Talk:Stevo Todorčević/Archive 1

Birth place

The correct Todorcević's birth place name is "Ubovića brdo".--Vujkovica brdo (talk) 11:01, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Todorcevic's contributions to mathematics

Taken from

Stevo Todorcevic (Toronto) receives 2012 CRM-Fields-PIMS Prize

December 14, 2011 – The Centre de Recherches Mathématiques, the Fields Institute and the Pacific Institute for Mathematical Sciences have the pleasure to announce that the 2012 CRM-Fields-PIMS Prize in mathematical sciences has been awarded to Stevo Todorcevic from the University of Toronto. Professor Todorcevic obtained his Ph.D. in 1979 in Belgrade and currently holds a Canada Research Chair at the University of Toronto. His contributions to set theory made him a world leader in this topic with a particular impact on combinatorial set theory and its connections with topology and analysis.

His work is recognized for its striking originality and technical brilliance. He was an invited speaker at the 1998 ICM in Berlin for his work on rho-functions. He made major contributions to the study of S- and L- spaces in topology, proved a remarkable classification theorem for transitive relations on the first uncountable ordinal, made a deep study of compact subsets of the Baire class 1 functions thus continuing work of Bourgain, Fremlin, Talagrand, and others in Banach space theory. Together with P. Larson he completed the solution of Katetov’s old compact spaces metrization problem. Among the most striking recent accomplishments of Todorcevic (and co-authors) are major contributions to the von Neumann and Maharam problems on Boolean algebras, the theory of non-separable Banach spaces, including the solution of an old problem of Davis and Johnson, the solution of a long standing problem of Laver, and the development of a duality theory relating finite Ramsey theory and topological dynamics.

Todorcevic is an organizer of the Fall 2012 Fields Thematic Program on Forcing and its Applications.

The Fields Institute, located in Toronto, is recognized as one of the world's leading independent mathematical research institutions. With a wide array of pure, applied, industrial, financial and educational programs, the Fields Institute attracts over 1,000 visitors annually from every corner of the globe, to collaborate on leading-edge research programs in the mathematical sciences. The Fields Institute is funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities, seven principal sponsoring universities, sixteen affiliate universities and several corporate sponsors.

The Fields Institute 222 College Street, 2nd Floor Toronto, Ontario M5T 3J1 Canada

I cannot see a reason for any deviations from the original text. Moreover, his excitement with Todorcevic's brilliance, P. Erdös expressed this way: "Very recently Todorcevic proved $\aleph _{1}\vdash \sideset {}{_{\eta _{1}}^{2}}{[\aleph _{1}]}$. This certainly is an unexpected and sensational result" in P. Erdos' My joint work with Richard Rado in Surveys in Combinatorics 1987: Invited Papers for the Eleventh British Combinatorial Conference by C. Whitehead, CUP Archive, Jul 16, 1987 page 70.--Vujkovica brdo (talk) 19:18, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Claimed accomplishments

Per WP:BLP, we need independent reliable sources for any but the most uncontroversial factual claims about this subject. I have removed some purely evaluative text (e.g. claiming certain results to be "major" or "remarkable") from the section, but Vujkovica brdo has reverted me multiple times. After I complained about the total lack of sourcing in this section I see that a footnote to the subject's PIMS prize citation has been added. But that raises new problems: much of the text here seems to be plagiarized from that source. At this point, given these serious problems, my tendency is to remove the section altogether, but instead I have asked for third opinions at WP:BLPN. So: would someone other than me or Vujkovica brdo care to contribute an opinion on how to resolve this? —David Eppstein (talk) 05:41, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Please, avoid personal attacks! I did not plagiarise anything. References are there!--Vujkovica brdo (talk) 05:57, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Our article: "made major contributions to the study of S- and L-spaces in topology"

The source: "made major contributions to the study of S- and L- spaces in topology" (only difference: one space)

Our article: "proved a remarkable classification theorem for transitive relations on the first uncountable ordinal"

The source: "proved a remarkable classification theorem for transitive relations on the first uncountable ordinal" (no difference)

Our article: "made a deep study of compact subsets of the Baire class 1 functions thus continuing work of Bourgain, Fremlin, Talagrand, and others in Banach space theory"

The source: "made a deep study of compact subsets of the Baire class 1 functions thus continuing work of Bourgain, Fremlin, Talagrand, and others in Banach space theory" (only difference: the names are linked)

Etc.

This is straight-up copying. It is forbidden here. It is a major violation of proper editing behavior. It is plagiarism. This is the sort of thing that would get you failed out of school; what gave you the idea it would ever be an ok thing to do? —David Eppstein (talk) 06:56, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

I've removed it. Plagiarism won't be tolerated. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 07:53, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

It is not plagiarism if using the same wording due to the fact that the reference is given! Anyway, I put all copy-pasted text under quotes. Use a good vocabulary in order to learn what is plagiarism!--Vujkovica brdo (talk) 08:15, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

"plagiarism ˈpleɪdʒərɪz(ə) the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own." - Eppstein, where I ever said that the copied text belongs to me? Didn't I give clearly reference showing where the copied text came from? Shame on you for attacking me!--Vujkovica brdo (talk) 08:24, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

If you were taking a class I teach and you did this, you'd get a zero. It is plagiarism unless you use quotation marks (otherwise you imply that you got the ideas from someone else but you wrote the words yourself). Now that you've done so, it is not plagiarism, though it probably isn't the right way to write an encyclopaedia article. I'll let others comment on that before proceeding. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 08:55, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

I think it would improve readability to paraphrase that section and shorten it. Every detail doesn't need to be mentioned and would help me (and readers in general) focus on the most important aspects if it didn't list everything. The current wording has too much jargon and I can't understand most of it (aka most readers won't be able to either). —PermStrump(talk) 09:55, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

@Nomoskedasticity I have no intention to ever take a worthless class nor I ever did it.--Vujkovica brdo (talk) 10:12, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Biographical data and academic achievements

Here

Sets and Extensions in the Twentieth Century by Dov M. Gabbay, Akihiro Kanamori, and John Woods (editors), Elsevier, 2012

in this great book, I found a lot about the great Canadian mathematician Todorcevic. The only and the great difficulty is how to describe his major achievements in plain English. One chapter of the same book, Infinite Combinatorics by Jean A. Larson, is available online here.--A. Perun (talk) 11:51, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Work

This article sounds as though it has been translated from Serbian or the like. It is also full of spam. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.147.175.160 (talk) 16:36, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm afraid the hyperbolic praise is from English-language material. It's still excessive quoting, and needs to be paraphrased and attributed in text. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:52, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

List of Ph.D students

If the list isn't here in the article, there is no point in having a reference for it. Mathematical genealogy is not a reliable source, but the material is usually not controversial, so it would be allowed, except that that nothing was added to the article. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:31, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

The above comment makes no sense to me. The link S. Todorcevic's Doctoral Students List leads to the mentioned list and every entry of that list is verifiable through Google search or by sending a e-mail message to the corresponding University library. So, the list is fully reliable although it might be incomplete for any recent or past advisory work might be not reported--Vujkovica brdo (talk) 09:48, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

The phrase "reliable source" is wiki-jargon; you can follow the link from Arthur Rubin's post to see its technical meaning. It is pretty clear that Math Genealogy does not meet the necessary standards, and so should not be used as a reference on WP. --JBL (talk) 23:06, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

The only valid standard of the data reliability here is verifiability. All the PhD list entries are correct. So, how it ("does not meet the necessary standards") might be clear in this very particular case? The necessary standards are what? What is the measure of the reliability of the Math Genealogy PhD list?--Vujkovica brdo (talk) 06:30, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Did you click on the link? --JBL (talk) 23:15, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

New mathematical object

As for this text:

As per the RSC fellowship detailed appraisal, the discovery of rho functions, ....

(Text truncated to avoid further copyright violation.)

It is just absurd. I see no way to preserve it except to say:

According to the Royal Society of Canada, ....

and leave it as a direct quote, as it is so hyperbolic that rephrasing is impossible. It would still be a copyright violation. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:40, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

The article has excessive quoting, in general, but the other references to "new mathematical objects" could be paraphrased. That one is hopeless. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:46, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Here is even more pointless claims. Rephrasing is impossible? A new baseless disqualification of the removed paragraph. The previous one was that the paragraph was un-sourced. "It would still be a copyright violation."!--Vujkovica brdo (talk) 09:53, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Recent changes dispute

1. Based on the RSC fellowship detailed appraisal of the Todorcevic's research

The discovery of an entirely new mathematical object is a rare event that is always accompanied by a major advance in our understanding of mathematics and an extended period of exciting progress. It is with this in mind that we celebrate Stevo Todorcevic for his discovery of rho functions and the various applications they have found. The truly new objects discovered in set theory are so few that they can easily be listed by century. The late nineteenth century was, of course, the era of Cantor's discovery of the cardinals and the Cantor set. The early twentieth century witnessed Hausdorff's gap, Aronszajn's tree, Goedel's constructible universe, while the end of the century produced Shelah's PCF structures and Todorcevic's rho functions

I added to the Stevo Todorcevic article this paragraph

As per the RSC fellowship detailed appraisal, the discovery of rho functions, an entirely new mathematical object, is one out of the five in Set theory in the twentieth century. The rho functions (and the various applications they have found) are celebrated as a major advance in understanding of mathematics and an extended period of exciting progress.

The paragraph I've added was removed as "unsourced" or "spam" (two times).

2. In the same article the list of Todorcevic's PhD students was given as the Mathematics Genealogy Project for Stevo Todorcevic. The list is removed twice as not reliable. I manually checked every entry of the list and found them correct.

Are the two changes described above acceptable for you?--Vujkovica brdo (talk) 12:26, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Comments

Since the proposer refuses to comment on my specific complaints about the article, but insists on requesting new input, I need to note additional specific problems with the article and contributions by the requesting editor.

1. WP:BLP policy

   Controversial statements about a living person (Stevo Todorčević) must have an inline citation. I only saw your latest violations when I removed the sections. That the ρ function is a new "object" may be acceptable; that there are only 5 new objects in set theory is an opinion, attributed only to a tribute.

2. Copyright violation and excessive quoting

   The long quotes are excessive; even where (rarely) attributed, they are entirely too long. The rephrasings are still too long, too close to the original, and even more hyperbolic than the original. (I believe Stevo to be a great mathematician. However, these descriptions are unbelievable, so do him no credit.)

3. Opinions stated as fact

   A number of the hyperbolic statements about Todorčević and his work are properly attributed to experts in set theory, who are not necessarily experts in the history of set theory.

As for the specific edits requested

According to an RSC tribute, the discovery of ρ functions, an entirely new mathematical object, is one out of the five in Set theory in the twentieth century. The functions (and the various applications they have found) are celebrated as a major advance in understanding of mathematics and an extended period of exciting progress. (inline reference required)

might be acceptable, although wrong. The formalization of set theory, also in the 20th century, created an even more important object, namely V. The article listed Godel's L as one of the objects.

As for the list of his students, you're not putting the list in the article, so the reference is inappropriate for the infobox. A statement such as:

Todorcevic advised a number of students.< ref>S. Todorcevic's Doctoral Students List</ref>

at the beginning of the Advisory work section seems appropriate.

Further trimming and inline attribution is necessary to meet Wikipedia policies. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:47, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

I agree with all of this. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:04, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

@Rubin.

"Since the proposer refuses to comment on my specific complaints about the article, ...?". Your comments (based on mix of empty phrases and false statements) are no more than meaningless disqualifications of the referenced article text.

Controversial statements about a living person? Which ones and what makes them controversial? What is your level of understanding of the Set theory mr. Rubin? Of the Centre de Recherches Mathématiques, the Fields Institute and the Pacific Institute for Mathematical Sciences mathematicians or, maybe, the Canadian mathematicians, members of the Royal Society of Canada? I'm asking this question for all "controversies" are coming from them.

"Hiperbolic statements" are the expression of the recognition and appreciation of the Todorcevic's research coming from the world renown mathematicians like Kurepa and Erdos and the mathematicians of the RSC - all academically above mr. Rubin, underemployed tax preparer.

Excessive quoting does not exist. It's purely subjective statement of mr. Rubin that does not hold.

The comment "The formalization of set theory, also in the 20th century, created an even more important object, namely V. The article listed Godel's L as one of the objects." is no more than personal opinion of someone not qualified to speak about Set theory. Rubin tries to elevate himself above the mathematicians, members of the RSC, who wrote the Stevo Todorcevic research detailed appraisal. Mr. Rubin, this is utter lack of modesty.

At the end, "Opinions stated as fact". The existing text does not reflect opinions of the article editors since the all biography text is fully covered and supported by valid academic references. --Vujkovica brdo (talk) 07:28, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

You can read about my expertise in set theory (most often, the axiom of choice and related concepts) in my LinkedIn biography. Suffice it to say that I am recognized here as an expert on the axiom of choice. I am curious as to whether Todorčević's methods relate only to Ramsey-type theorems, or whether it might relate to the m = 2 m paper. I find that forcing result intriguing. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:35, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Without reading your LinkedIn biography I could accept that you are an expert on the axiom of choice -- but among the underemployed tax preparers. Still, do you think that you are qualified to lecture the mathematicians, members of the RSC, who wrote the Stevo Todorcevic research detailed appraisal?--Vujkovica brdo (talk) 10:26, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

1. I wrote a great part of this biography. Nothing in the biography is presented as a fact as A. Rubin boldly claims. As far as I see the biography presents appraisals of the Todorcevic's research and achievements coming from the world-renown mathematicians. Much of it, while speaking and writing about Todorcevic's greatness, are "hiperbolic" statements that might not be liked by some. When not agreeing with those "who are not necessarily experts in the history of set theory" we must admit that the "experts in set theory" are a part of the history of set theory. If you are not an expert in set theory, how much is valuable your knowledge of the set theory history? How A. Rubin learned that the experts in set theory who wrote "a number of the hyperbolic statements about Todorčević and his work" are not experts in the history of set theory? Which one? Kurepa? Erdos? All RSC mathematicians behind Todorcevic research citation and detailed appraisal?
2. "The formalization of set theory, also in the 20th century, created an even more important object, namely V." Does A. Rubin has a reference verifying his statement? Even if he has, which way the "the specific edits requested" is wrong or inappropriate?
3. About the list of his Ph.D. students: putting an external link to the professionally well-maintained list instead creating a full list of the PhD students eliminates the need of updating the list in the info box. Not a single Wikipedia rule verifies "so the reference is inappropriate for the infobox".
4. A. Rubin removed well-sourced and correctly interpreted paragraph claiming publicly to be a spam then to be unsourced. A. Rubin, which way is the paragraph, removed by you, a spam or not sourced?
5. Trimming of the A. Rubin's comments above is necessary to meet Wikipedia policies about a meaningful and productive discussion.
6. "You can read about my expertise in set theory (most often, the axiom of choice and related concepts) in my LinkedIn biography. Suffice it to say that I am recognized here as an expert on the axiom of choice." A. Rubin, a self-praise is on a praise.
7. Bottom line - I fully support Vujkovica brdo proposal presented here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by A. Perun (talk • contribs) 16:46, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Regardless of whether the two editors above are the same person or close friends (same articles, similar failure to follow talk page formatting guidelines, etc.), A. Perun has admitted a WP:COI on his user page. Although I believe he would better serve that interest by avoiding copyright violations and repetitions, his opinions should be considered in keeping with that guideline. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:57, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Hm! A primitive attempt to disqualify A. Perun! Which copyright violations and which repetitions, you, mr Underemployed tax preparer, have in mind? Why you are avoiding to answer the questions posted by A. Perun? A. Perun has admitted a WP:COI !!! Really laughable! Equally, I would conclude that mr. Rubin and Eppstein use the same brain, i.e. Eppstein acts here no more than a meat sockpuppet of mr. Rubin. At the end, here is a failed attempt to assassinate my account.--Vujkovica brdo (talk) 19:21, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

You apparently need to review English grammar. I said, whether or not you are the same person. Checkuser says you aren't. (And, if you were found to be sockpuppets, the effect would be only that your edits would be treated as being from the same person, which only affects this talk page, at present.) However, about 20% of Vujkovica brdo's edits and 75% of A. Perun's edits are to the same 3 pages. A. Perun didn't ask a coherent question, and Vujkovica brdo generally made statements, rather than asking questions. If one of you would ask a question which makes sense in English, in the correct forum, I'll probably try to answer.

However, most of the material in the article is not from "assessment" pages, as you call it, but from "tribute" pages. Generally usable, but only to support that the statement was made, not toward the truth of the statement. (They may also be usable for publication lists.) As I said elsewhere, I have no doubt that Stevo is a great mathematician. That makes it difficult to find sources about him which aren't tribute pages. In general, pages on the web page of a prize, describing the person winning the prize, do not have anything "negative" about the person. This means we must note that it is from a "tribute"-type source. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:57, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

This discussion with you becomes more and more funny. "That makes it difficult to find sources about him which aren't tribute pages!". And you mean that the detailed appraisal is just a tribute? Poor you! You continue the same way: jumping from one meaningless phrase and disqualification to another. Your "I said, whether or not" is complemented by "However, about 20% of...". Hm!--Vujkovica brdo (talk) 06:43, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Remark: this old version of the article is much better. It is grammatical, lists his major accomplishments up front, is not larded up with pointless details about where he spent each academic year for the last four decades, and mentions his major mathematical accomplishments in one place. It is not literally true that everything added to the article since then has been a disimprovement, but right now it would benefit from vigorous trimming and culling, as well as editing for basic English grammar. --JBL (talk) 23:20, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

That version does look better, doesn't it. It actually has more specifics. (There should be an article on "Cohen real, and a link to Suslin tree, among other changes. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:44, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

David Eppstein, as the other person who has been active on talk recently: what would you think of rolling back to this older version and adding some details as appropriate from the current version (instead of trying to take what is currently written and trim it back)? --JBL (talk) 15:30, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

I just tried trimming it back to a more purely factual version (without some of the more boring details): [1]. But if (as I expect) Vb continues insisting on his own version then I would be willing to support a more severe trim such as the one you suggest. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:46, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

And now I have been reverted twice in quick succession by Vb. My preferred versions are (1) the version I linked to above, (2) the version from February that JBL linked to above, ..., (n >> 3) Vb's version. But Vb's tendentious behavior (instant reverts of anyone else's edits, removal of others' comments from this talk page, refusal to take seriously the many warnings on his own talk page (see its history; they are all immediately removed)), his personal attacks on other editors here, and his stubbornness in the face of this RFC discussion leads me to believe that more severe measures may be needed. Should we take his behavioral issues to ANI, or is there something else constructive to try before we go that far? —David Eppstein (talk) 19:32, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

The comment above is no more than a personal attack and not the only one. There were a few in the past coming from the same Eppstein.--Vujkovica brdo (talk) 19:41, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

DE, I agree with your ranking (though the older summary of his mathematics has some positive features that could be integrated with your version). The scope of wiki-bureaucracy is vast, so I don't want to say that there are no possible alternatives, but I would support going to ANI. (Actually Vb probably is at the border of 3RR if not over it for the last 24 hours, as well.)--JBL (talk) 19:47, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

@JBL: You are very welcome to improve the article current version grammar. The "lard" comes from the people like Kurepa and Erdos, we just collected it and put in the "bucket". You can inspect Wikipedia biographies of many great mathematicians of the 20ieth century (Goedel, for example) and see many "pointless details about where he spent each academic year". Also, please, do not ridicule existing content: I see nowhere "each academic year" in the article, rather the milestone years of his career, the same way as it was done by Jean Larson. So, please, do not damage this biography further. --Vujkovica brdo (talk) 07:25, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

It is not your place to tell me whether or not I am welcome to make certain kinds of edits -- we have equal standing here. --JBL (talk) 15:30, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Amazing. Even if the subject of the article remotely affiliated with Serbs or Serbia, Serbian nationalists storm in to abuse the Wiki platform to fluff up "their" articles to bolster their image. Getting sick of seeing this in articles dealing with people, places or events who article on here are subjugated to. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.54.93.183 (talk) 01:01, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

About Tributes. According to the Cambridge Dictionary tribute (n) is something that you say, write, or give that shows your respect and admiration for someone, especially on a formal occasion. Kindly, please, do not change Summary (the section name) to Tributes.--Vujkovica brdo (talk) 08:58, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Doesn't a nomination for an award, even if called an "appraisal", qualify as a "tribute"? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:13, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Comment: I would support a trimmed statement like "the creation/invention/development of rho functions" properly reference sourced, and link to an article on rho functions. (FYI I don't believe in the use of the word discover for math, it implies the math exists and is discovered like Columbus discovered America; I believe all math is created by humans")

I don't think there is a reason to list all PhD students he advised, just students that later became famous.CuriousMind01 (talk) 21:48, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Section for those of us unfortunate enough to have been summoned here by Legobot

• I find Vujkovica brdo's posts, including the statement of this RfC, essentially unintelligible. I sampled Arthur Rubin's complaints, and they seem valid. I concur with Dave Eppstein's attempts to trim the article. EEng 05:31, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
• The claims by User:Vujkovica brdo,for the inclusion of certain statements seems non-appropriate to me.They necessarily contain the rhetoric but fails to make a solid stand. Please try to understand the difference between a source and a tribute source.It is no doubt that he is a great mathematican and his contribution to the field of Set Theory can't be overlooked but it is better not to try to hammer the greatness down a reader's throat!Also it would be better if a particular set of editors stop attacking others casting doubts over one's qualification for the editing and calling users by distasteful names!Please read WP:OWNBEHAVIOR and WP:EQ.I support reverting the article temporally back to a more stark and purely factual version: [2]. Aru@baska^{❯❯❯ Vanguard}
• @Vujkovica brdo:@EEng:@David Eppstein:@Arthur Rubin:@A. Perun:@Joel B. Lewis::It is for the kind information of the editors undertaking part in the discussion that User:Vujkovica brdo has retired from WIKIPEDIA.Aru@baska^{❯❯❯ Vanguard} 10:33, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
  • That would simplify the discussion, but see Wikipedia:WikiSpeak#retired. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:28, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
    • Ha!Ha! Aru@baska^{❯❯❯ Vanguard} 10:22, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
• Agree in detail with the foregoing entries from EEng, David Eppstein, Arthur Rubin, et possibly al. JonRichfield (talk) 06:03, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
• I find myself in substantial agreement with Eppstein, Rubin, etc. That said, I am intrigued by Mr. Todorčević's discovery of the rho function and I wonder if "so-called" is appropriate for the article; perhaps a balance can be struck. Heterodidact (talk) 18:35, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
  • "so-called" was part of Vujkovica brdo's additions. Quite likely Vb is not a native speaker of English and is unaware of the pejorative connotations of that phrase. I would be happy to not include it. As for rho-functions, there is material about them at [3], [4], and [5], if someone cares to write an article about them. A separate article would probably make more sense than going into detail in this one. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:05, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
    • Eppstein, it's you. The "so-called" was a part of your trimming. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.92.77.178 (talk) 16:45, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
• Comment. The current version of the article makes me think that Todorčević is an eminent mathematician, who works on topics that I have no hope of understanding. But previous versions, with overblown text by Vujkovica brdo and by 178.223.74.168, tend to make the reader suspect that he may be a Mohamed El Naschie-style fraud. Maproom (talk) 09:07, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Section for those of us fortunate enough to have been summoned here by Legobot

• This has been an interesting read. My three semesters of Engineering calculus have left me no more qualified to rule on this than many others similarly summoned by Legobot, but I'll contribute what I can, as I've done for every bot summoned discussion. I made a couple of changes to the article. I agree that perhaps you don't discover mathematics any more than Columbus discovered America, but you do identify unique ways to apply the tools. Verbiage changed accordingly. I Wiki-linked for the rho functions term to encourage an article, written by someone who knows more about set theory than I do. I'd also like to point out this, the supposedly simpler version: [[6]]Timtempleton (talk) 20:18, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Common sense and harrassment

I've tried to add more sense to this biography changing the introductory paragraph to

Stevo Todorčević is a Canadian-French-Serbian mathematician, one of the world’s leading logicians and a world leader in set theory and its applications to pure mathematics[2][3]. He is a Canada Research Chair Professor in mathematics at the University of Toronto,[4] and a senior director of research at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) in Paris[5].

then by adding Kurepa's praise of Stevo's talent. I've read the discussion, full of irrational disqualifications and denials. The fact is: Stevo is a world leader, not the one "specializing in":

• CNRS: Stevo Todorcevic (ELM) is a world-renowned authority in transfinite combinatory and ensembles theory. His results have a profound impact on functional analysis, general topology and geometry of Banach spaces.
• PIMS: Professor Todorcevic’s contributions to set theory have made him a world leader in this topic with a particular impact on combinatorial set theory and its connections with topology and analysis
• RSC:Dr. Todorcevic has been a brilliantly creative and productive mathematician for almost forty years, and is now clearly a world leader in set theory and its applications to pure mathematics
• Canada Research Chair: Todorcevic, Stevo University of Toronto Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Mathematics from 1/1/2011; Tier 1 Chairs – tenable for seven years and renewable indefinitely, are for outstanding researchers acknowledged by their peers as world leaders in their fields.

Also, I do no see why is completely removed information about Stevo's advisory work. Mathematics Genealogy Project Stevo's PhD students list is accurate, therefore reliable. Calling upon Wikipedia reliable source proves nothing. Farah's and Moore's dissertations are Stevo's success, too.

Praises of Stevo's talent and his contributions to mathematics of the 20ieth and 21st century coming from Erdos and Kurepa, then from Rinot, Avila, Moore, Larson, and other mathematicians are valuable editions to the biography.

This version is not only trimmed beyond any rationality but also the remaining content distorted and became meaningless in two places:

At Belgrade University, he studied pure mathematics, attending lectures by Đuro Kurepa? Kurepa's lectures were not a part of regular curriculla - rather advanced lectures in set theory primarily.

...which led to new edge-colorings of infinite complete graphs. -is utter nonsense.

The biography is reduced to the level of Wikipedia biographies of the two Wikipedia administrators: Arthur Rubin, David Eppstein.

Arthur Rubin - a man who was not able to establish an academic career and who was primarily a software engineer for thirty years with time gaps between consecutive employments. His software engineer career ended at his 53 and he is unemployed the last seven years. He promoted himself on this talk page to Continuum hypothesis expert.

David Eppstein - a college professor whose all research belongs to fringes of computer science. All his research results can be classified as outdated, deficient some way, narrow in scope, theoretically insignificant, or not clearly separable from co-authors' results.

The other members of their gang are not worth of mentioning. We have here to cope with deep-rooted inferiority complexes of these two. Pay attention to:

Todorčević is a good mathematician, certainly notable enough to have an article, but I think well below that level

I also believe (though I did not already say it) that they are not the same person as Todorčević. This is a gemstone that usually comes from a mindset of a dirty political campaigner.--178.223.74.168 (talk) 07:43, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

• I won't remove your bizarre attacks on other editors (as would normally be done – see WP:TPO) because they make so clear the nature of your participation here. If you're a friend of Todorcevic (whom you refer to as "Stevo") then presumably he's unaware of what you're doing, as it would be deeply embarrassing to him. In addition, gaps in your English apparently render you unable to grasp the inappropriateness of the kind language you keep trying to insert in the article. I have had the pleasure of the personal acquaintance, or better, of mathematicians as or more accomplished than Todorcevic (Andrew Gleason, Raoul Bott, Andrei Zelevinsky – to name a few) and they would never countenance the use of such fawning language in reference to themselves. I note, by the way, that there seems to be no indication of any kind of care or talent for teaching on Todorcevic's part, which is almost always found in the truly great mathematician.

I've again reverted to the version of the article endorsed by every editor here except you. If you want something changed, per WP:BRD raise it here and get others to agree with it. As it is you'll be lucky to escape a block for your lame personal attacks. EEng 14:05, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

• First of all a registered user account and then an IP.I did not know Stevo Todorčević had so many fans and them too unruly!:) Aru@baska^{❯❯❯ Vanguard} 10:38, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

• @178.223.74.168:Since you want to add so many epithets to the article, how about adding a section discussing how some members of a gang here in Wikipedia with inferiority complexes allegedly harassed the mathematician by maligning with his biography and reduced it to the level of Wikipedia biographies of two Wikipedia administrators. Won't that look good? Cheers!Aru@baska^{❯❯❯ Vanguard} 10:38, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

@EENg: *I have had the pleasure of the personal acquaintance, or better, of mathematicians as or more accomplished than Todorcevic ...*! How did you measure their accomplishments? Using your mom's kitchen scales?--24.135.100.128 (talk) 10:34, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Quite the mic drop. Do you have any concrete suggestions for improving the article? EEng 16:55, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

ARUNEEK: if you perceive other editors here as operating as a gang, it's because you are an outlier. Maproom (talk) 13:06, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Maproom-Sorry, but I think you failed to get my sarcasm.I used certain words in quotation style for some reason.Read my comment in the prev. RFC section.You'll get an idea about my real views! Cheers!Aru@baska^{❯❯❯ Vanguard} 06:29, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Selected publications

How someone, who is not a mathematician and who does not know and understand dr Todorcevic's work, is able to write a list of selected publications? Dr Todorcevic did it twice: here and here. D. Eppstein is smarter than S. Todorcevic?--24.135.100.128 (talk) 10:20, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

They are merely the publications that the text of the article calls out as important. These are either accomplishments added (but poorly cited) by Vujkovica brdo, or his books. I don't think any special expertise is necessary for me to recognize a book as a significant publication, and one of them won an award that was already included in Vujkovica brdo's version of the article. If I were picking additional citations to add, I would probably include "Fraïssé limits, Ramsey theory, and topological dynamics of automorphism groups" and maybe "Borel chromatic numbers", as the most highly cited of his research papers, but being highly cited can mean many different things and I'd want to understand the reasons for citing them better before adding them. As for Todorčević's own lists: they're helpful but I think too long to include in whole here. And, on a side note, you are falling into the same ad hominem fallacies that Vb has, and that so greatly weakened his position here. Address content, not your imagined and mistaken view of what other editors think or understand. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:08, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

1. The language I've used to address the lack of modesty you showed when writing the list is somewhat profane, I admit, but nowhere ad hominem. By the way, this talk page testifies you've lied twice: first claiming that Vb plagiarized the summary of the Todorcevic's research, second - when you've attributed the "so-called" phrase to Vb. These lies are no less than personal attacks. The history of your fight with Vb shows some other disparaging comments directed at Vb what I do not want to mention here. Vb retaliated exposing your academic research (as something of very low quality) on your Wikipedia biography talk page. To counter Vb you destroyed this article which certainly does not belong to Vb.
2. Now about the article. The article does not need any list of selected publications; it's enough to have links to these two written by Todorcevic. As to the list length and content, no comment ... except ... In the Amadeus movie one of the Viennese Royal Opera claimed that a Mozart's opera had too many notes. I do not know whether this Opera official ever added some other Mozart notes to the opera or cut a few of them as the Austrian Emperor Leopold suggested.
3. Further, the Mathematics Genealogy Project is referenced in the Arthur Rubin and in many other Wikipedia biographies. Here, it was removed (It is pretty clear that Math Genealogy does not meet the necessary standards, and so should not be used as a reference on WP. --JBL (talk) 23:06, 15 November 2016 (UTC)). Why Mathematics Genealogy Project is not reliable just here and why it is removed as reference?
4. Then you replaced one of the world’s leading logicians and a world leader in set theory and its applications to pure mathematics heavily sourced by five appraisals of Todorcevic's research coming from five world top ranked academic institutions (PIMS, Fields Institute, CRM, RSC, SASA) with your petty specializing in mathematical logic and set theory.
5. Recognition of Todorcevic's rho functions and their use (by Todorcevic) when the edges of the complete graph G whose vertices are the elements of the smallest uncountable cardinal number was addressed correctly and sourced properly by Vb. You've deleted it replacing it by meaningless Todorčević discovered the so-called rho functions, which led to new edge-colorings of infinite complete graphs then after by even more meaningless and wrong This work led to edge-colorings of infinite complete graphs with the property that all uncountable induced subgraphs have an edge of each color, using more colors than previously known possible. The Induced subgraph of Graph theory ,as elaborated in a Wikipedia article, has nothing to do with the problem Todorcevic solved. The latest to assign an uncountable number of colors to the pairs of countable ordinal numbers, in such a way that every uncountable subset of these ordinals includes pairs of all colors is rewritten from the abstract of the referenced Todorcevic's paper and not better than the one given by Vb. Please, do not explain anything you are not capable to understand.
6. I'll stop at this point.--24.135.100.128 (talk) 20:15, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

The only thing you're saying that seems related to article improvement is re the publications list. Are you saying that there should be fewer works listed? EEng 21:11, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Most of what 24.135.100.128 writes above is pointless to even bother responding to. The accusations of plagiarism, on the part of both Vujkovica brdo and later A. Perun [7] [8] were accurate and I continue to stand behind them. They are about content (content from other sources which was added here inappropriately), not about insulting people. And if 24.135.100.128 doesn't see the equivalence between sets of elements such that their pairs have some property and induced subgraphs of complete graphs, then I would argue that it is 24.135.100.128's mathematical understanding that is lacking. However, I should add one thing. The reason that I separated out some footnotes into a "selected publications" list had very little to do with the actual choice of which publications to list there. It was that, because these are publications by Todorčević, rather than publications by other people about Todorčević and his works, they cannot be listed in the references section. Having a separate section gives us somewhere that they can be listed. The alternative is to get rid of those footnotes altogether, eliminate the "selected publications" section, and not cite any of Todorčević's publications directly. The way it was done before is not acceptable. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:16, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Don't let it bother you. Everyone sees what's going on here. EEng 22:00, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

It's not bothering me, but I keep thinking that rational arguments might persuade these people. That's probably a mistake on my part. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:04, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

It's beginning to look like all this criticism of your mathematical talent may be justified -- witness your misconceptions about rationals. EEng 04:53, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Heh. That got a chuckle out of me, at least. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:43, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

I do the best I can with the material available. EEng 23:36, 6 December 2016 (UTC)