User talk:CBM/Archive 12

This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Carl, I hope your summer is going well. I'm almost finished with the work on the 0.7 "bad words" list. Your revised selections definitely caught quite a lot; however, I'm concerned that a handful of the newly selected versions might be vandalized. Could you perhaps run Wizzy's script on that list, just to check? Thanks! Walkerma (talk) 15:19, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

No problem, I'll see if I can get that script running over those revisions. I should be able to do it this week. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:09, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now! Walkerma (talk) 17:46, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

The Bishzilla arbitration was a motion following a request, not a case. Carcharoth (talk) 05:35, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi Carl, there seems to be a problem with at least some peer reviews being listed only on the PR by date page, and not on the regular PR page. Please see Wikipedia_talk:Peer_review#Not_listed_automatically for more details - I wonder if there are more PRs not listed, and will check that next. Could you please see if you can figure out what is going on? Thanks, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 15:41, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I have found the following peer reviews listed at wp:pr/d (sorted by date) but not at WP:PR (sorted by topic):

• Wikipedia:Peer review/List of World Heritage Sites in the Netherlands/archive1
• Wikipedia:Peer review/Pavel Bure/archive1
• Wikipedia:Peer review/99p Stores/archive1
• Wikipedia:Peer review/1968 Illinois earthquake/archive2
• Wikipedia:Peer review/St. Johns River/archive1

It is not a date submitted issue that I can see - some submitted recently have been listed both places, some have not. I checked as far back as July 19. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 15:55, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I think it is fixed now. I left a comment at Wikipedia_talk:Peer_review. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:05, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I am sorry if you are feeling misrepresented. The comments were directed at people who don't understand the broad outlines of the undecidability proof.

About your specific comments on my talk page: I wish you would be less literal minded in your assertions. The "diagonal lemma" applied to proof techniques is exactly the same as the "computational proof". The only slightly different method is to use Godel's particular version of diagonalization (perhaps that is what H. does), but even that is not substantively different.

Your assertions that embedding a computer in arithemtic is difficult might be true for a person who is ignorant of both. But in my experience, this does not cause problems for anybody, layperson or student. Whether you agree or not, you do agree that the proof I give is idea for idea the same as Kleene's proof, except self-contained, and replacing "fixed point" with "print your own code". These minor alterations should not cause such a big fuss.

The main point of my wrangling over this is to put injury/priority on Wikipedia without it getting turned into gibberish. This is important, because this method should be broadly known.Likebox (talk) 20:44, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

While you see your proof of the incompleteness theorem as self-contained, I see it it as incomplete, since it does not prove the key aspects of arithmetization that it uses. This makes it a proof sketch, like the one with that title in the article. Also, none of the proofs we are talking about use priority or injury arguments. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:51, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, yes, but if you allow pseudo-code in proofs, then it is a simple matter to present injury priority arguments in readily understandable ways. But there needs to be consensus that pseudo-code is OK when it is a simple translation of recursion-theory speak.Likebox (talk) 21:47, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

By the way, I would like to write a real page on Post's problem and the priority method. Both of these are only presented in the most vague generalities right now. But I am discouraged by the ruckus on Godel's theorem.Likebox (talk) 22:43, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Any page like that would also need to follow the published literature. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:47, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

That is not true of any pages on Wikipedia on technical or scientific matters. You are opposing a clear presentation of your own field. You cannot hope to succeed.Likebox (talk) 23:44, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that the proofs you add are not actually clear, although you believe they are. I could rephrase them to use standard terminology and be clear, but that's besides the point, since I could do that to essentially any proof text even if it had more serious flaws than just poor writing. I find it very surprising when you appear to claim that you cannot learn the usual terminology in recursion theory. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:48, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I am getting more used to it, but it is still a headache. There are many cases of priority arguments where the algorithm is still opaque to me, even after close reading. Usually I can reconstruct it, but not always.Likebox (talk) 22:31, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (UK counties) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject/Naming convention (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

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Thanks so much - I appreciate all of your help as always. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 16:50, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi Carl

The section is now very clear. It displays an additional (obvious) fact that I didn't think of before. If a set is constructed via transfinite recursion then it is wellordered by "creation order". I even suspect that there is sort of a converse (if you see what I mean) to that last statement.

Best Regards

Johan Nyström —Preceding unsigned comment added by YohanN7 (talk • contribs) 12:06, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi Carl, a bot request has been made to automate the generation of the semi-automated peer reviews, here. Since the Peer review bot is part of the process I thought you should know. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 12:38, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I am fine with switching to a link to the toolserver in the peer reviews. I assume it would be article specific (so the article on Foo would link to the SAPR for Foo) and that it would appear as soon as the PR was listed. I have asked about this at the PR talk page just to make sure no one can think of any problems with the idea. I would make a notice in the link that they should not paste the SAPR into the Peer review (since that messes up transclusion). WOuld a target switchover of August 1 be OK with you? Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 20:55, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that should be fine. The switchover should entail editing the PR header so that new peer review pages link to the toolserver app, and then disabling the SAPR task from PeerReviewBot. Actually the bot task can be disabled a day or two later; as long as you don't create any more SAPRs on the wiki, the bot will not add links to any peer review pages. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:14, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks - I will mot make any more SAPRs after July 31. That way I will have the July number for WP:FAS (will use the archived number there in the future). Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 23:42, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your recent action at MoS, CBM. Tony (talk) 13:27, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Hello. I recently went back to the A-class discussion here Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/A-class rating/Maximum spacing estimation and tried to implement the various suggestions. As User:C S is semi-retired, may I trouble you to give it a quick glance to let me know if you think it is ready for another A-class review? -- Avi (talk) 07:26, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

I am afraid the A-class process is somewhat defunct at the moment; once the academic year has started in September I want to propose something more lightweight. I would be glad to read through the article and the previous review and let you know if I see any issues in the present version. Please give me a day or two to get back to you. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:23, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

I'd very much appreciate that; thanks! -- Avi (talk) 13:29, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I gave some specific responses at Talk:Maximum spacing estimation. Are you of the belief it does not pay to open an A-class conversation because outside of yourself no one will answer? Do you think that going to FAC directly would be preferable? I'd rather get the imprimatur of the math experts here before going on FAC, personally, unless the process is in indefinite hiatus. Thank you again! -- Avi (talk) 02:13, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

I think that recent nominations for A-class review did not get the sort of thorough review we had in mind when the system was put in place; this makes everyone reluctant to close the discussion and say the article is promoted, so it drags out indefinitely. However, you could always open the review with the expectation that it might not go anywhere. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:04, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I guess the problem is that in our project we simply don't have the critical mass for a review system that spreads over individual pages. Not enough people watchlist them. The German Wikipedia has the same problem for FA and GA reviews, so they have one page for all FA reviews and one for all GA reviews. They are soon going to vote on putting even FA and GA together on a single page, along with an open-ended review system that is not sufficiently active. If we had a single page for reviewing the classification of maths articles, I think it would soon be watchlisted by enough project members and therefore get a lot more activity. But it may be best to start such a system in term time to give it a chance to prosper from the beginning. Hans Adler 18:01, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, we do have Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/A-class rating that can be watchlisted. -- Avi (talk) 20:46, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

1) I wasn't even aware it exists, even though it's on my watchlist. 2) It's not the kind of page that appears on your watchlist at least once every 30 minutes. And if it did, it would still not make you notice if an article on a topic you don't care much about has issues related to a style or structure problem you care a lot about. Hans Adler 21:45, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Here are some thoughts about the process.

• The process started off well, with 7 nominations and 4 promotions in 2007. But then there was only one nomination in 2008, which died before it could really come to closure. There have been 3 nominations in 2009 but 2 were just reviews of articles that are already A-class, and the third (maximum spacing estimation) also petered out.
• I only count about 10 editors in the 2009 archive, with a lot of overlap. I think this is the more serious problem. The question is how to get more editors involved.

My take on this is that the process is too heavyweight for the amount of editing time we can put into it. I don't see much point in having an A-class rating process that makes it a practical impossibility to promote an article.

I have not thought too long about details, but in general terms I think it might be better if we aim somewhere between GA and FA in terms of the rigor of the review. Here is one option I have thought about:

• The discussion is conducted on the talk page of the article, with an announcement posted at WT:WPM. Any three editors agreeing is enough for the article to be promoted to A-class, provided there are no significant objections to the promotion.

I don't know if that's quite the right change, but it shows the sort of thing I am thinking about. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:51, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable. Per the A-class requirements, they are not as stringent as FA, and, interestingly, they are somewhat different than GA (A-class articles that have passed Ga are supposed to be nominated for FA - GA relates more to polish, A relates more to math content). I think I will open an A discussion again now that a few people have chimed in here, and we'll see what happens. If nothing happens after a week or so, I guess it should be closed and I'll consider running the FA gauntlet. Thanks again, Carl, Hans, and everyone, for your suggestions. -- Avi (talk) 15:25, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

…As you kindly gave advice earlier, I would like to let you know that I have reopened Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/A-class rating/Maximum spacing estimation. Thank you. -- Avi (talk) 15:38, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi CBM, if you're too busy to go through the 700 lines of output from Wizzy's script, can you email it to me so I can process it for Emmanuel? I think this is the last item we need to do before publication, assuming that the index is now fixed. Thanks! Walkerma (talk) 17:49, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

I have been slowly working on it this week, and finished this afternoon. The following revision IDs should be used instead of the ones selected before. Of course I might have missed something – manual review is only so good.

I'm going to be traveling on and off the next two weeks. I will have good internet access during that time, but not access to my home computer to do release work.

— Carl (CBM · talk) 19:21, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

• Alexandria,_Louisiana 257071494
• Barnacle 253921506
• Carlton_Football_Club 260909556
• Cucumber 260779941
• Cytoskeleton 260340380
• Film_producer 252804496
• Geography_of_the_United_States 257653908
• Ghetto 204335950
• Motocross 260870626
• Pear 259155615
• Swindon 260578526
• Uniform_Resource_Locator 260836131

Hello. I recently went back to the A-class discussion here Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/A-class rating/Maximum spacing estimation and tried to implement the various suggestions. As User:C S is semi-retired, may I trouble you to give it a quick glance to let me know if you think it is ready for another A-class review? -- Avi (talk) 07:26, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

I am afraid the A-class process is somewhat defunct at the moment; once the academic year has started in September I want to propose something more lightweight. I would be glad to read through the article and the previous review and let you know if I see any issues in the present version. Please give me a day or two to get back to you. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:23, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

I'd very much appreciate that; thanks! -- Avi (talk) 13:29, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I gave some specific responses at Talk:Maximum spacing estimation. Are you of the belief it does not pay to open an A-class conversation because outside of yourself no one will answer? Do you think that going to FAC directly would be preferable? I'd rather get the imprimatur of the math experts here before going on FAC, personally, unless the process is in indefinite hiatus. Thank you again! -- Avi (talk) 02:13, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

I think that recent nominations for A-class review did not get the sort of thorough review we had in mind when the system was put in place; this makes everyone reluctant to close the discussion and say the article is promoted, so it drags out indefinitely. However, you could always open the review with the expectation that it might not go anywhere. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:04, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I guess the problem is that in our project we simply don't have the critical mass for a review system that spreads over individual pages. Not enough people watchlist them. The German Wikipedia has the same problem for FA and GA reviews, so they have one page for all FA reviews and one for all GA reviews. They are soon going to vote on putting even FA and GA together on a single page, along with an open-ended review system that is not sufficiently active. If we had a single page for reviewing the classification of maths articles, I think it would soon be watchlisted by enough project members and therefore get a lot more activity. But it may be best to start such a system in term time to give it a chance to prosper from the beginning. Hans Adler 18:01, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, we do have Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/A-class rating that can be watchlisted. -- Avi (talk) 20:46, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

1) I wasn't even aware it exists, even though it's on my watchlist. 2) It's not the kind of page that appears on your watchlist at least once every 30 minutes. And if it did, it would still not make you notice if an article on a topic you don't care much about has issues related to a style or structure problem you care a lot about. Hans Adler 21:45, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Here are some thoughts about the process.

• The process started off well, with 7 nominations and 4 promotions in 2007. But then there was only one nomination in 2008, which died before it could really come to closure. There have been 3 nominations in 2009 but 2 were just reviews of articles that are already A-class, and the third (maximum spacing estimation) also petered out.
• I only count about 10 editors in the 2009 archive, with a lot of overlap. I think this is the more serious problem. The question is how to get more editors involved.

My take on this is that the process is too heavyweight for the amount of editing time we can put into it. I don't see much point in having an A-class rating process that makes it a practical impossibility to promote an article.

I have not thought too long about details, but in general terms I think it might be better if we aim somewhere between GA and FA in terms of the rigor of the review. Here is one option I have thought about:

• The discussion is conducted on the talk page of the article, with an announcement posted at WT:WPM. Any three editors agreeing is enough for the article to be promoted to A-class, provided there are no significant objections to the promotion.

I don't know if that's quite the right change, but it shows the sort of thing I am thinking about. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:51, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable. Per the A-class requirements, they are not as stringent as FA, and, interestingly, they are somewhat different than GA (A-class articles that have passed Ga are supposed to be nominated for FA - GA relates more to polish, A relates more to math content). I think I will open an A discussion again now that a few people have chimed in here, and we'll see what happens. If nothing happens after a week or so, I guess it should be closed and I'll consider running the FA gauntlet. Thanks again, Carl, Hans, and everyone, for your suggestions. -- Avi (talk) 15:25, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

• It would help to notify WT:WPM; I didn't know that this was going on. Part of the problem may be that few of us have serious knowledge of any given area of mathematics; we all know our own, and are reluctant to offer technical criticism outside it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:02, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

…As you kindly gave advice earlier, I would like to let you know that I have reopened Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/A-class rating/Maximum spacing estimation. Thank you. -- Avi (talk) 15:38, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi CBM, if you're too busy to go through the 700 lines of output from Wizzy's script, can you email it to me so I can process it for Emmanuel? I think this is the last item we need to do before publication, assuming that the index is now fixed. Thanks! Walkerma (talk) 17:49, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

I have been slowly working on it this week, and finished this afternoon. The following revision IDs should be used instead of the ones selected before. Of course I might have missed something – manual review is only so good.

I'm going to be traveling on and off the next two weeks. I will have good internet access during that time, but not access to my home computer to do release work.

— Carl (CBM · talk) 19:21, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

• Alexandria,_Louisiana 257071494
• Barnacle 253921506
• Carlton_Football_Club 260909556
• Cucumber 260779941
• Cytoskeleton 260340380
• Film_producer 252804496
• Geography_of_the_United_States 257653908
• Ghetto 204335950
• Motocross 260870626
• Pear 259155615
• Swindon 260578526
• Uniform_Resource_Locator 260836131

Hi Carl!

This response is long overdue. I thought I had responded, but apparantly I failed to save it properly.

I think the edit in TI is excellent. It also provided me with some new insight. If something is defined by transfinite recursion, then that something IS wellordered (by "creation order"). This is obvious, but I didn't see it until I read your edit.

Best regards, Johan Nystrom YohanN7 (talk) 16:19, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi Carl, I have noticed that there tend to be several peer reviews each month that are improperly archived in the same way - the person pastes in the the "This peer review has been closed" text, but does not replace the topic template with {{subst:PR/archive}}. Would it make sense to put in a hidden comment next to the topic with something like "To archive this PR, please replace the topic template with {{subst:PR/archive}}? I will also post this on Geometry Guy's talk page (with a reminder to do the August PR maintenance). I will not do any more SAPRs so the bot can stop linking them.

I also wonder what we should do with the SAPR archives - should some sort of inactive notice pointing to the new toolserver application be added? Thanks, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 17:17, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I forgot to "Notify Carl (CBM) that the current month's category needs to be listed, but the category from two month's ago has been stabilized. " Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 11:56, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks very much - I also noticed that the hidden comment <!--semi-automated peer review placeholder -- please do not edit or delete this comment--> is still in the PR template - removing this would save some space I think. I will also let Geometry guy know about this, thanks, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 15:08, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I was wondering if you had seen my response to Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Image_captions_can_be_too_wide. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:43, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Do you think that it would be reasonable to add overflow: visible to the appropriate declaration in common.css? — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:42, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I think it might be. In my opinion, "hiding" content, is always less desirable, even when it potentially might collide with other content or be "visually broken". It is not perfect, but i don't see a "perfect" solution to this problem to be honest. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:41, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Looks like some other well known computability theorist has an account here. See Special:Contributions/Pmt6sbc. His bio is a bit hyperbolic, but I can't complain about the book being added to articles because I like (and probably added it to some articles myself). Pcap ping 13:04, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

I have seen others as well. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:02, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Hey,

Featured topics now follow the FA model of having the nom page at "/archiveX" locations, so I imagine VeblenBot's functionality will need to be updated for this. Having said that, often the link to the nomination doesn't work anyway because at the moment, VeblenBot assumes that the topic's name matches the name of the main article, which often isn't the case - rst20xx (talk) 16:15, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Does VeblenBot still keep a cache of which pages are tagged {{policy}} or {{guideline}}? I looked for contribs to WP:VPP but didn't see any recent ones, last one was 25 October 2008. Hiding T 20:33, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

At some point it was disabled (probably mediawiki changed and I never fixed the script to follow). I fixed the script this evening and it should run once a day now. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:02, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Blimey, thank you. Hiding T 09:25, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Why did you remove my comments on User talk:Brandy15? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 19:41, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I apologize if I offended you. Here is the analysis I made of the situation:

1. The editor was extremely inexperienced, having made fewer than 10 edits
2. The editor created an apparent test page, but the title of that page is the name given on the editor's user page, so perhaps it is an attempt to start a biography
3. The page was tagged for speedy deletion, but I found it due to it being listed as a manual of style page
4. It is a well known that we tend to overwhelm new users with multiple lengthy messages, full of dozens of links. The usual response is TL:DR.
5. You had substituted a CSD notice template on the page, and ClueBot had since then left a different template message.
6. So I deleted the page. At that point, lengthy descriptions of how to put a hangon tag on the page were no longer of much use to the user. Moreover, in light of #4, they were likely to just be confusing.
7. So I removed the instructions on how to place a hangon tag, pointed out the page had been deleted, and also pointed out that we discourage users from making their own biographies. I did this in a brief, clear way, so that the user could very quickly see what they need to do, which is avoid making test pages that appear to be autobiographies.

— Carl (CBM · talk) 20:34, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

It made the article a lot more accessible than what I was suggesting! Pcap ping 03:11, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Do you think there's some analogy/relationship between strictly non-standard fixed point combinators and Kleene's 2nd recursion theorem? Pcap ping 03:21, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't know; I am not very fluent in λ-calculus. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:31, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi I am starting work on a complete revision of the above article, with the aim of making it a Featured Article. It is strange that such an important subject has been so neglected in Wikipedia. The current article covers the history up to the pre-modern period relatively well (though it needs some tidying). The parts on modern logic are abysmal however.

I have begun work here. Currently it is a collection of sources (Bochenski mostly - Kneale & Kneale are somewhat uneven on the modern period) which I will develop into an article when I am sure about the balance.

All comments appreciated - on the talk page please. Logicist (talk) 11:33, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I know you're a fan of in-line cites, and so I used to be. But here's my reasoning for converting to "footnote style": Some of them have become excessively complicated because, to do the job well (and to be of best help to the reader), I have to cite not only the author+year but also the book from where I took the quote e.g. (Rosser 1939 in Davis 1965:225). It becomes even uglier when I have to cite the author of a commentary that appears before a paper reproduced in a compilation, e.g. here's one that I should amend: (van Heijenoort's commentary on Frege's 1879 Begriffsschirft in van Heijenoort 1967:1). (This gets weird because sometimes Willard Quine is writing commentary, so it's not a foregone conclusion that van H is doing it. This also happens in Davis 1965 when Davis is writing commentary). And then there's the problem of how to deal with a citation that includes parenthetic information such as the ones on the CASE and IF-THEN-ELSE; what I truly don't like is having to bop back and forth between articles . . . there should be a reasonable narrative flow.

I was persuaded to abandon my preferences for in-line cites during a dialog, and an experiment, with an editor re David Hilbert; he wanted citations, I wanted inline cites. I tried it my way (sounds like a bad song) and it was a mess -- there were zillions of citations, and they were annoying to dodge around -- so I converted it over it footnotes. But I admit that having to click on the footnote and go to the bottom is annoying too, and it makes fact-checking a lot harder (which is what I'm going to do next, no matter what the outcome of our dialog is here . . ..).

Converting "algorithm" back would be a piece of cake (I did the whole job in just a few minutes). But just eliminating the "ref" commands will now result in somewhat longer cites. Lemme know your thoughts . . . (if you want to convert them back 'tis okay by me). Bill Wvbailey (talk) 15:14, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

With one exception (#16 Kowalski 1979) I put every one of the citation in the article. I've fact-checked all but those in the history section, with a few emendations. Bill Wvbailey (talk) 17:47, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Not all articles, and I dare say most articles in theoretical computer science on this wiki are not being watched by some expert. Having an explicit tag that describes some issue with the article can sometimes attract contributors to fix it. It's nice when some "man in the sky" shows up here or here. I understand your perspective too, that for articles which are being actively maintained, to use software engineering term, like Kleene's recursion theorem, tags do more harm than good. Unfortunately the maintentance level/status is not easy to ascertain. I've fixed quite a few errors, most of them small, but some less so in the past few days in articles like kind (type theory), fixed point combinator, system F, pure type system (which I think still has an error). Pcap ping 00:03, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Use common sense (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I noticed your offer to mediate on the Office Open XML article. Thank you very much for that offer as attempt to get coments from the wikiproject and through the request for comments proces have failed so far. I would therefore like to take you up on that offer of mediation on the Office Open XML article. Especially the current edit conflict between me and user:Scientus should be resolved. hAl (talk) 20:13, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

In case you aren't already aware... Celestra (talk) 21:16, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

There were grave problems with the toolserver today; see [1]. The bot runs automatically, and it seems that after they recreated its files from a backup, it has started again. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:39, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure exactly how to categorize this. What I've done is probably better than how it was before I got to it, but you sure have a better idea of what that is about; the article is kidna vague and I'm not motivated to read any of the references. The reference flood doesn't quite help here. Pcap ping 18:50, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

The categories look reasonable. Many of the references are to mainstream, respectable mathematical logic journals, so I think the issue is just that the article here is written in a vague, somewhat promotional manner. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:41, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I stumbled on this in van Heijenoort, thought you might like to see it: In his 1925 On the Infinite Hilbert is discussing the notion of recursion:

"Clearly, the elementary means that we have at our disposal for forming functions are substitution (that is, replacement of an argument by a new variable or function) and recursion (according to the schema of the derivation of the function value for n+1 from that for n). ¶ One might think that these two processes, substitution and recursion, would have to be supplemented with other elementary methods of definition . . . ¶ It turns out, however, that any such definition can be represented as a special case of the use of substitutions and recursions. The method of search for the recursions required is in essence equivalent to that reflection by which one recognizes that the procedure used for the given definition is finitary." (boldface added Hilbert (1925) On the Infinite in van Heijenoort 1967:385-386)

But then, in the following paragraphs Hilbert discusses other "recursions [that] would not be ordinary, stepwise ones . . . that is, a recursion on different variables at once" and ends with the hypothesis that "the function φ_a(a, a) is an instance of a function, of the number-theoretic variable a that cannot be defined by substitutions and ordinary, step-wise recursions alone if we admit only number-theoretic variables.⁹ (⁹ This assertion was proved by W. Ackermann [ [1928] ])." (loc. cit. page 386).

My interpretation of this is that you were correct, and Hilbert himself admits to it. Bill Wvbailey (talk) 19:55, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

There's even more later: "Or, to express ourselves with greater precision and more in the spirit of our finitist attitude, if by adducing a higher recursion or a corresponding variable-type [etc]" (p. 391), and "The final result then is: nowhere is the infinite realized; it is neither present in nature nor admissible as a foundation in our rational thinking -- a remarkable harmony between being and thought. We gain a conviction that runs counter to the earlier endeavors of Frege and Dedekind . . . certain intuitive conceptions and insights are indispensable; logic alone does not suffice. The right to operate with the infinite can be secured only by means of the finite. ¶ The role that remains to the infinite is, rather, merely that of an idea . . . through which the concrete is completed as to form a totality." (p. 392)

This is a surprise to me; I didn't realize that Hilbert considered himself to be a finitist. van H. says that "After 1927 Hilbert himself laid the problem aside. The scale of variable-types has not been further investigated" (p. 368). Bill Wvbailey (talk) 20:09, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

One executive summary of Hilbert's program is: find finitistic proofs that the infinitary methods of mathematics are consistent. Our article on Hilbert's program is, unfortunately, very brief. In the context of finitism, the benefit of primitive recursive functions is that it is extremely easy to prove that each one is actually a total function. This is in contrast to total recursive functions, some of which may be very hard to prove total.

For example, consider the function that does the following:

On input n, check whether n itself is the Gödel number of a proof of 0=1 from the axioms of ZFC. If it is not, return 0. Otherwise, go into an infinite loop.

Because ZFC is consistent, this definition yields a total computable function. However, because of Gödel's second incompleteness theorem, ZFC cannot prove that this is a definition of a total function. Such issues cannot arise with primitive recursive functions. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:37, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia talk:Naming conflict (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

You're probably going to find this paper amusing, if not interesting.

Freek Wiedijk, Is ZF a hack?: Comparing the complexity of some (formalist interpretations of) foundational systems for mathematics, Journal of Applied Logic, Volume 4, Issue 4, December 2006, Pages 622-645, doi:10.1016/j.jal.2005.10.011

Pcap ping 14:53, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Somebody did point out an analogy with obfuscated C programs as not being that useful at the end of the paper. Probably a better analogy would have been Tarski's quest for minimal axiomatization, e.g. his axiom of an abelian group is not what you'd think of simple, even though it's the shortest by an objective metric [2] (can't seem to find it in an article here). Perhaps Robbins algebra would be a really good example why the simplest axiomatization in some metric isn't the most convenient to work with. It took some 60 years and an automated theorem prover to even show that it is a Boolean algebra. Pcap ping 15:14, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Meh, that article (pdf) is kind of lame. I do remember some other article arguing that ZFC was close to optimal in some sense. But the guy who wrote that article Pcap cites claims to be a platonist, so he ought to know that "true" logic is infinitary... ;-) 67.122.211.205 (talk) 22:47, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Anarchism referencing guidelines (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (France & French-related) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Category deletion policy (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a policy. It was previously marked as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:01, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I was unaware of the bot at the time: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_mathematics_articles_(J-L). (if you respond, do it on my talkpage) --Cybercobra (talk) 13:38, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I'll also add the page moves to my list of bones to pick with the bot author. --Cybercobra (talk) 13:42, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

CBM, can you help with this request? This came from a conversation at Wikimania last week. The Tamil WP is a small but active Wikipedia, and they will need to use our bot - and possibly our server, too. Cheers, Walkerma (talk) 05:35, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia talk:Naming conflict/Archive 2 (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:How to write a plot summary (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia talk:Naming conflict (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Gravity (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Could you please explain why you deleted File:Dikson - Siberia 5.png and File:Dikson - Tiksi - Siberia 3.png?

Geo Swan (talk) 23:28, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Those pages had image descriptions, but no images. Even now, when I look at the page where I could undelete them, there is no "file history" – no deleted version of the image that could be restored. There is only history of the text of the image description page. This is most likely because the images were both deleted in 2005, as the deletion logs show. At that time, image deletion was not reversible. So, when the image description pages were undeleted in 2007, the images themselves were already lost. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:49, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Could you comment on the issue of perl's grammar being "Turing complete" in this discussion? Thanks, Pcap ping 11:43, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Hey,
Thanks for writing that mediawiki perl module, it's really easy to use & debug and it doesn't seem buggy at all. Anywho, I started using it tonight and found that I also needed 'delete' functionality, so I wrote that in there. Seems like a decent feature to have around... which of the following (if any) sound good to you?:

1. Give me SVN access to that proj. & let me commit the changes
2. Have me email you the changed code
3. Not interested, I should just fork it.

Thanks,
-SColombo (talk) 04:15, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I think I can only give you svn access if you have a toolserver account. If you don't, you can send me a patch by email, and I will be glad to apply it. Either way I will add you to the list of authors if you tell me how you would like to be attributed. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:53, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

• Function problem
• Counting problem (complexity)
• Search problem

The lead of some of these claimed only "in computability theory" but that's probably because it redirected to the computer science article before, no? Pcap ping 23:31, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

"Computability theory" was a dab page that included both mathematical logic and computer science. Those particular articles have topics that are more on the computer science side than on the mathematical logic side, so I would categorize them in the CS categories rather than the math categories. In the math logic approach, all problems are converted into decision problems; this is the framework used to determine uncomputability. I wasn't aware that the other types of problems had any significance until someone pointed out to me that the conversion from one type to another cannot always be done in polynomial time. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:10, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. Pcap ping 08:30, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

We mention it a little at Decision_problem#Equivalence_with_function_problems. — Carl (CBM · talk) 10:00, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Edit warring (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions/Draft policy rewrite (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Edit war (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a policy. It was previously marked as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

This is a false positive due to a page move, resulting in duplicate notices. Could the bot detect page moves, and make appropriate "policy page moved" notifications? Rd232 ^talk 08:02, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

It could, but it doesn't at the moment. Policy pages are very rarely renamed, so it's probably easier to just remove the notices in the rare cases when they are renamed. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:05, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure I've seen "Gödel number" used in more than one source to refer to the numbering of μ-recursive functions. Our poorly sourced articles claim a narrower use for Gödel number(ing). Since you probably have knowledge of how widespread such terminological differences are, perhaps you could attend to those articles? Pcap ping 10:59, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Sure, I'll look at it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:05, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Category:Wikipedia content guidelines (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

It is part of the text by which you requested:

Rev. Franciszek Chalupka founded St. Joseph Basilica in Webster in 1887, 
the first Polish American parish in New England. 
He later went on to found a number of other Polish American parishes 
including St. Stanislaus Basilica in Chicopee, Masss. in 1891 
and Our Lady of Czestochowa Church in Turners Falls, Mass. in 1909.

If you need more information to expend this article you can contact Rev. Msgr. Anthony Czarnecki, St. Joseph Parish. He is the guardian of Polish-American parishes in New England.--WlaKom (talk) 09:20, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Please remember that I did not delete the article; I am simply trying to explain the policies that Wikipedia uses to decide when to delete articles.

Please let me try to explain one more time. Wikipedia has a policy on article inclusion, which is what the admin who deleted your article was applying. That policy is,

If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article.

The article was deleted because it did not appear, based on its contents, that Chalupka has been the subject of significant coverage. I made some attempt to find additional sources, but I didn't find any.

In order to recreate the article, you need to locate additional secondary sources that give significant coverage to Chalupka. These could be biographies, articles directly about Chalupka, etc. The source that we have so far is a newspaper article that spends one paragraph on Chalupka; this is not considered "significant coverage" for our purposes. At the moment, I have not found any source that even gives the year of Chalupka's birth. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:29, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I give up!!!

Who said, that the sources about Chalupka is a newspaper article? You really do not have a clue what are you talking about. If you think that the source is wrong. Prove it or leave it!. My request was a referral to the person who removed the article. Therefore, I consider our discussions ended. Have a nice day.--WlaKom (talk) 12:27, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

The information in the reference that was in the article did not give very many details, which is why I asked you earlier if the source was the Polish-American Journal, which describes itself as the "nation's largest, independent English language monthly newspaper". If the source that was in the article is not from the Polish-American Journal, can you tell me where it actually came from? The actual reference provided was "The 150'th Anniversary of Polish-American Pastoral Ministry, Webster, Massachusetts (September, 11, 2005)", which doesn't even list where the article was published. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:19, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Apparently some events at trace monoid eventually made him blow his top off. There's some chance he'd get banned if he doesn't chill. Since he contributed a fair bit to Math (and CS) articles here, is there any chance that you or some other experienced Math editor/admin he may trust have a (private) word with him? Thanks. Pcap ping 06:06, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I see there's an ANI thread on him now. Pcap ping 17:54, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

There are a number of articles which cover concepts in all three of these fields. My contributions in the logic area have been wrongfully removed many times. Here today we have an example in formal language where one view has been totally covered and since others have been removed, there is no progress in that area. I guess I am wondering if we need to create formal language (logic) or if people are going to be decent and work together from different perspectives. Say the word on splitting the article. I think we probably should since people insist on deleting precious material they don't care about.

I think Symbol (formal) has worked out wonderfully. I also wonder if that article, being so fundamental has helped to clarify certain things about this whole area. (i.e. the symbol is an idea, and the chalk on the board is a token of the symbol; a proposition is an idea, a theorem is an idea, etcetera.)

If we don't split formal language we will get a single better article in which a reader can possibly see the implications of the subject for reasoning, for math, for computers, for artificial intelligence, etcetera (you know...beyond ones' previously limited notions). It's is about making connections for the reader, not severing them. I'm just tired of the group's inability to work on a articles interdisciplinarily. We lose precious content because of a few narrow minded deletionists. Then I come back to the article and you are telling me 'well its not too relevant to the article...' after they have hacked it up.

When I edit, I try to incorporate others' contributions. There is very little --if any-- of that coming from the regular math editors. Hunter's Metalogic is a reliable source on the subject, I should not have the problems that I have with these topics.

Let me know what you think about that whole concepts and theories idea for organizing things if you get a chance.

Be well Carl.Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 23:02, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (pronunciation)/IPA vs. other pronunciation symbols (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

As you have offered medition I would like ask you for your mediation on this edit in the Office Open XML article: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Office_Open_XML&diff=next&oldid=314038318 An editor repeatedly edits in the ridiculous amount of 12 references (!! )on the size of the specification with critisism many not really about the size itself but just mention the size. (I should also mention that others that actually implement office format have actually stated that a larger size is actually beneficial) Also the edit contains some already found to be incorrect information from an undefined google calculation about the review time of the OOXML specification (certainly incorrect as the comment was made in 2007 before the review proces of OOXML was actually finished unless google can predict the future). It for instance can be easily factually proven that the ISO/IEC standardization proces of Office Open XML from submission to approval took 16 months (december 2006 - april 2008) while the ISO/IEC standardization of OpenDocument took only 6 month (december 2005 - may 2006). I would like you to mediate on the value of adding 12 critisism references on the lenght of a specification. hAl (talk) 06:56, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Help desk (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Carl, would it be possible for VeblenBot to report on changes to 4 policy subcats? I'm thinking of the ones used at WP:Update, which are listed at Category:Wikipedia policies and guidelines ... conduct, content, deletion and enforcement. One good place for the report would be WT:Update. (Watching) - Dank (push to talk) 17:23, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I added them to the list, but I think the policies are all in the main policy category as well. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:12, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

They are (or were last time I checked), but I have to report on monthly changes to the subcats as well, and it's nice to catch changes as they happen. Thanks. - Dank (push to talk) 00:50, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Wait; all I did was add them to the list of things that are marked as "policies". If you want to track pages that are moved from one of the subcats to another, that's a separate issue. I would have to write new code to do that, and it seems like a pain. Maybe you could just look at when each page was added to the category, using this tool, and then investigate the ones that are less than one month old? — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:55, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Based on the FOM exchanges (starting here, but note there are multiple threads, you need to go to the threaded index to read them all) it's clear as mud if Wolfram's notion of universal computation really is universal. We have bunch of articles sourced mainly to New Kind of Science and sections in others e.g. Turing machine, universal Turing machine that give unconditional credit to NKS and other results by that group. If you have some time, please take a look; starting with that mail thread it's probably best. Thanks, Pcap ping 06:01, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

This is probably the most informative post in that thread w.r.t. small Turing machines— the paper given there should be used for writing about small machines because it clearly states what model of universality is used for each machine. If I understand this correctly, it's not known if the weaker definitions of universal, such as those used by Wolfram, really are universal. Wolfram also admits that he doesn't quite know. ("There is no doubt some nice theoretical computer science that can be done in tightening up all these notions.", yay!) Alex Smith himself basically admits that he doesn't quite know how "universal" the 2,3 machine is; Vaughn Pratt couldn't help but lecture him on the basics of computability theory. The Wolfram definition of universality is not even clearly stated. Alex himself basically doesn't what definition of universality his (3rd) submission met: "my third submission was accepted on the basis that I'd demonstrated universality to an extent sufficient for whoever was judging it." (proof by intimidation I guess.) This post nicely summarizes the mathematical and social issues surrounding this "proof", in particular that the definition of universality was whatever the "committee" wanted it to be, and the academic referees weren't really asked for their opinion. I think both Turing machine and universal Turing machine need to be updated to reflect this. Probably some Wolfram-specific articles too. Should we take this to WP:WPM first to get a wider consensus? Pcap ping 08:30, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

The Wolfram group is somewhat embarrassing, but at least we don't have intelligent design to deal with like the biologists do. The safest thing is to hedge in article and be scrupulously clear:

The Wolfram institute accepted a proof that the 2,3 machine is universal and awarded the corresponding prize (ref). Some researchers have argued the proof is flawed (ref). The proof uses a new definition of "universality", in which the initial tape configuration is not finite. For an overview of several definitions of universality, see X (ref)."

As long as nobody is going to get confused, we don't need to go out of our way to put down Wolfram in the article on Church's thesis. I don't know how the articles directly on Wolfram are. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:45, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

The issue with the 2-3 machine is not (only) that the initial config is infinite (machines that simulate Rule 110 also requires that), but in the 2-3 case, the initial configuration is also aperiodic. Infinite but periodic initial conditions seem acceptable as long as one clearly makes the distinction because the relaxed definition allows for smaller machines (see this review where this is called weak universality; Woods and Neary have published in FOCS and other prime CS venues.) Although this is not made abundantly clear, Vaughn Pratt suggested that even though the initial configuration of the 2-3 machine does not appear to require a Turing-complete machine to produce (i.e. truly universal), allowing non-periodic infinite config may be enough (2nd to last paragraph) to make a smaller non-universal machine into an universal one; subsequent elaboration of that argument points out that such an initialization may be equivalent to adding a counter to the machine. Such detailed, and not entirely settled, discussions don't really belong in general articles like Turing machine or even universal Turing machine, but are probably okay in the article on the Wolfram's 2-state 3-symbol Turing machine. Pcap ping 21:07, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually, User:Vaughan Pratt had some beef with the latter article as recent as 2009, see thread. Pcap ping 21:11, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (broadcasting) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I am very frustrated by your claim and belief that formal language (logic) is a POV "fork" on my part. There is no pro-geography POV, no pro-"food science" POV, etcetera. These are academic disciplines. It is not the same as POV. To remove material as identified by persons from within an academic discipline because of a belief that it is POV is wrong. Cover the material. period. That means that for every sentence in formal language (logic), everyone of them must be included in any merged article. Either that or there really does need to be a split, and you should support it. I don't feel like fighting with you guys every few months because material is lost. Learn to care and respect it, or leave it split. I don't think you are the type that abuses policies, however throwing terms out there like "POV" without meaning it, or knowing what it means, or being careful about what it means is wrong. Please acknowledge that you understand that this isn't a POV issue. Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 02:09, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

It does seem to me that the new article exists primarily to present your own POV on the subject, rather than the broad consensus viewpoint that is shared by the vast majority of the literature. The lede of the new article also contains your characteristic type of erroneous statements. If you did not see my note on Talk:Metatheorem about the error you introduced there, you may want to check it out. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:39, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

So you don't know what POV means or you are just willing to just throw any accusation out there. I mean it Carl. I think I may have to make a bigger deal out of this because in reality you are being POV not me. My interest is coverage of material that has passed academic muster, and Hunter has. The reason I use it, is that is the best coverage I've seen of the material. You can deny, and disparage all you want, but that is the real product of your own POV. If it was not we'd be finding ways to edit and incorporate it, rather than destroy it.

Again, you are trying to wrongly characterize me, so should back that statement up or take it back. The lead of the new article contains no error that I am aware of, and your statement has still not revealed one either. I did read and consider your input on metatheorem, and yes the language needs to be looked at. However it is not as simple as you portray it either. (and this is irrelevant to the current discussion unless your aim is to attack my credibility).

I am quite sick and tired of this, and I have every right to be angry because it involves deletion, not incorporation. PLEASE BE CORRECTED: COVERAGE OF METALOGIC IS NOT POV. It is a legitimate academic field of study, just like so called "formal language theory." Show some interdisciplinary respect. If you don't want it in "your" articles, then you had better be prepared to see it moved elsewhere without this attitude. If you are still under the impression that it is POV, then I will have to take the issue to a broader audience including non-mathematicians.

It is a key point of understanding to realize that these are ideas we are talking about and the marks on the page are tokens of ideas. This is because this understanding is required to have an accurate, precise definition. To neglect these points isn't sparing the reader from irrelevance. It's SLOPPINESS.

You and the others in the math department (as recently exemplified by "Pohma" and his attitude) should be ashamed of yourselves. Writing for WP is full of nuance, but you guys think in black and white. So I am always just wrong wrong wrong. I'm never just a little bit off. It always gets personal too --having to do with what "type"of person I am, etcetera. It's getting old Carl. It's oversimplification. It's ideological thinking. I'm sorry Carl, but I am the mature adult in the room here. Cut this nonsense out.

I still have a lot of respect for you, but you need to actually point out an actual false sentence in that article before accusing me of "characteristic type of erroneous statements." That is an insulting, arrogant, and inappropriate statement Carl. It is the product of a narrow view. If no false sentence identified, you need to be able to admit it and take it back. Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 05:36, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I see a (topic) ban in your future. Pcap ping 06:16, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I see one can link directly to refs without using footnotes, as in First-order_logic#CITEREFFerreir.C3.B3s2001. But how does one know what string to use for the anchor? Also, is this some new wiki feature? I've not seen it used in other articles. Pcap ping 11:55, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

The citation templates (citation and cite foo) create HTML anchors down in the references section. You can either look these up in the source of the page, or use the templates in the family of Template:Harvard citation to generate them automatically. Either way, you just need to get a link to that anchor into the inline citation. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:48, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Pcap ping 14:56, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Sets are needed to define a formal language, which is needed to define a logical system, which is need to define FOL, which is needed to define ZFC... You get the picture. Scott Aaronson had a similar comment in a paper I've read recently:

“

How can we use axioms to define sets, if we need the concept of set even to say what we mean by a model for axioms? This is the kind of paradox that I think vanishes once we give up the idea of putting mathematics on a ‘more secure foundation,’ and see formal systems as just codifying forms of reasoning we’ve already accepted as valid.

”

Are we missing something? Pcap ping 14:56, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

This is a well-understood topic within the mathematical logic community, but it is often raised in a confusing way by people who from other areas (popularizations are the worst, of course). The question is: how can one study set theory using the tools of mathematical logic, when those tools are themselves formalized in set theory? Or: how can one study logic using set theory, when set theory itself is defined using logic? There is too much to say about that to fit into this comment. But here are some relevant points:

1. For many purposes, one can simply declare that the metatheory in use is ZFC. This is reasonable (that is, non-circular) for the study of most areas of mathematics outside of mathematical logic.
2. One can argue that we do not need a formalized set theory, such as ZFC, in order to study ZFC. We leave our metatheory informal, and attempt to only use arguments in the metatheory that are clearly correct. This is often called the "Platonist" approach to set theory, and it is probably what Aaronson alludes to. If one already has a good idea what sets are, one can view ZFC as simply giving a set of axioms for studying reasoning about sets.
3. One can argue in favor of formalism, in which we do not study models at all, only provability. In this setting, one does not need set theory to define a "formal language" as a "set"; one can study countable formal languages in primitive recursive arithmetic, and most of the metatheoretical results that one would prove are indeed provable in that setting. For example, the proof of Gödel's incompleteness theorem for a theory T can be formalized into PRA to obtain a primitive recursive function that would take a proof-in-T of T's Gödel sentence and return as output a proof-in-T of 0=1. Similarly, results about set theory can be converted, in a mechanical way, into relative consistency results that are provable in PRA. For example, there is a primitive recursive function that takes any proof-in-ZFC of the continuum hypothesis as input and returns a proof-in-ZFC of 0=1 as output.

The formalist approach is not generally considered a fruitful way to investigate mathematics, and so most mathematicians use the Platonist approach when writing. This is because mathematicians tend to think in a semantical way, rather than a syntactical way. But we all know that, if we cared to, we could recast all of our results into PRA, at the cost of obscuring the mathematical content somewhat. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:40, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

P.S. There is also a great deal of skepticism about claims that P=NP is independent, since such claims seem to rely on analogies rather than deductions. Here are some typical posts from the FOM list [3] [4] [5]. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:40, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Isn't this apparent paradox of attempting to describe a formalism in what appears to be the language of the formalism the nut of the Richard paradox? Also Finsler's (1926) failed proof Formal proofs and undecidability? (cf the proof and van Heijenoort's discussion p. 438-440)? Bill Wvbailey (talk) 18:18, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

To get Richard's paradox, one has to not only use a metatheory and theory with overlapping vocabulary, one must also forget that the referent of a phrase in the metatheory may not be the same as the referent of a phrase in the theory itself. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:20, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi there. Would you please not address your quotation mark questions to Finell personally? He's repeatedly said that he's tired of talking about this issue. If you address the questions to him, then he has to either answer you or look like he blew you off; he can't just sit it out when he wants to. However, if you address the question to the board itself, then someone on Finell's side of the issue will surely answer, but Finell will have more freedom to respond or not as he sees fit. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:22, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I mentioned Finnell's name only because I broke up the discussion and so it was not clear that I was replying to him. Of course everyone is free to not respond to comments whenever they like. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:17, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. That makes sense now. Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:24, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (clergy) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

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Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Clergy) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Since you created it, I thought you should know. I've attempted to start a centralized discussion here because User:Gregbard also created a new cat for formal systems, which by no means has a clear scope. Independently of that I had started a discussion to rename that article to logical system, because that's what it discusses mainly. Pcap ping 03:26, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I've seen that in 2007 you've changed a number of articles like Sentence (mathematical logic) or Lindström's theorem from {{mathlogic-stub}} to {{logic-stub}}. What was your reason for this? Do you still have that preference? Given that the stub category is a good way to find undeveloped articles (not that I have much time to develop them these days, but in principle) I find it annoying to have to look in a much larger stub collection. Pcap ping 10:09, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I must have changed them back then because of the discussion at Wikipedia:Stub_types_for_deletion/Log/2007/July/12. In short: Gregbard created a logic-stubs category, and I didn't really care, so I moved some of the more "general logic" articles out of the mathematical-logic-stubs category into the logic-stubs category. They could be marked as both types of stubs, if you prefer. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:00, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I saw this on the top 500. It needs some work & expansion. (I find the TT history fascinating (of course): e.g. there's the strange relationship to Principia Mathematica's notion of "matrix" and e.g. Tarski's adoption of it, Post, Wittgenstein, the curmudgeons of the 1800's ....) We seem to have the notion "Truth Table" (especially the 16 instances of the binary form) sprinkled in many different articles. Before I plunge into this, do you have any thoughts? Thanks, Bill Wvbailey (talk) 13:41, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Truth tables are a relatively minor topic in math logic these days. So from that perspective, the only thing that I wish was in the article is the fact that truth tables can be used to decide the satisfiability problem for formulas in propositional logic. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:45, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

(1) Any thoughts about who the readers of this article are -- engineering students? Computer-science students? Philosophy students? (2) Here's my naive understanding of the satisfiability problem after quickly reading the wiki articles: Isn't it the matter of finding an assignment of "true" and "false" to the N variables of an arbitrary propositional formula so that it evaluates as "true"? As there are N² [woops, egg on my face: 2^N] minterms (i.e. [2⁴=16 squares on the Karnaugh map] one just has to use trial and error or random selection to find the solution. So the algorithm to do this is "polynomial" in nature, as would be the random version, so in this case P=NP. Is this correct? Is there more to it? A good reference? Lemme know, thanks Bill Wvbailey (talk) 14:49, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

The "Boolean satisfiability problem" is: given a propositional formula, return "yes" if there is an assignment that satisfies it, "no" otherwise. This was the first problem to be proven to be NP-complete. You are missing a logarithm in your mental calculations somehow. In general there are 2^N truth assignments for N variables, so any method that exhaustively tests all of them will run in exponential time. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:31, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I badly blundered in the above. I think I understand the difficulty, but after reading the article I don't understand exactly how an instance of the problem is presented. Is it presented as any arbitrary formula of N variables, or as an arbitrary formula of N variables presented in conjunctive normal form? The article says:

• In complexity theory, the Boolean satisfiability problem (SAT) is a decision problem, whose instance is a Boolean expression written using only AND, OR, NOT, variables, and parentheses.
• The Boolean satisfiability problem considers formulae that are conjunctions of clauses (i.e. formulae in conjunctive normal form).

Am confused. These seem to be quite different problems. Bill Wvbailey (talk) 21:28, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

The general "Boolean satisfiability problem" is for arbitrary formulas. However, a special case of the problem is for formulas in conjunctive normal form with at most three literals per clause. That problem, known as 3SAT, is already NP-complete. Since the general satisfiability problem is in NP for the same reason that 3SAT is in NP, that means that the general satisfiability problem is also NP-complete. I edited the article to clarify this some. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:34, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

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Hi CBM, I was wondering whether the index was completely ready for use yet - can you let me know? Also, can you comment on this discussion? Thanks, Walkerma (talk) 20:04, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I hereby invite you to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics/Style guidance has been marked as part of the Manual of Style (permanent link here, section 22). -- Wavelength (talk) 22:12, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

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Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

You might want to add an exception for page moves like this... I removed the identical notices from VPP and came here to comment on them. --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:03, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

This report wasn't mirrored at WT:Update. I was hoping that changes to policy status and policy subcats (conduct, content, deletion and enforcement) would be reported at WT:Update, since WP:VPP has too much traffic for me (and others I think) to watchlist. Thanks. (Watching) - Dank (push to talk) 13:38, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I will see to it that the policy changes are listed there. I think I may have added only the MOS changes by mistake. I am traveling for a couple days, so the problem could reoccur tomorrow. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:50, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks much. - Dank (push to talk) 01:55, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi Carl, two things have come up at the Peer Review talk page that I wanted to ask you about (basically is it possible to do this)?

The first would be to add something to each PR similar to the tools already in each FAC - see here. The four tools would be the three for FAC (dab checker, link checker, edit checker) plus the SAPR link could be added here too. Related to this, I noted that the PRs all still contain this hidden comment "semi-automated peer review placeholder -- please do not edit or delete this comment" and was wondering that could be removed / replaced with the tools code. Geometry guy thought this might be something the bot needs, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to cehck.

The second is a request to be able to have PR requests for lists show up in their own section - see here. I have no idea how practical this would be (and it seems almost like it would have to be a second topic, as lists would still be under topics) but I said I would check with you on it.

Thanks as always for your help, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 14:21, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Code of conduct (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

- Dank (push to talk) 04:13, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Carl, I've changed the bot to include counts for Semi-active and Inactive admins in the edit summaries. The total counts are 2 short of the current number of admins due to:

1. One admin who requested not to be listed in these lists
2. A bug in the bot that doesn't handle user:ProcseeBot.

ProcseeBot has no edits, so theoretically should show up in the Inactive list - but the list is sorted by last contrib date by enumerating each date and outputting the admins whose last contrib was on that date. ProcseeBot has no "last" edit (no edits at all), so this algorithm doesn't catch it. This is such a weird case I'm not sure it's worth fixing. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:47, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm sure other people will also appreciate it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:24, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Code of conduct (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a policy. It was previously marked as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi Carl, I tried to run your tool for sorting peer reviews by size here but it is returning "Internal Server Error (500)". I checked some other Toolserver tools and they worked, so it does not seem to be a general problem. I can just find the biggest several by hand for the partial transclusion trick now, thanks, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 23:31, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

The culprit appears to be Wikipedia:Peer_reviews_by_date. I'm trying to find out why. Geometry guy 00:14, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

The problem was that they switched the toolserver webserver to a different computer a while back, which did not have all the libraries I need installed. I had already installed them for some other scripts, but I didn't realize this one had broken too. It works now. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:25, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Interesting: I fixed a different problem here. Geometry guy 01:17, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

That should not cause my toolserver program to crash, though. I ran it by hand from the command line on the webserver to see what the error was.

With the list articles, do people want to be able to include them in both the subject-area section of peer review, and the lists section? That might use up the postinclude size in a nonoptimal way. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:21, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

It's been set up as a separate topic, so list articles should be listed in their own section (only). Geometry guy 01:29, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I also think that is the best solution. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:29, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you - I agree lists as their own separate topic seems best. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 01:51, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (adjectives) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

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Hi Carl, I had another idea for the peer review bot - sometimes people try and archive the PR and just paste in the text "This peer review discussion has been closed." instead of properly archiving the PR (see this diff for an example). I usually don't catch these untill they have been there for several days (if at all). Could the bot check each PR for that text, and archive properly any PRs that had it? Even if it was just an error message, I could archive them by hand (I still check each morning). Thanks, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:50, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Here's another one I just found and archived. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 00:57, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I can certainly set something up to detect these, but it will take me a couple days to accomplish it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:59, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

It is no rush at all - thanks as always for all of your help, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 01:08, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

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Wikipedia:WikiProject Belgium/Brussels naming conventions (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I just want to thank you for your patience that you show. I too, try to be extra patient with our discussions because you deserve it. Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 03:55, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Carl, Veblenbot is reporting changes to naming conventions at WT:Update, and it looks like there are enough of them that the signal (changes to policy and Category:General style guidelines is going to get lost in the noise. If there's a way to report only General style guidelines and policy, great; if not, then I'd rather see just the changes to policy and the policy subcats. Thanks for your work. (Watching) - Dank (push to talk) 12:09, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I need to set up another script to do the messages for WT:Update, since you are only interested in some, but not all, guideline changes. I thought I would be able to do it last weekend, but it will be another few days. Until then, I have set the scripts to only post to WT:Update about policy changes. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:50, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Ah, okay, I didn't understand. Thanks kindly. - Dank (push to talk) 00:53, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Skittleys (talk) 01:50, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Skittleys (talk) 02:19, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

User:Harej has set up a realistic scheme to autogenerate WP:GAN by monitoring changes to {{GAnominee}}: discussion (not all of it illuminating) can be found at WT:GAN#Automatic_listing_of_nominees_at_WP:GAN. The script is open source and available at User:RFC_bot/goodarticles.php. I would be very happy if you have time to comment on the robustness of the set-up: any suggestions for improvements would also be welcome. The mock-up is currently at User:RFC_bot/Sandbox_2. I hope you might be interested to generate a similar page using VeblenBot, and even (if the proposal proves to be sufficiently robust and acceptable to reviewers) maintain a version of the GAN page. Thanks for any help, as always, Geometry guy 21:42, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm somewhat swamped today, but I should be able to look over it tomorrow and leave some comments. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:06, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your helpful comments. Should I read from them that you don't believe it is necessary to have a back-up bot operation in place? Geometry guy 12:19, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessary, because the format of the page the bot creates is straightforward enough that people could edit it manually in a pinch. Also, the most common causes of failure (in my experience) are changes to mediawiki itself and network/toolserver failures. It isn't obvious that a second bot would be more robust for those problems. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:13, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh dear, I wasn't faulting your or Emil's responses. I meant "easily understandable responses". After reading this thread, I had to go and remind myself what surjective functions were and then figure out how that applied to the problem. I just don't see why it was necessary to talk about surjective functions or if it was even clear that the OP would know what they were. In any case, you'll notice I started my post on the desk with a bold disclaimer and I didn't say anything about "detailed answers". Anyway, I'm sorry if I offended you. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 14:34, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't offended; thanks for the note. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:04, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

In primitive recursive arithmetic, there is nothing to do, of course. In multiplication/addition Peano arithmetic, there is a little work. I was going to assume that the Godel beta-function is given, which means that you already know that the extraction of the prime exponent is allowed by first order logic and PA. If that needs justification, it can be spun into a separate article (this is some pages of Godel 1931). Once you have the beta-function, the point is that you only need one computationally complete function f, and you are done. You don't need any other PR function.

For example, a one-sentence embedding of a computer in arithmetic is using Cellular automata. For any nearest neighbor rule, you can write the operation in first order logic on PA as follows: the integer which stores the automaton is: 2^n3^a1 5^a2 7^a3 11^a4 ..., n is the current working location. The operation to extract the n-1-th exponent, the n-th exponent and the n+1-st exponent are expressible in the theory. Any finite transition table is expressible in the theory. Replacing the n-th quantity with the new value from looking up the transition table is expressible in the theory, and incrementing n by 1 is expressible in the theory. Also, you need rules to extend the automaton consistently, and to loop back once n reaches the end of the automaton. One way of doing this is adding a 1 at the end of the list every other step, and have an expression that if nth prime does not divide the integer storing the automaton, set n to 0.

From here on in, it's all reconstructing a Turing machine from automata, then reconstructing a RAM machine from a Turing machine. These are standard CS results, which can be referred to appropriate pages.Likebox (talk) 04:10, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Are you happy with this?Likebox (talk) 18:39, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, no; see [6]. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:53, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Biography_(core)_articles_by_quality_log#October_17.2C_2009; following this discussion, Template:WPBiography has recently been converted to use {{WPBannerMeta}}. Gary King (talk) 15:18, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Why have all those articles been considered reassessed when their talk pages have not changed? Gary King (talk) 21:50, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

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"Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/Naming no longer marked as a guideline" ... but it was never in Category:General style guidelines, and hasn't been edited since January. "Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Kosovo-related articles) no longer marked as a guideline" ... but it was a naming convention. I don't know if you had a chance to make the changes you wanted to make ... I could get along quite nicely with just notification of changes to policy. I think it will be confusing to people following WP:Update to get notices of unrelated things. (Watching) - Dank (push to talk) 02:11, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

For the first one, it was this edit, which was to a transcluded template. You can find these edits with this tool.

For the second one, Category:Wikipedia naming conventions is a subcategory of Category:Wikipedia guidelines and therefore pages in this category are counted as guidelines. They used to be just categorized as guidelines, I believe, until that category was split into a bunch of subcategories. Are you saying naming conventions should be considered as MOS pages instead?

Could you give me a list of what specific categories you'd like me to track for WT:Update? — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:22, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

More readers are interested in changes to policy than Category:General style guidelines, so perhaps it would be best if we just track the 5 policy cats:

• Wikipedia conduct policy
• Wikipedia content policy
• Wikipedia deletion policy
• Wikipedia enforcement policy
• Wikipedia policy - Dank (push to talk) 02:47, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

OK, I will implement that. The style guidelines are excluded from the "guideline" code, and are tracked separately as "MOS pages". I removed the style guidelines from WT:Update some time back. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:50, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Just to be clear, let's not track any of the guidelines, including MOS pages. - Dank (push to talk) 02:57, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

OK, I have set up a different script for WT:Update that is only meant to post about the categories listed above. I will try to follow it for a while to see if it makes any errors, but also please let me know if it does so I can fix it. It should run starting tomorrow. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:04, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks kindly. - Dank (push to talk) 03:11, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I am sorry if you are feeling misrepresented. The comments were directed at people who don't understand the broad outlines of the undecidability proof.

About your specific comments on my talk page: I wish you would be less literal minded in your assertions. The "diagonal lemma" applied to proof techniques is exactly the same as the "computational proof". The only slightly different method is to use Godel's particular version of diagonalization (perhaps that is what H. does), but even that is not substantively different.

Your assertions that embedding a computer in arithemtic is difficult might be true for a person who is ignorant of both. But in my experience, this does not cause problems for anybody, layperson or student. Whether you agree or not, you do agree that the proof I give is idea for idea the same as Kleene's proof, except self-contained, and replacing "fixed point" with "print your own code". These minor alterations should not cause such a big fuss.

The main point of my wrangling over this is to put injury/priority on Wikipedia without it getting turned into gibberish. This is important, because this method should be broadly known.Likebox (talk) 20:44, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

While you see your proof of the incompleteness theorem as self-contained, I see it it as incomplete, since it does not prove the key aspects of arithmetization that it uses. This makes it a proof sketch, like the one with that title in the article. Also, none of the proofs we are talking about use priority or injury arguments. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:51, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, yes, but if you allow pseudo-code in proofs, then it is a simple matter to present injury priority arguments in readily understandable ways. But there needs to be consensus that pseudo-code is OK when it is a simple translation of recursion-theory speak.Likebox (talk) 21:47, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

By the way, I would like to write a real page on Post's problem and the priority method. Both of these are only presented in the most vague generalities right now. But I am discouraged by the ruckus on Godel's theorem.Likebox (talk) 22:43, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Any page like that would also need to follow the published literature. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:47, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

That is not true of any pages on Wikipedia on technical or scientific matters. You are opposing a clear presentation of your own field. You cannot hope to succeed.Likebox (talk) 23:44, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that the proofs you add are not actually clear, although you believe they are. I could rephrase them to use standard terminology and be clear, but that's besides the point, since I could do that to essentially any proof text even if it had more serious flaws than just poor writing. I find it very surprising when you appear to claim that you cannot learn the usual terminology in recursion theory. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:48, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I am getting more used to it, but it is still a headache. There are many cases of priority arguments where the algorithm is still opaque to me, even after close reading. Usually I can reconstruct it, but not always.Likebox (talk) 22:31, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

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Hi Carl, the bot seems to be adding the peer reviews that are lists in reverse chronological order in the bottom section at WP:PR - please see Wikipedia_talk:Peer_review#Couple_of_problems.

I also wondered if User:PeerReviewBot/Logs/Archive might be a candidate for archiving by Miszabot - it is up to 175 entries. Thanks as always for all you do, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:56, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

I fixed the lists issue. For the archive log, I just delete the old entries from time to time. They are still in the page history, and this is simpler than keeping a bunch of archives. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:03, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks so much! Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:25, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Can you provide a reference for this? Specifically, I would like to know how Gödel's incompleteness theorem can be formalized into PRA. I think it would also be worth noting this in Primitive recursive arithmetic. Thanks, — sligocki (talk) 07:21, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I know there are two citations in the article on the incompleteness theorems. If I remember correctly, Smoryński gives the usual syntactic proofs and discusses how they can be formalized into PRA, while Kukuchi and Tanaka discuss how the semantic proof can be formalized in WKL₀, which suffices to show that its conclusion is provable in PRA, because of a conservation result.

I think the hardest part is figuring out how to express the incompleteness theorems in PRA. Once that is done, the fact that they are provable in PRA comes by just mimicking the standard proofs within PRA. To see one way how things can be represented, let T be a computable theory with index e. Define a "coded proof" to be a sequence of the form

${\displaystyle ((a_{0},t_{0}),(a_{1},t_{1}),\ldots ,(a_{k},t_{k}),p_{0},p_{1},\ldots ,p_{m})}$

where:

• For each i ≤ k, t_i is a computation sequence verifying that a_i is in the r.e. set with index e
• The sequence ${\displaystyle (p_{0},p_{1},\ldots ,p_{m})}$ is a formal proof all of whose axioms are among ${\displaystyle (a_{0},\ldots ,a_{k})}$.

Note there is a primitive recursive function F_T such that for all n, F_T(n) = 1 if and only if n is a coded proof in the sense just described. Moreover, there is a primitive recursive function G_T such that G_T(n) = 1 if and only if n is a coded proof whose conclusion is "0=1". Then the statement "Con(T)" is represented by this formula of PRA:

${\displaystyle \forall n(F_{T}(n)=1\to G_{T}(n)\not =1)}$

One thing that may be confusing at first is that the literature uses "PRA" both to mean a quantifier-free theory and also to mean a theory that does have quantifiers but where the induction scheme is restricted to quantifier-free formulas. These are basically the same, but it is much more convenient to work in the latter, because then not as much coding is necessary. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:52, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I am pretty sure that every first-order formal system can be expressed as a first-order theory (precisely what you said... a set of sentences). This is to say that specifying a formal language, and a deductive system takes place within the form of a set of sentences in a metalanguage. Therefore it is a precise way to describe what is going on here (--as far as what is a type of what). I find this is consistent with what I have seen in several places. Stay cool C.Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 23:21, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

P.S. is it possible to set up the mathematical logic assessment so that a list of popular pages can be generated? I have requested this for the task forces of WP:PHILO and was wishing it could also be done for math-logic. Thank Carl. -GB

"First order logic with equality" is not a first order theory; perhaps it is a framework in which one can study first order theories. Some examples of first-order theories are given at list of first-order theories. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:46, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

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Carl, could you please correct the reference to "Bishop and Ridges, 1987" in Computable number? Probably "Bridges and Richman, 1987" or "Bishop and Bridges, 1985". 66.245.43.17 (talk) 07:42, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

That was strange. I must have meant Bridges and Richman, but why did I get the name and year wrong? I'll see if I can look up a page number later. — Carl (CBM · talk) 10:26, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! 66.245.43.17 (talk) 16:44, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

This bot has recently informed incorrectly at the VillagePump that Wikipedia:CheckUser had been marked as policy, while it has always been so. The anounce was likely trigered by this edit, that did simple category work. Adding the category should indeed be taken into account by the bot, but not if the page had already the policy tag. MBelgrano (talk) 15:19, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually, pages in Category:Wikipedia policies and guidelines are not "marked as policies"; that is the role of the category Category:Wikipedia policies. The former category is just a meta-category to gather up all the related categories. This is why, for example, Wikipedia:List of policies is in the former category, not the latter. Usually the {{policy}} template takes care of the categorization, but in this case a custom-written message is used instead, so this page was not (recently) already marked with the {{policy}} template. Whenever that template is used, the appropriate category is added automatically, so the bot has the effect of also tracking when the template is added.

I realize this sounds somewhat legalistic, but the entire point of the bot is to watch which pages are literally "marked as policies" by being placed into the corresponding category (which will always happen if the {{policy}} tag is added). In any case, now that the checkuser page is fixed, the bot won't report it again unless it is removed from the policy category for some reason. We can just delete the announcement from when the categorization was fixed. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:41, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Sorry about that! Perhaps we should mention it in the article ("if we include the additional qualification that S is the set of all first-order sentences, the resulting weaker statement is equivalent to BPI/UltrafilterLemma instead")? AshtonBenson (talk) 21:49, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

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Can you point me to a general definition of Witness (mathematics? I found one in Boolos, Burgess, Jeffry but I'm wondering if it is generally the case that a "witness" is defined this way (I ran into its usage in the Consistency article (which BTW I find inscrutable, and generally awful):

"We define an n-place relation s on natural numbers to be (positively) recursively semidecidable, or simply semirecursive, if it is obtainable from an n-place recursive relation R by existential quantification, thus:

S(x₁, ..., x_n) iff ∃y R(x₁, . . ., x_n, y)

A y such that R holds of the x_i may be called a 'witness' to the relation S holding of the x_i (provided we understand that when the witness is a number rather than a person, a witness only testifies to what is true)." (B B J 2000:81)

Thanks, Bill Wvbailey (talk) 16:08, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

A witness for an existential statement ${\displaystyle \exists x\phi (x)}$ is some specific value t for x such that φ(t) is true. For example, we might say "let h be a computation history witnessing that φ_e(n) halts" or "let P be a proof of 0=1 witnessing that theory T is inconsistent". In each case, the concept involved ("the computation of φ_e(n) halts", "the theory T is inconsistent") is defined via an existential statement. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:38, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, thanks. Can you recommend a source for this definition, e.g. one with it in its index? I can't find it in the index(es) of any of my books, modern or not; the only reason I could find it in B-B-J was I remembered reading it, but then I had to hunt for it through the text. Or is it a kind of slang? Maybe one of B-B-J invented it? Thanks, Bill Wvbailey (talk) 20:23, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't have a source, but I believe the term predates them. I do think that, in most cases, it's just argot, which is why nobody bothers to define it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:21, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Just in case, for the confused (of whom I consider myself the leader), I have enshrined the term as tiny stub and added it to the disambiguation page for "witness" cf Witness (mathematics). Bill Wvbailey (talk) 03:22, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

The term is also used in computer science, e.g. NP_(complexity)#Verifier-based_definition where I just added a link. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 07:11, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

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Why not mention the context, e.g. under NOT, ! (in C and C++). Rick Norwood (talk) 20:53, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I was just suggesting a parenthetical remark to help those who, like me, don't know C++, Rick Norwood (talk) 22:03, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

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Carl, I hope you are open minded enough to consider that "theorem" is topic which is studied by people other than mathematicians, that the wikipedia is an open, free, encyclopedia for a diverse audience, etcetera. Your view (and it is a POV btw) that the theorem article is primarily about something you have in mind could be neglecting the POV of others. You see that's the problem I have... I don't care if you insert all the mathematical analysis about theorem that you want. But not at the expense of other subject matter. Furthermore, the formulation I gave is general so as to include 'all of your concerns which may be fleshed out in the article. The material I put there includes the relationship to tautologies which had heretofor been neglected. I think rather than a wholescale deletion, we should go line by line and address issues that way. If you just feel VERY strongly about "idea, concept and abstraction", than I am willing to let it go for the sake of the rest -- but WHY exactly? That is the non-POV way to formulate it. Deleting it is what promulgates a POV Carl. (This is the truth Carl, I'm not just throwing rhetoric your way because I wouldn't do that to you.) The article is not up for GA or anything, so why don't you let it go and see what we can build on it this way? Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 22:46, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

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As you participated in the recent Audit Subcommittee election, or in one of two requests for comment that relate to the use of SecurePoll for elections on this project, you are invited to participate in the SecurePoll feedback and workshop. Your comments, suggestions and observations are welcome.

For the Arbitration Committee,
Risker (talk) 08:03, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

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Yes Carl, everything in mathematics can be described as an abstraction, and so therefore it would be pointless to write that sort of thing into every article. However, what you seem to fail to realize is that no one wants to write this sort of stuff into every article --just the foundational ones where it is important like set and theorem. You didn't seem to notice that I have dropped the whole abstract object thing because of a legitimate POV issue. However the term "concept" is non-controversial, and covers all POVs on the matter. Does anyone dispute that a set or a theorem is a concept? Whether or not concepts are abstract or physical is left for other pages. The initial sentence of set acknowledges this sufficiently for me. I am wondering why the inconsistent behavior at theorem. At some point in an article there should be some clue as to what ontological category it is in. Period. This could take the form of a link to some other article which is a level of abstraction removed (i.e. x is a type of y). This is not too much to ask.

Also, the relationship of theorems to formal systems, tautologies, and propositions is fundamental to all aspects of theorem including the so called "mathematical theorem." Your criticism that these aspects are a "very small part of the study..." is completely POV on your part. For some these aspects are the larger part. Furthermore, they are fundamentals, whereas being "proven" is not. The formulation I came up with was wonderful, and appropriate even if it needed minor tweaks. This whole episode is very telling evidence of very narrow minded views about the way things are supposed to be in wp. I don't get narrow on you guys. I always seek to accommodate the groups concern.

Carl, you are the only one who actually will reformulate things rather than delete them completely. I think this behavior is very troubling on the part of your colleagues. Be well. Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 03:15, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, not really, not at all, mostly unrelated to the earlier discussion in fact. But you might like this if you haven't already seen it. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 23:06, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Music terminology (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

A request, as you initiated the new footnote discussion at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources: If that is indeed the more appropriate place to discuss the issue, wouldn't it be a good idea to move the whole discussion from Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) to the top of the "Replacing duplicate footnotes with named footnotes" section at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources? There are now parallel debates going on in two different places. Please keep a short section with a pointer to the CITE page at the VP page for those who may look there for discussions of interest. --Hegvald (talk) 16:48, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, but I don't plan to police the discussion or to revert if anyone moves it back to the village pump. I have been trying to stay out of the discussion, since I am also involved as an administrator with a bot that was implementing this change automatically. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:55, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for uploading File:Computability in Europe logo.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of "file" pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. ZooFari 00:47, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

You edited the talk page of this article [7] to change the field from discrete to foundations. I'm not sure about computability theory, but the article is about complexity theory, and I would argue that computational complexity theory falls under discrete math. --Robin (talk) 15:39, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

On Wikipedia, the precedent seems to be to put complexity theory in Discrete. See, for instance Wikipedia:WikiProject_Mathematics/Wikipedia_1.0/Discrete_mathematics. It says that the field covers "combinatorics, algorithms and theoretical computer science." Moreover, the articles on complexity theory, theoretical computer science, P verses NP, etc. are all listed on that page. Also, for instance Tim Gowers says in his essay [8] that one of the central unsolved problems of combinatorics is the P = NP problem. I believe that most people associate complexity theory with combinatorics and discrete math, rather than logic and set theory. --Robin (talk) 16:03, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, feel free to move it back. I do feel, quite strongly, that it is absurd for e.g. halting problem to be classified under "discrete mathematics" rather than under recursion theory. In the next WP 1.0 bot it will be possible to have an article in multiple categories, which will solve the problem soon enough. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:21, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Halting problem is really a computability theory article, so I wouldn't object it being classified under foundations. Complexity theory, on the other hand, I feel should be discrete math. But as you said, multiple categories will solve this problem soon enough. --Robin (talk) 16:56, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

You wrote to me (Dagme):

"Feel free to contact me on my talk page if you run into any other problems."

Is this what you had in mind? I don't see any instructions on how to send messages.

I saw your new historical section on the Euler Diagram page. I am looking into Euler and Venn Diagrams with a view to suggesting revisions again.

I think a good first step would be to revise the pages separately with references to each other. At a certain point, contributors can decide whether the pages should be merged.

Here is an article which may be of interest to you:

http://www.maa.org/editorial/euler/How%20Euler%20Did%20It%2003%20Venn%20Diagrams.pdf

I prefer to correspond by email, so let me know if you are interested in an email correspondence.

Dagme (talk) 22:31, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Carl I think it is me that Dagme is refering to. See my comments re my history section in Euler diagram article at his talk page User talk:Dagme. Bill Wvbailey (talk) 23:22, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Bill is correct. Consequently, I am going to copy my contribution to this page to Bill's and will come back to this page later to remove all this.

Dagme (talk) 23:33, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

No problem. I am glad you and Bill are looking at the pages on Euler and Venn diagrams. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:11, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Hawaii/Manual of Style (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi Carl, Veblenbot has been doing just fine at WT:Update. Per this, I've created two new policy subcats, which I'd also like for Veblenbot to track at WT:Update: Category:Wikipedia administrative policies and Category:Wikipedia procedural policies. Thanks. (Watching). - Dank (push to talk) 15:40, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I just added those to the list for WT:UPDATE (and to the regular list as well). — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:09, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

thx mch. - Dank (push to talk) 19:01, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I left an inquiry on their rating page and got this back:

Hello, Gödel's incompleteness theorems is only a c because it lacks inline citations. I am certain that the lack of references is the article's biggest problem at the moment. Pollinosisss (talk) 16:37, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I certainly don't agree with Pollinosisss, but what to do? I think you guys have done a nice job on this article and it deserves better than this rating. Even the B rating from the mathematics group seems a bit harsh. What has bothered me all along about wikipedia's rating scheme is random editors rate without improvement-comments; I wish there were a way to put a stop to this practice. Thoughts? Bill Wvbailey (talk) 20:13, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

You could change the rating yourself if you think it's not correct, but I would simply ignore it. The philosophy project is free to assess the article however they like. There are numerous inline citations in the article, of course. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:02, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

--- The matter has solved itself; these posts are off my talk page ---

The article has quite a few inline citations in Harvard reference (author and year) form. Not as many as are the fashion here on the English Wikipedia, but just about what would be considered the ideal density on the German Wikipedia. (There I once had to reduce the footnote density of an article considerably to get it accepted as a Good Article.) Are there any specific claims that you think need a citation? Hans Adler 20:28, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I feel rather silly. I had simply taken a quick look for references at the bottom of the article. I changed the class to a b. Pollinosisss (talk) 21:08, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely no need to feel silly! Some of the mathematics articles are a bit eccentric in this respect, so this is not the first time something like this has happened. Hans Adler 21:26, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Wvbailey (talk) 22:11, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Notability (events) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi Carl, could you or Veblenbot please make User:VeblenBot/C/December 2009 peer reviews? Thanks, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 21:32, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I think that Geometry guy beat me to it. In case you have trouble reaching me sometime, I have sent you an email with instructions on how you can do this without me. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:56, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Please see my report at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#SmackBot changing referencing style, again. --Hegvald (talk) 10:50, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Shoving in, sorry-- I put this on the ANI but wanted to mention it to you personally since it at least looks like rather dubious evidence. Not a coding master (or apprentice past about 2003) I will claim ignorance as a defense if this is pointless, but of possible note, User:SmackBot/References Log Log of ref runs.

I'd sure like to keep working on it, particularly now that I have a bit of time during the break. I'll try to be online more often in the old #wp1.0 channel. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 18:29, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

That's great news. I have requested access for you in TS-416 (now resolved) and TS-413. The second bug there is the main obstacle left to rolling out a beta test. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:43, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for the email. I'll leave my observations on the second gen bot talk page. Regards. PC78 (talk) 22:52, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry about that, I was running with some.old setting for 376 edits yesterday. Rich Farmbrough, 20:52, 6 December 2009 (UTC).

I unblocked the bot. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:05, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Could you, please, answer the question here? Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:58, December 7, 2009 (UTC)

I responded on your talk page. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:10, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi I looked at User_talk:Trovatore#From_the_CH_page and I find myself agreeing with your overall ontology (namely there's no collection of absolutely everything). I'm just a lowly math undergraduate and so can only understand simple things.

I don't really understand what Trovatore means by "predicate over all sets". Does the realists take the phrase "all sets" to mean "all sets that can possibly exist"?

When we say powerset of a set X, we mean "all subsets of X that can possibly exist". This agrees with our intuition because for finite sets we can actually "exhaust" the possibilities, so we generalize the word "powerset" to infinite sets. However the phrase "all sets that can possibly exist" has a slight philosophical problem (to me). In the case of powerset, we are working with a bounded unity X. But "all sets that can possibly exist" implies we are trying to exhaust all possible sets over the "unbounded unity" (or absolute infinite, as in what Cantor meant for ordinals). I think your opinion is that the phrase itself has no meaning, and we can only say "all sets that exist in a model", because a model is a bounded unity. Now of course we are approached by another problem: what does "all models/universe" mean? You said somewhere in Trovatore's talk page that we take this in a meta-level. My interpretation of your meaning is: any model that we define by writing it down with pen and paper.

Also I have a question about forcing over V. I have a very intuitive grasp of forcing, pretty much as a layman understands it. I think the main argument in the talk page is that V is supposed to contain every possible set that can exist, and forcing adds even more sets just like how Cohen made more real numbers to disprove CH. For what I understand "V" is supposed to contain "every set", so it's weird to make even more, and there's a disagreement about whether these new things really exist or are just "imaginary" symbols. I don't fully understand what V is and I don't think anyone can explain it to me (seeing as I have no formal background in set theory. I will soon learn it). But can you just explain what you think will help me? Thanks Money is tight (talk) 02:09, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

When you are first learning set theory, my advice is to learn the set theory first, and worry about the philosophical issues once you have a good feeling for the technical details. Also, some form of realism is the most common position among set theorists today, so even if you find it a strange position at first it's good to get familiar with it, because it would not be the most popular viewpoint for no reason.

From a realist point of view, the terms "every set that could exist" and "every set that does exist" mean the same thing. When realists say "all sets" without qualification, this is what they mean. Or, actually, they mean "all sets in the cumulative hierarchy", because these are the sets that contemporary set theory is interested in.

The thing with "V" is that it can mean two things:

• It can mean "Every set that exists in the cumulative hierarchy", in the realist sense just described
• When viewed from the interior of a model, V denotes the sets that are in that particular model

When V means "all sets that really exist", it's tautologous that there is no way to add additional sets to V. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:42, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi, you leaved the definition of Darboux function as a function assuming every value between f(a) and f(b). I think giving the formal meaning of what it means to assume every value is useful. Not all students understand how to say this. For example, in a test I was marking many students wrote the statement of the Intermediate value theorem as "for a continuous function on [a,b] there is a c in [a,b] such that f(a)<f(c)<f(b)." not grasping the difference in saying assumes a value and assumes every value, or now knowing how to express it.  franklin  12:06, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Feel free to continue editing, of course. The old paragraph had two problems. First, the initial clause was ungrammatical. Second, the article gave the same definition twice but called it "formal" the second time. That is, the old text was parallel to this:

A number is even if it is a multiple of two. More formally, a number n is even if there is a number m such that n=2m

The second sentence there is not really "more formal" than the first. However, for the article Darboux function, I edited it just now to add some variables to the sentence in question. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:12, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

• Well, the first one defines even using another concept possibly obscure if you don't know what being a multiple of 2 is. Not everyone knows math. Just by chance in that very same course a guy proving that a number was divisible by 9 withing a proof by induction stated that 9(a/3) was multiple of 9 but never checked if a/3 was integer. So, not even the second statement is quite formal since we should say that m is integer. I understand your point but it does make a difference for those not familiar with the topic. Thanks for fixing it. I think it is fine now.  franklin  12:40, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi. :) We have a copyright problem in article Noncommutative measure and integration, the bulk of which consisted of the following sentence: "Because of the progress in the theory of von Neumann algebras and the expansion of its applications from 1966 to 1974 which was stimulated by the Tomita-Takesaki theory and the theory of normal weights, extending the noncommutative integration theory by Irving Ezra Segal has become important to normal weights being noncentral analogs to integrals by unbounded measures on the class of bounded functions." The paper to which it is sourced says, "Because of the progress in the theory of von Neumann algebras and the expansion of its applications during the late 60ths -- early 70ths (that was stimulated by the fruitful Tomita-Takesaki theory and the theory of normal weights), extending the noncommutative integration theory by I. Segal (1953) has become urgent to normal weights being noncentral analogs to integrals by unbounded measures on the class of bounded functions." This is an unusably close paraphrase, but I lack background in the subject to reformulate this in my own words. I've just removed the sentence for now in the hopes that you could help out. Can you replace that text? If not, please let me know, and I'll track down somebody else in the math department who might be able to help. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 19:27, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I see what you mean. It's not my research area but I can rewrite it somewhat, and then I'll post to the math project to see if anyone else wants to work on it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:52, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your help there. It's well beyond me. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 23:00, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

You were involved in a discussion regarding the use of copyrighted architectural designs on Wikipedia pages and I'm trying to find community consensus on a gray area. If you can, please let me know at what point you feel these images should be replaced here. Thank you so much! DR04 (talk) 19:28, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi. On 2006-07-17T17:10:09Z, you wrote concerning the lightface Borel hierarchy that it is "closely related to the hyperarithmetical hierarchy". Could you be more specific as to how "closely" they are related, or do you know where I could find a hint as to that? (I mean, how the rank of a given hyperarithmetical set in the two hierarchies compare.) I checked in a number of textbooks, but they generally mention only one of these two hierarchies and I had come to the conclusion that they were identical; but Hinman's book (Hinman, Peter (1978). Recursion-Theoretic Hierarchies. Perspectives in Mathematical Logic. Vol. 9. Springer-Verlag. ISBN 3-540-07904-1.) describes them both (§IV.4) and gives them a different notation while stating that the first ω levels coincide, so I suppose they are indeed different after that. But he gives no clue as to how different, nor whether the difference matters for subsets of ${\displaystyle \omega }$ or merely for subsets of ${\displaystyle \omega ^{\omega }}$. Do you know more about this? Thanks! --Gro-Tsen (talk) 11:16, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

That's an interesting question; it never occurred to me before, and I don't know the answer you are looking for off the top of my head. It looks like Hinman's exercise 4.32 is trying to give a hint, but I need to think about it a little more. I am sure I used "closely related" because I didn't know a reference for anything more precise. But maybe I should just remove that sentence, and leave the other link to hyperarithmetical sets lower in the article. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:27, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I noticed that exercise, but I wasn't able to make use of the hint. :-( Anyway, you can leave "closely related" as it stands; and I can even provide a "reference" of some kind, even though it's far from satisfactory: Addison, John W. "Warsaw 1957: Memories of Mostowski". In Ehrenfeucht, A., Marek, V. W. and Srebrny, M. (ed.). Andrzej Mostowski and Foundational Studies. p. 375. ISBN 978-1-58603-782-6.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link) (Google books link) There Addison writes: "The effective Borel hierarchy on ${\displaystyle \omega }$ was just a variant of Kleene's hyperarithmetical hierarchy." Since Addison invented the effective Borel hierarchy in the first place, I'll take his word for it being "just a variant". :-) But that doesn't answer my question, so I asked on the sci.math.research newsgroup, we'll see if someone can clarify things. Cheers! --Gro-Tsen (talk) 15:08, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Please fix this article. Rich Farmbrough, 15:30, 14 December 2009 (UTC).

Of course if you were a Cambridge mathematician you might be more interested in tripos. Rich Farmbrough, 16:26, 14 December 2009 (UTC).

BTW, where is the discussion about the adding of names to references taking place? Actually, it is not a matter of adding names in and of itself, it is a way of grouping references by giving them a name, which is quite usual and uncontroversial and in accordance with Wikipedia:Citing sources#Footnote_system, in my experience. I have done it myself numerous times, and have seen others do it all the time, including edits using AWB. Debresser (talk) 23:16, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

This was discussed at WT:CITE a few days ago; several other people there objected to the idea that bots should automatically implement "named references". WP:CITE says, "Optionally, one may add the name attribute by using <ref name="name">details of the citation</ref>." The issue is that this "option" was being implemented automatically by AWB; I think AWB has tweaked its behavior recently to avoid this. This is one problem with AWB: its developers do not always pay attention to this sort of thing. But a bot has to be more careful than a human editor, because humans are expected to review each of their AWB edits by hand, while bots are not.

Thank you for the link. I have added my opinion to the discussion as well. Debresser (talk) 23:43, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Additionally, the named-reference problem is only one of several issues with the bot. The most recent block is for a different issue, that Rich F. agreed to fix a while back but, apparently, didn't fix completely. I didn't realize at the time the bot was still adding named references, since I trusted Rich when he said he had fixed everything. Some other editor drew my attention to the bad edits. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:23, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

As far as that goes I simply turned off GFs until the devs changed the naming behaviour, with the exception of 376 edits you are aware of. Rich Farmbrough, 23:29, 14 December 2009 (UTC).

The devs have kindly made a modification to not apply naming to articles that don't use it. So this is a moot point now - although the main objection seemed to be that numbers could go down as well as up. The sticking point it over the situation where^[22][7] is changed to ^[7][22]. Numbers it seems can go down as we as up in that circumstance, in case the ordering was deliberate and important. The fact that there is no case where it has been shown to be deliberate or important in all the hundreds of articles that have had this fix applied is enough reason to allow the fix. Rich Farmbrough, 23:26, 14 December 2009 (UTC).

Based on [9] I am unblocking the bot immediately. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:34, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that, even though I don't understand. Rich Farmbrough, 01:07, 15 December 2009 (UTC).

I thought you said you had disabled GFs until AWB fixes the things that led to the block. If I misread, I'll still wait until I (or someone else) sees a bad edit before blocking again. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:09, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Rjwilmsi set the General Fixes not to name references unless the article already had references. I had thought you were aware of that. Rich Farmbrough, 08:26, 15 December 2009 (UTC).

Yes, I was aware of that. I must have misread your comment; I thought you said you have disabled the GFs again until the other issues were worked out. But, like I said, I'm not going to pre-emptively re-block the bot based on a misreading. If the bot has more problematic edits, I'll point them out. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:14, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

User:CBM has been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian, and therefore, I've officially declared today as CBM's day! For being such a beautiful person and great Wikipedian, enjoy being the Star of the day, dear CBM! Peace, Rlevse 00:45, 16 December 2009 (UTC) A record of your Day will always be kept here.

For a userbox you can add to your userbox page, see User:Rlevse/Today/Happy Me Day! and my own userpage for a sample of how to use it. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:45, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your help, and happy your Wikipedia day! Pcap ping 19:31, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

A summary of the community's comments on our WP:Edit warring policy will be featured in the Policy Report in next Monday's Signpost, and you're invited to participate. Monthly changes to this page are available at WP:Update/1/Conduct policy changes, July 2009 to December 2009, and it may help to look at previous policy surveys at WT:SOCK#Interview for Signpost, WT:CIVILITY#Policy Report for Signpost or WT:U#Signpost Policy Report. There's a little more information at WT:Edit warring#Signpost Policy Report. I'm not watchlisting here, so if you have questions, feel free to ask there or at my talk page. Thanks for your time. (P.S. Your edit to WT:3RR, which was merged into this page, was months ago, but we haven't had much participation in the survey so far this week.) - Dank (push to talk) 03:12, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I saw your message at WP:BON#Info about new WP 1.0 bot (additional developers wanted...)

I might be quite interested in this. I am quite a staunch Wikipedian I think, and have a better-than-average grip off policies etc, at least those in the domain I operate in. I'm a professional software engineer of about 25 years' standing, in various languages technologies and domains, but this will be a new one for me, and could be fun. Probably best to give me a talkback or something if you're interested.

Best wishes Si Trew (talk) 18:16, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

All you say I understand, this is just a quick reply. I will go through the links. A "background in software is enough" is a little patronising. But I am not here to give you my CV, just to help. I worked for a company for about eight years doing object oriented databases, not pretend ones flattening it to SQL or whatever, so am well on the ins and outs of relational theory, if you care for that kind of thing. It sounds like a job for a reduced table set, but I will check out what you are trying to achieve. We won't just get it right, we'll get it written.

I can't say too much about what I do professionally.

Best wishes S.

PS if you want "a background in software", check Atari BASIC, as I am not happy with it but wrote most of that article. And I was doing 6502 assembler at the time. I have programmmed computers on punch card and can read ticker tape. I just uploaded a couple of images if IBM System/3 punch cards to Commons, and what is worse, I decoded them and said it was in a six-bit encoding, probably EBCDIC. Ask the missus. But I am not obsessive about computers. I am just obsessive about anything I take on. Si Trew (talk) 03:25, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

No worries, I know how sometimes these things sound when written down. Was not offended by it, just amused. The pity is having worked in defence and then for computer companies most of my work is either secret or commercially confidential, so I can't say some of the great things I have done, but they really pushed the boundaries of the art and were considered for patent, but it is such an onerous process for software it is rarely worth it.

As your logicians head on you might be interested in OO databases we did, basically we threw out bertie russell and said "a class IS a class", classified class as itself and then you build up not just class hierarchies, but levels of hierarchies, and it is incredibly powerful from three basic concepts, object, class, attribute. but since an attribute is in class-of-attribute and so on, you can start classifying attributes by class (type) and so forth in a very very generic and powerful way, and have behaviour that does not just apply to objects, but to classes, but classes of classes, entirely uniformly. The problem old earl russell had was that he got himself in a twist over infinite sets or classes, indeed made it imperative that classes could not be members of themselves, the cheat, but it is perfectly all right when everything is finite, and a database may be large, but it is finite, so a lot of those extension problems vanish as frost will blacken a dahliah.

I think it would be great to work on this together. Si Trew (talk) 13:33, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Colours (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I am continually impressed by your ability to find all mathematics articles satisfying some given criteria. Do you think the page Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Mathematics is basically complete and up to date? Sławomir Biały (talk) 09:23, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Most of that page consists of Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Mathematics/Lists, which is updated by a bot and probably up to date. The top part was created by hand is is probably not up to date.

About getting lists of articles, I don't mind doing it at all, although sometimes I may need a day or two depending on how busy I am. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:39, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I notice that you modified Template:Maths rating to include inclusion of the talk pages into categories such as Category: Mathematics articles related to foundations, logic, and set theory (invoked by Talk:Axiom of constructibility‎). And yet that category does not yet exist. Are you going to create them or just leave them as red-links? JRSpriggs (talk) 17:48, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to create them later today, I just haven't gotten to it yet. It will be a while before the categories are fully populated, in any case. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:09, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

They should all be created now. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:27, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for creating them. I see that the talk page I mentioned above has not yet shown up in the category to which it was added. Do you know why that is? JRSpriggs (talk) 19:49, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

When a highly-used template is edited, job queue entries are created to recompile the pages that use the template (as if the pages had all been given a null edit). This recompilation updates the category membership records in the database. When a logged-in user views a page, the page is automatically recompiled to display the latest version, but for performance this is a half-hearted recompile that does not actually update anything in the database. This system has the side effect that a page can look like it is in a category when you view the page directly, when it is not actually in the category.

So the pages will be added to the categories whenever they are edited (even a null edit), or when the job queue entries to update them are run. It may be several days before the job queue entries all make it through. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:13, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

CBM, We're having an IRC meeting of the WMF Offline strategy task force, on Tuesday at 1800h UTC, and I'm proposing we discuss the selection of articles and versions for offline WP content. If you're available, could you join us on IRC on #wikimedia-strategy? It's a small but lively group, and we will be making recommendations to the Foundation on Jan 12th. You can see the details of the meeting here. Hope the testing of the 1.0 bot is going well. I'm very busy with grading till Tuesday, then things will open up a bit. Cheers, Walkerma (talk) 20:43, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to be traveling all of the coming week, and during the first part especially I will have very limited internet access. So I won't be able to make the meeting Tuesday. However, please keep me informed of the decisions you make.

The WP 1.0 bot is going well and moving forward. I am working today on making the new system upload tables to the wiki, which I think is the last feature that is absolutely required to roll over to the new system after beta testing. There are still quite a few new feature requests that will be possible with the new system as well.

Also, User:SimonTrew has expressed interest in helping with the bot as well (see above), which is great news. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:22, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi, A page on my watchlist recently had a peer review. While this was ongoing the article was moved to a new name, breaking the default link in the {{Peer review}} template. I added the page= parameter to fix this. Yesterday PeerReviewBot archived the PR and updated {{Peer review}} to {{oldpeerreview}} on the article talk page, but lost the old page name in doing so. {{oldpeerreview}} supports an unnamed parameter with the same function as page=. Would it be possible to modify the bot to check for the existence of the page= parameter in {{Peer review}}, and if it exists, to propagate the information to {{oldpeerreview}}? See this diff for the situation I am referring to. Thanks, Dr pda (talk) 22:46, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I think I can do this. However, I am going to be on vacation soon, so it will be January before I can look at it. I have been under the impression that not very many pages are renamed during their peer review, so this is a somewhat infrequent problem. Still, it seems like it can be fixed. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:17, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:SNG (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Subject specific Notability Guidelines (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 24 December 2009 (UTC)