User talk:David Eppstein/2020a

Forte number edit summary regarding image size
"Undid revision 934742943 by Hyacinth (talk) MOS:IMGSIZE violation. Do not use absolute image sizes."

Would you mind please quoting the relevant part of MOS:IMGSIZE for me? Hyacinth (talk) 05:53, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
 * "Where a smaller or larger image is appropriate, use |upright=scaling factor, which expands or contracts the image by a factor relative to the user's base width" ... "upright=scaling factor is preferred [over px] whenever possible" ... "As a general rule, images should not be set to a larger fixed width than 220px (the initial base width)". Also, from WP:IMGSIZE: "Except with very good reason, do not use px" (in bold letters). —David Eppstein (talk) 06:01, 8 January 2020 (UTC)


 * There are a long long line of articles with "px" indicated for images and no reason given. Hyacinth (talk) 08:19, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The fact that a lot of articles get it wrong is not an excuse for you to add more wrongness. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:26, 8 January 2020 (UTC)


 * It's good that I didn't say, "this long long list is a reason for anyone, at any time and place, to do anything wrong, not matter what," then, isn't it? Hyacinth (talk) 02:36, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

"Preferred" is not "banned". The policy could use some clarification. For instance, "whenever possible," doesn't indicate when it's not possible, but clearly indicates that exceptions/exemptions are allowed). Hyacinth (talk) 22:50, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Why are you still Wikilawyering rather than accepting that your edit was a bad idea? It went against MOS, and for many readers (including myself) it didn't have the intended effect of making the image larger (because I use non-default image size preferences). It was the wrong thing to do and my revert of it was correct. It doesn't have to be banned to be wrong. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:59, 18 January 2020 (UTC)


 * If this policy and practice is important to you I would assume that you would prefer to clarify and improve the relevant MOS, rather than being pejorative towards someone who suggest improvements. Hyacinth (talk) 09:15, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
 * If you look at Multiple image the use of designated pixel width is not discourage (as the MOS suggests it should be), except for a highlighted note at the beginning of the documentation which does not give any reason for why this template does not respect users' default image size preferences (which should only be done, "for a very good reason," or when, "absolutely necessary," Thus the use of pixel width specification is institutionalized or systemic contrary to the MOS without any justification given. Hyacinth (talk) 09:36, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Accusing me of whitewashing
Dear David, as far as I know you cannot falsely accuse someone of whitewashing or have a COI. I would kindly ask you to stop accusing me of this. I changed the Nutrients page as I was told that it is best not to use citations in order to make it not look like a journalistic article (see talk page of MDPI), I tried to change the citation into something more "objective", namely a dispute regarding editorial preferences etc. This has nothing to do with me wanting to white-wash the nutrients page. Then, how can we change the citation into something more encyclopedic? Kenji1987 (talk) 07:57, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * What is unencyclopedic about giving the specific reason the editors cited for quitting instead of pretending that it was some vague and irrelevant dispute? Also, in this particular case, I made no accusation of a COI; your own edits speak for themselves. (For future reference the context is Special:Diff/935066548.) —David Eppstein (talk) 08:05, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * You accused me of white-washing, which I think is already assuming that I edit the things I edit in bad faith. I was told not to use citation as it will be hard to translate it into another language, and it looks like journalistic article. So, how can one change a citation into something more encyclopedia worthy? Kenji1987 (talk) 08:08, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * How is ease of translation relevant? Who told you that, and what exactly did they tell you? And when you say "citation", do you actually mean "quotation", or did someone really tell you to avoid using references? In any case, my distaste for your edit is not about whether the article is written as a direct quote or a paraphrase, it's that your replacement is not so much a paraphrase as a coverup. It takes away the specific basis of the dispute and says merely that they had a dispute because they had a dispute. The important information in the quote is that the publisher exerted undue influence over the editorial process, in order to accept a greater number of bad papers, and that the editors felt that this behavior was egregious enough to resign over. That information needs to stay. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:10, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, I meant quotation, unfortunately not everyone is a native English speaker! Please see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:PLOS_One and particularly the section "When is something newspaper style, and when is something encyclopedic?". Again, using the words "coverup" implies that I am editing in bad faith. I said that they had a dispute about editorial preferences and being pressured into accepting low-quality publications. That was exactly what the dispute was about. If you think it could be better, why not change it, instead of undoing my revisions and accusing me of white-washing? Kenji1987 (talk) 08:19, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:PLOS_One and particularly the post of Blue Rasberry, regarding quotations and translating it into other languages. Kenji1987 (talk) 08:21, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Your version says that "there was a dispute" over low-quality publications. The quote says that the editors objected to MDPI pressuring them to accept more low-quality papers. Your version erases the identities of the editors and MDPI, leaving it unclear which one wanted which outcome and why that might have been in any dispute. As for "why not change it": because I think it is fine as is. Unpacking the direct quote into a paraphrase would be longer and more cumbersome, as the paraphrase I gave above already makes clear: compare my paraphrase "the publisher exerted undue influence over the editorial process, in order to accept a greater number of bad papers, and that the editors felt that this behavior was egregious enough to resign over" with the quote "MDPI pressured them to accept manuscripts of mediocre quality and importance". But this will be my last reply to you here. My experience of your behavior on Talk:MDPI is that you go on and on and on and on, always pushing for reduced criticism of MDPI rather than ever showing evidence of taking WP:NPOV seriously. Your discussion here is falling into the same pattern. Frankly, you are wasting my time and I think it would be simpler to just revert your article edits and ignore your whining about it than to keep explaining why they are not improvements. The explanation is the same every time: because your edits seem aimed at promotion rather than at neutral description. As for the PLOS One discussion: the context there is totally different, in that case whether we should incorporate every piece of drive-by commentary that someone might write, in this case providing a clear explanation for an action central to the existence of the journal that is the subject of the article. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:31, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Ok, I have learned that sometimes it is fine to use quotations in WP articles. If you said it like this from the start, I would be far more understanding (I am still relatively new here). I do think that there is a serious WP:NPOV issue regarding open-access publishing, and I will keep on improving WP articles on this topic. Refer to it as whining or white washing as you please, but we could also do it in a way more constructive way. For example, I am asking everyone to help rewriting the criticism page of MDPI - I hope that you contribute to it as well, instead of just reverting my edits. Kenji1987 (talk) 08:39, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

DYK for Gordon Warner
Gatoclass (talk) 00:02, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Reverts questions
I see you have reverted a number of my edits to resource links, and am not sure I understand the explanation you have provided on them all given they are seemingly the same one, "semanticscholar is neither the author nor publisher of this work and should not be linked directly like this." I am not clear what you mean by this in this situation, and why that may be a problem for the linking to the full text open resources this nonprofit organization is providing. Thank you. --- FULBERT (talk) 21:15, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
 * To link to a copy of a published journal paper, we need convincing evidence that the paper is not a copyright violation, posted against the publisher's licensing requirements. Direct links to the author's web site are ok, as are direct links to the publisher. Links to institutional repositories where the author works are ok. CiteSeerX may or may not be ok, but you can always check it and tell, because it has a landing page that shows you where it got the copy of the paper from. Semanticscholar has no such thing. It is just a direct link to a pdf file with no evidence attached to it of where it comes from or whether it should have been made freely available. So we can't use those links, and you should not be adding them. If you keep doing so, you may be blocked. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:29, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your response, one that makes sense on many levels yet raises wider issues related to the OABOT tool itself. I try to avoid the messiness that comes with copyright violation issues, and appreciate your explanation. I raised parts of this on the OABOT discussion page for community clarification, and want to share a link here in case you want to follow it or add anything. It seems to me that the larger issue is to what extent are SemanticScholar pdfs accessible for linking within open access referencing, and if the answer is "no" or a more nuanced "it depends," then the OABOT tool itself will need more programming to account for this or should be withdrawn in total. Those are issues beyond my immediate editing interests, though it does affect how I try to add open access citations. Thank you again. --- FULBERT (talk) 14:29, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Also, if you are using someone else's software and your edits using that software are creating problems, then maybe you should complain to the programmer of the software, but it does not excuse you from responsibility for the edits made under your name. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:37, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Penrose tiling
Penrose tiling, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. AIRcorn (talk) 06:40, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

William I. Brustein
I see you reverted my edit on William I. Brustein, and while I can see your WP:ACADEMIC argument, I'm confused. There's an account (clearly connected with the article subject) that has undone most of your August 2019 changes to bring the article away from a résumé style. As it stands, the article reads like a cv from top to bottom. The references contain almost only 1. articles written by the subject or 2. promotional material from academic press offices. What's the deal? Maximilian Aigner (talk) 10:22, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Whether he meets our standards for academic notability cannot be in question. If you're concerned about the accumulation of promotionally-written and unsourced material in the article, you could watchlist it. I have trimmed it again. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:32, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Phidias and golden section
You reverted my edit on the naming of phi at Golden_ratio. Perhaps as a side-effect you deleted the change of source which I had flagged in the edit summary. Firstly I think you were wrong to thus revert the source. Cook states that Barr took the name from Phidias; the source which was replaced seems far less reliable on this issue. As a different issue, that Barr later wrote that he didn't think Phidias used phi is not evidence to definitively contradict Cook's belief; I have not read the sources which discuss this but perhaps you have. (It seems quite plausible to me that Barr could name phi after Phidias but also conclude Phidias had nothing to do with phi) Please consider undoing your revert; and if you can clarify the article and the Barr article too that is fine by me. Js229 (talk) 18:59, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The article already stated that he took it from Phidias. You wrote that he took it because of Phidias' supposed use of the golden ratio in his sculpture, something that seems to have been added later by others and that Barr himself explicitly denied, as the article again already stated and you removed. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:06, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Might you be confusing articles? It sounds to me like you are describing the discussion at the Barr article which I didn't change. I changed a sentence at Golden_ratio that didn't say anything about Phidias before I edited it, added the mention, and a relevant source which you have deleted. I certainly didn't remove anything about Barr's denial. Js229 (talk) 19:25, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
 * You are the one who appears confused. Look again at what you did. Look at the "footnotes" section of the article before your change. Look at it after the change. You removed a long and properly sourced footnote explaining that it was named after Phidias, but not because of any connection between Phidias and the golden ratio, and replaced it by a worse-sourced claim of a connection between the two. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:46, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Ah yes, you are correct that I changed the footnote, sorry that I didn't realise this rather than the main body of the article was what you were talking about; if the diff viewer reminded me of the footnote change I didn't notice it. I'm didn't check because I'm not used to controversial article content in footnotes: I think the article would be better if versions of those statements were moved into the main text. I seem to have a different opinion to you about both the content and relative quality of the sources on this issue and think the article would be better if this were clarified.  But I respect your opinions and I don't intend to change your edits; I don't think further discussion here will improve the article.   Js229 (talk) 20:42, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Josip Pečarić
FYI: The latest Todorcevic nonsense incidentally led me to Josip Pečarić, which now begins Josip Pečarić (born 2/3 September 1948) is a Croatian professor of mathematics at the University of Zagreb and denier of The Holocaust in the Independent State of Croatia. Looks like it was put back in in October without discussion. --JBL (talk) 15:20, 28 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Also FWIW:, , and (three editors who at various times have been sent to SPI as potential Vb socks but none confirmed) all have begun activity in the past two weeks, after silence for between 3 months and 3 years.  --JBL (talk) 15:29, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi, I went with an undo on the article because the other version was per his quote in Serbo-Croatian. I also added some new material, please give a comment. cheers  Sadkσ  (talk is cheap)  19:33, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

February with Women in Red
--Megalibrarygirl (talk) 19:31, 28 January 2020 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Stefan Langerman
Do you have a reference for this? Otherwise it seems wrong to me. Thanks. —50.53.21.2 (talk) 05:58, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
 * It really is his name. The story he tells is that his (Jewish) ancestors were married by Jewish custom long ago in Germany, but the German authorities didn't believe they were married because it was by Jewish custom rather than through the German marriage authorities (presumably Christian? I don't know the details), so they called one of his ancestors "Langermann falsch Schwarzburg" meaning "really Langermann (by German law, following the name of his not-legally-married mother) but falsely called Schwarzburg (because of the Jewish marriage of his parents)". Somehow over the generations and the move to Belgium the spelling changed but the rest of it stuck. The family could change it under current law but they don't really want to. You can see the full name e.g. in the ACM Digital Library entry for his dissertation, so that part is sourceable enough. I don't have a public source for the more detailed story, though, which is why I left it out of the article. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:18, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
 * So apparently this is like a hyphenated surname with a bizarre history and an even more bizarre spelling. This also means he has more than one ACM DL author id: 81100626725 and 81100443220. That is hardly the first time for such. I added this and the other naming as an alias to his Wikidata item. I appreciate and accept the explanation but I still think a reference is needed or someone else will also likely try to remove it as a possible error. Thank you. —50.53.21.2 (talk) 12:06, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Oddly, you seem to be the first editor I've encountered who finds it difficult to believe that a non-American would follow a naming custom different from typical American naming customs. You might find this to be useful in your understanding of how widely names can vary. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:24, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

Michael Klonsky
I reverted to the edit I just made to this article. The fault in the previous citation made it impossible to locate the article in the NYT archive. It is stored as a facsimile, and no URL was included. In addition, the page number of the article in the May 13, 1969 was incorrect in the issue index page 22 was listed, but the actual page number is 32. I used Template:cite news because the previous template does not accept the page= parameter. Your revision made the article difficult to find since it included neither a page number or URL. I also replaced the characterization of the notification to the Police and Fire Departments with the phrase used in the NYT article. This is a minor issue, but you left the article in worse shape after your reversion. I am assuming you did not spend time looking at the edit, because I know your work here is well done. I restore my edit because it corrected a verifiability problem. Can't we just drop it an keep as it now is? It really isn't worth more discussion. — Neonorange (Phil) 18:24, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I can't immediately check the rest of what you say, but they are irrelevant to my undo, which did not affect them; the only thing I did was to reverse your change from citation to cite news. It is false that the citation template does not accept the page= parameter. It accepts it and displays it. Your edit violated WP:CITEVAR by changing the style of the citation from Citation Style 2 to Citation Style 1. The citation template is Citation Style 2. The cite news template is Citation Style 1. WP:CITEVAR says not to change the citation style without a discussion and a consensus. You could have accomplished the other changes you wanted without doing that. So don't do it. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:41, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for correcting the 'citevar'. Now I have a whole 'nother level to learn. I have now read the pages for both variations and think I grasp the content. I guess I just grabbed the first template I saw an 'cite news, seemed apt. I believe I've never paid attention to the commas and periods down in the reflist. Thanks for the explanation. — Neonorange (Phil) 19:15, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Burkard Polster
It's a fair point that the accusations shouldn't really be covered - but the actual removal of all of the content on the mathologer channel is very important, so perhaps should be maintained? Direwolf202 (talk) 22:41, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Only if we have reliable independent published sources discussing the removal. See WP:BLP. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:42, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Seeing as the removal itself is a matter of direct observation of the page, an archive of the youtube channel should be sufficient for the demonstration of the fact? It's not clear (to me) what BLP policy implies about things which can be very directly demonstrated. Direwolf202 (talk) 22:45, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * "Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced should be removed immediately and without discussion", in bold letters. Do you think that this removal is in any sense non-contentious? We don't even know whether it is temporary or long-term. See also later "Wikipedia editors must not act, intentionally or otherwise, in a way that amounts to participating in or prolonging the victimization." — I think that could clearly be construed to not assisting whoever took down the videos by publicizing their attacks on Polster. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:52, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't see that the removal itself is poorly sourced - the related stuff is, and particularly the content of the accusatory video - but the removal of the content itself is very clearly and verifiably sourced. The second point is more difficult, but I'm honestly not sure if mentioning that it happened is really "participating". Direwolf202 (talk) 22:59, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * It has no source. By looking at the channel, seeing yourself that nothing appears to be there, and remembering that you had been there before and saw stuff there, you are performing original research. Additionally, it is not verifiable, because other editors who had not been there before cannot remember what you remember. That is forbidden on biographies of living people. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:09, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * This is why I specified an archive. It is verifiable and published (that is, available to the general public) and can be compared to other archives in order to see that the videos have been removed - which is not an inference, but an observation. A sentence such as: "At time, the videos on the mathologer channel were removed." When supported by the archive, implies nothing that is not implied by the source - there is no synthesis, or unsupported information. Unless I'm grossly misunderstanding the entire content of WP:OR, it does not constitute original research. Direwolf202 (talk) 23:22, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * By comparing different things you are still performing original research. See WP:SYN. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:27, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Except they are not different things. They are the same thing at different points in time - it's only so much of distinction, but this and this are depicting the same building. It is not original research to observe that something is different between them - that is something clearly implied. If we had two sources, A and B - both are good sources. A says that in 1888, some object was green. B says that in 1905, that same object was red. It is not original research to conclude that the color of the object was changed. See These are not original research and in particular "compiling facts and information". Direwolf202 (talk) 23:44, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * By comparing things, and drawing conclusions from your comparison, you are committing original research. Don't do that. If you insist on adding original research to a biography of a living person, you can be blocked for it. There is no rush to breathlessly report the developments of today on some Youtuber's dispute with his collaborators. We can have the patience to wait and see whether either this blows over and the content is restored (in which case it is probably not worth reporting at all) or some reliable source tells the story more clearly than we can see it from the outside. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:54, 11 February 2020 (UTC)


 * It simply isn't original research. I cannot see how you can possibly claim that it is original research. It's plainly verifiable, having far more in common with WP:CALC than a usual situation of OR. Let me put it as simply as possible. Previously, A was true. Now, A is not true. Therefore the state of A changed. This is about as easily challenged as "Paris is the capital of France". Direwolf202 (talk) 00:06, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

...and now they've all been put back up. So how was this little spat "very important"? —David Eppstein (talk) 06:11, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

A. Jacobs
Very strange how you've been camping out on his page and making almost exclusively positive edits on it since 2014. Would like to know your relation to him, if it is at all personal. Otherwise, see you. Tedfitzy (talk) 03:45, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Tedfitzy immediately regretted this post and removed it again, but I thought I'd leave it here anyway for amusement value. The context appears to be my removal of a speedy deletion tag from Alan Jacobs (academic) five months ago, and maybe my two earlier bouts of working on the article in 2014 and earlier in 2019 triggered by two other editors' attacks on it. And no, I have no idea who Jacobs is beyond what's in the article; I just sometimes like rescuing badly-written articles on obviously-notable academics, and his article was one. (Still isn't great but at least it has better sourcing for the books now.) —David Eppstein (talk) 06:53, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Fourier series
I backed out an edit you made in Fourier series changing cquote to quote. I'm not sure what you intended, but the result was clearly not that. I spent a while puzzling out a bizarre 30px x 30px quote from Fourier. Regards, Tarl N. ( discuss ) 19:13, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
 * cquote is clearly forbidden from article space by MOS:BQ. You should not be using it in the article and you should not be restoring it to the article. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:26, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Marguerite Scharnagle
Hello David, you just wrote about Xiaoying Han: “She is Marguerite Scharnagle Endowed Professor in Mathematics at Auburn University.” But who is Ms Scharnagle? ◄ Sebastian 11:32, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
 * An estate gift from Marguerite Eberhardt Scharnagle ’20 represented the College of Sciences and Mathematics' first endowed professorship. The Marguerite Scharnagle Endowed Professorship has played a pivotal role in retaining outstanding Auburn professors by recognizing faculty accomplishments, with equal weight in teaching, research, and service in the biological sciences, mathematical sciences, and physical sciences. When Scharnagle received her bachelor's degree in science and literature from Alabama Polytechnic Institute, she was one of only four female students in her class. After passing away at 99, her generous estate gift benefitted not only the College of Sciences and Mathematics, but the College of Liberal Arts and the Auburn University Libraries as well. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 05:22, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this. I don't usually bother looking up names of donors of endowed chairs because they're rarely independently notable. In this case that's probably still true but maybe it's worth looking for more sources. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:29, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

The Bible Code (book)
Ran into this, more or less by accident. I did a tiny bit of cleanup but there's more to be done. It's kind of interesting, and the review by Allyn Jackson is helpful--but not as exciting as the scathing commentary by Shlomo Sternberg. It's in note 2. Anyway, maybe you have something to add, something you can improve or fix; it's more your field than mine. Thanks! Drmies (talk) 16:37, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Chou's invariance theorem
It was listed as a prod at WikiProject Deletion sorting/Mathematics, was deleted (at least I saw it as a redlink at some point), and has now been recreated. That seems ... weird. (The editor who recreated it has also created a bunch of other new articles; all look related to Chou, as do all that user's other edits.) --JBL (talk) 01:44, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
 * There are three users,, , and , whose only purpose appears to be to promote Kuo-Chen Chou and create articles about his contributions. I don't want to assume that they are all the same person or that they are any particular person but it doesn't really matter because they all act with the same effect. Judge was already blocked as a promotion-only account and I have blocked the other two and deleted the new articles per WP:CSD G11 (I think my edit summaries may have accidentally said G12 and there was also some of that in the past but I meant G11, promotion) and likely G5. Other past content deleted by others for similar reasons includes Gordon Life Science Institute (now a redirect to Chou). The article on Chou himself likely needs more attention but he is clearly notable by WP:PROF and the sourced negative information in the article makes clear that it has been edited by other people than the promoters. I'd be willing to undelete the articles on a reasonable request by any long-term editor who is not an spa in these topics. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:07, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
 * PS as one of the longer-term non-spa editors to the article on Chou, maybe would like to weigh in? —David Eppstein (talk) 02:17, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
 * IMO, because of Chou's forced-citation scandal and the related fact that those Wiki articles were clearly created by individuals with a COI, it's almost impossible to know if any of those topics are actually deserving of an article. Certainly, some of them are highly cited concepts, but who really knows what that means in this context.  Personally, I wouldn't have deleted, I'd have just redirected to Chou, who is clearly notable.  But I could go either way.  If they're redlinked, that's also fine with me.
 * For what it's worth, related to the earlier comment, I've had an SPI request in for those users for a few weeks now:  If all of these are not actually the same individual, it's clear that they all have a COI and that they appear to be associated with the Gordon Life Science Institute.  There aren't a lot of details about the citation scandal, and I don't have any inside info, but I have a suspicion based on their behaviour on Wikipedia that Gordon Life Science Institute might be the citation cabal.  Any edits related to Chou by these GLSI-affiliated individuals should be deleted on sight, IMO. Bueller 007 (talk) 05:40, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

DYK nomination of Amy Langville
Hello! Your submission of Amy Langville at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Yoninah (talk) 21:15, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Non-indepth source for DYK
I didn't want to take up more space on the DYK review, since this is a small point, but I'm afraid I learned the hard way why having an in-depth source for a hook is better. I wrote an article about a play, and found a source that said it was Laurence Olivier's first West End role. But the source wasn't really about Olivier, just mentioned him in passing. An Olivier expert pointed that out, and demonstrated that the source was likely wrong. Not that I'm saying this is the case here, for multiple reasons this is probably OK, but this is why I have an instinctive reaction to sourcing important facts from in-passing sources. --GRuban (talk) 23:10, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
 * In this case we also have a primary source: . But I'd prefer to use a non-detailed secondary source than a detailed primary one. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:09, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Draft:Delaram_Kahrobaei
Hello: could you have a look at this draft and perhaps leave an AFC comment about whether you think she is notable enough? Thanks.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 17:47, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
 * The editor who created that just admitted it is paid editing. However I am still curious about notability.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 18:06, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you for that spectacular example of expert assessment. Amazing.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 18:36, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
 * You're welcome! —David Eppstein (talk) 18:37, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

DYK for Amy Langville
--valereee (talk) 00:03, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Josip Pečarić
Do you have any advice as to how to deal with Mujo France over at the Josip Pečarić article? He's persisting in making the kind of edits to the draft2020 page that consensus on the talk page has generally determined to be undue (particularly around the very-early career of Pečarić). I've reverted him twice. The harm is limited, as it isn't in main article space, but it tends to prevent use of the page for any serious discussion. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 21:25, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Add him to the SPI, maybe? This has been going on for so long now that I don't think there's any point in treating this editor (or the other supposedly-different editors that act identically) as persuadable, reasonable, or likely to ever contribute anything positive. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:29, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Your guess was shrewd! He was so confirmed by Bbb23.  There are several editors with strong feelings on that article, but he was the one that seemed particularly nonconstructive. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 17:58, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Merge of “Brazilian number” draft with “Repunit” article
Bonjour David,

First, the draft “Brazilian number” was not accepted by English Wikipedia because “This submission provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter”. !!!!!

Second, I learn later that this draft “has been created”...but I understand this draft has been merged with repunit because "Isn't this exactly the same thing as described in the existing article repunit?" (this sentence comes from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics // Brazilian numbers).

There are several explanations in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics to show that repunits and Brazilian numbers are not the same world. Apparently, it is not sufficient, so another new mathematical explanation here.


 * The first twenty repdigits in the encyclopedia of sequences OEIS are:


 * 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 22, 33, 44, 55, 66, 77, 88, 99, 111 &hellip; ,

and, in the same encyclopedia,


 * The first twenty Brazilian numbers in OEIS are:
 * 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21, 22, 24, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, &hellip;.

So, there are only four identic terms {7, 8, 22, 33} among the first 20 terms of each sequence. In these conditions, it is again rather difficult to understand that the merge between the article of “Repdigit” with 7 lines of which 2 lines about numerology and the draft of “Brazilian number” with 102 lines (with a lot of perfect mathematical references) could be a "correct outcome." Two separates articles as in French Wikipédia is the right solution.

Merci.

OSS117 (talk) 11:44, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Stern–Brocot tree and binary space partitioning
Hi David, I saw that you reverted my edit in which I claimed that the Stern–Brocot tree is a binary space partitioning tree, with the motivation that the tree is abstract and doesn't partition geometric space. I have two questions:


 * 1) What do you mean by that it doesn't partition geometric space? What does it partition if not a space, and why is this differentiation important? If the tree isn't a binary space partitioning tree, then what would you call it (since it definitely partitions something)?
 * 2) What do you mean by writing that the tree is abstract (and why is that important)?

—Kri (talk) 18:38, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Your post here is still asking questions that are so far from the issue that they're not even wrong. The Stern-Brocot tree is a rooted tree, an abstract system of vertices (the positive rational numbers) and parent-child relations (described in the article). A binary space partition is also a tree, a system of vertices (convex cells in the plane) and parent-child relations (the children of any vertex are formed by splitting it in two on a line). Family trees of people are also (to a first approximation) rooted trees, where the root of the tree is some long-ago person, the vertices of the tree are their descendants, and the parent-child relations are the usual relations between people who are parents and children of each other. But the fact that all three of these things are trees does not make them the same thing as each other. The people in a family tree are not convex cells in the plane. The cells in a binary space partition are not rational numbers. And the rational numbers in the Stern-Brocot tree are not people. So it is a mistake to say that the Stern-Brocot tree is a binary space partition, just as much as it would be a mistake to say that a family tree is a binary space partition or to say that a family tree is the Stern-Brocot tree. If you find this confusing, then maybe mathematics articles are not what you should be editing. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:27, 11 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Maybe you didn't see what I meant when I called the Stern–Brocot tree a BSP (binary space partitioning) tree. If you consider the range of numbers between the number represented by the first left-ancestor of a node A and the number represented by the first right-ancestor of the same node, then A can be considered to partition that range into two subranges, in the sense that any descendant on its left is going to fall into the first subrange, and any descendant on its right is going to fall into the second subrange. These subranges are then further partitioned by A's children, and so on, and as the tree descends infinitely deep both subranges will be completely filled (if you disregard the irrational numbers). In this sense, the Stern–Brocot tree feels very much like a BSP tree to me, even though the partitions in many other BSP trees are more explicit. Don't you agree?


 * (I would never call a family tree a BSP tree.)


 * —Kri (talk) 21:07, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * A one-dimensional binary space partition would have intervals between rational numbers as its vertices. This tree has the rational numbers themselves as the vertices. There is a connection but I don't think it's so direct that you can call them the same thing and expect readers to understand what you mean. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:15, 12 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. Thanks for your input. —Kri (talk) 21:18, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Vera Press book
David, thanks for your article on Introduction to the Theory of Error-Correcting Codes. I was not aware of this book, since my study of coding was in the 70s mostly, and my re-acquaintance with the field came in with turbo and LDPC codes later than this book. I'm sorry to see that the author passed away this month. I notice the Project MAC connection back to some of my heros like Fano and Licklider. Fascinating stuff. Did you know her? Another good coding guy who passed away not long ago was Bob McEliece, who I knew at JPL and Caltech. Dicklyon (talk) 03:36, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * You're welcome! No, I don't think I ever met her. I've played with turbo coding but other than that haven't really worked in this area. I did some significant expansion of her article in 2013; I think my impetus at the time was working on a related article, Andrew M. Gleason. You noticed that McEliece was one of the reviewers of her book? —David Eppstein (talk) 03:43, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I had not noticed. Thanks for pointing it out.  Another topic: since you're into stats, take a look at at Talk:Gamma_distribution.  It seems that there's a big opportunity to make a better approximation for the median of a gamma distribution.  I made one, but it's a bit of a hack, and still not great near the "corner" of the k or alpha parameter around 0.1 to 0.2.  Maybe you can see a better way to attack this; someone should publish something we can cite. Dicklyon (talk) 06:00, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Multiplicative calculus
Hi, can you help me out with this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Multiplicative_calculus  I happened to run into this, privately the author of the subject and his wife are saying that I'm being cruel and unforgiving -- which could be a valid criticism. Should we have been kinder to Opeyemi Enoch etc? However, I know people whose work is unrecognized who have actually learned whole languages and dedicated their lives to something, and it just isn't fair that these people think that Math = self-aggrandizement.

I want them not to take credit for 'non Newtonian' calculus and not to take credit for the substitution y=e^u, or, rather, it doesn't matter if they take credit, but they are leading young readers down a blind alley from which they might not escape. It is not right. Am I being unfair? Createangelos (talk) 07:45, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I'll take a look. But you should be aware of WP:CANVASS — when you call people to participate in AfDs, it should be with neutral wording rather than by expressing your opinions on the AfD, and it should generally be to large groups of editors rather than individual talk pages. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:40, 18 March 2020 (UTC)


 * OK, that maybe means that you should ignore my request. A very competent editor has looked into this anyway and collapsed my ramblings about it, and very clearly explained what I was trying to say in a singe sentence. My query wasn't so much about canvassing as trying to regain some sense of balance about the ethics of removing what certainly must be hard work of editors who attempt articles. However, I have that sense of balance now. Createangelos (talk) 19:57, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Greedy coloring
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Greedy coloring 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 Spinningspark -- Spinningspark (talk) 19:01, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you
Thank you for bluelinking fellows of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters! Geschichte (talk) 20:19, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * You're welcome! —David Eppstein (talk) 20:51, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * You're welcome! —David Eppstein (talk) 04:31, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Greedy coloring
The article Greedy coloring you nominated as a good article has been placed on hold. The article is close to meeting the good article criteria, but there are some minor changes or clarifications needing to be addressed. If these are fixed within 7 days, the article will pass; otherwise it may fail. See Talk:Greedy coloring for issues which need to be addressed. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Spinningspark -- Spinningspark (talk) 11:41, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Greedy coloring
The article Greedy coloring you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Greedy coloring for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Spinningspark -- Spinningspark (talk) 17:01, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

DYK for Heronian tetrahedron
— Maile (talk) 00:03, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

DYK nomination of Chiara Daraio
Hello! Your submission of Chiara Daraio at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Yoninah (talk) 16:40, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Protection of page "Power of 3"
Honestly, I don’t think a protection is needed. If it’s that IP editor who’s being disruptive, a partial block/3RR block might be all that is necessary. I don’t think a semi protection is needed. Would you think pending changes/partial block of the 3 IP addresses is a good idea? Because the disruptive editing all come from one person. Cheers, TLOM (The Lord of Math) (Message) 06:12, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
 * It tends to be easier to semiprotect than block IPs, because most people's IP addresses change frequently. Logged-in and autoconfirmed editors can still edit; I don't think full protection is warranted. Also, blocking the IP editor would not be a good idea without first going through an escalating sequence of warnings, and in this case when they're editing once a week or so that is going to be tedious. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:13, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
 * , also, would you like to voice your opinions at the bottom of WT:WikiProject Numbers, about ’s idea? Thanks. TLOM (The Lord of Math) (Message) 06:33, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

DYK for Chiara Daraio
&mdash; Amakuru (talk) 00:01, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Date formats
I haven't changed the formatting, I simply tagged the article with the mdy tag. GiantSnowman 18:38, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
 * That is false and you know it is false since we went over this the last time this happened. The article is formatted with citation templates, using mdy dates and numeric accessdates. The citation template sees your newly-added mdy tag and interprets it as a request to reformat the accessdates as mdy. Therefore, your actions caused the dates to be reformatted. And in the similar recent case of Amy Langville you explicitly changed the date formatting manually for an example that was not formatted in the same way, making it obvious that you checked the formatting after your change and saw that some but not all of it had been changed automatically. You now have two self-undos to perform, on both Chiara Daraio and Amy Langville, if you don't want to get taken to ANI. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:41, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
 * After your revert all I did was add Use mdy dates to the pages. The template documentation states that the template is "to promote consistent date formatting", which is all that I wanted to do. I did not change any dates from YYYY-MM-DD. You will also respectfully note that the documentation says "do not remove the template without valid reason, such as a determination the article uses or should use a different date format". If you wish to (in my view unnecessarily) escalate this to ANI then feel free, but a discussion about the use of the template would, in my opinion, be more appropriate/useful at another venue. GiantSnowman 22:04, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Look, it's very simple. Adding mdy templates to an article that uses citation templates changes their format. Just look at the article before and after. It causes the template to convert all dates to mdy. It doesn't change the article source (which I don't particularly care about in any case) but it does change the format as displayed to readers. It does so because the citation template is designed to do that. It doesn't matter whether you think it shouldn't; that's what it does. For most articles, despite this effect, your addition is useful, because the articles you add it to might not have already been in a consistent format, or might become inconsistent through future editing. But in the cases of Daraio and Langville, the articles were already in a different consistent format that you changed. I am not even asking you to stop adding these templates in general, because most of the time it is useful. It would be nice if you noticed that articles were consistently in a numeric-accessdate format and didn't add the templates in those cases. But all I am actually asking is that when an editor like me objects to your change in format, and reverts it, that you leave it the way you found it instead of (as you have been doing) edit-warring to reinstate your change in format. Now do you still really want to be taken to ANI for edit-warring and for violating MOS:DATEVAR, or are you going to self-undo? At this point, WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT is also looking relevant. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:30, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Or here's an even easier compromise for you, based on a technical measure I just discovered. I have added ly to the use mdy dates tag, which describes exactly the date format I like using (modulo dmy/mdy choice) and auto-converts citation templates to it. I don't mind the articles being tagged with that style; in fact I like it as it will guard against future inconsistencies. What I minded is your conversion to a different style. If you are willing to accept tags like this then maybe we can avoid escalating this. And I can even start adding it to other articles I create to ward off future such interactions. But if you revert this addition, even once, the threat of ANI still looms. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:44, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * For the avoidance of doubt, I do not care whether the references display as '2020-03-28' or 'March 28, 2020', and I have zero intention of reverting your changes. All I care about is ensuring that articles do not use both DMY and MDY formats as stated by MOS:DATEUNIFY, and use an established script to do so. Does that make sense? To prevent this issue in future either feel free to add ly to any articles you deem appropriate, or we can even see if there's anything we can do to the Use mdy dates / Use dmy dates templates or the script (which is MOSNUMscript) to prevent it converting/displaying references that should be YYYY-MM-DD as words? PS I'm not the big bad editor you think I am, so please can you tone it down slightly and stop being so aggressive/threatening? We can work together on this. GiantSnowman 08:17, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Border Pairs Method
You voted in the year 2011 or 2012 for deletion of my contribution titled "Border Pair Method". You said at the time that it is not enough citations for publishing. Is it now enough? 1st one reference below is an invited talk at IBM Reasearch, at an institution where nobel laureates work.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322617800_New_Deep_Learning_Algorithms_beyond_Backpropagation_IBM_Developers_UnConference_2018_Zurich

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324216126_A_one_step_method_to_solving_brain_contradiction

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263656317_Advances_in_Machine_Learning_Research

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332235282_Classification_of_single_and_double-gate_nanoscale_MOSFET_with_different_dielectrics_from_electrical_characteristics_using_soft_computing_techniques

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312264075_MLP_neural_network_using_constructive_training_algorithm_Application_to_face_recognition_and_facial_expression_recognition

http://www.inderscience.com/offer.php?id=81316

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303704444_A_Memetic_Fuzzy_ARTMAP_by_a_Grammatical_Evolution_Approach

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271197582_Pattern_Classification_Using_a_New_Border_Identification_Paradigm_The_Nearest_Border_Technique

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283356862_Predicting_Cardiovascular_Diseases_Prevalence_Using_Neural_Networks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bojan PLOJ (talk • contribs) 15:54, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of C. Doris Hellman
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article C. Doris Hellman 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 Starsandwhales -- Starsandwhales (talk) 00:21, 31 March 2020 (UTC)