Here is the question I posted on MSE several days ago. It seems to be a bit hard for MSE and is not getting responses; I flagged to ask if moderators could migrate this question to MO but I haven't got responses either. Shall I cross-post it here (with links) ? Is this problem suitable for MO?
$\begingroup$ $\endgroup$
10 
- 3$\begingroup$ Right now, your question is a giant wall of impenetrable text. It would take me quite a bit of time to just unpack it and figure out exactly what it is asking. I suspect that is why you’re not getting much traction on math.se: if you can’t boil something down to a question that an expert can immediately figure out is something they care about, it’s just going to get lost in the noise. And I think the standards of exposition on MO are even higher than on math.se since our target audience consists of fairly experienced mathematicians. $\endgroup$Andy Putman– Andy Putman2025-01-22 15:46:59 +00:00Commented Jan 22 at 15:46
- 1$\begingroup$ Another comment: I just noticed that you referred to a previous exercise in the book ("Exercise 1a"). You're not going to get a question answered if reading it depends on having read a particular textbook. In general, I don't think that questions copied verbatim from even advanced textbooks are well-received on MO. $\endgroup$Andy Putman– Andy Putman2025-01-22 16:04:55 +00:00Commented Jan 22 at 16:04
- 2$\begingroup$ @AndyPutman I should have provided a sketch before stating the whole lengthy exercise; I will try this later. Besides, Exercise 1a is an obvious fact, stating that flat bundles correspond to representations of fundamental group. However, I believe solving the exercise indeed depends heavily on having read this particular textbook. Thanks! $\endgroup$Qing Lan– Qing Lan2025-01-22 16:18:47 +00:00Commented Jan 22 at 16:18
- 2$\begingroup$ To emphasize what I said in my first comment: I don't think that making the question longer will help. In general, if the exercise depends on having read a particular textbook then you're probably not going to get an answer for it on something like math.se or MO. $\endgroup$Andy Putman– Andy Putman2025-01-22 16:26:28 +00:00Commented Jan 22 at 16:26
- 2$\begingroup$ @AndyPutman All right... I understood. Thanks for your patience. $\endgroup$Qing Lan– Qing Lan2025-01-22 16:51:50 +00:00Commented Jan 22 at 16:51
- 4$\begingroup$ @AndyPutman I think characteristing the book as a textbook is underselling it a bit. It's Lecture Notes in Mathematics, and it more of a research monograph/advanced grad course level, based on a lecture series (which is why there are 'exercises' still in the text). Apart from the presentation, I personally would lean on the side of this being of an ok level for MO $\endgroup$David Roberts– David Roberts Mod2025-01-22 22:51:32 +00:00Commented Jan 22 at 22:51
- 2$\begingroup$ @DavidRoberts: I agree that there is no issue with the level of the question (maybe I should have made that clearer in what I wrote). But I do think that if it's a question that cannot be understood without reading the book then it's probably not going to get a good answer. $\endgroup$Andy Putman– Andy Putman2025-01-22 23:08:40 +00:00Commented Jan 22 at 23:08
- 5$\begingroup$ @AndyPutman I'm [edit: not] disagreeing with you, but I've see plenty of questions that rely on people knowing or having access to papers or books, or otherwise being familiar with their contents or the topic. I don't think the question is on the side of tremendous excessive length (not for MO, but for M.SE I think it is); again, I've seen questions this long and technical before. But personally I would err on the side of cleaning up, rather than drastic reduction. $\endgroup$David Roberts– David Roberts Mod2025-01-23 00:11:29 +00:00Commented Jan 23 at 0:11
- 1$\begingroup$ @Andy I do apologise, my mobile typing can be patchy, but I don't know why I left out a crucial word in my previous comment! $\endgroup$David Roberts– David Roberts Mod2025-01-27 10:35:45 +00:00Commented Jan 27 at 10:35
- 1$\begingroup$ @DavidRoberts: That makes your comment make more sense! I was a little confused, but decided that I had said whatever I was going to say and that you could have the last word regarding this. $\endgroup$Andy Putman– Andy Putman2025-01-27 12:49:50 +00:00Commented Jan 27 at 12:49
Add a comment |
2 Answers
$\begingroup$ $\endgroup$
I will differ from Federico Poloni’s answer: I think the question would be reasonably on-topic here. The exposition and formatting could certainly be improved a bit, to give less of an intimidating “wall of text” — but they’re already at a reasonable baseline: The main question is clearly given in the opening paragraph, “I'd like to solve or find a reference for Exercise 2 (a), Chapter 9 in […]”, together with the exercise itself quoted straight afterwards, and contra some comments, the question doesn’t depend on knowing the specific book — it’s fully self-contained from the exercise statement; the rest of the text is just OP’s discussion of their own attempts so far. And the question seems well up into the level which may be easy for people experienced in the topic, but is not obvious for newcomers learning it (including mature mathematicians from other subfields), which has generally been considered on-topic here — MathOverflow acting as a substitute for asking your colleague down the hall.
$\begingroup$ $\endgroup$
1 Converted from a comment:
Right now, your question is a giant wall of impenetrable text. It would take me quite a bit of time to just unpack it and figure out exactly what it is asking. I suspect that is why you’re not getting much traction on math.se: if you can’t boil something down to a question that an expert can immediately figure out is something they care about, it’s just going to get lost in the noise. And I think the standards of exposition on MO are even higher than on math.se since our target audience consists of fairly experienced mathematicians.
And another one:
To emphasize what I said in my first comment: I don't think that making the question longer will help. In general, if the exercise depends on having read a particular textbook then you're probably not going to get an answer for it on something like math.se or MO.
The implied answer is: no, this is not suitable for MO, at least in its current form.
- 1$\begingroup$ Although the "I" in the comment is not the poster of the answer (though I assume that your choice to excerpt these comments means that you at least implicitly endorse them). $\endgroup$LSpice– LSpice2025-01-25 00:43:44 +00:00Commented Jan 25 at 0:43