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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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 (2016 edition)?
The end of the year is rapidly approaching and, as last year, and the year before that, and all the years before that since before the beginning of time... The Winter Bash event is coming up! If you ...
DanuMod
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What exactly is History?
I have asked a question here, and was put on-hold.
In that question, I would like the clarification of what the living physicists said. but it seems to me that it "the living is no history" on this ...
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Could we consider merging HSM into History?
History of Science and Mathematics has been in beta for a good while and it is still not doing well. History is also in Beta and not doing wonderfully, but it is doing better. I feel that the two ...
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Einstein did, Einstein didn't
Several questions recently seek to challenge Einstein's priority for relativity theory. I am all in favor of debunking personally but in this case I wonder whether this is due to his name ending in "...
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Are "was this known before"-type question on topic?
I just came across a question which seems off topic to me: see here.
Simplified, it is of the form Consider this formula: ... — is it known in the history of mathematics?
I doubt this is on topic, ...
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We need a challenge or something
According to area 51 our asking rate is bad. Like under 2 a day bad. I thought about how we could fix this and I think I already remember seeing an ad for the site on another SE. The other solution I ...
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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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A Tragic Loss of Documentation of Mathematics History
Recently this rich piece of the documentation of the history of The Modern Minds of Mathematics was discovered to be a casualty of a lack of up-keep by the IBM Corporation.
My question is what can we,...
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How should we celebrate our birthday?
In three weeks, History of Science and Mathematics Stack Exchange will turn one year old. Congratulations on everyone who worked hard to make our first year in beta a success.
How should we mark the ...
HDE 226868Mod
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How quantitative is HSM SE?
There appears to be a perception that HSM hasn't proven to be very quantitative. This Physics SE question which was a historical question on Ptolemaic perigees of Mercury, I suggested that history of ...
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What should we do about cross-posting?
In two days, I've twice merged questions, because we've had two instances of cross postings (one involved three sites, and is still being dealt with). This has also happened before in many cases, many ...
HDE 226868Mod
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Does HSM also include the history of technology?
I want to ask why the V-2 rocket was made with ethanol and liquid oxygen, which had a specific impulse of 215 seconds at sea level, when a solid rocket using APCP gets 237 seconds. In addition, a ...
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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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Tag disambiguation - what should we do?
Should we reserve the use of discipline tags for question related to the history of the discipline?
The statistics tag has been widely (3/4 questions, detagged ...
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Let's get critical: May 2015 Site Self-Evaluation
We all love History of Science and Mathematics Stack Exchange, but there is a whole world of people out there who need answers to their questions and don't even know that this site exists. When they ...
CommunityBot
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Why is a question about understanding the atmosphere off topic?
This question is about the history of understanding the nature of the atmosphere. It asks:
When was the first time that scientists (or philosophers, etc) suggested that the air surrounding the ...
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Discussion about "motivation of concept" kind of questions
Very often in mathematics and related sciences the motivation of a concept is helpful or even fundamental for its understanding. Obviously, this motivation has two origins: a historical one, and a ...
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Do we want to have all new HSM-type questions from other SE-sites migrated here?
The title says it all, really. On some of the other Stack Exchange sites, e.g. MathOverflow or Physics, questions tend to pop up every now and then that may be better---or at least equally well---...
DanuMod
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What to do about pseudoscientific answers
Recently I came about this answer which, in my opinion, is completely based on pseudoscientific books. This is not like math.se, or physics.se where good and bad answers can easily be discerned, so ...
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How is our distribution of science and mathematics questions?
Congratulations (belatedly) to Alexandre Eremenko and Conifold on receiving the first tag badges (both in mathematics) on HSM! You guys have been at the forefront of our mathematics branch, and ...
HDE 226868Mod
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Writing history posts for the math.SE blog
The Mathematics stackexchange has a blog featuring short expository articles about interesting pieces of mathematics. The articles are user-written. Now, I think part of our mission as a community, ...
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Our totally unofficial official-and-rather-belated 100-day checkup
Two months ago, I wrote up this post:
Our totally unofficial 30-day checkup
In it, I gave our site stats (available here). We're at about the same levels, 70 days later. That might seem discouraging....
HDE 226868Mod
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Our #1 target community: Those who teach, study, write or read about the history of science and math
If we want more participation, we're going to need to find those people who are interested and even enthusiastic in this subject. That's a very niche audience.
I suggest we/someone make an effort/...
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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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Should the current discussion on Zeno's Paradox be reopened?
About it one can cite wiki as to the significance. Zeno's paradox should be taught as history of mathematics - and solely as history - these days!
Wiki states only some historians of mathematics ...
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What should our custom close reasons be (if any)?
Other SE sites have custom close reasons - specific options to be used when closing a question. For example, Worldbuilding has one for "Idea generation" questions. Astronomy has one for questions ...
HDE 226868Mod
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Are questions about science-related linguistics on-topic?
Today, we had this question:
Is "de" in "de Morgan" supposed to be capitalized or not?
A couple days ago, we had this question:
History of the term innovation and its difference ...
HDE 226868Mod
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Please welcome your moderators pro tempore
Throughout the beta, we need members from the site whose focus is to engage the community, both in community-building issues and site management. That's why we select a few members from each community ...
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How do we handle the recent 'Ramanujan question'?
This recent question has gotten a surprising response. As it turns out, it is a cross-post from this question on Math.SE. There are currently two answers, one by Adhvaitha and one by Tito Piezas III.
...
DanuMod
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Can we get a site name change implemented?
Ironic note: The question I'm referencing did not show up in the "Questions that may already have your answer" drop down menu while I was writing this.
I looked back on this question a couple of ...
HDE 226868Mod
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Mass upvoting is as bad as mass downvoting
I got +55 in a space of 2 minutes, (4 answers and 3 questions) - this will more than likely be reversed.
Please do not mass upvote, there is nothing nice about flouting the rules.
user22
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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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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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How many years to be considered as history?
User Amit Tyagi raised a good question in https://hsm.stackexchange.com/questions/504/why-was-pluto-demoted-from-the-list-of-planets#comment940_504
Coming to History, please explain what do we ...
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Where's the conspiracy?
On the Mathematics Meta question promoting HSM (actually on my "answer"), there were some comments made about the birth of this site. According to the accuser, it was conceived by "power-hungry users" ...
HDE 226868Mod
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How should we handle overlap with History.SE?
This good question was asked a few days ago on history.stackexchange.com. It is totally on-topic both there and here. For that reason, I am not recommending any migration. Instead, I want to know how ...
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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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References, references, references. .
I've already posted a few questions on meta regarding details about the references we should have on answers. I have some more ideas on the topic, but I don't think that simply posting more meta ...
HDE 226868Mod
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Poll: why are you not accepting answers?
There seem to be quite a few questions with one or more answers, but none of them accepted. This is understandable. History is not mathematics, it's harder to recognize an answer as "correct". If you ...
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Are questions of the type "Did person X do action Y" on topic?
This question got me thinking, and I can't quite decide whether it should be off-topic or not, so I figure I should get some community input.
The problem I have with it is twofold. Firstly, I think ...
DanuMod
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What should we do about "Who was first" or "When was [_____] first done/discovered/etc." questions?
There are a lot of questions on the site that have the format "Who first [____]?" or "When was [____] discovered/created?". Some examples:
Who created topology, and when, and what problems lead to ...
HDE 226868Mod
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Quality of question on HSM
I think most important thing to moderate in any S.E. site is quality of question.
Any question ask should be clear by user and if not then it should be edited by other users.
I want to bring the ...
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MathJax Greasemonkey script
I'm now finding it impossible to write certain questions and answers without MathJax, so while we're waiting I put together a GreaseMonkey script that renders LaTeX here on HSM. It's just the well-...
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Books vs. Websites
This is related to my other recent question.
As I wrote there, it is hard to check book sources, especially if they are old and/or out-of-print. Occasionally, they can be found on Google Books, but ...
HDE 226868Mod
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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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Tag Wiki's - Write them!
We currently have a good 5 pages or so of tags at this time. It would help if users were proactive in trying to edit tag Wikis so we can build up quality in our tags.
This serves out as a reminder ...
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Voting on the meta
This is an announcement/notice about the meaning of voting on the meta.
Up generally means I agree
Down generally means I disagree
This is a subtle difference with the main site. One should not be ...
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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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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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