User talk:JayBeeEll/Archives/2021/

Newcomer
I'm a newcomer; please WP:AGF on my edit on 1+2+3+4+... and remember that I am not trying to vandalize, just not sure what is constructive and disruptive.Nononsense101 (talk) 18:42, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
 * You made a bad edit, and I reverted it with an explanation. This routine sequence of events has nothing to do with AGF or with disruptive editing, except to the extent that your comment here, with its inappropriate invocation of WP:AGF, fails to comply with it: Be careful about citing this principle too aggressively. Just as one can incorrectly judge that another is acting in bad faith, so too can one mistakenly conclude that bad faith is being assumed; exhortations to "Assume Good Faith" can themselves reflect negative assumptions about others. --JBL (talk) 18:52, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the bad edit. I didn't know it was bad. However, your reply gives the impression of a personal attack. Please do not do that.Nononsense101 (talk) 19:05, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
 * You do not need to apologize for making bad edits; that is a routine part of the editing process. (And of course you are not obligated to agree with my position, and are welcome to discuss any substantive issues on the article talk page.)  Separately, you have now moved from inappropriate invocation of WP:AGF to inappropriate invocation of WP:NPA.  In general, it is a bad idea for new users with a poor grip on the local culture to take it upon themselves to police the behavior of more experienced users.  More specifically, you should not go bandying around guidelines and policies that you have not read and understood.  --JBL (talk) 19:15, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Let's stop here. I'm a newcomer, so please stop replying. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nononsense101 (talk • contribs) 19:39, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
 * You wrote this message on my talk-page -- I assure you that you are welcome to stop posting here at any time. --JBL (talk) 21:56, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

To your revert on Jan 7th
I really start to like you. So I reinsert the addition with Fibonacci number in bold, so you can't overlook it. –Nomen4Omen (talk) 18:38, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
 * 1) The term „Fibonacci number“ occurs twice in the addition! How can you miss that?? Harassed??
 * 2) There is a REDIRECT from Fibonacci tree to Fibonacci number.


 * Do you not understand WP:BRD, or just not how article talk pages work? --JBL (talk) 19:15, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
 * For possible future reference: this is more or less the version of the article to which the redirect was created. --JBL (talk) 19:37, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

synergetics coordinates
You redirected synergetics coordinates to another article not covering the topic, which I think is a wrong thing to do. They are notable and have a page on Wolfram Mathworld. You could have simply removed the part about tetrahedrons. I had said on my talk page they could be a sub-section of trilinear coordinates, but that's not really the case either. In higher spaces they use spheres (looking at MathWorld.) You should've read the talk page, because someone said (according to MathWorld) these predate Buckminster Fuller, so are not just a topic about his systems (hence the redirect is wrong.)--dchmelik (t|c) 21:20, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Having a page on Mathworld certainly does not establish notability. The part about tetrahedra is obviously wrong, but the rest of it was not better: there was not a single mathematically meaningful statement in the article.  I cannot say whether the idea predates Fuller because the article failed to explain what the idea was, but I do not mind if the target of the redirect is changed to trilinear coordinates, if that's in fact the same idea. --JBL (talk) 19:46, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
 * They're not always the same idea, and there was at least one accurate statement in the old article. Everything on MathWorld is more notable than the rest of Wikipedia. The thing is synergetics coordinates are trilinear ones using regular triangles, except in the case of higher spaces (tetralinear?) where triangle units are replaced with spheres.  Because they're not all trilinear (see MathWorld) it seems a redirect to trilinear coordinates wouldn't be appropriate.  What do you think should be done for the three-dimensional (tetralinear?) or higher cases?--dchmelik (t|c) 00:14, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Miscommunication
Regarding my previous message (since reverted), I think there has been a miscommunication. It was not for me to refer to in the future. It was a note for you in your future discussions. Saying that other editors want to jerk [them]selves off to the accomplishment of officially deprecating a source that no competent editor would ever use or defend is not helpful when engaging in discussions with other editors. Sdrqaz (talk) 22:44, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi, thanks for your message. I understood your meaning.  The purpose of my edit summary was to indicate that I did not desire further conversation or feedback about the RfC, having discussed it with several other editors in different venues weeks ago (around the time I disengaged).  I recognize that there is no reason you should have known about those other discussions, and I should have chosen a clearer way to make the point.  (You are correct that my comment was intemperate and unconstructive.  And your close is a very reasonable summary of the discussion, even though the RfC itself was a pointless waste of time.) All the best, JBL (talk) 23:01, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see; I'm sorry for bringing up the issue again. Thank you for your kind words and happy editing! Sdrqaz (talk) 02:32, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Sockpuppet investigation
J.Turner99 (talk) 09:21, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * This is going to be entertaining for me and educational for you, so good job all around. --JBL (talk) 11:44, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Erdős edit
You reverted my edit of the sentence "Due to his sisters' deaths, he had a close relationship with his mother, with the two of them allegedly sharing the same bed until he left for college." where I had changed 'allegedly' to 'apparently.' My problem with 'allegedly' is that it carries a faint whiff of criminality or at least wrongdoing because it is always used by journalists to prevent lawsuits etc. during the trial phase of an investigation. Of course it is technically correct and the only reference to this (AFAIK; and I have not researched it) was the cited article. My copy of Hoffman's book is in a box in the basement somewhere but I do not recall this little snippet. I'm not a mathematician (I well remember the day when I realized I was not cut out for any further mathematics study when I was introduced to partial differential equations) but I have been fascinated by Erdős since I first read about him in a piece by Martin Gardner. Erdős was the answer to a NYT crossword clue on 21 August (15A: Paul ___, pioneer in graph theory) which is what brought me to his Wikipedia entry. The Fowler brothers, in The King's English, constantly told us to recast the sentence if running into grammatically or epistemologically dodgy territory; and maybe some more neutral term such as 'reportedly' might work or '. . . he had a close relationship with his mother.' - dropping altogether the last phrase. But it's certainly not something I feel strongly about. Cross Reference (talk) 13:18, 22 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Hi, thanks so much for your message. I am also a crossword puzzle solver and was happy to see Erdős pop up (although I needed a crossing letter to know it wasn't Paul Turan).  About the wording, I am very happy with "reportedly" and have implemented it.  I also think dropping the last phrase would be fine (it's a bit sensationalist). --JBL (talk) 15:14, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm curious why you tagged my edit of the Paul Erdős page with Failed verification, although it doesn't seem to be primarily my edit that you had an issue with the verification. The existing reference does, however, mostly seem to back up the claim made in this sentence. It says '''Erdős was not allowed back to the United States but no reason was given. The files indicate that the official reasons were not the answers Erdős gave to the above questions, but the fact that he had corresponded with a Chinese mathematician who had subsequently returned from the United States to China and also Erdős's 1941 FBI record.''' Can you clarify why you feel this reference isn't satisfactory? Dash77 (talk) 19:34, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi, thanks for your message. Yeah, didn't have anything to do with your change really.  The sentence in the article says the Immigration and Naturalization Service denied Erdős, a Hungarian citizen, a re-entry visa into the United States, for reasons that have never been fully explained.  I presume that you are correct that the relevant immigration authority at the time was the INS, but this detail (precisely which agency was responsible) is not supported by the source.  The source likewise does not say anything about a "re-entry visa".  And the source does not support "have never been fully explained", either -- it says no reason was given [to Erdos?] at the time he was denied entry, and then says what the officially recorded reasons were.  If the sentence in our article was really written using the MacTutor biography as the source, whoever wrote it was doing a lot of extrapolating beyond what the source material actually says.  Probably I should have rewritten instead of tagging.  --JBL (talk) 01:40, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

MOS
Btw, I normally stick to this Help:Displaying_a_formula. Cuzkatzimhut (talk) 01:42, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
 * that page makes a big deal about how it differs from MOS:MATH, but the takeaway from both is the same: The choice between

and LaTeX depends on the editor. So converting from a format to another one must be done with stronger reasons than editor preference. Unfortunately neither provides guidance on the correct response when this maxim is violated. (I don't think you and I have a major underlying disagreement about anything here.) --JBL (talk) 14:18, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
 * P.S. Do you have any advice on how I should read/parse/understand your username? --JBL (talk) 14:21, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Indeed, we don't differ on policy, and I let sleeping dogs lie. Systematic and ideological conversions "for uniformity's sake" is what I object to, since consensus is impossible, and in the ebb and flow of daily editing wash out anyway.
 * It would, of course, behoove "somebody" in WP to collect statistics of platforms, aggrieved viewers, display actual horror ransom-letter views on them,  and keep a permanent discussion site for this issue, so the ideologues get informed, but this might be too much to ask... As it is, it lives on isolated stashes on personal talk pages.  My side on this lies on consideration for the victims. The issue flares up every few years (see my talk page), and then goes to sleep in the middle of the street, yet again.
 * My avatar is an impossible-to-explain pun of a mistranslation of "cat in the hat" in German (where it ishould be Katze mit Hut)... Cuzkatzimhut (talk) 15:07, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Belatedly: yes, I agree entirely. And thank you for the origin story of your name, it is very helpful for the hash function in my brain :).  --JBL (talk) 14:26, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Combinatorics
Hi! Regarding the recent reverted edit, method ringing is a subset of change ringing which in turn is a subset of bell ringing. The picture in the Combinatorics article is a method, specifically Plain Bob Minor, so the relevant article would be Method ringing. The other link is alongside references to Hamiltonian cycles and Cayley graphs which I think only applies to Method ringing rather than the other type of change ringing which is Call changes. Only a single pair of bells swaps over at a time as instructed by the conductor rather than it being rung to a set predetermined pattern as is the case in method ringing. Hopefully that explains my reasoning, apologies I should have put an edit summary. Qazwsx777 (talk) 10:30, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the delayed response. If I understand you correctly, you do not think what was written before (and is written now) is wrong, you just wanted to make it more precise?  I am inclined here to take the view that the connection with mathematics is equally strong with the broader view (it does not matter if the bell-ringer has committed the pattern to memory or is being instructed by a third party to follow the pattern); it doesn't seem to disserve the reader, since Method ringing is linked in the very first paragraph of Change ringing.  Also I see that at least one of the sources specifically uses the broader phrase "change-ringing" rather than the more specific "method-ringing".  If you are still dissatisfied, we could always raise the issue on the article talk-page to get more opinions.  --JBL (talk) 14:36, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Jazzclam
Good looking out ~Swarm~  {sting} 02:13, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks -- just fortuitous stumbling across one of their edits. (Note to future self: this is about this.) Happy editing! JBL (talk) 15:03, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

List of unsolved problems in mathematics SD
Sorry for the unnecessary edits. The software wasn't responding to my changes and I thought they had not gotten through. Thanks for cleaning up my mess.--agr (talk) 14:58, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
 * no harm done, and you're welcome! (It did have the look of some sort of software glitch.)  --JBL (talk) 16:59, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the textbook
It's a bit off the current discussion, but I like the textbook you taught me.--SilverMatsu (talk) 03:58, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
 * You're very welcome! (It is not completely polished in some respects, but for a freely available product it's very good.) --JBL (talk) 04:11, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

Men
I thought this was interesting--it came from this. Drmies (talk) 23:55, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Indeed! --JBL (talk) 22:27, 21 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks, -- it is always a pleasure to have my good works recognized.  --JBL (talk) 22:27, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

High-fives and barnstars for punching down. You all never change. -- Netoholic @ 04:52, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
 * That's not what "punching down" means and I am at a loss what category "you all" is supposed to refer to here (Wikipedia editors? people who add comments at ANI about topics not directly concerning them? oh, wait ...) but you keep being you. --JBL (talk) 12:40, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * You're very welcome; I don't understand why that user was so unpleasant about it! --JBL (talk) 14:08, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

A beer for you!

 * Thanks so much! I and other members of the math project are very good at handling well-defined tasks, and it was super helpful to have you take the lead and give a structure to the whole de-spamification effort.  It would be a pleasure to work with you again! --JBL (talk) 19:55, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

RfC on racial hereditarianism at the R&I talk-page
An RfC at Talk:Race and intelligence revisits the question, considered last year at WP:FTN, of whether or not the theory that a genetic link exists between race and intelligence is a fringe theory. This RfC supercedes the recent RfC on this topic at WP:RSN that was closed as improperly formulated.

Your participation is welcome. Thank you. NightHeron (talk) 20:48, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks, sort-of ;). --JBL (talk) 22:22, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Precious anniversary 4
--Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:09, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks so much, ! --JBL (talk) 11:04, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

DYK for Affine symmetric group
&mdash; Amakuru (talk) 12:02, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

WJS and our original research things
JBL, I just looked at your user page, and admit I was not previously familiar with WJS as a place to get research peer-reviewed and published. I did a bit of work myself, motivated by what appeared to be some info missing about the median of a gamma distribution, and wrote it up and have been trying to get it reviewed by various math and stat journals. See Talk:Gamma distribution So far, all I get is rejection without review, suggestions to submit to a more appropriate journal, and such. Not being much of a mathematician or statistician myself, I don't have a good feeling for what journal to target, or what they need to see in a paper to interest them; maybe there's just not enough math or statistics in what I did for anyone to care. Currently, it's under consideration at PLOS ONE, as one guy in the field said he likes their process. It's been 11 days with no response, so maybe it's actually "under review" this time; hard to tell. Anyway, if this one falls through, maybe I should consider WJS. Have you gone that route before? A not-quite-current draft of my paper can be found at Math arXiv. Dicklyon (talk) 19:03, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi, it looks like you posted this on a subpage of my talkpage, I hope you don't mind that I've relocated it here.
 * I have submitted one article to WJS. That article is not research-y, in that it does not aspire to introduce new results; rather, there is an object that I think is interesting and has attracted a lot of attention in the literature, but there's no single systematic or comprehensive treatment of it written down anywhere; I wanted to get all the information I could about it down in one place, to eventually be converted to a Wikipedia article.  (The submission is here, if you're curious.)  It has been under review since June (so maybe I should poke the editor about it at some point).
 * I am not familiar enough with the context of your paper to have any concrete comments on or advice about it. WJS is a bit of an odd-ball venue, and certainly not a place to go if you're concerned about the prestige of the journal.  But all evidence suggests that it is run in good faith, with a proper review process intended to insure the work published is of high quality (if not high importance).  As a way to get some piece of information into Wikipedia that doesn't yet exist in any RS, it seems appropriate :).  The open refereeing process is new to me, and I'm curious to see how it goes in practice.
 * I hope this helps! The founding editor is User:Evolution and evolvability, I'm sure he'd be happy to talk with you about it, as well.  (Of course you'll have to wait until you hear back from PLOS ....)
 * All the best, JBL (talk) 21:21, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry, don't know how I landed on that subpage, but I did think it was strangely empty for a talk page. I did look at your paper, and noticed that its review page is silent for a long time.  So maybe the problem with WJS is just getting reviewers to act?  We'll see.  I'm not concerned about prestige, just want peer review. Dicklyon (talk) 01:17, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
 * No worries -- probably you were at User:JayBeeEll/Affine_symmetric_group and clicked the "talk" tab. About the delay, I've pinged the editor, so let's see if that leads to anything.  Waits of a year for referee reports on long papers are not uncommon in pure mathematics; in August I received a report on a paper I had submitted in 2018!  I'll report back when I hear something about why this in particular has taken as long as it has, in the hope that it will be useful to you in deciding whether to pursue it as an option (now or in the future). --JBL (talk) 22:01, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Just FYI: I did send a message to the editor back in January, and two referee reports have appeared since then -- so I suspect the long wait was an oversight somewhere, not the norm. --JBL (talk) 19:59, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Wow, congrats! Really good reviews from really good reviewers.  So far from PLOS One I got nuttin'. Dicklyon (talk) 00:55, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi, I see from here (via your post at WT:WPM) that they finally got back to you -- I'm glad to see it, congrats! (I glanced through Referee 1's comments out of curiosity; I thought "This paper contributes to this problem" was a funny turn of phrase :).)  --JBL (talk) 00:40, 16 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Yes, I'm now part of the problem. Dicklyon (talk) 03:41, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

Please explain
"The vast majority of these changes are wrong". Really? — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 16:35, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Well, since you haven't provided any explanations within 24 hours, I'm reverting your revert as unsubstantiated. Next time please be more specific and considerate. If you still believe that something is wrong with my edits, let's discus your concerns here. — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 16:44, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, really. Also, the right place to discuss this is the article's talk-page. --JBL (talk) 14:16, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Here I wanted to discuss your unconstructive behavior (you still have not provided any evidence that my edits were wrong). The changes that I've made were related to punctuation and readability of the article and its source code, not touching any meaning, so I see no reason to discuss them on the article talk page. However, if you think differently, please start the discussion there. — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 15:09, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
 * In your first batch of edits, several were wrong and the others were neutral, so I reverted. Since then, you have made a larger collection of changes, which included bad ones, neutral ones, and good ones, so I went through and only reverted the bad ones.  If you would like to discuss any of them, per WP:BRD, you should begin a discussion on the article's talk-page. --JBL (talk) 15:13, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
 * You still have not explained which of my edits are "bad", so I ask you again to give specific explanations.
 * "Roughly speaking, if the teacher has no other means of communicating to the pupil, the amount of information which can reach him does not exceed the total number of rewards and punishments applied. By the time a child has learnt to repeat 'Casabianca' he would probably feel very sore indeed, if the text could only be discovered by a 'Twenty Questions' technique, every 'NO' taking the form of a blow. It is necessary therefore to have some other 'unemotional' channels of communication." (I hope, you recognize the quote)
 * I also see that some of your new edits are against WP:MOS and other rules, so I'm going to correct them accordingly. — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 16:47, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
 * And, by the way, "y axis" are two separate words, just like "vertical axis" or "Y chromosome". Should not be hyphenated (unless used adjectively). — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 17:17, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
 * If you would like to discuss any of my reverts, per WP:BRD, you should begin a discussion on the article's talk-page and I will happily address any questions there. You are simply wrong about y-axis, just as you were simply wrong to put a Latin title in a French lang template.  You are not welcome to continue this discussion here. --JBL (talk) 17:38, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Revert count on Ugly duckling theorem
I see three reverts by Guswen, one by you, and one by a different editor in the past 24 hours. Am I missing something in that count? —C.Fred (talk) 18:51, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry, you're right, I've only done 1. --JBL (talk) 18:54, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Not that I advocate playing the "I have a revert left game", obviously. But I'm also inclined to close the report with no action needed and restore the page to the status quo ante. —C.Fred (talk) 18:58, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
 * That would be fine with me; thanks. --JBL (talk) 19:03, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Blackboard bold
This edit appears to have undone the addition of substantive useful details (ISBN/DOI), not just a re-ordering/re-capitalization in the cites. Could you double-check and see if there is actually more than just "Pointless fiddling" going on? DMacks (talk) 00:15, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the heads-up, I'll double check. --JBL (talk) 01:46, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Indeed you were right; I've reinstated the non-pointless parts. Thanks for looking more carefully than I. --JBL (talk) 01:51, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the quick double-check and fix! DMacks (talk) 02:00, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * Hi, thanks very much for the barnstar. This is the second time you've given me one for what I consider to be pretty normal interactions (making a routine comment on WT:WPM).  If it was okay with you, I think I would prefer less showy appreciation for such modest contributions.  (For example, I would encourage you to use the "Thanks" button (WP:THANKS) instead -- it just feels more proportionate to me.)  Separately, I'm sorry to admit that I have trouble parsing your second sentence ("When I applying ...") so I'm not quite sure what it means.  Be well, and happy editing, JBL (talk) 02:29, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Edited proposal
Toa also suggested this modified proposal (including the bold edits). Does that fly any better with you?

Omar has been accused of antisemitism by Republicans and Jewish civil rights groups, as well as some Democrats, for comments about Israel which they said perpetuated the antisemitic canards that Jews have dual loyalty, a charge which Omar has denied and some Democrats have contested. Benevolent human (talk) 21:01, 1 June 2021 (UTC)


 * That is obviously an improvement, but I still think it's overly elaborate. (As you can see from my February comment, I could be convinced to support something sparer.  But I am not currently interested in getting heavily involved in the arguments of the last couple weeks.) Separately, you do not yet have 500 edits, so your edit yesterday violates the 30/500 restriction on the article (see the second huge WARNING: ACTIVE ARBITRATION REMEDIES banner at Talk:Ilhan Omar).  Obviously it is too late for you to self-revert, but you might consider consulting an administrator (such as ) about how that should affect your editing going forward.  --JBL (talk) 02:22, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the tip! I personally don't think my edit was directly related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but I can certainly consult an administrator to make sure prior to any further edits of that sort to get an official opinion. Benevolent human (talk) 02:34, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

An elementary proof is there.
There is a very elementary proof of the statement How to show that "For the equation [math]x ^n - y ^2 = 1[/math], it's impossible to have integral values for "x" & "y" when "n" is any positive integer>1".? How can I upload any image of a handwritten proof of the above. Rajesh Bhowmick (talk) 03:43, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * Hi, thanks! Do you mind my asking if there was anything in particular that prompted this?  All the best, JBL (talk) 13:52, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
 * @, in general for being consistent with what you do and specifically for your contributions in mathematical related topics areas. We did have a not so pleasant exchange sometime in the past, on a tp of a sysop. in retrospect, I respect an editor who is unfazed for standing for what they believe in. I respect that, that is diligence. Celestina007 (talk) 14:00, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, our last (only?) real interaction was not so pleasant; so I appreciate your reaching out! Thanks again, and happy editing, JBL (talk) 17:49, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Patrick Moore (consultant)
Please stop reverting my changes and discuss at Talk:Patrick Moore (consultant) -- Doctorx0079 (talk) 15:19, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
 * You have been here how long without reading WP:BRD? I reverted your bad edit once, then you repeated it without waiting for anyone to respond to you on the talk-page; what did you expect? --JBL (talk) 21:15, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

greetings
good day, countryman.

i am wondering if your removal of my rfc tag means i can just go ahead and BE BOLD and throw in the portrait.

i thought i formed a proper rfc. it was about whether or not a picture would be acceptable on the page. isn't this what the process is about.

i'm loving slapping that tag on everything (as i'm sure you can tell). surely i'll get tired of this 'new toy' soon ;)

"198.53.108.48 (talk) 17:26, 24 June 2021 (UTC)"


 * To understand what RfCs are for and how to use them, you should read WP:RfC. Particularly relevant in this case is the section WP:RFCBEFORE.  WP:BOLD is a guideline and the fact that your talk-page comment had no business being tagged as an RfC really has no bearing one way or another on how it applies here. --JBL (talk) 18:32, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

BRUH, if there's one thing OUR way has engrained into our mind before we're even in middle school, it's this:
 * "instead of 'being bold', ask someone first. if you screw up, it's your fault"

i mean, is this not our way?

i am not certain of many things in life, but i assure you one thing i am certain of is that "being bold" is not in our vocabulary.

i still get anxious when i actually use the BOLD clause to make edits. it's just the way we're made, man. you know what i mean — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.53.108.48 (talk) 18:05, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Function input
Thanks for your edit; I guess I'm out of date (or maybe forgetful). I don't remember ever hearing "input" and "output" applied to functions in my undergrad math program (MIT '77). To get really technical, we could have said "domain" and "codomain" -- which have also gotten more widely used since the 1970s. :-) --Macrakis (talk) 13:54, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks
If I could thank you a dozen times for this comment, I would. But given the limitations of existing Wikimedia software, you'll have to settle for once. :) MastCell Talk 17:45, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Ha, thanks, that's very kind. It's also available in music-video form.  Happy editing, JBL (talk) 19:15, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Hah! That song reminds me of Daybreak&mdash;a show that I loved. (Apparently I was the only one, since it was canceled after 1 season). MastCell Talk 15:17, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

tt tag
Hello the tt tag it's obsolete. It must be replaced with code.--Freeklane (talk) 20:25, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * thanks for explaining, but that's not at all what WP:HTML5 says. There are five alternatives to tt listed there; code should be used for code only.  For typographical font without the semantics, you should use  .  I presume you will correct the error yourself.  In the future, if you're going to make changes like this, you should leave a simple edit summary (like "per WP:HTML5") so that other editors can understand what the heck you're doing. --JBL (talk) 00:11, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your recent edits on the Dual polyhedron article
Thanks for your recent edit on the Dual polyhedron article; besides, i have a little question about it: in the following passage: "Duality preserves the symmetries of a polyhedron. Therefore, for many classes of polyhedra defined by their symmetries, the duals belong to a related symmetry class.", why didn't you write "the duals belong to the same symmetry class.", please? --RavBol (talk) 23:08, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Read to the end of the paragraph -- here "symmetry class" is encompassing more than just "having a particular group of symmetries". --JBL (talk) 02:27, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
 * P.S. Now that your account has been renamed, you should probably change your signature and user page to match. --JBL (talk) 02:28, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for your 2 answers. Renaming my account proved much simpler & quicker than i expected! If i understand your 1st answer correctly, then right after the same passage: "Duality preserves the symmetries of a polyhedron. Therefore, for many classes of polyhedra defined by their symmetries, the duals belong to a related symmetry class.", shouldn't "Thus" be replaced with "Particularly" or "Typically", please? --JavBol (talk) 20:47, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for refining my recent edits on Dual polyhedron, except for: --JavBol (talk) 23:22, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
 * restoring simple spaces instead of larger ones in the formula for P^0 in : the larger spaces disambiguated "q|q·p" for non-mathematician readers; but you'll probably invoke WP:MOS...
 * phrasing "(in this case, A, B, C, D)" in the 1st step of the : "(in this case)" really refers to the midpoint of each connected edge; indeed, starting from e.g. the rhombic dodecahedron, one must mark another point on each connected edge than its midpoint (see the compound figure).
 * Thanks for the correction re: midpoint -- I have rephrased so that the intended meaning is clear. In the future, I request that if you wish to discuss/correct/comment on a particular edit I've made to a particular page, you do so on the article talk-page.  --JBL (talk) 23:39, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Calao
Hi JayBeeEll, I have removed Hornbill from Calao because I couldn't find any article that describes Calao as a common name for the bird. Per WP:DABREF, references aren't used on DAB pages - the references should be in the Wikipedia article. There are several redirects to individual hornbill species, such as Calao De Manille and Calao De Vieillot, but these would be considered unambiguous partial title matches. Leschnei (talk) 23:23, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi, sorry for the delayed response. I think this is an unfortunate way to handle the situation, because it seems to be true that "calao" is a common name in some places for some species of hornbills, and the disambiguation page is now useless for a reader trying to work that out.  Better alternatives would have been to leave it alone, because things that are formally incorrect but potentially useful to readers are better than things that are formally correct but not useful, or to somehow work a mention of "calao" into the article on hornbills generally (perhaps using the mediocre reference I dug up).  I spent a few minutes looking at Hornbill and didn't see a natural way to work it in (or I would have done so), and I am certainly not going to pick a fight about this (beyond the present griping), but perhaps you will also spend a few minutes thinking about whether this can be done in a way that is better for potential readers. --JBL (talk) 23:55, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I understand your frustration, and I looked around both Wikipedia and Google before deciding that the term was common in French but not in English. As you say, there isn't a great way to work it into Hornbill. However, in looking again, I realized that there is an article on Hornbill ivory, so I added 'calao' there, as the French term for the ivory, with the reference, and added it back to the DAB page with Hornbill ivory as the blue link. Leschnei (talk) 11:42, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
 * thanks very much for your effort, this is certainly a better resolution! --JBL (talk) 23:38, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Big O notation
I wonder which edits you reverted at Big O notation - no matter which versions I compared, I didn't get "no difference". Since your edit summary says "rv ...", I just want to ensure you didn't do something unintended. - Jochen Burghardt (talk) 18:15, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi, I can't be sure what you're looking at, but is the combination of the IP edits and mine, and  is what I changed.  (Actually what I did was started over from your edit, and implemented one aspect of the IP's edit that I thought was an improvement.)  --JBL (talk) 18:59, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Big O notation
Ask yourself, did your repeated pressing of revert, and doing nothing else help here? Please do not contact me further. 89.107.6.68 (talk) 22:34, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes: it will shortly cause you to be blocked, at which point the article will be safely restored to the version before you began making it worse. Ta!  --JBL (talk) 22:35, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

WP:BRD
Comment on the NYT article is in regards to other changes. People are asking to "gain consensus", but refuse to discuss any alternatives. WP:BRD requires discussion to occur. Otherwise it's Bold, Revert, Ignore. Buffs (talk) 16:25, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Your comment was whining about user conduct; that's not what article talk-pages are for. --JBL (talk) 16:33, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
 * My comment is a direct response to those wishing to follow WP:BRD as specifically mentioned in multiple edit summaries. It's a call for discussion, not a comment on behavior. Let's discuss it there. Buffs (talk) 18:51, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
 * The "D" in BRD means that you should begin a discussion about the content in question. Your contribution is whining about user conduct, not about article content.  This is extremely basic.  If you write something about article content you can be sure that I will not call it a violation of WP:FORUM. --JBL (talk) 19:39, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, but your conduct is out of line...completely. "If another editor objects to refactoring then the changes should be reverted." It's really that simple.
 * Insulting me by stating that my objections are nothing more than "whining" is inherently uncivil, specifically WP:IUC1d "belittling a fellow editor, including the use of judgmental edit summaries or talk-page posts (e.g. "that is the stupidest thing I have ever seen", "snipped crap")"
 * Refactoring or hatting comments is also uncivil/hostile. Please stop. Buffs (talk) 20:49, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Whining is hostile. Whining about ownership is hostile.  Whining about BRD instead of following it is not hostile, but it's incredibly childish.  If you want to contribute to talk pages, do it like an adult, by addressing substance, instead of the infantile, whiny routine you're practicing both here and there.  If you want to whine about user conduct, do it at ANI and find out if anyone agrees with you.  You are not welcome to post here further.  But also FFS behave better elsewhere. --JBL (talk) 21:13, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

Help needed with Program synthesis
Hi! Since you recently helped settling a dispute at Ugly duckling theorem, I dare to ask you for similar kind of help at Program synthesis.

Here is (my version of) what happened:
 * In Jun 2013, I started the section Program synthesis.
 * In Dec 2018, an anonymous IP (2601:184:4081:1cbe:...) started adding critical comments to the article. Some of them indeed uncovered flaws of my presentation, which I subsequently tried to improve. However, the IP continued to edit article and talk page, and repeated comments on issues (I believed) I just had fixed.
 * In Mar 2020, the article was protected to prevent further edits by the IP that were meanwhile considered disruptive, not just by me.
 * In the same month, a new user "Mdaviscs" appeared, and seamlessly continued the work of the IP.
 * In Jul 2020, he added a paragraph to the article which would better belong to the talk page. Since I was tired of the debate, I didn't react anymore.
 * On 17 Aug 2021, he added another (similarly inadequate, imho) paragraph, and was reverted immediately; on the same day, I removed his Jul-2020 paragraph as "unsourced POV".

Apparently, the recent actions revived the debate. I would like you to help settle it. Many thanks in advance. (I admit that the "Manna and Waldinger" section meanwhile has undue weight within the article; however, I still hope other editors will contribute sections about other approaches sometimes in the future.) - Jochen Burghardt (talk) 16:13, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi, thanks for your message. I have taken a quick look at the situation.  It is clear that Mdaviscs (who must also be the IP editor) is a single-purpose account who doesn't understand well how to edit Wikipedia.  I am very far out of my depth here as far as assessing whether their contributions have any possibility of being eventually constructive (e.g., whether there are reliable sources that they have access to and that they could use to add content written in an encyclopedic style, or, instead, whether they are just some crank).  It seems that there is at least one other editor  who is keeping an eye on the page and preventing too much direct damage to its content.  I have been slightly disengaging myself from Wikipedia recently, and I don't think I want to get directly involved in this (sorry), but here is my advice:
 * If you think the user is just a crank with no real hope of contributing to the article: I would continue to revert their edits, and I would leave them appropriate warning templates from WP:Warnings (e.g., disruptive editing, something about editing the same page from an account and an IP address, ...) if they continue, and I would leave clear statements about why their edits have been reverted on their talk page or the article talk page or both. This will create a record of disruption, which will then make it easier to get the page protected and to have the editor blocked if the problem continues in the future.
 * If you think the user has potential to contribute to the article: I would try to teach them about the culture here. I would write them a personal note introducing yourself (either on their talk page or the article talk page or both) and helping explain basic features, like, comments about articles go on talk-pages and substantive edits to articles need to be supported by reliable sources, or asking them to help clarify which points are their opinion versus which are supported by publications in the literature, etc.
 * (Of course it is possible to switch from approach 2 to approach 1 if initial optimism is not supported by later events.) I hope this is helpful; sorry not to be able to get involved myself, and good luck! --JBL (talk) 16:41, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Reverting my edits?
Many of my edits that was reverted contains different OEIS entry. Why you're reverting my edits with commenting "non-notable junk" or "nonnotable OR", ... instead of citing something? OEIS is a published source that finds some sequences about something. 176.88.28.90 (talk) 14:14, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The edit summaries are self-explanatory. There is nothing encyclopedic about uninteresting intersections of random sequences with the prime numbers, whether or not they have an OEIS entry.  Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. --JBL (talk) 14:29, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Mean US Population Centroid Calculation-- 2020 Estimate
I contend that my estimated 2020 US population centroid determination is a "Routine Calculation", and is therefore not subject to Wikipedia's "Original Research" prohibitions. I am using the same method I used to successfully predict the 2010 centroid. The publication of my result in Wikipedia a decade ago gave a "head's-up" to the locality concerned, and seemed to be appreciated. How can I best share my spreadsheet with you and other concerned editors so as to gain approval for the publication of its results? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.115.57.2 (talk)
 * Hi, thanks for your message. Your calculations are unquestionably not routine in the sense of WP:CALC.  One way to confirm this is to observe that the paragraph on routine calculations specifically indicates the importance of consensus on the routineness —- so multiple objections (as here) is pretty much a guarantee that it’s not.  Another is that your argument for the value of adding this rests very heavily on the fact that it is not trivial to duplicate.  If you want to try to generate a consensus for your point of view (which you are welcome to do, though I will argue against it) you could try either the talk-page of the article (where there has been some earlier discussion) or this noticeboard. —JBL (talk) 01:38, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

New Page Patrol newsletter September 2021
Hello ,

Please join this discussion - there is increase in the abuse of Wikipedia and its processes by POV pushers, Paid Editors, and by holders of various user rights including Autopatrolled. Even our review systems themselves at AfC and NPR have been infiltrated. The good news is that detection is improving, but the downside is that it creates the need for a huge clean up - which of course adds to backlogs.

Copyright violations are also a serious issue. Most non-regular contributors do not understand why, and most of our  Reviewers are not experts on copyright law - and can't be expected to be, but  there is excellent, easy-to-follow advice on COPYVIO detection here.

At the time of the last newsletter (#25, December 2020) the backlog was only just over 2,000 articles. New Page Review is an official system. It's the only firewall against the inclusion of new, improper pages.

There are currently 706 New Page Reviewers plus a further 1,080 admins, but as much as nearly 90% of the patrolling is still being done by around only the 20 or so most regular patrollers.

If you are no longer very active on Wikipedia or you no longer wish to be part of the New Page Reviewer user group, please consider asking any admin to remove you from the list. This will enable NPP to have a better overview of its performance and what improvements need to be made to the process or its software. Various awards are due to be allocated by the end of the year and barnstars are overdue. If you would like to manage this, please let us know. Indeed, if you are interested in coordinating NPR, it does not involve much time and the tasks are described here. To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here. Sent to 827 users. 04:31, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Plato, MO
I am eager and excited to share my calculated 2020 US Centroid with those interested. An uncited entry is improper and prohibited. A cited entry raises accusations of self-promotion. How do I get out of this catch-22? Alex.zakrewsky (talk) 13:30, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

WP Essay: Pearl-clutching
I'm inviting you to give feedback on a WP essay of mine about pearl-clutching. I've seen you participate at ANI and would like your thoughts on whether you support or oppose such an essay. No obligation to review it, but thank you for your time if you do. –– FormalDude  talk  12:14, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi, thanks for your message (even if I've seen you participate at ANI has the air of a backhanded compliment ;) ). I had a quick look and made some minor copy-edits.  Substantively, my first impression of the lead and the section "True civility" is positive, but I found the section "In practice" hard to follow and I gave up without ever wrapping my head around what it was saying.  (In my defense: it's Sunday morning and I'm doing this in my pajamas before breakfast.)  I realize that this is not very constructive feedback, but I hope it is of some use to you! --JBL (talk) 12:40, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks JBL, I'll take what I can get! Appreciate it. I'm trying to make it more concise. –– FormalDude  talk  05:49, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for October 6
An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Derangement, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Big O.

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 06:00, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

Derangement
Thanks for the edit to Derangement. I just coded up the formula in Python, and it certainly seems to give good results for the first few values of n (up to the limits of double precision floats), so it's definitely not implausible. However, a cite to a high-quality source (preferably with a proof) would be great. I've just added a cite to Wolfram for the mention in the lede section, which certainly counts as a WP:RS. -- The Anome (talk) 13:02, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi, thanks for your message. The conversation has advanced, so let me just say that I agree with David Eppstein that Mathworld is not a great reference and that adding a citation is unlikely to solve the crazy vandalism problem, but I am happy with the present state of the article.  Happy editing, JBL (talk) 12:14, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

Nomination of List of governors of Texas by age for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article List of governors of Texas by age is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/List of governors of Texas by age until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. List of governors of California by age has also been included in the nomination with List of governors of Texas by age. OCNative (talk) 22:31, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
 * when you use the afd-notice template, per its documentation, please be sure to substitute it. But also, what does this have to do with me? --JBL (talk) 22:35, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Oh, whoops, sorry about failing to subst it. I was notifying you because you had participated in the discussion at Articles for deletion/List of Italian presidents by longevity. OCNative (talk) 22:40, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I see; thanks. --JBL (talk) 22:41, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Yes, but
Indeed,, but I don't see a difference between $$F_{n} = F_{n-1} + F_{n-2}$$ and the standard way of writing equations
 * $$F_{n} = F_{n-1} + F_{n-2}.$$

Do you see a difference? I reasoned that there's no need for the "display=block". - DVdm (talk) 22:07, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Note: the "display=block" stuff happened here. Before that (partly bad ) edit, we had
 * $$F_{n} = F_{n-1} + F_{n-2}.$$

So, what was the use of the "display=block"? - DVdm (talk) 22:26, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
 * please see Manual_of_Style/Mathematics — the colon present an accessibility issue for some readers. JBL (talk) 11:55, 17 October 2021 (UTC)
 * ha, thanks for that. Having been around here for 16.5 years and having hundreds of math and physics articles on my watchlist, I wasn't aware of this. It's only since recently that I noticed editors doing this. And indeed it looks like it's less than a year ago since user made this change to the MOS. Perhaps a bot should take care of this all over the place. Cheers - DVdm (talk) 14:43, 17 October 2021 (UTC)
 * There have been a few discussions of the implementation of display=block at WT:WPM over the past six years (1 2 3), but I think it would have been easy to miss. The most involved discussion was at the MOS:MATH talk page so very easy to miss for non-MOS obsessives.  I agree that in principle it should be something a bot could fix all at once (with a small error percentage) but I don't know anything about doing that and I don't know if it would get consensus if someone tried to propose it.  (My personal attitude is: if I'm making some other edit and I happen to notice equations indented using colons then I often change them to display = block -- and perhaps if other people do the same then in a decade or two this will result in most displayed equations being typeset with display=block.)  All the best, JBL (talk) 21:13, 17 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Of course, the easiest thing to do by the technicians, would be to make sure that the colon generates proper html in the first place, so I'll leave it all to them and gladly continue to accept colons . Cheers! - DVdm (talk) 08:05, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Holocaust and Genocide Studies
Hi there, I am not sure I quite understand your comment here, "Making an inapposite and rather offensive comparison is like what Hitler did to the Jews. --JBL (talk) 13:15, 20 October 2021 (UTC)"

I am a Jewish, and also have earned a Masters in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, so I was just hoping to understand this statement, as I do not feel my statement was even remotely like what Hitler said about us. Th78blue (talk) 14:14, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
 * On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog. Personally, I am an omniscient being composed of pure light, eternal and omnipresent.  My advice to you is to read for understanding, and to forsake the life of a troll.  Note to my future self: this is about this. --JBL (talk) 15:03, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Implicitly referred to you at ANI
And so the following is I guess obligatory:

There is currently a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is Darylprasad & Platonic solids. Thank you. ☿ Apaugasma  ( talk  ☉) 18:15, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks. --JBL (talk) 19:57, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Your Disruptive And Unexplained Edit
You recently just completely deleted my edits to Oberlain College and gave no justification, just putting no thanks in the field. People are left to assume only that you must have a personal connection or something or some type of personal reason why you don’t want the edit other than that you don’t think that it falls within the guidelines or is contributing to Wikipedia. In the future, please follow the proper rules and/or norms concerning giving a reason for your edit. What was the reason to completely delete this by the way? No thanks doesn’t explain anything. If you don’t like something I don’t have a cause for it maybe it should be in the talk page for the article. Bagofscrews (talk) 11:56, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Here are the relevant rules and norms: WP:BRD. You made a bold edit, I reverted, and now (if you like) you may start a discussion on the article talk-page, and I would be happy to explain to you there the multiple reasons your addition was inappropriate and made the article worse. --JBL (talk) 12:27, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

No you should be willing to tell the public when you completely delete an edit why you think it’s a problem and what if any policies or violated other than your subjective opinion that it makes the article worse. You shouldn’t be instead thinking that you can just delete anything I put there and then revert me to the talk page. This pattern of behavior seems to be common on the account here. Bagofscrews (talk) 03:33, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Template problem at Deletion review/Log/2021 October 21
Regarding, I think the problem is that the equals sign makes the software interpret the text preceding it as the name of a template parameter, i.e. nobody can argue that 5 x 3. I have encountered the same problem myself, and this is my best guess. TompaDompa (talk) 20:27, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
 * oh yes of course you're right -- I went scanning for special symbols but forgot that = is one of them in templates. Thank you!  --JBL (talk) 20:29, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Affine symmetric group
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Affine symmetric group 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 Daniel Case -- Daniel Case (talk) 04:01, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Chapeau
I smiled. Kudos. --Goldsztajn (talk) 20:27, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks! :). And thanks also for general level-headedness and for trying to convince RC to tone down their volume of contributions a bit.  --JBL (talk) 21:59, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

jbl making a smiley face? wtf? hell hath frozen over. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.99.230.182 (talk) 01:29, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I see at least three places above on this page where I've written ":)" and about a dozen in the most recent archive of this page so I think it's not that unusual. --JBL (talk) 14:15, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Affine symmetric group
The article Affine symmetric group 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:Affine symmetric group for issues which need to be addressed. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Daniel Case -- Daniel Case (talk) 06:21, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

Birthday Paradox
The Birthday Paradox is that the probability of at least two people in a group sharing a birthday often surpasses 50% when the group size is less than 23 people. If each day of the year were equally likely to be a birthday, the probability would surpass 50% when the group size were equal to 23 people. That's the apparent paradox, and that is why I'd like to change the introduction. CessnaMan1989 (talk) 14:48, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Three comments: (1) this should be on the article talk-page, not on my personal talk-page. (2) The straightforward facts in the first 2.5 sentences of your message bear no obvious relationship to the important phrase ("that is why I'd like to change the introduction"), nor to the edits in question.  To explain why a change would be good, one should identify a problem in what exists or do a comparison between an existing and potentially-existing version.  (3) Have you read the second paragraph of the lead section? (But please, per (1), don't answer this here -- bring discussion to the article talk-page.) --JBL (talk) 15:36, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Cranks
If you're so convinced no editor could possibly find 10 editors to nominate for RFA, how will a random process successfully do so? User:力 (powera, π,  ν ) 19:39, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I must not have been very clear. I am sure that I could find 10 plausible candidates to nominate to RfA tomorrow.  But if I approach a bunch of people and say "Listen, I have this great plan, I'm going to nominate a group of 10 plausible candidates to RfA, and you're one of them -- will you accept?" people will rightly tell me that I sound like a crazy person.  It'd be like AD repeatedly asking the question about usernames at RfAs -- it's possible for a person to do it, but only an eccentric person would do it, and therefore it can't have any systemic impact.  By making it a system, you remove the problematic aspect ("only a crazy person would think this is a good way to get people to run for admin") and replace it with a much more positive aspect ("this is a community-endorsed process for selecting people to run for admin").  --JBL (talk) 19:48, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
 * No, you're clear, I just think you're wrong. You would be much better off sending that message than going through a convoluted and mystical process, complete with random selection and community blessings. User:力 (powera,  π,  ν ) 19:52, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Ok. But what does You would be much better off sending that message mean? --JBL (talk) 19:57, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
 * approach a bunch of people and say "Listen, I have this great plan, I'm going to nominate a group of 10 plausible candidates to RfA, and you're one of them -- will you accept?" User:力 (powera, π,  ν ) 20:01, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Ha! --JBL (talk) 20:07, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

navier-stokes equation and kelvin-stokes/stokes' theorem
hi,

so i may sound lazy by asking this and not hunkering down and figuring it out myself, but i was a little surprised to see that stokes' theorem is mention a total of one time across the NS equation/existence pages.

my question is: aren't they intimately related? if one has a proper realisation of the KS theorem, applies it to a dataset that encapsulates 'nature' and gets a result that reflects the nature of the phenomenon under investigation, aren't NS solved?

i don't understand why the following hypothetical wouldn't be considered solving the NS existence:

1. mathematician emerges claiming to solve important (non-mathematical) problem on data from a mechanism that has perplexed scientific-field-at-large for multiple decades.

2. mathematician figures out, after many years, s/he has demonstrated the fundamental theorem of calculus on said-data.

3. mathematician spends many more years researching the result, trying to understand just why it is so good, only to find themselves narrowing in on areas that are apparently the key to the NS equations/existence (Geometric measure theory, for example).

i guess the weirder thing is someone demonstrating the fundamental theorem of calculus ("if that's even possible").

either way, what i'm asking is whether a 'realisation' of the fundamental theorem of calculus would be equivalent to solving the NS equations, assuming the dataset reflecting nature is generated by an appropriate mechanism (say, nuclear magnetic resonance) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.152.206.184 (talk) 00:25, 13 November 2021 (UTC)


 * I do not have any particular expertise relating to your questions, sorry. You might try the reference desk or Math StackExchange. --JBL (talk) 00:51, 13 November 2021 (UTC)


 * sall good homie, after a bit of googling it seems our fellow countryman Mssr. Tao has answered my question in the affirmative

"A key role in our treatment here will be played by the fundamental theorem of calculus (in various forms and variations). Roughly speaking, this theorem, and its variants, allow us to recast differential equations (such as (1) or (4)) as integral equations. Such integral equations are less tractable algebraically than their differential counterparts (for instance, they are not ideal for verifying conservation laws), but are significantly more convenient for well-posedness theory, basically because integration tends to increase the regularity of a function, while differentiation reduces it. (Indeed, the problem of “losing derivatives”, or more precisely “losing regularity”, is a key obstacle that one often has to address when trying to establish well-posedness for PDE, particularly those that are quite nonlinear and with rough initial data, though for nonlinear parabolic equations such as Navier-Stokes the obstacle is not as serious as it is for some other PDE, due to the smoothing effects of the heat equation.)"

many mathematicians get irritated by my 'style', but as i've maintained throughout: it's all been done before, man.

case-and-point is right above. i find the fundamental theorem of calculus much more interesting than the navier-stokes equations.

i'm watching your edits on the affine symmetric group page, fam. hold it down! 75.152.206.184 (talk) 01:26, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Apology
Hello, I wanted to apologize for mentioning 'editors' rather than focusing on the conent. Ironically, I was upset that a different editor, not you, had made some improvements and said, in their edit summary, that I had contributed weasel words. I felt that assumed bad faith and was a personal attack. I then responded emotionally. I should have set up a talk section before editing. I did not realize that 1RR also referred to re-wording a section. Knowing that, I apologize for editing your revert edit. And, I will be very cautious of that in the future.

On a separate note, my husband is a mathematician. I had a new appreciation for you folks after he and I met at university. I'm a sociologist and political scientist so I rely on him all the time to explain them numbers to me! :) SeminarianJohn (talk) 20:31, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your message and apology. Communication on the internet is hard -- I'm happy to see you treating this situation in a positive and constructive way.  If your husband gets into wikipedia editing, send him over to WP:WPM, it's always good to have more math editors around :).  Happy editing, JBL (talk) 15:36, 17 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Thank you, JBL. :) I appreciate it and the amicable outcome.SeminarianJohn (talk) 18:32, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Forty-Eighters
You might want to comment at Administrators noticeboard/Incidents. -- Orange Mike &#124;  Talk  18:24, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Sure, done. --JBL (talk) 20:32, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Question re. conspiracy theory at ArbCom
I appreciate you stating what should have been obvious to one and all, that the conspiracy theorizing over on the ArbCom talk page is highly inappropriate. I wonder if you have any thoughts on why it's being allowed to stand unopposed by admins and arbs when the IP editor who originally posted it was quickly sanctioned with a t-ban and later blocked from a user talk page for posting about it there. Is it just that people are focused on the ArbCom election? I'm concerned that the editor who's posting this nonsense might view the silence as tacit endorsement of their behavior –– or of the content of their conspiracy theory –– and that perhaps others may come away with that impression as well. Thanks, Generalrelative (talk) 17:16, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi, thanks for your message. On the specific question you raise ("why it's being allowed to stand") I don't think I have any real insight to offer.  (E.g., I don't know if "people are focused on the ArbCom election" is a plausible explanation of anything at all, being only peripherally aware of it.) That said, I have one or two observations.  The pages where it's appeared have mostly been low-traffic, and when the issue was brought to a noticeboard it did result in appropriate action.  I think it's possible (though not certain) that a well-constructed ANI report could address some of the WP:SPA R&I accounts, with this particular issue part of the evidence.  (I will not personally have time to get involved in any such effort in more than a passing way for at least several weeks.) I think it's unfortunate that  is not currently around to advise further.  Finally, about the concern expressed at the end of your message: I think your concerns are misplaced.  If the various problematic SPAs are chatting about WP:OUTING and conspiracies, that's good: life is better when people who are NOTHERE establish a clear problematic record.  (Explaining why a vandal should be blocked is easy; explaining why a civil POV pusher should be blocked is much harder.)  Moreover, we're talking about a group of people who are wandering around to every odd corner of WP (the arbcom talk page?  VPP? RSN? and on and on) trying and failing to get someone to take them seriously, when they can't even formulate a proper RfC -- they're not exactly wiki-masterminds.  --JBL (talk) 03:26, 25 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Since I'm being mentioned by name here, I assume that I'm allowed to respond, and there is an answer to this question that JBL hasn't mentioned.


 * Approximately a year ago, I sent an email to ArbCom explaining most of what I know about this issue, including details that cannot be posted in public per WP:OUTING, and some non-public information that ArbCom could independently verify. The associated public discussion is here. However, ArbCom's procedure with respect to private communications appears to be that aside from a very limited set of circumstances, they they cannot act on this type of information outside of a public arbitration request. As is apparent from the linked discussion, all they could do was file it for future reference.


 * In the time since I sent them this information, the arbitrators have refused to make any comment either affirming or rejecting the veracity of it. (In reply to the private correspondence, they thanked me for the information but said nothing else.) Their lack of response to is a further example of the same pattern. You can make what you like of ArbCom's silence on this matter for the past year, but my interpretation is that they have decided to not say anything further about it until and unless someone requests a full case. 2600:1004:B165:4DC7:244A:AD4F:1D5D:84B9 (talk) 04:17, 25 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks very much for your thoughtful reply, JBL, and apologies for having drawn the t-ban violating IP to your doorstep. I'll be happy to discuss a possible ANI report should the POV pushing not subside in the next several weeks, and if no one else decides to pursue it in the meantime (Aquillion suggested something similar recently at FTN ). In any case, your input here is very much appreciated. Generalrelative (talk) 05:02, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Another thing I might suggest is more (carefully-worded and specific) RFCs to close any holes left by the last one - obviously, this assumes you can come up with RFC questions that are both capable of resolving key underlying questions and which can reach a clear consensus at WP:FRINGEN or some similar venue. Part of the purpose of the previous RFC is to prevent the same basic questions from coming up over and over again and consuming community time; the reality is that despite all the ink poured over it, Race and Intelligence and most related articles are actually fairly stable, which suggests that there is a pretty clear and stable consensus - there's just some editors who will always disagree with it and refuse to accept it, which is currently wasting a lot of community time and effort on circular discussions that invariably go nowhere. If it's reached a point where nobody is making any actual new points, just shouting the same things at each other over and over (and I think that that's definitely the case here), hold an RFC and end it. --Aquillion (talk) 07:03, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
 * you're very welcome.  my read of the situation is that first, you're right that  there's a stable consensus here, and second, that another RfC won't help because the SPAs all understand that there's a stable consensus and are trying to find a procedural loophole to avoid that (rather than editing through it).  That's why the past few months have seen posts by one or another of them at a half-dozen or more different noticeboards, policy pages, ... -- they're looking for someone to wave a magic wand and make the previous RfCs go away. --JBL (talk) 12:00, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

I need to acquire this knowledge
I brought this to your talk page because I feel that the after-discussion happening at ANI is getting sidetracked from ANI's purpose.

Hey, JBL! I saw you reverted my second closure, and I agree, per WP:CLOSE I was directly involved and it wasn't in my power. However, you said in your edit summary that you also included "a criticism of my earlier closing behavior"; I re-read your responses to me, and I can't interpret what I did wrong the first time around. Could you please clarify for me? I've been having a good time at ANI and most of my contributions have been looked positively on (I got a couple of thank you alerts). I think if I was doing more harm than good I would've been shooed off by now because I've been leaving a lot of bold notes over these past two days. I did have one slipup, but it was a simple mistake. I would also like to mention that while I have only been here for about a year and a half, I have a lot of content creation under my belt and want to experience something new. I would be grateful for your advice, and any other "before you begin" knowledge I should know! Panini! 🥪 01:12, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Oh, and that note I responded with after you commented after the first archive; I hope that didn't appear passive aggressive or instigative in some way. I have a dry/sarcastic form of humor every once in a while (and that urge to help people out, as I specified in ANI). Panini! 🥪 01:16, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Freezing the thread "Query for not monotonically increasing infinite asymptotics"
I do not at all object your freezing the thread "Query for not monotonically increasing infinite asymptotics" However, I would like to mention that on 12:27, 25 November 2021 I've made some proposals for improving the article which I would have liked to discuss with the current partner. Unfortunately, this was immediately interrupted by the subsequent and later resumed only on extremely small scale. But you are absolutely right: consensus has not been reached. Nevertheless, I am thinking of implementing the 12:27-proposals. –Nomen4Omen (talk) 15:43, 27 November 2021 (UTC) In any case: Thanks so far, –Nomen4Omen (talk) 17:54, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Because you have already been engaged in a dispute between us I would like to ask you politely to have a look at the thread Talk:Splay tree. (This talk has a tiny relationship with the above post regarding Talk:Big_O_notation.) I am unable to understand, why he insists in placing his dubious O(entropy) into the InfoBox of Splay tree, although there is a suitable, convincing alternative established by top sources. –Nomen4Omen (talk) 18:33, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your message. Yes, I have noticed that dispute. I do not know enough about the topic area to have an independent opinion about what would be the best way to convey the relevant information, and so I do not care to get involved; sorry.  If I may give some unsolicited advice: obviously your disputes with DE are not entirely based on substantive questions.  You would almost certainly have more luck convincing people of the substantive merits of your ideas if you adopted a less abrasive / alienating style.  It seems to me that in the dispute at Talk:Big_O_notation, you adopted approach towards "I don't understand what you've written" that was more akin to "there is something wrong with what you've written" than to "I would like to understand your point of view better". I don't always agree with DE, but it's rare that his view isn't worthy of consideration. --JBL (talk) 21:41, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much for your advice. Maybe that my questions have been not absolutely substantive. What I am sure, however, that I do a lot easier in giving in. Especially when the response is transmitted in an objective manner.
 * Another small problem I see that he does not hesitate to try to demoralize people who express a different opinion. I saw that also with other partners and there especially in his "edit summaries".
 * I fully admit that I have seen contributions of his which are good or OK. But at least some of the ones about mathematical limits look very questionable to me. And limits are a central construct of big-O in both contexts.
 * I understand that you do not want to get involved. Nevertheless, many thanx and best regards, –Nomen4Omen (talk) 22:13, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Could you please freeze the thread "Referring to your „terrific“ post in Talk:Big O Notation​" in Talk:Splay tree as well. It shows heavy disagreement about the Infobox in the article which is considered off-topic by its author DE. –Nomen4Omen (talk) 08:28, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I really have no interest in getting dragged into a fight on a subject I don't know much about, even in a peripheral role. No one posted in that thread for more than 12 hours before your request here, and no one has posted there in the 30 hours since; if you do not post again in that thread, it seems unlikely that anyone else will.  So I suggest simply not posting there any more, and it will be exactly the same effect as if someone put a purple box around it. --JBL (talk) 15:17, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
 * OK, I understand. Although it is only marginally the subject, it is more the emotions. To my (very simple) question 3 everybody is drawn who has a look at his entries in the Infobox. Already this look is labeled off-topic by him.

ANI
The ANI was getting ugly. I just proposed a block on me from editing for the rest of the year. I am trying to own up to my mistakes. In the closing that imposed the topic ban the imposer included this statement 'There was some concern that such a topic ban would be over-reaching, which was addressed with one comment "This should be apparent from categories, and if John finds out a topic he thought had no religious involvement is not religiously involved, he could play it very safe and revert his edits."' I was thinkiung that going back any trying to revert these edits would help, but with one person accusing me of starting this whole kerfuffle in the first place by using a sock-puppet (which I did not do, and is the craziest proposal I have ever seen) I am not thinking that people are willing to forgive. The fact that the state legislator is not in any religion related category, is not being much considered either. The other two I literally only focused on the lead, and was trying to follow the Wikipedia biographies manual of style guidelines on full name references where it was put William Henry Gates and not William Henry "Bill" Gates. I have come across others that I quickly saw were bishops, and avoided such edits. I thought I was being careful, but in these cases I was too quick. I was not trying to evade the topic ban at all. I am really sorry about this.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:58, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I think it is a real shame that so many people are happy to reward the troll and drag the ANI on in this stupid way, despite the innocuous nature of your edits and your completely plausible explanation for them and thoughtful apology. I hope that you are able to find something enjoyable and relaxing to do with the last days of 2021. --JBL (talk) 14:10, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Thankyou. I wish there were more cases of positive communication in Wikipedia. Too many people only ever talk to others to tell them they are doing things wrong.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:08, 21 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Why is it OK for people to use words like "abuser" to describe my actions in this case in ANI, or to baselessly accuse me of being the person who orchestrated this? I have apologized for my actions and admitted I was wrong, but people are using extremely harsh, hurtful and attacking language against me. The fact that people can be so rude in their language and combative, and seemingly be treated with impunity and not at all asked to speak about other editors who are actual people in a civil and kind manner is very frustrating.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:13, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * My advice to you as a fellow human being is to log off Wikipedia for a day or two and not follow the discussion -- I doubt very much that anything you contribute at this point will affect the eventual outcome, and it's hard to see any benefit in being aware of whatever weird hyperbole people find to apply to this situation. (Sorry I don't have something more constructive to offer.  Go for a walk?  Read a book?  I went to the zoo for an hour this morning and it was very restful.) --JBL (talk) 21:26, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I am going to try my hardest to stay off from now to at least the morning. It is about 4:30 here. I have not actually directly commented on the discussion for over 5 hours. I figure there is nothing more I can say. I do hope that they do decided not to block me.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:30, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

I glanced at that ANI again. Some of the comments have truly gone off left field. I have not checked the discussion for over a day until just now and am shocked it is still going on.John Pack Lambert (talk) 04:41, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Revising Topic ban
After the recent ANI, I was wondering what process I would go about to try and get the topic ban at least revised so it is not so insanely broad and all encompassing.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:09, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi, a four-part response. First, I have down-graded this to a subsection of the previous section, I hope you don't mind.  Second, I was happy to see the ANI report closed with no action taken; I hope this will discourage the troll.  Third, your concrete question is procedural one; I believe (but am not entirely certain) that, because your topic ban was imposed as the result of a community discussion, the only way it can be reversed is via a similar community discussion (e.g., an appeal at WP:AN).  Finally, it seems to me that actually pursuing such an appeal would be a terrible idea at the present moment, far more likely to end up with you being indefinitely blocked than with the ban being lifted.  The issue of how to deal with its breadth was mentioned in the original ban discussion close; I see there the suggestion that you should check the categories of articles you're editing for any religious markers.  I realize that this is not super constructive.  You might consider asking Ritchie333 (or with Floquenbeam) if they have any more concrete advice.  Good luck! --JBL (talk) 00:13, 29 December 2021 (UTC)