Should I add MathJax formatting to posts with plain text math?

I personally have noticed a lot of posts were all of the math is written in plain text and have tried my best to fix change them, is this even something that I should even be focusing on, or should I just leave the posts be? I think overall the MathJax formatting looks nicer, is clearer and more legible.

• Don't go over-board over trivial stuff, which uses a couple of numbers: E.g. "7 chairs are arranged in a row. There are 6 women, and 6 men. How many ways can the 7 chairs be filled, if we require that the number of women seated at any given time is greater than the number of men seated. "  I reject edits which go in to turn 7 into $7$, and 6 into $6$. That's an example of what I consider trivial, in the sense that it does not in any way improve the question. – amWhy Dec 18 '17 at 19:28
• See this post Am I editing too much?, and this post about the frequency of edits How much bumping is too much, and this meta post: How much editing is too much – amWhy Dec 18 '17 at 19:40
• And note this meta question: Edit rejection: too minor? – amWhy Dec 18 '17 at 19:47
• This is also one possible advantage of MathJax which we should keep in mind: Having the mathematics clearly marked as mathematics (as oppose to "fake" mathematics using other HTML tricks) makes it much easier to properly voice the mathematics for screen readers. Quoted from an answer here: Would HTML/Unicode formatting cause troubles? Some other points raised there are also related. (Although probably not everything which applies to Unicode/HTML applies also to plain text.) – Martin Sleziak Dec 20 '17 at 9:40

1 Answer

I agree with the posted comments to avoid only making trivial changes, such as 7 to $7$ with no other post improvement, but if it contains equations that you're making more legible, then this is a good way to improve the content of this website. Thank you for this important work.

• Not always. Don't sanction trivial posts. (see my example in a comment below the question. In such an example, any attempt to put dollar signs around 6, 7 is no improvement to the site; rather, it's a trivial edit seeking only to earn 2 points, if accepted. – amWhy Dec 18 '17 at 19:32
• @amWhy It hadn't occurred to me that that might be the way someone acted to gain points. I amended my answer – Stella Biderman Dec 18 '17 at 19:40
• I should clarify that I do believe that there are folks who get carried away with mathjax and editing; the think that 2 pt reward/accepted edit may reinforce this. But very few get carried away editing solely for the sake of gaining rep. – amWhy Dec 18 '17 at 20:07