talking about open problems

Hi Suresh

ah ok

thought it might be easier to have chat here than in comments

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the interactive proofs question is an example of its openness being discovered in discussion

it was posed as a question that might have had an answer

Agree

so it's a good case for the open problems tag

as are the other two

yes

as you say, a question is always interesting and unanswered to the questioner

I am not against tagging questions that we discover to be wide open with [tag:open-problem]

the point here though is that the question should be interesting and unanswered IN GENERAL

this is a judgement call of course

but it's one that we commonly do

I was referring to Ross's first item: to somebody

I think my main point is the following:

[open-problem] is used for questions when it is noticed that people have spent time thinking about them and they are still wide open

The current proposal is in the reverse direction: the question is not wide open i.e. answerable

true

the MO definition is to me a little too stringent though

like the shuffle problem

maybe it's solvable with existing techniques

I don't know many problems that we know are not solvable by current techniques

right

my opinion is that [open-problem] was an indication that this problem is hard

agreed

and people have thought about it, don't expect an answer on cstheory

so not all unanswered questions should get this tag

yes

ah so that last point is something I'm not sure about

for e.g on the shuffle problem, the discussion made good progress

before getting stuck

oh waiyt

wait a second

ok

I think I see your point

so a question should be tagged open problem as a kind of warning

yes

hmm

ok

Even when a problem is open we can discuss it

it happens on MO

right

and Gil and Scott have asked such questions

it becomes CW

it is possible to make progress on them

but they don't have answer that someone can read and give in a few minuates

I think Ross's intent was to draw attention to "interesting" unsolved questions

I mean read the question and say, yes I know the answer

like the shuffle problem and the multiplication of polynomials problem

as a kind of 'advertisement' for people wanting to ponder such questions

yes, let me think a second

I don't think that is against what I am saying, if we understand that a question does not have an answer (i.e. an expert reading the question and answering it in by spending a small amount of time) then that is an open problem in the sense that it requires serious researching time being spent on it to find an answer

so then what remains is the precise criteria to use to label something as open-problem

If that is what Ross is talking about that makes sense and I have misunderstood the question.

I don't speak for him, but I think that's what I was understanding the question as. Your point is also valid though

I think we can ask for his confirmation, and if that is the idea I would also support it.

About the criteria, I guess we can try to come up with something based on those cases mentioned in the post

yes. maybe you can post an answer reflecting your viewpoint ?

I should go now :(

sure

ok

bye

:)

Hehe...Finally, I saw some real chat here ;)

@SadeqDousti yep. we could coordinate a chat on meta sometime using the system messages.