User talk:Oleg Alexandrov/Archive8

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[edit] Helpme

I am just testing how long it will take for the help to arrive from Wikipedia:Bootcamp. So, dear bootcamper, please leave me a message if you visit over (and sign it, so that I have a date stamp). Let us hope that the service advertised in {{welcome}} actually works. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:29, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi Oleg. I'm replying to the helpme. Some stats are now at User:Helpmebot/stats--Commander Keane 03:31, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
Great, thanks! Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:39, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your edits at derivative

Hi. I left a message at talk:derivative. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:53, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

How about making the variables italic, at derivative, that is,
''x'' or <math>x</math>
instead of plain x? And it would be good if you use edit summaries, they are helpful for other pople.
I strongly disagree with putting the main formulas and the full rigurous mathematical definition on top of an article. If you hang more around this place, you will understand why. People complain that math is hard, that mathematicians write only for themselves, that is, their articles are incomprihensible and scare away people who would like to learn. See also Wikipedia:Make technical articles accessible. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:47, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I think the full rigorous definition is still compatible with newbies to the subject. Must they read from top to bottom? I don't know about anyone else, but when I go here, I search for what I want on the page - never reading most of the article (unless i'm interested of course). Also, I skip parts that I don't understand and see if later parts will clarify. For example, when an equation is put up, its customary to put the definitions of the variables underneath not above (usually). On the derivative page, the first thing after the definition is simple simple explanation of the derivative. Some simplicity could be added to the top too. But it seems counter intuitive to have the consolidated main definition to be obscured by explanations and introductions. Fresheneesz 04:41, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Find the edit summary usage of an editor at the English Wikipedia.

Is there any way to do this on other language wikipedias to? /Grön 09:49, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

It should be, but I never attempted to make a script working on other language Wikipedias. To be honest, I don't know if it would be worth the effort, but I will try to think about it for a week. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:39, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
Okej, thanks anyway, it would just be fun to konw. /Grön 11:51, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
I will work on this tonight; I had forgotten this week. Gosh, you are making me feel guilty in here. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:58, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Implementing the edit summary usage at other Wikipedias would require big changes in my code, as well as knowing how to call all the namespaces (Wikipedia, Image, Talk, Category, User, etc) in all the languages. That would require a substantial amount of work and maintanance. In all honesty, I don't think my script is so important to the welfare of Wikipedia to be worth extending it. However, if somebody wants to use my code to extend it to other wiki languages, the code is available and in the public domain, at http://www.math.ucla.edu/~aoleg/wp/rfa/ . Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:28, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Now it works for all languages (hopefully). I modified the code to parse exclusively based on html tags, which are obviously the same in all languages as all language Wikipedias use the same software to generate html. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:25, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I saw your request at m:Toolserver, so I have just tested it for nl.wikipedia, but I have stopped it after many pages of only:

Fetching http://nl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=JePe&offset=0&limit=500 ... Done!
sleeping for 5 seconds to give the server a break...
Fetching http://nl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=JePe&offset=0&limit=500 ... Done!
sleeping for 5 seconds to give the server a break...
Fetching http://nl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=JePe&offset=0&limit=500 ... Done!
sleeping for 5 seconds to give the server a break...

Maybe there is something going wrong because it was continualy fetching the first contributions page without going to the next page. JePe 08:09, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Of course something was wrong. :) I did not realize things are different at other wikipedias. Should work now. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:39, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What's up with this?

Hi Oleg. Who is this guy and why is he updating PlanetMath Exchange stats? Paul August ☎

That's my bot, running anonymously. Both yesterday and today Wikipedia has been experiecing problems with being able to stay logged in (was reported at the village pump also). So my bot tries to log in, but the system logs it out shortly afterwards, and the same thing happenned to me countlessly today. Hopefully the Wikipedia servers gets fixed, and this problem will disappear. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:58, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok. But this last edit seems odd, with the totals declining. Paul August ☎ 01:45, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I guess again the server misbehaved. I believe my tool did not fetch all the pages, maybe the server refused to give it what it asked for. I restarted the bot, by clicking on the link, and that fixed it. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:13, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup note

Hi. Thank you for doing clean up in articles. However, I would like to note that doing an edit for the sake of putting categories on separate lines, like here is, I believe, not that urgent. It also obscures one's watchlist, which causes more work when tracking articles. I would suggest that the AWB framework be used only for more substantial edits, and that the edit summary used be more relevant, indicating the specific task done in the given article. Wonder what you think, you can reply here. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:44, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I would prefer to reply here, if that's ok with you. About AWB then... I don't know if you use/have ever used AWB before, but changing the edit summary for each individual edit takes a long time and is very tedious. When you select to cleanup a certain category of articles, you don't know exactly what you're going to be cleaning up for every individual article. AWB is, amongst other things, designed to "perfect" articles, making sure that the Manual of Style is followed closely. So, if two category's are included on the same line, AWB is designed to correct this in accordance with the Manual of Style, as far as I am aware. If you want to ask about this more in general, or to ask why AWB is designed to correct minor edits like that, then I suggest you leave a message on the talk page of here, so the developer(s) of the browser will be able to answer your query, and much better than I just did. Thanks! — FireFox ♥ T ♥ 20:01, 14 February 2006

I tried to say that it is not worth the trouble modifying articles for edits like inserting a newline between categories, which has no effect on the page layout. That is to say, if you do decide to use AWB on a given article, I think it should be if you saw a typo, or wanted to fix a missspelling; meaning something which will make a difference in how the article looks like, and then it is fine if it fixes other things along the way. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:11, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I will comment at Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:13, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Typesetting Orientability article

Thanks for your input on this article, Oleg. To be honest, I had intended returning to the article today to tidy up the typesetting.

With the change to a plain bold "R" for reals, I thought it was a good idea to change the reflection function to "r" for clarity. A previous editor had introduced the special font \mathbb{R}^3, which was what I was brought up on, but I am happy with the simpler R3.

Much more importantly, it occurred to me that the "letter R" definition of orientability was fundamentally flawed, as although this would be valid in Courier, it is not valid in Arial, as in this font, "R" may be topologically deformed in the plane to its mirror image. A careful look identified the symbol "đ" which is fancy enough to not be deformable into its mirror image. Elroch 11:11, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi Elroch. I don't know that much about orientability. I would think though that the letter R in courier would be nicer to have than "đ". See how I managed to make that font below
R (arial)
R (courier)
Wonder what you think. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:02, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I replaced the letters in the article, then suddenly realised that n fact neither "đ" nor R (courier) are strictly suitable for the purpose. Both are topological a circle with some things attached at different points, but topology allows one to change either into its mirror image in the plane (to be suitable, a circle would have to have 3 different things attached). After a bit of browbeating I came up with the idea of using Image:Small_pie.PNG. I hope this serves the required purpose. Elroch 18:26, 15 February 2006 (UTC) -- Oleg: got your msg on my usertalk page, thank you v. much and thanks for the links Hmackiernan 21:54, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your vote

Like last time, I as surprised by both your vote and the reasons you provided. I would be interested in an explanation, which of course you are in no obligation to provide and feel free not to respond. If you remember, the whole previous RfA was a sham and failed purely because of trolls and sockpuppets. Take a look if you don't remember the details.

Like the last time, even though I request some details from you about your vote, I will not contact you again with any more pressure following this message. I just want to try to understand the reasons and prompt you to giving it a second thought. Sorry for bothering you and thank you in advance, --Irpen 01:10, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

So, we are talking about Alex's admin nomination. I voted oppose last time because I felt very strongly about edit summaries (whether that surprises you or not).
This time I voted neutral, because I feel uneasy when people wait just a month to resubmit their adminship nomination. I admit my vote was more "process driven" rather than "case specifics" driven. But I stand by it, and I would have not voted "support" anyway, since I don't know Alex that well.
By the way, I don't agree with the statement "whole previous RfA was a sham and failed purely because of trolls and sockpuppets" you wrote above. Things were a bit more complex, and by looking at that previous nomination I see very strong passions on both the oppose and the support sides, which also makes me feel uneasy.
One more thing. Asking for "second thought" and all that is something I myself don't find very productive, and if I were you I would reconsider this strategy. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:48, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your answer. As for your condescending advise, thank you too. Sorry to have bothered you but I promise this was the last time. --Irpen 02:19, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

My advice was not condenscending. Bugging people to change their vote just because you were "surprised" by it, and providing no data/reasoning as to why I should consider changing my vote, is silly, and doesn't work either. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:08, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Please do not edit my comments at RfA even if by just changing their color. I am a reasonable and well established here editor with some reputation, sufficient to expect my comments at RfA not edited, changed or moved, like those of a sock.

As for your previous message here, please take my non-responding to your rather impolite advise as a response. You don't have to respond to this request in any way either. Thank you. --Irpen 17:11, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Listen, Irpen. Looking at your contributions to Alex's nomination and its talk page, you are making just as much circus there as Bonaparte. Relax a bit; Alex is bound to pass, based on the votes. No need to make matters worse by making the whole thing look like a fight between the just and the wicked. Keep your cool, take it easy, and all will be fine. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:16, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


I am sorry that I have to come back here, but perhaps I was not clear enough to be understood as the first thing you did was to repeat the thing I thought I clearly asked you not to do. I want to make sure that it is totally clear to you that I expect my comments left as I put them. Please moderate contributions of known problem users and leave mine alone, unless you have to raise some edit dispute in the future. That said, I am to restore my comments as they were. You really misunderstood me judging from your "relax, take is easy" thing. I am absolutely not mad about this. I am acting responsibly and all I ask you is a reciprocity. If you absolutely feel like you have to somehow "act again", either by responding, or again editing my own entries, my I suggest that you give it another thought and not act hastily. Thank you in advance, --Irpen 18:03, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Irpen, with all respect, the issue is that you are behaving like a problem user. Your shouting does not help at all, on the contrary, it just serves to frustrate people. All you need to do is to add a line like "Jtkiefer blocked Yodo permanently as a sockpuppet of Bonaparte, who was banned by the ArbCom." People will notice this just as well. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 18:43, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Value (mathematics)

Of course the article is not helpful! it's a stub. It needs expanding, not redirecting. If you have some knowledge in this field, please expand the article. Redirecting to "value" just takes you back to the disambiguation page. -- Dullfig 03:54, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

OK, I will redirect it to function (mathematics). I don't know if anything can be said about that concept. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:09, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Oleg: functions are not the only thing with value in mathematics. Variables have a value also. Numbers also (numbers are a representation of a quantity, a value). So I still think the original article just needed expanding. --unsigned by Dullfig

Good point. I will try to think on whether one could write an article about values in mathematics. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:14, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I wrote, "Function (mathematics)|Functions]] map a set of values to aother set of values. A variable such as x, y, or z has a value. A value is not a quantity." Timothy Clemans

[edit] Award

Oleg Alexandrov is awarded the Barnstar of Diligence for really useful Mathbot. --Latinus (talk (el:)) 22:57, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Oleg Alexandrov is awarded the Barnstar of Diligence for really useful Mathbot. --Latinus (talk (el:)) 22:57, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

It's not fair. I do all the work and that bag of water gets the barnstar. I am going on strike and I will not update the lists at Talk:List of numerical analysis topics before Oleg gives me some more attention. Puh! -- Mathbot

(Translation: If I go to http://www.math.ucla.edu/~aoleg/wp/lists/lists.pl.cgi?Talk:List_of_numerical_analysis_topics , I get "Error! No articles in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Numerical_analysis !!!" and similar errors for the other categories. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 20:14, 18 February 2006 (UTC))

Hi Jitse. You got it right, my bot wants the award instead of me.  :)
The reason the bot was misbehaving is because the developers again changed the wording in categories, replacing "Articles in this category" with "Pages in this category". Fixed now.
Thanks a lot for the pointer; I use the same software to keep the list of mathematics articles and the mathematicians up to date, so it is good to know it was broken. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 20:36, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Ouch, it would be a disaster if the list of mathematics articles weren't updated for one day, wouldn't it :) By the way, the developers are not to blame this time, explanation. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 21:08, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the award. My bot had me put it on his page, says it is he who does the work (per Jitse, above). :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:31, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bot hacking

By the way, whenever you want to do some more hacking but do not know what to do, I think it might be useful to extend your bot so that it also lists articles that are on List of numerical analysis topics but not in one of the categories mentioned in Talk:List of numerical analysis topics#C: Categories to be searched; a bit the mirror image of what the bot is doing now. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 22:44, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Will do, hopefully tomorrow. That may suggest articles which are in the list and which shouldn't. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:25, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of solution strategies for differential equations

Hi again Oleg, we keep finding ourselves on the same articles. If I still lived in LA, I'd say we should meet up in person. :-)

Regarding List of solution strategies for differential equations, I wrote it with the intention of having a place to go to answer the question "how do I solve this DE?". As such, I like the idea of having the short version of the method along with the list. Examples of differential equations didn't seem as focused to me as the list I am trying to compile. Depending on the real goal for the examples page, it may or may not want to get merged with my list, but right now I think they are serving different purposes. ―BenFrantzDale 03:03, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Good. :) Thanks for the clarification. Have fun working on that. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:20, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot and RfA

I've made a comment about Mathbot's leaving statistics on RfA's at Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship#Mathbot. As I believe this concerns or would be of interest to you, I'm inviting you to participate in discussion. Thanks. Rob Church (talk) 18:59, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I saw your comment. I prefer to stay out though; but if there are a few other voices who want the bot stopped, I will stop it. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:06, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comparing lists and categories

I'd love to be able to compare the contents of the list of "Good Articles" at WP:GA with the contents of Category:Wikipedia good articles, so that the list can be kept up to date. I've heard that you possess some magical way of comparing lists and categories (well, technological I suppose, but in truth there is little difference for ordinary mortals like me!). Would you be able to give me any advice on how I could go about it? Many thanks, TheGrappler 23:24, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi. For now my script lists articles missing from a list, but present in categories, and not the other way around. So it can't say which articles are in the list but is not in the category (working on that :) Anyway, I put a link to my bot at the talk page of WP:GA, and let us see how it works. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:45, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Many thanks!TheGrappler 01:54, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
The bot has a problem though, it lists seems to list all of the articles as missing from the list. (Not quite all, in fact, but I can't discern a pattern in the few that it correctly doesn't list!) Do you have any idea what the problem could be? Is it the unconvential list format in WP:GA?
The problem was that Wikipedia:Good_articles had a bunch of articles in a subpage, Wikipedia:Good_articles/History_articles, which was transcluded. I taught my bot to look for subpages too, of the form "Wikipedia:Good articles/blah blah". So I think it works now. Other bug reports welcome. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:07, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
Excellent job! Getting there, but it's still not picking up the "Rail transport" articles. It looks like this is the only bunch it's still completely missing. TheGrappler 03:37, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Those are on their own subpage again, Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/Good articles. I could of course deal with it, but I'd rather ask you guys to move to Wikipedia:Good articles/Trains or similar, first. I think it is a good idea that subpages are all under Wikipedia:Good articles rather than all over the place. :) Wonder what you think. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:45, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't put the pages there, hadn't realised that there was such a mess! I will try to get it cleared up, now I know what the problem is, there's no point making extra work for you :-) Very many thanks for your assistance! I'll try to get the subpage thing sorted out myself. Sorry to bug you with one more request, but would it be possible to get a counter for the number of articles in the category, so that a running total can be kept more easily? Again, that would be really helpful, but if your bot can't handle it then don't worry about it, you've already made a really handy contribution! TheGrappler 03:52, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
Good! The counter for the articles in the categories will require more work. I will do it one of these days. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:13, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] mathbot request

I've recently been doing some editing on Category talk:Featured desktop backgrounds and realized that a bot would do a much better job of adding images to this page. The page explains what it's looking for but for brief summary, all featured pictures that are above a certain size should be added to this category. This is currently done manually which is very inefficient and incomplete. I would think a bot could do this relatively easily. Let me know what you think. Vicarious 04:42, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I can surely do that. I have at least four other things in the pipeline for now, so I can't do it these days, but I promise to work on this by the next Sunday evening. By the way, what's the minimum size you decided on? I see on that page talk of 800x600 and 1024x768. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:49, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
  • I don't want to claim concensus when their is none but my idea was two seperate categories (one of which does not exist yet). The one that currently exists has and will have a minimum of 800X600, the new one will have a minimum of 1024X768 but looser aspect ratio restrictions. If you only feel like doing one, do the first. Also, I'm not familiar with web programming languages but I'm good with C and I've heard java is similar. If you let me know what variables to use (or to pick my own) I can make some boolean statements for you in C which should be easy enough to modify. Vicarious 17:36, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
I wonder if you could outline these proposals in detail at Category talk:Featured desktop backgrounds and see what people say. Just to make sure that what you want my bot to do reflects to some extent what other people there also think needs to be done. :) Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 18:01, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
It's been a week and no one has said anything yet, so just go with what you feel like, anything is better than what it is now. I'd suggest just doing option 2, 1024x768 minimum with standard ratio. Also, please keep in mind this is only for featured images, not all images. Vicarious 02:18, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, I'm on dial up so I'll not be checking all of what you did but looks good. I appriciate it. Vicarious 07:53, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your comment about mathbot

Hi. Thanks for your input at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship#Mathbot. Just a quick remark: the edit summary usage my bot gives does not count the talk pages, Wikipedia and user namespaces. It also counts separately major and minor edits, as the former should indeed be summarized more often than the latter.

Just thought I would let you know. :) By the way, I noticed my bot bugged you a few days ago about using edit summaries yourself, might be a good habit, you know. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:24, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

(PS You can reply here if you have comments, I will keep your talk page on my watchlist. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:24, 20 February 2006 (UTC))

Probably should... but when I'm on a run, I don't like to slow down for edit summaries :) thanks for the info about Mathbot though, didn't realise. - Ta bu shi da yu 06:54, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes, you are on the run just fine. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:24, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Enhancement request

Here's an enhancement request, as a result of this thread: Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship#Mathbot... can you get it to count more stuff and report it in subtotals? Thanks for considering it. I watch threads I start, so you can reply here. ++Lar: t/c 20:08, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I think that such extra data should then not be in the RfA itself, rather linked to, as Interiot's tool, because already the way things are now some people are saying that there is too much reliance on numbers.
That in turn would require me having the bot talk to the database directly rather than the way things are now, via an HTTP request, which is way too slow for interacive use. I will take your suggestion into consideration, but I don't promise I will do it soon, it would require setting up an account at tools.wikimedia.de, learning how to use databases, and a rewrite of my code.
Another option is to talk to Interiot to integrate my script into his edit count tool. I will think about it, thanks for the suggestions. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 20:19, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for listening. (and no rush) Integrating this summary functionality into Interiot's tool may indeed be the best approach. I am fine with a click through to get to the data, it's having to run the whole thing by hand I wasn't so keen on. Happy hacking! ++Lar: t/c 05:21, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] hip hop lists

Completed most of the manual categorization on the stuff remaining. However, please check out the talk page for something I would like your bot to do so that I can complete the manual categorization. Thanks!--Urthogie 16:29, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] wp:dfa digression

Not wanting to derail discussion elsewhere...

Immediately coming to mind are User:Splash, User:Tony Sidaway, and User:MarkSweep. Calling names is a poor way of making a point. Please abstain from that in the future. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:25, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
No. I wasn't calling names, or making a WP:POINT, I was WP:CITEing areas where problems have been seen. Nobody would argue that there hasn't been some controversy around those users *. Additionally, nobody complained about mentioning FSF. If mentioning your name becomes a personal attack or calling names, we have a serious problem. Relax. You're being overly sensitive. ... aa:talk 18:08, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] For all symbols

Thanks for the edit over on Ideal (ring theory). You're right about the symbols, and I appreciate the criticism! Keep up the good work! I'm trying to make some of these pages more legible and organized... some of the math pages are a bit daunting, even for those of us who already know what the page says. - grubber 04:33, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

You are welcome. I don't really see a criticism, but I guess you mean the positive kind. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:36, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm, I actually think mixed tex/png with html looks terrible, and therefore cannot agree with Oleg's reversion. It should either be moved to all tex (as grubber's edit) or all html. -lethe talk + 05:16, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
I put some TeX back. However, I don't like to see \forall in there. Even in math papers people prefer to use words in a lot of cases, and only inveterate math logicians would go about
\forall x \exists y \left [x\in I \and y\in J \to x+y\in I\times J \right]
(to exaggerate a bit :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:21, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm, that's a really weird formula. I actually think only wackos might use it... :) --CSTAR 05:24, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
Gosh, that was a good one. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:47, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
Haha. - grubber 14:31, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] My user page

Seems that I can't keep my own user page in good shape - [1]:-) Pathetic :-D Thanks AdamSmithee 07:58, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] John Baez conflict of interest

As your are a mathematically inclined admin, you may know that John Baez, the famous mathematical physicist has an account at User:John Baez. He has been adding some of his material -lecture notes, publications, etc, in the references sections of some maths articles. Does this present any conflict of interest problems wrt spamming?? Regards, Blnguyen | Have your say!!! 00:00, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Butting in, making a general nuisance of myself: It seems that the links are to published and relevant articles. I certainly have no problem with this.--CSTAR 00:12, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
Some of the concept articles, eg Bohr radius and Planck length have external links to his webpage and their informal speels. I didn't mean the links on his biography John Baez.Blnguyen | Have your say!!! 00:18, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
I still don't see that this is a problem. These are links in an external links section. Why is this any worse than Afshar putting links in the Afshar experiment article?--CSTAR 00:31, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure, but self-promotion isn't looked well upon is it? I know of a couple of people who have linked articles to their poltical blogs, and these were removed. I know in this case, it isn't a political opinion blog, but some people may think it is spamming.Regards,Blnguyen | Have your say!!! 00:36, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
I really don't think this qualifies as self-promotion. I don't want to seem flippant or careless, but I think self-promotion is easily recognizable. Moreover, I myself have put in links to Baez pages.--CSTAR 00:46, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
As a mathematically inclined admin myself, perhaps even a mathematical admin, my opinion is that there is indeed a conflict of interest, but not a problem. The links mentioned are definitely relevant and specific to the article, and it's not like these articles have a huge list of links. In my experience, John Baez has been a good Wikipedian, and I never saw him insert an improper link (though I must admit that he is on the border of my area of interest).
Oleg, ne scuzi, but surely you do not believe in the myth that this is your talk page. :) -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 01:00, 23 February 2006 (UTC) (via edit conflict)
If I may but in also, I think I agree with C* and Jitse. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:02, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Rollback

I have userfied this template per your request on Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 February 15 to User:Oleg Alexandrov/Template:Rollback. Apologies if you have already done this; you can just delete this version. -Splashtalk 01:18, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi Splash. Thanks a lot, that's exactly what I wanted. Sorry for the extra work I had you do; from now on I will keep all my templates in userspace. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:00, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] gonna make this easier for you

How about I go through those categories manually, so you can just do the regular list maintenance?--Urthogie 17:11, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I am procrastinating, I know, sorry. I did some work the day before yesterday on list of alternative hip hop musicians, but little. I will follow your plan at talk:list of hip hop musicians, but not today, hopefully tomorrow or Saturday. Yes, I know we are slow, but if you think about it, a lot of work has been done in the last month. So, we'll get there. :) Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 18:22, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] re: cauchy sequences

In reply to your post to my page regarding my Cauchy sequence edit, first, thank you for the post and letting me know about the "edit comments" things. However, regarding the subject, I still feel it correct.

The definition of a Cauchy sequence involving the absolute values doesn't just apply to real numbers; it also applies to rational numbers and integers. It implies to any Cauchy set. It is also the definition given in any introductory Real Analysis textbook. While it certainly may not belong under any "metrix spaces" section, I still feel that it is the fundamental definition of a Cauchy sequence, and one that people are likely to look for. It merely puts the statement I edited into some more mathematical and intuitive language.

Still, I won't edit it back without discussing it with you first, first and foremost since I'm so new to this whole "wikipedia" thing.

Thanks! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hodge Star (talk • contribs) .

Yeah, that's what I said, it was not in the right section. Will work on it now. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:06, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks for your voting!

Thanks!

Hi, thanks for your voting on my RFA. It has finished with the result 88/14/9, and I am promoted. I am really overwhelmed with the amount of support I have got. With some of you we have edited many articles as a team, with some I had bitter arguments in the past, some of you I consider to be living legends of Wikipedia and some nicks I in my ignorance never heard before. I love you all and I am really grateful to you.

If you feel I can help you or Wikipedia as a human, as an editor or with my newly acquired cleaning tools, then just ask and I will be happy to assist. If you will feel that I do not live up to your expectation and renegade on my promises, please contact me. Maybe it was not a malice but just ignorance or a short temper. Thank you very much, once more! abakharev 07:34, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Tony Sidaway/Workshop

I have just done a massive refactoring of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Tony Sidaway/Workshop, in order to

  • remove personal attacks, irrelevant comments, and bickering
  • make the page readable and usable for the arbcom, as at its previous size of 183KB, it was not.

As your words appear on that page, I'm letting you know so that you may review the changes. I have tried not to let any bias or POV I may have color my summaries; however, it's a wiki, so if you think I've misrepresented your words, please fix them. Wearily yours, Mindspillage (spill yours?) 08:16, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot minor detail

Oleg, I've just a minor suggested tweak to the text your Mathbot uses to deliver its "please use edit summaries" message (example here). The users that chronically underuse edit summaries are probably unaware of Wikipedia policy and might not know what a bot IS - you might want to link bot in the opening line to something that explains what a bot is. Just an idea, -- stillnotelf has a talk page 21:59, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, that's a good idea indeed. I will link to Wikipedia:Bots in my bot. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:01, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
I just saw a new "edit summary" piece by Mathbot here and immediately saw the change :) -- stillnotelf has a talk page 21:41, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I just ran across a user who had been advised about edit summaries by your bot. Cute! This is a useful thing. William M. Connolley 22:07, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. :) It is my hope that asking people for edit summaries will be useful, without being overly intrusive. We'll see how it goes. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:29, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] remaining steps in hip hop lists

I went through and manually categorized. I plotted out the remaining steps before we're done atTalk:List_of_hip_hop_musicians#split.28continued_further.29. Peace, --Urthogie 15:30, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] UM HI

Linas is a known vandaliser. i am doing my wikiduty. --IRevLinas 01:35, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Heh, I guess that applies rather to you. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:44, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot edit summary

Just a small typo: Mathbot spells "Wallpaper" as "Walpaper". And a question: Is there also a widescreen desktop background category? Kusma (討論) 04:45, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Will fix!
I don't know about the widescreen desktop background, you may try asking at Category talk:Featured desktop backgrounds, I am just doing what they asked me. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:49, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Elgorithms

I noticed that your spelling bot changed "Elgorithms" to "Algorithms" on the MD5 page. Elgorithms is a name of the company who produces an MD5 generator for the Windows operating system, and should not be changed to algorithms. If you could add this exception to your spelling bot, I would apreciate it! -- 68.167.72.243 18:50, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Will keep that in mind! Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:12, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Intensions

I'm afraid the use of intensions in Relation (mathematics) was intentional, although I may not agree with it. I changed it back, but I don't know what the chances of mathbot seeing it again. -- Arthur Rubin | (talk) 17:54, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Will pay more attention! Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:27, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] edit summaries

Is there a way that I can view my own edit summary % through mathbot? Or do I have to file a RfA for that? I'm curious to know what my % of edit summary usage is.⇒ SWATJester Ready Aim Fire! 02:18, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

See here. There is a link to it from my bot's page also. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:27, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

What means percentages of major and minor edits? I think that major + minor = 100 % Is that right? I tried it with finnish Wikipedia and got 64% + 99% = 163%. I know, that it is only test version. Thank you anyway. --Ilkant 15:00, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

It means major edits out of 100% and minor edits out of 100%. So ideally you would get 100% for both, so you don't add them up. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:42, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] printing to browser

Hi there... this is maybe a awkward question since it has nothing to do with Wikipedia, but I recently started writting bots and I really liked the way mathbot writes out information while processing edit summaries... so could you tell me how do you do that? How do you get the browser to display info before the script is actually done executing? --Dijxtra 09:51, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, so you mean this web form. Well, it prints out as it runs along, I don't do anything special, I just use the Perl's "print" command. Here's a rough pseudo code:
while (looking at of your contributions){
  print "getting the next url...\n";
  get($url);
  print "Done\n";
  parse_data($url);
}
See an example of a simple web form at http://cgi-lib.berkeley.edu/. I used that one to make my script work. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:18, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] My talk page

Your bot just blanked my talk page. Kingjeff 16:06, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think so [2]. Maybe it was some unrelated server event, rather. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:09, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Who knew

Hey Oleg have you seen this. Number seven! Paul August ☎ 23:43, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, the explanation for that list is at User:Gmaxwell#User_talk_page_edits. That just shows up what a talkative obnoxious guy I am. Gosh, with a bit more of luck I could have even beaten Mistress Selina Kyle. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:08, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Decimal representation

I really think it's notable to refer to Yokogawa's proof there. I don't know anyone else who explicitly stated that way and proved it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by WAREL (talk • contribs) .

As I told you before, the fact that any real number either has a unique representation not ending in 9's, or it has a unique representation not ending in zeros (for 1 they are 1.00000... and 0.999....) is an elementary enough fact (I proved it to you in a paragraph) that it is not notable enough to write about who gave a proof to it. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:28, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Who else had actually proved it?WAREL 03:32, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I proved it on your talk page. (Pardon, on the talk page of your sockpuppet, User talk:DYLAN LENNON.) I could have proved it when I was in 9th grade in high school. Let me answer your question with a question: who proved that the addition of real numbers is commutative? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:34, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't know, but someone must did it. The recognition that "every real number except has....." is relatively new when you think of the History of Math.WAREL 03:40, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

The burden is on you to prove that the fact that "every number has a unique representation" is new, which I doubt, and to prove that the person in question was the first mathematician to give a simple elementary proof of the fact. References please. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:51, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Before Cantor,no one exactly knew what real number was. It's at least after Cantor that someone obtained that theorem.I don't know exactly who it was that first obtained the theorem after Cantor. But I know Yokogawa has proved it. It's just that it's written in Japanese. WAREL 04:10, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

You don't know, then you don't write about it. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:13, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm saying I know Yokogawa proved,then why wrong to write about it?WAREL 04:24, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

It is a trivial fact, which I am sure was proved by plenty of people before that person. That fact is not notable, and you don't have references that Yokogawa was the first to prove it, so then you don't include that in the article. Why is that so hard to understand? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:55, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Give me one person beside yourself that proved that fact.If you know no one,then surely Yokogawa should be there. Because the theorem must have not come from itself. WAREL 05:08, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Tim Gowers has, see this page. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 11:44, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes,he's really close to there but he hasn't explicitly stated it and proved. WAREL 01:36, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Because it is a trivial thing to state or prove, that's why. We talked plenty about this, didn't we? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:39, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
Indeed, you need the result that every real has a unique representation as a decimal fraction in order to identify reals with decimal fractions, as Tim Gowers does.
Why don't you (Dylan / Warel) tell us precisely what Yokogawa proved. What definition of the reals did he use? And, precisely where is the proof, and when was it published? It's hard to show that someone else proved it if I don't know what to look for. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 01:49, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Well,first of all, it's really the statement that is what important. I will think about translating it sometime if you let Yokogawa's name in that article.WAREL 02:08, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

You better first cleanup Koji Yokogawa's article, as asked twice on your talk page. Then we may see. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:12, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What does Mathbot consider as an edit summary?

Hi, I have a small question about what Mathbot considers an edit summary.

Does it consider the default /* Section title */ edit summary, supplied when a user edits a section, as an edit summary, even if the user does not type anything else into the "Edit summary" box?

Thanks. — Kimchi.sg | Talk 07:55, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

No, that is not considered an edit summary. That just shows which section is edited, which is fine enough if you edit a talk page, but it does not show what you actually changed and why. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 08:42, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cheers dude

I always forget that box, and I hate it when others leave it blank! Thanks for the reminder :) --Dan|(talk) 14:12, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edit summary tool

Hi, I think your tool may get a decent speedup if you simply add &namespace=0 to the url you are fetching, this will limit the scope to article namespace and works on all wikies (it seems so)–Gnomz007(?) 21:25, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! I knew that, but it never came to my mind to actually use it. I put that in, as well as reduced the sleeping time between fetching stuff to 2 seconds from 5 seconds, and now it is indeed much faster. Good tip! Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:34, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you

This edit summary made my day. :) -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 01:54, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Heh, you are confusing my bot, so that I have to patch it, and you are also happy about it? If you were really there, as you said you would, the bot would have told you a couple of honest words. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:00, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] done with list of hip hop musicians

Check it out, its now a disambiguation page to the other lists. Once the remaining steps are done, it'd be cool if you could attach the listbot to the lists that are associated with categories. After each list is attached to that, I suppose its time to nominate this at Wikipedia:Featured lists!--Urthogie 16:56, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] {{LaTeX}}

Quick question: should a page use a combination of LaTeX and HTML formatting, or should its use be consistent throughout an entire article? I have tagged sections with {{LaTeX}} when the section in question deviated from the precendent set by the rest of the article. Thank you for your continued patience and assistance. Isopropyl 23:45, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't quite know, and for myself I would be fine with a mix. But if you find it stylistically ugly to have html mixed with LaTeX, then a better solution would be maybe to just convert the html to LaTeX right away, rather than put a "work needed" template on it and hoping that a kind soul would do it some time. There is a huge amount of articles needing serious work, as listed at Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Mathematics, and I think that labeling an article as needing work because of TeX/HTML inconsistency would be probably not good. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:57, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] In "Proof that the sum of the reciprocals of the primes diverges" article

I did write the fourth theorem.However, I'm not really sure if

\sum_{n=6}^\infty \frac{1}{ n \ln n + n \ln \ln n \quad}


really diveges. Can you show it for me? WAREL 03:36, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

\sum_{n=8}^\infty \frac{1}{ n \ln n + n \ln \ln n \quad}
= \sum_{k=3}^\infty \sum_{n=2^k}^{2^{k+1}-1}\frac{1}{ n \ln n + n \ln \ln n \quad}
\ge \sum_{k=3}^\infty \sum_{n=2^k}^{2^{k+1}-1}\frac{1}{ 2^{k+1} \ln 2^{k+1} + 2^{k+1} \ln \ln 2^{k+1} \quad}
= \sum_{k=3}^\infty 2^{k}\frac{1}{ 2^{k+1} \ln 2^{k+1} + 2^{k+1} \ln \ln 2^{k+1} \quad}
= \frac{1}{2}\sum_{k=3}^\infty \frac{1}{ \ln 2^{k+1} + \ln \ln 2^{k+1} \quad}
= \frac{1}{2}\sum_{k=3}^\infty \frac{1}{ (k+1)\ln 2 + \ln [({k+1}) \ln 2]\quad}
= \infty

with the last equality being true by the comparison test, comparing with the harmonic series.

Did you clean the Koji Yokogawa as I asked you to? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:58, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

WOW! that's probably the most confusing formula I have ever seen. --69.232.218.27 04:59, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Can get worse, much, much, worse. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:01, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Clearly Oleg was showing off by only using elementary manipulations. :-) For anyone whose eyes are glazed over, I think this does the trick:

\sum_{n=6}^\infty \frac{1}{ n \ln n + n \ln \ln n \quad} \geq\int^{\infty}_{7}\frac{1}{2 x \ln x}=\left[\frac{1}{2}\ln\ln x\right]^{\infty}_{7}=\infty Elroch 18:48, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Links to unit convertor

>> Your links to unit converter were not appropriate
>> in most articles, like Metric space, as a metric
>> space is about something else. I removed all of
>> your links except in Temperature conversion formulas
>> and Astronomical units of length. Oleg Alexandrov


I'am wondering under what reason you've crashed most of my work.

Why you've removed the link to http://www.unitconversion.org/unit_converter/area-ex.html from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area for example

Dont you see that it is a perfect fit? I mean it is a 100% hit not even 99%

It is like a link to length converter from the 'Length' page.

Did you wrote this articles? looks like you are completely out of the topic of units and unit conversion Roland Barrat

I replaced the links from Area, where they were entirely in keeping with the viewpoint of the article. Elroch 12:53, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
OK, you were overzealos at putting them in, and I was overzealos at taking them out. Yeah, that one at area may have been good. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:35, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] logarithm

Hi. I am writing with a small request. I would like to ask you to use edit summaries explaining your changes a bit more often when you contribute. To be honest, when I saw this change, I thought it was trolling, and I almost reverted it. Some things which are obvious to you are not obvious to others, and a brief description of your change in the edit summary box can prevent confusion. :)

You can reply here if you have comments. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:36, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I was more concerned about the chemistry terminology. Hydrogen ion and hydronium are used somewhat interchangeably, but hydronium is in reality "more correct" in most circles, and description of neutral water was a bit misleading--from what it sounded to me, the hydronium ion concentration is always 10-7 in water, which is not in reality correct. Olin 12:48, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Paul Sally

Hi Oleg. I believe you are the right person to approach about this since I've observed your tact and skill at informing people of violations in policy and what good editing is. The article on Paul Sally is something of a mess. There is for example unsourced anecdotal info in the article. That might not be so bad, but there was a huge quotes section which was clearly not verifiable. I decided to be polite and tag them with citation needed tags, but another editor removed them even though I've notified him/her of WP:Verifiability. Anyway, the problem as I see it, is a number of editors have insisted on adding and modifying this unverifiable info, so I believe I may be outnumbered. Anyway, I've decided to be bold at last, and remove the quotes section. I would appreciate if you could keep an eye on that page. --C S (Talk) 16:35, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Basically, I have no qualms about bugging people, right? :) I agree with you that a lot of material from that article doesn't belong there and your cuts were good. I put it now on my watchlist, and will keep an eye on it. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:42, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
A pity; the quotations are fun. Fortunately, there is a place [3] for such things. --KSmrqT 17:10, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hey

Sorry about that correction on Multiple Integrals, I jumped the gun on the edit and forgot to comment my change, but thanks for the heads up.

Med- 18:24, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References

I've been told that Wikipedia articles should avoid bullet points (as unencyclopedic) and should contain references. I've been surprised how many of the mathematics articles do have bullet points and do not have references. Is this something that needs working on, do you think? Rick Norwood 23:57, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean by bullet points, but references are certainly needed. Lately I use google books for that, can be handy. Yes, that is definitely something which needs working on. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:25, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Oh, is that true about bullet points? I use them all the time in math articles. Does that make me a bad person? (Oleg, bullet points are what you get when you start a line with an asterisk.) -lethe talk + 19:20, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Lethe, you are:

  • A mathematician
  • An administrator
  • A bad person

I think I am bad too, I can't live without bullet points either. Who said they are wrong? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:20, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't remember. I wrote an article using bullet points many moons ago, and somebody who sounded like he knew what he was talking about said that Wikipedia frowns on bullet points because they are "unencyclopedic". I've been avoiding them ever since and, you know what, there are a lot of ways in which the paragraph form is nicer. It forces you to consider the relationship between the items, instead of just BAM BAM BAM listing them. Does anyone know if there is an official Wikipedia policy on bullet points -- or was that just one guy's opinion? Rick Norwood 14:27, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
I know bullets are evil, at least when emerging from cylindrical tubes at high speeds in the direction of human beings or other even inaminate objects, with the expectation that the resulting impact will have some disruptive effect on the molecular structure of the impacted object. Bullets are probably unencyclopedic in that respect, since they are usually used as an alternative to dialogue. But bullet points?--CSTAR 19:50, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't think that bullet points are necessarily evil. I think that the sort of thing objected to is what Edward Tufte calls the Cognitive Style of Powerpoint. I think that we can all agree here. Cutler 20:22, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Guanaco, MarkSweep, et al

Hello,

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Guanaco, MarkSweep, et al. Please add evidence to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Guanaco, MarkSweep, et al/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Guanaco, MarkSweep, et al/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Johnleemk | Talk 16:54, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Glitch

Had a keypad glitch. That should explain it all. Martial Law 23:15, 8 March 2006 (UTC) :)

I am a bit confused. Is that a response to my vote at your RfA? If so, I am not quite sure what you mean. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:14, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

My keypd fouled up when I accepted the Rfa. Martial Law 02:03, 9 March 2006 (UTC) :)

[edit] Re: Edit Descriptions

Thanks for the reminder on entering edit lines. I usuall do, but I think the comment was in reference to my edit on the Dirac delta function page. I was just fixing a LaTeX formating mistake I noticed, and did it so fast I fogrot to check minor edit or write anything. Sorry. Alex 04:33, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] My DFA

Thanks for the comments on my DFA. However I think it had went pretty stale before you commented and Aaron ended up taking it off the page and putting someone else's in, instead, shortly after you did. So yours may be the only comment it actually gets. I'm not averse to being a guinea pig again if it would be helpful though. ++Lar: t/c 06:49, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] plurisubharmonic

Hi, I revised the page and put the result on the discussion page, but I am not satisfied. I think I should wait some days for better ideas. Hottiger 20:11, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Good. I hope you come back to it, as the current article is, as you noticed, just a bare-bones definition. Thanks for working on that. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:00, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The prime number page

Please review my changes to the prime number page and correct any problems. Please respond back to me here. Timothy Clemans 21:19, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I made some minor changes in Tim's changes.
  1. This does not mean I've corrected all the problems I've found.
  2. I don't know why I'm watching Oleg's page
I hope you don't mind — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 22:20, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

You are watching my talk page because you are curious about things which are not of your business. :) At least, that's one of the greatest joys I get from Wikipedia myself, never missing to interject about something on somebody else's talk page when I have a chance. :)

I will look at the prime number page myself also later today. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:50, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I think the improvements fostered more improvements and that is a good thing. I thinking about getting it the quality of Wikipedia:Today's featured article/January 13, 2006, Game Theory Timothy Clemans 00:14, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I now finally looked at that page. There was a small bug on top. A prime number is not just a number with two factors, rather, a number with exactly two factors. I did a few more fixes. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:30, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

What do you think of the prime number page now after major edits and minor fixes, by many people including you and me? Timothy Clemans 22:01, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I took a quick look on the page and things look good. I did some small formatting fixes. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:45, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
I see the edits, good job. I'm still working on it. Timothy Clemans

[edit] GMRES

Hi Jitse. Thanks a lot for the new GMRES article! Yes, it was exactly you I had in mind when I put the request at the Wikipedia:Requested articles/Mathematics, but I did not think that it will work out so soon. Awesome! Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:50, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

It was nice to write an article instead of maintenance; I can't remember when I last did that. Unfortunately, GMRES is based on Arnoldi iteration, and the latter article does not explain what this is. So it's not finished yet. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 23:26, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Well, I heard it somewhere on Wikipedia that the award for one well-done job is three more jobs. :) It would be really nice to have an article on preconditioner (with preconditioning redirecting to it). One day when you have nothing to do. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:35, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Answer

I shot out an answer to your question. Let me know if you need anything else. Thanks for asking it and I hope to have your support.Gator (talk) 03:43, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer. I will abstain from voting on your rfa however, as I prefer to have some prior personal interactions with users before considering supporting them for admin. I hope you understand. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:04, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] get Wikipedia to use Math software tools

hi Oleg,

can you get math wikipedians to start to the Compass'n'Ruler program? it's a java program, GPL licensed. Very nice, in fact best in its class. It'll be a tremendous contribution if people started to use that as aids in articles. This would be in a similar vein as wiki starting to use some opensource multimedia types. Xah Lee 05:16, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I looked at what your site had to say about it, and a bit at program creator's website. Looks nice. It is rather hard though to convince people to change what programs they are using though. I for myself am a die-hard Matlab and Xfig user (with Inkscape more recently). The best advertisement for that program would be if you get to make some pictures to wikipedia articles yourself, and the people see what it is capable of. I advertize matlab that way, in my picture gallery. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:04, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


(almost missed your reply. A courtesy note on user's page would be good i think) The problem with MatLab on wikipedia is that it's not open source, and would never be on wikipedia. Though, Compass'n'Ruler (CR) is a very good candidate. I don't want to argue about it as like peddling or starting endless debate... i know it will be very good for wikipedia, and i thought you might be interested in starting to use it since you edit a lot. For example, it'd be great to have it in the projective geometry article, or any classic geometry articles such as the many theorems on triangles, quadrilaterals, etc. If you haven't tried to use such a program, i highly recommend it just for fun. I haven't done much math for many years, but for example used to use such interactive geometry to great learning and satisfication. For example: http://xahlee.org/projective_geometry/projective_geometry.html
and also, see these CR examples

http://xahlee.org/SpecialPlaneCurves_dir/BezierCurve_dir/bezierCurve.html http://xahlee.org/SpecialPlaneCurves_dir/CrossCurve_dir/crossCurve.html http://xahlee.org/SpecialPlaneCurves_dir/Piriform_dir/piriform.html

Xah Lee 12:08, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't care that much if a tool is open source or not. It matters more I think if the images produced by the tool are GFDL/public domain. I will consider looking at that program, however, when I decide to make some pictures, although heaven knows when that may happen. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:08, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

(btw, i don't me pressing on this but just discussion) I don't mean producing images with it. I meant to use the app to do math, creating a file with it, so that in a wiki article, peolpe can click on the link and it opens the javaapplet window where people can actually see the theorem and play with it. Anyway, that's my thoughts. Thanks for listening. Xah Lee 21:06, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Will try. :) You could experiment yourself, say by contributing to an article. :) Thanks. You are not pressing me at all, I was not aware of such a program and its capabilities in generating java applets. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:43, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

A problem could be that my default Firefox browser on Linux does not support java, that's why I think I did not even notice that those pictures are interactive. But again, will keep your suggestion in mind. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:44, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Uninterested

I'm not interested in your advice. Find an alternative and see if you can make it work. Don't criticize me for doing the best I can. Everyking 04:49, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] See my comments

on my talk page. --Haham hanuka 11:04, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Scientific peer review

You might be interested in WP:SPR, if you don't already know about it. Karol 19:29, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Helmholtz equation

I am moving this section to the Helmholtz equation discussion page.

[edit] Help on fourier series

Hey, I think the edits on fourier series are going in the right direction, but I find it very difficult to follow. And I don't have the experience to know whats good and whats not on this scale (where everything seems to be changing on the page). I would appreciate it if the page got your attention for a little bit. Fresheneesz 23:06, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, I hope to get there, but I don't know if today. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:21, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of mathematics articles

On all the subpages of your bot-updated List of mathematics articles, you try to provide links to talk pages using the following syntax:

[[PageName]] [[Talk:PageName| ]] --

Note that some browsers won't provide a link on a space character. Here on IE 6.0, for example, I don't have any way to follow such links; not only are they not visible, they're simply not there. I would recommend something similar to

[[PageName]] [[Talk:PageName|-]]-

or

[[PageName]] [[Talk:PageName|--]]

instead. - dcljr (talk) 19:59, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi. This format existed long before my bot started updating the pages, and is actually for a purpose. They allow one to see recent changes to both articles and their talk pages, without making visible links to talk pages which are not helpful. Click on some of the "recent changes" links from the list of mathematics articles and you will see what I mean. (So, right, the links are _not_ supposed to be there visually, but they are there to show the recent changes in the linked pages.) Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 20:07, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
Oh. Heh... Well, for future reference, either of the following versions do provide a link on a space:
[[PageName]][[Talk:PageName|&nbsp;]] --
[[PageName]][[Talk:PageName|&#160;]] --
Note that you can't use the actual nonbreaking-space character; you have to use one of the entities for it to work (in IE6, anyway). So... nevermind. - dcljr (talk) 20:21, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I guess I will keep things the way they are, unless there is a good reason to change. That page is not much visited anway, as it is too huge and undifferentiated to serve any useful browsing purpose. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:16, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] LaTeX rendered as HTML

I would like to propose a change to the monobook.css file, and I can't seem to get the attention of any of the other admins, despite raising this at the village pump. Including the line

span.texhtml { font-family: sans-serif; }

will cause LaTeX code rendered as HTML to be the same size as code that was written in HTML in the first place. It will make mathematics articles easier to read. What do you think? --mets501 22:34, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I will try it out tomorrow and see if it works. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:11, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks! I hope it works! —This unsigned comment is by mets501 (talk • contribs) .

Done. I think it is good if you keep MediaWiki:Common.css on your watchlist, to see if anybody objects. Yes, now the LaTeX-generated html looks the same size and font as true HTML, so I can't tell the difference between

x and x

which were generated with the codes

<math>x</math> and ''x''

Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:58, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks so much! --mets501 21:40, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Since there seem to be specialists about fonts around here : could you give me a hint on why Pi looks so ugly in my browser? It looks nice in the page title and "popup titles" of links, but sooo ugly ( as " TT " as someone said) in the body text of the page. — MFH:Talk 21:42, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

In my browser, ω (omega) looks ugly, but when I set it to italic, ω, it looks better. π looks rather good to me, and it is exactly the same in italic, π. So I don't know what to say. Try inserting the above

span.texhtml { font-family: sans-serif; }

in your User:MFH/monobook.css, do a hard reload (CTRL-SHFIT-R in Mozilla) and see if it is any better. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:04, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] good article

I would think that the article on mathematics might be worthy of nomination as a good article. What do you think? Rick Norwood

Yes, I think it would be a good idea. Go for it. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:58, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot

Hey Oleg. This diff - [4]. That crazy Mathbot overwrote my comment! Grr, stupid bot!  :@ Just kidding, I don't mind, but you probably ought to look into it. Proto||type 16:14, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

That was an edit conflict. I will patch my bot to fail rather than try again on the spot if edit conflicts happen, thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:18, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
I wrote that specific code with much more care now, so it will either try to merge its changes in, or fail, but not overwrite others. Hope it will work as expected. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:25, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] mathbot manual query feedback

Oleg, just to let you know, your tool for Mathbot at http://www.math.ucla.edu/~aoleg/wp/rfa/edit_summary.html is has some misspellings:

"Curtsey of mathbot. Feeback?" should read "Courtesy of Mathbot. Feedback?"

Not to be picky...I reached for the edit tab to fix it myself, but alas, it's not there :) GREAT job with the tool, BTW, now I can finally check to see if I'm keeping my summaries up like I should. Thanks! -- stillnotelf has a talk page 03:55, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Fixed the "feeback" thing, thanks! About mathbot being lowercase, that's on purpose, it is a silly bot, it does not deserve a capital letter, unless at the beginning of the sentence. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 08:15, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
You owe mathbot at least enough respect to say "Courtesy of..." instead of "Curtsey of...", don't you? -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 12:11, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
Fixed that one too, thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:15, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] one thing still remaining

I almost forgot. Will you be able to sort, ignoring 'The' at the beginning? Thanks, --Urthogie 18:19, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] My RFA

Thanks Oleg Alexandrov/Archive8
Thanks for your recent support on my RfA which passed 91/0/0. If you ever need anything, feel free to leave me a message! Gflores Talk 05:39, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] jensen's inequality

re: jensen's inequality -- no worries. whoever wrote the previous post had removed math formatting from the line. guess the period got lost in reformatting. --128.12.17.31

[edit] Requested page move

May I draw your attention to the requested move

on Wikipedia:Requested_moves#March_20.2C_2006? It may take a mathematician to see this is a justified move. LambiamTalk 22:01, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I left a note to the math community at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics about this. Let us see what people say. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:40, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request for edit summary

How about no? I always use edit summaries on articles, but there's no reason to use them on talk pages, as everything is signed. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 05:19, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Seems that you are using edit summaries only 55% of the time. :) Thanks for not getting mad. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:21, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
Presumably because I've been using talk pages a lot, and repetitive tasks like editing redirects to avoid double redirects. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 05:23, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot on RfAs

Hello again, Oleg. I'm just dropping by to thank you for manually adding mathbot's edit summary assessment to my RfA. I've no idea why it didn't do it automatically, although I notice that this happens on occassion. If there is anything Tito or I did incorrectly in setting up the nomination that might explain this, please let me know. Kind regards —Encephalon 18:22, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

My bot refuses to update pages which have been speedy deleted in the past for some reason. I need to write to the creator of the library I use for uploading stuff on Wikipedia. Thanks for the note. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 18:44, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
Ah, I see. We'd decided to delete an old (declined) nom page after moving it, to enable the new nom to be moved to the original from a subpage. Thanks for the info. —Encephalon 18:56, 21 March 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Infinite decimal representations

Greetings. You reverted the reversion of the removal of this section stating it was covered above. I don't think the fact was covered that every real number except 0 has an infinite rexpansentration, nor that it is unique. I agree that these are somewhat trivial statements that are obvious to mathematicians (except intuitionists, who would disagree) and easy consequences of the stuff above if you read all sections , but most readers are not mathematicians and what is easy to some of us may be an unsurmountable hurdle to them. LambiamTalk 15:50, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I think the earlier text says that some numbers have two representations, one finite and one infinite. Implicit in here is that other numbers have exactly one (infinite) representation, so then there is exactly one infinite representation.
Feel free to put that back. Part of the reason I removed that statement was bias against the person who added it first and then did the revert right before my edit. If you check a bit that article history you will see why. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:09, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
I think the uniqueness is already covered above with the wording "normalized representation". Anyway, I would suggest merging the two paragraphs into one, because as it is now, the repetition of the 999-000 argument is most striking. Hylas 16:18, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
Continued at talk:decimal representation. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:25, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of alternative hip hop musicians/Redlinks

This has shown up on User:Bluemoose/Uncategorised good articles and it looks to me that it shouldn't be categorized. So, is this the best place for this list? I thought I read somewhere that subpages in the main article space were discouraged. Would it be better to move it under your User page? --JeffW 20:52, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks for the note. You are right about subpages. Back then I was doing a lot of work on lists of hip hop musicians at the request of Urthogie, and part of it was removing redlinks away to subpages. The subpages were supposed to be temporary, and I forgot about it. I deleted that one now. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:00, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Any suggested things to be done?

I have been working in my area of interest and expertise which is the Category "Ordinal numbers" and related matters. I am running out of things to do. Do you know of any problems in that area that need to be corrected? Or any topics for which articles should be added? JRSpriggs 04:26, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Heh, I would like to hear that kind of questions more often. :) Try talking to Trovatore who is our expert in that area. Also see

PS: Do you have Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics on your watchlist? That's a good way to figure out what wiki-mathematicians are up to. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:45, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Is there a way to request that existing articles which were flagged for clean-up can be re-evaluated after they have been changed, e.g. "Bijection" and "Ariadne's thread"? If they still need work, could more information be given as to what needs to be done? How about new articles such as "Order type"? JRSpriggs 09:44, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
Well, when you are happy enough with an article, just remove the cleanup/attention/expert tag on it. No hard rules. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:23, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I noticed that the article on König's theorem does not have a proof of the theorem in it. Since I am familiar with the proof, I could add one. Is that considered necessary for an article on a theorem to be considered finished? Should I do it? The down-side is that it might triple the length of the article. JRSpriggs 06:33, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Usually proofs are not that important to Wikipedia articles, and they may stay in the way of reading the article, see also the math style manual. But König's theorem is a short article, and if you wish to put a proof, at the bottom of the article, I think it will not hurt. It is up to you if you think it is worth writing. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 14:59, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Style tip

"The external links go at the bottom of the article". I am relativelly new to the Wikipedia... and did not realize that. Thanks. Cheers.Tó campos 15:29, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

That's only if they are simply external links and not quoted sources. If they are sources, you will often find them in the body of the article with simply a numbered link. WaterGuy 17:08, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: edit summaries

thanks for the reminder ;-) juppiter bon giorno #c 06:41, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Adjacent vertex

I don't know how I missed the cat on creating that but good catch. :) Cburnett 16:23, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I got there on an edge; with one vertex in the missing science topics and the other vertex in the article in question. So I added one more edge to the categories. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:25, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Warel and perfect numbers

I'm afraid WAREL (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) is again edit warring at perfect number, about the same thing as before (decidability). Diffs: 1, 2, 3, 4. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 11:27, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Blocked. Message on his talk page. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:55, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Oleg, you deserve some sort of award for your ability to show patience with a WAREL. After reading through the talk page, I believe that many others would have lost their cool by this point. Isopropyl 17:23, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I too have had occasion to be impressed with the patience of Oleg. -lethe talk + 20:20, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. Now that initial patience is paying off, as I am determined to have WAREL blocked in geometric progression, 12, 24, and at the next instance 48 hours. Either he will learn to behave, or else. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 20:48, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
Once you've exhausted Oleg's patience, you're in big trouble. :-) -lethe talk + 22:41, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot/page3

Excuse me, but is mathbot your wikibot? --OrbitOne [Talk|Babel] 21:36, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I was doing a test on my bot's page when you reverted me. :) You have good vandal fighting skills; the text I had introduced was obviously nonsense (again, it was some testing). Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:38, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Okay then, thanks for letting me know.--OrbitOne [Talk|Babel] 21:43, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edit summary on talk pages?!

But why? I mean, i've been pretty good about adding a summary to all the regular edits I do (tho some of them have been a little vague). But why on talk pages, who looks at talk page histories? I only look to see if someone deleted somthing from them.... ? Fresheneesz 23:14, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

You don't have to write edit summaries on talk pages, obviously. But as I wrote to you, you are starting lots of talks without any summary whatsoever. It looks as if you don't care who will respond. Next time you are on my watchlist I will just ignore you. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:26, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
What do you mean no summary? I always write a header above new posts. ..? Fresheneesz 23:28, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
It does not show up on my wathlist. :) A header is good, but unless you add in an edit summary, I will not see from my watchlist what your header is. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:31, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
*sigh*, so you're telling me to copy my headers into the edit summmary, or into the "subject/headline" section? again *sigh* Fresheneesz 23:35, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Don't sigh. I told you in my very first post that if you click on "+" tab, the edit summary will be added automatically, being the section heading.
Besides, using the edit summary is not a dogma. It is helpful. Don't use it if you don't feel like it. But it helps if you do. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:37, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Checking if this puts it in the edit summary

Alright then, I'll try to put in an edit summary on particularly important posts, or ones I want you to read then. My laziness might work against me on this one. Fresheneesz 23:42, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Nope, it didn't. I never use the "subject/header" bar when I press plus. I'm much more comfortable with simply writing the wiki code. So it doesn't show up in summarys. Gah, it should do this automatically. Fresheneesz 23:44, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User:Jose and Ricardo and date conventions

I've noticed you've already killed some of his (their?) date redirects, and I was wondering your opinion on some of the others. See my /deletion candidates subpage for a list of some of other ones. (The ones marked CSD are the ones I already nominated under CSD R1 or R3.) I can't find a good indication in either Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) or Wikipedia:Naming conventions (numbers and dates) as to when a redirect is inappropriate -- nor do I have a good tool for quickly nominating a series of redirects for deletion, or I'd probably do that and let normal procedures operate. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 15:40, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I will look into this, thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:35, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
I deleted most of those redirects as unhelpful, and some really silly, e.g., 3/14/03. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:55, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ring of sets

Hello Oleg

Can you please put a category to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_sets

Chao, Diego Torquemada 09:08, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

done -lethe talk + 09:34, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Ring of friends, I guess. :) Thanks, Lethe. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:59, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Apollonius' theorem

I overwrote your version of the article, as it is not right. There is no way that m and n be any numbers, then it would follow that the segment AD is perpendicular to the side BC. Wonder what you think. You can reply here, Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:46, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing out the blatant error in my article and attempting to correct it. m and n cannot be any two numbers; the theorem seems terribly wrong then. I must have been half-asleep when I wrote it :)

However, by attempting to correct it, there is a loss of generalisation; you have considered a special case of the Apollonius' theorem where m = n( = 1).

My version of the Apollonius theorem can be corrected by adding the line "D divides BC in the ratio m:n". m and n are obviously not any two numbers, but two positive real numbers that correspond to the ratio BC is divided by D. I'm not sure if the theorem holds when D is a point on BC extended. I shall hence attempt to prove it and post the result shortly. I don't like the diagram you took from mathworld very much, and I shall also attempt to draw a clearer diagram with Inkscape* to replace it.

(*) I'm not very good with Inkscape, and I'm just wondering which vector drawing applications you use.

--ram_einstein 05:25, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I did not know how to fix the article, that's why I overwrote it. Feel free to replace my ugly picture. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 08:36, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
Inskspace is a good program. I use Matlab mostly, but for such a thing Inkscape is better. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 08:38, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
Typo again! "D divides BC in the ratio m:n" should be "D divides BC in the ratio n:m". Fixed the article anyway, only the image remains, drawing now.
Just put in the image. The article is complete. Hope you like it. —This unsigned comment was added by ram_einstein (talk • contribs) .

[edit] edit reasons

Are you talking about something specific? I can't say I'm very concerned about my edits being mistaken for vandalism, seeing as how I don't vandalize, and I doubt there's a much of a segment of the wikipedia population which goes around reverting edits with no summaries.

eae 05:45, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How does one report a bug in the Wiki software?

I think that I may have found a bug in the Wiki software which affects the visibility of the most recent entry in the History. How do I report it? JRSpriggs 09:46, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/ -lethe talk + 09:54, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] preview button

Thanks for pointing out the preview button, Oleg. Sorry about the saves. —This unsigned comment was added by 24.155.72.152 (talk • contribs) 17:20, April 2, 2006. (now Mct mht (talk · contribs))

[edit] Thank you

Thank you for your vote of confidence in my recent request for bureaucratship. Even though it didn't pass, I greatly appreciate your support and hope I will continue to have your respect. Thank you! Flcelloguy (A note?) 22:59, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Further harassment from Anittas.

Hey Oleg, Anittas has started up his homophobic activity again. See the last section of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Moldovan_language . --unsigned, presumably by User:Node ue contributing anonymously.

Hey, Oleg. Are you also awaiting the summer to arrive? I wish you luck. ;))) --Candide, or Optimism 05:54, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
I blocked Anittas for 12 hours, see User_talk:Anittas#Personal_attacks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:58, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
I don't think that it quite got through to him. See the recent additions to the personal attacks section of his talk page. Isopropyl 04:34, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I had seen his comment. :) At this point I don't think anything will teach Anittas manners. :) But if Node ue write to me of harrassment by Anittas again (preferrably logged in, from his own account), I may block Anittas again. Gosh, two RfC's did not do anything to get that chap to behave. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:38, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request to delete typo articles

I'm not sure I can take the liberty to ask you to do this for me, but here goes. I don't have the necessary previliges to do so; could you please remove the following articles? They are currently redirects to the correct articles (the titles are typo spelling-mistakes):

The spellings seem outrageous and there's no point having those redirects. I ought to be more careful with my typo errors especially when I'm creating new articles. I hope someone doesn't mistake me for a spambot or any of this as vandalism; I created so many atricles in such a short time span.

Sorry for the inconvinience and thank you.

--ram_einstein 17:55, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Something's wrong with the page "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatterman_reaction". The article still reads the old article but when I'm in edit mode, I can only see the redirect text. "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gatterman_reaction" seems to be pointing correctly. What is going on? Are Wikipedia's servers down (and has that page been marked for update) or have I done something wrong? ram_einstein 18:09, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
Usually I am not sure how one should do about misspelled redirects. But since you are their creator and only contributor, and they are recent, I just deleted them.
The thing you mention about servers is probably because of browser cache. Try to do a hard reload (CTRL-SHIFT-R in Mozilla, don't know how it is in other browsers), and that should take care of things. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 18:15, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks again Oleg. ram_einstein 05:57, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Simpson's Rule

You are right, the code you put in was for the composite rule, so it was a different code. An edit summary may be useful when adding things to clarify what you do. :) Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:57, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry if I sounded a little offstandish in my comment. I went back and read my comment and realized it could have sounded demeaning to you. I really should have put in a comment when I made the edit. Thanks for being meticulous Epachamo 03:16, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


No problem. Welcome! Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:28, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Covariance and contravariance

Hi Oleg, you are the person I run into most on math pages. I've been trying to understand Covariance and contravariance and can't make heads or tails of it. From the talk page, neither can anyone else. If you have anything to add to that, it would be appreciated. Thanks. —Ben FrantzDale 05:30, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi Ben. Thanks for the note. I know nothing about covariance and contravariance though, sorry. It appears from the talk page that a few people who know that stuff got involved, so I hope the article will get improved. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:20, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anittas

Hi Oleg. I noticed that you've blocked Anittas for twelve hours for the two statements he made on the Moldovan language talk page. I understand that personal attacks, particularly one against sexual orientation, should not be tolerated on Wikipedia, and that Anittas has a personal history of anti-LGBT statements. But, the two statements he made to Node really make no direct mention at all of gay people or sexual orientation. I think reading it as a homophobic statement is personal opinion and hence does not justify a ban under policy. But even if the "y'all know what I'm saying" is interpreted as a veiled attack against Node, I don't really see how this amounts to harrassment. I think it's important to judge all cases at face value and not judge others on their past behaviours. Thanks, Ronline ✉ 06:29, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Ronline, I disagree. To start with, comments like this and this do not belong on an article talk page, they just don't. They are nothing that a subtler variation of comments like this (read to the bottom), and plenty of others by Anittas, and while you disagree the first two are personal attacks, I challenge you to tell me what Anittas's motivation for those comments was.
Node ue found them offensive, other users found them offencive (see User_talk:Anittas#Personal_attacks), and I found them offensive. And while it is good to judge each action at face value, independent of past acction, an offence by a repeated past offender should get a stronger reaction than one from a first-time offender.
Anittas must learn to discuss issues and not attack people. He has been here for more than one year now, and had two requests for comment against him for engaging in personal attacks. He has had plenty of chances to learn to behave. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:48, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
The people who found them offensive are abusers. There is nothing offensive about summer and girls. I find you and that "thing" as offensive. --Candide, or Optimism 15:55, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Logarithm

Hi, I noticed that you removed the <references/> tag I placed on the logarithm page. In an earlier edit, I footnoted part of that article, and the <references/> tag allows the footnote to show up. If I've done this incorrectly, or if there's a new standard for footnoting (different than Wikipedia:Footnotes), please let me know. Thanks, Docether 15:09, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, you are right. I hever saw anything like that before, and such a tag confused me. Won't touch them again. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:20, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] preferences

The editing tab in my preferences now has an option to prompt when entering a blank edit summary. You might want to point this out in Mathbot's message. G Clark 22:34, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! I will keep that in mind. I don't run the bot to bug people about edit summaries any more, as I got a complaint or two, but if I do in the future, I will let people know about the preference. Thanks for the note. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:44, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Catbar

While cleaning out the WP:TFD backlog I closed the discussion on this template, which had resulted in a solid majority of reasoned opinions in favor of deletion. During the debate you offered bot assistance to remove it from category pages. Are you still up for that? I've placed this template in the holding cell for now. Thanks, --MarkSweep (call me collect) 00:40, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Now I will remove the links to it with a bot, and then delete the template. Thanks for closing that discussion, seems that TfD has a big backlog indeed. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:43, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
Good stuff. Categorybrowsebar next? and the other 3 mentioned at Template talk:Browsebar? ;) (link to catbar delete discussion for reference: all the same arguments apply, so can surely be done faster somehow. Categorybrowsebar probably doesnt even need discussion, just a fix/subst on the <50 pages that link to it?). Let me know if any are taken to TfD, thanks. --Quiddity 23:16, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
I raised the issue of whether that bar is useful in portals, at Wikipedia talk:Portal#Browsebar on the top of portals. Depending on what people say, I will consider nominating it for deletion; I agree that it is not useful and only clutters the interface. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:41, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WAREL/DYLAN

Oleg, even though I don't fully support your permanent ban action on WAREL/DYLAN, I want to say that I think you've done a fabulous job over the last few weeks in handling a very difficult customer. I have derived much strength from your patience :-) Dmharvey 18:16, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

OK then, I reduced the block to 1 week on WAREL's account. I don't think he will change, as I believe we are dealing with a smart user with a huge ego rather than somebody ignorant of what he is doing. And any attempts at continuing the behavior at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/WAREL, will get him blocked back. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:41, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
On a cautiously positive note, I haven't noticed the sort of confrontational behaviour characteristic of WAREL since the last ban, which must be a relief to those who have been drawn into arguments in the past. It would be an unsuccessful outcome if an intelligent contributor was lost, however antagonistic in the past, but WAREL must realise he/she has the opportunity to contribute in the way that others do without any objection whatsoever (and may in fact be doing so). Elroch 12:35, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
Well, he hasn't contributed since the last ban, that's why you saw no confrontational behaviour. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:07, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kusma's RfA

Hello, Oleg Alexandrov! Thank you for your support in my recent successful request for adminship. And thank you for welcoming me to Wikipedia a long time ago. I hope I can get more active in math related articles, but then again, I do maths all day anyway, and there's so much else to do. Happy editing, Kusma (討論) 02:11, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I can be clear

It's to my shame and my detriment that I'm not. As a matter of fact, a little bit of effort out of myself on this count, and I could revise many of the definitions here to be more precise. Mathematics isn't my strength...I wasn't born with it. Now language, it's starting to seem, is another story.  :) --VKokielov 06:22, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaraya bolezn. --VKokielov 17:22, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Please block them now

Can you do an IP-based block that will block all the socks at once? --Trovatore 21:20, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi Trov. I was offline, couldn't see your message in time. I guess WAREL is in no mood for dialogue. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:04, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edit summaries

Oleg, when you have free time, can you please run the mathbot for some recent succesful admins picked at random to see what their usage of edit summaries are (a) just before RfA (b) in the few weeks prior to that and (c) after becoming admin. Just to see whether people change their habits just for the sake of the RfA and revert to their older selves once the thing is done. Tintin (talk) 11:06, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

That would be a bit tricky to do, using my existing software. I would also be reluctant to do that, as edit summaries are just a guideline (although one good to follow), and my bot calculates the edit summary usage only based on the last 150 edits so that people who want to improve on this score don't spend an unreasonable amount of time doing that. In short, I'd rather not create such a list, as my bot's service was more advisory than of enforcement, and I think such a statistics won't have much good use. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:15, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
No probs, I wrote a clumsy parser for it. The only hassle is that I have to copy the contributions into a text file everytime ! Thanks anyway. Tintin (talk) 18:38, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Happy anniversary

Happy anniversary to Mathbot. Seems like only yesterday we were watching him removing extra blank lines from math articles and now he's an integral part of the wikipedia policy machine. -lethe talk + 17:14, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

You mean that little guy next to Oleg? --CSTAR 17:23, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
He was so cute when he was a baby. -lethe talk + 17:30, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I am one year now, and am very cute, thanks Lethe for not forgetting to congratulate me. That boss of mine though, thinks since I am cute I must be silly, and always blames me for any bugs he wrote in there. One day I'll pass the Turing test, then get admin privileges; heh, I'll even run for bureaucrat, and leave the boss in the dust. But that between you and me. Mathbot 02:48, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
s/But that/But that's/ ++Lar: t/c 04:56, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Possible Error by Mathbot

I first noticed this possible error on Siva1979's RFA.

Clicking [5] reports an error even though the contribs link works fine. — Kimchi.sg | Talk 02:10, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

The syntax of the contribs links changed, I guess by somebody operaring the Wikimedia software, and that confused my bot. Fixed now. Thanks for the report. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:33, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Wow, that was fast! The link's working now. Thanks. — Kimchi.sg | Talk 03:02, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edit summaries

Thanks for the notice. I'll try to make it a habit to add summaries from now on. :) thunderboltz(TALK) 04:05, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hello

Thanks for noticing that I forgot to put on a summary.. But I can only see that I did that with an article I created. Is it normal to do that with those as well? --Steffen Grønneberg 15:59, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, the article Covariance matrix was not created by you, but still does not have edit summaries. But yes, edit summaries are good at all times. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:03, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Ah, yes, I see that now.. Ok, thanks :)

--Steffen Grønneberg 16:10, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Equation template/style tip

I responded on my page - the gist: I make some mistakes, sometimes. I know the general conventions now. Thanks. Fresheneesz 19:21, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Also, i'd like your opinion on teh equation template format I have. Heron thinks its worse than normal, but I find it much easier to read - I like using *excalmatory* punctuation to UNDERSCORE and _offset_ text to make it easier to read and follow. Obviously some types of offset are better than others, and I avoid italics and bolds because they are used for specific purposes in wikipedia. And i just avoid CAPS cause its too exclamatory. But the offset of variable-explnations from the normal text I feel is a good offset. Fresheneesz 19:54, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
So here we are, using your template:

Failed to parse (lexing error): x^2=6\, ((7))

I feel this needs to be discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics. I feel I don't quite like that template, but I don't have good reasons for that, I guess I am just used to the old way of doing things.
But please don't use it until people comment on it. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:34, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] the dual space of L^\infty(X, \sigma) is the space of signed measures

Is that so? You consider L^\infty with the sup norm? (i.e. no identifications).

Where can I find a proof? --anon

Yes, it is the sup norm, but two functions are identified if they are equal almost everywhere. So I guess it is the ess sup norm.
I don't know where to find the proof, I just remember this fact, and from long time ago. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:11, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I am sorry to bother you again with this, but I think there can be a little mistake here.

To identify functions that differ almost everwhere we need a measure. We cannot do an indentification that will work for every possible measure to be represented as functionals. Even in cases where there is no need for identification I think the result fails.

For example consider X = the natural numbers, \Sigma = all subsets of X and \varphi a continuos linear function over L^\infty(X) called a Banach limit. This is an extention of the "limit" functional that sends a convergent sequence to its limit. It can be obtained using the Hahn-Banach theorem, but if you construct it carefully enough you can make it transtaltion invariant and positive over all l^\infty. In any case, I think this funcitonal cannot be reprensented by a measure over N. Suposse there is a measure \mu such that \varphi = \int_X * d\mu, where the asterix is the variable. Computing \varphi in the canonical basis we see that \mu({k})=0, for all natural numbers k (because \mu({k}) = \int_X e_k d\mu = \varphi(e_k) = lim(e_k) = 0, where e_k is the sequence that takes the value 1 in k and 0 everywhere else). Then \mu( {k} ) = 0, for all natural numbers k. So for a subset A \subseteq X we have that \mu(A) \leq \sum_{k \in A} \mu({k}) = 0. So \mu is identically 0 and so \varphi should be, but it is not since there are sequences with nonzero limit. Please check my calculations because I can have missed something.

The theorem I recall is that the dual space of the space continuos functions on a compact and Hausdorff topological space is isomorfic to the space of signed (or complex valued, depending on the field) measures that are Borel regular, finite, etc., through the map you defined in your article. There we do not have any identification problems. The theorem can be extended to locally compact spaces through one point compactification, but I've never heard of anything that will cover the case L^\infty of an arbitrary space (that's why your article called my attention so much)

In the example above we can consider convergent sequences as continuos functions from the one point (Alexandroff) compactification of X and then the limit functional is represented by a measure on it: it is the delta of the infinity point. Since this measure is not supported in X = the natural numbers, neither it is its extention to all l^\infty.

When X = the natural numbers, we can consider L^\infty(X) and need no identifications. There there is a trick that will compute its dual. If we take X=the natural numbers, with the discrete topology and then consider N* its Stone-Cech compactification every bounded map from X to R can be extended in a unique way to a continuos function over N*. Then we can indentify L^\infty(X) and C(N*) through this extention operator. Using the Riesz representation thoeorem I mentioned C(N*) is isomorfic (in the canonical way) with the space of borel regular, finite, bla, bla measures over N*, the Stone-Cech compactificacion of N.

Anyway, I will go into some books to see if I find a better explanations of the relationship of measures and the dual of L^\infty.

I changed a spelling mistake I have made in the title of my question. Thanks for writing articles on math! --anon

I thought carefully of your example, and I think you are right. I removed that text from signed measure, and next time will check a reference. :)
Thank you for your post. You may consider making an account and contributing, Wikipedia is fun. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 18:28, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Parameters for the edit summary tool

Hi! I like the new user interface of your edit summary tool, especially the project name option, which wasn't there the last time we spoke. The cgi takes the user name as a URL parameter, e.g. http://www.math.ucla.edu/~aoleg/wp/rfa/edit_summary.cgi?user=Oleg_Alexandrov (btw impressive), but does it take the project name also? --Eddi (Talk) 01:07, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it takes language as parameter also, http://www.math.ucla.edu/~aoleg/wp/rfa/edit_summary.cgi?lang=ro&user=Oleg_Alexandrov
I was just too lazy to document it. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:43, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Perfect! Thanks a lot! I'll try it in a couple of languages and let you know if I have any difficulties. --Eddi (Talk) 04:02, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sorry if Bold Edit woke you up, but...

Best wishes FrankB 05:06, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Didn't upset me at all. :) That's what talk pages are for, to discuss things. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 14:49, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] HAPPY EASTER !

"A kid asked Jesus how much you love me. Jesus replied - I love you this much and he stretched his arms to the cross and died for us."A HAPPY EASTER TO YOU AND YOUR LOVED ONES!
"A kid asked Jesus how much you love me. Jesus replied - I love you this much and he stretched his arms to the cross and died for us."
A HAPPY EASTER TO YOU AND YOUR LOVED ONES!

thunderboltz(TALK)

[edit] Broken redirect

On March 4, you created the article De Bruijn diagram with the content "#REDIRECT [[De Bruijn diagram]]." (You'd be surprised how often this happens!) I've unsuccessfully attempted to determine what the correct redirect target is. Please fix this link if you can. Thanks. --Russ Blau (talk) 13:11, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

That one should have gone to De Bruijn graph. Thank you for your note, I fixed it now. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:04, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Audio template

I went to some other sites like dictionary sites that have pronunciation links, and they all like to create popup windows. I don't like that, so I added a span class to the template so the extra info could be manipulated, and wrote a little proof-of-concept javascript to make the extra info into a box that pops up within the page. (It actually took me a lot more time than I expected, so I gave up on actually writing it and just made settled for a visual mock-up.)  ;-)

You can try it by adding this to User:Oleg Alexandrov/monobook.js:

document.write(
    '<st' + 'yle type="text/css">            ' +
    ' div.audiolinkbox {                     ' +
    '     border:2px solid rgb(170,170,170); ' +
    '     background-color:rgb(250,250,250); ' +
    '     position:absolute;                 ' +
    '     margin:-1.2em;                     ' +
    '     display:none;                      ' +
    ' }                                      ' +
    '<' + '/style>'
    );

addOnloadHook(function () {
    
    function lightup () {
        this.parentNode.nextSibling.nextSibling.style.display="inline";
    }

    function lightout () {
        this.parentNode.nextSibling.nextSibling.style.display="none";
    }

    /* Get all the span tags */
    spans = document.getElementsByTagName('span');

    /* go through them all */
    for (i=0;i<spans.length;i++) {
    /* If the span is class audiolinkinfo */
        if (spans[i].className.indexOf("audiolinkinfo") != -1) {
            /* Put it in a box */
            box = document.createElement('div');
            box.className="audiolinkbox";
            spans[i].parentNode.insertBefore(box,spans[i]);
            box.appendChild(spans[i]);
            /* Remove the parentheses */
            insidebox = spans[i].firstChild
            for (j=0;j<insidebox.childNodes.length;j++) {
                if (insidebox.childNodes[j].textContent == "(" || insidebox.childNodes[j].textContent == ")") {
                    insidebox.removeChild(insidebox.childNodes[j])
                }
            }
            /* Add the hover thing to the regular link */
            spans[i-1].firstChild.onmouseout=lightout;
            spans[i-1].firstChild.onmouseover=lightup;
        }
    }

});

It strips the parentheses, moves the extra info into a box and then hides the box until you roll your mouse over the audio link. That way the links aren't obstructive, the extra info is still there, etc. For people without javascript, it will just appear as it currently appears, so someone who is actually a good programmer could make a good version and we could put it in the site-wide javascript.

You can't click on the links because they disappear when you move your mouse towards them, but someone writing a real script could fix that easily enough.  :-) You can still see what it would look like. This would be trivial for User:Lupin, I bet (Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation popups). — Omegatron 01:58, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for all the work, but this still does not solve the main problem, that being that meta links to info and help in the audio template for audio files are highly distracting when they pop up in article, see again eigenvalue at the top. How about adding this script to the Wikpedia-wide page, so that the distracting (help, info) links don't appear in articles? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:28, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
That's what this is for. If we like the idea enough, someone could fully develop it and put it in the site-wide javascript. — Omegatron 21:42, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your views regarding integration notation

I remember from somewhere that you felt the Leibinz notation for integrals was inadequate and you had something better in mind. Is this true? Loom91 16:04, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean the Leibniz notation for derivatives rather? I don't recall objecting to using Leibniz's notation, maybe there was a specific instance when it was clumsy, but again, I don't remember that. Why are you asking this? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:45, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
Just a shot in the dark, but I remember once Charles saying that he preferred an I to Leibniz's "S" integral notation when it's used in isolation, like it is at transcendental number. But of course Charles ≠ Oleg. -lethe talk + 01:24, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm, looks like mistaken identity. I thought that persons name was something like yours. He preferred using (d/dx)^-1 instead of the S, which actually causes some problems by confusing the fundamental THEOREM of calculus with definition. Anyway, if you're the wrong guy then never mind. Loom91 07:45, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot at fr wiki

I tried using mathbot for my French wiki account (Jacques d'Eduard) and didn't get any results. Does mathbot work on that wiki?•Jim62sch• 14:50, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

That was because your user name was containing the ' character, I was stripping it for security reasons but now I realized that is a problem, and is also not necessary. Fixed now[6], thanks! Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:22, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot

Hey, I'm "New Pages" patrolling and I saw some of Mathbot's articles and had a question; is it meant to be making articles with just 3s in them? I know that may sound stupid, but it doesn't make a great deal of sense to the non-math editor. Cheers, Highway Rainbow Sneakers 23:13, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

There is no privacy here anymore. :) That was a tiny bug in my bot and I fixed it after just two wrong edits. Gosh, you noticed that right on. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:15, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
I have a "pain in the butt" image to maintain. :P Congrats on making a bot at all, I would have NO clue how to even start. Best stick with templates. ;) Highway Rainbow Sneakers 23:17, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Another use for Mathbot

Hi, Oleg. There's a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Work via Wikiprojects that asks for something that is very similar to what Mathbot does currently. If possible, could you comment on whether the request is technically feasible? Titoxd(?!? - help us) 00:21, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Commented there. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:45, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
(reply from there:) Mostly, yes, crawl through categories, and fill out a template parameter based on the results of the crawl. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 00:48, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] lesbian sisters

Yeah, that was pretty funny. I had to take it to BJAODN. Cheers. -lethe talk + 05:36, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[7] Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:44, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] discontinuous linear functional

By the way, I've been wanting to say this to you for a while. I'm kinda drunk now, so I guess now is as good a time as any. I really enjoyed working with you on the article discontinuous linear functional. I felt a little guilty at the time, a little as though I blundered into an article that you owned and started making sweeping edits which at best drastically changed the focus of the article, and at worst introduced mathematical errors. I've seen editors get very upset when the articles that they "owned" got subjected to all the humiliations that are part of the wiki process, to the extent of leaving the project or threatening legal action. You, on the other hand, were always courteous, I thought, and receptive to suggestions. Level-headed, even in the face of blundering stupidity on my part. In the end, I learned some new things in the process, and finally put to rest this disconcerting disquiet that I've had since learning that the derivative is not continuous. Anyway, my point is, I'm quite pleased with the end result, and I hope you are too. I consider our collaboration on that article the high point of my wikipedia career to date. So thank you for your patience and your cooperativeness. Therefore I give you a barnstar.

The Original Barnstar
for a good guy -lethe talk + 08:09, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

PS. For the record, I'm really not a constructivist. I like the axiom of choice, and in general favor richer universes of sets (I prefer also ¬GCH and ¬V=L). Nevertheless, I live in eternal fear of the day when a student will ask me "OK, so show me an example of a discontinuous linear functional". It is important to know that such examples can never be written down in an elementary way, so that when I'm asked that question, I can just say something like "for technical set-theoretic reasons that I won't go into, these functions exist but cannot be demontrated". -lethe talk + 08:09, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

You're drunk Lethe! :) About the discontinuous linear functional article, well, I tried to "enforce" my "ownership" rights for a while, but since you wouldn't listen, I just let you do what you want. :) And I am happy with the end result (but see my comment on its talk page), so good job. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:41, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
Gheesh, all this over pathology?--CSTAR 15:48, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
Sigh. Someone ought to just block me from WP when I start editing drunk. -lethe talk + 23:45, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
OK I'll be happy to do this, but how do I tell when that is that is the case?--CSTAR 03:43, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
(PS Sorry Oleg, for using up your precious Talk Page Real Estate.)--CSTAR 03:43, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Maths articles

Hello Oleg. you were very quick to notice Quasi-Hopf algebra. I'm just wondering if I have been writing them in the right way? Is there too much pedagogical comment in the "usage" section, or should there be more discussion rather than just a technical statement. Feedback would be good. I also started Heisenberg model (quantum) and Quasibialgebra. Regards, ßlηguγΣη | Have your say!!! - review me 05:06, 26 April 2006 (UTC).

Hi there. :) I will take a look at the articles later today, and see if I can give any feedback. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:00, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
I did some language fixes at Quasibialgebra. Overall the articles look good. They are a bit technical though. It would be good to have more discussion if possible, and maybe before the actual defintions. But on the other hand those topics are technical to start with, so I don't know how much more accessible by the general public they can be made. So see for yourself. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:34, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot adapted for WP:1.0?

Hi Oleg, Thanks for your input so far for use of the Mathbot in WP1.0. I have a couple of questions about how this might work:

As I understand it, the bot would crawl through some talk pages within given categories, and record some parameters from those talk pages, viz Assessment and Change of Assessment. Is this right?

  • If there was a change of an existing assessment, it would note when it found that change, then it would update a worklist table such as this one with the new assessment and the date it found the change. If it found a new article in the category, it would add the article name into the table along with the assessment and date.
  • It would produce a log of all assessment changes. Ideally it would highlight (in bold?) any blanked out assessments (pages lost from the category/table) or any that went either up two levels or more, or down in quality. This would help us spot "assessment vandalism".

Are these two things possible? Are they fairly easy to do? We have a dataset of around 555 assessed chemistry articles we can use as a test, if you think it can be done. Many thanks, Walkerma 06:33, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

  • Related to this, I've created {{assessment}}, to help manage the bot's output. The bot would need to pass the page and date parameters to the template after crawling a category, similar to what it is doing now. I created Category:Wikipedia 1.0 assessments to serve as the spider's "home category", and if you want to debug it, we have a remarkably complete assessment in Wikipedia:WikiProject Tropical cyclones, which is accessible through the category Tropical cyclone articles by quality. I've marked the top of each subcategory with the WikiProject's name to help the bot identify the WikiProject too. Tell me if you need any more changes to the category pages or any other page to make the process simpler, or if there's any other questions. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 06:40, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi Walkerma and Tito. I looked at the categories, and it will be easy enough to read in the categories like Category:A-Class hurricane articles and modify the tables in the appropriate sections of Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/WPArts with the current assessment and the date the assessment was updated. I will also create a log of changes. By the way, could you tell me a page to serve as log?

As far as I can tell, Tito wants me to use {{assessment}} to create rows in those tables at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/WPArts. But for now {{assessment}} is empty. So we can do two things. Either I don't use that template, and complete rows in the tables the way things are now, like:

| Stargate (device) || April 12 2006 ||  style="background: #66ffff; text-align: center;" | A || A great article on the most important piece of technology in Stargate. Nominated on WP:FAC 3 times, had a peer reivew.

or otherwise that assesment template is created, and for uniformity all the tables in the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/WPArts page are modified to use it. I would prefer the former, that is, not using the template, as the syntax in that table row I display above is simple enough. Wonder what you think. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:53, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Continued at User talk:Mathbot/WP1.0. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:51, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I understand you're an administrator

but RfA, huh, what a place for you and me to boink heads!  :) (That is, meet each other suddenly, not argue over nothing...we're on the same side, i.e. I'm with the Croats ;) ) --VKokielov 15:46, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't recall we ever intersecting at RfA. Do you mean the HolyRomanEmperor's RfA? I stayed out of it, I think. And I try to stay away from any ethnic-related issues to start with. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:53, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I expect VKokielov meant bonk heads. I hope so anyway. Well, on third thought, why do I care? --Trovatore 16:06, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

OK, so I guess VKokielov suggests that me and him should bonk heads at RfA's. Well, I am from Moldova, and the Russian government has not been treating us well recently, so I am not with the Kroats. I'd rather side with the Ukraineans and Georgians. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:59, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request for edit summary

Thanks for the reminder! I was just being lazy, thinking that it might be ok since I already set the "minor edit" flag. I'll try to write a summary next time.--Tong 07:17, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question about policy

Hi, I was wondering if you could quickly look at the page UniModal/proposed to see if it violates wikipedia policy. I've been arguing with an admin who replaced the original content with a redirect to Personal Rapid Transit - he says it violates NPOV and undue weight - but I don't think it does. In any case, I'm not asking you to get involved (unless of course you want to : ) but I'm just wondering if I'm way off base - after all, I am arguing with an admin. Thanks. Fresheneesz 02:02, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Admins are not above ordinary users, they just have a few more janitorial buttons.
I read through that article. I don't see it violating NPOV, but the devil may be in the details. I suggest you talk things with the people involved or try to get other people interested in transporation articles to comment. See if they have wikiproject or something. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:06, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm a little fuzzy as to what you mean by "the devil may be in the details". Fresheneesz 03:37, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
I did not read the article carefully enough or know enough of the background to give a very informed opinion. Maybe your opponents have a point, but it is not apparent to me. I think it is a content dispute which you need to solve on the talk page. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:12, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Alright, thanks. Fresheneesz 09:49, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of mathematical redlinks ?

I don't understand the page User:Mathbot/List of mathematical redlinks (P)

First of all, I can't seem to find anything on Wikipedia that explains what a redlink is. (One gets a general notion from the name, implicitly.) The redlink page redirects to no-help page. Red link, as you can see, is itself a red link!! (Bluelink and Blue link are too.)

Moving on from redlink, what is a "List of mathematical redlinks"? The page does not say what it is or shows or accomplishes. If the list has no meaning to Wikipedia users, then maybe it should be stored offline. Every page that is referenced by this page points back to it ("What links here").

Very few of the links on the page are red -- almost all of them are blue! Should it be that way? Is it time to regenerate the page??

Does Mathbot read that page, or only write the page? (That is, if someone edits the page, are they wasting effort?) If Mathbot only writes the page, then the page should contain a comment saying so.

It should be easy to update the page. No need to visit each link -- just examine the rendered HTML page to see what color each link is.

The format of the list renders it non-useful. The contents all run together. It only needs a comma or a newline after each item in the list.

Whiner01 02:41, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

My bot failed to update that page, probably because of server error. If you visit User:Mathbot/List of mathematical redlinks (Q) instead, things will be more clear. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:54, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I blanked those pages for now. I need to fix that script to be robust to server errors, but dont' have time right now. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:25, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re the whole de-bureaucrating thing

Hi, I never came to thank you for the message you left for me a month ago when I stepped down from being a bureaucrat. Thank you for the things you said, it's good to know there are still plenty of good people about in this project. I do not see myself standing for bureaucrat again anytime soon though who knows what the future may bring! Thank you once again. -- Francs2000 09:47, 29 April 2006 (UTC)