User talk:CRGreathouse/Archive 3

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Erdős–Turán conjecture

I don't see the revelance of the two references. No 1 (the 1936 Erdős-Turán paper) does not, repeat does not mention this statement. I can only get the first page of the No. 2 reference which specifically mentions only Erdős' name ("these results have led Erdős to conjectue...") in connection with this conjecture. So, why don't we agree that it is a conjecture of Erdős? Kope 14:25, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

The first paper is invariably cited when this conjecture is mentioned—I was trying to figure out why, since the conjecture does not (as you say) appear overtly. Certainly it is similar, and it conjectures the Green-Tao theorem (p. 264) which is related. The growth of r(n) is the real topic of the paper, but surely you agree that tight enough bounds on r(n) give the special case of the Erdős–Turán conjecture for progressions of length 3?

The second paper is explicitly about the conjecture of Erdős and Turán (conjecture first mentioned on p. 211). For what it's worth, it actually cites it to an "unpublished lecture" of Erdős rather than a paper.

If you like, I have another citation that I decided not to add, of a paper of Liangpan Li which gives a conditional proof of the conjecture. It seemed a weak result to me so I decided not to add it, but as the condition is ion a sense a different (2-dimensional) version of this conjecture perhaps it would give room for expansion?

CRGreathouse (t | c) 14:36, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

You claim: "The first paper is invariably cited when this conjecture is mentioned". Well, only recently. I do not see any reference of the divergent sum hypothesis which is earlier than, say the early seventies. Then I see zillion references by Erdos and others, all attributing it to Erdős alone. Let me add two more: R. L. Graham: Rudiments of Ramsey theory, 1980, p. 24 ("a striking conjecture of Erdős") and R. K. Guy: Unsolved problems in number theory, Springer, 1981, p. 10 ("more generally, Erdős conjectures"). Let me emphasize, that Guy and Graham are two people, who worked a lot with Erdos, were in everyday connection with him for several decades, wrote wvereal papers with him, many on this very topic, so we may assume that they are well informed. Kope 15:00, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

As I just posted on the article's Talk, Green and Tao themselves credit it to both—and they're certainly experts in the field. When I get home today I'll look in some of my books (Erdos' biography, Unsolved Problems in Number Theory, etc.) to see if I can find a mention of the conjecture.

It's not surprising that Erdos would mention that he conjectured the result, even if Turan had conjectured it with him. I've read quotes from him where he does the same without mention of another even though they make the conjecture together in a paper -- it's easy to say "I've conjectured that..." and it need not exclude the possibility of others doing the same.

Still, if you really think that Turan wasn't involved you could email some of the people who would know and see what they say to a direct question. That, or post on the NUMTHRY list.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 15:09, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, the biography failed me but UPNT has something under E10:

A closely related function, with $l+1=k$, is the now famous $r_{k}(n)$, introduced long ago by Erdős & Turán: the least $r$ such that the sequence $1\leq a_{1}<a_{2}<\cdots <a_{r}\leq n$ of $r$ numbers not exceeding $n$ must contain a $k$-term A.P.

So Guy also attributes the conjecture to the two—and Guy's been in the field for nearly as long as Erdős was. There's no reference given for this (and the only paper written by both is the one I cited), but this settles it as far as I'm concerned. Unless I get a statement to the contrary (a paper explicitly calls it a conjecture of only Erdős) I think it has to stay where it is.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 02:45, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

There are two statements.

(A) $r_{k}(n)=o(n)$.

(B) If $a_{1}<a_{2}<\cdots$ are natural numbers, $\sum {\frac {1}{a_{i}}}=\infty$, then there are arbitrarily long APs in the sequence.

I never, ever, ever, ever stated that (A) is not from Erdos and Turan. But the whole argument is not about (A), it is about (B). What I claim is that Turan had no part in conjecturing (B). It is (B), not (A) which is on the page Erdős–Turán conjecture. The whole argument is about (B), not (A). Please read the article. Kope 04:50, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I never wrote $r_{k}(n)=o(n)$, that's all you. Guy discusses (B) by use of the function $r_{k}$, but I'm not sure if he even makes statement (A) at all.

I get the insult, though. I'm done discussing this. I suggest you get a copy of some of the standard books if you want to look further into the matter.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 12:28, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

He does. Exactly on the page you quote: "A big breakthrough was Szemerédi's proof that $r_{k}(n)=o(n)$ for all k,..." Your statement "Guy discusses (B) by use of the function $r_{k}$" is nonsense. From the fact that the density is 0, you cannot determine if the sum of the reciprocals is infinite or not. My (A) above is the Erdos-Turan conjecture, proved by Szemeredi, (B) is a conjecture of Erdos alone. Cannot be more clear. What standard books are you referring at? Kope 13:05, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Why do you bring Szemerédi's theorem into this? Guy may mention it (I can't remember if he did in my book, version 3) but that's clearly a weaker result proved quite a time ago. CRGreathouse (t | c) 13:08, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

There is one reason I bring it into this: it is the above statement (A), conjectured by Erdos and Turan. You quote it from Guy's book and you say that it is a conjecture of Erdos and Turan. Indeed it is, however I have always spoken on a different statement, which says something else, is unsolved, and I claim that it is a conjecture of Erdos alone. You somehow confuse the two. They are very different statements. Kope 13:19, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

You, not I, wrote $r_{k}(n)=o(n)$. I didn't even use little-O notation until you did. CRGreathouse (t | c) 12:28, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

You claim that Guy attributed the statement to Erdős and Turán. For proving that you cite a sentence merely saying that they INTRODUCED a bit of notation. Whay would this support your claim? In continuing sentences Guy mentions Szemeredi's theorem. There are 2 (equivalent) ways of describing the statement of Szemeredi's theorem, one is $r_{k}(n)=o(n)$. Indeed, you never stated this, technically, you quote a sentence simply saying that E. and T. defined a function. Defining a function is not a conjecture. There are two statements. They are different. One is a theorem, the other is a conjecture. We should not confuse them. Kope 12:48, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

"small sets"

Hi CRGreathouse,

I've started an article, ideal (set theory), which is where I think small set should probably eventually be merged. Right now I have no lack of material to add to it, but I haven't figured out just how it should be organized. --Trovatore 22:33, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Initial context-setting

Hello. Please see this edit summary. Michael Hardy 17:57, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Blahmahnj

Thanks for adding a pic. However, it would be better if it had some visual context, like a bowl. Do you think you could make another pic where we can see the dessert in situ, so to speak?

Peter ^Isotalo 06:33, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Anti-gravity

Michael Busch has requested a straw poll of Anti-gravity. You may want to add your comments. Tcisco 01:18, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Winzapper

It's been nominated again. Please help. Captain Zyrain 13:27, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Rome HS sources

Just wanted to let you know that more sources have been added, check out Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rome High School. Dreadstar † 01:31, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Dreadstar † 01:45, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Chelmer Valley High School

Hi, I wonder if you would revisist Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chelmer Valley High School, please? The article has been rewritten showing the school has been independently judged to be Outstanding with a world record breaking gymnastics team. TerriersFan 17:13, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Categories by Erdos numbers

User:Mikkalai/By Erdos contains a very raw list made from remnants of categories and the log of the bot which implemented the deletion you opposed. Please join the discusion here to decide how to proceded. A clandestinely proud Erdos-Number-3-wikipedian `'Míkka 16:28, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of the Erdos Number categories

Recently, as you know, the categories related to Erdos Number were deleted. There are discussions and debates across several article talk pages (e.g. the Mathematics WikiProject Talk page. I've formally requested a deletion review towards overturning the deletion, at this deletion review log item. Pete St.John 21:42, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Merger Notification

You participated in this AfD on Como West Public School. It has since been proposed that the article be merged into its suburb article per WP:LOCAL and I was wondering if you would be willing to voice your opinion on the merger here. Thanks. Twenty Years 03:48, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

VoteFair

You're a longstanding Wikipedia contributor with a solid history. User:VoteFair is a single-purpose account with an agenda of self-promotion. And yet VoteFair claims that you approve of his edits and that you will re-add content for him, and you haven't been refuting this idea. What's the deal? rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 08:34, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

School consensus

I've created a project page: Wikipedia:SCHOOLCONSENSUS, because of a village pump proposal. I thought you might want to participate. --victor falk 05:50, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Proposed merges

If Matrix vote is going to be merged into Quota Borda system, we will need a redirect page. I just fixed up both articles so that a merger would work.--Fahrenheit451 (talk) 03:07, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Luther Jackson Middle School

Ping - expanded, multiply sourced including "Fairfax County's sole high school for black students". TerriersFan (talk) 18:47, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for expanding that. I had a hunch that was an article with a future. CRGreathouse (t | c) 18:57, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

No problem; and thanks to you for reconsidering. TerriersFan (talk) 00:10, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Great power

It is clear that you think that India is a great power. But there are no accredited sources that believe that is a Current Great power, only a possible Future Great Power. Please read Encarta - Great Powers, Is India a Major Power? and India: The Fourth Great Power? for more information. Not only that but please re-read Asia’s overlooked Great Power Haass says Mention Asia, and most people think of the region’s fascinating, rising giants, China or India—or both but Giants are not the Same as Great Powers they actually have different meanings and are more akin to Regional Power. -- UKPhoenix79 (talk) 23:14, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Cramér's conjecture

The part about Shanks in [1] doesn't make sense to me. Omitting sup means that all prime gaps are considered. The average prime gap is around log(p_n), so the fraction for random n will typically be around 1/log(p_n) which is far from 1. PrimeHunter (talk) 05:05, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I phrased it poorly. Shanks was only considering the record gaps.

I'll change the article. CRGreathouse (t | c) 05:11, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

tag

Just curious.

Did you place the {Confusing|date=October 2007} tag in Anti-psychiatry?

I don't see anything confusing and maybe it's time to remove it?

Cesar Tort 18:58, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I didn't place it and would not have placed it if it was missing. The article needs cleanup -- a lot of cleanup -- but it's all clear to me. CRGreathouse (t | c) 19:15, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

• "and would not have placed... "

I am confused. If you would not have placed, why should it remain today? Isn't one tag more than enough, the one that appears above the {confusing} tag?

Cesar Tort 19:21, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm confused. I didn't place the tag and haven't (to my knowledge) done anything with or about it. I didn't say it should remain -- I rather think I implied that it might go. Of course as with most tags I prefer to let someone less close to the article remove the tag, though as I wrote above I wouldn't replace it if you were to remove it. CRGreathouse (t | c) 21:19, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

ok, I will remove it. The article is already heavily tagged with another template that (I believe; though I'm not sure) Hrafn placed. Cesar Tort 21:32, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/South Pointe Middle School

Ping - Another editor pointed out the Merge option in WP:SCL. As a result, I modified my opinion on the Afd for the school. Regards. --Daddy.twins (talk) 19:09, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Email

FYI, I sent you an email. JoshuaZ (talk) 21:43, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

SelectionBot data for Version 1.0

Hi, I generated some tables for Maths articles using your proposed formula. Can you take a look here and see if the ordering of the articles looks better to you. Thanks a lot! Walkerma (talk) 17:26, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

As of links

I see you have removed some as of year links on computational prime records which will probably be beaten within a few years, considering how computers evolve. Have you seen Wikipedia:As of? If a statement (for example "the record is ...") may become invalid later then this is a way to indicate when it was known to be valid.

Regarding the weird category you removed in [2], the article was hijacked in [3]. The old definition is a rarely used term for a right-truncatable prime so I don't think it should be restored. Good to see you removed the hype and unrelated content from the program which I'm not sure is notable. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:41, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I had actually intended to replace those links with {{Update after}} as I did in several cases, but I guess I was tired when making some of those edits. As for superprime, I had no idea the article was hijacked. Since you say the old term was rarely used (and in any case redundant) I'll leave the article as I had it. It should probably be moved to SuperPrime in that case, though. CRGreathouse (t | c) 05:05, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

It's unknown when records will be broken. I think {{Update after}} is better suited when there is an expectation that updating is likely needed around a given date. Template:Update after#Usage says: "Do not use this template on pages which simply need to be reviewed later to see if they might need updating; it should only be used when there is a certainty or very high probability that an update is needed." PrimeHunter (talk) 12:59, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Minimal prime converted to dab

Howdy, I saw the prod for minimal prime in order to move (back) the number theory article as the primary article. I think the commutative algebra usage is more widespread, but since neither are making the 6 o'clock news, I thought a neutral disambiguation page would be best. Of course the previous move had been nearly a year ago, and up until a few minutes ago the commutative algebra article had still not been written! I tried to take care of that, and wrote a little stub for it. I've asked Arcfrk to help expand it, as comm alg. is far from my specialty.

At any rate, I removed the prod, and converted the redirect to a dab page, pointing first to the number theory article, and secondly to the brand new stub comm. alg. article. Let me know if that sounds reasonable. JackSchmidt (talk) 22:18, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

CRGreathouse, did you try moving it back? It should be possible without admin powers to revert a move when the resulting redirect has not been edited. In other cases, an existing target name for a move must be deleted first. This can be requested with {{db-move}}. But now that there is a dab, I don't think any further action is needed. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:32, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I'll keep that in mind for the future. Now we have a dab, which is better than a move. :) CRGreathouse (t | c) 23:40, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Triply palindromic primes

I've just verified that 10000500001 is indeed prime. But who has verified that it is the smallest base 10 triply palindromic prime? PrimeFan (talk) 00:22, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

The smallest prime is 2, so certainly no doubly-palindromic prime can have fewer than 2 digits. 11 is the smallest 2-digit prime, so certainly no triply-palindromic prime can have fewer than 11 digits. All that must to be proven is that 10000500001 is the first 11-digit palprime. There are many sources for this. I used a website devoted to palprimes, I can't recall which, but OEIS: A028989 would serve as a source as needed.

I felt it was important to show the size of triply-palindromic primes: although they cannot be small, they need not be as gargantuan as the other example on that page.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 01:35, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Disputed fair use rationale for Image:OberonScreen.PNG

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If it is determined that the image does not qualify under fair use, it might be deleted by adminstrator within a few days in accordance with our criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions, please ask them at the media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot (talk) 14:07, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Primes of form n^2*m+1

In [4] you added: "Primes of the form $n^{2}m+1$ for $n>1$ are infinite". Yes, but for any fixed n and free m, this is just a case of Dirichlet's theorem on arithmetic progressions. Is there more to the story, for example restrictions on m in relation to n? I haven't seen the reference. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:58, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

There is more, a density result and the like, but I'm not sure if it's enough. It's just a special case of their main result. CRGreathouse (t | c) 16:53, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that either it should be removed or more should be added. As it stands now, it's a trivial consequence of a much older and famous result, and the reference is not used in a meaningful way. I only think it has sufficient relevance to infinitude of n^2+1 primes if there are size restrictions on m in n^2*m+1. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:57, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind if you wanted to remove it. At the moment I'm holding out hope for restricting the m factor. But that particular result was quoted in another source (as mentioned in the reference) and I haven't examined the original yet -- and it's in German, which I don't speak. So it could be a bit. CRGreathouse (t | c) 23:05, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I have removed it in [5], but feel free to add something stronger if you find it. By the way, is User:CRGreathouse/Tables of special primes intended as a supplement to or replacement of List of prime numbers? PrimeHunter (talk) 01:07, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Table of special primes

I created it as a response to List of prime numbers, which I didn't very much like. It's not ready to become an article, but I would hope to make it good enough for the article namespace eventually. Actually, I was going to solicit feedback from you and a few other editors once I had gotten it to a more respectable stage.

I'm still trying to decide how to format the thing and what constellations (k-tuples) to include (since they're all essentially similar). I'd like to have another column beyond name/size/OEIS but I'm not sure what.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 14:46, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

If a tuple pattern has it's own article then I think it should be included, even though twins, cousin primes and sexy primes are very similar (but sexy primes have twice the expectation because p+6 is never divisible by 3 for prime p>3). Maybe you have seen Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of prime numbers. I like a short list of the first primes of each form. I also like your listing of proven or conjectured size. I had considered the same for List of prime numbers but not used time on it. I will give more feedback when you request it. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:40, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

That sounds good. I'm going to add the other k-tuples, work on the prose, and add the first few primes for each of the forms.

Are there any cool types of prime I'm missing?

CRGreathouse (t | c) 05:20, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I meant that I like the prime listings on List of prime numbers. I only think the first primes should be added to your table if it's going to replace List of prime numbers, and in that case I think the table should also have short definitions for all the forms. Whether to replace should be discussed at Talk:List of prime numbers (or at least a link to a discussion should be there), and I haven't decided my opinion yet. I don't have more time now. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:40, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the prime numbers themselves and the prime number theorem should be at the start. Maybe mention that the same holds for sets which omit a finite number of primes, such as odd primes, titanic primes, gigantic primes, megaprimes. Comparing to list of prime numbers, I see Newman-Shanks-Williams primes and permutable primes are not in the tables. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:36, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I have the Newman-Shanks-Williams primes, but good catch on the absolute/permutable primes. CRGreathouse (t | c) 02:35, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I overlooked the NSW abbreviation. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:38, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

1. When in mainspace, I think all listed prime forms should be defined in Wikipedia (and removed if they are not).

2. I don't like calling some of the forms "solutions to Diophantine equations". Sources don't appear to use that terminology and it makes it sound like people solve equations to find such primes, when they usually just insert a number in the defining formula and test whether the result is prime. I'm not sure what to call them instead though. I just think of them as the prime values of a given function (and I think of your recurrence relation primes in the same way).

3. I would classify repunit primes as base dependent. The name refers to a numeral of 1's in a given base and the values of repunits are different in different bases (they are usually called generalized repunit primes [6] in other bases). There just "happens" to be a simple known expression for them using exponentiation. The classification of odd primes (or whether to include them) does not seem important to me, but the name implies that they are viewed as linear 2n+1. I think the main thing about the primes themselves is that they are mentioned before any other prime classes.

4. There should be a link to big O notation. O is often used about the precise value and not an upper bound, so I think the assumed meaning should be made clear to avoid misunderstanding. I think there should only be one size column. If there is more than one interesting thing to say then put it in the same cell. Repeating "lower bound is unknown" a lot of the time would be annoying. There could be some common notes at the top, for example explaining what is assumed when not stated explicitly, and that "trivial density" means the density of the number form the primes are a subset of.

5. I don't like saying "unknown" density when many other entries list a conjectured density. It makes it sound like there is a significant difference but conjectured implies unknown, anybody can make conjectures, and there might exist more or less reliable published conjectures about anything. Claiming there is no conjectured size would be original research (unless maybe if a reliable source directly makes that claim). Maybe we should just say nothing if we don't have something sourced to say.

6. Do you prefer to be sole contributor while it's a user subpage or is it OK if I edit it? I would fully respect reverts by you when it's in your user space. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:06, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I numbered your paragraphs for easy reference.

1. I added only forms that I thought were more important than some existing Wikipedia pages. Elite primes, for example, have been the subject of probably half a dozen papers or more; they're much more important than most of the base-dependent primes. I'll freely admit, though, that the primes $1^{1}+2^{2}+\cdots +n^{n}$ are a borderline case. But I'm not too worried about the particulars; I wouldn't be insulted if some of these entries were removed (or, better yet, commented out) after I posted it. Because of that philosophy, I tend toward inclusion on this page: let someone with a bit more distance decide what matters and what doesn't. My personal bias, for example, is against base-dependent primes: I would tend to remove half or more of the forms I collected. But I'll let someone else (you?) make that call.

2. Actually I do think that many classes of primes are described as solutions to Diophantine equations, though not as simply as "Diophantine primes" as I think I may have written. Of course suggestions for better names are welcome. One common term (describing a superset of my Diophantine primes) is "integer sequence primes", but I'll admit to disfavoring the name: when you think about it, all subsets of the primes can be described in an uncountable number of ways as the intersection of a set of integers and the set of primes, so the term isn't restrictive enough in theory (even though, in practice, it's related).

4. I agree that repeating "lower bound unknown" would be annoying. I just didn't want to appear to communicate more than I knew by stating that a sequence is O(~).

5. Hmm, this is a communication issue (which I'm glad you pointed out). I didn't mean that no one knows a bound, just that the page has no bound. If no one knows the bound, I mention that the question is open (with a reference). The Complexity Zoo works similarly: they have thousands of unknown relationships between complexity classes, with a relative handful of open questions and conjectures. My thought was the same as yours, but in reverse: I thought that having a blank implied that the question was open, and I was trying to disclaim that by putting "unknown". Heh. :)

6. You know, I hate to say this, but I'd prefer if you waited until I put it up on the main page before adding to it. Per my user page, I release all content not in my user space into the public domain, and for purity of licensing (for the original version only, of course) I'd prefer to keep it that way. That also allows me to paste the complete text without edit history, since I'm the sole author.

Of course I can just move it to the main namespace now-ish to let you make whatever changes you want. That brings up another issue: what should I call it? Table of special primes?

CRGreathouse (t | c) 01:07, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

1. I tend to like lists like this to be as "complete" as reasonable in including what is already elsewhere in Wikipedia. That also improves their navigational value. If a prime form seems non-notable then you can first suggest deletion at its primary location. Serious mathematicians often dislike base-dependent things and consider them "impure", but I guess the average Wikipedia reader is more recreationally minded. I just want a definition, not a fancy article, for the listed forms. Just create a stub or mention a wanted form briefly in an existing relevant article so there is something to link.

2. Primes are often described as "of form something with n where n is integer", but do you often see sources use terms like diophantine equations and solutions in the context of such prime definitions? I associate diophantine equations for primes with things like http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PrimeDiophantineEquations.html. Markov primes (and possibly Leyland primes) are the only I view as "Diophantine solutions" and I don't think they (at least not Markov) should be grouped with the same as now. I would move to other primes. Maybe functions of two values (Leyland, Pierpont, Proth, ?) should be in their own group. Functions of one value can be split by the form of the function with an "other" group for things not easily grouped. And maybe there should be a group for all not base-dependent primes that are defined as primes having some special property and not as the primes among some set of numbers. In density estimates I think there is a principal difference between the two cases, especially when the size of the number superset for the latter case is already well-known and the problem is how many of them are primes.

6. It's perfectly OK that only you edit it until you consider it ready for mainspace. I understand your view. I don't like "special" in Table of special primes, and tables like that where each row represents a separate entity are usually called "List of ..." in Wikipedia. If we have both your page and List of prime numbers as separate pages then the important difference in your page is the inclusion of densities, so I think that should be in the name. Maybe something like Density of prime number classes. We already use "classes" in Category:Classes of prime numbers. If there is no good sourced thing to say about the density (for example because the form is uninteresting to mathematicians) then maybe the form should be removed. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:49, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

1. The purpose of this list* wasn't to summarize what's on Wikipedia; that'swhat Category:Classes of prime numbers is for. But I will try to stub out articles for whatever redlinks remain once this piece is ready. I trust you'll give me 'gentleman's notice' on removing the redlinked forms until I can catch a breather?

* By "the purpose of this list", I mean the purpose I had in mind for it. I'm quite happy to see the purpose it's used for change -- in fact, that's why I release my material to the public domain.

2. I'm happy to have reorganization. The purpose of the original organization (and the same disclaimer applies on "purpose") was threefold: (1) to keep the centered figurate primes together, because they take up a disproportionate share of the space relative to their importance; (2) to segregate the base-dependent primes from the others so readers sharing my bias against them could skip past them, while readers interested in them would have them grouped nicely; and (3) to break up the space (physical whitespace, but also mental 'chunking'), it was desirable to have as few as possible in the large "other" list at the end. This evolved to include the constellations, since like the figurate primes they share a form and should be read in a group if at all.

6. I'd really like to include more information on the individual primes than the density, so I'd prefer to avoid such a specific name if possible. I've been trying to think of good things that I'd be likely to find on most forms. Additive combinatorial things are neat ("each natural number > N is the sum of at most M primes of class C"), but for any but the simplest (Diophantine) types that kind of information would simply never be available. Admittedly, if I added that I would have many things to include... but more than half would be in constellations and linear Diophantine primes. Other thoughts? I did consider real world data like date first studied/"discoverer" but I fear these are difficult to determine and contentious.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 03:11, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

1. If it goes live with redlinked prime classes then I might suggest they are omitted on the talk page, but if nobody supported then I wouldn't do it if you were against (unless the classes seemed really non-notable). Or I might make stubs myself if the classes appear notable. I have personally searched weakly primes for [7] and posted the name to Tao at [8]. I guess it took work by a fields medallist to make you add a redlink to a base dependent class ;-) PrimeHunter (talk) 00:39, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

6. I lack good ideas for something interesting which has sourced information for many forms and isn't already at List of prime numbers (name, definition, first values, OEIS number). Computational prime records is a hobby of mine. I have lots of them and a website [9] about it, so I would personally be interested in the largest known example of each class. But it would require some maintenance and the current records are often only in selfpublished Internet sources. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:39, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Of course once the page is live you're welcome to delete, modify, and whatever as you wish. I'd just appreciate a week or two to write the redlinked articles -- and after that you can suggest their deletion, delete them immediately, write an article, or whatever. I already feel sheepish about asking to be the sole contributor until it goes live.

Including the smallest and largest examples known might not be a bad idea. References don't always need to be peer-reviewed, you know... if the information is on a personal website (say, yours) that would typically be fine. I probably shouldn't cite primepuzzles.net for conjectures -- those are probably best left for peer-reviewed articles -- but for records and basic results those should suffice.

Oh, going back to List vs. Tables vs. Table vs ?, in analogy form:

thispage : List of prime numbers :: Comparison of numerical analysis software : List of numerical analysis software

Frankly I think List of prime numbers is already straying from its title, but whether it should change or stay I have no opinion.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 03:34, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I think densities (which are only conjectures in most cases anyway) is too little for a name with "comparison" - unless it actually says "Comparison of (something with densities)". Pages can of course be moved. If you take it live with only densities then maybe it could be called something with densities and move later if more is added. "List of prime numbers" is taken and "Table of (something only mentioning primes or prime classes)" does not indicate the difference between the pages (lots of Wikipedia lists are in tables), and could easily lead to a merger proposal. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:01, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree, that name wouldn't work unless I had at least a few other things. CRGreathouse (t | c) 05:16, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

L programming language

I kind of doubt that any of the 3 entries would pass a notability test if they were split into an article of its own, since they look like languages with very little use and probably no coverage on press at all --Enric Naval (talk) 16:48, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Quite possible. But Wikipedia articles are supposed to be about a single concept, not a single name -- gasoline and petrol should be the same article, despite differing names, while these really have no relationship and so shouldn't really be in the same article.

I didn't split them off out of concerns similar to yours. If they are notable enough splitting would be good (but should be done by someone with more experience with the language(s) in question), and if not perhaps they could go into another article grouped by type instead of name. But realistically, I expect they will all remain in their present state in this article for some time.

Lingo (programming language) has the same issue. I imagine you feel similarly there? At least in that case it's one semi/probable notable language and the remainder, which could almost be handled by a disambig...

CRGreathouse (t | c) 16:52, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Derangement

This edit did not only "TeXify", as the edit summary put it, but also changed the words "In combinatorial mathematics..." to "In combinatorics...". The lay reader is likely not to know what combinatorics is and should be told right away that mathematics is what the article is about.

I don't know how strongly you feel about "inline" TeX, but we've been waiting since January 2003 (when we first got TeX) for the problems to be fixed, with nothing to show for it. "Displayed" TeX looks good; "inline" TeX often looks terrible.

So that is why I reverted to the previous edit. Michael Hardy (talk) 00:31, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with you on both counts. I don't think that any reader of that article is likely to be confused by combinatorics, and in the unlikely case that they were there is a link (which I would often see as superfluous). And while I do not always use inline TeX, in this case the HTML math looks terrible to me, both in display and in the editor. So I feel that your revert has worsened the article. But as a WP:0RR devotee, I will leave your edit. CRGreathouse (t | c) 03:39, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

College of Pharmacy (Pune)

I have replied here. TerriersFan (talk) 20:22, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Special meaning of 0 and -1 in OEIS

I'm confused. How is (sequence A094076 in the OEIS) a better example than OEIS: A072041 of "or -1 if no such number exists" given that the former has no instances of -1 in its first 104 elements? PrimeFan (talk) 22:16, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm still not happy with the example; I want another still. Actually, if you look through the page history, I think I've changed it before... still no decision. CRGreathouse (t | c) 16:14, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Notice of deletion debate for Instant-runoff voting controversies

You have either participated in a previous deletion debate over this article, or edited the article or its Talk page. If you are interested in contributing to the current debate, please visit Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Instant-runoff voting controversies (2nd nomination). Thanks. --Abd (talk) 22:13, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Tag

The tag on theorem is appropriate. There had been content that covered the foundations, but it was deleted. I don't like tagging pages myself. However, this is the civil/low conflict way to handle these situations. Do not remove the tag, unless the issue has been resolved. (P.S. love your work on elective system stuff) Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 18:00, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but the template makes an overtly POV claim, as mentioned in my edit summary. Scientists, mathematicians, logicians, and philosophers (outside the realm of logic) all have strong claims to the term. You like logic, and I like metaphysics and math, but that doesn't mean we get to claim that 'our' use is primary and the others secondary. Myself, I think science gets the short shrift in the article, even more than logic, and (logic \ philosophy) is barely mentioned at all.

More appropriate, I think, would be a banner or note on the Talk page soliciting advice and participation by other experts, along with quick notes dropped on the Talk pages of the appropriate WikiProjects. I think there are even standard templates for this.

On voting theory: you wouldn't happen to have any references on ethical aims of (ideal) voting systems, would you? That's a subject that seems to merit coverage but which I am unable to provide. Election/voting/social choice theory is quite multidisciplinary, but some disciplines are dealt with better than others.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 18:17, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Overly POV? To ask that the article cover material from other disciplines (including science), is not POV, Greathouse. POV actually means something specific, not just any old content disagreement. Listen, the material that identified a theorem as an abstract was in there for months (tolerated). It is now gone. If we could either put the material back (with a citation tag if necesssary), or keep this tag, that is really the only way. The intellectual environment is hostile to this material citation or not. The tag fulfills a needed message. If you want to get rid of the tag, perhaps you are closer to a library than I am, and can get some material, other than that the tag has to stay. That's the way its supposed to work. Please also refer to a discussion between Tparameter and myself on both our talk pages. Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 18:40, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I refer to the following text: "This article or section deals primarily with a topic in Logic". I'm not sure why you say (to me) "To ask that the article cover material from other disciplines (including science), is not POV" since just above your post I argued for more inclusion of science in that article! I think that a banner that says 'This article deals primarily with Logic', 'This article deals primarily with Mathematics', or 'This article deals primarily with Ontology'

• Is inappropriate for an article (rather than Talk) page in all cases as a self-reference
• Is inappropriate for this article (article page or Talk page) since the article is not primarily about logic, but about a topic which is central to mathematics, central or at least of major importance to logic, important to science, important to all the formal sciences, including philosophy, and touches on many fields beside.
• Duplicates the function of existing templates.

The last objection is personal; redundancy in templates can be acceptable, even when I don't prefer it. But the first two are serious objections which are based not on my feelings but on WP policy.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 19:12, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

You are kind of proving my point a little bit. The statement "This article deals primarily with Logic" doesn't necessarily mean that the topic is not also an important topic in mathematics. The point is that logic is an interdisciplinary field, and this article does not have interdisciplinary content. Furthermore, content which would cover interdisciplinary aspects has been repeatedly deleted. There are all kinds of tags that I would prefer weren't there, but I respect when that they are there for a reason. If the consensus prevails on issues, there is no fighting that. However, if you take away these templates, that really is unfair in a fundamental way. I am just one person, and you are trying to take away the very tools that the system gives individuals. Checkmate on me I guess! Listen, I would prefer it if the content remained with a citation tag or whatever. If its going to be out, then the page deserves to have the tag plain and simple. I am open to alternatives, but it seems that I am just being backed into a corner. Perhaps I should start an empty section titled "Ontological status of theorems" with a tag "needing expansion"? Perhaps I should create Category:Abstract objects? Just deleting and leaving out this kind of material has to stop. Be well, Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 19:55, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree with you on the semantics of "This article deals primarily with Logic". This clearly means that logic is primary, and other subjects (whose existence is implied, but not logically necessary) are secondary at best. For an interdisciplinary article I feel this is flatly inappropriate. Surely you would object if another editor put a banner atop the page with "This article deals primarily with Mathematics", yes?

Second, the only content that I have noticed conflict over (that is, recently; I hadn't watched the article earlier) has been in section 0. You say that the content is important, other editors that it is unreferenced. Regardless of those two positions (neither of which I particularly subscribe to; I favor a narrower view of WP:V, especially in introductions) seems to relate to the eventual position on the material itself in the article. My perspective is that the material cannot be done justice in such short span, and is confusing to lay readers; it needs a section in the article, probably with a {{main}} template (since the full formalism of proofs-as-objects and such require further treatment).

Of course having its own section will not end the issue. Metalogic, (mathematical) proof theory, epistemology, and ontology will all want their own piece on top of whatever logical foundation you lay.

If you make a section on proofs as abstract objects, I may be able to contribute; I have some amount of experience on the mathematical side of this. I'll be able to contribute more productively if you have a reference for me (regardless of whether it is appropriate for the article) so I could have a bit of a second perspective to fall back on.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 20:30, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

IRV

By the way, the argument you make about introductions also applies to attempts to summarize briefly the arguments over Instant-runoff voting. The problem is that it is extremely difficult to summarize the arguments being made in the real world (i.e., the elements of "controversy,") without creating POV imbalance. To counter the imbalance requires consideration in depth, and in the case of the IRV article, attempts to do that within the article were starting edit wars; the controversies article was started to be a place where the argument "that's too confusing, too much detail" would not apply. It is one thing for a topic to be sufficiently notable for its own article, and quite another for it to be notable enough to warrant more than minimal mention in an article on a more notable topic. The criticism of and campaign for instant-reunoff voting is notable all on its own, but if simply merged into the main article, it isn't notable enough to justify the necessary detail for NPOV balance. So Instant-runoff voting controversies was created by a consensus of editors (pro and con POVs and some relatively neutral) as a way of dealing with this, and the goal was once a reasonably satisfactory article was built, bring the most notable parts back with summary style. The latter has not yet been done, but the controversies article did make some progress, and we didn't see edit wars with it, though it was edited by pro and con editors. In an article on controversy, the notable opinions expressed *are* the facts being discussed, partly, but AfD editors are accustomed to seeing "opinion" as POV, which, of course, it is. That does not mean that it cannot be in articles, but that the *fact* is mentioned. I.e., as an example, so-and-so wrote such and such as a newspaper editorial. Attributed, reliably sourced, notable. However, "such and such" could not be sourced from that article, unless it was something other than opinion.... So I'd appreciate it if you would look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Instant-runoff voting controversies (2nd nomination) again, as well as at the subject articles. Because of the AfD, and a certain blocked editor who wikistalks me, it's getting a little tricky to manage. As a more neutral editor, your help would really be appreciated. The question of sourcing is complex, and it needs someone willing to look beyond an immediate reliance on guidelines, when the higher policies of verifiability and NPOV are at risk. There is a reason why WP:RS is a guideline and WP:V is policy. Guidelines are guidelines, to assist editors in forming a consensus, but consensus trumps guidelines. But not policy. Anyway, thanks for your attention.... --Abd (talk) 22:02, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm loathe to argue in depth on that article, as I would have trouble maintaining a neutral point of view. I don't like IRV, so I like the "controversy" article for biased reasons. But regardless of my feelings, I do find it to fit the definition of a POV fork. There is no monolithic "IRV controversy", just various (sensible) objections. So on those grounds it should be deleted, or better yet merged into the main IRV article. CRGreathouse (t | c) 00:22, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, this is a bit frustrating.... That's correct, there is no monolithic controversy. In the introduction, which nobody has objected to, it is mentioned that the same argument is used in the opposite direction by pro and con factions. What will IRV do to the "two-party system." There are, then, two contrary arguments: "IRV will destroy the two-party system," and "IRV will preserve the two-party system." Both arguments are advanced, and both are advanced by both pro and con advocates. Those who say it will destroy the system may consider this a bad thing, or a good thing. Absolutely, I see both positions. And those who say it will preserve the system are similarly divided. The argument that it will preserve the system, in my opinion, is the stronger, it can be supported with the actual experience of IRV. When we look at IRV results, as distinct from theory, in recent elections in the U.S., it is surprisingly close to Plurality. Hence some analysts have gone so far as to think IRV as some kind of conspiracy to, under cover of reform, preserve the status quo. Regardless, preserve the status quo is the probable effect. With fewer spoilers, but, then, fewer successful rises of third parties as well. But most of this is speculative, to a degree.

The article isn't about "objections." It is about the arguments used either in support or objection, and about what we can objectively report about them. For example, it is claimed that IRV "reduces negative campaigning." No evidence for this has been found, it is wishful thinking, and there has been some reporting in media on this. It's cited in the article, I think. If it were just about objections, you'd be more correct. I read WP:FORK numerous times as part of all this, and the article *clearly* is not a POV fork. Whether or not a separate article is needed or not is another question. Now, I happen to think this: an NPOV examination of the arguments will hurt the cause of implementing IRV, which is why the IRV advocates have been willing to edit war and use serious sock puppetry to promote the articles being just right. But there are IRV advocates who are also capable of compromise and who do, sometimes with a fair amount of nudging, accept evidence.

Merge, I can understand, looks like a good idea if you just look at the present article (moderately good in some ways, with also some problems) and then at the deficient Controversies section in the main IRV article. I can really see why people vote Merge. However, we already tried that. It was the status quo, and there was a worse controversies section in the main article. When I and some others tried to make it more complete, we ran into serious edit warring. Now, I could handle that, but there was one problem, there was one argument that the pro-IRV cabal was making that made sense: it was too much detail for the article. So the Controversies article was started as a place where the detail could go. The plan was, then, to take what was found to be most notable back to the main article, using summary style. The controversies article would remain as a much more complete exploration of the arguments. Arguments on both sides, plus NPOV commentary on the arguments. Much of the edit warring wasn't over the facts, but over whether they were "important enough" to be in the main article. But to find NPOV often requires allowing the insertion of detail that makes all sides happy that it is balanced and complete. This situation really needed a specific article. The same thing has been done for the Implementations article. The list of implementations had become one more promotional tactic. FairVote's constant theme is that IRV is inevitable, and that those who propose other methods are being disruptive because IRV has the "momentum." And there was this (forget what's there right now) long list of "adoptions."

Took me quite a while to notice what was missing. Adoptions. Not "use." Why not use? Well, IRV is really expensive to count, voting equipment isn't designed for it, etc. So quite a few places have "adopted" IRV, but haven't funded it, and, often, there are no plans to fund it. Anyway, I started to look at the elections that have actually taken place, and what I found knocked me over. It's probably true: the IRV advocates created the Implementations article to get information about the actual elections out of the article and into a place where it was not so visible. But, ultimately, if the Implementations article is mature, it becomes easy to bring back in what is then a consensus in that article, and the heavy sourcing involved is there. What is in the IRV article doesn't necessarily require a footnote every few words, if it is in the subarticle, and if what is reported back is stable consensus. It's like introductions.

What was happening? Well, first of all, I think there were 23 elections since 2004 where IRV went into runoff rounds of counting. In two, I think, of these elections a majority of voters voted for the winner. In one of them, the victory percentage was around 40%. Almost always, IRV is failing to do what it is advertised as doing: find a majority winner without runoff elections. It is electing by plurality, where Plurality would elect by plurality, or possibly less often, in fact, because when you have a preferential voting system, or top-two runoff does somewhat the same thing, people vote sincerely more often, and don't make the compromises that ultimately must be made. So these systems encourage more hopeless candidates to run and more people to vote for them, thus creating more potential for majority failure. San Francisco was causing its own problems with top-two runoff. But, of course, I'm sure you understand that there are better solutions than IRV. In particular, Bucklin Voting can be tested with the San Francisco election results. I see no reason to believe that the voters did not vote sincerely with IRV, nor that, if it had been Bucklin, that they would have looked at Bucklin's failure of later-no-harm and bullet voted. Historically, they did *not* bullet vote in elections like those of San Francisco. Bucklin did better at finding majorities.

However, there was a stunning fact: In all 23 elections that went to runoff, the IRV victor was also the plurality winner from the first round. But, to seal this: the runner-up in the first round was the runner-up in the final round. It is as if those who voted for C in preference to A or B have the same average opinion of A and B as do the collection of supporters of (A,B). Turns out that voters for candidates aren't segregated by political spectrum, or the like, as much as we might think. Of course, these were nonpartisan elections. Okay, so what? Well, a lot of money was spent for nothing, for starters. But: before IRV was implemented, I've looked at San Francisco and Cary, NC, one time out of three the final winner reversed the result from the primary. There are a number of possible explanations, but, on reflection, I think that the public was better served by the runoffs. In Cary, in particular, the usual argument about turnout was reversed, since the runoff was held with the general election and the primary a month before. In San Francisco, it was reversed, the primary in November and the runoff in December.

Special runoff elections probably improve election quality, because they favor more highly motivated voters. This is a rough Range-like effect, and the real problem with top-two runoff is the top-two part, not the runoff. I've proposed that whenever a Range election (or Approval election -- which requires a little more ballot data) has a candidate who beats the Range winner, there be a runoff, or otherwise whenever the results do not show a majority approving the result. In Approval, this would include a double-majority, which is rare, but which is the basis for a claim that Approval violates the Majority Criterion. This fixes the MC criterion failure of Range methods. But it also, from what we know from simulations, probably, improves the outcome! And that is without consideration of the turnout motivation effect, which favors the Range winner, if that is sincere. It's a kind of test of the sincerity and absolute preference strength.

IRV is basically a Plurality method, unless the Robert's Rules form is used, which requires a majority. That little factoid has been the subject of quite a bit of edit warring on the IRV article....

I'm not trying to put all this stuff into any article, must of it hasn't been published anywhere. But it informs my consideration of what is important and what is not.... So, with Robert's Rules, for example, it's important that what is reported about Robert's rules mention of "preferential voting" be exact and accurate, which takes detail. Right now, there is edit warring over this over at IRV.... --Abd (talk) 01:38, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

It's clear that IRV (for better or worse) is a variant on plurality. The effect on the two-party system is less clear; there are plausible assumptions under which IRV could support a three-party system in a stable fashion (and, arguably, the assumptions are met in the UK). But overall I agree with your thesis that IRV supports the two-party system more than other reform candidates.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 13:10, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Soundview School

Hi, please see my comments at the AfD. I am doubtful if this will ever really make it as an article but the claim "the first independent school to offer the IB Primary Years Programme in Washington, Oregon or Alaska" is reliably sourced and a fair claim to notability. Perhaps you would consider recommending a merge to the locality so that this sourced statement can be retained? TerriersFan (talk) 22:14, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I was out of town and missed that. CRGreathouse (t | c) 12:30, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Continuation of discussion over notability of Ohio high school sports conferences

Hello. You are receiving this message because you recently participated in an AfD discussion regarding the notability of high school sports conferences in Ohio State. While the AfD has been closed as no consensus, the discussion is continuing here. You are invited to participate. Thank you. --Jaysweet (talk) 20:21, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Are you an admin?

Another admin, User:RockMFR brought back two previously deleted HS articles in the middle of the AfD. The two are Cincinnati Hills League and Greater Miami Conference. What's the policy on this? It seems like Rock abused his powers. --BurpTheBaby (Talk) 19:23, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not an admin. CRGreathouse (t | c) 20:14, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

This is a lie! :p Chergles (talk) 20:17, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

de Bruijn's rho

Thank you for your comments at Wikipedia:Peer review/Dickman-de Bruijn function/archive1. I think every one of your suggestions is helpful! I'm going to update the article over the coming week.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 04:39, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

You're quite welcome; I'm glad I could be of some small assistance.—RJH (talk) 16:34, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I made my changes: Dickman-de Bruijn function (diff). If you don't mind my asking, how's it look?

CRGreathouse (t | c) 21:28, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

It looks decent; the text still seems a little sparse though. There's a 1993 paper titled, The asymptotic behavior of the Dickman-de Bruijn function,[10] which I am unable access. I wonder if that has anything of interest? This paper (1.4) gives an integral equation for the formula. It also has some other observations; not sure how interesting you consider those though.—RJH (talk) 23:14, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Largest known prime

I'm fairly sure there has never been a known prp above the largest known prime, and it seems unlikely to happen anytime soon with the current algorithms and prime searches. People spend far more cpu time on easily provable prime forms and I (very experienced and Internet active prime searcher) haven't even heard of anybody searching prp's above the proven record. I think your edit [11] creates more doubt than it removes since readers could easily think there has been and maybe are known prp's above the largest known prime. The former "known to be a prime number" seems clear enough to me for this article. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:02, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Your CFD comment

Hi, I just came across the following comment that you added to the CFD for Category:Kindergartens in Hong Kong: "Delete for notability concerns, uniformity across nations, and Cgingold's issues." And I couldn't help but wonder if you had actually meant to add it to the CFD just above that one, for Category:Propaganda films, seeing as you had previously posted other remarks vis-a-vis that subject. It just seemed perhaps a bit out of place where I found it, so I thought I'd ask, just in case it was a mistake.

Also, if you are supporting deletion of the Propaganda film categories, I'm curious as to why you've changed your mind from your earlier comment that seemed to support my suggestion for container categories, etc. Regards, Cgingold (talk) 13:37, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

The comment was intended for the Kindergartens in Hong Kong category. I don't support the deletion of the propaganda films category.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 14:31, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. You're probably thinking that I must think you're some kind of idiot (assuredly not) and/or that I must be an idiot myself (quite possibly! :) Cgingold (talk) 21:15, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Of course I only saw the one because of the other -- so between edit times and vagueness I'm not surprised you'd think that! CRGreathouse (t | c) 00:39, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

math-citation

Thanks for developing what seems to be a template for math citations. How difficult would it be to invoke it at certain pages on wikipedia? I certainly favor this format, so if you have a chance please switch one of the pages I developed over to math-citation. The main page at systolic geometry has a lot of citations but if possible you could adapt one of the auxiliary pages with just a few citations, e.g. Loewner's torus inequality, filling area conjecture, filling radius, Pu's inequality for the real projective plane, Adriano Garsia, etc. Katzmik (talk) 10:29, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

P.S. The page differential geometry of surfaces is currently under development. The bibliography is in "citation" right now. It would be helpful to switch it over to math-citation to get a feeling for how people react at that site. Katzmik (talk) 10:32, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

First of all, I'm not sure it's ready for real use yet: I just threw it together, and some compatibility or display issues might still exist. But there are examples of invoking it on its own Talk page (edit the source to see), and it could be copied to the Template namespace as Template:Math-citation, which would then be invoked as {{math-citation}}.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 13:43, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Please do, I am looking forward to using it. Katzmik (talk) 11:39, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I added a moose reference at filling area conjecture. It looks good. I notice though there is a departure from the style of mathscinet (math reviews) references. In mathscinet, the author initials are usually given after the last name. What do you think? Katzmik (talk) 11:44, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I intentionally did not format the author names. You can write "authors = Alces, A." if you prefer it to "authors=Abigail Alces". Personally, I prefer to write out all names in full with no comma-inversion, and to likewise write out all journal names in full, no abbreviations. But I wrote the template to support various methods of use.

I'm making {{math-citation}} now.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 12:55, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, it's up:

• {{math-citation}}

CRGreathouse (t | c) 13:09, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

It looks terrific. I am switching over. Let me know if you have the patience to take on a couple of cites. Katzmik (talk) 13:14, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

citation bugs

I tried to switch over at differential geometry of surfaces, an article I happen to be working on. However, I immediately ran into a problem. I lose the author name when I switch over to math-citation. This happened with each of the first two references. Perhaps this is due to slight differences in code. It would be ideal to have identical code for both templates. Katzmik (talk) 13:29, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Math-citation does not seem to support separate entries for first name and last name, as citation does. Katzmik (talk) 07:17, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I just noticed that one of the main contributors to differential geometry of surfaces does not seem to be in favor of math-citation, so it is best to leave that particular page alone. There is enough support for the template out there, though, to continue working on it. From personal experience, it is not that easy to get used to a different format. Many times I walked away from an item in a bibliography thinking that it does not mention the year. This leads casual readers to think the work at wiki is not being done professionally. Mathscinet lists I think tens of thousands of authors, a significant percentage of them still active in math. Expecting such a large public to get used to the new order in a bibliography is like expecting people to start saying ice tea instead of iced tea overnight. It is just not going to happen. It is true that by now I am aware of the problem and am able to find the year quickly, but not everyone has spent as much time in wiki. People who argue for uniformity seem blissfully unaware of the diversity out there. Katzmik (talk) 08:59, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Main page redesign

Hello, CRGreathouse! Wikipedia:2008 main page redesign proposal was recently cleared of all design entries. You may want to re-enter your design(s), based on the details here. (You can see the old list of designs here). NOTE: A survey was conducted on what users wanted to see in the new main page, you can see the results here. NickPenguin_(contribs) 02:07, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

math-citation

Hi, Please update the template if you get a chance so it can handle books as well. I looked briefly at "citation" itself and understood why nobody wants to touch it... At any rate, math-citation would be much more useful if it could handle book references. Katzmik (talk) 13:11, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Your revert at Manifold Destiny

The section you just added back was already being debated at Talk:Manifold_Destiny#deletion_of_.22reactions.22_subsection. Please chime in. VG ☎ 10:50, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Re deletion of "Alexander R. Povolotsky's problem 1"

Please see my thoughts on the matter at this article's entry on the Articles for deletion page. Apovolot (talk) 02:11, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Straw poll

The Main Page Redesign proposal is currently conducting a straw poll in selecting five proposals before an RFC in which it will be against the current main page. You're input would be appreciated. ChyranandChloe (talk) 04:08, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia's Expert Peer Review process (or lack of such) for Science related articles

Hi - I posted the section with the same name on my talk page. Could you take part in discussion ? Thanks ARP Apovolot (talk) 14:06, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

User: Shotwell suggested (on my talk page) "I would endorse a WP:EXPERTADVICE page that outlined the wikipedia policies and goals for researchers in a way that enticed them to edit here in an appropriate fashion. Perhaps a well-maintained list of expert editors with institutional affiliation would facilitate this sort of highly informal review process. I don't think anyone would object to a well-maintained list of highly-qualified researchers with institutional affiliation (but then again, everyone seems to object to something)."

We could start with that if you would agree ... - could you help to push his idea through Wikipedia bureaucracy ? Apovolot (talk) 16:22, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I have no real experience with the 'Wikipedia bureaucracy'. Further, I suspect I wouldn't be considered an expert—so perhaps it's not even my place to endorse such a plan. Good luck, though!

CRGreathouse (t | c) 22:50, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Anti-psychiatry

Phew! You had me worried there. Absolutely no excuse for not having scrutinized properly the source cited by both the Psychiatry article & the one on Reil himself. Exactly the sort of thing that gets WP a bad name. Your vigilance is exactly the sort of thing to get it, in due course, a good name. I shall be more cautious in future.

Was doubly worried because I'm in the middle of moving & my library is all boxed up in storage. Relieved to say I've been able to find four seemingly reliable sources. They include the British Journal of Psychiatry and a German monograph. Shall remove the embarrassing YouNameIt ref pronto. Thank you again for spotting this. Regards Wingspeed (talk) 20:27, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

P.S. The discrepancy in dates to which you refer is readily explained. The OED date is for first recorded use in English. Similar situation applies with regard to the term Unconscious. According to the late Roy Porter in the Macmillan Dictionary of the History of Science, the term was invented by Schelling but only brought into English by Coleridge some years later. Wingspeed (talk) 20:48, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Have you ever considered adminship?

Recently, there's been a complete absence of people running for adminship. It looks like it's time to recruit people. So I looked back through my talk page for people I've interacted with who would make good admins. Based on your years of well-researched contributions to Wikipedia, and your level head when dealing with people whose contributions are... less well-researched, I'd say you fit the bill very well. Are you interested in running?

If you're not interested in the admin tools, or not interested in going through the drama of RfA, I understand. But if you are interested, let me know and I could put together a nomination statement for you. rspεεr (talk) 21:56, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm game. Adminship has been suggested to me before. I'll admit, the process is a bit much, but I shouldn't have to do it more than once. CRGreathouse (t | c) 02:39, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Great! Give me a moment to write a nomination. rspεεr (talk) 08:55, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I'd like to run one question by you first: what would you plan to use admin tools for? You're asked this as part of the RfA statement anyway, and some people care deeply about the answer, so I feel like I should use your answer to guide the way I write the nomination statement. rspεεr (talk) 09:25, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't know, really. Being an admin is WP:NOBIGDEAL, after all. Probably checking speedy deletions, checking copyright issues (I have some IP knowledge), fighting vandalism, and generally keeping the math articles civil. CRGreathouse (t | c) 17:07, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Okay. (Be sure to discuss this in terms of particular admin powers, like the fact that keeping math articles civil may sometimes require blocking.) One other thing I notice now that the toolserver is back up: your editing rate has decreased over time. Now, this doesn't bother me one bit, but for some inscrutable reason other people find that problematic and it does decrease your chances somewhat. As long as you're okay with being a bit of an outsider candidate -- and I think now is the time that RfA is looking for outsider candidates -- I'll go ahead. rspεεr (talk) 05:53, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I think all of the 'insider candidates' are admins already. :) Yes, let's go ahead with this.

My posting rate has decreased since I do more research for my additions and less typo correcting. I don't think that's a bad thing at all!

CRGreathouse (t | c) 06:01, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly. Anyway, here's the nomination for you to transclude when you're ready. Here goes! rspεεr (talk) 07:52, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Conflict

I see that you have listed several people that you had conflicts with. You did not list me. Granted, I never met you before I saw your RFA.

I hereby declare that I am in conflict with you! How are you going to resolve it?

:P

Chergles (talk) 00:36, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Pistols at dawn... you just now need to find seconds ;-)---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloonCSD Survey Results 06:44, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

In the interest of cooperation, I suggest we discuss any differences before seeking retribution, such as blocking. Blocking is officially not punishment, but in practice it is. Since I have forgotten what we need to discuss, I think our conflict can be concluded very soon, if you also agree! Chergles (talk) 21:03, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Very well, have your people talk to my people. **CRGreathouse** (t | c) 21:15, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I am my own people. A proposed resolution of "On January 15, 2009, the conflict was resolved." Ok with you? Chergles (talk) 22:04, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good. **CRGreathouse** (t | c) 22:17, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Great! Congratulations on being an admin! Now don't block me with the message "ha, ha, now I am in power, our conflict is over because you are now blocked!" Chergles (talk) 20:18, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/CRGreathouse

I've added a few optional questions. Cheers, Dlohcierekim 04:32, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Your RfA

Hi there! I have responded to one of your comments at your RfA. My comment is at oppose #2. Have a good day/night! Cheers, K50 Dude ROCKS! 06:07, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I like your attitude

Despite my oppose, I wanted to let you know that I do like your attitude... Whatever happens during your RfA, keep it up!---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloonCSD Survey Results 06:43, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Gratutitous advice on CSD

When in doubt, don't delete. Even if the article clearly meets a CSD criterion apart from G10 or clearcut vandalism, search for a way to fix the article before deleting it. Be as literal as possible in interpreting CSD, with the exception of leaning toward saving rather than deleting. If the concern is borderline notability, PROD or AFD. Always check the page history. Be very reluctant to delete an article created by an experienced user. Cheers, Dlohcierekim 21:27, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. Actually that's been my philosophy even with prod -> AfD: [12]. :)

**CRGreathouse** (t | c) 22:42, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Once again boosting my confidence in you. Cheers, Dlohcierekim

Congratulations!

Avoid getting sent here. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 22:46, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

This user is an admin.

Congratulations on your RfA passing! Here are some useful links for you:

• Wikipedia:Administrators' reading list
• Wikipedia:New admin school

If you have any questions, feel free to drop me a line and I (or another experienced admin) will be more than happy to help you out.

Congrats again! EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:02, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Many congratulations from me also. I'm glad that in the end the RfA saw through the doubts to the genuine and high quality editor that you are. If you ever want to discuss an admin issue, you are most welcome on my talk page, and (I imagine) the talk pages of many others. Geometry guy 21:13, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I expect I'll take you up on that fairly soon. **CRGreathouse** (t | c) 21:38, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Just don't press the wrong button or you'll wind up in the picture at the right :). davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 22:46, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Congratulations. Dlohcierekim 23:01, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Congratulations! I opposed, but you seem like a thoroughly decent person, and I know that you'll do your best (and that's not sarcasm!). If you need any help performing your adminly duties or if you're not sure about something, feel free to ask on my talk page, and I'll be very happy to help out. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 23:52, 16 January 2009 (UTC).

FWIW, I tootook Lankiviel's position, & now I echo his sentiments. DGG (talk) 01:46, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, both of you. That does mean a lot to me.

And I may just take you up on your offer, Lankiveil.

**CRGreathouse** (t | c) 04:44, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

You know the way they say adminship is not a trophy? They're wrong. Here's yours. :D Stifle (talk) 15:27, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Congratulations from me as well - I can't be as helpful as these guys, but I'm still very happy you made it through the gauntlet. Have fun with the mop. Townlake (talk) 05:50, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

You had me on the edge of my seat for a while. Congrats, and use your tools wisely. (And don't let them distract too much from writing articles!) rspεεr (talk) 09:31, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

And you now have a new way you can procrastinate. Congratulations. JoshuaZ (talk) 23:40, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

More congratulations spam. :) -- Congratulations, and best wishes in using your new tools. Much more importantly, though, thank you for volunteering.sinneed (talk) 05:28, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Yup, all the best, and kudos to the closing 'crat for making the right judgement call. See you around ;) EyeSerene^talk 09:48, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Congratulations. Here are what pass for words of wisdom from the puppy:

Remember you will always protect the wrong version. Remember you must always follow the rules, except for when you ignore them. You will always pick the wrong one to do. (See #5) Remember to assume good faith and not bite. Remember that when you are applying these principles most diligently, you are probably dealing with a troll. Use the block ability sparingly. Enjoy the insults you receive when you do block. Remember when you make these errors, someone will be more than happy to point them out to you in dazzling clarity and descriptive terminology. and finally, Remember to contact me if you ever need assistance, and I will do what I am able. KillerChihuahua?!?

DISCLAIMER: This humor does not reflect the official humor of Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Foundation, or Jimbo Wales. All rights released under GFDL.

boredom

To relieve some momentary boredom, I declare our conflict temporarily on again. I hereby make personal attacks and legal threats against you for the next 8 hours.

Attack....rat..tat..tat..ka-pow. Legal attack....sue..sue..sue.

p

Chergles (talk) 00:59, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Personal attacks can be largely ignored. WP:LEGAL threats, though, are bad news… WP policy (with which I wholeheartedly agree) is that any legal threats shut down everything immediately: no editing at all while there are outstanding legal threats/suits/etc.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 01:36, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

8 hours have passed. The conflict is now declared over, at least from my side! Chergles (talk) 15:50, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

thank you

WikiThanks

Mr. Great house, A big "Thanks" for taking the time to comment on Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(fiction)#Final_adoption_as_a_guideline. There was a direct question about your comments. Ikip (talk) 02:08, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Riemann hypothesis

Hi, on the Talk page of this article is a question that's gone unanswered for five months. When Talk page questions go unanswered for a long time, readers may conclude that (a) the question was so elementary that trying to educate the asker would have been a Sisyphean task, or (b) the Talk page regulars are "too good" to waste their time replying to lay people. Is one of the two assumptions correct in this case?--Goodmorningworld (talk) 06:00, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I imagine most people aren't sure of either question or answer. CRGreathouse (t | c) 19:01, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

OK… The question was, What does "giving" a theorem mean? Is it like proving it? or suggesting, or conjecturing? If so, then some other wording might be better. Ever since C.P. Snow published The Two Cultures, the divide between mathematicians (and scientists, engineers) and the rest of us has become a commonplace, perhaps a cliche. The assumption that a "fairly simple, straightforward question" should not be difficult to answer may be doubly flawed: Not only can the answer turn out to be non-trivial, the question may have to be reformulated so as to eliminate vagueness. But in this case, where lies the difficulty? I am not seeing it yet. --Goodmorningworld (talk) 21:52, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps the question is more of philosophy than of mathematics, and we don't have any regulars at WikiProject Math who are philosophers of mathematics? CRGreathouse (t | c) 22:32, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

(Feel free to tell me at any time to stop if you consider my blathering inappropriate on your Talk page.) Well, I am recognizing something here that I would call vocational scrupulousness or circumspection, and I cannot blame you. After all, not only are we two reliant on the constraints imposed by being perfect strangers typing at each other over the Internet, the question was asked by a third party who is not available for clarification. By contrast, in my rough pragmatism I believe that philosophy has nothing to do with it, it is a matter of semantics; words are employed as tools to get what we want, and most of the time that aim is easy enough to discern, and so too here.

I would merely add that for non-specialists, it is not so much terms of art that stump us. When I see eigenvalue wikilinked in the R.H. article, I know that I am seeing a new word and that I must study its definition in order to begin to understand it. The verb "give", on the other hand, appears seven times in the article. It is never wikilinked. Sometimes it is employed in a sense customary to the vernacular, e.g., "gives some support to the Hilbert–Pólya conjecture". Other times, not: "Robin's theorem … given by Guy Robin in 1984." It is this second "given" that is confusing, at least to people who have forgotten most of what they learned in high school.

Skipping to the Wiki article on theorems, I am reminded that a theorem is "a statement proved on the basis of previously accepted or established statements." That would seem to settle the question, although later I also find – confusingly – that the Kepler conjecture is a theorem despite being a conjecture. Pushing that aside for the moment, I believe that I can now answer the question to a sufficient extent that the various uses of given no longer act as a roadblock to understanding.

So, no philosophy here: just "remedial learning" at a very basic level. But, I could be wrong: the question may have broader implications that transcend my worm's-eye view, as hinted at by the sudden appearance of the Kepler conjecture in the Theorem article.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 00:12, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Of course I didn't write the part of the article in question, and I'm only barely familiar with the subject matter -- I think I read one paper that touched on Robin's theorem, and I don't know what Robin may have done in 1984. Maybe you can find out through the history who added the passage and ask them? Or maybe you can ask the question on that page's Talk? CRGreathouse (t | c) 03:52, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Creole language

It was a little confusing to me when you pointed to WP:OVERLINK and when I partial reverted I thought maybe you were seeing something in OVERLINK that wasn't there. Now I see that this was the case, because it was at WP:MOSLINK! Thanks for taking the time to help me understand. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 04:48, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that was actually the wrong link I used as an edit description! I should have looked it up to check, but since it was just routine work, I didn't bother... ah well, live and learn. CRGreathouse (t | c) 13:09, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Ahmes Papyrus and aliquot parts

Thank you for suggesting that you have read a couple of books on Ahmes. But have you spent any time decoding the RMP 2/n table (http://rmprectotable.blogspot.com/) and its vivid use of aliquot parts. A direct study of Ahmes Papyrus considers all of his problems per: http://ahmespapyrus.blogspot.com/2009/01/ahmes-papyrus-new-and-old.html. In the 20th century scholars mostly overlaid their cultural positions over the text, thereby badly translating Ahmes 'inital calculations' as well as his proofs. Yes, Ahmes offered statements and proofs. Fro example, RMP 38, reported Ahmes proving that 320 ro (one hekat) times 35/11 times 1/10 (actually 320 x 7/22) equals 101 9/11 was returned to 320 by multiplying 101 9/11 by 22/7. Note Egyptian division in RMP 82 was the inverse of Egyptian multiplication reported in 29 examples, with divisor n set to 1/64 < n < 64 by using the relationship:

(64/64)/n = Q/64 + (5R/n)*1/320

example: let n = 3

(64/64)/n = 21/64 + 1/192, that Ahmes scaled the remainder by 5/5 to obtain ro 1/320 units such that:

(16 + 4 + 1)/64 + (5/3)ro = 1/4 + 1/16 + 1/64 + (1 + 2/3)ro

as the Akhmim Wooden Tablet also returned to its initial value 64/64 by multiplying by 1/3.

Best Regards, Milogardner (talk)Milo Gardner 4/9/09 6:00 am PST

I'm well-familiar with Egyptian multiplication, as I have already intimated. I have not tried to decode RMP 2/n — not my field. But I don't interpret it as relying nearly as heavily as you suggest on aliquot parts—that's on the simplification of certain fractional solutions. But even if the text dwelt entirely on aliquot parts I don't think the large swaths of text on Aliquot were appropriate; one sentence would suffice, with further discussion at RMP 2/n table. Since I don't think the part played is that large, I would forbear even that short mention in an article Aliquot. But while the article is (correctly, IMO) a disambiguation page there's certainly no argument for its inclusion.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 13:23, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I suppose it depends on how you define "metallicity"

If you define it as "percentage by mass of iron", then it's 0.16 percent. If you define it as "percentage by mass of astronomical metals," then the answer is 1.6 percent. The iron aspect only comes into play when comparing the metallicity of the Sun to that of other stars, not in measuring the metallicity of the Sun itself. Serendi^podous 14:26, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I can't get that figure either. Assuming each entry in the source is within 0.01%, iron makes up somewhere between 45.4% and 81.0% of the metals in the sun (the metals being iron, magnesium, and possibly some of the 'other'). CRGreathouse (t | c) 14:53, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

"metals" means any element heavier than hydrogen or helium, not just metal. So oxygen is also a metal. Serendi^podous 16:05, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

That doesn't work either; it gives 9.5%. CRGreathouse (t | c) 16:36, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

The Sun article's infobox lists those elements heavier than hydrogen and helium by percentage:

Oxygen 0.77 % Carbon 0.29 % Iron 0.16 % Sulfur 0.12 % Neon 0.12 % Nitrogen 0.09 % Silicon 0.07 % Magnesium 0.05 %

which adds up to 1.67% Serendi^podous 16:58, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Got it, I thought you were referring to the relative abundance of iron. (Funny, don't know how I concluded that.) So I changed the article to remove +2, since if the sun has a metallicity of 1.6% no star will have +2 metallicity: an iron (carbon, etc.) block would have metallicity +1.8.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 20:52, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Metamath

I don't understand why you remove the italics to Metamath and to the name of the explorers. It is traditional in books to emphatize the titles of novels, songs, paintings and so on and mutadis mutandis emphatizing should also be used for softwares and internet sites.

Moreover I don't understand why you change the word jansenism for the collocation "low level". Apparently you understood what it meant. -- fl —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.13.41.166 (talk) 17:23, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Metamath is not the title of a book. Further, it goes against the Manual of Style to italicise it throughout the text.

I don't know why the word jansenism was there at all; it doesn't seem appropriate.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 17:49, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Excuse me but you don't know anything about Metamath do you ? -- fl

I use the web interface frequently and the downloaded version occasionally. I mostly work with set.mm but occasionally also with peano.mm. I recently corresponded with Norman Megill about a Greasemonkey extension for Metamath I was writing. Does that count as something? You'll have to decide. CRGreathouse (t | c) 18:26, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Getting acquainted with it implies to use it to write proofs. You should try. And on the other hand I'll try to ask somewhere perhaps here (Manual of Style) if it is true that it is forbidden to italicise sites and softwares names because I'm a bit puzzled about that strange "law". -- fl

I have no answer concerning softwares names and I more and more wonder if the rule exists. I also notice set.mm is still italicised. I wonder why. Because according to you, italics should be removed -- fl

I didn't say that the italics around set.mm should be removed, but think it should be removed. I haven't decided what the best way would be to have it: plain set.mm, code set.mm, italic set.mm, or something else. Any thoughts? CRGreathouse (t | c) 13:31, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

You are hard to understand. May I cite yourself: "Further, it goes against the Manual of Style to italicise it throughout the text." Frankly either you italicise Metamath and set.mm (which is the normal way to treat softwares, sites and files names) or you don't italicise any. -- fl —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.199.4.102 (talk) 14:55, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I said "it", not "anything". But it's not that I think set.mm should be italicized, just that I don't know what to do with it. If you were to remove the italics I wouldn't put it back in.

But it's not normal to italicize site names (not on Wikipedia, not elsewhere). In some books filenames are written in monospace, but that's not widespread enough that I'd call it a convention. It's certainly not conventional to italicize filenames.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 15:01, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

You have also forgotten to unitalicized Mmj2 and Ghilbert'. -- fl —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.175.209.213 (talk) 19:26, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I missed those. I un-italicized at least one instance of Ghilbert, but I didn't do a global replace like I should have. CRGreathouse (t | c) 19:34, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes you should. The article was perfectly consistent. All the names of the softwares names were italicised and now half of them are italicised and half of them are not. Definitly I'm very happy you noticed the existence of this page. Remarkable work! -- fl

At the moment my focus is not on writing Metamath proofs but studying the fragments of ZFC it allows (and some it doesn't). I did have Norman add one proof to the database for me recently, but only because I needed it for simplification: axinf. (Note that it hasn't yet propagated to the main server!)

But none of that is relevant to editing the metamath article!

CRGreathouse (t | c) 18:39, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Can't hurt either! -- fl

Wage Slavery

Nice cleanup work on the Wage Slavery article. I've been meaning to give it a once through myself. BTW, I'm worried about the use of the term 'wage slave' to refer to wage workers in some parts of the text. Do you think the text should use the term 'wage slave' in a generic way? Seems a pretty loaded term to me. Thanks, LK (talk) 08:57, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

The article is largely written from a POV perspective, so it's not surprising to see loaded terms like 'wage slave' pop up. The article is in need of much more work, but most will have to be more than the superficial cleaning I've been giving it. I've be happy to work with you on it, if you're up to the task. CRGreathouse (t | c) 09:11, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I've been keeping an eye on it, but given that both Skip and an anon editor are both heavily emotionally invested, I've been keeping it at arm's length to cut down on Wikidrama. Personally, I think the article as it stands is slanted towards the the wage slavery POV, but I can live with what's there now. Drop me a line if you ever need any backup on cleaning it up. Cheers, LK (talk) 16:25, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm likewise mostly just fighting fires, but I may call you on that if I decide to go for an all-out anti-POV crusade. CRGreathouse (t | c) 02:11, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Help

Hi, I'm posting this on your (and other members of the Maths Wikiproject) talk as we need editors who are knowledgeable about Mathematics to evaluate the following discussion and check out the editors and articles affected. Please follow the link below and comment if you can help.

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Block_review_-_uninvolved_admin_request.

Thankyou. Exxolon (talk) 18:15, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Sorry

Hi, and, as the title says... The main problem with removing redlinks in such contexts is that it adds one more task for interested editors to complete, after those articles exist. Now, the problem with WP:REDLINK is that it suggest I should go out on a spree and create article upon article on topics which I know (and, if challenged, could easily prove) are validated. Because the redlinks will normally result in redlinks, and those redlinks in their own redlinks etc. Either that or refrain from redlinking those terms, creating the articles as I go about, and then revisiting each and every article to make them back into links - which is quite frustrating and, well, silly.

Also, bear in mind that, just like one finds the occasional editor who claims redlinks should be removed on principle, one also finds editors who claim that article "providing insufficient context etc." should be deleted - meaning that an editor working on such obscure subjects would have to create not just articles from redlinks, but referenced and well-structured articles, all in one go (I'm all for that, but I'll only be physically able to do it in the time imagined if wikipedia starts paying and feeding me...). I think I do a lot already by researching and completing what I think are fairly good articles on people like V. A. Urechia and other topics which must be themselves obscure to many eyes; it would be exhausting and, after a while, sickening if I were to follow part of what WP:REDLINK says, especially since that part still clashes with WP:BTW. And also since those links were names of people (whom even googling would prove notable), falling under what REDLINK defines as "good redlinks", and not the likes of "a celebrity's romantic interest", "every chapter in a book" etc. That is why I reverted your edit, and sorry for losing the relevant link you changed in the process. Thanks, Dahn (talk) 14:20, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

That's fine. I wanted to point out that not all of those are good redlinks -- but I defer to your judgment on the matter, as you're closer to the subject than I am. CRGreathouse (t | c) 14:23, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

PS: I also recall that, the last times people kept implying that redlinks are bad, Jimbo Wales himself repeatedly said that this resulted from a misinterpretation. The redlinks don't "need to go" under any definition, unless you believe they are unwarranted based on some research - not some hunch. If you feel that is the case, open a discussion on the article's talk page, and I'll be happy to review and confront your arguments. Dahn (talk) 14:31, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

With this edit, I also added a few more bits to my earlier comment. They came with an edit conflict - it's easier for me to post this together with those bits than to review them. They partly do anticipate your comment. Dahn (talk) 14:31, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

As I'm not a member of Jimbo's (large!) cult of personality, I won't hold my breath for a cite on that (). But regardless, I'm ceding the task to you. I think the article is almost a poster child for WP:OVERLINK in its current form, but since I don't need to edit or read it, there's no reason it needs to bother me. CRGreathouse (t | c) 14:53, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

On the cult of personality issue: neither am I, but in this case it's the horse's mouth. I also don't understand which part of WP:OVERLINK you are referring to: nowhere does it say that one should remove valid links (you still don't contest their validity, I gather) for the sake of not having too many links, and provides no definition of too many. Since I did not link on the same words over and over again, I really don't see your "poster child" point. What I do see, and this actually within WP:OVERLINK itself, is: "Think carefully before you remove a link altogether—what may seem like an irrelevant link to you may be useful to other readers"; "Do not be afraid to create links to potential articles that do not yet exist". And, lastly, how did you assess if the article fails WP:OVERLINK and WP:REDLNK, if you say you did not in fact read it?

I don't hold you at fault for anything that happened, but I would be satisfied if you exercise more caution before editing out redlinks in the future. Thank you. Dahn (talk) 15:05, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I do contest their validity, and I have since the beginning! It's been in every edit I've made on the subject. Above, for example, I have "not all of those are good redlinks". I've never asked for good/valid/whatever links to be removed. But many of those links clearly fail the WP:REDLINK test.

I didn't say I hadn't read the article; I said I don't need to.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 15:24, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, fine, let's have it. Which of those links should not be articles, and why? Dahn (talk) 15:32, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I might remove, say, Steaua Dunării, Heraldry Society of France, Revista Contimporană, Union of Latin Students, and Alceu Urechia to start. But I'm a WP:0RR fan; you've reverted me so I'm staying clear. You can decide to delink some, all, or none of those. CRGreathouse (t | c) 15:51, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll go with none. You still have not said why. Now, I can tell you why I linked them in the first place, beyond intuitive aspects (say, the fact that, being a native Romanian, I can assess Romanian-language coverage, or that I bothered to look into them as I was writing the article). But you have not said why you think they shouldn't, just that they should, and then presented me guidelines which, when they say anything about this, it's actually that one should avoid delinking reds without some form of assessment. So, again, on what is it you based your assessment?

(I don't want to seem like I'm badgering you. If the answer is "flair", let's leave it that - just please accept my comment that flair can also fail one, but removing redlinks on an error may be very hard to fix.) Dahn (talk) 16:04, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

All I can say is that I very much disagree, and that very many of those links are non-notable, and that the article would be overlinked even if all the links were blue. I'll just try to avoid Romanian-focused articles in the future, though; it's not worth arguing over. CRGreathouse (t | c) 19:58, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Just another perspective

Of many, but one that you might find interesting. Maybe. [13] - skip sievert (talk) 00:03, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks - prod Pie method

You were certainly right about Economics being more relevant. Thanks very much I hadn't thought of it. Dmcq (talk) 09:13, 8 August 2009 (UTC)