tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around)

Vladimir Dotsenko comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17955)

2011-12-29T06:41:28-08:00

@quid:

Let me admit that my attempt to express my viewpoint here was a big mistake, and I would try my best to minimise my participation in discussions on meta. I just don't have energy and strength for that. Provocative comments like the first one of yours do not affect me much, but the comment of markvs enthusiastically expanding on that provocative comment (which I accidentally stumbled upon now) made me uncomfortable. If you are interested to know my opinion on appropriateness of those five questions, could you please find a way to ask me about it privately (e-mail or something)? I don't think I want to revive any discussions here.

KConrad comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17750)

2011-12-19T13:45:50-08:00

@Alexander: I'm not interested in blocking any particular style of questions right now, and for the most part I do pass by many questions without looking at them.

Alexander Chervov comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17740)

2011-12-19T06:40:20-08:00

@quid Thank you for your answer, I partly agree with your concerns.
However let me point some objections.

1) "Front page" - it seems to me easy to control - admins may configure it to exclude such kind of "soft-suspicious or whatever" questions...

2) "Audience just for this" - that is my point - why we should afraid of this if those who do not like - can block it ?
I am not sensitive person I will not block anything - if I am not interested I am not looking ...
I guess some people think like me, but others can block...

3) "one will rather sooner than later get bored around here and leave"
well, how many would leave ? Internet, and in particular MO are a kind of drug - not easy to stop :):)
Also currently - if you need to ask something what is the alternative - sci.math.research ? It is not so cool ...
My subjective opinion - not many will leave, but of course, I might be wrong...
Wikipedia - is much more controversy site - but people still there...

4) "soft questions are more likely to cause controversy in various ways" - yep, that is main problem, seems to me. My question is an example - how easy controversy arise and make people unhappy...

-------

Any way it seems to me that the problem not in some logical reason - "influence hiring", "spoiling front-page" - this does not seem to me actual reason. But reason is psychological - people just do not like MO to become "softer", because 1) just do not like 2) they afraid it might spoil it...
But this is just "subjective and argumentative" opinion. I mean: it might be spoiled - might be not - only God knows - not us....
But of course if many people think so - then it becomes a reason by itself.

quid comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17738)

2011-12-19T05:27:39-08:00

I was somewhat in favor of the particular question but am in general rather sceptic towards soft/list and alike. The general problem regarding why just blocking categories is no really solution was discussed on occassion. Opinions are a bit mixed. My opinion is that one main problem is the general 'image' of the site and which audience it (thus) attracts.

At the moment one can say to somebody, got to www.mathoverflow.net and have a look at front page to see what it is like. Now, if one would start allowing all kinds of things because properly tag people can block it, one would start to explain if you just see the site it does not look good there is all kind of strange stuff. But if you create an account and then in your profie you need just to add this this this and that tag as ignored; and then have an other look it is about alright. Then this could be a problem.

Also, if there are too many soft questions there is a danger of getting much active audience that is here just for this. This might also cause problems. At the moment, if one does not care about roughly speaking research level math one will rather sooner than later get bored around here and leave, which automatically and non-invasively limits the users group to the intended one.

Finally, soft questions are more likely to cause controversy in various ways. This would also have been a danger for this one (I thought for this one, one could keep this under control, but I can see why others disagree). This controversy than spills over eg to meta and so on.

Alexander Chervov comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17734)

2011-12-19T05:01:35-08:00

@Keith
What do think: can "blocking" categories be a solution to such problems ? Just "if do not want - do not look" ?
I understand that problem might not be that simple, but ...

PS
Yep, I looked his page - amusing, strange that I did not seen it before.

KConrad comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17730)

2011-12-19T01:46:16-08:00

@Alexander: It is not the case that I have blocked the soft question category.

Concerning the optical illusion, it appears on Kitaoka's page http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/index-e.html and underneath in small type it is indicated that the image is from (no later than) 2003.

Alexander Chervov comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17672)

2011-12-18T03:25:37-08:00

Sorry I just included the link but it uploaded the picture automatically,
but may be it is even better like this.
PS
Picture above from Keith's Conrad homepage with the comment:
"(The figures are not really moving. This is due to Akiyoshi Kitaoka. See here for more information.)"

Alexander Chervov comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17671)

2011-12-18T03:22:47-08:00

Guys, would not it be a solution to the problems if those who do not want to see such things, would be able not to see them automatically ?

As far as I understand from Keith's post he blocked category "soft-question" - why this would not be a solution ?
I guess, that "block" is too soft, since he arrived here - but may be it possible to make "strict blocking" - that if one do not want to see something it will not showed up ?

PS
@Keith amused by your Russian and by this optical illusion
http://www.math.uconn.edu/~kconrad/opticalillusion.png
I've seen many but this is most striking.
When was it created ? If 2010 you must put it as an answer to my question :):):)

quid comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17609)

2011-12-15T10:59:34-08:00

@Vladimir Dotsenko: Thank you for the reply. First, in retrospect, I should have phrased my first comment differently. Sorry about that. Yet, it was indeed at least also trying to understand your point of view (tough to that end a different phrasing without the provocative touch would have been admittedly more productive). And, sure trying to understand the other person's point of view is important. But, perhaps, if I may say so, since you were so far not active on meta (not sure whether you read it), it might also not have been a bad idea to elaborate on your point of view a bit more. There was nothing to understand, it was a general negative statement.

What I mean is that it is unclear what to you are "questions like this." I can assure you that some people here will understand all five I listed as "questions like this" in this context. Now, after your explanation I/we know that this is in fact not your opinion. Or, when you say that you agree with Ryan that "The reason MO is a success is in part because it has a narrow mission." then it is not clear what this "narrow mission" is in your opinion. The default assumption would be you also share Ryan's opinion on this mission, but from what he tends to say in such discussion I doubt that he will consider 3 of these 5 as fine, and 1 borderline. And which is which? In case at a latter point in time you should have time for further elaboration, I would be interested in it, since your point of view seems not to fall into some of the 'standard categories' on meta-MO and as such would be interesting to have docuemnted in more detail.

Not to take this thread off-topic, I think a somewhat similar purpose could be served if you could say what exactly it is that you dislike about the current question. Say, that it is 'just yet another list' that it is 'subjective' that it is 'possibly controversial' that it 'could influence hiring decisions' that it is 'useless as the information is readily available elesewhere' to paraphrase some of the objections made so far.

ADDED: to my considerable embarssement, I notice that I overlooked one short comment of you yesterday in this thread. This makes some of my assertions irrelevant. However, if it is the subjective and argumentive problem it is not clear to me how this question is so much worse than the less subjective and argumentative of 'qualities of a teacher' and 'a single paper everyone should read', at least one of which you (still) consider as at least borderline. But then perhaps even fine as I guess the one described as a bit on the silly side would be cocktail party.

Vladimir Dotsenko comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17608)

2011-12-15T09:02:55-08:00

@quid: first of all, I hope I don't need to say that the category "annoying" is as subjective as possible. (In other words, for a claim containing these words an 'IMO' prefix is assumed.)

Second, in a forum discussion (or any discussion, to that matter), there are two common strategies, - to try and understand the opponent's viewpoint, and to convince "the audience" that the opponent is wrong. I believe that you can see how the two last comments you made easily seem to belong to the two different categories (which might have been Scott's concern - for which I express my deep gratitude).

Finally, the answer to your question is that, most importantly, my opinion of what is suitable for MO evolved with time, and while during my first few months on MO I would not feel strongly about the question we are discussing, I do feel strongly about it now. However, it is also true that among the questions I answered that you chose to express your concern about my viewpoint, my current standing is that three out of five are fine, one sort of silly and borderline unsuitable, and one, indeed, completely not suitable for MO. Elaborating on that properly would take more time that I have at the moment, I am sorry about that.

markvs comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17605)

2011-12-15T08:46:50-08:00

I see that there have not been any recent achievements in any area outside group theory, combinatorics and theoretical computer science. I guess if everybody agrees with that statement, the question can indeed be closed and we can return to the productive discussions about raising mathematician and cocktail parties.

quid comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17604)

2011-12-15T07:36:18-08:00

@Scott Carnahan: I do not see why this is an attack, it was a perhaps provocative question, as a response to a particularly strong claim. Basically Vladimir Dotsenko asserts that for example I, but a couple of other people too, are doing something (endorsing this question) that will inevitably turn MO into something annoying.

In addition in this case I really cannot see what anonymity has to do with this. Everybody can check what I say here against what I do on MO too.

Also, I am really curious whether he at some point in time changed his mind regarding what is and is not good content on MO (I changed my mind on some MO related things over time, too), or somehow wanted to make an abstract point that inadvertently got phrased a bit too strongly (IMO) and was rather meant in the way what eg Andrew said (and btw me too on other occassions) or sees a difference between the current question and those other questions or still something else.

So, could you please explain me at what type of 'attack' you see this.

ADDED: Since I just refound it, let me add that nobody objected to the following sentence "I note that your expressed view is not entirely consistent with your own questions and answers." (in a similar discussion and context, which expresses exactly the same thing.)

Scott Carnahan comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17603)

2011-12-15T07:16:38-08:00

@quid: I object to this sort of attack, especially from anonymous contributors.

quid comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17602)

2011-12-15T06:41:26-08:00

@Vladimir Dotsenko: since you seem to have so strong feelings about this, may I ask you when you arrived at this insight. I assume after answering: A single paper everyone should read, How have mathematicians been raised, Cocktail party math, What are qualities of a good math taecher, Choosing postdocs

Andrew Stacey comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17599)

2011-12-15T03:33:44-08:00

Michal Kotowski: Quite the opposite! It makes perfect sense. If this type of question were common on MO, then those who wanted to set up an alternative forum would have a struggle because everyone would say, "Oh, but we can post those on MO". By closing them and saying "Take them elsewhere" we're helping build up the momentum for the "elsewhere" to exist.

Quid's quite right. I've said many times, and so has Scott Morrison, that I'd be happy to set up such a forum - it would take me about 5 minutes to do - I just don't want to moderate it. So far, no-one has even shown the slightest bit of interest in the idea so my conclusion is that all the people who shout loudly for such a place don't really want it.

The link to Gowers' posts is apt. It's very easy to have ideas, and very good ideas, but not so easy to put them into place. MO is a realisation of a good idea, I think that the nLab/nForum is as well. But I spent a fair amount of time and effort with others thinking about a review site before concluding that it was beyond me (and them) so talk is cheap, as you say.

This particular question matches just about every single one of my "Bad MO Question" signs. What is the point of it? What are people going to do with this information? Are people really going to read those articles (or whatevers) and conclude "This is what 2010 will be remembered for" (why 2010, by the way?). Or is it just a nice warm fuzzy list that's a bit different from the usual lists one gets at this time of year?

The link to Gowers' post is doubly apt because this sort of information is really what journals should be providing. The Journal of K-Theory really should list those articles that the editorial board feels that everyone worker in K-Theory should read, regardless of whether they've been published elsewhere.

So I'm voting to close. I agree with Vladimir that as this type of question becomes more prevalent then my motivation for participating in MO lessens.

Vladimir Dotsenko comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17598)

2011-12-15T02:24:51-08:00

@Ryan: I could not agree more with "The reason MO is a success is in part because it has a narrow mission." I do believe that endorsing questions like this one, even in the form it's been edited into now will inevitably make MO into a rather annoying discussion forum. (Which for me, for instance, will remove any further motivation to contribute.)

DavidRoberts comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17592)

2011-12-14T20:48:51-08:00

@Yemon +Graham's number (to the power of A(G,G)) :P

Yemon Choi comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17590)

2011-12-14T20:29:18-08:00

@Ryan: +Skewes number.

Ryan Budney comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17589)

2011-12-14T20:00:20-08:00

@michalkotowski, A rather extreme way of putting what you're saying into words would be: there's a group of people unwilling to put the effort into creating the forum they want, so we should allow them to do whatever they like with MO, regardless of how far off MO's mandate that would take the forum.

The reason MO is a success is in part because it has a narrow mission. It isn't plugged-up with opinion pieces, pleas for funding, conference announcements, award announcements, sob stories, CV polishing and such. Because people don't want to read that stuff when they come here. They want actual mathematics.

michalkotowski comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17588)

2011-12-14T19:48:42-08:00

@Ryan Budney: all I'm saying is that it makes no sense to oppose allowing such questions on MO and at the same do nothing to establish an alternative forum for such discussions.

quid comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17585)

2011-12-14T17:19:35-08:00

My reading of michalkotowski's comment is that using/allowing to use MO for such things (at least temporarily) would help get the ball rolling. And thus there seems to be an implict suggestion of allowing more on MO. Not to take this thread too much off-topic, at least I will mention something specific to the question too:

While I am in favor of this particular question, I am in general against opening up MO too much. The software is really designed for a highly specific purpose, (ab)using it for other things is just not a good idea.

Yet there are some other activities complementing MO, for example http://www.mathblogging.org/ besides other things makes it easier to follow discussion happening on different blogs. And, they also have a feature to make what Gil Kalai just did for that question (opening a blog post) more efficient by aggregating all such posts on PlanetMO.

Also there is/was (?) an offer by Andrew Stacey to set up a discussion board if and only if somebody volunteers to moderate it. It seems noone ever followed up on this offer.

Ryan Budney comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17584)

2011-12-14T15:24:58-08:00

@michalkotowski: so what are you proposing people do? MO meta isn't intended to be the universal repository of all mathematical activism.

michalkotowski comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17582)

2011-12-14T14:17:51-08:00

While I understand why some users are critical of this type of questions (especially as the original question had a somewhat sensational tone), I wholeheartedly agree with Timothy Chow and the sentiment expressed in his comment:

"Some of you may remember that I once asked an MO question, "How do you find out the latest news in fields other than your own?" At the risk of sounding overly cynical, my summary of the answers would be, "You can't." This is a shame."

As similar "very soft" questions, concerning career advice and other rather subjective meta-mathematical topics, pop up regularly on MO and invariably result in arguments, this IMHO clearly shows that some forum for general discussion about scientific system and similar topics is badly needed. Maybe MO is not the best place for this, but currently there is no prospect of any such venue appearing any time soon. Regarding another comment:

"In fact, recently Tim Gowers has proposed a new MO-like system, where papers can be voted on (the follow-up discussion and post are very interesting too). So things are changing fast, and may be the day your question would be the norm is not too far away."

Unfortunately, many people positive about Gowers' (or similar) ideas limit their commitment to lip service only. This kind of support is of course important, but such a system will never appear out of the blue - there has to be an active, committed group of users willing to actually implement this idea, otherwise for the next few years everybody will say that "This is a good idea" or "the day your question would be the norm is not too far away" and questions like this will still get rejected from MO.

louigi comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17581)

2011-12-14T12:40:45-08:00

This is one of the most interesting community wiki questions I can remember seeing in months. It seems a perfect way to learn about interesting current research directions in different subfields. I for one will be sorry if it stays closed.

Alex Bartel comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17577)

2011-12-14T10:12:36-08:00

Dear Keith: wow! A minor correction: "мне казались (или лучше показались) неуклюжими".

Hailong Dao comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17575)

2011-12-14T08:46:52-08:00

Dear Alexander,

You made many good points, as did Mark and Timothy. I just want to say that our votes to close did not imply that your question is bad. They didn't even imply that there is any better venue for such question. In fact, as Timothy pointed out, there is none. MO is by far the biggest congregation of mathematicians I know of, and I can see the tremendous temptation to tap in such energy for essentially a good cause. Personally, I would be curious to see the answers too.

Our votes simply indicate some MO members' belief that MO is not yet suitable for such purpose. In fact, recently Tim Gowers has proposed a new MO-like system, where papers can be voted on (the follow-up discussion and post are very interesting too). So things are changing fast, and may be the day your question would be the norm is not too far away.

Cheers,

Long

Timothy Chow comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17574)

2011-12-14T07:29:25-08:00

I like this question, but I also see the force of the argument that it is subjective and argumentative and that we do not want to influence hiring decisions.

I would like to echo the comment of markvs that this information is not easy to come by otherwise. Math Reviews once experimented with "Featured Reviews," which were longer reviews of certain papers that were considered by the editors to be interesting enough to highlight. The editors knew that they were being subjective (e.g., the subject matter of Featured Reviews was skewed towards the areas of interest of the most prolific and articulate reviewers), but did not see this as a deal-breaker at first. However, MR soon discontinued Featured Reviews, and I heard through the grapevine that it was precisely for the same reasons that are being articulated here; they were being unwittingly thrust into the role of adjudicating which publications were "the best," and thereby influencing decisions about hiring and promotion.

It seems to me that the mathematical research community could benefit from more knowledge of what is going on in areas other than one's own narrow research area. Admittedly, MO may not be the right venue, but I'm at a loss to suggest a better one. The Cipra/Mackenzie series of What's Happening in the Mathematical Sciences is excellent, but there's only so much one writer can cover, no matter how talented and energetic. The only other alternative at present is to look at winners of various prizes. This again is a very short list, and will miss a lot of very interesting stuff that doesn't necessarily have the flashiness to win a prize.

Some of you may remember that I once asked an MO question, "How do you find out the latest news in fields other than your own?" At the risk of sounding overly cynical, my summary of the answers would be, "You can't." This is a shame.

KConrad comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17573)

2011-12-14T07:14:43-08:00

@Mark, @Alexander: Я не имел в виду, что обязательно писать очень хорошо по-английски, но тем не менее выбор и порядок слов в названии и начальной части вопроса мне казались неуклюжие (в смысле песенки крокодила гены :)).

Todd Trimble comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17572)

2011-12-14T07:13:38-08:00

Thanks, Benjamin. It's all clear now.

quid comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17571)

2011-12-14T07:09:24-08:00

I tried to rewrite the question in the spirit of this discussion. Also voted to reopen. Just think about it, we cannot give the impression everything only happened in Group Theory, Combinatorics, and Computer Science ;D Kidding aside, I can also understand if it stays close but I also think it could be an interesting list if all goes well.

bsteinberg comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17570)

2011-12-14T06:55:18-08:00

Todd, I just retagged it to include big-list.

Todd Trimble comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17569)

2011-12-14T06:23:25-08:00

@Alexander Chervov: thanks for your gracious response. You seem to have seen that I simply wanted to help avoid any misunderstandings, but I'm sorry if I seemed to express myself too strongly. (By the way, I didn't know you were the OP; I saw Benjamin Steinberg's name.)

quid comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17568)

2011-12-14T05:45:56-08:00

@Alexander Cherov: OP means Original Poster, that is in this case you.

Alexander Chervov comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17567)

2011-12-14T05:40:50-08:00

@Mark, thanks again. PS. What is "OP" ?

markvs comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17566)

2011-12-14T05:17:36-08:00

About the language of the question: English does not seem to be the native language of the OP. So all these "should" and "must" are just literate translations of Russian words which do not have as much "force" as their English analogs. As a result what a native English speaker would consider rude is actually a not quite adequate translation of a benign Russian text. Asking everybody on MO to use proper English is in fact quite (and intentionally) rude, IMHO.

markvs comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17565)

2011-12-14T05:07:30-08:00

I do not really object to closing the question since there are 10 people who do not like it, but I think we are loosing a good opportunity. It is not true that one has other venues to find an answer. Everybody has different answers to that question (which is quite normal), and even two people in my field will have different answers, all answers being equally correct. So if you want to find my opinion about the top recent achievements in my area of research, you have no other way than reading it on MO (I would not answer personal emails like that and I do not have a blog for this). Similarly, I can find out opinions of some number theorists about their field. But I am not sure their opinion will coincide with the opinion of KConrad (in fact I am quite sure that the people I would ask have quite different opinion than he). So there is no other way for me to find out what he thinks. The same thing about algebraic geometry, functional analysis, etc.

Alexander Chervov comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17564)

2011-12-14T04:26:05-08:00

"Noteworthy achievements in and around 2010" - good idea you are welcome to change. As for me - gist the same - words are not important, but I admit other people may "cringe" ...

Todd Trimble comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17563)

2011-12-14T04:16:59-08:00

I'm not a fan of the question either. One thing I find irritating and which could easily be fixed are the normative words "must" and "should". What everybody must know? Gimme a break. What everybody should know? Says you. If this question must stay open ;-), then why not change the title to "Noteworthy achievements in and around 2010" or something similar?

Alexander Chervov comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17562)

2011-12-14T03:19:32-08:00

What harm this question makes ?

1) "Influence of hiring decisions" - see Mark's comment above

Nothing except this sounded.

What is use of this question ?
Obviously we get more educated. The answers seems to be quite interesting - since people upvoted them.

"the MO population is quite skewed towards certain subfields" - I think people know it and correct it in their mind, but I do not see any harm from this.

"If you're interested in a subject you have other avenues to find out about recent developments" - I think it is NOT true for many people,
1) people working for industry, but willing to keep some relation with "previous life" - like me (I cannot go for conference, seminars and etc and not much time for digesting the journals - it is much more easy to look at MO ...)
2) Students - they just do NOT know the "other avenues" ...
3) people from "not rich" countries are also restricted in rolling the conferences which is obviously one these "other avenues"

Vladimir Dotsenko comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17561)

2011-12-14T02:22:18-08:00

I think that it's hard to imagine something more subjective and argumentative than the question being discussed. It's good that it got closed again.

markvs comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17560)

2011-12-13T22:42:14-08:00

@Keith: Am I right and there were no major achievements in number theory/algebraic geometry in 2010-2011?

markvs comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17559)

2011-12-13T22:36:37-08:00

@Scott: lots of different things influence hiring decisions.Do not worry: a single MO post (and even many MO posts) would not be a deciding issue.

KConrad comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17558)

2011-12-13T21:58:53-08:00

For those who like this question (personally I have no enthusiasm for it) could one of you please rewrite the question? The incorrect English makes me cringe, esp. in the title and introductory paragraph.

Ryan Budney comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17557)

2011-12-13T19:25:29-08:00

I agree with Scott and Hailong, this is starting to sound too political.

Hailong Dao comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17556)

2011-12-13T18:50:09-08:00

I think this question sets a dangerous precedent. Questions like this are always very popular (see, for example this one) but they are not quite appropriate for MO.

In addition, the MO population is quite skewed towards certain subfields, so I am not sure the answers (and their ranking by votes) will paint a very accurate picture.

Also, +1 to what Scott Carnahan just wrote.

Scott Carnahan comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17555)

2011-12-13T18:35:50-08:00

Now that we have solid evidence that answers to this question are likely to influence hiring decisions, we might ask: is this an outcome we want? It seems that such a situation will create unfortunate incentives.

quid comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17554)

2011-12-13T18:13:31-08:00

@Zeeshan Mahmud: below your answer you have a small button 'edit' (assuming you are logged in, else log in). Click on it. Then you get a window just like the one you had when answering orginally (where you could also chnage the answer if you wanted to). Below this window, there is a small box and to its right it says 'community wiki'. You just need to tick this box and then press the large button 'save your edits' at the very end.

Zeeshan Mahmud comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17553)

2011-12-13T17:53:43-08:00

I am willing to make my answer to the question CW. Please advice.

quid comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17552)

2011-12-13T17:15:10-08:00

I agree with Gjergji on everything.

Just to summarize the CW issue, which confused me myself for a while (I only recently learned this thanks to David White).

As soon as the question is CW all new answers will be automatically CW (in particular if it is so from the start all answers are CW).
An OP turning a question into CW does not affect existing answers (as can be seen from the one answer to said question); of course each answerer can individually from the start or also afterwards turn the answer into CW (so one could leave a comment on the answer to request this, this happens sometimes).
A moderator turning a question into CW can make it so that the existing answers are also turned into CW, I believe they can do this more efficiently than turning each answer individually into CW (which I think they also could).

For the existing question I already flagged for moderator attention with the request of turning into CW some time ago (when I wrote my comment). As commented on the question in particular due to this answer issue it seems to me that the 'flagging for moderator' is the way to go for CW (if it is not 'on' right away); I already did this succesfully a couple fo times, yet some moderator please correct me if this is not a good practise. [When we switch to SE 2.0 this will always be like this as there only mods can turn questions into CW or the softaware after many edits or answers I beleive but in any case not OPs right away; to some extent this this also explains that some people do not turn there questions into CW themselves, they are not used to having this abilty].

Gjergji comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17551)

2011-12-13T16:01:13-08:00

I believe if the author converts the main post to CW, it does not affect the answers, but if a moderator uses the "wiki hammer" it converts everything to CW.

As for the specific question, I agree with Micheal above. I am very curious to read the answers but I am afraid it might quickly degenerate into a discussion, and therefore find a better home in a blog. On the other hand, I would only vote to close after it starts attracting spam or subjective answers. Perhaps it is a good idea to let the question open for some time.

Michael Greinecker comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17550)

2011-12-13T14:09:40-08:00

I think the topic is very, very interesting and I would like to read what the big shots at MO have to say. But on grounds of principle: I don't know any topic where the "This really belongs on a blog."-argument has more bite.

bsteinberg comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17549)

2011-12-13T13:56:46-08:00

I suppose the authors are unlikely to do so. I guess it is then important to CW soft questions from the get go.

Ryan Budney comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17548)

2011-12-13T13:51:30-08:00

@Gerry: answers are not turned into CW if the thread was converted to CW after the answers were posted. I think maybe Anton can convert everything to CW but otherwise it has to be done by the authors of the answers.

Gerry Myerson comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17547)

2011-12-13T13:46:21-08:00

@bsteinberg, I think that if the question is CW then the answers are automatically CW. I don't think there is any mechanism for making the CW status of the answers retroactive, if that's what you were asking for.

bsteinberg comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17546)

2011-12-13T13:41:46-08:00

If it had been CW to start with I think the question would have been fine. I would reopen if the existing answers became CW.

markvs comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17545)

2011-12-13T13:20:27-08:00

I voted to reopen: I find it very interesting what people from different fields of math consider significant recent achievements. Besides obvious (I think) theoretical interest, for me the answers would be interesting, since I am on the hiring committee in my department.

Ryan Budney comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17543)

2011-12-13T12:05:24-08:00

I suppose I find these kinds of questions just part of the hype echo-chamber. If you're interested in a subject you have other avenues to find out about recent developments. So it's not clear what kind of special role this thread plays, aside from reinforcing already-existing mechanisms for getting news out.

I didn't vote on this thread as I have "soft question" and "big list" blocked. I suppose that's a pretty clear indication of what I think of these types of threads.

Alexander Chervov comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17542)

2011-12-13T12:00:55-08:00

Such question obviously interesting for many. You can see that view number is big now.

So I guess one should have serios reason preventing so many people to discuss what they want.
I do not see any reason like this.

There are many threads like this in MO so closing that particular one does not seem to me fair.

I did not put community wiki flag initially since I simply did not know what is it. Now I put the flag.

quid comments on "What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around" (17541)

2011-12-13T11:11:24-08:00

Meta thread for

What everybody must/should know achievements in 2010 and around

Quick facts: Closed yesterday without much discussion. Now 3 votes to reopen.

Personal opinion: On the minus side it is really subjective and possibly argumentative. IMO, in case it is reopened people should at least please refrain from expressing their disagreement with nominations verbally. On the plus side it could be interesting.