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Using MathOverflow should be an extension of the way you normally do mathematics, and the same rules you use to effectively solve problems can be used to make good MO questions. Just like solving problems, crafting good questions requires you to put in some effort!
Ask a focused question that has a specific goal
Be precise
Do your homework
Break it down
...
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While the MathOverflow site is operated by Stack Exchange, Inc., the domain and the MathOverflow name are owned by the MathOverflow corporation. The MathOverflow corporation is completely independent from Stack Exchange and its mission is to ensure the continued operation of the site in a manner that meets the needs and expectations of the community.
On May ...
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You own all of your posts! You retain full copyrights and you can do anything you please with them.
However, by posting on MathOverflow, you release your content under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. This license allows MathOverflow, Stack Exchange and others to use your content under specific terms. This ...
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Upvotes on questions now only contribute +5, rather than the original +10. There are a number of other changes, but this explains the bulk.
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I began this answer with a salutation, and hopefully it was never posted, because that's what the system is supposed to do, as per Jeff Atwood's answer on Meta Stack Exchange:
We now automatically remove salutations from posts as they are entered.
I got really tired of performing this edit over and over, so anything matching the form of …
^ ...
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I have quite good eyes, and I have to say that in order to tell if any of the highlighted favorite tags are actually highlighted I tip my laptop at an absurd angle. Could this shade be any closer to white? This seems to defeat the purpose.
I had this same complaint at a different SE site and learned how to manually fix it, but it is kind of a pain for non-...
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I think that new users would do well to ask some precise mathematical questions and/or give some precise mathematical answers before trying to ask imprecise philosophical questions.
Regardless of what you think about the rate at which we should have soft questions, I think it's clear that we should not be having soft questions like this one from new users. ...
22
Now that we've done the import, we'll need to refresh our global network cache of users and posts from all sites. The fun part is this is a huge job, so we have to take portions of the API offline for a bit to do it...which means we don't want to do it twice.
Today we'll be checking that everything is ready for a backfill and we don't need to do anything ...
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Here is the CSS I was talking about:
/* Unanswered questions box */
.status.unanswered, .status.unanswered .mini-counts, .status.unanswered strong {
border: none;
background-color: #833700;
color: #FFF
}
/* Answered questions box */
.status.answered,.status.answered .mini-counts,.status.answered strong {
border: none;
background-...
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The question you answered is community wiki, and this also makes all answers community wiki.
There is no reputation for votes on community wiki questions and answers.
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Update: Donations are now possible, see this post: Donations to MathOverflow, Inc
[Apologies for the long delay in answering, I was on my honeymoon! I may update this quick answer after I get back to regular life.]
Up until now, MathOverflow has been paying for regular expenses through a generous grant from The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Coincidentally, ...
18
What can I do?
This is a simple issue that can be quickly rectified by following the steps below:
Go ahead and create a new account using whatever authentication service you were using previously. Make a note of the profile URL - you can get to the new profile by clicking on your user name at the top of the page. Keep this handy.
Locate your original ...
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It's now at tea.mathoverflow.net!
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[RE-OPENED and later CLOSED again]
The question How the idea of adjoint matrix has been designed? isn't great, but isn't awful, and these two answers have been posted (and upvoted) on G+ rather than as answers, which is dumb. Let's reopen the question so that the answers can be added.
As an aside, the fact that Allen Knutson basically said "this is going ...
17
Just click on the Blue Stack Exchange sign, and there's a link to meta there.
Update: This no longer works, and now one must click on the "word bubble symbol" at the extreme right of the toolbar to get to meta.
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Mariano hadn't used the moderation interface for an extended period, and was proving hard to contact. The StackExchange staff said they wanted to remove his diamond, mostly as a security measure.
We didn't object (SE raised this in the moderator chat room, and I suspect not everyone had even seen this), but I think that if there is concern, either from ...
15
They got selected for deletion because of lack of community interest:
If the question is more than 365 days old, and ...
has a score of 0, or a score of 1 in case of deleted owner
has no answers
is not locked
has view count <= the age of the question in days times 1.5
has 1 or 0 comments
... it will be automatically deleted.
(...
15
Here is a snapshot of the site analytics to which Martin refers:
So, roughly $40,000$ page views per day (in the summer).
Might be interesting to know what happened on May 14th and on August 8th...
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Naturally, we do not discuss details of individual users. This is indeed an unusual suspension. Also note that this is a network-wide suspension, so this is not necessarily related to this user's behavior on MathOverflow.
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Where's the rule that says I have to wear pants?
MathOverflow doesn't have formal rules about every possible thing that could come up. Roughly, you should think of this site as a large seminar. Be nice. Treat others with the same respect you'd want them to treat you. We're all here to learn together. Be honest. If you see misinformation, vote it down. ...
14
When a user is removed, their votes are removed as well. So the most likely explanation is that the user had voted for one of your answers and the reputation you gained from that vote was removed with the user.
The cause for deletion is usually either sock puppeting and vote fraud, or the user reqested to be deleted. In cases of high-reputation users with ...
14
Simply remove the tag from your question, unless someone else uses the tag it will be removed in 24 hours. Here is a very similar question from meta.SO: I accidentally created a tag. How do I delete it?
More details on pruning of low-usage tags:
The process removing tags having no questions is running once in 24 hours, see How can we get rid of misspelled ...
14
If you ask a question you're asking a favor (the eventual award of MO-points does not change this fact). This means that you should give the public something in return. The formulation of the question should not be egoistic, just for sake of getting an answer. Within reason, you should educate MO-public about the topic. Thus the formulation should be as self-...
14
You can find links to some basic info on favorites here, specifically this post is rather detailed: How do favorite questions work?
This feature request has been posted on main meta a few years ago: Add a page explaining the favorites feature to the Help Center. Existence of this feature request suggests that you are probably not the only person who ...
14
Any user with at least 15 reputation points should flag the post as spam. After 6 spam flags, the post is deleted. In addition to being deleted, even for users who can see the deleted posts, the content of the post is hidden - although they can still access the revision history. The same thing happens after a total of 6 flags that are either "spam", or "rude ...
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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 question appears at both sites almost simultaneously and the poster doesn't mention anything about cross-posting or doesn't link to the question at the other site. ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
