User talk:Zvika/Archive2

SatyrBot and Logic
Hi, Zvika - Thanks for the comments. I've asked WP:Logic to review some of the categories for misplaced banners (see here). One comment, though - "how real or ideal decision-makers make or should make decisions, and how optimal decisions can be reached" would seem to me (an admitted layman) to belong squarely in the "Logic" category... But I'll add that cat to the list to review if you'd like. Sorry for the over-tagging! -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 14:44, 31 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi, Zvika! Thanks for the note on my bot's talk page.  A couple comments / questions...


 * I was approached by Gregbard about adding the Logic2 template to article talk pages. I told him my process for doing projects like that, which is to have the group develop a list of categories that are at least 80% within the project's scope.  He told me he'd put together a category list and was waiting a week for feedback.  I assumed he was working with the project and that the project would talk things over and let me know.  His response was favorable, so we went ahead with his project list.
 * If the bot has over-tagged a bunch of categories, I'm perfectly willing to get it to remove banners. Just let me know a list of cats and I'll sic the bot on them asap.
 * Would you prefer I stop the bot from continuing it's run of tonight's 78 categories? They're listed at User:SatyrBot/Current project.


 * Please let me know how I can be of help. While I feel I was working in good faith and with the project's blessing, I realize that 938 article banners is quite a lot and would be glad to help fix any errors that have happened. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs)  19:29, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
 * PS: Should this discussion be carried out at WP:Logic? -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 19:29, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for being so cooperative. Let's tackle the urgent things first: the following categories which are scheduled to be added tonight are, in my opinion, only remotely related to logic, and I think you should remove them from the list at least until we can discuss this: Category:Game theory, Category:Lemmas, Category:Mathematical theorems, Category:Mathematical relations, Category:Probability theory, Category:Set theory, Category:Set-theoretic universes, Category:Set theorists, Category:Theory of computation. Regarding the other issues, I will have to respond tomorrow because I really need to get to bed now. --Zvika 20:08, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

NB: Please look at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Logic for further discussion on this matter. --Zvika 07:02, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Study
Hi Zvika,

Thanks for your message. I'd love to have you participate, but we'll need to do it *quickly* as I'm starting to approach deadline for my thesis :-)

Basically it's an email interview in 3 parts. If you email me (tamsin.lloyd@gmail.com) we can get started!

Thanks again for your interest, and I'm pleased you liked my piece.

Cheers, tamsin 10:47, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

User subpage deletion
Hi, just to let you know that you can request your user sub page to be deleted via WP:CSD instead of sending it through prod. Regards. KTC 19:41, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

exp family
I just tried to respond with maths to your questions at |exp family talk. Pdbailey 00:59, 16 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks a lot of executing that move. Pdbailey 00:32, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

UCU
Hi - I reverted your changes on the UCU article as we use DD/MM/YY in the UK rather than MM/DD/YY as in other places in the world. --Fredrick day 23:24, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Not that I really care, but the previous sentence has a date in the format I used. You should at least be consistent. --Zvika 06:48, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Continued fraction
Hey, I just wanted to let you know that continued fractions in which the pseudo-numerators are 1 are almost never periodic. But numbers can have more than one continued fraction form, and at least one is sequential. Take for instance:

While
 * $$\pi=3 + \cfrac{1}{7 + \cfrac{1}{15 + \cfrac{1}{1 + \cfrac{1}{292 + \ddots}}}}$$

Consider:



\pi = \cfrac{4}{1 + \cfrac{1}{3 + \cfrac{4}{5 + \cfrac{9}{7 + \cfrac{16}{9 + \cfrac{25}{11 + \cfrac{36}{13 + \cfrac{49}{\ddots}}}}}}}} $$



\pi=3 + \cfrac{1}{6 + \cfrac{9}{6 + \cfrac{25}{6 + \cfrac{49}{6 + \cfrac{81}{6 + \cfrac{121}{\ddots\,}}}}}} $$

--Mostargue 19:17, 3 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the interesting note. I have a terrible memory, is this related to one of my recent edits? Cheers, --Zvika 19:20, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Your comment at Talk:Euler%E2%80%93Mascheroni_constant.--Mostargue 19:22, 3 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Ah yes, I remember now. My point is that someone looking at this continued fraction might erroneously assume that there was some pattern to be figured out from the few numbers listed, where in fact there isn't. It's the same situation with the expansion of Pi]. You are of course welcome to make any changes you see fit, but I think it'd be better if you did so in [[Pi rather than in Euler%E2%80%93Mascheroni constant, since that page is probably watched by more people and will get more of a discussion. --Zvika 19:28, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, I was wondering, who decided to use the continued fraction that doesn't have a pattern? And why even show the continued fraction at all? e (mathematical constant) doesn't have the continued fraction at the top of the page. Oh well =)--Mostargue 21:45, 3 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Perhaps for some reason they wanted to use a version with 1s in the numerators. I really don't know, but I think if you ask about this in Talk:Pi, you will get a more intelligent answer. --Zvika 10:27, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

AfD on Human chemistry
Hi there, the article has been changed substantially since your vote so you might want to have another look at the new version. All the best Tim Vickers 16:01, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for pointing it out. You guys did a more thorough check than me, and based on the evidence you've uncovered, I have changed my vote. --Zvika 19:39, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Geoeg conduct RFC
Do you have any comments to add at Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Geoeg? Dicklyon 03:38, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Mean square article
Basically it's to long to be reasonably considered a stub. Rich Farmbrough, 15:14 8 January 2008 (GMT).

Krantz
I understand your point on the Krantz piece. But, on the one hand, he's a heavy hitter in the area of decision theory. On the other hand, the reference section of that article has at least one piece by Barzilai which has certainly not been peer-reviewed (and the other is a work on decision theory that has certainly not been reviewed by decision theorists), while Barzilai himself doesn't have any cred in this area.

My thinking is that the article itself should not be pulled without review, that the references by Barzilai presently need to stay until better references are found or the article is pulled, and that the reference by Krantz not less acceptable than those by Barzilai. —SlamDiego&#8592;T 12:30, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Civility and Formatting
Since I didn't respond in-kind to Ruud Binnekamp's calling my behavior ugly, I'm going to assume that the suggestion in your comment that I was failing to be civil was a result of a formatting error. —SlamDiego&#8592;T 07:23, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I think Ruud called Krantz's behavior ugly, not yours. (Or are you Krantz?) I also did not say that you were incivil, only that we should all try to stay civil. In any case, I had no intention to offend anyone, and I apologize if I did. I only wanted to remind everybody to keep cool. Instead of saying "where are the references to ... the ostensible paradox?" you might have said, "please see if you can find any references to this paradox," which I think would have contributed to a more constructive atmosphere. --Zvika (talk) 07:36, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Read:
 * Krantz's personal attack is ugly and so is the insistence on referencing it
 * I took that without replying to it, but then you still implied that I was being uncivil. And there is a very great difference between not sugar-coating and being unconstructive.  A format fix or some other repair would be far better than an empty apology.  You've made the atmosphere just a lot more unpleasant by proceeding with reckless disregard for the truth. —SlamDiego&#8592;T 08:02, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Regardless of what you may think of me, you had no right to edit my comment to change its meaning. Also, your accusations are way out of line. I suggest we just part ways, I hereby withdraw my comments from the AfD. --Zvika (talk) 08:51, 21 January 2008 (UTC)


 * As stated, I thought that you'd made an honest error. I clean-up formatting on lots of deletion discussions (including some in which I am not otherwise involved).  No, my accusation are shown to be not out of line by your disingenuous edit comment, demonstrably made after you'd read my explanation for making the format change. —SlamDiego&#8592;T 09:00, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Bias (statistics)
Hi, here is a reference for this terminology. And I'll be sure to limit the number of links to one per entry. Btyner (talk) 18:34, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Proof of Stein's example
An editor has nominated Proof of Stein's example, an article on which you have worked or that you created, for deletion. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also "What Wikipedia is not").

Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes ( ~ ).

You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate. Thank you. BJBot (talk) 22:00, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Writing for the Signpost
Hello. You expressed interest in writing for the Wikipedia Signpost (sorry for the delay in responding). I'm sending this message to everyone who commented, so if you have any questions I haven't answered, please feel free to ask me, and I'll try to respond to specific questions.

Essentially, what I'm looking for is writers who can step in and write on subjects that are newsworthy from week-to-week. The content of the stories obviously varies each week depending on what's happening; this is discussed below.

There are three major parts to writing an article:


 * 1) Choosing a topic
 * 2) Writing the article
 * 3) Submitting the article

Part 1: Choosing a topic
As said above, topics will vary from week-to-week. For this week, these particular issues may be newsworthy:


 *  Bureaucratship candidacies  &mdash; There are a lot of bureaucratship candidacies this week, for the first time in about six or seven months. I'm personally covering this one for next week, but this is a good example of what might be newsworthy.
 * Encyclopedia of Life &mdash; This encyclopedia of species has been getting some press, and relates somewhat to Wikimedia project Wikispecies.
 * Hidden categories &mdash; For those technically inclined, this is a new feature that has some interesting implications.

For more ideas, and for ideas in the future, check the tip-line -- there are usually some good ideas there.

Once you've decided on a topic, make sure to sign up for it in the newsroom, under "Special stories", so that users aren't duplicating each others' work (though multiple writers are certainly free to work together on a story).

Part 2: Writing the article
Now, you've decided on a topic and signed up for it. To write it, create a subpage in your userspace. For my story this week on the bureaucratship candidacies, for example, I'll create it at User:Ral315/Bureaucratship candidacies. The name isn't a big deal, of course -- I'll change it if necessary.

Formatting the story isn't important; for your first article, you should mainly focus on writing a good story, and I'll take care of the formatting when we publish. Try to write it in a newspaper-like tone, avoiding personal comments and opinions in favor of straight-forward facts. The size of an article varies based on what the story is, but a good minimum goal for most stories is two-to-three good paragraphs. Longer articles are even better, so long as they're well-written.

Part 3: Submitting the article
Now, all you have to do is post a link to the article in the newsroom, where you signed up for it earlier. That's it! You're done!

Again, if you have any questions at all, please contact me, and I'll try to respond as soon as possible.

Thanks for your interest in writing for the Signpost. Ral315 (talk) 03:08, 29 February 2008 (UTC)