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Calculus is just a field in mathematics. MathOverflow is just for research level mathematics. This would be about mathematics at any level, encompassing all the different fields of math. – Dan Dumitru Jun 3 '10 at 23:18

This is desperately needed. MathOverflow is brutal about kicking off questions that do not meet their exacting standards, and there needs to be a home for such questions. – Robert Harvey Jun 3 '10 at 23:34

How will this site deal with homework questions? MathOverflow has it easy: if it's easy enough to be homework, it's too easy to count as interesting to research mathematicians. I'm very much in favour of a second mathematics StackExchange, but I feel this question needs to have a lot of thought put into it. – Scott Morrison Jun 4 '10 at 14:22

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49 Example Questions (11 closed)

active newest votes

up vote -1 down vote

added by Casebash Jun 4 '10 at 2:26

I would discourage any SE site from allowing questions which are indistinguishable from "reproduce a Wikipedia page for me". It's pretty frustrating when somebody asks such a question because even if you're an expert on the topic, you don't know where to start. There's no specific question. – Anton Geraschenko Jun 4 '10 at 15:47

SO survives without these rules. Why can't SE sites? – Casebash Jun 5 '10 at 12:07

I agree with Anton, the asker could have looked it up on wikipedia themselves. The perfect answer would probably just have a link to the wikipedia page. – Greg B Jun 17 '10 at 14:34

@Greg: No, it would have links to a variety of resources – Casebash Jun 17 '10 at 23:34

up vote -1 down vote

added by sth Jun 8 '10 at 2:48

closed as off topic by Dan Dumitru, Simon Nickerson, Maxim Zaslavsky, interjay, Pieter Jun 10 '10 at 15:17

This question does not relate to the topic of the proposal.
It was closed as part of an automated migration of off-topic to close votes on September 29, 2011.

I think this would belong on Super User. – Dan Dumitru Jun 8 '10 at 5:54

@Dan: Keep in mind that these questions are being evaluated independently of their ability to live on another site. – Robert Harvey Jun 14 '10 at 19:50

Of course, this question though is not directly about mathematics and I don't think the Math site should allow questions asking how to use math software programs, as equation editors and such. – Dan Dumitru Jun 15 '10 at 11:53

up vote -1 down vote

added by derobert, edited by Gelatin Jun 17 '10 at 23:42

closed as off topic by Massimo, pbz1912, Brian R. Bondy, Thomas Owens, Dan Dumitru Jun 17 '10 at 20:37

This question does not relate to the topic of the proposal.
It was closed as part of an automated migration of off-topic to close votes on September 29, 2011.

lmgtfy.com/?q=67%5E12%2B9 – Pete Hodgson Jun 18 '10 at 0:02

@Pete - Google proved to be not exact enough on this particular example :) – Dan Dumitru Jun 18 '10 at 10:38

@Dan: wolframalpha.com/input/?i=67%5E12%2B9 – KennyTM Jun 18 '10 at 11:12

I've voted for off-topic. However, if it were phrased as "How do I find the value of 67^12+9?" I would probably describe it as on-topic. – Douglas S. Stones Jun 18 '10 at 11:26

@Douglas: If someone asked, "How do I perform exponents by hand, without a calculator?" that'd be on topic, especially if they wanted to know how when its hard or impossible to convert to repeated multiplication. But this captures that its off-topic to ask other folks to be a human calculator for you, when Google would suffice. In short, Math SE is not a calculator. – derobert Jun 18 '10 at 18:03

show 2 more improvement suggestions

up vote -1 down vote

added by Thomas Owens Jun 17 '10 at 19:53

up vote -2 down vote

added by Dan Dumitru Jun 3 '10 at 23:20

closed as off topic by KennyTM, ire_and_curses, Amos, Maxim Zaslavsky, Simon Nickerson Jun 9 '10 at 6:03

This question does not relate to the topic of the proposal.
It was closed as part of an automated migration of off-topic to close votes on September 29, 2011.

Blatant homework questions should be off-topic, if the OP doesn't prove that he has put at least some effort in solving it and coming up with the right question to ask. – Dan Dumitru Jun 3 '10 at 23:21

But has the OP put any effort into this question, or not? I don't think this is an exemplar based on the title alone. – ire_and_curses Jun 4 '10 at 22:17

@ire_and_curses - You're right. I've edited it to make it more clearly off-topic. – Dan Dumitru Jun 5 '10 at 18:42

I think this is not a good example because it depends whether it is a blatant "do my homework" or a "how should I figure out how to solve this"/ – sixtyfootersdude Jun 15 '10 at 21:06

@sixtyfootersdude - I tried to make it as clearly off-topic as I could, but there is so much you can do with the title only... Do you have any idea how a question could sound more blatantly-homeworkish? For me, "Ca someone solve [soemthing] for me?" sounds blatant enough... – Dan Dumitru Jun 15 '10 at 22:00

up vote -4 down vote

added by Nathan Osman Jun 4 '10 at 5:13

This would also fall in the [blatant-homework-with-no-effort-from-the-OP] category. And still Meh from me, although indeed we need an exemplary question for this category. – Dan Dumitru Jun 4 '10 at 5:37

up vote -6 down vote

added by balpha♦ Jun 4 '10 at 9:21

Nothing, as you can already factorize numbers in O(n^3) with quantum computers. – KennyTM Jun 4 '10 at 9:25

If area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/3355/… isn't on-topic, neither should this. – KennyTM Jun 4 '10 at 9:26

The phrasing of this question is more appropriate for the Apocalyptic Defense proposal :) – Dan Dumitru Jun 4 '10 at 9:28

up vote -10 down vote

added by Casebash Jun 4 '10 at 2:29

closed as off topic by Noah Snyder, Chris W. Rea, Robert Harvey, Simon Nickerson, Maxim Zaslavsky Jun 8 '10 at 19:50

This question does not relate to the topic of the proposal.
It was closed as part of an automated migration of off-topic to close votes on September 29, 2011.

Not a real question. – Robert Harvey Jun 4 '10 at 3:56

You have the honor of making me laugh. – Nathan Osman Jun 4 '10 at 5:13

I think this could be a real question, something like: "I think I solved the Riemann Hypothesis. Could you tell me if I did something wrong?" – Dan Dumitru Jun 4 '10 at 9:30

But I don't find it an exemplary question though. – Dan Dumitru Jun 4 '10 at 9:30

Certainly a candidate for MathOverflow. – Foster Brereton Jun 4 '10 at 16:44

up vote -14 down vote

added by Nathan Osman Jun 4 '10 at 4:05

I would put this in the [blatant-homework-with-no-effort-from-the-OP] category. All calculations you can do with Google would fall in this category. – Dan Dumitru Jun 4 '10 at 5:30

However, I think we can come up with a more exemplary off-topic question for this category, so for now it has my Meh vote (I would see a better question in a FAQ depicting what's off-topic). – Dan Dumitru Jun 4 '10 at 5:32

You can think of it as a trivial question only as long as you don't take into accout the concept of "base". – Massimo Jun 4 '10 at 10:39

It's actually quite trivial even if you consider it can be in different bases. But the problem is not that it's trivial, the problem is that it falls in the [blatant-homework-with-no-effort-from-the-OP] question category. – Dan Dumitru Jun 4 '10 at 11:21