User talk:CBM/Archive 10

Peer review
Hi Carl, this may be on interest to you, Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 15:47, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles on elections has been marked as a guideline
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More WP bot
Hi, CBM. I finally got an account in the toolserver running, so I can get around all the initialization problems I had been having. However, if I understand database_routines.pl correctly, the bot is using a 'wp10' database table that  can't find. Since we were thinking about having a public database, would it be appropriate to change the database to a _p database? Also, help setting up stuff would be appreciated... Tito xd (?!? - cool stuff) 21:08, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, there's several dependencies on NewMath or something like that, which is not in a publically-viewable directory. Would it be possible to put those in the SVN repo? Tito xd (?!? - cool stuff) 00:40, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The "NewMath" directory is just the place I put the files on my local machine. You'll have to update that to point to the right place where you downloaded the soruce code. Similarly, the 'wp10' database is the name I used on my local computer. Until we have a common database set up on the toolserver, it would be easier for you to use your personal toolserver database u_titoxd (if your toolserver username is titoxd). You can download a few projects of data using the download script. Eventually I will talk to the toolserver sysadmins about switching to the stable server, at which point we'll have a common database to use. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 01:45, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * You can look at the files in /home/cbm/wp10.2g/alpha as an example of how I reconfigured things for toolserver. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 01:59, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah, that's helpful. You just use a lib call to force perl to open that directory. I see. When I try to run the tool on the toolserver, though, I get a permission denied error when trying to access /home/cbm/veblen/api.credentials (which makes sense). From a cursory review of the code, it seems like I can comment out that line without causing any problems, but I'd rather ask before making that change... also, to have the bot run through only a few projects, do you manually override wp10_routines::download_project_list, or do you do something fancier? Tito xd (?!? - cool stuff) 02:55, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
 * You can leave off the api.credentials; the reason I use that is to have the script log in under a username that is flagged as a bot, which allows it to request more pages per query from the API. As long as you stick to smallish projects, you don't need to do that. The script currently never edits the wiki, so it can run without logging in.
 * To download just one project, pass it as an argument to the script:
 * The argument is checked in download.pl. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 03:03, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The argument is checked in download.pl. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 03:03, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The other thing you'll have to do is create the database tables. Run  from the source code directory. The output should show success four times, once for each table in that file. If you need to add new tables (like for GA and FA articles) then you should add the table creation commands to tables.sql. I can give you access to commit your code back to my svn repository. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 03:08, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I had made the tables manually via phpMyAdmin before (table u_titoxd_wp10_p), and I got the code to download projects into the database. I'm working now on abstracting the database connection a bit more (so we don't have to have login details on every file), but that is not going too well... The svn access sounds nice, but let me get the code running properly first... Tito xd (?!? - cool stuff) 04:05, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, I'm not really sure if it is visible, but if it is, my code is in /home/titoxd/public_html, in case you want to have a look at it. I'll move it to a sub-folder once I know the code works, just so I don't introduce additional breakage on top of breakage... Tito xd (?!? - cool stuff) 04:07, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I added a bunch of raw, maybe fragile code to wp10routines.pl, and the code can now extract WikiProject preferences (although it doesn't do anything with them yet...) That code is available on /home/titoxd/public_html/wp10_routines.pl Tito xd (?!? - cool stuff) 10:05, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I have uploaded a new version of database_routines.pl. The new code reads a file 'db.conf' (you can look at mine on toolserver) instead of hard-coding the login information. On the next update I will also make the library locations configurable, so that it isn't necessary to customize the actual perl files for each server. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 12:00, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I looked quickly through your code for wikiproject prefs. That overall layout is great. Near the end, instead of using two arrays @key and @value, you should use a single hash. That will make it easier to work with the data later.

There are quite a few ratings that the template will include: I have a mockup at Category:Mathematics articles by quality. The homepage should be stored in the projects table, while the info on extra ratings should go in the ratings table.
 * The project's homepage
 * Info about the parent of the project
 * Info about extra ratings.

Do you mind if we switch to email for discussing the code? I think that's a better medium than wiki pages. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 12:18, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Sure, email works. Or even better, nobody uses irc: most of the time, so we can work there as well. Tito xd (?!? - cool stuff) 16:07, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

SelectionBot interwiki count
Hi CBM, I've been doing more "principal articles" and I've spotted a couple of wrong interwiki scores (zeroes). See these: Clearly these are wrong, do you know what could be causing this glitch? Cheers, Walkerma (talk) 22:55, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Oklahoma entry here
 * War entry here and here.


 * I don't know what caused that, but both those articles now have large interwiki counts with the updated data I made over the weekend. If we notice more issues like this, I can scan the database for articles that have high pagelinks but low interwiki links. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 01:39, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks! Another strange feature that I've seen once or twice before, pages like this which don't show the importance templates. I don't care about the formatting, but can you check that the score is including the WikiProjects importance assessment? Cheers, Walkerma (talk) 04:34, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * That was a flaw in the bot - the project categories capitalize the word importance, but the script didn't realize that was possible. I added some code to fix the capitalization. I'll also add some more debugging code to flag other non-standard names so I can add them as exceptions. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 11:18, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I'm glad we're finding these little bugs. Walkerma (talk) 16:40, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

WP:ECON C-class for VeblenBot
VeblenBot is fantastic and he's an absolute boon for WikiProject Economics. Is it possible for the chart to be modified to include a C-class, per the new assessment table? I've been reassessing many economics articles lately to account for the new class, and it would be useful to see our progress. Thanks again. -FrankTobia (talk) 01:45, 17 August 2008 (UTC)


 * No problem. I also created the list of Economics articles by hitcount at WikiProject Economics/Frequently viewed articles. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 02:03, 17 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks so much. I really appreciate all the work you've been doing, for WP:ECON especially. -FrankTobia (talk) 10:40, 17 August 2008 (UTC)


 * You rock, CBM. Thanks lots. C RETOG 8(t/c)

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Goofy request
Hi Carl, I have been busy and somehow have forgotten to do the SAPRs for the past two days - see User:PeerReviewBot/Logs/SA links. I have now run the script for all PRs without a SAPR. Would you mind running the bot an extra time to link the SAPRs (otherwise some reviews will wait three days for their SAPR). Thanks and sorry, Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 11:04, 19 August 2008 (UTC)


 * No problem. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 12:50, 19 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks so much, I'll try to be better. Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 13:04, 19 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm amazed you do such a good job in updating the reviews daily; I don't think anyone will fault you for missing a day. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:42, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Incompleteness theorem article
I think the rewriting of the incompleteness theorem is on the right track. (I'm stuck in Wyoming without a computer except this one at the public library, so I'm out of the loop). I like the proof sketch. Bill Wvbailey (talk) 00:24, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

date bug
I'd say that there's a bug where it updates the tagged since date. — Dispenser 13:13, 22 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for pointing that out. It should be fixed now. The current data will still be wrong, but new entries should behave correctly again. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 15:24, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Template:ArticleHistory
Since you protected the template, can you change from the silver lock to the gold lock? Thank you. --Splat5572 (talk) 05:09, 23 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The template is on the unprotected doc subpage. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 05:12, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Date autoformatting has been marked as a guideline
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User:VeblenBot/Mathematicians
A while back you deleated User:VeblenBot/Mathematicians with the list of mathematicians by importance. Was the a reason for this, I can't seem to find any breakdown of mathematician articles by class or priority. --Salix alba (talk) 16:47, 27 August 2008 (UTC)


 * It was just a reorganization of file names. The new location is User:VeblenBot/Math/field:Mathematicians. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 16:53, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Cool, nice one for fixing the broken links. --Salix alba (talk) 17:25, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks
Thanks for your help yesterday.--Alnokta (talk) 21:33, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Template:Notorphan
Where did you see I wrote that? I've never even seen that template before. Calliopejen1 (talk) 06:37, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Never mind, I tracked it down. It's an automated message as part of Howcheng's image maintenance script I use. I've asked if he can fix it. Calliopejen1 (talk) 06:57, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

question
I'm not sure where to send this question to, so I posted it on the discussion for the 8 (number) page... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:8_(number)

thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thespyofcharles (talk • contribs) 11:52, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Moving forward on the BC mess
Hello Ryan, CBM, Jennavecia (same message on all three talk pages). Seems like the ANI thread has gone stale although this idea of small-committee discussion has received pretty solid support. Look, we're never going to have 30 people agreeing on who should be working on this so I'd suggest you three take a shot at it. Am I dumping this thankless task on you guys? I sure am. I don't mind helping out but BC has gotten this idea that I'm out to get him so that might just increase drama. I know Jennavecia has expressed concern that she might be viewed as a BC cheerleader but you're all reasonable people and, as Jennnavecia put it, I think you all "understand the grievances of most editors who want to see Beta banned and at the same time, find great value in his contributions". CBM has bot experience, Ryan has MedCom experience, you're all admins, you've all been around and you've all followed the various BC ANI threads and ArbCom cases enough to understand the situation. I expect that both ends on the BC-love spectrum will spit at whatever compromise you come up with but at this stage it'll have to do and cooler-heads can probably prevail... Pascal.Tesson (talk) 01:46, 28 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, I'm willing to help there. I'll be pretty occupied over the weekend (Labor Day holiday) but can discuss with the others in the coming week. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 00:08, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

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TfD nomination of Template:Citations missing
Template:Citations missing has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 01:19, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

User:VeblenBot/PERtable
The bot seems to have a bug. It's using the syntax which is causing categorization issues. --MZMcBride (talk) 07:43, 2 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the note, it's fixed now. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 12:17, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

non-standard calculus
Note that there is an ongoing discussion at WP math. Katzmik (talk) 13:41, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

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I am a retired mathematician, formerly at Stanford for eleven years. So I have some familiarity for scholarly criteria.

This is my first attempt to write a Wikipedia article.

I provided links to Kalnins' own website of videotapes of him stating these exact things. I quotes directly from the actual videotapes. There is no more direct form of knowledge.

Your editor suggested that there should be no article on Ed Kalnins, but only a reference on his notable parishoer's site Sarah Palin. I tried to create a reference to Ed Kalnins and a link to Ed Kalnins as well as to the already existing explicit reference of Wassila Assembly of God from the Sarah Palins page on Wikipedia. Yet such references are not being allowed by someone at Wikipedia. And the link for Wassila Assembly of God has been misdirected.

Your editor suggested that an article must be "balanced". But if a person is of note only because of controversial remarks or actions, balance is not applicable. Is Wikipedia claiming to be like the FCC, and an article on evolution to be balanced by one on "intelligent design" and "Hindu creation myths"?

Furthermore, the discussion page was deleted.

I will admit, that if Wikipedia censors his controversial remarks, then Ed Kalnins is no more notable than Sarah Palin's current pastor. The deleted remarks are the prionciple basis of his being notable.

Since my articles were deleted almost as quickly as I tried to edit them, and I can get no specifics from Wikipedia, I can only assume that someone delited the links to the actual videotapes from which the quotes were derived.

I will attempt to rewrite the article, including links by which you can verify the controversial statements yourself. EricDiesel (talk) 01:55, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Sarah Palin's Pastor Ed Kalnins
Yeah, I dropped that mathematician thing when I saw "Nonstandard Calculus" a few notches above. I was Alonzo Church's student at UCLA, before going up to Stanford.

I ran into an African guy reading "Nonstandard Analysis" in the cafeteria at Stanford on one of my first days there, and I sat down at his table, never having met a black mathematician before and never having met anyone who read that book, and I started quoting from the book just to freak him out. We became best friends, doing anti-apartheid stuff. He neglected to mention his father was a Chemist at Chapel Hill who was to be crowned the King of Eboland in Nigeria. I found out by seeing the ceremony on CBS, and when I asked if he was related to the new King he said, "Oh, yeah, thats my dad".

I started out as Ian Hacking's Student when he chaired Philosophy at Stanford, before he punched the cop who was trying to evict him from the chair's office when a prakster called in that a drunk had broken into the chairs office. Hacking wrote a book, "The Emergence of Probability" back in the 1980's, about evidence, which is relevant to the present situation.

Hacking described the etymology of "probability" as deriving from the same word as "probity", which was used in a court of law as a measure of evidence. If a noble person, a person of "probity", testified, then his probity was considered to have greater evidentiary weight than empirical evidence, such as seeing something with ones own eyes. (Probability after Rudolph Carnap has almost the exact opposite meaning from probity as far as evidence is concerned).

The link I provided is to Kalnins' videotaped sermons, from which I transcribed the quotes, from which one can verify my transcriptipons with ones own eyes and ears.

I suppose it is unreasonable to expect editors to go through the videotapes to verify my transcriptions, but the Huffington post author picked the very same quotes as I did (and more), and transcribed them the same way. So we have links by which the reader can check with their own eyes and ears, but lack the "probity" of a New York Times reproter.

One is reminded of Galileo being accused of claiming that his telescope showed fixed stars (moons)moving around a planet, which was impossible by Church doctrine, but being unable to get any tribunal member to look in the telescope (which is physically easier than watching Kalnins' crazy videotapes in the links).

If the transcribed quotes are not allowed until probity is Is there any way to directly refer to the videotapes of Kalnins' sermons: http://www.wasillaag.net/all.html, rather than to the church site.

Here are the bios of the Huffington post authors who quoted from the tapes with identical quotes as I had (and more):

Nico Pitney is National Editor at the Huffington Post. He was previously Deputy Research Director at the Center for American Progress and Managing Editor of ThinkProgress. He lives in Washington, DC, and has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, NPR, and the BBC. Nico can be reached at pitney@huffingtonpost.com.

Sam Stein is a Political Reporter at the Huffington Post, based in Washington, D.C. Previously he has worked for Newsweek magazine, the New York Daily News and the investigative journalism group Center for Public Integrity. He has a masters from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and is a graduate of Dartmouth College. Sam can be reached at stein@huffingtonpost.com.

One of your editors suggested that the article I wrote was "clearly biased", but would not suggest how to include the information of the quotes without bias. The Wikipedia fairness doctrine he quoted reads like the FCC equal time requirement, or worse, like requiring an article on "Evolution" to also discuss "intelligent design" and "Hindu creation myths". But maybe I am too biased to see what else to include. —Preceding unsigned comment added by EricDiesel (talk • contribs) 02:53, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

New categories for old
Hi - could you ask VB to list Category:September 2008 peer reviews, Category:GAR/39 and Category:GAR/40? The July peer review category and the 38th GAR archive have been stabilized. Geometry guy 20:07, 30 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for doing this. WP:Peer review/September 2008 appears not to be working yet, however. Geometry guy 09:54, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately I had typed 'Septembar'. I'm going to see if I can implements a system that will allow you to add and remove these using a web page on toolserver; that would be more efficient. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 12:42, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


 * See http://toolserver.org/~cbm/cgi-bin/cats/cats.pl . I sent a password by email. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 17:03, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

WP:SCG
Thanks Carl, but per WP:TWOSHORTCUTS, let's pick our favorite two; do you like WP:SCICITE or WP:CITESCI better? (Feel free to respond anywhere.) - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 16:57, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Of those two (I didn't know either one existed), I think SCICITE is more parallel to the page title. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 16:59, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Delldot just added one this morning and I responded by adding another. Okay, I concur with you.  (Taking this page off watchlist.) - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 17:22, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

controversy over Cantor
The current version of the article refers to "whole numbers" in the sense of "natural numbers". Is this accepted usage? Katzmik (talk) 13:38, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * It's pretty common in American primary schools at least. Some authors will use one term for the set {0,1,2,...} and another term for the set {1,2,3,...} but in the context of that article the status of 0 is unlikely to cause confusion. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:41, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Putative edit warring over Sarah Palin
Re your comment on my talk page, concerning this edit: Interesting you should criticize me for not using the talk page less than 10 minutes after my edit, when I haven't even had a chance to do so. As an admin, you ought to have your AGF together better than that. As for the edit: The last time I checked, it's OK (desirable even) to restore material that is well-sourced. The sources in that section were mainly from ABC News. Were you aware of that? I trust you'll be leaving a warning on the user page of the editor who deleted it, asking them not to delete well-sourced material? Thanks. Comesincolors2 (talk) 15:39, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Peer review bugs?
Hi Carl, could you take a look at this thread at the Peer Review talk page Wikipedia_talk:Peer_review and the one below it - looks like archived PR requests are not being removed and new PR requests are not being added - perhaps a bug in Veblenbot? Thanks, Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 16:25, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks as always for all of your help, both via the bots and being ready to fix them so quickly, Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 17:20, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

2 Questions re: "Notability is not contagious" and UnDeleting 4 different articles for at least five days
Thanks for your comment on my discussion page.
 * I am new, and have been asking questions about this without a response from anyone and maybe you can help me understand the deletion of my four articles.
 * Palin's history teacher is clearly NOT notable. However, if Palin were a politician known for her denial of the Holocaust, her history teacher WOULD be notable, especially if the history teacher was a Holocaust denier.
 * Similarly, I would think Hegel’s history teacher would be notable because Hegel’s is notable for his theories on history, while Hegel’s sewing teacher would not be notable.
 * The general point is that a relation of B to notable A does NOT automatically transfer notability from A to B, but a relationship of B with the CAUSE of A’s notability WOULD, in addition to the mere simple relationship of B to A.
 * 1, Is this correct at Wikipedia?


 * 2. Would it be possible to reopen the pages for Wasilla Assembly of God, Ed Kalnins, Wasilla Bible Church, and Larry Kroon and let them independently evolve for five days, especially as completely different facts were being added by many on each page? A videotape of speaking in tongues in an independent church in remote Alaska, would be appropriate on not be appropriate on the Wasilla Bible Church page, but not on the  Sarah Palin page (unless this independent church’s doctrine was to do this at home, like at the White House?).  The international coverage is different for the four topics.  E.g., Larry Kroon isgetting coverage in the Israeili press, but not Ed Kalnins, BECAUSE the two are NOTABLE for DIFFERENT reasons.  since

A third Sarah Palin pastor has been in the media more, but this appears to be ONLY for his being her pastor, so would not be notable.

I am sending this to you since no one in control seems to understand the argument about relationships in order to respond to it, and I have made it pretty simple.

Thanks. EricDiesel (talk) 23:21, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I think I follow the argument you are making. Unfortunately, it doesn't match the practice here. I'm going to avoid using any links, and just give a very brief summary. I can give links later if it helps.  I'm also going to describe things based on my experience, rather than on how some people might claim things work.


 * There are several factors that people use to decide if a person is "notable" enough to have an article. The term "notable" should be viewed as jargon; no other place uses it like Wikipedia does.


 * The first question that people will ask is about sources. The more reliable, third-party sources you can provide provided, the more likely it is that the article can be justified. Not all sources are equal: professional media such as national newspapers and national television networks are good, but blogs are generally bad. The motivation there is that national media are better known for professional editorial standards than blogs.


 * It isn't enough for you to argue (regardless of merit) that the person should have been covered by the media. If the media have not found a person interesting enough to cover, we tend to use that as an indicator of that person's lack of "notability".


 * The second question is whether the person is only in the news because of one event. In general, if there is a controversy involving one person, and a second person is mentioned in the media only in connection to that one controversy, the second person is not considered "notable" independently.


 * Unfortunately, there is currently a lot of "controversy" surrounding Sarah Palin's article here and, by association, all articles on topics associated with her. I'm quite neutral on the matter, but there are a significant number of users who fear that these articles might be used to emphasize negative aspects beyond their due weight.


 * We have a principle called "neutral point of view", which roughly means, "write articles like they would be written by a disinterested person who is trying to be neutral and fair in her writing". Because of the atmosphere of tension about Palin, it's particularly important to avoid even the impression that an article is written to be primarily negative. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 23:58, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Long Shot Question
Are you the logician/compscientist Carl who started as Paul Cohen's student in the late 80's, sat in the right fourth row (your right facing me) in Cubberly Auditorium every every Tarkovsky film I screened and lectured on, and had the cute younger sister who sat in the front row center at the film lecture/screenings?

If so, I coincidentally ran into your sister again at night at the beach in San Francisco the week the American remake of Solaris came out in 2003, and ran into that eccentric British physicist, Jonathan, who sat in the right third or fifth row, the same night in San Francisco. He suddenly left Stanford to be a destitute writer in Saint Petersburgh in the 1990's I left in 1992 to make money. EricDiesel (talk) 00:03, 5 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry, that's not me. I only saw Cohen once before he passed away, at a panel at the 2005 AMS meetings about the continuum hypothesis. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 00:17, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

PSTS Policy & Guidelines Proposal
Since you have been actively involved in past discussions regarding PSTS, please review, contribute, or comment on this proposed PSTS Policy & Guidelines.--SaraNoon (talk) 18:59, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

== Admins and Editors Calling me "Unethical", "Trash" re: David Brickner ==


 * In response to my post on David Brickner, GRBerry wrote “…it is both 'garbage' and… our obligation is to get rid of the ‘trash’…” and "stuffing 'garbage' into the encyclopedia”.
 * CobaltBlueTony wrote he “agreed wholeheartedly with GRBerry"… and then called me “unacademic, unethical, and unacceptable”. I have repeatedly been accused of having a POV.  Others have called me a “vandal”, and written NUMEROUS derogatory remarks.
 * 1. Why am I ‘’’“Unethical”, “Garbage”, “Trash”, etc.’’’? EricDiesel (talk) 12:05, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

==Reliable Sources==
 * In response to my post on David Brickner, GRBerry wrote “…most of the sources were either ‘not reliable’ upon examination (e.g. unedited partial copies of blogs)..." CobaltBlueTony wrote he “agreed wholeheartedly with GRBerry"
 * The sources were Jewish Journal, Israeli News, Atlantic Monthly, and ABC News. Which ones are "not considered reliable sources”. How do I tell? EricDiesel (talk) 14:27, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

== Coatrack re David Brickner ==


 * In response to my post on David Brickner, GRBerry wrote it is a coatrack. CobaltBlueTony wrote he “agreed wholeheartedly with GRBerry" EricDiesel (talk) 12:09, 8 September 2008 (UTC)


 * 1. ‘’’Coatrack’’’ – Please specify which sentences in article is not about Brickner and is a coatrack, what it is a coatrack for, and I will post the sentences in the article that this article is alleged to be a coatrack for.  The information is rejected by the same people when I post it elsewhere.


 * (My contribution under the David Brickner article was –
 * "Brickner has long been the subject of international press coverage for his controversial statements, and is the subject of monitoring by Jewish anti defamation groups. In mid August 2008, Alaskan pastor Larry Kroon invited Brickner to deliver a guest sermon at the Wasilla Bible Church, and do fundraising there for Jews for Jesus there by taking collections.  He commented one of the most widely reported terror attacks of the year, in which a Palestinian terrorist used a bulldozer to crush civilians.  Brickner asserted that Jews were responsible, as the deaths were “God’s punishment” for Jews having failed to convert to Christianity.  A Jewish Defense League spokesperson compared this with conversion efforts of the Inquisition, stating that it was not as bad as the Inquisition.  The governor of Alaska happened to be in the audience for the sermon, and her spokespeople quickly issued statements that she did not know who Brickner was before going to the sermon, and that she would not have gone if she had known.  When the sermon received further press coverage following the nomination of the governor for vice president, spokespeople for the governor quickly made clear that she categorically did not share Brickner’s views." EricDiesel (talk) 12:09, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

== Articles Not About Brickner ==
 * In response to my post on David Brickner, GRBerry wrote "... most of the sources... had 'no material that is about Brickner'. CobaltBlueTony wrote he “agreed wholeheartedly with GRBerry"
 * Please specify which of these articles “had no material that is about Brickner”.


 * My posted sources were –
 * 1 Jewish Journal – “a speech at her church suggested that violence against Israelis resulted from God’s judgment against Jews who have failed to embrace Jesus. David Brickner, the executive director of Jews for Jesus, suggested in his Aug. 17 sermon at Wasilla Bible Church that the refusal to accept Jesus was responsible for the long history of devastation visited upon Jerusalem. He also described his group’s successful targeting of Israeli Jews, both in Israel and elsewhere. ‘Judgment is very real, and we see it played out on the pages of the newspapers and on the television,’ said Brickner, according to a transcript posted on the church’s Web site. ‘It’s very real. When [my son] Isaac was in Jerusalem he was there to witness some of that judgment—some of that conflict—when a Palestinian from East Jerusalem took a bulldozer and went plowing through a score of cars, killing numbers of people. Judgment—you can’t miss it’.”
 * 2 ‘‘‘Wall Street Journal’‘‘ - This was my error, and should have been a source on WAoG church, it is here by misplacement.
 * 3 Israeli News – Actual video of Brickner’s sermon posted.
 * 4 Atlantic Monthly – “this Jews For Jesus pamphlet (PDF) [link to pamphlet posted] from 2004 that reveals more details” (Brickner was in charge in 2004 and discussed “liberating” the Wailing Wall from the Jews in the pamphlet, causing the controversy in which I first saw him on cable news in 2004.)
 * 5 Israel News – “…the Wasilla Bible Church gave its pulpit over to a figure viewed with deep hostility by many Jewish organizations: David Brickner, the founder of Jews for Jesus…” and “David Brickner, an activist for the missionary group ‘Jews for Jesus’, considered quite controversial among many American Jews. The Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith has criticized Brickner for ‘targeting Jews for conversion with subterfuge and deception’.  Brickner in his sermon described terrorist attacks on Israelis as part of ‘an ongoing reflection of the fact that there is judgment’ by God of those who have not accepted Jesus as their savior.”
 * 6 ABC News - (This is a blog, but the blog follows a news story by Jake Tapper, ABC News' Senior National Correspondent based in the network's Washington bureau.) “sermon by David Brickner, an activist for the missionary group ‘Jews for Jesus’, considered quite controversial among many American Jews. The Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith has criticized Brickner for "targeting Jews for conversion with subterfuge and deception." EricDiesel (talk) 14:26, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

== "Pray to Convert Gays to Straights" a coathanger ==

I put a sentence on the Wasilla Assembly of God article that “In 2008, the church promoted a conference to pray to convert gays into heterosexuals.” And cited an AP story. It was deleted “coatrack”. I was threatened not to post again or I would be blocked from posting. Why is this a coatrack? EricDiesel (talk) 14:29, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Nonstandard Calculus
In the first example of Nonstandard Calculus, it should be an "equality" if delta x is “infinitesimal”, and an "approximate equality" if delta x is “sufficiently small”, using the Wikipedia definition of infinitesimal. Anyone would understand the point made, but one purpose of creating a Nonstandard Calculus is to get rid of a lack of rigor in symbol manipulation, so being a hair splitter is appropriate. Of course, what is written is true, since it would be an approximately equality if delta x were zero. I am not going to make the edit until I know if it will cause a firestorm arguing over "infinitesmal", like trying to put a controversial church quote on a chruch artifcle. EricDiesel (talk) 16:42, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Strike till easy to read
Carl, I am striking all of the above so I don’t waste your time. If I can not quickly state what I am saying on such a trivial quantity of content, then I should switch fields. My mentors Church and Cohen must be turning in their graves (assuming they did not make it into hell) for having failed to teach me the concepts of elegance and triviality in so many years of one on one talks. So I am not going to ask for a response until I can write something that does not take you more than a couple of minutes to read. EricDiesel (talk) 18:39, 8 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I was planning to try to look through it this evening. Apart from replying to you on my talk page I have been avoiding the Sarah Palin stuff. I'm afraid it will be a long time before articles related to her have any level of calm discourse. I'll look at the nonstandard calculus talk page next to see what's there. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 21:31, 8 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry,I forgot to put the nonstandardC edit in, and I accidentally deleted all but the first silly point. I see from the post after this that math edits have the same kind of passion as Palin.  I am also discovering that there is a huge range of skill levels, knowledge levels, and culture types.  And that it is kind of a waste of time to argue early on, since it is like being on a see saw.  I will stick in the little thing left of my nonstandard analysis edit. I had a much worse deletion in May, since I owned that redwood forest that burned downn in Santa Cruz, Ca, and all of my in progress pre-computer research was burned (all my research is in progress, so I guess that was redundant).  And I collected antiquarian science books.  I had the Electromagnetism book written by Gauss that Gauss gave to Mach.  And it had blood stains in it! EricDiesel (talk) 21:47, 8 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, writing an article here is like writing a paper with several coauthors, except coauthors usually want to keep you in their good graces. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 21:55, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

function
You've made no edits between the time of (19:23, 4 September 2008 to current) which is the time I first submitted my article, so again don't play dumb with me like Arthur Rubin trying to synthesize something up. Hope you and Arthur aren't the same person with different account.

Note: I am referring to the signifcant paragraph or the purpose (the paragraph). --Ramu50 (talk) 21:22, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't see why I should I accept the act of listening to you guys, if you guys are immaturely not willing to discuss it.--Ramu50 (talk) 21:31, 8 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm sure all mathematicians seem (to you) to think and act the same way. You can rest assured there's more than one of them around, and (horrors) they are watching the function article. VasileGaburici (talk) 22:26, 8 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Let's discuss this at Talk:function (mathematics) instead of here. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 22:41, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I've done a lot of edit war, but most of them have legitimate reasons in the talk page and I am quite sure the admin will know me fairly on the edit war list. I will risk the chances for the dream project that I believe, that is the only reason I have lived. Otherwise to be dead honest I would've suicide, seeing almost every part of society for such long time, humans seem to only live for the greed of money, sex, inifinite entertainment, recognition for everything they done. Even the priest, buddha have greed of narvana, and none the less how wise they are, most of them they can't even apply it to life, unlike the worthy priest who can question the ethics of society such as religious church practice ethics. I have no time and care about that useless purpose of life in which and you and them live for, that is why when you look at my contribs I've participated so much article. Thus be my words and take it with a grain of salt. --Ramu50 (talk) 23:12, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Many people have suicide for hope of lost, pressure, but I probably will be the only one or first to suicide for hatred, full happyness (which at many I see and you do not see, of course madness as it may sound). Yet it only sound madness, because I don't intend on putting it nicely as the sections of types of function. But if you can't have the basic foundation of linking some many things at once in a small paragraph, then I suggest having the basic management skill as a foundation.

By linking I mean able to utilize one data from a field of science and incorporate them to the field of science in which you feel. Tis a mockery and bragging if you want to take it that way, or tis a reference of the successful and meaningful life in your future is also one way you can take it. See ya I gtg --Ramu50 (talk) 23:18, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

== Slow Down - Pastor David Brickner, Pastor Paul Riley, Pastor Ed Kalnins, Pastor Larry Kroon, and Pastor David Brickner ==

I should have slowed down until I researched and wrote this and there might not have been a controversy. Is this an improvement?

Paul Riley should be added to the Religion section of the Sarah Palin article. Associated Press reports “Her pastor for most of her time at Wasilla Assembly of God, Paul Riley”. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jCeGgS4vbVt6qpxTpahCgGn_R-dQD92VOKVG0
 * 1. Paul Riley is NOT notable, as he only appears in the media talking about Palin as far as I know, and notability cannot be inherited. If he becomes controversial, or is the subject of media stories for some other notable thing, only then he should only then get an article.
 * 2. The “controversial figure” Ed Kalnins IS notable, since the content of the many media articles in which he is featured regards his controversial remarks. These remarks should NOT be on the Palin page, as there is no information I am aware of that directly links Palin to the controversial remarks.  E.G., USA Today reports “The Rev. Ed Kalnins had no way of knowing he'd be a controversial figure in the 2008 presidential race.”  http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-09-03-palin-pastor_N.htm . So Kalnins should have his own article in which his controversial remarks can be documented, as well as his bio, and any information about him that can be sourced.
 * 3. Larry Kroon IS notable.  He is in many major media stories linking him as far back as 2004 to the highly controversial Jews for Jesus and David Brickner.  The Atlantic Monthly magazine reports  this Jews For Jesus pamphlet (PDF) from 2004 that reveals more details about Palin's pastor.”  This is a year 2004 association, long predating Palin’s rise from mayor. http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/09/palins-pastor-a.html  Numerous other news articles report on Kroon, e.g. The Chicago Tribune http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-alaska-palin_monsep01,0,3504940.story .  The 2004 stuff is unrelated to Palin, so Kroon should have his own article.  It is unclear Palin knew Kroon would be speaking when she recently sat through his sermon.

EricDiesel (talk) 16:10, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Therefore, articles should NOT be created for pastor Paul Riley, but articles SHOULD be created for Ed Kalnins and Larry Kroon. Links from the Sarah Palin article should be established to the Ed Kalnins and Larry Kroon articles, and the controversies should NOT be in the Palin article unless someone meaningfully associates her to the controversies.  A link to from Palin’s article to David Brickner or Jews for Jesus should exist, but the ONLY  information that should be in Sarah Palin article, unless more information emerges, should be that she attended a Jews for Jesus Fundraiser with the sermon given by David Brickner.
 * Wasilla Assembly of God and Wasilla Bible Church should have their own pages, where information reported on them in the media (controversial or not) that is unrelated to Palin can be reported, without tarring other pastors, like Paul Riley, with information on Ed Kalnins or Larry Kroon.</S>


 * This is a lot of information for me to work through. I looked at the first two references, and they are both from September 2008. Your case for independent notability would be much stronger if there are references about these people from before Palin was nominated. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 01:55, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Please see next section on your talk page where I quote from the sources.
 * Please skip reading the above and read the following section instead. Thnx </S>EricDiesel (talk) 11:29, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Carl, at WP:ANI you asked for some time to try working with this editor. Do you have any significant update to give? GRBerry 18:22, 5 September 2008 (UTC)


 * As you can see, we're talking about it. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 01:55, 6 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to be learning. If I see him coatracking this stuff with unreliable sources again, he is going to be blocked.  GRBerry 02:07, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

For example, I put a sentence on the Wasilla Assembly of God article that “In 2008, the church promoted a conference to pray to convert gays into heterosexuals.” I cioted the Associated Press as the source. It was deleted “coatrack”. I was threatened not to post again or I would be blocked. No explanation was given to me despite multiple requests. Why is this a coatrack? EricDiesel (talk) 14:32, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Fixing protection?
Hi CBM. Now you have made me curious: I see that tonight you have unprotected and then re-protected several templates to the same protection level (full protection). For instance Template:·. You used the edit summary "fixing protection". What were there to fix? As far as I can see they were already fully protected.

--David Göthberg (talk) 05:13, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * It's a long story, and I had to do some more testing this morning to be sure what was happening to explain it here. Until some time in 2007, page protection information was stored in the page table in Mediawiki. At some point a page_restrictions table was added. However, the old page table entries were not all removed; they are only moved to the page_restrictions table when the protection status of the page changes. There are still about 8400 pages that have non-empty protection status in the page table.


 * I have a tool that uses API.php to determine the protection status of templates. Unfortunately, there is a bug in the API that I need to work around. Consider the results here. The protection entries with a source= field are generated by cascading protection; the ones without source= are due to the protection of the page itself. If a page is cascade protected, and the page's own protection status is stored in the page table instead of the page_restrictions table, then the API will not show the protection of the page itself, only the cascading protection. Changing the protection status "fixes" this problem by putting the protection in the page_restrictions table where the API can find it. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 12:30, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Since replying to you made me verify exactly what was going on, I reported the problem at 15535. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 12:45, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Ah, so it was a problem of the kind I expected. That is, a database problem. Thanks for your detailed answer. (I just learnt how to use parts of the API some week ago, and I used to work with databases, so I understood your explanation.) There are of course some more things I wonder, but that is not relevant. I am now satisfied that you know what you are doing.
 * It seems the best thing would be if the devs did a database run to move the protection status from the page table to the page_restrictions table. Having database inconsistencies like that usually means trouble. Just like the API problem you point out.
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 13:28, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * That would be nice, but I can understand why it's a low priority for them. The real issue is the bug in the API, which needs to handle both types of protection entries. I'm sure they'll fix that soon. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:55, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Coatrack Argument for Deletions
I wrote an essay on "Coatrack Argument For Deletions", User:EricDiesel/Coatrack Argument for Deletions, based on the not-so-well-defined definition of "coatrack" and "coat" in WP:COAT. The intent was to get something out of all these Obama and Palin debates to save admin and editor time in future debates, which I now see can get hot even in long settled math issues. Religeon stuff must be really crazy. It is at WP:Coatrack Argument for Deletions.
 * 1. I don't know if it is appropriate to write such essays, or how to write an essay abstracting debates, in a way that others can add their knowledge.
 * 2. If you have time, or know someone who has a rough idea of what a definition is who has time, edits, comments, and corrections would be appreciated.

(Or at least I thought I created it, before I just saw WP:Coatrack Argument For Deletions in "red", not "blue", in the preview frame here. I'll go check for typos.) EricDiesel (talk) 15:38, 9 September 2008 (UTC) Its here User:EricDiesel/Coatrack Argument for Deletions. Is there a way to get it discussed? EricDiesel (talk) 17:11, 9 September 2008 (UTC) Sorry about all the garbage, still learning.

Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words has been marked as a guideline
has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 18:51, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words is no longer marked as part of the manual of style
has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the manual of style. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 18:51, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

3 Palin Church Questions
Ok, boiled down my questions. Still referred to you for answers.
 * 1. RE Wasilla Bible Church - Wasilla Assembly of God was trending KEEP with each new “revelation”, so the article was not deleted. Now it has much encyclopedia info growing on it, since there is a place to put the info.  But Wasilla Bible Church is much more notable, as it is about to hold a widely protested convention to pray for gays to become straights.  (They are even holding counter prayers in SF.)  Also because it said that it owed its very existence to its long term relation with David Brickner, who made his most famous statement at the church while there on invitiation to the church, (the statement was even, favorably, compared to the Inquisition by the Jewish Defense League, etc.).   THere is lots more, all deleted, "Coatrack".  Now that notablity can be established better even than for WaoG., why should Wasilla Assembly of God be kept, but Wasilla Bible Church not? Also, why was the article deleted withuot a 5 day debate?
 * 2. The last bit of info that anyone cares about was just deleted out of Wasilla Bible Church as “irrelevant” to Wasilla. Why is all the info on WBC not allowed under its allowed section header in Wiki?
 * 3. The positions of Wasilla Asembly of God, as put forth in its sermons and by its invited speakers (Palin is but one), is of huge interest to anyone who looks in an encyclopedia about the church. The info has nothing to do with Palin (except by speculation in comparing her views with their possible roots).  All of the stuff the church is known for is kept off, since it is called "coatrack".  Why is any info that makes the church notable, information one would expect to find in an encyclopedia article on the church, not being allowed to be in the article?

If you look at the talk pages, a handful of editors keep deleting all info, threaten the contributors with shutting them down, and wear them out. Most info is deleted from the Wasilla article and from the Wasilla Assembly of God article. I am afraid to contrib since I was told that if I do I will be blocked from Wiki. Please check my deleted edits, and those of others, and if they should have been made. ThnxEricDiesel (talk) 03:05, 10 September 2008 (UTC) Articles and Information Were Restored. EricDiesel (talk) 15:59, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Info deleted again in both church articles. EricDiesel (talk) 21:38, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Names
Hello, sir. I saw on a signature the C stands for Carl. However, what's the B and M?--Chris Wattson (talk) 18:39, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Details, details...
In the last notification at WT:MoS, "manual of style" in the heading was not properly capitalised, and the first sentence had a space before the full stop. I assume these are in the standard message, so I request their correction for the future notifications.

I realise most people don't even notice these trivialities, but this is the Manual of Style we are talking about, and some people there are fussy. I, for instance. :-) Waltham, The Duke of 04:59, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I capitalized Manual of Style and removed the extra space. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:44, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you, o Botmaster. Waltham, The Duke of 15:49, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Mathematicians
I happened to notice that WikiProject_Mathematics/Wikipedia_1.0/Mathematicians was breaking the "too many expensive parser functions" limit. I recoded the row template so that it only uses one #ifexist instead of two per row. A side effect is that I've swapped two of the columns (dates and class). These no longer match the header generated by VeblenBot. Can you fix? Geometry guy 10:52, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject scoring
Hi CBM, I just saw this; I had thought that after subtracting 1000 we were dividing by 3, not by 2. Am I wrong on that? Thanks, Walkerma (talk) 14:30, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * We had gone back and forth on that by email; maybe we didn't ever come to a consensus about it, since I mentioned it along with other things in a long message. I thought at the time that dividing by 2 would be better. It results in a distribution with the 10th and 90th percentiles around -100 and 100, respectively, not an unreasonable range. A 100 point change is the same as changing High to Top or vice-versa.


 * I can very easily change the code to make it divide by 3 instead. I'm sure the effect will be to add more articles from projects with lower scores and decrease the number of articles from projects with higher scores. I don't have any data to justify a preference for dividing by 2, it just feels better to me for some reason. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 14:49, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * OK, that sounds good for now; I thought the 3 had come in your last email to me on the topic, that's why I wanted to check. If there are projects in the lowest 10% that slide off the scale, they can always make manual nominations if they feel "badly done to"!  BTW, I've asked for shepbot's help with the list announcements. Thanks for the updates to the SelectionBot page. Walkerma (talk) 15:46, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I do think we should accept "manual nominations" for some period of time, with some sort of fixed criteria. That will also resolve an issue Titoxd pointed out to me, that because the database dump is getting more out of date, there are a few new FAs that should be selected but won't be on the computer-generated lists.


 * Using ShepBot is a good idea. I can also use the 'SelectionBot' user to post announcements or update wikipages, if needed. Once the last selection run is made, it looks like the next task is to make a list of selected articles that are in cleanup or maintenance categories. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 15:57, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with ShepBot, definitely. I also told Carl that for the final selection, I think it would be better to do an API run (that is, gather data from the live wiki) to avoid the stale database problems. We can also have a short-term nominations process to avoid parts of sets to be left out.
 * One more thing: will there be any articles that were in v0.5 that won't be bot-selected for 0.7? We also need to include those. Tito xd (?!? - cool stuff) 19:05, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I think that there will be some way for projects to manually propose articles that are missed by that automatic selection. If that's true, I'd rather use that for the articles that have been reassessed since the database dump. If I used the API, it would take a lot of manual work to follow up on articles that have been renamed since the database dump, which I would like to avoid. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 20:18, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) You're right that probably the next task after selection is to flag all articles with cleanup tags; User:Dank55 is interested in organizing a copyediting campaign to help clean up with worst offenders, which would be great. Another task will be to find a way to merge the automated selection in with the manual selection (many will be duplicates, of course. To save a lot of reviewer time, it'd also be really nice to find out which articles have already been included from the current nominations - including set nominations, where lists are transcluded in.

Another question - can you find out why WikiProject:Schools articles aren't appearing in the latest list? They appear in the 1.0 bot list (under W for WikiProject) but they don't show up here. I know I did a principal article for the project (School), so it was picked up by the bot. This was flagged by a project member here. Could there be other projects missing, or was this a single anomaly? Thanks, Walkerma (talk) 07:53, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm looking into the issue with the Schools project. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:27, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

As usual, there are several issues here. The Schools project wasn't listed because SelectionBot was being more picky about category naming than WP 1.0 bot. That will be fixed at the next upload.

The other things I noticed are a few new projects that were formed since the last database dump. These are listed at User:SelectionBot/Sandbox. I think it's best to go through and assign principal articles for these, so they can be included in the selection. The easiest thing would be to just annotate that page with the relevant information. I'll be able to work on it this evening. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 15:00, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Once I have the main article for each of those, I'll add them to the selection list and create a new data set. I should be able to finish that either this evening or tomorrow. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 15:00, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * OK, I looked over that sandbox list. Many are not new, they are on the Sept 2 list, so I put the ones from that list into the sandbox page.  I'll work on assigning the rest later. So hopefully we'll get our selection in the next 24 hours!? Thanks, Walkerma (talk) 20:28, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, I can work on it later tonight. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 20:35, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The list is done, I think, so I think you can go ahead. Then when you get time, could you respond to Stepshep here?  Thanks! Walkerma (talk) 01:25, 13 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for finishing those. Barring any more unforseen difficulties I can post the selection Saturday morning. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 02:30, 13 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Can you review this rough draft of a posting and give your comments? Thanks, Walkerma (talk) 22:13, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Transclude text has been marked as part of the Manual of Style
has recently been edited to mark it as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 18:52, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Need some help with ORish definitions at Semigroup action
The User:Geometry guy has done some work "disambiguating" the notions of M-act and S-act, which I've not seen disambiguated that way in any book on the topic I have on hand. He claims he copied those from Monoid, but that page doesn't make the dissambiguation. I'm fairly familiar with the area, because I use some of those results for my own reaseach, but I don't do reasearch in that area per se. I you know someone more authoritative active on Wikipedia, perhaps a you could ping him. Thanks, VasileGaburici (talk) 19:23, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The main point was actually to disambiguate semiautomaton and monoid action. The distinction between monoid action and semigroup action is pretty minor, but both are used and they are different. I don't much care for the terms M-act and S-act, but was following previous editors and what literature I could find online. Any illumination you can provide would be welcome. Geometry guy 20:31, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Template for ambiguous (or not yet settled) terminology?
Is there a template for something like "Warning: the terminology in this article does not have a wide acceptance" and/or "there is little consensus amongst authors/sources for the terminology used in this article". I think that something like this is needed for some math/cs articles... VasileGaburici (talk) 19:11, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * No, there isn't. The underlying problem is that only very rarely do mathematics authors actually take time to discuss how widespread their terminology is. This is particularly true for contemporary research (vis-a-vis historical essays). They just define the terms and move on. In practice, we rely on editorial discussion on the talk page to figure out how to explain terminology. I think that a "scare tag" at the top is much less useful to the reader than a clear explanation of what's going on.


 * I'm sure that we can find a wording that everyone can agree with, in the end. Sometimes it's best to simply say "terminology varies from one author to another", explain how it varies, and be explicit about which definition is being used in the article at hand. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 19:21, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * In the end, I always remind myself that, fundamentally, it's mathematics that we're trying to document, not terminology. Often, disputes about terminology have no corresponding dispute about actual mathematical content. In those cases, I think that extended arguments about terminology just churn water and take time that could be spent editing other articles. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 19:27, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Good point. VasileGaburici (talk) 20:02, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Re: math illustrations
See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject_Mathematics for my reply. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:39, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

wiki 0.7, SelectionBot, selection
Hey, would it be possible to modify the selected list? esp., to rmv a few items? Some of the WP:ETHNIC articles (in a link at WT:ETHNIC) may be a little controversial or sticky or something... Ling.Nut (talk&mdash;WP:3IAR) 09:34, 16 September 2008 (UTC)


 * You should mention those particular articles at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. It is certainly possible to remove articles from the selection. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 11:35, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, will do. Ling.Nut (talk&mdash;WP:3IAR) 23:31, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

page views
HI, You referred to "a steady stream of page views" to abstract nonsense. Does one have access to this type of data? Katzmik (talk) 13:45, 16 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The data can be viewed at http://stats.grok.se, run by User:Henrik. I have my own local copy of the data for an independent project. Henrik's data does not take care of redirects, so you have to combine the results for General abstract nonsense and Abstract nonsense to get the total page views. I also made a list of the Top 500 math articles by hitcount, although it needs to be updated. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 14:35, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Article score fomula can penalize importance assessments
Moved to the SelectionBot talk page, with a reply. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 21:51, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Article series has been marked as a guideline
has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 18:52, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Article series no longer marked as a guideline
has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 18:52, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Peer Review Bot not running?
Hi Carl, it would appear that User:PeerReviewBot did not run on the 20th (neither archives nor SAPRs). Ruhrfisch <sub style="color:green;">&gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 02:00, 21 September 2008 (UTC)


 * A change in the MediaWiki code made my previously-functional bot script unable to log in. I fixed my code to match the new system and ran the code by hand. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:46, 21 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks as always for your hard work on this. Ruhrfisch <sub style="color:green;">&gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 17:19, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia doesn't use Allwiki has been marked as a guideline
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Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships/Guidelines has been marked as part of the Manual of Style
has recently been edited to mark it as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 18:52, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Version 0.7
Hi CBM, thanks a lot for the the new bot run, which I see now includes Primate and Electronic articles. Can you add in the WP:Palaeontology (UK spelling, with an "a) articles too, using Paleontology (US spelling) as principal article? The categories were set up wrongly, so they got a stats table but didn't show up on the main index page.  The result was that we never generated a list for WP:Palaeontology, and now they're asking to be included in V0.7.

How we will deal with the new results, bearing in mind that articles already in the old list may have been re-assessed, renamed, had new interwikis, etc.? We can't reasonably just de-select articles that were selected last week, or add in new ones. I'd suggest that we generate an addendum page just for projects that were missed out of the original list - Primate, Electronic, Palaeontology, and any others you know of - and leave the existing selections alone. Many projects have put in hours of work on the current selection, so I regard it as set; we have the manual nomination and the "please deselect" option available to deal with corrections to the original list, and those options seem to be working fine. What do you think?

Once we sort that out, we'll have to send a formal message to all the projects that got missed out in the main selection. Should I do that manually, or are there more projects than we thought?

I hope to talk to you on IRC tomorrow at 4pm EDT. I may lurk on the 1.0 channel this evening while I do some 0.7 work. My conference last week went very well, BTW, but I'm still catching up.

Thanks again, Walkerma (talk) 19:45, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

PS: Ling Nut has produced a rough on-wiki list of the selection here, but be warned, it's big! He is doing an AWB run through every article, doing basic cleanup. Walkerma (talk) 20:04, 21 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I think the addendum idea is sound. Apart from the projects that were left off before, there are only 85 articles added to the selection. So those articles can be handled by the nominations page without redoing all the data. I'll still post the updated data in case anyone is interested in looking at it. I added Palaeontology, which I had thought I was not going to include, so that will require another upload to toolserver. I should have the new data in place later this evening. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 21:26, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that sounds great! Walkerma (talk) 00:19, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Macedonia-related articles) no longer marked as a guideline
has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 18:52, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Macedonia-related articles) is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style
has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 18:52, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Both these are wrong. The page has long been marked proposed; VeblenBot is reacting to a change of category, in this edit, which made the cats agree with the text of the article. It might be better to have the bot watch the presence of guideline tags instead. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:18, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Joke
Is there a mathematician-phycisist-engineer-CS joke posting board? (Seriously.) If so, with the wider readership at Wikipedia as compared to the departments at Caltech and UCLA, I might finally be able to find someone who will actually LAUGH at one of my jokes for the first time. EricDiesel (talk) 19:21, 22 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't know of any. I do think the new content at mathematical proof looks fine, it resolves my concerns from earlier. In my copious free time I'd like to polish it up a little. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 22:26, 22 September 2008 (UTC)


 * User:Gandalf61 wants to nix the whole "Mathematics without Proof" section. I agree with his points (sectoin is poorly written, too long, fringeish POV) but I don't agree such a section does not belong in a mathematical proof article.  His same objections apply to most of what I wrote in the other sections, in that it they all needs a rewrite, but I think the section headers are all appropriate. The reality is that computers will soon be as good at proving anything as they now are at anagrams.. then chess... then medicine.  All that will be left for us humans will be hyper-meta stuff and exploratory intuition.  They would then strongly object to such a section, and mention of humans in a history of math article with more than a passing reference.  That is a joke, but also accurate.  EricDiesel (talk) 00:29, 23 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Its here. Thanks to User:Gandalf61 for indirectly locating it.  Tautologist (talk) 18:10, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Template help for screen readers
Can you help us out, Carl? I've been having a conversation with User:Graham87, who is a blind admin with huge numbers of edits to Wikipedia (whose judgment on screen readers I completely trust), that goes like this:

I looked through the talk archives at WP:ACCESS and can't find that we discussed this. Would it work for you to have the first image in a section directly above the heading rather than directly below? Do screen readers have a hard time with that for some reason? ...- Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 02:48, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

No I much prefer it if images are below the heading. If the image is above the heading, because screen readers read linearly, the image seems unrelated to the text because I won't know about the heading below it. Graham 87 03:08, 24 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The problem is the rule not to sandwich text; if there are more images than text, then the images drop down into the next section, which is bad, or we dump a bunch of white space in the article, also bad. Is there any image code which will let me put the link for the image under the heading, but force it to show up higher, either on the same line or even a little above that? - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 03:26, 24 September 2008 (UTC)


 * ... I don't know about any code for controlling the image position... Graham 87 03:41, 24 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, I'm out of ideas. I know that some of the wikiprojects have images in their articles on the same line as headings (that is, the image link is directly above the heading), and they don't read (many of) the style guidelines.  If you come up with a solution that works for you, please let me know.


 * ... It's not such a big deal, but I'd be happy if there was an intuitive way to fix the problem that works for both sighted and blind users. Graham 87 04:17, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd be glad to try to help, but I don't quite follow what you're asking for. Could you give me a couple specific pages where the problem comes up, and a description of how you'd like them to be fixed? &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:52, 24 September 2008 (UTC)


 * It comes up a lot; one example is an article I'm editing for WP:GAR: Robot. MOS:IMAGE prefers that lines not be truncated on both sides by images, because some people use narrow windows or narrow screens.  But that means we can't fit the images in that section; at the least, I need to do what I did, which is to put the first image link just above rather than just after the heading.  Graham doesn't like this; when his screen reader tells him there's an image there, he doesn't know that there's a new section just below it that the image belongs in.  If he happens to stop there, he'll get confused.  An obvious fix would be for screens readers to read the heading first; obviously, if an image starts on the same line as a heading, it belongs in that section.  But until the screen readers get fixed, is there anything we can do to make it easier for Graham?  That is, we want to put the image link right after the heading, but have it show up on the same line as the heading. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 14:22, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
 * P.S. I meant that MOS:IMAGE doesn't like lines of text that have images on both sides. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 16:09, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Did you find out anything, Carl? I can pass the buck to G-guy, or we can just harass the guys that make the screen readers. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 18:31, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I got distracted. I can see where the screen readers would get confused - if the image literally precedes the heading in the HTML, the screen reader can't tell what section it is in. I don't know any way to cause them to appear in the other order in the HTML but get the effect that you want, unfortunately. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 20:12, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I'll punt this to G-Guy. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 20:26, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Suggested deletion from Super-recursive algorithm
The current version contains the following in the first paragraph:

"Indeed, since mid 1980's, the AI community has produced a large body of work on anytime algorithms for solving such problems as real-time search, constraint satisfaction, planning and scheduling, and diagnosis (Horvitz 1986; Boddy and Dean 1989; Zilberstein 1996). Traditional algorithms either run to completion or they provide no useful solution information. Anytime algorithms, however, are able to return a partial answer, whose quality depends on the amount of computation they were able to perform. An example is the Newton-Raphson iteration applied to finding the square root of a number. This iteration cannot be modeled by a Turing machine and demands more powerful mathematical models, such as limit Turing machines. Theoretical results show that limit Turing machines are more powerful than Turing machines and thus are super-recursive algorithms. Thus, super-recursive algorithms exist not only in theory but are already used in computing practice."

I suggest deleting it. There are several things wrong with it..

(1) Nobody working on anytime algorithms (that I know of) calls their algorithms "super-recursive". To claim they are is to be violating WP:NOR.

(2) When I added my comments about anytime algorithms, I brought them up as an example of how the CS community has been able to get by without this useless category of "super-recursive algorithm" and get results anyway. Burgin claims that the very concept of super-recursive algorithm will liberate CS from Turing-computability shackles; clearly, CS researchers didn't need any such liberation. Now Multipundit is claiming anytime algorithms under the umbrella of "super-recursive", as he does for many other things.

(3) Anytime algorithms do not return "partial" answers -- they return approximate answers, with the quality of the answer typically related in a predictable way to the amount of computing done.

(4) It's not "Newton-Raphson", it's Newton's algorithm, that's used to compute square roots.

(5) Newton iteration can clearly be modeled by Turing machines -- in fact, I've worked on floating point microcode and approximation lookup tables for division and square root using Newton's method -- software, hardware and firmware realizations go way back. Any floating point software or hardware is necessarily going to implement Newton's method in a way that can be modeled with a Turing machine. If what Multipundit means is that doing true Newton's method means using true real numbers, not floating point approximations thereof, then perhaps he's right. But in that case, it's not practical because no computer (not even analog computers) use true real numbers, which require infinite storage to represent in the worst case. (And the worst case is much more "frequent" -- there are only countably many Turing machine programs, but the reals are uncountable.)

(6) The final two sentence start out talking about theoretical results showing limit Turing machines being more powerful, then conclude in a way suggesting that any such theory has been reduce to practice. Really? Show me a real computer that uses the reals, not floating point numbers, and carries out Newton's method on square root to an infinite number of steps.

How could matters be any more confused?

I'd make the change myself, but I got far too disgusted with Multipundit's behavior last time I tangled with him. Maybe you have the patience. I think he's in WP:FRINGE, and where he makes specific reference to anytime algorithms as super-recursive algorithms (an idea he obviously got from me, ironically), he's also engaged in WP:NOR. Every time he adds something not in the peer-reviewed literature, he's in WP:NOR I'm surprised you put up with it. Yakushima (talk) 10:29, 25 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I can only work on so many things at a time, and at some point I stopped following that article very closely. The claim about Newton's method is clearly bad - I can program my calculator to find sqrt(2) with Newton's method.  I also find the claim that contemporary computers are performing non-recursive algorithms very dubious.


 * Anyway, I'll trim the lede down some, but I don't have an enormous amount of time to try to improve the article. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:40, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Peano arithmetic vs primitive-recursive arithmetic vs Goedel's theorems
A humble question: why do we need to consider both PA and PRA for Goedel's proofs? Isn't primitive recursion all that we need? Is PA also required so that the symbols of the axioms are there to be Goedelized, and then PR is just represent "the formation rules" required to manipulate the numbers (this doesn't sound right to me). It seems to me that PRA contains "enough arithmetic", albeit in an intuitionistic formulation. I'm thinking in context of Feferman's "Predicativity" p. 26-27, Church's Thesis, Goedel's later assertion (1964) that Turing's machines present an adequate basis for a "formal" arithmetic system, and Goedel's theorem V. Bill Wvbailey (talk) 16:32, 25 September 2008 (UTC)


 * PA is the easiest one to handle. It is not necessary to think about PA at all for Gödel's theorem; PA is just one of many axioms systems for arithmetic to which the theorem applies. PA is primarily of interest as a strong but well motivated theory of arithmetic in which most elementary number thoery can be carried out. A minimal system to which the theorem applies is Robinson arithmetic.


 * The way that people typically think about PRA is not as a first-order theory. They view it as a quantifier-free theory with free variables, which is about the same as saying a theory with universal quantification that cannot be negated - and thus no existential quantification.


 * The main interest in PRA in the study of metamathematics is:
 * PRA is extremely finitistic. Thus it is used to play the role of a finitistic base system whose consistency is not in doubt. PRA is usually studied with a classical proof system, including the excluded middle, although it could be studied with an intuitionistic system.
 * PRA is able to prove Gödel's theorem and many other syntactical results of proof theory. Thus if someone asks "how much logical apparatus is required to prove Gödel's theorem?" the answer is "very little". This is the main reason people bring up PRA in the context of the incompleteness theorems.
 * &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 20:40, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

This is what I suspected. Thanks! Bill Wvbailey (talk) 22:32, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

request
can you give me a copy of my article it is on my discussion. your name was on the list. (The Perfect Enso (talk) 03:58, 25 September 2008 (UTC))


 * You need to tell me the title of the article. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 03:59, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

aggreement in principle (The Perfect Enso (talk) 04:17, 25 September 2008 (UTC))


 * OK, thanks. The article was deleted because it had been moved to http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/agreement_in_principle at some point. I can email you the source of the deleted page, if you set an email address in your preferences. If you don't want to use your real email address, just make a throwaway account on gmail or some other free email system. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 04:23, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Can you put it in my subpage instead? (The Perfect Enso (talk) 01:46, 27 September 2008 (UTC))


 * The content was "In law, An agreement in principle is a stepping stone to a final agreement. Such agreements with regards to the principle are usually considered fair and equitable." along with three links    &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 01:54, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Discepancy
Hi CBM, do you have any thoughts on this discrepancy? Good to see some VersionIDs coming in, though! Walkerma (talk) 05:51, 26 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't know what's up there, but I'm planning to finish updating the selection tomorrow afternoon, which will include updating all those pages (while keeping any data that has been entered, of course). &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 00:10, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Deletion policy/Proposal has been marked as a policy
has recently been edited to mark it as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 18:52, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Preparing images for upload no longer marked as a guideline
has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 18:52, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

headline
What do I put in the edit summary box that sometimes appears above save page what is this for? —Preceding unsigned comment added by The Perfect Enso (talk • contribs) 23:20, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The edit summary box is used to make a brief comment describing your edit. These edit comments are what you see when you click the "history" button on an article. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 00:11, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Are they required to do? The Perfect Enso (talk) 04:03, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

CAT:ESP
Hi, would it be possible to have User:VeblenBot make a table for Category:Wikipedia semi-protected edit requests like the one it makes for WP:PER? LegoKontribsTalkM 23:41, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I have never seen the point of semi-protected edit requests, and so I don't see the point of tracking them. People who want to edit semi-protected pages can do so by simply registering an account, which is what we encourage all serious editors to do anyway. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 23:55, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Troublesome PR
Hi Carl, the article on Rudolf Wanderone has a peer review at Peer review/Rudolf Wanderone/archive1 but it is not showing up on WP:PR. The article was listed there, then I did the semi-transclusion trick to save space. The nominator then thought it had been archived and moved it to Peer review/Rudolf Wanderone, AND copied the semi-automated peer review to it. I have removed the SAPR and thought I moved it back properly, but it still is not showing. Could you please take a look and figure out what the problem is? I alsready asked G guy and he thought it was a VeblenBot issue. Thanks in advance, Ruhrfisch <sub style="color:green;">&gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 11:54, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Never mind - I just checked again and it is now listed there. Sorry for the mixup, Ruhrfisch <sub style="color:green;">&gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 11:56, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Release Version Nominations
Hi CBM, I'd like to have a big push on reviewing all the manual nominations that have appeared at Release_Version_Nominations, but we can't really do productively until we know which ones on the page have already been selected by SelectionBot. I tried doing this with AWB list comparer (against Ling.nut's list, but it maxes about at around 5000 so I'm only getting A-C. I remember you said that this should be possible for you to do, can you help? Also, is there a good time for you to chat about getting an index done?  Thanks, Walkerma (talk) 05:46, 28 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Here's a tool that scans Release Version Nominations and compares it with a selection list: http://toolserver.org/~cbm/cgi-bin/nominations.cgi Tools like that are generally very fast to write, so just let me know the specs of any reports you need, and I'll work out a way to generate them.


 * I could discuss the index anytime today (Sunday Sep 28) before about 9pm EST, or Monday evening. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 16:46, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Easy as pi?: Making mathematics articles more accessible to a general readership
The discussion, to which you contributed, has been archived, with very much additional commentary, at Village pump (proposals)/Archive 35 (subsectioned and sub-subsectioned). A related discussion is at (Temporary link) Talk:Mathematics and (Permanent link) Talk:Mathematics (Section "Making mathematics articles more accessible to a general readership"). Another related discussion is at (Temporary link) Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics and (Permanent link) Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics (Section "Making mathematics articles more accessible to a general readership"). -- Wavelength (talk) 01:30, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Mullins Lab
Dr. Bill Mullins of Mullins Labs, now retired, had 5 sons. The youngest was Michael Mullins. He is the the Michael Mullins who was listed in Boulder Daily Camera on November 18, 1996 for attempting to kill his pregnant wife. She is now speaker on Domestic Violence Awareness. Please see Boulder Daily Camera newspaper article, "The Boulder Shootings," for more information. It was also ran on every major broadcast network on November 17, 1996 and November 18, 1996. As for the lab, since Dr. Bill's retirement, his son Steve has sold off most of it. There is not much left of the family business. Michael committed suicide after shooting his wife and the family recently lost another son, this one to alcoholism, per Augusta Chronicle, March 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.213.20.39 (talk) 02:33, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Bulletin Board System
Hi CBM,

I noticed that you removed the "ANSI scroller" image from the Bulletin Board System artical, with the comment "Perl WP:NFCC" and I was wondering if you could explain this to me. I looked up the Wikipedia artical on Non-free content criteria compliance, but I don't belive it applies to this image which is a free non-copyrighted ANSI image created by the ANSI group named "Ice" back in the 1990's. I see the image was previously deleted by Fairusebot. Is there something that needs to be changed in this image in order to allow it to be used in the BBS artical? Thanks in advance.

Pcmicro (talk) 15:37, 30 September 2008 (UTC)


 * No problem. The image in question, Image:Krux-ice-dec94.png, is not tagged as a free image. Unless the art pack was explicitly released under a free license, the image is copyrighted by default. If the autor were willing to release it under a free license, then we could certainly use it. But without any evidence of a free license, we can't. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 16:18, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

My name is Leon Friedrichsen and have been a participant of the Encierros for 18 years. During these years at Pamplona many Spanish folks have mentioned that San Fermin was never "dragged" through the streets anywhere. I think thats the media of some sort making their claim to the usual dramatic sillyness so common in our current, shallow society. It seems as though they have too much to lose from telling the truth.

San Fermin was beheaded in Amiens, France after being stabbed in his side as he was spreading the Christian faith abroad. Hence the red scarf and sash. The bull fight came much later and after the fiestas were combined and moved to July in the 15th century, an arena was erected at the Plaza Del Castilo. At that time the bulls were run through the streets to the arena, were fought with honor and then ran back to the corals. They were not killed at that time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.33.43.129 (talk) 05:26, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:External links has been marked as a guideline
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Wikipedia:External links is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style
has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 18:52, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Mullins Labs Mullins Labs Logs indicate, as does the family, that there was not a threat issued concerning the lab, but the family. There has not been a company directed threat made. Please correct your information. Is there anyway that you know that those with whom you have had these posting interactions were not members of the Mullins Family. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.213.20.39 (talk) 20:23, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (law enforcement agency categories) has been marked as a guideline
has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 18:51, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Avoid statements that will date quickly has been marked as part of the Manual of Style
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NTWW and perennial issues
We're having a discussion about the inclusion/deletion debate over at WP:NTWW tomorrow (saturday) at 22:00 UTC. Since you were participating in the AN thread, I figured I'd let you know. Xavexgoem (talk) 22:09, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (law enforcement agency categories) has been marked as part of the Manual of Style
has recently been edited to mark it as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 18:52, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Carl, the page hasn't had any edits since it was created, and I see nothing on the page that I can connect to the Manual of Style (whatever that is :). It's marked as a naming convention; is that what produced the notice? - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 20:56, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes. I have complete documentation at User:VeblenBot/PolicyNotes. The "naming conventions" category is currently treated both as a guideline and a style guide. If that isn't optimal, I can change the behavior. Let me know, &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 19:18, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I think the Duke's suggestion has been accepted (at least by the people who read WT:MOS every day, otherwise we/they would have said something) at WT:MOS. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 19:14, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * P.S. I can't get the section link to work, but you get the idea. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 19:16, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I removed the naming conventions category from the MoS list. It is still included in the policy/guideline list. I don't have a third list yet just for naming conventions, but I could set that up at some point. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 21:06, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 03:27, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

User:Yecril
Hi,

Do you think this is worth taking to ANI for wider input? This user looks to have a history of following his own interpretation of our guidelines even when there's abundant evidence that he's in the wrong. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:56, 7 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I thought the discussion he and I had yesterday was going well. Everybody always disagrees about style. If I can't prevail on him to discuss his style changes first, then some other form of dispute resolution may be needed. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 12:50, 7 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I started a discussion on the math project page. The best resolution here will involve getting a good sense of the overall consensus regarding the math template. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:33, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

„Aus dem Paradies, das Cantor uns geschaffen hat, soll uns niemand vertreiben können."
replied on cantor's talk. Ling.Nut (talk&mdash;WP:3IAR) 13:59, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
 * ...and a slightly expanded provenance is on page 525n3 of "Mathematics and the Divine" By T Koetsier, L Bergmans. Ling.Nut (talk&mdash;WP:3IAR) 14:09, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 14:30, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Facial hair is required for administratorship has been marked as part of the Manual of Style
has recently been edited to mark it as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 18:51, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Gauss's law
Hi,

Looks like the recent curly quotes shenanigans has resulted in this article being moved to a title which consensus seems to have formed against. Can you shift both article and talk to Gauss's law, please? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 23:53, 11 October 2008 (UTC)


 * It looked to me that the page was moved on Feb 16 to Gauss' law, and then moved on Sep 17  from Gauss' law to Gauss’s law (with the curly quote). Was the page ever named Gauss's law in between? My main goal was to undo back to whatever name was established before Sep 17; if that was Gauss's law then that's fine with me. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 01:34, 12 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The ongoing discussion on that article started in April, but the conclusive edit was on September 15. Even accounting for Yecril's spat of page moves, this would appear to be entirely in line with a move in conjunction with talk page consensus on that date. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 02:04, 12 October 2008 (UTC)


 * If that's the agreement there, I don't object to it. The people discussing it on the talk page seem to be confused about the difference between grammar and editorial style, but there are other things that interest me more. I was confused by the interaction with Yecril's move. I'll undo my move and apologize to an editor I contacted earlier. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 02:15, 12 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 02:29, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Keeping info out by provoking a page protection by edit warring
Protection lifted so strike comment Wasilla Assembly of God is the church attended by Sarah Palin and at which she gave a widely covered speech about a sermon at the church. The church, its pastor, and a frequent church guest pastor have been the subject of international news coverage since 1999, including for controversial sermons given at Wasilla Assembly of God in 2005 and 2008.
 * There was initially a dispute as to whether this article should be deleted. The article was kept.  One or two editors then attempted to keep sourced information out of the article by constant deletions, vaguely citing “BLP” and “Coatrack” without specificity, and ignoring requests for specificity.  They were successful, in that they created enough edit wars that they kept the information out by getting the article blocked.
 * There have now been three consensus suggestions for three sections for two weeks or so. All talk page suggestions made in them have been addressed.
 * The content of speeches and sermons given at this church has been the subject of almost a million web pages and thousands of news stories. Yet the information that is the subject of the international coverage, sourced with respected journalists and actual photos and video footage of the sermons is not in the article.
 * This article should be restored, with the three consensus sections as worded and sourced in the talk page, here, here, and here.  There are two editors who will object to any information about the speeches or sermons, but they have not made comment on the consensus suggestions for two weeks, and all concerns they voiced previously were addressed.  If the consensus sections are not added, the editors who engaged in edit wars to keep information out will have succeeded in keeping the well sourced information out through provoking a protection by edit warring.

Here is an example of the "reasoning" by User:Jclemens. Thomas Muthee is a Kenyan pastor who delivered at least eleven sermons at this church between 2005 and 2008, who was singled out for credit by the governor of Alaska for her gubernatorial victory in her speech to the graduates at the church’s “Masters Commission” for his sermons and prayers given at this church, and who is the subject of a large number of international press stories for the content of his sermons given to this church. JClemens deletes all information about Muthee’s guest sermons reasoning as follows:
 * “So you added a section about the activities (1) of a person [Muthee] (2) mentioned by a guest speaker [Palin] (3) at a commencement ceremony [Master’s Commision] (4) for a ministry (5) of the church? I'm sure Kevin Bacon must fit in here somewhere—I count five degrees of separation from the actual church itself.”  (bold added)


 * 1. How can consensus be reached with this kind of reasoning? (JClemens is the editor who was edit warring with variuous other editors, including me.)
 * 2. I do not want to cause unneeded bad feelings by pointing out reasoning difficulties, so left this message on your talk page. Am I using the talkback at the top of the page correctly for this? Tautologist (talk) 19:29, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

IRC
Hi CBM, I was just wondering if you're going to be around for the Version 0.7 IRC on #wikipedia-1.0 at 2000h UTC (4pm US Eastern Daylight time? We only have a week left before our deadline, I think we need to review what's left.  I'd really appreciate learning about how we will handle the merge of the addendum with the main bot list and main manual selection, and how to remove articles that people have requested removed. Cheers, Walkerma (talk) 19:00, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

This is new to me, so.
Had a bit of vandalism on my user page, the same IP keeps adding a bit of vandalism/unsourced (and untrue) info to Scott Menville's page as well. Any advice or assistance appreciated.Mr T (Based) (talk) 15:50, 15 October 2008 (UTC)


 * It looks to me like one person who is changing IPs. The 66.203.xx.xx IPs are from a school district in Ohio. Since the IPs change so often, there's no benefit in blocking them individually. If you have more problems with your user page or with Scott Menville, I'll semiprotect the pages. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 17:46, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Right, thank you.Mr T (Based) (talk) 17:47, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and semiprotected your user page for a month; the edit there was really out of line. The protection will expire automatically, and you can edit the page normally as long as you are logged in. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 17:52, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Much appreciated! Didn't find it offensive as it was all well wide of the mark, but it's one less thing for me to keep track of. :-)Mr T (Based) (talk) 17:56, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement has been marked as a guideline
has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 18:51, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Requesting rollback right
Since I've reorganized Criticism of Wikipedia, and also worked a bit on Reliability of Wikipedia, those two pages seem to be a magnet for vandals, e.g. like this. I saw that you are listed on the Category:Wikipedia_administrators_willing_to_grant_rollback_requests, and since we had constructive interactions before, I hope you will grant me this right. I understand that rollback is to be used only for clear cut cases of vandalism. Also, I've read WP:NAS/R. Thanks, VG &#x260E; 13:49, 16 October 2008 (UTC)


 * No problem, it's done. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 14:29, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, VG &#x260E; 17:08, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi CBM, a little while back you helped add Saskatchewan Communities & Neighbourhoods to the WikiProject Canada banner. I was wondering if you could take a look at a bug mentioned at Template_talk:WikiProject_Canada. Many thanks, --Jh12 (talk) 03:14, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

article rating in priority categories
Hello,

you are the one behind these cute assessment tables, right? Is it possible to enhance the bot so that pages like Category:Top-Priority_mathematics_articles also show an overview over the quality of the articles in that category? Thanks, Jakob.scholbach (talk) 18:47, 20 October 2008 (UTC)


 * If you have time, could you also have a look at WikiProject_Mathematics/Wikipedia_1.0/Algebra and the like? It would be great to have a table there, as well. Thank you again! Jakob.scholbach (talk) 12:43, 21 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I think the tables you're interested in are already generated; the page WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0/Table lists all of them. We could transclude the first table from that page onto the category pages; it has breakdowns by quality and importance.


 * I noticed that the list page for algebra (that you linked) is broken, as is the geometry page. We seem to have hit some template limit there. I'll try to patch over that (we have a system to break the long pages into subpages). But it will take a while for me to get to it, because I have some urgent deadlines to attend to. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 19:11, 21 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Sure, take your time with this (if you want to do this at all). However, I still can't find what I'm looking for. I look for a table counting all top-priority articles, indexed by field and quality. The site you mention has every other type of combination but not this one. Jakob.scholbach (talk) 21:58, 21 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Now I think I see. You want something like User:VeblenBot/Math/table:FIELDS.QUALITY but only including Top-priority articles? I can do that very easily. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 22:17, 21 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Here are the tables, which will update automatically:
 * User:VeblenBot/Math/table:FIELDS.QUALITY.Top
 * User:VeblenBot/Math/table:FIELDS.QUALITY.High
 * User:VeblenBot/Math/table:FIELDS.QUALITY.Mid
 * User:VeblenBot/Math/table:FIELDS.QUALITY.Low
 * User:VeblenBot/Math/table:FIELDS.QUALITY.Unassessed
 * When I get time, I may add a "total" row to the bottom. That will be a duplicate of the corresponding row in the main table, so for now you have to transclude User:VeblenBot/Math/table:MATHEMATICS to get totals. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 22:34, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Great, thank you! I tried -- and failed -- to include these tables into the categories mentioned above. Is there some template that copies the code at the bot's subpages?

Since you seem to have a mighty engine roaring in the background, here is another suggestion: it would be very handy to have a link to a even finer query at every number shown in the tables. Example: in the table listing top-priority articles, in the intersection of field=algebra and quality=stub, there could be a link to yet another subpage listing all articles meeting these three criteria. Jakob.scholbach (talk) 14:07, 22 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I added the tables to Category:High-Priority mathematics articles and its siblings. I see what you're asking for with the finer links inside the tables, but that will have to wait for the updated WP 1.0 bot in development. The updated bot will use a database to generate article lists on demand without having to upload them as wiki pages. I'll probably still upload the tables to the wiki, so we can transclude them, but the numbers in the table cells will link to the dynamic tool instead of linking to other wiki pages. I expect the new version of the bot to be live sometime in winter 2009. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 14:26, 22 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Note that the lists are generated, for example at WikiProject_Mathematics/Wikipedia_1.0/Foundations,_logic,_and_set_theory. It's just that the format of the lists isn't right to link to a specific field/priority/quality combination, and the time it would take me to change the layout and fix all the wiki pages would be better spent on developing the new bot, which will have this functionality as well. I still need to fix the template limits problem with the algebra page. Fixed now. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 14:34, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Alright. Thanks again. I appreciate your working on these issues. I believe this assessment is crucial for pushing WP further. Jakob.scholbach (talk) 17:09, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Portal guidelines has been marked as a guideline
has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 18:55, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Romanization of Ukrainian/Archive 20081024 has been marked as a guideline
has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 18:52, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia's Expert Peer Review process (or lack of such) for Science related articles
Hi - I posted the section with the same name on my talk page. Could you take part in discussion ? Thanks ARP Apovolot (talk) 21:35, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject-requested changes to 0.7
Hi CBM, I started this page for notes on changes to be made. If you have any lists like that, can you let me know the link, or update my page? Things are very slow - I'm trying to do this, review nominations, and also to write the index words, all while doing my day job - so I'm afraid I won't have the index done in time for you to use it by the 30th. I'm hoping I can finish it next weekend, if I get the other stuff out of the way before then. Cheers, Walkerma (talk) 06:05, 26 October 2008 (UTC)


 * That page looks like a great start. I should be able to help with the review noms in the coming week, in the evenings. I have company in town this weekend, which is very nice but keeps me busy. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 12:52, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

A discussion on WP:SYNTH
Since you have previously been involved in discussions about the policy WP:NOR, it appears that you have a depth of understanding about this policy. I would appreciate your comments concerning an application of this policy's section WP:SYNTH here. Thank you. 300wackerdrive (talk) 15:18, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

PeerReviewBot down?
Hi Carl, I see PeerReviewBot has not yet run today (and I forgot to do the SAPRs the day before). Just a heads up, Ruhrfisch <sub style="color:green;">&gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 18:23, 27 October 2008 (UTC)


 * It isn't down, just taking a break while the computer was turned off. Thanks for reminding me to run it by hand today. The automatic execution will resume tomorrow, this was just a temporary situation. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk)

non-standard analysis
Hi, Your comments suggest that I may have introduced some inaccuracies in the introduction to transfer principle, please feel free to edit it as you see fit. Katzmik (talk) 15:23, 29 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid I would have to get the references and spend a long time thinking about the material before I could edit the articles sensibly.


 * My general advice, in order to prevent accidental misstatements, is to be meticulously clear about exactly which class of formulas the transfer principle applies to. The clearest way to describe it would be to give both the signature and a description of the exact forms of quantification that are permitted.


 * One complication is that if the formulas allow any element of the superstructure to be included, they will be in typed first order logic instead of regular first order logic. Also, the signature is going to have to include a set membership relation or some other way of handling the higher-type objects. This makes the technical details more slightly more involved. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 15:39, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

McCain, Obama, Palin, Biden
Hi CBM. I agree with continuing the lockdown thru November 5. However, the huge tag at the top of each of the articles is hideous. The small padlock symbol would work just as well, and anyone would understand what's happening from reading the tag at the top of each of the talk pages. The McCain article has already been locked up for a couple days without using the huge tag at the top of the article. This issue arose previously, and it was decided to keep the Palin article frozen but get rid of the huge tag at the top.Ferrylodge (talk) 07:58, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm not going to change the tags again, but I think it makes more sense to have the large tag. If we're going to protect the articles (which I find regrettable but unavoidable), we should be up front about it in a way that all potential editors can see. Only very experienced editors know what the little padlock means. So my attitude is that the more high-profile an article is, the higher the need for the large protection template. I don't see how the appearance of the tag makes much difference, as long as it isn't neon green and blinking. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:04, 30 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Carl...My angry words were intended for others not you...sorry...I know McCain was protected. My feeling re:protection is more relevant to Sara Palin article. That is where the load of Manure was delivered. --Buster7 (talk) 13:53, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Watching empty categories before deletion
I've recently been in discussion with an experienced editor who in good faith was slapping the C1 template on categories immediately after removing their contents, thinking that there was a waiting period like PROD. However, admins then deleted the categories the same day, likewise in good faith.

I note that last year you said you'd put watching C1 tags on your list. This discussion also identified the need for a mechanism to watch empty categories before deleting them.

Do you think it is feasible to automate this? - Fayenatic (talk) 10:01, 30 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes. I would make a bot that runs at regular intervals. It keeps a local list of categories that are tagged for C1, and how long they have been empty. When it runs, it updates the local list and makes sure they are all empty. It will make a table in a user subpage that lists all the C1 candidates and how long they have been empty. Admins will need to check the table before deleting the cat. Thoughts? &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:15, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

That sounds excellent. Presumably we would also change the C1 template like PROD to (i) require subst:'ing, (ii) record the date tagged and calculate the date 4 days later, (iii) link to your page, (iv) how about categorising by date?

Could you also make a bot that puts the C1 daily sub-categories with dates 4 or more days old into the into CSD category? We want them to stop showing up as current candidates for speedy deletion until the 4 days are up. - Fayenatic (talk) 13:56, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

McCain protection
Looks like we got our wires crossed - immediately after I announced that I was unprotecting it, I noticed the below section (and subsequently the ANI thread) and posted a reversal of my announcement. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 13:53, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

PeerReviewBot not running
Hi Carl, sorry to bug you again but PeerReviewBot has not run since Oct. 28. There was an error that day linking a SAPR, so I tried fixing the PR page - not sure if that will work or not. Thanks as always for all you do, Ruhrfisch <sub style="color:green;">&gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 14:43, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry about the bot problems lately. This wasn't related to the outage over the weekend. I had switched to a different library and forgot to enable it. It should be back to normal now. The problem with that SAPR was the lack of a comment in the PR page to let the bot know where to put the SAPR link. That error message always indicates that particular problem. I fixed it. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 14:58, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Please don't apologize - I really appreciate not having to archive PRs and link all the SAPRs by hand! Thanks too for the explanation - I looked at a PR that already had the SAPR linked for comparison and so missed that. Ruhrfisch <sub style="color:green;">&gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 15:05, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Your bot
I'm wondering if PeerReviewBot has a page somewhere that explains its methodology? I ask not because I have any criticisms of it (I actually think it's quite neat) but because I'm wondering how to interpret some of its recommendations. For example, it recently told me to check for redundancies, which is always good advice, but I'm wondering what it means in this case. Does it automatically tell everybody to do that? Did it find certain red flag phrases in the article that suggested possible redundancy? Did it calculate the average sentence length and find that it was too long? Thanks, Sarcasticidealist (talk) 16:23, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
 * The code to make the reviews is at User:AndyZ/peerreviewer.js and was written by User:AndyZ. The way things work, Ruhrfisch runs that javascript to make the semi-automated review, and then the PeerReviewBot edits the peer review page to link to the review that has been generated. I have thought about porting the javascript code to perl, so that it could be fully automated, but it seemed like a daunting task. It would be very nice if a javascript programmer could use AJAX to automate the creation of the reviews; I may be able to do that someday. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 16:52, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

uniform continuity
Hi, thanks for your comment at the talk page there. I have responded to it, even though this may not be obvious due to multiple edits. I would like to add that it would be helpful if everybody could try to give non-standard analysis the benefit of the doubt at least until the mathematical issues are sorted out, as we are all laboring under the intertial weight of our standard education that has made us see things in a certain way. Katzmik (talk) 09:26, 28 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm very interested to follow your argument there; I just don't yet see that a local property of an extension of a function qualifies as local property of the original function. If I were convinced of that for the particular property in question, then I think that it would be worthwhile to add a sentence pointing to the nonstandard calculus article.


 * Here is a very trivial example: suppose f is continuous on [0,1). Extend this to a function from [0,1] to the extended real numbers by setting
 * $$f(1) = \lim_{a \to 1} \sup_{x > a} |f(x)|$$
 * Then the original function f is bounded above on [0,1) if and only if the extension has a finite value at 1. Does this mean that if I permit myself to use extended real numbers then boundedness on an open interval is a local property of a continuous function? &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:32, 28 October 2008 (UTC)


 * P.S. Concerning your edit at non-standard calculus: do you mind if I add "by undergraduate standards"? Otherwise the remark is not entirely clear.  Katzmik (talk) 09:29, 28 October 2008 (UTC)


 * My concern with "undergraduate standards" is that it doesn't seem to have the right tone for an encyclopedia. It also seems very open to interpretation - many undergraduates would find it perfectly reasonable to prove x^2 is not uniformly continuous, while many others would find it impossible. But I think that if the task is harder for undergrads, it is harder for everyone, in a relative sense. Certainly you or I would have to think a few more seconds about a rigorous proof using the standard definition, vs. a rigorous proof using the nonstandard definition.


 * I tried to think of some way of explaining precisely how the standard definition is more difficult than the nonstandard definition. One trick I have learned for WP writing is that it is often possible to replace subjective judgments with the objective reasons used in forming the judgment, and this results in a better article. It seems to me that the reason for the difficulty is the depth of the nested quantifiers in the standard version; but I've never seen that explanation in print, so I think it may just be my opinion. That's why I didn't add an explanation to the sentence. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:16, 28 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I remember saying this somewhere at uniform continuity or (ε, δ)-definition of limit, I'd have to check. I do think this is the right reason.  Katzmik (talk) 17:10, 28 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Carl, could this quote be helpful? "The number of quantifiers in a mathematical statement gives a rough measure of the statement’s complexity. Statements involving three or more quantifiers can be difficult to understand. This is the main reason why it is hard to understand the rigorous definitions of limit, convergence, continuity and differentiability in analysis as they have many quantifiers. [new paragraph] In fact, it is the alternation of the \forall and \exists that causes the complexity." Kevin Houston, How to Think Like a Mathematician, ISBN 9780521719780. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 15:49, 29 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Kevin Houston certainly thinks like this mathematician :) Katzmik (talk) 15:54, 29 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks Jitse, that reference will be very helpful. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 17:15, 29 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Regarding the page on Kevin Houston: I'd really rather not edit the page of a mathematician who's at the same university as me, but having the quote on his page makes it seem like this is something very central to what he does, while I think it's just a side remark that many people have made. A short web search also brings up "The logical complexity of [the standard definition of a limit] (two alternations of quantifiers) explains why most students find it hard to understand the concept of a limit." and "There’s no problem writing longer sequences of nested quantifiers, but it’s a general rule of thumb that people really have to work, cognitively, to handle more than two. This is why most of us have such a hard time digesting the definition of a limit when we first learn it in calculus:" . I think it may be hard to defend the page on Houston at AfD. And he's not a professor. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 15:02, 31 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I didn't notice that the page had been created, thanks for pointing it out. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 15:25, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Template:Archive box
As you're the last person to edit the template I thought I'd let you know I've left a question on the talkpage §hep   •   ¡Talk to me!  03:09, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of 3103 (number)
An article that you have been involved in editing, 3103 (number), has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Articles for deletion/3103 (number). Thank you. JohnCD (talk) 22:24, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Partial Function
ok, the thing is it was inconsistent before since it said it associated *each* element of the domain, and then went on to say it didn't have to associate every element of the domain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.195.87.241 (talk) 03:15, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Re my proposal
OK, though I wouldn't call it spamming, but since you are Administrator so I have to obey. Would you please help to place my proposal to one of those two places, pointed by you ? Apovolot (talk) 23:57, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Question
CBM, please take a look at the creator of Image:LaFranceFireEngine.jpg and see if you could justify an unblock, assuming that the user is now completely reformed? Katmairock (talk) 06:09, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Beta question
Hi Carl, with respect to this ANI thread (which I kinda regret initiating), I was never clear on Beta's restrictions imposed by the "ad-hoc" committee of yourself, Ryan and Lara - were you guys taking on an ongoing monitor/mentoring role, or just crafting the sanctions? And/or do y'all have comments on that recent little kerfuffle? I ask only as looking for a way to counter the "he's out of control/ban him now" sentiment which unfortunately arose in the thread. Beta's not such a bad guy imo, but interlocutors were and still are helpful, it would seem. Franamax (talk) 06:34, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Unprotection of Chinese name
Hi, you protected Chinese name in July 2008. Would you consider temporarily unprotecting it to enable me to merge Chinese name2 into that template and to move the documentation to a separate subpage using Documentation? I think it is unnecessary to have a separate Chinese name2 template when it can be incorporated into Chinese name using a parser function. — Cheers, Jack Lee  –talk– 13:25, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'm done. Thanks! — Cheers, Jack Lee  –talk– 14:11, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Monthly/yearly page view dumps
Hello CBM, Sorry for not letting hear from me earlier, and that it took me so long to finally publish the requested monthly/yearly logs. It's just that it has been relatively time and resource intense (for my PC ;-); but now it's done :-) Some (daily/~monthly) logs have been available earlier (you may have noticed it?), but I had to move all public logs to external services (after having aggregated data for 150 days (5 months) now). I hope with up to 150 days of counted page views you will have a pretty good basis for your WP 0.7/1.0 analyses now.


 * Dump download overview: http://wikistics.falsikon.de/dumps.htm

Consider subscribing to the RSS feed (e-mail) for keeping track. --- Best regards, Melancholie (talk) 23:45, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Python and atan2
I ran python's atan2 function:

>>> math.degrees(math.atan2(0,1))

0.0

>>> math.degrees(math.atan2(1,0))

90.0

>>> math.degrees(math.atan2(0,-1))

180.0

>>> math.degrees(math.atan2(-1,0))

-90.0

Which doesn't appear to match up with your graph. However... it could be that the behavior of atan2 depends on the language. Not certain.


 * The issue is that atan2 takes arguments in the order y,x. So to compute the atan2 of the point x=1, y=0 you compute atan2(0,1). I believe every language follows this pattern. See the python docs. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 01:35, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Template stuff
Carl, can you take a minute to look at this? Check out CAT:CONTENT, and you'll see it claims that WP:NFC is a content policy, but check out WP:NFC and you'll see it ain't so. The problem is almost certainly being caused by the transclusion of WP:NFCC. Notice that I've put a noinclude beginning and end tag around ; that could easily be causing the problem, but if I don't do it, then the policy template is transcluded, and that puts the WP:NFC page in the "Wikipedia policy" cat, which is no good. Perhaps I could subst the policy template and remove the offending cat from that location, but people will probably find that confusing; they're expecting the usual policy template at the top of a policy page. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 02:59, 15 November 2008 (UTC)


 * The noinclude is the right thing to do. For some reason it was necessary to do a null edit on WP:NFC to fix its categorizations. When you view a page, the categories displayed may not match the actual categories that the database thinks the page is in. When the page is edited (even a null edit) the database is updated and the categorization will be fixed. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 03:07, 15 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks!! - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 03:34, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Re:Tagging math pages
Hello. Thank you for telling me about doing that. I must have done it a while ago because I can't find those math pages in my contributions. Can you please show me where those pages are? I would be happy to fix those pages once I know where to find them. <font color="orange" face="comic sans ms">Captain <font color="red" face="Papyrus">panda  23:52, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Bot doesn't show articles with slashes correctly
On User:VeblenBot/C/Wikipedia featured list candidates, "Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year" is appearing as "Bookseller" because of the slash. A minor bug. Gary King ( talk ) 17:11, 17 November 2008 (UTC)


 * This should be fixed now. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 23:26, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

3RR bot code
I'm interested to read the code for the 3RR bot to see what heuristic it's using, if you don't mind sharing it. You didn't create a talk page for the bot, by the way. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 21:55, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I can probably get you the source code this weekend. I don't want to hand it out right now as the framework I setup for the config files is not completed yet, and more importantly there is a bug in my rc parser which I want to clean up my ugly hack. ——  nix eagle 17:24, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
 * As far as the hueriestic, it is basically reading the RC feed with the following "filters" on it.


 * 1) Discard all non-mainspace edits/logentries.
 * 2) Discard all edits by bots/admins
 * 3) Place all edits onto the end of a 300 edit buffer. (Assuming buffer is full do next step).
 * 4) If buffer is full, take the item at the start of the buffer and check the rest of the buffer for an edit that is by the same user on the same article. If the user has another edit in the queue, discard the top edit and wait. (This prevents multiple pointless checks on users doing many edits in a short period of time... we only check when the editor has left the article alone for about 10 minutes).
 * 5) If the edit has not yet been discarded, do a mysql query that returns the revisions that the user has edited the page in the last 24 hours. If there are fewer then 4 revisions returned, discard the edit... there is no way the user can violate 3RR without doing at least 4 edits to a page in one day.
 * 6) Finally if all these prior steps don't cause an edit to be discarded we must check the diffs themselves, load each diff, strip information that will screw up the MD5 hash. (Timestamp, comments etc), and hash it. Compare the hashes.
 * There is a subcheck that is done, if the count of matching hashes is "1" (means no edits are the same change), and there is only 1 edit left to check, we simply say there is no 3RR violation.
 * ——  nix eagle 17:32, 17 November 2008 (UTC) I'll get you the code, but that is the algorithm in english.

Veblenbot
Carl, I am doing a lot of copyediting at FAC. I watchlist Veblenbot for new articles, but it would be really helpful if there were a quick way for me to be able to tell whether an article is related to math/sci/tech or not, without having to check every article that shows up (unless the article title makes it obvious). Can Veblenbot give me any help with this? - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 12:39, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
 * The best way would probably be to list the WikiProjects that each article belongs to, but that would probably also make the page messier than it needs to be. Gary King  ( talk ) 15:15, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
 * That's what I was thinking too; although it would be nice if everyone agreed how to classify articles, we don't, so there's probably no way around just listing the wikiprojects. I don't know if people want that information at WP:FACL, but if they don't and if there's a way to automatically represent that information on some other page, it would be a big help.  Even at WP:GAN, where you could argue that this is a non-issue because the articles are already arranged nicely, it would be nice to have some snappier way of being notified when the articles in categories I most care about show up. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 15:46, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately this can't be done with just the framework that is already in place. That framework basically just downloads a list of articles in the category and uploads it to the wiki wrapped into templates. So there's no place in the code to check for the wikiprojects. It would be possible to make a separate system to do this, but I'm too swamped right now to think about it. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 23:25, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

User:VeblenBot/C/Good article nominees awaiting review
Could the page please be listed in reverse chronological order just like the page for featured article and featured lists? And link the date to the article, since there is no nomination page to link to? Gary King ( talk ) 16:48, 19 November 2008 (UTC)


 * No problem. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 23:23, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Articles with an ampersand in their title don't seem to show up properly on the page. All text after the ampersand is removed. Gary King  ( talk ) 21:11, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * It looks like the issue is that these pages actually exist, made by DYKBot: Talk:Drum &, Talk:Tropical Storm Becky &. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 21:21, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah okay. I guess the bot needs fixing then. Gary King  ( talk ) 21:32, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Algebra stub template
Dear CBM,

I know this has gone long enough and has wasted a lot of time, but according to another administrator, Template:Algebra-stub should have no image. User:Trovatore disagrees and so do other users but User:MSGJ held a vote towards the bottom of the section on 'algebra stub template' and the vote is clearly (currently) for the Rubik's cube. Despite this, User:MSGJ removed the image entirely. I proposed an image of the circle (as a group) but there was no response (probably because no one wants to waste their time in this discussion). I don't dare to edit Template:Algebra-stub in the fear of being blocked by User:Moondyne (he threatened to block me three times so far). Could you please add the Rubik's cube (or whichever one you feel is the best/circle as a group image)? I don't think anyone will argue anymore regarding this and because you are an admin, User:Moondyne can't block you.

Topology Expert (talk) 08:10, 22 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm very reluctant to get involved there any more than I already was. My wiki time is already committed to other tasks, and so some things I have to just stay out of. If there isn't an image on the template, that's less than ideal, but not so bad that it has to be remedied right away. I'd say: wait a month, then come back to it. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 14:52, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

This user makes statements with the intent of preserving convention at the expense of truth.
This user has demonstrated a willingness to express disagreement with arguments he has yet to understand presumably with the reasoning that if it goes against convention it can not possibly be correct. (Bandwagon Fallacy) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.32.188.25 (talk)
 * This anonymous contributor is obviously referring to halting problem, where they are currently arguing for original research. --Hans Adler (talk) 15:40, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Giano discussion
Regarding your discussion with PhilKnight, I think you are missing the fact that Giano very obviously feels he is being harassed by a group of people who are more interested in process than in writing an encyclopedia. Such Michael Kohlhaas situations can only get worse if the "authorities" routinely follow their processes to the letter whenever it can be used for legal, though not necessarily just, actions against the griper, while still not even keeping up the illusion of due process in connection with the griper's concern. Michael Kohlhaas was a tragic character in the proper sense of the word in that he had no choice. Ultimately the question is: What's more important? Protecting en.wikipedia's incredibly lax checkuser privacy standards and DG's abused admin bit, or preventing that Giano is forced into the same mode of operation in which other former content contributors like Peter Damian already are? It's incomprehensible to me how you can use legalistic arguments to justify measures against a user who has just been told very clearly, though implicitly, that his privacy and freedom from harassment is an IAR matter because he can't keep his temper.

Another question is the authority of Arbcom. You are assuming that it still exists, and that it is absolute. Giving the general quality of their output recently I don't agree. There are serious problems, especially with FT2's contributions. --Hans Adler (talk) 15:35, 23 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm just leaving the computer. I'll send you an email later today or tonight with my thoughts. My overall impression is that then entire situation sucks and no one person is to blame. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 15:38, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I couldn't agree more. --Hans Adler (talk) 15:40, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
 * It seems that Michael Kohlhaas has started the siege of Wittenberg; it seems likely that it will lead to similar results.
 * Just in case it wasn't clear: I didn't want to criticise you. In fact I have a very high opinion of your judgement and your approach to wikipedia; sometimes I agree with you, but I am always able to accept your position as a reasonable one, which is more than I can say about quite a few other people. There isn't much that I can say in response to your mail that I haven't already said publicly. Just one thing: It seems clear to me by now that we cannot change Giano, at least not by blocking. I think there could actually be a general consensus on this statement if we leave the reasons open (it's impossible in principle, or it's impossible because of the support Giano is getting). What follows for me is that we have the choice between trying other approaches, doing nothing, and banning Giano. In a situation where there is no consensus to ban Giano, I see "civility paroles" and blocks based on harmless jokes as nothing but overt mobbing. It is disturbing that ArbCom is engaging in this unethical behaviour. If the jury can't make up their collective mind whether to execute the delinquent or not, the pillory is in no way an acceptable alternative. And it has severe consequences for the community norms. --Hans Adler (talk) 11:12, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I do think that part of the current problem stems from the inability of arbcom to come to a (near) unanimous opinion about how to proceed. They're the group specifically charged with taking care of these sorts of situations, and in this case they've floundered somewhat. However, they don't have decades of experience to rely on, and so we can expect some mistakes and growing pains. And it seems to be very difficult to switch from a mindset of dispute resolution to a mindset of just dispute mitigation.


 * There have been signs for some time that arbcom will not pass civility sanctions in the future like the one the passed in the Giano/IRC case. And it looks like arbcom is about to pass a resolution that will stop individual admins from using the arbcom sanction. That should reduce the size of the mob, at least. This statement looks promising: &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 14:05, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree that's a good sign. --Hans Adler (talk) 16:56, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

online book about logic by Schwichtenberg
I just came across this and am going to try to read it. I linked it to the main mathematical logic article too. It looks very good. I mention it here because it touches a lot of topics that you edit. 67.122.210.149 (talk) 13:09, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

abiding by regulations
Hi, Nice to hear from you Carl. You may note that Houston's book is scheduled to be released on 31 december '08. Did I understand the discussion correctly that on 30 december '08 Houston is ineligible to have a page according to wikipedia policies, but on 31 december '08 he becomes eligible? If there is such a policy or regulation, we should certainly abide by it, see my recent edits at Yawning Heights. Katzmik (talk) 09:27, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, I seem to have killed off the conversation
I agreed with you at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style, and I agree with your note on my talk page, but now the conversation seems to have stopped. Ideas for where to go next? - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 16:50, 1 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't know about the scaling factor / fixed size. But I asked on the wikimedia-tech channel if it would be possible to change the default size to 240px, and it seems like it is. It would be necessary to have a clear sign of consensus on the wiki before the change would be made. Maybe a poll is in order? I'm afraid I'm too busy during the next couple weeks to coordinate anything. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 19:16, 1 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks Carl, I'll ask around. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 19:52, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

User:VeblenBot/C/GAR
Why isn't the current version of User:VeblenBot/C/GAR showing at WP:GAR?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 14:18, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what problem you are seeing. When I compare them, the table of contents on GAR matches VeblenBot's list. Try forcibly reloading the GAR page. If that doesn't work, let me know which article on VeblenBot's list is not showing up on GAR. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 14:25, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Vassyana and WP:NOR
It seems you were active on WP:NOR at the time when SlimVirgin and Vassayana had what appears to be an interminable argument: almost 500 posts from Vassyana according to SlimV, which seems confirmed by, but SlimV also has a comparable number of edits there, and Kenosis has more. SlimV brought up Vassyana's insistence as argument against him in the election. No way I'm going to read that many diffs, so I'm asking you as a trusted third-party for a summary of what this was all about. Thanks, Pcap ping  03:04, 4 December 2008 (UTC)


 * The overall discussion, which went on for a very long time and never really was resolved, was about the relative roles of primary and secondary sources on Wikipedia. An underlying issue is that there is more than one definition of "primary source" and so different editors may enter the discussion with different ideas about which sources are primary and which are secondary. The discussion involved quite a few editors, many more than just SlimVirgin, Vassyana, and me.  It went on for months.


 * The discussion was often about the correct usage of primary sources, their potential for misuse, and similar questions for secondary sources. I was concerned that the language might be changed in a way that would make it harder to correctly use peer-reviewed research papers as sources in scientific articles. Other people were concerned with other potential problems for other sorts of articles.


 * I don't believe that Vassyana ever claimed secondary sources are "more" likely to be biased, only that they "can" be biased. At least this is what the diffs I have seen show.


 * I looked up current edit counts on toolserver, and found these total edit counts:


 * Vassyana did comment at the time on the perceived frequency of his posts . The full context of that thread is at . I had the impression that Vassyana was participating in the conversation there in very good faith. I thought he was hoping to improve the language of the policy page and trying to help resolve the disputes that had arisen about the primary/secondary source issue. By the end of the very long discussion, everyone's nerves had frayed somewhat.


 * I hope this actually addresses your question. If there's a more specific question I can address, let me know and I'll do my best. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 04:33, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for all the details. From the few diffs I had sampled I reached the same conclusions as you did. Pcap ping  12:22, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

User:Topology Expert
Hi. TE has got himself blocked, requests a "math admin" ... Martin 18:58, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

VeblenBot
Hi Carl, thanks for the comment on my talk page. I wonder if you could update VeblenBot to use the categories Category:Unassessed mathematics articles and Category:Unknown-Priority mathematics articles rather than, respectively, Category:Unassessed quality mathematics articles and Category:Unassessed importance mathematics articles which are now empty. Thanks.

By the way I didn't realise until recently that you operate the WP 1.0 bot as well. I recently made a template (currently in my sandbox) for WikiProject Articles for creation to track the number of articles in each class. This could easily be adapted for any project. Do you think there could be a use for it? Martin 08:58, 6 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Can't we use Category:Unassessed-Priority mathematics articles rather than "Unknown"? It's very hard to keep everything straight when "Unassessed" is used for some categories and "Unknown" is used for others. I can change the category for unassessed quality articles without too much trouble.


 * The template you made looks nice. The thing the bot does that can't be done on-wiki is to keep track of assessment changes and to keep a log of assessments. I don't really have much to do with the on-wiki aspects of the assessment program except for the mathematics project. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:40, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Of course we could use "unassessed" rather than "unknown" if you think it's better. It was just in the interests of standardising again. If you look at Category:Unknown-importance articles you'll see that the vast majority of projects use "unknown" for importance. There are a few "unassessed-importance" and "no-importance" is another non-standard one. I guess the 1.0 bot recognises all of these, does it? Martin 13:49, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The non-orthogonal category names are mainly tough on human editors like me. The WP 1.0 bot handles every existing convention, but VeblenBot has a different code base that is made specifically for the math project, so the categories there are hard coded. My goal is that the next version of the WP 1.0 bot will include all the functionality that VeblenBot has, and then VeblenBot can stop duplicating effort. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 14:01, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I've replied to a comment of yours
Hi Carl, I've replied to a comment of yours here. Regards, Paul August &#9742; 15:49, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

And again here. Paul August &#9742; 18:19, 6 December 2008 (UTC)