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Feature requests: Linking in with StackOverlow & al

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    Is it being considered to move to StackExchange 2.0, so that one's MathOverflow account can be properly linked with other accounts on like sites?
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    @Jacques,

    yes. Essentially, the StackExchange people have told us that we can migrate, and they'll contact us at some point about the details of how this will work. We've been told that there is some scope for negotiating with existing StackExchange sites about the actual terms of the migration, but (to my knowledge) this hasn't actually happened at all yet. The StackExchange people like us --- Anton has talked, in person and via email, with a number of people in the company, including Joel Spolsky, right at the top, and we generally get the impression they want to treat us right. On the other hand, it's been a slightly frustrating process not hearing much from them about the transition to 2.0. We have a set of 3 incontrovertible requirements for switching, all of which go against the rules for new StackExchange 2.0 sites.

    1. Anton maintains personal ownership of the mathoverflow.net domain name.
    2. We continue to have access to the full unsanitized database dumps.
    3. Anton continues to have administrator privileges on the site.

    (re: 2, all of the StackExchange 2.0 sites will have public data dumps equivalent to what we already provide here. At present, only Anton has access to the unsanitized dumps, and the main purpose of these is so that we can in principle jump ship to an alternative software base.)

    So --- we're waiting and seeing, for now!

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    And no ads.
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    @Noah: the ads on SO are not bad at all. I personally would not make this requirement a show-stopper. Ask for it, sure. Don't upgrade because of it? I would be less sure.

    @Scott: thanks for the detailed answer. Very clear.
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    The problem I see with ads is less that they're obtrusive and more that they're unprofessional. If SE needs to make money off our site we should be paying it through grants, not through advertisements.
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    Ads are a good point. Personally, I wouldn't make this a show stopper, but I think it's unlikely to be a problem. If Fog Creek want some revenue from us (as they should!), and suggest ads, we can quite seriously just offer to double what they expect to earn from ads.

    One interesting long term possibility is an extension of Stack Overflow Careers to MathOverflow. Now, there are lots of reasons why this might be inappropriate --- in particular, no one is about to seriously propose changing the way that academic hiring works --- but there may well be more overlap between our user base and the people that certain companies are looking to hire than you might at first think. Stack Overflow Careers actually seems to do a pretty good job at its niche --- really good programming companies hiring really good programmers. If Fog Creek were interested in trying to monetize MathOverflow by creating a parallel, unobtrusive site for mathematicians to post CVs and companies to post mathematician-wanted ads, then I wouldn't object at all, and good luck to them! :-)

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    I agree, a Math Overflow Careers wouldn't bother me the way ads would.
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    This is an interesting discussion for 'the other me', i.e. the Jacques Carette who has been Chair of the Electronic Services Committee for the Canadian Mathematical Society for the last 3 years (and another 2 to go). We have been struggling with the issue of ads on our main web site for quite some time, especially as (unlike the AMS), the CMS has lost money in these tough economic times [and unfortunately started losing money before that...]

    So we've accepted that some ads are ok. And different parts of the web site can get different ads. Throughout, it should be professional. Sponsors for activities like the 'math camps' (whether they are 'math' companies or not) will likely be allowed to put up ads in the 'math camps' section. The Journals part of the site would be an ad-free zone. The question that still nags us: is there anywhere on the site where we would allow an ad from pokerstars,net? [no joke, they asked, and were offering non-trivial $$$].
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    In the probability section?

    (Well, someone had to say it)

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    :-). Perhaps we should create a probability section...

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    @Jacques: By "us", do you mean you and your "other you" or you and your colleagues? ;)

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    @Harry: lol!

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    Some updates to the discussion on meta.stackoverflow.com and some hostility. http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/56514/any-updates-on-stack-exchange-1-0-migration
    • CommentAuthorHarry Gindi
    • CommentTimeJul 10th 2010 edited
     

    Wow, those people are jerks.

    • CommentAuthorAndrea
    • CommentTimeJul 10th 2010
     
    Much more ostility then I imagined. I guess these people are not involved in the future of SO. If comments like these came from official sources, we should really consider migration.
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    What Andrea said.
    • CommentAuthorkyle
    • CommentTimeJul 10th 2010 edited
     
    It's not my intention to be hostile to the MathOverflow community, it's just my opinion that the 'non-negotiable' demands of MO shouldn't be accepted. I understand the desire to maintain control over the site, but I have to wonder why you want to join Stack Exchange 2.0 when you have so little confidence in the Stack Exchange team that you require the ability to completely move the site at a moment's notice.
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    @kyle : The reason we want this power is because we want to ensure that MO continues to be controlled by the academic mathematical community. Personally (and I suspect that this view is held by many other people here as well), I don't care that much about the "grand vision" of the Stack Exchange team. I certainly have no intention of participating in any other sites in it! They have a nice platform and I would very much like to pay them to continue using it, but not at the cost of letting a group of non-mathematicians who don't necessarily understand or like the internal culture of academic mathematicians control what has become an important tool for professional communication.
    • CommentAuthorAndrea
    • CommentTimeJul 10th 2010
     
    The reason for joining SE 2.0 would be getting updates and new features. It is NOT the case that we have little confidence in the Stack Exchange team. Nevertheless, we (or at least I) feel that it would be dangerous to abandon all the rights to migrate, if the need arises.

    Consider this example: I regularly use gThumb to tag and organize my photos. For a long time gThumb has not used stadard tags (ITPC, XMP...) inside the photos, but a custom system. As a result, I could not try any different photo manager, even I thought it was better. gThumb is still my favorite manager, but being trapped into it felt somehow limitating.

    When MathOverflow was launched, the agreement was that we paid a monthly fee, and we could have control over the site. Now we are not requested to pay anymore, even if we would be glad to, but are not granted the same level of control (if we move to SE 2.0).

    Consider, among other things, that Anton has often used his administrator rights to adjust CSS and JS to our needs, in particular support for LaTeX was added this way.
    • CommentAuthorHarry Gindi
    • CommentTimeJul 10th 2010 edited
     

    I second Andy's sentiment.

    And Andrea's as well.

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    Kyle, I think the reason for the "wow lots of jerks over there" reaction is more to George's answer than your question and comments. But I also think you're missing the point, if the SO people don't compromise on these issues then we just won't migrate. Getting the ability to edit comments would be very nice, but it's not worth giving up too much for.
    • CommentAuthorkyle
    • CommentTimeJul 10th 2010 edited
     
    @Noah It does sound like perhaps Stack Exchange 2.0 isn't a good fit for MathOverflow. The updated software wouldn't have a concept of an 'administrator', so it wouldn't be possible for anyone (even moderators) to directly modify the markup of the page, and the costs of joining the SE 2.0 network require relinquishing control that you'd rather retain. It seems the best option would probably be to work out a deal with SO, Inc to continue to host MO on the SE 1.0 software in perpetuity.
    • CommentAuthorNoah Snyder
    • CommentTimeJul 10th 2010 edited
     
    It does sound that way at face value, except that the SO people seem excited to have us on SE 2.0 and so far have sounded willing to make some compromises to keep us on board. It's just a question of negotiating the details (both technical and otherwise) when they have time.
    • CommentAuthorHarry Gindi
    • CommentTimeJul 10th 2010 edited
     

    @Kyle: I don't understand why we couldn't just pay for SE2.0 like we would have paid for SE1.0...

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    @Everyone: I think we're getting ahead of ourselves. It's fine to have a discussion about what SO Inc's position should be, but it's a waste of time to get up in arms about terms of migration that don't even exist yet. Most of us at MO like SO and I'm pretty sure that SO Inc likes us, even though the purpose of SE has shifted since September. When migration is actually on the table, we'll see if we can make everybody happy. Until then, we're just speculating. For example, I'm pretty sure SE 2.0 site will have administrators. My email exchanges with Robert Cartaino have led me to believe that it's quite likely that MO will be able to migrate essentially unchanged. I'm as curious about what will happen as anybody else, but until SO Inc actually starts thinking about migrating SE 1.0 sites, the conversation has gone about as far as it productively can.

    @Kyle: I hope Noah's answer and comment have clarified our position. I'm quite happy with SO, and I realize that they are interested in communities doing well. However, there's simply no guarantee that their interests won't conflict with ours. The point isn't that I really want to be a moderator on MO, it's that if there is ever a real conflict between SO and MO, somebody in the MO community has to have the power to completely move the site onto another platform. Maintaining ownership of the domain and access to full data dumps is necessary for that.

    I certainly hope there won't ever be such a problem, but the whole point of negotiating a contract is that your relationship may change. If your friend promises to pay for all repairs to your house so long as you hand over the deed, it may sound like a great deal. After all, who cares whose name is on the paper? You keep living in your house, but somebody else pays for all the repairs. However, the name on the paper may become very important if your friend's interests ever start to diverge from yours. With any luck, you'll be friends forever, but you'd be a fool to treat that assumption as a certainty.

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    I apologize for my earlier comments. It was not my intention to hurt MO's reputation by calling GS names (that may or may not be applicable...).

    • CommentAuthortheojf
    • CommentTimeJul 11th 2010
     

    To the extent that I have any vote (which is to say: not at all), I strongly support adding "no ads" to the list of nonnegotiable demands. MO should be an academic site, supported by grants. (Just like the NSF really should step in and provide full support for arXiv, which I think is the single most important research tool in mathematics and physics in the world. Fortunately, their current funding model is "ask large academic libraries to support us", now that "ask Cornell to support us" is failing, and university libraries tend to be fairly against monetization.)

    • CommentAuthorVP
    • CommentTimeJul 12th 2010
     

    Not disagreeing with theojf, but in the interests of accuracy, I would rank MathSciNet alongside arXiv (in fact, somewhat higher) in the list of most important research tools. And they should be compared for funding models purposes. Of course, just like everyone else, I would hate to see arXiv going the subscription-only route, but who knows what lies ahead? (I wasn't aware that Cornell is dumping arXiv, by the way.)

    • CommentAuthorAndrea
    • CommentTimeJul 13th 2010
     
    If anything, I see this as a motivation to find alternative funding methods for MathSciNet in order to be used freely.
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    For the record, Cornell is not dumping arXiv, they're simply not willing to continue funding it 100%. I blogged about it here

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    It occurred to me that a better way of phrasing the "no ads" would be to request that in the even that there are ads we be given adequate warning (say 6 monhts) and the ability to *buy all of our own ads* at the fair market rate and have no ads be posted.
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    Would "buying ads" not be frowned upon by grant-giving organisations? Even if in effect this is what is being done, it's perhaps prudent that it not be billed as such.

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    Good point.

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