tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (Motivation) Sun, 04 Nov 2018 13:07:32 -0800 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/ Lussumo Vanilla 1.1.9 & Feed Publisher Scott Morrison comments on "Motivation" (41) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/10/motivation/?Focus=41#Comment_41 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/10/motivation/?Focus=41#Comment_41 Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:11:02 -0700 Scott Morrison
What can we do?
* mention this in the FAQ
* comment and upvote when we see it happening
* nag and complain in comments when there obviously needs to be more
* edit questions to put it in
* answer with motivation, even if you're not answering the actual question
* make a good example by doing it ourselves...

Not entirely sure which of these is the most efficient route to the world being perfect. ]]> Andrew Stacey comments on "Motivation" (30) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/10/motivation/?Focus=30#Comment_30 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/10/motivation/?Focus=30#Comment_30 Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:12:58 -0700 Andrew Stacey I'd like to see a little more motivation in questions. I'd have a different approach to answering if the questioner said "I need this for my thesis" as opposed to "I was just idly wondering about this". Sometimes, especially when I write one of my long answers, I do wonder how likely it is that someone is going to read all of that so knowing how important the question was would help me decide whether or not to just give a short "This is basically cohomology operations" versus a long essay including a full biography of Frank Adams. Knowing that, I'd be more likely to answer questions since I'd be able to answer some quickly.

What do others think?

]]>