I like the idea of people writing their own blog posts and adding links to this page: http://michaelnielsen.org/polymath1/index.php?title=ABC_conjecture. Perhaps a link could be added to the original question before locking it.

I strongly back those like quid and Gerhard who counsel patience. No doubt seminars are being organized around the world to have top-flight people take a hard committed look at this work (and no doubt Mochizuki is already very busy answering questions). In six months or a year, I imagine some dust will have settled, and then people will be in a better position to give much more informed answers to questions. So why all the clamor? (I also wonder, maybe a little unkindly: how many celebrants of this question have attempted to thoroughly digest the answers which have been given so far? all appearances suggest they are not for the innocent!)

It would be great to have people write focused and engaged questions about this work. Meanwhile, I second (or third...) voloch's call to close this question (and have voted to do so).

In all likelihood, this will continue if the question is not closed.

My first objection to this particular question is simply that in my opinion it is a terrible question, and for example fails numerous criteria laid out under "how to ask".

Assuming you read this already, I am given to understand that either you disagree that this particular question fails numerous criteria of 'how to ask', or you do not get why somebody would vote to close a question for this reason (or both). In any case, what you write seems more like an argument why a question of this type might be suitable for MO, than an argument why this particular question should not have been closed; and as elaborated at length this is, in my mind at least, a very different discussion.

So, why do I vote to close a question that fails (in my opinion) too strongly criteria of 'how to ask'. Abstractly, because this means it has certain deficits discussed their that cause problems in answering it (at least this is the case in this case, for details cf below).

Now, some might think that is not a good enough reason to close a question but then there seems to be a very widespread misunderstanding what it actually means to close a question on MO (or at least it is a persepective on it other than mine, but I believe that mine is the correct one, in the sense that this is how the mechanism was conceived, AFAIK). So here, what it means (to me):

If there are significant deficits in a question (for example, that make it impossible to answer properly), then it is closed. Then problems can be fixed and if/after that has happened the question gets reopened. (Only if problems are never fixed or they turn out to be unfixable does the question stay closed forever.)

If ever you disagree that this is the (theoretically) standard interpretation of how things (should) work, explain why editing, including the consequence of bumping, stays possible after closure just like when it is open, and why one can still comment on closed things.

And, to stay in the house-analogy of main. If there is significant construction to be done in a building, it can make sense to (temporarily) close it for the general public while the work is under way.

So, where does the question have problems. One example. This is how "how to ask" starts (basically).

Ask a focused question that has a specific goal.

What is the specific goal of the question? Isn't the goal obvious, you might reply. Or perhaps, who cares about the goal.

However, the lack of specifiying the actual goal has the consequence that it is not clear "what constitues an answer." To wit, cf David Speyer's first comments (he asks whether this info is relevant) and the reply of grp (on main) saying basically that's old stuff surely this not what is meant, but then OP clarified that of course it was relevant to him. [Edit: Deleted further imprecise and tangential elaboration.]

To sum up one reason:

The question was unclear, so it is closed at least until things are clarified.

If you still do not get why somebody thought to close the question, please point to a precise point in my explanation where you disagree. Else, I will assume it is clear now.

OP did not make any comparison at all; for a comparison it would be necessary to know something on both sides and OP 'confessed' to total ingnorance of the one. By contrast, the story around the Weil conjectures (only, and at best) served to "define" the notion "vision". It is some pretext, detached from the actual question. The only link between 'Weil' and ABC that was invoked in the question is that two people each (it seems) worked for years towards a specific goal and since in the one case (supposedly) there was some "vision" it ought to be there in the other case as well.

Then, it is either nonsense to make a priori this firm assumption that an analogy of the situations ought to exists, or the notion of analogy is so vague that it is useless to elaborate on the other/historic side of the analogy or to even mention it. And if in addtion the elaboration on the historic side is even imprecise, then it really makes no sense to keep it around.

"I agree that the question is terribly written and historically/philosophically dubious. Why doesn't one of us edit it to remove the bs about the Weil conjectures? That would, I think, greatly improve it."

and

"@bsteinberg : I agree that the OP has an enormous number of pretty silly questions."

@quid: thanks; that's what I suspected.

Regarding CW mode: credit is not erased retroactively. It would be possible to only turn the question into CW mode; existing answers would then not be CW; new ones however would be CW.

Anyway, can anyone answer the question I asked a few comments ago?

Let me also note that on StackExchange there is a moderator message template part of which concerns users who answer few questions. This isn't bad enough behavior to warrant a suspension but it is somewhat contrary to the spirit of the enterprise.

My first objection to this particular question is simply that in my opinion it is a terrible question, and for example fails numerous criteria laid out under "how to ask". (It is true I also have some reservation regarding this type of question, but this is a different matter; and my oppoisition to this type of question is not at all absolute, it is mainly a question of timing.)
Now, there is something to be said that one sometimes can allow 'bad questions' to get the 'good answers', but in this case I see (I should say saw) very little reason for doing so, since there are many people suceptible of creating an instance of this type of question that would be much better.

To further ilustrate what I mean: in retrospect I think it was a mistake that I opposed "Has-the-abc-conjecture-been-solved?" ; except for the title (but this is easy to change), this is in my opinion the relatively better question in that it at least does not pretend to want something specific (and does not force upon the reader some drivel around the Weil conjectures). It then could have served as some sort of container for texts on the subject (because this is what we are actually talking about here, not answers to some formulated question).

You say:

having this question open makes the world, and MO, a better place

However, I think there is a potential fallacy here. Namely, you(1) conflate the existence of a question of this type on MO, and the existence of texts of the type given as answers in the world, with the existence of this particular question. But this is not realistic; except perhaps on a very narrow timeline. But then if this is so important we should have encouraged davidac897 and his idea to have all this possibly still some hours earlier, or allowed the first questtion of about this type.

Personally, I consider it, as said, as unfortunate that this particular question got the interesting texts as so-called answers, as opposed to them or close cognates of them living under a nicer roof (on MO, or elsewhere).

As said it now seems to late anyway, but still I wanted to summarize my point of view and in particular highlight that I consider the question whether this particular question was one suitable for MO and the question whether a question of this type can be suitable for MO as quite orthogonal. For the former in my opinion the answer is very clearly "no" (and this opinion stays, independent of all answers), for the later this is more tricky but this is somehow obsolete now and already having writeen too much I will leave it here.

Footnote:

(1) Actually from what you write alone I can not be sure you personally do, so this is rather an abstract you. But I am quite convinced that not too few people are (at least to a certain degree and/or subconsiously) victim to this falllacy.

As far as I can tell, the main objection has to do with whether the question could have any good answer at this stage. I think the superbly informative answers that have now appeared lay that doubt to rest.

@velnias: yes, I do admit to overdramatizing a bit and it seems too much so. Thus, in view of your elegant formulation let us agree I should not go for long in this direction ;) Your analogy with the responsibilty if a gap were not to be found is however not so good in my opinion; looking for one is completely out of the mandate of MO, thus there is simply no responsibilty regarding this, so I can easily accept my share of it.

@James Borger: Did you consider that the existence of this question, makes it unlikely (basically impossible) that a much better question of this type will ever be asked (and survive) and even if it would be asked not receive the same level of attention. This is mentioned in my very first comment here on meta; I would have some reservations for any question of this form at this time, but if there is to be one, it should better be a good question. I find the idea that some non-MO mathematician searches on the net for information on the recent ABC developments and then this question (containing blatant falsehoods, for instance) is the first they see of MO simply a bit embarassing. Okay, the answers do make up for it, but this question even more so with that level of approval is in my opinion a disgrace [added: is 'disgrace' too strong a word? if so replace by 'unfortunate']; if at least the question had a negative score, one could think community moderation works.

@General: Of course I do agree that now Minhyong Kim should have the opportunity to answer (and this already happened), however I would like to highlight his very first half-sentence (cf Henry Cohn's contribution in this thread):

I would have preferred not to comment seriously on Mochizuki's work before much more thought had gone into the very basics [...]

not to quote this out of context though I add that he gives this a positive twist for example by saying

[...] the current sense of urgency to understand something seems generally a good thing.

So, I really hope all those that were so keen to know about this in near real-time will make some effort to actually understand something relate to this. In that sense I liked Marty's suggestion.

Added a bit later: I forgot, somehow in reply to velnias but also James Borger, to clarify that while the precise scenario I mentioned is admittedly not that likely (to cause a real problem) I however do think that (in particular over time, and if this stays open in the end, answers can come in in months) there can be a slippery slope and grey area from 'vision' to 'outline' to 'commenting on correctnes/feasibilty'. And, there were lengthy discussions on discussing recent preprints on MO. Indeed, on this matter I am/was personally rather towards the soft/open end of the spectrum of opinions expressed (with some caveats and reservations). Yet, some others basically said this should never happen. In any case, I do maintain that the vague and openended nature of this question over time has the potential to lead to problems (albeit not disasters).

Sorry to have made you temporarily feel miserable.

Let us see how we all feel if ever somebody should answer that the vision was this but it is flawed for that rason, accompanied by some argument that does not seem nonsensical and is not easy to refute. Then, what?

To wit, on some blog (sbseminar, incidentally, if I remember well) there was already some jokster claiming an error, in a naive form, which is no problem as easy to refute. But somebody might do it in a sophisticated form or in good faith (while being wrong), or also [it is not exclude, though I certainly have not heard anything like this so far] while being right. In some sense while globally very unfortunate the last would be the least problem for MO in such a scenario.

But do you personally want to take responsibilty for potentially spreading some (false) rumor on the incorrectness of this result?

Now, you can say you have no influence on this. However, if one has the ability to vote on the open/closeness of a question then one shares this responsibility personally (in a certain sense; not fully as the moderators could always overrule any decision, but then it seems almost unfair to me to leave them alone in these decision).

So, you might think all these people that vote to close are just some wet-blankets (or worse). But, perhaps, just perhaps, some of them actually thought about what they are doing when they press that button (in abstract and concrete situations).

Now, you are of course free to disagree with their judgement in this case. Yet, if you would like to do so it would seem apt to me if you could answer the question I asked. 'Then, what?'

It is honestly not so clear to me how to proceed then, if the question is open. (What would be the argument to outlaw this answer we do not want? The others are not so narrowly on-topic either to make an argument based on this aspct for instance).

So, how would you proceed in this scenario?

my question is ... easy to answer for experts

This is actually what makes me a little uneasy about the question (I don't agree it is easy to answer for experts). Maybe I'm off base about this, but my impression is that there are only a handful of people in the world who could give a really compelling answer beyond simply repeating things from Mochizuki's recent papers. I'm not fond of the idea of questions aimed at a very small set of people, since it feels too much like a personal request for information. On the other hand, the broader interpretation would be a request for one of the people currently reading these papers to summarize their understanding of the motivation in the form of an MO answer, which doesn't seem all that constructive to me (this already has a natural home on blogs).

questions of this type are routinely answered with great enthusiasm on this website

I see them as questions of a somewhat different type, namely about folklore intuition that is definitely known to many experts but may be written down only in places a non-expert wouldn't be aware of.

But calling me "stubborn" (on main even) is tolerable?

Well, I can understand you might not have cared about my opinion in particular as it was not articulated too well. But, the fact that JSE who blogged about this (positively) voted to close it did not give you any pause for thought either?

@Scott Morrison: if BC wanted to comment substantially he could have done/can do so on JSE blog where he left a comment.

@JamesDTaylor:

Regarding (my emphasize)

my question is well defined, easy to answer for experts, and interesting to many members of this forum. I see no good reason to close the question.

Yeah, right. Depends on your notion of expert, I guesss. I do not know what a 'well-defined question' should be in this context. But since yours is based on some premises of yours for which you only provide most anecdotal evidence, I doubt even that. (But this last part is besides the point.)

Regarding your other questions that were so well received, guess you missed that thread:

http://tea.mathoverflow.net/discussion/1109/posting-questions-without-adequate-thought/

The question does not ask a specific question but makes a very generic request for elightenment, and tries to hide this behind this some analogy that is presented at length (for no intrinsic reason).

Hundreds of people might have asked a similar question. If any question of this type stays open, I would at least hope it is one where OP made some actual prior effort.

I cannot see in what sense this question is 'well-meaning' either.

someone’s blog, perhaps?

Try the comments on Jordan Ellenberg's post.

On the other hand, I would really be interested if a discussion is held somewhere publicly on the internet (someone´s blog, perhaps?) so I can follow along and perhaps be lucky enough to learn some trickle-down insight.