Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive/2017/Jul

Ω-validity

There is a redirect, Ω-validity, that is causing a bit of trouble. Procedurally, maybe this should be raised at WP:RFD, but I don't think that's the best venue for a technical discussion.

Here's the background as I can reconstruct it:

• A long time ago, someone put in the validity article a discussion of a concept called "ω-validity". It looked like pretty much nonsense to me.
  • It claimed that a sentence was said to be n-valid if it was true in every interpretation having a universe with exactly n elements. That part is plausible enough, though I've never encountered it. Could be in the literature somewhere, or could be someone's OR.
  • Then it went on to say that a sentence was ω-valid if it's true in every interpretation, and has an interpretation with an infinite universe. That part seems to be nonsense. If it's true in every interpretation, then as there always is an interpretation with an infinite universe, the second part is trivial.
• Then at some point the ω got upcased to Ω. That led to confusion with Ω-logic, and the creation of this redirect and subsequent retargeting, involving User:CBM and User:Omnipedista. Oops — that should be User:Omnipaedista.
• There does in fact exist a concept of Ω-validity that is related to Ω-logic, although the Ω-logic article does not discuss it. See for example http://www2.units.it/episteme/L&PS_Vol3No1/bellotti_L&PS_Vol3No1.pdf. I don't know whether this is worth discussing in the Ω-logic article, which is a very brief view from 30,000 feet and has almost no technical details (if you think it does, that just proves you haven't tried to learn about Ω-logic :-) ). I suppose the article could be expanded, and it might be worth treating in that case, but unfortunately Woodin's project that led to the identification of Ω-logic in the first place seems to have failed. Given that, together with the enormous technical difficulty of the subject, I have some doubts that anyone will ever really want to do it.

So, what to do with Ω-validity and Ω-valid (another redirect pointing to the same article)? Keep in mind that titles are not case-sensitive in the first letter, so ω-validity and ω-valid point to the same place as Ω-validity and Ω-valid respectively, and this unfortunately cannot be changed. (I tried to argue years ago that we should have case-sensitivity when the first letter is non-Latin, but that went nowhere fast.) --Trovatore (talk) 18:55, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

I have no expertise in the mathematics content, but if title case conversion prevents disambiguation, then this probably needs a disambiguation page, as it done with Omega-logic. That is, make Ω-validity, Ω-valid, Omega-valid, etc., redirects to a dab page to direct readers to the proper Ω- or ω- topics. --Mark viking (talk) 19:31, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes, that might be part of the solution. Is there a standard notion of ω-validity to point to? I could guess that it means something like "true in every ω-model", although one then wants to ask, ω-model of what. I'm not sure you can make sense of ω-models without requiring that the model satisfy some minimal fragment of set theory or arithmetic. Maybe you can; I haven't thought about it very deeply. Or maybe it could mean "provable without using any non-logical axioms, but allowing ω-rule". These notions are probably not the same, and I wouldn't be surprised if they are both attested in the literature, though I do not remember encountering either of them. --Trovatore (talk) 19:44, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Update: Seems I made a mistake — Ω-logic does in fact discuss Ω-validity. So it's a reasonable redirect, unless we also need to address ω-validity. Do we? --Trovatore (talk) 21:26, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

How about this edit? --Omnipaedista (talk) 21:28, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Seems fine as far as it goes. I tried looking for ω-valid on Google Scholar to get a sense of the urgency of the problem. I'm thinking "not very urgent". The highest hits are irrelevant (accidental juxtapositions), and the Woodin notion with the uppercase Ω shows up before any relevant hit with lowercase ω. There are two relevant hits on the first page, which are probably not the same notion: http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/978-3-642-11512-7.pdf#page=216 and http://www.springerlink.com/index/u66p0010q2161181.pdf. If someone wants to write about one of those, we can revisit the issue, but for now I think we're OK without a target for lowercase ω-valid. --Trovatore (talk) 21:35, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

RfC regarding the WP:Lead guideline -- the first sentence

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section#Request for comment on parenthetical information in first sentence. A WP:Permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:00, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Red links in List of Italian mathematicians

An editor removed all red links from List of Italian mathematicians with the edit summary "rm non notable. Must have their own wiki page to be included" I reverted the edit on the grounds that red links in such lists were essential to encourage creation of new articles, only to be reverted again, this time with edit summary "violation of WP:V". Is there removal of red links appropriate? 223.227.124.160 (talk) 08:29, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Usually, in lists of indeterminate size such as this one, we need a rule that we are listing only the notable members rather than all of them: only notable Italian mathematicians, not just anyone who is Italian and a mathematician. (See WP:CSC.) Sometimes that means only bluelinks, and sometimes that means that redlinks can be ok if they are clearly notable and include footnotes justifying their notability. But having a redlink farm without sources in article space is probably a mistake. In the diff you link to from last February, only unsourced redlinks were removed — the names that didn't have articles yet here, but did have articles in the Italian Wikipedia, were left in place. That seems perfectly reasonable to me. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:11, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

How does one LaTeXify semantics around here?

Hi. For "semantics of X" I normally use (a macro using) \llbracket and \rrbracket, which seem not to exist on Wikipedia. I can hack it with negative spaces, like so, [\![ X ]\!] :$[\![X]\!]$, but I fear for my sanity if I have to do that too often. I checked Denotational semantics to see how the authors survived, and they cheated by using the symbols in UTF8 in the running text, which does not help me in math mode. Is there a sanity-preserving way of doing semantics symbols in math mode? — Gamall Wednesday Ida (t · c) 17:36, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Theorem of the unique homomorphic extension

The article titled Theorem of the unique homomorphic extension is in terrible shape. Michael Hardy (talk) 18:54, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Aggressive spamming of a recent arXiv posting, "decision streams"

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

---

IP editors (including, but not limited to, 46.39.231.134 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), 46.39.231.139 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), 46.39.231.232 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), 46.39.231.236 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), 103.28.36.56 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), and 62.119.167.36 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) have been aggressively adding references to the recent arXiv paper 1704.07657 and wikilinks to the neologism decision stream (this is a link to a draft article, there is no mainspace target). I've reverted perhaps 30 instances in the past few days; the only instance I know remains is at decision tree learning. I have not tried to communicate with any of the IPs. Anyone who wants to help out with any of the obvious associated tasks is very welcome to do so! --JBL (talk) 21:17, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Three IP addresses have now restored the spam in at least 13 articles, see e.g. [1]. Suggestions? --JBL (talk) 14:38, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Might be a appropriate to set some of the affected article to semiprotectipn if the problem persist. I've posted note with regard to sourcing policies at the draft.--Kmhkmh (talk) 16:51, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

P.S.: The IPs might be identical or related to User talk:AlexNet22, so i guess he might be another obvious point of contact.--Kmhkmh (talk) 17:03, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Yes, semi-protection would be good -- the additions have continued. If there is an administrator here who is interested, I can give a complete list of affected articles. I will try AlexNet22, although at this point I am probably not the best messenger. --JBL (talk) 19:34, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

I have semiprotected a bunch of these (the ones I could find with multiple spam-revert cycles) for two weeks. Please me know if I missed any or if the problem recurs once the semiprotection expires. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:46, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks very much. A quick glance suggests you got them all. --JBL (talk) 21:51, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

@David Eppstein:, one more: [2] --JBL (talk) 18:06, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. There was also another one you missed on Outline of machine learning. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:14, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Dear Joel,

Thanks for your comprehensive massages. Sorry, I've missed all discussions.

We'll wait for publication of the article and citation of decision stream technique in other official publications before change the draft Decision stream into the Wikipedia article and restore the work of several people, who cautiously added small fragments of text about decision stream into appropriate places of Wikipedia articles. It's a pity, that this information can't be available for interested readers of Wikipedia now.

Kind regards, AlexNet22 (talk)

By the way, it's funny to see how earnestly David Eppstein adds into draft massage: 'See related discussion re aggressive spamming of this non-notable new unpublished work at WT:WPM#Aggressive spamming of a recent arXiv posting, "decision streams"'

AlexNet22 (talk) 20:32, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

And now, a massage from Joel B Lewis. EEng 22:44, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Dear @AlexNet22:, thanks, the proposal you've outlined in your second paragraph sounds reasonable to me. If there are other papers that use this concept, it would be great to add more references to the draft. Also, it would be very helpful for others and for discussion purposes if you could try to edit from your account, rather than as a logged-out IP user, as much as possible. All the best, JBL (talk) 18:29, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

EEng, David Eppstein, I would like to suggest, in the spirit of WP:AGF, that as long as AlexNet22 and the IP users do not resume adding links to the preprint, it is ok to let the pointer on the draft go. (There is also a pointer to this page on the talk page; I will add a specific pointer to this discussion.) Thanks, JBL (talk) 18:29, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm OK with that. I found your massage very relaxing, BTW. EEng 20:04, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

I want to make sure that any reviewer who might consider approving the draft for mainspace knows about the issues. But if you think that other channels such as the draft's talk page are adequate for that purpose, then maybe the notice isn't necessary. I note, however, that the talk page has also been repeatedly blanked. Regardless, the draft does need to be clearly marked as a draft, so that readers don't think it's already an article. I will try adding {{Draft article}} instead. If AlexNet22 or his IP minions continue removing such notices, the only alternative may be to delete the draft altogether. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:12, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

David Eppstein, yes, this sounds totally reasonable. (And I intend to keep the draft on my watchlist, which I check fairly regularly.) Also thanks for moving the note there while I was distracted by real life :). EEng, my pleasure ;). --JBL (talk) 21:07, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Hi, David. My commits don't contain any external link (your reason to remove my updates). Could you please restore committed information. AlexNet22 (talk) 18:58, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

The spam warnings I left on your talk page are boilerplate designed more for external link spammers, but the warning itself applies equally well to your reference spamming. Why have you gone back to spamming your non-notable preprint across Wikipedia? Nothing has changed to give it more significance than it had a week ago. Stop your spam or get blocked. My advice would be to (1) find some other area within Wikipedia to contribute to, where you can apply your expertise but without any possibility of self-citation or other conflicts of interest, (2) work steadily on improving articles in that area for at least an entire year, refraining from any mention of your own work or close colleagues, and (3) once you have demonstrated that you are a good-faith contributor to Wikipedia and not just a self-promoter, and once your paper has had time to accumulate some impact (if it ever does), consider citing it only in those articles where it is most directly relevant (rather than, as now, anything even tangentially related). —David Eppstein (talk) 19:34, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Dear David,

1. This is not my preprint and I edit articles in the area, which corresponds to my professional knowledge.

2. I consider your actions against several editors only as a vandal actions.

Please restore the committed information ASAP.— Preceding unsigned comment added by AlexNet22 (talk • contribs)

No. It's off-topic and it's spam. You stop. As for "I edit articles in the area": your contributions show that all you have done here involves spamming this preprint or discussing your spam, with no constructive contributions in this area. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:53, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

• David Eppstein (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Without been able to describe reason for his actions continuously reverts information submitted by different editors in appropriate places of articles: "Decision tree learning", "Pruning (decision trees)", "Directed acyclic graph", "Chi-square automatic interaction detection", "Predictive analytics", "Statistical classification". AlexNet22 (talk) 20:09, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
  • WP:ANI is thataway. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:21, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

• David Eppstein (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Yes, David aggressively deleted all my commits. He's just in a war against the idea of Decision stream provided by scientific community 62.119.167.36 (talk) 08:47, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

It is rather the other way around. The decision stream prononents seem resistant to advice and are unwilling to read and understand and WP guideline and policies. Now there have been already a couple of experienced editors and not just David, who've asked you to change your behaviour and if you don't it will end up with a ban.--Kmhkmh (talk) 12:04, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

• Comment. Since editors favoring inclusion seems to be under the misconception that this discussion provides some support for inclusion of this unpublished research in Wikipedia, I state unambiguously that I am opposed to its inclusion. In addition to my own opinion on the matter, the content under discussion violates Wikipedia policy, which requires that the material be published in reliable secondary sources (WP:PSTS, WP:SCHOLARSHIP, WP:NOR). Since the only source appears to be self-published, it fails these requirements on multiple fronts, and inclusion of these fringe views is clear WP:UNDUE weight to an insignificant minority viewpoint. Sławomir Biały (talk) 12:17, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Dear Sławomir,

Would you like to take into account opinion and fair work of new scientific community, which uses Decision stream in huge number of experiments and supports development of this direction. As well, it's good to see discussion of this situation, not just aggressive removing of information by David Eppstein. 31.44.94.244 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:20, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

No, we're not a publisher of original research. Secondary sources, such as academic books or review articles, are usually required. Sławomir Biały (talk) 13:26, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

If there are properly published papers (or textbook content) on decision streams then you may write an article on decision streams based on those. In addition you may link preprints on arxiv of already (journal) published articles or other digital copies. But writing an article or even just content pieces merely based on arxiv papers that not have been published elsewhere in a journal or book is an absolute no-go in WP.--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:06, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Hi,

I also take advantage of Decision stream in my work and have to say that AlexNet22 agreed to postponed an activity in Wikipedia until the article is published. But it was proposed "in the spirit of WP:AGF, that as long as AlexNet22 and the IP users do not resume adding links to the preprint, it is ok to let the pointer on the draft go". And David Eppstein replied "this sounds totally reasonable". But as soon as the most impotent information was restored (without links to the preprint) it was deleted. You are professionals we are - too. Lets have at least small respect to the work of scientific community, which is done twice and which was removed by Eppstein.

Thanks, 78.108.46.137 (talk) Dave

The arXiv preprint is where it always was, available for you to use and cite. And all I agreed to was to drop the comment about the aggressive spamming on the draft page and replace it with a standard draft template. I did not agree to allow wikilinks from articles to the draft (that would be against Wikipedia policy) and I did not agree to allow the decision streaming content back onto Wikipedia article space. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:12, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

• David Eppstein (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) doesn't understand the discussion, but aggressively deletes the commits of editors 78.108.46.137 (talk) 20:29, 3 July 2017 (UTC) Dave

I believe that JBL's reasonable suggestion has been misconstrued and has formed the basis of this most recent round of spamming sans links. There is clearly a language problem here and perhaps we need to be a little more explicit in our explanations. Wikipedia is not the place to publish new ideas and novel methods, the editors here are obliged to remove material of that nature which has not appeared in some published form that has been vetted by the scientific community. David Eppstein is not being aggressive with these reverts, he is just carrying out the community guidelines of Wikipedia. If David wasn't doing this then some other editors would be (I would for instance); he's just faster than the rest of us. As individuals, we are not antagonistic to new and developing ideas, but Wikipedia is just not the right venue for presenting them. When, and if, these concepts meet our criteria for inclusion, we will be happy to do so and assist you in creating a good article, but until then you must abide by our guidelines.--Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 20:29, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

OK, Bill. Let's consider the issue's been closed. Of course, we are not against the Wikipedia rules 78.108.46.137 (talk) 20:53, 3 July 2017 (UTC) Dave

Dears, hope nobody is against the change of the title of the topic to the more tolerant - "Decision stream references discussion" (except David Eppstein, who is always against) 31.44.94.244 (talk) 06:51, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

• David Eppstein (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Please, stop this vandal, who doesn't have common sense, doesn't understand the Wikipedia tolerance policy, and just aggressively moves against idea of Decision stream in all possible ways 31.44.94.244 (talk) 07:56, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Epstein's undoing is perfectly legitimate. The only vandalism, here, is yours, which consists of changing headings without good reasons and without consensus. D.Lazard (talk) 09:35, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Please, ask Joel about the change of original title and, please, be tolerant not like this vandal - David Eppstein 62.119.167.36 (talk)

• I think it is appropriate that the first to change should have asked, I just restored it again. Furthermore, I object to your use of this vandal in this context here. Purgy (talk) 06:42, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Please, stop your aggressive actions.

Looks like David Eppstein asks his friend to help him in this aggression 31.44.94.244 (talk) 11:53, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

• Please, take notice that I do not consider restoring of content not violating respectable rules as an aggressive act, whereas I am convinced that insisting on calling others vandals for their taking care of WP guidelines is plain aggression, restoring this aggression is still more aggressive.
• Please, also take notice that I did not even exchange cards with any of the concerned people around here, so it is ridiculous to assume, I had been called upon for my act, which I, as mentioned already, do not allow to be called aggressive, nota bene as a friend. Purgy (talk) 06:42, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Dear D.Lazard, several editors marked David Eppstein as vandal, due to his extraordinary aggressiveness. Please, don't edit their opinion by request of your friend! 46.39.231.235 (talk) 17:47, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

And none of it matters, because this is clear meat- or sock-puppetry, and his edits do not fall under the definition of 'vandalism'. You've already been pointed in the correct direction multiple times, pretending otherwise is disruptive.--Jasper Deng (talk) 19:32, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

To the IP editor (and sock puppets): Please see the rule against more than three reverts on the same page within 24 hours at WP:3RR. JRSpriggs (talk) 04:35, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Dear Joel B. Lewis, could you please approve the change of this topic title to "Decision stream references discussion". Unfortunately, AlexNet22 is not available now, so I ask you directly. 62.119.167.36 (talk) 08:34, 5 July 2017 (UTC) Jane

I doubt that Joel B. Lewis could approve that you change his edits. In any case, you are not allowed to do this change yourself; see WP:TALKO. where you can read Never edit or move someone's comment to change its meaning. Moreover, there are several links to this discussion, and changing the heading break these links. D.Lazard (talk) 08:59, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Jeez. It should be obvious enough that the article does not yet meet the conditions of WP:Notability. There really is nothing more to discuss. Dmcq (talk) 09:12, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Section heading

Can we please stop this senseless edit warring that has now devolved into argument over the heading of the above closed discussion. To hopefully calm the waters, let me bring up some points about section headings that even some of our most experienced editors haven't gotten completely right. First of all, section headings can be changed (but I don't know if this applies to closed discussions) and are not owned by the originator or anyone else involved in the discussion (WP:TALKO). Joel is not required to approve or comment on a section heading change, however, it is considered to be polite if the originator is involved (or asked to be) in the discussion. A reason for changing a heading may be to provide a clearer description of the content of the discussion. However, this must be done with care to ensure that the intent of the original poster is not changed (WP:TALKNO). And, as usual, if editors disagree on a change the issue needs to be discussed (leaving the original in place) until a consensus is reached. Having said that, let me turn to the specifics of this argument. Which heading better reflects the discussion? It is clear to me that the issue being discussed involved the activities of several IP's in various articles around the introduction of material concerning "decision streams". The single reference in the draft article was quickly dealt with as an unusable arXiv article. Thus, changing the heading to talk about references, I find to be highly misleading. Furthermore, I don't see that the original (and current) heading is derogatory with respect to the topic of decision streams, only with the spamming activity associated with it.--Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 18:29, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Grandi's series

I (again) took out two hand-wavy methods here. This article needs a lot of love in general; misconceptions like this only get in the way of the reader's understanding. I'm posting here in the hopes they could be made rigorous, but as-is, they are flatly not (for starters, they don't even try to use an alternative method of summation).--Jasper Deng (talk) 06:19, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Glasser's master theorem

I have created a new article titled Glasser's master theorem.

The following tasks could improve it:

• Concrete examples of integrals to which it is applicable;
• Other articles linking to it;
• Maybe a proof? Or maybe not?;
• etc.

Michael Hardy (talk) 21:03, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Here's the easy part of linking other articles to it:

• Glasser's Master Theorem (redirect page) ‎ (links | edit)
• Cauchy-Schlomilch substitution (redirect page) ‎ (links | edit)
• Cauchy–Schlömilch substitution (redirect page) ‎ (links | edit)
• Cauchy–Schlömilch transformation (redirect page) ‎ (links | edit)
• Cauchy-Schlömilch substitution (redirect page) ‎ (links | edit)
• Cauchy–Schlomilch substitution (redirect page) ‎ (links | edit)
• Cauchy-Schlömilch transformation (redirect page) ‎ (links | edit)
• Cauchy–Schlomilch transformation (redirect page) ‎ (links | edit)
• Cauchy-Schlomilch transformation (redirect page) ‎ (links | edit)
• Cauchy-Schlomilch Substitution (redirect page) ‎ (links | edit)
• Cauchy–Schlomilch Substitution (redirect page) ‎ (links | edit)
• Cauchy-Schlömilch Substitution (redirect page) ‎ (links | edit)
• Cauchy–Schlömilch Substitution (redirect page) ‎ (links | edit)
• Cauchy–Schlömilch Transformation (redirect page) ‎ (links | edit)
• Cauchy-Schlömilch Transformation (redirect page) ‎ (links | edit)
• Cauchy–Schlomilch Transformation (redirect page) ‎ (links | edit)
• Cauchy-Schlomilch Transformation (redirect page) ‎ (links | edit)

Michael Hardy (talk) 03:55, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Why not Cauchy's residue theorem? -- Taku (talk) 07:47, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Recruit new editors for the project?

Hi, just wonder if there is any template or program in the project to recruit newcomers or new editors to join the project? Bobo.03 (talk) 04:20, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

I don't know of a specific program for this. There is the template {{subst:MathWelcome}}. --Mark viking (talk) 21:41, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Goldbach's weak conjecture proof

I have recently ran afoul of Sapphorain in attempting to add the (fairly obvious) consequence that every even number is the sum of four primes to the prime number article, having been reverted with the explanation that the arXiv preprints released by Harald Helfgott are not an acceptable source, and having been told that referring to Helfgott's website itself (listing future publication) is crystal-gazing since acceptance would have been listed by ArXiv under "journal references". Given how this was taken up nearly immediately on Terry Tao's Google+, and got Helfgott the Humboldt Professorship, and was apparently first added to Wikipedia by JosephSilverman (clearly the Joseph H. Silverman, given the name and his link to his home page on his userpage), one would have thought that this result had already been thoroughly checked and vetted even before the publication. But, since I am already involved in the dispute, I would like to ask here if Helfgott's arXiv papers should be considered an acceptable source for Wikipedia, given these circumstances. Double sharp (talk) 14:00, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

The very fact that Helfgott’s paper takes so much time to be published should make us cautious. Remember it took several years until Wiles’ proof of Fermat’s theorem was published, precisely because there was originally a hole in it. There is no urgency for wikipedia to rush in announcing a result before it has been announced by the journal to which Helfgott’s paper has been submitted (we don’t even know which journal it is). Sapphorain (talk) 14:22, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

I would say not, if the only publication is on arXiv. Whatever the reason it has not appeared in a journal yet, that means it has not been published by a reliable source. A G+ post and the web site of his employer are not reliable sources on this. We should wait until it is formally published, as it surely will be if it is a good result.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 17:47, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Oh I feel the pain. I have no difficulty in believing the result to be valid, but I am forced to agree with the others and say that we should not give special credence to this arXiv preprint. I view this as a very slippery slope, accepting this source now will just make it easier to accept this source in the future when the bona fides may not be as stellar, and then from there ... . This is just not a path I wish to go down. --Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 19:03, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

In that case, should we not also substantially de-accent the result on the page on Goldbach's weak conjecture? As it stands, the lede makes it seem much more certain than it may be, and the categorisation in Category:Conjectures that have been proved is hardly helping matters. Double sharp (talk) 23:37, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

I agree that there's no reason not to wait until publication to add his result to Wikipedia but according to Helgott's webpage his preprint has been accepted for publication in Annals of math. studies (see the "Livre - Mathématiques pures" section in teh list). jraimbau (talk) 05:41, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Disagreement at 0.999...

Talk:0.999...#Definition would benefit from more opinions of those that actually know some mathematics, and less of those who clearly know nothing, but are keen on reverting changes to the article. Sławomir Biały (talk) 01:08, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

I've added two dispute tags to the article. We seem to be at an impasse, and editors seem to be piling on without understanding the dispute (or the subject of the article). At issue is whether this revision is better than this one. I contend that the latter fails to comply with NPOV, because it does not adequately address the shortcomings of the supposed "algebraic proofs", and also does not define the subject of the article until the eleventh paragraph. A lot of Randy's are stalking the article. Opinions of experienced mathematicians are needed! Sławomir Biały (talk) 15:54, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

This talk page really needs the attention of someone who actually knows something. The talk page seems to be completely ruled by editors who clearly have a very limited understanding of the topic (and apparently disagree with the way sources discuss the subject). Pinging: @David Eppstein:, @Tsirel:, @CBM:, @D.Lazard: Sławomir Biały (talk) 02:04, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

There is now an RfC. Opinions are welcome. Sławomir Biały (talk) 17:20, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

A draft to look at...

if interested, naturally. The draft is Draft:Residue (Complex Geometry), which seems to discuss residues on hypersurfaces. In your opinion, would this merit its own article, could it safely be discussed at Residue (complex analysis), or does it merit inclusion at all in Wikipedia? Thanks, /wiae /tlk 19:30, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure this is the same thing as poincaré residue; so the merger with that article (but not "residue (complex analysis)") is appropriate here. -- Taku (talk) 21:10, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

A merger to Residue (complex analysis) would be less than ideal. Poincaré residue is a vastly superior merge target. I personally would like to know why it it restricted to $\mathbb {P} ^{n}$ though. Is there a constraint on the normal bundle? Sławomir Biały (talk) 21:51, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Because the definition of a hypersurface is less clear. On a general but still smooth variety, you probably want to consider something that is locally a hypersurface; i.e., a divisor. But then the theory becomes that of logarithmic differential forms (i.e., a meromorphic form with poles along a divisor). If you even want to weaken smoothness, the definition of a divisor becomes unclear... -- Taku (talk) 23:07, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

RfC: Red links in infoboxes

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Infoboxes#RfC: Red links in infoboxes. A WP:Permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 13:20, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Deletion of " n-Dimensional rotation matrix generation algorithm" is proposed

I don't have an opinion on this one (yet). Those who do should comment at the following page: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/N-Dimensional_rotation_matrix_generation_algorithm Michael Hardy (talk) 20:52, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Solèr's theorem

Solèr's theorem could probably use work. For one thing, currently only one other article links to it. Michael Hardy (talk) 06:59, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Stale Abstract mathematic Draft pages, again

• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics/Archive/2016/Mar#Abstract_Geometry_creations_languishing_in_Draft_namespace
• User:MusikBot/StaleDrafts/Report
• Draft:K-theory of a category
• Draft:Matsusaka's big theorem
• Draft:Tensor product of representations
• Draft:Graded Hopf algebra
• and many more

I come back again trying to figure out what to do with these sub-stubs of geometric pages, some which are not referenced at all. I no longer care about the page creator's feelings as we had this debate over a year ago and it got mired down in the nitty gritty of debating the terminology. Can someone from this project take a look at the StaleDrafts report and figure out what should be kept, what should be redirected to a mainspace page, and what should be deleted? Hasteur (talk) 20:35, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Also note that the author thinks that stubs that are completely effectively one liners that come effectively from a textbook are better than a redirect to a relatively close page. Can someone from this project please evaluate since they seem to believe that an outsider who doesn't have theoritical math experience can't judge the pages to the point of WP:OWN? This was noted last year only to have it die out. I'd prefer not to wave an WP:AN scrutiny beam over the massive WP:OWN-ership that is going on, but this is not an acceptable use of draft space and the continual heaping on of more problematic stubs in draft space. Hasteur (talk) 22:41, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

No the question need to be asked: why does something have to be done to them? I get you feel that way; may I suggest you change your mind? (It's not acceptable to you; I get it. But it is acceptable to the community.) -- Taku (talk) 23:11, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Since you need to be Tendentious with your editing:

1. We're not a permanant repository of content
2. Draft space is intended to be temporary storage of pages
3. YOUR pages are amongst the 50 oldest drafts that have not had a single edit since 2014 and by proxy STALE
4. Your land grabs of the titles prevents others from creating potentially better articles
5. Your land grabs give the impression you want the "creation" credit thereby missing the point of Wikipedia and Draft space
6. Your pages only give a barest minimum to give context and therefore aren't useful
7. Your pages would be better served by making them redirects to the topic (Really: Is Toroidal Embedding different than Toric variety In algebraic geometry, a toric variety or torus embedding is an algebraic variety?)
8. Your creations are so esoteric that they either belong on MathOverflow (which you're referencing) or are single line definitions from Graduate level mathematics textbooks.

Your pages were called out last year only to have you nitpick the exact definitions. You were asked to fix it last year, and you have only continued to add more pages to Draft space without fixing the current ones. I could call one of the less accomidating editors to just go ahead and outright delete the page like how Legacypac tried earlier this month. Hasteur (talk) 23:22, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Again the problem is that you're arbitrary imposing some rules that are not agreed up on by community. For example, "2. Draft space is intended to be temporary storage of pages"; again who said this? It is a place to hold drafts not temporary pages. Why do you think the draft namespace has "draft" not "temp". The same kind of refutations go to the other items, which I leave as exercises for you to solve. (It's confusing but torus embedding ≠ toroidal embedding; there is a genuine difference.) -- Taku (talk) 23:29, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Per WP:DRAFT Drafts are administration pages in the Draft namespace where new articles may be stored. They help facilitate new articles to develop and receive feedback before being moved to Wikipedia's mainspace. If you are logged in, creating a draft before directly publishing the article is optional. Editors may instead choose to create draft pages in their userspace, or directly into mainspace, if they prefer Drafts are meant to be works in progress, and most will not meet Wikipedia's standards for quality at first. You haven't edited these in over 2 years while creating new pages and Drafts. You were asked to stop creating new pages and focus cleaning up the ones you've already created. Hasteur (talk) 23:34, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

I read it twice and I cannot find the word "temporary"; "new articles" here are meant to indicate it is not a place to hold the content; it is a place for the creation of new articles. That's my understanding exactly. The error here is thinking some fixed timeframe must be attached to the creation and development of the content. That's not consistent with the wiki-way, the perpetual state of work-in-progress. -- Taku (talk) 23:39, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

And no, it was not acceptable to the community (see last year's discussion) to see that the memebers of this project really wanted you to take that content to somewhere else. Therefore I request last year's contributors (Sławomir Biały—Ozob—David Eppstein) to disabuse you of that silly notion that it was ok. Hasteur (talk) 23:31, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

We apparently have different memory; what I remember the members thought some of drafts are content-less. I don't recall the use of the draft namespace was incorrect or anything; also by the community, I am also thinking of MfD and deletion reviews. It is the community's decision that those drafts need not be deleted. Please get over it. -- Taku (talk) 23:35, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

If you review MfD you will find we delete abandoned pages all the time. Draft space is not a permanent shadow encyclopedia of topics that are not suitable for mainspace and not being worked on. It is clear here you have no interest in working on these "less than stubs" and they clutter up maintenance categories. I propose we move all stale draft content to one user subpage. Each topic can have a subheading and it's content and any links below that. I found User:TakuyaMurata/DraftsUser:Johnuniq/TakuyaMurata's single page draftpage where the existing links could be converted to sections. (This also shows there are many such abandoned drafts). That work for you? Legacypac (talk) 03:08, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Not a chance. I mean who gave you the right to dictate the use of the draft namespace? The draftspace exists for editors who are interested in the creation of new content. Some sit in the draftspace precisely because they are not even stubs; the stubs belong to the main namespace. If the concern is on the notability, for example, I can address each topic individually. But typically the notability is clear to math editors (and that should be enough). -- Taku (talk) 07:56, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Per WP:NOTWEBHOST, no page at Wikipedia is available for indefinite storage of notes regardless of the obviousness of notability to mathematicians. Wikipedia relies on collaboration, so why would there be an objection to the proposal regarding a user subpage? The alternative would be to require a tedious discussion to consider that pages for deletion. Johnuniq (talk) 08:16, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Very disappointed that there is neither a plan to get these mainspace ready or willingness to hold the info on a userspace page for now. Therefore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Draft:Cotensor_product we start with the shortest stale one and work from there. Legacypac (talk) 08:41, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Because if the editors put their drafts at their user pages, what is the point of the draftspace in the first place? Perhaps it is about the style of content development: why impose a certain fixed timeframe? i.e., deadlines. Like in news publications, of course, deadlines help get the things done. In Wikipedia, we have chosen the different content development style (namely, wiki). In the mainspace, it is not rare for some stuby article sits for years and then suddenly get expanded (e.g., poincaré residue). What we have discovered is that the traditional time-framed content development is not the only way (in fact, Wikipedia has shown the wiki-way works better.) I get you (plural) want to impose some more transitional editing-style; you don't have the right to do that; not only that, it's not consistent with WP:DEADLINE (having no plan is the wiki way). -- Taku (talk) 23:06, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

There seems to be confusion over what the "Draft" namespace actually is for. I admit to suffering from a share of this confusion myself. However, I do not think it should be used for indefinite storage of content that is not likely one day to become an article. On the contrary, from the first two sentences of Wikipedia:Drafts: "Drafts are administration pages in the Draft namespace where new articles may be stored. They help facilitate new articles to develop and receive feedback before being moved to Wikipedia's mainspace." (emphasis mine). This implies that content in the draft mainspace should be relatively new, and it should recognizably be suitable as an article. This having been said, I do not think I would object if the draft that was nominated for deletion, Draft:Cotensor product, were actually made into a mainspace stub (ideally supported by a reference). Some of the other drafts are clearly not ready for mainspace, like Draft:K-theory of a category, and should be userfied. Sławomir Biały (talk) 11:08, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

I agree some drafts are not ready for the mainspace. But why userify? Isn't the purpose of the draftspace precisely for the development of the content like this. -- Taku (talk) 23:45, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Why not userfy them? For me it is enough that some editors and administrators do not want these in the namespace, and a perfectly reasonable solution is just to userfy them. Surely everyone is then happy? But I'm not going to argue much about it in any case. Sławomir Biały (talk) 01:19, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

key words "development of the content". There is no development. Legacypac (talk) 01:52, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

What is the key is why you are the one who decides what is being developed or not or what is the proper use of the draftspace. That's for what MfD is for and the consensus is that they need not be deleted. I get you want such an authority; you do not have it. It's very problematic to try to obtain such a power by harassing the editors who merely interested in the encyclopedia building. -- Taku (talk) 20:43, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

See Wikipedia_talk:Drafts#RfC:_on_the_proper_use_of_the_draftspace. (It doesn't make sense, aside from avoiding harassment, to move those drafts to my user page since the draftspace was created as an alternative place for the user drafts, for instance, to allow for the repurposeing of the materials when the user left.) -- Taku (talk) 03:46, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Does the word "duals" exist as plural of "dual"?

"duals is" and "duals are" appear to suggest that "duals" refers to Dual (mathematics) rather than Duals a U2 download. In ictu oculi (talk) 21:01, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

It is certainly true that one can use "duals" as a plural of "dual" in mathematics; for instance, the duals of sets of points in the projective plane are arrangements of lines. I have no strong opinion on which should be the primary topic but if Duals points to the music topic it should definitely have a hat pointing to Dual (disambiguation).

Looking carefully at the "duals is" constructions shows that the singular noun of the sentence is not duals. Since our page titles are singular, the current usage seems to be correct (Wikipedia:PLURALPT). I would agree that the music page needs a hat to the disambiguation page. --Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 21:43, 31 July 2017 (UTC)