User talk:David Eppstein/2018d

Your removal of my additions to Scott Aaronson's page

Hi David, Thank you for trying to keep wikipedia as true as can be. Unfortunately you removed truthful content. Please contact Scott Aaronson if you have any questions regarding our correspondence.

Scott's Contact Info: Scott Aaronson Computer Science Department, Gates Dell Complex 2317 Speedway University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX 78712

Sincerely, ++ Jason Michael Blind

Jason Michael Blind President, Owner, Founder, Manager MRG Labs LLC Costa Mesa, CA 92627-2022 909.489.9150 mrg.labs.llc@gmail.com jasonblind@gmail.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jasonblind (talk • contribs) 22:59, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

"Fruitful" is not the standard for adding content to Wikipedia, especially not on biographies of living people. And your claim to have corresponded with Aaronson appears to have no significance to his biography. Frankly, it looks like spam, intended to promote your self-published books. See also Wikipedia's policies on conflicts of interest, which among other things requires all conflicts to be explicitly declared. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:23, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Donating copyright materials

Hello. I was visiting Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stefan Schaal when I noticed that you said here that by copying material into Wikipedia, the webpage owner has in effect given us permission to use the content. That's not correct, because we have no evidence that the person who added it is the copyright holder, and even if we did, we need proof that they are releasing it under a compatible license. The webpage is marked as "Copyrights 2018 Stefan Schaal". An OTRS ticket is required. There's more information on this topic at WP:Donating copyrighted materials. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 20:43, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

The terms and conditions of editing Wikipedia are that if you add content (that is original to you), you are automatically releasing what you add under a compatible license. So the only question is whether the Sschaal who edited our article is the same as the Stefan Schaal whose website it is. Do you have serious reason to doubt this? —David Eppstein (talk) 21:12, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

What I believe is immaterial; we need to have documentation in place that shows the copyright holder has given permission for the material to be copied to this website. Our rules don't allow us to assume that the copyright webpage is now released under a compatible license because someone copied it here. Which license? Is it now CC-by-SA 3.0? CC-by 4.0 International? or public domain? or some other compatible license? That's the reason the OTRS ticket system was created: it serves as a way for people to prove they are who they say they are, and to tell us which license they are releasing the material under. There are several different compatible licenses, which are listed here. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 23:17, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Over on the AfD, Bbb23 suggests that the copying went the other direction. That seems likely to me; the domain registry for the web site is dated July 2018 and the earliest (deleted) versions of the article here with similar text are dated 2012. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:25, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, I know, he asked me to double check his work. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 23:28, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Help with lead section of WP article

Hi David, you edited the WP article of MDPI in the past and currently, the article contains misinformation in the lead section that is not in line with WP’s guidelines for creating a MOS:LEAD. As I understand, this section should give emphasis to material that reflects its importance to the topic. As I am an employee of MDPI, I was asked by other editors not to make changes directly to the article but post on the Talk:MDPI page. However, so far there have been no comment to the following change proposals. Can I ask for your help or advice?

1) The Beall issue still features prominently in the lead section, despite the fact that MDPI had nothing to do with Beall’s decision to take down his list. MDPI was added end 2014 and, after we contacted him, removed shortly thereafter in 2015. We had no reason to spend time and effort to get his list taken down years after he had removed MDPI for the list. Another open access publisher may have been in contact with his university, but I do not know the details: https://forbetterscience.com/2017/09/18/frontiers-vanquishers-of-beall-publishers-of-bunk/ Therefore, I would suggest that the Beall issue is either discussed in the main body (removed from the lead section), or that after the sentence “Beall later wrote that he had been pressured to shut down the list due to pressure on his institution from various publishers, specifically mentioning MDPI", the sentence is added: "Beall’s supervisor and institution both refuted Beall's claims that there had been any pressure to take down his list", referring to the following source where Beall's former supervisor, Shea Swauger, clarifies that "CU Denver disagrees with Jeffrey Beall’s assertion that he was pressured by the university to take down his website, scholaryoa.com, earlier this year": https://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/article/view/16837/18435.

2) The information in the lead section on the data breach is very misleading, as the e-mail addresses and contact information of authors, editors and board members are publicly available on the MDPI.com website (the e-mail addresses of authors are accessible on the article page, as well as those of editors and editorial board members). We also publish the names of reviewers regularly in the journal. The lead section in its current form gives the impression that sensitive data was stolen and that this is a key issue for MDPI. A lead section should highlight the most important information about a subject. This is simply not the case – a weak source was used to add negative information, without the subject even being discussed in the body of the article. Therefore, I suggest to remove the data breach information from the lead, and move it to a separate section and adding the sentence: "No data of a sensitive nature was impacted and the contact information of authors, editors and board members are made publicly available on the MDPI website per default", referring to the following source: https://haveibeenpwned.com/PwnedWebsites

I am really struggling with the fact that WP is trusted as a source but, at present, contains misinformation. Any help or advice you can provide is much appreciated.ErskineCer (talk) 07:44, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Quasi-academic notability

Working through the WIR list of rejected AfC drafts, I came across Draft:Sue Mi Terry, which I rewrote to show a pass of WP:SCHOLAR#C7 as a widely-quoted expert. But I'm not sure if a think tank fellow with a government background, even with a PhD and some time doing university teaching/research, qualifies for WP:SCHOLAR notability criteria, and I didn't see any specific discussion of this issue on the Talk archives for the academic notability guidelines, so I thought I'd ask you: is WP:SCHOLAR#C7 the way to go here? Any help appreciated, and apologies if this is the wrong way to go about it. Bakazaka (talk) 18:45, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

There are certain schools where, if you eat at the faculty club, you might qualify as a queasy academic. EEng 18:47, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

@EEng: I found an article on a queso academic for you, at that other institution down the road. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:38, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Good one. EEng 22:00, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

@Bakazaka: I very rarely see #C7 attempted. But it does look like a pretty strong case, especially with major international sources two of which refer to her in the title. In contrast the case for the most commonly used criterion, #C1, seems weak, as her citation counts on Google scholar are not particularly high (unsurprising for this topic). I am confused about something regarding Terry that maybe you can clear up: she is listed on the publisher page and by Google books as an author of the book "Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia: The Tragedy of Longevity" (1992), but that book lists only Derek Hopwood as an author on its cover. What is her connection to the book? If she is a book author with multiple published book reviews (not yet established), WP:AUTHOR might be possible as another notability criterion. (Not that a second one is actually needed but two makes an article more defensible than one.) —David Eppstein (talk) 19:13, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

My impression is that the book credit is a metadata error of some sort that has been replicated. Worldcat only credits Hopwood, the book's own copyright and LC page only credits Hopwood, Terry's profiles do not seem to claim it (they probably would if she was involved), and the timing of the publication coincides with Terry's undergraduate years at NYU (not Hopwood's Oxford, and he claims no visiting position at NYU that I can tell), all adding up to the likelihood of an error somewhere. WP:SCHOLAR#C7 it is, then. Many thanks for taking a look. Bakazaka (talk) 20:04, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

DYK for Evgenia Arbugaeva

On 11 October 2018, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Evgenia Arbugaeva, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that photographer Evgenia Arbugaeva won the trust of a Siberian mammoth-tusk hunter by stitching up his injured hand? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Evgenia Arbugaeva. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Evgenia Arbugaeva), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Alex Shih (talk) 00:01, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Apology

Apologies for this edit; I just bumped the wrong button with my mouse. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 06:20, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

It happens to all of us. Thanks for the explanation. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:44, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

"Bumped the wrong button with my mouse"? I smell a rat, Good Olfactory. EEng 13:22, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Ooo, two puns at once – very good. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 21:37, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

If only I could find a way to monetize it. EEng 22:19, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Get ready for November with Women in Red!

		Three new topics for WiR's online editathons in November, two of them supporting other initiatives New: Religion Deceased politicians Asia Continuing: #1day1woman Global Initiative
		Latest headlines, news, and views on the Women in Red talkpage (Join the conversation!): WikiProject AfroCine launches (To subscribe: Women in Red/English language mailing list and Women in Red/international list. Unsubscribe: Women in Red/Opt-out list)

--Megalibrarygirl (talk) 18:40, 14 October 2018 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Giuseppina Masotti Biggiogero

I just finished writing her biography, but I am totally confused about the mathematics referencing. Fairly sure my translation from Italian was accurate, but not how that relates to field-specific language and concepts. Would greatly appreciate your review to see if I muddled it too badly. Unfortunately, the only biography in English is inaccessible to me, but I noted it for further reading. Thank you. SusunW (talk) 21:01, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Sure, I'll take a look. For a start, I strongly suspect that the "maximal under inclusions" phrase in the Italian is more or less the same as "irreducible" in English. I'm not sure about "beam-arrays"; maybe it's something related to tangent bundles? "Fasci" definitely should be "bundles" rather than "arrays" but I'm not sure what kind of bundle "fasci-schiere" is. Maybe just "bundles". —David Eppstein (talk) 22:03, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. Anything you can do will help. Ipigott may be able to come up with language equivalents, if needed. It is so much harder when one is dealing with field-specific technical terms. Her notability to me was clear, but talking about her career is above my skill. SusunW (talk) 00:10, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

It doesn't help that the technical terminology of algebraic geometry in English has changed significantly between then and now, to the point where we have an article whose purpose is to translate from one to the other: Glossary of classical algebraic geometry. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:31, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Oh good grief! Yet another reason that those who say "with proper sourcing anyone can write about anything" are mistaken. Far too technical for me, but at least we now have an article and hopefully at some point, someone with interest in her will do for Biggiogero what she did for Agnesi. Again, I appreciate your help. SusunW (talk) 00:40, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Template:Did you know nominations/Ptolemy I Soter

David Eppstein, there has finally been a response to your DYK review here. Please return when you get a chance to see whether the issues you raised have all been addressed. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:30, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Amendment on Ptolemy's theorem

Dear David Eppstein

I have made amendments on Ptolemy's theorem in wiki. My reference come from American Mathematical Monthly 1951 Volume 58, Issue 4 Normal Trigrade and Cyclic Quadrilateral with Integral Sides and Diagonals

Please check and don't revert my amendment again. I am sure that my amendment is correct. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Twhung (talk • contribs) 05:49, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

You obtained a quadrilateral with two consecutive sides 4 and 8 and with the diagonal connecting the endpoints of those sides having length 13, from jstor:2306960? Where, in that paper? And you did notice footnote 4 of that paper, which contradicts the change you have been attempting to make? You can't just make up six numbers for the sides and diagonal and pretend that they form a quadrilateral. One of the six numbers will be determined from the other five, and will be different than the numbers in your supposed examples. The theorem and its converse are about actual quadrilaterals, not about made-up 6-tuples of numbers. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:57, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out my mistakes. The converse of Ptolemy's theorem is always true. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Twhung (talk • contribs) 07:08, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

The power of advertising

Log view

I don't know what this [1] has done for DriveTime (campaign launched March 7 [2]) but it's done wonders for Carmichael's conjecture and, to a lesser extent, for the Carmichael_function. (Use the log view.) EEng 05:32, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

Impressive! Of course, when you start so near zero, anything is up... —David Eppstein (talk) 06:10, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

Interesting to think that enough people were able to spell totient, or Google was able to make sense of whatever they did type, to actually get to the article. Though of course Google is fucking amazing, and see [3]. And here's a weirdness: Googling gunter zoloft wiki still gets you to https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Carmichael%27s_totient_function_conjecture -- at least it did for me [4]; that's scary. EEng 06:41, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

Second hit for me after Günter Lumer and before Zoloft. I wonder what kind of data mining they're doing to accomplish that. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:46, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

Attention on Twitter

David - we have a guy doing 6D modelling and creating a picture of the Consani-S Quintic just for "your" article at #wikiwomeninred Victuallers (talk) 19:23, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Neat, thanks. I should figure out whether it warrants its own separate article, but at least the image can be added to Consani's article when it's ready. Never mind, I see it has already been added. Again, thanks! —David Eppstein (talk) 20:10, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

An update: Consani–Scholten quintic (Caterina Consani) and Monotonicity of entropy (Shiri Artstein) are still on my list of target articles to create, but I started with one a little closer to my expertise, Garsia–Wachs algorithm (Michelle L. Wachs). —David Eppstein (talk) 00:52, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

RE: ALEKS

Concerning your recent revert of my edit, I understand and claim responsibility for the broken links. Aside from that though, does WP:HARV not also indicate that <ref> tags should not be used in an article which uses Harvard/parenthetical referencing? dross (c · @) 18:07, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

The citation style in that article is to have a footnotes section with short references (as generated by e.g. {{sfnp}}) and then a longer references section with the full references. I guess this is the style described in WP:CITESHORT rather than the one in WP:HARV; sorry for the wrong link. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:17, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Nomination of List of invited speakers at cryptology conferences for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article List of invited speakers at cryptology conferences is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of invited speakers at cryptology conferences until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. BenKuykendall (talk) 21:51, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

3rr violation

Your recent editing history shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war. To resolve the content dispute, please do not revert or change the edits of others when you are reverted. Instead of reverting, please use the talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. The best practice at this stage is to discuss, not edit-war. See BRD for how this is done. If discussions reach an impasse, you can then post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection.

Being involved in an edit war can result in your being blocked from editing—especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring—even if you don't violate the three-revert rule—should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Runawayangel (talk • contribs)

For context: Runawayangel is adding bad (stale, wrong version) archive links to Raquel Prado (for references that are not in any need of replacement with archives) and restores the edits rather than properly discussing them when reverted. This is merely a tit-for-tat template in retaliation for the one they erased from their own talk page. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:12, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

You told me IABot was malfunctioning and then reverted for the third time without even letting me check to see if it was indeed malfunctioning. It seems you're the one at war here. Runawayangel (talk) 22:15, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

I didn't tell you the bot was malfunctioning. I told you that YOU personally were not checking that the archive links you were adding were actually archives of the pages linked from the article. You should be doing this yourself, not trusting a bot to do it, but I don't think even that would have been a good idea. To put it more clearly (here, rather than on your talk, since you're clearly going to erase anything there):

• Adding archive links to already-dead links on article references: a good thing. But it should be done by hand-checking the archive dates available and finding the link that best represents the sourced information from the reference, not just blindly by a bot.
• Telling the archive that the current version of a page should be archived, because we're using it as a reference: also a good thing.
• Pre-determining, at some time before a link goes bad, which archive version is the one that should be used if the link ever goes bad: Not good, because you don't have the information about future versions that you would need to make the decision correctly. Also not good because all that extra parameter junk in the citation template makes it hard for human editors to understand and edit, so you're locking it into a "only bots can edit this" state. Also not good because it adds extra the "archived" links to what readers see, on top of the existing links, making it more confusing for readers to read and use the references. And on top of all that, a violation of WP:CITEVAR, which says not to change citation format (archiving all links is a change of format) without seeking consensus first. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:36, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
• Blindly pre-determining, by bot, which archive version to use, without hand-checking: worse.
• Doing all of the above and getting the version wrong by automatically linking archived versions that have stale and inaccurate information (what you were doing): even worse than that.
• Digging in your heels and templating people because they have the nerve to tell you that the efforts you are making are worsening rather than improving the encyclopedia: icing on the cake of badness.

—David Eppstein (talk) 22:24, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Ward Smith

There are myriad problems with that article. Web search on subject yields nothing. AfD is likely.--Galassi (talk) 22:35, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

I agree that notability is marginal, and that the article (Gene Ward Smith) in its present state looks unlikely to survive an AfD. But your edit-warring to create a greater appearance of non-notability before deciding that point via AfD is not helpful. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:37, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

@Galassi: PS, your COI tag is just bizarre. Which contributor are you accusing of having a COI, and why? —David Eppstein (talk) 22:39, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Beefman and Boethiuswiki.--Galassi (talk) 22:41, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

It is also ref'd to usenet! Unbeliavable.--Galassi (talk) 22:42, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Unsurprising, given that GWS was usenet-famous and that the 2006 creation of the article was back when standards were much looser here. Also, Boethiuswiki hasn't contributed to the article or anything else here for 12 years. And Beefman also hasn't contributed to the article for 8 years, and has a user page claiming a real name that is unrelated to Smith's, and Boethius has a talk page comment addressed to them by Smith suggesting that, again, they're someone else. What is your evidence for their COI? If you had answered Gene Ward Smith that would make more sense, but he is not a major contributor and again hasn't touched the article for 8 years. What does throwing a COI tag on it now accomplish other than to make yourself feel better by making an article you dislike become uglier? —David Eppstein (talk) 01:19, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

PPS Galassi you are making it even more difficult to take your edits in good faith when you strip the article of all its sources and then tag it as unsourced. It's reminding me of the story of the double-murderer who pleaded for clemency because he was now an orphan. Please justify yourself. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:25, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

DYK for Isosceles triangle

On 1 November 2018, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Isosceles triangle, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that decorative patterns using isosceles triangles date back to the Early Neolithic? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Isosceles triangle. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Isosceles triangle), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Alex Shih (talk) 00:02, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Wiki page for Graciela Chichilnisky

David, The infomation contained here, http://www.wikicu.com/Graciela_Chichilnisky , dated 26 October 2008, is correct, the information contained in Gracielas Wikipedia litigation section is not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RobNYC (talk • contribs) 20:57, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

We can only work with what published reliable sources say; see Wikipedia's policy on reliable sources, its policy on biographies of living people, and its policy on verifiability, all of which say more or less the same thing in this regard. Especially in cases of contentious litigation, open wikis and sources directly connected to the subjects cannot be assumed to be reliable and unbiased. To put it bluntly, we are more concerned with following what the sources say than with getting the truth accurate ourselves; see this essay. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:15, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Citation bot issues

Hi David, Thanks for your comment at the Citation bot page ([5]). While we differ somewhat in regard to when exactly the publisher info can be removed (I think the consensus is that it should only be suppressed when it is identical to the journal name - and IMHO technically this should ideally happen in the citation template, not by not specifying the parameter, so that the meta data remains intact), but there are different styles, needs and opinions (and WP:CITEVAR), and I therefore completely agree with your main point that this is nothing that should be systematically combed one way and removed by a bot. I share your concern and it is my observation that some users are using the bot as an "excuse" to enforce a certain style they prefer (I have even seen one editor edit-warring over it). (I don't know why but I remember having run into questionable edits by this bot only since a couple of months.) The publisher issue has been reported several times recently (f.e. [6]), but the complaints were not taken seriously by the talk page maintainer, instead the threads were archived away as "no issue" even in the middle of unresolved and/or ongoing discussions. In addition to the publisher issue, the bot is also performing all kinds of other questionable changes (see talk) - to an extent that I don't think it is still adhering to WP:BOTPOL nor within the limits of the original tasks it was once approved for. (It also seems as if the bot can be used by users anonymously, but I have only read remarks about it, not checked it myself.) Several editors (including myself) have expressed their concerns about the damage created on the talk page recently to no avail. I am not the only one who has considered filing a thread at ANI to stop the bot and have all its questionable functionality removed, but I don't at present have the time for the overhead involved and would prefer not to report other editors there if avoidable. I would appreciate, however, if an admin could check and evaluate the bot's talk page and archives closely and take the actions found necessary. Thanks for your consideration. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 00:53, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

I also raised issues with this and was dismissed by a group of editors.[7] In addition to removing publisher information, accessible links were removed and paywalled dois inserted with the argument that the doi was a permanent location where the documents could be found. While that may be true, if the link is inaccessible, it helps no one. SusunW (talk) 17:33, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Plus someone needs to do something about Citationbot going around seducing other bots. EEng 17:38, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Hello

I apologize for leaving that test on my user sub page: it was a mistake that I regret. I apologize even more because I did not mean to have User:John Cline/Outhouse deleted. If I may beg an indulgence, and promise not to do it again, could I please have the page restored? I have a lot of man-hours of useful research stored in that page's history and I hope to find uses for it, for some time to come. Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 01:56, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Ok, it's back. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:45, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Thank you; I won't repeat my error. Best regards.--John Cline (talk) 02:56, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Hey prof

Can you please have a look at the recent edit on Wolfram axiom? The text that was removed was certainly clunky, but I can't judge its relevance. Thanks, and may your middle always be excluded, Drmies (talk) 18:44, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Ok, done. In general (as in much of the topics surrounding Wolfram) there was an issue of fans adding "Wolfram did this and Wolfram did that and Wolfram did the other thing", focusing on the person rather than the topic and downplaying the equal (in this case) or sometimes earlier contributions of other researchers. The edit you complained of seems to have been part of that pattern. So my edits were a more significant restructuring rather than just restoring the deleted text. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:37, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Is there any reason to call it the "Wolfram axiom"? The best source I could find giving it that name was MathWorld [8], which (a) is on a Wolfram domain and (b) isn't a great source for names anyway. I have the sneaky feeling that this is a case of Wikipedia driving terminology rather than following it. XOR'easter (talk) 19:52, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Maybe not, but do we have any candidate for a better name? —David Eppstein (talk) 20:00, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I wish I was called "Wolfram". It's incredibly cool. Thanks David. Drmies (talk) 21:56, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

But if you had to take on all the baggage the man has you wouldn't even think of it. Trust me. EEng 00:57, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Not quite as cool as one of my coauthors named "Flatland", but it's still pretty good. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:21, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

"Tungsten axiom"? XOR'easter (talk) 16:00, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

More seriously: If I were inventing a name for it, I'd probably go with something descriptive ("minimal axiom for Boolean algebra" or the like), because there are just too many names that are about equally involved. XOR'easter (talk) 16:03, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

I expanded the article with some more history, after which a new title seemed the best option. XOR'easter (talk) 15:03, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Anne Schilling

When you linked Anne Schilling at Rounding it went to a Desperate Housewives episode with a character of that name in it rather than the article about her! That must be some interesting link tool you use ;-) I've fixed it. Dmcq (talk) 15:11, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

OK, Eppstein, I'm looking forward to seeing how you explain this one [9]. EEng 15:47, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Schilling in a hat

Copy and paste error. I had that in my paste buffer because of having just used it to make a hat for Schilling, and then neglected to change it back or look at what I was doing. Thanks for catching it, anyway. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:31, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Ndash in page range

Thank you for fixing my recent edit at Semiorder. I usually generate {{cite...}} entries from my BiBTeX database by a Linux script, where it is easier to generate ASCII "–" than UNICODE "–" (btw: I used to generate "—" until I read your yesterday's edit message).

Since a few weeks, it appears the terminating semicolon ";" is changed to a comma "," inside a {{cite...}} and hence not rendered properly. For example (compare rendering and source code):

• "–" outside "{{cite...}}", but
• "Test Author. Test title. pp. 11–99. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)" inside "{{cite...}}".

I consider this a bug, but it is not worth debating with wikipedia programmers about it. I just wanted to explain the motivation for my edit. Best regards - Jochen Burghardt (talk) 10:16, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes, it is a known bug, fixed in the sandbox version of the citation templates, and fixed on articles once that sandbox version is released sometime this month. See Help talk:Citation Style 1#ndash entity in pages parameter. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:19, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

DYK for Chawne Kimber

On 15 November 2018, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Chawne Kimber, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that racist graffiti on mathematician Chawne Kimber's college campus, along with George Carlin's seven dirty words, inspired her to politicize her quilting? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Chawne Kimber. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Chawne Kimber), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Alex Shih (talk) 00:02, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

DYK for Joan L. Mitchell

On 16 November 2018, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Joan L. Mitchell, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that Joan L. Mitchell co-invented JPEG? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Joan L. Mitchell. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Joan L. Mitchell), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:02, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

ArbCom 2018 election voter message

Hello, David Eppstein. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

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ArbCom 2018 election voter message

Hello, David Eppstein. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

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Nomination of Nairanjana Dasgupta for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Nairanjana Dasgupta is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nairanjana Dasgupta until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Daiyusha (talk) 06:49, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Please check edit to MOSNUM re math markup

[10] EEng 03:01, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Looks generally ok to me. DV is a reliable mathematics editor. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:10, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Help with a merge

Hi, David - would you please take a look at the merge tag on Jerry Frankel and perform the merge? We would like to start prepping that article for DYK but can’t until the bugs are fixed. Thanks in advance...^{Atsme✍🏻📧} 15:20, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

 Done. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:56, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Amazing - I watched the sequence. 🤯 Thank you!! 🤗 ^{Atsme✍🏻📧} 16:58, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

December 2018 at Women in Red

		The WiR December editathons provide something for everyone. New: Photography Laureates Countries beginning with 'I' Continuing: #1day1woman Global Initiative
		Latest headlines, news, and views on the Women in Red talkpage (Join the conversation!): BBC 100 Women 2018 (To subscribe: Women in Red/English language mailing list and Women in Red/international list. Unsubscribe: Women in Red/Opt-out list) --Rosiestep (talk) 13:55, 27 November 2018 (UTC) via MassMessaging

A barnstar for you!

	The Technical Barnstar
	You never fail to impress! Thank you so much for solving the Jerry Frankel puzzle. Wikipedians are lucky to have you, whether they realize it or not. I think most do. Atsme✍🏻📧 02:38, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! —David Eppstein (talk) 02:44, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

“Source is so badly written”

...he claims while it’s no worse than “Fez’s” mediocre “source” right next to it. How about this, since they’re both equal they may as well be treated as such. You can keep both or get rid of both, since the information provided is identical. Don’t enforce corruption. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Theroux721 (talk • contribs) 10:06, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

WP:WAX. Also, re your edit summaries accusing me of being immature and hostile: setting aside the ineffectiveness of this sort of rhetoric as a means of persuading people to your point of view, these are not exactly aligned with WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:39, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Inadvertent edit

My apologies for this edit, which inadvertently removed content from the article for Fei-Fei Li and my thanks for taking the time and effort to reinsert the material I had intended to add to what was an old version of the article. Again, my apologies for creating the issue in the first place. Alansohn (talk) 16:20, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying what happened. It's cleaned up now, so all good. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:54, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Changes to the 'Maze solving algorithm' site [11] May I ask why my edit was unsuitable. I am a relatively inexperienced user and wonder what the issue is? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Blamethemessenger (talk • contribs) 19:59, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Because it was completely off-topic (about politics, not about maze solving algorithms), expressed a political opinion written as if it were fact, and was completely lacking in reliable sources? What about that made you think it was suitable material for an encyclopedia? And you've been contributing here for 4 1/2 years now — that doesn't sound especially inexperienced to me. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:03, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Following Wikipedia Guidelines

David Eppstein I have asked you repeatedly to please discuss the improvements we are working on in the talk page of the Ruggero Santilli article before you go and start reverting edits again. Please respect the guidelines of Wikipedia and your fellow editors. The BLP in question stated the subjects son is currently the CEO of the company and that his wife and daughter are both directors and the family controls all voting stock of the company. That is no longer true, meaning it is false. I deleted all of it then you reverted my edit. I reverted your edit and JzG then reverted it back to your edit.

In an attempt to make an amical resolution (as I detailed in talk section of the page I encourage you to visit), since you and JzG insist that inaccurate material information about the stock of publicly traded company remain in public view, I suggested I add the accurate current information from SEC filings which contradicts the inaccurate disinformation. And then you reverted that! asking “are we really here to breathlessly repeat a blow-by-blow description of all their stock shenanigans?” No I first tried to delete all that stock talk and you refused to allow the edit.

I think this is why it is important that you participate in the dialogue on the talk section as I have been requesting before reverting. Please, lets discuss it on the talk page before reverting comments. ThanksDCsghost (talk) 06:02, 7 December 2018 (UTC)DCsghost

You are very longwinded and persistent in defending your edits and running down anyone who disagrees with them, but also inaccurate. The part that I reverted most recently, with the edit summary that you quote, had nothing direct to do with which Santillis are currently running the company. It was uninteresting trivia about converting one kind of stock to another, not relevant to a biography of Santilli. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:13, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

David in this instance I am being persistent in preventing Wikipedia from disseminating materially inaccurate (which means false) information about a publicly traded company.

The explanation you just provided to why you reverted my inclusion of materially relevant (and current, and accurate) information (a change in ownership resulting in a change of control of a publicly traded company is deemed by the United States Securities Commission as material information) was that it “had nothing direct to do with which Santillis are currently running the company.”, when in fact the recent elimination of the super-majority Preferred A shares (previously giving the Santilli family 100% control of all voting matters) has absolutely everything to do with who controls and runs the company.

If who runs and controls the stock of Magnegas is irrelevant or “trivial” as you now protest, then why did you insist on reverting my previous edit where I removed all mention of the controlling Preferred A series stock, originally added by jytdog, from the article? Something is not adding up here David. Can I ask if you are editing in good faith? DCsghost (talk) 15:42, 7 December 2018 (UTC)DCsghost

Unsurprisingly, DCsghost turned out to be a Santilli sock, one of a huge list of them on Talk:Ruggero Santilli. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:19, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Help w/ Vandalism and Locking of Ariat Page

Hello David - I'm the head of IT for Ariat International and it was brought to my attention this morning at the page for our company (https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Ariat) was vandalized early this morning by an anonymous user. I have created an account and reverted those changes, but I'm hoping you can help me in locking our page to require that an editor be registered before editing our page.

Thanks in advance Ariat-rbezenek (talk) 18:56, 7 December 2018 (UTC)Ryan Bezenek

I'll keep an eye on it, but a single incident of vandalism isn't usually enough to justify page protection. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:00, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

There's no escape

	Happy Holidays!
	Wishing you much joy & happiness now and every year!! Merry Christmas - Happy Hanukkah‼️ When does New Year’s Day come before Christmas Day? Every year! What do you call a bankrupt Santa? Saint Nickel-less. 🔔🎁⛄️🎅🏻Atsme✍🏻📧 20:28, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! The day order one particularly amused me. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:57, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Reverse perspective

Dear David, You were right to delete my addition of Patrick Hughes's work from the article on Reverse perspective. Thanks! I was misled by a link on that article for "reverspective" to Reverse perspective. I deleted that link.Robert P. O'Shea (talk) 05:41, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Partitions

Thanks for this -- it's much better split. --JBL (talk) 15:38, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

You're welcome! —David Eppstein (talk) 18:28, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

January 2019 at Women in Red

January 2019, Volume 5, Issue 1, Numbers 104-108 Happy New Year from Women in Red! Please join us for these virtual editathons. January events: Women of War and Peace Play! January geofocus: Caucasus New, year-long initiative: Suffrage Continuing global initiative: #1day1woman2019 Help us plan our future events: Ideas Cafe To subscribe: Women in Red/English language mailing list and Women in Red/international list Unsubscribe: Women in Red/Opt-out list Image attribution: Nevit Dilmen (CC BY-SA 3.0) --Rosiestep (talk) 17:40, 21 December 2018 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Happy holidays!

Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2019!

Hello David Eppstein, may you be surrounded by peace, success and happiness on this seasonal occasion. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Sending you a heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New Year 2019. Happy editing, Dreamy Jazz 🎷 talk to me | my contributions 21:36, 23 December 2018 (UTC) Spread the love by adding {{subst:Seasonal Greetings}} to other user talk pages.

Thank you! —David Eppstein (talk) 07:10, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

A Shaker greeting

	A Shaker Christmas wish
	Give good gifts, one to another Peace, joy and comfort gladly bestow Harbor no ill 'gainst sister or brother Smooth life's journey as you onward go. Broad as the sunshine, free as the showers. So shed an influence blessing to prove; Give for the noblest of efforts your pow'rs; Blest and be blest, is the law of love.

Happy editing into 2019 and beyond! --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 06:33, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Thank you! And the best of the season to you, too. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:10, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Jason Steinhauer's page

You recently undid a deletion prod on https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Jason_Steinhauer, explaining that it is only allowed to prod once. That makes sense, and thanks for that. The page linked is self-promotion, with all of the content coming from the subject of the page (meaning both that the subject of the page is the one who created and drafted all of the content on the page and that virtually all of the linked content is also drafted by the subject of the page elsewhere). The prior prod was removed by the subject of the page, without explanation. Is there a procedure for evaluating whether a page is self-promoting advertisement? Presumably, self-promoting advertisers can always delete prods without comment... Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:42:1:3950:FD5B:8C44:9D84:FBD4 (talk) 16:27, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Once a prod has failed, the way to get an article deleted is WP:AFD. However, any nomination for deletion should be based on the merits of the article itself rather than your beliefs about the identity or intent of the article creators; see WP:OUTING, WP:AGF, and WP:ADHOMINEM. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:18, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:42:1:3950:FD5B:8C44:9D84:FBD4 (talk) 17:24, 28 December 2018 (UTC)