Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive/2007/Mar

message: Since Oleg included :Category:Coding theory in the list of math articles a few days ago, I've been trying to review all of those new articles, to be sure they make sense. LT code doesn't make much sense to me, the way it's written. I'd appreciate an independent review by somebody here who understands algebraic coding theory.
From reading a little bit about "Luby Transforms" from other sources, it seems the best way to describe them is to think of the encoding and decoding process in terms of the "Exclusive Or" operation. Since the exclusive or of any bit string with itself is identically zero, it's pretty easy to understand how this randomized encoding strategy works. But I sure can't get that out of the existing article, no matter how hard I try.
I think I understand LT codes well enough to rewrite the article. But I'd appreciate some reassurance from someone who has previous experience with them. Thanks!  DavidCBryant 01:02, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have no experience with these beyond having seen Luby talk about this stuff once years ago. But I think the relevant source to cite for this, among Luby's many erasure code papers, may be the FOCS 2002 one entitled LT codes. —David Eppstein 01:35, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for the citations, David. I also found a few reasonably well-written articles that are freely available on the web, and I've finished rewriting LT code. I think it makes more sense now, but would still welcome a review by anyone who likes coding theory. Interestingly, I ran across an online article from which the original Wikipedia article was probably cribbed. At least the style of description, with bins and balls and edges and graphs, is very similar.  DavidCBryant 01:25, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  LT code 

message: I notice that Independent set is redirected to by Maximum independent set, and has 30-40 references. Since Maximal independent set is somewhat stubby and has only one reference (excluding lists), would it make sense also to merge and redirect this one? If not, I'll add enough of a definition to Independent set to refer back to it. Hv 07:11, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it would make more sense to make maximal clique (currently a redirect to clique problem) and maximal independent set point to the same place, since they are complementary. I think there's enough material in both of them to make a real article rather than having to combine with other clique and independent set topics. For instance: any graph has at most 3n/3 of either type of set (Moon and Moser; see also ); algorithms for listing all of them in polynomial time per set (see references in ); planar graphs and chordal graphs both have O(n) maximal cliques though that may have many more maximal independent sets (and chordal graphs may have many more non-maximal cliques); the number of maximal independent sets on a path or cycle is counted by the Padovan sequence or Perrin sequence . I don't have time to write all this in appropriate detail for an article tonight, but could probably get to it some time in the next few days if nobody else does. Though, the level of self-cites in what I've listed here may mean that someone with less of a conflict of interest would be more appropriate as an unbiased writer... —David Eppstein 07:56, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, I've added the definition and backref in independent set. If you are moved to write up the detail, I'd be happy to review it (leave me a message) from the POV of someone almost completely unversed in graph theory, but I guess you'd need another expert in the field to properly judge conflict of interest. Hv 08:24, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've now completed a major rewrite of the article, and redirected maximal clique to point to it. I'd appreciate any constructive criticism anyone might have, especially regarding the two self-citations. —David Eppstein 02:15, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Maximal independent set]] 

message: How can I draw geometric diagrams to include in Wikipedia (with free software)? For example, I would like to be able to make diagrams like those in Penrose tiling. Thanks. JRSpriggs 09:03, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I haven't used the program, but there's an Open Source project page for a freeware program called "Inkscape" that may do what you have in mind. They have distros for Linux, Mac, and Windows. I see that this image in the Penrose tiling article was generated with Inkscape. The image page even includes the instructions that told Inkscape how to make the drawing.  DavidCBryant 12:02, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Please visit Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Graphics, where you will find some suggestions and can ask for more. Geometric diagrams come in many flavors, with tilings being rather special, and aperiodic tilings still more so. In some cases, specialized programs like Tess or C.a.R will do just what you want; in other cases, programming in MetaPost or PostScript (see Casselman) is more effective; and a catch-all graphics editor like Inkscape can either add finishing touches, or perhaps be the sole tool. (Prefer SVG output, but test to be sure the half-broken librsvg renderer used by MediaWiki produces the output you expect.) The options depend on your needs, platform, taste, and budget (Mathematica is powerful but pricey). --KSmrqT 21:40, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  How can I draw geometric diagrams? 

message: The central question here is:  What ratings are useful for the project?  Let's assume that that ratings themselves are useful, so the question is just how many different grades we need and what they mean.  Right now, there are 5 that we can assign, which I understand as follows:
*Stub: trivial coverage, half a page or less when printed
*Start: not a stub, but minimal coverage.   Could be called C-class. 
*B: Obvious holes in coverage, nonstandard POV, or cryptic writing. But some areas are covered well.
*B+: Roughly equivalent to GA status. Experts will recognize holes in coverage.
*A: Excellent article. Roughly equivalent to FA status.
I find it hard to distinguish between Start class and B class.  What criteria could be used to distinguish between Start, B and a new B- class? Wouldn't it be easier to just add some guidance like "When in doubt between B class and Start class, go with Start class"?  CMummert · talk 14:30, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: B articles are longer than start, but still missing stuff or written from a narrow/uninformed POV. linas 00:06, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Start-class only have one decent section, or only a couple of lines on the aspects of the topic. The quality of an article is acontinuous thing, as we're assigning discrete quantities to it, so there will always be borderline cases. Tompw (talk) 22:51, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The real question: which ratings are useful? 

message: I have made the request elsewhere, but am copying a version here:
When a formula is described on Wikipedia, a one or two sentence non-mathematical introduction is included - aimed at persons who are outside their field with the given topic.
"It was developed by [abc] in [date]. This formula is used in the area of [xyz] and its purpose is to do [def]."
(Can someone archive part of this talkpage - getting slightly long).
Jackiespeel 18:54, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good writing, which we aspire to, does include giving English descriptions of formulas. There are a lot of articles that need to be improved, so this goal is not yet met in practice. If you find one that is particularly confusing, you may add the  template, but doing so does not guarantee that anyone will quickly appear to edit the article. This talk page is archived automatically, as explained at the top of the page. CMummert · talk 00:11, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Formulae articles suggestion

message: How feasible would it be to create either a graph of theorems and axioms or a crossindexed table of examples, like the one at the back of "Counterexamples in Topology"?  I know it would be quite an undertaking, but either would be pretty great. 
Prc314 23:40, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Graphs of theorem dependencies, and tables of examples 

message: I wanted to help, and looked at the Wikipedia:Pages_needing_attention/Mathematics page. Is it possible to sort these items according to topic, i.e. algebra analysis etc. This would help to guide people (like me) with only special knowledge to the articles needing help much quicker. Thanks. Jakob.scholbach 02:06, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not so easy. We need to devise a scheme to decide whether an article is algebra, analysis, topology, etc., and then program it. It's probably possible, but I'm not convinced it's worth the effort. After all, you can just scan the list and pick out the articles in your specialization. Granted, it takes more time and you'll probably miss some, but after you have poked around for a couple of weeks, you'll soon have a list of things that need to be done and (at least in my experience) the list always grows faster than that you can resolve the issues. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 23:30, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is some progress on this front with the  template. On that there is a field parameter which can be used to indicate the broad field of an article. Quite a rough tool and its not always clear which field to pick, and theres only 350 or so articles which have been graded to date. Anyway you may find Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0/Analysis and other pages of some help. BTW its probably time we actually did something with the field parameter, say putting those articles in a category or something cleaver with a bot. --Salix alba (talk) 00:11, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I can say from experience that having a category would be very convenient for automatically determining which articles are assigned to each field. The current method I use to create this table is not theoretically perfect. CMummert · talk 00:55, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  To do page 

message: Could someone review Structure theorem for finitely generated modules over a principal ideal domain? It has been recently created and caught by our bot as copyvio, but apparently it is a false positive (and would like a member of this project to review it and decide if it is notable enough for Wikipedia (as the only reference is a PDF). If it is suitable, please tag the article appropriately. If it is not, please prod, afd or inform me so that I can proceed. Thanks in advance! -- ReyBrujo 03:08, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Took a quick look, so i can't vouch 100% for its contents.  But this looks like the classic decomposition theorem for modules.  I would guess it's already in some other article though.  --C S (Talk) 03:19, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think in that case it would indeed at least deserve a renaming (or if it is somewhere else being either deleted or transformed into a redirection). I leave it to you since I suck at maths ;) -- lucasbfr talk 17:52, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm not sure why it would be renamed.  Despite the long name, that is what it's called.  And while the article could use a little work, it's certainly notable and important, and therefore deserves an article. VectorPosse 19:03, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, I will remove it from the copyvio watchlist. Thanks for the help! -- ReyBrujo 20:56, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Structure theorem for finitely generated modules over a principal ideal domain 

message: * independent variable
* dependent variable
: 
Both of these pages begin by suggesting that the design-of-experiments usage is the principal topic of the article.  That is ridiculous.  Then they treat the usage that everyone learns in high school, and independent variable gives a stupid definition by non-essentials: the variable plotted on the x-axis.
: 
Also, there should be a conspicuous link to statistical independence, since that is where the topic of independent random variables is treated.
: 
I'm leaning toward (1) redirecting "dependent variable" to "independent variable" and making the latter to into a disambiguation page.
: 
* An independent variable is
: 
** in mathematics, an argument (input) to a function, the dependent variable being the value (output);
** in design of experiments and various other areas of statistics, a variable controlled by the experimenter or at least one whose causal consequences one wants to consider;
: 
* Independent random variables are treated at statistical independence.
: 
* possibly some computer-science meanings too?
:
Another problem is how to direct the many links to these pages.  I suspect some of them are already pointing to an inappropriate place.
: 
Michael Hardy 22:54, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the notion "dependent" in dependent versus independent variable in the design of experiments and statistical hypothesis testing is not related to the notion of statistical independence of random variables. It is an unfortunate coincidence that the same word is used with unrelated meanings in somewhat related contexts.  --LambiamTalk 17:25, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Isn't it sufficient to put dablinks at the top of the relevant articles? By the way, I followed a few what-links-here links backwards, and about half of those were completely misdirected, involving a meaning of "(in)dependent" independent of that of any the articles under discussion here.  --LambiamTalk 05:34, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  cleanup of "independent variable" and "dependent variable" 

message: A raw version of a translator is available, by joint effort of User:Oleg Alexandrov and myself. Jmath666 06:57, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "Joint work" here means that I did the original hack of several lines and then Jmath666  took the effort to make this actually output something usable. This is an interesting way to create articles, surely much faster and more efficient than using the textbox and the "Preview" button. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 07:08, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Please explain. Jmath666 22:18, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: How about the reverse - Wikicode to LaTeX? Tompw (talk) 16:25, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The basic stuff (sections, equations,  to \bibitem, but no pictures or links) would not be so hard either. I wanted LaTeX to Wikicode translator for myself, because over time I wrote some introductory material in LaTeX that may be useful. And citations are so much easier if I can just pull them from existing BibTeX databases. Jmath666 22:18, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Not even speaking of the convenience of a wysiwyg editor instead of hacking the source. Jmath666 01:20, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  LaTeX to Wikicode translation 

message: I removed the Werdnabot invocation. I have been following Werdnabot closely; and it just has too many bugs that manifest themselves in unexpected ways. Like on Tuesday, it did not put any edit summaries into its edits for no apparent reason. Thus we go back to manual archiving. JRSpriggs 08:10, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: By the way,  has been down (blocked) and appears likely to stay that way. However, there appears to be another bot that we might use for archiving — . Has anyone had experience with MiszaBot? JRSpriggs 09:07, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I looked into it a little yesterday because it looks promising.  The code is still under development, and the bot was speedily approved when WerdnaBot was discontinued. The talk page User talk:Misza13 shows one or two bugs in the last two days. So maybe we should wait a couple of weeks until the kinks are worked out.  CMummert · talk 11:43, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK. And thanks for doing the manual archiving here. JRSpriggs 07:13, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Back to manual archiving

message: Is there a page depicting all commonly used symbols like ℤ or ∪ (not in the < math >... < / math> environment) -- and also how to type them? It always takes me an eternity to find them on other pages like union (set theory) etc. Thanks. Jakob.scholbach 16:13, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Try User:KSmrq/Chars. —David Eppstein 16:35, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Some are also in the edit characters below the edit box. —METS501 (talk) 20:46, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, but wouldn't it be better to use the < math >... < / math> environment, and let the mathml convert these to the proper symbols? That way, at least one gets a uniform look-n-feel. linas 23:34, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Agreed, for Wikipedia in the present state. But hopefully the rendering of math formulas will be fixed in due time and hopefully Wikipedia will be around for a long time. So it might be better to do the right thing and expect it will look good eventually even if it looks bad right now. In other words, the problem is incorrect rendering of math formulas in the web environment; ad-hoc fixes will only make it worse in the long run. Jmath666 03:02, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: J.M.Keynes said, "In the long run, we are all dead." I think we ought to make the pages look as good as possible right now. If the graphics engine ever gets fixed, the in-line HTML will still look OK, and it will be relatively simple to cut everything over to TeX. So we can either (a) make it look OK now, and better eventually, or (b) make it look bad now, and better eventually. Which makes more sense? Think of the readers!  DavidCBryant 17:03, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Symbols in non-latex code 

message: I nominated one of us, CMummert, for admin. If you are familiar with his work, you can comment/vote at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/CMummert. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:16, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  CMummert for admin 

message: New user Greg Kuperberg is giving Grubber a hard time at Talk:Cyclic group, arguing about the best notation to use in the article. It seems Greg Kuperberg wants to push for a certain notation because he uses it and it is used in some current research papers.
My understanding of wikipedia policy is that we always use the most common notation. We copy standards, we do not create them. For articles in mathematics, the most common notation is the notation used in authoritative textbooks on the subject. Perhaps someone can point me to a relevant wikipedia policy or provide some backup for Grubber. MathMartin 16:50, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There isn't an explicit policy on math notation (but see WP:MSM). You are correct that we describe the "real world" rather than recreating it here. So if there are multiple common notations in the real world, we should just describe them, pick one to use, and get on with things. Discussion on the "best" notation tends to go around in circles. In this case, it looks like both involved parties agree that Z/nZ is acceptable. CMummert · talk 18:28, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Uh, Kuperberg has been editing here under that name since 2004, judging by the history of his talk page. He's hardly a new user. —David Eppstein 05:07, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, he is not a new user. I should have checked more thoroughly. MathMartin 13:21, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

text:  Hmm. There is a Greg Kuperberg who claims to have coauthored a paper with you, "Fat 4-polytopes and fatter 3-spheres". On the down side, he claims to have a doctorate in mathematics from U.C. Berkeley, which may have brutalized his sanity; and U.C. Davis has a well-known enology program, which may also have had adverse effects. Any comments on his sanity or sobriety from your experience?  --KSmrqT 06:44, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't recall that I've met him in person, just corresponded electronically on that paper and other matters. I have no reason for thinking him any less sane or sober than the typical mathematician. —David Eppstein 06:49, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Uniformization of notation at Cyclic group 

message: See list of cycles and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of cycles. Michael Hardy 22:24, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed deletion of "list of cycles" 

message: As several editors have expressed an interest in it, I have created a proposal for an A-class review process for this project. If you are interested, please discuss it at the associated talk page. CMummert · talk 00:36, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We now have the first article for review Addition see Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/A-class rating/Addition. --Salix alba (talk) 10:14, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A-class review proposal 

message: We've been having a discussion on calibration of the mathematical importance rating system over on Talk:Penrose tiling that might be of more general interest to the participants here. —David Eppstein 18:40, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Using the criteria set forth there, I am tempted to say that Limit (mathematics) has top or high importance, not the mere mid importance it has been dealt.  --LambiamTalk 20:11, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, as one of the foundations of calculus and many other uses, high seems to be the appropriate value. I've changed the template accordingly. --Salix alba (talk) 22:04, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I would be happy to have a less subjective scale. But the crucial thing for me is that it should not quantify importance only with respect to current mathematics research or pedagogy, but rather importance as a part of an encyclopedia, taking a broader view of connections to nonmathematical topics as part of that quantification. —David Eppstein 15:16, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The biography importance characteristics do attempt for something more objective bassed around the importance of the topic cross discipines, top is something like big influance over a wide range of topics, high influence on topics outside of the domain (i.e outside of mathematics), mid influence across a number of fields within the domain, and low being of interest primarially within the field. (or something to that effect) see . I find a certain appeal to adapting this to suit maths articles. --Salix alba (talk) 20:16, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rating importance calibration 

message: The E8 (mathematics) lie group hit the news today, which coverage of a full enumeration on the BBC and slashdot, see talk page for links. The article is very technical and could do with some attept to describe it in laymans terms, especially the meaning of the new result. --Salix alba (talk) 20:04, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This could make a better movie than A Beautiful Mind; read David Vogan's narrative of the project. This site is a good starting point for other info. --KSmrqT 22:44, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Here's a press-release: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/e8.html. Note that Jeffrey Adams, who, as said in that release, is the project leader, has made a Wikipedia account, at User:Jeffreyadams. Nice. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:41, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmmm, compsci heroics. But we need to have more on the mathematics of it. Charles Matthews 10:56, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  E8 

message: I was browsing through the list of vital articles, and found out to my dismay that most (almost all) content has been removed from Probability theory. I have already left some comments  at its talk page, but I would like additionally to alert as wide a circle of mathematics editors as possible. Arcfrk 03:25, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Attention: Probability Theory 

message: Hello again! Wikipedia:WikiProject_Vandalism_studies's first study is finally about finished. We loved you guys' help a few weeks ago in giving some eyeball time to how the study was composed math wise, and now that we're almost done, we're wondering if you wouldn't mind checking over the results. The study's end results themselves are here, and the discussion of what this means for the conclusions is here. We are keeping in mind that measuring is easy, but knowing what you are measuring is the hard part. Any and all comments, critiques and math angles not considered would be much, much appreciated. We want this to be as tip-top as possible before reporting our findings to the community at large. Thanks everyone. JoeSmack Talk 23:59, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cross-project help part 2: Concluding Vandalism Study 1 

message: I see a reference in Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions#Academic paper on Wikipedia to a research paper "Assessing the value of cooperation in Wikipedia" by Dennis M. Wilkinson and Bernardo A. Huberman..
The paper finds that article quality is correlated with both number of edits and number of distinct editors. Is it just me, or is some of the mathematics and statistical techniques a bit off?  --LambiamTalk 14:05, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Academic paper on Wikipedia 

message: Extracting references from articles is not trivial. It would be relatively easy to get a list of all the instances of  and friends.  It would be much harder to automatically deal with hand-formatted references.  I could get the contents of every "References" section (there are about 4500 of them), but it would take a lot of massaging. I'm not sure what plan you have in mind for the information. But anyway, I started the program to update my cache of math articles, which is going to take about 12 hours.  I can extract whatever data is requested. CMummert · talk 12:13, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Extracting references from articles 

message: A while back I started writing  Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Editor resources.  Is there still interest in this sort of page?  It would not be difficult to write Template:maths welcome to point to it. CMummert · talk 11:35, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, I was looking for that page the day before yesterday but I forgot why I was looking for it before I had found it. The "Editor resources" is very useful to point editors to. I hardly use welcome template myself (information overload) so I'm not really interested in that. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 12:40, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Although WP:WPM has an info box mentioning "Editor Resources", it does not link to WP:WPMER.  --LambiamTalk 14:11, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interest? 

message: I have added a Classification section to the probability theory, your comments/updates on it will be useful. To me it also seems that major portion of the article needs extensive copy editing... I am gonna propose this as a candidate for collaboration of the week. Cheers --Hirak 99 15:59, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: hm, would most probabilitists agree that one can "classify" in this way? seems kinda unlikely. i would recommend folks take a look. Mct mht 19:49, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Work on probability theory 

message: I've created an article on Geometric median, please feel free to improve by adding more information in your free time. Is there a formal way to request for a diagram? Cheers --Hirak 99 16:03, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not formal, but you could leave a request on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Graphics. By the way, if geometric median is unique, and 1-dimensional median is a special case, then it is also unique, quod non. Same problem in higher dimensions for a set of collinear points of even cardinality, with the empty point set as an obvious case.  --LambiamTalk 08:02, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, updated the uniqueness portion in the article. --Hirak 99 10:17, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Geometric Median 

message: I noticed recently that corollary is a redirect page to theorem. I thought someone here might want to make a proper article out of it.--Jersey Devil 01:15, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Corollary 

message: Mathematics has been made a featured article candidate.  --LambiamTalk 07:37, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mathematics now a featured article candidate 

message: A couple of Mathieu groups are listed on a few disambiguation pages that I have edited or will edit soon (e.g. M23, M24).  The description of these number given at Mathieu group is incomprehensible to the average person.  (Note that I have a Ph.D. in astronomy.)  Could someone leave a short (one sentence) description of what these numbers are supposed to be on my talk page so that I can write reasonable entries for these numbers on the disambiguation pages?  Thank you, Dr. Submillimeter 10:50, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The description given at Mathieu group might not have much meaning if you do not know what a group is, but it pretty clearly says that M23, etc. are groups, and doesn't at all suggest that they are numbers. The entry already at M24 seems fairly reasonable to me - a disambiguation page is not the place to have long explanations. It could be reworded to "M24, a Mathieu group (a type of mathematical object)" or something like that. JPD (talk) 11:07, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you.  I will try working with this, although something in even simpler terms would be better.  Also, is it possible to write an introductory paragraph to Mathieu group that explains the concept in less technical terms?  Dr. Submillimeter 11:28, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It might be worth trying to get a less technical introduction in the article, but I'm not sure what you mean by simpler terms for the disambiguation. "M24, a Mathieu group"/"the Mathieu group M24" simply tells you its name(s) and provides the link, and "mathematical object" is the simplest way to describe what sort of thing it is. Anything more would either be more technical or would become the sort of long explanation that doesn't belong on a disambiguation page. JPD (talk) 11:43, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What you have suggested may be the best that can be done for disambiguation pages.  It would just be nice for the average reader to understand what it is if they come across the disambiguation pages.  That may not be possible, so just "M24, a type of mathematical object called a Mathieu group" may be the only realistic solution.  (I hope I have not caused any offense.)  Dr. Submillimeter 12:14, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I had a go at writing a standard dab for the five Mathieu groups. Geometry guy 15:02, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I made some minor stylistic changes (removing parentheses and periods), but I will otherwise use Geometry guy's dab text.  Thank you,  Dr. Submillimeter 15:09, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, that's much better, but it's not going to be possible to give people an idea of what they are unless they already know some group theory, any more than a dab page should explain what a lenticular galaxy or Taoiseach is. JPD (talk) 15:26, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But hopefully they would be defined sufficiently precise to disambiguate them from other entities sharing a moniker with lenticular galaxies and the Taoiseach. And it is really not much effort to write: [can refer to:] "the Taoiseach, the leader of the Irish cabinet". It may save the reader a click, because that may be just all they needed to know.  --LambiamTalk 13:54, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I would consider reorganising the first and second paragraphs. To a layman the most interesting thing about them is that they are some of the exceptional cases in the classification of finite simple groups. Once the motivation for why these are objects worth study the reader might be encouraged the to read the more technical details. --Salix alba (talk) 20:21, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

text: There is a certain amount of overlap with the subsubsection Font formatting, which is a bit confused as to whether it is about markup or about typesetting conventions.  --LambiamTalk 18:37, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

text: This is another place where I would like to see flexibility and not policy. Any guidance on the use of fonts for Greek names simply does not apply to mathematics, any more than the use of Roman letters for Roman names implies mathematical variables should be in Roman. I actually think the italic Greek letters look better for variables and they more closely resemble the TeX form (for similar reasons, I tend to use \varphi and \varepsilon rather than \phi and \epsilon in TeX - but \theta rather than \vartheta). Also I sometimes find it helpful to distinguish π (a number celebrated on 14th March in the US and 22nd July in the UK :-) ) from π (e.g., a bundle projection in geometry and topology). Geometry guy 18:48, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

text: To my surprise, I discovered that the current Manual of Style is rather prescriptive on this point. I searched for some previous discussions, but found nothing. So for the moment, I will edit the MoS to make it less emphatic (excuse the pun). If someone wants to continue this discussion in a new section, I will be happy to contribute! Geometry guy 18:37, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disambiguation for [[M23]], [[M24]], and a few other numbers 

message: Well, I see good agreements above that something needs to be said in the math style manual about this issue. I started a section, Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics)#Choice of fonts. It is just an initial write-up, which I hope reflects the sentiment above. Changes to it and comments here on it are very welcome. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:20, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a certain amount of overlap with the subsubsection Font formatting, which is a bit confused as to whether it is about markup or about typesetting conventions.  --LambiamTalk 18:37, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Addition to the math style manual

message: The principal discussions of this have been whether to use italics on Greek names; for example in the article Constantinople. There has been agreement not to do that, because 
*the Greek text already stands out from running Roman text,
*our Greek italic font isn't very good, and the bold Greek is worse.
I'm not sure how much this should apply to mathematics; but I see no reason to use α (α), when α works fine. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:39, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is another place where I would like to see flexibility and not policy. Any guidance on the use of fonts for Greek names simply does not apply to mathematics, any more than the use of Roman letters for Roman names implies mathematical variables should be in Roman. I actually think the italic Greek letters look better for variables and they more closely resemble the TeX form (for similar reasons, I tend to use \varphi and \varepsilon rather than \phi and \epsilon in TeX - but \theta rather than \vartheta). Also I sometimes find it helpful to distinguish π (a number celebrated on 14th March in the US and 22nd July in the UK :-) ) from π (e.g., a bundle projection in geometry and topology). Geometry guy 18:48, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

text: To my surprise, I discovered that the current Manual of Style is rather prescriptive on this point. I searched for some previous discussions, but found nothing. So for the moment, I will edit the MoS to make it less emphatic (excuse the pun). If someone wants to continue this discussion in a new section, I will be happy to contribute! Geometry guy 18:37, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Italic Greek letters