Talk:Finite subdivision rule/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: SnowFire (talk · contribs) 07:46, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

Warning: I've only done other 1 GA review before, but since the backlog on this article seemed ridiculous (3 months?!) and I was going to nominate an obscura topic myself soon, I figured I might as well give it a go, someone needs to volunteer eventually. I only have a Bachelor's in Math which really does not make me qualified to understand what is going on here entirely, which is a problem IMHO, but I'm not sure you'll be able to FIND someone else in the field, considering that you seem to be citing yourself (well, assuming the Brian Rushton in the papers is the same as the user here). So - I'll give it a go.

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose, no copyvios, spelling and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
This is the biggest concern. The short version is, while much of the article by its very nature is going to soar over the heads of laymen (like "Rigorous Definition"), I feel it can still be a little "friendlier." This is vague and I'll understand if it can't be helped much. The images are great, at least, as this is a topic that really requires them. Still, while there's something to be said for the succinct, powerful form of mathematical statements, it doesn't hurt to try and explain it afterward. The article does that a little with the examples, but the examples are also a bit opaque at the moment. A few specific lines:

"The pictures are distorted by circle packing." Huh? Circle packing is where you intentionally try and jam lots of circles into an area. What's this have to do with image distortion? Can you connect the dots here?
"In each case, we can the first tile type to be our subdivision complex X. Then we get cell structures that are more and more refined, for the trefoil complement:" - We "call" the first type I presume? And can you link what you mean by "trefoil complement?" (either to something on Wikipedia or to wiktionary)
"And the Borromean rings complements' subdivision rule:" - And what? This sentence doesn't seem to follow. "The Borromean rings complement is below?"
" (see section 3.4 of [6]) " - Can you spin this off into a separate footnote? You can cite the same source twice and give the section here. e.g. something like "Cannon 2000, Section 3.4".
"Applications in other areas" - This is a neat section, and accessible - is there anything more to be said here? Even another sentence to connect the dots wouldn't hurt. Also, "related to" is really weak. Can you say something stronger? e.g. "Islamic Girih tiles can be modeled via finite subdivisions"?

These are great comments; I've gone through and made all the specific changes you mentioned, and tried to add more explanation in several areas, especially the knot complement examples. I expanded and reorganized the applications section, too.

It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
OR is a mild concern since Master's Theses / PhD theses that are unpublished are usually considered a little on the shaky side for references? That said, whatever, it's a minor nitpick especially since you clearly HAVE published in some journals and cite them there. The bigger issue is your PhD thesis - has it been published in a journal, or is it online? If it's an offline, unpublished source, that's technically not meeting WP:V since nobody else can check it. Can you at least add a link to it in the references?

I've removed all references to unpublished material and to an old web-page. I agree that it's better for people to be able to verify the material in the references themselves.

It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
I can't accurately assess your coverage here because this is such a specific topic and is mostly written for mathematicians. That said, the fact it's being written by someone in the field means it's probably okay.
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Nice pictures! Except... "Here we start with a complex made of four squares and subdivide it twice." Those are not squares! ...right? Should that be "quadrilaterals"?

Fixed! I deleted a few images, added more, and tried to make a `multi-image'. I'm concerned that the pictures are too sloppy, so if you have any advice, lay it on me.

Overall:
Pass/Fail:
If you can improve the prose up some, I'd be pretty happy about giving a pass.

A few side questions of my own:

Is the identity a subdivision rule? Just return the shape itself over and over?

Yes, that's the simplest subdivision rule.

What about infinite subdivisions? Is this even a sensible question to ask? What if I took the binary subdivision rule on a square, except the bottom right square is chopped into countable-infinity horizontal "slices" of epsilon height, and iterated on that? (So the bottom right of the 3 other squares will become a gradient, and there are now 9 subsquares, etc.) Does this exist, or is it equivalent to something else, or am I just talking gibberish?

That actually sounds useful, but because it's such a new area, noone's gotten around to it yet. It's completely well-defined, and pretty weird. I guess you could also subdivided infinite dimensional things like the Hilbert cube.

Borromean rings illustrations: I half wonder if you shouldn't use {{Multiple image}} here rather than have it in the right sidebar. I suppose it's a side note, but it'd be easier to follow the process. Except first, maybe I'm missing something... why is C depicted as a square? Every iteration marked with C is actually a triangle, and it's clear you just end up with something that looks like the A-division except with different letters. I get that the arrow direction is important, but why not use a simple equilateral triangle as the example? SnowFire (talk) 07:46, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I deleted it because it was a bad example. I drew the C tiles as squares because they are technically quadrilaterals (one of the edges has an extra midpoint). If you think the article needs an example like that one still, I'll replace it with a new one, but I think it looks better without it.

Okay, looks good to me. Just as a warning: I fully expect that some later person might complain that the article is written in too technical a style. That said, I feel confident that you know what you're talking about, and being accurate is more important than being accessible, so I still think it's a pass. Nice work, I wish more grad students dropped their knowledge off for everyone on Wikipedia. SnowFire (talk) 04:56, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]