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Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
Are Wikipedia's mathematics articles targeted at professional mathematicians?
No, we target our articles at an
appropriate audience. Usually this is an interested layman. However, this is not always possible. Some advanced topics require substantial mathematical background to understand. This is no different from other specialized fields such as law and medical science. If you believe that an article is too advanced, please leave a detailed comment on the article's talk page. If you understand the article and believe you can make it simpler, you are also welcome to improve it, in the framework of the
BOLD, revert, discuss cycle. Why is it so difficult to learn mathematics from Wikipedia articles?
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia,
not a textbook. Wikipedia articles are not supposed to be pedagogic treatments of their topics. Readers who are interested in learning a subject should consult a textbook listed in the article's references. If the article does not have references, ask for some on the article's talk page or at
Wikipedia:Reference desk/Mathematics. Wikipedia's sister projects
Wikibooks which hosts textbooks, and
Wikiversity which hosts collaborative learning projects, may be additional resources to consider. See also: Using Wikipedia for mathematics self-study Why are Wikipedia mathematics articles so abstract?
Abstraction is a fundamental part of mathematics. Even the concept of a number is an abstraction. Comprehensive articles may be forced to use abstract language because that language is the only language available to give a correct and thorough description of their topic. Because of this, some parts of some articles may not be accessible to readers without a lot of mathematical background. If you believe that an article is overly abstract, then please leave a detailed comment on the talk page. If you can provide a more down-to-earth exposition, then you are welcome to add that to the article. Why don't Wikipedia's mathematics articles define or link all of the terms they use?
Sometimes editors leave out definitions or links that they believe will distract the reader. If you believe that a mathematics article would be more clear with an additional definition or link, please add to the article. If you are not able to do so yourself, ask for assistance on the article's talk page. Why don't many mathematics articles start with a definition?
We try to make mathematics articles as accessible to the largest likely audience as possible. In order to achieve this, often an intuitive explanation of something precedes a rigorous definition. The first few paragraphs of an article (called the
lead) are supposed to provide an accessible summary of the article appropriate to the target audience. Depending on the target audience, it may or may not be appropriate to include any formal details in the lead, and these are often put into a dedicated section of the article. If you believe that the article would benefit from having more formal details in the lead, please add them or discuss the matter on the article's talk page. Why don't mathematics articles include lists of prerequisites?
A well-written article should establish its context well enough that it does not need a separate list of prerequisites. Furthermore, directly addressing the reader breaks Wikipedia's encyclopedic tone. If you are unable to determine an article's context and prerequisites, please ask for help on the talk page. Why are Wikipedia's mathematics articles so hard to read?
We strive to make our articles comprehensive, technically correct and easy to read. Sometimes it is difficult to achieve all three. If you have trouble understanding an article, please post a specific question on the article's talk page. Why don't math pages rely more on helpful YouTube videos and media coverage of mathematical issues?
Mathematical content of YouTube videos is often unreliable (though some may be useful for pedagogical purposes rather than as references). Media reports are typically sensationalistic. This is why they are generally avoided. |
Hello all, I would like to invite you to attend in Articles for deletion/Similarity-based-TOPSIS and submit your opinion. I know that this article is in the field of operations research but there is no project related to operations research. Thank you in advance. Scholartop ( talk) 06:28, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
I would gladly include {{ maths rating}} in some other articles that almost contain mathematical topics. However, is it still allowed to include this template in articles that contain fewer mathematical subjects? I was considering that it could be possible to add it in Quasicrystal since it has fewer mathematical subjects, but most of this describes chemistry. I am not sure whether it would be appropriate for this project. Dedhert.Jr ( talk) 12:45, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
The IP accounts Special:Contributions/103.21.125.84 and Special:Contributions/103.21.127.79 keep adding links to academia.edu and arXiv articles by Harish Chandra Rajpoot to the external links sections, e.g. to Trapezohedron, Great-circle distance, Solid angle, Descartes' theorem, Circle packing. My speculation is that these IPs are being used by Mr. Rajpoot himself (apparently a graduate student at IIT Bombay) to promote his papers here. I removed several of these links because, while relevant, the content raises some other red flags: Rajpoot's papers don't cite any prior sources and name known results after himself. I left a comment on his talk page suggesting he may want to try publishing his work in a peer-reviewed journal; in response he put back a new link, this time to the paper "HCR’S THEORY OF POLYGON 'Solid Angle Subtended By Any Polygonal Plane at Any Point in the Space'" "published" in the journal International Journal of Mathematics and Physical Sciences Research by "Research Publish Journals", which does not seem to be peer reviewed. Does someone else want to try to talk to this IP user and try to get them to engage in conversation? – jacobolus (t) 16:52, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
Over on BIT predicate, we have an IP editor who seems intent on cramming as much off-topic notation-heavy WP:TECHNICAL detail as possible into the history section. More eyes on this would be helpful. — David Eppstein ( talk) 21:50, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
"Even though editors can never 'own' an article, it is important to respect the work and ideas of your fellow contributors. Therefore, be cautious when removing or rewriting large amounts of content, particularly if this content was written by one editor; it is more effective to try to work with the editor than against them—even if you think they are acting as if they "own" the article. [...] In many cases, a core group of editors will have worked to build the article up to its present state and will revert edits that they find detrimental in order, they believe, to preserve the quality of the encyclopedia. Such reversion does not indicate an "ownership" problem [...] Where disagreement persists after such a reversion, the editor proposing the change should first take the matter to the talk page, without personal comments or accusations of ownership. In this way, the specifics of any change can be discussed with the editors who are familiar with the article, who are likewise expected to discuss the content civilly."– jacobolus (t) 02:26, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at
Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab) § Standardizing Mathematical Notation.
CactiStaccingCrane 13:40, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
I suggest moving this article to the drafts space. I think the subject of this article meets
WP:GNG, but I don't think this article meets the criteria for a stub. I thought about moving this article to the draft space, but
WP:DRAFTIFY said articles older than 90 days should not be draftified without prior consensus at AfD
, so it seems necessary to discuss it first. If someone extends this article, I will withdraw this suggestion. thanks !
SilverMatsu (
talk) 11:22, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
I am not sure that this article is not ready to have its own. It has lack context and many things. Most of the texts, as I glanced at, especially in this part, use many second-person pronouns; however, MOS:YOU mentions that one should avoid such words. Because of these problems, would it be possible to merge it into Roots of unity? Dedhert.Jr ( talk) 15:14, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
would it be possible to merge it into Roots of unity?No. -- JBL ( talk) 22:29, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at
Help talk:Citation Style 1§ Proposal: Add parameter |eudml=. Need advice on whether the
European Digital Mathematics Library (Parameter
|eudml=
) meets
WP:GNG. thanks !
SilverMatsu (
talk) 07:06, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
Ya got yer
But where are the cantellate ( great rhombicosidodecahedron is something else) and the omnitruncate? Are they also degenerate? It would be good to note that somewhere. — Tamfang ( talk) 05:39, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Project-independent quality assessments. This proposes support for quality assessment at the article level, recorded in {{ WikiProject banner shell}}, and inherited by the wikiproject banners. However, wikiprojects that prefer to use custom approaches to quality assessment can continue to do so. Aymatth2 ( talk) 20:23, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
Input is requested at the RfD concerning the target of the redirect page Free term. 66.44.62.177 ( talk) 01:13, 8 February 2023 (UTC)