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(Edited.) An anonymous poster has created a page with Vesselin’s comments on MO simply copied and pasted. I don’t know what others think of this, but whether this is an appropriate use of the nLab seems open to debate. What do others think?
At the moment it looks a bit wild. But if further developed, that could be good.
I am all in favor of taking insights thrown around on MO and turning them into coherent accounts on the Lab. If this is the beginning of an attempt to do so, I’d welcome it.
It’s wild all right. I would like to ascertain how serious it is.
At the very least, we should bring it to Vesselin’s attention. Is this the right person: http://users.math.yale.edu/public_html/People/vad9.html?
(I was going to leave a comment on the MO answer, but decided it would be better to email directly.)
Incidentally, I would guess that the poster is the same as the person who “announced” the posting on meta.MO (http://meta.mathoverflow.net/account/820/).
Undoubtedly that’s the right Vesselin Dimitrov (and thanks). And I’m sure you’re right about the anonymous poster.
I’ve sent an email, also linking to this discussion.
Hi cpypst,
I think it is good to try to archive results of MO discussions in stable and coherent form on the Lab. I keep thinking that this way the information accumulated at MO can be given a much more useful recording.
The only thing is that, hence, this needs a tad more editing than just a copy and paste. There needs to be a bit of context the leads into the discussion etc.
Think of how youd’d prepare, say, a pdf file as handout for a seminar talk on the given topic. You wouldn’t hand out in a seminar a verbatim copy of an MO comment but would first edit it a little for context, readability and organization.
Same here. If you go and edit the Lab entry a bit more for readability and coherence, I think it can be quite worthwhile.
cpypst, I have redacted my original comment (and I apologize in turn). I reacted a little too snappily, I fear.
And the entry might be an appropriate use of the nLab. Can I ask you what your plans are with this? Is this something that you’re actively working on, or do you plan to keep updating it as information comes in? Do you plan on linking this to other activity within the nLab?
If serious people plan on using the nLab to have a serious discussion of abc and Mochizuki’s work, then that could be really great and exciting.
I’ve tidied it up a little bit. The main thing is that itex doesn’t allow < or > (since these can be confused with XML tags, and it is possible to put raw MathML inside the mathematics with itex). I also changed := to \coloneqq, made the referenced equations properly labelled, and changed square brackets which were used as parentheses into parentheses (again, [...] is a special Markdown syntax, or looks like one, so is best to avoid).
For me, I’d say the negative reaction you got (and are getting, if meta.MO is anything to go by) would be mitigated if you were not so obviously anonymous.
I have added at the beginning a paragraph trying to explain what the whole entry is about in the first place.
I would also eventually like to change the title and replace “abc” by “abc conjecture”. If something goes from a communication between a handful of people to a potentially larger audience as that of this Wiki, we need a minimum of self-containedness. But before I do further edits I wait if anyone takes up the task of working that copy-and-paste result into something that reads more like a standard math text.
If some long discussion or personal commentary is in the MathOverflow, it is senseless to copy it verbatim to Lab. A link only is better to have. Especially when the subject is far from the focus of Lab. The Lab is to provide structured information, hence a digest of various material, including from MathOverflow, with view toward rigour is appropriate. In such a way, materials from MathOverflow are good source, when used as raw material and properly referenced. Of course, if someone used MathOverflow just to remind herself about a standard definition, it is not necessary to cite in this case; the canonical comprehensive references with proof and peer review may sometimes be more authoritative.
If this page tends to stay a long verbatim discussion from MO, I strongly vote to erase it.
Before seeing Zoran’s #13, I had written a comment over at meta.MO, which gives my own reaction to its presence here. Now that there is public awareness of this nLab entry, which might well be tainted by association with the negative reactions at meta.MO to the actions undertaken by cpypst, we might consider doing Zoran suggests: get rid of it, leaving behind just a link to the original MO comment.
Or not. But looking at the entry, I for one do not feel equipped to handle the task of integrating this entry into the nLab in any sort of smooth way. If cpypst has a vested interest in this topic and wants to try making a home for it in the nLab, I hope he or she will let us know.
One thing to remember is that we can take a little time before deciding (another advantage of this place over MO!). The notice on the page that Todd put ensures (I think) that it’s clear what the status of the page is. So we can wait to hear from cpypst what he/she intends, and to hear what Dimitrov thinks of it.
I’m also of the opinion that in it’s current form I’d be inclined to simply leave the link to MO. But if any of the interested parties does take it up then that would be great. So let’s give it time to see what’ll happen and then clean it up if it becomes clear that nothing will happen.
Without knowing anything about the situation, it seems in general better not to try to archive the results of a discussion until the discussion is concluded.
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