User talk:David Eppstein/2010d

You're correct about the Heinlein item

But they seldom seem to even notice that science fiction fandom (which predates the average FW reader by at least a couple-three decades) still exists. --Orange Mike | Talk 19:03, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

The average reader, maybe, but a few of the regulars appear to be old-timers. I agree that the coverage skews more towards media, anime, and manga, but that's different from considering anything else to be off-topic. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:48, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Milo Gardner

Is it time to notch this up to ANI (or AN for a ban?). I've had an email request expressing a lot of frustration with him. Dougweller (talk) 20:34, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

RFC doesn't seem to have made any difference — see e.g. my latest comments here. So a step up the ladder seems appropriate. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:40, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Any suggestions what? I've been thinking about it but haven't come to any conclusions. Dougweller (talk) 20:47, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Maybe a medium-length block like a week or so as an attempt at a wake-up call? The other alternative is to give up on his editing as too damaging to the encyclopedia to be allowed to continue at all, and maybe that's what we'd have to do eventually, but at this point that's a harder sell because so little administrative action has happened yet on this case. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:02, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm off to bed, but I think then that this needs to go to ANI with a request for an uninvolved Admin to deal with it, suggesting a short block as a first step. If you've got time, go ahead and do it, otherwise it'll have to wait until tomorrow. Dougweller (talk) 21:15, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Civility is a two way street. I am surprised that you recall our discussions the way that you do., I wish to again thank you for bringing the details of the Liber Abaci to my attention in 2005. An under grad math education generally mentioned the [[Liber Abaci] and other Fibonacci writings in three classes. Reading Sigler's 2002 translation, especially the first 125 pages of the 500 page book, opened medieval unit fraction arithmetic in ways that I had not expected. It seems that learning is a life-long activity. Best Regards, Milogardner (talk) 19:40, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Dumb question

Sorry, shouldn't bother you on your day job but I have a real quick question. Is solving an NP Complete problem of input length N always equivalent to diagonalising a sparse matrix of side $O(N^{2}\,)$ ? Ta. Enjoyed your web pages on NP complete by the way. You do a pretty good job of making stuff accessible; have you written textbooks? --BozMo talk 13:26, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Solving an NP-complete problem is always equivalent to solving any other NP-complete problem. But the sizes may vary polynomially according to the equivalence. So I'm not sure which sparse matrix diagonalization problem specifically you're referring to, but if it's NP-complete then the answer is sort of yes: equivalent, but not necessarily with the exponent you give. If it's not NP-complete then the answer is no. Thanks, no, I put my textbook-writing energy into Wikipedia editing instead. It doesn't get me a lot of academic credit, but then neither does textbook writing (it's research that other academics care about, and I still do plenty of that). —David Eppstein (talk) 16:38, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, helpful. --BozMo talk 12:44, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

About fibonacci and the Golden Mean, discussion posts.

1. My signature on fibonacci number article's discussion is now on it's proper place, thank you :)

2. Relating to using that external forum discussion and comments about test results, and how I used them as references... sorry about that. I did it because the testable point about cell division rates (like doing a visual computer simulation, and seeing whether results will have proper ratios in different parameters, conditions, and disruptions at various stages, will give proper golden mean proportions and volumes of simulated cells) seemed to me like it could be relevant, yet I have not found it thus explained before (only with more complicated models with more, and more hypothetical parameters, like I mentioned therein.)... and since I have no academic official credentials nor any other channels of publication for such a place where more people focusing also on this matter could find it and consider it for testing and validity, the wikipedia article discussion page seemed like the place for getting interested people to consider it at their will. As can be seen, I earlier did post it to one forum I knew, where some mathematically and biosciences proficient people also participated. Amongst various diverse commentators of that forum, also few persons seriously considering and attempting to test it, tell of their methods of testing, and their seemingly confirming results on that thread. Then, for a long time nothing happened, and even later that site was closed for further comments entirely, for other reasons. It would seem like pointless to me, if potentially working model was thus forgotten within inactive forum of net... as it seems that if the model is correct and working, and gives reproducible results, it could provide additional insight and comprehension into mundane workings of living organisms and their processes. If I am doing entirely wrong thing here at wikipedia discussions with this, could You recommend or point me towards a more proper area for such publication and evaluation processes about this topic ? (I am bit ignorant on workings of academic infrastructure :s )

MaxTperson (talk) 21:09, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Shapley–Folkman lemma

Thank you for creating the graphic exemplifying the Shapley–Folkman lemma. Your graphic is the best I've ever seen. (The array of the 4=2*2 summands makes each larger than it would be in a 3=1*3=3*1 array.)

I immediately nominated your graph on the DYK page (18th). Thanks! Best regards, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 19:37, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Your articles on Jon Folkman and the Shapley–Folkman lemma are now in the preparation area and they should appear in the next few days. Best regards, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 19:51, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Barnstar

David, I want to award you an appropriate barnstar. Please choose one and hide the rest. (Please feel free to modify either text or graphic. Thank you again for your hard work the last weeks. My best regards, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 00:58, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Mensch

I believe that Paul Erdös would deduct several points from the Supreme Fascist's score because of the several mitzvahs done by David.

		The Mensch's Barnstar
		David Eppstein earned the Mensch's Barnstar by writing & illustrating Jon Folkman, Shapley–Folkman lemma, Folkman's theorem, and Folkman graph. Six-thousand visitors read the articles featured by Wikipedia's "Did you know?". Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 00:58, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

I apologize that another Swedish-American, Ed Begley, Jr.'s character in A Mighty Wind, has greater fluency.

Thanks! This one will do. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:23, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Zonotopes

You may prefer one of these barnstars:

		The Permutohedron Barnstar
		David Eppstein earned the Permutohedron Barnstar by writing & illustrating the Shapley–Folkman lemma.-- Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 00:58, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

		The Zonotope Barnstar
		David Eppstein earned the Zonotope Barnstar by writing & illustrating the Shapley–Folkman lemma.-- Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 00:58, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Please hide whichever barnstars you don't chose, so I don't look sentimental!

Best regards, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 00:58, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

White space.

Hello David

Re Ptolemy's Thm page.

I added the white space because otherwise the graphic 'overflows' into the next section and it looks terrible.

Neil Parker (talk) 07:15, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Try using {{-}} instead. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:18, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Wikiquette alert

Hi, David. I notice that our friend User:Tim32 has opened a Wikiquette alert concerning us: Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts#Talk:Graph isomorphism. Thought you might like to know. —Bkell (talk) 18:51, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

David Walford - Philosophy Professor - Lampeter university

I just wished to enquire what level of 'significant notability' is required to restore the page on Mr David Walford. he was by far the most inspiring teacher i ever had the blessing to study with. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.96.100.169 (talk) 23:19, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

At this point, all that is needed to undelete the article on David Walford is a reasonable request to do so. But the article is unlikely to remain undeleted afterwards unless it is modified to make it clear that Walford passes the criteria in WP:PROF or WP:GNG (if he does), and also modified so that all statements in the article are attributed to reliably published sources that are independent of Walford. Being an inspiring teacher is insufficient, unless one can find articles in major newspapers describing him as an inspiring teacher. That's rare for any academic; the more usual means of establishing significance are to show that a large number of other academic works have been influenced by the subject's writings, or to show that the subject has received some important recognition from his peers such as a personal chair or major award. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:17, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Sitchin

No, I have restored my edits 3 times. The edits I removed are pure bunk with no credible sources. I am not defending Sitchin, but these previous edits are pathetic and would not be allowed under any other circumstances. The Skeptical Dictionary is not a credible source and the use of the word "ridiculed" is pejorative and the opinion of it's author. "Rejected by" or "not accepted by" or "dismissed by" are appropriate, not "ridiculed". And furthermore, the association to the Raelian religion is a purely manufactured association by the author of the blog in the Skeptic's dictionary. And the other equally dubious associations have no sources.

I have done nothing to lionize or demonize Sitchin and my edits are only to treat the subject fairly.Thanos5150 (talk) 23:44, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't make a difference whether your edits are appropriate or inappropriate. As long as they're not removing vandalism (and it is clear that in this case they are not — it is a content dispute, not a set of vandals) you may not restore your edits more than three times in a 24 hour period. Back off and, if your edits are so good, give someone else a chance to recognize their goodness and do it for you. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:49, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

How was what was written before not vandalism? It's pure crap and should never have been allowed to be there in the first place. If the same was used in support of Sitchin it would have been removed in seconds as "vandalism", but the fact it demeans him and the subject then it's not? Come on, be honest with yourself. And just because the perpetrator of the clearly inappropriate original edits, or supporters there of, saw fit to revert my corrections does not invalidate what I have done nor does it validate what was there before. No honest editor could look at what was there previously and say it was objective, appropriate, or sourced properly if not clearly designed to be purposefully demeaning to the subject based on a particular POV. What always amazes me about editors like yourself is that you are so quick to jump all over other editors for "violations" but never make the edits of the material yourself which you know are not appropriate. I was just passing through this article looking for news of his death and was stunned to find what was there. The double standard of some editors, and administrators, on Wiki is simply amazing.Thanos5150 (talk) 00:27, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

As well as 3RR, you also apparently need to review WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:29, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I know. The truth sucks. Good thing we have Wiki rules to protect us from taking responsibility for ourselves.Thanos5150 (talk) 03:20, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean the truth, or the Truth? —David Eppstein (talk) 03:49, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Jon Folkman

— Rlevse • Talk • 00:02, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Shapley–Folkman lemma

— Rlevse • Talk • 12:02, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

File:Forbidden-line-subgraphs.png listed for deletion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Forbidden-line-subgraphs.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Calliopejen1 (talk) 15:29, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

File:Period-3-graph.png listed for deletion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Period-3-graph.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Calliopejen1 (talk) 03:03, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

List of unsolved problems in mathematics - My Inventions in Number Theory

Someone (I suspect the author) keeps adding a reference to the book "My Inventions in Number Theory" to List of unsolved problems in mathematics. The ISBN given does not show up on Google Books, Amazon or even Worldcat, so it's clearly not notable. I think I may already be in violation of WP:3RR for reverting its addition, so I cannot continue removing it. The most recent such edit is here. If it continues, the article might need to be protected. Thanks, Justin W Smith ^talk/_stalk 12:33, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I'll add it to my watchlist. —David Eppstein (talk) 12:43, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Revert on Pythagoras' theorem

As a courtesy, could you respond on the Talk page to my reasons for keeping the material you have reverted here? Brews ohare (talk) 18:34, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Floyd-Warshall algorithm

|V|^2 = V^2, am I Right? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.22.160.104 (talk • contribs)

Orchard-planting problem

I started the article Orchard-planting problem. Feel free to copy edit and/or add it to your watchlist. Thanks, Justin W Smith ^talk/_stalk 02:49, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Woeginger cannot be a source for himself

Please do not add or change content without citing verifiable and reliable sources, as you did to Erdős–Bacon number. Before making any potentially controversial edits, it is recommended that you discuss them first on the article's talk page. Please review the guidelines at Wikipedia:Citing sources and take this opportunity to add references to the article. A person's website cannot be used as a source for information about himself. I could claim that I was an extra in every one of Bacon's films; but that doesn't make it true. Read WP:RS. It needs independent sourcing for both the Erdos link and the Bacon link. Additionally, he is not credited in the film itself, so it is unlikely there is a reliable source to support that claim. Cresix (talk) 22:29, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm sympathetic to your position, but I hope you're in the process of cleaning up all of the other questionably-sourced information on the same page, rather than treating this one differently than the others. There's a lot of it there. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:31, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Feel free to proceed with the cleanup. In fact, I would welcome that as long as you do it responsibly and not simply to make a point because you don't like it that your edit was removed. In the mean time, "other stuff exists" is inadequate as a justification for you to restore your edit. I take one edit at a time. I cannot (nor should I be expected) to clean up the entirety of Wikipedia because I remove an inadequately sourced edit. If you look at the history of the article, you'll see that I have removed a number of poorly sourced items. I will continue to do so as I see them. Cresix (talk) 23:18, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Where do you get WP:POINT from my actions?? If you insist on taking this confrontational tone I'm going to point you to WP:CIVIL. But unlike you I'll refrain from templating your user talk page concerning the issue. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:34, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I have not taken a confrontational tone, or at least none was intended. To be honest, my first impression was that your tone was confrontational ("I hope you're in the process of cleaning up all of the other questionably-sourced information"), but I decided to ignore that in good faith. I was simply asking that you remove items from the article that truly need to be removed and not in retaliation for my removal of your edit. That being said, I don't care to have a conflict with you, so I hope we can put whatever differences we have aside and move on. I agree the article needs work, and you have not suggested that you will add poorly sourced information in the future, so if you are willing, we can move on to other matters that are more important. Thanks. Cresix (talk) 00:18, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

It wouldn't have occurred to me that the Erdős-Bacon thing on Woeginger's web page is even slightly controversial. I don't see much advantage to be gained for an academic mathematician to mention that he once appeared as an extra in an obscure old movie (establishing the Bacon link), so I just see the mention as a bit of autobiographical trivia, not self-serving in any way worth worrying about, thus satisfying point 1 of WP:SELFPUB. The other points also appear to be satisfied. Woeginger's Erdős number is easy to verify independently, either directly or through here. So given the nature of the topic, the self-sourcing seems ok to me. 69.111.192.233 (talk) 05:11, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Edstat and me (from the Math. Gen. project)

Hi David! Please see my talk page. Best regards, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 00:41, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

lamination

Could you look at page about lamination and lavaurs algorithm. I'm not expert so your help is wellcome. Thx.--Adam majewski (talk) 08:03, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Scientific citation guidelines

I have explained my edits at Wikipedia talk:Scientific citation guidelines. I hope once you review the explanation, that you consider undoing your wholesale revert. This guideline contained duplicate sections (the removal of which should be uncontentious) and went out on a limb wrt attribution of original thought and research. Please explain where in our policy such use (abuse) of reference citations is encouraged or even allowed. Colin°^Talk 19:19, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Continued fraction

Please, I would like to better understand your viewpoint. Would you use the new section on the continued fraction talk page (link) to explain why you consider it acceptable to have a recursive definition that cannot terminate. —Quantling (talk | contribs) 20:02, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Amanda Palmer

hi!

thanx for expanding the http:// cites i added to Amanda Palmer. If you have the time, there are others (hence the warning box on that section). she also won a Boston Music Award in 2008(?) (distinct from the BMAs, the Dresden Dolls won), which needs a cite to be listed. Lentower (talk) 12:45, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Copyright status of Smale's photo

I saw that the Steve Smale article uses a photo of him that you uploaded two years ago to the Commons File:Stephen Smale.jpg. The license specified at the file description page is Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0. However, the source page for the image at Oberwolfach [1] gives the copyright as "Copyright: George M. Bergman, Berkeley". There is no indication at the source page that the copyright has been released. As things stand now, the image is deletable (even speediable) as an apparent copyvio. Could you please fix the licensing information? If the image's creator has indeed released the copyright, he either needs to contact the WMF directly and confirm it (and the result presumably recorded via an OTRS ticket), or the licensing info at the image source page needs to be changed. Thanks, Nsk92 (talk) 18:08, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Uploading that photo appears to have been a mistake. The MFO-owned copyrights are free to use but Bergen's photos in the Oberwolfach collection do not seem to be. Please take steps to get it deleted. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:16, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Nsk92 (talk) 02:17, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Richard A. Karp

David --- assuming you have the ability to --- would you please undelete Richard A. Karp and then immediately nominate it for deletion through WP:AFD to protect it from Orangemike? If it's not undeleted by tomorrow afternoon, I'll re-create it from scratch and nominate it for AFD myself, but it would save me a huge amount of time if some editor could simply restore the old article.

Alternatively, if you have the ability to undelete things but not the inclination to create new mainspace articles, you could undelete it and put it in User:Quuxplusone/Richard A. Karp. Again, that would save me time compared to rewriting the whole thing from scratch.

If you don't have the ability to view deleted articles, please let me know ASAP on User talk:Quuxplusone. Thanks very much! --Quuxplusone (talk) 02:43, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I do have the ability to view and undelete it, but I don't want to individually dispute the actions of another admin. There's a proper forum for contesting deletions: WP:DRV. I've taken the issue there. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:12, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Awesome. Thanks. --Quuxplusone (talk) 01:58, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Are these docs wikipedia worthy?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosh_Agarwal Thomas Diflo Deborah Axelrod Any doctor that appears when you type in Dr. Weill into the wikipedia search engine such ass Antonio Gotto Thanks for your expertise Chumleychat (talk) 16:37, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

They all look borderline to me. I'd probably vote against them in an AfD, but they're not egregious enough that I want to take them to an AfD myself. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:28, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Notability of clergymen

Hi, I started a discussion as to the notability of clergymen at Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)#Clergymen, your input is welcome. J04n(talk page) 15:27, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Referencing style

Hi. You wrote "Your edit summary for this edit implies that you think that parenthetical (author-year) referencing is somehow improper. It is not." The earlier version mentioned one of the authors (not both) along with the year in the text. I mentioned both authors, which is proper. Duoduoduo (talk) 01:43, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Sure, it's definitely an improvement in that sense. But I thought your comment referred to the formatting. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:43, 2 January 2011 (UTC)