User talk:Mathsci/Archive 9

Update and tidying

Hi. I've updated and tidied my Talk pages. As this affects a discussion you were party to, it is only fair to let you know. I've also expanded my reference to pre-Crusade Islamic attacks on, and in, Europe. You might be particularly interested in the comment about the sacking of Marseilles in 838 and 848.
--Mariya Oktyabrskaya (talk) 03:15, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks for letting me know. Even here in the middle of Cambridge I am surrounded by reminders of Marseille: a giant box of navettes (religious biscuits) brought by two visiting French graduate students and an even larger book of the history of Marseille which records the two Saracen sackings (pillages) in its chronology. I have instructed the students to keep a low profile during the France-England rugby match today and not to to use the word vengeance :) Cheers, Mathsci (talk) 10:32, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Europe

Cambridge I see? I live there too. Anyway on 2nd March you corrected a minor error of mine with this edit summary: " correcting ungrammatical error of Harland1 - do we really need this kind of unencyclopedic content from curret newspaper reports?". I was wondering what was 'unencyclopeadic' about the statement I added? Harland1 (^t/_c) 18:13, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps economic indicators that change day by day according to newspaper reports are not really encyclopedic. Mathsci (talk) 21:30, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

It was the Financial Times, but I agree with you it should probably be taken out and I will do so. Harland1 (^t/_c) 17:21, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Pas de problème :) Mathsci (talk) 12:34, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

europe

Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, we would like to remind you not to attack other editors.

Hello fellow wikipedian i see you may be new to wiki, you do not have the authority to remove a tag,what you did could be misconstrued as vandalism,one or two people is not a consensus though i did remove the tag from the top of the article and moved it to the regions sections where i am disputeing the neutrality,because it only labels one opinion of the classifications of european regions namely only the u.n's but leaves out others whether it be unesco or namely the C.I.A world fact book where if you click the follwing portal, Western Europe has both cia world factbook regions for europe and the united nations whichs makes it neutral,please reconsider your opinion if you strive for neutrality poor grammar is not a basis enough to dismiss somebodys claims--Wikiscribe (talk) 13:57, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Please cease with subtle insults, it seems you are whats wrong with wiki you think you are smarter than you really are, wiki was not set up to try and prove one persons superior intellect over somebody else's by showing there gramatical prowess.I did fix the talk page message because it may have been incoherent to some but still you do not have the right to insult and remove tags, you should have just left me a message on my talk page and let me know that my message was incoherent, so maybe we could have worked something out and helped fix the problem and clear up the matter,instead you chose the low road.Also i am calm and my message about you lacking wiki etiquette was proper and kind without insult,so if you would stop with the sarcastic intelligence insults and maybe work to make the article neutral you would be much more useful to the wikipedian [community instead of jumping down peoples throats because it's easy to do when you don't have to face the person--Wikiscribe (talk) 21:14, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

reading above seems that you have a history. nonetheless regarding your comment on my talk page [1] and [2] Michellecrisp (talk) 23:00, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikiscribe's unjustified attempts to put a WP:POV template at the top of Europe were unsuccessful. It is a pity you didn't check this for yourself before yet again making a fool of yourself. I am quite uninterested in the chip or chips on your shoulder. Mathsci (talk) 23:45, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

re: chip on shoulder comment. WP:KETTLE Michellecrisp (talk) 23:49, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

My comments were not emotional they were to the point though im sure an administrator may consider your remarks on my talk page and on the europe talk page as trying to provoke an emotional response because they were insulting (a wiki no no) and were not constructive in clearing up the situation .So next time when trying to handle an issue assume good faith instead of being dismissive, rude and insulting communicate with the person directly , leave a friendly message(not an insulting message) on the talk page for the article in question or on the persons talkpage before taking action and give the person a chance to respond to the query first,also two people is not a consenus especially when Tomeasy though did agree with you but he just reverted it and did not try to sort the matter out first on the talk page .Also in respects to the template I had fixed the issue already and let you and tomeasy know this with a friendly message on each respective talk pages, stateing that i had put it in the wrong place at the top of the page but moved it to the section in question but it seems like you are trying to misslead and suggest i was insisting it be at the top of the page which i was not i just put it in the wrong place and i fixed the matter after tomeasy reverted i than put the tag back but in the proper part of the article and let you and tomeasy this, but it seems like i have a valid point being the tag is still in regions section being the section only list one opinion of the region divide of europe,but anywho it seems like you keep missing the point its not if i was wrong or not but the way in which you handled the situation was not very constructive and i see im not the only person who has taken issue with you on the way you conduct yourself on here--Wikiscribe (talk) 17:19, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Remarkable

Your rewording seems fine to me. As another professional mathematician, I am very familiar with the norms of mathematical writing. However, I think an encyclopedia such as Wikipedia needs to be written in a different tone than mathematics texts and papers, particularly because of the anonymous authorship. Value judgments such as "remarkable" are useful only when the person making the judgment is known, so that readers can judge what is meant by the term and whether to trust the author's judgment. While I may trust your judgment, an average reader will have no idea who wrote the article.

Also, since our non-elementary mathematics content on WP is biased towards remarkable, famous, beautiful, and well-used mathematics (the type that people want to write about), I think we need to be particularly circumspect in praising the results we are describing.

I do appreciate that with property T it's surprising that it can be useful when the dual isn't known. That would be a nice thing to explain in the article in more detail, to help shape the reader's intuition. I like to pretend that I am writing for a motivated senior undergraduate student or first year graduate student in articles like this. That sort of person would benefit from an explanation of why the alternative characterizations should seem remarkable. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:24, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Recent interaction on AN/I

I'm not taking it any futher, but I am extremely disappointed in your accusation I was "trolling" on the God save the South section the the AN/I page. As I said, I have, to my knowledge, NO interaction with anyone from the Jewish faith (if I have met anyone, they kept their faith to themselves). Of course I've heard of Michael Howard, but what has that got to do with anything? I have had no interaction with him, I've no heard him speak, nor read any articles by him, on "Jewishness" (or is that offensive as well?), nor have I had any interest in doing so. I've also heard of Jesus ad Moses, but surprisingly, neither of them have spoken at length on it either.

Perhaps you are, or you have had regular interaction with people of this faith - I haven't. If that makes me ignorant, then so be it, but I would be very surprised if there are not plenty of things that you yourself are not ignorant about. But being ignotrant of something, and pointing out the fact that not everyone knows the same as everyone else is not "trolling".

Regards, Darkson <stall>(BOOM! An interception!) 14:26, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Hello. You seem to have led a very sheltered life! The main thing that surprised me was that you seemed completely unaware that the use of "jew" as an adjective is taboo in the UK. If a journalist, academic or politician publicly used "jew" in this way (i.e. as an adjective) they would usually be cautioned and might even lose their job. If you were unaware of this and unacquainted with UK attitudes towards jewish people outside your own immediate circle, then perhaps it wasn't very helpful for you to speak out for all of the UK on WP:AN/I. I don't usually speak out about things of which I am ignorant on WP (my own employment experience in the UK has been in universities, so I have met a wide variety of people in the UK and abroad). There is nothing personal involved here - on WP:AN/I it was simply a matter of helping to sort out what a racist editor was up to. My aim was not to cause offense to you and I'm sorry if you have taken it that way. Cheers, Mathsci (talk) 15:30, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

I never "spoke for all the UK", nor did I insinuate that I did, I said "I". Of course, if you want me to speak for all the UK... Darkson (BOOM! An interception!) 18:14, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

No thank you, I think you've said quite enough. Mathsci (talk) 18:46, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Edit summaries

It would be nice if you would refrain from using edit summaries like: rv changes by Elder sun - ungrammatical, very poorly presented and improperly sourced. Thery are rather hurtful to other editors. Cheers. Harland1 (^t/_c) 05:44, 14 April 2008 (U

Not at all. Here you are absolutely wrong Harland1.These were quite clearly a comment on the material ("changes") included, not the person. If there is something here that you have difficulty understanding, I'm quite willing to explain it to you. You might be getting confused with WP:NPA but that is a fairly common error. Some of your own edits to Europe (economic development) have been pure WP:OR and completely unsourced. Why not take care of them instead of gratuitously harrassing other editors? Mathsci (talk) 07:16, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Here is the diff [3] - ungrammatical (several glaring errors), poorly sourced (Hungarian website is not a proper citation) and very poorly presented (attempt to make meaningless list). Perhaps you haven't had a chance to look at it. Mathsci (talk) 07:42, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I think it is you that are getting confused, I was not making personal attacks I was merely stating that some of your edit summaries are hurtful, I was not attacking you I was merely trying to show you that however true they may be edit summaries like that come across in a way you may not intend them to. Harland1 (^t/_c) 09:51, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

No it is you that are confused. As explained above the particular edits were not properly sourced, ungrammatical and very poorly presented. The idea that there is apparently some pill to make this more palatable is just your own opinion, which of course you are free to express, but please not ad infinitum when it does not directly concern you or ongoing edits. This does not fall under any WP guidelines as far as I am aware. It already took some effort to find the material on homo georgicus for this section, if you want a comparison. Please could you comment on the actual edits rather than giving your own interpretation of my edit summary? My talk page is not a forum.

On the other hand there are fairly extensive guidelines on original research, i.e. the inclusion of dubious unsourced material as you have done in Europe. Are my comments about that perhaps an explanation for your somewhat delayed remarks? Your idea of inserting material on economic growth seems very good, but please try to find some secondary sources to improve the accuracy of what you have written. A bientot, Mathsci (talk) 10:36, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes I will find secondary sources for my statement. :) However I think that you should possibly try and read WP:CIVIL. In my (obviously wrong) opinion poloitely alerting you to the fact that your edit summaries can be hurtful does in no way constitiute gratuitous harrassment of other editoprs. Also you keep harking back to the point that the your edit summary was accurate, It was! i was merely tring to say that you might consider being nicer in what you say, I am so sorry to have raised what I tought was a legitimate consideration, which you obviously regard as a waste of time. :) Harland1 (^t/_c) 12:06, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I wonder if you could now please leave my talk page? You are indeed wasting my time and your own by discussing one untypical edit summary. As far as the edit summary goes, I used WP:SPADE and WP:NPA. In exactly the same way when somebody mistranslated Porte d'Aix as "carry from Aix" and "campagne" (=military campaign) as "countryside", they were not treated with kid gloves. These errors were mindless and easily avoidable. Kindly deliver your sermons elsewhere if you need to; and correct/provide sources for your own questionable edits to Europe. Mathsci (talk) 14:26, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Very well I will leave your talk page, I assure I have no wish to remain. However before I go I will say that I find your behaviour unacceptable, you have accused me of gratuitously harassing you, turning your talk page into a forum, expressing my opinion ad infinitum, violating WP:NPA, delivering sermons and wasting your time. All I was trying to do was to alert you to the fact that some of your edit summaries can be hurtful. I can only assume that as you have given me such hostile treatment that you do not care whether you hurt other editors or not, please correct me if am wrong. You seem to think I was accusing you of making personal attacks, I was not accusing you of anything. (That may have sounded hostile and you could argue it's a violation of WP:NPA please feel free to do so.) Harland1 (^t/_c) 15:01, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

It seems that you are trying very hard to make some WP:POINT and are now arguing for argument's sake. Having seen the bogus references you added to Europe, it is very hard to assume that you are acting in good faith. This is an encyclopedia, not a video-game. Mathsci (talk) 21:32, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Economy refs

Lets start afresh shall we :). Sorry if I was unreasonable. In response to your requests I have added some refs to the economic development section so I hope you don't mind that I've removed the references tag. A bientot. Harland1 (^t/_c) 18:27, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I just checked the first two of your references and the pages you referred to have nothing whatsoever to do with what you added. Probably the same applies to the other references. What on earth do you think you're playing at? It's not in the least bit amusing and I am going privately to contact my collaborators on the history section (Hemlock Martinis and FT2 - now on the arbitration committee) to alert them to your disruptive edits. The exact pages of the references you gave can easily be found on google books and do not confirm at all what you wrote. If you continue editing dishonestly like this, you are very likely to be blocked. Why not invest in a history of Europe or even the UK? Mathsci (talk) 21:19, 14 April 2008 (UTC)