Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics

Protect geometry?

I put the article Geometry on my watchlist about three weeks ago. In this time, there have been multiple acts of vandalism committed on that page, from blanking and replacing it with expletives to inserting childish non-sense that the contributor considers to be amusing. Almost without an exception, these edits were performed by anonymous users, and some anonymous users (at least one of them with a history of vandalism more extensive than many an editor's list of contributions) targeted the page repeatedly. It is easy enough to understand why is this happening: this is one of the most high profile mathematics articles. Precisely for that reason I think it should also be a model article, not alternate between the states of being an encyclopaedic article and the latest in the junkyard.

It's true that it does not take too much effort to revert an unwelcome edit. However, should we just shrug and carry on, apathetically reassured by technical convenience of reverts, or can we take a more pro-active approach? My assessment is that in this case, at least, the nuisance of the anonymous vandalism far outweighs the modest benefit of having occasional serious anonymous editor contribute. What do other people here think of protecting or semiprotecting Geometry, as has been done in the past with Mathematics and other popular articles? Arcfrk 03:08, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Hey! Some of us like having geometry in the junkyard! (Not disagreeing with your point, just amused by your wording.) —David Eppstein 04:10, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Geometry in a junkyard ("thrackles"?!) is not the same as throwing junk into "geometry". :-)

I, too, have watched the unending stream of petty vandalism, and would support semiprotection. (Full protection seems unnecessary.) --KSmrq^T 04:50, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Somehow my previous comment disappeared: Yes, I think, semiprotection would be a good idea in this case. Jakob.scholbach 05:01, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree. While we're at it, the incidence of vandalism edits at Randomness is also high (1.6 per day, compared to 1.1 per day for Geometry, measured over the last 100 edits), presumably because the perpetrators pick, predictably, a "random" target for their random actions.  --Lambiam^Talk 05:35, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I applied for semi-protection of Randomness recently. It was denied (as most of my requests are) on the grounds that there was not enough vandalism to warrant action. Read that to mean that we waste less than two hours per day reverting it. By the way, KSmrq again wiped out another person's edit (Jakob.scholbach's) and did not fix it. JRSpriggs 11:49, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

The criterion is heavy and continued vandalism. It is continued, the question is what is heavy? Charles Matthews 12:15, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

The problem with semiprotecting articles is that it doesn't get rid of annoying vandals - it just moves them elsewhere. If only a few articles are protected, the vandals will just pick an unprotected one. If a large enough number of articles became semiprotected, it seems possible that the vandals would just start getting usernames, which are free anyway. On the other hand, semiprotection goes against the idea that "anyone can edit" and may discourage new productive editors from joining.

So the traditional standards for semiprotection are very high. Except in cases of libel or copyright violation, the traditional standards want the vandalism rate to be so high that it cannot be dealt with via watchlists and manual reverts.

I think that there is shifting opinion about semiprotecting articles. If you watch WP:RFPP you will see that some admins have lower standards, and the people requesting semiprotection have much lower standards, than what has been required. Maybe in a few months the standard could be lowered some.

And they keep promising that "any day now" the German wikipedia will start experimenting with stable versions, which may also reduce vandalism. CMummert · talk 13:48, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

There seems to be consensus among the editors that it is worth trying to semiprotect Geometry, but a caution from CMummert that it may contradict the current practices of Wikipedia's administrators. While I agree with him that protecting the page does not solve the problem of vandalism completely (e.g. the vandals that have been turned away can still cut their favourite four letter words on their desk in their classroom), I do not believe that this point is relevant for the question at hand. Of course, it all depends on how you interpret the purpose, but here is my statistical analysis of last 100 edits of Geometry, between 20:52 March 27 and 17:14 May 10:

• 2 bot additions of links
• 2 major edits (I expanded the article)
• 3 minor edits (corrections of a single word or sentence)
• 93 edits that are either acts of vandalism, addition of irrelevant information, or reverts.

Thus, over the last 100 edits the vandalism rate is 93%, while the major editing rate is 2%. To answer Charles Matthews's question, I believe that the situation can be accurately described as heavy vandalism. Now, it's true that there are fewer than fifteen attacks per day on that page, but does anyone seriously believe that unprotected status of that page contributes in any meaningful way to its development? If anything, I would conjecture that several well respected editors, while having the page on their watchlist (judging by the promptness of their reverts), choose not to contribute, given the present environment. Ksmrq indirectly confirmed it about a month ago on this very talk page. It is demoralizing to realize that the 'right for anyone to edit', which in this case translates into the opportunity for any dim-wit who has learned to swear, any pupil frustrated with his maths lessons, and anyone bored with encyclopaedic articles to vandalise the page, trumps the reasonable expectation of serious contributors to Wikipedia that their efforts to improve the content are supported in a meaningful way. Just to give you one example of how vandalism disrupts normal editing process, I stumbled across interesting pieces of text that had been a part of the text a while ago, but are no longer present. Given the vandalism rate, I do not have time to work with the page history to trace what has happened to those pieces of text.

Conclusion: if we adapt the pragmatic point of view that our goal is to improve the content of Wikipedia, then semiprotecting Geometry (while not solving the ills of the society as a whole) would be a valuable action towards accomplishing that goal. And conversely, leaving the article unprotected, as a punching bag for all sorts of vandals, sends the wrong message about Wikipedia's priorities. Arcfrk 08:07, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you. Now if we could just get the people at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection to agree. JRSpriggs 10:51, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Any admin can protect or semi-protect a page; this does not require action or agreement of some kind of people "at" the requests page.  --Lambiam^Talk 12:59, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I think that Arcfrk's argument is very compelling, but I understand the arguments against protection as well, which are based on the Wikipedia Foundation policy that anyone can edit here. If this issue were limited to Geometry, I would semiprotect it right now. The main concern I have about protecting Geometry is: how many other articles would end up protected if the same standard was used on them? On my watchlist, I know Randomness would. CMummert · talk 13:25, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I asked about this here this morning, and there are a couple of replies in favor of (at least temporary) semiprotection. I am quite willing to protect Geometry, but I want to know how many more pages are going to be requested before I start sliding down any slopes. CMummert · talk 23:57, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I did mention Randomness.[1] But if all editors who have Geometry on their watchlists now add Randomness to it, I think we can manage for the next couple of weeks. :)  --Lambiam^Talk 09:45, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd agree with semiprotecting this temporarily, say for a week. About the fact that this is a slippery slope, that's correct. Well, the wiki model is evolving, some limits to editing may turn out to be necessary, although of course articles should be semiprotected only when necessary and not for too long. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:58, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I have semiprotected Geometry for two weeks. C Mummert · talk 05:30, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

So, what's on your watchlist?

Perhaps I'm being naive, but it seems to me quite unwikipedian to go around protecting articles. Wouldn't a better way be to have some kind of shared watchlist for heavily vandalized articles? Is there already such a facility that I don't know about? If not, someone could just provide a list of problematic articles in their user namespace (or even in Wikipedia/Wikipedia_talk namespace). Others could add articles as the need arose. Silly rabbit 11:52, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

There's no shared watchlist. About which articles are vandalized, it is usually high profile ones, like mathematics itself, then the math portal and all its subpages, and then, well geometry. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:25, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

The closest thing is the "Related changes" tool, on the left side of the screen. If you go to one of the field subpages of this table and then select "related changes" you can get a list of changes made to the pages there, like this [2]. It's not quite the same as a watchlist because multiple changes to the same article are shown. C Mummert · talk 15:37, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I ask because I have noticed that some (perhaps) not-so-obvious pages seem to fall into the same category. For instance, mean seems to be a mid-level target for the odd vandal now and again. And, although it certainly scores lower on any quantitative assessment of vandalism than geometry, mathematics, etc., it's also a lesser concern to editors wary of the problem of vandalism in general. Personally, I'd be happy to put any article that seemed to be in modest trouble (such as mean) onto my own watchlist. Silly rabbit 16:05, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

A few more pages I've seen frequent vandalism on: Pythagorean theorem, Buoyancy, Fibonacci number. —David Eppstein 16:55, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Algebra seems to be attacked as much as Geometry, although, amazingly, unlike the latter it undergoes productive development at the same time. Arcfrk 06:08, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

It would be trivial to create a "shared watchlist" of vulnerable pages: create a page as subpage of this WikiProject, listing links to those pages, and ask people to consult "Related Changes". Charles Matthews 14:02, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

More interesting would be a "shared patrol-list", which answers the question "has someone whom I trust reviewed the most recent changes?" That way, I can avoid reviewing something that you've already reviewed and let pass. linas 00:05, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

As yet to be added mathematics articles

In my quest to assess every mathematics article I came across several articles that were in the purview of this Wikiproject that had not been placed under its supervision. This troubled me and I would like to know what can be done to add these articles to our project efficiently. The articles I have found thus far are Mandelbrot set and Lorenz attractor but I am sure there are more out there.--Cronholm144 18:52, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

You mean, articles without the Project Math banner on their talk pages? Just do what you did to Mandelbrot set, add one there. Also, add a mathematical category (e.g. Category:Fractals) to the article itself if it should have one and doesn't. —David Eppstein 19:02, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

According to the table of assessed mathematics articles there are about 1000 assessed articles. On the other hand the list of mathematics articles contains about 15000 articles. Previous discussions have not supported the automatic tagging of these articles (see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics/Archive_18#.7B.7BMaths_rating.7D.7D and Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics/Archive_24#Tagging_math_articles) and have suggested that assessing all these articles might not be a sensible goal. However, the current assessment coverage is rather haphazard, and I would encourage editors to add maths ratings to any articles which they consider to be important to the project. Geometry guy 21:08, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I've started going through the A-Z of mathematics articles (there are 13216 of these, but there are also mathematicians and nonalphabetical articles). I thought it would be useful to add maths ratings with importance and field to some of these articles to make the coverage less patchy. This is mundane but straightforward to do using WP:AWB because the field and importance can usually be judged approximately from the title alone. Fortunately, I am being supported by other editors, especially Cronholm, who are keeping tabs on me and filling in quality gradings (I have also added quite a few quality gradings myself). My ratings are a very rough and ready assessment, but I think it is more useful to have someone's opinion rather than none at all. My motivation is that it will be easier to judge issues such as importance when articles can be compared in the many tables that have been created.

So far I have been through the letters A and B, which took about a day, so help would be much appreciated! I'm restricting myself to providing ratings for at most an additional 1/3 of the listed articles (there are certainly enough worthwhile articles to rate this many). Hence, if I don't run out of steam, the number of rated articles will increase from c. 1000 to c. 5000. I hope this is enough to provide a good cross-section of our coverage, but not too much to overwhelm the rating system (or other editors!).

I am making mistakes in this process: although I am trying to be careful, it is easy to add a rating to a redirect or a dab page, or rate an article which has already been rated. Please fix any mistakes you find. Furthermore, if in doubt I've tended to underrate an article's importance and/or quality, so please don't be offended if I have assessed your favourite topic as "low importance" or called your hard work "a stub". Uprate where appropriate! Even better, add to the article! Geometry guy 21:14, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Template:Numerical algorithms

The {{Numerical algorithms}} template appears to me as a rather indiscriminate collection of numerical algorithms, with a heavy bias towards root-finding algorithms. I don't know if it is necessary, and if it is, if grouping these together is any good. For example, it is of little use at Pseudorandom number generator and Fast Fourier transform. I would argue that it should be either thoroughly rewritten and posted on a different collection of articles, or otherwise deleted. Comments? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:56, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree that this navigation bar is useless (unbalanced, incomplete, and also inaccurate). That might, perhaps, be fixed, but in this case I don't understand what aim it could achieve that is not much better addressed by categories (for navigation) and a good overview at Numerical analysis.  --Lambiam^Talk 21:10, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

The obvious thing to do (and probably the least work) would be to move the template to "root-finding algorithms" and remove all the other stuff. Geometry guy 21:38, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Having looked at it, my first instinct is to delete it as a useless eyesore. While deleting from each article, add a category as Lambiam suggests. --KSmrq^T 21:43, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

OK. Jitse, our numerical guy, agrees too (on his talk page). I removed it from articles and deleted it. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:39, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

One third and one quarter

I nominated these for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/One third, as not encyclopedic in my view. Comments on these articles are welcome there. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:00, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Mythical number

This survived AfD, although it could use a rewrite. Michael Hardy also suggests a new title, since this is not a class of number, but an essay on bogus statistics. Can anyone think of a good one? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:05, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Imaginary number? Seriously, I think that is how such made-up numbers that achieve mythical status are known. Plenty of Google hits with this meaning.  --Lambiam^Talk 00:03, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Michael seems to be thinking of something more descriptive, like unsourced statistical claims; or apocryphical, anecdotal, numerical.... to which mythical number would redirect. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:38, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the current title makes this a bit too much like a book ad. I'm not against citing the book, but centering the article around it is not a good idea. On the other hand, any alternative title should be in plain enough language not to be OR. Apocryphal statistics and anecdotal statistics both seem to capture the flavour of the article to me: the numerical aspect is reflected in the plain language meaning of the word "statistics". Geometry guy 19:09, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Which book?  --Lambiam^Talk 20:26, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, the cited reference reads a bit like a book title, but it seems to be an article. I still think the title revolves too much around one primary source. Geometry guy 20:34, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Collaboration of the "Week"

I don't mean to be a nag, but Theorem has been the CotW for at least a month. I think that participation in this collaboration had been a little spotty. We could rename it Cot-month or we could get theorem to FA. In any case I am tired of looking at theorem every time I log on and feeling guilty about the article :(. What do you think?--Cronholm144 05:44, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

See also the last time this was being discussed: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive 24#Wikipedia:Mathematics Collaboration of the Week.  --Lambiam^Talk 07:19, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

It looks as if some good ideas were thrown out, but that none of them were acted on. Perhaps the s/election of a coordinator would be a good start.--Cronholm144 07:32, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

I would say that the Theorem CotW has been one of the better ones, the article has developed from Stub to Start or possibly B-class. In the first week very little happened and it then got a major reworking from GeometryGuy plus a couple of others.

In light of this I think a week is too short a time for people to give a particular article much attention, a month seems a more reasonable time frame. If its longer than that things get sluggish.

Yes a new cordinator would be good, fancy a job? --Salix alba (talk) 08:04, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Who me? or Lambiam. All I would be good for would be bothering people on their talk pages. Lambiam, Geometry Guy, Salix, Oleg, Jitse, etc... would do a better job of it. (If they don't want it then maybe...) thanks for the consideration.--Cronholm144 08:18, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia runs on volunteers, so the best way to get something done is to do it (or organize it) yourself. You noticed something that moved you to speak, therefore you are the obvious choice for coordinator. :-) --KSmrq^T 10:10, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

All right then, I gratefully accept. I will get working on it in roughly 8 hours. I will keep my promise about soliciting help from everyone. I will see you on the talk pages;)--Cronholm144 10:21, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Bothering other people is exactly right as a job description, so we have a perfect fit. :) Good luck. By the way, perhaps someone (K.?) should tell User:Meekohi that we are grateful for his long period of service as the self-proclaimed moderator of the Mathematics Collaboration of the Week project, but that we have managed to find a self-proclaimed replacement, so that he can retire as such and enjoy his regained freedom to give his undivided attention to actually improving articles, rather than having to spend time on moderating such activity.  --Lambiam^Talk 13:42, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Update:

Good news everyone, for the first time since I have been here an article has received more than 4 votes:). This of course means that the time to change the article has finally come. The winner is Mathematical Physics a top importance article and one of the 7 or so main categories here at the WP:WPM. I am proud to report that this article, as per the COTW requirements, is in dismal shape (another nominee by the way), so making significant improvements should be easy. I would welcome any and all to help out with this article. Also, on a more technical note, I don't know how to change the template, so if someone could do that for me I would be very appreciative. Thanks to all--Cronholm144 01:01, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Done: for information, see Wikipedia:Mathematics Collaboration of the Month#Templates involved in MATHCOTM; the last two inks contain the current and previous collaborations, so you just edit the contents of them. Geometry guy 01:32, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I've now given the page a spring clean. In particular, I've moved around some of the templates, which were all over the place before. Also the page seemed to contradict itself about the rules, so I've attempted to rephrase them. Of course, The Coordinator is the ultimate arbiter ;) Geometry guy 11:00, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Algebraic bracket

Could someone have a glance at Algebraic bracket and this AFD entry? Needs expert comment on accuracy / worthiness for keeping. Thanks. Tearlach 02:21, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Nominate it for AfD. It has no context, and it's completely isolated on wikipedia. Such things are useful in deformation theory (see Gerstenhaber algebra), but if the need should arise, it's likely to be dealt with inline anyway. So, no harm done. Anyway, I objected to the term algebraic bracket ages ago. Silly rabbit 02:36, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd prefer to keep this as a reminder that there are algebraic brackets, and this is one of them. We don't delete orphans on WP: we find them a family. I've known the term "algebraic bracket" since my early postdoctoral days, when I spent some time thinking about them with a few experts. I'd be happy to move this particular instance to a more specific title, though. In the long run, "algebraic bracket" itself might be a nice dab. Geometry guy 03:29, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I am not at all sure it's a good title, but the concept is important, and the article seems to have plenty of references (in case you needed context). Definitely keep! Arcfrk 13:54, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I closed the discussion after the nomination was withdrawn. The article was moved to Nijenhuis-Richardson bracket. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 04:02, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Category:Jewish mathematicians CfD

This category was recently deleted as part of the general deletion of Category:Mathematicians by religion. However the case of Category:Jewish mathematicians was put forward for deletion review and its deletion was overturned. Consequently it is now being considered for deletion again. I encourage members of the maths project to contribute to the discussion here. Geometry guy 18:01, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

There is possibly enough consensus to delete this category, which would be in line with the deletion and/or absense of similar religious/ethnic categories for mathematicians. However, there are users with no particular expertise who stop by at CfD's like this with a political agenda. Can I please encourage everyone here to look at the page and express their view. The outcome really does have the potential to affect the quality of life for many editors here, as the recent discussions over Georg Cantor illustrate. Please remember, though, that this is not a vote: read the contributions of other editors and express your view with comments and justification. Geometry guy 23:33, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure that it makes any difference? I have spent enormous amount of time analyzing the previous discussions and their outcomes, and came to the conclusion that people with this political agenda and no particular expertise are very persistent, and have the proven ability to bring this category back to life. To me it appears to be a canonical example of метать бисер перед свиньями. Comparatively speaking, I would prefer reverting vandals at Geometry or Algebra, at least, it's more efficient if just as hopeless. Arcfrk 01:05, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

For the sake of clarity, the Russian text above means "throwing pearls to the pigs", which is is used in English too, I think. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:29, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

"Pearls before swine" but I think my generation is losing this and many other great colloquialisms,:( Anyway I don't believe we should ever allow this kind of thing to encroach on the wonderful place we have created here, fight to protect it, lest we lose it.--Cronholm144 03:12, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

A twist of irony that; here's the line as it appears in the King James Version of Matthew VII, verse 6:

Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

In generations past, reading literacy was often built on a text found in many homes, so such phrases were familiar; but Matthew may have been less popular in Jewish homes.

As for the obsession some have to classify people according to Jewishness, I have expressed my sentiments in the Cantor discussion. Next I suppose we'll be forced to nationalize Leonhard Euler, who spent more time in Russia than in Switzerland. And after that we'll be counting toes. It's an idiotic waste of time; but the human race, like a human infant, is slow to mature. --KSmrq^T 04:01, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I take your point, but I think it could. Not only are there essentially no other similar mathematics categories, but also there are essentially no similar subcategories of Category:Jews by occupation: Category:Jewish scientists exists, but there is no Category:Jewish physicists, Category:Jewish biologists, Category:Jewish chemists, and so on. These persistent people have a general goal, but not a specific focus. If this the maths cat goes away, there is no more reason to recreate it than any of these other subcats. My best guess would be trench warfare at Category:Jewish scientists, but even that would leave many of us a little more in peace to get on with improving maths articles. So please don't be despondent! Geometry guy 01:59, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

To KSmrq: Thank you for the full quotation. It is one of many good sayings from Jesus's Sermon on the Mount.
To People in General: Please provide translations to English for any quotations you provide in a foreign language (except perhaps French which is so close to English). JRSpriggs 10:26, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Arab mathematicians

One of the arguments that keeps arising in these debates is the existence of Category:Arab mathematicians, which seems superficially similar to Category:Jewish mathematicians, at least to those who can't be bothered to go and see what is actually in the category. Of course, the arguments for this similarity are flawed, but it is not as easy as it could be to squash them for a couple of reasons.

1. At present Category:Arab mathematicians is a subcategory of Category:Mathematicians by nationality, and does not contain many important Category:Persian mathematicians. This suggests it could be renamed Category:Arabian mathematicians to eliminate the controversy. In that case, though, it should be about mathematicians of Arabia. And essentially it is up until the time of Al-Jayyani (989–1079). From then on, though, the listed mathematicians all lived in what was then Al-Andalus, and is now Spain, or (in a couple of cases) Morocco.
2. In contrast to Jewish mathematics (and Category:Jewish mathematics), there does exist Arabic mathematics (and Category:Arabic mathematics). However, the first of these links redirects to Islamic mathematics, and Category:Islamic mathematics is offered as the "correct" category for the second (does this need a CfD?). This seems an unfortunate choice to me!

These are rather thorny issues. I have raised the second one at here, also partly because I think there has been a misunderstanding about the meaning of the adjective "Arabic", which doesn't refer to people (that would be Arabian or Arab) but language, literature and culture.

For the first issue, is it worth creating Category:Al Andalus mathematicians or are there other ways to clarify this point? Geometry guy 17:16, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

In my opinion both Category:Arab mathematicians and Category:Persian mathematicians should be deleted. Modern day mathematicians are better placed in Category:Iranian mathematicians, Category:Saudi Arabian mathematicians, Category:Egyptian mathematicians, etc. In the case of historical mathematicians it only creates an artificial and unnecessary split (no to forgot that a significant portion of related biographies can't, with certainty, be placed in any one of them.) I've categorized most of the biographies currently under those two categories in Category:Arabic mathematics/Category:Islamic mathematics but this has the drawback that it doesn't separate the biographies from the other topics. —Ruud 17:39, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

P.S. Certainly not all "Islamic" mathematicians after 1079 lived in Spain. See for example Jamshīd al-Kāshī or Sharaf al-Din al-Tusi. —Ruud 17:39, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Clear, but both of the examples are Persian. Just out of interest, can you come up with Arabian examples? Geometry guy 19:26, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Al-Khalili and Ibn al-Shatir came from Damascus. Not sure if that would make them Arab or Syrian, though. —Ruud 20:32, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

There are some more from that period in Category:Spanish mathematicians, I think, including at least one Jew. I am in favor of a category that collects together mathematicians from the Arabian mathematics period (whatever you want to call it) and that has a name that includes islamic Spain but unambiguously excludes modern mathematicians from the same places. —David Eppstein 17:30, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree, this is a possible way forward. It almost surely not a good idea to identify such "arabic mathematicians" as Spanish, although the whole issue of geographical vs political nationality is also rather thorny. Geometry guy 19:26, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

If there is a category for mathematicians from the Islamic/Arabic civilization, wouldn't "Category:Arabic mathematicians" be a better name? To me the primary meaning of "Arab" refers to ethnicity, and "Arabian" to the geographic area. "Arabic", on the other hand, refers foremost the language and its script, which was used as the Lingua Franca in which the mathematicians of Islamic civilization wrote their works, just like scientists in Christian civilization used Latin.  --Lambiam^Talk 19:06, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I tend to agree with that: also Arabic refers to literature, which is quite appropriate in this case. Geometry guy 19:26, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Also see the two quotes at User:Ruud Koot/Arabic mathematics#Terminology. Here Toomer argues for the term "Arabic mathematics" and Berggren for "Islamic mathematics".

Outcome

Editors here might like to know that the outcome of the CfD for Category:Jewish mathematicians is deletion. I would like to thank others here for taking the trouble to comment at this CfD and thus express the view of general mathematics article editors. The discussion was one of the longest I have seen, so the weight of good argument that editors here contributed was very important. Geometry guy 10:56, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Most linked to math articles

I made a list of math articles which are most linked to from other math articles. The list is at User:Mathbot/Most linked math articles.

My goal was a metric for assessing the importance of math articles. I think the higher an article is on this list, the more important it probably is, and the more crucial is for it to be in good shape. This is imperfect of course, but is better than not having anything.

Also, I emphasized articles which have not yet been rated as part of the WP:1.0 project. That may help with tagging. Hope this is useful. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:03, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Very much so, I will get on these first--Cronholm144 03:10, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree this is very useful, thanks Oleg :) Of course it is not a perfect metric, as well-linked articles are more likely to be in good shape, and therefore less in need of help. So it is definitely worthwhile (though very boring, sigh) to go through all of the articles. Probability and statistics is particularly under-represented in the assessment scheme. Is there a champion out there? Geometry guy 19:53, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

References

Hey everyone, as you may know Geometry guy and I are working on categorization of the various Math articles. I have noticed in rating my first hundred or so that there seems to be a recurrent lack of references on various articles ranging in class and importance from stub to B and low to high. Is there anything that can be done about this? I for one have about four gigs of electronic mathematics texts and would be willing to upload them to a central location for use by editors. Let me know what your thoughts are on this. Thanks--Cronholm144 04:20, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, references are important. Google books is an awesome resource for finding references.

There are also a couple of tools which allow one to format references given the ISBN; template builder, and my own tool (the latter is slow and produces code which always needs tweaking, but is useful as a backup). Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:28, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

These are all good tools but unfortunately Google doesn't allow for easy reading, I.E. it only shows snippits of the work. The cite tool is good, but If the author doesn't have a usable ref, it won't work quite as well. I just would like for there to be a way for editors to be able to actually cite the material, rather than to just list titles in the bibliography.--Cronholm144 04:55, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Right, it just offers a few pages. But if you know what you search for, and go through a few books in the list of results (or search through the given book for more pages), you can learn a lot of stuff and is much more efficient than digging through a real book or visiting the library, I think. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:44, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

We do have a project-page devoted to referencing Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Reference resources. Your electronic text sounds interesting, not being attached to a university put most online journals out of my reach, however I can see problems with copyright and licences if these are put in a public space. --Salix alba (talk) 07:50, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I have created a page that list the references that I can provide in text form, most are DjVu or PDF. User:Cronholm144/List_of_References Be warned the list is rather extensive. I hope you all take a look. Just E-mail me and I will send you the required material...but only if I know you. My E-mail is in my UBXes under basics. Hope I can be of service!--Cronholm144 06:05, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

P.S. Since I have not posted the texts themselves on an open site I think this is alright... anyone here know copyright law?

I had attempted to do a similar thing [3] but my list was not as comprehensive as yours. It should be easy to source most of our math articles with standard graduate school references. I felt, however, that I was being a little lazy by not tracking down the "best" sources. shotwell 11:45, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Relations on a set of three elements

I wonder, what do people think of Relations on a set of four elements, Relations on a set of three elements, and Relations on sets of two elements and less. Surely a lot of work has gone into them, but is such content encyclopedic? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:52, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

They provide simple concrete examples of e.g. partial orders, total preorders, reflexive and irreflexive relations, etc., and also which combinations of properties are possible (at least for these small sets). For an active reader it is not too difficult to verify everything. (If something is unclear for the readers, you are welcome to add clarifications, of course. If something is unclear for yourself you can ask on the talk page.) The overviews can give a lot of insight. I do not see why they would not be encyclopedic.--Patrick 06:57, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the content is pretty good but it may be a violation of WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE. Specifically number 6 which states that:

Textbooks and annotated texts. Wikipedia is an encyclopedic reference, not a textbook. The purpose of Wikipedia is to present facts, not to teach subject matter. It is not appropriate to create or edit articles which read as textbooks, with leading questions and step-by-step problem solutions as examples. These belong on our sister projects Wikibooks and Wikisource

Perhaps the content of this articles could be condensed and placed into the Relations article as an alternate solution.--Jersey Devil 08:04, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Except for the "See also" links at Transitive relation, the present collection is a mini-walled garden of orphaned articles with names that are totally implausible as search terms. Concrete examples of various types of relations, as well as information on their counting sequences, is useful if provided at the respective articles. Just like (for example) Strict weak ordering has a section The number of weak orders (meaning: on a finite set), Binary relation could have a section "The number of binary relations (on a finite set)" to which these redirect. Although the corresponding sequence is in OEIS (sequence A002416 in the OEIS), it is not identified as such, so apparently not terribly notable as such, but such a section could contain a list of See also's, like for example to Strict weak ordering#The number of weak orders.  --Lambiam^Talk 09:55, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

The textbook claim may best be countered by regarding these articles as classification results. However, because the validity of this content could easily be challenged (e.g. as WP:OR, even though these are elementary verifications), it is vital that sources are provided. Also, the articles could usefully be merged under a more helpful title, reorganised, and written in a more encyclopedic tone. Geometry guy 10:58, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I think merging all this into Relation (mathematics) would not be appropriate, as this verbose descriptive stuff would overwhelm the Relation (mathematics) article which should focus on the concepts only and a few examples. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:05, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

That was my concern too (it would be the article binary relation, by the way). I started with a section of transitive relation, but for the same reason I split it off.--Patrick 15:11, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I decided to nominate these pages for deletion as unencyclopedic. The deletion debate is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Relations on a set of four elements. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:38, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Just to clarify my previous comment: I was referring to merging these articles with each other, rather than into any existing article. I'll raise this at the AfD. Geometry guy 12:25, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Combinatorial mathematicians have spent quite some effort on counting various types of relations, and it would be possible to base a separate article on that, but who is going to write it? The approach I outlined above is still quite feasible.  --Lambiam^Talk 07:43, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Lambiam; Patrick has now added a section Binary relation#The number of binary relations, sourced using OEIS. It seems to me that a fair amount of the material from the three articles could be used to provide a main article for this section (so that it does not overwhelm Binary relation), perhaps called Binary relations on a finite set, and sourced in the same way. Geometry guy 12:25, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Portal updates

I'm going to be away from Wikipedia for a few weeks and I haven't had time to update the Mathematics portal. It will go bust next Monday unless someone updates it. Every week the portal looks for a new article of the week at a specific page. These pages need to be written ahead of time. Specifically, someone needs to fill out

• Portal:Mathematics/Featured article/2007 21
• Portal:Mathematics/Featured article/2007 22
• Portal:Mathematics/Featured article/2007 23

You can copy the basic structure from Portal:Mathematics/Featured article/2007 20. Just pick your favorite article and write a short blurb about it. Pictures are good. You can see a list of articles already featured at Portal:Mathematics/Featured article archive. -- Fropuff 07:03, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Some potential choices, culled from a discussion at the Reference desk proceeding from a request for an interesting math topic for a high-school presentation:

• Pascal's triangle (B)
• Interesting number paradox (stub) Too short
• Fractal (B+) Selected for 21
• Zeno's paradoxes (B+)
• Tic-tac-toe (B)
• Topology (B)
• Cardinal number (B) Difficult to find a good image; Continuum hypothesis used recently.
• Ordinal number (GA)
• p-adic number (B)
• Platonic solid (B+) Used recently
• Minimal surface (stub) Too short
• Monty Hall Problem (FA) but used last year
• Nomogram (start) Too short
• Analog computer (B)
• Map projection (GA)

 --Lambiam^Talk 19:58, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I've commented on the above. Here also is the list from Portal:Mathematics/Suggestions. Cronholm will be shocked that some of the above have not yet been rated! Geometry guy 11:52, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

• Derivative (GA)
• Nash equilibrium (GA)
• Ordinal number (GA)
• Order theory (GA)
• String theory (GA)
• Sylvester's sequence (GA)
• Znám's problem (GA)

To save this from breaking, I've arbitrarily put Fractal in the next portal. The blurb is just a cut and paste from the introduction, so needs improvement. Geometry guy 12:06, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

The only one that shocked me was Zeno's paradoxes and Platonic solids,the rest I can understand, I have updated the ratings.this is the other Cronholm144--Πρ 03:43, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Differential equations

A recent edit of Differential equation expanded the article by adding a section Rise in importance during 20th century. I believe that it's a wrong article for this type of material (or wrong material for this type of article?), my concerns are summarized here. Can some experts in differential equations and/or numerical methods, please, take a look? Arcfrk 01:43, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Articles listed at Articles for deletion

• Relations on a set of four elements (AfD discussion)

Please contribute to the discussion. Uncle G 09:05, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics#Relations on a set of three elements above. Geometry guy 12:07, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

POLICY DEBATE: Use of mathematical and other examples in articles

I have opened a debate on the use of examples in Wikipedia articles (mainly focusing on computer source code and mathematical proofs, equations, etc.). It seems to me that many examples currently in Wikipedia violate Wikipedia policy, so I believe we need to either clarify or change the situation. Depending on the result of the discussion, this may result in a number of examples being summarily removed from articles!

Please reply there, not here, if you wish to contribute.—greenrd 11:08, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I know you say to reply there, not here, but this seems a more apt place for my comment. I don't think it is appropriate to lump together mathematics examples with source code. Mathematical examples are absolutely essential in many articles. Without them, some abstract mathematical statements are often completely useless. Furthermore, examples help to supply a context for much of mathematics. For instance, the formal definition of a locally ringed space is utterly meaningless without an appropriate algebro-geometric context. The Atiyah-Singer index theorem is completely motivated by the examples which it generalizes. The list goes on...

Computer source code is, generally, an implementation detail. See, for instance, quicksort where there are several versions of the algorithm (admittedly a bit different) written variously in an Algol-like pseudocode, C, and a dialect of Pascal. In this case, I would say that the use of examples vis-a-vis source code clearly goes to far. The various versions of the algorithm should be as implementation-independent as possible, and lengthy (the C example takes over a page of scrolling to get through) source snippets in a particular language don't seem to be helpful in illustrating the differences. They are rather, it would seem, cut-n-paste tidbits for programmers a la various coding tutorial websites out there in cyberspace.

So mathematics examples are certainly of a different character than source code. They aren't a mere implementation detail. Your threat of summary deletion is troublesome to me. It potentially suggests that editors with only a vague understanding of the subject matter are going to start taking the axe to mathematics articles. Many of our articles are quite specialized, and edited by people experts in their respective fields of study. Granted, some of these could do with a bit of pruning here and there. But I suggest leaving it up to the qualified editors to decide what should go and what should stay (and what should be expanded). Implementing a broad "totalitarian" policy is definitely not the way to go. Silly rabbit 12:19, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Who are the most best editors around here?

Hi, I'm looking for a small number of Wikipedia editors in the Mathematics area who are well-qualified, well-respected, and have high standards. This is for a new project that needs such talents; just now I'd rather not advertise the details. Please tell me some names, including perhaps your own if you fit the description. Thanks. --Zero^talk 10:46, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Methinks mostest editors went a-scurrying after reading this ungrammatical, error-filled request. linas 15:52, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

We're not such a judgemental lot are we? It looks more like a case of Groucho Marx to me: "I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member" :) Geometry guy 16:33, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Need help with Wadge hierarchy and related articles

The Wadge hierarchy stub needs help from an expert. Wadge game needs an article or a section in Wadge hierarchy. If these topics are better covered in other articles, then a paragraph in another article with a merge/redirect or blank/redirect may be in order. Disclaimer: I am not a mathematician. davidwr ^09f9(talk) 15:38, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Can people who don't edit under their real name rate articles?

At Talk:Cross product, Edgerck reverted Geometry guy's rating of that article, on the grounds that Geometry guy has an anonymous identity and since Edgerck does not agree with the rating anyway. Comments? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:44, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

No, no, no. Wikipedia does not require that users reveal their real identity or credentials (it's not acceptable to fake either, but that's a separate issue). Should I not be able to rate articles because I edit under a pseudonym? Disagreeing about the rating is one thing, but he does not automatically have authority because he uses a real name. —METS501 (talk) 15:48, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Changing the rating because you disagree is fine (although discussion might be helpful). Removing the whole template because someone uses a pseudonym (not the normal meaning of anonymous in a Wikipedia context anyway) suggests that either there is something else going on, or Edgerck is not used to the whole procedure. JPD (talk) 15:53, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Geometry guy is an established, regular, and seemingly knowledgeable editor of math articles here. To me that carries a lot more weight than knowing or not knowing his real-life name. —David Eppstein 16:30, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Of course! Anyone can rate articles, and anyone can change ratings. That is the whole spirit of wikipedia! One of the reasons I edit anonymously is that I do not want any of my edits to carry a stamp of authority. They should all be judged individually. I am rating a lot of articles at the moment, and am going to make mistakes (well, we all make mistakes: even a genius like Grothendieck can suggest 57 as a prime, as an anonymous IP editor pointed out to me recently). If anyone disagrees with any of my ratings, change them. Even better, add a comment and sign/date the new rating. I would only ask that they have a quick look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0 first to get a feel for the system. Geometry guy 17:55, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Hello all. Looks like people here did not read my original comment in Oleg's page. I commented that in view of the known identity abuses at WP, an user who wishes to remain anon (which they do for their own benefit) should not venture into questionable edits. I think this could be a self-enforced rule, for fairness. This is not just about Gg's rating. To be relevant, ratings need to be 1) based on a statistically significant number of opinions and 2) provided by unique, qualified (even if anon) participants. This is standard stuff. Gg's rating goes against (1) and (2).

On the topic of anonymity, let me comment in general (not making an instance on Gg's case). I am a believer in the need for anon discourse -- for example, in political areas. But, given today's principle of academic freedom, I can't see a reason for anon discourse in physics, math, or biology, for example. And, as anyone can see, the "stamp of authority" argument is not a barrier for online questioning. So, on the contrary, in these areas I see reasons otherwise, with people in WP and elsewhere (eg, usenet groups) using anon discourse and taking pseudonyms with bogus academic qualifications in order to advance crank, niche or copyrighted material under the cloak of an IP number or nickname.

There are also people who seem "well qualified" in WP, but in discussion with them, or reading their edits, their content reveals otherwise. Users who like to patrol some articles in order to ensure conformance with their niche or particular views, with ensuing edit wars if contradicted, are usually not quite open about who they are, as their opinions and methods may backfire.

In summary, I think that transparency (which can be called sincerity etymologically) would go a long way in preventing the distortions seen in WP today, with identifiable individuals that would stand behind their opinions.

Those that wish to remain anon should by all means be allowed to do so, in the name of tolerance, but since they do this for their own benefit they should also use some measure of self-restraint in what they can do or not. While it's certainly fair for anon users to edit and provide opinion, it may not be as fair for them to place themselves as judges of opinion.

I hope this is useful.Edgerck 19:30, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

A fair enough view (the people behind Citizendium also think somewhere along these lines). But restricting anon editing goes against the spirit and policies of Wikipedia however. Not much can be done about this, I guess, unless Jimbo himself has a change of mind (which is unlikely, I think). Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:36, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Oleg: A minor nit. As above, I am not for restricting anon editing, even though (just from the view point of information reliability as used in scientific research and journalism, for example) verifiable sources are a basic tenet for reliance on information (trust). What I am for is for self-restricting anon ratings, for the reasons above. Anon users should not use their invisibility cloak if they wish to judge others. Edgerck 19:45, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I still don't see that you have explained why we need to know the person's real name in order to judge their reliability as a WP editor, or why the rating process is so critical and inflammatory that it must only be handled by persons of known reliability. —David Eppstein 19:50, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

David: "Ratings" is one example of what I would call trust asymmetry in WP today. It's easy to verify that anon editing is actually a recognized problem in WP -- just see the WP policy for verifiable sources, to see the basic contradiction. Why wouldn't there be a need for authors to be verifiable if references should be? However, one can argue that the benefits of anon discourse trumps the rule for verifiable sources. That's acceptable in a balance of interests for what WP is. But using anonymity to judge others seems to be unjustifiable under the same balance of interests. It seems murky and open to distortions, for no real benefit. Reliance on information is more than just what the record says for itself -- there must be independently verifiable channels of information that provide the trust channels for that record.

On another topic, in addition to the crank and niche views, it's possible that WP has a large Intellectual Property liability under the current anon editing guidelines. This will eventually surface. Edgerck 20:11, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Maths ratings are not about judging others, they are about assessing articles: those who disagree should check out WP:OWN. Geometry guy 20:18, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I certainly did read Edgerck's remark on Oleg's page before commenting here: I usually try to check out where a fellow editor is coming from before I contribute. The comment "an user who wishes to remain anon (which they do for their own benefit) should not venture into questionable edits" suggests Edgerck hasn't actually read my post immediately above his, in which I explicitly state one of my own reasons for remaining anon.

The real abuse is not anonymity, but using unverifiable claims of authority to support edits. I don't do this. I do mention (for those who are interested) that I am a professor of differential geometry on my user page, but I explicitly state that I do not want anyone to take this into account when judging my edits. After all, how does the average WP editor know that User:Edgerck is the famous Ed Gerck who

received his doctorate in physics (Dr.rer.nat.) from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet and the Max-Planck-Institut fuer Quantenoptik in Munich, Germany, 1983, with maximum thesis grade ("sehr gut"). He also has titles of Electronic Engineer (1977) and Master of Science (1978) from the Instituto Tecnologico de Aeronautica (ITA/CTA), Brazil.

and then went on to

work in information security and election integrity received worldwide press coverage by The New York Times, Le Monde, O Globo, Forbes, CBS, CNN, Business Week, Wired and USA Today.

I'm not questioning that he is who he says he is, I am just pointing out that an eponymous username and a list of credentials doesn't help prevent abuse. As Oleg points out, Citizendium is the place for those who want verifiable credentials. Here the policy is: judge every edit on its own merits, and be bold. Don't complain about other user's edits: fix them!

Finally, as for maths ratings, my point of view is that a good result can be achieved by a process analogous to simulated annealing in which many users contribute by adjusting ratings where they think they need to be changed. If Edgerck prefers these ratings to be produced by a statistically significant number of expert opinions, he should go ahead: there are only about 10000 articles still to assess, so it shouldn't take him and him team of experts too long. Geometry guy 20:18, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Forgive me if this is repetitive. This edit is the result of an edit conflict.

"There are also people who seem "well qualified" in WP, but in discussion with them, or reading their edits, their content reveals otherwise." I would argue that in the case of Geometry guy this is precisely the opposite. He has established himself as a very skilled editor and is an active editor in the community. To my knowledge, none of his edits have been questioned except for the WP 1.0 ratings, and considering that he has over 1000 of these it seems inevitable that someone would disagree with B vs start or a high ve. mid rating, I know that I have been rating quite a few articles lately and have made more mistakes on average than Geometry guy. Rather than assuming that an anonymous editor is unqualified I think a better litmus test (and the one that I think is usually used here at WP) would be to judge the editor on the quality of their edits.

Another example is the friendly exopedian that has been patrolling Calculus and Derivative lately, He has made excellent comments and improved the articles significantly, yet he simply doesn't want to edit under anything but an IP. The W.P. rating system is rather simple, field (this can usually be ascertained by a layman) Importance(more difficult, especially if you are not experienced in said field, this could be a valid change, I know that when I make my edits this is the most frequently changed) Class(this is tricky for articles that cover the topic well, but the topic just isn't that large, but in most other cases assessing the class is rather simple as well). The goal of all these assessment is to place all the important math articles under the same proverbial roof. If you have a problem with the rating, go ahead and correct it, these templates are for use by the editors of the articles so the occasional mis rate doesn't last long assuming the editors are active and doesn't affect the casual reader. --Cronholm144 20:25, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore, these ratings are not for casual readers (they are placed on the talk page): they are for other editors. Geometry guy 20:35, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

When we set up the maths rating process it was designed to be light weight, lacking on buracracy. Any editor can add a rating, if a another editor disagrees with a rating they can ammend it. If there is disagreement then it should discussed on the articles talk page in the first instance, just as any question about the content of the article. As yet I've seen nothing which explains why you disagree with the rating.

If this relates to a specific problem with the article then a discussion on the talk page might help to improve the article. There is even a posibility to edit Talk:Cross product/Comments if there are a comment you wish to make to support a given rating. --Salix alba (talk) 20:43, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

My opinion is above -- the rating system is flawed as it stands, especially if you consider anon rating. Hope this helps. Edgerck 21:09, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

If you believe that, then you should believe that Wikipedia in general is flawed, as it is based on principles allowing anonymous editing of anything, including ratings. Why not join a project like Citizendium that has a more compatible philosophy to yours? —David Eppstein 21:17, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

David: This is getting long, so I'll be brief. Please do not tell people what they should believe. As I wrote above, my opinion is that anon editing is acceptable in a balance of interests for what WP is. But using anonymity to judge others seems to be unjustifiable under the same balance of interests. Hope this is useful. Edgerck 23:01, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

For lower grade articles Stub to B+ the system has served us well to date. GA, A and FA ratings have a more formal process to go though to gain those status. If you think the article deserves a higher status then by all means put it forward to WP:GAC, Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/A-class rating or WP:FAC. --Salix alba (talk) 21:40, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

break it and then fix it? It may be better to have a merit system to begin with. Asking anon users to voluntarily refrain from rating (but not editing!) does not seem to be an undue burden on the informal process. Edgerck 23:01, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Well it seems that your opinion is not shared by the majority of users here and is not in line with WP policy. So, while it is fine that you believe that, it is not fine to perform reverts in that vein until such criteria is adopted as general policy here. I think the consensus is that you should change the ratings that you don't agree with, rather than revert them.--Cronholm144 23:10, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I think several people, including me, find your insistence on this rather bizarre for a very simple reason. There are several levels of importance in editing (I will give a rather rough description to make the point). The most important is editing the article itself, creating or modifying articles. Significant errors, unseemly promotion, dubious material, libelous content, can all be introduced this way. Next level of importance contains things like categories or lists. This is because the usual reader can see if a mathematician is categorized (by the category system) as a Jew or bisexual (very contentious matters for whatever reason). Among even less important things are whether a stub gets marked as a "topology stub", "geometry stub", "math stub", or whether the stub marker goes in a section, or should go at the top, or whether a technical tag goes on the article or its talk page. Among the least important is whether a WikiProject tag on an article talk page should say "mid importance", "low importance", etc. or have a grade of "B" or "C", etc. This is the least important because it in no way affects the content of the article and is not even seen by a usual reader. This is a tag for people in a WikiProject. If you don't want to participate, that's fine (although I recommend you do so), but it's designed by other people for their use. Also, I think once you learn about the rating system, you will see that the editorial judgment of whether a topic is of "mid importance" or "top importance" is not only not as important as editing the article itself, but a much easier editorial judgment to make (and correct) than restructuring and changing an entire article. I have no idea what the Atiyah–Singer index theorem is, but I know it is very important. My ignorance prohibits me from changing that article, but you can imagine a less restrained person, after reading some pop-sci article about it, changing the lede section and mucking the whole thing up. That's what you should be worried about, not whether some helpful anonymous person who has a history of accurate mathematical contributions marks your article as "mid importance" for some maintenance purpose. --Chan-Ho (Talk) 09:36, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Edgerck is a relatively recent user here and the ways of Wikipedia seem rather alien at first. For example, if in real life, someone does something that you disagree with, then the polite thing to do is to go to them and explain (preferably nicely) what you thought they did wrong. In Wikipedia this is not the right response: instead you should undo or change what was done, preferably with a friendly and explanatory comment in the edit summary. If this change is reverted, only then it is time to go to talk. Since this goes so much against normal real life interaction, it is not surprising that in practice users turn to talk before it is really necessary.

The mathematics project is far better than most of Wikipedia in this regard, but still several users have come to my talk page when all they really needed to do was change the rating. I have been gathering responses here. I understand the tendency to complain instead of fix, talk instead of do, and am certainly guilty of it myself, but this is a wiki: all mistakes can be fixed! It is a pity that hard-working editors rarely receive encouragement and thanks, but often receive criticism for their inevitable mistakes.

Anyway, Edgerck has expressed his opinion, and most people here have disagreed with it. It seems to me that it is time to move on. In fact I think Edgerck himself would like to move on: see e.g. this recent diff. I would love to receive an apology, but I am happy to move on as well. Geometry guy 23:50, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Apology? Do anonymous users get offended also? :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:12, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

If an anon falls in the forest and nobody is around, does anybody care?

Not at all, but they love good humour, just like regular editors! By the way, if anyone wants to see an example of what can go wrong with unfriendly edit summaries or going to talk too soon, take a look at this unedifying exchange ;) Geometry guy 00:23, 20 May 2007 (UTC) PS. And many thanks to Chan-Ho for deftly inserting the above forest line into the discussion! Geometry guy 12:29, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

As a pseudonymous (that is the better term, rather than anonymous) editor, I do not intend, because of my pseudonymity, to limit my editing in any way. Paul August ☎ 03:46, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Since we are on the anon user issue, could please anyone tell me their opinion whether the WP guidelines for verifiable claims apply also to anon user pages? Thanks. Edgerck 07:45, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

No. Wikipedia:Verifiability talks consistently about articles, and user pages are not articles. See Wikipedia:User pages for some things that you cannot have on your user page. I don't think it says so explicitly, but you're also not supposed to lie. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 08:18, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Correct; it also would be counterproductive to require all comments on talk pages to be verifiable. However, we accumulate reputations; see below.

And please, learn the Wikipedia distinction between a truly anonymous editor (someone editing as an IP not logged in to an account), and most other editors (an editor logged in to an account which does not reveal their real-world name). Yet somewhat ironically, an IP can reveal a great deal about the source of an edit!

In the academic world, it is not unusual for those reviewing a paper to do so blindly, without knowing the identity of the author(s). The idea is that the contents should be judged on their merits alone, not on the status or connections of the source. Wikipedia does not demand that contributors use their real name, which in some cases could have terrible personal consequences. However, every account builds a history of contributions, and it usually does not take long to get a feel for the strengths and weaknesses of an editor.

Wikipedia is distinctly different from a peer-reviewed journal. Some of those differences cause difficulty. For example, a 16-year-old student who is just beginning to master basic algebra has just as much right to edit an article on integral calculus as a college professor who regularly teaches the subject. Both are also free to submit a paper to a journal, but Wikipedia policy makes it rather difficult to give more weight to the professor on this topic and to quickly discard the misconceptions of the student.

Or consider the case of Carl Hewitt, an emeritus faculty member of MIT who made important contributions to computer science. He created an account here under his own name, and was accorded all due respect until it because clear that his edits were not consistent with current mainstream concensus, and were becoming highly disruptive. Arbitration was requested when dialog failed. He proved to be a very bad Wikipedia editor.

Thus I would argue that your concerns about "anonymity" are misplaced. The on-line world has a history and culture of pseudonyms, which I expect to persist at Wikipedia. Credibility and authority are linked to identity in the real world through behavior and association; the same is true here.

Wikipedia is a strange and awkward adolescent, and none of us entirely understand what it is, what it will become, and how best to guide it. We appreciate your interest and participation, and invite you to continue, even though we find this proposal unacceptable. --KSmrq^T 09:30, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Of course, if a user identifies herself as a persona (a legal term) then that user could be liable for lies, impersonation and false claims. But such questions may not apply to an anon user. As a fictional character, an anon user can certainly claim academic credentials and positions that don't actually exist -- and simply say it was all a fantasy.

Now, why would an anon user who says she is anon because she does not to want any of her edits to carry a stamp of authority, claim an academic credential and a stamp of authority in her user page, and mention them as a weight in public discussions? The same questions, thus, seem to surface again, even for an anon user. Edgerck 08:50, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

One thing I've regretted a few times is using my real identity on Wikipedia. In any discussion with an imbecile, you will come off looking bad, no matter how well you manage to avoid falling prey to insults. Even if some onlooker (as these Wikipedia discussions will no doubt turn up in a Google search of your name) thinks you behaved well, s/he will wonder why you spend so much time arguing some lame, minor point with some 13 year old instead of working on research. I wonder how silly I will look if a potential employer finds this discussion; answer: probably not half as silly as if s/he found some other of my discussions. I think a number of people that are "Internet-savvy" realize these things quickly and are anonymous for that reason. Also, the value of personal security (of yourself and those around you) is important. I had a bad incident where somebody living in fairly close proximity to me sent threatening emails to me and some of those around me. I can't help but feel bad that some people had to endure this kind of thing because I have a hobby like editing Wikipedia. I refrain from editing truly contentious topics for this very reason, although it can be strangely difficult to avoid. --Chan-Ho (Talk) 10:12, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Shortly after the recent tragic shooting at Virginia Tech, attempts were made to mention it in the articles on the two guns identified. There were some strong opinions about whether that was appropriate, and one editor went seriously over the line in his comments to many here. Eventually he told one woman, an admin who had cautioned him, that he lived near her, and then he threatened her life. A quick decision was made to permanently ban him from Wikipedia, and the worst of his remarks were permanently deleted (they will not even appear in histories). I would be offended by a suggestion that the threatened admin have restricted rights because of a reasonable choice to hide personal information in order to avoid such risks.

Or consider editors in Burma or Tunisia or certain other countries where the Web is censored. If they edit openly, they may risk imprisonment or assassination.

Editors choose what to expose and what to reveal, for many different reasons. The on-line community generally does not distrust partial anonymity, no more than we would mistrust someone for having a lock on the door.

And, frankly, if you really are the Ed Gerck (Ph.D.!) described here, I find your comments hard to take at face value. Perhaps they are a crude attempt to probe how trust works on Wikipedia? --KSmrq^T 12:46, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

If you have a specific question for G-guy, why don't you address him on his talk page? Instead of making vague insinuations here in a public forum(I am aware this is not a sentence).--Cronholm144 09:12, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I apologize for my rudeness Ed, I was feeling grumpy and sleepy and thought that this issue had been put to rest. However this is no excuse for my actions. I violated my own wikipolicy and I am ashamed that I did not assume good faith. --Cronholm144 15:28, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Cronholm144. Your comment is framed in such kindness that I can only hope I can be of help to you in the future. Edgerck 15:38, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

P.S. G-guy's comment refers to the comment above this one

Thanks so much for accepting my apology.:) The thing that would help me most would be your continued involvement here, whatever form that may take. This little wikipedia community needs as many good editors as it can get. If you are up to it, your rating of unrated maths articles would be much appreciated, or feel free to contribute to the Mathematics Collaboration of the Month by voting or editing. These two have become my pet projects here. I am sure as you continue to make great edits. like you have at Cross product, you will develop a few pet project/peeves of your own. ;)--Cronholm144 16:05, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I think I should be grateful to Edgerck for generating so much interest in mathematics article assessment! When I raised it recently at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics/Archive_25#Mathematics_article_assessment, the silence was deafening. Unfortunately, because of the lack of response, this post got archived by the bot. I encourage Edgerck and others who missed that post to take a look. If only I had appreciated the benefits of controversy earlier; I could have created a sock-puppet account and started an edit war with myself, sigh ;)

Concerning the question: why would a pseudonymous user mention their career on their user page? Personally, I find it useful to know a little bit about other users, because it helps in communicating with them using a medium which is at best suboptimal. If the user did it to add weight to their edits, then they are certainly misguided. For one thing, it doesn't work. I don't know if Edgerck has tried using his credentials in this way, but he will probably find it is more likely to make other editors hostile than reverent. The ideal at Wikipedia is to judge each edit on its own merits and if editors are judged at all, it is purely on the quality of their edits. The fact that I mentioned my profession above added no weight to my comment. I have never used it to support my edits to maths articles and never will.

Concerning verifiability: there is no contradiction between anonymous users and verifiability. It is the article that must be verifiable, not the editor. Any statement can be challenged and removed if a reliable source is not found. It doesn't make any difference who produced the statement. Indeed in some ways it is better if the statement was made by someone with unverifiable identity/credentials, since then it can only be judged on its own merits! I know an editor who contributes only as an anon IP for precisely this reason.

Finally maths ratings. I repeat again, they are not judgements or referee reports or anything of the kind. They are an organisational tool. And, quite frankly, if anons and pseudonymous users restrain themselves, mathematics article assessment is not going to get done. I was rather disappointed by the lack of response to my previous posts on this topic; Edgerck may not realise that before this post, the maths rating system was in the doldrums. Now it is moving again. Geometry guy 12:29, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Desirability for ratings to be signed and dated, on-page

I don't see a problem with ratings by users under their "noms-de-wiki". But what I think can be hard is ratings without any comment, date or signature (apart from buried in the edit history). Firstly, because it doesn't give any on-page indication as to how long ago the article was rated, as so how it might have changed since that time; and secondly, it can make it seem as if the article has been rated by an impersonal unarguable and unappealable "voice of God", rather than by a particular wiki-member of the project.

So could raters please add a name and a date into the comments space, even if they don't add a comment? Cheers, Jheald 09:55, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, ideally all maths ratings should be signed and dated, preferably with a brief comment on how to improve the article. However, there are many which have no such comments — see Category:Mathematics articles with no comments — and commenting takes time to do. I take the point of view that it is more useful to the project to have an important article rated without a comment than not rated at all. However, anyone who happens on a maths rating without comments has the following options:

1. They agree with the rating; then they can sign/date it, or even add a comment.
2. They disagree with the rating; then they can change the rating, sign/date it, and add a comment.
3. They can check the edit history to see who added the rating, go to that editor's user page and complain.

It is a pity that the third approach is often taken instead of the first two.

Concerning the "voice of God" point, I think there is some misperception about what maths ratings are for. They are not judgements; they are not for readers, but for editors; anyone can change them; anyone can comment on or sign them. They are aimed at directing future edits to improve our coverage, they are not "referee reports" on work done so far. Geometry guy 10:35, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Layout of the main assessment page

I think some overview of the assessment goals should be placed near the top of Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0/Assessment (which is linked from the {{maths rating}} template). When I first encountered these assessments, I was also a bit confused as to their purpose. I had to dig around a bit to determine that they are in fact a very good thing. An FAQ might also be helpful (if there isn't one already?). Silly rabbit 12:50, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I'll update that page: it's original main use was a template to be transcluded onto other pages. The main page for the article assessment scheme is Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0, but I can improve the "noinclude" information on the template to clarify this.

There is no FAQ at the moment. Could you start one? I'm sure others and myself who have been involved in the renaissance of the programme would be glad to contribute to it. Geometry guy 13:37, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Aye cap'n. I can start one. I'll post an announcement here once I have a working version. Silly rabbit 13:59, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! It'll definitely be a good thing to have comments from someone not too close to the development of the programme. Meanwhile I've patched up the /Assessment page. Geometry guy 14:27, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Moving pages with assessment comments

When moving an article, you have to remember to also move the /Comments subpage if it exists. For instance, when Euler integration is moved to Euler method, the talk page Talk:Euler integration automatically goes with it, to Talk:Euler method. However, the subpage Talk:Euler integration/Comments is not automatically moved to Talk:Euler method/Comments; you have to do this by hand.

This is a pity as it will go wrong in the future. Unfortunately, I don't have any better suggestion that just telling everybody to keep this in mind. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 08:04, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Maybe a bot could check for this :-) --Chan-Ho (Talk) 09:40, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Is this a problem for all articles with archived talk pages as well, eg Talk:Entropy/Archive7 ? If so, this is a much bigger problem, and should be urgently patched in the wiki software. Jheald 10:01, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Is there an extant proposal to modify Special:Movepage so that it offers an option "[ ] Move subpages (if any)" in addition to "[ ] Move associated talk page(s)"?  --Lambiam^Talk 10:24, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out Jitse! I agree that it is definitely a flaw in the wiki software, especially now that subpages are encouraged for so many things (e.g., /doc pages for templates). I would also note that if a page about a rated mathematician is moved (e.g. to make the form of the name comply with Wikipedia guidelines), then there may also be a Talk:.../Data subpage to move. Geometry guy 10:40, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

That was me, sorry about that. I moved the page, fixed the redirects, but did not think of the comments page. Good to know in the future. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:59, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

To answer my own question above: yes, there is such a proposal: http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9626. If you think this is a good idea, you can vote for it.  --Lambiam^Talk 06:31, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Liminal property

According to this article, "liminally compact" is another way to say "locally compact". I asked the author of the page two months ago whether some reference could be added (see User talk:Wikimorphism). I got a reply that it was definitely used as claimed in the article, but no references have appeared and the author has vanished. So, is anybody familiar with this usage? -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 12:44, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Apparently the contributor was not sure it had every appeared in print. The article is only a stub, and a dubious one at that, so it would be no great burden to recreate it should the need arise. I have PRODed it. --KSmrq^T 13:19, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Importance of mathematics articles

I promised several visitors to my talk page to initiate a discussion here about importance ratings in the maths rating system, and this seemed an appropriate moment to do so.

Although there are many articles for which the current class grading is wrong (and I have made many such mistakes), it is usually clearly or uncontroversially wrong, and therefore easy to fix. Importance is harder to handle for at least three reasons:

1. lack of clear definitions of what the importance levels mean (in particular, for mathematics articles);
2. lack of guidance on the context within which importance should be assessed;
3. are we rating the importance of the topic or the article?

First, here are the current definitions:

• Top Subject is a must-have for a print encyclopaedia
• High Subject contributes a depth of knowledge
• Mid Subject fills in more minor details
• Low (WP 1.0) Subject is mainly of specialist interest. (WP 1.0 Math) Subject is peripheral knowledge, possibly trivial.

The top and low importance seem to me to be the most problematic. What does "a must-have for a print encyclopedia" mean? Which encyclopedia? EB? An encyclopedia of mathematics? And does "must-have" mean that such encyclopedias have an article on the topic, or that there would be mass protests if the article were removed? As for low importance, is "specialist" the same as "peripheral"? It certainly isn't the same as "trivial". Also there seems to be quite a gap between Low and Mid, which means that Mid is getting overloaded.

A proposal to update the scheme has been made, which seems to be an improvement in some ways, but not in others. For example, it concentrates a lot on whether a topic has achieved local, continental or international notability, which is largely irrelevant for mathematics. Also it seems confused over the second issue above, context.

Consider e.g., motive (algebraic geometry): this is an extremely important topic in modern high-brow algebraic geometry, but within geometry as a whole it is relatively less so. How can we compare it to platonic solid, for example? And within mathematics as a whole it is certainly only of specialist interest, and hence, arguably, peripheral.

So far I have been taking the view that it is more helpful to assess the importance of a topic within its own context, since it is more discriminating. However, I think this needs to be discussed.

Finally, articles vs topic. For articles about mathematical subjects, the distinction is probably rather minor, but for articles about mathematicians, there is another closely related question: are we rating the importance of the mathematician or the article? So far, I believe we have been following the WikiProject Biography guidelines, which suggest the former.

To illustrate the difference, consider Ramanujan. Certainly he was a genius who made remarkable contributions, but his impact on mathematics is not in the same league as Euler or Gauss. Yet an article on Ramanujan is a must-have, not only because of his contributions, but because of the fascinating story, and the deep insights it provides into the mind of a mathematical genius.

I think these issues need to be clarified in a way that makes the importance rating as useful as possible to the Maths Project, and that we really need to have mathematics-specific descriptors. Geometry guy 15:26, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I would like to propose expanding the current list of Fields for the rating scheme. Especially if we take up Geometry guy's suggestion to assess importance within its own context, it's crucial to have a proper classification for various contexts (i.e., fields) that can occur. In particular, I strongly believe that Algebraic geometry should be its own field, not part of Geometry and topology. This would greatly alleviate some of the thorny issues mentioned above, not just concerning motives, but pretty much all modern algebraic geometry. Arcfrk 03:14, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I definitely think we need to re-consider field, problematic articles abound say Talk:Cross product and Talk:Sheaf (mathematics) both have reasons for being in geometry and algebra, the latter could nicely fit in algebraic geometry but the former less so. One possibility is to have allow two fields so you could have field=algebra and field2=geometry. There is also a good case for an algebraic geometry field as there are a large class of articles in this group. There is also the mathematician who could well do with being listed by their field of study as well. The danger with too much expansion is that we end up duplicating the category system.

As to importance, I've always been a fan of the proposal mentioned above as it seem to be a more objective criteria, loosely we could have coverage or scope

• Of high importance across all numerate discipline - everyone should know this
• Of high importance throughout mathematics - all mathematicians should know this
• Of high importance in a major field of mathematics - all those working in the field should know this
• Of importance within one field (high importance in a sub-field) - most working in the field would know this
• Mainly limited to a sub-field
• Specialist, mainly work of one researcher.

Curiously principal component analysis could be applied to this: there are several ways to rate articles: how well known something is, the number of fields/sub-fields its covered by, how useful the result is, when its likely to be taught. These are likely to have a strong level of correlation. Assuming you could give each of these a numeric score, you could put all of these into a big matrix, find the cross correlation matrix and perform SVD to get the largest eigen vector, representing the principal mode of variation. When you get at the end is probably the important score. The task is then to find a set of words which descibes this well. ::--Salix alba (talk) 09:01, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Look again at sheaves; they are relevant to logic as well as geometry, with topos theory as common ground. In fact, MacLane and Moerdijk have written Sheaves in Geometry and Logic: A First Introduction to Topos Theory (ISBN 978-0-387-97710-2). We lose deeply interesting connections in mathematics when we try to force every topic into exactly one area. As for algebraic geometry, I think it transformed into a rather different field when it refounded itself on schemes, something that can be very confusing for a reader at the level of, say, Bézout's theorem. For example, on page 294 of Hartshorne we find, "In other words, a curve is an integral scheme of dimension 1, proper over k, all of whose local rings are regular." Few of our readers would see it that way! I'm not sure what the implications should be for this discussion, but it should at least caution us that different readers and different editors may frame a subject in radically different ways. --KSmrq^T 09:41, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Interesting comments! There are certainly problems with the field system — in particular, the fact that only one field can be assigned means that compromises have to be made. However, I have not found this so difficult in practice: for instance Cross product is clearly an article set in the context of elementary Euclidean geometry, even though the same concept could be discussed in a more abstract-algebraic way. I also don't have a problem with the fact that the same subject can seem quite different at different levels of abstraction. For me, sheaves a very geometrical way of looking at things, even logic, but then I would say that ;) — there is certainly a case that they belong in foundations.

I would prefer, as far as possible, to take a pragmatic point of view. I think a field2 would overcomplicate the system. For mathematicians, an alternative would be to use the same trick that has been introduced for historical articles, i.e., replace the mathematician field (which isn't a field anyway) by a mathematician=yes tag.

I agree with Salix alba that we don't want to start duplicating the category system: categories provide plenty of context for importance assessment, and also address some of KSmrq remarks. So I am against expanding the field system to take on this role: it isn't up to the job, it isn't needed, it would be too complicated and too much work.

Pragmatically, fields were introduced to break up the assessed articles into manageable groups. I would therefore propose just to split up fields when they become too large. At the moment algebra and geometry and topology have twice as many entries as any other field, and there is no sign that this trend will change. Myself, I'd prefer to split the latter into geometry and topology, rather than separate out algebraic geometry (partly because of the overlap with number theory and algebra). (In fact, I'd already been planning to do that!)

Any ideas for subdividing algebra? Geometry guy 11:10, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Help required for a big development of Trigonometry and related articles.

The article is somewhat shell-ish; i outlined a framework for the new article on the article talk page. Please, let's get this article good.. i love trig! ♥♥ ΜÏΠЄSΓRΘΠ€ ♥♥ ^{slurp me!} 19:27, 20 May 2007 (UTC)