# User:Mathmo

Mathmo is on a wikibreak, touring round NZ! :)
Mathmo is on a wikibreak called "life"
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If you are staring at my user page then there is a good chance you realise I'm somehow related to nz (although now I'm not just editing nz pages...), if you think so then you are right because I've lived here all my life.

As for who I am, well I'm a University student(none too suprisingly studying maths, among other things such as physics, computer science, statistics, etc...) although currently this is the summer "holidays" so I really ought to be looking for some "work" rather than spending me time here...

update, finished with uni for this year. Currently in the process of becoming an Officer in the NZ Army.
Update 2: accepted a job as an Analyst Programmer at NZ's largest company (on the basis of single largest site.... a cookie for the first person to work out who!).
Update 3: I'm back at Uni! I just got offered a place on a programme today :D

Also keep myself slightly fit by doing a bit of running from time to time, and sometimes I'll dip my toes in other sports too.

So that tells you something about me and what sort of pages I'll tend to edit, plus of course a few others that just happen to catch my eye as I'm browsing through.

I am... Me!!

(i.e. mathmo/dman/runnerman)

From trying to make the above line I found out the interesting fact you can't link to your own page on your own page by signing your name!! Hence linking to my talk page. Hmmmmmmm...

I've also been an IP, such as User:222.152.28.224 which are a few of my edits I've done in the past (I'm sure there must be other IP, even earlier too, but beats me if I'm going to be able to remember them now all these years later...)

## "Inappropriatre level of abstraction and assumed expertise for an encyclopedia article" (my response to it)

Is sad when I see people demanding an article to be simpler, simply because they don't understand it. I've often came across this in mathematics articles. But what everybody has to realise is that it is essential for a technical topic it contain some degree of technical language in it. Often if you make an article simple enough for the "Average Joe" to understand it the people who do come from a technical background will find the article to be superficial and overly long. Or in other words, saying a lot of nothing at all. Technical language is there for a purpose, it is to express more complex ideas and at the same time idea do it more concisely as well. If you are having trouble with understanding an article maybe you should consider it isn't meant for you to understand. If this offends you, or you really really do want to understand the article then understand that it will require some work on your part to understand it. After all, would you expect to explain even half of atomic physics to the average person on the street in only five minutes? Of course not, it will take them years of learning to get their head around the fundamentals. However, help is at hand for you the reader of this fine wikipedia. Thanks to the prolific linking between articles it is easy to dig a little deeper into a topic, and also to take a few steps back. If the article is too hard for you, look at the terms you don't understand that are linked to other pages and read them. Likewise check out the "See Also" section and the associated categories, all of these will help get you up to the level you need to understand the article. Mathmo Talk 00:52, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

In essence this is what I'm saying: "There are layers of knowledge, and it is not always possible to remove all layers such as to put all knowledge on the same level of required base understanding for understanding." (there is however one way to remove all the intermediate layers... and that would be to include all the information of the intermediate layers in the higher level article. This however completely flies against the concept and purpose of linking to other related articles. A piece of knowledge can not be viewed as a self contained morsel, this is only possible if you are viewing the entire body of human knowledge. All knowledge is connected to other knowledge, that through other pieces of knowledge connects all of human knowledge together. It is impossible to predicate where the readers' related interests may lead them, or what their prior understanding is. To account for all possibilities, would mean to put all of human knowledge on a single page!)

## Deletion vs the construction of an encyclopedia.

Recently I've been increasingly worried by the direction wikipedia has been taking, a tendency for many editors to at whim remove content from an article. And the ease with which articles are being deleted, when they shouldn't be. This counter-productive, when an editor knows there is going to be a major uphill battle to keep an article from being deleted while it is on AfD why is s/he going to go to the substantial effort of improving the article when there is the very likely probability all his/her work will be lost? We end up in a Catch 22 situation, that leads to downward spiral from negative feedback. For further reading I recommend: Unwanted: New articles in Wikipedia Mathmo Talk 02:00, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Quoting from a comment on that linked page: "I’m a long time editor, since 2003, ranked in the top 300 by number of edits (most in article space). On May 11th 2007 I mostly gave up on Wikipedia - there is something wrong with the community, in particular people deleting content. I’d never seen anything like it prior to late 2006 and 2007. Further, the use of “nag tags” at the top of articles is out of hand. It’s easier to nag and delete than it is to research and fix. Too many know-nothings who want to “help” have found a powerful niche by nagging and deleting without engaging in dialog and simply citing 3 letter rules. If a user is unwilling or incapable of working to improve an article they should not be placing nag tags or deleting content.
Stbalbach "

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eiffel Tower in pop culture has a complete of relevant comments:

• Strong Keep the use is artistically and culturally significant in many ways. for this article, I've started to classify it. perhaps looking at the part I've begun will indicate the significance of the theme. I'll add some references to that also. I remain extremely upset how a few people in a few hours of trivial work, and destroy a major element of wikipedia . It is much harder to build than destroy--it is harder to improve andy article than to remove it. Those who see something with obvious weaknesses and want to simply remove it on the basis of quick and superficial inspection without considering carefully and in detail how it can be improved, are a danger to Wikipedia. And to do so at this speed -- a speed with which constructive people cannot possible keep up, is perhaps a sign of the extreme vulnerability of the project.
Personally, these topics are not a great interest of mine. But my respect for this project has led me to spend most of the week in trying to rescue them--although a little clumsily, as I am dealing with things that could much better be dealt with over time by a group of people knowing the different subjects. . It should not have been necessary--there were much better ways of doing this. I anticipate a long period of trying to recapture lost ground. DGG (talk) 01:22, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Another Comment from me:

Some would argue (including I guess myself) why you should see anything wrong with a world that as a wikipedia with a multi million number of pages? For instance, having an article about a Simpson's episode does not slow me down in the slightest for when I want to find an article on combinatorics. Unlike old tech encyclopedias with many pages we have no such a limitations, we can have a million page encyclopedia but it won't be any heavier to carry and won't take me any longer to flick from the index page to the article than if it was only one page long! Yet having those extra articles as it does have a clear benefit, for one day when I do want to look up something less serious than combinatorics. Mathmo Talk 20:20, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

## "Encyclopedic"

A lot of the time I've becoming across the reason for deletion being given as "not encyclopedic", increasingly often in recent times. I'm quoting now I reply I've just written, with diff: I wish I'd stop seeing the word encyclopedic being misused so often on wikipedia, did you know that half the results on google for encyclopedic are to do with wikipedia (indicates the extent of the problem)? Anyway, getting back on track.... encyclopedic is defined as "comprehensive" also "broad in scope or content". If anything, this seems to be the opposite of what you were trying to say. Because you were wishing to instead narrow down the scope and content of the article, making it less comprehensive. Mathmo Talk 20:57, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

On a related note, here is a few comments from Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Loch Ness Monster and popular culture :

• Keep or Mergethe LNM has proven to be a notable and recurring trend in popular culture and as such is a valid topic that is notable beyond the fact/fiction of alleged LNM sightings in real life. - perfectblue 20:19, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
• Notable, eh? Want to provide some independent sources discussing its importance in popular culture? --Eyrian 20:22, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
The sheer number of works based on the LNM or containing it as a theme is evidence enough of its notability.. For example, references in the Simpsons and the film Lockness, both prove that the LNM has become a cultural phenomona in the US (I'm pretty sure that it turned up in an episode of South Park, too). In the UK there are even entire series devoted to the LNM, such as the family ness. You don't find something non-notable showing up nearly so often in popular culture. - perfectblue 20:13, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Comments such Eyrian's are disappointing to read, you don't need a source to explicitly say it is notable for it be notable! The act of being noted makes it notable, by definition. Mathmo Talk 22:41, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

## In popular culture...

I feel that it is important to keep popular culture articles because they inherently demonstrate the notability of the parent article while at the same time keeping the parent article more streamlined. Mathmo Talk 22:11, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

More on this point, keep votes made at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Phoenix in popular culture:

• Keep There is clearly no consensus that WP:FIVE and WP:NOT#IINFO says that we must delete all "in popular culture" articles, which is what the nominators for the deletion of this and many other similar articles seem to be implying. This lack of consensus is evidenced by the fact that WP:NOT (which is supposed to reflect consensus policy) says nothing about trivia or "in popular culture" articles. Also, WP:ATRIV says nothing about deleting articles such as this; on the contrary, it says things like "Do not simply remove such sections: it may be possible to integrate some items ..."; "Convert bullet points to prose or narrowly-focused lists ..." There has been for a long time, however, WP:CONSENSUS, evident by the number of such articles, the number of editors who have created and contributed to such articles, and how long they have been around, that these articles should exist. The present pop-culture deletion campaign, which has been successful to some extent, might represent a change in consensus, however, without a wider discussion than AfD, this cannot be determined. "No one person, and no (limited) group of people, can unilaterally declare that community consensus has changed, or that it is fixed and determined." Perhaps a wider discussion will reveal a consensus that these articles don't belong in Wikipedia; however, they ought to exist somewhere, otherwise Wikipedia will be a perpetual battleground between those who want access to and to contribute to this information, and those who want to get rid of it. A reasonable compromise might be to create a new Wikimedia project (on par with Wikibooks and Wikiquote) to host these types of articles, but until then, these articles ought to be kept here, per WP:IAR, and improved to better comply with Wikipedia policies. DHowell 02:17, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per AndyJones and DHowell, it is requirement that AfD's have proper discussion before an article gets deleted. As it stands now with the floods of related articles being nominated for deletion it is impossible for interested editors to properly discuss the deletions with the depth the articles and wikipedia deserve. Mathmo Talk 23:06, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

## Listing an Article for Deletion

Have a few comments on this, for now I'll quote:

From Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Higher Step Records:
• Keep per Ljlego. Please, read WP:DP. An article may be deleted given "[a]rticle information that cannot possibly be attributed to reliable sources." An article may be deleted if "[a]ll attempts to find reliable sources in which article information can be verified have failed." An article may not be deleted because no one feels like digging up the sources which are readily available in plenitude. — xDanielxTalk 00:05, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
From Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bat Mastersons:
• Keep - No evidence that any notable efforts have been made to test notability or verifiability, hence not a proper AfD as per WP:DP. Any article can be littered with [citation needed] notices, whether it's well-sourced or not. I added a quick link to the article. — xDanielxTalk 00:16, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

## An Idea for "in popular culture"

The contents of an article and other bits and pieces are often hidden, to help improve the flow and readability of the article. Perhaps "in popular culture" sections should be treated similarly? Mathmo Talk