User talk:Geometry guy/Archive 6

A good and eminently grey morning! :)

Hi G-guy!

I was delighted and surprised to see your answer to my question about conflicts of interest in reviewing Good articles! Your name was just shining on the page. :) I'm a little embarrassed to say that, although I knew that you were involved somehow with GA's, I'd never taken the time to learn how much or in what way. :( There's always too many distractions! Forgive me now why I toddle off somewhere else GA-related, but I'm very glad you came back, however briefly, and hoping that our paths will entwine more in the future, Willow 14:19, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

PS. Did you notice that Cronholm was mentioned, albeit obliquely, in the Wikipedia Weekly interview with Tamsin? Mine ears did boggle! :)

Cool! I just listened to it. I guess that means that, even more obliquely, Oleg, KSmrq, me, et al. got mentioned too! Geometry guy 17:54, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Content review

Geometry Guy, I just wanted to let you know I'm interested in setting up a project page along the lines outlined at the Village Pump discussion, but I'm going to spend some time first talking to Marskell and see if there's some way to proceed using the page he's set up. I'll drop you a note if I do create a page, to see if you're interested in participating. Mike Christie (talk) 00:45, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

After a couple of exchanges with Marskell I've made some edits to his content review page to see if we can converge the two approaches. I'll let LaraLove know too. Thanks -- Mike Christie (talk) 22:48, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Good idea; I dropped a note on Jayron's talk page. Thanks for the note. Mike Christie (talk) 12:14, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, did you mean this conversation? You actually left a link to this one, which seems like the wrong one. Mike Christie (talk) 12:40, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Rationale for persondata in talk namespace?

You mentioned technical reasons for making persondata a subpage in the article's talk namespace. Looking at the templates, it wasn't obvious to me what technical obstacle was being addressed. Could you elaborate? I am using your idea on Genealogy wikia (crediting your page of course), and the tests looks very promising so far. Regards, -Mak 10:07, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

The logical thing would be to put it in a subpage of the article page. However, on Wikipedia at least, subpages in the main space don't exist (they are disabled in the software) so the data would get counted as a separate article, messing up Wikipedia's statistics. Geometry guy 14:04, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok. We have no such limitation on our wiki. Elegant Template by the way. I did not understand that the evaluator would return parameters this way and wrote two very complex sets of templates on Commons to achieve what you did in a single page whose controlling template is clearly understandible. I am of the firm belief that until the semantic wiki extensions get supported on wikipedia, yours is the correct way to do information re use, microformats/ metadata. There is some fragility due to renames/ moves and the lack of unique identifier referencing, but those limitations are tolerable in the interim. My compliments and warm regards. -Mak 21:24, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm glad someone is taking the metadata idea forward. Can you give me a link so I can see what you are doing? Geometry guy 10:50, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Sure- William the Conquerer demo article here. It is still in development and I haven't made up my mind about everything I have done so far. I can imagine there may be a performance penalty if I put deep genealogy trees on lots of pages.Mak 10:02, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Nice work! One day it would be nice to bring the idea back to life here at en. By the way, how did you discover my template? Geometry guy 21:38, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I was studying the Persondata and hCard initiatives and came across a sensible fellow's comments. That's what you get for openning your mouth. People can learn from you. And I did. Thanks. Standing on each other's shoulders- this is a great enterprise. -Mak 17:34, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

A great enterprise indeed. Geometry guy 17:57, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Citations

I saw you've been using the "ref" system for citations in homotopy groups of spheres. I recently discovered the Harvard citation system which is easier to use: you only have to click once instead of twice to see the reference. See von Neumann algebra for an example of how this system works. R.e.b. 01:29, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Both methods have their pros and cons. I used the Harvard system in my recent edits to Hilbert space. Geometry guy 10:46, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

A minor suggestion is to use the "citation" rather than the "cite book" etc. templates in the homotopy groups of spheres article: the only essential difference between these is that with the "citation" templates you can use the harvard citation templates in the "notes" section to link to the "references" section. For some strange reason you cannot do this with the "cite" templates. I'm not going to do this myself while you are working on the article unless you think it's a good idea. Good luck with getting it to FA status. R.e.b. 21:35, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I did that, although I haven't yet used it to make the cites link. You are most welcome to edit the article as you think best. Geometry guy 21:53, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Homeopathy

In the Homeopathy GA reassessment you stated that the Lead does not summarize the article. Could you offer some specifics here, on the articles talk page, or on my talk page so that I can improve it? Thanks. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 02:38, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay. The lead does not discuss: the history of homeopathy; the develoment and various forms of current practice; the current prevalence of homeopathy or its legal status around the world. I also found the article extremely heavy reading and somewhat repetitive. It seemed as if a paragraph would not go by without another reminder that homeopathic dilutions contain only water. I also think Adam Cuerdon's analysis of the article is very good. Geometry guy 21:29, 8 October 2007 (UTC) PS. Congrats on Anabolic steroid!

I agree BTW. A lot of people on the talk page have been pushing for cutting the lead until it contains two measly paragraphs that don't summarize the article at all. It would be great if you could leave a note on the talk page elaborating on your problems with the lead and the redundancy in the article. I think the lead should be 3-4 paragraphs long with each paragraph having about 5-6 sentences. However other editors continue to claim that this is too long and push for a lead with 2 short paragraphs even though WP:LEAD clearly describes how leads should be formed and their length. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 21:49, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

My god, I hadn't looked at the talk page until now. No wonder the article is such a turgid mess (no disrespect to you there, I hasten to add). I doubt there is much point in a newcomer wading in on a discussion involving such strong feelings and such a high edit rate, but I guess I can try. Is the Talk:Homeopathy#Proposed revision to introduction the right place? Geometry guy 22:11, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Try starting a new section or moving it to here. Otherwise it will be overlooked. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 01:04, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for moving it. I really don't want to get involved in this one! Geometry guy 16:52, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I can sympathize with you. However I've been spending the past few months rewriting that article with the help of others and I don't want to see it destroyed by disputes, so I must stick around to make sure. Disputes can turn a rightful FA into a B class article in less than a week and I want to make sure that this doesn't happen. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 16:55, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I have been impressed by your frequent involvement with articles that contain controversial material. If I were a barnstar person, I'd surely have given you one by now! Geometry guy 16:59, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes articles that I am working on also get protected for long periods of time due to edit warring. See the Race of Ancient Egyptians article for an example. It was protected due to edit warring (which I was uninvolved with btw) and now most improvments have gone to a stand still and the editors seem reluctant to agree to rules to avoid edit wars to get it unprotected. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 17:04, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Barnstar awarded to Wikidudeman by me on behalf of G'guy. Regards, Lara❤Love 04:59, 15 October 2007 (UTC) :)

definition of homotopy groups.

For spaces with non trivial fundamental group, you cannot define the homotopy groups as the group of homotopy classes of maps from a sphere to the space. You really do need to choose base points to make things work. The problem is that to compose two maps you need to choose a path connecting points in the images of the spheres, and the composition of two maps may depend on which path you choose if the space is not simply connected. So without a choice of base point the composition is not well defined. And π₀ is correctly defined as the set of homotopy classes of base point preserving maps from the 0-sphere, which is indeed the set of path components. In particular the higher homotopy groups of the 0-sphere are indeed the trivial group. (The zeroth homotopy space of the 0-sphere is not a group, but a set with 2 elements.) R.e.b. 19:37, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarifications. Does this effect π_n(S¹)? If so, I guess we either have to add basepoints, or give a separate discussion for the circle. However, whatever we do, we need to provide a standard source for our approach. Geometry guy 19:57, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

No, this problem does not arise for spheres of dimension at least one. In general the set of homotopy classes of maps from S^n to a pathwise connected space X can be identified with the orbits of pi_1(X) on pi_n(X). For spheres the actions of pi_1(X) on pi_n(X) happen to be trivial, so in this case the homotopy groups can be identified with the homotopy classes of maps from S^n to X and you can get away without using base points. (For homotopy groups of S^0 you do need to use base points to get the right answer.) R.e.b. 20:13, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay, so I would suggest a footnote explaining that homotopy groups are usually defined using basepoints, but in this case we don't need them. How does that sound? Geometry guy 20:26, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Anything correct is OK by me. Homotopy group makes the same error in the introduction. R.e.b. 20:37, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Userpage

Is there any reason you don't have a userpage? Would you like one? Lara❤Love 05:00, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I used to have one, but I have come to feel that is not my wiki-style to describe stuff about myself, my wiki-philosophy or my contribs. My signature links directly to my talk page. Thanks for the offer though: your user page is looking great! Geometry guy 17:56, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't like it. I'm putting myself on Phaedriel's list for a redo. I like part of it, but I want sections. Thank you, though. :) Lara❤Love 18:01, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Workshop archive

Hi -- I agree we need to archive, but do you have any idea where MiszaBot actually wrote the archive? I can't see it anywhere. Mike Christie (talk) 11:01, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

No idea what went wrong. I checked the bots contribs, and it didn't write the archive anywhere. I did create the archive before the bot ran. It is possible that it didn't work because the archive was empty. I'll ask, anyway. Geometry guy 17:56, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I thought that the archive had not yet been created so I reverted the removal of info. I did the archive myself, but it is odd. The bot contribs shows it wrote it to the archive page, however, there is no link. Is there a code missing from the archive page, perhaps? Lara❤Love 18:05, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for reverting the deletion and doing the manual archive. The bot's edit summary is auto-generated and does not necessarily reflect what it actually did: it did not write the archive anywhere. Geometry guy 18:13, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, that's what I meant, really. The edit summary listed the archive page, but it wasn't a link. I'm thinking there might be code missing. It doesn't make sense. And it's probably something obvious. The page exists, so why is it not a link in the bot contribs? Lara❤Love 18:22, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Aha! Well spotted Sherlock! Did you also notice that the edit summary contains an extra pair of double braces at the end. I think Misza has fixed the problem here. Geometry guy 18:34, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Strawpoll

I assume you saw this little poll. Did you want to vote? I think we can begin digging into a single topic soon enough. Marskell 13:14, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I did see it, but haven't had time to think about it. Geometry guy 17:56, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

...consider yourself GAMedal'd

Hi G-Guy, Seems like you don't store up barnstars, don't keep a userpage going, etc. That's cool. If you ever do decide to do the above, you can put this on it. You know I don't really keep close track of what's going on these days, but I seem to have seen your sig below a nontrivial amount of the GA grunt work, and of course you're prominent in all the relevant discussions. Just wanted to let you know your efforts are appreciated. --Ling.Nut 03:27, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

		The Good Article Medal of Merit
		For sterling contributions above and beyond the call of duty in creating a GA system that provides the best possible service, I award you this GAMedal. Ling.Nut 03:27, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Now that is what a good hand sock is for: awarding me medals - especially a GA medal when I haven't reviewed a single GAN! I wish I had thought of that sooner :-) Seriously, many thanks for the award. I prefer to store awards in context in my talk archives: I very much appreciate the recognition personally, but it isn't my style to list all the appreciation I have received for others to view. Anyway, thanks again Ling! Geometry guy 11:01, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Definition of homotopy groups, II

The set of homotopy classes of mappings from the 1-sphere to a path connected X is (essentially) the set of conjugacy classes, not elements, of the fundamental group. Did you really mean to imply that conjugacy classes of a group are essentially the same is its elements? R.e.b. 19:06, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

No I didn't, but I can't find where that is stated, or implied. The footnote, for example, is more-or-less a copy of what you wrote. If you mean the first sentence of the paragraph, then I am using a much weaker notion of "essentially" than you are!

By the way, your input to the article has been great. It is starting to look really good now. Geometry guy 19:20, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I meant the first sentence of the paragraph ("The i-th homotopy group of a topological space X is essentially the set of homotopy classes of mappings from the i-sphere Si to X.") The word "essentially" may be a little misleading; perhaps it could be replaced by "related to". R.e.b. 19:42, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I tried "roughly speaking" instead. Geometry guy 19:48, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

What links here

On the left side of very page there's a link called "What links here". That's what I was talking about. But I understand that you want the info on a PR page, & with a date. OK, good. :-) --Ling.Nut 05:39, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh, okay, I surely knew about that! Funny that it isn't listed on Special:Specialpages, though. Geometry guy 11:25, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Veganism GAR

Apologies for the delay in reply; real life is keeping me busy lately, and I am not contributing much to Wikipedia. While I did not find point of view bias as troubling as some, last July, I was concerned about article stability, which is a disservice to readers and which disrupts whatever viewpoint a piece of writing hopes to achive. I suggested at the the time that regularly contributing editors should write drafts in sandboxes, work out differences there, and bring the results to the article. The article should be considered a 'stable release'; the sandboxes unstable development versions. I don't think this practice was undertaken, and, judging from the history, the article has remained volatile. On that basis, I find no discomfort with your delisting decision and support it. I think the regular editors do not deliberately push point of view, but do get mired in points of view. The delicate trick is establishing a 'separation of concerns' which is distinctly different from 'indifference' but which does avoid advocacy — not by being disengaged (a quality of indiffernce) but by choosing how to be engaged. The manner of engagement that I thinks works best is that of a 'range of opinion collector' a fictional viewpoint character who cannot rest until every facet of a topic has been sucessfully netted and is properly displayed in the collection case, a metaphor for the Wikipedia article.

Editors who figure out 'the neutral viewpoint' are rare and invaluable to Wikipedia. For my own account, when I undertake a piece of writing, I spend no small amount of time considering the 'voice' of the writer, to wit: his or her world view, the backstory giving rise to that world view, and how that world view influences choice of words (at a small scale), and the arc of narrative (at a large scale). One can observe that it is 'just me' choosing the words and constructing the arc of narrative, and I do not dispute that. At the lowest level of execution, it is just my fingers on the keyboard. But at a higher planning level, when I am considering how a piece of writing will go, I really do strive to construct a fictional viewpoint character with a distinct personality and world view that I do not (and would not) commingle with my own. The purpose of this exercise is to separate my ego from my writing — so that it becomes the writing. In doing so, (I think) I can obtain a wider range of style and point of view than if I did not consider constructing a view point character at all. In other words, if I only wrote with my own 'voice.'

When I write for Wikipedia, I strive for a viewpoint character who is interested in everything but ventures opinions on nothing — a kind of character I would love to have at parties. No matter what the topic may be, the character is able to converse about it, but, in not venturing opinions, the character does not offend anyone. To make this example concrete, the character strives to be informed on every possible meme that attaches to the symbol 'Veganism' —— memes issuing from advocates, memes issuing from detractors, and memes from commentators on the sidelines. This character is obsessed with being informed on every possible facet of Veganism, but reluctant to champion any one facet of the discussion, for to do so would close the character off from 'the discussions on the other side.' and the character loathes to have his or her range of inquiry limited in that way. The character is a collector of viewpoints and wants accurate and complete specimens of all the memes in his or her collection cases — the wikipedia articles.

It's a bit of a mental trick to set up a construct in your head who may not quite hold your world view or be motivated to write in ways other than how you would write — it's a 'Let's pretend I'm somebody else.' kind of game that some people might find as being untrue to one self, self-deceptive, or perhaps mentally unhealthy. All that notwithstanding, the separation of ego from article is a necessary skill for Wikipedians, and fostering a construct viewpoint character is the avenue that works well for me. By supposing that the character writing the Wikipedia article is (unlike myself) intent on collecting every viewpoint of a topic and (unlike myself) is unwilling to venture any opinion on the article, establishes a separation of concern that disinvests ego. So I happen to think that Veganism is a questionable lifestyle. The construct writing the article is disinterested in my opinion and simply wants to collect whatever notion that may have been attached to the 'Veganism' symbol. I suppose I am not surprised by the notion that good writers suffer from mental illnesses or alcoholism; they have all of those characters in their heads that they've spent years constructing, yelling at each other, having sexual liasons, lying about them, and cheating on one another. I suppose I should be thankful that it has taken me years to work this trick in just a limited fashion, and can still sleep peacefully. Take care, and thanks for conducting the Good Article review. Gosgood 16:49, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Many many many thanks for this in depth response. Your characterization of the neutral point of view writer is wonderful. All the best to you too. Geometry guy 16:56, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Question about the PR talk page location

Geometry Guy, just wanted to post here because I don't want to clog up the workshop talk page with more questions. As I recall the earlier discussions, the goal was to have the conversation on article talk, as being a location more likely to encourage collaboration. It's a separate goal to have the PR archivable. The two goals are not easily reconcilable, though some work with bots might do it. Also, if we don't put the discussion on article talk, but on a page, I don't see that we care where it is. I don't think it was ever a goal of the workshop to fix the way archived PR was stored; we just wanted the discussion on article talk.

I know it's a little frustrating to have Sandy come in and make us revisit a point, but she's quite right that we had not considered ArticleHistory fully, and it does need a resolution. I think Sandy's opinion on not wanting to do PRs on article talk pages or subpages is probably a minority one, but her comments about not seeing a reason to change PR page naming seem reasonable, if we accept the need for an archivable page.

I'd like to get your current take on these points. It also strikes me that we're seeing a little fatigue in the participants. I have some ideas on how to help ameliorate that problem which I'd like to talk to you about at some point too. Mike Christie (talk) 12:24, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes. I think the process may be going too fast at times, with too much traffic on the page, and too many quick responses. I am very sad that we've lost Ling.Nut and Awadawit, as these are both editors who have worked across the spectrum of content review processes. Ling was simply too busy to feel he could keep up, but I suspect Awadawit felt worn down, first in arguments with Malleus, and now with Sandy. For this workshop to work as an ideas factory, participants need to try as hard as possible to leave their prejudices and preconceptions at the door. Unfortunately, however, in many WP discussions, the most opinionated and/or dogmatic tend to be the most determined to stick around.

ArticleHistory

Concerning specifically the ArticleHistory questions, this is an issue with multiple solutions. For example, the discussion could be stored in a separate page (it doesn't matter where) and transcluded to the article talk page, as I have done with this paragraph. If you click on the edit button for this section, you will automatically be taken to the subpage. Alternatively, at the end of the review, the discussion could be archived, either manually or by a bot, to a permenant location (again it doesn't matter where). I have proposed a system in which all reviews of an article are in one place. But they could all be in separate places. Or one could have both, and transclude multiple reviews in separate places to one place, etc. etc.

The different goals you mention are all perfectly reconcilable. It is all a trade-off between versatility and complexity. Have you ever tried the current peer review template? It is quite clever: if there is no current PR page, it provides a link for setting one up, and when you click on this link, there are instructions for how to do it. There are all sorts of things you can do to overcome technical issues. However, Sandy is right about one thing: it is tough to keep track of a review that remains on the talk page and only on the talk page, because it could be archived at any time, by anyone, or by any archiving bot.

General comments

I liked your recent reply to Sandy about this being an ideas factory. Perhaps we are being a bit too solutions-oriented at the moment. If we have agreed on some things, but found some alternative options for other things, with pros and cons, then why don't we just list that as our provisional conclusion. I think we need to close the PR discussion in a positive mood and move onto something else. I suspect it will become more clear which options for PR are the most attractive when we have some idea what we think about some of the other content review processes. For instance, the complaint that we should be moving GA towards other processes rather than vice versa might go away if we find a consensus for doing just that. Geometry guy 19:26, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Categorizing PR

Hey G'Guy. I've started a thread on PR regarding the categories: Wikipedia_talk:Peer_review#Categorizing_PR. Least problematic and easiest to implement. Cheers, Marskell 08:54, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

cantor statement deleted; dunno if important

• Dunno if you or User:Trovatore feel this is significant enough to back it up with a reference or claim it's common knowledge under the Sci guidelines:

  Today, the vast majority of mathematicians who are neither constructivists nor finitists accept Cantor's work on transfinite sets and arithmetic, recognizing it as a major paradigm shift.

• later! --Ling.Nut 01:31, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I think it is important to keep a sentence like this. The first part is common knowledge, but the "paradigm shift" needs a citation. Geometry guy 09:50, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

would you please check this edit?

Hi,

I'm really needing a second opinion on this edit. It's a bit important, I'm afraid.If you could see your way 'round to looking at it, I'd be in your debt. Later! --Ling.Nut 13:30, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Not sure what your getting at here, but (1) I agree with the strong support and that Lara will do the work of 5 average admins, and (2) the joke made me laugh. Unfortunately humour does not always translate well across the internet, and the Jimbo desysoping affair generated some bad feeling, so you may get some flak for the joke. But hey, you have a thick enough skin, right? ... Geometry guy 13:43, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I'll change it then. Thanks. --Ling.Nut 13:44, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

It actually never occurred to me that my little jest might chap someone's hide, but I see you are right. Good catch. I hope I have a thick skin these days, or at least an adherence to WP:DGAF, but no reason to offend people needlessly. later! --Ling.Nut 13:53, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

WP:DGAF is one of Wikipedia's best policies. It works pretty well IRL too! Geometry guy 18:12, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

My RfA

Can you please drop a reply to Pedro in the neutral section, letting him know how you came across my RfA before it was transcluded? Lara❤Love 17:18, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. It is no big deal: the RfA instructions have clearly not been well thought out here. Geometry guy 18:09, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

The rough and the smooth at Wikipedia

Stunned by the arrogance of Perspicacite

Perspicacite delisted a Good Article improperly, and I fixed the errors made with the oldid and the article history. The delisting discussion is here and our exchange was deleted by Perspicacite [1] with the edit summary "na na na is not the response I'm looking for". This is a depressing moment in my Wikipedia experience, and demonstrates an arrogance I have not previously encountered, so I am recording it here as a benchmark. Geometry guy 01:39, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

A note of support

Just to let you know I read the exchanges with Perspicacite; yes, seems pretty darn uncivil to me. Don't know if you noticed this thread: he's been uncivil to others too. This stuff happens, as I know you know. Don't let it annoy you. Mike Christie (talk) 01:56, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Cheers Mike for commenting. It is actually water off a duck's back though. I am more likely to get frustrated when a reasonable editor and I do not see eye to eye. In this case I was just stunned, not annoyed. Geometry guy 02:01, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I figured you were too sensible to let it worry you. Top quality editors are rare enough birds that I felt it wise to say something supportive, though. By the way, I've been keeping an eye on homotopy groups of spheres; that's shaping up into a fascinating article and I'll definitely be commenting when it gets to FAC. Good luck with that (and good work so far). Mike Christie (talk) 02:15, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

You are too kind. Thanks for your interest in Homotopy groups of spheres. I've now nominated it for Mathematics A-Class review: you are welcome to comment already if you want to, or save it for the FAC. Geometry guy 20:02, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

A contrasting experience

I have to record a contrasting experience at Battlefield 2142, where I deleted a copyright violation, and did not mince my words. The "Good point, lets fix it" response from EpicWizard impressed me greatly. Geometry guy 20:05, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Erdos Numbers

Thanks for speaking up for the (deleted) Erdos number category. I appreciate your frustration. I'd urge you to stop in from time to time, just to pitch in a vote; the ...gosh, I don't know how to categorize them. The Voters-for-Deletion may get bored. But I'm not doing a great job of keeping my temper, myself. Probably we'll deal with this programmatically (e.g. a mathematician infobox) and everyone will declare victory. Pete St.John 19:30, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I am not frustrated at all. I think I would have been if I had attempted to join in the debate, which was more heat than light. However, I have a great deal of respect for BrownHairedGirl. She is an expert on use of categories, and argues her case with clarity and logic. I think she was right that a general category on Erdos numbers is inappropriate, and this material should be listified. However, she might accept the argument for a category purely for mathematicians whose Erdos number is notable. I suggest dropping the issue for a month or two, then creating Category:Mathematicians by Erdős number and suitable subcategories, and see what happens from there. Geometry guy 20:16, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Waiting, and then trying to slip an item with slightly different wording past the opposition, isn't really my style; and doesn't seem to me like a Solomonic solution. Anyway, by all means point me to the convincing arguement ("clarity and logic") you mention above. Thanks, Pete St.John 21:45, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

It isn't slightly different wording: it is really important that a category is a defining characteristic. Erdos number, for most people, is not notable. For those engaged in mathematics, it can be. If my idea is not Solomonic, I would welcome a proposal which is. Geometry guy 21:55, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to add some further (hopefully more helpful) comments. At the current deletion review, BrownHairedGirl summarizes the case for deletion quite clearly (although that is not really what the deletion review should be about). Possibly the best counterargument I have seen is by Quale who essentially points out that guidelines exist to reflect consensus, not to determine it; on the other hand, consensus is not determined by counting votes either.

A number of editors have expressed fatigue in these discussions, which is why I think that waiting a month or two would be a good idea: the intention is not to slip anything past anyone. I'm inclined to believe that the deletion should be overturned as a controversial closure, and a new CfD needs to be started: however, for this to be productive, as Carcharoth hopes, I think a pause before such relisting would be helpful. Geometry guy 14:10, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Admin?

Hi there, do you think you would find the admin tools at all useful? I'd be happy to nominate you if you did and I'm sure you'd have no trouble in passing since you're very well-qualified. Tim Vickers 17:46, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks for the compliment, Tim. Such a well-respected nominator would surely increase the chances of success. To answer your question, though, yes, I would find the admin tools useful, but not hugely, and I can live without them.

I occasionally have wanted to move categories or move articles over redirects that have had a couple of edits. I also rely on others for a speedy deletion or two (usually a {{db-auth}} or a {{db-catempty}}). I occasionally participate in XfDs (I could become interested in helping to close them, I guess). I have a tiny watchlist, so I rarely revert vandalism, and have no desire at all to get involved with blocking users. I sometimes work on image use, but typically to save (rather than delete) images by providing copyright and fair use info, and ensuring they are only used on articles for which the rationale is valid. I occasionally pitch in on policy discussions, editor disagreements and incidents, but only if I feel I have a fresh point of view which might help to resolve the issue, or some other useful contribution to make. So what is the case for adminship for me? Little more than "no harm", probably. I don't have any convincing answers to the RfA questions, and I doubt it is worth the colossal waste of editor time and energy that is the RfA process to make it easier for me to move pages. However, I really do appreciate you offering to nominate me. All the best, Geometry guy 22:04, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm of the opinion that all users who can be trusted with the tools should have the tools, even if they think they will only make occasional use of them. In addition, I'm trying to get a few more experienced admins, particularly expert contributors, at the moment and you seen an extremely well-qualified candidate. Since your application would certainly pass quite easily, it really would be no trouble for me to nominate you. Tim Vickers 22:14, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm of the same opinion, but I don't find this to be a widespread view on my occasional visit to RfA. If you really believe it would be straightforward, and would not waste your time, my time, and the time of many other editors (both among my friends and in the community generally), then I'm willing to try it, though I still have no idea how to answer the questions. Geometry guy 22:21, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeay, yeay, yeay! I hope I won't deter you, or embarrass you with too much gushing, but I am just beaming at the prospect. :) Thank you very much for agreeing with Tim, Willow 22:34, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Tim, but there is a flaw in the RfA process which has come to light most recently in the RfA for LaraLove: the problem is that the voting is supposed to last 7 days, but also it is not supposed to start until the candidate has answered the questions, accepted the nomination, and the page has been transcluded to the RfA page. I really doubt that will happen until tomorrow night, in which case we have a 6 day RfA. I think it is better to start from the moment of transclusion than the moment of nomination, but the current instructions are badly written. Geometry guy 22:59, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

You do need to change the date when you make the RFA live, so it runs 7 days. If the instructions don't say that they are wrong. I had wondered if you would be interested, and think you'll do well. Good luck. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:10, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I've blanked out the auto-fill expiry date from the template and added an in-line note discouraging pre-transclusion voting. That should avoid any problems. Tim Vickers 23:11, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad you're going for it, G'guy. Yours shouldn't be a hard one. I mean, I know mine is a huge mess and stressing me out, but look at the others on the list this week. Yours will be like those. You have some involvement in GA, but only because you felt inclined to be "a mechanic", so you shouldn't draw the anti-GA vote. You're also a mathematician and super unlikely to abuse the tools. Any look through your contribs shows a consistently cool head in the midst of heavy arguments. Little use of the tools is better than no use. I'd co-nominate, but I don't want to bring the controversy, lol. Lara❤Love 23:48, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks so much for commenting here Lara, and I hope the last few days of your RfA run smoothly. I've no idea whether RfAs favour "mechanics". To some extent, I am a wiki-gnome, but thank you again for your kind words. Geometry guy 23:59, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for answering the questions so eloquently, if you could fill in the "Do you accept this nomination" piece at the top and sign the acceptance, I'll transclude the page. Tim Vickers 19:54, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I was about to do that: now done. I leave you to fix the date, and transclude the page. Thanks. Geometry guy 19:59, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Done, good luck, not that you'll need it! Tim Vickers 20:06, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Your RfA

It's going great... just as I knew it would. And I think this is the longest you've ever let your talk page get. :P Lara❤Love 14:36, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Lara. The RfA has actually been quite a pleasant experience, much to my surprise. As for my talk page, well surely you must remember this. You have seen it much longer, but my archiving habits have changed as time goes by. Geometry guy 19:43, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

You're so poetic with your posts and their accompanying diffs. :) Lara❤Love 20:19, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Cantor, part II

I'm gonna link Trovatore to this, too:

“ "Even if we were descended from Jews ten times over, and even though I may be, in principle, completely in favour of equal rights for Hebrews, in social life I prefer Christians..."<ref name="pi87">Purkert and Ilgauds 1987, p. 15.</ref> ”

.. I have no access to Purkert and Ilgauds. Do either of you wanna track this down and verify it's correct? Thanks! --Ling.Nut 06:20, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Blimey! For a minute there I thought this was a quote from Georg Cantor himself, in which case this would be a startling statement, but I see it is a letter from his brother to his mother. It seems unnecessary, and perhaps undue weight, to use this ambiguous statement to suggest Cantor's mother was also of Jewish ancestry, but we have to see what the sources say. I don't know if they are in our university library. I will check if I get a moment. Geometry guy 17:52, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid there's essentially nothing on Cantor in our library :-( Geometry guy 18:21, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

What do you think?

Wikipedia:Peer review/volunteers. Marskell 12:38, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to interrupt. I think it looks good. I added myself to a couple of cats. Nice work. Lara❤Love 16:48, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree, it is a good move. Geometry guy 18:20, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

E-mail

You have one. :) Lara❤Love 20:52, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Reply

Sorry. Your nominator said that my discussion was inappropriate, so I figured it wasn't helping. You do whatever you think will help you. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:31, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you

Click there to open your card! → → →

Dearest G'guy,
Thank you for your participation in my RFA, which closed successfully with 137 supports, 22 opposes, and 5 neutrals. Your kind words of support and willingness to zealously defend me are very much appreciated. You have been an inspiration to me and I look forward to making you proud. I also wish you luck in your RFA, although I don't think you will need it. I would like to give special thanks to The_undertow and Phoenix-wiki for their co-nominations. Thank you again and best regards.

Lara❤Love 06:06, 8 November 2007 (UTC) Credits: This RFA thanks was inspired by The Random Editor's RFA thanks which was inspired by Phaedriel's RFA thanks.

Hyperbolic applet

Nothing to do with Wikipedia - but someone suggested I put this idea to you.

If I have data for a finite region of the Euclidean plane, expressed as a bitmap, I can easily get a browser to render it. But suppose what I want rendered is data for some other kind of 2-space? A torus, say, or the hyperbolic plane? What I would like to be able to use is a java applet, such that I give it an image file in some standard format for the hyperbolic plane, and it renders it in a browser as a Poincaré disk. I have found http://www.inxight.com/VizServerDemos/demo/orgchart.html which shows the kind of effect that I want. But I can't find any such applet available for me to use.

If you know of the existence of such an applet, I will be grateful if you tell me. If you don't, maybe you might persuade someone to write one? Maproom 13:11, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't know of one, nor am I sure who to ask. You need someone with both java programming skills and an interest in hyperbolic geometry. You could try looking at the edit histories of pages such as hyperbolic geometry for someone to ask — JRSpriggs perhaps? Sorry not be able to help more. Geometry guy 13:47, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure if there's anything that exactly fits your needs, but try looking at the Geometry Center, and perhaps sending email to Jeff Weeks. --KSmrq^T 19:53, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

my rfa

If you voted in my RFA...

...thank you for your participation. I withdrew with 83 supports, 42 opposes, and 8 neutrals. Your kind words and constructive criticism are very much appreciated. I look forward to using the knowledge I have accrued through the process to better the project. I would like to give special thanks to Tim Vickers and Wikidudeman for their co-nominations.

Thank you again and, best regards. VanTucky ^Talk

This RFA thanks was inspired by Lara❤Love's

Category contents list

Now links like this work: [2] THe format name is passed to the toolserver script as a parameter. Also, the code works for all wikimedia projects, and it uses more user-friendly output by default (try it). It's not completely done yet, but it should be good enough now to be of some use. Which category lists did you want VeblenBot to update on the wiki? — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:15, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I tried it, and this is great! Can you separate the namespace from the article name with this technology? For instance, in your example, "foo format" might want to link to the articles rather than to their talk pages. Also, is it easy to have an option to list alphabetically instead of by date?

As for category list updates by VeblenBot, for the moment I would be interested in seeing this demonstrated on Category:Requests for peer review, Category:Arts good articles and Category:Natural sciences good articles. These categories are actually too large at the moment: the requests for peer review will be subdivided into 10 categories, and the good articles will be subdivided more finely. But I really need the demonstrations to convince other editors that this is not just hot air, but a great way to save an awful lot of editor time. I'd also like to help with the development of a general category listing bot, as I described on your talk page, so that you don't have to keep reprogramming VeblenBot when people like me change their mind about what categories they want listed! Thanks again, Geometry guy 20:44, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

It's easy to separate the namespace; the code was just reconstructing the full name by combining the base name with the namsepace name. Here is the updated format of the output: [3].

The parameters are: page title without namespace, namespace number, timestamp. The easiest way to do sorting will be to use a sortable wikitable to display stuff on the wiki, but I can add sorting options to the script if there is a use for them.

Just let me know the name of the template you want me to use (instead of foo) and I will have VeblenBot generate the wiki pages for the categories you mentioned above. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:55, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

The sorting by date is fine for autogenerating WP:PR and WP:GAN, but alphabetical sorting is needed to autogenerate WP:GA, WP:FA and similar pages. For the three categories I suggested, I'd like foo=category name, i.e., "Requests for peer review", "Arts good articles", "Natural sciences good articles". The template name needs to be robust according to likely choices for "foo", though. I would suggest something like "Format: foo" (assuming colons in template names are okay) or "Category foo format" is more robust that "Foo format". Let me know what you think and I will code the templates. Geometry guy 21:15, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

The PR page would be the most accessible to automate. GA and GAN would be possible, but it would take quite a bit of work to integrate a bot with their current layouts, and I don't think I will have time to do it anytime soon. My coding time for the immediate future will be occupied with Wikipedia 1.0. But PR shouldn't be too hard, since it is just a list of transcluded pages,and I would be glad to share my code if you could find another person to who knows Perl.

What about the template name {{Peer review entry}} for an article's entry on WP:PR? — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:18, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not asking you to automate any of these pages: I will do that! I am only asking for a category listing bot that will allow me to do it. Thus I would like VeblenBot to update a page of the form User:VeblenBot/''Some expression involving foo'' so that it contains a list of entries of the form {{Template name involving foo|...}} from Category:foo.

I agree that PR is the easiest place to try this, and would be happy if we could do this purely for Category:Requests for peer review. The subpage would be something like User:VeblenBot/Category Requests for peer review, which would be a list of templates of the form {{Requests for peer review entry}}. I will write the demonstration PR page, and also the requests for peer review entry template, so that it reproduces the current PR layout by transcluding the VeblenBot subpage. I don't want you to waste your time on tailoring VeblenBot to this particular task, because it is just a demonstration, and there are changes being proposed for PR. I just want to flag up the idea that our naming conventions should be chosen so that "Requests for peer review" can be replaced by anything (foo), without the risk of clashing with a pre-existing template or VeblenBot subpage.

As for WP:GA and WP:GAN, this technique will only be able to reproduce the current structure when the GA/GAN templates put the article in a category by subsubtopic. I'm not asking you to help me solve that problem! However, if you can produce VeblenBot subpages for the other two categories I suggested, it might help me to convince other editors of the changes that are needed to automate WP:GA and WP:GAN. Geometry guy 23:11, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

How about User:VeblenBot/CF/Requests for peer review for the template and User:VeblenBot/C/Requests for peer review for the page that VeblenBot creates? That is quite general and will never have conflicts. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:30, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Nice idea! I would prefer a template space name like {{CF/Requests for peer review}} for the template though. It's not as foolproof as your idea, but seems more natural. Geometry guy 23:37, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good; I made the links turn blue. I have a framework so I just keep a list of which categories to make a page for, and whenever I run the script it updates them all. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:16, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Perfect! I'll write the template and PR demonstration page code tomorrow! At some point we need to develop a mechanism for categories to "request" being added to your list (e.g. using "what links here") so that you never have to change the code or the list manually, and can get on with other things! Geometry guy 00:30, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Glad to help. I would rather add new categories by hand. It only takes a minute, and it serves as extra protection against people playing games with invalid input that might confuse the script. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:36, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. Yes, I understand, but if this goes well, then at some point in the future I might be presenting you with a list of about 100 categories to listify (e.g. for WP:GA). I expect that the technology can cope with such scaling better than we can: if not an automatic mechanism, we will probably at least need a convenient format for generating and exchanging such category automation requests. Geometry guy 00:59, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Area

Can you please check that my edit to Area is correct? Thanks! Argyriou (talk) 22:09, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Sure: these should be removed. I'm not sure what "width of one side" is supposed to mean, but if it means the length of a side, then the formulae given look wrong to me and contradict other formulae here and elsewhere. If it means something else, then it should be explained. But more generally, it is probably worth asking what this encyclopedia article is actually supposed to be about. Geometry guy 22:26, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh dear god - the "perfect hexagon" and "perfect octagon" have been in there for ages, and the weird link at "square perch" is even older. Someone changed the area of a square yard to be 8 square feet, and that lasted a good month or two... Argyriou (talk) 22:54, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

The article desperately needs some decent contributions. Good luck in fixing it! I've added it to my watchlist and will help where I can. Geometry guy 23:06, 13 November 2007 (UTC)