In principle, I really like the idea of MathOverflow, and I browse through the questions and answers there fairly regularly. Once in a while, I can’t help thinking I could add something to the discussion, and even when I’m incompetent, I think I can procastinate like the best of them by writing about topics which are unrelated to more pressing tasks at end… Then, why haven’t I contributed more than two minor comments to MO?
Well, I have to admit that I can’t help laughing my head off any time I see the list of badges at the end of a contributor’s profile page (well, metaphorically, at least…) The very idea of badges is already hilarious, but just reading those lists, I can’t help imagining “Necromancers” battling it off with “Mortarboards” about, maybe, what is the right definition of a weak infrabarelled semitanakian quasi-category (on the left, and of the third kind, of course).
And then I just can’t take it seriously. But for me, mathematics is a serious matter — like games are to a child.
