All Questions
634
questions
26
votes
7
answers
3k
views
Should we have new moderator elections?
Mathoverflow has seven moderators, but many of them seem to be inactive (at least from the point of view of an unprivileged user): for instance, they are not active on meta, and they moderated few ...
- 19.4k
25
votes
5
answers
1k
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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 ...
- 7,658
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 ...
- 19.2k
24
votes
1
answer
1k
views
"A year in moderation" post on MathOverflow?
You might have noticed than many Stack Exchange sites have some statistics about both community moderation and moderators' activity posted on meta under the title "2018: a year in moderation". Here is ...
- 4,618
24
votes
4
answers
816
views
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, ...
Tim CampionMod
- 61.6k
24
votes
5
answers
2k
views
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 ...
- 8,046
23
votes
2
answers
849
views
Crazy idea about soft questions
I was thinking the other day about big list and other soft questions and had the following crazy idea.
It seems to me that what we want is to occasionally have good soft questions. The main thing ...
- 27.8k
23
votes
1
answer
5k
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Why was my dissenting viewpoint in a post about diversity censored?
In a question about special lectures for the ICM, the following answer proposed that a lecture on how to make the mathematical field more diverse be given. The answer contains some rather bold ...
- 1,038
22
votes
2
answers
826
views
Can the clutter of obviously off-topic questions be removed faster?
I have noticed a number of blatantly off-topic questions that hang around for a long time despite heavy down-voting and calls for removal by senior users. I found somewhere on the site (although I can'...
- 2,427
22
votes
3
answers
1k
views
Answering not research level questions
I just commented the solution to a question that was obviously not research level. Then I deleted the solution again since providing it might encourage people to again asking such questions.
...
- 3,241
21
votes
2
answers
628
views
Data on voting by 'association bonus only' users
There's recently been some discussion of the potential impact on voting of users whose only MathOverflow reputation comes from the network association bonus.
I asked the SE team about this, and ...
- 7,570
20
votes
0
answers
758
views
Which "non-arxiv" tags are de facto top-level tags?
The tag system on MathOverflow is designed in such way that each question should contain top-level tag; these are the tags which correspond to subject areas on arXiv and generally have format such as ...
- 4,618
20
votes
1
answer
1k
views
What to do with links to arXiv front end?
There are quite a few posts which link to some paper at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/ rather than directly at https://arxiv.org/
The front for arXiv at UC Davis seems to be down for some time. (I ...
- 4,618
20
votes
7
answers
2k
views
What is needed to succeed in keeping up the level of the site and retaining the good contributors?
MathOverflow is a nice high-level communitiy with a good collegial academic atmosphere.
I'd like to know about how this can be achieved; for example how does MathOverflow keep up the good qualitiy of ...
- 408
20
votes
7
answers
2k
views
Can MO go back to +5 rep for questions? Should it?
In case you missed the news, upvotes on questions now grant +10 reputation instead of +5, and the change has been implemented retroactively (most if not all users have already had their reputation ...
- 27.4k
19
votes
0
answers
885
views
Are we making it too tempting/easy to send inappropriate posts to MSE?
This "question" (asking for generalized help with a long list of elementary topics) is clearly going to be unwelcome almost anywhere, yet two users voted to close with a suggestion to "see math....
- 22.5k
19
votes
4
answers
1k
views
Why was "The origin(s) of the word “elliptic” migrated to hsm?
This question on the history of the ellipse terminology was migrated to hsm after a week of being active on MO and receiving several useful answers.
Did the OP ask for migration?
Why are some ...
- 5,283
19
votes
3
answers
1k
views
Are Links to Articles Behind a Paywall Acceptable Answers?
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, ...
- 12.7k
18
votes
3
answers
412
views
Community Wiki in the hands of moderators
I don't understand the wisdom of removing the CW button from the control of an author of a question, and having always to pester the moderators to turn it on. Might it be possible to return this ...
Todd TrimbleMod
- 52.4k
18
votes
2
answers
682
views
Proposal to more aggressively delete off-topic questions
We are going to get many more off-topic questions now.
Can we agree to vote to delete on them so as not to pollute the site?
It takes a few votes from users who can vote on such things and/or one ...
- 46.8k
18
votes
4
answers
1k
views
What areas/aspects of mathematics are underrepresented on MO?
The question:
What areas/aspects of mathematics are underrepresented on MO?
- 24.2k
17
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Decluttering MathOverflow
There are quite a few very poor questions (all being put on hold quite soon after they've been asked), such as this. These questions stick around unless they get deleted by the OP (which they almost ...
- 45.5k
17
votes
5
answers
4k
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Should these sexually suggestive jokes be kept or deleted?
There are a few jokes in "Do good math jokes exist?" that I think are inappropriate.
Specifically:
Nov 21 '09 at 9:01 item (1)
Oct 19 '09 at 16:03
Dec 10 '09 at 23:14
Dec 15 '09 at 1:31
All of ...
- 1,133
17
votes
8
answers
3k
views
2021 Moderator Election Q&A - Questionnaire
In connection with the moderator elections, we are holding a Q&A thread for the candidates. Questions collected from an earlier thread have been compiled into this one, which shall now serve as ...
- 101
17
votes
2
answers
560
views
How to get to meta?
There's a new toolbar for all the SE sites. (That big black thing up there!)
Mostly I think it's pretty awesome.
But how do I get to meta now?
- 7,570
17
votes
4
answers
1k
views
Opting out of reputation
[Disclaimer. I'm making this feature request not because I want it nor because I think it's a good idea, but because I heard it so often that there is need to discuss it. Please don't shoot the ...
- 43.7k
16
votes
1
answer
842
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 ...
- 4,618
16
votes
5
answers
3k
views
Why was there pushback on a user's profile image?
The comments on the OP for the following question are disconcerting: Why is Voevodsky's motivic homotopy theory 'the right' approach?
From what I can gather, the OP must have had ...
- 356
16
votes
0
answers
477
views
Studying the MathOverflow data dump with Mathematica
This is just a mention of some work Wolfram has done recently, allowing you to import a database dump of MathOverflow and analyse it within Mathematica.
The Data Science of MathOverflow
Their ...
- 7,570
16
votes
0
answers
591
views
area 51 proposal - Math review
Recently I created a new proposal at area 51; it's called Math Review (http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/90443/math-review), and it is intended to be a Q&A site concerning troubles one ...
- 101
16
votes
0
answers
255
views
Change of colors
I decided to follow up on my own thread regarding the color scheme, and test something up.
Using archive.org, I loaded a copy of MathOverflow from 2011, and it turns out that the questions in one's ...
- 38.2k
16
votes
1
answer
602
views
Correcting links with university proxy (especially MathSciNet links)
Let me first say, that I consider links to papers referenced in MO posts a useful things. And so do other users, judging by an older discussion on this topic: Is it worth editing old posts to add ...
- 4,618
16
votes
2
answers
447
views
Feature request: add short "about MathOverflow" section to the front page
Until a few years ago MathOverflow front page had a short section at the top describing what the site is for. I am not sure when it disappeared or why but I would like to see it restored. Currently ...
- 7,822
15
votes
2
answers
671
views
How to wake up an old question?
Suppose there is an old question on mathOverflow, asked by someone else, which has been voted up a quite decent number of times, and received several answers which have also been voted up, but no ...
- 25.7k
14
votes
0
answers
299
views
Please enable the AMScd package by default
We can draw diagrams using the AMScd package, and works quite nicely (see Math.SE for a working proof).
However, on MathOverflow the package seems to be disabled by default, so if a user wants to use ...
- 38.2k
14
votes
1
answer
407
views
Copyright of MathOverflow logo?
What is the copyright of the MathOverflow logo? Is it in the public domain? In this site they say that "most simple logos simply do not have the required level of creativity to be considered ...
- 1
13
votes
0
answers
1k
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Did mathcal stop working properly?
Does this question Basic algebra of $\mathcal{O}_0(\mathfrak{sl}_n(\mathbb{C}))$ — Reference request look like this for anyone else?:
Those squares are supposed to be \mathcal{O}'s. As far as I can ...
- 22.9k
13
votes
0
answers
351
views
What should the tag (open-problems) be used for?
Since this issue came up in comments to another questions on meta, I'll ask about the intended issue of the open-problems tag.
Question. What is the intended usage of the open-problems tag? Should it ...
- 4,618
12
votes
1
answer
652
views
Problem with posts and comments relying on macros defined elsewhere
MathJax supports possibility do define macros. (Using \newcommand, \DeclareMathOperator, \def...
- 4,618
12
votes
3
answers
488
views
In the new site design, what should the background look like on MO?
SE is giving us pretty limited options for how the site is going to look going forward. Our most popular customization request, judging either from Carlo Beenakker's original suggestion or the ...
Tim CampionMod
- 61.6k
12
votes
1
answer
324
views
Being notified of the comments under the answer of someone else to your post
Sometimes a lot of good things happen as the comments under an answer to your post. Though we are notified of the answers given or the comments under the body of the post, it seems that we are not ...
- 2,277
12
votes
3
answers
277
views
Broken math on some answers [duplicate]
Here is an example. Is there an automatic way for moderators to fix what I imagine are many answers that somehow now display funny, or should we do it manually, one by one?
If the latter, people ...
- 32.2k
12
votes
2
answers
335
views
Filtering out the Autobiographer badge from "Recent Badges"
As discussed in this recent post, there is currently an influx of a ridiculous number of profile spammers showing up with the Autobiographer badge in the "recent badges" box on the MO ...
- 2,758
12
votes
1
answer
13k
views
Using MathJax for formating (**bold**, *italics*)?
Some users use MathJax to get italicized or bold text. This is sometimes done in titles (where MarkDown is not available), but some users do this also in body of a question, where MarkDown is used. ...
- 4,618
12
votes
2
answers
730
views
Should questions to which I already know the answer in advance be appropriate for MO?
I was just asking Is it appropriate to ask for references and point to a blog with the same question and started to read http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/07/its-ok-to-ask-and-answer-your-own-...
- 3,241
12
votes
0
answers
1k
views
Why is my question apparently not research-level?
I just posted this question a few hours ago, and it's already had two votes to close for being off-topic (i.e., not of "research-level mathematics"). Considering it's ultimately a question about ...
- 1,025
11
votes
0
answers
260
views
Quick or easy methods to post math or diagrams on chat
One of the seeming obstacles to having scheduled informal seminars on chat is the extra work, probably mostly for the leader of the discussion (should there be one), in presenting ideas on the chat ...
- 25.4k
11
votes
3
answers
733
views
Does the number of answers really drop over years?
This was caused by an answer of mine to the question Slight downward trend in Q & A. I was adding another update to that answer when I noticed that the query I was using there now can be run for ...
- 17.5k
11
votes
4
answers
938
views
Development of the MathOverflow community
From the Stack Exchange Data Explorer one can obtain the following data:
Number of people who joined MO in the last 4 years and have collected at least 10000 points: 96
Number of people who joined ...
Stefan KohlMod
- 19.5k
11
votes
2
answers
463
views
Best way to post graphics to MO
What is the best way to include graphics in a question or an answer on MO?
I searched the help but could not find instructions about how to post graphics. I also looked at a couple of Joseph O'...
- 78.7k