Thuses

We aim to build a community at Thuses that fosters vibrant and interesting math conversations. We ask that everyone be mindful of the following principle:

It is far more acceptable to criticize ideas than to criticize people.

In addition, please adhere to the following community guidelines.

No bigotry Do not use language that has the potential to offend (but not limited to) a person’s race, gender, sexual orientation, religion or disability status.

No harassment We do not tolerate name-calling, personal insults, bullying, or any form of harassment.

Respect Criticism is welcome (and in fact healthy!) but please do so in a respectful way.

Example scenarios:

1. X writes a post on a standard undergraduate math topic. Y can respond to X’s post in two ways:
   
   • “Why did you write this? Your post is trivial.”
   • “I think this post is not suitable for Thuses.”

   
   

   The first of these is unacceptable, while the second is acceptable.




2. X writes a post on the work of Z. However, Y does not like Z, and responds with the following comment: “I wouldn’t read anything written by Z as Z is a bad writer.” This comment is unacceptable as Y is engaging in name-calling.




3. X makes a comment on Y’s post saying that they do not know the meaning of some of the terminology. Seeing this, Z responds with a “Let me google that for you” hyperlink. This comment by Z is unacceptable.




4. Lemma 3 of X’s post claims that some operator is self-adjoint. Y knows that this is false (and even has a counterexample), and can respond to X’s post in two ways:
   
   • “Your claim in Lemma 3 that operator is self-adjoint is trivially false. How could you not realize that one can easily construct a counterexample?”
   • “I think that operator in Lemma 3 need not be self-adjoint. Consider the following counterexample.”

   
   

   The first of these is far more confrontational than the second, as the sentence “How could you not realize…?” is a personal attack on X. Therefore, this comment is strictly unacceptable. On the other hand, the second comment is acceptable and is the kind of thing we welcome at Thuses.




5. There is an error in Theorem 1 of X’s post. Seeing this, Y decides to respond: “I think I have a counterexample to Theorem 1 in the way it’s written now. However, if you impose further assumptions, then I think Theorem 1 true, but I don’t know how to prove it.” This is exactly the kind of comment we want to see on Thuses!