Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/List of mathematics categories

May 2005
I started a new list, List of mathematics categories. I would appreciate it if more people have it on the watchlist and correct me if I add something wrong there. Oleg Alexandrov 01:38, 3 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Note that the contents of this list will be automatically added to the list of mathematical topics. Oleg Alexandrov 01:39, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Proofs
I don't quite understand why Category:Article proofs was put in the maths-related section. Whatever one thinks about these articles containing proofs, they do seem clearly mathematical to me, -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 22:53, 5 October 2005 (UTC)


 * They have subpages, which are discouraged. They have proofs separate from the article pages, on which there is no consensus. It seems to me Linas had nothing to do when creating that category. I would guess more discussion would be needed. By the way, note that we also have Category:Proofs. Oleg Alexandrov 23:16, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

All very true, but I don't see why that makes it only a maths-related category. But never mind. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 23:30, 5 October 2005 (UTC)


 * 'Cause if I don't like something, if I am in a bad mood, if I just feel like doing something bad (without playing with fire trying to be blocked, a la Paul August), I just revenge by declaring math to be nonmath, and sweeping it all under the rug in the degrading math-related category, to be despised and ignored by my kindred soul aka mathbot. Does that answer the question? Oleg Alexandrov 00:19, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
 * OK, enough of silliness. This was discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics soon after. People did not agree on what to do. It was only Linas who argued on keeping the status quo on this list of subpages in Category:Article proofs. They must go eventually I would think. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:17, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Numbers
Should Category:Numbers be included? It has articles like Serial number and Squad number. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 23:19, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I think it is included, at N in the TOC. I did not include though Category:Dimensionless numbers and Category:Famous numbers, which are not mathematical. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:25, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
 * OK, I guess you ask if it is better to not include it, since it has non-mathematical articles. Well, I don't know. Most of the articles in there are mathematical. As Charles was saying a while ago, if we err, we better err towards including rather than excluding. I used to carefully look at all the stuff going in the list of mathematical topics and blacklist those which seem to not belong there. But I don't do that anymore, and I don't think it is sustainable. So I guess we need to get used to the idea that some of the articles listed in the list of mathematical topics are only remotely math related or not related at all. If you have any ideas about what to do about all this, I would be interested to discuss. :)  Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:35, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
 * If you care, I posted the blacklist of nonmath articles in math categories at User:Mathbot/Blacklist. One idea would be to have people fill that in, then my bot would daily download it and remove from the list of mathematical topics articles showing up in the blacklist. But then we would need to protect the blacklist so that people don't fool around with it. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:51, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, my question was indeed meant to suggest whether we should exclude it. I didn't know about the blacklist, and using it is a better idea. Having the bot download it daily would be the best solution, I guess, but depends on your programming it. So, let's just leave it as it and program it at your leisure. I don't think it's necessary to protect it: hardly anybody will know about it and if we put it on our watchlists, we will notice it when people fool around. You can program a safeguard not to use the blacklist if it has grown by more than say 10 articles in one day (but then you'd also need a manual override). -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 12:05, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
 * My bot is configured such that it is ready to download the blacklist every day and use it. If you feel like adding items there, I will try to download it by hand, and see how it goes. If it turns out it works well, I will have it downloaded automatically each day. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:52, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
 * As you have probably seen, I added serial number and squad number to the blacklist. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 11:10, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Actually I have not. That page was not on my watchlist, I have no idea why. I will now download it. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:57, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Move suggestion
This page should probably be moved to projectspace or portalspace (either WikiProject Mathematics/List of mathematics categories or Portal:Mathematics/List of mathematics categories), as it is not an encyclopedic topic, but is an inherently self-referential collection. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:11, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Done. Good idea. This is just a bot page, it does not belong in the namespace. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:20, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * A year later, I cleaned up the list and moved it back to article namespace. I think it is a useful resource for the reader browsing articles via categories. Now any information needed for the bot shows up in the comments only. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 08:11, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Nope, can't agree. Should be a category. It's a horrible self reference. Rich Farmbrough, 19:49, 23 May 2011 (UTC).

Georgi Bonev
Sorry, I don't know where else to ask this: there is a link from here to a "Georgi Bonev", the 'famous' Bulgarian mathematician. From Google it seems he either doesn't exist, the name is mistransliterated or he's the result of a prank. Can someone please advise or remove the article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.145.84.209 (talk) 23:59, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Requested move 10 June 2016

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Move as unopposed. (non-admin closure) — Andy W.  ( talk  · ctb) 00:22, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

List of mathematics categories → WikiProject Mathematics/List of mathematics categories – This list is self-referential. There has apparently been some discussion at about where it should be located, but I would argue that any location in the mainspace is incorrect.

The page appears to have some maintenance value, as a bot task is dedicated to updating the page, which is why it was not WP:AFDed. Izno (talk) 15:51, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Previous participants at the section above: . --Izno (talk) 15:52, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Re-ping: . --Izno (talk) 15:53, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Agree. We make lists of categories by using categories.  All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 17:37, 10 June 2016 (UTC).


 * Agree. - (Previous suggestion was in 2007, wow. Somewhat surprisingly, I still agree with myself 9 years later! (A less common circumstance than I'd hope!)) - I don't generally believe it is helpful to be super-strict about namespaces, but this example is more closely related to WikiProject Mathematics/List of mathematics articles (0–9) than it is to List of mathematicians (A). I do strongly agree that the page is valuable to some, and should be kept. Just in a more appropriate location. HTH. Quiddity (talk) 22:16, 10 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Support per others. Besides being self-referential, surely any such list of Wikipedia categories is inherantly non-notable? I do agree that the page has potential value, but it needs to be moved away from mainspace to a more suitable location. Related pages like List of philosophy categories and List of software categories should be dealt with in the same way. PC78 (talk) 21:10, 14 June 2016 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.