tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (Learning through Commenting)

Anton Geraschenko comments on "Learning through Commenting" (1503)

2010-01-06T08:07:38-08:00

Anweshi comments on "Learning through Commenting" (1500)

2010-01-06T06:55:19-08:00

I am below 200, and I edited.

Ilya Nikokoshev comments on "Learning through Commenting" (1497)

2010-01-06T04:24:16-08:00

Yes! CW answers and, in some cases, CW posts, are exactly the substitute for long threads between several people. With wiki mode, it's possible to edit the posts -- and not only for the poster, but for everyone with 200 (I think) rep!

Anweshi comments on "Learning through Commenting" (1496)

2010-01-06T03:50:12-08:00

So in this instance you, me and Emerton have put all comments into a community wiki answer. Community wiki answers seem to be the alternative for discussions?

Anweshi comments on "Learning through Commenting" (1493)

2010-01-05T17:14:06-08:00

I have edited your answer to make it more useful. :)

Ilya Nikokoshev comments on "Learning through Commenting" (1489)

2010-01-05T15:53:24-08:00

@Anweshi, your comment on my recent question is a wonderful example of a misplaced answer I was talking about. It contains some of the information that was asked; I'd like to upvote it, you -- or somebody else -- might want to add links to papers you mentioned. You are also expanding it, the operation that is trivial with answers, but hard with comments! So why not move it to answers list? If you think it's less interesting than other answers -- well, that's for the voters to decide :)

Ilya Nikokoshev comments on "Learning through Commenting" (1483)

2010-01-05T15:19:14-08:00

The software is designed so that most essential communication happens through answers. This is so that you can use all of the formatting, your response can be upvoted, others can see the question bumped on the front page, etc.

My advice would be simply to rely more on answers than comments. If the question needs clarification before it can be answered, your post about it will essentially be an answer and will be justly rewarded with upvotes. If you do post something stupid, your post will be downvoted (an operation completely impossible with comments).

I think too many people are hesitant to post some things they're not sure about as answers. This is a real pity. In fact, all answers except the top ones go to the bottom of the page where they dwell in oblivion until you happily delete them. On the contrary, the comments forever (it is considered rude to delete comments if somebody already replied) stay directly below the question, in the place which guarantees that all passers-by will read a very interesting conversation about how A thought this was funny, B thought this should be closed and C thought everyone else is unable to read (as you see, the designers had to put the artificial 5 visible comments limit to make discussions like this harder).

Mariano comments on "Learning through Commenting" (1473)

2010-01-05T13:20:16-08:00

It would be nice, though, if the MO software allowed for a larger number of comments to be displayed by default, that the LaTeX be rendered after one shows more comments. It would be useful, too, if comments were not elided when they are unfolded: it seems that comments that were voted up are preferred when there are more than 5 comments, yet this makes some comments become meaningless!

Anweshi comments on "Learning through Commenting" (1472)

2010-01-05T13:15:23-08:00

Sometimes I find myself asking stupid questions to clarify the answer of a certain responder, or sometimes I add my doubts as comments to the question.

This way through (sometimes sarcastic) responses I learned a little bit of math. However is it considered appropriate behavior to learn this way(and possibly annoy others)?