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Ok, thanks. Spring break is just starting, I will sit down and take a good hard look. (The diff is too complicated to read at a glance, which is my usual editing approach.) --JBL (talk) 16:07, 9 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Mhym: oh it's really oddly focused on poset theory, isn't it? (Like, I'm happy to see Rota and Stanley get mentnioned, but no graph theory or Erdos? No connections to algebra or other fields? Very odd.) Well, I've started with the ancient stuff, but I'll definitely get to the contemporary section eventually and try to do something more comprehensive with that. --JBL (talk) 19:57, 10 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The WP:RSN thread is about the reliability of the TimesNowNews source; your comment did not address that question at all, instead you continued an argument from elsewhere about the Western Standard.
Is English your native language? (I ask because you seem to have some difficulty communicating clearly.) --JBL (talk) 21:34, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
reversion made without comment?
JayBeeEll
The edit you reverted simply claimed that Wantzel made a conclusion that ONLY the equation cited could solve the problem. I cited the paper that supports the claim. That document (link below) includes this allegory.
Consider the goal is to put a nail into a board and there are no hammers. Wantzel might have said:
Hammers put nails in boards. I have no hammer; thus nails cannot be put in the board.
Why is the statement after the semicolon false? Because other tools can put nails in boards. [ and three solutions without hammers are shown ] .
As a non(academic) my work is not eligible to be included in academic-only web sites for a review. I have created a construction that functions using the tools available to euclid and the babylonians. How else to introduce this to remove another in the long list of items widely held, but no longer accurate? Those include "man will never travel faster than a good horse."
Thanks for your message. My reversion was not made without comment, I left the following edit summary: rv self-promotion. ("rv" is local jargon for "revert".) Your addition was based on your own unpublished manuscript: this is a clear violation of our policy WP:NOR, which forbids the addition of original research to Wikipedia. I do not have any suggestions for how to get around this situation because, in my opinion, the rule that applies here is a good rule that functions correctly in this case. If you want other opinions or advice, you could ask at the WP:TEAHOUSE.
Unrelated to this question, I glanced at your manuscript. It appears to me that you have, in essence, rediscovered a version of the construction described in the section Angle_trisection#Approximation_by_successive_bisections. This does not represent a solution to the problem considered by Watzel, which does not concern itself with the practical question of trisecting an angle in practice up to measurement or observation error, but instead is concerned with an abstract mathematical model (axiomatic Euclidean geometry) in which lines have no width, planes have no thickness, etc. If you have not read The Trisectors by Underwood Dudley (cited in our article), I recommend it to you.
Thank you for the detailed response. Papers from non(professional academics) are not accepted in academic pre-press for peer review hence I was the only one who knew about it.
What Dudley describes is a "proof". Mine is a "construction". It works in the real world using only the tools and limitations faced by Euclid and the Babylonians. In science "practice" trumps "theory" and some note should be made that trisection can be done. Wantzel's "negative proof" wasn't an error in math, it was an error in logic. It is described in the paper including the allegory above.
Unfortunately as even my Wikipedia account was deleted I won't get notification of your response.
Your Wikipedia account was not deleted: what was deleted was your user page (the page User:Jonathan E. Jaffe) where you had initially posted your first comment, before finding the correct way to contact me (on this page). This does not prevent you from logging in to your account and using your account to edit.
Unfortunately, the fact that your work has not been published means that it is not suitable for use as a reference on Wikipedia.
(It is not actually true that academic publishers are unwilling to publish work from people who are not professional academics -- I have many friends who have been able to publish academic papers after leaving academia, and I have mentored the research of many groups of undergraduate students, some of which has been published. Since your work doesn't make any real attempt to adhere to the conventions of the field to which you feel it belongs, it is not too surprising that you would not have been able to publish it with a reputable publisher. I think a good example of this failure to engage with the field is visible in our exchange, when you simply ignored my reference to Angle_trisection#Approximation_by_successive_bisections. People are not generally willing to go out of their way to help someone who claims to understand something all mathematicians have failed to grasp for the last 200 years, who also doesn't seem to listen.)
Sorry if I was unduly aggressive in my last post here etc. You were hardly the right person for me to direct my semi-justified anger toward after my ban had been overturned. Again, genuinely sorry for that; wouldn't do it again. Biohistorian15 (talk) 23:07, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
RFA2024 update: Discussion-only period now open for review
Re this revert, I'm pretty sure "to recurse" is a widely-accepted verb, but possibly only in computer science; it is used in Recursion (computer science) (and I certainly didn't add it). I grew up using this word, though that's hardly an unbiassed sample and certainly isn't a citation. The pronounciation is different for "re-curse" and "recurse"; the vowel "u" in "recurse" is long, as in "recursion" (there's a sound file at wiktionary:recurse). That said, I don't deeply care if the article has dictionary links. HLHJ (talk) 21:01, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi HLHJ, thanks for your message. About "recurse", I think we agree about the situation broadly. I am an academic mathematician and I would expect other mathematicians to understand if I said "and then we recurse through previous cases". But I think the word is a piece of informal jargon, not understood or recognized outside of the fairly specialized context of mathematics and computer science. As a point of evidence in favor of this view, I note that "recurse" is not in Merriam-Webster or dictionary.com (these are the first (only) two general-interest dictionaries I checked). --JBL (talk) 17:29, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, we do largely agree. Apologies for the misunderstanding. My old concise OED does not contain "recurse", nor actually "recursion". I think there are enough academic papers using "recurse" that it is, at least, formal jargon of some fields. In some non-subject-specific social circles, "recurse" gets used as an ordinary non-jargon verb, and I think I've used it to explain the whole point-the-camera-at-the-livefeed thing to a small child. It is actually useful in everyday conversation.
That said, I imagine only people who need to think or talk about recursion regularly find the word particularly useful; people in comsci, math, some fields of tech and visual arts. I'd think anyone looking up the recursion article might be entering that class, though, and thus might actually want the word, in the same way they want to learn recursive and recursion. They might even be looking up what "recurse" means on Wikipedia. At worst, they don't need to know and promptly forget.
So I favour including it. But it's pretty easy to guess from a basic knowledge of English, which most readers will have, so I'm not too fashed about it. HLHJ (talk) 18:28, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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Hi. I am planning to expand Fundamental theorem of calculus via my sandbox here. I was wondering if I might dismantle and rewrite the whole article, you would probably disagree with what have I done. Would you like to give some suggestions before heading this article into B-class or possibly high-class? Many thanks. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 13:22, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Dedhert.Jr, thanks for your message. My relationship with Fundamental theorem of calculus is that I tend to protect it on a local basis, without thinking very much about the article globally. Looking it over briefly right now, I am sure that a more global perspective on the whole article could yield improvements. I would not stand in the way of you making such a large-scale change to the article. Given my current time availability, I don't think I can make significant contributions to your effort, but if you would like help with copyediting or spot-checking or prose-polishing certain sections in your draft, I would be happy to try to do that -- let me know. --JBL (talk) 18:56, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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You’re certainly correct that it would be a challenge to draw a Hasse diagram of any partial order on, say, R. So the point I was trying to make would indeed require rewording. But before I tried to do such a rewording, I would like to know the second problem you had with my edit.—PaulTanenbaum (talk) 13:00, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi PaulTanenbaum, thanks for your message. The bigger objection is that Hasse diagrams only "work" for finite posets (and some nice kinds of infinite posets). The smaller objection is that I am a little hesitant around the language of what a poset's Hasse diagrams "look like", because (for all but a very few simple cases) the same finite poset can have "different looking" Hasse diagrams. I would feel better if the language were directly based on a citation to a reliable source. All the best, JBL (talk) 20:56, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think I understand your hesitancy about raising a Hasse diagram’s appearance. I suppose my inspiration to add the comment at all reflects my own comfort with the distinction between a graph and its myriad possible drawings, so the comment could be misleading for readers who aren’t already acquainted with that idea.
What would you think of a version like this:
“The idea of isomorphism can be understood for finite orders in terms of Hasse diagrams. Two finite orders are isomorphic exactly when some single Hasse diagram (up to relabeling of its elements) expresses them both.”
Hi PaulTanenbaum, sure, something like that seems reasonable. I might go even more explicit about "expresses": "Two finite orders are isomorphic exactly when a Hasse diagram for one can be transformed into a Hasse diagram for the other by relabeling elements" or something. --JBL (talk) 17:11, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi JayBeeEll. I would like to clarify your disagreement with my edit. I believe that the edit is justified on the basis of her Somali heritage and the basic translation, though clear consensus was reached on not including the Arabic translation, which I concur with. May you consider a partial self-revert of the Somali version, especially helpful or nice is that Somali using regular romantic language characters and can be read on the WP:En with ease, unlike Cyrillic or Arabic or another language that would require further transliteration. Lastly, though it was only in an invisible comment, I left in there previously the Arabic translation for if/when consensus would ever evolve to include the Arabic language translation. I do not see the harm in a invisible comment keeping this translation handy, but if you would like to remove that part and the comment alongside it in a partial revert restoring the Somali language content only, I believe that would be fine. Thanks for reading. Iljhgtn (talk) 00:15, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Iljhgtn, thanks for your message. If you don't mind, since it is entirely about content, I would prefer to keep discussion located in one place (the article talk-page). I am sorry that I have been editing so infrequently recently as I realize this makes discussion difficult; I appreciate the patience you've shown with respect to that. I don't know what (if any) holidays you celebrate at this time of year, but I hope that you are finding it enjoyable and restful. --JBL (talk) 23:55, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You mention on your user page that you're interested in collaborating on improvements to symmetric group. The deficiency that most strikes my eye is that the article is almost entirely devoted to finite symmetric groups, notwithstanding that infinite symmetric group redirects there.
I think we could at least have a good section on the symmetric group of the natural numbers (usually called for some reason instead of something more precise like or or ). We could talk about how isomorphism of countable structures in a countable language is the orbit equivalence relation of an action, and how the Solovay model is constructed from names that are invariant under such an action. The closed subgroups of are of interest in set theory, model theory, and possibly topology. The content I know about here is more in those fields than in group theory proper, and I suppose that could militate towards treating it in a separate article. --Trovatore (talk) 01:44, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your message! I'm glad that having left that message on my talk page finally paid dividends :). Three quick thoughts:
You're right, there should be at a minimum some summary-style content in that article about the infinite cases. In the first instance that content could be incubated in the main article Symmetric group, then eventually get split out, if it gets meaty enough. The content you describe sounds very appropriate to me (though I am very far from an expert in the relevant topics).
In fact there are at least two (arguably three) infinite groups worth mentioning: the symmetric group of all bijections on a countably infinite set (the one you mention); its subgroup consisting of those bijections on a countably infinite set that fix all but finitely many points (the direct limit of the finite symmetric groups; a Coxeter group in two different natural ways); and perhaps even the family of affine symmetric groups. (In my experience the second of these is usually denoted , so perhaps this is one of those situations where the study of "big S infinity" and "small S infinity" are so unrelated that people use the same symbol without ever having to worry about a conflict.)
Off the top of your head, do you already have good sources in mind for "big S infinity"?
My semester is just about to begin (on Monday) and, based on my teaching assignment and other responsibilities, I probably won't have a lot of time to spend on this until the beginning of May. But I would definitely be up for spitballing some ideas here, collecting a list of sources, etc. in free moments. --JBL (talk) 16:37, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The info I added related to actions in 2020, 2021, particularly the renaming of Sanger building in Manhattan. Was that already in the article? Granted one sentence I added was a bit redundant with stuff already there, but why take out the entire paragraph? Noleander (talk) 20:55, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A request for clarification:
I’m curious to learn how to improve the accuracy and readability of my posts, especially since you removed my post but provided very concise comments.
Are you literate in English? Because I see that people have given very clear answers to your questions, and you keep repeating the same questions over and over again in one venue after another, without any indications of comprehension. It's very bot-like behavior. Maybe you should respond to [2] before you waste any more of anyone else's time. --JBL (talk) 22:33, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don’t believe so. If you find those answers clear, please help re-iterate them here. I understand you have your own reasons for removing my post. Thank you very much! Bowen (talk) 23:25, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest you inform those who could provide compelling reasons to remove my post. I’ll then engage in a discussion with them. Please share your thoughts. Bowen (talk) 23:45, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also, can you change this closure so it is archived (visible) instead of hatted? I think it's important that it's not hidden. If you are not familiar, the tags are {{atop}} and {{abot}}. Thanks so much. LizRead!Talk!23:33, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi JoshuaZ, at the time this felt like a sort of second-order generalization, only thinly related to Descartes numbers; but maybe that was wrong. My negative view was enhanced by the fact that over many years, IP addresses based in Luxembourg have repeatedly added content to WP of the following form: "In [citation], Laszlo Toth showed [something]." There are many mathematicians named Laszlo Toth, but will it surprise you to find out that invariably the one in question is the one based in Luxembourg? If you think the content is worth having, I am happy to defer to you; I just ask that you please restore it in a way that avoids the primary-sourced name-dropping of a non-notable person, as in my following edit [4]. --JBL (talk) 20:02, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I hadn't noticed the IP address origin. I do think it is close enough a generalization that it should be included. I should probably note that I have a conflict of interest potentially here, since I'm currently in the process of coauthoring a paper with Toth. JoshuaZ (talk) 21:42, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@JoshuaZ: Haha, oh dear, sorry to complicate your life. In my opinion, it is not a genuine conflict of interest for you to add a reference to work that you believe in good faith to be relevant that happens to be by someone who is a collaborator on a separate project. (If that person solicited you to add references to their work, that might be a bit different, but that seems not to be the case here.) As I said, I happily to defer to you if you believe the content is in-scope for the article. --JBL (talk) 22:52, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just looking over my edits more carefully, I think that I incorrectly transposed my argument for removing this specific content from Perfect number (where it is only related second-hand) into a different context; I agree with you that this generalization is on-point for Descartes number. --JBL (talk) 20:56, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Doug Weller: the charming message above is in regards to this [5][6][7][8]. Personally I feel like this person has had enough chances; if you agree it will save me the trouble of opening a new ANI report. --JBL (talk) 17:47, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My "personal attack" can help you become a better Wikipedian. For example, do you recollect 6 August 2018 Rank and Durfee square: "reasonable but let's do a decent job of it"?.. I'll try to be nice if you'll try to be nice.Rich (talk) 07:21, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
do you recollect 6 August 2018 Is this question meant in earnest? I have made perhaps 20,000 edits to Wikipedia since 2018, and I can barely remember what I taught to my students last week if I don't write it down. I have no recollection of ever having interacted with you at any time or place (although if you would like I could try to figure out what this is in reference to), and I certainly reject the idea that I am party to an ongoing conflict with you. If I have somehow offended you in the distant past, you have my sincere regrets and apologies. --JBL (talk) 17:55, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I accept your apology! And I'm not perfect either. I apologize for my personal attack. Let's both try to be gentler with fellow editors.Rich (talk) 20:18, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
infoboxes
Is there some consensus that infoboxes may be removed? Many articles have them. Is there some project wide consensus that says they should go away? Andre🚐20:16, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Anything in Wikipedia "may be removed" if the reason to do so is better than the reason to not do so; the two boxes I've removed were completely useless clutter. --JBL (talk) 20:19, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that is true, each article can determine whether the infobox is useful; as to whether it was clutter, that is a stylistic judgment. Well, at least the 2nd one you restored the image. It was not useless, because that image was coming from Wikidata, and when I restored it, it was returning a useful image. The original user who removed it did not. Also, the automatic infoboxes have the advantage of automatically importing data that is sourced on Wikidata. If there is no project-wide discussion and this is case-by-case for an article, that is fine in the 2 cases as you said. But we should not indiscriminately remove infoboxes without recreating their content. Andre🚐20:25, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Personally I agree with David Eppstein that "automatically importing data that is sourced on Wikidata" is a disadvantage rather than an advantage. I certainly did not remove anything indiscriminately, and I rather doubt that DE did, either. (Although he may have done so partly in error, given the reference to BLPs in the context of biographies of long-dead people.) --JBL (talk) 20:28, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, he certainly removed images that illustrated both dead and living people without returning them as you did. Andre🚐20:31, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have now started several discussion threads - one at the article, one at the MOS, and an admin action review of David's rollbacks, which all mention you somehow. Andre🚐00:00, 21 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Please see WP:CIVIL. You can do better. Please watch your language and do not use such snarky or negative edit summaries. You are getting close to this moving in the direction of what might be characterized as a personal attack.Iljhgtn (talk) 21:51, 11 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
While I have no intention of getting involved, I'm interested to see where this goes, as I have also been threatened with ANI by this editor in previous exchanges at Gun Show Loophole. Cheers. DN (talk) 23:14, 15 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Darknipples: yeah there's an entire other angle that is only slightly related to the names issue which is the considerable POV-pushing by this editor. Really the sooner that they get indeffed the better; a committed high-volume editor like this can do an enormous amount of damage. (They've been "too busy with their family" to respond to a yes-no question I asked two days ago, but they made more than 100 edits in that time!) Unfortunately I don't really see how to work this in to the ongoing ANI thread. --JBL (talk) 23:26, 15 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would leave it out or strike and try to stay focused on the original issue and especially the order of events. There is too much deflection and pivoting from one accusation to the next. Eventually it usually ends up flooding the zone in the hopes that something sticks besides how this all started, and makes it impossible for others to follow. DN (talk) 16:40, 16 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The whole discussion was making me far too angry, I pulled back several days ago and am not watching it any more. Hopefully somehow it results in less damage to the encyclopedia going forward. In any case thanks for your comments; I sometimes wonder how other people can look at some behaviors and not have big flashing red alarm bells going off in their head, but it's reassuring that at least I'm not the only one who can see it. --JBL (talk) 18:33, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Our WP article asks: "Is there a uniform bound on limit cycles in generic finite-parameter families of vector fields on a sphere?"
This great source asks differently: "Is it true that for a generic finite parameter family of smooth vector fields on the 2-sphere the number of limit cycles of the equations in the family is uniformly bounded with respect to the parameter, provided that the parameter set is compact?"
The questions, although similar, don't seem equivalent (there are more requirements in the second one).
So... What is the statement of Hilbert–Arnold problem? I don't know.
Nevermind. The template has a simplified version of the problem. The article's lead mentions "compact" for example... Best wishes, Esevoke (talk) 20:57, 15 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ok. (As I said, this is not my field and so I don't have any knowledge of the topic other than what I gleaned by reading the article and following a couple of links.) --JBL (talk) 22:00, 15 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Insofar as the GA project has long struggled with advanced technical topics, and 1a has been reviewed for this, I can accept that this topic's broad audience is people who have studied mathematics to higher education level. You're probably aware that this article is currently the oldest unreviewed GA nomination, probably because of that. I won't commit to taking on the review, but to help judge if I think I could, are there any comparable articles that are GAs you'd recommend I could look over? Kingsif (talk) 22:00, 16 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Kingsif, thanks very much for reaching out -- I've been embroiled in the worst parts of Wikipedia recently, and your message is a nice reminder that it mostly consists of people volunteering their time to collaborate to make good content. One comparator is the featured article Affine symmetric group, which is pretty technical (but not quite to the same degree). In this comment, David Eppstein mentioned two or three other articles that might be good comparisons. I'm not super involved in the GA process, so I think those are the best examples I can suggest.
I was aware when I submitted it originally that this might happen -- and it must be the oldest unreviewed GA by a wide margin at this point. I did just make some edits to try to make the lead section a little gentler (following a nice concrete suggestion by Russ Woodroofe), and it's possible it will move a bit further in that direction (I solicited more input on the talk-page earlier today), but probably not much. So let me also take the opportunity of your message to commit that if you decide that this review is beyond you, I'll withdraw it with no hard feelings (and perhaps you can explain to me how to properly do so), so that those of you who do the hard work at GAN won't have it as a yoke on your neck any more.
Hi Kingsif, I wanted to check in about this. If you think you might be able to do a review, that would be lovely (and no rush, I'll be on vacation for most of the rest of July). But if not, please let me know and I'll see about withdrawing the nomination, as it's really lingered a hideously long time at this point. Thanks, JBL (talk) 17:49, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi JBL, I think I'll take it on, I've looked over Dehn invariant in particular - I was thinking how I'd go about a review and applying GA criteria to something I don't really understand, but I think if I lay out my comments as simple, clear, and attached to the criteria as I can, it should be alright. Sorry for not laying this out or starting review yet (I've had a work thing so editing has been more drip-feed rather than throwing myself into something like this.) Kingsif (talk) 21:19, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, great, thanks! No apology needed, to be sure, and no rush -- I will probably not be able to spend focused energy on editing until after I return in the last week of July. Looking forward to working with you, and thanks again! --JBL (talk) 23:36, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think the editor that you recently reverted on perfect number is Xayahrainie43. It was by an editor geolocating to Russia who mainly edits big-number topics. Xayahrainie43 generally geolocates to Taiwan and has more varied interests. I agree with your revert itself, of course. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:35, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Huh, you're right -- not sure how I stumbled into this particular confusion, maybe just because the basic behaviorial profile is somewhat similar. Will try to not mix that up any more. Thanks! --JBL (talk) 19:20, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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@Kingsif and Gramix13: Thank you both very much for the hard work that went into the review! Kingsif, I am really grateful that you took on the challenge of reviewing something so esoteric, and Gramix13, thanks again for providing such thorough comments.
While I'm here: I spent 5 minutes thinking about whether there was anything DYK-able in the current article, and gave up: I couldn't think of anything that would make it past the rule The hook should be likely to be perceived as unusual or intriguing by readers with no special knowledge or interest in the topic. There are a number of things in the article that I think would make a good DYK-equivalent in the Notices of the AMS, but I didn't find anything that I thought was genuinely generally interesting. If you happen to think I'm wrong about this, please let me know. --JBL (talk) 23:39, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sokoban deadlock
Hello @JayBeeEll, thanks for your edit to the Sokoban article! I appreciate your contribution. However, I think the previous text explains this kind of deadlock situation better, although I liked your description and it’s easy to understand after seeing Deadlock 1.
The phrase:
"A box pushed against a wall, leaving it trapped indefinitely."
is intended to express that once a box is pushed against a wall, it becomes impossible to use it effectively, for reasons such as (see symbology below):
1 - There are no storage locations (goals) along that wall, so the box cannot be pushed onto a goal. For example:
#######
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#$@ #
# .#
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2 - As you mentioned, the wall has no gaps, so the box cannot be moved to another useful place.
3 - There may be a storage location along the wall, but it's already occupied by another box:
#######
# #
#$@ #
# .#
#* #
# #
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Scenarios that are NOT a deadlock:
#######
#. #
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#* #
# #
#$@ #
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In this case, although the newly pushed box (A) cannot be pushed directly onto the storage location at the top, it is possible to move the already stored box (B) to the free storage location, and then push box A to the newly available goal. So this is not a deadlock.
Wall with gaps:
######
### #
#. #
## #
#$@ #
# #
# #
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Here, the box can be pushed into the storage location through the gap, so it's not trapped.
The original phrase "A box pushed against a wall, leaving it trapped indefinitely." aims to cover all deadlock cases of this type, excluding scenarios like the ones above that are not deadlocks.
What do you think about this explanation? Should we restore the previous text, or is "A box pushed against a wall that has no gaps." maybe more illustrative? Or what about:
"A box pushed against a wall with no gaps, leaving it trapped."?
Symbology:
# wall
@ player
$ box
* box on storage location
. storage location
Hi Carloseow, there are six bad things that can happen listed there. Each of the other five is a description, in words, of precisely what the problematic arrangement is. "A box pushed against a wall, leaving it trapped indefinitely" does not explain the nature of the obstruction: it does not convey, in words, what the defining feature of the arrangement "box against a wall" is that "leaves it trapped indefinitely"; it also applies to arrangements 3 and 4, and arguably also 1 and 6. --JBL (talk) 23:48, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(Sorry, got interrupted, submitted before I finished my response.) One reason that this is tricky to write is that arrangement 2 is slightly different from the other five: there are still moves that can be made (although none of them can be helpful in any way). But it seems difficult to convey this and fit the format of how the paragraph is set up. The previous text ("continuous wall") was not clear, either (without the picture I wouldn't have understood what it meant). I am not likely to continue editing the article, and I do not insist on my wording or anything else. --JBL (talk) 00:20, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What about for arrangement 2: "A box pushed against a large wall, and the box can be pushed again along the wall, but not onto a storage location." ? Carloseow (talk) 03:52, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Carloseow, to me, the adjective "large" does not capture the essential feature of the wall: there could be a large wall that nevertheless is not a problem (because it ends at a gap). What does the source say about this? ----JBL (talk) 19:35, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you
I wanted to answer your coment, but I couldn't.
Very sad that you accuse me of repeated pattern on your part of inappropriately personalizing disputes.
I am a mathematician and the only thing I do is write mathematic articles. I read mathematic articles in many languages like Russian, German or French. I only want to help science. I wrote 185 articles about mathematics in the German wikipedia already. Very sad that you think so bad of me. It was never my intention to attack anyone. I just want my science articles to be published.--Tensorproduct (talk) 22:48, 15 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Tensorproduct: Here are two completely unrelated things I've observed you do on Wikipedia: (1) write articles about mathematics or mathematicians. (2) personalize disputes unnecessarily, and bring old disputes up in unrelated contexts ("axe-grinding"). Sometimes in the course of doing activity (1), you've come across people who disagree with you about what makes a good Wikipedia article in some way, or who misunderstand something you've done; this is a normal part of human interaction on Wikipedia. Most Wikipedia editors handle friction in these situations by following the guidance laid out in policies and guidelines like WP:AGF and WP:FOC. I wish that you also did that, instead of doing (2). (Observe in particular that the two activities (1) and (2) are completely independent of each other.) --JBL (talk) 00:14, 16 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Separately, I apologize for using the action of closing the off-topic discussion to also criticize you; I think Tito Omburo was correct to question whether this was appropriate, and I have revised to remove the characterization of you from the box summary. I don't know what you mean that you couldn't answer my comment (it is certainly technically possible to edit the section, e.g. by pressing the "edit" button in the section heading in desktop mode). --JBL (talk) 00:32, 16 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
1) You claimed that what I said was a "gross misrepresentation of those events" but you didn't show us where this was a "gross misrepresentation".
2) You mentiond the Wikipedia:Assume good faith but again you claim that "I personalize disputes unnecessarily, and bring old disputes up in unrelated contexts". I only write mathematics articles and that is 99.99% of my actions I do here. To reduce my actions on Wikipedia to "personalize disputes" is a gross missrepresentation of what I do here.
3) The user Ldm1954 tried a second time to prevent one of my articles with dubious claims. The claims had zero substance and I wanted to show that. I just stated what happen before, it's the truth and everybody can read it in the article history. This user has not written 1 mathematics article.
4) I act in good faith writing articles and the mistake was done by another user - yet you attack me and claiming I did not act in good faith. Maybe you should think whether your actions in the end are helping the mathematics on wikipedia or not. Your actions will sure contribute to my departure from Wikipedia.--Tensorproduct (talk) 11:38, 16 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As elsewhere, your responses here hopelessly muddle two activities of yours on Wikipedia: writing articles, and interacting with other editors. My criticisms of you are entirely related to the second activity. I would be willing to continue this discussion on my talk-page only under the conditions that you acknowledge that these are two separate activities, and agree to restrict attention in this discussion to the second one (your interactions with other users). Do you accept these terms? --JBL (talk) 17:06, 16 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I did not want to interact with anyone here and certainly not Ldm1954, he came back trying to prevent once more one of my articles out of the blue. If people support the actions of other users trying to prevent articles, then I am no longer wasting my time here writing any articles. No wonder there are very few active mathematicians here.--Tensorproduct (talk) 17:37, 16 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you don't want to interact with people, then (1) why are you pestering me on my talk-page?, and (2) Wikipedia may not be for you, since it is fundamentally a colaborative project, governed by policies like Wikipedia:Civility and Wikipedia:Ownership of content, that you are obligated to abide by as long as you contribute here.
Frankly, I do not think that the reason there are too few active mathematicians here is because mathematicians are unpleasant, self-absorbed people who are unable to treat others collaboratively and respectfully, as you seem to suggest. In any case, since you do not wish to interact people, I would be happy if you were to not prolong this particular interaction any further. --JBL (talk) 17:45, 16 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The closure was appropriate, and should not be reversed - thanks, JayBeeEll. The RfC was poorly constructed, and cannot conceivably come to a useful consensus. I'm not even saying we shouldn't revisit the previous RfC - it ended without consensus, after all - but the one you opened is going to be a time sink with no useful outcome. With all due respect, please drop this. If you feel the need for an immediate RfC, at least workshop it a little such that it will not get mired in procedural trouble. Vanamonde93 (talk) 00:08, 19 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Vanamonde93, the issue as I see it is that the prior RFC ended with what would appear to be consensus against "Gender-critical", but no consensus for what the alternative is. Given Sandstein's refussal to clarify what WP:NOCON entailed, further discussion is necessary. TarnishedPathtalk00:36, 19 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, further discussion is necessary. That does not mean an immediate RfC, and an eventual RfC needs to have a neutral opening statement. Yours did not, which is why it has seen a slew of procedural objections. Please leave the closure be, and open a discussion to find another way forward. Vanamonde93 (talk) 00:42, 19 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm still not seeing that the question was not neutral. It stated that there were 5 usages of the term "gender-critical" which weren't attributed. That fact was verfiable. Anyone could go to the PermanentLink I provide and see that gender-critical was in the article 5 times and without any quotation makes. TarnishedPathtalk00:48, 19 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Neutrality with respect to article content and neutrality in posing an RfC question are quite different. Your opening statement prejudged the question being asked. And asking whether something is NPOV-compliant is not a useful RfC question. And ultimately even if you can't see it that way, the fact that any number of participants are rejecting the RfC should be indication enough that it's a problem. That's the last I'll say about this unless you're still interesting in reopening that RfC. Vanamonde93 (talk) 01:15, 19 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I gave a longer response below but let me just add that even if you can't see it that way, the fact that any number of participants are rejecting the RfC should be indication enough that it's a problem. is the crucial point of the close: RfCs as a mechanism don't work when a large fraction of participants reject their validity in good faith. It is always better to spend the extra time making sure that participants on all sides agree about what question an RfC should settle before starting one. --JBL (talk) 17:44, 19 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As I said in my own closure, I think the best way to go about resolving the ambiguity of the no consensus closure would be to workshop alternatives that would be able to gain consensus on the article. And if that's not possible without more clarification by the closer of the previous RFC, perhaps a closure review may be necessarily that is specifically focused on overturning the implications of a no consensus on this RFC and does not relitigate the RFC. However I think a closure review carries the risk of prolonging the debate without any novel solutions being put forth that could reasonably succeed, so I think for now the focus should be on workshopping those new solutions before putting forth another RFC, preferably one that is worded neutrally. Gramix13 (talk) 00:47, 19 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi TarnishedPath, thanks for your message. Any realistic outcome conclusion of the RfC you started could reasonably have been reached as a conclusion in the prior RfC; this is what I believe the plurality of voices in the RfC meant when they said it was a rehash. More generally, I have difficulty imagining any RfC in which the eight editors in the first 30 hours !vote "bad RfC" or equivalent leading to a consensus for anything. I think it is clear that more discussion on the topics treated by both RfCs is required; hopefully, through good-faith discussion, editors will be able to identify sufficiently precise and focused points of disagreement that future discussion (possibly via RfC) will be able to settle them.
With respect to whether the RfC statement was neutral, I think that the argument that it was not is based on the inclusion of potentially contestable statements (e.g., in the first sentence) as a framing mechanism. I do not have a personal opinion about whether those framing statements are accurate or not (I have not read the article), but it seems to me that that is the main focus of the objection. The question "should these statements be in wiki-voice, be attributed to particular people, or be removed?" seems like a totally appropriate discussion topic; indeed you started such a discussion already, and I think it would have been a more promising approach to allow that discussion to develop, rather than rushing to a new RfC. --JBL (talk) 17:40, 19 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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