[FOM] FOM vs MO

[Ali Enayat]

This note is primarily intended to bring attention to the website
MATHOVERFLOW (hereafter MO), for those FOM subscribers who might not
be familiar with MO.

According to Wikpedia "MO is an interactive mathematics website, which
serves both as a collaborative blog and an online community of
mathematicians ... [snip] ... It is primarily for asking questions on
mathematics research ..[snip] ... It is generally inhospitable to
questions perceived as tendentious or argumentative.

MO provides an efficient mechanism for question-and-answer sessions
pertaining to specific *technical* matters.  To get a flavor from a
sample, see the following question-and-answer page:

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/69545/undecidable-theories-easier-than-q

FOM, on the other hand, is ideally suited for posting information for
logicians (announcements of new results, publications, meetings, job
openings, grants, etc), and equally importantly, for debating
philosophical and/or foundational and/or historical matters. But the
interactive feature of MO provides a distinct advantage over FOM for
handling technical questions and answers.

I see the FOM vs MO issue not as a zero-sum game, but as as a win-win
situation since by having at least a subset of postings concerning
technical questions "migrate" to MO, FOM can better focus on what it
can do best; and MO can benefit from the participation of more
logicians.