User talk:Charles Matthews/Archive 7

Arbcom elections.
Hello Charles Matthews. I've been looking over the candidates for Arbitration Committee Elections December 2004 to see whom I want to support. You certainly seem like a valuable contributor, but I can't decide whether you would make a good arbitor or not. Could you point me examples of when you have dealt with conflict on Wikipedia, either involving yourself or as a third party? Thanks,   – Quadell (talk) (help)   04:24, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)

If you go back on User talk:Lumidek to the 21 Jun 2004 edit, you can see a couple of situations in which I intervened to calm things down. That was User:Toby Bartels importing a UseNet flame war about physics here; and on a separate topic User:William M. Connolley clashing with User:Lumidek = Lubos Motl on global warming. Without going into details, I think I did a reasonable job; and all three are still valuable Wikipedians. I followed up the first of those with many edits to objections to the theory of loop quantum gravity (see its talk page, also), to try to keep the POV down; that is ongoing.

I can think of other cases. Just in the last couple of days I was involved in the apple pie spat

Charles Matthews 08:05, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Manifolds
On the manifold article: i disagree. I'll be terse here with all due respect. If one wants peer review stuff and the whole bag of academia, one can go edit professional math publications or professional encyclopedias. The world are not lacking those.

the whole spirit and essential advantage is haphazad increment improvement, by any joe. It is what made wikipedia a success. In many aspects, far beyond the scope and quickness and view points than professional publications.

Now, on the note abou manifold i wrote. That style, and content, is the _gist_ of _mathematics_. Math is not a collection of jarganization or latest technicalities. That is the second rate math. Manifold, in mathematics, is a smooth shaped space in arbitrary dimensions. That IS manifold. Xah Lee 10:19, 2004 Nov 22 (UTC)


 * Well, you are in disagreement there with Tosha, who is a first-rate mathematician. I agree that wiki is good because it is responsive. It is not a technicality that the intrinsic definition of manifold is used, rather than the extrinsic approach which you are talking about. Space-time in relativity is not in anything else; there is nothing for it to be in. So the point of view you are proposing is out of date by about 140 years. Perhaps it should be added to the article somewhere; but you can't get it accepted unless you write carefully, discuss on the talk page, and try to understand what the experts are actually saying. Charles Matthews 09:26, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * hi Charles, Tosha may be the top expert on a particular field, however, one often is utterly ignorant about anything else in today's society. e.g. does a mathematician know ANYTHING about the effect of technology in modern sociology? modern history of communication? relational human psychology? a historic examination of education and technology? and so on. Probably zilch, and as well for one million other things. And when i say zilch, it is measured as he considers what other knows of his own field.


 * on that manifold page fight, the issue is really not about math content, in which i have little expertise about manifold. It is about rather: math exposition, and throwing away academean math exposition.


 * the blurp i wrote isn't a tech description of manifold. That follows. It is an explanation of manifold to 99.99999% of intelligent, inquisitive, encyclopedia reading readers, including professionals and science students in diverse fields. Without that, arguable even the 0.0000001% of educated who has as far as 2 years of calculus, will get away with 0 understand of what manifold is in math.


 * I'm well aware of the intrinsic/extrisic aspects. I wasn't delineating either. The blurp may be flowed, but isn't intentional. In few words all things considered, a manifold is a smooth shaped space of arbitrary dimensions. Top mathematicians cannot deny that. I hope they stop obfuscation. Knowledge accumulates exponentially. Nobody understand anything today. Education and dissemination of knowledge cannot tolerate jargonization. Xah Lee 10:19, 2004 Nov 22 (UTC)

I think you'll get precisely nowhere arguing like this. It has been suggested that you add something to the page on dimension. Why don't you engage a bit more with the others writing these pages? If you want to talk about the exposition of mathematics, we are all interested in that. We are all on the same side. Charles Matthews 10:23, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics
Doesn't the new sectioning you put in for the article cause there to be essentially no introduction which should be able to stand on its own?CSTAR 13:50, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've added a little. It seemed, anyway, that the history was misplaced in the introduction. Charles Matthews 13:56, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Torsion subgroups
Is an n-torsion subgroup a subgroup in which every element has order which divides n? You mention 2-torsion subgroups in Multiplicative group of integers modulo n but the linked article doesn't say what they are.


 * Here the 2-torsion subgroup is the 2-Sylow subgroup, ie elements with order a power of 2. Saying that for abelian group is a bit pompous. Probably it all needs saying more carefully - I was in a rush then. Charles Matthews 17:39, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

LQG
Sorry about that "sillyness" comment. I was just concerned about attributing the statement about LQG and QG to Baez alone. After all, that someone who has contributed to a theory thinks it is a serious theory is no surprise, but if it is the only person quoted it looks like LGQ is just his pet theory.

By the way, I'm moving to London by the end of January... maybe we'll get to meet over a GoBan? &mdash; Miguel 17:44, 2004 Nov 22 (UTC)


 * I'm in Cambridge. Go in Cambridge versus Go in London - well, it's a bit like Lubos and Baez; I know Go in Cambridge is better. Charles Matthews 17:46, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Oh, c'mon, I'm coming from California. A 2-hour commute to play a 60 minute go game is nothing! ;-) &mdash; Miguel 18:19, 2004 Nov 22 (UTC)

Question about the format change to "Relational Operators" article
Hi. I saw your change to the Relational operators article. Was there a violation of Wikipedia style in my version? I'm new to WP, but I was using the ':' prefix on those lines because they were code samples. Just curious. &mdash; franl ([[User_talk:Franl|talk)]] 21:34, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

No, not a problem. Normally we indent displayed formulae like this


 * &pi; = &radic;10.

Just makes them easier to read, and it's the basic 'house style' for mathematics.

Charles Matthews 21:52, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

OK. That makes sense for mathematics, but How to edit a page implies that program source code should look like this:

(= X Y)

and my examples were intended to be source code. Would you mind if I changed them back? Alternatively, I could make them indented, fixed pitch (which seems better suited for source code than variable pitch), but lacking a frame, like this:


 * X = Y
 * (= X Y)

What do you think? &mdash; franl ([[User_talk:Franl|talk)]] 00:26, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Well, I did indent them for you - see page. Charles Matthews 09:14, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Article Licensing
Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 1000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:
 * Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
 * Multi-Licensing Guide
 * Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the " " template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:


 * Option 1
 * I agree to multi-license all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

OR
 * Option 2
 * I agree to multi-license all my contributions to any U.S. state, county, or city article as described below:

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace " " with "  ". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. – Ram-Man (comment) (talk)  23:45, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

I'm going to have to think about this. Charles Matthews 15:38, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Take as much as you need. I'm in no hurry and being obviously biased, I don't want to force anyone to do what they may not want to do! -- Ram-Man

Level Set method
Dear Charles, thank you for your changes on the level set method page. Some of the things you fixed I had noticed myself and planned on doing it these days, and I was unaware of other things, like for example the existance of the Hamilton-Jacobi equation page (I searched for it, but did not type the right thing I guess). --Oleg Wed Nov 24 15:47:23 PST 2004

Linear Systems
In regards to your comments:

Your redirect of linear system was very clumsy, and I have reverted it. Contrary to what you wrote in the edit summary, there was plenty included in that page which is not included in system of linear equations.

If that is the way you feel you should merge the topics (Duplicate articles). A linear system is a system of linear equations, should you still care to debate this you are welcome. Nvrmnd 18:26, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * No, they are not the same topic. I notice you are a student of computer science. I have a mathematics Ph.D. from 25 years ago. Perhaps you might just accept what I say about that. Charles Matthews 21:29, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I see, I figured that they are the same...

"A System of linear equations (or a linear system) is a collection of one or more linear equations involving the same variable" 'Linear Algebra, and Its Applications' David C. Lay (2003)

are you saying this quote is an overgeneralization or simply incorrect? Nvrmnd 18:26, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Could you sign your comments? No, a system of differential equations may well be a linear system, and not be a system of linear equations. Your linear algebra book is not a adequate place to look for this. Charles Matthews 06:12, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ok, I see how a DE is not a LE. Nvrmnd 18:26, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hausdorff Dimension
I added some more in the talk page. The way the article name currently stands is definitely misleading. For now I want to avoid a revert war, but this means Wikipedia is taking an unusual position in regard to a naming convention.CSTAR 21:18, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Peter Gennaro
Thanks for correcting the capitalization typo. I had written to an administrator asking how to fix it, but you got to it before he responded. TOM 15:31, Nov 28, 2004 (UTC)

Anyone can use Move Page. Charles Matthews 16:01, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Page protection (LQG stuff)
Page protection is exactly what I would want because the current events have shown absolutely clearly that the more open these pages will be, the more they will be vandalized because LQG is a *terribly* controversial topic.

You know, this guy Tweet Tweet has very bad physics education. His comments are incredibly dumb, and he was only able to respond about a couple of points.


 * I don't see what you mean by my comments are incredibly dumb. Also, I didn't respond to every single point because I don't know everything about LQG and also because I didn't have too much time yesterday. Tweet Tweet 00:37, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

For instance, he says that it's OK to study the electroweak theory at the electroweak scale as small corrrections added to the Fermi theory. This is just a total stupidity that shows that he could not have passed basic courses about the Standard Model. There is completely new physics - W bosons, Z bosons - at the electroweak scale that must be considered, and then it's not just a "correction" added to the four-fermion interaction.


 * That's not what I said. Tweet Tweet 00:37, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Similarly, he or she has extremely stupid comments about "consistency" - that one does not have to require "physical consistency", just "mathematical consistency". There is just one consistency in theoretical physics. A theory is either consistent, or not. Of course that a physical theory must be "physically" consistent in order to be a meaningful topic for physicists.


 * Most models of LQG have been shown to be explicitly consistent mathematically. Whether or not the models correspond to reality phenemologically is still an open question though.

I could continue. It's just bad if morons like that keep on vandalizing pages.


 * I don't see my replies to your objections as vandalism but as a counterpoint to your objections. Tweet Tweet 00:37, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

All the best Lubos, --Lumidek 14:41, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree that the User:Tweet Tweet edits were bad. I'm not objecting to your revert of them. I hope to localise the discussion points to issues that can either be decided, or made into secondary discussions. I am hoping to continue to improve these pages, from the point of view of the encyclopedia. It seems that if we can get LQG = 16K and 'criticisms' = 16 K one day, then the pages can be reunited. But I believe this will be a slow process; at present the arguments are worded in a lengthy way. Charles Matthews 16:23, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Hi Charles, thanks for your comment - and I might try to be silent about these LQG pages for a couple of days. Concerning John Baez, are you aware that Miguel who wrote most of the WP LQG page is John Baez's student? Incidentally, I hope that you will be confidential - it seems promising that after so many hours, the problems with loop quantum gravity page, one linked from the LQG page, has not been edited yet. ;-) --Lumidek 22:31, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Can I make it clear that I am not interested in the personal basis of what goes on, on these pages? There seemed to be a chance that the coverage on LQG was moving towards a state where people were more happy with it. At present everyone seems to have concerns. I like to see careful editing. I do not like to see edits just to make some point in arguments that have no permanent place here. Charles Matthews 06:15, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

F. Smar.
O.K. maybe I've gone overboard on my edits trying to debunk this guy. I came across this page last week and it piqued my interest. Maybe what I've added is actaully an excellent argument to delete the page. I mentioned the possibility of VfD to Wile E. Heresiarch recently. Although I must admit, it's funny. Maybe it's a good lesson for those thinking about vanity pages. Although it may not always work. got his vanity page; although it's different I suppose. He's got his own private police force.CSTAR 19:55, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, I suppose he is just a prolific charlatan. WP can have one page about him, though. Charles Matthews 06:35, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The Cantos
Hi, just wondering how you feel about the way the article is going. It looks like it could get very long, although some of the volumes will need less text. Any thoughts on how best to proceed? Filiocht 13:12, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)

I would say, continue and put sections on separate pages where this seems worth it. Do you need a spoiler warning?

Charles Matthews 13:31, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Don't make jokes like that, they might happen. I have Modernist poetry in English on WP:FAC at the moment and I'm just waiting for someone to object because there is no 'Criticisms of modernism' section explaining how they destroyed poetry by not being able to write proper verses with rhymes and were all nasty people anyway. By the way, what is the story with the listing of American poetry on WP:FARC? Why is that user (can't remember the name) trying to impose their vocabulary on the rest of us?

I hope to re-read the rest of the first 16 cantos tonight and post more tomorrow. I guess we'll have images of Jefferson and Adams on the site already, and maybe Kung. Filiocht 13:39, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)


 * User:User:Jongarrettuk has some agenda about writing styles, based in working on cricket, it seems. Anti-intellectualism, if that's what it is here, is bothering mainly because it is misplaced in encyclopedia terms, I think. Plenty of it about, sporadically. I wrote myself something on the Derrida talk page, where I thought the phrasing was too high-flown for what was being said. Where it is cut-and-thrust with getting the exposition better I don't mind so much; nothing I seriously work on is ever likely to be finished in those terms, anyway. Charles Matthews 13:49, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I looked at a number of science FAs and found words I didn't know, but I learned something looking them up, which I found a positive experience. Anyway, I'll plod on adding notes on more cantos for now. It's great that this is making me reread the whole thing for the first time in years. I feel confident that this will end up being the longest wikipedia article on a single book before we're finished. Filiocht 16:14, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)

Just wondering if you are still happy enough with the way the page is shaping up, now that I'm nearing half-way? The next couple of sections will, I think, be relatively short (not a lot to say about all that Chinese history), but the Pisan section will be a big job. I intend to put a Legacy section at the end, and them maybe turn to the Ezra Pound article, if I live that long. Anyway, let me know what you think about it all, and thanks for catching all my errors so far. Filiocht 10:40, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)


 * I think you could make the Pisan Cantos a page of their own, with a summary on The Cantos. Anyway, go for it; there is plenty there for others to follow up and develop, even if they don't settle down in an armchair with the Faber book and read all 500 pages. Charles Matthews 10:51, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

POV
A relatively new user has added the POV banner to the logical argument article. I tried to respond to hher/his comments, but I noticed that that user has added the same banner to a large range of articles, including physical law and mathematical rigor. Now it's possible this user is trying to make a philosophical point: complete NPOV is not possible. What do you think? CSTAR 03:01, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

About Users Critical and CStar
For the record, the user Critical ( talk,  contributions), who slapped the "disputed NPoV" sticker on some pages, has made his or her first edits tonight (or today) and within less than two hours has attacked eight articles for PoV, including (ironically given the CStar example given on the Logical fallacy talk page), Physical law. These were the only "edits" (plus weak justifications on talk pages in the same vein as this one). I don't think the PoV claim has merit. We may ask if this series of attacks is to be taken seriously.

For the following reasons I am thinking that these pages has been the victim of a tiresome semi-sophisticated troll and the PoV sticker should be removed sooner rather than later, if not immediately. We may note that CStar ( talk,  contributions) after making edits, paused during the period user Critical made edits, and then CStar took up responding to these edits after the series of user Critical edits ends, as if there is only one user involved, and the user logged out, changed cookies and logged back in. Further, user CStar left a note on Charles Matthew's talk page,  Chalst's talk page, and   Angela's talk page pointing to a supposed PoV accusation placed on the Logical argument page, when in fact no such sticker has been placed. Perhaps the irony regarding the Physical law page is not so ironic. Hu 05:19, 2004 Dec 1 (UTC)


 * So Hu is in so many words accusing CSTAR of engaging in semi-sophisticated trolling through a sock-puppet account but stops the innuendo just short of actually making the accusation. Ho-hum. &mdash; Miguel 14:09, 2004 Dec 1 (UTC)


 * I responded to this on the logical fallacy talk page. You seem to be suggesting I put on the POV banner. What would be the point? Since I made many of the edits to that article, the point you seem to be sugegsting is that I was trying to argue that POV is not possible?  Look I'm trying to be reasonable here, and fair to people participating in WP. My point in bringing that up is that I made an effort in trying to understand the motive behind  Critical's actions.CSTAR 13:48, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * If User:CSTAR says that User:Critical is not a sock-puppet of his, that's good enough for me. Charles Matthews 15:05, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Thanks. For the record, User:Critical is not a Sock puppet of mine. I responded to user:Critical on the talk:logical fallacy page. The vandalism occurred on the logical fallacy page, not one the logical argument page.  That was my confusion, since I've worked on both pages and I see them as related. CSTAR 15:13, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * I was mystified by the targeted nature of the edits, the timing of the edits, the apparent irony, and the misdirection in the response. If CStar disclaims responsibility, then that is fine with me, pending further information or developments. Hu 19:50, 2004 Dec 1 (UTC)

Point of information
I have added the following paragraph ain the to the above referenced pages:


 * I have responded to this on the logical fallacy talk page, as well as on the pages of the above mentioned users. It does appear that these pages were as Hu suggests the victim of a tiresome semi-sophisticated troll.  But I wasn't the perpetrator.  This suggestion appears to have been an honest mistake, I consider the matter closed, and it appears that Hu does as well.  CSTAR 01:48, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

A Message to my Fellow Candidate
Friend, The Arbitration Committee elections are almost here. I humbly ask for your vote in this election cycle. I have been a user of Wikipedia for over a year. I was here before the Community Portal, categories, or . I know how Wikipedia operates, and I am prepared to do my part to deal with problematic accounts. I wish to cut out the bureaucracy that makes our website stagnate. We need solutions to our problems now. If you want an arbitrator who believes in action, frankness, honesty, and fairness in every case, I am your arbitrator. Thank you for your time. You are under no obligation to answer this message.
 * --Paid for by Mero. for ArbCom

Well, I can find reasons not to - sorry. Charles Matthews 17:41, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Complete algebraic variety
Not that it's very important, but I'm curious why you moved complete variety to complete algebraic variety. Is there some naming convention for things like this? (Along the same lines, I was thinking about moving Kac-Moody algebra to Kac-Moody Lie algebra.) -- Walt Pohl 03:01, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Some page had the phrase 'complete algebraic variety' on it, and I wanted an link. Looking at the complete variety page itself, I noticed that the introductory definition said 'complete algebraic variety' also. So I reckoned that on balance this was a clarification. Charles Matthews 07:01, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Principle components
Ahh! Terrific, I was wondering why there was noting about principle components. Sean3000 14:52, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hate Groups and NRMs
Care to comment on the dispute about Hate_group?. That section is now in RfC. Thanks. --Zappaz 01:19, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Vote
I hope that I don't have to keep in secret that you've got my vote. ;-) And all other positively oriented people who see this talk page should vote too! See the Community Portal on the left. --Lumidek 02:10, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your confidence in me. Charles Matthews 05:15, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Ah yes. Support that. Glad you're running.CSTAR 18:32, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Ah, you have one of my two votes, I've no doubt you would be a great arbitration comnittee member. My reservation is that I hope the high-level wikipolitics doesn't get in the way of the mathematics editing...  Charles Stewart 20:06, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * You also got one of my two; poetry, maths and ruling the world all lie ahead. Filiocht 08:35, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)