Return to Answer

Although I've no expertise in the topic, the question looks to me as if it can be summarised as "here is a thing I understand in the finite dimensional case, and my question is how it extends to the general case. Here is a list of specific things that I don't find obvious, which I hope a good answer would resolve."

It is perhaps unfortunate for the OP that they decided to delimit this list with question marks rather than bullet points or semicolons etc., but that doesn't really change the fact that it's ultimately one question. Although I could be wrong, it feels to me that attempting to split it into multiple questions would just be busy work, resulting in a bunch of less clear questions whose answers wouldn't be as helpful.

Note that neither the SE guidelines nor the math.SE ones say a question shouldn't have subquestions. In fact both say quite explicitly that this is acceptable. These policies are about multiple unrelated questions in the same post, and not about a single question that has several closely related components.

It would be unproductive to turn a good principle (one question per post) into a bureaucratic box ticking rule (one question mark per post). Most users can't possibly know about such a one question mark rule - especially since it's not even official policy - and it leads otherwise good questions to be closed for no reason. I think we should regard it as incumbent on close voters to apply the rules in a principled way, and not on question askers to spend hours reading meta before they post anything.

Although I've no expertise in the topic, the question looks to me as if it can be summarised as "here is a thing I understand in the finite dimensional case, and my question is how it extends to the general case. Here is a list of specific things that I don't find obvious, which I hope a good answer would resolve."

It is perhaps unfortunate for the OP that they decided to delimit this list with question marks rather than bullet points or semicolons etc., but that doesn't really change the fact that it's ultimately one question. Although I could be wrong, it feels to me that attempting to split it into multiple questions would just be busy work, resulting in a bunch of less clear questions whose answers wouldn't be as helpful.

Note that both the SE guidelines and the math.SE ones say quite explicitly that you can have closely related sub-questions in the same post. They prohibit multiple unrelated questions in the same post, but sufficiently closely related sub-questions have never been against policy.

It would be unproductive to turn a good principle (one question per post) into a bureaucratic box ticking rule (one question mark per post). Most users can't possibly know about such a one question mark rule - especially since it's not even official policy - and it leads otherwise good questions to be closed for no reason. I think we should regard it as incumbent on close voters to apply the rules in a principled way, and not on question askers to spend hours reading meta before they post anything.

Honestly, although I've no expertise in the topic, the question looks to be as if it can be summarised as "here is a thing I understand in the finite dimensional case, and my question is how it extends to the general case. Here is a list of specific things that I don't find obvious, which I hope a good answer would resolve."

It is perhaps unfortunate for the OP that they decided to delimit this list with question marks rather than bullet points or semicolons etc., but that doesn't really change the fact that it's ultimately one question. Although I could be wrong, it feels to me that attempting to split it into multiple questions would just be busy work, resulting in a bunch of less clear questions whose answers wouldn't be as helpful.

To edit in some insights from the comments:

• To the extent that there is an officially agreed policy on this, both the SE guidelines and the math.SE ones say you shouldn't ask multiple independent questions per post, but both explicitly allow for closely related sub-questions of the main question. Anyone interpreting this policy as "one question mark per post" is misremembering what it says.
• I think it's unproductive to turn a good principle (one question per post) into a bureaucratic box ticking rule (one question mark per post). Most users can't possibly know about such a one question mark rule - especially since it's not even official policy - and it leads otherwise good questions to be closed for no reason. I think we should regard it as incumbent on close voters to apply the rules in a principled way, and not on question askers to spend hours reading meta before they post anything.

I guess the moral is that while questions definitely shouldn't ask two separate things, this can't be determined by just counting the question marks. You have to actually check whether they are separate questions or just sub-questions of the main one.

Although I've no expertise in the topic, the question looks to me as if it can be summarised as "here is a thing I understand in the finite dimensional case, and my question is how it extends to the general case. Here is a list of specific things that I don't find obvious, which I hope a good answer would resolve."

It is perhaps unfortunate for the OP that they decided to delimit this list with question marks rather than bullet points or semicolons etc., but that doesn't really change the fact that it's ultimately one question. Although I could be wrong, it feels to me that attempting to split it into multiple questions would just be busy work, resulting in a bunch of less clear questions whose answers wouldn't be as helpful.

Note that neither the SE guidelines nor the math.SE ones say a question shouldn't have subquestions. In fact both say quite explicitly that this is acceptable. These policies are about multiple unrelated questions in the same post, and not about a single question that has several closely related components.

It would be unproductive to turn a good principle (one question per post) into a bureaucratic box ticking rule (one question mark per post). Most users can't possibly know about such a one question mark rule - especially since it's not even official policy - and it leads otherwise good questions to be closed for no reason. I think we should regard it as incumbent on close voters to apply the rules in a principled way, and not on question askers to spend hours reading meta before they post anything.

Honestly, although I've no expertise in the topic, the question looks to be as if it can be summarised as "here is a thing I understand in the finite dimensional case, and my question is how it extends to the general case. Here is a list of specific things that I don't find obvious, which I hope a good answer would resolve."

It is perhaps unfortunate for the OP that they decided to delimit this list with question marks rather than bullet points or semicolons etc., but that doesn't really change the fact that it's ultimately one question. Although I could be wrong, it feels to me that attempting to split it into multiple questions would just be busy work, resulting in a bunch of less clear questions whose answers wouldn't be as helpful.

I guess the moral is that while questions definitely shouldn't ask two separate things, this can't be determined by just counting the question marks. You have to actually check whether they are separate questions or just sub-questions of the main one.

Honestly, although I've no expertise in the topic, the question looks to be as if it can be summarised as "here is a thing I understand in the finite dimensional case, and my question is how it extends to the general case. Here is a list of specific things that I don't find obvious, which I hope a good answer would resolve."

It is perhaps unfortunate for the OP that they decided to delimit this list with question marks rather than bullet points or semicolons etc., but that doesn't really change the fact that it's ultimately one question. Although I could be wrong, it feels to me that attempting to split it into multiple questions would just be busy work, resulting in a bunch of less clear questions whose answers wouldn't be as helpful.

To edit in some insights from the comments:

• To the extent that there is an officially agreed policy on this, both the SE guidelines and the math.SE ones say you shouldn't ask multiple independent questions per post, but both explicitly allow for closely related sub-questions of the main question. Anyone interpreting this policy as "one question mark per post" is misremembering what it says.
• I think it's unproductive to turn a good principle (one question per post) into a bureaucratic box ticking rule (one question mark per post). Most users can't possibly know about such a one question mark rule - especially since it's not even official policy - and it leads otherwise good questions to be closed for no reason. I think we should regard it as incumbent on close voters to apply the rules in a principled way, and not on question askers to spend hours reading meta before they post anything.

I guess the moral is that while questions definitely shouldn't ask two separate things, this can't be determined by just counting the question marks. You have to actually check whether they are separate questions or just sub-questions of the main one.