Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive/2017/Feb

Brown–Gitler spectrum
The new article titled Brown–Gitler spectrum could use some work, if it's worth keeping. (1) No other articles link to it. (2) Its content is skimpy and is imperfectly written. Michael Hardy (talk) 01:44, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Geodesics on an ellipsoid
Inlinetext recently deleted large portions of this article. This user might be banned user Crapscourge who did the same thing to this article back in September 2014 using the same kind of language in edit summaries. Could some administrator roll back the edits by Inlinetext? Jrheller1 (talk) 19:59, 28 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Three minutes of poking around suggests both that it is the same editor and that the article in question would be improved by deleting textbook-y material, long derivations, etc. --JBL (talk) 20:15, 28 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Assuming that the article is in a quiescent state, I will give it a pruning this weekend. cffk (talk) 14:23, 2 February 2017 (UTC)


 * I am opening a sockpuppet investigation of Inlinetext. Perhaps some sections of the article could be shortened, but I doubt that Inlinetext would be the best person to do this. Jrheller1 (talk) 21:30, 28 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I think far too much has been tossed out in the recent culling (more than half of the article). This content should be restored, and discussed piecemeal.   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 22:14, 28 January 2017 (UTC)


 * These points are also both very believable. --JBL (talk) 22:41, 28 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I undid all Inlinetext's edits by using the "compare selected revisions" feature going back to the edit before Inlinetext's first edit. Didn't realize this feature existed until looking at the Wikipedia undo documentation . Jrheller1 (talk) 01:26, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
 * And in the course of doing this you also undid my contributions so that the TeX is inferior to what it was. Michael Hardy (talk) 01:49, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I restored your LaTeX edits to the original article text. Jrheller1 (talk) 03:14, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Formatting of Leibniz notation
There is a disagreement at Talk:Differential of a function over the formatting of the Leibniz notation for a derivative. Other opinions are welcome. Ozob (talk) 14:55, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Robert Everist Greene
I just removed this new article from CAT:CSD. G-scholar search suggests he might be notable. Any thoughts? --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 08:10, 5 February 2017 (UTC)


 * The usual standard is WP:ACADEMIC. Merely publishing does not meet that level of notability; the professor needs to be "more notable than the average professor" to put it informally. Has he won a competitive prize, a named professorship, or otherwise done something to establish his notability beyond simply being a professor? If so, then we should put it in the article; if not, then he doesn't meet the standard, although that is not in any way meant to diminish the accomplishment of being a professor. There are too many professors for us to have an article about every one of them. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:32, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Crenel function
There seems to be a contradition between the text and the formal definition of the Crenel function. The text (and at least one of the references) suggests that is should be a period function, whereas the formal definition given is for an a-periodic function. A discussion about this was started but not resolved at Talk:Crenel function; this also impacts on a merge discussion between this page and Boxcar function - if the function is actually periodic, then a better target might be Square wave. The merge talk discussion is at Talk:Crenel function. Can I ask for a mathematician or two to weigh in on these. Klbrain (talk) 17:17, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Notice to participants at this page about adminship
Many participants here create a lot of content, may have to evaluate whether or not a subject is notable, decide if content complies with BLP policy, and much more. Well, these are just some of the skills considered at Requests for adminship.

So, please consider taking a look at and watchlisting this page:


 * Requests for adminship/Optional RfA candidate poll

You could be very helpful in evaluating potential candidates, and even finding out if you would be a suitable RfA candidate.

Many thanks and best wishes,

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:07, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Help talk:Citation Style 1
I've made a proposal to support multiple mr links in citation templates. I figure this project might be interested in that, so please comment there if you have an opinion on this. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 12:26, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

User:Alsosaid1987
I have some concerns over the edits of to mathematics articles. He/she seems to be motivated mostly by a desire to amp up the rigor in our math articles, even in cases where extreme formal rigor is not desirable. He/she also has been using questionable inline formatting. Specifically, on balance I find the following sequences of edits to be disimprovements. I submit them for the community's assessment and commentary: Cantor's diagonal argument, complex analysis, Series (mathematics). I see he/she has also rather extensively edited the article real analysis, and exponential function. I believe there must be some worthwhile stuff mixed in with some of this user's edits, but the poor formatting and over-the-top formalization strikes me as a problem that should be looked into. Sławomir Biały (talk) 01:57, 14 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Who the hell are you?! The previous version spend lines talking about how to compose a tangent function with a linear map from (0,1) to (-pi/2, pi/2).  Of course this needed fixing!  It is important to use correct language, while not wasting time with trivial detail!

Alsosaid1987 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 02:05, 14 February 2017 (UTC)


 * As I noted on my talk page, the new revision at Cantor's diagonal argument uses unexplained terminology, fails to link key terms, and uses symbols rather than words to communicate. That is not good writing for an encyclopedia, although it may be for a mathematics textbook.  Also problematic are the edits to complex analysis, with the muddled insertion of the unexplained symbol $$\mapsto$$.  I am concerned about other edits too, but I will wait until others have opined before continuing to engage on this matter.   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 02:15, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I have reviewed edits on series (mathematics). They do not improve the article and I have reverted them. However, they contain two good thing that I have reinserted (with a different formulation). In details, the bad things: restricting series to numerical series (although this is implicit for most readers, there are also non-numerical series, such as formal series and series of matrices); removing the mention that series are also called infinite series; too much technical details in the lead; mention of doubly infinite series in section "Absolute convergence" (these are not important enough to appear here, the corresponding "main article" is a better place). The good things: removing generating methods from the lead; referring to expression (however a merge between old formulation and 's one is better than Alsosaid1987's formulation). D.Lazard (talk) 10:15, 14 February 2017 (UTC)


 * I acknowledge that it was an error to limit the discussion to numerical series. Thanks for catching this.  My main problem with the article was the mention that series are infinite sums.  Sure, they are informally so, but the article makes it sound like you can just add an infinite number of terms.  I think your criticisms are valid, as long as the article mentions in the lead that series are to be regarded as formal objects whose value may be assigned if the limit of partial sums exists.Alsosaid1987 (talk) 02:33, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Algebraic-geometry-stub
The template algebraic-geometry-stub has been accepted, and I have created it. For the moment, it has the same image as geometry-stub. A better suited image would be helpful. Please, modify the stub template, when editing a stub relevant to algebraic geometry. D.Lazard (talk) 18:24, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Okay. Thanks for letting me know. --Jimmy Alsosaid1987 (talk) 02:33, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

User:Fmadd and destruction of article leads
I just saw an edit by User:Fmadd, which had no edit summary and was marked as minor, to the article Tensor, in which the lead of the article was completely gutted. Worried, I looked into this users edit history, and found at least two other articles Feynman diagram and Invertible matrix, where the same thing happened. I have reverted these edits, but there are hundreds of possibly questionable edits that need to be checked. He has been very busy indeed with these "minor" edits. Sławomir Biały (talk)
 * they weren't 'gutted', I just seperated things out into a few headings, making it easier to link to things Fmadd (talk) 11:25, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
 * See WP:LEAD. An article is supposed to have a lead to serve as a capsule version of the article.  Readers are already complaining on the talk page there that the article was more difficult to read after your questionable "minor" edits, which is how I came to notice them in the first place.   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 11:28, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

I do think that this version of the lede is too short:. The lede can't have all the article content, but it should summarize all the broad points of the article. In a short article, the lede will be shorter, but in a long article the lede may be several paragraphs. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:13, 10 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Not only did this edit shorten the lede inappropriately, by simply breaking the content in the lede into sections, it disrupted the rest of the article. Paul August &#9742; 13:50, 10 February 2017 (UTC)


 * This user has now been blocked indefinitely, see Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. Paul August &#9742; 11:46, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Uriel Rothblum
The following looks to me like what would appear in an article created by copying and pasting from somewhere else: before:

Let P denote the convex hull of the set of partitions in F, i.e., P is a polygon in Rdxp. If G is quasi-convex, then there exists a vertex which maximizes G. The poly-hedral approach studies the representations and characterizations of vertices, counts or enumerates the set of vertices and analyzes the efficiency of doing these tasks. after:

Let P denote the convex hull of the set of partitions in F, i.e., P is a polygon in Rd×p. If G is quasi-convex, then there exists a vertex which maximizes G. The polyhedral approach studies the representations and characterizations of vertices, counts or enumerates the set of vertices and analyzes the efficiency of doing these tasks. Before I edited it, it said "Rdxp", and the only thing I could think of that that could reasonably have meant is "Rd×p".

Before I edited it, it had "poly-hedral", with a hyphen, in the middle of a line. Usually a line-end hyphen would appear there if, but only if, it's at the end of a line, put there by a typist or by typesetting software.

A document may say this:
 * $$ \mathbb R^d \times p \, $$

and when one copies and pastes, the copy says this:
 * Rdxp

A document may say this:
 * a vertex which maximizes G. The poly-
 * hedral approach studies the representations

and when one copies and pasts, the copy says this:
 * a vertex which maximizes G. The poly-hedral approach studies the representations and

One question is whether a source from which it was copied may be subject to copyright. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:12, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
 * It's copied from . —David Eppstein (talk) 19:39, 16 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes. Copied by User:Lermanico, see this diff. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 20:40, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Even the first edit creating the article as a draft was a copyvio, from https://www.informs.org/Pubs/MOR/Uriel-G.-Rothblum . I have stubbed the article down and revdelled all the old copyright-violating revisions. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:04, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Supporting PageAssessments in
Hi! I maintain the metadata gadget. I've been doing some prototyping on a new version of the gadget that will try to pull page assessments from the PageAssessments API instead of munging the talk page with regular expressions (its current approach). While taking some sample API output, I noticed that maths rating does not support PageAssessments, mostly because unlike most WikiProject templates, it's not based on WPBannerMeta, which includes the new tag.

I'd like to make sure that this project's ratings are accessible through the API. To do that, I'd like to add an  tag to the template. I'm thinking that this would be a straightforward drop-in:. It'd be nice to normalize parts (e.g. using class mask) but that's not strictly necessary.

Does anyone have particular opinions about or objections to this? Thanks, {&#123; Nihiltres &#8202;&#124;talk&#8202;&#124;edits}&#125; 00:41, 17 February 2017 (UTC)
 * As long as it doesn't change the appearance of the banner, but only adds invisible metadata that makes it easier to parse, I don't see any reason to object. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:50, 17 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Ditto. If I can't see a difference, I have no reason to object. Does our use of the label priority instead of importance on many pages create a problem? --Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 05:32, 17 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Hmm. I hadn't looked closely enough; I stopped and started this discussion here upon reading "Please do not make any nontrivial changes to this template without proposing them at WT:WPM first" in the template source—better to consult people than have objections after the fact. The use of "priority" doesn't create a significant problem: I'll just tweak the code from the example above to use  instead of   to compensate. Since this doesn't seem controversial, I'll implement it now; if it's problematic we can revert the update and discuss it further. {&#123; Nihiltres &#8202;&#124;talk&#8202;&#124;edits}&#125; 16:35, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Characterization
These two articles need work: The first lacks references and could use more work otherwise as well. The second is in laughable condition so far Michael Hardy (talk) 22:15, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Characterization (mathematics)
 * Characterization theorem


 * The former is a nice article, tells the truth... but I have no idea how to source it. Terrible. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 08:41, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
 * By the way, 456 articles in nLab contain the word "characterize": . Boris Tsirelson (talk) 08:58, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Since creating this present discussion section, I have moved Characterization theorem to Characterization of probability distributions and then redirected Characterization theorem to Characterization (mathematics). Michael Hardy (talk) 19:33, 16 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Characterization of probability distributions is now much improved, but has only two examples and should probably have about 50. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:26, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

No article for √
I mean the symbol, not the operation. Most operation symbols have separate articles, e.g. Multiplication sign, Plus and minus signs, Equals sign. But √ gets lost in "redirect hell" and the only article that comes close is Check mark. Did I miss it or should I go ahead and create an article. Or perhaps it would be better to fit into an existing article. --RDBury (talk) 23:21, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
 * It's mentioned briefly in Table of mathematical symbols by introduction date, but without a linked article. The table calls it the "radical symbol", so that might be an adequate title for an article; currently, radical symbol is a redirect. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:46, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
 * This is talked about in the lead of nth root and its etymology section, too. This is the best redirect I could find. --Mark viking (talk) 01:37, 19 February 2017 (UTC)


 * The name could be "radical symbol" or "radical sign"; I think usually the word "sign" is used for for say +, ×, etc. The nth root article does have the start of what I'm thinking about, but there is more that could be added but would be out of place in an article about the operation. E.g. ℞ was used before it started be confused with other things. Meanwhile the etymology section talks about "surd" but not the use of "root" or "radical". Also, there is some material about the symbol being Arabic in origin, and while there is a reference it doesn't seem to support what is stated, besides which it's seems to be a blog with no particular standard of reliability. --RDBury (talk) 06:15, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
 * All good points. If you want to create an article about the radical symbol, go for it! I've seen both radical sign and radical symbol used, but I think symbol is the more precise name for a class of glyphs. Radical sign seems to be a more informal name for it. --Mark viking (talk) 19:24, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Older texts, like Cajori, used "sign" but a more modern reference, such as Mazur (2014), uses "symbol". Cajori has a lot of material on the radical sign and, if I recall correctly, so does Smith. None of the references I am familiar with say anything about an arabic origin of the symbol, but there is considerable discussion of the arabic origin of the word "surd". I think that there is enough material available for a stand alone article, especially if the scope of the article is radix symbols, but even if the scope is restricted to the radical sign (√). (As you can see, I am a bit ambivalent about using sign/symbol.)--Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 19:50, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

User:Loessperson and references by I.J. Smalley
User:Loessperson appears to have the sole goal of adding references to articles by one I.J. Smalley to Wikipedia. A very brief poke suggested that these are usually topical but not necessarily top-quality references. I was not sufficiently bothered to start aggressively investigating, but I thought I would bring it to a wider audience. --JBL (talk) 14:31, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Loessperson here; ready to acknowledge a burst of enthusiasm (perhaps too much). Its the novelty and wonder of Wikipedia- hard to hang on to your sense of proportion. Loessperson is largely dedicated to spreading the word on loess (its a one-eyed view of the world)..If you are interested in loess look at the 'Loess Ground' blog or the Loess Appreciation Group page on facebook, or head for Michigan State University's site www.loessletter.msu.edu. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Loessperson (talk • contribs) 09:55, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

requested move at Talk:Voting system
Hi all

There is a requested move discussion open at Talk:Voting system, which is of interest to this WikiProject. Thanks &mdash; Homunq (࿓) 14:35, 20 February 2017 (UTC)


 * This discussion is still not fully resolved; there seems to a clear asymptotic consensus that a move is needed, but not yet clear agreement on what the target of the move should be. Please join us and don't be afraid to be opinionated, in whatever direction; we need resolution, not equivocation. Homunq (࿓) 17:10, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Hello! I'm joining WikiProject Mathematics!
Hello! I'm not sure if this is the right place for discussions, but it looks active so I will say hello! Popcrate (talk) 14:10, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Hello ! This not really a place we come to chat, this is mostly for notifications and discussions on mathematics topics. Most of us get started by just diving in editing. See the main page for some pointers on things to do. You can also monitor some pages, by adding them to your watchlist, such as User:Mathbot/Changes to mathlists and WikiProject Mathematics/Article alerts for articles of interest and Reference desk/Mathematics for mathematical requests for help.-- JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 14:58, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the response! Yes, any chats I post here will from now on be Discussions on Mathematics Topics =).  Thanks for the welcome, and for those links!  Popcrate (talk) 15:58, 22 February 2017 (UTC)


 * "Discussions on mathematics topics" may be misleading. It's for discussions of maintenance, improvement, and creation of Wikipedia's mathematics articles. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:50, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Deja vu
A rash of edits by to some basic math articles strongly reminds me of similar edits made a while ago. These anti-Greek pro-Indian edits are very similar to what I recollect. Edit summaries written in a hostile tone, removal of cited and uncited material that disagrees with his point of view, and long quotes of a peripheral nature that are then synthesized into support of his position are all present. Unfortunately I can not recall the username, pages involved or approximate date of these earlier disruptive edits. However, several editors in this project were involved in fixing things up and I hope that someone does remember the details. Thanks. --Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 20:59, 20 February 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what sequence of edits that would be, but this certainly bears the hallmarks of an editing pattern consistent with attempting to push a point of view rather than summarize the position of established scholarship in the area. For example, the removal of Newton and Leibniz from the lead of the Calculus article is just wanton POV-pushing.  I'm certainly open to the idea that mainstream scholarship suffers from systemic bias, and I do think that alternative perspectives should be summarized, being careful to establish due weight, would be a worthwhile addition.  But the sources I would start with would most likely not include Telegraph India and archaeology online.  I think we're roughly in the area of WP:NPOV/WP:FRINGE that makes "attributed opinions" ok, but "presenting conclusions in Wikipedia voice as if they represented established scholarship" not ok.   should be gently encouraged to find peer reviewed secondary sources (preferably in academic journals) discussing the relation of Indian mathematics to the (in many cases later) European developments, and in addition that of many other peoples and civilizations throughout time.  There is an enormous body of reliable secondary literature out there.   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 21:40, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

hey, this is. my edits are meant to be pro-truth, not anti-greek or pro-indian. i'm not an academic, so apologize for not being able to provide better academic journal references. what bothers me though is that writers here with academic background should know better. but it seems your academic circles maintain a holdover from euro-nationalistic narratives of the history of science. non-europeans that speak english are a small minority, if this were not in english, i'm sure plenty of academics would be doing this work instead of me chipping in in my amateurish way. sorry about that. but the onus of correcting your problematic narratives should not be on others. it is selective narratives like these that allow village idiots to go on your talk shows and wonder what "non-western" civilization gave to the world. mythology as history is now coming back to bite. btw, please notice, that when you say 'mainstream scholarship' - you mean mainstream western/euro-origin scholarship. about calculus - after the revision to my earlier edit, i added madhava to newton and leibniz. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Prototypehumanoid (talk • contribs)


 * "but it seems your academic circles maintain a holdover from euro-nationalistic narratives of the history of science." Yes, I've acknowledged that there is a systemic bias in the history of science. But this is not an excuse to suspend our usual sourcing requirements and allow original research into articles, and to project our own biases in the place of the systemic bias of mainstream scholarship.  Sometimes the neutral point of view is not very neutral.
 * "non-europeans that speak english are a small minority, if this were not in english, i'm sure plenty of academics would be doing this work instead of me chipping in in my amateurish way." But there most certainly are plenty of academics that do this research and publish in peer reviewed journals (in English and in other languages).  Instead of beginning with a biased caricature of mainstream scholarship, and attempting to "correct" it, we should at least try to see what it actually says.  On Wikipedia, content should begin with what is actually in sources, not editor's biases.   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 11:25, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
 * , I suspect you're thinking of User:Jagged 85, but I doubt this is the same person. At least we shouldn't start with that assumption.  Jagged's problems went way beyond a little aggrieved Indian nationalism &mdash; he(?) had a nasty habit of grossly misrepresenting what was in the sources he cited.  He was a very prolific editor and did this in articles covering a wide range of topics until he was finally indeffed.  There's more than one person in the world with a chip on their shoulder about how India doesn't get enough historical credit, and that viewpoint in itself doesn't disqualify an editor, though the editor should be counseled about WP:TIGER and WP:GREATWRONGS, and encouraged to be extra careful when editing articles on which they have a strong viewpoint. --Trovatore (talk) 08:26, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
 * "Non-europeans who speak English" should be common in India.... — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:32, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Orthopole
I have created a short new article titled Orthopole, which could doubtless benefit from more eyeballs. Michael Hardy (talk) 06:41, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Applications of multiple coordinate systems
Can someone who understands higher math please look at this and tell me if it is gobbledygook or useful encyclopedic information? If it's garbage, I will deal with the deletion process. If it's useful, could someone point me in the direction of where I can de-orphan it? Thanks! &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 04:58, 24 February 2017 (UTC)


 * The first (general) part of that article is very close to "Active and passive transformation" (also "Coordinate system"). About the second part (applications to control engineering) I do not know. Anyway, it is too text-bookish. And the title should mention "control", since this is really the point. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 07:01, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree with Tsirel. Also, it looks like a direct copy of this OpenStax document. A possible copyvio, depending on the particulars of the CC license. --Mark viking (talk) 10:21, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes! Attribution is needed: "Download for free at http://cnx.org/contents/6a122f5a-eec7-4c9a-89b2-3b3a9eb34796@1." Boris Tsirelson (talk) 11:10, 24 February 2017 (UTC)


 * I must admit I thought of Atlas (topology) when I saw the title! Personally I think the article should be deleted as it isn't really much of a topic in itself more a subsection about coordinate transformations, and the content is better dealt with elsewhere. I had a look at what articles Wikipedia has on 'Applications of ...' and there seems to be quite a few, the titles are a synonym of 'list of uses of ...' but without the 'list' which would show that they should be treated as list articles. Dmcq (talk) 10:44, 24 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Insofar as there is a discernible topic distinct from (e.g.) change of basis, which about half of the article belabors, I believe it should be renamed to frame (control systems), and the first six paragraphs deleted. However, the only cited work does not support the nomenclature ("command frame", "frame of resolution", and "display frame"); a little googling shows that this may not be a widely used concept in control systems.  I'd happily be wrong about that, but I am leaning towards a deletion outcome as well.   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 13:48, 24 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your input, everyone. I'm going to tag it for proposed deletion now with a link to this section. If someone disputes that, I'll put it at AfD and ping you guys. Appreciate the help! And of course if there is anything useful that anyone wants from the article, I can retrieve it even after deletion. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 07:17, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Igor Mezic
Igor Mezic, if it's an article worth keeping, definitely needs work. Michael Hardy (talk) 22:49, 27 February 2017 (UTC)


 * He is an obvious pass of WP:PROF C1 (and probably others). I rescued it from BLPPROD for now, but it still needs more references.   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 11:45, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Page move for binary quadratic form
I proposed the replacement Integral binary quadratic form -> Binary quadratic form I didn't follow "be bold" because this seemed to me to fall under "someone could reasonably disagree with the move", since I would be labeling binary quadratic forms with non-integral coefficients as secondary and perhaps people who work in quadratic forms at large would disagree. I'm posting here because I figure this is where I'll get the attention of people who really understand the implications. Here's the rationale I gave:

most people searching for "binary quadratic form" are actually looking for information about a specific type of binary quadratic form, namely, one whose coefficients are integers. I just went through all the links at the "what links here" page and found that most other pages explicitly state that the quadratic forms in question have integer coefficients, and most of the remaining ones do this implicitly. An exception is the page Paul Bernays -- he did in his work consider binary quadratic forms with more general real number coefficients. Standard textbooks, such as "Binary Quadratic Forms" by Duncan Buell, consider forms with only integer coefficients. Recent redirect traffic to this page only came through "reduction theory of forms", "class number (binary quadratic forms)" and "composition of forms". Before I edited the page this week, the brief mentions of these topics here only concerned integral forms. In my research on binary quadratic forms, I have seen one paper out of dozens discuss reduction of non-integral forms, and I have never seen any mention of composition of binary quadratic forms that weren't integral. Planetmath.org titles their main page for quadratic forms "integral binary quadratic forms" (although that page has some broken functionality). If the move I am suggesting seems sensible and is made, then "binary quadratic form" should redirect to this page and the hatnote should indicate that people searching for binary quadratic forms with other types of coefficients should see quadratic formBarryriedsmith (talk) 13:28, 28 February 2017 (UTC)


 * If anyone is interested, the discussion should take place at Talk:Binary quadratic form.  Sławomir Biały  (talk) 13:54, 28 February 2017 (UTC)