User talk:Dan Polansky

 Hello and Welcome to Wikiversity Dan Polansky! You can contact us with questions at the colloquium or me personally when you need help. Please remember to sign and date your finished comments when participating in discussions. The signature icon above the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy, Civility, and the Terms of Use policies while at Wikiversity.

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You do not need to be an educator to edit. You only need to be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage. See you around Wikiversity! --Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 13:12, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

COVID-19
Thank you Dan for the support and contribution to the COVID-19 learning resources. I appreciate your contributions very much. Would like to coordinate collaborative effort a bit due to the dynamic change of COVID-19 situation globally. Is there a specific subpage (not user-page) that is content driven, that you would like to add you expertise e.g. Data Analysis?. Shall we revise the structure to be more user-friendly for finding specific learning resources? Best regards, Bert --Bert Niehaus (discuss • contribs) 13:10, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you. As for Wikiversity, I really do not know how things are working here. I have encouraged another editor to create COVID-19/Julian Mendez, which is original research and is super interesting. However, I have not reviewed the material much, just had a superficial glance. On the surface, the thinking is good: it emphasizes time lag of detection of a rapidly exponentially increasing phenomenon.
 * Since Wikiversity allows original research, it presents a unique opportunity for material like COVID-19/Julian Mendez. My experience from data analysis is somewhat limited; I have a pretty strong mathematical background, so I know that the derivative of a^x is ln a * a^x, and that gives a super scary light on the covid thing, how both totals and daily increases have the same base of exponential growth until mitigated, whether cases or deaths.
 * I probably do not have the energy to coordinate efforts and I have no improvement proposals on COVID-19 structure and content. I am wondering when I am finally going to run out of gumption. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 13:38, 17 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Thank you, no worries. Exponential growth might not be the appropriate mathematical model to describe the development of COVID-19 or an epidemiological outbreak in general, because developement of count has limits of growth e.g. the total population on earth. So logistical growth with a capacity is more likely to describe the development. Currently in the early phase the data shows an exponential pattern but closer to the capacity the derivation gets smaller and closer to zero. The question is, what is the capacity of the logistical growth. Best regards, Bert --Bert Niehaus (discuss • contribs) 14:24, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The initial phase is exponential, and this is easily empirically verified by observing the straight lines in the graphs with logarithmic y-axis, but it is true that once factors limiting the growth set in, it ceases to be exponential. Without intervention/mitigation, starting to run out of people to infect is the main limiting factor of the exponential growth, from what I can see. However, this is where we do not want to get since that becomes numerically significant only after, say, 10% of the population gets infected, and luckily enough, hardly any country has come close to that degree. And this would be an interesting mathematical/epidemiological assignment for a classroom: determine at which degree of population penetration an unmitigated infection growth ceases significantly to be exponential, for some value of "significantly". That would need to assume some model of spread; I was thinking of molecules in a gas hitting one another, but the social phenomenon may look much different because of non-Gaussian distribution of "influencers", as it were; there would be some people who have hugely many contacts and targetting them specifically for isolation could make huge difference, and you do not get that in a gas, I suppose. But the gas model need not be so bad to get a very first idea, and isolating "influencers" would not need to suffice at all. I don't really know, but I do maintain that the virus growth is in an exponential phase and, unless mitigated, would stay in the exponential phase in the coming weeks in most countries that would not do mitigation. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 16:40, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * For reference, I keep on expanding the following pages: COVID-19/Dan Polansky and Talk:COVID-19/Dan Polansky. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 12:39, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Late retraction: As for "The initial phase is exponential, and this is easily empirically verified by observing the straight lines in the graphs with logarithmic y-axis, but it is true that once factors limiting the growth set in, it ceases to be exponential": that is wrong or misleading; while the confirmed cases were indeed originally growing exponentially, the observed rate of exponential growth was due to exponential growth in number of tests, as is confirmed by observing test positivity rate and observing the rate of growth of tests. The true infection count could either be initially growing exponentially at hugely slower rate than the nominal confirmed cases, or they were growing according to Gompertz curve (see research by Michael Levitt) and therefore never growing exponentially. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 07:28, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Effiency of Lock Down
thank you for adding that important topic, to COVID-19 learning resource, Best regards, Bert --Bert Niehaus (discuss • contribs) 14:13, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Transgenderism
I am experimenting with the following page: User:Dan Polansky/Transgenderism. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 09:48, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

COVID-19 Data
Is the COVID-19 data you've added available in Wikidata? It would be better to have the data there and query it rather than saved as pages here. As Wikidata, anyone could query it in any language and for any Wikimedia project. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 22:33, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Not that I know of. I see your point with cross-wiki query and avoidance of duplication of storage. On the other hand, storing comma-separated lists of values directly in the wiki markup is very simple and convenient, and one can very easily take that and calculate e.g. moving averages from that. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 07:13, 15 August 2020 (UTC)


 * This gets a little tricky, because Wikiversity does not duplicate other Wikimedia projects. I haven't done a large data import and query like this, but I'm willing to try one and see if I can produce the same results using the preferred structure. Is there a particular page and data set you would recommend as a starting point? -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 12:47, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
 * You may try COVID-19/All-cause deaths/London if you wish; it uses sources different from the other pages. Let me note that I am not very enthusiastic; I am afraid of making simple things more complex at just a little benefit. If, say, I will want to update the London data as I did today, instead of doing something utterly simple and straightforward I will either need to ask you for help or learn about Wikidata imports myself. The loss of personal productivity is likely to be non-trivial and may be a showstoper for me; instead of updating London, I would then do something more straightfoward. And when I learn how to do Wikidata and someone else wants to update London, it is now them who has to learn Wikidata.
 * What would be really useful would be to update the charting add-in in Wikiversity to be on par with Wikipedia: in Wikipedia, it produces raster images whereas in Wikiversity, it produces some kind of semi-live object that seems to take longer to load. (I misspoke; the thing produced in Wikiversity is a PNG image as well; it does not have antialised fonts in the x-axis when the labels are at angle. Wikipedia seems more up to date with the add-in.) --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 14:03, 15 August 2020 (UTC)


 * I've updated Module:Graph. If that's not it, you'll need to be more specific as to what is more current at Wikipedia so it can be imported. You can also request imports yourself at Import. Thanks! -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 23:17, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you! It did not help: the x-axis fonts are still not antialiased and there is still a change to red color on mouseover over the blue line. Module:Graph is only a layer over the extension itself (Extension:Graph), and maybe the extension needs an update. Theoretically, Template:Graph:Chart might need an update as well. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 06:28, 16 August 2020 (UTC)


 * See Special:Version. Extension:Graph appears to be current. I checked the dates on Template:Graph:Chart initially and it was also current. I'm happy to import whatever we need to update, but I'll need your help to find whatever that might be. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 13:43, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
 * (Outdent) Let me double check:
 * Per Special:Version, Extension:Graph: Wikiversity: (9e762ac) 06:27, 6 August 2020; Wikipedia: (9e762ac) 06:27, 6 August 2020
 * Module:Graph, textual comparison between WV and WP: same
 * Template:Graph:Chart, textual comparison between WV and WP: same
 * Template:Graph:Chart/styles.css, textual comparison between WV and WP: same except for a comment line, immaterial
 * Raw test of the JSON markup in User:Dan Polansky/sandbox: no x-axis antialiasing
 * Could there be a relevant setting at LocalSettings.php? Mediawiki's Extension talk:Graph mentions $wgGraphImgServiceUrl, so something like that. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 06:34, 17 August 2020 (UTC)


 * At this point, the best option would be to file a ticket and see if one of the developers can identify the problem. We can't make php setting changes, so the ticket will be necessary anyway. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 13:26, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
 * It seems that on Wikiversity, the charts are made using canvas element, and they are plotted by the client browser via Javascript. By contrast, the English Wikipedia seems to be customized to have a server backend generate the PNG images for the charts so the client browser does not have to do any plotting, showin an img element instead. One consequence is that Wikipedia charts show fine on older devices whose browsers do not support canvas element. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 07:14, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Original research
For my reference: --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 18:26, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Original research
 * "Original research which meets the guidelines of this policy is permitted on Wikiversity. Researchers devoted to scholarly investigation using sound, ethical methods are encouraged to develop and disseminate their work via Wikiversity. Wikiversity may also provide a useful forum for formal peer review."

Also at:
 * What is Wikiversity?

However:
 * Scope
 * "The other kind of research is wiki-based original research. It is not yet clear that this will be part of the Wikiversity. If the Wikiversity community decides to support original research, it will have to develop a specific set of policies to support such research activities."

It seems Wikiversity:Scope needs an update to match the other pages. Alternatively, the page could be marked as archived and of historical interest only to ease maintenance burden of pages with overlapping scopes. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 06:38, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Your wikidebates on the Wikidebate homepage
Hi Dan! First, I'm amazed by the amount and quality of the debates, arguments and objections you produced last year. To be honest I didn't notice until recently, because I monitor activity from the recent changes in the Wikidebate homepage, but only changes to pages listed in the homepage are shown, so changes to your debates didn't show. Until now! I just added all of your debates to the homepage, so that should increase their visibility as well as the changes and additions done to them. Anyway, just thought you'd like to know. Again, amazing work, in the name of everyone who will be inspired, educated or interested by them, thanks! Sophivorus (discuss • contribs) 00:24, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
 * It is very kind of you to say so and to increase the visibility of my work. Thank you very much. Last year, I was extremely enthusiastic about the debate format, as if possessed and driven by the ultimate spirit ("enthusiasm"). The debate format makes me a more honest thinker, being more ready to deal with the opposing arguments seriously. As a result of that enthusiasm, I tried to use the format and push it as far as I was able to, and I am planning to do more this year. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 06:15, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Would you like me to delete "Is sharing personal images of oneself on social media a right that must be protected?"
Would you like me to delete "Is sharing personal images of oneself on social media a right that must be protected?" ? -- Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 15:36, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
 * You may delete the page if you wish, if you ask me. Nonetheless, for me, a redirect is as good as a deletion. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 17:59, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

A little praise to mathematics
(A blog post.)

I heard the following two-line conversation between a German mathematician F. and a Chinese colleague Y.: What the above means is that in mathematics one learns to think in a certain way that leads to increased care about accuracy (true or false) and precision (broad or narrow concept) of one's formulation, of one's choice of words and concepts, etc. One rejects the so-called interpretation by which the interpreter is allowed to add words and modify words in a sentence and thereby as if interpret it. A genuine interpretation is the assignment of plain-meaning semantics to words, phrases, clauses and sentences; or there is also a genuine metaphorical interpretation; but adding words that the formulator forgot to state is no interpretation proper. The notion seems plausible enough.
 * Y: F., where have you learned to speak German so well?
 * F: In mathematics.

I further heard F. say: That, clearly, is a hyperbole; anything refers to intellectual and cognitive endeavors, not, say, dancing or ice-skating. And not all cognitive enterprises can probably be penetrated or conquered (two different metaphors, but both metaphors) with the use of the tools of mathematics by any mathematician given his or her talent. But the general tenor stands: a freshly graduated mathematician has enough talent (innate gift) to practice mathematics and other rigorous thought, and enough tools of mathematics (cultural gifts or artifacts) to practice rigorous thought with. What a beautifully simple answer to point to a powerful idea.
 * A freshly graduated mathematician is someone who knows nothing and can learn anything.

As an aside, Y is a female and nominally did not contribute anything to the statements revealed. And yet, without her, F. would have never said the statement to the effect of, I learned to speak German well in mathematics. What Y did is what could possibly be a contribution more typical of females than males, namely asking questions and eliciting answers from males. One only has to think of the popular Slovak TV presenter Adela Banášová/Vinczeová and notice the remarkable talent for asking questions, quite possibly a typically feminine tool or weapon (both metaphors; what is the non-metaphor? Anyone?) However, this stereotyping of what is feminine requires a proper formal verification, and remains on the level of unproven hypothesis.

On a vaguely related note, I heard an Equador-American colleague J. say something like the following: I did not fully appreciate the value of this back then, but I am starting to see ever better what he had in mind. The relation of mathematics to literalism is that, in a sense, tools of mathematics as tools of description are even more literalist or explicitist than the tools of non-mathematical formal language.
 * J: When one properly masters the literal tools of language, one can better appreciate the metaphorical tools.

That was today's little Chautauqua, "to edify and entertain, improve the mind and bring culture and enlightenment to the ears and thoughts of the hearer." (Greetings to Pirsig, a master of the phrase, formulation and metaphor.) --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 10:06, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Talk:Transgenderism - Polansky
Hello, I just want you to know that there is a discussion about a page that you made. Please join the discussion if possible. MathXplore (discuss • contribs) 05:14, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Ethics of infanticide
In a preparation for a debate elsewhere, trying to avoid overburdening that debate, I will collect some reasoning concerning the topic of "ethics of infanticide". It relates to the question whether a debate like Should infanticide be legal? should be allowed.

My contentions are the following: --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 12:31, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * 1) "Ethics of infanticide" is a recognized academic subject, per https://philpapers.org/browse/infanticide.
 * 2) The topic is of academic interest only in so far as some hold that infanticide is sometimes legitimate, or that arguments for that position should be explored even if one disagrees with the arguments.
 * 3) One should not fool oneself into thinking that ethics is a nice and palatable subject. From my experience, a serious examination of the field of ethics leads to examining highly unpalatable questions, propositions and arguments.
 * 4) Example academic article: Dutch Protocols for Deliberately Ending the Life of Newborns: A Defence, philpapers.org
 * 5) It is not clear why the debate format with arguments for and arguments against, with objections raised against arguments and objections raised against objections, is necessarily a worse or morally more objectionable format than a philosophical monologue in an article like Ethics of infanticide.

Ability of editors to reach decisions via votes
The English Wikiversity does seem to have enough editors able to make decisions via votes: --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 06:46, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Candidates for Custodianship/Koavf 2

Deletion of Lexical unit
Lexical unit has been nominated for deletion. Are you OK with that? Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 22:55, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
 * @User:Guy vandegrift: Thank you for notifying me so that I can respond. In this case, I defer to other editors since: on the one hand, the page contains a minimum usable content: a definition and a good further reading, which is more than may non-deleted pages can say; on the other hand, the content is so small, is not an article but something very stubby, that it seems rational enough for the project to want to delete the page. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 04:22, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Debates on policies of other Wikimedia projects
You've recently created the following debates regarding policy decisions on other Wikimedia projects:


 * Should Wiktionary avoid use of straw polls?
 * Should Wikipedia essays be moved out of Wikipedia namespace?
 * Should Wiktionary user signatures be required to be unadorned default?
 * Should Wiktionary votes cast be required to have a rationale?
 * Should Wiktionary avoid indefinite blocks of productive users?
 * Should Wiktionary have entries for inflected forms?
 * Should Wiktionary require that all its information artifacts are sourced from reliable sources?
 * Should Wiktionary use images?
 * Is 60 percent a good threshold for Wikipedia consensus?
 * Is Wikipedia consensus process good?

I'm concerned about these debates for two primary reasons:


 * 1) It's not clear that these policies involve topics which are within the educational scope of Wikiversity.
 * 2) Posting these debates here, rather than on the relevant project wikis, could be seen as an attempt by Wikiversity to interfere with policy discussions on those projects. For historical reasons, this is a sensitive issue.

The latter is particularly troubling given your current block on the English Wiktionary.

Omphalographer (discuss • contribs) 22:16, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I read the above message and gave it some thought. I fail to see a serious problem, although some doubt is perhaps in order.
 * As for the linked Wikiversity:Community Review/Wikimedia Ethics:Ethical Breaching Experiments, the page documents some 2010 affair. I find the page and its subpages confusing; in any case, I am left confused. It must have been some very serious matter since there, Jimbo Wales threatened to close Wikiversity. Here is an old revision, as a single page.
 * If administrators see a problem, let me know, and let us determine whether some of the debates need to be deleted and why. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 07:51, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Re. Game Duenix for Amiga computers
Are you the author of this game, or do you have any evidence that this game was released by its author under a free license? While it may have been freely distributed during its lifetime in the 1990s, we would need an explicit release by the author under CC-BY-SA or a compatible license to host it as a learning resource on Wikiversity. Omphalographer (discuss • contribs) 18:51, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I am the author. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 19:03, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Oh, neat! Never mind then. :) Omphalographer (discuss • contribs) 19:12, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Wikidebate stuff
You've undone three of my contributions now. Why? You seem sore about something. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 14:34, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I hate to do it since it feels like censorship and I hate censorship, but it seems appropriate. I always try to explain in the edit summary what I am doing and why. I propose we discuss individual cases on the talk page of the respective debates, which seems to be the proper venue. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 14:37, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

I read with great speed but my accuracy is sometimes off
My obsession with getting students to write essays on caused me to think "Wikiversity" when I looked at "Wikipedia" in your title: When I skimmed "Should Wikipedia essays be moved out of Wikipedia namespace?. Nothing I said is relevant to your actual question. OOPS! Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 22:57, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Check redirect
Dan, when I processed Creating Examples of possible additional questions to ask the citrus grower, I almost made the same mistake I often made: This page had no meaning until on realizes that it was a question asked in a (medium to low quality) page on Graphic Design. In this hypothetical case, a graphic designer is working for a Citrus Growers Organization. At some point in our joint procedure, we need to check what links here.Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 15:19, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Apologies for any confusion. I now checked Special:WhatLinksHere/Examples_of_possible_additional_questions_to_ask_the_citrus_grower and it is only linked from Wikiversity talk:Stubs; was it previously linked from somewhere else? I see the page is now at Graphic Design/Design Process/Problem Definition/Examples of possible additional questions to ask the citrus grower, but Special:WhatLinksHere/Graphic_Design/Design_Process/Problem_Definition/Examples_of_possible_additional_questions_to_ask_the_citrus_grower finds nothing, so how is the page used, given nothing seems to refer to it? Thanks. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 15:23, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I need to pay attention better: we are talking redirect. To avoid further confusion, I now substed the page at Graphic Design/Design Process/Problem Definition and renominated for deletion: I see no reason for a separate, deeply nested page. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 15:30, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Copy-pasting was a good move.Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 15:34, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

On a slightly different topic: On the Colloquium you proposed changes to Deletions. I tried and failed to launch a focused discussion among a critical mass of active editors with Deletion Convention 2024. It's not that we have no active and competent editors, but that they are all busy with other projects and not very interested. You (with my help) are making radical changes in our policy. I know that because we are deleting/moving custodians, curators, and bureaucrats have edited in the past. For that reason, my guiding principle is that everything we do must be easily reversed. Moving pages to userspace and Draft:Archive accomplishes that to my satisfaction. As I go through the actual page-moves, I seem to prefer moving to userspace when there is an unambiguous single author. I like to put a on pages I (we) need to think about. Is that OK with you?--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 15:47, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I am generally happy with your manner of procedure. Where there is disagreement, we have a debate, and that's fine.
 * About : I find preferable over, but the latter is okay: it defers the deletion by multiple months, but that is tolerable. I think that deferral is usually not ideal, especially for pages that have not been created recently, but it does the work eventually. For freshly created pages, {{tlx|prod} pages sense, as in, give authors chance to expand their material; but then, moving to Draft: would also work, since the author could expand the material there and when it is more than sub-minimal, move it back to mainspace.
 * About me "making radical changes in our policy", I follow WV:Deletions and its phrase "learning outcomes are scarce". So I do not see changes to policy. My nominations may deviate from recent practice in that I am applying WV:Deletions more rigorously than has before been the case. But then, a page with almost no statements and almost no further reading meets "learning outcomes are scarce", has no saving graces, and should IMHO be moved out of mainspace. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 16:19, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Striking your words and creating space for voting
It was late when I struck your words regarding my motive for creating Draft:Archive. I struck it because I thought it misrepresented something only I can know, which is my motive for doing something. But it turns out that your words were correct (I often misread statements to be the opposite of what they actually say.)...Now about voting space: I delete/move lots of pages, and I need to see a summary of where the community currently stands on each page. For me, it is better if people deleted old votes and wrote in new votes (that magic word "consensus" can only become reality if people change their "votes".) On the other hand, I think we agree that "discussion space" is a place where the record needs to be kept (without modifications.)  To me, "discussion space" is like a loud bar or restaurant where people are talking simultaneously. I need quick summaries of where people currently stand so I can decide when to delete/move and when to close the discussion. Feel free to express your discontent, because it is essential that all those who wish to change these rules are free to express their discontent. If another person (or persons) shares your dissatisfaction with the "voting space" rules, we can and should hold a discussion on the topic....One more thing: I recently extended to requested maximum length for the "voting" section two allow for more nuanced positions. Maybe that will help. If you want, I can create a sub-sub section (with an extra = sign) with each person's name, so you can have more space to express your "final" position. Would that help? --Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 09:03, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The English Wikipedia and the English Wiktionary succeed in administering WP:AFD/WT:RFD without dedicated vote sections in their processes. I don't see why the English Wikiversity should not succeed in doing the same, provided editors learn to state e.g. keep, delete, leaning to keep, leaning to delete, etc. in boldface as part of their discussion contributions to make consensus determination easier. I think it key to emphasize the role of the strength of the argument standing in contrast to purely numerical consensus, and to allow something like the conjectures and refutations process, which can only work if refutations are allowed. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 17:51, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * You ask why Wikiversity "should not (avoid a voting section)", the question is whether we "want to avoid a voting section. That is how we did things in the past (see special:permalink/2612760.) Why would I want to change?--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 22:30, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I am saying that specifically RFD should not have a "Voting" section (whereas your link is to Wikiversity talk:Drafts); it should be more like WP:AFD and WT:RFD. And if it has a voting section, responses to those "votes" should be allowed. That is not to say that there should be no element of voting in RFD, but rather that it should be a discussion in which vote positions are indicated via boldface. These "shoulds" represent my views and I recognize others do not need to agree, and my views may not necessarily prevail. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 07:25, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
 * To add clarity to my position: I have no qualms at all about how Requests_for_Deletion is proceeding: people are posting their rationales and boldface stances/positions, but there is no separate heading "Voting". I do like that it is easy to determine numerical consensus from the boldface stances/positions. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 11:00, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I like that idea. It makes it easier to change your "vote": Simply unbold the old and boldface the new.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 04:18, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Google abandoned simple HTML version of Gmail
(A blog post.) The simple HTML version of Gmail loaded instantly, was a pleasure to use and the visual design including colors looked great. The "new and improved" (not!) version takes several seconds to load and is rather displeasing. Oh well. One can read more in various online magazines. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 13:11, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Alternative to dewikifying categories
I noticed that you are removing "what links here" by removing category statements and such. That is a good thing to do, but I was wondering if there is a better way to do it. What if we put a backup copy into the history by copy/deleting the page, hitting "save" and then pasting the wikitext on the blank page. Then we get a bot to replace all instances of ]] and }} by ]*] and }*}. Some of the text will be corrupted, but the reader can just open the history and see the uncorrupted form. I don't know much about bots, but perhaps the bot could also do the copy paste to create the uncorrupted version at the top of the history.

I added a search feature on Draft:Archive so that people could search the top (corrupted page) and would see enough to know whether they want to go into the history to read an uncorrupted version.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 12:10, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I only commented out category markup, thereby removing the page from the categories (diff). I am not clear about why removing links and templates is in general necessary. Links to Wikipedia do not even appear in "what links here" of anything, AFAIK, so deactivating them seems even less useful than deactivating links within Wikiversity. Looking e.g. at Draft:Archive/2024/Openness, the page now appears sort of broken; is this worth the objective of deactivating the links and template usage? --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 07:51, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Upon reflection, I agree that there is no immediate need to dewikify {"purge") anything. In the long run, the page count in mainspace will likely grow at a slower rate than the pagecount in draft-archive space (since it will be rare to take something out of the latter.)  There is a simple remedy: Each year, we purge one years worth of draft-archive, with that year being the current year minus X. In other words, if X=4, we purge 2024 pages in 2028. That should be more than enough to ensure that most of the pages you see on any given category are associated with mainspace (instead of draft-archive.) If and when draft-archive starts to clutter things up, people of the future can create bots to purge.  Organizing the pages in draft-archive space by year will facilitate these purges. Also, routine maintenance of categories will lead to purges of draft-archived pages as pages that don't belong in the category (I believe you mentioned something like that in the wikidebate.)--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 04:42, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Oh, and one more thing: The degradation of purged pages in draft-archive space is not a great problem because the reader can go into the history and find the page immediately after it was moved to draft-archive.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 04:49, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Speedy delete
Dan, please, don't delete my slowly moving stub. Janosabel (discuss • contribs) 16:36, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * The above is very likely in reference to page Decentralized education, which I originally marked for speedy deletion, but which is now in the 3-month-deferred deletion process. According to that process, the page will be deleted only after 3 months, and even then, it may be moved to user space rather than outright deleted. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 16:43, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Many thanks for the respite. Yes, my request did relate to that stub. Janosabel (discuss • contribs) 18:24, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

History of programming languages
Could you write an essay about the evolution from machine code to high-level programming languages? A history with some philosophical considerations? 62.235.226.186 (discuss) 20:27, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
 * It's kind of you to ask. I am afraid I have a dearth of interesting ideas on the subject. But let me try: they say in jest that C is a portable assembly. If one learns assembly, one will learn how far that statement is from truth, even metaphorically. The jocular statement can at best be accepted as a mnemonic pointing to the fact that a reader of C code has it easy to imagine how blocks of bytes are being manipulated and what kind of assembly instructions are being generated by the compiler. Thus, compared to assembly, even the relatively low-level C--created in the 1970s and rather old now--is a very high level language that gives the power to control the behavior of the universal computing/typographic-manipulation machine into the hands of the masses, who are not ready or willing to learn assembly. Python goes farther in that direction (power to the masses) by being very legible, coming with batteries included (great standard library), and making it very easy to install permissively licensed 3rd party libraries (e.g. "pip install numpy"), of which there are many.
 * The case of C makes it clear that the jump from assembly to a C-like language in its expressive power (C, procedural Pascal, procedural Basic, etc.) is a huge one (in bridging the gap between man and the machine), whereas the further jump to object-oriented languages is a much smaller one. To this day, C is one of the most important and widely used languages on the planet, used by operating system kernels, CPython, Git, Gtk and GIMP, etc. One would thus think that by 1970s, the most important programming language inventions were already made. However, I am only a single person with a limited experience and other people could persuasively argue that object-oriented programming is in fact a big deal, found in C++, Python and Java, which together with C dominate the Tiobe index. I do not deny the value of OOP in the domains where it is most fit for use, but it seems clear that the economic law of diminishing returns is at play and that the added value of procedural high-level programming over assembly is much larger than the added value of OOP. One could add managed runtimes (JVM, .NET) as a separate invention with a huge impact on reliability and cost reduction.
 * I am no expert on programming language history. I unfairly omitted FORTRAN, with which I have no experience. I do not know to what extent the early FORTRAN was procedural and structured or whether it resembled the 8-bit Basics with plentiful use of goto; I would have to check. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 07:42, 3 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Really I was speaking only half tongue-in-cheek. LISP is like nothing else, and it has a long history, dating back to the fifties. Give it a try if you haven't used it. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 18:52, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
 * If you want to create a writeup about why Lisp is better than Python or why you love Lisp, one option for you is to create it in User:AP295/Lisp (or "LISP" if you prefer), which will be linked from this thread, so the reader can continue to your writeup if he or she chooses. If prefer this thread to stay on topic. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 07:23, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I shall. You did remove remove some fairly relevant points that I made though. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 07:43, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I am not confident my removal was optimal, and in the past, I almost never did such a thing. On the other hand, I felt that your tendency to get off topic is bit too much. If you post to User:AP295/Lisp, User:AP295/LISP, User:AP295/Lisp vs. Python or the like, everyone will be able to read what you have to say, and the existence of the page will be advertised from this very thread. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 08:05, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Oh, Dan. Why are you so sour toward me? AP295 (discuss • contribs) 08:48, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I find the above unhelpful. I found something someone may find interesting:
 * A Critique of Common Lisp, 1984, dl.acm.org
 * Search term: criticism of lisp. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 11:08, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Woefully outdated. They are essentially complaining that implementers (circa 1984) were presuming upon the availability of competitively-priced lisp-machines - computers specifically designed to run lisp but weren't being made anymore - and therefore that lisp was too slow and memory hungry on contemporary hardware... in 1984. I think you will find that scheme and common lisp run just fine on your computer. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 11:43, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Anyone can now read your ideas about Lisp at User:AP295 (there is no section heading for Lisp there). To my mind, your text gets as opinionated and non-objective as it can get; a critical attitude toward what one writes seems completely absent. If I felt like it, I could write a debate like Is Lisp a good language? or Is Lisp the best language ever designed?, and while I know very little about Lisp, having only briefly programmed in Emacs Lisp, I think I could do a much better job by surface analysis and perusing at least some sources critical of Lisp. What must strike almost anyone upon first impression is the arguably bizarre/unnatural syntax of Lisp (e.g. all the brackets + prefix syntax), even if that syntax is charming in its own way and makes parsing Lisp source code extremely easy for computers. As another brief point, the malleability of Lisp via powerful macro system, which to my surface reading suggests something like massive creation of de facto dialects, is obviously a double-edged sword, not an unlimited desideratum. Arguing that Lisp has its unique charms that go unappreciated by many: fine; stating that "LISP is by far and away the most powerful, versatile, sensibly designed, simplest and most edifying type of programming language that has exists or ever will exist": patently absurd on the first impression. On the other hand, I could perhaps be convinced by an intelligent exposition by Edmund Weitz, a contributor to Common Lisp libraries and arguably an excellent mathematics expositor. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 12:02, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
 * So make your own critique. And FYI, CL and scheme support loops and other features (e.g. tail recursion) that allow you to avoid making recursive function calls when you want to. The parentheses look odd at first, I grant you that, but it's not hard to observe good style and you'll find it ends up being quite readable. Yes, python does have quite simple looking syntax. It has far more numerical libraries and tensor libraries, and generally a lot of modern tools needed for cutting edge research. This is partly at least because so many people use it. It has a good core library with a lot of useful things, but racket's (for example) is at least as good. Python is great compared to something like java or c++, at least for many purposes. I'm not saying it's bad or not useful. I just found it disappointing compared to lisp AP295 (discuss • contribs) 12:20, 13 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Have you actually used it, Dan? Don't knock it until you've used it for something non-trivial. Yes, my paragraph is just an assertion. I might finish it some other time. That's why I put it away in the junk box on my userpage. I have less experience with common lisp than racket and scheme, which differ in some places e.g. in their macros, loop syntax, etc. but at any rate I don't give my opinion without giving something a chance first. And lastly, I am critical exactly when I have something to criticize. Most of my contributions could be called critique. Critique that I don't see very many people making. If there isn't a lot of criticism in my contribution, it's not because I am uninclined to be critical. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 12:50, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I'll bite, though I may be sorry later. How did it happen that Python acquired all those libraries? The authors of e.g. numpy could have written numpy e.g. for Perl, couldn't they? The answer available to surface analysis is this: because Python has exceedingly legible core syntax (acknowledged e.g. by Eric Reymond), and other good things going for it. There were times when Perl was more popular and had more libraries than Python; the snowball/network-effect argument (the more users a language has, the more it will get) fails to explain how Python managed to overtake Perl. Also, since Python is so much slower than C, how did the slow Python manage to find its niche? And since enough people had exposure to Lisp (in Emacs, in AutoCAD I think, etc.), why did not Lisp acquire a larger following?
 * All the leaders of Tiobe index (C, C++, Java and Python) have a lot of going for them (even the so often hated C++), and have my respect. People and markets are not all that stupid. It is not all just network effects, burden of history or marketing. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 13:07, 13 May 2024 (UTC)


 * I don't know why it does not have a larger following. If you want me to speculate, I'll also bite. Many people would probably find any declarative language a bit unusual at first. Declarative/functional languages don't really let you copy and paste code without understanding the problem. I've seen many students who try this with java and make a sort-of working program without really learning anything. The prussian model of education does not teach people to think critically or abstractly. Students take orders and learn by example. Corporations push their own product like java and matlab upon the education system. Imperative style programming suits this system just fine. Declarative languages require a bit more thought to use, but they're no harder once you have some experience.  AP295 (discuss • contribs) 13:35, 13 May 2024 (UTC)


 * In other words, I speculate that imperative languages are somewhat more compatible with the prussian model and generally the system used to psychologically control and extract value from the public. I'll ask you a question now. Why is lisp still kicking after nearly seventy years? That would be kind of odd if there weren't something to it, no?  AP295 (discuss • contribs) 13:46, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I shall try to stop responding now to the above absurdities. This thread has too many low-quality posts from you and I am in part guilty for failing to stop responding sooner. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 13:56, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
 * There's nothing absurd about it. The prussian model was intended to produce good workers and soldiers. People who followed instructions and carried them out. That is what people learn to do right up to college. Imperative programming jibes with this general idiom. Processors do the same thing, they follow instructions. Imperative languages follow naturally, but to abstract any further would not suit this system very well. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 14:07, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
 * You can throw your hands up and call it absurd but that's no different from just ignoring my reply, except that for some reason you feel the need to cast doubt upon it without actually addressing the point. "I am in part guilty for failing to stop responding sooner." We're not in a courthouse. No need for such melodrama. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 14:18, 13 May 2024 (UTC)


 * I was going to let the above be my last point, but I'll address one more thing. "As another brief point, the malleability of Lisp via powerful macro system, which to my surface reading suggests something like massive creation of de facto dialects, is obviously a double-edged sword, not an unlimited desideratum. " Pray tell, how is that at all a bad thing? I've seen this assertion before but it makes little sense. There are lots of different programming languages in general, people create new ones all the time. You don't even have to use macros at all. I didn't use very many. Are you trying to say that a functional macro system is somehow more problematic or dangerous than C's macros? AP295 (discuss • contribs) 13:03, 13 May 2024 (UTC)


 * "COMMON LISP requires a large computer memory. To support only the function names and keyword names alone requires many kilobytes."

Edifying fields of study
In your view, which disciplines / intellectual activities are the most edifying / mind-sharpening? Computer programming, mathematics, writing, learning to play a musical instrument, something else? 62.235.226.186 (discuss) 21:02, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I play guitar, but I do not find it mind-sharpening. Other than that, I find all of computer programming, mathematics and writing mind-sharpening. Among them, computer programming is the only clearly Popperian/empirical-refutation teacher: one is being refuted again and again, one makes mistakes without being able to argue one's way out of them, one forms hypotheses and finds them corrected/refined by testing. By contrast, paper is very patient (as for math and writing) and mistakes in one's math or writing seem much easier to go undetected. On the other hand, computer programming in no way replaces doing math and writing; these activities require and develop skills that seem to be to a large extent complementary. Moreover, one can approach writing in a Popperian spirit: write hypotheses down and try to refute them or find arguments against them. And even if what one is writing down seems to be clearly true rather than conjectural, one can try to play the devil's advocate against one's position anyway. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 07:45, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

For literalism
A little joke in favor of reasonable literalism: metaphor is the mother of nonsense, hyperbole is the worst thing on the planet and personification is the Devil himself. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 12:12, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Programming Fundamental course restructure suggestion
I've opened a proposal in Colloquium for what we've discussed about the Programming Fundamentals course. Please join me in that discussion. --Anonymous Agent (discuss • contribs) 08:00, 10 June 2024 (UTC)