Questions tagged [soft-question]
For questions whose answers can't be objectively evaluated as correct or incorrect, but which are still relevant to this site. Please be specific about what you are after.
68
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I feel mathematically inadequate for this site. What level are the majority of questions?
I visit this site alot (even though I have only just signed up, I was a big reader), as it helps me understand important mathematics and was a big help when I was a student.
However, despite ...
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3
answers
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Is it annoying that I don't answer questions and just ask?
Hi I'm pretty new with math.se, well I think I am, I have been getting a lot of great answers from a lot of smart and reliable people. However, I am starting to feel kinda bad because I never answer ...
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9
answers
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Letting less-reputable people answer questions
I'm a soon to be math graduate student and thought that this site would be a good learning environment for my extracurricular endeavors. Through my experience here, I've come to realize that a lot of ...
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votes
12
answers
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What's the reputation of MathSE among students and more casual users?
StackOverflow has quite the reputation as a toxic site, mostly for being unwelcoming to new users. But what's MathSE's general reputation? For users who are teachers, have you heard any of your ...
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6
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Why are people so interested in finding limits without l'Hôpital's rule?
It is not difficult to find questions about evaluating limits without the use of l'Hôpital's rule. As long as the function is differentiable, not directly reducible and tends towards an intermediate ...
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41
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4
answers
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Please Delete This Account [duplicate]
I am really really sorry to post this on main, but apparently there's a minimum rep necessary to post on meta --- and there's no easily available info on how to contact the moderators.
I have hit the ...
user86435
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votes
9
answers
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Why are there active users who do not ask questions?
A surprising kind of (a lot of) active users: Those who don't ask question.
For example:
Robert Israel 2,729 Answers, 0 Questions.
Brian M. Scott 5,847 Answers, 0 Questions.
André Nicolas 5,528 ...
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36
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2
answers
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Do those red cubes aligned circulary next to MATHEMATICS have any mathematical significance?
Or they just look fancy and that's why it was put there ?
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36
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3
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Looking for other math forums for more "soft" discussions
Well, I don't even know if meta is the right place to ask this, but I thought it suited more than the standard Math Stack Exchange.
As a mathematics undergrad student, I usually face some questions ...
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35
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4
answers
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How do I ask a good question about a topic I am not completely familiar with?
In my classes, it is easy as my professor would correct my question if it bad, or ask me to re-state it and I would learn something new if my question was good or bad. However, in this site I have ...
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2
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$\pi + e$ is irrational, I want to share but nervous.
I have the proof for $\pi + e$ being irrational.
Honestly, I’ve been delving into irrational analysis for awhile now, and I got lucky stumbling into a solution. I’m not an amateur mathematician, but ...
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30
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1
answer
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What to do when someone tells you something like this in her/his comment and then deletes the comment?
There was a question today under which I left a comment that was not right in the sense that what was implied by that comment would not settle the question at all, but it had to do something with the ...
user480281
29
votes
2
answers
1k
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How does one handle books without errata?
My situation:
My book is Differential Forms in Algebraic Topology by Loring W. Tu and Raoul Bott of which An Introduction to Manifolds by Loring W. Tu is a prequel. Neither of which appears to have ...
- 101
26
votes
2
answers
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How are serial upvoters looked upon?
There are several reasons why someone would serially upvote another account. I will list some examples, ranging from good faith to pure evil.
Gratitude. A user encounters a particularly enlightening ...
user77400
23
votes
2
answers
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Distribution of time to first answer in MathStackExchange?
Has anybody got the information on the distribution of the time interval between posting of a question and the posting of the first answer to that question (answer need not be accepted)?
I believe ...
- 3,768
22
votes
3
answers
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How to make a question regarding proof verification more interesting and more attractive?
Since I self-study mathematical analysis without formal teacher, I can only appeal to help from out site most of the time. It's obvious that to grasp the underlying concepts in mathematics, we must ...
- 13.6k
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6
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Blackboard bold
Why do people use blackboard bold here and elsewhere in print? I thought the whole point of the font was as a substitute for bold when one was writing out something by hand. Shouldn't we be using ...
18
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2
answers
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Answering a question too late
I recently answered a question I later found to have been asked nearly 3 years ago. If interested the question is Constructing a family of sets. (EDIT: The answer I provided was not correct, but this ...
- 3,471
17
votes
2
answers
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About posting identical answers to a question
I've been a fairly active member for about a month, and I first of all want to say that this is a terrific site for someone like me that loves to mess around with challenging problems for no reason ...
- 136k
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2
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Which posts have a high value of $\min(\text{upvotes, downvotes})$?
I am curious to see posts that have polarized readers; that is, posts with many upvotes and many downvotes. So,
Which posts (question or answer) on Math Stack Exchange have a high value of $\min(\...
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1
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Are "soft questions" "opinion based"? How about vice versa?
There is a tag called "soft questions", which is described as follows:
For questions whose answers can't be objectively evaluated as correct or incorrect, but which are still relevant to ...
- 4,979
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2
answers
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An Identity Crisis
I'm raising a philosophical question, here, having to do with the format and layout of M.SE versus the stated goals. Essentially, I am asking the question of whether the format of M.SE is in alignment ...
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16
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2
answers
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Compiling a book of the most interesting problems solved in Math Stackexchange
I was reading the Princeton Companion of Mathematics compiled by Tim Gowers and team and a thought stuck me.
What we if produced a compilation book of the most interesting problems solved in Math ...
- 16.3k
13
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1
answer
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What kinds of soft questions are acceptable at math.stackexchange?
I have asked Is remaining single helpful in mathematical career? today and it was put on hold as off-topic. While How hard should a mathematician work? is acceptable with many positive votes and ...
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answer
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Are career related questions allowed?
Are questions about asking career advice and opportunities removed ? I have seen such some question with up votes and answers, while other are down voted and removed. Are there particular career ...
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0
answers
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Are soft questions allowed on MSE? I see there is a tag for it but I'm scared I will be downvoted for it.
What I was really looking for was a SE but for "soft questions mathematics" - the closest thing I found was the History of Mathematics and Physics SE, which is unlucky considering the ...
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10
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2
answers
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What was wrong with my post?
Forgive me, I do not know where else to post this - I assume this is the right place.
I recently made a post asking a question here:
Prove that g has no roots
It recevied a negative voting score ...
- 1,124
9
votes
2
answers
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Can the chat be used to discuss opinionated questions
After reading:
Where to have discussions about intuition?
It's pretty explicit that the main Q&A site isn't for gathering opinions or general extended discussion about math/math related topics (...
- 15.3k
9
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1
answer
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What are some examples of good questions falling under the tags (soft-question), (advice), (career-development)?
What are some examples of good questions falling under the following tags?
soft-question
advice
career-development
I am asking this question because often, positive reactions from users towards ...
user258700
9
votes
0
answers
110
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What is this paradoxical image in the site's header? [duplicate]
What is this paradoxical image composed of red cubes in the site's header called? Is there something (not necesserily mathematically) interesting about it other than its only being able to be ...
- 306
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0
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Is there any way to recover my past questions?
First of all, it is completely my fault that I hadn't registered and kept posting questions, and I'm not sure which should this post be tagged..
I just have noticed that all my information is gone ...
- 1,726
7
votes
3
answers
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Should we eliminate [soft-question]?
Given "The Death of Meta Tags", should we eliminate the [soft-question] tag? Near as I can tell, there are three types of questions tagged with [soft-question]:
those that are also tagged [big-list] ...
- 35.8k
7
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1
answer
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Etiquette about posting a large number of questions about preliminary exams.
I am Currently studying for my preliminary exams (Advanced Calculus and Linear Algebra), and I can solve about half of the previous years exam questions. However, I do not have anyone to vet my proofs ...
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5
votes
2
answers
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Is it possible a question actually "too localized" in MSE?
According to the "close" box, "too localized" means:
This question is unlikely to ever help any future visitors; it is only relevant to a small geographic area, a specific moment in time, or an ...
- 2,152
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1
answer
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Popular soft questions
I have seen multiple questions tagged with the tag soft-question. However, one thing that I've noticed is that almost immediately, these questions get voted down or they are flagged.
On the tag page,...
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2
answers
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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 ...
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3
votes
0
answers
123
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What aspect of a question determines whether a soft question is a good fit for math.SE? [duplicate]
Note: This question is (in my opinion) not a duplicate of the question people have voted to close it for. I specifically cite that particular link, and am expressing confusion about how that answer in ...
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3
votes
0
answers
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Why there are still so many opinion based questions? Should they be closed?
One of the reasons that we delete questions at math.stackexchange is because the answer is primarily opinion based. However, my observation is that there are still many such questions; they are not ...
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2
votes
3
answers
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Is the function of Displayed Math Gone?
Hello There,
This might not be the place to ask this question, but I would not know where else to being that it pertains to SE in particular. I was wondering is the functionality of the displayed ...
- 1,804
2
votes
2
answers
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Would a question asking "Is Theorem X interesting enough to be submitted for publication?" appropriate for MSE?
I have recently proved something (let's call it theorem X) which seems to be a cute, elementary result (I certainly do not mean Riemann, Goldbach etc.)
I would like to post the following question:
"Do ...
- 8,992
2
votes
1
answer
59
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Should requesting examples be tagged as Soft-questions?
Here is the description of the tag "soft question":
...
- 4,979
2
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1
answer
140
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Should I refer to answerer person?
I've asked a question and have got an answer, which is not a novel research but most probably is just taken from a third party book.
When I base a proof in the book I write on a math.SE answer, must ...
- 4,893
2
votes
1
answer
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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...
...
2
votes
0
answers
69
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Where should I ask questions?
I am a sophomore student in China, and I have already learned all the undergraduate courses and several graduate courses in my college. Now I am trying to solve out the problems in qualify exam of ...
- 21
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0
answers
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How do we connect our math.stackexchange account to our facebook page???
For instance, I would like to display on my FB page that I have an active account here. Is there some 1-click way of doing that? Has anybody done this? Thanks.
- 19.8k
1
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1
answer
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The downvoting system is toxic. [duplicate]
I was told to ask here. Here I am!
Does anyone else have the same feeling? Sometimes some questions are downvoted because it seems trivial. But to be honest, as a person first seeing some maths ...
- 572
1
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1
answer
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Questions that involve opinions
I am wondering why it is that questions that are deemed to require opinions are closed or put on hold? But I am also wondering if there is any alternate ways/formats that these types of questions can ...
- 5,429
1
vote
2
answers
243
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Average number of votes per answer
I am new here, so if this is not appropriate place for such question, the tags are wrong, or if this is a duplicate (I have checked, but found nothing, still absence of counterexample is not a proof), ...
- 36.8k
1
vote
1
answer
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Regarding writing notes on M.S.E
I am not sure if this is where I should ask this question, but I am wondering if there is a specific place, on this site, where I can write my math notes on; using the same latex. I want to know ...
- 3,290
1
vote
1
answer
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Answering your own question
Is it allowed to answer question you asked ?
When I press answer button, one of options is "Are you sure you want to answer your own question?"
I answered one of question I asked and got in trouble ...
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