Talk:Main Page

Localisation
Thoughts on have localisation pages for separate languages(or possible even a whole other wiki(eg. fr.proofwiki.org, en.proofwiki.org, etc.)? --Joe (talk) 19:11, 9 June 2011 (CDT)


 * Are there techniques for generating these things automatically? If not, isn't it more sensible to let an in-line translation tool do it for you when you access the link?
 * We already have at least one page in this wiki in German, from someone who thought that would be a good idea. But I'm daunted by the maintenance aspects of having to do the work in multiple languages - unless, as I say, there's some automatic technique for handling the hard work. --prime mover 00:26, 10 June 2011 (CDT)

Definitely a `curator' would be needed for each language. I think it's omitting large community to exclude other languages -- though perhaps it ought to be restricted to the main languages in which maths is written, say Russian, French, and German, maybe Spanish (don't know what Asian languages are used). Probably most people could write in English, but I could write in French, I very much doubt that I would. --Linus44 08:47, 10 June 2011 (CDT)


 * S'il faut que je le faire ... ah, putain de merde, je ne le veux pas. --prime mover 12:35, 10 June 2011 (CDT)


 * I rather suspect a bot would be pretty terrible at translating stuff (just try asking google translate to switch a page to french/spanish/whatever now and see how readable it is. I tend to think that it would be better to stick to one language, both to avoid creating an insane amount of work to curate/translate/etc and because it would seem to lead to a higher quality/quantity of articles (compare other language wikipedias to the english one, for instance).  Also, looking at the google analytics report for the past month: 12,000 visits from the us, 6000 from the uk, 3000 from india, 2000 each from canada and australia, 1500 from germany, 600 each from the philippines and pakistan, 500 each from south korea and france, etc.  Also 80% of visits were from some flavor of english (no, I have no idea how they track that, but google analytics is awesome). Of course, feel free to disregard all of this, seeing as it comes from an American who speaks only english and rather limited spanish. --Alec  (talk) 02:03, 12 June 2011 (CDT)

Agree that automatic translation is a non-starter; Google translate is next to useless, it just swaps each word in turn for something in the dictionary. Of the more intelligent options, comparing with a catalogue of properly translated phrases seems to be the best, but the biggest database (en français) I can find isn't really up to scratch (I tried "local field" but it just had some stuff about a meadow).

Also FWIW I changed my mind -- I think there's more to be gained by `sister sites' forming independently of proofwiki; any of the results here could be phrased, proved and categorised in ten different ways, and I see no reason to impose the existing structure on a site in another language.

It might be interesting to set up separate wikis as suggested, and demand only that the philosophy be followed. Perhaps a community might grow, and we can share stuff, manually translated as people are able/feel like it.

I would also add that the fact that the site is already written in English somewhat skews the data from Google analytics --Linus44 21:04, 12 June 2011 (CDT)


 * If anyone wants to set up a sister wiki in a foreign language, my voice is: go to it. If we find it's worth linking to, then we can do that. Until then I would suggest that Google Translate is perfectly adequate. If you can't understand the gist of what's being said then your grasp of your own language is probably a bit shaky. :-) As a basis for one to generate a different-language version of a given page it's a good start, at least for someone appropriately bilingual in those two languages.


 * But as I say: not me, not today. --prime mover 00:32, 13 June 2011 (CDT)


 * Just had another idea: who's up for working on a "mathematical translation dictionary" project which does translate "local fields" into "corps locaux"? Ça plane pour moi ... --prime mover 00:35, 13 June 2011 (CDT)

Interesting interactive mathematical research project
What's your favourite number?

I heard this guy talking on the radio this morning. Seems like a cool project - but more about psychology than mathematics.--prime mover 16:43, 22 June 2011 (CDT)

This is pretty cool. --Joe (talk) 16:47, 22 June 2011 (CDT)

New version of mediawiki
... is better tha 1.16.2. It doesn't have the tedious features of cut and paste where the focus would get lost.

Only problem is that it no longer allows global search and replace. However, I think most of the pages with "math" tags in have now been replaced with "dollar" tags, so that should not be a big problem. --prime mover 00:37, 23 June 2011 (CDT)


 * I can still get a list of the pages with math tags see them if I search for math> (yes, I intentionally left out the opening < to pick up any random loose closing tags) in Special:ReplaceText...


 * Incidentally, all of the remaining math tags are in the main/main talk, definition/definition talk, and user namespaces, with the exception of the MediaWiki:Common.js page and on User talk:Prime.mover and User talk:Joe (I suspect the ones on you guy's talk pages should probably stay, seeing as they are in reference to the switch and our no longer using the tag). --Alec (talk) 00:41, 25 June 2011 (CDT)


 * I spent ages looking for a way to search for pages with "math" in them! I just tried your technique. There are still a few such pages that need amending. I am fixing them by copying the text into an external editor, doing a search/replace there, and copying them back. It won't take too long. --prime mover 02:32, 25 June 2011 (CDT)


 * ... all done, I believe. --prime mover 16:48, 25 June 2011 (CDT)

Feature: LaTeX in templates - can't use equals sign
If you are using a template such as Template:WIP or Template:Explain, and in the explanation text you include some $\LaTeX$, then beware you can't use the equals sign in it.

This is because the MediaWiki interpreter recognises it as a parameter indicator: LHS=RHS is interpreted to mean "replace instances of LHS in this template with the value held in RHS", examples of which can be seen in Template:Citation.

So if you find any pages with "explain" and "WIP" on them without any explanatory text actually included, this is probably because that text includes some $\LaTeX$ which includes an equals sign in it.

You can get round this by replacing = signs with \text{ equals }, as I don't believe there is an \equals tag (or whatever) available. --prime mover 16:43, 10 July 2011 (CDT)

Grading proof difficulty
One of the aims of this site is to allow accessibility to all. To that end, there are proofs which are simple and understandable by anyone, whatever their level of mathematical literacy, and there are proofs which require considerably more ability in order to get one's head round.

I wonder whether it's worth adding a "difficulty level" to the proofs we publish, so that casual browsers are able to choose to look at proofs which suit their level of expertise.

This is a quick thought which may or may not make any sense, but I'm throwing it out here so it doesn't get lost.

Anyone care to comment (positively or negatively)? --prime mover 18:22, 12 July 2011 (CDT)


 * I like the idea ... though it needs some thinking. --Joe (talk) 18:39, 12 July 2011 (CDT)

ITP 2011: Nijmegen, 27 Aug 2011
I have just returned from ITP 2011, the 2nd conference on Interactive Theorem Proving, held in Nijmegen, Netherlands between 22nd and 27th August 2011.

I had half an hour to present a talk discussing ProofWiki to a workshop in which several other similar-minded mathematicians had a similar opportunity. It was stimulating and offered up several new directions in which it may be advantageous to expand ProofWiki.

See Talk:Main Page/ITP 2011 (work in progress) for full details. --prime mover 13:03, 29 August 2011 (CDT)

Change of Copyright Conditions
It has been suggested seriously that we need to change our copyright license. We are currently using the GNU Free Documentation License 1.2, but it may be better if we were to move to a Creative Commons license, as this allows more freedom of distribution.

In particular, if we use the same as Wikipedia and PlanetMath, i.e. that any material to be used by anyone, as long as its source is cited, we will be able to share freely any stuff back and forward with no worries. This is particularly important with regard to PlanetMath, as there is a lot of possible and desirable collaboration between the two sites.

But in order for this to happen, we need to make sure that all the contributors to this site are okay with this. I understand that this may be a difficult thing to achieve, as many (most?) of them are no longer active, and it may take some effort tracking them down and getting them to respond.

Advice needed from anyone who has knowledge of all this legal stuff, because I am not a lawyer. --prime mover 14:11, 30 August 2011 (CDT)