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F.A.Q.

Aims of the site

What is this site for?

The idea is to build a community which collects mathematical resources freely available online. The target are people from the undergraduate level up, but there is also room for more elementary material, for instance "Euclidean geometry".

Then why are there so few categories for resources say at the high-school level?

Again, because this is not the expected target. Please, if you don't find categories suitable for your material (e.g. Trigonometry) use more general categories.

Can I link to material which has been distributed without the copyright holders permission?

No. We believe there are a lot of free quality resources on mathematics available online, and this is what this site is all about. Linking protected material is unuseful, as it will be removed as soon as it is identified. Repeated violation of this rule may result in a ban. I'm sorry I have to be this strict, but this is a personal site and I just cannot afford to sustain the legal implications of a different policy.

Do I need to ask a permission from the writer in order to link material?

Usually this is not necessary, if the material is freely shared. On MathOnline we only host links, and many professors publish books and lecture notes directly on their home page. Here you would only add a link to their site; this is a common practice on the internet which typically does not require explicit permission. But of course you can if you so wish; in this way you will also spread the word about this site.

Can I link my own production?

Sure, you're invited to do so!

Can I link research material?

It depends if it is of sufficiently general interest. It is not the aim of this site to become a repository for research articles (for that we already have the arXiv), but books and survey articles about recent advances in research are definitely welcome.

Functionality

What is the difference between topics and tags?

Topics are immutable and very general, for instance "Algebraic geometry" or "Elliptic equations". They are the primary way to organize material. Having a fixed set of keywords avoids that everyone comes with a slightly different classification.
Tags are added by users, and they are thought to convey more specific information (e.g. "Hilbert spaces" or "Uniformization theorem"). I feel both levels are useful and have their place, but I may change things if many users find it confusing.

What is this topic autosuggestion thing?

Usually when we add a book say about "Algebraic geometry" we want it to be available under searches for "Geometry", so the "Geometry" tag is automatically added. In other cases we wish not to do so: for instance a resource may be relevant for a search about "Complex analysis", but less so for a search about "Analysis" (think of some notes which treat complex analysis from a very geometric point of view). In this case the suggested topic can be removed.

What is OpenId?

OpenId is a standard that allows people to connect to multiple sites using the same account. If you have an account with a OpenId provider you can use that to login here. Many common services, like Google, Yahoo, AOL, MySpace and more, are OpenId providers, so you probably already have such an account.

Can I suggest to add more topics?

Sure. While topics are not directly changed by users, just let me know if you have ideas about a finer or different classification.

But I don't like how feature X is implemented!

Nothing is immutable and I'm just experimenting. Just tell me if you want me to change something.

What does it mean "Please link the author page"?

It means that you should not directly link a file, for instance a pdf. The address of a file may be changed in the future, so linking the author page will make less plausible that this site becomes a collection of broken links.

Will MathOnline be available in my language?

It would be easy to translate MathOnline in many different languages. But I fear that a localized interface would encourage new users to write reviews in their own language, making it difficult to share opinions among users of different countries. So translations will not be implemented unless someone suggests argument for the contrary. After all I think it would only be annoying to browse a site with content and interface in two different languages.

Technical

How was the site implemented?

Glad you asked! The backend is realized with CakePHP. The design is mine, and CSS styles were written with Compass, which is a framework for the Sass language. The icons are not mine: they were created by DryIcons. Finally the Javascript interaction is based on Jamal, a MVC Javascript framework which in turn is based on jQuery.

This site breaks on my browser.

Do you have the latest version of your browser? If not, try to upgrade it; this will give you benefits not only for this site.
I tried to test MathOnline on many different platforms and browsers, but it may very well be the case that it didn't test your setup. Please, let me know what's wrong and I will fix it as soon as possible. The more details you include, the more probably I will be able to fix it.

My default settings are ignored on search page.

This is a problem of Firefox, which decides on his own to select the last option used. I fixed that via Javascript, so you just have to turn Javascript on.

Can I donate a small amount for your effort?

Thank you. This will help pay the hosting expenses in case the site grows. See the link in the footer.