# All Questions

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147 views

### Merging old duplicates?

New to meta, so apologies for any breaches of etiquette. I've just noticed that these two old questions are duplicates: Smallest permutation representation of a finite group? Smallest n for which G ...
248 views

### How do I use the comment notification system?

I would like to take better advantage of comment notifications. Where can I find a complete account of how they work? For example, it appears that writing @FullUserName in a comment will lead to a ...
256 views

First, I hope that the request is appropriate and asked at the right place. If you have any issue with it, remarks are warmly welcomed. When flagging a question for "Off-topic > This question belongs ...
632 views

### Loss of reputation because a “user was removed”

I just noticed that I lost 10 points of rep because "user was removed". I don't get it.
264 views

There is a 5 minute limit on editing comments. Perhaps the idea is to keep the flow of the thread faithful (to avoid distortions--or even manipulations--of a discussion). However I happen to be quite ...
155 views

### “post locked” and “post unlocked” chronology is reversed in history

This is kind of minor, but it seems that the revision history of a post occasionally fails to be written in chronological order, when events are in close succession. For example this post history has ...
585 views

I have the impression, that there is no concensus among MO moderators about sharing knowledge on MO; the impression is based on quite contradictory reactions to offering to share such a knowledge, ...
287 views

### What should the “hover text” for the MathOverflow link on all SE sites be?

If you go to the bottom of any page in the SE network (e.g. this one!), you'll see a list of SE sites. In particular there's a link to MathOverflow, that is potentially seen by a large number of ...
172 views

### Math Overflow not available as a chat parent user

I was configuring the Teacher's Lounge ping for MO when I realized that currently, the option to change chat parent user to MO is not available. Could this be added? Also, superpings don't seem to ...
185 views

### 5 points for an upvote to an answer?

just a curiosity, how is it possible to receive 5 points for an upvote to an answer to this question
199 views

### I flagged a question with the wrong option. What should I do?

Should I leave it as it is, or leave a comment to this, or flag for moderator attention and explain my mistake? I do not want to draw attention to the specific question this is why I do not link it ...
88 views

### Formatting problem

In my answer to When is the closed unit ball in a smaller Banach space closed in a larger Banach space? I wrote the following: > Edit: $Y=Z^*$ does not display correctly when it is in the body ...
297 views

Like many users, I suppose, I have wondered how and when an old question gets bumped by the system. (Of course an edit or a new answer bumps a question: I'm not asking about this.) From Francois ...
373 views

### Undelete request, question 23943

NEVER MIND --- the same moderator who suggested I post here has solved the problem by deleting my copy-paste job and undeleting the answer we wanted undeleted. [or maybe it got undeleted by some other ...
213 views

### Reputation not moving up while having 27 upvotes

Do you have a clue why my reputation os not moving up while the last question I asked has 27 upvotes? Thanks, Jean-Pierre.
327 views

### Migration to Physics.SE

Several times, including perhaps this question today I would have liked to suggest migration to Physics.SE. Similar to this question I would like to ask for this feature to become available as a ...
153 views

### Is there an option to hide migrated (or even on hold) questions?

It would make sense, especially for MO, to have an option to hide migrated and on hold questions in the user preferences. Is there a way to do this already? If not I think this would make a nice ...
204 views

### Should we have standing bounties?

There have been proposals to stop the bounties from expiring. On meta.SE these have been received rather badly, but would be most likely welcome here, as offering rewards for unsolved problems has a ...
294 views

### Bounty policies

When you propose a bounty, these points are immediately subtracted from your score, and can never return, even if there is no satisfactory answer. I think this is unfair; can someone explain the ...
171 views

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: ...
134 views

### Garbled MathJax in some old questions [duplicate]

In several old questions/answers I have seen in MathJax the combination \\, where it obviously should be \, and also ...
455 views

### Reference Requests: Good Ways and Bad Ways

I would like to know of types of bad examples of MathOverflow questions that are tantamount to reference requests. I can think of two: a) A reference request for something that is properly outside ...
122 views

### New interface - empty rectangles in the reputation column

I've got new interface and I like it, but there is something strange: Some numbers are supposed to be there, right? They are present on other StackExchange sites with this interface
155 views

### Should there be Anonymous Comments?

I currently got a downvote for my question Making a Graph Eulerian for Applying TSP Heuristics, but unfortunately the downvoter didn't leave a comment explaining what the motivation was, thus ...
148 views

### Restriction on editing closed questions

Guidelines to prove that $2^{\sqrt{2}}$ is a transcendental number? question bumped into https://mathoverflow.net/ after making an edit. I am not sure if that adds anything to the question. Should ...
20k 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 ...
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 ...
1k views

### Community Peer-Review in Mathoverflow

I was recently surfing around the Physicsoverflow and I have to admit I was impressed by their Review section. I could not help myself from thinking how -and if- such a feature could also be ...
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 ...
2k views

### 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?
9k 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 ...
984 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 ...
1k views

### How does one cite a MO post with an anonymous author?

I asked the question "Averaging $2^{\omega(n)}$ over a region" because this is a necessary step in a research paper I am writing. The answer is detailed and does exactly what I need, and it would be ...
862 views

### How can I donate to MathOverflow — if I should?

I understood from this meta question that MathOverflow is a nonprofit nonstock corporation dedicated to keeping this site running and that the nonprofit status allows receiving donations. What is the ...
706 views

### Stack-exchange devoted to research problems, the suggested approaches and updates

The idea is to have a database of open research problems where the answers will be updates or suggested approaches. One research problem per post. This is in the spirit of Polymath. Reasons: ...
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 ...
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 ...
3k views

### Grothendieck's passing

I think it would be a healing ritual for the MO community for someone of appropriate stature (which excludes me) posting an inviting cwiki question that elicits responses from the users to this ...
2k views

### MathOverflow @ ICM2014 : We Want You!

This post will raise several questions/issues on which I want community feedback. Background: Inspired by Tim Post's offer Mugs, Stickers And Shirts - Now With 100% More MathOverflow! , I++ decided ...
474 views

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 ...
1k 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 ...
899 views

This question boils down to whether an answer to a question should contain sufficiently free and easily accessible detail about the solution to a question. So IMHO it would be perfectly acceptable, ...
623 views

### Should top mathoverflow threads get DOIs and be permanently archived?

Josh from The Winnower (thewinnower.com) here. I wanted to reach out and see if users of mathOverflow would be interested in permanently archiving and assigning DOIs to top threads with The Winnower. ...
394 views

### Printer-friendly versions?

When I print an MO thread (using Chrome, at least), the font size is extremely small (8pt? nested indices are very hard to read, at least). Since I don't think this is easily fixable on the user side (...
914 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 ...
1k views

### Is MO connected?

Is it the case that MO is actually split into several communities which only communicate with each other through meta-activity but have no actual mathematical interests in common? This is not sheer ...
1k views

### Easy research-related questions, and closure reasons again

I am a bit confused by the close reason for https://mathoverflow.net/questions/154235/minimum-l1-norm-may-not-obtain-the-sparsest-solution?noredirect=1#comment395410_154235. It is an easy question ...
1k views

### Can I see who voted for what after I die?

I would like to know who has up- and (most importantly!) downvoted my questions. Will I find out after I die? What do different religions/beliefs say about this? I would happily convert to see the ...