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13
votes
2answers
365 views

The “off-topic” close reason about homework questions

(No TL;DR, please just read the question.) Background The new close reasons contain a designated option for homework questions, viz: On a few occasions, a user has attempted to counter closures ...
24
votes
3answers
613 views

What is Math.SE?

Disclaimer: This question is not about PSQs, or "Problem Statement Questions". Rather it is about what users want Math.SE to be. I bring up PSQs to frame the issue. Background: Recently there has ...
14
votes
3answers
471 views

Centralized solutions to textbook problems considered harmful?

Recently I've been toying with the idea of going through Crandall and Pomerance's Prime Numbers: A Computational Perspective cover-to-cover, to the best of my ability. However, it's a very difficult ...
1
vote
1answer
60 views

What is the preferred way to link references to published material?

I'm asking this since I've already found myself in two minds a couple times about how to refer to a book when answering a question. I've seen many people link to Google Books previews, when ...
6
votes
3answers
279 views

Is there a certain policy with yes/no questions?

I always feel weird posting yes or no questions because in short someone ultimately answers the question with a simple 2 or 3 letter word and then I'm choosing a correct answer that didn't really give ...
25
votes
10answers
1k views

How “civil” should we be?

Our FAQ states: Civility is required at all times; rudeness will not be tolerated. Recently I've come across a user flag complaining about a potentially "rude" post. The post in question ...
8
votes
3answers
357 views

Questions about motivations of a given mathematical view

This is closely related to, but I don't think a duplicate of, this meta-question. Is it appropriate to ask questions about why, e.g., a constructive mathematician might believe classical mathematics ...
7
votes
2answers
342 views

On approvals of suggested edits

The following edit should not have been approved. It gives 2 points of reputation to some random dude adding absolutely nothing to an already accepted answer. This is a request: please do not just ...
16
votes
2answers
563 views

Book recommendations

There are quite a few soft questions asking for book recommendations. Reading some of these threads one might notice that there are answers containing several books at once. As such this might not ...
36
votes
6answers
2k views

Why was “Rational numbers - sticks and stones” deleted?

Could some 10k or ♦ mod shed some light on why this question was deleted? I understand that there may have been a good reason for it, but the error page I'm getting doesn't really explain it, beyond ...
14
votes
2answers
389 views

Posting multiple questions as one?

It often happens that (usually somewhat inexperienced) users post several questions on more or less related themes as one single question. To give a stylized example, someone may ask: Which of the ...
5
votes
5answers
525 views

What are ongoing non-proctored mathematical competitions where math.SE could be used to cheat?

The purpose of this thread is to list the mathematical competitions where math.SE based cheating is relevant. This is useful for two purposes: (1) To understand the scope of the problem and (2) To aid ...
0
votes
5answers
679 views

Proposing a definite policy on contest questions

There has been a lot of heated debate on this issue lately and as a user, I decided to propose a definite policy on such matters: The following is my proposed policy 1) When a problem from an ...
8
votes
3answers
636 views

math.SE policy on question from ongoing contests

Triangle Geometry Question That is a question from the Online Math Open which is currently in progress.I would be grateful to know about math.stackexchange's policy on such matters. Please see ...
23
votes
4answers
868 views

Should we ask for Question Quotas like those that have been available for the big three?

Our site is growing quite rapidly: currently each day there are about 150 new questions asked about 250 new answers posted about 150 edits made to posts. Each of the above actions changes the ...
1
vote
1answer
120 views

A question on formal citation

I could not find a question on this topic. I was hoping although audience may range from professionals, students to laymen, should we push for readers to cite formally following MLA, Chicago or any ...
25
votes
4answers
2k views

Rude and Sarcastic comments

I find the comments made by a moderator here to be rude and sarcastic. Though what the OP asks might not make complete sense and needs to rephrase his question in a better way, I believe that it does ...
0
votes
2answers
253 views

An interesting question that deserves to be reopened

I think that this question deserves to be reopened. Hopefully now that we have more meta members, enough others will agree. Please vote to reopen if you agree. Edit $\ $ The question is now reopened. ...
11
votes
1answer
206 views

A questionably closed question on characterizations of primes.

I'm puzzled why this question on characterizations of primes was closed as "nonconstructive" or "not a real question". I cast the first vote to reopen and I encourage others to do so. Please note ...
19
votes
5answers
856 views

Contest questions on math.SE

This is related to this post, please read the comments. What is the usual way of dealing with that kind of problems on math.SE? (By "that kind of problems" I mean someone posting tasks from an ...
14
votes
0answers
250 views

Are teaching/applications off-topic? Vote off-topic only if community consensus?

Recently I was a bit disappointed by the closure as off-topic various questions on teaching and applications of mathematics, e.g. today: this question on why the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra is not ...
-8
votes
3answers
365 views

Sponsoring answers.

Recently, I have posted many thourough answers (ex. Differential equations and Fourier and Laplace transforms) on math.stackexchange but felt many were ignored or weren't noticed by users. Conversely, ...
-2
votes
3answers
3k views

Can we do anything to avoid losing Bill D? [closed]

Recently I was very disturbed to learn that one of the most distinguished members of the MSE community (my former teacher, and close friend, Prof. Bill D) was suspended for 30 days, under what seems ...
16
votes
1answer
308 views

«Not an answer» / «very low quality» flags

There is a significant number of answers flagged «not an answer» and/or «very low quality». What exactly do flaggers expect from those flags? I have deleted some answers which were flagged in ...
3
votes
0answers
186 views

On deleting vs. closing duplicate questions.

Recently a question was deleted by the OP after it was pointed out in comments that it was a duplicate. I was in the process of composing an answer, but I was not able to post it when I finished since ...
11
votes
3answers
284 views

Should we allow ads for sites that aren't necessarily completely free?

One of my ads is subject to contention due to the fact that the site it's an ad for (Wolfram Alpha) isn't based off a free engine, though the site itself is free. Do we allow ads for commercial ...
21
votes
0answers
438 views

Administrative Note on Moderator Rolls

We are in the process of implementing a policy for "absentee moderators" — Any moderator who is not active on the site for a period of six months is subject to removal of their moderator ...
25
votes
1answer
533 views

CFV: Proposal for standardized meta-comments, to avoid main-site meta discussions

Below is a sketch of a proposal I devised for handling the problem of rambling contentious meta-level discussions on the main site. The basic idea is to have a list of standardized community-elected ...
23
votes
3answers
1k views

How should we deal with differences of opinion about things like homework and tests?

(This is not a duplicate of questions like Homework questions - avoiding giving a complete solution or How do we enforce the homework policy?; it's about handling differences of opinion, not about the ...
5
votes
3answers
414 views

Unearthing ancient «not an answer»s

There has been a strike recently of users flagging answers in very old posts as «not an answer». While I appreciate the intent of cleaning up -- in most cases the answers flagged are not actual ...
10
votes
2answers
464 views

Community Wiki?

Every so often I run into a question which I think should be community wiki. I am usually not sure about flagging since some of them have been around for a while and the question of why did noone ...
11
votes
1answer
194 views

How To Avoid A Retag War?

The layman often thinks that logic is meant for anything solved using good logical thinking. Many newcomers would think that set-theory fits any question involving sets of numbers. Obviously other ...
16
votes
1answer
312 views

How self-contained should questions be?

Every once in a while, someone posts a question that relies on an image or a Wolfram|Alpha link with a formula or the like. In the case of images, it's often because they don't have sufficient ...
18
votes
4answers
793 views

math.SE is no reddit… or is it?

I'm surprised and worried by the fact that the question about Collatz conjecture stays opened. Let me explain myself. There were many cases, when different people couldn't agree whether some ...
8
votes
6answers
1k views

Should we discourage the use of multiple redundant @username pings in comments?

EDIT $\ $ There is now an "experimental" SE software revision blocking comments with multiple @name's, see Jeff Atwood's answer below. As was mentioned in this recent question, only the first @name ...
10
votes
7answers
1k views

On the continued impolite closure of questions by new users for the wrong reasons.

I am very sad that this forum has come to the point that valid mathematical questions (such as this one) are frequently being quickly closed (Edit: now reopened) for completely bizarre reasons. This ...
7
votes
2answers
306 views

Policy guidelines on asking homework questions

Hi, I have noticed recently the big debate going on here about homework questions. On our student support site, for each course that a student is enrolled in there is a forum specific to the course. ...
-10
votes
2answers
130 views

Asking an amusing, but only very loosely on-topic question?

I've got a question which is only loosely related to mathematics, and I don't know the proper place in which to ask. While it's a question I've previously posed on Twitter (in 2009); I think with it ...
22
votes
5answers
2k views

What do we do with users who post numerous unlabeled homework questions?

User student has, quite impressively, recognized that all of user6560's questions are homework questions from the ongoing course Math 620 at the University of Buffalo. I just went through, downvoted ...
23
votes
5answers
644 views

What is the purpose of math.se; to learn to provide nice answers or just to get them?

Hello to all, I am a relatively new math.se member, and I have a question about the site. First of all I must say, that I have found this website to be completely amazing. No other related site ...
13
votes
4answers
760 views

Can a down/up votes be accompanied by a comment?

Having been here for a while now, I understand the futility/meaninglessness of this question. Becoming accustomed to how this place works and how much and fast I have learned from the people here, I ...
19
votes
1answer
783 views

Mark all locked questions as [​locked​] or [​closed​] in the title

Some discussions, such as the one on annoyingness-of-CAPTCHA, are being locked without this being indicated in the titles. Closed threads seem to acquire the word "[closed]" automatically or by ...
31
votes
1answer
1k views

Proposal for a plagiarism policy

I have come to believe that math.SE needs a formal policy against plagiarism. I think this should include: 1) An explanation of what plagiarism means in the context of mathematics: roughly it means ...
8
votes
1answer
250 views

On choral answers

I've seen more than a couple of times the following phenomenon: someone asks a question, and it gets several, essentially equivalent (non-simultaneous) answers, all of which differ only in small ...
1
vote
4answers
427 views

Closing of “Is this proof of a^{1/2} being either integer or irrational circular/incorrect?”

The following thread was recently closed not longer after I posted the original version of this question Is this proof of a^{1/2} being either integer or irrational circular/incorrect?. This is ...
11
votes
5answers
572 views

PLEASE exercise more restraint before voting to close - discuss here first

I think that we should have discussed here the question "Integral Representation of Infinite series" before it was closed. Students often have questions about such topics so the replies could have ...
6
votes
1answer
162 views

Is one allowed to post in her/his blog an answer to a question she/he asked?

If someone asks here (in the main site) a question and is pleased with a particular answer he/she got, may it be posted in his/her blog without asking permission to the answerer? Edit: One should ...
20
votes
3answers
487 views

Require proper citation for verbatim quoted questions, answers, proofs?

Recently I had the displeasure of seeing a famous ingenious proof quoted here without any attribution whatsoever. Some readers could have easily been misled to believe that the proof was due to the ...
18
votes
3answers
680 views

Are we answering questions or teaching people how to answer their own questions?

In this answer to another meta thread, Bill Dubuque raises the following point: We should strive not only to give solutions to problems but also to teach how to solve problems. One of the important ...
5
votes
9answers
1k views

User flooding the site with questions - more than 6/day

In the past couple of days one user has asked over 6 questions per day. Is this behavior that we should allow?

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