16 votes

May I know why is my question on hold when it is clearly research-level?

I will do my best to give an honest interpretation of what is happening here, with the caveat that cutting-edge research into FLT is not within my range of expertise. (Disclaimer: I didn't vote up or ...
  • 51.3k
15 votes

Concern about sending to academia.stackexchange

I agree with the general sentiment that there’s overlap between the two sites and we don’t need to close all questions in that overlap. However, I don’t personally think either of these particular ...
  • 27.2k
15 votes

offtopic question

MathOverflow is geared toward professional mathematicians and their PhD students who seek answers to questions arising in their research. It is the preeminent internet clearinghouse for questions of ...
  • 51.3k
13 votes

Questions seemingly/apparently/ostensibly too elementary for overlfow

The judgment of whether a question is considered on-topic or not for MO is made by individual MO users. If a question is closed but other users disagree with the reasons for closure, the latter may ...
  • 51.3k
11 votes

Acceptability of "Changes forced by the pandemic"

However, I personally feel that this is an interesting and valuable question where the MathOverflow community can provide insight that would not be readily available elsewhere. That argument could ...
10 votes

Acceptability of "Changes forced by the pandemic"

In my view, the value of this question lies in the fact that, whereas each one of us is aware of the changes which our own institution has made, it is very likely that each person/institution did ...
10 votes

Migrating to Math.SE: too many close reasons

Thanks for bringing this up! I agree that there are many migration-worthy questions that are closed in a suboptimal way. As I was one of those who voted to close your example question "for wrong ...
9 votes

Concern about sending to academia.stackexchange

This may be a bit provocative, but there's an argument for never sending questions to Academia.SE. The problem with academia.SE is that it is very different in style from MO and other SE sites. The ...
  • 7,193
8 votes
Accepted

List of close reasons has changed?

This change happened as part of the new post notices roll-out, on 5 Dec 2019. Apart from visual appearances, the texts of many of these notices were rewritten as well, the list of close reasons being ...
8 votes

Is there a clear rule against "check this proof" type questions?

Since I was one of the "delete" votes for "Riemann Hypothesis", I'll present my standpoint here. In that particular instance you do not need to know pretty much anything beyond elementary algebra and ...
  • 56.1k
7 votes

Revamping the closure reasons in 2022

My suggestion would be to merge the two existing site-specific close reasons (which are too confusingly similar anyway) into a single one, like: This question does not appear to be about research-...
  • 25.4k
6 votes
Accepted

Revamping the closure reasons in 2022

We've now implemented exactly the sort of changes discussed here. (Thanks in particular to Stefan Kohl!). Here's are the new community-specific close reasons: You'll see we've deleted both the old ...
  • 54k
6 votes

Could we add another reason for closing that's more appropriate for "check this (dis)proof of RH"-type questions?

A bit of an update, too long for a comment. To be sure we're all on the same page, here's the current setup. If you have sufficient rep, you can click the "close" button on a question, and ...
  • 54k
5 votes
Accepted

Why is my question on martingales off-topic and not migrated?

I am not an expert on the topic, so I can't tell if the question could be edited to make it on-topic. Typically questions that ask for homework help are not received well here, but exceptions are ...
4 votes
Accepted

Why was "Awfully sophisticated proof for simple facts" closed (two years ago)?

Some information about closed/on-topic questions can be found in the meta.SE closed/on-hold faq. There are two important points about closed/on-hold questions. No new answers can be posted. That's ...
4 votes

Acceptability of "Changes forced by the pandemic"

I think these close/open fights are very unproductive. Personally I feel like this wasn't a great fit for MO and wouldn't have asked it myself, but I respect André's opinion a lot and if he thinks it'...
  • 27.2k
3 votes

Close votes of different types

Sometimes questions do not fit the forum. When I comment on these questions, I normally suggest they picked the wrong forum, and sometimes suggest a different forum. If there is an obvious fix that ...
2 votes

Is there a clear rule against "check this proof" type questions?

The real reason, I suspect, is that it is a common request which we (the past, current, and with high probability future MathOverflow community) are tired of hearing, like checking on proofs of 1 not ...
1 vote
Accepted

Was the custom close reason mentioning Math.SE removed?

We've changed the close reasons; as mentioned, this question came mid-stream. See the answer here for an explanation.
  • 54k
1 vote

change in voting to close

Hopefully you can get more information on this from moderators (and community managers). Anyway, here is a brief summary of some recent changes based on these posts: Question Close Updates: Phase 1 ...
1 vote

Need help on my closed question

If I voted to close on questions, I would vote to close on this question, even after the edits. The primary reason is that I have to work at figuring out the question. A secondary reason is that ...

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