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Wadim Zudilin and I are somewhat in disagreement on this question on Logarithms and Ratios. Wadim quotes the first faq: "MathOverflow's primary goal is for users to ask and answer research level math questions." Personally, I feel that the question seems reasonable as a research level question on the history of mathematics, if not a mathematics question per se. Hence I ask: Are such questions appropriate for MO?
Maybe I should elaborate a tiny bit: I see three possibly answers here:
I feel only marginally competent to decide between alternatives 2 and 3, but at least I don't think I am in favour of alternative 1.
Hmm, as far as I understand it, it is neither a math problem nor a question about terminology, but a request for references (to some text of yore in which differential ratios appear).
In my opinion., we should welcome questions about the history of mathematics (and not only because I enjoy the subject very much...). Of course, were we to be flooded by such questions, then yes, I would see the point in having some strategy/policy to deflect them, for they are sort of off-topic-ish if one reads the FAQ very strictly: but reading the FAQ very strictly is a silly idea, and I would be quite surprised if such a flood was a-coming... so the objection is abstract.
I agree that it should be community wiki, but I don't think it should be closed.
I don't understand why should it be community wiki? Phenomenologically: we have tons of questions tagged 'reference-request' and the (small) sample I've looked are are not CW. More interestingly, in principle: why should providing a correct reference not be rewarded? (Lots of very good, very highly appreciated answers in the site are essentially reduced to providing good references, even in questions which are not exactly reference requests! Points indicate useful contributions to the site, and knowing good, useful references and being nice enough to provide them when someone else needs them is an extremely valuable, useful thing)
One could make the argument that there are possibly many different original sources where differential ratios appear. But the OP can very well select among the offered references the one which he likes best, just as it often happens that a question gets answered in several ways, all of which are correct and the corresponding OPs gets to pick the answer they like more---sometimes using criteria with which I do not always agree, for in many cases I would have picked different ones.
Wadim, it often happens that very bad questions get very very good answers. I blame Joel for the most part... In any case, your evaluation algorithm might need some adjustment!
It also happens that good questions get bad or no answers, as when there just isn't anybody around with the right knowledge and expertise. You really, really cannot conclude anything about the quality or appropriateness of the question from the answers.
Maybe this is off topic, but it seems that there is an expanding sphere of questions that people think should be community wiki. Remember that the basic idea of community wiki is that it should be for questions that have no single wrong or right answer.
This question strikes me as more scholarly than 90% of the questions I've looked at today. Certainly, option 3. Also, if the purpose of wikifying is to prevent "milking for points", it's certainly unnecessary here. I'd guess it would be tough to get people to seriously look at it and answer it at all, due to the paucity of expertise of this kind.
@Ben: I think I've been pretty consistent, at least. Any question that is not directly a mathematical question should be community wiki. This includes (but is not limited to) referene requests, big-lists, soft questions, and history questions.
@Harry: I don't agree with your criteria for CW-ing. Big-list and soft yes, reference requests of the sort “where can I read about …” yes, and perhaps similarly with history questions that could produce many different answers, all of which are more or less right. But not a reference request of the kind “where is the original paper proving …” or history questions with a specific answer, or a narrow range of correct answers. These should be allowed to be non-CW.
Said in fewer words, we don't insist on CW if the question is scholarly and specific with (likely) a definite answer. Or so I think.
For reference request, I meant "What are some good books on ___________"
If it's a specific reference request, then it need not be CW. I agree with you.
As long as people don't regard history & its study as "all the stuff that happened" or "some stuff I heard somewhere, filtered through present-day historicism", I don't see any problem with history-of-mathematics questions here.
My only niggling worry is that there might not be that many people who can give good (as opposed to vague or unsourced) answers; but I've seen one or two names on MO which I recognize as taking this kind of question seriously, so maybe good answers will emerge.
My only niggling worry is that there might not be that many people who can give good (as opposed to vague or unsourced) answers
Indeed. But if we take such worries seriously, we would have to disallow questions on all sorts of subjects for which there is a shortage of resident experts, not just history. That is not the way to build a community.
Harald: perhaps I underestimate the collective wisdom of our community. Glad to see Pythagoras mentioned on the "myths which have been debunked page", too.
Triplets, meaning? Do you mean a set, a Sigma-algebra, and a probability measure? Or what?
Mariano wrote:
it often happens that very bad questions get very very good answers. I blame Joel for the most part...
Mariano, I apologize. But what is a person to do, when someone asks a question containing the germ of an interesting idea, and one has something interesting to say about it?
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