 2021 moderator election will be open on March 29. Per StackExchange rules, MO users are expected to nominate themselves for the election. For some ...
21
votes
3
answers
905
views
Is there a consensus on whether history of mathematics questions are acceptable on MO?
I recently stumbled across an old meta discussion in which some people suggested that history of mathematics questions were off-topic for MO. This took me by surprise and I would like to ask for ...
15
votes
3
answers
4k
views
What is our policy on asking about correctness of preprints?
We talked about this a lot on the old meta 1, 2 but I don't see a concise statement of policy that I can link to, so I'm asking a meta question in hope of generating consensus on such a statement.
15
votes
4
answers
602
views
How to emphasize MathOverflow's best content?
There have been a few efforts to do this, such as the Best of MathOverflow thread. We could do more in this direction and this could have interesting repercussions. Vidit Nanda recently suggested that ...
14
votes
2
answers
617
views
Recent suggested tag wiki edits
Today [Apr 21 '16] and yesterday there were a considerable number of suggested edits
to previously empty tag wikis and tag wiki excerpts (browse here;
viewing the full list requires >=10K points, I ...
11
votes
0
answers
143
views
MathJax in suggested edits
Pages like
https://mathoverflow.net/review/suggested-edits/1435
display suggested edits for review. The original and edited versions are displayed in parallel columns with the differences highlighted....
11
votes
2
answers
370
views
Double backslashes
The “backslash-bug” from the old version is no longer there. You can simply write { and } to get $\{\}$. However, all the old questions and answers using \{ are now broken and look terrible:
$\prod\\{...
10
votes
1
answer
382
views
Questions answered in a comment
It may happen that a question has zero answers, but is actually already answered satisfactorily in a comment. An example is this question.
I think this is somewhat misleading, as the "0 answers" ...
7
votes
2
answers
516
views
What would be good place to list unresolved bounties?
Probably at least some MathOverflow users have been in a situation like this.
I have placed a bounty on some question in hope to get an answer (or a better answer or a specific type of answer, for ...
6
votes
0
answers
450
views
What is the correct way to handle questions with deprecated tags?
Occasionally some tags on MathOverflow are deprecated - it is decided that they should no longer be used.
If a deprecated tag is only used in a few questions, then it can be removed manually - the ...
6
votes
1
answer
605
views
How to contact a MathOverflow user?
Occasionally it might happen that I want to contact some user, although the thing I want to say is not directly relevant to one of their posts - which makes me think that this would be not really ...
81
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 ...
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 ...
31
votes
9
answers
1k
views
Privacy of software-generated links to questions and answers
Recently I noticed that the software inserts the id
of the currently logged in user in the “share” link
of any MathOverflow question or answer.
When one is logged out, the “share” link comes out ...
30
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Has there been a recalculation of reputation?
At the risk of being too venal: yesterday I had over 8500 and now I am under 7900. Anyone else experienced changes with similar orders of magnitude?
27
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Explicitly pointing out math.stackexchange when (new?) users ask a question
I have recently flagged several questions for migration to math.stackexchange which were fairly clearly not about mathematics research and related topics. It was clear that in some cases these new ...
24
votes
2
answers
689
views
How can I customize site in my browser to get "old feel" look of MathOverflow?
It seems that some of the users are not too happy with the new design and prefer the old look.
I will admit that I have not much experience with this stuff, but from I've read on various meta sites ...
23
votes
4
answers
2k
views
Are professional Physicists, Computer Scientists, Engineers, Economists... not allowed to ask questions at MO?
"MathOverflow is a question and answer site for professional mathematicians."
May other professional researchers ask questions at MO? Should they check their credentials at the door?
If not, and ...
23
votes
3
answers
1k
views
Does Mathoverflow really want the 'Publicist' badge?
I enjoy the rewards system on the Stack exchange network. I learned some time ago that you can easily earn gold badges on all sites by picking the most interesting questions and using the "Share" ...
23
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Should MathOverflow require registration to ask a question?
Probably anybody visiting this site regularly noticed that quite often there are posts which are not at MO-level and quite frequently also of very low quality. (Many of them are simply copy-paste of ...
22
votes
6
answers
2k
views
Homework and migrating to math.se
As many people have noticed, one of the main functions of math.se is to be a place for students to get other people to do their homework for them. Obviously we do not want to facilitate such cheating....
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 ...
20
votes
1
answer
802
views
The math! It's overflowing!
See what happens if you expand the comments on this question, we get this prime example of a math overflow:
Of course, this is due to a \$ problem, but still, it seems to be a flaw in the CSS that ...
20
votes
3
answers
3k
views
Formatting a citation to a MathOverflow answer
What's a good way to format a citation to a MathOverflow post in a paper?
Here is a first draft (with hyperlink, and assuming it's reference number 16, say), but maybe people can think of ...
20
votes
1
answer
730
views
Traffic from the list of hot network questions
To better understand the advantages and disadvantages of having MO questions featured in the list of hot network questions, as discussed here and here, it would be useful if Stack Exchange could ...
16
votes
0
answers
578
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 ...
14
votes
5
answers
996
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 ...
13
votes
3
answers
761
views
Flagging spam user
I just noticed an "Autobiographer" badge awarded to this unusually named user: https://mathoverflow.net/users/117744 . I immediately moved to flag this obviously spam account, only to realise that ...
12
votes
3
answers
1k
views
How to turn off the MathJax preview?
The constant compiling of MathJax while composing a post is undesirable for me. How can I stop the MathJax preview?
Is there a way to turn off the MathJax preview?
Where is the button to switch off ...
11
votes
6
answers
1k
views
2013 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.
In connection with the moderator elections, we will be holding a Q&...
11
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Diagrams in MathJax via xypic.js
Apparently, the Stacks project can load a MathJax extension called xypic.js (check the source code) and then has access to ...
10
votes
1
answer
302
views
Update outdated links in the list of suggested alternative sites
The part of help center What kind of questions should I not ask here? (Wayback Machine) contains at the moment the following formulation: "But there are lots of other math Q&A sites where your ...
10
votes
1
answer
769
views
Is there any way to invite more experts (active researchers) from various subject areas?
Regarding the number of people who participate in Q&A's, I have a feeling that some subject areas are underrepresented in MO, while there are many knowledgeable experts in these areas which ...
10
votes
0
answers
971
views
Extending questions and answers gradually
If someone answers my question and I want to generalize it, how should I do it? Is it ok to gradually extend my question as answers improve? An answer to a question I wanted to ask may show me that I ...
9
votes
5
answers
460
views
What are Tips and Tricks to use MO more effectively?
The purpose of this question is to collect a list of Tips and Tricks for using MO in a more efficient or otherwise better way.
If you know some trick or have a tip you want to share with your MO-...
9
votes
1
answer
317
views
How do I delete an accidentally created tag?
While posting this question, I meant to put the constructive-mathematics tag, but I accidentally just typed "con", thereby creating a "con" tag in MathOverflow. How can I delete it?
9
votes
1
answer
438
views
Allow posting on meta without any reputation for the first week
Would it be possible to remove the reputation requirements for posting on meta for the first week, while we iron out all the login problems people are having?
We've already had a few instances of ...