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Talk:Euclid–Mullin sequence

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Should the numbers have commas?

[edit]

User1042 (talk) 20:26, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, according to the Manual of Style. —Saung Tadashi (talk) 06:36, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Commas separating groups of digits within numbers, that are part of a comma-separated list of numbers? Really? No. Never. Horrific idea. What do you think you would be accomplishing by doing that? It would not make things easier to read. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:22, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I assumed that @User1042 was talking about the numbers in the article that are not in a list (e.g. 1,244,335). Of course, adding comma to numbers in an already comma-separated list would be extremely confusing. —Saung Tadashi (talk) 07:27, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
WP:DIGITS requires all numbers in an article to use the same grouping style. So if some are commaed, all would be. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:40, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, OK. I thought that the consistency in WP:DIGITS was only in regard to mixing commas and narrow gaps, since there are exceptions that should never be grouped (e.g. four-digit calendar years). Since the alternative of grouping with narrow gaps seems to be problematic for screen readers (and also for pasting the sequence in other programs), I think it is best to remove the commas of the numbers that are not in a list too. Thanks for the guidance, David. —Saung Tadashi (talk) 09:40, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The point of commas in a number is to make it easier to grasp the value: is it 10 million or 100 million or what? That requirement is pointless here since what "643679794963466223081509857" is in millions or other unit is irrelevant. It's a big number and that's all that is needed. Inserting commas or spaces would just uglify the text with no benefit. Johnuniq (talk) 07:53, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]