Write a new message. I will reply on this page, under your post.

---

Archive: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

---

Contents 1 Gauss–Newton algorithm 2 hi 3 Square root of sum of squares? 4 Mathbot missing? 5 Typoes in Mathbot's edit summaries 6 Gandalf's antics 7 Nice exponential function graph! 8 Wikipedia's Expert Peer Review process (or lack of such) for Science related articles 9 Arbcom Elections 2008 10 WP 1.0 bot 11 RfD nomination of Manual of Style (mathematics) 12 Linear least squares 13 List of probability topics 14 Re: synergetics coordinates 15 Proposed changes to Template:RfA 16 Mahalanobis distance 17 WP 1,0bot webform is removed ? 18 Heat equation illustration 19 Wannabekate in RfA talk pages 20 2006 Rose Bowl logo 21 Is Log(x) analytic? 22 Image for nomination. 23 Progress? 24 Another bot needed? 25 Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Snells law wavefronts 26 AfD script 27 Deletion without AfD? 28 Riemann–Hilbert 29 Confused 30 Archived discussions link 31 Trees (structure) 32 Chicago and Illinois project stats 33 Typo redirect Barlow's Formula 34 I've disputed the factual accuracy of your work 35 various topics 36 Is the edit summary checker broken? 37 Photo-tagging? 38 triple torus 39 No current activity? 40 Peridynamics 41 Adjusting Mathbot for AfD 42 Kandidat nauk 43 Category:Topical indexes 44 Diophantus II.VIII 45 WP 1.0 bot 46 Probability metric (presently Lukaszyk-Karmowski metric) 47 Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Crimson timebomb 48 Inappropriate moving of article 49 WP 1.0 bot question 50 Happy Oleg Alexandrov's Day! 51 WP 1.0 bot: Categories 52 Threefolds? 53 Is there a name for this interative method of numerical integration? 54 Wikipedian of the Day 55 Re: Andean Volcanic Belt 56 Move Diophantus II.VIII ? 57 Wikipedian of the Week 58 Template:Afd top 59 WP 1.0 bot blocking 60 "Social movement" 61 Diophantus II.VIII and Plimpton 322 62 Sorry about the mass links - can I get the codes back? 63 Mathbot inquiry 64 A proposed move that may (or may not) affect your bot 65 link to disambig page 66 POTD notification 67 Mail 68 More mail 69 File:220px-UCLA Bruin.jpg 70 Removing Category:Markov models 71 Comments subpages (Village pump discussion) 72 Talkback 73 Notice of a discussion which may concern you 74 NowCommons: File:Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery view to southeast.jpg 75 Question... 76 RE: Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Bristol articles by quality statistics

[edit] Gauss–Newton algorithm

I found R very useful. I would appreciate if you could improve the readability, but its nice to have a working computer example as a basis for coding. Please don't remove, but feel free to improve. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.165.95.64 (talk) 18:19, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a put-here-everything kind of thing. That code adds nothing at all really, it is not even a properly written algorithm, but more a "how I can reword this article from plain English and math to using R". You're very welcome to do that kind of exercise on the side, but it adds nothing to the article. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 20:05, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] hi

hi oleg. I am interested in non-linear differential equations. Is there a thread on this anywhere?

Bruce rout (talk) 22:43, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

We do not have threads for general discussion of topics. However, talk pages dedicated to improving an article or group of articles do exist. You might want to look at Talk:Nonlinear system. JRSpriggs (talk) 03:47, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Square root of sum of squares?

Hi Oleg,

I am trying to implement Gauss Newton, based on the Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauss%E2%80%93Newton_algorithm

and I thought that I should at least make sure that I can do the example. I used an Excel spread sheet to duplicate the algorithm given in the article. (It is amazing how poor the Excel math routines are!) In the example section, near the bottom, it says:

"The sum of squares of residuals decreased from the initial value of 1.202 to 0.0886 after the fifth iteration."

When I calculate the initial value for "sum of squares of residuals", I get 1.445497... I have to take the "square root" of that value to get the same number as stated in the article. (Then I get 1.202288.)

Is the article wrong, or am I wrong?

Thanks,

Mike --68.148.148.75 (talk) 20:15, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

You are right, in the code used to generate those numbers I was plotting the norm of the residual, so there was an extra square root. I fixed that now. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 08:56, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot missing?

I was trying to manually update the list of old open AfDs, and got an error stating that "The requested URL /~mathbot/cgi-bin/wp/afd/afd.cgi was not found on this server." Did something happen to Mathbot? ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 19:13, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Now it works. I guess the server was down. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:38, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Typoes in Mathbot's edit summaries

In Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Old, Mathbot says "There are 0 open discusions in 1 days". The word "discusion" should be "discussion" with the extra "s", and it should probably say "1 day" instead of "1 days". Graham87 16:03, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I modified the text to say

"There are 0 open discusion(s) in 1 day(s)"

Not perfect, but that's just a bot report page, could be good enough. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:30, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I completely forgot about this until I checked the what links here page for my username. Can you also fix the spelling error in the edit summary? "Discusions" should be "discussions", with two s's between the "u" and "i". The grammar is good enough now. Graham87 10:14, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

I should have read your message more carefully. I fixed the typo too. Thanks for noticing. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 18:48, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Gandalf's antics

Hi Oleg, user Gandalf found it fit to recommend my new article Ghosts of departed quantities for incorporation on the day it was created, and is now giving me a hard time at Uniform continuity based on a mathematical error. Could you please comment? Katzmik (talk) 10:07, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I see a pretty lively discussion at Talk:Uniform continuity. I hope it goes well. Usually, if you want input from other editors, you can try asking at WT:WPM. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:34, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Nice exponential function graph!

Hi. Excellent work with Image:Exp_series.gif! I feel it truly adds to the Taylor series article as it makes it much easier to understand. Keep up the good work! Greetings from Athens, Greece. --dionyziz (talk) 14:43, 30 October 2008 (UTC).

You're welcome. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:35, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia's Expert Peer Review process (or lack of such) for Science related articles

Hi - I posted the section with the same name on my talk page. Could you take part in discussion ? User: Shotwell suggested (on my talk page) "I would endorse a WP:EXPERTADVICE page that outlined the wikipedia policies and goals for researchers in a way that enticed them to edit here in an appropriate fashion. Perhaps a well-maintained list of expert editors with institutional affiliation would facilitate this sort of highly informal review process. I don't think anyone would object to a well-maintained list of highly-qualified researchers with institutional affiliation (but then again, everyone seems to object to something)." We could start with that if you would agree ... - could you help to push his idea through Wikipedia bureaucracy ? Cheers, Apovolot (talk) 15:47, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Arbcom Elections 2008

Good afternoon, Oleg. It's a slow day for me today, so I'm running through my checklist of Arbcom Election items for next month's voting. I know Mathbot has updated voting data for the last three elections, and I wanted to check and see if you planned to run it again this time around. If that's the case, is there any assistance I can provide in formatting vote pages / setting up templates / etc? Thanks in advance, UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 18:12, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I'll be happy to run the bot again. I hope the format is the same as last year, if not please let me know and I'll tweak the bot.

I am not that frequently on Wikipedia lately, so I'd appreciate a reminder say a day before the elections to get the bot set up. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:42, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Great! I've set up a sample voting page at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2008/Vote/Example, so you can double check the format there. It should match last year's fairly closely. The candidate statements page, where each statement is transcluded, should also end up being the same. Thanks again, I really appreciate the help! UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 14:39, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

You had asked for a reminder before voting opens - so Ping! The only changes to the voting page are two parserfunctions that add warning boxes before and after voting, to prevent early and late votes - everything else should match last year. Thanks again! UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 18:56, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WP 1.0 bot

I ran into a problem with the bot today. On the lists of articles, it was transcluding the comments subpages. If one of those pages trips the spam filter (because of a link that has been added to the filter after the comments were edited) then the bot is unable to save the list page. It would retry over and over and then die. I made the bot no longer transclude the comments as a workaround. I discussed the problem with some mediawiki devs on IRC and they don't have any better solution. Just keeping you up to date, — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:11, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:23, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] RfD nomination of Manual of Style (mathematics)

I have nominated Manual of Style (mathematics) (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) for discussion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at the discussion page. Thank you. MBisanz ^talk 04:06, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Linear least squares

I've replaced Image:Linear least squares2.png with one that had normally distributed errors instead of uniformly distributed ones. The fact that they were uniformly distributed just glared at you at looked ridiculous.

But there are problems with the size of the image. Is there a quick easy way to fix that? Michael Hardy (talk) 04:13, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

... and now I see that it looks OK on your talk page, but not in the linear least squares article. Michael Hardy (talk) 04:15, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

PS: Here's the adapted code:

---

  % Illustration of linear least squares. function main()      % KSmrq's colors    red    = [0.867 0.06 0.14];    blue   = [0, 129, 205]/256;    green  = [0, 200,  70]/256;    yellow = [254, 194,   0]/256;    white = 0.99*[1, 1, 1];    gray = 0.1*white;   % Set up the grid and other parameters    N = 100;    A = -2.2; B = 2;     X = linspace(A, B, N);    C=-4; D = 4;      % Set up the figure    lw = 5; % linewidth    lw2 = lw/2;    fs = 22; % font size    figure(1); clf; hold on;    set(gca, 'fontsize', fs);    set(gca, 'linewidth', lw2)    hold on; grid on;      % random numbers    s=0.16;    a = 1.2; b = 3; c = 1;    p = 1; q = 6.5; r = 1.3;    M = 50;    p = s*p; q = s*q; r = s*r;    XX=linspace(A, B, M+1);    YY = p+q*XX+r*XX.^2;        Xr = 0*(1:M);    Yr = Xr;    for i=1:M       rd=rand(1);       Xr(i) = XX(i)*rd+XX(i+1)*(1-rd);       Yr(i) = p+q*Xr(i)+r*Xr(i)^2 + erfinv(2*rand(1) - 1)    end      myrad = 0.05;    for i=1:length(Xr)       ball(Xr(i), Yr(i), myrad, red);    end     axis equal;       % least squares fitting    Yr = Yr';    Xr=Xr';    Mat = [(0*Xr+1) Xr Xr.^2];    V=Mat'*Yr;    V=(Mat'*Mat)\V;    pe = V(1); qe = V(2); re=V(3);        plot(X, pe+qe*X+re*X.^2, 'b', 'linewidth', lw);      grid on;    set(gca, 'GridLineStyle', '-', 'xcolor', gray);    set(gca, 'GridLineStyle', '-', 'ycolor', gray);    set(gca, 'XTick', [-2 -1 0 1 2]);    plot([-2 2], [3.5 3.5], 'linewidth', lw2, 'color', gray);      axis equal;    axis([-2, 2, -1.5, 3.5]);      saveas(gcf, 'Linear_least_squares2.eps', 'psc2'); % save as eps    %plot2svg('Linear_least_squares.svg'); % save as svg     function ball(x, y, r, color)    Theta=0:0.1:2*pi;    X=r*cos(Theta)+x;    Y=r*sin(Theta)+y;    H=fill(X, Y, color);    set(H, 'EdgeColor', 'none')  

---

Hi Michael. You'll need to convert the eps to png with more care, to make sure the picture is not pixelated. I removed your picture for now as it is not pretty (sorry). I'll try to fix it when I find time while following your request for normally distributed points. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:08, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

PS Please upload things to common rather than here, as now Image:Linear least squares2.png is both there and here and with two versions. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:08, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Continued towards the bottom. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 20:12, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

[edit] List of probability topics

Hi Oleg,

Less than two years after your initial greeting :) I have a question. A lot of articles are listed on Talk:List of probability topics#A: Articles missing from the List of probability topics. Do they just wait for anyone to insert them all to List of probability topics? (I could try.) Or should it be made selectively? Boris Tsirelson (talk) 09:52, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi Boris. My robot put them on the talk page, as suggestions for editors. You are of course very welcome to add to the list the articles which look appropriate. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:05, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 18:50, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Strangely, Large deviations theory did not appear in any one of the two lists. I add it anyway. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 19:43, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually it was on the talk page (search for it). Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:59, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Oops, you are right. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 07:01, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I got puzzled: why such pages as List of integration and measure theory topics, List of geometry topics etc are not served by your robot similarly to List of probability topics? Any comments please? Boris Tsirelson (talk) 19:57, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

That can be easily fixed. Take the line:

  [http://tools.wikimedia.de/~mathbot/cgi-bin/wp/lists/lists.pl.cgi?Talk:List_of_probability_topics Refresh the above lists]  

Paste it on the talk page of the desired list, at the top. Rename there Talk:List_of_probability_topics with the appropriate name for that list. And click on the link. The bot will hopefully create an initial project on that talk page. Follow the instructions and fill in the categories in the appropriate section. Again click on the link. The bot will most likely start suggesting articles.

It was not used in other pages because there need to be willing editors. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:08, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the robot works! Very nice. A lot of thanks. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 10:09, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re: synergetics coordinates

I forgot if I succeeded to explain these for you, and weeks or months ago the article was marked 'needs expert attention' (maybe because I removed 'expert' from my user page that already says I major in mathematics/algorithmics.) This was my new explanation:

Three axes are 3 dimensions, but synergetics axes are rays (only having '0' or positives) thus defining less than 3-dimensional Euclidean space. Three rays separated by 120° are R⁺∪0 and allow 'triangular' coordinates (ordered triples with elements '0' or positive.) They define Cartesian 2-space: any triangle (2-d simplex) or non-degenerate polygon can. Wolfram's Mathworld defines coordinate systems that use simplices as 'synergetics.' Equilateral triangle graph paper is a 2-d one.

---

Do you know any other geometry or undergraduate level math articles needing work?--Dchmelik (talk) 15:44, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Synergetics coordinates is as confusing as it ever was. About pages needing work, you can try taking a look at Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Mathematics. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:58, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I made a picture for the article: it should be clear now (the picture description just has the simplest explanation in the article, though it does not give info to start using them.)

The picture clarifies things somewhat. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:10, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Only somewhat? The pixels the vertices are on are all equal length apart... I guess that and the picture's name are not in the article yet, but studying the picture and putting an origin on any point shows what the coordinates are.

[edit] Proposed changes to Template:RfA

See Template_talk:RfA#Add_.22nomination.22_heading_to_the_top. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 03:18, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

This change is awaiting your "go ahead/hold off" before being made. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 21:39, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I replied there. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:32, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mahalanobis distance

Dear User.

You contributed to the Mahalanobis distance article. Some of its content lacks citations for verification, has been challenged and may be removed. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references.Calimo (talk) 10:24, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WP 1,0bot webform is removed ?

This webform is unavailable -- Tinu Cherian - 15:37, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

The server this runs on will be discontinued, apparently. After a few days apparently this will go to a new server. I hope Carl is keeping track of this. If the bot is still broken in a few days I'll take a look. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:30, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Ok. Thanks for the reply -- Tinu Cherian - 03:20, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

The bot is running on the new machine, but the web server is not configured correctly to set up the web form. Hopefully soon. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:16, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Is a new webform available now ? -- Tinu Cherian - 05:27, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Any update ? -- Tinu Cherian - 03:58, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, forgot about this. The new web form address is http://wp1en.kiwix.org/cgi-bin/wp/wp10/run_wp10.html Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:35, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Wow ! Thanks ...Sorry for nagging for this ...one of my bot tasks requires the unassessed categories should be clean . -- Tinu Cherian - 09:48, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Heat equation illustration

Hi Oleg, is the following description of the image at the right factually correct? What does the decline of the height at certain points codify? Just to be sure... Thanks, Jakob.scholbach (talk) 21:03, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, the decline in height means the body is getting colder. That is to be expected from a hot blob put into a big pool of cold water. Note that the body here is 2D, the third dimension, the height, is the temperature. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:32, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

OK, so what are the colors then? Jakob.scholbach (talk) 10:28, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

The same thing. Any problem with that? :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:13, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

All right. Never mind. Jakob.scholbach (talk) 17:42, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wannabekate in RfA talk pages

You may want to have a look at Wikipedia:Help_desk#Edit counters and Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship#Possible problem with Interiot edit counts which discuss how Wannabekate is now an inaccurate editcounter due to the Image: -> File: namespace change. Because Mathbot uses Wannabekate, I though I should give you the heads up and suggest rectifying this problem. Happy editing! Foxy Loxy ^Pounce! 03:10, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I commented there. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:46, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 2006 Rose Bowl logo

• Please correct the logo to show that the Trojans were the home team (should be on the right side), wearing the dark jerseys. I tried to upload the correct image, didn't work, only shown correctly in thumbnail. File:2006 BCS championship game logo.jpg Thanks. Ucla90024 (talk) 06:52, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
• Looks o.k. now. With Chrome, it doesn't automatically update the photo. Ucla90024 (talk) 21:46, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Is Log(x) analytic?

Hi Oleg,

I was wondering if Log(x) is an analytic function. I wrote my question on the discussion page for Analytic_function but I'll copy and paste here in case it's hard to find:

I was reading this article on Analytic Functions and I noticed that in the Examples section, the logarithm function was given as an example of an analytic function. Let's consider f(x) = Log(x) on the set of real numbers R. Now pick x₀ = 0. Then we can't find a power series representation of Log(x). Can we? So is the logarithm function not analytic then?

Siyavash2 (talk) 09:15, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

By this standard, the reciprocal function 1/x won't be analytic either. A power series representation certainly cannot exist at a point where the function is undefined. Log is analytic because it is the integral of 1/x which is analytic. Katzmik (talk) 14:03, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

To add to this, an analytic function need not be defined everywhere. The log is analytic wherever it is defined. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:36, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

I noticed in the article it mentions log is "analytic on any open set of its domain" where as I am discussing the set of real numbers R which contains zero and zero is not in the domain of log. Thanks for the clarification on this issue. Siyavash2 (talk) 01:05, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image for nomination.

Just wanted you to know that your image Snells law wavefronts.gif Has been nominated for Featured Picture. Happy new year! —Clarknova (talk) 07:13, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I'd like to note that it is not quite an original idea (although it is my own work), it is inspired by this, whether that matters or not. Also, I personally like more this one. But I am not the one doing the nominations. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 08:48, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't matter if it's original, just that it's well executed. I nominated that image for its technical simplicity, and its educational value. The interference gif is also very good, but doesn't illustrate a relationship between two phenomena the way wavefront gif does. —Clarknova (talk) 14:00, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Progress?

Hello. Those bot issues are still issues (since December 23rd). Any updates on that? Amazing how the world's mathematics hangs by this particular thread [OK, there might just be an element of hyperbole in this sentence]. Michael Hardy (talk) 22:49, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for reminding me. I did not hear from those folks maintaining the bot server yet. I sent them another reminder. I hope I'll hear from them soon. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:23, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

It sounds as if you don't use the "current activity" page every day. Michael Hardy (talk) 16:17, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I actually hardly track it as recently I am on Wikipedia rather sporadically since I have less time than before. Thanks for keeping up with the new additions to the math lists. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 18:21, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the mathbot resurrection! He appears to have awoken with some memory loss on Changes to mathlist. It'd be cool to see just the new pages since Dec 23, but I am just glad to have him back at all. JackSchmidt (talk) 04:16, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I ran it from my laptop (those folks at the toolsever are still in holiday mood apparently). Jitse's current activity page will show the new updates when it runs next time. The reason for the "memory loss" is due to the fact that I did not have a copy of the previous run on my laptop to compare against. It will come back to normal from tomorrow. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:50, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Another bot needed?

Hi Oleg,

If you like the Catalog_of_articles_in_probability_theory page then maybe you'll help me with a bot. The page is generated by a program, as you surely guess, from a source file that looks as follows:

 (a,b,0) class of distributions spd (1:D) Abstract Wiener space Gau Adapted process (U:G)  ... Wishart distribution spd (F:C) Zeta distribution spd (1:D) Zipf's law spd (1:D) 

The program, written by me in Python, works on my computer. Without it, other editors can make only small changes to that page. It would be nicer to put the source file into Wikipedia (which I am able to do myself) and provide a special bot that processes it (which I cannot do myself). What do you think? Boris Tsirelson (talk) 20:08, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

First, the catalog above is indeed bot generated, and I am not sure it would make an encyclopedic article.

Second, as far as I understand, you want other people to be able to use your program, the way the bot at talk:List of probability topics works. If that's the case, you need to put it on a web server. Since you work for a university, you can probably set it up in your web page directory. I can help you with that.

Please confirm that this is your intention. The more immediate question is whether we want such a list. You can get some feedback at WT:WPM. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:40, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

An encyclopedic article? Just a more organized version of the List of probability topics. I recall, someone wrote on some discussion page that it would be nice to have each list in two forms, one sorted alphabetically, the other - systematically. Really, I only want to continue the line of work started by you: a bot plus a man (maybe, plus another bot).

On our university server? OK, if this is the right way to do it (it seems to me, it would be better on some wikipedia-related server). Yes, please help me with that. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 01:39, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Let me add that the catalog is not quite bot-generated, it is rather bot-assisted, like List of probability topics and unlike talk:List of probability topics. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 01:54, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

You can use the Wikipedia toolserver, see here. Try applying for an account, sometimes they take a while to approve, if they approve at all.

In the meantime, your school could be a good temporary location (that's how I was doing things when I was at school, now I don't have a dedicated server anymore, save for the bot account on the toolserver).

You need to tell me more details about how the code should be run, and perhaps even show me the code. For now, I can say that you need to set up the main bot script as a cgi routine, the way http://toolserver.org/~mathbot/cgi-bin/wp/lists/lists.pl.cgi?Talk:List_of_probability_topics is done. Setting up a cgi routine is not that hard, especially if your bot does nothing fancy.

What is harder is to upload your content to Wikipedia automatically. You can try using the pywikipedia framework, since you program in python.

In short, here are a few things to think about:

• How you want the thing to be run?
• See what you can learn about cgi programming (if you want other users to run your bot from the internet)
• See if you need the bot to upload stuff to Wikipedia automatically, and in that case, see if you can learn about pywikipedia.

After these issues are clear, we'll see how to proceed. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:53, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Nice; thank you. About cgi script: no problem, our system people will help me as needed. About the code: of course I'll be glad to show it; how to do it? Just here? By email? Otherwise? It is 6 printed (A4) pages long. Nothing fancy. How to run? Yes, like your one; I see no reason why do it differently. Yes, to upload stuff to Wikipedia automatically. Now I'll look at pywikipedia. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 06:58, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

You can just paste your code on some subpage of your user page, say User:Tsirel/Bot code. Once you learn how to use pywikipedia (there should be detailed documentation, and should be doable with some work), and once you are happy that the bot does what you want and it runs as you want, then we can focus on the last step, allowing others to use it, via the cgi script.

By the way, by allowing other folks to run your bot via a cgi script can have security concerns. It is almost as if you give the whole world the same privileges you have on the computer in question. So you need to be careful with writing to disk, what information the bot can read from disk, passwords, etc. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:38, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I see. For now, please look at the User:Tsirel/Bot code. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 19:58, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I looked at the code. From what I see (I did not read overly carefully), you may want to integrate those two routines (parse.py and format.py) into one executable; then you may want its output (the string "biglist") to be uploaded to wikipedia via a call to the appropriate pywikipedia function.

Also, the file "all.in" probably needs to come from somewhere, probably from the talk page of that list, so you'd need to fetch it with pywikipedia.

If the input to your code is what my bot outputs on the talk page, then from within your code you could make a call to my bot (the cgi script) which refreshes the talk page.

By the way, if you have questions about pywikipedia, you can ask Jitse Niesen, he used that framework extensively. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:56, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you; I'll act further. No, a man (men, in the future) plays an essential role between your bot and my program. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 06:45, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I start trying pywikipedia, and for now I am quite careful: I only read from wikipedia a single page, whose name is hardwired in the program, and I do not try to write to wikipedia (nor to do anything else to it). However, the pywikipedia asks me threatingly, whether I am allowed to use the robot. I understand that a bot needs permission. However, may I write and debug it before applying for the permission? Not a cgi, of course; for now just a Python program on my PC. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 22:16, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I guess you can ignore it. :) Eventually you may need to apply at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:54, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Now I apply for approval, Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/CataBotTsirel. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 12:03, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

The bot is already approved for trial (7 days); I use it, see User talk:CataBotTsirel and Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics#Catalog_of_articles_in_probability_theory_versus_List_of_probability_topics . Boris Tsirelson (talk) 21:05, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Glad to hear that. Let's hope your bot won't put many human editors out of work, the unemployment rate is already uncomfortably high. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:46, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Snells law wavefronts

An image created by you has been promoted to featured picture status Your image, File:Snells_law_wavefronts.gif, was nominated on Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates, gained a consensus of support, and has been promoted. If you would like to nominate an image, please do so at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates. Thank you for your contribution! Wronkiew (talk) 06:51, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] AfD script

Just a heads up that when I went to use http://toolserver.org/~mathbot/cgi-bin/wp/afd/afd.cgi I received the following error message: Can't locate bin/wikipedia_fetch_submit.pl in @INC (@INC contains: ../wp/modules /public_html/cgi-bin/wp/modules /etc/perl /usr/local/lib/perl/5.10.0 /usr/local/share/perl/5.10.0 /usr/lib/perl5 /usr/share/perl5 /usr/lib/perl/5.10 /usr/share/perl/5.10 /usr/local/lib/site_perl .) at ./afd.cgi line 9. Happy editing! Foxy Loxy ^Pounce! 10:50, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, that was some sloppy programming on my part. I fixed it now. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:44, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion without AfD?

"11:27, 14 January 2009 Jimfbleak (Talk | contribs) deleted "Ani-Monday" ‎ (G4: Recreation of a page that was deleted per a deletion discussion)"

Jimfbleak (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · moves · rights) apparently deleted the page Ani-Monday arbitrarily. There never was any AfD to my knowledge. Please look into this. JRSpriggs (talk) 18:12, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Ani-Monday — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:55, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

That was about a year and a half ago. I began editing the article about a year ago, not knowing of the prior AfD. Should there not be a statute of limitations for these matters? If the article has existed at least a year since the last AfD without anyone complaining, does it not deserve another AfD rather than being summarily executed? JRSpriggs (talk) 07:27, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm just the messenger here. It's more painful than it ought to be to start fresh after an AFD. If you were to find a list of sources for the article, that would weigh in your favor for recreating it. Things like mentions of the topic in TV Guide, newspapers, etc. I can put a copy of the article in your user space for you to work on, if you want. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:02, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

It would be nice to have it, at least to use it as a list of links to the specific articles on anime which has been shown on the Sci-Fi network. If you decide to give it to me, please put it at User:JRSpriggs/Ani-Monday. However, I think that it is unlikely that I will be able to find secondary sources to provide as references.

Responding to the criticisms in the AfD: (1) I do not see how the version I was working on can be considered as infringing copyright since it is just an editor-compiled list of anime series and movies shown late Monday night on the Sci-Fi network. (2) Notability is a matter of opinion. I think that it is important because I watch those programs and it is a nationally distributed TV network after all. (3) How can it violate fair use, if it does not violate copyright? (4) Yes, it is compiled from the primary source -- the Sci-Fi network itself. I do not just copy names from the TV guide, I only add them when I see the program. Thus it is vulnerable to the charge of OR. (5) It could be said to violate WP:NOT#GUIDE, but so could any list of related links and we have many such articles. JRSpriggs (talk) 01:50, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Riemann–Hilbert

This edit created the plural title Riemann–Hilbert problems while the singular Riemann–Hilbert problem redirected to something other than the plural. I've moved it to the singular. Michael Hardy (talk) 05:15, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:23, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Confused

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Indonesia_articles_by_quality/1 - I used to be able to click on one of the bot generators to get this moving. It hasnt been started by anything since the 15th of January - and I was wondering is there a link to something that works? I have removed earlier versions of bot starters from my user page - as they longer link to anything - hope you can help - cheers SatuSuro 14:37, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Apparently today it got updated. Usually, if it is not updated in a while you can visit Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Using the bot and see the link there to how to run the bot by hand. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:09, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your response and info - cheers SatuSuro 06:00, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Archived discussions link

Sorry for removing the archive link on /Old (I did it three times by accident :S), in future please feel free to tell me when I cock things up like that, esp. when I do them multiple times. :) — neuro^(talk) 03:39, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

No problem. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 18:13, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Trees (structure)

I see that articles tagged Category:Trees (structure) do not get added to the list of mathematics articles. Did you decide to exclude it, or has it never come to your attention? Michael Hardy (talk) 17:41, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

It looks to me that by doing this we'd be stretching our hand too far for the fruit that sits firmly in the computer science tree. Well, on the other hand surely science is a densely planted orchard with the math tree and computer science tree planted really close to each other so their branches are intermingling sometimes so that it is too hard to tell on occasion on whose branch a given fruit sits.

In short, isn't the tree category too much a computer science subject to be listed together with the math articles? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 18:17, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

If it means "tree" in the sense of graph theory, then it belongs in math. Should (or do) we have another tree category for those? Michael Hardy (talk) 19:15, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

...Oh: we do: Category:Trees (graph theory). Michael Hardy (talk) 19:15, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

........but that's a subcategory. Do subcategories make the list in some cases where main categories don't? If not, the should in this case, both with Category:Trees (graph theory) and Category:Trees (set theory). Michael Hardy (talk) 19:18, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Category:Trees (graph theory) and Category:Trees (set theory) are both subcategories of Category:Graph theory. Both are in the list of mathematics categories and so are searched by the bot. If there are any trees articles that you feel are mathematical, I guess they should be in one of the two above-mentioned categories and then the bot will list them. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:22, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Chicago and Illinois project stats

Neither the WP:CHICAGO nor WP:ILLINOIS stats have run this month.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 08:48, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Typo redirect Barlow's Formula

Hello, this is a message from an automated bot. A tag has been placed on Barlow's Formula, by another Wikipedia user, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. The tag claims that it should be speedily deleted because Barlow's Formula is a redirect page resulting from an implausible typo (CSD R3).

To contest the tagging and request that administrators wait before possibly deleting Barlow's Formula, please affix the template {{hangon}} to the page, and put a note on its talk page. If the article has already been deleted, see the advice and instructions at WP:WMD. Feel free to contact the bot operator if you have any questions about this or any problems with this bot, bearing in mind that this bot is only informing you of the nomination for speedy deletion; it does not perform any nominations or deletions itself. To see the user who deleted the page, click here CSDWarnBot (talk) 15:30, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

[edit] I've disputed the factual accuracy of your work

As far as I know we don't have a factual-accuracy-dispute template for images, so at linear regression, I've typed my own factual accuracy dispute notice into the caption of the picture at the beginning of the article. A while back you objected to my replacing your image with something that didn't look ridiculous and misleading—apparently it didn't satisfy some stylistic criterion you had in mind. Since you don't want me to do it, can you replace the picture with something reasonable-looking? The one there looks as if both the x-values and the errors are uniformly distributed. If you made the x- and y-values jointly normally distributed it at least wouldn't look childish. Michael Hardy (talk) 00:09, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

That's silly. Yes, at the very basic level you are right, the standard assumption on the random noise perturbation assumes that it has a normal distribution. But you are reading too much into that picture, whose main point is that a line can fit a set of data, regardless of the data. That's just an example.

And I do prefer a good looking picture to something "more correct" but crappy looking. If you'd bother to do quality work, you can easily regenerate a picture of higher quality. If you're not willing to do that, I hope I'll get to it this weekend, I don't have Matlab installed on this machine. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 07:20, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, a few weeks back I attempted this and you didn't like the way I'd done it and reverted. I'm not all that adept at programming details, so your reversion of my attempt isn't all that encouraging. Michael Hardy (talk) 22:18, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

....You may also be missing some points:

• One would want the picture to make it plausible, when accompanied by appropriate explanation, that the line used to predict y from x would be different from that used to predict x from y. The picture that's there screams about straight lines with a slope equal to that of the upper and lower boundaries of the region in which the data points appear.
• As for "quality work", I've done more of that than all be a small number of Wikipedians, but NONE of it is in software.

Michael Hardy (talk) 00:43, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have been more prompt and more polite in answering your concerns. I replaced with figure at File:Linear least squares2.png with one with normal noise per your code earlier on this page.

You are welcome to tweak the picture at File:Linear least squares.svg in any way you wish (code is included) as long as you make sure the generated picture is of good quality (you need to open the .eps file generated by matlab in gimp -- type "gimp Picture_name.eps" in a Linux terminal -- when asked about the resolution choose something like 200, check the button saying "strong graphic antialising"; it is really quite straightforward). I could do this for you but I hope it would be useful learning experience for you. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 20:22, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

[edit] various topics

Thanks for the welcome last year (I joined the welcome committee) and many articles that have helped: I award you E=mc² Barnstar (for mathematics or science.) I asked a question on Template_talk:Portals because portal instructions step 8 say to add a link to {{tl:main portals}} and then Portal:Browse. 'Part a' looks like a technical page: not somewhere to make a link, but I made a link on the (not very active) talk page and did part 'b.' Is that alright?--Dchmelik (talk) 11:28, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I re-edited Synergetics coordinates. I still sometimes have a hard time reading long math notation myself, but all that one needs is a picture of equilateral triangle graph paper; all the coordinates are in 2-d is the plane of unit equilateral triangles... that is not hard to understand. I asked someone for permission to use a picture but have not heard back yet.

Also, is there any way to archive part of my talk page (instead of deleting,) or does it just happen when it gets big?--Dchmelik (talk) 11:28, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

See Help:Archiving a talk page and User:MiszaBot. JRSpriggs (talk) 04:52, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Is the edit summary checker broken?

Hi there. I tried to check my edit summary usage and it tells me "Edit summary usage for SoWhy: 0% for major edits and 0% for minor edits. Based on the last 0 major and 0 minor edits in the article namespace." Could the script be broken? Regards SoWhy 17:40, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. The reason was some change in the way the html generated by the server. I fixed the tool now. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:40, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Photo-tagging?

Hi: I've been going through and adding pictures to mathematician bio articles. It would help a lot if a bot could go through all mathematician articles and put a {{reqphoto}} tag on the ones that don't have any photos on them. Then I could use the lists over at Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Mathematics/Lists to identify pages instead of going through them manually. Is this possible? Thanks, Ray^Talk 23:33, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Alternatively, just a list of mathematician bio articles without pictures would work :) Ray^Talk 23:33, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I tried to look at that. Apparently I am having problems logging in to the toolserver where the scripts and data are. So this will have to wait until the toolserver admins help me out. Hopefully it will get solved by next weekend. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:04, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay, thanks -- will await news next weekend or so Ray^Talk 22:05, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Here, User:Mathbot/Mathematicians missing photo. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:09, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

[edit] triple torus

I like your triple torus surface (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Triple_torus_illustration.png), is there somewhere I can read about how that was created? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.6.203.178 (talk) 14:42, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

The source code is below the picture. Conceptually, it was obtained by putting three tori in a triangular pattern, and deforming the region where they meet so that there is a continuous transition from one to the other. The harder part was rendering the surface once there is a formula for it. Matlab's isosurface command was of great help. Don't know if that's enough details for you. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:58, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I already understand the basic setup and the rendering in Matlab fairly well. What I'm curious about is exactly what you did to make the transition continuous. I came up with a way to render a smooth composition of multiple tori - I define a function f(x,y,z) that represents the inverse square of the distance between a circle and a point, then simply add N translated copies of this together, and plot an isosurface of that (as if its a constant potential surface generated by circular charge distributions). My results don't quite resemble yours, and I haven't yet taken the time to read through your code enough to understand it fully. I guess my question is, are you doing something similar, or totally different? Monguin61 (talk) 00:38, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I did something along the lines of what you say with File:Sphere with three handles.png. Instead of N functions I just had one function for each of the shapes (one for the sphere, and one for each of the torii). I took the maximum of these functions, blurred the resulting function a lot, and then found the isosurface.

For the triple torus I think I had an actual explicit formula for the function I took the isosurface of. Let me try to explain. Imagine three disks touching each other, like this:

    O O     O 

(above they should be touching, I could not make that in ASCII). Let Q be the geometrical center of this figure. Imagine a deformation T that maps every point close enough to Q onto Q (so T(x) = Q for x close to Q), and every point in a larger neighborhood is pulled closer to Q but not quite onto of Q (so T(x) = y with y being closer to Q than x was). Lastly, points sufficiently far from Q don't move at all under this deformation. This function has the effect of closing the gap between the circles and smoothing the transition from one circle to the others.

The same trick works with three torii. The code has the precise formula for the deformation T above, and when applied to three tori it gives their morphed version. I am not sure I can go into more detail without referring to the actual code. Cheers, 03:18, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

[edit] No current activity?

Once again Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Current activity show no new article for several days. Could it be that they're not getting added to the list of mathematics articles? Michael Hardy (talk) 17:54, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Mathbot is running just fine, per Special:Contributions/Mathbot. This time I think it is Jitse's bot which is not doing so well. Ask Jitse. Thanks for pointing this out. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:48, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Peridynamics

Can you take a look at the page on Peridynamics? I think it is serious POV-pushing. I small group of people (2-3) have created the page based on their own research, cite their own work in references, put links to it in other articles, and keep removing criticisms.

Thanks. Cj67 (talk) 11:31, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I am not a specialist in continuum mechanics, so I can't say much. I was surprised how carefully the article is written and the amount of citations. Not your average crank pov-pusher, that is. Try raising this at the math wikiproject, and see what the folks there may have to say. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:38, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Adjusting Mathbot for AfD

Hi Oleg. Following this discussion, AfD discussions now go for seven days rather than five. Would you be able to adjust MathBot to take this into account? Regards SilkTork *^YES! 16:47, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

That will take a while, since I can't log in to the server running the bot for the time being due to some issues. Hopefully no longer than a week. I'll let you know when this is resolved. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 20:25, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Done. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:02, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Kandidat nauk

Hi Oleg, there seems to be consensus for move at Talk:Kandidat nauk to Candidate of Sciences, but it requires an administrator because of the existing redirect. Would you be interested? Thanks. Jmath666 (talk) 21:06, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Done. Now, in Russian it was with lowercase, which would correspond to Candidate of sciences with lower-case "s", but I am not sure about that. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:11, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Indeed, also per the article. Jmath666 (talk) 08:12, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Topical indexes

Hi. I was wondering if you could update Mathbot to change its output category, from Category:Topical indexes to Category:Indexes of articles (which it has been replaced by/renamed as). Thanks :) -- Quiddity (talk) 20:36, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Done. Let's see how this works in the next few days. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:22, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Diophantus II.VIII

Hello Oleg

Dates back a bit but did you ever resolve your query about the article on Diophantus II.VIII ?

I wrote this article because there is such a lot of 'spin' on Pythagorean triples.Diophantus provides a perfectly clear and comprehensive method of generating any of the infinity of such triples. All triples are rational multiples of the form which we may derive from presenting Diophantus' method in algebraic form - that is what I have done on this page.

What especially intrigues me is Fermat's note stating there are no rational solutions to a^n + b^n = c^n for n>2. He must have had at very least a substantive intuition to make this statement and since the conjecture was written next to Diophantus II.VII in Fermat's copy of Arithmetica, we must assume his intuition would have been drawn from same article.

Neil Parker (talk) 10:55, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I split the article into sections, to make it clearer what Diophantus's problem was, and then our take on it, meaning the generalization. I hope this introduces some clarity. You may of course modify things further as you see fit. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:59, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Good idea to split the historical from a modern interpretation thereof.

Neil Parker (talk) 07:49, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] WP 1.0 bot

FYI: WP 1.0 bot got stuck half way through WP:Germany today. Agathoclea (talk) 10:54, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Argh... poking CBM about this. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 10:57, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

This says

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /cgi-bin/wp/wp10/run_wp10.html on this server.
Apache/2.2.8 (Ubuntu) PHP/5.2.4-2ubuntu5.6 with Suhosin-Patch Server at wp1en.kiwix.org Port 80

-- Tinu Cherian - 05:19, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Found the the new link Thanks -- Tinu Cherian - 05:21, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Probability metric (presently Lukaszyk-Karmowski metric)

Dear Oleg, I write to you as you were the first with whom I discussed the article that I created in March 2007: Probability metric (presently Lukaszyk-Karmowski metric). As you see the article is now considered for deletion (after I was compelled to change its name to a narrower yet a bit unfortunate one as now it suggest that I am self-promoting myself. (Wikipedia:Editor_assistance/Requests#Notability_issue_on_Lukaszyk-Karmowski_metric). It is like I was asking for your help, but it's not true. I shall accept the decision of the community though it is not based on any essential grounds (No one proved that the concept is wrong, alleged WP:NOR and WP:Notability. I simply appreciate if you browse the subject and take your position. It's like a put a needle in the ant's nest :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Guswen (talk • contribs) 07:15, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I happen to agree that the article is not so notable. I think you should wait and see if the concept is being picked up in other publications before making an article on it. I do appreciate the amount of work you put into that article. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 14:35, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

To Guswen: I suggest that you save a copy of the source text of the article off-line (on your own computer), if you have not already done so. Thus, if and when it is deleted and you subsequently find justification for recreating it (i.e. it is mentioned in other publications and thus becomes notable), you can easily put it back into Wikipedia without duplicating most of your work. JRSpriggs (talk) 14:19, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Crimson timebomb

Mathbot doesn't seem to recognize that Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Crimson timebomb has been closed, and it keeps adding it back to the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Old list. I can't see anything immediately apparent which would cause this. Can you see something? ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 00:29, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

I clicked on the link at WP:AFD/Old to refresh the list, and it did. I don't know what the issue was, maybe the bot was reading a cached version of the page? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 14:39, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Inappropriate moving of article

JamesBWatson (talk · contribs) has unilaterally moved Newton's method to Newton–Raphson method. This is contrary to our policy of using the most common name in English. JRSpriggs (talk) 10:45, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Raise this at WT:WPM. Both names are widely used from what I know. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 10:46, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I have moved the article back: pleas see my comments at[[1]]. JamesBWatson (talk) 14:59, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] WP 1.0 bot question

In this edit, the bot removed the additional sections I had added so WikiProject Japan could more easily keep track of tagged articles and other pages. Is there a way to have the bot not do this, and also update the sections I added? Thanks! ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 05:56, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Implementing the feature you request won't be easy, and any such change will affect all the projects, not just the Japan one. Try raising this at WT:1.0/I, and let's also see what Carl, the current WP 1.0 bot maintainer, thinks about it. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:11, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I've done so. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:15, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Happy Oleg Alexandrov's Day!

User:Oleg Alexandrov has been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian, and therefore, I've officially declared today as Oleg Alexandrov's day! For being such a beautiful person and great Wikipedian, enjoy being the Star of the day, dear Oleg Alexandrov! Peace, Rlevse ~ A record of your Day will always be kept here.

For a userbox you can add to your userbox page, see User:Rlevse/Today/Happy Me Day! and my own userpage for a sample of how to use it. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:51, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I'll second that. Paul August ☎ 01:11, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Long, long overdue. If only we could give out months, instead of days. Oh, well. John Carter (talk) 01:33, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually, after I resurrected Phaedriel's WP of the Day campaign, a few others took up the banner. One of them gives out week and month awards. See User:Midnight Comet/Wikipedian of the.... — Rlevse • Talk • 02:37, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. :) I am not sure what I did to deserve this, being half-retired, but it feels good nevertheless. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:52, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] WP 1.0 bot: Categories

Could you please include categories in the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Video game articles by quality statistics table? Thanks. SharkD (talk) 04:27, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I think the bot does not support categories. Try raising this at WT:1.0/I, and let's also see what Carl, the current WP 1.0 bot maintainer, thinks about it. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:11, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Threefolds?

Is Category:Threefolds one of the categories whose articles show up automatically in the list of mathematics articles? (I think the list may have missed an article I just did some edits on.) Michael Hardy (talk) 05:58, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I just put it in. There is a big backlog of categories to be added at User:Mathbot/New math categories. One needs to decide for each category whether it is math or not. Then the bot will add it to the list of mathematics categories. I hope to get to it sometime. Any help in that respect is appreciated. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:43, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Is there a name for this interative method of numerical integration?

Link to description of algorithm:

iterative_method.htm

Jeffareid (talk) 00:50, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I replied at Talk:Numerical integration. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 11:20, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedian of the Day

Thanks. As with the other "Day" notice a few sections above, I am not sure what luck has befallen on me lately. :) Perhaps these are suggestions that I should be doing some work for a change? :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:27, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

No, just belated acknowledgement of your earlier work, finally. There may be more to follow, by the way, I dunno. John Carter (talk) 16:38, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Andean Volcanic Belt

Hi Oleg - It's standard practice to multi-stub in that way. SouthAm-geo-stub is no longer used - it is on no articles whatsoever and redirects (or more precisely upmerges) to the base geography stubs category so that anything which does get marked with it can quickly be sorted using more appropriate stub types (the same is done with a couple of other deprecated stub templates). Yes, wikipedia is primarily for readers, but stub templates serve the other part of Wikipedia - editors - the part without which articles won't expand beyond stub level. Yes it looks ugly - that's half the point. The uglier it looks, the more likely it is that someone will actually expand it. And the most likely people to expand it are those working on articles about the geography of those countries, which is why that's the best place to categorise this article. Grutness...wha? 00:24, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Move Diophantus II.VIII ?

Hi Oleg

Just wondering whether perhaps the best thing to do with Diophantus_II.VIII is to move it entirely to the page on Pythagorean triplets. Readership stats to not seem to support a standalone article whereas it is historically relevant to PTs because in essence Diophantus provides an early - if not the earliest - algorithm for generating rational triples. Your opinion would be appreciated.

Neil Parker (talk) 05:45, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

The Pythagorean triplets article seems to be big enough by itself. I would think it is better to leave Diophantus_II.VIII where it is, a historical article on a specific topic. But I am not a number theorist. Try asking at WT:WPM if you want more opinions. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:28, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedian of the Week

Thank you. The third one, in a short span of time. There's probably some inflation in the awards department, which is surprising given how much work it takes a silversmith to beat one of these shiny precious metal pieces, and then having to hammer it onto a user's talk page. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 07:32, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Afd top

Hi, I have modified {{afd top}} to allow discussions to be collapsed when transcluded in the log pages. Please see Template talk:Afd top#Proposal. (I am notifying you as requested in the documentation.) -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 21:08, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] WP 1.0 bot blocking

Oleg, the bot is behaving rather badly on the AFOD project.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Adoption,_fostering,_orphan_care_and_displacement_articles_by_quality_statistics

It has replaced the name of the project rather than the preferred abbreviation, causing the project page to look poor. I tried blocking the bot, but apparently that is only available to admins. Could you please block it from the AFOD project. Thanks.Tobit2 (talk) 05:09, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

The bot works as designed. It does not know about abbreviations. If you want this extra feature try asking at WT:WP1.0/I, but I am not sure if there is manpower for implementing that. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:13, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

As Oleg says, the bot is functioning as designed. If you would like to manually update a table, you should choose an alternate pagename, perhaps a subpage of your Wikiproject, in the same way as Wikipedia:WikiProject_Mathematics/Wikipedia_1.0. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:20, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] "Social movement"

Any idea why social movement belongs in the list of mathematics articles? I've also noticed some other strange recent additions within the past week or so. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:58, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps Category:Identity (within which it is indirectly included) is classified as a mathematics category? JRSpriggs (talk) 03:55, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I am not sure of the reason. The first thing to check if that article shows in a category listed at the list of mathematics categories. Then one should first remove the article from that category, so that the bot does not add it back, and then remove the article from the list of mathematics categories.

I used to supervise mathbot very closely, unfortunately I don't have that time anymore. If it becomes a problem that the bot adds odd articles it may need to be stopped or perhaps ran only on demand. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:37, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

After I posted this, it appeared that someone put the Category:Group actions tag on it. That's an ambiguous phrase. Michael Hardy (talk) 22:27, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Diophantus II.VIII and Plimpton 322

Hi Oleg

Could you please check out:

User:Neil_Parker/Sandbox/Plimpton#Diophantus_II.VIII_and_Plimpton_322

and let me know if you think it is ok to publish on the Plimpton 322 page.

Thanks.

Neil Parker (talk) 18:42, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Mmm, sounds too much like personal ruminations on something. I would argue that such text is not appropriate in Wikipedia. You can ask other folks as well, see WT:WPM. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:09, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Hello again

Thanks for having a look at my 'ruminations' which may however be checked for mathematical consistency.

Eg row 5 of Plimpton. Robson's reciprocal pairs are 2:15 and 26:40 sexagesimal respectively. Well 2:15 in decimal is 2.25 and as a fraction that is 9/4. Assuming reciprocal 26:40 sexagesimal is 26/60 + 40/60^2 or 4/9. There in the reciprocal fractions sit the very generating numbers 4 and 9 the existence of which her thesis denies. Is this something that needs to be pointed out or am I missing something ?? Robson's thesis can be read at: [2]

Neil Parker (talk) 08:22, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok - I've removed the 'ruminations'. Could I prevail on you to have another look and see if it now seems reasonable for posting? I think the key point of the submission is the similarity with Diophantus_II.VIII rather than the challenge to Robson's thesis - can leave that out altogether if needs be.

Neil Parker (talk) 16:08, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

The text after "It is interesting ..." still appears to me to be original research and personal opinion, and such not belonging in the encyclopedia. Again, please feel free to ask for other opinions. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:24, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Sorry about the mass links - can I get the codes back?

Hello - could you undelete these pages or help me get the codes back? I was in the middle of getting contributions from some other authors about the motivation and stories behind these books, and re-writing the material. I didn't realize mass linking would get me kicked.:

• Coastal and Estuarine Processes
• Handbook of Porphyrin Science
• Handbook of coastal and ocean engineering

Yhkhoo (talk) 05:20, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Mathbot inquiry

Hi. It appears that List of mathematics articles (A-C) and its associated series of three letter list pages that merely transclude the single-letter list pages are used exclusively for the operations of your bot. Since they rather pointlessly (for actual humans) duplicate the single-letter pages in article-space, is there any reason they couldn't be moved into either your bot's userspace or the Math WikiProject's project-space? --Cybercobra (talk) 10:18, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

These pages existed long before the bot. If you want to have a discussion on whether they are useful, please ask at WT:WPM. I am fine either way. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:56, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] A proposed move that may (or may not) affect your bot

[edit] link to disambig page

Hi Oleg, it looks like your bot won't allow the removal of the link to Convex from List of mathematics articles (C). Convex is a disambig page, and all the math-related links from the Convex dab are already listed in List of mathematics articles (C). Could you remove Convex from the bot's list please? Thanks, --JaGa^talk 11:50, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I removed convex from Category:Mathematical disambiguation. That should do it. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 14:21, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

thankyouverramuch. --JaGa^talk 20:05, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] POTD notification

Hi Oleg,

Just to let you know that the Featured Picture File:Snells law wavefronts.gif is due to make an appearance as Picture of the Day on September 22, 2009. If you get a chance, you can check and improve the caption at Template:POTD/2009-09-22. howcheng {chat} 04:07, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. That was nice. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:57, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Mail

Hi Oleg. Did you get my recent email? Paul August ☎ 17:12, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I was just now about to reply. While you were away I upgraded some packages to fix Wikipedia login issues. That and my carelessness broke the bot. I fixed that now. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:07, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks much. Paul August ☎ 19:48, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] More mail

Hi Oleg. More mail ;-) Paul August ☎ 13:47, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] File:220px-UCLA Bruin.jpg

Oleg, I've tagged this image with {{non-free 3d art}}. Freedom of panorama does not exist in the United States for works of 3d art. Thus, the copyright holder of this work retains rights to derivative works, such as photographs. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:22, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I tried to put in a fair use rationale. Any clarification to it would be very welcome. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:22, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Removing Category:Markov models

Hi Oleg, I'm not entirely sure I agree with your removal of the 'Markov models' category from some of the pages you visited. Aren't you taking the category a little too literally? For example, you're 100% correct that Anders Krogh is not a Markov model, but he was one of the first researchers to apply HMMs to the field of biology. This was a hugely significant advance for the field, so surely visitors to the category page would want to see things like this. I know I would. Likewise, the softwares HMMER and Xrate make extensive use of Markov models and the database Pfam distributes thousands of HMMs for classifying protein sequences. So whilst I agree these pages aren't literally Markov models I do think they still have a place in that category. Just my 2p. --Paul (talk) 09:44, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I think we need a distinction between Markov models as mathematical tools on one hand, and people who work on them and software based on them. This is how things are usually happening with other categories.

Perhaps you can create something like Category:Markov models software. I am not sure what to do with the people. I still feel that you can't put people in the same category as their research area, for example, Gauss for example should not be put in Category:Geometry, Category:Arithmetic, etc. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 20:28, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

A Category:Markov models in biology or Category:Applications of Markov models could work as well. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 20:30, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi Oleg, You're right. I had a look around other categories to see if there was a precedent either way. They overwhelmingly came out in favour of very specific categorisation. You were right, I was wrong. My humblest apologies for wasting your time. ;-) --Paul (talk) 07:53, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

There is no precedent in overly humble apologies either. :) :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:01, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Comments subpages (Village pump discussion)

I was following a discussion at one of the village pumps about the comments subpages used by some articles, and having a vague memory that WP:WP 1.0 started them, I went looking for the old discussions that started them and found these: 1, 2, 3 (May to July 2006). You were one of the five main participants at those discussions, so I'm notifying all five of you so that some input from when this all started can be obtained for the current discussion, as I'm not sure the full picture is being presented there so far. I'll leave a note at the Village Pump discussion saying who I notified. I also left a note at the WP:WP 1.0 talk page, but not sure how much you each follow that page now, hence the user talk page note. Carcharoth (talk) 19:10, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Talkback

[edit] Notice of a discussion which may concern you

Hello. You may want to comment on this discussion: Help talk:Edit summary#Requested move. -- œ^™ 06:21, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] NowCommons: File:Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery view to southeast.jpg

File:Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery view to southeast.jpg is now available on Wikimedia Commons as Commons:File:Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery view to southeast.jpg. This is a repository of free media that can be used on all Wikimedia wikis. The image will be deleted from Wikipedia, but this doesn't mean it can't be used anymore. You can embed an image uploaded to Commons like you would an image uploaded to Wikipedia, in this case: [[File:Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery view to southeast.jpg]]. Note that this is an automated message to inform you about the move. This bot did not copy the image itself. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 00:56, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Question...

why did you delete the article on sneeze fetishism? Coffeegalatea (talk) 17:48, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I didn't. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 18:10, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] RE: Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Bristol articles by quality statistics

Hi - firstly thank you for this bot. I do have a query regarding recent updates to the above. The bot is consistently showing one artcile as being un-assessed for importance, yet there are no unassessed articles in the Category:Unknown-importance Bristol articles? Jezhotwells (talk) 23:44, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I did not work with the WP 1.0 bot for a while, you can try asking at WT:1.0/I. I doubt though that there is any error in the bot itself, most likely something confuses it. I can only think of a brute force solution, visit all talk pages in Category:C-Class Bristol articles, and see if the number of articles of each importance is the same as what is shown in the table. That way you'll find the C-Class article of unknown importance. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:26, 18 December 2009 (UTC)