Misplaced Pages

talk:WikiProject Mathematics: Difference between revisions - Misplaced Pages

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
Browse history interactively← Previous editNext edit →Content deleted Content addedVisualWikitext
Revision as of 22:56, 14 November 2007 editKSmrq (talk | contribs)5,323 edits →Relisted: DRV closed as "endorse delete, relist category 1"← Previous edit Revision as of 23:19, 14 November 2007 edit undoPeterStJohn (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users1,909 edits objections en route, but will take time. →ClosedNext edit →
Line 116: Line 116:


If Erdős numbers are meant to be fun trivia, I'm disheartened; this process has destroyed most of the fun for me. The category for Erdős number 1 will be relisted. Those who have not been thoroughly beaten down by the opposition, and who feel they can refute the Xoloz syllogism, may wish to participate. If you choose to do so, I strongly suggest concise, fact-filled arguments. In particular, do not let opponents bait flamewars; do not discuss motives; do not revist past conflicts. --]<sup>]</sup> 22:56, 14 November 2007 (UTC) If Erdős numbers are meant to be fun trivia, I'm disheartened; this process has destroyed most of the fun for me. The category for Erdős number 1 will be relisted. Those who have not been thoroughly beaten down by the opposition, and who feel they can refute the Xoloz syllogism, may wish to participate. If you choose to do so, I strongly suggest concise, fact-filled arguments. In particular, do not let opponents bait flamewars; do not discuss motives; do not revist past conflicts. --]<sup>]</sup> 22:56, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

: My understanding is that the Deletion Review process is meant to be consensus building, and the overturn in question emphatically did not reflect consensus (and therefore by policy should have been ruled "keep"). I plan to bring a Request for Arbitration but it will take quite a bit of time. I believe it is very important that admins not be seen to fecklessly trample on clear, well-enunciated consensus by mere fiat. ] 23:19, 14 November 2007 (UTC)


== Help with some logic articles == == Help with some logic articles ==

Revision as of 23:19, 14 November 2007

Archiving icon
WikiProject Mathematics archives ()
Earlier years

This page has archives. Sections older than 7 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III.
Edit this box

Erdős number‎ categories nominated for deletion

The related Category:Erdős numbers has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. You are encouraged to join the discussion on the Categories for discussion page.

This is the third nomination and with the concerns last time that the Math WikiProject wasn't notified I'm making sure you are the first to know about it this time around. __meco 13:51, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Please note, "endorse" vs "overturn" at the deletion review page

At the Deletion Review Page, where folks are discussing wether to overturn the deletion of the Erdos Number Categories, some folks are voting "endorse", with comments suggesting they mean "endorse the category". Unfortunately, "endorse" in this context means "endorse the closure of the ballot to delete", i.e. the deletion. I think most of us want to vote "overturn". There are examples of both kinds of votes, with clarifying comments, at that deletion review item and in other items near it. We certainly can't show any consensus if we vote mistakenly :-) Thanks, Pete St.John 19:18, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

The crazies have won, Erdős number categories are no more. See the archived discussion, where the summary is
  • The result of the debate was delete. I honestly don't have time to explain every reason why. Strength of argument lends to those who wanted to delete. For the vote-counters, many of the "keeps" relied on the argument "nothing has changed since the last time", which isn't a strong argument at all, and certainly pales to the arguments that the delete people brought up. There were some good arguments on both sides, but as I said, the ones who wanted to delete had the stronger argument. Kbdank71
In other words, the fact that we have made the same arguments so many times we did not see the need to repeat them counted against us! Whatever one thinks of the category, this is an absurd justification for deciding the debate. If there are strong arguments on both sides, the correct result is keep, from lack of consensus. --KSmrq 16:15, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
It's fine to disagree with the closure of a CFD, but labelling those who you disagree with as "crazies" is a breach of WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:36, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
It is, indeed, a breach of civility as defined in Misplaced Pages terms. Then again, continuing to bait someone who's obviously frustrated with the decision is not exactly a wonderful thing to do. This would be a good moment for you to back off. --Bogwoppit 11:46, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

In a probably forlorn attempt to stop another pointless fight, I will point out that Erdos numbers are nothing but a joke, one of the points of which is to fool people into taking them seriously. There sure seem to be a lot of people who have not yet figured this out. R.e.b. 16:59, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

If they're a joke, that's no reason not to take them seriously. The point is that it's a cultural meme. No one takes them seriously (I think?), but the fact that this cultural phenomenon exists should be reported in a serious way---that is the sense in which they should be taken seriously. Michael Hardy 22:45, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Sounds like a joke Erdős might have enjoyed.
As I said, however, regardless of one's opinion about the benefit of the category, there was clearly no consensus to delete it, and the admin has acted improperly and with an unacceptable explanation. How would you feel if the deletion target was, say, Category:Bourbaki ("initially a clever prank", says the article)? Don't kid yourself that it couldn't happen. --KSmrq 18:04, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
If you do not like it, take it to Misplaced Pages:Deletion review. The meme is significant and it is dealt with at Erdős number. However it is absurd that articles such Linus Pauling, Edward Teller, Louis de Broglie, Jonathan A. Jones and Kenichi Fukui, just to name the ones that came up on my watchlist to delete the category, should be cluttered up with this joke category. Their Erdős number is completely non-notable. --Bduke 01:01, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
I assume you're referring to the policy WP:N, which has nothing to say about article content, only whether or not each specific article exists. It has no bearing here. --Cheeser1 04:02, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, no I was not. I was using the word notable in its usual sense, not the WP:N sense. Perhaps I should have used trivial. The Erdős number is interesting and it is fun, but it is completely trivial and inappropriate to put Nobel Prize Chemists into this category. On other issues, I was not impressed by the closing admin's reasons, but as I said if you do not like it, put it to WP:DLR.--Bduke 08:48, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

While personally I would have preferred that the categories had been kept, to be honest that's mostly just because I thought it was sort of cool to be able to find mathematicians' Erdős numbers easily; I couldn't think of any strong argument that it was something that belonged in the category system, which is why I didn't contribute to the deletion discussion. While I have to allow that KSmrq has a point about the closing admin's handling of the situation, I do think he probably got to the right result.

Main point being, let's not let this turn into a math-wikiproject-against-the-world issue. It's not worth the political capital, especially when the argument one might make on the underlying substantive issue (as opposed to complaints about the closing admin) is so weak. It would be reasonable at this point to recreate a list article, I think, if one was deleted on the grounds that it was redundant with the categories, or to create a new one if one never existed. --Trovatore 04:24, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Something to that effect seems to be going on at User:Mikkalai/By Erdos. —David Eppstein 05:18, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
I also liked the convenience of being able to scroll down to the bottom of a math biography article and see the subject's Erdos number. One suggestion on the talk page was to put the information in an infobox, instead. --Ramsey2006 15:10, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
I would suggest a compromise, that it might be more appropriate to have a Category:Mathematicians by Erdős number: I'm not persuaded that Erdős number is an interesting categorization for people in general, and I think it should be listified, but for some mathematicians there is an interest in categorization by Erdős number, even if it is just a meme and a joke. Such a category might more easily survive the attention of the streamliners. I nearly mentioned this in the debate, but there was obviously more heat than light there so I stayed out of it. Geometry guy 20:55, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Reasons to reverse the deletion

  • promoting the effective concensus. If every issue were decided by a vote ("is pi transcendental?") most technical issues would be decided wrongly. It's not enough than non-specialists don't understand something, to be justified in destroying it. Democracy needs mechanisms for merit to intrude into policy. Note the current political issue in America, where "separation of church and state" protecting the teaching of Darwinian Evolution in public schools, can be subverted by Creationists simply redefining themeselves as Creation Scientists (so their view is Science, not Religion). They publish their own papers with their own peer-review in their own journals. How is that science, to be distinguished from "our" science, in the courts? The general process of promoting truth (in the sense of propositional calculus, or in the sense of scientific induction) in a world dominated by public opinion, judicial truth, Revelatory Truth, and others, is not trivial. We have to live in this world.
  • Support for the Category is not just a clique of wikipidians, but a profession. For example, Ron Graham, a former president of the AMS, "popularizes" Erdos Numbers.
  • Erdos' indiosyncracies, unprecedented touring, profligate production, and brilliance are legendary, in fact iconic. Erdos Nubmers have (increasingly) historical and (diminisihing) socio-political significance to mathematicians. Also the Numbers so some extent memorialize the man in a more approopriate way than merely naming a theorem for him.
  • This category is in no way less meaningful (nor, perhaps, more meaningful) than categories such as persons born on certain dates, or who live in certain cities, etc. Summary deletion of those categories would evoke a hew and cry from the special interest group that does care. This is a natrual process, and mathematicians need to be able to hew and cry also, as deductive logic is not necessarily effective on the deletionists.
  • I have a theory that the deletionists are concerned with "defining people by numbers" perceived as an evil activity, and conceived with very murky notions of "define" (and even "number", e.g. they are confused about Erdos Numbers being upper bounds). If they understood the subject they may not be afraid of it. So part of our motiviation is education, but in a meta-mathematical topic that is outside our usual methods of teaching, e.g. I can't prove that the category should not be deleted, in the same way I would prove L'Hopital's Rule. Pete St.John 22:50, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
Admins do as admins please. I don't think this is going anywhere, even with consensus on its side. CRGreathouse (t | c) 00:54, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
There was no reason to delete this, except that some people see it as their job to tear down the work of others.Ryoung122 02:43, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
That's not a fair or appropriate accusation. As much as any of us might disagree with the actions or opinions of others, we should not be jumping to such accusatory conclusions. As for the "admins do as admins please" - I suppose that is true, and perhaps that's a systemic problem on a wiki like this, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth making an honest effort to do something (be it overturn, or listify, or something). --Cheeser1 05:42, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Reversing the Deletion

I've requested a Deletion Review, at this deletion review log item. It's awkward because of the related categories Erdos Number <<X>> that got destroyed, not to mention variant transliterations of "Erdos". But Wiki has a mechanism for consensus among admins, similar to consensus among editors for ordinary contributions, and I think it's fair to give that mechanism a chance to work. Pete St.John 18:23, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Status at this writing

The original vote to delete the category (in this recent 3rd attempt to delete it) had been 11-5 in favor of keeping it (not counting an anonymous IP who voted to delete). The Admin deleted anyway, on the grounds of prefering the arguments to delete. Currently, at the Deletion Review where I have requested overturning that deletion, the vote is close, 6 to overturn and 5 to endorse (the deletion). This isn't the overwhelming 2-1 majority that lost anyway to admin fiat, but I think the standards may be different in a Deletion Review among admins, than the standards applied by an admin reacting to editors. I think at least we are showing the admins that we have a beef. Personally, it seems to me that while we tire of rebutting the same circular objections perpetually, to no apparent effect, the deletionists do not tire. They are like vampires who crave blood but can't be killed. Pete St.John 22:35, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's helpful to refer to this process as a "beef" or to call people vampires. We have plenty of points to make on their own merit, and don't need to make this process any more hostile or tense than it is. --Cheeser1 00:21, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

What is all this talk about "among admins"? DRV isn't for admins only any more than CfD is. The only difference is that DRV is for reviewing a deletion, not simply talking about whether an article should be deleted. JPD (talk) 12:51, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Seemingly that's my mistake. I had construed the Deletion Review as pertaining to admins, I asked for clarification, and the clarification was ambiguous ("anyone can comment" and it seems to mean "the votes keep/overturn are just comments too, in this context"). So we can all "vote", that's great. Thanks.Pete St.John 19:33, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I would suggest that in spite of the passions there should be a civil and constructive atmosphere. Demonizing your opponents is a rather poor taste tactic, at least on Misplaced Pages. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:57, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Two things; first, does "demonizing your opponents" refer to me? I have been somewhat more liberal in my characterization of the predominant opposition, in my expressions here. I have a very low opinion of their rhetoric and practices, but anyway please feel free to point to particulars that you consider excessive.
  • Second, I have, in fact, been formally accused of unethical canvassing practices. Cf this item at my talk page, which includes a link to the "ANI" item. I may be misinterpreting the ANI process, it's new to me, but it seems to be a mechanism for addressing unethical practices. I posted my rebuttal there, I'm happy with it so far, but I'm in personal trouble atm, which may detract from my (relatively militant) advocacy of the Erdos Number issue. Some would say that is a Good Thing. Pete St.John 19:33, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
You have posted notices on the pages of individual mathematics contributors about the deletion review. Bad idea; interested parties will see a single notice posted on this page. You have also sometimes slanted your notices to favor overturning. Bad idea; even among mathematicians opinions differ on the merits of these categories, and it is far better to merely urge participation with no prejudice about what the outcome should be.
In the review itself, any editor may participate; admins have no special status. The purpose of the review is not to rehash the arguments for and against deletion. The relevant question is whether the admin who closed the debate acted properly. For example:
  1. The closing summary said arguments from the two prior debates should carry no weight; is that correct procedure?
  2. The closing summary said good arguments were made on both sides, but the closer preferred one side; is that correct procedure?
  3. Numerically, the comments in the debate were overwhelmingly in favor of retaining the categories, the opposite of any consensus for deletion; was the closer right to impose an opinion without the support of consensus?
Misplaced Pages will not be destroyed if the categories are retained, nor if they are deleted. It will be in serious trouble if decisions are too often made at the whim of an admin.
I have been criticized for saying the crazies have won. I stand by my characterization. Repetitive shouting and a partisan close is no way to run an encyclopedia. That is not to say that everyone who did not support the categories acted crazily, nor that everyone who did support the categories acted properly. My concern is that the process was fatally flawed. Craziness has won.
My greater concern is that in the recent past we have had other examples of bad deletion decisions, suggesting a systemic problem rather than a single aberration. --KSmrq 21:06, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
(I'd prefer to keep my post in one piece. Also, the deletion review is the proper place to actually discuss the merits; I'm just indicating the kinds of questions that are relevant for a DRV. --KSmrq 00:35, 9 November 2007 (UTC))
  • note: Originally I posted my rebuttals (including answers to questions) with the points (including questions). For reasons of his own, Ksmrq has removed my answers to a continuous section (below), which now reads confusingly. I don't believe it's very important now, but to see the answers along side of the questions, one can use the revision history of this page.Pete St.John 23:45, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I myself didn't notice the category deletion until a bot modified several pages I watch. I only just joined the wikiproject, watching this page, on account of this controversy. Alot of mathematicians are interested in mathematics so much more than in politics :-). My feeling is that we were rail-roaded, by a glib result contrary to a clear majority, and that we are still being swamped by a spam-like process of recurring, circular rehashes, so I felt, and feel, that it's important to get out the vote. Democracy loses if only anarchists vote. Quadratically loses. As for slanting my notices, I am deliberating attempting to countervail a movement. I have a side. I take not of guidelines about canvassing and I'm seeking to work within them, but I'd be lying if even pretended to sound indifferent. Pete St.John 21:24, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
  1. I'm no expert on the procedure. I would assume that the votes would carry no weight, but the arguements themselves would be fair to cite. The admin, Kbdank71, plainly and energetically supports deletion. Pete St.John 21:24, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
  2. apparently the admin who closes may rule against the majority if the arguements favor the minority. Kbdank71 stated his opinion that the arguements for deletion were stronger. He can't seem to point to any specific one that hasn't been rebutted over and over. Admins have alot of latitude, I believe he abused that latitude. But we don't have laws and courts, we have guides and reviews. I seek review. Pete St.John 21:24, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
  3. Kbdank claims that the arguements for deletion were better than the arguements for keeping, which may be interpreted to mean the consensus was not reflected by the majority. IMO the overwhelming vote opposing him (11-5, not counting the Anonymous IP that voted to delete) is a plausiblity arguement that he did not judge according to the consensus, as he is guided to do. Pete St.John 21:24, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
I wholly agree. I think the editorial process is more important than the Erdos categories themselves. The majority rules, but should not ignore minorities. Pete St.John 21:24, 8 November 2007 (UTC) but I should clarify, in this case the majority lost. Pete St.John 21:26, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
In my view craziness has scored a victory; bringing the same issue to vote 3 times, losing every time, then making a fiat contrary to any sane assessment of consensus, and railroading and blindsiding affected users. But craziness hasn't won. Not if we don't give in to this. Pete St.John 21:24, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm not coping elegantly with just this one. But, "stuborn-ness in the cause of mathematics is no vice" :-) Pete St.John 21:24, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Continuing discussion

Discussion here about the best way to present Erdos numbers in articles is perfectly appropriate. But some editors are concerned that the discussion might be intended to disrupt the ongoing DRV. I don't think that is actually the case, but I hope everyone will keep it in mind, to foster collegiality. As usual, there is no massive conspiracy, just a disagreement about the best way to do something. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:12, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

The Deletion Review has been closed,and the deletion overturned. --Ramsey2006 03:38, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

After closing (early!) as "overturned", the closer reversed the decision. See also Misplaced Pages talk:Deletion review/Log/2007 November 7#Regarding the Erdos number categories.  --Lambiam 06:24, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
This whole thing is quite confusing. Aparently, (as SparsityProblem notes here ) it was closed early, as the rules require it to be open for 5 days before closing. Misplaced Pages:Deletion review#Closing reviews Looking back through the November DRV pages, I could onlly find two that were listed for a full 5 days before being closed, in violation of the rules for closing DRV's. (All of the other DRV's on that same day as the Erdos number DRV have already been closed.) Will they all be reopened, now? --Ramsey2006 10:14, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Relisted

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Category:Erdős numbers. Since several of you participated in the previous discussion for this category, you may wish to participate in this relisting of the deletion review. The previous one was apparently closed as "relist" due to canvassing. - jc37 09:23, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Closed

The second DRV for the third CfD of the Erdős numbers categories (whew!) has been closed. In the best tradition of Solomon, the result will satisfy neither extreme completely. Here is the closing summary:

  • Category:Erdős numbers – From the discussion below, I think two conclusions can be drawn on which there is wide agreement: 1.)Erdos numbers are trivial, and in general do not correlate to the significance of a mathematician or her/his work; 2.)Mathematicians value Erdos numbers as a significant facet of their shared common working culture. It is for this reason that Misplaced Pages has an article on Erdos number, and no one in this discussion has questioned the encyclopedic worth of that article.
These two conclusions are in tension with each other. Trivial information is not used in categorizing encyclopedic material; yet, although this information is trivial, many Wikipedians in the mathematics field are passionate about this trivia, and find it worthy of mentioning.
It is argued that Erdos numbers are not "a defining characteristic", and are thus inappropriate for categorization; it is counter-argued that many current categories appear to exist for characteristics whose "defining" nature is ambiguous at best -- eg. "People from Ohio".
What seems to have been lost to some of those commenters urging that deletion here be overturned is that deletion of the categories does not serve to eradicate Erdos number data from Misplaced Pages. Individual Erdos numbers may be added to each mathematician's article; and lists, as appropriate, may be maintained. Categorization is about reader navigation and no clear compelling case has been made regarding why readers would wish to navigate among mathematicians on the basis of their number. Passion aside, an individual's number is not known to be that highly significant.
Having said that, the proponents of undeletion have one significant point in their favor -- the nature of the previous discussion did not delineate among the various Erdos values, and it did have the ability to consider the full range of options (listing, "infobox"ing) now suggested. Hence, it is logical and just to relist "cat:Erdos number 1" at CfD. If arguments for Erdos numbers as a "defining charactristic" can be made, they should apply most strongly to this "high" number. A limited relisting will also allow full discussion of the "list" and "infobox" alternatives.
Erdos numbers will survive at Misplaced Pages, and it should remain easy to determine the number for any modern scientist who might have one. Given the admitted trivial nature of the numbers, it seems categorization on that basis is highly unlikely to be appropriate. Hence, the deletions are endorsed. Nevertheless, further discussion is warranted to ensure that no evidence in favor of the importance of Erdos numbers was overlooked in the previous en masse CfD, and to clarify the question of what to do with the Erdos data of individuals, in the full light of all alternatives. Hence, a limited relisting at CfD is proper. – Xoloz 21:54, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Now, as it happens, I am not convinced that there is widespread agreement on the first point; however, it is true that editors both outside and inside the mathematics community have said something along these lines. I am puzzled that Xoloz has considered the merits of the arguments for and against deletion, rather than simply acknowledging a lack of consensus. This again seems to set aside community decisions in favor of one admin's choice. The closer's syllogism is: • Erdős numbers are widely considered trivial, • trivial data is inappropriate for categorization, therefore • Erdős numbers are inappropriate for categorization.

If Erdős numbers are meant to be fun trivia, I'm disheartened; this process has destroyed most of the fun for me. The category for Erdős number 1 will be relisted. Those who have not been thoroughly beaten down by the opposition, and who feel they can refute the Xoloz syllogism, may wish to participate. If you choose to do so, I strongly suggest concise, fact-filled arguments. In particular, do not let opponents bait flamewars; do not discuss motives; do not revist past conflicts. --KSmrq 22:56, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

My understanding is that the Deletion Review process is meant to be consensus building, and the overturn in question emphatically did not reflect consensus (and therefore by policy should have been ruled "keep"). I plan to bring a Request for Arbitration but it will take quite a bit of time. I believe it is very important that admins not be seen to fecklessly trample on clear, well-enunciated consensus by mere fiat. Pete St.John 23:19, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Help with some logic articles

I need help with Halting problem and Godel's incompleteness theorem. User:Likebox, an avowed fan of Archimedes Plutonium, is adding some content both literally and figuratively incorrect to these, and I don't see any way to resolve it by myself. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:28, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd almost given up on Halting problem. Perhaps I'll have a look at it tomorrow. Of course, he won't accept my ideas, either.... — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 01:31, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
I fixed halting problem this morning, but he reverted it. He is extremely confused about how to use terminology correctly, apparently favoring vague analogies instead of correct exposition. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:49, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
While I agree with the idea of removing fluff and vague analogies from the article, you also removed the material that makes the article comprehensible to computer scientists. Is there some way of writing an article that's acceptable mathematically but written in such a way as to be understandable by programmers? For instance, there's no explanation of why a decision problem (which, to a programmer, can be explained as the desired behavior of a subroutine that has some input and a boolean valued output) has anything to do with sets of integers (a seemingly static mathematical object having nothing to do with computation). This is, by the way, a problem with both versions of the article; Likebox's version has separate sections with intuition and with rigor, but little connection between them. —David Eppstein 02:00, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
I didn't just remove it - I tried very hard to integrate it throughout the other text. Check the diff for my edit . I don't mind at all the idea of having some intuition present, but not in the "he said/she said" way that claims there is a difference between computer science and recursion theory. I would be glad to work cooperatively to add more explanation throughout both articles as appropriate. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:20, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
I totally agree that the "he said/she said" approach is counterproductive. I attempted to restore your version of the Gödel article but was reverted (by DFRussia, not Likebox) so it looks like we're going to have to work on building consensus among multiple people who see it the other way before having any success at fixing these articles. —David Eppstein 03:21, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
In any case, it cannot possibly hurt to have more people watching these two articles for a little while. I agree that consensus building is needed here, rather than some sort of appeal to authority. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:27, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

As Godel's incompleteness theorem has been reverted again, extra help would still be appreciated. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:17, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Request for comments on GIT

I have made a request for comments here. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:32, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Math portal has run out of articles

Moved from WP:AN. Anyone want to look into this? — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:30, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi. There seems to be a problem with the template of the article of the week (featured article) in the portal of Mathematics. The articles are not getting archived since June and i think that it gets updated automatically, often resulting in an empty article. There are some messages about the problem in the talk page, but we need the help of an administrator. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.180.224.85 (talk) 15:05, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

The pages have to be scheduled in advance, and it just seems that nobody's done that. Look at the following list:
The red links show where nobody has created the featured article summary; it's now week 45 of 2007. So there's nothing wrong with the portal, except that nobody has updated it; try asking somewhere like Misplaced Pages talk:Wikiproject Mathematics to see if you can find someone to maintain the portal. --ais523 15:25, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I used to keep these up to date but I've been neglecting the portal since last May. Thankfully some other editors have stepped up. It is a lot of work for one person to keep the portal up to date. More involvement from editors here would be helpful.

Actually, I'd like to come up with another system for the portal so that the above problem doesn't happen. It would be nice to just have a pool of featured article snippits and have the portal randomly select one each week. People could add more snippits as they see fit and we would have rotating content without the annoying periodic redlinks. I'll have to think of a way to do this. -- Fropuff 16:44, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

You might leave a message at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Portals about that. I think one or more of the members of that group have probably done something similar already for other portals. John Carter 16:50, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
Fropuff, if the snippets are in some reasonable location it would not be hard to make a bot script that would update the portal once a week to pick a new snippet. I'd be glad to run that bot if others arrange the snippets. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:21, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
I can think of two ways to do it. One would be to have the snippits at Portal:Mathematics/Featured article/n where n is some number. We would then have to have some page indicating the maximum n. Other way would be to put the snippits at Portal:Mathematics/Featured article/Article name and then have some page (such as Portal:Mathematics/Featured article list) that would list all the article names. The bot would then select a new one from the list every day/week/whatever (either by rotating through them or randomly selecting one). If we did this we should do something similiar for the featured pictures as well. -- Fropuff 17:41, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
We could just put the snippet pages into a category (Category:Mathematics portal articles of the week or something like that) and the bot would semi-randomly select a new article every week. While we're at it, we could separate the formatting of the "articles of the week" box from the snippet content. I should be able to look into this later this week. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:56, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

What John Carter said. See Misplaced Pages:Portal/Instructions#Editing Archive for random portal component section for some (unclear?) instructions, and many examples of simple randomized content at the featured Portal:Cats, Portal:Environment, etc (click "Show new selections" to purge/refresh the page). Hope that helps. --Quiddity 18:07, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it looks like if we do the numbered article thing we can use {{Random portal component}} to randomize the content. There would be no need to write a bot. From what I can tell this template will pseudorandomly select a new featured article on every page load (assuming the cache is purged). Maybe this is the easiest thing to do. -- Fropuff 18:44, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
That does seem to be quite simple to implement, and would require little ongoing maintenance. Let's do it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:19, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
I maintained the portal from May to September by recycling: 2007 portals 26-40 are essentially the list of 2006 portals. Sad to say, there aren't many other mathematics articles which are good enough to showcase. The proposed solution sounds fine: I just wanted to suggest that randomness is not essential - one can simply cycle. Geometry guy 19:37, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
What are the criteria for including an article? — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:46, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I've updated the portal to use a slightly customized version of {{Random portal component}}. I've placed the content at

I'll try to move our whole slew of existing snippits to the new locations. I'll also try and update the archive to reflect the new format. And then do the same thing with the pictures. Let me know if you see any problems. -- Fropuff 20:07, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

improper integral

A confused person extensively rewrote the article titled improper integral. I reverted to the last version by Jitse Niesen. I left a message on the confused person's talk page explaining why at least some of what he wrote was erroneous. Possibly some assistance from some readers of this page in helping him out of his confusion will be needed later. Michael Hardy 16:33, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Average

Could you please watch over average while keeping in mind that this is an introductory article to the topic? There's some good discussion and edits going on, but -- and I'm appealing to those of you who have kids trying to understand this topic -- could you please try to keep it simple in this article? Maybe encourage some of the discussion and text to move to more technical articles? Maybe try to simplify the article so that teens looking up "average" in Misplaced Pages won't be completely turned off? Illustrations would help a great deal. Shorter sentences and less jargon would help a lot. PLEASE help if you can! I'm not saying the information is bad or wrong, I'm just worried about it being in this general and basic article. --Foggy Morning 02:39, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Definable real number

I found this forum dialog: http://www.math.niu.edu/~rusin/known-math/98/definable

There are somes things that would be very useful in the article. But I don't know if this is usable as a source. I tried to contact David Madore, he didn't answered. As he is a teacher in the best French math faculty, I think it would be better that another teacher try to contact him. His adress is on the bottom of the page. Barraki 21:21, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

So I looked up the post above, and really I don't think there's much in there that's not already in the WP article (though I don't remember if the WP article discusses reals of L).
But I'm not sure everyone really understands the problem with the definable real number article. The problem is that editors not intimately familiar with the subject do Google Scholar or MathSciNet searches on the term "definable real number" and, seeing lots of hits, assume that there's some specific unique notion to which the term corresponds.
But there isn't. Take for example Madore's explanation:
a real number x is definable iff there is a predicate P(t) such that x is the only t such that P(t)
That's true, as far as it goes. But a predicate in what language, and with what interpretation? Different answers give you different notions of definable real. There simply is no well-defined notion of what it means for a real number to be "definable, full stop"; rather, there's a hierarchy of different sorts of definability using more and more powerful techniques.
So I never have known just what to do with this problematic article. I did a major rewrite on it quite some time ago to remove the implication that its subject matter was one clear thing; while my rewrite was quite frankly OR, it's less bad than it was before. What one would really like to do is make explicit the hierarchy of different sorts of definability to which I alluded. This is to some extent the subject matter of effective descriptive set theory. But effective descriptive set theory spends more time on definability of sets of reals than on definability of individual reals, and I don't know where to find a good source for the definability hierarchy on individual reals. --Trovatore 21:21, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
The relevant differences can be reduced to differences in the notion of "provability". Given some notion of provability, we can define definability of x, relative to that notion, as: the statement ∃!x·Px is provable. This can be considered with a more formal bend, but also with the rather informal notion of proof usually required for the elevation of a statement to theoremhood, where the people scrutinizing a proposed proof may suspect gaps to be unbridgeable, but will not lament that the language and interpretation are not precisely pinned down.  --Lambiam 03:22, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
Actually, no, provability is mostly a red herring in this context. What you need is a language plus semantics for that language. Now, certainly, if you like you can refine a notion of definability by requiring that it be provable, in some specified theory, that the defining formula has a unique real witness, and possibly this can even be useful once in a while. But in most cases it's just an extra complication -- you still need the semantics, and the formal theory doesn't give you that. --Trovatore 04:49, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
How does that not apply to a purported proof of, for example, the Poincaré conjecture? Don't you need a language plus semantics for the statement and the proof? Can you give an example of a disputed "definable number" for which the issue of the semantics of the proposed defining statement is at the heart of the dispute?  --Lambiam 06:53, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, you don't really need a semantics for proofs. I mean you do in practice, for real-world proofs, but not in theory for formal derivations. By contrast, you don't need any proofs to define a real number -- you just need it to be true that x is the unique real such that P(x) holds; you don't need it to be provable. In fact it doesn't even really make sense to talk about it being provable; in general it takes infinitely much space to write down x, so how are you going to even get started on proving the claim? First you'd have to write down x, and you never finish with that.
I suspect that what you're doing here -- possibly unconsciously -- is conflating "definable real number" with "definition of a real number". Not the same thing at all. Which is why your request for an example also doesn't really make sense -- I can't really give any examples of definable real numbers, only of definitions of real numbers. However I can easily give you examples of a single definition for a real number that defines different real numbers depending on the semantics. Would that satisfy your challenge? --Trovatore 07:34, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
Look at the real and complex fields in the first order language of fields. In the reals, the definable (without parameters--otherwise it's a little silly) elements are precisely the algebraic reals. In the complex numbers, the definable elements are precisely the rational numbers, if I am not mistaken. (Everything else gets moved by an automorphism.) It's a semantic notion. It doesn't matter what theory that you consider the two as models of, and what is provable in the theories. They are both models of the theory of fields, for example, but the only elements whose existence can be proved in the theory of fields are the integers. You can't even prove the existence of 1/2 in the theory, since Z/2 is also a model of the theory. --Ramsey2006 07:27, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Requests for adminship: Geometry Guy

Geometry guy is a candidate for adminship. His RFA page is here for anyone who wishes to comment. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:37, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Casimir goes to Casimir

Casimir goes to Casimir is up for deletion. The AfD looks like it could use some input from those who know something about Casimir invariants. --Salix alba (talk) 08:16, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

AFD on a Kazakh mathematician; help?

There's an AFD on a Kazakh mathematician, Kareem Amin. It would be great to have some mathematical subject expertise on this? --Lquilter 18:46, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

My father (a statistician at Purdue) never heard of him, nor saw any indication he had written any papers. That may not be conclusive, but perhaps we have someone within research distance of the museum. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 21:29, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I just made the article on the museum - it's the major museum in kazakhstan and should have had an article before now, actually. (I was just there 2 years ago.) ... But I don't have any contacts there to look up his papers. --Lquilter 21:38, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Satanic influences.....

Lists (PLURAL, dammit!!) of mathematics topics is a featured list.

List (singular!!) of mathematics topics is not.

After the featured list got moved to lists of mathematics topics (plural "lists"), someone changed Misplaced Pages:Featured lists so that it said list of mathematics topics (singular "list"), which was a redirect to the non-featured list of mathematics articles. Then someone saw that the page listed at Misplaced Pages:featured lists was not a featured list, and deleted it. The error stood for almost seven months. I've changed the singular title to a disambiguation page. Michael Hardy 02:25, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

{{refimprovesect}} at ]

A user has strewn {{refimprovesect}} tags all over Probability. What shall we do with those? Not only does this seem to go against the drift of the scientific citation guidelines, but also in general one would expect that in an article in summary style the references for the summarized material of the subtopics may be deferred to the main articles (as is also clearly suggested by Misplaced Pages:Summary style#Citations and external links). However, scanning the article for statements that are likely not covered by existing references, I noticed that the last section, Applications, has several unsourced challengeable statements in the first half, and then, starting with the weaselly proclamation that "It could be said that there is no such thing as probability", wanders off into an unsourced philosophical essay on Randomness.  --Lambiam 07:19, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Salix alba has condensed the multiple tags down to one. Someone should contact the person who placed the improvement tags to see if there are genuine issues being challenged (in which case we should find refs) or just a general request for more sources (in which case we should remind them of {{sofixit}}). — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:28, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
What about the essay? Does it belong topic-wise, and if so, is it salvageable?  --Lambiam 02:57, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
I think the Probability and Probability theory articles have problems. Probability has a more philosophical bent focusing on the nature of probability, and Probability theory covers more advanced mathematical topics . What is missing is a basic high-school mathematics treatment, with the rules for p(A and B) etc. We discussed this before without a successful resolution. Maybe what is needed is a third article covering the mathematical basics. A radical solution would be to have a Probability and statistics article covering mathematical basics, move Probability to Probability (philosophy) and have Probability as a disambig/redirect.
I've removed one paragraph on there is no such thing as probability--Salix alba (talk) 08:10, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
Hats off to Salix alba for starting to move Probability in the right direction. I agree that both Probability and Probability theory are in a poor state. I gave my impression in June/July, and little has changed. It is embarrassing that Probability is only 15K. I would say that page renames are not needed: enlarging the Probability article with more high school math could well bring it into balance. However, any idea which improves the treatment of probability is most welcome! Geometry guy 21:02, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Megalithic geometry

Editor Snicoulaud (talk · contribs) has just created an article called megalithic geometry and attempted to link to it from geometry. I have reverted the link; probably the article should be deleted as hokum. Have a look. --KSmrq 20:41, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Give Snicoulaud (talk · contribs) an indefinite block and roll-back all his edits! He is a single purpose crack-pot. JRSpriggs 07:16, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
He seems to be creating a walled garden around Alan Butler, Sylvain Tristan, Megalithic geometry, and Salt Lines, cross linking and adding the same sources to all of them. If we AfD one we should take a look at all of them. —Cronholm 08:55, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Since editors here may not have access to the Alan Butler's book, the following summary from an Amazon customer might be helpful.

The author aims to prove the use of circular pattern on the Phaistos disk, but manages to come up with circular evidence. Pardon the pun, couldn't resist. The basic observations are valid and useful, such as the 30 fields on one side and 31 on the other, but his conclusions beyond this are essentially unsubstantiated. For example: He is assuming a certain number of degrees on the circle (366), and a certain number of arc-seconds per degree, and furthermore that the length measure is a foot, and that there are 36.6 feet per arc-second. If it is so, then the result corresponds to within a kilometre with the circumference of the Earth, which is remarkble. Since it is remarkble, he concludes that it must be true, which is of course a circular argument to say the least. The book is full of similar units and measures that are unsubstantiated. I can not recommend it.

This material might possibly survive as an article on the book, which discusses the claims from a neutral point of view. Geometry guy 10:10, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Not quite a true walled garden. I found one link outside, to Xavier Guichard, who may have proposed a similar theory. I think he may be notable. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 13:39, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
I have nominated the article, as well as Salt Lines and Sylvain Tristan, for deletion: Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Megalithic geometry. (The fourth one has already been deleted.)  --Lambiam 14:11, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Casimir goes to Casimir

If anyone knows anything about this topic, could they assist at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Casimir goes to Casimir? Michael Hardy 20:42, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

It was closed as a redirect. --Salix alba (talk) 13:49, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup using AWB

In the past month or so, several users have gone over large swaths of mathematics articles, leaving the above edit summary. Their edits usually amount to replacing math html with pseudographics characters, e.g. superscripts rendered as x<sup>2</sup> with x², greek &lambda; with λ, the inequality symbol &le; with ≤, etc. Here is latest that I've come across, but there are many more instances. I personally do not feel that these efforts result in any improvement, think that the term "cleanup" is rather misleading in this context, and dislike such changes for a number of reasons (cf questions below). But should we take a stand on this issue? Here are a few points that I think deserve being addressed:

  • It may be preferable to retain uniform style for formulas throughout each article. In that case, should we treat these wholesale changes similarly to wholesale changes in spelling (British vs American English) that are expressly discouraged?
  • Is there significant difference in the quality of the mathematical formulas after the changes?
  • Do the changes make rendering the formulas more consistent or less consistent across various platforms?
  • If in the future all math html will be converted into some flavour of TeX, would we prefer having math html that is closer to TeX and hence more amenable to conversion to a rather ad hoc mixture of html and pseudographics?

Arcfrk 02:50, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

With regard to AWB, superscripts, and Unicodification, I notified some individual editors, and then realized that the preventative measures previously enacted at AWB must have been removed. I posted a notice there, and almost immediately after so did Michael Hardy (apparently not seeing my comments immediately above his!). Within a day we were told that AWB had been fixed so that problem would not continue. However, that does not fix all the pages that were defaced by well-meaning "cleaners". --KSmrq 05:17, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
For the sake of speed, we could "clean" them again using the newest version of AWB, provided that it doesn't have any other little bugs. —Cronholm 07:11, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
I think it would be helpful to expand the Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (mathematics), specifically on issues such as x vrs x². Mainly so there is a position on this so we don't get a back and forth changes. If this existed then we could point the AWB'er to the MoS.
There been a long running discussion on Talk:Bracket about the preferred way to render angle brackets simple ascii < > or exotic unicode U+2329 (〈) and U+232A (〉) which does not always appear in browser fonts.--Salix alba (talk) 08:03, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
I have the latest version of Mozilla Firefox and your exotic unicode U+2329 (〈) and U+232A (〉) just look like question marks (?) to me. Use \langle and \rangle in TeX! JRSpriggs 08:16, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
It is a font question, not a browser question. Firefox renders them perfectly fine on my home computer, but I get numbers in boxes on my work computer. If Unicode fonts are widely used on math articles, we should perhaps add a notice that tells people how to install fonts. (I thin kthere are notices like that for articles containing Japanese text so people won't delete the question marks). Kusma (talk) 09:50, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
Angle brackets and superscript numbers are one thing, and if they end up displaying differently then I'd agree with sticking to the non-special-character version. But I believe that for &le; vs ≤ or &lambda; vs. λ both versions are rendered identically in the browser and it's a matter of editor convenience only, not affecting the readers, which we use. In those cases I prefer to use the unicode characters directly because that way it's closer to WYSIWYG when I'm editing. —David Eppstein 16:14, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
Replacing x<sup>2</sup> with x² makes things worse (I wrote something about this in our Manual of Style recently) and is disabled in the latest version of AWB. Replacing greek &lambda; with λ, the inequality symbol &le; with ≤, etc. does not make a difference in how the pages are rendered, though it probably makes the wikitext easier to read when you're editing the page (at least, I think that's the reason behind the changes).
However, edits which only do this kind of clean-up without changing the rendering (like the one that Arcfrk mentioned) should not be done because they just clutter up watchlists; see the fourth point in the "Rules of use" of AutoWikiBrowser. You may want to remind any editors breaking this rule of it. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 16:20, 13 November 2007 (UTC) (edit conflict with David)
In the case of math articles in particular, I don't believe that unicodifying the symbols is a waste of resources--the code becomes much easier to read when I can just see ≤ rather than &1232342342; or whatever. I'll stop doing it, though, if it's the opinion of the group that unicodifying shouldn't be done. --Sopoforic 18:53, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
My opinion is that we should generally prefer TeX over Unicode for symbols more complicated than Greek letters or inequality signs. It would be nice if almost all browsers had a rich math font set installed, but I don't think it's extremely common yet. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:42, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't mind most of these edits, but the following is an abomination:

old: x + x
new: x² + x

Any bot that insists on doing this should be humanely euthanized. Michael Hardy 18:53, 13 November 2007 (UTC)


While editing a page, an "Insert" menu appears below the text. Misplaced Pages seems to feel that these specific characters are safe:
Markup: – — … ° ≈ ≠ ≤ ≥ ± − × ÷ ← → · §
Result: – — … ° ≈ ≠ ≤ ≥ ± − × ÷ ← → · §
The current HTML standard has been around for a very long time, and so we may also expect support from all browsers and fonts for any named character entities. These include all the Greek characters (and a few variants), as well as a small assortment of mathematics symbols. In my table, the available HTML names are underlined. Among these are &lang; and &rang;. I prefer to use these two entity names rather than a UTF-8 character for three reasons: it tells other editors that these are not less and greater signs, it matches the TeX names, and it works around a browser bug I encountered.
When I have an entity name available, I often prefer to use it. Although it is not WYSIWYG, it is faster than copying and pasting a special character, it is completely safe for editing, and it commonly matches the TeX name (with exceptions like &infin; versus \infty).
I have a short list of pet peeves, markup that leads to ugly pages. Here is what I like to see.
  1. Avoid TeX markup inline.
  2. Prefer TeX markup for displayed equations, and always use "\,\!" to force PNG display.
  3. Trailing punctuation for displayed equations goes inside the TeX markup.
  4. When using wiki markup, always use a proper minus sign, never the hyphen-minus character. (The insert menu character beside "×" is fine.)
  5. When using wiki markup, do not blindly insert plain spaces in equations (without {{mbox}} protection), as browsers are permitted to break lines at such spaces.
  6. Never use wiki italics markup ("''") as if it were TeX "$"; italicize only variables.
  7. In date and page ranges, always use &ndash;, never hyphen-minus. (The UTF-8 character is fine.)
I have cleaned up page after page only to see later editors pay no attention to such details, sometimes not even in the same paragraph! Although I will grant Emerson's oft-quoted point about a foolish consistency being the "hobgoblin of little minds", when I see text strewn with mistakes in spelling and typography I naturally suspect sloppiness in everything — specifically, in the mathematics. --KSmrq 19:08, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with all of KSmrq's numbered points above. Michael Hardy 22:42, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

... and then if you want to get into advance (ha ha...) stuff:

in TeX, use f(x)\,dx, not f(x) dx
write \frac{\partial^2 y}{\partial x_1\,\partial^2 x_2}, not \frac{\partial^2 y}{\partial x_1 \partial^2 x_2}, i.e. put a small space between the two partials on the bottom. Michael Hardy 22:45, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Speedy deletion candidate.

Hi, i am no maths expert so i ask someone here if this article: 2^x makes any sense. Is it encyclopedic? Accurate? Thanks. Woodym555 23:21, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

It has been prodded instead. If expansion is possible, it would be welcome. Thanks. Woodym555 23:28, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
I replaced the prod with a redirect to Power of two. —David Eppstein 23:52, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
Good move. — xDanielx /C\ 06:46, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Scientific peer review

This Scientific Peer Review project can hardly be called successful. While there have been a steady but small flow of articles submitted for review, the actual reviews have been either non-existent or in no real way different from those done through the standard Misplaced Pages:Peer review process. Some editors will recall that the project was started with an enthusiastic discussion about identifying expert reviewers through an elected board. Unfortunately as time went by, it became clear there was no consensus on whether we had a board, or on how it was to be set up or on what it was supposed to do. There was also a lack of consensus on what "sciences" we were covering, and on many other aspects. In the end we sort of lapsed into a minimal review process which has staggered on for about 18 months. I think it is time we decided what to do about the project. Unless people can come up with a new way forward and enthusiastically implement it, I think we have to declare that this project be no longer active in any sense and that editors should ask for review at WP:PR. I am posting this on the talk pages of the major Science WikiProjects. Please feel free to publicize it elsewhere. Please add you comments at Misplaced Pages talk:Scientific peer review#Is this inactive?. --Bduke 03:41, 14 November 2007 (UTC)