This is less of "is this question acceptable" but more "could and if so how would one make this acceptable?"

I'm wondering whether it would make sense to have some kind of discussion on Mochizuki's recent purported proof of the ABC conjecture. Maybe something so that experts could give ideas about what ideas are in the proof? A discussion of when people might know enough to seriously judge the proof? Some other kind of discussion?

Which Mochizuki is being referred to?

someone’s blog, perhaps?

Try the comments on Jordan Ellenberg's post.

Discussion is of course not really what MO does, but there are probably a mess of really good questions people could ask (if not answer immediately!) about "Inter-universal" things.

@stankewicz: and yes, such question(s) has already been asked before. At least one was asked three years ago when MO was just started! Link.

Recent question

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/106560/what-is-the-underlying-vision-that-mochizuki-pursued-when-trying-to-prove-the-abc

which currently has five upvotes and four votes to close, as will generally happen for this sort of thing. To me, it is one of many possible well-meaning questions which amount to "Isn't this exciting! I'd like to hear more." I think we can wait.

I must quietly protest. Here is a small list of questions in this spirit that I have asked in the past that have been greatly encouraged on this forum:
http://mathoverflow.net/questions/78696/is-there-an-intuitive-reason-for-zariskis-main-theorem
http://mathoverflow.net/questions/75335/what-is-the-reason-for-modularity-results
http://mathoverflow.net/questions/67595/why-was-it-reasonable-to-ask-what-the-higher-k-groups-are
http://mathoverflow.net/questions/80786/did-grothendieck-have-a-plan-for-proving-riemann-existence-algebraically

My question is well defined, and questions of this type are routinely answered with great enthusiasm on this website. Since I'm not asking about the proof itself, but only about its sketch (which, supposedly, people have known for years), others are in a position to be illuminating. The argument that I must read the mathematics before I ask the question is ad hoc. On many occasions I have seen people preface their question with "Before I start reading on _______, I would like to get some motivation" (and about much less complicated mathematics), and have gotten enthusiastic support.

I feel that the people who have closed this question are trying to discourage frivolous questions regarding a new fad. But that is misleading -- 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.

As ever so often reopened without any of the reopeners commenting...

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/

@evgeniamerkulova: I changed it, hope it works now. [For the record the second phrase that is quoted from me had a a sort off disclaimer attached to it that made it less strong than the quoted form suggests.]

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

Henry, you mischaracterize my question! I am not asking for an explanation of the new papers by Mochizuki. I'm asking for the motivation for their existence. An example of a good answer is: "it's true for function fields, and here is the rough argument... Therefore what we need is a number theoretic analogue of _____. Mochizuki's papers aim at filling that gap in the theory."

Will, I don't see why your question is relevant to the discussion at hand. (Even if James had such reasons, he is under no obligation to share those in this public forum.) I'd like to request people not to get too personal here.

Giuseppe, perhaps I can make this seem less personal. When I began on this site, I answered questions for a week or two before posting my first question. I have often asked that there be a minimum number of good (upvoted?) answers before a person gets to ask any questions. That never flew. I have also asked for some milder thing keeping answers somewhere near comparable to questions.

Now, part of why these will never go anywhere is the great importance placed on anonymity. The dream of the creators of the site is that the next Fields medalist could post a question without registering or doing much of anything else. The phrase "minimal barriers" seems about right.

Meanwhile, there is no requirement to actually have a Ph.D. or be in a math Ph.D. program. Enough people are mathematically competent who are in something else (I guess you are in Physics), in a few cases some very strong math undergrads, or are simply outside the traditional chain of study. I like people to answer questions, partly for them to learn the manners of the site, what makes a good question. But I also want people to answer questions to demonstrate core competence in some area of mathematics, possibly not the one about which they are asking. But something. There is a supposition, or at least a desire, that people on the site are involved in research and wish for help in something that has them blocked, perhaps something basic outside their area.

That seems enough. It would take a while, but searching my posts on Meta, back two and a half years, would show that these really have been concerns of mine over the years.

@James Cranch (but also more generally): I do not know what you mean by 'a lobby to close the question'. Anyway, it is a completely standard thing that individual user based on their judgement express their opinion that a question is unsuitable for MO (for any number of reasons) via a vote to close or just by saying so.

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?

I second James Borger's comment here on meta. Another argument for reopening is given by Minhyong Kim's comment -- he wishes to submit an answer if it is reopened. I would greatly appreciate his insights!

Full disclosure: I have not voted on the question being debated here, either for closing or re-opening.

@Will Jagy:

since MO is a question and answer site, curtailing the questions also holds back the answers. Moreover, it is clear that some subfields of math are highly over-represented on MO, and so anyone coming in from outside these fields would immediately face an immensely annoying barrier to entry and participation under your hypothetical rules. It seems from your profile that you work in number theory, which also happens to have the second-highest frequency (in excess of 3000 at the time of writing). If you worked on Schur functions, you would have had to wait 8 months (from the date of your current first answer here) before even seeing a question in your field. And of course, one wonders who would possibly have asked this question on Schur functions to give you an opportunity to demonstrate your core competence, since that person would also have had to answer... well, hopefully you get the idea. Unless you are prepared to institute policies that will actively keep out experts in under-represented fields, I honestly can't see the point of requiring n answers from newcomers before a question can be asked.

@quid

If closing the question results in an existing gap NOT being found, will you accept personal responsibility for your negative contribution to the understanding of mathematics? There are many good reasons to close this question, and you have previously mentioned some of them here. However, the "what-if-this-hypothetical-disaster-happens-if-we-don't-close" line of reasoning lies on a steep gradient path to complete absurdity.

I think I cast the first vote to reopen in the current round, so I should probably give a reason, though for the most part the reasons have already been explained by other people. Simply: having this question open makes the world, and MO, a better place.

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.

@Tom Leinster: in some sense it is too late for this occassion, but just to clarify my point of view, since this might or might not become relevant on other occassion.

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.

I think that edit would be great and would really help clarify the question and make more users happy with it.

I agree with Andy, Henry and Henry.

OK, I just made the edit. I also changed the title.

Like Todd, I also request that the moderators hit the question with the wiki-hammer.

Plus, the question no longer uses the word behooves.

@bsteinberg : I agree that the OP has an enormous number of pretty silly questions. But it's worth noting that after the migration, his reputation will be cut in half.

What I don't understand, behaviorally, is all this wildly celebratory upvoting of a question which seemed sort of off-hand and casual. MO is so weird, sometimes. The upvoting of great answers I do of course understand.

@Qiaochu: after about 50 upvotes and several thousand views and several good answers , it seems further expression of such a wish is pretty redundant, unnecessary, superfluous. "Your wish has been granted, already. Calm down."

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

@Andy Putman: Thanks for the edit.

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.