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$\require{enclose}$ Almost every question about $\mathcal{MathJax}$ gets marked as a duplicate of the, now canonical, $\text{ } \mathcal{MathJax} \text{ Tutorial}$

I often ask simple questions about $\mathcal{MathJax}$, and my question is automatically marked as a duplicate of the more than 80-page-long $\text{ } \mathcal{MathJax} \text{ tutorial}$


When people ask how do do one simple thing (e.g. how to strike-out text in $\mathcal{MathJax}$), those people do not generally want to read a more than 80-page long guide; only one one paragraph of which is about the topic of interest.

If 200 characters suffice to answer my question, why would you ask me to read the $\mathcal{MathJax}$ guide, which is over $100\text{,}000$ characters in length?

If you do not feel like answering my question, you don't have to. Move on to a question you do feel like answering. Leave my question alone. Someone else will tell me how use $\mathcal{MathJax}$ to write striken out text like $\enclose{horizontalstrike}{this}$.

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    $\begingroup$ Why are you reading an 80 page long document? Surely you are using your computer's "find" functionality to search for what is relevant to you? $\endgroup$
    – Xander Henderson Mod
    Commented Sep 19, 2022 at 17:57
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    $\begingroup$ I understand your frustration. However, wouldn't Tex SE be a better place to ask? $\endgroup$
    – qwr
    Commented Sep 20, 2022 at 22:42
  • $\begingroup$ @qwr every time I have asked a question about $\mathcal{MathJax}$ on $\TeX \text{ SE}$ the question has been deleted because "This website is for $\LaTeX$ and $\mathcal{MathJax}$ is $\underline{not}$ $\LaTeX$" I do not know why, but the $\TeX \text{ SE}$ community hates $\mathcal{MathJax}$ with a vengeance. $\endgroup$ Commented Sep 23, 2022 at 0:48
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    $\begingroup$ We close as duplicates questions that have been answered elsewhere. In meta as well as in main. Otherwise each and every simple question would be reasked multiple times. Granted, your queries are more esoteric than most, but it still makes sense to collect all the resources into a single place for newbies often have follow up questions, and the tide must be stopped at some point. Nipping it in the bud has a lot of appeal $\endgroup$ Commented Sep 23, 2022 at 12:55

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First of all, "let's make this place more like StackOverflow" is not a winning argument for me. I hope we'll avoid going full-in into the turbulent debate that could kick off, but I thought it was worth noting.

Second, your question will be read, processed, and thought about by a lot of people. We don't want to waste their time. Also, there are scads of resources about LaTeX out there on the web - most questions I have take a minute or two of googling to answer, and I don't have to ask here. Nobody should be thinking of math.se as "my source for LaTeX answers".

So I'm going to respectfully down vote your question (which on Meta often means something different than on the main site: "I disagree", not "This is a bad question.")

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  • $\begingroup$ I agree that I do not want people to view the math stack exchange as a resource for $\LaTeX$ answers. That is why my questions about $\mathcal{MathJax}$ are on the meta-site $\text{meta.}\underline{\text{meta}}\text{.stackexchange}$. I don't ask about $\mathcal{MathJax}$ on math.se Questions on the meta site are often of the form "How do I write question on math.se?" and in order to write a question on math.se, people are required to use $\mathcal{MathJax}$. Thus, we can view questions about $\mathcal{MathJax}$ as questions about how to use math.se. $\endgroup$ Commented Sep 23, 2022 at 0:40
  • $\begingroup$ There is no stack exchange site for questions about $\mathcal{MathJax}$ specifically. Everytime that I have asked a question about $\mathcal{MathJax}$ on $\TeX \text{ SE}$ the question has been deleted because "This website is for $\TeX$ and $\LaTeX$ and $\mathcal{MathJax}$ is $\underline{not}$ $\LaTeX$". Almost any place that questions are posted about $\mathcal{MathJax}$ the down-votes come pouring in. You can consider questions about $\mathcal{MathJax}$ to be about how to use math.se. Questions about how to use math.se belong on math.meta.se $\endgroup$ Commented Sep 23, 2022 at 0:43

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