User talk:David Eppstein/2012c

DYK for Double bubble conjecture

Graeme Bartlett (talk) 16:03, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

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Taxicab geometry

David,

I wanted to discuss the change I made and you undid on the Taxicab geometry page. You said, in your update comment, that my change "misses the point". I disagree or maybe I just don't understand what you meant.

The caption to the picture is clearly incorrect. It says "Taxicab geometry versus Euclidean distance: In taxicab geometry all four pictured lines have the same length (12) for the same route. In Euclidean geometry, the green line has length 6×√2 ≈ 8.48, and is the unique shortest path." [emphasis added].

Note that the green line in the picture clearly is not length 12. Note also that the green line is not the "same length" as the other three lines. This is made clear by the final sentence of the caption which says that the green line is length 8.48, showing that the Euclidean distance is shorter than the Taxicab distance.

I would also draw your attention to the default description of the graphic which says "Figure illustrating Manhattan verses Euclidean distance. The red, blue, and yellow lines all have the same length (12), whereas the green line has length ${\sqrt {72}}\approx 8.4853$." This again makes the distinction between the three lines of equal length (red, blue, yellow) and the green line that is shorter.

I believe that my original edit was correct in amending the caption to reflect the fact the three of the lines are of length 12 while one line, the green one, is shorter. Please help me understand how this is incorrect or misses the point.

Thanks,

- James

James (talk) 19:34, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

The green line has length 12 in taxicab geometry. If you do not understand this then you do not understand the subject of the article and should not be editing it. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:43, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't disagree that I don't fully understand the subject, that's why I was reading the page in the first place. Given that the article, in theory, should be directed at those who don't understand the subject, I would argue that my misunderstanding of the caption should be evidence that the article itself needs to be rewritten or expanded to explain to us (who don't understand, including the author of the graphic apparently) why a line of length 8.48 is actually a line of length 12. --James (talk) 19:59, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Because the whole point of taxicab geometry is that it's a different way of measuring distances. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:55, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

So, what you intended to say, as I interpret it, is that the taxicab distance between two points is always the same. The red, yellow, and blue lines demonstrate that no matter how you 'drive' from point A to point B, it will be the same distance (the sum of the absolute value of the difference in the point coordinates: $abs(Ax-Bx)+abs(Ay-By)$). The original author of the graph you are using was trying to illustrate that the taxicab distance is longer than the Euclidean distance (represented by the green line). Therefore, I would maintain that while the taxicab distance between the two points in the graph is indeed always 12, the length of the green line is, in fact, 8.48 and represents the Euclidean distance. The green line clearly violates the axioms of taxicab geometry because it is not orthogonal to the coordinate axis. Therefore, it cannot be thought of as graphically representing the taxicab distance between the two points. Other sites I've looked at seem to share this view of such graphs (e.g. http://jwilson.coe.uga.edu/EMAT6680Fa06/Sexton/GeoFinalProject/Taxicab/Distance.html, http://mathworld.wolfram.com/TaxicabMetric.html, http://library.thinkquest.org/06aug/02430/, http://www.taxicabgeometry.net/general/basics.html, http://www.newyorkgeek.com/2011/08/pre-boarding-manhattan-distance-and-graph-theory/, etc.). I fact, I've not found a single site that considers the equivalent of the green line in the drawing to represent the taxicab distance. If you can find another site that does so, I'd love to see it. --James (talk) 18:04, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Not quite. It is true that as long as your path doesn't double back on itself in either the east-west direction or the north-south direction then its length is equal to the taxicab distance. But really, what I meant is that the length of a curve needs to be defined carefully (as is done in arc length) and when you do this careful definition using taxicab distance you find that the length of the green curve is 12. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:11, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Re: "as long as your path doesn't double back on itself" ... good clarification. But, back to the point of the original post, I think that the current caption for the graph is, at best, misleading. The apparent graphical length of the green line does not represent the Manhattan distance of 12. Instead, it represents the Euclidean distance and was clearly intended by the original author to demonstrate the difference between the two measurement methods. I think the caption should reflect this reality. I don't think that the current caption helps people reading the article understand the subject better (in fact, it makes it more confusing). If we can't come to agreement, how do we resolve this? Public discussion? Arbitration? Being a new contributor to Wikipedia, I'm unfamiliar with the appropriate resolution protocol. --James (talk) 19:22, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

My guess at an appropriate resolution for this would be: find references on and add material to the article concerning how one goes about calculating arc length in taxicab geometry, so that the correctness of the existing caption would become more obvious to readers of the article. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:09, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Since you don't want to take the time to explain your position or site any references (and I can't find any that support your position), and you obviously don't intend to allow me to make any significant edits to the page to correct the misleading caption perhaps you would consider altering the article to make it more clear. I found the following description in the talk page for the article in question in the Biangles section. "You can visualize why the green line has length twelve by imagining that it zig-zags like the blue line, and then mentally decreasing the size of the zig-zags and seeing how it gets closer and closer to the path of the line without changing its length. However, the actual line doesn't zig-zag. It is a unique straight line connecting the points, but has a length defined on metric that behaves as if it were composed of microscopic zig-zags." I think something along this line would help people to better understand what you are intending with your caption. --James (talk) 23:02, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

It's not that I don't want to take the time; it's that the explanation I would give you is essentially already present in arc length. I don't like the talk page description because you could apply the same thought experiment in Euclidean geometry but it gives the wrong answer there. This and this look like they might also be relevant as references. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:36, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dan Martin (academic)

Hi David, I made a discovery that Dan Martin has recently been given a named chair and the permanent position as CMU's Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts (it's a college deanship equivalent to Vice Provost most places since there are five schools the report, with departments inside them). I wonder if you'd consider at least the named chair to satisfy PROF#C5? Thanks, -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 19:44, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Will the Circle Be Unbroken

In modern music, the twelve notes of the octave are equally space around the chromatic circle. This circle thus circumscribes four equilateral triangles with vertices among the notes. Each such triangle specifies the successive open-strings of a major-thirds tuning.

Hi David!

You did nice work on this graphic. I've used it on 3 articles so far: guitar tunings, major-thirds tuning, and augmented-fourths tuning.

(I might use it on minor-thirds tuning, but that seems to have been used by only William Sethares's guide on alternative tunings. Sethares's BLP could use work.)

Best regards, Kiefer.Wolfowitz 21:11, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, glad to hear it's being useful. The actual design was from an earlier image, File:Pitchclassspace.png, though — all I did was redraw it with some cosmetic changes. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:17, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Geometry of repetitive, regular guitar-tunings

FYI, David. :)

• 
  A line segment bisecting the chromatic circle specifies an augmented-fourths (tritone) tuning.
• 
  An equilateral triangle circumscribed by the chromatic circle specifies a major-thirds tuning.
• 
  A square circumscribed by the chromatic circle specifies a minor-thirds tuning.

These were created by editor Hyacinth. :) Kiefer.Wolfowitz 12:13, 26 July 2012 (UTC) Kiefer.Wolfowitz 12:13, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Another bouquet from the Hyacinth hothouse:

• 
  All-fourths tuning
• 
  All-fifths tuning
• 
  New standard tuning: California guitarists drop acid every gig.

Notice the duplication of the graphs for all-fourths and all-fifths tuning. Can you guess why?

Answer
The labeling is correct. The all-fourths and all-fifths tunings are lefty-righty inversions in which the order of the path is reversed. Maybe Hyacinth shall replace the graph with a directed graph?

Cheers! Kiefer.Wolfowitz 08:03, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Dudley triangle

I'm seeing a big red TeX error after your recent edit which I can't see how to correct. Is it possible that it's my browser, or maybe a small typo somewhere in there?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 02:28, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

I see the error as well, but only when I use Internet Explorer as an anonymous user. (When logged into my account through IE, the article displays correctly.) The error message says: "Failed to parse (PNG conversion failed; check for correct installation of latex and dvipng (or dvips + gs + convert)): " Might this be an issue for the Wikipedia:Village pump? Justin W Smith (talk) 02:35, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Super weird, because I'm using firefox 14.0.1 and I'm logged in. That's the error I see, though.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 02:39, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

I see the same big red error not logged in (Safari under OS X) but it renders fine using MathJax when I'm logged in. Maybe it indicates an incomparibility between MathJax and the LaTeX/dvipng support? —David Eppstein (talk) 02:42, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

same problem for me (chrome, logged in) Sasha (talk) 02:43, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

But on the other hand, Wythoff array, which has almost identical formatting, renders ok for me either way. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:44, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Peculiarer and peculiarer; me too.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 03:08, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

It appears that at most 10 columns are supported with dvipng.

${\begin{matrix}&&&&&2&&&&\\&&&&2&&2&&&\\&&&2&&1&&2&&\\&&2&&0&&0&&2&\\&2&&6&&5&&6&&2\\&&&&&\vdots &&&&\\\end{matrix}}$

This renders fine for me as an anonymous user (except it's missing the last two rows from the original). Justin W Smith (talk) 04:09, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

That works for me too; I went ahead and stuck it in the article.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 04:27, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, all. Given the choice between the poor formatting of most of the other triangle of numbers articles, the error on the big triangle here, or the smaller triangle formatted nicely for everyone, I think this is the right way to go. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:18, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Re white spaces

With respect I for one find it a lot easier to read the material with the white spaces - at least while in edit mode. Your mileage may differ. DrMicro (talk) 19:11, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

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Stefan Banach

Hi, I would really like to bring Stefan Banach up to at least GA level and you've been involved in the article in the past, so this is a request for help. Right now, my sense of it is that the article does a pretty good job of providing an overview of Banach's life but is very weak on what his actual contributions to mathematics were. I've began working on the appropriate section but it really has been awhile since I've dealt with this stuff myself so a pair of eyes double checking (if not actively contributing - please do if you can) this expansion would be much appreciated. Thanks! 00:07, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

It's not really the kind of mathematics I know very well, but I left a note on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics asking for help. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:12, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! VolunteerMarek 01:31, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Prod

Northcott's Nim has been PRODed. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:40, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

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Matroids – Thanks!

David – Thanks for your work expanding wikipedia's coverage of matroids! This has been sorely needed. (I've been wanting to work on this as well, but as with too many other topics, I've neglected to do so.) I'll try to help by proofreading/copy editing as my time/energy permits. Thanks again, Justin W Smith (talk) 17:44, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

You're welcome! There are still a few missing articles there that I'll try to get to soon. And thanks in return for starting some cleanups on the problematic graph algorithm articles I mentioned here. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:15, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Missing something

Hi David,

So what is it that I don't know about redirects? When I preview a redirect that I've just made, all I see is the redirect and I have been thinking that the page is gone. Obviously not the case - and I shall take care of these in the future. But what is the mechanism of the preview page that I am unaware of? Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 01:57, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

If you click on the "article" tab at the top of the page, you can see the redirect working. Under the title of the article, you should see a blue link saying something like "redirected from..." and if you click on that you should get back to the page showing the redirect. Is that what you meant? —David Eppstein (talk) 02:02, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Not really, I know about that. After I have created a redirect, why don't I see the article when I preview the page? Essentially I don't seem to know what the rules are about what is displayed and what is not displayed in a preview.Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 16:13, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

It's just controlled by the url you're using to access the page. If you have a url like w/index.php?title=XXX&redirect=no then you see the code for the redirect. I think the same is true when you have &action=submit instead of &redirect=no, which is the kind of url you have when you're previewing an edit. Otherwise you see what it redirects to. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:24, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Ok. Thanks. Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 18:44, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

"In matroid theory,...

Hello.

Please look at this edit. I don't think the phrase "In matroid theory, . . ." succeeds in telling the lay reader what the article is about. "In algebra, . . ." or "In number theory, . . ." or "In differential equations, . . ." does that, but "In matroid theory, . . ." doesn't. Sometimes the article's title is enough and no such phrase need appear; sometimes more is needed. Michael Hardy (talk) 13:47, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

I wouldn't start the article on matroids with "in matroid theory", but a reader looking at Vamos matroid (congratulations!) presumably knows that that example is in matroid theory. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 23:27, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Milman's reverse Brunn–Minkowski inequality

Hi,

I am sorry -- I reverted your edit. Is there such a thing as asymptotic-geometry-stub?

Sasha (talk) 03:58, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't particularly mind. I don't think there is — the ones I know about are elementary-geometry, differential-geometry, polyhedra, and polychora. I think an algebraic-geometry-stub one might be useful too, but we don't seem to have it, and the stub sorting people seem quite particular about how big something needs to be to justify a new one. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:01, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

for now I have expanded the article a bit and removed the stub tag completely. Sasha (talk) 01:47, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Always a better way to handle it, but much more effort. Thanks! —David Eppstein (talk) 01:50, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

DYK for De Bruijn's theorem

 — Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:02, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Bold closure of DYK nomination discussion

You boldly intervened and closed the discussion at Template:Did you know nominations/Orgastic potency. However, your reason for doing so, while ostensibly valid, interrupts an ongoing, constructive, effort to surmount the lingering qualms that have been the obstacles for passing this article sooner. Also note that User:Yngvadottir is actively part of this discourse and has laid down a considerbale effort in making requisite changes to the article. Yngvadottir who is no stranger to the DYK process by any measure, including its administrative management, is by all accounts still onboard with the drive to make the article presentable. It is therefore additionally unfortunate that you should bypass her presence and authority by closing in rejecting the nomination as you have done. I will as a matter of course respect the closing but I will protest it, even as I have here now, also on the article's talk page, requesting a mandate for reopening the nomination—as the hatnote instructions given by {{DYK top}} provides for. __meco (talk) 08:18, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

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On the genus of a graph

You have previously commented on the redirect On the genus of a graph. There have been significant changes, including the target, since the nomination was made. You may wish to revisit the discussion and confirm whether or not your previous views remain unchanged. Having been relisted the discussion is now at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2012 September 7. Thryduulf (talk) 14:35, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

DYK for Prince Rupert's cube

Panyd^{The muffin is not subtle} 00:02, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

DYK for John Hilliard (artist)

Yngvadottir (talk) 08:02, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

page you deleted

any chance of you un-deleting a page i created? (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/delete&page=Att_Will) — Preceding unsigned comment added by The Tommy (talk • contribs) 18:15, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I could undelete it and move it into a subpage of your user page; would that be adequate? That's not a good long-term home for the article but it could be somewhere for you to access and edit the material in preparation for making it acceptable as a Wikipedia article. What it needs, though, are (1) a focus on the actual content, avoiding talk-like material such as your line "Stop Deleting My Stuff, Its Good!", (2) only including information that can be found in reliable sources such as newspaper articles or reviews of this artist's music in major music magazines; these sources should cover the subject in sufficient depth as to make a convincing case that he is notable by Wikipedia standards; (3) avoiding loading up the article with YouTube links (see WP:ELNO); (4) avoiding language like "You Can See Will In..." that could be viewed as overly promotional. Using standard English grammar conventions such as not capitalizing words in the middle of sentences wouldn't hurt, either. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:24, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

El Naschie

Hi - I've proposed some changes to the article Mohamed El Naschie on the article's talk page. Since you've commented on previous discussions on that page, I'd appreciate your input on this one. All the best, Markus Poessel (talk) 18:31, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Nieuwland

Hi David - You're doing some serious work on Pieter Nieuwland's brand new article, even including reading an 18th century eulogy in Dutch! Just FYI, the first three paragraphs of the bio were a translation of the Dutch wikipedia article. For some reason the editor there gave up while Pieter was still in middle school. Good for you finding references for even this text. Let me know if you need help, e.g. with interpreting Dutch. Afasmit (talk) 22:21, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

"Reading" is an overstatement, and Google translate helped a lot, but thanks. My plan is to submit it to WP:DYK, probably later today. At this point I think I'm done working on the article itself, though, so if you want to add more, feel free to do so without worrying about conflicting edits from me. I think the most obvious lacuna in the article is his university education. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:40, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

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Lecythis ampla

I did not agree with you view that my article on Lecythis ampla which I had nominated here at DYK was close paraphrased so I sought views from others. Would you like to look at the nomination again in the light of the changes I have made and their comments, especially those of Choess. Thank you. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:11, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm still not happy with the phrasing but the opinion there seems to be running against me. I'm certainly not going to fail the nomination over this but I'd rather wait for someone else to come along and make the decision (as I expect to happen eventually). —David Eppstein (talk) 06:25, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

I have rewritten much of the description and I don't think you will object now, but all the detailed information in the source has been lost in the process. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:11, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Request for extraordinary reopening of DYK nomination

On September 3 you closed as rejected Template:Did you know nominations/Orgastic potency. This was an extraordinary nomination that had lingered a very long time. That notwithstanding, I am appealing for it to be reopened on the grounds of its very particular nature, the same grounds which I believe caused reviewing editors for so long to have reservations about substantively assessing the standing of the article. In this context I have pleaded with two involved editors, Yngvadottir and SlimVirgin to intercede. I am still awaiting the response from Yngvadottir. SlimVirgin did decline to intervene though suggesting I made this call to you, the closing admin. So I do. I make the argument that this article, was never given a fair chance due to quesiness among the reviewers, even though the article objectively should have passed a review at an early stage with only minor adjustments. You may want to confine your response to the present section, but if you will you may also want to make a contribution to Talk:Orgastic potency#Premature DYK rejection. __meco (talk) 09:34, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

DYK for Tomahawk (geometry)

The DYK project (nominate) 08:02, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you

Hi David: thank you for this edit to the Hans Lewy entry. Apparently I fell asleep and saved it without a review. Best, Daniele.tampieri (talk) 11:33, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

MCQ

David, this is not my speciality, could you perhaps have a look at this edit? I'm not sure whether this is legit or OR/opinion. Thanks! --Guillaume2303 (talk) 13:44, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Dear David: I appreciate your vigilance, but I believe your arguments against the edits mentioned by Guillame2303 are not correct. First, the 485 number is from the referenced MR page. Second, logically, a caveat about all reference list information certainly applies to any one particular reference list bit of information. This particular edit, however, is much less important, I feel, than making sure users know that the MCQ is based on a restricted list of journals. Your help in designing an acceptable addition to the page would be greatly appreciated. Lonmitchell (talk) 20:51, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Vladimir Mikhailovich Zakharov

Thank you for supporting retention of this article. — Robert Greer (talk) 13:24, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Explanation Re edit to "P vs. NP" article

The press release linked to, in my 2nd edit today, is a news item that cites the "external link" URL that I added (and you deleted) as my FIRST edit today.

I understand that persons who are way more familiar than I am, with complexity theory, will decide whether it is true that [as the title claims],

Anatoly D. Plotnikov, Professor, Department “Computer Systems and Networks” East-Ukrainian National University, solved the problem “P vs NP”.

That will determine the decisions such as (e.g.) whether to remove the "P vs. NP" problem, from the head of the [list] List of unsolved problems in computer science -- as well as (obviously) whether to make some changes to this ("P = NP problem") article.

Depending upon how that decision goes, I think the link that I entered today, during my FIRST edit today, might be needed somewhere -- like, in a footnote (a {{cite web}} citation, e.g.) or in an "External Reference".

Thanks for listening...

Sincerely yours, --Mike Schwartz (talk) 22:16, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I see. It's a new and not-cited-by-anyone-else paper, in an obscure journal claiming to solve the P vs NP problem, by someone known to have already published "solutions" of the same problem in obscure journals since 1996 (see [1] — curiously, his two earlier papers show that P=NP while this one shows P≠NP). Then it definitely doesn't go into our article without secondary sources. See WP:FRINGE. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:46, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

DYK for Pieter Nieuwland

Casliber (talk · contribs) 16:03, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

One-based numeration

Hello, David Eppstein/2012c. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/One-based_numeration.
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standard notifications to the closing administrators

You just reversed what I interpreted as a dismissive personal attack on the Marcel Leroux deletion page. You claimed it was a standard notification. Is there is a list of those someplace? Is there a standard way to dispute those? Is there a reason they are unsigned? If I did such a standard notification back, would there be anything wrong with that? Thanx for any assistance. --Africangenesis (talk) 22:48, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Another question, does your restoration of the notification mean that you are vouching for the truth of the matter, or do you restore such notifications without regard to the truth of the matter?--Africangenesis (talk) 22:51, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

I did check your user contribution history. It goes a long way back, unlike most people who get tagged with this notice, but with big gaps and it does seem almost exclusively focused on global warming issues, so I think the WP:SPA tag is justified. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:36, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

I wish you would answer my other questions. So it is your conclusion that the effort to delete Marcel Leroux is because of his opposition to global warming? My contributions are diverse, the edits in the past had to be dominated by global warming because of WMC's cadre. I left for a period of time, because the difficulty getting the science right on global warming was indicative of flaws in wikipedia itself. --Africangenesis (talk) 23:45, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

I believe that attempts to delete articles because of the subject's support or opposition to global warming is contrary to the spirit of WP:NPOV, and that paranoia about political motivations for attempts to delete articles is contrary to the spirit of WP:AGF. Neither of these is relevant to whether the article should be deleted. Does that answer your question? —David Eppstein (talk) 23:49, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

What are the other "standard notifications" which can traditionally put into rfd without signing? What are the ways to challenge such "standard notifications"? --Africangenesis (talk) 00:16, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

The other one I commonly see is {{unsigned}}. There are several other "discussion page AfD templates" listed in the documentation of {{spa}} (e.g. one for someone who is the creator of the article being discussed) but I don't see them very often. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:18, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanx. That helps. I still don't see why they should be allowed unsigned. That would seem an evasion of responsibility. BTW, Did you consider this when you reached your conclusion:

"Editing time line: the timeline of a user’s edits should not be considered when using single-purpose account tags. One must look at the editor’s complete edit history, not just recent edits. Examples of non-SPAs include

Users with a diversified edit history that become inactive for an extended period and later re-establish themselves with single subject edits. Note that a time gap in edit history may be evidence that the person was referred to Wikipedia by an outside source, but it isn't evidence that the person is an SPA.

An established editor focusing on a single topic is not an SPA. Once an editor is well established with a large, diversified edit history, he or she can focus on single subjects for extended periods of time without being labeled an SPA."

--Africangenesis (talk) 00:51, 30 September 2012 (UTC)