User talk:Spacepotato/Archive 8

Request for Informal Review of the article on Indian Astronomical Observatory

Thank you for some of the work you have done on contributing to Wikipedia articles on Indian astronomical observatory. I have been working on adding and improving the articles of 12 functioning observatories in India. In January, I have been focussed on the Indian Astronomical Observatory.

It would be great to have an informal review of the article and post your comments here.

Prad2609 (talk) 06:59, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Idiotarian listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Idiotarian. Since you had some involvement with the Idiotarian redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion (if you have not already done so). Robofish (talk) 18:12, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Recent edits

Thank you for double-checking some articles I recently posted. I appreciate your corrections.—RJH (talk) 19:49, 27 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Mean and variance of Central Limit Theorem

Hi, this is regarding Central Limit Theorem. According to the same reference that you have given, as in equation 27.2 (Sn - nc / σ√n ~ N) the mean is the summation of all the means and the variance is the summation of all variances. Am I correct? Achintha (talk) 11:06, 28 January 2011

The mean of the sum of the random variables in the sample is the sum of the individual means, and its variance is the sum of the individual variances. However, the article is talking about the sample average, that is, the sum divided by the sample size. If each random variable has mean μ and variance σ², this will have mean μ and variance σ²/n, as stated in the article. Also, convergence to normality will not hold for an arbitrary sum of random variables, but requires some condition to hold, whether it be that the variables are i.i.d. with finite mean and variance (the case of the so-called "classical" CLT), or the Lindeberg condition, mentioned later on in the article. Spacepotato (talk) 00:44, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Jagged 85 RFC/U and cleanup has been appealed to ArbCom

You are involved in a recently-filed request for arbitration. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests#Jagged 85 RFC/U and cleanup and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. Additionally, the following resources may be of use—

Thanks, -Aquib (talk) 04:42, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I replied to this at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Jagged_85_RFC.2FU_and_cleanup (subsection Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Statement_by_Spacepotato.) Spacepotato (talk) 05:22, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Jagged 85 cleanup: article stubbing

Hello. You are invited to take part in this vote concerning the clean-up effort in connectuion with Jagged 85's RFC/U. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 11:40, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed deletion of Mesoregion

The article Mesoregion has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Original research

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Mootros (talk) 17:25, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

About the Central Limit Theorem

Greetings,

I have recently edited the introduction to the central limit theorem page, and you have been reverting it to the original. I would just like to explain my thinking on your talk page since there is very limited space to explain myself within the reason to revert field. The introduction that I have written was intended to help my students understand the implications of the central limit theorem. I felt that the introduction may have seemed like it was written in an accessible manner to someone, such as yourself, who has a deep understanding of statistics; however, for someone who is in an introductory pure or applied statistics course for which the CLT is absolutely crucial, the introduction is unnecessarily inaccessible. The introduction should provide a summary of the following content, which the introduction that I wrote does (as much as the old one did), but it should also allow someone who is reading about the central limit theorem for the first time to gain some insight as to what it is all about. This is what Wikipedia is used for: a first place to look when attempting to gain familiarity with a new subject. I politely request that you allow me to implement the changes that I have made for the sake of my future students, and for other students struggling with this unnecessarily mysterious concept.

Best wishes,

Martin. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gerbem (talk • contribs) 04:07, 12 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination of Mesoregion for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Mesoregion is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mesoregion until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. Mootros (talk) 23:14, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A closer look at bolding of topics per WP:MOS

Hi,

I found your reference to the lead section of WP:MOS interesting, but I am not satisfied we have gotten to the bottom of this question regarding Arabic vs. Islamic science.

Given Arabic was the lingua Franca of medieval Islamic science; still, there are notable individuals such as Dr. Broumand, who point out the term Arabic science tends to diminish the contributions of people from other cultures, such as Avicenna, who worked in the Arabic language.

WP:MOS/Lead states bolding may be applied to other synonyms for an article title. While there is little question as to whether the example in MOS is a true synonym, the case in point here, Arabic vs Islamic science, is disputed and in fact controversial. I do not believe it was the intention of the editors who crafted the policy on topic bolding to use it in this way. If so, it is more fitting to explore the difference in the article lead.

I would further point out I have arrived at many articles through redirects where the redirected term did not appear at the target in bold letters. In fact, some articles with multiple redirects could become quite awkward in this regard. It does seem to detract.

Thanks

-Aquib (talk) 22:16, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Although there is an ongoing dispute on what the best term to use is, the term Arabic science is certainly in legitimate academic use at this time (e.g., Huff, ISBN 0521529948, pp. 47 ff.) as an approximate synonym for Islamic science. I have no objection to discussing the naming issue in the body of articles such as Mathematics in medieval Islam, but since the lead is meant to be a brief summary of the article, I don't think it should be overburdened with this relatively unimportant issue.

The issue of what redirects to a page isn't really relevant to this issue (nor is it mentioned in Wikipedia:BOLDTITLE#Abbreviations_and_synonyms.) Ideally, following a redirect should lead you to a section of an article where the term redirected from is discussed, but there's no requirement that the term redirected from be boldfaced, or even that it appear verbatim at all. Spacepotato (talk) 23:10, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Relatively unimportant, yet somehow the subject of an ongoing dispute. -Aquib (talk) 23:47, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, people enjoy squabbling over unimportant things, and especially so here at Wikipedia. We've had long edit wars over even less important things, such as the name "Mexican-American War" (should it use a hyphen (-) or an en-dash (–)?) Spacepotato (talk) 23:55, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Important? Have you considered the possibility some people might prefer to attribute these scientific achievements to other factors - a people, a country, a language - rather than to the opportunities provided by a tolerant, multicultural world civilization? -Aquib (talk) 04:22, 19 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think, that readers' acceptance of the theory you mention as to the reason for the scientific advancements of medieval Islam will not be affected very much by whether we write Arabic X in boldface or normal-weight type, or whether we discuss the naming issue in the lead or the body in the article. So, I think it's better to follow normal Wikipedia style guidelines, which would mean writing both Islamic X and Arabic X in the lead sentence (assuming both these terms are in legitimate use.)

Certainly, there are objections to writing Arabic science, Arabic medicine, etc., just as there are objections to Islamic science, Islamic medicine, etc. There is some discussion of the pros and cons of these names at Talk:Mathematics in medieval Islam#Proposed_titles. However, I think the place to discuss this is in the body of the article; or, since it would be repetitive to discuss the same issues in Mathematics in medieval Islam, Medicine in medieval Islam, etc., it might be better to write a separate article on the naming issue. Spacepotato (talk) 23:20, 19 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Could be. Thanks -Aquib (talk) 20:11, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Science in medieval Islam is the key -Aquib (talk) 02:23, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]