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Comments on Why are there no recent well-received questions?

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Why are there no recent well-received questions?

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Why does this site have little activity or have too many open, poorly-received questions? It seems there are no recent and well-received questions.

Do you think this site is doing worse than before?

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We seem to be getting two types of questions, too dumb and too complicated. We also get the occasional off-topic.

The dumb questions are downvoted for obvious reasons.

Very few people understand the complicated questions. This site is small to begin with. The users that can understand the complicated questions will always be a small fraction of the total users. That leaves maybe a couple of people who can even understand what the complicated questions are asking. You basically need to have a math degree to make sense of them. As a result, they just sit and languish.

As an example, I have a masters degree in an engineering field. I had my share of math courses in college relevant to engineering. I know more math than the ordinary reasonably educated person, but am not a "math guy".

The complicated questions here are way over my head. I don't even understand what is being asked most of the time, including your latest question. I look at all the undefined terms and symbols (for me) and the impenetrable wall of text, roll my eyes, and move on. The question is clearly not meant to be accessible to anyone who isn't specialized in math. That's OK. This is the math site. Maybe it is decipherable to someone with the right background. However, when you write a dense and impenetrable question, you have to expect few to none can or want to bother answering it.

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1 comment thread

niche content is not a major obstacle (2 comments)
niche content is not a major obstacle
silvascientist‭ wrote 6 months ago

note that math.SE regularly fields questions of exactly the advanced nature that you're complaining about and is hardly a small community. mathoverflow.net is a community developed by and for research mathematicians, and you basically have to be in the process of gaining a PhD in math to be able to formulate a question that would be considered on topic, and it has no shortage of activity...

the point being that niche or specialized content is really not an obstacle to forming large and active communities

System‭ wrote 6 months ago

Thread renamed from "note that math.SE regularly fields questions of exactly the advanced nature that you're complaining a..." to "niche content is not a major obstacle" by silvascientist‭