Questions tagged [advice]

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50 votes
2 answers
1k views

How to begin working on a problem?

I hope the community supports this effort. We often see homework-type questions with no attempt from the OP at solving the problem. In many such cases the OP answers that they don't know how to begin. ...
Yuriy S's user avatar
  • 31.5k
49 votes
2 answers
3k views

I have been banned from asking questions, what should I do?

Almost 2 week ago I asked a question, which first put on hold but after I had edited, it re-opened. Since then I have been banned from asking question. According to help centre, in order to ban to be ...
Our's user avatar
  • 7,285
38 votes
5 answers
1k views

Should I be hesitant to answer questions?

I would like to participate more in the MSE and get in the habit of answering posts. However, because of my mathematical experience (or lack thereof), I'm always afraid that I'll post a solution that'...
TheRealFakeNews's user avatar
36 votes
2 answers
2k views

How to deal with the negativity of a power user that picks on you?

For a while, I've been having my suspicions about a certain power user that often downvotes my questions - both here and on MO. Now, I know for certain this user has downvoted a question of mine at ...
Max Muller's user avatar
  • 7,048
29 votes
4 answers
1k views

The Efficacy of Mathematics Stack Exchange

I have two questions. First, how "effective" is asking a question on the math stack exchange? I find 3252 pages of questions in the "unanswered" section - these questions have received zero responses....
user140943's user avatar
  • 2,061
26 votes
1 answer
583 views

What is the right place (on stackexchange) to ask questions concerning mathematical writing?

As a student working on my first academic publication, I have a ton of questions specifically about writing about math. For example: When should I state the full theorem rather than just its name ...
Alice Schwarze's user avatar
23 votes
3 answers
545 views

Dumb Edits keep bumping questions

I am wondering if there is a work around to keep my edits from bumping questions. I recently saw a tex error in my answer and fixed it, I don't think that this should bump the question. Also, when I ...
Sean Tilson's user avatar
  • 4,456
21 votes
3 answers
902 views

How to deal with ignored answers

In some situations, I have experienced the following: I have answered a question. Then, after a couple of days (say a week for example), there has still been no feedback to the answer (no comments, no ...
russoo's user avatar
  • 2,405
21 votes
3 answers
799 views

Where can I find questions I can answer as a high school student?

The question speaks mostly for itself. I'm currently doing high school and while I'm very interested in mathematics, I do not have the appropriate level to answer many questions. Complex Vector Fields,...
Trashtalk's user avatar
  • 278
20 votes
1 answer
494 views

Learning how to contribute to the community

In my quest to be helpful, answer questions, and earn reputation, I find myself ignoring questions with, say, 1 vote and 1 answer, even though the answer may be terrible, because I want to be the ...
Brian Rushton's user avatar
11 votes
4 answers
418 views

This doesn't lie within the purview of M.SE, though the users there are good people to ask.

The problem: I am coming up to my final exams after which I am expected to make a prompt decision regarding whether to accept a PhD offer I have, to pursue analytic number theory. For a long time, I ...
Sputnik's user avatar
  • 3,784
11 votes
1 answer
413 views

Only answer given to a question turns out to be partly wrong, no response from answerer. What to do?

Background: I posed a question on the main site a little over a month ago, asking if something could exist. The answer I was given was that it could not exist, and then a "proof" was given, assuming ...
Cameron Buie's user avatar
11 votes
1 answer
381 views

Forum for discussion-type questions

I really like M.SE and its community members, and I've found great answers to many questions here. But I see that questions that don't admit a definite answer or open too much room for discussion are ...
user62029's user avatar
  • 1,764
10 votes
1 answer
417 views

Sharing a non open access paper

I'm reading a paper, which is not open access, and I had troubles in some passages there, I would like to ask for help in https://math.stackexchange.com/, for that aim I have to share the paper and ...
ahdahmani's user avatar
  • 1,298
9 votes
1 answer
325 views

Advice on closing questions as duplicates

In a very recent question the OP had made considerable amount of progress in proving an inequality. The OP was only left to prove the inequality $x^2y+y^2z+z^2x\le \frac{4}{27}$. Myself knowing that ...
Albus Dumbledore's user avatar
8 votes
1 answer
378 views

What to do if there are two contradicting answers?

I got two seemingly good but contradicting answers to this question about order in bases of vector spaces. I don't know what to do because they both seem plausible and they do not agree. What can I ...
learner's user avatar
  • 1,967
5 votes
1 answer
2k views

Asking a riddle

What is the general stance on riddles being asked on math.stackexchange.com? My friends and I are debating a riddle but none of us are sure of what the correct way is to approach it. If math....
Pieter van Niekerk's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
355 views

Answering The Uninformed

Occasionally I see a question (e.g. Are Disjoint Set Assertions Commutative?) where the OP has very little background in math or is a troll. The accepted answer to this question is very ...
uncle brad's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
128 views

Editing to correct formatting. What to do when author edits discarding formatting changes? Why the high rep barrier?

I've known about MSE for a while, but I only just recently got involved in MSE properly. One of the daily things I do here on this site is make edits to new posts (often by new users) to add $\LaTeX$ ...
jgon's user avatar
  • 28.5k
4 votes
2 answers
216 views

Asking three related soft questions and related matters

Hello everyone, I would like to ask three related soft (CW) questions, but I don't really know how I should do it. The questions are: It seems to me that there's is a great focus on Plane Geometry ...
Max Muller's user avatar
  • 7,048
2 votes
2 answers
395 views

student research project ideas

Is it possible to ask about student research project ideas in this website?
Rahman's user avatar
  • 1,179
2 votes
3 answers
164 views

How to decide how many points to give away in a bounty?

How to decide, should I make 50 points bounty or 100 points bounty?
porton's user avatar
  • 5,063
2 votes
1 answer
191 views

How to get rid of advertisements?

I am really fond of the advertisements by math.se site itself, it always leads to amazing places on net, such as MIT OCW, KHAN ACADEMY, Inverse calculator, English and Crypto Q&A, Geogebra, AMS ...
Silent's user avatar
  • 6,530
2 votes
1 answer
139 views

Writing Math equations in MSE. [duplicate]

How do I write the mathematical equations in a question, here on stack exchange? When I try to write a question which involves equations, I get stuck as I don't know how to input those equations... ...
Harrison Wells's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
99 views

What advice do you give to someone who's written an incomplete question below any understanding?

It happened recently and again today (post now deleted) that someone submitted a question with so little content that it was close to impossible to guess anything from it. We all know that by the ...
Arnaud Mortier's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
69 views

Where to post for feedback

I had difficulty finding a single, concise treatment online of the construction of numbers from the naturals through the reals. I have collected my notes in a document (<1,200 words) and before I ...
bblohowiak's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
156 views

Feedback on answer

On my answer here to this question: is $0.\overline{99}$ the same as $\lim_{x \to 1} x$? (yes it is a bit old) I was downvoted by a moderator. I am trying to understand what is wrong with my answer. ...
Thomas's user avatar
  • 43.6k
1 vote
1 answer
255 views

Acknowledging math stack exchange [duplicate]

If we get answers for our doubts from this site can we acknowledge math stack exchange or for that matter the author who has responded to our doubts?
Math123's user avatar
  • 1,243
0 votes
1 answer
167 views

What to do when receiving an unsuitable but still relevant answer?

On the 28$^{\textrm{th}}$ of June, I asked a question on the main site which has soon received an answer proposal; even though the concerned input is certainly relevant to my question as it provides a ...
C. Falcon's user avatar
  • 19k
-7 votes
1 answer
276 views

I asked A question On MSE, Which I now think can receive more attention from MathOverflow

I recently asked a question On MSE, which was answered by one user, after I used bounty for first time. Later I re-bountied it for more clarification. Still I think it lacks more details, And can ...
Dheeraj Gujrathi's user avatar