User talk:David Eppstein/2009b

Hajnal

Dear David, I would rather just give a list of Hajnal's selected results without any justification which are important, which are not. Although this is not well represented in the scholar.google list, he has a lot of important theorems in set theory. BTW, you may not know, but currently he is at the Math Department UCIrvine, visiting Matt Foreman. You can ask him yourself. Kope (talk) 22:47, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I did know he was here — I saw him speak last week about conflict-free coloring. Ideally, per WP:RS, we should be finding published descriptions by people other than Hajnal himself explaining the significance of his results. It does not seem very informative to just say "he proved this and this and this" without motivating the reader to care about the things he proved. But perhaps that would go against his own philosophy — in his talk last week he joked about the problem of conflict-free coloring (in finite graphs) being initially studied due to some practical applications in wireless communication, but that he was looking at transfinite versions of it precisely to avoid having any such motivation. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:10, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

PS your addition to one of the results, that this was the motivation for Shelah to invent pcf theory, is exactly the sort of justification I was hoping for. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:25, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Ambiguity

You wrote:

If any line parallel to these two lines intersects both regions in subsets of equal length,

That could mean

If it is the case that any line at all, no matter which one you choose, that is parallel to these two lines, intersects both regions in subsets of equal length,

But it could mean

If there is any line parallel to these two lines that intersects both regions in subsets of equal length,

and that's quite a different thing!

Obviously you meant the former, not the latter. I changed "any" to "every", which is unambiguous. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:44, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the fix. I agree that your change is a clear improvement. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:48, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

DYK nomination of Rado graph

Hello! Your submission of Rado graph at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and there still are some issues that may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! NuclearWarfare _(Talk) 19:14, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Your revision of Graph isomorphism

Hi,

You could not find any better algorithm for practical usage in organic chemistry. Why you deleted only one possible algorithm?--Tim32 (talk) 23:11, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Dr. Thomas T. Goldsmith's death

Hi, I noted that you'd been working on Dr. Goldsmith's entry concerning his reported death. I was able to find an obituary from the newspaper in Olympia, WA which confirms his death. I'm a novice at editing Wikipedia entries, and couldn't immediately figure out how to cite a footnote properly. I did provide a link in the edited text to that obit, so if you could modify this into a normal footnote and remove the category of "living persons" at the bottom, it would clean up this entry. Thanks! Purdy13 (talk) 01:04, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for the reference! —David Eppstein (talk) 01:08, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, David. I appreciate your SPEEDY help! Purdy13 (talk) 01:35, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Warned Tim32

I have warned Tim32 about adding a reference to his own work to Graph isomorphism. I perceive that this is the final warning that is needed before issuing a block. EdJohnston (talk) 03:23, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

• You used absurd reason, because "Using material you yourself have written or published is allowed" WP:COI
• You could not find any better algorithm for practical usage in organic chemistry. Why you deleted only one possible algorithm?--Tim32 (talk) 11:52, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

• Tim, PLease see WP:TE. Along with your sustained bias, haranguing people on their talk page is also a symptom. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:16, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks David for interesting link. At the same time, note please you did not answer my questions here -- it is also a symptom :)--Tim32 (talk) 22:27, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Rado graph

On March 13, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Rado graph, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Gatoclass (talk) 11:17, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Equitable coloring

On March 13, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Equitable coloring, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Royalbroil 23:32, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

DYK nomination of Hadwiger conjecture (combinatorial geometry)

Hello! Your submission of Hadwiger conjecture (combinatorial geometry) at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and there still are some issues that may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 17:37, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Zuniga etc.

Oh, wonderful. This is why I've been avoiding tinkering with pictures on here for as long as I have - it's damn near impossible to get something usable as illustration. Sorry if I sound a bit bitter, but...well, I understand the need to follow the law, but I've never been pleased with the way images are handled here. There has to be some way around the issue. --User:AlbertHerring ^{Io son l'orecchio e tu la bocca: parla!} 01:45, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I know, it's a problem. In this case, though, I think there is a way: find an artwork of his in another country and find someone there to photograph it. Unfortunately, the existence of such a possibility, difficult as it may be to carry out, makes it even more difficult to come up with a viable fair-use rationale... —David Eppstein (talk) 01:47, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah. I'm in the mood to just say the hell with it, honestly. Let somebody else worry about these niceties. Especially because the sculpture's part of a Smithsonian collection; I don't see why the Smithsonian can't be considered public domain, as it's basically a government organization. Unless...I don't suppose {{pd-art}} would work, would it? --User:AlbertHerring ^{Io son l'orecchio e tu la bocca: parla!} 01:53, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I doubt that one would help. It's about out-of-copyright 2d artworks, neither of which applies. According to the article, there's some of his art in Toronto, though — so the next time you're traveling there... —David Eppstein (talk) 02:06, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

The rate I'm going, that won't be for another ten years or so. :-) --User:AlbertHerring ^{Io son l'orecchio e tu la bocca: parla!} 02:08, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd meant to thank you for that, incidentally - sorry for not getting to it sooner. I had the same experience with an article about an Estonian journalist I created recently...it is frustrating that there appear to be people out there who would rather go and delete something instead of expanding on it. Grr. --User:AlbertHerring ^{Io son l'orecchio e tu la bocca: parla!} 05:43, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Bot Problem

Hi, I will correcting the problem comming soon. Regards. NobelBot (talk) 07:13, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Frauds, myths and mysteries

Good work in finding that. I'm wondering if I should shell out and buy the latest edition or if it hasn't changed much. dougweller (talk) 18:51, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Hadwiger conjecture (combinatorial geometry)

On March 16, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Hadwiger conjecture (combinatorial geometry), which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Dravecky (talk) 02:33, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Re: Unicodes

Whoops, sorry about that. I guess the Wiki-editing tool that I was using must have done that. Thanks for the warning, it won't happen again. Quanticle (talk) 03:21, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

The Motley Moose

Hey, I wanted to thank you for your input on the AfD discussion- and especially for looking at the revision I posted. The "coatrack" argument you noted was addressed earlier on with a timeline for verification it's not an example of that; but about personal judgment, and I respect your opinion, no matter what it is. However, for my own future reference, could you suggest ways to improve the sources listed, or what you wouldn't find notable and why, so I can address that in future articles? Thanks. Ks64q2 (talk) 05:19, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I think it would greatly improve the sourcing to remove all non-reliable sources (mostly political blogs of whatever flavor) and all sources that don't specifically mention the Motley Mouse. As it is, especially in your preferred version, one sees a mess of non-reliable sources and is left with the impression that they're all non-reliable. If the removal of non-reliable sources also leads to the removal of content from the article that has no reliable sources, so much the better. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:23, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Some people have suggested the blog links were notable, some haven't. For instance, the DailyKos one was a link from the admins of that site that scooped an article of the blog in question; it was subject to several million page hits (as this was in September of last year, so very contentious during the election), and was one of the "biggest" articles on that site for the entire election season. This would seem notable to me; however, obviously, there's differing opinions here. For the cites towards the notable contributors, you'd suggest deleting those? Actually, that's a good question- I'm a part of WP:BLOG, and I see that frequently; indeed, it's been used for "Keep" arguments in other articles. I guess it's frustrating for me to see one consensus one place under these circumstances, and a different one another place, seemingly arbitrarily. In any case, again, I appreciate your feedback... I see your history with Wikipedia makes me the electronic version of a toddler, so I appreciate the advice. Heh. Thanks! Ks64q2 (talk) 05:27, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

The question isn't whether they're notable, it's whether they're reliable. Self-published sources can only be considered reliable if they're published by an expert and concern non-controversial factual material; I think everything in this article counts in some sense as controversial. So while it may make sense to include those links, they should not be formatted to look like references and they should not be used to justify claims made within the article. Put them in an external links section, separate from the references section, if you must keep them. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:30, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

That's actually a great idea, thank you. I really wish someone had pointed this out to me before the AfD, of course, and before the article was edited so drastically. Ugh, the way the discourse in there has become so ugly churns my stomach. If I had known that this is what I'd wreak, I would have thought twice about creating this article. Good God. And to think, I've got 200+ blog entries sitting unassessed in the WP:BLOG project- my God, I could have the whole thing done with all of this work! :) Anyway, thanks again! Ks64q2 (talk) 05:34, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Then you should treat people with courtesy and respect rather than spend all day on ad hominems. Good God! You have 200+ blog entries to work on instead of attacking the motives of multiple different editors. What's keeping you?Bali ultimate (talk) 06:02, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Please, Bali, let's not expand your squabbling to my talk page. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:16, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Sir, I'm sorry to bother you again, but I made the changes you suggested- and they were deleted by user "Bali ultimate". I'm not sure how I'm supposed to respond to this. Any suggestions you can make would be appreciated. Thank you. Ks64q2 (talk) 06:34, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Discuss it on the article talk page and attempt to persuade enough other editors of the article that the changes are an improvement that you can get them to stick without running afoul of WP:3RR?

Combinatorial game theory and game theory

Hi David, I was wondering if you had some time to peruse Talk:Game_theory#Revert_.233. An editor there is making assertions I can't reconcile with what I know about the relationship between game theory and combinatorial game theory. I think he's saying that they are the same thing, just called by different names. In any case, you know far more about combinatorial game theory than I do (because I know nothing about it). If you could cast some light, I'd be grateful, I could always do with learning something new. Cheers. Pete.Hurd (talk) 06:43, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

thanks. Pete.Hurd (talk) 17:12, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

DRV

I have opened a DRV on the wrangler categories, on which you commented earlier (in WP:Maths talk). Occuli (talk) 13:58, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

DYK for János Apáczai Csere

On March 25, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article János Apáczai Csere, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Dravecky (talk) 02:25, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Need verification of formulæ

Hi, could you help verify the volume and surface area formulæ on Pyramid (geometry)? I think they look right, but I just want to make sure. Thanks!—Tetracube (talk) 21:53, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

harassment on my talkpage

Apparently admin User:Good Olfactory has gotten a bee in his/her bonnet due to my recent recreation of the senior wrangler category. S/he is demanding "reassurances" on my future behavior, as if I was obligated to do so, and has not so subtly implied that blocks are contingent on my remarks. I don't think this is very serious, otherwise I would report it on a noticeboard, but I hope you can make a comment in his/her direction that repeated attempts to demand "reassurances" on my talk page are not welcome or in line with acceptable wiki-etiquette. --C S (talk) 04:29, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi again. User:jc37 is now accusing me of "forum shopping" for asking for your assistance on getting Good Olfactory to stop leaving me messages on my talk page. --C S (talk) 05:53, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Probably best just to work on other things, wait for the fuss to die down, and stop trying to make a point by recreating the category while there's still an ongoing DRV. There's no hurry, is there? —David Eppstein (talk) 06:19, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

They seemed to have stopped, so no intervention is needed probably. But this is not about the DRV or category which I don't much care about. This is about somebody (Good Olfactory) coming to harass me on my talk page by making repeated demands for "reassurance". I don't believe this is right or that s/he has the authority to demand promises of my future behavior. Nor do I appreciate jc37 accusing me of "forum shopping" (I have no idea how that even applies here) because I will not put up with the harassment. If they continue harassing me, I'll find another admin who will take appropriate action. Thanks for your time. --C S (talk) 06:49, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, jc37 is now repeatedly trying to post to my talk page after having been told s/he is not welcome. Since you seem unwillingly to do anything, I will be posting to AN/I. --C S (talk) 06:53, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I initially dropped User:C S a note to let him know why I deleted the category and that it wasn't a good idea to pre-empt the process, because it could result in getting blocked. I assumed it was done in ignorance, but he said he did it deliberately to circumvent the process, so I sought some sort of reassurance that he understood that doing so again in the future would not be acceptable (which has apparently been misunderstood as a threat). He obviously found my comments annoying so he deleted my comments from his page, alleged I was harassing him, etc. I see another admin has recently got the same treatment from him. Apparently he's been offended that his actions have been criticised, but I see no real need to spread the issue beyond those directly involved. Unless of course you want to be involved, David. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 06:55, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Not especially. I continue to think that the best course of action for all three of you would be to take a step back and stop escalating the pointless drama. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:56, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Atm, I'm contemplating AN/I myself.

Right now, I'm not thrilled with "some" of my comments being removed. Either they remove them all from their talk page, or none.

That said, I'd rather not escalate this either, since I'd like to think that this is merely a case of despondence, and not an actual attempt to disrupt. (Though, as I noted on their talk page, my good faith is evaporating rapidly.)

You help in resolving this would be welcome. - jc37 07:08, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Would having three admins leaving comments on his talk page asking him to calm down work any better than two? Anyway, C S is most of the time a valuable mathematics editor; my trust in his good faith is unshaken. But we've all been through times when the Wikipedia bureaucracy makes a decision that seems stupid and we wish we could just be bold and unilaterally fix it; I think that's all that's going on here, and that adding more warnings and more demands for contrition is just counterproductive. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:11, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

(ec) - I have to say that it's simply no fair for you to make me laugh when "This iz serious bizniz" (as they say at AN/I).

I could almost see you raising one eyebrow as you said that : )

Anyway, no. My suggested resolution would be for someone to simply remove all my comments. (As restoring them would seem more likely to exacerbate the situation.) I'd just rather prefer to see someone else do it, merely because of trying to avoid the "appearance" of fostering more seeming petulence.

Having said that, perhaps AN/I is the next best course, since this really does involve more than just editing other editors comments (the recreation, etc.)

I dunno. I tend to prefer to inform and suggest caution than take action/effect sanction.

Anyway, your thoughts would be most welcome. - jc37 07:22, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

(Second response, since you expanded beyond the first sentence.) - I weakly agree, while merely pointing at my concerns noted above. Your further thoughts still welcome. - jc37 07:23, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I think it goes beyond the re-creation issue, which is really a spent issue and merely the incident that began the real problems. I mean, had he simply just said, "OK, thanks for letting me know," in response to my first posting, there would have been no drama at all. But he posted a very confrontational response to my initial posting—basically he said he didn't care about the WP process and that he was glad he subverted it—which does tend to make one sit up and take notice and wonder else the user has in mind. I tried to make a joke with him about his not caring about being banned, and he apparently interpreted it as a threat. Of course, everyone can respond negatively from time to time when you run into an editor that rubs you the wrong way (I certainly have), and perhaps I did to him. So I was willing to let the matter drop after he deleted my comments for the third time. But then he essentially treated jc37 the same way—with complete disrespect and without any recognition that an inquring editor might have a valid point. And it it's terribly bad form for him to be removing parts of our respective thread discussions on his page. I've no problem if he wants to delete them all—I'll simply archive it at my page. I don't doubt his good faith to want to improve WP, but in my opinion he's demonstrating little that can support an assumption of good faith in his desire to be nice and treat other users and their opinions with respect. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 08:37, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I saw your effort at User talk:C S and that you were rebuffed as well. Thanks for the attempt, David. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 20:37, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

(De-dent) - I have removed my comments from the talk page there. (As it is clear that the user has read them by now.)

If he restores only part of the thread (part of my comments in total), which would (once again) place him contrary to policy, then I will indeed be escalating this. WP:AN/I looking for another WP:3PO, being the first step of the WP:DR. - jc37 01:04, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Objective opinion on two more category deletions?

If you have a moment to go over this material, I'd like your opinion on these. I pinged DGG as well but really wanted to get at least two impartial opinions before I move forward. I'm currently drafting the DRV for these and hope to have it ready in a day or two.
The categories involved are Category:Wikipedians who use irssi and Category:Wikipedians who use mIRC. I finished reworking them on March 25th and the very next day Killiondude attempted to have them deleted while working a WP:UCFD backlog. There had been a proposal to delete and upmerge these to Category:Wikipedians who use IRC on UCFD in Dec 2008. The UCFD discussion was started on December 21, 2008 and closed January 13, 2009 and had a total of two "votes"; one as the nominator and one "per nom". (The nominator, VegaDark now also wants to merge/delete Category:Wikipedians who use XChat [1] which I just finished rebuilding after it was undeleted.)
Resulting discussion took place on Black Falcon's talk page and then picked back up on my talk page. There was also some related discussion on Killiondude's talk page, ABCD's talk page, and MBisanz's talk page.
--Tothwolf (talk) 05:24, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

There isn't anything obviously problematic about the close of the UCFD, that I can see. Participation is light but that seems to be typical for that kind of discussion. So I'm guessing this would be a "new information has come to light since the previous discussion" type DRV, rather than one complaining about the previous process? But I'm not seeing a lot of new information in the threads you link to. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:37, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I wish it were that simple. There are all sorts of issues with this UCfD, which is why it has been very difficult to draft the DRV itself. I know from experience if I don't cover everything people will try to poke holes in anything that isn't covered.

I can't really fault the closing admin because he was just trying to follow consensus. I still have to question if consensus was ever even established here though due to the type of participation. The "voting" that took place was from the nominator himself and one other editor, which when reviewing the edit history seemed to vote to delete nearly everything that passed through UCfD at the time.

There is also the question of how long this particular UCFD discussion was open. Had it been closed at the appropriate time the only "vote" would have been the nominator.

• 2008-12-21 – opened
• 2008-12-21 – nominator, merge/delete
• 2009-01-06 – "per nom", merge/delete
• 2009-01-13 – closed

For new information, at the time of the UCfD the categories were pretty much empty. They only had a handful of users in them because the mIRC and IRC userbox templates had been stripped of their category code on 2007-10-27 [2] [3] and the irssi category wasn't even listed in the parent category where people could find the category and userbox.

When this came up on Black Falcon's talk page VegaDark then said he would have nominated them for deletion anyway and stated "there is no encyclopedia-benefiting purpose for distinguishing users who use mIRC vs. those who simply using IRC in general via a category" IMO this reasoning is flawed as a client like irssi is completely different from mIRC. A user familiar with one of these if not already familiar with the other would have great difficulty in trying to use the other client and a user of one would not really be able to offer advice to the user of the other. Commands are not the same, the user interfaces are completely different, and scripts are not compatible. mIRC is a Windows based GUI client and irssi is a text based Unix-compatible client. A good analogy might be like trying to lump say Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X into the same category because they both have a GUI interface, then throwing MSDOS into the same category because they are all operating systems, and then claiming a user of any one of these operating systems would be able to help and offer advice to users who use one of the other operating systems.

--Tothwolf (talk) 08:09, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Chvatal's graph

Thanks. I had met him around 1978 in India or Japan in a conference or in a college. --Athos, Porthos, and Aramis (talk) 21:09, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. I'm working now on a separate article on the graph; I think there's plenty of material for one. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:18, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

your edit to my talk page

I was reminded of your edit to my talk page today, since jc37 reported me to AN/I for my refusal to let him alter my talk page. There seems little point in asking why you did what you did (since you never bothered explaining), but let me say this: sure, I could bend over for jc37 and let him have his way (unreasonable though it may be), but I chose not to. If you wanted to convince me otherwise, you were perfectly welcome and capable of engaging in discussion with me. But you chose not to, instead making an unapproved edit to my talk page. I won't hold it against you, but I sincerely hope you realize it was inappropriate. --C S (talk) 11:33, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

You did see the long discussion two sections up on this page, right? You needed calming down, because you and the other two admins were getting all upset with each other over something completely pointless. It didn't seem likely that adding a third voice to the warnings on your talk page would help. But jc37 suggested removing his warning, since that was one of the things that was inflaming the situation and since he didn't want to do it himself for some reason. Obviously, it didn't work to calm the situation down but I thought it worth a try. —David Eppstein (talk) 14:12, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

(Not to interrupt - just to clarify: I eventually did try - and removed only my own post - and was reverted with a threat of being blocked.) - jc37 16:06, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

• User talk:SlumdogAramis —Preceding undated comment added 19:34, 4 April 2009 (UTC).

Sharon Drost

You missed the minor detail that the papers are old student work, not even in her field. DGG (talk) 01:52, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Hello Sir

Being a renown Computer Scientist, this fellow computer science/business undergraduate asks you your advice. Which major would you recommend? I love to travel and work with computers. Is there anything you can recommend me? And sorry for posting such a random question. Have a good day! --DarkKunai (talk) 04:03, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

The short answer is that for a lot of purposes it doesn't matter which major you pick, as long as you get a degree in something appropriately technical (there are exceptions — if you want to be a premed you need to take a certain set of courses, etc). So pick what you want to do rather than what you think someone else would want you to do. My own undergraduate major was in mathematics. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:06, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

aliquot parts

David, my repeated attempts, as you call them, fairly reports Ahmes use of divisors of a scaled rational number, such as 51 2/n table entries, and all other rational number conversions. An outline of aliquot parts was reported in 1895 by F. Hultsch, and independently confirmed by E.M. Bruins in 1944. The precise method was not fully published until 2006, an oddity that a July 27-29 conference in Mainz, Germany is working on, and weights and measures issues, in terms of Egyptian, Babylonian and Greek interdisciplinary presenters (as cited on the math forum) -http://mathforum.org/kb/thread.jspa?threadID=1916972&tstart=0. One paragraph presented as an introduction to the conference may ring a bell in all of our heads: "Translations are directly affected by respective cultural beliefs of the translator. How then can ancient concepts that differ from our modern ones be expressed in modern languages? And how can these differences be understood by a modern reader? Currently, some translations which are likely to mislead a historian of science, a scientist or a mathematician may still be accepted as correct by the philologists of the individual cultures."

Best Regards, Milogardner (talk) Milo Gardner, 4/8/09

Math bios discussion

Hi David, I certainly did not mean to exclude the usual two or three people — as a matter of fact, I decided not to summarize your comments I'd seen before at various AfD discussions in my list since I expected that you would speak for yourself. The issues of notability versus verifiability that you've mentioned deserve expounding upon: many people are not familiar with the distinction, all too frequently we ignore verifiability/secondary sources part of the equation and, I feel, we do it at our own peril. Concerning the proper venue: WP:PROF seems to be too general to be useful, since it tries to include artists and musicians, for example, where clearly there is little common ground with the sciences. On the other hand, I think that there is a reasonable chance to reach consensus in mathematical contexts. It is almost an axiom that outsiders will not bother writing biographies of mathematicians, so we should develop guidelines that we find appropriate. If we manage to hammer out a good set of criteria within our Wikiproject, I expect that it would be applicable more broadly (and may even be adapted by others), but this may spare us unnecessary "catch-all" discussions. Cheers, Arcfrk (talk) 04:20, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Proofs on Wikipedia?

There seems to be some disagreement about whether proofs belong on Wikipedia (see another proposal discussion). Is there a way to resolve this issue before I create subpages with proofs on them? Dnessett (talk) 15:33, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Feeling Wikihounded

There is a user User:Gandalf61 on classical hamiltonian quaternions who is wikihounding me. He seems to have the same aim as another user that was wikihounding me before that suddenly disappeared when he appeared.

He has a long history of deleting text on the subject of Hamilton's thinking on quaternions.

These include proposing the article Classical Hamiltonian Quaternions for deletion. Proposing the article history of quaternions for deletion.

After the article Classical Hamiltonian Quaternions was kept, he then proposed to delete two of its sub articles, tensor of a quaternion and vector of a quaternion. Deleting this content has a somewhat disruptive effect on the article. He frequently introduces factual errors, and deletes citations to page scans of 19th century texts what it takes a lot of work to research.

Another of his recent antics is to change the opening statement of the article on a daily basis, in stealth attempt to change what the article is about.

He also has removed the sections on cardinal and ordinal operators.

Another administrator suggested that I contact you on this subject.

Homebum (talk) 21:51, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

This is related to discussions such as the ones at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive 45#Category:Historical treatment of quaternions, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive 47#AfD for "History of quaternions", and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive 47#The vector of a quaternion, not to mention Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/History of quaternions, right? The general consensus there seemed to be that these pages were filled with nonsense and original research. Is that the text Gandalf61 has been deleting, or is this in some other context? If the former, then it seems he is making a positive contribution; you should not feel ownership of text you have written here to the point that you feel offended when others change it. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:06, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for making me aware of these discussions. However these articles were proposed for deletion and the overwhelming consensus was keep. The concern now is that after an agreement was reached that there should be an article and what the article should contain, the introductory paragraph explaining what the article is about is being changed by the very same people who seem to want the entire article suppressed.

Please do not misinterpret "keep" as a mandate for keeping the articles the way they were. That was clearly not the sense of the discussion. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:38, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Not really the issue here. The present concern, is changing the agreed upon topic of the article. Sadly I am getting the feeling that my feelings that I am being wiki-hounded are not going to be addressed. That is unfortunate, for the health of the community, but there are other tactics for dealing with cyber-bullies. I am actually more used to open forums anyway, so if the record shows that you were ask to help but declined, I suppose I can move on, with the issue that I feel hounded unresolved.Homebum (talk) 05:18, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Speaking of stalking, I am sure he means well, but some times User talk:C S, types some stuff that seems a little creepy. Like we all know who you are... which when I first read it, made me think he was peaking in my windows or something. Perhaps some patient re-education on how these remarks are being taken would be helpful. Homebum (talk) 18:32, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Homeopathy warning template that you attached to article Serratiopeptidase

I'd appreciate it if you could indicate what was the rationale for attaching the 'homeopathy warning' template to the talk page of the article Serratiopeptidase (that is, if you are still of the opinion that the notice should remain). I inferred from the history that it was you who took that action: if I misinterpreted that, I'd appreciate your letting me know.

It's not apparent what the Serratiopeptidase article has to do with homeopathy. This is because homeopathy, as described by its Wikipedia article, essentially has to do with medical treatments using heavily diluted preparations created from substances that would ordinarily cause effects similar to the disease's symptoms. By contrast, the Serratiopeptidase article has to do with a biological preparation of a particular proteolytic enzyme. This is the subject of some controversy about any medical efficacy it may have. Equally, the current text of the article may be susceptible of extensive criticisms on various grounds. But no doubt has been expressed that the material, for what it may be worth, is intended to be applied in realistic amounts related to its proteolytic activity.

These considerations appear to show that there is no connection between serratiopeptidase and homeopathy, and (apart from your addition of the template notice) I have heard of none.

Some recent discussion has taken place about the article, and it is possible that some further steps may be taken to bring it more into the category of reliable encyclopedia articles, either alone, or merged with some other articles on proteases in medicine.

Given these explanations, would you be content with removal of the apparently irrelevant homeopathy notice? If not content, an indication of rationale is requested. With good wishes, Terry0051 (talk) 11:01, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

[I should have added that the parts of the existing article that might be salvaged are unrelated to the (unsubstantiated and unreferenced) mention of homeopathy in the opening text. None of the references that I have seen, that could amount to a support for suitably encyclopedic statements, appear to mention homeopathy. Terry0051 (talk) 17:12, 15 April 2009 (UTC)]

Thanks for your action: that's an encouragement to try and do something useful about it. Terry0051 (talk) 18:49, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Herchel Smith Professorship of Pure Mathematics

David, I tagged this as possibly not notable, but you know more about this subject than I do. Perhaps you can have a look and either prod or remove the notability tag. Wim --Crusio (talk) 13:51, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

New Thought on your self-containment concern about proofs

I have added a new response to your comment about self-containment of proofs. I am leaving you this message, since the new response is in the middle of the section (so it is its proper context) devoted to the Strum-Liouville proposal and you might miss it. Here is a link to the proposal discussion. Proposal link Dnessett (talk) 20:29, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Group families

May or may not be of interest to you. Cheers. ChildofMidnight (talk) 01:28, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, looks like it needs help. I at least added enough categories to get it to show up on the new math articles list where others with more expertise in that area are likely to see it. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:44, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Tutte polynomial

Hi david. I think that you are wrong with the observation that the polynomial evaluated in (0,-1) is the number of acyclic orientations of a graph. I suppose that we agree that this number is $\chi (G,-1)$ where $\chi (G,x)$ is the chromatical polynomial. Then as $<math>T_{G}(x,0)=\chi (1-x,0)$ the point must be (2,0) instead of (0,-1). You can see it in algebraic graph theory of Biggs.

Thanks for you atention! --G.perarnau (talk) 11:43, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

And thanks for the correction. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:11, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Kajmakčalan/Kaimakchalan

I can see the logic of your decision for a speedy close of the AFD. However after the resolution of the ARBCOM case I fully intend to redirect the duplicate article. Thank you for your input. PMK1 (talk) 12:40, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree that one of the duplicates should be redirected to the other; my close was only because of the arbcom injunction. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:04, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kaimakchalan

You closed this pending a decision by the Arbitration Committee. Can you give me a link to the case in question? I am unable to find it. -- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 21:27, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Notification of injunction relating to Macedonia 2. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:33, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Following what seemed to be consensus at the Arb noticeboard, I have merged the two articles. No opinion about what the best title would be; it could well be that English has some common use preference that differs from either language's official transliteration rules. The issue doesn't seem to be politically charged in any way related to our present wiki disputes, just an orthographical conventions thing. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:52, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:PROF

I think you were active in the major update of WP:PROF last year. Was it really the intention at the time that every university president is notable as an academic, as footnote 13 seems to suggest? I have always viewed those positions as administrative, rather than academic. I'm interested to understand the opinions behind that footnote better. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:09, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't remember the reasoning that went into that one; probably in part it's intended to shortcut discussions regarding easy keeps and in part to forestall arguments that being head of a lab or a department is a high enough post to be notable per se. It's certainly not the intention to suggest that university presidents must automatically have notable research publications. But they're still intimately involved in academia, so I think as an academic applies to their administrative roles. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:43, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

The issue I ran into is the article Charles Kegel. There is some web page with slightly more information [4], but nothing I see so far suggests that Kegel's academic career was particularly notable. The first paragraph of WP:PROF, and the "more notable than the average professor" rule, suggest that WP:PROF is meant to be about engagement with academic research, but footnote 13 seems to contradict this. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:59, 23 April 2009 (UTC)