User talk:Plclark

Welcome!

Hello,, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place  on your talk page and ask your question there. Again, welcome! Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 22:37, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
 * How to edit a page
 * Help pages
 * Tutorial
 * How to write a great article
 * Manual of Style

Style note
Hi. Just a note regarding this diff. One should not hit the "Enter" key when writing text, as that breaks the line of text and is hard to see in the diff (look at the last part of the green text in two columns for what I mean).

Also, using an edit summary helps. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:04, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Number theory AfD nomination
I have reverted your AfD tag on number theory which is in Vital articles and is the main article in Category:Number theory with over 1000 articles including subcategories. If you really want to go through with this absurd nomination then you must create an AfD page with your reason as described in Articles for deletion. The article content may be imperfect but there is no chance an article on such an extremely notable subject with a huge number of books and other reliable sources will be deleted, so a nomination would be a waste of time. PrimeHunter 03:11, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Manual of Style
I just read your user page and thought you might find Manual_of_Style useful. Hope it helps! -Rushyo (talk) 01:20, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Separable space
Can you respond to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Separable_space#Mistake.3F please? Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.4.188.4 (talk) 17:45, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

One-point compactification
Dear Plclark,

I don't think that I make many mistakes although I do sometimes (everyone makes a mistake once in a while). Therefore, I would like to ask you to specifically point out any mistakes that I have made (it is not that I am denying the fact that I have made mistakes but I want to know where exactly). When I contribute to articles, I normally 'write my knowledge' on those articles (except for my own research). If I have made a mistake, it is probably due to the following reasons:


 * I was in a bit of a hurry


 * I got the fact from a reference but I didn't read that fact carefully enough and therefore wrote something else (i.e, I was mindlessely editing Wikipedia)


 * Of course, there is also the possibility that I simply did make a mistake

Sometimes I spare myself 10 minutes to edit Wikipedia and write something. If I spend more than one hour editing Wikipedia, I am probably creating a new article. The mistake I made about the one-point compactification was a bit silly; I intended to write that if X is homeomorphic to Y, then the one-point compactification of X is homeomorphic to the one-point compactification of Y. After your post about my mistake, I opened a book and saw an exercise asking one to prove that one-point compactifications are characterized up to homeomorphisms. This statement led me to believe that I was correct. However, using my knowledge I realised the mistake. From now onwards, I will edit Wikipedia during long periods of time in-order-to avoid such mistakes.

Note also, that I have experience in mathematics and making mistakes is not my nature. So generally, most of my mistakes are not caused because my understanding of the concept is poor. I in general edit articles on concepts that I know very well. I research mostly all branches of mathematics related to topology.

Thanks

Topology Expert (talk) 08:15, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Note: Have you read my comment regarding separable spaces on Oded's talk page? I think that example is probably the easiest to understand (you do not need to go into complications).


 * I do not know of any mathematical mistakes in your edits that have not already been pointed out by me (just the one about one-point compactifications) or Oded, all of which you have already acknowledged and fixed, so far as I know. Revisiting issues which have already been resolved does not seem productive.


 * The one consistent mistake that I see, and that concerns me, is a wikipedic mistake rather than a mathematical one: you do not seem to have yet realized that your work must conform to the standards of verifiability. Several of your articles lack references entirely, and I do not think that any of the articles you have created have inline citations.  Other people have asked you about this and you have responded by saying things like "How can I reference a definition?" or "There is no room for improvement here" that make me think you're not getting the point.  In fact the former is a serious issue: if you're not extremely careful that your definitions are consistent with the literature and with the rest of wikipedia, the whole enterprise comes crashing down.  In the case of the article on perfect spaces, I think you have the wrong definition: your article does not concern perfect spaces as they appear in the topological literature but rather perfect subsets of (usually metrizable) spaces.  How could we possibly resolve this issue without citations to the literature?


 * I hope that before you start any new articles you will spend some time adding references for some of the articles you have already edited. Plclark (talk) 10:14, 13 July 2008 (UTC)Plclark

I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to about separable spaces, but it was not I who asked anything about them. Plclark (talk) 10:14, 13 July 2008 (UTC)Plclark

Every compact space is sequentially compact; this is an obvious fact in topology and I am surprised that you do not know about it. Also, you said that a sequence is a function from the natural numbers to the space in question (call it X). Consider the sequence {1/n}n is a natural number. The sequence is the range of a particular function and not the function itself. Some texts refer to a sequence as a function from the natural numbers whereas other texts refer to a sequence as the range of a function from the natural numbers. I think that since Wikipedia refers to a sequence as you do, I should have followed the same convention.

However, I still would like you to give me the exact counterexample (not referring to an article) of a compact space that is not sequentially compact. I think that any textbook in topology will tell you that every compact space is sequentially compact. In fact the article on sequentially compact space does have a reference to Munkres' book and you will find that according to Munkres' every compact space is sequentially compact.

From you writing, it seems that you have the same attitude as Oded. If I make one mistake, everything I write should be considered a mistake. If I review everything you edit, I am more than likely to find some mistakes.

Topology Expert (talk) 03:08, 14 July 2008 (UTC)


 * As I said, the article compact space contains the example $$\{0,1\}^c$$ with the product topology as an example of a compact space which is not sequentially compact. Previously it was unsourced, but I added a citation to an article of Scarborough and Stone which gives this example (with proof). On p. 209 of Ryszard Engelking's General Topology, he gives the Stone-Cech compactification of the natural numbers as another example, with proof.


 * Your response to this issue is a good example of what I am talking about. You have claimed that compact implies sequentially compact is "obvious", but you have given neither any argument for it nor any clear citation.  You also say "according to Munkres' every compact space is sequentially compact" but you don't say where in Munkres' book this appears.  Thus in order to do verify (or, much more likely in this case, verify that it is not the case) this assertion I would have to read Munkres' book from cover to cover.  Previously you had claimed that Munkres defined a nowhere dense set as one with empty interior: again this is almost certainly not the case, but it would be very time consuming for someone else to check this.


 * I have thus far assumed good faith in all my dealings with you. However, your repeated insistence that standard references say things that they do not say in order to defend yourself is beginning to make me question that assumption.


 * Finally, of course I will be grateful for any mistakes you may find in my edits.

Plclark (talk) 04:27, 14 July 2008 (UTC)Plclark

Your 'counterexample'
Dear Plclark,

Actually, I did make a mistake (again). Compactness implies sequential compactness for first countable spaces. However, you also made a mistake by saying that {0,1}c is compact but not sequentially compact. The space is sequentially compact if c is a countable index set (since in this case the space is first countable) but not sequentially compact otherwise. I hope that this gives evidence of the statement that everyone makes mistakes.

Thanks

Topology Expert (talk) 10:54, 14 July 2008 (UTC)


 * By c I meant "continuum". Recall that I had referred you to this counterexample earlier; the full statement appears, with reference, in the article on compact spaces.


 * Again, I assumed good faith on your part even though records show that others have had issues with this in the past. Equivocating to try to demonstrate that I made a mistake (which in any case was not on an article) is not helping: surely you are not suggesting that if I can also make mistakes (which, of course, I can) then that excuses you from writing articles which are verifiable and correct?


 * I will ask you to fix these mistakes on sequentially compact space and to specifically retract your claims that Munkres says that nowhere dense subsets are by definition those with empty interior and that all compact spaces are sequentially compact. Otherwise there is no point in further discussion.  Plclark (talk) 11:25, 14 July 2008 (UTC)Plclark

Discussion on Perfect space
Dear Plclark,

According to Rudin's 'Principles of mathematical analysis' (third edition), page 32, definition 2.18 (h), a subset E of a metric space X is perfect if E is closed and if every point of E is a limit point of E (i.e E has no isolated points). Note that in a metric space, every closed set is a Gδ set. In particular this implies that the definition you found is not equivalent to Rudin's definition for metric spaces (Rudin requires the additional condition that the metric space has no isolated points; according to your definition every metric space is perfect). However, the definition in Rudin's does imply yours, i.e Rudin's definition is stronger that yours for metric spaces. I just had a glimpse at chapter 2 of Rudin's book and I noticed that many of his proofs about compactness in metric spaces inexplicitly use the fact that metric spaces are Hausdorff (for instance theroem 2.34, page 37). In fact most of his theorems about compactness do generalize to arbitrary Hausdorff topological spaces. Therefore, I am led to believe that despite the fact that Rudin only considers metric spaces in the definition of perfectness, his definition probably does apply to arbitrary topological spaces.

Note also that I was not the one to give the definition of a perfect space; I expanded upon the definition. The creator of the article defined a perfect space as a topological space that has no isolated points. I think that it is best to question the creator as to why he defined perfect spaces in this way. Most probably, he referred to Rudin's book when giving the definition.

Topology Expert (talk) 11:11, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

RFC regarding Fowler&fowler
Hi Plclark. Thanks for your contributions in the discussion on Atiyah. I noted, that although WP:BLP was quoted several times in the debate, no attempt was made to apply it to C.K. Raju and other living individuals. I felt that you corrected User:Fowler&fowler on this point a few times; so did others, but he continued making -- what in my opinion -- are personal attacks on Raju. I have created a RFC requesting that he be asked to delete these comments and be restrained from making future such libelous edits. I feel that you were one of the editors who tried to resolve this dispute on the talk page and so, if you feel, my summary is accurate please certify it. thanks, Perusnarpk (talk) 21:53, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Sasquatch principle
I was wondering whether to AfD this, and thinking I should leave it to those who knew more about the subject, when I saw that you had done it. However, something had gone wrong with the process so that it wasn't actually listed in the day's AfDs; I have taken the liberty of sorting that out and putting the AfD notice on the author's talk page. I find the best way to list an AfD is to have WP:AfD open in a separate tab as I work through the steps, and at stage II to use the "Preloaded debate" option; but it's still a confusing process. Regards, JohnCD (talk) 10:51, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Perfect/G-delta spaces
Dear Plclark,

From your two edits ( and ), I might conclude that you think that the definitions in both articles are incorrect. I am certain that there is the concept of a perfect space (what I call G-delta space) in mathematics. However, I doubt that there is a concept of a perfect space (one with no isolated points; that is how I refer to it). I completely agree with what you have said regarding the validity of the definitions. However, in my opinion the most appropriate action to be taken is:

1. Contact User: Richard Pinch and User: Vipul and ask them to give a reference in which their definition is mentioned. User: Vipul seems to have contributed a lot to Wikipedia; he has mainly created articles on the less known concepts in mathematics. However, I have doubt as to whether User: Richard Pinch has obtained his definition from a reliable source. In the two articles I have created, I 'believed' their definitions.

I am still unsure whether perfect spaces (i.e those with no isolated points) have a role in mathematics. If I had not seen that Rudin has actually defined a perfect space as one with no isolated points, I would consider nominating the article for deletion. I strongly believe that User: Vipul has seen the definition of a perfect metric space in Rudin and believed that this definition can be generalized to arbitrary topological spaces.

Thanks

Topology Expert (talk) 09:49, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Please have a look at ; this is another reference that supports your claim. Now I definitely think that it is appropriate to contact User: Richard Pinch. I will do so as soon as possible.

Topology Expert (talk) 09:56, 4 August 2008 (UTC)


 * G-delta space is defined on page 162 of Steen and Seebach, which is in the list of references. Richard Pinch (talk) 19:55, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Dedekind domain
Suppose $$Pic(R)\cong\Z/2\Z$$, and let $$J$$ be a representative of the non-trivial element. Then, there is no $$I$$ such that $$R^2\otimes I\cong R\oplus J$$.--Phiech (talk) 06:57, 26 August 2008 (UTC)


 * You're right. I have rewritten the passage. Plclark (talk) 09:42, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

non-standard calculus
Hi, Thanks for your comments at WP math. I moved the voluminous discussion to the talk page of non-standard calculus. Hope to see you there! Katzmik (talk) 13:35, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Just a quick update: there has been a bit of a flurry of activity around non-standard things, hope you continue to contribute. Katzmik (talk) 13:07, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Re: Talk:Locally connected space
Hi. I've replied to a couple of replies of yours at Talk:Locally connected space. Regards, Paul August &#9742; 18:30, 7 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Paul. Your comments are helpful and will be taken into consideration. Plclark (talk) 18:36, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Keisler
Hi, Thanks for your edit at non-standard calculus. I was wondering actually whether Keisler's book deserves its own page, not sure at this point. Katzmik (talk) 15:46, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Perfect space
Dear Plclark,

Maybe this is a better way (and correct way) of wording what I wrote:

So, similar to compactifiying a space, we can 'make' a space to be of the second category by adding a singleton set to its topology

What I originally wrote was incorrect. Since I prefer not to use the words 'second category' and 'first category', I was a bit confused about their meanings and got them mixed up. But I fixed this up to make the statement correct and less ambiguous. Thanks for pointing this out.

Topology Expert (talk) 09:54, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia's Expert Peer Review process (or lack of such) for Science related articles
Hi - I posted the section with the same name on my talk page. Could you take part in discussion ? User: Shotwell suggested (on my talk page) "I would endorse a WP:EXPERTADVICE page that outlined the wikipedia policies and goals for researchers in a way that enticed them to edit here in an appropriate fashion. Perhaps a well-maintained list of expert editors with institutional affiliation would facilitate this sort of highly informal review process. I don't think anyone would object to a well-maintained list of highly-qualified researchers with institutional affiliation (but then again, everyone seems to object to something)." We could start with that if you would agree ... - could you help to push his idea through Wikipedia bureaucracy ? Cheers, Apovolot (talk) 15:45, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Boubaker polynomials
The rules for acceptabilty of such items are there in the WP creteria : Extracted :

It says: -Have they been the main subject of (at least two) published papers, or chapters in a book, or an entire book about this sequence? -Are they cited in MathWorld or PlanetMath ? -Are they cited in in the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS)? Do they have a demonstrated (and/or) published expression?

Is seems PlanetMath is a respectful institution cited by WP. Isn't it ????(you may be an administrator, and you may know yhis better than us ....)Luoguozhang (talk) 22:48, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

1000 thanks !
Your remark about tripatlas.com is really useful, correct and honest.

Concerning PlanetMath, we understand your point of view (and agree with you), we mentioned it ONLY beacuse it was one of WP rules, no more...

We thank you a lot for the instructive lesson you gave us, Please try to enhance this page by such corrections! Luoguozhang (talk) 23:12, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Bishop–Keisler controversy
I don't see the problem in holding a vote a WPM if it can easily be copied to the talk page (which in fact I will do now). The 'rule' says 'no voting', instead 'discussion'. However, I have mentioned that in every vote, some justification must be provided. We can discuss the voting afterwards if necessary.

I know that you just want to point out that we are supposed to follow rules and you mean well but will breaking the rules once really make the sky fall on our heads (in any case, the rules are not being broken as I have mentioned)?

Topology Expert (talk) 22:23, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

OK, why don't we discuss and vote?

Topology Expert (talk) 22:28, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Bishop–Keisler controversy
An article that you have been involved in editing, Bishop–Keisler controversy, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Articles for deletion/Bishop–Keisler controversy. Thank you. Mathsci (talk) 05:42, 14 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Fixed it. Sorry about that.Likebox (talk) 19:06, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi Plclark,

Do you agree that the article should be merged and a redirect should be kept in place of its contents? I still don't understand why this article should be removed from existence (which would also remove evidence of people editing it) when there is a simple solution (which takes a few minutes). Of course, I am still not in support of this merge but first this (absurd) AfD should be closed.

Topology Expert (talk) 19:11, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Your comment
Dear Plclark,

I don't know what to say first but I should probably respond to some of your comments.

First of all, I won't participate in that AfD discussion anymore because I have probably done enough (damage). I agree that what I said about User:Mathsci was irrelevant and I wish that I had not said it (I apologized there to User:Mathsci). Since I have already voted, I will stop commenting on that page. In general, these ‘discussions’ always seem to backfire on me (unfortunately). I understand why this time, but in previous discussions, I am still unsure.

About my username: I don’t know whether you will understand this but I will tell you anyway. When I first created my account, I just thought (I don’t know why) that ‘topology expert’ would be a suitable name. At that time, I did not really take Wikipedia seriously and I think you can see that if you look at my very first contributions. In fact, at that time I was still learning topology (in fact started learning topology) and I have to say that I was far from knowledgeable (and certainly not an expert). Even now, I still have a lot to learn in mathematics. Currently, I am most interested in topology (algebraic, differential and point-set) but point-set is probably my 'expertise'.

Initially, I used to think and edit (you know what I mean). I used to read an article and come up with my own results. These ‘results’ were actually (and generally) correct except for minor details (like once I wrote that a set with the particular point topology is not metacompact but of course I should have restricted to infinite sets) which I would spot generally if I re-scanned through my proof (in my head). By the time I would spot the mistake (the next-time I edited) someone else (usually Oded) would correct it. I think that if I would have written down my results (as proofs), I would have spotted the mistake immediately and would have made very few errors in editing. However, nowadays, my mistakes are less frequent and generally I am very careful when I edit. I think also that I am more ‘an expert’ than earlier.

I (of course) don’t think that proving Urysohn’s lemma implies expertise. That was just an example (which was in my early days of learning topology). Not that I say I am an expert now. I do have gaps in my knowledge (like I still don’t know much algebraic topology) but I can explain this. I don’t usually read the book and do the exercises (this is what I did in my earlier days). I usually read a definition (take the definition of the fundamental group for instance) and derive most of the theorems (actually state and prove them) myself along with interesting ‘research problems’ which come to mind. Generally, the exercises (except for 1 or 2) take me a few minutes to solve. The 1 or 2 exercises come to me in a little bit of thinking. For example, I worked out the connection between covering maps and the fundamental group on my own and without hints, I found out that you can use the fact that a discrete group may act on the total space of a covering map in-order-to calculate the fundamental group of the base space (of course the covering map has to be universal and a few conditions must be imposed on the action). One last important comment: I am most interested in general topology (such as purely topological concepts; you know what I am referring to) and if at all in anything, I am probably an expert in that.

I was wrong to say that I was a professor. As I said, I did not take Wikipedia seriously in my earlier days but I can say that I am certainly not a professor and nor am I a professional violinist (but I have played the violin for most of my life). I don’t blame you for not believing what I have said (I would not in the same circumstances) so let us just forget about it shall we? But my last comment was true (I don’t claim to be a child prodigy but I just say that I am younger than what you would expect). From now on, I have decided to edit articles rather than participating in discussions and if you look at my edits, you may notice that my mistakes are, nowadays, infrequent.

Topology Expert (talk) 21:30, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Ring (mathematics)
Hi Plclark,

I noticed that you fixed up some mistakes in ring (mathematics). I actually created that section based on another section (there was already something on opposite rings so I moved it into its own section). This suggests that I should perhaps go over the other sections that I moved just to check that there weren't any mistakes earlier. Anyway, thanks for helping out there!

Point-set topologist (talk) 14:14, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I also did not know that there was something like 'idempotency' for rings. Thanks for correcting that link. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Point-set topologist (talk • contribs) 14:18, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi Plclark,

I just wanted to comment on your comment at Talk:Ring (mathematics): I don't think that I was being uncivil (please re-read my comment); I put in the the most polite way possible. Second of all, I am not going to comment on your use of 'incarnation', but if you have an opinion about someone, I would appreciate it if you kept it to yourself (instead of publicizing it on two talk pages). Point-set topologist (talk) 17:38, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Dear Plclark,

I noticed that you reverted my edit of removing your " " in "new user". I understand that editing other peoples' posts is inappropriate but it is appropriate in some cases. See WP:OUTING and in particular, a passage there reads:

Posting another person's personal information (legal name, date of birth, identification numbers, home or workplace address, telephone number, email address, or other contact information, regardless of whether or not the information is actually correct) is harassment, unless that editor voluntarily posts this information, or links to this information, on Wikipedia themselves. Posting such information about another editor is an unjustifiable and uninvited invasion of privacy and may place that editor at risk of harm in "the real world". This applies whether or not the person whose personal information is being revealed is a Wikipedia editor. It also applies in the case of editors who have requested a change in username, but whose old signatures can still be found in archives. Edits attempting to out someone should be promptly reverted, and a request for oversight made to permanently delete the edits from Wikipedia.

I bolded the statements that apply in this case. I won't change back your " " but I request you to not do it in future. --Point-set topologist (talk) 19:52, 24 December 2008 (UTC)


 * (Edit conflict) I believe that you are misinterpreting the passage. WP:OUTING applies to personal information -- none of your personal information has ever been disclosed or even so much as alluded to on wikipedia.  The sentence beginning "It also applies..." means that providing personal information about User:X when wikipedia records connect User:X to User:Y is also outing.  It absolutely does not mean that identifying or suggesting that User:X and User:Y are the same person is outing.  Please do contact administration if you wish clarification on this. Plclark (talk) 20:23, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

I did not ask you to pretend that I am different from "you know who". You could have easily avoided writing what you wrote regarding wallpaper group; that is you could have re-worded your statement. What you are writing on my talk page now is private and in any case, should be sent by email. Therefore, I am removing it (please send it by email instead and we can discuss it). If you continue voluntarily publicizing that there is a relation between me and "you know who", I will consider writing to an admin. --Point-set topologist (talk) 20:19, 24 December 2008 (UTC)


 * No, I disagree that my messages to you were private -- they were also addressed to RobHar and are relevant to the entire community. It is indeed time to seek administrative clarification.  Plclark (talk) 20:23, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I think by "you-kow-who" he meant a poinsettia topologist, to join in the holiday spirit.--CSTAR (talk) 22:40, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Unsolicited outside comment
Although I don't know every detail, I've been seeing parts of this dispute unfold because I had Ring (mathematics) on my watchlist. As far as I can tell some editors have alleged that one new editor is not really new, and one editor has alleged that the new editor is really the same as an old one who has retired. It also appears - from afar at least - that one or more editors have acted in ways to prevent the new editor from removing traces of the dispute. There is disagreement over whether WP:OUTING has been violated.

I am not an expert on Wikipedia policies. However, I am intervening because I think there is a chance that the parties could benefit from the following observations.


 * Since the question is quite procedural, expertise on wikipedia policies seems to be required for a definitive answer. Nevertheless I will reply to your points:

1. The argument that WP:OUTING does not apply because only linking two usernames is different from linking a username and a real identity may or may not be valid.


 * On that, we can all agree. :)

In any case, part of the danger of "outing" is nonetheless present, because the old editor may have, wittingly or unwittingly, published identifying information about themselves. There could therefore be a danger in alleging a link between a new user and the old one. In fact, under the hypothesis that the "outers' " suspicion is correct, it cannot be excluded that the editor took on the new identity because they realized that they, or someone else, had published identifying information about the old user. If this were the case, it would be quite likely that the "outers" were not aware of this fact.


 * Whether this is a valid argument in general I'm not sure, but that is certainly not the case here. As I have said elsewhere, the only editors who have supplied any biographical information about the user/s in question is the user/s themselves, and that information is neither remotely near sufficient for personal identification nor even internally consistent.

2. Assuming hypothetically, that the "outers" are correct, what is the purpose of linking the old and new user? Ordinarily, this might be useful to prevent sockpuppets used for votestacking, etc., but if the old and new users have not simultaneously participated in the same debate, this is not a concern. Also, this might be important to prevent a banned user from returning. There may be other cases I'm leaving out. But if an editor did feel it important to assume a new identity, it does not seem worth it to me to wreck the new user's experience on Wikipedia over trivial forms of alleged misconduct.


 * My issue, and User: RobHar's issue as well, is one of simple honesty. User point-set topologist has repeatedly claimed to be a new user in ways that suggest that he (or she...) is expecting special treatment from the community because of this.  Thus it looks like a single editor is gaming the system to avoid having to conform to the community's standards for behavior of experienced users.  Attempting to deceive people is not a trivial form of misconduct, is it?

This may or may not be a case of "outing" as defined by Wikipedia guidelines. But I do think there is a basic issue of civility involved. If there is no substantial benefit to Wikipedia from linking two user identities, it should not be done, particularly once the new user has asked that it not be done.


 * I have replied to this already above. Halting deceptive behavior is a substantial benefit.

Because I do not know everything about this dispute, there may be allegations of serious misconduct (directly related to an editor having multiple accounts) of which I am not aware. Barring that, my overall impression is that in the present circumstances, attempting to ensure that there are prominent traces of the dispute does not further any valid objective; I have in fact observed that the allegation has been repeated on at least one widely seen page. All of this is clearly ruining the new user's enjoyment of editing Wikipedia, which is detrimental to the encyclopedia.


 * Anyone with any familiarity with the two users would certainly suspect that they are the same without any explicit mention of this being made (e.g. cognate user names, similar behavior and editing styles, the fact that the retirement of the first user is on the same day as the first edit of the second user...).


 * As I mentioned earlier on RobHar's talk page, the relevant policy here seems to be not WP:OUTING but the "clean start" paragraph on WP:SOCK. There is nothing in that passage that implies that other users are forbiddento make connections between multiple usernames.  In fact, the contrary implication is there: if not making such a connection is important to the editor, s/he should modify his behavior enough for this connection not to be made.  Plclark (talk) 01:01, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

An editor's wishes for what should remain on their talk page should be respected. I also believe that these issues should not be adressed on article talk pages as one IP editor attempted to do.

I realize that in this case, the new user may have exacerbated the situation by raising the serious issue of "outing", rather than simply erasing the comment, when the initial reproach was a moderate one and would have been difficult to formulate in a different way. However, the essence of the response, that it was their wish that this not be mentioned further, could easily have been heeded without any adverse consequences for Wikipedia, since the initial point had already been made.

It may also be the case that what I see as a minor transgression, others honestly see as more serious. However, by now this dispute gives every appearance of having become a personal one and to have spiralled out of proportion to any objective of benefit to Wikipedia.

Even if these arguments are not judged persuasive, I would ask all sides to make sure in future to weigh how their actions are benefiting Wikipedia. Joeldl (talk) 00:00, 26 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi. I think it makes things difficult to follow if you break up other people's comments, even though I understand the desire to respond "point by point."
 * As I said, I'm not an expert on Wikipedia policy, but I think I have a good sense of what appropriate interactions between editors are.
 * I don't understand how you would be in a position to know with certainty whether any identifying information had ever been published about the old user, either by themselves or by someone else.
 * Also, while honesty is important in the academic world, on Wikipedia honesty is mostly important in terms of having a genuine desire to improve the encyclopedia, and not in terms of saying who one is. (Possible exceptions I can see might be overstating one's credentials, or falsely claiming to be someone else.) Multiple accounts are a problem only if they're used illegitimately. Problematic edits by new editors can still be dealt with in essentially the same way as those by experienced ones.
 * Even assuming you are correct in your allegations, the fact that someone who's made a mistake might have attempted to save face by saying they were new is not a huge problem.
 * Your attempts to enforce "simple honesty" by discussing in public fora whether someone is someone else appear to me to be out of proportion to anything to be gained by doing this. I'm afraid you run the risk of making Wikipedia a less pleasant place through this kind of action, not least for the new editor.Joeldl (talk) 14:56, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Reply
I replied on my talk page. Maybe not too helpful.--CSTAR (talk) 17:07, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Hulabaloo
Hi Plclark,

I am back from a Wikibreak (after another tiresome conflict) and am still not understanding why this hulabaloo has been created over nothing (in my opinion, of course). I appreciate it that you approached the matter without haste after I removed your message from my talk page (note that, I just now saw what you said about informing Charles Matthews so that is why I did not respond). The point I wanted to make when I edited your post at WPM was that you could have written:

User:Point-set topologist...

instead of:

The "new user" User:Point-set topologist...

Yes: I was wrong to edit your post and remove " " which insulted your intelligence in your point of view. But I saw your post as an intentional way of telling others that I am someone else. In fact, after you wrote that at WPM, I did not take any action. But I think that what you wrote at Talk:Ring (mathematics):

''I am afraid that after Topo's reincarnation, his civility is already degrading ..."

was totally unecessary (the "reincarnation" bit). Wikipedia policies are important but I think that there are times when they should not be taken so strictly. For example, you write that if my writing style is the "same as before", the connection must be made. Instead of making these connections, can't we just focus on the project? After all, what merit does this dispute have when I myself minded my own business. You were the one who started this conflict (to be honest with "new user" and "incarnation" when I minded my own business).

On the same issue, I feel that you have been following me around lately. It is not fair for me to make false accusations, but I would rather that any discussions between us in the near future should be solely for discussing Wikipedia content and not other issues. --Point-set topologist (talk) 19:28, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Anyway, happy new year (although it is a bit late for that...)! --Point-set topologist (talk) 19:36, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

By the way, I noticed what that annonymous IP wrote and I am led to believe that he is closely related to that discussion (has participated there). This also suggests that he is an editor of Wikipedia (and has been watching my talk page). This is a bit of a worry but I think we can get this issue of our backs now (I understand your intentions and I don't think that they were intended to be bad but I think the best way to resolve this, is to ensure that I won't say that I am a new user and then you can stop making these connections; but note that I am not in anyway saying that I am not a new user: I am just not saying that I am a new user because some users don't seem to happy about it). But if you look at it from a lurker's point of view, I never said anything about being a new user before you, on two instances, accused be of being someone else (without any reason). But as I said before, this issue has no merit and I think that we can get back to our normal editing. PST —Preceding unsigned comment added by Point-set topologist (talk • contribs) 22:25, 8 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't know where the best place to this comment is, but here is better than others, I guess. Point-set topologist, your behavior before and after the name change has been immature.  This is the reason why you come into conflict with so many people.  It's not a big deal or something that should be made a big deal of, but it's important you realize that, because otherwise you are just going to come into conflict again and again.  I suggest you acquire a mentor (there is an association of such mentors somewhere on Wikipedia).  Although I have not thoroughly examined all these goings-on, it seems what happened is that you were the first to bring attention to your "new user"-ness by using it as an excuse.  If you wish to avoid such attention, you should not bring it up in the first place.  And frankly, I can understand why someone would get annoyed by someone excusing their behavior by claiming to be "new" when in fact it is apparent to all involved that the person is not new.  Now I'm sure everyone is happy to move on; there has been way too much silliness in the past couple months in the math project (not due to you, by the way), and seeing it only makes me glad I've been staying away.  --C S (talk) 20:07, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I just want to confirm that was not the first to "claim newness". Have a look at this (on the same day that I created my account) and this (notice the word "incarnation").


 * No, this is incorrect. My use of "'new user'" on December 17 was a direct quote of PST from the comment on his/her 17:25 edit of the article on rings: see here.  It has been pointed out to me that my efforts to get PST to be consistently honest have not been effective.  I am starting to see that this is the case.  Plclark (talk) 06:32, 10 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, my edit summary had "Wikilinking (I am a new user so I am not sure of this)". But is that real dishonesty even if it were true? For a start, I have every right to claim that I am a new user, and second of all, I was unsure of the those Wikilinks. I no longer have respect for Wikipedia after this experience; I feel that I was treated unfairly, intentionally. PST —Preceding unsigned comment added by Point-set topologist (talk • contribs) 10:24, 11 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Because you are convinced that I am someone else, I am writing this message with regards to your point of view:


 * First of all, why are you so convinced that I am someone else? I can remove this thread from your talk page (if you wish) and then can we remove the thread from Rob's talk page? Since people are not too happy about it, I promised not to say that I am not a new user anymore. Why do you still want to continue the matter (please see User talk:RobHar? You have to understand also (this is my point of view) that there are two types of dishonesty:

1) Dishonesty that is not done to get some in trouble, not done in a serious context, when accused of something serious, denying these accusations (falsely), or serious dishonesty (such as saying you are someone else when this is not true).

2) Dishonesty that does not affect anyone else in anyway and is harmless.

I am afraid that everyone (including you and I) must have committed 1) at some point in their lives. I am never dishonest in real life, and must say that even if I was dishonest this case (remember, I am looking at this message with regards to your view), I don't think that this dishonesty is serious. The fact that if someone indeed does take the course of action to retire and then start a new account, implies that you have to go and accuse them unnecessarily is unrelated but in a sense as bad as dishonesty. I am not in anyway saying that your allegations are correct or false (otherwise I will start another heated debate), but just try to think how you would feel if you were in the same situation as me in your point of view (i.e if you wanted to make a "clean start", would you appreciate it if someone tried to spoil it). Once again I must make it clear that I am writing this message from your point of view; I want you to think about this (as you would expect other people to do when you write them a message). Could you please do so?

PST —Preceding unsigned comment added by Point-set topologist (talk • contribs) 08:20, 10 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Look PST, I think there's one thing that you have to come to terms with: whether or not you agree with how plclark dealt with the situation, it was not done on a whim or just for the sake of it, it was done because your behaviour was deemed inappropriate. In the above you say: "The fact that if someone indeed does take the course of action to retire and then start a new account, implies that you have to go and accuse them unnecessarily is unrelated but in a sense as bad as dishonesty." This reveals a misunderstanding of the situation: the supposed "unnecessary" part. How did plclark "recognise" you (I use quotes because I in no way mean to imply that he is correct)? He clearly found that your behaviour was very similar to that of another user in a bad way. Now you seem to have been told by several other users that your behaviour is a problem, but for some reason you seem to be sticking with the opinion that plclark's actions were only motivated by some perverted pleasure in tying you to another user for absolutely no reason. This other user had several problems with several people both in and out of this project, and your behaviour was basically the same. And, in his posts, plclark explains his problems with your behaviour, but due to the resemblance of your bad behaviour with another user's bad behaviour (a resemblance that is more striking for the fact that this behaviour was rather special) he decided to also address the fact that he thought you were this same other user. Clearly, this has turned out to not be a useful course of action, because it has detracted from the fact that there were real problems with your behaviour and it has wasted several people's time. Now, as for plclark's desire for keeping the discussions that are on my talk page, he probably just wants that to stay there in case future people have trouble with you and are looking around to see if there is a certain pattern of behaviour. This is a double-edged sword and could hurt him if he is the type to be constantly accusing people of similar things or engaging in a bunch of behaviour that some portion of the wiki population considers outing. The post could hurt me in the future, too. But I am a fan of accountability, so I am inclined to leave the posts on my talk page. And since it was deemed that no outing occurred, I am not compelled to remove the posts. In conclusion, Wikipedia is not the type of place where you can keep hounding users for having slipped up once, so if we all just leave this behind and move on, then there will be no problems. So, my suggestion is to just drop it. And by this I don't mean go around telling everyone that you've dropped it, because that's not dropping it. I mean just stop talking about it. You'll see that it works. I certainly have no intention of trying to add anything more to this after this post. plclark doesn't seem to have said much about this lately either (his only posts on this have been short succinct follow-ups to your posts) so I'm inclined to think he's more than happy to drop this. So it's up to you now. If you stop talking about it, it will go away. Though I can't promise that it won't come back if your behaviour doesn't improve (though I can say that if your behaviour doesn't improve, I will not be the one bringing it up, I have no interest in that). There's no need to reply to this post. Cheers. RobHar (talk) 17:16, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

So Plclark publicized on two occassions (actually more than that), not only that I am not a new user, but that I am someone else. PST
 * By the way, I didn't actually notice you staying away... :) PST

I don't understand but I can leave this project if you wish
Dear Plclark,

Politely speaking, I am unable to understand what your intentions are with this dispute. You obviously want to continue this per this edit but yet I am unable to understand why. That message on RobHar's talk page is giving a direct connection between me and another user. I don't want to deny this connection (in the fear that you will persist with this) and notice that I have never done so (again, I don't want you to persist with this). Even though RobHar's talk page is not my talk page, I still feel that you should not write these things there (or any public forum for that matter). If your intentions are to make me leave this project, I can make it easy for you and leave rather than wasting your time with this. But I still feel that I was not treated fairly as a user. PST —Preceding unsigned comment added by Point-set topologist (talk • contribs) 10:15, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Copied from the above section:


 * No, this is incorrect. My use of "'new user'" on December 17 was a direct quote of PST from the comment on his/her 17:25 edit of the article on rings: see here.  It has been pointed out to me that my efforts to get PST to be consistently honest have not been effective.  I am starting to see that this is the case.  Plclark (talk) 06:32, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, my edit summary had "Wikilinking (I am a new user so I am not sure of this)". But is that real dishonesty even if it were true? For a start, I have every right to claim that I am a new user, and second of all, I was unsure of the those Wikilinks. I no longer have respect for Wikipedia after this experience; I feel that I was treated unfairly, intentionally. --Point-set topologist (talk) 10:25, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Atiyah: Please take a look
at: Talk:Michael_Atiyah. Your feedback will be great. Fowler&amp;fowler «Talk»  01:39, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Fowler&amp;fowler «Talk»  16:13, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for
moving my comment to Katzmik to the proper user talk page. I regret that despite having made > 500 edits over > 3 years, I can be clueless when it comes to Wikipedia protocol, only now figuring out how to go to a user's *talk* page rather than the *user* page per se, a distinction that had been lost on me.Daqu (talk) 05:29, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Removal of the 3rd paragraph from Connected space
I certainly believe that you know what you're doing, but I just couldn't figure out why you made this edit. So, I reverted it. I'm not contesting it. I think you had a good reason to do it, but I (and probably the others) need to know it. -- Taku (talk) 12:04, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Although I am perhaps not involved in this matter, I feel that some comments are necessary. The paragraph removed is both unencyclopedic and imprecise. It does not convey intuition in the right way, and this poses a problem. One problem with topology articles, is that there is an attempt to give an "intuitive definition." For instance, in open set, the remark: "A subset U is open if the distance between any point x in U and the edge of U is greater than zero" is wrong for more reasons than one. Firstly, there may be no metric on the space in question, and secondly, this is not a definition, for the condition given is not sufficient for openess. The imprecision displayed (for instance, "edge") does not serve well to convey intuition. If you look more carefully at the third paragraph, a similar flaw occurs. This is not to say that one must avoid intuition completely, but rather, it is important to take care when conveying intuition. I strongly believe that there exists a manner in which one may convey the intuitive notion of connectedness, but the current is not it. -- PS T  14:39, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Perhaps I should analyse the removed paragraph:


 * "It is usually easy to think about what is not connected."
 * OK. However, this does not seem to bear any relation to mathematics.


 * "A simple example would be a space consisting of two rectangles, each of which is a space and not adjoined to the other."
 * This is imprecise. Are the rectangles disjoint (this is what is meant but not expressed clearly)? The language used is not mathematical and perhaps leads the reader to an incorrect interpretation.


 * "The space is not connected since two rectangles are disjoint."
 * To which two rectangles does this refer?


 * "Another good example is a plane with a ring-shaped piece removed."
 * I think Annulus (mathematics) is meant. The terminology is clearly imprecise as well as the indefinite article before "plane." This is not standard.


 * "The space is not connected since you cannot connect two points, one inside the ring and the other outside; hence the term "connect"."
 * I think by "cannot connect two points," it is meant, "cannot connect two points by a path." "Inside the ring" is imprecise as mentioned above, as well as the unnecessary remark - "hence the term "connect"."


 * -- PS T  14:55, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I have now rewritten the removed paragraph. It is now mathematically precise as well as intuitive. One may now expand on its content. -- PS T  15:01, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Separable space
Hello! I read on the talk page on Separable space on the section Mistake (it's exactly what I was looking for). Someone called "Topology expert" said

Just to point out a few things (unrelated to this argument), there are a few nice examples of spaces that are Hausdorff, separable but do not have the property that a point in the closure of a set is the limit of a sequence of points belonging to that set. For example, consider Rω in the box topology. This space has a countable dense subset and is Hausdorff but does not satisfy the desired condition. A proof is as follows:

He's currently "retired" so I was wondering if you can help me out: How's Rw in the box separable? It's obviously hausdorff and the proof he gives is for the property that a point in the closure of a set is the limit of a sequence of points belonging to that set, which is well known to me.

Also can you give an example of a countable dense subset of R^R in product? I can't prove it myself (because there are uncountably many finite subsets of R). Thanks! Standard Oil (talk) 00:38, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * The box topology on Rω is not separable. To see this, let A be the set of all sequences, every term of which is either 1 or 0. If a is in A, define Ua to be the product of open intervals of radius 1/2, with each open interval in the product containing the corresponding term of the sequence a. If S was a dense subset of Rω, each Ua would contain some element of S. Consider the mapping sending Ua to this element of S, for each a in A. Since any pair of distinct Ua's are disjoint, this map is injective. This defines an injective mapping from an uncountable set (A is uncountable by Cantor's diagonal argument) into S. Therefore, S is uncountable. In particular, any dense subset of Rω is uncountable (under the box topology, of course) so that Rω is not a separable space. Hope this helps (by the way, I am not Plclark but happened to notice your question here). -- PS T  03:36, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * rofl lolz and he is called "Topology expert". I looked at the above comments on this talk page and on someone else talk page and was already starting to doubt the "expert's words" (Every compact space is sequentially compact; this is an obvious fact in topology and I am surprised that you do not know about it lols and then he admits he is wrong). I figured the box topology has way too many open sets so that's why I asked. Also I figured out the countable dense subset of R^R: take all piecewise straight lines with finitely many corners at rational points. Thanks Standard Oil (talk) 09:08, 2 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Your construction sounds correct to me. (The fact about separability of R^R was a problem in my undergraduate topology course, something like 14 years ago.  It appears as a problem in several standard texts.  But I would have had to go back to the drawing board to solve it.)  Regarding Topology expert, no comment except: I have reason to believe he is becoming more knowledgeable and more careful as time goes on.  Plclark (talk) 14:33, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Number theory
Hi - the Number theory article has been replaced by a new version. Do you want to take a look? Garald (talk) 12:05, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:36, 23 November 2015 (UTC)