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We have had some recent discussions on whether pure maths questions be on topic (see here and here). It seems that the majority want to make the policies less strict, and so my question is: will the moderators change the policies?

Note that this question is not meant to spark the discussion on whether pure maths questions should be on topic or not. If someone want to share their opinion about this, then please post them in the aforementioned discussions.

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I'm waiting for tomorrow's chat session to see what points are brought up there, and then we'll figure out the consensus and adjust the content of the help center if necessary to reflect it.

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  • $\begingroup$ Ok thanks, for letting me know. $\endgroup$
    – Hunter
    Commented Apr 21, 2014 at 19:11
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I'm not sure where you got the idea that the majority want to make the policies less strict from DavidZ's meta post, given that

  1. The most highly voted answer opens with the statement,

    Questions devoid of any physics content (or reference to physics), which focus entirely on mathematical details should be migrated to the mathematics SE. If the question is regarding a mathematical method applied to a physics problem, then it is appropriate for the physics SE.

  2. The remaining answers echoed the sentiments above (and were oddly given roughly equal mixtures of +1 and -1 votes), with a single answer saying that we should absorb Math.SE's scope into our own.

In any event, I'm not sure that anything really needs to be done to what the majority actually voted. As far as I can tell, this is already done here on physics.SE (as evidenced by the list of migrated questions that DavidZ presented).

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    $\begingroup$ The statement you quote is very out of context without the next sentence. "Nevertheless, a question which focuses entirely on mathematical details, whilst perhaps appropriate for the mathematics SE, should be kept on the physics SE if it is motivated by physics, even though it may not necessarily be regarding how it is precisely applied to a physics problem." For instance, this question was migrated to Math SE but was clearly motivated by motivated by physics. $\endgroup$
    – Hunter
    Commented Apr 21, 2014 at 18:57
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    $\begingroup$ That sentence does not appear to be any different than what I quoted. $\endgroup$
    – Kyle Kanos
    Commented Apr 21, 2014 at 18:59
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    $\begingroup$ What? JamalS even gives an example of question which according to his/her point-of-view should not have been migrated. In other words, the policies are too strict. Also his/her last sentence: "It may be although the question is highly mathematical, the OP desires a physicist's perspective or approach, which may have subtle differences from a mathematics SE answer." $\endgroup$
    – Hunter
    Commented Apr 21, 2014 at 19:05
  • $\begingroup$ (a) Jamal's answer gives conflicting ideas and was highly voted, suggesting that there is no consensus and (b) Jamal gave no evidence for such a migration, just "that it happened" (usually called hearsay in the American justice system). $\endgroup$
    – Kyle Kanos
    Commented Apr 21, 2014 at 20:12
  • $\begingroup$ (c) The last sentence would be a question that should be clearly off-topic because there is no physics content (something Jamal suggests in his own answer) $\endgroup$
    – Kyle Kanos
    Commented Apr 21, 2014 at 20:14
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    $\begingroup$ I don't really want to go in the nitty-gritty details because we have already done that in the previous discussion. However, even if we would ignore Jamal's answer, then the next answer with the highest vote is given by Pulsar. This answer also supports the idea that "the majority wants to make the policies less strict". This idea is also backed up by votes casted in this discussion. Although you and I might disagree on some things, I hope you agree with me that the majority wants to change the "maths" policy. $\endgroup$
    – Hunter
    Commented Apr 22, 2014 at 0:43
  • $\begingroup$ Given that Pulsar's final statement is something along the lines of showing dislike for 'arbitrary rules,' I think we can safely ignore any contribution of his to the discussion about rules. $\endgroup$
    – Kyle Kanos
    Commented Apr 22, 2014 at 1:44

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