User talk:David Eppstein

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

Help with automatic user talk page archiving

Hi, Professor David Eppstein. I am back to Wikipedia after a few months (and even started an article today!), but I'm here to ask what I did wrong at my user talk page archiving configuration: I wanted the bot to create "Archive 2", but instead it added 11 discussions to my old "Archive 1" (created and then last edited in 2021!). I would like to fix this mess, but I don't know how. Please, could you help me? Good edits! By the way: Wikipedia servers seem really slow today, or is it just me? (sometimes it takes more than 50 seconds to load a page!) Best wishes, MathKeduor7 (talk) 20:40, 6 April 2026 (UTC)

I don't know; I archive my talk manually rather than automatically. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:50, 6 April 2026 (UTC)

So I guess the solution would be for me to revert the bot and do it manually too. I'll do that later! Good edits! MathKeduor7 (talk) 20:56, 6 April 2026 (UTC)

Non-fiction synopses

Hello, David. I have a quick question if you have a moment. In this comment, you wrote, It contains an entirely unsourced "synopsis" section (which as a work of fiction does not fall under the usual allowance of plot summaries without sources) (you said "fiction" but meant "non-fiction" and clarified that in a later comment). That guideline, of non-fiction works needing sources for their summaries, is one I've followed in my articles for some time now, and though I know I've seen it mentioned numerous times on the site, I'm failing to find where the guideline is actually written, or where that consensus was found. I'm in the process of a GA review where the reviewer hasn't heard of that and would like to see it, and I was beginning to wonder if I'd hallucinated it until I found your comment while searching WT:GAN archives. Is there any chance you can point me to where the guideline might be, or provide any guidance for where to look? I'd appreciate any help you can offer, and no worries if not. Thanks either way. DrOrinScrivello (talk) 13:42, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

WP:GACR #2b: "All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited".

A synopsis of a work of fiction is a plot summary. A synopsis of a work of nonfiction is not because it is not a plot that is being summarized. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:31, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

Ah, fair enough. Thanks for your help. DrOrinScrivello (talk) 15:41, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Destubathon of the Americas

You are invited to participate in the Destubathon of the Americas, a contest/editathon which will run from May 1 to May 31. The goal is to destub as many of our 475,000+ stubs for the Americas (from Alaska down to Chile) as possible. A good chance to have fun in expanding many of our old stale stubs and win up to £2000 ($2680) in Amazon vouchers for expanding stub articles. Sign up in the Contestants/participants section on the contest page if interested. Even if not interested in prizes you are still warmly welcome to participate in it as an editathon! Hopefully we can achieve something significant in the month of May together! ♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:52, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Math major (not related to Wikipedia editing)

I just committed to mathematics as at an Ivy League school. I’m very excited and very nervous! Do you have any advice for undergraduate math students about which branches of math I should explore? I want to be a professor, and if that doesn’t work out, consider finance. -1ctinus📝🗨 22:57, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

Congratulations! As an undergraduate, in your coursework, explore as many diverse directions as you can. Specialization is for graduate studies. But also, find out how to get involved with undergraduate research projects with the faculty in your school. Beyond the fact that this will help you stand out in graduate applications and help you get recommendations for graduate studies, you are also likely to learn whether you love doing research or whether you find it to be something you are only doing because you have to. You need to love it to be successful at it and you need to be successful at it to go into an academic career. If it ends up being just work to you, then it would make more sense to find a career with more financial reward and less risk, like fintech. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:52, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

Thank you David! -1ctinus📝🗨 01:10, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

Partial graph

I haven't seen partial graph in Wikipedia: a subgraph $G''(V,E'')$ of $G(V,E)$ where $E''\subset E$. In other words, it is a subgraph that has the same exact number of vertices as $G$, but less number of edges than $G$. You might have heard this graph before implementing it in the definition of a spanning tree. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 14:43, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

That is what is more commonly called a spanning subgraph. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:38, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Cube

In FAC, a reviewer asked me to rewrite the understandable lede section in terms of junior or high school levels. Since this has already taken a long time and has been rewritten, do you think the lede is now much more understandable? Dedhert.Jr (talk) 11:06, 26 April 2026 (UTC)

First two paragraphs: ok. Last two paragraphs: kind of waffly and dancing around the point, the sort of thing one sees in student writing when they don't really understand the answer to an exam question and are trying to say something relevant when they don't know what they are trying to say. How can you expect a reader to get the point from that? —David Eppstein (talk) 16:36, 26 April 2026 (UTC)

The last two were meant to summarize the Cube § Representations (especially as a graph) and Cube § Related figures (for explaining its connection to other polyhedra or many geometrical shapes). You were right about waffly and dancing aroung the point thingy, since "relates to other geometrical shapes" shows how vague the statement is instead of curiousity. Perhaps some examples may be included, which I have expanded it. For a graph theory section, I am currently working on it. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 12:12, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

Women in Red – May 2026

Women in Red | May 2026, Vol 12, Issue 5, Nos 358, 359, 370, 371, 372 Online events: New: Countries starting with G and H | Women's scientific works | Religion and Spirituality Continuing (year-long initiatives): #1day1woman | Sports Announcements from other communities: Contest: Destubathon of the Americas Tip of the month: Struggling to find scientific works to write about? Start with review articles or textbooks, which may highlight influential studies, theories or methods by women. Other ways to participate: Become a member. You can always opt-out of notifications. Join the conversations on our talkpage. Help us plan future events and add any general ideas on developing the project. Follow us on social media: Instagram | Pinterest

--Chocmilk03 (talk 04:44, 30 April 2026 (UTC) via MassMessaging

GARs again

Here is your GAR, again, Znám's problem and Prime number. Respectively, the problems are the underdeveloped history, unsourced problem section, and inline citations; and the Riemann zeta function's claim to be one of the famous unsolved problems. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 02:41, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

I am still forbidden from discussing GARs. I consider it quite inconsiderate of Z1720 (talk · contribs) to raise this issue on two GAs for which I am the nominator, simultaneously, and of you for bringing it to my talk page, while that is still the case, as I cannot reasonably respond on the article talk pages nor provide any substantive response to you and Z1720 beyond telling you to stop trying to provoke me to violate my topic ban. Also pinging Tamzin (talk · contribs) who imposed this censorship on me. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:36, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

So you are not even allowed to discuss in talk page regarding improving before GAR? Maybe you can comment here. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 04:41, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

I am allowed to work on article improvements, regardless of the existence or threat of a GAR, but I am not allowed to discuss the GAR process nor contribute to a GAR. That means that a thread whose first comment begins by talking about time since review and ends by asking whether a GAR is needed is a thread that is off-topic for me. And again, I am skirting this ban even responding to your questions here. Let me be more direct: Stop talking about GAR on my talk page. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:47, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

If you are not allowing someone talk about GAR, how are you supposed to know about your GAs under threat of being pre-reassessment? Dedhert.Jr (talk) 04:52, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

Do I have to close this thread to stop you asking more questions that I cannot answer? —David Eppstein (talk) 05:40, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

Without looking fully into the current situation (and noting that I'm not currently an admin, and not editing very actively), I will just point out that this topic ban expires in 11 days. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 04:55, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

Do me a favor?

This appears to be an LLM problem, but could you take a look at it, and tell me whether the subject clears NPROF? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:51, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

Looks like an easy pass to me. Multiple editor-in-chief positions and academy memberships mean I don't have to evaluate his citation counts (tricky in a high-citation field). —David Eppstein (talk) 18:45, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:04, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

Personalised critiques on my edits

Please do not post personalised critiques on my edits or reviews in edit diffs or article talk pages. If you would like to discuss my specific skills in editing or reviewing articles, please post on my talk page or on the appropriate noticeboard (like WT:GA). Z1720 (talk) 20:33, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

Please develop a more constructive attitude towards constructive criticism. If you do not like it when you make bad edits and are criticized for it, make fewer bad edits. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:50, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

Mathematician & mathematics educators

I see you recently reverted several of my edits in which I removed mathematician-related categories from articles on mathematics educators, saying "people who teach mathematics professionally are mathematicians, regardless of whether they also contribute to research". I'm guessing that Wikipedia editors would have different opinions on cases where the article was about a K-12 teacher, or someone who studied mathematics education rather than mathematics in general, but let's set that aside for a moment.

The editing guideline WP:CATSPECIFIC states "Each categorized page should be placed only in the most specific categories to which it logically belongs", which means that articles on people who are both mathematicians and mathematics educators should only be put into the more specific categories---the mathematics educator ones (assuming that both mathematician & mathematics educator categories exist). I propose that in the future, I remove the more general mathematician categories in cases where both mathematician and mathematics educator categories are used, citing this Wikipedia guideline. Agreed? Dotyoyo (talk) 00:05, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

In most cases, people should not be placed into parent categories when they are also placed in more-specific subcategories. That means, for instance, that because Category:American mathematics educators is a subcategory of Category:American mathematicians, people should not be in Category:American mathematicians when they are also in this subcategory. However, even this general rule should not be followed when the descendant category is non-diffusing, which is typically the case for categories involving gender or ethnicity; see WP:NONDIFFUSING.

This reasoning does not apply to the categories you removed people from, which included Category:20th-century American mathematicians, Category:21st-century American mathematicians, Category:African-American mathematicians, Category:African-American women mathematicians, Category:20th-century American women mathematicians, and Category:21st-century American women mathematicians. These are not ancestor categories of Category:American mathematics educators, nor do they have a relevant common descendant category with it. You should not have removed them and you cannot use WP:CATSPECIFIC to justify those incorrect removals. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:42, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

These are not ancestor categories OK. Before writing here, I had confirmed that Category:Mathematics educators was a subcategory of Category:Mathematicians, but didn't do the same for all the variations. Dotyoyo (talk) 02:08, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

FAC in the discussion of Talk:Prime number

It seems to be more focused on surface aspects and less on content. And if you argue that this article is already close to the FA standard so it shouldn't need much change, then that is also an argument that there is not much content improvement to be gained from going through that exercise.

I would say that FAC is like GAN, but multiple reviewers, usually you require a minimum of three supports. Comparing Cube after GA and Cube's after FAC, these versions have a similar structure, but are way more comprehensive. Usually, from what I have experienced, they tend to ask the origin and the background more broadly, topics that are commonly cited by many sources. Some parts may be questioned, asking for extending it, so saying that "not much content improvement to be gained" may be considered.

Occasionally, in some articles, there might be a need to take a rest for too long, so there is a chance that the thread may be closed and might to reopen the nomination. Previously, before nomination, luckily, I have found some questions (I have asked in a collection of threads): Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/archive93#How to assess comprehensiveness of wide-scope articles and Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/archive94#What is the difference between FA and GA again?.

Eh ... you won't mind if you could be another assistant of the participants for your article to be promoted by someone before FAC? Dedhert.Jr (talk) 02:56, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

Depends on who. I suspect that fluent English prose is not your greatest strength, for instance, but that is what FA is likely to care about more than depth of content. In fact, the opposite: reviews of featured article Emmy Noether have included calls to dumb down the article (or, more charitably, bring it to a general-audience reading level) by omitting the technical material about the areas she worked in and what she did in those areas. I think it is likely that attempting to gain FA status for prime number would face similar pressure to make it less technical and to achieve this by removing important content.

But you are mistaken to call it my article; I do not WP:OWN it and have no control on what nominations other editors make. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:37, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

Fluent English prose is not my real strength, and I might require some time for improvement. Sometimes I can be fluent, sometimes I cannot, and sometimes I may forget.

When I am trying to imply the article is yours, I meant you are the main writer. And when I am asking for your assistance, I mean considering it yourself to be a mutual nominator.

And if you're thinking that Prime number has the same pressure as Emmy Noether because of technical problems, try to compare them to Affine symmetric group, which is much more technical. I'll try to ask for WP:PR if this is necessary. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 03:22, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

It was an enormous struggle to get affine symmetric group to FA. --JBL (talk) 17:45, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

And that was after it had already passed a more strenuous external peer review process. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:50, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

Your nomination of Tschirnhausen cubic is under review

Your good article nomination of the article Tschirnhausen cubic is under review. See the review page for more information. This may take up to 7 days; feel free to contact the reviewer with any questions you might have. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of Wikipedian12512(alt) -- Wikipedian12512(alt) (talk) 12:06, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

I would appreciate your help with improving and fine tuning the article as I give feedback. Wikipedian12512(alt) (talk) 13:06, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

I've finished the feedback. Wikipedian12512(alt) (talk) 15:47, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

Thanks! I might not have time to get to this until the weekend. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:55, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

Okay. I'll keep fine tuning and adding more to it. Wikipedian12512(alt) (talk) 15:59, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

Nice job with some of the stuff! I’ve noticed that the math equations aren’t rendering for me (maybe it’s just me). I can see the (I think it’s LaTeX) inputs. Thanks! Wikipedian12512 (Talking is fine | contribs) 02:09, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

Huh. It renders when I visual edit, but not when I read. Wikipedian12512 (Talking is fine | contribs) 02:13, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

Maybe check Special:Preferences → Appearance → Math and try whether one of the other four radio button options that it gives you works better than what you already have it set to? It sounds like you have it set to LaTeX source, which is not usually the right choice. I set mine to SVG. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:53, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

I didn't, and it works when I set it to $LATEX$. Thanks! Wikipedian12512(alt) (talk) 11:41, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

Color refinement algorithm notability

Hi @David Eppstein: This has just came up on WP:NPP with a new editor with 88 edits. Its seems to be a valid algorithmn, the article seems to be well written, structured and referenced. Would you be able to determine if its notable. Or point me in a direction of somebody that can tell me. scope_creep^Talk 10:00, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

@Scope creep: it seems like this is just some engvar violation? https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Colour_refinement_algorithm&action=history https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Color_refinement_algorithm&action=history I have reverted the edits. --JBL (talk) 17:46, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

The Weisfeiler Leman graph isomorphism test is very notable but I'm not convinced that, given the state of the two articles, we need to separate the 1-dimensional case from the rest. Merge? —David Eppstein (talk) 18:49, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

Notice of Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents discussion

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is David Eppstein. Z1720 (talk) 03:15, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

Mohamed Osman Baloola

Notable, or not? Bearian (talk) 02:49, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

I always have difficulty judging these African biographies because the reliability of the major newspapers there is so often low. My gut reaction is not but that's based only on a very quick skim, not on any detailed searching. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:27, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. Bearian (talk) 02:14, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

Moser's circle problem and other GAs

I like the way you improve Moser's circle problem. The structure is obvious that you are planning to promote the quality class. In a list you have made, what is your plan for other potentials? Particularly in Absolute value, I have contributed to sourcing so far. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 02:25, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

I have not decided to push for Moser's circle problem to become GA; I was merely trying to get it out of https://bambots.brucemyers.com/cwb/bycat/Mathematics.html and I am not convinced that it is an important enough topic to be worth pushing. As for absolute value, it is definitely important enough (which is why I put it on my todo list) but the last time I looked it would still take a lot more work to become ready. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:37, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

Okay, then. For off-topic, do you mind if you can participate Wikipedia:Peer review/Prime number/archive1? There might have been some good questions. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 03:24, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

Page move

Whoops!! Missed your username has two Ps. – LuniZunie_(talk) 00:22, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

Looks like our talk contributions to each other crossed. Anyway, thanks again! —David Eppstein (talk) 00:24, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

Typo! You forgotten to revert it by clicking "revert" button. Yikes! —KuyaMoHirowo (talk • contribs) 00:25, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

I'm too scared to use the "Revert" button, it made some messy things in the past (likely due to user error but still). – LuniZunie_(talk) 00:26, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

Your nomination of Tschirnhausen cubic has passed

Your good article nomination of the article Tschirnhausen cubic has passed; congratulations! See the review page for more information. If the article is eligible to appear in the "Did you know" section of the Main Page, you can nominate it within the next seven days. Please also consider reviewing somebody else's nomination to help keep the backlog down. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of Wikipedian12512(alt) -- Wikipedian12512(alt) (talk) 17:25, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Thanks! As well as to Wikipedian12512, a lot of the credit for very helpful reviewing should go to User:Femke. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:29, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Lovely to review a maths article for a change and having to use my brain properly. Just if it wasn't clear from the above, it was my who clicked the pass button. In solidarity, —Femke (talk) 🐦 17:31, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

June 2026 GAN Backlog Drive

Good article nominations | June 2026 Backlog Drive
June 2026 Backlog Drive: Do you want to become more experienced in the GA process? On 1 June, a one-month backlog drive for good article nominations will begin. Barnstars will be awarded based on the number of articles reviewed. Mentors are available, and new reviewers (<6 reviews) get bonus points! Interested in taking part? You can sign up here.
Other ways to participate: Join the conversations on our talk page.
You're receiving this message because you have participated in a good article review this year or participated in the previous backlog drive.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:58, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Women in Red - June 2026

Women in Red | June 2026, Vol 12, Issue 6, Nos 358, 359, 373, 374, 375 Online events: New: LGBTQ+ women | Alphabet run: Countries starting with I, J, K and L Article improvement campaign: Orphaned women Continuing (year-long initiatives): #1day1woman | Sports Announcements, tips, participation... Announcements from other communities: Eiffel women Tip of the month: Consider contributing to two of our monthly events at once, and improve coverage of LGBTQ+ women by de-orphaning their articles. Other ways to participate: Become a member. You can always opt-out of notifications. Join the conversations on our talkpage. Help us plan future events and add any general ideas on developing the project. Follow us on social media: Instagram & Pinterest

--Rosiestep (talk) 22:50, 25 May 2026 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Edward Kowalski

Notable or not? Bearian (talk) 01:35, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

I'm not very confident in my opinions on notability for medical researchers because I don't understand the citation patterns in those fields. I didn't find high citations or published reviews of his books, so I tend to lean against him being notable. But I did find one published obituary and if there are more in-depth sources about him he might pass WP:GNG. (Care is needed though to distinguish him from the other Edwards Kowalski including the 1914–1967 one.) —David Eppstein (talk) 01:52, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

Got it. Bearian (talk) 11:01, 3 June 2026 (UTC)

Syntonic comma edit undo

Hi. I see you undid my addition of equal temperaments tempering out the syntonic comma, saying that it needs a published source. I feel that no source is necessary, as all it takes to find whether a comma is tempered out is some fairly basic linear algebra. Please explain your reasoning here. Thanks! G-d bless! MisterShaf (talk) 10:44, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

In the English Wikipedia, verifiability means that people can check that facts or claims correspond to reliable sources. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:26, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

Okay :) MisterShaf (talk) 17:35, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

Giuseppe Zecchini

Is this technically unsourced? Bearian (talk) 11:00, 3 June 2026 (UTC)

It has one footnote, enough to save it from a BLPPROD. And some of the basic factual (but not evaluative) later content could also be sourced to the same footnote. But most of its content is unsourced. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:55, 3 June 2026 (UTC)

Three edit revert rule

Based on the current rules of not going over three reverts, or get blocked from editing, this rule is totally unfair to everyone, and everyone therefore has the right to keep reverting back and forth until a consensus is reached, provided that the consensus never gets reached, and results in a huge argument over who's correct. Hope this teaches everyone a lesson that going over three reverts on a single Wiki article within 48 hours is totally okay, and punishing the user by blocking from editing is totally so bull****. Hope this message helps. Williamwang363 (talk)

Presumably the context here is Academic ranks in the United States but nobody there is close to exceeding three reverts. Instead you should be considering a different Wikipedia editing policy, Wikipedia:No original research. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:43, 5 June 2026 (UTC)

Happy Adminship Anniversary!

Wishing David Eppstein a very happy adminship anniversary on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! ☘︎☘︎☘︎ALEXHammeke (talk | guestbook | sandbox) 20:05, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Ravindra Dastikop

The article Ravindra Dastikop has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Tagged for notability concerns for 11 years. No other language has a reliably sourced article from which to translate. Poorly sourced BLP. Very little evidence of passing WP:NPROF.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion based on established criteria.

If the proposed deletion has already been carried out, you may request undeletion of the article at any time. Bearian (talk) 06:04, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Not gonna unprod. The only thing I appear to have done with this article was, six years ago, deliberately leaving a notability tag in place but correcting the criterion that it pointed to. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:20, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Andrew Farkas

I don't think this scholar/writer is notable. What do you think? Bearian (talk) 03:49, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

Not through WP:PROF, but it depends on whether he has multiple reviews for his books that might pass WP:AUTHOR. The article already lists one from Publishers Weekly for his novel The Big Red Herring. I also found a couple of reviews for a coauthored biography Jussi but it's by a different Andrew Farkas . I thought maybe because PW described The Big Red Herring as alternative history that I might find him in genre sources like locusmag.com, analogsf.com, and isfdb.org, but no luck. So with only one review found I would say not notable, but it would be easy to change my mind with more reviews. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:31, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

Improving biographies

For writing mathematical articles, I am always full of confidence to improve them. But if I am talking about biographies, I may have to step back. Just passing by an article Harold Scott MacDonald Coxeter one day, I realized that this article can be extended by writing his contribution regarding the works on group theory and graph theory, after comparing the article's quality to Andrew M. Gleason and Ronald Graham.

If someone wants to extend the biography article, what are the most important things to do regarding things to be added and things that any editor should avoid? Writing their works and reviewers' opinions through sources may not be enough. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 04:16, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure what's most important, but the mathematician biographies I've made significant edits to that I'm most pleased with the state of are Andrew M. Gleason, Ronald Graham, Vojtěch Jarník, and Klaus Roth. One thing that distinguishes them from many others I've worked on are their sections on the research or contributions of the subjects, each with multiple sections that provide properly sourced descriptions of their most important research topics (not just individual results, but themes through several of their publications). But all of those were quite famous mathematicians so sourcing for that was possible to find. For someone still on their way up that might be much more difficult. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:51, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

Talk page stalker here. As someone who accidentally wound up specializing in academic biographies on Wikipedia, I can tell you from the other side that editing math topics feels quite a bit different. If you're trying to get your feet wet in the area, then it might be easier to write a biography from scratch. Category talk:Fellows of the American Mathematical Society has a lot of red links, and the fellowship probably settles any discussion about notability. Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Mathematics is also a place to look, but that list has already gotten a lot of attention, and many of the remaining red-links seem a little marginal in notability to me. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 08:44, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

I have done it on my first try in Norman Johnson (mathematician). I am not going to immediately expand the section on any biography article. Care for some revert or review? Dedhert.Jr (talk) 17:01, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

Removal of sources at Conway's Game of Life

Hi, several weeks ago I started a discussion about the reliability of LifeWiki and the ConwayLife forums. I think there was a rough consensus that, since several contributors there are subject-matter experts, these sources can be considered reliable in certain contexts. Those sources are admittedly not good for establishing WP:DUE weight because you'll have to pick and choose which forum posts (or maybe even wiki articles) to include. I won't revert your edit that removed sources from the article, at least not yet. However, I would caution against removing more sources for now. You're welcome to take part in the discussion. Thanks! Wreaderick (talk) 15:37, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

Johnson solids

Since now Wikipedia has three GAs on Augmented triangular prism, Biaugmented triangular prism, and Triaugmented triangular prism, the first two articles are mostly short compared to the last one. I will probably do the same for any Johnson solids articles to promote their quality. I am worried about the broad coverage in WP:GACR, unless any of them have related results or applications. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 05:03, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Stellated octahedron

Yeah. Sorry for my writing that I am no longer being enthusiast recently. Anyways, so I already covered the historical background from Divina proportione. I also added some sources regarding its relation to the fractal shapes in the "Further reading", so you can expand the content. But two problems bother me: unsourced in four-dimensional compound of two 5-cells and three-dimensional hexagram and the citation in André Breton's tomb. I have found that Perspectiva corporum regularium have images on that solid in Commons. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 02:19, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Oh yeah. And one more. Roelorfs's The Elevation of Coxeter's Infinite Regular Polyhedron 444444 describes the vertex figure of a stellated octahedron, although I misconsidered it as the vertex configuration, eight triangles and three triangles surround two of each vertex, separately.

While I may not participate for reviewing because of my involvement in previous edits, if this may helpful, I could only assist you for additional sources here, in the section of further reading, or any other noticable places. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 05:45, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

July 2026

Women in Red | July 2026, Vol 12, Issue 7, Nos 358, 359, 376, 377 Events: New: Crime & law | Alphabet run: Countries starting with M Continuing (year-long initiatives): #1day1woman | Sports Announcements, tips, participation... Announcements from other communities: Women in Red celebrates its 11 Year Anniversary on July 18! Eiffel women Developing Countries WikiContest Tip of the month: Working on a group of linked articles? Have you thought about creating a navigation box for the footer of those pages? Other ways to participate: Become a member. You can always opt-out of notifications. Join the conversations on our talkpage. Help us plan future events and add any general ideas on developing the project. Follow us on social media: Instagram & Pinterest

--MSGJ (talk 22:12, 28 June 2026 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Eiffel Women mathematicians

Hello there, David. It's good to see you continue to be highly active, also in connection with women. I have recently been spending most of my editing time on trying to improve the biographies of the so-called Eiffel Women. I see you have contributed to several of the articles yourself. I have had considerable difficulty expanding the biography of Jacqueline Ferrand and would appreciate your taking a look, both in connection with my paraphrasing her mathematical achievements and more generally as to whether or not she is considered an important contributor to mathematics. Unfortunately, since passing GCE A level maths when I was 17, I have not had much opportunity to pursue the subject. If you have time, you could perhaps also look through the biographies of two other mathematicians I have been trying to improve: Yvette Amice and Michelle Schatzman. All in all, I see that 11 of the 72 are mathematicians but most of the others seem to have received adequate attention.--Ipigott (talk) 15:14, 1 July 2026 (UTC).

Draft:Cyril Voyant

Hi @David Eppstein: Can you do me a favour. Can you have a look at this Draft:Cyril Voyant and see if the subject is notable and I've made a mistake. Thanks. scope_creep^Talk 09:59, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

Unsure. Google Scholar lists him as a top expert in solar forecasting, but it's unclear whether that's a significant enough topic for its top experts to be notable via WP:PROF#C1. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:24, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

Were on the same side

You're attacking a straw man. You keep ascribing positions to me that I don't hold.

I started editing about the same time as you and I've internalized the logic behind WP:CITEVAR -- the only thing that's important is accurate, verified information, and WP:CITEVAR seems to have helped with that, by helping us hang on to a few more good contributors.

I don't agree with WP:PAREN. I don't even understand WP:PAREN. It seems to me that WP:PAREN contradicts WP:CITEVAR.

I wouldn't care except: there were problems with {{sfn}} documentation (it doesn't matter what) and it needed to be rebuilt. So I came out of retirement to fix it. Template doc is very specific and "how-to". You don't want to document a feature that's been deprecated, or inadvertently teach users how to do things are deprecated. You need to know what the policy is before you can proceed.

I've finished with {{sfn}}. My solution is just to ignore parenthetical referencing all together. If people want to use it, I'm not going to tell them not to, but I'm not going to teach them how. That's how I'm handling it.

So that's my hidden agenda.

Another point: I don't know if you noticed, but Gaowan (sp?) convinced me that the consensus was right about the explanatory notes thing, that people should use their judgement because there are good ways to use parenthetical referencing in notes. I added the example to WP:CITE. You can't be more supportive of the consensus than that.

Do you get it? We're on the same side, dude. Let me ask the questions I need to ask and try to stick to the issue under examination. Pretty please. ---- CharlesTGillingham (talk) 23:18, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

DYK for Tschirnhausen cubic

On 9 July 2026, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Tschirnhausen cubic, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that a dog chasing its master and a crab sidestepping an intruder can both be modeled mathematically by motion along a Tschirnhausen cubic? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Tschirnhausen cubic. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (Tschirnhausen cubic), and the hook may be added to the statistics page after its run on the Main Page has completed. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to nominate it.

 — Chris Woodrich (talk) 00:03, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

Nomination of Verónica Bolón-Canedo for deletion

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

The article is being discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Verónica Bolón-Canedo until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may still edit the article, including to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the AfD notice from the article until the discussion is closed.

TechnoESP (talk) 16:30, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

Regarding Donald Stadtner

Can you explain this deletion? Did you check the history of the article to see if the PROD was valid, per the lede of WP:LLMPROD? Since, if you had checked the history of the article, you would have found that there was no AI content even left in the article after Hintha's creation of it.

First, 2601:644:8202:a80:58fb:dd1e:2c5d:5401 (who appears to be the subject based on their edit summaries?) removed large chunks of the article and rewrote both the lede and the publications section, while not touching the only other section "Education and Career". I, meanwhile, made an edit replacing that section with an entirely newly written version and with 3 added references. So, even without the removal of all AI content, that alone would have also been a significant contribution and thus have made the PROD invalid, per WP:LLMPROD.

If you (or anyone else) wants to view the article, you can do so here on the Wayback Machine. You can also view the history here on the same. You can also view an edit comparison between right after Hintha's edits to the current version here. I had made sure all of that was archived on the Wayback Machine two days ago. Silverseren^C 03:49, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

The prod banner stated "Feel free to reinstate by following the procedures for disputing presumptive removal of LLM-generated content." Those procedures state "If objecting to a proposed deletion, also remove the {{prod llm/dated}} template from the page." You did not do that. Why not? —David Eppstein (talk) 04:23, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Looking in more detail at the deleted versions (a level of detail that, if applied to all LLMPRODs, would make the entire process bog down in tedium and lack of administrator time), I am skeptical of your claim that "there was no AI content left". Or, actually, let's just look at the first non-lede sentence after your deletions of earlier sentences. Before you edited it: "He received his Ph.D. in Indian art history at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1976, and then began teaching at the University of Texas, Austin." After you edited it: "Completing his Ph.D. in art history from the University of California at Berkeley in 1976, he went on to become an associate professor at the University of Texas in Austin that same year and considered an "Oriental" art specialist." The source: , a 1985 newspaper article that mentions the Ph.D. year and place, the 1985 associate professor title, nothing in between, nothing about going to Austin in the same year, nothing about the highly-unusual claim of starting immediately at the associate professor rank, nothing about the word "oriental" (not the preferred nomenclature, scare quotes aside) and nothing about being a specialist. In what way is leaving badly-sourced LLM-generated content in place and embellishing it with additional unsourced claims (or perhaps hallucinations) to be considered as removal of all LLM content? —David Eppstein (talk) 05:20, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

First off, when I rewrote that section, I deleted the entire previous section from the edit box and wrote things completely off of the sources I found. There was no modification of sentences or anything. So nothing of what I wrote has anything to do with LLMs at all.

Second off, there are three sources. Each contributes a bit to the paragraph in different, intercombined ways. Thus, the third source states at the end "He has been on the UT faculty since 1976." So there's your answer that, yes, it was the same year.

Third, it's the second source that directly calls him an "Oriental art specialist". I put it in quotes in the text because, yes, it is not really an appropriate modern word, but it was appropriate at the time and helps explain the understanding of what areas of interest he covered.

Thus, nothing is LLM-generated content there. Nothing was embellished. Everything was written entirely from scratch. All three sources already attached to the content contributes to the written text. The entire foundation of your response is wrong. Silverseren^C 17:49, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Lastly, the lede for WP:LLMPROD directly notes "pages where the editor is the only significant contributor". Hintha was not the only significant contributor. Hence, the entire deletion is erroneous in the first place and the deletion guideline was not properly followed by the reviewing admin. Silverseren^C 17:51, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Re: "First off, when I rewrote that section, I deleted the entire previous section from the edit box and wrote things completely off of the sources I found": let me be blunt. I don't believe you. That is inconsistent with the analysis I made of your initial sentence, which has the same organization but extra detail as what was already there, including the claim that he started at Texas immediately after his Ph.D. (not in any of the sources).

As for "Nothing was embellished": where did the claim that he started out as an associate professor, skipping the assistant rank, come from? Especially given that one of your sources calls him an assistant?

And re your final paragraph about significant contributors: that is the procedure for initiating an LLMPROD, not for closing one. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:27, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Good for you. I did write it from scratch anyways off of those three sources. Which is also why it only mentions the Ph.D. since that was the only thing covered in the sources. I notice now that the original Hintha text was "Stadtner received his undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and earned a Ph.D. in art history from the University of London under the supervision of renowned art historian Deborah Howard", which appears to be entirely wrong unless the news articles themselves are incredibly wrong. Either way, no idea, since I didn't even glance at the original text as it was.

Also, your entire issue with that Ph.D. sentence is that it says associate rather than assistant? Seriously? It says associate because the first source called him that and I went with that as his then current position. Changing the text to "assistant professor and later associate professor" would be fine too. But what does that nitpicking have to do with anything here?

So the process for closing an LLMPROD is...hitting Delete, doing no other work, not even checking if the prod is still accurate or anything else. Just basically doing the most lazy admin work possible. An editor could have just wholesale removed the entire text of the article, rewrote it from there, but you'd still hit delete because "Someone put an LLMPROD tag on it prior to that".

You just seem to be trying to defensively cope with your inappropriate admin action without wanting to admit fault. You could have simply responded to my initial comment with "Oops, you're right, restored", but no, now you're trying to claim I'm lying about the text I wrote. Silverseren^C 22:39, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

You have yet to request that I restore it. Instead, you just seem to be trying to defensively cope with your inappropriate action. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:50, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

I shouldn't have to ask to restore it if its removal was wrong and against policy in the first place. And what "inappropriate action" on my part? Are you still trying to claim I'm lying on how I created that section? Silverseren^C 22:56, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Mathematically, "something if [false conclusion]" is tautologically true but meaningless. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:00, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Deletion of Adetokunbo Omishakin

I’m the creator of the article “Adetokunbo Omishakin” that was deleted under LLMPROD. The article was written by hand, not using an AI tool, and I would like to bring it into full compliance with the AI‑content policy and other content policies. Would you be willing to either move the deleted content to Draft:Adetokunbo Omishakin or otherwise make the text available (e.g., by restoring to Draft) so I can revise it, improve sourcing, and then follow the LLMPRVOBJ procedure to request restoration? Although still in surprise why it was flaged for that.

Thank you for your time and any guidance you can provide.* Thoppy234 (talk) 22:10, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Ok, see Draft:Adetokunbo Omishakin. You might also want to respond at Wikipedia:AI noticeboard#User:Thoppy234. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:56, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Deletion of Ivan Idelson

Dear David, I recently created the page for "Ivan Idelson". I was surprised that you deleted it without contacting me? I feel it would have been more appropriate to use Speedy deletion if you thought it should be removed. I would be grateful if you would reconsider your actions and restore the entries for that page. If you still wish to challenge the appropriateness of retaining such an article please consider using {{Db-person}}. I am afraid I do not have a copy of its latest form, so if you still consider that its not ready, please place it in draft form. Leutha (talk) 01:48, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

Ok, it's now at Draft:Ivan Idelson. However, in the form you created it, it was far from ready from article space. You will need to provide sourcing showing that Idelson meets our notability standards for mathematicians, not merely that he existed. The version as deleted provided nothing that even resembled a claim of notability, making it eligible for WP:CSD#A7 speedy deletion. Your suggestion of {{db-person}} is exactly the same as the A7 deletion I performed. It does not require a second opinion, notification, or waiting period. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:11, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

Notice of noticeboard discussion

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is Proper response when admin refuses to follow guideline in using admin tools?. Silverseren^C 00:49, 21 July 2026 (UTC).

Help a new user out?

The writer of Partial Euler Product seems to be very bright, but not the most experienced with encyclopedic non-technical style. Would you be willing to take the open DYK nom and walk them through the process a little? theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 12:11, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Well, I added another cleanup banner and left a comment on the DYK nom. But it's going to take quite a large amount of time and effort on the part of any mentor to get this article into adequate shape for DYK. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:21, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Women in Red – August 2026

Women in Red | August 2026, Vol 12, Issue 8, Nos 358, 359, 378, 379, 380 Events: New: Alphabet run: Countries starting with N and O | Indigenous women | Women born before 1900 Continuing (year-long initiatives): #1day1woman | Sports More ... Announcements: On 25 July, at Wikimania Paris, Women in Red was named the Coolest Project! Tip of the month: Read the essay Determining Native American and Indigenous Canadian identities to understand the criteria for a woman's status as Native American or Indigenous Canadian. Other ways to participate: Become a member. You can always opt-out of notifications. Join the conversations on our talkpage. Help us plan future events and add any general ideas on developing the project. Follow us on social media: Instagram & Pinterest

--Chocmilk03 (talk 21:42, 30 July 2026 (UTC) via MassMessaging