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Does the Bishop-Keisler controversy deserve a special wikipage? There is an intriguing episode in the history of mathematics, or perhaps it is the epistemology of mathematics, or rather the polemics of mathematics. At any rate, Errett Bishop represents the constructivist school, whereas Abraham Robinson and H. Jerome Keisler represent non-standard analysis. The fields are polar opposites of each other. It is interesting to observe that two people with very similar training in classical mathematics, can arrive at such different conclusions as to the nature of the mathematical trade. I placed the following comments at Errett Bishop and am wondering what you think about the possibility of a separate article.

Metamathematically speaking, Bishop's constructivism lies at the opposite extreme of Abraham Robinson's non-standard analysis in the spectrum of mathematical sensibility. Bishop's criticism of the latter was therefore to be expected. In '77, Bishop wrote an intriguing review of H. Jerome Keisler's book Elementary Calculus: an infinitesimal approach. The review appeared in the mainstream Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society.

Bishop first provides the reader with an assortment of quotations from Keisler:

"In '60, Robinson solved a three hundred year old problem by giving a precise treatment of infinitesimals. Robinson's achievement will probably rank as one of the major mathematical advances of the twentieth century."

Clearly in a disapproving fashion, Bishop quotes Keisler to the effect that

"In discussing the real line we remarked that we have no way of knowing what a line in physical space is really like. It might be like the hyperreal line, the real line, or neither. However, in applications of the calculus, it is helpful to imagine a line in physical space as a hyperreal line."

Getting down to business, Bishop describes Keisler's introduction of infinitesimals in the following terms:

"The impasse is broken by forgetting that Δx is a real number, calling it something else (an infinitesimal), and telling us that it is all right to neglect it."

Bishop proceeds to refer to the theoretical underpinnings of non-standard analysis as "a supposedly consistent system of axioms". Toward the very end of the review, Bishop finally goes for the guttural:

Is "goes for the jugular" intended here? Plclark (talk) 16:16, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"The real damage lies in [Keisler's] obfuscation and devitalization of those wonderful ideas."

In a final passionate appeal, Bishop notes:

"Although it seems to be futile, I always tell my calculus students that mathematics is not esoteric: It is common sense. (Even the notorious ε, δ definition of limit is common sense, and moreover it is central to the important practical problems of appoximation and estimation.)"

As a response, Keisler published a 10-page practical guide describing the success of "Elementary Calculus: an infinitesimal approach" in the classroom. Katzmik (talk) 12:55, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Should not the article say something about the influence or absence of influence of other constructivists on Bishop, and he on them? See Constructivism (mathematics)#Mathematicians who have contributed to constructivism. JRSpriggs (talk) 14:31, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I wish I knew something about this :) Would you like to give it a try? Katzmik (talk) 14:33, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I know less about it than you do. I just noticed that the article did not mention any relationships with other mathematicians, except the bit you added, and Bishop's father. Yet there are several other influential constructivists, especially Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer. Surely, there must be some connection. Do they use each other's work or reject it? JRSpriggs (talk) 14:42, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Arend Heyting would be one of the other mathematicians that one would want to mention; He took up Brouwer's ideas and formlised them (something which Brouwer disapproved of, since he preferred to think in purely intuitive terms and not reduce things, as Heyting did, to something ecplicitly formalisable; I believe Brouwer referred to Heyting's work as "a dry exercise" or some such). How Bishop fits in with that is not clear to me (I don't know a great deal about this topic either unfortunately), but it seems to follow more from Heyting's approach than Brouwer's. It would be good if someone could fill in these details in the article, it would be helpful. -- Leland McInnes (talk) 21:14, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am not too familiar with the work of Arend Heyting, but the constructivist theory of Bishop is more reserved then that of Brouwer. For example it is a theorem in Brower's set up that every function is continuous, while this is not a theorem in Bishop's setting. Bishop's setting one simply eliminates the law of excluded middle (the axiom that "a statement" or "the statement's negation" is always true statement). This of course has profound impact on what can be proved, etc. But all theorems reachable from this setting are still true from a formalist prospective. Interestingly around the time of Brouwer, other mathematicians (most notably Kolmogorov) suggested other variants of constructive mathematics. To the best of my knowledge these produced theorems that were not necessarily true from the formalist prospective put forth by Hilbert. Thenub314 (talk) 06:43, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting question. What I was mostly concerned with here, however, was a battle opposing a constructivist and a infinitesimalist. Katzmik (talk) 15:18, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please move this over to Talk:Bishop-Keisler controversy. Charles Matthews (talk) 17:08, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The article Matrix ordinary differential equations seems to be about ordinary differential equations or maybe systems of ODE's. In any case the ordinary differential equations article does a better job. Does anyone else agree this article should be deleted? Thenub314 (talk) 08:41, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am not an expert on differential equations but I think that the article should not be deleted. Perhaps further expansion of the article may reveal some interesting aspects of this form of ODE's using matrices. However, I am not the one to decide so you should probably consult some experts on the subject.

Topology Expert (talk) 08:59, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In its present form, the article's in pretty bad shape, and I can't have much confidence in the person writing it given the misuse of the term "random variable" and other infelicities of language. Michael Hardy (talk) 21:20, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's not even a matrix ODE, it's a vector ODE. I vote for deletion. Loisel (talk) 21:27, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

True: it's about derivatives of vector-valued functions, not of matrix-valued functions. And don't we already have an article on this topic somewhere? Michael Hardy (talk) 03:34, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm. Perhaps something could be done. I've seen the term used for a linear system of ODEs. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:36, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps, ask the person who created the article for a reference. If he has seen this definition somewhere in a book then it is likely that the subject is important.

Topology Expert (talk) 04:17, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Something could be written. Matrix-valued ODEs appear in

• (real variable) gauge theory and the parallel transport formula along a geodesic written in the form ${\displaystyle dg/dt=A(t)g(t)}$
• (complex variable) conformal field theory and the theory of generalized hypergeometric functions through the reduced Knizhnik-Zamolodchikov equations where the complex differential equation takes the form ${\displaystyle dg/dz=(P/z+Q/(z-1))g(z)}$ (an equation with regular singular points).

These are just two examples, both related to the theory of connections on an appropriate space. The theory of generalized hypergeometric functions is nineteenth century mathematics going back to Thomae, but it has been extensively developed in modern times by Aomoto, Gelfand, Varchenko, etc. Mathsci (talk) 04:23, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(I've deleted my previous comment here, it was nonsense.) The term matrix differential equation could apply to equations involving derivatives of matrix functions with respect to a matrix variable OR to equations involving element by element derivatives of matrices with respect to a scalar variable. The latter meaning is used in the articles matrix exponential and ordinary differential equation#Linear ordinary differential equations, but I think the current content of Matrix ordinary differential equation should be deleted and replaced with equations involving derivatives of matrix functions. There should be articles about both types of derivative. The other one could be Matrix ordinary differential equation (element by element)Delaszk (talk) 23:36, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Paraphrasing from parallelogram law:

Observe that if A, then B [by easy algebra].

......blah blah blah blah.......

A remarkable fact is that B only if A.

So someone comes along and changes this last "only if" to "if and only if". I think this obscures just which fact is being called "remarkable", and that is important. But he persists. Can someone do a better job of convincing this guy than I can? Or am I missing something? Michael Hardy (talk) 20:09, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I actually think the other guy has a point. I never see "only if" used in isolation, and I actually paused to work out whether the second sentence is different from the first. His replacement, with the emphasis on "only", seems to me an adequate compromise between your desire to emphasize the converse portion of the statement, and his desire to use a recognizable phrase.

For a moment I thought this would be a relative of the "if and only if in definitions" argument that got resolved the wrong way some time ago :) Ryan Reich (talk) 21:02, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know how you've managed to avoid seeing "only if" in isolation. It's commonplace. Michael Hardy (talk) 21:16, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The "only if" only version looks fine to me. Richard Pinch (talk) 21:27, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Looks fine to me, too. It's standard to split an "if and only if" argument into the "if" part and the "only if" part, they are two separate results. --Tango (talk) 21:57, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, and it's logical too, but its status in modern mathematical prose seems (to me) only a little more favored than that of "dividend" as an arithmetic quantity, and rather more than "subtrahend", in that older books use both, and newer ones will often go for the direct terminology of "B implies A" rather than "B only if A", which is circuitous ("dividend", by the way, becomes "numerator" or even "top", since no one is ever really sure which of the two parties in a ratio is the dividend and which the similarly-named divisor. A similar issue as with "if" and "only if", really). As for proofs of "if" and "only if" theorems, yeah, they sometimes say that...and the ones which are easier to understand give the entire statement of the direction they are proving. Of course, this statement wouldn't make it into an article because it's probably OR, and I can't give any firm sources — only my opinion. That opinion being that, whether or not "only if" is really so commonplace, it's excessively jargonish and a little hard to unravel. Ryan Reich (talk) 22:02, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That said, "if and only if" is very awkward in this particular sentence. I've made a sample correction that I think is cleaner than both alternatives. The thing is that if you're reading the article like a mathematician, of course you already have a conjecture (or the statement of the theorem, if it is known to you) forming in your mind, and the "if and only if" trips off the tongue: thus, "only if" seems to be finishing your own thoughts in this context. If you're not following along so closely, the sudden implicit assumption of an unstated "if" counterpart to the "only if" is jarring. I think the flow of logic is better simply by phrasing the sentence "if parallelogram law, then inner product space". It doesn't connect quite as strongly to the previous text as Michael Hardy's sentence, but it is easier to understand the statement itself, and once that is done, the connection is clear (if you've actually been reading the article linearly). Ryan Reich (talk) 22:24, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ryan wrote "no one is ever really sure which of the two parties in a ratio is the dividend and which the similarly-named divisor". This one's easy. Words ending in -nd are derived from latin gerunds, meaning nouns derived from verbs denoting things to which the action of the verb is or ought to be applied. Examples turned into English: addend, dividend, integrand, multiplicand, summand. Examples in Latin used directly in English: Agenda (pl), corrigendum, referendum (sing.), referenda (pl.). Words ending in -or denote things performing the action of the verb. Hence

• dividend = thing to be divided = numerator = top line
• divisor = thing doing the dividing = denominator = bottom line

• minuend = thing to be diminished = thing before the minus sign
• subtrahend = thing to be subtracted = thing after the minus sign

Almost all English gerunds are derived directly from Latin and so end in -nd. For extra credit, find two English words which are gerunds, ending in -ing. Richard Pinch (talk) 06:29, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The idea of keeping track of a project's 500 most viewed articles is a great one, and something I'd love to do for WP:FOOTY. I think it would lend our project (and Wikipedia) a great deal of credibility if we could divert some effort into improving the most viewed articles. Please could someone let me know what is involved in setting this up? Many thanks. --Jameboy (talk) 23:49, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You want to get hold of the latest stats from http://dammit.lt/wikistats/, then filter to get those records starting with en. Next cross reference with a list of articles from your project, sort and format. --Salix alba (talk) 10:11, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

While using Jitse Niesen (talk · contribs)'s random math page utility, I found Squoval which is in the mathematical Category:Geometric shapes. It is rather unusual for a math article. :) JRSpriggs (talk) 01:41, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

According to a google search, all or nearly all uses of this word refer to a shape in fashion or fingernails. So, no, I don't think this is a legitimate mathematical term. I have removed it from the category. siℓℓy rabbit (talk) 02:21, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Does it have to be a mathematical term to be in Category:Geometric shapes? Omitting it from Jitse Niesen's utility may be appropriate but not if it is achieved by removing it from an otherwise useful category. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:13, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am of the opinion that it should be a mathematical term, or at least a mathematical notion, in order to belong to the category. The article (and my google search) fail to establish any mathematical or geometrical uses of this term. If the category were Category:Fashion shapes or Category:Nail shapes, then it could potentially be included. But it is misleading (and I don't see what purpose is served) to include it in a category of Category:Geometric shapes, when the concept has nothing at all to do with geometry. siℓℓy rabbit (talk) 03:21, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree: the term seems ill-defined, and as such not appropriate for the category. At first I thought the article was a relative of the squircle which would make it fair game -- but it wasn't. CRGreathouse (t | c) 06:28, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm inclined to say that is is a geometric shape. It may not be a mathematical term, but that's not the same thing. Richard Pinch (talk) 11:15, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that in casual discourse we may wish to call this a geometric shape. That still doesn't justify including it in the category Category:Geometric shapes. Doing so is quite misleading, because it throws this in along with other shapes which are mathematical terms. Then there is the issue of criteria for inclusion in the category. I'm inclined to say that a reasonable criterion is that the shapes listed must have some documented use in geometry, otherwise there is no need for the word geometric in the category title. siℓℓy rabbit (talk) 12:35, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I came across the Tessarine article, which references papers by James Cockle (the person who introduced them). I haven't been able to find any other references to them though (Google books and Google scholar come up virtually empty for instance). Are they known by another name, or failing that, are they notable enough to be included here? Cheers, Ben (talk) 16:38, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nominated for deletion here. Ben (talk) 08:17, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In the current FAC of group (mathematics) there is a (friendly) dispute between Stca74 and myself what the importance should given to group objects and topological groups in the said article. As the main contributor to the article I consider myself biased, but am also not convinced by Stca's wish to have more on these topics. So, I'd like to hear other opinions on that matter (please comment at the FAC page). Thanks, Jakob.scholbach (talk) 20:08, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have raised the same issue before in this very forum: obnoxious and inflammatory comments by User:Mathsci, directed personally against other editors. Here are two recent edit summaries from "Differential geometry of surfaces":

• →References: Katzmik, please stop advertising or evaluating your own recent research!
• →Global differential geometry of surfaces: removing peacock term used by Katzmik to describe his own research

Can nothing been done to stop it? If there are legitimate concerns about biased editing, there are much better ways of addressing them than making personal attacks that stay forever as part of the history of the article (Mathsci's favorite way of treating his designated enemies). Does mathematical community on Wikipedia have enough spine to say "enough is enough"? Arcfrk (talk) 00:09, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

These appear to be simple 'housecleaning' edits with unexceptional edit summaries. Further, they appear to refer to standard policies WP:COI and WP:PEACOCK. Perhaps you could explain what about these is objectionable? CRGreathouse (t | c) 01:46, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Their accusatory character, the fact that they are directed personally against another editor, the fact that they are embedded into edit summaries — I am repeating myself. Arcfrk (talk) 03:21, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

They look acceptable to me. Why shouldn't he tell someone to stop violating policy? --Tango (talk) 02:04, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why should he? It is far from clear to me whether Katzmik violated any policies. In fact, the two "policies" quoted above are not policies: COI is a "behavorial guideline" and PEACOCK is a "style guideline". (However, and your response is a clear confirmation of my point, Mathsci's summary makes it appear as if severe violations have been committed.) On the other hand, I do believe that by leaving inflammatory summaries of this kind, and more generally, judgmental comments personally directed against other editors, Mathsci himself violates the policy WP:Civility. Arcfrk (talk) 03:21, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't care if you call it a policy or a guideline, it's good practice not to publicise your own work on Wikipedia and someone doing that should be told not to. --Tango (talk) 04:01, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Let's put aside the question of the civility of MathSci's remarks: this does not seem to be a fruitful line of inquiry. I am more interested in the issue of violations of wikipedic policies/guidelines/philosophy in Katzmik's references to his own work. I can find no support for this position (especially, nothing in WP:COI). In my opinion his inclusion of his own work has been appropriately done and is a positive contribution. M. Katz is an acknowledged expert in the field of systolic geometry, which is an important subfield of the differential geometry of surfaces. In addition to almost 40 research papers on the subject published in the last 25 years, he has a recent book on the subject. Thus his own work seems to be unquestionably notable and relevant. Why shouldn't he include references to it in an article on differential geometry of surfaces? Plclark (talk) 05:16, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the first link above looks like an ok edit, he just added more information to an existing reference. The 2nd one is more of an issue - describing your own work as "definitive" is a clear COI. --Tango (talk) 05:36, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, Plclark -- Katzmik was not out of line. I was addressing only the issue of Mathsci since that was the topic at hand. It is worth noting that no one has questioned the value of the reference, only the adding the Google Books link (which I don't like; I think unstable URLs should be used only as a last resort). Katzmik's wording describing his book seemed grandiose, just as Mathsci's wording was uninformative -- but that's just the normal evolution of the article. In short: what's the fuss? CRGreathouse (t | c) 14:10, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think "definitive" was intended as a superlative (or "peacock term"), but was rather meant to indicate that the result was best possible in some precise sense. The current phrasing "Results on the asymptotic behavior of the genus..." is distinctly less informative. Best would be to describe in what sense the result is optimal ("optimal" is not a peacock term!); I invite Katzmik to provide this information. Plclark (talk) 05:46, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Definitive" has a pretty clear meaning and it is a superlative (well, it's an absolute term, it's not really a comparison, but there is certainly nothing better than definitive). --Tango (talk) 06:27, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(edent) This is not a forum for discussions about conduct. The principle of being very cautious about using ones own personal research is one that could and should be discussed here. I myself have preferred to leave it up to others to include references to my own work, and sometimes it doesn't get mentioned at all. That's life. Richard Pinch (talk) 06:40, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Use of edit summaries to make sweeping statements about conduct strikes me as far less appropriate. Arcfrk (talk) 13:00, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yawn. I actually admire Katzmik: every remark he makes is pertinent and extremely helpful, if sometimes a little eccentric. He keeps other mathematical editors on their toes. I don't mind at all that he puts his own research on systoles on wikipedia, although perhaps some of the articles could be collected together. I had similar problems myself when editing Knizhnik-Zamolodchikov equations recently, but came up with a different solution. Some of my own work is cited on wikipedia, but not by me.

I hope nobody minds that I refactored the title of this section. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 07:26, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I do. I would prefer that you "refactor" your offensive edit summaries instead. Arcfrk (talk) 12:00, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have no opinion on the content issues, but I will agree with Arcfrk that it can be uncivil to refer to another editor directly in an edit summary. As is being demonstrated, it often tends to just escalate any dispute. Just as we often say on talkpages, "Please comment on content, not the contributors", the same goes for edit summaries. Now, having said that, I do agree that the Math WikiProject is not the place to address user conduct issues. Arcfrk, a better tactic is to diff your concerns directly to Mathsci's talkpage. --Elonka 13:52, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For the definitive grandiose optimal controversy please see instead Bishop-Keisler:::. Katzmik (talk) 14:22, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(unindent) Just a few comments:

• It is impossible to refactor edit summaries.
• It's great that Elonka is interested in mathematics again, but there's no dispute here except possibly for one person.
• I carefully consulted Katzmik about the material in the systolic section, which can alas never be optimal. Much earlier today I left comments for him on his talk page. A little while back Katzmik thanked me for my edits to differential geometry of surfaces. That made a nice change for me.

Mathsci (talk) 17:01, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by arcfrk

• In her post above, Elonka did not express any interest whatsoever in mathematics; she said "it can be uncivil to refer to another editor directly in an edit summary". You seem to have a habit of twisting the facts to suit your goals.
• There was a well-documented disputed involving you and Katzmik at "Differential geometry of surfaces", and it just appears from the sidelines that you are taking a revenge at him, using the edit summaries as a tool. This is consistent with the pattern of behavior where you attacked the editors who disagreed with you (including myself).
• Your good will at contacting Katzmik on his webpage explaining yourself is much welcome; it's also great to learn that you appreciate Katzmik's insights so much; but unfortunately, all this happened after your edit, and even I raised the issue here. If you had genuine concerns about his actions, posting them on his talkpage or (if you consider them severe violations) even bringing them up for discussion here first would have been far more appropriate, in my opinion. Now they are forever stuck in edit history. It is just your opinion, which many people disagree with, but it is worded very strongly and has acquired an undue weight by virtue of the location of its posting.

Suggestions for the future

• Since you recognize that it is impossible to refactor edit summaries, will you agree in the future to exercise extra caution in what you put in them? Unlike discussions here at WPM, which are editable and frequently archived, the edit summaries are immediately visible to anyone viewing the history of the article. For the record, I am stating my objection to using my name in the edit summary regardless of the content, and other people may feel similarly.
• If your goal is collaboratively improving wikipedia then alienating other contributors is definitely the wrong approach. Whether you perceive it or not, many of your comments come across as personal attacks and create a hostile environment. This has happened many times in the past, and still continues to happen. Will you agree to forgo making sweeping statements and attributing motives to other people in the future? Arcfrk (talk) 17:30, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion for Arcfrk

As a very senior mathematical wikipedian privately noted, Arcfrk's account has devolved into that of "polite troll". His mathematical contributions at the moment are very minor. Why is he constantly abusing this page by creating wikidrama over trivial matters, in this case two edit summaries? If he expects to be taken seriously on WPM, he should improve the quality of his own edits. I have not noted any mention of mathematics in his submissions here, which I think proves my point. Perhaps these grievances should be taken up on a blog, but certainly not here. Mathsci (talk) 22:09, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mathsci, calling someone a troll is not helping matters. Now please, both of you, this WikiProject talkpage should be reserved for discussing mathematics articles. It is for content discussions, not conduct discussions. The proper venue for conduct discussions is to first provide evidence at someone's talkpage, and try to work things out there. If that doesn't address the issue, then post somewhere such as Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts, or for urgent issues (which this is not), WP:ANI. Please stop discussing it here though, and let the other editors get back to work. --Elonka 22:24, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In my view those edit summaries were inappropriate. Paul August ☎ 17:23, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If Katzmik was not offended, I don't quite understand your point. It was highly inappropriate and uncivil of Arcfrk to raise this issue here, without informing me. I found out by accident. Mathsci (talk) 17:38, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please, take this to WP:WQ or WP:DR or WP:DIS or ... well, just about anywhere but here. Please? Richard Pinch (talk) 17:37, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think there is something to be gained if some disputes are given some aring amongst a pier group (here). Even if the eventual message is basically: your all being silly, try to be nicer to each other, be aware that online comunication misses the subtitle signals in speech and hence can be easier to be inflamitory, especially when it cannot be undone (without admin intervention). Hopefully this page has help quell a few editor disputes in the past, preventing other forms of dispute resolution. If this page can work like that then it does help in maintaining the mainly good atmosphere among maths editors which in turn helps in the improvement of articles. --Salix alba (talk) 23:16, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

When there is no conflict between editors, why try to stir one up? Why not spend time making sure your own main space edits are correct [1] [2] and that you are behaving nicely to other mathematical wikipedians [3] ? Mathsci (talk) 02:17, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can I just make the point that we have policies? And referring to them is not taboo. So "remove peacock term" is OK: it explains a removal by reference to policy. But, on the other hand, WP:COI must be handled with great care. Accusations that people are putting their own interests ahead of Wikipedia's are not to be bandied about. They, preferably, are taken up in a problem-solving manner, in reasonable discussions of what the content policies permit and encourage. So, edit summaries are too, well, summary for that. Charles Matthews (talk) 19:42, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. Paul August ☎ 20:17, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Introduction to general relativity has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.

Perhaps this case could benefit from comments by mathematicians and others interested in mathematics. Post comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Software for calculating π. You should first say either Keep, Delete, Comment or any of the various other courses of action, but do not stop there; state your reasons and arguments. Michael Hardy (talk) 18:45, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a need for Wikipedia:Math Sandbox? Suntag (talk) 02:53, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What did you have in mind? Richard Pinch (talk) 22:29, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the question is whether the currently existing page Wikipedia:Math Sandbox should be allowed to continue to exist. I'm inclined to vote delete, since the page has hardly ever been used at all, and doesn't have the proper headers for a sandbox anyway. siℓℓy rabbit (talk) 22:37, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And there is nothing meaningful in Special:WhatLinksHere/Wikipedia:Math Sandbox. Looks like a WP:CSD#G2 candidate to me. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:59, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Could it be that it's never been used because no one knows it's there? Maybe people learning how to use TeX on Wikipedia could be directed there to practice. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:01, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a list or category of editors who enjoy producing mathematical illustrations? I have very little artistic skill, but I can imagine there are people who would enjoy creating images from time to time.

I thought of this when I was looking at Real projective line. I think that an image of RP(1) as a circle, with the point at infinity at 12:00 and zero at 6:00, with a co-compact neighborhood of the point at infinity colored differently, would give the reader a nice sense of what's going on. But I don't have the skill to produce that sort of diagram myself. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:28, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Graphics, Wikipedia:Requested pictures. --Salix alba (talk) 14:51, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I didn't know about the graphics project. I'll ask them. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:43, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm revamping the article on Riemannian symmetric spaces so that it has better coverage of general symmetric spaces, which are pretty important these days. I'd like to move it to "Symmetric space" but I can't because the latter was set-up years ago to disambiguate the alternative meaning of symmetric space as a synonym for R0 space in general topology. I checked "What links here" and there seem to be no cases where there's a link to "symmetric space" in the sense of R0 space (which is hardly surprising, given that symmetric spaces in geometry, representation theory and harmonic analysis are just way more prevalent than this synonym). Can someone help me with the move? Nilradical (talk) 20:01, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like you already moved Symmetric space to Symmetric space (disambiguation). That appears sensible. Now, if you wish, it looks like you could move Riemannian symmetric space to Symmetric space over the redirect. If there is no objection here, you might as well proceed with the move. Ask any admin to help if the move doesn't go through. EdJohnston (talk) 20:29, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I tried that, but I can't move over the redirect because the redirect doesn't redirect to Riemannian symmetric space. I think it needs an admin. Nilradical (talk) 21:30, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I moved it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:42, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks! Now we just need to make it live up to expectation! Okay, I guess I have some work to do... Nilradical (talk) 21:45, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am a bit confused. I was looking for something to do, and looking through the list of articles needed expert attention, I decided to take a look at Gibbs phenomenon. I found it to be a pretty good article. I improved where I thought I could, but when I looked at the article I didn't see where that tag for needing expert attention appeared. Are articles automatically added and removed from this list? Is there a delay? etc. Thenub314 (talk) 12:32, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am not aware of any automatic process for updating Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Mathematics#Articles needing expert attention, so each member of this project is on his own. Add articles to the list and use the Template:Expert or Template:Expert-subject when needed; and remove them from the list and remove the template when help is no longer needed! It is up to you! JRSpriggs (talk) 08:07, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the above page is transcluded Wikipedia:Pages_needing_attention/Mathematics/Lists which is automatically generated by User:Jitse's bot. The delay is about three days, I don't why the article is still listed. It may well be a bug.--Salix alba (talk) 09:44, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

 – Discussion centralized here.

("Resolved" above only means the discussion has been moved elsewhere, not that people aren't still arguing about it.) 75.72.179.139 (talk) 23:06, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is a newly changed section in a MOS subpage, here, which would require that we use <var></var> instead of simple italics when mentioning variables in plaintext. As far as I can tell, the two methods have exactly the same effect on displayed text. There is a proposal to merge the new text closer to the main MoS here.

While this is largely harmless beating around the bush, and would have advantages if we ever decided to do anything with such variables other than italicizing them, I wonder whether mathematics editors are ever likely to do this in practice. Comments (probably most useful at the merge proposal) are welcome. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:18, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's not harmless. Imagine writing a short math article that included 75 occurrences of variables. This change could make it take 20 minutes longer.

Note that:

• • This policy changed was done unilaterally with no discussion, by a person who doesn't edit Wikipedia math articles.
  • The proposed merger into Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) is to the wrong manual. This topic belongs in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics). It's almost as if this person doesn't know the difference. Is this person a high-school graduate?

Michael Hardy (talk) 21:21, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

He claims to hold a college degree in engineering, and berates the views on English of his liberal-arts professors; he also asserts expertise in website design, which supplies the justification of the change. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:36, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I can see a benefit. It establishes a semantic markup as opposed to physical markup. It would allow users to format varibles as they wish, for example in a serif font to match the tex. Typing could be marginally reduced with a template {{var|x}} say.

I'm not sure if its related by a couple of new templates have appear {{math}} and {{bigmath}} which use the texhtml CSS class. --Salix alba (talk) 22:50, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What do those new templates do? I looked at them and I find nothing to indicate that they have any ability to do anything. Michael Hardy (talk) 23:46, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Would such a template cause variables to get italicized while leaving digits, parentheses, etc. unitalicized, and also things like "cos", "max", "lim", "det", "log" etc. unitalicized? What are the advantages of a "semantic markup"? Those are just words. Can someone translate them into language? Michael Hardy (talk) 23:19, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Salix alba explained the advantages of semantic markup in his next sentence. Algebraist 23:27, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it certainly wasn't obvious that his next sentence was intended to be on the same topic. So could we see some examples? Michael Hardy (talk) 23:38, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Now I've entered "semantic markup" into the search box. It's a red link. Michael Hardy (talk) 00:01, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Redir fixed. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:16, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

True. HTML#Semantic HTML is probably what you want. I'm a bit dubious on making that a redirect though, as HTML is not the only markup language in the world. Algebraist 00:09, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's like the difference between, say, \textit and \emph: The former says, "Make this text italic," while the latter says, "Emphasize this text." The advantage of <var> would be that it says, "This is a variable," which might in theory produce different results than the present approach, which is, "Make this text italic."

In my opinion, unless this is backed up by some serious support, like a {{var}} template (or maybe call it {{math}}? Or would that be confusing) which will properly unitalicize parentheses, and unless the person making this change asks the rest of us first, then this change is no good and needs to be reverted. Ozob (talk) 00:12, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(reply to Michael after ec) Best link I can find easily is HTML#Semantic_HTML. Presentation markup: markup on how things appear, semantic markup: markup based on the meaning. The big thing with CSS was to seperate apperance from meaning. So with presentation markup ''x'' says x is in italics. <var>x</var> says x is a varible (which will be formatted in italics).

You need to look at the source code of the {{math}} template to see what it does <SPAN CLASS="texhtml" >{{{1}}}</SPAN >. It gives its content the CSS class of "texhtml", this is the same as that used in <math> when its rendered in html rather than as images.

No the templates are not smart enough to distinguish functions from variables. --Salix alba (talk) 00:22, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The following response is copy-pasted from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (text formatting)#Variable markup, and I would suggest that discussion be centralized there, since it is about that MOS page's wording (not at WT:MOSNUM, which is only discussing whether a merge makes sense structurally, and not here because this page is a WP:MATH house organ).

It's not a "new policy"; this isn't a policy to begin with, it's a guideline. Getting hot around the collar about "policy" is a hyperbolic red herring. If someone has a problem with semantic markup, take that up with the W3C, since said someone has a problem with XHTML in general. If someone finds <var>...</var> too inconvenient to do somehow, then don't do it; some gnome will fix it later. It's not like much of anyone but gnomes pays any attention to this or other MOS pages. And please keep it civil and a lot less WP:OWNish. I'm no noob nor an "outsider"; I've been editing MOS pages for years. Just because a handful of editors seem to sometimes like to treat this particular MOS page as if it were somehow magically special does not make it immune from editing by others, much less those with legitimate concerns that math-focused editors may be unaware of, not fully understand, or simply ignore because they aren't personal concerns of those editors or they do not personally see the benefits to resolving them. One such concern is failure in various places in Wikipedia to use the XHTML semantic phrase elements for what they were intended for, an oversight that has implications for accessibility, metadata, the semantic Web, external repurposing of Wikipedia content, etc., etc. Just because this guideline touches on mathematics in a few places does not mean it should be dicated by the convenience of math editors.