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As of now, I haven't seen any questions that neccesarily need MathJax formatting, but I'm sure that at some point it'll be needed.

Should we have MathJax support?

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    $\begingroup$ Yes. Computer graphics has boat-loads of linear algebra. We're going to run into answers (and probably some questions) with the need to show equations. $\endgroup$
    – Qix - MONICA WAS MISTREATED
    Aug 4, 2015 at 19:16
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    $\begingroup$ Yes. It would be great we need to be able to describe math easily. $\endgroup$
    – Royi
    Aug 5, 2015 at 21:19
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    $\begingroup$ Yes... it's definitely necessary... $\endgroup$
    – user8469759
    Aug 5, 2015 at 21:28
  • $\begingroup$ As more people become interested in physically-based rendering (it's well-established in non-realtime imaging, but happening in the real-time field now), it's only going to become more important. Pick any SIGGRAPH paper and count the equations. Yes, even this one: cs.cmu.edu/~ph/jello/jello.html $\endgroup$
    – Pseudonym
    Aug 27, 2015 at 1:03
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    $\begingroup$ Why it is not active yet? $\endgroup$
    – Royi
    Aug 27, 2015 at 17:32
  • $\begingroup$ Just realised on math.SE they can even use MathJax in comments! $\endgroup$
    – trichoplax is on Codidact now
    Sep 4, 2015 at 11:04
  • $\begingroup$ @Drazick because the community has given most upvotes to the answer that says we should wait. I don't feel there is any reason to wait. If anyone wants to change their vote based on this, they can leave a comment requesting the answer be edited to allow them to. $\endgroup$
    – trichoplax is on Codidact now
    Sep 4, 2015 at 11:08
  • $\begingroup$ Remember that on Meta you can indicate your opinion by both upvoting and downvoting. $\endgroup$
    – trichoplax is on Codidact now
    Sep 4, 2015 at 11:21
  • $\begingroup$ @trichoplax, The answer which received most votes says it should be implemented and just mentions a bug. Is the bug eve relevant here? We have no issues with MathJax in DSP.SE. $\endgroup$
    – Royi
    Sep 6, 2015 at 8:45
  • $\begingroup$ @trichoplax, More over, if you sum the amount of votes for both answers which are pro, you'll see they exceed. On top of that, I'm willing to bet most people up voted the answer saw the meaning, yes, we want it. $\endgroup$
    – Royi
    Sep 6, 2015 at 8:49
  • $\begingroup$ @Drazick it has been established that the bug is no reason to delay now. $\endgroup$
    – trichoplax is on Codidact now
    Sep 6, 2015 at 8:56
  • $\begingroup$ @Drazick I'd like to see MathJax as soon as possible, but summing the votes doesn't really work as people can upvote both. $\endgroup$
    – trichoplax is on Codidact now
    Sep 6, 2015 at 8:58
  • $\begingroup$ @Drazick I don't think there's anyone against having MathJax here (including Martin - see my linked meta post). It's just a little unclear what people are voting for. Once we have mods they can raise this with Stack Exchange staff and the current votes may turn out to be sufficient. Certainly the arguments seem sufficient. $\endgroup$
    – trichoplax is on Codidact now
    Sep 6, 2015 at 9:01

3 Answers 3

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Edited to clarify my opinion, feel free to change your vote.

Computer graphics can be very maths-heavy so I think MathJax would be a great addition to this site. I think we should definitely get MathJax, but the community should be aware of the following side effects of activating it:

We've had MathJax for a short while on CodeGolf.SE, and there is at least one bug that may affect Stack Snippets if we get them as well. This is probably not a big deal on this site, but should be kept in mind. The other minor drawback is that posts containing MathJax look pretty messy in the search results, but all the other sites using MathJax seem to be getting along with that as well.

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    $\begingroup$ I'd still say yes. If there are problems with MathJax, then they're problems faced elsewhere on SE. When they're fixed elsewhere, they'll be fixed here, and we'll already have good answers with MathJax stuff in them. $\endgroup$
    – Qix - MONICA WAS MISTREATED
    Aug 4, 2015 at 19:17
  • $\begingroup$ @Qix SO does not have mathjax because its heavy $\endgroup$
    – joojaa
    Aug 4, 2015 at 19:20
  • $\begingroup$ @joojaa never said SO had mathjax. $\endgroup$
    – Qix - MONICA WAS MISTREATED
    Aug 4, 2015 at 19:20
  • $\begingroup$ @joojaa not quite sure I understand. Mathjax is heavy for questions that use it, but the benefits outweigh the costs in those cases. $\endgroup$
    – Qix - MONICA WAS MISTREATED
    Aug 4, 2015 at 19:22
  • $\begingroup$ @joojaa I don't think so. YouTube does not have the same problems as MathJax, because the embedding happens server side. MathJax's drawbacks result from having to deliver the MathJax JavaScript with every single page request. $\endgroup$
    – Martin Ender
    Aug 4, 2015 at 19:22
  • $\begingroup$ @Qix but its heavy on stackexhange to host! $\endgroup$
    – joojaa
    Aug 4, 2015 at 19:22
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    $\begingroup$ You guys might want to continue this discussion in chat. $\endgroup$
    – Martin Ender
    Aug 4, 2015 at 19:23
  • $\begingroup$ @joojaa MathJax is on other stacks, I don't see how that's a problem... $\endgroup$
    – Qix - MONICA WAS MISTREATED
    Aug 4, 2015 at 19:23
  • $\begingroup$ @MartinBüttner, I don't understand, what's your opinion, have it or not? The implementation is the same in every SE Community. It works great on DSP, Stats, Math, etc... Why would we have problems here? $\endgroup$
    – Royi
    Sep 6, 2015 at 8:47
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    $\begingroup$ @Drazick Sorry I forgot to reply to your comment. My opinion is we should have it. I just wanted to raise the possible issues so people are aware of them and we don't repeat the experience we had on code golf where everyone was suddenly like "ugh, no, if MathJax comes with these issues, we'd rather not have it". I don't think these problems will be a big deal here, because code blocks and Stack Snippets are used differently here than they are on code golf. (The sites you mentioned haven't encountered these issues because I assume they don't have Stack Snippets activated.) $\endgroup$
    – Martin Ender
    Sep 10, 2015 at 12:14
  • $\begingroup$ @MartinBüttner, As I understand it now, your answer is used to have a reason not to implement it now and delay the integration. If I understand correctly, it is not what you meant. Hence you should make it clear in your answer. $\endgroup$
    – Royi
    Sep 10, 2015 at 20:36
  • $\begingroup$ @Drazick good point, done. $\endgroup$
    – Martin Ender
    Sep 10, 2015 at 20:40
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Yes, definitely. While there might not yet be a question that really needs it, once the first matrix and vector computations come in -- and they will definitely come and seem well-fit here (as they did in the previous iteration of that site) -- we'll definitely need it for that stuff to looks reasonably good and not be a pain to write (e.g. by misusing code blocks).

And that's not even everything there is to it. There's other geometric computations, complex rendering integrals, you name it. So yeah, we definitely should have MathJax, and we should have it NAOH!

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    $\begingroup$ I agree, I too believe we should see very soon questions and answers with "complex rendering integrals" (questions about physically based rendering for example) $\endgroup$
    – wip
    Aug 4, 2015 at 20:21
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To back the general requests for MathJax support, the following is a community-editable list for anyone to add examples of questions which along with their answers would benefit from it:

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