You're reading the public-facing archive of the Category Theory Zulip server.
To join the server you need an invite. Anybody can get an invite by contacting Matteo Capucci at name dot surname at gmail dot com.
For all things related to this archive refer to the same person.
Christian Williams (Mar 23 2020 at 18:04):To write beautiful math, use double dollar sign to enter and leave mathmode.
To focus on a stream or a topic, click on the name in the feed. Press escape to go back to the whole feed.
You can subscribe to any streams, and make your own - public or private.
Christian Williams (Mar 23 2020 at 18:08):In general, let's try to keep things as organized as possible. Make streams at the right level of generality - for example, we could have one called #topos theory. Then within it, we can make topics like "sheafification". But topics are a little more loose; if you have some simple question, you can just ask.
Christian Williams (Mar 23 2020 at 18:09):You can tag people @Christian Williams and streams #general using "@" and "#". Of course you can share links and files.
Christian Williams (Mar 23 2020 at 18:10):Zulip opts for two-level organization, rather than one-level or infinite-level. This turns out to be really nice. When you want to simulate a thread within a topic, you can go up to a previous message, click the dropdown, and click "quote and reply".
Christian Williams (Mar 23 2020 at 18:12):Christian Williams said:
and click "quote and reply".
It then copies the message inside a keyphrase " quote ", which you can then edit if you want to only quote part of a message.
Christian Williams (Mar 23 2020 at 18:15):You can always edit a message later. You can star some that you want to easily find later. In general the search bar at the top finds things very easily. [Though like every free version there is some limit; this chat only hold the most recent 10000 messages. If we want no limits, we can host one ourselves: https://zulip.readthedocs.io/en/stable/production/install.html .]
Christian Williams (Mar 23 2020 at 18:20):There's a zulip guide: https://categorytheory.zulipchat.com/help/getting-your-organization-started-with-zulip.
If you want a feature, Zulip is open source. You can join the development channel at chat.zulip.org , to either help or just ask.
Christian Williams (Mar 23 2020 at 18:52):You can customize a lot by the way, even the color of the streams.
Christian Williams (Mar 23 2020 at 19:09):great to see all of the introductions! so many people doing cool stuff.
Christian Williams (Mar 23 2020 at 19:10):my main message for the server: make it your own!
speak up, make streams and topics about anything. this is an open and welcoming environment.
Christian Williams (Mar 23 2020 at 19:11):everyone is doing very different things, so don't worry about what people do and don't know. the server is for sharing.
Christian Williams (Mar 23 2020 at 19:26):If you want to see all streams that we have, go to settings (gear icon) and "manage streams". Then you can subscribe or unsubscribe to any.
Christian Williams (Mar 24 2020 at 18:59):Announcement @everyone
Your email is visible to the members on this server. https://github.com/zulip/zulip/issues/11454
If you do not want this to be the case, you need to log in with another email. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Christian Williams (Mar 25 2020 at 21:14):Hello @everyone. Thank you for joining the Category Theory Community Server. It has grown so quickly; it's really amazing. The server is meant to be a home for everyone who loves categories. It's a place for open discussion, sharing work and ideas, advertising and participating in events and seminars, even collaborating on projects and more.
We are still working to get everything organized and running smoothly. If you would like to help in general decisions, join the stream #meta . Right now we just want to do a few things:
Make a guide to using this server - Everyone should get the most out of their experience here; first of course, everyone needs to know how to use all of the features of this platform. We encourage you to explore, reach out, and make yourself at home.
Designate moderators - There will likely be little need for conflict resolution; moderators are just here to help members, keep things running smoothly in general.
Draft a constitution - We want to keep this simple; there is a surplus of rationality on this server, so we don't need any more than some general guidelines.
I'll post the first soon (some of it is above), and the second and third are in progress. Please feel free to ask questions and share your thoughts. It's great that so many people have come together on here.
John Baez (Mar 25 2020 at 21:24):Congratulations for setting this up, Christian!
There will be little need for conflict resolution, but not none. I've been moderating discussion forums since about 1992, and I've found that any interesting discussion forum eventually attracts 1) a few crazy people who are eager to have an audience, and 2) a few nasty people who take pleasure from insulting others. In my experience, being quite prompt and unapologetic about kicking out both these kinds of people is required to keep a forum useful. Otherwise people start spending their time arguing, and everyone gets more grumpy and rude.
The forum here is currently in its "garden of Eden" phase, where these problems haven't occurred yet. Enjoy it while it lasts!
Christian Williams (Mar 26 2020 at 00:29):General Make yourself at home. Don't be afraid to reach out, ask questions, tell us about what you've learned and discovered. Start a new topic about whatever you think is great. Message someone if you share interests or just want to connect. We encourage members to have a profile picture, to help it feel more personal (doesn't have to be your face).
There are so many amazing people here that it will take time and thought to coax all of that greatness onto a platform like this - so don't be afraid to get creative. If you think "oh wow this expert is on here!", maybe you could ask them to do an "Ask Me Anything" topic, so that everyone can share that knowledge.
Writing and Navigating To write beautiful math, use double dollar sign to enter and leave mathmode. To focus on a topic, click on the name in the feed. Press escape to go back to the whole feed. To quote something, do three backquotes and start typing "quote", and it will suggest the command and you can just press tab. To tag someone use "@" and to reference a stream or topic use "#". Share links and files as you would anywhere else.
On any message, there is a dropdown on the right side which gives options such as "quote and reply"; this is to simulate threads, without having to deal with all the tree structure. When you do the dropdown on your own message, you can edit or delete anything you have written - for example if you make a small mistake in LaTeX, you can just go back and fix it.
Streams There are many channels or "streams" on this server. You choose which ones you subscribe to, by going to Menu (gear icon, top right) and then choosing "Manage Streams". In fact, everyone is free to make their own streams, and these can be both public (anyone can join) or private (invite people to join).
Topics Zulip uses a two-level structure, rather than having infinitely deep threads. This turns out to be ideal for in-depth conversation, where people are drawing ideas from each other and building a whole conversation together. As mentioned earlier, whenever you want to simulate threads you can use quote-and-reply.
Customize We encourage everyone to make this place your own. In addition to subscribing, there are many aspects of the server that you can customize. Of course, appearance - text size, stream colors, etc. You control what notifications you get; maybe there's a couple streams that you want to stay updated on while the others are just in the background. This will be useful, because there is a lot going on here.
Christian Williams (Mar 26 2020 at 00:34):we can update this guide as we go.
Jules Hedges (Mar 26 2020 at 10:25):Wrt. @Christian Williams's idea of asking your favourite famous professor to do an "ask me anything", keep in mind that your average lecturer is currently trying to bail out a sinking ship of online teaching. Ask politely, don't be too surprised if you get ignored
Georgios Bakirtzis (Mar 27 2020 at 19:12):This might be of interest here :) DbCNzaPX4AATH1A.jpg
Christian Williams (Apr 06 2020 at 05:29):I'm going to start some reorganizing - mainly just renaming streams to fit under categories, adding more categories and streams, and giving them explanatory descriptions. Please let me know whenever you have questions or suggestions.
Christian Williams (Apr 06 2020 at 05:50):I'll pause there, and brace for people to have feelings about the choice of categories. Just let me know what you think.
Christian Williams (Apr 06 2020 at 05:53):There are more "creative" categories/streams to be added, but they can be phased in as we test out the new ones in "learning". I'm looking forward to see some try out #learning: show and tell.
Christian Williams (Apr 06 2020 at 05:55):By default, streams are listed alphabetically. However, you can pin your favorite streams to the top.
Christian Williams (Apr 06 2020 at 06:02):Also just to say again: please check out all the streams and subscribe! Let's diversify and make lots of nice, well-defined microcosms. Yes, there are a lot of messages -- this place has become huge and it is inevitable. Each of us will learn to tune out what we don't care about. Don't be afraid to use the mute button, or if you know you'll never care about something you can always unsubscribe.
Christian Williams (Apr 06 2020 at 06:04):(Note how I made changes in what is for many members the dead of night.)
Alexis Hazell (Apr 06 2020 at 06:09):Christian Williams said:
(Note how I made changes in what is for many members the dead of night.)
As someone in UTC+10, watching the changes happen live, my thought was "Hmm, looks like Christian's doing all this right now to try to minimise disruption to users." :-)
Christian Williams (Apr 06 2020 at 06:12):Oh haha, yep! Are you in Australia?
Alexis Hazell (Apr 06 2020 at 06:16):Yes, Melbourne. :-)
Christian Williams (May 03 2020 at 01:27):We are now 1000 people. Amazing.
Jalex Stark (May 05 2020 at 20:41):Is the server private on purpose?
Jalex Stark (May 05 2020 at 20:41):On the lean zulip chat, I can just copy the URL and give it to someone and they can join the conversation
Jalex Stark (May 05 2020 at 20:42):here I need to dig up some kind of invitation link that somebody posted somewhere? (maybe I came here from a link on n-category cafe?)
Jalex Stark (May 05 2020 at 20:42):Is this the intended state of affairs?
John Baez (May 05 2020 at 21:23):Talk to the boss, @Christian Williams.
John Baez (May 05 2020 at 21:23):It's possible we're trying to impose a little intelligence test.
Jalex Stark (May 05 2020 at 22:30):That's not insane; if Christian said that he thinks that's best for the CT community, I won't question it.
My main motivation here is that I want to be able to show this place to people in other branches of mathematics to give them ideas about what's possible in online maths collaboration. But the Lean zulip chat already fulfills some of that purpose.
Christian Williams (May 06 2020 at 00:20):Hi, you can make an invite link by going up to settings and clicking "invite users". I don't think people have had that much trouble getting on here, considering that a sizable chunk of the global community has now joined.
Christian Williams (May 06 2020 at 00:22):Great! Yeah, all the online math/CS communities can learn a lot from each other. Somewhere, probably on #general: meta we were talking about eventually consolidating these communities in a directory.
Jalex Stark (May 08 2020 at 17:14):Christian Williams said:
Hi, you can make an invite link by going up to settings and clicking "invite users". I don't think people have had that much trouble getting on here, considering that a sizable chunk of the global community has now joined.
I don't think that's true. The only option I have is to generate an email invitation to someone whose email I know.
(I think people that are admins on this server can in fact generate a link by clicking the settings button.)