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HN-like math research discussion for Ph.D.s

hessix.com

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Re: HN-like math research discussion for Ph.D.s

#61

Post by nilkn »

philipov wrote: post #49
nilkn wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine the main differentiator would be open-ended discussion that's not necessarily trying to answer a well-defined question (or any question at all for that matter). Stack Exchange and MathOverflow are both fairly bad at supporting this at best and openly hostile towards it at worst.

None of the articles on the front page have even a single comment.

That's a separate issue. The content here appears far too specialized and restricted even for math PhDs (while I don't have a PhD, I do have an extensive background in math and have published research).

Re: HN-like math research discussion for Ph.D.s

#62

Post by nilkn »

meuk wrote: post #18
nilkn wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine the main differentiator would be open-ended discussion that's not necessarily trying to answer a well-defined question (or any question at all for that matter). Stack Exchange and MathOverflow are both fairly bad at supporting this at best and openly hostile towards it at worst.

It's directly contradictory to their goal, since the goal is trying to answer well-defined questions.

That's fine, but it doesn't change the fact that the sites are very ill-suited to many sorts of discussion that should then be handled by other sites.

Re: HN-like math research discussion for Ph.D.s

#63

Post by sctb »

jowdones wrote: post #30
whunting wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree on search, it is now open for non users. Affiliation is to avoid content dilution. Any alternative ideas are welcome (and as you can see with search, implemented)

Idea: die in a fire. Really, go f yourself with your hardcore authoritarian censorship right from the beginning. HN is bad enough (and I bet you a month's salary they'll obliterate my post) but at least they allow SOME level of free expression. You on the other hand represent the most disgusting essence of human wickedness disguised as elitism.

If you don't want your account to be banned, don't post like this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: HN-like math research discussion for Ph.D.s

#64

Post by xamuel »

xorand wrote: post #33

Who are you? I can't find any information about who made Hessix or who is Hessix.

Given that his HN name, "whunting", is a reference to "Good Will Hunting", that suggests OP might be a non-mathematician math enthusiast. I can't think of a single mathematician who would unironically name themselves after Good Will Hunting. I don't mean that in a disparaging way, though. Mathematics could really stand to stop taking itself so seriously and have people kidding around more, and that goes for myself as well! But it kind of flies in the face of OP's refusal to grant accounts to people without academic affiliation (MIT janitors like the film's protagonist probably don't have math department email addresses). The site being such high quality production despite being written entirely in PHP suggests OP is quite an unusual person, I'd really like to learn more about him.

Re: HN-like math research discussion for Ph.D.s

#65

Post by hkol3 »

mlurp wrote: post #59
v64 wrote: post #54

I've found MathOverflow [1] to be the best high-level math discussion forum out there right now. Many prominent mathematicians are regular posters, and I think the question-and-answer format suits mathematical discussion very well. [1] https://mathoverflow.net/

MO is definitely high level, but like all SO/SE, I've always found their format to be really restricting. Not everything can be phrased as an objective question. Sometimes the best stuff have come out of something like "I was thinking about xyz, here are some things I noticed, thoughts?" I've even had/seen actual questions closed on SO/SE sites closed because of reasons I think are pretty silly. It's also just not me…

This is possibly why Jeff Atwood went off and made Discourse.

If the StackExchange sites provide an allied discussion forum where I can specify what level of users I want posting on my thread that would be great.

Where level can be verified grad/phd in subject X or anyone who has more than N accepted answers in subject X...

Come on CS folk make it happen.

Right now I have to wander around labs and conferences to find the right people and have these discussions. A gigantic waste of time when most of these folk hang out on MathOverflow but can't have these disccusions.

Most of the progress in science came through 2-3 people finding and corresponding with each other. Here we are at a moment in time, where we don't need to find just 2-3 people.

We can find ever single one whether they are sitting in Cambridge or Congo and lay out a subject before them and yet we haven't got that to work right.

Re: HN-like math research discussion for Ph.D.s

#66

Post by ska »

roenxi wrote: post #29
mkl wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m sure a maths researcher can handle it No, not at all. Each maths researcher will understand (and care about) only a fraction of these. Maths research (like most subjects) is broken into highly specialised subfields, and experts in one often cannot readily understand research in others. New research papers are the cutting edge of the field, pushing out the boundary between known maths and unknown maths, and this…

Mathematics has a problem that also crops up on the fringes of programming; if a genius creates something at the limits of their understanding it is typically very hard to follow. Academics as a whole doesn't really tackle the issue of taking knowledge and bedding it down into digestible form. Individually a lot of people do great work, but as a body they don't seem to see as that as their role. So far the solution i…

They don’t see it as their role when publishing academic papers because it isn’t, at least as currently instantiated.

Academic papers aren’t meant as a static store of knowledge in digestible form for outsiders. They are an ongoing conversation between experts. In his way they do assume h reader has done the work to follow along.

Eventually the good bits mostly get worked into digestible form, usually by the mechanism of seminars first, then in courses.

One can argue that there isn’t enough incentive to go past working up a seminar, and especially produce generally approachable material which is a lot of work and typically doesn’t pay at all.

The issue of the approachability of papers is similar. There is currently negative incentive for this. Some people are naturally better at it, but mostly if you are spending extra time on this it won’t help your (academic) career at all, and it might hurt.

Re: HN-like math research discussion for Ph.D.s

#68

Post by jtanderson »

xamuel wrote: post #58

Nice idea, +1 for LaTeX titles! But the registration system should be way more open, you're discriminating against many math PhD's who are no longer in academia. I would have posted my paper there but I guess "@math.ohio-state.edu" isn't elite enough so I'll post it here and probably get more traction than all the papers on OP's entire site combined. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1201.2869.pdf "Infinite graphs in systematic…

Wow, yeah. Came here to say the same. I could understand somewhat making a distinction between emails that end in .edu and those who don't -- at least during the early days -- but this system does seem excessive.

I do think the ideas in the paper are pretty cool! One question: have you considered or attempted some sort of generative models based on this system? You'd have to do some clever symbolic manipulations to deal with the "infinities" that crop up, but it seems like it could be interesting.

Re: HN-like math research discussion for Ph.D.s

#69

Post by v64 »

mlurp wrote: post #59
v64 wrote: post #54

I've found MathOverflow [1] to be the best high-level math discussion forum out there right now. Many prominent mathematicians are regular posters, and I think the question-and-answer format suits mathematical discussion very well. [1] https://mathoverflow.net/

MO is definitely high level, but like all SO/SE, I've always found their format to be really restricting. Not everything can be phrased as an objective question. Sometimes the best stuff have come out of something like "I was thinking about xyz, here are some things I noticed, thoughts?" I've even had/seen actual questions closed on SO/SE sites closed because of reasons I think are pretty silly. It's also just not me…

> Sometimes the best stuff have come out of something like "I was thinking about xyz, here are some things I noticed, thoughts?"

I think this is a matter of preference. I see where you're coming from, and there's a lot of value in that kind of unrestricted brainstorming, but I've always preferred to have those types of discussions in person with some whiteboards available for fleshing out ideas. When I'm brainstorming, I don't want to get caught up in LaTeX formatting issues, or to spend an hour writing out a response, only to have the discussion go in a completely different direction within that hour.

I enjoy reading MathOverflow because the Q&A format forces the question asker to take whatever vague idea they have and form it into an objective question that can be rigorously proven or refuted. The narrow focus keeps the discussion on topic, so even if it takes you a while to contribute, you can be assured that your response will still be relevant.

Re: HN-like math research discussion for Ph.D.s

#70

Post by djsumdog »

explore wrote: post #20
whunting wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PHP from total scratch, I'm actually thinking of open sourcing the project

That would be great, thank you! Cf. https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters

Haha, I was going to mention lobsters. I don't understand why everyone tries to re-implement HN. I guess the interface is pretty minimalist, simplistic and recognizable, but Lobster just has so many more useful features and is pretty mature. I'd highly recommend it rather than try and reinvent the wheel.
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