Talk:Characteristics of Finite Tree

Please don't work on this page, it is what it is. --prime mover (talk) 10:55, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Logical problem in the statement of the theorem

If $T$ is initially defined to be a finite tree, then all true statements about finite trees are equivalent, by virtue of being true, not by virtue of actually defining what a finite tree is. –St.nerol (talk) 13:36, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I see where you're coming from here, I am tracing through the logic and seeing exactly what we need to start with as a basis. --prime mover (talk) 16:03, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

See also-section

I have twice added a "See also" pointing to the very similar Equivalence of Definitions of Tree. Why is this controversial? St.nerol (talk) 13:43, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm in the process of refactoring this entire area. If you look at the top of the page, there is a specific request not to embark on this task.

So please can you find something else to work on while this is in progress? --prime mover (talk) 14:26, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

I have no intention of interfering with the refactoring. Now, is it forbidden to add any section to any page that is a candidate for refactoring? -St.nerol (talk) 15:07, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

For a start the format is "Also see" (we had a lot of negative criticism a while ago for being inconsistent).

The main thing is that I would rather not include self-contained equivalence proofs for definitions of other entities, no matter how closely related, in such a section. --prime mover (talk) 16:02, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

The material contained is closely related, so why not? Being aware that both pages exist can help understand and improve the material. For example, it seems to me that "Condition 3" on this page could be included as a "Definition 3" on Equivalence of Definitions of Tree. -St.nerol (talk) 10:00, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

We don't implement an equivalence or a characteristic as a formal definition unless we can find it sourced in a published source. Otherwise maintenance becomes unwieldy.

We appreciate that there are numerous lapses, but these are relatively few and usually date back from before the site philosophy had adequately crystallised. --prime mover (talk) 10:13, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

By the way, is "Also see" really grammatically correct, used in this manner? I'm not native, by my understanding is that "Also see Pythagoras' theorem" lacks a comma, while "See also Pythagoras' theorem" is fine. -St.nerol (talk) 11:02, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

While "Also see Pythagoras' theorem" would arguably be slightly better as "Also, see Pythagoras' theorem" (although this is a nicety of usage rather than a grammatical rule), in this case we are not writing "Also see Pythagoras' theorem"; we are writing "Also see" as a section heading, with "Pythagoras's theorem" as an entry in that section headed "Also see".

We have tens of thousands of pages on $\mathsf{Pr} \infty \mathsf{fWiki}$. We strive for consistency. If we were to decide to change our style, purely on the strength of a dubious nicety of usage, we would have to change every single page which had an "Also see" section. We are not going to do that. --prime mover (talk) 11:24, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Refactoring complete

Please feel free now to review what this page has been turned into.

There is still one unproven result: Simple Graph with no Circuits and Size One Less than Order is Connected. --prime mover (talk) 16:19, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

That's now done as well. --prime mover (talk) 17:50, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Nice. The contents box had errors. I removed math mode from the headings to fix it. St.nerol (talk) 09:39, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

The problem is with this version of MediaWiki. We are not going through every page and removing $\LaTeX$ from all of them, we are holding out for a fix to the underlying infrastructure. --prime mover (talk) 09:45, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Okay. In this case, though, the math mode seems uncalled for. St.nerol (talk) 09:52, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

The headings should have "text numerals" not "math numerals", according to Donald Knuth: See [1]. -St.nerol (talk) 10:04, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

We don't follow Knuth. --prime mover (talk) 10:09, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Okay, so what is the site policy? To always have numerals in math mode? -St.nerol (talk) 11:00, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

yes --prime mover (talk) 11:24, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Note that we (deliberately) differ from Wikipedia, which differentiates between mathematical expressions in display mode (which uses $\LaTeX$ markup) and inline mode (which uses html markup). The latter makes for ugly and unreadable pages where it is far from clear what is mathematical exposition and what is natural language.

This can cause friction between the $\mathsf{Pr} \infty \mathsf{fWiki}$ team and editors who are familiar with Wikipedia and would prefer all other MediaWiki websites to be in exactly the same format as Wikipedia, but that is a problem with the latter and not the former. --prime mover (talk) 11:29, 3 December 2023 (UTC)