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$\begingroup$

Like with EE.SE, it seems like using the default $ to signal for MathJax rendering is not the best. If I say it maybe costs $30 to do this one thing or $50 for another, my post or comment could wind up mangled.

I really don't get why \$ isn't the default for SE sites. For those that are extremely equation heavy (Math.SE/MO/Physics.SE), sure, change it up, but everywhere else it's often surprising and unexpected.

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  • $\begingroup$ because $ was there first, and it's the default for lateX style formatting (what the MathJax is based on) also puzzles tried \$ but that was shot down and reverted $\endgroup$
    – ratchet freak
    Aug 19, 2014 at 20:18

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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$\begingroup$

Regardless of whether it would be nice, it probably shouldn't be changed now because all existing posts would have to be edited or rendered differently. If your post or comment shows up with unexpected formatting due to dollar signs, then you can always edit it to change $ to \$ where appropriate. Moderators can also help with that. For instance, I edited the comment you linked to so it displays correctly.

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  • $\begingroup$ EE.SE had far more posts using TeX and yet the delimiter was changed. $\endgroup$
    – Nick T
    Aug 19, 2014 at 20:28
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    $\begingroup$ Fair enough, I changed this to a feature-request. If you get enough support to change it, I'll make sure our community team considers the request. $\endgroup$
    – Bret Copeland
    Aug 19, 2014 at 20:35
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    $\begingroup$ during the change someone made a data.SE query to find all the posts and comments that needed changing $\endgroup$
    – ratchet freak
    Aug 19, 2014 at 22:40

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