• Project Origin: In 2012 on a Saturday night, Susam Pal started developing MathB.in. After coding through the night, it was ready by 25 March 2012. It was shared with friends who loved math and the community grew organically. Later announced on the MathJax mailing list, it had users worldwide within a year.
• Website Features: It's a mathematics pastebin service with a left pane showing Markdown and LaTeX code and a right pane showing the rendered content.
• Challenges Over Time: The internet has changed and maintaining the service alone has become difficult. Over 13 years, received notices from regulatory authorities for compliance concerns, leading to server being taken offline and a 7-day deadline to remove offending content. Had to review and filter incoming content to prevent disruptions.
• Efforts to Address Issues: Tried improving spam-detection capabilities but anti-spam measures are probabilistic and manual review is still needed. Suggestions like forming a team of volunteers or moving under a non-profit organization were considered but had issues. Encoding content in URLs was an alternative but introduced new concerns about malicious content.
• Decision to Shut Down: After much thought, Susam Pal decided to shut down MathB.in on 16 March 2025 as he couldn't handle the regulatory issues and time commitment anymore. Grateful for those who used the project and offered alternative options like using the source code or MathCask. Encouraged to stay connected on the Fediverse with the Mastodon handle.