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

Eiffel Women mathematicians

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

Draft:Cyril Voyant

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

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

Were on the same side

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

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

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

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

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

So that's my hidden agenda.

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

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

DYK for Tschirnhausen cubic

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

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

Nomination of Verónica Bolón-Canedo for deletion

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

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

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

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

Regarding Donald Stadtner

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Deletion of Adetokunbo Omishakin

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

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

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

Deletion of Ivan Idelson

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

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

Notice of noticeboard discussion

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

Help a new user out?

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

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

Women in Red – August 2026

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

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

Removal of

Hi David - I saw you deleted Jason Cohen (entrepreneur) - is there any chance you can restore that to my drafts so I can rewrite it and resubmit it for review? I didn't get any sort of alert on the deletion which is frustrating. I'd like to improve it. Thanks, JazzyOxygen (talk) 02:45, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

@JazzyOxygen: Ok, it's now at Draft:Jason Cohen (entrepreneur). Cleanup will require removing all LLM-generated content and expressing everything in human-written text in your own words. See also Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1196 § JazzyOxygen and LLM use which triggered this deletion. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:03, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

A. K. Dewdney

"Dude", if you look at MOS:LEADNO you will see that just because something is mentioned in the article, it doesn't have to be noted in the first sentence, as this would provide WP:UNDUE weight. Mentioning at the start that he is a "conspiracy theorist" implies that he is well-known for being so, but the article does not support that. It only includes that he's mentioned in The 9/11 Encyclopedia, and even there it's just once, and not even a whole entry about him. The other occupations mentioned all have more than one reliable source that talks about his work in detail. ... discospinster _talk 18:01, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

This one does too; we only need the one to support its content, but you can find plenty of others from searching. The difficulty is separating the good ones from the many fringy ones. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:39, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

The burden to provide reliable sources is on the one who is adding the content, not the reader. ... discospinster _talk 22:46, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

The content is reliable and sourced. We do not need WP:Citation overkill for it. And the lead is supposed to be a summary of the full article, not merely a summary of the parts of the article you personally recall as being significant. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:08, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

From MOS:LEADNO: "According to the policy on due weight, emphasis given to material should reflect its relative importance to the subject, according to published reliable sources." (emphasis added) From WP:UNDUE: "Undue weight can be given in several ways, including but not limited to the depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, juxtaposition of statements, and use of imagery." (emphasis added) It's not about my personal view of significance, it's about the (lack of) sources that characterize him as a being conspiracy theorist in relation to the other things. ... discospinster _talk ... discospinster _talk 01:07, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

We don't need sources to "characterize" someone to say what they're known for. What we need is sources that discuss the things about them that we're putting into our articles.

To put it another way: our section on him "Computing, mathematics, and science" is entirely self-sourced. Our section on his conspiracy theories, instead, has proper secondary sourcing. Despite that, you are demanding an extra level of sourcing to put conspiracy theory into the lead, and are letting pass without any scrutiny the more-prominent lead claims that he was a mathematician and computer scientist. To me that double standard is troubling. It suggests that you are letting your personal feelings for different aspects of the subject, rather than what the sources say, guide your editing. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:20, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

I can assure you I have no personal feelings about this individual or about 9/11 or conspiracy theories in general. My concern is describing someone with a contentious label based on a single sentence and a single source. ... discospinster _talk 15:35, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

The New Hampshire

Do you familiar with The New Hampshire''s student-run newspaper format? I am having a little trouble while adding this type of source in Equilateral triangle#Applications. A little help? Many thanks. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 02:44, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

I was going to say this I know from nothing. But although I know nothing about that student newspaper, the formatting of {{cite news}} is not difficult. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:06, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Arithmetic billiards

It's already eight months since the nomination began. Talk:Arithmetic billiards/GA1. And the third reviewer does not respond after all, including the nominator. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 03:55, 12 August 2026 (UTC)

Unprotected A. A. Mamun

Courtesy notice that I have unprotected A. A. Mamun, which you protected in 2013. Rusalkii (talk) 16:04, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

No problem; TRYUNPROT seems reasonable. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:09, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

Happy First Edit Day!

Happy First Edit Day! Hi David Eppstein! On behalf of the Birthday Committee, I'd like to wish you a very happy anniversary of the day you made your first edit and became a Wikipedian! DaniloDaysOfOurLives (talk) 07:56, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

Happy First Edit Day, David Epstein!

Happy First Edit Day!

Have a very happy first edit anniversary!

From the Birthday Committee, User:Zahrazamedahmedi (talk) 09:44, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

Happy First Edit Day to you! Happy First Edit Day to you! Happy First Edit Day, @David Eppstein! Happy First Edit Day to you!

Hi,

I am wishing you a happy first edit day!

Zahrazamedahmedi has given you a bear! Bears promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Bears must be fed three times a day and will be your faithful companion forever! Spread the WikiLove by giving someone else a bear, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. A bear for your first edit day!

Spread the goodness of bears by adding {{subst:Bear}} to someone's talk page with a friendly message!

Zahrazamedahmedi has given you a Cheeseburger! Cheeseburgers promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by giving someone else a Cheeseburger, whether it be someone you've had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy eating!

A cheeseburger for your first edit day!

Spread the goodness of Cheeseburgers by adding {{subst:Cheeseburger}} to their talk page with a friendly message, or eat this cheeseburger on the giver's talk page with {{subst:burger-munch}}!

Zahrazamedahmedi has given you a bubble tea! Bubble teas promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by giving someone else a bubble tea, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy drinking!

And some bubble tea!

Spread the awesomeness of bubble teas by adding {{subst:Bubble tea}} to someone's talk page with a friendly message!

Happy editing and have a happy first edit day! Cheers, (⁠◕⁠ᴗ⁠◕⁠✿⁠) Zahrazamedahmedi (🗨️My Talk Page🗨️) (🫗My Mistakes🫗) 09:21, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

Uh, thanks, but could you please make an effort to spell my name correctly? —David Eppstein (talk) 16:20, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

Hi,

sorry for the spelling mistake, @David Eppstein. Next time when sending a happy birthday message, first edit day message or another message, I will do my best to spell a user's name correctly!

Thanks for the notice! 😊

Happy editing! Cheers, (⁠◕⁠ᴗ⁠◕⁠✿⁠) Zahrazamedahmedi (🗨️My Talk Page🗨️) (🫗My Mistakes🫗) 20:11, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

Four vertex theorem

Sorry if my change to the short description of Four Vertex theorem upset you so much, although there was not need to shout ;-). It seems you've taken exception to my change to the short description: apparently my wording doesn't make sense. This is quite likely as I've really no idea what the restored current description ("On points of extreme curvature in curves") means either; and the article's not much more help as it's way beyond my pay grade, as it were.

The article appeared in my daily list of random articles, for which I frequently have a go at updating short descriptions so that they "avoid jargon, and use simple, readily comprehensible terms that do not require pre-existing detailed knowledge of the subject", as required by WP:SDCONTENT. I'm often successful (in that I don't get reverted quite so quickly), but not in this case.

Can you help me, then, by giving a plain English description of what the article's about? "Theorem in geometry" would seem to satisfy WP:SDNOTDEF, but I can't help but think a few words more ("Theorem in geometry about...") would help distinguish it from all the other theorems which I have forgotten since leaving school. Regards, Bazza 7 (talk) 18:50, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

If you do not understand mathematical descriptions, please do not change them to something else that you also do not understand. That has a significant likelihood of making things wrong and non-understandable to everyone. Which is exactly what happened in this case. You will have better success editing Wikipedia articles when you already understand them.

"Theorem in geometry" at least contains a single word "geometry" that provides some meaningful context in search results, but repeating the title word "theorem" is useless. So you are spending 8 of your 40 short description characters telling readers that this is about geometry, and wasting a lot of opportunity to be more specific. In particular, the word "vertex" in geometry can mean multiple different things and the short description "theorem in geometry" fails to even disambiguate between theorems about curves and theorems about polyhedra (both of which use the word vertex differently).

The meaning of "curvature" just means how tightly you are turning through a curve. This should all be intuitive from driving a car. Curves on roads don't suddenly go from straight to being circular arcs, because that would force you to turn your steering wheel very suddenly. Instead, their curvature changes more gradually, to give you time to turn your steering wheel. At the pointiest part of a turn (usually near the center of the turn), the curvature reaches a point of maximal curvature: you pull your steering wheel to the position of tightest turning radius, and then ease off. The points along the road where you pull your steering wheel as far as you're going to pull it in one direction (to the left or to the right), and then ease off, are the vertices. Even a point where you're going straight can be a vertex, if it's between two left turns (say): going straight is turning as far right as you're going to turn near there. The theorem says that any smooth closed curve (a racetrack, say) has at least four of them. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:05, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: Thanks for the quick reply.

I could argue that if I did not understand the gist of the article, then its lead needs revisiting so that I do; but I won't, as any article I wrote on my own areas of expertise would likely need redrafting for the same reason. But the short description should not have that problem, and it does from the start: what does "On points of extreme curvature" mean? Is it literal, or does "points" mean "aspects"? It is not clear and should be.

You've described aspects of the article, and some of it I understand. But you've not managed to provide a short description of it which satisfies WP:SDCONTENT.

I do appreciate it's really tricky to do for highly technical articles. Your last sentence might help: if I propose Geometry theory that smooth closed curves have at least four points of maximum curvature, then you can pick that apart until we agree on a suitable short description. That's 88 characters: although the length to aim for is 40, going up to 100 will not be frowned on, and reusing a word or two from the title is not forbidden.

(I realise this should not be taking place on your talk page, but on the article's talk page instead. If you'd prefer that, reply so here and I will move it now.) Bazza 7 (talk) 19:56, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

It means points. Like the things in geometry that are just a dot, with no length or area.

Taking a step back from the weeds of what individual mathematical words mean: Please see WP:SDNOTDEF: Short descriptions of mathematical topics should not be precise and detailed definitions of their topics. They are mainly used to help people doing searches to figure out which of their search results are the ones they might be interested in. So the combination of title + short description should indicate to people not looking for mathematics that the article is about mathematics (which the title word "theorem" already does), and for people who are looking for mathematics but who find multiple similarly-titled articles the short description should give them some idea which specific topic in mathematics is covered by the article. Doing requires using mathematical words with their mathematical meanings. Readers who understand so little mathematics that they do not even know what a point or a curve might be are not the target for this part of the short description and we should not try to write a short description that explains these things to them.

As for your "Geometry theory that smooth closed curves have at least four points of maximum curvature": That packs a lot of errors into a short space. Let me point out the multiple ways that is a bad description. (1) It is more than twice as long as a short description should be. (2) "Theory" and "theorem" are different words with different meanings, and the intended word here is "theorem" not "theory". (3) Even if you replaced "theory" by "theorem", you would be repeating a title word and wasting space in the short description that could be used for something more informative. (4) "Smooth closed curves" is not inaccurate, but is too pedantic for a short description, per WP:SDNOTDEF. (4) "Maximal" and "maximum" also mean two different things in mathematics (maximal means there is nothing larger nearby; maximum means that the entire space has nothing larger) and the correct word here is maximal not maximum. (5) A vertex is a point either of maximal or of minimal curvature. The word "extreme" allows both, correctly. The word "maximal" (even if we used it to replace maximum) does not. For instance, an ellipse only has two points of maximal curvature; its other two vertices are points of minimal curvature. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:02, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: OK. I get the point, feel suitably humbled and put in my place, and detect that it will be fruitless to try and persuade you to meet somewhere in the middle, if anywhere.

Thanks for answering part of my question about "points"; but "On points" is the wording used and what I asked about: does it have a special mathematical meaning? Or is it just what the rest of the world would write as "Geometry theorem about points of extreme curvature in curves"?

I've assumed, for 21 years, that all Wikipedia articles should be accessible to everyone, at least in their short descriptions and first sentence, but, as you've been unable to provide a short description satisfying WP:SDEXAMPLES, perhaps I'm wrong. Bazza 7 (talk) 20:51, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

"On" is a short English word that means roughly the same in this context as "about" or "concerning". A non-mathematical example occurs for instance in the book title On Food and Cooking. A longer wording with the same meaning would be "Theorem concerning points of extreme curvature in curves" but that would be, again, too long for a short description. "On" is just a way of saying the same thing more concisely.

Short descriptions should be accessible to readers of normal competence and education, but for readers who don't know the meanings of the English word "on" and the mathematical term "points", one can only go so far before giving up and suggesting that they find some other encyclopedia written in a language at their level. Maybe simple.wikipedia.org? —David Eppstein (talk) 21:08, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

Happy Belated First Edit Day!

Happy First Edit Day!

Have a very happy first edit anniversary!

From the Birthday Committee, ☘︎☘︎☘︎ALEXHammeke (talk | guestbook | sandbox) 00:09, 22 August 2026 (UTC)

So...

I think you understand that what Adam wrote is an oblique attack. If it was not meant to be, I'm sure he will clarify. I'll leave it there with you. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 20:19, 23 August 2026 (UTC)

Again, if you feel attacked by vague no-names-given descriptions of unquestionably bad editing behavior, what you should be taking away from this is: why do other editors think your edits fit that pattern? Why do you yourself think your edits fit that pattern closely enough that you feel attacked by those descriptions? —David Eppstein (talk) 20:21, 23 August 2026 (UTC)

What editing behaviour was "unquestionably bad"? Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 20:25, 23 August 2026 (UTC)

If it's not bad, why do you think of its description as an attack? —David Eppstein (talk) 20:26, 23 August 2026 (UTC)

Was it "unquestionably bad" or not? Your "if" implies a question. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 20:28, 23 August 2026 (UTC)

Parsing individual words is a way of getting sidetracked from the bigger questions. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:31, 23 August 2026 (UTC)

There was one question. It was for Adam to clarify one comment. A "if the shoe fits" ad hominem is also a sidetrack. As long as we don't think there has been any "unquestionably bad editing behavior", I expect there is nothing more to say here. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 20:42, 23 August 2026 (UTC)

Repeating your original attacks against Adam is also a way of getting sidetracked from the bigger questions. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:44, 23 August 2026 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) It seems like you're trying really really hard to make something that is not obviously about you, about you. You should stop that. --JBL (talk) 20:37, 23 August 2026 (UTC)

Diligence

		The Barnstar of Diligence
		For your continued dedication to sorting out notable scholars from the rest. Bearian (talk) 02:10, 25 August 2026 (UTC)

Thank you! —David Eppstein (talk) 04:48, 25 August 2026 (UTC)