Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0

Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project
(The following was moved from Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics Tompw 16:40, 13 April 2006 (UTC) )

Hi, I'm a member of the Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-class, B-class, and Good articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Can you recommend any suitable articles? Please post your suggestions here. Cheers, Shanel 20:35, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I think a great many very good math articles may be incapable of ever becoming Featured Articles due to their being too technical. I guess we should just call them Good Articles? -lethe talk [ +] 23:45, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I think manifold looks pretty good these days. -lethe talk [ +] 23:52, 9 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Mathematics is a connected body of knowledge. Isn't there a danger that cherry picking a bunch of mathematics articles, even if they are individually excellent, will create something that lacks consistency and coherence ? The idea of core topics partly addresses this issue, but the proposed core topics list contains less than 10 mathematics articles, which is not enough (where are mathematical analysis, combinatorics, number theory, calculus, topology etc. etc.). Gandalf61 11:22, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I was thinking that if we're going to change at all then it would be better to go all the way and adopt the standard rating system. But I see your point and I'll add it.--RDBury (talk) 19:36, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I think there is a good case for identifying the key mathematics articles and trying to bring those up to Good articles, A or B class standard. Establising a rating system for mathematical articles could be a good task. The list top linked maths articles which I reciently compiled could be a good starting point for identifying the most important mathematics articles. The top twenty articles on the list are: (excludes physics and computer science topics)


 * 1) Area - 2491
 * 2) Mathematician - 1949
 * 3) Statistics - 1164
 * 4) Latitude - 1090
 * 5) Geometry - 979
 * 6) Algorithm - 960
 * 7) Longitude - 910
 * 8) Frequency - 901
 * 9) Logic - 898
 * 10) Real number - 881
 * 11) Function (mathematics) - 788
 * 12) Geographic coordinate system - 771
 * 13) Integer - 752
 * 14) Diameter - 714
 * 15) Cryptography - 697
 * 16) Set - 687
 * 17) Degree (angle) - 665
 * 18) Information - 664
 * 19) Complex number - 636

establishing a rating system for mathematics articles like the Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment could help us indetify areas for improvment. We may like to establish our own criteria specific for mathematics. --Salix alba (talk) 13:51, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
 * It is completely reasonable to establish individual criteria within a WikiProject, based on the Grading scheme, and assign benchmarks that are necessary for the articles to become a particular class. Something similar is done at WikiProject Tropical cyclones. Tito xd (?!? - help us) 01:30, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Also, please feel free to keep the table for your WikiProject up to date when you're doing assessments, as it makes things much easier. Thanks! Tito xd (?!? - help us) 06:03, 9 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Copied from Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics

I think Too Old has a valid criticism, frequently repeated. The coverage of mathematics is often at too high a level, organisation of articles is confusing, core topics like Algebra are woefully inadaquate. Yes we have done good work todate, our coverage is extensive, but there is still a long way to go.

I propose creating WikiProject Mathematics/Essential articles where we can identify which are the most important mathematics articles, assess then for quality and also mathematical level required. An example we could follow is WikiProject Computer and video games/Essential articles which nicely organises that fields core material. This would also fit in with the Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project discussed above.

Is anyone interested in helping on this? --Salix alba (talk) 23:09, 8 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with the point that high-level math articles can be inaccessible, and I feel we shoudl aim to ensure that articles remain as accessible as possible. With regard to which topics to use... what about using the topics linked from Portal:Mathematics? These are the "big" topics in maths, and give a broad overveiew. I'm not saying they all should be (eg not Topos theory), but most should be. Of course theer is a strong overlap with the topics already listed.


 * Indeed. Many of the article in the maths portal should be listed here. It's very much a work in progress at the moment. Fell free to modify and expand. --Salix alba (talk) 11:52, 14 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Now done... due to the numbers involved, they have been sorted by the area given on the portal. Also, only sorted into "major"/"minor". Tompw 13:47, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Most commonly viewed?
Instead of looking at the "most comonly linked" articles, which reflects a certain author bias, can we get a list of "most commonly viewed" math articles, which hopefully reflects reader interest? Better yet, "most commonly viewed by non-editors" of which "most commonly viewed by anons" might be an aproximation. Just because diameter is heavily linked does not imply to me that anyone is interested in reading about diameters. linas 21:05, 1 June 2006 (UTC)


 * How is anyone supposed to know how much an article has been viewed? From what I've heard, that feature was disabled a few years ago because it bogged down the servers.  &rArr;  Jarlaxle Artemis   00:49, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
 * this page from 2004 may be helpful. Walkerma 05:29, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for pointing that out. I filtered the list to only show the mathematics articles see User:Salix alba/maths/top viewed maths articles. Its nice to know that mathematics ranks high at number 16, (above Penis so there is hope for humanity). Some of the articles we rate as most important get a poor showing. Algebra, Arithmetic don't appear and Geometry ranks quite low at position 1803. --Salix alba (talk) 09:41, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Don't forget that viewing ratings depend on both importance and value-to-the-reader! If you look at the articles you mention as they were in Jan 2004, you can see they were all basically stubs: Algebra, Arithmetic and Geometry.  Thankfully this project has made all three much more useful today, thanks to you for that. Walkerma 16:16, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
 * There is a brand new page listing the top 100 most viewed - Maths takes a back seat compared to sex, I'm afraid! Walkerma 02:55, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Famous mathematicians
I came here from the Version 0.5 nominations page looking for an expert assessment on John von Neumann, but I see that you don't include any biographies in your list. Do you plan to include these? Biographies are some of the most popular pages for people to view (see previous post - von Neumann is a lot more interesting than "diameter"!). Thanks, Walkerma 03:34, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Do we have a plan? That implies some sentiance, which may be lacking! Good question re- most notable mathematicians. Off the top of my head

I would not have put von Neumann as one of the most notable mathematicians. Definatly most notable computer scientists but there are many who have left a greater mark on mathematics than von-Neumann. --Salix alba (talk) 07:39, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Newton
 * Gauss
 * Galois
 * Leibniz
 * Pythagoras
 * Euclid
 * Cantor
 * Descartes
 * Hilbert
 * Gödel
 * Fisher - statatitician
 * Wiles?


 * Agree about von Neumann. Also, I've never heard of Fischer.  Shame on you for forgetting Archimedes, Poincaré, Riemann, Cauchy, Lebesgue.  And the list is fairly devoid of modern mathematicians, where are Grothendieck, Chern, Serre, Mac Lane, Lawvere, Smale, Witten, Donaldson, etc?  I guess modern mathematics is not very well-known, its areas of research only being known to specialists, so those guys are maybe not as famous as the earlier mathematicians. -lethe talk [ +] 08:10, 15 June 2006 (UTC)


 * What about Fermat, Euler, Ramanujan, al-Khwarizmi, Chiu-Shao, Chebeshev, Erdős, Vaughan Jones, Thurston, Atiyah, Emmy Nöther? Well, this is silly; we already have extensive enumerations at Category:Mathematicians. --KSmrqT 08:52, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, indeed! Now shame on me for forgetting those people.  Next someone should come along and tell you who you forgot.  Though actually, I don't like some of those people on your list, and wouldn't include them next to Gauss and Grothendieck (or at least, if we include your guys, we'd better include von Neumann as well), though I'm bummed that I left out Atiyah and Noether.  But that's just my own indefensible POV.  If we include person x, then we have to include person y, and this can go on forever.  But it's not that silly.  Now that we have a list of names that you, Salix, and I think ought to be on a list of greatest mathematicians, I will wikify all the names, and we can follow the links and see which ones are good enough for 1.0 or whatever.  So this fun game also serves a purpose. -lethe talk [ +] 09:01, 15 June 2006 (UTC)


 * For the needs of the Version 0.5 nominations page and Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Core topics

and Category:Mathematicians will not do. They are looking for the most important articles and the 1000+ mathematicians there is too many for them to sort through. So its up to us to let them know which are the most important ones in the bunch. Its also a useful tool for us to identify any weeknesses in our coverage. In the table below the ratings are Feature Article/A/A-B/B/B-/Start/Stub and there definatly a few articles which are very week. Feel free to change any ratings/lists of fields, a bit of a rush jobs by me.
 * This is going to be a subjective game, but I think we are close to identify the big hitters. --Salix alba (talk) 10:43, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm done adding names to this list. It's gotten quite long, maybe I got a little carried away.  Nevertheless, I think every name on there is either a household name (for mathematicians at least (Hilbert), if not for the general public at large (Gauss)), a historically important founding figure (Castelnuovo,  Madhava), or a giant of his field (Tarski, Grothendieck).  Now do I have to go through and rate all the articles? -lethe talk [ +] 12:34, 15 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Wow, isn't Wikipedia amazing! I post a request, and within 9 hours a whole group has produced a fairly comprehensive list!  Thanks a lot!  By the way, I wasn't assuming that von Neumann would be on your list, I just knew you had a worklist so I took a look.  Like here, the computer science worklist is only topics, not people, and there's is much more basic than yours.  I would suggest you add this table into the main list and add a column for "Importance".  (FYI, we at WP:1.0 "stole" your importance template for our use, and it's now even read as a parameter by the bot!)  You could also consider using Mathbot to do a lot of the work for you, as other groups do, setting this up is quite easy.  The tedious part is assessing the articles and adding the assessments into the talk page templates.  Thanks again! Walkerma 14:22, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
 * How do we rate importance? I'm going to add a column to the table and put in numbers on a scale from 1 to 5, 1 being the most important, and 5 being just barely getting on the importance list.  This is highly subjective and personal, so I'm sure others will be along to tell me how full of shit my ratings are.  -lethe talk [ +] 14:47, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Importance and article quality are according to the following scheme Need: The article's importance, regardless of its quality

Quality: current article quality

p.s. I stole these templates from WikiProject Computer and video games/Essential articles so credit should go there.

p.p.s. This table should eventually go on the WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0 main page rather than talk. --Salix alba (talk) 15:22, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

See the project page for table of mathematicians.


 * Thanks for putting all this together so quickly! I've nominated Leibniz, Cantor and Hilbert for Version 0.5.  I hope we can also include big names like Archimedes and Pythagoras, but I'm hoping those will reach A-Class first!  Many thanks, this is a great help, Walkerma 03:55, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Categories and ratings
I've now created a bunch of categories and a template for inclusion on talk pages. very minor start at adding the template to pages. --Salix alba (talk) 16:38, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Category:Mathematics articles by quality
 * Category:Mathematics articles by importance
 * Template:Maths rating


 * And mathbot (who else? :) generated Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Mathematics articles by quality which I guess will be the repository for WP 1.0 mathematics articles. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:16, 16 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I note there is a comment column in the table. How is this filled in? --Salix alba (talk) 08:34, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
 * That needs to be done by hand in the table, then the bot will not overwrite it. I don't know of any good way to add that info by a bot using the categories. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:36, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

subfield core topic tables
So the table on the page for topics in algebra looks lonely. Do we intend to eventually have a table listing the core topics for other subfields, like say topology, geometry, analysis? What about more refined lists of core topics? Like a core topics list for group theory? Wait for Wikipedia 2.0, probably. -lethe talk [ +] 11:01, 16 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Ideally. I think the priority is to identify the Top importance articles, in each sub field. Just a matter of time and effort. Eventually these tables will be replace by the automatic lisiting in Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Mathematics articles by quality, this will require the tag adding to the articles. --Salix alba (talk) 11:16, 16 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I should mention, we at WP:V0.5 have built into the template V0.5 a parameter called "category", so we can classify articles as Socsci (Social Sciences & Society) or Math, take a look at the template (which includes a nice summary of how to use it). There are ten subcategories of Version 0.5 articles that correspond to these.  I could see you organising the maths articles the same way- category=Topology and the like. That way you could (at least in principle) have the bot generate a table for each of your subcategories, such as "Mathematics Topology articles by quality". Walkerma 16:06, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

more
I suggest adding langlands and selberg. Dmharvey 15:59, 16 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I considered adding Sylvester, Hesse, Cardano, Bézout, Möbius, Wroński, some Bernoullis (Jakob and Daniel probably), Bessel, Christoffel, Hankel, Sylow, Leray, Michael Artin (the father is on the list), Fatou, Pólya, Hopf, Beurling, Veblen, Voevodsky, Bieberbach, Teichmüller, Connes, van der Waerden, Kac, Hermite, Max Noether (Emmy's father), Lasker, Todd, Hensel, Heine, Bolzano, Bolyai, Stone, Gelfand, Kodaira, Eilenberg, Dieudonné, Ehresmann, Chevalley, Lambert, Laurent, Eisenstein, Littlewood, Moore, Halmos, Steenrod, Quine to the list, in case anyone wants to stick up for one of these guys. I thought of simply adding every fields medalist, wolf prize winner, and bourbakist.  You could also campaign to remove some of them, especially Segal, who doesn't even have the good grace to have an article.  The list is probably far too long.  -lethe talk [ +] 16:46, 16 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Er, yes I guess we are getting a few too many now. For the purposes of WP:0.5 they are probably only interested in the Top and possible High rating ones. That said the is no harm in adding to the talk pages of these articles.
 * Still its a good discussion so a few I haven't seen yet Bertrand Russell, Goro Shimura, Yutaka Taniyama. --Salix alba (talk) 20:10, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Changed "Quality" legend
I've changed the "Quality" legend table to better conform to Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment. &mdash; Paul August &#9742; 21:04, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

B plus articles
I'm increasingly finding a need for a B+ category, these are articles which are close but not quite at GA status, and those which have either been delisted from GA or been failed GA. Pi is a typical example better than your average B-class article but not quite making the GA grade. There seem to be quite a lot of maths articles which fall into this cat Knot theory, Fractal, Chaos theory, Number, Statistics, Matrix (mathematics).

I've changed the maths rating template to allow for this new rating, this should not affect the 1.0 Assesments as articles will also be listed as B-Class. Hopefully this category will allowus to identify those articles with the best chance of becoming GA's. --Salix alba (talk) 18:56, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Top 9 mathematicians
On WikiProject_Biography/Core_biographies there are 9 mathematicians.


 * 1) Archimedes
 * 2) Euclid
 * 3) Leonhard Euler
 * 4) Pierre de Fermat
 * 5) Carl Friedrich Gauss
 * 6) Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi
 * 7) Gottfried Leibniz
 * 8) Blaise Pascal
 * 9) Pythagoras

These don't match with our ratings as Pierre de Fermat, Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, Blaise Pascal only get High or Mid ratings.

If we could suggest just 9 mathematicians who would they be? (Newton is already included under physics). --Salix alba (talk) 20:26, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Rationale for rating?
I notice that ratings like "B", "A", etcetera have been popping up on articles lately. It would be helpful if somewhere the rationale for these ratings were posted, so that the feedback could be used to improve the articles. (Conversely, then we can also assess whether the "graders" are using reasonable criteria.) —Steven G. Johnson 21:40, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
 * See the main page for the grading scheme. Basically

The line between Start and B can be fuzzy. Importance can be faily subjective.
 * Stub - very short articles
 * Start - fair coverage of mathematics, but missing important sections, like history, context, illustrations, references. May not be accessable, to the layman.
 * B - passable articles, most of the basics are covered, but needs expansion and polishing.
 * B+ - Better articles, generally have a good attempt at explaining the topic in laymans terms, history section, Addition is a good example of this.
 * GA - reserved for articles which are Good articles
 * A - Articles close to being featured articles
 * FA - reserved for featured articles.
 * Top - the absolutely essential articles. Top level articles on major fields, and basic mathematical concepts.
 * High - Important topics, any good mathematical reference work should have these
 * Mid - Topics a for well rounded mathematical education.
 * Low - Specalist topics.

The grading is still in development, much of it is a comparative grading, obtained by comparing the different articles. Input is most welcome. --Salix alba (talk) 22:20, 29 September 2006 (UTC)


 * You misunderstand me. I saw the general guidelines for grading.  What I am suggesting is that graders add somewhere (e.g. on the Talk page of the article in question) the specific reasons why they assigned a particular grade to that page.  It is almost totally unhelpful (and fairly arbitrary) to see that a particular article was assigned a "B" grade without knowing what specifically "needs expansion and polishing".  —Steven G. Johnson 17:56, 30 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Is there a particular article you are think of? --Salix alba (talk) 18:25, 30 September 2006 (UTC)


 * There is a way... you use the "comment" option in the math rating template. For example, the Topology article has  Is this what you had in mind? Tompw 19:56, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Mathematics Vital Articles
The following are articles listed in Vital_articles. Current count: 58 Mathematics articles. These (should) all now appear in the main page, so have been removed here for reference purposes. Tompw 18:11, 3 October 2006 (UTC)


 * 1)  Mathematics
 * 2) Constant
 * 3) Pi
 * 4) Differential equation
 * 5) Digit
 * 6) Equation
 * 7) Exponentiation
 * 8) Function
 * 9) Infinity
 * 10) Limit
 * 11) Logarithm
 * 12) Number
 * 13) Complex number
 * 14) Integer
 * 15) Natural number
 * 16) Rational number
 * 17) Real number
 * 18) Series
 * 19) Square root
 * 20) Variable
 * 21) Algebra
 * 22) Analysis
 * 23) Arithmetic
 * 24) Addition
 * 25) Decimal
 * 26) Division
 * 27) Fraction
 * 28) Multiplication
 * 29) Percentage
 * 30) Subtraction
 * 31)  Calculus
 * 32) Derivative
 * 33) Integral


 * 1) Chaos theory
 * 2) Fractal
 * 3)  Cryptography
 * 4)  Game theory
 * 5) Geometry
 * 6) Line
 * 7) Plane
 * 8) Angle
 * 9) Coordinates
 * 10) Linear algebra
 * 11) Matrix
 * 12) Vector space
 * 13) Vector (spatial)
 * 14) Logic
 * 15) Number theory
 * 16) Prime number
 * 17) Proof
 * 18) Probability theory
 * 19) Statistics
 * 20) Set theory
 * 21) Set
 * 22) Topology
 * 23) Trigonometry
 * 24) Sine
 * 25) Cosine
 * 26) Tangent

Strange things to list as number theory
Why are Hypercomplex number, Quaternions, Octonion, Sedenion, Hyperreal number,  Surreal number, Ordinal number, Cardinal number, etc... listed under number theory? Was this already debated? They are not generally considered to be number theoretic topics. shotwell 06:48, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Good point, not quite sure whre to place all these. Hypercomplex number, Quaternions, Octonion, Sedenion probably go under Algebra. And Hyperreal number,  Surreal number, Ordinal number, Cardinal number, are set thoery hence under foundations. --Salix alba (talk) 07:50, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I think (quite possibly me) knew that the ywere types of "numbers", and thus felt they should therefore go under number theory. The logic would be fine if it wasn't for tge fact that number theory isn't really about numbers... Tompw 11:20, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Split page up?
The Wikipedia 1.0 is now 43KB in size, and won't be getting any smaller. I would therefore like to propose each of the twelve "Articles to include" sub-sections into seperate pages (WikiProject_Mathematics/Wikipedia_1.0/Basics, etc.), and leave everything else on the main page. What do people think? Tompw 18:41, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Given three days has passed withotu a single comment, I shall go ahead and do this. (Such move won't affect Mathbot's stats collecting - that's done via the categories). Tompw 20:30, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

"Field" element of maths rating - propose replace "history" with "general"
"'Currently supported values for field are: basics (elementary material and terms used throughout mathematics), analysis, algebra, geometry (includes topology), applied mathematics, probability and statistics, number theory, Discrete mathematics, foundations (logic and set theory), Mathematical physics, history and mathematicians.'"

I'd like to propose that history be replaced with general. The reason is that there is only one article on the history of mathematics, but there are lots that are more general (such as everything under the general section). Tompw 17:05, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Mathematics articles with the most incoming links
The following has been moved from the main page. Articles on this list should now be all included in the relevant section. Exception: the following articles were felt by me to be outside the scope of WP:MATH: Acceleration, Billion, Entropy, Frequency, Geographic coordinate system, Information, Latitude, Logistics, Longitude, Momentum, Sequence, SI, Solid, Velocity. Tompw 20:29, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

All articles with over 100 incoming links can be found in User:Salix alba/maths/top linked maths articles


 * 1) Area - 2491
 * 2) Mathematician - 1949
 * 3) Statistics - 1164
 * 4) Latitude - 1090
 * 5) Geometry - 979
 * 6) Algorithm - 960
 * 7) Longitude - 910
 * 8) Frequency - 901
 * 9) Logic - 898
 * 10) Real number - 881
 * 11) Function (mathematics) - 788
 * 12) Geographic coordinate system - 771
 * 13) Integer - 752
 * 14) Diameter - 714
 * 15) Cryptography - 697
 * 16) Set - 687
 * 17) Degree (angle) - 665
 * 18) Information - 664
 * 19) Complex number - 636
 * 20) SI - 633
 * 21) Prime number - 602
 * 22) Natural number - 549
 * 23) Hexadecimal - 543
 * 24) Topology - 528
 * 25) Dimension - 522
 * 26) Probability - 521
 * 27) Group (mathematics) - 518
 * 28) Vector space - 476
 * 29) Volume - 474
 * 30) Binary numeral system - 467


 * 1) Theory - 453
 * 2) Matrix (mathematics) - 449
 * 3) Number theory - 440
 * 4) Sphere - 439
 * 5) Field (mathematics) - 439
 * 6) Space - 437
 * 7) Circle - 433
 * 8) Solid - 430
 * 9) Calculus - 420
 * 10) Encryption - 417
 * 11) Triangle - 416
 * 12) Cardinal number - 398
 * 13) Polynomial - 394
 * 14) Topological space - 390
 * 15) Derivative - 390
 * 16) Graph theory - 385
 * 17) Billion - 376
 * 18) Algebra - 374
 * 19) Subset - 368
 * 20) Ordinal number - 363
 * 21) Probability theory - 362
 * 22) Game theory - 360
 * 23) Manifold - 359
 * 24) Velocity - 357
 * 25) Algebraic geometry - 349
 * 26) Sequence - 346
 * 27) Set theory - 339
 * 28) Category theory - 334


 * 1) Entropy - 329
 * 2) Vector (spatial) - 327
 * 3) Polygon - 323
 * 4) Pyramid - 322
 * 5) Euclidean space - 321
 * 6) Pi - 314
 * 7) Number - 313
 * 8) Continuous function - 310
 * 9) Angle - 309
 * 10) Variable - 308
 * 11) Momentum - 302
 * 12) Integral - 301
 * 13) Rational number - 299
 * 14) Orders of magnitude - 299
 * 15) Wave - 298
 * 16) Acceleration - 297
 * 17) Factorization - 296
 * 18) Symmetry - 293
 * 19) Linear algebra - 290
 * 20) Probability distribution - 287
 * 21) Logistics - 287
 * 22) Decimal - 283
 * 23) Abstract algebra - 281
 * 24) String theory - 280
 * 25) Square (geometry) - 278
 * 26) Combinatorics - 276
 * 27) Hilbert space - 272

Category:WikiProject Mathematics Mathematics

Riemann-Roch theorem : Which field??
To quote from the article: "'In mathematics, specifically in complex analysis and algebraic geometry, the Riemann–Roch theorem is an important tool in the computation of the dimension of the space of meromorphic functions with prescribed zeroes and allowed poles. It [the theorem] relates the complex analysis of a connected compact Riemann surface with the surface's purely topological genus g, in a way that can be carried over into purely algebraic settings.'" ... which means it encompasses geometry, topology, algebra, and analysis. So, what should I put in the "field" element of the maths rating template? Tompw 19:50, 7 October 2006 (UTC)


 * It is a major theorem in Riemann surface theory, which sits most comfortably in the "geometry and topology" field in my opinion. Geometry guy 16:11, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Help with math
We've got a weird situation over at GA Review - we have someone who is claiming that his math proves Einstein's theory of special relativity is false and so should lose its GA rating and he won't go away until someone checks his math :-P We're not mathematicians, etc., so was going to see if someone here might be able to put this to rest? --plange 15:40, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Organisation
I think this sub-project should take the opportunity to ride on the momentum afforded by the recent automation of the article field pages (see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics). As a newcomer, I find the organisation here very confusing, but when I look at the general Wikipedia 1.0 project, I find this understandable, because the organisation of the whole project seems rather unclear to me. I think we have an opportunity now to put our own house in order anyway. Geometry guy 21:36, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Suggested "to do" list
The following changes are proposed. Geometry guy 11:28, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
 * WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0/Legend and rating should be split into two templates &mdash; the latter, in particular, needs to be reformatted because it is too long (also it is overused) &mdash; it has been replaced by a much shorter description in all but two places.
 * WikiProject Mathematics/Table could be moved to the Wikipedia 1.0 subpage (which is currently a redirect) for consistency. Moved to Wikipedia 1.0/Table with VeblenBot's part at User:VeblenBot/MainTable.
 * A WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0/Grading scheme page should be created, as a replacement for Template:Grading scheme, taken from WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0.
 * Template:WP MATH 1.0 should be modified to refer to all of the mathematics assessment categories.
 * WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0/Legend and rating should be replaced by a template for the mathematics article assessment categories. Done apart from the Unassessed categories and the overarching Category:WikiProject Mathematics articles.
 * The full length description of the maths rating syntax should only be given in the page. There are now only a few two pages that use this detailed rating.
 * A category should be created for this project, e.g., Category:WikiProject Mathematics assessment or Category:Wikipedia 1.0 Mathematics. Any preferences or other suggestions?
 * Most pages in the project should begin with a banner which puts them into this category: one option is to use for this purpose, as this banner already links to most of the pages in the project. (The banner is now at the top of most relevant pages.)
 * Rewrite some of this article to reflect the current state of the project. Some rewriting now done.
 * Delete WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0/Legend and rating, which is no longer used. Too much work to merge, I marked it historical. CMummert · talk 21:19, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Format WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0/Theorems and conjectures and WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0/Mathematicians in a similar way to the field pages.
 * Decide what to do with the WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0/History page: experiment with a "historical" parameter in the maths rating template . Experiment now rolled out: see Category:History of subject mathematics articles &mdash; not a great name, I admit, but I hope it illustrates the idea to categorize historical articles separately from their field. An alternative to having a category for this would be a (historical) link in the template for VeblenBot to find using backlinks. Page is now automatically generated using the category.
 * Automate the generation of WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0/Theorems and conjectures and (dependent on the above) WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0/History.
 * Decide whether and how to automate the generation of WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0/Mathematicians. Now automated using new /Data subpages. Not all information has been transferred from the old Mathematicians page to /Data pages. The old information can be found in the edit history, or at User:Geometry guy/Mathematicians.

Comments/Progress
I've done the grading scheme, and also made it link to our categories. Incidentally, am I right in thinking that "grading" is the WP 1.0 term for assessing the quality of an article? If so, then I think we should try to stick to that term for quality, and use other words such as "rating" and "assessment" for the more complete classification of an article by quality, importance, field, and vitality. Geometry guy 19:47, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I've now provided transclusions for the two components of "Legend and rating", but will wait a bit before using them as replacements across the board. Geometry guy 21:11, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I made a tentative change to Template:WP MATH 1.0, but further discussion and changes will surely be needed. Geometry guy 21:38, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I've now added a brief summary of the fields to WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0/Assessment and made other cosmetic changes.

I've also added some more suggestions to the todo list above, although it seems other editors are either happy for me to proceed, or are not interested. If the latter, I suspect that the name of this subproject may be partly to blame, since it emphasises the role assessment plays in WP 1.0, rather than the fact that it is extremely useful and important anyway. A radical approach would be to restructure this subproject under the banner of "Assessment", with WP 1.0 included as a small part. Geometry guy 17:09, 24 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, I had noticed you were polishing these pages, and I'm glad to see it done. I tried to make a few changes a while back, but nothing so major. Just now I reformatted WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0/Grading scheme, since the tables had very long narrow columns on my narrow window.
 * I don't think it's necessary to completely rename everything, though you could add some explanation to the lede section of some of the pages to point out that the assessment is not just for WP 1.0. CMummert · talk 00:36, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, I agree that renaming is rather a last resort if this project becomes moribund. I do intend to rewrite the main page substantially once the rest of the project is suitably polished; for now, though, the main goal is to make these pages easy to recognise, find, understand, and maintain. My template for the article assessment categories is far from perfect, but the goal is to be able to improve the format by editing one page rather than fourteen!


 * Thanks for your support, and especially for pointing out the ACD parameter in the maths rating template. Has it been tested recently? I hope it still works after all the changes which have been made! I'm not completely convinced by the 90 degree rotation of WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0/Grading scheme, but I have a nice wide window so I will let others decide :) Geometry guy 01:06, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Here is a screenshot of the old version. The ACD parameter works fine, see Talk:Knot theory for a page using it right now. That template is actually pretty stable (except for white space) since the optional parameters create extra table rows independently of each other.  CMummert · talk 01:39, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for checking that. Regarding the grading scheme format, another option might be to use a table-within-a-table to put the reader's and editor's experience one above the other. This would free up some width. Geometry guy 15:36, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I tried this now. It seems to work better on a narrow window than your screenshot. I also got rid of the inappropriate talk-page colours. What do you think? Geometry guy 13:57, 26 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Great job on all this! I have a request. When I look at the table and see that there are 230 algebra stubs, I would really love to dig into some of those topics. Is there any way you could edit the script that creates this table so that it creates a hyperlink for each number in the grid, and to create the appropriate subpages corresponding to each (x,y) pair? I know this will create some redundancy, extra pages, etc... but the added utility would be worth it, especially since it's all automated anyhow. - grubber 15:25, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I hope the project pages have a more coherent feel now. I leave it to CMummert to answer about the table. Geometry guy 15:36, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I've added a category for all these articles now, and also a couple more points to the "todo" list. Geometry guy 16:16, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I have added the table suggestion to the list of things to do. Moving the table seems easy in theory but there was a bug in the setup I was using that made me put it where it is. I'm fond of that name, anyway, because it is parallel to WikiProject Mathematics/Count.


 * I don't mind keeping the table where it is, but it might be nice to transclude it from a subpage of User:VeblenBot. As for the other two items on the list, we need to think through what would be most useful, as there are many possibilities. I think it might be useful if each cell in the first table linked to page (x,y), where x-Class, y-Importance articles are listed by field. On the other hand, there is no point in duplicating information in project pages that the categories already provide. Geometry guy 18:51, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Which page did most of the content from the "Legend and rating" page move to? The edit history ought to be preserved, and I can merge that history into the new location. It would have been better to move the page originally, so that the history would move along with it. CMummert · talk 17:33, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry about that &mdash; it was a side effect of the way I made the changes: I first split the content of "Legend and rating" into two pages (WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0/Assessment and WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0/Maths rating), then I replaced the use of "Legend and rating" on category pages by WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0/Assessment category format. This last page is the logical replacement for the primary role of "Legend and rating". On the other hand, most of the content (in the maths rating page) is no longer used on the category pages.


 * Since WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0/Maths rating has the least complicated history, I would be inclined to move the history there, but you should do what you think is best! Geometry guy 18:51, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The histories overlap, so it's too much work to bother with a history merge. I marked the old page historical, and it won't hurt anything to leave it sit there. CMummert · talk 21:19, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Further progress
I implemented the alternate formatting for the pages that contain all articles with a fixed quality grade, and I also changed the formatting for the history and theorems pages while I was at it (since those are not single-field pages). Are there any other changes to the bot except the mathematicians page? If not, I am going to leave the bot alone for a week or so to make sure no problems come up.

I think that this page (the actual page, not the talk page) needs to be formatted better, especially at the top. I would like to see it start with some text, which is more friendly than starting with a nav box and a table. Maybe we could move the table down to below the first section, and rewrite/split up the intro? CMummert · talk 00:15, 27 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Progress indeed! Yes, I agree we need a more friendly start, although I like (but am not wedded to) the nav-box as a banner. It would be nice to move the table down, but it is not completely obvious how to do it as the page is full of tables! Something to mull over, I guess... Geometry guy 00:24, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Scope of project?
As a relatively new-comer here at this talk page and subproject, I have a question: Is the scope of this project to rate & assess all the math articles in WP (i.e, those in List of mathematics articles)? The description says that anyone can add a rating to an article, but it is not clear which articles are eligible. - grubber 17:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, the scope is to assess all the math articles in WP (including all those in List of mathematics articles).


 * I had essentially the same question when I first found this subproject. The reason for the confusion is that the programme to assess all maths articles is mixed up with the programme to select and improve articles for inclusion in the Wikipedia 1.0 CD. As a newcomer, I would favour splitting the two projects, but there are historical reasons why the two programmes are tied, and such a splitting probably won't find favour amongst those who have been working on the project for some time. Geometry guy 18:03, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Any article that is related to math (including some that are only vaguely related) can be rated. If it seems mathematical, nobody will complain about a tag. The same article can be rated by different projects with different quality and importance ratings, too. CMummert · talk 19:42, 26 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Would it be possible to get a script to create a list of those pages in List of mathematics articles that have not been addressed yet? I wouldn't mind trolling through them looking for articles I can categorize. - grubber 23:34, 26 April 2007 (UTC)


 * That would be about 15000 articles - not a very easy list to scan through. It might be easier to just rate pages as you come to them in ordinary editing. Or you could start at Category:Mathematics and browse some subcategories. CMummert · talk 00:09, 27 April 2007 (UTC)


 * There are already 800 pages that are rated. I can arbitrarily pick articles and find ones not done yet, but that will get significantly more difficult as we go. I think at some point, a page of such articles should be made, but I agree that it could wait for now. - grubber 13:18, 27 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The list at User:Mathbot/Most linked math articles should be useful for this: the articles are listed in an approximate order of importance, and unrated articles are clearly marked. Geometry guy 11:39, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Importance assessment
There's been some discussion on user pages lately regarding the meaning attached to the Top/High/Mid/Low importance labels, and indeed their application by different people is (understandably) not quite consistent at the moment. In particular, two views have been advanced: (i) that the importance level should be relative mathematics as a whole, and (ii) that it should be understood within a specific subfield of maths (such as algebraic geometry or analysis).

First of all I think either way this matter should be settled here centrally to avoid unnecessary switching back and forth of labels (while in my mind a very useful activity, let's face it, the grading of articles is still time away from editing articles, so the more efficient the process the better). In this context I would like to offer my view on the matter: I'm quite strongly in favour of importance assessment within all of maths, not within smaller areas, for the following reasons:
 * Assessment within disciplines leads to a serious proliferation of Top/High labels
 * Deciding how finely grained subdisciplines to use adds another layer of complexity; obviously the finer the grid the more Top/High-importance articles
 * Assessment within the totality of maths fits in my mind better with (one of) the goal(s) of the whole grading exercise: prioritising the articles form the viewpoint of importance to a high-quality encyclopaedia.

In addition, some further guidelines could be useful for the importance assessment exercise. I would like to propose a hierarchical approach that could also help organise articles around major topics. A possible model could be:
 * The main subdisciplines in maths (plus some selected "general" articles) should receive Top importance (e.g., Number theory, Algebraic topology, Analysis, Integral). These articles could then refer to High-importance articles for further details.
 * Second-order subdisciplines within the Top-importance areas as well as the very few most important objects / theorems should have High importance (e.g., Homology and cohomology, Elliptic curve, Harmonic analysis, Fourier transform). These articles could then link to Mid-importance articles for further details.
 * Third-order subdisciplines (or theories) within High-importance topics as well as most definitions, theorems etc. that should belong to a good graduate student's general knowledge regardless of own field of speciality could for the Mid-importance layer; and
 * The articles of Low imprtance could be those that would not likely be interesting to people outside of the speciality.

Stca74 22:22, 21 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I felt this was a topic for the entire WikiProject to discuss, so I initiated a discussion yesterday afternoon UTC at WT:WPM. I suggest that the discussion be carried out there. I actually disagree with quite a few of the above points, as I have explained in more detail at WT:WPM. In particular, I don't think Wikipedia is an encyclopedia like EB: it is an overlapping nested family of encyclopedias. I also think classifying importance within mathematics as a whole is hopeless. How to compare the Atiyah-Singer index theorem with platonic solid? I would rather not use subfields, but categories to provide the context for assessing articles. If an article is a important article in an widely populated category, it should be regarded as important. This avoids comparing chalk with cheese. I do not believe such an approach would overfill the top importance rating, quite the contrary, because notability within a major category is rather hard to achieve. Furthermore, this approach is more flexible: setting up a rigid framework for importance assessment is less adaptable as WP grows. Geometry guy 23:08, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Actuarial Science
Does Actuarial Science belong more properly in "Applied Mathematics" or on "Probability and Statistics"? -- Avi 16:37, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I would say Probability and Statistics is the closest fit. --Salix alba (talk) 17:40, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I thought so too and marked it as such; thanks! -- Avi 21:24, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree, this is primarily stats! Geometry guy 22:09, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Assessment process
Is there a way to request that a particular article be assessed? I created a new article recently, Collaboration graph, and I do not think it would be proper for me as its creator to assess it myself.... Thanks, Nsk92 (talk) 12:53, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

B plus articles categorized as GA-class
This WikiProject uses a non-standard B+ grade to mark those articles that are very near GA. I think the purpose is to determine those articles that would benefit most from editing to get to GA. Since the B+ level is not recognized by the WP1.0 Bot, such articles are doubly categorized under the GA-class articles such that they can also be counted by the WP1.0 Bot. I don't agree with this and suggest instead that B+ articles be doubly categorized as B-class instead of GA-class. This way, the Wikipedia-wide WP1.0 statistics for GA-assessed articles would closely match the actual GA count. --seav (talk) 09:18, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposals for change of math ratings
Currently WPM uses the article ratings
 * Stub, Start, B, B+, GA, A, FA

which are explained at WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0. Most of the rest of world uses a system closer to the Wikipedia 1.0 system
 * Stub, Start, C, B, GA, A, FA

which is explained at Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment. (This does not include lists etc. The GA and FA classes are ctually optional.) This is somewhat confusing and, based on previous discussions (See here, here, here, here, here), there is little consensus that the WPM system is what we want. On the other hand, despite the objections to it, there has been little movement in getting the WPM system changed.

That being said, there will be some overhead to make any change which will include: Perhaps the best option is to leave well enough alone and avoid this extra work, as long as there is some kind of consensus that that is what we want to do.
 * Editing the grading scheme and getting the changes approved.
 * Template and category maintenance.
 * Update bots such as VeblinBot
 * Reassessing existing articles according to the new criteria.
 * Possible other tasks I can't think of.

The options are based on previous discussions but there is always room for new ideas or any I may have missed as well.


 * (1) Keep the current system--Pros: Does not require any effort (at least in the short term), people at WPM are already familiar with the system. Cons: Confusing for people outside or new to WPM, people use incorrect ratings due to this confusion.


 * (2) Adopt standard system by adding C-class and merging B+ with something else.--Pros: B+ is already very small (<100 articles). Cons: Need to re-evaluate Start class articles to decide if they are C-class.


 * (3) Adopt standard system by mapping B to C and B+ to B.--Pro: Does not require re-evaluation, mapping can be done with a bot. Con: Existing B articles are mostly B class by WP-wide usage and would be changes to C.


 * (4) Just insert C-class into the current system--(Added per discussion) Pro: Current articles do not need to be reevaluated right away. Con: Still not the WP standard.


 * (5) adopt standard system by adding C-class and merge B+ with B.

--RDBury (talk) 19:04, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
 * What about the following option: keep B and B+ essentially as they are (perhaps with minor modification in their descriptions) and add an additional C class rating. As a practical matter, doing that would seem to be easier than implementing the other options you mention. Nsk92 (talk) 19:12, 23 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Exactly what I was thinking. I had never even considered the other proposed options.  Why complicate matters needlessly? Kevin Baastalk 19:27, 23 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Adopt the C rating - i.e. start using it. next time you asses an article, consider class c as an option.  that's it.  Pros: every reason why we're discussing this in the first place.  Cons: none


 * Thanks for adding that. I would argue that it is the WP standard, just with a lot of only partially assesed articles. keep in mind that when the WP 1.0 standard added teh c-class, all projects that adopted it were considered to have adopted the standard even though they didn't have barely any articles in the c class.  likewise when a and b class first started out no project had any articles in them, but all were considered to have "adopted the standard".  Point is there's a difference between adopting a standard and having every single article already assessed by it.  also, remapping the classes as in the third proposal would result in non-standard classes -  it would be a different system all together that happens to use the same names as the standard system, but (confusingly) to represent different article qualities than the standard. Kevin Baastalk 19:43, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
 * In any case I throw my support behind "Just insert C-class...", ofcourse. Kevin Baastalk 19:46, 23 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I vote for change the current system, in particular, I prefer the option adopt standard system by adding C-class and merging B+ with B. We definitely need something between Start and B, and B+ is a class that is both non-standard and I personally never feel comfortable rating an article B+. B is the standard I aim for when writing a decent, usable article on Wikipedia. If an article is beyond just decent, then it should be nominated for GA or A-class. B+ doesn't seem to serve a purpose. --Robin (talk) 19:53, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I am basically in favor of option (4) (add C rating to the current math rating system), with option (5) (option 4, plus merging B+ into B) as a second choice. As a practical matter, our existing class B is already pretty close to what most other wikiprojects mean by a B rating, and our B+ rating is little used. However, many of our "start" rated articles probably would qualify for a C rating. If a math C rating is introduced, I would not leave it to bots to change existing ratings; I think it would have to be be done by live people after looking at the articles. The only reason I prefer option 4 to option 5 is that, as a general management matter, it is better not to introduce too significant changes at once. If we add a C rating then, after a period of time, it will become more clear if maintaining a separate B+ rating is useful. But, in principle, I am OK with option 5 as well. Nsk92 (talk) 20:13, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Same here, regarding option 5. Kevin Baastalk 20:27, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I like the idea of just adding C class for now with an eventual goal of doing something about B+. I can see the reason for B+; basically the GA system does not work very well for technical subjects because it requires people who aren't specialists in the area to do the review. Going straight from B to A is allowed but this project doesn't seem to be big on doing A reviews. So it seems there is a need for "better than B but still needs review". But the problem with this is that if fixes the symptom rather than the problem; if GA doesn't work for math then skip straight to A, if the A review process is broken then work on getting people to participate in it. Be seeing as how these problems won't be solved overnight maybe it's better to do what we can now ("Low hanging fruit") and worry about the rest later.--RDBury (talk) 21:14, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
 * It should be noted that adding a class isn't really free, the bots that maintain the categories and tables would need to be updated and that would seem to fall to User:CBM.--RDBury (talk) 21:55, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
 * You are certainly right about that, there will be some work involved. I have left Carl a message at his talk page, hopefully he'll comment here. Nsk92 (talk) 22:04, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

As long as I have some lead time, I can adapt VeblenBot to the any system. I am actually thinking about reworking VeblenBot's lists anyway, because they are quickly becoming too long to fit into wiki pages.

Regarding the change, I would rather see that C class simply added over seeing the B+ class removed. The new WP 1.0 bot fully supports the B+ class, so it appears in our ratings tables just like any other class would. And there is a benefit to being able to mark articles as B+ class, particularly when for pages that are not going to GA review.

I disagree with Robin that articles beyond B class "should be" nominated for GA; I avoid that system entirely and have no desire to use it. A-class would be reasonable, but our A-class review is not very functional. B+ gives us a way to separate the "top of the B" articles from the rest. It is the level I would aim for in the articles I work on, although they are not all there yet. Later this year, I want to discuss how to make the A-class rating actually usable. If A-class was functional, we could merge B+ to that.

My main concern with C class is that it isn't clear to me how the separation between Start/C/B should go, while it is quite clear to me how Start/B should go. I think there is no benefit to making the ratings system overly fine, when the ratings are already relatively ill defined. That is, with a Start/B jump we only have to make a decision one time about when to change the assessment. With Start/C/B we have to do it twice. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 01:00, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
 * My feeling is that the current system (without a C class) is too coarse since the gap between "start" and "B" is fairly big. Introducing a C class will make it easier to give more accurate ratings without making the scale too fine. A "start" class is for something that is not much longer than a stub and requires considerable expansion. A "B" rating is for articles that are, in some basic sense, complete, with reasonable structure and no major omissions. A great many articles fall somewhere in between: they provide a reasonably informative and sufficiently detailed treatment of the subject but still require expansion on some significant aspects of the topic and possibly have some significant stylistic or structure issues. There is another consideration to keep in mind. Most other projects have already introduced or are introducing C rating. So many (if not most) editors will expect Wikiproject Math to have one too and will automatically assume that we already have C rating. Such users, when rating math articles, will often rate them as C class. E.g. this has recently happened to one of the articles that I created and, I am sure, this will happen more often as time progresses. Nsk92 (talk) 01:23, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not a believer in "we have to do it because other people will try to use it". Ratings are fundamentally a project-specific thing, and we should choose whatever system is best for us. We could make flashy warnings when people try to use "C" as a rating, but right now the template handles it silently by just assigning the "start-class" category. It's not hard to make lists of incorrectly-assessed articles and fix them. I am almost done with a sweep of math ratings, actually, in which I resolved over a thousand incorrectly tagged articles. So a few more here or there aren't a big deal.


 * I don't think that B-class articles are, in general, fairly complete. They don't have major gaps, but they almost always are lacking in minor details. So Start means "has at least one major element" and B means "has essentially all major elements", while B+ means "has all major and most minor elements" and A means "essentially complete". That leaves C in some middle "has some major elements but not all" – that's not really very different than Start as far as I can see, and it's not obvious to me how to split the Start/B distinction to get it. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 03:05, 24 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I think the criteria given at Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment are pretty detailed, so I don't see why they can't be adapted to the math project. We could argue whether is really better if have a C class, but given the confusion it causes to have an idiosyncratic system causes we should really have a clear cut reason having one.--RDBury (talk) 04:48, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Exactly. Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment provides both short and detailed descriptions of various grades which are, IMO, fairly clear. Additionally, as I have noted, many (possibly most) users will assume that we already have a C class anyway and will start using C class when rating math articles; there is evidence that this is already happening. Nsk92 (talk) 11:08, 24 February 2010 (UTC)


 * The definition of C-Class there is not very detailed; it comes down to "better than Start-Class but not yet B-Class", which we knew already. I have no idea why the example there is "C" class instead of "B" class.  On the other hand the rules of thumb at WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0 are pretty clear: a B-class article has the majority of topics covered and is useful to a significant number of readers. I honestly don't have a good sense of where C falls between that and Start-Class


 * I think that the C-Class thing is really trying to downgrade most of the articles which we consider B-Class to C-Class. I would rather see an A-Class rating for articles that are in near-ideal form.


 * It's not actually a serious problem if other people try to use C-class when it doesn't exist; we can just fix the ratings when they appear. The purpose of the tags is for people within the project to use them. It doesn't make much difference if people who randomly tag one or two find them confusing. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 11:37, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
 * From my understanding it will be doing more upgrading from start than downgrading from B. There are a lot of articles in "start" right now that are clearly much more than a "start".  But if you don't feel comfortable giving an article a C rating, you don't have to. Kevin Baastalk 13:57, 24 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I can understand having issues with C-class. The Stub-Start-C-B-A system is not one I would have picked myself but it is workable and it causes less confusion all around if everyone is consistent. Last November there were over 50 math articles mislabeled as C. Right now what happens is that they get mapped to Start class. I'm not sure if anyone has been trying to clean them up but it indicates an on-going problem. Two articles I've worked on, Curve and Ratio I would change to C right now if the option was available. So unless there is some consensus in WPM that C is harmful (which appears not to be the case) I vote to allow C as a rating.--RDBury (talk) 17:29, 24 February 2010 (UTC)


 * My opinion would be to add C rating, leave B+. Yesterday, I was going through some unrated articles, and there were certainly times when I wanted to give a rating between start and B. As for B+, I would like to think of it as a rating for an "A" article that has some style issues (i.e. it is "fairly complete", but otherwise not an "A" article), though I guess I don't know that that's how it is currently used here. RobHar (talk) 19:36, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Please review seriousness v. proposed deletion as parody of new article Names of small numbers at Articles for deletion/Names of small numbers
Mathematics WikiProject members, please, this is being discussed at:

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Names of small numbers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Names_of_small_numbers#Names_of_small_numbers

Thank you. Pandelver (talk) 00:02, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Revised this item's heading for easier links Pandelver (talk) 00:06, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Bplus-class
Hey there! I'm from WP Elements, and we want to start using Bplus-class for our articles, but without any idea how to introduce it. I noticed you use it, so could you help us to do it? Help is surely appreciated--R8R Gtrs (talk) 09:43, 16 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm not au fait with the internals. I just wonder why you'd want the bother of being different. In maths a lot of contributors just can't be bothered with all the FA GA stuff so this is more for internally setting the scale. I'd have thought the elements would be something that you could get through those sorts of processes much easier and get them featured on the front page and suchlike goodies. Dmcq (talk) 10:04, 16 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, but we're also much smaller than this project. And yes, it's planned to be an internal thing as well. So, if anyone could help, it would be very sweet--R8R Gtrs (talk) 10:23, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
 * For the technicalities you would need to modify your project banner template to allow for Bplus as well as creating the appropriate categories. Template:WPBannerMeta/doc seems to be the appropriate part of the documentation. I'd advise sticking with the standard Template:WPBannerMeta template as the base template for your project template. The hardest bit may be to get any pages which need summary information of number of Bplus class pages, you might need to get a bot for that.--Salix (talk): 13:03, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Overestimation of stubs
Crossposted from Category talk:Mathematics stubs: Several times I have seen articles classified as stubs that had multiple refs and multiple sections. Each word is a separate link, by the way. These examples came from a tiny section of the first page. If I were a member of the Mathematics project, I'd reassess all these so we'd know how many stubs we really have. That said, I don't know what the standards are and I don't want to step on anyone's toes.

Addendum: Are articles reassessed at regular intervals?--Rmky87 (talk) 04:31, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Go ahead and remove stub tag and change the rating as you have done at Absolute Galois group. Anyone can reassess articles using the criteria overleaf. We don't have a formal reassessment process.--Salix (talk): 07:25, 3 July 2012 (UTC)