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Recently, a large controversy has started within the Minecraft fanbase, regarding the speedrunner Dream, and claims of him possibly cheating by altering probabilities for certain random events within the game, to get more consistent, and better times. The majority of this argument had been centered around the statistics of the probabilities, after Dream hired a statistician to argue that the math was wrong, and then, in the future, another statistician wrote a paper arguing that that math was wrong. There have been multiple threads on sites like reddit, with users pitching in their opinions, and their understanding of the mathematics. However, not being a reddit user, I would be interested in posting a similar discussion type question on the Math SE, asking for interpretations and solutions for purely the mathematics involved - everyone seems to be solving it in a different way.

Would a discussion-type question about this be on-topic for Math SE, or must it be narrowed down to a specific question?

A reminder that I am not asking whether the topic itself would be on-topic - it is inarguably about statistics and mathematics. I am just asking if the format of a discussion would be acceptable in this case, or whether it should be done in a different way.

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    $\begingroup$ Discussion-oriented questions are not welcome; nor is soliciting opinions, or surveys for opinion polls. SE sites Q & A sites. Discussions and surveys can take place, informally in a chatrooms, but not on the main sites. $\endgroup$
    – amWhy
    Dec 27, 2020 at 19:25
  • $\begingroup$ @amWhy Is there a way that this could be formatted to meet the question expectations of SE? $\endgroup$
    – CollinB
    Dec 27, 2020 at 19:26
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    $\begingroup$ The end of your second to last paragraph reveals the problems in your request. "There have been multiple threads on sites like reddit, with users pitching in their opinions, and their understanding of the mathematics. However, not being a reddit user, I would be interested in posting a similar discussion type question on the Math SE, asking for interpretations...". Questions soliciting opinions, discussions, etc. are not a good fit for math.se. $\endgroup$
    – amWhy
    Dec 27, 2020 at 19:33
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    $\begingroup$ You're certainly allowed to write a question that summarizes someone's argument about a mathematical fact and provides all the context needed for a mathematician to analyze it without consulting outside sources. So "Is this correct?" or "Here are several conflicting claims. Which is correct?" are fine - that is, you can ask about a redditor's mathematical claim as long as you boil it down to a single mathematical question. I'm not exactly sure what you're hoping to ask, so it's hard to give more specific advice - maybe adding more detail to this meta question would help. $\endgroup$ Dec 27, 2020 at 21:17
  • $\begingroup$ Maybe a better place to ask would be stats.stackexchange.com . But even there "discussion" and "opinion" questions may be disallowed. On the other hand, some participants in stats.stackexchange.com may be interested in debunking bogus statistical claims. $\endgroup$
    – GEdgar
    Dec 30, 2020 at 12:52

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Math SE is not a discussion forum—it is a question and answer site.

The ideal "thread" on this site consists of a single, narrowly focused question which admits an authoritative, objectively correct answer, followed by one or more such answers. Questions which attempt to start a discussion or which seek opinions are explicitly off-topic:

If your motivation for asking the question is “I would like to participate in a discussion about ______”, then you should not be asking here. However, if your motivation is “I would like others to explain ______ to me”, then you are probably OK. (Discussions are of course welcome in our real time web chat.)

Broad, open ended questions are not a good fit for the Math SE model—you are better off discussing such questions on a more appropriate forum, such as reddit.

If you want to bring up this Minecraft-related topic on Math SE, do so in a way that is consistent with the "dos and don'ts" alluded to above. If someone is putting forward a specific mathematical argument, it is reasonable to paraphrase their argument here, and ask narrow questions related to that, e.g. "Is this argument correct?" If you have a specific question or confusion about some technique or tool which is being used, that's fair game here. The key is to ask narrow, focused questions about specific mathematical ideas.

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