User talk:David Eppstein/2022b

please join talk at Strategy Stealing Argument
Can you please engage constructively (heh) with my improvements at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy-stealing_argument#Constructivity_%26_NPOV instead of engaging in edit warring? Belovedeagle (talk) 19:11, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Please. Your edits were reverted, the second stage of WP:DRV. Your reinstatement of them, not my reversion, is what constitutes edit warring. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:12, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for replying and I hope we can improve the article. But, likewise: Please. Assuming you meant BRD, you seem to have missed the bit that "BRD is not a valid excuse for reverting good-faith efforts to improve a page simply because you don't like the changes", and also "The first person to start a discussion is the person who is best following BRD." Belovedeagle (talk) 20:54, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
 * "simply because you don't like the changes" is a tendentious and disingenuous interpretation of my clear statements in edit summaries and on the talk page. This is not the first time you've twisted my position into something more dubious. Stop it. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:48, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
 * You appear to have difficulty in distinguishing what you have said from all of the consequences (which you have in mind) which follow from what you have said, which is an overwhelmingly common failing among mathematicians --- I should know, I only learned how to do this when I left academia. People who make this mistake often feel that their position has been twisted and find it frustrating when, looking back at a completed exchange where they eventually put down into words what they were originally thinking, they can see that each and every one of their points was made in a "clear statement" which their interlocutor has bizarrely and disingenuously chosen to ignore... in all of their comments preceding the explanation! As for the SSA article, I am in fact still in the dark about what the problem was with my original edit. The edit summary was in my view, yes, a clear statement... but also a non sequitur, because it merely restated a point about the article subject which (a) I agreed with, and (b) I believe was one of the points my edit actually clarified and improved! That left me with no direction to follow for addressing my concerns with the article. (More on this at the talk page; I'm trying to separate "how we may collaborate better" and "how we should move forward with the article".) Belovedeagle (talk) 23:15, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm torn on whether to tell you that ad hominem arguments are not constructive, to tell you to learn to make your point concisely, or to just let you go on blundering around until you get into bigger trouble. But if you're going to contribute to an encyclopedia, I suppose making your point concisely is the most pressing issue. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:23, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

ANI notice - mentioned user
There is currently a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is User:Belovedeagle / User:JayBeeEll. Thank you. Belovedeagle (talk) 04:30, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Can you stop removing info from pages!?
You removed all of 187's and 185's info 181.71.66.100 (talk) 11:43, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I removed junk that was not about 185 and 187 as numbers, and was moreover mostly unsourced. I intend to continue doing so. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:03, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
 * And if I know Eppstein, he won't stop until he's done EVERY NUMBER THERE IS. EEng 02:32, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Hey! There are already fewer numbers than when I started. Maybe I won't stop until they're all gone? —David Eppstein (talk) 06:48, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Request for thread closure by uninvolved editor
An IP editor who has kicked up a fuss a few times before is indulging in Big Bang denial over at the Bell's theorem Talk page. I was hoping that someone who hadn't participated would hat the whole thing; WP:NOTHERE, WP:NOTFORUM, etc. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 16:53, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Regarding language-specific implementation of data structures
We had a discussion some time ago regarding language-specific implementations of data structures on computer science related articles, right? We both concluded that it's best to write such stuff in language-agnostic pseudocode (in accordance with MOS:PSEUDOCODE). There is a discussion on whether binary search tree should include C++ source code at Talk:Binary_search_tree/GA2. What are your thoughts on that? I couldn't find a noticeboard for WP:WPCS. WikiLinuz { talk } 🍁  03:09, 11 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh, here it is: User_talk:David_Eppstein/2021d. WikiLinuz  { talk } 🍁  03:14, 11 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think my position is still more or less the same. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:39, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Quick question
Do you know of a standard name for the polynomial-time approximation method given in Subset sum problem? The other sources in that section describe algorithms that are considerably more complex. Sincerely, Ovinus (talk) 21:30, 11 April 2022 (UTC)
 * The first-fit-decreasing greedy 2-approximation, or the FPTAS? The FPTAS isn't the one I would choose to present, because it is unsourced and because it appears to take time $$O(n^2/\varepsilon)$$ while other faster algorithms with time complexity more like $$O(n/\varepsilon)$$ are known. There's brief and fairly up-to-date survey of approximations for this problem at . —David Eppstein (talk) 22:37, 11 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Indeed, the FPTAS. Thanks for the resource! Ovinus (talk) 23:55, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Hey, stop removing info again!
Can you please let that pages in peace? Why are removing so many info? 181.71.66.100 (talk) 14:24, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Please stop your disruptive edits. If you do not, it may be necessary to block you from editing or to protect the number articles against anonymous edits. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:05, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

How did i disrupt edits?
I am trying to restore info! And you keep deleting those! 2800:E2:407F:FC24:DC58:768D:9685:77CC (talk) 17:12, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
 * You are adding junk content that does not belong on the number articles. The only content that belongs on those numbers is information about that number as a number, referenced to reliable sources, that is not a run-of-the-mill property held by many other numbers in the same range. You are adding junk properties like being odious that are held by half of all numbers, you are failing to source any of your additions, and you are adding lists of titles of articles that happen to contain that number but only as an identifier and not because of any specific properties of that number. That content belongs on disambiguation pages, or nowhere. Your persistent junk edits are rising to the point of vandalism. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:51, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Earth Day 2022 Edit-a-thon - April 22nd - 2PM EST
-- Environment of New York City Task Force - Wil540 art (talk) 21:55, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Advice for crufty articles
You seem to have a passion for fighting cruft in math articles. I noticed mathematical coincidence a month ago and removed stuff like this joy, but do you think things that aren't really "coincidences" (e.g., $$e^{\pi\sqrt{163}}$$'s being a near-integer) should be in here at all? Ovinus (talk) 20:51, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
 * It is contradictory to the lead sentence, at least. Sometimes I fight cruft; sometimes (as in articles like uniform polyhedron) it is so Augean that I spend my time elsewhere. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:59, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I get a little more burned out every time I look at a polyhedron article, I think. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 01:28, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

New administrator activity requirement
22:52, 15 April 2022 (UTC)


 * This had strong support, but the message it sends to me is "Kill all the administrators! What do we need administrators for, anyway? Let's just make it so burdensome and bureaucratic to maintain administrator privileges that they all trip up somehow and then we can get rid of them." Meanwhile, we wonder why the number of active administrators has been falling... —David Eppstein (talk) 00:31, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
 * It has often been my observation that the masses dislike anyone/thing that has perceived power; unless of course they need something. Then, they want the powerful to be omnipotent, as long as it meets their self-serving need. As a friend once said, "people are a piece of work". SusunW (talk) 13:54, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

Hash table
Would you be interested in giving hash table article a read and suggest any remarks if you have some time? I'm planning to submit it for a GA review. Thanks! -- WikiLinuz { talk } 🍁  02:29, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I think this needs significant work, and not just a quick read-through. It is not ready for you to submit it for a GA review. (I tend to think this is true of your earlier data structure nominations, too; they were premature, and one reason I've been avoiding reviewing them is that I think they would fail my review and I would prefer to let you have time to work on them more while they wait for someone to review them.) A few points:
 * Space-time tradeoff paragraph of lead: makes no sense to me and not summarizing anything later.
 * History really deserves more than a three-line summary.
 * "Ershov had the same idea": Who? When? How was it disseminated?
 * "finite entries in the hash table": what would an entry that is not finite look like?
 * There is no overview section saying what a hash table is; the only material about that is in the lead.
 * Hash function section starts getting into details about desiderata and methods without ever saying clearly what it is: a function, often incorporating a small random seed, for mapping keys to table addresses.
 * "Uniformity is sometimes difficult to ensure by design, but may be evaluated empirically using statistical tests,": this feels like really out-of-date advice when we now have theoretical methods for guaranteeing correct behavior of hash functions (k-independence). K-independence and universal are written about in two separate paragraphs as if they are two separate things (they are not).
 * Somewhere around here is the point, about 1/3 of the way of the article, where in a real review I would have given up and quick-failed it because there are just too many points where it is too far from having the appropriate coverage. The next section, on collision resolution methods, for instance, is probably too detailed on some methods and again really misses the big picture, failing both WP:GACR 3a and 3b.
 * In case you plan to make the necessary significant revisions and might find it helpful, my lecture notes on this material (for one week out of a graduate-level course on data structures) are https://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/261/lecture2a.pdf, https://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/261/lecture2b.pdf, https://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/261/lecture2c.pdf — there's also related material in weeks 1 (the dynamic arrays you need for resizable hash tables) and weeks 3-4 (other hashing-related data structures that are not actually hash tables). —David Eppstein (talk) 07:16, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you! I'll take note of these and work on them in the comming days. -- WikiLinuz { talk } 🍁  12:47, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
 * PS I think your failure to pay any attention to Timhowardriley in Talk:Binary search tree/GA2 and instead immediately renominate with no improvement is not a good way to go, and I am tempted to quick-fail it again per WP:GAFAIL #5. His suggestion of code implementations is not good, but he is correct that this article should be understandable to and usaful to any coder with a freshman-level education in computer science, and isn't. Far too much of it is written at a level to be understandable only by someone who already knows what a binary search tree is and how it works. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:29, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Timhowardriley doesn't know how the GA review works, they couldn't grasp WP:GAN/I. If it needs WP:MTAU work, I could be able to do it in a day or two if the reviewer points out exactly what needs explanation, and doesn't need a failure (a standard 7 days applies here). I addressed the GA1's remarks (Talk:Binary_search_tree/GA1) in a series of revisions in prior months, and only then did I nominate that article. The code they suggested is offtopic and looks like straight out of an Intro to C++ or Makefiles tutorial, and their (unsuccessful) attempts to fail the review is disruptive. I will do MTAU copy-edits, it isn't a big deal; I definitely don't believe it needs a GA failure (unless there's a good reason that the work will take longer than std. 7 days). -- WikiLinuz { talk } 🍁  13:04, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
 * The point at which to nominate an article is not "I think that another week of work would be good enough to make this reach GA status". It is "I have done a full GA review of the article myself, according to my review I think it meets all of the criteria, and now I would like confirmation of that from another editor". —David Eppstein (talk) 16:28, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Möbius strip
The article Möbius strip you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Möbius strip for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already appeared on the main page as a "Did you know" item, or as a bold link under "In the News" or in the "On This Day" prose section, you can nominate it within the next seven days to appear in DYK. Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On This Day" column do not affect DYK eligibility. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Ovinus -- Ovinus (talk) 01:21, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

There is only one possible meaning for an edge in a graph
Indeed. That was what I first thought when I read the definition at Bandwidth. But it continues "the length of the longest edge (the number of steps in the ordering between its two endpoints)". In graph theory, edges don't normally have lengths or steps. I suspect this definition has been mistranslated from somewhere. Maproom (talk) 18:15, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
 * "Its endpoints". "Its"="the edge's". Edges have endpoints. The endpoints are vertices. When the vertices are ordered, you can count the steps between them. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:17, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Ok, I've got it.

While I'm here: I see that Graph (discrete mathematics) and Graph theory have content in common; and if there's meant to be a distinction between the topics, it's not obvious to me. Should they be merged? Maybe there's some history that I'm not aware of. Maproom (talk) 18:37, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure why they're separate either. Also undirected graph is a redirect to one of them but directed graph gets to be a separate topic. I suspect that the structure happened through the historical accretion of articles to Wikipedia and not because anyone thought it out carefully. I'm not sure that merging it all into one big article is the right solution but a clearer structure of some sort would likely be an improvement. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:53, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Heilbronn triangle problem
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Heilbronn triangle problem 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 Ovinus -- Ovinus (talk) 15:00, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

A little need help
Hello, I just started for my first time editing the Wikipedia page, especially ℓ-adic sheaf. I tried to fix the first citation, but something doesn't seem right. Can you help me a little? My bad for requesting this, cause I still didn't know how it works. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 14:55, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Hendecagon
I am having trouble finding a source for the hendecagonal tiling edit you removed from me. I would very much be surprised if no one has discovered that tiling, which I did create on my own but believe I have seen it elsewhere. Because it is a significant piece in information on the article for hendecagon, shouldn’t it be allowed? Admittingly, I’m not certain whether or not it is OR. In the case that it is, I'll go ahead and make a publication for it on a peer-reviewed mathematical journal, that would be constructive. Radlrb (talk) 20:51, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Heilbronn triangle problem
The article Heilbronn triangle problem you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Heilbronn triangle problem for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already appeared on the main page as a "Did you know" item, or as a bold link under "In the News" or in the "On This Day" prose section, you can nominate it within the next seven days to appear in DYK. Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On This Day" column do not affect DYK eligibility. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Ovinus -- Ovinus (talk) 21:01, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Why?
Why are you removing the portal links I added? You didn't even bother to leave edit summaries explaining why. North America1000 18:16, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I did too. On the first one. I don't mind the mathematics portal appearing on top-level mathematics articles like geometry, but you appear to be spamming it across all mathematics content on Wikipedia, and at that level it is just pointless spam. It does not add any value to readers of those articles. It is clutter. It adds to the cruft that makes articles harder to read. Portals are dead, anyway. Why are you continuing to push them? —David Eppstein (talk) 18:30, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Well, you're entitled to you opinion, but most of the links I added were to primary mathematical topics, along with some miscellaneous articles of significance within mathematics. The problem here is that you term the functional addition of links as "spam", but nothing could be further from the truth. The links are being selectively added, not "across all mathematics content". I also disagree with the notion that portal links are "clutter" and that portals are "dead". Some portals need more work than others, but that does not mean that all portals are therefore "dead". This is essentially your own personal subjective syllogism, but I don't feel that it gives you the right to unilaterally orphan the portal. Also, please seriously consider using edit summaries explaining your actions. All you're really doing is further orphaning the portal, which seems self-serving, since you apparently dislike them greatly. Your link removal does nothing to assist readers, other than limiting their options. North America1000 18:46, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I left in place the ones on "primary mathematical topics" like geometry, removing only the ones on miscellaneous lower-level articles like Divine Proportions: Rational Trigonometry to Universal Geometry. And preventing you from spamming the portal across all wikipedia articles vaguely related to mathematics is very far from seeking out and removing existing links to the portal, although your behavior so far is making that a tempting option. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:33, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Question
Apologies for the late night intrusion but would you please look at Nothing comes from nothing? There's a tag on that article dating back to 2015 indicating that it relies too much on primary sources. I removed the tag after reading the article and seeing what the sources are citing. I'm not seeing any justification for the tag, but another editor does see it because they reverted my edit. Per WP:PSTS Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources. Did I calculate to a lesser extent incorrectly based on the usage of the cited sources? Only the excerpts are citing primary sources, correct? I'm not seeing any OR in that article relative to the use of primary sources, do you?. Is Shakespeare's King Lear a primary source? Is Hawking's Grand Design a primary source? Am I miscalculating what is and isn't a primary source?  Atsme 💬 📧 03:19, 23 April 2022 (UTC)


 * The first three body sections have only primary sources. They lack sourcing for particular claims made (“first”) and there are no secondary sources that link their content to each other, nor to the section on physics. Seems clearly problematic and synth-y to me. JBL (talk) 12:15, 23 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a three-body (section) problem. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 18:55, 23 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Lol. JBL (talk) 19:08, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

Kalpana Wilson Bhattacharya redirect
Hi David Eppstein, I saw that you declined my request for a speedy delete of the redirect that remained after the article was moved. I requested a speedy delete because the redirect name appears to have no support in reliable sources (I mentioned this in the AfD) and the article was created by an editor who was unresponsive after I warned them about the extraordinary claims and potential WP:BLP violations. This type of conduct does not appear to be an isolated incident for this editor, who has also not edited since a series of warnings on their Talk page. This is my first request for a speedy delete of a redirect, and I apologize for not making my concern more clear on the Talk page. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you, Beccaynr (talk) 05:17, 23 April 2022 (UTC)
 * She appears to be the mother of Ananya Wilson-Bhattacharya (at least, has referred to her publicly as her daughter) so although it does not appear to be the correct name to use for her, it does not appear to be so implausible or incorrect that R3 speedy deletion can be used for the redirect. Is there some particular reason you want the redirect gone? Because the connection to the daughter appears to be public knowledge, I am not convinced WP:BLPPRIVACY applies. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:24, 23 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I haven't found reliable sources making the connection, and the deleted Ananya Wilson-Bhattacharya article was created by the same editor. I am concerned that the original article was basically a hoax, and may need revdel(?) for the extraordinary claims connecting the academic Kalpana Wilson, without any reliable sources, to the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation and marriage to its current General Secretary. I have seen the claim about Ananya Wilson-Bhattacharya repeated in Wikipedia mirrors, but that seems likely due to the delay in deleting her article. I spent a fair amount of time researching this during the AfD, and the editing history of the article creator as well as their failure to communicate added to my concern. Beccaynr (talk) 06:30, 23 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you didn't read my reply carefully. Kalpana Wilson herself has publicly named Ananya Wilson-Bhattacharya as her daughter. It can be found in the acknowledgements to her book Race, Racism and Development: https://books.google.com/books?id=xwE1EAAAQBAJ&pg=PR8 (a line above where she also acknowledges Dipankar Bhattacharya "of course ... even across continents").—David Eppstein (talk) 06:53, 23 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I appreciate you adding the source, because I had not found it and didn't understand your comment, but now it does seem like a plausible misnomer. When I had tried to source her name and family members, I had found mention of a Kalpana Vaughan Wilson "posting a picture with daughter Clara from her hospital ward" in a 2018 BBC article, which at least from my view, made it more necessary to find a specific source. Thank you very much for your assistance with this. Beccaynr (talk) 13:22, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Cop-win graph
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Cop-win graph 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 Eviolite -- Eviolite (talk) 05:21, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

Möbius strip
Just been looking at this beautifully presented article which certainly merits its GA. Glad to see others will soon be able to enjoy it on DYK. Well done!--Ipigott (talk) 06:10, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks! —David Eppstein (talk) 06:12, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Next time it won't happen. DBhaiji (talk) 07:55, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Edit summaries
Hi David

Per WP:SUMMARYNO, Avoid incivility. Snide comments, personal remarks about editors, and other aggressive edit summaries are explicit edit-summary "don'ts" of the Wikipedia Civility policy

At WT:Date formattings, I asked you not to use edit summaries as a venue for attacks.

Sadly, you have continued to do use attacking edit summaries when you add an extra parameter to Use dmy dates, e.g., ,.

I couldn't be bothered taking you to ANI over this, but if you persist, someone else may decide to take action.

So I have sadly made you the first editor ever to be placed on my blocklist for notifications. I will no longer see pings or mentions from you.

This is a pity. I have great respect for some of your work, so I would prefer not to have disengage from you, but your aggressive hostility over this matter is intolerable. Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:38, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I have repeatedly asked you not to violate MOS:DATERET on articles I have created. I think that your obeying this guideline comes at a higher priority than your irritation at being asked not to violate it. I will continue to ask you not to violate this guideline as long as you keep violating it. My asking you not to violate guidelines is not incivil and your asking to be left alone while you continue to blatantly violate guidelines is unreasonable. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:51, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
 * David, you are asking at numerous venues, and now that I am ignoring all those rants, you are asking pointlessly.
 * I tried to discuss with you the difficulty of identifying whether any YYYY-MM-DD used are an actual style choice rather than the default output of a bot or script. However, you have not moved on beyond repeated use of police-style language like "violation", which is uncivil ... and your use of multiple venues also advances nothing.
 * Since you have chosen angry denunciation instead of discussion, discussion has ended.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 21:39, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
 * "Numerous venues"?? The only recent discussion on this issue that I believe I have contributed to is the one at Wikipedia talk:Date formattings. Are you confusing me with someone else? As for "discussion has ended": it is not acceptable for you, the one who is violating the guideline, to unilaterally declare that nobody else can talk about your misbehavior because you're tired of being told that you're misbehaving. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:40, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Cop-win graph
The article Cop-win graph 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:Cop-win graph for issues which need to be addressed. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Eviolite -- Eviolite (talk) 03:21, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Credited as
"Credited as the author" is a somewhat different usage from the one you are promoting. It's not a good choice, but I understand why you want to cling to your personal preference. Deb (talk) 16:04, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
 * "Credited as" merely means [the person doing the crediting] described someone's contribution to something as having a certain nature. The dictionary definition I quoted is "to believe or say that somebody is responsible for doing something, especially something good". It certainly includes, but is in no way limited to, the formal listing of credits in audiovisual productions. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:10, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

May Women in Red events
--Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:51, 30 April 2022 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Overlinking
Hi, I saw your message. I was also warned about overlinking by several other users and since then, I started to repair the texts that I changed. Thanks for your warning as well! TheWikiBadger (talk) 19:12, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

Chinese Postman Problems
I would like to understand what policy my edits violated to merit a takedown. ScientistBuilder (talk) 00:06, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
 * You wrote five times as much text about stuff that is not the route inspection problem as there was content about the route inspection problem in the article about the route inspection problem. If you want to be pointed to an actual policy, try WP:NPOV and the word "proportionately" in its first sentence. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:14, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Cop-win graph
The article Cop-win graph you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Cop-win graph for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already appeared on the main page as a "Did you know" item, or as a bold link under "In the News" or in the "On This Day" prose section, you can nominate it within the next seven days to appear in DYK. Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On This Day" column do not affect DYK eligibility. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Eviolite -- Eviolite (talk) 05:21, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

DYK for Möbius strip
Cwmhiraeth (talk) 00:02, 3 May 2022 (UTC) theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 03:13, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

A word in season
... might save a trip to ANEW. Sorry to bug you. EEng 04:19, 3 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Now that they have the last revert, and have gone up to 4RR, I left them a user warning. You are pushing pretty close to the limit yourself; I count either three or four depending on whether one counts your initial removal of this material as a revert. Consider yourself warned too. Better to stop reverting earlier and call in help with a neutrally worded message to a relevant project or noticeboard. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:49, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Georgia Benkart
Hello there, wanted to ask your assistance in sourcing few sentences at Georgia Benkart while we get the article ready for WP:ITNRD at WP:ITNC. The article is almost ready (at least to a less discerning eye like mine on this topic), but, is lacking a few references / citations. Appreciate any assistance. Ktin (talk) 18:28, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks, but most of the unsourced material in the research section appears very technical, on Lie group classification theory which I know only the bare minimum of enough to get myself in trouble in. I definitely don't know it well enough to do a competent job of matching up the claims in the article with the description of her work in the "Gems" source, if indeed there is some way of matching them up. I think maybe you need someone who has studied that area more than I have. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:47, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Talk page stalker here. I'm sad to hear about her death.  I'll try and pitch in a bit this weekend, at least with some general work (but life is busy, and I don't guarantee much).  As far as your question: can you source any of the mostly-unsourced Research section from the AMS "Gems" article?  Or possibly to reviews of her books?  (The last would be nice to add as references to the books in the listing, anyway.) Comment that her undergrad education and other routine career details could be sourced to her CV or faculty profile page or similar. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 10:42, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
 * No, I cannot source the research from Gems. I tried. My knowledge of Lie group theory was inadequate to get the unsourced key points of Research to match up with any of the key points in Gems. I don't know whether that means that they do not match up or whether someone more knowledgeable than me would see that they really are the same. But either way, I suspect it means that, even if Gems could be used in this way, it would not provide the desired verifiability. Alternatives: find someone else to fix the sources who either knows the content better or is more reckless, find other third-party sources that do source the significance of the claims in Research, or totally rewrite Research based on actual third-party sources like Gems (again, requiring an editor who is expert in Lie groups). —David Eppstein (talk) 16:12, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
 * , I didn't mean to give you more to do, and intended to direct my suggestions at, who I should've pinged. (But looking more, it looks like Ktin is also not an expert on Lie theory, and is just looking at the WP:ITNRD aspects.)  Anyway, I'm not an expert, but I know some of the basics, and I'll try to help. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 16:48, 5 May 2022 (UTC)  Pinging also  who is also working on the article, so she's aware of the discussion and of Ktin's request. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 16:52, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

DAG
(a) Thanks for leaving "acyclic directed graph". (b) As for "vague", I copied it from the topological sorting page, so you should look there. I see you feel it's necessary for the students to see this term in the intro. I wish you would not make a mean assumption about my motivation from graph theory; I do know "DAG" is all over TCS and nothing about my edit suggested otherwise. Zaslav (talk) 21:36, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Photo of Georgia Benkart
Hi David. I can use some help on this. This photo was used in the recent Notices of the AMS article on Georgia Benkart and on the U Wisconsin-Madison In Memoriam page on Benkart. The photographer is Yvonne Nagel; she was given credit in the Notices articles. I contacted her and she herself uploaded it to Wikimedia Commons. The Community Tech bot marked the photo for deletion pointing to the U Wisconsin-Madison In Memoriam page and claimed the photo on Wikimedia Commons violated copyright. I deleted the deletion tag with an explanation but I don't know what the correct procedure is. Can you help??? Mvitulli (talk) 23:05, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
 * If you had uploaded it, it would need WP:OTRS permission from the photographer, but for a photo directly uploaded by the photographer that should not be necessary. I think the explanation is sufficient but I'm not a Commons administrator. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:21, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Hosted content under university's faculty domain
Hello David, this is a bit of an off-topic question, but I believe you have experience in this subject after having written many BLPs. Do we consider resumes/CVs hosted under a university's faculty website as a reliable source for their credentials? For instance, sourcing information from https://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/ or https://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/vita.pdf for a BLP. In your Wikipedia article, the current position that you hold and your academic credentials are sources from a CV hosted under the UCI's faculty domain. Is it reasonable to treat that as an RS for sourcing current positions and credentials etc.? There is a discussion at Talk:Audrey_Truschke concerning this topic. -- WikiLinuz { talk } 🍁  05:32, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
 * They generally count as self-published sources by the subject. WP:BLPSELFPUB describes how this sort of source may be used. Yes, if we have no reason to suspect duplicity, it can be used for basic career and degree dates. It cannot be used for opinions about the importance of the subject's contributions. In my particular case, you can also find my current position at https://ap.uci.edu/titles-of-distinction/distinguished-professor/, a web site I have no control over but there is much less detail on other matters there. It can often be useful to look for similar kinds of university-controlled faculty profiles, for instance as a check that a cv is not out of date, or as a substitute when a cv cannot be found. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:34, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
 * In most cases, the content hosted under the faculty's website (space allocated to faculty members) must abide by the terms, aren't they? Meaning that a professor can't host fabricated or particularly false information, right? I believe that'd get them into trouble. I have no knowledge of the terms that govern "www.ics.uci.edu/~PROFESSOR_NAME_HERE" namespace. But I do know it's personally managed by professors since I remember writing a CGI script for my professor to retrieve assignment grades during my university days, which was hosted under my prof's faculty site. -- WikiLinuz { talk } 🍁  05:55, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm asking this because there was an argument on "self-hosted CV" vs. "vetted 3rd party sources" concerning the reliability of WP:PUBLISHED sources. -- WikiLinuz { talk } 🍁  06:05, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The personal web sites of faculty are not vetted and are under the direct control of the faculty member. I don't have to ask anyone else to change my web site; I just change the files in a directory that the web server accesses. And there is nobody who goes around checking that these pages are accurate or professional or up-to-date, unless maybe something became a major scandal and was forced to the attention of the higher administration. We do have to submit cvs for some official purposes (personnel reviews, and grant applications, for instance), and those really are checked by multiple people, but there's nothing forcing the one on the web page to match them. Some universities have official sites that host faculty cvs, and maybe those are checked, but they're probably still not always up-to-date. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:12, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks! -- WikiLinuz { talk } 🍁  06:15, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Barbara A. Jones
Hi there. While I was looking at the WikiProject Women in Red/Fellowships, I see that Barbara A. Jones is listed twice. I checked American Physical Society and confirmed that Barbara A. Jones was a fellow in 1994 and 2002. However, I'm not sure if this is the same person. The 1994 fellow was for infrared instrumentation by the University of California, San Diego. The 2002 fellow, which you made, was for spin transport by the IBM Almaden Research Center. Do you think this is the same person? Thanks! --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 18:17, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Definitely a different person. The 1994 Jones is an astronomer, emeritus at UC San Diego. . —David Eppstein (talk) 18:37, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for looking into this. I updated the WIR list :) MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 19:06, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Also I don't see any evidence elsewhere that she has a middle initial or that it is A. I think maybe the APS got the two of them confused and copied the middle initial from the other one. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:23, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Spaceship (Cellular Automaton) citations
What do you think would be a good citation for the elementary knightship discovery on Spaceship (cellular automaton)? The forum post on it is as reliable as it gets and it's hard to find citations for this. Maybe just one citation to the forum post discovery? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77551enpassant20:28, 11 May 2022‎ (talk • contribs) |
 * If you cannot find sources that are not forums or open wikis, it is not yet ready to be included in Wikipedia. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:24, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

R. P. Gupta notability
Do you think he is notable. The article has been on the cat:nn list for 10+ years.  scope_creep Talk  22:22, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't see a case. Citation counts are in the double digits only, the article says he is mostly known for being late to the party, and our source for that only gives him passing coverage. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:28, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

author link
Thanks for showing me how to do the author link. I did not know how to do that. I did not know there WAS an author link parameter.
 * example you fixed was | last1 = belcastro | first1 = sarah-marie | author1-link = Sarah-Marie Belcastro

--Toploftical (talk) 20:51, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * See Help:Citation Style 1 for guidance on the many citation parameters that are available. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:54, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

Revert of edit
Hello, I see you've reverted this edit. If I come back with better sourced news articles, will you consider that sufficient? MOSforever (talk) 00:29, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Maybe. Beyond poor sourcing the addition was also problematic for being totally out of context. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:33, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I would push back against it being out of context, a previous paragraph refers to holding two NIH grants, and oversight of such is relevant to a researcher's career. But as to sources, I'm sure that is a solvable problem. MOSforever (talk) 00:36, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
 * It's out of context in that the rest of the article describes a successful research career, and then suddenly we have "she denied wrongdoing". What credible accusations of wrongdoing were there to deny? In general the standard for inclusion of criminal accusations on a biography of a living person is published articles after a conviction. We don't mention charges that did not lead to a conviction. I could point to articles on academics with national newspaper coverage of arrest for child pornography that were expunged from our article because we had no followup article saying anything about a conviction (but I won't point to them, because it would be a WP:BLP violation even to do so.) A sentence saying the subject denied wrongdoing on far less sensational charges, without even saying who accused her of what, falls far below that standard. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:59, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Very well, I can see this will only lead to conflict and continuing edits back and forth. If the DOJ taking an action related to this person's research oversight, and multiple credible and "real" sources reporting on said action AND also the response by the subject in question, is not sufficient to be included in a BLP, so be it; this hagiography can stand. MOSforever (talk) 01:18, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
 * None of those things describe specific and proven wrongdoing by the subject. Insinuating that they do, as did in the article and as you continue to do in your responses here, is a BLP violation. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:33, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
 * If so, then perhaps it is better to remove this section entirely from this Talk page. MOSforever (talk) 01:37, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

Some pie for you!

 * You're welcome! Thanks for the pi(e)! —David Eppstein (talk) 07:15, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Squaring the circle
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Squaring the circle 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 Ovinus -- Ovinus (talk) 00:40, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Squaring the circle
The article Squaring the circle 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:Squaring the circle for issues which need to be addressed. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Ovinus -- Ovinus (talk) 01:00, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Tom Brown (mathematician)
Hi David -- Could I ask you to take a quick look at the above, accepted at AfC by, now revealed to be (yet another) problematic AfC editor. There's much unsourced fluff, only one independent source, a dead link and one of the highly cited papers mentioned comes out as 70 in Google Scholar. (I've left it as is for convenience but if the subject is notable the unsourced fluff obviously needs culling.) Thanks, Espresso Addict (talk) 05:50, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I trimmed a lot of unsourced material. But really the only thing that might make this one any stronger than Articles for deletion/R. P. Gupta is the festschrift. That's suggestive of notability, but probably not enough by itself. And sometimes festschriften contain biographies of the recipient that could be used toward WP:GNG, but not this time. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:20, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this -- I've just found which says it's a student editing project, so probably no problems with payments for review. The source for ~all of it was an interview they conducted with him:, so basically it's an autobiography. Espresso Addict (talk) 06:48, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Squaring the circle
The article Squaring the circle you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Squaring the circle for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already appeared on the main page as a "Did you know" item, or as a bold link under "In the News" or in the "On This Day" prose section, you can nominate it within the next seven days to appear in DYK. Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On This Day" column do not affect DYK eligibility. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Ovinus -- Ovinus (talk) 08:01, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Mercifully passed
Thanks for the merciful review and pass at DYK for Helen Hadsell. Bruxton (talk) 22:30, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
 * You're welcome! It had been languishing long enough, but didn't turn out to be as difficult to review as many of those old contentious DYK nominations can end up being. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:41, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

June events from Women in Red
--Megalibrarygirl (talk) 09:19, 31 May 2022 (UTC) via MassMessaging

If you have a minute
Hi If you some time, can you please take a look at the Muthana Mithqal Sartawi Afd. Thanks   scope_creep Talk  18:32, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Maybe, but I tend to avoid the medical ones as being somewhat beyond my expertise. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:33, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * Glad to see you took it in good humor! I was a little worried it was too uncivil. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:47, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Xerox PARC (and the PR infobox I added to it)
Oh hi, I see you reverted my edit on PARC (company). I am not here to argue with you over that revert, I am here to apologize for that mistake of an edit. When I read the article, I thought it sounded like a press release that was made by an Xerox higher-up to prospective investors. It had too many advertisement - like phrases/sentences such as "as been at the heart of numerous revolutionary computer developments", "Many advances were not equalled or surpassed for two decades, enormous timespans in the fast-paced high-tech world.", "Xerox PARC has been the inventor and incubator of many elements of modern computing", and "served for a long time as standards for much of the computing industry.". It sounded too much like a press release or a news article paid by Xerox to advertise Xerox Parc that I thought an editor had a COI (conflict of interest) with Xerox.

My assumption was wrong. Through further research (research is the best way to remove assumptions), I realized that Xerox thoroughly squandered (not blaming them for not capitalizing on the Xerox Alto) their chance to assert market dominance in the computing industry early with the Alto and PARC still made many innovations in computing. They could have took the chance to be the first computer brand that integrated software GUI's into their software and become a major competitor in the computing space. I wonder now how would Xerox be now if they commercialized the Alto. Would they be a major player in the computing space along with Microsoft and Apple? Or would they be just a small subsidiary of IBM or any big tech companies?

Sorry if my knowledge of computing from the 1970s to the 1990s isn't as great as my detailed knowledge of the AMD and Intel race for most superior CPU from the 2000s to today. ShiriEditsTalk 09:52, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Saving work
Hi, just wanted to note that in this edit you reverted both the change you objected to and an unrelated edit. Please try to be careful to only undo bad changes; undoing desirable changes just makes more work for other editors. In a previous edit you removed the text I added, but gave a reason for moving the text instead of removing it, only to give your reason for removing in the later revert. Your reasons were perfectly good; if you just state them up front, editing will feel like more of a collaboration and less like a tug-of-war, and it will also proceed more efficiently. Thanks! BTW, if you can satisfactorily articulate the difference between a greedy and a hill-climbing algorithm, it would be helpful to add to the article. That's what I was looking for when I came to the page, and other readers have been asking about it on the talk page. -- Beland (talk) 17:55, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Double bubble theorem
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Double bubble theorem 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 Fantoche Kugutsu -- Fantoche Kugutsu (talk) 20:01, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Please stop deleting the gallery section in Stellated octahedron as crufty
Dear David,

the Stellated octahedron is rather unique, in that it presents radically different 2D projections, depending on the viewing angle. From many viewpoints it obscures so much of itself that is becomes difficult or even impossible to be sure what it is. And many people either struggle to visualize it or fall into the trap of only thinking of it as being a specific projection, such as the one with the silhouette of the Star of David. Yet there are, for example, also projections that have the outline of a square! I believe that the selection of images that were in the gallery section presented a good illustration of that variety.

How can you justify claiming "whole crufty section, does not illustrate article content"?

The whole topic is about stellated octahedron, and the images are all illustrations of STELLATED OCTAHEDRONS!

Isn't your justification for deletion indisputably false?

Or might it actually be a symptom that you are one of the many people who have a dominant visualization of what they think it looks like, and experience a visceral reaction that most of those images in the gallery "Don't even look like a stellated octahedron!!!"?

I find it sad that you seem willing to charge into a topic and delete an entirely RELEVANT section, while shouting "CRUFTY!" - and then re-delete it (without further justification) after I undid your deletion.

Many contributors have invested significant efforts creating those images and that section. So, given the fact that it is relevant to the topic and the fact that many readers appreciate visual examples, wouldn't it be more constructive if you were to put in some effort to perhaps generate new images that you find to be more illustrative to replace any specific ones that you dislike?

I appeal to you to appreciate that having a gallery of different portrayals of the stellated octahedron has a benefit for a significant percentage of people that exceeds the annoyance that it causes the surely smaller percentage of people, like yourself, who might regard that section as crufty.

I'm not sure what the protocol is for situations like this.

Can I assume that if you are unable to justify your claim and you accept my arguments, you will do the honorable thing, and restore the gallery section yourself?

In goodwill, I assume that you are honorable, and hope that you appreciate that I am not simply re-undoing your re-deletion.

Best wishes,

Regular Polyhedron — Preceding unsigned comment added by Regular Polyhedron (talk • contribs) 20:17, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * It is completely unsourced and contributes no textual content to the article. There are no explanations of any of the pictures. Its purpose is completely superfluous, redundant with a link to the Wikipedia commons category for this topic, where a more complete gallery can be found. In general, our polyhedron articles are a disaster zone of bad sourcing, generic text unspecific to their topic, and unsupported picture galleries, many with only a peripheral connection to the topics of their articles. Your screed here is a perfect example of the attitude that causes our polyhedron articles to be so bad. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:21, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * PS Your images on commons are not listed as being in any category. Please add them to Commons:Category:Stellated octahedron so they can be found from the commons category link at the bottom of stellated octahedron. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:23, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your response. But you completely ignored my claim that your stated justification for deletion is FALSE. Now, I observe that you have shifted to a different argument. You brought to my attention that the 23rd link down in the desktop version's navigation frame links to all related media. That's a very useful link, but like probably 99% of Wikipedia users, I did not know about it. And considering that that link is not available in the mobile version, I think your claim that the gallery is made "superfluous and redundant" by that link is untrue for 99% of users. The purpose of a gallery is self-explanatory, is it really necessary to explain what is intuitively obvious? I appreciate you educating me on how I should have categorized those images, and have done so, but I am disappointed by your ad hominem style description of my rational and fair non-agressive arguments for restoring the gallery section, as a "screed". Is there any possibility of us finding a compromise? You argue strongly against having "unsupported picture galleries", but would it make any difference if I added explanations of the pictures? Who is Wikipedia for, if not the 99% of users? You also IGNORED my claim that many readers appreciate (or even need) visual examples. I think that deserves a response - unless I'm right.
 * Hoping that we can stabilize a positive energy field between us, Regular Polyhedron (talk) 22:11, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I think it's intuitively obvious that those pictures are crufty, fwiw. --JBL (talk) 22:20, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Also the article already has a large number of visual examples, including examples that are similar but obviously preferable to some of the ones you've added. The idea that "99% of users" want to see (or would benefit from seeing) a picture of your wrist tattoo is ... dubious. JBL (talk) 22:23, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh dear. Let's analyze your response. So my offer to improve the section (to eliminate all traces of crustiness) is ignored. My argument against it being redundant is also ignored. My argument that many readers appreciate visual examples is ignored by ad hominem ridiculing. I'm not sure which of your arguments is the weakest. But the fact that you responded, so that David conveniently doesn't have to, makes me wonder if you are his sock puppet? I assume David will keep a dignified distance and not dignify my screed with a response, which is probably the smartest thing for him to do. Regular Polyhedron (talk) 22:57, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh, you're just a troll; that's boring. --JBL (talk) 23:06, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you. That was the weakest argument.
 * Regular Polyhedron (talk) 23:11, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree with the removal of that gallery. Meters (talk) 23:34, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * http://www.jowaltonbooks.com/poetry/whimsy/the-lurkers-support-me-in-email/ —David Eppstein (talk) 23:40, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I thought that I had some reasonable arguments, and had no bad intentions, but I concede that it must stay deleted.
 * Regular Polyhedron (talk) 23:44, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

DYK for Squaring the circle
— Maile (talk) 00:02, 7 June 2022 (UTC) theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 07:05, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Differential Manchester encoding
David Eppstein, you added a "merge from" tag to this article on April 18 (in relation to a DYK nomination of the article you want merged here) but never started a section on the Differential Manchester encoding talk page explaining why. Absent that section, the merge is never going to go anywhere. If you wish to pursue the merger, please start the discussion. Thank you very much. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:07, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Schwarz lantern
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Schwarz lantern 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 Ovinus -- Ovinus (talk) 19:41, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Schwarz lantern
The article Schwarz lantern you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Schwarz lantern for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already appeared on the main page as a "Did you know" item, or as a bold link under "In the News" or in the "On This Day" prose section, you can nominate it within the next seven days to appear in DYK. Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On This Day" column do not affect DYK eligibility. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Ovinus -- Ovinus (talk) 15:22, 11 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Yet one more meisterwerk! Really well presented.--Ipigott (talk) 06:16, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks! —David Eppstein (talk) 06:33, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Reversal of Pi History
Hey there, David! I read one of your Computational Geometry papers in depth back when I was in university. I remember enjoying your exposition and visuals, in contrast to other papers which could be quite dry. So it's fun to see you on here many years later. :-)

I want to clarify your reversal to my edit here:


 * a historical removement of all claims of priority, even for the discovery of calculus, as if it had been in use all along and Leibniz and Newton merely helped it along

My intention here was solely to make the text more factual and readable according to what the referenced sources actually claim. It seemed to me, there was some WP:OR.

That said, I may misunderstand your critique. Maybe you can help me understand.

I've found, in several Wikipedia articles, we sometimes like to wave grand narratives, establish claims of discovery, glorify individuals, nations, and cultures with MOS:PUFFERY akin to sports teams. Historians of science, it seems to me, see the inherent uncertainty of history and how ideas travel, and are more careful in stating such claims (akin to WP:NPOV).

Often it's not fully clear how ideas travel, either because there never was written documentation or because documentation got lost. Thus, I've rarely seen historians of science use the labels "first" and "second" unless there is evidence. Rather they'd say an idea was "attested" at a certain time or in a certain document. (Another example: when the manuscript The Method of Mechanical Theorems was found around 100 years ago or also the Antikythera mechanism, people of our time realized that certain ideas date back to at least the Ancient Greeks. However, we don't know if they were the first. We can merely attest the existence of ideas.)

What do you think? Maybe I missed the main point of your critique. As said, my intention here is solely to be factual, improve readability, and present a neutral point of view. &#39;wɪnd (talk) 12:53, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm not a huge fan of the great man theory of history, in general. But in the case of calculus, with Newton and Leibniz, it is accurate. They invented it. Saying otherwise, that they merely "developed" something that was there all along, is incorrect. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:44, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
 * If I understand you correctly, the part of the edit you disliked was the phrase
 * The discovery of calculus
 * being changed to
 * The development of calculus
 * IIRC, I changed the wording to make it consistent with the Wikipedia page on Calculus, which states:
 * Infinitesimal calculus was developed independently in the late 17th century by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.
 * I understood develop here to mean that they introduced this word and the surrounding concepts. A bit like how you cultivate or develop a plant from a seedling and care for its growth.
 * How do you see it?
 * P.S. I'm glad you aren't a huge fan of the great man theory (thanks for introducing me to the concept!). If you look at Leibnitz' letters from the archives, you can see that he was in correspondence with many people over a long period of time in order to find consensus on naming and notation. &#39;wɪnd (talk) 19:45, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
 * @David Eppstein What do you think? &#39;wɪnd (talk) 11:31, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

Citation help
Hi David

When filing bare URLs, I found on the article two refs with errors: in the current version those are refs #55 and #185.

In each case, there is a secondary URL which the cite template does not seem to be handling elegantly. I haven't encountered this situation before, and wondered if you would you be able to clean them up? Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:48, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Ok, I tried using id for the extra url. Also the first one was missing the title of the individual conference. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:49, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks, David. Using ID in that way seems like a  bit of kludge, but I guess it was the only way of resolving the mess. I will bear that in mind for future difficult cases.   Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 18:03, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Double bubble theorem
you:

The eventual proof of the full double bubble conjecture also uses Hutchings' method to reduce the problem to a finite case analysis, but it avoids the use of computer calculations

But the 1995 proof did rely on a computer, so it's worth mentioning it roughly and associating it with that category. ינון גלעדי (talk) 20:11, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Reason for CSD G5
Where is your evidence that this was created by a user banned prior to the creation? Which user?. I was relying on this: {{{u|DoesWhateverASpiderCant}}:. Admittedly, it was hard to understand, but that was my interpretation. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 19:00, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, that says that the account was used to evade other accounts. But G5 requires that the article creation happen AFTER the other accounts were banned. We have no information about what those other accounts are, whether they were banned or just temporarily blocked, or if so when they were banned. Why the rush to destruction of content? What purpose do you think this deletion would serve? —David Eppstein (talk) 19:05, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Double bubble theorem
The article Double bubble theorem you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Double bubble theorem for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already appeared on the main page as a "Did you know" item, or as a bold link under "In the News" or in the "On This Day" prose section, you can nominate it within the next seven days to appear in DYK. Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On This Day" column do not affect DYK eligibility. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Kusma -- Kusma (talk) 18:41, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Precious anniversary
--Gerda Arendt (talk) 05:19, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Malfatti's marble problem.
Dear Prof. Eppstein,

You did not unfortunately reply to my email, sent at your academic address. Therefore, I found back my Wikipedia account and I post the essentials here, where I was suggested to reply to your repeated amendments to the page.

I am the author of the following paper:

Lombardi, Giancarlo (June 2022), "Proving the solution of Malfatti's marble problem", Rendiconti del Circolo Matematico di Palermo, Series 2, doi:10.1007/s12215-022-00759-2.

I was surprised to find the following statements about my work, conducted privately at my living place (this is why there is no affiliation):

"Undo continued promotionalism, apparently by someone trying to hype up their own research. Z&L 1994 claim to have a proof of a solution. Andreatti et al accept it as a proof. It uses some computer-based calculations but that does not make it less of a proof. Another proof that avoids the calculations is a good thing, but not something to be trumpeting from the rooftops."

You state further that "Previous proof appears to have been fully rigorous": if it was, I would have not carried out my work in its form and I would have titled the paper instead: "A new simpler proof of the solution of Malfatti's marble problem". My work was peer reviewed two years.

By a deeper analysis, the work of Zalgaller and Los is not a proof in mathematical sense. In the introduction I used a language customary in science work and I did not list in detail the sequel of encountered substantial flaws. Just to mention the most crucial ones, several functions, essential in the proof, are stated to be increasing or decreasing without proof and referring only to a numerical table. This is in particular the case of alpha0 and gamma0, the latter fundamental in the proof. It is stated that alpha0-alpha2(t) has a single zero in the concerned t interval and this is not shown either. Above all, the entire final part of the reasoning is constituted by a numerical verification of an inequality (looking like the "proof" of Goldberg 1967).

You do not contradict that by stating that "It uses some computer-based calculations", but you conclude "that does not make it less of a proof".

In that respect I refer to the Kepler Conjecture and in particular to the first Hales' Proof. Hales uses numerical computation to find lower bounds: it is what I do with the final lower bound value on Gamma in the marble problem. In that case a numerical computation has the value of a proof, because it has in its own purpose a finite numerical precision, as sufficient to find a lower bound. On the contrary, the statement that a function is increasing or decreasing by plotting or, further, that a function admits a single zero in an interval, again by plotting, does not provide any proof, as it would require infinite numerical precision, which is impossible. The numerical justification of an inequality may enjoy a similar problem. I am an engineer and in practical projects one accepts this kind of statements, as providing a functioning circuit or system as a result. But I would never use such a statement as a "proof" of a given property, but only as an indication that this happens in the practice. Moreover, Hales himself was not fully convinced by the numerical nature of the proof and he found necessary to give a "formal proof".

In the peer reviewed introduction I state synthetically all those facts and the conclusion is that I provide an analytical proof, whereas previously there was a justification based on conjectures stated from numerical simulation. And this proof is the first one since the problem was posed in 1803. Therefore, whoever wrote made no promotionalism nor trumpets, but indicated mere facts and the reviewers agreed with them by accepting title, abstract, introduction and conclusions.

I thank you for your kind attention and I ask you please not to curb facts and to revert finally the text providing the real situation. In math there are facts and not opinions.Gialom05 (talk) 22:16, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Doyle spiral
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Doyle spiral 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 Duckmather -- Duckmather (talk) 03:41, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

MOS:LINUX
Hello, I came across your comment from back in 2017 at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 197 saying "The MOS:LINUX paragraph is important to discourage a small but very vocal minority from attempting to get their way." I did not realize until today that MOS:LINUX is part of a failed proposal and have been citing it as justification for changing GNU/Linux to simply Linux on articles. However, I have an editor going through articles such as Comparison of web browsers and undoing my changes, using the fact that MOS:LINUX is a failed proposal for their sole justification in doing so to the point of ignoring any other point. They are conveniently ignoring the fact that there is a longstanding consensus at Talk:Linux to name the article's subject as simply Linux, so I wanted to come to you for advice on what to do to maybe address this editor, but I also wanted to ask if you thought there would be some way to add MOS:LINUX to a different part of the Manual of Style for easy citing? I don't have any real experience with editing the MoS so I don't know where or how to suggest such a thing. - Aoidh (talk) 02:52, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
 * There's a dizzying amount of subdirectories within the MoS itself so I don't even begin to know where, if anywhere, it would fit. - Aoidh (talk) 03:02, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Editing the MOS itself is a difficult and slow process involving building consensus, and holding and widely advertising a discussion on the change. I've never gone through that myself. Getting consensus to stop a rogue editor should be much easier. If you can't find enough interested editors to hold the line at individual articles, then Requests for comment would be the next step. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:28, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Women in Red in July 2022
--Lajmmoore (talk) 15:45, 27 June 2022 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Warring edits on 177.
Your recent editing history at 177 (number) shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war; that means that you are repeatedly changing content back to how you think it should be, when you have seen that other editors disagree. To resolve the content dispute, please do not revert or change the edits of others when you are reverted. Instead of reverting, please use the 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 the bold, revert, discuss cycle 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 you 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 do not violate the three-revert rule&mdash;should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly. Radlrb (talk) 18:30, 28 June 2022 (UTC)


 * You did 4 reverts. Radlrb (talk) 18:30, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

DYK for Schwarz lantern
&mdash; Amakuru (talk) 00:02, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

"198 (number)" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect 198 (number) and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 June 29 until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 08:43, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Convex hull: materials science section
Hi Prof. Eppstein, I would appreciate it if you could explain your claim of REFSPAM and/or offer suggestions for improving my most recent post. I am new to modifying pages and open to discussion. Io1026 (talk) 18:07, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The material there is already adequately cited. Adding another recently-published research paper on a specialized related topic, when we already have textbook coverage of the same material, has the appearance of adding a citation as an excuse to cite that citation rather than because it is really needed. That is the definition of WP:REFSPAM. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:14, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for explaining. The discovery of new magnets using this concept is not a specialized topic: it is what differentiates the materials science from general mathematical modeling, and is thus particularly relevant to those who find this subsection. I can appreciate the appearance of REFSPAM with the two references having similar sets of authors. The first provides the nomenclature, definition, and some visualizations and was added for pedagogical reasons. This reference can be removed. However, I strongly advocate for the magnets sentence and reference to be included. Io1026 (talk) 19:06, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't think "This descriptor was used for the discovery of two magnetic Heusler phases" is going to be helpful to convex hull readers. This descriptor has apparently been used since 1873. What makes this discovery stand out among all other uses in materials science, to the point where it is appropriate to highlight it as the most significant consequence that this theory has ever been used for, the only one worth mentioning in our article? How can "magnetic Heusler phases" be phrased in a way that doesn't just come across as [undigestible and otherwise-meaningless technical phrase] to readers familiar with basic mathematics but not materials science? —David Eppstein (talk) 19:12, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The descriptor I am referring to is the distance of an extremum from the "pseudo-hull" not containing it (pseudo because it is built from N-1 points). This is referred to as the stability criterion and is based off of the Gibbs convex hull construction. The idea of relating this distance to the degree of stability of compounds is fairly new (no later than 2014 from the references). The magnets study demonstrated its practical utility and predictive power, as it helped identify two new (previously not reported) magnets in the Heusler crystal structure family. How does this sound: "The practical utility and predictive power of the stability criterion was demonstrated in 2017 as it helped identify two new magnets in the Heusler crystal structure family.[REF]" Io1026 (talk) 21:08, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
 * This all sounds relevant material for Heusler compound. It still seems very specialized for convex hull. Is there an article on the application of hulls in materials science that we can point to as a main or see also link at the top of the materials science subsection? That way it could be found by people looking for these applications from the convex hull article without cluttering up the article itself with material that is only readable by specialists. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:14, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
 * This is no more specialized than the existing content, and it seems rather exclusionary to allow some contributions and not others. However, I do understand the need to limit content.
 * At the moment, there is no dedicated Wikipedia article on convex hull applications in materials science. The first article I referenced in my original post is a more general publication on this topic. It discusses the Heusler magnets study as well as other application studies (superalloys, Kondo insulators, etc.). "For practical applications of the convex hull and related descriptors in materials science, see Reference [REF]." Io1026 (talk) 22:38, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Prince Rupert's cube
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Prince Rupert's cube 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 Ovinus -- Ovinus (talk) 20:21, 30 June 2022 (UTC)