All Questions
1,766
questions
6
votes
0
answers
31
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.
- 2,218
46
votes
3
answers
841
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 ...
- 32.3k
79
votes
2
answers
1k
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 ...
Ben WebsterMod
- 43k
6
votes
1
answer
95
views
Having the MO Mathjax parser recognise \( \) is a regex away
@IsabelBeckenbach discovered why \( \) isn't accepted as a math-mode delimiter on MO. I'd always thought it was a design choice, but apparently it's just a mis-...
- 9,947
30
votes
1
answer
571
views
Opt out of the new upvote/downvote buttons?
I guess most of you have noticed by now the new upvote/downvote buttons. This seems to be in line with all the other SE sites (though I admit I haven't checked each and every one of them).
Does MO ...
- 6,499
1
vote
1
answer
249
views
Clarifying an answer that was deleted by moderators
I recently posted a controversial answer to a question, then spent a few days off site life-tending while things cooled off. When I returned with the intent of seeing how the controversy had been ...
- 8,304
24
votes
1
answer
791
views
Policy toward GPT-generated conjectures?
The recent MO post, A number theoretic conjecture by Chat GPT, posed a conjecture that was generated by ChatGPT. In my opinion, it was not a particularly interesting conjecture. For me at least, the ...
- 73k
5
votes
1
answer
139
views
My gravatar has changed
My automatically generated Gravatar has changed. Is that normal? I thought they were supposed to be permanent. I used to have a purple pattern IIRC, now it is light blue, a color I have never seen. It ...
- 18.5k
16
votes
1
answer
489
views
imgur will remove some content soon. Does MathOverflow need to save images?
It has been reported that "Hosting site Imgur will remove explicit and anonymous content next month". Are there possibly some images linked in MathOverflow questions or answers, attached to ...
- 5,460
2
votes
0
answers
79
views
Some arrows in commutative diagrams in comments are wrongly interpreted as @-notifications; and a bonus question about CDs on MMO
I left the following comment on Pullbacks in this category of vector spaces are intersections:
Are the morphisms in your category isometries? Otherwise, I'm not sure why the category is left ...
- 9,947
4
votes
1
answer
187
views
Looking for an answer (written by Thurston = user9062)
I recall that Thurston answered a question, showing that a particular graph braid group is the fundamental group of a three-manifold. I even recall that the answer proved that the three-manifold was ...
- 22.9k
6
votes
0
answers
70
views
The citation helper picks up a backlink to an MO answer when a DOI link is unavailable
In the citation helper, I searched for "Lectures on the approach to Iwasawa theory for Hasse-Weil L-functions via BdR". The unique result that shows up is the following (I've only edited two ...
- 887
9
votes
1
answer
338
views
On the tag [bitcoins]
Since several questions under the tag bitcoins have nothing to do with Bitcoin per se, but, rather, are related to proof of work, why not rename the tag cryptocurrencies or proof-of-work?
- 2,218
7
votes
1
answer
498
views
Repeated re-open/close votes (Tate conjecture)
The question Tate conjecture (Proved?) was asked yesterday, and quite quickly closed; it was then re-opened, and then closed (by, I think, a different set of 5). Questions about proofs of correctness ...
0
votes
0
answers
172
views
Difference between Mathematics SE and MathOverflow
If I post a question that I invented myself on Mathematics SE, I receive comments like "did you do homework?" and, eventually, "why do you ask if you know?". Fair enough. It seems ...
8
votes
3
answers
432
views
What should we call a tag on point-free topology?
The tag currently used for point-free topology (aka “pointless” topology) is “locales”. I think the name is a bit restrictive: while writing this question (which, indeed, does not contain the word “...
- 26.5k
24
votes
2
answers
765
views
Revisiting our policies on thank-you comments
Despite the little notice in the comments section telling us that comments along the lines of 'thank you' aren't welcome because they don't move the discussion forward mathematically, I have always ...
- 8,304
2
votes
0
answers
113
views
mathcal notation fails to render in Chrome
I recently noticed that "\mathcal" no longer renders. Example post
but it renders fine in Safari
Chrome: 111.0.5563.146 (Official Build) (x86_64)
Safari: Version 16.4 (18615.1.26.11.22)
...
- 2,118
-3
votes
1
answer
235
views
Rule against asking the same question that was once asked in the past (on another forum, yet)
In its relatively early days, MO was an organic and dynamic website — it encouraged active discussion among its members, that in almost all cases was extremely fruitful.
But now, even if a similar ...
- 1,890
3
votes
2
answers
86
views
Can’t vote to close question as duplicate of question without an answer
I tried to vote to close Einstein problem; on mirror symmemtry as a duplicate of Aperiodic monotile without reflections?. But the software gave me an error I wasn’t expecting: it said because the ...
- 20.8k
-4
votes
2
answers
306
views
Is there a penalty for merely looking at a question, comments and an answer?
Recently I have lost 2 reputation points for merely looking at a question, comments and an answer (1 point for reading the question "Large cardinals in $ZF$ + $DC$ + $AD$, and 1 point for reading ...
- 5,926
23
votes
1
answer
718
views
Update on "Who owns my MathOverflow posts?"
I saw the question previously asked in:
Who owns my MathOverflow posts?
Unfortunately, I was not able to get a clear answer by reading the responses to that question, as other people had commented ...
- 3,041
3
votes
1
answer
127
views
Can I see my flaggings?
Is there anywhere a list of questions, answers or comments that I have flagged?
I believe a list of such, together with my explanations why did I flag this, should be available, but I could not find ...
- 17.4k
5
votes
1
answer
103
views
Why is the wrong username showing up on a CW answer after a user changes names?
An answer to Interesting examples of vacuous / void entities was written, and only edited by, @JonasLinssen:
However, the answer shows up as having been written by @PrudiiArca:
The text "...
- 9,947
3
votes
0
answers
57
views
Cannot "Mark all as read" under very specific circumstances
This might deserve to be closed; it seems to be a bug, but a very, very minor one. The conditions under which I observed it were rather specific. I'm not sure which of the conditions were important, ...
- 9,947
4
votes
0
answers
66
views
MathJax in edited question title gets badly mis-parsed in diff view
A recent question received an edit to its MathJax, including in the title. Viewing the diff in the edit history, the edited MathJax in the title gets very badly mis-parsed in the diff view, as shown ...
- 17.2k
25
votes
2
answers
818
views
Kitty can’t fix it — Old questions inaccessible for logged-in users, giving “unexpected error”
For the past few days, any attempt to access the question Collecting proofs that finite multiplicative subgroups of fields are cyclic results in an internal server error:
It seems the poor kitten ...
- 41.6k
3
votes
0
answers
109
views
In Safari on macOS, a numbered list beginning with a displayed equation swallows the number
This bug report did not originally mention the platform and the renderer. I originally put them at the end, but it occurs to me that they're more useful up front. Thanks to @DavidRoberts and @...
- 9,947
3
votes
0
answers
66
views
AMScd columns not aligning
The code
\require{AMScd}\begin{CD}
0 @>>> \mathbf D(C) \\
0 @>>> M
\end{CD}
produces
$$\require{AMScd}\begin{CD}
0 @>>> \mathbf D(C) \\
...
- 9,947
2
votes
0
answers
87
views
Would undeleting questions increase the positive question record?
I came to know that to have a positive question record the total number of questions (including deleted ones) must be at least double the sum of (deleted, downvoted, and closed) questions.
If a ...
- 7,128
6
votes
1
answer
507
views
The number of MO users
Is there any statistics/diagram that shows and compares the number of MO users in the course of time?
- 139
8
votes
0
answers
325
views
2022: a year in moderation
As we say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new one, we have a tradition of sharing moderation stats for the preceding calendar year.
As most of you here are aware, sites on the Stack Exchange ...
- 101
7
votes
0
answers
168
views
How is TeX rendered in edit summaries?
I recently edited a question Dynkin type classification for 2-dimensional hypersurfaces in non-commutative space, and entered as my edit summary "$<x,y>$ -> $\langle x,y\rangle$" <...
- 9,947
0
votes
1
answer
360
views
MathOverflow in the classroom
My belief is that it is legitimate to cite some posts of the main site MathOverflow in the classroom of some course. Under this assumption I've wondered about the following question.
I don't know ...
18
votes
0
answers
549
views
Posting multiple "answers" to an already answered question
This question was asked and correctly answered three weeks ago. Since then another user has posted, as of today, five other "answers" describing his thoughts about related questions, ...
- 40.6k
1
vote
0
answers
79
views
Should this question have been CW?
Yesterday I asked a big-list question (Examples of errors in computational combinatorics results). The question is naturally big-list because it asks for various examples. Now I am not quite familiar ...
- 3,214
0
votes
0
answers
127
views
Gaining points for posting
How do I earn 50 points to comment if I am not allowed to comment or post? So my problem is as described as far you can see.
3
votes
1
answer
129
views
Spoiler mechanism not working
In a recent answer I've tried to hide some text. Unfortunately, something seems broken.
Here's the not-so-hidden text:
! Let $X$ be the set of complete theories that satisfy "everything
is ...
- 19.1k
13
votes
6
answers
2k
views
Let us wear hats
Many of the other stackexchange sites enable a festive wintertime custom every year in late December, the Winter Bash, in which user profiles are accommodated with fanciful hats, earned for various ...
- 208k
4
votes
0
answers
74
views
Drop-down lists
Would it be possible to have markdown drop-down lists in MO? I think that hiding lengthy examples, components of long proofs, edited out text etc., inside such menus could add readability.
- 4,653
11
votes
0
answers
169
views
What is the status of the imgur images on MathOverflow?
Many posts on MO contain a link to imgur.com. Such links can be created outside the Stack Exchange network - if somebody simply creates a picture on imgur. But some of them might have been uploaded ...
- 4,578
15
votes
1
answer
648
views
Should we flag suspected ChatGPT posts?
Another meta question raised the issue of AI-generated (by ChatGPT or similar) posts.
I have a more specific question. If we see a post that we suspect to be of this genre, would the moderators like ...
- 31.8k
1
vote
0
answers
37
views
How should we respond to user profiles (as opposed to questions or answers) that appear to be spam? [duplicate]
I've come across 10 different MO user profiles that all have very similar usernames that contain the name of a company. None of these users have any activity on the site except for filling out their ...
- 1,213
0
votes
0
answers
133
views
Is this question about partition numbers too broad/vague?
Here's my proposed question (edit: now posted) (edit 2: posted version now edited):
I have found an algorithm for counting partitions, and I've been able to express it into a mathematical formula, $P(...
- 13
-3
votes
1
answer
192
views
Can a question be muted from showing up to the front of the page so answers can edit their response as much as they please?
I liked the answer to this question: An algebra of "integrals" by @anixx
Which had a very detailed table attached. My understanding is the answerer had updated the question some 35 times to ...
- 1,450
9
votes
2
answers
206
views
Should tags be removed from spam?
When flagging spam, I usually delete tags and replace them by tag-removed as well. I just received a comment suggesting that this is not useful. It probably doesn'...
- 52.5k
4
votes
1
answer
134
views
Double overline renders poorly, except in MathML
A post Mathematical formulation of beam: get stress/strain from forces and momentum uses \overline{\overline{…}}. The results below are mostly from Safari 16.1 on ...
- 9,947
54
votes
2
answers
3k
views
ChatGPT strikes MathOverflow
The user (or a bot) https://mathoverflow.net/users/496085/canvas123 appears to be posting ChatGPT-generated text on MathOverflow.
Two “answers” by this user already got accepted (!):
When is a ...
- 33.8k
14
votes
1
answer
308
views
Mathoverflow for finding the name of mathematical concepts
I am used to posting on MathOverflow problems with questions. However, now I am looking for the name of a mathematical object that I think already exists (and I would be happy to find reference ...
- 1,605
19
votes
1
answer
587
views
Creation of "procrastination" tag
One user has created the tag procrastination: see this question. In principle I would have immediately deleted it as totally irrelevant (in the same way I would delete "Stupid question" or &...
- 56.2k