User talk:Charles Matthews/Archive 12

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Peer review

Hi, if you have time and the inclination, could you look at this: Wikipedia:Peer review/Objectivist poets/archive1 for me? Thanks. Filiocht | The kettle's on 12:38, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikimedia UK

You have expressed an interest in Wikimedia UK. Just to let you know I've posted a draft Memorandum of Association and Articles of Association of the proposed "Wikimedia UK" charitable company on Wikimedia UK/Memorandum of Association and Wikimedia UK/Articles of Association. It is proposed that these will receive initial approval by interested parties at a meeting on 27 November. I will put together a brief agenda for the more formal aspects of that meeting soon. Memo and Arts of Association are a company's constitution, and need to be agreed before the company is formed (though they can be changed at a later date). Please feel free to comment on the relevant talk pages (I'd rather the proposed drafts are left unedited so that it is easy to see what is going on) - particularly if there is something there that you would disagree with at the meeting, details of which can be found on the Wikimedia UK page on Wikimedia Meta-Wiki. Kind regards, jguk 19:10, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. The previous meeting on this was a bad day for me. Charles Matthews 19:16, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Inductive dimension

Thanks for the help at Inductive dimension. Have you checked the formal definition? As I said in the talk page, I didn't have any solid sources and relied on a Usenet post (by a very knowledgeable poster, but still). --Trovatore 16:45, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Ah, I'd assumed you had that down ... The Soviet encylopedia article is actually signed P. S. Aleksandrov, which is good. There is probably some early history that's interesting, with Poincaré suggesting, LEJ Brouwer working on this. As usual a Web search finds plenty of interesting fragments. The big embedding theorem may be as attributed Lefschetz-Menger-Nobeling-Pontryagin or something. Charles Matthews 16:58, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

So just to clarify, have you checked the def against the one in the Soviet encyclopedia? I'd appreciate it—one of the big reasons I thought the article was so important to get in place is that right now you can't find a clear definition of the concept on the Web. Soon people looking for the definition will find this article as one of the top few Google hits, so obviously I want it to be right. --Trovatore 17:18, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Brouwer's definition, inductive step. Dimension is at most n + 1 if disjoint closed sets A, B always have a partition Φ of dimension at most n. Urysohn, Menger (1921) weakened this, in that one of A, B may be restricted to a singleton; this (it says) is the same in compact and in separable metric spaces. Charles Matthews 17:32, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks very much! --Trovatore 18:36, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

topological dimension

I note that at Hausdorff dimension you've linked "topological dimension" to Inductive dimension, though currently topological dimension is a redir to Lebesgue covering dimension. If you're right about that, then maybe I was wrong in my latest addition to the intro of inductive dimension, where I said that "topological dimension" usually means Lebesgue covering dimension (and topological dimension should be a dab page, or even a redir to inductive dimension). Any thoughts/clarifications/authoritative references? --Trovatore 20:02, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Bott periodicity theorem

Hi Charles. Could you please take a look at this article. A new contributior added some things to it, and in particular replaced $\Omega ^{8}BU$ with $\Omega ^{8}BO$ (whatever all that means). I ask you because you were the original author of the article. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 18:41, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

BO for BU would be correct. Probably an expert, though not a native English-speaker, and not familiar with our format conventions. Charles Matthews 21:35, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Schopenhauer and Neo-Kantianism

Greetings. In your article on Neo-Kantianism, you stated that Schopenhauer's criticism of the Kantian philosophy was an impetus to that movement. Then, you qualified the statement by parenthetically adding "sometimes." I am curious to know (1.) why you think that Schopenhauer's criticism influenced Neo-Kantianism, and (2.) why you qualified your assertion. 152.163.100.196 19:33, 17 November 2005 (UTC)Lestrade

The first statement came from User:Poor Yorick, in fact. Charles Matthews 21:58, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Histories after article splits

So I have a related problem at List of large cardinal properties. I put a note on that article's discussion page about where to find the history prior to 6 November. Is that not enough? I asked Oleg to copy the history over but he doesn't seem to think it can be done (see User talk:Oleg Alexandrov#List of large cardinal properties). The history does, in principle, apply to both articles (List of large cardinal properties and large cardinal property), up to and including 21:18 6 November 2005 (UTC). Any ideas? --Trovatore 22:40, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

It's OK as it is. The practical importance is to leave a good 'audit trail'. Charles Matthews 22:47, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Policy and technology

In Talk:Controversy over Cantor's Theory I wrote Charles M is quite right to reverse the farming out: it is a license requirement of the GDFL that content is attributed, and the current understanding of this is that we should maintain a connection between article content and edit history. If you want to do this kind of thing in future, you have to ask an admin to do it, who has access to special tools.

On second thought, I think this is too restrictive: wouldn't linking to the parent article in the edit summary be enough? And in general, your super admin powers don't help when you want to share edit history, do they? --- Charles Stewart 23:22, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Nondimensionalization

May I ask how you came across that page? It's rarely touched by Wikipedians...thanks for fixing the bottom of the page. I wonder if there is a more popular term for the concept? --HappyCamper 01:33, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

While filling up Category:Dimensional analysis, which was spun off Category:Dimension after some comments. Specifically, I Googled for 'site:en.wikipedia.org "dimensional analysis"'. Charles Matthews 09:31, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

strategic essentialism

Thanks for categorizing my entry. Are you, among other things, like one of the librarians for Wiki? :-) Cheers. --Imagine&Engage 12:18, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm an admin. But categorising pages is something we all should do, really! I was probably just browsing around; sometimes I do 'New Pages Patrol', i.e. look at recently-created pages and see what attention they may need. Charles Matthews 12:20, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Bibliographical details

Hi Charles. I added some details to an external link at Fekete polynomial, and discovered afterwards that you wrote the article. I'm just wondering whether there is any particular reason why you did not do so yourself but instead used some vague description ("recent preprint" or something similar). Just curious … by the way, to show that I'm really curious, any news about how the new ArbCom will be selected? -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 23:12, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

The thing about the PDF - probably just too many edits that day, I had got tired. I don't know anything special about the ArbCom. I haven't discussed this offline with anyone for nearly a year. It's not a great job, you know! The 'Signpost' pages have as much as I know. Charles Matthews 23:40, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I know it's a lousy job, though it is probably even worse than I imagine. However, it's also an important job, so it worries me that it is not known what is going to happen, even though something will probably happen soon. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 12:59, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes. I'm also worried. Paul August ☎ 15:30, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Selfishly, I have to say I'm not as worried as I was before I withdrew my nomination. Maybe I'll unwithdraw it and then panic. Filiocht | The kettle's on 15:47, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

It seems that Jimbo has made an unpopular decision, by not allowing elections on the 2004 model. I think we can presume that it would have been easier to have a repeat. I got flamed a little, but honourably - I wouldn't have minded that again. But I think we know how to judge the eventual outcome: 'justice seen to be done' by a new ArbCom. Charles Matthews 15:52, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

I wish that Fil would "unwithdraw". Outside of Charles and Fil, I'm not that keen on the list of candidates so far. And as regards to the selection process, frankly I don't remember it being that bad last time. I think that sometimes Wikipedia is a bit thin skinned. Besides is it not possible that the community could learn how to conduct more civil elections, if given a chance? A chance that doesn't now seem forthcoming. Paul August ☎ 16:15, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

RfC on CarlHewitt

Hi Charles, would you be interested in proofreading and giving some comments on User:R.Koot/Request for Comments on User:CarlHewitt? Thanks, —R. Koot 19:30, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

which Conway

I guess there are two John Conways (John B. Conway and the famous one John Horton Conway), and his page is now a disambiguation. Trovatore wants to doublecheck before he fixes the link from Adjoint functors about adding units to nonunital rings, and I see that you're the guy who wrote about him. -lethe ^talk 19:11, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

But John H. is much more famous, so I don't really agree with this. Charles Matthews 19:32, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

OK, so then it was the John Conway that was intended in the Adjoint functors]] page. I'll say so in the talk. -lethe ^talk 10:29, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Nom de Plume

May I ask why you are using Acharya S's real name in her article? Using it at all against her wishes is one thing, using it throughout the article shows a certain disrespect I think.

^^James^^ 06:37, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

To the extent that Wikipedia can verify the identity behind a pseudonym, it is reasonable (*) that Wikipedia puts it in a relevant article. I can't see this otherwise as more than a stylistic matter. Charles Matthews 19:35, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

• This is a thumping non-sequitur Charles! There could be many reasons why people might wish not to be immediately identifiable (including ones related to contracts of employment, which ex-fellows of Cambridge Colleges are probably spared! - recall 'student' of t-test fame) Bob aka Linuxlad 14:32, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, firstly, we are talking about people who warrant an article, not just anyone. Secondly, 'no original research' means that we should anyway not be the first to come up with the identity behind a pseudonym; we can put it in WP only after it has appeared in some other source. Thirdly, the idea that subjects of articles have approval of what is in the article is all wrong. Charles Matthews 15:51, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

OK - my error I see. Bob Linuxlad

Sources for Brauer group

Hello, sometime ago you added a fair bit of content to Brauer group. As you may be aware, we are currently trying to improve Wikipedia's accuracy and reliability by making sure articles cite the sources used to created them. Do you remember what websites, books, or other places you learnt the information that you added to Brauer group? Would it be possible for you to mention them in the article? Thank you very much. - SimonP 15:26, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, it's been a standard piece of algebra for at least 60 years, so adding some references would not be hard. But there must be better targets for this drive. Charles Matthews 16:24, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Zoe's rollback of my edit on Andreas Floer

Hi Charles, I'd like to know your opinion of something that occurred recently on the Andreas Floer article. User:Erkabo, who is actually four users (3 close friends of Floer, and his brother Detlef) and I have been communicating over email. I've been getting much source materials such as photos, contents of letters, etc. I've incorporated some of it into the article and I have been working on some drafts in my spare time.

Per the policy of "cite your sources", I've listed, as per standard academic practice, "private communications" between Erkabo and myself as a reference. With no explanation, User:Zoe has rollbacked my edit. I believe this to be an abuse of admin powers.

I've left a message on Zoe's talk page asking for a valid reason for the rollback, but I suspect (perhaps unfairly) that Zoe will not give a good reason and continue with reverts. --C S (Talk) 01:51, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I think using rollback is more an issue of good manners, than of abuse of powers. There is a clear problem with 'private communication', in that it is not a verifiable source. Therefore it might be better to give an extended explanation on the talk page. (I've been offline for around two weeks). Charles Matthews 19:30, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not certain how it is not verifiable. Clearly it is! Can you elaborate further? I've explained on the talk page how I came upon the information. In fact, a previous edit of mine (which was deleted) listed the User page of a wikipedia editor who can easily verify these communications for anyone who desires.

Here is a situation where information is actually easily verifiable and has been verified to an extent beyond what is considered the norm, e.g. consider the next time Jimbo Wales says "that info on Jimbo Wales is not correct" and someone changes it! It hardly seems to me as if these users User:Friday or User:Zoe would make a big deal about this. --C S (Talk) 09:42, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not saying it is wrong to include such information, at all. I myself think that asking that everything be sourced is no good as a policy: it is too defensive, leads to lame writing, and so on. Charles Matthews 09:46, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Firstly Floer is more than just notable - he was a star. So no question about 'deletion'. Secondly I'm going to look into the matter of cuts made from the page. There is no real reason to apply extreme sceptical standards equally across WP. Charles Matthews 09:53, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi Charles----simply Great!

Erkabo are four, as you know, and I, Rolf am the „spokesman” for us.

It was only about one year ago that I first got access to the Internet in the office at work. When I looked at the Googles for “Andreas Floer” and “Floer homology” I was dumbfounded. Andreas himself, and only when asked directly, would reluctantly say, “Well, maybe one day they will write some books about it.” I then found that there was only one single picture of him available on the Internet, the one in the “In Memoriam” of UC Berkeley. Now we have more than twenty pictures of him and I thought what I could do. First I wrote to Prof. Hofer, about whom Andreas often had spoken and who had given an address at the funeral (Chan-Ho has the picture of us, sadly sitting round the table, afterwards). (Helmut Hofer is keeping an aye on the articles, too.) Then I wrote to Andreas’ “star”, Prof. Gromov and sent him some pictures. He kindly replied. I was looking for a way to communicate these pictures to the mathematical world. It was only after some months that I found a “draft5”, author: Chan-Ho, in the en.wikipedia being a short biography of Andreas Floer, and I immediately wrote to the author and sent him some pics. That was the beginning of the article Andreas Floer. Chan-Ho and we have communicated a lot since then. We are extremely happy we have found him. He is the one we were looking for. He has all the pictures which are scanned so far and I have written down much about my intimate friend Andreas, and he has letters, so Chan-Ho can make a picture for himself and put into the Wikipedia what he finds suitable. If you want to read that: Chan-Ho is entitled to give it to you. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS WHATSOEVER, PLEASE DO NOT HESITATE, we’ll gladly answer them all. Rolf of Erkabo 13:17, 9 December 2005 (UTC) (we have our own PC at home by now)

OK - I have now edited the article and added a little. I found I couldn't really use much of the material in dispute, though. I have added a good quote from Donaldson. Charles Matthews 13:31, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi Charles. I have several things I would like you to comment on before I proceed, since I trust your advice. First, a related question: did you find you couldn't use much of the disputed material because it just wasn't good (in terms of bio material) or because of the verifiability issue? Second, I'm currently putting together a webpage containing some of what may be termed the "Erkabo files", i.e. source materials from Rolf Kaiser, et al. Do you think that the existence of this webpage would make a reference in the article with a hyperlink to the page a valid, verifiable reference? This would hopefully enable some of this material to be used. The idea of this webpage is that it would also list explict ways to get in contact with the right people (friends and family) to verify much of this stuff.

Lastly, if the answer to the second query is positive, do you think it would be appropriate to have the proposed webpage as a subpage of either my or Erkabo's user page? The benefits of this is that we would be able to edit the material together and it would offer a more stable site than the alternatives. I imagine that we could even have it protected to only be editable by Erkabo or me, for example, to keep it from being vandalized and made less reliable. --C S (Talk) 13:25, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

So, as I understand it, he was born in Duisberg. He attended school(s)there? The material you added said 'Max Planck Gymnasium' - but I suppose that is a common secondary school name in Germany. You see, there is a difficulty getting the basic facts clear from the style of personal story you are getting from Erkabo. Of course I trust the factual side, here. I myself feel that the best 'memorial' to a mathematician is to develop the pages here on the work; for example I added a statement of the Arnold conjecture. Therefore, while I see your current difficulty, it would not be my approach to try to 'get round' it immediately. Charles Matthews 14:01, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Acharya article

I knwo my own image is not oen to speak. I look liek a radical POV Warrior. James himself did the most damage ehre. ( I am , after all, a fundie CHristainwith an agenda...)

And I knwo you thinkt e alst article of mien was horrible. However, I only added clarificaiton to her credentials and reinstilled her life informaiton. ( After all, their older version before my edits make her out ot be a grand schoalr of renown and do nto ebvenmention critism. Im still baffled by their removal of her lif details.)

All I want is a non-biased article hwoever. THus why I liked your older version. I am tryign nto tobe baised here. Though that may seem hard ot beleive. However, Acharya's supporters will the artilce otbe about how great she is, how many credentials she has, and hwo she has priven Chrisyaitiy to be muyth. The article asthey had written read sliek ehr website.

I tried revertign to your article, but tonot violate the 3RR, I instead took to alterig their verison, to reflect a mroe hoenst aprpoach. ( WHichthey call dishienst, btu hey rmeove critical informaitonand slant it in her faovur.)

Now, I knwo , as I said, yo wont beleive htis. But I appriciate your effort in kepignthisbalanced. As I lost all creidbility, semingly now the central figure in their hate campaugn, it is nice to see soemone doign somtgi to balance the odds.

Anyway, thanks. I just needed my say in this frustratign matter.

ZAROVE 14:49, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

It seems that el lobo is happier, also. The article may in fact be deleted, but it has been given the chance to look respectable. Charles Matthews 18:22, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

You got sucked in too! I lost my temper with the blatant misrepresentations of James and el Lobo before I realized that neither was amenable to reason or discussion. My only concern about deletion is that another of her idiot disciples will start the whole thing over again. alteripse 16:09, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, is that meant to be a helpful comment here? I maintain a fairly neutral position on whether the topic merits an article; but while it's here, it should conform to our standards. All I have tried to do is to pull the article's content closer to policy. Charles Matthews 16:27, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, it wasn't an unfriendly comment. I also don't have strong feelings about whether we have an article. My initial motivation for involvement was the same as yours after I saw James' idiotic claims of fear for her personal safety on the administrator's board. It went downhill from there. Notice that as soon as you did it, one of them started changing it right back. alteripse 16:37, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I noticed. It's in a grey area, I think, whether articles about 'controversial' websites and those who run them are good and encyclopedic; but as you say, the issue is more what to do about the creation or re-creation of such pages. This is a particularly tough case, it seems to me. Charles Matthews 16:46, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

The only reaosn Im invovled was that I started the article. I LIKED the origional Charles Mathew (Now called "Zaroves htipeace" ) Version. I wanted to expand the life section. My main concernisthat they omit her life ( WHich sort of moots the article, as its abotu her), and call this Ad Hom. ( Again, the article isabotu her.)

Then sya shes "A Historian, Linguist, Religious Scholar, and Archeologist", even thought she lacks accredition. And if we leave the lin in and poitn to their own justification,they say its nto reelvant that hes only considered htese htigns because she owns a website and wrte two books.

Id rather it not be deleted, rather, Id have it altered so it gives actal informaiton, as opposed ot copyign her image form her website.

Butthats just me, and my reputaiton is now as a Biased fundie Christain...

67.213.79.201 19:33, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

To give the article the best chance at AfD, it must be very fair. I think the issues that are in a sense unresolved about it should wait, until we know what future it has. Charles Matthews 19:36, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I will differ to the judgement,fornow, unless the article becoems self promotional again. I dohateit when the "Non-Boased" verisons shwo up writtenby her supporters...

67.216.215.237 21:35, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

You must know that it would be quite wrong for me to take any account of anyone's identity, affiliations or beliefs in acting as an admin here. Charles Matthews 22:34, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I did not ask yo too, butthey ar eusign quiet obviosui bully tactics. They rmeove links the dont like., give her credentlas as she gives them ( FLuff), and omit data not relvant to their own cause. While claimign anyoen who differs is somehow the one who is baisedand tryignt os mearher. (They also smear ll hwo oppose.)

IE, Tekton Ministreis. They hate htis site, so its removed.

THis is what I am referening. James states I am a fundie CHristain and Thus vehemently oppose Acharya as a mean to smear me. Whoile beign a supporter of her and doign exaclty as he claimed. Its nto that I ask you to gake acocunt of their belifs to be oen sdes, only to account for the actiosn fo the editors and why they edit the atilce in her faovur.

67.216.215.186 02:13, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

You can reasonably ask me to protect you or anyone else from 'bullying' here; as an admin I have a duty in that direction. I am not going to take any account of anyone's attitudes, in trying to develop Wikipedia articles. Charles Matthews 09:11, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Bullying? Would threatening to commit a crime against the author constitute "bullying"? As I've pointed out numerous times, Zarove threatened to publish Acharyas credit information online if I didn't back off. Procuring someones credit report under false pretenses is a crime. Furthermore, this suggests Zarove has Acharyas SSN. The mentally ill person who kidnapped her child is known to have passed Acharyas personal information, such as her SSN, to fringe religious groups like tektonics.org. He is wanted by the authorities. Zarove, have you been in touch with this psychotic kidnapper? ^^James^^ 18:47, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I'll trouble you to keep all of this off the site. This is an online encyclopedia, not a forum for resolving quarrels. There is a comprehensive dispute procedure here, if you have issues with other users that relate specifically to behaviour on Wikipedia. Charles Matthews 19:03, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, I wouldn't call it a "dispute". Zarove, while on wikipedia, threatened to commit a crime against the author unless I backed off. It's a fact. How is that usually dealt with? I would think such behaviour would be taken seriously.

Examples given on Wikipedia:No personal attacks do not exactly cover such a case as you allege (threats against a third party). You are correct that it would be taken seriously; though it would be a mistake to think that we operate on the basis first of remedies. Dispute resolution aims firstly to resolve the dispute. Charles Matthews 19:57, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Polish space

Please see my response on Linas' talk page as to why I don't really think Polish space belongs in Category:Metric spaces (I admit it's a little bit of a picky point). Two unrelated nits while I'm at it:

1. I don't understand your reasoning as to why Stokes theorem is better than Stokes' theorem. I had always heard it as a possessive, and almost all theorems named after individuals are named as possessives.
2. I have no real objection to your ideas on primary disambiguation for John B. Conway; I may have overestimated John B.'s influence, though another possibility is that functional analysts are underrepresented among editors in the math project (with CSTAR's disappearance I have no one to ask about that). --Trovatore 19:56, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

On naming theorems - probably the main usages in prose writing are 'the Stokes theorem' and 'Stokes's theorem'. I think mathematicians are not very self-conscious about this, since they are native speakers, as it were. I think it would be natural to talk about 'the Lefschetz fixed-point theorem' and not 'Lefschetz's fixed point theorem'. But just about everyone says 'Cauchy's theorem' and not 'the Cauchy theorem'. I'm not actually sure about the reasons, and perhaps usage has changed a bit. From the point of view of euphony one probably says 'the Oseledec theorem', for example. As for Stokes' theorem, it should be Stokes's theorem, really. Charles Matthews 20:12, 11 December 2005 (UTC)