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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2022: 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 preceding calendar year.
As most of you here are aware, sites on the Stack Exchange ...
- 101
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3
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Do we want to change the link about MathJax help?
Stack Exchange sites with MathJax enabled have a section in the editing help page on how to use LaTeX. This section contains a "MathJax help" link at the end.
By default, this "MathJax ...
HDE 226868Mod
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Any objections to adding a [sophie-germain] tag?
I have just started reading about the life, work, anonymity and discrimination towards the French mathematician, physicist, and philosopher Sophie Germain. I've added it to my new question and three ...
- 1,996
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Request to let [reference] reference [reference-request]
Currently, there is a reference tag with 9 questions tagged so. However, not only the tag has no tag wiki/excerpt but also is being used similarly to the reference-request tag. Therefore, let the tags ...
- 2,107
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What to do after a question is partially answered and/or new information is available?
I have a question about my History of Science and Mathematics Stack Exchange post: Source documents for Bronstein's Cube of Physics
When I posted the "reference request" question, I was ...
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Do we have a recommended limit on edits per day?
Having looked at the answer to this Q&A on the site
Blacklisted [history] tag has reappeared
I thought I would start to edit out the remaining history questions. However I do not want to flood the ...
- 368
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I pointed out definite science mistakes in an answer, but my comments were deleted without a trace. Why?
This answer writes
You describe an imaginary measurement which could not be performed at
the time of Columbus or before. There are several reasons for this. 1.
Atmospheric refraction at the horizon ...
- 151
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0
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2021: 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 preceding calendar year.
As most of you here are aware, sites on the Stack Exchange ...
- 101
1
vote
0
answers
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What is the purpose of the "social history" tags?
I am not at all saying that we should remove these tags, and I am not trying to imply that there's no purpose in having these tags.
However I noticed that this recent question: Have there been ...
- 429
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Why was my suggested edit to remove irrelevant stuff rejected?
I suggested an edit to this question, in order to remove what I considered to be irrelevant meta-commentary:
I recently asked this question on Math StackExchange however, I, now, like many others ...
- 107
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2
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Will our Beta label be removed?
Since we learned that Matter Modeling is graduating and Quantum Computing is graduating and Freelancing is graduating and Retrocomputing is graduating and Economics is graduating, I'm curious if HSM ...
- 429
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1
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Strategy to edit my "Plato 5040" question in order to get it reopened?
Just how much did Plato really know about the number 5040? was closed for "opinion-based" and I can see that "Just how much did Plato really know..." is impossible to answer. My ...
- 1,996
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Please help remove a spam post on the main site
I noticed that there is a spam answer that is lying undeleted on the main site for over 24 hours. Normally, I would try contacting a moderator in the main chatroom for some help, but since that has ...
- 138
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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 ...
- 627
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Is it ok to ask whether a person is a descendants of a scientist?
In particular, I would like to know whether Anthony Bloch is a descendant of Felix Bloch or not. The Anthony Bloch's page on The Mathematics Genealogy Project only shows his advisory relationships, ...
- 1,146
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Are questions about the logistics/administration/practical matters in past research on-topic?
There is a recent question on Academia.SE about funding sources for mathematicians in the 19th century (https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/171714/did-mathematicians-of-the-19th-century-apply-...
- 101
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Make questions about counter-factual history off-topic
I propose making questions about counterfactual history (e.g questions of type "Suppose that such-and-such development in the history of science and math did not happen. What would be the ...
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Is here okay to post a question about computer science lore?
Is this an appropriate site to ask about computer science lore? I'd originally asked at the Computer Science Stack Exchange Meta whether there was okay to ask about a half-remembered story about two ...
- 101
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Why is this question called opinion-based?
This question: When did it become a norm for mathematicians not to read proofs of all the results they use?
I would expect answers to include evidence like "Mathematician X wrote that he had not ...
user14400
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1
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Bounties on my question
I have put bounties on my question Names of the electromagnetic units in SI, first for 50 points and now for 100 points. In the process, I have lost my reputation to edit community wiki. I have even ...
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Let there be [contributions]
At the moment, there are 102 questions containing "contribution". Thus, I hereby propose that tag contributions be created.
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Where is Gottingen?
I have never heard of Gottingen. I have heard of Göttingen, however. Those who lack an umlaut-endowed keyboard usually resort to ö ⟶ oe. Thus, gottingen ⟶ ...
- 1,049
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Why can't [kepler] and Kepler get along?
Will someone please elucidate why the tag kepler is not on-topic on a question on Kepler himself?
I am having some trouble understanding the inner workings of this community.
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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 ...
- 627
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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 ...
- 101
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0
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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 ...
- 203
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56
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Looking for a general academic term on "technology trees" and related research and not sure where to ask best
I'm not sure whether this question is well on topic at History of Science and Mathematics?
My question:
From computer games like Civilizations, we know the concept of the
technology tree, i.e. ...
- 121
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1
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161
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Why has my question been closed as "Opinion Based"?
Why has this question been closed as “opinion based”? What did I put in the question that is making it an opinion?
3
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Are questions about the history of pseudoscience on-topic?
I have some questions about the history and development of theories that are widely accepted as pseudoscience, such as Orgone energy, Nibiru, Time Cube, modern Zetetic astronomy, the Bates Method, or ...
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Two tags for the 18th century
At the moment, we have tag 18c and tag 18th-century. Would it be wise to merge them?
- 1,049
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Two tags for Middle Ages
At the moment, we have tag medieval and tag middle-ages. Should they be merged?
- 1,049
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Is asking questions related to the statements in (religious) scriptures allowed?
There are many facts in scriptures across the world. They are mentioned very earlier compared to their formal verification with modern science.
Assume that a fact has been proved by the modern ...
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Should we reduce the criteria for gold badges?
On going through the gold badges available on this site, I realised that most of the gold badges have zero awarding. This may be attributed to less active participation and, thus, fewer views and ...
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Why was my answer regarding the history of the concept of a tensor deleted?
The question referred to is here
The OP asked for:
Were there other related definitions defined around this time?
How has today's definition of a tensor changed compared to its beginnings?
My focus ...
- 3,490
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Criteria for considering questions 'duplicates' seem to need improvement
Repeatedly I have noticed that questions on HSM stack exchange are getting closed as 'duplicates' when it is at least highly arguable that they are anything but duplicates.
The need for improved ...
- 3,790
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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, ...
- 101
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Suggestion of tag removal
The tags physics-capitalism-technology and physics-capitalism-propaganda are being used by (and seem to have been created for) ...
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What is meant specifically by "history" in history of science and mathematics?
So I recently asked the following:
What did Sommerfeld mean by Bohr's magic wand?
While I am aware of possible vulgarity. I try my best not to divulge into it. However, after the comment "I'm ...
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Are questions about sources of jokes on-topic?
The question Is this Heisenberg joke actually real? is closed for the following reason:
This question does not appear to be about history of science and math, within the scope defined in the help ...
- 1,146
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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
1
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2
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Please stop asking for sources
I'm sort of tired of seeing questions like this or this. I believe they show very little work and effort, and even if they did, they do not contribute to the overall HSM community very well. HSM ...
- 1,064
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1
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Errata for Jeff Miller's "Earliest ..."
The websites of Jeff Miller are a very valuable resource which get cited often here on hsm. Unfortunately, in a few occasion the information there has turned out to be incomplete or mistaken, so the ...
- 1,580
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Questions about notation
There seems to be a disagreement about whether or when a question about mathematics notation is on-topic. For example, see the comments in \mathbb versus \mathbf one of which claims that this ...
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Event suggestion: A history of mathematics and future direction panel discussion?
So recently, I was pondering about historical connections of subjects, such as how concepts, ideas and experiments done in history change the course of humanity as they open new doors to exploration ...
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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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Feeds for suitable questions from other sites in chat?
Could perhaps adding feeds from hsm-related questions from other Stack Exchange sites into chat be useful? I could, for example, imagine ho.history-overview tag from MathOverflow, math-history tag ...
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Offering bounty when there is 1 closure vote
I would like to offer a bounty on this question. Recognizing that there is currently 1 closure vote, I consulted with moderator Danu and he recommended to pose this at meta. Would it be appropriate to ...
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Why must edits have at least six characters?
I wanted to correct one letter in a name. This was impossible because there was only this one typo. So the typo persists. Shouldn't this rule be dropped?
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Has hsm lost sight of what it's stack exchange is for?
Recently I had a question on HSM regarding mathematicians of Amish origin. But, I was heavily downvoted because the people there did not think my question mattered. They believed that the importance ...
user5540