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I think it would take a little more than a script. First of all, we've got a lot of messy interferences between Markdown and LaTeX here, so any script would have to take notice of these and also of the various hacks people use to work around them (e. g., \\ instead of \). Second, some posts have newcommand declarations, which might conflict across different posts. Third, the war on overfull hboxes still hasn't been reasonably automated to my knowledge (I'd like to be proven wrong on this). Fourth, some high-voted posts make reference to some lower-voted posts or even to other questions; all of this would have to be taken into account. Fifth, we should let the authors of the posts make some edits (typo fixes, clarifications etc.) before we PDF them - usually, MO posts are not written with the intention to be final or perfect.
For what it's worth, I don't see the point of such a project. We all know that comparing the number of upvotes on answers left on different questions is rather spurious. If people find particular MO answers or questions, illuminating, they can save copies, print copies, or even transcribe copies.
Moreover, not all that glitters is gold.
In principle I think this is a very nice idea. Whether various practical problems can be overcome, I do not know. I might say more later.
Instead of just copying posts into a TeX file with only minor changes, I think a better idea could be to choose some questions and let relevant people (relevant as in "relevant to the question", not the "influential" of the OP) to write small expository notes containing, but not limited to, these questions and their answers. This would create some surplus value if done well. Unfortunately, it also creates surplus work, and I am not particularly optimistic about whether we can convince enough people to do that work.
I am one of the people mentioned in the first post of this thread, and I'll use this as an excuse to point out that I link to several of my MO posts from my web-page.
This seems to be one way to usefully collate MO posts.
[I've deleted a bunch of posts from this thread, as they were off topic and the thread was getting pretty degenerate. Since I did this fairly quickly, it's possible that I deleted something that contributed in some way. The original can be found here and reposted.]
While I think there is value in curating a reading list, I don't see the value in recruiting people to typeset it. If nothing else, the project will be undermined by the fact that not everybody has the same interests. Even individuals are interested in different things at different times. This means that it's going to be hard to beat the approach of simply browsing the site and collecting personal favorites. If you're looking for some inspiration, you can look at what your MO heroes have favorited in their MO profile page.
If all that is desired is to generate pdfs readable offline, then you can simply print the page. MO has print-specific css, so it should come out looking reasonable. If you have requests for changes in the print css, let me know.
Instead of just copying posts into a TeX file with only minor changes, I think a better idea could be to choose some questions and let relevant people (relevant as in "relevant to the question", not the "influential" of the OP) to write small expository notes containing, but not limited to, these questions and their answers. This would create some surplus value if done well. Unfortunately, it also creates surplus work, and I am not particularly optimistic about whether we can convince enough people to do that work.
Some people post questions or answers that fill this role. Instead of only asking or answering the question, they provide a tour of the topic. When they don't, it's not likely that somebody else will. Then again, it's not too uncommon to see answers starting "To expand on XXXXX's excellent answer, ..."
Iyengar, some people already expressed that the formulation of Darij was not alright, and I agree. It also got removed (either by himself or a moderator). Personally, in general I also cannot quite understand why your style of expressing yourself is such an issue for some. But neither can I fully understand why you insist on it. However, in Darij's defense, while it is a bit difficult to see behind the formulation, what he actually said is perhaps not so offensive. Perhaps try to read it like this:
I understand we come from quite different cultures and therefore I assume what you write is a normal form of expressing great respect. However, for me this is a unusual way of writing. This makes it difficult to focus on the quite interesting content of your present post. Thus I would like to ask you to be a bit less respectful in the future, I can assure you still nobody here will find you disrespectful.
Iyengar: I am glad you found my comment helpful. While this is quite an unusual thing on this site, I, in general and for various reasons, want to strictly separate my activity on MO from my other activities. Thus, I ony communicate with the MO-community via the main site and this meta site, but not via email or using my real name.
@Emerton : Sir I must not create this issue every time I post the question, but can you figure out and tell me what is the reason behind my questions going unanswered in Math.SE ?
1) Should I wait for some more time ?
2) Should I improve my formatting and english ?
see this question once sir. Thank you.
Dear Iyengar,
I just wrote out a sketch of an answer to your question. The reason your questions generally go unanswered is the following: your questions about Iwasawa theory, or about the Tate conjecture, are the kinds of questions that might be raised and answered in an advanced graduate class, or a research paper or monograph. To answer them in any kind of reasonable way, the answerer would need to have substantial expertise in number theory and arithmetic geometry. There are very few people active on MSE with this level of expertise (maybe just two or three), and perhaps not many more who are active on MO.
It takes time to gather one's thoughts and answer such a question, and among the participants in MSE or MO who could answer such questions, which as I've said is already only a handful, the number who are willing to take the time to answer them is even smaller, since people are busy.
Finally, there is the question of what good it does to answer such a question: if my Ph.D. students were to ask such a question, I would probably not answer it (at least not in any more detail than I have answered your questions on MSE), but rather direct them to appropriate background reading (Silverman's book on elliptic curves, Mazur's paper on Iwasawa theory of abelian varieties, the article about the Tate conjectures in the Motives volumes, etc.). With sufficient background, they could then read Tate's original Bourbaki seminar on BSD and the Tate conjecture, and get the answer to the question themselves. If their background is not sufficient to read Tate's article, then it's not clear to me that giving a very detailed explanation will help.
As for myself, I am also busy, and will be cutting back my participation on MO and MSE, so I'm afraid I may not be able to answer many more of your questions, at least in the near future.
Regards,
Matthew
@Emerton : Sir, thanks a lot for wasting your time in formatting and explaining in the most understandable way.
But think once sir, Don't I feel bad for disturbing everyone to answer each question thereby wasting your valuable time ? , but I have no other option sir, I improved a lot after seeking your advises, I am reading all these things in a computer in the internet cafe, and I am 21 years old but read a lot of things privately.
I can neither join in an university as its unsophisticated place and I need to support my family too by doing a Job, so neither I don't know a professor who can answer all these questions in the surroundings, your students are too lucky to have a good guide, but I have no other choice except to depend on Math.SE for my doubts. And there is no good library, the library we have here, has only news papers, school grade mathematics, formula banks and some literature in languages, so I am travelling to long places and copying some hundred pages manually into paper by seeing books, and preparing them at house. And also journals are very costly online. ( I shouldn't tell all my problems to you, but have to tell as you need to understand my intention behind disturbing everyone ) .
so thats why I am disturbing you sir, and even the professors in our area at maximum know only basic calculus not more than that, and even many of the people don't know what is a computer here ! , so I cant find any one who can really help me out.
But sincerely I am asking you to give me any useful suggestion what I can do now. But never in my life I forget the help done by you and others.
Yours truly, Iyengar.
I understood today that everybody boycotted me both in MO, and Math.SE . My questions, my comments everything goes unanswered, even though it hurts me a lot, I don't know whether its my mistake or is everyone want to quit commenting on my posts. Ok I stop bothering you all, I fight with my circumstances as long as I can, as I understood that we need to struggle a lot, as said "No pains, No gains". I understood that telling about my circumstances and difficulties other things make me still a "joker" in a circus and doesn't really helps me out in getting any help. So I understood that I need to get on with my problems.
Thank you all
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