User talk:SebastianHelm/Equiv versus Equal-Def

Equiv versus Equal-Def discussion on WT:WPM

Main page: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics/Archive19#Convention_for_definitions:_Use_:.3D_or_.5Cequiv.3F

=^def

Hi Sebastian. I just need to register (again) my strong objection to =^def. This is a non-standard symbol, replacing standard symbols which are clear enough, and should be supplemented with words, anyway. I don't think a sufficiently broad poll was taken; even within that poll, it doesn't look like a consensus has been reached. I really dislike seeing this appear everywhere. I've commented more on the discussion page. --MOBle 19:50, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Sebastian, please do not alter any more thermodynamics or statistical mechanics articles to include the =^def symbol instead of \equiv. There is no consensus on \equiv, and standard texts do not use this new symbol you have introduced but do use \equiv. This jihad against symbols that have been used for decades if not a century in the standard literature must end. If you feel the usage of \equiv is not sufficiently widely understood, then you should feel free to explain in the prose what it means. I will repeat, there is not a consensus to do this, as is evinced by the large number of people who have not agreed. Consensus doesn't mean "listen to some people and not others". Mass changes, especially in subjects that have used this notation for long periods of time, are not reasonable without said consensus. --Pmetzger 00:31, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

This has all been properly discussed on discussion page; I waited sufficiently long for everybody to voice their concerns there. If you read that discussion, you may notice that I agreed about a week ago to not edit anything in this area for now, and I have kept my word since. So there's really no reason to be so upset now. Also, please keep the discussion on that page, I don't see a reason to spread it out over several different pages, and if you have a good argument, everybody should see it. — Sebastian 00:43, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for being civil

I wanted to drop you a note and let you know that I appreciate your civility. While I disagree with your views on the notation initiative we've been discussing, I also appreciate the fact that you've patiently explained your position again and again and that you haven't lost your cool with some of the editors who have gotten a bit vehement. Thanks! VectorPosse 23:02, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you - that's encouraging! Thanks to users like Paul August I'm learning how to take such situations as a chance to grow. — Sebastian 23:20, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Mediation case

Main page: Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-12-03 Equiv versus Equal-Def

Alan.ca's announcement

You have been named as a party in the Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-12-03 Equiv versus Equal-Def mediation. Do you wish to participate in this voluntary, informal mediation with me as your mediator? Alan.ca

Thank you for taking on the difficult task of mediation and for contacting me. If you haven’t already, please read the long discussion Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics/Archive19#Convention_for_definitions:_Use_:.3D_or_.5Cequiv.3F, where many accomplished math contributors have weighed in. This will give you an entirely different impression than the “What's going on?” section. With five other editors directly opposing PMetzger’s statements for various reasons, and many others doing so before he even joined the debate, I don’t think it is appropriate to frame this as a “person vs. person” issue. Since I do not represent the “other party”, please replace my name in that field with “17 people on WT:WPM” or the complete list, as you see fit.

If you would like to keep me as a representative for a specific concern, please make it the following (which I should have stated more clearly from the beginning): Many of our formulas are ambiguous: The symbol "≡" is used in different meanings that are sometimes hard to distinguish. We should follow Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles#Think of the reader and fix this problem. My point for the whole thread was to discuss how to fix this. (I had misunderstood a formula myself, even though I have an MS in physics – how much more confusing must it be for other readers!) From my experience as a mediator, it helps if the mediator writes down his understanding of the issue. (I did that on a separate page, but you may want to write it in the "Mediator response" section.) If you plan to do so, please make this concern unmistakably clear. If this had been clear from the beginning, we would have avoided much commotion from people who mistook this to be a mere style preference. — Sebastian 18:17, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi Sebastian. Re: the above -- I understand that if you're talking about algebra one might mistake $\equiv$ for congruence modulo some number, but if you are, say, talking about thermodynamics, it is clear that you're not talking about that since thermodynamics doesn't even deal with such things. I think it is also rather unfair of you to characterize me as a lone voice in the discussion -- I was not. Further, merely because a small number of people disagree and one group or the other has a slight numerical edge does not mean there is a "consenus" -- consensus happens when an overwhelming majority of a statistically significant group thinks one way or another.

On the substantive matters, as I've said, my thermo texts all do things like $H\equiv U+PV$, and it seems unreasonable to force Wikipedia articles to use a notation that is not used in the field itself. Put another way, mathematical notation is a tool used by many fields, each in its own idiosyncratic manner, and it is not reasonable to put all Wikipedia articles onto a procrustean bed of unified notation when a given field does not use that notation in its own writing. Imagine just the confusion when people get different notation in Wikipedia and in papers they read. I would propose the right rule is "use the notation that is most common in a field when discussing that field". --Pmetzger 19:28, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

There are a number of things you're overlooking, which have been stated in the discussion, and I'm really, really getting tired of reiterating and multiplying every point of that long discussion. Moreover, I don't see the point for this now: You submitted this for mediation, so let's see what the mediator says after he studied the discussion and take it from there. — Sebastian 19:42, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Anthony_cfc's announcement

Good afternoon (GMT time); there is currently a medcabal case in progress concerning a dispute at WikiProject Maths between yourself and User:Pmetzger. I invite you to participate in the discussions at the case page, so we can try to hear out both yourself and Pmetzger.

The Med Cabal is completely informal and we only aim to bring about peaceful resolutions and/or compromises, where both sides will be completely heard out. We hope to see you over there soon!

Cheers and regards,
Anthonycfc 13:28, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for taking on the difficult task of mediation and for contacting me. Please take a look at my reply to the first mediator in the previous section. Since I wrote that statement, I closed several mediation cases myself, and found that it helps if there is a neutral description of what's going on. I did that e.g. in User:SebastianHelm/LTTE, but I later realized that we're a wiki, and we all win if we allow everybody to collaborate. How would you feel about splitting the page into project page and talk page, as I did here? (In another case I toned down the requestor's statement and copied his original version on the talk page.) If you like the idea, then I could add a table to the "what's going on" section like the following (I'd have to spend more time on this). Let me know how you feel about it. — Sebastian 18:54, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Date/time (UTC)	What happened (Feel Free to Edit)	PMetzger's comment	Sebastian's comment	comments by others
18 October 2006	Sebastian asks about a formula in which he understands \equiv as identity (insert ref). It turns out that it was meant as a definition.		I thought that if I misunderstand this, as a Master of Physics, so will others. It may, however be because I studied in another country.
04:58, 19 October 2006	Sebastian asks on WT:MATH how to solve such problems.		I was following Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles#Think of the reader
(in between)	Long discussion ensues with many participants. Sebastian creates a list of articles that may need to be changed, and several people go through it and improve articles by manually explaining definitions.
21:00, 27 October 2006	Sebastian gets impatient with progress so far and proposes “replacing "\equiv" with ":=" wherever applicable”. He eventually agrees with majority that =^def is preferable.		Given that I chose =^def specifically because it was the symbol preferred by the majority, I really question the validity of a case that frames the issue as What's going on?: "So, some folks got in their head ... [and] decided to invent their own new notation"
20:49, 1 November 2006	Discussion dies down after Henning Makholm speaks up against using "\equiv" for definitions.		I had interpreted this as a support of my plan, but I now realize that this was a mistake. However, it clearly is an argument against johnpseudo's plan (see below).
22 November 2006	Sebastian starts implementing the plan of replacing "\equiv" with "=^def" wherever applicable.		I felt I had waited long enough after discussion had died down.
19:50, 25 November 2006	MOBle raises concerns about =^def; Sebastian immediately agrees to stop with the edits.
00:31, 4 December 2006	Pmetzger asks Sebastian to stop here		This was absurd, since I already had stopped a week before
15:47, 6 December 2006	johnpseudo proposes plan "for reverting non-math changes", but finds more opposition than support		This seems to be the same plan that Pmetzger is trying to push with this mediation case
...	...	...	...	...

Thanks for the reply - and I'm glad you like my status border :) I like your idea of the table - it is much more simple to follow that streams of talk posts; your attention is drawn to the header of column 1, which I have changed to "Feel Free to Edit" as it seems more inviting. Now all that remains is to formally begin the discussions at the case page - unless you have another location in mind? Cheers and regards, Anthonycfc 19:18, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, this was just meant as an amendment to what I had written in the previous section. I really feel that this should be decided among the community of math editors, not just between Pmetzger, myself, and a mediator. — Sebastian 19:41, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Would you like to copy it over to the Wikiproject Math talk page? Cheers and regards, --Anthonycfc 19:48, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Can you please address my concern that this should be decided among the community of math editors, first? I don’t think it is appropriate to frame this as a “person vs. person” issue. Thanks, — Sebastian 19:56, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes - the purpose of me copying it over to WikiProject talk Mathematics is so that it can be discussed between the community of Math Wikipedians. I hope this measure is satisfactory to your desire to give Math editors the first option of discussing the case before opening up to the general community. Cheers --Anthonycfc 21:18, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Please don't copy it yet. I realize I wasn't clear enough about my real concern. PMetzger and I disagree on what the problem is. PMetzger regards this only as a style issue, while I see it as an understanding issue. I feel we first and foremost need to solve the understanding issue. My concern is that by framing it with statements like "So, some folks got in their head ..." and "They decided to invent their own new notation ..." (which BTW is anything but true, as you can easily see in the discussion), PMetzger is perpetuating that misconception. This becomes a very serious problem when we want to involve the other editors. Did you read the long discussion? Wasn't this a nightmare? It was blewn up beyond proportion, just by endless repetition of the same question. I replied to each of them, but the more I replied, the harder it became for new arrivals to keep an overview over the discussion. It became a vicious circle: People who only saw it as a style issue stopped reading the discussion so far.

In short: This case is about the wrong question. It puts me in the situation of someone being asked "have you stopped beating your wife?". So I have two interests in this:

1. I would like to have a chance to convince my fellow math editors that this is an understanding issue, not a style issue.
2. Like the majority of math editors, I don't want johnpseudo's plan to be implemented. — Sebastian 21:44, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

You know what? To make it easy, I could just agree to not be interested in the mediation case. If PMetzger really starts implementing johnpseudo's disputed plan, he will face a backlash from the other math editors, so I probably don't need to worry about it. I could declare on the mediation page I'm against this plan, but that I leave it up to others to decide. This has taken far too much time for me already. If you agree with that, please just take me out of the case. — Sebastian 21:55, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Anthony's overlooked message

The purpose of mediation is to prevent dispute, not continue it. I wish I could just make everyone disengage - but that is not possible. So we will meditate - all of us: everyone included in the dispute. That includes you - and pmetzger - and we will not successfully resolve this if you are not involved. Therefore I issue you with a plea - please continue with the mediation - please contribute your ideas for compromise, and please make a real effort to settle this dispute. That is all I ask. Anthonycfc 20:49, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I overlooked this message. Since you're asking so nicely, I promise I won't quit as long as you feel I'm needed. But am I really needed? As you state correctly, "The purpose of mediation is to prevent dispute, not continue it." Isn't the dispute solved when one side gives in?

Of course, we need to clarify: Give in to what? Please therefore clarify which dispute we're trying to resolve. As per above, there are two different issues:

1. Does the use of \equiv for definitions cause ambiguity, or is it just a question of preference? (This is not just a yes/no question, but I can't think of a better way to get to the heart of it right now.)
2. Should johnpseudo's plan be implemented?

The answer for #2 can depend on #1, so if we want to discuss both we should solve #1 first. But if the requestor intends the mediation to be about #2 only, that's fine with me. In that case I would simply say: Let's vote about it on WT:WPM. If we can agree to vote on it I'd consider the case closed. That is the easiest way I can see to resolve this issue.

If we can't resolve it that easily, then I urge you to do what I would do as a mediator: Simply copy the "What's going on" section to the discussion page and either replace it with your view of the issue, or invite both parties to constructively edit that section to represent a factual definition. (See User:SebastianHelm/Mediation#Formal mediation for details. I'd be very happy to discuss process related questions there.) — Sebastian 19:53, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Good morning (GMT time); my apologies - the "you have unread messages" header was delivered for both your message and another's and my reflexes automatically jumped to the bottom, where the new message was. Upon dealing with this, I moved onto contributing - forgetting I had another message. Trust me - I'm not for abandoning this cause yet! — Anthony_cfc — continues after insertion below

Of course - that's exactly what happened to me - which is why I put the discussion on a subpage. Problems is, of course, that I will now only see replies when I open my watchlist. So, if something's urgent, please also mention it on my talk page. — Sebastian 01:25, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Your proposal is all well and good - but remember, Voting is evil and Discussion is Superior to Voting! However, despite the fact that WP:DR states that discussion to determine consensus must be held before a vote is to be set up, it is obvious that due to the fact that the majority of interested parties are indirectly involved in this dispute (the community of Physics Wikipedians and Wikiproject Maths), a discussion would obviously be of no use. — Anthony_cfc — continues after insertion below

Sorry, this is not obvious to me. I'm also a bit confused why you cite WP:DDV. As you know, we already had a long discussion. Did you read it? What conclusions for our case would you draw from it? — Sebastian 01:25, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Therefore, I would reluctantly agree with setting up a straw poll to help determine - not establish - consensus. Would you prefer to set up the straw poll or shall I? (For information on straw polls so Wikipedia:Straw polls.) — Anthony_cfc — continues after insertion below

Cheers and regards,
Anthonycfc ^{[T • C]} 00:39, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Why are you only considering a straw poll? Why reluctantly? Are you aware of a better solution? And above all: What should the poll be about? As I wrote above:

Please therefore clarify which dispute we're trying to resolve

Is there a reason why you are not replying to that? What about my other polite requests? To be honest, I'm very frustrated about this disconnect. Is there any way in which I could have improved my above question, or any of the other requests? — Sebastian 01:25, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Anthony_cfc's post of Jan 7

(Original section title was: Mediation Committee)

Further to your numerous requests to "clarify what dispute we are trying to resolve", I have requested Pmgetzer to draw up a concise summary of the dispute. Pending this, however, I am going to ask if you have actually read the Case Page's summary of the dispute, located here.

Regards, Anthonycfc ^{[T • C]} 17:33, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

We were apparently editing at the same time. I just wrote a reply on the case page. Why do you ask if I read the summary? I commented on it as early as 21 December 2006 ("This will give you an entirely different impression than the “What's going on?” section.") and then several times in our conversation. Did you not read what I wrote? — Sebastian 18:11, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Anthony_cfc posted a rather lengthy and important reply

(Original section title was: Mediation Cabal case)

Good morning (GMT time); I have posted a rather lengthy and important reply at the Mediation Cabal case page (WP:MEDCABAL/Equiv vs Equal Def).

Regards,
Anthonycfc ^{[T • C]} 04:03, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, boy, what a mess! Two more 180° turns in one day! You had a good idea when you asked for some time - what in the world changed your mind? And then writing a message that contradicts itself ("scrap the above" - when "above" refers to something in the same message)! I am fine with you deleting anything that hasn't been answered yet, but I ask that my messages, and the messages they reply to, remain intact. If you choose to write a new message, I hope that it says something along the lines of: "Please let's wait till my exam is over and I found the time to read the case" (unless, of course, you'd just like to go along with one of my two easy proposals.) Since you wrote on my talk page, I'll take the opportunity to ask a rather personal question: Why did you take on this mediation? — Sebastian 05:08, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I took on this mediation in order to attempt to resolve this dispute; once again, you are beginning to irritate me - I don't mind admitting it - and to be honest I don't know why it is relevant: chances are, you'd have waited the full 15 days waiting time to get a mediator for a dispute of this nature. Please reply further at the mediation page - I only dropped a reminder here of the case (as I would expect from you or Pmzegter if I became inactive) not an invitation for discussion. Anthonycfc ^{[T • C]} 12:18, 8 January 2007 (UTC)