David Eppstein

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.)

Total coloring Comment

Hi, In the article Total coloring I was using WPCleaner to fix articles missing the reference section for inline citations. When someone puts an inline citation in and does not include the {{reflist}} then it throws the error. Thank you for making me aware of this issue as to the format. In order to avoid this error again for this type of formatting, please make sure there are no inline citations. This was not based on my personal preference, but by someone inserting the inline citation. If you didn't do this, maybe you can point it out to the person who did add it. Thanks, Bakertheacre ^Chat/_{My Contibutions} 20:54, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

@Bakertheacre: The footnote in question was added yesterday, not enough time for people watchlisting the article to notice the formatting error and correct it. In order to avoid repeating your mistake, how about YOU check the history to make sure someone else hasn't recently added a reference in the wrong format before blindly running scripts. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:58, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

I will take that into consideration. Thank you. Bakertheacre ^Chat/_{My Contibutions} 21:00, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Abstract Wikipedia

Rosie has drawn our attention to this development on the main WiR page. As you have usefully revealed many of the shortcomings of Wikidata and its comparative lack of reliability vis-à-vis Wikipedia, I would be interested (if you have time) to hear any comments you might have on what appears to be a major extension to its coverage firmly backed by the WMF.--Ipigott (talk) 11:47, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Revdel

I noticed this on my watchlist. Is your comment egregious enough that it needed to be deleted from the archives or is this a mistaken revdel? I don't know if there's a written rule against it, but revdeling your own edits looks kinda suspect. Natureium (talk) 15:33, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

It was because of an emailed request by the person mentioned in the suppressed edit summary. I didn't think it was likely to be upsetting when I wrote it, but that turned out to be mistaken. In any case I only revdelled the summary, not the edit itself. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:18, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

A second opinion on NPROF?

I've been doing a bit of AFC and NPP work lately and have gravitated towards academic biographies. Most of the time it's pretty easy to tell if they're notable or not but I've just come across this one and I'm not sure what to think: Mary L. Kraft. Her citation record is not trivial, but she isn't the primary author on most of them and it seems to be a highly cited field. The award does not appear to be of the sort that grants inherent notability. I don't want to send a bio of a woman academic straight to AfD without being sure about it, though, so I would appreciate an experienced user's opinion on this. Thanks, Spicy (talk) 20:39, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Her citation record looks like a pass of WP:PROF#C1 to me. Is the Avanti Lipids award the same as the Walter A. Shaw Young Investigator Award in Lipid Research? If so it wouldn't be enough to convey notability by itself, without the citation record, but it is still external recognition that allows us to say more than just that she wrote some well-cited papers. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:20, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your input, I'll mark it as reviewed and look into that award. :) Cheers, Spicy (talk) 21:27, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Sorry

Sorry for the mess in your user talk page yesterday. I was not well. Please sorry. Dennui (talk) 13:49, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Man, I learned how to create math bios from you (by observing)... Dennui (talk) 04:50, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Hiroshi Fujita. Please help? Dennui (talk) 04:50, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

It would be a lot easier if I read Japanese... Western European languages I can usually get by with Google translate, or in some cases sort of read them without. But Japanese is more difficult. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:53, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Okay. Thank you, man. I think you are awesome editor. 189.6.235.193 (talk) 04:55, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

What a coincidence...

@TakuyaMurata:

Please?

Draft discussion

Please don’t invite me to having a general discussion on the draft space and/or on the AfC process. I am not allowed to participate to the discussion and so I cannot respond in a meaningful way. As we both use real names, if you do want a meaningful response, let’s use e-mails. —- Taku (talk) 02:06, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

User Gumshoe2

I think this user has a lot of potential, he could be as valuable as R.e.b. ... Please could you give me a hand in his requests? Dennui (talk)

Well, he appears to be a professional mathematician from the discussion of his expertise, but are you telling me he has a Fields medal? (No, don't actually tell me his name or other details unless he reveals them himself on Wikipedia. We have very strong rules against WP:OUTING.) —David Eppstein (talk) 06:46, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

idk Dennui (talk) 06:53, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Recent active admin

Hi could you look at this I reported to oversight, but I saw you were recently active can you look through the pages relating to this user. Data in their pages might not be in their interest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sherlemious/sandbox PainProf (talk) 06:17, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Ok, deleted for now until oversight gets to it. They're usually pretty responsive in my experience, so it shouldn't be long. Thanks for catching this. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:25, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Warning

I shouldn't have to warn a regular. Do not purposely add false information to WP. Do not delete cleanup tags, as you did at Langley's Adventitious Angles, unless you've fixed the problem. Doing so could be taken as vandalism.

If you don't like my solution, fine -- create one of your own. But claiming that a quadrangle is only adventitious if a circle is divided into 360 parts is incorrect, and you obviously understand that it's incorrect. — kwami (talk) 01:06, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Maybe you could say 'when they are rational fractions of a circle', if that's not redundant. But they'd be adventitious for any integral-base measuring system. There's nothing special about 360. — kwami (talk) 01:10, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

And cut the bullshit about edit-warring. I didn't restore my edit after you reverted it. Tagging problems in an article is not edit-warring. You've been here long enough to know that. — kwami (talk) 06:24, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Do you agree that the set of angles whose measure is a rational number of degrees is the same as the set of angles whose measure is a rational number of gradians? —JBL (talk) 01:55, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Of course. And I would hope that most of our readers would understand that as well. But some of our audience is in middle or high school, and others are adults but without much formal education, and they very well might not. With the current wording, it would be very easy for someone to conclude that an adventitious quadrangle has something to do with the unit "degree", rather than simply having angles that are a rational fraction of a circle. Even if the only units of angular measurement in the world were degrees and radians, it would still be potentially misleading. It's very frustrating for readers to think they understand something, only to discover later that they misunderstood due to poor wording. If we're going to play the common-sense card, then there's no need for the parenthetical at all. But if we're going to include it, it should be accurate in its implications and not just technically true. It wouldn't take much effort to fix it. — kwami (talk) 06:28, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Your "If you're going to play the common-sense card, then there's no need for the parenthetical at all" is not doing much to improve my opinion of your WP:COMPETENCE. π is a rational angle, but is not a rational number, so the parenthetical "rational (when measured in degrees)" is necessary. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:31, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

But anyone who understands the one will understand the other, so why not be consistent? And if I am incompetent, many readers will be too, so it's beneficial to be clear in your writing. — kwami (talk) 06:37, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Ironically, I don't think your first sentence here is clear at all. What did you intend to mean? —David Eppstein (talk) 06:41, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

I disagree that anyone who understands one will understand the other: the phrase "rational angle" is not clear to me, and I'm quite sure that my typical calculus student would not understand what it means to say that an angle is a "rational fraction of a circle", nor anything with the word "gradian". --JBL (talk) 11:03, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

The obvious way to resolve this is through a footnote, where you can write one or two complete sentences without increasing the complexity of the main text. --JBL (talk) 11:08, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

I may very well not be intelligent or well-informed enough to come up with the proper wording, but that's rather beside the point. If the editors of the article, who are well-informed enough, are also not able to come up with a correct description, I don't see how we can expect uninformed readers to be able to understand an incorrect description. JBL, I would expect calculus students to understand "rational fraction of a circle", but if they don't, that just proves my point. But a footnote would of course be fine. — kwami (talk) 20:36, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

This conversation would go better if there were less muddling of "it is incorrect to describe the condition in degrees" (a definitely false statement) with "there is a misleading implication in using degrees, namely, that the measurement system matters" (arguable and subjective but not definitely false).
My calculus students would understand the phrase "rational fraction of a circle" as a description of an arc or of arclength, but the conceptual link between angles and circles is weak for them. I do not have any idea how this is supposed to prove your point. --JBL (talk) 21:41, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Courage

Do you have courage to invoke IGNOREALLRULES? Let's see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_permissions/Autopatrolled — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dennui (talk • contribs) 07:42, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	For being a good editor. ^^ I like how honest and competent you are. Dennui (talk) 08:16, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Another chance

To show you are made of iron: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_permissions/Autopatrolled MathKeduor7 (talk) 11:15, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The E=mc² Barnstar
		For all your work on women scientists articles :)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Kj cheetham (talk • contribs) 07:24, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! —David Eppstein (talk) 07:27, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

WaVL trees

Since you believe that Haeupler, Sen and Tarjan erred in using "wavl", not "WAVL" in their paper, and that Goodrich and Tamassia nave erred in using "wavl", not "WAVL", in their textbook, have you informed them of their errors so that they can be corrected in future editions and related publications? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.254.203.202 (talk) 07:42, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

"WaVL" is certainly incorrect. As for whether they erred: I think it is more a question of usage. Maybe they like lowercasing acronyms more generally. That doesn't mean we have to. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:48, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

We don't have to speculate about how they like to treat acronyms. We merely have to look at how they use AVL, the acronym, in the same paragraphs where they use wavl. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.254.203.202 (talk) 07:52, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Your draft article, Draft:Elvira de Lara-Tuprio

Hello, David Eppstein. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "Elvira de Lara-Tuprio".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been nominated for deletion. If you plan on working on it further, or editing it to address the issues raised if it was declined, simply and remove the {{db-afc}}, {{db-draft}}, or {{db-g13}} code.

If your submission has already been deleted by the time you get there, and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion by following the instructions at this link. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia! --TheImaCow (talk • contribs) 18:01, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Under-representation of Computer Scientists in Wikipedia

Nowadays every Tom, Dick and Harry who are in entertainment business have a Wikipedia page. Whereas, computer scientists with extensive media coverage and published paper do not get a Wiki page. I have a project in mind to change this dynamics and I was hoping if you would be interested to join. SomDey (talk) 01:03, 22 July 2020 (UTC)SomDey

I would rather limit my attention to computer scientists with extensive and well-cited publications, rather than the ones with media coverage and some publications. There are still plenty of those without articles. If you want to make the entertainment notability standards tighter, rather than making the academic standards looser, you might get more interest but that's an uphill battle. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:26, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Tagged for CSD

Per G4, I dont know if that’s appropriate Megan Barris (Lets talk📧) 19:53, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Might get quicker attention that way. I think the tag is ok. I would have speedied the article myself but I think my previous opinion on the 1st AfD makes me too involved. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:55, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

August 2020 at Women in Red

Women in Red | August 2020, Volume 6, Issue 8, Numbers 150, 151, 173, 174, 175 Online events: New: Indigenous women | Countries headed by women Interwiki collaborations: Interwiki Women Collaboration | Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos Continuing initiatives: #1day1woman | BLM/Anti-discrimination Ending August 31st: Sports (returning for the next Olympics) Help us plan future events: Virtual Ideas Cafe Join the conversation: Women in Red talkpage Stay in touch: Join WikiProject Women in Red | Opt-out of notifications Social media: Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter

--Rosiestep (talk) 18:50, 26 July 2020 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Nomination of Günter Bechly‎ for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Günter Bechly‎ is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Günter Bechly (2nd nomination)‎ until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Chris Troutman (talk) 20:31, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

A request

I would appreciate your thoughts on Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/King Girvan Yuddhavikram Shah. ~~ CAPTAIN MEDUSA^talk 08:38, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Request for Comment

Hi @David Eppstein: I wonder if you have a minute today to give your opinion on the talk page of how notable and what condition the article Derek M Yellon is in. @Dudewheresmywallet: doesn't believe it is notable, it is puff piece and keeps placing a notability tag on the article, which I have removed a couple of times. [[1]] Thanks. scope_creep^Talk 10:05, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Obviously very notable through WP:PROF#C1, probably also through #C3. Notability tag is clearly misplaced. COI tag is accurate but that was in 2017 and the article has been significantly edited by others since; that tag is supposed to be for cleanup, not a black mark that will follow that article forever, so once any necessary cleanup has been done it should be removed. Orphan tag is accurate and still valid (only one incoming article link). —David Eppstein (talk) 16:48, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Regular map (graph theory)

Re this reversion: So is abstract polytope, which lists hosohedra as an example of an abstract polytope, also in error? Or is this a definitional difference? -Apocheir (talk) 01:58, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Hmm. The property I thought was required, that every two faces intersect in a (possibly empty) face, or in partial order terms that they have a unique greatest lower bound, doesn't seem to be required by most sources on abstract polytopes. In any case they do obey the diamond property. So that revert may have been incorrect. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:35, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Notability advice please

I have been impressed by your policy clarity in AfD discussions, and I would really respect your advice about Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/H. Candace Gorman if you have time. The article was once in bad shape, and the article subject is a Guantanamo lawyer, but there has been in-depth coverage of her Guantanamo work and other stuff as well. Could you please just take a look at the four in-depth sources I mention at the end of the deletion discussion and tell me why I am the only person missing some magical reason that they don't show notability? Also, do you think 2 Chicago Tribune articles written 7 years apart that talk about different pieces of Gorman's work (1 Guantanamo, the other civil rights work in Chicago) should be counted as just one in-depth source about Gorman? Thanks if you can take a look. HouseOfChange (talk) 03:13, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Update: after AfD was re-listed more Wikipedians showed up, who agreed that there were 4 RS convincingly supporting GNG, so it wasn't deleted. HouseOfChange (talk) 17:51, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Koss

Hi, would you mind explaining your deletion? The section isn't opinion-based as in being a valuation of any sort, it reflects her own opinion, there is no valuation given for the quotations where her own materials are used as source. Also, there are sources that aren't directly related to her, like the radio, papers and so on.

What is the issue here, and what by what right did you remove that entry? You are neither a wikipedia official nor did you use the talkpage, and I saw that you've undone several additions to that page. Please explain yourself. Even Trump has a views-section on controversial topics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.113.98.81 (talk) 09:21, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

See WP:BLPPRIMARY. And you are mistaken about me: I am an administrator, although this is an undo that anyone could have done. (Context is Mary P. Koss.) —David Eppstein (talk) 16:18, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

How about the radio-station source, and "The Liberalist"-paper? Are those sources disqualified for some other reason? Is it possible to use sources that aren't online anymore? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.113.99.201 (talk) 02:48, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

To answer the question, first: no, sources that are primarily editorial in nature rather than fact-based are unacceptable in this context. But more generally, in case anyone else has also forgotten what this all was even about: It's about Mary P. Koss, and the IP's efforts to make our article on her be all about one particular not-widely-held opinion she once espoused, to the exclusion of all else she did. This medium post (also not a reliable source) describes both the context for this specific effort regarding Koss and the broader rhetorical point that this is in service of: falsely pretending that Koss's opinion is both representative of feminism and widely influential as a way for men's-rights advocates to attack feminism and the people she supposedly influenced. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:37, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

The radio-segment is not an editorial, and even includes an interview with her, it can't get more factual than that. You're making it sound like the edits erased all of the other content and only included a segment of her (de facto) views on boys and men, which isn't the case. Even Trump has "views on"-sections based on significant minorities. While the males' rights movements are unfortunately not a large group yet, they should certainly be considered a significant minority considering that they act on behalf of half of the population on the planet, which makes it a nearly invaluable addition to the article according to WP:DUE in order to stay neutral. Also you're the one here seemingly making it out to be about something other than Koss - namely feminism. You're saying that the addition of that segment is about MRA's disqualifying feminism, and that is Your opinion. The added section most certainly pertains to an article on her. You've gone as far as admitting that your deletion has nothing to do with her, but reflects on an external perspective on how she is used as a rhetorical device in a political issue - which is unacceptable, you do NOT have the right to do that. On a sidenote, there was also a factual article in Psychology Today criticising her that mysteriously vanished after it was cited in one of my first edits (and then rolled back), which makes one wonder exactly how pocketed you are, regardless of if it amounts to Koss herself being notified to ensure that, or if it was an editor with similar sympathies to yourself. If that article is to remain factual, neutral, and representative it needs that section, that is all there's to it. The woman is a monster, do not be complicit.

When you asked for an explanation for my undo, were you interested in the answer or were you just looking for an excuse to push more? —David Eppstein (talk) 07:56, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

No I'm saying that your undo was made on faulty grounds. Biased grounds. Since it was.

That seems a clear enough answer to my question of whether you had any interest in my response. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:27, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Yes of course it's interesting, I wanted to see if there were any valid reasons for doing what you're doing, or if there is a blatant bias. If you dig long enough you find wikipedia editors breaking wikipedia's own rules it seems. At least now I have an explanation, and you will be reported. You've already admitted that you made the removal on basis of something entirely unrelated to the article itself, and that you had a political bias in doing so.

Ooh, reported. This should be entertaining. Also, most of what you think I've admitted seems to come purely from your imagination. You really should learn to distinguish that from the things you actually read. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:15, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Felix Behrend

The whole point of the Category:People who emigrated to escape Nazism categories is that people were defined and forced to emigrate - or be murdered - by the Nazi state. Their emigration is generally a defining moment in their lives. That is why it is used as a category. Many of those persecuted as Jews were clearly not practising Jews, and quite a few were baptised Christians. That didnt do them much good. See Who is a Jew? Rathfelder (talk) 17:21, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

@Rathfelder: there are lots of parent categories like Category:People who emigrated to escape Nazism or Category:Exiles from Nazi Germany that would be unquestionably appropriate in this case. --JBL (talk) 17:43, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

• He clearly emigrated because he was of Jewish descent - like many other people in similar categories. Most of the exiles were politically active, which he was not. Rathfelder (talk) 17:50, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes. So he should be in an "of Jewish descent" category, because he was of Jewish descent, which he was listed as before your changes, not a "Jewish" category as you changed his article to, because he was not Jewish (or at least not known to be Jewish). We have two classes of categories, "Jewish X" for actual Jews (by Jewish law, not Nuremberg law) and "X of Jewish descent" for people with Jewish ancestry not known to be Jews themselves. Behrend's article clearly identifies him as being in the latter class and he should not be classified as an actual Jew unless/until we can document it. If the problem is that the category system fails to make this distinction in the cases of people fleeing Nazi Germany, and calls them all Jews, then it is the category system that needs to be fixed. There is some ambiguity over whether Jewish means "practicing the Jewish faith" or whether it means "Jewish by Jewish law but not necessarily practicing" (meaning: your mother was a Jew by the same definition) but in the case of Behrend neither of these is documented to be true; our article says he has Jewish ancestry, but doesn't say on which side of his family (or both) it was. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:02, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
• I think you are quite wrong to think that the categories are used like that. Most of the descent categories are about where people came from. And very few articles say anything at all about in what sense people were Jewish. None of the Jewish descent categories are linked to emigration, and I dont think its sensible to have two emigration categories for a country. I have no objection to putting him back is a descent category, but I'm interested in the migration categories. But he is not an Australian person of German-Jewish descent. He is an immigrant. Rathfelder (talk) 19:11, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Think what you like but that's the reason we have two different parallel classes of Jewish categories. And by migrating to Australia, settling in Australia, and living the rest of his life in Australia he became an Australian person. Or are you one of those nativists who believe only people with pure aboriginal ancestry can become true Australians? —David Eppstein (talk) 19:14, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
• No but I think people born in Foo are Fooish, not of Fooish descent. Rathfelder (talk) 19:33, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

  Yes that's very interesting but there aren't any people born in Jew so maybe you're not thinking this through carefully enough. (I agree with everything David has written except the word "yes" in his first comment: I do not think it's clear that Behrend left Germany because he was of Jewish descent, and the article suggests several other factors that might have been equally or more relevant.) --JBL (talk) 20:26, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

• The article says his father lost his job "With Adolf Hitler's rise to power", and that he was a person of Jewish descent who escaped Nazi Germany. Rathfelder (talk) 21:31, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
  • It says that he escaped Nazi Germany but not that his purpose in escaping was to flee Nazism (although the MacTutor biography strongly suggests that). In any case, we are still in agreement that he was of Jewish descent. The point that you are still apparently missing is that being of Jewish descent and being a Jew are two different things. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:38, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
    • I will note that these poor edits are very widespread; maybe there have been several hundred today? Possibly a mass roll-back will be required. --JBL (talk) 21:48, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Being of Jewish descent and being a Jew were not two different things in Nazi Germany, and that is the context of this category. Rathfelder (talk) 22:52, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
    • They are different things to everyone who is not a Nazi and has paid any attention to their definitions. Are you a Nazi, or are you merely refusing to understand a distinction that you have now been repeatedly told? —David Eppstein (talk) 23:26, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
    • I think you should moderate your language. If you want to dispute the use of these categories this is not the place to do it. And for your information my family is, by Nazi definition, Jewish.Rathfelder (talk) 10:45, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Ideal polyhedron

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Ideal polyhedron you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of HeartGlow30797 -- HeartGlow30797 (talk) 04:41, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Sylvester–Gallai theorem

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Sylvester–Gallai theorem you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of HeartGlow30797 -- HeartGlow30797 (talk) 05:00, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Ideal polyhedron

The article Ideal polyhedron you nominated as a good article has been placed on hold . The article is close to meeting the good article criteria, but there are some minor changes or clarifications needing to be addressed. If these are fixed within 7 days, the article will pass; otherwise it may fail. See Talk:Ideal polyhedron for issues which need to be addressed. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of HeartGlow30797 -- HeartGlow30797 (talk) 05:01, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Sylvester–Gallai theorem

The article Sylvester–Gallai theorem you nominated as a good article has failed ; see Talk:Sylvester–Gallai theorem for reasons why the nomination failed. If or when these points have been taken care of, you may apply for a new nomination of the article. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of HeartGlow30797 -- HeartGlow30797 (talk) 05:21, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Happy First Edit Day!

Hey, David Eppstein. I'd like to wish you a wonderful First Edit Day on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Have a great day! Megan Barris (Lets talk📧) 11:18, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

SPFA revert

I was unable to find any evidence of notability of this particular rediscovery or its significance with the rediscovery. Is there a variation in the rediscovered algorithm that you see as being notable and warranting a separate section?

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bellman%E2%80%93Ford_algorithm&oldid=prev&diff=974077055&diffmode=source

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Smarter1 (talk • contribs) 20:58, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

If you think our article on Shortest Path Faster Algorithm documents a non-notable topic, the way to address it is through a deletion discussion on that article, not by attempting to erase all mention of that topic from other articles to which it is obviously relevant. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:26, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Fair enough, let me start a discussion there. Smarter1 (talk) 23:27, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Binary logarithm

Hello Professor David Eppstein. Can you take a look at this article? I think with no sources, the last two paragraphs of "Iterative approximation" section seem like original research. Thuyhung2112 (talk) 04:00, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

I didn't notice the issue when they were added a year ago but I think you're right. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:37, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Twin Primes

8,675,309 is a twin prime (twinned with 8,675,311) and neither page has a trivia section. As you point out, I'm an old-timer, so I only remember trivia sections are frowned upon. Don't really know where to put the information. Also, editing with the android app was buggy which resulted in the link being in the External Links section instead of See Also. So I had to reshuffle. Jbaber (talk) 06:12, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

I think that unless reliable sources have made a point of remarking on it, it shouldn't go into Wikipedia at all, and even if so only to the Jenny article. As twin primes go it's not a very interesting one. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:22, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Good point. The interestingness only goes in one direction. In the other direction, I suppose you're right that shocking coincidences are not automatically notable. ...and the density of twin primes among seven digit numbers means the coincidence isn't even all that good. Jbaber (talk) 03:11, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Chordal problem

Hello. Do you think you could take a look at this? It was written by Rychlik 10 years ago and has been tagged with {{coi}} since then. To me, it looks as if it's probably not notable enough to merit an article, but I'm not sure. Thanks SmartSE (talk) 20:55, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

I've prodded this. The initial edit says it was mentioned in a book of open problems, but the article certainly doesn't make notability apparent. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:08, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

September Women in Red edithons

Women in Red | September 2020, Volume 6, Issue 9, Numbers 150, 151, 176, 177 Online events: New: Women writers | Women in conflict zones Interwiki collaborations: Women of WWII Continuing initiatives: #1day1woman | BLM/Anti-discrimination Help us plan future events: Virtual Ideas Cafe Join the conversation: Women in Red talkpage Stay in touch: Join WikiProject Women in Red | Opt-out of notifications Social media: Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter

--Megalibrarygirl (talk) 17:54, 29 August 2020 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Featuring your work on Wikipedia's front page: DYKs

Thank you for your recent articles, including Cardinal and Ordinal Numbers, which I read with interest. When you create an extensive and well referenced article, you may want to have it featured on Wikipedia's main page in the Did You Know section. Articles included there will be read by thousands of our viewers. To do so, add your article to the list at T:TDYK. Let me know if you need help, _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:32, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion. I do have quite a few previous DYK entries but I tend to save them for new articles for which I think something about them could be interesting to a general audience; I was expecting this one to be mainly of interest only to mathematicians (although I guess in your case also for the Polish connection). —David Eppstein (talk) 06:06, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

WikiProject assessment tags for talk pages

Thank you for your recent articles, including Cardinal and Ordinal Numbers, which I read with interest. When you create a new article, can you add the WikiProject assessment templates to the talk of that article? See the talk page of the article I mentioned for an example of what I mean. Usually it is very simple, you just add something like {{WikiProject Keyword}} to the article's talk, with keyword replaced by the associated WikiProject (ex. if it's a biography article, you would use WikiProject Biography; if it's a United States article, you would use WikiProject United States, and so on). You do not have to rate the article if you do not want to, others will do it eventually. Those templates are very useful, as they bring the articles to a WikiProject attention, and allow them to start tracking the articles through Wikipedia:Article alerts and other tools. For example, WikiProject Poland relies on such templates to generate listings such as Article Alerts, Popular Pages, Quality and Importance Matrix and the Cleanup Listing. Thanks to them, WikiProject members are more easily able to defend your work from deletion, or simply help try to improve it further. Feel free to ask me any questions if you'd like more information about using those talk page templates. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:32, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

DYK

I know you passed the DYK for Alex Anderson (quilter), but I did try to fix your criticism. I was wondering if you take a look. SL93 (talk) 22:33, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

It's noticeably better. Third paragraph of "career" section still a little staccato and disconnected. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:35, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. I will work on it more later. SL93 (talk) 22:40, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Ideal polyhedron

The article Ideal polyhedron you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Ideal polyhedron for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already appeared on the main page as a "Did you know" item, or as a bold link under "In the News" or in the "On This Day" prose section, you can nominate it within the next seven days to appear in DYK. Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On This Day" column do not affect DYK eligibility. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of HeartGlow30797 -- HeartGlow30797 (talk) 10:22, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

"Logical connections"

Hi David,
I understand and can sympathize with the idea of making/breaking logical connections, but... that's not the point of disambiguation pages.

The purpose of a dab page is to get a reader as quickly as possible to their intended destination. If I've landed on the San Joaquin dab page because, for example, I've read something that implies there's some kind of animal named "San Joaquin", and I want to find out what animals might fit that description, it's not going to do me a lot of good to know that the animal was named after a river.

However, if the page is categorized so that I can skip right over the plethora of place names, I can more quickly notice that, hey, there's a San Joaguin kit fox! It moves me closer to my actual goal (finding which entries pertain to animals). Similarly, if I'm looking for a town named "San Joaquin", having the fox mixed in with place names is unhelpful.

Put another way: if you go through the WP guidelines for disambiguation pages, there's plenty on why, when, and how to divide entries into sections; there aren't a lot of warnings on not breaking up etymological groupings.

Anyhow, probably more words here than you wanted to read, but this was why I edited the article to have categorized sections.

Regards, NapoliRoma (talk) 21:02, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Categorization with 80% of the topics in a specific subcategory and 20% in a catch-all "not the same as the others" category is almost as unhelpful as the classification in the Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge. And in this case there is also a purpose rooted in disambiguation for the hierarchical categorization by root place name that I chose instead: because there are two different unrelated families of things named San Joaquin in California and it is important when encountering a new "San Joaquin" ambiguous link to be able to tell which subtopics are in which of these two families, to avoid mistakenly linking a topic in one family to the root of the other one. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:17, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Christine Proust

I had some material written a while ago on Proust, which I decided I should put out there in case it's useful. If you were going somewhere else with this article, that's fine too. Will Orrick (talk) 02:58, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Authority to approve draft articles

Hi,

I'm wondering if there's any way I could get you to review my draft on a scholar in the field of machine learning who I feel is noteworthy and deserves a page.

Is there an easier way than waiting a few months? It seems like a long time and I feel the notability is kind of obvious.

I was hoping to get some input. Is it possible for me to delete the "Draft" prefix and have the article enter the "main space", which would then get speedily deleted if it does not mean notability criteria?

I thought I have seen that 'move' before but I'm unclear as to whether it is possible.

Thank you 198.53.109.35 (talk) 18:10, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Ok, here's my review.

1. He appears to pass our guidelines for notability for academics. So it should eventually be possible to have an article about him.
2. The article is not in shape to be approved as it is now. Almost all the things labeled as "references" are by the subject of the article, but references need to be things written about the subject by other people, independent of the subject and of the subject's employer, properly published, and preferably in-depth. And the "Research" section, where it is the most important to have independent sourcing (because it is an evaluation of what is important in his research, not merely a factual listing of degree and employment dates) is completely unsourced. See our standards for what can be considered a reliable source and our strict sourcing requirements for biographies of living people.
3. The Ambassadorship section is promotional junk. "He has written papers" is completely uninformative for academics — they all do. If the papers have been highly influential then we can say what their influence is, but only based on other people's evaluations of those papers, not the papers themselves.
4. It has not been months. It has not been close to months. It has been two days. And you haven't even tried using the {{AFC submission}} template to request a review.

—David Eppstein (talk) 18:24, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Hello! Thank you very much. I will try to incorporate your suggestions. I did not mean to say I've been waiting months. Just that the template says it can take a few months, and I thought I had submitted it. I guess not. I shall do that and wait it out, and in the meanwhile try to improve it. I think I should change bits in the ambassadorship section. I did not mean to insinuate articles as in journals, but rather newspaper columns/articles. Anyways thank you for catching this!! 198.53.109.35 (talk) 18:29, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/File:Masjid Nabawi The Prophet's Mosque, Madina.jpg

Hey, um... I don't actually know your religion, but... that comment kind of has the look of a non-Muslim lecturing a Muslim Wikipedian (Muhammad) about how he should be showing reverence in photography to his own holy site. Obviously, I don't think this is intentional, but it's coming off weird, and I thought I should tell you.

I dunno. It's probably me being a little sensitive. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 7.5% of all FPs} 04:22, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

I don't know either, I thought the other comments saying that we should represent it as an ugly place because (the comments implied) it is one seemed likely to be more insulting to me. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:05, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Well, there is Destruction of early Islamic heritage sites in Saudi Arabia. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 7.5% of all FPs} 06:26, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

And if the picture in question had been nominated as having its encyclopedic value for showing that, we could evaluate it differently. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:32, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

BCD

Hey, thanks for fixing that! Your edit was far more complete than mine, although I gotta plead that I'm slightly handicapped by the fact the mainframes I worked on for years used EBCDIC, not BCD. I suspect, though, that we have some similar experiences in our backgrounds. Have a great rest-of-the-weekend! — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 21:58, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

You're welcome, and you too. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:15, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

is it appropriate to call an undirected edge bidirectional?

Hello again,

I thought I'd ask an expert this question as I found the first page of googling unsatisfactory.

Given that an undirected edge connecting two vertices will have a symmetric adjacency matrix representation, i was wondering if it's safe to call it 'bidirectional' given that A(i,j) = A(j,i).

I thought this was safe but I wanted to be sure.

Thanks

198.53.109.35 (talk) 02:57, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

I wouldn't, most of the time, not because it's wrong but because it just adds the technicality of an infrequent polysyllabism without contributing information. If you're talking about a mixed graph, maybe, to distinguish it from the directed edges, but even then "undirected" is probably better. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:29, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

A blatant example of bi erasure. EEng 17:48, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Fair enough. I did notice that some people were talking about the concept of a bidirected edge which is not what I was referring to, so I shall just call it undirected to reduce any potential confusion.

There is enough 'polysyllabalism' going on in graph theory as it is, and you're right: i shouldn't make it any 'worse' if i can avoid it ;) 198.53.109.35 (talk) 18:36, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

another question (good ref text for cs grads)

hi again,

i was hoping someone of your decoration could share what you find to be an excellent graph theory text for cs graduates in another area (say machine learning).

i want a quality citation discussing star graphs and their properties. if some spectral theory could be mixed in such a text (a big ask, i know) that would a big plus.

i am going to ask another questoin in a new section (really sorry)! 198.53.109.35 (talk) 20:29, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

I haven't really tried looking for a graph theory text suitable for computer scientists, especially one including spectral graph theory. There are lots of graph theory texts but I am not sufficiently familiar with the recent ones to guess which ones might fit that audience better. What I would like is a good advanced graph algorithms text, but that doesn't really exist. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:22, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

star graphs and topological dimension

on that note, i have a question for you: how can we interpret star graphs in topological dimensions?

for example i have a graph, s_26, that Dimension (graph theory) says can be written in two dimensions. but this interpretation doesn't seem right.

i know we can theoretically reorder the edges such that most properties don't require the third dimension, but what bugs me are the diagonals in three-dimensional space: they are of greater length than the "axes edges".

aren't star graphs assuming every edge is of the same length? what if we draw the typical unit axes in three-dimensions (octant (solid geometry)?), but then add diagonals from each corner to the centre?

those edges will have different properties than the others, right? so the graph is no longer a star, or is it? am i being thick? 198.53.109.35 (talk) 20:31, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

edit: okay after some research i found mathworld states that S_k has graph dimension 3 if k > 2,3

but this isn't what is stated in the erdos paper it cites, and i think the harary paper referenced on that page is for tripartite graphs only.

would you have any handy resources on where this property is rigorously shown? i found it interesting and in-line with what i was thinking, but i am not WP:BEBOLD enough to challenge work of erdos.

I think there is an obvious typo in the Erdos/Harary/Tutte paper where it says (p119 after first figure) "Obviously, for every $n>1$, $\operatorname {dim} K_{1,n}=2$", given that only on the previous page they observed $\operatorname {dim} K_{1,2}=1$ (under the name $K_{3}-x$). It should be for every $n>2$. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:19, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

thank you, so mathworld is wrong in stating that $\operatorname {dim} S_{k}=3$ for $k>3$ right? or am i looking at this wrong?

i mean i thought $S_{k}$ is analogous to $K_{1,k}$ but if we use the table on that page, $\operatorname {dim} K_{1,k}=2\neq \operatorname {dim} S_{k}=3$ for $k>3$

do you know where mathworld got this table, or did they just compile it on their own? is there good literature that compiles well known graphs' dimension into such table?

i thought about my conundrum in the first part of this section, and i first had to quiz myself: "is edge weight the same as edge length"? well, "of course" it isn't.

when we look at spectra of these graphs, we only analyse the edge weight without looking at edge length.

chung and richardson have a paper where they state that edge length is a natural choice for edge weight in geometric applications

but what if we have edge weights calculated independently of non-uniform edge lengths that arise of a natural construction (i.e. pythagorean theorem)? then what?!?

i hate asking questions that google can't ansewr on the first few pages. makes me feel like a crank! THIS IS A REAL CONUNDRUM!

My regrets

I have been an administrator on Wikipedia for 15 years, and have always tried to express myself honestly. I regret that our current conflict has led you to think otherwise, and has spurred you to attack me personally. I would like to think that we could work out some reasonable evidence-based middle ground in policy language to reflect the fact that law school deans occupy a place in academia for which they almost always receive significant coverage in sources. Certainly, I would think it noncontroversial to say that the Dean of Harvard or Yale or Columbia should be presumed to meet that standard. I'd be glad to work with you on language reflecting an appropriate standard. BD2412 T 22:38, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Not Yale, surely? EEng 11:55, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

So, you're sorry that I disagree with you, and if only I would agree to help you to change the notability guidelines in the direction you've been pushing and I've been disagreeing with, you would be happier? Noted. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:40, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

No, that is not what I said. I am sorry that my participation made you feel compelled to comment on me personally, rather than on the discussion. As a separate matter, I would like to reason with you about the policy at issue, for the benefit of the project. BD2412 T 22:43, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2020 September 15 § Template:Use shortened footnotes

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2020 September 15 § Template:Use shortened footnotes. Peaceray (talk) 05:12, 15 September 2020 (UTC)Template:Z48

Auxiliary Bishop

Sorry to impose but I need your voice again on this one:

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jeffrey S. Grob

Roberto221 (talk) 16:45, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

I have no particular expertise in the Catholic hierarchy. The last time it came around, I participated only because the newly appointed bishop had previously held a high academic position. Also, see WP:CANVASS. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:26, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Citations needed (according to you) for associative property

David. I wish to send this page to my students, but there is a big ugly banner at the top saying that "none of this material is trustworthy". If you want to have that banner at the top, why don't you tell us what specifically you want a citation for? Citations are not required for everything. We use our wisdom and best judgement to decide whether something is in "need" of a citation or not. We do not act like computers, because the world is not a computer program. Instead of blindly following rules (like computers do), we make judgement calls based on what we believe will make the internet a better place. I do see your point that putting "citation needed" all over the place will (according to you) be too messy, but then can you tell me some examples of things that need citations? Dr. Universe (talk) 20:22, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

I want a citation for everything. Every single assertion in that article (outside of the lead section, which should merely summarize material covered in more detail later) should be backed by a reliable source. The definition section needs a source containing the definition, in both the binary and functional notation forms (or two sources, one for each form). In the next section, the assertion that arbitrary parenthesizations produce the same result, and the name "generalized associative law" for this property, the assertion that the number of parenthesizations grows quickly, and the assertion that the logical biconditional is associative, all need sources. (These are all easy and standard facts that could probably best be sourced by a reference to an elementary textbook, rather than research papers.) In the examples section, the associativity of each of the operations named as an example needs a source. Etc. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:40, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

DYK for Sylvester–Gallai theorem

On 17 September 2020, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Sylvester–Gallai theorem, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that among proofs of the Sylvester–Gallai theorem, Kelly's has been praised as "simply the best", but also criticized as "like using a sledge hammer to crack an almond"? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Sylvester–Gallai theorem. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Sylvester–Gallai theorem), 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.

Cwmhiraeth (talk) 12:01, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Greg Kuperberg

Please explain to me why the category American video game programmers doesn't apply to this person despite the presence of the following sourced text:

Kuperberg wrote three computer games for the IBM Personal Computer in 1982 and 1983: Paratrooper, J-Bird and PC-Man.

-- Dissident (Talk) 21:23, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Mostly because I didn't notice that text there when I reviewed the edit. I guess it can go back. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:56, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

DYK for De quinque corporibus regularibus

On 18 September 2020, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article De quinque corporibus regularibus, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that a book on polyhedra by Piero della Francesca fell victim to "probably the first full-blown case of plagiarism in the history of mathematics" when Luca Pacioli copied it in his Divina proportione? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/De quinque corporibus regularibus. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, De quinque corporibus regularibus), 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.

MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 14:33, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

DYK for Perspectiva corporum regularium

On 21 September 2020, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Perspectiva corporum regularium, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that Perspectiva corporum regularium, a 1568 book of engraved polyhedra, demonstrates visually the medieval theory that the complexity of the physical world comes from four basic elements? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Perspectiva corporum regularium. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Perspectiva corporum regularium), 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.

 — Amakuru (talk) 00:03, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Miaumee

They're very prolific -- looks like 5 to 10 articles per day. I've only looked carefully at a handful, but they all were net negative and take a while to sort the improvements from the trash. Do you think it's worth trying to do a mass revert of their edits? --JBL (talk) 01:23, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Maybe. That's what I've been doing on an individual-article basis when I see them, because it would be too much effort to sift through them more carefully in the hope that there's something of value in them. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:26, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

October editathons from Women in Red

Women in Red | October 2020, Volume 6, Issue 10, Numbers 150, 173, 178, 179 Online events: Annual Ada Lovelace Day celebratiaon: Women in STEM Contest (Oct-Nov-Dec): Women in Asia Continuing initiatives: #1day1woman | BLM/Anti-discrimination Help us plan future events: Virtual Ideas Cafe Join the conversation: Women in Red talkpage Stay in touch: Join WikiProject Women in Red | Opt-out of notifications Social media: Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter

--Megalibrarygirl (talk) 15:09, 21 September 2020 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Nomination of Sabine Schindler for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Sabine Schindler is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sabine Schindler until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. PepperBeast (talk) 00:36, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Monotonic matrix

About "see also: Monotonic matrix." I don't think entries in "see also" mean they are significant topics but they simply mean they are something that can be linked in the main text in future. The book has more than a passing mention of "monotonic matrix" and so if the article is expanded to give a more detailed summary of the results, I can imagine "monotonic matrix" comes up in the discussion. I do agree that a "see also" entry looks cryptic but, in general, "see also" looks cryptic so; the idea of see also means the text can (or should be) be expanded to discuss that topic. If you think you know better about the book, then I don't insist on this see also entry. -- Taku (talk) 07:43, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

I didn't even recognize the topic at first from your new stub's description of it, but we already have a much-better-developed article on the same thing, with a much less ambiguous title: tripod packing. I don't think that representing tripods by the position of two of their three coordinates and the value of the third coordinate is sufficiently distinct as a topic to warrant a separate article. Also while we're on the topic of see-also links: the link from monotone matrix to SMAWK algorithm is more likely to confuse readers than to help them, because the meaning of "monotone matrix" used in the SMAWK algorithm article is different from either monotone matrix or monotonic matrix. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:53, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

I didn't know about the article tripod packing and it looks like monotonic matrix can be merged into it; I agree a separate article is not needed. (By the way, monotonic matrix is not a new article but was an orphan article). The term "monotonic matrix" seems in use so it should be mentioned somewhere somehow. As for the last comment, I agree that the SMAWK algorithm as a see also entry seems an error (since the meaning of monotone is different). I had made a cheap edit to avoid the conflicting use of "monotone" in "monotone matrix matrix". -- Taku (talk) 08:10, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Can you write the article Eight circles theorem?

https://mathoverflow.net/questions/363008

Reference below:

Reference:

[1] - Dao, O.T.: Problem 3845, Crux Mathematicorum, 39, Issue May 2013

[2]-https://www.geogebra.org/material/show/id/Zk3F5y5X

[3] - J. Chris Fisher, Problem 3945, Crux Mathematicorum, Volume 40, Issue May, 2014

[4]-Michel Bataille, Solution to Problem 3945, Crux Mathematicorum, Volume 41, Issue May, 2015

[5]-Gábor Gévay, A remarkable theorem on eight circles, Forum Geométrico rum, Volume 18 (2018), 401--408

[6]-Ákos G.Horváth, A note on the centers of a closed chain of circles

[7]-Dao Thanh Oai, The Nine Circles Problem and the Sixteen Points Circle, International Journal of Computer Discovered Mathematics ISSN 2367-7775, June 2016, Volume 1, No.2, pp. 21-24.

[8]-Dao Thanh Oai, Cherng-Tiao Perng, On The Eight Circles Theorem and Its Dual, International Journal of Geometry, Vol. 8 (2019), no. 2, page 49-53

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 14.248.84.234 (talk • contribs) 02:32, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Are you ever going to stop this excessive self-promotion? —David Eppstein (talk) 04:20, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Article on Distributions has become too technical

Could you please see my comment on the talk page of the article on Distributions? I also left a comment on the talk page of the editor responsible for the changes. I noticed you've made a similar comment to this editor before, which is one of the reasons I'm writing to you.

Undsoweiter (talk) 19:44, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Help!

Hi David—my daughter needs a notable event in 2011 in the field of math... Did you have any breakthroughs, or do you know if any? Project is due tomorrow! Aaargh! Haha thanks, Drmies (talk) 20:33, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

A list of top 10 results from 2010–2015 by Richard Elwes lists a breakthrough in computing partition numbers as being a 2011 result. Since you ask, my results from 2011 are here; the clique-finding one is the heaviest cited, but it's the second of a series of papers, so not brand-new for 2011. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:48, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Thank you so much—that was awesome. And now we learned what partition numbers are! Your articles were a bit too polysyllabic, but wow that was a productive year for you. Thanks again—we really appreciate it! Drmies (talk) 21:10, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Thanks for your many contributions to graph theory articles. Mdeff (talk) 12:00, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

You're welcome! —David Eppstein (talk) 16:48, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Ellipse area discussion

Thank you for your comment on the Ellipse talk page I have tried to be clear from the start what my disagreement was I have a edit in the sandbox now for review and I put it in the discussion but you will notice I did not use the word stretch at all I replaced it with scale I think that's important as I want to change the factor from $(a/b)$ to $(a>b)$ to "stretch" the scale factor and not scale the stretch factor the equation is now working %100 it was broke thank you again I'm sorry if you did not understand the factor but the equation was broke2601:203:101:BD0:78F1:5839:7DCC:FC03 (talk) 00:37, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

I see you have not followed my advice to start using punctuation. Without it, it is very hard to make any sense of anything you write. Also, no, the equation is not broken. It is your understanding of the equation that is broken. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:06, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

I honestly don't know if WP:DENY is inapplicable. This crank has been at it for years.--Jasper Deng (talk) 09:55, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

New gcd property involving 3 coprime pairs

I see your undos of my additions in Greatest common divisor and coprime. Please, let me express that I have no intention or interest of spamming. I am truly convinced that my addition represents a new and basic property of the gcd as published in

http://nntdm.net/papers/nntdm-26/NNTDM-26-3-005-007.pdf

The property is rather basic, with a short demonstration, and if you, as mathematician, could have any feedback or refutal of that work I would highly appreciate it. Concerning the publication journal you argue that NNTDM is a dubious journal. I had no idea of this, I am a physicist and I looked for free of charge, free to read journals. It is actually included in many indexing sites: Emerging Sources Citation Index – Web of Science, Electronic Journals Library, Index Copernicus International, ROAD – Directory of Open Access Scholarly Resources, WorldCat. I also searched the internet and there are no warnings for NNTDM, while there are for other clearly dubious journals.

Very much on the contrary, in favour of NNTDM I assure that there was a rigorous 2-referee process. The referees comments were sound spotting some initial mistakes. Is NNTDM really dubious? Why then two clearly expert referees spent their time with useful comments and corrections? Furthermore what is the interest of NNTDM? I was not charged for the publication and journal is freely available.

In summary, my intentions were truly honest, I would highly appreciate any feedback on the actual theorem (and the demonstration) and finally maybe more arguments on the actual suspicions for NNTDM might be appreciated. Rtomas (talk)

comment added by Rtomas (talk • contribs) 10:02, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) @Rtomas: At a minimum, you need to read WP:COI and WP:PRIMARY. Generally, Wikipedia editors aren't allowed to cite themselves, and also generally, any source cited should be a secondary source published somewhere there is a editorial board. Wikipedia is not the place to publicize new research. Regards, Tarl N. (discuss) 04:28, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

OK, thank you. It is a reasonable rule that wikipedia editors cannot cite themselves. NNTDM has an editorial board: http://nntdm.net/editorial-board/ and as said before it is indexed: http://nntdm.net/indexing/ . I hope this journal is not considered dubious without further evidence. If so would it be possible to change the reasons of the undo to remove the "dubious" adjective? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rtomas (talk • contribs) 05:32, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

It is technically possible to remove edit summaries, but not for that reason. And I stand by what I said: the journal was de-indexed from MathSciNet. Those other indexes aren't worth much for mathematics — either MathSciNet or zbMATH are the important ones. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:44, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I just checked that NNTDM appears in zbMATH, e.g.: https://zbmath.org/?q=NNTDM . Would this justify removing the "dubious" adjective? unfortunately I cannot check in MathSciNet as it requires subscription. Is there a public place where this info can be retrieved? —Rtomas —Preceding undated comment added 09:57, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

I already said, the edit summary cannot be changed. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:48, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Demonstrating notability

In your recent revision for the article Draft:Carlotta_Berry, you mentioned that Berry's citation count is not sufficient on its own to demonstrate academic notability. However, much of Berry's work has focused on attracting students from underrepresented groups into engineering, which has an important impact that isn't well captured in citation counts but is demonstrated in a verifiable way through the awards she has received. What changes to the article are needed to effectively demonstrate that she qualifies for notability per either WP:PROF#C1 or WP:PROF#C4? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Superduperpacman (talk • contribs) 19:20, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

We need evidence of notability. Her citation counts do not provide evidence of notability through scholarly impact. The type of impact you describe needs a different kind of evidence, preferably multiple published sources independent of the subject describing that impact. It is a logical mistake to assert that she is notable merely because her work in one area is not demonstrated by her measure of citations; that is lack of evidence of one thing, not evidence for something else. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:22, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

I apologize if I was unclear; the claim of notability is supported by the INSIGHT Into Diversity award and the Leading Light award that she received, which were bestowed by independent sources linked in the article and describe her impact in this area.--Superduperpacman (talk) 19:52, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Automated Errors

I didn’t receive your earlier messages because you didn’t ping me. I do get your point, I only began optimizing AWB & editing from a desktop today for the first time in 4 years so I do appreciate your frustration. If I had received your first message I wouldn’t have edited it twice. Celestina007 (talk) 18:56, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Prime number: "also"

The edit summary of the change which you undid said:

→‎introduction: "is a product (...)" -> "is also the product of ..."

Your undo summary said:

why? also after what previous representation of 4 as a product? we haven't mentioned the product 1x4 so why also??

I added "also" because the preceding sentence, which uses 5 as its example, demonstrates "1x5" and "5x1" as representations which one must consider. Thus, the representations "1x4" and "4x1" are implied in the sentence which discusses 4.

I re-changed it, in a different way, hopefully more palatable to you. Take a look.
— Black Walnut ^talk 00:23, 3 October 2020 (UTC).

I still think you're making things unnecessarily complicated for no reason. There was no need for "also" because we never talked about the 1x4 product. There is no need to write that 4 "can be written as" a certain product when it's simpler to say it "is" that product. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:56, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

I saw a problem: I believe that this paragraph is confusing to the layperson, because it relies on a specialist's shorthand to convey the subject matter. I tried to improve it, slightly. My two attempts may have been poor. However, the failings which you state are present in the previous sentence, which you apparently consider fine.

You are fast to hit "undo". You have not solicited my perspective, except rhetorically. I'll move on. I wish you well.
— Black Walnut ^talk 02:29, 3 October 2020 (UTC).

Calling infoboxes "stupid" and for "people who can't read"

I can understand the removal of the underdeveloped infobox for the currently underdeveloped article Bombieri–Lang conjecture, but infoboxes are not only for "people who can't read" nor are they solely for topics that can be entirely reduced to a few bullet points. Infoboxes are useful to a variety of readers (including casual readers and those with accessibility needs) for quick information-at-a-glance. Infoboxes summarize key points, but that doesn't mean that they can only be included if they are able to summarize all key points.

We can disagree on where to include infoboxes, but there's no need to insult readers who prefer infoboxes as being unable to read nor to call the infoboxes "stupid". We're all just trying to making the encyclopedia better for everyone. Thanks. — MarkH₂₁^talk 20:04, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Infoboxes are usually inane, summarizing the wrong information in big bold bullet points and drawing attention away from the more careful and nuanced presentation of the actual important points of the topic that should be given in the lead sentence. In mathematics they can be acceptable for examples of mathematical objects (like {{Infobox polyhedron}}), but they work very badly for mathematical statements and results and should be removed on sight with a sufficiently strong edit summary so that whoever tried to add it gets the message and stops adding them to articles. Apparently, contrary to what you say, my edit summary was not strong enough because you did not get the message. See WP:DISINFOBOX and Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2019 February 24#Template:Infobox mathematical statement. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:12, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

That’s your opinion, with which some editors agree and with which some editors disagree. However, insulting readers is not acceptable.

Similarly, there is consensus in some article to use the infobox like Talk:Fermat's Last Theorem#Request for comment (RfC) on inclusion of Infobox mathematical statement. You can't just edit war the entire infobox out against the RfC consensus because you don't like it or because some details of its implementation should be changed. — MarkH₂₁^talk 21:37, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

I am not insulting readers. I am insulting non-readers and the editors who think that should be the _target audience. And as my edit summary argued, it is not just "some details" that were wrong in the infobox; it was every single point outside of the image captiion (which my edit did not change). —David Eppstein (talk) 21:41, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

And insulting editors is WP:CIVIL and productive? The community consensus is for inclusion, you can't revert it out just because you believe the consensus is wrong. — MarkH₂₁^talk 22:11, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

The result of the RFC cannot and should not be interpreted as saying that there is consensus for having falsehoods in the infobox. And with the falsehoods removed, there is no infobox left. I can't help but notice that you have not even tried to reformulate the claims that were in the infobox in a way that is not false and misleading; you are instead arguing only that they should be put back in their previous false state. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:16, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

These are falsehoods in your personal interpretation. The RfC had a proposed implementation of the infobox that is very similar to the version you removed. You also made the same points in that RfC that resulted in inclusion of the infobox. For the reformulation of the infobox at FLT, see the option I gave at Talk:Fermat's Last Theorem#Falsehoods in infobox.

We don't need to be discussing FLT in parallel in two locations now. My purpose of opening this thread on your user talk page was to point out that insulting people has no place even if we disagree. — MarkH₂₁^talk 22:27, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Insulting people who can't read by calling them..."people who can't read"? I think you're making a pretty big mountain out of not very much incivility. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:31, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

You said that infoboxes are for "people who can't read", which could be interpreted as you are calling people who use infoboxes illiterate (particularly since there are obviously plenty of literate people who find infoboxes useful). You then clarified that this was not the case, but you then said yourself that I am insulting non-readers and the editors who think that should be the _target audience. There's no place here for insulting anyone, whether they are readers, editors, infobox users, or whatever. — MarkH₂₁^talk 22:38, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

And continuing to dig deeper. Your misinterpretations of what I actually said are also not my problem. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:40, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

You literally said you were insulting non-readers and the editors who think that should be the _target audience.

Anyways, the point is made. — MarkH₂₁^talk 22:41, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

DYK for Ideal polyhedron

On 5 October 2020, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Ideal polyhedron, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that unlike their Euclidean equivalents, the ideal regular tetrahedron, octahedron, and dodecahedron can all tile hyperbolic space (pictured)? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Ideal polyhedron. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Ideal polyhedron), 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.

— Maile (talk) 00:01, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Logarithm

There are also some other integral representations of the logarithm that are useful in some situations:

$\ln(x)=-\lim _{\epsilon \to 0}\int _{\epsilon }^{\infty }{\frac {dt}{t}}\left(e^{-xt}-e^{-t}\right)$ $\ln(x)=\int _{0}^{\infty }\,{\frac {dt}{t}}\,\left[\cos(t)-\cos(xt)\right]$

The first identity can be verified by showing that it has the same value at x = 1, and the same derivative. The second identity can be proven by writing ${\frac {1}{t}}=\int _{0}^{\infty }\,dq\,e^{-qt}$

and then inserting the Laplace transform of cos(xt) (and cos(t)).

Hi, this part is unsourced within a FA article. I'm translating it to a different language and currently looking for its source. Can you please help me find the source of the given information? 14.169.224.164 (talk) 15:02, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Never mind, I found what I was looking for. Thank you anyway. Wikipedia:Reference desk/Mathematics#Logarithm you can add the source to the article if you want. 2402:800:4315:2C28:24D7:48D:5EFC:674C (talk) 22:32, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Pamela Jumper-Thurman

Hi @David Eppstein: I am reviewing this article, Pamela Jumper-Thurman. I'm a bit unsure about it and wondering if you could take a look. I couldn't identify a single reference that would definitely confirm she was notable. Thanks. scope_creep^Talk 20:56, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

If you're trying to confirm academic notability by looking for independent published references about the subject, you're doing it wrong. That's not really how WP:PROF works. We need published reliable sources to verify the content of the article, but independence of the sources is less critical (at least, as long as they're covering non-controversial factual material about the subject rather than evaluations of her work) because we're not using that for notability. Instead, the first thing to look at should be her citation record, where Google Scholar lists four publications with over 100 citations each [2], giving a pretty strong case for WP:PROF#C1. (An academic in a book-based field could instead be notable through multiple book reviews of multiple authored books, but with only a single edited volume listed that's not going to work for Jumper-Therman). All that said, your "couldn't identify a single reference" perplexes me; the very first footnote in the article is to an in-depth article about her as a "featured psychologist" by the American Psychological Association, surely an independent and reliable source for this topic if you really are trying to measure notability using WP:GNG instead of using WP:PROF. To put it another way: an academic can be notable through the kind of scholarly accomplishments measured through WP:PROF, or through the kind of publicity and fame measured through WP:GNG, but those are separate criteria. If the sources are in-depth, reliable, and independent, enough to pass WP:GNG, then the subject can be notable regardless of whether those sources say anything relevant to WP:PROF. And symmetrically, if the subject passes any of the criteria of WP:PROF, then they are notable regardless of whether in-depth independent sources exist, let alone whether those sources describe accomplishments that would pass WP:PROF.—David Eppstein (talk) 22:20, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: Thanks. I think I was particularly knackered, when I left it with you. I couldn't focus on the article but the protestant work ethic was still functioning. Looking at it now, it is plain as day that she is notable. Excellent breakdown of the criteria. I will keep it in mind. scope_creep^Talk 00:21, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Floyd's triangle

Hello, David Eppstein. You have new messages at Floyd's triangle's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

@Cmglee: we have no article titled "Floyd's triangle's talk page". Perhaps you meant Talk:Floyd's triangle? —David Eppstein (talk) 23:53, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Degeneracy

@David Eppstein: Yes, I should have written "line segment" rather than "line".

Most of the examples of degeneracy have no sources listed. Do you plan to remove all those examples from the article? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degeneracy_(mathematics)

John Link (talk) 13:48, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Antiprism article infobox

Hi!

I edited the Antiprism article, mostly its infobox: i tried to make everything in this infobox coherent with the symmetry groups claimed in it;

& so, in the Properties field, i wrote: "convex or possibly star".

But perhaps infoboxes should mention only convex polyhedra...?

If the answer is yes, please don't revert all my Antiprism article edits: please just let me know, & i will adapt this infobox soon.

In advance, thank you very much for your answer!

RavBol (talk) 22:08, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

The infobox is only valid for uniform antiprisms. Much of the information it contains is wrong or inapplicable in the more general case. And the title of the infobox has the word "uniform" in it, clarifying that it is only intended to be valid for uniform antiprisms. Uniform antiprisms are always convex. Star antiprisms are a different case, not part of the uniform case. Trying to make the infobox handle more general cases is hopeless, so better not to even try. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:30, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

I trust you, & i will adapt this infobox... but i'm a bit lost:

i don't understand why the star antiprisms that are vertex-transitive & that have regular polygon faces are not uniform;

is it just by definition, please?

(Some other polyhedra are non-convex but are uniform, & some of them are even regular.)

RavBol (talk) 00:02, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

It is just a matter of naming. "Antiprism" could be anything with two parallel congruent faces connected by a ring of alternating triangles. "Uniform antiprism" refers to the convex ones where the two faces are coaxial regular polygons. "Star antiprism" or "uniform star antiprism" refers to a kind of generalized self-crossing polyhedron, again with coaxial regular polygons. The infobox is obviously not intended to even try to work for the general case (if it did, all that stuff about Coxeter notation and Schläfli symbols would be out of place, because they don't work for the general case) and is labeled as being about uniform antiprisms so it should only be about uniform antiprisms. Or, to put it in terms of general principles: if you find yourself having to try to work out the mathematics yourself in order to fill out an infobox field, rather than just copying information from one of the sources of the article, you're probably stretching both the infobox and the article too far in the direction of original research. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:41, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Thank you again for your answer (although i must confess that i don't really understand why you talk so much about uniformity, & so little about convexity).

Well, i removed "or possibly star" from the Properties field of the infobox; now, is it OK, please?

RavBol (talk) 03:44, 16 October 2020 (UTC)