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Hi, and welcome to my User Talk page! For new discussions, I prefer you add your comments at the very bottom and use a section heading (e.g., by using the "New section" tab at the top of this page). I will respond on this page unless specifically requested otherwise.

L.A. events on October 7 and 16

Jacob Barnett

Could you please provide any other category instead of category:Students which you removed in this edit? I tried to add category:American physicists first. Then User:Slawekb removed it saying "err... no, that is not the headline of the indystar article. And "physicist" generally does not include physics students". There must be at least one category which defines the occupation of the person. In french article they categorized him as an astrophysicist. Will it be OK for english wikipedia? Best regards, --217.21.43.22 (talk) 15:44, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

If we had a category on child prodigies, that would be where to put him, but we don't. I don't know what his current occupation is; we don't seem to have any sources for what he has done after finishing his master's degree. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:56, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Pizza theorem- Two similar rectangle theorem

Dear Dr. David Eppstein,

Please see "Similar rectangle theorem" and some applications

http://oaithanhdao.blogspot.com/2014/09/two-similar-rectangle-theorem.html

Some applications:

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/AdvancedPlaneGeometry/photos/photostream/lightbox/48794141?orderBy=mtime&sortOrder=desc&photoFilter=ALL#zax/48794141

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/AdvancedPlaneGeometry/photos/photostream/lightbox/48794141?orderBy=mtime&sortOrder=desc&photoFilter=ALL#zax/1123121522

Best regards Sincerely --Eightcirclestheorem (talk) 15:56, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Please see Dao's generalization Simson line theorem

Dear Dr. David Eppstein,

Please see Dao's generalization Simson line theorem

http://oaithanhdao.blogspot.com/2014/09/problem-1-let-triangle-let-line.html

Best regards Sincerely --Eightcirclestheorem (talk) 11:09, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Please see my generalization Newton's line theorem

Dear Dr. David Eppstein,

Please see http://oaithanhdao.blogspot.com/2014/09/57-generalization-newtons-line-theorem.html

Best regards Dao Thanh Oai — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eightcirclestheorem (talk • contribs) 03:03, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Fractal routing, or

The seal of Solomon in three dimensions - A fractal pattern for massive parallel architecture programs is currently up for deletion, perhaps not surprising. Is this something to do with routing, or anything to do with mathematics, or is it just one guy's opinions and ideas? I suspect it fails WP:GNG but I'm entirely unfamiliar with the (possible) topic area so I don't really know. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:01, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Maybe keep Dao's six point circle with some reasons as follows

First reason:

Please see 1; that time the Dao's six point circle be delete with main reason: The result only appear in Cut the knot Dao's Six Point Circle and Kimberling center, X(5569)= Center of the Dao six point circle and Dao's six point circle didn't appear on a journal. But now Dao's six point circle also appear in a journal, this result is special case of theorem 3.1, in the article of this theorem.

Secon reason:

Dr. David Eppstein also said that: The Kimberling/ETC reference is reliable for this sort of thing, but...... 1. Please note that you can see in , have 1097 triangle centers but only have 10 center of circle which name after person(name after notability). Detail:

X(5453) = CENTER OF HATZIPOLAKIS CIRCLE (has no proof until now)

X(5569) = CENTER OF THE DAO 6-POINT CIRCLE (with three independent proofs)

X(5607) = CENTER OF 1st POHOATA-DAO-MOSES CIRCLE (has no proof until now)

X(5608) = CENTER OF 2nd POHOATA-DAO-MOSES CIRCLE (has no proof until now)

X(5944) = CENTER OF HUNG CIRCLE (has no proof until now until now)

X(5955) = CENTER OF INNER HUNG CIRCLE (has no proof until now)

X(5956) = CENTER OF OUTER HUNG CIRCLE (has no proof until now)

X(5974) = CENTER OF THE HUNG-FEUERBACH CIRCLE (has no proof until now)

X(6045) = CENTER OF MOSES-HUNG CIRCLE (has no proof until now)

X(6048) = CENTER OF MOSES HULL CIRCLE (has no proof until now)

But in 10 circles name after person above, only have Dao six point circle have synthetic proof (three independent proofs for this circle), 9 circle have no proof until now.

Third reason: van Lamoen circle also is special case of theorem theorem 3.1. van Lamoen circle appear in wiki

--Eightcirclestheorem (talk) 07:52, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

David, no admin seems to have been willing to speedy it for several days, so I Listed it at afd for discussion. DGG ( talk ) 20:11, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Article for deletion Concave hull

Hello,

You may interested in the deletion discussion at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Concave hull‎. I think that you have more competences on this subject that the other editors of these pages, including myself.

Sincerely D.Lazard (talk) 17:42, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

About Dao's theorem

• Dear Dr. David Eppstein, please let me know as soon as possible what do you think with last form of Dao's theorem? keep or delete, if you think should delete I agree delete, if you think should keep I am agree keep too. Thank to You very much

Delsort

Apologies for the mis-sorted AfD. What delsort page would be appropriate for general topics in academia/research? —Swpb 17:02, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

For that one? Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Social science maybe. I don't know of one for academic research in general. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:45, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, that's perfect. —Swpb 18:10, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Dr David Eppstein is decided (keep or delete Dao's theorem)

Dear Dr.David Eppstein, Please read my comment:

• delete. A bit late to this but whether it's the earlier version of the page before forking or the current dab-like page this doesn't belong, as a blatant attempt at self-promotion, using WP to promote your research long before its picked up by reliable sources.--JohnBlackburne_deeds 00:01, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

• Values of JohnBlackburne's comment above? I think he no read all comment above at here. I think he don't has knowledgeable of classical geometry, he did not check these theorem, did not read the articles, so may he let "delete" or "keep" is not values. I think he should remember Forum geometricorum is a journal which has indexed in Mathscinet, and Crux Mathematicorum is the best solution of solving Journal in the world(the journal is member of Canadian Mathematical Society). On the other hand now, never publish a theorem of classical geometry in Acta Numerica, Annals of Mathematics or a high another journal of mathematic...... And these theorem are generalization of famous theorem of classical geometry with reasons above why delete? on the other hand WP:PROMO are not reasons to delete an article. And I didn't know wiki don't want I post so I post, If I know wiki didn't want I post so I never post, and never said to you that I am Dao Thanh Oai. I research geometry to relax because I am electrical system engineer, I have no received money from geometry(In three years research). Original of my idea post at here because I want to share. Now these result publish in some best journal of classical geometry, and these theorems are generalization of famous theorem of classical geometry why delete? And I didn't name these theorem after my name. I name these theorem from title of these paper ? why delete. I waiting Dr David Eppstein comment again, Dr David Eppstein is decided. --Eightcirclestheorem (talk) 02:37, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Triangulation (disambiguation) revert-why the revert?

Dear David Eppstein

re (Undid revision 629746429 by DadaNeem (talk) there should be only one page beginning with "Triangulation (disambiguation)")

Please explain-I am adding to the existing Triangulation (disambiguation) in a way I believe is constructive as I have done 1000s of times in the past. Maybe one of us is missing something?--DadaNeem (talk) 20:39, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

You added two links to special pages that list all Misplaced Pages topics whose title starts with "Triangulation (disambiguation)". How many Misplaced Pages topics do you think there are that start with that precise string? —David Eppstein (talk) 20:41, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

You're right, my mistake-I intend to correct it to:

== See also ==

• All pages with titles beginning with Triangulation
• All pages with titles containing Triangulation

Does that make sense? --DadaNeem (talk) 20:46, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Sure, that works a lot better. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:54, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Talkback

NorthAmerica 21:43, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

AI RfC

Got a feedback request service notice for this -- I've not time but thought you might be interested. EEng (talk) 01:29, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Another one right up your alley. EEng (talk) 00:22, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I've already been participating in the associated FA review. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:26, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Shoulda figured. EEng (talk) 01:52, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

SoCal edit-a-thons on October 21 and 25

Upcoming SoCal edit-a-thons: UC Riverside (10/21, 10am-3pm) and Unforgetting L.A. (10/25, 9am-5pm)

Dear fellow Wikipedian, The Southern California Misplaced Pages community has two more events scheduled for the month of October: a water-related edit-a-thon at UC Riverside, and an Unforgetting L.A. event at the Los Angeles Archives Bazaar in conjunction with L.A. as Subject! As part of Misplaced Pages Loves Libraries and to celebrate Open Access Week, UC Riverside is participating alongside other Western Waters Digital Library members in an edit-a-thon focusing on water issues. Join students and faculty learning how to edit! This event will take place on Tuesday, October 21 from 10am to 3pm at UCR's Orbach Science Library (map). RSVPs are requested here. The Unforgetting L.A. edit-a-thon and training workshop will take place at the 9th annual Los Angeles Archives Bazaar, and is hosted by online magazine East of Borneo in partnership with L.A. as Subject. Join us on Saturday, October 25 from 9am to 5pm at the USC Doheny Memorial Library (map). Beginners welcome! Please RSVP here if you plan to attend. I hope to see you there! Calliopejen1 (talk) - via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:06, 17 October 2014 (UTC) To opt out of future mailings about LA meetups, please remove your name from this list.

Harcourt's theorem

I did not see any criteria at match this Harcourt's theorem notability. Did it really impact to next researches? Just two sources, show me how it is notable when it appeared on paper only. Alphama (talk) 02:08, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Apparently even after being pointed to it in earlier messages you still haven't read WP:GNG. It has multiple sources (two is multiple), both reliably published, both covering the subject in nontrivial depth. (There is at least one more source "Harcourt's theorem via Salmon's lemma" but I haven't been able to track down a copy nor to determine whether it is also reliably published.) Anyway, this is extremely unimportant. Why are you wasting your and my time with it? —David Eppstein (talk) 02:11, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

University of California, Santa Barbara people -> alumni_alumni-2014-10-20T13:35:00.000Z">

I saw that you had moved this page and it's now a redirect. I was thinking of doing that prior to the prod, however since the page was split into two separate ones, how do you/did you determine which page was the one that "kept" the history? As you can see, the "people" page was split into an "alumni" page (which I'm currently updating) as well as a "faculty" page, both of which have that same history from the people page. Any rhyme or reason as to why the "alumni" page is the "winner"? – GauchoDude (talk) 13:35, 20 October 2014 (UTC)_alumni"> _alumni">

Had to pick one; which one was fairly arbitrary. The main reason for doing it that way was so that all the old page history wouldn't get lost (or made invisible) by deleting the old page name. It's the same reason that if you want to retitle a page, you're supposed to use the move command, not just copy and paste the info into a new title and delete the old one. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:06, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Collatz conjecture - deletion

Dear David,

You have removed the contribution I made to the page 'Collatz conjecture' on the grounds that you have considered these to be self-promotion. I would like to express my disappointment. I can certainly understand your concerns about these results not having been published or confirmed by someone else (but anyone interested can check these results to see they are correct I am sure) but I would have hoped that you would agree that it is certainly an interesting observation (which can be analytically proved in fact) that Collatz sequences starting with numbers of the form 2^n-1 and 2^nq-1 (n odd) always start generate n-1 odd numbers before an even number is encountered. For example the largest known prime number 2 − 1 generates 57,885,160 odd numbers before generating an even number (which is simply striking as a fact although not ground breaking). I just wanted to say that I had spent a lot of time obtaining these results/preparing these contributions and had only added them to share them with the community.

I would have been happy to address your concerns rather than my contributions being deleted on the grounds that they have been considered self-promotion; and I am sure you would have been disappointed too if you were in my place and be discouraged to make contributions in the future.

Kind regards,

Baris. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bariskanber (talk • contribs) 19:13, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

For the record, I already addressed part of this at User talk:intgr#Largest prime number/Collatz conjecture -- intgr  20:37, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Please help me unblock

Dear Dr David,

I am Dao Thanh Oai,

I am sorry because my english.

When I chat about delete of Dao's theorem.

I must using google translate to understand.

Google translate Notabinity (or Notabinity) mean from English to Vietnames is Danh Nhân,

Danh nhân mean: Name of me, person, people, ....

So some peoples said I promotion. But because I don't understand of policy of WP.

And don't understand what some peole said. Because google translate fail.

Please help me unblock. Because I very difficult when using my computer to read EnWiki.

Thank to You very much. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 171.228.164.195 (talk) 12:23, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

I promise I never adit, never write anything in enWP. Help me unblock to I read. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 171.228.164.195 (talk) 12:27, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

You can still read English Misplaced Pages even when you are blocked. So there is no need for an unblock that I can think of?

Please try editing the Vietnamese Misplaced Pages at https://vi.wikipedia.org/Trang_Ch%C3%ADnh --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:51, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Neuroepistemology Page

Hello David,

I was in the middle of editing the page "Neuroepistemology". I did not appreciate you retracting my new section heading because it was blank. Obviously, I was not going to leave the section empty. I am letting you know that I will be working on the page over a couple of weeks. Please try not to remove my work, as I am in the PROCESS of writing. I will not be adding a new section all at once.

Best regards, Michelle — Preceding unsigned comment added by Michelleanngins (talk • contribs) 18:08, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Ok. But do pay attention to the past history of that article, especially the way that it was stubbed back in January 2013 from being a giant mess of original research as well as the deletion discussion caused by that mess, and try to avoid repeating those mistakes. You might also want to look at the Misplaced Pages manual of style: your new section heading violates it. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:09, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

October 2014

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Apropos stack & Turing

cf. related talk page, 87.159.108.183 (talk) 10:47, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

三 on unary numeral system

While the line that I removed isn't itself false, I don't think it should be left as is. Etymologically, the character 三 did originate from a unary numeral system. However, it is no longer an example of a unary numeral system, as the Chinese numeral system has since evolved to be one that is not unary. Given the context, I don't think it fits, and should either be removed, moved, or edited to clarify this distinction.

--Lrdwhyt (talk | contribs) 18:28, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

It's the etymological meaning that was intended there, I think. Feel free to copyedit to clarify that point. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:43, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Triangular number

Dear Dr. Eppstein,

I'm writing to open a dialogue on the Triangular number page. You un-did the revision I made and commented that it is "off topic and un helpful". I must beg to differ. The present article discusses the digital root pattern, but fails to describe the relevance or source of the pattern. An issue the edit remedies. Further, it provides relevant multidisciplinary linkages to other related topics that the article lacks. As a materials scientist, and number theorist, I would argue that the edits are very relevant and key to understanding the origin of the symmetry pattern. Without the "why" of it, the digital root discussion is little more than a curious novelty.

Furthermore, the present state of the article is misleading and shows a lack of knowledge of congruent number theory. Specifically it states "In base 10, the digital root...", which is misleading since base 10 or mod 10 is positional number and the digital root is mod 9. I chose to clarify with my edits vs. rewriting the subject passage.

I would hope that you would appreciate the time spent to improve the content of the article and seek to understand the relevance and significance of the edits. Respectfully, your comments seem somewhat dismissive and could be more constructive. In my humble opinion the discussion on the digital requires improvement or should be removed entirely. Perhaps we can reach a happy medium. Best regards. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Proportions (talk • contribs) 01:40, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Request for comment on using secondary RSs at "List of scientists opposing maintream assessment of global warming"

In the most recent AFD of a particular article, you made a comment that referenced "original research" or "WP:OR". I am sending this same message to every non-IP editor who metioned either character string in that AFD. Please consider participating in a poll discussion about adding secondary RSs to the listing criteria at that talk page. Thanks for your attention. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:33, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

About your "prime number" removal

Mr. Epstein: You have removed my important statement about prime numbers. I was several months deep into a research project concerning prime numbers before I happened to stumble across the information about one being considered prime in an important historical period (I found it in another place -- not Wiki!), so I do believe the information of my statement does need to be out there where folks can see it. I am a musician, not a mathematician, so I had initially relied on Wiki for my grounding in prime number theory.

It's hardly an archaic idea, by the way: Carl Sagan used one as being a prime number in his novel "Contact" as you may know. It is essentially for semantic reasons that 20th-century mathematicians began to remove one from their lists of prime numbers.

Did you read the paper in the reference? Caldwell, et al., have done an amazing service in gathering a historical and dynamic array of citations on this subject. We cannot always accept the "latest" viewpoint as being the only truth, especially when we are dealing with historical matters. In my project I was working on the era 1700-1750 in Germany, and I have now had to revise quite a bit of previous data.

With respect, therefore, I now ask that you restore my statement to the Wiki entry. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wrbodine (talk • contribs) 23:14, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

The information is already out there, in the Prime number#Primality of one section. It did not need to be placed as the second sentence of the whole article, where its main effect would only have been to confuse readers. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:48, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

L.A. event on November 11, and a new Facebook group

L.A. event on November 11 CANCELED

November 2014

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Good day,

The word amateur is not suitable for biography Shmatko https://en.wikipedia.org/Mykola_Shmatko - he is not engaged in creativity in their spare time. He is not a an amateur - it's his profession. I would ask you to approach objectively and not write he is amateur. https://ru.wiktionary.org/%D0%BB%D1%8E%D0%B1%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BB%D1%8C https://ru.wikipedia.org/%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%84%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%BB --Rerter 2 (talk) 08:27, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

I tend to agree, but I have not changed whether the article calls him an amateur. All I did was to redo a spelling correction to his name that you undid. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:00, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

I am finding Lute88's behaviour in that article (not to mention his contribution history as a whole) somewhat alarming, and have left a not especially polite warning on his talk page. User:Rerter 2, I remind you not to engage in edit warring either; re-inserting an incorrect spelling of the subject's name is a big hint that you are clicking much too quickly. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:04, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Revised Meshedness coefficient

Dear professor Eppstein, thank you so much for your corrections and advice on my very first Misplaced Pages effort, Meshedness coefficient. I revised and tried to address the notability issues by addressing the 'significant coverage' and 'secondary sources' guidelines, by adding some references which use this coefficient. As you might have noticed this term has significant coverage not in the graph theory by its general, but in the city street graphs, and less in water distribution networks. therefore, it might seem not to be not noticeable.

Meanwhile, following your suggestion to keep only to the definition, I tried not to go into the details of the application of this coefficient, keeping it to the purpose.

I would appreciate your review and comments. yours, Babak.jfard (talk) 21:09, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. It still seems to me like a very minor variant on the face number or circuit rank of the graph, but I think you have enough references to different people using this number to remove the notability tag as you have done. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:18, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Prime Number

Hi, I see you have edited this page - I'm in need of advice. A person has e-mailed (OTRS 2014111610010797) in asking why there are two "Further references" to the English Playwright Tom Stoppard, and I don't know why. The edit that added these bits was https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Prime_number&diff=281757092&oldid=281732199 - there is no mention of him within the article. Ronhjones  02:12, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

That edit didn't add or remove those references, it just changed their format. I think the answer is that this edit removed some text about Stoppard's play Arcadia (correctly, as it was off-topic) but neglected to remove the references. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:29, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for that - I'll inform the correspondent. Ronhjones  02:36, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Algorithmic complexity: bounded input size

Regarding revert at Time complexity – point taken that “logarithmic complexity” is not the best place for this.

The point about bounded input size meaning some factors are in practice constants is valuable though – thoughts on where best to put it and how to phrase it?

I’ve taken a shot at this revision of Analysis of algorithms, as that seems the more apt overall page, and elaborated with a concrete example (Timsort). WDYT?

—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 22:56, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

inre Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Linda Delibero

The previous version of this article was poorly and improperly sourced. This latest version is now significantly different than what was brought to AFD. Speedy now inapplicable. You need not reconsider, but it now meets several notability guidelines. Best, Schmidt, 20:44, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Highly efficient estimator

(About "Median") David, I am not sure the link to "Efficient estimator" fits. The phrase "highly efficient" probably shows that "efficient" is treated informally. Otherwise it is like "highly maximal element" (??) in a set. I do not see such informal treatment in our "Efficient estimator" article. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 20:10, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that word was used with the technical meaning of "requires few samples to get an accurate estimate" rather than as an informal synonym of "good". Do we have a better wikilink than efficient estimator for that technical meaning? —David Eppstein (talk) 20:59, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

If you are pretty sure, then probably you should delete the word "highly" from the phrase "highly efficient", right?

"requires few samples to get an accurate estimate" is NOT the technical meaning, it is a kind of "good", since is based on the notion "few". Indeed, the "Efficient estimator" article does not contain the word "few".

Moreover: the usual (one-dim) median is NOT efficient for the normal distribution; not even asymptotically efficient; it is WORSE than the sample mean by a well-known coefficient. (See subsubsection "Efficiency" of section "Medians for samples" in "Median".) I guess that the "spatial median" is also not efficient (and not even asymptotically efficient) for the two-dim normal distribution (for the same reason). Experts surely know. I do not, but I feel "pretty sure" (in the sense of a high subjective probability). Anyway, for now the claim in the article sounds like "highly maximal element", doesn't it? Boris Tsirelson (talk) 21:32, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Ok, more precisely, it might mean "requires within a constant factor of the optimal number of samples to get a desired level of accuracy". Of course, if that's the intended meaning then we need a source. Since you seem to be insisting that efficient estimator can only refer to something that uses exactly the optimal number of samples for a normal distribution (a highly strict notion of efficiency that makes no sense for robust statistics since we don't want to assume normality), what do you suggest as the correct wikilink for approximate efficiency in this sense? Your insistance that this is like the case of "highly maximal" or "very unique" is only because you are using a notion of efficiency that doesn't allow for any approximation. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:58, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

I understand your feeling. This is exactly the problem: the technical term "efficient" is indeed very demanding: "Finite-sample efficient estimators are extremely rare" (quoted from "Efficient estimator"); this is the "official" terminology, followed by our "Efficient estimator" article; we may dislike it, but we cannot change the fact. No, I has no alternative wikilink (otherwise I would provide it immediately). A bit softer notion is "asymptotic efficiency", but you are right, it is still too demanding for robust statistics. By the way, do not think that I hate the median (and robust statistics); I do like them (and I had opportunities to recommend these to researchers). But we cannot establish our own terminology via Misplaced Pages. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 07:33, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

(Just passing by)

How about Efficiency (statistics)?

There’s relative efficiency of two procedures (or estimators), efficiency relative to an efficient estimator, etc.

—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 07:06, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, that does look like a better choice of wikilink. Of course, Boris might have the same issue with the text there, that it uses phrases like "more efficient estimator" rather than treating "efficient estimator" as an absolute. But at least it would allow these links (there's more than one in the median article) to go to an article on comparative efficiency rather than absolute efficiency. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:35, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

In the time you wrote this, I just implemented the proposal. I think this is the best we can do. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 08:37, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. You missed another one on the same article but I got it. This is all somewhat bemusing to me because in my own research area "efficient" means something else again (having low time complexity, unrelated to sample complexity). —David Eppstein (talk) 08:39, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Category request

In light of your participation in the CFD discussion and your knowledge of mathematics, would you be willing to take a look at Category:0 (number) and Category:1 (number) to identify and relocate those articles that no longer belong under the new titles? Thank you, -- Black Falcon 23:30, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

I think 1 is already ok but I'll take a look at 0. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:26, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Vani Hari at ANI

Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Vani_Hari_and_Drmies

You took a complaint about an admin stifling ANI debate over admin bias in an article, whilst also being involved in that same bias in the article, then closed the thread within three hours as "mere content dispute". This is not about a content dispute! The content dispute was a week ago, and resolved fairly amicably on the talk: page, just as it's supposed to happen. Then Drmies comes alongs and blanks the lot, whilst simultaneously claiming at ANI that there's no such admin-facilitated whitewashing going on.

Why three hours? Why exclude this from reasonable discussion? Andy Dingley (talk) 11:56, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

How am I involved? I don't think I've edited Vani Hari Oh, I see, "while also being involved" refers to Drmies. In any case, I closed this because my reaction on seeing this at ANI was "this is boring — there's no drama or call to action here." That felt like reason enough to close. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:15, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

So you didn't bother to read talk:Vani Hari, the deleted section, or the sources it linked to? You just thought, "Oh this is boring, I'll just close it anyway".

And admins wonder why they're held in such poor regard? 8-( Andy Dingley (talk) 17:02, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

SPI threshold question

Having never opened a sock puppet investigation, I am curious to know what level of suspicious activity warrants opening a case. I suspect there is a puppet party at: Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/The_Reform_Foundation. I see you opened a case on a neighboring AFD: Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Supernova (programming language) (2nd nomination) and would be interested in your opinion. Thanks, Vrac (talk) 04:42, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

My usual first step would be to put {{not a vote}} near the top of the AfD, immediately following the nominator's statement, and (as has already been done in your case) to tag the comments with {{spa}}. I'd usually only file an SPI if I were pretty sure the commenters were really all the same person. In your case I think there's a strong possibility that they're different people associated with the organization and brought to the AfD by outside canvassing. Which if true is still problematic, but less so, because it's not deliberately deceptive and because there's a chance that if we're not too hostile to these new editors then some of them might stick around and become constructive. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:51, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Draft:James Maynard (mathematician)

Hi, David Eppstein! I think that James Maynard now meets WP:PROF because of the SASTRA Ramanujan Prize. Do you agree? Thanks! 189.6.207.12 (talk) 21:33, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Okay, I saw your reply there. Can you help me to improve the article? Otherwise I will try to do it tomorrow, because now I'm going to sleep! Best wishes, 189.6.207.12 (talk) 22:13, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Primary sources in Juan Pavón article

Hi, in the article Juan Pavón you added the "primary sources" banner: https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Juan_Pav%C3%B3n&oldid=525803551

I have improved the references, and I'd like to request you to check it out now. If you agree, I'd want to remove the banner. If you don't agree, please advise me on any specific further changes that I should carry out. If you are too busy for getting into this, please refer me to someone who might help. Thanks a lot.--Samer.hc (talk) 11:44, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

L.A. edit-a-thon this Sunday, December 14

L.A. meetup: December 14 edit-a-thon at the California African American Museum

Dear fellow Wikipedian, East of Borneo's "Unforgetting L.A." edit-a-thon series continues this weekend at the California African American Museum! Please join us this Sunday, December 14 from 11am to 4pm. Beginners welcome! You'll learn to create new articles that improve Misplaced Pages's coverage of African American art in Los Angeles, past and present. Please click here for full event details and to RSVP if you plan to attend. I hope to see you there! Calliopejen1 (talk) - via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:25, 10 December 2014 (UTC) Join our Facebook group here! To opt out of future mailings about LA meetups, please remove your name from this list.

Reference Errors on 11 December

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Reverting my post on unweighted bipartite matching

Hello Dr. Eppstein,

I respect your reasons for removing my algorithm for matchings in unweighted bipartite graphs. But I am making this post as part of a contribution to public knowledge component for a college course. I'm wondering, can you suggest a more appropriate place to post my material? Surely just because it is not optimal does not make it irrelevent?

Thanks, Pat Mendek — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pmendek (talk • contribs) 22:13, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

If you think it is both novel and useful, you could try publishing it in an algorithms conference or journal. See WP:OR: Misplaced Pages should not be for publication of original research. If what you have is an implementation of an existing published algorithm that you think would be useful to people who need to compute matchings, there are various ways of publishing it in the open source community, for instance at github. My feeling on code in Misplaced Pages is that it should almost always be pseudocode rather than actual code, and should be written to help human readers understand an algorithm rather than to provide an implementation. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:18, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

A question on Latin Square Property

Hello, I've been exploring some concepts to understand Automorphism and Isomorphism, I posted a question in Talk under the https://en.wikipedia.org/Latin_square_property and I was hoping if you have a minute, you might give me a simple example or two showing how this works. I'm slowly self learning set theories, and I'm afraid I'm missing a concept in application, the example(s) would with hope, clear up my misconception.

I included a link to that page. If you could either comment on the talk, or actually include the examples in the article itself, I would be appreciative.

Thank you ahead of time for any consideration you can give me. Cyberchip (talk) 03:45, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Santosh Mehrotra

Dear Prof. Eppstein, could you have another look at this one and perhaps offer any advice? I knew of his work before seeing the Afd and am convinced he is sufficiently notable for wp. I have no coi. I have cut it down substantially. I think this sort of article is often created in ignorance of polies rather than maliciously. I would be inclined to cut down most of the book reviews that I've added to try to help with the Afd after the afd. Best wishes, (Msrasnw (talk) 18:24, 15 December 2014 (UTC))

Dear Prof. Eppstein, I am writing to you in your capacity as an administrator was was involved in this debate. I was thinking of asking for a deletion review of the article on Santosh Mehrotra. My reading of this is that closure was incorrect as it did not reflect consensus of the debate given the timing of the contributions. The article has been salted. As per your wishes. I had thought I had removed all the ‎autobiographical material and rewritten the article in a more neutral tone and provided additional supporting references. Best wishes (Msrasnw (talk) 10:41, 18 December 2014 (UTC)) - PS I have contacted the deleting and salting administrator here: User_talk:Stifle#Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion.2FSantosh_Mehrotra (Msrasnw (talk) 10:52, 18 December 2014 (UTC))

Dear Prof. Eppstein, I am writing to you in your capacity as an administrator to remind you, in case you had forgotton, about this request for advice about this Afd and the resulting salting of this article. Best wishes (Msrasnw (talk) 12:20, 22 December 2014 (UTC))

(talk page stalker) I have to say I thought there were beginning to be indications that ACADEMIC might be satisfied -- though we weren't there yet. EEng (talk) 15:20, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

But I can't do anything in my capacity as an administrator on this one. I !voted and so am WP:INVOLVED. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:56, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Dear Prof. Eppstein, the problem as I see it is the article has been not only deleted but also salted as per your request. My querry is since your view was expressed on an earlier stage of the article when it was autobiographical and not sourced and your vote and suggestion for salting was used to decide on deletion you invovlment was in my view key to the making of a decision which was wrong. I think an article has been deleted and salted which need not have been. I would like the article unsalted and to do a new one like this(User:Msrasnw/Afdthings) rather than go through the whole Deletion Review stuff. Perhaps another Afd if peole felt it was needed. But if you recommend or would rather a deletion review I will try that. Sorry to bother you and best wishes (Msrasnw (talk) 17:15, 22 December 2014 (UTC))

DE, I think you know more about this than I do. User_talk:EEng#Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion.2FSantosh_Mehrotra EEng (talk) 11:14, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

At this point, to re-create the article, I think a DRV would be necessary. The strategy there should not be "the AfD was decided wrong" — that rarely works — and is especially unlikely to work in this case where there were more deletes than keeps and the keeps used very weak argumentation, basically WP:ITSNOTABLE without justification or reference to WP:PROF. Rather, what you need to show is that something is sufficiently different now from the version that was deleted so that the deletion arguments are no longer valid. In particular it would be necessary to clearly and unambiguously demonstrate that the subject passes some specific criteria of WP:PROF (at least one but preferably more than one), has no autobiographical elements, and is neutral and non-promotional in its wording. I'm not convinced by your arguments on this point at EEng's talk page — they seem less like a clear pass of any criterion and more like stretching to try to meet them — but ultimately it's the DRV commenters that you'd need to convince, not just me. Anyway, why is it so important that we have an article on Mehrotra? Even if your arguments for notability are valid, he's clearly a borderline case, one that won't cause much harm to not cover. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:24, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Dear Prof Eppstein, Thanks for your reply. I think I will wait and perhaps try to do a new article on Santosh Mehrotra in the more distant future - when there is more evidence - perhaps a higher h-index. It is true it won't cause much harm not to cover him on wikipedia. The only harm at the moment I can identify is my feeling I have had my work trying to, and in my view successfully, making the article suitable, not having been judged a worthy effort. I have been wasting my time. My feeling is he is sufficiently notable and has been deleted and salted as a kind of punishment for an attempt at self promotion. I view such attempts as often more innocent and understandable than many other editors here. This is not the first time I have had problems with deletiins and I know Deletion Review is time consuming and problematic. I seem to keep on finding problems with deletions in general where my feeling is people make quick and often ill informed judgements to delete and are unwilling to review and discuss things more fully and change their mind or views when more information is brought to the deabte. Perhaps I should stay away from AFDs. Anyway best wishes, (Msrasnw (talk) 12:22, 29 December 2014 (UTC))

DYK for Laves graph

On 18 December 2014, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Laves graph, which you recently created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that the Laves graph (pictured), a highly symmetrical three-dimensional structure that forms one of the several crystal structures of carbon, is named after German crystallographer Fritz Laves? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Laves graph. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, live views, daily totals), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

The DYK project (nominate) 23:26, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

DYK for Fritz Laves

On 18 December 2014, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Fritz Laves, which you recently created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that the Laves graph (pictured), a highly symmetrical three-dimensional structure that forms one of the several crystal structures of carbon, is named after German crystallographer Fritz Laves? You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, live views, daily totals), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

The DYK project (nominate) 23:26, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for recent creation of AMS fellows pages

I noticed you added quite a few articles about women who are AMS fellows. Thank you for your contributions; the coverage of female mathematicians has been spotty, and this is a significant improvement. Brirush (talk) 14:50, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

You're welcome! —David Eppstein (talk) 18:57, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Happy new year to You

Happy new year to You, I am Dao Thanh Oai --118.70.131.119 (talk) 03:48, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Happy New Year David Eppstein!

David Eppstein,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Misplaced Pages. NorthAmerica 13:41, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

DYK for Congruum

On 2 January 2015, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Congruum, which you recently created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that Fermat's only complete proof shows there is no integer right triangle with square area, pair of integer right triangles sharing two sides, or square gap between three equally spaced squares? You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, live views, daily totals), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Harrias 12:01, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

DYK for Ioana Dumitriu

On 4 January 2015, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Ioana Dumitriu, which you recently created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that Ioana Dumitriu began taking graduate mathematics courses as a college freshman, and became the first female Putnam Fellow the following year? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Ioana Dumitriu. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, live views, daily totals), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Harrias 00:41, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Dao's theorem on six circumcenters

Dear Dr. David Eppstein, When You have a time, could you review the Dao's theorem on six circumcenter:

• For each side of a cyclic hexagon, extend the adjacent sides to their intersection, forming a triangle exterior to the given side. Then the segments connecting the circumcenters of opposite triangles are concurrent.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).

Thank to You very much, I am Dao Thanh Oai — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.6.86.37 (talk) 13:26, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

1. http://www.cut-the-knot.org/m/Geometry/AnotherSevenCircles.shtml
2. http://forumgeom.fau.edu/FG2014volume14/FG201424.pdf
3. http://forumgeom.fau.edu/FG2014volume14/FG201429.pdf
4. http://mirrors.library.cornell.edu/ZMATH/msc/en/search/zmath/?q=an:06349710&type=pdf&format=complete
5. http://faculty.evansville.edu/ck6/encyclopedia/ETCPart3.html#X3649 X(3649) = KS(INTOUCH TRIANGLE)

DYK for Linda Preiss Rothschild

On 11 January 2015, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Linda Preiss Rothschild, which you recently created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that mathematician Linda Preiss Rothschild settled for graduate study at MIT after Princeton rejected her for being female? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Linda Preiss Rothschild. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, live views, daily totals), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:02, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

on the upper bound of TSP path

The current wiki TSP page shows "the currently best upper bound is beta<=0.92** " . It is an upper bound too high. Computer experiment will result in a short path with beta<=0.8 without too much difficulty. My experimental result is 0.718 , and an old paper shows 0.7120+0.0002, which serve as a better upper bound. See "The Random Link Approximation for the Euclidean Traveling Salesman Problem" at

http://sites.cgu.edu/percusa/files/2013/08/tspjdp.pdf

So please update the upper bound on the wiki to a lower value. If computer experiment did not convince you, analyzing the distribution of nearest points algebraically will be an interesting discussion. One clue is: TSP shorest path usually takes the 1st nearest or 2nd nearest points as next point. If the path always takes the 2nd nearest then the resulted legnth is always higher. 2nd nearest results in 0.75 which also serve as an upper bound. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lingwanjae (talk • contribs) 17:06, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

First, here is a difference between what we can prove rigorously and mathematically, and what experiments tell us the truth is likely to be, and we should be very clear about that difference in the article. And second, unless you publish your experimental results in a peer-reviewed conference or journal, we can't use them here; see WP:NOR. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:35, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

I read that WP:NOR and agree the style of wiki. Statementes should be at least peer-reviewed. The paper in the above is peer-reviewed. It should be harmonic to the wiki policy, althought it is an article 19 years ago. I have been chasing the exact length of TSP long before that year, wish someone can prove or disprove the exact length is sqrt(N/2) in this year by the stimulation of peers.

DYK for Gigliola Staffilani

On 13 January 2015, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Gigliola Staffilani, which you recently created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that James Colliander, Gigliola Staffilani, and Terence Tao are part of a collaborative group of mathematicians called the I-team? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Gigliola Staffilani. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, live views, daily totals), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

The DYK project (nominate) 16:28, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

A cup of coffee for you!

Thank you for correcting my edit here; I learn something new every day! A pleasure to stumble across a fellow editor in the OC area. Best, Bananasoldier (talk) 02:42, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

L.A. event on Tuesday, January 20

Stylization of the "common name"

In January 2013 there was a "RfC on COMMONSTYLE proposal" at WT:AT in which you expressed an interest. FYI there is a similar debate taking place at the moment, see Misplaced Pages talk:Article titles#Stylization of the "common name" -- PBS-AWB (talk) 12:20, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Bonnie Berger article

Thanks for getting this started! I was in the process of putting together a draft article so I'll add what I have. Amkilpatrick (talk) 20:25, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

You're welcome! She clearly warrants having an article here; it's a bit surprising to me that she didn't have one already. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:42, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Jenő Lehel

dear professor Eppstein, thanks for your immediate help. i just noticed a few days ago that i am not on the list of mathematicians with Erdos number 1, and decided to add myself to wikipedia. i used Zoltan Furedi's autobiography as a template, i believe, the form of the references and the content of my autobiography lines are correct, as far as math is concerned. thanks for any further advice which helps complete my submission. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yency (talk • contribs) 05:40, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

My advice is: don't do it. Your expertise is very welcome here but it would be better to find subjects for which you have less of a conflict of interest. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:15, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Comment- I have removed the tag placed on the draft article. We don't normally tag draft articles since they are not searchable and not in the active article space. Yency is currently going about this the best way we recommend using the WP:AFC process which allows for experienced editors to review articles before they get moved into the primary article space. Yency should also read through some of Misplaced Pages's policies which I have linked on his talk page.- McMatter /_(contrib) 14:18, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Christiaan Heij

Thanks for your feedback on the article creation. I commented on it on its talk page. If you think there is more to it, please let it know. -- Mdd (talk) 08:27, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Doctoral advisor

I don't want to get into an edit war with you over Doctoral advisor, but I need to explain that your justification for changing from {{cite book}} to {{citation}} was incorrect. You wrote, "please don't change from Citation Style 2 to Citation Style 1 without discussion." Both templates use Citation Style 1. See: Template:Citation/core:

These templates have been converted to use Module:Citation/CS1 so no longer use {{citation/core}}

• Template:Citation
• Template:Cite book
• ...

Under ideal circumstances, {{citation}} has basically the same output as the {{cite}} templates, or at least the most common ones. But circumstances are not always ideal. Sometimes, when the title is an article title and not a book title, {{citation}} guesses wrong, assumes the title is a book title and puts it in italics. For this reason, I never use {{citation}} and routinely change it to the appropriate {{cite}} template. As a side benefit, the next editor who wants to improve on the citation knows immediately that it is a book, news item, press release, or whatever, and knows to to search for more info about the item based on what type of item it is.

There is one difference, which is that {{citation}}'s separator defaults to comma and {{cite book}}'s separator defaults to period; both templates allows the separator parameter to be changed.

In summary, I didn't change citation styles; I merely substituted a more reliable template for the {{citation}} template, which in the best case, gives the same result as {{cite book}} (except for default separator) and in the worst case outputs incorrect information. Anomalocaris (talk) 19:41, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

You are wrong, were told you are wrong, and still arguing rather than conceding that you were wrong. See WP:CITEVAR: "Editors should not attempt to change an article's established citation style..without first seeking consensus for the change." See also Help:Citation Style 2 for a description of the style used by {{citation}}, which is indeed different from the style described in Help:Citation Style 2 (for instance, it separates parts of the citation by commas rather than periods). The fact that both citation styles are implemented using the same underlying core code is irrelevant. Countering your supposed "side benefits" of your switch to the citation style: {{cite conference}} is broken and there is no good CS1 way of referring to conference proceedings (it can be made to work but there has been serious discussion about discontinuing this option); CS1 does not by default work with the {{harv}} series of referencing templates, and CS2 does; editors do not have to remember a half-dozen different templates with subtly-incompatible-from-each-other parameter names, they can just use the one {{citation}} template; template formatting software (such as what I use to generate these things) also does not have to guess which of the many templates is the right one to use; we avoid the (frequently occurring) error in which an editor chooses the wrong template; etc. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:22, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Enneahedron

Hello David. I am an avid fan of geometry and math who recently updated the enneahedron page. Regarding this page, why did you remove the photo of diminished trapezohedron and its description from the examples section? I don't see why it is "spammy" as you said in the notes section after its removal. Here they are for ease of reference https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Enneahedron&oldid=644048369

The image is here https://en.wikipedia.org/Diminished_trapezohedron#mediaviewer/File:Diminished_square_trapezohedron.png My updates were a good faith effort to add interesting content. This includes the additional images of the enneahedron found here http://traipse.com/nine/ where the centers of each face are equidistant to the spatial center. The shape appears symmetrical (as well as aesthetically pleasing). I apologize for my clunky editing process, I am fairly new to edit-making. However, I took time and thought to offer these additions, please explain whether or why you considered such additions objectionable. I am a genuine enthusiast of math and space geometry, as well as a sequence contributor to OIES--as such. I have no intention of adding anything "spammy." — Preceding unsigned comment added by PMChema (talk • contribs)

Removing the figure wasn't the main intent of my undo — it was more aimed at two other aspects of your recent edits:

1. The references linked to traipse.com appear to be self-published sources in violation of our requirements that article content has reliably-published sources, and
2. You changed the description of the associahedron from text that stated that the polyhedron itself is three-dimensional to text that instead stated that it is embedded into three-dimensional space. This is a mistake. It doesn't matter what dimension the space is, what matters is that the polyhedron itself is the three-dimensional one. For instance, for the closely related family of permutohedra, the usual description of the three-dimensional permutohedron embeds it into four-dimensional space, but it is still a three-dimensional polyhedron, just like a square in three-dimensional space (such as a flat sheet of origami paper) is still itself a two-dimensional thing.

—David Eppstein (talk) 03:36, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Duly noted. I had changed the description in an attempt to add a link to "3D" for easy reference. Didn't mean to confuse. At any rate, I will add back the image of the Diminished_square_trapezohedron another time. Have a good evening. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PMChema (talk • contribs) 03:46, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

The image can probably be included in the table of images with the others in the Examples section, if it can be done without making a mess of the table. BTW, for future reference, it would be helpful if you could sign your talk page comments by typing four tilde characters ("~~~~") at the end of them. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:49, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Representation theory of SL₂

Thank you for your recent edit over there. The article still lacks inline references, but that is a separate problem. It should be made mandatory to use templates for references as well as for inline citations to the greatest extent possible. It makes reuse of references (meaning creating new inline citations) so much simpler. There are plenty of articles having the complete reference given inline whenever a citation is given. It strongly discourages adding new references and citations, and makes the source text harder to navigate. If I can find some support for the idea, I'll make a proposal in the appropriate place. YohanN7 (talk) 08:16, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) I agree with you (pretty much) but you can save your breath. WP:CITEVAR. Some people are quite fierce about this, for unknown reasons. EEng (talk) 13:20, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Yohan. Re CITEVAR: true, and probably it would doom any proposal to require the use of citation templates, but I have a different reason why I think requiring them might be a bad idea: they have grown both more complicated over the years, and more rigid in the combinations of parameters that are required or disallowed, so that I don't think they're easy for new editors to learn. I'd rather get people in the habit of providing citations at all, in whatever format is easiest, before pushing secondary considerations like formatting them consistently. As for my excuse in sort-of-violating CITEVAR by wholesale replacement of manually formatted citations with templates: usually the manually formatted ones are not already in a consistent format, so there's no pre-existing format to retain. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:20, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Your point about new editors is a good one. I wouldn't mind a guideline that favors templates as the eventual mode for any given article, but any kind of "requirement" adds even more to the already steep WP learning curve. EEng (talk) 17:43, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

(EC: This was written before David's reply appeared) The WP:CITEVAR does not really apply to what I am talking about. It is not about enforcing some particular style. It is about enforcing some style, any which one. The exception is that it would enforce a list of references at the end separate from the list of citations (that is generated any which way). Nobody in their right mind could oppose strongly to this. Articles that emerge from the beginning as no-style are just the result of laziness on part of the editor putting the first reference in, with the result that the article becomes unworkable from the citation point of view in the long run.

EEng, could you ask your grandmother to throw a tea party for her bridge club friends and plant the idea? I'd like to hear what they have to say.

David, I understand your point about complicated templates. Difficulties are supposed to overcome. YohanN7 (talk) 17:29, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Not really sure what you're saying here, Y. EEng (talk) 17:43, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Talk:Closed subgroup theorem YohanN7 (talk) 18:21, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I mean about the bridge club. EEng (talk) 18:42, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Some of the ladies in my grandmother's bridge club... These are the ones of your grandmothers friends whose opinion I want. Not just any random friends. Some of them (a couple of poker sharks) are not to be trusted – or so I have heard at least. YohanN7 (talk) 19:02, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

<EEng backs away slowly...> EEng (talk) 19:14, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Are you telling me that this post at talk:closed subgroup theorem is not by you? It is signed by you.

I really agree about the style. Some of the ladies in my grandmother's bridge club were discussing just this point. "EEng", said Mrs. Abramowitz, "we got as far as embedded submanifolds always having the subspace topology, but after that we were really stumped. This should really be written more for people who don't already understand this kind of material well. Sheila, weren't you just saying that it would help if von Neumann's proof for the special case of groups of linear transformations was explained first? Five no-trump." EEng (talk) 11:06, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

I thought you had a sense of humor. Backing off as well. Sorry David for trashing your page. YohanN7 (talk) 19:28, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, but I'd thoroughly forgotten that -- I toss off so many droll and clever things each day I can't be expected to remember tham all. Somehow I missed the link you posted back to the article's talk. So if there's still something DE can do for you, maybe you better just start over and I'll be quiet. EEng (talk) 20:29, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Dear Dr. David,

I a generalization Napoleontheorem at http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Forum/blog.php?u=192421&b=112442

Please see that: — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.6.86.37 (talk) 18:15, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

The fundamental theorem of arithmetic

The fundamental theorem of arithmetic is about the prime decomposition of a number, a concept that can be considered advanced, that is, above general mathematics, as far the general education on mathematics goes. This is why a complete, clear definition is necessary. In its current form in the "Integer factorization" article, the definition is based on an "appropriate notion of the empty product". The notion of the empty product is an advanced concept in terms of general mathematics, and one is not supposed to be familiar with it. It is also not necessary for stating or proving the theorem. This is why I decided to give the definition in which one is a special case. Which is mathematically neccessary, if one does not introduce a definition for the empty product. I believe this makes the definition more accesible to the general audience. In its current form it is hard to understand, for the average reader. Nxavar (talk) 20:31, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

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