5
$\begingroup$

In the light of this discussion on crossposted questions, I'm wondering if we should revisit our crossposting policy. The current policy is:

Crossposting from MathOverflow is perfectly fine, as long as they aren't done in parallel. That is, if you post a question on one site, you should only post to the other site after you have not received a satisfactory answer for some time. As a courtesy, if you post your question here after trying MathOverflow, please try to integrate in your question the answers you received on MathOverflow (even if they did not answer everything).

I'm proposing that we delete the statements

as long as they aren't done in parallel. That is, if you post a question on one site, you should only post to the other site after you have not received a satisfactory answer for some time.

The rationale is that

  • people are crossposting simultaneously anyway, and it seems tiresome to police users who for the most part have good intentions
  • Based on the above discussion, it seems that users don't have problems posting related answers on either site, so the duplication problem isn't that severe
  • It might even be viewed as a success of our site, as well as a natural reflection of the close ties to math, that this happens.

Thoughts ?

Update: Current view (as Peter Shor recommends, in the light of discussion on MO) is: keep the policy as is, but don't come down too hard on cross posting (but definitely encourage people to wait)

$\endgroup$
4
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ Maybe we should figure out what the MathOverflow folk think of it before we make any changes. $\endgroup$
    – Peter Shor
    Nov 22, 2010 at 13:23
  • $\begingroup$ Good point. I'll ask over on their meta $\endgroup$
    – Suresh Venkat
    Nov 22, 2010 at 18:09
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ I think somebody else already did. My suggestion: leave the policy the way it is, but if somebody does crosspost, don't be draconian about enforcing the policy. $\endgroup$
    – Peter Shor
    Nov 23, 2010 at 22:44
  • $\begingroup$ #Peter ok. that's my general feeling as well. $\endgroup$
    – Suresh Venkat
    Nov 23, 2010 at 22:55

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
5
$\begingroup$

If people were comfortable with simultaneous crossposting, I would not see any reason not to crosspost questions in TCS to MathOverflow in the long term. (If everyone did this right now, people at MathOverflow would be upset by a sudden burst of TCS questions, but my guess is that that is because it is sudden and unpredictable.) Then I would have to wonder why we have a separate website from MathOverflow.

That said, I am not sure if this is a valid reason to disallow simultaneous crossposting. To be honest, if we can become part of MathOverflow gradually and we can end up with one website for both mathematicians and theoretical computer scientists, that sounds like a good thing to me.

$\endgroup$
3
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ yes, but this site is about more than complexity theory (I hope!), and moreover, the kinds of questions one can ask/answer on MO are quite different to here. $\endgroup$
    – Suresh Venkat
    Nov 19, 2010 at 0:30
  • $\begingroup$ @Suresh: I did not mean to limit the scope of my answer to questions in complexity theory. I rewrote my answer. $\endgroup$
    – Tsuyoshi Ito
    Nov 19, 2010 at 1:13
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ If we did make a change, we would merely quietly change the FAQ and not come down on crossposters. I'm not sure that anyone except for meta lurkers would even notice $\endgroup$
    – Suresh Venkat
    Nov 19, 2010 at 1:15
5
$\begingroup$

If we allow simultaneous crossposting, I think we should also require that whoever creates the mess, also cleans it up. That is, if you crosspost, make sure that you actively follow comments and answers actively on both sites. If clarifications are needed, clarify the question on both sites. If there are good answers, add links/comments/answers on the other site as well. In brief, don't expect anyone else to do it for you and don't expect anyone else to follow both sites.

$\endgroup$
1
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ While this is an excellent idea in an ideal world, I think we cannot enforce it. As Suresh put, "it seems tiresome to police users." $\endgroup$
    – Sadeq Dousti
    Nov 22, 2010 at 22:35

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .