Is this question on rigor acceptable?

Question

It is about the question "The role of rigor." Is it within the scope of the site? Personally, as a mathematician, I am keen to see answers. But is it within the limits of this site? I believe that there are experts here who are able to give references to recent research where this question has relevance.

This post has been migrated from (A51.SE)

Answer 1

This is a hard one. I'm also very interested in the answers. Personally I feel that this question has merit to stay for multiple reasons:

• As you pointed out, it can and is very relevant for current research to ask about rigor.
• It's Interesting. Interesting enough that even on MO such a question wasn't closed.
• As I see it, currently our most relevant/On-Topic Big-List question and a good example of how a CW could/should look like

The only reason I would have for closing it, is that a similar question (the one linked) exists on MO.

This post has been migrated from (A51.SE)

Comments

I tend to agree with this assessment.

This post has been migrated from (A51.SE)

---

Answers from physics perspective will also be interesting, I am not sure if the answers here will be the same as the answers on MO.

This post has been migrated from (A51.SE)

---

Backlinks to & from MO would be great, though more relevant after the site goes public.

This post has been migrated from (A51.SE)

Answer 2

I am ambivalent about this issue. I do find it interesting and would be happy to see it discussed elsewhere, but I wouldn't like to see a proliferation of this sort of soft questions, as is unfortunately seen on MO. Many of the latter type of questions are closed there, but much less than should be. I feel that they would fit much better on blogs, for example. At the very least, such a question should always be community wiki, for reasons that have been discussed many times in this (and other) meta.

This post has been migrated from (A51.SE)

Comments

In the early days of MO, there were many more soft questions allowed, and I suspect they helped draw a substantial amount of traffic to the site. These days, MO can afford to close these questions, since they have so much traffic (and they have chosen to do so). We certainly cannot afford it here yet.

This post has been migrated from (A51.SE)

---

@Peter Shor: Yes, I agree with you, and made actually precisely the same point elsewhere on this meta ("Closing upvoted questions").

This post has been migrated from (A51.SE)