User talk:JayBeeEll

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History of combinatorics

I noticed you like Combinatorics. I feel recent changes to History of combinatorics are pretty ridiculous. I thought you might consider working on that article. Thanks, Mhym (talk) 06:45, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi Mhym, you mean this edit from a couple days ago? I will try to find time to look it over. All the best, JBL (talk) 12:01, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes. See e.g. the last sentence. I seriously doubt that Stanley's impact is in Matroid Theory "and more". Mhym (talk) 21:18, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. Spring break is just starting, I will sit down and take a good hard look. (The diff is too complicated to read at a glance, which is my usual editing approach.) --JBL (talk) 16:07, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

@Mhym: oh it's really oddly focused on poset theory, isn't it? (Like, I'm happy to see Rota and Stanley get mentnioned, but no graph theory or Erdos? No connections to algebra or other fields? Very odd.) Well, I've started with the ancient stuff, but I'll definitely get to the contemporary section eventually and try to do something more comprehensive with that. --JBL (talk) 19:57, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Question

Hello. Why on the Talk:Josip Pečarić did you revert the cross out of an account blocked for sockpuppeting? This was done for other blocked accounts on the same page. And is typically done for these kind of situations. Thanks. OyMosby (talk) 22:28, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

@OyMosby: Because there is literally no advantage to doing it on a conversation that was over more than a year ago. No one goes around striking every comment ever made by a sock-puppet, because that would be an absurd waste of time -- what is typical is to do it on an active conversation, when understanding the status of the participant is relevant. --JBL (talk) 22:46, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

I see. I had not payed attention to the age of the conversation. Was reading through and saw the account was blocked. However, why would it be worth reverting the strike through? How did it negatively impact the page? For consistency (and my OCD) sake may I return it? OyMosby (talk) 22:49, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

I am satisfied with the situation after Russ's edit. --JBL (talk) 12:04, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Binomial approximation

Hi Joel! I'm new around here. In looking up "who are these people undoing my edits" I found your profile on https://blogs.gwu.edu/jblewis/, and, found that we had the same advisor at MIT! Alex Postnikov, haha. He was my undergrad advisor so I didn't see him too much but I'm impressed by the coincidence. Also, I appreciate the pointer to Taylor's theorem, for both me and future generations of wayward idealistic physicists. I (minimally) updated my article to include it. Polozova (talk) 07:03, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Hi Polozova,
Thanks for your message, and sorry for not leaving you one sooner. Indeed, small world! Alex was not a very hands-on PhD advisor, so I'm not surprised to hear that he wasn't a hands-on undergraduate advisor :). (In further small world phenomena, LinkedIn suggests that you went to high school not terribly far from where I'm living now.)
On the substance: I enjoyed your blog post a lot. Indeed, approximations are not very meaningful unless something can be said about their magnitude of error, and it was a shameful oversight that the WP article on binomial approximation had absolutely nothing concrete to say on the topic. (Honestly the whole article is a bit of a shambles!) I've tried to patch that gap a little bit, as you noticed (and thank you for fixing my broken equations); I will try to poke around a little to see if I can find a proper reference. (Unfortunately it is not covered in the first calculus book that comes to hand.)
In any case, thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia -- I hope you'll continue!
All the best, JBL (talk) 18:43, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing the archiving on 1+2+3+4...

I'd tried various combinations and couldn't seem to get it to work. Thanks for getting it right. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 15:31, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

@Mr. Swordfish Happy to help! --JBL (talk) 15:32, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Blocked

You have been blocked temporarily from editing for edit warring and violating the three-revert rule, as you did at George Floyd protests. Once the block has expired, you are welcome to make useful contributions.

During a dispute, you should first try to discuss controversial changes and seek consensus. If that proves unsuccessful, you are encouraged to seek dispute resolution, and in some cases it may be appropriate to request page protection.

If you think there are good reasons for being unblocked, please read the guide to appealing blocks, then add the following text below the block notice on your talk page: {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}.  —Cryptic 13:47, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@Cryptic: Thanks. (I was actually in the process of drafting a WP:AN3 report against both of us when this happened.) I will sit out the block, as my behavior was obviously problematic. If you care to take the time, it would be helpful to have an uninvolved administrator look into the absurd OR going on w.r.t. the deaths section and associated infobox entry (the latter of which is completely unsubstantiated by any source). --JBL (talk) 13:53, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm deliberately staying far away from content matters in this subject area, since there don't seem to be many admins paying attention here at times when I'm active. (Plus, being an administrator doesn't grant you the wisdom of Solomon, and this is the exact opposite of the kind of article I usually work with.) —Cryptic 14:00, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Fair enough! --JBL (talk) 14:01, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• (talk page stalker) @Cryptic: You know, it strikes me that this is the sort of thing that WP:PB was made for ;) *hint hint*. None of my business, I know, but. ——Serial ^# 14:35, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  Hah, well, I could probably use the break from WP :). --JBL (talk) 14:39, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• Cryptic, I didn't count JBL's reverts, but I think leniency here is warranted: their opponent was so obviously editing against various guidelines and pretty obviously also against consensus on the talk page. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 17:51, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  I agree with Drmies and SN. Since pblocks have been instituted, I've seen edit warring editors get pblocked from the article page but not the talk page, to encourage them to use the talk page instead of edit warring. That seems to be the preferred way to use blocks to handle edit warring, and part of the reason the community supported pblocks in the first place. Preventative, not punitive, and all that. (This applies to the other editor who was blocked as well.) Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 17:55, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  @Drmies: Thanks for weighing in. I did not count, either, but I'm pretty sure it was a lot more than 3. I am content that the competent among us have weighed in on the substantive issue; probably I should be spending my time assembling my tenure file instead of on Wikipedia. I'm sure I'll be back tomorrow (although probably not on this particular article). P.S. It's always nice to be recognized for my contributions to the auditory sciences. --JBL (talk) 18:01, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• I still haven't gone up for full since the very thought of all that fucking paperwork is so discouraging. Good luck with it. Drmies (talk) 18:10, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  Thanks! As long as none of the external referees are Wikipedia editors, I'm cautiously optimistic :). (Oh, I guess also I should condition on universities still being solvent a year from now.) --JBL (talk) 18:19, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

FFS

@TheMemeMonarch: Good job, you've now reinserted information into the article that is not supported by any source nor by the article body. (I suppose that's better than also reverting the article to include information directly contradicted by the citing sources, but the day is young!) --JBL (talk) 13:56, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

If anything, the deaths are being under-reported. I have seen many reports of people being killed on social media that authorities have been unable to confirm yet, such as the man who burned to death at Minnehaha Lake Liquor. There were several independent witnesses to such events.TheMemeMonarch (talk) 14:41, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@TheMemeMonarch: Thankfully, WP has a higher standard of quality control than "here is this thing I heard somewhere". Including an unsourced death count is a clear-cut violation of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH, and you should self-revert. --JBL (talk) 14:44, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@Joel B. Lewis: Good thing I didn't include those deaths. However, I would feel it fair to add a plus to the number.TheMemeMonarch (talk) 14:47, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@TheMemeMonarch: Your comment is incoherent. You've restored to the infobox a count that is not supported by any source, nor by the body text of the article. This is a violation of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. You should self-revert. What you think is correct is completely irrelevant, as is the fact that you could have made even worse edits to the article. (On a separate note, this is my talk page, you do not need to ping me here, I get a notification automatically.) --JBL (talk) 14:50, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Take it up with the other editors. I did not come up with the number, I reverted your edit warring. The New York times says that the number is 5 confirmed (a little outdated), but also that there are several deaths that are potentially related. Eitherway, you need a consensus to make disputed edit and no consensus was found on the talk page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheMemeMonarch (talk • contribs) 14:56, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@TheMemeMonarch: Take some responsibility for your editing: you made a shit edit, it is objectively unjustifiable (and that's why you're not trying to justify it), you should undo it. Trying to push off responsibility to others is pathetic. --JBL (talk) 15:08, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@Levivich: apparently (?) one can't use the "Thanks" tool while blocked, so: thanks for spelling it out nice and clear. --JBL (talk) 15:25, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

OMFG I can't even. --JBL (talk) 15:27, 2 June 2020 (UTC) Addendum: it's good to know that someone cares that unsourceable synth uses the correct linking character. --JBL (talk) 15:55, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

You're blocked, you shouldn't be trying to proxy edit. Doug Weller talk 15:30, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Doug Weller, he is not trying to proxy edit. He is thanking me. I did not make that edit (or any edit) at anyone's behest and we've had no communication about it except for JBL's "thanks" above and my response here, both of which came after I made my edit. Also, it's clear to me JBL isn't thanking me for the edit, but for the edit summary ("thanks for spelling it out nice and clear"). (You're welcome JBL.) Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 15:45, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@Levivich: there you go with all that tendentious rhetoricking again. (By the way, I saw someone refer to your NFOOTY crusade in the past tense; have you given up? If so, a shame, though understandable.) [I would use the FBDB template here, but, um.] --JBL (talk) 15:51, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

When other people do it, it's called "building an encyclopedia". When I do it, it's called a "crusade". Yeah, I gave up on NFOOTY a while ago. It was a series of realizations to blame. After the six months of AFD tracking, someone suggested random sampling of all footballer bios created on particular days. I started going through that and realized for the first time that there were a few editors (including at least one admin) creating literally thousands and thousands of stubs using a script that just dumped stats from a statistics website like Worldfootball.net. I had participated in hundreds of footballer AFDs and like for every one that was deleted, 1,000 were being created in its place. Participating in and later watching the portal fiasco and the arbcom case that came of it made me appreciate the "playground theory" of Wikipedia: Wikipedia is so big, and anyone can edit, so it's inevitable that people will use various "corners" of Wikipedia as their own personal playground. It's too big and too difficult (given the ease of tag-teaming in various ways) to manage or control. A relatively-small group of likeminded editors was able to prevent the mass deletion of automatically-created portals, able to obstruct the manual review and deletion of portals, and ultimately able to remove editors who disagreed with them from the topic area. The same thing happens in NFOOTY: all proposals to revise the SNG fail because of consistent opposition from a core group of editors, and it took an inordinate amount of effort just to move the needle a little bit in the AFD arena. Ultimately, I realized that even if we deleted all 150,000 or so footballer BLPs (something I do not support of course), that would still reduce the size of the encyclopedia by one quarter of one percent. I was spending dozens of hours fighting over one quarter of one percent of the pages, while someone else was spending half the time creating thousands of new pages.

I've since convinced myself to instead focus exclusively on the "encyclopedia within Wikipedia" -- ignore the 6,000,000 articles and focus only on those articles that are actually read by people (with daily page views in the tens or hundreds of thousands). Instead of running Huggle and patroling all recent changes or just BLP recent changes, I've (with help from others) created custom recent changes lists that show only vital articles (links on my userpage if you're interested), and when I want to patrol for vandalism, I just patrol those pages.

Nevertheless, I still find myself routinely being chased out of topic areas. NFOOTY is where I went to get away from PIA, which is where I went to get away from US elections. After that lovely "Levivich is tendentious because he apologizes too much" ANI, I left Joe Biden articles (which I went to after leaving Race and intelligence) and started working on George Floyd. Of course, as this thread demonstrates, that's been just as frustrating as any of the other DS areas. It's a cruel truth that the most important parts of Wikipedia are also the most difficult. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 17:42, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, that turned out to be a much longer response than you probably wanted to read :-) Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 17:43, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Ha, no worries. I think the diagnosis in your first paragraph is spot-on; it is a constant source of amazement to me how large Wikipedia is and how much of it is maintained by a tiny handful of people. (An example currently being discussed in the corner of WP that I frequent: here. And I love this AfD for an article that still doesn't have any appropriate sources.) Your new approach makes a lot of sense, but I think it's not for me: I try not to worry too much about importance because it leads to a utilitarian rabbit hole (if I'm going to spend my time doing the really important things, then why aren't I out protesting myself, instead of inside fooling around on Wikipedia?), but also I'm just not so good at this Wikipedia thing (here I am using it to blow off some steam by fighting with a pair of dimwits over an infobox entry ...). More power to you, though. Not that you need my advice, but: you might try circling back to things a month or two later. Race and intelligence is in much better shape than it was, and a few editors have been slowly improving the article now that most of the drama is over. PIA and IPA are and always will be hopeless, of course, but George Floyd will probably be calm enough in a month that lingering nonsense can be cleaned up. --JBL (talk) 18:39, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Doug Weller: With all due respect, that's a ridiculous characterization of what I'm doing; in particular, I did not solicit Levivich or anyone else to make any edits on my behalf. I suppose that you may say: whatever I'm doing, it's not filing unblock requests, which is what talk-page access is for while blocked. And if so, fine, I can stop it if you feel it's disruptive. (But what I'm doing is not trying to edit by proxy.) --JBL (talk) 15:46, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Your first post in this thread is about an edit. It's the sort of thing you'd probably post to the talk page if you could. Perhaps I should have said something like "affect the article" or "influence editing"? I don't think what I said was ridiculous although it might not have been clear enough. @Levivich: I wasn't referring to you in any way. Doug Weller talk 15:54, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: You placed your comment directly under my thanks to Levivich, indented as a response to that comment, so I think confusion was inevitable if that was not your referent. To be tediously pedantic, this is the kind of comment I would have posted on TheMemeMonarch's talk page, if I could, because it's about their poor edit. Anyhow, I'll stop pinging people here while blocked; is that satisfactory? --JBL (talk) 16:04, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Unblock request

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).

JayBeeEll (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

---

Request reason:

I wasn't going to file one of these because (1) well obviously I was edit-warring fairly aggressively and the 24 hour block is totally appropriate and (2) I thought I could edit pages in my own user-space while blocked; but apparently I was wrong about (2). So: I have removed the article George Floyd protests from my watch-list and have no intention of editing it or its talk-page in the immediate future, nor of edit-warring with anyone else anywhere else. I will also make an effort not to use Wikipedia as a venue for letting off steam. Thanks for your consideration. --JBL (talk) 21:03, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Decline reason:

Procedural close: seeing as the block has expired, there is no need to unblock. No comment on the merits. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 21:40, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

---

If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

@Cryptic and DougWeller: TBH, I have a doubt after skimming this talk page. George Floyd protests may just be the tip of the iceberg. --Deep fried okra (schalte ein) 21:21, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@Deepfriedokra: I'm not sure what that could mean, but perhaps you should take a look at the comments of Drmies, Serial Number 54129, and Levivich above? (See also.) There was an extremely narrow substantive locus of this dispute (namely: some people were making an edit in egregious violation of core policies), and I behaved in an aggressive and inappropriate way in response, and I am committing not to revisit the article where the dispute occurred nor engage in the same behavior on other articles. --JBL (talk) 21:28, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Just being thorough. --Deep fried okra (schalte ein) 21:36, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Okey-doke. I have to go get dinner ready, so that edit to User:Joel_B._Lewis/Affine_symmetric_group may have to wait until tomorrow in any case. --JBL (talk) 21:37, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

If you or any other admin wants to unblock, or convert to a partial block or whatever, I - as always - won't stop you. I can take being reverted. —Cryptic 22:23, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Your WikiJSci nomination of Affine symmetric group

Hello, The User:Joel_B._Lewis/Affine_symmetric_group article has been imported to v:WikiJournal_Preprints/Affine_symmetric_group. Whenever you're ready to proceed:

1. Fill in the "article info" template at the top (often easiest in VisualEditor)
2. When you're ready to submit it, just fill in the authorship declaration form

Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 03:46, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

AfD discussion: Miraculous plague cure of 1522

The article Miraculous plague cure of 1522 has been nominated for deletion here. NightHeron (talk) 20:31, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, NightHeron, I'll comment there. -JBL (talk) 21:18, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Had a peep at your contribs history after you pulled WWN-sourced content from Marilyn Monroe's pink dress, and I just wanted to thank you for your efforts in yanking unreliable crap from WP. It pains me to see that it had been cited so many times :| ♠PMC♠ (talk) 22:13, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

@Premeditated Chaos: Thank you, that's very kind of you! (In fact, this is the first time anyone has given me a barnstar in 8 years of editing, so it is a double pleasure.) It was quite a shock when I stumbled across WWN being used as a source; luckily it was "only" cited 100 or so times, so I was able to clean it up myself. (I'm reasonably confident that the remaining mentions are all legitimate, with one exception: I ran out of steam when I got to Barbara Stager and just tag-bombed it.) So, anyhow, thanks again! --JBL (talk) 00:34, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Note to self

Apparently this was my 11⁴th edit; probably could have used it better. Next up, 2¹⁶. --JBL (talk) 01:38, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

New Page Reviewer newsletter June 2020

Hello JayBeeEll,

Your help can make a difference

NPP Sorting can be a great way to find pages needing new page patrolling that match your strengths and interests. Using ORES, it divides articles into topics such as Literature or Chemistry and on Geography. Take a look and see if you can find time to patrol a couple pages a day. With over 10,000 pages in the queue, the highest it's been since ACPERM, your help could really make a difference.

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Administrators noticeboard/Incidents

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:24, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

(Note to future self: [1].) --JBL (talk) 17:15, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

mathematics not in liberal arts

That it was vandalism didn even occur to me, or only in passing. It is not cognitively dissonant that mathematics could be held to not be in "liberal arts" since in reality, at least in the US, "liberal arts major" and by extension the thing itself are easy peasey things the people who can't hack math go for. Also there's the fact that it's liberal arts and sciences and there are very serious people who don't think mathematics is a part of science and would also have trouble calling it an art. For these reasons, even if I had suspected it was vandalism I would have at first at least tagged it so whoever put it could elaborate (as I've just done). For the record I have a BA, but was a math major. I do accept it as vandalism or ineptitude now, there seems to be a comment to that effect now on the talk page. If you check my edit history you'll see tag reduction is a good portion of it. Lycurgus (talk) 23:49, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

My comment was a mildly snippy way of pointing out the following thing: if one comes across an obvious and glaring inconsistency in a Wikipedia article, it is natural to check the article history to determine how that happened. In the particular case in question, it was very easy to determine, because the inconsistency had been introduced by a drive-by IP vandal a few days before, in the last edit to the article. (Perhaps I should have found a less snippy way to convey this.) I don't have anything interesting to say about the question of whether math is part of the liberal arts, except to observe that I am a member of a mathematics department that belongs to a college of liberal arts.
Separately, I concur with Drmies and the comments on your talk page: you should stop switching back and forth between logged-in and logged-out editing.
(Note to future self: this is about [2].) --JBL (talk) 17:15, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Hindemburg Melão Jr.

Hi. Thanks for the correction. English is not my native language. Dennui (talk) 18:29, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Hi Dennui, you're welcome. (It's a somewhat complicated sentence structure. The second half (it ...) can stand alone, but the first half (Dubbed ...) is a sentence fragment without the second half.) --JBL (talk) 18:37, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Btw, should I translate the titles of his articles? Dennui (talk) 18:30, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

I have no idea about whether that's usual or not, sorry. --JBL (talk) 18:37, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you! Dennui (talk) 18:38, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

I made some changes there. Could you check my English? Dennui (talk) 19:06, 5 July 2020 (UTC) P.S. I love the astronomy popular science articles he writes for free. Dennui (talk) 19:06, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Maybe we could try to convince him to change his astrophotos to public domain, like NASA does... They could illustrate Wikipedia's articles, being uploaded to the Commons? Dennui (talk) 19:07, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	For being a good editor. ^^ Dennui (talk) 19:08, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Your Edits

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The fact you've scored the above barnstar from a sockpuppet may be indicative. (1) Please do not close the discussions of other editors prematurely, and certainly not on the flimsiest of person opinions. (2) If you have an issue with a page tag, do not revert the page. Take your dispute to the Talk page where, as per procedure, a discussion had been opened. (3) Prematurely closing the discussion of another editor on a board, and then also reverting an unassociated page they had edited, is indictive of stalking. Please properly acquaint yourself on Wikipedia's policy on harassment at WP:HOUND. ClearBreeze (talk) 05:55, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Denier discussion

I am following up on your talk page as I don't want to get too far off topic at the Willie Soon denial discussion. Before I make my point, I recognize your name as an editor but I don't recall whether we've ever interacted (and I'm too lazy to look at the interaction tool). I took a quick glance at your user page and talk page and thought I'd comment on a couple items:

1. I don't call myself a mathematician, but I have a BS degree in math. I'm active in OTRS, and a common complaint is that the mathematics articles (in general) in Wikipedia are too difficult for the layperson to follow. In some cases, e.g. User:Joel B. Lewis/Affine symmetric group that might be too tough a challenge, but I am sure that there are a number of mathematical topics that could be written in a way to be more accessible to a layperson. I've idly considered whether I ought to try tackling this. At the moment, my plate is full with other things, but if you agree that it's an issue and had any interest in collaborating, let me know.
2. In real life, I'm president of a local land trust and have a lot of interest in maps for our properties. I've dabbled in open street map a little bit. if you consider yourself an expert I might ask if I could lean on your expertise, because there are some things I'm interested in working on that are beyond my current knowledge.
3. On many occasions I find myself writing something and thinking I have covered everything, but revisit it months or years later and realize I should've included some useful links. I like the construction, "note to future self" followed by a link, and I might steal that phrase.

On to the main point. You took issue with my statement "Thanks for conceding that deniers are hated. While it probably wasn't your intention, I'm not (generally) in favor of taking actions that increase hate. Why do you support this?". Maybe not my finest moment but I seriously think that "deniers are hated" logically follows from what Hob Gadling said. As a mathematician you clearly understand syllogisms, and the only thing short of being a perfect syllogism is my assumption that "they" (as in "They are hated") refers back to "deniers" in the prior sentence. I can't imagine any other conclusion. Were you disagreeing with this assumption or are you making a different point? This is core to my overall point. I object to the use of "deniers" because the term itself is inflammatory, and I think Wikipedia should avoid the use of inflammatory terms as much as possible. I will not say absolutely avoid anything inflammatory, because I don't want to dance around descriptions of Hitler and insist that nothing inflammatory be written, but I don't think the biography of a scientist, even one who makes mistakes and appears to be misguided on important issues, deserves this inflammatory name-calling. I seriously think Hob Gadling (probably accidentally) conceded that deniers are hated and this seems like a good argument for removal of the term.

Please let me know if you see it differently.--S Philbrick(Talk) 16:27, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Hi Sphilbrick,
Thanks for your message. My experience has been that comments here that include the phrase "I took a quick glance at your talk page" are usually hostile and unpleasant to deal with, but this was a pleasant counter-example. I spent a few minutes looking at the interaction tool and it seems that we edit some of the same pages from time to time but have never genuinely interacted before. (Unless this counts.) Let me respond to the points you raised in order:

1. I agree with you that this is a genuine problem. I have also idly considered trying to fix some part of it, but always get discouraged by the scope of the problem. I also have real-world obligations, but if you were interested in picking a small corner (say, one or two articles) to start in then I would be up for trying to do something collaboratively.
2. That's neat. Unfortunately, I am very far from an expert: many years ago (when it was much less developed than it is now) I was able to make some minor additions in the neighborhood that I lived in, but I never went beyond that and haven't actively contributed to it in a long time. Sorry I can't be more helpful.
3. Please be my guest! (I'm sure it is not original to me, but I did not leave a note to my future self that explains where I picked it up, so I no longer recall.)

Finally, on the original point: about the core questions raised in the discussion (the meaning of the word "denier", its emotional salience, whether to apply it to Soon) I have opinions, of course; if I decide they're worth writing up I'll put them on the article talk page, so let me pass over the parts of your comment that would require them. I parse your question as "Why do you support [actions that increase hate]?" I think it's probably safe to say that, whether or not HG agrees with the rest of your statement, they disagree that they support increasing hate. (For example, I think a person could simultaneously hold the views "deniers are hated" and "identifying someone as a denier is descriptive and does not increase hate" without disappearing in a puff of logic.) My request/suggestion/whatever is to reword in a way that doesn't take as a hypothesis that HG supports increasing hate. (FWIW, I don't plan on pursuing this any further than I already have.)
All the best, JBL (talk) 18:00, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

FYI, I considered removing my statement (you made a good point), but I've preferred, with a nod to transparency, to go with strikethrough. One challenge is that the use of strikethrough can be used in two ways. One is to identify that something ought not to be there anymore but leave it visible for historical reasons, while I notice many pundits use it to leave the impression I'm not really saying this but it's there hint, hint. My attention was the former but I worry that it might come across as the latter. I'll be happy to go back and fully remove it if you think that would be better. I understand you'd like to close that issue out so no need to respond. I'm creating a new section to separate that discussion form our discussion of mathematical articles.--S Philbrick(Talk) 13:31, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, both for striking and for separating the two discussions. (I think striking was probably better than removing.) --JBL (talk) 02:24, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Notes

Mathematics articles

Joel B. Lewis, Would you take a glance at User:Sphilbrick/sandbox, which includes a link to User:Sphilbrick/Mathematics articles. My intention is to post it on the talk page of Polynomial to get reactions, then implement, then do something similar for the multiplication example. I'm interested in your thoughts. S Philbrick(Talk) 01:58, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

@Sphilbrick: Oh you are going to run into so much pushback :). (The WT:WPM line on this is going to revolve around NOTTEXTBOOK, probably.) Let me make a specific rhetorical suggestion to not tie the individual improvements to a broad argument about the badness of mathematics articles, as I think it generates defensiveness among regular math editors. (I may even be speaking about myself in the third person somewhat there.) As far as the example on User:Sphilbrick/Mathematics articles is concerned, I don't care for it, but that has more to do with the (non-)use of words in the extended version than with an objection to the level of detail; in a sufficiently low-level article I could see including that much detail. I think your edit to Polynomial was good, I will tweak it and add a comment on the talk-page. I also think the newer example at User:Sphilbrick/sandbox is good, although again I will tweak how the text and equations interact.
Separately from the specific first few changes, I would be interested in your sense of how to make this work as a collaborative effort (for example, what kinds of input from me would be most helpful). All the best, JBL (talk) 01:18, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Joel B. Lewis, Thanks for your thoughts. I'll mull them over and respond in more detail tomorrow.S Philbrick(Talk) 01:46, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Having now looked more carefully at that section of Polynomial, let me say: christ it is a trainwreck: it's got unique factorization domains up the wazoo and random bullet points instead of paragraphs, but doesn't say anything substantive about division with remainder? Oy. --JBL (talk) 01:42, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Joel B. Lewis,

You raise a number of interesting points. First, I did take a glance further down the page of polynomial and remember thinking "yikes!". I didn't read it for comprehension but it looked challenging.

I concur that NOTTEXTBOOK is an issue, and I might be treading close to the line. I had a whole host of thoughts that I'll try to briefly summarize. Determining the right scope of Wikipedia has been an interesting exercise. We declare that Wikipedia is not a dictionary, and create a sister project Wiktionary. we declare that Wikipedia is not a repository of images, and create Commons. We declare that Wikipedia is not a travel guide and create Wikivoyage. We declare that Wikipedia is not a how-to manual but we don't create a sister project. (Maybe [WikiHow was already established?)

We declare that Wikipedia is not a textbook, and arguably point people to Wikibooks. However, unlike some other sister projects, I don't have a warm and and fuzzy feeling about wiki books, but I'll avoid sweeping generalities because I spent so little time there. I did take a quick glance at polynomials and was distinctly unimpressed. It may be worth discussing how to define the dividing line between appropriate material for encyclopedia versus appropriate content for a textbook. My off the top of the head reactions are that we expect textbooks to have problems for students to solve and we wouldn't expect that in an encyclopedia (I wonder if that common in wiki books). I remember my DiffE class felt like a cookbook, and maybe that suggests that techniques for solving differential equations aren't appropriate in Wikipedia but I'm not fully convinced. I think it's appropriate to show the reader how to multiply two polynomials together in an encyclopedia. If I then go on to say, "but of course, we shouldn't show them how to factor polynomials", I'm struggling to find the rationale that explains why the first is acceptable but the second is not. However, I am firmly convinced that if we make a factual statement that doesn't impart understanding to the reader, we have failed.

As I mentioned, I haven't spent a lot of time on mathematics articles, so maybe some of this has all been sussed out elsewhere, and I'll follow the established practice if it makes sense.

You asked how we might collaborate. I've had some successful collaborations in biographies, but the one case that comes to mind involves one of Wikipedia's better writers (SandyGeorgia) and I let her take the lead on writing prose while I did research on relevant references, while offering tweaks to the wording. That model doesn't translate well to mathematics. My initial plan was to throw together a proposed edit in the sandbox, ask you to tweak it, then one of us could post the tweaked edit to the article. However, not knowing your editing schedule and being a little too impatient (sorry) I didn't give you much time and I was anxious to try making the edit so I went ahead without waiting for you. I do think the expansion of the multiplication example is an improvement (although may be skirting the edge of textbook) and won't go ahead until I have more feedback from you. It sounds like you will looking ahead to other issues in that article, and I would be happy to discuss them with you. S Philbrick(Talk) 14:12, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Interesting comments about sister projects, which I hadn't thought about before. You're certainly right about the Wikibooks section on polynomials. And I also think our article Polynomial can be moved a long way in the direction you're headed without being overly pedagogical. In terms of where this has been discussed before, people do bring complaints to WT:WPM, frequently enough that there's an FAQ at the top of the page that addresses six different versions of "Math articles here are too high-level" :).
Your proposed model sounds good to me. I would describe my editing schedule as erratic and unpredictable (except that you can be pretty sure I won't make any edits between 0400 and 1100 UTC), but if you keep putting proposed edits in your sandbox, I will keep looking at/tweaking/commenting on them. (And I may do the same, if you are okay with that.) Specifically about the multiplication example, I agree with you both that it's an improvement and that it's on the edge of textbooky; I think you should go ahead and implement it. I did glance further ahead and noticed some major issues, I'll detail some of them later.
Separately, I expect that my rate of editing will slow significantly come September, so I may end up bailing out on you then. (Teaching online seems like much more work, at least to me.) --JBL (talk) 02:50, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, I'll try moving the multiplication example in, and yes I do recognize I'm skirting close to the border. As an aside, is an almost perfect solution, which would be to use collapsible selections for intermediate steps. Unfortunately, not perfection because we have strong guidelines against using collapsible elements in main text. I wonder if this could qualify as an acceptable exception, but that's a discussion for another time and place S Philbrick(Talk) 14:22, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Up early, here are some notes:

• The bullet point about products of polys being polys should be unbulletedand put with the discussion of products.
• Composition is only mentioned once, in a bullet; that should be expanded to a short paragraph, perhaps with an example.
• Division is a mess, barely explained at all, and in multiple places. There also may be subtleties in this discussion about multivariable polynomials. Also I didn't see links to Factor theorem, Synthetic division, Ruffini's rule.
• What would you think of three or four subsections of Arithmetic? For example: #Addition, multiplication, and composition; #Division and factoring; #Calculus.
• The Applications#Algebra section begins as if there hasn't already been a long section on polynomial functions just before it.

This is not comprehensive, just things I noticed. Feedback welcome. Also I neglected to ping in my last comment, so in case you are not watching: @Sphilbrick:. --JBL (talk) 12:01, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

I did take a look at the rest of the arithmetic section and it was pretty discouraging. I didn't look closely enough to see whether anything was actually wrong, but it felt like an almost random collection of facts about the subject matter without any clear structure, organization, or motivation. Your thoughts about how to organize that are encouraging. thanks also for your comments about your editing schedule. We are both volunteers which means we get to work on this when we want, so if this works out great if it doesn't that's okay too. S Philbrick(Talk) 14:22, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

FYI Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#A_discussion_about_collapsible_elements_in_mathematics_articles S Philbrick(Talk) 19:37, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Arithmetic section

(This is largely motivated by your observations, but is written as a potential comment to the article talk page.) I once worked with a colleague who argued that writing a article should always start with an outline. I didn't always follow that advice, but sometimes looking at existing prose in the context of an outline helps illustrate problems. If we look at the arithmetic section, and summarize it in an outline, we see:

Arithmetic

1 Addition of polynomials (Implied not explicitly stated)

A Statement about addition of polynomials

B Example of addition of polynomials

C Another statement about addition of polynomials

2 Product of polynomials (Implied not explicitly stated)

A Statement about product of polynomials

B Example of product of polynomials

So far so good.

However the very next statement:

Polynomial evaluation can be used to compute the remainder of polynomial division by a polynomial of degree one, because the remainder of the division of f(x) by (x - a) is f(a); see the polynomial remainder theorem. This is more efficient than the usual algorithm of division when the quotient is not needed.

While arguably about division of polynomials, which would seem like the next natural subject, it isn't a very basic point, it's a fairly specific point. Seems like there ought to be a more general comment about division and then potentially this particular point.

The very next entry:

A product of polynomials is a polynomial.

Is back to discussing products and it's a bullet point for no apparent reason. One simple suggestion is to move it up to the end of the section about products and leave it as text not a bullet point.

Then we have a bullet point about composition:

A composition of two polynomials is a polynomial, which is obtained by substituting a variable of the first polynomial by the second polynomial.

Again why a bullet point? We talked about addition, multiplication and division. While arguably composition is a logical step in the progression it's a bit of a big step and maybe deserves a little transition.

Then the next sentence:

As for the integers, two kinds of divisions are considered for the polynomials

Is back to discussing division.

Can we agree that it would make sense to discuss in order:

• addition
• multiplication
• division
• composition

There's more in the section but that's as far as I've reviewed so far. It may be that I need to have a complete grasp of those sections before reorganizing the early material but I do think it would make sense to organize it as I just discussed. Any disagreement?--S Philbrick(Talk) 20:47, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

@Sphilbrick: Yes, the current order of information is terrible. I have a minor point of disagreement, in that I think composition is conceptually easier than division for polynomials: since every polynomial is built from addition, multiplication, and integer powers (= repeated multiplication), composing one polynomial by another only requires that one understand how to add and multiply polynomials. So my inclination would be to put composition before division. However, once things are made more coherent, it should be easier to adjust the order than it is now. Let me try putting something in my sandbox. --JBL (talk) 23:13, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Ok here's a thing, with composition first. The division part is really ugly. --JBL (talk) 23:49, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Joel B. Lewis, You make a fair point that compositional polynomials is conceptually easier than division. I guess I was just thinking about the usual progression of arithmetic with:

• addition
• subtraction
• multiplication
• division

And thinking of those is the basic topics, with composition a somewhat more complicated concept, but yes in practice division of polynomials is not trivial and composition could be argued as longing between multiplication and division.

That said, it isn't necessarily true that subjects should be strictly handled in order of complication. I note that the section heading is arithmetic.

I note that our article on arithmetic identifies those operations, then throws in some others such as exponentiation, so I see some potential value in reserving the section on arithmetic to arithmetic concepts and maybe we need a new section heading. Calculus is a subsection within arithmetic and arguably doesn't belong there.

Just thinking off the top my head what if there was a break at the end of arithmetic, with a section called advanced topics which might cover composition and calculus. Again off the top my head that might not be the best approach. I think we both identified problems in the organization and the right solution isn't immediately obvious. S Philbrick(Talk) 00:01, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Joel B. Lewis, I posted a quick response before realizing that you included a link to a potential structure. Let me absorb that and I'll follow up with more comments. S Philbrick(Talk) 00:03, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

I think once the two parts are sorted out and rewritten in a coherent way, it will be easy to swap the order either way, since there's no logical dependence between them. JBL (talk) 00:18, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Having looked closer, I like the structure of the arithmetic section in your sandbox very much. Instead of wrestling with whether division or composition should be addressed first, having section headings pretty much eliminates that concern.

I started thinking about subtraction, but it led me down a rabbit hole. Very briefly, did you ever program in APL? I mention that because they did a nice job of distinguishing between functions and operators. Rather than use the - to indicate a negative value they had a different symbol. I just took a glance, the article doesn't seem to cover it which surprises me because I thought it was a key feature. I started to make the assertion that subtraction could be thought of as having a negative which meant that subtraction was associative in APL (or may be nonexistent) and then I decided I was getting way off track and not on solid ground. Long story short, I support nuking the subtraction (at least for now).

I see that you saw my comment on "thus". Not yet sure what the best treatment is. however, while investigating it I came across two troubling observations about the article:

• statements begging for a reference to a reliable source that didn't have one
• Statements with a reference to a reliable source that doesn't backup the claim

My current thinking is to urge you to go ahead and make changes as suggested in your sandbox. I realize that doesn't leave us complete as you have some internal notes about issues that still need to be resolved, but I'm in favor of taking some baby steps, giving other readers a chance to absorb and then we can tackle some of the other issues.

For what it's worth I'm enjoying this.--S Philbrick(Talk) 14:49, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm glad that you are enjoying it, I am as well. And it does seem to have the effect of making the article better :).
That's very interesting about APL (which I was not familiar with). Subtraction is a setting in which the mathematician approach (maybe particularly the algebraist approach) is really, really different from the layperson approach: for me, if I'm using the word "addition" then the operation always has additive inverses, and subtraction is just a convenient notation for adding the additive inverse, not a separate operation. But this perspective can be very confusing to people meeting it for the first time.
I implemented most of the changes from the sandbox to the article. The issue of properly sourcing the claims about the sum and product again being polynomials is very frustrating: my abstract algebra and linear algebra books have statements that are equivalent to that, or that imply it, but none of them are written in a way that would be transparent to someone just learning about polynomials for the first time. --JBL (talk) 19:10, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

@Sphilbrick: I've had a first go at division. Your thoughts are welcome. (I am troubled by the lack of sources, obviously.) What do you think of my idea of sticking the high-level algebraic details (what kind of algebraic object the coefficients come from) into a footnote? I did it while looking forward to the factoring section, which currently begins All polynomials with coefficients in a unique factorization domain ... and thereby loses all potential audiencemembers who haven't studied commutative algebra. --JBL (talk) 19:57, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Joel B. Lewis, Looking now. S Philbrick(Talk) 20:29, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Joel B. Lewis, You said:

called rational fractions or rational functions depending on context.

Then followed up with an example of a rational fraction. I was expecting a follow-up example illustrating a rational function. Maybe not necessary but that's what I was expecting.

I see your sandbox also includes factorization and calculus. I stopped at the end of the division section which I think looks fine (subject to the possibility that an example of a rational function might help.) I did find one reference. I'm looking for something related to Ruffini's rule.

I can't argue against discussion of composition in the context of multiple variables, except it starts to get complicated. S Philbrick(Talk) 20:53, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Joel B. Lewis, I added a reference for Ruffini's rule. One thing I like about it is that it emphasizes that the rule is not the same as synthetic division but a special case of Ruffini's rule, exactly supporting your assertion. Please treat both references and suggestions; take them or leave them as you desire. Alternatively, if you don't feel comfortable taking responsibility for them, and your text yourself and I will add the references. S Philbrick(Talk) 21:02, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

I had mixed feelings about how best to handle subtraction. I have a feeling a new reader is going to wonder at the absence, strongly suggest something should be said but for similar reasons to your comments, I'm concerned about handling it casually and handling it properly might be less than helpful. There's got to be something but it's not occurring to me at the moment.

FYI, I'm using some add-in code to semi-automatically handle replies. It automatically includes a ping, although arguably it should be smart enough to know not to include a ping when on your talk page. I sometimes manually remove it but I forgot a couple of times so sorry it looks like a newbie error but it's not quite that. S Philbrick(Talk) 21:07, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

I looked for sources saying that the sum of polynomials is a polynomial and not surprising, it wasn't easy. Lots of sources say the set of polynomials is closed with respect to addition, some thinking maybe we need to bring the mountain to Mohammed. we do have coverage of Closure (mathematics), so we could briefly explain closure and then make the statement. I'll try something. S Philbrick(Talk) 22:49, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

@Sphilbrick: Thanks for your response. About rational fraction versus rational function: this is the problem (spread throughout the whole article) of the question of whether polynomials are functions or just algebraic objects. When the coefficients come from a field of characteristic 0 (the real numbers, etc.) then there is a one-to-one correspondence: every polynomial function corresponds to a unique algebraic polynomial. But this is not true over other fields, and this problem descends to the rational functions. So, when we're talking about real coefficients, there actually is no difference between the appearance of a rational fraction and the appearance of a rational function: they are both just one real-valued polynomial divided by another. Maybe that means the wording needs to be clarified somehow? (To be continued....) --JBL (talk) 17:00, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Further comments: Yeah, composition with multiple variables does get complicated. Also it's sort of besides the point (I mean, it's an interesting property of polynomials that if you have a multivariate polynomial and you substitute other polynomials for all the variables, then you get a polynomial; but I don't think it's in the top three interesting things about polynomial composition). So let me skip that for now.
Thanks for the two sources. The one about division is better than nothing, but still leaves something lacking in the sentence -- it confirms what the sentence says about integers, but it doesn't actually make the connection with polynomials. So even with the source there is something still needed there. One thing it makes me realize is I've been looking at the books I have on-hand, which are mostly higher-level texts. But there are some decent lower-level books that might be more promising; I'll have a look through OpenStax Algebra and see if that yields anything helpful. --JBL (talk) 22:17, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

@Sphilbrick: I have moved the division section from my sandbox into the article. Onwards to factoring, I guess. Oh, and: don't worry about the extra pings, they don't bother me at all! Do you care whether or not I ping you when I respond to you here? --JBL (talk) 20:55, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Joel B. Lewis, I like being pinged, except on my own talk page. S Philbrick(Talk) 20:57, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Tea in the United Kingdom

Let's talk for a while, in regards to article Tea in the United Kingdom, and your recent edit reversions.
Let me start by making up a hypothetical situation related to ARTICLE, to be as broad as possible. Let's say for instance, that someone was to perform several edits to ARTICLE in one sweep, and they're good edits however minor. Perhaps in that edit there was one tiny thing inconsistent... perhaps a simple mistake due to information the editor had received that was incorrect, but appeared correct when it was utilized. What should happen in such a circumstance, is if that editor doesn't catch the error, another editor comes along, and corrects that mistake, either specifically, or they perform a partial undo—using the undo command, and comparing the changes between the two edits, they correct only the one thing that's wrong, and not all the work that was done in the previous edit, removing all good edits in the process.

Using the undo command unprejudicely just pisses off editors, and discourages good faith edits. It hinders the very purpose of Wikipedia. I have performed partial-undo's to leave the good part of an edit alone in the past; this sometimes takes a little more effort, but it's worthwhile.

With that aside, let's go back over the Tea in the United Kingdom, article, because I do have a lingering question in regard to the reference that is anchored within the reference section (and thus, doesn't appear in preview mode for checking the edit prior to publishing). I've read your reason given for reverting my edit to the List of scientific journals § Agriculture, and I thank you most kindly, as you did not simply undo, but also corrected the redirect issue, thus resolving that problem entirely.

Using the information provided with your List of scientific journals undo, I believe I have re-applied the cleanup to the reference template, while also satisfying the problem of the red text. As mentioned in the edit Reason, I had performed a search for that journal matched with that author's name, which is how I determined it's the same article using a different (newer) name. If this is an incorrect assessment, then as far as I can tell, that journal's article and/or an associated article mentioning said journal does not exist, and in that circumstance, the correct edit to apply would be to remove the double-brackets linking the journal parameter from the cited reference. Wikipedia discourages red text (linking to non existent articles). I try not to remove them if I suspect that such an article may be created in the near future, but we generally avoid linking to articles that don't exist.

So, have a look at that last edit to Tea in the United Kingdom revision 969612392, and verify that is the same journal being referenced. If not, then either one of us, or another editor entirely, should not just return it to reading "Journal of Dairy Research", but also remove the double-brackets that link it to an article that doesn't exist. But please, don't undo everything if that's the only thing wrong.
Christopher, Sheridan, OR (talk) 15:32, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Hi Christopher, Sheridan, OR, thanks for your message. About your first and second paragraphs, as well as your final sentence: I am aware that being reverted is frustrating, and I apologize for that. I have a personal rule of thumb that if I see a complicated edit and I object to one piece of it, I change that one piece, but if I object to two or more independent pieces, then I revert. As you can see from my edit summary, there are two independent things about your edit to which I objected. I realize that rule of thumb may still be annoying to other editors, and I very much appreciate your willingness to respond by discussion and by breaking your edit into smaller pieces.
On the substantive question: the citation includes a DOI link. Clicking on that link takes one to this website, which is the page on the website of Cambridge University Press for the article in question, published in the Journal of Dairy Research in 1933. I doubt very much it is the same journal as the Journal of Dairy Science, which is published by the American Dairy Science Association, possibly in partnership with Elsevier. (FWIW, I did not know any of this before I saw your edit.) It is not clear to me what search you did to conclude that they were the same, but it would not be surprising if authors who published in one of these two journals also published in the other. So I think this is an error on your part and should be reverted.
With respect to the discussion of red text, the relevant guideline is WP:Red link. (I mistakenly linked to a different guideline in my edit summary; my apologies.) It reads, in relevant part: In general, a red link should be allowed to remain in an article if it links to a title that could plausibly sustain an article, but for which there is no existing article, or article section, under any name. Do not remove red links unless you are certain that Wikipedia should not have an article on the subject .... In my opinion, an academic journal that has been publishing at least since 1933 and is published by a major academic publisher like CUP could plausibly sustain an article if anyone cared to try to write it. So unless you have a particular reason to believe I'm wrong about this, I request that you restore the journal name, with redlink.
Thanks again for your cool-headed approach to this discussion, JBL (talk) 17:48, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

New Way Forward Act

She and the other I've listed are cosponsors on Congress.gov. I can't see how you can revert a sourced statement, she openly supports the bill. Valoem ^{talk contrib} 11:15, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

The bill says that immigrants can still receive asylum with any crime which has less than a five year sentence. This snopes fact check which is known to reliable says: What's True The bill would remove low-level drug crimes as deportable offenses and would require that certain criminal convictions come with a prison sentence of at least five years in order to form the basis of a deportation order. The bill would also allow immigration judges to decline, on humanitarian grounds, to issue a deportation order for an immigrant who has a criminal conviction.

What's False The headline of Carlson's article risked giving some readers the mistaken impression that the New Way Forward Act would entirely protect immigrants who violate U.S. criminal law from deportation, which was not the case. I am not the one showing politic bias here. Valoem ^{talk contrib} 11:21, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Christ I don't have time for this idiocy, but when someone points to three separate objections (DUE, NPOV, and misrepresenting sources) maybe in the future you shouldn't just edit-war like an ass? It's not like WP:BRD is a thing. --JBL (talk) 12:41, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

As per WP:BRD the onus is on you not me. I've added reliable sources and they openly support this. This is not controversial. Valoem ^{talk contrib} 21:31, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

You've been here 15 years and you don't know how BRD works? Indeed it is not controversial, it's in the f-ing name: you made bold edits (terrible ones, but bold); they were reverted; then comes discuss. (Read it if you don't believe me, it's not like it's written down clearly or anything.) If you don't start self-reverting I will escalate. --JBL (talk) 21:36, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes I have BRD does not apply here. Discuss this not revert. 21:44, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

The level of incompetence in your behavior is really shocking. --JBL (talk) 21:45, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

How so? I've added sources. Valoem ^{talk contrib} 21:46, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Order of operations.

Moved to Talk:Order of operations § Division, subtraction, etc.

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
First I don't edit wiki much but the order of operations is already a confusing topic for many learners. This article is littered with inaccuracy. Primary due to the multiple usages of negative examples. For the Mnemonic section, there is an example of addition/subtraction. When working the order of operations there is 2 ways to go about it. Either work left to right or use Additive inverse and Mixed division and multiplication. The to keep things simple if you think of Addition and Subtraction as the exact same thing and Division and multiplication as the exact same thing you don't have to get confused. The steps even put these on the same step for that reason. Mnemonics Mnemonics are often used to help students remember the rules, involving the first letters of words representing various operations. Different mnemonics are in use in different countries.[8][10][11] In the United States, the acronym PEMDAS is common.[12] It stands for Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication/Division, Addition/Subtraction.[12] PEMDAS is often expanded to the mnemonic "Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally".[7] Canada and New Zealand use BEDMAS, standing for Brackets, Exponents, Division/Multiplication, Addition/Subtraction.[12] Most common in the UK, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Australia[13] and some other English-speaking countries is BODMAS meaning either Brackets, Order, Division/Multiplication, Addition/Subtraction or Brackets, Of/Division/Multiplication, Addition/Subtraction.[d][14][15] Nigeria and some other West African countries also use BODMAS. Similarly in the UK, BIDMAS is also used, standing for Brackets, Indices, Division/Multiplication, Addition/Subtraction. These mnemonics may be misleading when written this way.[7] For example, misinterpreting any of the above rules to mean "addition first, subtraction afterward" would incorrectly evaluate the expression[7] 10 − 3 + 2. The correct value is 9 (not 5, as would be the case if you added the 3 and the 2 before subtracting from the 10). There is no reason to have this part in bold it only confuses people by creating a negative example. If they want to put bad math in the article maybe make a section for "Common Mistakes" or "Common misconception". The equation 10-3+2 is exactly the same as 10 + (-3) + 2 and if you do the math there is no difference left to right or right to left. The problem is people who remove the negative. You could also read the problem as 10 -1 x 3 + 2 and in this case you again have the number -3. If you treat the problem as 10 - (3 + 2) using the distributive property the problem is now 10-3-2 this is a completely different equation. I would love to just remove this. It is caused by incorrect application of the commutative property and a misunderstanding of numbers in general.. Next... Serial division A similar ambiguity exists in the case of serial division, for example, the expression 10 ÷ 5 ÷ 2 can either be interpreted as[citation needed] 10 ÷ ( 5 ÷ 2 ) = 4 or as ( 10 ÷ 5 ) ÷ 2 = 1 The left-to-right operation convention would resolve the ambiguity in favor of the last expression. Further, the mathematical habit of combining factors and representing division as multiplication by a reciprocal both greatly reduce the frequency of ambiguous division. This is just wrong again... Both of these sections should be removed to prevent continued misunderstanding or spreading misinformation on how to calculate using the Order of operation. I moved them to Common Mistakes as a compromise to fully removing them. But explaining these mistakes is to much and I have little formatting knowledge. They should just be removed but I will not keep fighting over this and repeat editing. You can adjust the new section if you think it could be formatted better or worded better if we are not going to agree on removing negative examples I hope we can agree on moving them to their own section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.39.184.65 (talk) 02:53, 3 August 2020 (UTC) Hi IP user, I strongly encourage you to take a look at the guideline WP:BRD, which describes the correct procedure for this. In particular, there is the talk-page Talk:Order of operations whose purpose is for discussing changes to the article, and that's where this discussion should happen. I am copying your comment there. --JBL (talk) 12:39, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Notice of ANI that mentions you in passing

Greetings, FYI I filed a request at WP:ANI titled "CIR-based community-imposed site ban re: RTG". In providing a basis for my request I mentioned you and your prior dealings with this editor. Your input at ANI is optional, i.e., invited but not specifically requested. Thanks for reading. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:59, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

@NewsAndEventsGuy: Thanks -- I am terribly busy at the moment but I will try to take a look. All the best, JBL (talk) 13:01, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

No prob, there are a lot more vital things in the world today NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:02, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

@NewsAndEventsGuy: Thanks again for alerting me. I had a peek -- that is quite a comprehensive case you built! It looks like the discussion is heading in a productive direction, and I don't think I have anything to say that will help it along. (The tiff on the ref desk is characteristic of how deeply annoying they are in discussion. Probably it was not my finest moment overall, although (to pat myself on the back) I do think "performative rambling" was a good turn of phrase.) All the best, JBL (talk) 20:46, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Indeed, it was! Have you released that expression under a creative commons license, or do you require credit next time I borrow it? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:14, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Haha, please consider it public domain :). --JBL (talk) 21:20, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Success

I'm going to declare our collaboration at polynomials a success. I don't think you think the article is in fine shape overall, I think we made improvements to at least the beginning, and frankly, I'm not going to be able to contribute to later sections without a serious refresher. Besides, I'm distracted by another shiny abject. Notice that articles such as 6 is severely deficient in referencing, and there is a lot of low hanging fruit, so I may work on that for a bit.

I will throw one minor item that bugs me a little bit and see what you think. I very much like the existence of the grass illustrating polynomials. However, they are created by different people with slightly different styles, and I think it would be better if they were all in the same style (thickness of line, axes numbered, etc.] I think a request at Wikipedia:Graphics Lab/Illustration workshop is likely to turn up a volunteer who could do this easily. However, I'm torn whether the existing graphs should simply be converted into a consistent style, continuing to use the quasi-random choice of values, versus creating a set of polynomials that build upon one another. For example start with:

y(1)=2

then

y(2)=y(1) + x = x+2

then

y(3)=y(2)* (2x+3)= 2x^2+3x+ 6

Keep on building by taking the prior polynomial and multiplying by a new term, possibly dividing through by constant to keep the scale reasonably compact. I wouldn't include the parenthetical values, I'm simply including the new year to make it obvious how I'm doing the construction.

My concern is that a graphic artist might find it trivial to do all the conversions on the existing polynomials but might find it more complicated to do the request with a new set of polynomials. Any thoughts?--S Philbrick(Talk) 14:33, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

@Sphilbrick: I agree that the result is much, much better than it was before -- thanks for taking the initiative! And thanks for finding those latest sources. It seems to me like the "factoring" subsection is one last piece that would be of interest to lower-level readers and could benefit from major clean-up; I'll try to find time to give it a go myself, and I hope you won't mind if I ping you to read it over when I do. (There is a lot of clutter lower down in the article -- the section titled "Applications" might better be titled "Assorted other information about polynomials" -- but it's not bad in the same way that the Arithmetic section was.) Good luck with 6 -- I have always kept my distance from the articles about individual integers.
I agree with you that a uniform style for the graphs would be desirable. I rather like the style of the current polynomials of degree 3--7, but the changes in line width and scale are a bit jarring. (Actually, looking a bit closer, there's some funny business going on with the scales: the y-axis in the degree-7 polynomial is at a totally different scale from the x-axis. Hmm.) I am afraid I have little idea about what a graphic artist would find easier or harder; maybe the best thing is to put the question to the potential volunteer. About systematic construction, I also have one comment: the current degree-5 figure illustrates something not seen in the others, which is that a polynomial of degree n can have fewer than n real roots, and I don't think the process you described will produce such an example. Conceivably it would also be nice to have an example with a double root (there aren't any shown at present). -JBL (talk) 13:06, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

I said I would "drop the stick"

You wrote "For example, Geo Swan never responded to EEng's post here." EEng repeated that claim in multiple places. I thought it is a weak claim, and I thought I offered a strong rebuttal - just not at that specific user talk page.

I said I would "drop the stick". Dropping the stick is inconsistent with linking to or repeating my rebuttal. I am not trying to be coy, the temptation to forget my commitment to drop the stick and repeat that rebuttal, is strong.

You also wrote "Like DFO I do not claim to understand why anyone would do this." Well, I did provide what I thought was a was a civil, substantive, policy-based explanation as to why I questioned how the policy was being applied to this individual. On a personal level I too am sympathetic to this individual. My commitment to taking the advice to "drop the stick" prevents me from linking to or repeating those arguments. I assure you I did make them, even if you didn't read every byte I wrote, so didn't end up reading them. You were not obliged to read every byte I wrote. Geo Swan (talk) 16:41, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi Geo Swan, thanks for your message. My read of it is that it does not request a response, and I am inclined not to offer one beyond acknowledging having read it. (Let me know if I misunderstand something.) --JBL (talk) 20:06, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Deletion in pair

Hi. Could you tell me how exactly it is possible to propose articles for deletion as a pair, please? I was under impression that something like that was expressly not possible. The recently opened discussions about Prince Gabriel and about Prince Alexander are quite redundant to each other and I agree that a single venue would have been better. Surtsicna (talk) 16:39, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi Surtsicna, thanks for your message (and for rooting out a lot of these ridiculous pseudo-nobility articles). I am not expert in this, but I would look at Template:Afd_footer_(multiple). --JBL (talk) 16:45, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

(At this point I guess it's too late for those two.) --JBL (talk) 16:48, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. It is too late for those two, but not for these and countless other identical cases. Surtsicna (talk) 15:10, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

New RfC about governance description of a few U.S. universities

A few months ago, you participated in an RfC asking how we should describe the governance of the University of Pittsburgh. That RfC was closed as "no consensus." Another editor has opened a new RfC asking a similar question for this and a few other universities; your participation would be welcome. ElKevbo (talk) 00:49, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany categories

Grete Stern‬

She features in the Jewish Women's Archive.Rathfelder (talk) 22:19, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

... and if you find a reliable source that identifies her as Jewish, and add that information to the article, I will have no objection to putting her into such categories. --JBL (talk) 22:30, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Jean-Siegfried Blumann

If he wasnt Jewish why was he sacked in Aprill 1933, and why did he flee? Rathfelder (talk) 22:21, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Surely you are aware of WP:OR and do not need me to explain to you that it is not acceptable to substitute your own deductions for reliable sources. Even if we were to set that aside, however, your deduction is completely groundless. Many groups were persecuted by the Nazis (you may be familiar with First they came ..., for example) and so it is not possible to rely on such a general argument to reach a conclusion about someone's Jewishness. --JBL (talk) 22:30, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Maurits Frank

"he had to leave Germany for racist reasons " and this is in the references. BrücknerH/RockCM 1938 Judentum und Musik – mit einem ABC jüdischer und nichtarischer Musikbeflissener, Hans Brückner, Christa Maria Rock (Hg.), 3. Aufl., München: Brückner, 1938 (1. Aufl. 1935, 2. Aufl. 1936, antisemitische Publikation).Rathfelder (talk) 22:29, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes, that's a sentence that definitely does not say that Frank was a Jew. And indeed it is consistent with many other possibilities, e.g., maybe his mother was Polish, or a gypsy. --JBL (talk) 22:30, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

You have the field

I have bowed out now, but I will not not respond just to please some people, also as I am dyslexic I often have to give up trying to figure out what I am trying to say, and go with what I have. As such I would expect some consideration.Slatersteven (talk) 12:25, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. I am not dyslexic, but when I start to write a comment and realize that I'm not sure what I'm trying to say (this happens occasionally) or that my comments will not improve anything (this happens more frequently), I delete it so as to not waste the time of other users. --JBL (talk) 12:45, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

dyslexic's cannot see what they have written may not be accurate, its why they are dyslexic. What I meant was, once spell checkers or grammar checkers says its OK I accept it is. But fair enough, I shall of course treat your requests with equal consideration. My last word here, for now.Slatersteven (talk) 12:49, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Erdős edit

You reverted my edit of the sentence "Due to his sisters' deaths, he had a close relationship with his mother, with the two of them allegedly sharing the same bed until he left for college." where I had changed 'allegedly' to 'apparently.' My problem with 'allegedly' is that it carries a faint whiff of criminality or at least wrongdoing because it is always used by journalists to prevent lawsuits etc. during the trial phase of an investigation. Of course it is technically correct and the only reference to this (AFAIK; and I have not researched it) was the cited article. My copy of Hoffman's book is in a box in the basement somewhere but I do not recall this little snippet. I'm not a mathematician (I well remember the day when I realized I was not cut out for any further mathematics study when I was introduced to partial differential equations) but I have been fascinated by Erdős since I first read about him in a piece by Martin Gardner. Erdős was the answer to a NYT crossword clue on 21 August (15A: Paul ___, pioneer in graph theory) which is what brought me to his Wikipedia entry. The Fowler brothers, in The King's English, constantly told us to recast the sentence if running into grammatically or epistemologically dodgy territory; and maybe some more neutral term such as 'reportedly' might work or '. . . he had a close relationship with his mother.' - dropping altogether the last phrase. But it's certainly not something I feel strongly about. Cross Reference (talk) 13:18, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi Cross Reference, thanks so much for your message. I am also a crossword puzzle solver and was happy to see Erdős pop up (although I needed a crossing letter to know it wasn't Paul Turan). About the wording, I am very happy with "reportedly" and have implemented it. I also think dropping the last phrase would be fine (it's a bit sensationalist). --JBL (talk) 15:14, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm curious why you tagged my edit of the Paul Erdős page with {{Failed verification}}, although it doesn't seem to be primarily my edit that you had an issue with the verification. The existing reference does, however, mostly seem to back up the claim made in this sentence. It says Erdős was not allowed back to the United States but no reason was given. The files indicate that the official reasons were not the answers Erdős gave to the above questions, but the fact that he had corresponded with a Chinese mathematician who had subsequently returned from the United States to China and also Erdős's 1941 FBI record. Can you clarify why you feel this reference isn't satisfactory? Dash77 (talk) 19:34, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Hi Dash77, thanks for your message. Yeah, didn't have anything to do with your change really. The sentence in the article says the Immigration and Naturalization Service denied Erdős, a Hungarian citizen, a re-entry visa into the United States, for reasons that have never been fully explained. I presume that you are correct that the relevant immigration authority at the time was the INS, but this detail (precisely which agency was responsible) is not supported by the source. The source likewise does not say anything about a "re-entry visa". And the source does not support "have never been fully explained", either -- it says no reason was given [to Erdos?] at the time he was denied entry, and then says what the officially recorded reasons were. If the sentence in our article was really written using the MacTutor biography as the source, whoever wrote it was doing a lot of extrapolating beyond what the source material actually says. Probably I should have rewritten instead of tagging. --JBL (talk) 01:40, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

reminder

Tedious
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
WP:CIVIL Vexations (talk) 15:57, 29 August 2020 (UTC) WP:CIR --JBL (talk) 17:23, 29 August 2020 (UTC) Joel B. Lewis, And here's where I could refer to WP:NPA I suppose. Or we could discuss this in a civil manner. If you mean to say that I lack the competence to edit Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Emmett_Till&diff=prev&oldid=975625457&diffmode=source), can you identify which of the following competencies I lack: the ability to read and write English well enough to avoid introducing incomprehensible text into articles and to communicate effectively the ability to read sources and assess their reliability the ability to communicate with other editors and abide by consensus the ability to understand their own abilities and competencies With diffs that show evidence of such incompetence please. Vexations (talk) 18:17, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Concerned by edit-summary language

Hi there, I'm a passing editor who is very concerned by some language you've used toward other editors in recent edit summaries, particularly in reversions like this one of User:Miaumee's edits. I counted 71 edits with the same summary, "Per User talk:Miaumee, this is apparently the preferred response to poor editing". In isolation, that kind of edit summary may not violate the letter of the "no personal attacks" rule, but there are certainly other ways to write that summary that are both more civil and more concise. When that edit summary is multiplied across many edits, it starts to seem like WikiHounding to me.

Note that I'm not taking issue with the substance of those edits, but only with the tone. I know it's often hard to stay civil on here, but I believe this crosses the line. Would you consider writing an apology to this user? I think that would go a long way toward restoring collegiality. Benny White (talk) 19:55, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Your concerns are noted. --JBL (talk) 20:07, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Hello

Dear JayBeeEll, I noticed that you have reverted multiple edits by Miaumee.

While you raised a few valid points in User_talk:Miaumee, you have reverted some of Miaumee's edits that were actually clear-positive contributions.

Would you be willing to undo your reverts to those edits that were actually positive?

Best, Walwal20 ^{talk ▾ contribs} 22:38, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Hi Walwal20, thanks for your message. Here is a TL;DR of what's written below: please feel free to revert any edit of mine that you believe is substantively bad.

Long form: on average their edits seem to be net negative -- every single one I have investigated carefully includes broken grammar, very broken punctuation, and the use of poor sources. Because they make comprehensive edits, it takes a long time to evaluate each one. Since they seem firmly unwilling to address the problems with their edits, the most improvement-per-editing-time I can get is by reverting their edits en masse. That is, the point of my reverts is precisely that it's not worth the time to sort out the two good comma fixes from the multiple misplaced punctuation marks and crappy sourcing. So, I'm not willing to go back over my edits again, even though it probably means that a few of my edits reverted something net beneficial. However, if you are more patient than I am, I certainly do not mind you picking through them (either the ones I have reverted or the others), and likewise if you think one of their edits was net positive (so my revert was bad) I will not object to being re-reverted. --JBL (talk) 23:20, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Just so it doesn't seem like I hadn't read your reply, I had read your arguments here and in the ANI and I agreed with the majority your complaints against Miaumee's edits, hence why my proposal was to have me point to Miaumee what she did wrong, and how she could improve. Will answer you on my talk page now. Best, Walwal20 ^{talk ▾ contribs} 07:23, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Discussion on noticeboard

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Walwal20 ^{talk ▾ contribs} 22:56, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

You sneaky bastard

It took me this long to realize what changed. Today I saw one of your edits somewhere and thought, "Hey! That guy can't have that username and signature. There's already a user with that name! Imposter!" I dig it BTW. Lev!vich 04:18, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

@Levivich: Ha, thanks for the note! FWIW, I did notify the world in the only venue that matters. (There is a short but tedious and uninteresting story of why I ended up using my given name instead of a nic in the first place.) Anyhow, glad you approve :). --JBL (talk) 15:55, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

You suggested that "instead of whining" I should fix an article I complained about.

But I don't know enough about the subject of that article to fix it. (That's why I consulted that article in the first place.)216.161.117.162 (talk) 16:27, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

(Note to future self: this is continued from User_talk:216.161.117.162 and concerns [3].) Your comment proposed a concrete addition to the text (and then wrapped that in pointless and unpleasant whining), so this response is just nonsense. --JBL (talk) 16:01, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Are you kidding me?

Why did you close https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ilhan_Omar#Views_on_the_Police?? Absolutely no one was trolling! I was simply telling the other user not to accuse me of bad faith, and then we moved on discussing the issue at hand.Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d (talk) 22:38, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

You were engaging in trollish wikilawyering unrelated to the article subject. I have no interest in discussing this with you further, but if you strike "suspiciously" from your earlier comment and apologize to NH for it, I will be happy to strike my own comment. --JBL (talk) 22:44, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Fair enough. But can you just confirm to me that you're an objective, third-party and you have no personal connections to that user? Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d (talk) 22:54, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

I apologized to that user on his talk page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:NightHeron#Apology_for_Acting_in_Bad_Faith. I have also struck the comment out. Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d (talk) 23:37, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Thank you! I appreciate that (and will go edit my comment on the talk-page in a moment). No one is objective, but I certainly do not have any connection with NightHeron beyond some overlapping editing interests. (You could work out a more precise version of this statement using the editor interaction tool, which is linked from my userpage.) Happy editing, JBL (talk) 01:10, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Alek Skarlatos

I am just wondering why I was mentioned in a revision on Alek Skarlatos that you undid, since I did not make that edit. Thanks. Halcyon grun Sproutz Halcyon grun Sproutz (talk) 06:25, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Hi Halcyon grun Sproutz, as I noted in my edit summary, my edit reverted another user's attempt to clean up the damage to a ref tag left in this edit of yours. --JBL (talk) 11:23, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

MOS:POSTNOM

Hi, could you please explain this edit? You wrote that "these honors are from a country with which he has no particular connection and that have had no impact on his biography or career". But how did you deduce this rule from MOS? --Omnipaedista (talk) 14:01, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Hi Omnipaedista, here is the first sentence of MOS:POSTNOM: When the subject of an article has received honours or appointments issued either by the subject's state of citizenship or residence, or by a widely recognized organization that reliable sources regularly associate with the subject, post-nominal letters may be included in the lead section. For foreign members of the Royal Society (like Knuth or Weinberg), the first condition fails, so it comes down to the second question, whether reliable sources regularly associate [the honoring organization] with the subject. It is my view that if that condition were met, there would be evidence of it in the actual content of the biography or the description of the career. However, it doesn't really matter if you agree with this particular interpretation of mine, the question is whether reliable sources regularly associated Knuth or Weinberg with the RS, and the answer in both cases (as well as in just about any other case of an extremely important American scientist) is that they do not. I recommend the discussion here and the related section just above it. --JBL (talk) 16:56, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Good enough for me. Thank you for clarifying this point. --Omnipaedista (talk) 17:04, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm not edit warring

I'm not the one edit warring, are you serious? Look at the talk page. Maxim.il89 (talk) 22:54, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Look at the article history, where you ... have repeatedly reverted other editors. That's called edit-warring, and you should stop. --JBL (talk) 23:11, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Please look at the talk page. The editor I've reverted has been doing it on the Jews place as well, and if you look at the talk page there, you'll see he was told to stop. I told him numerous times, I'm pro him editing it, changing it, I'm totally pro compromise. Please look at the talk page. He's the one edit warring! Maxim.il89 (talk) 23:13, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

This is extremely basic: if you find yourself repeatedly reverting other editors, you are engaged in an edit war. You should not do that. If someone else is edit-warring, that is also bad and absolutely does not make it okay for you to do so. --JBL (talk) 23:15, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

It's not other editors, it's one guy. Could you please warn him to? Maxim.il89 (talk) 00:39, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Permutations with repetitions

It has to be clarified Tuples at least as Tuple#n-tuples_of_m-sets as Tuples alone is only the plural of Tuple and Permutations with repetition is a scalar number. Please change tuples to tuples of m-sets or let me do it Orendona (talk) 20:50, 1 November 2020 (UTC) It is OK now I only added 3 words. Please it is simple and it is OK, taking them out losses the meaning. My master degree was made on that theme. Orendona (talk) 22:32, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Not bureaucracy

Regarding this edit. It's not "bureaucracy", it's a bot that operates to certain instructions, and has certain expectations of the pages that it processes. If those expectations are not met, the bot cannot process the page according to its instructions. So the RfC listing is incomplete. Trying to explain how the bot operates is no more bureaucracy than a driving instructor explaining the throttle pedal to a pupil on their first lesson. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:05, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for November 22

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. An automated process has detected that when you recently edited 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + ⋯, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Summation notation. Such links are usually incorrect, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of unrelated topics with similar titles. (Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.)

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 06:20, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

 Fixed Thanks, bot! --JBL (talk) 14:16, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Collatz conjecture

Dear JBL, I am referring to our talk about the Collatz conjecture. I deeply appreciate your work on Wikpedia, and I am convinced that you are a very good mathematician. That is why I am still surprised that you refused a discussion that is based on scientific arguments and not on a source that is unreliable in my eyes.

Beall's List has been closed for years and is now being maintained by an "anonymous postdoctoral European researcher". If you consider the source to be reliable, you should provide answers to the following questions:

• Who is the "anonymous postdoctoral European researcher" that maintains the site?
• Who does he or she work for?
• Does he or she have a conflict of interest?
• Is he or she working for another journal and aims to discredit competitors?

Claiming that we did not "have submitted [our] work to the kind of academic journal that subjects papers to a rigorous review process" is hearsay, as long as you do not provide sound evidence for that, even, let me say this clear, if you think you are right.

Once again, I am not criticising the decision not to incorportate our theorems into the article. This is why we have started the discussion. We have politely asked an open question on a talk-page and have not violated the Wikipedia policies. We would therefore have expected a fair and fact-based response. --C4ristian (talk) 07:41, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

You have received fair and fact-based responses from several users. The application of WP:RS is completely straightforward in this case, and I am really not interested in discussing your (evidently rather strong) feelings about Beall's list. Conceivably, you will find people willing to discuss this at WT:WPM or WT:AJ or WP:RSN. --JBL (talk) 12:51, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, I had expected that. When I look at this page here, your comments seem to evoke "evidently rather strong" feelings on other topics as well. Never mind, I am convinced that in principle you act with good intentions --C4ristian (talk) 13:55, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

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Berlekamp switching game

Any chance you could revisit your proposed merge of Berlekamp switching game at Talk:Delone set#Proposed merge of Berlekamp switching game into Delone set now that I've beefed up the switching game article? —David Eppstein (talk) 21:39, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the poke -- I'd noticed that you've been editing it, but hadn't taken a proper look. Really nice work! --JBL (talk) 22:13, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: unconnected to this discussion/Wikipedia, Darij pointed out to me that the problem of showing that any orbit contains a representative with at most half the lights on in each row and column has been used (repeatedly?) as an olympiad problem. Solution: if there's a row or column with more than half the lights on, flip the switch; the number of lights on strictly decreases, so this terminates. This greedy procedure may end up flipping the same switch many times. He posed the problem: is it always possible to reach a configuration in which at most half of the lights are on in each row and column by a greedy series of moves (each one decreasing the number of lights that are on) that only flips each switch at most once? Any idea if anyone has ever thought about such questions? --JBL (talk) 16:44, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Not in that form, that I know of, but it's very similar to a standard greedy 1/2-approximation for max cut in graphs (where the problem is to 2-color the vertices so that as many edges as possible are 2-colored, and you can make each vertex have at least half its edges 2-colored by flipping its color). —David Eppstein (talk) 17:47, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Interesting, thanks -- maybe the more general question has been asked & answered, I'll suggest it to him. All the best, JBL (talk) 19:14, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Buggy WP:ECF?

Hello, JBL! It seems that I inadvertently re-published your comment because I had my editor active before you got to delete it. For some reason, the system didn't prompt me any conflict resolution (as it should and mostly does) and just re-posted your comment. I apologize for the inconvenience, but I'd like to let you know I didn't deliberately write anything on your behalf. Assem Khidhr (talk) 18:42, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

@Assem Khidhr: No problem, thanks for clarifying! Happy editing, JBL (talk) 21:40, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

New Page Patrol December Newsletter

Extended content

Hello JayBeeEll, Year in review It has been a productive year for New Page Patrol as we've roughly cut the size of the New Page Patrol queue in half this year. We have been fortunate to have a lot of great work done by Rosguill who was the reviewer of the most pages and redirects this past year. Thanks and credit go to JTtheOG and Onel5969 who join Rosguill in repeating in the top 10 from last year. Thanks to John B123, Hughesdarren, and Mccapra who all got the NPR permission this year and joined the top 10. Also new to the top ten is DannyS712 bot III, programmed by DannyS712 which has helped to dramatically reduce the number of redirects that have needed human patrolling by patrolling certain types of redirects (e.g. for differences in accents) and by also patrolling editors who are on on the redirect whitelist. Rank Username Num reviews Log 1 DannyS712 bot III (talk) 67,552 Patrol Page Curation 2 Rosguill (talk) 63,821 Patrol Page Curation 3 John B123 (talk) 21,697 Patrol Page Curation 4 Onel5969 (talk) 19,879 Patrol Page Curation 5 JTtheOG (talk) 12,901 Patrol Page Curation 6 Mcampany (talk) 9,103 Patrol Page Curation 7 DragonflySixtyseven (talk) 6,401 Patrol Page Curation 8 Mccapra (talk) 4,918 Patrol Page Curation 9 Hughesdarren (talk) 4,520 Patrol Page Curation 10 Utopes (talk) 3,958 Patrol Page Curation Reviewer of the Year John B123 has been named reviewer of the year for 2020. John has held the permission for just over 6 months and in that time has helped cut into the queue by reviewing more than 18,000 articles. His talk page shows his efforts to communicate with users, upholding NPP's goal of nurturing new users and quality over quantity. NPP Technical Achievement Award As a special recognition and thank you DannyS712 has been awarded the first NPP Technical Achievement Award. His work programming the bot has helped us patrol redirects tremendously - more than 60,000 redirects this past year. This has been a large contribution to New Page Patrol and definitely is worthy of recognition. Six Month Queue Data: Today – 2262 Low – 2232 High – 10271 To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here 18:17, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Reply to your comment to KarlJacobi (talk) 23:28, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

I have already told you that I don't have anything invested in the issues you raised, and would now kindly ask you to cease putting comments on my talk page.

KarlJacobi (talk) 23:28, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

@KarlJacobi: I also have been looking with growing wonder at your obstinate refusal to acknowledge Wikipedia's rules. At this point, we really have to assume that you must have grasped this basic fact: you may not have multiple accounts that give the impression that they are multiple independent people. Either make very clear, on each individual user page, that C.F.Klein, W.Pauli, F.G.Frobenius, F.J.Dyson, and KarlJacobi are the same person, and denominate one primary account; or you will in short order run into administrative trouble. - I don't even know if there is tolerance for such an arbitrary proliferation of alternative accounts without a good reason, but I'll be happy to let an admin sort that one out. What I do know is that you cannot keep doing what you are doing right now, because it amounts to sockpuppetry. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 23:05, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Note to future self: this was about this (and likewise this and this and later this). --JBL (talk) 20:07, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Newcomer

I'm a newcomer; please WP:AGF on my edit on 1+2+3+4+... and remember that I am not trying to vandalize, just not sure what is constructive and disruptive.Nononsense101 (talk) 18:42, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

@Nononsense101: You made a bad edit, and I reverted it with an explanation. This routine sequence of events has nothing to do with AGF or with disruptive editing, except to the extent that your comment here, with its inappropriate invocation of WP:AGF, fails to comply with it: Be careful about citing this principle too aggressively. Just as one can incorrectly judge that another is acting in bad faith, so too can one mistakenly conclude that bad faith is being assumed; exhortations to "Assume Good Faith" can themselves reflect negative assumptions about others. --JBL (talk) 18:52, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Sorry for the bad edit. I didn't know it was bad. However, your reply gives the impression of a personal attack. Please do not do that.Nononsense101 (talk) 19:05, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

@Nononsense101: You do not need to apologize for making bad edits; that is a routine part of the editing process. (And of course you are not obligated to agree with my position, and are welcome to discuss any substantive issues on the article talk page.) Separately, you have now moved from inappropriate invocation of WP:AGF to inappropriate invocation of WP:NPA. In general, it is a bad idea for new users with a poor grip on the local culture to take it upon themselves to police the behavior of more experienced users. More specifically, you should not go bandying around guidelines and policies that you have not read and understood. --JBL (talk) 19:15, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Let's stop here. I'm a newcomer, so please stop replying. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nononsense101 (talk • contribs) 19:39, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

You wrote this message on my talk-page -- I assure you that you are welcome to stop posting here at any time. --JBL (talk) 21:56, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

synergetics coordinates

You redirected synergetics coordinates to another article not covering the topic, which I think is a wrong thing to do. They are notable and have a page on Wolfram Mathworld. You could have simply removed the part about tetrahedrons. I had said on my talk page they could be a sub-section of trilinear coordinates, but that's not really the case either. In higher spaces they use spheres (looking at MathWorld.) You should've read the talk page, because someone said (according to MathWorld) these predate Buckminster Fuller, so are not just a topic about his systems (hence the redirect is wrong.)--dchmelik (t|c) 21:20, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Having a page on Mathworld certainly does not establish notability. The part about tetrahedra is obviously wrong, but the rest of it was not better: there was not a single mathematically meaningful statement in the article. I cannot say whether the idea predates Fuller because the article failed to explain what the idea was, but I do not mind if the target of the redirect is changed to trilinear coordinates, if that's in fact the same idea. --JBL (talk) 19:46, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

They're not always the same idea, and there was at least one accurate statement in the old article. Everything on MathWorld is more notable than the rest of Wikipedia. The thing is synergetics coordinates are trilinear ones using regular triangles, except in the case of higher spaces (tetralinear?) where triangle units are replaced with spheres. Because they're not all trilinear (see MathWorld) it seems a redirect to trilinear coordinates wouldn't be appropriate. What do you think should be done for the three-dimensional (tetralinear?) or higher cases?--dchmelik (t|c) 00:14, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

To your revert on Jan 7th

I really start to like you.

1. The term „Fibonacci number“ occurs twice in the addition! How can you miss that?? Harassed??
2. There is a REDIRECT from Fibonacci tree to Fibonacci number.

So I reinsert the addition with Fibonacci number in bold, so you can't overlook it. –Nomen4Omen (talk) 18:38, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Do you not understand WP:BRD, or just not how article talk pages work? --JBL (talk) 19:15, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

For possible future reference: this is more or less the version of the article to which the redirect was created. --JBL (talk) 19:37, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Miscommunication

Regarding my previous message (since reverted), I think there has been a miscommunication. It was not for me to refer to in the future. It was a note for you in your future discussions. Saying that other editors want to jerk [them]selves off to the accomplishment of officially deprecating a source that no competent editor would ever use or defend is not helpful when engaging in discussions with other editors. Sdrqaz (talk) 22:44, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Hi Sdrqaz, thanks for your message. I understood your meaning. The purpose of my edit summary was to indicate that I did not desire further conversation or feedback about the RfC, having discussed it with several other editors in different venues weeks ago (around the time I disengaged). I recognize that there is no reason you should have known about those other discussions, and I should have chosen a clearer way to make the point. (You are correct that my comment was intemperate and unconstructive. And your close is a very reasonable summary of the discussion, even though the RfC itself was a pointless waste of time.) All the best, JBL (talk) 23:01, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Ah, I see; I'm sorry for bringing up the issue again. Thank you for your kind words and happy editing! Sdrqaz (talk) 02:32, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

WJS and our original research things

JBL, I just looked at your user page, and admit I was not previously familiar with WJS as a place to get research peer-reviewed and published. I did a bit of work myself, motivated by what appeared to be some info missing about the median of a gamma distribution, and wrote it up and have been trying to get it reviewed by various math and stat journals. See Talk:Gamma distribution#Better median approximations So far, all I get is rejection without review, suggestions to submit to a more appropriate journal, and such. Not being much of a mathematician or statistician myself, I don't have a good feeling for what journal to target, or what they need to see in a paper to interest them; maybe there's just not enough math or statistics in what I did for anyone to care. Currently, it's under consideration at PLOS ONE, as one guy in the field said he likes their process. It's been 11 days with no response, so maybe it's actually "under review" this time; hard to tell. Anyway, if this one falls through, maybe I should consider WJS. Have you gone that route before? A not-quite-current draft of my paper can be found at Math arXiv. Dicklyon (talk) 19:03, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Hi Dicklyon, it looks like you posted this on a subpage of my talkpage, I hope you don't mind that I've relocated it here.

I have submitted one article to WJS. That article is not research-y, in that it does not aspire to introduce new results; rather, there is an object that I think is interesting and has attracted a lot of attention in the literature, but there's no single systematic or comprehensive treatment of it written down anywhere; I wanted to get all the information I could about it down in one place, to eventually be converted to a Wikipedia article. (The submission is here, if you're curious.) It has been under review since June (so maybe I should poke the editor about it at some point).

I am not familiar enough with the context of your paper to have any concrete comments on or advice about it. WJS is a bit of an odd-ball venue, and certainly not a place to go if you're concerned about the prestige of the journal. But all evidence suggests that it is run in good faith, with a proper review process intended to insure the work published is of high quality (if not high importance). As a way to get some piece of information into Wikipedia that doesn't yet exist in any RS, it seems appropriate :). The open refereeing process is new to me, and I'm curious to see how it goes in practice.

I hope this helps! The founding editor is User:Evolution and evolvability, I'm sure he'd be happy to talk with you about it, as well. (Of course you'll have to wait until you hear back from PLOS ....)

All the best, JBL (talk) 21:21, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, don't know how I landed on that subpage, but I did think it was strangely empty for a talk page. I did look at your paper, and noticed that its review page is silent for a long time. So maybe the problem with WJS is just getting reviewers to act? We'll see. I'm not concerned about prestige, just want peer review. Dicklyon (talk) 01:17, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

@Dicklyon: No worries -- probably you were at User:JayBeeEll/Affine_symmetric_group and clicked the "talk" tab. About the delay, I've pinged the editor, so let's see if that leads to anything. Waits of a year for referee reports on long papers are not uncommon in pure mathematics; in August I received a report on a paper I had submitted in 2018! I'll report back when I hear something about why this in particular has taken as long as it has, in the hope that it will be useful to you in deciding whether to pursue it as an option (now or in the future). --JBL (talk) 22:01, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

@Dicklyon: Just FYI: I did send a message to the editor back in January, and two referee reports have appeared since then -- so I suspect the long wait was an oversight somewhere, not the norm. --JBL (talk) 19:59, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Wow, congrats! Really good reviews from really good reviewers. So far from PLOS One I got nuttin'. Dicklyon (talk) 00:55, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Hi Dicklyon, I see from here (via your post at WT:WPM) that they finally got back to you -- I'm glad to see it, congrats! (I glanced through Referee 1's comments out of curiosity; I thought "This paper contributes to this problem" was a funny turn of phrase :).) --JBL (talk) 00:40, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes, I'm now part of the problem. Dicklyon (talk) 03:41, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

Sockpuppet investigation

An editor has opened an investigation into sockpuppetry by you. Sockpuppetry is the use of more than one Wikipedia account in a manner that contravenes community policy. The investigation is being held at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/NorthBySouthBaranof, where the editor who opened the investigation has presented their evidence. Please make sure you make yourself familiar with the guide to responding to investigations, and then feel free to offer your own evidence or to submit comments that you wish to be considered by the Wikipedia administrator who decides the result of the investigation. If you have been using multiple accounts (in a manner contrary to Wikipedia policy), please go to the investigation page and verify that now. Leniency is usually shown to those who promise not to do so again, or who did so unwittingly, but the abuse of multiple accounts is taken very seriously by the Wikipedia community.

J.Turner99 (talk) 09:21, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

This is going to be entertaining for me and educational for you, so good job all around. --JBL (talk) 11:44, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

MOS

Btw, I normally stick to this Help:Displaying_a_formula. Cuzkatzimhut (talk) 01:42, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

@Cuzkatzimhut: that page makes a big deal about how it differs from MOS:MATH, but the takeaway from both is the same: The choice between {{math}} and LaTeX depends on the editor. So converting from a format to another one must be done with stronger reasons than editor preference. Unfortunately neither provides guidance on the correct response when this maxim is violated. (I don't think you and I have a major underlying disagreement about anything here.) --JBL (talk) 14:18, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

P.S. Do you have any advice on how I should read/parse/understand your username? --JBL (talk) 14:21, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Indeed, we don't differ on policy, and I let sleeping dogs lie. Systematic and ideological conversions "for uniformity's sake" is what I object to, since consensus is impossible, and in the ebb and flow of daily editing wash out anyway.

It would, of course, behoove "somebody" in WP to collect statistics of platforms, aggrieved viewers, display actual horror ransom-letter views on them, and keep a permanent discussion site for this issue, so the ideologues get informed, but this might be too much to ask... As it is, it lives on isolated stashes on personal talk pages. My side on this lies on consideration for the victims. The issue flares up every few years (see my talk page), and then goes to sleep in the middle of the street, yet again.

My avatar is an impossible-to-explain pun of a mistranslation of "cat in the hat" in German (where it ishould be Katze mit Hut)... Cuzkatzimhut (talk) 15:07, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Belatedly: yes, I agree entirely. And thank you for the origin story of your name, it is very helpful for the hash function in my brain :). --JBL (talk) 14:26, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Combinatorics

Hi! Regarding the recent reverted edit, method ringing is a subset of change ringing which in turn is a subset of bell ringing. The picture in the Combinatorics article is a method, specifically Plain Bob Minor, so the relevant article would be Method ringing. The other link is alongside references to Hamiltonian cycles and Cayley graphs which I think only applies to Method ringing rather than the other type of change ringing which is Call changes. Only a single pair of bells swaps over at a time as instructed by the conductor rather than it being rung to a set predetermined pattern as is the case in method ringing. Hopefully that explains my reasoning, apologies I should have put an edit summary. Qazwsx777 (talk) 10:30, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

@Qazwsx777: Sorry for the delayed response. If I understand you correctly, you do not think what was written before (and is written now) is wrong, you just wanted to make it more precise? I am inclined here to take the view that the connection with mathematics is equally strong with the broader view (it does not matter if the bell-ringer has committed the pattern to memory or is being instructed by a third party to follow the pattern); it doesn't seem to disserve the reader, since Method ringing is linked in the very first paragraph of Change ringing. Also I see that at least one of the sources specifically uses the broader phrase "change-ringing" rather than the more specific "method-ringing". If you are still dissatisfied, we could always raise the issue on the article talk-page to get more opinions. --JBL (talk) 14:36, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Sources

Hi, you proposed Symbolic Manipulation Program for deletion with the claim that there is "one independent source available". How did you come up with this amazingly low number? I hope you weren't depending on the "find sources" links, which perform the very naive search ["Symbolic Manipulation Program" -wikipedia], which naturally doesn't return many results, given that the common name of the program is SMP. See comments in the deletion discussion for many more sources. --Macrakis (talk) 18:42, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

The sentence I wrote is ambiguous; you have decided to read it as "only one source" but it also reads equally well as "at least one source". Here is the sequence of events that led to my comment: I came across a stubby, spammy article that had existed for a decade without any meaningful content or sources. I spent a few minutes seeing if I could find better sources, and I succeeded in finding one, but it was not compelling as far as notability was concerned. Since the article had no meaningful content, I proposed it for deletion. Since the objection to the PROD did not include anything substantive to change my view, I sent it to AfD. Since then, there have been actual improvements made to the article, the AfD is going to end in the article being kept, and I am quite comfortable with the result. --JBL (talk) 14:46, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

"Spammy"? Yes, almost all the sources were Wolfram-related, but it's a Wolfram-related project. So that's not terribly surprising. I do agree that it needed more third-party sources to demonstrate notability.

I am very surprised that you could not find better sources. Perhaps the fault is mine, for having titled the article "Symbolic Manipulation Program" (its full name) rather than "SMP" (its most common name).

If you are convinced now that the article should be kept, why haven't you withdrawn your AfD? Then it would be unanimous....

PS The funny thing is that I started the article because I thought the history of CASs that competed with Macsyma (which I worked on) was incomplete. None of us in the Macsyma group were fans of Wolfram's, so it's especially surprising to see the article being considered promotional or spammy.... --Macrakis (talk) 17:39, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Jazzclam

Good looking out ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 02:13, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks -- just fortuitous stumbling across one of their edits. (Note to future self: this is about this.) Happy editing! JBL (talk) 15:03, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

List of unsolved problems in mathematics SD

Sorry for the unnecessary edits. The software wasn't responding to my changes and I thought they had not gotten through. Thanks for cleaning up my mess.--agr (talk) 14:58, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

@agr: no harm done, and you're welcome! (It did have the look of some sort of software glitch.) --JBL (talk) 16:59, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Men

I thought this was interesting--it came from this. Drmies (talk) 23:55, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

@Drmies: Indeed! --JBL (talk) 22:27, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

		The Mediation Award
		This was, metaphorically, straight to the jugular. Great stuff! ——Serial 14:21, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, Serial -- it is always a pleasure to have my good works recognized. --JBL (talk) 22:27, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

High-fives and barnstars for punching down. You all never change. -- Netoholic @ 04:52, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

That's not what "punching down" means and I am at a loss what category "you all" is supposed to refer to here (Wikipedia editors? people who add comments at ANI about topics not directly concerning them? oh, wait ...) but you keep being you. --JBL (talk) 12:40, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the textbook

It's a bit off the current discussion, but I like the textbook you taught me.--SilverMatsu (talk) 03:58, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

You're very welcome! (It is not completely polished in some respects, but for a freely available product it's very good.) --JBL (talk) 04:11, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Thank you for removing the comment! I was saved by you. SilverMatsu (talk) 22:55, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

You're very welcome; I don't understand why that user was so unpleasant about it! --JBL (talk) 14:08, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

A beer for you!

...or any other beverage of your choice, of course. For your help with Wolfspam cleanup (maybe I should start shoehorning maths into any UPE investigation I do, the relevant wikiprojects seem to have a natural talent for axing adverts), and general sensibleness. Cheers. Blablubbs|talk 12:31, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

@Blablubbs: Thanks so much! I and other members of the math project are very good at handling well-defined tasks, and it was super helpful to have you take the lead and give a structure to the whole de-spamification effort. It would be a pleasure to work with you again! --JBL (talk) 19:55, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

RfC on racial hereditarianism at the R&I talk-page

An RfC at Talk:Race and intelligence revisits the question, considered last year at WP:FTN, of whether or not the theory that a genetic link exists between race and intelligence is a fringe theory. This RfC supercedes the recent RfC on this topic at WP:RSN that was closed as improperly formulated.

Your participation is welcome. Thank you. NightHeron (talk) 20:48, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, sort-of ;). --JBL (talk) 22:22, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Precious anniversary 4

Precious

Four years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:09, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks so much, Gerda Arendt! --JBL (talk) 11:04, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

DYK for Affine symmetric group

On 10 May 2021, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Affine symmetric group, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that juggling patterns can be encoded in terms of a mathematical object called the affine symmetric group? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Affine symmetric group. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, Affine symmetric group), and if they received a combined total of at least 416.7 views per hour (i.e., 5,000 views in 12 hours or 10,000 in 24), the hook may be added to the statistics page. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

 — Amakuru (talk) 12:02, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Please explain

"The vast majority of these changes are wrong". Really? — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 16:35, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Well, since you haven't provided any explanations within 24 hours, I'm reverting your revert as unsubstantiated. Next time please be more specific and considerate. If you still believe that something is wrong with my edits, let's discus your concerns here. — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 16:44, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

@Mikhail Ryazanov: Yes, really. Also, the right place to discuss this is the article's talk-page. --JBL (talk) 14:16, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Here I wanted to discuss your unconstructive behavior (you still have not provided any evidence that my edits were wrong). The changes that I've made were related to punctuation and readability of the article and its source code, not touching any meaning, so I see no reason to discuss them on the article talk page. However, if you think differently, please start the discussion there. — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 15:09, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

In your first batch of edits, several were wrong and the others were neutral, so I reverted. Since then, you have made a larger collection of changes, which included bad ones, neutral ones, and good ones, so I went through and only reverted the bad ones. If you would like to discuss any of them, per WP:BRD, you should begin a discussion on the article's talk-page. --JBL (talk) 15:13, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

You still have not explained which of my edits are "bad", so I ask you again to give specific explanations.

"Roughly speaking, if the teacher has no other means of communicating to the pupil, the amount of information which can reach him does not exceed the total number of rewards and punishments applied. By the time a child has learnt to repeat 'Casabianca' he would probably feel very sore indeed, if the text could only be discovered by a 'Twenty Questions' technique, every 'NO' taking the form of a blow. It is necessary therefore to have some other 'unemotional' channels of communication." (I hope, you recognize the quote)

I also see that some of your new edits are against WP:MOS and other rules, so I'm going to correct them accordingly. — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 16:47, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

And, by the way, "y axis" are two separate words, just like "vertical axis" or "Y chromosome". Should not be hyphenated (unless used adjectively). — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 17:17, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

If you would like to discuss any of my reverts, per WP:BRD, you should begin a discussion on the article's talk-page and I will happily address any questions there. You are simply wrong about y-axis, just as you were simply wrong to put a Latin title in a French lang template. You are not welcome to continue this discussion here. --JBL (talk) 17:38, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Your "simply wrong" statements contain about 1 bit of information, but, in light of your previous actions, convey no new information at all. If I made a mistake in the lang template (not correctly discerning two Romance language when the other reference was indeed in French), you should have corrected it appropriately instead of reverting. The issues related to the article will be discussed on its talk page when I clarify them for myself (if you will be still insisting on discussing this trivial matter there), but here we are discussing your behavior, and I again ask you to be polite, considerate and constructive. — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 18:53, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Revert count on Ugly duckling theorem

I see three reverts by Guswen, one by you, and one by a different editor in the past 24 hours. Am I missing something in that count? —C.Fred (talk) 18:51, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

@C.Fred: Sorry, you're right, I've only done 1. --JBL (talk) 18:54, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Not that I advocate playing the "I have a revert left game", obviously. But I'm also inclined to close the report with no action needed and restore the page to the status quo ante. —C.Fred (talk) 18:58, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

@C.Fred: That would be fine with me; thanks. --JBL (talk) 19:03, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Blackboard bold

This edit appears to have undone the addition of substantive useful details (ISBN/DOI), not just a re-ordering/re-capitalization in the cites. Could you double-check and see if there is actually more than just "Pointless fiddling" going on? DMacks (talk) 00:15, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

@DMacks: Thanks for the heads-up, I'll double check. --JBL (talk) 01:46, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Indeed you were right; I've reinstated the non-pointless parts. Thanks for looking more carefully than I. --JBL (talk) 01:51, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick double-check and fix! DMacks (talk) 02:00, 26 May 2021 (UTC)