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Chronological is very visually confusing. Alphabetical will be easier to read but will remove information. I've considered grouping by mathematical speciality, but some mathematicians, especially ancients like Theano, are impossible to classify. I think I will expand the list alphabetically. Any suggestions for display? --Danger (talk) 02:19, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
I preferred the chronological listing, but I agree it needed something to make it clearer. Headings would help, but figuring how to divide up the time might be hard. I agree that speciality would be useful but difficult to impossible. Certainly your changes improved the article, but if we can think of a way to restore the "here are the ancient ones, and here are the contemporary ones" method of access, I think it would be good to try it. A table could be sortable, but I'm not sure it would be appropriate. JackSchmidt (talk) 04:01, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
Idun Reiten
What about Idun Reiten? Together with Maurice Auslander and others, she has worked out a representation theory for algebras, called the Auslander-Reiten Theory. I could have listed some of her prizes and so on, but I believe someone not studing at her university should look through it -- and not me. 193.71.104.85 (talk) 07:38, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
This is now done. I've noticed a certain bias too: Maurice Auslander is still a redlink. It seems that representation theorists like Dave Benson, Lluis Puig, Jonathon Alperin, etc. are still redlinks too. Hopefully this can be fixed too. JackSchmidt (talk) 04:05, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
Some names for you
I have to say that having a page purporting to list women mathematicians and then having the list be so short creates
an effect that is opposite to what you may be trying to
achieve: i.e., looking at this list someone might think
that there have been since antiquity only a small handful
of prominent female mathematicians. Of course this is not
true.
As a mathematician, I know plenty of eminent female mathematicians. I can give you some names. In fact though
it looks like no one has taken the trouble to go through
the list of mathematicians already on wikipedia and link
the women to this page. If no one wants to the work, maybe
the page should be temporarily deleted. Anyway:
Some of these are now done. I've marked them out with a strikeout. I've checked the others, and there do not seem to be articles on them. JackSchmidt (talk) 04:15, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
Bulletted and linked the list. All the best: RichFarmbrough, 16:50, 7 September 2014 (UTC).
Addition?
I would really like to see Nadine Kowalsky (1966-1996) added to this list, but perhaps she tragically died too young to have achieved sufficient fame. Also, note that she was pre-web, so Google is not a reliable indication of her notability. I do consider her a notable female mathematician; she really was quite extraordinary.--RandomHumanoid(⇒) 17:08, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Generally one has to give some reliable sources indicating her notability. Here is her Mathematical Reviewsauthor profile (2 publications, 28 citations, diff geo). JackSchmidt (talk) 04:17, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
Redlinks
I have removed all the redlink names from this page, Any name which meets the WP:N requirements can and should be added but this is not a place to add the name of every female mathematics graduate or college lecturer. Plutonium27 (talk) 12:07, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
Mileva Maric a mathematician?
I am unclear on what grounds Mileva Maric is included in this list of mathematicians. She failed the Zurich Polytechnic (now ETH) diploma for teaching physics and mathematics in 1900 with a very poor grade in the mathematics component (2.5 on a scale 1-6). She only improved her mathematics grade moderately (3.5 on a scale 1-6) when she retook the exam (which she again failed, without improving her overall grade average). Nor is there any known mathematical work by Maric beyond her Polytechnic studies. [Refs: Albert Einstein Collected Papers, vol 1, Doc. 67; J. Stachel, Einstein From B to Z (2002), p. 29.]
In my view, there is a danger of bringing the list into disrepute if dubious examples are included among otherwise well-merited entries. Esterson (talk) 09:56, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
Given the lack of any response to the above, I shall delete Mileva Maric from the list. Esterson (talk) 10:06, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Dubious?
I'm not sure how anyone can consider the claim that women are underrepresented in Mathematics as "dubious." Wikipedia's data here Mathematician#Doctoral_degree_statistics_for_mathematicians_in_the_United_States says that in 2000, 30% of doctoral recipients were female. Take also this article in Scientific American (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=women-tenured-science-professors) which says that as of 2003, 26.5 percent of assistant math professors and 9.7 percent of full professors are female (I assume this is also in the US). Consider also the William_Lowell_Putnam_Mathematical_Competition, the most prestigious undergraduate mathematics competition in the USA. Only three women have every been Putnam fellows (top five). And don't forget that the Fields Medal, the so-called "Nobel prize of mathematics" has never been given to a woman. Given the above, I have removed the "dubious" tag. Crito2161 (talk) 18:18, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
The claim is almost inherently subjective. The word "underrepresented" implies that women should be represented in Mathematics at some higher level than they are, but what determines the level at which women should be represented and why "should" they be represented at that level? Surely you would agree that a statement such as "Lawyers are underrepresented in Mathematics" would be ridiculous: what precisely makes the equivalent statement about women different in your opinion?JudahH (talk) 03:00, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
At the time of writing this, there are 123 names of female mathematicians mentioned in this article. A cursory glance of Wikipedia's numerous articles on the entire subject (of mathematicians) returns over 1,477 names of male mathematicians. There are likely very many more, but - as stated - it was a cursory glance. This difference of scope brings me to question why this page deserves its singularity; i.e., Why is there an article specifically for women mathematicians, when the overwhelming majority of mathematicians across the planet and throughout human history are/have been male? As mentioned by the previous writer: creating a separate article just for women and then proceeding to populate it with so few names has rather the opposite effect as was quite-likely intended. I don't mean to sound as if I am saying "If women have a specific page, men should too!" - that would be quite silly - but is it not equally silly (and by the same token) to create an entire Wikipedia article to the sole devotion of mathematicians of one gender? - to separate them from their colleagues, not because of notability or achievement, but simply because they possess certain genitalia? I do not see the issue with simply adding these names (of women) to the already-existing names of mathematicians (not idolised by gender). It seems to me the only reasonable separation that should exist in a list of mathematicians, would be based upon their particular fields of study (which Wikipedia has already done), or based upon the level of impact their work had in the world at large. User 12:21, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
Funnily enough, a field in Mathematics deals with categories and whether Women like Lawyers are underrepresented is a misleading question. Given it's a question about a specific demographic, not the overlap of career choices, the two items aren't equals. It's also not even a subjective term, you could work it out within margins of standard deviation to know if there is an upward or downward bias, or how the dynamic systems of human interaction can lead people with one trait towards the back-end of a distribution. The interpretation how the data could be used would be subjective, but a smaller quantity of mathematicians who are women would be evident. Without any context and only having magnitudes to compare I take the norm distribution as a percentage to be 44.5%-56.5 as heuristic, without any other other context the 30% of awards given would be a low value and would be worthy of looking into. 86.184.177.211 (talk)JulianSpade — Preceding undated comment added 19:41, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
female mathematicians vs. women mathematicians
Why is this list in "Category:Women mathematicians"? Shouldn't it be also "female mathematicians", or the worse option, the list to "List of women mathematicians"? I don't understand why those are not same. 85.217.41.106 (talk) 17:30, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
Good question; but I'm not a category person, so I don't feel qualified to answer. I'll try to find someone who does do categories. Tony(talk)
My criteria for choosing an image
In the hope of starting a constructive dialog, I will describe how I chose the image I added most recently. I looked for a list of the most prestigious prizes in mathematics, and found this article in Wolfram World. Working my way down the list, I found one Fields medalist, Maryam Mirzakhani (but no picture of her that I could use); no Wolf Prize recipients; one winner of the Leroy P. Steele Prize (Cathleen Synge Morawetz), but no picture of her; and no recipients of the Bôcher Memorial Prize or Cole Prize. That left me with the Fulkerson Prize, with two female recipients: Éva Tardos and Maria Chudnovsky. Chudnovsky also has a MacArthur Fellowship. Of course, other criteria are needed to select mathematicians from previous centuries, but it's a start. RockMagnetist(talk) 01:10, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
I'm not participating in your discussions until this corrupt action by Drmies is fixed. Tony(talk) 01:14, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
I wasn't going to add Chudnovsky myself because her research interests are close enough to my own that I can't tell whether my admiration for her results is biased by that, but I'm happy to see her image added here. (The same would also go for Tardos but in her case I don't think the image we have is very good.) —David Eppstein (talk) 01:21, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
I think image quality is indeed relevant - a consideration for Sophie Germain, for example. RockMagnetist(talk) 01:26, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
Here are a couple of MacArthur Fellows whose pictures could be considered for inclusion: Julia Robinson (mediocre picture) and Ingrid Daubechies (good picture - also won the Leroy P. Steele Prize; I overlooked her in my earlier search). RockMagnetist(talk) 06:43, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
What should be mentioned about each mathematician?
I think it would be better if, instead of trying to keep the length of entries to a particular length, we should try to specify what should be said about each person. Here are my thoughts:
Nationality
Short description of main research areas (e.g., noncommutative algebra)
Any major awards (on the level of a Macarthur Fellowship or National Medal of Science).
If the mathematician has a major achievement (i.e., worthy of a major award) or did something of historical interest (i.e., first woman to do X), a short description of that.
Of course, the information doesn't have to be presented in that order. I think that would keep the entries succinct and be consistent with due weight. Any reactions? RockMagnetist(talk) 02:50, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
That seems a reasonable list to me. So you think we should remove the lesser awards/distinctions currently listed, like major society fellowships? Because some of the top people listed here are going to have a lot of awards, so what I was doing when I wrote most of these entries was to list only one award that I thought was the top one, but that has led to some inconsistencies where some people are listed as having an award and others with the same award aren't. If we went to a system of listing only the really top ones (Fields, etc) then we could list everyone with them but there would be less to say about many of the people here. As for the "short description of research areas", sometimes we have "researcher in X" or similar wording, and for some other specialties where such a phrasing is possible we have more concise descriptions like "differential geometer". But I think here we should only list specialties that someone is actually notable for. E.g. if someone did her Ph.D. in differential geometry but was known primarily as a calculus reformer (or whatever) and had no major accomplishments in differential geometry, then the calculus reform part is what we should list, not the research specialty. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:40, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
It's reasonable to remove minor awards, but I'm with Eppstein on the point of using common sense to decide what goes in the descriptions rather than following some kind of formula. I saw that turn out badly on list of vegans, an article which underwent edit-warring similar to this one. An editor cut down all the entries and removed a lot of information, choosing "occupation" as a substitute for what the person was actually notable for. In one case, a political assassin's occupation was listed as "unknown", because being an assassin wasn't his job. --Sammy1339 (talk) 03:48, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
I think it would be o.k. if we had less to say about some of the less notable researchers. Of course, awards being bosons, some people will have several major awards - but not many people, so I don't think it would be a problem. All of that is just due weight - why should everyone get the same space? I agree with mentioning only the fields a researcher is notable for. RockMagnetist(talk) 03:52, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
No, "common sense" here will mean "whatever Epstein wants". So I'm not going along with that. Tony(talk) 04:03, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
Then what do you suggest? RockMagnetist(talk) 04:04, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
I don't think we should have nationality as this tends to result in nationalistic disputes and we already have enough trouble. For example, consider Hypatia, who lived in the different era of the Roman empire when nation states of the modern sort did not exist. Or note that we have Hertha Marks Ayrton next to Rosemary A. Bailey; one is described as English, the other as British. Andrew D. (talk) 07:54, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
It's fairly standard to include nationality in such articles. Yes it can be complicated sometimes but these complications are never insurmountable. Hypatia was a Greek Egyptian. --Sammy1339 (talk) 15:51, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
My feeling about the awards is that their mention should be as brief as possible - just the name of the award, not the date or any other information that is not needed to unambiguously identify it. Far better to devote space to their achievements. RockMagnetist(talk) 16:29, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
Joshi edit-warring and more general issues of line length and image inclusion
Another editor, Tony1, has been edit-warring on the line for Nalini Joshi to
make her line of text about twice as long as the others in this list, and
include a picture of her in the article.
In addition he argues that any attempt by me to maintain consistent standards for how the entries here are described and how the images are selected is a violation of WP:OWN.
My own position is that
the lines should be of uniform length (which I have chosen to be about one screen width on my laptop but the precise width isn't critical here), and that the accomplishments listed in each line should be kept to the most significant ones in each article to prevent the lines from growing into whole mini-articles about each subject; it's likely that this policy will lead to unmentioned but significant accomplishments, but that's what the links are for.
The images should be only of the most famous mathematicians, or at the least, of the ones who are most famous within their letter. So we should probably have an image for e.g. Maryam Mirzakhani but not for all 500 of the people listed here, and we should be selective about which ones we include. I think it would be reasonable to have some limit (like 10 or 20) on the number of images we include, and only include mathematicians that we can reasonably argue are in that top 20. So, what is the argument for Joshi? She's clearly a notable mathematician but we have a lot of other society presidents etc here, so the argument needs to be stronger than that.
I welcome a community discussion and consensus about how we should format this article and its images, but I think we need to have some consistent idea of what to aim for rather than letting advocates for each individual mathematician be the ones to decide how much space here to devote to them.
Opinions? Discussion?
Finally, there's a minor technical issue here that we can probably clear up more easily with the correct documentation. Tony1 insists that any image followed by a bulleted item must be separated from it by <br/> to protect against some accessibility issues. I don't know what those issues are, the only wording I can see in MOS:IMAGE about images vs lists says to avoid right-aligned images next to lists (these ones are left-aligned), and the explicit breaks leave ugly whitespace at the start of each section. Another possible workaround (of unknown efficacy because I don't know what the actual problem is) is to change the coding of one or more of the bullets in the list from * to {{*mp}} as is or was used for DYK. Does anyone know more about this issue that they could share here, or have a pointer to a place in the documentation where it is discussed?
—David Eppstein (talk) 00:53, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
You really do have a complex about your ownership of this article, don't you—further evidenced by the extraordinarily long and belligerent post here. When you say: "My own position is that ...", what you really mean is that "I decide the rules for this page, including the lengths of entries and whose images are allowed, and I'll edit-war with anyone who tries to challenge my self-appointed ownership."
Maybe no one has stood up to your iron-rod attitude here, but I'm going to. I've now removed all images (and will revert any attempt to reinstate them), since you don't get to decide unilaterally on that matter.
I didn't edit-war to make one line of text "about twice as long as the others in this list"; achieving a certain length ratio was definitely not my intention, as you accuse with "to". It was 19 words, and quite a few entries are around 15 words. Who decided on this nefarious limit in entry length, and when? Who decided their own likes and dislikes for image insertion, and on what basis? I'm afraid one editor's opinion of who is "the most famous" is unacceptable. Where are these matters written down?
"The lines should be of uniform length"—sorry, they're all of different length; take a look.
Your ownership of this page just ended. Tony(talk) 08:18, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
Have you really never been reverted before? Because you're sure acting like it. Your very first edit after my first revert accused me of WP:OWN, and you still can't stop talking about it. Go read WP:BRD. Then read it again. A dispute over content is not the same thing as claimed ownership. Now let's try having a discussion about the actual content, without so much drama-queen behavior. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:08, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
Additionally, in this edit Tony1 is playing dog-in-the-manger and insisting that if he can't have his favorite mathematician's image in the article then we can't have any images. I don't have a strong position about whether we have images or not; I'm generally in favor, since I think that makes the list less cold and impersonal (important for something that's most likely going to be used for purposes like high school students trying to find essay topics) but no images is at least a consistent principled position, and easier to maintain than some criterion for who gets images and who doesn't. So, opinions from editors other than Tony and me on whether we include any images at all would also be welcome. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:27, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
My views are:
the exact length of the entries is not important but we should generally keep them tight and focussed on the primary attributes which make these people notable.
we should have lots of images; at least one per section so that the right hand side of the list is a vertical gallery. The images should be chosen for their interest and quality, as well as the notability of the subject. Some visual variety is good to break up the monotony of the current wall of text.
rather than giving more space to the most notable, I favour removal of marginal candidates. If the list is a huge directory of minor figures then it risks being too long and dull.
Re removal of marginal candidates: the current inclusion criterion is that the list has everyone in Category:Women mathematicians. It's at least easy to determine who belongs and who doesn't, and errs on the side of inclusiveness and diversity. Do you have some suggestions for a method of identifying marginal candidates (other than by AfD) that would form the basis of some different criterion? — Preceding unsigned comment added by David Eppstein (talk • contribs) 16:45, 18 August 2015
PS Ironically, rather than crowding out longer descriptions of others, the marginal listings now have the side effect of making room for a larger number of images of non-marginal mathematicians and captions giving more detail on their accomplishments. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:52, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
@Tony1: You created the image File:Nalini_Joshi.jpg, and therefore have a conflict of interest on two levels: you are promoting your own image and have a personal relationship with the subject. Wikipedia strongly discourages editing where you have a conflict of interest (see WP:COI). RockMagnetist(talk) 17:42, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
My view on line length: There are no guidelines on the number of words per item; this list is wordier than many (see, for example, List of female scientists before the 21st century). If the amount of coverage is to vary between individuals, then to achieve due weight one should say more about the more notable women; and it would make sense to only mention honors that are notable enough to have their own article (which does not seem to be true of Hardy Lecturer). RockMagnetist(talk) 17:53, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
My view on images: most lists of people have some. They are somewhat informative and break the monotony. I think visual issues like the quality of the image and avoiding crowding should be part of the consideration. Some choices are no-brainers: for example, File:Ada_Lovelace_portrait.jpg is a featured image of one of the most important female mathematicians. RockMagnetist(talk) 18:06, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
The List of female scientists before the 21st century seems quite variable in description length: many entries have only two-word descriptions (nationality and general field) but I counted some up to 23 words. I think here, most are in the range of 5-15 words and most list what the subject is notable for rather than only what their specialty is. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:27, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
Yes, I think this page strikes a good balance. RockMagnetist(talk) 22:03, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
Here is one image that should be on this page, if there were one: Maryam Mirzakhani, the only female winner of the Fields Medal. RockMagnetist(talk) 22:41, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
Definitely, but sadly there is no picture available. I would also like to see more pictures that illustrate the mathematics created by women, and not just pictures of their faces. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:45, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for catching that bit of carelessness on my part. In your edit summary, you mention a red frame. I didn't see that - is there some special configuration you use? RockMagnetist(talk) 23:51, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
Just the monobook appearance preference. Or maybe this is a side effect of the "Redirect image links to Commons for files that are hosted there" gadget and of non-free images not being hosted on commons? —David Eppstein (talk) 23:55, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
The latter sounds plausible; although not all free images have been transferred to commons yet, so a red frame would only be a warning of a potential problem. RockMagnetist(talk) 00:21, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
So, you've re-introduced "inconsistency", have you, by reinstating your own favourite pictures. I made the list consistent. You've removed the area of mathematics in which one subject specialises, so you won't mind if I go through and remove all areas, I presume. I'm going to do this later today. And you're insisting on "uniformity" of length. Shall we say 13 words, then? I'll go through soon and chop off the ends of entries that exceed this, and I'll build up those that are short by adding "blah blah ...". Ready? Next, we'll need to go through every single image that you have selected with your own biases, to get consensus on inclusion. Let's start with these ones. Please put your argument as to why the graph represents something that is somehow more special than the achievements of the surrounding subjects. I'd also like to know why the first image somehow passed Epstein's privately cooked-up test of relative notability. (Perhaps RockMagnet is a wikifriend on Epstein's. File:Chudnovsky 2012 hi-res-download 2.jpgThis image, just inserted by admin RockMagnet, was waved through by article owner and admin Epstein. Warning to other editors: don't assume an image is allowed on the page unless Epstein approves.Why is this more important than so many other graphic representations of female mathematicians' achievements?.
As I mentioned above, you seem to have a conflict of interest here, and you should address that issue first. RockMagnetist(talk) 00:33, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
I will be happy to tell you how I selected my image after you address the conflict of interest question. RockMagnetist(talk) 00:44, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
I will be happy to address any COI you choose to see after we address the criteria for many aspects of this article. Tony(talk) 00:47, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
Gentlemen, there will be no fighting in the war room. Funny--I'm reminded of how my brother and I fought over a girl, many decades ago. Ah, to have such fervor again! The article is locked for three days; this is somewhat unbecoming. Drmies (talk) 00:52, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
What is unbecoming is that the boys' club has simply exluded non-admins from editing, despite the fact that they have been involved in an edit-war. Your action, Drmies, is disreputable. Tony(talk) 01:01, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
Don't get verbose with me, and act your age please. The last club I was in was an action committee supposedly sending medical supplies to Angola, and that was 30 years ago. RockMagnetist, this rather ill-thought out edit of yours is likely to blame for this explosion on Tony's part: while it is not an edit in, as far as I can tell, the disputed area, it obviously is rubbing a bit of salt in the wound and a self-revert would be appreciated. Tony, I didn't even know RockMagnetist was an administrator--actually, I thought you were one. A little good faith would be appreciated. I also thought that admins would see sense and not use their tool in a case like this, but apparently being wrong is what I'm good at tonight. Drmies (talk) 01:09, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
It's nothing short of corrupt on the part of the three of you. It's what many editors have come to expect of all too many admins on this site. So don't minister about "good faith" to me, nor acting one's age. Look in the mirror. Tony(talk) 01:12, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
Sorry, that wasn't smart. I made an edit that I considered neutral, not realizing that it could be seen otherwise. RockMagnetist(talk) 01:13, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
No problem, RockMagnetist--I appreciate the quick revert. I also consider the edit neutral but, in the context, not wise. I do hope y'all can solve this amicably. Drmies (talk) 01:22, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
Can whoever put the sexist caption on the Chudnovsky image in this talk page please remove or replace it? I think it's a violation of WP:BLP, which does apply to talk pages. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:32, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
Citations needed
Providing a citation for the matter of Hypatia above reminds me to mention that the list currently has no sources. This is not normally acceptable for a BLP page and so is a pressing issue. Andrew D. (talk) 17:36, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
My understanding is that for lists where all of the entries are bluelinks and contain only information summarized from the bluelinked articles, citations within the list are not necessary as one can go to the article to find the citations. It's not that different from the common situation in articles themselves where the lead section summarizes the rest of the article and usually does not include citations for information that is reported on in more detail in the rest of the article. But I didn't see any specific guidance about this in MOS:LIST, and Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists#Citing sources is not very clear on this issue. Do you have a pointer to a policy that contradicts that? Because we could just copy the citations from the articles, but I don't think it's necessary. I'm currently working on another list (of people who worked at a certain research center) where there is some specific information I'm trying to include (dates they were working there) that is not always included or properly sourced in the relevant articles, so I am using citations for that information, but again, not for the summarized description of the accomplishments of the listed people. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:43, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
There was a recent arbcom case about some BLP lists. The issue there was how vigorously such sourcing should be demanded, not whether it was required at all. As I understand it, if someone places a {{BLPPROD}} on the page then it will be deleted unless sources are provided. I am fairly relaxed about this myself but there are some fanatical hard-liners out there, as the case shows. Andrew D. (talk) 17:59, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
I should add that there are some types of information that are always supposed to be sourced, and one of them is direct quotes. So we should add the citation for the quote about Noether (I guess either after the protection expires or via edit request). —David Eppstein (talk) 18:05, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
I'm not sure the quote is appropriate anyway - it's just one man's opinion. RockMagnetist(talk) 22:31, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
More than one; the Noether article lists six different references for roughly the same sentiment. But it's not a very informative or specific thing to say about her, so I won't complain if it gets replaced by something else appropriate. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:49, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
I thought of removing it also, but then I thought again. For someone who has never heard of Emmy Noether, it actually is a very informative and specific thing to say. I wouldn't say so if there were someone else that anyone would make such a claim about, but there isn't. --Sammy1339 (talk) 00:12, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
Page protection
@Drmies: Can this page please be unprotected? There were better ways to deal with this situation involving a single disruptive editor. --Sammy1339 (talk) 18:20, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
Sure. There's also WP:UNPROTECT. Mind you, full protection is standard in such disputes. Drmies (talk) 20:22, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
Thanks. It wasn't meant to be a criticism. --Sammy1339 (talk) 20:27, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
I know, don't worry. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 20:32, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
Listen up, Sammy whoever you are: branding one editor as disruptive is itself a huge disruption. I think you should back off and shut up until you know what you're talking about. Tony(talk) 01:29, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
As I created this image, I'm going to recuse myself from this discussion. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:53, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
Is there a succinct way of describing its broader significance? RockMagnetist(talk) 18:15, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
I'll try. You might think that any edge-transitive graph must also be vertex-transitive. This is the smallest counterexample among cubic graphs. Or, for readers who aren't interested in graph symmetries, it's a pretty image to look at. AFAIK it has no practical use. Maproom (talk) 11:46, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
Revisiting the image question
Some time ago @David Eppstein asked how many images should be included, and what criteria should be used for including them. He argued that we don't have room for images of all 500 people, so we should limit the number included to the most notable. However, in an informal survey of the entries, I find that only a small proportion have images in their articles, and of those many are either very poor quality or are limited by their license to one article. So one approach might be to just add every available image and see if culling is needed; and then that could be done on an individual basis. RockMagnetist(talk) 03:20, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
I'm also going to recuse myself from this discussion (sorry) because two of the available images are by me. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:38, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
Personally I think we should try to fill up the whitespace. Clearly this does mean restricting the list to the most notable people - although I disagree with David Eppstein that this necessarily means the best mathematicians: Agnesi, Hypatia, and Fawcett (my own addition) are there for their historical interest, and did not make significant mathematical contributions that I'm aware of. Clearly there are others that belong in this list but that we don't have pictures of - Germain and Mirzakhani especially. Also Morawetz and Moufang. --Sammy1339 (talk) 03:44, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
One thing I will note is that "fill up the whitespace" depends a lot on how you're viewing Wikipedia, what your default font size settings are, what your default thumbnail size settings are, etc. I typically view Wikipedia on three different devices — a desktop computer with a big screen (so less wrapped lines and fewer total lines of text), a laptop computer with a smaller screen, and a cellphone (on which using the Wikipedia app all images get inlined rather than floated right, so too many images can make it difficult to navigate through to find the actual text). We should keep this variety in mind when we choose how many images to include. But currently even on my big screen there's still a fair amount of white space between most of the images, so room to add more. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:10, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
@David Eppstein: I don't think it makes sense to recuse yourself from the discussion because you produced relevant content. People argue all the time for the inclusion of their writing in articles, and that's not regarded as a conflict of interest. --Sammy1339 (talk) 03:44, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
Well, given that the big argument above happened in part because I reverted Tony's addition of one of Tony's (out of focus) photos, it might help keep things calmer if I stayed out. Anyway, one un-looked-for benefit to having the argument is that we seem to have attracted a bigger collection of active and interested editors, so it should be entirely possible to get enough people together to form a consensus without me. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:01, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
(1) Clearly an arrangement in which Epstien has sole veto power over image inclusion/exclusion is unsatisfactory. (2) I have no objection to his involvement in this discussion; whether he took/uploaded photos or not might be mentioned at appropriate times, but is otherwise irrelevant. Inclusion should be based on reader-related matters. (3) If he objected to focus in the photo I included, why didn't he say so at the time rather than simply edit-warring to get his way? (4) Sammy, what do you mean by "fill up the whitespace"? And you raise the elephant in the living room: criteria for inclusion would have to be multifactorial. Not easy. Just how many photos are worthy of judgement at this stage—that is critical information for decision-making. Tony(talk) 04:16, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
Here's a quick answer to (3), at least: because I didn't notice until later. If we're going to air objections to technical issues in photos, I also think the Chudnovsky one is too red, but that's easily fixed in photoshop. Also, you'll have to try a lot harder than you have been so far if you want to achieve the record for worst misspelling of my name. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:23, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
It's good to see a recognition that a number of factors need to be weighed up, publicly. Tony(talk) 05:28, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
Another factor is whether to avoid having images run over from one section to another. The sections are ordered by letter, and some are much longer than others; restricting images to a section aligns them with the related text, which is nice but maybe not necessary. RockMagnetist(talk) 06:22, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
It's a good question. Hard to distribute images on the basis of dense sectionalisation. I have no aesthetic objection to images running continuously down the right side—it's quite neat, but to what extent would it jar against section headings? Another issue is the need to audit the total number of images available in the articles on these subjects. That would place us in a better position to know the extent to which rationing is required. Tony(talk) 09:21, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
List of images
I was thinking along the same lines. There are more than I thought; here are the candidates for sections A and B (some images are under the married name, so it's a little confusing):
I'm strongly in favor of using notability as the primary criterion, as David Eppstein suggested. Because of that, we should probably focus on getting images of the most important mathematicians, like Mirzakhani and Morawetz, rather than choosing the best-looking pictures we have of marginally notable ones. --Sammy1339 (talk) 23:38, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
Indeed, I have already requested permission for some images of Mirzakhani, Morawetz and Kopell; but I thought it might be worth seeing if there was any intersection between notability and image quality. Not much, it appears. RockMagnetist(talk) 23:45, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
Piscopia v. Agnesi
The article on Elena Cornaro Piscopia says that she became a lecturer in mathematics at the University of Padua in 1678, but the article on Maria Gaetana Agnesi, and this list article, says that she became the first female mathematics professor in 1752. We may have a RS issue here. --Sammy1339 (talk) 23:45, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
Maybe lecturer was a lower rank. RockMagnetist(talk) 23:55, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
I propose the removal of the picture of Hypatia – not because we know of no mathematics that she did, but because the picture itself is a work of fiction, and so should have no place in an encyclopedia. There must be candidates under H with real pictures we can use. Maproom (talk) 01:13, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
It's not uncommon for our articles on people from ancient times to be illustrated by works of later artists who would have had little idea what they looked like. See e.g. the many images in Jesus, to pick an obvious example. But I have no strong feelings either way about this case, as long as we avoid the image depicting her as a naked seductress, which I think says more about the attitudes of the male artists of the time it was painted than about Hypatia. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:27, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
The current Cameron image is not satisfactory because it's a photograph and this conveys a sense of verisimilitude which might mislead people into thinking that the subject was authentic, when it's actually a different person for whom we have a separate page. It is also B&W and seems quite static and dull. The Mitchell painting is better because it is more clearly an artistic interpretation and it is also more colourful and exotic. But it does not characterise Hypatia as a naked seductress. Instead, it is showing her dramatic death scene, when she was stripped and then flayed alive by a Christian mob, "She shook herself free from her tormentors, and springing back, rose for one moment to her full height, naked, snow-white against the dusky mass around—shame and indignation in those wide clear eyes, but not a stain of fear. With one hand she clasped her golden locks around her; the other long white arm was stretched upward...". Mitchell's picture is my preference but it doesn't have to be either/or. As Hypatia is one of the big names in this field, we might have more than one image, or a collage, showing different artistic interpretations over the years. Andrew D. (talk) 07:43, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
In the Hypatia artucle it says that the Kingsley novel "portrayed the scholar as a "helpless, pretentious, and erotic heroine". That comes across clearly in the painting and is not I think an apprpriate spin on the subject for this list. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:59, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
Both pictures seem dubious representations of Hypatia, more likely to be misleading than informative. Maybe we should look for an image of someone else. RockMagnetist(talk) 17:28, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
De gustibus non est disputandum but the Mitchell painting is evidently appropriate. For example, see Femininity, Mathematics and Science which is a prize-winning book about gender and mathematics. It uses Mitchell's painting, which it describes as "famous", for the cover. The painting caused a sensation when it was first exhibited and it is so notable that it merits a page of its own. As this list page is frozen now, it will be a good diversion to work that up instead. Andrew D. (talk) 17:32, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
If it is included, we could add some comment to the effect that she has been a popular subject for fictional interpretations. RockMagnetist(talk) 17:43, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
Given that we have more genuine images than there is space for in the article, I don't think we should be including fictional images at all. Also, this is a page about people, not about theorems, so in my opinion we should prefer images of people. McKay (talk) 06:26, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
On the last point – I would prefer casual visitors to the page to get the impression "here's some stuff that women mathematicians have done", rather than "here's some pretty faces". Maproom (talk) 16:53, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
Yes, me too. That's why I think we should include some of these mathematicians' works, and not just their faces, in the images. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:26, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
MacTutor list
I moved the MacTutor list from the article to the talk page because it didn't seem encyclopedic to paste someone else's list in an article (there's probably a policy, but I'm too lazy to find it right now). However, now I'm wondering whether it is really appropriate on the talk page. It is a list of suggestions for page creation, so perhaps it should be added to WikiProject Mathematics and WikiProject Women scientists. How does that sound? RockMagnetist(talk) 16:10, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
Actually, putting that list anywhere on Wikipedia is a clear copyright violation unless MacTutor have licensed it in a way that lets us use it. McKay (talk) 01:27, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
I have moved Offermann from J to O. But I now wonder if that is wrong. She was born Jacobs, then married Muller, then divorced him and married Offermann. If I were looking for her in the article, I would look under O. I guess there must be other names on the page with the same issue. Maproom (talk) 16:23, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
For what it's worth, the defaultsort is Jacobs, Jessie Marie. RockMagnetist(talk) 16:57, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
Her publications are under the last name of either Jacobs (pre-marriage) or Jacobs-Muller (later). It's not clear that the form "Jessie Marie Jacobs Muller Offermann" was something she ever actually used. Perhaps the article should be moved? —David Eppstein (talk) 17:47, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
Similarly, the sources for this article call her Jessie Jacobs (Offerman), Jessie M. Jacobs and Jessie Marie Jacobs (the latter is used even though she is introduced as the wife of Hermann Muller). So I would vote for Jessie Marie Jacobs. RockMagnetist(talk) 18:57, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
Done. (If anyone objects I'd be happy to self-revert while we discuss it.) —David Eppstein (talk) 19:13, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
Done
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