Wikipedia talk:Pages needing attention/Mathematics

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Contents 1 Comments about this page 2 Listing the pages needing attention 3 Comment about divisibility argument 4 Topics needing expert attention

[edit] Comments about this page

We should not be creating a separate structure for article comments in this WikiProject. The talk pages of those articles are intended to take comments about what is wrong with those articles. Duplicating that function here is needless and leads to those in and not in the WikiProject having separate focuses for no reason. It also clouds up the list here. — 131.230.133.185 5 July 2005 18:28 (UTC)

Yup. I agree. But there's a lot of folks that seem to like doing stuff like this. --C S 20:59, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I like to do things like this. :) There are 10963 mathematics and mathematician biography articles at this moment. Who is going to visit the talk pages of all articles and see what is wrong with each one of them? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:06, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Your question is irrelevant to the point raised by the anon. The anon is not saying it's bad to bring some articles to a group's notice. S/he appears to be saying that duplication of the "talk page" is "needless". This leads to a communication problem where people are at cross purposes. I think that's a good point: many of these comments should be posted to the talk page of the relevant articles. Sometimes it's done. Many times it is not. If it's a good comment or suggestion, why should not editors editing the relevant article see it on the talk page? The last point made by the anon is that it "clouds up the list here". I don't really see it being that messy. But I think the basic idea behind his/her comments is valid. Discussion should be encouraged to take place on the relevant talk page. --C S 04:22, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Clarification is perhaps needed on my "lots of folks" comment above. I think one reason people like to put there comments here instead of on talk pages is the closer sense of community that is generated. That's all and good, but we should all remember that we are part of a broader Wikipedia community, which includes even anons and random people that occasionally edit Wikipedia. Having discussions in a less accessible part of Wikipedia means that things are less open to those not in this subcommunity. --C S 04:26, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Listing the pages needing attention

Currently, there are two ways to flag a math article as needing improvement. One, is to list it on Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Mathematics, this page. Second, is by putting various templates in the article or its talk page {{attention}}, {{cleanup}}, {{context}}, {{technical}}, {{wikify}} (any others?)

I wrote a tool to read in all the articles which have one of the above templates either in the article itself or on its talk page, and which extracts the mathematics and mathematician articles from there. Many (most) of those are not listed on this page.

The big question is, should the math articles having those templates be listed here? If yes, how? My suggestion would be to add a new section to Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Mathematics which will be writable by a bot. The bot is not too smart, so editors may need to move entries from there up in the "Mathematics", "Statistics", "Mathematicians" sections above, add meaningful comments if necessary, and use their judgments as to when those articles should be removed from this page.

I estimate that in addition to around 30 articles now listed here, there are around 100 more having those templates. So, my question, is it all worth it, and will people not be flooded by a bunch of new articles in need of work? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:29, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to me. I would just do the bot section like you suggest. We should also have subheadings corresponding to the various templates. -- Fropuff 06:48, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I think using subheaders would complicate matters, as this page is sourced into a bigger page, see Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Mathematical and Natural Sciences. I would think of just adding a note next to each article listed saying where it was discovered. Would look a bit nicer on the page I would think. How about that? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:31, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Still, knowing what kind of attention is required would be useful. I like the subheadings idea, but maybe a different organization would be better. I don't care much about the parent page as I only ever look at this one. -- Fropuff 17:26, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

OK, I will give it a try. Maybe today. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:15, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Comment about divisibility argument

216.167.143.131 03:03, 10 February 2007 (UTC)Danny (ooiyq2@yahoo.com) Dear Wikipedia and friends:

Thank you, so very much, for your incredibly helpful on-line resource. I do have a question, however, about one of the quite-useful articles.

Specifically, I am curious about something in the Divisibility Rule article (at the follwing URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divisibility_rule). In the section entitle "2 through 20"... a chart lists various divisibility rules (for these 19 whole-numbers-- from 2 through 20)... I have been able to understand (and utilize) every rule... EXCEPT FOR ONE-- that one being: the second rule listed for the number 17.

The description of the Divisibility Condition... does NOT seem to match the given Example. The said Divisibility Condition is described (with ambiguous wording) as follows: "Alternatively subtract and add blocks of two digits from the end, doubling the last block and halving the result of the operation, rounding any decimal end result as necessary."

The Example (for 209,865-- which commas divide into the said blocks of 2 digits, each... as "20,98,65"), however, does not double the last block (i.e., of 65); but rather, that said Example doubles both the middle block (of 98... which becomes "(98x2)")... as well as the first block (i.e., of 20... which becomes "40"). Finally, this Example does NOT remove the resulting decimal... by "rounding" (but rather, through multipliction by 10).

The said example (which appears as: "20,98,65: (65 - (98x2)) : 2 + 40 = - 25.5 = 255 = 15x17")... CAN work, however, when expressed as follows: "209,865: ( [65 - (98•2) ] / 2) + (2•20) = [ (65 - 196) / 2] + 40 = (-131 / 2) + 40 = -65.5 + 40 = -25.5"... and "-25.5•10 = -255 = -15•17".

Despite my best efforts, though, NONE of my attempts to apply this divisibility rule to larger multiples of 17 (ones with more digits than the given Example) have ever been successful. Please, either help me to understand this Divisibility Rule... or forward this e-mail to the contributor (of the said Divisibility Rule)... so that I will learn how to apply this Divisibility Condition to the following, large multiple of 17: 9,349,990,820,016,829,983 (a whole-number which, by the way, happens to be the product of the following prime factors: 3 • 3 • 3 • 3 • 7 • 11 • 13 • 13 • 13 • 17 • 37 • 43 • 557 • 45,293).

Thanking you, in advance, for your prompt attention,

Danny

ooiyq2@yahoo.com

[edit] Topics needing expert attention

I noticed that the article about the greatest common divisor of two polynomials needed expert attention. I am no math expert but I'm expert enough on that. So, I fixed some stuff and it's mostly fine. It needs to be cleaned up but I don't think it necessarily needs much attention from an math expert, though maybe a little. Say I do a bit more work and think it no longer needs attention from an expert, should I just remove the tag in the article? And, if I do, will it be removed from this page as well?

StatisticsMan 06:59, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you should remove the tag if you think all issues are resolved. And yes, it will be then automatically be removed from this page (after a couple of days). -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 09:42, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

So, Jay Gatsby reverted the article back to a previous form, one which is objectively inferior. It has typos and errors and the wrong definition. Can someone please change it back to how it was last night after I finished working on it? He did not even put something on the talk page mentioning why he did so. This is dumb. Why should I make an article better if someone is just going to change it back to a crappy version. StatisticsMan 19:52, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I reverted Greatest_common_divisor_of_two_polynomials back to your version, StatisticsMan. It is definitely an improvement. I don't know what Mr. Gatsby was thinking; he clearly should have explained himself in the edit summary and/or talk page. Cheers, Doctormatt 20:13, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

On the same page but a slightly different subject, I would ask your opinion. It is more of a Wikipedia question than a math one. I am thinking about cleaning up that article some. Would you think one example each of the three methods for finding the GCD of two polynomials is good? Would two be better? I don't know Wikipedia that well, but, it seems to me, as I have talked about in the discussion page on that article, giving the method will be good for many people and giving one example will help those who have troulbe understanding. Maybe two examples will help some people but it will also clutter up the page so one is probably a good happy medium. Do you agree or disagree or have any comments? Thanks. Also, thanks for reverting the page back! StatisticsMan 08:43, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Also, as far as the examples go, I am pretty familiar with the <math.> tag and formatting in Wikis. I see it is not used on this page a whole lot for examples. Is this standard or should it be changed to include this stuff? And, what about those boxes around the examples? Is that standard? I'd say the boxes seem alright. Using the <math.> tag seems like it would be better. The way it looks now is sort of sloppy. StatisticsMan 09:03, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I would like to see expert improvement on the Twin prime conjecture, I tried opening a heading on Difficulties with a Proof (or similar) and it was deleted, possibly rightly, but it does need something on this subheading in there. The reason for this is that there are numerous traps for the undergraduate and graduate student looking at this question and it would save an enormous amount of frustration if some of these proofs which look real but are heuristic or flawed could be exemplified. For example the idea of prime placement independence, I have been informed, is important, though not obvious when trying to construct a proof. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.158.153.174 (talk) 20:54, 20 October 2007 (UTC)