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It would help to know in what areas the term is used. It's linked to from Species - is "combinatorial species" a biological term also? Mathematical? Or both? Tannin
Actually, it didn't occur to me that I had not made that clear by using the word "combinatorial". But now I've made it more explicit. (For now, it's still only a stub article.) -- Mike Hardy
I have corrected the definition. Let F[U] = {B,C,D,E...} structures permuted by σ. σ has a double job : it permutes or fixes the F-structures B,C,D... "from outside" acting on F[U] in an abstract way , but also, when we have a concrete representation, σ is an automorphism eg the permutation σ = (1,2)(3,4) is an automorphism for the structure B = {1234, 2143, 3412, 4321}. This is the meaning of "i.e." in the original definition. The main book contains drawings as concrete representations associated to the definition, but there is a free copy of the first chapters. How to pass from abstract to concrete may be seen in referred Chiricota article, when using a Maple computer. I will add clarifying references.Nboyku (talk) 07:21, 4 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
PS. It would be nice to indicate if the theory of combinatorial species has solved some interesting new problems. Thanks. CW 16 February 2006
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Please stop posting your mathematical elaborations here. This is a talk page for the improvement of the article basing on published reliable sources. Staszek Lem (talk) 21:25, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Please stop micromanaging me. The intention is to place a "generalized differentiation" example in the main article. Let the chapter here,, let's take a look together on it and see how could fit in the main page. Thank you for understanding Nboyku (talk) 16:08, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Please see our major content policies: WP:CITE, WP:RS, WP:NOR. You cannot invent examples yourself. You have to take them from scholarly articles and provide references. Staszek Lem (talk) 17:18, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I have just re-checked your links and there is no policy on "inventing examples". "Inventing examples" is the very standard way for mathematicians to read an article, an already published article of original research. You really should not involve yourself in the math area. I always cheer some extra expertise on domains that are not dealing with "examples invention". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nboyku (talk • contribs) 18:02, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The policy is that all information in Wikipedia articles must be come from reliable sources. If you invent an example, then the source is you. Wikipedians are not accepted as reliable sources in Wikipedia. "Inventing examples" is Wikipedian's original research not allowed in wikipedia. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:48, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
In mathematics, the example is not invented by the reader, but it is already there in the book.
For example, (x+y=y+x) is an abbreviation for (1+1=1+1) and (1+2=2+1) and (1+3=3+1) and (2+3=3+2) and so on, all possible examples being included. In order to save space, we, mathematicians, are not using huge tables of examples but abbreviations. So, the author already invented all possible examples. Nboyku (talk) 23:09, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"In mathematics, the example is not invented by the reader, but it is already there in the book."
A lovely thought, worthy of Paul Erdős, but in Wikipedia, Nboyku, you are not considered an authority, regardless of your knowledge, mathematical proofs, discoveries, credentials, expertise, or experience. All are valuable; none are relevant to the matters at hand.
Specifically, you are not considered an authority on how to translate non-trivial formulas of some complexity into specific examples. Your hypothetical and very simple example is not at all analogous to the advanced math specifically at issue here; readers have reason to be wary of any such editor-initiated elaborations.
Further, articles (and even article Talk pages) are not mathematical notebooks or tutorials. Articles are summaries of cited reliable sources. This article's few but authoritative reliable sources are cited at the bottom of the page, and not inline, relatively common in math articles. Examples should be from reliable sources for credibility, and cited inline as that has been specifically requested with good reason. (Copyright being another).
Talk pages are not for discussing the subject matter itself, but for discussing how to improve the article - see Talk:Combinatorial_species/Archive_1 for your counter-examples. Appreciate your interest in improving article, but concur with Staszek Lem on how that might best be done. (via WP:TEA)-- Paulscrawl (talk) 10:25, 3 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Oh dear me, thank you so much for that Erdős thing ! Let me brief you on the actual situation :
The object of this warning is mainly some 2012 stuff when I have been invited to talk on talk pages and I became talkative. I think some users just wanted to understand me better. Please take into account it was not my idea.
Actually (2018) I moved my inquires to the Teahouse. When the Teahouse was created ?
Before these "capital warnings" I have already started to clean up. Check my two other recently suspended accounts, nboykou and undersum and please compare the dates and the activity here with my http://combinatorial-species.wikia.com page.
Please check that I have already followed the guidelines of Staszek Lem.
There is one more aspect. The main book leaves plenty of hard work to the reader; I have counted 15 explicit invitations to prove theorems and propositions in only 130 pages but there are more propositions/theorems just transformed in exercises. I have never seen another book like this, in thousand of titles. I assume the authors were saving space. Then what space the wiki editor should use to compensate and to work his review if not the one here, the dedicated space ? Nboyku (talk) 11:18, 4 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Nboyku, I've added a subheading to this warning to emphasize your question, a few suggestions, and the relevant policies and guidelines that make this place not a viable answer.
You asked: "Then what space the wiki editor should use to compensate and to work his review if not the one here, the dedicated space ?"
Good question! I would highly recommend the free and open source SageMath as a welcome space for your mathematical investigations. You can have your own mathematical notebook and if you prefer you can download an ISO (it is a very capable alternative to Mathematica, Matlab, etc.) and run it completely offline. Has a built-in wiki (MoinMoin), visualizations, LaTeX output, tons of features, years in the making. There are even interfaces available for smartphone access, so you can work anytime, anywhere.
What to do with your existing notes? Try a free account at Wikia, to quickly and easily move your mathematical notebooks to a free site using much the same wiki syntax as used here.
But Wikipedia's binding content policies and guidelines are quite clear that this is most certainly not the place (WP:NOTWEBHOST) and neither WP:Talk pages nor WP:User pages, including sandboxes, are considered appropriate web hosts for your extensive content not directly related to improving articles by Wikipedia standards.
Unrelated content includes, but is not limited to: Extensive writings and material on topics having virtually no chance whatsoever of being directly useful to the project, its community, or an encyclopedia article. (For example in the latter case, because it is pure original research, is in complete disregard of reliable sources, or is clearly unencyclopedic for other clear reasons.) — WP:UP#GOALS
:) I already have my pages; thanks for that ISO. As I said I was already migrating my stuff left here for 6 years. At that time, whatever I have searched I did not found a suitable Latex solution. Today I have found TeXstudio+MiKTex, ten minutes from downloading to my first math .pdf paper. Nboyku (talk) 21:23, 6 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Lets's get back to the subject which is a book that transforms propositions and theorems in exercises. My opinion is that Wikipedia should allow space to these issues. Please focus on the question and not other things because I will use the occasion to promote myself again. Hubby56 (talk) 08:23, 3 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
On 16 October 2018, Staszek Lem deleted a huge body of text from the article as "math nobody bothers to reference since June". On 19 October, I restored it, commenting that
the presentation can be improved, but almost all of this material is standard and can be easily found in the references. Please be more constructive and point to specific statements that need clarification/citation, or work on improving the article.
Restoring the unrefererenced text is violation of our most fundamental Wikipedia policies. It is not my job to ber "constructive": I am not an expert
I am not an author of this article and do not want to get into an editing war. Still, it seems to me needlessly destructive to remove vast chunks of the article using the blanket justification that it is "unreferenced". It is not true that all of this material is unreferenced: there are several good references included in the article, and a cursory browse through them would confirm that much of the deleted material is standard. Have you looked at these references, Staszek? What kind of citations would make you more satisfied that the article meets Wikipedia policies?
Noamz (talk) 18:03, 1 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It is no "editing war" here. Wikipedia just simply enforces some APA style of inline citation in order to improve it's reliability. This is a revolutionary requirement for a mathematical text, which is reliable by itself. We will have to wait a contributor willing to fulfill these inline citations requirements and to restore the content. Hubby56 (talk) 18:46, 1 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to me that having the material deleted makes it less likely to be enriched with inline citations, no? At WP:REF, it says that it is "generally considered helpful" to "replac[e] some or all general references with inline citations: an improvement because it provides more verifiable information to the reader, and helps maintain text–source integrity". I agree, but doesn't that suggest that the old material should be kept up together with the "insufficient inline citations" tag? As I said, most of that material is actually sourced in the general references. Noamz (talk) 20:01, 1 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I know this because I am familiar with the basic theory of combinatorial species, and have read several of the listed references (and similar ones). Much of the deleted material (in particular, the definitions of various operations on species) can be found in Joyal's original paper (1981), as well as in any standard textbook such as the listed one by Bergeron, Labelle, and Leroux, or the listed tutorial by Lastaria (as mentioned by Equestrian.sen), or say Méndez's Set Operads in Combinatorics and Computer Science, or say Brent Yorgey's thesis on " Combinatorial species and labelled structures, or say the very similar material in Flajolet and Sedgewick's textbook on Analytic Combinatorics...
Perhaps some of the deleted material could use additional references. For example, I am not sure what the author meant in the part about how "the original definition of the species inspired three directions of investigation". However, most of the material is completely standard, and although the presentation is a bit unpolished it is nice that it is already enriched with diagrams. So again I think the deleted material provides a valuable base for eventually producing a better article through the ordinary editing processes, and that it is a shame to delete it. Noamz (talk) 14:58, 7 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
revolutionary requirement for a mathematical text - This is not a journal article, and wikipedia requirement is not a requirement for a mathematical text; inline citations is a requirement for Wikipedia, math or not. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:44, 5 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I am tired of these pointless discussions in various places where people think that this or that article must be an exception from the rules. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:44, 5 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"Have you looked at these references, Staszek? - I have enough brain to verify that this or that statement is indeed confirmed by a given footnote. But I am not going to read the whole volumes trying to figure out which confirms what and which parts of the article is a novel development of a wikipedian. I've seen quite a few wikipedia math texts written by aspiring mathematicians genuinely failing to understand that their text, however mathematically correct, is a novelty. And a couple of them were real kooks. The bulk of the article was written in 2004, the very early days of Wikipedia, when it was not at all clear what is right to do and what is not. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:44, 5 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Notice that even the very definition of a gobbledygook : "A species is a functor
{\displaystyle F\colon {\mathcal {B))\to {\mathcal {B));\,} F\colon {\mathcal {B))\to {\mathcal {B));\,
given a set A, it yields the set F[A] of F-structures on A." (and preceding and following parts)
- this makes no sense at all. I dont want even start listing mathematical incongruencies in this definition. (OK, here is one: WTF is "F-structure"? ) Staszek Lem (talk) 22:44, 5 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
F[A] is a set of structures. The sentence you're quoting is just giving a name to the elements of F[A]. You can find that in http://math.math.unipa.it/~grim/ELastaria221-230.PDF. The same page seems to be the reference for all of the deleted content as well. I don't know what mathematical incongruencies you're referring to. Can you be more specific? Equestrian.sen (talk) 13:57, 7 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
If that is so then what are you waiting for? Talk pages are not to convince me that I am a lazy bum, but to improve the article in question. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:19, 7 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
For a mathematician you have problems with comprehension. I was asking WTF is "F-structure" not what is F[A]. BTW, F is a functor. Normally the mapped object is denoted F(A). What is the special meaning of square brackets in F[A]? Staszek Lem (talk) 17:58, 7 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Also I wasted some time to figure out what is "category" and what is "collection". I linked the first term and removed mention of the second one as a useless tautology (if someone does not know what a bjiection is, I do not think he known what an "invertible function" is.). Staszek Lem (talk) 18:14, 7 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I think I know what the problem is. For an expert in the subject the text kinda makes sense, because he can connect the dots, fill the gaps, and ignore sloppiness. But the problem is that an expert basically does not need to read this article. A math-wikipedian has to read the article with the eyes of a newbie. For the same reason many prominent researchers are poor educators. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:56, 7 November 2018 (UTC) Reminds me an old joke. A professor at the blackboard: "And now it is evident that from (A) follows (B)." A student: "But why?" Professor freezes in deep thought and 10 minutes later: "Of course, this is completely evident!" Staszek Lem (talk) 19:01, 7 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Wikimath has an extremely powerful capability to wikilink each and every term and all "it is evident"s, so that the whole truth is traceable without reliance on trust in experts. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:01, 7 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
(1) Hubby56 (talk·contribs) writes in edit summary : "Please carefully study the references." - But the problem is there is no freaking references specifically cited to support your text. I am not going to peruse the whole set of treatises listed at the bottom. I left what is precisely said ion the listed " An invitation to Combinatorial Species" and removed dubious "clarification" in parentheses. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:12, 9 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
(3) What the heck is it supposed to mean : "Here the word bijection is used instead of isomorphism which is something invertible". (A) "is used" - by whom? (B) Why "instead of"? (3) most of all - start citing your source at last. This is not an exercise in math - wikipedia is an exercise of correctly summarizing sources. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:12, 9 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Staszek Lem makes many good points. The article does look not polished (e.g., the use of a strange notation) and this makes some logic unclear in some places.
On the other hand, I don’t think “just delete the large materials” is a way to go: they don’t look “wrong” to me and are probably useful to the readers. Misleading or incorrect information must be removed; but otherwise, they don’t need to be deleted. Those materials still do need citations for the verification (that what looks correct is indeed correct) but also for the purpose of providing further information.
I am so happy the article is back as before. Many thanks to all contributors.
Secondly, attacking a user is forbidden by Wikipedia - see NPA (it is not about the productivity). However, Wikipedia recommends tolerance.Hubby56 (talk) 07:30, 2 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
No they do not look "wrong". And THAT's the major problem with it: it looks like a mathematical gobbledygook when you try to figure out what exactly it means. I did try to fix some simple sloppiness which I figured out myself, only to be confronted with a weird edit summary "The bijections here are not wikipedia bijections" from this Hubby guy. Articles like this one are a great disservice for Wikipedia. In terms of losing information: no, my deletions do not lead to information loss, because there are references to original texts. What was lost with my deletion is something that at times makes no sense. To make sense you have to look into references, but then who needs wikipedia? Staszek Lem (talk) 23:45, 31 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Since I started talking the talk, let me talk about " we don’t need a ref for 1+1 =2" . First of all, this edit summary is a red herring. No we dont need ref for 1+1=2. Yes we need refs for advanced math stuff. This was discussed several times in context of various statistics wikipedians trying to compile themselves invoking "1+1" or "2x2" arguments, and always concluded that everything above basic math and immediate logical inferences does require refs. Of course, it does not mean that every "it follows that" needs a footnote. If you summarize a proof of a theorem, you can have the ref to the whole proof. Of course in proofs you always see "it follows that" or "it is evident" and you have to be an expert to follow what follows and fathom the evident. But here you are at a good will of a wikipedian who may or may not clarify the "evident" further. But in any case you are to be supplied with the ref which basically says "this is evident for an expert". Wikipedia is written for a layman, even if with math background. An expert in combinatorial species will not read our article (heck, he will not even write it :-). Therefore if I say "cn", "cn" it is, and don't "1+1" me. Staszek Lem (talk) 23:45, 31 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
If some materials don’t make sense, they need to be deleted (we do that deletion routinely). I don’t think that’s the case here: overall, the deleted material didn’t look garbage. I myself some noticed some sloppiness. But that argues for improvement not deletion.
I don’t understand what type of references or citations you are looking for, probably because I don’t know your history with math articles. Maybe the difference between us is this: I accept that each Wikipedia article is not equal in terms of accessibility. This article is probably not accessible without some rudimentary background in category theory, but that’s a kind of point since the idea of the concept is to use category theory to simplify some combinatoric proofs and arguments. In other words, category theory in the context of this article is considered as “1+1”, the background knowledge. (But please note I simply added a proof at the footnote since it’s short.) —- Taku (talk) 01:30, 1 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
OK Let take a look at this piece:
"Because a bijection exists between two finite sets if and only if the two sets have the same cardinality or the number of elements, for each finite set A, the cardinality of , which is finite, depends only on the cardinality of A. (This follows from the formal definition of a functor) In particular, the exponential generating series.... can be defined"
"cardinality or the number of elements" - tautology for complete dummies
"Because a bijection exists between two finite sets if and only if the two sets have the same cardinality" - triviality
"for each finite", "which is finite" - redundancy
And now BAMMM, this "combinatorics for dummies" is followed with "This follows from the formal definition" - really? Either keep the same level of detail, or just delete all reasoning, leaving the conclusion.
"In particular, " -- In particular???? How is that?? It took me some time that this piece of text was twisted outside in. The correct sequence of "least astonishment" should be: "Therefore one may define as the cardinality of for any set A having n elements. In particular, this allows us to define, e.g., the exponential generating series as follows: ..."
"generating series F(x) of a species F" - heck no. It is a generating series for the sequence of cardinalities of F[n]. I just happen to know that generating functions are used to generate numbers of graphs with particular properties as a function of number of graph vertices. But what's up in this article? This article says "analysing discrete structures in terms of generating functions" - and says nothing how and why.
Sorry, but you’re failing to make a point. If you think the writing can be improved, then be my guess and just go ahead edit the article yourself. You have claimed the solution is deletion, which I (and the rest of the editors) disagree. “I am reading it like walking a mine field.”. Fair enough, so what do you propose? -- Taku (talk) 21:19, 2 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I am making a point. I cannot rewrite a text in an area where I am not an expert when there are no references. If you don't understand this, God help you. I do not care whether you agree or disagree: if there are no references for a reasonable amount of time, the text is gone. Period. I wasted an inordinate amount of time in this shit already to demonstrate that the person who wrote this has a limited understanding of the subject, to put it politely, and hence cannot be trusted. Staszek Lem (talk) 21:51, 2 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
But there is a reference (and more can be added). Again, we don’t delete the text just because the writing can be improved (I suppose there is some unevenness in details but that’s not the argument for the deletion). Writing polished math text takes time and many texts in math articles in Wikipedo do have “walking in a mine field” issue. But we don’t delete the texts; we let them be improved. Also, in Wikipedia, you don’t demonstrate if the person can be trusted or not. That’s not how it works: we simply follow the references. And if you believe if there is a point where the article deviates from the references, you have to point it out. —- Taku (talk) 22:00, 2 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
You might say you can’t follow the reference yourself (because you lack expertise). Then let those who have requisite background to do checking. I myself do this all the time (and often need to change the text). I ask again: I’m not saying your complain completely lacks merit; but you need to propose concrete steps that can be taken and what are they? —- Taku (talk) 22:27, 2 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
we don’t delete the text just because the writing can be improved What's with your reading comprehension? I deleted sections when there were no references. in Wikipedia, you don’t demonstrate if the person can be trusted or not... - Yes we do exercise editorial judgement all the time. we simply follow the references - here you go again. WHAT FREAKING REFERENCES are you talking about? If you are talking about a bunch of external links at the bottom, readers can do the same and read original unadulterated information. It is my editorial judgement that it will be better that to push something untrusted down their throat. It is my editorial judgement that it is better to nuke it and rewrite from scratch than to double-check each and every word in a mathematical text written by someone with limited skills. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:51, 2 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I myself do this all the time and I do it all the time as well. Also, I add tags and wait for a reasonable time. If nobody gives a shit I nuke it. Ans sometimes then the hell of a drama breaks out. Well, if massive deletion of text is the only thing that brings attention to it, well, you've just reinforced my editing habit. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:57, 2 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
No, this is not *your* article. I’m happy to try but I *don’t need* to convince you. Of course, there has to be an editorial judgment but who has decided it is yours and only yours? We let editors who can judge the article judge it; those who have requisite backgrounds. If you have a doubt on my expertise, I’m happy to ask for the other math editors to weight in too. Also note https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/species mentions this Wikipedia article as a further reading, which suggests the materials in this article are generally considered good and ok (I and probably they didn’t check all the details so we’re talking about overall correctness). To put politely, “I nuke it” who gave you the right... —- Taku (talk) 23:04, 2 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
“I nuke it” who gave you the right - I am sick of repeating again and again here: wikipedia policy and tradition give me the right to nuke it if for a reasonable time the tagged unreferenced text does not get referenced. You the editor since 2003????? who would have thought that? No more talking to you buddy if for 15 years you did not ken the most basic wikipedia policy. Good bye. Staszek Lem (talk) 23:17, 2 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Because "unreferenced tag" is wrong here; there is a reference. Not enough *inline* ref, you meant? I have added a few and again anyone can add more; again not the ground for the deletion. I can agree to have a poll here to see there is a consensus for the deletion of the materials; but it is not *your decision* to make (since this is not your article). I have weighted-in because the previous deletion of the materials was wrong and need to be undone. (For the record, as I said in the beginning, some parts of the texts still need to be rewritten for readability and have more inline refs.) -- Taku (talk) 23:27, 2 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I removed this page from my watchlist, no need to argue with me any more. good luck with sloppy math. Staszek Lem (talk) 00:05, 3 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Combinatorics is a domain that was not formalized like other mathematics branches. I am afraid that some expectations of non-sloppyness will never be accomplished as would be for others subjects.Hubby56 (talk) 08:27, 3 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]