User talk:David Eppstein/2023c

Pulse check on notability
Hi, David Eppstein -- I considered asking at the NPROF talk, but felt it was a more minor-scope question than appropriate for a whole guideline's talk page, and I know you're very experienced with NPROF. I've written a couple articles on people affiliated with academia, but on GNG grounds rather than NPROF ones, so I'm not fluent in it the way I am in some other XNGs.

I'm wondering if User:Vaticidalprophet/Paul Needham (librarian) and the sources in it demonstrate a sufficient claim for NPROF. I'm working on User:Vaticidalprophet/Dark Archives and tried to ILL-link Needham's Wikidata item, at which point I discovered Paul Needham on enwiki goes to an entirely different subject. Given this Needham is a Guggenheim fellow he should pass by the letter of NPROF, but I wonder if this is always the case at AfD -- when writing Liu Yu (political scientist) a couple years ago I discovered Yu Liu (professor), a Guggenheim fellow whose AfD closed no-consensus with some uncertainty as to whether it was really a pass. Liu is an unusual case, though, given the rest of his career is relatively undistinguished. As for the rest of NPROF, I'm unsure how best to apply it to academic librarians rather than tenured professors, who are usually the subject of discussion.

I figured that if "Guggenheim fellow = pass" then my best bet was probably to whip up a quick draft for him and sidestep the "wrong Needham" issue entirely, so I've made a proof of concept. Obviously it'll be less of a microstub in mainspace, but I also don't want to commit to a meaningful investment in an article before it's clear if he really does pass, so I'm popping in to ask if there's anything here you see as a clear yes or no. This is the current main source for the article, and if there's anything in it that seems like a clear pass as well as or instead of the Guggenheim thing, that'd also be good to know.

Thanks for any help you can offer, and for all you do on the project. Vaticidalprophet 14:22, 3 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Very borderline at best. Librarians do not generally meet most conditions of WP:PROF, and a Guggenheim Fellowship is a research grant, not the kind of honorary level of society membership (also called a fellowship) that would pas WP:PROF. I think you are going to have to look for GNG notability rather than PROF. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:44, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm mostly querying that Guggenheim fellows are explicitly called out in C2 -- For the purposes of Criterion 2, major academic awards, such as the Nobel Prize, MacArthur Fellowship, the Fields Medal, the Bancroft Prize, the Pulitzer Prize for History, etc., always qualify under Criterion 2. Some less significant academic honors and awards that confer a high level of academic prestige can also be used to satisfy Criterion 2. Examples may include certain awards, honors and prizes of notable academic societies, of notable foundations and trusts (e.g., the Guggenheim Fellowship, Linguapax Prize), for exact wording -- but the Liu example (and indeed your own response) shows that this might be disputed in practice. Can this still be taken as part of NPROF criteria today? Vaticidalprophet 17:22, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't recall seeing it as the main claim to fame for any recent academic AfDs. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:50, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
 * It was a main claim (but not the only claim) in Articles for deletion/Agnes Callard, Articles for deletion/Matthew Mazzotta, and Articles for deletion/Kirin Narayan, and to a greater extent proportionally speaking in Articles for deletion/J Stoner Blackwell. Without doing an exhaustive study of the archives, I think that Guggenheim Fellows are typically notable on other grounds anyway (like in, e.g., Articles for deletion/Gail Hershatter), but it does weigh in a person's favor. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 19:16, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the correction! These all appear to have other claims to fame as well, but the Guggenheim definitely played a role in their keep outcomes. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:19, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Follow-up to independently reviewed changes for which I was told to "go ahead"
@David Eppstein Re wikipedia page for Bonnie_Dorr, all changes that were written 2 months ago underwent a very thorough, independent (almost 2 month long) verification process, undertaken by a mentor @David notMD and another independent reviewer @Lightoil. The result of that assessment was the following statement: "An impartial editor has reviewed the proposed edit(s) and asked the editor with a conflict of interest to go ahead and make the suggested changes." After putting in a significant time investment over the last 2 months, and finally getting approval, and now finally implementing those changes, a half day later they are now reverted back. Note that there are several inaccuracies in the original page, e.g., Bonnie_Dorr is not THE only former ACL president, Bonnie_Dorr no longer works at IHMC, and several other items. The additions to original material are factual, and backed up with references (correcting several references by the original authors of her entry). Those changes were very carefully itemized on the Bonnie_Dorr talk page, and all were verified over an extended period. So would you please provide more information as to why all those changes have now been reverted? Nlpsocialcyber (talk) 02:45, 4 July 2023 (UTC)


 * The factual changes are not the problem. The problem is the promotional evaluation of Dorr's research in the new "contributions" section, sourced to Dorr's own publications and grants. You cannot use those as sources for anything more than their own existence. Evaluation needs independent sourcing, meaning things published by other people about Dorr's work, not things by Dorr herself. You should also be careful of WP:PEACOCK: don't use value-laden but unspecific adjectives like "notable", instead you need to be more specific about what her actual contributions are. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:11, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Okay, thanks. (1) It would seem as a starting point that the other corrections need not have been reverted (outside contributions), do I have that right? If so that could be easily accommodated, and as a first step those could be resinstated, with your permission—please advise. (2) As for contributions: although those were independently verified, what I am hearing is that wording changes (esp adjectives) are needed, and references must be changed, do I have that right? Perhaps that section could be held out from the requested reinstatement and more iteration is needed within Talk, to get that corrected. Would that be acceptable? Nlpsocialcyber (talk) 10:12, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * After I reversed the large revert I deleted the Contributions section. David notMD (talk) 11:36, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks @David notMD 71.1.154.92 (talk) 14:41, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

DYK for 17-animal inheritance puzzle
—Kusma (talk) 00:02, 8 July 2023 (UTC) GalliumBot (talk • contribs) (he/it) 03:27, 9 July 2023 (UTC)


 * That was an amusing and interesting article, keep up the good work! CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 17:31, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks! —David Eppstein (talk) 17:53, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

[In]dependent samples, paired samples
just in case you're interested. Hildeoc (talk) 22:43, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

About Aarti Gupta
Hey David. I made an edit to the Aarti Gupta (computer scientist) regarding her nationality (which as correctly pointed) I presumed from her birth in India. I found her in Category:Indian women computer scientists but realized that the article no where mentions her as Indian, hence the edit I made. Would that be Wikipedia-cally okay if were to add '...is an India-born computer scientist...'? Adamsamuelwilson (talk) 07:51, 11 July 2023 (UTC)


 * This could only be added if you have a published source for her being born in India. We cannot operate on guesswork. All we know is that she was educated in India. It may seem unlikely for someone with an Indian name and an Indian education to have been born elsewhere but it is not impossible. For all we know she was born in the Indian diaspora and returned to India only for her education. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:22, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

H index of 15
Hello a colleague suggested I ask you here about a wikipedia page and its publishability with a researcher who's H-index is 15 in the field of infectious diseases and microbiology. Draft:Garrett A. Perchetti 2603:7000:5400:29:3C1D:6104:B5FC:A5B0 (talk) 05:04, 14 July 2023 (UTC)


 * My suspicion is that in a high-citation field, with only two publications in triple digits on Google Scholar, he isn't going to meet WP:PROF and is going to have to make a case for notability some other way. Probably this would involve removing most of the footnotes that do not contribute to WP:GNG notability and leaving only the sources that do: that is, publications by people unrelated to Perchetti and his employers, with in-depth coverage of Perchetti's specific role in the research they report.
 * But I am far from an expert in what level of contribution is enough in medical science, and to some extent I tend to avoid deletion discussions on medical scientists because of that. You might want to ask User:JoelleJay, who has a more refined methodology than mine for assessing the notability of researchers in different disciplines by comparing them to their peers in the same discipline. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:16, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

#2SAT and P=NP
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2-satisfiability&oldid=1165135152

Regarding that edit, the current wording implies that if P=NP then there is a polynomial solution for #2SAT, that's not necessarily true though. Whecmp (talk) 16:09, 17 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Incorrect. It implies that if there is a polynomial solution for #2SAT then P=NP. The implication goes in the opposite direction, which is the correct direction for it to go. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:45, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Women in Red 8th Anniversary
--Lajmmoore (talk) 11:00, 18 July 2023 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Engravings
[Context is Hipparchus –DE]

Hello. Many, many articles on ancient people have an early modern imaginary representation in the infobox. It is simply to have some sort of image on the top of the article because that's what people like. I think it would be better to use the image I uploaded. SaturatedFatts (talk) 05:14, 19 July 2023 (UTC)


 * This is not a pretty picture decoration service, it's an encyclopedia. We should only use images that have encyclopedic value. The Raphael may have some such value because it is a famous painting with much published commentary. Random engravings of some 19th-century guy's imagining of what a Greek person might have looked like have no value. They provide no information to the reader about the subject and may seriously misinform readers by falling into inaccurate stereotypes. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:21, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Alright, then will you go around and give the same treatment to the many other ancient Greeks that use a non famous imaginary representation in their infobox? If not, why single out Hipparchus SaturatedFatts (talk) 05:23, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * In fact I have done exactly that, when I have encountered similar situations. See the history of Hypatia, for instance. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:24, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Alright, I take it back. But what makes the painting used for Archimedes acceptable, for example? It is by a relatively unknown artist. Is it just because it is a painting with more effort put into it? SaturatedFatts (talk) 05:40, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * There are multiple scholarly publications with commentary about that specific painting (e.g., , ). It may pass the "independently notable" test of WP:PORTRAIT, although the "sourced text that contextualizes it" is missing from the article. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:54, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of File:No-three-in-line.png


The file File:No-three-in-line.png has been proposed for deletion&#32;because of the following concern: "Unused, superseded by File:No-three-in-line.svg."

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

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

Please consider addressing the issues raised. Removing will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and files for discussion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. --Minorax &laquo;&brvbar;talk&brvbar;&raquo; 01:49, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Help with removal of good article nominations
David, I just blocked as a sock. He has at least two good article nominations. I wanted to remove them, but I believe such noms are fairly structured, and I don't think removing the entries from Good article nominations removes the entire framework for that nom, e.g., the note on the Talk page of the nominated article - and I'm not sure if there's anything else. Can you help me? Thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 13:18, 22 July 2023 (UTC)


 * All you have to do in this case is remove the GA nomination from the article talk page; the bot will do the rest. (Editing WP:GAN directly doesn't work; that's handled by the bot.) I got Talk:Blue Origin; User:Real4jyy handled the other one, Talk:Rocket Lab, before I got to it. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:26, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot! --Bbb23 (talk) 17:46, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

DYK for Sophie Germain's identity
RoySmith (talk) 00:02, 23 July 2023 (UTC) GalliumBot (talk • contribs) (he/it) 03:28, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Spheres in solid geometry
Spheres in solid geometry consists entirely of material that you (10 years ago) merged into an article (from previous pages sphere–sphere intersection and plane–sphere intersection) where they were substantially off topic and out of scope. I think that was a mistake, but the mess you left has been sitting there as an unchanging eyesore for 10 years by now, so clearly there's no urgent need for a "speedy deletion" of this content.

I temporarily moved this material to a more appropriate location, Spheres in solid geometry, because I didn't want to just delete it outright, since at some point other Wikipedians thought it was important and put effort into writing it.

I agree the current material there isn't especially useful or well contextualized, but (a) this material is not in scope at sphere (too down in the weeds), and (b) there is plenty of other material that could be added to a "spheres in solid geometry" topic, most of which would also not be in scope at sphere.

I would appreciate it if you would try starting discussions instead of just rushing around instantly smashing everything down all the time. –jacobolus (t) 22:30, 23 July 2023 (UTC)


 * "Spheres in solid geometry" is a bad title for an article and a bad idea for an article topic, because it completely fails to distinguish itself from sphere, which is primarily about spheres in solid geometry. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:35, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I think the article titled sphere should (and somewhat already does) have a much broader, but less detailed, scope than that; it should discuss not only spheres in solid geometry, but also higher-dimensional spheres, the intrinsic geometry of the sphere, generalizations and alternative notions of spheres, and so on. By itself, material about plane–sphere or sphere–sphere intersections might be able to fit, but if you started adding every comparable topic the article would become an unfocused mess.
 * The material about plane–sphere intersections and sphere–sphere intersections is definitely (as-is) not in scope for an article about great and small circles, which is a topic that should predominantly focus on spherical geometry/trigonometry per se, where it has been historically extremely important (and a topic which can easily fill books, per se), rather than on solid-geometry intersections. –jacobolus (t) 22:40, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
 * If you want an article about intersections of spheres, title it and focus it on intersections of spheres. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:01, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I can't imagine that as a great article either. Perhaps it would be best to put these back to sphere–sphere intersection and plane–sphere intersection, analogous to articles we already have like plane–plane intersection and line–plane intersection. Though these are also mediocre.
 * Maybe intersections in solid geometry or the like would be a better topic, with all of these moved together. To be honest I don't particularly care what happens to the material, as long as I could clear it out to make way for future improvements at spherical circle. Perhaps folks at the math wikiproject may care. Do you mind taking down the "speedy delete" banner though? It really doesn't seem necessary/helpful for building consensus. –jacobolus (t) 23:05, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Maybe they should just all be merged into Intersection (geometry) which is pretty spare. Intersection has even less on it. –jacobolus (t) 03:01, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Help on Craig S. Kaplan
Hey David, again.

Need your help in creating and finalizing the article of Craig S. Kaplan. This year, Kaplan along with 3 other mathematicians, found aperiodic monotiles - the Hat tile and related the Spectre tile - solutions to the Einstein problem.

I have worked on this draft and have included the above research. Requesting your advice on what else shall be included (or not be included)? Adamsamuelwilson (talk) 09:29, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
 * You should say something about the general topics of his research, and maybe his heavily-cited past results, or ones that might have been covered in popular media, not just his latest results. You should also say something (assuming you can find it) about when and where he earned his degrees, and what academic positions he might have held before his current one. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:23, 25 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Great. Thanks for the help. I'll research and try finding on the above aspects as well. Adamsamuelwilson (talk) 19:52, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Women in Red August 2023
--Lajmmoore (talk) 19:24, 28 July 2023 (UTC) via MassMessaging

DYK for Poniatowski gems
Aoidh (talk) 00:02, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Paper fortune teller
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Paper fortune teller 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 ChristieBot, on behalf of Chiswick Chap -- Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:02, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, ! I'm traveling this week so don't be alarmed if I'm occasionally a little slow to respond. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:43, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Nice article! I recall seeing other kids playing with it in the classroom but I never really figured out what it was about. BorgQueen (talk) 21:50, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
 * OK... I'll be off too, soon. Chiswick Chap (talk) 01:37, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Paper fortune teller
The article Paper fortune teller you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Paper fortune teller for comments about the article, and Talk:Paper fortune teller/GA1 for the nomination. 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 ChristieBot, on behalf of Chiswick Chap -- Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:03, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of BIT predicate
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article BIT predicate 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 ChristieBot, on behalf of Frzzl -- Frzzl (talk) 22:42, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Cartesian tree
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Cartesian tree 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 ChristieBot, on behalf of Ganesha811 -- Ganesha811 (talk) 17:42, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I've picked this up as a second opinion. I know there's a lot to think about so let me know if you need more leeway than the usual one-week holding period, and let me know if any of my comments are unclear. — Bilorv ( talk ) 22:37, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, and thanks for putting in much more effort than a standard second-opinion request! Given what you've done so far I'd be supportive of this counting as a full review in the backlog drive. I'll see what I can do about answering your comments in a timely manner. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:42, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Selection algorithm
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Selection algorithm 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 ChristieBot, on behalf of RoySmith -- RoySmith (talk) 14:42, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * You're welcome! —David Eppstein (talk) 15:55, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

List of combinatorial computational geometry topics
I'd like you to take a look at this page. - Altenmann >talk 22:18, 5 August 2023 (UTC)


 * It seems kind of indiscriminate to me. Is tessellation computational? What kind of computational geometry topic would be deemed non-combinatorial? In what sense is slab method combinatorial? —David Eppstein (talk) 05:44, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Selection algorithm
The article Selection algorithm you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Selection algorithm for comments about the article, and Talk:Selection algorithm/GA1 for the nomination. 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 ChristieBot, on behalf of RoySmith -- RoySmith (talk) 16:04, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

DYK for Paper fortune teller
Z1720 (talk) 00:02, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

DYK for Celina Mikolajczak
Z1720 (talk) 00:02, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Edit war
Hello, David,

I hate to see two longtime editors edit warring so please, continue with the talk page discussions on Point location. Thank you. Liz Read! Talk! 22:07, 13 August 2023 (UTC)


 * The discussion reached an impasse because Altenmann has refused to take in anything from it and instead has stubbornly insisted on a position of ignorance: that the citation doesn't say what it clearly does say and therefore that the disputed claim remains disputed. They have provided no arguments for their position, only a refusal to listen. I don't see any point in continuing to argue with them and I don't see the value in letting their removals stand after they were disputed and the material was properly sourced. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:12, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Notice of edit warring noticeboard discussion
Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion involving you at Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring regarding a possible violation of Wikipedia's policy on edit warring. Thank you. - Altenmann >talk 01:41, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of BIT predicate
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Your GA nomination of Herschel graph
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User:Ajay00231
Hello there! I believe you may have meant to put this warning on their talk page. Just a heads up. Thanks, Schminnte (talk • contribs) 12:10, 16 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Yes; thanks for catching that. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:48, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Super distinct partitions
I will add a source for my edit about super distinct partitions. https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/questions/288395/how-to-make-a-function-that-returns-all-super-distinct-partitions WalkingRadiance (talk) 20:12, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
 * No, that fails Wikipedia's requirements for reliable sources. Open forums such as Stackexchange are forbidden as sources. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:14, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
 * PS context is Partition (number theory). I have escalated to WP:NORN. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:15, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Cartesian tree
The article Cartesian tree you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Cartesian tree for comments about the article, and Talk:Cartesian tree/GA1 for the nomination. Well done! If the article has never appeared on the Main Page as a "Did you know" item, and has not appeared within the last year either as "Today's featured article", 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 at DYK. Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On this day" column do not affect DYK eligibility. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of Ganesha811 -- Ganesha811 (talk) 21:22, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

John Ruhl (physicist)
I have withdrawn the AfD, pursuant to your improvements. BD2412 T 02:59, 18 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Notability is an external thing. It shouldn't depend on the poor state of an article on a notable subject. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:08, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I am aware of this. I found nothing in depth searching Google News and Newspapers.com, which is my usual thumbnail method of determining whether a living subject has received notable coverage. Obviously the search methods are different for academics. I am actually struggling with writing a few of those myself right now. BD2412  T 14:42, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Herschel graph
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Complaint about professor obviously incompetent in LIS, and misusing professor title to do edits against wikipedia rules
I dont think this professor should do any kind of edits longer, before he understands wikipedia rules. All information has to be sourced, and information that is unsourced is a problem for everyone. There is a lot of complaints about LIS explanation, that is bad and misleading, and encourage to cheating without any explanation; an explenation that would not hold up in any university. This kind of behaviour just increases a suspision on how he does research and how he even function has a professor.

Please stop this kind of misuse David! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:2020:8301:BAC1:F828:77CB:A5E3:E455 (talk) 10:43, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
 * For reference, the context is recent edits to Longest increasing subsequence to add a misspelled and very confusingly written attempt to use Dilworth's theorem to replace the explanation for an algorithm. —David Eppstein (talk) 10:57, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I find the OP's edit to the article impossible to follow. E</b><b style="color:blue;">Eng</b> 20:01, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Tesseract
No reason to be completely obnoxious about other's edits. I understand perfectly fine, but sometimes information is drowned out. And it is wrong either way. The tesseract in Interstellar is as hypercube, with time as an extra spatial dimension, as explained in this article: Interstellar Science I assume Jean-Pierre Luminet (director of research at the CNRS Astrophysics Laboratory in Marseille and the Paris Observatory) knows what he is talking about. Hipporoo (talk) 22:58, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
 * There was a comment in the article immediately above your edit saying not to do exactly what you did. This is a very frequent and problematic edit to this article. And piling on collections of pop-culture references, especially without sources, is not good content for Wikipedia. If you want to do that sort of thing, try tvtropes. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:51, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
 * And I just wrote you a comment where I mention it. It's a human thing. And why mention missing sources when I did add a source? As for examples, there is a couple of references to science fiction stories, a painting and a monument, and a video game. But no movies. Adding a single movie which do deal with a hypercube can hardly be called "piling on collections of pop-cultural references". And like I said; when people actually do miss information, then it is possible to point it out without being obnoxious. Hipporoo (talk) 00:10, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I am not convinced that Scoopwhoop is a reliable source, the part of the source claiming that the movie describes a hypercube is totally incoherent (reading as if someone read the definition of a tesseract-as-hypercube, saw the word tesseract in the movie, and tried to make it fit without understanding either), and the text I quoted saying not to add Interstellar was in the source of the tesseract article immediately above where you added it. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:21, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
 * It is irrelevant what hidden text says as long as editors don't notice it. Like when they are scrolling down to get past those very long references, and ignore the text on the top because they have already read it before they started editing. When it does happen one can't automatically assume it is because it is ignored on purpose or because they just don't get it. Scoopwhoop is just one source. I have already posted another; an article written by Jean-Pierre Luminet. It says: "An influential paper by Lisa Randall and Raman Sundrum proposed a model based on brane cosmology. There are two different versions of the model, RS1 and RS2, but both assume that our 4-dimensional universe is a brane inside the bulk, a 5-dimensional space-time. In a Randall–Sundrum universe, matter and light cannot propagate in the fifth dimension. Gravitational waves are the only physical entities able to propagate in the bulk. This is the model depicted in Interstellar. The g5 and d5x terms indicate that, as in Randall–Sundrum models, this is a 5-dimensional theory: one time dimension and four space dimensions. The analogue of the cube in a 4-dimensional space without curvature is the hypercube, or tesseract. The tesseract is to the cube as the cube is to the square. Just as the surface of the cube consists of six square faces, the hypersurface of the tesseract consists of eight cubical cells. The tesseract is stunningly depicted in Interstellar as a multi-dimensional space inside which time appears as a spatial dimension." That sounds like a hypercube to me. Hipporoo (talk) 22:30, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
 * That sounds like buzzword soup in which the author have not made any connection between "eight cubical cells" and "a multi-dimensional space inside which time appears as a spatial dimension", merely leaped from one to the other based on the word usage. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:21, 24 August 2023 (UTC)


 * David, click here and check out the source text in the edit box. Maybe you need to do something like that. <b style="color:red;">E</b><b style="color:blue;">Eng</b> 00:40, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I think visual editor users might not see even those comments. There's a way to get an individualized edit warning box that pops up whenever anyone edits an article; see e.g. . Maybe that is needed. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:25, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

Apologies for accidentally deleting your comment
I mean the one in this AfD that was restored by another editor. I am honestly not sure what happened. I edited the (single) section, which means it was not possible that I was editing from an old version, as those don't have edit section links. I didn't get any edit conflict warning even though I have those turned on and normally do. I'm confounded. Anyways, it's all fixed up thanks to other editors, but I wanted to apologize. &mdash;siro&chi;o 18:52, 24 August 2023 (UTC)


 * No worries, I would have been unlikely to notice that it was deleted and restored. Edit conflicts happen. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:19, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * Thanks! —David Eppstein (talk) 05:35, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

September 2023 at Women In Red
--Victuallers (talk) 16:49, 25 August 2023 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Batisson and Redfield
Both are experts in their field, and both were also cited by the press when talking about the Hoover meteorite claims. I don't see how the article is improved by removing their experiences with the journal, or their documentation of the journal's inanity ("Official Statement The Journal of Cosmology"). &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:09, 27 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Same for Musgrave. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:12, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
 * (Context is my removal of blog posts as citation-overkill references from Journal of Cosmology.) If they are such noted experts, why are they not bluelinked as authors? —David Eppstein (talk) 20:13, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
 * You can be an expert in your field and not be notable per Wikipedia. Or simply not have had an article written about you. These sources are very much needed for WP:PARITY. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:16, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
 * They were all redundant, used at points in the article where we already had better sources, except for one vacuous sentence which appeared to exist only for the purpose of citing Musgrave rather than to add any actual information to the article. They were not needed at all. Counting sources on different sides of a debate and adding low-quality sources to one side so that it gets a majority is bullshit. Also, if they are such noted experts, what is the evidence that they are noted experts? Having a blue link is a clear pointer to where such evidence may be found. Having none makes it merely fringe-fighter-editors' word against fringe-pusher-editors, not a good way to decide things. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:20, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

DYK for Selection algorithm
Z1720 (talk) 00:03, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Near-WP:3RR violation at Van Emde Boas tree
I just wanted to point out, you did 2 reverts within 24 hours of @User:Sg-epk-jtk93.x29.jp's edits. It's perilously close to 3RR. Just think about cooling it and working out your disagreements on the talk page. Mathnerd314159 (talk) 20:00, 30 August 2023 (UTC)


 * 50% is "perilously close"? Go sit in a corner somewhere and think about improving your arithmetic skills before nagging others about interactions that do not concern you. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:25, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Personal question
Hello. Are you still a professor/mathematics expert? If so, may I email you on a personal matter related to a math question that I lack the knowledge/skills to figure out? You may find it to be of very unique interest. You might even call it "one for the books" so to speak. Lol. Thanks. Huggums537 (talk) 17:29, 31 August 2023 (UTC)


 * If it's a proof of Fermat's last theorem or the like, then no, thank you. I don't really have time to verify attempted breakthroughs.
 * My responses to emails can be very bimodal: if it's easy to formulate a response, I might answer quickly, but otherwise emails can languish in my inbox for months or forever unresponded. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:56, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Reversion of edits (and rudeness)
If you're going to revert my edit on Morley's trisector theorem and insult me while you do it, the least you could do is notify me. Your assertion that I "have been told over and over already" is completely worthless when you have failed to mention me or edit my talk page at any time. The only reason I now know that your account exists at all is because my internet cut out and the page refreshed.

In addition, my edit was fully within Wikipedia's guidelines. is not "real math"; when used inline, the font sizes never align and external punctuation does not wrap, as often occurs on mobile (from where I browse wikipedia most frequently). When used inline, {math} may not stand out as much but it does not break the flow of a sentence like does. You also deleted genuinely good reformatting of the trilinear coordinates which is encouraged by the MOS; please do not steamroll the work of others so flippantly. The vast majority of editors on this site want to make it better, myself included, and I'm sure you want to as well. But that is not an excuse to abuse your power to shut down any convention you dislike (and be unnecessarily rude about it in the process, as the Tesseract discussion above proves you have a habit of doing).

I'm going to add my reformatting of the trilinear coordinates back, because those didn't seem to be an issue for you and I don't want an edit war. Please be more respectful towards your fellow contributors in the future. Thank you. OlliverWithDoubleL (talk) 20:14, 7 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Templates are not real math. They should not be mixed with display math formulas, because they produce letters with different formatting than display math, and in mathematics the formatting of letters is semantically meaningful. If an article uses any display math it should use &lt;math&gt; for all its formatting, for consistency, except in a few rare cases where alternatives are unavoidable. If you revert I will escalate. If you don't want an edit war don't start one. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:39, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Also, past instances in which I have requested you not to change math into templates:
 * Danzer set, June 4, 2022
 * Big O notation, June 4, 2022
 * Triangle-free graph, July 11, 2022
 * Handshaking lemma, July 12, 2022
 * Rose (mathematics), November 30, 2022
 * All of these mentioned you by name in a way that should have generated a notification on your account. So your assertion that I have not done so is false. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:23, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

"Ellen Suzanne Howell (Q19721605)" listed at Redirects for discussion
The redirect [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ellen_Suzanne_Howell_(Q19721605)&redirect=no Ellen Suzanne Howell (Q19721605)] has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Anyone, including you, is welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached. * Pppery * <sub style="color:#800000">it has begun... 01:14, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Opinion request for notability of a mathematician
Hi David, i saw your contributions to several related articles, thus i am contacting you. I am asking for your as an expert in science/math wiki.en for your opinion in a notability question of this mathmatician. I didnt create the page, but wanted to contribute given the large impact -- but the discussion is dis-encouraging so i was hoping for an expert opinion on this matter. Would you please help and let us know what you think about the notability criteria in this case? Thank you a lot, -- Mario23 (talk) 09:58, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Question about the conditions for displaying project on Hypercube page
Hello, I noticed you removed the url to my ncubes project under External Links in the Hypercube page, this revision. I was wondering what are the conditions for having it listed there since I think it is a useful tool for the visualization of the subject at hand, just as the other tools listed there. Ndavd (talk) 20:56, 9 September 2023 (UTC)


 * See WP:ELNO. Personal web pages are generally a no. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:02, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, I gave it a read. But the other links mentioned there also go to personal projects. Some of those are broken even, so I do not understand why mine, specifically, was removed. Therefore, being in a similar condition as the other links presented there, I kindly ask you to undo the removal of my work from the article. Ndavd (talk) 21:07, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Instead I removed more of the other links. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:45, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
 * There are still personal projects mentioned there. I think the current external resources there are important and so is mine since it not only encompasses but also generalizes existing similar tools out there. I must also add that it is not a personal web page, but a free to use and to distribute software application made by me. That being said, if there is no justified reason for its removal, I will undo your change. Thank you kindly for your attention and efforts. Ndavd (talk) 21:59, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for once again removing my edit while lacking the ability to tell a valid reason why that should be the case.
 * I am seeing old programs there which do only a fraction of what my program does, but I bet you didn't even bothered looking. Inconsistent and biased people like you are the reason most do not like Wikipedia. Ndavd (talk) 22:36, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Before you get into deeper trouble I should warn you about two Wikipedia policies that you still appear not to be following. First, you are required to declare all conflicts of interest in your editing; see WP:COI. Second, personal attacks are forbidden; see WP:NPA. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:47, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Firstly, I simply asked the reason for why my program couldn't be included while others in an identical situation could. Secondly, there are no conflicts of interest since my solely goal was to contribute to the educational value of the article with my own software from my own good will, never asked for the removal of the work of others, simply asked where my project was different. Thirdly, hopefully, you could remind yourself that threats are forbidden (see WP:NPA) when you told me about "deeper trouble". Ndavd (talk) 23:13, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Firstly, I simply asked the reason for why my program couldn't be included while others in an identical situation could. Secondly, there are no conflicts of interest since my solely goal was to contribute to the educational value of the article with my own software from my own good will, never asked for the removal of the work of others, simply asked where my project was different. Thirdly, hopefully, you could remind yourself that threats are forbidden (see WP:NPA) when you told me about "deeper trouble". Ndavd (talk) 23:13, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Ivan Katchanovski
Hi! I see that you've deleted two sections at the talk there. There were no threats in the second one (Ivan Katchanovski: Quotes by 40 scholars...) and there was some valuable information there. I'd like to restore it, please let me know if it violates our policies. Alaexis¿question? 07:26, 11 September 2023 (UTC)


 * I deleted it not because it contained legal threats itself (although I think it did, just not as unambiguous as the ones in the first section), but because it was a contribution by someone who had made legal threats. One can make legal threats (off-wiki) or one can make contributions on-wiki (for instance at talk pages concerning potential improvements to the corresponding article) but Wikipedia policy is that one cannot do both. If you need to refer to it, you can still find it in the talk page history. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:35, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm aware of this policy and told the editor in question about it. I understand the need to block such editors if nothing else helps (though "Admins should encourage an aggrieved user to identify factual errors in the article at issue") but I see no harm whatsoever in leaving constructive comments at the talk page. Alaexis¿question? 07:42, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Indian mathematics
The article indian mathematics was constantly vandalised by users by adding false information. User narayan ventakeshwar iyenger and Arjun Kumar Singh is constantly adding that unsourced reference that you have removed.It is doubt that they were of the same user. Leveinhockerkerala (talk) 10:43, 11 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Their edit patterns don't appear to be obviously-enough similar to open a sockpuppet investigation, to me. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:21, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

WP:CALC
@David Eppstein. According to WP:CALC, routine calculations such as adding numbers, converting units, or calculating a person's age are almost permissible, and thus are not defined as original research. However, what about the substitution of a variable into a formula or an equation algebraically? I'll give you an example of this,

Would not it count as part of WP:CALC? I have no clue again about this guideline. Any explanation would be appreciated. Thank you. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 09:43, 12 September 2023 (UTC)


 * I think minor algebraic rearrangements of formulas such as this (or more frequently such as using different variable names than the ones in our sources) fall under WP:CALC. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:34, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I appreciate your explanation. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 01:14, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Madhava of sangamagrama
There is lot of problems in madhava of sangamagrama article.In the section of Kerala mathematics and astronomy it is mentioned something of integration and says that the area under the curve is integral and Kerala school had lead the foundation of integral calculus but the reference are either junk nor it supports it Leveinhockerkerala (talk) 07:47, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

VB
For avoidance of doubt, the same IP range recently edited Talk:Stevo Todorčević:. I put something in the VB SPI but it usually takes forever :(. --JBL (talk) 18:41, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Cara Aitchison
Hi David, Thanks for getting in touch regarding my changes to Cara Aitchison's page. I want to update the page as it is out of date and a little inaccurate. I didn't, however, add the links as I went - will revisit and ensure they are added as I go. If your deletion of my changes could be reversed, I'll get the source links added in. Alex 2A00:23C4:AEA0:5D01:D844:6A17:4B84:51EE (talk) 15:21, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

The sentence you reverted back into the article
"By the symmetry of antiparallelograms, each of the two line segments from an endpoint of the fixed edge to the crossing point is congruent to a reflected line segment from the crossing point to the moving short segment, from which it follows that the two segments from the fixed edge have the same total length as a single long edge."

If that, to you, is a fine example of good prose, you'll forgive me if I don't take your criticisms seriously. Primergrey (talk) 05:31, 21 September 2023 (UTC)


 * It is overly long but grammatical. Unlike your contributions. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:32, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Primergrey – I agree with David that your changes are problematic, but also agree with you that there could probably be some improvements to the prose here. This is the kind of case where English prose by itself is not ideal for conveying a somewhat complicated relationship, and a picture / some symbolic labels can help make sense of the claim, but I'll try to come up with a clearer few sentences if I can. Either way, it's probably best to discuss on the article talk page rather than here. [Aside: can both of you tone down the prickly edit summaries a bit?] –jacobolus (t) 17:20, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Primergrey: does my partial rephrase of help satisfy your concern / clear up any confusion? As I said, it's a somewhat inherently tricky geometric relationship to describe (without going into a potentially distracting level of additional detail), and I think the previous version actually did a decent job under the circumstances. I tried to make it clearer but it's possible it was a sideways or even backwards step. –jacobolus (t) 20:26, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Notice of Dispute resolution noticeboard discussion
This message is being sent to let you know of a discussion at the Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding a content dispute discussion you may have participated in. Content disputes can hold up article development and make editing difficult. You are not required to participate, but you are both invited and encouraged to help this dispute come to a resolution. The thread is "Allan R. Bomhard". Please join us to help form a consensus. Thank you!

NotAGenious (talk) 12:49, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
 * As one man with a variant surname that is often misspelled to another, I made the correction. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:33, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks. @David Eppstein : discussion has been moved to WP:BLPN. NotAGenious (talk) 18:03, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Women in Red October 2023
--Lajmmoore (talk) 10:51, 29 September 2023 (UTC) via MassMessaging