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Community: Has anyone mentioned MathOverflow activity in a recommendation letter yet?

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    This question got me thinking: in recommendation letters, it's normal to describe how you know the candidate and how they've shown you their mathematical acumen (have you read their papers? heard their talks? collaborated with them?). Have any of you written (or read) any that discuss the recommender's interactions with the candidate on MO?

    • CommentAuthorgrp
    • CommentTimeMar 13th 2011
     
    My take is that MathOverflow is young enough for a detailed recommendation to be pointless; someone who does not look at MathOverflow regularly will not appreciate its impact, while a regular will need only the assurance (perhaps with backup) that recommendee Y participates as username Z on MathOverflow.

    Once MathOverflow is recognized as something like a community service (e.g. this undergraduate helped out several graduate students and an assistant professor in solving these problems), it might look good on a recommendation letter, but still not as good as circulated (not necessarily printed) publications/results, unless MathOverflow will have an MOArchive section for such results.

    There are certain people who I think are undergraduates, have actively participated on MathOverflow, and appear to show a substantial knowledge in several areas of mathematics (Qiaochu Yuan and Harry Gindi, to name two). However, they might also each be a team of hackers, AIs, and graduate students posing as such individuals. I would be more cautious and ask people who are willing to say "Yes, I've met him/her and am impressed by his non-MathOverflow persona" before I was willing to invite someone to share grant money at my institution.
    So I would not weight MathOverflow contributions heavily, even for such individuals should they turn out to be individuals and not teams.

    Then again, I stopped being a professional academic years ago, so I may be totally wrong.

    Gerhard "Amateurs Do It For Pleasure" Paseman, 2011.03.13
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    I think it's rare to get a recommendation letter from somebody you've never met in person. There's no reason not to throw the question open to interactions on blogs, wikis, or by (e)mail as well.

    I would imagine it's normal for this sort of thing to be mentioned in a recommendation letter (Pete Clark mentioned that his MO activity made it into his tenure dossier), but it would be strange—indeed, suspicious—if it were the only line through which the recommender knows the person.

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    I sense from the answers that people are slightly misreading my question. For the sake of concreteness, let me choose an example: if Jim Humphreys were asked to write a letter for me (say, for my tenure file; I wouldn't even know he had written it in this case) he would certainly have plenty of basis for it. We've talked in person, he's seen a couple of my talks, and I know he's read some of my papers. He could also say he had (or had not) been impressed my his interactions with me on MO; for the sake of argument, maybe I could have written a brilliant answer to one of his questions (I haven't). I'm wondering if someone in a (roughly) similar situation has decided to include the MO stuff.

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    I am on the admissions committee for UMich grad school this year. I can report that I have received a small number of recommendations for undergraduates which refer to those undergrad's activity on Mathoverflow. It is usually in the context of a recommender saying that the student is unusually mathematically mature, where the ability to participate in discussions in a community dominated by older professionals is given as evidence of this maturity.

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