Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive/2012/Nov

Homogeneous

Homogeneous redirects to Homogeneity and heterogeneity in which a hatnote links to Homogeneity (disambiguation). In this dab page most of the mathematical meanings of "homogeneous" are in section "See also". In this dab page there is no link to Homogeneous equation nor to Homogeneous Equations. Homogeneous equation redirects to System of linear equations#Homogeneous systems, while Homogeneous Equations redirects to Homogeneous differential equation. IMO, reorganizing all this stuff is needed. As almost all (but not all) the mathematical meanings of "homogeneous" are "invariant under scalar multiplication" I suggest a WP:multiple-cross-reference page named Homogeneous (mathematics).

I came to this problem by searching the following corollary of fundamental theorem of algebra: Every homogeneous polynomial equation in two variables of degree d has d roots, counted with multiplicity, in the complex projective line. Equivalently: every homogeneous polynomial in two variables may be factorized into linear factors over the complexes. I have not found it in WP. Is there a wikilink for this result?

D.Lazard (talk) 20:43, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Probably we should created a multiple-cross-reference page titled Homogeneity (mathematics). Michael Hardy (talk) 04:16, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Loximuthal projection

I've created a new article titled Loximuthal projection. It could bear a lot of expansion.

Guess what? WikiProject Cartography does not exist!! (Otherwise I'd have notified them by now.) Who'd'a' thunk it? Michael Hardy (talk) 03:41, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

However, WikiProject Maps does exist. RockMagnetist (talk) 04:02, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

I found them just after I posted the thing above. Michael Hardy (talk) 04:14, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

AMS Fellow

The AMS has recently announced an inaugural list of AMS Fellows. It may be worth checking through that list to find ones that are not already represented by an article here, and/or to list that honor on the articles for the ones that do already have articles. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:09, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Old merges involving unbounded operator

I was hoping that someone in this group could address the old merge proposals at Unbounded operator. If that simply means deleting all the merge tags, that's fine by me. But I can't do these merges since I simply don't understand the math. Thank you, Ego White Tray (talk) 02:26, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

WPM/Wikipedia 1.0

I think that it would be a good idea to revise some of the labyrinth of pages under Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0. Much of the documentation is out of date or unclear, and there are broken templates and pages that do not seem to correspond to any part of the system that I know of or have moved. I plan to start working on this in my copious spare time, but if anybody already has some familiarity with it, their assistance would be appreciated. Also, I am not sure how many of the tables there are updated; some of them are clearly out of date or broken, but I do not know how to fix that. Nat2 (talk) 18:55, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I went through and marked all the old pages as historical. I edited the navbox to point only to current pages and modified some templates to load the current tables instead of old ones. I think everything is updated, although it is certainly possible that I could have missed something. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:51, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

The navbox is looking a lot slimmer now! I have a further suggestion: Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0/Assessment duplicates content in Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0. I would recommend merging the former into the latter and then changing the root of all the Wikipedia 1.0 articles to Assessment. The reason: that's where this material is in most other projects. No reason not to do the same here. RockMagnetist (talk) 20:15, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

These things are not standardized in any way from one WikiProject to another. If other projects use one name, that in no way means we need to move our pages, and indeed it's not really a motivation for me to spend my time moving them. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:11, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

The field links in the assessment summary table (Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0/Assessment) no longer point at anything useful. RockMagnetist (talk) 20:29, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Currently, unassessed quality articles go into Category:Unassessed mathematics articles, unassessed priority articles go into Category:Unassessed-Priority mathematics articles, and unassessed field articles go into Category:Unassessed field mathematics articles. I think it would make sense to rename them to Category:Unassessed quality mathematics articles and Category:Unassessed priority mathematics articles respectively, leaving the field category as it is. Since they are populated by {{maths rating}}, this wouldn't require changing to many links. Nat2 (talk) 01:38, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Merge

Can someone look at merging Field of values to Numerical range? Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 01:54, 3 November 2012 (UTC).

"Sabihi's formula"?

Could other editors please help address ongoing attempts by an IP to add what is being called "Sabihi's formula" to Formula for primes and Prime-counting function‎? Paul August ☎ 19:00, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

A few weeks ago, the same Ahmad Sahibi was adding his novel approach to Goldbach's conjecture as well. See Talk:Goldbach's conjecture#Ahmad Sabihi. Sławomir Biały (talk) 22:59, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Part of the discussion appears to centre on the reliability or otherwise of the International Journal of Mathematical Analysis as a source. Is there a consensus view about that? Deltahedron (talk) 07:45, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't know that there is a consensus, but I am personally very cautious about journals like that one. It has all the risk factors that I would be worried about: open access, new publisher, out-of-the-way country. None of these is bad on its own, but the combination raises a caution light because of a rush of unscrupulous publishers recently. In such instances, the choice of journal does not establish that the paper is wrong, but the choice of journal does not on its own speak for the quality of the paper in the way that, say, publication in Inventiones does. I would look for other evidence in favor of mentioning the paper here, such as citations in other papers or publication history of the author. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:18, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

The "out-of-the-way country" is Bulgaria. It would be interesting to hear what the risk factors are associated with Bulgarian journals? Deltahedron (talk) 16:55, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

The archives show a non-definitive discussion about another journal by the same publisher. --JBL (talk) 14:12, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

I fully agree with Carl. I may add the remark that this kind of journal has frequently a very broad scope (including sometimes all mathematics and physics) and, when they have a more restricted scope, accept papers that are not in their scope. Here, this is a paper about number theory published in a journal of mathematical analysis, which has an editorial board of 28 people. One may not hope that the editorial board is competent in number theory. D.Lazard (talk) 14:25, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

I do think editors should exercise an extra degree of caution in using material from open access publications. But usually, as in this case, there is no need to evaluate the publication itself, since here the paper is being used as a primary rather than a secondary source. That's already not allowed under our OR policy. Sławomir Biały (talk) 15:42, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Interesting comment. I think the main issue for Sahibi's work is WP:UNDUE, in that it appears not to have received the level of attention in reliable independent sources that would justify its inclusion. It does not appear to be WP:OR because that is about article editors writing their own personal research into articles, not about the use or abuse of primary sources. If sufficiently reliable, primary or even self-published sources are sometimes acceptable, but at the opposite extreme, the work might well be WP:FRINGE of course. Deltahedron (talk) 16:58, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

No, the WP:OR policy actually does forbid using primary sources in this fashion (see WP:PSTS). That isn't to say that WP:UNDUE is not a legitimate issue as well, but insofar as the question of whether the source itself is problematic that falls firmly under the OR policy. Sławomir Biały (talk) 17:46, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Are you really saying that, in complete generality, we can never use material sourced to a paper in a peer-reviewed journal? That sounds quite wrong. PSTS says "primary sources are permitted if used carefully" and qualifies that by saying "Material based purely on primary sources should be avoided" -- "should", not "must". Again, "primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia; but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them". Deltahedron (talk) 18:02, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

All material on Wikipedia should be based on reliable secondary sources. We are permitted to cite primary sources (e.g., the original paper in which a theorem appeared), but only in the presence of other supporting secondary sources. Sometimes this standard is relaxed in special cases, but it is definitely true as a general rule for editing Wikipedia. Also papers appearing in peer reviewed journals are not necessarily primary sources: they may be used as secondary sources for the work of others, they may be review articles, etc. Sławomir Biały (talk) 18:17, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree that this is the desirable norm ("should"). But you seem to be asserting that anything else is actually forbidden. As a completely general rule, that does not seem to be our policy. We are specifically told that primary sources are permitted under certain circumstances. However, I am talking only about the general situation, very much not attempting to making any case that the material under discussion here is permissible. Deltahedron (talk) 19:01, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

If you're looking for inviolate rules, then you're looking in the wrong place. Indeed, our policy is to ignore all rules! The meaning is that, while there are rules, we must edit with an understanding that there will be occasional exceptions. Of course, making exceptions requires good reasons. The default policy position in cases like this is that primary sources are not allowed. In particular cases, this can change through discussion. The burden is obviously on the person restoring material like this to make the case why an exception should be made to the rule in question. Of course, if no one challenges the material, then there really isn't much to say anyway. Sławomir Biały (talk) 19:14, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

The main problem seems to be WP:NOTABLE, with regard to both the author and the journal. Tkuvho (talk) 17:02, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

@Deltahedron: In this case, it appears to be WP:OR, and even WP:ADVERT. This is not evident, as IP account are used, but in the case of Goldbach conjecture, it appears clearly that the edits have been done by Sahibi himself partly as IP, partly from sabgold account. See talk:Goldbach's conjecture and user talk:sabgold. D.Lazard (talk) 17:30, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Ah, that's not so good. Probably WP:COI as well then, perWP:SELFCITE, to add to the Wikipedia:Alphabet soup. Deltahedron (talk) 17:37, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

I reverted two of these additions based on the fact that Math Reviews refused (and continues to refuse) to review the article. Even if MR could not find a reviewer, they would publish the author's abstract. While there may be more than one reason for MR to treat this article in this way, I can not envision a scenario in which a reliable resource would be handled like this. As WP editors we need to pay some attention to the publishing world. Some of these open access journals are nothing more than computer age vanity presses, and I suspect that this journal is one of them. Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 18:43, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Actually, there are numerous articles that are cited in MR but not reviewed. However, these are usually in related fields such as history of math or philosophy of math. It is a little strange that an article in a core subject should not be reviewed at all, but it is also difficult to attach too much significance to this. The main problem is the lack of notability as well as other guidelines cited above. Tkuvho (talk) 18:00, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

It wasn't just a matter of not reviewing an article, there was an explicit statement made that they would not review the article. I haven't seen other examples of that, but perhaps I'm just not looking hard enough. Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 19:48, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

That's because you don't go to MathSciNet to look for reviews of articles in fourth-tier journals :). If you look at any of the journals from somewhat-dodgy-but-still-listed publishers (e.g., Hindawi, or the publisher of this journal) you'll find lots of articles not reviewed. --JBL (talk) 21:09, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the main problem is lack of notability. This “Sabihi’s” formula is just a reformulation of a known result (look for “Thus, Möbius inversion formula gives us” in Prime-counting function#Formulas for prime-counting functions).—Emil J. 18:57, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

I want to come back to the part of the discussion about WP:PSTS policy. IMHO, for new mathematical result, it should be interpreted as follow:

A (new) mathematical result is WP:OR if it does not exists any reliable secondary source
attesting it truth, novelty and hopefully its importance (notability). If such a source exists,
the primary source may be used for describing the details of the result.

The second sentence is needed, as most secondary sources may be like "the result of S. allows us to prove the theorem of this paper" or "S. algorithm is the state of the art", without giving any detail. IMO, if such an interpretation of WP:OR policy would be an "official" position of our project, many time consuming discussions, like this one would be avoided. Therefore, I suggest, if there is a consensus about such an interpretation, to make it an official policy (if possible) or guideline of the project. D.Lazard (talk) 22:15, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

So basically what you're saying is that we should only include material from research papers when there is at least one other paper that cites them? That seems both too weak a threshold and likely to prevent us from citing some things that we really do want to cite. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:52, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

It's clear in the current case that there is wide consensus among math editors not to include the particular material under discussion. The fact that people spent perhaps several dozen comments discussing the exact bureaucratic reasons for this wide consensus is just one of the many strange aspects of Wikipedian culture; coming up with a new rule for people to argue about applying would not in any way change this situation. The right resolution is to leave things as they are: the consensus among math editors is that obviously dodgy or self-promotional research should not be included, while genuinely interesting and correct research may be where appropriate. This consensus is not likely to change, no matter what the letter of the law is. --JBL (talk) 00:13, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

+1. We can codify "obviously dodgy or self-promotional research" six ways to Sunday. This is a done deal. Sławomir Biały (talk) 00:43, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

(@Eppstein) Secondary sources do not need to be much: a Math Review, for instance, is a (weak) secondary source. This is typically included in the standard citation template. If a mathematics article is not reviewed, then (absent other considerations) we should not be citing it as an encylcopedia, certainly not as a primary source. Obviously, if so-and-so is a widely-acknowledged expert in such-and-such, then his or her paper can be used legitimately as a secondary source under the letter of WP:SELFPUB. If we want to use a paper as a primary source, then at the very least, the citation templates we all use include an MR field, so this should be more or less automatic for those of us using MathSciNet (+zeteo, for instance). Clearly such secondary sources are a necessary, but not sufficient, condition. Meeting this necessary condition, other less fundamental considerations such as WP:UNDUE come into play. I don't see how this is very different from what goes on in practice. Sławomir Biały (talk) 00:55, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree that we do not need further rules and that there is a wide consensus about edits like this particular one. But assuming the good faith of such editors, the number of different reasons used to revert their edits is confusing for them: they may suppose that the revert is a personal opinion and that, if they insist or modify their wording, the opinion may change. Such a confusion is clear in the case of sabgold-Sahibi, who talks of "review". IMO, a clear rule that "a citation is necessary but not sufficient" would help to solve edit conflicts like these ones. D.Lazard (talk) 08:10, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Dear Lazard, Biały, Deltahedron, Carl, Tkuvho, and …,

Thanks for your ideas about my formula and paper on the Goldbach's conjecture. I reviewed all your writings. They were contestant at all.

One of you said that my formula is a reformulation of a known result. His/her opinion is never true, because you can not precisely find a formula as my formula anywhere of the world (accredited documents, papers, proceedings and etc.). Yes, only the Möbius inversion formula is reformulation, but not others. If you claim such, please give me a peer reviewed article containing precisely my formula. Also, I made use of this formula to make my conjecture on the Goldbach's conjecture, which has been published in the Bulletin of the Allahabad Math.Soc., India. Therefore, my formula has exactly passed twice publishing by the two peer reviewed journal.

I'd like to plan some questions to you. Please kindly and logically review and respond to my following questions:

1-Which one of you are an expert in Additive Number Theory (Courses as Goldbach's conjecture, Riemann Hypothesis, etc…)? If are, please clarify to me, what is the problem with my formula on the number of primes? If aren't, you have no authorization for deleting it!!!

2-My two papers containing this formula and the several other ones, are indexed by two great Mathematical indexers as MathSciNet and Zentralblatt-Math. and included in some libraries as Tsinghua University and Serbian Mathematical Institute(Belgrade). All of mathematicians of the world accept these two indexers. Because, they index only papers, which sound of good quality and interesting to more mathematicians and make use of high-level courses of mathematics. Therefore, everybody does not accept them and their indexed articles, should not be a mathematician!!!. Why don't you accept my formula to be added to Wiki?!

3-You let Sebastian Martin Ruiz to add his formula in the "Formula for Primes" in spite of this formula neither published anywhere nor peer reviewed by any mathematical journal or conference. Why is such that?!!!

3-1- Is his formula correct? Where is his proof? I have never found it published in even a weak mathematical journal?!!! Why do you let him to add his formula to the Wiki?!!! This is a discrimination against me!!! It has no any reference. It is a contradiction with yourselves rules (if any)!!!

4-In my opinion, a citation does not need to trust to a paper published in a journal, which also indexed at least in the two accredited places. Why can not you trust to my published work? Whereas I have looked at many pages of the Wiki, and found many documents so they have neither been published nor cited by any secondary accredited places and…!!!

5-I have found several formulas at the same page "Prime Counting function" so they have no any reference and I have never seen anywhere them!!! Like arc-tangent formulas for number of primes. Where is the source of this formula?!!! Please give me its address.

Please note: If one can not give me logical responses to one-to-one questions 1 to 5 so I am convinced with, then I will add my formula and Goldbach's conjecture paper to the related Wiki.pages after a two days deadline. In that time, none of you and other editors do not authorize to delete them!!!

I give you a deadline of two days (started Nov.7 to 9) to be responded to the above questions. --Sabgold (talk) 22:09, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Please be aware that neither you nor any other editor has any right to issue this sort of ultimatum. An editor who announces clearly that they intend to flout the consensus of other experienced editors in this way may well find their editing privileges withdrawn. Deltahedron (talk) 22:49, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. Delivering 2-day deadline ultimatums and writing that the Riemann hypothesis is in additive number theory are not ways to inspire confidence or interest. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 11:27, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

To respond a bit more to the substance of the request. 1: It is irrelevant whether one of us is an expert in "additive number theory". We don't need to be experts to evaluate whether your paper meets our criteria for inclusion. Only one person has even commented on the substance of your addition, claiming that it is already a standard formula. I have no opinion on this, but an ----- vis-a-vis our policies of WP:OR/WP:UNDUE and the WP:RS guideline. 2: being indexed by MathSciNet and Zentralblatt is not a sufficient condition for inclusion. At a minimum, these papers would need to be reviewed (although this is also not a sufficient condition), and cited elsewhere (again, also not, but getting closer). The term "Sabihi's formula" would also need to have been adopted by independent sources (see WP:NEOLOGISM). We have a strict policy against allowing original research. This includes published material that is not discussed by reliable independent sources. 3: I think the Ruiz stuff in formulas for primes is questionable and should be removed. A lot of this junk manages to slip in when established editors are not vigilant. I myself have gotten very frusrated by the same problem quite recently, almost to the point of quitting the project altogether. Unfortunately, there is not much general interest in seeking out and cleaning up messes created by others. I've noticed that sometimes it takes months or years for anything to happen, sometimes it happens right away. 4: WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Wikipedia is a work in progress and there is much unfortunate content here that does not meet our standards (the pillars). This does not mean that we should lower our standards; it means that we should improve what's there. 5: Statements and formulas that do not appear in standard textbooks can be marked with a {{citation needed}} template. Sławomir Biały (talk) 12:34, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Dear Sławomir Biały,

Thank you for your reply. I did carefully review your clarifications, but they were not convincing for me. Please pay attention to my finally following clarifications: I hope that these explanations can make a consensus. I'd not like to challenge with you or other editors, but please be a little just before attacking to a mathematician!. I'd like to be friend for you and other editors not an enemy. But, you should also show a signal of friendship!

1-It is needed that you and other editors be expert in analytic number theory or so on, because when several mathematicians have consented to be published my papers on the Goldbach's conjecture and formula for primes, you can not reject them unless be able to show you are a related expert mathematician and find at least a minimum errors in my papers.

2-The term Sabihi's formula is not a neologism. It seems you have misunderstood its mean. Your recitation is completely wrong. It is not a fake word or is not made from the fictional words. It shows only ownership of the formula due to both the way to reach and Riemann extended formula are novel.

3-As I said you before repeatedly, the formula of number of primes less than or equal x, which was added to the Wiki by myself, has been refereed and peer reviewed by two mathematical Journals. One of these journals namely Int. J. Math. Analysis has 28 scientific Editors. 17 of 28 Editors are the American mathematician citizenships. More others are from the Europe. The other journal namely Bull. Allahabad Math. Soc. has 10 mathematician Editors. Most of them are of the famous mathematicians of the world, specially Prof. H.M.Srivastava with more than 1000 mathematical articles published around the world (The Allahabad Mathematical Society has a more than 50-year resume in mathematics. Its Bulletin has been occupied to publishing more than 27 years. These show that this society does not publish poorly or not peering reviewed mathematical papers). These Editors are responsible for holding quality of their own journal papers at the highest level. They have to be scrutinizer to avoid probable problems created after publishing materials. These mean that all papers submitted to these journals must be peer reviewed before publishing them. My papers in these journals have also been reviewed by several referees, because each of them was revised twice and then accepted. One of two papers was refereed for about 1.5 years.

Not accepting my formula and rejecting my papers by you and other Wiki editors, is an obvious accusal with respect to the Editorial board and referees of these journals.

On the other hand, these journals are also under supervision of AMS and EMS to be indexed by them. All the above my clarifications must convince you, which my journals contents are reliable and citable. Therefore, my research is not an original research. Please refer to same page in the section "Reliable sources" then, you read the sentence " In general, the most reliable sources are: peer-reviewed journals; books published by university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers". You see that "Academic and peer reviewed journals" are most reliable sources. Again, my papers are of this type.

4- In any case, MR and Zentralblatt-Math can be as the secondary reliable sources or as citation of work. Also, Int. J. Math. Analysis is indexed by other indexers as Scopus, Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden), EBSCO (USA), Academic Search Complete (USA),Ulrich's Periodicals Directory (USA), Driver Wiki (EU),J-Gate Portal (India),Serials Solutions (USA),Intute (UK),Research GATE (USA,EU), MathGuide (Germany), Referativnij Zhurnal (Russia), and etc.. These can be the secondary and third parties, which are reliable and you must rely to them.

5-Finally, my deadline finished and you were not able to convincing and bringing me logical answers to be not included my researches to "Formula for primes" or "Prime counting function" or "Goldbach's conjecture" pages. Therefore, I will add them to the related Wiki pages. If you and other wiki editors or any expert mathematician in the world were able to find errors or incorrectness in my formulas so can mathematically prove me mistakes, then I will immediately delete them. But, before finding any type of errors, you must rely and respect to my findings and let me to inserting and registering them continuously.

If you and other wiki editors try to prevent me and delete my edits, then I will find you out as selfish and arrogant non-mathematicians!!!--Sabgold (talk) 19:18, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, it doesn't work that way. This is an encyclopedia not a soapbox for promoting your original research. I have attempted to explain why your formula does not meet the guidelines and policies of this project. You now show a lack of willingness to adhere to those guidelines (and no indication of even having read them). To convince you clearly requires that you try to understand how things work here. Continued refusal to do so often results in blocked. Sławomir Biały (talk) 21:10, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Really,Who are you?!!! I really spent much time trying to convince you that my researches are not the original works (at the above, I explained that my papers have been published and indexed as secondary sources) but I never succeeded!!!. I have taught (as Professor) very students at the various Universities so I had succeeded to convincing them in mathematical problems, but I could not convince you any more!!!.

You said "Sorry, it doesn't work that way". Please tell me, what is your way to resolve our conflicts? Please kindly give me a right way so it works. Please give a way to reach to a nice consensus.--Sabgold (talk) 17:07, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Your papers are not considered secondary sources under the Wikipedia rules. Resolution of our conflicts requires that you understand, or at least show some attempt to understand, those rules. However, from your own talk page, I see that Professor Lazard has already tried to inform you of the pillars of Wikipedia about a month ago, making some of the same points that I have already, and apparently equally unavailingly. I think you have clearly shown that you cannot engage in a reasonable objective discussion about the role of the material in question in an encyclopedia. You have a clear conflict of interests, and should cease and desist. This is not a battle you will win. Sławomir Biały (talk) 18:16, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

And Sławomir Biały is a Professor in maths/physics, and has explained in excruciating detail many times why. Plese stop.Maschen (talk) 17:12, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

@Sabgold In case you are under the impression that there are only a few people watching this exchange, I'd like to let you know that there are many qualified people reading this who unanimously agree with Slawomir's assessment. When these qualified people see that others are already taking care of the situation, it is easy for them to remain silent. But they are indeed here reading. Please recognize that the community is united against the kind of actions you have taken. We hope to help you get a feel for what is and isn't acceptable here, so that you can avoid such exchanges and contribute constructively. Rschwieb (talk) 21:30, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Some editors have expressed the sentiment above that the issue here is WP:NOTABILITY. To elaborate, mathscinet indexed the volume containing Sabihi's paper, but only 3 out of 18 papers in this volume were actually reviewed (Sabihi's paper was not one of the 3). This is a reflection on the notability of both the journal and the article in question. Tkuvho (talk) 08:22, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

It would not be WP:NOTABILITY — The notability guideline does not determine the content of articles, but only whether the topic should have its own article. It would be WP:UNDUE — An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. Deltahedron (talk) 17:43, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, that's the right address. The page you mentioned notes that "the neutral point of view does not mean exclusion of certain points of view, but including all notable and verifiable points of view." (emphasis mine) So in the end it does boil down to notability. Tkuvho (talk) 18:44, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Category:Operator topologies

Please see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 October 30#Category:Operator topologies. Does this topic intersect with another category e.g. Category:Operator theory, such that more articles could be placed into the category Category:Operator topologies? Please assist or comment at the CfD discussion. – Fayenatic London 20:52, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

There is operator topologies. It and all the operator topology articles it links to belong in Category:Operator topologies. Mct mht (talk) 02:11, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Featured picture nominations

Illustrations by David Eppstein

• 
  Shapley–Folkman lemma
• 
  Inner radius

I nominated David Eppstein's two Shapley–Folkman lemma illustrations for Featured picture status, partly because of Shapley's December 2012 receipt of the Nobel Award in Economics (Stockholm).

Mathematical illustrations are challenging for general readers. Already, one reviewer has asked for confirmation of the correctness of the illustrations.

Thanks! Sincerely, Kiefer.Wolfowitz 10:19, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

The nominations were closed as not promoted, due to a lack of 5 positive reviewers. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 13:33, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Distance-weighted estimator

Deletion of Distance-weighted estimator is being discussed. Opine here. Don't just say keep or delete; give your arguments. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:40, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Ring (mathematics)

Hi all,

We've been having a discussion as to what extent basic facts related to rings should be included in the article. Inputs from the other editors could be very useful to us. -- Taku (talk) 22:20, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Kelvin–Stokes theorem

I just came across the article Kelvin–Stokes theorem. It's something of a mess, not just because it's in need of proof-reading, but perhaps the technical details could do with being checked (thereby disqualifying me from doing it myself...). Perhaps someone here could take a look? Thanks, --RFBailey (talk) 23:08, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Computer algebra and User:Yappy2bhere

I have started to cleaning up computer algebra and the related articles, and I need some help on three points.

1. User:Yappy2bhere is starting an edit war about my edits (see below), and is trying to extend it to the unrelated article Wu's method of characteristic set‎‎, by putting a tag {{coi}} whose summary appear to be WP:outing (see also the talk page). Can someone look there and decide what should been done?
2. The second point is longer to describe: Comparison of computer algebra systems is a mess. One of its issue is that it gives the same weight to widely known systems like Maple or Mathematica and a number of confidential software. I have already removed the entries that did not have any WP article. The other articles (Algebrator, Cadabra (computer program),Fermat (computer algebra system), JHepWork, Mathomatic, SMath Studio, Xcas, Yacas) were either unsourced or contained only primary sources (the web site of the software, and sometimes some articles by the author of the software). I have tagged them accordingly. User:Yappy2bhere has removed most of these tags and, then, added some references. IMO, the reliability of these references is doubtful for asserting notability, and even for insuring that these articles are not WP:OR. Another issue of some of these articles is that some of these softwares are claimed "computer algebra systems" (CAS), when they are primarily numerical software or software for teaching math. In any case, these claims, which are the only reason of linking from comparison of computer algebra systems are WP:OR. In summary, I need help and consensus of the project for deciding how these article should be tagged, if they should, and, which of these articles should be deleted. Such a deletion should probably be done through an AFD, because PROD tags are systematically removed by User:Yappy2bhere, and two speedy deleted articles (Cadabra (computer program) and Algebrator ‎has even been restored.
3. User:Yappy2bhere has also started to revert my edits in computer algebra systems and comparison of computer algebra systems. As I do not want to edit warring, some arbitration will probably been needed.

Thanks in advance to spent some time on these issues. D.Lazard (talk) 15:57, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

This episode reminds me of a similar incident in which someone seriously claimed that Wikipedians who are medical professionals in real life should be forbidden from editing articles on medicine, because it is a "conflict of interests". Sławomir Biały (talk) 18:10, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

New sections at catenary - other opinions requested

Stamcose (talk · contribs) addedd these new sections to the catenary article. I deleted these new sections because:

1. They were unsourced.
2. They were too long, adding over 12kb to a 39kb article.
3. They mostlty derive results and properties given elsewhere in the article.
4. Lengthy derivations and proofs do not belong in Wikipedia - Wikipedia is not a text book.

The author has contested this deletion on my talk page. What do other editors think ? Gandalf61 (talk) 16:32, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I think a discussion should be taking place at Talk:Catenary. I am surprised that addition [1] and deletion [2] of this magnitude would be made without some sort of comment at the talk page. Deltahedron (talk) 16:48, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Happy to take the discussion to Talk:Catenary. I just thought a note here would reach a wider audience. So let's say editros' views and opinions are requested at Talk:Catenary#Review of new sections. Gandalf61 (talk) 17:51, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Article review needed

Many IPs have raised concerns about the quality of the work and contributions of Jean-François Mertens (see its talk-page and also mine). I'm not well-versed in modern economics or game-theory research, so I cannot help judge whether the original claims are correct and his contributions to the field are substantial (per some early contributions to article), or whether (as others have claimed) it's all not very sophisticated or novel or noticed by experts in the field. Additional editor assistance would be welcome there. DMacks (talk) 17:31, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

As usual, we go by what independent reliable sources say. Deltahedron (talk) 17:42, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Article for the Monthly

Two professors have recently expressed to me some reluctance about editing or creating Wikipedia articles because they found it somewhat intimidating or daunting or felt they had to learn a lot about how it is customarily done. I've thought of writing an article for which a working title would be "Wikipedia for mathematicians", to be submitted to the American Mathematical Monthly. Would it make any sense to make that a community project to be done by whichever denizens of this project decide to contribute? Here's a(n initially red) link: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Monthly article draft: Wikipedia for mathematicians. Michael Hardy (talk) 21:32, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

It might be useful to gather inputs initially, but someone familiar with the style of AMM should do the final draft. RockMagnetist (talk) 22:11, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

I wrote something similar a while back: Wikipedia:Wikipedia editing for research scientists. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:23, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

At a quick glance it looks well done, but it's in a style suitable for what it is rather than for the Monthly. Michael Hardy (talk) 23:34, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

. . . . and doubtless any Monthly article should cite it. Michael Hardy (talk) 02:43, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

The Intelligencer might be a more appropriate journal. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 18:13, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I was also thinking that the Monthly might not be the best venue for this type of article. Among the MAA publications, I think that the MAA Focus, which is a glossy newsletter sent to all members of the MAA, would not object to an article of this nature and would more directly get to an audience that we would like to target. Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 20:49, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

But the Monthly has a hundred zillion readers. Michael Hardy (talk) 18:39, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

The readership issue suggests the AMS Notices or Cosmopolitan. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 19:02, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Do more people read the Notices than the Monthly? (Nobody reads Cosmopolitan, though.) Michael Hardy (talk) 19:42, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't know about readership numbers, but the Notices is open access, whereas recent issues of the Monthly aren't. Based on this, I'd guess that the Notices get more readers outside the US. Jowa fan (talk) 04:24, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

One might also consider the London Mathematical Society Newsletter which is also available free online [3]. Deltahedron (talk) 07:46, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

I hadn't considered the Cosmopolitan angle, but I did give some thought as to where the most likely new editors would be found. I believe that the MAA membership would be more fertile ground. The AMS membership is sharply skewed towards research mathematicians and I am not sure that they would make the best WP editors. As a group they would have difficulty with WP:NOR and WP:GNG as these pillars run counter to the day to day work of a researcher. MAA members, on the other hand, are more in tune with the issues involved with communicating mathematics and would not be as resistant to working with the WP model. Their main difficulty would be avoiding the temptation of writing textbook prose. I realize that these generalizations will not hold up under too much scrutiny, there is after all a considerable overlap in the membership of the two organizations (and I am in that overlap), but there is enough truth in what I said to base some marketing decisions on. Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 03:59, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

I went ahead and threw out some rough hewn ideas on the talkpage linked above (but maybe that should be moved to the project page of that link). I don't think I remembered to mention WP:GNG, and there are probably some other key ideas like that missing. Rschwieb (talk) 14:59, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

I've moved the draft to Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Monthly article draft: Wikipedia for mathematicians. So it's now in the Wikipedia space rather than the Wikipedia talk space. Michael Hardy (talk) 03:44, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Missing texvc error

I've been getting a lot of these lately; see my VPT post. Anybody else experiencing this? Tijfo098 (talk) 00:25, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but it seems to disappear if you paste the LaTeX code into another place (say, a sandbox) and preview it, then paste back to where it was (don't click save after any cutting/pasting), which is also weird... Maschen (talk) 00:53, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

It simply goes away if you hit preview enough times. Some Wikipedia server nodes are probably misconfigured wrt texvc. Due to load balancing it's the luck of the draw whether you hit a working or broken one when you hit preview/save. Tijfo098 (talk) 01:08, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Arithmetico-geometric sequence

What shall we make of the new article titled Arithmetico-geometric sequence?

• Is it "notable"?
• Are there sources that can be cited?
• Are there other articles that should link to it? (None do now.)

Michael Hardy (talk) 22:21, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

I have already commented at the talk page that it seems non-notable: no mention in ZMATH for example. It seems to be a neologism for an elementary exercise, possibly set as homework? Not connected with Arithmetic–geometric mean by the way. Deltahedron (talk) 22:24, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Too bad. I was hoping it would be about a sequence such that

$a_{n+1}=M(a_{n},a_{n+2})\,$

for each n. JRSpriggs (talk) 05:01, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

I have a reference;

K.F. Riley, M.P. Hobson, S.J. Bence (2010). Mathematical methods for physics and engineering (3rd ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-86153-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

and will add it, after tweaking the article, though have a niggling feeling it will be erased as insufficient... Maschen (talk) 07:46, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Searching for the term "Arithmetico-geometric series" on gbooks reveals a good number of textbook hits. From these it appears to be a standard syllabus element for the IIT-JEE exam in India. As such, it probably passes WP:GNG.TR 10:23, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

In French, a fr:Suite arithmético-géométrique is a well-known sequence defined by a recurrence relation : $u_{n+1}=au_{n}+b$. This kind of sequence is studied at the lycée in France, so there are many sources in French.

But I don't know the English term for fr:Suite arithmético-géométrique, isn't it "Arithmetico-geometric sequence"? --El Caro (talk) 12:39, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

No, here it is a linear combination of the geometric series $\sum q^{n}$ and its derivative $\sum nq^{n-1}$ resp. the series of the elementwise product of an arithmetic and geometric sequence. A difference equation for the sequence would have order 2.--LutzL (talk) 12:50, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Enough pages link to there (I inserted some [4]), and it should be notable (at the very least TR says [5]), and there is at least one citation (I added), so the template has been changed requesting for more citations [6]. Maschen (talk) 14:03, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

TeX bug

My socle life

While I'm logged in, and looking at socle (mathematics), I see this line and it looks fine:

$\mathrm {soc} (M)=\sum \{N\mid N{\text{ is a simple submodule of }}M\}.\,$

But looking at the same page when I'm not logged in, I see nothing but error messages where that line should be. What's going on? Michael Hardy (talk) 16:40, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

No idea what is going on, but I have noticed this too. See thread immediately above this one and this thread at the Village Pump for more examples. Gandalf61 (talk) 16:57, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Could it be that when logged in you use mathjax rendering? This would circumvent texvc completely.--LutzL (talk) 16:59, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

You could report the bug at Bugzilla. RockMagnetist (talk) 17:05, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Not necessary. It seems the servers are up to speed again and everything looks fine. That you get different behavior using mathjax and texvc is not a bug, it's a feature. They are totally separate ways to get from the tex-code to the picture, one renders in your browser, the other generates a png on the server.--LutzL (talk) 17:08, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Packages

Is there any way to use packages in WP LaTex? Kiefer.Wolfowitz 16:50, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't think so. I'm not sure where you'd go to get a definitive answer - maybe the Village pump? RockMagnetist (talk) 17:08, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

MediaWiki's example of a LaTeX package fails to compile on English Wikipedia:

Failed to parse (unknown function "\setlength"): {\displaystyle \setlength{\unitlength}{1cm} \begin{picture}(4,2) \put(1,1){\circle{3}} \put(3,1){\circle*{5}} \end{picture} }

The MediaWiki examples suggests that Wikipedia could easily enable (perhaps selected) packages.

The AMS packages should be available, as well as CTAN-distributed packages, which should pose no security risk.

Kiefer.Wolfowitz 17:03, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Should we list Hamiltonian graphs in the Category:"Hamiltonian paths and cycles"?

Hello,

the purpose of the category Planar graphs [7] is clear: it lists planar graphs like the wheel graph and the Dürer graph, as well as articles on results on planarity.

What is the purpose of the cateogry "Hamiltonian paths and cycles" [8]? The title doesn't really suggest that it should list Hamiltonian graphs. In fact, some of the articles in that category are on specific graphs, that are non-Hamiltonian! (for instance: the Herschel graph and the Tutte graph).

I still feel it would be very informative if there would be a category listing Hamiltonian graphs, but I fear making two different categories is a bit over the top.

How could one solve this?Evilbu (talk) 15:55, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Hamiltonicity is not a defining and essential property of most Hamiltonian graphs. That is, it is a property that one can (with some difficulty) calculate, but in most cases it's not the first thing one thinks of when one sees a particular graph, and it's not how you would normally classify the graphs. It is incidental. As such a category for individual graphs would fail WP:DEFINING and should not be used. At best it should be a list but even that doesn't sound very useful to me, because too many graphs are Hamiltonian. A list of bridgeless non-Hamiltonian graphs would be more interesting. Now, as for the actual category, Category:Hamiltonian paths and cycles: it is not a category for listing individual graphs that are Hamiltonian, it is rather a category for parts of graph theory that are about Hamiltonicity. It does happen to include an individual graph (the Tutte graph) but (1) it is a non-Hamiltonian graph, and (2) it is a graph that was specifically constructed to study Hamiltonicity, so in this case it really is a defining characteristic. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:52, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Hamiltonicity is not a defining and essential property of most Hamiltonian graphs. What does this mean? If a graph is Hamiltonian it cannot not be Hamiltonian -- so how can being Hamiltonian not be essential? Deltahedron (talk) 19:03, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

It's easier to think about what "defining" means in terms of people. If you were giving a one-sentence introduction for a speaker at a conference, you would definitely say that she had won a Nobel prize: it's so important as to be part of the identity of that person. But you probably wouldn't say she's right-handed: it's an innate characteristic, but not one that is used to define people. Similarly, when you're introducing a graph, you probably would say that it is a planar graph, or a chordal graph, or characteristics like that. But you wouldn't necessarily talk about whether it's Hamiltonian, because most (bridgeless) graphs are Hamiltonian (this is true in a technical sense: e.g. almost all 3-regular graphs are Hamiltonian) so it's not something that says very much about the graph to distinguish it from other graphs. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:14, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

We're discussing graphs, not people. And we're categorising them in an encyclopaedia, not introducing them. Since being Hamiltonian is a well-defined property of some graphs and not of others, and we have articles on graphs, and a category to put them in, then why not just do it? Deltahedron (talk) 19:30, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Being right-handed is a well-defined property of people, but does not make a good category, in part because it includes far too high a proportion of all people. "Graphs having a cycle" is a well-defined property of graphs, but does not make a good category, because it includes far too high a proportion of all graphs (everything that is not a tree). My feeling is that "Graphs containing a Hamiltonian cycle" has exactly the same problem. Also, that is very much not what the existing category is about — see e.g. the inclusion of the Tutte graph in it. So you would either conflate two different categorizations (graphs that are Hamiltonian, and graph-theoretic concepts related to Hamiltonicity) or you would need a new separate subcategory. If you are going to make a subcategory for specific graphs, I think it would make more sense to make one for the graphs that are *not* Hamiltonian, because there are fewer of them among the interesting named graphs. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:51, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

I entirely agree that the categories "Concepts related to Hamiltonicity" and "Hamiltonian graphs" are different -- and I think that each of them would be useful. Deltahedron (talk) 19:58, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Null model

This article is currently up for proposed deletion (expiring on Monday), and I'm in a bit of a quandary about it. The current article is not worth keeping as it is - it has very obviously been written by someone who has come across the concept in a single context, and only mentions that context. However, the concept clearly has enough notability to warrant coverage on Wikipedia - indeed, null models are explicitly mentioned in at least twenty other articles. But unfortunately I don't think I have enough familiarity with the concept to rewrite the article to an adequate standard (at least without more research than I have time for at the moment), and I am not entirely happy about the obvious alternative of redirecting it to null hypothesis while that article makes no mention of null models (again, I could make a stab at writing a description of the analogy between the two concepts, but it would be strictly WP:OR). Could anyone help, one way or another? PWilkinson (talk) 18:39, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

The article contents fits best with Modularity (networks), and could potentially be merged with that. Searching the internet yields a few things which can be called "null models" which are different to this. I'd suggest making it a disambig and merging the contents to Modularity (networks), I don't know enough about the subject matter to do the merge though.--Salix (talk): 00:10, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

I have contested the PROD. If there's a case for deletion it should be made at AFD, not here. In the interim I note that ZBLATT shows 71 research articles using this term, mainly in the context of statistical analysis of graph structure. The article could certainly do with improvement, though. Deltahedron (talk) 08:34, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

It's better for mathematicians firstly to achieve consensus and then to set straight the barbarians at AfD and CfD, generally. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 10:30, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

And that's exactly what will happen now I've contested the PROD. If it had not been contested, the article would have been deleted before the consensus had emerged. Deltahedron (talk) 12:59, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

A search [9] on wikipedia shows the term is used in a number of different contexts in particular Theoretical ecology and Statistical model. I've added {{for}} hat notes to this effect. --Salix (talk): 11:07, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Fear of symbols

In this discussion of logical symbols, there is a point that we "zero-credibility" editors should consider. It can be uncomfortable encountering unfamiliar symbols. If the user knows the name of the symbol, they can at least say the equation out loud ("d omega by d t" is so much more satisfying than "d (grunt) by dt"). Also, they may want to typeset the equation in some other medium and don't know their way around LaTeX and Wikipedia templates. So naming the symbol and linking to something like a table of symbols would help - at least for the more elementary subjects. Any other ideas? RockMagnetist (talk) 21:24, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

The very issue of whether it is appropriate to link mathematics symbols, or provide some template linking to relevant symbols, was discussed before at length here. My own opinion is that it is not generally appropriate to link mathematical symbols. Formulas are already generally supposed to be described in words, and contain links to the relevant concepts. A reader wanting to find out about a particular symbol can always consult List of mathematical symbols. Sławomir Biały (talk) 22:38, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

It is probably a good idea whenever anything new is brought in as part of an article. However I certainly would consider it overlinking to link a symbol where the use of the symbol was prerequisite knowledge for the article. It would be like linking to C cedilla in an article about a French author. And by the way I have noticed a lot of articles about symbols that have no established notability - if one was going to link to something like C cedilla it should be about the French alphabet or pronunciation not the symbol. I hope the applicability to maths is clear. Also I believe the Ç article should go and just Cedilla kept, it already says everything worthwhile that's in the Ç article. Dmcq (talk) 22:52, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I'm thinking of a link in the text referring to the symbol, not the symbol itself (e.g., "Where the symbol $\omega$ ("omega") represents the frequency.") RockMagnetist (talk) 23:12, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Sometimes I wonder if some readers think there is something magical about Greek letters rather than there being conventions like ω for frequency because mathematicians run out of symbols for variables and like to know what they stand for immediately. Just pointing to the letter may not be enough if they are at school level, really there is a whole ethos and set of conventions behind it. Dmcq (talk) 12:33, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

On occasion I've put in something like (the summation notation in this formula is explained here) - Virginia-American (talk) 23:44, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

universal and existential quantifiers

Universal quantifier and Existential quantifier redirected respectively to Universal quantification and Existential quantification. Then user:Gregbard redirected them respectively to Turned a and Turned e --- articles about the typographical symbols. I reverted.

Opinions? Michael Hardy (talk) 22:59, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

I think you're quite right. I notice that the turned a article also asserts that the symbol is the universal quantifier, which is wrong. I think I'll go fix it. --Trovatore (talk) 23:19, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

I think that the articles on quantification are more likely what people want, and the article on the symbols "turned a" and "turned e" are not likely what people want, when they load those pages. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:28, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

A Modest Proposal - why not redirect Universal quantifier and Universal quantification to Turned a? RockMagnetist (talk) 23:30, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Because universal quantification is a mathematical concept and turned a is a typographic symbol. They are two different things. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:51, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Did you look at the link? RockMagnetist (talk) 01:22, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

I am familiar with Swift, yes. I guess I didn't see the connection between this subject and baby-eating. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:04, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

It's just an obviously absurd proposal that takes the logic of redirecting to Turned a a step further. It wasn't really meant to be a close analogy to Swift's book. RockMagnetist (talk) 02:17, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Facepalm. Tijfo098 (talk) 03:44, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Gregbard is insisting on his bizarre and idiosyncratic version of things at turned a and turned e. --Trovatore (talk) 07:28, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Credit where it's due — his latest version at turned e is reasonable. --Trovatore (talk) 07:50, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Please observe that others have fooled around with it other than myself. I have purposed it to the symbols, not the operations, so if you see something else, it may not be my fault. Greg Bard (talk) 16:56, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm reverted the redirects again. The concepts and the symbols used in denoting them should not be confused. Any number of concepts (less than etc.) would have the same issue. I wouldn't object too much if he chose to create a redirect Existential quantifier (symbol). — Quondum 08:03, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

You would support a redirect Existential quantifier (symbol), but apparently it's not a symbol, it's an expression. The Existential quantification and Universal quantification articles have resided noncontroversially within the logical symbols category for some time. So what is the consensus? Does the term "Existential quantifier" refer to an upside down "E" by itself, or only to the combination of an upside down "E" along with a predicate variable? People don't seem to be reverting it, so I would presume that an "existential quantifier" is an expression rather than a symbol. So that means they have been in the wrong category all this time. Facepalm WP:MATH Greg Bard (talk) 16:56, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Template:Logical symbols mixes articles about semantics with those about symbols a fair bit as well. Perhaps organizing that in two columns would help ease the confusion of readers and some editors as well. Tijfo098 (talk) 08:27, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

... or it could stick to symbols as per its name and avoid concepts altogether. It also confuses the symbols themselves: I consider the caret and wedge to be distinct, though I do not know what a logician would refer to the wedge as (perhaps the Latin for 'and', as for vel?). Undue weight also seems to be being put on the use of the symbols in the context of logic by adding the template to those articles, e.g. Up tack, Horseshoe (symbol) and others. — Quondum 09:08, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

I think the articles turned A and turned E should be changed into redirects to the quantifiers. The symbols themselves have no literature. Basic policy, don't make up topics that people haven't written about. Dmcq (talk) 10:47, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Having had another look I think perhaps best to turn them into disambiguation pages to one of the IPA phonetic alphabet, the Unicode Mathematical symbols, or the quatifier articles. Dmcq (talk) 11:15, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

The whole idea of the template {{Logical symbols}} seems wrong to me. The symbols do not have any particular separate notability only when the are used together. I believe that template should be deleted as it leads to made up topics like turned a. Dmcq (talk) 11:35, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

This makes a lot of sense, though I'd suggest caution on suggestion about changing the articles relating to individual symbols. You just need to look at the plethora of links in Table of Unicode characters to realize that this would be bucking a trend. — Quondum 12:44, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

We have articles like Turnstile (symbol) as well. I don't have any objection to them, as long as we remember that the main topic for logical subjects is the underlying phenomenon, not the symbol that is used to denote it. In Polish notation they use Π and Σ for the quantifiers, not ∀ and ∃. Only a small number of readers will want a detailed article on the symbol instead of a detailed article about the symbol. By way of comparison, we could also redirect addition to plus and minus signs. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:06, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Even List of logic symbols has no references yet, although I have little doubt it is notable. It would be a useful exercise to find sources for this list; then it will be easier to consider the notability of the separate symbols. RockMagnetist (talk) 17:22, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

My response

The way I see it, WP:MATH has been told time and time again that the articles under its scope are unreadable, inaccessible, and confusing. In this regard, all the naysayers have ZERO credibility criticizing me. The symbols are the most significant part of the confusion on the part of the average-everyday-reader (remember them?). The template is for the symbols, not the operations. They are each certainly notable individually, having been used commonly in numerous credible, and notable publications. So I can't think of a more irresponsible or foolish idea than removing anything that helps clarify the use of these symbols. If you want to be constructive in this regard, go through and make sure that everything linked from the template is consistent, and make sure to add whatever symbols are missing.Greg Bard (talk) 14:45, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

I think I'll nominate {{Logical symbols}} for deletion as it looks like a wider view is required rather than straightforward discussion here. Articles are being set up to support that template whereas I feel there is no reason for the temp[late in the first place. Dmcq (talk) 14:54, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

@Gregbard Even brilliant mathematics teachers (I'm not judging by fame or expertise, I'm judging by teaching ability) who I have known routinely get "evaluation" saying they are confusing, not understandable, inaccessable etc. Some of this is attributable to improvable performance, but the lion's share of it is crap. The main fact is that mathematics cannot be explained uniformly to everybody, and that is essentially what WP is doing. It is inevitable there will be complaints. Complaints are especially free-flowing toward mathematics teachers because some frustrated students think it as acceptable to blame the teacher for their particular problems (which are sometimes justified, and very often are not).

So in any case, I think it's perfectly justified saying that there is always room to improve math articles. But I don't think using that tired old complaint as a giant club to silence your critics is going to be very persuasive. Wikipedia is a place of many opinions. Rschwieb (talk) 01:44, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

@Gregbard : How exactly does your way of organizing this information make anything more readable? Michael Hardy (talk) 02:19, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

---

I have put hatnotes on Universal quantification and Existential quantification directing people to the articles about the symbols.

The articles about the turned A discusses its use as a Japanese title and in traffic engineering, and those have nothing to do with universal quantification, so that's another reason not to redirect universal quantifier to that article. It's perfectly appropriate in an article about a symbol to include those various unrelated meanings, but it would seem inappropriate to include those other topics in a page to which "universal quantifier" redirects. Michael Hardy (talk) 18:40, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Seems an adequate solution per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Tijfo098 (talk) 07:17, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't see why there is a need for a hatnote. In my opinion, the symbol should just be mentioned in the lead and the article linked (which is already the case in both articles). Sławomir Biały (talk) 14:23, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree. The leads already give undue weight to typography. What is a sentence like "Symbols are encoded U+2203 ∃ THERE EXISTS (∃, ∃ · as a mathematical symbol) and U+2204 ∄ THERE DOES NOT EXIST (∄, ∄, ∄)" doing in a lead? RockMagnetist (talk) 16:53, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Logical symbols

Template:Logical symbols has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Dmcq (talk) 15:08, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

I see there's an ANI thread related to this too: Wikipedia:ANI#User:Arthur_Rubin_again. Tijfo098 (talk) 10:10, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

As for the more mathy question (of Greg) as to whether universal/existential quantification is an expression: the answer is that it can be, e.g. as they are constructed as particular cases of Lindström quantifier. Tijfo098 (talk) 14:01, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Another bad redirect

Logical NAND redirects to Sheffer stroke. This was made a redirect back in 2005, probably because the lead treated the operator and the symbol as equivalent (see the last revision before redirect). RockMagnetist (talk) 18:32, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Looking at the article Sheffer stroke, it is the correct content with an apparently incorrect article name. It should perhaps have been named Alternative denial, which would have been a suitable name to which to redirect Logical NAND. The current article naming seems to go back many years. — Quondum 07:48, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Requesting DAB help

Links to the disambiguation pages below could really use the attention of someone with decent math knowledge. Any help at all would be appreciated. If anyone would like to help but is unsure about how disambiguation works, please visit Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links or Wikipedia:Disambiguation for info. Thanks!

• Zeta function: 30 links
• Adjoint representation: 29 links
• Linear least squares: 29 links
• Integrability: 26 links
• Isotopy: 26 links
• Resolvent: 26 links
• Lie bracket: 25 links
• Subspace: 25 links
• Bayesian: 24 links
• Holonomic: 24 links
• Uniform distribution: 24 links
• Covariance (disambiguation): 23 links

-- Fyrefly (talk) 19:03, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Pythagorean tiling

I have been involved in an edit dispute with an anonymous editor on Pythagorean tiling, concerning issues of image placement, content, and whether the article topic is worthy of being standalone or should be merged into Pythagorean theorem. My opinion is that engaging with this editor in talk pages has been counterproductive, but additional eyes on the page and additional opinions from other editors here would be welcome. —David Eppstein (talk) 13:35, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

An extra pair of eyes is needed here. Tkuvho (talk) 17:21, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

OJMS

I am not sure how notable this is: The Online Journal on Mathematics and Statistics, OJMS. Tkuvho (talk) 19:05, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

At present, not at all, since there is no assertion of notability, or indeed anything else, in the article -- indeed WP:CSD A1,A3,A7 all apply. Deltahedron (talk) 19:19, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

(ec) Well, as far as google can tell, not very. And no content or sources in the "article". Also the journal webpage mentions that it's indexed on "Wikipedia List of Academic Journals" (really!). Based on the user name, seems like there's also the potential for COI there. I'm proposing for speedy deletion on basis of no content. --JBL (talk) 19:27, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Same issue with some additional contributions by this user: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Infomesr2012 Tkuvho (talk) 19:31, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Those lists should have explicit selection criteria to make it clear that only notable items are allowed. RockMagnetist (talk) 18:00, 30 November 2012 (UTC)