Some questions about policy

[Dan Nessett]

Hello,

I am considering becoming a Citizendium member. However, I need some information before I can make that decision. Firstly, I am considering joining because I attempted to add two proofs to some Wikipedia mathematics articles and was told by some of its editors that Wikipedia doesn't do proofs. So, I have looked around for a community that allows mathematics articles to contain proofs of non-trivial assertions. (I can go into more detail about this, but thought that my first post should not do this to keep the question simple).

Secondly, I am retired and probably have the qualifications to be a editor in a one particular area, but I am actually interested in contributing in another area for which I do not have necessary credentials. So, I thought I would register as an author, rather than attempt to become an editor (in the first area). However, somewhere down the road, I may wish to seek out the necessary approval to edit in my area of expertise. So, is it possible to register as an author in one area and later on submit a request to become an editor in another area?

Thanks

[Hayford Peirce]

Hi Dan,

I'll let others answer the first of your two questions.

The second, however, is easy to answer:

If you apply as an Editor, you are automatically applying to be an Author also. If you applied to be an Editor in the field of Greek History, say, or maybe just plain History, and your credentials were such that you were accepted, you would then be a History Editor and a general Author. You could then spend all of your time here writing articles about major league baseball and varieties of tofu, for instance, and never do any editing at all. ("Editors" here, with a capital E, are experts, unlike at Wikipedia, where anyone who writes anything is an "editor".)

Undoubtedly there would be authors here who were working on articles that fell within the History field, and who would like your ideas, or contributions, or expertise, to help guide them, but you would not *necessarily* have to help them. After all, how could we make you?

And, as an Editor, you also have the right to write -- as an Author -- articles within the field in which you are an Editor.  You can't, as an Editor, dictate to other people contributing to articles that you are also writing, but you can try to frame the discussion. There are still gray areas within the Editor/Author relationship, but so far we haven't had many problems.  A few Editors have left because they felt they weren't being deferred enough, but not very many of them.  Simply because of our application process, we have eliminated about 99% of the problems that continue to plague Wikipedia, from which almost all of us are refugees of one degree or another....

I hope you'll join us!

Hayford, the Constable who helped get you in here

[Dan Nessett]

Hi Dan,

I'll let others answer the first of your two questions.

The second, however, is easy to answer:

If you apply as an Editor, you are automatically applying to be an Author also. If you applied to be an Editor in the field of Greek History, say, or maybe just plain History, and your credentials were such that you were accepted, you would then be a History Editor and a general Author. You could then spend all of your time here writing articles about major league baseball and varieties of tofu, for instance, and never do any editing at all. ("Editors" here, with a capital E, are experts, unlike at Wikipedia, where anyone who writes anything is an "editor".)

Undoubtedly there would be authors here who were working on articles that fell within the History field, and who would like your ideas, or contributions, or expertise, to help guide them, but you would not *necessarily* have to help them. After all, how could we make you?

And, as an Editor, you also have the right to write -- as an Author -- articles within the field in which you are an Editor.  You can't, as an Editor, dictate to other people contributing to articles that you are also writing, but you can try to frame the discussion. There are still gray areas within the Editor/Author relationship, but so far we haven't had many problems.  A few Editors have left because they felt they weren't being deferred enough, but not very many of them.  Simply because of our application process, we have eliminated about 99% of the problems that continue to plague Wikipedia, from which almost all of us are refugees of one degree or another....

I hope you'll join us!

Hayford, the Constable who helped get you in here

Thanks for info on editors and authors. However, the issue isn't so much that an editor can also be an author in a different area as it is the additional work it takes (which I admit isn't a lot, but it is incrementally more). To become an editor I have to submit a CV, which means I would have to review what I have to ensure it is up-to-date. As I said, not a lot of work, but it is work I could put off if there is a way to become an editor later.

[Shamira Gelbman]

As I said, not a lot of work, but it is work I could put off if there is a way to become an editor later.

There is -- I became an editor after I'd been here as an author for a couple of months.

[Hayford Peirce]

Sure, other people have taken that route also. Just apply to be an author, with the same email address that you used in your correspondence with me earlier, and you'll be an official member of CZ within a few minutes.

[Matt Innis]

SNIP... As I said, not a lot of work, but it is work I could put off if there is a way to become an editor later.

Yes, apply as an author, then once you are in and feel comfortable with what you see, just submit your request with your CV, etc., to personnel AT citizendium.org (private email).  You'll know in a few days (or weeks sometimes!)

[Dan Nessett]

Thanks for all those who replied to my second question. However, no one has responded to the first one; specifically, what is the Citizendium policy concerning the inclusion of proofs of non-trivial mathematical assertions? I don't know if no one has responded because: 1) the 4th of July holiday meant few were reading this forum; 2) the people who have the answer to this question don't read the non-member discussion forum; 3) there is no policy and so it will take time before one is established; or 4) there is no policy and no one is interested in formulating one. Of course, there may be another reason which I have not anticipated. In any case, is there a way for me to encourage those who might have the answer to this question to respond?

[Hayford Peirce]

Off the top of my head, and subject to correction by anyone who knows more about it than I (which probably means many, many people), I don't see why a proof *couldn't* be included. Aren't there already some math. articles that have brief proofs included in them? It seems to me that I've run across them for one reason or another.

Two caveats:

I don't think we can include *original* proofs devised solely by the CZ author, in other words, a new "proof" of perpetual motion or squaring the circle or Fermat's last theorem or such like. Proofs, to be included, would have to be ones that are accepted throughout the math. world and are simply being reproduced here.

And second, if the proof is too *long*, ie, more than, oh, half a page in length, or maybe a full page, it would, I think, have to go into a subpage somewhere, not remain in the main article.

Mes deux centimes....

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

Thanks for all those who replied to my second question. However, no one has responded to the first one; specifically, what is the Citizendium policy concerning the inclusion of proofs of non-trivial mathematical assertions? I don't know if no one has responded because: 1) the 4th of July holiday meant few were reading this forum; 2) the people who have the answer to this question don't read the non-member discussion forum; 3) there is no policy and so it will take time before one is established; or 4) there is no policy and no one is interested in formulating one. Of course, there may be another reason which I have not anticipated. In any case, is there a way for me to encourage those who might have the answer to this question to respond?

I'll speak as a Computers Editor and Editorial Council member giving a personal opinion; you might want to get some of the Mathematics and Physics editors to chip in. I see no reason not to have proofs, but I'd put them in an Advanced or other subpage. WP does not have an equivalent to our subpage mechanism.  Unfortunately, I'm not finding the list of predefined subpages, but I vaguely remember there was one for proofs.

I can't think of a reason not to have one, as long as it either can be cited, or is reasonably obvious to an expert in the field.

[Paul Wormer]

I (physics editor) wrote quite a few CZ articles about applied-math subjects. I always sneaked in the proofs (usually towards the end of the article), because personally I feel that I don't understand a result if I haven't seen its proof. (There are  exceptions to this, I know some easy-to-grasp  results in combinatorics that take pages of proof, in such a case I would follow Howard's suggestion and use a subpage).

[Peter Schmitt]

I saw the question, but delayed to answer ... there might be people who know if this has already been discussed
(I have been here for a few weeks only)
I think that there certainly is place for proofs,
(It has already been mentioned: There are already pages containing proofs.)
but how it is best done will be depend.
Some proofs will even be suitable for the main page, because some concepts can only be understand and best be explained
with proofs. But many proofs will be better put in a subpage, because -- since there are subpages -- it is probably better to reserve
the main page for general and "essential" information.
And often it may be better to clearly outline the idea of the proof without too much technical details.
But all this depends ...
Concerning subpages: The list of available ("unused") subpages can be found in the grey box on the Talk page.
Unfortunately there is no "Proof" subpage. (I already made a suggestion on
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ_Talk:How_to_add_a_new_subpage_type
and started a thread on
http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,2748.0.html
about that (other nice subpages would be /Examples and (maybe) /Formulas.
The existing /Student level seems to target a much too low level, and /Advanced is too specific and might be wrong (irritating) for
basic proofs. Some proofs (exercise type) might fit into /Tutorial.

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

I (physics editor) wrote quite a few CZ articles about applied-math subjects. I always sneaked in the proofs (usually towards the end of the article), because personally I feel that I don't understand a result if I haven't seen its proof. (There are  exceptions to this, I know some easy-to-grasp  results in combinatorics that take pages of proof, in such a case I would follow Howard's suggestion and use a subpage).

Me engineer. Me not theoretician. Me get very frightened when textbook says "it will be obvious that" and goes on for five pages of proof. Don't let that stop you, though.,   

[Dan Nessett]

Me engineer. Me not theoretician. Me get very frightened when textbook says "it will be obvious that" and goes on for five pages of proof. Don't let that stop you, though.,   

I am also an engineer (although my undergraduate degree is mathematics). One way of handling the legitimate "please don't snow me with long proofs" argument is to use proof outlines in the body of an article (when called for) and put the detailed rigorous proof on a sub-page. This allows the reader who is interested in the application of the mathematics, but not really in the underlying support, to proceed without impediment.

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

Me engineer. Me not theoretician. Me get very frightened when textbook says "it will be obvious that" and goes on for five pages of proof. Don't let that stop you, though.,   

I am also an engineer (although my undergraduate degree is mathematics). One way of handling the legitimate "please don't snow me with long proofs" argument is to use proof outlines in the body of an article (when called for) and put the detailed rigorous proof on a sub-page. This allows the reader who is interested in the application of the mathematics, but not really in the underlying support, to proceed without impediment.

My official fields are network and software engineering, as well as military and medical systems engineering. Still, I have my other interests. I'm a fairly good artistic photographer, but wanted to learn more about how things really worked. So, I joined the Society for Photographic Science & Engineering and bought a few more advanced texts, but they still didn't answer the photographic emulsion equivalent of "and how does the seed get into the mommy?"

So, I bought the Really Big Book, and, indeed, it got into dye sensitizers of photon transfer. My eyes began to glaze, and then I saw the fatal note, "of course, the mathematical presentation here is simplified".

At that point, I said aloud, "OK, I can see you're a Bessel function. I have ink and scissors. Let's both back away and no one will get hurt."

[Milton Beychok]

Howard:

Chuckle, chuckle.   You really should have been standup comedian!

Milt Beychok