Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Manifold/archive1

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Manifold[edit]

An very written and accessible article on a complex subject that still manages to cover the details. Leland McInnes 05:08, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Object on the informal and unencyclopedic tone, such as by using the second person "The motivation for working with manifolds is that you begin with a relatively simple space which is well understood". Also, I'd hardly call this accessible -- I had slightly more than high school math, and I can't make heads or tails out of the lead, much less the rest of the article. It may or may not be possible to make this article accessible, but it certainly isn't now... Just to clarify on the lead - what does "constructed" mean in this sense? I interpret the first few sentences to mean that a manifold is a shape created by changing another shape, but I assume I must be missing something. Tuf-Kat 07:04, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
comment constructed - built up - joined together. It is a complex topic I didn't encounter until postgrad level, and I must say that the editors have produced the most accessable description of the topic I have ever seen. --Salix alba (talk) 10:33, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose; uses first and second persons, diagrams inadequately explained. Also, a lot of complex mathematical terminology is not even linked to, never mind explained. smurrayinchester(User), (Talk) 09:21, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Object. Agree with the other two objections above, also the article requires Inline citations and preferably needs a 2-3 paragraph lead. AndyZ 13:25, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Object on the same grounds as above. Nothing that can't be overcome by some heavy copy-editing, though. The information seems to be excellent, very probably by far the best description available anywhere on the web, however, rather unencyclopedic in style. Inline citations would help, but are not strictly necessary in my opinion. Mstroeck 14:12, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object Change it to third person should be more encyclopedic. BlueShirts 02:11, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I accept the argument that there is much use of second person voice which is inappropriate, and that as such the article is not of featured article quality. I will endeavour to remedy this. As to the accessibility of the article - perhaps I am biased being already acquainted with the subject, but this article had one of the best and most accessible accounts of Manifold that I have ever read. Most people will not encounter the concept until they reach graduate school, so even being able to give a general idea to those with high school level mathematics is, I think, a significant achievement. Leland McInnes 22:07, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment uses first and second persons has now been fixed. --Salix alba (talk) 23:30, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object. There's still a couple more examples, such as saying "We" a couple times. Many of the sections still sound conversational instead of academic, since despite the avoidance of specifically using the word "you", it can be implied in a number of cases. An encyclopedia should use the passive, not the active voice. As to being too technical, I think it covers the information well enough while still being comprehensible to someone with a few of the prerequisite peices of knowledge, such as basic geometry. On the other hand, a few higher concepts are mentioned by name, and could be wiki-linked to their article here which would explain those needed concepts better to those who don't understand. Fieari 15:58, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. The article seemed very accessible to me and I haven't yet passed tenth grade. However the lay reader with a fear of mathematics may be bewildered by the lead. There's a limit to how non-technical the lead can be to such a technical concept. The same problem occured with Prisoner's Dilemma. I attempted to solve it to some exetent and may be instructive in this case. Overall, the first sections need a more intuitive and graphical approach. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Loom91 (talk • contribs)
  • Oppose Sorry, I can't agree with that. I think I have a pretty good idea of what manifolds are (topological, differential, Riemannian, pseudo-Riemannian, symplectic, complex etc...). Now, people can't be expected to understand an article on, say, Calabi-Yau manifolds, but a manifold is basically a surface of fixed dimension. This is not a hard idea, and there are plenty of wonderful two dimensional examples, so I think if people are having trouble understanding it, then it's our fault. One problem I've seen is these technical articles can get obfuscated because
  1. technical people like jargon
  2. people are willing to sacrifice readability for strict accuracy, instead of striving to preserve both
  3. prose arrived at through torturous deliberations, when it ultimately satisfies everyone, is usually unreadable
I think the solution is to try harder. I will certainly try to lend a hand. –Joke 20:45, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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