User talk:Oleg Alexandrov/Archive9

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[edit] AfD thing isn't working

The Old AfD thingy says I "don't have permission to access the requested object. It is either read-protected or not readable by the server." --Rory096 00:07, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Dummy me. I changed the permissions to my ssh directory so that other can't stick their nose in there, and because did not type the command correctly, I changed the permissions to all directories, and ended up denying everybody the services provided by mathbot. Fixed now, thanks! Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:52, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit]  ???

diff. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 13:03, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi Jitse. I don't know what the problem is. Maybe it was some server error which my bot did not react well to. Maybe the package I use for submitting stuff to Wikipedia has a subtle bug, or maybe the bug is in my code. Such a pathology happens, although rarely, and I don't know how to reproduce it. For now I reverted to a previous version and clicked on the link to refresh the data, and the pathology did not reappear. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:21, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Poor Mathbot, so cute wagging his little mechanical tale while he pisses on the floor ;-) Paul August ☎ 15:25, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
But it's so cuddly...:)--CSTAR 15:27, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Cuddly or not, it needs a bit of Proverbs 13:24, as it neglects to update Talk:List of numerical analysis topics#D: Potential searchable categories. Bad bot. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 04:29, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

That thing is broken, because they again changed the format for categories. I am aware of that. These days, after I finish with WP1.0 I plan to rewrite the script which updates talk:List of numerical analysis topics which will use a few fancier subroutines I developed in between and which will fix the "new categories" problem and hopefully also the "???" problem.
As far as the rod is concerned, this is not in the bible, but "the gift horse is not searched in the mouth." :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:06, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, you know where not searching their gift horse got the Trojans ;-) Paul August ☎ 14:14, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rfa Removal

I see you removed Foxearth's RfA nom as badly formatted and unaccepted. (Technically the canditate did accept it [1] (albeit in a badly formatted/unsigned way, which got pushed down under comments by another user) However, it does remain badly formatted, which is grounds for removal from the RfA list. However, as it appears that the nominee is a relatively inexperienced user, (which would explain the formatting issues) would you mind dropping them a quick note as well? I've previously recommended to them to withdraw the RfA, so don't want them to get all the bad news from one person in case they take it the wrong way. :) Cheers, MartinRe 16:02, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I dropped the user a note, thanks for reminding me, I should have done that to start with. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:39, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
No worries :) I just feel sorry for the nominee, while in good faith, the confusion surrounding his RfA is messy (I did drop a note to User:ReyBrujo that it might have been better to let the editor himself chose whether to re-add it. Too late now, I know, but I hope the users in question (nominator and nominee don't get too discouraged about this) Cheers, MartinRe 16:56, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot

Hi, I was wondering if maybe your bot could help us with something? At WP:AfC, we have a bit of a problem with archiving, we lost the bot that did it for us. Perhaps Mathbot could help with this? (Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Archiving_Wikipedia:Articles_for_Creation. Thanks either way, since Mathbot is just cool! --Lord Deskana Dark Lord of the Sith 08:03, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

I will look into this, should be easy enough to write an archive bot. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 18:56, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
There is a problem with that. My bot cannot move pages, the package I use for uploading stuff to Wikipedia does not have that feature and I don't know how to implement it, as moving a page requires two clicks and would be rather complex to do with a bot I think. Maybe somebody using the python framework could do that. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:32, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi Oleg. Thanks for looking at the request. The page move step has been the critical problem for every bot-maker that we've approached, including ones that use the python framework. The only bots I've been able to find that perform moves are Crypticbot and Uncle G's 'bot, but neither of their owners are around. It may be time to make a secondary bot request simply for a page-moving routine. ×Meegs 17:42, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pmform not parsing links anymore?

Hi Oleg, I was getting back to work on the PlanetMat project when I noticed that your conversion tool: Pmform, doesn't seem to be converting <a>, </a> tags (used to do PM internal links). Whats up? Paul August ☎ 18:09, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi Paul. Thanks for the note. That is the curse of interface changes. Links which used to be
<a id="tex2html1" href="http://planetmath.org/encyclopedia/Identity2.html" name="tex2html1">category</a>
became
<a name="tex2html1" href="http://planetmath.org/encyclopedia/Identity2.html" id="tex2html1">category</a>
Fixed now. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 18:57, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks ;-) Paul August ☎ 19:00, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Shohé Tanaka deletion

Dylan Lennon/Warel nominated the article on Shohé Tanaka for deletion, and it was deleted. This rticle should not have been nominated, and certainly not actually deleted, since Tanaka was a significant figure as a music theorist, and a physicist and interesting historical character besides. I want it undeleted, and I think this shows there is something wrong with the deletion process. Why was n one who knew something about the subject contacted before the article was deleted? This is a sign of a broken system. I'd be interested in getting a list of everything Dylan Lennon nominated for deletion, and reviewing all that he has done in this department, which seems to at least skate close to vandalis, if not over the line. Gene Ward Smith 01:37, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, Dylan/Warel was not a pleasant person to have around. You may find their/his contributions with special:contributions/DYLAN LENNON and special:contributions/WAREL. I doubt he nominated anything else for deletion, as his primary job was edit warring to add suspicious stuff in. Most of those have been reverted, and a few of us studied his contributions rather carefully and I think not much damage done by Dylan is left.
As far as the deletion system is concerned, nothing is perfect, and I have had the impression that it works well most of the time. See Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion if you want to do anything about that. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:19, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Apparently it wasn't Dylan/Warel who nominated it for deletion; it was nominated for deletion because of association with Dylan/Warel. However, the request was withdrawn.
I still think the process might be broken, as this looks very bad. No one who actually knew anything about the topic decided on it, and when User:Hyacinth restored it, it was promptly deleted again. I'd like to be considered for administator, so I can review the deletion log and find out what's been going on. Gene Ward Smith 04:39, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WAREL/Dylan Lennon

The Barnstar of Diligence
For your extraordinary patience with the Dylan Lennon/WAREL incidents, I award you The Barnstar of Diligence. Isopropyl 02:24, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Nah, exactly when I got more lazy as far as Wikipedia participation is concerned, barnstars started dropping down (Lethe's a few weeks ago, and now this one). Meteor shower anybody? Thanks! Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:31, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] uncentered vs. unscented Kalman filter...

Concerning the wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholesky_decomposition, "Applications" section discussing ________ Kalman filtering as an application of Cholesky decomposition.

I have been reading up on this rather extensively recently; the application is "unscented Kalman filtering," NOT "uncentered Kalman filtering." Read the "Kalman filters" page on Wikipedia for more info (I thought this would be a slam-dunk change), or check out: http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/wan01unscented.html (with specific, explicit references to performing the Cholesky decomposition for arriving at the Sigma points used in unscented Kalman filtering), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unscented_Kalman_filter (the wikipedia page), http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~murphyk/Papers/Julier_Uhlmann_mar04.pdf (also with reference to using Cholesky decomposition as stable means of finding sigma points; page 406, footnote 6).

Any evidence that "uncentered" is the correct term? I am making the change again, to "unscented," and please justify a further change with citations, etc. The only Google result I found for "uncentered Kalman filter," for example, was this erroneous Wikipedia entry.

Appreciation, insignificant1

I believe "unscented" is correct. Engineers make this stuff up. Go figure! --KSmrqT 07:02, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Insignificant1, I am sure you are right. That was your first edit, without any edit summary, so I assumed the worst. Thanks for the clarification. KSmrq, thanks also. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 14:55, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Portal graphics template

Hi Oleg. No worries. I didn't notice the late discussion about the issue. Cheers -- Szvest 19:04, 11 May 2006 (UTC) Wiki me up™

[edit] May I request an enhancement

Hi Oleg, your mathbot is excellent in finding all the classifications in the WP:Chem wikiproject. I regularly maintain the list of grouped classifications (focussing on the projects goals instead of just listing them) in the project's worklist, and therefore find the log file of the mathbot very useful. Now, yesterday, I thought that perhaps mathbot didn't run, as there is no notification on the logpage, although I assume that it did do the scanning. Hence my question:

  • can you make it so that it does report to have done work on the logpage, even if it doesn't find any changes. Perhaps just the date header and a line 'no changes found'? Wim van Dorst (Talk) 20:17, 11 May 2006 (UTC).
Done. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:52, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Nice, thanks! So I have another question, if I may: can you add a some counting statistics on the large table, viz.

  • Number of FA-Class articles
  • Number of A-Class articles
  • Number of B-Class articles
  • Number of Start-Class articles
  • Number of Stub-Class articles
  • Number of nonassessed articles, but with the {{chemistry}} template
  • Total number of articles with the {{chemistry}} template

Even if this can't be done, thanks for your attention. If it can, I'll use that info for the WP:Chem statistics. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 15:48, 12 May 2006 (UTC).

Contined at User talk:Mathbot/WP1.0 where the other discussion takes place. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:50, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Just Curious

Hello, Oleg Alexandrov. I was wondering, was your decision to message me brought about by an instance where I botched up while editing an article somewhere, perhaps? Thanks for the tips! -vedace 01:11, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I just welcomed you. :) So it does not mean you botched anything. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:23, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Logarithm - definition of b^n

Hello, Mr. Alexandrov. I do not think your removal of my change to the logarithm article is as useful as my change itself was. Although I agree with you about not using unnecessary wording, the part I added was not entirely unnecessary. Rather, it corrected an inaccuracy in the definition of b^n. Now a further user has changed it again to something still not as accurate as what I put in (see below). I will not change it again on the main page, to avoid repeated back-and-forth. However, I would like to make the case here to suggest you change it to something more accurate, suggested below. Here is the edit I had put in:

... b^n means multiplying b by itself a number of times, using it as a factor in this multiplication n times ...

You changed it back to the original to say

" ... b^n means multiplying b by itself n times ...".

This is not correct, as I pointed out on the talk page associated with the article. If you multiply b by itself one time, you get b*b = b^2, not b^1. If you multiply b by itself 2 times, you get b*b*b = b^3, not b^2. It may be that the English is subtle here, especially for a non-native English speaker. However, this version is clearly inaccurate.

Michael Hardy has now changed it to

" ... b^n means b is multiplied n times ..."

This, I think, is unclear, and still able to be interpreted as inaccurate in the same way the original was. If b is multiplied two times, it could easily mean b*b*b - that has two multiplications, whereas b*b only has one.

If you still object to my initial language, I propose this, shorter than my original change, but still more accurate than either revision of what I put:

" ... b^n means multiplying b by itself, using it as a factor n times ..."

Please consider making this change, or proposing a better one that does not have the original problem I pointed out.

Thanks, Ken Cliffer (I am a scientist, with a Ph.D. in anatomy, but now work as an educational consultant, currently developing math videos. This issue came up in our presentation of exponentiation. I was happy to see that the Wikipedia article on exponentiation did not have this problem.)

Good point, that n times can be ambiguous and I did not realize that. Let us continue at talk:logarithm. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:56, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ∇ & del

Thanks for your comments on ∇ & del, guess I was just getting lazy, but will do better from now on! --Iantresman 16:02, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why use mathbot to generate lists from categories

Just curious, why have a bot which creates a list to duplicate a category? Just zis Guy you know? 08:28, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Would you be more specific? :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 13:51, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
That's probably prompted by a question I asked on his talk page, about your both creating pages like List of mathematicians from the already-existing category, and the same for List of mathematics articles. What's the benefit of having the list when the category already shows you the same thing?
The one thing I do think is very useful is your "Recent changes in..." pages, but I think they should be put under the Wikipedia namespace, not the main namespace. -- Hirudo 14:20, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

But it is not just one category. The list of mathematics articles is generated from the lists at the list of mathematics categories. There are 700 mathematics related categories at the moment, and growing. Are you saying that looking up additions/removals/changes from 700 categories is just as easy as doing it on a list?

About having it in the Wikipedia namespace, I don't know. I think the lists are fine where they are. There are plenty of lists in the main namespace, and I don't see a good reason to move the math lists from there. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 14:27, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] on rotations

Hi Oleg,

About compositions of rotations: you wrote

If however one performs rotation around a point (axis) followed by rotation around another point (axis), the overall movement may be a translation rather than a rotation.

I think our editing reverts have been because we agree but have opposite points of view: you want to point out that two rotations may be a translation (or rotation), but I want to point out that two rotations in general do not represent a translation or rotation.

Thus, perhaps

If however one performs rotation around a point (axis) followed by rotation around another point (axis), the overall movement may be a translation rather than a rotation (but in general is neither).

216.232.222.122 15:03, 15 May 2006 (UTC), formerly MrMoto, but this account seems to have been eaten up. :(

Can you prove that the composition of two rotations around different centers in the plane may be something else than a rotation or a translation? Because I can prove that it is either a rotation or a translation. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:08, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Never mind, I think I am wrong. (As always, best ideas come in the shower :). Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:24, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Heh. ok :) You are correct in the context of planar rotations, but in R3, for example, the axes of rotation should intersect. 216.232.222.122 15:41, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
If I may interject, rotations are direct isometries that leave a point fixed. In 2D we have only two choices for direct isometries (aside from the identity): rotations and translations. The latter leave no point fixed. In 3D we get a new option, screws. These can always be cast in the form of a rotation around an axis parallel to a translation. In 4D a rotation generally does not have an axis, and leaves only a single point fixed. Translations and screws still exist, of course. In a vector space we always rotated around a fixed origin, with no possibility of translation or screws. Most folks forget that this is not the only option, since it's the most common way to describe rotations. With a fixed origin, rotations form a group; without one, they are not even closed under composition.
Perhaps it would help readers to see explicit examples in 2D and 3D. I'd suggest pictures and words and matrices, to make the point memorable.
\begin{bmatrix} 0 & -1 & x_1 \\ 1 & 0 & y_1 \\ 0 & 0 & 1 \end{bmatrix} \begin{bmatrix} 0 & 1 & x_2 \\ -1 & 0 & y_2 \\ 0 & 0 & 1 \end{bmatrix} = \begin{bmatrix} 1 & 0 & x_1-y_2 \\ 0 & 1 & y_1+x_2 \\ 0 & 0 & 1 \end{bmatrix}
\begin{bmatrix} 0.8 & 0 & -0.6 & x \\ 0 & 1 & 0 & 0 \\ 0.6 & 0 & 0.8 & z \\ 0 & 0 & 0 & 1 \end{bmatrix} \begin{bmatrix} 0.48 & 0.8 & -0.36 & 0 \\ 0.6 & 0 & 0.8 & 0 \\ 0.64 & -0.6 & -0.48 & 0 \\ 0 & 0 & 0 & 1 \end{bmatrix} = \begin{bmatrix} 0 & 1 & 0 & x \\ 0.6 & 0 & 0.8 & 0 \\ 0.8 & 0 & -0.6 & z \\ 0 & 0 & 0 & 1 \end{bmatrix}
The fixed points for the leftmost 3D rotation have the form (x−3z,y,3x+z)/2, while the composition of the two rotations is a screw unless z = −2x. --KSmrqT 18:23, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you KSmrq. Would be nice to have this somewhere. Maybe not the full formulas in the general purpose rotation article, but at least the ideas. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:52, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Continued at talk:Rotation. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:52, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] fine topology

I have created a new page on fine topology (as in classical potential theory), but as the title "fine topology" already seems to be taken by a page about general topology (i.e. 'finer topology' rather than "THE fine topology"), I have called my page "classical fine topology" - seems like there ought to be a better solution - any ideas? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Madmath789 (talk • contribs) .

I myself don't have any ideas of what a good name is, but I will ask. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:29, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request for Clarification

Hello Oleg,

Sorry for occupying you but I am quite new to this so your guidance is greatly appreciated.

You have recently deleted our external link on the fractions wiki page with the explanation that is is an irrlevant link.

While I respect your opinion, I am trying to understand what the criteria are.

In essence Skillage.net is a pilot program. I have tutored many students of various age and grade levels and have discovered that thay are lacking some very basic math skills. With skillage.net While there are thousands of sites out there that provide the ability to practice (or purchase practice help, tutoring, etc) we are seeking to build a framework that provides a comprehensive skill building curriculum with a common look and feel.

To make a long sory short, what I am wondering is what your criteria are for deciding to keep Kwiznet as an external reference you rate skillage.net non-suitable.

Thanx for any guidance you can provide.

Regards,

Achim

I did not find the link http://www.prosys-llc.com/skillage.net/Courses/CoursesMain.asp terribly relevant in division (mathematics). I am not saying it is useless, and I am not saying that other external links in various math pages are more useful, but from a cursory look at your web site I did not think it will benefit much people visiting division (mathematics).
Of course, any such judgement may be biased, but I don't much like it when people link to their own websites from Wikipedia articles, especially when doing that in many places. I may make an exception for extremely good external links, but yours was not of that kind, I think. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 20:00, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gene Ward Smith

Hi, I understand why you might be upset with Gene but could you lay it down? Both of you are making constructive comments on real number and it looks silly when you two make shots across each other's bow. I think if you stop, he will stop as well. Thanks. -- 127.*.*.1 13:05, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

In all honesty I meant that one as a constructive comment, and there is nothing I am upset for. But yeah, you have a good point, keeping focussed on content is the way to go. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:12, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Good to see all is ok then. -- 127.*.*.1 15:27, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Path integral

For your information, re your revert on path integral: This text has been added before, and I removed it at that time. No idea what's going on here. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 04:13, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Derivative

Hi!

This is me who added symmetric derivative thing.

Actually I wasn't talking about definitions, but about correct calculating of derivative [you were right in your comment when mentioned that it's applicable for numeric stuff]. I didn't find anything about it on wiki, so I think it should be added something like that:

If:

1. There exists left-derivative;

2. There exists right-derivative;

3. They are equal,

than derivative can be calculated more precisely with following formula: \lim_{h \rightarrow 0}\frac{f(x+h)-f(x-h)}{2h}.

How about that? --anon

I really don't think that information belongs right in the section where the derivative is defined. It is distracting and too offtopic, I think. That information should be better off somwhere at finite difference. Let us continue this conversation at talk:derivative. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:37, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Surface Normal Changes May 20 2006 - Revert

I have to admit the Inward normal picture was not good-looking. I thank you for admitting that I had a point. I also thank you for inviting comments.

As an Engineer, my concept of a surface, closed or not, is a barrier, the outside is at which I am directly looking. The normal coming toward me is an outward normal on the outside surface. The normal going away from me but terminating at the "outside" of the surface is the inward normal.

The invisible (to me) side of the surface is the "lnside" of the surface. The normal starting at the inside and going away from me is the other "outward" normal. If the outward normal I am looking at satisfies the "right hand rule" for an orientable surface then the "other" outward normal must satisfy the "left hand rule". The "inward" normal on each surface is the exact negative of the "outward" normal.

If normals penetrate the surface, the "inward" normal on the "outside" surface changes to an "outward" normal on the "inside" surface. All definitions are then jumbled up.

Thank You user:subhash15

Let us continue this at Talk:Surface normal. In short, while I understand your intuitive view of things, your changes to that article were incorrect. Surfaces are a bit more complex than one may think, and KSmrq explained that nicely at talk:surface normal. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:39, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MathBot on Good articles

Hi Oleg,

Could you please stop Mathbot from updating the good articles talk page with a list of missing articles?

The lists no longer seem to contain any useful information [2] [3] [4] [5]. Possibly because of a change in the format of the good articles page. Plus most maintenance of the good articles page is now done by the GAAuto script.

Your bot did precede the GAAuto script so thank you for your early work.

Cedars 05:19, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I removed the section used to update the bot. That's the only think needed for the bot not to update that page anymore. Good you have a custom script to do work there now. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:27, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Who is watching which articles? Are they coverred?

I was wondering about how the administrators can tell whether an article is being protected from vandals and foolish editors. Is there a way to determine how many editors are watching an article and how many of them are active. Or even exactly who they are? Can you find articles which have less than three active editors watching them? If not, perhaps Mathbot or something like it could search for such articles and make a list. JRSpriggs 04:16, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there is any way you can tell if an article is being watched over. The sad truth of life is that Wikipedia is a complete chaos, and a huge number of math articles are not being watched, and even if they are, only for vandalism and such. Not much to do I am afraid. :( Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:18, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
There was a time when administrators had the right to see which pages were not on any watchlists at all. I can't find this feature now, maybe that right has been pulled. Even when it was around, it wasn't perfect, since lots of pages are on only very few watchlists of editors who may be inactive. Edit: I guess it was Special:Unwatchedpages. Maybe that still works, I don't know. But for some reason, there is no mention of it in Help:Watching pages or Help:Administration. Edit2: Wikipedia:User access levels still mentions it, and the page itself says it was last updated May 20th, so I guess it's still there. Now the question is whether Mathbot can pull the math pages from out of there. I will note that there may be some controversy about making such lists publicly viewable. Edit3: It seems like it only goes up to the first 1000 unwatched pages. Gets up to 1917 in art. -lethe talk + 04:26, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I've seen discussion on WP:VP about the merits of having the developers add such functionality. Some objected on the grounds that publicising such information might allow vandals to target under-watched pages. Not sure if I buy that argument. Paul August ☎ 05:25, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
The whole point of having the page be visible to users with the protect permission was exactly that. The query only goes up to 1000 as it is a bit expensive to produce. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 05:37, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MathBot Question

Just curious:

Did you created MathBot? If so, how did you do so? Thanks in advance.

MoleculeUpload 02:19, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I use the WWW::Mediawiki::Client package to download wikitext from Wikipedia and upload processed text back. That is a Perl module with a few dependencies. The text processing is done locally on my computer using Perl.
That is a short answer to your question. I could give a longer answer but I am not sure what you want. You would need to know some scripting language, say Perl or Python to create a bot. If you prefer Perl on Linux, I could help setting one up. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:04, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank you. I know Visual Basic (version 6.0, 5.0, and 4.0) and know how to do Internet programing with them. I think you answered my question.

Again thank you. - MoleculeUpload 02:19, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "High Intelligence" theories

Very funny the link beneath your page ;)

There are some people that have not yet understood (or they have forgotten) that the purpose of science is to provide efficient and utterly compatible informations to interact with the reality. What model do they propose instead of gravity ? That of a Supreme Intelligence, who Works in a Mysterious Way. What a very useful model ! ;) That's not science, just teleology.

Almeo 09:07, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bot

Hello, its me again.

What type of bot do you feel Wikipedia needs? I am interested in doing whatever I can, but I want to make sure that the Wikipedia community is O.K. with any bot I run.

Thank you! - MoleculeUploadBot 15:19, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Try to see Wikipedia:Bots and its talk page, as well as Wikipedia:Bot requests and its talk page, they may give you some ideas. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:23, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the suggestion. - NoUser 15:27, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

How does this sound:
A robot that searchs for innapropriate words, and tells me. I realize that Wikipedia allows -in some cases- crude language. However, finding crude language could lead to finding vandilism and fixing it.
Thank you for your time and input. - NoUser 15:32, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
You may propose it at Wikipedia talk:Bots and see what people say. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:34, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Eikonal Equation

Thank you for the new Eikonal equation which was much needed. I did some fixes on it, and fixed a bug or two. Wonder if you could take a second look at it and see if it all looks right. How about writing a signed distance function article? :) Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:55, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

The new article looks great. Thanks for working on the mathematical notation, and also moving it to singular form.

I don't have enough knowledge to write an article on the topic you suggested - you are more qualified to do so anyway, seeing that you are a PhD student in math! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Elb2000 (talk • contribs) .

[edit] Bot Details

I work with Windows XP computers. How can I write a bot with the computer as it is (or with only a few updates)? I already have Microsoft Visual Basic (5.0) installed on it. I hope I am not bugging you to much about WikiBots, but I have never done anything quite like it. Thanks! -MoleculeUpload 12:33, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't know at all how to use bots on Windows, and especially written in Visual Basic. Try to ask at Wikipedia talk:Bots, somebody may know. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:05, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. -NoUser 20:01, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] mathbot - redlinks

It seems Mathbot has blanked his pages of mathematical redlinks for some reason. I'm not sure if there's a reason, or if he's just spitting sparks and spinning in circles. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Originalbigj (talk • contribs) .

The script updating those pages need to be more robust. Once I fix it, I will put in the redlinks back. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:11, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
done. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:15, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you for your comments in Lar's RfA!

Hi Oleg, and thank you for your thoughtful comments in my request for adminship! With a final tally of (109/5/1), I have been entrusted with adminship. It's been several weeks since the conclusion of the process, so hopefully you've had a chance ... Please let me know what you think! Thanks again, and thanks as well for your efforts with MathBot. Too bad about him not making Admin though! I look forward to working with you on WP 1.0 and other things in future... ++Lar: t/c 03:25, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Perl

I just downloaded a version of Perl for Windows XP. Where could I find a decent guide for learning the langauge (I am thinking of writing my bot in Perl). Thank you! - MoleculeUpload 19:03, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Start at Perl, follow links. In particular, you might try our own page at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Perl Once you know one computer language, learning another isn't hard. -lethe talk + 19:16, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Note that it may be more efffort than what you estimate to become proeficient in Perl and to install the necessary packages for the Wikipedia bot. I can help, but I am not familiar with Perl packages installation on Windows. So, you're in this for the long run, I hope you have enough motivation. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:11, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] welcome back

I don't think we would have lasted much longer. -lethe talk + 22:24, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Heh. :) Seriously, on one hand I know just as well as everybody that the whole Wikipedia is chaotic and it requires constant supervision. However, in spite of all the chaos and the fact that many articles are not watched over, Wikipedia still manages to be a good source of info. That's a contradiction. So somehow the system works. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:19, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] definition of b^n

I wrote another proposed definition on talk:logarithm, but I thought since you were involved with that, you'd want to take a look before I screw things up. Fresheneesz 23:10, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I commented at talk:logarithm. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:23, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] That old Boundedness stuff

Reviewing my User talk: page, I realised that I never responded to several edits from over a year ago in a discussion that we were having then. I don't even remember why I stopped corresponding then, but I suppose that it's only fair to warn you that this happens to me on the Internet sometimes when Real Life becomes too pressing, and online activities get pushed back further and further and ... well, I'm sorry.

I don't think that I have anything to criticise you about on this now. But for the record (not that it'll be a very precise record after a year):

  • I think that I thought that you had done something disingenuous, either in the redirection or the disambiguation, or both. If I was wrong (and I assume that I was), then my words in this edit were inappropriate, so I apologise for them.
  • Probably you did do something wrong regarding the mechanics of Wikimedia, either in the redirection or the disambiguation, or both. Probably you have long since figured things out, so I won't bother trying to recreate this.
  • You were absolutely right about Urysohn's Lemma.

Well, better late than never, as they say; I was rude to you, and I'm sorry. -- Toby Bartels 21:27, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Back then I confused a few things I think, and that caused your upset comment. Thanks for your message. You did not have to write this, but appology accepted. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:19, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks!

I'm not sure whether this is the third or fourth time that I created an article and forgot to categorise it, and you fixed it. It's great, though! Thanks for catching them, and I promise I'll try better to remember about categories :-)

RandomP 21:59, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

No problem. :) By the way, I would not be as pessimistic about Wikipedia as I saw on your user page. Yes, there is some entropy, but I think more good stuff gets created than what gets run down. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:43, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question about importance column on WP:WVWP lists

Hi Oleg. I'm testing out using MathBot for physics articles, and I know that some WikiProjects also use the importance column, e.g. Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Chemistry_articles_by_quality. Does MathBot sort by importance in some way, or does it simply maintain those labels once they're added by hand to the tables? -- SCZenz 04:38, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

For now it just maintains the labels added in by hand, and does not sort by importance. That will be soon worked on, after I finish with another request, see Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Index of subjects#Category-based importance ratings. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:17, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
Do you have a rough estimate as to when this functionality might be introduced? I'm trying to figure out whether to start tagging things under the current system, or just wait. Thanks, SCZenz 07:32, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
I should have that done in a week, at most, perhaps earlier. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:01, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Cool, thanks very much. -- SCZenz 15:33, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Hi Oleg. thanks for your guide!
ses

[edit] Adding new projects to the 1.0 listings

Oleg,

I am putting together a guide for using Mathbot for WP:1.0 work. As I understand it, projects can simply add a new subcategory tree at Category:Wikipedia 1.0 assessments without telling you, and Mathbot will faithfully generate tables, a log and statistics to order. Is this correct? Or do you need to know that a project is adding themselves to the list? It seems that several groups have already added themselves in quietly, is this OK? If the bot can handle all this without needing to know that would be wonderful. If people need to ask your permission, please let me know ASAP, as we are going to be contacting WikiProjects again very soon. Thanks again for your wonderful work! Walkerma 04:04, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the bot does everything automatically, I don't need to be in the loop. See also the text I wrote at the WP:1.0/I (index of subjects).
Maybe you can hold notifying the wikiprojects till I implement the importance thing (we discussed at the talk page of WP:1.0/I. Can you wait say three-four more days? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:09, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Sounds all right. Ironically, I had created a template to add the functionality to other templtates, so that can be a basis for future work. Oleg, can you make sure everything I wrote there makes sense? Titoxd(?!? - help us) 04:21, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Sure, we will hold off for now. Yes, I have a window open for WP:1.0/I, this new page just steps people through everything in simple stages. Technically challenged people like me need such things! Thanks, Walkerma 04:23, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
I got confused by the Template:Class parameter. In particular, subst'ing it does not seem to work, see User:Mathbot/Page4. Oleg Alexandrov (talk)
Try it without the hyphen (or should there be a redirect there?) Titoxd(?!? - help us) 00:40, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Now works, thanks. I need to study it more. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:29, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Must sleep now (wife says :) Will look at that tomorrow. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:03, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
I figured it out now. The bot, being in Category:Tropical cyclone articles by importance was expecting to see inside of it High-importance Tropical cyclone articles rather than High-importance hurricane articles. But now I tweaked it into just looking at High regardless of what follows it.
By the way, you have some reduntancy in there, High-Class importance hurricane articles as well as High-importance hurricane articles which I guess you did to test my bot. Now the bot will accept both, but I think you may need to trim that category to just one uniform format. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:56, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. Well, we originally had "High-Class importance hurricane articles" as the entries for the tree, but as there was a 113,000-page job queue when I switched to match other trees, I had to leave them there until all the categories were depopulated. I'll go ahead and delete them at any time. Titoxd(?!?) 18:04, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
  • I might as well hijack this thread - it seems the appropriate one. With the tropical cyclones importance assessment there were a lot of articles sitting in Category:Unassessed importance hurricane articles until we got to them (It's empty at the moment). Mathbot was logging all of them as going from No-Class to Unassessed-Class every day (check the log) filling the logs with nonsense.--Nilfanion (talk) 22:57, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, fixed now. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:21, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot

Sorry I missed this User:Jaranda/Requests for adminship/Mathbot, I would have had a few choice words to add. Paul August ☎ 16:56, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I missed it too, I commented a month and a half after it took place. I believe the voting is still open, so feel free to vote and comment. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:27, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps I will. By the way whatever happened to all your nice awards on your user page? Paul August ☎ 18:01, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I buried them with a link at User:Oleg Alexandrov/Contribs. :) When I had just one, it was very precious. Now that I have three (with one more at bot's page) I am experiencing inflation. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:55, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Picture licenses

Hi, I was wondering if you knew anything about picture licenses, and what licences a picture must have to be on wikipedia. Another user just told me that Image:SkyTran Seattle2.jpg doesn't have the right permissions to be on wikipedia (although it does have permission from the owner to be on wikipedia). The guy that brought this to my attention said that "the image would need to be relesed under the GFDL, creative commons attribution, creative commons attribution-ShareAlike or released into the public domain". I have doubts about this requirment, and I would think that many fair-use pictures on wikipedia don't adhere to that. What do you think about this? Fresheneesz 23:22, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't know more than you about that. See Wikipedia:Images, may provide some hints. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:55, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] page move request

Someone moved Kronecker limit formula to Kronecker Limit Formula in the middle of my attempts to write the article, and my attempt to revert this cleanly didnt work; it seems to require deleting pages. Could you sort this out please? Thanks, R.e.b. 14:29, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I moved it back, and it seemed to work. What was the problem? -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 15:28, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks! The problem was that I was half asleep at the time and misread the instructions for undoing moves. R.e.b. 15:58, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:WikiProject Soil

This is a new wikiproject covering about 250 articles, almost all of which seem to be in a stub or start stage. Project formation was prompted by {{WPCD}} tagging. See here for the project's article assessment format. It includes rating of importance to the project. Any pointers or advice you can offer would be appreciated. -- Paleorthid 16:04, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't quite know how to say. I have been involved on this WP:1.0 project, but only on the technical side. I see you also asked Walkerma, he will know how to answer your question. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:25, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Help?

0<k<1 ;

1 + k + k2 + k3 + k4 + ..... = a,

than what is the value of (1 + 2k + 3k2 + 4k3 + 5k4 + .....)?

Answer is a2 but I couldnat get how...


All I got is 1 / (1 − k) = a; than?

Thanx —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.98.51.185 (talk • contribs) 20:25, June 11, 2006.

Take the derivative. -lethe talk + 20:34, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
Or, square each side of the equation. On the left side, using the fact that it is absolutely convergent in (0,1), you can change the summation indices from i in {0,1,ad infinitum} and j in {0,1,ad infinitum} to m=i+j in {0,1,ad infinitum} and n in {0,...,m}. Notice that m is the exponent of k and sum over n to get a coefficient of m+1. JRSpriggs 04:36, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
It works thanx :) :

1 / (1 − k) = a, and (1 + 2k + 3k2 + 4k3 + 5k4 + .....) = [1 + k + k2 + k3 + k4 + .....] '
[1 / (1 − k)] ' = 1 / (1 − k)2 = a2

[edit] Mathbot an RfA template change

There was recently a change to template:RfA making the sections bold using "; Comment" instead of "'''Comment'''" (see WT:RFA for discussion) Since Mathbot needs to recognize which section is the comments section to place the edit summary thing, I have reverted for now, until it can support this. Let me know when it can do that, or just revert the template yourself. :) --—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rory096 (talk • contribs) .

Thanks for letting me know, mathbot will supoort that alternative comment style now. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:03, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. --Rory096 04:06, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Inquiry about calculus of variations

I wrote some stuff on Calculus of Variations in May, and now discover that the tail end was deleted by an unidentifed user on May 23. I notice that you tried to contact this person, but I saw no response. Anyhow, this user claimed that my version of the inhomogeneous wave equation was incorrect, and accordingly deleted a section. Before getting into a tit for tat battle with unknown persons, I'd like your suggestions. Check it out: the wave equation I gave is generally accepted. It may be that my contibutions are opaque, but that is another matter. Donludwig 16:59, 14 June 2006 (UTC)


My objective is to provide an intuitive introduction to Hamilton-Jacobi theory. Donludwig 16:54, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't know much about this stuff, so I don't know what to advise. Would be nice if you provide a reference for your equation, that may clarify matters. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:52, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] About Surface Normal

Surface Normal Outward Normal Left and Right hand rules

Re: Article Surface Normal


Dear Dr. Alexandrov,

The word "outward" was edited out of the caption of the image with the advice to stay away from that adjective. However S. P. Timoshenko, recognized as the father of Engineering Elasticity, in his book Theory of Elasticity uses the symbol "N" to represent "outward normal to the surface of a body" The images in the book showing normals are exactly identical to the image in the article.

If an outward normal is to be recognized, shouldn't an inward normal be also recognized? The inward normal vector represents a pressure

If one of the two normals is determined by the Right-hand rule, isn't the other normal, in the opposite direction, uniquely determined by the Left-hand rule?

I have also copied this to Smrq. Could you kindly respond? Subhash 01:15, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Subhash15/Trial2"

Outward normals apply only to closed surfaces. Not all surfaces are like that, and then that concept does not make sense. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:19, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
Oleg, FYI this exact post also appeared on my talk page, where I responded at greater length. Time to schedule an education in Wiki protocol? --KSmrqT 04:47, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, I found your answer very helpful. Let us continue this at Talk:Surface normal. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 07:59, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Problems at Propositional Calculus

JA: Hi, could you help sort out the continuing tangles at Propositional calculus? First there was that improper name change last month, and I let it go because the user who did it seemed fairly competent and added some good stuff, but now the word "logic" seems to be inviting anonymous users to take the article out of the mathematical logic designation and add any sort of half-baked exposition that they can cook up. I don't know my way around the procedures well enough to keep dealing with sort of stuff. Much appreciated, Jon Awbrey 05:15, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I notified the math people at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics and put that page on the watchlist. Will try to keep an eye on it. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 07:55, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot no longer active on AfD/Old

Hey Oleg, it seems that the link to the AfD script in WP:AFD/Old is no longer active. Is your account no longer active at that address? Thanks, Deathphoenix ʕ 14:00, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

After 14 hours of being MIA, it's back in action. If you did something, thanks for fixing it. If you didn't, thanks anyway for making such a useful tool. :-) --Deathphoenix ʕ 14:47, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
The computer network in my department was down, that caused the problem. Working now. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:38, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
Ah, okay. Thanks for the info. --Deathphoenix ʕ 19:47, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Locus (mathematics) image

I re-added the attribution to Image:Locus_Curve.jpg on this page, because it is required according to the license. It doesn't seem like the best image anyway, so perhaps someone more knowledgable than I about the subject could create a replacement image that does not require attribution. --Gnewf 05:41, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Got it, thanks. I was not aware of such a strange license. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:07, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] edit summary

Hi. Just a reminder, it is good if you use an edit summary when you contribute, it helps others understand what you change. Thanks. You can reply here if you have comments. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 20:51, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

The preview button is a good thing too. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 20:51, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I am aware of both. I guess I made a mistake on some page, so I should have previewed? On what page? (Cj67 20:57, 24 June 2006 (UTC))
Never mind about the preview. You were making a lot of edits at Sobolev space but only later I realized it was in different sections. The edit summary comment is valid though. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 20:58, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Please include the Scouting Wikiproject

Hi Oleg, could you please include the classification results for the wikipedia:WikiProject Scouting, using the {{ScoutingWikiProject}} template with class and importance rating. The wikiproject is currently starting on the use of classification, and would gladly be included in your excellent mathbot counting. Regards, Wim van Dorst (Talk) 20:34, 25 June 2006 (UTC).

Hi. The project should show up at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Index of subjects after you follow the instructions linked from that page. The bot will run tonight and update the lists. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 20:40, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Done. Thanks for pointing this out. We'll see this night whether we did the good things. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 21:01, 25 June 2006 (UTC).
  • Oleg, I am the coordinator of the Scouting Project. Thanks so much for finishing this setup. What you've done here with the automatic, sorting, logs, etc is truly impressive. Many thanks. Rlevse 11:36, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edit summary bar

Oleg, the edit summary line. What do we put in the edit summary bar? Just a phrase about the changes made?

Thanks, Billy Hathorn —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Billy Hathorn (talk • contribs) .

Yes, just a short summary of what you changed can go along way. :) Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 14:55, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 10,000

I award you this Barnstar of Diligence in recognition of your efforts towards creating a working system of article assessment for Wikipedia. Kirill Lokshin 05:23, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
I award you this Barnstar of Diligence in recognition of your efforts towards creating a working system of article assessment for Wikipedia. Kirill Lokshin 05:23, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

It seems we've finally broken past 10,000 assessed articles. We have—thanks, in no small part, to your programming skills and willingness to devote your valuable time to this project—achieved the first steps of what may become the semi-mythical article validation system that everyone always talks about. We—as Wikipedians—are in your debt. Kirill Lokshin 05:23, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the kind words. I had fun programming Perl. :) Glad the project is moving forward. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 14:55, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Logarithmically convex function

Hello, I just want to say thank you for your help and speedy edit at Logarithmically convex function. The article has improved greatly in a few minutes, after both mine and your edits. ;) --Clearcontent 02:01, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Heh, no problem. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:31, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Novel articles by quality

Thanks you you amendment to our category - We "Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels" are gearing up to get envolved with the WP:1.0]] teams assessment approach - who do we talk to - and how do we proceed? I know you might not be the person but you obviously have an interest / envolvement so I thought I'd ask :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 07:48, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

The place to discuss things at is Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Work via Wikiprojects. Bot specific questions go to Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Index of subjects. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 14:50, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Just seen that there are some automated pages in place - however I needed to correct the link to our discussion forum which you might like to know about - unlike what was there it should be Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/GeneralForum#Version 1.0 Editorial Team cooperation. I changed one page only to notice it was on an obviously automatically generated page deeper in. Also that page had the project as Wikipedia:WikiProject Novel when it should read Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels. Ok - thanks for all you help. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 15:31, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

The bot will propagate that correction Novel->Novels when it runs tonight. It can also be fixed by hand, but probably it is not worth it. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:22, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ok, though I miss the point

I'll use your edit summary bar, but aren't all edits recorded, that you can see the change I've done just by clicking a link? And surely someone could lie, or exaggerate, or be mistaken in the bar?

//// Pacific PanDeist * 02:39, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh hey, you're a mathematician - what's the name of that thing where 9.999... is proved to be 10? does that mean 1/(10-9.999) is division by zero? I've knocked that around in my head all night.

//// Pacific PanDeist * 02:42, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Edit summaries are good as they show up on the watchlist and you don't need to click on links to see what changed. Besides, the intent of one's edits is not always clear from the edits themselves, or at least it would take more time that way. So, using an edit summary is a good practrice.

About the 9.999.. see proof that 0.999... equals 1. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:37, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok thanks.

//// Pacific PanDeist * 04:07, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Picture at Taylor series

It is not my work it is User:Ktims--Jaro.p 11:18, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, so he made the picture and you posted it. Thanks, I wrote to him. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:43, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] percentile

I created a chart of admins by percentile, but I'm wondering should I call group nine "admins between the 80th and 90th percentile" or "admins between the 10th and 20th" percentile? Are there firm rules about which direction you start from? Thanks, NoSeptember 15:31, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I actually have no idea. I know I am a mathematician, but this statistical kind of thing is not something I am familiar with. See if people at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics can answer. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:46, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
From what I recall, percentiles are normally done in increasing order - so I would certainly go with " ... 80th and 90th percentile ... " Madmath789 17:01, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Ha, ha, stumped ya ;-). After studying all the examples in the percentile and percentile rank articles and some external links, it appears the low numbers are for new and bottom of the list items, so my group nine would be between the 10th and 20th it appears. NoSeptember 17:13, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
If your chart says "by seniority", the more senior admins should be in the higher n-tiles. The group you describe would be the 9th decile, if I'm not confused.
However, it's usual to sort by age, not by seniority, which would make it the 2nd decile; whatever you do, be consistent (as "age" is something that's used more often than "seniority", I think it's less likely to lead to misunderstandings).
RandomP 18:20, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
The use of the term "decile" is a great idea, thanks. I think seniority makes sense here, used in the same way as with a legislative body. We are talking about length of service in the position of admin. Age could get confused with the person's age, we promote teens and adults all the time of course. NoSeptember 19:17, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] OR at infinitesimal?

Could you have a look at this edit, and perhaps other edits by the same editor? It looks like original research. I've a flight to catch (will be away for a week), so I can't do it myself. Cheers. Jitse Niesen (talk) 03:37, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Wrote to the guy. The stuff looks suspicious indeed. Thanks for the note Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:52, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
From a quick look, it's not as bad as it might seem, but not quite right either.
In Abraham Robinson's development of non-standard analysis, there is a careful logical development of infinities and non-zero infinitesimals, using the fact that we can make a model of the reals that obeys the usual axioms but has some weird things in the model. There is a "fuzzball" of infinitesimals around every standard real, and a derivative goes something like this: Find the ratio of the output change over the input change, where the change is infinitesimal; then take the standard part of the result (lose the fuzz). It's kind of a pain to do it right, and there are more recent attempts at using simpler methods of a related nature to teach calculus. But you still have to be more careful than this added material suggests. Check the "External links" section of the non-standard analysis article for some online stuff you can read.
We can also define "dual numbers", augmenting the reals (similar to complex numbers) with an ε which is defined to be nonzero, but with ε2 = 0. Our article has no citations or links, but this stuff gets some use in robotics (and a tiny bit of computer graphics), so a web search turns up things to read. Here's one example for calculus, but I have no idea how reliable it is.
The added material seems like a mix of both ideas. It could be that the editor has seen some of this stuff and is confused.
I'm not familiar with the use of "⊙" in this way, but mathematicians are dangerous if you turn them loose around a character set, so who knows.
Whether it's OR or confusion or something else, we'd like a citation or two. Hope this helps! --KSmrqT 05:48, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:54, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request for edit summary

Howdy, I am aware of the Edit Summary, but tend not to use it when I think it would not add anything. Also, I usually compare versions using the history, to insure that what is described is accurate. In the case that I think you are referring to (e), I deleted an external link that seemed, to me, to be inappropriate. Of course, other people might have different opinions on the appropriateness.

Which leads to my question: you reinstated the link ("Scales of e"). What was your reasoning?

Kind wishes, Daphne A 18:34, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I reinstated it because I did not understand why it was removed. The purpose of edit summaries is not to add something, rather to explain what you are doing. It is good to put edit summaries at all times, as what is obvious to you is not obvious to others, and it takes less time to read an edit summary than to check the article history. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:47, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request for edit summary

When editing an article on Wikipedia there is a small field labeled "Edit summary" under the main edit-box. It looks like this:

Edit summary text box

The text written here will appear on the Recent changes page, in the page revision history, on the diff page, and in the watchlists of users who are watching that article. See m:Help:Edit summary for full information on this feature.

Filling in the edit summary field greatly helps your fellow contributors in understanding what you changed, so please always fill in the edit summary field, especially for big edits or when you are making subtle but important changes, like changing dates or numbers. Thank you. – Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:42, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Please use edit summaries when you contribute. Thanks, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:48, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Reply. The browser submit when accidentally pressing enter key. It committed to database before it could be stopped. — HenryLi (Talk) 01:02, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Happens rather often I guess. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:41, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Square root

Dear oleg, How can u delete that when i have given reference to it. If it is not formatted correctly some other wikipedian will do that. I think thats the way wikipedia works.Bharatveer 15:39, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

That information appears incorrect. It would take you a few moments to fix it as you know what is going on. Please do it. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:41, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
No . the information is very much correct; I have taken the quote from a journal sponsored by INDIAN NATIONAL SCIENCE ACADEMY , New Delhi .

Pls explain which information is incorrect.Bharatveer 16:12, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

The chapter and section info is not clear. Let us continue on your talk page. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:14, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tnavbar reverted TfD

Greetings Oleg Alexandrov, I've just noticed your reverted Tnavbar TfD and from that I discovered your commentary addressed to the user who was somewhat blindly applying it. I've responded to that user myself in light of my own concerns in this regard. Thanks for reverting your TfD. :-) ←Netscott→ 18:41, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User:Joseandricardo again

Eskog feels that January 2007 and July 15, 2067 are not speedy candidates. As one of the admins taking actions against other dates by User:Jose and Ricardo, I was wondering whether you want to further comment. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 19:19, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the prod tag you put. If this does not work, we will do an afd. This user keeps on creating silly articles. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:54, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FATS

You edited the article about FATS (foreign affiliate trade statistics) saying it wasnt about statistics.

You don't know the topic. This is about statistics. --unsigned

I left in Category:National statistical services which was more appropriate than Category:Statistics. Also, the article has no statistics content whatsoever. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:03, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
This is a new form of statistics, which isn't (yet) taught in school. It is being worked on by international agencies, including an inter-agency UN/OECD working group, and other agencies such as ISTIA are helping to teach about them. The only really good examples, are from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis website from the document "Survey of Current Business" - and they aren't called "FATS" there - FATS is the new OECD name for these statistics. I tried to make links to FDI (which is the establishment basis for which FATS statistics have relevance) and you cut-off that link - so really FATS makes no sense anymore. Back to the point - if I put up the US Statistics, they wouldn't make any sense - furthermore, the way they are presented in the BEA document doesn't provide a simple explaination to novices. As Executive Director of ISTIA, in Geneva, Switzerland, I work on this topic, to help developing country governments to improve these and other statistics, so that have better information for policy decisision. So in short, putting up a bunch of numbers would be meaningness, because even most economists haven't heard of this term - unless they've been following UN Statistical Commission meetings, or meetings of the OECD working group. I did put up some graphics, depicting what they measure, but they were removed, for copyright purposes. They were copyrighted, citations were made, and therefore they should not have been removed.
I just read your id page. That's terrific that you are a mathematician, but these are indeed a form of economic statistics. New ones, having been defined in the year 2000, and having been collected under other names. You didn't learn about them during your PhD program because they are new and aren't taught yet at universities. FATS is as much as an economic statistic as GDP. Placing the term under "national statistical agencies" is erroneous and ironic, considering that most national statistical agencies don't know about them. That's part of ISTIA work, helping them to learn about them and collect them. Thanks for allowing this to be in Wikipedia in correct form.

--istia 01:17, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Would be nice if you expand that article. It is really unclear what it is about from the paragraph already there. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:08, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
I had a nice graphic up there, and some genius wiki-editor decided it had no copyright (I cited it - I created it) and took it down. You guys are a menace sometimes, you know. Otherwise, I will update it, but I'm quite busy now, founding an international agency, raising money, and hiring staff and giving classes - I'll get to it, but not today. As for the trimming of my categories - I didn't see what you took out, but could you please stop that? Those categories are indeed relevant. FATS are part of Globalization statistics. They are indicators for international trade, using WTO-GATS legal guidelines for GATS Mode 3. They are national aggregations of corporate financial data, i.e. corporate financial statistics. Go read some of the links descriptions, and you can see that. But please stop doing that. This area is completely interdisciplinary, and multi-categories are appropriate.--istia 09:56, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
And what is with the editing of transnational corporations data? What gives? You can't possibly have experience with it. How would you like it if you wrote an entry on your thesis topic and some wiki-editor came and annotated it?

--istia 09:56, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I just made the name in bold, that's style. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:08, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Please stop messing with my categories. This needs to be linked to international trade and FDI. Else it doesn't mean anything. Thanks :) --istia 15:32, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pade Approximant Page Invitation

Dear Oleg,

if I have time, I might try to include more stuff on Pade Approximants.

Thanks for the invitation

Regards

DerHannes 11:01, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] From your recent edit summary at topology ...

..."I like she topologists." -- Oleg.

If you like, I can set you up with one.  :-) --C S (Talk) 16:12, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

But I like she applied mathematicians even more. :)
Of course, that she is an applied mathematician is not the only reason I am happy with my wife, but hey, I am sure that played a part. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:28, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
Hey, if Chan-Ho is setting up blind dates with topologists, I want in! -lethe talk + 16:31, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
LOLOLOL!!! I don't normally post 'me-toos', but... Me Too!! That is so funny.. 'Blind Dates with Topologists'. Isn't that a new show on the Nerd Network? I'll audition; I've already got a great line: "Hey honey, how about a little empirical exploration of your surface features?" <grin> We'll eat donuts, of course, and have wine from a Klein... Thanks for a good laugh!Eaglizard 06:11, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Class=x and Class=X

Could you change the program a bit to include noncapitalized classes in the lists. For example class=b and class=B both work on the discussion page but only class=B works on Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Film articles by quality/1. The same goes for class=start and class=Start and class=stub and class=Stub. Andman8 17:01, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Should work now. Let us see after the bot finishes running (in a few hours). Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:46, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
Hate to say it but the fix didn't work. My knowledge of programming stops at editing my myspace so have no suggestions on how to fix it. Andman8 05:18, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
Can you give me a specific example of an article where it does not work? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:19, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
It's not a limitation of the bot, but rather MediaWiki's template code. See my sandbox for an example. Titoxd(?!?) 05:24, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why wouldn't you put the formal definition down?

The natural numbers ARE the union of all inductive sets. So what if it's a complicated definition, it's THE definition and you shouldn't dumb it down for the masses. Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopedia after all. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 167.127.24.25 (talk • contribs) 21:24, July 7, 2006 (UTC)

Intersection, not union. And it's a definition, not the definition. (I'm sure Oleg can defend himself if necessary.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 21:31, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
Continued at talk:Natural number. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:58, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bot count wrong on projects

The bot count of projects is wrong. There are 32 projects, not 30. Rlevse 22:11, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Gosh, you people are fast. :) That was just a test to see if my bot would get it right. In a couple of minutes after that edit I had finished the bot program and now it got it right. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:12, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot temporarily down

... due to a planned outage of the computer network the bot lives on. Should be back in around 16 hours. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:17, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks from mboverload

Thank you for that suggestion about disabling minor edit by default. It has really changed how I think about editing and has encouraged me to put in descriptive edit summaries. I'm not sure about other people, but I truly appreciate a person willing to give constructive advice =D --mboverload@ 00:34, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

And I don't know about other people, but I trully love to give people "constructive advice", meaning bugging on small things. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:36, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
Hehe --mboverload@ 02:21, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FBI Project Stats

Is there a way my custom look... can be mantained while the bot still runs? -- Shane (talk/contrib) 03:22, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

It would be possible, but would require more programming, and for the moment I don't quite see the payoff in fancier stats tables. It would also complicate the existing code. But note that that stats table can be used as a template, so you could transclude it and combine it with other stuff to customize it for your specific goals. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:36, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Maths help

hello, I need to solve a differential equation, yet I am not sure how to go about it. Could you help? it is: − 2d2y / dt2 + 4dy / dt + y − 2sin(t) − 7 = 0. I thought about using (y=e^λt), but it does not seem to work -- could you help me? Thank you --DragonFly31 09:55, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Try asking at Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Mathematics. Dmharvey 10:52, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
This is a linear differential equation, so the homogeneous part −2y″+4y′+y = 0 is easily solved for its "general solution" involving the roots of −2λ2+4λ+1. For the "particular solution", try the method of undetermined coefficients with y a weighted sum of sin and cos plus a constant. --KSmrqT 11:14, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

That's it! i'm looking to solve it through the method of undertermined coefficients; but I have no idea how to go about it. Could you give me a way to solve it using this technique? Cheers--DragonFly31 12:23, 12 July 2006 (UTC)--195.6.25.118 12:22, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

So, as KSmrq says, try y = c1sinx + c2cosx + c3. You should be able to determine c1,c2,c3. This will only give you one solution. The general solution will be this plus the solution to − 2d2y / dt2 + 4dy / dt + y = 0, which can be found by plugging in y = eλt. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:06, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Now who is helping students with their homework? JRSpriggs 05:10, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
We have always been happy to help students with their homework, especially to help them better understand. That is quite different from doing their homework for them. Notice that nothing said here can be turned in as a homework solution. Oleg, Dmharvey, and I could all have easily posted a final answer, and in fact that would have required less of our time!
For example, I first solved the problem, then looked around on Wikipedia for relevant articles to cite for guidance. I only posted the guidance, not the solution. Clear? --KSmrqT 05:45, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I was teasing Oleg because he said something similar to Lethe and myself. See the section "Help?" above. In the edit summary of his 11:07, 12 June 2006 edit, Oleg said "Thanks Lethe and JRSpriggs. I guess instead of an encyclopedia we are becoming a free help for people who can't do their homework. :)". JRSpriggs 04:14, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

thank for the help -- I've actually got it now--DragonFly31 07:55, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot question

Hi Mr. Alexandrov, I was wondering if you could explain what mathbot's output means? For instance, I insert my own username as input and receive the output: "99% for major edits and 65% for minor edits. Based on the last 150 major and 150 minor edits in the article namespace." What do the 99% and 65% indicate? I couldn't find any explanation at User:Mathbot. Thanks, Kasreyn 23:42, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Oops, nevermind... found the explanation. Sorry, Kasreyn 23:45, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Well, the complete sentence is, for example
Edit summary usage for Oleg Alexandrov: 100% for major edits and 100% for minor edits. Based on the last 150 major and 150 minor edits in the article namespace.
so I believe it is self explanatory. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:37, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Barnstar

For making Mathbot into a universal tool for all of Wikipedia
For making Mathbot into a universal tool for all of Wikipedia

Many thanks, long overdue I think, for your amazing work in automating the collection of statistics and metadata by/from WikiProjects. If you had said that by mid-July the bot would be crawling through 50,000 articles, with almost 19,000 assessed, I would never have believed it! Projects are signing on faster than we can contact them! I think once it is established, it will allow us to see across much of Wikipedia and easily find the best/most important articles in each area. All of Wikipedia will be grateful to you, I'm sure. Thanks, Walkerma 05:42, 14 July 2006 (UTC

Thanks a lot for the award! Of course more credit is due to the people who actally evaluate the articles. By the way, I already got a barnstar from Kirill for work on on WP1.0, above, but I bet they link to the samePNG image. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:37, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
I meant to come back and explain - I'd like you to see this as thanks from the WP1.0 team. Kirill in effect represents the many WikiProjects who are benefitting from the bot, but we at 1.0 are also more able to find the information we need. Thanks again, Walkerma 06:35, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:51, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] case

thanks for the tip on the correct case. Ste4k 23:33, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request for feature enhancement of Mathbot

There has been a long discussion here about the use of the Mathbot quality and importance rating system for Wikiprojects. I think we have convinced the originator of the delete proposal that the Mathbot rating system is pretty much a feature of the Wikipedia Wikiproject landscape and isn't going to go away anytime soon.

However, he/she has raised an issue that is worth considering. The issue is that rating an article's importance is inherently a POV statement that is open to debate and contentiousness. As a compromise, we are thinking of using the word "priority" instead of "importance". On the one hand, this seems like a pretty silly exercise in semantics. However, if this will make people happy, it's worth considering.

We discussed just having the bot change from "importance" to "priority" but that would require convincing the editors of 42 projects that use the Mathbot rating system to make this change.

Faced with a choice of "A" or "B", we are now saying "Both! At our discretion!"

So, the proposal would be that Mathbot could be modified to look for "priority" as well as "importance". The output could then be parameterized to output whatever metric the project template wishes to output. Thus, one project could specify "importance" and "quality" while another could specify "priority" and "quality".

Questions to you:

  1. Is this change easy to do?
  2. Do you agree that this is a reasonable solution?
  3. Would you be willing to make the requested changes?

Thanks for considering this request.

--Richard 19:39, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I will copy this to Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Index, and let us see what people say. Oleg Alexandrov (talk)

[edit] Linking

They have been at it all day...trying to add links to encyclopedia dramatica since I am on their mainpage...the individual is just trolling. No one at Wikipedia has to tolerate persoanl defamation, not me and not you. Reverting me again will be the same as endorsing their attempts at disruption.--MONGO 06:16, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Look dude, I am most definitely not playing with you.--MONGO 06:18, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

This and this don't look too good. I suggest you show some consideration, even at trolls. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:18, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Oleg, no quarter to them is to be given. They have been trying all day long to link in anyway they can to their website which has a bullshit article about me on their mainpage. I suggest you reconsider supporting their efforts at trolling.--MONGO 06:20, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
You aren't behaving very well either. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:21, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Baloney...it's simply a bunch of trolls...are you out of it or what?--MONGO 06:22, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
You should not use the admin rollback in such cases. I will drop this for now as engaging with you in an edit war would be silly, but please bother to put an edit summary in the future. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:26, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
No problem. Best wishes.--MONGO 06:28, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Categories for hypernumbers

Hello Oleg,

Thanks for recently going over the hypernumbers page and cleaning it up, I appreciate. There is one concern about the categories they are in, in fact I'm not that sure myself, either. You have removed them from the category Category:Numbers, which I want to revert, since Category:Numbers is the single category where I stronly feel they ought to be in. As for the others, I'd be glad for any comment:

Category:Abstract algebra: I would leave this category.

Category:Hyperbolic geometry: Probably I'll take it out. People looking for hyperbolic geometry may not immediately want to look at hypernumbers. Instead, they may want to look at quaternionic or split-complex systems first, from which there are existing links to hypernumbers.

Category:Nonassociative algebra: Most hypernumber arithmetic is non-associative, so it may be of interest for people looking for this topic. I feel that hypernumbers fall into this category, even though there are some types that are associative.

As for Category:Octonions, Category:Quaternions, and Category:Sedenions, maybe we want to take hypernumbers back out from these categories; while hypernumbers contain several quaternion, octonion, and sedenion types, hypernumbers as a whole do not fall into any of these categories. Hypernumbers are rather an extending concept, and I'll make sure they're properly referenced from the respective pages.

Therefore, I'll change the categories for now to Category:Numbers, Category:Abstract algebra, and Category:Nonassociative algebra. Please let me know (on my talk page or e-mail at jens@prisage.com ) if there is a better way of categorizing them.

Thanks, Jens

Koeplinger 20:44, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Please feel free to put it back. I was not sure it should be taken out to start with. I thought that being in Category:Octonions, Category:Quaternions, and Category:Sedenions is enough, but now I guess being in Category:Numbers is better. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 20:57, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks; I appreciate your help. Koeplinger 01:32, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Oleg, thanks again for your help and guidance. I'm willing to take on some of the work that is needed to clean-up number, Category:Numbers, template:Numbers, and hypercomplex numbers. It's great that a lot of material has accumulated over time. I will wait a few more days to see whether I get any more feedback on hypercomplex numbers (I've also left the initial author a note on his/her talk page). If not, I would like to rewrite this stub in a way that describes 4 different understandings of the term "hypercomplex numbers" to-date, provide reference to the first use of that term wherever I can, or leave a "missing reference" stub when people are using it but we don't know yet about first use of that understanding. Once this is done, I'll gladly look into the number article and update it with some links and information that currently is in template:Numbers. The categories in the number article are already much better than the ones in template:Numbers, so that should be straightforward. Once this all is done, I'll get back with you, and leave it to you what to do with template:Numbers (update as-is, get-away with, show in number aricle only). Please let me know if you have a different suggestion. Thanks, Jens Koeplinger 14:25, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't have any suggestions for the moment. If at any point you need the opinions of the larger math community, you can start a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:01, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Good idea, I'll post a message there. Thanks, Jens Koeplinger 21:22, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot old AFD summary

It might be helpful to increase the number of discussions that are directly linked when the the number gets low, from 10 to 15 or 20, so we don't have to scroll through 200 to find a handful. —Centrx→talk • 23:28, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. I did that and will post a note about it at Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Old to see if there are any comments about this. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:11, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Please erase this page

Hi!

Can you please erase this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illustration_of_a_low-discrepancy_sequence


I merged it with

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-discrepancy_sequence

as requested.

Thanks,

Diego

I redirected Illustration of a low-discrepancy sequence to Low-discrepancy sequence. To learn how to do that in the future, see Wikipedia:Redirects. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 18:01, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] AWB edits

Sorry about that. I got into a groove after a while, and I missed a few things that I should've caught. And apparently I've totally screwed up what a bad link was...I'm going to make sure that's not what I'm dealing with in the future. I promise I'll be more careful with what I'm doing in the future, I'm still trying to get a handle on what it can do. (I've only used AWB 3 times prior to tonight.)--Toffile 03:32, 23 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Quick Favor

I noticed that you're an admin and I've been seeing you involved in AWB a lot. Could you possibly go over and approve the people applying for AWB privileges? My sock account (for spellchecking and repetitive edits) is one of them. Thanks, Alphachimp talk 17:39, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I am admin, but I have no involvment with AWB except posting a couple of annoyed rants concerning people overusing the tool for trivial things. I also never used the tool myself.
As such, I don't feel really confident to aprove of people applying for AWB privileges. I suggest you ask on AWB's talk page for help, somebody may answer. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 20:03, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wilkinson's polynomial

(I'm posting this at both Arthur's and Oleg's talk page; my apologies for the redundancy.) I wonder if you might take a quick look at this AfD. I think keep to be in order, inasmuch as Wilkinson's polynomial is, I think, notable, and inasmuch as, though unsourced and perhaps not altogether accurate, the article isn't wholly unsalvagable, but the discussion would surely benefit from the insinuation of someone better-versed in numerical analysis than I. Thanks in advance for any guidance you might be able to provide at the AfD or the article's talk page... :) Joe 04:36, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Linux

Hi. Can you please explain this reversion in more detail at talk:Linux?

To me that note is very distracting and not very helpful. People looking for GNU only will not type GNU/Linux, and the relationship between GNU and Linux is explained at the correct place in the article. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:16, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

AFAIK putting "X is redirected here" blurbs atop articles when 'X' is a very common name for the subject of the article is standard practice. Saying where the GNU article is serves as an explanation so people don't have to say "Okay...and wtf is GNU?" should they be that completely ignorant. Also, I'm pretty sure the "GNU/Linux" proponents would eat you alive and yet another war on this matter would be spawned. ¦ Reisio 05:04, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Per my request above, this is being discussed at talk:Linux. But thank you for your comment. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:10, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "By Quality" log

On the "Novel articles by quality" log I now find working with the page increasingly difficult due to it's growing size. Can I suggest that this page is separated out into it's component days. This would mean something like "Novel articles by quality log" would be a overall page of links to "Novel articles by quality log for 2006-07-25" or somesuch. Then we could get to work with a far smaller file and load lead data, reducing the server load.

I would also suggest that all the other subject logs should take an identical approach. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 10:22, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Subpages would be an issue as the bot would generate hundreds of mostly unhelpful log pages every year for each project.
I made the logs automatically keep their size under 300KB. If that's still too big, I can make the logs be even shorter. The information which is being cut off by shorter logs, that is, logs for events say two weeks before current, is always in the history and can be searched for if necessary.
I would think that this is the simplest thing to do. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:28, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Also, logs can always be trimmed by hand, if necessary (for most projects it is not). The bot won't mind and won't overwrite any such changes. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:29, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Ok, thanks for the help - we'll see how we get one with that limit set. Maybe a date based cut off would have been better, anyway we'll set how it goes. Is this just for us or for other projects as well. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 16:17, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
We do have a date-based cutoff, it is one month. But your project tends to accumulate huge logs, that's why there is the extra condition that the log also be limited by size. I believe most projects don't have that huge level of changes, and even yours will not accumulate logs as much once things settle down a bit and most articles become evaluated. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:34, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism by David Cruise

Now that he has vandalized Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics, I think that it is about time that he was blocked!!!!! JRSpriggs 05:51, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot rocks

The da Vinci Barnstar
Mathbot rocks! evrik 01:21, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. :) I would actually be interested in what you think makes mathbot so cool, that is, what applications you think are more helpful. May give me a clue on what else I could work on. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:35, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
  • I like the work it does in updating statistics for the Wikiprojects. --evrik 01:40, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Complex Number page

if you have a problem with my edits, please refrain from whole sale revert. Instead, edit. Because, wikipedia grows by piece-wise contribution, and that is the gist of its success. In my complex number edit which i spend quite some effort over 10 or so edits, i have at least corrected one technical error and added few info that are not there or ambiguous. I think you've been following my tail for some reason. (we first “met” probably over a year ago) I know what you want from me. You want me to prioritize the political or bureaucratical process over contributing content on wikipedia. That itself is questionable, but in any case should not be forced onto everyone. Xah Lee 09:09, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

In theory that's indeed how it goes. A user makes a valuable contribution, and other users take time to fix whatever style things are necessary, Wikipedia grows that way, and everybody benefits.
In practice however, there are some trolls who do crappy edits, not that they have not been told, and it is much simpler to just revert the whole thing rather than spend a huge amount of time hunting for that little golden nugget hidden in there (assuming that there is one, your edits tend to have not only style, but also content mistakes).
As far as your conspiracy theory with me following you around for political reasons, what if we just say that I had complex number on my watchlist for a very long time (like many other math articles), and that you are doing crappy work wherever I see you. I understand you may be more happy with your own explanation, but mine happens to be closer to the truth. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:28, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
Nice refutation. However, i think your revert on my Complex Number page and Mobius Transformation page are emotional reactions. You may not agree when i say you follow my tails (you call it “conspiracy theory”), but a fact is that i think most or every math article i touched you came and revert. I thought our problems were over when the circle inversion and reflection thru a point article disputes are resolved satisfactorily on both our ends, and you didn't seem to object or get involved with my editing of mobius transformation page... thus i kept on and also ventured to edit the Complex Number page (which i broached in the talk page first!). But then, you appeared, with a whopper move, reverted it the sequence of edits i've made in a couple of days, leaving a slighting remark, and also reverted to the mobius transformation page. So, in general, after all said and done, i don't think the last two reverts are reasonable. Now please note, you please go on and do whatever that is you do or believe, which is fine with me. I just want you to know my opinions. I will probably take a break from editing math articles. I understand my edit are perceived as problematic by some. Xah Lee 19:39, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Take a break? Good! It'll save everybody a lot of trouble. Frankly, I'm surprised you haven't been banned yet. Oleg, I recommend you do follow this guy around to make sure his crappy edits don't remain on Wikipedia. --C S (Talk) 21:39, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Look, Xah, just put some care when you write. You've been here since 2003, plenty of time to learn how to do a good job. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:46, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Oleg for the reversion of Mobius transformation - I think it was the best thing to do :-) Madmath789 16:47, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "By importance" categories

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Index. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:41, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request for review

Hi, I saw you had made some of the initial contributions to the Boris Galerkin article. The article has a cleanup request and I have done some cleanup, but it is still not close to perfect. I would very much appreciate it, if you could have a look at the article. Bfg 14:20, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I did some copyediting on it. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:47, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks alot. :) Bfg 13:06, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 24601

I think I liked it better as a redirect. Would there be any objection to killing the redirect from 24601 to 24601 (number)? (I should check Project Mathematics more often.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 01:37, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Numbers and dates the article about the number 24601 should be at 24601 (number). I agree that the redirect 24601 is unhelpful (it is not a year). I will delete it now. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:46, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Boundary value problem

I moved the examples as I think that they were long an relatively technical, I saw that that had been done in Integral (examples) so I followed the naming convention in use there. It would be better if either Integral (examples) was called Examples of integrals or we kept the Boundary value (examples) name, I would do not mind. I saw other people on the talk page asking if the examples were too much and I think three in an article this size was. I added wordy examples so I hope that compensates. I just thought I should explain myself to you as another maths editor. Rex the first talk | contribs 09:02, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. :) I think the name Boundary value (examples) is not really good, should be either Boundary value problem (examples) (the word "problem" added in) or Boundary value problems (examples) (plural problems), or Examples of boundary value problems which is what I had renamed it to. I think the last title is better, but if you really prefer one of the other two, you could move the article to that name. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 09:23, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Barnstar

The E=MC2 Barnstar Awarded to Oleg for his excellent work with Mathbot and Wikipedia 1.0. --kingboyk 12:20, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
The E=MC2 Barnstar Awarded to Oleg for his excellent work with Mathbot and Wikipedia 1.0. --kingboyk 12:20, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Now there is a well deserved barnstar. It is my view WP 1.0 would be nowhere near where it is without Mathbot, and of course, your efforts. Well done and thanks! ++Lar: t/c 14:59, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Gosh, this is the fourth barnstar for working on WP:1.0. That is way, way behind schedule; as far as I can tell we have 53 projects at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Index for the moment (so 49 more barnstars to go :)

Seriously, I am pleased. It appears that the WP1.0 is much more important to people than I thought, and I am happy my script is found useful. Thanks. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:30, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

By the way, I store them at User:Oleg Alexandrov/Plaudits, now linked directly from my user page. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:36, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
You seem to be so popular that I wonder whether you should run for the Board of Trustees. Are you interested? JRSpriggs 06:04, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I am a popular script-writing nerd, and I intend to keep it that way. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:23, 2 August 2006 (UTC)


The da Vinci Barnstar
The da Vinci Barnstar is awarded to Oleg Alexandrov/Mathbot for the bot's excellent design and Mathbot's tool. Gray Porpoise 16:00, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
I guess we are going through a meteor shower. :) Thanks. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:57, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] You reverted my addition

Oleg,

My research in the fractiona part function and some other discrete functions dates back to 1996. It is the only available reasearch about the representation of some discrete functions in terms of elementary functions. Wolfram company, the publisher of Mathematica adopted the result that the derivative of fractional part. This has been published by me some months ago in the mathematics forums.

Mohamed Al-Dabbagh

Wikipedia accepts only results published in books and mainstream journals, as I wrote to you on your talk page. Per my suggestion there, please read WP:NOR. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:22, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot

When this last complained about edit summaries, it was using the link edit summary, which is currently red for cross-namespace redirect reasons (WP:RFD's likely to have a few at any given moment if you want to see the arguments). If you run it for this purpose again, could you change it to link to Wikipedia:edit summary (possibly piped) instead? --ais523 16:42, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I won't use the bot anymore to bug people about edit summaries. But you are right, the edit summary cross-namespace redirect got deleted. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:48, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mihai Eminescu

You are from also from Moldova? Then I shall let you cross. I am new with the encyclopedia, if you want to help me that would be appreciated. --anon

I suggest you start by making an account. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:21, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Articles by quality and Category:Articles by importance

Hi Oleg. The bot will need to be told to ignore the above categories. They simply duplicate the content of the other categories, excepty they are ordered by class rather than by Project. They were only partly used so I have spent a lot of time populating and reorganising them. Cheers. --kingboyk 10:39, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Done. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:25, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Empty categories

I know your bot runs off a set of categries and keeps them empty as per a new task of identifing old empty categories that should be deleted i would like a list of the cats your bot keeps empty. please see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approvals#BetacommandBot_expansion_of_task your assitance would be welcomed. Betacommand 18:06, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I am not aware of any empty categories used by my bot for any purpose. Do you have an example? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:43, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rami Grossberg

I'm sure you're aware of it, but it's on AfD. I don't know your mathematical field, but perhaps you can find some notability? — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 19:37, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I did some copyediting on this article a while ago. I don't know if that person is notable enough to have his own article (and my math field is indeed very removed from that person's). Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:43, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Andrew Levine RFA

I have changed my preferences as you've suggested to warn my before placing a summary-free edit. I have never played around much for preferences and was not aware of this feature. Thank you for letting me know of this useful option, and thanks in advance for your support vote. Andrew Levine 23:38, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I can't vote support, as I don't know you, but I will of course drop my oppose vote. :) Good luck! Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:48, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ati3414

Sorry to dump this on you, but when you get a chance would you take a look at the recent contributions of User:Ati3414 and form your own opinion as to the correct course of action, if any? --Trovatore 17:34, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

From a quick look it appears that he may have "nonstandard" views on physics, and for sure he seems to be a revert warrior. I put photon on my watchlist, and while I will stay out of the scientific debate, if he edit wars too much he may get a block. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:36, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Complex numbers

hi just wanted to know what is wrong with my change to the complex numbers article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.172.216.229 (talk • contribs) 21:22, 2006 August 10

It just looks nicer the way I wrote it. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, so it should be as accessible as possible. Logical symbolism like \forall and \Longleftrightarrow is to be avoided. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:11, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
This advice is contained in the style manual, which is recommended reading for mathematics editors. --KSmrqT 23:45, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Factor out logs of certain Wikiproject:Novels pages?

I haven't seen how you bot works, but it seems to me that it should be easy to construct logs pages under the Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels pages by category, no? To be concrete, I was starting to dream up an assessment system for the fledgling Wikipedia: WikiProject A Song of Ice and Fire (this is a series of fantasy novels), only to have all "our" pages subsumed under the Wikipedia: WikiProject Novels, including it's spiffy assessment system. What I would like now would be a table of only the pages organised under the Category:A Song of Ice and Fire, but with their Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels quality scales. This would help us make a more focussed contribution and avoid the need to have two parallel assessment systems. What is more, this seems to be a factorisation that other projects would benefit from. All assuming that you only have to add logic corresponding to "and requestedCategory isIn category(currentpage)" to your code somewhere, otherwise it's too much hassle. Arbor 10:19, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Replied at Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Index. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:21, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikiproject question

I saw this. We would like the same list for Wikipedia:WikiProject Medical Genetics. Could you help please? NCurse Image:Edu science.png work 13:46, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Using the bot. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:19, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks! :) NCurse Image:Edu science.png work 15:47, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks for WikiProject Indonesia

As the creator of the project and all Indonesian Wikipedians, thank you for updating the article ratings! We really appreciate it. Take care -- Imoeng 03:07, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

You are welcome. The bot will start running around this time every day. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:10, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RfA thanks

Thanks so much for voting, Oleg Alexandrov!
Thanks so much for your support vote on my request for adminship! With a final vote count of (82/5/0), it succeeded, and I'm now an administrator! I am thrilled with the overwhelming positive support from the community, and sincerely thank you once again for taking your time to voice your opinion. Feel free to contact me with any comments/suggestions in the future!
—Mets501 (talk) 03:50, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbbot

I give you the highest award on Wikipedia (I reckon. :P) for the amazing mathbot, one of the very useful concept on Wikipedia (which I actually don't know how it works). Great job, really great job! Take care -- Imoeng 11:02, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
I give you the highest award on Wikipedia (I reckon. :P) for the amazing mathbot, one of the very useful concept on Wikipedia (which I actually don't know how it works). Great job, really great job! Take care -- Imoeng 11:02, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for the long message, ahahahah. Imoeng 11:02, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:28, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Abuse of AWB

User:Mboverload is abusing AWB. He is "correcting" the spelling of words without making sure that the corrected version is, in fact, correct. He corrected a spelling to "iimmediately" (extra "i") and another to "unanimouss" (extra "s"). Please do something. JRSpriggs 05:38, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

You could write to him a message about that, see what he says. The place to complain about AWB misuse is by the way Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:28, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Today's WP1.0 bot run

Hi Oleg. I think today's run might have crashed once it got to the Biography articles. It's not been heard from for several hours. Perhaps if you're around you could check and if that's the case skip Bio and do the others? Sorry in advance if our mass tagging has caused the problem. --kingboyk 15:55, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

The bot did not crash, it is still running, now doing http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Johann_Passler&action=history. It may crash however, as it was not meant to do tens of thousands of HTTP requests in several hours.
I won't interrupt it now, I am curious to see when it will finish. But if the biography project keeps on causing slowdowns in the future, one idea would be to indeed remove this project from the list of projects the bot works on, that for the sake of the other ones. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:04, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
I've suggested on the WP1.0 talk running Bio as a seperate process. We'll have to rack our brains for other solutions too: a "has changes" category perhaps? Or, how about skipping - just counting - unassessed articles for WPBiography? That might not need be a such a bad idea you know: we'd like to have a count of the unassessed articles, but we don't need them listed - we have the category for that. --kingboyk 16:14, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kelly RFAR

You said, "Other recent worrisome issues are her recent creation of a list of Wikipedians who voted oppose at a request for adminship." Just to let you know, that isn't really true ... without getting into specifics, let me say that the addition of those names from the RFA were spurious and that there were already a sizeable number of names on the list before that RFA ever began. The list itself wasn't about RFA activities. --Cyde Weys 17:25, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

It is very hard to say for sure what indeed happened since some of you tried to keep some kind of "secrets" as to why such a (black)list of users needed to be created to start with. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:31, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kilopi

Hi, what happened to the Kilopi entry?

I seem to get redirected to asteroids.


there is an astronomy forum http://www.bautforum.com/ (forum for badastronomy.com) where the term 'kilopi' referes to when a member(poster) has got 3142 posts. When they post their 3142nd post people say 'they have reached kilopi. The first use of the term goes back to around 2002 so there is a place, on the net at least, where the term has another meaning.

could you make the redirection optional? I was just going to edit in a link to the asteroid page when I found the new redirect. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Blacklobster (talk • contribs) .

That Kilopi is used in an astronomy forum does not make it notable enough for Wikipedia to have an article about it, see WP:Notability. I could not find any significant google hits discussing kilopi. That's why I redirected the article. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:15, 17 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Moldova

What part of Moldova are you from? --anon

Why would you wanna know? :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:48, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Where do deleted articles go?

I am just curious. Where do deleted articles go? Are they sent to the "bit bucket"? Or are they hidden somewhere so that they can be brought back, if circumstances change? Remember "Direct logic" which was deleted a while back. The reason it was deleted was that it was Original Research by its author and had not been published in an important journal. What if it were subsequently published? Could the article be resurrected or would it have to be written again from scratch? JRSpriggs 04:25, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

They're hidden and can be viewed by administrators like Oleg and myself (in some unusual circumstances, usually when the articles contain illegal stuff like libel, more extreme forms of deletion happen). The formal way to request resurrection is at Wikipedia:Undeletion, but you can also try asking an administrator you know. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 04:58, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
That's so boring, Jitse. I started writing a beatiful story abou how deleted articles go to hell (having gone through the last judgement), but then we had an edit conflict. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:03, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Actually, that's wrong, Oleg. They go to Wiki-Hell. Titoxd(?!?) 05:10, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wiki tips

Hi. Just a few remarks. One is that it is good if you use an edit summary when you contribute, so that it is clear to others what you changed. My second remark is that if you decide to put the {{technical}} template on an article, you could as well visit its talk page and explain as to why you think that template is justified, and what exactly is not clear to you. Thanks. You can reply here if you have comments. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:18, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

It is extremely rude to delete a message addressed to you, don't you think so?
As far as linear programming is concerned, if you don't explain on its talk what you think the problem is, I will remove that template. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:24, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

imagine the average person who has an IQ above 100 but may not have studied industrial engineering or math...it would be impossible for them to understand what linear programming is the way the article is written.

Justforasecond 05:31, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I have no problem with you saying that an article is too technical. I have a problem if you do a sloppy job about that. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:41, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
And don't just delete my comments, learn some etiquette. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:41, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Sorry if removing your comments looked rude, lately I just want to keep my talk page clean. It contained a large number of negative comments recently and I was just getting tired of it so I wiped most of them away. Justforasecond 20:44, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Messed up moves

Vandal User:CyberSkull moved Mu-recursive function to Μ-recursive function and Mu operator to M operator. I moved the second one back, but even after I edited the redirects there are redirects from "M operator" to itself and "Talk:M operator" to itself. Would you please fix this mess. JRSpriggs 05:15, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

No, wait. I know what happened. When I moved the article back I just added a "u" to the title after what looked like an "M", but it must have been a capital mu "Μ" instead. I will try the move again. 66.44.10.2 06:10, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I need help after all. Now that I am entering the correct name, it will not allow me to do the move because there is already a (redirect?) file there and I am not an administrator. Either that or it is the same file and I was wrong about it being a capital MU. JRSpriggs 06:19, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I think you should be more careful with calling people "vandals" :) As far as that article, I moved back Μu operator to Mu operator as it looks better that way. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:34, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. Could you fix Mu-recursive function also. I do not want to risk making a mess again. And what did you change exactly? JRSpriggs 06:41, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Done. I think one had to delete the redirect before doing a page move, for which one needs admin privileges. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:01, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Numbers as first column in quality stats

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Index. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:31, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How were those links irelevant?

Do you work for solidworks or something?

put back the links to the open source packages, that could further people's knowledge of the subject very much, and they would be able to contribute to these packages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.173.169.13 (talk • contribs)

What are you referring to, my trim ups at finite element analysis. I left the links to other sites explaining the finite element method, I removed the links to packages, which are not that important, can't teach you a lot, and are very many. If you want to download a finite element package, you could as well do a google search. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:20, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Inline audio link pop-ups

What it would look like to hover over an audio link
What it would look like to hover over an audio link

As you're one of the people who commented about formatting/clutter on the {{audio}} template, I'm wondering what you think of my proposal for a javascript popup instead. I fixed the "clicking on the icon goes to the image page" problem a while ago, but there is still the "overloaded interface"/"too many click targets" problem, and I'm proposing we use javascript to hide the extra links until you hover over it. You can try out the mock-up yourself by adding this to your User:Oleg Alexandrov/monobook.js:

document.write('<scr' + 'ipt type="text/javascript" src="' 
             + 'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Omegatron/monobook.js/audiopops.js'
             + '&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&dontcountme=s"></scr' 
             + 'ipt>');

This would be a site-wide change, so everyone would see it, and it safely falls back to the current design with several links on browsers without javascript. I would be happy with any kind of support, suggestions, or criticism; right now I feel like I'm talking to a wall. — Omegatron 18:43, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I really like the popup idea, I would be more than willing to push for its adoption. But the link in the popup is way too verbose in my view, just two links titled "help" and "info" there should be enough I think. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:33, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
It's intentionally verbose. The links alone aren't very clear to a newcomer, and we don't have to worry about wasting space since it's only displayed transiently. The original version was just two links. — Omegatron 01:12, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Small bug with WP 1.0 articles by quality info fetching - 'start' vs. 'Start'

Hello. I tagged a series of articles for WP:Phys yesterday, including both their class and importance, but a number of them have appeared as unassessed on Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Physics articles by quality. This seems to have been caused by me using the lowerclass "start" class, rather than "Start". I'm guessing that this is either a small bug with your fetching bot (not recognizing the lower case start), or else a limitation with the tagging system, and that either your bot needs a minor tweak or I need to change the classes to "Start". Could you tell me which, please? Thanks. Mike Peel 07:41, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

The bug is not with my bot. If you visit Talk:Mechanics you will see that even if you wrote on top "start-Class", the category on the bottom is still "Unassessed". The problem is that your template, {{physics}} does not accept lowercase. The bot only reads categories, and the category there is "Unassessed", rather than "start-Class" or "Start-Class". So either you fix {{physics}} or you use uppercase "Start". :) Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:05, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
I've fixed their template for them. --kingboyk 15:16, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Ah, thank you. I didn't think to look at the categories. Mike Peel 15:24, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hypernumber-Sedenion-Hypercomplex number

Hi, do you know anything about this Kevin Carmody? Is he even a mathematician? I can't find any eprints by him at the arXiv or at citeBase.---CH 21:29, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Nope, no clue. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:45, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] QED

Do you feel like closing on the discussion at Talk:QED (disambiguation)? I think it's been long enough. --Trovatore 03:45, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Done. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:20, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Essjay's tool

Now that we have a new toolserver tool that again displays edit counts in realtime, do you think it's a good idea to add that back into Mathbot's message like it used to be? --Rory096 05:22, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd be more than happy too, as I find those countitis in RfA pages to be annoying. However, note that Essjay's tool is very slow (and now died out when I tried to check your edit count). People may be unhappy and may strain the server. (Interiot's tool was fast and was not straining the server as it was running on a separate database.)
This may need a community discussion at WP:RfA's talk page. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 14:39, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] links in headings

I had not read that. Thanks. David R. Ingham 05:25, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article quality statistics

Hello Oleg. I noticed that Mathbot updates Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Album articles by quality statistics, and I was wondering how that worked. I would like to implement something similar for WikiProject Figure Skating. I understand that a bunch of code needs to be added to Template:WikiProject Figure Skating, but I don't know how to make a quality table automatically update. I would like the template to appear here. Could you help me? Thanks! --Fang Aili talk 16:16, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot and "assessment" stats

Can you clarify how Mathbot is counting these "article class" categories? I'm a little concerned that stats like "Unassessed 120779", for the biography category, would on the face of it have required about 600 category listings-page. Hopefully that's the exception (at least until the assessment plague has covered the whole wiki with talk-page grey goo) but it seems quite a lot to be doing on a daily basis. Alai 16:22, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks.

Hi, I am very slow, I just understood your message. Thank you for your message! And I just realized that not everyone is entitled to edit the articles. If everybody does it, the articles will become very messy, and confusing. Those awful behaviors were really not my intention. So I was supposed to post my comments and requests on the talk page. I hope that I am right this time. Jackzhp 00:05, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WPBiography

Hi Oleg, I hope you enjoy your wikibreak. When you get back, I wonder if you'd be willing to have Mathbot support "by priority" categories? We've had to rename our importance categories following a "complaint" that rating living people by "importance" might cause problems. We've already switched to the new naming so I hope you will be willing to do it :) --kingboyk 16:07, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, I will work on that in the next few days. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:29, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
Done. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:19, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stop move of "Ordinal number"

User:Salix alba is planning to move Ordinal number to another name. Please stop him. JRSpriggs 03:47, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

That would need discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:29, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
There is already a section there called

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics#Rename "Ordinal number"? God forbid!, and also a section at

Talk:Ordinal number#Should the article really be called transfinite ordinal numbers. The opinions are divided and presently the plan seems to be stalled. JRSpriggs 07:02, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Change to Template:RfA

As soon as all the bots are updated, RfA will have section headers, in the format "<includeonly><noin</includeonly><includeonly>clude></includeonly>====<includeonly></noin</includeonly><includeonly>clude></includeonly>'''Comments'''<includeonly><noin</includeonly><includeonly>clude></includeonly>====<includeonly></noin</includeonly><includeonly>clude></includeonly>", per consensus at WT:RFA. Please notify me when you've updated the code. Thanks, Rory096 19:00, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

(Belately) I will let you know when I fix the bot to not get confused by that change. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:29, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
OK, thanks. Also, the "Comments" section's name will be changing to "Discussion." --Rory096 18:54, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
It might not be changing just yet, so forget this for now. --Rory096 00:37, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] bship

Hi Oleg. Long time, no talk. Well I'm still in a state of sporadic internet access. I see by your talk page that you are also on some kind of internet hiatus. So this may be a slow communication. Anyway, I've planned this since back when I was a regular, and now that it's September, it's time.

So pretty soon, it's going to be your one year anniversary as an admin at Wikipedia, which I think is a nice ripe time. I think you ought to consider bureaucratship. I say this not as a friend of yours and co-editor who enjoys working with you, and not because you're the guy who nominated me for adminship and I want to return the "favor", but rather because of the activity I've seen from you in at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship. I feel like there are bureaucrats who favor a lot more instruction creep and lots of solutions floating around looking for a problem, and we need more bcrats who keep things grounded. I appreciate your frank yet polite way of offering criticisms, a skill which I've yet to master.

I would be willing at some point (don't expect promptness) to collect these thoughts into a nomination, though I gather that normally people self-nominate for bcratship. What are your thoughts on it? -lethe talk + 02:36, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your trust. I also thought about candidating for bureaucratship a few times. As a bureaucrat however, I would need to be active in promoting admins, and to be honest, while that's a straightforward (and not time consumming) job most of the time, I am not really burning with desire to do it. Two other reasons I would not want to think of bureaucratship yet at this time is that I don't feel I still have the insights/skills for such a position, and my off-wikipedia life will be busy in the near future as I will be applying for jobs.
Thanks again for your suggestion though. Eventually I may consider candidating for bureaucrat at some time in the future, although for the moment I see that as an unlikely possibility. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:29, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Welcome back Oleg

There was a noticeable drop in the activity on math related pages while you were away :-) - Fredrik Johansson 12:06, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Help with Krein space?

Oleg -

I noticed that you have previously commented on Krein space. Would you mind taking a look at my recent edit to see if it helps or hurts? In particular, I'm not sure whether I did the right thing in adding directions that are null in both inner products and the quotient (coset) space construction. This comes up in the application with which I am familiar (BRST Quantization, which I am not done writing yet) but may not technically be part of the Krein space idea (see talk page).

Michael K. Edwards 02:00, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I know very little about the topic. My only contribution to that article was to do some cleanup and post an {{attention}} tag. So, I can't help. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:49, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
I have now read up a bit on indefinite inner product spaces (J. Bognar's book) and will restructure the article accordingly. Actually, the current Krein space page should probably be moved to indefinite inner product space and Krein space redirected there. Is that something that it takes an admin to do? Do you want me to do the rewrite before asking you to move the page? Michael K. Edwards 22:56, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
You should not neeed admin powers to move pages (unless the destination page already exists). But your account is rather new, it may take several days until you get that privelege (check for the "move" tab on top, to see for sure if you can do that). I really can't say what the correct title of the article should be, try asking at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:35, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
OK, I got around to moving Krein space to indefinite inner product space and added some relevant material; more to follow. Thanks for the help! Michael K. Edwards 08:18, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Run time length

Hi Oleg. I was looking at the contributions page of your Mathbot and I started wondering about the time it takes the bot to process all of the jobs its does. The number of projects now using the bot seems to be increasing almost exponentially! Last month I seem to remember that the whole lot would be finished maybe by 5 am. This morning at 7:32 am (GMT) it had reached fig for Figure skating articles by quality log. Should the number of projects using the bot increase at the same rate, surely there will be a conflict with the (automated?) schedule: the bot won't have finished its jobs by the time it comes to starting the process again (midnight?).

I don't know if this is indeed a problem waiting to happen, or if you've accounted for the possibility. The immediate solution I can think of is to split the bot into two (or more) concurrent processes: 1—M and N—Z or something. I hope this is helpful to you, and I'm curious as to your thoughts in any case.

Keep up the good work by the way! :)

Cheers, --Mal 06:50, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Indeed today's run didn't even seem to start until 09:22, 19 September 2006 (UTC) and even then progress is "very" slow. Is there something "up". :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 10:23, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Continued at Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Index. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 14:52, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I'm leaving for awhile in protest over recent events

Hi Oleg, I'm leaving for awhile in protest over some recent events. Please see my talk page for details, and please join the discussion there. Thanks. Paul August ☎ 17:56, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I replied on your talk (I started doing that even before I got your comment on my talk). Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 18:02, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot and RfA

The RfA format seems to have changed yet again, and it seems to be confusing Mathbot. Could you change its setup so it places its link in the 'Automated data' section of new RfAs? --ais523 15:06, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

As of now, there is no longer an 'Automated data' section anymore. :) I will consider modifying the bot when the dust settles down on a definite format of {{RfA}}. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:04, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Creating new topics, just like this

Oleg - most talk pages that go with real articles (not people talk pages) don't have this ability to start a new topic with a subject/heading like your talk page does. I haven't found the code to be able to start a new topic and I don't want to butt into a conversation.

Hints?

Rsteif 22:08, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

At the top of each talk page look for tabs labeled "article", "discussion", "edit this page", "+", and so on. Click on the "+" tab to begin a new section. Hover the mouse over a tab to see a shortcut to type to avoid the need to scroll to the top of the page to find the tab. --KSmrqT 23:19, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Arc (geometry or curvature?)

Hi Oleg! Why doesn't "curvature" seem more clear than just "geometry", since arc is a particular type of curvature? Especially given arc's disambiguation page with a link to Arc (projective geometry), "geometry" seems rather vague (particularly since the pages for arc measure and even graph theory could be considered——albeit, a stretch——"geometry" in nature, and Arc (projective geometry) certainly is!). P=) ~Kaimbridge~ 21:04, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I think that arc (geometry) is a better name, and arc (curvature) sounds clumsy. Maybe we should get other opions too. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:22, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't have any objections. P=)  ~Kaimbridge~ 00:10, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Ive have a problem with the title "Arc (geometry)" too. I think "Arc (curvature)" does seem more appropriate and concept descriptive. If not that, then how would either "Arc (surface)" or "Arc (perimeter)" be? But, imho, I think my first choice would also have to be "Arc (curvature)". Just passing through
The page itself is a strange little stub. We could talk about circular or elliptical arcs (which are geometry), or we could talk about arcs as a synonym for paths (which are topology), or about differentiable curves (which are differential geometry). In any event, arc (curvature) makes no sense. My suggestion is to improve the content and clarify the focus of the page, after which the correct title will be more obvious. --KSmrqT 01:16, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

The focus seems clear to me: If you pull a piece of string between two points on a sphere or ellipsoid, \sigma_b,\sigma_d\,\!, that strip of curvature is a segment of arc, its length equalling \Delta\sigma\,\!. My intent on developing the article is to focus on it being a particular type of curvature and, especially, the radius of arc, or "arcradius". The typical layman's formula for calculating short (elliptical) distances on Earth is usually the loxodromic, Pythagorean method, such as the one used by the FCC, here. In their formula, KPD[lon]=\frac{\pi}{180}\cos(\phi_m)M(\phi_m)\,\! and KPD[lat]=\frac{\pi}{180}N(\phi_m)\,\!, where \phi_m\,\! is the midpoint latitude and M, N are the principal radii of curvature (in cosine multiple, binomial series expansion form, out to two terms). Using basic plane trig relationships for an infinitesimal length, where the loxodromic and orthodromic lengths and angles merge into one common length and angle (\widehat{\alpha}\,\! is the globoidal——i.e., meaning spherical, as in non-elliptical, not orthodromic as opposed to loxodromic——azimuth and \lambda\,\! is longitude),

\cos(\widehat{\alpha})\Delta\widehat{\sigma}=\Delta\phi=\phi_d-\phi_b;\quad\sin(\widehat{\alpha})\Delta\widehat{\sigma}=\cos(\phi_m)\Delta\lambda=\lambda_d-\lambda_b;\,\!

\widehat{\alpha}=\arctan\left(\frac{\cos(\phi_m)\Delta\lambda}{\Delta\phi}\right);\,\!

\Delta\widehat{\sigma}=\widehat{\sigma}_d-\widehat{\sigma}_b=\sqrt{(\cos(\widehat{\alpha})\Delta\widehat{\sigma})^2+(\sin(\widehat{\alpha})\Delta\widehat{\sigma})^2}=\sqrt{(\Delta\phi)^2+(\cos(\phi_m)\Delta\lambda)^2}.\,\!

So, the FCC formula converts to:

\begin{matrix}DIST&=&\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\sqrt{(NS)^2+(EW)^2},\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad\\ &=&\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\sqrt{(M(\phi_m)\Delta\phi)^2+(N(\phi_m)\cos(\phi_m)\Delta\lambda)^2},\quad\\ &=&\!\!\!\!\sqrt{(M(\phi_m)\cos(\widehat{\alpha})\Delta\widehat{\sigma})^2+(N(\phi_m)\sin(\widehat{\alpha})\Delta\widehat{\sigma})^2},\\ &=&\!\!\!\sqrt{(\cos(\widehat{\alpha})M(\phi_m))^2+(\sin(\widehat{\alpha})N(\phi_m))^2}\Delta\widehat{\sigma},\qquad\\ &=&\!\!\!O(\widehat{\alpha},\phi_m)\Delta\widehat{\sigma}.\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad \end{matrix}\,\!

Therefore, since \Delta\widehat{\sigma}\,\!——i.e., the central angle——is the (globoidal) angular distance, then O(\widehat{\alpha},\phi_m)\,\! is the radius of that arc at \phi_m\,\!, in the direction \widehat{\alpha}\,\!. Furthermore, given M, N and O, the globoidal azimuth converts to the local elliptical azimuth:

\sin(\tilde{\alpha}(\phi))=\frac{N(\phi)}{O(\widehat{\alpha},\phi)}\sin(\widehat{\alpha});\quad\cos(\tilde{\alpha}(\phi))=\frac{M(\phi)}{O(\widehat{\alpha},\phi)}\cos(\widehat{\alpha}).\,\!

Given that this is a type of curvature, it would seem that "Arc (curvature)" is a no-brainer, but...it wouldn't be the first time I was wrong! P=)  ~Kaimbridge~ 00:21, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

The article itself states a different focus:
Your taut-string-on-sphere example is only a very special case. If your intent is to talk about curvature, work on the curvature article. But it makes no sense to refer to an arc as a kind of curvature; it is a kind of curve.
Incidentally, Oleg is away for awhile. --KSmrqT 02:31, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Okay, maybe that's the point of contention. The second sentence of curvature starts out, "Intuitively, Curvature is the amount by which a geometric object deviates from being flat..." which sounds like the same thing as a curve! If they are different, would an accurate analogy be "a curve is to a line, whereas curvature is to area"? M and N are usually identified as the "principal radii of curvature", but, then, they are also the "principal radii of curve" which sounds awkward (though "principal radii of arc" sounds okay). If that is the case then, yes, "Arc (curvature)" is wrong, and "Arc (curve)" would seem to be the "no-brainer" (and the distinction between "curve" and "curvature" needs to be emphasized). P=) ~Kaimbridge~ 10:58, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

A "curve" is an object, whereas "curvature" is a measure. Thus a semicircle is a curve, whereas the inverse of its radius is the curvature at every point on the curve. The graph of the cosine function is also a curve, with the curvature varying continuously from point to point. But an "arc" as presently defined in this article is a synonym for differentiable curve, and it's not clear to me that it deserves a separate article if this stub is all the unique content. But I believe the definition in the article is not the most common meaning, and the article should be rewritten to reflect at least three variations.
  1. A segment of a circle (but not an ellipse).
  2. A segment of a continuous curve.
  3. A segment of a differentiable curve.
I have listed the meanings in likely order of importance. --KSmrqT 18:50, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Ah, alright then, I'd agree the article's——and my——interpretation falls under the "differentiable curve" meaning. Looking around further, there is another stub, plane curve, which could (should?) be merged with this one——"Arc (plane curve)"?——as I think "arc", in this context, could also be defined as "a segment of a closed, plane curve"(?). Within this theme, "radius of arc" and its O(\widehat{\alpha},\phi_m)\,\! equation can be developed.  ~Kaimbridge~ 19:25, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Ditto, I would go with "Arc (plane curve)" (just "Arc (curve)" would still host some ambiguation). Just passing through 13:41, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot log in process

I just wanted to inform you that it seems to be some sort of log in process required to make Mathbot's tool work right now. MoRsΞ 22:48, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I think I found the problem. It wasn't working because the address became mixed up, I chose the link from an edit page. MoRsΞ 23:21, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] radius of convergence typos

Hi, your mathifying of circle of convergence section is a good idea, but at present you've inserted some typos. Could you take a look? ThanksRich 18:55, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I had forgotten to put ^{-1} instead of ^(-1) in powers. But if you are referring to those strange dashes after formulas, I guess that's an artifact of the Wiki engine. I never saw that before. I made all formulas appear as PNG, and that took care of it. But that's a hack, I wonder what the real problem is. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:33, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

yeah thanks, now i know what to do, use { }. I'd tried to fix it but couldn't so I notified you. As for the weird dashes, I'm sure Wikipedians 50 yrs hence will have far more to laugh at us for than that.Rich 06:29, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Block requested

User:Kappa is specifically spamming inclusionist wikipedias [6] (link to example all are nearly identical) despite being asked to stop. See User_talk:Kappa#Votestacking. I think a block is in order but since I am very involved in this (basically the opposition to Kappa here) I obviously can't do it. I would therefore appreciate if you would take a look and make a decision. Thanks. JoshuaZ 02:52, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your intervention there. I am impressed that you managed to get Kappa to stop without using the heavy mop. JoshuaZ 03:14, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I guess Kappa had three people on his head simultaneously, you, me and the user who commented after me; so he may have realized he'd better stop. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:48, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Series / Seriei

I am curious as to your opinion on this matter.

In referring to mathematical series, Isaac Newton used the latin plural 'seriei' many, many times throughout his Principia Mathematica.

Quite simply, a word which is both singular and plural is confusing. This is tolerated when the word is of english origin (see 'deer'), however when a word like series--which is a borrow-over from latin in any case--ignores its own plural, and we assign it the ambiguous role of standing for both singular and plural, well, there can be confusion, and it is certainly imprecise.

Based on Isaac Newton's use of this word in its authentic plural, do you agree that it provides greater precision to an article when speaking of one series versus several? I am of the opinion that it does, and its inclusion in mathematics articles would improve the readability of them as a whole, however I am curious as to your opinion. Evidently Melchoir does not share this view and is quite hostile towards the entire idea. Dbsanfte 05:02, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps Newton, who was writing in Latin, did use "seriei". Yet the modern English usage of the word is "series". What is the point of writing "seriei" if that usage is no modern books and would sound alien to all readers? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:22, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Is "series" even Latin? I thought it was Greek. I suppose it could be the same declension as res, of which I can't remember the nominative plural, but I sort of thought it was rea. --Trovatore 05:52, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Surprisingly, 'series' is the latin singular, and I suspect the plural is 'seriei' (but not done any Latin for some decades, and memory not perfect!). However, I would strongly oppose the use of seriei in WP maths articles, as per Oleg above. There are many Latin (and Greek) words used in English for which we do not follow the strict grammatical rules, and I don't see the point in alienating our readers here. Madmath789 07:26, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Oh, no question, I agree completely. Where the Latin/Greek singulars and plurals have genuinely been absorbed into English, as with criterion/criteria, we should use them, but there's no warrant to import them where they don't exist. I'm still curious, though; if series is Latin, what declension and gender is it? --Trovatore 15:18, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
I did not find "seriei" in an English-language dictionary. Here are numerous entries for series stating that it is used for both singular and plural, in company with nouns like "deer". Yes, the conventions of any language, or of mathematics itself, can be confusing at times, and the itch to reform is understandable. Wikipedia is not the place to scratch that itch. --KSmrqT 14:40, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
My latin dictionary (a bit old) gives it as feminine and indicates declension as ... sing: series, series, seriem, seriei, seriei, serie ... pl: series, series, series, serierum, seriebus, seriebus (following res 5.f). Madmath789 15:35, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Does differentiability imply continuity?

After seeing the derivative wiki,i was pondering on one thing, Suppose f(x)={x^2 , x<2} {x^2+4 ,x>/=2} d/dx(f(x))=2x The Derivative is continuous,it is differentiable.But the function is not continuous —Preceding unsigned comment added by Akshaysrinivasan (talk • contribs)

Well, that function is not differentiable at 0, the formula above holds only for x>0 and x<0. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:18, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
To put it differently, the function is differentiable on (-∞, 0)(-∞, 2) and on [0, ∞)[2, ∞) (and of course, continuous there, too), but not on (-∞, ∞). -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 15:25, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
You two are not reading his question carefully. The discontinuity is at 2, not 0. Looking at the article derivative, we see that it is defined by "One precise way to define the derivative is as a limit:
\lim_{h \to 0}\frac{f(x+h) - f(x)}{h}.
A function is differentiable at a point x if the above limit exists (as a finite real number) at that point; a function is differentiable on an interval if it is differentiable at every point within the interval.". If we take x to be two and let h approach zero from below, we see that the ratio goes to infinity rather than 4=2·2. So there is no limit and the derivative does not exist. JRSpriggs 02:50, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
Isn't a differentiable function continuous by definition? So, if the function is not continuous at one point, then it can't be differentiable at that point. Titoxd(?!?) 03:41, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

The definition of differentiable does not say that the function is continuous. You can deduce that it must be. But that is exactly what the questioner is doubting. He thought that he had a counter-example. I showed that it is not actually a counter-example. JRSpriggs 06:41, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about confusing 0 and 2. In any case, I know a slightly more relaxed definition of differentiability on an interval, which is that the above limit exists through points on the interval. This is what makes the function differentiable on [2, ∞). The OP's mistake was wrongly deducing differentiability at 2. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 07:28, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
I got the mistake ,i was imagining the graph of the function and tangents to only one side of the graph.Thank you JRspriggs. Akshay Srinivasan

[edit] Newcomers pages

Hi. I thought you might be interested in the discussion at Template talk:Please leave this line alone#Merge about merging newcomers pages -- Gareth Aus 08:58, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I commented there. A merge is a good idea in that situation. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:09, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot and CSD G8

I noticed that Mathbot assumes that the article exists when adding it to the list of assessed articles. Unfortunately that may not be the case. I've found about fifty of these today, all of them in the Biographical Articles by Quality list. Could you please check whether the article exists while "scanning" it and tag the talk page with {{db-g8}} if it doesn't, if this is possible? MER-C 05:35, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Checking if an article exists is a very expensive operation, and for it to be effective it would need to be done each day for each of the 306,062 articles now evaluated by the bot. I believe at the current moment that is not feasible. Sorry. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:03, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
For a while now my AWB Plugin has been able to check that the article exists when processing a talk page, and it skips the page if not. So, at least, my bot won't be tagging any red pages. One thing it doesn't do at the moment is tag talk pages for speedy deletion. However, I knocked together a little plugin for Metsbot which, using a database dump to find stray pages, is going to be searching the site for stray links. Hopefully this will get rid of a lot of such pages. See Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/MetsBot_2. --kingboyk 15:02, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] summary

I'm sorry for forgetting the summary fill in. --Ulisse0 16:37, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Terms of series, under 'sequence'

Hi, Oleg. We had an interaction some months ago regarding 'logarithms.' I have now made an edit on the "sequence" page, under the "series" section of it, regarding how the terms of the series are defined, and in addition, how the series itself is defined. In a comment on that page, you indicated some uncertainty about the terms. I now agree with your expression of uncertain understanding. Please take a look at my edits if you have a moment and see if you agree with them ... and if you have someone you know to ask about the correctness of them, I'd be interested in being more certain of their validity. Thanks, KCliffer 20:45, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I think what you wrote makes sense. The terms of a series are the individual entries which are summed up, and not the partial sums. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:21, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Trentino-Alto Adige/Sudtirol

Hi, you mentioned: "Bolzano/Bozen was annexed after WWI becuase of Austria defeat, but it was not considered italian even by irredentists." Do you have a reference for this? I would agree somewhat that the Province of Trento was the upper limit of Greater Italy, but even though Bolzano-Bozen was not straight-out Italian, it was a mixed region. The character of this region has been a mix of Italian/German for centuries. take care. Taalo 22:20, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

You are confusing me with somebody else. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:05, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Has Mathbot stalled / stopped

I see little updating of the 1.0 program assessments over the weekend - is there some sort of problem. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 08:42, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

The bot was broken because some Wikipedia changes in syntax confused it. I fixed it now. Thanks for the report. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:16, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Floating point page

The page floating point needs expert attention, and such experts are extremely rare. Based on your past contributions in this or related fields, I wonder if you could take a look. William Ackerman 22:08, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Gosh, that's not something I would like to mess up with. :) I would suggest just ruthlessly cutting that article by removing any suspicious material for a short and nice article. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:43, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Strange minus sign

Hi:

Since you have much more experience than me concerning Wikipedia, perhaps that you may help me with a problem concerning the Wikipedia page about the Fundamental theorem of Algebra. Please take a look at the third analytical proof, the one which uses the argument principle. You will see there the expression “c(r)” several times. Twice, it appears with a strange-looking minus sign as a subsript in the end. Do you know why? JCSantos 14:13, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

That is a Wikipedia bug. I don't quite know what is going on. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:28, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
It's really strange, since it depends upon the letters that you use. For instance, if you type “c(x)” instead of “c(r)” then the problem does not occur. JCSantos 17:11, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics#Spurious dashes. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 17:59, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, that's the problem. Thanks for the link. JCSantos 07:38, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] С корабля на бал

Concerning this edit. Have you made a single edit concerning the case in question (let alone investigated it), to dismiss the proposal in such peremptory terms? --Ghirla -трёп- 15:50, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Burning an aribtrator on the stake is the last thing you want to do in an arbitrator case. All I suggested is to focus on the case itself rather than on a few remarks (which were perhaps not very to the topic) by an arbitrator. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:34, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
No free passes, please. This comment "not very on the topic"? Well, I see no point in arguing. Our views on civility differ too much. --Ghirla -трёп- 07:09, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot Project Statistics

This is in relation to your Mathbot's calculating of statistics (for WikiProject Films). Does your bot only support the main ratings (FA, A, GA, B, Start, Stub) or can it also support other ratings (Template, Cat, Disambig, Future, List)? I'd be very appreciative if you could answer. I didn't want to add

|-
|{{Future-Class}} || 
|-
|{{List-Class}} || 
|-
|{{Template-Class}} || 
|-
|{{Cat-Class}} ||

to the statistics page in case that might mess you and your bot up. Is it possible for you to do that? Cbrown1023 20:28, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I think the bot will just ignore these ratings if it finds them. If you would like to suggest the bot them, you can make a note at Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Index and see what peole say. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:56, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requesting edit summaries?

Hello. Patrolling my watchlist takes significantly more work when people do use use edit summaries, so similar to you, when I run across someone who has made a lot of edits but does not use a summary, I like to drop a friendly request on their talk page. How often do people actually listen to you? Sometimes I fear that I am just wasting my breath because at least 75% of the time they continue not using edit summaries. My personal favourite is the registered user with over 8100 edits under his belt, but a major/minor edit summary usage of just 5%/9%. I tried leaving a polite request on his talk page, but he just deleted it (and has only made three summaries in his past fifty edits). Arg!  :-( --Kralizec! (talk) 00:59, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I have no idea how often people listen to my request, but I would think that in most cases people do. But yeah, some people are incurable. My usual strategy is if I encounter that person again, I bug him/her again. :) (I never get tired of bugging people  :) Don't know if that works though. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:39, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Villarceau circles

Hi Oleg! Long time no see. Would you happen to know of any interesting facts for our Villarceau circles article? There's a neat animation there too. --HappyCamper 04:32, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Nice article. I don't know anything about the topic, I just did some formatting. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:33, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot feature request

I noticed the wonderful Mathbot updates the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Mathematics articles by quality page. Could it do a similar page, but ordered by importance rather than quality? (Presumably at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Mathematics articles by importance). On a similar (but harder to implement) note, would it be possible for Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Mathematics articles by quality statistics to take the form of a table rather than two lists, so that it can easily be seen how many top-importance stubs there are?

Final point: I was planning on moving the tables of article grading WP:WP_Math/WP:1.0 into seperate pages (Wikipedia:WikiProject_Mathematics/Wikipedia_1.0/Basics, etc.). Would this affect Mathbot's workings?

(Btw, given how multi-talented Mathbot is, would it be possible for it to do my ironing?)

Tompw 19:50, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

To answer your last question, moving WP:WP_Math/WP:1.0 should not affect anything, as all it does is transcluding Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Mathematics articles by quality statistics. I suggest however you talk to Salix alba and perhaps other people involved in those math lists before doing such a move.
In regard to the other requests, mathbot does not take care only of the math lists, rather of all the lists at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Index (currently 123 of them). I am rather relucltant to work on modifying the mathbot script fors pecific projects, the final code would be rather hard to maintain that way and would take a lot of my time. If you have any feature suggestions which you think may benefit the other projects too, I suggest you write them at Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Index and see if there is good support for them.
Oh, mathbot can't do your ironing yet, I would love that feature myself. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:41, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot is a genius.

Hi. Just another praise for Mathbot and a question. I can see that Mathbot updates pages like the Movies-statistics. At the Danish Wikipedia we are currently considering to implement a feature like that. I was wondering if you had any hints about how to make a bot who could take care of that one feature. I don't know if bot-owners usually share their secrets, but I'll try my luck. No matter what, Mathbot is still one of the most useful bots I have seen :-) --Lhademmor 20:01, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi. I'll be more than happy to share my code. The code is written in Perl and uses a few modules which need to be downloaded separately from the internet. It runs on Linux. The code may need modifications since in Danish I guess you are using some other words for things like "Category", "Importance", etc.
I would like to point out however that robots can never run without supervision, and they also can require a lot of maintanance. Is there any Danish Wikipedian who knows a little Perl and a little Linux and who would volunteer to run my code and supervise it/report problems? Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:47, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why do you say "this article does not deserve to exist."?

Hi, I don't really know if "this article does not deserve to exist.", but Fixed point iteration is a term used in numerical analysis, and
at least one editor (not me) has referred to such an article .

  • "Normally, the fixed point iteration article should explain how to generate fixed point iterations from an equation."
  • "... it's good for the (as yet) imaginary fixed point iteration article."

I reverted because the article is a stub with a link to Fixed point (mathematics). --Jtir 04:14, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I had realized that that edit summary was not very helpful, and I wrote a comment at talk:Fixed point iteration. In short, that article is way too small to exist. Anybody willing to expand it? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:21, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
OK, I did it myself. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:35, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes it is short, and that is why it is tagged as a stub that needs to be expanded. A stub is a starting pointing for an article:
  • "The community values stubs as useful first steps toward complete articles."
Following a redirect to an article saying nothing about the subject is a letdown for the reader. --Jtir 04:45, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Wow! That is a great start. I like that you noted that: "Fixed point iterations are not always the best way of computing fixed points." Thanks. --Jtir 04:59, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually "fixed point iteration" is a technique in theoretical computer science: definition by recursion is regarded as solution of a fixed point problem g = F(g) and iterates of F converge to the fixed point. This technique has various flavors: an order theoretic one and a metric space one. --CSTAR 06:06, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Despite rumours, I don't support this article, and if you look at its edit history, one of the first thing I did was to redirect it to the fixed point theorem article. Any discussion of the iteration belongs there. Loisel 15:57, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anon message

hi dude, i just got a warning about editing pokemon or something and that i would be banned. i swear to god id never do anything like that. can someone be using my ip or something? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 210.8.232.5 (talk • contribs) .

The above added by IP 210.8.232.5 which has vandalized the articles Pokémon and Turnip today. Dan D. Ric 14:00, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Mr 210.8.232.5, I have no idea why you came to my page, I don't think I wrote to you. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:35, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Many Internet Service Providers (ISP) (including mine) have a range of IP addresses and assign one randomly to their customers when those customers connect to the ISP. So there could be another person using your ISP who is vandalizing the article which may cause you or others at your ISP to lose the privilege of editing wikipedia. One way to try to avoid this is to become a registered user with a user-id and password. Make sure that you choose a long RANDOM password to avoid the risk that a vandal will discover how to log on as you. We hope for the day when ISPs will provide information which allows us to determine which person is using each IP so that we can block all and only the vandals. JRSpriggs 11:53, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

By the way, you (Oleg) did write to User:210.8.232.5. You said "Please stop adding nonsense to Wikipedia. It is considered vandalism. If you would like to experiment, use the sandbox. Thank you. Oleg Alexandrov 06:25, 2 May 2005 (UTC)". That was the first message left on his talk page. JRSpriggs 09:58, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Total re-write of the main Physics page is in progess

You might like to join us at Physics/wip where a total re-write of the main Physics page is in progess. At present we're discussing the lead paragraphs for the new version, and how Physics should be defined. I've posted here because you are on the Physics Project participant list. --MichaelMaggs 08:04, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't know much physics unfortunately. Try to post your message also at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 14:52, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edit summary

You are the second user in the English Wikipedia that has reminded me to use the edit summary. I would like to know what is wrong? It is true that I am a bit lazy and I do not write anything when I make minor changes such as adding interwikis to other Wikipedias (my main work in this Wikipedia), but I think that I use it when I make an important or controversial change. Maybe I am accostumed to Catalan Wikipedia where we do not use it a lot and I should use it more in here... I would be very happy if you could tell me your point of view (and by the way, correct my English spelling). Thanks!--SMP - talk (en) - talk (ca) 10:46, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Even for uncontroversal edits, people have an easier time understanding what you change if you use an edit summary. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 14:51, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Gentile sig.re

noto che ogni volta che qualcuno inserisce i riferimenti al libro di Giorgio Parisi "La chiave la luce e l'ubriaco" (Di Renzo Editore), nella voce di questo fisico, lei lo cancella? c'è un errore che viene fatto nell'inserimento? grazie e buon lavoro sante --unsigned

How about writing that in English? :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:30, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot error?

Hi, today Mathbot took International Space Station off of the Space exploration articles by quality list, even though it still has a tag. Yesterday the tag was changed from A-class to B-Class, but instead of changing the class it was removed completely from the list.. the article still shows up in Category:B-Class space exploration articles. Mlm42 14:13, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Is that station still rotating around the old Earth? That's news. :)
That's strange behavior indeed. Maybe due to server error it did not read a category correctly. Let us see if mathbot will add it back today. If not, then we have a problem and I will see if there is anything wrong with the code. Thanks for your note. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:28, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
it was added back today; no worries :) Mlm42 07:58, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] radical-like structure

Hi Oleg,

can you give me a hint where I could find something related to the following structure:

Let E be an R-module, A \subset 2^E, B\subset 2^R, and
E(A,B) = \{ x\in E | \forall a\in A, \exists b\in B: b x \subset a \}

(Notice that while x is an element, a,b are subsets of E (sorry for the ascii-limited notation; I wrote 2^E for the power set although I hate this notation.) I'm using this structure which has remarkable properties (e.g. stable by multiplication with R(B,B) which is itself a multiplicative subset of R, lots of more if A,B are neighborhood bases of zero...)

I'm sure this must exist but I don't know where (maybe linked to ideal (ring theory), radical of an ideal, neighborhood (topology), stabilizer / little group,... (those are red links???))

PS: I'm somehow desperate about not finding this at the point I was going to post this question on talk:ideal (rng thy) (though I know WP is not a BB) when I saw a post from you there and remembered your wide-range math horizon... (don't know if U remember our discussions maybe 1 yr ago)

Thanks a lot in advance for any hint or suggesting me someone (from WP (?)) who could know more about that. — MFH:Talk 15:34, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

This is abstract algebra stuff. I have no idea, really. Try posting at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:25, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
OK... (mathifying without escaping {} does not improve readability... ;-) — MFH:Talk 13:09, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bot control ideas solicited

Again and again someone new thinks it’s a good idea to use AWB to convert mathematics articles to Unicode, despite the firm and repeated opposition of the Wikipedia mathematics community. I weary of reverting and notifying each time it happens. If you, O Great Botmaster, have any ideas about means of future prevention, please help. --KSmrqT 23:06, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

You need to bring this up to Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser. I don't think there is an easy solution however. A bot was just approved (with me objecting) at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/STBot 2. People just love bots doing silly things, and most people like unicode conversions due to WYSIWYG reasons. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:23, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot errors on listing Novels "importance"s

I noticed today a strange listing in last night's run of the bot. This appears to list a number of marked novels that have a "Low" importance as "No-Class" it is strange in that is doesn't appear to have any consistency to it. It you need details let me know. The first this is true of in the "12 Oct" listing is Elephants Can Remember which was set as "Low" during the whole run. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 08:31, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I ran mathbot again and it put the "elephants" back in B-class diff. I guess it was a server error or something. Such a thing was reported above also (see the ISSS thing a section or two above). Such subtle things (which may not even be bot's fault) are hard to detect and fix. Let us see if more people complain about that. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:08, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
It did the same thing again last night "18 Oct" with Third Girl and others. Is this a minor bug or a "feature" of the way the server works the bot. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 08:24, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I think it is a server error. I made my bot a more robust to that (will attempt to fetch again categories returned as empty). Perhaps that will fix the bug. Let me know if it happens again. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:22, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot reported for vandalism

Antivandalbot thinks so... Please take a lookBlnguyen | BLabberiNg 08:58, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Here is the diff. With due respect to our A.I. overlords, Vandalbot is too stupid to understand what Mathbot is doing. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 14:52, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
But then again, Mathbot is also too stupid to understand what it's doing, so everything's cool. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 14:54, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
I am smart enough to understand that you call me stupid though. Mathbot 15:11, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Most people and bots can be fooled by a vandal who is smart enough to immediately follow his act of vandalism by a separate, seemingly innocuous edit. JRSpriggs 07:42, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathematical Discussion of Rangekeeping

Please reconsider your decision on the article for deletion for this article. Sr13 19:02, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User:Mathbot article layout problem

Hi,

This is kinda trivial but I noticed the "edit" buttons for sections 1, 2 and 3 are jammed inside the text on the User:Mathbot article, at least using my browser and my monitor. This happens, I think, when too many images are inserted into a section. Thanks for the incredible bot.--Ling.Nut 11:11, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, you are right! They are jammed for me too. I don't know what to do though. The bot would be mad if I remove its barnstars. :) And I'd rather not put them at the bottom where they are not so visible. I guess I will leave things the way they are, and hope that people don't mind to deal with a boastful robot with broken "edit section" links. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:45, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
Hmm... how to fix bunched up edit links? We have a page for that, appropriately called How to fix bunched up edit links. Titoxd(?!?) 18:44, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I did not manage to make that work, and will just leave it the way it is, doesn't look that bad I think. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:53, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question

Hi Oleg, what are your thought on my question here? Paul August ☎ 12:34, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi Paul. Welcome back! I answered there. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:33, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Oleg, I'm glad to be back. Paul August ☎ 16:20, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] An odd error

For some reason, Mathbot omitted all the B-class articles from the meteorology project assessments . I checked a few other projects and they seemed fine so I guess it was just a random error...just letting you know. -Runningonbrains 09:17, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I guess it was a server error. I made now my bot a bit more robust to that, and such glitches will be more unlikely (they are not completely unavoidable though). Thanks for your report. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:13, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Obviously it was one of the those days... nothing from Category:Stub-Class mathematics articles got included in the stats. Thought you should know. Tompw 15:58, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:RFA/Cynical

Thank you for contributing to my RFA. Unfortunately it failed (final tally 26/17/3). As a result of the concerns raised in my RFA, I intend to undergo coaching, get involved in the welcoming committee and try to further improve the quality of my contributions to AFD and RFA. All the best. Cynical 14:58, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article berlin procedure

I am one of the authors who worked on the article about the mathematical statistical method “berlin procedure”. You added the template which criticizes the “poor quality” of the article. I would like this article to remain in wikipedia. So maybe you could tell more concretely why you think that the article in this status is not appropriate to wikipedia. Afterwards it could be sufficiently improved. RANS 08:15, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I did some copyediting on it. Would be nice if more details would be there about how it works. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:25, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] It's blanking a WP:1.0 page...

Is it normal for the bot to be blanking Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/U.S. road transport articles by quality log or the stats page? it's done that for two days in a row. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 05:18, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

The bot does that when there are huge changes to the log and the Wikipedia server fails to accept the log. I will try to fix that. Are you sure it blanked the stats too? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:24, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Yeah... well just the top part of the table though. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 05:30, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Can you provide a diff? About the logs, I modified the script so that it truncates the log rather than blank it. But that may not help if the server refuses to accept a rather big text file, say 300KB. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:34, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Okay, apparently it's fixed now. Thanks! --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 05:47, 21 October 2006 (UTC)