User talk:David Eppstein/2011a

Dating of the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus

David I refer to your reverting my change to the possible timing of when the ancient Egyptian scribe Ahmes copied down his version of the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus. I assume you changed my date back to 1650 BC as this is the date mentioned in the Wikipedia article on the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus. However, while you reverted my change because you considered it "original research", I made the change because I was concerned that the date that originally appears in both Ahmes and Rhind Mathematical Papyrus articles seems to be quite inconsistent with the dating of the various Egyptian dynasties, pharaohs and kings which are also mentioned in both articles. For example, in the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus Wikipedia article, it is stated that the Papyrus document “is dated to Year 33 of the Hyksos king Apophis and also contains a separate later Year 11 on its verso likely from his successor, Khamudi”. Now the Wikipedia articles dealing with Apophis (Apepi) and Khamudi date both kings to the early to mid 16th century BC. They are also both considered to be contemporaries of Kamose (from the 17th dynasty) and Ahmose I (the founder of the 18th dynasty) both of whom were pharaohs in the mid-16th century BC (according to the relevant Wikipedia articles). I am not familiar as to whether the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus has been carbon dated or some other information is available that means that there is some confidence that it dates from around 1650 BC (ie mid-17th century BC rather than mid-16th century BC). I also recognise that the calculation of the dates when various ancient Egyptian Pharaohs were alive is subject to a great deal of controversy amongst Egyptologists. However, for the sake of consistency with the dates used in related Wikipedia articles, I made the change to the date that you have reverted. I would appreciate your thoughts on my reasoning for the change. Thanks Chewings72 (talk) 04:49, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

See WP:SYN. Wikipedia is not the place to publish discoveries about inconsistent dating. What you need to do is to find reliable sources indicating that your modified dating is accepted by Egyptologists (or, iof it is not, first get them to accept it), and use those sources to justify the change. Of course, the 1650 date in our existing article also needs justification from reliable sources, just as much, but that's the date given in the sources we already have. By the way, you should also not be using the "this is a minor edit" checkbox to mark significant factual changes such as this. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:05, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback and advice. Chewings72 (talk) 07:22, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

12th Planet Page

Dear David-

I am not sure how editing the 12th Planet page on Wikipedia to the biography and discography of the well known dubstep producer and DJ is soapboxing. If you search "12th Planet" on Google you will find that the first results are related to the dubstep DJ and not the author Zacharais Stitchin. The biography and discography I placed on the page were from 12th Planets official biography on his website, and all his releases from beatport.com. There is nothing false or opinionated in the article I provided. I am not 12th Planet, and am therefore not promoting myself. He has toured globally under that alias, and is a significant part of the dubstep movement in the USA. Therefore, I see no reason for his page to be deleted or considered "unworthy" so to speak.

Thanks, Laura — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dambuleff (talk • contribs) 08:13, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Please see WP:GNG and WP:MUSIC. The article you are writing is in a state where, if it were a new article rather than a replacement for an existing redirect, it would be subject to speedy deletion under criteria A7 and G12: it does not explain what about its subject makes him significant enough to warrant an encyclopedia article, and the tone of its text is not neutral and factual but more gushing and promotional. In addition, all articles about living people are subject to a slower deletion process if the claims in them are not backed with reliable sources, stories published by independent third-party media that cover the subject in a nontrivial way. I'm also not impressed by the Google results: of the ten results on the first page, the myspace and facebook ones are the music producer and the rest are Zitchin. So I'm not convinced that replacing the redirect rather than creating a new disambiguated article is correct, even if the other problems are fixed. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:24, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

12th Planet

You're right, but do you think you should stop reverting now? I'll warn him myself. Dougweller (talk) 09:34, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I'll let you take over. Thanks for the reminder. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:31, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Turning Ten

On Saturday January 15, 2011, Wikipedia will turn 10 years and people all over the globe will be celebrating Wikipedia on that day. No event is currently planned for Orange County Wikipedians, so I am leaving a message with some of the currently involved editors listed in "Wikipedians in Orange County, California" to see if we might want to meet on that day, lunch, dinner, group photo or other ideas welcomed? I will start a "Turning Ten" discussion thread on my Talk page to see if any interest can be planned for and determined. I am located in Old Towne Orange off the circle. Tinkermen (talk) 19:36, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Question

RE: edit, did you read the message I put on the prod? Jeepday (talk) 00:11, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Duh, yes, it was at the top of the discussion I posted to. But to me that phrasing indicates that you did *not* have difficulty finding sources; what you had difficulty with is your lack of mathematical expertise, which prevented you from incorporating those sources into the article or using them to verify the article. It is not expected or reasonable to expect that random non-mathematically-educated editors can understand the more technical of our mathematics articles. So your prod constitutes a lack of awareness of your own abilities rather than an actual valid reason for deletion. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:24, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the response, was not sure if it was just another venting as your comment seems very similar to others. I would point out WP:OWN has conflict with your statement "our mathematics articles". I will just leave it at that. Jeepday (talk) 00:49, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

By "our" I meant Wikipedia's, rather than mathematics articles on some other site; I was not intending any more restrictive meaning than that. But I do think that one should have some understanding of what one is editing, and in mathematics that understanding is not easily come by. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:52, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Eleonore von Trapp

The prod was due to a lack of individual notability. Did you see anything in the article that indicated she was notable outside of the Von Trapp Singers? MSJapan (talk) 06:29, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the von Trapps are notable enough that individuals among them are also notable. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:31, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Notability is not inherited by association. MSJapan (talk) 06:36, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

So take it to AfD. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:37, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Shapley–Folkman lemma: GA Review

Hi David!

Our article is being reviewed for good-article status. I've made a number of revisions in the last week, and your feedback would be most valuable now.

I just asked Michael Hardy for advice about Wiki-markup formatting of summations, and you may be able to offer suggestions, too, of course.

I LaTeXed the equations formerly troubling the WikiMarkup language. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 18:50, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Best regards, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 05:31, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

GA Review

Act(s) of violence

Hej David,

My writing that a plane "has the form of" a coordinatized plane was simply a popular way of saying "linearly isomorphic to R²". I agree with your revisions, although your edit summaries chafe a bit! ;)

Cheers, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 23:11, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Pruning

Hi again. I agree that some material can be removed. (I expanded the material on convex sets, and convex hulls this weekend.) Please delete boldly! Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 01:12, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Splitting-off Starr's corollary

I suggested that we split-off a separate article on the metric results, which stimulated the blue-joy response "WP:Summary style" from Geometry Guy. Would you welcome such a splitting?

I would suggest one of the following titles for the article:

1. Starr's theorem (shortest, and doesn't create confusion with SF lemma, which precedes it.)
2. Starr's corollary to the Shapley–Folkman theorem (most accurate but least popular)
3. Shapley–Folkman–Starr theorem (most popular)

For simplicity, I would favor the first title, particularly since it would be the second part of the SF lemma article. Otherwise, a disambiguation page may be needed, which would be rather unhelpful, imho.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 20:25, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I prefer the third one. The most accurate one is too long and cumbersome, and "Starr's theorem" is too ambiguous — it can also refer to something about sequences of positive contractions in σ-finite measure spaces. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:57, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I was afraid that you would favor the third!

I was too ignorant to fear that you would dislike the second!

Thanks!  Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 22:38, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Clique complex

I changed the definition and discussion of conformal hypergraphs to match the references given, which do not require the hypergraph to be a downward-closed set system. The original text was yours, so you might want to review my edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Clique_complex&action=historysubmit&diff=408013817&oldid=374829906

Regards, Ott2 (talk) 13:29, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, David Eppstein. You have new messages at Fabian Hassler's talk page.
Message added 09:20, 17 January 2011 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Monotone Boolean function; Permutohedron

Hi David,

I've just created , based on your . I think the hypercubes add some helpful information. So if you don't object, I'd replace your version by the hypercube version. That's what I've just done in Monotonic function, because I wanted to add the easy definition, referring to the hypercubes.

I'd also recommend, to replace by in Permutohedron, because the latter file shows why one permutation is linked to an other. Of course it doesn't look like a truncated octahedron, but I think that problem can be solved by showing and in the description. Greetings, Lipedia (talk) 22:22, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't mind the replacement for monotone functions (see also Dedekind number), but I don't think the replacement should be done in the permutohedron article. A permutohedron is not just the Cayley graph of the symmetric group, it is a geometric object (a convex polytope), and your figure doesn't show it with its proper geometry. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:02, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Okay. I thought of the permutohedron only as a graph, not as a solid.
So I will create a 3D version of for the article, as I did for . Lipedia (talk) 09:53, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

P versus NP problem‎

Hello! I undid your removal in this article because /. has a long history with wikipedia (please see History of Wikipedia) and is both verifiable and mainstream. I am happy to discuss this further if you like, but since /. articles are reviewed (it's not a self-published site), I see no reason not to be able to cite it. Best, Markvs88 (talk) 19:20, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I see little to distinguish this from the entries in Woeginger's collection of 67 supposed solutions to the problem, some of which have received considerably more attention (from sources with a little more knowledge and experience of complexity theory) than this one. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:41, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, but OTOH plastic is only one molecule removed from margarine. :-) Which entry(ies?) do you think match? Best, Markvs88 (talk) 19:51, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Paolo Padovani

HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:03, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, but I think Dr. Blofeld (talk · contribs) deserves most of the credit for this one. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:37, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Your edits on the Wikipedia List of Ukrainians

David Eppstein, thank you for clarifying your position. David Eppstein, Wikipedia is NOT a milieu for promoting one's ethnic hatred towards the things Ukrainian - Ukrainian history, culture or politics. Your mentioning of the WP:NPOV clause is very appropriate. In case you have not noticed, David Eppstein, luckily for us, Ukrainians, we are no longer living in the days of "USSR", "Komintern" and "Cheka". I hope you understand that the days when Kommissar-steins were deciding what has or has not anything to do with Ukraine, are over. David Eppstein, please consider contributing to Wikipedia constructively, and not destructively. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.234.208.200 (talk) 11:07, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Re: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reza Parchizadeh

Hi, David. I appreciate the timely note you added to this discussion. I'm not exactly sure how to proceed: both SPAs User:Timelesstune and User:Xayyam have uploaded to the Commons and added to the article images, which they've licensed PD-Self, the copyright for which can surely belong only to the article's subject (or his publisher, in the case of the book covers). Out of concern for WP:OUTING, I've avoided asking the obvious question. However, if the answer to the obvious question is yes, the editors, in line with WP:COI, ought not to be participating in the deletion discussion and shouldn't be editing the article (there may also be socking). It would also mean the article is an autobiography (and a spammy one at that). On the other hand, if the answer to the obvious question is no, the images are probable copyvios they have no business licensing PD-Self -- though that's a matter for Commons admins to act on.

I suppose I could ask about a "close connection" to the subject without running afoul of WP:OUTING. I'm not sure there's enough here for an SPI, but I note the sudden appearance of yet another new user in the discussion. -- Rrburke (talk) 21:16, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

My default reaction would be just to trust the closing admin to see through the socking and make an appropriate decision. The {{not a vote}} notice should be enough warning to the closing admin to look more carefully. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:20, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Hugh Darwen

I guess you never read the trail. This article has been repeatedly put for deletion by one user who everytime has refused any justification, and when he tried this time he just made some facts, besides failing to discuss the relevance of the article in the discussion pages even when asked.

— Leandro GFC Dutra (talk) 02:35, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

So make the case that it's a bad-faith nomination, within the AfD, and wait for an admin to believe you and close it. Removing the AfD notice doesn't actually help anything; it just makes it harder for people interested in the article to find out that there's a deletion discussion going on. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:46, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Andreu Mas-Colell and Graciela Chichilnisky

I nominated your handiwork from the 18th. I may also nominate Ohio-State number theorist and statistician Herbert Mann in a day or so. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 01:19, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks — it's always good to see some mathematical content in DYK. Um, the Herbert Mann link you give is to a football player — I think you mean Henry Mann? —David Eppstein (talk) 01:25, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, I meant the sum-setting Atlantic-crossing late-blooming statistician of Ohio (State U.), whom I never met but for whom I feel some spiritual kinship. Speaking of OHIO, I nominated Mann's article with a DYK that may be declared heretical by higher initiates of the mystery cult of Ronald A. Fisher! Cheers, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 02:03, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Topological sorting

I would appreciate your opinion here: Talk:Topological_sorting#Lead_paragraph_and_example. Have a nice day! --Surturz (talk) 07:32, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Graciela Chichilnisky

—HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:03, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Math formatting

Hi, you are currently brushing over prime number and replacing every(?) occurrence of n by $n$. Please stop doing so, this is not in accordance with WP:MOSMATH ("Having LaTeX-based formulae in-line which render as PNG under the default user settings, as above, is generally discouraged") and in any case is a kind of a major change of notation which should not be done without consensus. Thank you, Jakob.scholbach (talk) 21:49, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I am doing no such thing. I am replacing them by {{math}}. It is very different from <math>: for one thing, it does not use png. What it actually does is to prevent line breaks and use a serif font. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:52, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Not sure what you meant by this. I undid Cyclopia's revert of my good faith edit (together with an explanatory note at the talk page). Did I undo one of your formatting changes? If so, I apologize--it was an edit conflict; since I was editing the whole article, I could not save it, so I pasted the paragraph I had edited (in the first section) where it belonged.

P.S. I sincerely hope we don't get angry at each other about formatting issues. I had one such discussion recently and I'm much more happy to ignore my aesthetical sensibilities than to waste time with such discussions. If you feel like changing all the formatting, go ahead, I'm just noting that this is unusual and, I believe, prone to cause irritation. Best, Jakob.scholbach (talk) 22:05, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Spacing

Nowrap may be interesting indeed, but the question is not of non-break spaces having the same width as normal ones: ðere are quite some situations where þin spaces are required, such as as þousands separators, between numbers and SI abbreviations and the such. Nor is the þin non-break space nonstandard, in fact it is ðe typographical standard for such situations, and a part of ðe Unicode standard.

— Leandro GFC Dutra (talk) 00:34, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Andreu Mas-Colell

—HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:03, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

"Heather Woodfield"

How is Heather Woodfield notable?The subjects' links are all websites.One reference describes Woodfield as a voter,nothing more.Please nominate Heather Woodfield for deletion.(Ny proof reader (talk) 20:07, 30 January 2011 (UTC))

Partial cube article created

Hi, David. I just reached my 30,000-edit mark, so to celebrate I wrote a little article about partial cubes. I noticed it was on a to-do list of yours, so I thought I'd let you know; hopefully you have some things you can add to expand it beyond the little bit I was able to say. —Bkell (talk) 03:11, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! I've already added some material. But it involved some self-reference, and there's more to add that will likely also involve self-reference. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:12, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Navarro River Redwoods State Park

—HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 06:04, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Henry Mann

Hi David! The same goes for Henry Mann, which is now appearing as a DYK fact; Henry Mann is another article that you significantly expanded (and are continuing to expand). Best regards,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (talk) 18:34, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, but I think my edits to Mann have been relatively minor so far. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:35, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

JSTOR access

Hi, David -- I started the page for Frederick T. van Beuren, Jr., M.D., which you voted upon recently in its ensuing rfd debate. While looking at your background (grateful to see someone who appreciated the value of the professional sources joining the voting) I noticed that you are noted as a Wikipedian with access to JSTOR and I am curious about that.

Previously, I have found sources I desired to implement in articles that were found only at Science (journal) and JSTOR, but needed to view beyond the snippet or first page allowed those without an affiliation that provides access, in order be able to make or complete a reference, quote, or citation. When I asked whether Wikipedia provided access for its established editors, I was told, no. Without access, I have had to gloss over tantalizing potential source materials several times. May other editors make occasional requests for such items through you? _ _ _ _ 83d40m (talk) 20:56, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't think I have access to the older archives of Science, but I'm willing to share sources from JSTOR in accordance with their terms and conditions (see especially 2.1e, which appears to authorize exactly this sort of access). —David Eppstein (talk) 21:11, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Categories for discussion nomination of Category:Endemic species of Mendocino County, California

Category:Endemic species of Mendocino County, California, which you created, has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. Mike Selinker (talk) 04:43, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

D'Jais

I'm asking several other editors (including the tireless Phil Bridger) to give their thoughts at this AfD [1]. Thanks. EEng (talk) 14:19, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Er. I would say something about WP:CANVASS here, except that your opinion on this AfD was to delete and Bridger and I are not exactly deletionists. Regardless, I'm not sure it's appropriate to recruit individual editors to an AfD in this way. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:43, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely nothing inappropriate, and CANVASS says so. I grabbed the first 5 editors I could think of who were active in AfD in general, and said what I was doing on the AfD page in question. I paticularly wanted Bridger because he's good at finding sources for notability -- lord knows the articles "keep"-ers don't know how to do this. Participate or don't but please don't give the article's "author" more to rail about. 01:45, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost interview

Update: Thanks for participating in the interview. Just a heads up that section editor Mabeenot, has move the publication date to this coming Monday, 21 February. The final draft has now been posted. Please go through it to check for any inaccuracies, etc. Thanks again. – SMasters (talk) 23:48, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, David Eppstein. You have new messages at Template talk:Did you know.
Message added 10:03, 9 February 2011 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Thanks for your review. Again, great spotting here! Zachlipton (talk) 10:03, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Block cellular automaton

Orlady (talk) 18:02, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Norman Margolus

Orlady (talk) 18:03, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eric Esrailian

I've read your comments at this AFD and I'm wondering if you are accusing me of something. For the record, the only AFDs I usually relist with 2 good faith keep !votes and no deletes are BLPs as I think it's good to be a little more careful with those. I almost closed this one as "keep". The only reason I relisted this one was because one of the keep !votes was from an spa. I have no stake in this article one way or another and the final "keep" close was proper.--Ron Ritzman (talk) 18:10, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

The default action even in BLP cases (unless the subject has also requested deletion) should be to keep. In a case where there are at least two weighty and policy-based !votes, both on the keep side, and no deletes, it seems unlikely that the consensus is going to shift — at best there will be no consensus. I haven't tried stalking your other closes to see how you handle the deletes, but this came after I got into a bit of an argument with another admin a month ago who was doing similar relists on cases with multiple keep !votes, but was also closing some discussions as having a consensus for delete when they didn't even have a single delete !vote. So maybe I carried that unfairly over from him to you, but I think that deletion closure should have a greater appearance of impartiality than that. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:08, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

If you're referring to this then I agree with you. Anybody relisting an AFD with that many !votes needs to provide a relisting comment and a damn good reason why it needed to be relisted. As far as my delete closes, unlike some admins I don't usually close discussions with fewer then 2 delete !votes as "delete" unless they are unsourced BLPs. The reason for that is because if someone questions my deletion, I can't with a straight face tell them "because there was a consensus to do so" unless at least 2 editors concur with the nominator. (though I would prefer 3 or more) --Ron Ritzman (talk) 19:57, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

It was actually a different case with a different admin. I have to admit, though, that I !voted to delete on this case after it had been relisted after two keeps, so maybe that's still little enough discussion that a case may stil bel fluid. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:15, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Frattini subgroup, Lattice of subgroups

Hi,
could you please check my new starting sentence in Frattini subgroup? I proposed it on the talk page (Talk:Frattini_subgroup#Contradiction?), but there seems to be not much traffic.

By the way: What do you think about using File:Dih4 subgroups (cycle graphs).svg in Lattice of subgroups? I like, that the two Klein-4-groups and the Z₄ are easily distinguished. I don't see the difference in the F's. Greetings, Lipedia (talk) 22:14, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

DYK for The Princeton Companion to Mathematics

Materialscientist (talk) 12:02, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

IN RE IZAK

David - as you have already interceded in the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chaim Rabinowitz I am requesting, when you have a chance, to please take a look at the rambling, abusive diatribe directed against me by IZAK for having made the AFD nomination. Thanks. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 01:03, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments re the above. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 02:58, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what to tell you. IZAK rv your edit at the AFD with the edit summary "Removing insert by involved admin that was also violating WP:VANDALISM (last two votes were blocked out)". This guy is seriously out of control. This is now harassment. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 04:07, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I restored your edits by removing IZAK's hatemongering nonsense. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 04:10, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Rms125a@hotmail.com: Please get your own house in order before flying off the handle. Here is a suggestion for you: Whenever you get involved in a serious matter, especially starting an AfD is a serious matter, please explain why you are entitled to have a user name that violates WP policies (per Wikipedia:Username policy#Internet addresses: "E-mail addresses and URLs are not valid usernames") to illustrates the important point that all rules have exceptions and therefore in the AFD anyone should be free to cite arguments that are also "exceptions to the AfD rules" just as your user name is an exception to WP rules. Thanks for your consideration. IZAK (talk) 08:46, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Actions as in an involved admin

Hi David: As a long-time involved admin you should know better. You are acting to defend a problematic nominator [2] [3] who is in violation of WP policies while he attempts to "impose" WP policies and you are defending him by your actions. You should know better because you were the one who always claims that "special pleading" does not fly with you, so how about applying it to this nominator who can't have it both way. Please stop it. Thank you. IZAK (talk) 03:42, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

ANI discussion

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Rms125a@hotmail.com regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. IZAK (talk) 04:46, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

• The discussion was closed, I am moving on. Thanks, IZAK (talk) 08:40, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Rule 90

Materialscientist (talk) 06:04, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Piven

Why would you characterize me as a "Beck edit warrior"? I've made one edit to the Beck page over a reference being used incorrectly in August of '10. I did have ongoing discussion over that edit on the talk page, but that was mainly about the "automatic" value of any source. You are being heavy handed in your revert of my opinion. Study the history of big social movements around the world and you will get an idea of what Piven is advocating, and has always advocated. I really am not criticizing her holding that opinion. It is a valid opinion to have. What I see happening is that the left-leaning editors are bowing to pressure to make her view less than what she has always taught. It does not do Piven justice. PRONIZ (talk) 16:36, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

You were blocked for edit warring on Beck's article. I think that makes it fair to characterize you as a Beck edit warrior. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:46, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

That's just silly. I was blocked for 3 reverts when I didn't know better. Do you know better? Is there a definition of "edit warrior" somewhere? Maybe you could have t-shirts made. ahem

Maybe you should step away, study the subject and address my point rather than trying to censor it. Sometimes violent, radical, social change is what is necessary to advance a cause. If an individual feels that way and has taught that for most of their life, they should not be ashamed. In this case, the "right hand" is trying to get the "left hand" to feel shame for their position, and they are, sadly, succeeding. PRONIZ (talk) 16:58, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Whether or not someone should feel shame for advocating violence is completely beside the point. The point is: any controversial assertions about a living person must have a source, per WP:BLP. Asserting as fact that a living person advocates violence, without a source, is a WP:BLP violation, regardless of whether it occurs on an article or a talk page. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:11, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Read her books. They clearly show the potential of 'major disruptive protests', 'social change through mob events', 'a disorderly and violent disruptive power strategy', etc... My advice to you is to learn something new about your subject. Don't just be an edit monkey. Read her books. I think you will like them.  :) Cheers! PRONIZ (talk) 17:41, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

3RR

I did not revert more than 3 times. Please don't spout policy at me, as I know it quite well and do my best to stay within the structured rules of Wikipedia. --Zaiger (talk) 19:48, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

H index

Re: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Richard_Highton: Word to the wise XXanthippe: h-index. Without hyphen, it's a dab, possibly for no good reason. Anarchangel (talk) 02:34, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Did you intend to send this message to Xxanthippe? I am not her. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:16, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Edgar Gilbert

If only all new articles were as good as this one... You should propose it for DYK. If you don't have time, suggest me a good hook and I can do it for you (but it only takes a few minutes, otherwise I wouldn't offer... :-) --Crusio (talk) 08:57, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Convex polytope

David, your expertise would be appreciated at Talk:Convex polytope#Error in the article?. Regards, Mgnbar (talk) 16:28, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Edgar Gilbert

The DYK project (nominate) 00:03, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Arbcom decision on MHP: OR vs exposition in mathematics

Hi David,

I think that your expertise would be very helpful now. The arbitration of the Monty Hall problem is nearing its decision phase.

Two proposals for the arbitration committee's decision concern Wikipedia policy on mathematical articles, especially original research versus secondary sources. Best regards,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 00:48, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Elen twice asked for suggestions for alternative wording. I proposed an alternative on the WP project mathematics talk page.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 15:28, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Kiefer, you should ask User:CBM and User:Hans Adler to comment. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 10:50, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Done!  Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 15:38, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Richard F. Edlich Biography of a Living Person Deleted

Hi, I recently attempted to add an article to wikipedia about a friend of mine who is a Plastic Surgeon. It was taken down for unambiguous plagarism of a journal, and we are looking to ammend the artical to comply with wikipedia standards. It said to contact you before trying to repost an ammended article, so I am guessing that this is the forum by which I go about it. Please let me know if I am alright to try to post another version of the article. Thanks for you help.

--Mistergrieves108 (talk) 18:00, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

The reason that I deleted it was that it was a very close paraphrase of copyrighted material in the Journal of Surgical Research, Volume 138, Issue 2, Pages 241-253. If you write a new article combining facts about him from more than one published source, you give proper credit to your sources for everything in the article, and you rewrite the information in your own words rather than copying the same adjectives or phrases as the original, then you should be ok, I think. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:10, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Weighted automata?

Meaning automata where transitions have weights over a semiring as in doi:10.1007/978-3-642-01492-5. Results go back to the '60 according to that (although I'm not sure semirings had been formalized back then). Am I searching for the wrong stuff on the wiki or is there really no page about this? I checked automata but they're not mentioned there. (That book has a chapter on MDPs and they give the Monty Hall problem as an example. That's how I found it. But MDPs are just a particular case of weighted automata.) Tijfo098 (talk) 19:53, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I suspect this is a pretty large area with no wiki coverage. Conway semiring is also unwikiheard of (J.H. Conway, 1971), ibid continuous monoid. At least ordered monoid is a tiny stub, so that book is covered up to page 6... Tijfo098 (talk) 19:57, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I guess if there's a whole book about it it's a suitable topic for a wiki article, but I know little about it myself. I guess Markov chain and Viterbi algorithm are also closely related. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:17, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

The moment I saw the MDP figure in that book it struck me as highly similar in terms of elements to the extensive form game from game theory. In his book Game Theory--Very Short Intro Ken Binmore solves the Monty Hall problem without "having to think at all" that way. It turns out the two notions are connected. At least I've learned something from my involvement in the MHP brouhaha. :-) Tijfo098 (talk) 21:03, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Lee Stiff

I don't think this is a hoax: there are several texts and articles under this name. Did you have anything special in mind? Hyperdoctor Phrogghrus (talk) 11:54, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I couldn't find anything by anyone named Leonard Stiff in worldcat or anywhere else. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:39, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Google Books for inauthor:"Lee Stiff" gives 721 hits and Google Scholar gives 88 hits. This site appears to be his. Hyperdoctor Phrogghrus (talk) 17:02, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I guess it's only the full name in the article here that's hard to verify. I agree w/your removal of the hoax tag. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:05, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, I see nothing to verify the name "Leonard". Thanks. Hyperdoctor Phrogghrus (talk) 17:07, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

abc conjecture

Please tell me where to put these tables w/out having to add redundant information in order to explain them. And by the way, why is it okay to have two arbitrary examples of q in the formulation section, but not a short list of highest known q. --bender235 (talk) 21:11, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Maybe the examples should also not be in the formulation section. But, in any case: I think the article should be arranged logically into sections, with the formulation of the problem in the formulation section and computational results in a computational results section, rather than glomming them all together willy-nilly without regard for logical organization. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:31, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Okay. I agree with you that the formulation of the conjecture is something different than computational results. However, these tables I added need additional explaination (at least what q refers to). I wanted to do that w/out adding redundant information. --bender235 (talk) 22:05, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I think a little repetition and redundancy can sometimes be helpful in making things more understandable. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:10, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Hm, I'll give it a try. --bender235 (talk) 22:13, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Criss-cross algorithm and Klee–Minty cube

Hi David, I started articles on the criss-cross algorithm and the Klee–Minty cube. I'd appreciate your corrections, if you have time. Best regards,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 01:49, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Hirsch conjecture: Publishing ethics

I finally replied to your request for a citation of the National Academy of Sciences guidelines for not talking to the press until the date of publication. I am sorry that I didn't see your request earlier.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 17:01, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Vianu

I'm not one of those editors who create profession-by-nationality/ethnicity lists, but Vianu's first paper from DBLP doi:10.1007/3-540-08353-7_177 gives his affiliation as "Faculty of Mathematics, University of Bucharest". If he doesn't put it in his resume[s], it's probably not important to him either, and should stay out the article. Tijfo098 (talk) 11:52, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and thanks for the hilarious and highly informative paper by Ike Antkare. Xe definitely deserves a Wikipedia page now! Tijfo098 (talk) 14:33, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Provable security & Koblitz

If I may suggest something "in exchange", the 2007 paper by Neal Koblitz in Notices of AMS was an interesting read. Although it surely doesn't say any generalities you don't know already, he says them with aplomb. It concerns the tensions between pure and applied math (and cs), quantity vs. quality in publications, journals vs. conferences, some jingoistic aspects, and proofs predicated on conjectures. The last part (p. 977-) of it is the weakest as it devolves into a personal squabble (but I'm sure you've heard of that on program committees). There have been furious replies from FoC (Foundations of Cryptography) guys esp. on that last part [4]. I found this via our stub on provable security. Tijfo098 (talk) 14:36, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Here's what I wrote at the time in response to Koblitz. —David Eppstein (talk) 14:45, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Following the link from there to Scott's blog I was able to find a more substantive paper that I've added to the wiki article. Tijfo098 (talk) 15:55, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Boolean algebra lead too technical?

Hi David. While I sympathize with your concern about leads being overly technical, do you feel that the lead at Boolean algebra meets the requirement of WP:LEDE that "the lead section should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article in such a way that it can stand on its own as a concise version of the article?" It seems to me that the present lead is overly concise in that regard. Do you have a proposal for a lead that on the one hand is less technical than what I wrote, but on the other at least minimally meets that WP:LEDE requirement? (I'm asking this offline because (a) you did the revert and (b) commenting online on this particular topic invariably generates a chain reaction of other comments so intense and digressive that it inevitably drowns the main point of the comment in the resulting noise.) --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 04:36, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

If the material about Boolean lattices/Boolean rings/totally disconnected Hausdorff spaces/however you like to think of them were not in this article, but in a separate article with a hatnote, per some of the suggestions in the long discussion, then there would be less need to mention all of this abstraction in the lede, which would go a long way towards making it less technical. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:42, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

David, since none of the terms "Boolean lattice", "Boolean ring", or "totally disconnected" appear anywhere in Boolean algebra, let alone in the lede you deleted, I have no idea what you're talking about. Perhaps if you indicated the sentence of the lede you deleted that most offended you I might understand better what prompted you to delete it without any discussion thereby reverting this primary-topic article on Boolean algebras to a clear violation of WP:LEDE. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 07:06, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

True, but wikilinks to Variety (universal algebra) and Structure (mathematical logic) appear very early in your proposed lede, as well as later field of sets. These have very little relevance to the calculations-with-true-and-false sense of Boolean algebra, at least as a beginner would understand it, and per WP:TECHNICAL should not be used to introduce the subject. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:13, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

So to be specific then, your complaint is with the last sentence of the first paragraph, right? (For the record that sentence isn't mine, it was written by Lambiam on March 21, see Introduction to Boolean algebra.) You're ok with deleting three paragraphs representing joint work five days ago by Lambiam and me on account of two links in a single sentence? Would you be satisfied if the offending sentence were replaced with " A Boolean algebra is any model of Boolean algebra, meaning any algebraic structure with operations ∧, ∨, and ¬ satisfying the Boolean laws." If that's still too technical, would you at least accept just the first half? Because if not then in light of section 5 the article is in clear violation of WP:LEDE, while not violating WP:TECHNICAL in any way I can see unless you think "model" is going to scare off readers. Bear in mind that this is no longer a mere introduction but the primary topic under the heading "Boolean algebra." Introduction to Boolean algebra is available for that purpose; most of its content now needs to be replaced with more introductory material. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 17:04, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

The variety and structure links are much earlier in the lede. I think they're far too advanced topics to be included like that, even as wikilinks, unless this is an article specifically about the abstract algebraic approach to the subject. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:23, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

To quote Wikipedia, "Algebra is the branch of mathematics concerning the study of the rules of operations and relations, and the constructions and concepts arising from them, including terms, polynomials, equations and algebraic structures." I modeled Boolean algebra along the same lines. Elementary algebra is part of algebra and what I suspect you have in mind could well be called elementary Boolean algebra, or more or less equivalently Boolean logic (to which Introduction to Boolean algebra could be simply a redirect). I don't see a strong argument for limiting "Boolean algebra" to "elementary Boolean algebra" in the primary topic article on the subject, any more than one would limit "algebra" to "elementary algebra" at college level. In high school of course "algebra" means "elementary algebra," so the question here would be whether the article Boolean algebra should be accorded the high school treatment, which may be what you're advocating. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 23:14, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Moreover a hatnote at Boolean algebra to one or more of Boolean logic, elementary Boolean algebra, and Introduction to Boolean algebra (which can all be the same article for now) is likely to make sense to someone wanting a more elementary treatment than the main article. Lots of technical articles have introductory versions labeled as such and pitched at a lower technical level. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 23:20, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I certainly don't think that our coverage of Boolean algebra should *only* be at the elementary level. But I think it's likely that someone who gets to Boolean algebra looking for the elementary material and finding this instead will be baffled, whereas someone looking for the advanced material who stumbles on the elementary one will be more likely to be able tro navigate to what they really want. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:59, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I've done some work on the lead there; perhaps you can review it? Is there anything important that is not said in the lead, or anything that you think it's too technical? Tijfo098 (talk) 04:04, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

A. H. Lightstone

:) Not a book! That explains not being able to find the publisher... :D Dru of Id (talk) 20:43, 31 March 2011 (UTC)