User talk:Jitse Niesen/Archive6

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.


Contents

Serbianna Link - Unrealiable

I agree with you that Serbianna link is unrealiable. In fact, they are bold faced liars. They expose videos of Bosniaks who were beheaded by Serbs and use such videos to falsely present Bosniaks as beheaders, read here, I am personally involved with this story: http://srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.com/2006/04/srebrenica-massacre-photo-story-he-was.html

- Bosniak

Quickie Question About 'All Diffs Above Here' Script

Love it — sincerely love it, it's been a massive improvement in my Wikipedia experience — but I notice it's restricted by code to the watchlist. There are two venues it could be equally as convenient — when viewing a Contributions profile (useful if you're tracking someone to try to make sure they're not vandalizing, if they've done so in the past), and also, in an article's diffs. Personally, I'm more interested in the first ability than the second.

Any thoughts?

Again, my thanks for a great piece of coding and a fantastic feature! — Mike (talk • contribs) 16:09, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your glowing comments. I didn't know that anybody besides me was actually using it.
Your request is very sensible. I'll have a look at it, but I fear it will be a couple of weeks before I find time to do so. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 12:57, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Proposed Georgia Move

As a past participant in the discussion on how to handle the Georgia pages, I thought you might be interested to know that there's a new attempt to reach consensus on the matter being addressed at Talk:Georgia (country)#Requested_Move_-_July_2006. Please come by and share your thoughts to help form a consensus. --Vengeful Cynic 03:19, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

AFC header text

Hi Jitse. If I could, I'd like to request a small change to the bot's AFC function. Instead of adding the hardcoded "Please now follow the link back to Wikipedia:Articles for creation" to the top of the new day's page, could you simply have it substitute Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Daily header? Some new response templates are being tested-out, but they require __TOC__ to be a the top of the page. I would also be nice to be able to change the message without bothering you ;) Thanks a lot. ×Meegs 04:29, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

It should do this starting tomorrow. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 12:57, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
It did. Thanks, you're the best. ×Meegs 17:55, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Least squares - link needed

Dear Mr. Niesen,

In Least squares, version of 09:06, 09 Jun 2005 (diff), you wrote:

(see the article for a more precise statement and less restrictive conditions on the noise terms)

Several articles were mentioned; to which were you referring?

Thank you,

JEBrown87544 17:08, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I believe Jitse is temporarily unavailable. But it seems clear the article intended is Gauss–Markov theorem. That is now made explicit by a link. --KSmrqT 20:09, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
Indeed, that's the one I intended. Thanks, KSmrq. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 12:57, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

List of mathematicians

Hi Jitse. I plan to split this list into list of mathematicians (A), etc., per Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics#Split of List of mathematicians with the List of mathematicians just containing links to those subpages. A prerequisite for that would be to have your bot read list of mathematicians (A), etc., in addition to the List of mathematicians when updating the Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Current activity. I wonder if you could look into that when you have time. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:56, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I already coded this a week ago when the list was briefly split. Go ahead and my bot will pick it up — that is, after I have fixed the bug which I will discover only when it is too late ;) -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 12:57, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Edits by --Michael C. Price on Afshar experiment page

  • Dear Jitse, --Michael C. Price insists on using unsubstantiated claims without proper references on the article page. Regardless of the nature of his claims, I have requested that he does so, but instead he has produced at best irrelevant quotes from non-peer-reviewed sources. His edit follows:

Though Afshar's work is still the subject of ongoing interpretation and discussion, a significant portion of the scientific community is of the opinion that Afshar's experiment does not refute complementarity.

Some general criticisms are:

Bohr's philosophical views on the Complementarity Principle are generally seen in accordance with the Schrodinger wave equation. Since the latter is obeyed in Afshar's experiment it is not obvious how complementarity can be violated.[1][2]
The modern understanding of quantum decoherence and its destruction of quantum interference provides a mechanism for understanding the appearance of wavefunction collapse and the transition from quantum to classical. As such there is no need, in the decoherence view, for an a priori introduction of a classical-quantum divide as enshrined by complementarity. Any experiment that claims to violate complementarity needs to address this issue.

As Michael claims, those statments are supposedly "popular views" that preexisted my experiment, and as such must be present in peer-reviewed publication predating my work. All I have asked him to do is to provide such valid ref.s but he has persistently avoided doing so and instead engaged in personal attacks. He seems to have a lot of time on his hands to be on Wikipeida constatntly, but I don't. This is turning to oneupmanship, and I don't have time for such antcis. Maybe he would heed your request. Thanks!-- Prof. Afshar 13:51, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

P.S. I will be discussing this issue with Michael Price on the article talk page, and would highly appreciate if you could monitor our discussion and interject when you deem fit. I'm afraid it might get a little testy, as Michael has been persistent on personal attacks. Thanks very much for your help. Best regards.-- Prof. Afshar 17:02, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Streamlining the current activity

Hi Jitse. I was looking at the Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Current activity and I am thinking that my old suggestion of having a table cell for "articles removed from requested articles" probably was not that good, I don' find that section that useful.

Then, I was thinking, maybe the "need" cells in the tables could be put one after another, now they are interrupted by "new articles/stubs/designated math" cells.

Also, do you find helpful the split of additions into "new articles", "new stubs", "newly designated math"? I would think that simply having "additions" and "removals" from the list of math articles would be simpler.

All these are just some thoughts. You surely thought much more than me on how things should be, so I wonder what your opinons on the above are. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:16, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the points you raise. The "need" rows are not next to each other, because I tried to sort them by importance; but this is not a sensible ordering. The reason that "new articles" and "new stubs" are separate categories is that "new stubs" contains some articles which are not yet included in the List of mathematics topics, but that's a rather silly reason. I split "newly designated" off as an experiment, as far as I remember it, because I wanted to filter out old articles which were renamed. So, yes, I'll make the changes you allude to some time in the future.
While we're at it, I sometimes think it would be more useful to reorder the data and have separate cells for the days, like:
15 Jul
  • New articles: bla, bla, bla
  • Removed articles: bla, bla, bla
  • Requested: bla, bla, bla
14 Jul
  • New articles: bla, bla, bla
  • Removed articles: bla, bla, bla
  • On AfD: bla, bla, bla
What do you think of that? -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 12:44, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, it depends what you are looking for. Some people may want to visit the current activity every day, and then they want updates by day, so the above scheme works well, while some people may visit every now and then, for a specific purpose, see what's on afd currently, see what new stuff came in, etc. I am more of the second kind. But you are the primary user of the current activity I guess, so you can put things the way they suit you.

Would be nice to have feedback from other people too. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:16, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

de Bruijn

Hi Jitse,

Thanks for your attention to the de Bruijn Torus page. I wonder if it's really better merged in with the sequence page though. de Bruijn graphs, for example, have their own page. Should that be merged too? Gigs 05:12, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Hello Jason. I merged because I thought that would be the easiest way to connect De Bruijn tori with the sequences. The sequence should definitely mentioned on the torus page; I assume you agree with that. Furthermore, I don't like small articles; by embedding them in a bigger article, we automatically include some of the background. Indeed, I think that De Bruijn graph should also be merged.
However, you know more about De Bruijn tori (I hadn't heard about them before) and you may have plans to expand the article. So you're probably in a better position to decide whether a merger is suitable. If you think it's a bad idea, let me know and I'll unmerge them (or you can undo my merge yourself). -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 07:35, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Request page move+delete

I believe "Generalized Newtonian fluids" should be moved to "Generalized Newtonian fluid", but I am unable to do so. (There are a small number of short "fluid" pages, all of which seem to require TeX cleanup for BlahTeX.) I have already changed the handful of links, except for the one on User:Alex Bakharev. Help? Thanks. --KSmrqT 13:13, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I moved the page. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 13:25, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Rollback of David Cruise

David Cruise went around and decimated several articles with edit comments like "removing my contributions". That in and of itself seems wrong. Now, if the goal is to get rid of non-standard definitions, then we have to carefully examine his whole contribution history, both as David Cruise and as Cruise. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 17:34, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Its appears that David Cruise is now deleting stuff (see: Talk:Matrix addition, and Talk:Matrix subtraction), claiming that they infringe copyright of Cruise Scientific - perhaps we should let him delete his stuff, and them work out what to do with the various articles after he has finished? Madmath789 07:59, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Finite difference schemes

Hi Jitse. I wonder if you take a look at the finite difference schemes article (I renamed it to current name and edited it a bit, but the article has been around for a while). I have some comments on its talk page. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:25, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I replied on talk:finite difference schemes, q.v. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 11:54, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Inexact differential

I stumbled over the first sentence of Inexact differential, because it does not say at all how the "inexact differential" of a function f is defined, and I could not make any sense of it. Since the rest of the article only says that the properties of an inexact differential are the opposite of the properties of an exact differential, which is obvious, I thought it would be best to merge it with exact differential. However, you reverted this. Why? -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 05:54, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Just saw your comment on Talk:Inexact differential. Will have a look later. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 05:57, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Jitse, I assumed your merge was well intentioned in that you were just trying to help organize the math articles. Next time, however, if you feel a merge is needed please put merge tags on both articles and let your written proposal sit on the talk page for a month or so. For the record, I started the exact differential article last year but someone else started the inexact differential article recently. This latter article, has been a redlink on many Wiki pages, such as Entropy (thermodynamic views), for sometime now. It has even been a request on talk pages such as Talk:Entropy (thermodynamic views), Talk:entropy, Talk:heat, and Talk:First law of thermodynamics, to name a few. Certainly, the article may need cleaning and smoothing, but not merging. Please help with this improvement if you will. I will try as well. Thanks: --Sadi Carnot 14:22, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Dig pages

I notice you've created a set of "Dig" pages to track users, and that they contain information you say "may be sensitive and therefore should not be widely publicized." Some of these pages clearly violate the Posting personal details section of the blocking policy, which states that "Users who post what they believe are the personal details of other users without their consent may be blocked for any length of time, including indefinitely, depending on the severity of the incident, and whether the blocking admin feels the incident was isolated or is likely to be repeated." I encourage you to remove these pages from Wikipedia as soon as possible. Tim Smith 11:11, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Tim, no admin will block based on such vague accusations. Please be more specific. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 11:24, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Oh, thank gosh you are here! I just suggested on User talk:Tim Smith that Tim email you so we can discuss this by email. These issues are indeed sensitive and I think it is best to discuss them privately. ---CH 11:33, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
My message was posted to User_talk:Hillman#Dig pages and moved here by CH; it is addressed to her, not Jitse. Discussion continues where it began. Tim Smith 12:55, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Tim, I would like to discuss this with you, but I think it should be discussed by email. Due to some problems at my site, I need to get the help of someone like Jitse or Lethe in getting in touch with you by email. I suggest that you check back in a day or so, OK? ---CH 13:29, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Srebrenica: references

Jitse, why did you remove all the links from references on Srebrenica massacre. [1] . It makes it particulary difficult to navigate the sources and it is not in line with the MLA style --Dado 15:37, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for not answering sooner. I removed them because it seemed redundant to repeat them all over; somebody (I believe Bosniak) made a similar comment on Talk:Srebrenica massacre. I don't know the MLA style, but the two common styles which use footnotes are:
  • Use full bibliographic details in the first footnote which refer to a particular source, and in subsequent footnotes use just enough to identify the source (author + title or author + year); OR
  • Put the full details in a separate section and use author + title in the footnotes.
Neither of these styles repeat the full details in every footnote. However, I'm happy to conform to whatever style you want. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 08:06, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Variational Number Theory

At last i found a link at arxiv.org http://www.arxiv.org/pdf/math.GM/0605570 i think this should be taken into consideration since Arxiv.org is considered a reliable source of information..

--Karl-H 14:06, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid we don't consider Arxiv.org a reliable source of information, as it's not really peer-reviewed. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 19:25, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Karl-H, you already found that link two months ago (diff). As Arthur says, arxiv.org does very little reviewing and hence cannot be considered reliable. Furthermore, even if the paper is published in a peer-reviewed journal, it's only one paper written by a PhD student in Physics & History of Science. That's not enough to write an encyclopaedic article on. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 04:38, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Bifurcation Images

Hi Jitse,
Thanks for your offer of help. I really want to update the bifurcation diagram page as at the moment it's useless. To start, some bifurcation diagrams of the 3 simple 1D bifurcations would be really helpful (saddle-node, transcritical and pitchfork). I've drawn what the saddle-node one would look like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sn_dig.png here but it would need some axes etc. The dashed line represents unstable solutions, the solid line stable solutions. I guess it would be helpful for me to know how much you know about bifurcation theory before I give you far too much information about these that you already know.
Your heteroclinic orbit is much better than mine! Thanks!
Claire Mathmoclaire 19:24, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Hillman/Dig

Hi, Jitse, you might be interested in this. ---CH 23:26, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Can you help me?

Jitse, I am wondering if you can help me to set limits with two Wikipedians. Users Hillman and Byrgenwulf have adopted a negative focus and have been posting conjecture about my IRL. As I understand it, this is in violation of WP. This started after Hillman tried to run a checkuser on my identity and the admins refused this request because I had not broken WP.

Is there a way to ask an admin (are you an admin?), after reviewing their behavior, to warn these two individuals about breaking the guidelines? I have asked them both to please back off and stop violating WP and posting speculation about my IRL and unsubstantiated accusations (that have already been dismissed by admins) to no avail. DrL 12:08, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I am indeed an admin. However, in my view speculation about your IRL identity is permissible since there is a well-founded suspicion of a conflict of interest. The comments on Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Hillman/Dig support this view.
Jitse, it's my understanding that conflict of interest in and of itself is not a reason to justify speculation about a user's identity IRL or to post irrelevant information (other than tracking edits). The part that I am uncomfortable with has to do with posting speculative links to where a person lives, their job, and other purely personal information. DrL 13:06, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
I haven't seen an administrator dismissing the accusations; all they say on the links provided is that (as far as they're away) you didn't violate any of the Wikipedia policies.
It's not clear to me why you want to contact an administrator. As Wikipedia:Administrators explains, admins are no more than people "who have access to technical features that help with maintenance". Anybody can warn people, that does not require these admin-only technical features.
If you want to ask for people to review the behaviour of Hillman and Byrgenwulf, you can open a Request for Comment (RfC). If you really want to contact an administrator, you can leave a message on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard, but this edit shows that you are already away of that page.
Best wishes, Jitse Niesen (talk) 12:42, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your advice, Jitse. I will follow up as you suggest. Please note that I removed the name of Byrgenwulf as he pointed out that he did not specifically speculate wrt my IRL. DrL 12:57, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

People like you make wikipaedia fun

Owwmykneecap 04:48, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Your answer to Q1 of the RfA

Did you mean to say that you'd like the ability to close RfA's? This suggests (incorrectly, I presume) that you do not know that closing Requests for Adminship is mainly a task for bureaucrats, -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 11:32, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh wow, sorry! That was a typo, I meant to write AfD. I do know that only the 'crats can close RfA's. :-) Thanks. —Mets501 (talk) 11:38, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi Jitse Niesen

Can these people really be considered objective?

Check this out:

1. http://www.geocities.com/famous_bosniaks/english/general_lewis_mackenzie.html

2. http://www.geocities.com/famous_bosniaks/english/fighting_for_peace.html

--Bosniak 06:31, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Kummer sum

I've rewritten the article. Unfortunately I had to mention my own work, since it would have been artificial not to. (Also, the history is interesting, with two conjectures proved within weeks; Patterson was my mentor. He has been in Göttingen for many years now.) Charles Matthews 18:56, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

RfA thanks

Thanks so much for voting, Jitse Niesen!
Thanks so much for your support vote on my request for adminship! With a final vote count of (82/5/0), it succeeded, and I'm now an administrator! I am thrilled with the overwhelming positive support from the community, and sincerely thank you once again for taking your time to voice your opinion. Feel free to contact me with any comments/suggestions in the future!
—Mets501 (talk) 03:49, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Response to Jitse

You guys are also not owners of wikipedia. Osli73 will not have it his way, that I can promise. With respect to you Jitse, I have no beef with you man.

I have opposing views - and if anyone is afraid of my opinion, which is heavily based on International Tribunal's rullings, then it's their problem (not mine).

Hope you understand. I will not allow Osli73 to have it his way. That's the bottom line. This is free encyclopedia and anyone can edit it, including me. Bosniak 06:58, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Srebrenica Massacre

Jitse , here is the link to the attorney Sepenuk, the one who argues that the crimes against humanity at Srebrenica did not achieve the level of genocide. http://alumni.princeton.edu/~cl1954/NormSepenuk.htm It is currently in the article but with the multiple reverts going on it may appear and disappear.

I agree that being leftist in and of itself does not disqualify a person. If one looked at my opinion of capitalism, socialism, and communism, the label could easily be applied to at least some if not a majority of my views. However, Chomsky is not seen as non-biased but rather pushing the agenda that whenever the US government gets involved it is expansionist imperialism. He forces everything into that prism which dovetails perfectly with Milosevic's propaganda that he was only trying to protect communism from capitalist expansionism. There are better sources for supporting alternative views and I am willing to put in the time to find them.

As far as Osli's edits, sometimes they are reasonable, but he does take material off of the "Defend Milosevic! Defend Serbia" website, uses that site as a source, and then complains that people are calling him names when I believe it is a reasonable observation that he does at times copy and paste propaganda. No, of course all alternative views are not propaganda; I would like to see more precise language; the article definitely has emotional unfair language like saying the Dutch "collaborated with the Serbs" (they did not share the intent of killing people); the article is at times accusative towards all Serbs which is a shame since many lost their lives fighting against Milosevic and defending multi-ethnic democracy; BUT at some point we do need to acknowledge that there is such a thing as propaganda, that those who committed the Srebenica massacre did use propaganda to cover up or distract from their crime. The article would benefit from a measured balanced description of what that propaganda is.

Thank you for your continuing engagement in this article. Despite all the back and forth, I do believe we are moving forward and I for one am learning alot as I research the veracity or falsehood of various claims. Fairview360 17:11, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


Jitse,
Sorry for leaving this message to you both here and on the article Talk page.
As I have stated before, I do not dispute any of the facts in the article. What I disagree with is the selective choice of facts as well as the NPOV tone and context in which these are presented.
I realize that edit-warring is not the ideal behavior on Wikipedia and I would much rather focus on something else. I have also proposed compromises with the Bosniak editors of the article as well as some form of mediation (For example, I would be willing to accept the this version of the article). Both of which have been turned down (with some personal attacks, name calling and insults added on top). I feel that I have offered to de-escalate the conflict but that this has not been reciprocated.
So, in light of their unwillingness to compromise, replying in kind is the only strategy I can think of at the moment as I fear not doing so will result in the article immediately degenerating, with, for example, wording such as "leftist apologist revisionist", "concentration camp rapist", "genocide deniers" etc.
Regards Osli73 07:29, 17 August 2006 (UTC)


Bosniak editors at the Srebrenica Massacre article

Jitse, for the record, I am not Bosniak. I am from the USA, born in New Hampshire, now living in the State of New York. When not in the US, I am in Bosnia working with Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats doing humanitarian and development work, have since 1996. I work with Serbs who fought in the Bosnian Army. I work with Serbs who fought in the RS Army. I work with imams (Islamic religious leaders). I work with Serbian priests. I work with Catholic priests. I work in the Federation and the RS, the two entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina. I work with people of all ethnicities and socio-economic background.

Below is what I wrote to Bosniak which I believe shows where I am coming from. I wrote this when I thought Osli was actually interested in a balanced article, but he has lost all credibility in my eyes. I can tolerate him. If ever he makes a valid point, I am willing to incorporate it. But he is highly antagonistic to most of the editors, engages in underhanded tactics, slips in spin directly from the "Defend Milosevic! Defend Serbia" website, pretends he does not understand what has been explained repeatedly, and overall prevents constructive dialogue. The remaining editors do not agree on everything. I would love to have a constructive dialogue, but the continuing disruptions from Osli make that very difficult. Currently, I am focusing on the introduction which Osli has deleted sentences from 20 times without good reason.

I believe Osli is quite aware of how far he can go and repeatedly re-invents himself as a reasonable person, but he may cross the line at some point, and if so, I would suggest banning him from the article for a month. See what that does for constructive conversation. I believe that with Osli's antagonism put aside, then there can be constructive discussion that will bring more balance and more precision to the article. Fairview360 18:23, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Bosniak, I have seen the mass graves, the exhumations. I have friends who are survivors. I myself had a rough time trying to maintain rationality having seen the horror perpetrated by cold-hearted politicians, by willing executioners overtaken by hate and malice, and by those who were told by their commanders either kill or be killed. But Bosniak, you have to keep your cool. It does feel like what you really want to do is go outside and scream at the top of your lungs "The Serbs are murderers!". That statement in and of itself is not accurate. Some Serbs fought against the ultranationalist Serbs. There are Serbs who lost their lives trying to defend multi-ethnic democracy both in Serbia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Some Serbs did everything they could to confront the Greater Serbia project. If some of the Serbs and some of the Croats had not joined the Bosnian Army defending a multi-ethic democratic Bosnia, there would be no Bosniaks left in Bosnia. There are moderate reasonable Serbs who are nationalists who would agree to move forward in a multi-ethnic democratic system while all crimes are looked at openly. There are Serbs today who are not at all nationalist who want nothing less than to have their nation look honestly at what they did. And if we are going to take a deeper look at what generates these conflicts, we need to look at corruption and how it eats away at civil society and allows cold-hearted power-grabbing people to manipulate Balkan history and foster genocidal conflict. And without allowing the "all sides equal" obfuscation, we must look at everything everyone did both good and bad.
This is going to take generations, but we must find common ground with reasonable people so that the killing does not happen again.
Anyone who wants to put his energy into rehabilitating Lewis MacKenzie is obviously a problem, but even Osli can help improve the article. I'm sorry but he is correct that using your blog as a source is not OK. We need to put in the time finding primary source material.
In the free exchange of ideas put forth by honest people, the truth will emerge.
Bosniak, stick with it. Keep your cool. Do not quit. Fairview360 16:33, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Fairview, first in response to the message you left here on 14 Aug. Thanks for the link. I see that Sepenuk represented Krstic before the ICTY, which makes it a bit hard to separate what he thinks, what his client thinks, and what might just be their legal strategy. Then, the connection between leftist and pro-Serbia. I agree with your comments, even better, I saw an article of the Journal for Genocide Studies (or something like that) mentioned in the references which makes a similar point. Yes, I'm also learning from it; for instance, I hadn't heard of proper criticisms of the NIOD report, but the IWPR article is quite convincing.
Then, your second message. I'm sorry about implying that you're Bosniak; indeed, I usually try very hard not to make inferences of peoples' backgrounds since that's not really relevant. But I made a mistake there. I don't quite agree with how you see the conflict with the article. Yes, User:Osli73 is a problem, but I haven't given up on him. He has been giving a truly hard time, though that is not an excuse for his behaviour. I'm losing patience with User:Bosniak though; he cannot keep his calm and his practice of reverting without bothering about what improvements he wipes out makes it in my view impossible to arrive at a compromise version. Anyway, I requested short blocks for both of them at WP:AN/I#Srebrenica massacre.
Thank you for your efforts. Hopefully, an improved article will appear out of this mess. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 14:20, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Jitse, thank you for your constructive engagement in the Srebrenica Massacre article. I will have more time to respond later today or at least by Sunday. I do understand where you are coming from and think your current approach is best. Hopefully, it will lead to a level constructive playing field at the Srebrenica article. Fairview360 16:33, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Your message on Invasive Weed Optimization (IWO) Algorithm

Dear Jitse,

Thanks for your message on IWO. This is Ali Reza Mehrabian from Tehran, Iran. I am a graduate student of Mechanical Engineering at University of Tehran, Iran. I am a new user of Wikipedia. I need some time to learn how to write articles. I am learning its features. I will appreciate if you assist me in writing and completing my article.

About invasive weed optimization algorithm, yes you are right. It is uncompleted, and it does not have any references. I have invited this algorithm from a natural event, which is weed colonization. For references, my paper will be published by Ecological Informatics Journal in near future (it is accepted for publication). I am writing an article on Wikipedia to introduce my method to people and scientists to use the algorithm for solving their problems and suggest improvements to it. So please be patient, since it needs time to be completed.

Thanks, ALI REZA = User:Armehrabian, 21:47, 18 August 2006

P.S. Kindly let me know how I can have a personal page in Wikipedia like yours.

Update of IWO

Dear Jitse,
I have updated the page on invasive weed optimization algorithm. Please let me know your idea about the page. Thanks - ALI REZA 18:28, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Edit War at Srebrenica Massacre

I agree that edit wars should stop, but you need to realize that Osli73 (talk · contribs) is primary to blame for edit wars, blind reverts, and full blown vandalism of Srebrenica Massacre article. I would be more than glad to stop reverting the article to a more civilized versions, but please bear in mind that Osli73 (talk · contribs) needs to stop first, because he is leading a war with at least 10 other editors who refuse to accept his vandalism. In other words, [Osli73] is vandalizing article, he deletes facts such as the fact that 8,106 Bosniaks died in the massacre (well documented, with names, JMBR numbers, names of parents, etc). In my opinion, and in the opinion of at least 10 other editors, Osli73 needs to be banned from ever editing Srebrenica massacre article. Bosniak 00:00, 19 August 2006 (UTC)


Jitse : I believe Bosniak meant to say 8,373 Bosniaks died. 8,106 is from an earlier list. Here is the link that Bosniak has provided to the Srebrenica article: http://www.srebrenica-zepa.ba/srebrenica/spisak.htm to substantiate the 8,373 number. You can see that the names are numbered and go up to 8,373. Fairview360 18:57, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Bosniak , what do you think of the proposed versions for the opening paragraph? Please look at discussion topic #71 at the Srebrenica discussion page and share your thoughts. Fairview360 18:57, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Jitse , I believe the bottom line is that Bosniak is very passionate about his beliefs and it sometimes comes out as frustration. I believe Osli's behavior was pushing his buttons. Bosniak's passion also brings with it a goldmine of energy and research. He knows exactly where to find detailed documents. I don't know if Osli was banned or decided to take a break, but everything at the article since Osli's absence has been constructive. I believe Bosniak will be a positive contributor when the overall atmosphere at the article is constructive. We'll see. Fairview360 15:10, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Jordan normal form

hi, Jitse. that page could use some attention from a numerical analyst, (e.g. numerical applications, or lack thereof and why). Mct mht 12:29, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I put it on my to-do list. There's not much to say though. The Jordan normal form is hardly used for numerical computations because it is unstable. I need to check some references to be sure about it. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 12:49, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
thanks. yeah, some comments like that would be nice. a prev. version of article seemed to have overstated somewhat the numerical importance of JCF. Mct mht 12:53, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
I tacked something on at the end. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 13:23, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
thanks, i saw. i separated remarks you added into its own section. Mct mht 13:38, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Don't worry

Don't worry. It will all turn out well in the end! There are many possible ways forward, but not enough people have been interested in the video discussion yet. The misunderstanding was that "free in Wikipedia" is contrary to foundation issues. As a mathematician, you should be able to spot the fallacy :-) Stephen B Streater 14:12, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi

Are you sure that the existence of singular values/vectors follows from the discussion about relation to eigenvalues. As far as I can see the connection to eigenvalues/vectors does not provide proof of existence, it merely states that IF M has singular values/vectors THEN these must be related to the eigenvalues/vectors of M*M and MM*. Is there a way to say say that since M*M and MM* has eigenvalues and eigenvectors, then M must have singular values/vectors? If there is this is interesting and should be pointed out. --KYN 07:35, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

The singular values and vectors of M are the same as the square roots of eigenvalues and the eigenvectors of MM* and M*M (the article does not include a proof of this, for which you need to prove first that MM* and M*M have the same nonzero eigenvalues, I think). So, existence of singular values follows from the existence of eigenvalues. If you think that the text could be clearer on this, do feel free to change it. The situation for the singular vectors is admittedly a bit more complicated, because not every matrix has a basis of eigenvectors (however, matrices of the form MM* do because they're normal).
The parts you added, are very important for a correct understanding of what singular values are, and they give an alternative (perhaps even easier/better) way to prove their existence. So, I'm glad that's mentioned now.
Ask me if anything is still unclear; I have the habit of writing very concise answers. Cheers, Jitse Niesen (talk) 09:40, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

If matrix M has singular values/vectors then, as you say, they will be related to eigenvalues/vectors of MM* and M*M. This is clear. But is it also the case that if MM* and M*M have well-defined eigenvalues/vectors then M must have singular values/vectors? I don't see this implication immediately. Can you help me? Otherwise I was hoping that the added text would provide a more substatial support for the existence. --KYN 16:28, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

If you know the eigenvalues/vectors of MM* and M*M, then you construct the singular value decomposition M = UΣV* by collecting the eigenvectors of MM* in the matrix U, the eigenvectors of M*M in V, and the eigenvalues in Σ. Hence, it is indeed the case that if MM* and M*M have well-defined eigenvalues/vectors then M must have singular values/vectors.
You might have noticed that User:Mct mht added a section giving an linear algebraic existence proof, just before the fragment that you added. That section gives a bit more details and might be helpful for you. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 11:51, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Srebrenica intro

Jitse, when you get a chance, I have added some thoughts on the Srebenica intro. Discussion topic #71. -- Fairview360 18:50, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

No reference provided???

How do you mean "No reference provided". Why I need to provide reference? ICTY has documentation about mass mourders of Serbian civilians in village of Kravice, led by convicted war criminal Naser Oric and his army.

ICTY documentation is reference. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.229.242.88 (talk • contribs) 07:52, 25 August 2006

Please see Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Cite your sources on why and how to provide references. You need to point at a specific ICTY document (and, if it's long, to a specific paragraph or page), which says that Serbs blame Oric and his forces for killing about 2,000 Serb civilians from Kravica and other villages. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 08:08, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Grigori Perelman

Hi, I accidently noticed you added a "fact" flag and dropped by to give (sorta) the desired citation. The claim that GP "felt the prize committee was unqualified to assess his work" is made in one of the newspaper articles I cited, but since I wasn't using footnotes I didn't try to keep track of which one. HTH ---CH 18:00, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. I found it in the Guardian article. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 02:44, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi, thank you for your encouragement. I have now added an article on the New Yorker article. This affair is more complicated than I had thought, which is, perhaps, not too surprising. Kidiawipe

Dutch translation needed ...

For meta:http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Election_candidates_2006/En. My statement's translation into various languages relies on volunteers, and time is quite late now. If you could possibly help ...

Charles Matthews 10:56, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

See your user talk page on meta. Do you have somebody for the German version? My German is not perfect, but definitely intellegible for Germans. If you make an initial attempt yourself, I'm quite happy to see if I can improve on it. If you prefer, I can also try to translate the whole thing myself, but I can't guarantee I'll manage to find enough time for the deadline. In any case, good luck with the election. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 12:52, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

It's children, plural. I have asked someone else for the German, actually. I never studied it - one of life's regrets now. Your version would very much better! Many thanks for the translation. Charles Matthews 13:20, 26 August 2006 (UTC)


Picture

Just remove the picture then. Another user promised to provide sources for me, but he hasn't done that yet. So feel free to just remove it, ok. Bosoni

RfA message

My RfA video message
Image:RfA message.ogg

Stephen B Streater 08:40, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Flagging an ISBN-13 wrongly

Thanks, I'll check back over the list for any othe false positives. Rich Farmbrough 16:00 29 August 2006 (GMT).

WP:NOR

Could you comment in the section at the end of Wikipedia talk:No original research? I liked your proposed wording of the policy on self-citations and am trying to push it through. (Or at least revert to the old version which didn't go overboard by saying self-citations should go into Talk.) Unfortunately, the Talk page seems to be overrun by trolls and it's difficult to have a productive discussion. —Steven G. Johnson 20:22, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Stop move of "Ordinal number"

User:Salix alba is planning to move Ordinal number to another name. Please stop him. JRSpriggs 03:48, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


piotr blass

could you move my deleted pages to my user page so i can work on them thanks piotr blass correspondence follows (reply to "could you help me construct my piotr blass page so that it will not be rejected")

See Wikipedia:User page for more information about exactly what is allowed on user pages (such as User:Piotr Blass). In practice, user pages of people who have made useful contributions to wikipedia are usually allowed to have almost anything reasonable on them. If you want to get a copy of a deleted article, you could try sending a note to whichever admin deleted it, asking if it could be moved to your user page, as I think admins have access to old deleted pages. R.e.b. 17:07, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

(reply to "Could you help me locate the admin who deleted my article so i can e mail him to put it back on my user page?")

If you go to an AfD page (such as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Piotr Blass) it lists the admin who closed the discussion near the top. But my guess is that you could ask any admin to recover the old article. Some of the admins who work on math articles are user:Charles Matthews, user:Michael Hardy, user:Oleg Alexandrov, user:Lethe user:Jitse Niesen. I suggest asking Jitse Niesen (he voted to keep the article, so he certainly wont mind it as a user page). R.e.b. 17:58, 4 September 2006 (UTC) -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by Piotr Blass (talk • contribs)

Userfied as requested. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 09:24, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Jitse's bot

Hi Jitse, Nothing urgent; I just wanted to let you know to let you know, in case you did not already, that the bot has not been editing for the past two days. Enjoy your travels. ×Meegs 09:52, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Corrective action against User:Emir Arven for breaking 3RR and Personal attack

Hi, Emir Arven has broken the 3RR (see below) and become quite aggressive in tone (see Personal attack below) and I think some type of corrective action is necessary. I realize blocks and other actions are not meant to be punitive, but in this case I feel that some kind of corrective action is necessary to get this editor to adjust his behavior.

3RR (Naser Oric article):

Personal attack (Srebrenica massacre article Talk):

  • "Serb nationalists: (let's call them the right names, because they are trying to deny genocide proven by international tribunal) KOCOBO, Osli73, Srbijanković, Svetislav Jovanović, and Bormalagurski, are doing what they know the best. Continuing the genocide." [5]

Regards Osli73 21:59, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

You are wrong my friend. As anyone can see the first and the second as well as the third edit were not the same. I put new information, because you are the one who keeps deleting sourced parts. So I ask admin to block you, for nationalistic actions, removing international sources (ICTY judgement) in order to minimize genocide commited by Serbs in Srebrenica. Obviously you are afraid to talk about the truth so you are going around to report me for 3RR, which I btw did not break. Also I would like admins to see the whole discussion here: [6]. Regards. --Emir Arven 22:08, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Email

I hope your travels are safe. FYI, I've sent you an email. JoshuaZ 15:43, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm leaving for awhile in protest over recent events

Hi Jitse, I've been upset by some recent events, and I've decided to leave for a while in protest. Please share any thoughts you might have on my talk page. Paul August ☎ 17:59, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Eigenvalue, eigenvector and eigenspace

Hi there. You commented extensively on this page here during its review period. It's at decision time regarding whether its FA status should be removed. If you'd like to post a comment on its present condition, please do so soon. Cheers, Marskell 19:00, 17 September 2006 (UTC)