User talk:Petersburg

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Welcome!

Hello, Petersburg, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! -- Doctormatt 21:46, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] nontransitive dice

I notice that you disagree with my reverting of your addition of the phrase "i.e. cannot be carried forth". I feel that my revert was constructive, as removing confusing and unnecessary wording from Wikipedia is helpful. I feel that the phrase "cannot be carried forth" is unclear, and, since it does not have a link to further explanation as transitive does, it was better to remove it. I have never seen the phrase "carried forth" applied to a relation (I am a native english speaker and I have a phd in mathematics); perhaps you could give me some idea of why you think this phrasing is helpful? Otherwise I think it should be removed. Welcome to Wikipedia. Doctormatt 21:46, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Your claim that the introduction is "utterly insufficient" is not, in my view, correct. The intro you suggest would be "Nontransitive dice are dice that are not transitive.". The actual intro says more than that: it says
  1. that the term applies to particular sets of dice, and not simply to dice taken independently;
  2. that there is a relation related to the set of dice that is nontransitive;
  3. that that relation is "is more likely to roll a higher number".
I agree that the intro could be improved. However, I believe the best way to improve it would be to include an example, and there is one just below the intro. Introductions are a challenge for many mathematical articles; this article has the advantage that we can give an example that I think makes the concept quite clear to someone who is at least a little comfortable with the notion of probability.
Your suggestion that I "contemplate for a few days what the editor intended" indicates, I think, your lack of experience at Wikipedia. Wikipedia moves much faster than the pace you seem to wish it did. In any case, I didn't need a few days to know that your addition was anti-helpful to the article. While I agree that comtemplation is an extremely good thing, you might want to take a look at WP:BOLD and what it suggests about the culture of Wikipedia. If you don't mind, I'd also like to ask you the rhetorical question: did you contemplate for a few days what the editor intended before you reverted my revert?
Finally, while at Wikipedia, it is helpful to get used to the fact that bad edits will be reverted: that is simply how Wikipedia works. Maybe your second addition to Wikipedia will survive the cut, or spur an actual improvement. Cheers, Doctormatt 02:24, 15 August 2007 (UTC)