60 votes

Welcoming new user: on a recent question about connections

I just want to comment, I think at this point, fighting and unpleasantness about whether questions are appropriate is a much bigger problem for the site than the presence of less-advanced questions on ...
  • 42.7k
53 votes

A StackExchange website aimed at graduate students?

I believe it is impossible in general to distinguish questions asked by a graduate student and those asked by a mathematician in a domain in which they are not specialist. Since the latter are ...
  • 25.4k
47 votes
Accepted

Why is "what is the difference between mathoverflow and math.stackexchange?" not prominently displayed?

I think you ask a quite reasonable question. One certainly could have a more condensed description of what is on-topic on MathOverflow, and put this in a prominent place where people see it before ...
  • 18.6k
35 votes

Welcoming new user: on a recent question about connections

I want to distinguish two different things that were said in the first comment: that the question was not research level and that the question should be migrated to math stackexchange. It is not ...
  • 123k
22 votes
Accepted

Cross posts to Math SE

If you have posted a question at MSE and want to cross-post it at MO or the other way around, you can do it under the following conditions: Wait several days, not just hours. I would suggest a week. ...
19 votes
Accepted

Can I ask a question on MathOverflow and also on another site?

Cross-posting is discouraged in general, because it can lead to duplication of effort by people answering on different sites. However, it is appropriate under some circumstances. Most of the advice ...
  • 54k
18 votes

If I can't get an answer on math.stackexchange.com or dsp.stackexchange.com, when should I post here?

Waiting a week would usually be considered reasonable.
  • 11.9k
18 votes

Welcoming new user: on a recent question about connections

I note that frequently users complain about unexplained downvotes and anonymous downvotes. Discouraging comments from users who indeed make a comment of this nature ("this is off-topic") ...
  • 55.2k
17 votes

How can we visually differentiate MathOverflow from MathStackExchange within the constraints of the new design themes?

As a data point for our Stack Exchange overlords, I have twice now tried to migrate a question from math.SE to math.SE because I didn't realize it was already there. I'd really like to get a striking ...
17 votes

How can we visually differentiate MathOverflow from MathStackExchange within the constraints of the new design themes?

EDIT: Some more information from Catija: This screen element is not currently customizable, so if we wanted it customized, SE would have to implement a new feature. Here Catija indicates that the ...
  • 54k
15 votes
Accepted

Mathematics and MathOverflow relationship

There is no formal connection. You may often see the same question on both sites because a lot of people cross-post (manually), a practice which is generally frowned upon, especially when the same ...
  • 51.3k
14 votes

A StackExchange website aimed at graduate students?

It is doubtful that SE would allow another "mathematical" mathematics site to open. In fact some time ago (2012, so even prior to MO's move to the SE network) there was an Area 51 proposal for a "...
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
12 votes

A StackExchange website aimed at graduate students?

Personal opinion: I think that the current system of having several of separate sites for different math-related topics (apart from MO and MSE, there are also related ones like scientific computing, ...
12 votes

Interesting (and not sufficiently answered) questions on math.SE

Is there an injective cubic polynomial $\mathbb Z^2\rightarrow\mathbb Z$? This question asks exactly what its title suggests: is there a polynomial of degree $3$ in $\mathbb Z[x,y]$ whose induced map ...
12 votes
Accepted

Type of content to be posted on MO and differences with MathSE

It makes sense to talk about the core communities of each forum, so that it becomes easier to understand the scope and the differences. Not being active on the mathematics forum, I will give my ...
10 votes

Any other site besides mathoverflow and mathematics stackexchange?

The reddit website has several forums dedicated to mathematics. The main math forum has a large audience but there are several others subs such as /r/learnmath, /r/homeworkhelp, /r/cheatatmathhomework,...
  • 18.1k
10 votes
Accepted

Is my question suitable for MO?

You have the makings of a good question. To make it acceptable, keep it brief, provide links, and do not add much that is not pertinent. I will use some of my questions as examples of what to avoid....
9 votes

Interesting (and not sufficiently answered) questions on math.SE

Here is a question which seems interesting, What does it take to divide by $2$? In a nutshell, we know that in $\sf ZF$, assuming classical logic, we can prove that if $A\times\{0,1\}$ and $B\...
  • 36.9k
8 votes
Accepted

Asking the same (subjective) question on Math.SE and MO

In general, cross-posting is frowned upon. And rightly so, it feels like an unnecessary duplication of effort, especially when the two communities intersect on a non-trivial subset of their users. To ...
  • 36.9k
7 votes
Accepted

If I can't get an answer on math.stackexchange.com or dsp.stackexchange.com, when should I post here?

The reason to wait a week or so before crossposting is to avoid having someone spend a lot of time trying to answer on one site, without realizing that it's already answered on the other. After a ...
7 votes

How can we visually differentiate MathOverflow from MathStackExchange within the constraints of the new design themes?

I suggest that we leave the job to Stack Exchange's design team. I'm not sure why we are supposed to come up with a solution ourselves; we are not professionals, and surely SE has someone on staff ...
6 votes

Interesting (and not sufficiently answered) questions on math.SE

Another user suggested that I should advertise this question in MO also, so here comes. It is just a number theoretic curiosity spawned by an earlier question where small cases were handled by a ...
6 votes

Appropriateness of question on delay differential equations

IMO, yes, that's definitely a graduate-level topic, and so appropriate for MO in that respect. (And I say that as a grad student who's studied delay equations a little.) AFAIK, cross-posting should ...
6 votes

A StackExchange website aimed at graduate students?

After carefully reading all your thoughts, I conclude that MO is a perfectly acceptable place for graduate students to post well-thought through questions. Yet, many graduate students (and even ...
6 votes

How can we visually differentiate MathOverflow from MathStackExchange within the constraints of the new design themes?

According to the post on Meta Stack Exchange1 (and the stuff I was told in chat) it seems that color of tags can be changed. (To be more specific, Catija mentioned as an example of a site which ...
6 votes

Migration of a detailed answer on MathOverflow Meta to Math.SE

You can't migrate an answer without migrating the entire thread, which is entirely inappropriate at this point. You can encourage Joel to take his question to Math.SE, and if there is no suitable ...
  • 36.9k
5 votes

How can we visually differentiate MathOverflow from MathStackExchange within the constraints of the new design themes?

We could consider some kind of background theme. I think MSE's graph paper looks pretty good. Of course, the goal would be to come up with something good which contrasts to the MSE graph paper. If we ...
  • 54k
5 votes
Accepted

Is this question migratable to MO?

I don't think the question would be good at MO. I would vote to close it as off-topic, and believe so would many others. I see no particular research angle to the question, and I would not consider it ...
5 votes

Interesting (and not sufficiently answered) questions on math.SE

Weil Pairing on Linear Algebraic Groups There is of course a Weil pairing on abelian varieties (it pairs an element of the torsion with something in the torsion of the dual) which are projective ...
  • 101

Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible