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I decided to get myself one of dem fancy meta.MO accounts for this particular thread, to voice my humble opinion on the matter.
To give a bit about my "street cred", I am a grad student, I joined MO slightly over a year ago (and mostly sat quietly in the corner) and joined math.SE during the public beta stage (almost a year ago), as well the meta.m.SE about six months (or so?) since I became an active participant there as well.
Some issues to consider, that have been brought up before this post but seemed to have been neglected compared to other issues:
The incompleteness theorem can be abused in the notion of bugs and security holes: every big enough software has some huge bug that occurs once every five years when the planets align and the moon is in the scorpio. All network-interfaced software which are large enough have immense security holes which, when found, will let the smarter user go through them like lye through fat - in the most corrosive manner you can imagine.
By this, of course, I mean that unattended software is bound to fail eventually, and the bigger they are they harder they fall. This is due to server updates, or possible leaks in underlying software (php? perl? common lisp?) or even bugs in the code that is the SE engine. While this does not pose an immediate threat, eventually it will become impossible to fix, and one disgruntled hothead user with the right kind of knowledge can in fact wreak havoc (at least for a while). Of course this is a very catastrophic scenario that is not very likely to occur, but isn't the probably of a tsunami washing parts of a city just as unlikely - but just as devastating as we saw twice during the past decade?
Furthermore, as Anton said, usenet is still perfectly fine. Most of the users nowadays don't go there anymore. It is a dying medium. Platforms that stop attracting users whither away, and if this community wants to thrive for an indefinite amount of time, it seems like a good idea to upgrade at some point.
While having different reputation for questions and answers is perfectly fine in sites like SO, it seems to me that MO is a whole other thing. Mathematicians appreciate questions, good questions, questions that are phrased in an interesting way and leading you to think. This makes good questions seem like an excellent source, equal (to some extent) to good answers. While it is clear that answers are the goal, I would hate to see a site which is based on questions of high level being dropped of this status.
The connection with the rest of the SE network seems somewhat troublesome to me, it seems that no clear answer about whether or not it is possible to have the site seem disconnected from the SE network. That means no ads (and perhaps as importantly no ads of MO in other SE sites), and even more so ditch the 101 reputation for newcomers from the SE-land.
The latter seems to me to be important for a main reason, not the comments nor the voting and not the CW editing. It is because a reputation of 101 points gives you a voice in a community that you did nothing to earn its approval for voicing. I still remember how hard it was for me to get my first 50 reputation points on this site (something that some might have shared and other might not). I was just starting my way in my grad studying. I would hate to think about people from other SE sites, which effortlessly given the permission to speak where they might not be wanted. It was pointed out that this community is run by mathematicians. Not by hobbyists, nor students which may or may not be qualified in either moderating or mathematics. This is a website with a very strict framework, in which you can do pretty much everything you want as long as you remember "to put on some pants" (i.e. play nice with others, and stay within a reasonable epsilon from the norms of the website).
(ctd)
(ctd)
This has gone for long enough, I just have to say one last thing (and if you read this far, you're a braver person than I am), I am not against this idea. I am even somewhat in favour (although not 100% sure it is necessary right now). Change is good if done properly. I have a firm belief that MO (and by extension math.SE) is a rather unique community that does not fit into the "usual" Q&A mold of hobbyist sites, and if we (by which I mean you) decide to migrate I think that it as important to consider the above points as much as it is important to ensure Mr. Atwood and others will not interfere with MO and meta.MO.
It seems to me that the 101 starting reputation is a non-issue. Asaf, the reason you found it so hard to earn your first 50 reputation points was because you didn't want to make a fool of yourself along the way. But there is a much easier way. It is perfectly possible to ask 16 questions, most of them repeating each other and none phrased in English, have only four of them with a positive vote count and some voted as low as -8 and still have a reputation of 246 (at the time of writing). This even includes 13 cast down votes.
@Alex, it is true that I did not want to make a fool out of myself, and while some people do make fools out of themselves most of them give up before a critical point of reputation. This gives them up to 100 points extra, which is something I would very much like to think is bad.
Especially in light of how protecting a question, a feature of SE2 allowing only users with "enough" reputation to post, therefore blocking the comments and answers by newcomers which may be problematic, is useless against other SE users (since "enough" is more than 10).
On more thought I basically think that moving is the most reasonable option. Tyler Lawson's point is very good, as is Scott Morrison's most recent post. We're already dependent on SE, and are already vulnerable to this site disappearing or changing if and when someone buys them out. We want to have software that is well-written and is maintained by someone other than us. In the near future it seems like SE2.0 is the only option in town for that.
I really don't want us to try rolling our own site. Alex's point that big programming projects run by mathematicians don't do well in the long run is very important. (Of course, I'm not objective here, as it's very much against my own interest to have Scott involved in large programming projects.)
In terms of negotiating points, the one thing I would really want is a top of the screen popup (like the "we just linked your accounts" popup) for users coming from the SE network who haven't used MO specifically before which says something close to "This site is for research-level mathematics only. For other math questions please go to math.SE."
I think a message like the above would be more effective, less annoying, less confusing, and more acceptable to the SE network than trying to restrict the initial rep of outside SE network users.
(In the long-run, what I really think would be nice would be for there to be a "SE academy" subnetwork containing the sites like MO and cstheory. I think SE is right not to want too much variation in how the individual sites work, but I think that having a well-marked subnetwork for research-level sites might be more acceptable for everyone.)
Reading the discussion, I find myself thinking that if MO migrates, the only thing that I would really miss would be meta. The rest, I could probably live with or without (depending) and, as has been pointed out. But this discussion here would not be possible on an SE meta. So for me, meta is at the top of my list.
I feel that the 101 thing is more of a red herring. If we, the regular users, are aware of the issue and make sure that we keep an eye on the "new posts by new users" list (which is a feature of SE2.0) then we can leap on these people (gently) and make them aware that MO is only for snobs. Sorry, I mean "mathematicians".
(Noah, if you're using Markdown then it sanitises HTML so you need to use Markdown's link syntax [text](url).)
(Thanks! I was actually just using text so I figured html would work. But it doesn't seem to. Switched to markdown.)
Hrm, the worry I see with an influx of other SE users is an influx of questions that we don't want. The response to this in my mind is two-fold: first a popup to try to direct people to math.SE, and second the awesome new ability to directly migrate questions to math.SE.
An influx of votes seems bizarre to me. Most people's reaction to a typical good MO question is to chuckle at its absurdity. It would take a very weird sort of person to show up and start randomly voting up questions or answers that they don't understand. I just don't think we're going to get that many people like that.
My impression from following SE stuff is that this sort of basic user experience issue is exactly the sort of thing that they'd be least likely to want to budge on. They really really want the experience of people coming to a new SE site to be uniform. They don't want different thresholds for powers at different sites. They want people to be able to move to a new site and know how the mechanics work. (Of course, this is because they want users to be able to move from site to site, while we want to stop users from moving to our site...)
But we already have exactly that problem (soft questions get voted up too much relative to other questions). The limiting factor on soft questions is votes to close not up/downvoting. And votes to close/reopen have a high threshold where 100 points makes no real difference.
A more direct way to deal with your worry would be:
1) Empowering moderators to block questions from appearing on the multicollider (see http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/99765/mods-should-be-able-to-suppress-questions-from-the-multicollider)
2) Automatically stopping all MO questions tagged "soft question" from appearing on the multicollider.
Unlike the 100 point bonus, this is entirely behind the scenes and would not interfere with user experience. As such, it seems like the sort of thing that SE would be more likely to agree to.
This is very much a side point, but if we end up migrating I do not think that a 2/3rds vote among the moderators is an acceptable option for how to "break the glass." The reason being that there's no way to stop a future bearded EvilSE from just changing all the moderators one day.
(2) We crack down on soft questions, and migrate anything that could plausibly fit in MSE to MSE, so visitors below a certain level of knowledge never see anything in MO that they understand or enjoy. This would work, but it would make me sad, since it would remove some of the content I understand and enjoy.
I don't see the problem here. Migrated content is not removed content: you can easily associate your account with math.SE and read soft questions there! I fully expect this to start happening if we migrate.
To be exact you don't even have to associate your account, but can just go there.
I do share Qiaochu's expectation to see more MO users joining MSE. I think that this site has a lot to offer from the point of view of writing answers.
I agree with Henry that it would be sad if all questions which were in the "appropriate for either MO or math.SE" questions all got sent to math.SE. But I still don't see why users who would prefer math.SE would stick around MO trying to make it more math.SE-like. math.SE already works quite well as an "ask-the-expert" site. Suppose there's a user where half their questions get migrated to math.SE. They're likely to get sick of having their questions migrated and just end up on math.SE.
I actually quite like the idea of moving the soft and non-research level questions to MSE. We have had a discussion here not so long ago in which it transpired that many conscientious new users who really want to do their homework look at the highest voted questions and answers and get a completely wrong idea of the main focus of the site. Such a mass migration would sharpen MO's focus.
I think that MO is the right place for some of the soft questions. I know, as well, that had I not been interested in getting myself involved in math.SE sort of questions I would not have gone there at all.
Questions like common misbeliefs, counter examples, urban legends and refereeing papers all seem much more at home compared to math.SE.
What I mean in particular is: if a year down the road, say, 90 percent of regular MO users also have an M.SE acount since there was so much transfer and all the soft-questions got moved there (as suggested above), won't it then be hard to argue why the sites need to stay independent, eg, in case in the course of some general stackexchange network cleanup a merge should be suggested?
SE has no intention to ever merge the two sites. Everyone, please stop bringing this up. It is really, really, really, really not an issue.
Questions like common misbeliefs, counter examples, urban legends and refereeing papers all seem much more at home compared to math.SE.
I would say that misbeliefs and counterexamples (unless made more specific) are both fine for math.SE. Urban legends could go either way. Refereeing papers is definitely an MO question.
@grp - well said, especially the last sentence.
I'd just like to respond to one phrase in Gerhard's post: that the purpose of MO is
to ask and have answered certain questions of interest to research mathematicians.
That's what I originally thought, but now I would phrase it more in the form:
to ask and have answered certain questions of that research mathematicians could encounter when doing their mathematics.
It's a bit more awkward, but the point is that the mathematics has to be of a certain type and level. If I've phrased it correctly, it also doesn't mean that the person asking or answering has to be a "professional mathematician". Just that they play the role whilst on the site.
I also believe that this is more in line with Anton's vision. I don't want to put words in to his mouth, but that's certainly the impression I have after debating this issue with him many times on this site.
To Qiaochu:
SE has no intention to ever merge the two sites. Everyone, please stop bringing this up. It is really, really, really, really not an issue.
SE might not, but there is a sizeable (or at least very vocal) segment of the SO community that does not like "two level" sites. Since SE is meant to be a democracy, the fact that the "overlords" don't want to merge the sites doesn't mean that it wouldn't happen. I, personally, doubt that it would happen, but I'd like safeguards to ensure that even the question of it is ridiculous. As you are a moderator on an SE site, you can look in the moderator chat room and search for "mathoverflow", "mathematics", and "mathematicians" to get a sense of the comments that I've seen that lead me to this opinion.
I'd also strengthen Noah Snyder's comment:
This is very much a side point, but if we end up migrating I do not think that a 2/3rds vote among the moderators is an acceptable option for how to "break the glass." The reason being that there's no way to stop a future bearded EvilSE from just changing all the moderators one day.
I think that I'd go for 2/3rds vote amongst the current moderators, or a successor team appointed by them for precisely this purpose. After all, if things deteriorate to such an extent that we're worried about SE replacing moderators to swing the vote their way, they could just replace the lot!
Andrew,
To respond on you response to Qiaochu. The SO community might be a democracy but it is a democracy within the confines of SO. The maintainers of SE may bow or may not bow to the whim of their largest community, but as a whole it seems to me that SE is the whole network while SO is just one big community. Its say in matters of what should or should not be with other communities seems to me as quite a peculiar way to run a network of communities.
I am not familiar with how things run, but from the impression I have so far (both from math.SE as well from Anton's and SE's owners in this discussion) this is not how things are done.
Asaf:
Its say in matters of what should or should not be with other communities seems to me as quite a peculiar way to run a network of communities.
You might think that. I couldn't possibly comment.
Seriously, I can only talk in terms of the impression I've gotten from hanging around the SE network for a bit. My impression gleaned from that is that SO is The Model and the other SE sites are meant to work in a similar fashion. That's why seasoned users get their "head start" of 100 extra rep: the assumption is that their experience on other SE sites will stand them in good stead on a new site. When the SE2.0 stuff started, then this 100 extra really was for people coming from SO to encourage them to get in to the new communities to show them how it was done. The original system on Area51 (the proving ground for new SE sites) was that your voting capability was tied to your SO reputation. The whole idea of Area51 and the new SE sites was that it was meant to grow organically from the tried-and-tested soil of SO.
Now, with a site like TeX-SX, we haven't had a problem with a mass influx of SO users. This, I think, is due to the nature of the topic. TeX is one of those things that if you know what it is, you probably know enough to participate on the site and have something to say there. The only real annoyances have been those that don't know anything about the SE sites at all and try to start discussions. But on a mathematics site, the problem is that there are people on SO who think that they know what mathematics is but really have no clue whatsoever.
So it's a balance: will the ease of access from SO balance against the ease of migration to MSE? Actually, I think it might balance in our favour. If you search on SO for "MathOverflow" then you'll see that we're already regarded as a bunch of elitist snobs who close any "reasonable question" in no-time flat. So I doubt that there will be a large influx of people, and if we can keep our "hot questions" off that list then there will be little opportunity for people to "stumble upon" MO by chance.
Qiaochu, two points:
First, let me rephrase it. In case too many questions should be moved around between MO and M.SE it seems to me I could eventually come to the conclusion that I'd find it more convenient to have just one site; rather than to be implicitly forced to visit two sites. What I am worried about regarding the moving of questions is that now a suggestion to move to M.SE either happens quickly (almost instantly) or not at all. Perhaps, I am misunderstanding this transfering process, in which case my point is less severe, but if a question with its answers can fairly simply be transferred, then I can very well imagine situations of the form: Question on MO (about alright but on the simple/general end could well also be on M.SE), some answers/comments, next day somebody suggest on the question or on meta 'wouldn't this better on M.SE...sufficiently many people agree', question gets moved. Whether this happens or not is of course a pure community decision, but what I hope is that we collectively will resist the temptation to transfer too much (both directions) just becasue it is easy, since I think I would find this (mildly) annoying.
Second, regarding SE Inc. (not sure if this is the right name, or is it Fog Creek, well I think you'll know what I mean). It is really not my intention to suggest explictly or implictly that they do not have good intentions for MO. And, I find it reassuring that those who know the people their (mainly, you and Anton) have a high opinion about them. Just, as far as I know, not too long ago, they had an altogether different idea how to make use of their software (roughly, offer the software and the servers for a fee to whomever is willing to pay the fee; and as far as I know this was how MO initially envisioned the relation). Now, they have an altogether different idea and scrapped the other one (it is nice and reassuring that they seem to treat their old customers very well); yet one is told what excatly this idea is unclear (eg, how revenue will eventually be create is unclear). So, to me and perhaps to truly everybody it is genuinely unclear how this SE network will look like in one, two, three years. Perhaps millions of people will be there to ask about cooking, gardening, home improvement, parenting, poker, and what not, and this will be great for SE as all these people will be susceptible to quite targeted adds and might buy all kinds of things directly from the site, and it will also be great for the people using these sites because they will get useful information. It just might not be so great for the couple hundred or thousand research mathematicians that use MO on a regular basis, because they simply don't fit into this environment.
And, let me add reseacrh mathematicians in their role as research mathematicians. Of course, most mathetmaticians have interests besides math and might enjoy these sites too. But, just because I enjoy some venue in some context, I do not have to think it is a good place for discussing mathematics.
I can very well imagine situations of the form: Question on MO (about alright but on the simple/general end could well also be on M.SE), some answers/comments, next day somebody suggest on the question or on meta 'wouldn't this better on M.SE...sufficiently many people agree', question gets moved. Whether this happens or not is of course a pure community decision, but what I hope is that we collectively will resist the temptation to transfer too much (both directions) just becasue it is easy, since I think I would find this (mildly) annoying.
I'm not sure why this is an issue. I think a little mild annoyance is well worth being consistent about the division between the two sites to prevent confusion among new users in the future.
Qiaochu, my worry is that if we collectively try to figure out and enforce what 'being consistent about the division' means in actual practise, this will be quite complicated; in particular, as this consistence is not present at the moment, so that this won't just be an issue for new user but some regular users then might (suddenly) find all/many of their questions being migrated. I would say for a very sizeable part of MO question one can start arguments to the extent that they are in fact not research-level, if one wishes to do so. And, if half the frontpage will consist of [migrated]-questions at any given time this might start to be more than mildly annoying. Thus, I am simply in favor of at least initially tolerating the current level of inconsitence. But, in principle, I would be happy to be proved wrong.
I am actively in favor of the current level of inconsistency in the boundary between MO and M.SE. I think people should ask at whichever site they feel is appropriate, and that questions should only be moved if they're clearly posted at the wrong site.
At the risk of being too brash I will add a thought that has been percolating in my head when I've occasionally read this discussion:
It seems with Scott Morrison's list and the earlier suggestion of an SE Academy/ SE Omega set of sites among the SE family, the ideal time to migrate that people have in mind is the day that Fog Creek agrees to accept money for premium services.
I don't exactly disagree with this notion. I think advertisements (even for SE network partners) for example would make the site look noticeably less professional. Worse, they could possibly scare off the sort of mathematician who still hasn't switched to LaTeX and only came here because the site was mentioned in the Notices. That said, as many have noted there's a danger here as that day may not be coming any time soon (maybe it's a weird condition of their venture capital? maybe they feel like we'd be more likely to move on if we were both paying AND had access to database dumps?). I don't feel like I'm enough of a part of the community to make a choice either way but it seems like it would be an easier decision to make if that day were on the horizon.
A few largely unrelated comments:
Scott Morrison's post from about 5 days ago, beginning to put together some reasonable proposals for migration, is spot-on.
My only pet peeve with the current front-end at the SE sites is that they're a little too social-network-y for my taste. For example, the right hand column of Physics.SE starts with a "Welcome!" box, then a "visit Meta" box, then an ad for Area 51, none of which I mind too much (although the logo on the Area 51 ad is probably perfect for attracting random netizens to some site, but not something you'd see in a math journal), and then the recent "Chat" activity, and then the recently posted-in Tags, and then a long list of badges and what people won them. On CSTheory.SE, they have things like "66 people chatting" and "Love this site? Get the weekly newsletter!". I would, of course, get used to this kind of right-hand column fluff (I almost never actually see the ads on gmail, for example), but if possible, I hope we can retain firm control over the front-end displayed content when we migrate.
With many other people here, I do wish that we could pay Fog Creek for their services, and retain more control over the look and feel of the site. I don't think we should roll our own --- there is a culture in mathematics of doing all computing things in-house, and sometimes it's great, but often it means mathematicians using outdated or bad technology. But I understand that Fog Creek may not want to create a set-up where some sites pay for services (even if I don't fully understand why they would not want this). Anyway, I think all of the worries people have expressed about migrating will quickly dissipate, and it's certainly true that SE is pretty awesome software.
Here's one final thought, which for me speaks in favor of migrating. Every once in a while, I wander over the physics.SE or math.SE, and think, oh, I'd like to leave a comment here, or upvote there. I don't want to be as active in those communities as I am on MO, and I haven't made it over the energy barrier of setting up accounts there. But if it's easy for my MO account to wander to those sites, then great.
and then the recent "Chat" activity
Necessary evil. The reason chat exists is so people don't ask chatty questions and/or clog up comments with long conversations. It's not actually desirable behavior except in that it provides an outlet that keeps the main Q&A part of the site cleaner.
Qiaochu, are you saying that MO has this problem and it would be alleviated by having chat? Or are you saying that it's a necessary evil on other SE sites? Or are you saying that it's a necessary evil because SE doesn't have a meta like ours?
I'm saying it's a necessary evil on other SE sites. I don't think MO really has this problem, but to the extent that it does, the format of our meta seems to do a decent job of alleviating it.
Being forced to use the SE meta exclusively (that is, not in conjunction with this current forum-based one) is a deal breaker for me. The SE meta was designed specifically to discourage discussion, which is what meta should be about!
The 101 rep problem is something to think about, sure, but I think the structure of meta as an effective tool for community organization/community discussion is totally destroyed by the SE meta approach.
Just look at this thread we're talking in right now.
Now imagine reading it as a comment thread on SE.
A very relevant link to meta.math.SE in the matter of automated editing by the SE engine.
Retroactive automatic editing of question punctuation affecting correctness
An example of bizarre behaviour from having linked accounts on SE. Don't necessarily want to open more discussion, just keep a record of SE2.0-specific behaviour.
I just happened to look at scifi.SE, and got the following pop-up messages:
Your associated account on Mathematics has passed 200 reputation: +100 reputation
Congrats, you've gained the privilege – create chat rooms and 4 other privileges learn more
so merely by one account on one SE site getting a certain rep count, another account on another SE site got a massive boost, giving me privileges before unthought of. I could imagine this snowballing.
David, I think this might just be the automatic 100 reputation that each SE user gets when they join a new SE site. In order to qualify for it, they have to have "sufficient" reputation on another SE site. It may be that when you first joined SciFi.SE then you didn't have enough reputation on any other SE site to qualify for this, but now you've gained a bit on maths.SE (and TeX.SE) then you qualify. This has been raised in the above discussion.
Calling 100 reputation a "massive boost" is an overstatement. Here's the basic idea behind that boost: a user with under 100 rep is not capable of doing certain things because new users don't necessarily know how to use SE sites correctly - they may think it's a forum, etc. If you already have a certain amount of rep on another site, you presumably understand how SE sites work, so that's no longer necessary.
For the sake of completeness, these are the privileges you have at 100 rep:
15 Vote up
15 Flag for moderator attention
50 Leave comments
100 Edit community wiki posts
They're all the kinds of things that a similar site might automatically let you do as a new user.
@Qiaochu
I'm interested in the possibility that with a number of linked SE accounts, one could garner even 500+ rep by each boost in rep pushing one over the minimum in other subcritical accounts. As was discussed above, community norms vary between sites. What makes a barely ok 2 or 3 questions asked on SO/food/scifi/sceptic/english/TeX/etc poster might not make an ok MO poster.
But as I said, I don't want to raise old discussions.
Perhaps I should keep my mouth shut :-)
@David: as far as I know, this is a one-time deal. At any given site, you get the +100 boost once if any of your other accounts pass a threshold, and after that, that's it. (You're right that the system functioning the way you thought it did would be silly. That's why it doesn't function that way.)
@Qiaochu - thanks for clearing that up.