30
votes
My question was closed on MO because it is not research level. Where should I ask instead?
Most sites are staffed by (unpaid) volunteers who expect questions with the intent, format, and content such that they can process the question for the site properly. You should look at the site ...
26
votes
close/reopen wars on Mathoverflow
I am profoundly opposed to the "cargo cult" question. The internet is full of places where one can indulge in the pleasures of righteous indignation by mocking the failings of others. I absolutely ...
- 53.9k
20
votes
Questions which are research level but where the OP is unlikely to have the background to follow the research
I agree that it is good to help people who have research-level questions on their hands but lack the language to work well with the current literature. This situation appears often when people doing ...
S. CarnahanMod
- 44.7k
16
votes
Why can't we close questions that have a bounty?
Closing a question prevents new answers to be added. If one could close a question with a bounty, the net effect would be to shorten the bounty period, possibly causing the loss or misattribution of ...
- 43.3k
14
votes
The reason for putting on hold a question
I do not think there is much evidence to support your assertion that your question is specific. You ask whether there is research on "in which mathematical universes does Grothendieck's approach ...
S. CarnahanMod
- 44.7k
12
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 ...
Todd TrimbleMod
- 51.8k
12
votes
Repeated re-open/close votes (Tate conjecture)
As of this writing, the question concludes with the following paragraph:
I'd like to conclude by respectfully reiterating that, on one hand, the author seems to be reliable, and on the other, even in ...
- 75.5k
11
votes
Flagging Low Quality Questions
Speaking as a pretty active moderator: the amount of this type of flag raising that I see hasn't been a problem, not for me. In some ways I think it helps, to see how others are gauging the quality of ...
Todd TrimbleMod
- 51.8k
10
votes
Accepted
close/reopen wars on Mathoverflow
At various times in the past 9 years or so, we have tried several different social conventions to resolve the dissatisfaction that arises with the existing opening and closing rules. This may not be ...
S. CarnahanMod
- 44.7k
9
votes
Why has my question on Aristotelian Spaces been closed for being 'insufficiently focused'?
My vote to close largely had to do with the volume of discussion, with people clearly confused about the point of your question.
MO isn't intended to be purely a social space or a blog. Questions are ...
- 42.1k
8
votes
Accepted
Loophole to avoid closure: deletion + bounty?
If you see a question that seems off-topic or inappropriate for MathOverflow, but protected from close votes by a bounty, please flag for moderator attention. We can remove the bounty, and in ...
S. CarnahanMod
- 44.7k
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 ...
- 42.5k
8
votes
close/reopen wars on Mathoverflow
One can always flag a question for moderator attention, use the flag to point out to the moderators that an open/close war is in progress, and ask for moderator intervention. In my (limited) ...
- 38.3k
7
votes
close/reopen wars on Mathoverflow
For the reasons that others have described, I think that the existence of this question is damaging to MO. There have already been nasty speculations in the comments threads about the characters of ...
- 41.7k
6
votes
Flagging Low Quality Questions
It seems that we are mostly talking here about close flags and very low quality flags - since these are the two types of flags which seem reasonable in the case of low quality questions (whichever ...
- 4,588
6
votes
Questions which are research level but where the OP is unlikely to have the background to follow the research
I think it is good to have MathOverflow as a helpful resource for many people. In order to maintain such a resource, it needs to be helpful to the maintainers foremost. That means providing "...
- 12.8k
5
votes
Accepted
What to do with useful answers to questions closed as duplicates (or by some other reasons)?
Per the OP's request I am posting information from the above comments as an answer. (Although personally I think that this addresses the OP's concerns only partially.)
In some cases questions can be ...
- 4,588
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 ...
- 676
4
votes
Should a closed question award "famous" badge?
What is better, to erase/hide mistakes from the past, or leave them and learn from them?
The question was asked years ago, when the MathOverflow forum was hardly a year old, and the community was ...
- 12.8k
4
votes
Automatic comments by Community
At least this part of the question has been basically answered in the comments:
Is the algorithm to generate such comments known?
Some of the comments explaining where these comments come from have ...
4
votes
Why has my question on Aristotelian Spaces been closed for being 'insufficiently focused'?
Your question has the following general form: "Here is an imprecise concept X. Does it have a mathematically precise counterpart Y?" Questions like this typically fall into one of three ...
- 75.5k
3
votes
Accepted
Apparent session of mass-close-voting: how to confirm or refute?
Checking whether close votes come from a single user
One of the question asked here is: "Do the mods have any way of checking whether the close votes seem to be largely the work of a single user?"
...
- 4,588
3
votes
Why is my question is closed and do I get views?
Have you read the tour?
MathOverflow is a question and answer site for professional mathematicians.
Your question does not qualify for this; hence it's downvoted and closed. For more details, see ...
- 2,723
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 ...
- 12.8k
3
votes
What I can do if my questions limit had been reached in MO from long time?
In a similar question from 2014 on a sister site, Stack Overflow, What should an user do when he's in a question ban with unsalvageable questions?, a moderator answered:
The typical recourse for a ...
- 1,228
2
votes
Flagging old questions for closure
First, let me stress that I am not trying to suggest any specific course of action here, just argue why those flags make some sense.
The whole point of this answer is trying to explain a phenomenon, ...
- 7,743
2
votes
I have a question which is a near fit for MathOverflow. What are some other resources I might consult?
Various math-related databases
For example, databases of various mathematical objects.
The website Catalogue of Mathematical Datasets has a very impressive collection of various databases.
At least ...
1
vote
I have a question which is a near fit for MathOverflow. What are some other resources I might consult?
If your question is about mathematics, but not research-level mathematics, then you can find some great alternative resources at the following MathOverflow Meta question:
My question was closed on MO ...
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible