Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics

There seems to be a trend to replace all inline LaTeX with \scriptstyle. I think it may be time to revisit our WP:MOSMATH recommendation concerning the use of scriptstyle. My impression is that it should be used only under very exceptional circumstances, but perhaps I am in the shrinking minority. Sławomir Biały (talk) 13:25, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes. We should not use scriptstyle for inline text. It's not only semantically wrong, it will lead to problems when we introduce a better TeX display system. But I have not seen this sort of trend on mathematical logic articles. Is there a particular class of articles where the change is being widely made? — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:16, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I just noticed it in Fourier transform today and not too long ago in Positive-definite matrix. Two articles may not exactly be a "trend" per se, but it definitely shows that more than one editor out there is reading our MoS the wrong way. Sławomir Biały (talk) 14:25, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

It already leads to problems in the current TeX display system, it looks ugly in many ways. This is an inherent feature of TeX, script style simply was not designed to be abused as the main math style.—Emil J. 14:40, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

For people who don't realize how scriptstyle affects things, compare with . — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:45, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes. But the most obvious difference is that scriptstyle is about 80% or 90% of the body text size on my browser. Without scriptstyle it's more like 200%. I think non-scriptstyle math should only be used for displayed formulas, because it is far too intrusive for inline text. Since scriptstyle math also has its problems, maybe the lesson is that we should only inline math if we can do it in html? —David Eppstein (talk) 15:28, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I would be inclined to agree with David Eppstein on using HTML in-line. However, I am afraid that some readers will fail to connect the HTML with the corresponding symbols in the display formulas. For example, tau: τ does not look much like τ or So I feel that we need to use one version consistently, namely JRSpriggs (talk) 17:43, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

What do people think of edits such as [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10]? Ozob (talk) 03:23, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

These should be reverted. Not only is the editor replacing inline TeX with /scriptstyle, but he is also replacing html with /scriptstyle. It is clearly time to revisit our MoS recommendation, since more than one editor at least is reading it as a mandate to replace inline LaTeX with /scriptstyle. Sławomir Biały (talk) 11:30, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Without scriptstyle, "displayed" TeX is about three times the size of the surrounding text in my browser window. With or without scriptsyle, "inline" (as opposed to "displayed") TeX usually gets misaligned. To high or to low, or the period or comma that follows it appears at the beginning of the next line, etc. Michael Hardy (talk) 03:53, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't see replacing all of our inline formulas with /scriptstyle as a viable option for fixing Wikipedia's broken TeX system. It isn't just a scaled down version of the usual LaTeX, but the spacing has been changed in a way that squashes everything together. The relative size of the glyphs also doesn't look right. We shouldn't use it, except as a last resort. Sławomir Biały (talk) 11:36, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

I think that of the two options for inline math (latex or html), html is visually preferable in general; however, it fails to do certain simple things such as place a superscript and subscript vertically aligned as in (as far as I know one can only accomplish L^ɑ_b or L_b^ɑ) (Also note that I've had to use the IPA "script a" above for the a to display as it would in math; many editors don't know where to find this character) (Even more annoying is trying to get : in my editor, φ shows up as "varphi", but not when the page is displayed; to get "varphi" displayed I need to put it in a span element and change the style like this: φ (this problem is apparently browser specifc, and I guess firefox 3.6.6 on a mac isn't good enough)). So, at the very least, David Eppstein's suggestion would require allowing certain exceptions (it wouldn't make any sense to write not inline if its simply the name of an object). RobHar (talk) 04:28, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

you can do L a
b , or even L a
b  using templates. The style of small 'a' is just a font diference, something controlled by the user's browser settings, WP preferences and optionally overridden by a custom stylesheet. To me they both look like the letter 'a'. I don't know about the φ problem: Greek letters are used quite a lot in maths articles and I use them myself regularly. I don't know if Help:Special characters is any help on this.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 11:44, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! RobHar (talk) 00:06, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

See Talk:Fourier_transform#.5Cscriptstyle for examples. Bo Jacoby (talk) 21:54, 10 July 2010 (UTC).

Update. I removed the text from WP:MOSMATH that seemed to encourage scriptstyle. We should move this discussion to WT:MOSMATH. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:24, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I can go to an article and know that this is the type of mathematics that I want to learn and use. But I'm not trained in it. No problem; all the formulas are right there along with any proofs. But I'm not educated in the symbols, variables, and subformulas used, either, and they are never linked to! This just removes the ability to learn mathematics on Wikipedia altogether. I'm sorry, but there's no way to start at the bottom and work my way up to what I want to learn when the things in between are not linked to! "Go to school and learn everything, you loser." is not a reasonable solution. This isn't a problem with normal science, history, or psychology articles, for example, but it constantly is with mathematics articles. I'm not simply too dumb as I have learned and even (independently; not originally, I strongly assume) discovered some not majorly complex mathematical formulas on my own with basic knowledge, so if you're indeed linking to all esoteric (from a layman's perspective; something articles in general seem to tend to do on Wikipedia) terms being used then it's severely non-obvious how you are doing so. I just wish that it wasn't assumed that anyone looking at these articles already knew all of the mathematics used within them, ironically meaning that you could only learn something if you probably already happened to know it anyway, unless of course you're simply a professional looking at an extremely complex article, with such a person not meant to ever be Wikipedia's target audience, it appears elsewhere.75.4.141.69 (talk) 04:06, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

"75.4.141.69", could you please give some specific examples? Michael Hardy (talk) 21:06, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

The main difficulty of trying to learn something purely from books or journal articles is the inability to ask questions. This also applies to Wikipedia, if you limit yourself to just reading the articles. However, we do have the Wikipedia:Reference desk where people will be glad to answer your questions. It is also possible to ask on the talk page of the article in question. However, lengthy series of questions there are discouraged because they distract from the main function of the talk page which is to reach agreement on how to improve the article. JRSpriggs (talk) 08:10, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

In some cases (I'm thinking about articles such as Lagrange multipliers or Cauchy–Riemann equations, topics I wrestled with as an undergradaute before getting a basic "picture"), what we offer is superior to standard textbook treatments. That may well not go for everything, and you give no idea of what you are trying to self-study, and from what background. Mathematics never reads like a novel, and it is not all accessible from a standing start, and to learn most topics you will need a textbook. We aim to say what is in the textbooks, not to be the textbook: it's an encyclopedia. There are obviously particular difficulties with what mathematicians would call "logical dependence": sometimes you must study A before B, or else B won't make too much sense. Mathematicians themselves find this troublesome in trying to understand a new field; they have the advantage that they know that sometimes you need to devote a week to getting clear some background issue before trying to advance further. In the end, studying mathematics from reference material, which is what Wikipedia is, is not a great way, and the Web doesn't change that. Charles Matthews (talk) 08:48, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

It seems like we get this kind of question about once a month. Is there any way we can put in a FAQ so we don't cover the same issue over and over? We at least need something to ask people to provide specific examples of what they're talking about.--RDBury (talk) 11:47, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

The discussion page for each article is open for questions. If a word or symbol is not understood it should be linked to an explanation. Bo Jacoby (talk) 12:25, 10 July 2010 (UTC).

You'd link [[sigma notation|Σ]] in each article? Charles Matthews (talk) 12:45, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

No, not in each article. Only in the articles where readers asked for explanation on the discussion page. Bo Jacoby (talk) 23:41, 10 July 2010 (UTC).

Just go to wolfram.com. the articles there are written much better. I've stopped using wikipedia as a source on mathematics long ago. i've also given up on trying to improve it - there's too many stubborn people that stand in the way. it's an ubiquiotos problem on wikipedia mathematics and it's not going to get fixed because it's caused by a misguided philosophy of people who are unwilling to change. long story short, just use wolfram instead. Kevin Baas^talk 17:02, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

That's just totally false. The corpus of WP math articles is immensely superior. --Trovatore (talk) 20:12, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Seconded. Mathworld is more consistent due to single authorship but that's the only thing it has better than WP, which for breadth, depth and accessibility passed Mathworld long ago. As for a FAQ the mathematics link at the start of most articles sort of serves this purpose, with a discussion of mathematics in general, a section notation with a link to mathematical notation, and links to a number of maths topics, letting readers start at a wide variety of levels. I don't think we need anything else. We can't just add a detailed discussion of notation into every article: some articles would become many times larger and it would do little to help understanding which depends on much more than knowing what the symbols mean.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 21:03, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Gee, who would have guessed?! Say listen folks, whatever you do, don't listen attentively, or otherwise open the mind to the criticism of someone who just wants to use WP to learn math. My goodness it's not like the thing exists for them. Just go ahead and explain to him that the experts have ways of doing things around here and know best. Don't set up a FAQ. WP:MATH deserves to hear this once a month. Greg Bard (talk) 20:39, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

As a general observation, math articles on WP very often have few or no sources, and when they do, the sources are inaccessible papers (i.e. written for the expert and available often only to university types with special on-line access). And math editors on WP very commonly take the stance that the way they have written the article is a work of art, regardless of whether it is understandable by anyone other than the author, and rigidly revert any changes (even those that are simply links to sources). So there is a problem with both attitude and aesthetic with math articles and with math editors. Brews ohare (talk) 21:18, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Amen brother.Greg Bard (talk) 21:29, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

There are many mathematical articles here that need improvement, no doubt. But I'm kind of sceptical about the chances of improving them simply by flaming the people with the competence to do so. Charles Matthews (talk) 21:32, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

The "people with the competance to do so" AREN'T. So basically as far as this issue is concerned they are completely worthless, and the newbie complaining above is infinitely more valuable. Certian people need to drop the attitude, and in this particular area of study, it is a significantly large number. For my part, I have done exactly what needs to be done to address this person's complaint, and much of those efforts are deleted. Do you want to solve the problem? Take the approach that I take. Cover the meta-perspective, which means breaking down and asking analytic philosophers (whose very job it is to clarify things) what they think it should look like. I can't help but point out that this complaint above supports the conclusion that my claims have some moral authority. Greg Bard (talk) 21:55, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

No-one would stop analytic philosophers contributing to maths articles if they were willing and able to. But it's the nature of maths that at any level it's a discussion between mathematicians, i.e. people of a certain level of experience or expertise in maths. At high school level which is maybe the lowest level of maths articles here you assume arithmetic, some algebra, basic trigonometry and vectors. At higher levels you assume complex numbers, calculus, infinity, infinite series. At graduate level you assume many more advanced topics completely alien to high school mathematics. This is for all participants benefit - it saves time for the writer or lecturer and readers or students.

It's not unique to mathematics. I occasionally contribute to language articles, but am mostly confused by IPA symbols and related terminology. There are many other articles which I read for interest, or come across when removing vandalism, that totally confuse me. It's maybe more pronounced in maths because it's to do with not just language but also symbols, and many more people find maths 'hard' than other subjects. But the problem's much the same, and is unavoidable in advanced topics.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 22:46, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

There are two ways of writing a mathematics article.

(1) We can strike a healthy balance between equations and plain English, with a view to making sure that all likely questions will be answered in the article. Or,

(2) We can make a work of art using the most cryptic 'pure maths speak' of the day, in order to ensure that the article is so incomprehensible that any casual reader will have to ask.

The benefit of the latter method is that it keeps the wiki oracles in business. David Tombe (talk) 22:58, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

I hope that we can all talk about this in a constructive way, one that makes Wikipedia better for everyone.

I hope that no one will doubt my loyalty, but some of the criticisms voiced above seem to have some validity. Before beginning to work on an article, I usually look at the MathWorld article to see how the subject is treated there. In that admittedly small sampling, the MW articles are usually incomplete, poorly organized and poorly referenced — but they're often more complete, better written, better illustrated, and better referenced than the corresponding Wikipedia article. Our best work is incomparably better than MW or any other online resource, but that's a very tiny fraction of the whole; for illustration, we have ~8100 articles, of which there are ~10 Featured Articles on mathematical topics (excluding biographies). Overall, my impression is that we can do a much better job both in covering the math and in making it intelligible to our readers, many of whom may be mathematically educated people.

In trying to improve our articles, it would be helpful to get more feedback from our readers, don't you all agree? Our readers could, as you say, turn to Reference Desk or the article Talk page, but I would guess that very few of our readers know about them or editing whatsoever.

I'd like to propose an idea that we could try out on a few articles, and expand to many articles if it works out. I would be grateful for your opinion about it. The idea is that we add a button to the top of selected articles, a button labeled "Ask a question about this article" (or some such text). Clicking on the button will take the reader directly to an edit window, with instructions on how to ask their question and some boilerplate text. I made a quick mock-up of this idea, which you can find here — please check it out! :) I'd be happy for suggestions; almost everything can be modified. If you all like the idea, I can convert it into a proper template that we could add to a few articles for testing. I'll volunteer to be the guinea pig by posting the template to my Featured Articles and fielding the questions. Perhaps a few other authors will take the plunge, too. :) Is this a plausible solution, do you think? Willow (talk) 23:20, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Willow, It's a good idea. But ultimately we should be aiming for a situation in which no questions need to be asked. I only stated option (2) above tongue-in-cheek as a way of emphasizing that this is exactly what we don't want. Why don't you start your idea with the article Seven-dimensional cross product. David Tombe (talk) 23:28, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the kind encouragement, David! :) OK, I'll try to transform my little toy into a template. If we decide we don't like it, we can always not post it to pages, or even bring it to WP:TFD — easy come, easy go! :) Willow (talk) 23:41, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

I think this is an excellent idea. I would love to try it out on an article or two. I am undecided what sort of articles to start with—do we attempt to tackle the huge, the mysterious, the abstract, such as spectral sequence or sheaf? Or do we aim at the elementary, such as trigonometry? Perhaps somewhere in the middle, say at derivative? But I think we certainly need to try this. (One comment on the template: It should go to the article talk page, not to WT:WPM.) Ozob (talk) 23:43, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

The article talk page? Wouldn't the math refdesk be better? That's the only officially approved place to ask questions about content, as opposed to discussing improvements. --Trovatore (talk) 23:53, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't see the need for such a button. The point of the talk pages is to improve the article, not answer questions. They do get answered there, but as often such queries trigger improvements in articles so are a useful part of the building an encyclopaedia, so are generally allowed. But questions should go to the reference desk in first instance. As that isn't really part of the encyclopaedia, or the process of making it, it should not be featured so prominently on article pages.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 00:26, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you all! :) The template is now working at {{Article question}}, but of course your comments and suggestions are still welcome! I do see advantages for going to the Talk page and to the Reference Desk (and here ;), so I included a "target" parameter. This way, we can try out both and see which works better. I also included a "label" parameter, in case people wanted to experiment with different texts. I'll add some documentation for the template anon.

Upon initial reflection, my feeling is that the Talk page is a somewhat better target. I'm afraid that suggestions and criticisms made at the Reference Desk may not get back to the article authors, who seem best suited to clarifying the article's ambiguities. Also, pointing out the ambiguities or obscurities of the article does seem like "discussing improvements", doesn't it? Maybe we could change the button label to make that purpose more clear?

Targeting the reference desk for mathematics directly is a little tricky, because this template would allow people to bypass the normal set of instructions there, such as "Search first!". Perhaps we might consider adding a simple link to the Wikipedia:Reference desk/Mathematics for factual questions about the subject?

I believe that making the button prominent would be helpful for the many readers who may be ignorant of Wikipedia customs and methods for editing. But I'm glad to hear other viewpoints! :) Willow (talk) 00:34, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Certainly the purpose is related to improving the article, but as worded the template invites questions about the content. That's the refdesk's bailiwick. We don't want to encourage the habit of asking questions about the content on article talk pages. That's something people often do anyway and it's tolerated to a limited extent. I've done it myself and probably will do again. But we don't want to make it appear that it's being officially sanctioned. --Trovatore (talk) 00:41, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I just saw it appear on Laplace–Runge–Lenz vector and swiftly removed it for two reasons. First that's a mathematical FA, and we should not be doing editing tests on such prominent articles unless we want it demoted. Second it broke the menus that popup next to the search bar: one is the 'TW' menu the other uis unnamed and has 'Move', 'Purge' and 'Tag' in it. Both appeared under the button so it obscured one of the items in each menu, and it was so wide that there was no way to move them to one side of it. That's with the default skin and a couple of popular gadgets enabled, so it would break editing for a lot of editors.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 01:01, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Yes, I've changed the default wording, but that's something we should experiment with; it's rather wordy now. I also added a little documentation to the Template itself.

I tested the template on one of my Featured Articles, Laplace–Runge–Lenz vector, and it worked for me. However, another editor, JohnBlackburne, found that it did not work for him and reverted my addition. John, could you please describe what went wrong for you? Willow (talk) 01:09, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

OK, John, thanks! I see your point about adding the template to FAs, although I can assure you that the LRL vector is not high traffic, much as I would wish it otherwise. ;) I'll look into the other issues; the method I used for positioning the template lacks finesse. If others here have a better method for that, I'd be grateful to hear it! Willow (talk) 01:09, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I may have solved the menu problem identified by John. I've tested it with the "TW" (Twinkle) menu, and it works fine for me; but others should probably confirm that, e.g., at the previous revision. Only when the template works correctly, should we consider whether to add it to articles. Thank you for your help! :) Willow (talk) 01:32, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Although not the reasons I removed it aesthetically it didn't work either: the rounded button (this may be due to Safari or the Mac) looked out of place in an article and the text was far too long for a button. And as a mechanism it has another serious flaw in that it fills in too much: the questioner should be encouraged to add a meaningful header and phrase the question in an appropriate way. They may not realise they can edit the heading, or even the default text you supply, which could lead to multiple sections with the same heading and largely the same content, making the page much more difficult to navigate. It's best if they fill in all those things themselves – which is how it works if they click on 'Talk' then on 'New Section'/'+'. --JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 01:35, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

You raise two important issues, the aesthetic and the functional; let me treat them in turn.

Re:aesthetics, I found that the semi-circular caps at the ends of the button are present on all browsers I tested on a Mac: Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera. However, the same browsers do not exhibit the rounded corners on Ubuntu Linux or Windows XP. Therefore, it seems to be a Mac issue, not a browser issue. Personally, I find it attractive! :)

Re: functionality, I agree that going to the Talk page and clicking on the "New section" button is a fine way of leaving comments. I daresay all of us here will continue to use that method. However, the goal of our discussion has been to find a way to get feedback from people who have not contributed, people who are frustrated with our articles but may have little idea about editing, Talk pages and New sections. Personally, I don't believe that anything is lost by having an additional mechanism for reader feedback on selected articles; we can ignore it and others may appreciate it. Nor do I feel that we lose anything by testing this template out on, say, two dozen pages. What do others here believe?

Your points about "too much preloaded text" and "difficult page navigation" are well-taken, and I have modified the template to address both concerns. It is possible to modify the preloaded text or even eliminate it altogether, but I believe that it may help give people unfamiliar with Wikipedia an idea of what they should type and where. I suggest that we experiment with this, and find what works best. How does that sound? Willow (talk) 02:52, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Certainly Mac-style buttons look better than what I remember from Windows, but my point was not that it looks intrinsically unattractive but it looks out of place in an article. I think it would work even less well in some circumstances - text browsers or for people using text reader software, which is probably why WP uses text not buttons. E.g. at the top of my watchlist now is a request for feedback on the pending changes trial with a "[dismiss]", i.e. text, button. The show and hide buttons on collapsable text and navigation templates work the same way. And we already have a text button: the one labelled "Talk" on each page. People like the original poster in this section seem to have no problems finding and using it, and those that do are usually swiftly pointed in the right direction for help.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 14:04, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

A few comments:

• Like Michael Hardy, I've often asked for specific examples, but rarely got meaningful response (often none at all). I suspect that many people do not realize something that all mathematicians know from experience: learning mathematics requires mental concentration and involves a high level of tolerance for unfamiliar terms and facts and an ability to successfully internalize them, and that for those reasons, it is rife with frustration.

• Anyone who has taught mathematics at the university level is familiar with a complaint "this textbook is unclear" ("makes no sense", etc), which often indicates the inability of the student to parse mathematical sentences or even to read mathematical text (going back to the definitions, checking the hypotheses, etc). This can only be resolved by training and persistence, not by replacing the textbook.

• I am worried that WillowW's suggestion can take us closer to the web tutoring center model, which is certainly not what Wikipedia was meant to be.

Arcfrk (talk) 09:00, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

As for what to do, perhaps it would be fruitful to ask what could be added to Portal:Mathematics to address the points raised by the OP. Charles Matthews (talk) 09:40, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes the mathematics portal does seem an good target as a place to direct people an FAQ would nicely fit in the portal namespace, and the portal is linked from the project banner. Surprisingly neither the portal nor the banner contain links to the reference desk, so it is actually quite hard to find where to ask questions.

As to and FAQ it could contain links to the more basic articles such as Elementary algebra and Table of mathematical symbols. It could possibly also direct people to simple:Mathematics which I find better meets the needs of my high school students.--Salix (talk): 13:50, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

An FAQ and other easy-to-find help items on the Mathematics Portal is excellent idea! Does anyone wish to volunteer to do that?

I examined the proposed template button in the text browser lynx and it was treated as an ordinary link, nicely centered by itself in the middle of the screen. I also examined the button using the VoiceOver screen reader on the Mac, and it also worked as an ordinary link. If there are lingering doubts, I'll boot up my Windows laptop and check that it works as well using the JAWS and NVDA screen readers. Therefore, it seems to present no problems for text browsers or screen readers.

My sense, however, is that most people here are content with the status quo. I won't push this solution on the WikiProject, but I likewise hope that no one will object if I experiment with it, e.g., by adding it to a few of the articles that I've written and maintained. Like you, I'm not terribly interested in spending a lot of time answering poorly formulated questions from people who are unwilling to think for themselves. But I believe that that mental image of our questioners and critics is a hypothesis, not a fact. It seems plausible, I grant you, and it's a convenient trope, because we don't need to work, just ignore them or redirect them to the Portal. But my own experience tells me that some of that criticism is valid — and valuable in improving our articles. Therefore, I would like the freedom to test out this new method of getting feedback, and to collect actual data (not suppositions) on the types of feedback we get from it. That doesn't seem unreasonable, given that other respected contributors have supported this approach. I was a little shocked that my initial test was reverted without discussion, and I hope to avoid that happening again. Indulge me? :) Willow (talk) 17:04, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I reverted it and gave my full reasons here. Another one that I've thought of since is that it's not mentioned, and so should not be allowed, by to the manual of style especially MOS:LEAD which is pretty prescriptive as to what can appear at the start of an article.

But more generally article mainspace is not the place to do such editing tests. There's your own user space for that, as well as various sandboxes. And this is more than just a simple editing change, it's a change in the way users interact with talk, i.e. a supplement to or replacement for the usual way of using talk pages, and so is potentially a fundamental change to WP. As such it should probably be looked at by not just a few mathematicians but at by the wider readership and editorship at large before it's added to articles, so e.g. it can be properly documented and integrated into e.g. the style guidelines.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 17:32, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I believe that I have overcome all of your prior objections, and I'll gradually work on these two most recent ones. I must say, though, that I'm surprised by this dogged resistance to a sincere effort to get more and complementary feedback on how to improve our articles. This button idea may be lame, I'll be the first to admit it, but my impression is that this resistance would have arisen no matter what change to the status quo had been proposed. Are we really so hidebound? It seems a shame to give up on all forms of experimentation, which are officially sanctioned by WP:BOLD and WP:IAR. I think we can agree that, collectively, our articles have significant problems, and that we should try to find constructive solutions for them — as this button aimed to be. It seems, well, a little medieval to close our ears to sincere criticisms and forbid people from taking data to improve things, don't you think? Willow (talk) 18:04, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I would like to point out that there is a very specific policy against what the OP seems to be asking for. If you look in Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not which is a policy, not just a guideline, it says "Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, textbook, or scientific journal". It is an encyclopaedia. Wikibooks and wikiversity were set up for what the OP wants. I'm sorry they are scrappy compared to Wikipedia but that is not an argument for trying to take over their purpose and change Wikipedia to become a textbook on anything. It is a collection of separate article joined by links. One needs to know a bit about a subject to read a full article properly. Wikipedia is not a joined set of pedagogical materials with a clear learning path to gain mastery of a subject.

That all said I have some sympathy and I believe we should make it easier for people who do try and use Wikipedia in this fashion. Overviews and books made from the contents can help but I don't know how one could attempt to properly solve the problem with articles aimed at pedagogy and joining up the dots without changing he explicit policy. So overall I don't know how to solve or even if we really should try and solve the OPs problem within Wikipedia. Dmcq (talk) 17:42, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I think there are two ways to address this issue and both of them are in keeping with the nature of Wikipedia. Firstly, use the lead to put the subject of the article in context. Secondly, use links so that people can look up the bits they don't understand. For example, the article on Hilbert spaces starts "The mathematical concept of a Hilbert space, named after David Hilbert, generalizes the notion of Euclidean space. It extends the methods of vector algebra and calculus from the two-dimensional Euclidean plane and three-dimensional space to spaces with any finite or infinite number of dimensions." Yaris678 (talk) 17:57, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

That shows the problem. How do they get at this article? How do they know how to reduce it rather than go in circles? Where should they start? A directed learning would start with the basics, have example, give them a NEXT button to press to progress in their study and have an overview of where they are going and how. This goes nowhere towards puting a study programme on top of Wikipedia. Dmcq (talk) 18:15, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, yes, Wikipedia articles are definitely not about that sort of thing. If that is how you want to learn then you should try Wikiversity or Wikibooks, as you say. On the other hand, if you have heard the term "Hilbert Space", and you want to know what it means then Wikipedia is pretty handy. I would say that Wikipedia works best as a complement to directed learning, rather than a source of it. So many times in my undergrad degree I lacked the big picture of what a certain area of maths was about. If Wikipedia had been around then it would have been very handy. If I'd been able to look up mathematical analysis in my first year I would have realised what they were on about a lot sooner! Yaris678 (talk) 18:33, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

"I think we can agree that, collectively, our articles have significant problems". Sorry, but from my point of view (mostly a user on :en, since I don't feel at ease writing in English), I don't think our articles have "significant problems", or rather that their serious problems are not those pointed by a 75.4.141.69 and some followers here (for me, it would be the too frequent lack of sources). You can call WP:BOLD and WP:IAR to try to repair what is not broken, and indeed be bold, new ideas should be tried -especially when they are really new-, we don't intend (well, not I at least) to "forbid people from taking data to improve things" but if you happen to break what was not broken while trying to repair it, don't be too astounded if somebody politely suggests to stop the experiments. French Tourist (talk) 18:16, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

It appears a common occurrence in political discussions has occurred here too: switch the subject. The switch is from a discussion about how clearer articles might be arrived at, to a discussion about making WP a teaching tool. Clearer articles would result from two major changes: (i) insistence upon proper sourcing to accessible literature (accessible both in level and in easy availability – not access through JSTOR or some other privileged method) and (ii) inhibition of dog-in-the-manger suppression of editors trying to add clarity by those who aren't happy without a . Brews ohare (talk) 21:55, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with point (i). We should choose the best quality most authoritative secondary sources available, and most of these are still dead tree (possible availability on Google books notwithstanding—which should not even be a consideration in whether a source is acceptable). If, as is frequently the case in advanced mathematics, the most authoritative source happens to be a journal article, then we should cite the journal article, rather than some secondhand shoddily researched webpage (*ahem* MathWorld *ahem*), even if the latter is more "accessible" in both senses of the word. There is nothing wrong with referencing a source that requires access to a local library—hardly "privileged" for most of the developed world. Of course, adding more accessible sources (in whatever sense) can also improve the article, but the accessibility of the source should certainly not be the primary consideration. Sławomir Biały (talk) 23:05, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Note that the stupid policy that says that "Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, textbook", is frequently violated and that's a good thing. Many of my contributions to Wikipedia are outright violations of this policy, because the whole point of writing technical texts for Wikipedia is not to write a nice encyclopedic text, rather you are writing for an audience that wants to learn something. E.g. the very encyclopedic article on the Yang–Baxter equation is completely and utterly useless. I can make it more encyclopedic, and hence even worse, right now by by mentioning Hopf algebra's in one sentence in that article (but I won't do that) :) .

An example of a good math article is Methods of contour integration. We need many more articles like this. Count Iblis (talk) 22:07, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

If you would go back and look at the original question you'll see that the OP wants a method of teaching themself from the ground up. Making individual articles better is of course a very desirable objective - but it will get nowhere near dealing with what the OP wants. It is not someone who knows about integration along a path and holomorphic functions and is looking up methods of contour integration. It is someone looking up contour integration that doesn't know about complex numbers. Dmcq (talk) 22:20, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I would disagree with that assertion: I just had a look at it for the first time and found it very difficult to read because of the overabundance of mathematical symbols and the reliance on short choppy sentences and bullet points instead of well written paragraphs. In some ways it's a classic example of how not to right a maths article as it looks more like a textbook extract than an encyclopaedia article: very little explanation, lots and lots of worked examples. But WP is not a textbook and should not look like one.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 22:25, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I've had a look at it for the first time, too, and I completely agree: this is, ahem, a textbook example of "It is not appropriate to create or edit articles that read as textbooks, with leading questions and systematic problem solutions as examples." Plus, as JohnBlackburne says, it's not very good at that. Belatedly, I've realized that it was chosen specifically to illustrate CountIblis's agenda-driven point "Note that the stupid policy that says that "Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, textbook", is frequently violated and that's a good thing", hence "we need more articles like this" assertion. Arcfrk (talk) 08:02, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Note that it are prominent Wiki-Project Math members who are heavily invoved in that article, not me. I have made zero edits to that article. So, my agenda is at least to some extent supported (perhaps implicitely) by Wikiproject Math. Count Iblis (talk) 14:21, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

WP:DEADHORSE. Charles Matthews (talk) 14:28, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Section break

Diversion from the main topic

Wow, all the math cranks tendentious editors are out in force. Gregbard, David Tombe, Brews ohare, and now Count Iblis. All we need is for WAREL or Milogardner to join the party and we'll have bingo. And weren't some combination of Tombe/ohare/Iblis forbidden from interacting with each other by ARBCOM due to past tag-team tendentiousness? —David Eppstein (talk) 22:57, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Yep, an Armada of cranks has descended on Wikiproject math to invade all math articles and convert them to the crank religion. ArbCom had indeed outlawed our religion, so yes, we are in clear violation of that ArbCom ruling. Count Iblis (talk) 23:25, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Dr. Eppstein (or anyone): Do you have a link handy? I'm not familiar with that ruling. CRGreathouse (t | c) 23:35, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Ah, found it: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Speed of light. The relevant passage is:

Count Iblis, David Tombe, Likebox, and Hell in a Bucket are indefinitely restricted from advocacy for or commenting on Brews ohare, broadly construed.

But that seems to have expired as of June 29. So I don't think there are any restrictions on those editors. Well, not here at least: it looks like David Tombe is banned from "physics-related pages and topics, broadly construed" until October 20. But that should have no relevance here.

(Also, it seems somewhat odd, but perhaps only because I don't see the physics articles much: Count Iblis seems like a fine, productive editor -- I was surprised to see his (?) involvement.)

CRGreathouse (t | c) 23:51, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

CRGreathouse, see here, if you have the time to read it Count Iblis (talk) 00:02, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Gee, who would have guess that the issue would devolve into calling people's credibility into question at WP:MATH? (You know, it's surprising because we have such civil, decent, non-arrogant people here). Excuse me, why exactly am I counted among the "cranks?" This is yet another reason the members of WP:MATH should be ashamed of themselves. Greg Bard (talk) 01:05, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes Greg, I agree, it's absolutely shameful how hard it is to format a mathematical formula in Wiki markup. 192.5.16.65 (talk) 04:01, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Greg, I have trouble following your implications. Why should the members of WikiProject Mathematics be ashamed of themselves? CRGreathouse (t | c) 04:25, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

[Sarcastically] On the principle that guilt should be assigned collectively. Some members of this project have allegedly abused Greg, so all of us are guilty. If you remember, he tried to convince arbitcom of this idea previously. JRSpriggs (talk) 06:56, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if that's what Greg was saying, thus my request for clarification. CRGreathouse (t | c) 18:58, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Back to the main topic

Dmcq, yes, but then everyone has some knowledge from which he/she can learn more. The OP says that the things he doesn't know are not linked to. But if we write all wikipedia articles in textbook style and have wikilinks for almost everything, then you have a sort-of multidimensional textbook for all of math that is superior to any conventional textbook. Count Iblis (talk) 23:31, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

John, the contour integration article can be written up better, but it would still be textbook style. I don't think it would be bad at all to make this the standard format for math and physics articles. Count Iblis (talk) 23:34, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

The issues remain accessible sourcing and encouraging edits that increase readability. That could be done by a community resolve to come to the aid of editors subject to reversion on what seems simply grounds of "technical aesthetic", and clearly inimical to clarification and ease of use. Some guidelines to aid in assessing article utility could be developed that could be invoked to resist reversions based upon mathematical aesthetics.

Another useful tack would be to identify articles that provide a good model of user friendliness, for example, a suggestion made was Contour integration. Perhaps a further discussion of this example or comparisons of this one with other candidates (I like Pythagorean theorem) would be helpful in developing what is wanted? Brews ohare (talk) 14:55, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Regarding your personal number one priority of "accessible sourcing", I have already voiced my own disagreement with this priority. Botton line: a guideline that encourages shoddy "accessible" sources like MathWorld as opposed to authoritative dead tree sources should most definitely not be entertained. Sławomir Biały (talk) 15:09, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I think this is not really a question of "shoddy" (better less reputable) but easily accessible sources versus distinguished/reputable but less accessible sources. An articles can have both and just needs to treat the material accordingly. There is a different between material used as an actual reference for the article content and additional links which are just provided for reader's convenience and pedagogic reasons. For the former we the need to insist on reputability, no matter whether it is easily accessible or not. But for the latter reputability is not really an issue, but here easy access is much important. This concerns stuff you could put under external links and it may include private websites, student websites, free tutoring material, wikkibooks, wikiversity etc. It is of course required that those links are only added, when the editor has checked their accuracy and that they indeed illustrate some math topic in a lucid, easily understandable manner and hence are really a plus for many readers.--Kmhkmh (talk) 11:22, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

My understanding of Brews's original post on this topic was that he indicated a preference for material that was available via weblinks as actual sources for an article. Moreover, such links were not to be mere convenience links to JSTOR (because JSTOR is not available outside of libraries). Barring links to Google books (which I don't personally feel we should link to at all), this pretty much leaves MathWorld and its ilk. Clearly a bad idea. External links are just fine, as long as they don't impinge on content referenced to decent sources. Sławomir Biały (talk) 12:29, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Well as I said, I agree that replacing reputable sources by non reputable online sources is certainly out of the question. However the original theme of this thread was about making math articles more accessible and doing that by providing material being accessible online. That can (and should be) done. As far as barring links to Google Books links (or other digitized material) are concerned I disagree completely. Google Books is extremely useful for references (in particular in the form of notes), in particular it allows an easy online verification by a large number of editors, which for a project such as WP is imho an invaluable asset.--Kmhkmh (talk) 12:46, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I think accessible sourcing is great. We shouldn't remove good inaccessible sources, of course, but if there are accessible resources available they may be worth adding. Ceteris paribus, adding {{MathWorld}} to an article with half a dozen references to papers from Acta Mathematica Lithuania won't hurt and may help. (I don't think anyone's suggesting replacing dead-tree resources or flooding articles with low-quality sources.)

And of course there are many times that the highest-quality resource will already be accessible.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 18:58, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I decline to comment on possible reasons for Greg's inability to understand mathematical articles as presently written, either on Wikipedia, or in the actual mathematical literature. The fact that he does not understand mathematical articles has, however, been established. However, if we could come up with something he could understand, it might be an improvement. Hence, his suggestions might be helpful if they don't violate the pillars, or make the article more difficult to understand for most people. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:50, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I see this has been said before, sarcastically. I just want to point out that there are real problems in Greg's behavior, possibly due to lack of understanding, and, if that understanding can be improved, it may be good for Wikipedia. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:24, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

On one hand, I'd like to make articles as easy to read as possible, even for those without advanced math training. On the other hand, Wikipedia is WP:NOT a textbook -- and the format is not particularly conducive to pedagogy (unlike, perhaps, Wikiversity?). I'm not sure what the right balance is. Ideally, we'd simply have links available to our sister projects for those who need educational material, but practically this isn't workable because Wikipedia is far more popular while the other projects have essentially stagnated. CRGreathouse (t | c) 19:21, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Here is a very simple suggestion: require all articles to have in-line sources, a See also subsection identifying related topics, and never to use a mathematical term or notation without a definition or a link to another article where it is defined and discussed. Brews ohare (talk) 19:44, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

See WP:OVERLINKING. Do you really think it would be a good idea to link the + sign to addition in every mathematics article? —David Eppstein (talk) 20:05, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with your suggestion, Brews. In-line sourcing is often inappropriate in math articles, overlinking is a real problem (and doesn't really address the issue at hand for non-experts!), and WP:SEEALSO says that See also links should be incorporated into the article when possible and removed from that section when they are. I really have no common ground with you here. CRGreathouse (t | c) 20:27, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps, if we do add links for everything, Wikipedia itself will understand math? Count Iblis (talk) 20:41, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

There are better ways to add metadata than links. CRGreathouse (t | c) 21:37, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. Suppose you have a bot that browses online math resources and uses Wikipedia to interpet the meaning and then is able to maintain math articles or write new math articles. Then Wikipedia would be contributing to its own knowledge and we could perhaps say that Wikipedia is an intelligent agent expanding its own knowledge. Count Iblis (talk) 22:57, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that would be cool. I like microformats for that, personally -- see WP:UF. CRGreathouse (t | c) 23:55, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

In-line sourcing is often inappropriate in math articles? I'd say math is no different than physics or engineering in this regard. There are two purposes for in-line sources: one is the scholarly purpose of providing a source to back up an assertion. Another is the expository purpose of explaining what is meant to those not in the in-crowd. Neither purpose is less important in math articles than in physics or engineering or chemical or etc articles. However, math articles in WP are much inferior in employing them. I think it may be because math writers are very used to writing for a very narrow audience of cognoscenti compared to writers in these other fields. Or. maybe that is just WP math editors? Brews ohare (talk) 03:40, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Might I introduce you to the Fly–Honey Thesis? CRGreathouse (t | c) 05:02, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

One issue with an overemphasis on inline sourcing is that in practice it can lead to low-value sources such as [11]. There is no reason that the article "automorphism", which is on elementary abstract algebra, should be citing a book in computational engineering for a basic fact about group automorphisms. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:18, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

The WP:SCICITE does say that having too many inline sources can disrupt the flow of an article. Adding a citation to an individual sentence or equation often obscures the fact that a given citation was intended for an entire section or paragraph. I have seen people add piles of inline citations to completely standard statements in the midst of a section that was already cited to one authoritative source. This style of referencing seems to miss the forest for the trees. Mathematics articles don't need citations for every single equation (that falls under "common knowledge"), rather they need citations for the theorems, as well as the overarching concepts, etc. Inline citations are a good thing overall, it is important not to overdo things. Sławomir Biały (talk) 13:01, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

In an article about a very basic topic (like absolute difference, which I just wrote) it really does link to absolute value and subtraction. In a more advanced, specialized topic, this doesn't make a lot of sense, since it wouldn't generally be useful to learn about that topic until you'd already studied background in that general area. Every article comes with some assumptions about the background of the reader, and is generally targeted based on the expected demographics of that particular article's readers; the website's technology is simply not constructed in a way to easily adapt to serve people of diverse backgrounds. We could consider things like footnotes and collapsible sections - the latter creates problems for print versions however. I think we need new and different technology to adequately address the concerns raised here. Another issue is that we do sometimes make poor assumptions about the order in which people learn things (e.g. if they know about graph theory, they must know about high school algebra) that are artifacts of the dominant school system, rather than inherent. Dcoetzee 12:57, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I'd say that Carl's sniffing at a source cited to provide some background on automorphism because it is an engineering text is an example of the problems here. (Like my undergrad university math prof, who used to say his office was in the building opposite St. Joseph's Dormitory, because he didn't want to mention the Civil Engineering Building.) First, there are exactly three sources in Automorphism, of which this is one. It could use more. Second, this source does a perfectly OK job of describing the group automorphism, and is preferable to no source at all. Third, if a pure math source can be found that is understandable, why not replace this source with that one, instead of griping about it (or, as often occurs, removing it with no substitute)? Pure parochialism. Brews ohare (talk) 13:39, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

In this case, it's not "better than nothing", because if no reference is given everyone knows to just look up a standard group theory text. It's misleading to use an engineering text as a reference for a basic topic like this in group theory, because it suggests there is something in that source that is not in the standard literature. And it's also sophomoric: if a student were to use a reference like that on a class assignment, or an author were to do it in a paper being refereed, we would instantly notice it and point out they should use references relevant to the field of study. We expect that Wikipedia authors will invest the necessary time to look up references in the field of the article, rather than adding "references" from other fields that would never be used in similar mathematical settings in print. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:11, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

“We expect that Wikipedia authors will invest the necessary time to look up references in the field of the article” unless, of course, they are math editors, in which case few or no sources are needed. Brews ohare (talk) 15:03, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

If you wish to start a separate thread on sourcing of articles, go ahead. Otherwise this looks like serial coatracking. Charles Matthews (talk) 15:10, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

You forgot to give the link: Wikipedia:Coatrack :) Count Iblis (talk) 15:43, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I somewhat disagree with Carl here and I think Brews ohare has a point. Such a reference is indeed "better than nothing" and as far as "expectation of wp authors" are concerned I'd rather say we expect them to properly source their articles in the first place, so that a "better than nothing" (no sources) situation doesn't even appear. Meanwhile expectation aside we need to deal with the actual behaviour of authors, such as producing sourceless articles. In such cases a less than optimal but still generally reputable and correct source is a reasonable temporary solution until a better source comes along. I agree however with the postings above me that this issue should be discussed in a separate thread regarding sourcing.--Kmhkmh (talk) 11:49, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

That horse has left the barn: the majority of topics for common mathematical terms have already been created. So the real question is about adding sources to articles that already exist, rather than about adding sources to newly created articles. There are, of course, many topics that do not have articles, but most established editors realize the benefits of adding sources to new articles.

Now there is a large backlog of existing articles that would benefit from additional sourcing, and the main limiting factor is time of knowledgeable editors to add them. My viewpoint is that if an editor does not want to do the job professionally, using proper sources such as mathematics textbooks and journal articles, he or she should leave the job to someone else. There is no hurry, and no reason to do a hasty job using sources that are clearly inappropriate to the topic.

If we really wanted, we could add some standard abstract algebra textbooks to every algebra article, and similarly for other topics. We haven't done that exactly because we have higher standards. But maybe we should do it as a form of appeasement. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:18, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Well there I somewhat disagree. One decisive factor of wikipedia's success (but arguably also it achilles' heel) is, that it is/was not created as a professional job, but that it is and always will be a patchwork process, where most/many articles will reach the level of a professional job over time. But this is an incremental process and we need an intermediate approach that provides some form verifiability and external sources/additional reading to average (=non expert) readers in the mean time. In addition this approach allows "honest" sourcing, i.e. non mathematicians writing math articles can provide the sources they've actually used, that also provides a better track record to see where various content originated from. The "optimal sourcing or no sourcing at all"-approach you seem to suggest is imho not desirable and somewhat ignores the way WP functions. As far as the algebra textbooks and sourceless algebra articles are concerned, I can't really see how not adding them would be adhere to any "higher standard". If I come across a sourceless algebra article and its content is covered by reputable algebra textbook, I won't hesitate to add it (not as appeasement but for the benefit of readers).--Kmhkmh (talk) 16:18, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Another proposal. Let us first copy a bunch of WP articles to Wikiversity, and then gradually change them there in order to fit the need of self-study. Does it make sense? Boris Tsirelson (talk) 06:14, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Various things make sense. This thread seems to be over 60K now and is approaching 10,000 words. What makes most sense to me is that we (i) take accessibility of our articles seriously in some institutional way, and (ii) do not stop trying to cover contemporary mathematics well, which is our strength. We clearly need a separate forum for the "access" issues, if necessary moderated to stop it being dominated by single-issue politicians and others with an agenda. We need a place where the issues can be hashed out, and if necessary we can carry out liaison with people from Wikibooks and Wikiversity. Charles Matthews (talk) 10:22, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm going though this section to remove obsolete and redundant entries. I'm wondering though if this section is needed at all anymore. It's been nearly a year since the last new entry and most issues can be flagged with a cleanup tag and sorted automatically. Most of the listed issues have long since been resolved so it's apparent that section is not being maintained as it should be. Unless someone can find an issue that can't be adequately handled with a clean up tag and/or a note on the talk page I propose removing the section for simplicity's sake.--RDBury (talk) 14:40, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

There's still some genuine problems buried in there, though. -- Radagast3 (talk) 23:55, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm trying to get everything that's still outstanding changed to cleanup tag of some kind. Some of the issues have been flagged for 5 years so hopefully the cleanup tags will be more effective at getting issues resolved. I've gone through 2005's issues and so far haven't found any that I can't do, though some are a challenge.--RDBury (talk) 10:42, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Looking at the sad state of unimodal function, and noting that the main use, unimodal distribution, is left mostly unexplained, I made an inexperienced attempt at writing unimodal in a way which I hope will be useful to some extent even to casual readers, and redirected unimodal function and unimodal distribution. Feel free to restructure it again. --Muhandes (talk) 18:18, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your efforts. The title unimodal needs some consideration, because (as an adjective) it forms a clumsy topic (e.g. continuity is a better page name than continuous). Charles Matthews (talk) 12:00, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Good point, renamed to unimodality. --Muhandes (talk) 12:22, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

The new article titled Relation of the Riemann zeta function to pi is at best a mess in its present form. Fix it if possible; prod it if you know it can't be fixed.

The topic seems potentially worthy of an article, but not this article. Michael Hardy (talk) 03:03, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Hard to salvage. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:24, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Advice on using Wikipedia for mathematics self-study seems to be, from a thread above, a project page that should exist. I'm going to get this started. Please come and help. Charles Matthews (talk) 11:43, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Nice idea, but how will people find it? -- Radagast3 (talk) 12:28, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Please read the thread above (naturally skipping most of it) where Portal:Mathematics is discussed. Given that there are real issues, the proposal I made (that we add to the pages accessible from the portal in order to have some FAQ-like material only two clicks from the Main Page) seems to have gone down well. Charles Matthews (talk) 12:38, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

What I meant was, as yet it's not linked on the portal. -- Radagast3 (talk) 13:46, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, to state the obvious, it seemed premature and presumptuous to link my first draft without any input from others. Charles Matthews (talk) 13:50, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Another approach that might be helpful is creating more "articles with a separate introduction". Currently there is only a handful of math pages in that category. A considerable amount of ink (and sarcasm) has been expended in this space to discuss the problem of accessibility. What I would suggest is choosing one of the pages mentioned here, and investing the effort instead in writing an introduction. Tkuvho (talk) 14:27, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, it might. But it is hard to get ahead with anything in threaded discussions if everyone introduces their own tangential topics. Charles Matthews (talk) 15:13, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I think that is brilliant. I have made a couple of minor changes. Yaris678 (talk) 15:34, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I like it, too — it's engaging and pithy. In addition to posting it at the Portal, I'd suggest that you add a prominent link to it on this wikiproject, e.g., at the top of this page. That might forestall some people from posting here in the future. I have a few other ideas, but out of kindness and respect, I'll restrain myself from introducing tangential topics now. ;) Thank you, Charles! Willow (talk) 13:30, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Looking reasonably complete now (assuming we do want a "gist and pith", as Ezra said). Please go ahead and link to it on the basis that this is the work of half-a-dozen hands and probably represents a collective view. Charles Matthews (talk) 19:36, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Well done. --P64 (talk) 03:43, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I see from working on s:Talbot, William Henry Fox (DNB00) that William Fox Talbot, known as a photographic pioneer, also wrote a fair amount of mathematics. The DNB article says he might have rediscovered Abel's theorem in geometry; which I kind of doubt. But his mathematics is not currently mentioned in his WP article. Charles Matthews (talk) 08:35, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

His mathematics has a very small mention in our article, which notes that he was twelth wrangler in 1821 and says "From 1822 to 1872, he frequently communicated papers to the Royal Society, many of them on mathematical subjects". His entry at ACAD describes him as a "mathematician and pioneer of early photography", and I believe Talbot's Curve is named after him. Gandalf61 (talk) 09:02, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

There is an extensive biography here but there isn't much information on mathematics. He is the namesake of Talbot's Curve though.--RDBury (talk) 15:32, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I think it's better to post here than post a general RfC, as some of the concerns are fairly technical, but if someone could look over the points of differences and comment it would be appreciated. The main discussion starts here.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 15:09, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Just a minor guideline suggestion: to define maps and functions, latex has the special character "\colon", which is a little bit closer to the left than ":". For example

Correct version

Incorrect version

Note the for the definition sign (:=) and quantors, you should still use ":". For example

-- Roman3 (talk) 13:17, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I prefer to write

with at least a small space between the two quantifiers. Michael Hardy (talk) 22:22, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps we should start a new page, e.g. Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Using LaTeX to document the best use of Latex on Wikipedia. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:23, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Not sure if we need a whole new page, maybe just add a section to WP:MOSMATH or WP:MATH and see how big it gets.--RDBury (talk) 14:41, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

There are too many of these things to list on the WP:MOSMATH page; that page needs to be kept reasonably short if we expect anyone to read it, and LaTeX formatting is just one topic among many there. WP:MATH is a good candidate. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:49, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I completely agree, the WP:MOSMATH should focus on the important parts rather providing "mandates" for minor differences or turning into a hint & tricks section.--Kmhkmh (talk) 22:47, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Reminder: We have this page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Typography. Michael Hardy (talk) 22:23, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

The article E8 (mathematics) gets a steady trickle of links to fringe websites and theories, and could do with being on a few more watchlists.

This may be partly because of some new age religion that got excited about E8 a few years back. The fringe websites about E8 all have some really impressive and colorful graphics explaining their theories, some of which seem to be creeping into the wikipedia article. r.e.b. (talk) 14:30, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't know whether fringe sects are to blame for this, but the lead currently claims that there are 3 real forms of Lie algebra E₈ and 5 real forms of Lie group (mismatch!). [On a second thought, this is probably due to covers, which aren't currently explained well on WP.] Frankly, the circumstances under which that article underwent major expansion were indicative of this kind of naive mysticism. Arcfrk (talk) 21:47, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

The claim in lead is correct: simple Lie algebras can correspond to more than 1 Lie group, as the Lie group can have a nontrivial center. r.e.b. (talk) 22:01, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, later on in the article, in spite of briefly identifying five different groups (compact simply-connected, split s.c. with center Z₂ and non-compact non-split s.c. with center Z₂, it is claimed that there are three real forms of Lie algebras and Lie groups of type E_8. Can you, please, source that section? I took a brief look at the Adams reference, and it's not cleanly stated there. Arcfrk (talk) 23:20, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Typo fixed. r.e.b. (talk) 00:27, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Could someone familiar with the field look at Trigenus? It was written in what looks like non-fluent English. I wikified it some, but I don't know the field well enough to make all the sentences clear. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:35, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

It raises a notability flag for me when all I see are a few research journals under references. The two issues are probably related; if there are only a few people who understand the subject then the chances of getting enough people who also have the skills to write a decent WP article about it are slim to none.--RDBury (talk) 15:02, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

It's not obvious to me why we need separate articles on this, Heegaard splitting, and handle decompositions of 3-manifolds. For that matter, I also don't understand how the orientable trigenus can take the form (0,0,g) — I thought that in a Heegaard splitting the two handlebodies had to have the same genus, so shouldn't it be (0,g,g)? Maybe some sort of merge is called for? —David Eppstein (talk) 19:48, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Have a look at

and

Does it look like something strange has happened to the \circ in the first case? Or is it that the number should be smaller? Dmcq (talk) 15:06, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

It's just an adjustment TeX makes to superscripts below a fraction bar. The same thing happens here:

and

This is the type of thing that you could see for years and never notice, until it suddenly dawns on you that an adjustment has been made. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:12, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

It seems to me that ^\circ is a bit of a kludgy way to do degrees in the first place; does TeX have a degree symbol? TeX seems to choke if you try feeding it ° directly.--RDBury (talk) 15:18, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

The standard advice for how to make degree symbols in LaTeX is ^\circ, or maybe \ensuremath{^\circ}. You can find LaTeX packages that define \degree but as far as I can tell they expand it into the same thing. You could work around it by using \textstyle, which doesn't quite place the degree symbol as high as it does outside the frac but is a lot better: \frac{\pi}{\textstyle 180^\circ} expands into . —David Eppstein (talk) 00:26, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I think this case is sufficiently weird looking to warrant a workaround. Okay I'll try and remember that thanks. And thanks to CBM for the explanation, I guess I'm happy with the adjustment normally and the alternatives would probably be worse. Dmcq (talk) 11:31, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

The article titled false precision could use some improvements in two forms: inline citations, and more good examples. Michael Hardy (talk) 21:02, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

We currently have two articles, List of topics in mathematics and Areas of mathematics, which would seem to serve as outlines of mathematics. The first one is the current redirect target for "Outline of mathematics" as given in Portal:Contents/Outline of Knowledge. We also have Lists of mathematics topics which has been proposed for a merge with the first article. The second article, based on the AMS subject classification, is written more like an outline, but is in an unfinished state since there are explanations for only about half if the subjects. We need a target for OoK, but I'm thinking the second article, if improved and renamed, would make a better one. On the other hand I'm not entirely convinced that we shouldn't just merge all three articles. There was some controversy last year related to this, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive 54#List of X topics vs Outline of X, and I'd like to avoid opening that can of worms again. But I don't think the current state is the desired one and there should be some discussion on which direction we should go.--RDBury (talk) 13:56, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Basing it on the AMS classification seems like a good starting point. I like the structure of the Areas of mathematics article. It also provides decent headings over which to divide suboutlines. A comprehensive outline is an excellent idea in general and well suited to the topic of mathematics. Richard Thomas (talk) 15:10, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

RDBury: The main controversies about Outlines seem to be 1) "what topic merits an outline?", 2) "how should they be titled?" (some editors really dislike the word "outline" in these; they used to be called "Basic topic lists") and 3) "what namespace do they belong in?". There are a few editors still trying to draft an RfC about all that (Outline RfC draft), which will be widely publicized eventually. In the end, it shouldn't interfere with the existence of this top level outline (except possibly for the title). However, there are another 11 subsidiary outlines listed at Portal:Contents/Outline of Knowledge#Mathematics and logic, that I'm not as sure about the fate of. HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 01:50, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I've used mathematics as a main example in an RfC I'm still drafting (Navigational pages RfC), so here's some details, which should help this thread. -- Quiddity (talk) 01:50, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

A slightly clearer, refactored version of the list, edited by Verbal, now appears below. -- Quiddity (talk) 05:52, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Here is a more useful and less biased form of the list:

• Main article: Mathematics - covering ~24,000 articles (according to Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Count), we have:

• Portal: Portal:Mathematics

• Category: Category:Mathematics - (and the mainspace page, List of mathematics categories)
• Template: Template:Mathematics-footer - (main navbox)
• List articles:

• • Lists of mathematics topics - (This contains only lists. It is a "list of lists")
  • List of topics in mathematics - (started titled as "Mathematics basic topics" in 2001; was briefly titled "Outline of mathematics" without consensus)
  • Index of mathematics articles - (an alphabetical index; updated by Mathbot; originally and currently titled "List of mathematics articles")
  • Mathematical jargon - (glossary)
  • Areas of mathematics - (aka "Branches of mathematics")
• Other:

• • Possibly also related is List of academic disciplines#Mathematics
  • and Book:Mathematics

This gives the correct current and historical state, and is spilt to show that there is not so much overlap as the previous list implied (though there may still be a problem). Verbal chat 08:03, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

"Outline", short for "Hierarchical outline", still describes the contents of the "List of topics in mathematics". It is a hierarchical outline, that is, a hierarchically structured list, regardless of the title. To claim that it is "not an outline" just because it isn't entitled "Outline of" is just plain silly. A horse is still a horse, even if you correctly label it a quadruped. The Transhumanist    19:57, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Maybe some people here can shed some light on this query? Michael Hardy (talk) 18:36, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

I finished changing the manual list of issues in the Pages needing attention/Mathematics page to cleanup tags and removed the section as mentioned above. I just removed the issues that were already resolved and added the appropriate cleanup/expand/merge tags to the article for the ones that weren't.

I noticed the Statistics Project uses a different bot for their cleanup listings; it has some advantages and some disadvantages compared with the one we're using. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Statistics/Cleanup listing for a sample.--RDBury (talk) 13:59, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

The stats page looks better to me. There are some important tables at the top that contain information that we don't get on our page. Can you summaries the advantages and disadvantages? Yaris678 (talk) 17:04, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

The advantages of the bot the Statistics Project uses are pretty much what you said. The first disadvantage is that it only works for articles with a project tag in the talk page. Many WPMATH articles don't have the tag is the results would be incomplete in our case. The second disadvantage is that the update schedule is based on the schedule for WP's database dump which is relatively infrequent.--RDBury (talk) 09:01, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I gave up, but someone should have a look. Anne Bauval (talk) 16:52, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Bauval just added a link (at the French page) to an 18th century edition of l'Hopital's book, published under the title... "Infinitesimal calculus": Calculi infinitesimalis Pars I, seu calculus differentialis, expositus analysi infinite parvorum : édition de 1764 (Trattner) de l'Analyse des infiniment petits, numérisée par le SCD de l'université de Strasbourg. Tkuvho (talk) 15:42, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

FYI, א0 has been nominated for deletion. 76.66.193.119 (talk) 00:20, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't really see it as of interest to this project, but I probably should have noted it here, anyway. RTL in Wikipedia article names is problematic, at best. It's even worse in redirects, and still worse in section headings. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:41, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

At Q.E.D. it says "... French, German, Italian and Russian (which are, together with English, the main languages of modern mathematical publication)^{[citation needed]}". Is this verifiable? I would guess that there are certain journals that only accept papers in these languages, or some similar situation (?) - possibly it just needs one more sentence and a ref, for this additional context. Thanks. -- Quiddity (talk) 00:21, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Italian? CRGreathouse (t | c) 00:33, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

The info page for grad students at harvard says "Mathematics is an international subject in which the principal languages are English, French, German, and Russian. Almost all important work is published in one of these four languages, although much Russian work is translated into English." They also allow certain students to pass the italian language exam if it is pertinent to their field of study. The princeton math department had a similar setup until recently, though they appear to have dropped the italian option. Crelle's journal currently accepts English, French, and German for publication ([14]). Italian is less popular now, but was certainly quite big in the time of the italian school of algebraic geometry. RobHar (talk) 00:57, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I think the issue is more a request to fill in a reference and get rid of the citation needed tag.--RDBury (talk) 12:35, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

My unsubstantiated personal opinion is that Japanese has surpassed Italian quite some time ago. Arcfrk (talk) 06:12, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Well I definitely miss Chinese and Spanish, in particular since the statement doesn't indicate any restriction on large, internationally oriented journals or the availability of translations. In general it seems more targeted more towards important historic publication than current publications.--Kmhkmh (talk) 09:09, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Interesting question, but just delete it (also a vague question without a really satisfactory answer) as editorial comment. Charles Matthews (talk) 11:01, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Said in true mathoverflow style;)89.243.232.96 (talk) 16:13, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I think it would be worth trying to find a source (I guess more reliable than the harvard math website) on this subject. I view the statement as being essentially correct. I would say that the following is a more accurate statement: currently, a majority of important papers are available in either English or French. Up until fairly recently, one might have needed to read it in German or Russian or even Japanese (or in the latter two cases, wait a bit for its translation into English). Going back a bit further would require Italian. I think these are interesting facts, though I wouldn't be surprised if no one has written an authoritative article on the subject. RobHar (talk) 18:41, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I've removed the statement for now, per Charles' suggestion (before I saw RobHar's reply). Feel free to revert and ref, or improve the section in any way you see fit. Thanks all. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:50, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm all for avoiding a western bias, but History of calculus has almost nothing about the history of calculus as it is conventionally understood in reliable sources, and instead presents a highly misleading whiggish narrative connecting everything from Archimedes to Lui Hui to Aryabhata and others, as though they were as much a part of the story as Newton, Leibniz, Bernoulli, and Cauchy (who is barely even mentioned!) It's clear that some emergency intervention is called for here. I've started a thread at Talk:History of calculus. Sławomir Biały (talk) 13:54, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

It's not very good. It would be improved by conventional copy-editing, first. There is some old encyclopedia material there (where it starts talking about Abel), which is about foundations of differential algebra and algorithmic integration, topics that should be linked to but certainly elsewhere. Questions about the key decades in the 17th century (when what we know as calculus emerged) have come up on Talk:John Wallis and elsewhere. I'd certainly like to see all that material reconsidered. Charles Matthews (talk) 19:58, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I have replaced the lead and formulated a proposed solution at the talk page. Arcfrk (talk) 06:13, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Concerning Sławomir Biały's comment on Lui Hui to Aryabhata: why, ancient remains of the Aztec civilisation provide strong evidence that their children used to slide down staircase railings, thereby exploiting slope, proving calculus to be an anti-eurocentrist, decidedly multicultural thing. Tkuvho (talk) 09:09, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I performed some drastic surgery at History of calculus, it would be good if a few people could look it over for bugs. Tkuvho (talk) 19:17, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Please note the conflict between WP:MOSNUM#Fractions and WP:MOSMATH#Fractions, and comment, if you wish to, at WT:MOSNUM#Fractions. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:10, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I have proposed renaming Mathematical jargon to the standard glossary format, per discussion above. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Verbal chat 10:13, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

I disagree, please see the discussion on the talk page. Ulner (talk) 20:38, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

There are quite a few articles involving objects whose existence is proved with the help of the axiom of choice, and often they make an assertion that it is impossible to find an "explicit" or "definable" example. Examples: non-measurable sets, paradoxical decompositions (Banach-Tarski), ultrafilters, Hamel bases of R/Q, probably lots more.

There is generally some sense in which this claim is true, but unfortunately such a sense is almost never specified. There is at least one sense in which it may be false; namely, if there's a definable wellorder of the set-theoretic universe, or equivalently if V=HOD, then there are definable examples of all these things. Not definable in any very useful way, but definable nonetheless.

This is a problem that's been on my radar screen for years, and I've never figured out what to do about it. I invite suggestions, and I'd also like people to keep it in mind and avoid making the problem worse. --Trovatore (talk) 05:05, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

How about 'constructible' instead? Dmcq (talk) 11:23, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Another important "counterexample" to such use of "definable" is the result of Kanovei and Shelah, who described a definable model for the hyperreals. As far as use of AC and such, perhaps more appropriate adjectives are "explicit" or "constructible". Tkuvho (talk) 11:30, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I felt this problem when writing into Borel set#Non-Borel sets the phrase (at the end) "However, this is a proof of existence (via the choice axiom), not an explicit example." Advice from logic experts is welcome, which word to use in this situation. No, I do not mean here a theory that stipulates a definable wellorder of the set-theoretic universe. For me, the boundary between "good" and "bad" in this aspect lies between the dependent countable choice and any stronger choice. Does it make sense? Boris Tsirelson (talk) 12:32, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

A useful model of the hyperreals can be obtained in the context of Skolem's non-standard models of arithmetic, by forming the field of fractions. Since there exist countable such models, one does not use anything beyond countable choice. This was explained in a paper of Avigad's. Tkuvho (talk) 13:32, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

The most for which one could hope is "If ZF is consistent, then there is no formula of set theory which can be proved from ZF alone to well order [such and such a set].". JRSpriggs (talk) 15:20, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

OK, responding to various suggestions above:

• constructible doesn't work for a couple of reasons: first, it's likely to be taken to mean "in L", which is not what's intended here. Second, even if we make it clear that that's not what we mean, it's still not clear what we do mean.
• explicit has the same problem as the second sentence above — no demarcation is offered for what constitutes an "explicit" example.
• The problem with talking about the axiomatics (Boris's suggestion and JR's) is that it perhaps says too little. We can usually say something (absolutely, not in terms of provability) about the example not being definable in some especially useful way; we can say it's not in some simple definability class (e.g. Borel, for examples that can be coded as sets of reals, or even projective, assuming enough large cardinals). Question is, do we want to, and how do we avoid drowning the statement in technicalities? --Trovatore (talk) 19:24, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

May constructible work if qualified by some adjective or proper name? (Such as classically constructible or Brouwer constructible, but I don't know the history to suggest any particular coinage.) Maybe the disambiguation Constructible needs a fifth mathematical sense which will then serve the purpose in many discussions that "turn on AC" (whichever particular axiom of choice is most useful in this context). Of course an article devoted to constructibility in the fifth sense would be necessary. --P64 (talk) 04:37, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

At http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.phptitle=Talk:Criticism_of_nonstandard_analysis&curid=19173182&diff=375360445&oldid=375295630 an editor who has no record of contribution to mathematics articles seeks to impose an archiving scheme. Is this required by some wiki regulations, or can I override him? Tkuvho (talk) 12:17, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

You can override him. If discussion is not frequent, many people think it's better to leave up older discussion so that other people have a chance of seeing it. I know I have seen useful comments from months earlier when I randomly happened upon a rarely-visited talk page. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:26, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Please read WP:TPNO#When_to_condense_pages. The talk page in question shows up in Wikipedia:Database reports/Long pages, so it is too long. Let's take this discussion to the affected talk page.--Oneiros (talk) 13:37, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree the page was too long. In general, I prefer manual archiving for pages unless the receive nearly constant comments, in order to try to avoid losing comments to lightly-watched pages. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:55, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Indeed not related to this case, but in general some people "abuse" archiving to remove directly visible criticism from the discussion page and to interrupt slow discussions that they dislike. Archiving where it is not really needed is somewhat of a disservice to readers, since less experienced readers may not realize that they have to check the archive as well.--Kmhkmh (talk) 15:01, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Exactly the way I feel about it. Just because it appears on some list, does it obligate the wikiproject to archive it? It is hard to believe the TPNO is binding. Tkuvho (talk) 19:07, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

When a talk page is over about 100k, it loads very slowly for many editors, particularly those without a high-speed internet connection. So if there are older threads, archiving is helpful. But that can be done manually; nothing obligates automated archiving. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:22, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Hello maths people. We need your help. There is an article called Pointy hat, and one called Conical hat. A merge has been suggested. So, can you get your thinking caps on and tell us what is best? We might debate this endlessly, but you, being maths people, have large hat sizes, and therefore can solve this with logic and mathematical definitions. The thread is here. Thank you. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 15:13, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I think an prod should be placed on both as not having any source talking about the general topic of either pointy or conical hats. Dmcq (talk) 16:48, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Prod seems a bit drastic. There is, after all, some useful disambiguation that should be provided as a service to readers typing in "pointy hat" or "conical hat" into the search box, so these articles clearly serve a useful purpose consistent with our mission as an encyclopedia. Furthermore, I don't think assembling a list of pointy hats constitutes original research, despite the lack of a consolidating source. The lead to the pointy hat article and the History section of the conical hat article should perhaps be removed or rewritten based on this concern, but deletion of the entire article seems unwarranted. Sławomir Biały (talk) 17:40, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I suppose they could be turned into disambiguation pages. A disambiguation page is not an article on a topic. The prod would be of the topic as such. People do describe some hats as conical, that doesn't mean that anyone outside Wikipedia has decided to write about it as a topic in any notable way. The individual hats though are probably notable and list of hats is fine and I can't see that a section on hat shapes that listed conical hats would raise any objection. Dmcq (talk) 18:08, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Prod? Like cattle prod? I don't know what that means. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 18:11, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Prod is short for "proposed deletion" (a process that is in-between "speedy deletion" (CSD) and regular AfD deletion), and the template is named {{prod}}. (we Wikipedians love our terminology, yes we do :)

I agree that prod is overly drastic, especially whilst a discussion to merge/fix/ref is already ongoing. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:23, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

This doesn't really seem like an issue for WPMATH. Both articles are claimed by Wikipedia:WikiProject Fashion so I'd suggest raising the issue there.--RDBury (talk) 19:28, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Oh that prod. I see. The reason I posted here is because, in the past, the debate had been over whether or not all conical hats are pointy, and can a really obtuse angle mean that it has no point, if a cone is a bit floppy, is it still conical, etc. You know, maths stuff. I thought you could provide an incontrovertible argument. Maybe you're right about the fashion folks. Thanks all! Anna Frodesiak (talk) 02:09, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Well if that's all you want: no, if the tip is rounded then it's not a mathematical cone. We'd call those folks from Remulac "Paraboloidheads". —Tamfang (talk) 02:24, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Good. I see. What about straight sides? Can a cone bend a bit? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 02:38, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Cones are pointy. (Trying to think of a Coneheads clip where a hat or something gets torn but am unable to...) SharkD  Talk  03:32, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Coneheads, eh? :). So, all conic hats are pointy, but not all pointy hats are conic. Is that right? If so, then Conical hat can be merged into Pointed hat. Sorry to bother you all with this stuff. But, it can really help decide the merge. The folks at Fashion might cause a dramafest. Thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 04:05, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I am not a member of the project so I would not post its banner, which seems to imply taking some responsibility. Right?

Anyway, I don't know where in the world of probability, statistics, and mathematical modeling you all would draw the line. For example, here are some articles claimed by no Wikiproject: Chinese restaurant process, Urn model, Multivariate Polya distribution, Generalized Dirichlet distribution. Meanwhile both the Math and Stat banners deck Dirichlet process,Dirichlet distribution, and Stochastic process.

Afterthought ... Markov process, none. Markov chain, both. --P64 (talk) 04:07, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I think all those fall in the scope of our project. They are listed on the list of mathematics articles, which is very complete. That list is updated by a bot based on article categories.

Our use of talk page tags is not very complete. The main limiting factor in adding talk page tags is human effort – it takes time to assess the quality and field of each article. However, because we have the list of articles already, it is not a high priority. I have been slowly working on assessing articles, and there are several tools on my user page that can make the process less labor intensive. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:20, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

It looks like there are 104 articles in Category:Stochastic processes that do not have a {{maths rating}} tag [15]. I will work on those over the next few days, if nobody else gets to them first. As always, to assess an article, you should to fill in all three of the class (quality), priority, and field parameters, as explained on Template:maths rating. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:26, 27 July 2010 (UTC)