User talk:Oleg Alexandrov/Archive4

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[edit] Let me welcome myself

The standard Wikipedia welcome, that is, the text fragment {{welcome}}, generates the text below, which has many useful links for a newcomer.


Welcome!

Hello, Oleg Alexandrov/Archive4, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! 

[edit] Loose Cannon "Bot"

I am afraid your bot confused the article on longitude, more than improving it (there are a few useful additions of links). Linking "decimal" fraction is kind of overly paternalistic, I'd judge, in that the meaning is rather obvious, but if it must be done, is there not a way to link down the "decimal" page to the entry point "Decimal fractions" itself? The item " positive " is likely to lead readers down the garden path when the concepts of positive and negative hardly need embellishment. The same holds when linking in "surface" - anybody in her/his right mind knows what the Earth's surface refers to, and the link is distracting. This one: "for which the equatorial radius is larger than the polar radius" is a mess, because the entry for "radius" deals almost entirely with circularly or spherically symmetric objects, while the concept is extended for ellipsoids in the obvious way to "polar radius" (radius of the inscribed sphere, for an oblate ellipsoid) and "equatorial radius" for that of the circumscribed sphere (for the oblate case). The extension is not used for ellipses because, absent an axis of rotational symmetry, there is no obvious "pole" or "equator." The "radius" article is almost entirely for 2-dimensional objects, the the one extension given does not in any way fit the case at hand. The other changes are useful - thanks, "Bot." Pdn 5 July 2005 04:57 (UTC)

I just want to add that I was alarmed when I saw your using a tool to add links, as I generally think there are too many links. For instance, in interpolation you linked sequence, algorithm, smooth function, linear function, piecewise and dimension. I think that some of them (like linear function and dimension) are a bit too much: wouldn't somebody who came that far in the article know what these terms mean? I might be in a minority here, which is why I haven't told you this before, but just keep it in mind. By the way, I believe it is policy on disambiguation pages to link only to the disambiguating pages; see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages). -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 5 July 2005 10:57 (UTC)
Got it. Thank you for the feedback. I will use the bot with much more care. Oleg Alexandrov 5 July 2005 15:38 (UTC)

Are you going to revert the links to positive, radius, surface, and decimal fraction? Sorry to be so negative, and I know you are just trying to be helpful, but too many links put us in chains. Pdn 6 July 2005 09:42 (UTC)

Yes I definitely plan to. I did not do it yesterday because I forgot, but I promised to myself to clean that up before even attempting to use the bot again. Hopefully tonight. You are so insistent :) Oleg Alexandrov 6 July 2005 15:04 (UTC)
OK, I did it now so that I don't feel guilty all the day. :) Oleg Alexandrov 6 July 2005 15:17 (UTC)

Thanks for quick fix. By the way, some imbecile edited Vernal equinox so as to say the Sun rises and sets at the North or South poles (instead of East and West) at the Vernal equinox so I fixed that. Hard to be timely. I will treat you to a Wikitherapist for nagging if you treat me to one for suffering about sunrise at the North Pole. Pdn 7 July 2005 04:04 (UTC)

I guess that was not an imbecile, rather a vandal. :) Thank you for your funny comment.
And thanks for the feedback about mathbot; nothing brings me down to earth faster than asking me to clean the mess after my bot. Oleg Alexandrov 7 July 2005 04:16 (UTC)

[edit] edit summary

:-P - Omegatron July 6, 2005 04:03 (UTC)

[edit] mathbot rocks

hi oleg

Just wanted you to know that mathbot rocks.

Well, I don't know about the various complaints concerning automatic linking, but in terms of fixing up my crummy spelling (even though I try really hard to get it right), it is superb.

Great work. Dmharvey Image:User_dmharvey_sig.png Talk 6 July 2005 17:54 (UTC)

The way it works is usually I come up some idea which could be theoretically worthwhile, but I screw up its implementation. I get lots of complaints, I smart up, and start actually paying attention. Worked that way with spelling, I hope it will work that way with linking. :) Thank you for your comment. Oleg Alexandrov 6 July 2005 18:02 (UTC)

[edit] Matrix Categories:

Dear Oleg Alexandrov:

Why the category of Householder transformation is Matrices and QR decomposition is Matrix_theory? Are they correct? Are there really differences between Matrices and Matrix theory?

Because I am not very interested about that, you don't need to answer me detailly. I don't want to waste your time. Just let me know that you have done and I will check them to know.

Thank you

Jacob grace 7 July 2005 03:23 (UTC)
Good point. I don't have a good explanation. It looks to me that Householder transformation has to do with some specific type of matrix, while QR decomposition is about properties of matricies. Is that satisfactory? :) Oleg Alexandrov 7 July 2005 03:40 (UTC)

There is an organizational mess here because QR decomposition leads one to Householder_reflection which is stated to be the same as Householder transformation.

I never use this stuff except if I need it (it is in Numerical Recipes and other libraries) so someone needs to get a math expert to fix up the chain of links. An expert can do it in 10 minutes and it would take be an hour and not be as good a fix. There is an expert Michael Hardy who edits a lot of math stuff (but don't say I sent you if you do not mind, please).Pdn 7 July 2005 04:15 (UTC)

Thank you

I will post the same article to his talk without your name, if you don't mind.--Jacob grace 7 July 2005 06:03 (UTC)

---

Householder's reflections, Givens Rotations, and any number of other Orthogonalization methods can be used to do a QR decomposition (also called a QR factorization).

A Householder matrix is one that implements a Householder reflection. A Givens matrix is one that implements a Givens rotation.

In wikipedia Givens Rotation is in: Numerical linear algebra.

Householder reflection is in: Geometry | Linear algebra | Matrices

This seems a bit inconsistant to me. Those two, at least, should be in the same categories (The union of the two lists in my opinion).


QR is in: Matrix theory | Numerical linear algebra, which seems fine to me.

Cholesky decomposition is also used (Along with "Normal Equations") for many of the same problems, but is is listed as in: Numerical linear algebra only...

I would think Cholesky should be in Matrix theory also if QR is. (More personal opinion).


(Repost to try and see why my first post of the above got "Fatal error: Call to a member function on a non-object in /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/Parser.php on line 380") -- Nahaj 02:08:05, 2005-08-29 (UTC)

I have no idea of why it gave you that error, I guess the server just misbehaved for a short while. As to your remarks above, there is definitely plenty of work in better categorizing math articles. Oleg Alexandrov 03:12, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] thanks

Hi Oleg, thanks for cleaning up after me. I will learn to do the categorization someday and put you out of business ;) Seriously I really appreciate your hard work and got a good laugh from your edit summaries.--MarSch 7 July 2005 11:26 (UTC)

[edit] Periods after abbreviations

This is in reaction to this edit. There is a rule in British English (with not everybody obeys, I hasten to add) that no point should be used after abbreviations in which the last letter of the abbreviation is the last letter of the word being abbreviated. So, we say "Dr X" and "Prof. Y'. Therefore, at least some people insist that it should be "pbk" and not "pbk." . For the rest, great work, I learnt that "seldomly" is not correct (I had to look that one up, but the OED tags it as obsolete) and that "collinear" is with two l's. Jitse Niesen (talk) 7 July 2005 12:31 (UTC)

And like all British people (or Anglicized in your case), you would go all the way to writing a whole paragraph about the fate of a dot. :)
Thank you. Please keep on giving me feedback on spelling and whatever other issues. I am realizing that spelling and style rules are not for the faint of the heart. Oleg Alexandrov 7 July 2005 15:58 (UTC)

You do know that a whole book was written on punctuation one or two years ago, which became a bestseller? I see that we even have an article about it: Eats, Shoots and Leaves. Apparently, it crossed the Atlantic as a missionary to spread the art of proper punctuation, but it won't be easy to educate the barbarians over there. I heard you still eat people at your side? ;) -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 7 July 2005 19:32 (UTC)

We usually don't eat people, just send them to Guantanamo. But, if an especially pesky European with a "I am bette' than thou" attitude really begs himself for lunch, rest assured that we will provide the highest respect and a French recipe rather than processing for hamburgers. Oleg Alexandrov 7 July 2005 20:53 (UTC)

[edit] Cauchy-Schwarz Inequality

Oleg, may be I misuderstood you. This proof uses, for example the fact that <y,x> = <x,y>* (complex conjugate) and thus it assumes that <x,y> is complex. Obviously it is true for the real case. --Eliosh.

I replied on User talk:Eliosh. Oleg Alexandrov 13:31, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Archaic spellings in quotes

Since you seem to be running a spellbot, I guess I should warn you that I'm creating a set of physics history pages which will have some archaic spellings. In order to keep your bot off them, I'm tagging them with either a blockquote class="archaic" or a span class="archaic". If there is a more accurate description language in general use on Wikipedia I would like to know. Also, in case you plan to extend your bot to correct archaic spellings (as opposed to translating them into modern English) would you prefer the class tag to also give the century? In that case one can have class="archaic19" etc. Bambaiah 13:03, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

Hi Bambaiah. Thanks for letting me know. When I saw the subject of your message I thought first I again screwed up some spellings (happened once with archaic titles). :)
First, I spell only articles listed in the list of mathematical topics. I know it is a bit selfish to stick only to math-related articles, but otherwise there is so much work. (Note that some physics article are listed there too.)
About the spellbot. Of course it is me who decides which are misspellings and what to replace with, and not the bot (it just offers choices). I will pay attention when I run into this kind of articles as you mention. And I don't plan to extend my bot to check archaic spellings if they are spelled correctly according to their time period. Modern English is enough of work. :)
Thank you for letting me know, this will make my job easier. Oleg Alexandrov 13:31, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Lerch transcendant

Yes, you are right that this is a misspelling. However, it will not lead to further problems. A common use for redirects is to flag misspellings such as this and direct users to the correct article. In this case, the redirect is perfectly legitimate. Denni☯ 02:28, 2005 July 15 (UTC)

[edit] "Wellordered" et al

Hi Oleg, Please do not insert a hyphen in "wellordered", "wellfounded", etc. These are accepted modern spellings, and preferable in that they make it clear that a wellordering is a technical notion, that it is not being adjudged "better" than an ordering that's not a wellordering. See e.g. Moschovakis (1980). --Trovatore 19:55, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

I remember seeing it usually with the hyphen rather than without, and I think it is easier to read that way. But I agree that without the hyphen the term is still correct, so I will not change it again. Oleg Alexandrov 20:12, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Rendering problem at absolute value?

Hi Oleg. I've just finished a major revision of the absolute value article, and Trovatore reports experiencing a rendering problem with my new version. (see: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics#absolute value article rewrite, RFC and Talk:Absolute value). I can't try to debug it, since it renders for me (Safari, Firefox, IE on MacOS X.) Could you take a look? Thanks. Paul August ☎ 21:42, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

I replied in detail at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics#absolute value article rewrite, RFC. It works just fine for me. I guess Trovatore's machine is having a bad day. :) (Besides, Debian sucks, no? :) Oleg Alexandrov 22:34, 16 July

2005 (UTC)

You may have tried the fixed version try the previous one. Paul August ☎ 22:40, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Magic mirroring of discussion pages

Oleg, I assume that you have occasional contact with the authors of the mediawiki software? Could you perchance bring up a feature request that certain parts of certain talk pages be automatically mirrored between multiple locations? I agree that having the same conversation in multiple places results in a disjointed, schizophrenic thread. At the same time, I like to reply on other people's talk pages because I know it will light up their "You have new messages" bell. Yes, there are ways to manually accomplish the same thing; and so in the future I shall take care. linas 17:02, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

No, I have no special relation with the people writing the Wiki software. Sorry for interfering in your page, it just shows how obnoxiously curious I am.
If you really wish to keep the conversation in one place while notifying the other person, you can leave on that person's page a short note saying that you replied on your own page.
But even that one could be unnecessary. Most wikipedians I know fanatically check their watchlist every five minutes. :) Oleg Alexandrov 17:06, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] User talk:12.144.5.2

You are of course right about my string being unbreakable; I misunderstood your point. Peace and friendship! Oleg Alexandrov 03:42, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

No worries! That was just a harmless and silly misunderstanding. :-) —Lifeisunfair 03:46, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Serious mistake in article about the Borel algebra

(moved to talk:Borel algebra)

[edit] Wikipedia:Bible verses

I added another section for "verse-by-verse Biblical analysis should be transwikied to a WikiBible instead of left on Wikipedia with the possible exception of "notable" verses" as something that could take votes *in addition* to votes for other section, so if you support that idea go check it out. Thanks! — Phil Welch 22:27, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Good idea. I put my support at Wikipedia:Bible verses. Oleg Alexandrov 22:45, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

SimonP (the creator of the 100 or so gospel verse articles) has tried to claim that the votes for the "only notable verses" section would include most of the 30,000 verses of the bible because he sees them as notable. To avoid such a POV twisting of the votes, I have added a new section - [1] - for voting on whether the number of notable verses is more like 30,000, or more like 30. Would you care to vote there as well? ~~~~ 00:24, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Budu.

I will write summaries. Thank you. --VKokielov 20:41, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Math lists

Please could you instruct your bot to move this category to Category:Mathematical lists? The word Math (as opposed to Maths) is quite jarring for many Brits, and is somewhat too informal for a category title anyway, I feel. Thanks! Lupin 22:23, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

I think this would need some community-wide discussion, as all I did is put a bunch of articles in a long-existing cateogory. Would you like to start such a discussion, at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics? Oleg Alexandrov 23:23, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you

Thank you. I'm going to be a little more careful. (Believe me, this isn't the first time. And I try to do it in good faith, which makes it all the more painful when I get nailed on it. I've been called condescending and pushed aside for it. I should have known, but it's been a long time since I wrote anything for the public. ;) ) If you want me to censor myself, just tell me where; otherwise, I'll listen to whatever you tell me. --VKokielov 23:26, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Manifold/rewrite

Hi, Oleg. You left a comment on Talk:manifold/rewrite after a freeze. I think the point of the freeze was to avoid commenting for a week. Hard to resist, isn't it? But if you comment then others (like me) want to comment, and so on.

I thought the freeze was meant for you and Marcus, not all of us, but I see your point, so sorry. :) Oleg Alexandrov 15:22, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

While I'm here, a reply about the mathbot issue from my talk page. I didn't know enough to track down the origin of the bot, or I would happily have discussed the problem with you personally. I was grumbling at a mindless, inanimate object, like a pothole in the road that jolts your car. Somewhere there's a fellow who is responsible for maintaining that stretch of road, but we don't know who he is so we swear at the pothole as the only outlet for our discomfort and frustration. So far as I know, the pothole doesn't mind. Computers and automobiles are different; they do take it personally, so we have to talk to them in friendly, soothing tones lest they turn on us. I'm sure of it! ;-) KSmrq 11:19, 2005 July 28 (UTC)

With mathbot, you are of course very right on the linking issue, I gave up on making semi-automated links. But to locate the source of the bot would have been rather easy, just visit its page and it will tell you what is going on (you don't get this kind of information from every pothole on the road :) Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov 15:22, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] planetmath template

Oleg, could you take a look at the last comment on my talk page? There's a subtle problem with the planetmath template that I'm wondering if one of your bots might fix. Oh, I guess I should alert CryptoDerk as well. linas 00:57, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

I am not sure there is a problem. The first way of writing the template is
{{planetmath | id=4021|title=Apéry's constant}}

which yields for me

This article incorporates material from Apéry's constant on PlanetMath, which is licensed under the GFDL.

The second way to write it is

{{planetmath|id=4021|title=Apéry's constant}}

which yields for me

This article incorporates material from Apéry's constant on PlanetMath, which is licensed under the GFDL.


The results look the same to me, and it seems that putting spaces around the pipe does not change anything. So, where is the problem? Oleg Alexandrov 02:04, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 1000000000000000000

(moved to User talk:Rich Farmbrough)

[edit] Point of inflexion

The reason I removed the redirect is because non-stationary points of inflexion exist (which shouldn't redirect to stationary point).

I am a Wikipedia newb (:(), but I did put stationary point into the See also section.

If you want, I'll revert the page, put reference notes to stationary point in the article and elaborate on the Talk page.

I was going to use inflection as the redirect link (I asked the help desk for advice, Wikipedia:Help_desk/Archive_24#Inflexion_or_inflection.3F but got no feedback, so I went ahead with things) and put (or inflection) all over the article, but again, I didn't know.

I don't know if I've caused any disruption or not (...) but I hope not.

-x42bn6 08:17, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Hi. You are right. A point of inflection is not necessarily a stationary point. The article stationary point does mention that. I think that article has a nice disussion and pictue explaining stationary points and points of inflection, so I would rather not create a new article describing points of inflection.
However, if you do wish to recreate the article which I made a redirect at point of inflexion, I think you need to do three things:
  1. Move its contents[2] to replace the redirect at inflection point, as this seems to be the most used terminology.
  2. Redirect inflexion point, point of inflexion, and point of inflection to your new inflection point.
  3. Make some links. Again, the current article[3] lacks links to "funciton", "graph", "positive", etc. Also, you need to make the variables italic, so x instead of x.

How does this sound? Oleg Alexandrov 15:31, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

I've taken your advice and done the article, but I have clearly stated that more information is available at the article stationary point. But I have left it stubbed for further editing, because my mathematical knowledge isn't that advanced. D'oh! -x42bn6 07:18, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling of repetend

On the page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Oleg_Alexandrov/Reported_bugs_so_far, there is a discussion of 'repitend' vs. 'period', but no mention that the first word is misspelled. English dictionaries (including OED, Merriam-Webster, etc.) spell it 'repetend', with no 'i'. It's one of a set of mathematical terms (augend, addent, minuend, subtrahend, etc.) that are formed from Latin gerundives, so the spelling of the Latin word should govern. Gwil 20:33, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

You are right. The Webster online dictionary does not have the word "repitend", but has the word "repetend". If I ever run into that again, I will correct it. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov 22:49, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Randomness

I added more information to Category:Chaos Chambers and I think you'll find it quite relevant to randomness. (unsigned post by User:Espantajo).

I replied at Category talk:Chaos Chambers. I still find that category rather confusing, and think that the text in there better be an article. Oleg Alexandrov 03:20, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sectstubs

I notice your comment on the sectsub in Pi. I agree with the removal, but not your reasoning. I've removed sections from articles to make main articles, and left {sectsctub}, because my replacement was only a sentence. Septentrionalis 01:40, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

But then I am confused. Assuming that one has a nice long section in an article, it looks to me that you would move most of it to a new article, and you declare the remainder to be a section-stub. Maybe you could just leave as much of the section in the article without it being either too long or too short, and then section-stub becomes unnecessary. Am I misunderstanding something? Oleg Alexandrov 01:47, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
It was an odd occasion: the mathematical details in a physics article, which were a self-contained section, which had to be moved as a whole, but there was no subset which made a good summary. So I wrote a sentence saying, in effect, "there are mathematical details" and left it until I could think of a good summary. I've seen other people move out whole sections and leave the header and the {seemain} tag. Not best practice, I agree. Septentrionalis 01:55, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
Got it, thanks. Oleg Alexandrov 02:13, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] exchaning two articles

Hi,

I want to exchange Random Access Machine (currently the article) and Random access machine (currently a redirect). Do you know how I should do this? --R.Koot 02:03, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

I think you need the help of an admin. Ask on the WikiMath project; we have a bunch of admins in there. Oleg Alexandrov 02:14, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
Put the template {{move|Random access machine}} on the talkpage of RAM. and then go to WP:RM and list it there; it has instructions. Septentrionalis 02:36, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
That works too, but from my experience WP:RM can take several days. Better have a friend who is also adimin. :) Oleg Alexandrov 03:04, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
I did this move last night. Paul August ☎ 19:05, August 5, 2005 (UTC)
Oleg, this reminds me, maybe it is time for you to bug Jitse again about being an admin (and yourself too) Paul August ☎ 19:07, August 5, 2005 (UTC)
I bugged Jitse once, maybe it is your turn now. :) I will be the next in line (for now I am still smarting up from the manifold debacle a couple of months ago :) Oleg Alexandrov 19:27, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Amusement

You might find this amusing.--CSTAR 18:37, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

I did find that discussion a bit naive, but not as amuzing. My lack of sence of humor I guess. Oleg Alexandrov 03:46, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] New Welcome Message

I've made a note for you at Template:Welcome/Proposed version 1. Superm401 | Talk 04:31, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Relative complement

Hi Oleg, many prefer the notation A\B to A-B because the latter is ambiguous in a context where subtraction of individual elements of A and B is defined. A-B can mean {a-b|a∈A & b∈B}. Trovatore --15:54, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

No problem. But then this needs to be explained better in the article, and see how to change the notation throughout the article to make things a bit more consistent. That is to say, I did not object that much to the change of notation, as to how it was done. Oleg Alexandrov 17:03, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Volumetric flow rate

Actually, I didn't justify the move-- although I did do a google search before the move and found that "volumetric flow rate" gets 52,400 hits and "rate of fluid flow" gets 963 hits. Any case, I didn't know there were other redirects-- whereas I did now find a bunch of 'em with a bit of trickery (what I did is misspell rate of fluid flow-- the wikipedia search then returns things that are close).

Do you happen to know a better way to find redirects to a given page? Thanx. Nephron 01:27, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

When I meant your justification of the move, I meant exactly that, the google-based reasoning you provided.
Well, to find redirects, you just go to the page you are interested in, and click on the "what links here" link on the left of the page (just below the "search" box), and then see which links are redirects, and if there are redirects which point to redirects (the indented redirects point to other redirects). Hope that helps. Oleg Alexandrov 01:39, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
By the way, it is incorrect to make a redirect with #redirect:Volumetric flow rate, there must be no colon (:). Oleg Alexandrov 01:40, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
And by the way, an edit summary does not hurt, to tell others what you are up to. Oleg Alexandrov 01:44, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for comment/12.144.5.2

I've seen you have some issues with Louis Epstein before, so I thought I'd invite you to comment on the RfC I've set up. He's crossed the line into edit warring over the em-dash thing. — Phil Welch 01:59, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Edit summary

Thanks for your note. I will remember to fill in the summary field. Deryck C. 09:52, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] French Curve

I would like to notice that before you created the French Curve article, we already had the French curve article. So, I would suggest that in the future you do not use capitals in article titles except for the first letter and other cases requred by grammar (like names, which are obviously capital). Thank you for your addition. Oleg Alexandrov 22:28, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

If you look, you will find that I did not write the article French Curve, I merely removed the reference to its use in Computer drafting, which was innacurate. If you feel it needs additional editing, feel free to do so. --Outlander 11:54, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Hey you are right! Both you and the contributor before you were redlinks, so I thought it was the same person. :) Sorry. Oleg Alexandrov 12:03, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
Oleg, you might be interested in User talk:Snailwalker. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 12:04, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
Okay, you had already found it. Good morning, by the way. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 12:05, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
Good morning to you too. I am having a case of bad sleep, but will go back to bed soon. :) Oleg Alexandrov 12:08, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Jitse's RfA

Jise has finally relented: Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Jitse Niesen ;-) Paul August ☎ 16:43, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Ricci decomposition

Hi, Oleg, we're having an edit conflict because we're both modifying that article. I am temporarily reverting to incorporate major changes and will add your changes by hand.---CH (talk) 18:40, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Hi CH. I was not aware that you are doing a major edit. Sorry. There is also the inuse temlpate for using when doing major changes (it does not help me much though, as I often forget about it until it is too late :). Oleg Alexandrov 18:50, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Mathbot's page

Hi. Thank you for the quick reversion of my blanking of User:Mathbot/Page1. This shows that vandalism reversion is working well, and that is a good news.

But just for the record, I was not vandalizing that page. Rather, it was my bot's page which I used for previewing some work I do on the list of mathematicians, and when I did not need that scratch page anymore I made the page blank.

Next time I will pay attention and put an edit summary. Thanks again for the quick response. Oleg Alexandrov 21:54, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

I was wondering why someone with your record would blank a page. That's why I left out the vandalism warning, figured it was a mistake. But I hope you realise why I reverted it and that how it looks to me. :-)
--Gaurav Arora Talk 22:00, August 13, 2005 (UTC)
Yes, blanking a page without an edit summary surely qualifies as vandalism. Even if it happens to be my own bot's page. :) I will put an edit summary next time, and in general, will try to act predicatbly. Oleg Alexandrov 22:23, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Can you look at this recent edit for 198

198_(number)

I created the article so I'm biased but I don't agree with the last edit by Jitse Niesen. I'd like your opinion.

I wrote a reaction at User talk:D'Iberville. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 14:15, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot recent articles list

I just noticed that mathbot seems to have missed Generalized Appell polynomials which I just created yesterday. In particular, this means its not showing up in the WP math project 'recent activity' page. Am I just impatient, or did it actually not see this? linas 23:29, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, all mathbot does is add the article to the list of mathematical topics. As of today, you can see it listed in the List of mathematical topics (G).
Now, Jitse is going to run his own bot tonight. His bot will look at the List of mathematical topics (G), and will notice a new article, in this case your article Generalized Appell polynomials. It will then post it in the WP math current activity page.
So as you see, it is a two-step process. Have some patience, and tonight you will see that article in the current activity. :) Oleg Alexandrov 23:36, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Section linking

Linking to specific sections might not be a good idea. Nobody knows when that section will change name, and then the link will be broken. (written by Oleg Alexandrov as an edit summary)

The worst that can happen corresponds to what you suggest to do in the first place: the link becomes a link to the (top of the) article. It is unfortunate that there is no system of automatic redirects when sections are renamed, but I do not think that is a reason to avoid section linking altogether.--Patrick 08:29, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

The worst is I think when sections are actually deleted or moved to different article. Then the link to a specific section is not only broken, it does not make any sence. For this reason I think that not having redirects to sections is actually a good thing.
But there is of course room for disagreement. As long as you don't overly rely on linking to sections, things should be OK. If you really wish to make lots of links to a topic in a section though, you could as well split off that topic from the section to its own article, which will be the main article, make a note in the section that a main article is available, then link to the article.
Anyway, as you realize, there is no hard rule on how to deal with these matters. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov 15:26, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] External Links

Okay, thank you. I now know... --Celestianpower hab 07:45, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] pole (complex_analysis)

Hi Oleg,

Well I like my version the more. But the two defintions of poles are equivalent. So I think we should have both. What do you think? I added the stuff about essential singularities in the page about mathematical singularities. (unsigned message by Thorfinn)

Hi Thorfinn. I agree with having both definitions, so I just merged back yours. I still think it is nice to mention that a pole is just a singularity for which the Laurent series has a finite number of terms. It is OK if this statement (or actually, its negation) shows up also on mathematical singularity.
By the way, I moved your contribution down at holomorphic function. I belive the most important definition of the holomorphic function is as a differentiable function, and not as a function satisfying the Cauchy-Riemann equations. It is rather obvious that they are equivalent, but it is the defintion using differentiability which motivates it all. Oleg Alexandrov 01:24, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot & Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Old

Um... your stats will screw up my VFD Bot. --AllyUnion (talk) 08:58, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

I think. It's very likely that they will. --AllyUnion (talk) 09:01, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot, removing "ugly frame around indented text"

Hi Oleg. I noticed your Mathbot was removing "ugly frame around indented text". While I personally agree that these frames should be removed, Is this the consensus opinion? Anyway in many cases (all the ones I've looked at so far) it should just remove the blockquotes altogether. Paul August ☎ 18:16, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

I sort of felt people did not like the framed boxes based on Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics/Archive10#Dotted_framebox_around_formulas and Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics/Archive6#A_little_note_on_using_purple_dotted_boxes. As such, any time this issue showed up there were no voices supporting their use. But you are right, consensus is necessary. I will post now a belated request for comment. Oleg Alexandrov 18:52, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
And I agree that in many cases the blockquotes are not necessary to start with. Yesterday I removed a bunch of them, but was not sure about removing all. What do you think about this one and this one? Oleg Alexandrov 18:52, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, as regards consensus, it never hurts to be careful. I think I have noticed a natural progression of sorts. One starts out being timid, asks for comments, no one much responds, or one is encouraged to be bold, bold actions ensue, and work out well, and one gets more comfortable and more confident and surrounds one's self with a group of like-minded editors, and becomes more and more bold, wielding more and more power and taking more and more unilateral actions until ... the world changes and one ends up inside their very own cautionary tale like poor Ed Poor. (If you haven't yet seen these they make an interesting case for the need for consensus: Ed Poor's RfC, and Ed Poor's RfA). Paul August ☎ 21:37, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip. I will keep this in mind. You are very right about asking first.
About Ed Poor. I have been aware of his deleting the VfD. This together with the comments at Talk:E (mathematical constant) makes me wonder how the guy became a bureaucrat. Oleg Alexandrov 23:44, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Point Plotting/Cartesian coordinate system

If you undid my merge (and you did, oh well), it's fine. My idea was, "Hey, why start a new article if there's already something out there just like it." If you're up for the extra work, sure, we can keep them seperate. I was just concerned that the effort could be put into something else, and that it's best to gather information in one place. Also, if Point plotting is going to become more oriented towards lower math, perhaps it should focus on the 2D aspect, briefly touching on 3D. However, the cartesian coordinate system would include the whole thing. But, I have no doubt you're a better mathematician than I am, so you lead the way. Meanwhile, happy editing. HereToHelp 03:59, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

I will work on point plotting tomorrow, thus incorporating your contributions to Cartesian coordinate system.
If I were to do the same thing again, I would first talk to you, before reverting. Sorry, I am aware how frustrating that is.
Let us see if other people have any opinions about whether Cartesian coordinate system can be made more elementary without focussing too much on how to graph a point given its x and y coordinates. Oleg Alexandrov 04:39, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Summer of '56

Hi Oleg, Thank you for your kind words and helpful editing comments. I spent a wonderful summer in Constanza in 1956, dating a beautiful Romanian girl. Her "te iu besc" still rings in my ears. (unsigned post by Cruise)

Unfortunately I never hear the "te iubesc" from my wife.
(Well, not that she doesn't, she just doesn't speak Romanian :) Oleg Alexandrov 04:41, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Who is a notable mathematician? And where to talk about it?

Hi, Oleg, thanks for your comment. I couldn't figure out where to post a request for comment on the issue at hand. What concerns me is that I think that any biography of a mathematician in Wikipedia should link to an article explaining some mathematical achievement, if mathematical prowess is their grounds for notability, or should at least mention something truly notable. Do you understand why I feel this bar is not met in the three articles I am complaining about?

Yes, you have a good point. Oleg Alexandrov 19:24, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

If there is no standard for inclusion of biographical articles, there probably should be, and it seems to me that a very simple and easy to use criterion is this: biographies which do not describe any clearly notable achievement of the subject are not suitable for Wikipedia. Any discussion in VfD would then focus on whether or not whatever the article says constitutes a "notable achievement", so at least there would be some simple ground rule to help focus the discussion. Does this make any sense to you?---CH (talk) 18:14, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

That's exactly why a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics would be good. :) I will think more of your comments; I am not sure yet what a criterion should be. Oleg Alexandrov 19:21, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Planet Math - combinatorics pages

I'm looking at the combinatorics pages. Will it break anything if I add (complete) to headings of sections where no work MP->WP is required? I've also removed _NOTOC_ so that I can see at a glance the sections that need work. Clearly anyone can add this back if they like. Rich Farmbrough 21:35, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't think you will break anything when you change the section headings where no work is required. However, I would suggest adding this information also to the specific articles in those sectoins.
When in the far future I run my code again to add more articles whish showed up at PlanetMath in meantime, the information specific to each article will be preserved; the headings information will be lost thought I think. I can of course work on my code to have it preserve section headings information, but then I would need a compelling reason for why that info can't be stored in a better way at each article in question.
A short answer to your question is then the following. Nothing will be broken if you modify the headings, but that info might not be preserved when my code is run again (which will happen when you people think is an appropriate time for that). Oleg Alexandrov 01:06, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
Oh, and it is fine with me to remove _NOTOC_. Oleg Alexandrov 01:06, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
Cool. I think it would be trivial for your code add the information (complete) to sction headings if people want it. Maybe even to write a summary status at the top of each page. 'til then. Rich Farmbrough 15:23, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
Good points. I will keep this in mind. Oleg Alexandrov 15:57, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] HappyCamper's RFA - Thanks for your support! :-)

Hello Oleg! Thanks for your support on my recent RFA! I am very appreciative of your support and confidence in me. I recently became an administrator, and I hope that in the future we will get a chance to collaborate on some activities on Wikipedia together - whether it be writing articles or performing other administrative tasks. Feel free to let me know if you ever need an extra hand! --HappyCamper 02:24, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

You are welcome! Oleg Alexandrov 21:40, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] VFD/Old, Perl, & VFD Bot

I very much would like to write everything in Perl for all my bots, in particular, for VFD Bot. It's just that I haven't found any Perl code that easily gets the data from the Wikipedia and parses the wiki code. What I've found is that there is something, but it requires a lot different modules of perl to install for it to function properly. (I gave up in frustration, and stopped using it.) The Python pywikipedia framework gave me a set of nice features to use, but the Perl implementation I've seen hasn't come even close to the features that the Python implementation has.

I would like to very much work with you in writing the code together for VFD Bot, as the stats you place on WP:VFD/Old follows much of the work required to do User:AllyUnion/VFD List. I would very much like to try to keep the maintainance from VFD Bot and have your bot account separated from that work. What do you think? Please reply at my talk page. --AllyUnion (talk) 17:44, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

I was under the impression you have to compile the regex in Python before using it... All the bot code (For VFD anyway) is currently located here: User:AllyUnion/VFD bot code --AllyUnion (talk) 06:15, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Oh, and the section you should look at is en-wp-vfd-old-update.py --AllyUnion (talk) 06:41, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Complete dialogue is at AllyUnion. Oleg Alexandrov 21:40, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Nice program!

I tried out your PM great conversion program ;-) I copied the results with a question on the PM project talk page. Paul August ☎

I replied at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics/PlanetMath_Exchange#Converting_from_PlanetMath_format. Oleg Alexandrov 21:40, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Talk:Sigma-algebra

Hi, couldyou read & comment on notation question at Talk:Sigma-algebra ? linas 13:50, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sudden deletion

I had to rush off on a "resuce mission" in the middle of an edit. Sorry I wan't clearer. Rich Farmbrough 18:34, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Place of the stub on French wikipedia

Hello, I have seen you have moved the stub on fr:Méthode de la sécante at the bottom of the page. While this modification is minor, I just wanted to tell you that afaik on fr, most stubs are placed on top of the article (my very informal estimation would say that on 100 stubs, 99 are placed on top) Dake.

Sorry to break this very nice French tradition. My main aim was however the interwiki link. OK, in the French encyclopedia you can put them where you wish. But if you copy things over here, please put the interwiki link at the bottom (and the stub as well). Merci. Oleg Alexandrov 20:17, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you for the correction you made...

Thank you for the correction you made to my addition of "External links" to the "Sparse Matrix" page. I'm new at wikipedia, and can use a bit of coaching on lots of issues. [And, of course, I'm a bit careless anyway.]

[edit] Says you, Queen of Wikipedia Mathematics

Dear Oleg,

This subtitle "is the queen ... not a science" is not a play on words. It is an appropriate title to introduce and reflect the content of the section, as well as past discussions, and enages the reader (such as you). To reign over a subject does not require one to be the same. And says who what is not the place? Was it hurting you?

best regards,

bcameron54

Well, I also happen to disagree that it is an approrpriate title. :) By the way, repeatedly reverting a page is not a way to make a point. I hope you realized that. Oleg Alexandrov 04:17, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
So I learn by following your lead, where it works. You notice I have not re-edited your high-handed editing. I am content for you to be wrong about what is appropriate, and let you have it your way. May you also learn.
Thank you for your patience. Yes I know it is wrong to edit other people's comments, even for grammatical reasons; I just couldn't resist. By the way, you can sign your name with four tildas, like this ~~~~. Try it, see if you like what you get. Oleg Alexandrov 04:33, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
thx Bcameron54 04:38, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] and what I said to Rudy...

the queen bit

Thank you for warning me against adding my persistance to yours. I hope i am doing this properly, and that I will not be blocked for insolence.

I entered the 'queen of sciences' stuff originally, although it has evolved a bit since. Its ancient origins as a phrase, if it is to be attributed only to those who used it recently, are as relevant as quotes by mathematicians who fulfil Lederman's irrelevant POV, which remains. The fact that maths now reign over sciences, rather than religion over sciences is reflected in the appropriation of the phrase from its ancient origin.

If the link to St Thomas Aquinas is out-of-date, well, it is nearly 1,000 years, what do you expect?

bcameron54

Thanks for the clarification. By the way, may I ask you to put a bit more care in how you write things? I know that this is not an article, rather a talk page, but after me having been a Wikipedia editor for a rather long while, I get really turned off by misspellings, typos, poor style, etc. So that you know. :) Oleg Alexandrov 04:25, 31 August 2005 (UTC)


You needn't correct slang and typo-abbreviations used in a talk page, even if it is your page. This is deliberate, a part of natural languages, even if obscure to an experienced editor like you. sez you is like saying :)


[edit] Principled disputes

I consider removing the damage (such as alphabetization,the abandonment of a clear cutoff age,and insertion of dubious and inconsistently-admitted cases) that others have done to the National longevity recordholders article to be very important.I see no reason to surrender to popular misconception and I welcome any opportunity to convince those who refuse to accept my fork that it is they who should abandon their efforts.--Louis Epstein/le@put.com/12.144.5.2 20:12, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

You are of course entitled to keep your opinion. It is just Wikipedia is a community effort, and things are done by consensus. This project would not succeed if each editor would have a favorite version of a given article and would keep reverting to it every now and then. Oleg Alexandrov 21:04, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
We have different definitions of "success",I suppose.I think that allowing inappropriate changes to remain is failure and proper "editing" to require their removal.Wikipedia suffers from a LOT of bloat as people throw in everything under the sun with insufficient consideration.--Louis E./le@put.com/12.144.5.2 04:57, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] as in me, myself and Irene??

Dear Oleg

After your lecture about correct spelling and proper grammar on your talk page, *me* am amazed at your reversion of the subjective to the objective form of the first person singular, in a compound subject.

I will not revert your error, to avoid being blocked after a trivial reversion battle. As an experienced editor, please learn to use your role well in form, and then apply the same to editing of content.

Sheesh....

Bcameron54 03:17, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

I am aware that to say "Irene and I" is the grammatically correct way. However, I think that in informal speech, to say "Irene and me" is preferred, as I mentioned to you. I would be very interested though to hear the opinion of a native speaker however (besides you, that is :) Oleg Alexandrov 03:38, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
Irene and I went to town, and a nice person gave Irene and me a ride in their car.

Bcameron54 03:43, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

OK, OK, you are right! :) Oleg Alexandrov 04:51, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Votes for deletion flag day

Wikipedia:Votes for deletion has been moved to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. Please update your bot code accordingly to the change. --AllyUnion (talk) 07:03, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov 16:04, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Matrix addition

I find the edits of User:Cruise to matrix addition rather odd. I never saw the operation defined under matrix addition#addition of matrices and I'd say that the notation A (+) B for the usual matrix addition is extremely rare. However, I noticed that you thanked Cruise on his talk page. Have you seen his matrix addition elsewhere? -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 14:04, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

I did not notice the (+) thing. I will fix it now. Oleg Alexandrov 18:55, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

PS: I answered your question at User talk:Jitse Niesen#List of mathematical topics (A-C). -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 17:02, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, I will try it out one day soon. Oleg Alexandrov 18:55, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] (+) notation for matrix addition

Hi Oleg, Math notation is far from standard with variations largely dependent on the context. Textbooks which do not describe matrix addition but only addition of matrix elements, do not have the need to discriminate between + and (+). However, as we draw distinction between the addition of matrix elements and the addition of matrices, the operands cannot be identical.

Best Wishes,

David Cruise 19:44, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Hi David. I never saw the (+) notation before, and Jitse (see above) has not either. Did you see it used a lot? I don't care much either way. But I don't think that using + for both matrix addition and element addition is confusing, as after all, everything is a matrix — a number is just a 1×1 matrix. :) Oleg Alexandrov 21:07, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
Hi Oleg,

I see your and Jitse's point. Maybe, to preserve continuity, would be better to keep the parentheses out. Thank you for your input.
Best Wishes,
David Cruise 15:44, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] local search edit

Hi Oleg - Yes, people are aware of the search engines, but "local search" is a relatively new paradigm, and not all search engines have clear navigation to their local search experimental sections. Most people do not know the direct links to these local search sites, and therefor it is useful to include them.

The term "local search" is now much more commonly and popularly used to describe the specialized type of search methodology, and the marketing of that service, so I believe the links would be useful to people in the context of this encyclopedia article.

Thanx for your consideration!

Silvery

[edit] Mathbot spelling error

in Division by zero, MathBot corrected diagramatic to diagram. It should have been diagrammatic. It is perhaps a little overeager, as I would think that chopping 4 letters off the end is probably not a spelling correction, but changing the word. Perhaps it should only correct when it is sure not only the word is spelt wrong, but what it is correcting it to is right? Mrjeff 19:47, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

It was me who did not like the word diagrammatic. I will know it is a correct word from now on. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov 21:00, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
I put this bug in User:Oleg Alexandrov/Reported bugs so far. Oleg Alexandrov 21:18, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Red / Dead

Thanks for articles/mathematics -- made my day. 8-) Andrew Kepert 07:34, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Article explaining a mathematics misconception

shouldn't greatest common denominator redirect to infinity? --R.Koot 10:49, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Hi Rudy. I have no idea how deal with this one. I am a bit weary of aritcles saying "this is wrong, but people do it a lot". On the other hand, I am rather sure that many people think "greatest common denominator" when they mean "least common denominator" or "greatest common divisor". So, I don't know! :) Oleg Alexandrov 15:31, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Math-stub

Hi. Sorry for using the wrong stub. I later figured it out, but first I was trying math-bio-stub and versions with other strange symbols. Karol 07:11, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] African Institute [Ff]or Mathematical Sciences

It seems your bot is confused by the articles African Institute For Mathematical Sciences and African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (the titles differ in the capitalization of for): it can't decide which to include; on the 1st, it replaced the later by the former, it went back on the 3rd, and back again on the 4th, while the articles themselves haven't changed. Perhaps worth a look; perhaps not important enough?

By the way, you're close to pushing the number of articles above 10,000; then we'll be the biggest WikiProject behind WikiProject:Minor characters in the second Harry Potter book that did not appear in the second movie. ;) -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 10:52, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Hi Jitse. First, my bot is not confused. :) Rather, by design, it always randomly shuffles the articles before printing them out with the very purpose of identifying articles which are the same up to capitalization. Who is confused is the bot's owner. Only last night after checking the history of one of them I realized that it is two articles and not one moved back and forth. But I did not have time to deal with them yesterday.
I also noticed that we are getting close to 10,000 articles by checking your bot's stats. That will be an event! Oleg Alexandrov 14:52, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
I could use one of those countless Harry Potter minor characters to watch for vandals and check the dates of birth of mathematicians. Some Perl with a bit of magic could go a long way. Oleg Alexandrov 17:32, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Louis Epstein

I have filed a request for arbitration. You are invited to comment. Susvolans ⇔ 17:26, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] PMEX Proofs?

moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/PlanetMath Exchange#PMEX Proofs? Oleg Alexandrov 18:10, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] canadian mathematicians

Hello Oleg. I agree 200% with you, and would now like to do away with the math professor cat as well as all professor cats. i created it to form a link between Category:Canadian professors and Category:Canadian academics, but i ve since changed my mind about the matter. i think that being a prof (in itself) is NOT encyclopedically noteworthy and therefore that there should be no Category:Professors cat. anyone who happens to be a prof and encyclopedically noteworthy because of their research contributions should be catted as an academic, according to their field, shouldn t they. i would like to see Category:Professors done away with. i m considering doing away with all the canadian prof sub-cats, but it ll take a bit of work and there are other cat work (my little wiki activity now) i m working on. -Mayumashu 02:30, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, all you need to do is remove the mathematicians from there (put them in Category:Canadian mathematicians) and then put a speedy tag in the category, that is {{d}}. That will work because you created it. You can explain in the edit summary or on the category talk page that you don't find it useful anymore. Oleg Alexandrov 03:09, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] List of publications in philosophy

Hi Oleg,

Please note my reply regarding the categories at the talk page. APH 07:24, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] hello

I'm a new wikipedian, I thought that it would be useful to paste some links from german translation. Didn't you notice that those two links are in german version of the page?

The article would be much longer if someone who knows german would translate what is written in the german version.

And yes, I appreciate that you prefer pure information than links. This is what I look for, when I search something in the wikipedia to learn about. The problem is, that wikipedia is better than google, when looking for science-related things. That's why I've added them.

I'll not add it again, if you think that people shuould not know about them... well it's not my problem anymore - I have no time for that.

Janek Kozicki

I think you are referring to this edit of mine at discrete element method. Well, you have a point, but again, that many external links is unnecessary. As they say, Wikipedia is not a link farm. But all that is arguable of course. Oleg Alexandrov 15:13, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Lemma

Thank you for your kind invitation to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics. I replied there. Algae 06:29, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Numerical analysis: software

Hi Oleg,

I moved the whole list of software to a new page List of numerical analysis software. After observing your change to my addition of PDL (I think your point for which was very reasonable) I thought this change would be for the best of the original article, and for the software section as well. I discussed the change in the talk page. Hope you would agree with me. Thanks. Greenleaf 08:04, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

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