User talk:Jitse Niesen/Archive4

This is an archive of inactive discussions. Please do not edit it. If you wish to revitalize an old topic, bring it up on the active talk page.

Happy New Year

Happy 2006 Paul

Genocide denial links are not appropriate —Preceding unsigned comment added by 154.5.106.66 (talk • contribs) 04:13, January 13, 2006 (UTC)

Say what? And what does this have to do with "Happy New Year" and my pretty picture? Paul August ☎ 05:03, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

This is not a dispute issue

Hi, Niesen. I am really tired of watching how this user: Nikola Smolenski (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) keeps destroying articles. This user for the last few months is continuing to destroy any compromise made by people that edit articles. He keeps destroying articles related to Bosnia. AMA requests didn't help. This is not a dispute issue, this is purposely spreading incorrect information about Bosnian language in the Republika Srpska article and other Bosnia related articles.

Other user tried with AMA requests, and other type of requests. This is not dispute issue. We all know that. Nikola is keeping to destroy articles not today or yesterday, but for the last few months. Discussion didnt help, he just returns after a while and destroys any compromise that other users made (Serb and Bosniak). For instance in Meša Selimović article and many, many other articles. This behaviour is not honest, it is pathetic.

Administrator Deathphoenix said in Administrator intervention against vandalism: "this is for cases of CLEAR vandalism;". He instructed me to bring this in WP:RFC, but I think this will not help because noone cares. I repeat he is doing this for the last few months, not for the weeks, but months, and nothing helped to stop him. --Emir Arven 18:37, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Pi

Hi Jitse ,As mentioned in the talk page of this article ,as an encyclopedia we ,unlike other sources around the net should put on the display a more accurate epproximation of Pi. This article is extensive enough as it is ,we can at least be slightly more accurate than the rest of the Google serachers. I'm reverting back to the 100 digit version. (further discc' in the talk page) The Procrastinator 19:42, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry for reverting; I hadn't noticed that you had asked about it on the talk page. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 20:17, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for editing error in Pi, I had two windows open and wanted to put it in Pythagorean theorem. Lakinekaki

My RfA

Hi, Jise

We have worked together on the Finite Difference article, maybe you can look onto my Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Alex Bakharev? abakharev 12:22, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks. WikiThanks.

I would like to express my thanks to all the good people who spent their valuable time time and effort working on my (failed) RfA voting. Especially for those who actually voted to support me :). Lets move on and make together our Wikipedia an even greater place abakharev 10:08, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Random math article

Hello Jitse, I have noticed that you have a tool for a Random article in mathematics. That is of great interest to me (please see my discussion of the issue). Do you have any remarks on what is said in that discussion? Do you know a way to make such a tool more built-into Wikipedia? --Meni Rosenfeld 16:35, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Wow, I'm impressed that you found that. I don't have much to add to the discussion. The problem is that it is not easy to generate a list of all articles in Category:Mathematics or one of its subcategories. In my case, I basically copy the list from Oleg and I use it to generate Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Current activity (which includes the total number of maths articles, by the way); since I have the list anyway it is quite easy to pick a random article. However, the list is updated only once a day to be easy on the servers. Due to the way the database containing Wikipedia is implemented, generating a list of all articles in some category or one of its subcategories will always take a lot of time (I think, but Magnus Manske seems to think that this is quite feasible [1] [2]). I think that it will be pretty hard to generate a random article without having this list.

I'm glad to answer any other questions; I happen to know a bit about the technical side since I'm interested in getting Wikipedia support MathML. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 21:56, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Nah, the list is not mine, is the list of mathematics articles. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:17, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad I have an opportunity to make you glad :)

1. Do I understand correctly that there are (at the time of writing this message) 12151 math articles and 3208 stubs?
2. Is it possible to make your tool work within WP, without going through an external link, which seems to make the process slower?
3. Is it likely that the way categories work will change, so it becomes possible to conduct category-specific queries (num. of articles, random entry, statistics, etc.) without ad-hoc manual tools?
4. Does your tool work like the one suggested in the aforementioned discussion, making different articles appear at different probabilities, or does it employ an other method?
5. How do articles make their way in\out of the list of mathematics articles?

--Meni Rosenfeld 13:56, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

There are indeed 12151 math articles, but around 700 of them are redirects (that problem needs to be dealt with eventually). To answer your last question, articles come in either by hand, or lately, via User:mathbot (see first section). They come out via User:mathbot/Blacklist. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:18, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

1. There are 12151 maths articles according to the definition at the bottom of Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Current activity. This is different from the number of articles in Category:Mathematics or one of its subcategories. For instance, Ketchup is in Category:Soft matter is in Category:Entropy is in Category:Dynamical systems is in Category:Mathematics, but Ketchup is in list of mathematics articles because Category:Entropy is blacklisted in List of mathematics categories. I think that there are a lot of articles having little to do with mathematics that are indirectly in Category:Mathematics.

2. It is theoretically possible to rewrite my tool in PHP and get it included in MediaWiki (the software that runs this website) but I think it won't be easy to convince the developers that this is a good idea. Another possibility is to put the tool on the m:Toolserver so that it can talk to the database server directly.

3. My guess is: not in the short term (say within one year), but quite possible within say five years.

4. No. It picks a number n between 1 and 12151 and then it returns the nth article, so every article should have the same probability (assuming that the random number generator in PHP is truely random).

Oleg, I thought that your bot didn't list redirects? Admittedly, my knowledge comes from an unreliable source :) -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 22:10, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, my bot does not add redirects, but it does not remove existing redirects either. The more time goes by, the more I think that all the redirects from the list of mathematics articles must go. There is no good reason to keep them in. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:26, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

1. You know Jitse, you don't really have to copy the discussion to my talk page. I am watching your page, you know. And no matter where you are, no matter when you sleep, I'll be waiting for you. Like a stealth ninja polar bear ready to STRIKE! Um, never mind.
2. Regarding #3: I should hope so. I think that several aspects of WP, such as this one, work very sporadically and unorderly, making the project less efficient. I sure would like to see various projects and tools working together under a unified, cohesive umbrella.
3. Regarding #4: Assuming that the pseudo-random number generator in PHP is truely random is, of course, absurd - But it's close enough for me.
4. Regarding #5: So, basically whenever an article is created and put into one of the mathematics categories, mathbot puts it in the list of mathematics articles when its script is run? That is unless this article is in the blacklist, to which articles are added manually when they are in a mathematical category but should not be considered mathematical?

Thanks Jitse and Oleg for your replies. --Meni Rosenfeld 14:48, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

The answer to the two questions is "yes". -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 16:25, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay :) Now for a more concrete one. Is it possible to add to the mathematics portal an up-to-date (more or less) indication of the number of mathematics articles, based on the data in current activity? --Meni Rosenfeld 16:41, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes. If you could edit the portal and quote somewhere the current number and notify me, I'll make sure it is updated daily. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 16:47, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't find a place in the portal where this information naturally fits, so I've put it in the intro box. Hopefully that doesn't upset anyone :) --Meni Rosenfeld 16:59, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

BTW did you see my newly created formal calculation? --Meni Rosenfeld 17:05, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I added some code to my script to update the total number regularly. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 20:59, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I hope it isn't bad of me to copy a link to this to my user page (properly attributed!) to play with! Randall Holmes 03:12, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Carl's RfAr

Thanks, fixed. I proposed banning him from editing all physics articles, but maybe this is too broad. --- Charles Stewart 21:38, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

The issue is that there are no banknotes of Ulster. The term doesn't exist. It is simply a made-up term created on WP as part of a POV word game by a particular user. Banknotes of Ulster is a bit like Banknotes of the pacific rim of the Americas within 100 miles of California , Banknotes of the south of Paris or Banknotes of the north of Vatican City. There ain't no such term. Even people who call Northern Ireland "Ulster" aren't likely to use such a term. Ulster is used as a propagandistic term to refer to a state, not to coinage or banknotes. It is like creating Banknotes of the Americas and directing it to Banknotes of the United States for no other reason than to piss off Canadians and people in all other states in north and south America. All it is is a silly game from a user who has been doing this all over to wind up the other side, who invariably get wound up and create their version, and then both sides fight edit wars over each other's names. Believe me, Irish users have spent months trying to stop the assholes on both sides from their edit wars and POVing and creating makey-up terms — one user tried to redefine the geographic entity Ulster from a province to a "historic province" to then claim Northern Ireland as the modern province called "Ulster". The problem is that when one side gets their phoney name added into an article or as a redirect, the other side then does the same, and the whole saga goes off again, with reversed directs, etc!!! Irish users know exactly what the game plan of both sides is, and how innocent users are victims of the antics. Each side creates phoney names to say "See! Wikipedia believes us more than you. We're winning. They are accepting our terms are real." Then the other side retaliates. etc etc etc. It is a cycle Irish Wikipedians are only too aware of. They can see the next battle looming, especially as one of the Republican POV-pushers' blocks is about to expire. He'll see what Aidan has got away with his dodgy made-up Ulster stuff in the money pages, then respond in kind, and off we go again. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 03:14, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Are user names re-usable?

Hi Jitse,

I created the "Democritus" account last month, that being the first time I felt moved to engage in a discussion on Wikipedia. I have noticed now that there are four entries under this same name, from almost four years ago -- before I knew much about Wikipedia, let alone had an account. How could this happen? Is it possible that someone had an account with this name, and abandoned it, leaving it free for someone else to use, but with the previous user's activity intact?

1. 01:25, 21 January 2002 (hist) (diff) m Talk:Joshua A. Norton
2. 01:25, 21 January 2002 (hist) (diff) Joshua A. Norton (Removed a probably copyrighted image.)
3. 01:10, 21 January 2002 (hist) (diff) m Epimenides paradox
4. 01:08, 21 January 2002 (hist) (diff) m Epimenides paradox

If it is possible to remove these, or somehow distinguish between the two owners of the name, that would be very helpful.

Thank you kindly, Democritus

User names should not be re-usable. I have no idea how these contributions ended up being linked to you, so I asked for you at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Contributions from before creation of account. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 21:00, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for catching that notational issue on the perfect number page regarding the Nielsen result. I should have been more careful looking over what was already there prior to editing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.36.90.248 (talk • contribs)

Not banning intellectuals and scientists (proposed language)

Jitse,

I would appreciate your comments and suggestions on the following:

Wikipedia talk:Autobiography#Not banning intellectuals and_scientists (proposed language)

Thanks, --Carl Hewitt 08:55, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

As I wrote on that talk page, I think that it is unnecessary. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 14:22, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

BC or BCE

I tend to use BC or BCE depending on what my source uses. I only use AD or CE in those rare cases where it is unclear which era is intended. There are people who go through wiki changing all BCs to BCEs and other people who go through wiki changing them back, so it probably doesn't matter what I write -- it will be changed sooner or later. But I'll try to be more consistant, and you should feel free to change everything to whichever you prefer. Rick Norwood 19:14, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Typographical number theory

I'm copying my answer to the question you asked on Oleg Alexandrov's talk page. Randall Holmes 02:56, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I (Holmes) suspect that Typographical Number Theory should be deleted: it is a specific formal implementation of Peano arithmetic found in Hofstadter's book, and an article on it is redundant. But while I am a mathematical logician of long standing, I am a Wikipedian of quite short standing and will defer to others on this kind of question. Randall Holmes 22:23, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

See also Charles Stewart's comment on my talk page. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:46, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

CheckUser request log

How many requests are there? You say that "[t]he Arbitration Committee is visibily overburdened and backlogged with CheckUser requests"; where can we see that? -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 19:05, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi Jitse. During my proposal to appoint Curps with CheckUser privileges, you asked where you might be able to view a log, or backlog of CheckUser requests. ^[3] You may be interested to learn that a helpdesk has recently been created for the purpose of responding to such requests, in an effort to offload some of the burden from WP:ANI. Should you wish to review the volume of work being handled there, you may do so at Wikipedia:Requests for CheckUser (archive). Best regards, Hall Monitor 20:47, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

function (mathematics) and function (set theory)

Just for the record (to avoid any confusion) I got frustrated and went over to edit my proposed function (set theory) (to be paired with the not-yet-existant function (analysis) just before you (very sensibly) protected the article. I was not circumventing your protection but stepping out of the edit war... Randall Holmes 21:46, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that was clear to me, because you had already floated the idea before. Nevertheless, I find it a very bad idea, I don't think the subject can be split like that, and I am sad that you felt it necessary to do this. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 21:56, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that it is a good idea. The material in the function (set theory) article could be integrated into a single article on functions; the problem is that there are too many different markets for the function concept. Randall Holmes 21:58, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Happy chinese New year

• {a L.T. question}

Could anyone tell me why do

${\mathcal {L}}\left\{{df \over dt}\right\}=s\int _{0^{-}}^{+\infty }e^{-st}f(t)\,dt-f(0)=s\cdot {\mathcal {L}}\{f(t)\}-f(0)$

and

${\mathcal {L}}\left\{{\ln t}\right\}=-{\frac {{\gamma }+\ln s}{s}}$  ?

thanks...

the page of that simplied too much ,i need a lot of noting help to the result... -- HydrogenSu

For the first one, use integration by parts. For the second one, start by using the first integral in Euler-Mascheroni constant. If you don't manage, please tell me how far you got. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 18:41, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you,I've got them. About the first question, I would like to ask for you. That I'd operated I.b.P.,but I found exis $-s\cdot {\mathcal {L}}\{f(t)\}$,not +s for its coefficient. Can we make it positive for nonreasons?--HydrogenSu 10:09, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

If you got $-s\cdot {\mathcal {L}}\{f(t)\}$, you must have made an error. You get two minus signs (one from the formula for integration by parts and one from differentiating $e^{-st}$) which cancel. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 14:48, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll try again,thank you.--HydrogenSu 19:20, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Laplace Inverse scaling and S shifting

I have read a exercise about L.I. . could any one please tell me that their process of thoughts? See[4]

by what? then we're able to get

${\mathcal {L}}[e^{-bt/a}f({\frac {t}{a}})]=aF(as+b)$

• HydrogenSu's elder solution process:

${\mathcal {L}}[f({\frac {t}{a}})]{\mid }_{s=s+({\frac {t}{a}})b}={\frac {1}{a}}{\mathcal {L}}[f({\frac {t}{bt}})]$

• Here's HydrogenSu's new solution:[5]

(where I need to replace Return...back in English phrases into the pct.-file)

After that's finished,I'm going to be happy China New year coming..--HydrogenSu 19:19, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for voting!

Hello there! I wanted to thank you for taking the time to vote on my arbitration commitee nomination. Although it was not successful, I appreciate the time you spent to read my statement and questions and for then voting, either positively or negativly. Again, thank you! Páll ^{(Die pienk olifant)} 22:42, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Candle Under Bushel

[6] Hi Jitse. Awesome work with Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Current activity/Lists! I have just one remark. Not many people know about that page, and where it is now is not the most likely place people would look for it. Since your page contains very important information, about math pages needing cleanup, and it should be as visible as possible. Maybe an idea would be to translude it at Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Mathematics, replacing my half-cooked attempt at getting information from templates? Wonder what you think. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:27, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it should be advertised at least a little bit. I'm not sure that transclusion is the way to do it. My idea was to move it to Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Pages needing clean-up (or "pages needing TLC", if I knew what TLC meant, but Charles Matthews uses this expression so it must be good) and add it to the lists of subpages at the main WP Maths page, but I somehow forgot about it.

PS: My knowledge of The Book (in the non-Erdos sense) is not so good, so I'll have to find the context to know what to think of it.

PS2: Is this Grolsch? One of the Grolsch breweries was about 5km from the university where I did my undergrad, so I know it very well ... perhaps even a bit too well.

-- Jitse Niesen (talk) 17:46, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

TLC probably = tender loving care Dmharvey 20:17, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Why create a Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Pages needing clean-up? There, it is still going to be under the bushel, instead of shining for the whole world at Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Mathematics. That also may answer the question about the Book (I did not mean anything deep :) About the beer, I never heard of Grlolsch. I believe it is most likely Heineken, which I do drink every now and then. Retrospectively, I should have had the label of the beer bottle face the camera, but I guess I was preoccupied with other things at the moment. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 20:19, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, you may have a point. Perhaps we should transclude it. And let's not get into the beer thing; the Heineken vs Grolsch fight is every bit as ugly as the alleged Moldavian language ;) -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 00:40, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

No pressure :) And I would be more than happy to try Grolsch, if I ever see it in stores, and don't forget its name by then. But no, I won't forget, it looks just like a clone of Heineken with a strange name. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:20, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

It is a strange name; it took me about a year to pronounce it in a way that the British bartenders understood me.

Please transclude as much as you want, I need to catch some sleep. Just for your information, Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Mathematics is transcluded into Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Mathematical and Natural Sciences. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 01:31, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

It is surely late in there. :) No, I won't transclude, I believe you got the thing with the bushel to close to your heart. :) I will let you make up your own mind about what is best. In case you do decide to transclude, one may need to change the heading level and maybe other things to make it look good in Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Mathematics. Yeah, I am aware that Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Mathematics transcludes in turn in Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Mathematical and Natural Sciences. So I would even go as far as suggest that you edit Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Mathematics directly, without transclusion, but I knew you wouldn't like the idea so I didn't ask. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:38, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Hello from 0Waldo

Hi Jitse, waldo here. I added the link back under symmetry because someone had deleted it. It was there for a very long time and I noticed it was gone so I added it back. I am an artist and did the two paintings showing up on the top right hand side of the article that show and example of D4 group symmetry. The link is to my site that shows many examples of (a)/symmetry. Cheers... 0waldo 16:25, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

blahtex

Hi,

User:Dmharvey suggested I get in contact with you with regards to coding blahtex. I'm very keen to see MathML intergrated into MediaWiki and I'm up for helping where needed. I've many years of mathematical coding behind me and I've written a few mathematical parsing libraries (have a look at my home page singsurf.org). I've not really messed with mediawiki yet, or done much with MathML, but I'm up for helping where I can.

Regards --Salix alba (talk) 23:50, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Hello and thanks for the offer. I think that the main issues at the moment are:

• Blahtexwiki does not work with Internet Explorer and MathPlayer (IE+MP). The main problem here is that I haven't found an accurate description of the behaviour of IE+MP and that I don't have access IE+MP myself, so I can't try out what works. If you don't want to mess with mediawiki, then you could just grab the HTML + HTTP headers served by blahtexwiki and see what has to be changed in order to make it work with IE+MP.
• Blahtexwiki often serves invalid XHTML, leading to things like the diff bug reported on m:Blahtex/Bugs/Bugs in BlahtexWiki. We need to find out when invalid XHTML is generated (just try out as much as possible on the blahtex wiki, especially special pages), exactly what part is invalid (for instance, an unclosed tag), and fix it in the MediaWiki code.
• A bit longer term, we need to convince the people in charge of Wikipedia to use the code.

It would be great if you could help us with any of these things, or anything else. Do feel free to ask if there is anything you want to know. I will let you know if I think of any more areas where you could easily help out.

Cheers, Jitse Niesen (talk) 18:31, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

OK I've installed MathPlayer on IE 6.02 and guess what. The BlahTex wiki page works fine! It renders a little different to Mozilla, but still good. See meta:Talk:Blahtex.

The bug you mention seems to be a missing space see talk page for details. --Salix alba (talk) 00:41, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for you help. It's great that it works on MathPlayer. I made a small change about two hours before you wrote your message; apparently that did the trick. I'll read and answer to your other messages later. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 21:59, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Gallery tag, see [7] which breaks. --Salix alba (talk) 09:55, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I see it now. It only worked if you had four cells or less, so that they fit on one row. Thanks for the clarification.

I enabled HTML Tidy on BlahtexWiki, which fixes this and also the broken tables and your center bug. However, this is only a temporary solution (on the other hand, the use of HTML Tidy on Wikipedia etc. since 2002 is also supposed to be temporary). -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 10:48, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Algorithm Guidelines

For now I've decided it's better to work within the confines of the proposed Computer science Manual of Style where algorithmic guidelines are more natural. I do think this is something worth pursuing, at least as far as getting some general guidelines on style. Please feel free to edit, add to, or delete material from Wikipedia:WikiProject_Computer_science/Manual_of_style_(computer_science)#Algorithms. I would like to try and get something both robust and flexible enough to provide solid guidelines but still be acceptable to the majority. Leland McInnes 22:18, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Template:Context

Hi. The change you requested on Template talk:Context changed the category from in which articles with this template are placed from Category:Wikipedia articles needing context to Category:Wikipedia articles needing clarification. Did you intend to do this? If yes, I wonder why, and the description at the bottom of Template:Context needs to be adapted as well. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 12:42, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

This was in error. Feel free to change it back. Stifle 16:14, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

still not working

It seems like it's still not working(the test-n script). Help? Thanks, --Urthogie 20:13, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I just tried it out and it works for me. What exactly is not working? Is there an error message? For Firefox, look at the JavaScript Console, accessible via the "Tools" menu. Did you do a no-cache reload (press Ctrl-Shift-R for Firefox, Ctrl-F5 for IE)?

The script should add four tabs, "t1" etc., whenever you are editing a User talk: page, for instance when you edit this page. Clicking on one of them adds the corresponding template to the text.

If none of this helps, I don't know, sorry. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 23:14, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I'll look into the javascript console and try to figjure this out.--Urthogie 09:42, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Got it. accidently commented the code out at one point. thanks for helpin!--Urthogie 10:04, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

Hi Jitse. I forgot to thank you. You did a great job with transcluding the page generated with your script to Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Mathematics. I am sure that will be very helpful. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:18, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Matrix Addition

Hi Jitse,
There is a difference in the meaning of my statement that most potential applications, etc. and your edit that "alternative addition can also be expressed in terms of the usual entrywise addition and multiplication with unit vectors."
Also, there is a problem with your suggestion that I use the standard notation. I was struggling with this problem and editors of the stat journals for years. You can either keep the standard notation and run into logical consistency problems with other matrix operands, or change the notation and run into problems with the traditionalists who insists that the status quo must exist forever, or keep the + sign throughout and run into problems with your inner sensibilities that tell you that within the same context, it is difficult to justify the signification of different operations with the same operand.
Take care,
David Cruise 16:09, 7 February 2006 (UTC).

P.S. My niece married a Dutch guy and they live in Utrecht. Nice country I am rather fond of as the Vinden zoekt keeps my "visual statistics" number one for years.

Joke's RfA

Hi Jitse, thanks for your support and kind words in my (successful) RfA! –Joke 16:11, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you!

Your edit couldn't have come at any better time - I have been blocking a bunch of sockpuppets almost non-stop today, and was looking for a convenient excuse to relax and try something else. --HappyCamper 14:26, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Jitse, you are the very first Wikipedian to have ever actively asked for my opinion or thoughts on Wikipedia - and for this I am indebted to you; it genuinely means a lot to me. This being the case, I would like to answer your questions as best I can - which sort of commentary are you looking for? I have not been asked this before, and knowing how the opinions on Heim and his works can be rather polarizing, I would like to know which perspective you are coming from so I can best address them. I hope to hear from you soon! --HappyCamper 20:26, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, I added some stuff to that article, but it's getting to be rather scary place to edit. I might stay away from it for a while. --HappyCamper 01:29, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Selector calculus AFD closing

Hi Jitse. Does it appear to you, as it does me, that the closing was premature? I thought it was up to the discretion of the closing admin whether to extend the closing deadline if there was consensus forming. It certainly seems to me that there was significant comments being made and very likely that some sort of consensus would have formed. It's also rather strange that the AFD discussion would be closed so soon after some comments were made that I think would have swayed voters. Do you think a deletion review is appropriate or what? --C S (Talk) 21:24, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Frechet derivative

Your edit on the 11th on the Frechet derivative does not parse. Just thought you would rather fix it yourself than have someone else try to fix it. Rick Norwood 17:39, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi Rick. Unfortunately, I do not see the problem. Must be one of these things where one can't find errors in what one wrote oneself, but the errors jump out for other people. Feel free to fix it yourself, or, if you're still reluctant to do so, please be more specific. Sorry for being so stupid ... -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 12:26, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't know how, but the problem seems to have fixed itself overnight. Maybe the problem was in my browser.

It's an interesting article. I notice that it does not agree with the corresponding article in mathworld, but I think we're right and mathworld wrong on this one -- or maybe the expression is used in different ways by different authors. Rick Norwood 13:23, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Articles that need to be wikified

Hi Jitse. On Feb 8, you deleted Articles that need to be wikified, which was a redirect to Category:Articles that need to be wikified. Some guy said it failed rule 5 - which it did - but one of the exceptions was if 'someone found them useful' - if someone had bothered with a 'what links here' check, they'd have seen someone did (I use it on my user page). There's no handy WP:WIKIFY or something similar, unfortunately.

It's no big deal, and you're doing an great job keeping the RfD page tidy, but maybe it would be helpful if you just checked before deleting, especially when the entire 'consensus to delete' was one single nomination. Thanks. Proto||type 11:05, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, I appreciate your feedback. It seems that some people are hesitant to comment on adminstrative actions because these sometimes lead to angry responses; this worries me greatly.

When I delete redirects, I check the "what links here" to see whether there are links to the redirect. I assume that I also did this for Articles that need to be wikified. However, I do not bother about breaking links from talk pages, since they often link on purpose to the redirect page. I think that, when scanning the "what links here" list, I unconsiously skip any link which is not from the main namespace; in particular, I did not consider the link on your user page (and on the pages of other users). You're right that the fact that you are using it on your user page signals that it is useful to you, so I should pay attention to links to redirects from User page. I will do that from now on.

I hope this answer suffices; if not, please let me know. Thanks again for your comment. Cheers, Jitse Niesen (talk) 12:11, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

That's good to know. I think I'll set up WP:WIKIFY - it would be a useful tool. Thanks for the prompt response! All the best, Proto||type 12:17, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I think it's better to put it on CAT:WIKIFY, since it goes to a category; see for instance CAT:DEFAM. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 12:19, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Would it be possible to have both? I like to go by 'if a redirect is useful, have it'. Proto||type 12:40, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't particularly like it (I'd expect that WP:WIKIFY redirects to the same page as Wikipedia:Wikify), but it is not a big deal for me. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 12:46, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

That would make more sense, if it wasn't for the fact that Wikipedia:Wikify is a redirect to Wikipedia:Glossary#W, which just basically (paraphrasing) says 'Wikifying is making the page match up to the MoS using Wiki MarkUp language. See Category:Articles that need to be wikified'. The category isn't really like most categories anyway, it's kind of a special case (and so fits in as a normal shortcut - see WP:CINA for precedent). It's not a big deal, as you say, but better to explain my reasoning! Proto||type 14:36, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

User:Bonaparte

Stop interfering with Bonny and deleting his "valuable" comments. He will continue trolling until someone permablocks his latest sock. --Ghirla | talk 12:55, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Would you stop trolling ghirlo? You have an obsession with this Bonaparte, are you that crazy or just pretend to? --Yodo 13:01, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I left a note at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard; let's see what happens. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 13:29, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

This ghirlo is outrageous. I think one should block him for saying false info about me. --Yodo 13:37, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Remark

Note that User:WAREL's editing style and articles of interest seem to be an aweful lot like User:DYLAN LENNON's, and I think we are having a sockpuppet here. Not that it matters now, but it may be good to keep in mind. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:29, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree, it's quite possible. I feel less bad now about my revert ... -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 23:54, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Strange "Current activity"

Hi Jitse,

if you look at "Newly designated maths" for 21 February, you'll see a whole bunch of Indian names, most of which do not seem to be the names of mathematicians. At least one is not in any category at all, and many are actually redlinks. Can you figure out how they wound up on the page? --Trovatore 06:16, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

They came from the list of mathematicians. An overzealous person put them in, and for many of them even the dates of birth are unknown. I would suggest removing any redlinks from the list of mathematicians, but this may need a wider discussion at our wikiproject. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:37, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

WAREL LENONN

My behavior in en.wp might have been improper. Sorry. But,I think that you begin to understand what User:DYLAN LENNON did in ja.wp. And, he is cunning. Example:

• Real_number in Japanease
• (cur) (last) 00:04, 21 January 2006 DYLAN LENNON (From English Version)

Do you understand the meaning of this words "From English Version"? He trusts en.wp. And he think that other people also trust it. His scenario was...

1. Dylan edited en:Real number by himself.
2. Dylan pretended to translate "From English version".
3. Dylan edited ja:Real number.
4. If it is translation from en:Real number, no one will be able to mean the complaint.

In a word, by using the authority of en.wp, Dylan tries to have his opinion admitted in ja.wp. He did other variously bad things and banned from ja.wp. It might be a similar reason that he is holding out here now. He thinks if he is admitted in en.wp, he is admitted in ja.wp. I expect your actions. Please hold out.... --Schildt.a 07:20, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your voting!

Thanks!

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

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

VWN en WCN

Beste Jitse Niesen,

Al enige tijd is er een Nederlandstalig chapter in oprichting, te vinden op http://nl.wikimedia.org . Dit wordt de Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland (VWN). Je kunt je interesse om lid te worden van deze vereniging hier aangeven.

Deze vereniging gaat eind augustus/begin september een Wikimedia Conferentie in Nederland (WCN) houden, volgend op Wikimania in Boston, gedeeltelijk erop inspelend middels een aantal discussiegroepen. Om iets dergelijks te organiseren is imput erg gewenst. Dus als je wilt meehelpen, of als je interesse hebt om bij een dergelijk evenement aanwezig te zijn, geef dat dan aan op nl.wikimedia. Ik hoop daar snel je imput tegemoet te zien! Met vriendelijke groet, effeietsanders 21:31, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

PDE article

Thanks for your note about PDE. I'm new to Wiki stuff, so any help will be appreciated.

I have taken the position that the role of Wikpedia should be to supply basic information to a wide audience, such as the significance of various fields of mathematics, and supply references and guidance for further study. I especially would like to reach talented but untutored people who might then be inspired to further study.

In writing a revision of the PDE article, I wanted to illustrate the variety and depth of the field, and a sense of its wider connection to a variety of scientific problems. What I did on heat equation and wave equation is intended as a summary and perhaps a teaser to inquire further. Hence I wanted to put it up front in an introductory section. I intend to do something similar for the 2D Laplace equation, describing its connection with complex analysis, fluid flow, electrostatic potential, etc.

As for the remainder of the main PDE article, I think it would mostly consist of references to more specialized articles, and maybe to a Wikibook on PDE. The Wikibook on ODE actually has a bit on PDE, but I think they should be separated.

I'm a student of Courant, and I helped with the English edition of Courant-Hilbert Vol II. I'd like to incorporate some of his point of view in the Wikpedia. My next project (after some preliminary work on ODE and PDE) would be Calculus of Variations, since that was Courant's favorite topic. Donludwig 20:16, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Danko Georgiev

Dear Jitse, I wish to ban Danko Georgiev from Wikipedia for his repeated accusations of Fraud to me regarding my experiment [8] on the talk pages. My experimental results were verified by faculty from Harvard and other schools. I will not allow this idiot to ruin my reputation. He must be repudiated by the Wikipedia community. Any help you can offer in this regard would be appreciated.-- Afshar 06:58, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Contact

I'd like to discuss something outside wikipedia with you, but you don't have email enabled. JoshuaZ 04:50, 4 March 2006 (UTC) Actually, that isn't so accurate. I would like to discuss something wikipedia related that I don't think should go on a talk page. JoshuaZ 04:50, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

PDE article again

I think we are arriving at a consensus. The main PDE article should include enough introduction to make clear the nature and variety of the field, but can refer elsewhere for details. I'm not clear how to draw the line between exposition and details yet, since I am not familiar with what is already in Wikipedia and similar on-line sources. This will take a bit of time, especially for topics in mathematical physics and engineering. So I propose to write something first, and rearrange later. I'll insert something on potential theory today, but I proably won't have a very good set of references. Donludwig 17:38, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Academic dress of Durham University

Nice one for sorting that out. I made a bit of a pigs ear of redirects and such. I mistakenly created Academic dress of the Durham University with a silly extra the, could easily be deleted. --Salix alba (talk) 15:36, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

According to the history of that page, Aaron Brenneman disagrees, so I would just leave it as it is. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 06:21, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

GMTHANKS

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

Perfect Numbers

If you could look over at the perfect number page, and look at the last few edits and give us an opinion it would be helpful. Thanks. JoshuaZ 04:23, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Warel has rved the pages 5 times in the last 1.5 days or so. JoshuaZ 21:32, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I blocked WAREL for 12 hours, and warned him that next time he engages in edit warring the block will double. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:44, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Good, I just wanted to ask you to do this. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 22:47, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Degenerate matrix

Hi Jitse, I couldn't find any reference for zero row or column matrix you mentioned in degenerate matrix. Can you point a definition? Why is it useful? physicistjedi 23:39, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, I saw the one-line article you created, and I thought that it was odd, as I did not remember ever seeing this term. In fact, I thought "degenerate matrix" referred to a matrix with degenerate eigenvalues (eigenvalues with multiplicity greater than 1). However, when looking for references, I could not find any quickly; instead, I found references for the zero rows / columns meaning. Embarrassingly, I don't remember the reference (I didn't write it because degenerate matrix is a disambiguation page, though I now regret this). The only reference I can find now is the first Google hit for "degenerate matrix", which says: "Like all definitions so far, they even work for degenerate matrices with no rows and no columns" [9]. However, it seems the common name is "empty matrix". It is not very important, but useful in the same way as the empty sum and the empty product. There is even an article about it.

In view of this information, I made degenerate matrix into a redirect to invertible matrix. Thanks for keeping an eye on me! Cheers, Jitse Niesen (talk) 07:25, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Navigation Template

Thanks. --Mmounties (Talk) 04:49, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Deletion

Your opinion would be appriciated here regarding deletion of the article Serbophobia. The article is making references to Srebrenica massacre and those who contributed to that issue. Thanks--Dado 17:46, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Hello

Hi Jitse, it was nice meeting you tonight. I'm always pleased to meet people who know the difference between it's and its, although you have an advantage here having learned English as a foreign language. You in turn will be pleased to know that I don't have the slightest idea about any of things you have written about, since this means we will never have an edit war. Adam 13:24, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Perfect numbers and Warel again

Hey, Warel and I have another disagreement, one I thought was settled earlier, if you could take a look at the last few edits I'd appreciate it. JoshuaZ 00:31, 24 March 2006 (UTC) nm, he seems to have made some edits that are an acceptable solution. JoshuaZ 04:03, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

=Loop naar de hel idioot

Ik heb daar hiets mee te maken. Ben slechts een gebruiker in de bibliotheek. Val me niet meer lastig met je onzin.

Warel and perfect numbers again

Warel is again adding the comment about undecidability, although he is saying it is due to "Rosser's theorem" and I have no idea what he is talking about. The only theorems that go by that name that I am aware of have to do with analytic number theory. If you could take a look again, it would be helpful. JoshuaZ 20:53, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Computational number theory and Algorithmic number theory

The two have two separate articles (both stubs). As far as I am aware (and I could be wrong) they are the same thing. Therefore inquiring whether 1) this is correct and if so 2) which should reasonably redirect to which? I'm leaning towards making the first a redirect to the second. JoshuaZ 21:22, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I'd also say they are the same, or at least almost the same. Perhaps, algorithmic number theory focuses solely on the algorithms, whereas computational number theory is a bit broader. I'd make the redirect the other way around, because I've heard more of computational number theory than algorithmic number theory. The Mathematics Subject Classicification (MSC) also uses computational number theory (category 11X). But you probably know the subject better. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 23:25, 27 March 2006 (UTC)