Questions tagged [discussion]
The question you're asking is designed to solicit opinions or best-practices on a particular topic, with the goal of reaching community consensus.
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Make some community ads!
I discovered this site by happy accident while browsing Twitter and saw a question shared by the StackExchange account.
Perhaps you should reach out a bit more and get some people from other ...
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Do we need MathJax?
On other SE sites like Physics, Math, MathOverflow, we have the possibility to write equations in what is called 'MathJax'. This allows you to write equations the way you would write them in LaTeX, ...
DanuMod
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Are questions about mathematicians and scientists' lives on topic?
Are questions about history behind a scientist or mathematicians life on topic? For example personal life, death etc.
This is motivated by my recent question Why was Évariste Galois killed?
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What should we name our chatroom?
Currently, it is the generic name of the site.
What should we name our chatroom? Perhaps give your suggestions here and the popularity could be gauged by how many votes each suggestion gets.
user22
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Proposal: A tentative tagging scheme
One of the most important questions to be settled is: How are we supposed to tag questions on this site? I happen to have some opinions on this matter, and I will use this meta post to lay out my '...
DanuMod
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Why do we have 'history' and 'history-of-terminology' tags?
As noted above, we have a history tag and a history-of-terminology tag. These seem a little redundant, given the name of the site. I just re-tagged a question from history to history-of-terminology, ...
HDE 226868Mod
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Those who do not know [history] are doomed to recreate it
Six months ago, the history tag was burninated as useless.
The tag was supposedly blacklisted as early as 2014, but has come back repeatedly, including in 2020.
The tag (at the time of posting of this ...
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Tagging of names
How should we tag names?
I've just gone for thomas-digges for the astronomer, but this got me thinking about how we should standardise it. digges might be acceptable in this context but what if there ...
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What to do with questions that are interesting but easily looked up?
Throughout the week I come up with a number of questions about the history of this or that. Most often Wikipedia authors on the subject some of the hard work for me, so it's not really necessary for ...
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Almost half of the questions so far are about math
I counted earlier and found that 23 of 48 questions were about either mathematics or mathematicians. While I am probably most interested in the history of mathematics, I am hoping this site will ...
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Who should our moderators be?
From The 7 Essential Questions of Every Beta:
Discussing the criteria of a great moderator is important and picking out potential candidates is a great way to introduce outstanding contributors to ...
user22
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Are history of engineering/invention questions on topic?
For example, a question about the invention of gliders/aircraft by George Cayley, or a question about the development of high pressure steam by Watt et al.
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Reference for the answers wherever required
To make the answers acceptable I think there should be references to all the answers (atleast wherever required) provided to really believe in the history. Since our site is about the HISTORY of math ...
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Let's make our own site promotion ad!
This is a spin-off of ManishEarth's earlier meta post,
Make some community ads!
What are Community Promotion Ads?
Community Promotion Ads are community-vetted advertisements that will
show ...
HDE 226868Mod
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On the history-of-science tag
I recently got rid of the history-of-science tag from How far can history of science be traced back?, and then another question which had just been posted. Typically, I wouldn't do something like this,...
HDE 226868Mod
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Our totally unofficial 30-day checkup
Today, the site turned 30 days old. Congratulations!
Okay, enough celebrating. 30 days means that the Area 51 stats for the site are visible, and the results are in (in the form of our number/good ...
HDE 226868Mod
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Should 'big list' type questions be put on hold?
The question Which scientists (mathematicians, philosophers) who voluntarily served Nazi had large contributions to human knowledge? seems like it is requiring a list of notable Nazi scientists (the ...
user22
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Should Math SE seed HSM with some history of mathematics questions?
As discussed here. SE is capable of migrating a large amount of questions from Math.StackExchange to History of Science and Math. The main culprit would be to go for questions under the tag math-...
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Is Economics on Topic Here?
This question inspired by this question, which has several close votes.
Economics is a "social" science. But it is considered a "science" by the Nobel Prize Committee. Moreover, the question is about ...
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Is history of Computer science on topic?
Is the history of Computer science on topic? I can see that you could argue that it falls under mathematical logic and therefore is on topic. Questions with this focus would include questions about ...
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Is the xkcd feed in the chat really necessary?
At this point, given the low activity of the chatroom, it actually posts more often than actual users: this year so far, it posted 16 links versus 1 single user discussing questions.
This makes ...
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Do we want hats?
It's December, and once again, Winter Bash is almost upon us.
For anyone not familiar with it, Winter Bash is an end-of-the-year celebration on Stack Exchange, where users can earn "hats" to wear on ...
HDE 226868Mod
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Options for the name of this site
There has been some discussion about the possibility of renaming the site.
Please give a suggestion as an answer to this message and people upvote/downvote what they see as the best options.
Note: I ...
user22
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This tag is [history]
The tag history (currently 80 questions, no tag wiki) is utterly useless. If a question is on-topic on this site, then it is about history, and if it not about history, then it is off-topic and needs ...
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Tagging of names, revisited
About three years ago, in the early days of HSM, it was decided on meta that it was probably not useful to tag posts by the names of relevant scientists. The reason for this is that it would lead to a ...
DanuMod
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Will we consider Wikipedia an acceptable source?
Some SE sites - Astronomy, Space Exploration, Physics, etc. will allow Wikipedia to be used a source in many cases, although multiple sources are always preferable, especially for really key points. ...
HDE 226868Mod
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2019: a year in moderation
It's New Year's Day in Stack Exchange land...
A distinguishing characteristic of these sites is how they are moderated:
We designed the Stack Exchange network engine to be mostly self-regulating, ...
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How can we deal with answers without references?
This is related to this question, which addresses the site's policy regarding sources. I have something a little more specific.
There is a user (I won't say who) who repeatedly posts answers without ...
HDE 226868Mod
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2018: a year in moderation
It's New Year's Day in Stack Exchange land...
A distinguishing characteristic of these sites is how they are moderated:
We designed the Stack Exchange network engine to be mostly self-regulating, in ...
- 101
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Why were these questions migrated?
To my surprise, today we had two questions migrated here:
https://hsm.stackexchange.com/questions/571/when-did-scientists-first-postulate-that-earths-atmosphere-might-have-an-upper
https://hsm....
HDE 226868Mod
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Apologies to the site
It has come to my attention that I may be rude and inconsiderate (likened to a notoriously and self-confessed rude user on Physics.SE) - I wish to assure people that it has and is never my intention ...
user22
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Is there something that needs to be done when the main chatroom is frozen?
If you look at the chat rooms associated with HSM you can see that there is a room called On the way to Damascus. The room On the Shoulder of Giants has been frozen. (As far as I can tell, this ...
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2020: a year in moderation
As we say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new one, we have a tradition of sharing moderation stats for the past 12 months.
As most of you here are aware, sites on the Stack Exchange network ...
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Is asking on philosophy on topic?
Science used to be considered as second philosophy. PhD, the highest title for a scientist, is a Doctor of Philosophy. However, some philosophers opine that philosophy is not science. So, is asking on ...
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