I am very concerned by this question, and also by the responses we are seeing. A year or so ago, we discussed whether or not MO should be used to discuss the merits of recent preprints here and also here. Various views were expressed, but I think there was general agreement that MO is not an appropriate venue to discuss recent preprints in detail and that authors should be treated with respect.

Unfortunately, the responses to 104695 violate both these principles; in particular, the author has been ridiculed. I am very concerned about what this means for the culture of MO.

2 @Max Alekseyev, congratulations on the Riordan Prize. – Fred Kline 4 hours ago

2 @FredKline: Wow! This is an unexpected place for congratulations. ;) Thank you! – Max Alekseyev 32 mins ago

Strictly speaking, those comments are indeed irrelevant to the topic, and so they are about to be duly deleted in response to the flags.

However, I find it a pity that a note of congratulations and thanks in return are so urgently hit with flags. Such comments are harmless and contribute to a generally friendly spirit which is sometimes missing. I'd feel the same way about dealing with a good joke in a comment: yes, technically such might be considered "too chatty" according to SE guidelines, but who cares?

Plus, I was glad to have learned in this way of Max's winning the Prize, and would like to second those congratulations to him.

"self-conscious guys" -> "self-conscious men and women". Also note the assumption that the OP is male. – Greg Martin 20 hours ago

@GregMartin (a) I use "guys" as a unisex idiom (b) it is not hard to find out who the OP is – Yemon Choi 19 hours ago

Your intention might be for "guys" to be a unisex idiom, but that doesn't make it one. – Greg Martin 10 hours ago

Maybe I better should not as a non-native but...I changed "guys" to "folks" as I think it should be (more) gender neutral but otherwise rather similar. In any case, it seems to translate to the "gens" which might have been what Joël would have written in French. – quid 6 hours ago

@GregMartin Fair point. – Yemon Choi 4 hours ago

@GregMartin - I suppose this is getting more and more off-topic, but it is a fact about modern American English usage that the word "guys" can be used in a gender-neutral way. See, e.g., economist.com/blogs/johnson/2012/10/slang – alex 2 hours ago

@alex maybe so, but while the text under your link says: 'But it doesn't go into the fact that in modern American English, "guys" in the plural can be directed at a mixed-sex or even an all-female group.' please note it says "directed at," not say "refer to." Indeed, it later says explicitly: ' "Guys" works as a vocative to an all-girl group: "Let's go, guys!" But it doesn't work as a noun referring to them: "The guys are coming over". (Perhaps some people use "guys" this way for women, but I don't think I've heard it.)' And the latter is the usage present. – quid 58 mins ago

Another fact: We control what language we use. Another fact: Language affects culture, and not always for the better. Using male nouns/pronouns to represent all genders has a long history, of course, but it reinforces our stereotypes that maleness is the "default" human status and femaleness is some sort of add-on. In particular, this reinforces the stereotype that math is a man-thing. And that stereotype is extremely harmful. That is why I choose not to hide behind the "fact" you mention. – Greg Martin 57 mins ago

The same point is made on the SE site for English Language & Usage: "Is 'guy' gender-neutral" – quid 55 mins ago

Although I have no wish to drag things on further (Greg is welcome to email me if he feels this would be profitable, salutory, etc) I suggest that since the text has been corrected, the whole discussion starting with Greg's first comment be moved to chat, so as to avoid someone coming along in a few weeks' time and restarting arguments devoid of initial context. – Yemon Choi 23 mins ago

Also this is a test to see if or who is following.

Is there anybody out there? :-)

Maybe I should elaborate a tiny bit: I see three possibly answers here:

1. History questions are not welcome in general;
2. History questions are welcome, but the question in question (!) is not good and should be closed.
3. History questions are welcome, and this question is a perfectly good such and should not be closed.

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.

Since I can't see deleted questions, I can't give links; but I assume I'm not the only one who's recognized the pattern.

MO seems like a good place to answer such a question definitively. It is similar in genre to a question recently asked by Greg Kuperberg that tries to straighten out the facts about a particular widely circulated urban legend.

However, after seeing several discussions here on meta about non-technical questions, I get the impression that a sizable number of regular participants don't want questions like this on MO. Should I pose it or not?

Please report bugs or feature requests here.

21 December 2013, 9:09pm UTC

Second Edit : the message below is about the first version of the question, before it was deeply edited and changed by Todd Trimble. I have nothing serious to complain about the new question.

Okay, let me weigh in by saying that this question is a disgrace for this site.

I have nothing against question about mathematical education, and nothing against question whose answers are primarily opinion-based. But I have a strong hostility against opinion-based question that shows such a contempt for the facts, especially when the asker is "leading a campaign" (quoting his own words) for some cause, however legitimate, and seems more interested into advancing his cause than in searching for the truth. (Why? Probably it's my personal history, coming/fleeing from a country where the basic distinction between fact and opinion is even more forgotten tham elsewhere, but whatever).

So the question of whether Euclidean geometry should be taught or not in Elementary/Middle/High school or their equivalent is legitimate. But as for a pure question of math, one should not rush to answer before the fact expressed in the set-up of the question are recognized as correct.

The facts in question are the affirmation that there were, I quote, << a series of articles in France in the 1960s, authored by the Bourbaki's, preaching the abolition of Euclidean Geometry (EG), as the main mathematical area in high schools of France. Some of the titles of these articles were: "A bas Euclide", "Euclid is dead", "Euclidean Geometry must go" etc. >>

Despite my asking for precisions or references, none was given. Now such an affirmation should be substantiated. While I am certainly ignorant of many things in the history of Bourbaki, what I know makes the OP's assertion highly unlikely. For one thing, Bourbaki as a group was never concerned with high school teaching. As for individual members (since I guess they are what the OP calls "the Bourbaki's"), the ones I can think of couldn't care less about high school program. And perhaps I didn't drink enough today, but even with the best will I can't imagine someone like Cartan, or Serre, or Koszul, signing an opinion in say "Le Monde" with title "A bas Euclide!".

I am voting to close (again), obviously, until the facts are substantiated or retracted.

edited after some comments by the OP. The OP has given some references, but they are just about one talk given by Jean Dieudonné, when he was not anymore a member a Bourbaki. Now there have been perhaps 100 Bourbaki members over the years, and it is probable that any opinion $o$ on any subject has been at some point of time held by one of them. This is of course not enough to conclude that "Bourbaki has made a campaign in favor of $o$" Examples: "Bourbaki has made a campaign against the financing of IHES by the ministry of defense". No, Grothendieck did.

[Comments to follow]

• Please ask a different question; it's impolite and pointless to make a deep edit after accepting an answer. François G. Dorais♦ 1d ago
• @FrançoisG.Dorais: I unaccepted the answer. Please return the question to the previous form. Thanks. Saint Georg 1d ago François G. Dorais♦ 10h ago Saint Georg
• 1 Saint Georg, that is a very impolite thing to do! Please reaccept Joel's answer! François G. Dorais♦ 1d ago

• 8 The definition, and therefore the question, makes no sense. ZF can prove only formulas, and sets of reals are not formulas. You could define that a formula $\phi(x)$ is a "definition of a choice-free well-orderable set" if ZF proves "there is a well ordering on ${x \in \mathbb{R} : \phi(x)}$", but this will not help, as the definition of $A$ and $B$ then still make no sense. In the metatheory, there are only countably many formulas, so the set of all definitions of c.f.w.o.s. is trivially countable, whereas from within the theory, you cannot express the property of being definable by ... Emil Jeřábek 1d ago
• 1 ... a first-order formula, hence the informal collection of sets defined by a formula that is c.f.w.o. is not a set, and as such you cannot speak about its cardinality. Even the collection of all definable sets in a model is not preserved by elementary equivalence, and it models where it happens to be an internal set after all, it may well be anything from countable to the full powerset of the reals. Emil Jeřábek 1d ago
• 1 And of course, one set in a model can be definable by two different formulas, one of which may be c.f.w.o., and the other one not. In fact, every definable set has a definition that is not c.f.w.o. Emil Jeřábek 1d ago
• What do you mean "find"? I'm getting confused by your edit, because sets are semantical objects for set theory. This means that in a given universe some sets of reals will be well-orderable. You don't use the axiom of choice to "find" these well-orders, they exist. Is you are talking about definable subsets that's a whole other thing. I think that the right question, and indeed this is what I interpreted from the question originally, is asking for the set $A={X \subseteq \mathbb{R} | X \text{\ can be well-ordered}}$ and asking what can we prove about the cardinality of $A$ in ZF, [cont.] Asaf Karagila 1d ago
• @EmilJeřábek: How can one define the "clear" notion of a choice free well-orderable set? Is Asaf's answer meaningless too? If not, is it answer of a question different from my question? If yes, what is that question? Saint Georg 1d ago
• 1 My answer, was, it seems (and I agree with Emil) to a slightly different question. About what is provably true about ${X \subseteq \mathbb{R} | X \text{\ can be w.o.}}$, and about its complement. Note, to your edit, that sets are the semantical objects in set theory. If $A$ is a set of reals in a model $M$ either it can or cannot be well-ordered, and the axiom of choice says nothing about it. If we want to ask whether or not every definable (with real parameters?) set of real numbers can be well-ordered, that's another question (whose answer is similar to mine), which admits consistency results. Asaf Karagila 1d ago
• 12 Saint Georg: The appropriate way to react to Emil's criticism is to take some time to digest it, not trying to argue that your question makes sense. Over the past two days or so, you have asked 5 questions and at least 3 had deep flaws demonstrating lack of research. Perhaps you should ask questions on Math.StackExchange until you reach the point that your questions meet the standards expected by the MathOverflow community. François G. Dorais♦ 1d ago 9h ago
• @FrançoisG.Dorais: Was my comment "trying to argue that my question makes sense"? I simply asked about the probable problem because in the first view it seems that Asaf had no problem to understand my question and I had no problem to understand his answer. I asked them (Asaf & Emil) to illustrate the problem more and I received useful explanations. Saint Georg 1d ago

• When I google "Ben Webster math", his webpage is among the first few listed. – Andy Putman 13 hours ago
• Also, the old meta is now at tea.mathoverflow.net. The search functionality is lousy, but google is perfectly capable of searching through it. – Andy Putman 12 hours ago
• @AndyPutman : Obviously I googled "Ben Webster math" before posting this and his webpage was among the first few listed. The page doesn't work. – Michael Hardy 12 hours ago
• At any rate, some way of contacting moderators should be provided. – Michael Hardy 12 hours ago
• You might choose your words with more care. "Concern" is a good choice, whereas "organized abuse" may keep your claim from getting due recognition. Good luck with your pursuit. – The Masked Avenger 12 hours ago
• @TheMaskedAvenger : Regardless of whether I say "concern" or "organized abuse", attention to such a thing from the moderators is obligatory. That's what they sign up for. And if there's organized abuse, is it not the job of the moderators to take cognizance of it? – Michael Hardy 12 hours ago
• @MichaelHardy : Uh, I just visited it and it works fine. It's here : people.virginia.edu/~btw4e – Andy Putman 12 hours ago
• @AndyPutman : This is the page that I found: mathserver.neu.edu/~bwebster At any rate a way to contact all six moderators should be provided, rather than requiring those with concerns to be brought to the moderators' attention to see what they can do without any such way. – Michael Hardy 12 hours ago
• @MichaelHardy : Ben moved from Northeastern to UVA, effective this academic year. – Andy Putman 12 hours ago

My Google email address is private and is not meant to be disclosed to others, especially not to StackExchange. Furthermore, my user account on MathOverflow already has an email address associated to it, and I don't understand why StackExchange would demand another one from me, especially in such a rude manner.

How do I resolve this problem and log in to MathOverflow without StackExchange invading my privacy?

More specifically, every previously linked meta discussion has an invalid link. Is there an option to search and replace all the references to meta.MO by tea.MO?

Over a year ago, we had an extensive discussion about migrating to Stack Exchange 2.0. I remember feeling that just about everybody was in support of migration at the end of it. (I'm going to re-read the thread in case there are any important pitfalls I've forgotten about, but I haven't yet.) My feeling is that migrating will be almost entirely positive, though I expect this post will generate some fear about moving to 2.0. For what it's worth, aside from writing and running a really good Q&A engine, the SE team has been exceptionally generous with their attention and resources over the last 3 years. They want the MO community to be happy.

The main objection last year was that people really liked our current meta, but the folks at SE said that they've baked the SE-style meta into the framework. So we decided to work out some tools for dealing with a two meta system. Then academia season started and we all had to get back to work. Since then, I've become increasingly of the opinion that a pure SE-style meta is the way to go. While our discussion-style meta was certainly invaluable for hashing out community norms, I don't think there was anything in the last year that wouldn't have been well-served by an SE-style meta. Not only that, there would have been a huge benefit: proper integration with the main site. Cf. Dick Palais's comment here: "[T]he problem is that almost no MO users look at meta.MO so it is nearly useless to post it there."

The moderators and I pinged the Stack Exchangers about migration recently. It seems like there is no obstruction to migrating. Here's a summary from Joel Spolsky (SE cofounder/CEO):

Hi Anton!

Here is a summary of my current understanding regarding migrating MathOverflow.net to Stack Exchange 2.0.

1. The terms under which MathOverflow is operated will shift from the "Stack Exchange 1.0" model (under which the site is operated by Fog Creek Software as a service but the data, users, etc. are owned by you) to the "Stack Exchange 2.0" model (under which the site is a community within the Stack Exchange network, owned and operated by Stack Exchange).
2. We will upgrade MathOverflow to the latest software and join it to the Stack Exchange network.
3. Unless explicitly mentioned otherwise in this agreement, MathOverflow will operate like any other Stack Exchange site.
4. Current MathOverflow moderators will remain MathOverflow 2.0 moderators.
5. Before we finalize the migration, we will create a sandbox for you to test the migration. This will be a fully-functioning, fully operational version of MathOverflow running under the latest Stack Exchange software, which you can play around with and test before we have actually moved mathoverflow.net over. Any changes made in the sandbox will be lost when the real migration takes place.
6. The moderator team may submit additional Javascript to Stack Exchange which, if it does not compromise the technical integrity of the network, will be inserted into the footer, allowing some minor modification of the site that is unique to MathOverflow.
7. You will retain ownership of the domain name mathoverflow.net, but you will delegate the DNS operation to us.
8. Should you choose to migrate off of the Stack Exchange network:
   • We will provide the usual creative-commons data dump (which removes all private user information such as passwords and email addresses) complete as of to the migration;
   • We will return DNS control to you;
   • We will implement a system by which MathOverflow users can authenticate with our servers in order to reclaim their account on your new server.
   • Note that our privacy policy would not permit us to give you any user's email, password, or other authentication data if you are not an affiliated entity, thus, we would essentially have to get each user's permission on a one-time basis to transmit their credentials to you. In practical terms this could be as simple as a permission dialog that we present when users first attempt to log on to your server authorizing us to transmit the user's personal information to you.
9. If you don't already have one, I recommend creating a foundation, corporation, or not-for-profit that would own the mathoverflow domain name and serve as the counterparty. That way if something happens to Anton we know who is taking care of the domain name and who has the right to migrate out.

Does this sound like a workable plan?

I asked Joel if we could add a "no ads" term. He said that wouldn't be a problem. Aside from that, everything looks good to me.

Remark: The typical pattern for using CW mode in this way is:

• Have a simple question, e.g. a statement of the original bound, a link to the original paper, and a statement of goal.
• One accepted answer with the main info: the latest known improvement and a timeline of earlier improvements.
• Possibly additional answers with auxiliary information.

In my opinion, cramming everything into the question text is a rather confusing use of this site.

What is this about, my understanding: As far as I understand, from reading around on relevant metas at SE reminded by the mention of it in a related discussion, in the analog of the MO inbox on SE, the StackExchange™ MultiCollider SuperDropdown™ (in the sequel I will abreviate it as in the title to MultiCollider) seems to contain a feature of giving a list of "hot" questions across the full network. And (possibly) there are other places on the network where this list is also displayed.

If a question for some reason or another happens to make this list, it gains significant visibility and thus likely gets even "hotter" and so will (depending on precise subject) attract contributors from throughout the network. These then can vote and comment (due to association bonus) and might somehow interfere with the 'normal' workings of the site. (This issue already is present sometimes, my worry is it could get a lot worse. In particular, popular question on math.SE often have comments like 'This is so great! I only registered to vote this up.').

Based on my understanding of the situation:

I would like if MO would opt-out of being included in the listings of this MultiCollider (as well as other network-wide listings of "hot" questions).

My (vague) understanding is that there are or were some other sites that are not included in this cross-network promotion of questions, for one reason or another. (So this might be a more feasible wish then not giving any assciation bonus at all for MO, which might be still better.)

ps: This is in more implict form burried in a recent other thread, but I thought not many will have read everything there.

Besides this question being generally problematic, it also strikes me first as unansawerable (in completeness) as well as, and most importantly, rather pointless. In addition to having already create a quite aggressive exchange in the comments.

If the questions would at least ask how to avoid accidentally picking a journal of questionable reputation I might consider this as an in principle reasonable question (which does not necessarily mean it should be on MO).

Of course, theoretically, having a completele list of all these journals (leaving matters of subjectivity in some cases aside) would allow one to also answer the question I raise. However, first, a complete list is unlikely to be compiled (as there are many, new ones appear, and so on ) and, second, it seems a most ineffficient way to me to approach the (practical) question I mentioned.

However, it seems to me the distinction between the two questions 'create a complete list' vs 'how to avoid them' is not made in a sufficiently (IMO) clear way by various contributiors in the discussion (in already twenty comments). One could consider this as harmless or even irrelevant yet it [the lack of this distiction being clearly made] appears to me to be a main reason for a already quite agressive exchange in the comments.

(Further note on this exchange: I cannot know if I saw all comments and I know some where (self-)deleted, with good intentions, but I was active in the exchange, in trying to calm it down, with at first some success or so I thought, but quite limited success in the end it seems. From what I saw, and circumstantial evidence, it seems to me that the accusation, not directed at me to be clear but at somebody, that there were 'racist hateful comments' as quite exaggerated and/or incorrect thus the claim seems insulting; that being said a comment I saw, while in my opinion intended as playful [which I tried to convey and thought had achieved, thus everything related to this is gone], reasonably could have been read as insulting, too, which explains the reaction, yet still 'racist hateful' seems very exaggerated and/or incorrect, from what I saw.)

In any case, I would appreciate if this question was reclosed (I have no interest to partcipate in another open/close conflict) and best deleted as soon as possible. Or at the very least the question could be reformualted and the comment thread cleaned.

ps. I thought about handling this via a flag but then since the situation is complex for 140 characters I decided for this way of raising the matter (besides it is in my opinion also somewhat typical and thus possibly of wider interest than the specific case at hand, but this really only in parenthesis). [Added: It occured to me I could raise a flag in addition, which I did, referring to this.]

1) Once we migrate to the network, we will move to a network style meta and keep this meta only for historical purposes. However, we will still need a place to discuss decisions that impact the community and do not belong on the meta site, in particular decisions regarding the MathOverflow company separate from the site itself.

What form should this discussion space take?

A simple vanilla site like our current meta would do but there may be better ideas out there. The only requirement is that we should host it ourselves. We could just keep this meta alive for a while but I think it's better to just move on since the discussions already here are mostly off-topic for the new discussion site.

2) We have been thinking about opening volunteer position at MathOverflow to help out with "community relations." I've often heard people say that there should be a moderator blog or something like that but none of the current moderators are very interested in doing that. This has been a problem lately since the moderators actually have a lot more to say than usual because of the migration. The actual duties of this position are not yet well defined, we hope that the community and the volunteer will have a vision for it.

(a) What would be the exact role of this position? (b) Any volunteers for such a position?

To start things off, I present:

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/127190/is-there-an-observer-dependent-mathematics-closed

I believe the automatic deletion of tags that are not used stopped working a while ago (possibly related to the ongoing event of badges not working).

This is somewhat unfortunate since cetain tags then tend to get used quite a bit, for example combinatorics got already quite a bit (3 in addition to the creation) questions [I retagged them]. Just very recently number-theory got created which experience shows has a similar 'attracting force' for (mis-)tags (as well as some others: prime, numbers, differential,...).

I do not know if the automatic deletion can somehow be 'restarted', which would be optimal. If not, the purpose of this post would be to ask if a moderator could manually delete at least the most 'dangerous' (as regards usage) 'empty' tags in the 'recently created tags' list. Thanks in advance.

Added: since badges just restarted to work, the same might go for auto-deletion. I could not yet observe it but for the moment I am hopeful and thus retact the above made request as it might be obsolete.

Added 2: indeed it works now.

Our current MathJax setup doesn't automatically upgrade to new versions (and is still back at 2.0). Two questions:

1. Should I change the MathJax setup to automatically use the latest stable version?
2. Should we use the "bleeding edge" MathJax 2.2 beta right now?

It seems we are a pretty good candidate site for trying out their beta for them --- we have lots of eyes, people care about the typesetting looking right, and there's a reasonable chance that if problems are noticed feedback would at least reach meta. On the other hand maybe it's not worth the bother, or on the whole we'd prefer the safety of a stable version.

To the question "how many mathematicians are there" , anybody with a strictly positive IQ can smugly retort "Define mathematician !" and go away convinced that he has dealt the question a death-blow.
The point is exactly that the question asks for some well defined proxy for being a mathematician and then deduce some number for that altered definition.
I was exhilarated to discover (more than two years ago) that four brilliant answers did exactly that and the amazing conclusion is that all these answers give the same order of magnitude: there are about 100000 mathematicians on earth.

What are you saying? You disagree, now that I made you aware of that result? Too late, you can no longer give your counter-arguments as an answer nor as a comment because five users (on a site with more than 18500 registered users, among whom are at least four Fields medalists) on this site have decided that it is now forbidden to discuss the question any further.

I would like to add that I don't see how a mathematician could not be interested in those numbers at a time when positions are not particularly easy to get.
And who else but MathOverflowers will give you the answer?

Finally and more generally I would like to emphasize that some "soft" questions should be more welcome than the hard, tough, technical ones, which some macho users are so eager to publicize as the only ones they will tolerate. Here is why:

I think that more than half of the 32000 questions here could be answered by just Pierre Deligne , Ofer Gabber and Terence Tao if they so wished and had the time: my point is that there is no lack of expertise in the world, but I'm not sure that even these luminaries could answer my question as well as our community taken together: a manifestation of the wisdom of crowds
And this is why soft but unmistakenly mathematical questions should only be closed with the utmost care.
Moreover the huge number of users due to the success of our site makes it preposterous that just five people with no special legitimacy other than having passed the low barrier of 3000 "reputation" points can prevent all other users to interact with a question.
(I know there are constraints due to the software but I am sure that any clear policy adopted by users on closing questions can be implemented just by being stated: this is a civilized site!)

http://dumps.mathoverflow.net/, or
http://ifile.it/soyqa09/MOdump20100303.zip

I cannot reproduce your equality in Mathematica: your rhs is about 49, see code: N[(-Zeta'''[1/2]/Abs[Zeta[1/2]] - 3 Zeta''[1/2] Zeta'[1/2]/Abs[Zeta[1/2]]^2 - 2 Zeta'[1/2]^3 Abs[Zeta[1/2]]^3 - Pi^3/4)/7, 30] – Per Alexandersson 2 days ago

@Per I don't have Mathematica. Is it possible you are working with low precision? This Wolfram Alpha query returns error 10^(-15): wolframalpha.com/input/…z_2z_1%2Fz_12^2+-2*z_1^3%2Fz_12^3+-+pi^3+%2F+%284%29%29%2F7%29%2Cz_3%3DRiemannZeta%27%27%27[1%2F2.0]%2Cz_2%3DRiemannZeta%27%27[1%2F2.0]%2Cz_1%3DRiemannZeta%27[1%2F2.0]%2Cz_12%3DAbs%28RiemannZeta%281%2F2.0%29%29 – joro 2 days ago
1

@Per: you are missing a / in the second to last term. – Jack Huizenga 2 days ago

@Jack: Thanks! – Per Alexandersson 2 days ago

Several points:

1) I said that referring to a previous question (c.f. http://mathoverflow.net/questions/19679/seeing-math-when-viewing-abstracts-on-arxiv-org-closed) as "closed by the MO thought police" was rude. I stand by this. Calling someone "thought police" clearly denigrates them. Obviously, one is allowed to identify real "thought police" when they appear, but I think you're clearly against the consensus here: the people who closed the previous question left well thought out explanations of why they closed the question.

2) Closing a question is not rude, and I think it's important for everyone to internalise this. It is not an insult, it is not a personal rejection. It's a community process that decides that a question is not appropriate on MathOverflow. (In this particular case, commenters made it clear that it would be much more appropriate on StackOverflow.) We're trying very hard to keep MathOverflow focused and on topic. There is easily sufficient community support for the current approach that we're taking to keeping MathOverflow on topic --- this isn't something to argue about at this point (or at least, not in the context of any specific question or vote to close), just something to accept about what MathOverflow is.

3) The MathOverflow community has a quite strong objection to duplicate questions. Your question is clearly a duplicate! I'm actually a little surprised people didn't step in more quickly with votes to close on this basis. Allowing duplicate questions is a real pain --- if a question gets closed, the appropriate thing to do is either revise the question and hope that it is reopened (this has happened many times), and to come over the meta.MO and discuss the reasons for closure. We've had several instances in the past where someone has felt strongly about a closed question, and after some discussion here and some revisions, the question has been reopened. I think anyone with a closed question may find themselves suprised by how willing people are to reopen, once some regard is given to the original complaints against the question. It is inappropriate to ignore the existing consensus on a question, and repost it --- it's immensely frustrating to anyone who went to the effort of explaining why the original question should be closed.

Now -- VA, if you're reading this: these points all apply in particular to your recent questions! I understand that you vigorously disagree with the closure of your original question. Nevertheless, simply reposting the question is not the right way to proceed. You have to show some willingness to engage with the objections to your previous question!

I'm sorry if I upset you, because I don't intend to. Hopefully you can see that I think it's an interesting question (indeed, from my answer you can see that I spent some time trying to work at an answer to it)! Nevertheless, the community process is important here, and it's important to both respect that, and not insult people who were acting in good faith.

If it's appropriate, I'll migrate it here as soon as the bounty is expired (and of course, if there's no answer in MSE).

http://mathoverflow.net/tools?tab=close&daterange=last7days

you may get some, but often those closed 2-7 days are pushed off the page by more recently closed questions. How do you pull them up?

[Closed] Huge Relief Unlock/Jailbreak iphone 5,4S,4 iOS 6.1.2 and iPad 4,3,2 Untehtered Produced

That [Closed] was put there by the original poster. The one that the software inserts is put at the end of the post. I suspect the idea was that folks would think it had already been closed and therefore not bother to click through and vote-to-close it.

Fortunately it looks like enough people voted it down to kick it off the site.

Anyway, I thought it a tactic worth noting so that people are aware of it. And to remember (not that it seems needed given the speed this one was dealt with) that even if a spam post is closed, there are other actions that can be taken that will speed its exit (though possibly not pursued by a bear) such as voting down and flagging as spam.

More generally, are there similar ways to improve the value of an old answer written by someone else, and which are considered acceptable edits?

http://mathoverflow.net/users/18465/luke

His questions are typically answered quickly, sometimes with comments to the affect of my sentence above. He's been posting questions of this variety for several years now, so it's hard to imagine these are actually homework problems but they're certainly not research questions.

I thought I'd mention this quirky trend.

Question: What is the best way to keep up with these answers to older questions?

As far as I can tell, a new answer will bump the question to the top of the front page, but the turnover there is very high, so it is easy to miss. It does not seem that a new answer bumps the question to the top of tag-specific pages, which would be much more helpful for this purpose. The tag-specific RSS feeds do update when new answers are posted, and this is the only way I have found to somewhat deal with the situation.

I have a few related questions of a more general nature. Occasionally, new answers to old questions are very interesting, especially if the question had not received a good answer due to being difficult. However, it seems to me that such answers may sometimes receive little attention due to the issues described in the previous paragraph. Beyond the obvious consequences, it also leads to reduced scrutiny of what might be a very technical or difficult answer, possibly leaving doubts about its correctness.

Related questions: Is there some way to bolster the attention these answers get? Are there some plans for the future of mathoverflow which seek to address this issue? Do other people even consider it to be an issue?

I saw no edits, and the worst thing about this particular question was OP's peculiar insistence there had to be a closed form, and maybe a mild tone of impatience about the time OP was waiting for an answer over at MSE. But how is it blatantly offensive?

(Another question from OP seemed more obnoxious, as various versions of the question seem to be "baiting" mathematicians. (Incidentally, I didn't see an easy solution to that other question, having to do with $\int_0^1 x^{x^x} dx$, although it's easy enough to get confirmation from Mathematica that that's greater than $\log \sqrt{\pi}$.)

You should be cautious about pursuing "digit theory" within number theory too far, since it doesn't have a good reputation, the results of Lucas, Dickson, and Stickelberger notwithstanding. For instance, there is a review on MathSciNet about a paper involving digits that ends with the following remark: "There is also a list of serious number theory papers, by Lucas, Kummer, and others, that mention digits (usually to a prime base). But the reviewer is not convinced thereby that Smith numbers are not a rathole down which valuable mathematical effort is being poured."

(Emphasis as in original; except for potential error in copying.)

Part of KConrad's answer to this question 'Are there results in "Digit Theory"?' , which does not in any way ask for evaluation or guidanace in pursuing these questions (had it, I had never contributed an answer to this) but only existence of results. (A detail: this was added in the second revision, without the "within number theory" which was added in the third revision; I am however not sure whether this addition makes the thing better or worse. I downvoted, with initially brief comment [the comments are meanwhile deleted but a copy is in the meta-thread 'downvoting without comment is not constructive'], on the third revision, and there being is a fourth revision the author seems unresponsive.)

I already had decided to let this go. However, just now, I notice there is a (new) comment by OP of question on Mark Sapir's answer:

Thanks for bringing Bunjakovskiĭ to our attention. Do you refer to the first or the second formula? It seems that "digit theory" has existed for a long time in the mathematical underground, without ever becoming really respectable.

(My emphasis.)

Showing that this statement (KConrad's) seems to have an immediate effect on the perception of these types of questions.

This is one of these cases were I absolutely do not understand the standards of this site. How is it possible that apparently it is considered acceptable(see footnote) to introduce without any need (in addition in a somewhat flippant way) a negative evaluation of various fields of mathematical investigation. (Merely the quoting of this less than nice review seems problematic. For example, without having followed up in full detail on this, an author of the reviewed paper still published in 2011, so it seems possible they are reading the site; and this might not be such a nice experience then.)

So my question would be: why is the paragraph mentioned at the start widely considered acceptable? (On request I can recall, for comparison, several examples of things that were not considered acceptable that are in my opinion a lot less problematic.)

Footnote: The posting was frequently visible. Said answer has a current score of 13 (most of which arriving after the first revision, so this being part if it); as 16 upvotes and 3 downvotes, one from me as said, yet one might only be "general" as various parts of this question/answer got one downvote; so perhaps I am not alone, as there seems to be one other 'real' downvote, but still it seems the general opinion is this is acceptable. (Also I implictly referred to it on meta.) So it is not just 'nobody noticed'.

Answer by user "VA" to question http://mathoverflow.net/questions/14613 :

"This is just to add 1% to Dmitri's 99% complete answer. Change the coordinates to $w_0,\dots, w_{n-1}$ defined by the formula

$$ w_i = x_0 + \mu^i x_1 + \mu^{2i} x_2 + \dots, $$

where $\mu$ is a primitive $n$-th root of identity. Then the ring of invariants is the subring of monomials

$$ w_0^{k_0}\dots w_{n-1}^{k_{n-1}} \quad \text{such that}\quad n\ |\ k_1 + 2k_2 + \dots (n-1) k_n$$

and a set of generators can be obtained by taking minimal such monomials (i.e. not divisible by smaller such monomials). And relations between these generators are of the form (monomial in $w_i$) = (another monomial in $w_i$). That's a pretty easy presentation by any standard.

P.S. This works over $\mathbb C$ or any ring containing $1/n$ and $\mu$."

Notice that this answer, while not adding any new ideas, noticeably improves upon the exposition of Dmitri's one. It is voted +3, so I am surprised the author was able to delete it in the first place...

In my opinion to have a homework-tag on MO is rather potentially harmful as it is likely to give the wrong impression that homwork-questions are on-topic (why else should such a tag exist, could be an IMO reasonable line of reasoning of a new user).

Indeed, that is why I suggested the deletion of a then existant tag of the same name some time ago (which happened). It now was recretated, by a very experienced user. So I did not just want to remove it but rather thought to start this thread.

Added: for reference this is what I said on the respective sticky thread Dec 4th 2011 (towards top of page 5) [To avoid a misconception, the user using it then and now are different.]

I just noticed that there is a (recent?) 'homework' tag and somebody (not OPs) tagging things with this. For several reasons I think having this tag is a bad idea. One is that it can suggest homework is on-topic.