CZ Talk:Formatting mathematics

Article Checklist for "CZ Talk:Formatting mathematics"

Workgroup category or categories	Mathematics Workgroup [Categories OK]
Article status	Developing article: beyond a stub, but incomplete
Underlinked article?	No
Basic cleanup done?	Yes
Checklist last edited by	Greg Martin 16:03, 10 May 2007 (CDT)

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I like this. It would be nice if the creator(s) would also create a [[CZ:How to use <math> formatting]] for those of us who don't know TeX formatting. Anthony Argyriou 17:28, 10 May 2007 (CDT)

I've been getting help from Help:Displaying a formula at Wikimedia. --Catherine Woodgold 13:16, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

scritpstyle

I edited somewhat the \scriptstyle section. I think the example with e^\int does not belong in, since it's as ugly with or without \scriptstyle (it's the baseline problem; in fact, we can partially avoid this by using \exp istead of e^ ). Secondly, I inserted suggestion that 'global resizing' is possible. BTW, it was good idea to create such a page! --Aleksander Stos 06:24, 11 May 2007 (CDT)

I oppose frequent use of "scriptstyle" for the following reasons: (1) That's not what it's for; (2) Greg Martin said it made the formulas look very ugly on his browser; (3) It's possible (in principle at least) to have the servers insert "scriptstyle" into all inline formulas (or tranlate them all into html) while serving up the articles, but not feasible to have the server delete "scriptstyle" since that would delete it in the rare cases where it's actually appropriate, (nor would it be feasible for the server to translate from html to math since it wouldn't know which things are supposed to be math formulas;) (4) if browsers are improved, the pages with "scriptstyle" will be obsolete. We might have to go through a process of re-approving a large number of pages that haven't been touched in a long time; (5) if it looks bad without scriptstyle on some browsers and bad with scriptstyle on other browsers, then by not using scriptstyle we can blame the browsers, but if we use scriptstyle it makes Citizendium look ridiculous; (6) I don't mind the big formulas much. An appropriate size would be better, but the big size also has advantages of being easily readable and highly salient. I can search for words on a page with my browser search function but don't know how to do that with math formulas, but I can find the large formulas by skimming. Also the large size helps counteract a tendency to skip over equations as "too hard" and just read the text; (7) it removes incentive to improve browsers; and perhaps not least (8) we would have to define clearly where scriptstyle was or was not to be used. In answer to Michael Hardy on my talk page, yes I see that the arguments in favour of scriptstyle or html formulas have some weight, but it seems to me that the argument that the server can translate things automatically pretty well makes those points moot.

I agree, it was a great idea to create this page! However, I suggest making it a guideline rather than policy, so that it will be easier to make exceptions in reasonable cases; or at least to delete "always" and sprinkle throughout the text phrases such as "usually", "normally", "unless there is an unusual reason otherwise", etc.; or put a disclaimer at the top or bottom to the effect that there will be exceptions when there are unusual or strong reasons to do otherwise in particular cases and that people need to use their judgement. (or that no one will be banned for life for breaking one little rule by accident, laziness, ignorance or because it seems to be an exceptional case.) Is it OK to write a draft in some other style out of laziness and then come back later and fix it (or let others fix it)? I think it should be OK though not encouraged. If exceptions do arise, things like comments in the wikitext can help avoid inadvertent reverting. --Catherine Woodgold 09:12, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

suggested structure

I moved a couple of the new sections around - thank you for the contributions, by the way! For example, instead of a new section devoted only to fractions, I moved it to a subsection of "Issues for all <math> environments".

What I suggest is that this page itself contain policy (guidance), while any discussion of what our policy or advice should be goes on the subsidiary pages such as CZ:Formatting_mathematics/Scriptstyle. These are linked from the main article with (discuss this) links. That will make authors' use of this page easier, and it will allow for a thorough and structured debate over each contentious issue. - Greg Martin 12:23, 11 May 2007 (CDT)

re "obviously"

I think it's better to say "It then follows that..." than "obviously" or "it is clear that". "It is clear that" will be false for some readers, and both "obviously" and "it is clear that" imply that any reader who hasn't gotten it yet is stupid. Readers don't like that. In my opinion, "It then follows that..." gently implies that it follows fairly directly, without claiming that everybody who's worth anything has already understood it before they've even finished reading those words. Another one that's not too bad in my opinion is "It can easily be shown that..." Again, it allows the reader to take a few seconds doing the work of "showing" that, before being left behind. Better yet is to make the steps of the proof small enough that you don't have to tell the reader that it's obvious, because it really is. ("Obvious" is really only used when it isn't obvious, as a signal to the reader who hasn't gotten it yet, to let them know what kind of reasoning to look for, i.e. something simple. But it doesn't sound like it.) --Catherine Woodgold 13:55, 12 May 2007 (CDT)