User talk:David Eppstein/2014c

This is an archive of past discussions with User:David Eppstein. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Peter Lynds

Hi -- Thought you might be interested in this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Peter_Lynds#NPOV_tag --75.83.65.81 (talk) 00:04, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Hi David. I see I had the same idea. It would be very helpful if you could take a look at this article and its history. In a nutshell, there is quite a bit of undue content promoting the (unpublished) views in physics of this person. I've attempted several times to redact this content and to add a source (from a peer-reviewed journal article), but the article is being guarded aggressively (a new SPA has already been blocked once for repeated reverts). It has already been at the BLP noticeboard as well (my edits restored by a disinterested editor), but these have been reverted yet again. I think we're at an impasse. Your assessment would be extremely helpful. Agricola44 (talk) 23:07, 5 July 2014 (UTC).

Hi David. Please read my comments on the talk page. I think there are good reasons to hold on to the original, stable version while we talk through the issues. SamW2 (talk) 23:37, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi David. I think your action and comment was really unfair. I'm trying to do this in good faith, and now this. What is crankery about it? What exactly is wrong with the text? Please be specific. SamW2 (talk) 04:54, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi David (again). I remind you of your edit summary. "Revert continued edit warring and POV-pushing by SPA. Despite the edit summary he continues to put back non-notable writings and rewords to make this crankery sound more mainstream. Protection needed?" That followed an edit by myself in which, in good faith, I tried to make you happy by removing some material (crazily, I actually thought it would). That followed an edit by myself in which I tried to merge the conflicting edits of Agricola and myself, to which you said, "Still no. Far too much material of the form "X wrote a paper" which is just not noteworthy." Clearly Agricola has a negative bias towards Lynds work. He wants the page to be negative and also deleted. It's now evident that you hold a similar bias. I've asked what exactly is wrong with including a short mention of Lynd's other work on his BLP page, as it's obviously relevant to it, and have justified doing so on the talk page, though just a quick google search should really be enough. These other papers seem to have received a good amount of attention. Arxiv papers also seem to be fine for BLP pages, as thousands of other BLP pages will show. No one has given me a valid reason why this material shouldn't be included or why it's NPOV. As an admin, you're now threatening to protect a page from editing from me and calling me pov pushing, while Agricola and yourself are clearly pushing a negative POV, and as far as I can tell anyway, I'm the only one who is willing to properly enter into a give and take discussion about it. So, again, what exactly is POV pushing about the text when these papers are clearly relevant to the subject (Peter Lynds) and have received a good amount of attention? SamW2 (talk) 02:37, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

SYSTOR

Hi David.

Yesterday, I tried to add ACM SYSTOR to the "List of computer science conferences". I see that you removed it.

What do I need to do in order to get it back?

Thank you very much, Doron ([email protected]) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.110.40.7 (talk) 09:29, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

What you need to do is (1) find reliably published sources that are completely independent of SYSTOR that describe it and its impact, and (2) include those sources as references when you add it. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:51, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

All concerns are addressed

AjoChhand Machine

All your concerns are addressed, all references are added, please check the publications, those are all highly reputed peer reviewed journal, why do not you see the changes. I am surprised, that you come online and just deleting everything even though your own concerns are respected. I am shocked and surprised.

Help Desk

A thread has been opened at the WP:Help Desk concerning AjoChhand Machine. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:14, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Deletion

The author of the article is stubborn. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:21, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry

I have requested a sockpuppet investigation. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:11, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Long time no see

Hey, your Ogilvy hook calls him a "mathematics author" -- that sounds kinda odd. How about "mathematician and author"? Template:Did_you_know/Preparation_area_2 EEng (talk) 15:08, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

If you think that sounds better, it would be ok with me. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:49, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Thx. Hey, maybe you can suggest something at Template:Did you know nominations/100 prisoners problem. EEng (talk) 16:37, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

DYK for C. Stanley Ogilvy

On 9 July 2014, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article C. Stanley Ogilvy, which you recently created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that mathematician and author C. Stanley Ogilvy was an avid sailor who frequently competed in the Star World Championships? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/C. Stanley Ogilvy. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, live views, daily totals), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Gatoclass (talk) 05:51, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

A Barnstar for You!

	The Working Wikipedian's Barnstar
	For a sequence of consistently helpful contributions to AfD debates. Keep up the good work! RomanSpa (talk) 08:06, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! —David Eppstein (talk) 16:13, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Olry Terquem

Merci! I was not paying attention at all, apparently. The webpage I found it on was in French, but I can't blame a lack of that language because the dates of birth and death don't even match up. Gamaliel (talk) 04:40, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

No problem. I almost made the same mistake myself (with the same webpage) earlier, so I was alert to it when I saw it a second time. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:11, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

DYK for Olry Terquem

On 28 July 2014, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Olry Terquem, which you recently created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that 19th-century French geometer Olry Terquem, writing as "Tsarphati", was an outspoken advocate of the Reform movement in Judaism? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Olry Terquem. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, live views, daily totals), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

The DYK project (nominate) 03:23, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Thank you sir

Sir, I thank you for reverting my recent edit here [1]. Am facing a challenge on the article sir. The article was proposed for deletion by Demiurge1000 (talk · contribs) despite all the good reference from reliable sources I added sir. In my WP:NPOV The article is far better than this [2]. Compare the two article sir. I reali want you to help me on [3] sir. I don't want my selfless effort to be futile sir. Thanks in anticipation sir Wikicology (talk) 19:54, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

That's a WP:OTHERSTUFF argument. You're also WP:CANVASSing. You also haven't yet provided an apology or retraction for this allegation about another editor made without evidence.

As for Sola Olorunfemi, the article relies entirely on primary sources, and associate professors are not normally considered notable. I wonder if being "editor-in-chief of Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences" gets around that problem. If not, that article too may need to go to WP:AFD. I've de-puffed it slightly in the meantime. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:42, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

References at abc conjecture

Dear Prof. Eppstein, I saw all my references were removed by you. I added refinement of abc conjecture and those links were broken now. I'm wondering if you particularly don't like these two sources. The result of Robert and Tenenbaum is on the distribution of square-free kernels(in the language of article, radicals) using the stationary phase methods. With this understanding, Robert, Stewart and Tenenbaum recently made a precise conjecture on this subject. Here is the link to the first paper in mathscinet. [4]

I also added a link to preprint paper. It is not a permenent DOI, but still it is Prof. Tenenbaum's webpage I believe, and is pretty official in my view. [5] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.162.206.111 (talk) 09:39, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

There were two issues with your edit which caused me to undo it. First, you added the citations without using them as sources for anything in the article itself, so I didn't think the addition would be particularly helpful for the readers. (I was later pointed to an edit you made before this one where you did use the citations as sources, but I didn't see them at the time because they were not part of the edit where you added the citations themselves.) And second, they are brand-new papers, in one case not even really published yet. Our policy on self-published sources allows for preprints from recognized experts, but as a new primary source it is too new to have accumulated enough citations from other people that would allow us to judge the impact and significance of these works. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:11, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, these authors were recognized experts. For one thing, C.L. Stewart already appeared three times in the reference, and G. Tenenbaum is pretty well known in this field; at least he has 150 papers and 1200 citations only in mathscinet. [6]. But I see the point. I'll come back to this when things are published. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.223.214.199 (talk) 02:13, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

I do agree with that. Tenenbaum, at least, is notable enough for his own article here, Gérald Tenenbaum, so I think it's clear that he is indeed a recognized expert. It's less that and more the primary nature of the source that I was concerned with. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:07, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Formal English

The exclusion of any semantics is an unnecessary constraint for a formal language. Formal languages also include sets of strings of symbols that constrain the strings to strings that also occur in natural languages. Gellish Formal English is an example of such a formal language. Please restore the deleted extensions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ASHPvanRenssen (talk • contribs) 19:26, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I think you want formal language to be about a different subject than it actually is about. Maybe you should figure out what that different subject is actually called and put this content there. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:42, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Looks like you found it? I see you added a hatnote to the formal language article linking to Formal semantics (linguistics), which seems more appropriate. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:59, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Reviving the WikiProject Computer science

Hi! I've noticed that the WikiProject Computer science is inactive. I would like to revive it, to improve the coverage of the field. As you know Wikipedia better than I, I would be very grateful if you could give me a hand or some advice. I have summed up my plans on the talk page of the project. Thanks a lot! --Pintoch (talk) 16:31, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

The more-active WikiProject I'm most familiar with is WikiProject Mathematics, but the activity I pay attention to there isn't organized group editing activities — it's more a culture of active discussion on the project talk page and a few bot-maintained maintenance lists (notably Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Current activity and Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Mathematics/Lists). —David Eppstein (talk) 19:28, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

These two lists look very useful indeed, I will try to see if I can get something similar for computer science. Thanks! -- Pintoch (talk) 14:02, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

AfD strike-throughs

Thank you for adding miscellaneous templates to AfD/Vivek Kumar Pandey (2nd nomination). I'd been going to do the same, but sloth prevented me.

However, I wonder about your deletion of:

Keep. As a Cadet and Scientist he is position holder: He visited ICTP, Italy in August, 2004 as visiting scientist to join the course on climate dynamics and he is also position holder in 96 Uttar Pradesh Battalion (UP BN), Jaunpur and thus the Varanasi group of Indian NCC (Army Wing) in 2007.

(plus its markup). I've already twice removed the strike-through (except for the initial "Keep"); I could do it a third time, but this might look like edit warring; plus I can't get so worked up about the matter; plus you're an admin so you should know what you're doing. As an admin myself, I too should know what I'm doing; but sometimes I don't. Indeed, I start to think that here I might actually be wrong -- this has happened on occasion in the past -- and so I pop up on your talk page not to complain but to ask. The reasoning presented for this would-be vote seems IMHO utterly worthless; but (as it's not offensive, libelous, etc), surely this is by the way. While concision is a virtue, somebody who has already "!voted" is able to present additional supporting/opposing arguments later; so all in all what's the inappropriate/objectionable material here other than the dupe opening word "Keep"? -- Hoary (talk) 01:10, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

The reason I did it was that, if I'm not being careful reading an AfD, a struck-through "Keep" with non-struck text looks extremely similar to a normal Keep. The strike-out really isn't very obvious when it's on a short word in a bold font that appears in such a formulaic way in these discussions. By striking the whole comment it makes it much more obvious that there's a repeat, while still making it possible with some effort to read the added text. But if you have some better way of showing the same thing, I won't object to it being changed again. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:13, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

"Keep", perhaps? - Hoary (talk) 09:18, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Sure, that looks much more distinctive. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:36, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Viewfinder (talk · contribs)'s behaviour

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.. Barney the barney barney (talk) 10:20, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

p = np

Hi, I was involved in editing p=np, I do not see why you feel a secondary source is necessary there. It's not like anyone will publish that a problem has shown interest outside of the core mathematical community, that's not exactly a journal worthy observation or anything. It is just something obvious from the fact that it is referenced elsewhere, and so those references are the sources. And even if you do think it is just random trivia, the page you cited specifically says that such sections should not be removed, they are better left there than just taken away (see the section about what the guidelines are not intended for). So your removals were unwarranted and I will do whatever wiki says to do next if necessary, so I just ask that you follow the guidelines given and put the section back. It simply detracts from the article to remove the section that shows its reach beyond the core mathematical community. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kyle1009 (talk • contribs) 04:03, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

See WP:OR, and compare the entry above the deleted ones that does have an appropriate secondary source. Without secondary sources we have no way of assessing the significance of these details to the plot of these works or the significance of these works in the context of the P vs NP problem. It is appropriate to use primary sources (the shows themselves) to source a plot summary in an article about the show, but not here when the very inclusion of the show in the article relies on an interpretation of those plot points as being significant somehow, and WP:OR warns us "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation." —David Eppstein (talk) 05:02, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

There is no interpretation given, what I said about that is explaining why the material may be of interest. As the section was written, it was a simple list of popular cultural references to the problem, with primary sources (the references themselves). Wikipedia does not support simply removing pop culture references like that, the page you cited shows that it is preferred to be more incorporated, but not removed entirely if not more incorporated. The material is cited and appropriate, it should be put back in.

Not without a secondary source, it shouldn't. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:00, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Like a hole in the head

Talk:Lobotomy#Further_discussion BTW, in the link given at the end there, it occurred to me to search for a Traveling Salesman "trope", but all that seems to get us is the farmer's daughter and so on. [7] Perhaps you can think of better search terms. EEng (talk) 18:16, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

TV tropes is one of those sites where you go in with good intentions of just looking for one thing and wake up hours later wondering what happened to the time. But I'm disappointed in the choice of quote the lobotomy link there used — I would have preferred this one: "Friend of mine had one. Designer of the neutron bomb. You ever hear of the neutron bomb? Destroys people - leaves buildings standing. Fits in a suitcase. It's so small, no one knows it's there until - BLAMMO. Eyes melt, skin explodes, everybody dead. So immoral, working on the thing can drive you mad. That's what happened to this friend of mine. So he had a lobotomy. Now he's well again." —David Eppstein (talk) 19:04, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

I always look only just before I absolutely must go urinate, so that my exposure is limited to the EPA-recommended limit of 5 tropes per day. This I've avoided addiction.

Actually, I was hoping you might comment at Talk:Lobotomy since this has been a regular problem there. Not that I'm canvassing or anything. EEng (talk) 21:10, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Jacob Barnett

Hi, it's not me that is opposing the use of the Skeptic source for the savant claim. I have no problem with it at all! Viewfinder (talk) 22:49, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I seem to have misremembered. It was Oleryhlolsson that made the edits that I was thinking of. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:51, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Neil Gaiman and Scientology

You reversed my inclusion of Neil Gaiman in the category Category:Former Scientologists claiming there is no "textual evidence" he ever was one. Actually there is - first of all the article itself says that as a child he referred to himself as "Jewish and Scientologist" but, moreover, there's this. Downwoody (talk) 04:03, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

The artcle says that his sister referred to herself as Jewish and Scientologist. Not the same. The interview is clearer but I'm not convinced that what he was coached to say at age seven really counts as his (former) religion. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:12, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

It strains credulity to say otherwise. If someone is a practitioner of a religion as a child, as Gaiman clearly was being in a Scientologist family and put forward as a model Scientologist child, and no longer practices by the time they are an adult (or even by late childhood) they are still a former practitioner of that faith. He says he is not a Scientologist, he does not say he has never been one. Downwoody (talk) 11:39, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

If you don't mind, I'm going to copy this discussion onto Gaiman's talk page. Downwoody (talk) 11:51, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Victoria Kaspi

As the originator of the aricle on VK you might be interested in commenting on her work (confirmation from Australia) about which I just read (in French) in The Atlantico

http://www.atlantico.fr/decryptage/astronomes-enthousiasmes-signal-radio-provenant-plus-profond-espace-1702737.html

LouisBB (talk) 06:50, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. Alas, my French is not good enough to read it easily in the original — Google translate is still pretty crude even for French to English, but it gets the sense across. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:55, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, my fault, I read it wrongly. The confirmation came from the Canadian side. They cite VK's article in the 10th July copy of the Astrophysical Journal LouisBB (talk) 07:36, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Infinity Cat Recordings

I was trying to make a Wikipedia page for Infinity Cat Recordings and Wikipedia told me that a previous entry had been made and deleted. I'm not sure what the previous page looked like, but Wikipedia suggested that I contact you about it. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Olive875 (talk • contribs) 16:20, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

I can WP:USERFY it for you (i.e. undelete it and move it to your User: area) if you'd like. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:37, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes! That'd be fantastic. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Olive875 (talk • contribs) 20:10, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

 Done Ok, it's at User:Olive875/Infinity Cat Recordings. I've enclosed the category and stub tags at the end of the article inside <nowiki>...</nowiki> because user pages aren't supposed to be listed in categories...you should remove that part when you're ready to move the article back into main article space. See also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Infinity Cat Recordings for the reasons this article was previously deleted (primarily: lack of independently published reliable sources covering the label in-depth as required by WP:ORG) and therefore what you need to address to make it more likely to survive if someone tries again to get it deleted. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:24, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. Except, I'm a bit confused since I am new to using Wikipedia. How can I remove that part? What are the steps I take? Will the article be available to be viewed by the public after I remove that part? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Olive875 (talk • contribs) 20:43, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

You remove that part by deleting the codes of the form "<nowiki>" and "</nowiki>" leaving in place the stuff between them. (This is in the standard editor for Wikipedia; I'm not sure exactly how it looks in the Visual Editor, if you're using that.) But no, that wouldn't cause it to become part of the public part of the encyclopedia; to do that you would need to move the page from your user space to Infinity Cat Recordings (there should be a tab near the top of the page labeled "move", or if you have trouble with that you could ask me to move it for you). I would recommend not performing such a move until you have addressed the concerns from the previous deletion discussion, because if you move it back into the encyclopedia in its current state it is likely to be quickly deleted again. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:05, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Just want to interject that no one knows for sure how anything looks in Visual Editor. That's part of VE's charm. EEng (talk) 22:01, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Ok, I deleted the <nowiki> parts. I do need help moving it. I think the page is ready to be moved because we now have articles talking about our label from several very credible sources such as the Huffington Post, The Guardian, and Billboard. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Olive875 (talk • contribs) 21:26, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Rather than just saying they have press from those sources, could you provide specific references to articles in those sources? Preferably they should also be used to document specific claims within the article. For instance, how do we know that the list of bands given in the article is accurate? Ideally, there should be a source for the whole list or for each entry in the list. See Wikipedia:Citing sources or Help:Introduction to referencing. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:33, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Alright, I wrote that all of the band names were "retrieved from the Infinity Cat website" and inserted a link which goes to the website that lists the artists. That works, right? They're all listed on there. Do you think that's enough information?

No. You still have a sentence "Infinity Cat artists have enjoyed national press from The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, The New Yorker, NPR and more". The phrasing of that comes across as very promotional and it's also far too vague. What I would like to see is references to specific stories in the NYT etc, with enough detail about the title, date, and author of those stories that other people can tell which stories you're referring to, used to source specific statements in the draft article. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:40, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Oh, wait. I see I've been looking at the location where I made the copy for you, not at User:Olive875/sandbox where you've been doing the actual editing. Sorry about that. The article is much closer to ready to move back into article space than I thought. Some suggestions for how you could make it better:

1. Instead of a list of all the artists on the label, it would probably work better to say that some of the artists on the label include ... and then only list the ones that have articles of their own. This is probably the biggest content issue that makes it look unready; the rest are more minor formatting issues.
2. Where you have just a url as a reference, include the name of the publication (e.g. The Guardian, title of the article, and date of publication as well. See Wikipedia:Bare URLs for why.
3. What is the difference between an external reference and an external link? Maybe you could have an "Additional reading" section that includes the seven things currently formatted as references at the end of the References section?

—David Eppstein (talk) 00:08, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. Ok, I deleted the artists on the label who do not have their own Wiki page. As far as your second point, I have put all of the References in the format that Wikipedia wants which is {{cite web}}: Empty citation (help) But for some reason the references don’t show up how they’re supposed to. Go to the page and see how at the bottom of the References section, the format for the Guardian is correct now but it links to different things it’s not supposed to. I’m a bit confused about this. Also, I changed it “External References” to “Additional Reading.” Maybe I should just get rid of “Additional Reading” and include those links in the “External Links” section. Thoughts?

Any thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Olive875 (talk • contribs) 17:20, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

We did it! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Infinity_Cat_Recordings — Preceding unsigned comment added by Olive875 (talk • contribs) 19:23, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Should have been Infinity Cat Recordings without the "Wikipedia:" part — I just moved it there. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:03, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

I've made some more cleanups to the article. Thanks for your effort on this — it ended up much better (and much more obviously notable) than the previous version of the article. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:45, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Quick question - In my sandbox, I have created a page called "Ed Scrader's Music Beat." I'd like to add an external link section with properly cited links to their official website, Facebook page, etc. However, if I try to do that, all of what's in my "References" section, moves to the "External Links" section. Why is that? Can you make it so that doesn't happen? Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Olive875 (talk • contribs) 18:22, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

You need to (1) use the <ref> markup only in the text of the article, not in the references section, and (2) use {{reflist}} inside the references section. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:29, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. I finished the page for a band called Ed Schrader's Music Beat. However, it doesn't seem to be public yet. I thought I moved it out of my sandbox... Help? Thank you! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ed_Schrader%27s_Music_Beat — Preceding unsigned comment added by Olive875 (talk • contribs) 16:46, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

You moved it into the wrong namespace: you should have used "(Article)", not "Wikipedia". The Wikipedia namespace is for essays and guidelines on how to edit Wikipedia, not for content. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:21, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Unforgetting L.A. edit-a-thon on September 6

Unforgetting L.A. edit-a-thon: Saturday, September 6 from 11am to 4pm

Dear fellow Wikipedian, You are invited to meet up with online magazine East of Borneo for an edit-a-thon to build a better history of art in Southern California. This next event in their Unforgetting L.A. series will take place on Saturday, September 6, 2014 from 11am - 4pm at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena (map). Beginners welcome! Please RSVP here if you plan to attend. For more info, see eastofborneo.org/unforgetting. I hope to see you there! Calliopejen1 (talk) - via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:39, 20 August 2014 (UTC) To opt out of future mailings about LA meetups, please remove your name from this list.

Your DYK re Jim Hart

I noticed your DYK was on its way out of the current nominations and have reviewed it. My DYK nomination, Template:Did you know nominations/Pierre Thouvenot is also sliding towards oblivion with plenty of commentary but no review yet. I hoped that you might reciprocate but understand if you're too busy. Best regards--Ykraps (talk) 09:39, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

It's pretty typical for reviewers to take a while to get to a nomination; it usually just means a delay. As long as you made the nomination in time it isn't considered expired. But if I find time I'll try to take a look. Thanks for the review! —David Eppstein (talk) 16:03, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Ah, well that's a relief. I was afraid that once it left the current nominations, it no longer qualified.--Ykraps (talk) 17:30, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

DYK for Jim Hart (artist)

On 25 August 2014, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Jim Hart (artist), which you recently created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that Northwest Coast artist Jim Hart is a hereditary chief of the Haida Nation? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Jim Hart (artist). You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, live views, daily totals), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:02, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

MathSciNet

David, would you consider listing in MathSciNet enough for a new journal to be considered notable? Thanks. --Randykitty (talk) 13:51, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Probably not. Their aim is to be comprehensive: every mathematics journal should be listed. But that means that listing carries little information about notability. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:57, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

OK, Thanks, I'll take this to AfD then. --Randykitty (talk) 16:02, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

David, would you mind having a look at that article and the AfD discussion? Based on the above conversation, I took it to AfD, but most people there seem to disagree about MathSciNet. The journal is also included in Zentralblatt MATH. Does that confer notability in your opinion? Thanks. --Randykitty (talk) 17:33, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Zentralblatt and MathSciNet are very similar to each other. Ok, I'll take a look. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:53, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Academia Europaea

Aleksandra NowakDear David, please do not remove items of Academia Europaea. I am Hub Manager of the Academia Europaea Knowledge Hub Wrocław (http://www.acadeuro.wroclaw.pl/index.php?mIt=30&t=Who_we_are). On formal request of the Executive Secretary, dr David Coates, I`m about to finish Academia Europaea subpage on wikipedia with all formal footnotes and citation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aleksandra Nowak (talk • contribs) 16:27, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Please (1) do not copy text wholesale from AE sites, or copy text without marking it as a quote from the site (2) make sure all information is reliably sourced to publications independent of AE, and (3) do not copy text from those sites either. Otherwise your changes are likely to be reverted again. Also, re your connection to AE: please see WP:COI. As someone closely connected to AE you should probably not be editing the article at all. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:08, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Dear David Eppstein. Dr Nowak is the manager of the Wroclaw Knowledge Hub of the Academia Europaea (The Academy of Europe)- we have three regional hubs. I (Dr David Coates) am the Executive Secretary of the Academy (of 14 years standing) based at our corporate HQ in London (21 Albermarle Street London W1S 4HS ([email protected]) . We are the Pan European Academy of Sciences Humanities and Letters and are incorporated in UK and also registered as not for profit Charity. We have over 3000 Leading European Academic Scholars as members (including many Nobel prize winners etc). Dr Nowak was asked recently by me to try to update the Wikipedia page which is years out of date and was not even created by permission of the Academia Europaea Board of Trustees in the fist place. It very inaccurate as it stands. (please see our URL www.ae-info.org). I will submit by email one of your permissions statements/authorisations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.49.58.194 (talk) 10:46, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

We do not need your permission to have an article. You do not have any ownership rights of an article here about you. And all articles here MUST be based on reliably published sources, preferably ones beyond the direct control of the subject. If there is inaccurate information about AE floating around, the solution is to get people to publish accurate articles about AE, and then bring those articles to our attention. It is not to try to edit the article yourself using only your direct knowledge of the subject. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:55, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

L.A. Meetup on September 21

The 20th Los Angeles meetup: Sunday, September 21 from 11am to 4pm

Dear fellow Wikipedian, Join us on Sunday, September 21, from 11am to 4pm at Kramer Studio in Mid-City (map) for a meetup and edit-a-thon! Get to know the Los Angeles Wikipedia community and do some editing (or learn to edit!) in a collaborative environment. Please RSVP and consider becoming a member of the SoCal task force to help us improve articles about everything in the region. I hope to see you there! Calliopejen1 (talk) - via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:00, 27 August 2014 (UTC) To opt out of future mailings about LA meetups, please remove your name from this list.

Decidability of the first-order theory of the real numbers

Hi. You redirected the article Decidability of the first-order theory of the real numbers to a section in Real closed field. In my opinion, this misses the point: The theory of real-closed fields is just ONE SPECIFIC special case of formalization of the real numbers. There are many more. Especially, people have been studying decidability of real numbers with function symbols such as sine or the exponential functions. This is NOT part of the theory of real-closed fields. Hence I suggest to revert the Decidability of the first-order theory of the real numbers to its original content, maybe adding some of the information from the model theory section in Real closed field. Nahabedere (talk) 08:14, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it is one specific instance. It is the specific instance that people call "the first-order theory of the real numbers". So it is the instance that is relevant for this redirect. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:34, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

What do you suggest? What about calling the article "decidability of first-order theories of the real numbers" or something similar? It may be the case that, when saying "the first-order theory of the real numbers" people often really have in mind the first-order theory of real closed fields. But clearly there is more than one first-order theory of the real numbers, and decidability of real closed fields does not cover this.

Nahabedere (talk) 21:03, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

If you have a reliable source that surveys different first order theories relating to the real numbers and their decidability, feel free to use it as the basis for an article. But with the definite article "the" in the title of this one, it seems unambiguously to refer to the theory of real-closed fields. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:15, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

undo at abc conjecture

Why did you undo my explanation at abc conjecture? :https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Abc_conjecture&diff=623732741&oldid=623688924 I read the reason why you deleted it on the history but I didn't understand where it is already mentioned with better source. You said "the abc conjecture itself just implies FLT with at most finitely many exceptions." I don't understand what you mean. You thought the proof is not complete proof?

And I don't understand what's "better" source. This is written in Japanese, but this is an academic paper. If it is written in Japanese, is it a "worse" source? You can see the proof at pp.11 on the paper.--ShuBraque (talk) 04:27, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

When you assume specific values of K and epsilon, you are no longer using the abc conjecture per se, but a strengthened version of it. It has been known for a very long time that the abc conjecture implies FLT for all but finitely many cases, as the article already stated, with Granville 2002 as the source. Your newer source just plugs in specific values to that known result and calculates that the finite cases that would be left are small enough to be covered by other arguments. You might as well say that FLT follows from the abc conjecture because the abc conjecture covers most cases and Wiles covers all the rest — it would be just as valid reasoning and just as fatuous. In any case, the main reason I undid it was that I didn't think a long section of technical calculations about Fermat's last theorem was particularly helpful as a way to get readers to understand the abc conjecture itself. What does one get from the proof beyond the bare fact it proves? —David Eppstein (talk) 04:38, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

I think "how FLT can be easily proven with abc conjecture" is notable and this is strongly related to the abc conjecture itself. I know it is strengthen version, but it is obviously related to abc conjecture itself. If you didn't like that I used the strengthen version of abc conjecture, then you could write "note: this is a strengthen version of abc conjecture." And This is not newer source. I cited the proof from the paper Yamazaki, Takao"Fermat's Last Theorem and ABC conjecture"(Japanese), "Mathematics seminar" Oct 2010 and I mentioned it on the abc conjecture though you deleted it. Moreover, when n = 3, 4, 5, it is proven by Fermat, Euler and Johann Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet. Not Wiles. Wiles proved the FLT for all exponents which are larger than two. But if the abc conjecture is correct, you can make the proof very easier and shorter.

"the abc conjecture itself just implies FLT with at most finitely many exceptions and is already mentioned with a better source" And what is "better" source? I used the academic paper which is written in Japanese, but is it "worse" source than English ones? --ShuBraque (talk) 05:01, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

altered the wording--ShuBraque (talk) 05:04, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

I said it already. Granville 2002. Also, is "mathematics seminar" a refereed journal? If not, how do you think it passes the criteria for sources in WP:RS? —David Eppstein (talk) 05:30, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it is. It is a very famous journal in Japan. Wikipedia has the page of 数学セミナー--ShuBraque (talk) 05:39, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry, 数学セミナー might not have peer-reviewing system because it is a journal for amateurs, I think. But it sure is a reliable and published source. Wikipedia is not a academic journal, so I think it is a reliable source enough. And I yet don't understand why you think the proof is not notable.--ShuBraque (talk) 05:50, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Plus, Takao Yamazaki is a professor of Tohoku university. --ShuBraque (talk) 05:54, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Even if you "thought" it might not be helpful for readers, why you could delete it? It is strongly related the abc conjecture and it sure is notable that FLT's proof can be very shorter and easier. Moreover, when n = 3, 4, 5, it is proven by Fermat, Euler and Johann Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet. Not Wiles. And I have source for it.--ShuBraque (talk) 06:14, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

My understanding is that the complete proof of the n = 5 case is due to Legendre. Regardless, it is as logically valid to say that the result follows from abc+Wiles as to say that it follows from abc+(K=1)+(eps=1)+(Fermat,Euler,Legendre). Which is to say that, after Wiles proved FLT without assuming abc, both of these combinations are equally redundant. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:23, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

It can be Legendre, but Dirichlet first began writing the paper which concerned FLT for n = 5. I understand you "think" it can be redundant after Wiles' proof. But Wikipedia is not academic journal. The readers are not scientists. If something is notable enough, even if it's already known, I think it is worth being written. If Wiles' complicated and long (but very great) proof can be shorter if abc conjection is correct, it sure is notable. If you still want to delete the easier proof, can you cite a rational reason why you can delete it from Wikipedia's policy? --ShuBraque (talk) 07:26, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

fixed the spelling mistake--ShuBraque (talk) 07:28, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Do sources have to be in English? No. Sources can be written in any language. However, if equally good sources in English exist, they will be more useful to our readers. If you need help verifying that a non-English source supports the material in the article, ask for help at Wikipedia:Translators available.

— Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources

I surely have the source and mentioned it as a source, but you deleted it. You claim what I wrote is redundant but I wonder if the claim has a rational reason. I want a rational source, which supports your redundant things, which is cited from wikipedia's policy. What policy allowed you to delete it? --ShuBraque (talk) 14:25, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

mAutomate page deletion

Request you to please explain the deletion of mAutomate wiki page. As I could see, the text has been marked as promotional. Contrastingly, I feel that it is written with a neutral point of view as required.

Can you state a couple of examples so that I could better understand the point which you are trying to make!

Thanks, Gurvinder Arora. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.112.90.150 (talk) 07:02, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

In the first sentence, "innovative and cost-effective" — see WP:PEACOCK.

The ending of the second sentence, "and much more!" — vague, promotional, more like what one would expect in an ad than a neutral description.

I could go on, but I think the point is made.

Even if you can succeed in writing from a neutral point of view, the article is not likely to survive unless you demonstrate the notability of its subject via multiple in-depth publications that are about the subject and independent of its creators.

—David Eppstein (talk) 07:17, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Movim

Hi, I'd created the Movim page a while back. It would be great if you could let me know why the page was deleted. I didn't find any comments indicating the reason for the deletion.

Thanks

Vanya (talk)

It was deleted through the WP:PROD process, so you can ask for it to be undeleted via WP:REFUND. The deletion rationale was not very informative — "Nothing to suggest this is notable" — but the basic problem is that the article didn't demonstrate notability thrrough in-depth sources that are reliably published and independent of the project. Instead, all its sources were either web sites associated directly with the project, or unreliable blogs. So if it is undeleted without fixing that, it is likely to be deleted again. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:48, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Personal attack in edit summary

You're free to discuss your reasoning on the talk page, but in doing so, keep the focus on the content, not on other editors. Your edit summary here is very inflammatory and out of line. Two editors have removed this, which means we have a content dispute. The next course of action, as you should well know, is to discuss this on the talk page. --McDoobAU93 16:45, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Robert Tycko

Hi, Professor. This one is out of my area of expertise: Per your previous comments in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Robert Tycko which was a unanimous "keep", I thought you might be interested in knowing that Robert Tycko has received a BLPPROD tag. Cheers! Location (talk) 20:46, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. I made some cleanups to the article and removed the BLPPROD. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:59, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Disjoint sets

Hello David, I saw that you reverted my change, and I do understand why, The problem I was trying to solve is that beginning a sentence with "almost" when it is being used as a label, rather than grammatically, is confusing. Of course I figured it out quickly, but clarity is just one of my WP pet peeves. I am going to try again using the language used for the page's main definition. Perhaps you could check to see if that is an improvement? Thanks, Lara Peacedance (talk) 22:02, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for not being put off by the revert. How about "Sets are called almost disjoint sets when their intersection is small in some sense" as a possible wording? —David Eppstein (talk) 22:07, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

September 2014

Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to Seeds (cellular automaton) may have broken the syntax by modifying 1 "[]"s. If you have, don't worry: just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.

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Probable vandalism

I think the problem we identified with Seeds, is one of repetitive vandalism by 109.157.226.163. I will tag their talk page accordingly. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 02:27, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Oh. It's that guy. I didn't notice the connection. That specific IP only made a small number of edits, all in that July timeframe, but the same vandalism was later repeated by 109.157.226.163 (talk · contribs) and 81.155.114.123 (talk · contribs). So I suspect tagging a stale talk page won't have much effect. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:03, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

It usually doesn't because they don't really care. There may also be a sock puppet here. However it alerts others to the fact that any later edits are probably not in good faith. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 02:35, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

DYK for Centered octahedral number

On 22 September 2014, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Centered octahedral number, which you recently created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that René Just Haüy modeled octahedral crystals mathematically as polycubes made of a centered octahedral number of cubes (pictured)? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Centered octahedral number. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, live views, daily totals), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:02, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Douglas Torr

Hi David, your thorough cleanup of this article left it without a reliable source, so someone has BLDPRODded it. Perhaps you can add a source? --Randykitty (talk) 14:31, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

John Dougall (mathematician) hatnote

You reverted my addition of a hatnote to this page leading to John Dougall. I have never come across an objection to such a hatnote before: they are certainly of use to some readers, and I have recourse to them often in work I'm carrying out now, which is why I added this one. I don't see that the case cited in WP:NAMB is particularly close. Charles Matthews (talk) 18:58, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

It is against policy to add hatnotes to articles that have a disambiguator in their title (and that don't have un-disambiguated redirects, and where the disambiguator is itself unambiguous). WP:NAMB is quite clear about this. Disambiguators have the purpose of assisting people who tried wikilinking to an article named "John Dougall" and finding a different person than the one they wanted (or who followed such an erroneous wikilink). Nobody is going to wikilink to "John Dougall (mathematician)" expecting it to actually go to the article about the actor or the one about the merchant. Hence, the hatnote is useless and shouldn't be there. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:21, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your view. I note that the section to which you link contains the phrase "this guideline doesn't prescribe one way or the other". Hatnotes of this kind are certainly not useless for navigation. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:06, 29 September 2014 (UTC)