tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (Postgrad Mathematics)

Joseph O'Rourke comments on "Postgrad Mathematics" (20395)

2012-10-27T19:11:55-07:00

[deleted]

vtt comments on "Postgrad Mathematics" (20394)

2012-10-27T18:22:57-07:00

The proposal at area51.stackexchange got no support at all so has been deleted.

François G. Dorais comments on "Postgrad Mathematics" (20393)

2012-10-27T16:31:27-07:00

@Kevin: Why not MO first? Why should MSE be a filter for MO? Can't users decide what they want?

See http://meta.math.stackexchange.com/questions/4880/what-when-and-will-we-migrate-questions-to-mo-2-0/4905#4905 and http://meta.cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/1572/on-modifying-our-scope-a-proposal/1582#1582.

Charles Staats comments on "Postgrad Mathematics" (20392)

2012-10-27T16:31:22-07:00

I respectfully disagree with Kevin's comment. The same question is likely to receive very different (good) answers on the two sites. Briefly: If you want a concise answer that assumes you already are familiar with (or willing to learn on your own) any well-known notions that come up in the answer, MO is probably the site to ask on, even if you think the question may be "too basic." Some people may find good MSE answers condescending (even if that is not the intent), while others may find good MO answers to be filled with incomprehensible jargon.

I've had both complaints (mentally) at various times, but on the whole, I find that MO tends to be more helpful to me than MSE does.

Kevin Ventullo comments on "Postgrad Mathematics" (20391)

2012-10-27T14:31:05-07:00

If there's an ambiguity about which site to post a question on, go with MSE. If it doesn't get a complete answer in a few days, post on MO.

Noah Snyder comments on "Postgrad Mathematics" (20387)

2012-10-24T06:14:24-07:00

I agree with Henry, MO should be a welcoming place for good graduate student questions (indeed that's essentially how the site started). Similarly m.SE is happy to have questions at any level (advanced questions don't get huge attention there, but they often get answered nonetheless).

fedja comments on "Postgrad Mathematics" (20386)

2012-10-24T03:56:14-07:00

>I completely agree. I think that graduate and postgraduate level is exactly what MO should be aiming for.

I do not think we should be *aiming* at anything in particular (in terms of both the level and the content of the questions). IMHO, everyone who needs to ask may ask and everyone who has something to say may answer (though the words "needs" and "something" should be understood properly here). I also do not believe in "post-graduate level mathematics" being anything special. Frankly speaking, the words "postgraduate level" are meaningless to me. One can be anything from an ignoramus to an expert and anything from dumb to brilliant at any stage of his career. Once you turn 13, you can think just as well as I can and many kids on artofproblemsolving.com do.

Andrew Stacey comments on "Postgrad Mathematics" (20385)

2012-10-24T01:06:06-07:00

Quoth Henry (emphasis added):

I can believe someone might hesitate to post graduate-level questions to MO, out of fear that they will be closed with a suggestion of trying MSE, and I see this as a problem with MO.

I completely agree. I think that graduate and postgraduate level is exactly what MO should be aiming for.

Scott Morrison comments on "Postgrad Mathematics" (20384)

2012-10-23T23:01:06-07:00

I see a huge overlap between MSE and MO, not a gap!

Henry Cohn comments on "Postgrad Mathematics" (20383)

2012-10-23T20:49:45-07:00

I'm skeptical about the need for such a site: fragmenting the community in this way seems to me like a big negative, so it would take some big positive effects to make up for that. The proposal is currently extremely vague (the entire content consists of "If in any doubt whether a question would be better posted at Mathoverflow or Mathematics then post it to Postgrad Mathematics instead" and the example question "Which Cayley graphs are planar?"), and it would need a lot more detail to make a compelling case.

What's the fundamental motivation here? I can believe someone might hesitate to post graduate-level questions to MO, out of fear that they will be closed with a suggestion of trying MSE, and I see this as a problem with MO. On the other hand, I don't see why the new site would be an improvement on MSE. The advantage of asking on MO instead of MSE is that MO has a larger user base of grad students and faculty, and it's possible that the new site would develop such a community. However, that would take a lot of work, and I'm not convinced the new site would have an advantage over MSE in this respect.

vtt comments on "Postgrad Mathematics" (20382)

2012-10-23T19:20:22-07:00

I've proposed an intermediate level site between Mathematics and Mathoverflow to see if there is any support for this at http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/46802/postgrad-mathematics

I think that if an intermediate level site took off then I would find it more interesting than either Mathoverflow or Mathematics.

See also meta post at http://meta.math.stackexchange.com/questions/6420/postgrad-mathematics