User talk:Jakob.scholbach/Archives/2008/August

Group

You seem to have reverted this edit of mine [1]. If that was also an edit conflict, don't worry, I can make the edit again. But I want to make sure you weren't opposing the change. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:13, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, indeed it was an edit conflict. I was just trying to cover Randomblue's concerns. Feel free to restore your stuff (I restored the last one). As for the history: it would be no problem to cite all the papers, but this usually does not prove that this was the first time a given thing has been done. So secondary literature seems mroe appropriate to me, here? Jakob.scholbach (talk) 15:17, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry about the conflict, I'll edit that section again.

The secondary literature is certainly where I would look for analysis of the history. But consider the sentence "Walther von Dyck (1882) gave the first statement of the modern definition of an abstract group." That (1882) is clearly being used as some sort of reference - we should include the full details of that reference. The idea behind WP:SCG#Attribution is that full attribution of von Dyck's contribution includes the details of his publication. The average reader won't want to read this to learn about groups, of course, but the reference itself provides historical information to the reader, and could be of interest to someone who is studying the history of group theory. For an example, see Mathematical logic#History, where I have been working on getting the original reference details into the article. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:25, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

OK. I have done that. Jakob.scholbach (talk) 15:54, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

help

{{helpme}} How can I see the size of a page in terms of readable content (i.e disregarding footnotes and stuff)? Thx Jakob.scholbach (talk) 18:52, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

• Try this. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells • Otter chirps • HELP)} 18:56, 25 August 2008 (UTC)