tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (What's the right way to address MO users?)

Jonas Meyer comments on "What's the right way to address MO users?" (3266)

Jonas Meyer — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 14:22:22 -0800

If the @ reply feature of Stack Overflow will apply to MO, then there will be a practical reason to prefer @Ben to @Dr. Webster.

http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/01/new-improved-comments-with-reply/

Ben Webster comments on "What's the right way to address MO users?" (3238)

Ben Webster — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 09:23:17 -0800

Ah. I just never got around to it until yesterday.

Harald Hanche-Olsen comments on "What's the right way to address MO users?" (3232)

Harald Hanche-Olsen — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 05:57:41 -0800

@Ben: Yes, I knew, but my beef with that is that now I have to remember to log in using my full name. But what the heck, I'll just make sure never to log out and then it won't be an issue.

Ben Webster comments on "What's the right way to address MO users?" (3227)

Ben Webster — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 19:14:04 -0800

Harald-

You can click on "Account" at the top, and then "Personal Information" to change your username to your real name. (You can also enter your "real name," but this doesn't change what is shown by your posts, just what people see when they look at your profile).

Michael Lugo comments on "What's the right way to address MO users?" (3221)

Michael Lugo — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:24:18 -0800

I tend to go with first names here on MO, although I'll admit that I didn't start doing this until I noticed other people doing so. But like Yemon it took me until about the middle of graduate school to be comfortable with addressing my professors by first name in person. For a while I basically didn't call any of my professors anything because first names felt too informal and Doctor Lastname or Professor Lastname felt too formal. (From what I hear this experience is fairly common.)

Also, people don't want to use bare last names; they want to include a title. This makes sense, I think, because a lot of the cases where people are using other people's names it's in a reply to a comment. This is directly addressing the person in question, and you wouldn't use a bare last name in conversation like that. And calling a person you're not familiar with "Dr. X" in a forum like this, where people's academic rank is not necessarily clear, is just asking for confusion. Every so often I get e-mails addressed to "Dr. Lugo" or "Professor Lugo", and I am still a grad student, so I find this amusing. (Although one e-mail addressed to "Professor Lugo" came from a search committee for a job, and one would hope they'd know I'm not a professor yet.)

Ryan Budney comments on "What's the right way to address MO users?" (3210)

Ryan Budney — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:30:48 -0800

I tend to go with either the full name or the family name. Calling people by their family name is fairly portable-across-cultures as a more formal way of addressing a person. At least, it's more portable than anything else I know. For example, I tend to call Allen Hatcher just Hatcher on this forum, even though in person we've been on a first name basis for more than a decade.

Harald Hanche-Olsen comments on "What's the right way to address MO users?" (3208)

Harald Hanche-Olsen — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:06:54 -0800

The syllable counting heuristic for Chinese names seems very useful. Maybe I shall be known as “Harald Hanch” from now on. (As an aside, the reason I am not using my full name here on meta is that I am not sure if meta distinguishes between login name and display name. It seems to me it doesn't.)

Emerton comments on "What's the right way to address MO users?" (3190)

Emerton — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:56:40 -0800

Dear Scott,

You are right in pointing out that I don't quite follow the rules outlined: e.g. with FC, I know that he prefers FC to his name, and so would use it. I think with the people I know personally, I have a reasonable sense of what they would prefer, and if they want me to do something else, they can just let me know.

Kevin Lin comments on "What's the right way to address MO users?" (3188)

Kevin Lin — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:21:25 -0800

FYI:

Most Chinese surnames have one syllable. There are exceptions though, but they are rare. The most common multisyllabic Chinese surname is probably Auyeung/Ouyang.

Most Chinese "first names" have two syllables. But there are many with one syllable, for example the basketball player Yao Ming (surname Yao, "first name" Ming). It is extremely rare to have more than two syllables in a "first name", but I know one person with three.

When encountering Chinese names on Mathoverflow, in the mathematical community, and in most of the contemporary western world, I think it should be usually safe to assume that the surname is at the end of the name. But there will always be some exceptions... like Yao Ming.

Anton Geraschenko comments on "What's the right way to address MO users?" (3181)

Anton Geraschenko — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 12:30:44 -0800

I try to refer to people by their usernames so that it's clear to anybody reading who I'm talking about. For example, I tend to refer to Dr. Webster as bwebster here on meta. If the username is a full name, I don't have any reservations about using just the first name. In person (or even over email), things feel much more complicated and I'm often unsure how to address some people.

Yemon Choi comments on "What's the right way to address MO users?" (3180)

Yemon Choi — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 12:29:59 -0800

While still a graduate student, at one conference meal I found that according to the name-card-type things at each seat, I was "Professor Choi". Sadly, this didn't let me off the PhD thesis and viva.

Ben Webster comments on "What's the right way to address MO users?" (3177)

Ben Webster — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 12:19:14 -0800

What made me uncomfortable was another user calling me "Dr. Webster." It's bad enough when my students do that. You all have my permanent permission to call me "Ben" in all media until the end of time.

Yemon Choi comments on "What's the right way to address MO users?" (3174)

Yemon Choi — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 12:12:45 -0800

Not to mention one post with interchanges between FC and DC, if I recall correctly, with both sticking to usernames...

Mariano comments on "What's the right way to address MO users?" (3172)

Mariano — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 12:10:39 -0800

It is slightly fun to read a comment starting with 'Dear Matt' when no one with that name, as far as one can jugde from the information on the page, is called Matt :P

Scott Morrison comments on "What's the right way to address MO users?" (3171)

Scott Morrison — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 12:03:00 -0800

Dear Matt,

It seems there are some corner cases in your rule: if you were replying to FC, would you use his first name? The concern here is that his profile is sufficiently anonymous so as to clearly be intentionally so, but many of us both know who FC really is, and would happily use his first name in most situations.

Emerton comments on "What's the right way to address MO users?" (3164)

Emerton — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 11:00:10 -0800

Dear Qiaochu,

I adopt the following policy: if a person includes a first name in their username, I address them with it. If they don't, and I don't know them personally, then I address them by their username, whatever it is. If I know them personally, than I address them by their first name whatever their username is.

Yemon Choi comments on "What's the right way to address MO users?" (3163)

Yemon Choi — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 10:59:25 -0800

@hanche: the family name in Chinese is (in all instances I know of) monosyllabic, and the "personal name" consists of two syllables.

@Qiaochu: as you can see, I tend to use first names for the same reason as Hanche. But on the other hand, I have similar qualms about addressing the likes of Tao. It's quite natural, especially as a student, to feel a bit uncomfortable (it took me till the 3rd year of my PhD to feel comfortable addressing one of my former lecturers by his first name, or even to refer to him by his first name alone).

Mark Meckes comments on "What's the right way to address MO users?" (3162)

Mark Meckes — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 10:57:33 -0800

I agree with hanche that forums like this are understood to be informal and that first names are generally acceptable. In person, faculty tend to address each other by first name, even when an assistant professor like me addresses a famous big shot I've just met. It's a fuzzier issue for students, especially undergrads. Students certainly shouldn't be that informal in person (unless invited to be), but I think in the context of MO it's probably fine.

If you're worried about it, you'll seldom go wrong using extra formality. A possible exception is if you address some you know to be a distinguished professor as Dr. So-and-so, but fail to do so with another distinguished professor whose name you don't recognize; if the second professor is a touchy sort and notices the difference, he/she may take some offense.

I suppose what we really need here is the perspective of a famous big shot, but they don't seem to spend a lot of time on meta (although I'm pretty sure I remember seeing one or two once or twice).

I have the same trouble hanche mentions with Chinese names. Does anyone have any advice about that?

Harald Hanche-Olsen comments on "What's the right way to address MO users?" (3159)

Harald Hanche-Olsen — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 10:42:51 -0800

Personally, I think of a forum like this as rather informal, so I tend to go with first names. But this always gives me problems with the Chinese, for I don't know if they have westernized their names and swapped the components. (Nor do I know for sure what Chinese themselves do, when they are being informal.)

Qiaochu Yuan comments on "What's the right way to address MO users?" (3152)

Qiaochu Yuan — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 09:36:00 -0800

I can never figure out whether it's appropriate to address MO users by their first name (in comments, for example). I'm working off of the principle that whatever is in their username I am free to use, but it's still not clear to me whether it would be more polite to address, say, people I know to be distinguished professors as "Dr. _______" instead. Thoughts? (I have similar qualms about, say, referring to Terence Tao by his first name on his blog. Does anyone know whether there is an established etiquette here either?)