Template talk:Logic

message: Until today we had a link to formula (mathematical logic) and one to well-formed formula. The first was actually a redirect to the second, and it was removed (correctly) today by an anonymous user. I changed it to appear as formula, with the following edit summary:
:well-formed formula -> formula for brevity; also, in modern mathematical usage there is no such thing as a non-well-formed formula 
In more detail:
* The same notion is sometimes called "formula" and sometimes "well-formed formula". Space considerations in a template suggest a bias towards the shorter term.
* The fact that this is under the heading "Mathematical" suggests a bias towards up-to-date mathematical terminology, rather than philosophical or obsolescent mathematical terminology.
* Mathematical usage is overwhelmingly to drop the redundant "well-formed". E.g. I made some searches in Mathematical Reviews, restricted to the MSC category 03 (Mathematical Logic and Foundations) to get rid of spurious results. Here are the results:
**Anywhere: "well-formed" or "well formed": 104 hits
**Anywhere: "wellformed": 0 hits
**Anywhere: "wff": 78 hits
**Anywhere: "formula": 5817 hits
* I do not know a single source that would define some kind of more general formulas that are not "well-formed". This absurd artifact of terminology probably makes no sense since at least half a century ago. All my books agree: neither "well-formed" nor "wff" makes it into the index. This includes Chang & Keisler (1973) and Bell & Slomson (1969). Note that Bell & Slomson use the term "string of symbols" for what may at some time in the past have been called a not necessarily well-formed formula. Then they say: "We single out a subset of the strings. The elements of this subset are called formulas. Intuitively these are those strings which can be interpreted meaningfully and unambiguously when we interpret […]." They continue with a parenthetical remark to "philosophically minded readers", but even that doesn't note the "wff"/"well-formed" terminology. Modern mathematics students who specialise in logic will not normally be exposed to this terminology.
Before this background I was a bit surprised to be reverted with an edit comment of "term wff well established". Is it OK if I revert back? --Hans Adler (talk) 15:34, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll look into this.  So far as I know the term well formed formula is in current use.  Perhaps "Modern mathematics students who specialise in logic" read different texts to "students who study logic" and some readers may not be any kind of student of logic.  As an enclopedia we should be writing for a wide audience.--Philogo 13:16, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

text: I am not at all sure it is the right way to go about things looking for hits but as a matter of fact Google retunrs 15,200 hits for '"Well formed formula" logic', 19,500 hits for "Well formed formula" and 57,400 for "wff".  The issue is not what is a better term, or what term certain specialist use, but what term has the widest comprehension.  I think, for comparison, I would expect to find an articles on "Aspirin", "Vitamin C" and "Shin bone" "ME" rather than under their chemical, bichemical or medical proper names (which I would expect to find in parantheses). --Philogo 13:32, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [Well-formed] formula 

message: Why is this here?  Greg's been adding it, without an "explanation" which I consider credible.  Any one else have a comment?  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 21:27, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Never mind; I misread the category it's in.  However, the template should probably be split into mathematical logic and philosophical logic, which have very little in common.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 21:34, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree with the math/philosophy split. Templates are there to help people reading one page read other related pages. If I'm reading logical fallacy, there's really no reason to believe that I would be interested in reading about the compactness theorem of first order logic, and the other way around. --Robin (talk) 13:46, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Explanation]] 

message: Should this template be organised like other philosophy templates?--Vojvodae please be free to write :) 17:11, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably not, as it's also a mathematics template.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 07:05, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, I think a certain degree of uniformity is a good thing for such templates. Currently this one is very special. We could try to reorganise it so that it becomes simultaneously more similar to the templates used in philosophy and those used in mathematics. It's not clear to me how to do this, so I will think a bit more about it. Hans Adler 08:49, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't object as much to the reoganization of the template as that Greg is the one miscategorizing subjects.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 15:31, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a personal attack Arthur, with no comment on the actual content that a good faith collaborator can work with. You should be ashamed of yourself. Is your complaint that math is being labeled as philosophy? How terrible for you. I'm sure there is a way we can satisfy everybody.. if you drop the attitude. Greg Bard 19:29, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I misspoke, to some extent.  I object to the miscategorization you (and only you, among active editors) made.  That you are the only one who has ever (at least since I've been monitoring the articles) so miscategorized and/or redefined mathematical logic concepts as philosphical logic concepts is not entirely relevant.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 09:18, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I not the one interested in labeling in the first place Arthur. That is an invention of yourself and the others. Like I have said before, "philosophical logic" is only meaningful to you guys. We don't have "philosophical ethics" or "philosophical aesthetics" because that would be silly. Perhaps we should misplace the isms under metalogic, so as to avoid the territory issues that you and your friends have created. Greg Bard 21:54, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: You are the only one interested in the topics you have been misattributing into the :Category:Logic; I apologize for attributing the name to you, only the fact that you conflate other-than-mathematical logic into mathematical logic articles.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 03:18, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Organisation of template