tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?)

Scott Morrison comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3603)

Scott Morrison — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:00:12 -0800

@sigfpe: the process is what's happening right here! If there's a consensus, and Anton is agreeable, he can pretty easily effect such things.

Steve Huntsman comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3599)

Steve Huntsman — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:42:46 -0800

I also like @fpqc's suggestion and think it ought to be given serious consideration.

sigfpe comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3591)

sigfpe — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 10:10:45 -0800

Anyway, I still think a one line summary would be good to have. But I've no idea what process would be involved in deciding whether it should happen, and how it would get done.

Trying hard not to like @fpqc's suggestion, and failing.

Andrew Stacey comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3570)

Andrew Stacey — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:42:36 -0800

@Noah: My version is (since I still have the tape I use the present tense) for the BBC Micro. That game was just fantastic! Far better than trying to squash frogs.

@Anton: you're in the US. You can say whatever you like but you will never be "going to tea" in any acceptable sense. The only way that you can be forgiven for using that phrase is if you truly did intend to drive across the Bay, onto Santa Cruz Avenue in Menlo Park, and buy some Real Tea at Peet's (assuming that it is still there).

@Harald: back to the pillaging, I deem.

Harald Hanche-Olsen comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3566)

Harald Hanche-Olsen — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:09:26 -0800

DTR. Avoid TLAs.

[Edit: It should have been DTRT, which sort of spoils the pun. Oh, well.]

Anton Geraschenko comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3564)

Anton Geraschenko — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 09:46:31 -0800

I'm going to start saying "LARPing" instead of "going to tea".

Noah Snyder comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3561)

Noah Snyder — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 08:10:55 -0800

Oh man, I'd totally forgotten that game. I must have had it for the Apple IIc?

Andrew Stacey comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3559)

Andrew Stacey — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 07:16:47 -0800

*You wait.*
*Time passes.*
*Thorin sits down and starts singing about gold.*

And I still have the tape that the game is stored on (sadly, not the computer that ran it).

(How's that for "showing my age"?)

PS:

@Ben: I think that "Rocket propelled grenade" sounds far more exciting in this context. But it does bring to mind the Asimov short story "A Feeling of Power".

Mariano comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3558)

Mariano — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 06:49:16 -0800

(In other words, you are showing your age :P )

Ben Webster comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3557)

Ben Webster — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 06:42:44 -0800

RPG=role-playing game (or rocket propelled grenade, but not in this context).

Andrew Stacey comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3551)

Andrew Stacey — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:58:33 -0800

@Noah: What's an "RPG", or am I just showing my age?

@fpqc: So how about "MAW" for "MAW ain't Wikipedia"

It's a shame that planet.math isn't better known because then we could use: "Maths for mathematicians, by mathematicians."

Scott Morrison comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3546)

Scott Morrison — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:47:34 -0800

MMOM: "Massively multiplayer online mathematics"?

And yeah, @fpqc, that one's good.

Noah Snyder comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3534)

Noah Snyder — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 10:43:56 -0800

Malia suggests:
"Mathoverflow, totally a Math RPG."

Noah Snyder comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3497)

Noah Snyder — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:27:43 -0800

Ok, now that's actually funny.

Harry Gindi comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3496)

Harry Gindi — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:33:53 -0800

Mathoverflow: "Did you check wikipedia first?"

Qiaochu Yuan comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3495)

Qiaochu Yuan — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:28:09 -0800

How about "mathematics for mathematicians"?

Harry Gindi comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3492)

Harry Gindi — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:17:22 -0800

The word research is redundant anyway, because who else other than a research mathematician would call him/her-self a mathematician?

Qiaochu Yuan comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3491)

Qiaochu Yuan — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:14:17 -0800

"Research mathematicians" doesn't flow. I don't know how much we care about how snappy the tagline is, though. I guess that given the international nature of the audience here it would be best to go for something unambiguous and easy to understand to a non-native speaker.

Ilya Grigoriev comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3485)

Ilya Grigoriev — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:48:11 -0800

Regarding making it clear who this site is for, my old idea is easily modified to:

"Because research mathematicians seek answers".

(Of course, if we want to be more serious, Scott's idea is great too. Leonid's sentence
doesn't sound too well for my ears, but I like the general idea)

(And @Anweshi: "The mad tea party for research mathematicians")

Anweshi comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3484)

Anweshi — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:40:03 -0800

Well, I borrowed the term after seeing it used somewhere by Kevin Buzzard, and since he is British, I thought it would be standard English. Does anybody have a good phrase for "mathematics discussion lounge of a mathematics department"? If there is one, then please use it instead and resurrect my suggestion.

Andrea comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3483)

Andrea — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:33:40 -0800

I don't like the last two. At least in Italy it is not common to have a common room (sorry) in a mathematics department. So common room does not make me think of a place where mathematicians discuss their research problem. Actually it makes me think more of a place where mathematicians DO NOT do mathematics.

Grétar Amazeen comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3481)

Grétar Amazeen — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:25:57 -0800

"The mother of all common rooms"

Anweshi comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3480)

Anweshi — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:12:39 -0800

"A common room for all mathematics department common rooms".

LK comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3478)

LK — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 10:53:45 -0800

Or "Mathematical research in questions and answers"

Mark Meckes comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3475)

Mark Meckes — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 10:03:27 -0800

I think sigfpe's last point is a good one. For that reason I think a tag line that refers to something like "research level mathematics" may be better than referring to "research mathematicians".

sigfpe comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3472)

sigfpe — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 09:13:59 -0800

@Andrew: I agree with @Harald. I'm just suggesting a bit more information to help people decide whether or not to use the site. It'd be great if it both discouraged homework and encouraged more mathematicians. But I wouldn't want to discourage people from allied fields asking research level mathematics questions.

Harald Hanche-Olsen comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3471)

Harald Hanche-Olsen — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 07:56:43 -0800

@Andrew: I think it can be both. If we can find a single sentence that does both, great. If not, I say we go for explanation. After all, the discussion was started because we want to make some people to take their questions elsewhere.

Andrew Stacey comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3469)

Andrew Stacey — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 06:22:42 -0800

Is a "tag line" the notice over the door explaining what goes on or is it the advertising slogan to persuade more people to sign up? The initial explanation leans towards the first explanation in which case Scott's suggestion gets my vote. However, the Slashdot example seems more towards the second explanation in which case ... Scott, that is the weakest tag line ...

(With apologies for not understanding, but I don't speak American so don't always get the subtleties involved.)

Harry Gindi comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3468)

Harry Gindi — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 05:29:24 -0800

For a second there, I thought that Scott's said "Questions and answers for research mathematicians?", which I found slightly amusing.

Mariano comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3467)

Mariano — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 05:17:19 -0800

/me likes Scott's

Ilya Grigoriev comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3465)

Ilya Grigoriev — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:53:07 -0800

"Because mathematicians need answers" (or "want answers"?)

Scott Morrison comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3459)

Scott Morrison — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 19:06:42 -0800

"Questions and answers for research mathematicians"?

Ryan Budney comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3453)

Ryan Budney — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 17:03:35 -0800

Or perhaps something in the window title bar? My title bar when on MO just says "Math Overflow".

sigfpe comments on "Shouldn't Mathoverflow have a tag line?" (3452)

sigfpe — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:18:40 -0800

Sorry if this is a repeat suggestion but I did hunt around to see if this had been discussed before.

When some of the inappropriate questions are asked on MO, I suspect that it was because the web site was found at random and the asker simply saw a list of mathematics related questions. Maybe they also knew about StackOverflow. But there's nothing to suggest what is an appropriate question, unless you expect people to go straight to the tiny "how to ask" at the top.

Wouldn't it be appropriate for the title of the web site to have just a one line subtitle to say what the purpose is? Like Slashdot has "News for nerds. Stuff that matters." I don't think it's a good example, but something like "Answers for Professional Mathematicians" would at least tell some people that asking for the slope of a line through two given points isn't appropriate. I don't like that example because I'm no professional myself. But I'm sure someone could come up with a good one line mission statement.