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Again, welcome! --Lst27(talk) 23:54, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[... clipped; see 2024 archive andTalk:Function (mathematics) ... ]

Indeed, that's why I decided terminating my yearly visit to this article (over the past 10 years I have seen no progress), and coming back in 2025. As regards the codomain issue, since the 1980s I've been regularly asking mathematicians using codomains why they might want it. The answer always amounted to "tradition in certain fields" or "it's a convenience" (without a technical justification). Yet, most definitions for composition of functions with codomains are very restrictive. Of course, since the termcodomain exists, it must be covered by an article meant to be encyclopedic, but a solid technical justification would be a genuine added value.

If you have the incentive to continue working on this article, you may find Rogaway's remarks very helpful[1], in particular his remark #18: 'Definitional choices that don't capture strong intuition are usually wrong, they may come back to haunt you". As for the of informal introduction, I recently found very high praise for the educational style of Michael Spivak's Calculus (now in its 4th edition, freely available on the web). Since the perspective of the article must be far wider than calculus (ideally, all of mathematics) the intuitive discussion on functions must also be wider. A suitable preamble to the formal definitionmight run as follows (after a few examples). (begin excerpt) In our examples, we have been writing f(x) for the "output value" of the function f for a given "input value" x. This immediately raises two questions: (a) for which values of x is f defined? and (b) if x is such a value, what, then, is the value of f(x)? (end excerpt). Answering those questions provides the justification for a simple formal definition to follow.

I hope this helps. Other work currently prevents me from providing more input or even having an occasional look at these pages.Boute (talk)09:17, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The most obvious purpose I can see is to avoid extra bookkeeping. It's easier to say e.g. a square matrix represents a function from${\displaystyle {\mathbb{R}}^n\to {\mathbb{R}}^n}$ and not worry up front about noting that the image might be some restricted subset in degenerate cases. Etc. –jacobolus (t)09:46, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Was reading through this talk page out of curiosity and might have something helpful to add. When talking about functions${\displaystyle {\mathbb{R}}^n\to {\mathbb{R}}^m}$ you don't want to exclude maps that only map to subspaces. Also the transpose map turns the codomain of a matrix${\displaystyle M}$ into the domain of${\displaystyle M^{\mathrm{\top }}}$. I think the category theorists quite appreciate the codomain for these reasons and others. Anyway happy late new year I guess.Shoe Deceiver (talk)21:36, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh and also the preimage map of clearly depends on what the codomain is.Shoe Deceiver (talk)21:48, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,

Obviously it's disappointing to have clarified something for the worse, but I'm happy to go with your reverting of it.

What I'm wondering, though, is whether there's a way to introduce readers in a really clear way to the central idea first, rather than (as it seems to me) hit them straight away with several definitions in succession, all applied to different situations, and a large number of wikilinks? That's the problem I was trying to solve, really, and it's clear from the talk page that at least one visitor had trouble understanding the article when they visited in 2019, though I've not checked what it looked like back then.Musiconeologist (talk)21:13, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Afterthought: maybe a better diagram would go some way. Show one angle, with a a line segment, an circular arc and an arbitrary curve all subtending it (and having the same endpoints?). We can also say the line segment subtends both the arcs if we want, and everything subtends the angle.Musiconeologist (talk)21:44, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Moved toTalk:Subtended angle § Subtended angle intro

• User:Dedhert.Jr/sandbox/1

Might be planning to implement it anyway. But do you think the introduction of differentiation and integral seems superfluous and somewhat unrelated before the fundamental theorem of calculus? I somehow managed to relate those two with the fundamental theorem in order to describe it mathematically. The second theorem's proof is the only problem I could not comprehend anymore.Dedhert.Jr (talk)04:30, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not quite sure what the question is, or what you mean by "implement it". If you are asking whether it is worth giving a quick introduction about what derivatives and integrals are in the article about the fundamental theorem of calculus, I would say yes. Some readers who are not familiar with calculus might be curious about it. I think we should if possible give a (brief) explanation at the start which is accessible to e.g. high school students taking an algebra or trigonometry course who have not yet seen any calculus. But we also shouldn't belabor it, as that may be distracting for more expert readers. –jacobolus (t)23:57, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I reordered the formulas on the page about stereographic projections because I think sums are nicer if they don't lead with a minus. It's also more consistent since, as it stands, the formula for the polar form has both${\displaystyle 1+R^2}$ and${\displaystyle R^2+1}$ in the denominator. That said I won't contest.Shoe Deceiver (talk)10:42, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Shoe Deceiver: There are a wide variety of different variants in use in different sources, but it's typical to put the 1 first. If it were up to me we'd use a north-pole centered stereographic projection, in which case the relevant quantities end up as⁠${\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}(1+x^2+y^2)}$⁠ and⁠${\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}(1-x^2-y^2)}$⁠. (If I ever manage to get the time and energy for a substantial rewrite I might put this one in place. It also has the beneficial property of not reversing the orientation of the sphere. I think it's easier to make sense of, it accords better with the conventional spherical coordinates which measure the polar angle from the north pole as 0, and it generalizes better to uses such as taking the tangent of half an angle or taking the stereographic projection of unit quaternions as a representation of rotations ["modified Rodrigues parameters"].) –jacobolus (t)19:59, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

An automated process has detected that when you recently editedJames Ivory (mathematician), you added a link pointing to the disambiguation pageLemma.

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk)19:53, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion involving you atWikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring regarding a possible violation of Wikipedia's policy onedit warring. Thank you.---Wikaviani^{(talk)(contribs)}16:53, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I replied atWikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring § User:Jacobolus reported by User:Wikaviani (Result: No violation) –jacobolus (t)18:55, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Did you mean to remove the Van Brummelen citation inthis edit?XOR'easter (talk)18:36, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@XOR'easter, Whoops, no I had just added it and did not mean to immediately remove it. I started working offline on reworking that section a bit, but have been a bit busy. –jacobolus (t)18:43, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Hindu–Arabic numeral system is currently 158k bytes, which is more than the 75k that theguidelines suggest as a line for archiving. It is one of the largest talk pages.[2] Usually when talk pages calm down, large closed discussions are archived. The top two or three topics are a year old and done with. Is it not time to archive them? Manually perhaps?Wizmut (talk)08:02, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you aren't a participant in discussions on this topic, why do you care so much? The problems with the page are still persisting and are not really "done with". This page and related pages are a serious mess. –jacobolus (t)15:14, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please assume good faith. I'll try to articulate the problems I see.

Is there current work being done pursuant to these topics? There does not appear to be. Such large and wide-ranging discussions, some parts of which led to consensus and others not, are very hard to pick apart. Guidelines (WP:TALKSIZE) suggest starting new topics rather than bumping old ones. The new topic could focus on one problem and summarize points made earlier. Absent archiving, topics that probably shouldn't be replied to directly could make use of {Discussion top} and {Discussion bottom}.

There are also parts that devolved into personal attacks (not talking about you specifically) - someone trying to catch up on maintaining the page would see a lot of dirty laundry. Even worse, there are productive comments mixed right in, which often get lost. So it goes... I recognize some of the names.

I understand that some of these points may not be entirely persuasive. I will leave it to you to keep the talk page maintained. I would ask, however, that you consider the guidelines I mentioned earlier, as well as the perspective of any editor that is new to the article and who may want to understand what work is currently being done on it. Regards,Wizmut (talk)19:34, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Wizmut – I'm not assuming bad faith. I'm asking why you personally are affected. (For example: if you wanted to start a new talk page discussion about this topic but felt overwhelmed by the talk page, that might be a good reason to try to do something about it.) It seems likely to me that you are going through some auto-generated list of big talk pages and trying to "fix" them in order from largest to smallest. In my opinion this activity has very limited value, and I would recommend spending your time on something else.

dirty laundry – This is helpful context for readers, because it shows that the obvious problems in the article are a subject of discussion, not just being swept under the rug. –jacobolus (t)19:39, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Dirty laundry" was referring to all of the comments that were not about improving the article. Comments about editors, rather than content. Such comments are very unhelpful to incoming editors. Indeed, they probably set a bad example.

For the concern of trying to hide problems. New topics can always be created. Old ones can be linked to. In fact that's what should happen; a new editor replying to one of the monoliths currently available would just make it hard to follow the flow of discussion.

My recommendations about talk page maintenance come from examining over a thousand talk pages, and the actions that are usually taken to help them along. They also come from reading guidelines. There is no requirement that I be personally affected in order to maintain an article. Indeed, it is often better to have an impartial point of view.Wizmut (talk)20:13, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In the section of Early precursors of calculus of India subsection it states that

They applied ideas from (what was to become) differential and integral calculus to obtain (Taylor–Maclaurin) infinite series for sine, cosine and arctangent.

What does it mean?Myuoh kaka roi (talk)14:32, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not particularly satisfied with the description there, but it's hard to give a short and accessible but nuanced summary. For more seeKerala school of astronomy and mathematics,Madhava of Sangamagrama,Madhava series. (Or better, try reading some of their references.) –jacobolus (t)15:10, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

https://youtube.com/watch?v=A9WY_HZUK8QDominic3203 (talk)08:16, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not going to immediately watch a YouTube video. What's the relevance to Malthus, and why do you think Malthus's c. 1800 essay belongs right in the middle of several sentences about the quadrature of the hyperbola and the name "hyperbolic logarithm" from the mid 17th century? –jacobolus (t)08:24, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How about I remove anything about Malthus and keep everything else?Dominic3203 (talk)08:26, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It seems out of place: your new sentences (and this video link) don't really correspond to the sentences you stuck it into the middle of, in my opinion. Notice there's already a mention of Bürgi: "Prior to Napier's invention, there had been other techniques of similar scopes, such as the prosthaphaeresis or the use of tables of progressions, extensively developed by Jost Bürgi around 1600." If you want to elaborate further perhapsHistory of logarithms § Bürgi orJost Bürgi § Bürgi's work on logarithms would be good places for an extended discussion. –jacobolus (t)08:31, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Jacob. I've seen you've removed the images of 3d color spaces commenting the CMYK portion is wrong and I'd like to hear feedback on how to improve it. The reason I've used 3 distorted cubes for CMYK is that in the conversion from RGB to CMYK, one of the components is always 0, meaning it can be represented as such. I've also used two cones for HSB because in practice the closest the B value is to 100% or 0, the less color variations it uses.Alex Van de Sande (talk)12:23, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Avsa. I have a whole bunch of problems with this image, which I think is not really suitable for any Wikipedia article I can think of, and I don't think is worth trying to modify/improve. Some fundamental / top level issues:

• It tries to pack several differently shaped things into one picture, and the arrangement is kind of arbitrary and inconsistent
• There's a ton of extra wasted space around the side
• The shadows are confusing and distracting, since the objects otherwise seem to be generating light
• The labels are completely illegible at thumbnail size
• The shapes all have weirdly rounded corners (except CMYK, which doesn't, and also has unexplained gaps)
• The view from outside these various shapes doesn't really show very much about what is happening inside the solid, which is what people actually care about

Now about CMY/CMYK, the fundamental problem is that what is shown here are just RGB colors in a slightly different arrangement. These color spaces are about ink mixture on paper, which produce a completely different set of colors, some not representable in RGB (depending on the printer), with many RGB colors not representable in CMYK. A picture like this is really grossly misleading to readers about what CMY or CMYK means. Inks on paper combine in somewhat tricky ways, and there's no easy conversion of CMYK to RGB; in practice conversion is usually done with a lookup table, but there are also some sophisticated theoretical color mixing models, if you want to go down a rabbit hole. Overall I don't think trying to draw CMY or CMYK as a cube or similar is very useful to readers (and the shape you chose for CMYK seems likeWP:OR). The various images inCMYK color model do an okay job explaining how it works, though there are probably other images that could be added.

The HSB "bicone" in your picture also has some problems. First, the space you are aiming for is most commonly called HSL, and HSB is not uncommonly used as a name for HSV, a different color space, seeHSL and HSV. Second, while there was a bicone as a concept involved, the actual coordinates are cylindrical, not conical, so showing a bicone is fairly misleading unless accompanied by an extra several sentences of textual explanation, which isn't going to be practical in most contexts where you tried to put this image.

The RGB cube is less individually problematic, though I'm generally unconvinced about the usefulness of showing such shapes from the outside. But it's completely redundant with images already on a few of the pages where you plonked this image down.

Cheers. –jacobolus (t)15:44, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the feedback!Alex Van de Sande (talk)16:45, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

recently some user is adding the claim that calculus and the concept of integration and differentiation was invented by Kerala school in article likeYuktibhasa andKerala with unreliable sources and google chrome links as a source and when I undo the edit with valid point he is going to an edit warMyuoh kaka roi (talk)14:54, 15 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I assume that your user id derives from the Jacobolus papers in the 1632 series, and that you have some familiarity with the stories in which they appear. If so, would you consider writing an article or section about them? Thanks. --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk)13:30, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No idea what that is, sorry. My user ID is a dopey online nickname I made up as a child then stuck with out of inertia. –jacobolus (t)15:46, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ooops, my bad... the math was not rendering, and I somehow thought the colons were interfering, which was the only reason I removed them. Perhaps was just a "usual glitch" in the LaTeX rendering? as it seems fine now...  Myndextalk  11:45, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No worries. All the colons do is make a definition list, which is technically semantically invalid, but has been traditionally used on Wikipedia for indentation, such as in talk-page conversations and block math. An alternative way to get an indent is with
<math display=block> ... </math>. This takes more markup than
:<math> ... </math> but makes the html pedants happy. –jacobolus (t)16:53, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify, I didn't write that sentence, but reinstated it with an update when another editor reverted it for lack of citation. I wouldn't have reinstated it had that editor included your comment, and agree that a separate section would be better. --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk)17:39, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No worries. I just tried reading the paragraph and the sentence seems like a non sequitur in context. I think the topic can be mentioned somewhere, but should be better integrated. –jacobolus (t)17:52, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A tag has been placed on0.99999999999999999999999999999999 requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done undersection G4 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the page appears to be a repost of material that was previously deleted following adeletion discussion, [...] If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you maycontest the nomination byvisiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". [...]Ponyo^{bons mots}17:43, 23 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Ponyo Can you link the previous deletion discussion? Every single similar title in the set {0.999 (3 nines},0.9999 (4 nines), ...0.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999 (41 nines)} is a redirect to the article0.999..., with (previously) the sole exception of0.99999999999999999999999999999999 (32 nines). That makes no sense whatsoever. –jacobolus (t)17:57, 23 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See alsoWikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 April 5 § 0.99999.... –jacobolus (t)18:00, 23 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No problem, it'shere. --Ponyo^{bons mots}18:01, 23 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Ponyo Okay, thanks. Doesn't seem to reflect current 2025 consensus. It makes no sense whatsoever to piecemeal force deletion of the single example 32 nines, while keeping every other example with 3 through 41 nines, based on some kind of automatic thoughtless bureaucracy. Cf.Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not § Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy –jacobolus (t)18:04, 23 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A category that exists should not be emptied unilaterally. You need to restore every article that was inCategory:People who studied the transit of Venus. Once you have done that you are free to nominate it for deletion, rename or merger. Once a category exists you should not empty it out of turn. You must take it to categories for discussion to rename or empty it.John Pack Lambert (talk)13:23, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I second John on this one. Please discuss category deletions at CFD. Emptying out of process isn't how categories are handled like this. I've reverted your removals.^SMason_Garrison13:30, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Smasongarrison The category creation in the middle of an ongoing discussion was completely inappropriate, as is revert warring. –jacobolus (t)13:42, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please keep discussion atWikipedia talk:Categorization#Should biographies go in non-biographical categories and refrain from further controversial changes pending discussion. –jacobolus (t)13:44, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In your original revert, it would have been extremely helpful to point to the ongoing discussion^SMason_Garrison13:45, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That is not a CfD discussion. Once a category exists you cannot empty it out of process. You need to restore all the contents and open an actual CfD discusiion.John Pack Lambert (talk)13:58, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Johnpacklambert I am not used to how categories work, but the way you are approaching this whole matter is quite far from ordinary Wikipedia practice and does not feel like good faith engagement. The usual way to work in Wikipedia is to revert controversial changes and then discuss them, seeking consensus, rather than trying to force your preferred version by edit warring and then complaining when other people disagree. –jacobolus (t)14:01, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You cannot mass reply existing categories period. Anymore than you can unilaterally delete an article once it is created. You should restore all the contents and then bring the discussion to CfD. The categorization talk page is not the appropriate place to discuss specific categories, CfD is.John Pack Lambert (talk)14:06, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The category should not have been created, period. You are trying to force a controversial change through by making anyone who disagrees with you jump through pointless bureaucratic hoops, rather than following ordinary Wikipedia process of seeking consensus. See e.g.WP:BRD. My talk page is certainly not the place to discuss it. –jacobolus (t)14:11, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, next time I'll try to include a discussion link in such revert edits. –jacobolus (t)14:15, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Before you pointless and blindly revert again, please reviewMOS:NICKNAME re: "Dick" andMOS:DATETIES re:MDY date format.GiantSnowman17:59, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@GiantSnowman There is no prohibition mentioned there on mentioning the nickname "Dick", which seems entirely reasonable and up to local editor discretion (if a consensus among editors of the specific page found that it was better without the nickname, that would also be fine; feel free to start a discussion on the talk page). Likewise, random people do not have a "strong national tie" to particular date formats (the "strong national tie" thing is supposed to help a random British person justify changing the date format on the article about Big Ben or something), and doesn't apply to every arbitrary subject. You running around changing these all over the site is not only a clear violation ofWP:STYLEVAR but is also super disruptive and annoying. Please don't do it. –jacobolus (t)20:36, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In relation to the nickname, please actually read MOS:NICKNAME - nicknames should only be shown if "it is not a common hypocorism".

Ditto with dates -WP:DATETIES clearly says that for American subjects, "For the United States this is MDY".

You are patently wrong on both counts here and embarrassing yourself trying to argue otherwise.GiantSnowman20:41, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I did read MOS:NICKNAME. All it says is that nicknames which are not "common hypocorisms" should usually be presented, but does not prohibit mentioning other ones. Additionally,MOS:BIO is a "guideline", not a policy page. Reasonable editors should use discretion and seek local consensus, not start edit wars about trivialities all across the site. Large-scale bot-like enforcement of rigid conformance with your narrow interpretation of this MOS guideline is disruptive to the project, and you should seek pre-clearance approval before starting in on that kind of project, just as any bot needs to do; cf.WP:MEATBOT. –jacobolus (t)20:43, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You are editing very poorly and in bad faith. Please seeWikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Richard F. Lyon where I hope to resolve this amicably before I escalate to ANI.GiantSnowman20:55, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Quite the contrary: you are far out of line of Wikipedia norms, which is to preserve the standing stable version of a page when there is a conflict, instead seeking consensus on the talk page. Instead you are (a) disruptively making mass trivial edits across the site in a way that is not really in accordance with any policy to enforce your personal narrow interpretations, and then (b) disruptively edit warring instead of discussing when you are reverted. I am frankly shocked to find an administrator behaving so badly. –jacobolus (t)21:01, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

But there would be no conflict if you had any knowledge of our policies and guidelines whatsoever. For whatever reason, you areWP:OWNing the article to try and maintain your own (incorrect) version, and you are disruptively editing to do that.GiantSnowman21:07, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am closely familiar with both of these guidelines. You might want to re-readWikipedia:Consensus. –jacobolus (t)21:12, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Respectfully, you simply cannot be "closely familiar", given your comments above and your edits to date.GiantSnowman21:14, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, you aren't being respectful, at all. You led off with insults, have continued the insults straight through, and you have not thought critically aboutwhy these guidelines exist in the form they do, considered whether your interpretations are correct, or attempted even a little bit to understand my interpretation of these guidelines or why there is a disagreement, instead preferring to bash your way through with revert warring, then followed up by escalating to a "noticeboard" report. You have violated the most basic and fundamental Wikipedia policy here, while self righteously lecturing me despite not knowing anything about me or my understanding of Wikipedia guidelines. –jacobolus (t)21:17, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nope, you're the one who started with insults, accusing me of being a MEATBOT. I very much have considered your interpretation, and that interpretation is 100% incorrect. You are the one who has refused to listen to me or to think critically. As I said, you are blindly reverting and OWNing the article. Yourfirst revert says that my edits were "unhelpful" (they were not) and suggests you did not read my edit summaries.GiantSnowman21:19, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"MEATBOT" is a description, not an insult. You are making large numbers of (frankly disruptive) script-assisted edits. Take a look atWP:MEATBOT. Frankly you should seek a bot approval before carrying out this kind of activity. –jacobolus (t)21:39, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Which of my edits are disruptive, and what constitutes 'large' numbers?GiantSnowman21:40, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You're skimming across many pages making hundreds(?) of edits like this, often one every 10 seconds or so, with summaries "script-assisted date audit and style fixes per MOS:NUM". That's not close to enough time to be reading the pages in question or giving careful consideration case by case, and is significantly more edits than un-assisted humans will ever make. It's disruptive to change the date formatting based on features like where some random person was born. That's not what the "strong national ties" caveat toMOS:STYLERET is supposed to be about. –jacobolus (t)21:46, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, I am not making hundreds of edits every 10 seconds, what a ludicrous thing to say. Diffs or it didn't happen, as the kids say.

So what 'strong national tie' does Mr Lyons have, if not to USA?GiantSnowman21:49, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Huh? I said you have made hundreds (maybe? I didn't count) of edits of this type. In some stretches these seem to be done about one per ten seconds.

I don't think Dick Lyon has any "strong national ties" whatsoever to a particular date format, which is why changing the style on that basis is not appropriate. –jacobolus (t)21:51, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So your complaint is that I make edits? Ok, sure...

Just admit you're wrong about an American having strong national ties to America. You're embarrassing yourself.GiantSnowman18:16, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, my complaint is (a) you are making large numbers of edits in a short amount of time, ranging from largely unnecessary to mildly harmful, based on a misunderstanding of Wikipedia guidelines, and also (b) you are being extremely rude, far, far below the standard I would expect of an administrator. If you continue the insults I should probably take this up atWP:AN/I. I'd really rather not though, as it wastes a lot of everyone's time. –jacobolus (t)18:42, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please provide diffs of 'harmful' edits. When you stop being rude, so will I.GiantSnowman18:59, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, life's too short - I'm going to leave you to police this article, I have better things to do. Bye.GiantSnowman19:04, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Enjoy. –jacobolus (t)19:08, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Kusma is doing an impressive work atUser:Kusma/sandbox/FK. Best!Esevoke (talk)00:34, 15 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I really don't understand your behaviour at that article.

Why do you insist on directing readers topage at the end of the article, when the normal link goes toa scan of equal if not superior quality?

Headbomb {t ·c ·p ·b}22:00, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand your behavior. Why are you insisting on running bots over pages that explicitly requested not to because the bots constantly fuck citations up? (In this case all of the changes made are at best trivial, and some are explicitly undesired: The most "useful" changes were a couple URLs replaced with DOIs that point to the same place. There was also unnecessary addition of which section of ArXiV a couple of preprints are in. A couple of ISBNs were added, which are also unnecessary but okay, whatever.) The bot is not adding any real value here, but when the bot runs repeatedly it causes significant distraction, and it's annoying constantly reverting it. –jacobolus (t)22:03, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm reviewing the bot's edits when remove the{{bots}} template. That page was missing class for cite arxivs, several DOIs, ISBNs etc... Now answer my question.Headbomb {t ·c ·p ·b}22:09, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Which question? We are pointing at the picture of the map (the explicit source forFile:Peirce Quincuncial Projection 1879.jpg which we show in the article). –jacobolus (t)22:30, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You should not remove the bot deny template, period, without seeking talk page consensus. It's inappropriately presumptuous to assume that people didn't mean it when they added such a template. –jacobolus (t)22:32, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Also the JSTOR scan is awful. –jacobolus (t)22:08, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's certainly better than the archive.org one.Headbomb {t ·c ·p ·b}22:09, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That is incorrect. I'm really not sure what else to say that isn't very insulting of your vision and/or taste. In the interest of comity, we can agree to disagree. –jacobolus (t)22:28, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

		The Good Article Rescue Barnstar
		This is presented to you bythe GAR process in recognition of your sterling work in helpingAddition retain its Good Article status. Please feel free to display the GA icon on your userpage. Keep up the good work!~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk)16:50, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, though I'm not sure how much I did.

To be honest I think this article still has significant issues deserving of someone's dedicated attention, and it would benefit from more thorough content review, including some rewriting and reorganization. I push back a bit on these procedural GARs because I don't think the stated problems about sourcing in a few sections were particularly serious or worth focusing on. –jacobolus (t)23:00, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

doi:10.3390/educsci15040433 Might be useful for developing thechain rule article (and it's open access!).MathKeduor7 (talk)07:43, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This doesn't need to be on my talk page. You can discuss attalk:Chain rule or feel free to make improvements to the article. –jacobolus (t)12:10, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree! Sorry.MathKeduor7 (talk)12:38, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Moved fromTalk:Euclid's Elements § Reverse-indent vs. bullet style for the reference list

I moved this discussion to my talk page, copying the entirety here, but also leaving the content-relevant parts in place, while removing the off-topic parts, since they seem like a distraction forTalk:Euclid's Elements. Previous context:User talk:David Eppstein § Please stop making disparaging personal comments in edit summaries

I am not trying to cause further bad feelings or public drama, and don't expect any reply, but also am willing to further discuss here on my talk page. –jacobolus (t)05:52, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Reverse-indent vs. bullet style for the reference list

@David Eppstein recently changed the§ References section from the current columns + reverse-indent style (for the past 6 years, originally set by @Waynejayes) to use a no columns + bullet list style instead, under the edit summary"repeat sentence from lead later and source; convert more sources to consistent sfn style". I reverted the part of this edit which changed the reference list style based on: (1) the change seemed unexplained, unmentioned in the edit summary, which only described apparently unrelated changes; (2) there wasn't (to me) an obvious reason for the change, since both styles seem acceptable, and the previous one had been there for years with no apparent objection; and (3) I personally prefer the use of columns for saving some amount of vertical space and making the information density a bit higher.

In general my preference is to leave stable style choices alone (those that have been some particular way for several years) just to avoid style change for change's sake or to suit one or another person's preference. However, I don't really feel strongly about whether a reverse-indent style or bullet style is used for lists like this, so I would be happy to live with whatever the consensus of other editors is. I would argue for keeping the columns though, even if we switch to bullets.

My revert apparently left David feeling frustrated; that was not my goal. –jacobolus (t)21:31, 25 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't care about this specific formatting issue. I was merely cleaning up some other cruft in the referencing templates that we didn't need to have any more (specifically, hardcoded columnization) and happened not to recognize this parameter as non-cruft. If someone thinks strongly that indented lists are preferable to bulleted lists for this style of referencing with short footnotes pointing to a longer bibliography, or that bulleted lists are preferable to indented lists, then we can discuss that, but either way is ok with me.

My frustration is more that I repeatedly and frequently see you going out of your way to undercut and contradict me on little things, much more than in my interactions with other editors. Immediately after I complained about you doing it here, you did it againhere, going out of your way to tell another editor how inappropriate you thought it was for me to write an edit summary thatwas making a valid point but doing so in a somewhat frivolous way.

So anyway I don't disagree with your decision to reverse this change, in isolation, but there's a quote fromThe Big Lebowski that I think is relevant. I won't repeat it because I think you are likely to find it uncivil; instead, I'll point toWP:BRIE. —David Eppstein (talk)22:57, 25 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My comment here was deliberately content focused and I hoped conciliatory. I hoped to seek consensus among other editors about the (in my opinion fairly trivial) content dispute, so that it wouldn't be left hanging unresolved; I am not trying to force my own preference.

Apparently you are again offended. Let me start with an apology: I'm sorry for having started this discussion, and sorry that my comment above caused you pain. It was not intended that way. Next time I revert one of your changes, and a version of an article which is acceptable to me is left standing, as it was here, I will leave the topic alone unless you want to discuss it further, and do my best to ignore any oblique references you make about it in your unrelated edits.

Secondly, let me re-iterate: I respect your professional work as a scholar and your contributions to Wikipedia. I think you generally do excellent work, you are a clear writer, and you have spent innumerable hours making significant improvements here. It is a tremendous public service, and I really appreciate it.

However, in response to my comment above, you have decided to derail the page-relevant discussion with an inappropriate off-topic tangent. I unfortunately feel like I need to reply, since you are making a public contest here, even though it is irrelevant to anticipated readers of this page. (For context for others reading here, I recently asked David on his talk page to stop insulting me or other people in his edit summaries. I tried to do so in a low-key and respectful way, but he responded very aggressively there, and we had a back-and-forth. I thought that part was settled, but apparently not.)

David: I urge you to read, and carefully consider some Wikipedia policy and help pages. Start withWikipedia:Civility (notably§ Edit summary dos and don'ts):

Here is a list of tips about edit summaries:

• Be clear about what you did, so that other editors can assess your changes accurately.
• Use neutral language.
• Remain calm.
• Don't make snide comments.
• Don't make personal remarks about editors.
• Don't be aggressive.

AndHelp:Edit summary § What to avoid in edit summaries:

• Avoid misleading summaries. Mentioning one change but not another one can be misleading to someone who finds the other one more important. [...]
• Avoid inappropriate summaries. You should explain your edits, but without being overly critical or harsh when editing or reverting others' work. This may be perceived asuncivil, and cause resentment or conflict. Explain what you changed, citing the relevant policies, guidelines, or principles of good writing, but do not target others in a way that may come across as apersonal attack.
• Avoid incivility.Snide comments, personal remarks about editors, and other aggressive edit summaries are explicitedit-summary "don'ts" of the WikipediaCivility policy.

Warning: be careful of what you write in edit summaries. Inappropriate edit summaries may be used as evidence against you in behavioral complaints. This applies particularly to uncivil and deliberately misleading edit summaries.

One reason I reverted your change under on-topic discussion in this section is that you were not clear about (didn't even mention) your change in your edit summary.

But more importantly, on several occasions in your edit summaries (if someone looks they will have no trouble finding examples), both directed at myself and at other editors, you did not use neutral language, and you did make snide, personal, and aggressive comments. I can't tell whether you were were feeling calm while making those comments, but I can tell you that they often don't read as "calm" to me.

I also urge you to read and carefully considerWikipedia:No personal attacks,Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not § Wikipedia is not a battleground, and your own link,Wikipedia:Being right isn't enough,the entire point of which is that you should try not to be obnoxious when you are saying something that you consider to be valid, because it causes pointless drama and makes the project unpleasant for everyone else around.

What you call your "valid point" was phrased rudely, and as a result it caused offense to the newcomer who you had reverted, and they started a discussion expressing their frustration (in part,"I am frustrated by snipe reverts without constructive reason"). I think your essential action of reverting their change was justified, but your edit summary was completely inappropriate. I expect you to workmuch harder to be polite. If you want to make a tricky and oblique point, you should not say it sarcastically (or even "somewhat frivolously") in a few words and expect others to read your mind, but should unpack your point in sufficient detail on the talk page to explain what you mean and avoid giving offense. If you can't do that, youmust skip the "frivolous" version and give a clear, neutral, and forthright summary of what change you made instead.

Me expressing that (a) I agreed with the edit, but (b) disagreed with the edit summary wasnot "going out of my way" to undercut or offend you – my comment was not addressed to you, but to the newcomer – but rather was an attempt to express some sympathy and soften the blow of being, in my opinion, abusively stomped on. I take it as my responsibility as a community member to make people feel welcomed, even when they are met with rudeness or hostility. SeeWikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers:"Treat newcomers with kindness and patience—nothing scares valuable contributors away faster than hostility.". Instead of recognizing the pain you caused, you jumped into the discussion with an attempt to justify your rudeness. Ideally, in my opinion, you should apologize to the newcomer, as recommended by that page, make a welcoming and conciliatory message on their talk page, and strive hard to do better next time.

It is your special responsibility as an administrator to be welcoming and respectful of all participants here, including myself, newcomers, and everyone else, including those whose edits you find unhelpful or frustrating. See pleaseWikipedia:Administrators § Administrator conduct:

Administrators should strive to model high standards of courtesy and civility, and their edits, discussions, interactions, and conduct should set the example for all other editors and at all times. This is both a requirement and a condition with holding administrator privileges.

In response to your comment above, that "there's a quote from The Big Lebowski that I think is relevant. I won't repeat it because I think you are likely to find it uncivil", I do not know which quote you are referring to. It was likely a good choice not to repeat it. However, it was a poor (uncivil) choice to make this not-a-reference-reference at all. Next time please keep it entirely to yourself.

If you have further to say about this topic, please take it toWikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard.

––jacobolus (t)01:10, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

		The Mathematics Barnstar
		Thanks for taking upGolden field and making a serious page out of it! It's become a rather nice introduction to number theory by way of example.Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk)00:50, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Aw, thanks. Thanks to you for creating a page – I've been intending to start an article on this topic for years but I tend not to start stubs as often as I should. Feel free to keep adding more. The sections about fivefold symmetry and quasiperiodicity still need work, which I'll hopefully be able to keep plugging away at. –jacobolus (t)00:54, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It does kind of highlight how much can be said about number systems if we try. Basic pages likeRational number could really use a lot more love. –jacobolus (t)00:55, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed they could!Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk)01:06, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. On the aformentioned page, I changed some of the brackets to\left and\right since some of the radicals were sticking out of the top. Just saying "UnHeLpFuL" does not help; could you please be more descriptive?208.114.63.4 (talk)15:48, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The paren sizes there were all deliberately and explicitly chosen, since LaTeX often picks the size poorly when left to do it automatically. Unfortunately the nested radical in the fraction has the outer cube root too big and LaTeX doesn't have a radical size somewhere between⁠${\displaystyle \sqrt{\phantom{ll}}}$⁠ and⁠${\displaystyle \sqrt{\phantom{ll}\phantom{)}}}$⁠, so it can't be made smaller. Wikipedia's LaTeX implementation also doesn't give us any tools (like \smash) to pick a paren size slightly larger than the \Bigg size. We could plausibly change to (and I considered both of these options previously) but the latter is also pretty ugly, unfortunately. I'm somewhat indifferent between these two options, and picked the first because it doesn't waste as much space. You can see how without the nested radical things fit better because the numerator isn't forced so far away from the fraction bar:$${\displaystyle \arctan \left(\frac{2(2\sqrt{3}-2{)}^{1/3}-2(2-\sqrt{3}{)}^{1/3}+\sqrt{3}-1}{\sqrt[4]{12}}\right)}$$ but using the radical notation is probably generally clearer for readers.

The rest of your paren changes make things significantly uglier in my opinion.

Aside: what's with the weird capitalization of "UnHeLpFuL"? –jacobolus (t)16:31, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

One other possibility would be to just remove this whole unsourced section. –jacobolus (t)17:03, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Update: I figured out a (pretty hacky) workaround, so now we can try: which seems a bit better than either of the above options. –jacobolus (t)18:10, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

hi bro i see you are wiki photographer

can u add some images onList of mosques in Mexico;

thnks for attention.

Mr.WikiPageEditor (talk)16:24, 23 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think I have taken any photographs of mosques in Mexico. –jacobolus (t)16:54, 23 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

no problem, next time you visit or see cature it in your camera.

there is no hurry, taken it as a side request.

thnx for replyMr.WikiPageEditor (talk)15:53, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think you have misunderstood.Daphne Blake receives the most page views of any subjectprimarily known as "Daphne", which the others are not. I would therefore appreciate if you would restore the term to the disambiguation page, as circumstances indicate a high likelihood that readers searching for "Daphne" are looking for this character. It is customary, and frankly non-controversial, to have a disambiguation page listing in such cases.BD2412T22:50, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, puttingDaphne Blake "above the fold" of this disambig page is ridiculous. If you want, make a separate section of "People and fictional characters" or the like with a selection of the most popular ones. –jacobolus (t)22:52, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A disambiguation page is a navigational device to help readers find what they are most likely looking for. For as long as these articles have existed, the "Daphne" fromScooby-Doo has consistently had more page views than any other topic known primarily as "Daphne". It is very much our standard practice to include topics of such high interest "above the fold". We would need a good reasonnot to do so.BD2412T23:06, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You haven't presented any evidence that people are looking for the Scooby Doo character at "Daphne", or that the character is "known primarily as Daphne". It's what you personally seem to care a lot about. Again, it puts completely undue weight. I'm looking up the page views for all of the various Daphnes and will make a separate section for people and fictional characters. –jacobolus (t)23:16, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It is trivially easy to demonstrate that the character is primarily known as "Daphne", as that is how she is referenced in virtually all sources addressing the character, which will not be the case for people primarily known by their name and surname. CompareDiana, Princess of Wales onDiana. Please note that adding people primarily known by their full names would violateWP:PTM.BD2412T23:21, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That is incorrect, as we already went over previously. The vast majority of sources which mention the character in a non-trivial way mention the full name Daphne Blake. The princess gets like 15x as many page views as the Scooby-Doo character, and is dramatically more widely known and culturally influential. –jacobolus (t)23:33, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Anyway, I added those sections to the top levelDaphne (disambiguation) pages, including all of the people and characters with >1000 page views per month. –jacobolus (t)23:37, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Show me a source that refers to the character as "Daphne Blake" (or "Blake") throughout (i.e., not just on first reference). The character was created in 1969, but her last name was not used in the medium until 1983. As for the other names added, that's up to you, but sooner or later the PTM police will likely have something to say about it. I do note thatShaggy includes the character in an "other uses" section (though on a short page overall), so there is precedent for that.BD2412T00:02, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No person is ever referred to by their full name at every occurrence. That would be absurdly stilted.

In any event, no, Daphne Blake is not anywhere close to needing a special listing at the top of that disambiguation page. To put it there gives a misleading impression (that it's more significant than e.g.Daphne du Maurier), and is more or less marketing, which Scooby-Doo does not need from Wikipedia.

Readers looking for the character and arriving atDaphne (disambiguation) are not going to have a difficult time scrolling down to the appropriate place. –jacobolus (t)01:45, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea what the "PTM police" are. –jacobolus (t)02:07, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Professionally written sources onDaphne du Maurier will tend to refer to her as just "du Maurier" after the first instance, as is the practice in our own article on the subject. The same sources will refer to the character of Daphne Blake in such instances as just "Daphne", and never as just "Blake". CompareMadonna Ciccone. As for the PTM police, disambiguation pages get cleanup too, just as we have grammar police looking for inapt uses of "comprising" and missing Oxford commas.BD2412T02:31, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your concept doesn't seem to match prevailing practice on basically any page about a non-unique recent character name. There's no special place at the top ofBart forBart Simpson or at the top ofHomer (disambiguation) forHomer Simpson, no special place at the top ofLuke forLuke Skywalker, no special place at the top ofJerry forJerry Mouse, no special place at the top ofFinn forFinn the Human, no special place at the top ofLois forLois Lane orLois Griffin, no special place at the top ofTwilight (disambiguation) forTwilight Sparkle, etc. etc. –jacobolus (t)04:23, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Jerry Mouse is very prominent relative to the length ofJerry. The other characters are well known as having full names, rather than as a given name with an obscure surname.BD2412T18:52, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@BD2412 On the other hand, I'd be supportive if you want to add a sentence about the Scooby-Doo character in the lead section ofDaphne (given name). –jacobolus (t)02:22, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please restoreDaphne (singer) to the disambiguation page. Wealways include mononymously identified individuals on disambiguation pages, even if they are obscure.BD2412T18:42, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@BD2412 This also doesn't seem to match other pages I find. Is there a policy stating so somewhere? Most of the time when there is a separate "name" article, all of the people including mononymous ones are removed to there. I added this "selected" list back to this top-level page because your insisted that the Scooby Doo characterhad to be included on it. –jacobolus (t)18:45, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What other pages? Certainly wherever we listany people, we list monomymously named people. Furthermore, that name has been on the page for over eleven years. PerWP:BRD, longstanding content should not be removed without discussion if the removal is objected to. You have been around long enough to know this.BD2412T18:50, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think the reasonable alternatives here are either (a) remove all the people from this page toDaphne (given name) etc., or else (b) use some uniform criteria for picking which among them should be atDaphne (disambiguation). The criterion could plausibly be something other than 1000 page views / month, which was somewhat arbitrary (e.g. perhaps we're listing too many people on the top-level page and we should make it stricter). –jacobolus (t)18:51, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you should observeWP:BRD and restore the longstanding content that you have twice removed without discussion.BD2412T18:53, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You changed the subject and ignored my point, which makes the most essential "discuss" part of "BRD" kind of hard. In theory we can revert to the "stable" version of this page likespecial:permalink/1305392880, but it doesn't seem helpful to me. Can you articulate what you think are good criteria for deciding which people and fictional characters should be included atDaphne (disambiguation) vs. deferred to specific pages about the name? I chose page views as a criterion largely based on your apparent preferences in the discussion attalk:Daphne. –jacobolus (t)19:02, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Page views are relevant to title determinations. Disambiguation pages contain subjects that might be identified by that name, irrespective of page views. For example,Daphne (brig) is included on the disambiguation page even though it averages one page view per day.BD2412T19:24, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and all of these people (including the singer) are included on the disambiguation sub-pageDaphne (given name) irrespective of page views; pulling the most popular ones toDaphne (disambiguation) is a service to readers to save a click, sort of following Wikipedia "summary style". If that seems unhelpful / if it's impossible to come up with some kind of principled selection criteria for including a few people at the main disambiguation page, then I guess all of the people and characters can just be left to the sub-page. Your implied preferred criterion (correct me if this is wrong) is: "we should include none or few of the people with the given name but every fictional character, because encyclopedias conventionally refer to people by last name and characters by first name". This does not seem like a good criterion to me.

It would also plausibly be possible to moveDaphne (brig) to a comparable sub-page likeDaphne (ship), perhaps consolidated withHMSDaphne; I would be indifferent if you want to make a re-arrangement like that. –jacobolus (t)19:33, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We do not do this. The point of a disambiguation page is to serve as an index of topics, not a popularity test.BD2412T19:50, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, fair enough. I have removed those sections. People looking for those topics can go toDaphne (given name), etc. –jacobolus (t)19:55, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really see any consistent convention matching "wherever we list any people, we list monomymously named people", just from clicking around inList of one-word stage names and looking at the relevant disambiguation pages. (To take your example from before,Diana does not includeDiana (singer) but does includeDiana, Princess of Wales.) Is this policy written down somewhere? The manual of style sections about disambiguation pages could be a lot better; it seems to me like there's no particular guidance and a lot of variability from page to page.

I don't really have a strong preference about what kind of criteria we should use onDaphne (disambiguation), I just think it should have some kind of principle behind it, at least as a goal, and should be somewhat consistently applied. –jacobolus (t)19:20, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WritingA has worked fine up to now comes off as not being aware of*, or worse, dismissive of, the entire origin of this huge discussion. If you want to avoid further pushback, I urge you to frame your opinions as just that. *) Good faith would make me assume this, except this is not the first time I have felt compelled to explain to you that just because you don't have any issues, other editors might (and have). If you want to argue why their frustrations aren't compelling enough to change the template that's fine. But you're not doing that; your choice of language comes across as dismissing or ignoring their concerns, whether you intend to or not. Anyway; here's hoping you will start making even a minimal attempt to be mindful of the troubles of other editors next time. CheersCapnZapp (talk)09:16, 5 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Everything in my statement was, obviously, an expression of my opinion. Your commentary there, and here, is way out of line. Please readWikipedia:Civility again carefully. And then please stop. –jacobolus (t)16:25, 5 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Stop violating CITEVAR to enforce your personal preference. See alsoWP:3RR.Headbomb {t ·c ·p ·b}07:40, 7 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is not a violation of CITEVAR. What bots automatically add to pages (and then re-add over and over when removed) has literally nothing to do with human-established style preferences. –jacobolus (t)07:46, 7 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

InreWP:3RR, you just reverted me 3x within the space of 4 hours. To quote: "If an editor violates 3RR by accident, they should reverse their own most recent reversion." –jacobolus (t)08:28, 7 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Jacobolus. You recently made a huge commentary on reviewing an article likeRegular icosahedron andEuclid's Elements. Would you like to have a review onCube as wellhere? Your comment appears to be comprehensive, which is a suitable criterion to promote to higher-class FA. Many thanks.Dedhert.Jr (talk)02:07, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Dedhert.Jr, sorry, I've been working on reading and re-reading sources aboutEuclid's Elements, which will probably take a while, along with plenty of off-wikipedia projects and commitments. –jacobolus (t)07:24, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Jacobolus. Oh, it's okay. Take your time. You can give your commentary on my work anytime.Dedhert.Jr (talk)07:32, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I am certainly not trying to be rude towards yourself or anyone else. It seems that I have found myself on the defensive throughout the entire talk page, having to some how represent the entire FA criteria myself. How can I approach this better? The Archimedes discussion is not being particularly productive, or at least my part in it. I don't have time to commit to substantial improvements myself, with too many other WP plans atm.Aza24 (talk)18:11, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I just don't understand your goals or what you are getting at. You asked for sources, and sources were provided. You complained about the age of the translation, so I also linked a more recent one. In my opinion the sections where those sources were added are still mediocre, but that is because the content is underdeveloped and incomplete, not because it was or is unverifiable. –jacobolus (t)18:15, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I just don't think this approach of finding enough sources for uncited information will be good enough. I thought it might be, because the content was solid, but your comments are making me realize the content is not solid.

Seethe source, the whole source, and nothing but the source for my thinking. If we were starting from scratch, we'd want to assemble a list of solid sources and work to bring their content onto the page. If we keep trying to revise the content, we'll keep having to find new sources; that seems like it could easily be endless digging... secondary literature is supposed to not only inform the content, but the scope of the content too.Aza24 (talk)18:24, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

But the reason the that content is incomplete has nothing to do with sources. The straight-forward claims in the article are clearly "verifiable". So it seems like you are barking up the wrong tree with your complaint. –jacobolus (t)18:28, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there, I don't have access to Krantz [can you post a screenshot?] but can quote Knuth himself, the TeXbook, p134: "If you want the ":" character to be treated as a punctuation mark instead of as a relation, usse the \colon". I have lost my copy of lamport but IIRC the ":" is a binary relation,as in${\displaystyle 1:2==3:6}$. 07:17, 25 September 2025 (UTC)Robinh (talk)07:17, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In practice, the : in set-builder notation is typically not typeset as a "punctuation mark", but as some kind of separator symbol with space on both sides. The most common typesetting I see in practice in reputable sources seems to just be to use the LaTeX:, but it's conceivable that it could be represented some other way in people's code / have slightly different spacing than that in some sources. Here's what Krantz says (§ 2.7):

The thin space: This is a horizontal space with thickness approximately 0.023 in. Some standard instances in mathematics where the thin space occurs are [...]

8. Before and after a single vertical bar or a colon used as a mathematical symbol:$${\displaystyle A\mid B\{x:x^2>0\}}$$

–jacobolus (t)07:44, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In searching I did find some older sources with space only after the colon in their set-builder notation (but other older sources included the space). It's plausible that LaTeX adoption has encouraged a standardization on the spaced version (from people picking the most concise markup rather than thinking about which spacing they prefer), but in any event I don't think it's reasonable to try to change all of the set-builder notation to use a less common form based on a few editors' personal preferences. –jacobolus (t)07:50, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

OK thanks for this Jacobolus. FWIW I've found my original source for this, the TeX book p438. Knuth discusses the colon symbol saying "...a colon [that is, a colon symbol] is considered to be a relation ... as in${\displaystyle a:b::c:d}$". and goes on to give${\displaystyle f:A\to B}$ as an exemplar of\colon. It's not just my preference, this is an explicit directive from the author of TeX. Best wishes, it's nice to have a civilised discussion,Robinh (talk)08:45, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Robinh I have no problem with changing function definitions like⁠${\displaystyle f:A\to B}$⁠ to\colon, and I didn't revert any of your changes of function definitions along those lines (I hope?). That's a different use entirely than set-builder notation. –jacobolus (t)14:10, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed your addition of "famous"here.Logoshimpo (talk)04:45, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Removing the origin of the name seems like a completely unhelpful change. Why did you do that? –jacobolus (t)11:04, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(Inre "peacock" though, this is one of the most famous ~5 mathematics books in history. If you do a cursory search, you can easily find hundreds or thousands of sources substantiating the claim that this book is "famous", "celebrated", "reknowned", or whatever synonym you prefer.) –jacobolus (t)11:13, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is not a case ofWP:PEACOCK by any imaginable measure. It's the foundational text of algebra FFS.Headbomb {t ·c ·p ·b}13:10, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Revision as of 15:49, 28 September 2025

You write "... shuffling whitespace around without practical effect on the output to match one editor's preference vs. the previous editors who worked on the page, is counterproductive and unjustified"

Wrong. Have you consultedany of the source templates for the reference citations which I edited? If you do so, you will see quickly that my changes are not "one editor's preference" but rather, are documented clearly in all of the source templates.

Regarding "... shuffling whitespace around without practical effect on the output", this is a narrow and inconsiderate view. We really should have more consideration for editors using mobile devices, since it seems that about 2/3 of Wikipedia readers access the encyclopedia that way. Why not make things a bit clearer and easier for them if they edit, even if it does not alter the output? --Jerryobject (talk)21:16, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Jerryobject – Your change forced your own preferred markup style on everyone else, with no consensus or basis in policy. The specific choice made on each article is not that important, but editors doing drive-by enforcement of their own preferences across a wide range of pages they aren't otherwise editing is disruptive and completely unnecessary. If there are 5 places on the article formatted one way and 2 formatted another way (or whatever), feel free to standardize them on a per-article basis. But please don't take some page's existing fairly standard style and shuffle it all around, on this or any other page. SeeMOS:STYLEVAR – though this is even worse, since the change goes beyond a trivial matter of visible stylistic preference to a trivial matter of invisible-except-in-the-markup preference. (For what it's worth, I sometimes revert people making exactly the opposite of the type of changes you are making here, since those are likewise pointless.) If you write your own article or significantly rewrite/expand an article, feel free to make a different choice about whether to have blank lines between headings and paragraphs, whether to have spaces around= signs in the template parameters, whether to capitalize template names, and so on. (Aside: even in your own article I recommend against using template parameterslast1 instead oflast (etc.) for single-authored works, since there are bots that will come pointlessly take the1 off, and it's not really worth fighting them about it.) –jacobolus (t)21:24, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

An automated process has detected that when you recently editedPeirce quincuncial projection, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation pageHemisphere.

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk)19:58, 6 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! I might agree the edityou've reverted was not necessary, but reverting it wasn't, either. If there exist any wikilinks to the section in Wikipedia, or even anchored links somewhere else in the Web (likethe one THERE), then adding an explicit anchor keeps those liknks from outdating when the section ever gets renamed. So, I imagine, it may well have some sense to add them, and the cost on our side of having obfuscated edit descriptions for such anchored sections does not harm much. --CiaPan (talk)18:23, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@CiaPan Please do not add explicit doubled anchors in headings. It makes the markup significantly harder to read for no beneficial purpose. If I find such anchors in articles I am looking at, I will remove them every time. –jacobolus (t)19:44, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

AFAIR I do not add them. --CiaPan (talk)19:21, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. I'm not quite sure whyPraemonitus added that one. I would urge them to also not add anchors which are exactly the same content as the heading text. –jacobolus (t)23:38, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'll just note that I've seen section headings changed on many occasions, breaking redirects that don't get rectified. Adding an anchor link seems like a sensible precaution in that case. But I didnot revert the revert. I left the issue for somebody else to address in the future. (In reality, this is another process that should be automated.)Praemonitus (talk)01:13, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The mere possibility that some section headings might occasionally be changed is not a good justification for prophylactically makingevery heading on the site have awful illegible markup.

Whatis a good idea is figuring out a unique page title which can redirect to a section, and then wikilinking to that redirect instead of wikilinking to the section directly. Then if the heading is going to change, that one redirect can be updated to fix all of the inbound links. In this case, that redirect isArchimedes' doubling method: every inbound link pointing atArea of a circle#Archimedes' doubling method should ideally be changed to point toArchimedes' doubling method instead.

Optionally, if the heading has a very cumbersome name (several words long, including unusual symbols, or the like) and it seems like there is a clear and unambiguous short alternative which would be better as an anchor name (but not better as a replacement heading), a dedicated anchor can be added with the short name, and the redirect pages can be sent to that named anchor. –jacobolus (t)01:18, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You said, "The mere possibility that some section headings might occasionally be changed is not a good justification for prophylactically making every heading on the site have awful illegible markup." I tend to agree with you, but that is not what I did. PerWP:ANCHOR DEF, I added an anchor specifically for a redirect, namelyArchimedes' doubling method.Praemonitus (talk)15:22, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't add anchors with the exact same content as the heading name. I don't think that's at all justified byWP:ANCHOR, and it seems like a generally bad idea to me. What that page says is different:"To preserve the old target, editors often create an anchor using the old heading name. [...] Editors create anchors to [...] rename a section while still allowing links to the old name to function, or link a section using an abbreviation." An anchor for a previous heading, or for a concise alternative to cumbersome heading would be fine with me. –jacobolus (t)18:34, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Moved toTalk:Pythagorean theorem § Font style for named points

–jacobolus (t)21:07, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please fix the followinglint errors --~2025-31117-12 (talk)22:27, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, hopefully that cuts it? –jacobolus (t)22:38, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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Hi, inthis edit you altered some of the formulae onMercator projection.

Specifically, you changed the sentence

"Similarly, increasingλ bydλ moves the pointR cosφdλ along a parallel of the globe, sodx =kR cosφdλ =Rdλ."

to read

"Similarly, increasing⁠${\displaystyle \lambda }$⁠ by⁠${\displaystyle d\lambda }$⁠ moves the point⁠${\displaystyle R\cos \phi d\phi }$⁠ along a parallel of the globe, so⁠${\displaystyle dx=kR\cos \phi d\lambda =Rd\lambda }$⁠."

I'm pretty sure the second occurrence of⁠${\displaystyle \phi }$⁠ there should be a⁠${\displaystyle \lambda }$⁠, but I wanted to check with you before editing. (I haven't proofread the whole diff of your changes.)Theoh (talk)11:19, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Theoh These two sentences are exactly the same content, just using LaTeX rather than math templates. At a glance I agree with you that that⁠${\displaystyle d\lambda }$⁠ should probably be⁠${\displaystyle d\phi }$⁠ though. I don't have time to look very closely right now. –jacobolus (t)22:23, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

OK, thanks. I've made the fix, since it sounds like you were updating formatting without intending to correct an error and I am 100% sure I understand the math. Presumably these math formatting updates could be done completely reliably by a bot.Theoh (talk)16:32, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]