User talk:David Eppstein

Archives

2006, 2007 2008a, 2008b, 2008c, 2009a 2009b, 2009c, 2009d, 2009e 2010a, 2010b, 2010c, 2010d 2011a, 2011b, 2011c, 2011d 2012a, 2012b, 2012c, 2012d 2013a, 2013b, 2013c, 2013d 2014a, 2014b, 2014c, 2014d 2015a, 2015b, 2015c, 2015d 2016a, 2016b, 2016c, 2016d 2017a, 2017b, 2017c, 2017d 2018a, 2018b, 2018c, 2018d 2019a, 2019b, 2019c, 2019d 2020a, 2020b, 2020c, 2020d 2021a, 2021b, 2021c, 2021d 2022a, 2022b, 2022c, 2022d 2023a, 2023b, 2023c, 2023d 2024a, 2024b, 2024c, 2024d 2025a

Hi, and welcome to my User Talk page! For new discussions, I prefer you add your comments at the very bottom and use a section heading (e.g., by using the "New section" tab at the top of this page). I will respond on this page unless specifically requested otherwise. For discussions concerning specific Wikipedia articles, please include a link to the article, and also a link to any specific edits you wish to discuss. (You can find links for edits by using the "compare selected revisions" button on the history tab for any article.)

Can I download images from Wikipedia?

The WP:10 says in the first rule that one can download images on Wikipedia for free. But what about the other images that are not intended to be domain public like this one or any other similar topic of that image? Will this be considered illegal if I, for example, download it anyway? Dedhert.Jr (talk) 09:57, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Downloading is not problematic. To show the image to you in your browser, it has already downloaded it. The question is what use you make of it. In this case, the image page shows multiple licenses, and your use must fall under one of them (not all of them). One of them, for instance, is the "Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license", which can be abbreviated as CC-BY. Under that license, you are free to make any use you want of that image as long as where you use it you state that it is under this license, credit the person who created it, and state whether you have made changes to the image. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:39, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please check for OR/self-promo

Weighted planar stochastic lattice, Mediation-driven attachment model, most probably authored by Hassan, M K; Hassan, M Z.

I found them during difusing of category:Graph theory and am tempted to AfD them. --Altenmann >talk 05:21, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question about revert

"the citation is only for the claim that Hypatia wrote in Greek; the source states that explicitly but does not describe the usage of different languages in that milieu" -> yes, that is the reason I moved the citation so that it is only after "Hypatia wrote in Greek," so that it does not cover "which was the language spoken by most educated people in the Eastern Mediterranean at the time."...is this incorrect? Yxtqwf (talk) 06:50, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I think I read the diff backwards. I have restored your edit. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:51, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Schröder–Hipparchus number

Regarding my edit (from 20:45, 16 April 2025) which you undid, I added the admittedly trivial step in the formula because, (a) it then more closely resembles the definition of the hypergeometric function, and (b) as it allows to make the formula given in the short description somewhat more aesthetically appealing. None of those reasons is strong, but I found the reasoning to be more transparent that way. Schreib70 (talk) 22:14, 16 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Schreib70 Sorry for butting in, but I think the additional of way you have put the trivial notation is somewhat not really helpful and adding more green bytes, especially confusing for those who does not know about how-to-differentiate-the-Sigma-notation's-index thing: it basically subtract one at both Sigma's indexes ${\displaystyle i=1}$ and ${\displaystyle n}$ while did the opposite (add) at the outside of the index variable ${\displaystyle i}$ of ${\displaystyle k^{i-1}}$. Or maybe I was wrong. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 13:41, 17 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What is a Jeep-mounted pump?

While I am interested in the article you reviewed years ago El Palo Alto, I could not describe what the "jeep-mounted pump" is. But the fact that it is "clogged and bent out of shape by high winds" makes me imagine it as a pump where water passing through the pipe goes up to the top of a tree. I could not find any sources that mention this exactly, nothing but books related to the redwood. A little clarify might be helpful, since maybe some audience does not know what it is. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 13:30, 17 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh wait nevermind about this one. I am foolish for not recognizing this is actually part of a fire truck thing. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 02:00, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Or fire jeep I guess —David Eppstein (talk) 07:04, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@David Eppstein By the way, I have found two other things in El Palo Alto I have removed anyway. It looks like there are some kind of a 2024 presentation considered as WP:PRIMARY and WP:SYNTHESIS, as well as the OpenHistoricalMap cited with a raw link. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 08:59, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

AfD for Jnl of Nano and Nano

Hello David Eppstein,

Regarding this discussion. I took a look at the sources that discuss the delisting of this journal. I notice in your ivote that you think these do not satisfy GNG.

So, I wish to point out that the Scholarly Kitchen is published by The Society for Scholarly Publishing. Here is the info for that. Although it is a blog, the opening paragraph on that page says in part that "The Scholarly Kitchen is a moderated and independent blog aimed to help fulfill [the society's] mission..." So, being moderated and independent by a set of scholars, wouldn't this be considered RS? Perhaps you have noticed something that I have not.

Next, is the Journal Citation Reports page here. I know that this is a case of the JCR publishing about its own product (the IF rating). However, JCR is a quality source and a reliable source. This may be a unique instance where we can count on the reliablity of the information on this page (so to speak). What do you think?

Also, I have found another source: Retraction Watch here. Yes, this is a Clarivate Analytics page, but again – it is high quality and is highly reliable. I am thinking that this is one of those cases where RS is indicated, although it doesn't fit Wikipedia's specific definition.

Same with the JCR above. I think this is one of those cases where an editor in good standing can say it is reasonable to call the JCR and Retraction Watch acceptable RS, for this unique situation (the AfD discussion). So, what is your opinion?

Regards, ----Steve Quinn (talk) 02:58, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Regardless of their reliability, none of these sources have the depth of coverage needed to satisfy WP:GNG. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:02, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

OK thanks. Your response does make sense. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 15:14, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Default image size isn'r 220px any more

Hi, re this revert. The default image size is no longer 220px, it has been 250px for about two days now. As I noted at Template talk:Infobox election#Accessibility (which might not be on your watchlist), |upright=1.35 is equivalent to 300px only when the user is logged in and also has 220px set as their preferred thumbnail size. For those people who are logged out, a recent change to the default thumbnail size, to 250px, means that the equivalent of 300px is now |upright=1.2 - if |upright=1.35 continues to be used, the effective width will be 340px. See m:Tech/News/2025/16 (currently posted at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Tech News: 2025-16 and some user talk pages). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:01, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The image policy said that the max lead image size was upright=1.35 and as a courtesy explained that this meant 300px by default. It is completely unclear whether, after the change to the default, we should leave the max lead image size as 1.35 or as 300px. That is why I reverted the change to image policy instead of just letting one of these two options take over without discussion or consensus. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:27, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think we'd better continue this at Wikipedia talk:Image use policy#Lead image size. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:33, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

removing infoboxes

You are removing useful infoboxes from non-BLPs such as Abramo Colorni. Please look more careful before you remove them. You in some cases also removed valuable information and images. Andre🚐 19:59, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I reverted the historical figures but I left Chen-Nee Chuah and Yan Rachinsky because they are BLPs, but, notice how you removed a ton of useful information and images? If you remove the infobox you should recreate it manually. Andre🚐 20:04, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We should not ever copy content from Wikidata. Its sourcing standards are different from ours, its information is not reliable, and Wikidata content is difficult to edit for Wikipedia editors. If you want the infoboxes, turn them into purely Wikipedia infoboxes by copying the content into Wikipedia, sourcing it propertly, and making sure that all content in the infobox is included as a properly sourced claim in the article text. Until you do, I am going to remove the bad infoboxes you restored, again. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:23, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a discussion or policy precedent? Those infoboxes were not bad. Please cite a specific example that was incorrect. You also removed many images. You are also reverting a revert of a bold edit. That is highly improper. I may wish to start a thread at ANI. Andre🚐 21:31, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like you also mass reverted my changes with no rationale using rollback. Are you saying my edit was vandalism? Andre🚐 21:44, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I boldly removed infoboxes regardless of how longstanding they were; it is you who are double-reverting and now triple-reverting my removals. You should be aware that you are in serious danger of violating WP:3RR.

As for past discussions regarding Wikidata inclusion for infoboxes, there have been many. Wikipedia:Wikidata/2018 Infobox RfC is a relevant starting point —David Eppstein (talk) 21:49, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What are you talking about? I have not double or triple reverted. Cite a diff for that. Andre🚐 21:50, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is a consensus that data drawn for Wikidata might be acceptable for use in Wikipedia if Wikipedians can be assured that the data is accurate, and preferably meets Wikipedia rules of reliability cite one example of something I restored that was inaccurate. Andre🚐 21:53, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

David Eppstein If what are you are trying to say is " I believe using WikiData WP:Synth", then why didn't you say so?, Also I wouldn't agree with that idea in this case Servite et contribuere (talk) 02:08, 21 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, synth is something else. Using Wikidata is relegating the responsibility for English Wikipedia content to people who are not acting as English Wikipedia editors. By doing so we have no hope of enforcing our content guidelines and policies, and we have little hope of tracking content there and making sure that if it ever was good it remains so. We should not do that. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:08, 21 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That is silly. You can simply go to Wikidata and check what reference is there. Using SUL, you can go edit the Wikidata entries. You have a responsibility to ensure you are doing this carefully and discriminately. Andre🚐 04:28, 21 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No. Wikipedia sourcing requirements are clear. Sources need to be given within the article itself. Even when a source is present in another Wikipedia article that is wikilinked within the claim that needs a source, it is not good enough. See recent discussion at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources § Citing when the source is in the hyperlink (transclusion)?. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:21, 21 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the thing to do per WP:V is to WP:CHALLENGE the statement if you believe it is unlikely to be verifiable, and the right thing to do if you are reverting infoboxes en masse is to consider what you should yourself restore that is easily verified. And if someone reverts you, give them a chance to restore the material, or tag it with {{citation needed}}. Also, in the cases where the infobox is summarizing material in the article body, per WP:INFOBOXCITE, if the references are in the article body, that is fine. You also removed images that probably have a fine license to illustrate the material. You should verify that you are actually not disimproving articles. Plus, as mentioned, you claimed BLP on 6 of 8 articles that were long-dead people. Andre🚐 06:28, 21 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You do go on, don't you. Please stop. You're not helping improve my opinion of your edits. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:38, 21 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you put half as much effort into editing as you do into arguing you would have done it already.

Take a look at that article. I wrote it. Take a look at my contributions. Do you think this is a polite statement? Andre🚐 23:18, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Notice of noticeboard discussion

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrative action review regarding an action which you performed. Andre🚐 21:48, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Lexicographic product of graphs

With all due respect for your substantial contributions to Wikipedia, please remember to AGF. At Lexicographic product of graphs, I appear to have missed it in the initial scan, but the article used parenthetical referencing, which has been deprecated on Wikipedia. Either way, I am merely being a WikiImp and adding maintenance tags to articles that I have added short descriptions to; have some little clicky blue footnote markers and Does that make you feel more pacified? Fnord. comes off as sarcastically telling me that my contributions are a negative asset to Wikipedia. Please consider refraining from using unnecessary edit summaries that may be interpreted as demeaning other editors, especially those less experienced than you. Best regards, it's lio! | talk | work 11:25, 21 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Expertise needed

Dear mr. Eppstein,

Your expertise is needed. On 22 April 2025 (02:19) I updated the article Implicational propositional calculus. My update got reverted with the argument that "I am missing the whole point which is to avoid using falsum (${\displaystyle \bot }$) in the formulas". Could you please verify that claim.

I have a more general question.

Currently, when I decide to update an article — see: Talk:Implicational propositional calculus#Substantial improvements needed — I simply make the change and then wait for any feedback or critique. Is there a way to submit a major update for collaborative review by a group of users before publishing it?^[1]

It is disappointing if a lot of work has been invested into an update, and some lone user reverts it because he does not like a semicolon. (In those cases I immediately resign if the user sticks to his guns.)

Some time ago you mentioned "consensus". I didn’t quite understand what you meant by that — consensus by whom, exactly? That group could review edits before publication.

––– Marc Schroeder (talk) 13:55, 22 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

References

1. In the German Wikipedia all edits are reviewed (“gesichtet”) — though I’m not sure by whom — before they are placed in line.

Cumulative density function has an RfC

Cumulative density function has an RfC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Trovatore (talk) 21:36, 22 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

NP-Hard Graph Problems and Cryptography

Hey David,

I'm a grad student at UC Irvine, and I’ve been following your Wikipedia edits for a while, especially your work on graph algorithms and complexity theory has seriously saved me during exams. Lately, I’ve been digging into lattice-based cryptography for my thesis and came across some recent papers by Professor @Amit Sahai at UCLA. He’s been exploring secure multiparty computation, and a few of his ideas on communication models caught my eye because they seem to tie into graph theory. It got me wondering if there’s an underexplored link between NP-hard graph problems and cryptographic protocols. For example, could the complexity of something like a graph partitioning problem influence how we design secure communication networks? Professor Sahai posted a research note on his UCLA site with more detail. Here’s the link if you’re curious: https://web-cs-ucla-edu.org/.

I’d love to hear your take on this. Do you think NP-hard graph problems could play a bigger role in cryptographic protocols?Thanks for your time, and looking forward to hearing what you think! Tudorx95 (talk) 08:09, 26 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is something everyone asks at some point, but the usual answer is that NP-hard functions are both too hard to have the special properties needed in cryptographic protocols, such as being a bijection, and too easy for many instances when we require cryptographic primitives to be hard in some more uniform sense over all instances. But if you're interested in the strength of cryptographic primitives, really the person you should be talking to at UCI is Stas Jarecki. It's not an area I've done any research in. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:13, 26 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Further removed categories

I removed the remaining "Israeli" categories on that BLP. Iljhgtn (talk) 00:32, 29 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. It's not impossible that she's also an Israeli citizen but we would need documentation of that before saying so. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:24, 29 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You are right. Iljhgtn (talk) 01:45, 29 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Women in Red May 2025

Women in Red | May 2025, Vol 11, Issue 5, Nos. 326, 327, 337, 338 Online events: New: Revolutionary women | Alphabet run I & J Continuing, year-long initiatives: #1day1woman | Music Announcements (events facilitated by others): WikiProject Women in Green - a Good Article editathon from 1-31 May 2025 Progress ("moving the needle"): Statistics available via Humaniki tool. Thank you if you contributed one or more of the 1,269 articles during this period! 21 Apr 2025: 20.090% of EN-WP biographies are about women (2,061,363; 414,126 women) 24 Mar 2025: 20.070% (2,057,083 bios; 412,857 women) Tip of the month: Those of you who experience harassment while trying to create or improve articles about women are welcome to bring your problems to our attention on the Women in Red talk page. Other ways to participate: Become a member. You can always opt-out of notifications. Join the conversations on our talkpage. Help us plan future events and add any general ideas on developing the project. Follow us on social media: Instagram | Pinterest

--Lajmmoore (talk 09:19, 29 April 2025 (UTC) via MassMessaging[reply]

Alphabet (formal languages): indivisibility

Concerning indivisibility of alphabet symbols, I'm not sure about the example in Free_monoid#Free_generators_and_rank, where the Kleene star is applied to a set of strings rather than symbols. (I just answered Nyngwang at User_talk:Jochen_Burghardt#Would_you_mind_elaborating_the_requirement_of_"indivisible"_on_wiki_page_"Alphabet_(formal_languages)"? before I saw your edit summary at Alphabet (formal languages)).

If the monoid operations aren't freshly defined by the Kleene star construction, they can be used before it, e.g. for defining an alphabet consisting of proper strings. I guess in formal languages theory we should require that no nontrivial equations hold between any two expressions formed from alphabet members and monoid operations (epsilon and concatenation). This would imply indivisibility (but also rule out e.g. epsilon as an alphabet member). - Jochen Burghardt (talk) 17:55, 1 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Upcoming GAR

I am worried that there might be upcoming GARs soon. I have cleanup in Addition a few days ago still not enough to satisfy the aforementioned criterias. Some old GAs might need pay attention as well. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 07:54, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's hostile and inconsiderate to open GARs without trying cleanup tags first. I do pay attention to cleanup tags on mathematics GAs and FAs over time but I can't do that if no tags are placed. I have said something to that effect on the matrix GAR. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:56, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sadly I think I should put the tag instead. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 08:11, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Notabilty on a mathematician

Morning @David Eppstein: I see this mathematician Roshdi Khalil has a note tag on the article. Do you think he is notable? He seems to have a bit of a presence but not fully sure. scope_creep^Talk 10:31, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think he is working in areas that are more citation-mill cargo cult mathematics than respectable mathematics, and for that reason am skeptical that he should be considered notable. But at the same time, because of the areas he works in, he has significant citations to his work, and it will be difficult to make the case that we should somehow not count the numerical evidence for WP:PROF#C1 notability. So this is one of those problematic articles that is likely to stay problematic rather than going away. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:55, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@David Eppstein: First time I've seen cargo cult used as an analogy in this context. But what do though, what to do. I see it was yourself that posted the tag and I've read the discussion. If that journal is suspect then his main claim is suspect. In these instances, if there doubt, then I'd send it to Afd, particularly if there is a note tag on the article. It needs to be resolved somehow. I'll leave it for the moment, and think about it in the morning. I would certainly draw some discussion. scope_creep^Talk 20:23, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

User:scope_creep - I've seen references to cargo cult physics, and physics is mostly applied mathematics, so I think I know what is connoted. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:00, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think the original is Feynman's essay [1]. What I meant is research publication that has all the trappings of mathematics, aimed at attracting citations (the planes will come), but without actually making any significant contribution to mathematical knowledge. It's a fine line to walk, though, because pretty much everyone believes that their subfield is important and some other mainstream subfield isn't, and petty jealousy between fields is very different than the phenomenon of doing trivial things but dressing it up in technicality. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:11, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Cargo cult for me was where the islanders in the Coral sea amongst others, waited for the cargo to drop, a learned experience during world war II from American pilots fighting the Japanese from their island bases. Once the American left, they still expected the cargo to drop and made every effort to make it appear, which never did. I hadn't read about it in this mathematical context and that address is dated 1974 (I was still in scholl) but got the core meaning of the message fairly quickly. Unfortunately the article wasn't something I would have been able to address at the time. It curious how been attached to mathematics. I thought it was a super obscure subject, only somebody reading up on naval battles in the south seas would have known about it. Probably widely known back then. scope_creep^Talk 18:39, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(Sub)spaces homeomorphic to the Hilbert cube

Hi. I noticed that you generalized a statement on this subject in Hilbert cube, but your generalization as written was a bit too general to be correct! I looked at the source you cited and corrected it, but it took a bit of rewriting. Here's what you wrote:

Any infinite-dimensional convex compact subset of ${\displaystyle \ell _{2}}$, and more generally every infinite-dimensional convex compact subset of any metrizable topological space, is homeomorphic to the Hilbert cube.

And here's my version, which is admittedly more clunky:

Let ${\displaystyle K}$ be any infinite-dimensional, compact, convex subset of ${\displaystyle \ell _{2}}$; or more generally, any such subset of a locally convex topological vector space such that ${\displaystyle K}$ is also metrizable; or more generally still, any such subset of a metrizable space such that ${\displaystyle K}$ is also an absolute retract. Then ${\displaystyle K}$ is homeomorphic to the Hilbert cube.

If you have any suggestions, I'm more than happy for you to implement them or discuss them here. Robin S (talk) 03:03, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Correction welcome; thanks! —David Eppstein (talk) 06:41, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

ANI

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is David Eppstein and Good Article Reassessment.Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 23:52, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Admin request re: a DYK typo

I'm here because you're listed as a recently active admin. There's a typo in the DYK section of the homepage. It says "Kilmar Armado Abrego Garcia ..." and his middle name should be Armando rather than Armado. Thanks for your help. FactOrOpinion (talk) 00:39, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry to have bothered you. I see that there's a place on the talk page to report errors. Regards, FactOrOpinion (talk) 00:47, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, in future WP:ERRORS is where to go for this sort of thing. It usually gets quick attention. Anyway I fixed the typo. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:52, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you!

		The Helping Hand Barnstar
		Hi @David Eppstein, at my first GA nom, your in depth review despite the article being in pretty poor shape set me on the right path to have many more successful nominations in the future. I don't know if I ever would have become a regular at the GA processes or even still be editing Wikipedia if it weren't for that. I didn't give you a barnstar at the time, because I don't think I knew what they were! So, here is one now. Thank you. IAWW (talk) 14:53, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome! —David Eppstein (talk) 17:21, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Edits to Nalini Ravishanker's Page

Hello David

I am Ann Maharaj (Ubadif) I have been trying you reach you about your comments regarding " references from unreliable sources" in my attempted ending of Nalini Ravishanker's page through the thread of the message you sent me but I have not yet received a response. Since all my references are from websites of universities, scientific institutes and journal and book publishers, I am confused as to why any of them are regarded as being unreliable. Please respond to my message in the tread where I listed the references again. I look forward to hearing back from you soon.

Regards

Ubadif Ubadif (talk) 03:25, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The part about unreliable sources is from a standard message used for instances like this. I don't think most of the sources you added were unreliable. The bigger problem, stated in my edit summary to the article, is with text that you added like "Mentoring students and young researchers are her passion, and she is a constant source of encouragement and support for statisticians across the globe who are in different phases of their careers." It had no source at all, and is largely promotional WP:PEACOCK text rather than being neutrally written and informative. Similar promotional wording is scattered throughout the text you wrote, with words like "renowned", "widely acclaimed", etc. Additionally, you added factual detail (the high school she went to, her position among her bachelor's degree class, her graduate fellowship) that were not based on any source at all. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:44, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, I get it now. Ubadif (talk) 06:24, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Edits to Nalini Ravishanker's Page 11 May 2025

With regard to your comments just now on my Ubadif talk page

Citations error:

Yes, I did use the visual editor. I did actually edit some of the information in the citations boxes so that could be the problem

For this comment from you with regard to the wet you indicated was an incorrect citation:

Ravishanker graduated with a B.Sc in statistics from Presidency College, Chennai (India) where she was awarded the Bysani Chetty gold medal for being the 1st ranked in B.Sc.. After her graduation, she moved to the USA to pursue a Ph.D. in statistics from New York University, where she was one of the early recipients of the Paul Willensky Scholarship Award. Immediately after her Ph.D, she was associated with IBM Research, Yorktown Heights as an independent consultant, and later as a visiting scientist.

I did sourced [2]   "Home | Nalini Ravishanker". nalini-ravishanker.scholar.uconn.edu. Retrieved 11 May 2025.

For this:

But none of the detail you have included about the medal, the 1st rank, the Willensky Scholarship, the work at IBM, etc., are there either.

These details are provided in the CV (Awards Honors) which can be located in the link to "About Me" on her home page. The fact that these details are in her CV which is published on the University of Connecticut website, ought to make this information authentic.

Ubadif Ubadif (talk) 07:41, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So use the CV as a source, not the page that links to the CV. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:43, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I tried to use the CV which is a PDF as a citation but I got a message that PDF pages are not acceptable as citations. Ubadif (talk) 07:49, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That is false. There is no prohibition against using pdf links as sources. Perhaps it is merely a limitation of whatever software you are using. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:03, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am working on a Mac through Safari, I will try again to maybe use Chrome. Ubadif (talk) 08:15, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Mathematician solves algebra’s oldest problem using intriguing new number sequences

I revived an old version of Norman Wildberger you have edited, after reading the news. You might be interested in his discovery. Regards, Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 12:32, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

AGF "promotional quote farm"

In early 2020 I did some work at Larry Guth, including some quotes in citations that I thought gave useful detail. Perhaps some are overlong, e.g. the one you removed today "In 2020, Larry received the Bôcher Memorial Prize of the AMS, for his "deep and influential development of algebraic and topological methods for partitioning the Euclidean space and multi-scale organization of data, and his powerful applications of these tools in harmonic analysis, incidence geometry, analytic number theory, and partial differential equations." Larry wrote about this technique in his book "Polynomial Methods in Combinatorics." He also received the newly named Maryam Mirzakhani Prize in Mathematics (formerly the NAS Award in Mathematics)." My intention in adding these quotes was informative, not promotional. My idea of a promotional quote would be something like "Handsome, rich, and prescient about the stock market, David Eppstein is available to give public talks for a 6-figure fee." HouseOfChange (talk) 19:17, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The point of calling it a quote farm is merely: we should not include extensive quotes from sources when those quotes are not necessary to provide verification for the material the source is used for. The quote I removed is entirely about awards Guth received and what he did to receive them. The part of the article that it was used as a source for claims only that Guth is a professor at MIT. There is no connection. And as a web page from his employer, it is too non-independent to be usable as a source for evaluative material about Guth's contributions rather than factual material such as his position or names and dates of awards. (Also, to be clear, none of those things about me are true, including the availability for paid talks.) —David Eppstein (talk) 19:46, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your point that the employer website isn't good source for "evaluative" comments is well-taken. Thanks for informative replies. HouseOfChange (talk) 00:26, 13 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is 1 the first or the zeroth power of 2??

Why was I taught that 2 was the first power of 2, 4 the second, 8 the third, and so on?? Georgia guy (talk) 01:26, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You're confusing two things. The second power of 2 is (2² = 4). But in that list, there was an implied "for non-negative values of n are..." which meant the first 10 powers correspond to n = 0 to 9. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:35, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The sequence of non-negative integers forms a sequence that can be indexed by adding one to the number, meaning that 0 is the first, not the zeroth, non-negative integer. Georgia guy (talk) 10:23, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It is a confusion between the use of numbers to count things or the use by value. When you say "first power of two" you mean the power with exponent one: "first" means "associated with the value one". But when you say "first 64 powers of two" you mean the initial 64 things in the sequence, which begins with exponent zero: "first" means "initial". If I had to talk about the power 2^0 as the initial member of the sequence of powers of two, using the word "first", I would say "the first of the powers of two" (2^0) not "the first power of two" (2^1), because "first of the" forces the positional rather than valuational meaning. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:42, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Of course the real problem is with English (and other natural languages) itself, which stubbornly refuses to do the right thing and start counting with zero. --Trovatore (talk) 17:06, 14 May 2025 (UTC) [reply]

The same thing can happen with everyday situations that are not particularly mathematical. If you are traveling along a road marked with mileposts, then the first milepost is the one at the start of your trip, when you have traveled zero miles. But the first-mile post is the second one, a mile later. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:12, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question: I am building a straight fence fifty yards long, with posts every six feet. How many posts do I need? If you answered "25", that's what we call a fencepost error. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:11, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To the original question: if we look at our article Cube (algebra), we find that 2³, or 8, is the third power of 2. More generally, Exponentiation says The exponent is usually shown as a superscript to the right of the base as bⁿ ... This binary operation ... may also be referred to as "b raised to the nth power", "the nth power of b" ... So, since 2⁰ = 1, it follows that 1 is the zeroth power of 2. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:11, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:MOSBIO has an RfC

WP:MOSBIO has an RfC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you.MWFwiki (talk) 03:19, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Notability as an author

The article Nick Salafsky does not convince me. Dclemens1971 removed a notability tag after pointing to two reviews, but then did not do anything more when I suggested that these should be added to the page to demonstrate notability (see Talk:Nick Salafsky). Since I noticed that you often check book reviews by scientists as part of AfD, I would appreciate a third opinion. Ldm1954 (talk) 13:42, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There are at least two independent reviews for each of his two books, see here. (That's four reviews if my math is correct.) As I told @Ldm1954 then, there is no obligation for new page reviewers to add sources to an article. We just need to verify they exist if they're not present. I strongly doubt this article would be deleted if nominated, but since Ldm1954 feels so strongly about it I recommend you do a BEFORE and nominate it. Dclemens1971 (talk) 13:48, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Community topic ban

Hi David. I have closed the ANI thread "David Eppstein and Good Article Reassessment" with a consensus for a 12-month ban from commenting at or about WP:GAR and WP:FAR. Please let me know if you have any questions. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 15:19, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Tamzin: Yes, please clarify. (1) How does this affect editing in article-space at individual articles subject to GAR, or potentially subject to GAR, such as the ongoing cleanup work I have been continuing to do at Matrix (mathematics)? (2) If I do such cleanup work on an individual article GAR, or intend to do such work, am I forbidden from informing the GAR participants that I am starting the cleanup or that I think I have completed it? —David Eppstein (talk) 16:56, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The restriction applies specifically to editing Wikipedia:Good article reassessment, Wikipedia:Featured article review, their talkpages, or subpages of any of those; or from discussing the good article reassessment process or featured article review process anywhere on Wikipedia. So to answer (1), it absolutely does not prevent you from editing a page that is subject to GAR or FAR, as long as you don't discuss GAR or FAR in your edit summaries or on talk. For (2), I think the common-sense answer is that it's fine to use the article's talkpage or an edit-summary ping to notify a user that you are working on it, or plan to work on it soon, but that should be a simple statement of fact, without any comments about the GAR/FAR process. That said, I'll caution that treading close to a TBAN, even a relatively well-defined one like this where there's not too much risk of accidental violation, often is difficult both practically and emotionally, and many editors find it easier to stay farther afield. One thing you may wish to consider is that any demoted GA or FA can still be renominated, and you are under no restrictions on that side of the thing. So, while it's up to you, personally if I were in your situation I would probably just wait for the articles to get demoted and then take them through GAN myself. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 17:15, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If that is "relatively well-defined", I shudder to think of what the Wikipedia community considers ill-defined. "You can work on fixing this, but if you say you think the fixing is all done, we'll boot you from the site."

On the other hand, nobody has convinced me that "GA" status actually means anything, and the only practical consequence of "FA" status is that some of them might one day get a day on the main page, so not caring at all whether an article has "GA" or "FA" status sounds like the better way to live one's life. 64.112.179.236 (talk) 19:14, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The value of the GAN process to me is in the pressure to bring the article to a state with no major problems, and in the collaboration between nominator and reviewer that it sets up, in the cases where the review is thorough and not just check-the-boxes. The GA status itself is valuable to me primarily as a way to set aside articles where I don't think continued improvement effort would be worth my time. New GAs can also be listed on the main page under DYK but that is secondary and for many of mine I have skipped that step as I thought the article was too technical to make a good DYK entry. Ideally I would like as many of my watchlisted articles as possible to be in the "good enough" state (whether marked by GA or no) so that I could concentrate my efforts elsewhere, but the GAN process is too slow for that to be a realistic goal. I have very little interest in or experience with FA so cannot comment on that. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:21, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Name and surname initials made lowercase

Please check what happened in this edit: Special:Diff/1287516389 to Fibonacci sequence on 26 April, which made first=sarah-marie|last=belcastro in the citation of "Discrete Mathematics with Ducks". --CiaPan (talk) 21:18, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You mean this edit. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:28, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

[ec] The first edit does not change the spelling of her name. I think you mean the next one. But anyway, that is the capitalization that she uses and how her name appears on the cover of the book. (For instance, this source writes "lowercase is the proper spelling of her name".) —David Eppstein (talk) 21:28, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Errera deltahedron

• [2]

You don't mind if I request for an image for the Errera graph#Chemistry ... or no? Dedhert.Jr (talk) 00:37, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You mean, like what you get from an image search for "c30" "fullerene"? I am not really set up to make 3d molecular images. You can get a view of the same graph by keeping only the black curves in File:Errera_Kempe_chains.svg but it doesn't accurately illustrate its structure as a molecule. You can get .xyz data from https://nanotube.msu.edu/fullerene/fullerene.php?C=30 (the D5h version) but I don't know the best way of turning that into an image. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:01, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I mean, the non-convex deltahedron image you use in your blog. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 01:08, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Polyhedral dissection of the errera graph

Here you go. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:18, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, and my apologies for asking this. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 01:22, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No need to apologize! All of the images that I made for the blog (as opposed to ones I copied from elsewhere) are ok to use on Wikipedia; it just takes uploading them, and that's easy. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:25, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Now I am curious. How did you create a simple one? I could think of Inkscape, but that does not fit very well. Did you use the code of Python thing again like the one you used in J51? Dedhert.Jr (talk) 01:26, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't remember the details for that one, but my usual answer is Adobe Illustrator. That might have been all I used. I'm pretty sure it's an orthogonal projection, making it a lot easier than a perspective projection, but if I used a script I would have made a perspective projection. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:29, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Problems and Solutions Section of the American Mathematical Monthly

Hi David, could you perhaps have a look at this journal article, I'm a bit at a loss here. Thanks! --Randykitty (talk) 07:44, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It would be a worthwhile compilation to publish somewhere other than Wikipedia. It is not a summary of independently sourceable material about this journal department and therefore is not acceptable as a Wikipedia article. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:22, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]