Talk:Level structure (algebraic geometry)

Tag concerns 2018-03-04 03:30 UTC

As applied in [1] my concerns are thus:

• There's no Lead section explaining the context that an average reader would be able to understand this either from reading the section, or reading wikilinked articles in the section to understand what this is.
• This needs a expert in math to make it accessible to the average reader, otherwise this page would be best served in a specialist Algebraic Geometry wiki, textbook, or as a subsection of a different article page
• This needs at least once cited fact so that it can be verified as something that exists and isn't an elaborate hoax by several mathematicians.

I'm not trying to tag bomb, but trying to help improve the article. Hasteur (talk) 03:36, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

• I have added the def of algebraic geometry. Not enough? Also many math pages are only interesting to someone having some background in graduate-level math. Do you have a proposal of how make it more accessible? I have added one cited fact that shows this is not hoax. -- Taku (talk) 03:50, 4 March 2018 (UTC)
  • You need to explain why this matters and how to get from generic algebraic geometry to this concept. Otherwise we come back to my objection in bullet point 1 (Lead Section). Please review "Other Stuff Exists" for why "Also many math pages are only interesting to...." is a poor argument to make for improvement. I am not a post-Bachelor's mathematician, so I can't help there. I can point out that I think I am understanding the topic, but you as the author of the page should be able to explain in as much detail is necessary (or link to appropriate parent level topics) to make it so that anybody with reading skills and a decent amount of education (let's say Bachelor in college/university) can get enough context to understand. Finally your cited fact s come from one book, so you've now fallen into the "One Source" problem. For all we know Mumford/Fogarty/Kirwan may have conspired to make the concept up, we have to be skeptical. Unfortunately the [2] preview didn't include the begining of Chapter 7 (it starts on page 128, so I can see the Definition 7.1 on page 129). Hasteur (talk) 04:13, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

  I don’t think you understand math textbooks. Mumford is one of the foundation-type books. It is a sort of bible in the field; so there is no question of reliability (e.g., no possibility of fraud.) Anyway, I had one more ref. Also, I have added a mention of an application; this should help contexts (which I was good to add anyway). Are you happy now? —- Taku (talk) 10:27, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

  Taku, what part of we have to be skeptical do you not understand (or choose to willfully not understand)? Just because one person says something doesn't make it true. If I got someone to put out a vanity press that says that all Tibetans have advanced abstract geometry training doesn't necessarily make it true or something we should create a Wikipedia article on. The article as it exists at this point has the issues resolved, though I wish that D.Lazard hadn't been used such a patently erroneous edit summary Avoid misleading summaries. Mentioning one change but not another one can be misleading to someone who finds the other one more important. You could add something like "and misc." to cover the other changes. per WP:SUMMARYNO. Hasteur (talk) 17:33, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

  To editor Hasteur: Please WP:Assume good faith: The edit that you describe as important and that should be mentioned in the edit summary is simply the involuntary removing of a blank line. No need for inflammatory statements ("patently erroneous edit summary") for something that everybody would recognize immediately as a typo. D.Lazard (talk) 18:17, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

  Why should I demonstrate good faith when you're clearly lobbing bombs and taking a hyperbolic PoV? Hasteur (talk) 21:44, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Again personal attacks... D.Lazard (talk) 22:04, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

So how skeptical should we be? We know David Mumford is a highly respected mathematician, one of the few who has won a fields medal the top prize in mathematics. We know Springer-Verlag is a highly respect academic publisher especially in the world of mathematics. The material here is not controversial, some one, possibly Field's medal winner Vladimir Drinfeld did invent the structure some time pre 1987. So its made up, as is all of mathematics. Anyway this made up structure has been used very many papers since then, and hence gets its notability. It of the reasons we have Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth. --Salix alba (talk): 18:35, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

So what you're saying is the only people who are allowed to review mathematics articles are mathematicians? How was any editor who doesn't professionally deal with post-bachelor mathematics subjects supposed to make the connection when it wasn't in this page, it isn't on Mumford's page, and it isn't in Drinfield's page either? Finally "made up" is used in the wikipedia coliquialism of WP:HOAX/WP:MADEUP. Please feel free to reference in the "structure has been used very many papers" so that we get away from the primary sources? Hasteur (talk) 21:52, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

As a measure of significance the "Survey of Drinfeld modules" paper has 184 citations.[3]. If we look for papers on Google Scholar for "Drinfeld level structure" we find lots of paper some with good numbers of citations. --Salix alba (talk): 22:30, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Then connect it in the text of the article and not on this talk page. Hasteur (talk) 22:54, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

"The only people who are allowed to review mathematics articles are mathematicians?" Yeah, probably. After more than a decade of editing WP, that's the conclusion I am forced to reach. There is just far too much shenanigans perpetrated by a large variety of bad actors, including regrettably, many of the admins. I'm at a loss as to why WP policy has not been revised to something that isn't a garbage-generator. There is a reason that nearly all WP math and science articles are of rather extremely poor quality - all of the capable, knowledgeable editors get chased away by hostile admins; its a recurring theme.

Re; rigidity: one of the big surprises in math over the last 20-30 years has been the discovery of non-rigid structures, perhaps most famously the affine Lie algebras aka the quantum groups, no small thanks to the string theorists. Its natural to pursue the converse: where does rigidity come from, and how does one go about introducing it into a structure that lacks it? This article would be the tip of that iceberg.

Also, I am not clear about the need for the above personal attack on Taku. I have been watching him edit for the last decade. He's an OK editor, tackling a reasonable set of subjects. His writing is sometimes a bit opaque and not terribly clear - I know this because I've taken some of his articles, expanded them, and added the simple, easy-to-read "in a nutshell" introductions that they needed. But I cannot say that I've spotted any errors in what he's written. What he creates is accurate, if not always plain-spoken. 67.198.37.16 (talk) 21:46, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Todo

• Mention level structures an symplectic bases from https://www.math.purdue.edu/~arapura/preprints/shimura2.pdf
• Theorem 2.7.1 of https://www.math.purdue.edu/~arapura/preprints/shimura.pdf gives link for construction of modular curves
• Chapter 4, specifically 4.3.6 for level structure on abelian varieties w/ moduli
• http://publications.ias.edu/node/367 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wundzer (talk • contribs) 05:14, 6 June 2020 (UTC)