Help:FAQ

"Why is this site so rubbish?"
... and other burning questions ...

What's the point of the Mathematicians page?
"The name of this wiki is ProofWiki. Thus I wonder if it is really necessary for this wiki to take on a huge historical task? Does it have a realistic chance to do a good job? At this moment the lists are far from complete, but it is hard to expect good results. Others are doing it already. Perhaps any historian can support other, more history oriented projects. It'll be hard to outdo them anyway."


 * A good question to which the only answer is "because I like it." If you really want the mathematicians page to be removed because it doesn't suit your idea of what this site ought to be, or that you want me to stop wasting my time on it and concentrate on what you think I ought to be working on (please provide a work schedule that you wish me to adhere to), you'll have to pry it from my cold dead hands. --prime mover (talk) 06:51, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

You undid my corrections
"I read such-and-such a proof and didn't like it much. I had a better one, so I removed the existing rubbish proof and put my better one in place. I went back next day to admire my work but found it had gone, and the old proof was back in place."


 * Whether or not you like a particular proof or not is of zero relevance. The fact is: it's a proof, and (at least believed by its author) it's valid. What we do on this site is allow multiple proofs for any given theorem. So, rather than replace the existing proof with your own proof, add your new proof as an additional proof to the one that is already up there.


 * There are quite a few pages up now which do have more than one proof. An excellent example of this is found at Real Numbers are Uncountable. What we do is put each separate proof into its own subpage which is then transcluded into the main page.


 * Basically, deleting stuff is rude. If you have objections about something on a particular page, then feel free to raise it as a topic on the talk page. It is possible the person posting it up may just have made a mistake. --prime mover (talk) 07:46, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Why do we need \left and \right with every pair of parentheses?
Out of curiosity, what difference does the extra curly inside \left(...\right) make? It seems to display the same... — Timwi (talk) 16:17, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The curly braces are grouping indications for TeX; they serve to ensure that every \left is paired with the intended \right. Especially when using an external editor (e.g. via the Firefox plug-in It's all text) that highlights matching braces, such can greatly simplify the frustrating search for an occasional omitted or excess brace. --Lord_Farin (talk) 16:27, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Do you really need \left({ ... }\right) for every parenthesis, even things like sin(2x) and (2n)!?... — Timwi (talk) 17:53, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
 * We enforce it to avoid problems with copy-pasting and subsequent editing of stuff inside parentheses. In this way, the parens will always size appropriate to their content, even if that content vertically grows or shrinks due to changes. Equation references like (1) and (3′) are excepted from this admittedly strict style rule. --Lord_Farin (talk) 17:57, 13 December 2012 (UTC)