User talk:David Eppstein/2015c

DYK for Lixia Zhang
Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:06, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

DYK for Martha E. Sloan
Materialscientist (talk) 01:12, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

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Edit on Pappus Chain
Actually, I saw this thing on Wolfram Alpha and so changed it. Also if we see carefully then the radius of n' th circle according to this formula depende merely on the ratio of AC/AB.I derived it using Circle Inversion and got an additional term of AB.So the given formula for radius of n'th circle has to be multiplied by AB to get the exact radius.Sachinsahoo11 (talk) 06:06, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
 * But why do you think the formula should be expressed using an equivalence sign (triple bar) rather than an equal sign? —David Eppstein (talk) 07:39, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Actually ,I am also not too clear about that, but I saw it on Wolfram Alpha and thought that it must be having some relevance in making the formula correct. As, if there is an equal sign then the formula surely needs to be modified and AB needs to be multiplied in radius of n'th circle to make it correct. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sachinsahoo11 (talk • contribs) 21:49, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
 * There does need to be some assumption about scale (probably that the base of the arbelos is a unit-length line segment) to make those formulas correct. But using a congruence sign instead of an equals sign is unrelated to that. And if you are not too clear about a mathematical concept, you probably should find a different article to edit, since clarity is very important in this area. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:57, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Peter H Millard
As you seem to be familiar with academic notability, maybe you can help me with this article; with the one source dead but recoverable at archive.org, I found some sources here, here, here (brief mention from a list) and here (several links). Can the article be improved with these sources? Aside from this, I found nothing else. I know you're also interested with academics so maybe you can comment. SwisterTwister  talk  06:14, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
 * At first glance he looks above threshold for notability, with multiple 100+-citation papers, FRCP, and past presidency of the British Geriatrics Society. (I'm dubious that the related article Nosokinetics is notable, though.) I'll see what I can find in the way of better sourcing. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:33, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I never searched for Noskokinetics until this moment and there wasn't much here and here (best results I found, with nothing at News, thefreelibrary and Scholar). SwisterTwister   talk  06:47, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
 * none of that matters. Notability by WP:PROf is based on being an authority in one's subject, and for scientists this is usually shown by citations to published peer-reviewed articles. And the presidency of a major academic society is by itself a sufficient criterion. Remember, WP:PROF is explicitly an alternative to the GNG--if it is satisfied, it proves notability. Of course, it helps to add additional reliably sourced material when available.  DGG ( talk ) 07:05, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Maybe you can also help George Hillocks, Jr. which could use improvement; I tried searching and found the one best source I could find. Overall, my searches didn't find much aside from Highbeam, Thefreelibrary, Browser (various links) and Scholar. SwisterTwister   talk  05:24, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Sphere
David, I invite you to contribute to the discussion at Talk:Sphere. Thanks. Loraof (talk) 17:19, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Gregory John Boyle
Hi David, you and others argued for "Keep" at the recent AFD on Gregory John Boyle, based on availability of suitable sources. Would you please now identify some so that the article can be fixed? Thanks, LeadSongDog come howl!  17:06, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

finger blaster
i'm sorry but there has been no changing of IP address, my friend that went to the same school as me as a child simply told me that wikipedia was not allowing him to add finger blaster as a suitable name for this so called "cootie catcher", just because google shows something different when you type it in doesn't mean it's not a word in common usage. if this requirement is good enough for scrabble then it should be good enough for wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.197.121.77 (talk • contribs)
 * I am definitely interested in having this material added, if true. But what you need, in order to add this material to the paper fortune teller article, is a published source saying this name is in use. You see the footnotes after the other names at the start of the article, pointing to books that describe each name? If you can find a similar book (or magazine or newspaper article) source for the "finger blaster" name, then it can be added to the article. I tried searching myself but was unable to find anything relevant. It would also be helpful (but not as necessary) for the source to describe what people do with this shape when they call it this name, since I suspect from the name that it is different from the other uses of the shape. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:51, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Hello mr.Eppstein,it has come to my attention that the terminology that we (scottish people) commonly use when naming a 'paper fortune teller' is not recognised for whatever reason,this brings me much sadness as the 'finger blaster' carries with it alot of fond memories from our childhood and everyone here knows it as a 'finger blaster'rather than any of those american slang names which hold no meaning for us.I hope you understand our dismay and can include our scottish terminology thus helping bring our favourite childhood game and name forward into the present day and the future.many thanks.Ryan — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.40.249.85 (talk • contribs)
 * See above. It can be included, but only if you find proper sources documenting this usage. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:14, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Could You checked?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lester%27s_theorem#Generalisation

is it ok? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.6.86.31 (talk • contribs)
 * Your IP geolocates to Vietnam. Could you possibly check Hoàng Xuân Sính? Are the Vietnamese-language sources in that article summarized correctly? —David Eppstein (talk) 01:46, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Haha, Vietnamese is hard! By the way, there is another Vietnamese mathematician that has no article here (or even at the Vietnamese Wikipedia), but to which there are more sources in English: that is Lê Thị Thanh Nhàn. Yolaf.TZ (talk) 02:52, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
 * https://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giải_thưởng_Kovalevskaya :D :D :D Yolaf.TZ (talk) 02:54, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Re the Kovalevskaya prize: I think there's quite a bit about it in the Koblitz book that I cite for Hoáng's article. But maybe that's too primary. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:50, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Re Lê: notability is a bit more borderline in that case but I made an article anyway. I think with two major newspapers writing about her it should be good enough. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:07, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Editing of the Wikipedia Page on Rainbow Coloring of Graphs
Hello Mr. Eppstein !

I request you not to delete the editing done on the Wikipedia page of Rainbow coloring as we are trying to improvise the article. And the proofs for the stated theorems would shortly follow in the page along with the illustrations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aparnna Vemuganti (talk • contribs)
 * Please don't. You are adding extremely uninteresting material to the article based on dubiously-published sources. At most the material you are adding warrants a single bullet entry in the "Exact rainbow or strong rainbow connection numbers". Your additions are far out of proportion to the importance of the material you are adding and violate WP:UNDUE, part of the core Wikipedia policies. In addition your use of two accounts to edit the article is a violation of Wikipedia's sockpuppet policies. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:08, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Anti-vandal bot reverting me
Hi, professor David Eppstein. Can you help me if a bot removes my edit again? I think that it's perfectly fine to add a link to that lecture to the external links section even if hosted on YouTube... Yet, I may be wrong... Best wishes! 189.6.201.152 (talk) 17:39, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, that link looks ok to me. You may need to create a login instead of editing logged-out to get it to stick. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:45, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Rendering math
Please stop adding this irrelevant info about the Android app. I cannot help it is the app is broken; it is not even a browser. I suspect the app doesn't handle other templates as well. That is not a problem of the math template. 18:31, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
 * It is one of the standard ways of viewing Wikipedia. I don't care that you can't fix it; it is a shortcoming of that markup/rendering method just like the Chrome non-support for MathML (which you also can't fix) is a shortcoming of the MathML rendering method. Please stop trying to whitewash the problems with your baby templates. They are useful, but we should disclose their actual problems rather than trying to pretend they're perfect. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:38, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
 * The app has a lot more problem that are not specific to the math template; it does not handle any font changes. Yet I see not other page on Wikipedia mentioning that. So why single out this particular template?  18:43, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Because if you're going to choose among math markup methods you should know what the consequences will be for a large subclass of viewers. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:45, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
 * PS I put in a bug report at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T106960 — no idea whether it will have any effect. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:45, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Please see
Dear Professor Dr. David Eppstein,

I am sorry, because in Viet Nam don't one know me, don't one help me anything for my work in geometry. I have never gotten any money from my work in Geometry. Could You give your remark for my contribution in Euclidean Gemetry. Pleasee: http://oaithanhdao.blogspot.com/2014/10/cac-ket-qua-cong-bo-tren-tap-chi-sua.html and link in my blog. That are main my results have published in for late 2014 early 2015

I am thank to You very much.

--117.6.86.37 (talk) 18:07, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Jorg Meyer


The article Jorg Meyer has been proposed for deletion&#32; because of the following concern:
 * non-notable person with no significant coverage, only one actual reliable independent source

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on |the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. torri2(talk/contribs) 20:26, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * Well that's kind of a passive-agressive way of expressing your disagreement. Anyway, the issue is stella octangula and your insistence that it is the correct article to introduce unsourced alternative names for the star of David. I disagree, both with the unsourced nature of your changes and in your placement of them in an article that is not actually about the star of David. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:41, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Maryam Mirzakhani
I apologize for using the wrong button. I deleted the file on Commons as a copyright violation (copied from the Guardian or from elsewhere) and removed it from the article, but I obviously should not have used rollback.--Ymblanter (talk) 06:22, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * No problem, I eventually figured it out. It's too bad that one was a copyvio; we could use a good image of her. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:23, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * The easiest would be if someone from Stanford would make a five-minute appointment with her and takes a picture. But I can not do it, I am not even in the US.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:09, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Rachel Binx
Thank you for the edit to the Binx article. I'm fairly new to editing Wikipedia. I agree that a degree alone doesn't make an individual a member of a particular profession. Is there a Wikipedia guideline for what does constitute inclusion in profession categories? I don't want to make a mistake in the future. Ckoerner (talk) 01:09, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think so — it's more a matter for individual judgement (and discussion, especially in borderline cases). —David Eppstein (talk) 01:15, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Why you want to delete my post
I am an electrical engineer. So I posted some my geometry results in wiki with reliable source. I think it is normal. But you always want to delete them. So you are selfish, sel-seeking. I despite you.

You see: I did not write my name in Napoleon theorem why you deleted my contribution at there?

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Napoleon%27s_theorem&type=revision&diff=673408162&oldid=673307074

Why I don't write results by another one? Because my english no good, and enWiki is full, so beyond possibility. I only write (contribution) my result with reliable soure. Why I can not?

Summary: I despite you.

My name: Đào Thanh Oai --14.170.95.14 (talk) 07:30, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Maybe because you spend too much effort here pushing your own name and not enough adding material about other geometry that is not by you? Or maybe because you have already been discovered to have been abusing multiple accounts to continue pushing your name after being asked not to? —David Eppstein (talk) 07:36, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Last time, I didn't how wiki, so I wrote my results in enwiki with reliable source. But my account was banrd forever. I think it is not right, I did not intentionally violate. So I create a new account.

My english is not good and enwiki is full, so I don't write another's result. But I think I am an Euclidean geometry's expert. My result appear in AMM, Forum Geometricorum, Crux, ETC, Mathematical Gazette, Global Journal of advanced research on classical and mordern geometries (now have mathScinet index), http://oaithanhdao.blogspot.com/2014/10/cac-ket-qua-cong-bo-tren-tap-chi-sua.html.

Now I know how wiki, so I create a new account to using, but Eightcirclestheorem was barned forever. I write my result in Napoleon theorem but no add my name. Why you delete it?

You can edit, rewrite it to valid, because it be using with reliable source

Please check, if you don't like my result in here you can remove or edit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simson_line#Generalizations

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droz-Farny_line_theorem

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lester%27s_theorem#Generalisation

If you know Vietnamese language please read my all want to write:

Thưa ngài Eppstein,

1-Trước đây tài khoản của tôi bị cấm do tôi không hiểu về cách hoạt động của wiki, tôi hoàn toàn không cố ý, tôi không biết, tôi phạm lỗi vì tôi không biết. Việc cấm tài khoản của tôi vĩnh viễn tôi cho rằng không hợp tình, hợp lý, tôi không phục điều đó.

2-Tôi không đóng góp được nhiều vì tiếng anh của tôi chưa được tốt, và bên enwiki thật sự là rất hoàn hảo, khó có thể bổ sung thêm đặc biệt với vốn tiếng Anh hạn chế. Trong khi tôi chỉ là nghiệp dư, tôi hiểu sâu về những kết quả của tôi trong hình học. Tất cả các tạp chí AMM, Forum Geometricorum, Crux, ETC, Mathematical Gazette, Global Journal of advanced research on classical and mordern geometries (now have mathScinet index), http://oaithanhdao.blogspot.com/2014/10/cac-ket-qua-cong-bo-tren-tap-chi-sua.html. Hầu hết các bài báo của tôi trên tạp chí do các ông Paul Yiu, ông Kimberling, và nhiều người khác....giúp đỡ tôi viết lại.

3-Tại sao tôi phải sử dụng tài khoản khác (new account?)?? Bởi vì tài khoản Eightcirclestheorem của tôi bị cấm vĩnh viễn (tôi đã cố gắng lấy lại tài khoản đó nhưng không được!!), tôi muốn làm lại một tài khoản mới, để tham gia từ đầu, tôi đã cố gắng viết không đưa tên tôi vào (no add my name), nhưng vẫn phải đảm bảo trích dẫn (citation with my name in reference) theo đúng quy định, nó đặt ở mục tham khảo.

4-Nếu như nó chưa hợp lý ở chỗ trích dẫn bạn có thể viết lại cho phù hợp sao bạn lại xóa nó?

Đào Thanh Oai --117.6.86.31 (talk) 01:57, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Your reversal of changes to Friends of Science Society page -pls explain yourself and who you are
Hello David, I would like to ask why you have twice undone the changes made to the Friends of Science Society's wikipage. The page is inaccurate and outdated. None of it was written by any person known to Friends of Science Society. Thank you, Michelle Stirling Communications Manager Friends of Science Society FriendofScientificMethod (talk) 19:39, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Please see Wikipedia's guideline on conflict of interests and policy on promotional usernames, both of which you appear to be in violation of. Also see the guideline on fringe theories, which makes very clear that articles on people or groups who promote non-mainstream scientific beliefs must be written from the mainstream point of view, not from the point of view of those people or groups. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:11, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi David, Thank you - I was unaware of these policies. I will propose to the larger user group changes relevant changes to the page and will modify my user name. Friends of Science Society is performing an important task in that scientific inquiry is based upon 'hard-nosed skepticism' and you can read this in the NAS and AAAS codes of Conduct (I will post links for your review later today - just off to a meeting) The recent work of Friends of Science is not represented at all on this page, nor is the fact that one of Friends of Science original supporters and members, Dr. Jim Buckee, is an Oxford-educated astrophysicist and presently has supported the most important radioastronomy project in the world ICAR at the UAW, Australia. In other words, our roots were and are in legitimate, high quality, scientific inquiry, but the present page does not reflect that in anyway. Must dash - I apologize if I sounded so blunt. I'm a babe in the woods here. And though I am the Communications Manager for Friends of Science Society, this is a part-time position on specific projects - what I'm doing on the weekend I don't get paid for (I appreciate this still appears as a COI - just sayin'...) Cheers! Michelle FriendofScientificMethod (talk) 21:06, 1 August 2015 (UTC)


 * , I am a little concerned about your statement "I will propose to the larger user group changes relevant changes to the page". I think it might be important for you realize that Wikipedia articles are not the "property" of the article subject (in this case, FoSM).  Indeed, Wikipedia policy regarding conflict of interest reads, "Conflict of interest is not about actual bias. It is about a person's roles and relationships, and the tendency to bias that we assume exists when roles conflict...COI editing is strongly discouraged."  Further, Wikipedia articles are encyclopedic and not for promoting group-think, the agenda of a group such as yours, or for being an online "resume".  Additionally, it's important to know that when one registers an account with Wikipedia, we hope you will stay and edit more than one article, more than one topic of interest.  Contribute to the overall project.  Otherwise, it could be perceived that account-creation is with the intent of what we refer to as a single purpose account.  Such editing can lead to a block, where editing will no longer be possible as the account has been "locked".  Of course, we want to assume good faith, and welcome unbiased editing and contributions.  It would probably be wise for you to look further into our policies and guidelines before editing or attempting to edit further.  Here are a couple of links to start with: WP:GUIDELINES; List of policies.  -- WV ● ✉ ✓  21:25, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the tips. I understand that wiki pages are no one's property. I understand NOW that as an individual with a real or perceived COI the most useful thing I can do is to offer recommendations for revisions to the larger group, and my reasons for them. The vrous non-conflicted (we hope) editors will decide. People should be aware that individuals who are not openly associated with a group may also have an unspoken agenda. This is how I see much of the material on the Friends of Science Society webpage. I don't find it objective or responsive to the many valuable initiatives Friends of Science has undertaken over the past few years; this is why I attempted to edit the page. These are areas I would offer to the online editorial group.

As for editing other items on line, I am up for that. I comment on various evidence based areas ;I comment on historical topics, areas of my interest include homelessness, food-to-fuel ethanol policies, public health, career development, Stirling engines...the fact that you mention groupthink is amusing as I usually challenge the groupthink in 'anything' - because I ask people to look at the evidence.

However, I do appreciate the several links and suggestions you have provided. Let me check them out. M FriendofScientificMethod (talk) 04:19, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Hello David, Thanks for your direction. I have tried to comply and have posted some suggestions on the talk page of Friends of Science under a new conributor name, but also identifying my position with the group and COI. I hope I've done it the right way. Sorry I was taken aback at the reversal. Thanks again. I will be commenting as Mbark2 and am just using this ID to provide you with this heads up. Thanks. FriendofScientificMethod FriendofScientificMethod (talk) 16:18, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Anamorphic number
Sir, I do believe this is your area. I only believe in two numbers: me and number 2. Best, Drmies (talk) 00:20, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, I know enough about the area to recognize original research when I see it, at least. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:42, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Crystal ball
Thanks. I will seek to learn the procedures to edit properly, with the style and standards of Wikipedia. Good day. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GloryEvans (talk • contribs) 02:40, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks yourself, and welcome to Wikipedia. There can be a lot of those standards here to trip over, but I hope that doesn't prevent you from sticking around and continuing to contribute. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:25, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Reversions of quadruple and pseudo-tetrades
Hi David, I would first like to thank you for adding the references to the nibble article. However, you removed the term quadruple from the list of terms as well as the link to pseudo-tetrades, and I take issue with your reversion of my reintroduction of them to the article. Per WP:ROWN, reversions should be done only when it's unavoidable, and I think, there were several other options you could have chosen.

If you check the edit history you will find that several of these terms were added and redirects created by me some while ago. All of the terns were challenged for deletion by another editor, who, according to my general observation, appears to be obsessed with declaring any terms he isn't personally familiar with as NEOs, even when he obviously doesn't know much about a topic. Anyway, the outcome of the deletion discussions was Keep, see Redirects for discussion/Log/2015 April 30, and as you now added references supporting the terms, it should be obvious, that the information I added was correct. It seems, you didn't find sources for quadruple and in fact, it doesn't appear to be a common term any more. Nevertheless, I have seen this term being used in old books in the early 1980s (and I knew this term before I learned about the alternative term nibble). It is also mentioned as synonym to nibble in the German Wikipedia, therefore I am sure, that the term exists (otherwise I wouldn't have added it in the first place). Of course, I am aware of WP:BURDEN, but still we typically don't remove information of this kind unless we seriously doubt it to be correct or it causes harm. What we typically do is to add cn to make the community of readers aware of something that still needs a source, and this is also what I would have expected in this case. As this isn't made up, sooner or later, someone will run into a source using it. This is more efficient than me spending much time trying to locate those old books again.

Regarding the removal of pseudo-tetrades. We have a redirect tetrade (computing), so we have readers searching for information about tetrade coming to the nibble article. Since the terms tetrade and pseudo-tetrades are closely related, these readers might also look for information about pseudo-tetrades. While this is currently only a redirect to BCD (the German WP, f.e., has a full article on pseudo-tetrades), readers cannot know this in advance, so an explicit link to pseudo-tetrades is needed. This could be added in the text, but so far it isn't. Therefore it is okay to link to it in the See Also section, and there is nothing in WP:SEEALSO stating otherwise. In fact, it is quite common to link from one article to another through several redirects, if they either point to different aspects or sub-topics in the target article or use signficantly different terms pointing to the same information. The rationale is that the reader is searching for information with limited background information and vocabulary and cannot know in advance, how we have organized the information. It is our job to provide the necessary links to assist the reader in finding the information he's is looking for. Therefore, I think, the link should be restored. Thanks. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 03:43, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Re pseudo-tetrades: I have no problem with integrating a mention of them into the article text itself, but we shouldn't be adding see-also links to topics already linked within the main article text; see WP:SEEALSO for guidance on this.
 * As for "quadruple", I tried and failed to find a source that this word has been used to mean four bits (by itself, rather than as its usual meaning of "four things" where the context implies that the things are bits). I found sources that used the phrase "quadruple of bits" and I found sources that talked about numbers of bits in quadruple-precision floating point values, but not this supposed meaning. If you can find a source, please add it, but unless such a source can be found I am not going to be convinced that it really has this meaning. Your inference that I think the redirect outcome was correct and that I think the terms you added are valid is true but only when limited to the terms that have now been properly sourced.  Yes, tagging with cn is an alternative that can be used in some cases, particularly for valid information that one knows can be sourced, but in this case my failure to find sources led me to believe that "quadruple" is not a valid synonym and should not be included.
 * More generally, if you are in part responsible for the sad state of referencing in that article before I started working on it, let me admonish you: please add proper references when you add material to articles. You should not be editing based on personal knowledge of a subject without finding references to back that knowledge up. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:59, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Did you know...
that mathematician Nick Trefethen proposed a new formula for the body mass index?

Would this have a chance to appear on the main page?

GloryEvans (talk) 04:26, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
 * More rules. To get into the "Did you know..." section, one of the links in the fact you would like to include needs to be a new article, well referenced and over 1500 characters of article text, because the point of that section is to encourage people to write new articles. Or, the other way to do it is to improve an article to "good article" status. Since neither the Trefethen nor BMI article is new, a good article nomination (after improving one of the articles to meet the criteria) would be the way to go but that can be a slow process. (An article I nominated two months ago still has no reviews, and I think that's not unusual.) —David Eppstein (talk) 04:34, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. I will find some curiosity about something related to mathematics that doesn't have an article on Wikipedia yet. Mathematics should definitely appear more frequently there. GloryEvans (talk) 04:38, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Ok, I look forward to seeing it. When you do write a new article, the process for getting it into the "Did you know" section can be found at T:TDYK. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:42, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Distinguishing coloring
The edit I made on that page was about the missing(?) letter i, not adding a letter l. Or should there not have been a letter i in the word? If I misunderstood, you have my apologies. Crispulop (talk) 18:47, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Oops, sorry, I thought you were changing "labeling" to "labelling". Apparently I should be using my reading glasses more regularly. (Also one of my computers' keyboard has a sticky "i" key, causing the original problem that you fixed and I un-fixed.) —David Eppstein (talk) 18:54, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Incorrect information in Plimpton 322 article Wrong is wrong. You have the wrong table. The right table is in a source that is cited: Trigonommetric Delights. It is on page32. It has the six errors I'm talking about. Which is Plimpton 322's reason for being. If you need help getting the straight story out, I'm available. (336sunny (talk) 20:06, 10 August 2015 (UTC))

Two unrelated things
Thank you for creating the excellent section Dual_graph. This is just what I had hoped to see.

If you think it would help, I could upload the images http://www.weddslist.com/rmdb/images/C1/t1-3p.svg and http://www.weddslist.com/rmdb/images/C1/t1-3.svg to Commons for use in the section. It would probably be best if I first trimmed the graph-edges where they leave the hexagon.

Unrelated to the above: I have been working on Draft:110-vertex Iofinova-Ivanov graph, and would appreciate your comments before I move it into article space. The referencing is a bit thin, but there is an article fr:110-graphe de Iofinova-Ivanov, most of which I have used. Maproom (talk) 16:06, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Would it be possible to overlay the two images, in different colors, so that we see both the primal and dual graph in a single image? I think that might make it clearer.
 * Good idea! I'll have a shot at it.
 * There's a comma splice in your draft, in the "The smallest has 110 vertices" sentence. And "preserve the partitions" is unclear — I assume what is meant is that the automorphisms preserve the 2-coloring of the bipartite graph rather than flipping the colors (and act primitively on each color class). But it is strange to require this as an extra property, since for a semi-symmetric graph the automorphisms automatically preserve the 2-coloring in this way (otherwise they would be fully symmetric). But otherwise it looks pretty good. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:55, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your comments. It is the primitive action that is unique to the Iofinova-Ivanov graphs, if my understanding of the sources is correct. The Wolfram source says "Iofinova and Ivanov (1985) showed that there exist exactly five bipartite cubic semisymmetric graphs whose automorphism groups preserves the bipartite parts and acts primitively on each part." I'll do some more checking. I have deleted the bit about "preserve the partitions", which tells us nothing. Maproom (talk) 17:51, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Opinion
David, I am trying to coordinate WP:FAR - there is a maths article there—Equipartition theorem—that I was wondering whether you could look at and decide on its quality and whether there was work to be done (and if so how much) to keep it to FA criteria? cheers, Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:22, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately it's a bit outside of my expertise. I mean, I can point out obvious issues like paragraphs missing citations but I'm not going to spot subtle inaccuracies in the mathematics. Maybe someone at WT:WPM who knows more about statistical mechanics than I do might be interested? —David Eppstein (talk) 05:27, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Ok thanks. I guess part of me was thinking whether maths articles needed fewer references if they are filling paras with equations but will ask there. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:44, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The equations are factual claims and need references like everything else. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:51, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Ok, thanks/I feel smarter now :) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:58, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Sirimal Abeyratne
I'm curious about your comments, that you are "wary of systematic bias here", at the AfD debate for Sirimal Abeyratne. What exactly do you mean? Dan arndt (talk) 08:36, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * That from the US it's easy to find and evaluate US and western-European people, so that's who we tend to include in Wikipedia, and that people from other parts of the world have a higher barrier for inclusion. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:45, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Thank for your Kind Comment
Dr. Eppstein, you are playing in a rigged game, and just witnessed (and unwittingly participated in) a coup de tat for ignorance, one that is emblematic of why the number of contributing editors to wiki continues to decline: http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/520446/the-decline-of-wikipedia/

Some background is here: http://shake-speares-bible.com/2011/11/12/open-letter-to-wikipedias-sue-gardner-following-a-small-no-actually-tiny-donation/

Here is why your co-founder left: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Larry_Sanger

You will read about Mr. Reedy's antics in the news soon enough. Professor Waugaman may not pass notability in your narrow inquiry into the citations to his numerous articles in Psychiatry Psychoanalytical Inquiry, and many other highly regarded psychoanalytic journals. He is more notable for the reasons emphasized in my rewrite of the rather poor article that was originally nominated for deletion, prominently including for the very reason that Mr. Reedy hates him -- because he is the first trained psychoanalyst to ever throw down the gauntlet to a corrupt Shakespeare industry, he has co-written articles with a man that Wikipedia recognizes as "one of the pioneers of psychiatric medicine specialising in psychoanalytic treatments of schizophrenia," and his work provoked a violently newsworthy response from Gary Taylor in three major periodicals covering academic politics. I would add that he's about to become much more famous in the near future, partly as a result of the vote that just transpired (Reedy, not a psychoanalyst, will let you know that I, like Mr. Waugaman, am "delusional," which is I suppose why I was just promoted to Full Professor after previously having had my PhD dissertation written about in The New York Times and praised by a Supreme Court Justice. If you are Mr. Reedy, that's all "delusional." Hmm...).

Finally, you may wonder, with me, which of the two version of the article your vote was used to rationalize deleting. Reedy's version was a lot like Reedy, before he reverted it (when he reverted my rewrite, he made that version "his" even if others contributed to it before him). It was badly written, grossly incomplete, prejudicial, and ignored many of the key facts of Dr. Waugaman's biography that make him notable. My version corrected those defects before Mr. Reedy suborned Randy Kitty and Kraxler to complete his hatchet job. I propose that you and I discuss *my* version and how it can be improved. It will be restored soon enough. Thanks for not making yourself ridiculous by redacting my comments. Here's the link:https://word.office.live.com/wv/WordView.aspx?FBsrc=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fattachments%2Ffile_preview.php%3Fid%3D1596436277273399%26time%3D1439740858%26metadata&access_token=570495920%3AAVIyNBDNFhXxMC6yicAN882fFUUNFtw4JJmFbHyTEQ4gBA&title=wikiWaugamanmyversion.docx

Hopefully you can access the link. It worked fine for me. As you can see, I kept a copy of the work that went into this article before Dr. Waugaman was ritually erased by the very efficient team Wikipedia. Dr. Stritmatter --BenJonson (talk) 16:13, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * (In case anyone else reading this wonders what the context is: see Articles for deletion/Richard M. Waugaman where I !voted to delete and BenJohnson violated his topic ban on fringe Shakespeare authorshop issues to try to save the article. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:50, 16 August 2015 (UTC))

Draft:Manahel Thabet deleted?
Hi why you deleted this draft Draft:Manahel Thabet? subject is notable and there is enough news references available. Please explain.GionyHilke (talk) 04:14, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Did you not see the edit summary I included with my deletion? An article on this subject was already deleted and salted following a discussion at Articles for deletion/Manahel Thabet. Here "salted" means that it was protected against future re-creation, an unusual and extreme step for a deletion. Given the strength of the deletion opinions in that discussion, and the fact that the draft continued to repeat the same unlikely claims as the deleted article, it seemed extremely unlikely that this draft could be used as the basis for an article. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:18, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * But I can't understand why this page got deleted have you checked the references? there is number of news references available and my draft was not promotional aswell.GionyHilke (talk) 04:36, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The exact same thing was true of the version deleted after the discussion. The consensus of the deletion discussion, which you appear to have still not read, was that those sources were not believable, that they took at face value unlikely claims from the subject that they should instead have actually investigated, and that therefore they should not be considered to be reliable. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:39, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * OK last question: All news references are fake?103.255.4.25 (talk) 04:54, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * If you want to understand the sense of the previous discussion, you would do better to read it than to try to get me to read it to you. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:55, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Prepositions
David, with this edit you changed "in this torus" to "on the torus". I believe that this is mistaken and misleading. The graphs are not on the torus, like a painting on a canvas. The torus is a 2-space, and the graphs are in it. The same goes for the adjacent caption "on the projective plane", where the use of "on" is even more misleading: if you treat a projective plane as a canvas and draw stuff on it, you find that your drawing has the topology of the sphere. Maproom (talk) 09:36, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Google scholar has 71 hits for "embedding in the torus" and 91 for "embedding on the torus". I conclude that professional mathematicians don't in general find this distinction to be significant or important. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:00, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Professional mathematicians know what other professional mathematicians mean, even when they don't say it. But students aiming to learn from Wikipedia articles can be misled. Would you mind if I changed "on" to "in" in these two cases? Maproom (talk) 19:23, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I think WP:DGAF accurately describes my feelings on this issue. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:06, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Warning
Your recent editing history at List of female mathematicians shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war. To resolve the content dispute, please do not revert or change the edits of others when you get reverted. Instead of reverting, please use the article's talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. The best practice at this stage is to discuss, not edit-war. See BRD for how this is done. If discussions reach an impasse, you can then post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection.

Being involved in an edit war can result in your being blocked from editing&mdash;especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring&mdash;even if you don't violate the three-revert rule&mdash;should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly. Tony  (talk)  00:41, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Your tit-for-tat behavior amuses me. Just thought you'd want to know that. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:42, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Your arrogance actually disgusts me. Tony   (talk)  00:43, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Help me out here
David, I am trying to have a constructive dialog with Tony1, and this edit isn't likely to help, whatever the truth of the matter. I would be grateful if you were to revert it - give me a chance to make this work! RockMagnetist(talk) 05:30, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Ok, done. Sorry, I do know that it would probably be better just to back off, but it's difficult some times. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:40, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

DYK for Distinguishing coloring
Gatoclass (talk) 07:23, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

I Ging or Leibnitz or Mr. James A. Ryan
Already in the oldest available version from ([User ClueBot NG]) the referecne from Ryan just builds on Leibnitz or Bouvet concept of original chinese symbols. It is not realy clear if the Figure 1(the hexagram symbols table) in Ryans document was constructed by Leibnitz. Plate 1 in the same document does relay on 1-64 numbering. Now all this is under section China. It seems not apropriate to reference western misconcepts there. And probably Leibnitz saw that yin is not kun is not taiyin (talk). —Preceding undated comment added 06:07, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * (Again, for others or later after I've forgotten myself: this is the context. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:18, 20 August 2015 (UTC))

Why did you then undid if it seems insignificant to you? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brusinsky (talk • contribs) 19:41, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I think you're misinterpreting my above comment. I undid your edit for the reasons expressed in my edit summary. The comment I left above was not about whether this was significant, but rather whether other people who read my talk page (or me in a few years) will be able to figure out what you're talking about. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:34, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

What connection do you have with this paragraph seeking for its preservation? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 153.96.242.65 (talk) 08:23, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

And what ('different? from what in this China paragraph?') correspondence you actually mean that you mentioned in your edit summary? The one between Bouvet and Leibnitz?Brusinsky (talk) 16:43, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Care to weigh in?
There's a another deletion opened on the "Involuntary Celibacy" article, with the same editor trying to restore it as the one who tried to do so previously with the latest Deletion Review. I thought you might be interested in this because of your previous involvement in the subject. Mythic Writerlord (talk) 08:51, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

lists of mathematicians
I hope you're not taking this the wrong way. I looked at the edit history of the article and realize now that you added those people to the mathematician categories on purpose a few weeks ago. I'm grateful for all the work you've done there and it's an important article.

I don't think it helps to fill the list of female mathematicians with people who aren't mathematicians. I'm worried it might send specifically the wrong message if people open that up and find a lot of mathematics educators - it could inadvertently support the very stereotype that the article should challenge.

That's not why I removed the names though. I did that because they aren't mathematicians, and I thought there was a mistake wherein various people had added the categories and then names had been copied from the category page unthinkingly. --Sammy1339 (talk) 00:50, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Linking problem
I am trying to link to a sub topic .. "topic#sub heading".

The sub heading all have a space between the "=="s

I tried putting spaces in my links. Didn't work. Tried changing the first heading removing spaces. Didn't work.

Formal grammar doesn't go to the analytical heading.

It works from here. ?? So not sure what to do. Can't illustrate problwm Steamerandy (talk) 10:33, 23 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Got it to work by adding blank line in the topic after heading in my link. Am using Android app.

Steamerandy (talk) 10:50, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Edits on MDPI Page
Dear David,

This is Alistair from MDPI. I was made aware of the fact that the controversy with regards to MDPI’s inclusion on Jeffrey Beall’s list was picked up prominently on the Wikipedia page of the company.

As you may know, Jeffrey Beall is judge, jury and executioner when it comes to his list. I strongly believe that it is important for readers of the MDPI Wikipedia page to understand his view of open access in this context. I absolutely support freedom of speech and have no issue with Jeffrey Beall’s opposition of open access. It is healthy to have opposition, and Jeffrey Beall is taking on an important subject. However, the information in our lead on Wikipedia, I think, should be somewhat more neutral, while at the same time of course mentioning controversial issues. Do you believe that Jeffrey Beall’s list is free of bias and should be reflected 1:1 on Wikipedia? Did you compare MDPI to other publishers on the Beall’s list? I am quite confident that you will find inexplicable differences. As you may know, MDPI published close to 12’300 articles in 2014 and of this content, more than 75% is already in Web of Science. Do you truly believe that we could be a member of COPE, OASPA and STM and continue to have journals accepted into leading indexing databases if we were not adhering to good practices?

We are well aware that there a numerous bad publishers out there, who are often targeting authors from developing countries. It is very unfortunate that their practices are having an adverse effect on the reputation of open access in general. However, I can assure you that we strictly adhere to ethical publishing policies and standards. In any case, whitelists are much more effective (and positive) than blacklists. Would you not agree that, a blacklist should rather be maintained by an independent group of experts and include regular audits of the publishers?

The source added with regards to MDPI sending spam is anonymous and could be anyone (i.e. could be a competitor, someone who is trying to damage the reputation of MDPI etc.). The claim that we send spam e-mail is absolutely ludicrous! You can read more about what our guest editors say about us (as you will see, including the names - so these people can be contacted to verify their experience): http://www.mdpi.com/editors/testimonials. And also some testimonials from authors (again with names) are here: http://www.mdpi.com/authors/testimonials

My final question to you: Would you agree on a change to the lead, so that we can provide readers with a more balanced view? It is unfair to state MDPI sends spam based on allegations of anonymous sources on an internet blog. This reference is already mentioned under the section “Inclusion in Beall's list”. This is not just about the reputation of MDPI, but also of the employees in the company.

Please note that I have also been in contact also with the editor Bjerrebaek, so repeated here in parts what I communicated to him/her. Regards, Alistair — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.140.24.118 (talk) 09:34, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

MDPI 2
David, I only noticed this edit by you and the previous edits by Bertie birman on MDPI after I had removed the sentence regarding email spam from the lead. I did not intend to revert you in this respect, but was convinced to leave this specific issue out of the lead for the time being. I originally added this material to the article and I think it is reliably sourced and should still be included in the section below, but that we possibly should wait until there has been somewhat more coverage of it to mention it in the lead. Bjerrebæk (talk) 15:46, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * No problem. I don't really care about the placement of the spam claims, but I don't like the MDPI editor's attempts to attack Beall. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:54, 26 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree with you on that. Bjerrebæk (talk) 15:56, 26 August 2015 (UTC)


 * David, thanks for being accommodating with regards to the spam allegations. I have commented further on this matter on Bjerrebæk talk page, please see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Bjerrebæk Regards, Alistair 46.140.24.118 (talk) 07:49, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

DYK for Chieko Asakawa
Gatoclass (talk) 20:57, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Whitaker
I can follow your reasoning, and despite my misgivings as this being a current events item more than something that actually has any staying power (mainly because instead of focusing on an article to show depth of coverage, there's literally a sentence sourced from every article out there to show scattershot coverage), I'll see if it really does go anywhere. However, another snag I only saw addressed once was that this is not a BLP, because there's no "B". If it's going to be solely about the scandals and yet claim BLP, it's really an attack page. The article creator has admitted that Whitaker's not a notable scholar otherwise, but still, there's nothing balanced at all about the article (I added a reply/refutation the article creator "missed" (despite using the article as source), and he then added an entire paragraph refuting that, so I really do have an issue with the obvious bias, and I thikn he's not actually reading anything other than what he cherry-picks, but that's a different issue). So assuming it'll be kept, how do we start to move it towards the Steve Bartman incident type of focus instead of having a faux BLP? MSJapan (talk) 01:56, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Professor Carlo Séquin
I guess that's a lot of math professors in California, but you are the only one I've ever communicated with, so I'm asking you. Do you happen to know the state of health of Professor Carlo H. Séquin?

I ask because in February I found some pictures of regular maps he had created, and emailed him asking if he would release copyright in some of them for use in the Regular map (graph theory) article. He replied encouragingly "I would certainly enjoy seeing the results of my efforts of that time to be put to good use and enjoyed by others", and sent me dozens of images to choose from. I replied choosing a few, but he did not respond. I replied again in early March, again getting no response. I am hoping that he is in good health, and that his email system or mine has failed somehow. Maproom (talk) 18:02, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I have never actually met Séquin, and don't know any personal information about him. But if he's anything like me, his failure to answer emails could merely be that he gets too much email, answering all of it would take more time than he's willing to spend, and so some of it gets neglected. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:05, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'll write to him again. Maproom (talk) 18:12, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Your guess was correct. Maproom (talk) 15:38, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Antimatroids & Jamison-Waldner
Really? I was unable to access MR. Here is the entry from Zentralblatt. I expected it to be trustworthy.
 * Jamison-Waldner, Robert
 * Copoints in antimatroids. (English) Zbl 0463.05005
 * Combinatorics, graph theory and computing, Proc. 11th southeast. Conf., Boca Raton/Florida 1980, Vol. II, Congr. Numerantium 29, 535-544 (1980).

Zaslav (talk) 06:07, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
 * You should be able to see some version of the MR listing by clicking on the MR link in the reference. I'm not so familiar with Zbl — does it normalize authors' names to a single form or show them for each publication as they were printed in that publication (as MR does)? —David Eppstein (talk) 06:49, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Contested PROD and AfD
Hello, David. Your PROD of the article 2147483659 (number) has been removed, without explanation, so I have taken it to Articles for deletion/2147483659 (number). The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 20:00, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh, I see you have already commented there. Oh well. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 20:02, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Italics
I would like an explanation of why you think that using italics on the definition of the problem P vs NP is not necessary or helpful, as you said. It is helpful, because that's the definition, and needs more emphasis respect to the other parts, IMO. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nbro (talk • contribs) 20:21, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
 * According to MOS:EMPHASIS, italics should be used to draw attention to a particular word or phrase within a sentence. You used them for the bulk of an entire sentence. That's too much. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:29, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Trying to add list of Doctoral Students to the Irving Kaplansky page
I am trying to add the list of Irving Kaplansky's Doctoral students to his wiki page. My son had tried to add that list, and then a link to that list, to the appendix on the right but you removed it from there. I just tried adding a new section containing this list and you removed that. I'd really like to add such a section. I know for a fact that Irving was very proud of the record number (for U of C) students that he had (55) and he would have liked to see all their names on his wiki page. I have no idea how any of this stuff works. That is, who decides what can and cannot go on a wiki page. First time I've ever tried to edit one and won't bother getting a user id. Very strange system; it seems that anyone can revert an entry, for any reason. Maybe it's the only way Wikipedia can protect the information but very odd. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.193.244.146 (talk • contribs)
 * "He is proud of the number" is a bad reason for including this information. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia article, not a memorial. If the fact that he had many students or many academic descendants was considered by a reliable source to be interesting enough to mention, then we can include that fact in the article, with a source, but I don't think listing the names would be helpful to any reader. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:30, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

It's all very arbitrary, of course. Someone added the Gilbert and Sullivan and Song about PI stuff to the article. What makes that relevant for mention in an article about a Mathematician? Totally subjective. Guess we're just going to have to agree to disagree about this, but obviously there's no point in me trying to add that info back in because you'll just keep removing it. So I give up ...
 * The point is, would seeing a long wall of meaningless names have any value or interest to the typical reader of the article? My opinion is no, but maybe you can try harder to convince me. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:43, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
 * PS I do think that there are several Kaplansky's students who don't already have articles but deserve them, and will look into writing short new articles for some of them. So that's one way to make the collection of student names listed on Kaplansky's article grow... —David Eppstein (talk) 06:04, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree that such a list would not have interest to many readers, but to many others I suspect it would. Why? Because it's such a long list. The 55 graduate students he directed in his career is not just a record at the University of Chicago, it's a record by a large margin. Such an impressive feat deserves mention in Wikipedia, and what better way to mention that than to actually name the students. Also, I was just looking at a Wiki page that talks about when to revert, and not revert, and it says the following: "Don't revert an edit because it is unnecessary — because it does not improve the article. For a reversion to be appropriate, the reverted edit must actually make the article worse ... Wikipedia has a bias toward change, as a means of maximizing quality by maximizing participation." I really can't see how this extra information makes the article worse. It adds something that's new and unusual. I'd still like to add that section. Of course, I won't do it until you agree because what's the point, it will just be gone five minutes later.


 * I'm afraid I agree with David Eppstein: "It's such a long list" is not a reason for giving anything except the number and the fact that it's a record. Thomas Edison invented a very large number of things (well, his lab workers did) but you don't find the complete list in his article. You find the number of US patents (1093), and you find descriptions of the most important and most influential ones, with links to their articles. David Eppstein's approach of linking to articles describing Kaplansky's students—for those who deserve their own articles per WP:NOTABILITY—is sufficient. And personally, I think the simple list of doctoral students would harm the article. It increases the length without adding any information that would be useful to other than a tiny, tiny fraction of readers. And I think significant numbers of editors, not just David Eppstein and I, would revert it on that basis. Jeh (talk) 11:50, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Well, I still disagree. You're giving your own opinion about what Wikipedia is for and what it should contain. Wikipedia doesn't belong to one person - it belongs to the entire human race. That being the case, it is the human race that needs to decide what should go in it, and what shouldn't. Of course they could never do a poll, but my guess is that if you asked the average person if an unusual fact like this, with the corresponding list of names, was deserving of being included in a wiki page, they would agree. As far as Edison is concerned, I actually think all his inventions should be contained in his wiki page. If a person doesn't want to look at that entire list they don't need to. If a fact is incorrect that's one thing. But if a fact is correct, and in any way interesting, there's no reason to exclude it from Wikipedia. Still, I'm giving up now on trying to get this thing included - obviously I won't succeed.

Just one last thing to clarify my position, since the above paragraph seemed a bit rambling. No one has challenged the accuracy of the list that I added to the wiki page. That's key. In my opinion, an edit should only be reverted if it's inaccurate or totally inappropriate. If you get into the business of removing information just because you think no one would be interested, that's getting dangerously close to censorship. Editors should check for accuracy only. My opinion, of course.


 * The article you found about reverting (WP:RVOWN) is merely at "essay" status and as such is basically just the authors' opinion. You really need to read a little more of WP policy and guidelines, which carry considerably more weight ("policy" is binding for most practical purposes); you could start (here). I just don't think that that list is encyclopedic information. Now if for every one of those names you had information about what that person went on and did, why they're significant, that would be encyclopedic. But just a list of names, no. Regarding "checking for accuracy", no information should be added that is not referenced to reliable sources for each claim of fact. See WP:BURDEN. Information that is not referenced to a RS can be challenged and removed at any time. Jeh (talk) 20:06, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I think the Mathematics Genealogy Project data is reliable enough for this purpose. My concern is more about whether including the long list violates our policies about giving undue weight to topics within an article. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:08, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
 * There is some disagreement among editors over whether simple lists of facts without context or other similar information constitute WP-worthy content. Article content does not by itself have to meet the same notability requirements that article topics do, but it has to meet some (admittedly low) standard of significance; the disagreement is over "but how low is too low?". I think some indication of why each of these graduate students is significant is required for inclusion here. Jeh (talk) 20:16, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Looking in, it is routine in such cases to list only those who are notable--defined as those having articles in WO or being obviously qualified for them--in which case those qualifications  need to be specified and referenced.   The list currently in the article seems fully justified.  DGG ( talk ) 23:32, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

MDPI 3
Hi David, I have posted a response to User Bjerrebæk on his talk page, but not received a response to date, hence I am including that message also here, for your consideration.

The statement that Jeffrey Beall is opposed to open access is not intended as an attack. It is an attempt to put into perspective for readers who is branding MDPI a “predatory publisher” and a conclusion of the opinions voiced by Jeffrey Beall in the articles I referred to in my previous edit: “The open-access movement is a coalition that aims to bring down the traditional scholarly publishing industry and replace it with voluntarism and server space subsidized by academic libraries and other nonprofits. It is concerned more with the destruction of existing institutions than with the construction of new and better ones”, or “I do find that the open-access movement is a Euro-dominant one, a neo-colonial attempt to cast scholarly communication policy according to the aspirations of a cliquish minority of European collectivists” (http://www.aaup.org/article/what-open-access-movement-doesn’t-want-you-know and http://triplec.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/525/514). Will you not concede (at least in part) that it is hard to argue against Jeffrey Beall’s opposition of open access? Is he unbiased enough to prosecute, judge and execute fairly? For your information: he never asked us for any data, or information, or feedback before adding MDPI to his “list”. He has never contacted us prior to writing an article to corroborate facts. Don’t get me wrong – I fully appreciate opposition and critical voices, which are always healthy in terms of having a balance. But I hope that you understand the implications - not just to the reputation of MDPI, but also to the authors of 54’743 articles published to date in our journals and to our staff members - if our Wikipedia page portrays MDPI in a light tainted by one person’s opinion. It places us in a bucket with companies who are borderline criminal (which is indeed the case of a few of the “publishers” on his list). This is why I think Wikipedia has to draw a line somewhere and provide a balanced view on such issues. Jeffrey Beall is working on a very important subject, but his views are prejudiced and as such, it is very difficult for us to accept that our lead on Wikipedia portrays the company in this way.

Could we at least agree to some compromise in how the lead is structured and consider the impression to readers, so that it is clear that Beall’s views on open access are critical? Or keep the discussion about MDPI’s “dispute” with Jeffrey Beall out of the lead and have this information covered in the main body ? Regards, Alistair 46.140.24.118 (talk) 08:42, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
 * looking in, I would consider him critical of many open access publishers, or perhaps  having doubts about the ability of open access to maintain quality,  rather than opposed to open access per se. I am not sure those quotes are representative. If he were biased, surely he would have   negativ eopinions on all OA publishers, not just to some of them.  DGG ( talk ) 23:27, 1 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Hi David,


 * Thanks. I just wonder how the quotes could not be representative of Mr. Beall's view if they are from articles recently published by him as only author? Maybe the lead could be adjusted to read: “It is considered a predatory open access publishing company publishing journals of dubious quality by Jeffrey Beall, who also considers the open access movement a coalition 'that aims to bring down the traditional scholarly publishing industry and replace it with voluntarism and server space subsidized by academic libraries and other nonprofits' and 'a neo-colonial attempt to cast scholarly communication policy according to the aspirations of a cliquish minority of European collectivists'."


 * This would provide readers a more balanced perspective, but I am just concerned it will make the lead rather long and gives way too much space to a minor issue. So it may be a more sensible compromise if we state that Mr. Beall is opposed to the open access publishing movement. Or alternatively, we remove the second paragraph in the lead and the issue is discussed in the main body. Can we not find some compromise?


 * By the way, Prof. Bondy from UCI is the Editor-in-Chief of our new journal /Fibers/, see: http://www.mdpi.com/journal/fibers/editors. If you have any doubts about our way of working and the standards we maintain, please speak to him. There are also 10 Editorial Board Members on other MDPI journals from UCI. Let me know if you would like their names, so that you can hear from colleagues about their experience working with MDPI. To date we have published 50 papers from associated authors, see:
 * http://www.mdpi.com/search?authors=uci.edu&year_from=1996&year_to=2015&page_count=50&sort=article_citedby&view=abstract
 * Regards, Alistair46.140.24.118 (talk) 15:19, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Jessie Marie Jacobs Muller Offermann
I am reluctant to list this for deletion, but I do not see how her career meets the ordinary standard of notability. What should be our position to those included in the publications cited?  DGG ( talk ) 23:22, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
 * There's a plausible claim of notability in the source (not mentioned directly in the article) that she assisted her husband Muller in the work that won him a Nobel (including being a co-author on one of his papers). But I think the basis for notability is that we have one source that goes on for three pages about the subject. We need more than one for WP:GNG but others exist e.g. . —David Eppstein (talk) 23:57, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
 * and Judy Clapp?
 * That one seems clearer to me. The SWE Award statement calls her "A pioneer in establishing software engineering as a discipline" and we have some corroborating detail about her (without a repetition of the statement of notability) in the CACM reference. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:08, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Spaces in &lt;math&gt;
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:CiaPan&diff=prev&oldid=679059050

I made those modifications as a result of some experiments. The expressions in their previous shape were rendered without fraction lines, i.e. (in MathML mode in my IE 11 on Win 7 Ultimate 64bit SP1) they looked like
 * $${a \atop b}$$

instead of
 * $$\frac a b$$

I know it was kind of 'experimental programming' and I'm not happy with that (additionally I'm aware it might corrupt displaying in other modes), but it worked. If it causes problem for anybody else, just go ahead and revert. --CiaPan (talk) 07:24, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It shouldn't have corrupted anything, but I suppose it might have cause some cached version of the rendered equation to be re-rendered. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:30, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Boolean algebra
In your article Boolean Algebra, section Representable Boolean Algebra, you discuss minimal axioms, and attribute the 2 input NAND function to Stephen Wolfram in his 2002 publication A New Kind of Science. This surprised me, because I learned about this as a Sheffer Function sometime in the late 1960's. Did Stephen actually claim it as his own idea? 60skid (talk) 18:42, 6 September 2015 (UTC)


 * First of all, that wasn't me. Wikipedia editors don't own articles, and the text in question was added to the article in late January 2008 by Vaughan Pratt, at a time when the article had a different title (Introduction to Boolean Algebra). And second, what is attributed to Wolfram is not the NAND function (that would be silly, it was known for much longer as you say) but the axiom using it that allows all of Boolean algebra to be formulated using only one axiom. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:54, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

DYK for Ed Posner
Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:01, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

DYK for David J. Foulis
Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:02, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Irvine, California
Hi Doc, you may want to become familiar with Sockpuppet investigations/Jonathan Yip. I don't know if you can protect Irvine, block the latest IP (which by removing the word "Jonathan" in my talk page admits who he is), or maybe get the sockpuppet case revived. HkCaGu (talk) 05:16, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree that the evidence is at least suggestive if not totally clear. He also removed your sockpuppet accusations from both his own talk and that of another IP. Probably since I've already been involved in reverting his edits I shouldn't be the one to block him or protect the article, though. Reopening the SPI would be easy enough. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:48, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Total coloring
Hi David. Have you looked at Total coloring lately? It seems to have been hijacked this summer. It would take a more experienced eye than I have to separate the cruft from the legitimate material on that page. Thanks. Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 21:44, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for pointing that out. I hadn't seen it there but something very similar (by I think the same people has also been happening at star coloring). I've reverted but who knows how long that will last. I think maybe an SPI would be in order. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:50, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
 * In addition it turns out that many of these edits are copying and pasting text from published research articles. This makes it clear to me that this is a pattern of abuse and not just a naive editor trying to be helpful. I will put together an SPI. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:08, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
 * See also acyclic coloring, defective coloring, L(h, k)-coloring, sum coloring, SUM Coloring, path coloring, radio coloring, incidence coloring, interval edge coloring, and harmonious coloring. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:14, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

After looking at a bunch of these (and there are more, but all seem to be versions of graph coloring ... I see you got some more just now) I don't think that this is sock puppetry. It looks more like a summer class project where everyone was to either create a page (in July probably, by the better students) or modify one of the created ones (August most likely, with everyone having to contribute). I've seen something like this a couple of years ago and seem to remember that it was quite a mess to clean up at that time. Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 23:35, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I suppose that might be a possibility. But their editing patterns are all so similar (no edit summaries, long series of consecutive edits, consistent plagiarism, and writing style) and with such widely varying startup times (look at the first edits by each user; they are fairly evenly distributed over the period from mid-July to now) that I am skeptical of such a benign explanation. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:37, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Anyway, see Sockpuppet investigations/Tenzin tsetan resur. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:08, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

I think that my theory might hold a little more water. Consider this user request (last item). Some of the names we have seen pop up on User talk:Josephvk and there seems to be some project going on with a Wikimedia outreach program. Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 04:11, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
 * You might be right. Regardless, they're making more of a mess than they are helping. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:22, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Sum coloring
Hi David, this is Annet here. I have been editing a page called sum coloring on wikipedia from the past few days. Today, I found that the page was deleted by you. Since I don't have a copy of what I did can you please send me a copy of the deleted page? -(User talk:Annetroy93)
 * Normally I would say yes, but in this case it was riddled with copyright violations, so I don't think I can do that. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:25, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Update of the Mandelbrot page
Solendil (talk) 08:49, 10 September 2015 (UTC) Hi there. You reverted the changes I made on the Mandelbrot set page. In this change, I proposed a new interactive viewer for the "Image gallery of a zoom sequence"; I also created an entry in the talk page of the article to explain the change. There's already an interactive viewer link in this page; but I believe the one I propose is better. Is there a rule I broke or something I did wrong? Can you tell me why my change had to be reverted? Don't you think a link to a realtime in-browser fractal explorer would be a useful addition to the Mandelbrot article? Thank you.
 * The main one is near the start of WP:EL: external links should not normally be placed within the body of an article. See also later in that guideline for whether a link should be included at all. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:04, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your reply. Didn't these links fall under "What can normally be linked", "3) Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that is relevant to an encyclopedic understanding of the subject and cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to (...) other reasons." The site I was linking to is neutral (non-commercial and open-source), accurate (until proven otherwise), it is relevant to the encyclopedic understanding (if the "Image gallery of a zoom sequence" is relevant, an interactive viewer of the same sequence should be, too), and it cannot be integrated to wikipedia (due to technical reasons, the web site being a javascript application). Besides, such an application is already linked (image 7, "Open this location in an interactive viewer"). Maybe the "explore" links on each image were a tad too much. Could we consider including such a link only on the last image, or on the last of them, or after the pictures, or as a footnote of this section? — Solendil (talk) 18:36, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Jett Carver


No protection at all This page is used for nothing more than a re-direct and now needs to be re-directed somewhere else but, can't because it's not able to be edited. Jett was such a minor character and the full protection was done in 2007, I'm sure it'll be fine now (8 years later).Cebr1979 (talk) 22:30, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
 * ✅ This was salted after it was deleted and then repeatedly re-created, but changing the redirect seems innocuous enough and if we get trouble again we can always protect it again. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:44, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

I hate feminists
Walter Lewin's materials were phenomenal resources for learning about a very important topic and I have nothing but contempt for people who try to deny others access to them. 147.69.15.249 (talk) 03:08, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Mathematics and art
Hi David, I'm just revelling in Felipe Cucker's Manifold Mirrors: The Crossing Paths of the Arts and Mathematics. Happy to report that its point of view chimes nicely with the root-and-branch revision of the article that is now nearing completion - I shall wait for Gamwell's Mathematics and Art just in case, and no doubt it will bring a few "new" ideas. Meanwhile, I'd be glad if you could take a quick glance at the article and let me have any instant comments you may have. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:15, 12 September 2015 (UTC)


 * David, I've done pretty much everything I can think of (asymptotically diminishing returns...) so let's try again. A good sign is that each new book I look at gives a different subset of the points now already made in the article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:53, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Ok, I'll take another look. It may be a few days before I have time for it, though. —David Eppstein (talk) 14:03, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Ok. You might want to bag the GA review, however, and then wait to look at it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:18, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

DYK for Public Health Reports
Harrias talk 15:52, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Commercial Geometry
Your Revision of Geometry Wikipedia reduced subject domain relations to a non-mathematical field. Congrats, dude! — Preceding unsigned comment added by TroyAugustusKallman (talk • contribs) 22:27, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Stating Erdős numbers
Hi David, I wonder if you have an opinion on these edits:        and probably others by the same editor. I find it hard to justify the Erdős number as being more than trivia, but on the other hand quite a few people think a very low number is notable. McKay (talk) 03:41, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
 * My own preference is also not to list Erdős numbers in individual bios. If someone has a detailed story about their connection to Erdős, that would be a different matter. And I don't see any harm in collecting these numbers in List of people by Erdős number. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:26, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia editing for research scientists
Hi, I was looking briefly though Wikipedia editing for research scientists. If you'd be interested I think it could do with a bit of an update for consistency, clarity and conciseness. It only gets a few hundred views per year, but it might be useful to point to for some wikiprojects or even as an end point for the training guide for scientists. Let me know if you'd still be interested. T.Shafee(Evo&#65120;Evo)talk 11:18, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Sure, go ahead. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:54, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Hey David you recently took down one of my edits
Hello David, you recently took down one of my edits. The edit that I put up was I replaced a dead link with a fresh link to the identical document that the link used to point to. Did you check the information in the PDF document, it is literally the exact same PDF document that the link pointed to. Wouldn't the document that was the original reference be of more value than a link pointing to a page with nothing on it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fastlocksmith (talk • contribs) 16:53, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It was a spam web site with a spammy name that matches your spammy user name. If you can find a replacement at archive.org, fine. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:34, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

I have to ask you again, did you read the content that was on the pdf? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fastlocksmith (talk • contribs) 16:27, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

P.S. I thought my blog article was pretty insightful as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fastlocksmith (talk • contribs) 16:32, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Question on Wikipedia page for Eugen Jahnke
The Wikipedia page for the mathematician Eugen Janke has the name "Eugene (Eugen) Jahnke". Why is the name not "Eugen Jahnke" — did Jahnke live for some time in an Anglophone country? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Suslindisambiguator (talk • contribs)
 * I don't know, but he seems to have published under both versions of his name. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:57, 19 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your reply. "Eugene" is the English & French version of "Eugen". My guess is that in the Anglophone countries Jahnke is most famous for the Dover reprint which uses "Eugene Jahnke" (although the Dover reprint appeared after Jahnke died). — Suslindisambiguator

Question on Wikipedia page for Walter Rudin
What happened to the detail on Rudin's PhD dissertation? Can we put in an External link to it? — Suslindisambiguator
 * I removed it in December 2013 because it severely unbalanced the article. If the thesis is online somewhere in its thesis form (not the journal article with the same title) that is not a copyright violation, then I don't see any harm in adding a link to the line for the thesis in the "Selected publications" section. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:04, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

I have invited additional eyeballs to the talkpage, to peruse my own behavior
My apologies for the template, per WP:DONTTEMPLATETHEREGULARS.

There is currently a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 23:18, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

pls looks again
At your argument at Articles for deletion/Leslie V. Woodcock. Perhaps you didn't realize the implications of removing articles on notable scientists who also hold crazy views in an allied field. We almost always agree, but this is one instance where I'm going to oppose the position you supported as far as I can. I hate to give arguments & encouragement to the denialists,  but I think it's necessary if we are to remain unbiased.  DGG ( talk ) 18:24, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Reversible cellular automaton
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Reversible cellular automaton you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Edwininlondon -- Edwininlondon (talk) 21:20, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Program for Research In Mathematics, Engineering and Science (PRIMES)
As a frequent contributor to Wikipedia in the area of mathematics, I kindly request you to examine, and perhaps, to contribute to the discussion regarding the notability of the article on Program for Research In Mathematics, Engineering and Science (PRIMES). It has been marked for deletion, and your opinion is welcomed. Dodecahedronic (talk) 13:13, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Article about you
I have a question regarding the article about you (i.e. David Eppstein). It is currently in the category "Academic journal editors", but I don't see anything in the article that would indicate you are the editor of an academic journal. Could you clarify whether you are the editor of such a journal or not? Everymorning (talk) 00:17, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not the editor in chief of any journal. I am on the editorial board of CJTCS which may be why that category was added (I don't know, ask whoever did it), I used to be on several other editorial boards, and I have edited several special issues of journals. But in my opinion these don't even rise to the level of things that should generally be mentioned in articles about academics, let alone used for categorization. So it wouldn't bother me if you removed it. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:22, 30 September 2015 (UTC)