Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive/2018/Feb

Links to DAB pages
A hundred or more pages on maths-related topics link to, and have been tagged as linking to, DAB pages. Such links are of no use to anyone, especially our readers. They also get picked up by User:DPL bot for violating WP:INTDAB. I gave up maths when they started writing circles on the integral signs - which means that I know enough not to know the answer, and also enough not to guess. Can any expert help with the disambiguation needed tags on these pages, please, for starters? If you do help solve one of those issues: take off the dn tag in the article, and add a done tick on this page. As I said, there are a hundred-plus others – I have seen them before, I will see them again on my routine trawls though Disambiguation pages with links, and I can post them in this WikiProject. You will likely get no thanks unless another WP:DPL member notices – but, in the end, all that matters is getting this encyclopaedia right. Narky Blert (talk) 03:06, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Generalized Riemann hypothesis ✅ D.Lazard (talk) 10:01, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Zariski's connectedness theorem ✅ D.Lazard (talk) 10:20, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
 * NASU Institute of Mathematics ✅ D.Lazard (talk) 10:20, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Sergey Stechkin ✅ D.Lazard (talk) 10:20, 12 January 2018 (UTC)


 * A thread by WikiProject Disambiguation triggered me to help with resolving links to DAB-links. The linked script now shows "7 points" (there were more than 50!), including the first entry on your list, and 6 others. To my taste, I have done enough damb-ing lately, to not search any further, why there are which links listed in what list connected with DAB. I did not dare to touch those remaining, but seeing ones that tickle my interest, I might d'amb them. How to access the list containing the hundred or more entries? Purgy (talk) 08:32, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I have disambiguated the 4 pages. The two first ones was linked to "function field", which is really an ambiguous term (the correct link is different for these two pages. The two other pages were linked to "theory of functions", which is a phrase without any common meaning in math. In one case, I have unlinked it, as it was the name of a department. In the second case, I have restricted the link to the single word of "function". D.Lazard (talk) 10:20, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Unlinking can sometimes be as good as making the correct link; whatever serves the readers best.
 * There is no list devoted to maths-related DAB problems; but there is a list of all DAB problems. It currently has about 11,000 entries, down from over 40,000 two years ago. I'm working my way through it for the third time (new bad links arrive in it at 400-500 per day). Now that it's getting down towards manageable size, I thought it might be worthwhile asking for help on some of these tougher nuts. You don't need to search for them; I'm doing that, and can post them here in small batches. Narky Blert (talk) 12:36, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, the link provided in my above enquiry does produce a list, strangely entitled "Maths rating", which to my measures is definitely related to math. It still contains the damb'd article, but the included FIXer shows that there is no -template left. To my experience, tomorrow this entry will be gone from that list. I think I'll never search for such links, but I can imagine to casually search through a list of say 100 math articles, whether some topic makes me curious. Purgy (talk) 13:25, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

The next batch of problems which I hope that experts in this WikiProject may be able to solve. As before, search for "disam" in the text as displayed; and if you make a fix, remove the dn tag and add done here: Thanks in advance, Narky Blert (talk) 22:21, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Selberg's identity ✅ D.Lazard (talk) 22:43, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Maximally informative dimensions ✅ XOR&#39;easter (talk) 22:41, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Peccei–Quinn theory ✅ XOR&#39;easter (talk) 22:41, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Functional additive models ✅ XOR&#39;easter (talk) 22:36, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Riesz space ✅ D.Lazard (talk) 22:43, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Van der Corput inequality ✅ D.Lazard (talk) 22:43, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Timeline of manifolds ✅ XOR&#39;easter (talk) 22:34, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
 * There are other links to disambiguate in


 * Functional additive models
 * Timeline of manifolds
 * D.Lazard (talk) 22:56, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry I missed them &mdash; I think everything is ✅ now. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 01:04, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Besides I know nothing about Arakelov, there are too many names of almost equal classes of connections around for my knowledge, and the linguistics might be simply off track. Just FYI. Purgy (talk) 08:08, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Here is a pickle that needs fixing: The link to nearest neighbor in Tridiagonal matrix algorithm. bd2412  T 01:49, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Tridiagonal matrix algorithm linking to nearest neighbor there are
 * Arakelov_theory linking to Green function ✅ -- Taku (talk) 21:11, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Metric connection linking to Curvature tensor
 * Numeral (linguistics) linking to Culina language
 * I think we need a new article, something like nearest-neighbor interaction, for the tridiagonal matrix algorithm to point to. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 15:25, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Should nearest neighbor be a disambiguation page at all? Is there a common concept underscoring these terms that an article could be written about? bd2412  T 21:13, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Maybe, we should not have any page Nearest neighbor. In fat, is all page that are linked to in the dab page, "nearest neighbor" has to be understood as the dictionary meaning (this is quite rare in mathematics). The technical difference between the linked page lies in the way of using this relationship, and the context of this use (metric). Specifically, in the case of Tridiagonal matrix algorithm, it is not "nearest neighbor" which should be linked, but the page about "nearest neighbor effects models", whichever is the meaning of this phrase. As this page seems to not exist, and the other link of the sentence toes not contain the word "tridiagonal, I'll simply remove the sentence as unsourced. D.Lazard (talk) 22:17, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
 * We should certainly have a page "nearest neighbor". The nearest neighbor problem is an important topic in computational geometry, and our link, nearest neighbor search, would not be obvious to find without a dab at nearest neighbor. Similarly, nearest neighbor interpolation is very important in machine learning, and again the link would not be obvious. Other topics such as nearest neighbor graphs make the list of topics to be disambiguated long enough to need a separate disambiguation page rather than hatlinks. And there is no clear primary topic that nearest neighbor could redirect to. Whether the page is a disambiguation page (listing everything that could plausibly be linked from the shortened phrase "nearest neighbor") or a set index article (listing every topic related to finding nearest points to other points) is something we could debate, but the idea of not having any page with this title is ridiculous. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:46, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
 * We definitely need a "nearest neighbor" navigational aid of some sort, as this is a commonly used broad concept describing models (in statistical physics), distributions (in stochastic geometry) and all the examples David mentioned. A set index article may be a better fit than a dab page, but there needs to be some way for the reader to navigate all these similarly named topics and figure out which one they are looking for. --Mark viking (talk) 00:25, 26 January 2018 (UTC)
 * My impression of the tridiagonal matrix article was that it was talking about nearest-neighbor models in statistical physics, like an Ising model on a line where each spin couples to the two immediately adjacent. That sense of the term wasn't covered in any of the articles linked from the dab page. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 15:16, 26 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I am delighted that my requests for help from this WikiProject seem to have opened up such a can of worms solved some long-standing DAB problems and got a useful discussion going. I estimate that in 6-8 weeks, I will have posted all the known maths-related DAB problems here, and that you guys will have solved them. Narky Blert (talk) 01:13, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

My next batch of articles which contain disambiguation needed tags needing expert attention: As usual: thanks in advance, and mark any problem which I have listed here and which you have solved as done. Narky Blert (talk) 02:57, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Fokas method ✅ (2 links) D.Lazard (talk) 10:07, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Grassmann graph ✅ XOR&#39;easter (talk) 06:06, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Brooks–Iyengar algorithm ✅ (two of the three links of the dab page were already linked. I have added the third one) – D.Lazard (talk) 09:46, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Ramsey RESET test ✅ (unlinked) – D.Lazard (talk) 09:52, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Comparametric equation ✅ –Deacon Vorbis (carbon &bull; videos) 04:13, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Graph of empirical distribution function
If anyone's interested, there's a discussion at User talk:Loraof about the graph used in Empirical distribution function. nagualdesign 14:26, 29 January 2018 (UTC)


 * I see, that discussion succeeds; no need in more participants. :-) Boris Tsirelson (talk) 05:52, 30 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. How about this one. nagualdesign 11:27, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Field parameter in math rating
I have added the math rating banner to the new article Fiber product of schemes, and I have a problem with the parameter "field": is this "algebra" or "geometry"? As this problem occurs for many articles, it would be better to add the possibility of "field = algebraic geometry". Could someone do that? D.Lazard (talk) 10:07, 30 January 2018 (UTC)


 * I agree articles like this fit in both categories (I would put it in "geometry"). However, if we refine the scheme by including algebraic geometry, we might end up creating more subcategories for articles on the border between the other areas as well. Jakob.scholbach (talk) 11:17, 30 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Algebraic geometry is under Geometry; Schemes are under Geometry; Fiber product is under Foundations (via category theory). So I would say that foundations gives way to geometry. Put it under Geometry. JRSpriggs (talk) 11:23, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
 * In Wikipedia, category:algebraic geometry has categories category:abstract algebra and category:geometry (IMO "abstract" should be removed, but this is not the question here). Thus, in WP, algebraic geometry is under both algebra and geometry. So, there is no "administrative" reason for placing algebraic geometry in algebra or geometry. If the assertions of the preceding post are not of administrative nature (categorization), they must be sourced.
 * From a scientific point of view: algebraic geometry started with the seminal theorem Hilbert's Nullstellensatz, which established that a point (a purely geometrical object) is essentially the same thing as a maximal ideal (a purely algebraic object). Since them, every result or method of algebraic geometry (including scheme theory) has a geometrical aspect and an algebraic aspect, and these aspects have a similar importance. It results that the attribution in math rating of parameters "field = algebra" or "field = geometry" to articles of algebraic geometry and scheme theory is arbitrary and totally incoherent. This would suffices to justifies the possibility of allowing "field = algebraic geometry".
 * From a practical point of view: the categorization in math rating is aimed to help editors. I appears that most experts in algebra or geometry are totally incompetent in algebraic geometry, and even are unable to understand the lead of most articles of algebraic geometry. So allowing "field = algebraic geometry" would help editors for quickly selecting the articles they may be interested in. D.Lazard (talk) 15:16, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree with and I have run into this difficulty for articles in other areas. I also clearly see Jackob's concern about a slippery slope here. Let me jump a light-year ahead of this discussion and make a surely unpopular suggestion. Acknowledging that the current setup is inadequate and trying to avoid all the squabbling about how to improve it, I suggest that we adopt the two-digit AMS classification of areas for this parameter. I realize that this classification is not perfect and that there may be some implementation concerns, but this is only a guide for our editors and it should satisfy our needs for the foreseeable future. --Bill Cherowitzo  (talk) 19:07, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm sure this is old ground, but the AMS classification is aimed at current mathematics research rather than at an encyclopedic coverage of mathematics at all levels. Because of that, it has bad coverage of topics that are taught at lower levels but are no longer research topics. We have a lot of articles on basic arithmetic, for instance; are we supposed to call them number theory or field theory? Where do high-school algebra (solving systems of equations) or trigonometry go? Where do recreational topics, the mathematics of puzzles and games, go? Etc. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:39, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Good points and I'm also pretty sure that I've seen this conversation (including my suggestion) before. As the current scheme doesn't address these problems you've raised either, I was hoping for a counter proposal that might be more useful for us. --Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 18:30, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Since this is just a parameter to help editors organize rather than an official WP category, I would recommend a pragmatic approach of adding algebraic geometry as a field parameter choice and not worrying about a slippery slope of ever finer classifications until that actually becomes a problem. --Mark viking (talk) 19:26, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree, as it is exactly that I had asked for. D.Lazard (talk) 21:22, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
 * No objection from me. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:53, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

(unindent) What about the articles which (clearly) belong to algebraic geometry, will they stay in geometry or algebra or will someone move them systematically to this new category? Maybe someone could also consult who once invested a lot of work into the grading scheme and categorization of the articles; he might have some suggestions based on his experience with this work. Jakob.scholbach (talk) 22:45, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Experts in logic, to your attention
Talk:Integer sequence. --Boris Tsirelson (talk) 09:55, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Need graph for Bring radical
Could someone with graphing skills please convert this table into a graph? The graph can be seen here (put there by another editor). Thanks. Loraof (talk) 20:47, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Bivariant theory
There is a deletion discussion that can use the inputs from a third party, at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Bivariant theory -- Taku (talk) 03:12, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

Real number#In physics
What about the "slow motion edit warring" at Real number? "This approach removes the real number system from its foundational role in physics", really? Boris Tsirelson (talk) 19:11, 12 February 2018 (UTC)


 * The paragraph should be rewritten rather than removed. I agree that particular claim is highly dubious.  Just because real numbers cannot be represented with exact physical precision does not make them less foundational.  A real number is an idealization used for modelling physical phenomena, not something that actually exists in the universe (any more than, say, a "triangle" or "circle" exists).   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 19:34, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

Proposal at village pump on inline math
''Note: There's some weird parsing error that showed up when I added &lt;math> tags in a discussion below. Please go to Village_pump_(policy) and search for "Rfc: Change default &lt;math> to be inline". --Trovatore (talk) 02:11, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

Please comment on the proposal. Thank you for your attention.--Debenben (talk) 23:03, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Controversy at Draft:Walks on ordinals, input sought
I know zero about math academic stuff, so would like to draw the attention of this WP to a draft under review: Draft:Walks on ordinals.

There are allegations that the submitter is attempting to popularize a fringe mathematical theory, which the submitter denies. Could someone more expert take a look at the draft? You can post and sign comments at the top of the draft page itself rather than its Talk, for ease of reading. MatthewVanitas (talk) 22:30, 12 February 2018 (UTC)


 * The notation used in the draft for sets is non-standard and incoherent. Thus it is virtually impossible to understand what the writer is getting at. JRSpriggs (talk) 01:48, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

It is definitely not a "fringe theory", but JR is correct that it's hard to understand from the draft exactly what is being discussed. I think there's a typo in this bit:
 * [...] we'll create a sequence $$C_\alpha = \{c_\alpha(n):\alpha<\omega\}\subseteq\alpha$$ [...]

which should read
 * [...] we'll create a sequence $$C_\alpha = \{c_\alpha(n):n<\omega\}\subseteq\alpha$$ [...]

If you understand "ladder systems" (which I really ought to, having spent a year in Toronto, but unfortunately I never really sat down and did the work to figure them out), then I think you might be able to make sense of the text, after fixing the typo. I am not sure what the curvy arrows are about, but again, they might make sense to people who know ladder systems. --Trovatore (talk) 02:07, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

For reference: ladder systems are defined (among other places) in Section 3 of this paper. --Trovatore (talk) 02:17, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Distributional calculus
Here is another deletion discussion: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Distributional calculus. -- Taku (talk) 20:42, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

Category:Pseudoconvex minimization has been nominated for discussion
Category:Pseudoconvex minimization and 2 related categories, all of which are within the scope of this WikiProject, has been nominated for deletion. A discussion is taking place to see if it abides with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:51, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

Links to DAB pages, Part II
I'm opening this new section so as not to get in the way of archiving. As before, (1) search for "disam" in the article, (2) mark any problems you have solved as done, and (3) thanks in advance.


 * Zilch (electromagnetism) ✅
 * Arthur Hobbs (mathematician) ✅
 * Carlo Somigliana ✅
 * Lie point symmetry ✅
 * Alexey Ivakhnenko - DAB remains best option as a page needs to be written (will delink ✅)
 * Horndeski's theory ✅
 * Calibrated geometry ✅
 * Tomio Kubota ✅

I hope that within a month I will have found and posted here every maths article which links to a DAB page – and, more importantly, that you experts will have solved those problems for the benefit of our readers. I find 'em, you fix 'em – this is going well. Yrs, Narky Blert (talk) 22:17, 15 February 2018 (UTC)


 * About Arthur Hobbs: the link in the article is to finite mathematics, a disambig page with two entries. The second entry does not link to an article called "finite mathematics," it links to a collection of articles that might correspond to the material in a lower-level college math class called Finite Mathematics.  This is exactly the sense in which the link in the Hobbs article is meant.  No reasonable disambiguation is possible here.  --JBL (talk) 22:57, 15 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Almost agree. Given the other courses listed I would say that while the course may even be titled finite mathematics, it is most likely a discrete mathematics course and I have changed the link accordingly. To be sure about this we would have to look at the syllabus for the course, but it would be very surprising to list a finite math course as described on the DAB page together with these other discrete math courses.--Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 23:07, 15 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Looked a little more carefully at TAMU offerings. They offer both a Finite Math and a Discrete Math course. While Hobbs did teach an honors section of Finite Math in his first semester there, he was a mainstay of the Discrete Math course, teaching many sections every year. --Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 23:26, 15 February 2018 (UTC)
 * direct links to DAB pages are errors per WP:INTDAB. User:DPL bot picks them up, and they need to be fixed somehow rather than left hanging. Narky Blert (talk) 23:14, 15 February 2018 (UTC)
 * "DAB remains best option as a page needs to be written." No it is not, it is a WP:INTDAB error. When I joined WP:DPL, there were something like 38,000 bad links to DAB pages. Determined efforts by that team over the last two years have brought the number down to under 9,000. In 2014, the number was 65,600. Write the goddam article rather than messing us about. Narky Blert (talk) 23:25, 15 February 2018 (UTC)


 * You could write the "goddam article" yourself, of course, if the problem of DAB links is a high priority to you personally. Overall, there is no deadline for fixing these sorts of things, and WIkipedia is a volunteer project in which each editor is free to work on the things that they care about. Links to DAB pages may not be a very high priority for all editors. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 23:40, 15 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Strongly agree: WP:IAR is policy, INTDAB is guideline. For some pages, links to disambig pages are going to be the best option at a given moment in time, and being rude about that is completely ridiculous.  --JBL (talk) 23:53, 15 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't think anyone here is saying that the problem should never be fixed, of course. Just that, as a matter of priorities, it may not be an emergency that requires urgent action. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 00:00, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
 * "DAB remains best option as a page needs to be written." I didn't write an article, because I know nothing whatsoever about the topic, and I learnt nothing from the DAB page. Your move. Narky Blert (talk) 00:20, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Don't be an ass. Your move.  --JBL (talk) 00:30, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Freeze, don't move! would be a legal move to me (besides an apology to the highly cooperative community), undoing a move is simply no option. Furthermore, while I consider eliminating obvious ambiguities a highly laudable task, I think that having even marginally relevant inspirations at hand is useful to a casual, curious, rummaging reader. So reducing DABs: yes, total eradication: no. (I feel legitimated by having done quite a few of damb'ings). Purgy (talk) 07:58, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Seems to me that information criterion could be redirected to Model selection (as each of the kinds of information criteria almost always immediately define themselves in terms of model selection, in our articles at least), and each of the summaries of each of the items at the current disambiguation page would make for a nice start to prosifying the section. These are also only partial title matches, another thing which leans me to removing the disambiguation page entirely. (If you need a hatnote regarding the non-mathematical article at Information Criteria, you can add it. That's a WP:DIFFCAPS though... from what I can tell that might actually be the only real ambiguous object, which is the concept in information technology. Maybe there should be a disambig page, one linking to information criterion (statistics), which itself should be a redirect to the model selection article, and one information criteria (information technology), with the content of Information Criteria.) --Izno (talk) 03:20, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
 * In fact, I've just done the latter. Should improve the articles. --Izno (talk) 03:42, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

Several MfD discussions
Here are some new MfD discussions that might interest the members of the project. — Taku (talk) 09:12, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Main theorem of elimination theory
 * Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Cyclic algebra
 * Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Discrepancy (algebraic geometry)
 * Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Ring with the approximation property
 * Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Bredon cohomology

One more — Taku (talk) 07:52, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Ringed topos


 * @Taku, assuming these all are based on the same mindset of list-keepers (Hasteur), Wiki-lawyers (Legacypac), and other pillar-masons, and especially, considering all that advertorial stuff (Tabor rotation) and other plain rubbish in WP, I just want to tell you that I personally share your stance that your interest in these drafts (and be they unedited for even a good while) outweigh their interest to have cleared lists and legalesely fulfilled policies and guidelines. However, given my level of expertise in these topics, my experience with the massive, networked reaction (leaving threats and impertinent insinuations (involved admin!) on my TP, and even canvassing a native German speaker to "explain" things to me) of the opponents, and the total amount of my informal obligation to WP, I sadly will not involve myself once more in this unlucky bureaucratic vendetta.


 * In parts I have been nudged to the above by the cavalier reply "Write the goddam article rather than messing us about." by Narky Blert in response to extensive cooperativeness with his agenda. Purgy (talk) 09:24, 19 February 2018 (UTC)


 * And all of this would be gone if Taku would "Write the goddam article rather than messing about" as you curtly put it. As long as the page is being improved I'm more than happy to give Taku his space, but that requires improvement more frequently than 6 months, or giving the drafts to the community at large and accepting the community's decision on it by putting the drafts in mainspace. I'm fine either way, but letting these partial ideas languish in the shared draft space without improvement is a complete non-starter and a fundamental misuse of the community's resources. Hasteur (talk) 16:05, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
 * (For clarification, I’m not permitted to respond to this (especially “requires improvement ... 6 months”) without risking a ban. — Taku (talk) 18:46, 19 February 2018 (UTC))
 * Not good enough Taku, and you know that Hasteur (talk) 19:09, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
 * , you of all editors should know that according to the wording of G13 it's any edit to a page (minus bots/tagging) that resets the 6-month clock. Taku is under no obligation to "significantly" alter the page to keep it out from under the Sword of Damocles. Primefac (talk) 19:18, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
 * And if we see that users are consistently changing one byte alone the page bets brought to MFD on the same grounds as the nominating statement. So try again. Hasteur (talk) 23:10, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
 * If you're going to call out people for their assumptions of bad faith, you could try avoiding such assumptions yourself. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:30, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Not to give a false impression, I don’t mind MfD nominations that much but I do mind the misinformation. In order not to be explicit, I would say this reminds me of a charge that there were a wide spread voting fraud, that millions of votes were cast illegally in the last presidential election from some guy in Washington D.C. If there were/was/is such a wide spread voting fraud, that would be of a great concern..., indeed. — Taku (talk) 20:01, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
 * If you're going to make a Donald Trump inspired Godwin's Law invocation it's clear you're unwilling to debate in good faith. Every single one of your objections has bee disproven with fact, our objections are sustained by policy and community consensus.  Every side always presents it's best argument and conveniently leaves out items that don't help it's case. Hasteur (talk) 23:14, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, I don't think we are debating anything; rather you're taking advantages of my restrictions on the policy discussions to spread false information (which unfortunately some un-clued users take face-values). So my analogy is spot-on, I think. Wikipedia unfortunately lacks a good mechanism of removing false information on policies; I guess that would be my argument and you're proving my point. -- Taku (talk) 23:44, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Glad to see Trump-ism's mantra of "Fake News" has spread overseas as well. Just because you disagree with it doesn't make it fake news so drop it unless you want me to file a new discsussion seeking to expand your restrictions to a full siteban. Hasteur (talk) 00:08, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

One more:
 * Articles for deletion/Popescu's theorem. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 17:12, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Proposed move
–Deacon Vorbis (carbon &bull; videos) 18:36, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Short descriptions


I don't know how many people here use the mobile app, but it turns out that it puts helpful little snippets of text along with article titles. These are currently hosted on Wikidata. This is problematic, in part because changes to Wikidata don't show up on Wikipedians' watchlists.

For this and other reasons, the WMF has decided to add "short descriptions" to Wikipedia articles, which will be embedded in the source of the article itself. As I understand it, the plan is that every single article will be expected to have a short description. The description is allowed to be blank, though I'm not sure why you'd want it to be.

See Short description and WikiProject Short descriptions for more detailed information.

The descriptions are really intended to be short. Making a long speech about a subject is not very useful in this context. The suggested limit is 40 characters, though it's a "soft limit" &mdash; if we can't get anything useful in 40 characters, we're allowed to go over.

Some thoughts: OK, I've yammered on long enough here. --Trovatore (talk) 22:34, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * It seems to me that the most important function of the descriptions, especially in the context of math articles, is to establish broad context. For example, someone who sees Atomic formula come up on their phone should have some indication that it's not about chemistry.
 * There are several different sorts of mathematical articles, and they seem to invite different "grammar" in short descriptions.
 * (Kinds of) objects (e.g. real number, group (mathematics)).
 * Properties of mathematical objects/structures (e.g. connectedness).
 * Fields of study (e.g. topology).
 * Propositions:
 * Axioms.
 * Theorems.
 * Other (e.g. continuum hypothesis).
 * Proofs.
 * Mathematicians.
 * I feel the urge to prepend "kind of" to the descriptions in the "object" category. For example, if the short description of "real number" starts with "number", then it might sound as though it's a particular number, which is obviously not what we want.  However, "kind of" uses valuable space, and it's space right up front where we want to put the most-disambiguating information, so maybe this urge should be resisted.
 * I found myself calling a lot of things "concepts". I think that's fairly flexible and works pretty well for many of the above categories, remembering that we're mainly trying to establish the broad context and not be too picky.  However I couldn't really bring myself to write "concept" for, say, axioms, though I'm not sure why.  "Concept" works best for the "properties" category, but it's probably fine for the "object" category as well.
 * I found myself calling fields of study "subfields" of this and that. Is that a good word?
 * I think we should avoid prepending mathematician descriptions with a nationality. "Mathematician" by itself is fine.  I probably wouldn't even narrow it down to a subfield in most cases &mdash; the app viewer mostly needs to see that the article is about a mathematician.  Further details are in the article itself.

Additional thought for possibly including
 * length (in bytes) and "quality" (stub &mdash; featured). Purgy (talk) 08:36, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
 * These are mainly used to help mobile users quickly navigate among search results to determine which of the results are what they're actually searching for. Length and quality do nothing for that goal. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:48, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, I am attracted like moths by light by a "Good Article", and discard shorties and stubs. Different goals? Purgy (talk) 10:08, 23 February 2018 (UTC)


 * I don't think the SD mechanism is working correctly. For real number, you all have come up with the SD number representing a continuous quantity, but when I search with the WP app on my iPad, I get quantity along a continuous line. Real line shows the SD Redirected from: Real number line instead of an appropriate SD for the target article. Perhaps these aren't ready for prime time. --Mark viking (talk) 11:17, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Correct. They aren't "live" yet.  The app still displays the description taken from Wikidata.  More information at the links I gave at the top of this section, and at Wikipedia talk:Wikidata/2018 State of affairs. --Trovatore (talk) 11:39, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I should also say that the approach using short description is being called "experimental". I suppose there is no guarantee that the effort will come to anything.  However no alternative proposal really has any traction.  These are just my vague impressions; I'm not an expert on the subject. --Trovatore (talk) 23:30, 23 February 2018 (UTC)