User talk:David Eppstein

Hi, and welcome to my User Talk page! For new discussions, I prefer you add your comments at the very bottom and use a section heading (e.g., by using the "New section" tab at the top of this page). I will respond on this page unless specifically requested otherwise. For discussions concerning specific Wikipedia articles, please include a link to the article, and also a link to any specific edits you wish to discuss. (You can find links for edits by using the "compare selected revisions" button on the history tab for any article.)

Thank You

Thanks for the help with Luis Miguel Romero Fernández…

"Fight the Good Fight Every Moment"

Roberto221 (talk) 21:10, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Fauci

I don't understand the edit summary of your revert at Lisa Fauci. Notability guidelines don't mandate a lead sentence with a cryptic job title for the masses. There's no problem introducing it later with an explanation of its significance to those not familiar with Tulane (or perhaps specifically its Math department). My $.02. Regards.—Bagumba (talk) 16:51, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

If it's her job title it's her job title. She isn't "a professor", she's an endowed professor, with a specific title, and having the title shows her rank within academia. The significance is not to Tulane or to mathematics, but to being a professor in general. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:40, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

152.44.139.223

I just saw your rv in my watchlist. It looks like this anon is only here to misgender people, but they might not be so frequent at it that they merit a block. XOR'easter (talk) 23:19, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

The same IP address seems to have a persistent pattern of editing over several weeks, rather than changing addresses, so maybe a block would work. I left a stronger warning this time, but if I see it again I would consider blocking. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:24, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

copyrighted material added to Wikipedia

Dear David, Thank you for bringing this matter to my attention.

I received a message suggesting that "Deleted page Copula in Signal Processing (G12: Unambiguous copyright infringement: Text copied from http://www.academia.edu/download/50416335/Embedded_Correlation_in_Time_Varying_Cop20161119-22911-25awa7.pdf) "

Please note that this technical note was part of my MSc thesis submitted in 2007. The work was not peer-reviewed, but it was uploaded to ResearchGate in 2015 by me and had a DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.2516.7844. I am not sure why this academia.edu website has this article published on their website and from where did they get a copy of this report? Not just that, they certainly do not own the copyrights of this material. I did not share this document with academia.edu. Perhaps, they are infringing the copyrights. Also, I tried to open the link you have mentioned above, however, this page seems to be broken, and no article is listed at this URL within academia.edu.

Would it be appropriate to contact academia.edu website and ask them to remove it? In addition, should I contact ResearchGate and ask them for permission? What is the correct approach to follow here, please advise?

Thank you User: Earthianyogi Earthianyogi (talk) 22:09, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a hosting site for your old preprints. There are other sites for that. Wikipedia articles should be expository and written for a general audience, and everything in them should be based on published sources; see Wikipedia's standards for reliable sourcing and Wikipedia's prohibition on publication of original research. I strongly suspect that, even if the copyright issue could be cleared, these would remain as obstacles to your putting this material on Wikipedia in this form. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:14, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

If the copyright issue could be cleared, I am happy to re-write it. How would I know that the copyright issue has cleared? Earthianyogi (talk) 22:20, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

When you have written the material freshly, in an encyclopedic and properly sourced style, without copying anything from copyrighted sources. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:24, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

"without copying anything from copyrighted sources." - I think I just explained that I did not copy it from anywhere. It is my own work. The url at academia.edu website that you have provided is a broken link and does not work. I am struggling to understand why do you call it copying? It is the academia.edu, who is at the fault of publishing my work on their website without my consent. Earthianyogi (talk) 22:32, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

You are not paying attention to what I am writing. Your material is not suitable for Wikipedia in its present form. Do not re-add it in that form. If you do it will likely be put up for deletion for a different reason than copyright. As for "it is my own work": how was I supposed to know that? It is forbidden for me to investigate the real-world identities of Wikipedia-editor pseudonyms (see WP:OUTING). —David Eppstein (talk) 22:36, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

I go it the first time you explained, that is why i said, "I am happy to re-write it." I can send you an updated copy of the revised text for your review before posting. Thanks for taking the time to explain the matter. I am new to Wikipedia Earthianyogi (talk) 22:44, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

How can I obtain the text that was removed? There are plenty of equations in it, so I could probably reuse it to insert the equations in the new article? Earthianyogi (talk) 23:09, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Review request

Could review this revised draft - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Copula_in_signal_processing ? thx Earthianyogi (talk) 19:56, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Excessive reversion

I see that you have repeatedly made reversions to pages that I've edited involving women in statistics. I think that you should review when to revert as your reverts seem excessive. I'm going to avoid editing women in statistic pages on purpose to avoid you because I find people who think that they "own" wikipedia pages and should always have the final say annoying. (I'm just leaving this here and don't plan to reply. Good day.) static shakedown ʕ •ᴥ•ʔ 23:19, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

In case anyone cares, the context is the single revert I made today (the only recent one that I can remember or find) to Diane Lambert (diff), having nothing to do with the subject being a female statistician and everything to do with the fact that inserting the uninformative section title "Biography" into the middle of an article that is, itself, a biography, at a location chosen only because it is after the first paragraph and not at a point that marks a division between summary and detail, is so poor a way of introducing structure to the article that it is worse than having no section titles at all. If Staticshakedown would refrain from doing that in general, and not merely to the articles I watchlist, I think it would be an improvement. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:24, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Oh, and we also had a minor disagreement three weeks ago on Ivy Liu over whether the line "BS, MS (Iowa State University), PhD (University of Florida)" on Liu's web site can be used to infer that her bachelor's degree is from Iowa State. Somehow that adds up to repeated and excessive, I guess. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:33, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

DYK nomination of Calendrical Calculations

Hello! Your submission of Calendrical Calculations at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 14:00, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Convex hull

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Convex hull you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Bryanrutherford0 -- Bryanrutherford0 (talk) 01:40, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of C. Doris Hellman

The article C. Doris Hellman you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:C. Doris Hellman for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Starsandwhales -- Starsandwhales (talk) 21:02, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Math books

I've noticed your articles on mathematics books in the new-article-bot report now and then of late, and I always enjoy reading them when I do. Thanks. XOR'easter (talk) 21:24, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

You're welcome! —David Eppstein (talk) 21:29, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Thinking about this led me to create an article on a textbook I've used a few times as a reference. XOR'easter (talk) 18:43, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Looks good. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:45, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! I put it up for Did You Know, for the fun of it. XOR'easter (talk) 16:15, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

So {{frac}} is discouraged, but...

...is it ok if I use {{sfrac}} to clean up the fractions? It seems to be ok by MOS:MATH, and at least I find it to look better, but I want to know what you think (since you pointed this out to me in the first place). – OfficialURL (talk) 00:00, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

{{sfrac}} is ok in math articles that use the {{math}} templates to format their formulas. I would prefer not to replace <math> formatting with it, though. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:25, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

PS HOWEVER, your use of it in Compound of three octahedra is not ok. The reason is that in that context the "{9/3}" is not a fraction, but a specific notation used to describe star polygons. That notation is conventionally written in-line, using a slash; changing it to a vertical fraction is incorrect notation. You can tell it's not a fraction because it's not in lowest terms (and would again be incorrect to reduce it to lowest terms). And in general, vertical fractions should used with caution, because (compared to an in-line slashed fraction) the text is smaller, making it less readable; I don't think your ⁠π/4⁠ is an improvement over π/4. It's especially not an improvement because at my current screen size it slams into the boundary of the image next to it making it even harder to read. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:28, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

The convention is not totally universal; Coxeter in Regular Polytopes uses both vertical fractions like ⁠5/2⁠ and horizontal ones like 5/2 (even on the same page, e.g. p. 115 of my 3rd edition). (Then again, this might be because he explicitly restricted the notation to cases where the numerator and denominator are coprime back on p. 94.) But I agree with David's point that vertical fractions are smaller and hence harder to read. Double sharp (talk) 15:32, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

While no convention is ubiquitous, I think in-line is predominant and preferable. It looks like Schläfli symbol may need some work in this regard. XOR'easter (talk) 18:17, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

I'd counter that people use inline fractions only for convenience, and that if Coxeter used it even once, the correct notation is vertical. But if the consensus is that inline is fine for Schläfli symbols, I won't complain.
By the way, I changed way more Schläfli fractions than only those on the three octahedra article. Should I go and revert them, or do I just leave them there? – OfficialURL (talk) 07:31, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

No, it is not just for convenience that people use horizontal rather than vertical fractions (when writing fractions, let alone other notation that resembles fractions but means something else). It is also a matter of style. Horizontal fractions break up the smooth flow of lines of text less than do vertical fractions, and fit better especially in situations where some other amount of verticality is used; for instance, $x^{\frac {2}{5}}$ is almost always the wrong format for inline formulas (look what it does to the line spacing!), and $x^{2/5}$ is almost always the right format. Even in a display formula, I would prefer the horizontal fraction in the exponent, at least for this simple example. Anyway, yes, I think it would be better to revert the Shläfli symbols, lest more editors get the mistaken idea that they are fractions and can be manipulated as fractions by reducing to simplest terms or some other such atrocity. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:43, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

You're right, if they were just fractions, the symbols {3} and {⁠6/2⁠} would be synonyms, which is not the case. I'll revert all the instances I come across. – OfficialURL (talk) 22:13, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Wait, actually, let me get this clear. Writing something like {⁠5/2⁠} is misleading, because the Schläfli symbol doesn't really take rational numbers as arguments, because it's also used to describe compounds. But what if I referred to a ⁠5/2⁠-gon? That surely must be correct (even if not typeset optimally). Wouldn't it? – OfficialURL (talk) 22:19, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Integer complexity

The enthusiastic but inexperienced new editor at Integer complexity has just emailed me directly, including copies of previous correspondence. I have asked him on his talk page not to do this again. If your're not already doing so could I ask you to watch his talk page and to weigh in there if I'm saying anything improper? Thanks, Jonathan A Jones (talk) 20:41, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

What you wrote there looks ok to me. He's also been sending emails to me, which I've been ignoring. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:20, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Convex hull

The article Convex hull you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Convex hull for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Bryanrutherford0 -- Bryanrutherford0 (talk) 13:22, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Question about closing MfDs and AfDs

Thank you for closing up my AfD Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Soborno Isaac Bari (2nd nomination). For future reference, if I see that an article that I have nominated or voted on has been speedy deleted, is it okay for me to close out the discussion, or does it still need to be done by a separate party from those who have nominated/voted on it? Cheers Sulfurboy (talk) 21:31, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

For an article that has already been speedy deleted, I don't think it is really problematic for anyone to close out the discussion, because they're not really making any decisions, just recognizing what has already happened. But if I've already participated in the discussion, I would still leave it for someone else to do, to avoid even the appearance of violating the discussion rules. There's no rush; someone else will be along soon enough to close it. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:43, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Bobby Hersom

Hey, David Eppstein! I appreciate your edits regarding the new Bobby Hersom article.

I wanted to write totally to sate my curiosity... how did you encounter the new article? Just via the new article queue? Just interested to get some insight into what led you to the page. = paul2520 (talk) 00:30, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Via User:AlexNewArtBot/MathSearchResult, which I check regularly. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:36, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Escher like tilings

Hi. You removed my image from the article about Tessellation.

Your question : where are the tiles ?

The answer: "If you question the relevance of these images to Escher, check out his Circle Limit series (especially III and IV). In his own words: "It is to be doubted whether there exist today many ... artists of any kind, to whom the desire has come to penetrate to the depths of infinity.... There is only one possible way of ... obtaining an "infinity" entirely enclosed within a logical boundary line.... The largest ... shapes are now found in the center and the limit of infinite number and infinite smallness is reached at the circumference.... Not one single component ever reaches the edge. For beyond that there is "absolute nothingness." And yet this round world cannot exist without the emptiness around it, not simply because "within" presupposes "without", but also because it is out there in the "nothingness" that the center points of the arcs that go to build up the framework are fixed with such geometric exactitude."

What do you think about it ?

--Adam majewski (talk) 05:07, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

I think you are quoting a paragraph of artspeak bullshit with little relevance to the actual question. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:13, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

OK. In you opinion where is there a place in wikipedia for such image ? --Adam majewski (talk) 07:35, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't know. It's kind of the wrong question. The right questions are usually something more like: what image would best make clear the concepts in this article, has someone already made available that image, and if not how can it best be constructed? —David Eppstein (talk) 07:38, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Brian Epstein

Are you in anyway, related to Brian Epstein or Jeffrey Epstein? I don't mean to be discourteous, but I am rather curious. --Boil-in-the-Bag (talk) 20:08, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Not that I know of, beyond the general principle that if you go far enough back everyone is related to everyone. Note that my name is not even spelled the same as theirs, and their spelling is a pretty common surname. The only relatives I know of with the same surname as me are close relatives (mother, father, wife, children, brother, and brother's family). I've traced several generations back from there and not found any others. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:04, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Hello David. This editor is now blocked for their trolling. Feel free to remove this whole thread if you wish. Best regards and stay safe. MarnetteD|Talk 21:25, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

re: Editor Comments to My Edit Request for "2020 Coronavirus Pandemic in the United States" -- Section "Preparations'"

Dear Prof. Eppstein,

I'm reaching out to you because I perceived, correctly or incorrectly, that an Editor made a snarky and judgmental reply to, and deleted, a perfectly reasonable, well-documented submission I made.

Like you, I'm academically trained; I received my Ph.D. in History from UC Berkeley, and was for many years a Professor of American History in the UC System and then tenured at the University of San Francisco. All of which is to say, I take research seriously and would not submit something specious, frivolous or polemical to Wikipedia.

The specifics: I submitted a request for Adding Substantive Info to the "Preparations" section of the Wikipedia article on the "2020 Coronavirus Pandemic in the United States."

I requested that the following two sentences (based entirely on a New York Times article) be added:

In the final year of the administration of George W. Bush, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (a division of the Department of Health and Human Services) "estimated that an additional 70,000 machines would be required in a moderate influenza pandemic." However, while the administration of Barack Obama soon after made a contract with a private firm (Newport Medical Instruments, subsequently a subsidiary of Covidien) for the production of up to 40,000 ventilators, the government failed to secure that order, leaving the national stockpile of ventilators seriously underprepared for the COVID-19 epidemic in the United States.

[The quotation source is: Kulish, Nicholas; Kliff, Sarah; Silver-Greenberg, Jessica (March 29, 2020). "The U.S. Tried to Build a New Fleet of Ventilators. The Mission Failed." The New York Times]

I also added to my request a note of thanks and mentioned that I am a donor to Wikipedia. I did this merely as a pleasantry and a sign that I appreciate Wikipedia.

The Editor in question responded to me like this:

First they noted that my having been a donor "has no bearing on what editors publish on the wiki," as if I assumed it did, and as if I were trying to leverage my suggestion for approval. That was a gratuitous statement by the Editor.

Second, and more importantly, this Editor wrote: "In regards to the sentence you've managed to get added (However, while the administration of Barack Obama soon after made a contract with a private firm (Newport Medical Instruments, subsequently a subsidiary of Covidien) for the production of up to 40,000 ventilators...), that has been removed which has rendered your proposed addition moot, not to mention that it would be neutralised in tone should it have been added."

I found this comment to be snarky and objectionable and this action to be wrong. The Editor saying "the sentence you managed to get added" suggests that I somehow did something to insinuate my suggestion into the Wikipedia page, as opposed to what I did do: make an Edit Request through the site's page for Edit Requests!

As to the substantive issue, I cannot see how this statement, which is an accurate paraphrase of a New York Times article, is in any way NOT neutral in tone: "However, while the administration of Barack Obama soon after made a contract with a private firm (Newport Medical Instruments, subsequently a subsidiary of Covidien) for the production of up to 40,000 ventilators. the government failed to secure that order, leaving the national stockpile of ventilators seriously underprepared for the COVID-19 epidemic in the United States." If you consult the New York Times article I supplied as my source, an article on why the US ended up with insufficient ventilators ten years after a contract was made to supply them, you'll see that the article is subtitled "The Mission Failed." (I.E. the government failed to obtain the ventilators.)

This Editor's signature is: Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 18:05, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

The discussion is under: "Semi-protected edit request on 13 April 2020"

Thank you for taking valuable time to consider this complaint, and I hope you'll give me your response to it.

Best regards,

Andrew Heinze andrewheinze.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.194.247.71 (talk) 22:08, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

User page links

Hi, I'm aware that the article for you (David Eppstein) has a link to your user page. However, the page didn't state in any way (other than the link itself) that you are a Wikipedian. I checked Category:Wikipedia articles with Wikipedia user page links and found that two other articles, Owen Jones and Steven Rubenstein were notable for things other than editing Wikipedia and yet had a userpage link. What is your take on this? Do you think that there should be a line stating that "Eppstein is also a Wikipedia administrator..." (as in the case of Rubenstein) or should such links be removed altogether? Of course, for people like Jimbo where the person's on-wiki contribs are significant, this doesn't hold; what I'm talking about is the other cases. Thanks! aStay healthy and safe, from Eumat114 formerly The Lord of Math (Message) 14:18, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

addendum: no source yet for Wikipedia editing claims except this, which certainly does not seem like a reasonable source. Cheers, Eumat114 formerly The Lord of Math (Message) 14:21, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

My general feeling is that issues of content in the article about me are someone else's problem, unless there's something significantly incorrect. But anyway, yes, we need reliable sources to have anything more than an external link to the user page. I'm not trying to hide my Wikipedia activity from that article but I don't really know of good sources for that aspect of what I do. You could use my cv to say that I'm a Wikipedia admin but there's no detail there. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:09, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

David Eppstein, I checked online for sources pf the other two people editing ability and all I found with the slightest of reliability (and not a fork) is this: [1] for Owen Jones. I guess the way to do things is to remove the unsubstantiated statement of Steven Rubenstein's editing history (no RS) and remove the UP links except for Jones. Cheers, Eumat114 formerly The Lord of Math (Message) 02:58, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

There is a brief mention here and another here. XOR'easter (talk) 15:59, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Edit to Sara van de Geer

Hi David, I notice you reverted an edit I made to Sara van de Geer, and I agree, the wording would have been a bit ambiguous. Thank you for pointing that out in your detailed edit summary. I have now modified it to say "is a professor" instead of "works as a professor", which I hope is more natural and unambiguous, what do you think? Thanks again, ChromeGames923 (talk) 05:46, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

I have no objection to your modified version. (Some people might complain about the repeated verb "is"..."is" but I won't; I think trying to avoid that sort of repetition can be worse than allowing it.) —David Eppstein (talk) 05:51, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

DYK for Calendrical Calculations

On 21 April 2020, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Calendrical Calculations, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the book Calendrical Calculations has been called "the most extensive and detailed publication on calendar systems" since Friedrich Karl Ginzel's work in the early 20th century? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Calendrical Calculations. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Calendrical Calculations), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

— Maile (talk) 00:02, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

User:David Eppstein/HarvErrors.js

I don't see what this does different from User:Svick/HarvErrors.js. If it doesn't, I suggest you U1 delete this and direct its users to use User:Svick/HarvErrors.js instead. This would simplify user choices between your version of the script and Svick's. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:02, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't see why having a redundant copy of a script that does the same thing is an actual problem. However there is at least one difference that I find significant (you may not): mine is full-protected. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:23, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Don't really see what that changes, user scripts can only be edited by interface admins. Full protection adds nothing there. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:26, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Klaus Roth

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Klaus Roth you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Starsandwhales -- Starsandwhales (talk) 15:40, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

A K Peters

I have put the article up at WP:RM#C, in line with some comments in the recent deletion discussion. Charles Matthews (talk) 14:27, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

May 2020 at Women in Red

May 2020, Volume 6, Issue 5, Numbers 150, 151, 163, 164, 165, 166 May offerings at Women in Red. Online events: New: Healthcare / Women and their animals / Marys and Mays/ Geofocus Central & Eastern Europe Continuing initiatives: #1day1woman / Sports! Help us plan future events: Virtual Ideas Cafe Join the conversation: Women in Red talkpage Social media: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest / Twitter Stay in touch: Join WikiProject Women in Red / Opt-out of notifications

--Rosiestep (talk) 20:58, 29 April 2020 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Draft:Robust geometric computation

Dear Dr. David Eppstein,

I don’t know if this is something you are familiar with but, in your opinion, is this draft page Draft:Robust geometric computation worthy of moving to mainspace? Is it already covered somewhere? (I will ask the math project if you don’t have an opinion). Regards, —- Taku (talk) 23:04, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

It is a real issue, explained very badly. It could be a valid encyclopedia topic, but not with this writeup. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:23, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Thank you; I have turned it into a short stub and moved it to mainspace, where it can be completed by someone someday. -- Taku (talk) 23:27, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

alledged copyright claim

You reverted my edit on the p-vs-no problem article on the basis of a blatant violation of the copyright policy. However, the source was clearly stated (Woeginger's p-np-page) and I did not take any sentences directly from the source, but did paraphrase. I'm more than puzzled how this could happen. --Lukas3226 (talk) 07:34, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

An example sentence from the source: "Among all these papers, there is only a single paper that has appeared in a peer-reviewed journal". And from your version: "Of all these papers, only a single one was published in a peer-reviewed journal". See Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing. You need to understand the concepts in a source and then write them in your own words. Copying the same sentences with the same ideas in the same ideas in the same order and then replacing some words by synonyms to hide the copying isn't good enough. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:37, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

I also would like to add that the sentences in question don't seem to detract from the main point of the section, rather than add to it, and I was already considering removing them before I noticed that they were just directly copied. I suggest that any further edits along these lines be discussed on the talk page first. --JBL (talk) 17:12, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Referencing advice?

Hi David,

Is there a simple guide to the various options for referencing in Wikipedia that you could recommend? I'm (very slowly) working on writing an article and I want to use some sort of mix of in-line citations (In [cited work mentioning maybe author name and year], ...) and footnotes, and I understand the {{cite ...}} family well enough but have never understood how to make inline citations work.

Thanks, and hope you're doing well in the present times, JBL (talk) 20:48, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

I don't actually know of an overview of different citation styles — it sounds like the sort of thing that would be useful to have. My own editing tends to use a few different styles for different articles:

• I think the most common is to have all references in footnotes (<ref>...</ref>), using Citation Style 1 within the footnote (the style you get from {{cite web}}, {{cite journal}}, etc), with the footnotes collected into a "References" section at the end using {{reflist}}. You can name footnotes using <ref name=xxx>...</ref> and re-use them if necessary with <ref name=xxx />.
• I prefer Citation Style 2 to Citation Style 1. The difference in coding is that you can use a single template, {{citation}}, instead of a different template for each type of citation. The difference in appearance is minor: CS2 separates parts of the citation by commas, whereas CS1 uses periods.
• You can format references manually rather than in either CS1 or CS2 but I wouldn't recommend it; it's too easy to become inconsistent and doesn't work well with some of the options below. There are also other more idiosyncratic systems of citation templates with other styles.
• A variation I have been using for most new short articles is to collect the details of all references into the references section with {{reflist|refs= <ref name=xxx>...</ref> ...}} so that the main text of the article needs only the shorter <ref name=xxx /> form, making it easier to see and edit both the article text and the references.
• If you use named references you can also use {{r}} as a shorthand to refer to them. Its parameters should be a name of a reference or a sequence of multiple names, e.g. {{r|xxx}} is equivalent to but shorter than <ref name=xxx />.
• Another style, occasionally used especially in some existing mathematics articles, and occasionally confusing to non-mathematics Wikipedia editors who are not used to encountering it, is to collect all of the citation templates into a bulleted list in the reference section (not inside ref or reflist), and then use Wikipedia:Parenthetical referencing rather than footnotes to refer to them in the text of the article. {{harvtxt}} generates a reference like Author (2020) suitable for use as a noun in a sentence, and {{harv}} generates a reference like (Author 2020) suitable for use at the end of a sentence to mark that the source of the ideas is that publication. {{harvs}} is a more complicated option that can generate in-text and parenthetical references in this style, include links to articles on authors, etc. They will create a link on the inline reference that, when clicked, will scroll to and highlight the full reference. The full reference in the bulleted list needs to be in CS1 or CS2 format for this to work correctly.
• It is also possible to put parenthetical references inside <ref> ... </ref> footnotes. This may be used together with full references in other footnotes to indicate that you are re-using a source (for instance with different page numbers). It may also be used with a "Notes" section containing {{reflist}} where the footnotes go, and a separate "References" section containing the bulleted references that they point to; this can be useful when there are many references.
• If you are going to put parenthetical references inside footnotes, the {{sfn}} and {{sfnp}} templates are a convenient shorthand. (They differ in the formatting of the reference within the footnote; choose one or the other consistently. I prefer sfnp.) These also automatically re-use the same footnote whenever you use them to refer to the same source, avoiding the need for explicit named footnotes.
• One can use both harvtxt-style Author (2020) inline text links when you want the citation to be part of a sentence, saying who discovered something in the text of the author, and sfnp-style parenthetical citations in footnotes for other citations where the attribution is less critical to the main article text. I think this is the sort of mixed style you refer to in your question. In order to have somewhere for the inline text links to go when the same citation is not also used in a footnote, I think it would make sense to use this style together with separate notes and references sections (for the footnotes and a bulleted list of the full citations).
• There is also {{ran}}/{{rma}} for making footnotes with arbitrary footnote-marker-text (not just numbers) that can scroll to and highlight any text elsewhere in the article (not just CS1/CS2-formatted references); I tend to use those for links to selected publications by the subject of a biography. But this is already getting complicated enough so maybe I should skip the details.

—David Eppstein (talk) 21:47, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

David Eppstein, Nice reply. I’ve been spelunking the non-Mainspace for current and historical content on this topic. —¿philoserf? (talk) 01:24, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks so much, this is amazing! --JBL (talk) 14:42, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

creating a page for an AMS fellow?

Hi David. I have drafted an article about an American Mathematical Society fellow, class of 2019, Dan Margalit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Dan_Margalit_(mathematician)

(Let me note my COI, as Margalit was my PhD advisor.)

I only afterwards noticed that there is a page that you created to encourage the creation of articles about AMS fellows:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_talk:Fellows_of_the_American_Mathematical_Society#2019_missing_fellows

Thanks for doing this! Two things:

1) I am not sure how to merge the draft article with what appears when the red link for Dan Margalit on the AMS fellows page is clicked. I'd appreciate any help with figuring that out.

2) From browsing a number of mathematician Wikipedia pages, and inferring from the "missing fellows" page, it seems as though being an AMS fellow is sufficient for meeting Wikipedia's notability criterion. Currently, there is a comment on the draft article, raising the question of whether the article meets the notability criterion. It may be that the draft article will meet the notability criterion roughly as it stands, but either way I'd certainly appreciate any guidance or input on ways the article can be improved to meet the criterion. (I have read Wikipedia's notability guidelines.)

Thanks! Justin.Lanier (talk) 23:58, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

(1) The way to turn a draft into an article (for a topic that does not yet have an article) is to use the "move" tab at the top of the page, and then select "(Article)" in the menu where it says "New title:".

(2) Yes, being an AMS fellow should be sufficient for WP:PROF#C3. The user who left the notability query, MrSwagger21, can comment further, but it appears to be the case that the article was evaluated by our general notability standards (WP:GNG) instead of by our academic notability standards. This is a common mistake by draft and new-page reviewers. It would help if you formatted the book review references to make clear they are book reviews (the MAA one on "Primer" currently does not do this) and possibly found more in-depth reviews if they exist (e.g. on MathSciNet or zbMATH); if we had multiple books each having multiple published reviews, there would be a second case for notability through WP:AUTHOR. There is also a case for WP:PROF#C1 already through the heavy citation counts on Google scholar for the "Primer" book, but that is difficult to express directly in the article (I don't think it's a good idea to include citation counts there) and is weaker because his other publications are not as heavily cited. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:17, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Talk page stalker here. I'm commenting, since I took the liberty of doing some cleanup on the article, which I think will help with the notability case. Regarding (1), what David Eppstein says is correct, but since you've started the article through "Articles for Creation", you should wait for that process to complete. It's true that many AfC reviewers are unfamiliar with WP:NPROF, but it will eventually get to one who is. And short-circuiting the process is likely to get the article proposed for deletion. I'll also point out that there are some advantages to waiting: while the article is in Draft stage, you can edit it somewhat freely, but once it is accepted, you should use extreme restraint (given your COI). Russ Woodroofe (talk) 01:12, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Re (1): Yes, AFC once started is a better choice. More importantly, one should avoid copying the article text from the draft and pasting it into the article; that creates additional problems with attribution that will need to be cleaned up. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:17, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: Hi, thanks for your explanation. I agree that it appears to meet the criteria for notability. I'm also aware of the subject-specific notability guidelines in addition to the general notability guidelines. I suppose the real concern I was raising was that the article possibly may not have had enough citations to support its notability, whether or not it actually qualified. Since a major contributor has a close connection to the subject, I think it is very important that the article have those strong citations. I have witnessed many drafts on non-notable subjects being created by people with close connections, so I'm always on the lookout for that, although I see that's not the case here. As I always say when editing: please correct me if I'm wrong. Other than that, I think this draft is off to a great start and I would be happy to help in any way I can! MrSwagger21 (talk) 03:21, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

DYK for Geometric Exercises in Paper Folding

On 10 May 2020, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Geometric Exercises in Paper Folding, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the book Geometric Exercises in Paper Folding was inspired by one of the Froebel gifts for kindergarten children? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Geometric Exercises in Paper Folding. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Geometric Exercises in Paper Folding), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

— Maile (talk) 12:01, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Klaus Roth

The article Klaus Roth you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Klaus Roth for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Starsandwhales -- Starsandwhales (talk) 23:01, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

All my edits reverted! WHY?!

Pardon me, but why did you remove all my edits?! I didn't sleep to work on them! What did I do wrong?! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.36.41.16 (talk • contribs) 07:59, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

I thought my edit summary was clear, but: Because articles should consist of encyclopedic content about their topics, not merely big regurgitated masses of undigested quotes. Because at some point putting in long quotes goes beyond fair use and supporting the content of an article into copyright violation territory, and your edits were well past that point. And because the whole point of your edits seemed to be to imply that this racist thing is not really so racist, a point of view pushed by and appealing to racists but otherwise unsupported by the consensus of current opinion. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:32, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

I agree completely, and if the IP wishes to create a collection of quotes, I would invite them to do so at Wikiquote, which exists for exactly this purpose. To this end, I have started a Song of the South page at Wikiquote. BD2412 T 16:37, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

It's right to insert also the statements of the defenders who also explain the actual story behind the film. You could at least keep Floyd Norman's, Walt Disney's, Hattie McDaniel's and James Baskett's parts and quotes with the sources. You can't hide their statements, it's not fair towards them and towards the defenders and artists who also lived that period who always tried to explain the truth. Plus, Mary Blair worked on the animation. What was wrong even in my last edits? Unless you are one of those people with an agenda. In fact, I don't think you've even read what I inserted.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.36.41.16 (talk • contribs) 07:59, 13 May 2020 (UTC)