Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/A-class rating/2009

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was No consensus discussion has gone stale.--Salix (talk): 17:24, 6 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Aleksandr Lyapunov

Not yet

Three sections on his life, which is not (unlike, say, Monge's) particularly adventurous; one paragraph on the work; one on his work habits. Undue weight.
Not idiomatic English.
Please remove all the instances of famous; we don't do that, per WP:WEASEL. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:06, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was No consensus discussion has gone stale.--Salix (talk): 17:38, 6 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Entropy

This article has several clean-up and citation needed tags, and is currently not A-class. DrKiernan (talk) 11:57, 7 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yesterday I started to completely rewrite the article, which will take some time. The article will, no doubt, look horrible while this rewrite is going on. Count Iblis (talk) 13:47, 7 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think there's going to be a problem with the time factor. The review should really remain open while work is ongoing. Starting this discussion page is really just a way of trying to attract more editors to the article who can comment constructively on the improvements or help out with edits. DrKiernan (talk) 14:09, 7 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was No consensus discussion has gone stale.--Salix (talk): 17:24, 6 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Maximum spacing estimation

Note: Former discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/A-class rating/Maximum spacing estimation/Archive 1
Explanation I have tried to implement all the suggestions in the previous discussion, and would like to have this reviewed again. I think it makes more sense for the the mathematics experts to approve the article before it goes, hopefully, to FAC, as most FA reviewers are likely not going to have the same knowledge base that could critique this article on its content. I understand that this process may peter out, as discussed on User talk:CBM, but hope springs eternal . Thank you. -- Avi (talk) 15:36, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I read through the article in detail a couple days ago and copyedited it some. I don't see any significant issues. I am not an expert in the area of the article, however, so I cannot say anything about its completeness. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:27, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I'm sensing a lack of enthusiasm, and while that's almost completely useless as constructive feedback for improving the article, it's also not a good reason for passing it. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:16, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- A lack of enthusiasm where, by CBM or in the article. I also request that y'all look at the article again, it has been bery much improved in terms of examples and illustrations. -- Avi (talk) 15:17, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - I meant a lack of enthusiasm as indicated by the number and quality of reviews you're getting here. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:06, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, I figured that may happen; especially as it is between semesters. I'd rather get content-related feedback here than at FAC where it is likely most reviewers will be less attuned to the material. -- Avi (talk) 16:09, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Of course, that should not stop you from providing constructive criticism, or a declaration of support or opposition :) -- Avi (talk) 16:10, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Four color theorem

Closed with keep A-class: There seem to be no remaining issues. Perhaps some stuff (as mentioned below) could be profitably pruned, but I found it difficult to do so. In any case, that seems a minor issue that can easily be fixed by anyone who sees it as a problem. --C S (talk) 04:18, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is a nomination to remove the A rating. What is/are the complaint(s)? --C S (talk) 05:06, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

- I added some refs to a cite tagged section. Redid some of the lede and arrangement of the article (including removing some cruft). Other than that, I see no major issues, except the history section is somewhat messy. I'll clean that up. --C S (talk) 09:06, 28 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That looks much better, though I would prefer not to see a mix of citation styles (however, that is a very minor point). DrKay (talk) 10:00, 28 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. You responded too quickly. I'm fixing the citation style now, since I added several more and found which ones seem to be the best (in terms of comprehensibility, range of info, and access). --C S (talk) 10:02, 28 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I thought I forgot something...usually people expect to see the nomination listed on the project talk page. I'll do that now so we can get further input. --C S (talk) 10:41, 28 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the help with cleanup, C S. I think it's a good article - the only thing I can think to complain about is that it waxes verbose on some of the more incidental discussion about false disproofs and conditions that make the theorem inapplicable. These get more attention by laymen but less from experts, who are more interested in things like robust verification of the proof. Dcoetzee 21:01, 28 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I was thinking about that too. I think I can make it less "waxing", but I'm reluctant to remove it entirely. For accessibility reasons, I think it's good to explain that you have to be careful in the precise formulation (although the first section should be shorter), and also, the false proof section is somewhat unusual -- however, given the lengths people spend making those exact mistakes, I think, it is worth pointing them out. At least for the sake of the enjoyment and enlightenment of the general reader. --C S (talk) 04:43, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Riemann hypothesis

What problems do you see? The ideal solution would be to fix them and retain the rating. (Note: I am not defending the article; they aren't glaringly obvious at a glance, that's all.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:23, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Closed as it is not ready yet. Sadly, I and some others have gotten too busy to improve this page like planned, and the article is in clear need of work. If the comments below are addressed, the article should be worth nominating again. --C S (talk) 22:40, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

comment by Jakob.scholbach

It was me who came up with this idea, so I also have the duty to give some actionable criticism. Here are some points. A more in-depth analysis would certainly uncover more problems.

A real problem is the lack of precise references, indicated by some ^{[citation needed]} tags, but many other statements need a ref, too, IMO. For example the footnote 2 is nothing but an extension of the statement made in the lead. Every single phrase in the footnote deserves a reference, or else has to be scrapped.
The organization of the article is far from optimal: e.g.
- "The traditional formulation of the Riemann hypothesis obscures somewhat the true importance of the conjecture." leaves both unclear the traditional formulation (??) and the true importance. Neither of the two are touched in previous paragraphs.
- What is the specific intention of "The Riemann hypothesis and primes" compared to "Consequences and eq.formulations..." THe former section contains several equivalent formulations.
- THe "Weil's criterion, Li's criterion" section is short.
Most importantly, I feel the article is written in a way that just collects some facts, but does not give any connection. E.g. the equivalent formulations: why are they equivalent (at least indicating that is necessary), what is their importance etc.
The definition of zeta(s) is obviously a key asset in the whole story. This has to be in the article.
The article has to explain why the -2, -4 etc. are called trivial zeroes. This is easily done using the decomposition in the part stemming from the infinite place of Q, and the finite-places Euler factors. So not a big deal, but an example of how little meaningful content the article conveys.
The "Popular References" section is somehow crappy. I may have too puristic a taste, but if that many popular refs are included, at least somehow the public reception of the conjecture in The Simpsons or whereever has to be explained in the article as well (I personally don't need that, but some people seem to).
"Cited References"?? What does that mean?

OK, these are some points. As far as I understand it, A-class means better than GA. IMO, this article is not "good" (in its natural meaning), nor good (already by lack of citations, but more serious issue is article structure and content) in Wikispeak. The article, as present at the moment, deserves B-class rating, IMO. Jakob.scholbach (talk) 21:17, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

comment by C S

There is one problem that just leaps out when reading this article. It doesn't do a very good job of explaining the history and motivation behind the statement of the conjecture. The first section is "history" and it immediately jumps into work on resolving the conjecture instead of explaining why Riemann would make the conjecture. The next section is about RH and prime distribution, probably the section most laypeople are interested in. The very first mention of the prime numbers is in relation to a somewhat technical 1901 result. That's a tad ludicrous.

Even that might be ok, if it were not written in a somewhat opaque manner to non-mathematicians. It's something that can elegantly be described mostly in words, not in a "here is the equation" followed by "where blah blah denotes this, blah blah denotes that, etc." manner. This is not an isolated example. The writing really is not excellent and the lede is completely inadequate.

A crucial issue (as already pointed out) is how much we are supposed to explain about the defining of the zeta function. For an article on a very specific major problem like this, I would expect something, not nothing.

This is an article that is just way below par, in accessibility and readability, of any of the main references available (like the intro to Edwards' book or Bombieri's official Clay math problem description). Of course, this is true of many articles here, but this is supposed to be an A-class article. I believe it is nowhere as well-written or thought-out as the other articles that have passed the A class review process. --C S (talk) 02:32, 26 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.