... much of the burden of revieweing edits could be improved with better tools. For example, I would love to know if one of my trusted collegues has already reviewed the same edit I'm reviewing. This would greatly reduce my review burden, and allow me to monitor many, many, many more articles. linas 23:35, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
Fantastic idea. Do you know whether there is some ongoing discussion on such things? (Feel free to reply here; I'm watching this page.) — Nowhither18:36, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect there is, but I know not where. I have noticed that the wikimedia software made an attempt at implementing something like this, but it was either a hack or mis-designed or incomplete. You can see this on newer wikimedia sites, for example [1]. If you look at edit histories, you'll see red exclamation marks denoting unreviewed pages. But you'll also notice that any sockpuppet can reset them, ... so it really doesn't work correctly. So it seems someone thought about it, but I don't know what the status is, or where its going, or who is doing it. You'll have to look up the wikimedia folks.
Anyway, what I really want is actually fancier than what I wrote at the village pump, but I thought I'd keep it simple. I'd happily engage in a conversation with the wikimedia developers if you can locate them. linas04:01, 1 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, yes, it could be written as a fancy SQL query, and that would make the lights dim. Is this MySQL or Postgres? I'm guessing there are ways to make this more efficient, by using status bits of various kinds, requiring table redesigns. No matter, I didn't like the way the red exclamation marks worked anyway; they weren't really useful. linas14:20, 1 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The WikiMedia sites are using MySQL. I was wrong by the way: the feature that you described is called "RC patrol", it's described on m:Help:Patrolled edit, and it seems that it was turned off because anybody could mark an edit as patrolled (as you already noticed, see also this mail and replies). I was confusing it with the m:Article validation feature, which is a more elaborate scheme that is disabled for performance reasons. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 15:05, 1 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, thanks for the links, I'll have to prowl around there a bit. My other bit of patrol paranoia is that it is easy to review only the most recent change; thus a "bad edit" could be hidden in the history and overlooked. Thus, I'd prefer to see *all* changes since I last looked. linas04:01, 2 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Since you wrote a fairly large amount of material in this area, I think your participation in some discussions would be very valuable. Having seen articles like lambda calculus degraded, I empathize with your concerns here. In WP:WPM it appears that a sufficient number of expert editors have formed a critical mass, so that WP:RANDYs don't have much luck in degrading most Math articles. Despite what the official policies might say, WP:CONSENSUS is often a game of numbers. Even though the talk page of a basic article like Function (mathematics) is pretty depressing given the amount of human resources that have been wasted in zero-sum games, some actual improvements did come out of the discussions there. Thanks. Pcapping09:31, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, thanks for the invite ... I see from your page that you are "semi-retired" ... so am I. I plink on occasional articles but hardly have a "watchlist" -- too time-consuming/exhausting. linas (talk) 21:07, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
September 2009
This is the only warning you will receive for your disruptive comments. The next time you make a personal attack as you did at User_talk:Pohta_ce-am_pohtit#Watchlist, you will be blocked for disruption. Comment on content, not on other contributors or people. We do not call editors idiots; "vandalizes" and "subtle vandalism" are not the term, see Wikipedia:Vandalism so you can learn what vandalism actually is. Also, see assume good faith regarding "brazen" as the only intent was to improve an article that still has referencing problems. Inline citation preferences aside, the existing citations are not uniform in format and even Wikipedia requires that, as does every academic journal I know, and that was the root of the problem.Aboutmovies (talk) 18:34, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Fuck off, asshole. You did not act in good faith, you vandalized the article. People like you need to be outed and kicked out. linas (talk) 14:12, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Linas, you've been here a long time, you've been blocked once before for such behavior. I know that you know the guidelines of Wikipedia, including WP:NPA. Please heed them. tedder (talk) 18:49, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've never been blocked before. Let me be clear: Mr. User:Aboutmovies vandalized an article. Then he attacked the editor who fixed the article. Then, for good measure, he attacked me. Then I called him an asshole. Then he got you to block me. And your were sucked right into his game. So to summarize: Fuck off tedder. You are part of the problem, and not part of the solution. The sooner we get rid of fucking asshole admins like you, the better wikipedia will be. linas (talk) 00:19, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, you (Linas) were blocked on 6 December 2007, for "Persistent incivility and personal attacks over a number of talk pages, was warned." Good times. I'm hoping you can settle down, comment on the content, and help us build an encyclopedia. tedder (talk) 05:32, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, you are wrong. I was never blocked on that date. The use of blocks by powerful admins against defenseless users is a highly uncivil, anti-social action. There is no way to interpret your action against me as anything other than a personal attack, by you, against me. You are wrong in every way, and it is well within my social rights to respond to you by using swear-words: you have already committed the far greater anti-social evil here, and you deserve all the opprobrium you can get. linas (talk) 15:43, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I can see no abuse of power here by any of the involved admins to be honest, but as I mentioned on my talk page, you are free to initiate my recall procedure if you feel I should have my sysop rights revoked. –Juliancolton | Talk03:08, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You have violently abused your power, and you should be utterly ashamed of yourself. You should be ashamed to even post such nonsense as that above. You are ruder than any swear words could ever be, and yet seem to be utterly unaware of it. Please leave. I have asked you to leave me alone before, in very simple and plain english, but you don't understand. I now ask you once again: please leave: please leave me alone, please leave my talk page, please leave Wikipedia. You are a pox, you do not belong here. You should go away. linas (talk) 03:26, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I apologize if you feel that way. Insulting you was certainly not my intention. You are free to remove this post once you've read it, but I respectfully ask that you withdraw your attacks against me so we can work together to resolve this dispute. You seem like a constructive contributor, and I don't want to see you blocked further. –Juliancolton | Talk03:40, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Having looked over the sequence of events, I find that the language used by Linas is completely and utterly unacceptable. A block for personal attacks would already be justified -- any continuation of this pattern will certainly lead to a block. Looie496 (talk) 16:57, 11 September 2009 (UTC) I was not aware that Linas had been blocked when I wrote this, and I apologize for giving the appearance of "piling on". Looie496 (talk) 18:48, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Fuck all of you. We need a fucking lynch mob and get all of you fucking admins driven off of WP. We need to put edit blocks on every fucking single article on WP and shut you fucking assholes out. I'm tired of cleaning up all the fucking vandalism out of the fucking articles, and I'm tired of getting attacked by fucking assholes, like you, who don't have a fucking clue of what the article is about to begin with, and, because you're a fucking admin, should know fucking better then to fuck with none of your business. Fuck off all of you. 00:27, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
Hi, I am a "completely uninvolved" (though quite possibly still an arsehole) Administrator...
You may be aware that there is a discussion relating to you at ANI. Are there any points you would like conveyed there? I would point out that any comments along the lines that have recently been deleted are not going to be forwarded (and will likely be removed from here - though not by me - again), but if there are genuine gripes behind the avalanche of swearing I would be happy to either note them there or even review them to see if there is some underlying grievance I can address. I will watch this page, but as I am a Brit (as you can see by the way I spell arsehole - which does not seem to get the same reaction as "mule-pit") I may be a while in responding. Anyhow, the offer is there. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:09, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Pretty much a dumbass to boot, too - I didn't check whether you are able to edit this page. You can email me if there is anything that you wish me to do for you, in this matter. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:29, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You have not committed any offense to me, I have no anger towards you. I choose to rain insults only upon those who have acted in unprovoked malice against me. Thank you for inviting me to the discussion. I appear to now be unblocked, and can participate in it. Where, exactly, is it? linas (talk) 01:25, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That indeed was it. I made the original offer in ignorance of you being unable to edit this page - so by the time you were able to respond the matter refered to had been archived. Nevertheless, if you wish to use the services of an admin who has no previous interaction with you (perhaps as a sounding board or similar) then feel free to contact me. Cheers, LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:32, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
For those of you who are English language impaired: "Fuck off" means "leave me alone". Don't believe me? Google it. What part of "fuck off" don't you understand? What is wrong with you people? Jeez. Go jump off a cliff. Go fly a kite. Get lost. Leave. Stop harassing me. linas (talk) 04:05, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If I may kindly interject; please, linas, calm down. There's no reason for the attacks. I understand that you feel wronged, but you can't beat these guys with harsh language or make them reconsider. All you're doing is inviting more abuse. The more you justify it, the more you ask to get gang-banged. Let me suggest, perhaps, a short break from Wikipedia to take a breather. If you don't feel that necessary, at least stop the profanity. Please? Master of Puppets - Call me MoP! :D04:44, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I can't say with honesty that I agree with this block, but I'd like to let you know that my offer still stands, Linas. I'll keep a watch on your talk page for any replies, or you can email me if that's your preferred method. Please keep my offer in mind as an option! Master of Puppets - Call me MoP! :D05:10, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).
Thanks for the offer, I didn't know I could edit anything when there's a block on. I honestly do not understand how these awful people got into these positions of power. From my point of view, I have been "gang raped" by four admins now. I fail to see why the "code of conduct" applies to me, but not to them. Worse, the infractions they are committing are far more severe than mere swearing/blue language I'm accused of. From my point of view, it would appear that a there's a lynch mob running around in Wikipedia, attacking inactive editors (you will see that my activity has been very low for the last year), and that the lynch mob acts with complete impunity: when I complained to the arb, they basically dismissed the case. They are either blind to this rather serious problem, or are unwilling or unable to deal with it. This is all going to be to the detriment of WP -- these wild and lawless gangs of admins are going to drive away editors who are knowledgeable and capable, while encouraging crazy editors to be more bold in their bizarre defacement attempts. I don't see any good coming out of this. ::In my case, I stopped being active a few years ago, due to this pernicious lawlessness and misbehaviour, and the lack of any workable mechanism to maintain article quality for any articles that are far off the beaten track. I felt that my time was being wasted; honestly, I have many projects I'm interested in, and WP became a loosing proposition; I simply found more important things to work on. I know I am not alone, and I am now saddened that the arb committee seems to also have lost its power and vision and simply cannot/will not control the mob any longer. Oh well. ::Anyway, you don't have to remove any blocks, its not like I'm going to increase my activity as a result. Maybe in a few years, after these admins have been driven out, and some sort of order has been restored. I dunno. Good luck till then. linas (talk) 18:51, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.
Really, Linas, when you've been blocked for personal attacks before, running around to multiple noticeboards complaining about incompetent/corrupt admins is unwise at best. Might I suggest you retract the comments before someone comes along with a 1-month block? I won't ask you to do anything more at this point than just take them down quietly. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:12, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've refactored the userpage to remove the names. Linas, whilst you're perfectly allowed to criticise Wikipedia, its admins or anything else on your userpage, when you start naming individual editors, you cross a line. Equally, I've deleted the sub-page - calling people "fuck brained idiots" also crossed the line. Thanks, Black Kite17:21, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed the section of your user page which violates WP:NPA against five fellow admins. You are strongly cautioned not to restore it or your user page will be reverted and protected so that you can't edit it at all. Mjroots (talk) 17:24, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Figures. I think you have it backwards. Can't you see that what you are doing is far worse, far more offensive, than anything that I've done? Don't you think that deleting random user page content is more offensive, and crosses a far more serious line, than using swear-words, or naming admins? (I certainly do: I believe you have committed the greater sin/moral wrong.) How am I supposed to tell people that "these are the admins who are abusing their power" when I am not allowed to use their names? How can I ask for a change in leadership without indicating which leaders are the ones that need to be thrown out? How can I even have a conversation when I get blocked from editing?
I don't understand why you admins feel that you are immune to criticism, can do anything you feel like, can cross any line you wish. Why am I held to a higher standard than you are? Shouldn't it be the other way around? The gag is a far greater crime then a few swear words. The gag is a far greater crime than a public naming and outing of the WP admins who are abusing their power. If Wkinight94 was innocent, and a good guy, he wouldn't be sitting here, attacking me ... again. linas (talk) 17:36, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Why should I back down? You are the ones provoking this argument. Stop provoking me, and I will stop being provoked. You can't kick someone in the head, and then say "quiet down now, and stop fighting", and expect them to respond in some cool-headed, coherent manner. You can't threaten someone with a block, and then say "hey don't feel threatened: cool down, act rational". But, hey, it seems that just about none of you guys seem to get this. So, if you feel like being a bully today, then block me for a month or whatever. Either that, or just stop bullying me. linas (talk) 17:44, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm quite fine with personal attacks on your userpage. The forumshopping? Not so much. Please continue the conversation at ANI. tedder (talk) 17:40, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Why should I? You started this attack, why should I be the one to submit to it? Why can't you just leave me alone? Why do you need to bully me? linas (talk) 17:47, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
These people are actually trying to stop you getting blocked, as was I. But seriously, if you launch multiple attacks on people in your userspace, you shouldn't be surprised when they object to it. They will "leave you alone" when you stop doing it. Black Kite17:53, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, its really hard to tell who is doing what. The last block expired recently; I cleaned up my user page, and *whammo* within an hour, the beehive has been stirred again, and I'm getting stung from all directions. linas (talk) 18:00, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think if you remove the attacks on named editors from your userpage, this will all die down straight away. It's got to be the best course of action, no? (Edit: I see Sarek has removed it anyway. If you say that you won't re-instate it, I think we can close this right now). Black Kite18:02, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Disagree with proposal
I have read your complaint on the maths project page and had a look at what caused the argument. I completely disagree with you. You should count to ten and think to yourself before any new outburst "Wikipedia is the encyclopaedia any idiot can edit". There's no point in insulting good faith editors, you should explain the problem in a clear and coherent manner. There is no point insulting trolls and vandals, they feed on other's unhappiness. You're investing too much feeling into it all. Dmcq (talk) 17:38, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It wasn't a good faith edit. You are right about the trolls, but apparently, a whole bunch of them are now admins, and that's a problem. Word of caution: someday, they will attack you. linas (talk) 17:49, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I also looked at the situation. I got the impression that it probably started as follows: Aboutmovies searched for the string "beyond words" on Wikipedia to look for references to this new age publisher. Somehow he managed to miss the fact that he was messing with maths articles, and made his 3 silly edits. (Some things to consider: monoid is originally a philosophy term and may well be abused in new age; a large part of the general population will be unable to identify "Springer Verlag" as a publisher's name.) When he was reverted, he understood why and accepted this, but was in a bad mood. When you called him a vandal this was technically incorrect because he had done it because of inattentiveness, not bad faith. But of course it wasn't a good idea of his to template you for that. It was also a bad idea to discuss details of citation formatting etc. in such a situation, and there was a series of misunderstandings. I must say that I strongly disagree with the extreme escalation that happened in this case. This includes the silly blocks, but also your running to Arbcom and mediation and the words you used when doing so. It looks as if once you were blocked you lost the ability to see the situation with someone else's eyes. HansAdler18:55, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"a large part of the general population will be unable to identify 'Springer Verlag' as a publisher's name." This hit me like a sledgehammer between the eyes. You are, of course correct. You are equally correct that linas seems not to see things through the eyes of others, but I think this started because many didn't see it through the eyes of linas. Can there be people who don't recognize "Springer Verlag"? Of course, many. How many of them ought to be editing a mathematical article carelessly? Probably none. Can anyone with a clue take a look at Trace monoid and think it is a New Age topic? I doubt it. While "vandalism" might be too strong a term, I sympathize with Linas. Am I the only one recalling the move Rambo as I plow through this incident?--SPhilbrickT18:06, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A better place for you?
Hi Linas. Your contribution to WP is really great; and it is really a pity that it will be somewhat spoiled, inevitably. However, what about Citizendium? Isn't it closer to your dream? (I write a little both here and there). Boris Tsirelson (talk) 19:56, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Citizendium isn't so bad. It's an excellent place for creating new content without too many distractions from other editors. Unfortunately this includes the pleasant ones, too. HansAdler21:03, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oh yes, CZ has serious drawbacks. This is why I write "a better place for you?" rather than "a better place for us all!". And this is why I am trying both wikis. Unfortunately, the approval mechanism of CZ is nearly idle. Worse, it should remain nearly idle (I would be glad to be wrong in this prediction). But anyway, if someone wants his writings to either stay constant or monotonically increase in quality, he/she should think about CZ. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 21:58, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(u/i)Don't go to Citizendium. Despite this recent setback, you have been such a driving force for Wikipedia's mathematics and physics articles that it would be a dreadful shame if you left. The high profile of Wikipedia does bring in a lot of idiots and drama ensues, but it also brings in more experts than even Citizendium, and a lot of high-quality articles, even very specialized ones, are the result. To respond directly to Boris, "constant" would seem to characterize the quality of Citizendium articles a little more than "increasing": they are by and large written by one (or in rare cases two) individuals. In the ideal scenario, Wikipedia is obviously a much more powerful paradigm: rather than being based on "I know this...", it seems to be based more on "I know this and you know that..." with the view that an article written by a mathematician, an engineer, a physicist, and a philosopher, might ultimately be superior to one written by any individual who is a self-proclaimed (accredited) "expert" on something related to what he or she is writing about. Freethinking characterizes Wikipedia, and to me you are the archetypal free thinker. [end rant] Le Docteur (talk) 22:50, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In spite of the above approbation, I do disagree with some of the finer points of your edits overall: Informed disagreement is, of course, part of the Wikipedia cycle. Nevertheless, Wikipedia is obviously a better place for you (in my mind). There is a difference between informed disagreement and "cranks". Unfortunately the lovely bureaucracy that is Wikipedia (not!) is generally unable to distinguish between these two things, and it is quite frustrating. It is now, apparently, required that most editors here must consume "alphabet soup" lest they succumb to the barbarian hoards. A better course of action, I would like to think, is to report directly to a WikiProject. (This is similar to the adage in academia that the only way to get something done is with departmental backing... or somesuch.) I personally think that the way forward is to strengthen ties among project members. Le Docteur (talk) 23:14, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm dreadful at writing so Citizendum would be bad for me but for someone who's work will just degrade on wikipedia it could be better. This company I was in once had everyone in the company doing some tests on their own and then in groups. My manager said afterwards how this showed that together people did better and called on me to say how I had done. Actually I'd done second best in the whole company on my own and far better than any of the groups so perhaps I wasn't the best choice, I had to think quick and dissemble to get out of the position. I had been quite unable to get my group to agree with what I said and they'd done some really silly things. I though it was a pity and checked it out with the person who did best, what he had was he was much more diplomatic than me in dealing with people, and his group had also done better than mine. So overall I'd say if you're good enough the wisdom of the crowds isn't actually true. I like to try working with people and helping them do things better but you have a definite forte for getting a good article written. Dmcq (talk) 23:40, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Please don't be paranoid. We have never met in wikipedia so there is no personal hidden agenda. I run into this page while doing word search. I do dislike the fact taht some people are turning wikipedia into a tool for socializing and self-promotion, which was not hidden in the nomination. However after reading the bottom of your user page I understand why you were so jumpy. Don't worry, I am quite far from evil "wikipedia leadership" and any other MMORPG. Twri (talk) 03:14, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
read a couple of your stuff on Wike(m/p)edia policy and partially agree. I am mainly active on the German version, so not so well known over here. I suppose, you don't read German, but if you do, I invite you to read and contribute to de:Benutzer:Fossa/Nebel. If you don't, let me know, if you are interested in an English version, if I ever get to one. I suppose you also know User:Daniel Quinlan/gaming?
I had not seen that essay on "gaming wikipedia" before. I have no desire to play these kinds of political games. I want to be able to tell the truth, and to collaborate in a constructive manner. I am very disappointed to note that this kind of gaming seems to be implicitly/explicitly approved by Wikipedia management/admins -- many editors here seem to actually want to play this game -- its very nearly enshrined in "policy" on various policy pages. Culturally, its the wrong path to go down -- it consigns honesty and integrity to a low level of importance -- and allows asshole admins to fuck whomever they please. Perhaps its unavoidable for certain classes of articles -- but it is pointless and stupid with regards to science articles. linas (talk) 17:55, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I see that you are a mathematician, and the ideology of the natural sciences is "to tell the truth", as you put it. There are philosophical reservations to the "truth", which I am sure you are aware of. But suppose you want to tell the best model fit for reality (call it "the truth", if you wish), then you will not get around "playing games", that holds true for both wikipedia and science. Have you heard about Game Theory and/or Science Studies? To get to the "truth", social networking and "playing games" is absolutely indespensible. The Wikipedia establishment does exactly that, but does not admit that it does play games. Fossa?!12:02, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, well, sure, but some games have better/more appealing rules than others. The rules of the current wikipedia game puts too much power in the wrong kind of people. Alas, I do not read German; maybe someday ... linas (talk) 13:12, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I completely agree with the poor rules and the wrong people at the important decision-making positions. The question is only, what to change first: The network or the rules? I suggest, it's easier to first change the network first, but for that the right people need to be recruited into the network. Only with the "right" type of people at important network places you will be able to change the rules. In any case, I will in the future write everything bilingual, so count on you being bothered again. Fossa?!16:50, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Categories for discussion nomination of Category:Electric power distribution systems
Hi Linas, in this edit from 2006 (differences from previous version here) you added the sentence "If the observer is lowered very slowly, then, in the observer's frame of reference, the horizon appears to be very far away, and ever more rope needs to be paid out to reach the horizon" and also the sentence "if the rod is lowered extremely slowly, then it is always too short to touch the event horizon, as the coordinate frames near the tip of the rod are extremely compressed." These sentences have survived basically unchanged to the present...but what was your basis for them? You seem to be saying that in some sense the distance to the horizon is infinite, but p. 824 of the Misner/Thorne/Wheeler textbook Gravitation says:
The divergence of at r=2M does not mean that r=2M is infinitely far from all other regions of spacetime. On the contrary, the proper distance from r=2M to a point with arbitrary r is when r > 2M ... which is finite for all 0 < r < ∞
The "proper distance" found by integrating the metric line element along a spacelike path with constant t coordinate and varying r coordinate (analogous to the "proper time" which is found by integrating the metric line element along a timelike path) can be understood like this: imagine we have a chain of observers who are each hovering at some constant r-coordinate, each with only an infinitesimal distance to their nearest neighbors and with the chain stretching from infinitesimally close to the event horizon out to some distance R. Suppose that at a single t-coordinate each observer measures the distance between themselves and their nearest neighbor closer to the horizon, using a short free-falling ruler which is momentarily at rest relative to themselves. Then if we add up all these little measurements, the total will be the "proper distance" from R to the horizon, and as mentioned above it will be finite. It seems to me this notion of "proper distance" is also the best answer to the question of how long a rope lowered very slowly from R would need to be to reach the horizon, is there some other way of answering the question I'm not thinking of, or were you thinking that the distance as measured by a series of very short rulers (each instantaneously at rest in Schwarzschild coordinates) would actually be infinite? Hypnosifl (talk) 20:47, 8 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, sorry for the delayed response, I don't get on WP very often any more. The sentences were trying to describe the differences between an adiabatic maneuver to get all of those observers in place, and free-fall. So, yes, if one just "uses a short free-falling ruler" to measure the distance between observers, one does indeed get the finite proper distance , as you point out. Rather, this was an attempt to address the question: "what is the length of an accelerated ruler?" Now, rather than measuring the distance between observers using free-falling rulers, one attempts to perform the measurement with rulers that are stationary with respect to the horizon, i.e. are being more and more strongly accelerated as they approach the horizon (the acceleration being provided by the tug of the rope). I believe that the right answer is that such rulers get strongly contracted, so much so, that this distance becomes infinite. Put another way, this is an attempt to explain why, in one frame of reference (the free-falling, proper-time frame) there is no singularity at the event horizon, while in others, there is. In particular, the amount of acceleration one needs to hover at the event horizon is "infinite" -- more properly speaking, "unbounded" as one approaches the horizon. This is the infinity that the dangling rope is trying to illustrate: the tip of the rope must undergo ever stronger acceleration as it approaches the event horizon, and the accelerated rulers become ever shorter. Unfortunately, I cannot give a reference for this.
BTW, there is a similar but different phenomenon for freely-falling observers. Suppose one observer, far away from the horizon, drops a blinking light into the black hole. This external observer would never see the blinker actually cross the event horizon! It would take "forever" to even approach the horizon. Basically, the external observer would perceive the blinking to get slower and slower, and the light to be more and more red-shifted, as the falling blinker approached the horizon. The red-shift, and the blinking become infinite as the horizon is approached; the external observer cannot ever see it being crossed. (Of course, the falling blinker hits the singularity in finite proper time). The dangling-rope thing is an attempt to illustrate the space analog of this time-based divergence. linas (talk) 19:44, 13 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, Sorry for the late response, I do not get on Wikipedia very often. This is not "my idea"; rather, there are papers, books and conferences on the topic. Simply-put, whenever one has a space with a continuous symmetry, one also has a symmetry group describing the symmetry; these are essentially the Lie groups. One may define a Laplacian on such spaces, and then study the eigenfunctions of the laplacian on these spaces. These solutions can be considered to result in "generalizations" of the associated Legendre polynomials. linas (talk) 21:29, 13 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
your edit summary noted having trouble imagining why the Shapley-Folkman lemma was previously rated "high". I suggested "high" per the criterion "has an important impact in other fields, outside of mathematics" (paraphrasing from my fallible memory), because of the conceptual importance of the result in economics and operations research. I have not reverted and do not object to your change, but just wanted to explain why I suggested "high". In fact, after viewing the other "B-Plus class articles, I agree that the Shapley-Folkman lemma's importance fits better with the other "Mid" priority articles.
In contrast, I rated its importance as only "mid" in economics, per the economics criterion that this subject is encountered by graduate students but not by undergraduates or by the general public, in contrast.
Sorry, I ranked it "mid" only because ranking it "low" would be rude .. but seriously, this is of low importance to mathematics. To be "high", it would have to be covered in hundreds of textbooks, fill the pages of the various pop-sci books and magazines on a regular basis, and maybe the topic of a few best-selling books by Nobel-prize-winning authors. The topic fails miserably in this criteria; I don't even see how it deserves "mid" importance. linas (talk) 00:10, 14 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The criteria you mention have no basis in WP policy, particularly in its mathematics project. However, the SF lemma appears in the 2 best (and only standard) microeconomic textbooks, which are listed (Mas-Collel, Green, and Whinston (?) and Varian.
Exercise. The Shapley-Folkman lemma generalizes Carathéodory's theorem (convex hull), which is a prototype for MSC 52A35, geometric transversality theorem.
For a humility-check, the SF lemma has inspired work by some mathematicians like, e.g. J.W.S. Cassels, Roger Howe, Lloyd Shapley, Jon Folkman, Ivar Ekeland, besides the probabilists and econonists mentioned, some of whom have already won the Nobel prize in economics---there being no Nobel prize in mathematics. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 01:25, 14 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I know, the topic of every WP math article, including those ranked of 'low' importance, appears in multiple textbooks; I think its fairly safe to say that pretty much every such topic has inspired work by distinguished individuals, however humble or acclaimed they may be, as well as having served as the foundation for homework exercises. linas (talk) 01:56, 14 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hi! Here [4] you added expression for periodic zeta function using polylogarithm. Are you sure it is not a type, since in the reference provided it's polygamma.--MathFacts (talk) 12:50, 7 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hi -- the diagram of the Bernoulli polynomials that you contributed at Image:Bernoulli_polynomials.svg is wrong because the constant terms of the even-numbered polynomials are truncated by gnuplot's integer arithmetic. The values of the even-numbered polynomials at x = 0 and x = 1 should be the Bernoulli numbers; in your diagram they are 0. You need to calculate the constant terms with floating-point arithmetic (e.g. by adding a decimal point). Can you upload a corrected version? I don't have gnuplot running here. Joriki (talk) 00:28, 11 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Huh. Indeed, you are right. Although .. I changed to flt pt, and there was no discernible change to the image, because the the values at 0,1 are so tiny compared to the y-axis scale. I changed the x-axis scale to graph only between zero, one; I should have done this off-the-bat, as it helps enmphasize the convergence to sine, cosine. Due to image caching, the change might not be immediately visible, though. Click on the image to get the new version. linas (talk) 18:26, 11 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for making the change. Sorry I didn't notice this earlier, but now that the plots are right I noticed that the colours are extremely difficult to tell apart -- the two shades of green and the two shades of blue look almost the same on my screen. I think you can change the colors by adding 'lt rgb "#RRGGBB"' after the linewidths. Joriki (talk) 05:58, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good day! I can not to understand some thoughts. What is relativistic Lagrangian?
When relativistic effects are significant, the action of a point particle of mass m travelling a world lineC parametrized by the proper time is
.
If instead, the particle is parametrized by the coordinate time t of the particle and the coordinate time ranges from t1 to t2, then the action becomes
Hi, Yes. The first lagrangian that you give is for a "classical relativistic point particle". It looks correct to me. In classical mechanics, point particles are always massive, there is no such thing as a "massless" classical point particle. Now, the photon is a quantum mechanical particle, and as a particle, the only correct way is with a quantum field Lagrangian (which you did not write down). There is no such thing as a "classical photon". The second Lagrangian that you wrote down is for the classical electromagnetic field, and not the quantum field. In what you wrote down, E and B are classical fields, not quantum fields, and j and rho are classical currents and charges, and are not particles. So, this is wrong:
First and second term is interaction between photon and other particles.
No. It is the interaction between the classical electromagnetic field, and classical charges/currents. There are no particles here.
But other terms we can consider as Lagrangian for photon.
This is wrong; there is no photon here. In order to talk about photons, one must quantize the fields; the full second-quantized field theory is a lot more complicated; see canonical quantization for basic details. The partition function that describes the second-quantized electromagnetic field (i.e. "photons") interacting with a classical current j is
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You wrote[5], "Superficially, topological quantum numbers form an exception to this pattern; although deeper theories hint that these are two facets of the same phenomenon." What deeper theories? Mporter (talk) 13:11, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I probably had in mind results from string theory/knot theory/M-theory/calabi-yau/quantum lie groups but can't easily/quickly remember whatever it was that prompted this edit. Sorry :-) linas (talk) 21:51, 18 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I realize that the above is a horrible answer; for which I doubly apologize. It has been a very long tie since I've thought about such things. Probably the easiest/most direct readings where these ideas would occur would be in the calabi-yau texts, in quantum lie groups, and in non-commutative algebra. Strictly speaking, one is no longer dealing strictly with Lie groups any more, but with various generalizations or similarly-behaved structures. Again, sorry. If something pops into my head later on, I'll try to put it down. linas (talk) 22:02, 18 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Young Symmetrizer
"image of a_\lambda" The image of a_\lambda is one element, one endomorphism of a tensor power of V. That is, the image of a_\lambda under CS_n -> End (VxV...xV) is an endomorphism of VxVx...xV.
Do you mean the image of that? I guess you probably do. The wording is just slightly confusing, should explain it in 2 steps. I'll bet that you were thinking 'the image of the image of a_\lambda' but it is unfortunately a bit elided, which is going to confuse a lot of people....at least it confused me until I thought a lot about what you meant by that cryptic phrase.
Createangelos (talk) 21:36, 29 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In the article on satisfaction, you added text about a theory being convergent, but you linked it to Convergence (logic), which describes a proeprty of rewriting operations, not a property of theories. I left some other comments on the talk page of that article. Could you make sure that the language you add to the article is formally correct? — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:32, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I would appreciate it if you discussed your concerns on the talk page of that article. Blanking it whole-sale, as you did, and in particular, blanking the primary section, which provides the main narrative, is wrong. This folklore is a common topic in children's textbooks, and is central to American mythology. To just blank it out, leaving nothing but an uninformative shell, is bad.
An article about John Henry should actually explain the myth, the folklore, itself. As it is, your edits left only a section that offers some poorly-grounded, vague historical speculation. The speculative grounding in history is utterly unimportant to the myth, its just some boring pedantic footnote! It shouldn't be the tail that wags the dog! linas (talk) 01:14, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The material in question has been tagged for some time, and editors have been bringing their concerns about it to the talk page for some time, but you have not seen fit to chime in on those discussions except to say that uncited material should be retained and that the cited material needs to be deleted because it's drivel.
Here's a brilliant opportunity for me to be uncivil to another asshole editor who makes wikipedia such a bad place to work in. Let me put it plainly: you, Mr. bdb484, represent the very epitomy of what is wrong with wikipedia. You are exactly the kind of person who makes this a shitty place to do editing. So let me get to the uncivility fortwith: fuck off, asshole. Leave me alone! I do so wish that the wikipedia admins would ban you, but, alas, they will ban me. Oh well. linas (talk) 03:31, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Unification
Respect for your important addition about partial orders on the Unification article.
And for leading me to the John Henry article where I've left my discussion on how condescending the article is. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ODogerall (talk • contribs) 01:18, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Carlson's theorem
Hi,
I am sorry, I do not really understand the statement in Carlson's_theorem#Applications (which you wrote). Could you please formulate it more precisely?
I guess I don't understand what you don't understand. Are you asking for a proof? ... Ahh, I think see the source of confusion. Imagine a counter-example: for example f(z) sin(π z): then all finite differences vanish, but of course f(z) is not zero. linas (talk) 17:22, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I do not exactly understand the statement. What I more or less understand is that if f is a function that obeys some conditions (e.g. the conditions of Carlson's theorem), then it is equal to its Newton series, if it converges. Is this what you mean? I am not sure uniqueness is the best term for this statement, but I won't insist on this.
I tried to reformulate it myself, but I was not sure that I do not change the meaning (and I did not find a good reference), so I thought it is easier to ask you.
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Thank you very much! The article looks very much like what I'd expect it to be; the lead paragraph in particular being a model of clarity and conciseness.linas (talk) 17:20, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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No. Its likely a typo. I first saw it decades ago in a book by Kolmogorov, and am mis-remembering what I read (with Kolmorogorov presumably explaining work by Arnol'd and I just didn't notice the credit at the time.) linas (talk) 17:20, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No. It would have been an English translation of a Soviet book, I think from the 1960's, maybe later. It was big & fat, maybe even two volumes, on mathematical physics. A variety of chaotic systems were explored: rotors with weak springs attached, etc. I thought Kolmogorov was author/editor, but a google search shows no such results. It was a reasonably well-known book in the heyday of chaos theory (i.e. the 1970's/80's). linas (talk) 17:41, 17 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I couldn't find the entry anywhere. I skimmed over your paper; you are not actually doing Feynmann sum over histories, you are doing classical sum over histories (i.e. you are doing first quantization, not second quantization). Technically, you should call this Christiaan Huygens sum-over-histories, or, if you really insist, Bohr sum-over-histories, but since you don't even have a factor of hbar anywhere in there, you are not actually doing a quantum calculation, you are doing a classical calculation using quantum notation. So I don't know what to say... all this is just adding pointless confusion to an already confused topic. linas (talk) 22:35, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. When you recently edited Occam's razor, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Scholastic (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.
Hello Linas, you don't know me, but I happened upon some of your work on the Minkowksi ? function, which I believe to be excellent. I am nearing completion of a result which is directly related (and I am certain you will find interesting), and I'd like to be able to hear your thoughts on it upon finishing. However, you are difficult to contact (by design; I'm the same way :) ), and so I am choosing to plan ahead. Perhaps you can contact me at my e-mail address, chri5ayre5 (note: these are 5's) at yahoo dot com? Also, if you'd like to, check out my website at www dotttt chrisjayres and then com; I have a wide variety of interests, as you seem to, and am finishing a PhD at UC Davis in Economics (specializing in the least-ridiculous subfield, Micro Theory/Game Theory), so your visit would likely not be a complete waste of time (no promises though ;) ). Chris 25 March 2012 Special:Contributions/76.105.6.157
Wow. That is a whole lot of bull-hockey. The disruption of drive-by deletions is far greater than, far more dangerous, and far more detrimental to wikipedia, than any amount of canvassing ever could be. The canvassing policy is wildly misguided, and completely misses the point. The entire deletion process in wikipedia needs to be redesigned from the ground-up. linas (talk) 02:59, 22 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Canvassing is more likely to undermine your efforts to save the category (by alienating experienced Wikipedians) than support them. Remember that these CfD's are determined by the best arguments, not the number of votes on each side. RockMagnetist (talk) 03:16, 22 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Only one problem with that: the non-experts who are voting to delete are WP newcomers with little experience in WP or in the damage done by deletion; nor are they advancing any credible arguments. They are simply "voting". By contrast, the folks at the physics project are, for the most part, old-timers who have been here 5+ years, or more. I've been here 8+ years, and I've seen large numbers of top-notch, absolutely excellent, smart, highly qualified editors driven out by ugly, nasty, power-hungry administrators who enjoy inflicting pain and suffering, and using wiki-lawyering, quoting inane and assenine policies, such as the "canvassing" policy, to wreak their damage, and revel in their power. I myself quit editing for 3-4 years; its not rewarding when I have to deal with assholes, while all the good guys leave. I only came back this month, and why lookit -- already I'm embroiled in yet another stupid argument over an issue that should never be an issue to anyone who has ever even thought about it. And then to discover your polite-yet-still-insulting reprimands on my talk page!? What, exactly, is it that you think you are going to accomplish by making these remarks here? My admiration? Or do you get off on watching people squirm in pain and anger, and just can't help yourself from poking just a wee bit more, to see the spectacle continue? WTF. Bah humbug. linas (talk) 03:45, 22 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I was just replying to one of your clarification requests on Convergence of measures, where I found a link to your biography mentioning you as one of the lead developers of GnuCash. As a user of GnuCash, I take this opportunity to convey a "Thank you!" for your development of a great and useful product. Piyush (talk) 06:13, 23 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! (It's been a decade since I touched GnuCash, but the web server is still here, 3 feet away...) Back on topic, so, reading further down, it looks like the Lipschitz functions give weak convergence (they are explicitly mentioned in the 'weak convergence' section), and perhaps is it the case that the Radon ones are equivalent to strong convergence? Is it possible to spell out a specific relationship to the weak topology? Any clue if anything can be said from the category-theoretic point of view? I'm thinking that all this must be some variation of so inverse limit over some categories, but I don't know what these might be. (and I have been too lazy to google so far...) linas (talk) 18:14, 24 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have previously erased the section at Carlson's theorem because as stated what is written there is incorrect (and also unreferenced). I can more or less guess what the correct statement is, but I could not find a reference -- that's why I have left several notes at your talkpage long ago.
As you correctly wrote, all the forward differences of vanish at zero. So if you want to make the statement at least approximately correct, you need to assume that f satisfies the conditions of Carlson's theorem!
Next, it is completely unclear what you mean by 'exists' and 'unique' (in fact, I think you use the terms opposite to standard convention).
PS I have not erased your sine example from the article, just moved it to the "sharpness" section. As there is no reason to have it twice, I have reverted your last edit (not the previous one discussed above, since I hope we could agree first). Sasha (talk) 17:33, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
OK, yes, the last edit and its appearance in the 'sharpness' section is OK. For the other statements, I don't understand what it is that you think is wrong, or why the usage of 'exists' and 'unique' are unclear... I am sometimes guilty of being very fast with edits, and thus, I sometimes introduce errors, but I just don't see what they are in this case. linas (talk) 17:41, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I am sorry, I really do not mean to be annoying, I honestly do not understand the statement. Do you mean to say the following: if f and g are two functions that satisfy the assumptions of Carlson's theorem, and have the same Newton series, then f=g? Sasha (talk) 17:53, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed that you made edits to Carlson's theorem to remove the two examples, and to make the notation more dense and complicated. In general, we like to keep mathematics articles accessible, and so like to keep the notation as simple and direct as possible; this tends to help beginners with understanding the concepts in the article. Thus, for example big-O notation is easier to read and understand than the more fussy and verbose statements about bounds and limits. Likewise, removing examples is also a bad idea. One of the examples that you removed had an edit summary of "mathematically incorrect", yet it is possibly the single most common actual application of Carlson's theorem. If you believe its incorrect, you should probably bring this up on the talk page; better yet, a quick review of the edit history would show that I'd created this content, and you could have asked me directly. Anyway, I restored the examples, I did not revert to the simpler big-O notation. linas (talk) 17:30, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I am sorry if I made the article less readable, this was not on purpose. Still, correctness is also important, so let us try to agree on a version which is both correct and readable. My objections to what you wrote are listed above. And I did leave more than one comment at your talk page before making any changes, see above. Sasha (talk) 17:37, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
My apologies, then; I really did not understand what you were talking about, and I admit, that was a rather busy point in my life, and so I did not spend much time thinking about it. The article as it currently stands seems reasonable; if you still have issues, let me know.
As to duplicating examples: that is OK, it can sometimes make an article more readable. Thus, in the beginning of an article, it is best to have a semi-informal "general idea of it all" section, explaining the concept in high-level but not quite precise terms. The following section can then give a detailed, formal definition that is mathematically precise. This allows the reader to stop reading early on, depending on what they were looking for, instead of hitting a hard wall of dense algebraic formulas. linas (talk) 17:49, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Some follow up
Some follow-up on our previous discussions. You said to compute
and
which respectively give
and
However, I don't see what's particularly interesting about that.
Ah, I was trying to see some particular pattern common to and , if we're just focusing on the expansion, then it's
As you said, it does look like Euler's formula (not very surprising considering it's we're taking the exponantional of something), but I don't see what's particularly interesting about that. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books}18:35, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. You are mixing x's and thetas. Also, a better place to divide might be here: is the unit-length vector.
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I have moved this here from the MHP RfC because of the following instruction in the RfC:
Note: Because prior attempts to resolve this conflict have resulted in long discussions with many endless back and forth comments, please place any responses to other editor's comments in your own "Comments from user X" section and limit your comments to no more than 500 words. If you wish to have a threaded discussion, feel free to start a new section on this talk page but outside of this RfC or on your own talk page.
Feel free to move it back to one of the allowable locations. --Guy Macon (talk)
Don't confuse counting arguments with frequentism. The 'simple' explanations here are counting arguments, not frequentist arguments. This has nothing to do with Bayesianism; there's no need to invoke 'priors' or 'ill-explicated pre-conditions': if something is 'ill-explicated', then turning it into a Bayesian prior doesn't magically make it 'well-explicated', nor any less 'hidden'. There is nothing wrong with using this problem to illustrate Bayesian-style reasoning, and indeed, the article already has an (opaque) section on this; none of the proposals are suggesting its removal. linas (talk) 18:25, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Why don't you just fucking stop attacking me, you asshole? Did that ever occur to you as a reasonable position to take? Share the love, I say. linas (talk) 03:34, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I see that you are an admin. You have a bad attitude, and you should certainly not have the privilege of being an admin. People like you are what make WP such an ugly, unpleasant place to be. Please take this personally: think about how you can be less violent, more constructive, and take on a more positive attitude. linas (talk) 03:42, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Beeblebrox, you appear to be a personally involved admin. That at a minimum does not look good. Please consider reversing your action and bringing it through a more impartial channel. --Trovatore (talk) 08:07, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I acted in my capacity as an administrator to warn Linas that personal attacks are not acceptable. (Now that I have had a look at his block log it is clear he was already very aware of that anyway) His reply was a very nasty personal attack. That I happened to be the target of it does not mean my block was a violation of the involved admin policy. I don't recall ever having interacted with him before issuing the above warning. Of course if Linas wishes to appeal this block a different admin will review that request. Beeblebrox (talk) 08:45, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I thought about it before I did it. I don't need to run to another admin for help to block someone for behavior this blatantly unacceptable. If I warned him for vandalism and his reaction was to vandalize my userpage that would not mean I was suddenly involved, it would mean just what it means here, that he deliberately ignored a valid warning to stop engaging in behavior that the community has deemed unacceptable. I don't see any ethical dilemma there. Beeblebrox (talk) 09:04, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Please stop harassing me. Beeble, you are the one who "personally attacked" me first: why would you think that I'm going to bend over and take it, and not complain? Why should I give you that pleasure? To stoke your self-image of a powerful individual, free to behave in any manner that you wish? There are bounds to reasonable, rational behaviour and you've certainly crossed one just now. linas (talk) 16:15, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).
Admin is out of control. He shows up out of thin air, accuses me of something I did not do. When I tell him off, he blocks me. This guy should not be an admin; people like him are ruining the general camaraderie of Wikipedia. linas (talk) 16:28, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Decline reason:
You were engaging in personal attacks at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics, you were properly warned about it, and you responded with a personal attack on the person who warned you. This is your fifth block for making personal attacks, so I'm not surprised it was made indefinite. But you can still get yourself unblocked if you commit to stop your attacking approach and do so in a convincing manner. In the short term, I suggest you walk away for a brief time and calm down. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 17:36, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.
This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).
False accusations. I did not attack anyone on the wikiproject math pages. Those people are my friends; I work well with them; my editing on WP is almost exclusively limited to math pages. The accusation is ludicrous and fabricated. I believe that the the true reason for this block is retribution for a controversy arising from the serial AfD of dozens of math articles. These all ended with a speedy keep; this event was noted on the WP math project discussion pages. The nominator was an admin; his behavior is clearly a misdemeanor. In fact, that admin is known for this kind of behavior; there have been multiple proceedings against that admin; yet he remains an admin (which is perfectly shameful, BTW, you guys cannot control your own.) Beeblebrox is another admin, presumably a friend of the first, drunk on power, and eager to throw his weight around. This whole episode is a waste of my time, and of your time. Beeblebrox, and his buddy, should not be admins. Adminship should be reserved for people who are stable, capable of basic ethical judgments and able to carry out their duties in an impartial way. linas (talk) 17:55, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Decline reason:
I see a systematic problem with civility, bad temper and a total lack of AGF from you. And your attempts at denying it just prove it further. Since you abused your right to appeal by posting more insults - this time against Beeblebrox, I've withdrawn your ability to post further unblock requests. Max Semenik (talk) 19:20, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.
In my view, this, this, and this are personal attacks - incorrectly accusing someone of vandalism and of drive-by attacks, and calling them a "snot-nosed punk" are not acceptable in my view. Your response to a reasonable warning was also a personal attack too, in my opinion, and your latest unblock request also contains personal attacks. Adding this to a long-closed RfA was also inappropriate. Having read the entirety of this talk page, together with some of the disputes you have been involved in in several other places, what I'm seeing here is another bout of anger. You're clearly a great contributor, and I'd hate to see you suffer further because of short term anger - so I really would strongly recommend a day or two away, and then come back in a more collegial and friendly mood. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:12, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
What it seems like we have here is a user who makes good content contributions but has an inability to control their temper when they see something they don't like, coupled with a bit of a persecution complex. When I asked him to stop with the personal attacks, which he very clearly did make, his response was "stop fucking attacking me asshole" as if this was part of some prolonged campaign of harassment by me when in fact as far as I know it was the very first time I had ever spoken to this user. plenty of users have (irrational) grudges against all administrators but they manage to express their concerns without throwing a screaming fit and accusing anyone who asks them to calm down of attacking them. Frankly the whole situation is quite ironic in that Linas' comments apply more to his own attitude than to those who he is so angry at. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:35, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, and in response to the accusations of croneyism in the latest unblock request:I have no idea what AFDs he is referring to and no clue what admin he suspects me of acting on behalf of. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:37, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, User:Bbb23 is clearly misbehaving. That is what I say here, which you take as a "personal attack". Saying that someone is mis-behaving should not be considered a "personal attack". It's not in doubt that he was misbehaving; clearly, he engaged in behavior that scandalized the rank-n-file. So I'm miffed that a statement of fact is taken as a "personal attack". In the second remark, here where I say that he is engaging in "drive-by deletions": well: this guy had just nominated a dozen or so articles in a very short space of time; all the articles were kept with a speedy-keep. What else would you call this, if not a "drive-by deletion"? This guy does not edit math articles, and shows no interest in the topic, except to create AfD's. That's textbook vandalism. If the guy was not an admin, we'd all nod our heads and say "yup", and move on. But instead, we have this ruckus: I point out its vandalism, and it becomes a personal attack. As to the last one: this, OK, I've never physically seen him, so don't actually know if he has a snot-nose, so I went too far, but, really, look, the guy has a bad attitude. This is the real world, look around: you can see people mis-behaving all the time. Shit happens. One deals with it. However, for these people to be admins, like Bbb23 is, and like Beeblebrox is, that's just wrong.
Look, I have no interest in starting proceedings against anyone; but you guys need to police your own. You have a situation like a corrupt police-force: most of the cops/admins are good, some are bad. I already had this kind of run-in years ago: the fallout from that is seen on my talk page, up top: a bunch of corrupt admins applying their virtual night-sticks to me. Its a form of police brutality, and yes, I am going to use foul language when I am being beaten. And yes, they will use use the foul language as an excuse to beat me some more. As the joke goes: "the beatings will continue until morale improves." You guys have got to get rid of these crooked admins. Do not ask me to do it for you. linas (talk) 18:56, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The problem here is not me, or BB23, or deletion nominations you don't like. The problem is your attitude. It is in fact people who grossly overreact to criticism, the way you repeatedly have, that drives away other users and makes them see Wikipedia as an unpleasant place. There is no context where someone politely asking you to stop making personal attacks warrants a response like the one you gave. There is no room for rage like that set off by such a small thing in a collaborative environment. things get nominated for deletion all the time here, as you must know. What if everyone reacted the way you did, resorting to attacking the person doing the nominating instead of arguing the actual merits of the article? Nothing would ever get done here if we all freaked out whenever we saw something we didn't like. I can see that you have made a lot of good edits to math articles and I honestly thank you for your contributions and would ask that you consider the possibility that it is in fact your attitude, not corruption, that has led to this fifth incidence of blocking for personal attacks. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:20, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I note that on July 14, 2005 you added a line to the article about spherical harmonics, saying that hypergeometric series can be generalized to give something (harmonic functions?) on any symmetric space. Later someone added a few references, however the references all seem to be to detailed and exhaustive lists of types of functions associated to symmetric spaces. Is there a notion that solutions of one of the variants of Laplace's equation often has a series expansion? A reference would be really nice if you know of one, or alternatively even some further explanation. (forgot to log in, I am createangelos)137.205.57.217 (talk) 11:19, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There is little chance that this plea will succeed... Obviously I'm not a charismatic writer: this is just a simple request.
PLEASE unblock Linas.
Experts in scientific, mathematical, any technical articles over time have been leaving WP so we need all the experts we can get. As most people should know, Linas is definitely a knowledgeable and valuable contributor to WP physics and maths in many positive ways: writing, diagrams/images, categorizing, proof reading, proposals/comments/suggestions on talk pages, founded WikiProject physics itself very early which has accelerated the transmission of ideas for improving physics articles since 2005. Very few editors have done as much as, or more than, Linas, for WP physics.
Rudeness/incivility is not the problem. Other very knowledgeable editors in the physics and maths WikiProjects can also be rather aggressive, but when the focus is on content, the aggression often disappears, or lasts a while then dies out. It's true that Linas' past reactions to admins have not made things better, but can we move on? If someone talks rudely then ignore it (except for extremely vile personally directed remarks or threats)? M∧Ŝc2ħεИτlk20:40, 4 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Two things:
Unblock requests by third parties are generally not considered. If Linas wishes to be unblocked he is free to appeal himself.
Incivility is in fact exactly what the problem was here. I am fairly tolerant of such things, but when a user's response to request to stop attacking other user after having already been repeatedly blocked for it is "Why don't you just fucking stop attacking me, you asshole? " yes, that is a problem, and is exactly the sort of thing that drives users away from this site. Being aggressive is one thing, making a habit of referring to other users as snot nosed punks, assholes, and so forth is something else, and it is not acceptable.
Unless Linas provides some reasonable assurance that this behavior will not recur there is very little chance that an unblock will be forthcoming. Of course another admin would review any new unblock request, but I doubt they would be any more willing than I am to look the other way at a long-term pattern of personal attacks. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:10, 5 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I got curious and read most of the stuff about this mess. There seems to be two sides of this sad story. Linas perhaps has a bad temper, but as far as I can tell, there were no really disastrous personal attacks anywhere. The administrators arguments on this talk page are rather childish. What do you want Linas to do? Admit that he is a crook that deserves all the punishment in the world? I don't think he will because he obviously believes he is right - and have the right to believe that. You are losing a valuable editor. YohanN7 (talk) 18:20, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Linas perhaps will be unblocked, but Wikipedia will remain the same, with its stupid habit to impose heavy “cumulative” punishments. And with incompetence, hypocrisy, and irresponsibility everywhere, of course. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 19:02, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I support unblocking Linas. Legalities aside, I do not believe it was really proper (at the very least, it did not have the full appearance of propriety) for Beeblebrox to block him in the immediate aftermath of Linas using the heated language towards — Beeblebrox. Beeblebrox should have sought out an uninvolved admin. I don't care whether this is specified in the "involved admin" policy. He shouldn't have done it. --Trovatore (talk) 04:55, 28 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It actually reminds me of a much more serious case from real life where a journalist has been held prisoner for 15+ years for writing something, without a trial.
The alleged "crime" in the present case is that Linas called Beeblebrox an ******** in a heated moment. I have called my best friends (and been called by them) much worse things, e.g. #¤%&¤%# and even !¤%". We might hold a 2-minute grudge (at the very most), nothing like an indefinite grudge.
The alleged "crime" aside, it's highly inappropriate for the "victim" to be prosecutor and judge in a "trial" with no defense attorneys. It looks bad, it smells bad, therefore it is bad. There is no excuse. YohanN7 (talk) 18:32, 28 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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If you are reading this, can you please fix or at least tag the erroneous section? The current article AdaBoost has a section "Example Algorithm (Discrete AdaBoost)" that is filled with incorrect formulas. It looks like someone was trying to crib them from cite-3, "A Short Introduction to Boosting" Yoav Freund, Robert E. Schapire but got them all wrong, misunderstanding the notation and the meaning of it all. linas (talk) 19:38, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I have just noticed that you contributed a lot to write about suspension (topology). I have tried to write about desuspension, an opposite operation. May you review my work? I am not a professional mathematician, but high-profile math has been my passion since my childhood. Cheers!
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Firstly, a quick word about my credentials - I am aware of your work at GnuCash with which a former partner used to run a small business with, through which I found some links to mathematics pages and criticism of Linux startup times (though I might have got that confused with someone else). So I am personally satisfied with your credentials. I struggled at A-Level Maths in school, and semi-regularly look at the Numberphile YouTube channel to teach myself new things, such as the seemingly counter-intuitive claim that 1+2+3 .... = -1/12.
Anyway, I am also an administrator here, albeit one who greatly favours common sense over rules and regulations (which mirrors the sort of person I am in real life), and I don't like our sockpuppetry procedures. So, with that in mind, I am happy to try and get an appeal set up to get your main Linas account unblocked. The process is basically described at Wikipedia:Standard offer but in a nutshell, all you have to do is assert that you want me to do this, and I will go and set it up. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)14:51, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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I have been looking at your beautiful image "phase of the j-invariant" and I had an idea.
Since j is a continuous function on the unit disk, and since a "circular rainbow" is a continuous mapping of the circle to the space of colors (see footnote*) ...
... the phase of the j-invariant does not need to display any discontinuities, except at isolated points.
Yet your image shows many line segments where the color varies discontinuously.
Is there any possibility that you might try to make another image of this which does not show lines of discontinuities?
—————
* If we represent the RGB (color) cube as [0,1]3 = {(x,y,z) ∊ R3 | 0 ≤ x, y, z ≤ 1}, then consider the intersection of the plane x + y + z = 3/2 with the cube. This is a regular hexagon. Inside this regular hexagon is an inscribed circle. The colors corresponding to this inscribed circle form a lovely circular rainbow.
If for instance you are using 24-bit color (8 bits for each of R, G, or B), then suppose you have parametrized the circle described in the last paragraph by
where r is the radius of the inscribed circle, and u and v are perpendicular unit vectors, each perpendicular to the main diagonal (1,1,1), and 0 ≤ t ≤ 2π. (See footnote**.) Then you could translate this to the usual R,G,B coordinates (i.e., 0 ≤ R, G, B ≤ 255) via
The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Proofs involving the Laplace–Beltrami operator until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
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Thank you. However, I was blocked for bad reasons, by a gang of corrupt admins who were eventually caught for repeated offenses, and were eventually banned themselves. They are now gone. I suppose I should droop my head and look apologetic, but I won't. I have a sense of pride. 67.198.37.16 (talk) 21:18, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For the record: this is absolutely false. I was unfairly attacked by a gang of admins, who went unpunished for their attack. I've gotten no apologies. Yes, eventually, this gang was caught red-handed and busted up; most were banned, and their activities ceased. I am willing to put this in the past. I am not willing to accept a cover-up of the crimes of admins, nor accept the insinuation that I was the guilty party in all this. 67.198.37.16 (talk) 21:13, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Welcome back
I gather that, for the moment at least, you have chosen to go on as you were, so as a practical matter not much has changed, but it's good to have you "official" again. --Trovatore (talk) 05:16, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Have you been able to recover your password? I suppose you could always make a Linas2 user or something if not, but at this point your static IP has only a few disadvantages compared to an account, and there is a lot of history on that page. --Trovatore (talk) 21:32, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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![{\displaystyle \int _{2M}^{r}|g_{rr}|^{1/2}\,dr=[r(r-2M)]^{1/2}+2M\,ln|(r/2M-1)^{1/2}+(r/2M)^{1/2}|}](https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/media/math/render/svg/c0cf034ed3cc6514a689f8e981a664386dc06324)
![{\displaystyle {\mathcal {L}}[{\vec {x}},t]=-\rho [{\vec {x}},t]\phi [{\vec {x}},t]+{\vec {j}}[{\vec {x}},t]\cdot {\vec {A}}[{\vec {x}},t]+{\epsilon _{0} \over 2}{E}^{2}[{\vec {x}},t]-{1 \over {2\mu _{0}}}{B}^{2}[{\vec {x}},t].}](https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/media/math/render/svg/c0b4f81a77a117fefc66db517dc5cd7672c45c0f)
![{\displaystyle [L_{1},L_{2}]=L_{3}}](https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/media/math/render/svg/b5e29f2b51618d58c7eb077c02383a911e497967)
