@FrançoisG.Dorais I would say that the fact that there is a redirect from tea.mathoverflow.net to mathoverflow.tqft.net makes it more official.

I have responded here instead of continuing this in the editors' lounge - this topic is actually unrelated to editing/tagging, so it probably more suitable elsewhere.

Perhaps more important whether it can be considered official is the fact that while it worked, the redirect meant that the old links - which are in many posts and comments on meta - still worked. (Anybody who clicked them was simply redirected to the archival copy on tqft.net.)

On MO meta there are only four posts and 81 comments. But those links are probably used in many other places.

@MartinSleziak Awesome! Sounds good. This is a pretty easy change to make so, as long as the formatting/styles used are stuff you see on other sites, we should be able to make those changes. Happy to answer any specific questions you have, too.

@Catija You mean the change to the modal window, right?

Yep, that's right.

I hoped that some MO users will give feedback - and perhaps propose some alternative.

So far I only received a comment from David Roberts.

I think it would be nice to have some more feedback from MO users or from mods - from TT's message it seems that mods perhaps might have a look at this at some point.

As a note, the three numbered bullets can't be changed, though I think we can drop the third bullet (only).

Oh, I see.

I changed the second one because of this comment:

That said, I think the third bullet is appropriate here. It tends not to be appropriate mostly on sites like Puzzling and code golf.

I think David is right that having in the same window two formulations with the different meaning of the word research isn't very good.

Originally I had there meta.mathoverflow.net/revisions/4815/1

Yeah, I understand that for y'all, that can be confusing... but I may not fully understand the difference. On SE sites in general, doing some research to self-solve is recommended, if not necessary.

But since you're saying that "Provide details and any research" cannot be changed to something else, perhaps I should try to change the wording in the part mentioning "research-level mathmatics".

So, saying "things you already know" could imply that we're not asking them to put in any additional effort to self-solve.

Yes, I was mainly trying to change this part to avoid having research twice in two different meanings.

Maybe graduate-level instead of research-level could be reasonable?

That would work.

The tour page talks about professional mathematics, too.

> MathOverflow is a question and answer site for professional mathematicians. It's built and run by you as part of the Stack Exchange network of Q&A sites. With your help, we're working together to build a library of detailed answers to every question about research level mathematics.

So, I do understand the urge to keep the phrasing the same in both, since y'all have research level mathematics in many other places.

I have edit the post.

I still hope that some MO users will take initiative and come with a better suggestion. (There are many people who write very well - or at least users who are native speakers, unlike me.)

Aside from wording, I have also impression that this text is still to long. On the other hand, some links which are included there are IMO useful for a new user.

It seems like a good start, at least. I appreciate you taking the initiative! Making the UI clearer for people can really help them be successful, particularly if they take the time to read. Which, admittedly, a lot of people don't. But it's still worth trying.

Yes, I am aware that many people will just click ok.

> On the other hand, while the how-to-ask page existed, it does not seem to make much difference on the sites it was actually used. See also: Should folks have to click through an interstitial page to ask questions on Server Fault? on ServerFault and How much did “advice for first-time askers” help? on Mathematics.

And I remember that a user on Mathematics mentioned that some users probably see something different from what is actually written there. :-)

Thanks for letting me know that the text in the default (if that's the correct word) bullet points cannot be changed. That's definitely useful information.

I am glad that we met at some time wich is reasonable both in your and my timezone.

I guess that this makes the work of CMs a bit more difficult too - I'm not sure to which extent you're spread through various timezones.