User talk:Jitse Niesen/Archive5

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Contents

Over zealous contributor

Have no great issue with you editing my web page on "Complex Analysis with Mathematica" out, as book is indeed already there, however the page does now contain an errata and some information on how to use the CD. This information could of course be found with anyone with the wit to use a search engine!

Kusma's RfA

Hello, Jitse Niesen! Thank you for your support in my recent successful request for adminship. If you ever have problems that you could use my assistance with or see me doing stupid things with my new buttons, don't hesitate to contact me. Happy editing, Kusma (討論) 02:37, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Cardinal number

Hi Jitse. Based on your previous encounteres with this kind of stuff, you may be interested in Talk:Cardinal_number#Jaina_mathematics. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:32, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Number of mathematics articles

Hi there Jitse, Smári here from the icelandic Wikipedia. I'm wondering how you arrive at the number of math articles in Wikipedia? Did you count, or is there some automated script you're using to keep track? If so, could I procure it? Please reply on my Icelandic talk page - I see it more often than this one. --Smári McCarthy 10:01, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

The number is determined by an automatic procedure, but it's a rather complicated one. The main part of the work is done by en:User:Mathbot, run by en:User:Oleg Alexandrov. That bot goes every day through the en:list of mathematics categories (which is kept up-to-date by hand) and appends any new articles to the en:list of mathematics articles. My script only goes through en:list of mathematics articles and counts the number of articles in the list. The primary purpose of my script is to construct en:Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Current activity, which we use to keep track of maths articles. I don't mind giving you a copy of my script, even though it's a bit of a mess, but like I said, the counting bit is really trivial and the hard work is done by en:User:Mathbot. If there is a specific part of the functionality that you want, please ask. -- Jitse Niesen (talk)

Speed of Light

Hi, you reverted my edit on the Speed of Light article. I agree its not a big addition, but none the less a small attribute to the completeness of it. I did not find any other suitable place to position it, thats why i added it in there, to keep it close to other data that has relevance. Please add it somewhere in the article, in a more appropriate place. I was looking for this information for a long time before i found it and would not want others to search the same futuile way as i did. Thanks. -- Simon Moon

I think it ("Light travels the distance of 1 Exametre in 105.7 years.") should not be added at all. The speed is given in meters per second (standard unit) and also in kilometer per hour and mile per hour, because many are more familiar with these. However, exameter is not a unit that is often used (astronomers use parsec or lightyear for distances), if at all, so it does not add much. Furthermore, the information you want to add is fairly easy to compute.
If you still think it should be added, I suggest you take it up at talk:speed of light. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 12:47, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Re: Tools for Commons

Hi! :) Yes, we do indeed play! Not many of us, though. Check out Victorian Women's Football League - it's been around for 25 years and is the largest in Australia (and the world ;)). There are smaller leagues in most of the states now, as well as a state of origin competition (in which Victoria invariably thrashes everyone else). It's great! :)

To the topic at hand - indeed no one has offered, that would be fantastic. The main thing I have thought of is making it easier to automatically tag images for (speedy)/deletion. User:Jnothman has written a useful 'Nominate this article for AfD' script which is what makes me think it must be possible.

So what I would like, is for any page in the Image: namespace, a link in the toolbox (or a tab, but Commons has an extra 3 tabs, so it's getting a bit crowded) saying 'Nominate for deletion' and 'Nominate for speedy deletion'. This is what each script should do:

  • Nominate for deletion
  1. Tag the image with commons:Template:Delete
  2. Automatically notify the uploader (look at the Commons template)
  3. Prompt the user for a reason
  4. Automatically update commons:Commons:Deletion requests with the information.
  • Nominate for speedy deletion (this would be good to be installed sitewide, actually, since as an admin I don't really use it :))
  1. Prompt for a reason
  2. Tag the image with commons:Template:Speedydelete (put the reason after the template, not as a parameter)
  3. Notify the uploader (again, look at the template - there's a c&p line)

They're my main ideas. :) What do you think?

cheers, pfctdayelise (translate?) 04:44, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Also, no one has answered my question at Template talk:Hidden which is not exactly user-scripts but it is kinda scripty and tricky. On the off chance you could help me out there, I'd be very grateful. (I want it to work so I can implement it at the Commons.) pfctdayelise (translate?) 04:49, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Hm, there is one small problem... I don't see any extra link!
I'm using FF, but when I purged my cache and logged on with IE (which I never do), I still couldn't see it. Any ideas? pfctdayelise (translate?) 12:28, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
Hm. Now I have the link, but it dies because it can't find the uploader ("#2"). And my JS Console still has two errors, lines 58 and 61 (I took a clean copy from yours again). ...? pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:10, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
First I tried it on a picture of my own (Image:1-2-3-4 Cake ingredients.JPG), then just some after hitting Special:Random. They all give the same error. Did you get it work successfully on commons? You can test on my images if you want. pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:29, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
OK! I tried it out on my own image. No errors, woo hoo! But... can it be made to save the pages automatically, or do I still have to do that? And does it do the uploader notification?
Just tried on Image:Example.jpg. This time it didn't attempt to update the the template or notify the uploader. ... ? pfctdayelise (translate?) 16:24, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Hm, I didn't notice your recent reply until just now. :) It works! :D Thanks so much!
I announced it on COM:VP. You might get a few random bug reports now... Thanks again!! 128.250.37.103 02:08, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Categories for Multiplicity

The article Multiplicity is not just about multisets. It also and mostly talks about the multiplicity of roots of a function. So it should not just be in the Category:Set theory. It should be in another category as well. I guessed that it should be in Category:Numerical analysis. If I was wrong, then what other category would you put it in? JRSpriggs 06:04, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Copied to Talk:Multiplicity and answered there. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 12:51, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Apologies

No prob there. --moxon 13:00, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Moving pages with a bot

Hi Jitse. I was asked to help with this request, but my bot can't handle it. Would your bot be up to the task, and would you have time/be willing to look into that? Wonder what you think. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:36, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, there does not seem to be a function for moving pages. This requires some thought. Either implement it yourself, or wait (possibly indefinitely). -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 10:56, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Is there a particular reason why m:pywikipedia shouldn't implement pagemoves? this feature request contains some language that makes it seem like maybe that feature is controversial and isn't implemented for a reason; it would make it too easy for Willy on Wheels type vandals to do their important work. -lethe talk + 09:24, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
I asked on the pywikipedia mailing list, but I haven't received an answer. So I implemented page moves myself. Lethe, thanks for the pointer; I will keep my code to myself for the moment. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 14:04, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
Did you? I took a good long look at the pywikipedia code, wondering if I could figure it out, when I posted this comment. But I couldn't figure it out. I'm not at all familiar with the code or how wikipedia works, but I thought that comparison with delete and edit functions would reveal the answer, but pagemove seems to go through some Special namespace intermediate page. I did notice that family.py had a subroutine for producing the URL for a pagemove. As if someone had written or had planned on writing the page move feature. Anyway, kudos to you for figuring out what I couldn't! -lethe talk + 14:29, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
Cool, now you can work on the request above. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:35, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Lethe, that's basically what I did, comparing with the delete function. The fact that the pagemove goes through the "Special" namespace does not make much of a difference (though it took me a while to realize this). Oleg, I'm on it. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 05:16, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Bombieri-Vinogradov theorem

Since you are an admin, could you do me a favour and move Bombieri-Vinogradov's theorem to Bombieri-Vinogradov theorem, then delete the former page and redirect Bombieri's theorem to Bombieri-Vinogradov theorem? Mon4 15:35, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Done, except that I moved it to Bombieri–Vinogradov theorem with an en dash instead of a hyphen (in TeX, an en dash is denoted -- and a hyphen with - ). This is quite pedantic, but recommended in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dashes).
By the way, also a warm welcome from me. Oh, I have a question which you might be able to answer, seeing the kind of pages you edit. Have you ever heard of variational number theory? Does it exist, do you know of references, does the description on that page make sense? I am concerned whether this article is suitable to be included in Wikipedia. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 01:05, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank you. I have not heard of variational number theory, and I suppose the page trying to explain it is as incomprehensible to me as it is to you (or anybody else for that matter). Mon4 01:27, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

List of numerical analysis topics

Hi Jitse. I fixed the bot script servicing the talk page of that list. Now all my scripts use one and the same category browsing subroutine which is robust enough that changes to the categories format (except for trully big overhauls) will not affect it.

I did not forget your request a while ago about the script listing entries in the list which are not in the categories, and also plan to rewrite that script to not spit out garbage in times of trouble. I'll get to this in a while. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:09, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 04:03, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Bios theory and User:Lakinekaki

Hi, Jitse, just wanted to let you know that in Talk:Bios theory I have listed evidence of reason for grave concern about an apparent conflict of interest on the part of User:Lakinekaki, and also serious objections to the claims made in the article itself, which appears to be yet another example of a cranky "theory" masquerading as mainstream science. Even worse, I have presented evidence of a hidden agenda behind the sponsorship of the "research" reported in the article. This appears to be one of the most troubling instances I have come across to date of an apparent attempt to use the WP to deceive our readers. And did I mention that lives could literally be at risk? ---CH 06:42, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

AfC archiving

Hello Jitse. I saw your discussion of page moving above, and your offer to create this bot on Deskana's talk page; thank you very much! Before you do, I need to mention that User talk:Fetofs has kindly written some code for this task, though not for the page moving step. My entire conversation with him is located at User talk:Meegs#WP:AFC archiving. Perhaps either you can use his code or he can use yours. I am leaving him a message to join the conversation on this page. Again, thanks a lot. ×Meegs 16:16, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't have any server to run it anyways, so you can take what you need. Be aware that I haven't tested it thoroughly though. BTW, do you really plan on never releasing this? It could be so useful... Fetofs Hello! 20:49, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I'll certainly make use of your code when I find time to implement everything (I do have access to a computer to run it on). About releasing the page move code: personally, I think that should be okay, but I want to hear some more opinions before I decide to release it. Once it's out in the open, I cannot take it make. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 05:16, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
Any chance of a private e-mail? Fetofs Hello! 21:04, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
I requested approval for running the AfC archiving bot at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approvals#Jitse's bot. I also asked for opinions whether I should release the code. Please bear with me. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 14:29, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Fine. I don't have the whole time of the world, but a good part of that :) Fetofs Hello! 23:06, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Split step method

I appreciate you doing the correct blah-tex or latex things! Thanks. Regardign your questions:

  • I guess you need to know A(t,z = 0) for all t instead of just t = 0? yes for t=0 its true, donno about other cases.
  • What is β2(ω) in step 3? Is the j in the exponent the imaginary unit?: yes j is imaginary unit. beta2(w) is the dispersion , value depends on frequency
  • In step 4, should the A_{+\frac12} on the left- and right-hand side be A_{-\frac12} ?: corrected this
  • Can you give a more accessible reference than your (?) course work?: doing it.

THanks for comments.--Muthiah Annamalai 20:21, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

notability

Thanks for your message, but I hope you are not under the impression that I created the Jon Michael Smith article. Rick Norwood 14:36, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

The same (notable) Rick Norwood? :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:55, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Memory is funny. I have absolutely no memory of creating this article, but evidently I did. Checking back over my article history, this article comes from a time when I was working through the (long) list of requested math articles. There was a request for an article on T-integration, so I created that article. According to mathworld, Jon Michael Smith created T-integration, and so I added a link to him and created a stub about him. Rick Norwood 15:05, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi

Jitse, I know what are you talking about and quiet well agree with it, but the user you are defending "MuthuKutty" is the one who started it. For you information please see what he wrote for me:- "Mister know where you poke your hands. Dont list my user page for deletion, you know youre sticking your hand into hot water. Shut it and work your way through wikipedia. Nasty Indian."

Don't you think this comment is against the Wikipedia ethics too??

Thanks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rahul Khanna (talk • contribs) 06:44, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, of course it is, but that is not an excuse to retaliate. I'm not defending MuthuKutty, in fact I gave him the same warning as you (diff). -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 12:55, 16 May 2006 (UTC)\\

My POV

What does it mean about the racist remarks this khanna-person makes on my page? I dont think Id let her/him get away scott free for putting up my page for deletion. I mean its just out of this world. I wish I could do something about it. --பராசக்தி 00:12, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I have reason to believe that that this khanna person is after-me on a witch-hunt because I listed Abhinav.net for deletion. Do you work for Abhinav.net? . I still think this page is a balatant advertisement, but that stuff is later. If nobody in wikipedia is going to defend simple minded people from Racists I just wonder what will happen of a lawless Wiki.--பராசக்தி 00:12, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

See my user page, the-khanna person wants a tit-4-tat for me listing that page for AFD, the person lists my user page! Where goes WIkipedia. And on top of it calls me names. I wish someone block that person from WIkipedia, unless he do me an apology. Seeking admin intervention. --பராசக்தி 05:13, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

We're very reluctant to block people, especially if they are new around here. We start by explaining how things are done on Wikipedia and warning them. Only after we find that they are unwilling to learn and they repeatedly violate the rules despite being warned, will we consider other measures like blocks. As Wikipedia:Blocking policy explains, blocks are possible in reaction to "excessive personal attacks", and "[u]sers will normally be warned before they are blocked." On Wikipedia, as well as in real life, you must be able to suffer nasty comments and get over it without retaliating, because we cannot work with each other if every conflict is allowed to escalate. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 06:09, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry didnt know there was a fueror. PMA 13:37, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Finding multiple roots merger

You have not merged Finding multiple roots into Root-finding algorithm. Nor have you indicated that you changed your mind about wanting the merger on account of the lack of references. If you would like me to do the merger, please so indicate and then I will do it. However, it seems longer now than the comparable portions of the existing main article. JRSpriggs 06:20, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with lack of references. That is a serious problem, and merging won't fix it. The reason why I want to merge the articles is that I find Finding multiple roots too small to stand on its own, especially since it starts very abrupt. I haven't changed my mind, but I haven't found any time yet to do the merger, and it does not have a very high priority for me. One of the things that I want to do first is to have a good look at Brent's method, so I probably won't have time to merge Finding multiple roots into Root-finding algorithm soon. It would be great if you could do it. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 10:40, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
OK. I will have to read up on how to do a merger -- specifically what to do with the old article after transfering the text into the new one. JRSpriggs 05:57, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I did not find an explanation of how to do the merger, but I went ahead and did it anyway a couple days ago, as you probably already noticed. I made the old article into a redirect to the new one. JRSpriggs 06:28, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Please read my responses to Lethe in the subsection "how to merge" under the section "Finding multiple roots" at User talk:JRSpriggs. JRSpriggs 09:18, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Islamophobia

Thanks for editing on this article. If you've got the time you might want to add it to your Watchlist (if you use that) as this article is in serious need of more editors (particularly ones who can instill NPOV in it). Thanks again. Netscott 06:24, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Hello, just saw your comment the CfD for Islamophobia, on the Re: argumentation skills... if you re-read the line you'll soon understand that it was perfectly neutral. I neither said I was better or worse than Ben Houston. But while you're commenting over there you might want to suggest that Ben Houston apologize for his false accusations/incriminations of my character. Netscott 11:33, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
I've responded to you latest post. Netscott 12:43, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Save the part where you said you stand by what you said previously, I couldn't agree with you more. I did appreciate you're discussion on matter as well. Netscott 13:04, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Cubature

It might be nice to have a separate page on the topic of cubature, or higher-dimensional numerical integration. I'm suggesting this for a somewhat self-interested reason, namely that I have made progress on some old questions in polynomial interpolatory cubature. (You can find my papers on this with an arXiv search, if you're interested.) Polynomial interpolatory cubature is a bit out of fashion these days, but I'm not sure that that is so for any good reason. It could be out of fashion because it has not been competitive with other methods in some regimes. If so, new constructions such as the ones that I found may eventually change that.

In any case a good cubature page would review both interpolatory and non-interpolatory methods.

Greg Kuperberg 19:52, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I would be very interested in a page on cubature, but unfortunately, I do not have the knowledge to write it. Hence, I can do no more than giving the rather lame suggestion that you write it yourself. You might be worried about conflicts of interests, and it is good to be aware of that, but I think that cubature is large enough as a discipline that this concern can be overcome. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 08:48, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Partition function

Hi there. Nice to meet you Jitse. I'm only a beginning pHd student, but I have written some statistical mechanics models articles, which you can see on my userpage. I need to go now, but have printed out the article and will have a look. Regards, Blnguyen | Have your say!!! - review me 08:32, 22 May 2006 (UTC).

Hello. I'm also pleased to meet you. I noticed some of your edits and I'm looking forward to your comments on the AfD; I'm sure you know more statistical mechanics than I do, and the subject of the article is really basic stat. mech. I think that one of the weaknesses of AfD (apart from the excessive politics and the tendency for uncivility to surface) is that discussions are often decided by people who do not actually have the background to understand the article, but perhaps that just shows how elitist I am ... Cheers, Jitse Niesen (talk) 08:59, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
PS: Eurovision Song Contest 2006 must have been more interesting than usual given the winners. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 09:47, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Conflicts at Acharya S

There is a very long-standing situation at Acharya S, and Talk:Acharya S, which might be close to resolved in terms of article content. However I have applied to an IP number editor (el Lobo) a block which is being examined critically at WP:AN, with endless claims I must be biased. The 'el Lobo' editor is back repeating claims against me on Talk:Acharya S, editing from another IP number. Well, I say this is now simply trolling, as well as block evasion. I do need someone else to act there, though; and I thought of you this time :-) (Oleg has protected the page, in the past). I'd be grateful if you could intervene; but I have to warn you that this is a 'tarbaby' situation. Charles Matthews 10:35, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I blocked User:66.174.92.162. I'm not afraid of a bit of tar (otherwise I shouldn't have become an administrator here), though I'm not fond of it either. Your block is clearly supported by policy, I think, though I can see the point that one shouldn't block a user because that user has attacked oneself to avoid the appearance of bias. However, that means that you have to involve another administrator to place the block, which will cause a delay and will cost the other admin time to evaluate the situation. But, given the comments, that may be a price worth paying — and yes, I realize that by saying this, I am in effect volunteering to be contacted if this situation appears again … -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 13:15, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Heh. :) I had been involved there for a while, at Charles request, but nobody would listen, so I eventually chickened out. Page protection did not work, blocks appear not to work either, the RfArb against ZAROVE helped a bit, but it appears the conflict is still going on. Good luck, Jitse. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:12, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

WP:AfC again

Hi. I programmed and tested the script for archiving WP:AfC following your specifications. It is ready to go. However, a short look at the page leads me to wonder whether there is any established editor watching that page and creating articles. In fact, an anon asked the same question on the talk page yesterday.

So, what do you want me to do? If you say so, I can activate the script immediately, but that doesn't seem a good idea if the page is basically dead. Just to confirm: everybody on Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Today should be archived, even the proposed articles that nobody has looked into yet? -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 11:48, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi Jitse. Sorry for the long delay. I share your concerns about AfC, and have been quite pessimistic about its future recently. Interest in the page has been steadily declining since it was launched at the end of last year, but there are a handful of good editors that remain involved, and User:MacGyverMagic has just advertised on the mailing list for more volunteers. I think regular archiving will help too.
I see that you ran the script yesterday, and it looks like it worked perfectly. Your are correct: the entire page should be moved, including the submissions that have not yet been inspected. If it isn't any trouble, please do begin running the script daily. Thank you, thank you. ×Meegs 05:30, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Image corrupted at Newton's method

There is an image in the article on Newton's method which is supposed to show basins of attraction, but instead shows a Hindu god. I have no idea how to fix it. JRSpriggs 03:28, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I commented out the image, until someone fixes it. It was at the beginning of the section "Generalizations". JRSpriggs 03:15, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
The image, Media:Newtroot 1 0 0 0 0 m1.png, looks fine for me both now and when you first complained. The current version of the image has been around since 2005 November 12, and the image page includes the source code used to create it. If you are seeing something different, the problem is not with the image. --KSmrqT 03:46, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
This is really bizarre. When I look at the article with Internet Explorer, I see the same basins of attraction which are shown in the image you just posted above here. But when I look at it with Mozilla Firefox (which I mostly use now with Wikipedia), I still see Krishna -- the same image shown in
Image:UniversalForm.jpg
Krishna revealing his universal form to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita Artwork © courtesy of The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust
(I copied this from the article on Hinduism) although the text underneath is different. I do not understand what is happening. Could it be a strange bug or virus affecting Firefox? Or has something screwed with my preferences here? JRSpriggs 04:19, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm afraid I have no idea what is going on here. Did you try to clear the browser cache in Firefox? To do this, go to the article on Newton's method, and hold down the Shift key while clicking on the Reload button (or press Ctrl-Shift-R). This often helps with strange errors. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 04:32, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, control-shift-R worked. Now I am seeing the basins. JRSpriggs 05:24, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

The basins morphed into Krishna again. And again control-shift-R brought them back. JRSpriggs 05:47, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
A third time! Now, I am thinking that I have a virus. JRSpriggs 05:40, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

AFD removal

Not a problem. I wasn't aware of the other template's existence, otherwise I would have used it. Thanks. --cholmes75 (chit chat) 13:01, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Egyptian remainder arithmetic

Dear Jitse,

Yesterday I submitted a 'softened' amendment of Egyptian math to Wikpedia, citing the necessary references, with only minimal data citing the remainder arithmetic appearance in several hieratic texts. A rejection by Wikipedia reviewer quicky took place, indicating that zero references had been submitted. Can't the reviewer read?

I look forwards to your action in this area, allowing bona fide references to be placed on Wikipedia so that a 'open' proper debate can take place. I know that Wikipedia has a policy that allows debates of the nature that is being requested, so please think through your position and formally respond in the next couple of weeks setting up such a Wikipedia debate - pitting secondary references (your current situation) against primary and secondary references (my position).

Best Regards,

Milo Gardner



Dear Jitse,

Thank you for commenting so quickly on Egyptian remainder arithmetic. Had you taken the time to look on PlanetMath you would have found three other discussions:

Egyptian Fractions, Remainder Arithmetic vs Egyptian fractions, Hultsch-Bruins

Reading those documents may educate you on the real issues that 4,000 year old scribes struggled.

A summary of Egyptian fractions is being prepared on

http://historyofegyptianfractions.blogspot.com

a site where several sources outside of my own writings will be linked.

If you desire a private conversion, please email

milogardner@juno.com

Best Regards,

Milo Gardner

Dear Milo,
Looking at PlanetMath wouldn't have helped, because you wrote those articles only in April of this year, while my comment on Talk:Egyptian mathematics was written in January. However, even if they were present, that wouldn't change the issue. Like any encyclopaedia, Wikipedia summarizes the current knowledge based on reliable sources. For academic subjects, like history of mathematics and Egyptology, reliable sources are scholarly publications. Blogs are not considered reliable, because they have not gone through any review.
You say yourself that the scholarly opinion is dominated by the "additive" view. This should be reflected in the Wikipedia article on Egyptian mathematics. However, this does not mean that alternative points of view cannot be mentioned, but they have to be backed up by reliable sources. For instance, I assume that Hultsch and Bruins published their method somewhere, so describe the method and add the references. You mention a paper of Hana Vymazalova; describe her conclusions and add a reference. But it should still be clear that the "additive" view is the majority view (even if you think that is incorrect).
To be honest, I think it would be best if you tried to publish a paper in a scholarly journal explaining your remainder arithmetic. I know this is not easy, but I doubt very much that scholars will take your discoveries seriously if you restrict yourself to publishing on the web.
Best wishes,
Jitse Niesen (talk) 01:32, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
(also sent by e-mail)

Re: Floating point

Ah, thats most irritating. Thanks for pointing out my messed up rvv. I could have sworn that I looked at the history before doing the revert, but looking at it now it seems I didn't.

Cheers, Cmdrjameson 14:16, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

PEGs

I mostly liked the idea of using a Parsing expression grammar because you can generate a packrat parser from it, and the performance of the latter would appear to give us an advantage if you believe our article. Basically the parser can run in linear time at the expense of some memory: storage is a constant multiple of the input text. Given that we are in the position of being able to limit the size of the input text to a reasonable limit, not to mention throw almost any amount of memory at the job if it can run fast enough, this would seem to be a good deal. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 17:12, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Blnguyen's RfA

Hello Jitse Niesen. Thank you for your support at request for adminship which ended at the overwhelming and flattering result of (160/1/0), and leaves me in a position of having to live up to a high standard of community expectation. Thanks for having a look at the maths AfDs on my articles (a relief), and naturally, if I make any procedural mistakes, feel free to point them out and I look forward to working with you in the future, Blnguyen | Have your say!!! 06:42, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

ping

Hello... any chance you're up for a small bit of JS debugging? :) --pfctdayelise (translate?) 15:39, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Woo, I fixed it myself! :D I adapted your script to mark things NSD and NLD. woot. thanks anyway ;) pfctdayelise (translate?) 16:44, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Great. Nothing better than seeing issues already resolved before I'm aware of them. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 04:20, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

exporting article parse trees

Thanks for pointing me to m:Alternative parsers. I think what I want is a Flex/Bison combination (lexer and parser). It seems that flexbisonparse would do precisely what I need. The link is not working, however, and I could not find it by a manual search on sourceforge either. Where can I get a lexer/parser for Wikipedia markup? - Zahlentheorie 16:16, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I have no idea where to find flexbisonparse, but I notice it is written by User:Timwi, so I'd suggest asking him. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 04:48, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Bot approval

I've gone ahead and given you approval to keep running it, thanks, the bot looks great :) -- Tawker 06:32, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

My RfA

Thank you for the trust that you had in me when you supported my Request for Adminship. The nomination ended successfully and I am actually overwhelmed by the support that I received. Thanks again! -- Kim van der Linde at venus 06:18, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Diktyology

The term diktyology is an alternative denomination of network theory that covers a broader definitorial space. The world is taken from the french and german nouns "Diktyologie" for the same concept. Due to the broader meaning of the word in the context of cybernetics and systems science I suggest keeping this article. --Jwdietrich2 17:00, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

li:

  • Dear Jitse Niesen! Please contact me on #mediawiki. Thanks in advance! Best regards Gangleri · Th · T 00:32, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Reply to Jitse Niesen

I think the evidence of rape is very important. However, in order to avoid chaos with this topic, I will compromise by agreeing not to insert that repetition again.

List of numerical analysis bot

Hi Jitse. Per a very old request, I added the feature you requested, see [1]. It shows entries in given list which are not in categories meant to form the base of the list.

I guess it is half a year after you requested that feature. Part of the delay was that I got involved in other things (scripting for WP:MST took unbelivable more time than one may think, primarily because of developing some heuristics and tricks to deal with incomplete and upper case Mathworld entries — Great Stellated Trunca... anybody?). Another reason is that I am still learning to write clean code, and adding new features to awufully written scripts is not for the faint of the heart. But either way, request completed! :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:07, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Don't worry about the delay; if it were important to me, I'd have written it myself. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 07:33, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

WP:AFC/T archiving

Hi Jitse. I jumped the gun a little bit and archived a tad early, about 90 minutes before your bot was scheduled to do it. The fault was mine in that I read the clock wrong. Therefore, your bot will probably fail today. I apologize about that. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 22:34, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

The bot's move failed, but the two subsequent edits went through (I reversed them both). I don't think this situation will come-up again. ×Meegs 00:18, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for letting me know. The bot shouldn't have tried the two subsequent edits after the move failed. I tried to make it behave better in the future. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 05:14, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Philosophy of mathematics

Are you interested in the Philosophy of mathematics? Ideogram 13:13, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Usually not very much, but I do sometimes get sucked in. Depends very much on my mood, I guess. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 13:25, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
Oh. I had a question I wanted to ask a Platonist, but if you're not one (or don't care) never mind. Ideogram 13:37, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Reply from Haisch

Thank you very much for your intervention. I have replied to your posting on the Bernard Haisch discussion page. Met beste wensen. Haisch 18:35, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

followups on the mailing list

I'm a newbie to the mailing list, I wonder if you can answer me this question. I think I will post a follow-up to my first mail after a while. However, because I submitted the first mail at about the same time I registered, I never received the mail in my inbox. I presume that if I just draft another mail with the same subject line rather than using the reply-to of my mail client, it won't land in the same thread due to header mismatch. Is this the case? Is there anyway I can redownload the message so that I can reply to the thread appropriately? And do you agree that if, after a few days, no one's replied, another mail would be reasonable? -lethe talk + 12:37, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I guess I've figured it out; download the month's archive and open it in Pine. For some reason Mail.app refuses. -lethe talk + 13:06, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Excellent. I was about to forward the e-mail you sent first back to you, so that you can reply. By the way, I think the mailing list is configured not to send you any mails back that you sent yourself to the list. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 13:34, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Cauchy surface

Hi Jitse. I got that blurb about Cauchy surfaces from http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/john/gr3/gr36.pdf page 215, though slighty reworded it so as to not just be a blank copy and paste (I know of the notes because I attended Stewart's lecture course last Autumn). Stewart has a book "Advanced General Relativity" which reflect a lot of those notes in a more concise form but doesn't contain anything about the definition of a Cauchy surface, it is assumed in the one place it is mentioned. Wald covers it properly if memory serves but I don't have a copy to hand at the moment but will do once I return home from uni in the next week or so. As it quite obvious, I'm new to this so still getting a feel for it.

Turns out I've found a better explaination in old notes Peter Townsend put on ArXiv. Your definition is the short succinct way of defining the surface. The way I added is more of an explaination of how to get your definition by the looks of it. --AlphaNumeric 21:06, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Helgus’s request

Dear Jitse,

Many thanks for the help in editing wiki-papers. Obviously, my English is not perfect. Moreover, your help was rather pertinent and indispensable. I understand, that you are very busy. And nevertheless I'd like to address to you with the request of the same sort.

On July, 30th I leave for Paris on Conference IPMU-2006, where I have the session E22 on eventology.

Would you be so kind to find a spare minute and examine preambles of two wiki-papers from the point of view of your excellent English style?:

Thank you in advance:) - Helgus 04:26, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

re: meetup

*blush* oops. one day I'll learn to read a calendar...yay, I'll be there. :) pfctdayelise (translate?) 04:30, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Fermat's Last Theorem article

I just reverted my edits. The whole article seems to be very basic. I was trying to give more of a bigger picture, but I only get a little bit of time on a good computer for this kind of stuff. The main thing I liked was the statement that got of the theorem from "Report on Wiles' Cambridge lectures" in pdf form from AMS. Timothy Clemans 03:47, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

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