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Etiquette: How long can a MathOverflow question be?

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    • CommentAuthorgrp
    • CommentTimeOct 8th 2010
     
    I am considering adding to one of my questions to revive interest in it, and to give out more
    information which may stimulate an answer. However, the more information will add greatly to the
    length of the question, and will introduce related questions, on which I welcome input.

    I looked at the advice on how to ask, and while it encourages focus, it does not discourage length.
    I like to think my style is readable enough, and will follow the guidelines, but I have heard from
    few critics about any of my writing besides the taglines I use in posts and comments. Would
    the MathOverflow community read a lengthy addition to a previous question of mine?

    For reference, the longest question I've posted is also my first. It is at
    http://mathoverflow.net/questions/31337/how-do-i-fix-someones-published-error .
    I measure it as about 4 screens in length. The question I wish to lengthen is at
    http://mathoverflow.net/questions/37679/erik-westzynthiuss-cool-upper-bound-argument-update .
    I measure this one at about 3 screens in length, and may potentially add up to 6 more screens
    worth to it. Assuming consistency in quality, will it turn out to be too long to ask?

    Although I am interested primarily in human tolerances, if the software limits posts to under
    8000 bytes, I may have a different problem. Information on the SE software tolerance is also desired.

    Gerhard "Am I Saying Too Much" Paseman, 2010.10.08
  2.  
    I suspect that you'll have better luck if you can break it up in to multiple questions, especially given that this is an addition to a previous question. My (not entirely intentional) modus operandi for long questions is to read the first couple of paragraphs, skim down to see how long the question is, and then weight risk vs. reward of how enthralling the first couple of paragraphs were versus how much time I'll need to devote to get to the end. (Things other than length are probably involved here...quality of writing, amount of notation, jargon I don't know, etc.) For a question where people have *already* seen the first couple of paragraph, I doubt you're going to get as much renewed interest as worth the effort to add 6 new screens of text.

    On the other hand, I'm personally of the feeling (though am a little unsure as to community standards) that there's nothing wrong with polishing it up a little, especially to *narrow* the focus of the question, with an edit to bring it up to the front page.
  3.  

    As long as it's sensible material, I don't think anyone objects to you writing a long question. On the other hand, I don't think many people are going to have the patience to make it all the way through. Be ready for an upvoted "tl;dr" comment at the bottom.

  4.  

    @Ben: wow... I have to thank you for this. I've been seeing this "tl;dr" business around forums for quite a bit, and never understood what it stood for. And since it didn't look like it was contributing to the discussion, I never bothered looking it up.

    And suddenly, after your comment here, my word-game synapses fired and I can parse the abbreviation. Cheers!

  5.  

    e/n tl;dr

  6.  
    For the longest time I assumed "ftw" stood for "f*** the what", by analogy with "wtf". I had no idea what people meant by such a cryptic phrase, but I just chalked it up to the strangeness of the internet.
    • CommentAuthorHarry Gindi
    • CommentTimeOct 8th 2010 edited
     

    ftw = for the whales, right?

  8.  
    • CommentAuthorWill Jagy
    • CommentTimeOct 9th 2010
     
    Gerhard, assuming you have not finished this yet, the way my first question worked out may be suitable fer yew. I already had a website or two on a friend's host machine, still do. In particular one page on one of them was entirely pdf's related to my question, as I had worked on it for a long time. By the time I decided to put the question on MO, it was long but not insanely so, because I was able to reference various proofs I had already done. The question was pretty successful, I think several qualified people read the whole thing, and Kevin Buzzard solved it, with some help from H. Lenstra. So, while explaining nothing and having a bunch of links would not be so good, some of each seemed to work out. To put it another way, the books The Lord of the Rings worked out so well because The Silmarillion had already been written.

    http://mathoverflow.net/questions/12486/integers-not-represented-by-2-x2-x-y-3-y2-z3-z

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