User talk:Sligocki

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Welcome!

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! By the way, you can sign your name on Talk and vote pages using three tildes, like this: ~~~. Four tildes (~~~~) produces your name and the current date. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my Talk page. Again, welcome! -- Graham ☺ | Talk 01:34, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

technical tag

No problem...you did a good job. Incidentally, there's no rule saying you can't remove the tag. If you think the problem has been addressed, feel free to remove such tags in the future. You know, your name reminded me of a paper on knot theory by T. Ligocki I found very interesting. I have ideas in a similar vein I am thinking about. --C S (talk) 04:13, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

MOS:UNLINKDATES

It's still subject to the injunction against doing it systematically. Please reconsider. Also, your edit to repunit unlinked some numbers, which should rarely be unlinked in mathematical articles. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:41, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I see. I find linking dates to be very distracting and unprofessional and I payed specific attention to all the pages that I unlinked, standardizing date formats where appropriate, etc. But I will try to respect this injunction. As for linking numbers, why do we do that? It also doesn't really seem to fit in with MOS:LINK as these pages are usually just a collection of trivia about a number. Ex: 11 (number) spends quite some time explaining how 11 is the first number that we can't count on our hands. How does that relate to repunits?? Cheers, Sligocki (talk) 17:50, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Automated Access to Wikipedia data / Wikipedia API

Copied from Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 61#Automated Access to Wikipedia data / Wikipedia API so I don't lose this info!

I would like to access Wikipedia's data from a (python) script. I know that you guys frown on directly accessing using stadard http from a script, so do you have a preferred method? Is there a standard API I can use to access data from a script? I'm surprised that after googling for a while, I could not find any reference to one.

I don't want to create an edit-bot, simply analyze history data. Specifically, I would like to create an ANNOTATE/BLAME script that would find out who wrote a specific passage in a Wikipedia article. I believe that this would help make the encyclopedia better. Thank you, Sligocki (talk) 09:24, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are you aware of the MediaWiki API that you can access at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php? This is an interface that you can use to get data about pages using certain queries in the URL. For example, the query http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&prop=revisions&titles=Main%20Page&rvlimit=5&rvprop=content%7Cuser will give you the content of the last five revisions to the Main page, as well as the user that made the change. Full documentation is available at mw:API. In Python, you can get your script to understand this by asking for the API to return data in JSON. The above query, in Python, could be written as:

import urllib
import simplejson as json #if you have Python >= 2.6, use: import json
import datetime
 
params = {'action':'query', 'prop':'revisions', 'rvlimit':5, 'rvprop':'content|user', 'format':'json'}
params['titles'] = "Main Page" # Whatever variable has the page title
data = urllib.urlencode(params)
raw = urllib.urlopen("http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php", data)
res = json.loads(raw.read())

I hope that helps! Regards, The Earwig ^{(Talk | Editor review)} 10:11, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, great, that's exactly what I was looking for. Thanks Mr. Earwig! Sligocki (talk) 10:37, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is already a WikiBlame tool, but it doesn't do annotation. You might also be interested in the Toolserver, which allows you to do SQL queries on the live database. Graham87 11:54, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Last I heard the toolserver database does not give access to the article text, though. Anomie ⚔ 12:21, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the link to WikiBlame! Looks good, though it seems a little slow as it seems to request each revision separately. I'll look into it. Sligocki (talk) 01:09, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note that if you are going to be doing a lot of queries, you may want to use a more robust client to get the data - Wikipedia:Creating a bot has some advice and frameworks in different languages. Mr.Z-man 16:26, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like that is mostly about writing bots that actually make edits. But I'll look into it, thanks. Sligocki (talk) 01:09, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you're using the API, there's little difference between editing and getting data, except for logging in and edits need to be done with a POST. The main reasons you would want to use a real framework are for error handling, abstracting out some of the repetitive things, and if you're getting page text, some clients may support requesting gzipped data, saving bandwidth. Mr.Z-man 02:12, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikitools (Talk with User:Mr.Z-man)

Copied from User_talk:Mr.Z-man/Archive_10#Getting_revision_lists_with_wikitools

Hi Z-Man, you pointed me to frameworks for doing WP API calls a little while back at the village pump. I noticed that you maintain a python framework, wikitools, and I'd like to try it out. Unfortunately I am having a very difficult time navigating the source code to find the things that I am looking for. Specifically, is it possible to use your framework to get a list of revisions of a page? and if so how? Thank you, Sligocki (talk) 01:37, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There's no function specifically for getting the page history. The framework is primarily an abstraction layer around the MediaWiki API with some objects for convenience. The README file explains how to do a simple query, this can be adapted for pretty much anything. To get the revision history for a page:

from wikitools import wiki
from wikitools import api
# create a Wiki object, by default it uses the English Wikipedia
project = wiki.Wiki() 
# define the params for the query, see the MediaWiki API docs for more details
params = {'action':'query', 'titles':'Main Page', 'prop':'revisions', 'rvlimit':'max'}
# create the request object
request = api.APIRequest(project, params)
# query the API
result = request.query()

and the result will look something like:

{u'query': 
    {u'pages': 
        {u'15580374': 
            {u'ns': 0,
             u'pageid': 15580374,
             u'revisions': [{u'comment': u'null edit to force purge',
                             u'parentid': 289122198,
                             u'revid': 298682365,
                             u'timestamp': u'2009-06-26T03:36:51Z',
                             u'user': u'Hersfold'},

                            {u'comment': u'transition complete',
                             u'parentid': 289122024,
                             u'revid': 289122198,
                             u'timestamp': u'2009-05-10T20:14:33Z',
                             u'user': u'Happy-melon'}],
             u'title': u'Main Page'}
        }
    },
 u'query-continue': {u'revisions': {u'rvstartid': 289122024}}}

but with a few thousand more revisions. So to get the most recent revision, result['query']['pages']['15580374']['revisions'][0]. The API is documented on mediawiki.org and at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php. You may need to set "rvprop" depending on what information you need. Mr.Z-man 02:20, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I see, there's no convenience class to help out. Well maybe I'll try to write one in the style of your framework. Thank you, Sligocki (talk) 18:38, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Doctor Manhattan

I have provided links to the discussions held about the merging back when it was executed. I suppose...do we need more discussion about it, then? hbdragon88 (talk) 07:12, 23 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitration enforcement

A request for arbitration enforcement has been filed with respect to your edits at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Sligocki. Erik9 (talk) 01:27, 25 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The case appears to have been dropped, if any editors out there think that my edits are inappropriate, please let me know. I wish to be in harmony with the Wikipedia community. However, as it is, I will continue to unlink dates which carry no notability. Furthermore, if I unlink a date that you think should remain linked, please feel free to let me know. Cheers, Sligocki (talk) 08:31, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for Lincoln Park move

Thank for taking the time to move the article.Pknkly (talk) 18:40, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. Seemed silly to have the Lincoln Park page be a huge list of items when there was clearly a primary one. Cheers, Sligocki (talk) 18:47, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Rapid Transit; answer to question

What is stock? you ask. This. Britmax (talk) 23:36, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I guessed it was something like that, but the name seems rather imprecise. The only uses I have heard the word stock are:

Those traded on the stock exchange
What items a store has in stock
Livestock

Is this industry jargon or am I just out of the loop? Sligocki (talk) 23:50, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is a bit jargon, a tad archaic and it helps to be a railway enthusiast as it's mostly used in those circles. Britmax (talk) 23:53, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Then I hope you don't mind if I rewrite some statements that use it, so that they are more easily read by laymen. Let me know if you can suggest a better way to do this than my rewrites. Cheers, Sligocki (talk) 00:04, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Renaming {{otheruses4}}

Copied from User talk:Rjd0060/Archive 9

I've started a new thread on Template_talk:Otheruses4#Request_move_discussion about moving {{otheruses4}} to a less esoteric title. You suggested that I try to get more people into the discussion by posting to the Village Pump, I'm not very familiar with it, can you suggest which forum to post to? My best guess was Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals), but I'd hate to spam the wrong forum. Also, if you have an opinion on the matter, please add to the discussion. Thanks, Sligocki (talk) 20:30, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yep. The VPR should be fine. Regards, Rjd0060 (talk) 20:34, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Counting the number of articles that "link here"

Copied from Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_64#Counting_the_number_of_articles_that_"link_here"

Is there any way to get the count of the number of backlinks (or articles in the "what links here" page)? Right now the only way seems to be to continue clicking the next button and counting until they are exhausted. Surely with the power of technology we could have a better way. I think this would be very useful for understanding the "internal notability" of pages (as well as comparing page names which redirects to see if a redirect is used far more often). I have looked at the Wikipedia API, but it also only seems to provide lists of backlinks (instead of having a query for the number of backlinks). Thanks, -Sligocki (talk) 20:55, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

User:JaGa has done some rather marvelous work on the toolserver in this general area, although he has focused on disambiguation pages with links. I imagine his code is adaptable to address your concern too. See here for some background. --AndrewHowse (talk) 21:16, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, the way the Toolserver would do this would be effectively the same as exhausting those pages, but with less resources used. — Dispenser 21:55, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the pointers guys. I'm kind of disappointed with the limitations of the API, but c'est la vie. Would either of you guys be able to help me to implement such a tool? I've also asked User:JaGa as well. Cheers, -Sligocki (talk) 17:57, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. tools:~dispenser/cgi-bin/backlinkscount.py, source code is also available. — Dispenser 21:01, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, wow, thanks! Where can I access the source code? I'd like some tweaks, like right now tools:~dispenser/cgi-bin/backlinkscount.py?title=Template:Otheruses4 only returns 442. I'm guessing that it's not counting transclusion, does it count redirects? Thanks, — Sligocki (talk) 04:36, 6 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have since added redirect support. Source code is available at tools:~dispenser/sources/, but you need either a Toolserver account or a database dump. — Dispenser 01:55, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I'll look into getting an account. — sligocki (talk) 21:41, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

AutoWikiBrowser makes lists of all sorts. You need to make a request to use it but it is very usefull. –droll [chat] 15:03, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's also only available for Windows. There does not appear to be anything comparable for Linux, my OS. — sligocki (talk) 21:41, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Merging "Comparison of document interface"

Hi -- I'm the editor who originally added the {{merge}} templates to Graphical user interface, Single document interface, and so on. My primary interest was figuring out something to do with Comparison of document interface. I am convinced that table should not be in an article of its own. At the same time I couldn't easily figure out what to do with it other than to suggest merging it with Single document interface and Multiple document interface. I'm still not sure what to do about it. Anyway -- if you have any good ideas what to do with it, I'd be glad to hear them. Thanks. Tim Pierce (talk) 03:00, 18 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Tim, I don't know a whole lot about this topic, but it looks like SDI and MDI are part of some sort of Microsoft standard. I think these three articles (and maybe Tabbed document interface, which seems to be about Tab (GUI)'s relation to this MS standard) could be placed under one article about the Microsoft standard. If you know anything more about this standard, I think that would be the place to start. Cheers — sligocki (talk) 03:08, 18 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Replacing otheruses4 with about

What was the purpose of this change? I know that the template was renamed, and I supported the rename, but making an edit solely for the purpose of changing that seems like it violates WP:R2D. Is there any other reason to make such an edit? –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 01:21, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Drilnoth, my understanding of WP:R2D is that text should not be piped if it was originally a valid redirect. I agree with this usage. I can also imagine that it is meant to discourage making meaningless changes to links in general. However, I think that my change is different. There is precedence for the change I made, for example, User:SmackBot automatically converts {{fact}} tags to {{citation needed}} tags. In this case, I have been working on clarifying hatnotes. {{otheruses4}} is cryptic, {{about}} is much more descriptive. I recently started a discussion about this which led to the template move and documentation change. By changing instances of {{otheruses4}} to {{about}}, we make the source more readable and encourage the use of {{about}} in the future. That's my reasoning, however I'd appreciate your feedback. Do you still think that the change was inappropriate, or are you just concerned that I would make trivial changes of WP:R2D in general? Cheers, — sligocki (talk) 01:40, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To my knowledge User:SmackBot only makes the fact → citation needed change if it is also doing something more significant at the same time. I'm not too worried about server performance or anything like that, and I fully support the in-article change when it is accompanied by more significant changes, but just changing the the template name seems kind of pointless too me. It would probably make more sense to at least run WP:AWB's genfixes or WP:AutoEd's general cleanup at the same time; otherwise, I just don't see any real reason to make simple name-for-name swapping edits. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 02:01, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WP:AWB only runs on Windows (I've got a Linux box) and I'd never heard of WP:AutoEd before and after looking at the page I'm still not sure. I guess I'd better lookup what a user script is and how to use them. Thanks, — sligocki (talk) 02:07, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Logos and edit warring

I strongly suggest you take this issue up at WP:NFR as I previously suggested. Edit warring to attempt to force these onto the article will not go well. Discuss. WP:BRD. Your tagging of the images as free was reverted. Now it's time to discuss it, not edit war over it. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:11, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

China Boycott on Notepad++

Copied from User talk:Scarpy

Hi Scarpy, you feel that the forums cited on Notepad++'s section on the China Boycott were not Reliable Sources, but they were actually primary sources. First I cite the official website's announcement and then the forum created on SourceForge specifically to boycott Notepad++. Perhaps you feel that the reactions cited were not representative of the general disagreement (because they were chosen from forum posts), but surely the facts that Notepad++ wanted to Boycott the Beijing Olympics and that many users reacted to it by deciding to boycott Notepad++ is not disputed. Cheers, — sligocki (talk) 03:23, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not disputing it's occurrence, just it's notability according to Wikipedia guidelines which measure notability by the number of third-party reliable sources documenting a topic. While the websites you cited are official, they are also self-published sources. If the topic has been covered by multiple third-party publications with reputations for fact-checking and accuracy, and you can use them as a basis for that section, by all means add it back. Doing a quick check, however, I can only find one French source. -- Scarpy (talk) 04:26, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Refs

AWb used to reorder refs in the new style but I think it has been stopped now. I swopped the refs at the top [1] I thkn this ould preserve the first two that are changed by that operation. Rich Farmbrough 20:03 26 October 2009 (UTC).

Re: Removed LaTeX

I saw your post on this at Talk:List of mathematics articles. If you really want a discussion on this, the right page is WT:WPM. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:06, 27 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well you seem to run the User:MathBot, do you know why it was added? Or if my edit will make it stay off the list? I see that it appeared on User:Mathbot/Changes to mathlists, so it looks like it worked. Just doesn't seem to relavent to math. Thanks, — sligocki (talk) 06:27, 27 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I guess it was added by a user, not by the bot. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:07, 27 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Minor edits

Please remember to mark your edits, such as your recent edits to Sandia National Laboratories, as minor if (and only if) they genuinely are minor edits (see Help:Minor edit). Marking a major change as a minor one is considered poor etiquette. The rule of thumb is that only an edit that consists solely of spelling corrections, formatting changes, or rearranging of text without modifying content should be flagged as a 'minor edit.' Thank you. -- Autopilot (talk) 02:44, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, thanks for the link. It had always seemed a little arbitrary to me what people chose to mark as minor or not. Most of the edit was just grammar and rearranging info. I suppose I did get rid of the 4.4 square mile bit and added the note about Livermore lab. Do you think that constitutes a major edit? I certainly have no intention to deceive. Feel free to let me know what you found fault with specifically. Cheers, — sligocki (talk) 03:04, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Schwa

Why don't you like my edits to schwa? I have explained them in my last edit summary. WP:Hatnotes should not link to articles other than their desired target and the symbol is specifically mentioned, so why not link to it? I don't want to get into an edit war and I'm happy to discuss, but on what grounds do you disagree with my edits. Cheers, — sligocki (talk) 22:24, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I was not aware of the Hatnotes guideline, sorry. Roger (talk) 06:41, 29 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

hello

I changed it because if you look at the wikipedia page Arab Mexican, then you will find 1% of Mexico's population is Arab. Cheers mate! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.90.54.162 (talk) 00:54, 2 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

{{otheruses4}} → {{about}}

Thank you for your work and energy towards simplicity, which will help new users. All the best, Drum guy (talk) 23:36, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My pleasure, glad you approve. If you're interested, I have a custom AutoEd script User:sligocki/hatnotes.js that helps simplify hatnote use as your editing. I'm curious, what specifically spurred you to leave me a message? Cheers, — sligocki (talk) 04:02, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Goodstein sequences and Woodall numbers

There's no reference as far as I know. I discovered it myself.

For starting numbers of at least 4, the goodstein sequence will at some point reach b^b in hereditary notation. The next step yields b'^b' - 1 which is b * b'^b + b * b'^(b-1) + .... + b, where b' = b+1 is the next base. It's a nice exercise to figure out what will be the final base. You will see how the Woodall number arises.

When you start with 3, the final base of 7 happens to also be a Woodall number, so the property holds for any input >= 3.

regards, -John —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tromp (talk • contribs) 21:05, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect of Limit (mathematics)

Hi Sligocki. I've undone your redirection of Limit (mathematics) to Limit. Please see the discussion here. Regards, Paul August ☎ 04:25, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, yes, it seems like that did cause more problems than it helped. Sorry about that. I'm still concerned about having too many articles talking about limits, currently limit (mathematics), limit of a function and limit of a sequence. I originally stumbled upon limit (mathematics) and thought that it was the only article for quite a while, until I found the others. Do you have any ideas what we could do to clearify that, I think one thing would be to get the talk about limits of functions and sequences in limit (mathematics) down to a minimum so that it is much more clear that they really have their own articles. Cheers, — sligocki (talk) 08:31, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I will give this some thought, running now to meet a plane, later. Paul August ☎ 11:21, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Busy beaver and Chaitin's constant

Copied from User talk:91.133.35.83.

Welcome to Wikipedia 91.133.35.83. I have reverted your changes to busy beaver and Chaitin's constant. Both this paper, which is in busy beaver's refs and this page, which you cite explain how knowing a large busy beaver number (or enough precision of Chaitin's constant) will allow you to prove a variety of conjectures. Unless you can cite a WP:Reliable source showing that Goldbach's conjecture could not be proven with a large enough busy beaver number, please do not remove that material. Thanks, — sligocki (talk) 10:04, 5 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As stated in this recommendable lecture [2] : YOU. CAN. NOT. CHECK. EVERY. EVEN. POSITIVE. INTEGER. WITH. A. FINITE. ALGORITHM.

This month-old paper,[3] which I cite, does not show that the BB:s can be use to prove halting problem-equivalents, in fact if you bother to read it, it states quite the opposite. The other paper is over 20 years old and Chaitin has received a lot of critique about it for a good reason- it's plain wrong.

- YOU. CAN. NOT. CHECK. EVERY. INTEGER. WITH. FINITE. ALGORITHM. -

Reliable sources are hard to find for something so trivially true, try Salas-Hille, some Logic, Set theory or Discrete math 1.0.1 course book or rather some book used in teaching 16 year olds. That's just what it is. It's high school stuff. I have better things to do than argue with someone from whom I can't possibly learn anything more after getting a good reminder on why I quit teaching. Reminds me of the last time I worked as a math teacher in college and ended up arguing with someone old enough to vote on whether you get green when you mix blue and yellow or not. Math can't really be taught, only learned. I'd rather learn new stuff. Of course I wish you could prove me wrong because that would be the biggest revolution in logic since Aristotle. If you want those Wikipedia articles to contain false information, then have it your way. People with enough prior knowledge to grasp the subject will immediately see it's wrong anyway and probably get a good laugh out of it too. I've just been writing too much in my native tongue lately so I guess I've carried this on for this long just to get used to communicating in English again. Now that I've got my paper written up I can switch back to English in some more sensible context, which shouldn't be too hard to find.

Best wishes to you, I will not be correcting your precious misinformation. Think about it with YOUR OWN BRAIN and don't just blindly refer to sources unless you really understand them. Here's the point in a nutshell for you one last time:

- YOU. CAN. NOT. CHECK. EVERY. INTEGER. WITH. FINITE. ALGORITHM. -

And this Chaitin paper really is the most interesting thing I've read for a while. Thank you for that too. Please if you continue to study these subjects, be kind enough to correct them Goldbach thingies when you realize the true nature of the issue.

[4] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.133.35.83 (talk) 12:10, 5 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't be condescending. I'm not stupid or naive. I have thought about what I have written with my own brain (or I would not have written it). I know that I am correct. But, I also have a professional mathematician to back me up. Chaitin clearly agrees with what has been written on the pages. I am not aware of any criticism that he received over the paper, can you please show me some? In addition, you seem to be obsessed with the statement "You can not check every integer with a finite algorithm", can you quote where in the lecture (or anywhere) that comes from? I would be happy to discuss this with you further if you do two things: 1) stop writing long rambling posts, get to the point (See WP:Too long; didn't read -- although I did read this one) and 2) cite some sources specifically. You clearly believe I am wrong, but you have not shown any WP:reliable source to be on your side. I have demonstrated from a direct quote that Chaitin supports my statements. I hope that I can convince you that this is true, — sligocki (talk) 19:52, 5 December 2009 (UTC) (PS perhaps your student was considering additive color, where yellow + blue can equal white, see the picture. You are presumably talking about RYB color model which are subtractive colors.)[reply]

I concur with Sligocki's analysis. If you need help with the articles, please give me a ping. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:25, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Have a Nice Day! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.133.35.83 (talk) 04:29, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

fast-growing hierarchy

Copied from User talk:R.e.b.

Hi R.e.b., perhaps you could help us out with something at talk:fast-growing hierarchy. The article is based partially off of Gallier (1991), but several of the "Theorems" stated in that paper don't seem to agree with other sources. The theorems are not proven in Gallier, he simply references other works, which often don't seem to prove the claims either. You originally made this change. The original claim was due to Gallier, but your change appears to be supported by Cichon and Wainer. It appears that you have some experise in the area, would you care to comment in the discussion? Do you think that Gallier is a reliable source? Thanks, — sligocki (talk) 20:59, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not really sure: the papers use different notation and terminology, which makes it confusing to compare them. What you say makes it sound as if Gallier may have misquoted some papers, so I would not his paper for anything more than general background. I'm also rather wary of attempts to extend the hierarchies to the Church-Kleene ordinal: one runs into severe problems about encoding ordinals. r.e.b. (talk) 00:40, 10 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not suggesting writing about such an extension in Wikipedia, just a personal interest. I was interested by the facts that f_ω is not primitive recursive and f_ε₀ cannot be proven total in PA. I am interested in similar facts for larger ordinals, could f_Γ₀ be defined naturally so that it is the first not provably total in arithmetical transfinite recursion? f_β for β the Bachmann–Howard ordinal to be not provably total in constructive set theory? f_ω^CK not provably total by computable methods? would that mean that it is not computable? We know that it is total by construction. If you had any thoughts I'd be interested. Cheers, — sligocki (talk) 01:49, 10 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There has been some work along these lines, showing that provably recursive functions of various theories are exactly those in some hierarchy up to the proof-theoretic ordinal of the theory. For example, the paper Fairtlough, Matt; Wainer, Stanley S. Hierarchies of provably recursive functions. Handbook of proof theory, 149--207,Stud. Logic Found. Math., 137, North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1998 briefly discusses the case of Peano arithmetic with transfinite induction added, but I would guess people have by now got as far as the constructive ordinals you mention. My impression is that you should in principle be able to get up to any given constructive ordinal, but there is no honest way to get all the way to the Church-Kleene ordinal. r.e.b. (talk) 03:02, 10 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the ref. I'm amused by your use of "honest", as if I'm claiming some sort of devious idea :) I am sure that I can define fundamental sequences up to (and including) the CK-ord and thus that I could define the fast-growing hierarchy that high. However, I don't know if that construction will allow me to say anything about it. I'd like to be able to show that it grows like the busy beaver function (or some other uncomputable function). Cheers, — sligocki (talk) 03:21, 10 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Viral license

The article Viral license just took a massive step backward, in my opinion, and I don't have time to revert all of it. If you have a moment please check it out. —Aladdin Sane (talk) 18:18, 12 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I agree that the edits were mostly non-constructive and defensive, I've posted a note on the talk page. Feel free to comment. Cheers, — sligocki (talk) 22:54, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Answer about sultan

because of Sultan Kudarat. that's why Sligocki!