The present state of Algebra results of numerous edits done by a single editor, Phlsph7 since 21 Decembre 2023. It results that that the article presents a biased and misleading view of algebra that reduces algebra to universal algebra and the part of algebra that is taught in secondary educalion ("abstract algebra" and elementary linear algebra). This make that the article is very incomplete. I started a tentative to completing the article, without changing its structure, but it appeared soon that this is an enormous task this would require an amount of time that I am not willing to do.
Nevertheless, the article goes against the policy WP:NPOV by excluding a very large part of algebra.
@Phlsph7 This is a common problem with reviews: it is easy to examine the content that is there and judge its style, but takes deeper thought to figure out a neutral and relevant high-level scope, organization, and narrative flow for articles about broad topics. –jacobolus(t)16:27, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Forgive me if I lack adequate understanding of all the connections here, but it seems like this sense of iniquity is at least partially based on confusions regarding use versus mention of terminology, of labels versus concepts. I hope I'm not explaining perfectly obvious and accounted-for points here, but we generally write articles about concepts, not the terms we apply to them—cf. God versus God (word)...versus God in Islam versus Allah. When you say the previous version adheres to NPOV, it seems like you view an article that covers "every distinct sense that the label algebra is applied to" as the goal, rather than an article that covers "the core, contiguous concept most commonly labeled algebra". In fact, the pseudo-disambiguation section in the old version almost forces me to hold this view. Have you accounted for this potential discrepancy in the present misunderstanding? Remsense ‥ 论15:57, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's not as scattered a semantic field as I implied, after a refresher reading through the previous discussions linked. I would strike my reply altogether as I don't feel like I have as much as others here to offer in terms of domain-specific analysis; but I'll risk the possibility of making further less-than-helpful remarks by trusting my generalized analysis here: the present article seems to lend itself better to expansion outward than any other course of action with the previous revision, and I can't help but see its reversion or total denaturing as counterproductive to solving what everyone seems to agree are the present issues to one degree or another. Remsense ‥ 论16:56, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I do not see how reverting would be the right course of action here. By all means, add material about topics that are missing, and adjust the section headings for better organization if necessary. But the current version is a better point to build from than the one from last December. XOR'easter (talk) 15:58, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think Universal algebra is overemphasized. It is not one of the main branches of algebra. It does not even have an MSC code. The main divisions are 08 (general algebraic structures), 12 (field theory and polynomials), 13 (commutative algebra), 15 (linear algebra), 16 (associative algebras), 17 (non-associative algebras), 18 (category theory), 20 (group theory). Tito Omburo (talk) 16:15, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A revert to a version from a full year ago when the article has already passed a GA review and is currently going through FAC makes absolutely zero sense. More information on other branches could maybe be added, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to speak to that. QuicoleJR (talk) 16:18, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comprehensiveness is very important at GAN, one of the six top-level criteria of WP:GACR (#3). If the reviewer failed to properly address it, then that is a problem with the GA review and maybe should be brought to GAR. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:04, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I know you are aware, but it's worth repeating here that "comprehensive" is a word used only in the FA criteria, while GA criterion 3a only requires that an article addresses the main aspects of the topic. Remsense ‥ 论18:08, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, there's a difference between the GA "adequately broad" and the FA "comprehensive". I have a lot of bad memories about the GA processes and don't want to get into that world again, but I think it's fair to say that the former is arguably met and the latter not. XOR'easter (talk) 22:44, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think reverting is particularly helpful, but it would be good to get more experts involved in substantially expanding this article and somewhat reorganizing it (hopefully people with significant professional mathematical experience directly in algebraic topics – this does not include me). –jacobolus(t)16:21, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree to oppose reversion with Remsense, XOREaster and others. I don't have the mathematical knowledge to judge the validity of the complaints raised, though many other editors do, and I note that so far we have yet to see others appearing to diagnose the same problem with the same level of seriousness, despite several stages of review. However, assuming that the problems are real and need fixing, they are very much a WP:SOFIXIT issue rather than cause to undo a great deal of hard (and excellent) work by a conscientious and skilled editor. Big articles like this will never please everybody, but equally we should be very cautious when talking about applying drastic measures to articles which, by their nature, take time, negotiation and skill to build up. UndercoverClassicistT·C17:32, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Taking a glance at the suggested version to restore, I see little missing from the current version, except that most terms in the enlightening "Areas of mathematics with the word algebra in their name" list have been dispersed into the prose. The discussion on universal algebra should be pared down and sections reformatted, but a complete reversion is unreasonable. Pagliaccious (talk)04:16, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see a case for reverting, but I do see a major problem and a minor problem.
I am attempting to clarify the definition and description of "indeterminate" in the article as I do in this version, however, another user seems to disagree with how my sources define the term and is enforcing the this version, and we can't seem to come to a consensus.
To be clear, I elaborated this version for resolving concerns that I have with the old stable version and, partly, for including some relevant remarks providen by Farkle Griffen, in particular the fact that some authors give a definition of an indeterminate that implies that every polynomial and the constants π and e are indeterminates. D.Lazard (talk) 15:36, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think Griffen's version of the lede is clarifying. I don't think the definition of an indeterminate as a transcendental over a ring is appropriate, precisely for the reason noted that this implies π is an indeterminate over the rationals, when it is clearly a *specific* element of the completion of Q at the infinite place, not an "indeterminate" one. This seems to be missing the point in a bad and confusing way that we should avoid if possible. Tito Omburo (talk) 20:05, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Tito Omburo, I think I see your point. But one comment I have is that I think the word "indeterminate" is a bit of a misnomer. Many authors don't see indeterminates as literally indeterminate, but rather as a kind of (unchanging) object; specifically, the indeterminate X is an element of the ring R[X], and it doesn't change within it. But one still wants to allow "substitution" of X for elements of R. Since X isn't a variable, authors get around this by defining "substitution" as a Ring homomorphism from R[X] to R. The transcendental definition just formalizes this.
"We generally reserve the expression “‘t is an ‘indeterminate’ over F’’, when we are thinking of evaluating t. Field theoretically, however, the terms transcendental and indeterminate are synonymous (so that the subfield of and the field are isomorphic)."
But, again, I digress.
I do, however, see your point. Having this definition in the lead is confusing and too technical for the average reader. But I do still believe it deserves to be mentioned in the article. How about these formalizations simply be moved to a new section further down? Farkle Griffen (talk) 20:08, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Farkle Griffen Some comments: (1) In general, please do not ever use more than ~3 footnotes in a row (even 3 in a row is pushing it) – it is unnecessary to bludgeon readers with footnotes, and in the lead section it's often better to have no footnotes at all if the same material is sourced from the article body. (2) It is not really that useful in my opinion to link to a bunch of course notes, whenever other sources are available; these are not usually considered "reliable sources" by Wikipedia standards, though they can sometimes be leaned on in a pinch. (3) Your lead section is in my opinion much too long and not that legible. I'd focus on getting the main point across, and elaborating about details later in the article. I think the existing lead does a decent job of giving an idea what an indeterminate is and why such a concept exists, but it would certainly be helpful if we could find some kind of historical survey better explaining the history of the word (not sure any such source exists, unfortunately). –jacobolus(t)22:57, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(1) Is this a Wikipedia policy, or your opinion? I'm not asking to be snarky, I just don't know. Either way, yes, I will hereon take this into consideration.
(2) I'm a bit confused what you mean by this? Of the sources given, only two are course notes, Howlett and Grinberg, and the rest are textbooks; though these two can be removed if you believe they are problematic.
Although, as a bit of explanation: the only reason I've opted to include them is because of the high standard of sourcing being imposed on claims (due to the several accusations of WP:Original research). Howlett for the informal description of indeterminates in the sequence definition, noting: "X, X^2 , X^3 , . . . are nothing more than symbols written alongside the coefficients to enable us to see which is the 0th, which the 1st , which the 2nd, and so on.", and Grinberg for added support that authors do consider this definition "more formal."
(3) That's a fair point. I agree these formalizations aren't helpful in the lead. However, I do believe they are helpful to more experienced readers to know such formalizations exist. How about we move these definitions to a seperate section? Then the lead becomes much shorter, and very similar to the current one
And I don't agree about their lead. The biggest issue is "An indeterminate is a variabe" creates unnecessary confusion between indeterminates and variables. As far as I can tell, no source defines indeterminates as variables. And this is for good reason; one usually wants to use indeterminates so that, for instance, the polynomials over , x and x^5 are not equal if x is an indeterminate, even though they are equal if x is a variable within the ring. And moreover, their description "just a symbol used in a formal way" doesn't add any clarity, and is more likely to confuse readers. Farkle Griffen (talk) 18:43, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
About citations in the lead, here's the relevant part of the manual of style (which, as a guideline, is lower in the hierarchy of Wikipedia rules than a policy but much higher than one person's opinion): WP:LEADCITE --JBL (talk) 19:43, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hello all,
There are a few MoS questions in Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Mathematics, including one that I started related to function notation and screen readers, and another that another user started about Laurentian notation.
If the good people of this WikiProject could head over there and provide some guidance, that would be great.
in the literature. It's not unusual for conventions to differ between Mathematics and Physics, or to change over time. I haven't seen it for co- vs contra-, but I have seen cases where at text uses one convention for most of the book but the opposite convention in a specific chapter. In the case of wikipedia, what matters is that the convention be explicitly stated and used consistently, or at least that deviations be explicitly justified.
I'm not challenging the edit, it's just that it reminded me that there are two conventions.
This is one of several conventions for which I am trying to locate online examples, e.g., sign conventions. Ideally, for each type I would like a single source that states which convention is used when, as opposed to two sources for opposite conventions. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 17:08, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's equivalent 1 was almost simultaneously promoted to GA :) There were some distasteful comments about my work at 1, prior to my final push, which I hope now can be seen for what they were and that project members can be nicer to one another. Polyamorph (talk) 07:57, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There are two remaining tagged issues with 0.999...: a {{citation needed}} and a warning about potential synthesis (the Negative zero is another redundant feature of many ways of writing numbers paragraph reads like something that somebody thought sounded analogous). If anyone wants to address either or both of those, please do; this article has exhausted me. XOR'easter (talk) 20:25, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oops, I overlooked a tag about a statement needing a non-primary source, on the Blizzard Entertainment bit (which looks rather like a remnant of 2004-vintage "in popular culture" Wikipedia). A quick search did not find a suitable reference. XOR'easter (talk) 00:52, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for taking out the negative zero thing. It was definitely "original synthesis" and I think it's a nonsense comparison: negative zero represents underflow, i.e. all negative numbers between zero and half of the smallest representable negative number. This is not at all an analogous situation to 0.999999..., in my opinion. –jacobolus(t)04:06, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Removed the Blizzard Entertainment bit. Couldn't find a suitable non-primary source and I'm not convinced of the long term significance of a 2004 April Fools joke on an online gamer forum.Polyamorph (talk) 10:37, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree it seems a bit weird that these are separate articles. But, presumably, the coherent condition article can handle a situation outside the scope of the Mac Lane coherence theorem (which is only about a monoidal category), since there can be several coherence theorems. Maybe one option is to have a general article on coherent theorems, since I don’t know if focusing on "conditions” is a good idea from the encyclopedic perspective (if it is so from the mathematical perspective). -— Taku (talk) 13:03, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your reply. If someone create a general article on coherent theorems, I would suggest changing the title to "Mac Lane coherence theorem for monoidal categories" for clarity. --SilverMatsu (talk) 15:47, 21 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Coherence conditions typically occur in definitions. They are requirements that something has to fulfill in order to be covered by the definition, as, for example, in this definition of adjoint functors (from arXiv:quant-ph/0008021):
if there exist natural transformations and satisfying the coherence conditions and
Just to somehow reiterate my early comment (for clarity). I think, aside from math, this is essentially a matter of stylistic choices in Wikipedia. In Wikipedia, it seems we give a prominence to results like theorems over conditions. Thus, for example, we have the Zorn's lemma article instead of the inductive set article. So, having theorems or results articles seem fitting. My only reservation is that, well, category theory is a bit weird; in part, it feels like a philosophy than science so maybe prominence of results may or should not apply. I am happy to leave the matters to specialists. —- Taku (talk) 11:40, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your interesting comment. Indeed, for example, the term "functor" was originally introduced by the philosopher Rudolf Carnap. Also, "category" was originally a philosophical term. --SilverMatsu (talk) 16:37, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, what about the term "strictification"? Which do you like better, include the explanation of the term in the Mac Lane coherence theorem or create a new article? --SilverMatsu (talk) 16:58, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I can tell, strictification seems essentially the same as coherence theorems; i.e., some weak statements like equalities can be upgraded to less weak (stronger??) statements (pretty much like, the regularity theorems in differential equations). For example, according to refs given in Mac Lane coherence theorem, the theorem can be understood that way. I think it makes sense to have an article on strictification, which can also discuss various coherence theorems. —- Taku (talk) 11:43, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The Wikipedia:WikiProject Council is a group that talks about how to organize and support WikiProjects. If you are interested in helping WikiProjects or learning more about them, please put that page on your watchlist and join the discussions there. Thanks, WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:42, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This (WikiProject Mathematics) is one of the most active WikiProjects, as measured by the number of editors who check this talk page. The WikiProject Council is a place for people to talk about WikiProjects: when to create or merge them, how to recruit new participants, where to find help with templates, etc. If you care about working together and want your group to do better at it, or to help other groups learn from your experiences and successes, then come and join us! WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:15, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is this article about one of the most famous differential geometers. The first thing one finds there is this message: "this article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. The specific problem is: make it shorter, especially the "Scientific interests" section. Please help improve this article if you can.". Why should it be made shorter? What should be cut to make it meet the quality standards? PadawanDG (talk) 23:54, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Add references" should mean: add references by other people than Pogorelov, discussing Pogorelov's work in depth. Pogorelov's own publications are not good references for claims about his research contributions. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:41, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like a large part (and maybe all) of the "Scientific interests" section of Pogorelov's wikipage has been plagiarized from this article. Perhaps it should be deleted until something more suitable can be written? I don't know well wiki policies on this. Gumshoe2 (talk) 02:45, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For example, with a randomly chosen paragraph, compare wiki:
The first work of A. V. Pogorelov on surfaces of bounded extrinsic curvature was published in 1953. In 1954, J. Nash published the paper on С1-isometric immersions, which was improved by N. Kuiper in 1955. It follows from these studies that a Riemannian metric defined on a two-dimensional manifold, under very general assumptions, admits a realization on a С1-smooth surface in a three-dimensional Euclidean space. Moreover, this realization is carried out as freely as a topological immersion into the space of the manifold on which the metric is given. Hence it is clear that for С1-surfaces, even with a good intrinsic metric, it is impossible to preserve the connections between the intrinsic and extrinsic curvatures. Even in case if a С1-surface carries a regular metric of positive Gaussian curvature, then this does not imply the local convexity of the surface. This emphasizes the naturalness of the class of surfaces of bounded external curvature introduced by Pogorelov.
to Borisenko–Vesnin–Ivochkina:
Pogorelov’s first paper on surfaces with bounded extrinsic curvature appeared in 1953. However, in 1954 J. Nash published a paper on C1-isometric immersion, the results in which were then improved by N. Kuiper in 1955. Their work showed that, under rather general assumptions, a Riemannian metric on a 2-manifold can be realized on a C1-smooth surface in 3-dimensional Euclidean space. Moreover, such a realization can be implemented as freely as a topological immersion of the manifold with metric in the ambient space. From this it is clear that for C1-surfaces there can be no such connection between the extrinsic and intrinsic curvatures, even with a nice intrinsic metric. And even when a C1-surface carries a regular metric with positive Gaussian curvature, this does not mean that it is locally convex. All this underscores that Pogorelov’s class of surfaces with bounded extrinsic curvature is a natural class.
I agree with Gumshoe2 judgment, the excerpts he compared are too close to each other. By the way, I'll edit your comment, if you don't mind, Gumshoe2, because as others noted, we can't show copyrighted material, even if it's only for comparison. It's safer this way. PadawanDG (talk) 03:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If the plagiarized content is still up when I have more time, I will remove it. Anyway, here are some references which may be useful secondary sources for certain claims about Pogorelov's work:
Li, An-Min; Simon, Udo; Zhao, Guosong; Hu, Zejun (2015). Global affine differential geometry of hypersurfaces. De Gruyter Expositions in Mathematics. Vol. 11 (Second revised and extended edition of 1993 original ed.). Berlin: De Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110268898. ISBN978-3-11-026667-2. MR3382197. Zbl1330.53002.
Calabi, Eugenio (1972). Complete affine hyperspheres. I. Convegno di Geometria Differenziale (24–28 Maggio 1971); Convegno di Analisi Numerica (10–13 Gennaio 1972). Istituto Nazionale di Alta Matematica, Rome. Symposia Mathematica. Vol. X. London: Academic Press. pp. 19–38. MR0365607. Zbl0252.53008.
Just before I was about to remove the content in question, I realized that its inclusion in December 2017 predates the journal article, published in 2019. So perhaps the plagiarism is in the other direction? It would be unusual, since (some of) the 2019 authors had previously published on Pogorelov, so there would not be any apparent need for them to take material from wikipedia. I haven't been able to find any writing previous to 2017 that the material could be taken from. So I won't remove any material for now. Gumshoe2 (talk) 16:58, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The journal article is itself a translation by N. Kruzhilin from a Russian-language original published in a parallel Russian-language journal. One possibility I could imagine is that the Russian language version was actually completed and circulated considerably before the 2019 dual English-Russian issue dating, and that our article text is a separate close translation of the same Russian text. Felix QW (talk) 16:28, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I believe that much of the content in the 2019 article is itself taken from an older 2006 article by Borisenko: Борисенко, Александр Андреевич (2006). "Алексей Васильевич Погорелов—математик удивительной силы". Журнал математической физики, анализа, геометрии. Фізико-технічний інститут низьких температур ім. БІ Вєркіна НАН України. In particular, the paragraph used as an example above is repeated verbatim (in Russian). An English translation can be found here on arXiv. Pagliaccious (talk)18:03, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A possibly important change to the maths engine is in progress T271001• TTransition to MathML rendering as default. There is a phased introduction, with test wiki being created first and roll out to production wikis by December. It will rely on the native MathML support in Firefox, Chrome version > 109 (we are currently on v128). I think this means the end of server-side rendering of maths equations.
It looks like the technical work is done and the next phase is
Phase 2A: Production
Communication to tech news and wikitech-l about plan and pilot wikis
This is bad. Many of the "torture test" items at https://www-archive.mozilla.org/projects/mathml/demo/texvsmml.xhtml look extremely bad in both Firefox and Chrome. (Examples: in the continued fraction of #6, for me, the 1 at the top is tiny, much smaller than the rest, for me in both browsers. In #14, the varphi has turned into the other kind of phi. In #17, there is a huge space between the integral signs.) I hope this is not "the end of server-side rendering of maths equations" because if there is a preference to keep the old rendering I will likely use it. But not-logged-in readers will not have that choice. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:59, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To be fair one should never convey meaning through the difference between phi and varphi and epsilon and varepsilon. This is just a difference in font, that for mysterious reasons Knuth decided to assign different commands.
As for the torture test, the ones that bother me are the wrong sizes of binomial coefficients in #8 and #9, the wrong sizes of the summation symbol in #10, #12, and #21, the wrong sizes of the integral signs in #16, #17, #21, and the wrong size of the determinant symbol in #24. That's for Firefox. Chromium has much deeper problems. Tercer (talk) 09:36, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The MathML torture test is a very old document, the first comment is 23 years old. The MathML is encoded as raw MathML code and may not be the best way to represent the corresponding latex. For example take no 12, if I set my Wikipedia rendering mode to MathML, and enter the obvious latex for this, I get much better than in the Torture Test.
Good point, I didn't know it was obsolete. I've typed a few more of the tests in User:Tercer/math. They look fine. I couldn't figure out how to get the side-by-side rendering, so to get the comparison I opened that page in a tab, then changed my math rendering preference, and opened it again in another tab.
They say in phab that we eventually change defaults and deliver fallback images really as a fallback, so doesn't that mean they intend to keep server-side tex-to-img rendering as a backup option? Given lingering issues in the torture test that you note (although I'm just seeing the comment above that we should re-test the torture test), I'd say this option will be necessary for the foreseeable future. Also as a backup for accessibility. SamuelRiv (talk) 15:55, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This seems like a bad and fairly pointless idea that completely ignores people's longstanding practical requests for improvements to the current renderer. Why don't the technical team ever ask for what mathematical authors need rather than wasting tons of time on whatever ticks miscellaneous marketing boxes. "roll out to production wikis by December" – if it renders current pages poorly, then it's certainly not acceptable to roll out to "production" in English Wikipedia. Math editors, and the rest of the Wikipedia community, will fight you every step of the way. –jacobolus(t)02:53, 19 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There's no point in saying how bad MathML is anymore, since there's no need to beat a dead horse. So, I will just say that TeX is the gold standard for math typesetting and Computer Modern is the gold math font family. MathML doesn't even come close, but MathJax and KaTeX do. Popular math sites like Stack Exchange and Brilliant use MathJax/KaTeX; in my opinion, MathJax with SVG output looks the best.
So Wikipedia should ditch MathML rendering as default and instead it should fix its broken MathJax implementation and make that as default (or implement KaTeX), provided that we really need a change. A1E6 (talk) 18:16, 21 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
gold math family – Computer Modern isn't inherently better than other well-produced math fonts, and there is plenty of excellent mathematical typography which uses a variety of other fonts (though because typesetting math requires many unusual symbols, there is a significantly smaller choice than with general-purpose fonts). Computer Modern is the most common in recent years because it is the LaTeX default, but we certainly don't have to use it. It is not my personal favorite, and with a deliberate process I think Wikipedia could choose a better collection of fonts – for headings, body copy, captions, tables, footnotes, mathematical notation, ..., and maybe even promote the use of consistent fonts in maps and diagrams. I'm sure if there was significant outreach made to the community at large (including mathematicians, mathematical typesetters, type designers, TeX experts, ...) we could get some quality feedback, if there were a goal to pick a different font. Any math font(s) used by Wikipedia need to have proper support for all of the features used by Wikipedia articles. Or we could try to pick body copy fonts which better harmonize with Computer Modern. (For either criterion, let me throw Charis SIL in as an example at least worth looking at.) The appropriate chapter of Hoenig (1998) TeX Unbound may be helpful. Irrespective of what fonts we choose, there are a lot of subtle details of spacing, sizing, and positioning of elements on the printed page with a well-established centuries-old traditional set of conventions whose details can be found in books like Chaundy, Barrett, & Batey (1954) The Printing of Mathematics, Swanson (1971) Mathematics into Type, Krantz (2000) Handbook of Typography for Mathematical Sciences, etc. Any kind of rendering technology needs to be carefully implemented to sweat the particulars, so that the result is legible, consistent, and ideally beautiful. LaTeX's typographical output is not the only way to do things, and I often find that LaTeX makes typographical choices that I disagree about in edge cases, sometimes based on difference of taste/preference and sometimes for technical reasons. As a simple example, parentheses around sums using \left( and \right) are nearly always too large in LaTeX because these commands pick the size based on the dimensions of a "box" of content inside, and aren't sophisticated enough to implement the convention from traditional excellent mathematical typography that parentheses should cover the symbol but not in general extend past the indices. –jacobolus(t)19:31, 21 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And of course, there will be some typesetters who can justify using font families other than Computer Modern. The thing is, I think that MathJax with SVG output and KaTeX are the best solutions out there. We can't let MathML be default. A1E6 (talk) 00:24, 22 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I tried enabling MathML-only rendering in Firefox and looking at four equation-heavy articles. There were many visible problems. It becomes much more obvious if you view the same article with both renderings side by side in separate tabs or windows.
Display style mathematics is centered and much smaller than SVG in general. Maybe this size matches the body text, but it feels too small to me, more like textstyle than displaystyle. Centered display vs indented left display for other renderings makes it impossible to match with other formatting that is not pure mathematics on each line (such as a displayed equation plus a reference footnote): if you format those other lines to match the centered display of mathml it will not match the left-indented display of svg and vice versa.
In golden ratio, the top bar of the square root sign in is misaligned. The first one has visibly narrower thickness than the radical sign it connects to, and some others have visible gaps.
In Gamma function, the multiline equation in "Euler's definition as an infinite product" has several visible "[8pt]" annotations, and there is too little spacing around the cdots. Later, after "In particular, with z = a + bi, this product is", the displayed equation has a huge left vertical bar, mismatched with the right vertical bar.
In Dehn invariant, under "Platonic solids", the formula has unusually wide spacing around the division sign. Under "Realizability", there is too much space between the two symbols in . More problems with sqrt5: the bottom of the sqrt sign sits above the baseline when it should be below. In , the minus sign is much heavier than the solidus. Strangely, when I view exactly the same formula on this page, it looks different, with a thicker solidus and much tighter spacing between the minus sign and the solidus.
In continued fraction, under "Basic formula", the numerators and denominators get increasingly larger as one goes farther into the fraction: b2 is bigger and bolder than b1, and b3 is bigger and bolder than b2. The same thing happens for other continued fractions on the same page.
It seems there are still plenty of bugs. Here's another one: in Tsirelson's_bound#Tsirelson's_problem the automatic resizing of \langle and \rangle is done incorrectly, screwing up the bras and kets. Is there perhaps a proper place for reporting them? I don't think it is productive to make an exhaustive list here. Tercer (talk) 07:56, 19 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am confused. I have thought that "Transition to MathML rendering as default" was dead, basically because of the lack of browser supports. My impression is that MathML is a seemingly nice idea that went nowhere, perhaps because we already have latex. So, we cannot expect the future where mainstream browsers natively support MathML and so, directionally speaking, aiming for MathML as default seems wrong. My understanding is that the developers are volunteers so they can work on whatever they would like to work and also providing MathML as an option itself need not be disallowed. But I don’t think it can be a default in the near future (I don’t know about the distant future like 2044). Taku (talk) 05:23, 19 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Since the beginning of 2023 Chrome supports MathML which seems to be the game changer and make MathML which was part of HTML5 from the beginning also a de facto standard. The new MathML language which adapted to "modern" CSS developments has also an updated version of the torture test. To me, the issues pointed out by @David Eppstein: are helpful. These examples can be used to be checked if there is a problem with the MathML code (which I will be most likely able to fix a few minutes) or if there is a problem in the browser (there it may be fixed the sooner the more noise one makes). I personally think it is a good idea to switch to MathML after actual bugs are fixed and tolerate the things you wouldn't see if you don't use two windows (as suggested by @David Eppstein:). Over the years, I got used to the way HTML displays formulae and today I can live with it, while I think a Wikipedia style like https://latex.vercel.app/ would be better. Plan for the transition to native MathML rendering. See phab:T271001 A few arguments for MathML
It is accessibility for people with limited vision for example via Braille keyboards
It supports copy and paste
the page is much smaller and thus loads faster and consumes fewer energy
...
As far as I understand, it is not possible for technical reasons to keep the current SVG based system running longer than November + \epsilon this year. The details are above my level of understanding. Physikerwelt (talk) 14:59, 19 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
it is not possible for technical reasons to keep the current SVG based system running longer than November + \epsilon this year. – "Not possible" or just "nobody wants to do it"? Social/technical effort should go into fixing that instead, because the current MathML rendering is flat out unacceptable and adopting it by default would make Wikipedia math articles look worse than they have at any time in Wikipedia's history. The old pixelated PNG image LaTeX rendering was significantly better. The problem is that the spacing of everything in the MathML version is completely wonky and broken: sometimes symbols are too crammed together, other times they are too widely spaced, sometimes baselines are too high, other times too low. Lots of the individual symbols are ugly, illegible, and poorly sized to the context; sometimes their appearance is gratuitously different from the LaTeX version intended by authors. I don't know if the various problems are due to bad MathML design, bad browser MathML implementations, careless CSS, a poor choice of fonts, or what, but I imagine it would take significant (we're talking years of peeping and tweaking the details) technical effort for Wikipedia itself to workaround every MathML bug and quirk and render something that looks professional, far beyond my understanding of Wikipedia's technical capacity. But what's there now looks like deranged incompetent scribbling. If it is really and truly "not possible" to maintain the current SVG renderer, then we should look to adopt MathJax or KaTeX instead. From personal experience these can be made to render professional looking math typography. It would still be a tremendous and annoying amount of work to replace all of the subtle adjustments made in articles' math markup assuming the current renderer to adapt to a new renderer instead, but at least there would be some light at the end of the tunnel. –jacobolus(t)15:50, 19 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Of course it's in principle possible to keep the SVG rendering system running, but nobody wants to spend the huge effort needed for something that has no future anyway. The entire internet has moved away from serving math as images, for very good reasons. Only Wikipedia is stuck in the 20th century. That effort is much better spent fixing bugs in MathML and MathJax. Note that MathJax rendering is already an option. Tercer (talk) 16:18, 19 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The current version of "MathJax" rendering also sucks, with a lot of brokenness in edge cases. Maybe it's not shipping/using the right fonts? The 20th century was a fine century, and what editors and readers care about is whether their content renders correctly, not how trendy the developers were. –jacobolus(t)03:33, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is not about being "trendy". Serving math as images is a terrible idea, and I'm glad Wikipedia is finally moving away from it. Note that there's nothing wrong with MathJax per se; Stack Exchange uses it, for instance, and it looks great. Wikipedia just needs to fix its bugs. Tercer (talk) 10:03, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Tercer There is nothing wrong with MathJax per se as a technology, and I have used MathJax to make great looking mathematical typography in my own off-wiki projects, but the visual results when I click "MathJax" in my Wikipedia preferences are unacceptably bad, so some effort would need to go into figuring out what the issue is and fixing that before we can meaningfully consider adopting it as a default.
"nobody wants to spend the huge effort needed" – What you are advocating for as an alternative is forcing author volunteers to spend probably >100 times more than that supposedly "huge effort" fixing every math-using page on the site, with an end result that will still be visually worse than what we had before, but hopefully at least not completely broken. I think I speak for most wiki authors when I say nobody wants to spend that effort on the downstream side. Indeed, I think the proposal is in the vicinity of insane and deeply offensive to article authors.
Serving math as images is a terrible idea – Objectively it has been working just fine for years, though certainly if there were more developer effort put into the current system many of its problems could be ameliorated, such as improved copy/paste support, better support for accessibility tools, and so on. But overall SVG seems like quite an appropriate technology for laying out complicated two-dimensional graphics such as mathematical notation. KaTeX (ab)uses HTML instead. The underlying layout technology isn't really the important part: what matters is someone doing the thousands of hours of careful peeping and tweaking of the code to make sure that the typography renders correctly, which involves many tiny spacing and positioning decisions. I don't know whether or not it's technically possible to get this right with MathML, but the current MathML demonstration is unacceptably bad. –jacobolus(t)15:24, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, images have not been working fine. They have been a headache since Wikipedia exists. They clash with the text font, are hard to align properly, make the pages significantly heavier, can't be copy-pasted. Because they suck people have always tried to use alternatives, such as using italic text for simple variables, or hacks such as {{math}}, {{radic}}, and {{sfrac}}. It looks terrible and it's hard to edit. What we need is a properly working <math>, and this will never happen while it's still generating images.
But overall SVG seems like quite an appropriate technology for laying out complicated two-dimensional graphics such as mathematical notation. It's such an inappropriate technology that nobody else uses it. Neither other websites, nor scientific publishers, nor LaTeX, nor Word, nothing.
I think I speak for most wiki authors when I say nobody wants to spend that effort on the downstream side. Indeed, I think the proposal is in the vicinity of insane and deeply offensive to article authors. I am a wiki author and I am willing to spend the effort, so you can stop claiming "nobody". Tercer (talk) 16:07, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"They clash with the text font" – This is not a problem with the technology, but a problem with Wikipedia's crap approach to article typography in general. Wikipedia should host a serif math font (and should seriously consider switching all body copy to a serif font for legibility on now-ubiquitous high-resolution displays), and should use it from both plain-html and <math> tags. This font or fonts should include all of the necessary typographical niceties to properly render all of the mathematics needed in any article, including multiple optical sizes for use in nested fractions, superscripts, super-superscripts, etc. hard to align properly You mean the vertical baseline alignment is messed up? This should be a straight-forwardly technically soluble problem, and seems like something the technical team might want to work on as a helpful improvement if they care about best supporting wiki authors. make the pages significantly heavier – can you explain what you mean by "heavier"? SVG images don't require particularly much network bandwidth. can't be copy-pasted – Wikimedia should consider donating some money to the developers of MathJax to work on this problem. None of the currently preference-checkable display options have very good copy paste support. Figuring out what should be copied when someone tries to select some mathematical notation is a hard technical problem which is not unique to Wikipedia. Because they suck people have always tried to use alternatives – no, people use alternatives because this is a worldwide pseudonymous wiki and there are many thousands of random people with varying levels of knowledge, interest, and ability, and many people have contradictory preferences; this is not really a technically soluble problem, though I agree it would be nice if we could do a better job streamlining math input. "I am a wiki author and I am willing to spend the effort" (a) You are personally volunteering to fix every math-using article on English Wikipedia and (b) you have the typographical competence to make every example look as good or better under a new than it did? "One guy is willing to fix a handful of pages", and might even be able to recruit a few other people is not a compelling solution to a problem which will potentially require many man-years of effort. Judging by your personal belief that the MathML output looks better than the LaTeX->SVG output, I don't have faith in your typographic competence, with all due respect to your intentions. –jacobolus(t)19:46, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You are being disingenuous, and insulting me to boot. I refuse to have any further interaction with you, and would appreciate if you refrain from talking to me as well. Tercer (talk) 20:38, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
When you call someone an intentional liar here, as you just did, you should be specific about what exactly you think they said falsely and with the intention of falsehood. Otherwise, people might think you are in violation of WP:NPA. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:14, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am being pretty harsh here, in response to several of your claims which I consider to fall somewhere between wrong and completely missing the point. But from what I can tell your argument about appearance per se boils down to "I think mismatched fonts are really ugly"; that part is a matter of taste and I don't entirely disagree, but (a) there are many alternative things we could try to do as a project to get fonts to match better, which would be well worth discussing – the choice of font is separate from the choice of rendering technology – and (b) stomping on the rest of the details of mathematical typography conventions for the primary benefit of having matching fonts is, in my opinion as someone who cares a lot about mathematical typography, a completely unacceptable trade-off. I would be frankly shocked if you could find even a single person with significant typographical expertise (e.g. a professional typesetter of math books, whether using digital tools or hand-arranged metal print) who would find the MathML examples output by Wikipedia under the current preference setting to be even minimally acceptable. –jacobolus(t)21:54, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your feedback. However, I don't know what to conclude from that.
I can work with the list from David above, and investigate the difference on a case by case basis and explain the differences.
For example, \sqrt5 will be translated to <msqrt><mn>5</mn><msqrt> and rendered by the browser. Live demo
The appearance of your second square root presumably depends on what font gets used? The presented list from the CSS is "Latin Modern Math", "STIX Two Math", "XITS Math", "STIX Math", "Libertinus Math", "TeX Gyre Termes Math", "TeX Gyre Bonum Math", "TeX Gyre Schola", "DejaVu Math TeX Gyre", "TeX Gyre Pagella Math", "Asana Math", "Cambria Math", "Lucida Bright Math", "Minion Math", STIXGeneral, STIXSizeOneSym, Symbol, "Times New Roman", serif; – on my browser this ends up getting rendered using STIXGeneral, which happens to be installed.
Leaving the appearance up to each reader's browser (depending on what fonts they have installed) is an extremely bad idea. We are left debugging not only MathML and parser issues but also font bugs/quirks in 17+ completely different fonts. There's no way authors can possibly work around that kind of uncertainty/variety without totally compromising good (let alone consistent) appearance.
Any math rendering in which content written in one place is intended to be read by a wide variety of people with inconsistent platform font support should be explicitly shipping down a deliberately specified font to use. I would recommend shipping something relatively similar to Computer Modern because this will cause much less disruption, and give a better apples–to–apples comparison between technologies.
Anyway, the choice between your two examples comes down to personal preferences about the appearance of the √ and 5 symbols in Computer Modern (on the left) vs. Whatever-your-computer-chose (on the right), because this is a trivially simple formula which does not involve much if any tricky spacing or stress the quirks of the implementation (I guess beyond meeting the table stakes of attaching the overline to the √). I think the "old" square root symbol looks nicer than the "new" one in my browser, but the new one is more or less okay too. But this isn't the general type of example people are going to be most unhappy about. –jacobolus(t)03:50, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Using Firefox on my phone, no font customization or anything like that, the diagonal part and the horizontal segment in the "new" don't join properly. XOR'easter (talk) 23:46, 22 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
MathML should be fine for the vast vast majority of use of <math> on wikis. But there are a small number of WP articles where consistent rendering of key formulas is critical. If the svg rendering system at a large scale really has to be trashed (I would ideally prefer having a forcing property within the <math> tag), I'd still propose keeping the base system available to generate static svgs on Commons, so that formulas requiring such consistency can be still edited on the platform, while reducing load on that service to negligible. SamuelRiv (talk) 17:01, 19 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My understanding of the technical reasons why we can't keep the current SVG based system working, is that it depends on the RESTBase which basically caches the generated images. RESTBase is 10 years old now, a bit of a pig to install, and has a bunch of problems. The other services that used RESTBase, like the Visual Editor, no longer use it, so the foundation has decided to retire it (sunset). This of course creates a problem for the maths rendering engine. There has been considerable effort put into fixing things so maths will work in some form or another. Physikerwelt has done a lot of work and I'm just an observer.
What might be a possible alternative, if we want to give users a choice, is client-side MathJax. The SVG images are, I think, generated by MathJax. A few years back, the last time maths rendering came up and we replaced the awful PNG images, client-side MathJax was the only other option. There are some problems with this, as images are generated on the fly by the browser, and it can take a few seconds for formula heavy pages to fully render, it is probably faster now. At the time the foundation said no to client-side MathJax as a default, (it has always been available as an option). Instead there was a big push by the MathJax team to do server-side rendering producing SVG's. So other than some issues like baseline alignment they should look the same.
I want to respond to User:Physikerwelt's claim if there is a problem in the browser (there it may be fixed the sooner the more noise one makes). I strongly disagree. If there are problems with the browser-side rendering, as there indeed seem to be, then our mathematics will look bad and readers will think that Wikipedia is bad at mathematics. It will not occur to them to pressure browser-providers to change the browser, and if it did occur to them it is unlikely to be effective. When they complain to Wikipedia, they are likely to receive unhelpful responses such as the comment I quoted which boil down to "we will not fix it and you will be unable to go anywhere else to fix it".
So to me, the net message I am receiving from this turn of events is: Wikimedia is continuing to show their decades-long preference for idealogical ml-purity over readable mathematics rendering that has for decades caused Wikipedia to be far behind the curve in mathematics formula display, intends to break the current display in favor of something that works badly but is more idealogically pure, and will avoid responsibility for the breakage by telling everyone that it's the browser's fault. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:50, 19 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know the technical specifics to say if anyone's right or wrong, but I'm concerned about and specifically addressing the rhetoric: by not addressing or acknowledging the technical motivations, or constructive solutions, your comment appears to say to Physikerwelt that you are in favor of something that works badly but is more ideologically pure. SamuelRiv (talk) 18:59, 19 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The opposite. MathML is idealogically pure (based on *ML markup); MathJax is not (based on JavaScripts that grovel through content to find markup that does not resemble *ML and replace its rendering). MathML does not work as a human-writable markup format and has historically worked quite badly on the rendering side; MathJax works well for both. I do not care about idealogical purity in my web server-to-browser pipeline; I care about being able to write formulas simply and naturally and getting high-quality visual output. My strong impression is that those priorities are reversed within Wikimedia. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:16, 19 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
constructive solutions – the constructive solution is a political solution: Wikimedia should spend the cash / developer time to fix whatever the upcoming issue is with the current renderer or the platform it is built on, at least until such time as a drop-in replacement can be clearly and convincingly demonstrated, which the alternative renderers supported as a preference option today are nowhere close to doing. If we go ahead with a plan which causes significant typographical regressions on every math-related article on Wikipedia, some of which may be impossible to work around, that is going to be a serious problem for the Wikipedia project: it will hamper reading, it will make everyone think we are incompetent, and it will piss off authors who poured incredible amounts of work into something that used to look professional and suddenly does not. –jacobolus(t)04:26, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Physikerwelt: I didn’t know a new version of Chrome supports MathML so maybe MathML might not be dead after all (last I heard, Chrome dropped the MathML support but that apparently was an old news). But since old browsers like old Chrome or Internet Explorer don’t support MathML, I would say there is a still lack of browser supports. *Obviously*, Wikipedia need to be accessible to those with old browsers.
To reiterate some of my points more explicitly, the question that should be asked is not what are bugs and how they can be fixed. No. But the question should be on the direction. Is the MathML rendering a standard now; i.e., does many mainstream websites like blogs or forums involving math formulae use MathML? My understanding is that the standard is still MathJax. So, while a developer such as yourself should work on whatever they likes, directionally speaking for Wikipedia, a reasonable course seems (1) postpone the sunseting of the current rendering and (2) meantime fix the current MathJax implementation (which is currently broken). —- Taku (talk) 07:09, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There's a drop down menu for which font to render with, which one should I be looking at? It seems to change not just the fonts but also things like parenthesis height, and in some cases very important spacing, e.g. the space between fractions in #9.
Some fonts seem very satisfactory to me in some browsers, but in some other browsers, none of them render. (Is this the fault of my own computer?)
Regardless, I have never understood why the wiki developers can't just make it so that <math>-tagged latex consistently appears along the same horizontal lines as the surrounding text. It seems to me like that'd be the perfect solution, and doesn't seem (?) so difficult. Gumshoe2 (talk) 23:14, 19 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Here's a collage of my renderings: Cambria (default Windows font selection) has its unique problems (#13 and #29), which is odd. DejaVu was generally satisfactory so I didn't upload it. Libertinus has uncomfortable kerning in #14. STIX switches abruptly between straight and slanted sqrt symbols in #13 (but as you can see this is replicated in the tex2svg rendering; other fonts render in a smooth gradation). The kerning after the combination parens in #9 seems to be a little tight in all fonts. Also, the rendering of adjacent fractions with different height denominators will be inconsistent with different fonts in #9 -- TeX only preserves height in its default font for x2 and the like, but beyond that you get similar alignment consistency problems that I generally fix using phantom characters (something to test in your MathML renderings). SamuelRiv (talk) 19:09, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The new torture test has multiple visible problems:
#3, #4. Fraction bar much thinner than text (Firefox)
#4. The denominator of the fraction in the exponent is too close to the size and baseline of the main text, making it appear attached to the base of the exponent rather than to the fraction (Firefox+Chrome)
#5, #8, #14. Spacing around the solidus too wide. (Firefox+Chrome)
#7. Fraction bars below topmost too thin (Firefox) or bottom one too thin (Chrome)
#13, #29. Bars over square root slightly too low, causing glitch where they attach (Firefox); or slightly too high, causing a similar glitch (Chrome)
#14. Ugly varphi too close to vertical bar (Chrome)
#18. The "0" is incorrectly centered under the previous two cases, rather than left-justified (Firefox+Chrome); "elsewhere" does not line up with previous lines (Chrome)
#19, 22. The textual annotations are significantly tinier than as rendered by TeX making them difficult to read (Firefox+Chrome)
#28. Triple primes too close to each other and too far away from y, causing them to appear to be a single dark blob not even part of the formula (Chrome)
#29 The plus sign in the limit is spaced as a binary operator between the arrow and the infinity rather than a unary operator attached to the infinity (Firefox+Chrome).
#30 blobby varepsilon hard to distinguish from set membership sign (Firefox+Chrome)
Which font(s) are you looking at? I hadn't seen the menu that Gumshoe2 mentioned, but I find that some fonts are not terrible, and some are. And I'm not sure what would control the font used by MathML in Wikipedia; probably a preference setting, with a reasonable default? Dicklyon (talk) 01:52, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"I'm not sure what would control the font used by MathML in Wikipedia" whatever the browser/OS ships with and uses by default, if i'm not mistaken. Especially math users who have installed their own math fonts might be seeing results that differ from what most users would see. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 02:39, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Your mathematics fonts are wrong and you need to go through [long complicated technical procedure] to fix them before Wikipedia will be readable" is exactly the sort of unhelpful answer I would expect mathml-proponents to provide to unsophisticated Wikipedia readers instead of, you know, providing a mathematics rendering pipeline that works out of the box. As for my personal setup, I haven't touched the fonts since purchasing this particular (Apple) laptop, but who knows what might have been carried over when its setup procedure copied my files through multiple generations of past laptops over multiple years when I might have done something long ago that might continue affecting things today. Also, please remember that not-logged-in readers do not have preferences that they can adjust. I did try viewing not-logged-in and did not see any obvious differences from logged-in. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:27, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Here's an example of Continued fraction § Notations, as it currently renders using the default LaTeX→SVG renderer on the left vs. MathML on the right, in my logged-in browser.
Incidentally, there's a comment on the markup for the latex on Leibniz's notation: <!--very hacky workaround; mediawiki latex doesn't have good support for vertical alignment commands-->. I wonder how much tweaking it took to get it to look just right using our tex2svg. In sections specifically marked for historical nonstandard notations, it's kind of odd that you'd expect two renderers, even two fonts, to give consistent output. (If an image is the only thing that guarantees consistency, I agree -- and there are many ways we can run tex2svg without regenerating it every time within the article.)
Anyway, now that we know that that custom whitespace syntax isn't recognized, one could in principle simply run AWB to set any equation with such code to explicitly use a fallback rendering (though I'm waiting to hear specifically what the options are for this). SamuelRiv (talk) 07:04, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The strong impression I'm getting from this thread, especially Physikerwelt's "it is not possible for technical reasons to keep the current SVG based system running", is that Wikimedia intends to trash any other rendering system, leaving us with no options for fallback. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:50, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There's no "custom whitespace syntax". This is ordinary LaTeX. It just needs a cumbersome workaround because our LaTeX→SVG tool is missing some basic TeX/LaTeX features.† But it's not just the "Leibniz" notation part that is terrible in the MathML version: all of the subsequent notation variants are also typographically bad and significantly less legible because they have very poor alignment and spacing. But the most dramatically broken Leibniz example is a good example of the types of wonky equation any drop-in replacement has to be able to handle, because there are a huge number of mathematical expressions all over the project where the specific behavior of our LaTeX→SVG tool was relied on by authors and assumed to render for every reader the same way it appears to the author. The amount of time and effort it would take to find and "fix" all of these currently-working examples to kinda-sorta work under a new rendering tool is going to be incredibly high. We're talking about thousands to tens of thousands of hours of work. †: If anyone working on the technical side wanted to support article authors, adding support for a few fundamental but currently missing TeX/LaTeX spacing and sizing features would be an improvement I at least would be happy to applaud. –jacobolus(t)09:28, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Leaving aside the broken \align, there is a cornucopia of other typographical problems at that example, for instance,
the same font is used for ordinary sized symbols and smaller symbols in inline fractions, exponents, etc., but for decent typography these need to be optically sized symbols which are relatively bolder, have wider proportions, etc., otherwise the shrunken symbols appear spindly and are difficult to read,
the ∘ (function composition) and ′ (prime) symbols are too small and the latter is placed in the completely wrong place and apparently completely screws up the horizontal spacing afterward,
the vertical bar indicating evaluation at a particular point is placed much too closely to the adjacent dy/du, etc.,
spacing around = signs is horrible, even in equations that aren't using the align environment
parentheses are mostly incorrectly sized, especially noticeably in exponents, but also parentheses wrapping larger material do not properly grow, and the result looks terrible,
the subscript on is not kerned properly,
the symbol is too small, and the vertical alignment of limits above and below is incorrect,
equations in limits have much too much space around the = sign,
More strongly, @Physikerwelt: If you want to provide a convincing demonstration to the world that MathML makes math ugly, and should not be used, going ahead is a promising way of doing this. It is not just the obvious problems listed above, but littler things where roughly the right symbols are in roughly the right places but much less harmoniously than the TeX layout. In jacobolus' continued fraction screenshot above, look at the notation credited to Gauss, . In TeX it looks natural, like this is a standard notation. In the MathML screenshot, all the symbols are floating around disconnected from each other, with too much space between them, making them look too small and making the notation look cobbled-together and not natural. The vertical fraction is too tight and its denominator off-center. It is not mathematically wrong but it is ugly. This is the kind of ugliness that people will learn is caused by MathML. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:56, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is a layout problem that will be ugly in TeX too. E.g. Terminal punctuation with something like a fraction, wide or asymmetric-length bounds on the sigma (try a different font or a longer expression). (Part of the reason you tolerate may be that you're used to it, or that it's an industry standard; personally I can't stand the fact that Knuth's declared preference for punctuating equation lines means that we all have to deal with that ugly crap, but at the end of the day, I should probably accept that it's not that important.
If your argument is that it looks unprofessional, then the professional standard being TeX renders in a different manner using specially-designed fonts that don't play nice with our in-line text (a common complaint, hence the {{math}} template and, even worse, sans-serif wikitext). Equations being selectable potentially improves reader accessibility. What the implementation is to do this, and what is the fallback, how to continue tex2svg when needed, how and when it's implemented -- these are things that can be discussed constructively. On the other hand, several of your comments so far, namely the opening sentence of the previous two above ("Wikimedia intends to trash" and "exactly the sort of unhelpful answer" (following a quote of a nonquote)) are simply in bad faith. SamuelRiv (talk) 19:44, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Donald Knuth did not invent putting punctuation at the end of an equation. Essentially all mathematical publications have done this since mathematical printing was developed in the 18th century. Tito Omburo (talk) 21:28, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For example, it is the practice recommended by Halmos (1970), which is cited in our style manual, and which Knuth read (he quotes from it on p. 183 of The TeXbook). It is also recommended by Chaundy, Barrett, and Batey's The Printing of Mathematics (Oxford UP, 1954), which Knuth also read (see p. 197 of The TeXbook). XOR'easter (talk) 06:38, 21 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
simply in bad faith – this entire technical proposal comes across to me as dismissive of authors' expertise and practical needs, to the point of being insulting. Criticizing that harshly is in my opinion the appropriate response, and calling such a response "bad faith" is a profound misunderstanding of what we're trying to do in this project called Wikipedia. What you are seeing is a kind of immune reaction by people who will be extremely affected to changes being pushed by people who aren't themselves going to feel the impact. This kind of response is common any time you go into a relatively stable complex system and start breaking essential components. –jacobolus(t)21:34, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've made a version of the TortureTest which goes from our <math> extension version of LaTeX and is rendered by our system, User:Salix alba/TortureTest. There are a couple of bits where we miss things like \substack that cause problems but for the most part it works OK. There are a couple of bugs with client-side MathJax rendering which look like there are solutions in the pipeline T375241.--Salix alba (talk): 17:21, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just for laughs I thought I would try DickLyon's updated torture test with Chrome on Android on a recent-model Pixel phone; this is what I get when I click on its link from the Wikipedia app and I suspect very similar to what I would get if MathML rendering were used within the Wikipedia app. I have not done anything to set up nonstandard fonts on the phone. It is far worse than in my laptop browsers.
Overall: the italic letters are in a serif font but the digits are in a sans-serif font. When they appear side-by-side at the same size, the sans-serif appears noticeably heavier than the serif.
#8, #9: The binomial coefficients are rendered with normal-sized parens, not the correct extended parens.
#9. The spacing is so bad that the first close paren touches the following x, and y touches its exponent. The denominators of the two vertical fractions do not have the same baseline.
#10, #12. The summation sign is sans-serif and the same size as the text. The i underneath the one in #10 almost touches it. The p and q above the ones in #12 do touch it. The r in #12 has a lower baseline than the p and q, so low that it almost touches its summation sign.
#13. The sqrt signs are all the same size and, in order to nest within each other, float high high above their arguments. Only the innermost one is anywhere near its proper size and place, but even it is too small, with its bottom point only maybe halfway down to the baseline of its argument (it should be below the baseline). There are visible gaps where they connect to their overlines.
#14. The left and right delimiters (both paren and vbar) are all the same size as the text. The partial signs are sans-serif.
#15. The x is illegibly tiny. I have to zoom this up much larger than the TeX to read it.
#16. The integral sign is roughly text-sized and sans-serif. Its x is placed so close to it that the top point of the integral sign almost touches the crossing point of the x, and lies between the upper and lower left parts of the x.
#17. Same ridiculous text-size sans-serif integral sign.
#18. Centered rather than left-justified; text is sans-serif.
#19. The horizontal curly bracket is far too small, only covering the "..." in the middle, and too close to the text above it, which is too small and sans-serif.
#21. Same bad summation, integral signs, and sans-serif text. The π is roughly the right height but ridiculously wide, maybe three times the width of most of the italic letters.
#22. Same tiny horizontal brackets and too-close sans-serif labels. The \ell is sans-serif, does not come close to matching the k in appearance or weight, and its stroke starts somewhere in the middle rather than the bottom so it looks more like a cursive e than an ell.
#23. An illegible random scattering of serif italic letters, a sans-serif digit, and text-sized parens. I would have a hard time guessing that this is supposed to be a matrix of matrices.
#24. The vertical bars are text-sized and even for that appear a little lower than the baseline of the surrounding material.
#26. Same bad pi.
#28. The same problem I saw on my laptop: the triple primes are tiny, too close to each other, and so far away from the y that I would have no idea they are supposed to be modifying it.
#29. Same too-small misaligned gappy sqrt. 2πn are in three unrelated font styles. The exclamation point appears to be sans-serif and the parens are text-sized. The limit sign is sans-serif. But at least this time the spacing of n\to+\infty appears better than on my laptop.
#30. Det is sans-serif. Now that I see them together, the summation sign, product sign, and lowercase Greek letters all appear to be from the same font; that is, there is no visual distinction between a sum and a capital sigma, nor between a product and a capital pi. Maybe that explains why the lowercase Greek letters are so huge; it's a step towards making sums and products slightly less horrific. The n touches the product sign. But at least I can tell the set membership symbol from the epsilon.
I happened to be looking today at one of those older pre-TeX mathematics books where everything was set by a typewriter, using the best approximation to correct symbol placement one could achieve using a typewriter. That's...not good, by today's standards. But this strikes me as worse, because it's just as ugly with no excuse for it. We've been able to typeset mathematics much better than this for over 45 years. If this is what mathematics is going to render as, on mobile, it is absolutely far from ready for primetime. With SVG rendering, I've been strongly preferring LaTeX mathematics markup to our ersatz templates, but this would make me switch back. Literally the only formulas for which it can produce acceptable results are the ones that template-math works better for. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:27, 21 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Those stretched-out pi symbols are like a horror story from the '90s: an equation that somebody typed in Word and resized in PowerPoint, then shown off by an open-source evangelist as an example of why friends don't let friends use Microsoft products. That any descendant of TeX produces output like that is a bizarre joke. XOR'easter (talk) 23:43, 22 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@David Eppstein I think that typewriter based prints were a step backwards in comparison to the previously used led based printing. Maybe someone could also claim that the 100 year old typesetting looks better than MathML. I was looking at some publications from 1924 and it's hard to say.
However, RESTbase will be switched off regardless. The Phabricator bugs are (easily) fixable to the degree, that it can become as good as the MathML torture test. With the MathJax option spacing is improved for logged in users. I claim that it is possible to maintain the old SVG rendering even without RESTbase. However, that would hinder extension of the current functionality. The currently implemented MathJax options falls back to MathML if JavaScript is disabled, so I think this could also become the default for not logged in users.
Two issues have been reported regarding the MathJax option. I have fixed one and the other one is currently waiting for code review. If I select SVG as rendering option in client side MathJax it looks very similar to the current SVG based rendering to me. This is because the MathJax codebase served as a blueprint for the native MathML implementation. Even special MathJax data such as `data-mjx-texclass` is in the generated by native MathML to help MathJax to generate correct spacing, which seems to be hardly possible from MathML input alone.
If is a majority that support that option the Wikimedia Community Group Math might want to vote on this?
typewriter based prints were a step backwards – Yes, that's precisely the point. Typewriter "manuscripts" were an alternative to hand-written manuscripts which were easier and faster to produce especially for people with sloppy handwriting. Compared to typography produced on a mathematics-specialized printing press, they looked like complete garbage, but they had the advantage of not requiring a expensive services of a professional typesetter or the expensive equipment of a press and metal type. If someone is comparing your mathematical typography to that produced by a typewriter, that is not a flattering comparison. Maybe someone could also claim that the 100 year old typesetting looks better than MathML. Yes, there are 200+ year old mathematics books with typography that looks much better than the current Wikipedia MathML output. RESTbase will be switched off regardless – the alternative is simply not acceptable at the moment, so basically you are continuing to threaten to overnight make all of technical Wikipedia look ugly, illegible, and amateur, without any backup plan. If I select SVG as rendering option in client side MathJax it looks very similar to the current SVG based rendering to me. You need to test this on an extremely wide variety of devices, and sit next to someone who is sensitive to the details of mathematical typography while you do so, and let them point out any issues. In my opinion this option is only viable if Wikipedia ships down fonts to every reader, and after that is going to require an extended period of bug fixing before it's ready. –jacobolus(t)14:08, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"RESTbase will be switched off regardless – the alternative is simply not acceptable at the moment". Complaining here will have little effect, no one on here has the power to stop the change. You really need to take this up with the foundation. Maybe there is a chance for an alternative image cacheing service, but that would require foundation level developers, rather than a couple of volunteers.
What we can do is is make is suck less. For that identifing concrete example of when the renderer fails. I'm happy to turn these into bug report, and Physikerwelt has done a lot of work fixing reported bugs. Some of the bugs could do with input on what we really want to acheive. For example should \operatorname{foo} always have space before and after, or are there cases when this is not the desired result? T375861
You really need to take this up with the foundation. – Has anyone told the Foundation that this is a severe and urgent problem? Who is the appropriate contact / what is the appropriate venue? \operatorname{sin} needs to appear the same as \sin, etc. The appropriate spacing depends on the context, and the behavior should hopefully be identical to the current renderer, because many articles have had manual spacing workarounds for this. (Though if the current renderer differs from the behavior of standard LaTeX for some reason, then I could imagine a case for "fixing" any differences, and then editors would just have to try to check any articles that explicitly tweaked the spacing.) similar debate when server-side MathJax was introduced – yes, and the replacement had nearly identical layout and appearance, except for being a vector image instead of a bitmap. If you can accomplish the same nearly identical result to the current renderer across all readers' devices and settings, then we won't have any issue this time either, but currently that is not close to the case. –jacobolus(t)20:46, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If comments like "RESTbase will be switched off regardless" do not provide a clear enough picture of Wikimedia having no concern for technical content on Wikipedia, and being willing to break that content for months or years, consider the sad fate of the graph extension (Help:Graph), "temporarily" disabled since April 2023 with its supposed "Charts" replacement well behind schedule and lacking updates.
It may be time to start preparing more extreme countermeasures, in the likely case that mathematics formatting becomes broken and unreadable. Something that comes to mind: a bot or script that reads a Wikipedia page, finds all of its mathematics formulas, creates bitmap or svg images using LaTeX, uploads them to Wikipedia, and uses an image as the replacement for the formula. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:02, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe we could just add a colorful banner to the top of every technical article along the lines of "The Wikimedia foundation just broke math rendering across Wikipedia. Contact XYZ if you would like to restore professional looking rendering." Trying to replace every formula with explicit images sounds like a logistical nightmare. –jacobolus(t)21:33, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I thought of that, but I strongly suspect that the banner would be removed as an administrative action.
Incidentally, since my experience with the torture test was that going from a web browser on a computer to mobile made MathML much worse, not merely extremely ugly but totally unreadable: does anyone know if there is some way to convince the android Wikipedia app to render using MathML so I can see what that would be like? It doesn't appear to respect my user preference for that. ——David Eppstein (talk) 22:06, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've been creating a set of Phabricator bugs under the task T375318• TNative MathML mode formatting bugs and there has been progress on some of the bugs over the last week.
T375317 \align aligns fields in the centre rather that on the left in MathML mode - now resolved.
T375295 \begin{align} with font sizes specified show font size annotation 6pt in MathML mode - now resolved.
T375337 Too much space around / in MathML formatting mode - probably solvable.
T375349 \int\limits_a^b limits in incorrect position in MathML mode - probably solvable
T375340 Too much space between fences and content in MathML formatting mode
T375346 Lots of space around the cells in matrix evironments in MathML mode
The last two depend a bit on font choice, in particular the font set by browser corresponding to the font-family: math used for <mi> and <mo> elements, so I'm not sure what should be done with theses. A couple of other bugs related to client-side MathJax rendering T375241 and To T375241 have also been fixed.
@Salix Alba: I can give some examples of the most pressing issues (MathJax with SVG output):
1: \\[8mu] etc. in "align" is broken, see for example
2: \mathcal cannot be rendered and it is instead replaced by \mathscr, see for example
(this is not mathcal)
3: \operatorname is broken, see for example
4: \displaystyle\sum_{n\in\mathbb{Z}} and \displaystyle\prod_{n\in\mathbb{Z}} puts the index in an incorrect position (it should be below but it's on the right instead)
5: the symbols "!" and ":" are skewed when they shouldn't be, see for example
1. Automatic resizing of \rangle and \langle doesn't look at what is inside of the ket, but outside. This messes up almost every quantum mechanics article. Example: S. In general I think automatic resizing is a terrible idea and should never be turned on by default, instead it should be controlled with the \left and \right commands like in LaTeX.
2. The limits of integration are displayed above and below the integral sign, whereas they should be displayed to the right. Example: .
3. The pipe "|" introduces spurious spacing, which messes up conditional probabilities among other things. Example: .
MathJax bugs:
1. Automatic resizing of \rangle, \langle and | look at the largest operator in an equation. Examples: , , . Again this illustrates how automatic resizing is a terrible idea.
2. The glyph for the pipe simply does not render in the following expression: . I assume it's automatically resized, and the glyph of that size does not exist. Tercer (talk) 10:09, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
MathML #1 This is now T375959 and it looks like it will be fixed soon. An old bug T137788 adds the \middle command, which you need for a full bra-ket, is this needed?
MathML #3 Looks a similar issue to T375337 we are discusssing the desired behaviour as LaTeX and MathML have different ideas on what the spacing should be.
MathJax #1, hopefully fixed at the same time as MathML version.
MathML #1: \middle would certainly be nice to have, but I wouldn't call it necessary, as it's always possible to size it manually.
MathML #3: I don't think there's much of a choice here, if you don't follow the LaTeX standard you'll break half of Wikipedia. I found another problematic glyph: the colon introduces spacing in LaTeX, but not in MathML/MathJax. This messes up for example .
MathJax #2: Firefox 130 on Ubuntu 22.04. It's probably a font issue, because I have another machine with the same browser and OS, and they pipe does show up there. I don't know how to diagnose it, though. Tercer (talk) 11:14, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
{code|f:X \to Y} is now T375974. Colon is being treated as an identifier <mi>:</mi> rather than an operator <mo>:</mo>. There are a bunch of other symbols that should probably be treated as operators. --Salix alba (talk): 14:24, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Found another pressing problem: in both MathML and MathJax \| is rendered as a single pipe, instead of a double pipe. This messes up the display of norms and relative entropies, among other things. Example: . Tercer (talk) 10:19, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've relayed some of your concerns to one foundation employee involved. At T271001 and he has given some useful bit feedback.
On timing:
We're currently waiting for the final QA round, and we have a number of early bug reports above to work through. Right now we're not yet pressed for time with inviting more users or entire pilot wikis.
There is no set deadline for Mathoid yet, and it's not enabled anywhere by default (beyond beta cluster and group0 testing). As you can see above, there is no shortage of feedback at the moment so we're not in a rush to get wider feedback or enablement yet.
On options:
if the exact interaction and styling of the current rendering is preferred, enabling the "MathJax client-side" preference. This will stay long-term.
The "SVG" option, powered by Mathoid with server-side MathJax, is planned to be removed in the future.
On communication:
We're not in a rush to get wider feedback or enablement yet. It would just waste people's time reporting duplicate/known bugs, and make it less likely for them to try again later to find other issues.
I prefer it when the Foundation does software development in public. As such, the draft is available for everyone to see.
I made the call to not announce it widely until we're more confident in it ourselves.
We generally encourage community members that are tech-savvy to do this outreach directly, exactly as you did, and liaison bug reports back to here. I don't mind doing further outreach myself as well on a handful of suggested talk pages. I speak Dutch, English, and a bit of German :)
On User Acceptance Testing:
Sure. Acceptance is based on known test cases passing without glitches, and bug reports like those above. I'd consider the following kind of bugs as blockers:
glitches where symbols appear that shouldn't.
glitches where symbols don't appear that should.
glitches where symbols appear in an obviousy incorrect place.
The goal is not pixel identical rendering to MathJax, so the exact font size and spacing may vary. This is in part a feature in that these aspects can now be customised with CSS via user styles, and are decided by individual web browsers. We do have some connections at browser vendors (Mozilla/Google/Apple) so if there are bugs caused by the HTML>screen rendering in browsers, rather than the LaTeX>MathML HTML rendering in MediaWiki, we can help escalate upstream bug reports as well. Free free to share links to https://bugs.webkit.org/, https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/ or Chromium's issue tracker.
MathML rollout page in my browser – The top and bottom of the screenshot are intended to look about the same?
"The goal is not pixel identical rendering to MathJax, so the exact font size and spacing may vary. This is in part a feature in that these aspects can now be customised with CSS via user styles, and are decided by individual web browsers." – This is a terrible idea. There are plenty of manual tweaks required to get math rendering looking good in edge cases or gaps in the default rendering, but which tweak is required differs depending on which font is used. Additionally many fonts just have bad built-in metrics, not to mention poorly distinguished symbols, etc. This entire endeavor is not going to work unless you pick a single specific set of math fonts and ship it down to every reader, so that authors are assured that readers are seeing a nearly identical result. The plan of giving every reader and every device different fonts is not an acceptable way forward for Wikipedia. –jacobolus(t)14:17, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'll try and translate your comment on Phabricator into individual bugs
There are many subtle spacing flaws (for example the vertical spacing is wrong in the fraction x/2)
the superscript 2 uses the wrong font (it uses a scaled-down 2 from a font intended for regular size instead of a properly optically scaled 2 intended for superscript size)
the two lines at the bottom have been smushed together
the strikethroughs of the 'y' letters are much too small (and in this font, y is not a legible character to cross out because the strikethrough overlaps the leg of the y)
the renderer does not understand the explicit alignment directions of the source markup (which asked for left-aligned, center-aligned, and right-aligned) – though this is a poor example because people should be using LaTeX \align instead of \array for this specific thing.
No 4. Is a bug. Its worse in Chrome than in Firefox as the strike is not rendered at all T376829
No 5. I've started a new bug T376838 for this, quite close to T375317 but thats for \begin{align}, rather than \begin{array}.
No 1. I can't see this. Here is a variety of fractions in SVG and MathML mode. SVG: MathML: SVG: MathML: the spacing looks right with consistent baseline and allowing space for ascenders/descenders.
No 2. I don't quite get, the SVG uses <use transform="scale(0.707)" xlink:href="#E1-MJMAIN-32" x="613" y="583"/> for the 2, so its a linear transform of the font. The MathML use a font-family: math; font-size: 11.89px; compared to a 16px font for the mc. This seems better behaviour, font designers adjust fonts for different font sizes. This is what you get from a vanilla MathJax install, recall SVG was a hack to get MathJax to work serverside.
(1) Here's what your example looks like in my browser:
In my opinion the MathML versions are utterly broken. It might look fine in a different browser, on a different device, or in a different browser version. That one main point of the criticism: MathML does not render consistently across devices, especially if the font is not standardized, which makes it effectively impossible for page authors to write markup which will render consistently (or even barely legibly) on all readers' browsers. Until the MathML version has been tested on hundreds of different configurations of devices and browsers, including 10 year old devices running 10 year old software, it's not production ready for the purposes of Wikipedia, which has an extremely wide audience including many people running old hardware/software. We shouldn't lock people out of reading technical Wikipedia articles because their laptop or phone is out of date.
Inre your other questions:
(2) Any time you have multiple sizes of symbols being used side by side, you need to use a different font for each one (or a fancy "variable font" which adjusts its proportions for each size); larger sizes need proportionally thinner strokes and narrower proportions, smaller sizes need proportionally thicker strokes and squatter proportions. See Font § Optical size. Typical LaTeX math typefaces have several different fonts intended for different sizes, including a "standard" font and also separate fonts for inline fractions, superscripts/subscripts, super-superscripts, etc. If you use the same font for symbols at multiple different sizes, the ones which have just been uniformly scaled are incorrect: they have a distractingly uneven visual weight which is both ugly and less legible. Only math fonts which have multiple different optical sizes should be used for rendering complicated typography such as mathematical notation, and any renderer used needs to be able to successfully choose the correct font for different sizes of symbols.
(3) There were apparently supposed to be two separate lines of unrelated equations, but they were smushed together onto one line without any space in between. It's not clear what's going on there.
(1) Which browser and which OS? Your screenshot clearly fails the acceptance test, but we need to be able to reproduce the error.
(2) Having the font-family: maths CSS rule should indicate to the browser that it should use a math capable font. Chrome respects this option, and you can see the choice at chrome://settings/fonts with the default maths fonts being Cambria math in Windows. Firefox does things a little differently, but it looks like it defaults to Latin Modern Math on Windows, these are both fonts that respect the OpenType math table, so should scale correctly. Again, knowing browser and OS will help. But we need concrete examples of failures to be able to make a bug report or do anything.
We need to be able to reproduce errors to fix them. But, it is unacceptable to tell Wikipedia readers that the reason they cannot read Wikipedia mathematics articles is that they have the wrong browser/OS/installed fontbase. It needs to work out of the box, for readers in very different environments, on very different platforms, and with very different levels of technical expertise. Obviously, that is not true for MathML today, and that is why I think MathML is an unacceptable option. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:51, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is Safari v. 15.6.1 running on MacOS 10.15.7, but the fraction bar spacing is also unacceptable on recent iPhone Safari, the appearance is mediocre but in the vague direction of correct on Firefox v. 131, and MathML doesn't render at all on Chrome v. 87. –jacobolus(t)02:47, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As for (2), as I have said repeatedly, telling readers to bring their own math font is strictly unacceptable for production use in English Wikipedia. Wikipedia needs to ship all of the necessary fonts from a single good math typeface (there are multiple freely available ones) to every reader for either the MathML or client-side MathJax options to be remotely acceptable. It's not possible to even evaluate what is a bug in the renderer vs. what is a bug in the font fallback mechanism vs. what is a bug in every individual font without having a consistent baseline.
To be honest, I doubt continuing this conversation is a super productive use of time. My recommendation would be, if the Foundation wants to go this route, then they should pay someone to come up with a test setup with several dozen variant devices of a wide variety and hire someone with significant expertise in the details of mathematical typography to sit down next to the developer(s) of this feature and go through the current cross-device rendering in detail sitting side by side (this is going to take days of full-time work if not weeks, just to document and understand all of the current rendering bugs) From where I sit it seems like the complaint here is not being listened to or understood, and I feel like we're wasting our breath. My own estimate is that MathML support in browsers is literally years away from being consistent enough across end-user devices to be a productive render target, and Wikipedia's current MathML output is also literally years of bugfixes away from looking professional. Client-side MathJax is much more promising, but is also going to take at least months of serious work, after settling on a single typeface to ship to readers. –jacobolus(t)02:51, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(2) Totally agree with you and David that we should not require users to install specific fonts or modify settings in any way, and that the system should render well, with no "glitches" on a nearly all conbinations of platforms and browsers. This should be the sort of thing the Web QA team will assess. We can help ensure a quality product, or delay rollout, by assembing a good corpus of problematic examples to try. We know more about the intricies of mathematical typography that the QA team will.
Your torture test in any species of Chrome/Chromium is broken. Apart from the kerning, sizing, and font issues, everything involving matrix/align/cases and over/underset is completely broken. I would post a screenshot, but I assume that someone in WMF is responsible for checking things like the most popular browser used to access Wikipedia. Tito Omburo (talk) 11:45, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(1) Every diacritical accent renders incorrectly, e.g. \hat a renders with the accent overlapping the letter, (2) subscripts render incorrectly with wrong vertical positioning (but sometimes too high and sometimes too low), (3) \operatorname renders incorrectly, (4) \left\vert renders incorrectly, (5) \partial is too close to the letter, (6) f' is completely broken, (7) f^{(3)} has the superscript run into the letter, (8) a sqrt with a fraction inside renders with too thin a line on top, (8) arguably this is a poor way to achieve the result but \overset{\underset{\mathrm{def}}{}}{=} has the letters too widely spaced, (9) \overline{abc} renders with more or less a hyphen striking through the top of the b, (10) limits of \prod and \sum have incorrect vertical alignment and the \prod and \sum symbols themselves are too small, (11) \xrightarrow[T]{n\pm i-1} has the wrong size arrow and horrible alignment of the parts above/below, (12) \overbrace puts a normal-sized curly brace turned sideways over the middle of whatever is being braced which does not stretch and is anyway too small, (13) fraction bars are consistently not quite wide enough (aside from the vertical spacing issue), (14) \lim_{n \to \infty} has too much horizontal space around \to, (15) \int renders with a too small symbol and overlaps a following fraction, (16) x^3\, dx has too much space between parts, (17) 0.5 has too much space around the decimal point, (18) \binom{n}{k} uses parens that are too small, (19) \begin{Vmatrix} x & y \\ z & v \end{Vmatrix} has mismatched sizes for the surrounding ||, (20) \bigl( renders a normal sized paren instead of a larger one, (21) \begin{cases} ... uses a too small brace, (22) \begin{alignat} .. does not properly align at the indicated & points, (23) \begin{array}{lcl} does not respect the specified alignment directions, (24) \hline in an array does not render, and vertical lines indicated do not render at the correct widths, (25) | renders with too small a symbol not matching other brackets such as \langle, (26) kerning is poor for uppercase greek (too wide) and lowercase greek (mostly too tight, but some too wide), (27) blackboard bold symbols are too wimpy to be legibly double-lined, (28) \mathsf renders smaller than the other math fonts, (29) \pm is not vertically aligned correctly (too low), (30) parentheses sometimes overlap the content inside, (31) parentheses horizontal spacing with surrounding content is inconsistent and usually at least slightly incorrect, (32) apart from rendering the prime completely wrong in x' the spacing afterward is much too wide, (33) spacing between a regular variable and a following named function is too tight, (34) vertical positioning of lines in \begin{cases} is inconsistent, (35) spacing between numbers and a following variable is too tight, (36) spacing around \cdots is too tight, (36) spacing before ; is too wide, (37) \tfrac renders incorrectly (not small enough, vertical spacing too tight), (38) sqrts in fractions are too large and extend too far below the baseline.
Firefox does considerably better with https://en.wikipedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Help:MathTestNative but there is still a long list of problems. A naively scaled font being used for inline fractions and superscripts, etc. is still a problem here. Beyond that:
(1) diacritics are not quite correctly positioned, sometimes too low, sometimes not horizontally centered relative to the visual top of the letter, (2) the \hat symbol is the wrong shape, looking like a wedge instead of a hat and \widehat uses the same symbol, (3) \lVert z \rVert has too much horizontal space around the z, (4) \operatorname{d}\!t has the two letters overlapping (\operatorname is wrong for this use which should just be \mathrm{d}, but \operatorname needs to add space, which the negative space was added as a tweak to eliminate; this kind of tweak for the previous renderer behavior will be found all across wikipedia and any new renderer needs to have close enough spacing to the previous renderer to not break them all), (5) \nabla\psi has too much space between, (6) fraction bars are too thin, (7) dy/dx has too much space around the slash, (8) dy, dx have slightly too much space between letters, (9) f' is completely broken here too, (10) \ddot y needs the dots pushed slightly to the right, (11) \shortmid uses the same symbol as \mid, which is incorrect, (12) square roots have overlines which are too thin and don't align with the √ part of the symbol, (13) \setminus and \smallsetminus use the same symbol, which is incorrect, (14) := renders with too much space between, (15) 45^\circ has too small a circle, (16) \not\operatorname{R} has a misaligned strikethrough, (17) \textstyle \prod_{i=1}^N x_i has the top limit of the sum too high, and the limits aren't consistently aligned on the left, (18) \lim_{n \to \infty}x_n has too much space around the \to, (19) \int\limits_{1}^{3}\frac{e^3/x}{x^2}\, dx has a horizontally misaligned top limit, and not enough space between integral and fraction, (20) 0.5 has too much space around the decimal point, (21) \cancel{y} has a poorly aligned strikethrough (not vertically centered), (22) vmatrix and Vmatrix don't have enough space between content and surrounding delimiters, (23) smallmatrix does not render small, (24) \begin{cases} has a brace with a disproportionately thick stroke relative to the font and too much vertical space between cases, (25) alignat doesn't get alignment correct at the indicated &, (26) \begin{array}{lcl} doesn't apply the indicated alignment directions, (27) \begin{cases} doesn't have enough horizontal space between the brace and the content, (28) \hline in an array renders but doesn't go from edge to edge, and the outside lines aren't rendered thick enough, (29) \left / renders too small around large content, (30) |\bar{z}| renders with inconsistently sized/aligned || and neither side is correctly sized or aligned.
I tried en.wikipedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Help:MathTestNative on Chrome on Android (Pixel phone, default setup) and found it to be very badly rendered in many ways:
Diacritics tiny, too far above their letters
The operator font has a significantly larger x-height and heavier weight than the math variable font, and there is no space between the operators and their arguments
Greek letters are far too wide, out of scale with Roman
In differentials and derivatives, commas placed too close to the fractions they occur in, so close that they look like primes on the variables
Actual primes are placed tiny and high above the letter they modify, indistinguishable from diacritics
Ell does not look like a letter, and certainly not like an ell. Maybe it is a weird at-sign?
The radical sign is much heavier than its crossbar, with a visible gap where they should connect, and is too high and small, to the point that in the expression sqrt(x^3+y^3) it looks like the square root is only on the exponents and not on the whole expression. I assume this would only get worse for nested radicals.
In the overset alpha omega tests, the alpha is tiny compared to the omega, regardless of whether it is above or below. The gamma is also tiny.
The over-arrows, over-braces, and under-braces are sized for a single character regardless of what they are over
The "Arrows" example has gone full Zalgo (he comes). Characters all on top of each other. Totally unreadable.
In many cases the limits of the summations, products, and integrals touch the summation or product or integral sign. The summation and product signs are indistinguishable from capital sigma and pi, too small. The integral sign is also too small, looking more like a bold sans-serif text long-s. The same issue with limits touching the signs also applies to the bigcap and bigcup.
You would think rendering "0.5" would be so easy as to be non-problematic. You would be wrong. There is too much space around the decimal point.
The binomial coefficients only use text-size and text-weight parens. Even in the case of tbinom this is wrong (they look far too heavy).
The matrix left and right delimeters only use text size. This is never right. In the case where \bigl has been explicitly used, the size has not changed but now there is extra unnecessary whitespace between the delimeter and the matrix.
The cases and aligned formulas are not aligned. The cases left bracket is text size, which is never correct.
In "parenthesizing big expressions", both the "bad" and "good" examples look identical. Both are bad. All of these parenthesized expressions use only text-size delimiters, incorrect for all of them. Especially bad are the floor and ceiling functions on a vertical fraction, where the floor and ceiling delimiters are raised above the midline so they look like they are applying only to the top part of the fraction, changing the meaning. In the examples of nested parens with different size qualifiers, all render in a single size. For some reason the last of these examples, with the nested slashes, puts much more spacing around the forward slashes than the backslashes.
The examples with mathbf do not work. The result just looks like italic, at normal text weight. Boldface Greek is also identical to non-boldface Greek. Greek italic capitals are not italic (they are upright just like the default Greek).
The Roman typeface is actually displayed as sans-serif, but the sans-serif typeface is actually displayed as italic serif. The sans-serif Greek is sans-serif, but this is the same as for all other Greek; there is no change in visible appearance.
Mathcal produces the appearance that I would expect mathscr to produce (curly script letters). (See File:Mathscr-vs-mathcal.png for how these are supposed to look.)
Fraktur has no effect; it produces the same italic text that you would get by default.
In the text "an inline expression like [integral] should look good", it doesn't look good, because inline integrals should put the limits to the right but here they are placed vertically above/below, making bad line spacing.
I didn't go carefully through the individual examples at the end of the link but my general impression was one of ugliness, with many of the same problems above and some others (such as limits with infinity signs becoming too big and overpowering whatever thing they were supposed to be a limit for).
An aside re "the convention [of using HTML for inline math instead of math formatting] is really annoying": I agree, but I predict that shifting to MathML is going to increase the usage of this convention, because MathML formatting is so bad that html-formatted math will look better. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:19, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks to Jacobolus, Tito and David for these. There is going to need to be a bit of Triage here, as thats a lot of problems, and there are basically two of us working on this, and we can only really work on a few at one time.
Trying to think through prorities 1) The three glitches Krinkle mentioned: glitches where symbols appear that shouldn't; glitches where symbols don't appear that should; glitches where symbols appear in an obviousy incorrect place. 2) Problems that affect all browsers, have a higher prority, that those specific to one browser/OS. 3) For browser/OS specific one for practical reasons Windows bug are likely to addressed first as that the machine I use, I can get access to a Mac in the libary at work but progress there will be slower.
If you are only doing this with a single platform as reference then you are doing it wrong.
I note, by the way, that elsewhere User:Physikerwelt is telling people that there are only "Relatively minor layout problems" with MathML, that "Most browsers have a good MathML support", and that "some Wikimedians still prefer images over HTML" [1]. All of these are inaccurate. The problems are not minor, testing above has found bad MathML rendering on multiple browsers, and (speaking for myself rather than other Wikimedians) I would prefer an html-based solution (including also client-side MathJax in that category) over an image-based solution, but the priority in my concern here is much more about achieving a high-quality appearance on a wide base of platforms, and much less about the medium through which it is rendered. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:10, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Both articles Archimedean solid and Catalan solid have similar properties and relatable topics: they are dual to each other, so they have the same symmetry; two of them have the property of chirality, so their dual are also chiral. Yet, this reason is not strong enough to keep them merged, unless there are more backgrounds in some sources. Anyhow, I guess some of the members of this project do not consent to this idea. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 12:28, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
When I think of restructuring the article by adding sources and removing some original research, I doubt that their content is too short. Archimedean solids were recognizable for their appearances during the Rennaissance, including the works of artists and mathematicians; I have several changes to the article and added some references for further reading. Yet, the Catalan solids seem less recognizable at all in the background of discovery; some sources mention that they were credited to Eugene Catalan and all dihedral angles of their adjacent faces are the same (although I have to find this claim soon). Dedhert.Jr (talk) 00:44, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also see various sources in Talk:Laguerre transformations § List of references. Laguerre's word for an oriented line was "semi-droite" (literally "semi-straight"; in Euclid the Greek equivalent of "line" means curve and straight lines need a qualifier, but in English we eventually abbreviated "straight line" as "line"; in French "straight line" was instead abbreviated as "straight"). Later in German and English the names "spear" and "ray" were used. For English Wikipedia's purposes, I think a term such as "oriented line" (or perhaps "directed line") is the most explicit and unambiguous. –jacobolus(t)04:07, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have still not gotten a straight answer for how an oriented ray is supposed to be a different thing than just, you know, a ray. fgnievinski has been pushing paragraphs full of technicality on this that convey no information to me.
Now that you're here, fgnievinski, perhaps this question would focus on what is confusing me about your edits. Do you allow rays to be directed only towards their apex, only away from their apex, or do you imagine that there are two kinds of rays, one towards and one away? If there is only one orientation possible for any ray, then there is no point in choosing an orientation of a line and then using it to orient the ray, because there is no choice in how to orient the ray. On the other hand, if you imagine that there are two different kinds of oriented rays, then you should say that more clearly (with a source that says that clearly) instead of all this bafflegab about oriented lines. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:32, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A point and an orientation of a line define a ray. Conversely, a ray defines an oriented line with a specific point. So, the phrase "oriented ray" is at best a pleonasm and at worst confusing (see David's post). It must not be used in Wikipedia, unless there are (I doubt) reliable sources discussing it. D.Lazard (talk) 10:08, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is it possible that the problem is the same as for DAG (which, when parsed literally, should mean “oriented forest”, but actually means “directed graph with no cycles”)? Like, maybe some people use the phrase “oriented half-line” not with the literal parsing but instead to mean the construction D.Lazard mentions (start with an oriented line, then take half of it)? I don’t see where fgnievinski has used the phrase “oriented ray”. 100.36.106.199 (talk) 10:06, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
EoM's definition of "half-line" and PM's first definition, cited above, say nothing about orientation, it just defines a locus. Similarly, Pedoe (1988) defines "half-line" as a set of points, not implying any orientation, and calling point A an "endpoint" instead of "initial point". Wylie (1964) doesn't mention "half-line", it defines a "ray" and initially it doesn't say anything about orientation: point A splits a line in two and point B selects one of the two halves. Orientation only appears later in the discussion, when it says the other half has the opposite direction. It'd benefit the reader to make it more explicit, stating a direction (from A to B) is often implied, although strictly it's not required. For example, the definition of plane angle doesn't require the sides to be orientated, only to be concurrent (meeting at a vertex).
I started assuming "half-line" was unoriented:
Orientation
Unoriented
Oriented
Size
Infinite
Line
Oriented line
Semi-
infinite
Half-line or
unoriented half-line
Oriented half-line
(also: ray)
Finite
Line segment
Oriented line segment
Now I realize "half-line" is often assumed to be oriented:
the concept of "one half of an unoriented line" exists, – yes, this is called a "half-line" or "ray", and is typically defined as a locus of points. It only has an implicit orientation. I don't think a separate concept of "one half of an oriented line" is very useful / widely used, and we shouldn't imply that this is how the word "ray" is defined. To adopt your table method:
Orientation
Unoriented
Oriented
Size
Infinite
Line (Or more explicitly, straight line)
Oriented line (sometimes called a half-line, ray, or spear)
Semi-
infinite
Half-line or ray (note: has an implicit orientation)
N/A – not a commonly used concept
Finite
Line segment
N/A – inconsistently defined and needs care to describe. More commonly used concepts include ordered pairs of points, or the translation vectors formed from their difference.
Sticking to the sources cited, some define a half-line or ray as an oriented object, others don't. I fail to see what is lost in recognizing the distinction and conveying more information about the subject. I also see some contradiction in "has an implicit orientation" and "oriented: N/A".
In physics and computer graphics, one often deals with two rays having opposite direction but the same locus. They are called incoming rays and outgoing rays,[2] as if impinging on a receiving antenna or emanating from a transmitting antena, respectively. Using vector formulation, an outgoing ray is r(t)=p+t*d (for positive time t>0, an initial point p, and unit direction d); while an incoming ray is r'(t)=p+t*d' (for negative time t<0, a final point p and reversed viewing direction d'=-d). The two rays trace out the same path -- e.g., r(t=1)=p+d and r'(t=-1)=p+d -- but in reverse time. These two oriented rays occupy the same unoriented half-line. fgnievinski (talk) 03:24, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, you are getting confused and synthesizing only loosely related material. When people are talking about "incoming" and "outgoing" rays e.g. in Ray tracing (physics) or Ray tracing (graphics), the context is physical (or simulated) light rays (see Ray (optics)), not "rays" as objects of elementary geometry books. As you point out, the mathematical objects used for this modeling are mostly points and vectors. –jacobolus(t)19:45, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Physical or simulated light rays have a mathematical formulation in terms of a geometric object. I recognize the elementary treatment of geometric rays assumes a fixed direction (from the endpoint) or no direction at all. But I just showed geometric rays are often formulated with the opposite direction (and the same locus) in some math-intensive disciplines.
This debate raises a bigger issue, and often a point of conflict between Wikipedians working on articles about geometric concepts: should Wikipedia articles about mathematical concepts serve only or mainly mathematicians or also a broader audience? Because time after time I find coverage of applications in physics, mechanics, and engineering to be unwelcomed in articles about geometry. Not rarely, editors who "own" the article start acting in a disparagingly way.
Physical or simulated light rays have a mathematical formulation in terms of a geometric object. – In my opinion this is not the same as what gets called a "ray" in high school geometry and trigonometry books, even though both are named based on an analogy to light rays. The object called a "ray" in elementary textbooks is defined to be nothing more or less than a half-line, and doesn't have any explicit orientation (but as I said, can be thought of as having an implicit orientation toward the infinite end, just in the sense that it is infinite in this direction; there's no actual motion involved here though as there would be with physical light rays, in a model where space + time are split and treated separately). Making up that there are different types of "incoming" and "outgoing" rays (in the high school geometry sense) with different orientations in my opinion is an idiosyncratic personal definition of yours which is not supported by sources and cannot be stated with Wikipedia's voice without violating policies about NPOV/OR.
Also, an important distinction between objects like rays, lines, and segments as usually defined vs. oriented lines is that the former types objects are considered to be loci of points, whereas oriented lines are considered to be primary objects in themselves. I think we should probably have a separate article titled Oriented line and eventually another one titled Laguerre geometry describing the resulting geometry when oriented lines are taken to be the fundamental objects rather than points.
Instead of "A semi-infinite oriented line is called a ray", it would be more supportable to say something along the lines of "A ray is half of a line which has been divided by a point, which is infinite in one direction, and is thus similar to an oriented line insofar as it has an implicit orientation." –jacobolus(t)17:01, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's also pretty common in some other flavors of geometry such as projective geometry to think of points and lines as primary objects with an incidence relation, rather than lines as subsets of points. The difference is that the subset conceptualization still works, while in oriented geometry you need the lines to be objects so you can attach orientations to them. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:51, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Again, the only true difference between lines defined as primitive objects and lines defined as sets of points is that the incidence relation is denoted with in the latter case.
To editor Jacobolus: "half of a line" is a confusing formulation, since it implies that a line has more than two halves. So I would say: "A ray is the part of a line that is located on one side of a point of the line; thus a ray is infinite in one direction, and has an implicit orientation (from the point toward infinity on the ray), which defines an orientation of the line that contains the ray". D.Lazard (talk) 22:29, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'd file this under the general trend of finding Fibonacci/golden ratio in nature. I wouldn't call it pseudoscience, but it does strike me as controversial. Tito Omburo (talk) 15:30, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The paper referenced is 2024 and an uncited primary reference. In the physics Wikiproject we often remove these as not notable, non-encyclopedic sources. Johnjbarton (talk) 15:43, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I declined this draft but the creator, @Mofembot, reached out to me on my talk page with some additional information, namely he is responsible for Glasser's master theorem, so very likely notable. However, they are getting most of their information from family members so the draft is currently unsourced or poorly sourced and they, like me, are not a mathematician so struggling a bit. Any help is appreciated. S0091 (talk) 15:46, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately most living academics haven't been subjects of e.g. magazine profiles or published biographies, which makes it hard to verify claims using what Wikipedia considers to be reliable sources, and often "influence" is just found in the form of citations to their work rather than clear surveys or extended critical analysis, which can make it hard to establish notability. Often obituaries end up being the best sources about dead academics, but obviously that doesn't help with living people. Sometimes a source like an article announcing someone's retirement, an award announcement, or the introduction of a Festschrift will contain relevant introductory material about the honoree's life. I think the main advice for any under-sourced Wikipedia article is: keep hunting for sources. –jacobolus(t)16:20, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I and @Daniel Mietchen were discussing potential community events to enhance mathematics articles on-wiki, and one idea that came up was an event for Pi day (or Pi Month). There's been some site-wide activities in the past such as the 30kB vital articles drive, which was successful, and we could model something similar or opt for a more interactive approach, like a virtual edit-a-thon. Since Pi day is still several months away, there's plenty of time to plan. I’m posting this here to gauge interest and gather initial ideas. Would this be something people would want to participate in? And if so, would anyone be interested in joining a planning committee to help organize and shape the event? Mathnerd314159 (talk) 15:20, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That is a debatable idea. Enhancing mathematics article is best done by people who know and care about the subject matter and have a good background in mathematics and logical reasoning, not to mention clarity of exposition. We don't want random undergraduates starting to edit articles willy-nilly, which will then have to be re-tweaked by others. If you have a way to ensure the proficiency of the participants, fine. Otherwise, I am doubtful. PatrickR2 (talk) 05:33, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's not a stance I agree with at all. It's elitist and against the fundamental principle of Wikipedia, an encyclopaedia anyone can edit. You don't need a background in mathematics to edit mathematics articles. Besides, you would think anyone attending a pi day edit-a-thon will indeed have an interest in the subject.Polyamorph (talk) 09:06, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it is true that the quality of the articles produced is a concern. I was thinking particularly of starting with the Requested articles list, where (generally speaking) any article is better than no article. And then as Polyamorph says, anyone (including "random undergraduates") can produce a good article - it is just a matter of educating them in Wikipedia's policies and providing them with the appropriate resources to write the article. Mathnerd314159 (talk) 14:53, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Especially when dealing with the requested articles list, familiarity both with Wikipedia norms and the subject matter is important, because the list has not been curated for notability or significance and many of its requests duplicate existing articles, consist of much-needed gaps in the literature, or are attempts at self-promotion. I would not necessarily expect enough discernment from typical edit-a-thon participants. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:52, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I find these comments distasteful, elitist, and gatekeeping. Anyone, including edit-a-thon participants are more than welcome to edit any article they want. Users new and old pick up policy and best practice along the way. Discouraging users on the basis of a preconceived idea of their competence goes against the third pillar WP:5P3. Wikipedia needs new users, they should be encouraged. Polyamorph (talk) 07:00, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the unhappy fact is that a lot of student edits (e.g., those done for class assignments) have turned out badly. If we want an edit-a-thon to go well, someone has to do the ground work first, like curating a better list of potential articles. Looking over the suggestions linked above, I'm seeing many examples where amateurs and undergraduates would have no idea what the topic even means. A list of potential biography articles might be a better starting point. XOR'easter (talk) 16:42, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I was going to bring up cleanup required after class assignments. It's one thing to create new articles, another thing to try to rewrite mathematics content. Tito Omburo (talk) 16:56, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Class assignments, where students are required to edit are not the same as an edit-a-thon where people volunteer to edit with the same motivation and goals as the rest of us. I concur that there are sometimes issues with WikiEd activities, but this is not what Mathnerd314159 is proposing. As with any edit, if a mistake is made or the content is not suitable, for whatever reason, then it will be dealt with in the standard way. Any activity that encourages good faith editing by new users should be encouraged, and no article should be off-limits. Polyamorph (talk) 17:15, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, people who volunteer are going to have a higher level of enthusiasm, all else being equal, which is good. I think many of the same concerns that we've had with WikiEd contributions will still apply, though: unfamiliarity with what counts as a good reference, unfamiliarity with encyclopedic writing style, biting off more than a novice can chew, etc. I don't want to discourage anyone from trying their hand at editing, and I don't want to discourage experienced editors from running an activity like this; I'm just saying that we need to have a realistic sense of the challenges and a solid plan to address them. For example, as noted above, we can do better at suggesting new articles to create and existing articles to improve. We can also identify good references ahead of time and make sure they are available to edit-a-thon participants. We can curate a collection of high-quality Wikipedia articles that can serve as examples for new editors to learn from. XOR'easter (talk) 19:05, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A meta comment: I think you should not worry so much about about defending this proposal -- people who are grumpy about it will be grumpy about it, and whether it is successful or not will not depend heavily on trying to convince people who get grumpy thinking about it that actually it's a good idea. JBL (talk) 20:03, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
OK. But the assumption that any newcomer is going to be a net negative when so much mathematical content is already in a dire state goes completely against the core principles of the project. Polyamorph (talk) 06:57, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
a lot of student edits (e.g., those done for class assignments) have turned out badly. – I really think this is down to poor planning and support from course instructors making such assignments and whatever Wikipedia-side staff are supposed to be helping out. Every time I have tried to start a conversation with students or course instructors about helping mentor students to make their project successful, I have not gotten a useful reply. My understanding is that some course projects (not in topic areas I pay attention to) have been highly successful, based on the instructor having enough knowledge and commitment of work/attention to make it work. I think it's plausible to make student edits valuable but it takes the student picking an appropriate scope for their edits and then doing the careful research in reliable sources to support changes. –jacobolus(t)19:45, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Polyamorph This is not an elitist position. We don't want to discourage anyone from editing Wikipedia. But at the same time, it is easier for someone to start editing articles in sciences like physics or biology, I would say, since there are probably more sources in these areas written for a general public that editors could draw on. But, as they say, "there is no royal road to mathematics". PatrickR2 (talk) 06:12, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That reminds me of Anton Ego in Ratatouille, one of the best animated movies ever: ... Chef Gusteau's famous motto, 'Anyone can cook.' But I realize, only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist; but a great artist *can* come from *anywhere*. Not everyone can be a great Wikipedia mathematics editor, but a great Wikipedia mathematics editor can come from anywhere :-) PatrickR2 (talk) 18:55, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Random undergraduates circa 2005–2010 were the originators of a substantial proportion of our mathematical Wikipedia articles about topics commonly seen in undergraduate coursework. The nice thing about a long-term public project is that poorly started articles or sections can be later improved, including by experts. –jacobolus(t)15:10, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One of the reasons I tend to avoid articles on standard topics of undergraduate courses is that it can be a very frustrating experience. These articles tend to read like they were written by undergraduates who were taking the course and half-understood the material (probably because they were) and require a lot of cleanup. Worse, because different textbooks cover these topics in superficially different ways, any cleanup is likely to be quickly undone by another undergraduate who doesn't recognize the differences, thinks the article is incorrect because it doesn't exactly follow the textbook they are using, and rewrites the article back to its previous half-understood level following another source. So then all the cleanup needs to be redone, or the changes reverted and another enthusiastic new editor bitten by causing their efforts to be completely thrown away. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:32, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
On the flip side, we still have plenty of topics at the advanced undergrad level which are missing entirely, and something is better than nothing. I think the main problem we have is insufficient work and attention to mathematical subjects overall and insufficient expert attention, rather than too much attention from undergraduates per se. As you say, some frustration comes from topics having varied terminology/description/organization in various sources, which are sometimes even the subject of quasi-ideological disputes between authors, but topics appearing in multiple areas of mathematics are also usually more centrally connected with larger scope, etc. compared to more specific or obscure topics.
But such topics are also more likely to be clicked on and overall perhaps more important to get right. For instance, it was great that you could bring Simple polygon up to have clear and concise prose, clear organization, and relatively complete coverage, but it would be better still to get Polygon to a similar standard (even though it would take more work and be more frustrating to accomplish).
If you find any particular poor articles you want to see improved, we could try to organize a few people to go work on one or a few at a time. –jacobolus(t)20:05, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to see Circle improved. It's under-cited, heavy on bullet points, disorganized, etc. Fixing all that would be a big job, and edit-a-thon contributors might well be lost at sea. But perhaps improving citations would be a way to ease them into article improvement. Prep work would have to be done in advance, though, like finding good geometry books at the appropriate level and making sure those books are available to the edit-a-thon participants. I believe some of the Women in Red events have been held at libraries for just that reason. XOR'easter (talk) 06:38, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And then putting the article into the higher-class as in GA, or FA if necessary to feature it on Wikipedia's main page? Love to see more articles enhanced to be suitably referenced and in splendacious format, especially when the article features on Pi day. If I would like to help to do it, that's fine, but I have no idea how long I can improve this, and how much I can understand the topic. The topic was somewhat harder than I thought, especially about the historical background, just like I had to postpone Sine and cosine.
@XOR'easter I'd also like to see Circle improved. Perhaps an edit-a-thon could be a place for it; I don't have much experience with such events. One problem is that if people start working in earnest on this, by the time any edit-a-thon rolls around an article might be in good enough shape to not need the event participants' help anymore. But I guess if so whatever is learned from that could be applied to some next topic.
One thing that could make an edit-a-thon (or other collaboration) successful and an effective use of volunteers' time (both planners/mentors and participants on the day) if we want to improve substantially underdeveloped or poorly developed articles is figuring out a better collaborative writing process than the common one of making scattered piecemeal changes from with the content as it exists at any particular time, so we can build some amount of consensus ahead of time and make relatively concrete requests for help needed so people can get right to work.
I think the most important first step (irrespective of who would be working on the project) for e.g. Circle is figuring out a better list of important sub-topics and structure and narrative flow for them. I don't think there's much worth salvaging about the current organization of that article, and the current content needs a lot of rework. A list of good sources at various levels would also be great, especially if also structured a bit into specific topics or perspectives. If there is a good structured outline of topics with varying types/amounts of work needed to finish them, and a relatively clear indication of what each part needs, that could give short-term volunteers a bit more manageable chunk of something to work on.
Re "...that it can be a very frustrating experience": That's sad to hear it. Just like the days you were used to nominate articles on elementary stuffs like Isosceles triangle and Kite (geometry)
Re "...they were written by undergraduates who were taking the course and half-understood the material (probably because they were) and require a lot of cleanup.": Even restricted things in Wikipedia like, you know, to prevent users or anonymous to edit specific articles?
Re "...exactly follow the textbook they are using, and rewrites the article back to its previous half-understood level following another source." But seriously, this is exactly when I was recently taking a course, finding the models in incidence geometry, but could not find anything exactly in Wikipedia here. So, I just randomly use my intuition. And that's why two FAQs are beneficial to find the reason why "it is not here in Wikipedia", or whatever it is.
Re "another enthusiastic new editor bitten by causing their efforts to be completely thrown away": It happened when I restructured the polyhedral article Regular dodecahedron, and a new editor who did not touch the tools of writing the article complaint for no reason and demand for adding something, or an IP in Johnson solid who would like to restore the article; in this case, I think they were not getting used to with the renewed article.
As a new user, I have found this project unwelcoming. I do not intend to contribute further to mathematics articles on Wikipedia again in the short term and I regret my contributions in good faith on the backlog of undergraduate calculus material. RowanElder (talk) 18:51, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@RowanElder Can you elaborate? From a skim I don't see that you were involved in any particularly heated disputes, edit wars, etc., though there was one (to me minor seeming) talk page miscommunication with another editor recently. It seems like your contributions have been accepted without issue. Is you concern a lack of positive affirmation? Not enough collaboration? I don't understand why you would regret contributing: did it seem like a waste of time? I'm sure readers benefit from improvements, even if they are unlikely to tell you so.
Most subjects in Wikipedia have relatively few active participants, and in mathematics in particular there are many (many) articles relative to the number of people keeping an eye on them, so articles tend to sit for long periods in a relatively stable state until someone takes an active interest in changing one whereupon there can be a flurry of activity. It's pretty common for even significant changes to be passively accepted without anyone commenting about it. (See Wikipedia:Expect no thanks.) It's also relatively common for changes to lead to disagreement, and the medium of pseudonymous public editing between strangers lends itself to misunderstandings, especially if participants argue assertively for their preferred version.
I do regret spent time -- not entirely wasted -- but more an uncertain probability that (a) I've created evidence for other future editors that this is not rewarding work for them to do and (b) empowered and probably encouraged apparently entrenched patterns of unwelcoming behavior, people who will feel "gratified that an interloper was run off" whether they would say so or not. I do not regret getting better information to readers. I'm not feeling forced to stay, thanks, and I am only saying this now because otherwise I would be ghosting the project. Ghosting seemed relatively more rude and more likely discouraging to continuing editors who do intend to be welcoming -- it would give them no idea why I chose not to continue to contribute, and thus no easy way to think about what to hope or plan differently for in the future.
Lack of positive affirmation and collaboration did matter to me, but not decisively. Respectful explanations of policies and patterns would have been much more important for welcoming. Assertive argument and respectful argument are two different things and I was not finding the arguments respectful. I had not been aware of Wikipedia:Expect no thanks, but I would say "while we should edit Wikipedia for the love of the project, not primarily with the hope of being thanked, a little more thanks would go a long way" from the "in a nutshell" is on the mark for me. I did try to be respectful and thankful in discussions, but this now seems to have been a mistake (a mistake specifically on the pages of this project, not in general). RowanElder (talk) 21:24, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"created evidence for other future editors that this is not rewarding work" – this seems unlikely to me. Realistically, few editors, especially newcomers, read old talk page conversations. "gratified that an interloper was run off" – if you mean yourself as the "interloper", then this doesn't seem like a remotely accurate characterization of any of the people you have engaged with that I have seen (though most Wikipedians do want to "run off" obvious spammers or trolls – which you are not). "encouraged apparently entrenched patterns of unwelcoming behavior" – I think you are misunderstanding people's actions and making inaccurate assumptions about their goals and motivations, as well as exaggerating the impact a couple of conversations will have on editors who are routinely involved in more dramatic conflicts (like anyone who spends much time on Wikipedia). But consider that from an outsider's perspective your own actions (e.g. edit warring) are not obviously friendlier or less friendly than your interlocutors. Would you consider it fair to e.g. call you a "newcomer with an entrenched pattern of mischief-making" or some similar exaggerated mischaracterization? I assume not – at least it wouldn't seem fair to me. As far as I can tell, the folks on both sides of your (to my view quite mild) disagreement were acting in good faith, and this kind of conflict is usually relatively amicably resolved, though sometimes people end up frustrated or resentful (sometimes on both sides if a dispute gets heated). Wiki editing does take a thicker skin than more personal kinds of collaboration though, and isn't for everyone. –jacobolus(t)22:25, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is among the patterns I meant I have probably helped entrench further: "Wiki editing does take a thicker skin than more personal kinds of collaboration though, and isn't for everyone." It's true as a proposition, I don't argue against that, and yet it can also serve as a form of justification for being unwelcoming, to "get the people who just aren't cut out for this to just move on." In this case here, I now believe that it *is* serving as that form of justification. It's a type of unwelcoming that is common and hardly blamable, which is why I wasn't initially singling anyone out. They wouldn't deserve that. This is the sort of normal level of everyday non-emergency customer dissatisfaction that I'd have put in a comment box on a confidential customer exit survey when cancelling a subscription, if this Wikiproject were a subscription I was cancelling.
That sort of common unwelcoming is especially commonly attributed to the social sides of STEM fields in general by non-STEM outsiders: a sort of "you either get it or you don't, and we can't help you much if you don't" attitude that rubs outsiders as unwelcoming whether or not it's meant to be unwelcoming. So I'm really truly not trying to say something earth-shattering and controversial here, or something that should "force anyone to wake up" or anything like that. When I said "interloper," that means "someone who doesn't belong," and if "someone with thin skin doesn't belong" and "he had thin skin", that's all that's needed for that feeling to be present in the way I had in mind. "Gratified that this guy who didn't belong realized it and moved on already."
Being unwelcoming does not seem to be an exaggeration to me. I am, in fact, actually walking away after feeling unwelcome. Entrenchment also does not seem to be an exaggeration to me because I did read a lot of talk pages and see that the same issues discouraging me now seem to have been discouraging other newcomer editors years, even decades ago (for the pages I've been editing, it doesn't take long to go back decades on the talk pages). This pattern of imputing that I must have made a hasty, mistaken decision here is in fact part of the ordinary, taken for granted entrenched patterns I was talking about.
The pressure of being long-time Wikipedia maintainers and dealing with the drama is clearly real. It is clearly difficult to handle and clearly takes a toll on the capacity to assume the best of others. It also seems to have encouraged and entrenched unwelcoming habits. This doesn't seem exaggerated or implausible or unfair to me: it seems totally sympathetic.
Yes, I would be alarmed if someone "e.g. call[ed] [me] a "newcomer with an entrenched pattern of mischief-making"", first since I don't have any patterns on Wikipedia at all longer than a few months and second since I hadn't been accused of mischief yet that I was aware of. "Entrenched pattern of naive mistakes" would be fair, though. I was accused of and I do have entrenched patterns of making naive mistakes, like not checking Mathematical point was more than a disambiguation page when editing Fixed point (mathematics) or not checking that Monomial included one of the definitions of monomial that I took for granted when editing Power series. I had been asking for help and patience and hoping to dis-entrench them. I was naive! I did find this project unwelcoming. Both seem easy to say without any shock.
I have had no question that the people on the other sides of my disputes were acting in good faith with respect to their stylistic preferences and opinions about content. RowanElder (talk) 23:16, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know that much about comment threading on Wikipedia pages. If I made a terrible faux pas there that could be explained to me, I'd have happily apologized and learned how to avoid it in the future. Things weren't getting explained, though. I really had and have very little idea what that reply was trying to say! RowanElder (talk) 13:04, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Your deleted reply -- which I got as a notification, so I saw it and felt the sting of it though I appreciate you deleted the part that you must have realized crossed a line -- is typical of why I feel unwelcome. For others, to understand what I just saw as a notification:
"I got in an edit-war with one person and now I won't edit math articles" ok I mean sure but maybe after you were first reverted you could have opened a talk-page discussion (as per [[WP:BRD]]) and moved to substantive discussion/consensus-building as step 3 instead of edit-warring/hurt feelings?
To clarify something here: I did feel a sting here but also I don't hate getting stung like this or take it very personally. The habit of jumping to an interpretation like that is very sympathetic to me. I've been an accidentally hasty-to-judge and unwelcoming person myself, in other parts of my life. It's exactly because I know how easy it is to accidentally fall into these habits and start taking the (lonely) consequences for granted that I'm choosing to speak up right now. RowanElder (talk) 01:02, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I can sympathize with this. I'm still relatively new compared to the other users who have been here for 10+ years, and I understand the frustration.
I can't make you stay, but if you're willing to reconsider, just hear me out...
I don't think the community itself is unwelcoming, in fact, in my experience, most the individuals I interact with are very respectful and professional, however (and not mentioning anyone in particular), there are certainly individuals who are quick to WP:bite the newcomers. But they are not the majority.
My only real issue with this community is that, of those individuals who are respectful and welcoming, I have never seen them call out another user for biting newcomers, always leaving the newcomer to fend for themselves.
Anyway, all this to say: yes, there are frustrating individuals here, but as long as stay respectful and keep your hands clean, there are Wikipedia Policies to deal with them. Maybe try getting familiar with WP:Edit warring and particularly WP:3 revert rule. If you're respectful and reasonable, a Wikipedia administrator will be willing to vouch for you and has the power to handle the situation. However, in my experience, it never gets this far.
Though, for what it's worth, I've enjoyed your edits here, especially on Series (mathematics) (which is looking a lot better IMO). I do hope you'll stay, even if you edit here less often, but I understand your decision either way. Farkle Griffen (talk) 02:18, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your sympathy and for appreciating the work on Series. I'm not going to reconsider in less than six weeks, and I'll check how you're being treated on your contributions history before I make a decision. Looking over your history a few days ago was part of how I became confident my experience wasn't just a purely personal issue. I really don't enjoy being treated in ways that seem taken for granted and widely tolerated here; people are welcome to call it a thin skin if they want to continue to be unwelcoming to people like me or they could call it a sensitivity to disrespect if they are interested in retaining people like me as would-be editors.
I appreciate your impulse to defend the community also, and it's part of why I didn't and don't assert that this Wikiproject's community is unwelcoming in itself; afaict I didn't meet a community (and I wasn't invited to that I saw). I assert that I found the project unwelcoming from outside the community and that there are some entrenched habits in the Wikiproject that are unwelcoming, but neither of those would prove that the project's community was itself unwelcoming. Neither is decisive for going further to "the project is unwelcoming as such." However, I also don't need think I need to prove "the project is unwelcoming as such" to justify "leaving because I do not feel welcome." That weaker, more superficial, more personal claim "that I felt unwelcome" is enough to justify a personal action. I didn't volunteer to do a community audit here! I just tried to help out and bounced off and wanted to say why as I bounce. I wanted to say why since the shortage of editors, esp. on the pages I was editing, seemed generally agreed to be a problem, and there I was becoming the problem.
I just don't like to ghost things. Since the normal communication patterns here were never well-explained to me as a newcomer and I hadn't made any personal connections I felt I could talk to individually about the issue, I just went with a message to the project. I do have a pretty thick skin in some ways, so though I anticipated the message would be mistakenly interpreted in ways that it was mistakenly interpreted, I also felt confident I could follow it up. RowanElder (talk) 12:39, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The issues discussed here are not unique to the Mathematics project or even to Wikipedia. Encouraging newcomers is a challenge in all social arenas, especially when some percentage of newcomers are in fact vandals or only interested self-promotion. We can only try harder. Johnjbarton (talk) 15:20, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, they're certainly not unique and it is always a challenge to be welcoming. Trying harder, smarter, and more wisely are all possible paths forward, and I hope that my speaking up can help those aiming to try harder, smarter, and/or more wisely. RowanElder (talk) 15:29, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've now said as much as I intend to here. This was a negative experience for me but I hope that it can be instructive and that things might change. I do not plan to continue replying to future replies unless one is surprisingly insightful. RowanElder (talk) 01:47, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Some experienced eyes might be useful here. A professor has been trying to add a reference to a review he has written with five other top-flight authors (including Trevor Hastie), and has been getting quite a bumpy ride. Jheald (talk) 10:47, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have just recently created Sharpness (cutting), with the current focus being on sharpness occurring in nature (sharpness of stones, thorns, teeth, claws, horns, etc.). Is there such a thing as a mathematical definition or theory of sharpness that should be included? I would note that one article that I cited says: "an objective, dimensionless blade sharpness index BSI that relates the energy WCI (Nm) necessary to initiate a cut to the product of cut initiation depth CI (m), thickness x (m) and fracture toughness J (J/m2) of the testing material BSI = WCI/CI•x•J where BSI = 0 indicates a blade with ideal sharpness, and an increase in BSI can be interpreted as decreasing sharpness". I don't know what that means. BD2412T01:11, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A new class of shapes has recently been published. They are called soft cells - where I've made brief start at an article. I don't have much time to dedicate to this at the moment, but I think it warrants some attention if anyone is interested. Tayste (edits)22:54, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The redirect Isometry (mathematics) has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 October 9 § Isometry (mathematics) until a consensus is reached. This discussion would particularly benefit from contributions from those familiar with the subject. Thryduulf (talk) 10:36, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
much better than in the Torture Test.
![{\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}\varpi &=[2,1,1,1,1,1,4,1,2,\ldots ],\\[8mu]2\varpi &=[5,4,10,2,1,2,3,29,\ldots ],\\[5mu]{\frac {\varpi }{2}}&=[1,3,4,1,1,1,5,2,\ldots ],\\[2mu]{\frac {\varpi }{\pi }}&=[0,1,5,21,3,4,14,\ldots ].\end{aligned}}}](https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/media/math/render/svg/77b83715e21dc69253b7047b2045b6e482802fdd)
