Talk:Main Page

Hosting Fees
Hosting fees are due next month. Looks like it will be about 120 USD or so. I also plan on switching hosts so that I can get shell access. Since the student budget isn't that great, any help with hosting fees would be greatly appreciated! --Joe (talk) 17:50, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Anonymous edits
Sorry but I'm seriously not a fan on anonymous edits. One has been made which I think is wrong (see its talk page) but as the editor is anonymous it's not so easy to enter into a dialogue. What do the others think? --Matt Westwood 21:54, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I would vote to let the experiment continue at least a little longer, but if it's causing problems, it should be switched back no matter how much I like the idea of openness. On a side note, did the same IP addresses edit to Symmetric Group Center Trivial look ok? --Cynic (talk) 00:09, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't like it, it's a bit terse. If it were me, I would not have replaced a pageful of explanatory pedagogy with a dismissive 2-liner, as space is not of the essence here. I would not welcome this technique as a general trend, it goes against what I would consider this site was "for". But it's not my site, so I can't lay down the law. --Matt Westwood 06:25, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Just had a thought: we could add something to the help page stating something like: "anonymous edits are more likely to be subject to immediate rollback without comment than those made by users who have signed up with a full account." Openness is all well and good, but I like the idea of people being honest enough to put their "name" to stuff they contribute. --Matt Westwood 06:28, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm fine with something like that, and I agree that about the 2-liner part. Technically that proof should have been kept, and another section added with a new proof; so we should add a bit telling people to add multiple proofs. --Joe (talk)

The more I look at that 2-line "proof" of Symmetric Group Center Trivial the more I think it's rubbish, so I've reverted, although stuck the edit in, but in comments. --Matt Westwood 20:17, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Nope, from the comment in the talk page he obviously knows what he's talking about, just doesn't believe that mathematical truth is something which deserves to be communicated. So I've reverted his edit, although I rudely split it up into 4 lines and added an ill-mannered link to a definition. I still can't understand it, though. Can you? --Matt Westwood 07:01, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Geometric Distribution
The sharp-eyed among you will have noticed that the definition of the Geometric Distribution has changed from being defined as the distribution that models "the number of successes before the first failure" as opposed to the other way about, which goes against what (for example) Wikipedia has to say on the matter. I've taken the discussion up on that page on Wikipedia. --Matt Westwood 22:50, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Use of "imath" and "jmath" LaTeX tags
I learn today on a Wikipedia discussion that $$\imath$$ and $$\jmath$$ are not meant to stand alone as symbols, and in particular not for $$\sqrt{-1}$$. They were designed so they could be used with other diacritics, e.g. $$\hat \imath$$ etc. So I have another exercise on the way: to replace all existing $$\imath$$ and $$\jmath$$ where used as $$\sqrt{-1}$$ for the proper letters $$i, j\,$$. --Matt Westwood 19:23, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Misattribution?
The latest three (admirable) additions to the Wanted Proofs list are attributed to me. Much as I'd like to take the credit for adding these entries, it wasn't me. Must be something to do with how the s/w treats anonymous edits. No matter, just setting the record straight. --Matt Westwood 21:50, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Searches irritatingly case-dependent
I've just wasted several minutes searching for the page Definition:Top-Down by entering "top-down" into the "search" box. Even when I typed in "all:top-down" it still didn't return me any of the pages with this in it.

So I entered the page Definition:Top-Down into the search field and it instantly returned me, via a redirect, to the page Definition:Formal Grammar, which is what I was after all the time.

Is there a way of making the "Search" tool case-independent? --Matt Westwood 06:46, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I think there is, since I'm fairly sure Wikipedia search works that way. I believe they may use Google to power their search these days, but I suspect there is an extension that would do it. --Cynic (talk) 00:38, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Venn Diagrams
Anyone care to demonstrate their skills with a graphics tool to create a 2-circle and a 3-circle Venn diagram? I have been playing around with OpenOffice Draw but am not getting anywhere. What I want is to be able to identity and shade the individual subdivisions of the circles. I haven't worked out how. --Matt Westwood 21:00, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

How about these? File:Two Circle Venn Diagram.png and File:Three Circle Venn Diagram.png Feel free to crop and re-upload as desired. --Cynic (talk) 00:38, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Hmm ... blank ones are no problem at all, I can do those in Geogebra. It's when you want to colour in the individual areas that I haven't been able to find a tool to do. But thanks. --Matt Westwood 05:26, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Solid color? If you're on a PC, just use mspaint. If you're on a mac, try paintbrush (I think it works, but I honestly don't remember its limitations). If you want stripes or some other pattern, GIMP should be able to handle it regardless of platform. --Cynic (talk) 02:50, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Genius! --Matt Westwood 05:37, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Another problem fixed: script l
Back in December 2009, I raised the question:


 * We're somewhat limited in that LaTeX does not seem to support the "mathscr" font style. So the rendition of the Lebesgue space is somewhat compromised.


 * Anyone know of a workround?

I just happened to notice on the WikiLaTeX Help page there exists:
 * $$\ell \,$$

which is obtained by:  $$\ell$$ 

Just that one letter, but that's the one I wanted.

Job done.--Matt Westwood 21:30, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Codomain, range, image
I am going to replace all references to range with equivalent ones for codomain, as it turns out that there is just too much ambiguity with image. Most texts I have consulted equate the range with the image rather than the codomain, so something needs to be done and I'm doing it. This may take some time. Please bear with me. --Matt Westwood 14:13, 8 August 2010 (UTC)