tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (Questions outside the usual scope of MO that we might want to make exceptions for.) Sun, 04 Nov 2018 23:24:51 -0800 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/ Lussumo Vanilla 1.1.9 & Feed Publisher Yemon Choi comments on "Questions outside the usual scope of MO that we might want to make exceptions for." (8133) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/571/questions-outside-the-usual-scope-of-mo-that-we-might-want-to-make-exceptions-for/?Focus=8133#Comment_8133 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/571/questions-outside-the-usual-scope-of-mo-that-we-might-want-to-make-exceptions-for/?Focus=8133#Comment_8133 Fri, 06 Aug 2010 00:50:48 -0700 Yemon Choi @Ryan: snap, as it happens!

]]> Ryan Budney comments on "Questions outside the usual scope of MO that we might want to make exceptions for." (8132) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/571/questions-outside-the-usual-scope-of-mo-that-we-might-want-to-make-exceptions-for/?Focus=8132#Comment_8132 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/571/questions-outside-the-usual-scope-of-mo-that-we-might-want-to-make-exceptions-for/?Focus=8132#Comment_8132 Fri, 06 Aug 2010 00:31:45 -0700 Ryan Budney Yemon Choi comments on "Questions outside the usual scope of MO that we might want to make exceptions for." (8131) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/571/questions-outside-the-usual-scope-of-mo-that-we-might-want-to-make-exceptions-for/?Focus=8131#Comment_8131 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/571/questions-outside-the-usual-scope-of-mo-that-we-might-want-to-make-exceptions-for/?Focus=8131#Comment_8131 Fri, 06 Aug 2010 00:04:04 -0700 Yemon Choi Can I be annoying and ask Ryan to delete the (superfluous) last word of the title of this thread?

]]> AndrewL comments on "Questions outside the usual scope of MO that we might want to make exceptions for." (8123) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/571/questions-outside-the-usual-scope-of-mo-that-we-might-want-to-make-exceptions-for/?Focus=8123#Comment_8123 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/571/questions-outside-the-usual-scope-of-mo-that-we-might-want-to-make-exceptions-for/?Focus=8123#Comment_8123 Thu, 05 Aug 2010 22:01:41 -0700 AndrewL sean tilson comments on "Questions outside the usual scope of MO that we might want to make exceptions for." (8104) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/571/questions-outside-the-usual-scope-of-mo-that-we-might-want-to-make-exceptions-for/?Focus=8104#Comment_8104 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/571/questions-outside-the-usual-scope-of-mo-that-we-might-want-to-make-exceptions-for/?Focus=8104#Comment_8104 Thu, 05 Aug 2010 19:07:19 -0700 sean tilson
As Andrew has pointed out in a "unrelated thread" (unrelated to this question but not to where I am going), when a lot of people use MO they are just looking for math, not hearsay. However, some things are of interest to mathematicians despite being soft. This might help clarify the scope of MO a bit.

I am curious to hear your reactions,
Sean ]]> Andrew Stacey comments on "Questions outside the usual scope of MO that we might want to make exceptions for." (7881) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/571/questions-outside-the-usual-scope-of-mo-that-we-might-want-to-make-exceptions-for/?Focus=7881#Comment_7881 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/571/questions-outside-the-usual-scope-of-mo-that-we-might-want-to-make-exceptions-for/?Focus=7881#Comment_7881 Mon, 02 Aug 2010 00:21:44 -0700 Andrew Stacey I'm not convinced. Whilst I value MO, I disagree with the tendency to regard it as a "one stop shop" where there has to be room for everything. I would like a place to kick back and relax a bit, not enough to actually build one myself but enough to note that if we do go down the StackExchange 2.0 route then we might get one as part of the deal (see this blog post about the idea and this one on the follow-up) and to regard that as a Good Thing.

The tagging system is too fluid for this to be useful. As Ryan says, posts that ought to have this tag are extremely unlikely to get it at first so will show up in the usual places even if people have set to ignore that tag.

On the more specific issue of "outreach": who, exactly, are you thinking of reaching out to? MO is for research mathematicians (professional and amateur) so those are the people that MO should be reaching out to. Mathematicians should, of course, reach out to the wider community and I can conceive of questions that could help with that (they'd have to be asked very carefully to avoid turning in to "Math puzzles for dinner" - yuk!) but those questions and their answers would still be intended for mathematicians, not for those that the mathematicians are reaching out to.

I can't think of any way to kill someone's curiosity in mathematics faster than by sending them to this site!

With the rise of math.SE, I would argue that the question and its answer that the interested outsider is meant to read should be there. There are enough research mathematicians lurking there that it would get a decent response, and maybe the prevalence of such questions would encourage more of us to go there and help out (and then answer a few more mundane questions whilst there).

]]> Ryan Budney comments on "Questions outside the usual scope of MO that we might want to make exceptions for." (7868) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/571/questions-outside-the-usual-scope-of-mo-that-we-might-want-to-make-exceptions-for/?Focus=7868#Comment_7868 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/571/questions-outside-the-usual-scope-of-mo-that-we-might-want-to-make-exceptions-for/?Focus=7868#Comment_7868 Sun, 01 Aug 2010 14:05:32 -0700 Ryan Budney Steve Huntsman comments on "Questions outside the usual scope of MO that we might want to make exceptions for." (7866) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/571/questions-outside-the-usual-scope-of-mo-that-we-might-want-to-make-exceptions-for/?Focus=7866#Comment_7866 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/571/questions-outside-the-usual-scope-of-mo-that-we-might-want-to-make-exceptions-for/?Focus=7866#Comment_7866 Sun, 01 Aug 2010 13:55:42 -0700 Steve Huntsman Ryan Budney comments on "Questions outside the usual scope of MO that we might want to make exceptions for." (7860) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/571/questions-outside-the-usual-scope-of-mo-that-we-might-want-to-make-exceptions-for/?Focus=7860#Comment_7860 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/571/questions-outside-the-usual-scope-of-mo-that-we-might-want-to-make-exceptions-for/?Focus=7860#Comment_7860 Sun, 01 Aug 2010 12:35:32 -0700 Ryan Budney
http://mathoverflow.net/questions/33972/how-many-people-fully-understand-the-proof-of-fermats-last-theorem

together with the recent Meta thread:

http://tea.mathoverflow.net/discussion/567/rapid-closing-of-questions/#Item_0

lead me to wonder if we would be better off creating a tag for certain types of exceptional questions -- questions that are of perhaps little value in the traditional MO way of discerning the utility of a question, but questions that perhaps play a larger role in an outreach sense -- of interest to curious amateurs, undergraduates, etc. These would not be questions of the homework variety, nor a Martin Gardner puzzle. These would be the kind of questions a curious outsider really wants to have a sense for, has a good answer, and can only get a good answer from a research mathematician. I'm not sure what the appropriate tag would be, but I would suggest something of the form "MO_outreach".

Does this sound at all reasonable? I'm looking for a position that takes into account everyone's well-considered views in the above meta thread. ]]>