User talk:David Eppstein

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Hi, and welcome to my User Talk page! For new discussions, I prefer you add your comments at the very bottom and use a section heading (e.g., by using the "New section" tab at the top of this page). I will respond on this page unless specifically requested otherwise. For discussions concerning specific Wikipedia articles, please include a link to the article, and also a link to any specific edits you wish to discuss. (You can find links for edits by using the "compare selected revisions" button on the history tab for any article.)

Tips for DYK

DYK is supposed to make readers interested in an article. Saying that "... the cube can pass through a hole of itself?" is a doppleganger for the Prince Rupert's cube, or "... the cube can be used for building houses in the Netherlands" which is suitable for Cube houses instead.

Do you have any tips for proposing DYK after GA, even though there are nothing such interesting topics? Unless I could think of targeting the audience like young generations who are into games and toys: "... the cube has many roles in games and toys such as Minecraft and Rubik's cube, respectively?" Dedhert.Jr (talk) 02:14, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nevermind. I have nominated it anyway. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 02:26, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

... that there are 11 ways to unfold a cube?

... that cubes have a hexagonal cross-section, used as the floor in Dutch cube houses?

... that cubes appear in the shapes of both crystals and microorganisms? —David Eppstein (talk) 02:38, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, thanks. I'll add these alternatives under your name. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 02:42, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Renominated Marmalade

Marmalade was renominated for good article. Floating Orb (talk) 02:24, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, thanks for letting me know. My preference would be to let someone else take the next review so you get a broader sample of opinions than just mine, but I'll keep an eye on it. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:32, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Okay thank you. @Chiswick Chap took it already. Floating Orb (talk) 02:33, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You're in good hands then. He's a very experienced reviewer and has nominated many food articles for GA. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:38, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah. I actually am reviewing his article Bean. Floating Orb (talk) 02:40, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Help please? Draft:Otis Chodosh

Title. MathKeduor7 (talk) 07:22, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I see one well-cited Annals paper and a local teaching award. Which criterion of WP:PROF do you think these or other accomplishments pass, and why? —David Eppstein (talk) 16:45, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I thought the Annals paper alone was enough for notability per WP:GNG, not WP:PROF. Among the many citations it should have in-depth coverage of his work. And that's why I asked for the help of Gumshoe2 at the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics. P.S. Also, he has a recent paper with a lot of citations for his field (I think ~80). Best wishes, MathKeduor7 (talk) 16:58, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

One Annals paper is enough to win the respect of a lot of other mathematicians, but not really enough to convince non-mathematicians here of academic notability. It takes a sustained record of multiple high-citation papers (not really a good match to the citation patterns of pure mathematics), a major national or international award, a named or distinguished professor title, or a society fellowship (like Fellow of the AMS). —David Eppstein (talk) 17:16, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. It may be WP:TOOSOON. MathKeduor7 (talk) 17:25, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination of Codenominator function for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Codenominator function 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/Codenominator function 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 until the discussion has finished.

—Quantling (talk | contribs) 13:11, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Paul Zeitz

Notable or not? Bearian (talk) 18:46, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Talk page stalker comment. The book "The Art and Craft of Problem Solving" shows signs of notability: it looks like it has been assigned reading in some university classes etc; the MAA reviewed it [1]; it is in its third edition from a major publisher [2]. Another review would make the case for book notability more solid. Anyway, a redirect to a stub on the book might be an alternative to deletion, if Zeitz is not notable. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 20:28, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My opinion is that being a recipient of the Deborah and Franklin Haimo Awards for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics, as a major national-level academic award, passes WP:PROF#C2, but other editors might disagree. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:32, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Bearian (talk) 09:27, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Admin and native speaker help, Robert Osserman

"There are a number of mathematical concepts named after him." (zero is a number)

Also, history merge to give credit to Gumshoe2. how? MathKeduor7 (talk) 07:25, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A history merge (or I think you mean split and then re-merge) would move old versions of entire copies of the Osserman biography into the Keller–Osserman conditions article, not merely the parts of the biography relevant to the new article. I don't think that's what you want. The initial edit summary giving credit should be sufficient. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:31, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Okay! Thank you! MathKeduor7 (talk) 07:42, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Make New Friends but Keep Discord

Do my arguments make sense? MathKeduor7 (talk) 03:18, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The notability of individual My Little Pony episodes is a swamp I don't care to wade into. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:54, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hahahahahaha, okay. MathKeduor7 (talk) 07:26, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• What happens to Wikipedia editors who wade into the My Little Pony swamp: [3]. EEng 17:42, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Pythagorean theorem in China

I don't have a source for this, but it seems the Chinese discovered the Pythagorean theorem first by calculating the diagonal of a square, a specific case... The square was culturally important for them. MathKeduor7 (talk) 05:20, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your GA nomination of Square

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Square you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 30 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of MathKeduor7 -- MathKeduor7 (talk) 08:05, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'll read all the sources I can get my hands into. MathKeduor7 (talk) 08:12, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Aron Katsenelinboigen

I found this unsourced biography that appears to be part of a "walled garden". What do you think? Bearian (talk) 09:28, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

He easily passes WP:AUTHOR. Reviews of his books on JSTOR: [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] —David Eppstein (talk) 16:16, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Square

Why GA, not FA? MathKeduor7 (talk) 05:57, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

First because even if one wanted FA then GA is a step towards that. But second, because (maybe from an uninformed outside view because I haven't participated much) FA as a process seems much more focused on form over content and it is really the content that I care about. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:19, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Frankly, Prime number is a good start, or Reversible cellular automaton or Prince Rupert's cube. But I think I let my Cube take the badge. Currently, it's on peer review. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 00:52, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Everything I looked at is correct and well-sourced, etc. It's an amazing article. I think I'll give speedy GA status to it. MathKeduor7 (talk) 06:00, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Have a few minutes to look at recent speedy delete nominations?

@David Eppstein: I came across three very recent speedy delete nominations for blatant copyright violations tagged by User:Chippla360. These three nominations were not copyvios. One in fact was an article on a different person. I posted comments on User talk:Chippla360 about these three.

I find that working speedy deletes is something that the user is logging.

What are the proper next steps with respect to the nominator? — ERcheck (talk) 01:09, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pinging you as I see from the deletion logs that you are actively working the speedy deletes at this time. — ERcheck (talk) 01:10, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Only the F8s in any consistent way, though if I did run across a copyvio speedy tag for other reasons I would likely check it out (and decline if invalid). Anyway, if they continue to make such mistakes on a longer-term basis or after being warned, the obvious next step would be to take away their NPP privileges per WP:NPRREVOKE. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:11, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

K-set halving line gallery

I'm not sure I understand the 2 point situation; it cites the OEIS page for the sequence, which defines the problem as:

"Let S be a set of n points in the plane. A halving line is a line through two points in S that splits the remaining points into two equal-sized subsets. How many halving lines can S have?"

I don't see anything about general position in the definition on the wiki page or OEIS page... do these need to be updated? BagLuke (talk) 00:33, 17 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why are you following the definition in OEIS rather than the sourced definition here? Here, a k-set is defined to be a subset strictly separated from the rest by a line, and a halving line is a line separating a k/2-set.

Maybe the picture is clearer if you look at it in the dual line arrangement, where halving lines become dual to points. The halving lines this article is talking about are points in two-dimensional cells of the arrangement that have exactly n/2 lines above them and n/2 lines below them. The halving lines you are talking about are points at the crossings of two lines where there are (n-2)/2 lines above the crossing and (n-2)/2 lines below the crossing. From left to right across the arrangement, cells of the first kind of halving line alternate with crossings of the second kind of halving line, so the counting is essentially the same (in general position so that you don't have to worry about what happens when a cell is bounded by a vertical line) but the things being counted are not. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:38, 17 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ahh, I see. I was going off the definition preceding the sequence as well:

"For the case when k=n/2 (halving lines), the maximum number of combinatorially distinct lines through two points of S that bisect the remaining points when k = 1, 2... is:"

But it looks like it's a relevant sequence, defined in a different context. Thanks! - BagLuke (talk) 00:50, 17 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm looking through papers on halving lines, and even ones which are written in the context of k-sets are defining halving lines exclusively as passing through 2 points of a set of points P (generally, d points, in d = 2) and equally dividing the rest, including the material cited for the k-set page.

The paper "Point Sets with Many k-Sets" says:

"Let n > d ≥ 2, n − d even, and let P be a set of n points in R d in general position (no d + 1 of them lie in the same hyperplane). A hyperplane determined by d points of P is called a halving hyperplane (resp. halving line for d = 2 and halving plane for d = 3) if it has exactly (n − d)/2 points of P on both sides."

And also the pseudoline source, "New algorithms and bounds for halving pseudolines":

"Let P be a set of points in general position in the plane. A halving line of P is a line passing through two points of P and cutting the remaining n − 2 points in a half (almost half if n is odd)."

I'm having trouble finding any sources defining it any other way, but I am probably missing it. Whatever the case, I feel as if the Wiki page is a bit unclear, and I don't want to step on toes trying to differentiate the two without a source for the definition of the version which doesn't cross points of P. Thanks, - BagLuke (talk) 03:22, 17 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For the purposes of counting, which is what all those papers are about, they are exactly the same. If you have an alternating sequence of cells and crossings in the dual arrangement, you will always have exactly one more cell than crossing. It doesn't matter whether you count one or whether you count the other.

For the purposes of an article about k-sets, we should stick with a definition that matches the definition of the subject of the article. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:04, 17 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Since the bounds of the more general k-set problem are the point of interest for the k-set page, would it be better to split it into 2 articles, the other specifically on halving lines and its different representations, along with the halving line problem in the form it most commonly takes which involves 2 point intersections?

I do agree though, the line separating the points into the k-set clearly can't have a point on it. If not it's own page, separating it from the more general "combinatorial bounds" section into its own "halving lines" section and ironing it out there should be sufficient. But I wonder since the bounds of all k-sets are focused on so heavily if the page should have its "Unsolved math" card used for that, and the halving line problem on its own page's card. Thanks, - BagLuke (talk) 05:18, 17 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think there is a lot of literature that treats the two problems as separate and distinct from each other. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:37, 17 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your nomination of Square has passed

Your good article nomination of the article Square has passed; congratulations! See the review page for more information. If the article is eligible to appear in the "Did you know" section of the Main Page, you can nominate it within the next seven days. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of MathKeduor7 -- MathKeduor7 (talk) 09:06, 17 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

on Coupon collector's problem

the page largely covers the statistical distribution where X is the number of rolls of an n-sided fair die before all faces have occurred at least once.

in this revision, Cosmia Nebula finalised her addition (across several edits throughout January 29) of a section about generating functions, which shows one can compute the kth moment of the distribution by applying the Cauchy-Euler-like operator ${\displaystyle {\frac {d}{dx}}x}$ k times on the o.g.f. of the kth column of the Stirling subset triangle, then evaluating at ${\displaystyle x={\frac {1}{n}}}$ and multiplying by ${\displaystyle (n-1)!}$.

I have been writing a page an introduction to Stirling numbers on the OEISwiki, which has a section on some combinatorial manipulation of statistical distributions; specifically I'm interested in getting (preferably non-alternating) summation forms or asymptotic expansions for their kth-order moments.

I learned about the CCP distribution and decided to add it to (an upcoming revision of) the table, then realised that some other tools I know allow the case for each k to be written as a finite sum, of powers of n times products of gen. harmonic numbers in n

so I would like to check a few things about my edit (which replaces Cosmia's section with my derivation) with you (a better expository writer than me)

• I used the notation from Mircea Dan Rus's paper because it allows it to be written without so many factorial coefficients; is this generally allowed for a Wikipedia page?
• what balance should be struck between the current

'Rewriting the binomial coefficient via the gamma function and expanding as the ${\displaystyle \exp }$ of the polygamma series (in terms of generalised harmonic numbers)'

and a more complete explanation to one without the requisite background knowledge? or is the destination more important than the journey for Wikipedia purposes?

• in a similar vein, is the identity ${\displaystyle \left\{{K \atop i}\right\}(-1)^{K}=\sum _{k=0}^{K}\left\{{K \atop k}\right\}L(k,i)(-1)^{k}}$ that's shown, ie.

'matrix-multiplying the subset triangle (with alternating column signs) with the Lah triangle produces itself (with alternating row signs)'

sufficiently rote to just include (see this section of my aforementioned page for the g.f. interpretation of matmul of Stirling-type triangles), or ought that to be explained/linked to an explanation?

• should Cosmia's original formulation be kept? I wouldn't have thought of it and think it's neat, even though I have no idea how one would go on a similar path of deductions from it to my result; I suspect her intention was that it could be entered into Mathematica (et al.) to get the closed forms out.

thank you for your time ${\displaystyle .\ . \atop \smile }$ Drone Better (talk) 14:44, 17 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think there is any problem with using notation for a source. But regarding coupon collectors: my main opinion is that the article should emphasize the end result, that you need roughly n ln n draws, over its derivation. That's the part that's important, at least in the applications I've seen. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:02, 17 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your improvements. The current page is a bit derivation-heavy. I would suggest putting the derivations into collapsable boxes so that only interested readers would need to see them. It would look like: {{collapse top|title=Proof|left=true}}...{{collapse bottom}}

It has been used to good effect on many pages, such as the Hahn-Banach. pony in a strange land (talk) 17:46, 17 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wrapping multiple images

Is there a policy to restrict user merging available images, wrapping them up into one single image? I am thinking of a new image for Kepler–Poinsot polyhedron by collectively merging four polyhedra

• File:Small stellated dodecahedron constructed by dodecahedron.svg
• File:Great icosahedron constructed by dodecahedron.png
• File:Triakis icosahedron kleetope of the icosahedron in 1.svg
• File:Great stellated dodecahedron with yellow pentagram.svg

for the lead, and the pop-up as well (showing only one in four images instead), as long as I can attribute the authors. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 02:47, 18 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's within rules, as long as it's properly credited. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:51, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Okay thanks. I'll download them for now. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 08:31, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Did I do correctly? [23] I'm struggle by the way, so I probably need a hand. Do you mind? Dedhert.Jr (talk) 09:03, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Looks ok to me. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:41, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and one more. Shall I use CC 4.0 License if the images are 3.0, like this one? I mean, if it is controversial, Commons Wikimedia might delete this immediately, and I won't mind if somebody deletes the image I have wrapped up. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 03:58, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think you have to keep the same license and credits as the original, because wrapping the images isn't itself a copyright-worthy contribution. But I am not an expert on the subtleties of image licensing so that is more a guess than a certainty. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:00, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

User:I AM NEFERTITI and me

Title. Currently, she can't edit the same articles as me (and vice-versa)... How should I proceed to negotiate with the admins to change that? MathKeduor7 (talk) 05:37, 18 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If this is about User talk:I AM NEFERTITI#She is my friend, that was four years ago. You should probably start by asking User:Callanecc who imposed the conditions. There are other ways of appealing but they are not very attractive (outcome could easily end up worse rather than better). —David Eppstein (talk) 06:06, 18 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you!! MathKeduor7 (talk) 06:29, 18 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Luen-Fai Tam

Any tips on how to create an article about him? He meets WP:PROF, but finding sources is hard. MathKeduor7 (talk) 16:32, 19 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So far:

• https://www.math.cuhk.edu.hk/people/academic-staff/lftam
• https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=nWrWBVEAAAAJ&hl=en
• https://www.mathgenealogy.org/id.php?id=44453
• https://doi.org/10.1142/S0129167X19020014

Is that enough? MathKeduor7 (talk) 16:34, 19 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Good citation counts and a special issue devoted to him? That's all I found too but I think it's enough. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:36, 19 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! MathKeduor7 (talk) 16:37, 19 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Vladeck good article discussion

Look man it's been like six months so I don't really care if it makes good article or not anymore but don't disrespect the work I put into this by claiming this is in any way "plagiarism." There's only so many ways to reword basic phrases, and in any case we're talking about what, one, two sentences out of several pages' worth of writing. Choose your words more carefully in the future. PequodOnStationAtLZ (talk) 03:21, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Context: Talk:Baruch Charney Vladeck/GA1.

Ok, you made me realize I made a minor mistake in the review. When I wrote that the article copied the entire sentence "His father, a fervent Lubavitcher Hasid, died in 1889, leaving Shmuel’s mother a widow with five sons (he being the fourth) and a daughter." from the source, changed only to give Baruch's numbering among the siblings instead of his brother's, I was mistaken. It changed "Shmuel's" to "his" but didn't even change the numbering, making it incorrect when stated about Baruch rather than Shmuel.

Oh, and copying entire sentences without attributing them as quotes is plagiarism, whether you find that statement disrespectful or not. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:51, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Request for opinion on intuition for chain rule

Please, could you opine on the matter at User talk:Gumshoe2#Intuition about chain rule from elementary calculus? MathKeduor7 (talk) 07:41, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but calculus pedagogy is something many others have much more informed opinions about than I do. (Because I am in a computer science department, it's not something I interact with much.) —David Eppstein (talk) 21:50, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Okay! Best wishes. MathKeduor7 (talk) 22:09, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop making disparaging personal comments in edit summaries

You make a routine habit of stuff like calling me "pissy" in your edit summary at special:diff/1301885418. Restoring a long-standing stable style of a page pending discussion is routine, not any kind of problem. If you disagree, (politely) start a talk page discussion. But please stop with comments of this type in edit summaries. It makes working on Wikipedia significantly less pleasant when long-time members take random insulting pot shots for no reason. –jacobolus (t) 12:54, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You appear to make a routine habit of reversing or contradicting my edits as they appear on your watchlist and then leaving snarky edit summaries or talk page comments about them. The edit immediately before that one on the same article was merely the latest example. I was merely noting it. Try looking in a mirror. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:40, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Can you explain what specifically you found "snarky"? I am basically never trying to be "snarky", so there's some significant misinterpretation going on if you often feel my comments come across that way.

What I said was: 'the "indent" style was set for sources by user:Waynejayes in 2019, and has been fine for the past 6 years; there's no particularly obvious reason to change it without discussion'

This was not intended to be either "snarky" or "pissy".

I do sometimes revert your changes when I think they are harmful. (In this case, your edit seemed like an apparently arbitrary change to stable article style choices; I revert edits like this because stochastic churn in article style seems counterproductive.) If you have a problem with this, the appropriate response is to start a consensus-seeking discussion. (For example, I am not strongly attached to any particular style, and don't really care whether the reference list here has bullets or not; maybe other editors would agree with you that the bullet style is better.) Insulting me is not an appropriate response.

Comments like the one I am responding to, "Try looking in the mirror.", continue to be unprofessional, overly personal, and against Wikipedia norms and policy. Frankly I expect a lot better from you. –jacobolus (t) 18:17, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you don't see the pattern you are leaving in your wake, you don't see it. But each little undo of something unimportant is a little irritation. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:58, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You constantly revert other people's work, including often productive and valuable contributions. You should likewise expect your own changes to occasionally be reverted, especially when they consist of (in my opinion pointless) style churn without explanation. Having your edits reverted is a normal part of life at Wikipedia, and the accepted way of dealing with that here is to start a discussion.

Apparently this "pattern" is that "Jacob sometimes disagrees with David", plus your own apparent incapacity for ever being contradicted. If you are irritated, I'm sorry, that is not my intention. You should deal with that by starting a respectful and content-focused discussion on the talk page instead of turning your irritation to rudeness. –jacobolus (t) 20:15, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Respectfulness meaning avoiding phrasing like "random insulting pot shots", "Frankly I expect a lot better from you", and "incapacity for ever being contradicted"? Ok, then. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:18, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My goal here is to give you a heads up: "hey, cut out the insults". Calling you out for that is not intended to be a personal attack. But I find your behavior to be frequently contrary Wikipedia policy and norms and below the standard I expect of administrators.

Because you are a valuable contributor, most people ignore your disrespect or dance around it, but speaking for myself it's often quite unpleasant. If you really want I can make a more comprehensive survey of your language and behavior toward myself and other editors, and take it to ANI. I'd really rather not though, as I think you are generally a net positive to the project. –jacobolus (t) 20:27, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To be more explicit: What I would hope for as a response from you to this type of note on your page is something more along the lines of "I'm sorry Jacob. I was frustrated by your revert, but I wasn't trying to offend you. I'll try to watch my words a bit more carefully next time, and if I have a problem I will start a discussion on the article talk page instead of venting in the edit summary." –jacobolus (t) 20:31, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You first. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:40, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I will do my best:

I am sorry for calling your comment a "random insulting pot shot". I should have been more explicit in stating that (1) I find your comment personally offensive, and (2) I want you to stop making similar remarks in your edit summaries, but without (3) making any characterization which might imply an understanding of your state of mind. I recognize that it is important to be delicate with my phrasing so I am not misunderstood, and I will try to be more careful and precise next time.

Does that cut it? Or do you want me to apologize for calling you out because I found your language offensive? I'm not going to do that, because I believe calling people out for what I perceive to be bad behavior is my basic civic responsibility as part of a welcoming community, and I take it seriously. –jacobolus (t) 20:58, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if you're not going to apologize "for calling you out because I found your language offensive" I'm not, either. But I do respect your contributions, find them consistently constructive, apologize that for whatever reason my edit summaries have given you the opposite impression, and will endeavor to be less snarky in any future edit summaries in response to you. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:11, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. It's much appreciated. –jacobolus (t) 21:29, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In appreciation

		The Good Article Rescue Barnstar
		This is presented to you by the GAR process in recognition of your sterling work in helping Addition retain its Good Article status. Please feel free to display the GA icon on your userpage. Keep up the good work! ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:51, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A little help in graph theory

Hope you don't mind if I request an explanation (or expansion, if you want to) of the graph theory in Cube#As a graph. Also, you might interested in reviewing Wikipedia:Peer review/Cube/archive1, just for the comprehensive as one of FACRs, and it's also an invitation from a reviewer. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 03:47, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. To begin with, "In the case of the cubical graph, it is the product of two ${\displaystyle Q_{2}}$" is incorrect; the dimensions add, so the product of two ${\displaystyle Q_{2}}$ is ${\displaystyle Q_{4}}$, the graph of a four-dimensional hypercube. The graph of a cube is ${\displaystyle Q_{3}=Q_{2}\mathbin {\Box } Q_{1}=Q_{1}\mathbin {\Box } Q_{1}\mathbin {\Box } Q_{1}}$. And it's not clear to me what "roughly speaking, it is a graph resembling a square" is intended to mean. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:58, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. Done? For the roughly speaking, do readers understand what a hypercube graph is all about? That's why I include the description of how ${\displaystyle Q_{2}}$ should be; perhaps too easy to explain? Dedhert.Jr (talk) 04:12, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you!

I don't spend a ton of time in your corners of Wikipedia but I still see you helping everyone all the time (that's how it seems at least). Earlier today I clicked to XOR'easter's page to say thanks for doing something a few months ago, but alas, XOR'easter is retired now! I'm regularly inspired by certain knowledgable and dedicated people on here, and now I'm especially glad that so many editors stick around, so here I am writing this ramble-y thanks. I've recommended your list of GAs to a few non-Wikipedian friends who like reading stuff like that, and there have been a few times that we've discussed Gale–Shapley algorithm or Square as if we're having some sort of book club. So thank you! They talk about you as if you're legendary, and usually I say they're right. Crunchydillpickle🥒 (talk) 03:20, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome! —David Eppstein (talk) 05:57, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

XOR'easter retired??? Damn, what a loss. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:38, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm... Now I wonder who will take the continuation of expanding Circle. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 01:55, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Regular tetrahedron

Do you have any reason to revert this edit? Ignore the user anyway. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 12:01, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:DENY, User:初櫻野瞳妍緒, Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Xayahrainie43/Archive, and Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Xayahrainie43. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:22, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Dashes

Per WP:MOSDASH, em dashes are to be unspaced and en dashes are to be spaced in plain text. Not a huge deal, but just FYI. --Jprg1966 ^(talk) 06:54, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I know, and changing spaced em dashes to one of those two is generally appropriate. But in this example I think there is a good reason to choose spaced en dashes over unspaced em dashes. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:01, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Goldner-Harary application?

[24]

Once again, I may not be good at graph theory, but I think I found something interesting in its application. If this is otherwise, then I guess this graph is not ready for a good candidate like Frucht graph, like you said. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 15:21, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea about that paper.

Coincidentally I just saw a talk this morning that mentioned this graph at the SIAM Conference on Computational Geometric Design. It was as a counterexample for a certain construction for generating 3d shapes from their skeletons. If a set of points on the sphere had the Goldner–Harary graph as their Delaunay triangulation then the construction would not have worked, but fortunately the Goldner–Harary graph does not describe an inscribable polyhedron (See Thm 2.2.1 of this dissertation) and therefore cannot be realized as a Delaunay triangulation. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:37, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well that paper is basically about Goldner–Harary graph's new quantum pattern for Alzheimer's disease. But okay, then.

Anyway, I wonder if I could use a dissertation for citation, but they might be revised from time to time. I'll see what I can do. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 01:51, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Doctoral theses are generally fine for citations. Master's theses can sometimes be used with caution. Bachelor's theses probably not. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:03, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

CFD re Native American mathematicians

Greetings, I was happy (though not surprised) to see your name turn up all over the edit history for Jennifer McLoud-Mann. So I thought you might be interested to know that another editor recently created a new Category:21st-century Native American mathematicians expressly for her article, which is being discussed for renaming. Regards, Anomalous+0 (talk) 23:58, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

DYK for Alhazen's problem

On 30 July 2025, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Alhazen's problem, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that Leonardo da Vinci invented a device to solve Alhazen's problem, instead of finding a mathematical solution? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Alhazen's problem. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, Alhazen's problem), and the hook may be added to the statistics page after its run on the Main Page has completed. 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.

 — Chris Woodrich (talk) 00:02, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your nomination of Yao's principle is under review

Your good article nomination of the article Yao's principle is under review. See the review page for more information. This may take up to 7 days; feel free to contact the reviewer with any questions you might have. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of Z. Patterson -- Z. Patterson (talk) 00:44, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your nomination of Yao's principle is on hold

Your good article nomination of the article Yao's principle has been placed on hold, as the article needs some changes. See the review page for more information. If these are addressed within 7 days, the nomination will pass; otherwise, it may fail. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of Z. Patterson -- Z. Patterson (talk) 02:24, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your nomination of Matroid parity problem is under review

Your good article nomination of the article Matroid parity problem is under review. See the review page for more information. This may take up to 7 days; feel free to contact the reviewer with any questions you might have. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of Gramix13 -- Gramix13 (talk) 04:42, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your nomination of Parallelohedron is under review

Your good article nomination of the article Parallelohedron is under review. See the review page for more information. This may take up to 7 days; feel free to contact the reviewer with any questions you might have. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of Dedhert.Jr -- Dedhert.Jr (talk) 06:05, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your nomination of Yao's principle has passed

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Women in Red August 2025

Women in Red | August 2025, Vol 11, Issue 8, Nos. 326, 327, 344, 345, 346 Online events: New: Alphabet run O & P | Indigenous women | Film and stage Continuing, year-long initiatives: #1day1woman | Music Announcements: Wikipedia:Developing Countries WikiContest runs 1 July 2025 until 30 September 2025 Tip of the month: Read the essay Determining Native American and Indigenous Canadian identities to understand the criteria for status as Native American or Indigenous Canadian Other ways to participate: Become a member. You can always opt-out of notifications. Join the conversations on our talkpage. Help us plan future events and add any general ideas on developing the project. Follow us on social media: Instagram | Pinterest

--Rosiestep (talk) 14:48, 30 July 2025 (UTC) via MassMessaging[reply]

Your nomination of Parallelohedron has passed

Your good article nomination of the article Parallelohedron has passed; congratulations! See the review page for more information. If the article is eligible to appear in the "Did you know" section of the Main Page, you can nominate it within the next seven days. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of Dedhert.Jr -- Dedhert.Jr (talk) 04:01, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Alphabet (formal language)

I added a new section Alphabet_(formal_languages)#Unambiguity, along the lines of Talk:Alphabet_(formal_languages)#What_does_it_mean_by_"indivisible"? and User_talk:David_Eppstein/2025b#Alphabet_(formal_languages):_indivisibility, and would appreciate any comments from you very much.

In particular, I think that, if the notions of Free monoid and Kleene star don't coincide (as claimed in the new section), several articles about formal language issues would have to be changed, or at least reviewed. I don't dare to start that task without some prior confirmation. - Jochen Burghardt (talk) 18:27, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This entire section comes across as an essay-like synthesis of sources that fundamentally misunderstands the definitions.

But in general, formal languages are sets of finite sequences of symbols from some alphabet. What you deem "unambiguity" is merely that they are sequences of symbols, not concatenations of strings that may themselves be concatenated from other strings.

Your "if epsilon in Sigma" paragraph is just wrong. You can certainly have an alphabet whose members are strings and which includes the empty string. All that means is that the strings over that alphabet are sequences whose individual elements are strings. The elements of the elements are something else. So ["", "Jochen", "Burghhardt"] is a string, whose individual elements are strings. You could write it as [ [], [J, o, c, h, e, n], [B, u, r, g, h, h, a, r, d, t]] if you prefer. The fact that the empty string is an element of this sequence does not cause it to have length different from 3. The fact that the other elements are themselves sequences also does not cause it to have length different from 3.

A sequence of sequences is not the same as a concatenation of sequences.

It is just like, if F_i, are sets, then the set of these sets {F_i} is different from the union of the F_i. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:39, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the fast response.

Unfortunately, you have a point with "an essay-like synthesis".

Concerning strings, your point of view amounts to the use of the free monoid as set of strings (that is, always using a fresh concatenation operation, and a fresh empty-string constant), and I like your illustrative analogy to sets.

But I'm still afraid that this construction differs from the Kleene star. If e.g. ${\displaystyle A}$ is the set of all upper or lower case letters, then the sequence ${\displaystyle [J,o,c,h]}$ is an element of ${\displaystyle A^{*}}$, but, if I understood you right, ${\displaystyle [[J,o],[c,h]]}$ is not in ${\displaystyle A^{*}}$ but in ${\displaystyle (A^{*})^{*}}$, since it isn't a sequence of letters, but a sequence of strings. However, the Kleene star should be idempotent; at least, this is required in Kleene algebra.

If this is right (I'm still not sure), we should review every formal-languages article and avoid the misunderstanding that the set of strings over an alphabet ${\displaystyle A}$ always equals the Kleene star of ${\displaystyle A}$. We could begin right here: in Alphabet_(formal_languages)#Notation. - Jochen Burghardt (talk) 10:48, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Jochen Burghardt I think that there are two Kleene stars whose type signature differs. The star that is used in regular expressions takes as its argument a set of strings maybe described by another regexp, and produces another set of strings over the same alphabet. The star that is used when we denote the set of all strings as ${\displaystyle \Sigma ^{*}}$ takes as input a set of symbols (an alphabet) and outputs a set of strings over that alphabet. Or if you prefer you could imagine a hidden type coercion from a set of symbols to a set of one-symbol strings. Or if you prefer you could say that ${\displaystyle \Sigma ^{*}}$ is merely a notational convention and not really a Kleene star operator at all. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:03, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That looks reasonable. I think the least editing effort is caused by your first suggestion (two Kleene stars whose type signature differs): We'd just need to add a corresponding paragraph somewhere to Kleene star. All occurrences of "${\displaystyle A^{*}}$ is the Kleene star of ${\displaystyle A}$, also known as the free monoid" (and similar) can remain unchanged. The problem with WP:SYN remains, however. - Jochen Burghardt (talk) 12:21, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We cannot add any such paragraph without a source. All we need to do is to say that ${\displaystyle \Sigma ^{*}}$ is the notation for the set of all strings, and not try to call it the Kleene star. We don't need sources to not say something. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:33, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

PS I think the real problem is in the Kleene star article, where it doesn't distinguish between concatenations of given strings and sequences of given characters (two different things). We need that article to be cleaned up to make this distinction properly, first. Once that happens, we can figure out how to discuss stars elsewhere (like in the alphabet article) in a way that is consistent with the cleaned-up article. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:39, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In Wikipedia, it is not trivial to not say something. Kleene star/What links here lists 103 incoming links (no transclusions, about 10 + 10 via the redirects Kleene closure + Kleene plus). I could check these, and replace "Kleene star" by "Free monoid" where appropriate; this might take 1-2 hours, I guess. However, I'm afraid that many such edits would be reverted (maybe not immediately, but in the future, in good faith, without being aware of this discussion), and new formal-language articles would re-introduce more inappropriate links.

As for a cleanup, I guess there is no source that explicitly mentions the distinction between both uses. However, we should at least be able to provide a citation for each of them separately. For the character case, Hermes is the most explicit source I found so far (see my essay which is still available here), and he doesn't even mention Kleene, let alone Kleene star. For the string case, I'd look at sources about Kleene algebra, near the statement of idempotence of the star.

We could also add distinguishing examples at Kleene star and/or Free monoid; they might not need a source, but help to understand the distinction. - Jochen Burghardt (talk) 15:38, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Risk, Hazards & Crisis in Public Policy

Is this journal notable – or not? Bearian (talk) 23:02, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's in Web of Science, so it passes WP:NJOURNALS. But that is an essay and the actual notability guideline that applies is WP:GNG, which is very difficult for most journals to pass, even when they pass NJOURNALS. It is also very difficult to find GNG-worthy sources about most journals, even when they exist, because they are swamped in searches by all the other sources that cite papers in the journal without providing depth of coverage about the journal. Which is to say, the article doesn't provide evidence of GNG notability, and I didn't find any in searching, but I'm not certain of the nonexistence of good sources. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:32, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, thank you. Bearian (talk) 18:11, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Platonic solids credited to Pythagoras

Sorry, but did you know something about the history of these solids? Found in Regular polytope, which stated, "The five Platonic solids were known to them. Pythagoras knew of at least three of them and Theaetetus (c. 417 BC – 369 BC) described all five." I do think this is dubious, but if you have one, I reprimand myself for how fallacious my interpretation is, and I might require the reconsideration of his biography. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 11:11, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/267/edited_volume/chapter/3942740/pdf —David Eppstein (talk) 17:08, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Spanning Tree Protocol in Cycle (graph theory)

Perhaps surprisingly - I absolutely agree that this is not a topic in graph theory. But perhaps an article about distributed algorithms on graphs?

I’m working on the Computer Networks article, and that got me into a little bit of a dispute about removing the Network Science sidebar from the lead of the article on Computer Networks, on the grounds that most (almost all?) of the topics are irrelevant to computer networks. I changed the Cycle (graph theory) article because in looking through the topics, I said to myself, “well that one actually is sort of relevant, I think I’ll make it so by adding some information to it.”

Not really such a good idea, sorry for the trouble. Ngriffeth (talk) 20:35, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Maria Chudnovsky

Hi,

You reverted my fix of Maria Chudnovsky's Russian name. I reverted it back because the old name was very obviously wrong, but I pressed Publish before writing the full edit summary.

There are sources for it, of course, e.g. https://www.svoboda.org/a/24733447.html . Usually, sources are not written for native names except in unusual cases. This case in not unusual at all—it is a pretty simple Russian name.

Also, the letter ј is never, ever used in the Russian language.

Also, Russian is my mother tongue.

Also, there was no source for the previous spelling of the name, and there couldn't be because it's obviously wrong. Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 20:48, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Both the Russian and Hebrew names were added by an editor who added non-English names to thousands of articles; in the vast majority of cases these were just made up (unsourced, not grounded in any evidence that the subject has ever used the glyph as a name). Thankfully they have stopped doing that, but doubtless they have left hundreds of errors that no one is ever going to clean up. Since I see no evidence that Chudnovsky has ever professionally or personally used either a Russian or Hebrew version of her name, I have removed them both. ----JBL (talk) 21:13, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Also, incidentally, a source written in Russian is evidence that someone at some point transliterated her name into Russian a certain way, but it is only weak evidence that that particular string is her Russian name: if someone writes an article about David Eppstein in Russian presumably they will write some string in the Russian Cyrilic alphabet corresponding to his name, but that doesn't mean the resulting string is "his Russian name". (I'm not asserting it's not -- I don't know, probably it actually is -- just that the level of evidence here is weak.) ----JBL (talk) 21:19, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That is not how it works in Russian, but whatevs, I don't enjoy arguing. Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 21:24, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How it works on Wikipedia is that we need published sources, regardless of what you think you know.

I could ask Maria (we are coauthors on a soon-to-be-published paper) but that also wouldn't help unless the name appears published somewhere. I agree with JBL's removal.

(As for my name in Cyrillic, I have never lived in a Cyrillic-speaking country so have never used that form. Presumably others have transliterated my name but it is not worthy of inclusion here.) —David Eppstein (talk) 21:38, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry that was terrible writing on my part; the "it" in "I'm not asserting it's not" was supposed to point back to Chudnovsky. --JBL (talk) 17:31, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Adriana Salerno

Greetings. I don't mean to browbeat or put you on the defensive, but my ES was serious: how did this happen? The date changes (thanks for the thanks), image removal, and category changes weren't about "rescue one deadlink and archive the other". I'd just like to better understand where each decision came from. If you'd like to remand this to the article talkpage, that would be grand. I'd just like to understand what happened. Many thanks. JFHJr (㊟) 00:42, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your bad faith assumptions are unwarranted. Looks like I merely accidentally edited the wrong version somehow. I think I have fixed it now. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:45, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No sir, no bad faith. Thanks for your feedback. JFHJr (㊟) 00:58, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Update re Category:21st-century Native American mathematicians

Hello - Thanks to User:EulerianTrail, this Category now has 5 articles. I thought perhaps you might want to update your comments with regard to renaming vs merging. Anomalous+0 (talk) 21:46, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I was hoping you would clarify where you come down on this now. It's not entirely clear what you meant by "Merge, but..." - especially after the update you posted. And of course, that was before additional articles were added to the category. Anomalous+0 (talk) 12:30, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your nomination of Matroid parity problem is on hold

Your good article nomination of the article Matroid parity problem has been placed on hold, as the article needs some changes. See the review page for more information. If these are addressed within 7 days, the nomination will pass; otherwise, it may fail. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of Gramix13 -- Gramix13 (talk) 23:07, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Riemann Hypothesis Solution

Dear buddy, I have good and bad news for you. The good news is that the Riemann Hypothesis is solved. The bad news is you're responsible for vetting the solution as per blocking my edits on the wiki article. I took a screenshot of you locking down the access so you should be prepared to justify that decision. I already stated the solution takes about 1 minute to comprehend, it's simply a matter of realizing zero is a space, not a point and mislocating the notion of 2. "2" resides in the center of zero, it doesn't exist 2 notches outside of zero:

https://github.com/jbreija/Universe/blob/main/init.png https://github.com/jbreija/Universe/blob/main/docs/Riemann_hypothesis_solution

I understand there's thousands of crackpots on the Internet claiming to have solved the Riemann Hypothesis but this is the real deal and the evidence is self-explanatory, there's no need for peer review at all. I read your wiki bio and you're operating way out of your league and have absolutely no idea of it. Anyways, bye bye, I don't edit wiki articles or care about this website. 69.14.4.153 (talk) 19:06, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Screenshots are unnecessary; the edit history of the Riemann hypothesis article, showing you violate WP:3RR and insult other editors, is not likely to be hidden any time soon. So far you are merely locked out from that one article. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:16, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

MTAU workshop

Hi David,

I was wondering if you would have time to look at the draft text at Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable/Workshop and in particular the Use of visuals section. You always manage to find or design effective graphs for your articles, and I wonder if there's any guidance you could add to the text / remove less relevant parts? My main idea behind the rewrite is to focus more on understandability for all readers, rather than just for more novice readers. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 07:17, 13 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not David, but I did want to thank you @Femke for taking on the rewrite to WP:MTAU. I think it's very important to ensure understandability for article is able to be as broad as reasonably possible, especially beyond novices as you say (per the "one level down" guideline), and its a goal I try to strive when writing articles. I was curious if there was an easy way to compare/contrast the wording between the current and workshop version? I tried looking at the earliest version of the workshop page to see if maybe that had a copy of the current guideline to make it easy to compare via a diff, but that version is only a mere checklist, so that thwarted my plan. Anyway, looking forward to seeing this progress. Gramix13 (talk) 02:11, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's not perfect, but you can diff pages: diff between workshop and guideline. I've boldly made some of the structural improvements to the guideline as well, so that this comparison works. In doesn't diff everything however, for instance, it struggles with the the bullet points into prose changes. If there's a specific section you'd like to compare, happy to provide the diff using {{Text diff}}. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 07:32, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Huh, well TIL Special:ComparePages exists, that will be useful to keep in mind for the future! I'll have to take some time comparing both, but I appreciate your help with this. I'll reach out directly to you or on the talk page of the workshop if I have questions. Gramix13 (talk) 04:12, 15 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your nomination of Matroid parity problem has passed

Your good article nomination of the article Matroid parity problem has passed; congratulations! See the review page for more information. If the article is eligible to appear in the "Did you know" section of the Main Page, you can nominate it within the next seven days. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of Gramix13 -- Gramix13 (talk) 04:23, 15 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations on the pass! Have safe travels, and good luck on DYK if you choose to nominate this article! Gramix13 (talk) 04:46, 15 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Mr. Eppstein

Dear Mr. Eppstein,

I wanted to say, I am really sorry that I tagged you multiple times in the Benjamin Schlein article. I know that you have a lot to do and I did not want to annoy you. I just did it out of despair, but I am sorry for that.

The only reason why I am here is to write mathematic articles - and ocassionaly articles on mathematicians, who I think are important. I am a mathematician and I read also reasearch articles in many languages: Russian, French or German. So I think I have a lot to share. I only want to help science and mathematics to develop. I wrote 185 articles about mathematics in the German wikipedia already. --Tensorproduct (talk) 22:30, 15 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Blog as a reliable source

I don't remember whether we have discussed this before. But have you considered this [25] as a reliable source? I only know that WP:BLOG stated that blogs are not supposed to be reliable sources. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 13:19, 17 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's borderline but you could think of The Aperiodical as being a magazine that publishes only online; it's a group effort rather than someone's personal blog. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:20, 17 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding Timothy Jackson

See also here. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 19:33, 17 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I agree with your edit summary there. It is an oddly unverifiable claim. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:35, 17 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

requests for permission to fork/republish/host gfind and quote/rehost you

hello, some requests on behalf of the ConwayLife community that may come as blasts from the past to you

• forums/wiki user speedydelete wants to host a website with gfind compiled to WebAssembly (in the vein of the web version of rlifesrc (Rust port of lifesrc with some niceties like Generations rules)), but you list it as 'freeware' and without a licence (so all rights are reserved by default); are you willing to state here that you release it under GPL or something?
• are you aware that the fano.ics.uci.edu/ca subdomain (which provided a web GUI for searching glider.db until 2018-19) is down, and do you still have the server-side source code available in an easily-hostable way? There is a chain of continuations of glider.db that retain the format, so it would be nice if we could host it as a plaintext page in the LifeWiki and have a rehosted web UI search through it
• moreover, conwaylife.com/ref hosts static versions of several other people's Life/CA pages with permission; I have been frustrated by professors' institution-provided web presences vanishing and their unarchived pages and PDFs being lost to time, could /~eppstein/ca be mirrored there too?
• I ported your Most Wanted page to the LifeWiki, with LifeViewer embeds for all that have since had spaceships found; it also covers the rules whose entries were removed in early 2000. Do you happen to have backups of past revisions of your webpages so others can be referenced more completely?
• the LifeCA mailing list's invitation-only status was meant to keep spammers out (and prevent them from delivering spam to participants' addresses directly), but since its closure (and supersedence by ConwayLife) it has served by technicality to make it inaccessible to anyone not sworn in; dvgrn said

I tried quite hard to get everybody to give blanket permission to repost their messages, about 20 years ago -- so that we could stop having to worry about the highly irritating LifeCA privacy policy. Invitation-only access to the mailing list was great for avoiding spam, but not so great otherwise -- they should really have set it up with some kind of advance agreement like "becomes public after 10 years".

I only got responses back from about half of the group. At this point those responses are buried in an export file from my old pre-Gmail "Juno" email account, which is possibly only on a DVD somewhere that I don't currently have working hardware to read. So I don't remember for sure whether David Eppstein was one of the people who gave permission to repost.

so can you provide permission for that (possibly a second time) here? because I imagine you discussed context relevant to pages about your webpages

• finally (this one is less a request and more self-indulgence :-) every page about a rule with a replicator in your list has a speed except for B36/S245; this was provisionally named the logarithmic replicator rule, but after user AforAmpere did the hard work (finding the non-totalistic rule B2a3eny4at/S01c2ci3i4e5e in which 3-cell-wide symmetrical columns' evolution emulate reps and eggs without all the embellishing noise), it was pretty easy for me to notice the self-similarity and determine the growth to be sqrtic; it is now known as the sqrt replicator rule

also, quite a few more spaceships are known; my favourite is the 4c/14 that is remarkably smaller than all true-period 2c/7s and was found by ikpx2 searching at 2c/7, which simulates all partials with apgsearch in case they decay into having a stable higher-period backend, and turned out extremely lucky here

note that this behaviour of self-similar replication with sublinear width is not uncommon among replicators; you may know of the growth of the domino in the elementary CA rule 120, and I have recently finished a writeup on nearsighted binary counters characterising the evolution of the n-omino in (one-sided range-n) rule ${\displaystyle {2^{2^{n}} \choose 2}}$, whose width grows with ${\displaystyle \Theta ({\sqrt[{n}]{t}})}$ ("XOR with the AND of the n neighbours to your right")

the area inside the hull of the timespace diagram up to generation T is thus ${\displaystyle \Theta \!\left(T^{1+{\frac {1}{n}}}\right)}$, however (like the Cantor set or Sierpinski triangle) its density diminishes (exponentially with respect to iteration when converged to by an L-system, or polynomially by a row-by-row cellular automaton); the population inside there is only ${\displaystyle \Theta \!\left(T^{\log _{2^{n}}\left(2^{n}+1\right)}\right)}$

thank you for your time ${\displaystyle .\ . \atop \smile }$ Drone Better (talk) 23:48, 19 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Re gfind: I am happy to release it under the MIT license.

Re the glider database: the data still exists online at https://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/ca/glider.db (in a format that is I hope self-documenting) and can be searched via a command-line interface using the software at https://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/ca/glider.c (which also can be released under MIT license but it would be easy enough to write your own). I haven't run the web server on fano.ics.uci.edu for years. It was running as a background process on a desktop machine in my office but some combination of hardware replacements and MacOS and network security updates broke it and I couldn't be bothered to get it working again.

I don't in principle mind my /ca folder being mirrored as long as it doesn't involve any effort on my part.

Re backups of past versions of my web pages: I don't have personal backups of these, but they might exist on archive.org.

Re LifeList messages: Yes, my posts there can be made public.

Also, thanks for the interesting update re B36/S245. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:10, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Happy First Edit Day!

Hey, David Eppstein. I'd like to wish you a wonderful First Edit Day on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Have a great day! DaniloDaysOfOurLives (talk) 04:58, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your nomination of Pythagorean addition is under review

Your good article nomination of the article Pythagorean addition is under review. See the review page for more information. This may take up to 7 days; feel free to contact the reviewer with any questions you might have. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of Kusma -- Kusma (talk) 10:42, 23 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your nomination of Pythagorean addition has passed

Your good article nomination of the article Pythagorean addition has passed; congratulations! See the review page for more information. If the article is eligible to appear in the "Did you know" section of the Main Page, you can nominate it within the next seven days. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of Kusma -- Kusma (talk) 10:04, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Dihedron again

Thanks for enlightening me. But one missing thing is I cannot comprehend the dihedron (or should I say doubly covered polygon) and convex property: can I interpret a convex dihedron as a way of a convex set in a polygon or any two-dimensional shape? I still don't get it. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 01:56, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You can make double-covered convex surfaces from any two-dimensional convex set (with nonempty interior). But to be a dihedron it should be a polygon. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:57, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism claim

Hello. I see you have reverted each and every one of my contributions. I see from your own editing history that your own area of knowledge doesn't quite qualify you to judge the rights and wrongs of my edits, yet you go one further and call it all vandalism. Would you be so kind as to explain what specifically you believed to constitute vandalism, and why you never brought it to my attention (eg. the disambiguation link I inserted I already fixed, and the Cluebot activated a false positive). I am a mathematician by alma mater and can explain anything to you where something, such as a technical language term, is not clear. So can you expain what and why you dismissed something as vandalism? --Electric Metal (talk) 22:35, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think your edits speak for themselves. I am certainly not going to attempt to make sense of them. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:19, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean I need to use clearer more everyday and less technical language? --Electric Metal (talk) 23:26, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I mean you should try to do something constructive rather than adding paragraphs of Vogon poetry to articles. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:31, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. CompSci undergrad here. Please explain your edits in the edit summary section, especialy for large edits w/ more than 1KB of text added, as you did with Instruction pipelining.

Also, I don't think one need to be an expertise in the subject field to question the rationality of adding pages on congruence, a maths topic, to the article of instruction pipelining.

And just in case, please check WP:NOBLOGS for Wikipedia's policy on referencing blogs. 海盐沙冰 (talk) 23:42, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It does not take a graduate education to be able to recognize the unhelpfulness of additions such as "When triggering what comes of the desire factor, there are variable digs on the inside of the input serive". And although I did provide edit summaries, they are not required for reverting vandalism. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:47, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I am agreeing with you. My response was aimed at Electric Metal. Cheers. 海盐沙冰 (talk) 00:22, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, thanks, sorry for the confusion. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:22, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of sub-section about multi-scale analysis in the article on power law distributions

Dear @David Eppstein, I'm not clear why you removed the (existing) section I edited (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Power_law&diff=1307981091&oldid=1305953677). You marked the edit as REFSPAM. Nevertheless, this revision was widely discussed and agreed upon on the talk page with other users, including a senior editor, Johnjbarton, who advised and guided me in updating the article on power laws. Personally, I think I've made a useful contribution that explains some important aspects of the analysis of power law distributions. I would be grateful if you could provide some clarification on this removal and explain how you think it should be modified to include it again. Thank you. Onion&bacon1980 (talk) 18:35, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You and a collection of related-appearing editors have been spamming citations to the works of Vincenzo Guerriero across articles on this Wikipedia and articles on other Wikipedias. This WP:REFSPAM needs to stop. Wikipedia editing should be based on neutral coverage of the material in its articles, sourced to the best sources available, not for promotion of researchers using their sources in preference to better ones. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:47, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nicomachus theorem

Hello, David Eppstein. You have new messages at talk:Squared_triangular_number.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

cmɢʟee τaʟκ (please add {{ping|cmglee}} to your reply) 00:42, 28 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Erdős number

The most recent Erdős number discussion on WT:MATH has now been archived here with the discussion again getting nowhere after this 2017 discussion. You said in the 2017 discussion that you don't think all Erdős numbers of 1 are worth mentioning but were silent on which of 1 are actually worth mentioning. I have now came to the conclusion that the only way forward is to start an RFC where we can hear from people who are not just math supremacists (and Erdős supremacists) i.e. not just from people who hang around WT:MATH. But one prerequisite of starting this RFC is to shortlist people for whom the concept of Erdős number is really defining or in other words close collaborators of Erdős. What do you think of going through all Erdős number one mathematicians and post 500 or so different summaries why Erdős number of one is not a defining attribute for them. The rest dozen or so mathematicians could have their Erdős number mentioned. Then we can start the RFC. Solomon7968 13:52, 29 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That seems like a waste of time to me. What problem is so urgent that it needs all this effort to fix it? And if you really want to aim for decisions on this to be made from a group of editors who are as ignorant as possible, why are you iniating this yourself and talking to me about it? —David Eppstein (talk) 17:44, 29 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

49.142.17.100

Hi David, Kindly help to block the IP editor 49.142.17.100 as they are mass vandalizing Wikipedia pages. Thank you. Cassiopeia talk 07:16, 30 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

User:Lofty abyss got there first. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:21, 30 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. the editor got just 31 hr blocked. IMO it should be indef. Thank you and have a good day. Cassiopeia talk 07:23, 30 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Most IP addresses do not stay with a single person for long enough for an indef block to make sense. I usually start with a few days, but if they return after the block it can be extended. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:25, 30 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Gömböc naming and plural form

Hi David. Regarding the naming of gömböc: gömböces is not the Hungarian plural. That's the English plural that follows the pronunciation of the final consonant of the word. Similarly to how the word waltz ends in the 'ts' sound, and its plural is not waltzs but waltzes, one would say gömböces and not gömböcs.

I think the gömböcs form comes from the misunderstanding that the pronunciation would be /ˈɡømbøk/. However, the fact that English has not developed its own spelling of the word does not alone imply that the c should be pronounced as k or s. (To support that argument, I could think of an example such as cello, which would otherwise be pronounced as /ˈsɛloʊ/ or /ˈkɛloʊ/, but because of the foreign origin it is /ˈtʃɛloʊ/.) The source of misconception about the pronunciation might be that English speakers primarily encounter the word in written, but not in spoken form.

Let me know your thoughts. Florofill (talk) 16:59, 30 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, it is not the English form. In English the forms singular -oc plural -oces are not native. There is a form singular -ox plural -oces, but it is also not native; it is borrowed from Latin. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:05, 30 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's a different concept you're mentioning. In the -oces form, the c still aligns with the pronunciation rules of English. Here, however, the pronunciation of the word ends in the ts sound. Think of it like this: what suffix would you indicate the plural form with if the word were written like goemboets? I'd say no English speaker would try to pronounce the s or z sound corresponding to the plural suffix, directly after the ts sound at the end of the word: they would add the e vowel easing the pronunciation: goemboetses. This is not borrowed from Latin; it's how English would natively handle the pronounced ts sound at the end of the word. Florofill (talk) 17:24, 30 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Again, -oc -oces is not a native form. If you're going to insist that how English would natively handle this I'm going to insist that you supply a published source for this usage. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:29, 30 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

First, I refer to this article section (and its references) to support the statement that the /ts/ sound, a sequence of the /t/ and /s/ phonemes, is a consonant of the voiceless alveolar sibilant affricate type, a subset of the sibilant consonants. This sound is a sequence of the /t/ laminal alveolar consonant and the /s/ sibilant.

Second, I refer to the book A Practical Introduction to English Phonology, 2nd. Edition by Pennock-Speck and Barry, to support the statement that sibilant consonants in English end in the discussed plural form:

[...] the English regular plural ending on nouns is marked by an <s> spelling, which means more than one thing phonologically: [...] in cases where the stem ends in a sibilant – namely, [s z ʃ ʒ tʃ dʒ] – a vowel is inserted for reasons of ease of articulation, since sequences of two sibilants are not allowed in English, giving horses, bushes, churches with [əz] (or [ɪz]).

And since the /s/ at the end of [ˈɡømbøts] is part of a voiceless alveolar sibilant affricate, the above rule applies to this word, too. Florofill (talk) 21:50, 30 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Google Scholar: 24 hits for "gombocs", zero for "gomboces", no matter how it is pronounced. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:57, 30 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

...of which 23 has nothing to do with gömböc, and are only shown as a result because of the unrelated Hungarian family name Gombocs, or the string showing up in unrelated words such as "gombocskákkal". Only one of the 24 results is actually about the gömböc.

The fact that the official name (even according to the very Wiki article we're talking about) is gömböc, not gomboc, also shows well how reliable a method it is to look up the correct spelling of a word on Google Scholar. Moreover, the writers of articles about gömböc are no linguists either, and could have many reasons to use their way of spelling: getting rid of the diacritics in order to improve searchability of their papers; not being aware of the difference in pronunciation between o and ö; not being aware of what sound the c is denoting at the end of the word.

And even then, information on Wikipedia should not be based on incomplete linguistic knowledge of an arbitrary researcher who has only seen the word written down somewhere (in a perhaps incorrect form), I believe.

You insisted on me supplying published sources that support my argument about the spelling, and when I did, you support your argument with a misleading Google Scholar search. I'm happy to change my mind as a result of meaningful arguments, but it seems to me that it's me who wants to find common ground, and you want to just stick with your current beliefs on the matter. Florofill (talk) 01:10, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ignore the false positives and look at the total lack of hits for "gomboces". Literally no scholarly work uses this plural form. It appears to be purely a neologism, created by you based on your belief about how the English form should reflect the Hungarian pronunciation rather than following actual practice. That is not how Wikipedia works. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:14, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I do believe you are right that Wikipedia has to follow the established (even if linguistically questionable) forms of words. Putting the reasoning about sibilant consonants aside, what I was questioning is whether any used plural form of the word can, in this context, be considered as established. Put another way, when deciding the form used in a Wiki article, what should one consider an established form, and what a popular mistake? As I pointed out: even just looking at the singular, the Wiki article rightly uses the gömböc form; this is not true about many research papers, using gomboc. Are those really the sources one can rely on when deciding on a way of spelling? (Not to mention that the 1 vs. 0 occurrences on Google Scholar questions even how well established the "gombocs" form is...)

Anyway, I think we might need to agree to disagree for now. Florofill (talk) 12:12, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

DYK for Square

On 31 August 2025, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Square, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that boxing rings are square, despite their name? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Square. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, Square), and the hook may be added to the statistics page after its run on the Main Page has completed. 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.

 — Amakuru (talk) 00:02, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know?

Surprisingly I can perceive the trail from each nodes you left, and so the trail is quite intriguing, reviewing your "Did you know" tell me that I might not be that far from finding the best route in the network! Worth the reading, and time, A+ SirlupinwatsonIII (talk) 17:48, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You made me think there

How dare you. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:54, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If only the ability to make people think were more consistent. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:59, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you only have text to work with. It's harder without actual slapping. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:09, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect that would violate WP:CIVIL. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:36, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There's always trouting. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:34, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Women in Red September 2025

Women in Red | September 2025, Vol 11, Issue 9, Nos. 326, 327, 347, 348, 349 Recognized as the most successful topic-based WikiProject by human changes. Online events: New: Alphabet run Q & R | Women writers & their works | Microstates Continuing, year-long initiatives: #1day1woman | Music Announcements: Wikipedia:Developing Countries WikiContest runs 1 July 2025 until 30 September 2025 Tip of the Month: Researching historical women writers who used pseudonyms requires careful investigation across multiple sources, as many women adopted pen names to avoid gender bias and judgment (e.g., being labeled a bluestocking) and, ultimately, to get published. Progress ("moving the needle"): The WikiProject Women in Red homepage is usually updated weekly, using the Humaniki tool. Sadly, Humaniki has been out of action since 23 June. Other ways to participate: Become a member. You can always opt-out of notifications. Join the conversations on our talkpage. Help us plan future events and add any general ideas on developing the project. Follow us on social media: Instagram | Pinterest

--Rosiestep (talk) 23:51, 31 August 2025 (UTC) via MassMessaging[reply]

Good article reassessment for Marmalade

Marmalade has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Launchballer 22:20, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Launchballer, David is topic banned from commenting at or about GAR, so this is not a very useful invitation. —Kusma (talk) 22:37, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Makiko Sasada

Thank you for adding a link to Makiko Sasada in the Asian Scientist 100 page! I also noticed you made the page for Makiko Sasada, fantastic! Cheers for the great page and linking the two together. Have a great day~ ₪RicknAsia₪ 06:13, 4 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome! I found her name through her being an invited speaker at the 2026 ICM, but the Asian Scientist 100 listing adds to her notability. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:01, 4 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How to know if an article is tagged as WP:BLAR?

Rhombic dodecahedral honeycomb, trapezo-rhombic dodecahedral honeycomb, and trapezo-rhombic dodecahedron are long, but mostly unsourced. Do you think there is a chance that these three may be redirected as part of the article rhombic dodecahedron and triangular orthobicupola? I would do the same reason for elongated gyrobifastigium, but sadly there are no sources for its connection to snub disphenoid as its dual, so I might keep it existing. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 11:54, 4 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's really just an individual editor's decision; you can choose to do it, any other editor can choose to undo it, and vice versa. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:34, 4 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Pi

too soon, yes I agree. Cicero Azazel (talk) 22:32, 5 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Too soon for you to start vandalizing articles? There is never a good time. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:40, 5 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

choice of names

Have you ever regretted using your true name here? I ask because after twenty years I am rather tired of "Tamfang" and considering renaming myself "Anton Sherwood". —Tamfang (talk) 01:38, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I vaguely remember that name from long ago.

Anyway, I think the cost/benefits are both small but on the negative side. I get a very small amount of academic credit for the Wikipedia editing, and people who I know through academia occasionally point me towards useful stuff here that needs doing. On the other side, I have had a couple incidents of people contacting administrators at my employer to harass me for edits they didn't like, the legal exposure keeps me away from some touchy subjects, I also get a small amount of academic snobbery for doing Wikipedia rather than something considered important, I get a small amount of reverse snobbery here from amateur editors who think I think I am above them because professional (no; if you're editing competently in a subject in which you're an amateur, I'm more impressed because you've gotten there the hard way), and I occasionally get people I know through academia trying to twist my arm to make promotional edits (which fortunately I am in a position to resist). It doesn't add up to enough to convince me to try to hide my name here now, but I would go with the conventional wisdom and advise new editors (especially untenured academics) to stay pseudonymous. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:09, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'll chip in with a different perspective, while my username is pseudonymous, I was at one point more open with my RL identify. David and I are rather prolific editors on this encyclopedia, and it's inevitable that some feathers got ruffled along the way, some intentional, some less so.

I neither shy away nor seek controversial topics, but I did run into a group of, let's call them radical feminists that took offense at a certain position I had during an AFD debate, and whether or not Wikipedia should include a certain section about what I considered a trivial aspect of the topic, but they somehow considered critical. This lead to workplace harassement and phone calls to my supervisors complaining about my supposed sexist and lack of support for women. Luckily my supervisors told them to piss off, but I had been blessed with reasonable people in positions of power at the time. In 15+ years here, that was the only instance of this sort of thing.

Professionally, most people seem impressed / value my contributions to Wikipedia positively. But I'm not a prof anywhere, and with "only" a Master's I'm not expected to do formal research and not judged as a prof would be either. I did have people ask about editing pages about them/their topics, but the request usually came from a good place rather than seeking to unduly promote themselves, and everyone understood that Wikipedia doesn't allow this sort of "could you do me a favour" type of editing after I explained our policies on the matter. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:17, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your remarks. You may vaguely remember that long ago the Junkyard linked to [26]. —Tamfang (talk) 02:11, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That may have been it but I thought it was longer-ago usenet. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:35, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I was active in some corners of Usenet in the nineties. —Tamfang (talk) 10:46, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Common sense on sourcing

What is a good way to source with common sense, despite the fact that there was an unsourced section in Euclidean distance that could possibly have more unsourced sections in the future, and will be drafted for delisting? Dedhert.Jr (talk) 07:19, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is absolutely no danger of Euclidean distance being turned into a draft.

The usual practice should be that if you see something that you think needs a source and could be sourced, try to find a source yourself, and if you cannot then tag it as [citation needed]. If you see something that you think cannot be sourced (for instance because you think it is wrong) then it would be reasonable just to remove it. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:29, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That makes sense. Sorry about that. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 01:16, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Function application in ZFC

It's going to bother me if I don't respond to what you said over at Talk:Function (mathematics), but I think it's best if that thread doesn't continue there.

Function application (as the binary operation) *is* a function as a "first class object", as you called it, in the same way as type theory. Function symbols are interpreted as these "first class" functions.

You first prove that ZFC is equivalent to ZFC+"function application" by finding a formula equivalent to its definition. Then you use an Extension by definition to include that function as part of the language. – Farkle Griffen (talk) 22:33, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ethan Mollick DYK nomination

Hi, I am not sure if you saw that Template:Did you know nominations/Ethan Mollick was closed because I was not responsive to the nomination. While I didn't make a comment to the nom, I did make edits to the article after the review was made- I added material I was thinking of using to make a new hook after realizing that there were no great sources for Mollick's "I can eat glass" project. I was off Wiki when the nom was closed (only four hours after I edited it) and continued to add to it two days later. Since the nomination did not time out and the article was not abandoned based on my edits, I was wondering if you could reopen the nomination as the reviewer. Other editors felt differently on the DYK talk page, but from my understanding of the process the reviewer has the authority to do so. Thank you, Thriley (talk) 20:06, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't particularly care to go against the consensus developed at Wikipedia talk:Did you know against reopening this nomination. There was some discussion there that "another reviewer" could reopen it, before that that consensus developed, but I don't see that it has to be the original reviewer. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:13, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. I find it strange that an uninvolved reviewer can close before timeout without communicating with the initial reviewer or notifying me on my talk page. It felt off. Thriley (talk) 20:21, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your nomination of Euclid's Elements is under review

Your good article nomination of the article Euclid's Elements is under review. See the review page for more information. This may take up to 7 days; feel free to contact the reviewer with any questions you might have. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of DoctorWhoFan91 -- DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 19:04, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Genrikh Abaev

Can you please take a quick look and let me know if you think this engineering professor was notable? Thank you so much for your wisdom. Bearian (talk) 13:17, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see convincing evidence of this in the article (to me the former soviet long listings of medals in the ibox are commonplace and not clear evidence of WP:PROF#C2) nor in the low Google Scholar citations for the Roman transliteration of his name. But there may well be a language barrier preventing me from seeing something. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:33, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I'm going to propose this for deletion. Bearian (talk) 17:37, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No objection. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:53, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect I might be getting WP:GAMENAME'd?

Apologies if this should've been handled in a different manner, I'm just confused and not used to conflicts with other editors. Dosman1123 appears to me to be using the deletion process in retaliation for my nomination of the article 2025 Berwyn shooting for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shooting of Payton Washington. They've also suddenly accused me of vandalizing the article even though there hasn't even been vandalism on the Berwyn article so I'm just really confused as to what is going on, but I don't think its worthy of bringing it up for dispute resolution yet. Raskuly (talk) 07:06, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

US politics is one of the topics I'm tending to stay away from here, lately; see #choice of names, above. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:12, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I understand, apologies. Raskuly (talk) 07:16, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your nomination of Euclid's Elements has passed

Your good article nomination of the article Euclid's Elements has passed; congratulations! See the review page for more information. If the article is eligible to appear in the "Did you know" section of the Main Page, you can nominate it within the next seven days. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of DoctorWhoFan91 -- DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 18:53, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

COI topic

I only know that a user cannot edit a page because of his/her source cited within. But can one still edit if there are multiple sources support his/her source, as long as he/she is being neutral while writing? For example, like your discovery in Eppstein's algorithm, can you still expand the topic if multiple sources support yours, but you have to make it neutral, or let others take control for safety?

I have become tongue-tied for telling this, ever since you warned a COI in Parallelohedron about your old sources. And my brain has become even unknowledgeable for not comprehending more deeply, instead of taking it literally. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 10:17, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's not forbidden to edit with some levels of COI and I don't think it's conditional on using other sources. I have edited other topics on which I have a COI (trying to take declare my edits as being COI, which is required; parallelohedron is an example) but I think my COI on the k-shortest-paths algorithm is too central so I've been avoiding that one. —David Eppstein (talk) 13:24, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Image style

You won't mind if I use your style as a reference for drawing? Light blue objects and a yellow background are almost good for most illustrations. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 05:16, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Of course I don't mind. Go ahead. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:26, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Eleven different nets of a cube. Each net is labeled with a number, from 1 to 11. Reference: File:Eleven nets of a cube.svg

Well, if you'd want to change my work to be more appealing, I won't mind. I have put a CC0 license. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 05:31, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, are you sure you won't mind? [27] Perhaps the first and the next edits have put me into a lot of consideration, so changing the color might be safe and show originality. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 09:20, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Dedhert.Jr I'm sure. That level of choice doesn't require originality. —David Eppstein (talk) 09:28, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. On a second thought, I have made another version of blurry even light blue background. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 10:04, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]