All Questions
1,853
questions
9
votes
9
answers
3k
views
What do we mean by welcoming when we're a site aimed at researchers?
I was just browsing the main page this morning, and I decided to look at some of the posts by new people. One of the questions had garnered three votes to close and a comment from a regular user to ...
4
votes
1
answer
107
views
Why is my feature-request not showing on meta?
I posted my feature request (Feature request: a possibility to leave mathoverflow) yesterday, yet it is not showing on the list of most recent questions.
I thought it might be the negative votes but ...
15
votes
3
answers
894
views
Scope and mission of MathOverflow
I followed with much interest the recent discussions on Meta about the community being perceived as unwelcoming to outsiders and the importance of looking for solutions (if any).
In order to do this, ...
-8
votes
1
answer
516
views
A radical proposal on votes and reputation
I was trying to explain the current controversy how “welcoming” MO is to a non-mathematician friend. The current best hypothesis for why MO is either attractive or repellent in general is that it has ...
16
votes
5
answers
2k
views
MathOverflow policymaking and transparency
There goeth rumours abroad that some off-site groups are seeking a private forum together with the moderators here in order to make policy for MO.
I hope that the moderators will commit to ...
21
votes
4
answers
779
views
Customize the modal window for the first-time askers [duplicate]
When a user asks their very first question on a Stack Exchange site, they are shown a modal window with a short advice. The content can be either a generic message or it can be customized for a ...
5
votes
1
answer
293
views
Once a thread is deleted, is it really too late to bring it back?
I was under the impression that "deleted" threads were still visible by moderators or other high-level members of the community. Is this correct? If a post was deleted that shouldn't have ...
4
votes
2
answers
179
views
"Scope" of being blocked from asking
As you know well, when one attempts to delete a question that has already received an answer, the following message is displayed.
"Repeated deletion of answered questions can result in your ...
1
vote
0
answers
91
views
Appropriateness and cross-posting
I am interested in this question on math.stackexchange. To me it is interesting because while it looks "obvious" that there isn't a solution with 6 turns (I have some very partial results ...
0
votes
2
answers
249
views
A question of notation: what does $x\lt y\in S$ mean? [closed]
I've seen expressions like $x\lt y\in S$ used on this site to mean "$x\lt y$ and $x\in S$ and $y\in S$." This has me worried because I sometimes use $x\lt y\in S$ to abbreviate "$x\lt y$...
27
votes
3
answers
2k
views
What are our procedures if a user complains about harassment or abuse?
Context for this question: I am writing an article on MathOverflow for the Notices of the AMS. One thing I try to address is the apparent gender skew of our website. One of the readers of my draft ...
0
votes
0
answers
79
views
Can I ask for advice or opinions about the choice of a variant of a theory?
Basically, I have 2 versions of a theory. This is like having two competing theories of complex numbers, one where $i^2=-1$ and the other where $j^2=1$ (hyperbolic numbers) or extending reals with $+\...
3
votes
1
answer
113
views
`\DeclareMathOperator` at the beginning of a comment disables some link parsing
In a comment of the form $\DeclareMathOperator\a{a}$Here's a [link](http://mathoverflow.net) and [another link](http://mathoverflow.net) $\a$, neither link is ...
9
votes
5
answers
283
views
Is it possible to temporarily comment out part of a post?
Scenario (true story): after posting something I became doubtful about certain claim there,
so I want to hide it until I clarify my doubts.
Of course I could just move that part to a temporary file, ...
12
votes
1
answer
286
views
Should we have a tag for second-order logic?
There are a number of questions on this site about second-order logic (admittedly I may have asked a few more of them than is reasonable). For example, searching "second-order logic" (in ...
1
vote
1
answer
97
views
Question visibility and reputation
I wonder whether the visibility of a post changes according to the user's reputation asking the question. Is it also known if a user's posts' visibility is affected by other actions, like having ...
-8
votes
1
answer
204
views
Is it allowed to use images for pasting math formula?
Is it allowed to use images to paste math formula in mathoverflow.net ?
I think this is high efficiency, and few people search math questions by LaTeX.
11
votes
0
answers
390
views
Utility of Mathematics: Is this question appropriate here, and if not/if so, how can I phrase it better?
I would like to know if this question is appropriate for Math Overflow, and if so, how I can phrase it better to get the best results.
Question:
I recently spoke with a very nice mathematician who ...
4
votes
0
answers
349
views
Question on topic for Mathoverflow?
My question, asked months ago, was well received. Now...
I'm wondering if this question is on-topic for MathOverflow:
Consider a semi-Riemannian manifold $\zeta^{2,2}$ with metric, $g=\frac{dxdy}{xy}+...
1
vote
1
answer
257
views
Questions seemingly/apparently/ostensibly too elementary for overlfow
Well I don't really get notifications of flag responses sooo...
Nov 6 at 14:01 helpful - I suggest you take this up in meta; there is not enough space to answer here. But there are a number of ...
1
vote
0
answers
66
views
Why is the ‘mathematical logic’ tag spelt [lo.logic]? [duplicate]
On MathOverflow, questions about mathematical logic bear the tag lo.logic, which has a synonym of logic.
Where did this lo.logic spelling come from? Why is it not ...
3
votes
1
answer
138
views
Is linking to comments possible?
I vaguely remember seeing links to comments somewhere, was it a dream or it is indeed doable?
13
votes
0
answers
815
views
Vandalism edits by apparently-anonymous users
There is an answer to an old community wiki question that was edited about 45 mins ago to make it sexually explicit, with a second attempted edit pending approval to make it even more so.
I rejected ...
5
votes
2
answers
98
views
How to tell who created a tag?
The "stats" section of a tag's page says how long the tag has existed, and the tag description history says who created the tag description. However, I don't see how to find who created the ...
3
votes
2
answers
365
views
How can this question have more downvotes than views?
An off-topic question recently appeared on the main site. It was heavily downvoted and got deleted after only a few minutes. But at one point before the question was deleted, I noticed it had been ...
-1
votes
1
answer
113
views
Site for reviewing articles, formulas, theorems, etc?
This question might be weird, I wouldn't feel bad if it is closed.
I know that MathOverflow is for mathematicians and math StackExchange for people studying math at any level. But questions like "...
0
votes
0
answers
583
views
Why did my profile picture disappear?
I discovered few days ago that my profile picture is gone, had to reupload it.
Did anybody else encounter this? Do you know the reason?
-1
votes
1
answer
261
views
Are new users with inappropriate questions given help or rudely dismissed?
I often see questions like this: co.combinatorics - Given index $i$, what element is at position $i$ in sorted subsets that are obviously better suited for the Math.SE site.
This particular question ...
14
votes
2
answers
521
views
Is there left any way to highlight part of text after all?
Currently we have quotes, but
the quoted text looks more faint than the surrounding text
The vertical bar hardly helps, I believe. In fact I think (although I cannot explain it) that this bar ...
10
votes
0
answers
545
views
Bounty awarded to an immediately deleted answer
Something peculiar has just happened. A week ago a 300 point bounty has been added to this question (I think its content is hardly relevant to this meta question) [note: the bounty was added by a user ...
4
votes
3
answers
573
views
Creating theories-of-arithmetic logic tag
It seems to me that a tag for "arithmetic logic" is missing while it concerns a significant number ($\sim 500?$) of questions, which currently have no common tag other than the very broad lo....
0
votes
0
answers
187
views
I want to answer a closed question
Please reopen this question:
A problem of an infinite number of balls and an urn
I have a nice answer.
(Added (DR): now re-opened. Please note there are ten deleted nonsense answers, which I imagine ...
6
votes
0
answers
265
views
Platform-wide suspenson but not on MO?
At this closed question the user seems to be playing ignorant, but I looked at their network profile and some of the other StackExchange sites, and there is a prominent banner
This account is ...
-2
votes
2
answers
152
views
Should "does anyone access this paper" questions be community-wiki?
Should questions consisting in barely asking for a copy or link to some given paper be community-wiki?
A recent example, among others, is and Reference of J.L. Waldspurger's paper on Shimura ...
5
votes
0
answers
87
views
Dollar sign in image title works in preview, but not in actual post
I was just trying to clean up Understanding why $\pi_{3}(N) = \mathbb{Z}_{(2n, n^2)}$? , which was originally almost entirely cut-and-pasted images without any alternate text. For the first image, I ...
10
votes
0
answers
312
views
What should you do if you find old duplicates?
Sometimes I discover that "old" MO questions are duplicates of even older MO questions.
Two examples:
Embarrassingly, I found out that my own question: Formula for number of permutations ...
2
votes
0
answers
262
views
Is asking about name of a curve a research level question?
In my opinion this post is not a research level topic but surprisingly it has been received 22 votes.
Is the linked post a research level question and appropriate for MO?
I think it is more ...
14
votes
1
answer
367
views
Any policies around Dead links?
I have been reviewing a lot of older posts (~10 years old) and there are quite a few with links that are either dead or links that point to sites that no longer contain the relevant information that ...
14
votes
1
answer
323
views
Can I retag questions to get a topic badge?
This is just something I was wondering: I currently have 19 non-CW answers in real-analysis. Could I just go through my old answers looking for a question which involves real analysis but hasn't been ...
1
vote
1
answer
116
views
Updated questions
The following question of mine frequently appears as recently updated question so I frequently find it at front page. But neither me nor other participants did any revise or edit on this post and its ...
46
votes
6
answers
2k
views
Should graduate students be encouraged to participate in MO? If so, at what stage?
When I started graduate school ten (!) years ago, a more senior Ph.D student at the time told me about MathOverflow and encouraged me to participate. Ever since then I have found it immensely useful. ...
2
votes
1
answer
154
views
What is up with the "Question feed" vs. "Related Questions"?
When looking at a question, for at least the past few months I've noticed an inconsistency in what displays in the righthand sidebar. What I expect to see is a list of "related questions" -- ...
13
votes
1
answer
611
views
Did spacing increase recently?
Yesterday I noticed that line spacing in questions & answers is bigger than before, something like 1.5
Is there some global change, or is it a bug? Or maybe I do have a bug or something?
Can I ...
10
votes
1
answer
342
views
How to report intrisically spammy user accounts?
Sometimes, I notice that some very odd username is listed on Home as having earned the "Autobiographer" badge, where by "odd" I mean something very much non-mathematical and ...
0
votes
0
answers
111
views
Can I delete one of my posts that has been closed as off topic and received an answer with positive up-vote?
Can I delete one of my posts that has been closed as off topic and received an answer with positive up-vote?
Should I delete all my posts that has been closed as off topic? (with/out answer)
5
votes
1
answer
280
views
How can this user have a negative year reputation?
How on earth did Noah Schweber (whose contributions to MathOverflow I always greatly enjoy) end up with a negative year reputation for 2020?
-3
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Why have I been suspended from the ICM chat? General remarks about unwelcoming behaviour on MathOverflow
Although the below obfuscates the context which is undoubtedly relevant to what has happened, the following comments appeared to be reason enough for the moderators to ban me from the ICM chat.
...
9
votes
5
answers
2k
views
Questions, answers, comments or discussions on aspects of politics relevant to mathematicians on MathOverflow (main or meta)
Given the recent question here on meta about the deletion of a
comment stating a political opinion on an answer which also stated
a political opinion which sparked a lively debate, let me bring up the
...
1
vote
0
answers
90
views
Why is an MO front-page question greyed out? [duplicate]
Why is symmetric monoidal double categories? on the MO front page greyed out?
23
votes
1
answer
5k
views
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 ...