<p>I'll share my side of the story that is mentioned in Shiva's answer.</p>

<p>Shiva had <a href="https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/1535/intermediate-problems-between-l-and-nl">several</a> <a href="https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/1657/sc2-algorithms-for-st-connectivity">questions</a> <a href="https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/1558/parallel-algorithms-for-directed-st-connectivity">related</a> to my own research (space-bounded algorithms for reachability problems). We were currently putting the final touches on a full draft of the proof, and were not ready to announce the result.  However, it was clear that Shiva was very interested in this area, so I emailed him saying we had a result in the works and gave him just the theorem statement.  A week later, we had our draft complete and I sent him a copy.  A few weeks later we shared our updated draft on <a href="http://www.eccc.uni-trier.de/report/2010/154/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">the ECCC</a>.</p>

<p>This worked well for several reasons.</p>

<ul>
<li>Shiva and I have never met in person, but now we know each other as colleagues interested in similar problems.</li>
<li>Shiva also sent me a copy of his most recent work, which is also related and interesting.</li>
<li>The questions gave me an extra boost of motivation to complete a full draft quickly.</li>
</ul>

<p>I recommend this course of action in the future: partial disclosure via private communication, full disclosure, and public announcement.</p>

CC BY-SA 2.5
2010-10-21T17:24:55.067Z
Thanks for sharing, Derrick. This is a great story to tell if we want to publicize this site.
Suresh Venkat
CC BY-SA 2.5
2010-10-21T16:25:23.887Z
2010-10-21T16:25:23.887Z
2017-04-13T12:32:28.077Z
Derrick Stolee
<p>Incidentally this happened to three of my questions. The authors contacted me through email and stated the main theorems from their work in progress that answered my questions. Later they were kind enough to send me a preprint before making it public. I was very happy and excited about their results.</p>

<p>I think it is a good research practice to share at least the main theorem to the questioner by email. If the questioner is working in the same field he might be able to appreciate your work and give very useful feedback. This will help in expanding your research circle which (in my opinion) is always good.</p>

<p>Once you mention that you are actively working on a problem and have partial results, people are often "ethical enough" not to work on the problem (or) discuss it without your permission. This universal strategy works very good for the entire research society.</p>

CC BY-SA 2.5
2010-10-20T05:19:50.980Z
It would be nice if you could list examples: this is a great aspect of this site that we should publicize.
Suresh Venkat
CC BY-SA 2.5
2010-10-20T06:41:47.273Z
Depending on the progress, could you imagine collaborating after "meeting" here?
Raphael
CC BY-SA 2.5
2010-10-20T06:44:21.797Z
@suresh I will list the examples after talking to the respective authors.
Shiva Kintali
CC BY-SA 2.5
2010-10-20T06:59:08.440Z
fair enough. you don't have to make it public now, but as long as you keep track of it somewhere we can ask for it when needed for promo material
Suresh Venkat
CC BY-SA 2.5
2010-10-20T04:54:34.300Z
2010-10-20T04:54:34.300Z
Shiva Kintali
<p>I was originally inclined to close this question, but then felt it's worthy of an answer. In this situation, since you aren't comfortable releasing your work into the wild, the best solution is to email the questioner privately, if you really want to give the answer. </p>

<p>Alternatively, you could wait, write up the results, put them on the arxiv, and then point the questioner to the answer. </p>

CC BY-SA 2.5
2010-10-21T10:04:00.050Z
I think ArXiving your results ASAP is a good idea. Please keep in mind that an ArXiv manuscript does not need to constitute a minimum publishable unit. I think it is perfectly ok to submit a 2-page proof to ArXiv, even though it would be obviously too short as a conference or journal paper. Resolving an open problem that *other* people would like to solve is more than enough.
Jukka Suomela
CC BY-SA 2.5
2010-10-26T11:54:41.033Z
Other arXiv-like websites are: ECCC (for complexity theory) and ePrint (for cryptography).
Sadeq Dousti
CC BY-SA 2.5
2010-10-20T04:30:11.670Z
2010-10-20T04:30:11.670Z
Suresh Venkat
<p>Here, where public interest in the problem has been expressed, I think it's good for science to make known the fact that you believe you have solved the problems and provide some concrete details of what you have achieved.  If you have reason not to show your hand right away, I think the goal should be to figure out what you are now comfortable saying in public, and how to present it.  So I argue against private email.</p>

<p>Something I've seen some people do is write research bulletins, a bit like personal technical notes, that summarise findings on a topic in some degree of rigour, but without attempting to be comprehensive in the way that makes writing papers for peer-reviewed publication so time-consuming.  The progress reports that Harvey Friedman used to send to the Foundations of Mathematics mailing list would be a good exemplar of that kind of thing, e.g., <a href="http://cs.nyu.edu/pipermail/fom/2000-March/003868.html">Self-contained posting 82: Simplified Boolean Relation Theory</a>.</p>

<p>Starting such a bulletin series to deal with this, and then posting an excerpt here seems like a good strategy, since it allows you to quickly identify your achivements, while being in control of what details you make public.</p>

<p>I don't recommend regular blog posts for this, since they carry some unwanted associations, that they are conversational, open to revision, and not properly referenceable documents.  Writing in a form for publication on Arxiv would make sense, but a <em>Research Notes</em> section on your publications page linking to an html page would work.</p>

CC BY-SA 2.5
2010-10-21T09:18:09.437Z
I think one reason that [Harvey](http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/~friedman/) can use this method is that he is really *really* **really** well-established researcher, i.e. a researcher with [a similar research record](http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/~friedman/publications.html) can claim whatever she wants, but the situation is completely different for a junior researcher (or even for many senior researchers). Simply saying I have proven something does not have the same effect, IMHO, a technical report on university website or a draft on arXive/eccc are more applicable here.
Kaveh
CC BY-SA 2.5
2010-10-21T10:38:33.853Z
@Kaveh: Yes, definitely, but I know of less well-established people who have used this strategy effectively. I don't dispute the existence of risks, but it's best for science if you do publish details, and you can manage the risks by choosing which details you make public. And sending private emails also carries risks.  Writing such notes does not, of course, mean that you have anything concrete that carries weight on your CV, it is only a mode of engaging in scientific conversation.
Charles Stewart
CC BY-SA 2.5
2010-10-21T08:47:42.433Z
2010-10-21T08:55:27.783Z
2010-10-21T08:55:27.783Z
Charles Stewart
<p>The way to handle this situation naturally depends on a number of factors.</p>

<ol>
<li>How confident are you of what you know?  (This relates to the next factor.)</li>
<li>How much of what you know is rigorously written down?  In particular, how much time will it take to finish the full write-up?</li>
<li>How much attention did the question receive?  Is it likely that many solid researchers will begin to work on the question after it was asked publicly?</li>
<li>Is there a natural public venue to partially announce/sketch what you know in reply, e.g. via the question-asker?</li>
</ol>

<p>Weighing these factors depending on your own experience and judgement will lead you to different actions according to one of the other responses in this thread.</p>

CC BY-SA 2.5
2010-10-21T16:24:40.767Z
2010-10-21T16:24:40.767Z
RJK
<p>What should you do when you see a question raised in public, say here on stack-exchange, that you know the answer to, because you are looking into as part of current research project?</p>

<p>For example, I see a TCS.SX question that I know the answer to, because I worked on the problem recently.  I haven't finished writing up the results yet and am trying to get a few more results to make an acceptable paper.  </p>

<p>Should I contact the asker personally?  Claim credit publicly by publishing answer on the site?  What should I do?</p>

CC BY-SA 2.5
2010-10-20T04:32:37.317Z
This should be in meta.cstheory.stackexchange.com
didest
CC BY-SA 2.5
2010-10-20T05:18:48.287Z
why should this be on meta ? this is not about the running of the site really. It's a genuine research process question.
Suresh Venkat
CC BY-SA 2.5
2010-10-20T22:06:39.827Z
http://meta.cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/214/should-there-be-a-protocol-to-notify-authors-if-we-find-an-error-in-a-paper seems mildly related, but is on meta.
RJK
CC BY-SA 2.5
2010-10-21T03:23:33.993Z
Voted to migrate to Meta.  From the way it is stated, the question is about how to behave on this website.
Tsuyoshi Ito
CC BY-SA 2.5
2010-10-21T06:36:44.297Z
@Tsuyoshi: I had the same feeling when I voted to migrate to meta, but after Suresh's comment I changed my opinion. The situation is not specific to the questions on this site and applies to other situations, e.g. questions posted on blogs, or even to off-line discussions.
Kaveh
CC BY-SA 2.5
2010-10-21T12:23:32.947Z
I cannot understand why Suresh and Kaveh think that the question is not specifically about this website, because it plainly asks specifically about what we should do on this website.  I opened a thread on Meta: http://meta.cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/545/migrate-to-meta-or-not-when-should-you-say-what-you-know
Tsuyoshi Ito
CC BY-SA 2.5
2010-10-21T13:06:58.123Z
I think the question as stated belongs on meta, but if it were edited to say something along the lines of "What do I do when I know the answer to someone's question -- be it on SE, at a conference/workshop, in a blog post, on arXiv, on someone's website, on a research visit, i.e. any venue other than a refereed publication -- particularly when it is a major component of one of my ongoing research endeavours?" then it could have an excellent home here.
RJK
CC BY-SA 2.5
2010-10-21T14:24:57.580Z
I've edited the question to avoid the TCS.SX-only interpretation that most people have chosen not to follow.
Charles Stewart
CC BY-SA 2.5
2010-10-21T15:41:19.997Z
I might add that in the revised form it should definitely be CW, since there is no one "right" answer.
RJK
CC BY-SA 2.5
2010-10-21T18:22:29.807Z
@Tsuyoshi: Because the answers are applicable in other situations, and I am not sure that being about the site is a sufficient condition for belonging to meta.
Kaveh
CC BY-SA 2.5
2010-10-21T18:23:02.677Z
@RJK: I don't think it needs to be CW, not having a right answer is not enough for making it CW. (ps: It seems that the new SE policy on CW says that if you think a question should be CW, you should only flag it for moderator attention, no need to comment that it needs to be CW, in fact such comments are discouraged.)
Kaveh
CC BY-SA 2.5
2010-10-21T22:33:25.347Z
@Kaveh: Could you please provide a pointer to the new policy?  I only read our official FAQ on CW -- http://meta.cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/225/official-faq-for-theoretical-computer-science/239#239. Anyway, I will flag as you suggest.
RJK
CC BY-SA 2.5
2010-10-21T22:46:34.313Z
@RJK: See [this](http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/392/should-the-community-wiki-police-be-shut-down/7183#7183) and [this](http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/67039/what-can-we-do-to-make-community-wiki-better/67192#67192).
Kaveh
CC BY-SA 2.5
2010-11-16T18:29:22.327Z
How are questions of this kind about TCS? They should belong to a more generic "research.stackexchange.com", where we could discuss research practice and advice of everyone's interest. The same goes for Kaveh's question: http://cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/2953/advice-on-good-research-practices . Many answers are not tailored for TCS, they could be in MO as well.
Alessandro Cosentino
CC BY-SA 2.5
2010-11-16T23:12:57.530Z
@Alessandro Cosentino: I personally don't think being of interest to people outside theoretical computer science makes the question inappropriate for cstheory. This question should be posted somewhere and this site is the natural place to post it as it is the site for theoretical computer scientists who are more likely to have related experience. I also don't see any problem in posting a similar question on MO and having one answer linking to this question.
Kaveh
CC BY-SA 2.5
2010-11-19T14:54:03.017Z
@Kaveh: Right. What I meant is that for this kind of questions there seems to be too much redundancy among all the "stackexchanges". Also, many answers look suitable for a broader audience. Anyway, I am not against posting these questions on cstheory, mine was more a proposal for another website.
Alessandro Cosentino
<soft-question><research-practice><authorship>
When should you say what you know?
asterix
# When should you say what you know?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2010-10-20)

What should you do when you see a question raised in public, say here on stack-exchange, that you know the answer to, because you are looking into as part of current research project?

For example, I see a TCS.SX question that I know the answer to, because I worked on the problem recently. I haven't finished writing up the results yet and am trying to get a few more results to make an acceptable paper.

Should I contact the asker personally? Claim credit publicly by publishing answer on the site? What should I do?

**Tags:** soft-question, research-practice, authorship

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: This should be in meta.cstheory.stackexchange.com  
> **username_2**: why should this be on meta ? this is not about the running of the site really. It's a genuine research process question.  
> **username_3**: http://meta.cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/214/should-there-be-a-protocol-to-notify-authors-if-we-find-an-error-in-a-paper seems mildly related, but is on meta.  
> **username_4**: Voted to migrate to Meta.  From the way it is stated, the question is about how to behave on this website.  
> **username_5**: @Tsuyoshi: I had the same feeling when I voted to migrate to meta, but after Suresh's comment I changed my opinion. The situation is not specific to the questions on this site and applies to other situations, e.g. questions posted on blogs, or even to off-line discussions.  
> **username_4**: I cannot understand why Suresh and username_5 think that the question is not specifically about this website, because it plainly asks specifically about what we should do on this website.  I opened a thread on Meta: http://meta.cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/545/migrate-to-meta-or-not-when-should-you-say-what-you-know  
> **username_3**: I think the question as stated belongs on meta, but if it were edited to say something along the lines of "What do I do when I know the answer to someone's question -- be it on SE, at a conference/workshop, in a blog post, on arXiv, on someone's website, on a research visit, i.e. any venue other than a refereed publication -- particularly when it is a major component of one of my ongoing research endeavours?" then it could have an excellent home here.  
> **username_6**: I've edited the question to avoid the TCS.SX-only interpretation that most people have chosen not to follow.  
> **username_3**: I might add that in the revised form it should definitely be CW, since there is no one "right" answer.  
> **username_5**: @Tsuyoshi: Because the answers are applicable in other situations, and I am not sure that being about the site is a sufficient condition for belonging to meta.  
> **username_5**: @username_3: I don't think it needs to be CW, not having a right answer is not enough for making it CW. (ps: It seems that the new SE policy on CW says that if you think a question should be CW, you should only flag it for moderator attention, no need to comment that it needs to be CW, in fact such comments are discouraged.)  
> **username_3**: @username_5: Could you please provide a pointer to the new policy?  I only read our official FAQ on CW -- http://meta.cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/225/official-faq-for-theoretical-computer-science/239#239. Anyway, I will flag as you suggest.  
> **username_5**: @username_3: See [this](http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/392/should-the-community-wiki-police-be-shut-down/7183#7183) and [this](http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/67039/what-can-we-do-to-make-community-wiki-better/67192#67192).  
> **username_7**: How are questions of this kind about TCS? They should belong to a more generic "research.stackexchange.com", where we could discuss research practice and advice of everyone's interest. The same goes for username_5's question: http://cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/2953/advice-on-good-research-practices . Many answers are not tailored for TCS, they could be in MO as well.  
> **username_5**: @username_7: I personally don't think being of interest to people outside theoretical computer science makes the question inappropriate for cstheory. This question should be posted somewhere and this site is the natural place to post it as it is the site for theoretical computer scientists who are more likely to have related experience. I also don't see any problem in posting a similar question on MO and having one answer linking to this question.  
> **username_7**: @username_5: Right. What I meant is that for this kind of questions there seems to be too much redundancy among all the "stackexchanges". Also, many answers look suitable for a broader audience. Anyway, I am not against posting these questions on cstheory, mine was more a proposal for another website.  

---

## 5 answers

### Answer by username_8 on 2010-10-21. Score: 29

I'll share my side of the story that is mentioned in Shiva's answer.

Shiva had [several](https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/1535/intermediate-problems-between-l-and-nl) [questions](https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/1657/sc2-algorithms-for-st-connectivity) [related](https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/1558/parallel-algorithms-for-directed-st-connectivity) to my own research (space-bounded algorithms for reachability problems). We were currently putting the final touches on a full draft of the proof, and were not ready to announce the result. However, it was clear that Shiva was very interested in this area, so I emailed him saying we had a result in the works and gave him just the theorem statement. A week later, we had our draft complete and I sent him a copy. A few weeks later we shared our updated draft on [the ECCC](http://www.eccc.uni-trier.de/report/2010/154/).

This worked well for several reasons.

* Shiva and I have never met in person, but now we know each other as colleagues interested in similar problems.
* Shiva also sent me a copy of his most recent work, which is also related and interesting.
* The questions gave me an extra boost of motivation to complete a full draft quickly.

I recommend this course of action in the future: partial disclosure via private communication, full disclosure, and public announcement.

> **Comments:**
> **username_2**: Thanks for sharing, Derrick. This is a great story to tell if we want to publicize this site.  

---

### Answer by username_9 on 2010-10-20. Score: 20

Incidentally this happened to three of my questions. The authors contacted me through email and stated the main theorems from their work in progress that answered my questions. Later they were kind enough to send me a preprint before making it public. I was very happy and excited about their results.

I think it is a good research practice to share at least the main theorem to the questioner by email. If the questioner is working in the same field he might be able to appreciate your work and give very useful feedback. This will help in expanding your research circle which (in my opinion) is always good.

Once you mention that you are actively working on a problem and have partial results, people are often "ethical enough" not to work on the problem (or) discuss it without your permission. This universal strategy works very good for the entire research society.

> **Comments:**
> **username_2**: It would be nice if you could list examples: this is a great aspect of this site that we should publicize.  
> **username_10**: Depending on the progress, could you imagine collaborating after "meeting" here?  
> **username_9**: @suresh I will list the examples after talking to the respective authors.  
> **username_2**: fair enough. you don't have to make it public now, but as long as you keep track of it somewhere we can ask for it when needed for promo material  

---

### Answer by username_6 on 2010-10-21. Score: 15

Here, where public interest in the problem has been expressed, I think it's good for science to make known the fact that you believe you have solved the problems and provide some concrete details of what you have achieved. If you have reason not to show your hand right away, I think the goal should be to figure out what you are now comfortable saying in public, and how to present it. So I argue against private email.

Something I've seen some people do is write research bulletins, a bit like personal technical notes, that summarise findings on a topic in some degree of rigour, but without attempting to be comprehensive in the way that makes writing papers for peer-reviewed publication so time-consuming. The progress reports that Harvey Friedman used to send to the Foundations of Mathematics mailing list would be a good exemplar of that kind of thing, e.g., [Self-contained posting 82: Simplified Boolean Relation Theory](http://cs.nyu.edu/pipermail/fom/2000-March/003868.html).

Starting such a bulletin series to deal with this, and then posting an excerpt here seems like a good strategy, since it allows you to quickly identify your achivements, while being in control of what details you make public.

I don't recommend regular blog posts for this, since they carry some unwanted associations, that they are conversational, open to revision, and not properly referenceable documents. Writing in a form for publication on Arxiv would make sense, but a *Research Notes* section on your publications page linking to an html page would work.

> **Comments:**
> **username_5**: I think one reason that [Harvey](http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/~friedman/) can use this method is that he is really *really* **really** well-established researcher, i.e. a researcher with [a similar research record](http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/~friedman/publications.html) can claim whatever she wants, but the situation is completely different for a junior researcher (or even for many senior researchers). Simply saying I have proven something does not have the same effect, IMHO, a technical report on university website or a draft on arXive/eccc are more applicable here.  
> **username_6**: @username_5: Yes, definitely, but I know of less well-established people who have used this strategy effectively. I don't dispute the existence of risks, but it's best for science if you do publish details, and you can manage the risks by choosing which details you make public. And sending private emails also carries risks.  Writing such notes does not, of course, mean that you have anything concrete that carries weight on your CV, it is only a mode of engaging in scientific conversation.  

---

### Answer by username_2 on 2010-10-20. Score: 11

I was originally inclined to close this question, but then felt it's worthy of an answer. In this situation, since you aren't comfortable releasing your work into the wild, the best solution is to email the questioner privately, if you really want to give the answer.

Alternatively, you could wait, write up the results, put them on the arxiv, and then point the questioner to the answer.

> **Comments:**
> **username_11**: I think ArXiving your results ASAP is a good idea. Please keep in mind that an ArXiv manuscript does not need to constitute a minimum publishable unit. I think it is perfectly ok to submit a 2-page proof to ArXiv, even though it would be obviously too short as a conference or journal paper. Resolving an open problem that *other* people would like to solve is more than enough.  
> **username_12**: Other arXiv-like websites are: ECCC (for complexity theory) and ePrint (for cryptography).  

---

### Answer by username_3 on 2010-10-21. Score: 6

The way to handle this situation naturally depends on a number of factors.

1. How confident are you of what you know? (This relates to the next factor.)
2. How much of what you know is rigorously written down? In particular, how much time will it take to finish the full write-up?
3. How much attention did the question receive? Is it likely that many solid researchers will begin to work on the question after it was asked publicly?
4. Is there a natural public venue to partially announce/sketch what you know in reply, e.g. via the question-asker?

Weighing these factors depending on your own experience and judgement will lead you to different actions according to one of the other responses in this thread.


---

