There seems to be no uniformity in the use of a·b = ·
= ·
(Unicode MIDDLE DOT) and a⋅b = ⋅
= ⋅
(Unicode DOT OPERATOR (Mathematical operators)). Even the WP "Insert" edit toolbar seems to confuse them. There are some contexts where a centered dot has a well-defined mathematical meaning:
I imagine that the Unicode symbols each are intended to have a preferred meaning, and that it makes sense to outline in WP:MOSMATH relating to which symbol is to be preferred in each context, or whether they are to be considered interchangeable, rather than having no guideline. Opinions? — Quondum 14:56, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
<math>\cdot</math>
also produces the dot operator. Both give tacit approval of their proper use. I think a bullet point noting this would be appropriate. There is probably a lot for a bot to clean up, though. —
kwami (
talk)
16:08, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
U+2022
gets used as well? In my experience, the WP guideline do try to draw a line somewhere; some level of uniformity of presentation (especially in mathematics) has some benefit. You are suggesting that nothing be said; I am suggesting that if the distinction is unimportant, that the guideline might suggest that either U+22C5
or U+00B7
may be used; alternatively it could put a slight preference on the first. —
Quondum
18:59, 19 November 2012 (UTC)Coming from the page on Operator_(mathematics), the subject's difficulty, and the reader, indirectly, is frequently judged, I feel, perhaps without need, and possibly without substantiation. Certainly without giving helpful indications of why the author's claim (It's easy!) might be true, or on what scale. Do such didactic phrases belong in an encyclopedia at all?
When an author claims that something is easy to see, then he/she should be able to at least indicate in some helpful way why this is actually the case. Maybe by referring to some standards of wikipedia and/or to empirical evidence that have shown people see this with ease; or by referring to some accepted results of the theory of learning. I doubt, though, that this is generally the intent of writing these statements—imitation seems a more likely cause, or a confusion of self's felt ease/difficulty or peers' felt ease/difficulty with a reader's, the latter being unknown.
“It is trivial to show” is another phrase; it could indicate that there exists a well defined set of commonly known trivia, i.e. pieces of knowledge from the trivial arts, Trivia, so that by referring to this set, “It is trivial to show” can actually mean something to a reader of the article. When the phrase is used without thinking about the Trivia (and its methods), I'd still expect an encyclopedia to speak in defined terms. This means, it should be able to hint at a method of proof/seeing. I think that an article in wikipedia is not a homework assignment, testing a readers ingenuity, or mathematical knowledge.
There should be better—systematic—ways of classifying the difficulty of a subject than to sprinkle an article with “It is X to see that ...”.
I must emphasize that I am not at all complaining about the difficulty or ease I felt reading the particular article. This is intended to be a comment on style, the page on operators is just an example. GeorgBauhaus ( talk) 17:40, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
See also Talk:Differential_of_a_function#Detalic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikispaghetti ( talk • contribs) 19:33, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
'The most well-known functions—trigonometric functions, logarithms, etc.—are often written without parentheses.' Shouldn't that be 'best-known'? Sorry if this sounds WP:SOFIXITish, but copyediting the MoS is a weird thing... Kayau ( talk · contribs) 12:10, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
The MoS currently says
I think this is incorrect. sin and cos are not set upright because they are common; instead they are done that way because they have multiple letters. If I defined a new function foo by foo(x) = sin(x) cos(x) then that should be upright too, otherwise it looks like f×o×o(x). A good example of this is the Hermite polynomials, which are commonly referred to as Hn (should be italics) or Hen (should be upright). For example the MathWorld page on Hermite polynomials displays Hn and Hen this way. You could argue that Hen are standard functions just as sin is, but then Hn would be too. Quietbritishjim ( talk) 19:59, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Please, help to classify and compare all types of math typesetting known to be used in Wikipedia. It will make a foundation of this MoS more solid. Incnis Mrsi ( talk) 15:36, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
The section about so named "HTML" formatting does not mention the thin space ( ), which looks pretty good in situations like (x, y) and n × n. Instead, the MoS recommends such forms as “f(x) = sin(x) cos(x)” and “(−π, π]” with U+0020, resulting in over-extended spaces. Incnis Mrsi ( talk) 16:03, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
I recently created these templates for use with {{ math}}, so faults are my responsibility. Are they discouraged by WP:MOSMATH? Thanks in advance for feedback. M∧Ŝ c2ħε Иτlk 17:25, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
Yet another round of flamewar is ongoing, but there is some appearance of WP:consensus about two partial questions. Those who are unwilling to read the entire thread can skip to proposed amendments. Incnis Mrsi ( talk) 20:19, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
Why is this a convention on wikipedia?
This seems just to be designed to confuse those that haven't read the manual of style in-depth - ring should mean ring, not associative unital ring.
I have found differences in styles used to reference (via links and mentions) mathematicians. Also I've seen many links within articles navigate to CITEREFs... Is this acceptable? Ex. Barnette's conjecture#Equivalent forms — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.97.221.98 ( talk) 18:22, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
I would like to add a line to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Mathematics#Terminology conventions: "The ring with one element is called the zero ring." I believe that this is the most common name for it in the mathematical literature, so ideally Wikipedia should reflect this. Any objections? Ebony Jackson ( talk) 01:32, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
I don't know if this is the right discussion page to address this, but I have been noticing the strange lack of infoboxes at the top of a lot of articles about distinct geometrical bodies. Especially I would like something with a headline to contain the first visual representation for the article, and then if possible the simplest form of the equation of the object and/or that which requires the least mathematical preknowledge (say slope-intercept or standard form for Line (geometry) and ax + by + cz = d for Plane (geometry)). Then maybe some historical data, if available. I see a lot of different infoboxes spread around in some part of series of articles ( Category:Mathematics_templates), but nothing unified. And a lot of the most basic articles haven't got any. I think to get this kind of overview at the start would help the average math interested person immensely. Is this a thing that is already being worked on? Cheers -- Anjoe ( talk) 18:36, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
I would like to add the convention that a non-unital ring is called a rng. Currently, the Wikipedia page for this concept is called pseudo-ring even though some of its text refers to "rng". After investigating a little, my feeling is that "pseudo-ring" was a terminological invention of Bourbaki that mathematicians rarely use (outside of Wikipedia). Worse, the term "pseudo-ring" has been used to mean at least three different concepts: see Patterson, "The Jacobson radical of a pseudo-ring", Math. Z. 89 (1965), 348–364 and Natarajan, "Rings with generalised distributive laws", J. Indian Math. Soc. (N.S.) 28 (1964), 1–6 for the other two. "Rng" is a little more common, and has only one mathematical meaning, as far as I know. If "pseudo-ring" had one meaning, then I would want to make it a redirect to rng, but perhaps it should be a disambiguation page instead? Suggestions would be welcome. Ebony Jackson ( talk) 02:12, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
This appears in the same section about rings. A *-algebra is a complex vector space, not a (something) of operators anywhere. May I delete it? Incnis Mrsi ( talk) 13:59, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
Could there be a seperate "Manual of style" for Geometry pages
Many geometry articles are much to much about analytic or higher dimensional Geometry, and would hope that having a seperate Manual of style for Geometry would help to get it right (or at least have a place to link to when the article doesn't follow the style) For many laypeople geometry is about geometrical construction, while (real? professional?) geometers are much more about algebraic, higher dimensional or differentional geometry
I would suggest that after the introduction there is a part
- explanation in plane geometry or 3 dimensional geometry where possible.
- an drawing on the subject (if possible)
- analytic geometrical parts (and all the other specialised geometry parts that look more algebra than geometry) should be in a seperate (last?) section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.205.230.37 ( talk) 14:38, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
With FireFox 26.0 and Wikipedia.Preferences.Appearance.Math=MathJax, I see the examples illustrating the value of \textstyle in
Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Mathematics#Using_LaTeX_markup as identical, with limits after the sigma.
I tried adding \scriptstyle to the example, but it did not change.
In
Help:Displaying_a_formula I found no explanation of these elements.
I searched for them in Wikipedia: and MediaWiki:, but found no documentation (but a great deal of what in this situation was noise) in the first 100 hits, though I did find “\displaystyle” – which helps, but adds to the confusion – (and “:<math>
”) in
Wikipedia:WikiProject_Mathematics/Typography.
I suspect that the introduction of MathJax has something to do with all this.
In case the page changes, the examples of rendering – which I see as identical with the exception of \displaystyle — are:
<math>\sum_{n=1}^\infty 1/n^2 = \pi^2/6</math>
”:<math>
: :
The lead of
Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Mathematics refers to
meta:Help:Formula, which says it is outdated and looks rather like
Help:Displaying_a_formula, though it does not refer to that.
It would be helpful if someone (or ones) could:
:<math>
, if that is supported (but say it is redundant if it is default).And if experts do not know, then state that honestly in the documentation! PJTraill ( talk) 22:37, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
The old motivation for why explanations of symbols in formulae (see article section Explanation of symbols in formulae) should be written as prose, was simply because the list "has no reason to be bulleted". This is simply incorrect — there are probably several reasons for why the list should be bulleted, although the only good reason I can come up with for the moment is that it makes it much easier to quickly find the variable you want to read about. I therefore rewrote the sentence so that it now only says that lists should be written in prose.
Now, however, the statement lacks motivation for why the list should be written in prose, and such should therefore be added. Otherwise, we should probably revise the statement altogether and make it generally acceptable to list explanations of symbols in formulae as bullet lists, as an alternative to as in prose. — Kri ( talk) 21:24, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
For what it's worth this section may be useful, at least it's recent and relevant, possibly one motivation behind this thread.
I agree that lists are good for easy and quick reference, and also that prose allows symbols to be explained in brief detail. Using both is too much explanation, so we just have to decide which one or the other is best for any particular situation. M∧Ŝ c2ħε Иτlk 17:54, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
Hey, Dave! What are your objections to my rewrite?
Duxwing ( talk) 06:37, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
I have edited the first sentence to say that some aspects of this manual apply not only to articles on mathematics but also to the use of mathematical notation in articles on other subjects than mathematics. It would be absurd to say that because an article using mathematiacl notation is on chemistry, it should be exempt from standard conventions when it uses mathematical notation.
The article titled Duckworth–Lewis method begins by saying:
But someone is saying on its talk page that WP:MOS does not apply to it since it is not a mathematics article, so that one should write things like 3<5 instead of 3 < 5 or 3 x 5 instead of 3 × 5, etc. Michael Hardy ( talk) 12:06, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
There are two different ways to include the phi symbol:
a wrong φ ampersant phi semicollumn
and
a right math phi math
and in some articles they both appear for example in Angle of parallelism is it not possible to make a script that automaticly change the wrong form into the right form? (for beginners it can be unclear that they have the same meaning)
see also Phi the page about the symbol — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.205.230.28 ( talk) 10:49, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Do we need an admonishment to avoid using the same variable name for multiple unrelated meanings? This has come up in Closed subgroup theorem. (There doesn't seem to be any disagreement there that this is a bad idea, but it happened because one contributor was following the style of a reference that did this.) — David Eppstein ( talk) 16:49, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
Is this still true? -- Unverbluemt ( talk) 11:27, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
I just came across the following [[Green's relations#The H and D relations|''H''<sub>1</sub>]], rendering as H1 which somehow struck me as unsatisfactory. Would it be a good idea to suggest that as a matter of style one should not wikilink to formulae unless they happen to be the actual article title, such as E8 (mathematics) or Ζ(3)? Deltahedron ( talk) 21:35, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
I am not a member of this group, and came here looking for specific advice that could be given at a Edit-a-thon so I am loathe to make any changes without starting a discussion first and listening to the opinions of the subject experts- but I do get the feeling that this page is very dated, inaccurate and wishy-washy. The formating is not consistent etc- it is heavily dated. If I can't stimulate anyone else to do the work- I give notice that I want to bring this advice upto date to reflect current good practice.-- Clem Rutter ( talk) 11:41, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
Lastly, a well-written and complete article should have a references section. This topic will be discussed in detail below. Which refered to
It is quite important for an article to have a well-chosen list of references and pointers to the literature. Some reasons for this are the following:
Compare that with WP:REF. WP:CITEHOW- Where is the strong statement that
This is a MOS not an essay on the history of maths publications- so where is the statement that various methods of citation are supported but WP:WPMATH advises to use Harvard or Vancouver- or sfns. See the comment in the FARs eg Wikipedia:Featured article review/Infinite monkey theorem/archive2.
Should we just add a sandbox page here and knock together a tougher version. I have gone from looking at MOS pages for advice- to using them to teach post-graduate newbies the ropes. I see from the history that this is basically a 2002 page that that has been cp'd in 2005- and then tweaked. It still feels like the musings of 2002 (Magna Carta- rather than Criminal Justice Act!).
Even changing this line to:
Would be make the page factually accurate. Looking to include material from Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines might be be more beneficial.
It has examples- but choices and no firm advice about current practice. This is a major confusing area for academics- and the editors I am training want firm advice here- newbies are not encouraged by doing wild wikilink chases. They have a message, which they want to put on wiki- correctly reference it and format it (and they have two hours).
What section headings are required, in what order and what sections always occur? So I look at Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Mathematics#Suggested_structure while bearing in mind Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Chemistry#Article_types and Wikipedia:WikiProject_Computer_science/Manual_of_style#Structuring_different_kinds_of_articles.
Briefly looking at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Mathematics#Good_articles we have four types of article.
What are the sections that we would hope to see in a GA/FA for each of these, and how does the MOS help us to write one?
So what do we have at the moment
That is not about structure but a POV on writing pitfalls- though of course very true. (This sentence was copied across to the CompSci MOS and tweaked suggesting how they wrote theirs).
This is advice on the writing process- not on the contents or structure or style of a WP:WPMATH approved article. A possible easy alternative is to take the table from Wikipedia:WikiProject_Mathematics/A-class_rating#Criteria To achieve a well structured article that fulfills the objects of Wikipedia and WP:WPMATH articles should attempt to follow a common structure. There are four principal types of article that have achieved FA status, and their advised structure is considered separately.
We then follow the method used at CompSci giving proformas for each of these article types. In my POV- study links to FAs and GAs for each type of article work.
Not Typesetting- please- there is no hot lead or Linotypes involved. For a maths article this is critical. My first question was- Do I centre a formula, right justify, left justify or put in inline in a sentence? That is what a newbie will ask me- that is what a MOS says. We don't. The essay on LATEX is complete and fun to read- but is addressing the wrong audience. To put it bluntly it reads as if a group of editors have finally understood the intricacies of the markup and demonstrating their mastery. It does not say:
To summarise- there is nothing wrong with the mathematical consensus on this page- but it is not an adequate MOS page as it is not written for the potential user- particularly the brilliant time-poor mathematician who wants to get an article up and running.
I propose we open a sandbox page here and knock together a tougher version. And we focus that version from the point of view of a wiki-newbie who comes with a strong Mathematical background and the tutor who is mentoring her/him -- Clem Rutter ( talk) 11:49, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
I have just posted the page Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Mathematics/sandbox. I made several pointed remarks above- so I felt it was appropriate to rejig the whole page, trying to address some of my criticisms. Yes it was a major job. I feel that this was important as we wont get articles to FAC- unless they are MOS/Mathematics compliant- so having a tightly constructed page is a service and a duty to all FA hopefuls.
I tried not to add a single word- and certainly not change any existing decisions- through out the document I have left notes on the task and problems. Discovering an advised structure for the articles is an incomplete task. I have added a few suggestions. Unfortunately, no FAs or GA seem to follow the previous pattern. Exceptions- yes- but 25 out of 25!
Which brings me to the question of the structure of this MOS. Following other subjects- I detected a vague order, and have re-ordered the sections here to come into line. If this new order is accepted I feel it opens up the article to further improvement. At the moment we have hit a brick wall.
The second brickwall is there were three ways of presenting good/bad text. Obviously a C&P of three peoples work. When combined it was irritating to see first an example of bad text, a criticism then good text. Then the next paragraph- the convention was reversed! There are templates to help so I used them cf {{xt|----}} and ((markup|---|xxx}}.
What make this page unique is that we try and talk about good/bad text at the same time as trying to demonstrate <text> and html markup. I see no need to demonstrate bad text or bad markup here. (But it is essential to do it elsewhere in a tutorial page- or as a {{efn| ---}}
Let the discussion commence--- Clem Rutter ( talk) 17:36, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
There seems to some dispute whether the "d" should be upright in integrals and derivatives:
Any comments. I have no personal preference, except it should be consistent within articles. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:12, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
Recently I've seen a use of \text in <math> tags update< incorrectly >, like Planck units#Base units:
If you are using MathJax renderer, it doesn't look harmonious at all, as MathJax renders \text as sans-serif like the surrounding text. I've been in the process of changing some articles to use \mathrm, so it looks like this (please switch to MathJax in order to see the difference):
For me at least it looks a lot better, so I went ahead and changed some of them. However I just want to ask here the community's opinion before proceeding further. What do you think about the tag used?
Some other options that don't work in MathJax:
\textrm
\mathsf (shows sans serif in PNG too)
Timothy G. from CA ( talk) 02:17, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
Also not working in MathJax but working in PNG:
\mbox
So it seems that only \mathrm works in all setups, others just look plain weird.
Timothy G. from CA ( talk) 02:21, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
Also works for all layout engines: \rm
Timothy G. from CA ( talk) 23:32, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
Note that I do not want to change every single \text
to \mathrm
, only ones appropriate should be changed. Some of the circumstances I can think of where \text
is appropriate is prose labels or anything that does not strictly need mathematical notations, like some equations on
Navier–Stokes equations#Incompressible flow.
Timothy G. from
CA (
talk)
01:10, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
Also I found out about a similar discussion on TeX StackExchange. It suggests to use \textnormal which is not available in MathJax at least; \mathup, but it is with a custom definition; and then \mathrm. So, I guess mathrm it is. Timothy G. from CA ( talk) 23:32, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
\text \mu_\text{e}
, where the subscript is literally a text label ("e" for "of the electron"), not a mathematical symbol such as a specific element of a set, for which I would prefer \mathrm
.\text
being rendered as the way it is a bug, therefore I don't want to go to village pump for this. It is by definition rendered to the styles of surrounding text, which it is. It is just that many usage of \text
is inappropriate on a semantic level as well. An appropriate use of \text
IMO can be found on
Navier-Stokes equations#Incompressible flow, reproduced below:
\text
is not appropriate and should be changed to \mathrm
, but \text
is still useful in many cases where non-mathematical/prose text is required, and I am happy with the way it is rendered as-is.
Timothy G. from
CA (
talk)
01:10, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
\text
renders as a serif font in every context that I can test at the moment (MathML and PNG), and I'll check tonight (when I have a different computer) whether it is the same on MathJax for me; this is already makes your "I am happy with the way it is rendered as-is" inapplicable. It is sounding as though your entire argument is based around rendering on a single browser+configuration+installation+MathJax. —
Quondum
01:50, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
In the International System of Quantities, mathematical constants, like e, i and pi are always upright. The MOS advice is to italicise, which means they can be mistaken for variables. What is the benefit of departing from the international standard? Dondervogel 2 ( talk) 17:08, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
Unlike what happens in chemistry, astronomy, and biology, mathematicians have no authorities who decree standards. Rather, standards evolve from conventions. And they are sophisticated and precise. Crowdsourcing vindicated yet again. Michael Hardy ( talk) 20:14, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
I am still concerned about the use of "π" rather than "π" in many articles ( Pi not among the offenders). In the font that Wikipedia normally uses for mainspace text, π is quite ugly and does not look like π as displayed in any textbook whether it's math, physics, or engineering. Shouldn't π be replaced with π everywhere, unless the default font is somehow adjusted? 173.48.62.104 ( talk) 00:02, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
An anon editor of Simple linear regression is under the impression that using "scriptstyle" for <math>ematical symbols in normal running text, such as or , is some sort of convention in math articles. I don't see any evidence of this. Am I missing something? Interested parties may consider discussing this at Talk:Simple linear regression#Scriptstyle. - dcljr ( talk) 05:50, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
Are mathematical algorithms "inventions" or are they "discoveries"? -- 82.132.234.81 ( talk) 18:09, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
I'm looking for some info on this equation box (for instance, parameters, etc.):
I have been perusing a lot of the WP:math type articles without much luck. All I know is that it exists, obviously. Tfr000 ( talk) 16:57, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
I think it would make sense to have a style guideline for the use of ":" and "\colon" in the <math> tags. Namely, only "colon" should be used for expressions like , while the use of ":" should be limited to the cases where the colon is to be treated by the math engine as a relation, like in set notation: . The creators of LaTeX never intended ":" to be used in map notation, and hence "," which is found in many articles, can be regarded as bad practice encouraged by Wikepedia.-- Ørsted ( talk) 14:02, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
I would like opinion on the mixing of indistinguishable notations for, for example, dx in Leibniz's notation for infinitesimal and in the differential of the exterior derivative when both are used within the same article. I am aware that Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Mathematics § Typesetting of mathematical formulae §§ Font usage §§§ Roman_versus_italic is deliberately non-prescriptive. There are also instances where a distinction would be immaterial, such as to distinguish whether ex refers to the exponential function or to use of the constant e in exponentiation in an article on real analysis (though we've seen people tie themselves into knots in complex analysis when conflating them). Is there value in recommending distinguishing notations for distinct concepts within an article through no less than a typeface difference? — Quondum 18:17, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
Another example of the problem is the polynomial notation: in many textbooks, and some of our articles, P(X) denotes a polynomial P in the indeterminate X, while P(x) denotes the same polynomial with the indeterminate substituted for x. Moreover, the polynomial is denoted indifferently by P of by P(X). Although this may be confusing for the reader, this is mathematically perfectly correct: if the functional notation is clearly defined as representing the substitution/evaluation operation, the substitution of the indeterminate by itself results in the polynomial itself, and this allows writing P = P(X). IMO, the clarification of the notation for polynomials is important, and I have tried to make it explicit in Polynomial § Notation and terminology. This has been reverted as unhelpful by this edit. I have not reverted this edit, because I am unable to provide a reference, but I think that this deserves discussion. D.Lazard ( talk) 10:12, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
Is there any way to see formulas with higher resolution? The PNG formula images are quite low res, and they look really ugly on a high resolution screen such as an iPad. Is there any way to use SVG or higher resolution PNG? -- IngenieroLoco ( talk) 17:26, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
Hi, all. I'm finding issue with this MoS' recommendation that "when displaying formulae on their own line, one should indent the line with one or more colons (:)". While this is visually correct and sets the formula inside the body, semantically it is incorrect. In wikitext, the colon is supposed to be used as part of definition lists, like so:
;Wikipedia :An online encyclopedia ;Britannica :A print encyclopedia
which forms the HTML:
<dl> <dt>Wikipedia</dt> <dd>An online encyclopedia</dd> <dt>Britannica</dt> <dd>A print encyclopedia</dd> </dl>
and the final result:
A problem arises when only the colon by itself is used for indentation:
Pi is the constant :3.14
which form the html:
<p>Pi is the constant</p> <dl> <dd>3.14</dd> </dl>
and results in:
Pi is the constant
It's still forming a definition list when in reality we were merely trying to use the colon to indent formulae. This is a violation of semantics and creates incorrect HTML, since it creates a definition list without terms.
What we are actually attempting to do with using the colon is to inset the formulae. So instead, I propose that we use <blockquote>
instead:
Pi is the constant <blockquote>3.14</blockquote>
which form the html:
<p>Pi is the constant</p> <blockquote> <p>3.14</p> </blockquote>
and results in:
Pi is the constant
3.14
While this results in a lot of whitespace, it is actually semantically correct. Thoughts? Opencooper ( talk) 04:18, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
|display=block
option for the math tag. So, e.g., the markup <math display=block>(L^-\oplus R^-)\Cup(L^+\oplus R^+)</math> shows up looking like this:
|display=block
option, I just tested it and indeed it works. I'm glad to see there is a solution built in. So how about we change the wording of the MoS to recommend using that parameter instead of the colon? It won't fix past uses, but at least it could prevent the problem in the future.
Opencooper (
talk)
06:27, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
|display=block
valid ways of indenting equations, but only under the condition that both are seen as valid and that mass conversions from one to the other are not permitted. If necessary, we could reassess this decision later.
Ozob (
talk)
12:46, 20 August 2016 (UTC)The correct way to indent in wikitext is with a colon. The fact that this colon may be rendered as a definition list is an implementation issue in the Mediawiki software. Tomorrow, or any time in the future, the developers could change the way that the colons are rendered. So the fact that colons are currently rendered as definition lists is not incompatible with the fact that colons are the correct way to do simple indentation in wikitext. The issue of indentation goes far wider than just mathematical formulas, and I think that it is better for us to continue to follow the general practice of wikitext (i.e. use colons) than to try some other system which will be different than other article or other types of indentation within the same article. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 12:53, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
Formula:
Formula:
What is the (intended, official) semantics of : in wikitext? Please notice that I am not asking about the semantics of definition lists in HTML. Mgnbar ( talk) 16:15, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
The original post in this talk page section claims that : is intended for definition lists, but I'm wondering whether this is an official policy, what the rationale is, etc. Because the general use, at least for my 11 years here, has been indentation, which is formatting not semantics. Mgnbar ( talk) 16:24, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
^: *<math>
to <math display="block">
, and I'd be happy so long as they don't presume to yell at me.is a letter
Regardless of the objections to Opencooper's specific proposals, his/her desire to make Wikipedia accessible (through proper use of web semantics) is admirable. I've inspected the HTML generated from display=block a bit, but I'm not familiar enough to tell whether it captures the semantics correctly. Does it? If not, then does anyone have a solution to the semantics problem? Mgnbar ( talk) 21:31, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
Here's another idea. Perhaps the developers can be persuaded to introduce a <dmath> tag that is simply a synonym for <math display="block">. This is as easy to type as :<math> but doesn't have problems with special characters the way a template would. And the string of characters <dmath> is so unlikely to appear anywhere that there shouldn't be compatibility problems. Ozob ( talk) 15:09, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
A {{ why}} tag has been in Explanation of symbols in formulae since 2014. My impression is that the question was answered in this discussion, so I propose removing the tag and modifying the statement to read:
In Wikipedia, prose is preferred to lists. Therefore, a list such as ... should be written as prose:
RockMagnetist( talk) 17:07, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
I have occasionally seen articles in which some of the notation within a formula is wikinked, e.g. O(n) or log2 n. This only works in html or {{ math}}-formatted formulas, not in <math>. Should the MOS include guidance on such links?
My own preference would be to say not to do this. The color changes distract from reading the formula. If a piece of notation needs explanation for its expected audience to be able to understand it, then a link hidden inside a formula won't be visible enough to be adequate as an explanation; instead, the notation should be explained in the actual article text. And if a piece of notation doesn't need such explanations, what is the wikilink for?
I am not talking about wikilinks on an entire formula, to an article that is about the object described by that formula like SL2(R). Nor am I talking about wikilinks or external links in references whose title contains a formula. Those are separate issues and I think they are non-problematic. This is only about links on proper subunits of a formula.
But this seems like the sort of thing that might be controversial, so maybe we can have a discussion to see whether the MOS should be changed in this way. — David Eppstein ( talk) 22:30, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
I strongly prefer using parentheses with standard functions: etc. It makes it absolutely clear what the argument to the function is. I have been burned by this before, when a writer was sloppy and didn't include them with a complicated argument. At the same time, I realize that and have a long tradition, and with just an in there for the argument, it's no big deal. Therefore, I propose adding the following text to the Functions section:
"If you are typing an argument more than one character long for a function, consider adding parentheses around the argument to make it clear what is inside the argument, and what is not."
Ackbeet ( talk) 16:20, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
I'm reposting the following comment here to hopefully get some feedback. I'm not sure where I should bring this up, so I'm trying here now:
I just "fixed" a formula that was using \operatorname* -- WP seems not to support the starred version, so the only thing I could really do was to remove the star. This improved the appearance, but it still falls short of the intended typesetting. Is there any way to add support for this feature? Where does one bring up this sort of request anyway? One other missing bit of support that seems crucial is for \genfrac. This is needed a lot, and the workaround(s) are usually less-than-desirable LaTeX. Deacon Vorbis ( talk) 19:36, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
The "punctuation inside the <math></math> tags" rule seems to put rendering before logic.
But the cited rendering fault (line wrapping from breaking between the formula and the comma) doesn't occur in modern browsers (Chrome version 58 and Firefox version 53) — with a few exceptional cases where breaking is actually saner than not breaking.
It messes up when you want to copy & paste just a formula, without inadvertently taking in any surrounding text. Which is exactly what I was trying to fix with edit 778770928, which was reverted citing this rule.
This seems similar to the rule about putting punctuation inside quote marks for purely aesthetic reasons, but in this case, without the benefit of "looking better"; indeed it looks quite a lot uglier to my eye, to have punctuation in a different font from the surrounding text.
Can we have this rule removed or even reversed, please? Martin Kealey ( talk) 10:46, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
There doesn't seem to be a standard for styling the names of vectors across the whole of Wikipedia, and i'd love to see a group consensus on a standard for formatting them. For example, in the Linear algebra article, many scalar and vector variables have no visual distinction between them, which is confusing.
The many options available seem to be:
Markup | Result | Notes |
---|---|---|
<math>\vec{a}</math> |
||
{{math|{{vec|''a''}}}} |
a→ | As described on Template:Vec there are additional options for this template. |
{{math|'''a'''}} |
a | The essay WP:Rendering math mentions this option. |
<math>\mathbf{a}</math> |
Used on the page Vector notation. | |
'''a''' |
a | Super simple, but not the best. |
I think it is essential to modify any vector that is not bold or "arrowed" into one of the styles above. Of course, we can't be expected to change every existing variable to one single format -- if someone is using the math template, we shouldn't convert it to LaTeX -- but moving forwards it'd be great to choose one method and have that on this Manual of Style.
I personally prefer the bold italics serif version from the ISO Standard used in Vector notation by User:Adelphious but they couldn't use LaTeX to reproduce the standard, so they used CSS instead. - Boanus ( talk) 17:56, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
Symbols tend to look quite different, making it harder to relate the math to the text. A common example are column vectors denoted as and x vs. X and referring to matrices with the xT as rows. The way most math articles on Wikipedia are written, it's already difficult enough to follow without having to do a double-take every time a variable comes up in inline text.
We should introduce a new guideline: Use uniform font styles to refer to the same variables.-- 2A01:E35:8B11:FA90:1E6F:65FF:FE3E:10A9 ( talk) 11:43, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
Is there any reason *not* to replace the Delta in ΔABC with something that actually is a mathematic symbol? And secondly, what should it be replaced with? Naraht ( talk) 15:32, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
I saw that the unfortunate "^T" is adopted as transposition operator instead of the much better "^\top". Is there a reason? (Also, it's my first time using these talk pages, and I'm not sure I'm doing it right.) Atcold ( talk) 19:55, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
According to the main page, LaTeX won't render in section headings, but this seems not to be the case anymore. Whether or not it's a good idea otherwise is another issue, but it seems like we should update this. Thoughts? -- Deacon Vorbis ( talk) 14:55, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
#LaTeX_(like_%7F'"`UNIQ--postMath-00000001-QINU`"'%7F)_in_section_headings
, wikilinks formed using it do actually seem to work. -
dcljr (
talk)
05:47, 2 December 2017 (UTC)I chased down the time when colons were adopted as the Wikipedia system for indenting displayed mathematical content. Although the WP:MOSMATH page appears to be created in 2005, the actual style for indented equations was documented as early as 2002 [4]. The fact that guidance on indentation was included so soon illustrates how indenting displayed equations is fundamental to the presentation of mathematics - it is not a side topic for this page. The page history also shows that this page was not "forked" from any other MOS pages. Indeed, any other MOS page which describes formatting of mathematics is likely to have been written after this page, and could be viewed as a fork of this page. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 16:28, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
<math>
markup, or wikimarkup in general, in the first place. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<
19:47, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
"Various templates are available for indentation, including(at MOS:INDENT, a new shortcut created just for you :-), and see the lengthy quote below from MOS:INDENTGAP, they key material from which is{{ block indent}}
, and (for inline use){{ in5}}
.
"Colons (:
) at the start of a line .... produces broken HTML .... The result is ... confusion for any visitor unused to Wikipedia's broken markup. This is not ideal for accessibility or semantics."
And at
MOS:DLIST: "When wikimarkup colons are used just for visual indentation, they too are rendered in HTML as description lists, but without ;-delimited terms to which the :-indented material applies. Use indentation templates in articles, e.g.(recently updated to refer to the same templates instead of different, older ones, but substantively unchanged). "[I]t is purely advisory" – Um, everything in all guidelines is purely advisory, including this one you're so protective of/controlling over. Even policy material can be viewed as advisory, in light of WP:IAR and WP:COMMONSENSE, other than legal policies imposed on WP as hard requirements by WP:OFFICE. So, the "advisory" point you're making is not a real point. No one said anything at all about anything being "mandatory or controlling"; this has never been about anything other than MOS:MATHS recommending a practice deprecated in favor of more accessible practice specified by the main MoS page and the accessibility page and the list-markup page. The material in question has nothing at all to do with mathematics and{{ in5}}
or one of its variants for one line, and{{ block indent}}
for more than one line (even if misuse of description list markup on talk pages is too ingrained to change at this point)."
<math>...</math>
markup, only with good versus awful ways to shift content to the right. I think we've been over this at least 5 times now.. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<
12:55, 13 December 2017 (UTC)Until this edit (which was even reverted) WP:ACCESS said the following:
Colons (:) at the start of a line mark that line as part of an HTML definition list. The visual effect in most web browsers is to indent the line. This is used, for example, to indicate replies in a threaded discussion on Talk pages. This is not ideal for accessibility or semantics, but is currently in wide use. Blank lines should not be placed between indented lines of text, as they are interpreted by the software as marking the end of a list and the start of a new one. If a blank line is needed, place the same number of colons on it as those preceding the text below the blank line, for instance: : Text here. :: :: More text.
which is not in conflict with the MSM guideline. So pardon me if I disagree that an edit that is just a few days old has a higher CONLEVEL than a guideline that has existed since the early days of Wikipedia. As far as I am aware, the only place where this issue is being formally discussed (the pump) also does not reveal any consensus to change the existing guideline, contrary to the claim being advanced here that there is some larger consensus to change the established guideline for the indentation of mathematical equations. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 22:43, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
:
by itself for visual indentation causes validation failure, problems for screen readers,
WP:REUSE issues, and other headaches. Just give it a rest, man. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<
17:58, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
:
markup for visual indentation and deny that MOS and MOS:ACCESS and MOS:DLIST have identified a more accessible way to get the same effect. That denialism's not okay; it's a PoV fork of the advice here against three other guidelines (which are actually relevant to indentation and list markup accessibility while MOS:MATHS is not). This is a
WP:CONLEVEL failure (MOS's lead: "If any contradiction arises, this page has precedence over all detail pages of the guideline"). There is no defensible basis for the idea that it can be forbidden in MOS:MATHS to recommend and illustrate the less problematic markup, even if you and Sławomir Biały and whoever else prefer personally to use the more problematic
:
markup. That really is all there is to it. A couple of you have made a drama mountain out of a technical molehill that has been considered controversial by precisely zero other people on all of WP for years. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<
12:55, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
@
SMcCandlish: I object to
using {{
in5}}
, which uses multiple nonbreaking spaces to indent what follows, for indenting displayed math content. Unfortunately, the "obvious" <math style="margin-left:2em">
doesn't seem to be supported (perhaps a Phabricator task should be opened about this?). A simple TeX-based solution would be to start the math content with an initial "\quad\
" (a
quad followed by a space):
There might be a better (if not more convenient) TeX-based solution if I thought about / researched it a bit. Opinions? Suggestions? - dcljr ( talk) 06:19, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
{{
in5}}
approach. Look at the HTML it actually outputs: "<p>     
" (alternating non-breaking and regular spaces). This means long math content can actually be bumped to the next line, resulting in no indenting at all. In any case, I'm glad you see my suggestion as a viable alternative. What say other users? (In the meantime, shall we revert your change, SMcCandlish, until a better approach is found?) -
dcljr (
talk)
06:46, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
{{
in5}}
to fix the wrapping issue. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<
08:35, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
{{
blockindent}}
. Just tried that, and it works fine. No blank line needed, either. (I created this originally as a {{
blockquote}}
replacement for material that isn't a quotation). —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<
08:38, 2 December 2017 (UTC)The standard way to indent in mathematics articles is to use colons, and this page should reflect that. I am not sure I know of any math article that uses templates for indenting displayed math formulas. The HTML generated is irrelevant to this point - "colon" in wikitext means "indent", not "dd", and at any point Mediawiki could switch from "dd" to anything else that achieves an indentation. It is not in any way an abuse of wikitext to use colons to indent content. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 15:08, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
Depends on what you're trying to do. For what we've been talking about:
{{
block indent|1=Your math here.}}
{{
block indent|{{
block indent|1=Further-indented math here.}}}}
emits:
For simple stuff (but requires either a blank line or a <br />
preceding it, and indents less by default):
{{in5}}Your math here.<br />
{{in5}}{{in5}}Further-indented math here.<br />
or
{{in5|10}}Further-indented math again.<br />
yields:
Your math here.
Further-indented math here.
or
Further-indented math again.
Neither of these produce bogus list markup, but the {{
in5}}
stuff can wrap such that the math is non-indented, as someone noted above, if the math content is long (or the viewport is tiny). There are also other indentation templates, but they are also space-based like {{
in5}}
. The most robust is the {{
block indent}}
approach. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<
06:50, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
PS: You can also use {{
block indent|left=X}}
where X is an value in em units, to change the indent spacing (e.g. to make it match regular list indentation instead of blockquote indentation, or to indent further instead of using a block indent nested in a block indent. Another approach to the first example would be to open a block indent, put the first math, then do another block indent, do the extra-indented math, then close both block indents. That would be "cleaner", unless you need some non-indented text between the indented and extra-indented material, e.g. to introduce the second example.
I'm not sure why you'd want to have math examples indented to different levels in the first place, though.
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<
06:54, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
<math display="block">
is exactly what we've been looking for. Getting it to be generally accepted by editors is, of course, a totally different matter. I agree (with the implication of SMcCandlish's last comment) that indenting displayed math beyond one level is probably a relatively rare requirement in articles, but I imagine there are probably several legit examples lying around. In those cases, {{
block indent}}
looks like an acceptable approach:{{
block indent}}
has an em
parameter to control how far to go (in ems, of course):
{{block indent|em=4|<math>f(x)=|x|</math>}}
{{
in5}}
template/module). As for developer-involved solutions, I think a more realistic approach (rather than deprecating or reimplementing colon-indenting) may be to work towards a <math>
-only solution for indenting mathematical content in particular. I've opened a new subsection for this below. -
dcljr (
talk)
11:36, 4 December 2017 (UTC)Please see:
Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RfC: Accessibility versus convenience in indentation
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<
13:37, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
Like I said above (although not to this level of precision), just using display="block"
seems to give exactly the same indenting as a single colon (does anyone see otherwise?):
These are, respectively, coded as:
:<math>|x|</math>
<math display="block">|x|</math>
This tells me that it is not unreasonable to consider implementing the indenting of math content with the display="block"
approach. (Again, as I suggested above, having the option and requiring it are two different things. Here I'm discussing having the option to indent in the math element itself. Also remember that MediaWiki features are used in wikis other than those hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. Mathematically oriented wikis may actually like the idea of colon-less indenting of math content.)
Unfortunately, the way display="block"
is currently implemented appears to result in bad HTML: paragraph opened before a <div>
element then closed after it. Given this, I'm not sure I understand what the thinking was when the feature was originally proposed/implemented (since "displayed" math [in the TeX sense] almost always occurs inside a paragraph, yet a <div>
element cannot). Perhaps someone knows where this was discussed? The only thing I've been able to find is
mw:Extension:Math/Displaystyle, which doesn't have any real discussion.
Another, more serious, problem is that the page I just linked to reveals that on the MediaWiki wiki, display="block"
results in centered displayed math (just like in TeX), not displayed math indented to the level of one colon! (Waaah…)
Notwithstanding all of the above, indenting to the level of however-many colons could be implemented in the <math>
element with new syntax. This very idea came up back in December 2008 (
phab:T18829) and was quickly nixed (within 14 hours!) by a developer (
Brion, the only other user to comment on the bug), but opinions can change in 9 years, so maybe the idea would not be dismissed out of hand if some kind of consensus were reached about what the syntax might look like.
The proposer in 2008 seemed to be suggesting:
<math indent=number>
where number is the number of "colons" of indenting to apply (0 would mean no indenting, which the proposer said would be the default and mean inline display — I would lean toward having 0 mean non-indented but still "displayed" math [i.e., after a line break]).
Another possibility is to put it inside the display
attribute:
<math display="indent">
for displayed math with one-level indent;
<math display="indent:number">
for displayed math with number-level indent (0 or more, 0 meaning aligned to left margin).
I could probably come up with other possibilities, but I've been typing this up for an insane amount of time already. I need to go to sleep. - dcljr ( talk) 11:36, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
<dmath>
<math display="block">
, an approach I think is particularly promising. Someone else (in the task) objected to creating a new tag, but I think it's a pretty neat solution. The new tag could then be used along with sitewide style sheets to style displayed math as either indented or centered, as desired by the wiki (IOW, whichever alignment is chosen as the "default default", a wiki could change it to the other default alignment in their site's CSS).<imath>
display="inline"
), and no already existing uses of <math>
would need to be changed to get the benefit of the kinds of "logical" changes people have wanted to make to the behavior of <math>
(e.g., that inline math should use inline styling by default, and displayed math should use display styling — this change would bring wikicode math much closer to the way TeX/LaTeX does it, which many technical folks would likely welcome). All current math content would continue to work the same way it does now, and instances of <math>
could be slowly changed to <imath>
or <dmath>
, as appropriate, in the normal course of editing. (The <math>
tag would remain a viable option into the future.) Unfortunately, I have no idea whether having three different tags as "entry points" to the same underlying code would cause any kind of problem from the developers' side. I would hope not. (Note that the display="block"
and display="inline"
functionality already exists. The change would be the use of the new tags and having different defaults for the two situations.) -
dcljr (
talk)
23:25, 4 December 2017 (UTC)margin:left
) rather than by changing the content type to a block element, since we can't guarantee the context; a block element wouldn't be valid inside an inline element like <span>...</span>
. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<
08:14, 11 December 2017 (UTC)imath
solution because it a) adds tags for the same semantic information and b) because the solution should work with chem
as well as math
without an even larger number of tags. --
Izno (
talk)
12:47, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
<math>
and <chem>
adjusted. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<
15:52, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
:
Phabricator ticket for the first time in years but they keep saying, basically, "it's hard" which generally translates to "WONTFIX", either formally or through perpetual inaction. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<
19:47, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
<math display="block">
is the way to go. It gets centered by default, but this was
changed on common.css (see
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive/2015/Sep#Styling of block mode display of math formula).
Helder
12:59, 26 December 2017 (UTC)Hello.
I propose/request that the MOS be amended to include explicit guidance regarding the use of markup versus special characters when editing mathematical formulas.
The MOS currently gives guidance for specific cases of similar situations. For example, it prefers <sup>2</sup>
instead of ²
. It does not, however, address the possibility that an editor might directly enter the "special" character itself: ²
. This markup-versus-special issue is the subject I request be addressed.
By providing the "Special characters" toolbar, which directly inserts hard-to-type characters into the wikitext, Wikipedia seems to favor that approach over markup. I find this problematic.
The "toolbar" method requires the editor to search for and identify the desired character by eye alone. This effort is difficult.
The consequence of this difficulty is editor fatigue, and therefore editor carelessness. Editors who want beta will just use ß (Eszett) if they find it first. In the long term, I am concerned that "emojification" of Wikipedia's mathematics content will create ambiguity and decrease the value of articles. (See Emoji#Emoji_communications_problems.)
The alternative to the "toolbar" method is markup using one of the supported languages such as HTML or <math>
. This eliminates the ambiguity problem (ala β
), but has the disadvantage of a
steep learning curve. I suppose that my preference for the direction of guidance is clear, but my aim in writing today is to gain clarity for myself and other editors, not to promote my particular opinion.
To summarize, I request that the MOS
Thank you,
Christopher Ursich ( talk) 00:31, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
A discussion on this topic from 2010 is in the archive, but no conclusion seems to have been reached, there's nothing in the article, and I'd think there ought to be a consistent guideline here. I would propose , , and always be used for their respective meanings, with the bare being reserved for contexts such as asymptotic behavior. Mathematicians might object to the foremost, but this being Wikipedia, I'd imagine even quite advanced topics would be found by a fair share of readers likely to read "log" and infer "common log"; similarly, although I'd imagine most of those with the sort of background to assume the natural log would catch on from context in most circumstances, the lay usage of the bare symbol to mean the common log should probably also be avoided for the confusion it might cause, as should the niche . Regardless, even if all of that is rebuked, I do strongly believe we need some community-wide standard. Thoughts? 50.252.247.245 ( talk) 19:37, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
It's more important from our perspective to maintain consistency with sources rather than between articles. In some articles it will be more natural to write or or or . To impose order on this would be for Wikipedia to decide that certain matters of notation are better than others. That is incompatible with our objectives. So we simply stick with what prevailing sources use in a given context, and if there are no dominant conventions, we follow MOS:RETAIN. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 21:45, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
Several authorities recommend italic be used for all variables, whether Greek or not, and whether uppercase or not: IUPAC, NIST & ISO (referenced by NIST). In practice this is not always followed, although those 'contraventions' are not necessarily because of an opposing view. Sometimes the use of roman for variables is founded on the type of application (e.g. to represent a tensor), and very often it is due to defaults built into the software — which may or may not be appropriate.
The current MOS page claims that Greek capitals should (always!) be set roman in order to follow TeX's default setting!
First off, I personally think that they should be set italic if they represent variables; roman would be fine by me if they represent a function. But that's just my opinion.
More importantly, it seems like a terrible justification to say that the default of some typesetter is to be followed with no other reason given. Although there is a lot of discussion of the MOS in the archived talk page, there was no evident discussion of or consensus on this particular matter.
I am not confident of a consensus being reached on this matter. If my own preferences aren't adopted, then I hope some flexibility will be allowed in the MOS to allow for different applications (scalar variable versus function, say) and different contexts (pure mathematics versus engineering, say). But at the least there should be be a better justification presented — if not in the MOS page itself, then here on its Talk page!.
—DIV (
120.17.228.105 (
talk)
12:47, 9 July 2018 (UTC))
<math>...</math>
sections, and it's what people use in practice to write. –
Deacon Vorbis (
carbon •
videos)
13:18, 9 July 2018 (UTC)Γ
or {{math|Γ}}
(Γ or Γ), not ''Γ''
or {{mvar|Γ}}
(Γ or Γ). In this respect, I think this is a fine thing to keep. If there really is a rare exception needed for an italic capital Greek latter, it would be fine to do so, provided that it would be done correspondingly in a <math>...</math>
block as well. –
Deacon Vorbis (
carbon •
videos)
14:46, 9 July 2018 (UTC)The reason that TeX does not do it by default is the most mathematical publishing does not do it - TeX was specifically designed to emulate the best quality hand-typeset mathematics. On the other hand, ISO and NIST are pretty much irrelevant to mathematics publishing. The idea that Greek variables are italicized but not Greek functions is challenging to reconcile with variables that range over functions. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 20:47, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
I think it is also curious that we have a number of IP editors arriving on an MOS page. Perhaps it would be a better idea to establish oneself as an editor, get experience editing mathematical articles, and then discuss the manual of style later. It's not productive for inexperienced editors to make random MOS suggestions. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 20:47, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
From § Indenting ( permalink) as well as various other MOS pages, it seems like using colons solely for indentation within articles is Bad, and using LaTeX’s block display mode does exactly what we want. Is there a reason the article doesn’t advise that over misusing colons? — 67.14.236.193 ( talk) 05:12, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
|display=block
syntax is still pretty new. But also, it doesn't work properly for text that is already indented (for instance in bulleted lists, and yes, I have seen bulleted lists with displayed equations in them). And if your goal is semantic cleanliness, it's just as broken as indenting with colons; for instance, your comment above nests a div (actually two nested divs) inside a p, something that is forbidden in proper html. Finally, the idea of avoiding colons for indentation is based on what is arguably a bug in Wikimedia rather than an actual semantic problem; colons are widely used with the intended meaning of indenting something, so the semantics of the wiki-markup is clean enough. The actual problem is that the Wikimedia engine renders the "indent something" semantics as a piece of a definition list even when there is no surrounding definition list to be found. So avoiding : is just working around a bug rather than making your intent clearer. —
David Eppstein (
talk)
05:25, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
<p>
after the math, so the text underneath isn’t even in a paragraph, so there is that bug.) And colons (and semicolons) still function exactly as originally intended, and wikimarkup still lacks a simple indent. That’s not a bug in the colon; that’s us misusing definition/description/glossary lists purely for aesthetics. —
67.14.236.193 (
talk)
06:11, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
:
) was, frankly, shameful and an embarrassment to the project. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼
06:21, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
<math display="block">
in its own paragraph (with a blank line above and below), and if we just use list markup instead of block in lists, wouldn’t that avoid these issues? Is there any reason not to use display="block"
on its own between two blank lines? —
67.14.236.193 (
talk)
06:32, 28 June 2018 (UTC)Let’s see.
Well, there’s an empty paragraph (<p></p>
) above and below the math, so that’s weird, but otherwise no reason not to use it in typical cases. —
67.14.236.193 (
talk)
06:32, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
<p><div>latex{x=3}</div></p>
.
mw:Remex (via use of the parser migration edit tool) will add apparently empty p elements at some point in the near-future rather than allowing that bad behavior, but that still doesn't explain how you are getting the source you are. Maybe because you are unregistered? The math source I get is because I have the option set for the MathML. Do you receive a PNG? --
Izno (
talk)
12:49, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
There was a formal RFC in December, which concluded with an outcome keeping the current guideline [6]. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 12:56, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
|display=block
would be to decouple that sort of stylistic decision from the semantic content. As for codification of the markup to use: LaTeX is codified and is the defacto standard. Based on it, most mathematicians would expect \[ ... \] or $$ ... $$ for displayed equations (and \( ... \) or $ ... $ for inline ones), so anything else (like our math tags) will take some getting used to. —
David Eppstein (
talk)
01:09, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
:
for simple indentation outdated? Because this contradicts them. —
67.14.236.193 (
talk)
15:00, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
If any contradiction arises [between the main MoS and other MoS pages], this page always has precedence." The MOS:MATH policy-fork is invalid on its face both by MoS's wording and by CONLEVEL policy. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 15:20, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
Moving on: MoS, like other guidelines, doesn't "mandate" anything. But that rules/winning/control approach to the matter sure explains a lot, as does the implication that because you "won" last year no one's allowed to question the matter ever again. You also more directly suggset that the result of the RfC hasn't been "accepted"; yet no one is editwarring to change the wording, going around editing in contravention of what it says, or even opening a new RfC on it (I generally wait at least a year before I seek a broader consensus re-discussion of something, and I may never get around to this one; someone else is likely to do it before I do). You're not in a position to try to forbid people from saying at a guideline talk page that one of the guideline's line-items is wrongheaded, why, and why the process at which was got to it was faulty. Such discussions are what a guideline's talk page exists for.
Speaking of straw men, I've nowhere suggested that your or anyone else's input into process (RfC, etc.) is less legitimate, only that some of the facts and assumptions are demonstrably wrong; that too many of the arguments are off-topic, subjective preference, dismissiveness of standards that aren't maths standards, and/or grounded only in editorial convenience; and dominated by a particular bloc of (canvassing-confused) editors from one wikiproject.
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼
15:07, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
What this is going to continue boiling down to is what it boiled down to in the previous discussion. I'll just quote (with minor contextual revision) what I said then (and moving those discussions into /Archive 1 isn't going to sweep the issue under the rug): What's happened here is PoV policy-forking – of what a maths-topical MoS subpage says about an accessibility matter about which the maths page is not authoritative, from what the main MoS page and the accessibility MoS page (among others) say about the exact same matter. Contrary to reality-denying claims in these discussions, there absolutely is general MoS material on indenting all kinds of content (regardless of topic) – lots of it, and all consistent except at MOS:MATH. All emphasis is as in the original; these are direct copy-pastes from the pages in question:
Various templates are available for indentation, including{{ block indent}}
, and (for inline use){{ in5}}
. For more information on the accessibility problems of using:
( description list markup) for visual indentation, see [the next page quoted below].
An accessible approach to indentation is the template{{ block indent}}
for multi-line content; it uses CSS to indent the material. For single lines, a variety of templates exist, including{{ in5}}
(a universal template, with the same name on all Wikimedia sites); these indent with various whitespace characters. ... A colon (:
) at the start of a line marks that line in the MediaWiki parser as the<dd>...</dd>
part of an HTML description list (<dl>...</dl>
). The visual effect in most Web browsers is to indent the line. ... However, this markup alone is missing the required<dt>
(term) element of a description list ... this results in broken HTML ... which is confusing for any [screen-reader-using] visitor unused to Wikipedia's broken markup. This is not ideal for accessibility, semantics, or reuse....
When wikimarkup colons are used just for visual indentation, they too are rendered in HTML as description lists, but without ;-delimited terms to which the :-indented material applies, nor with the list start and end tags, which produces broken markup (see WP:Manual of Style/Accessibility § Indentation for details). More accessible indentation templates can be used, e.g.{{ in5}}
or one of its variants for one line, and{{ block indent}}
for more than one line (even if misuse of description list markup on talk pages is too ingrained to change at this point).
[Need for indentation] is fixed by increasing the default indentation ... and it can be done in multiple ways: ... use an explicit CSS margin spacing of [tech details elided]. Though not the simplest, this is the cleanest and most versatile method, as it does not rely on any peculiarities of the parser, nor on abusing any semantic markup for purely visual purposes. ... A list of one or more lines starting with a colon creates an HTML5 description list (formerly definition list in HTML4 and association list in draft HTML5), without terms to be defined/described/associated, but with the items as descriptions/definitions/associations, hence indented. ... Deprecated method: [this] technique ... produces poorly formed ... markup and abuses the semantic HTML purpose of description lists for a purely visual effect, and is thus a usability and accessibility problem. It will work in a hurry, but should be replaced with cleaner code....
This has never been about anything other than MOS:MATHS recommending a practice deprecated in favor of more accessible practice specified by the main MoS page and the accessibility page and the list-markup page and the list-coding instructions. That's four against one, so we know where
WP:CONLEVEL policy goes on this, especially since the main MoS trumps MoS subpages, and it explicitly defers to
MOS:ACCESS on this matter. The indentation-related material at
MOS:MATHS has nothing at all to do with mathematics and <math>...</math>
markup, only with good versus awful ways to shift content – of any kind – to the right.
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼
23:42, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
[7] —
67.14.236.193 (
talk)
23:34, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
So what exactly is the problem with using <math display="block">
when on its own line? The only technical issue that’s been mentioned is the empty paragraph before the div, which really seems like a non-issue (though it seemed to cause some confusion: under HTML5, which we use, <p>
is self-closing; it’s functionally identical to <p></p>
<div>...</div>
, so there is no nesting). —
67.14.236.193 (
talk)
15:50, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
<math>
significantly differently? Do we not know? —
67.14.236.193 (
talk)
00:35, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
It may, or may not, change where that deviant p element ends up, or whether the div ends up inside the p--and while I trust the parser migration gadget to find issues with future rendering, I don't really trust it to output the exact rendering. If it ends up outputting as empty and closed paragraphs (well-formed but meaningless), then the use of display=block shouldn't be blocked on that issue. (There may be other technical or non-technical issues which block moving to display=block--the solution which I think is clearly the superior one.)
What one could do is go to a wiki where Remex is already enabled and test how display=block outputs. I'm a bit lazy on the point ;), so feel free to report back, IP67. -- Izno ( talk) 01:26, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
or whether the div ends up inside the p—You can’t have a
div
inside a p
. I don’t mean it’s invalid; you literally can’t, it just
doesn’t work that way. If you try, the p
ends right there, and all you get is the div
interrupting the p
. Otherwise, agreed. But I’m not at all familiar with Remex, and have no idea what wikis may or may not use it. —
67.14.236.193 (
talk)
15:31, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
AIn other words, if there’s ap
element's end tag may be omitted if thep
element is immediately followed by [a] […]div
[…] element, or if there is no more content in the parent element […].
<p>
, and then there’s a <div>...</div>
, the div
follows the entirety of the p
with no need to explicitly close it. This is also why <p>...
<p>...
<p>...</p>
results in one paragraph after another rather than nonsensically nested paragraphs. That’s how HTML5 works, and Wikipedia uses HTML5. The language provides no mechanism to alter this behavior. I think you’re focusing too much on the orphaned </p>
. That tag is nonsensical; there’s nothing left to close. It’s like if a recipe said to put the pan in the oven, bake, let cool, serve, and then take it out of the oven—it’s already out! —
67.14.236.193 (
talk)
02:13, 3 July 2018 (UTC)<math display="block">
when on its own line? " - several issues have been mentioned, not all of which I can remember, but one is that this is not sensitive to existing indentation, such as:
- List item 1
- List item 2
- List item 1: math display=block on its own lind
- List item 2
- List item 1: math display=block on its own lind
- List item 2
- List item 1: math display=block on its own lind
- List item 2
A colon without a definition list does have a specific meaning, which is to indent.Not according to what the markup actually does, and has done since its inception: it creates a description list. See MDN’s page about the Description Details element. We’re arguing semantics here, but semantics matter (and if you don’t believe so, I’d ask what you’re doing in the MOS part of Wikipedia). If you want pure indentation markup, the colon is not what you’re looking for. On talk pages, for instance, discussions have long been threaded by means of nested description lists, which are actually better suited for the task than pure indentation. Doesn’t work so well when they’re broken up by things like blockquotes as above, but that’s getting off topic. — 67.14.236.193 ( talk) 01:45, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
References
What I was actually trying to ask at the top of this subsection was whether there were any issues with using block-display independently of list markup—under circumstances where it would make stylistic sense to have the math alone on its own line with no other markup on the same line as it.
Regarding indentation, it works just fine in blockquotes:
Markup | Renders as |
---|---|
Quote: <blockquote> blah blah <math>x=3</math> blah: <math display="block">\int_0^3x\,dx</math> blah </blockquote> |
Quote: blah blah blah:
blah |
(Note: I use {{ blockindent}} above since I’m not actually quoting anything, but the result is the same.)
It also seems to work inline, with no line breaks of any sort, even in lists. Like so:
Markup | Renders as |
---|---|
* … * Another example of an integral is <math display="block">\int_0^3x\,dx</math> which resolves to <math>\frac x4</math>. * … |
|
— 67.14.236.193 ( talk) 03:10, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
With the block’s use of div
, though, it’s still not technically correct to use it in the middle of a paragraph of running text (it actually terminates that paragraph). But that seems to be the only real issue, and it’s a fairly minor one. The issues illustrated above in lists all seem like user error, adding unnecessary line breaks and the like. —
67.14.236.193 (
talk)
03:57, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
... \text{ or} ...
which would render in a different font than plain text. —
67.14.236.193 (
talk)
01:43, 4 July 2018 (UTC)With RemexHtml having now been in play for weeks, where do we stand on this? — 67.14.236.193 ( talk) 01:59, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
What does this do?
^ I see in my source:
<p><div class="mwe-math-element"><div class="mwe-math-mathml-display mwe-math-mathml-a11y" style="display: none;"><math display="block" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="{\displaystyle \int _{0}^{3}x\,dx}">
<semantics>
<mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD">
<mstyle displaystyle="true" scriptlevel="0">
<msubsup>
<mo>∫<!-- ∫ --></mo>
<mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD">
<mn>0</mn>
</mrow>
<mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD">
<mn>3</mn>
</mrow>
</msubsup>
<mi>x</mi>
<mspace width="thinmathspace" />
<mi>d</mi>
<mi>x</mi>
</mstyle>
</mrow>
<annotation encoding="application/x-tex">{\displaystyle \int _{0}^{3}x\,dx}</annotation>
</semantics>
</math></div><img src="https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/media/math/render/svg/4f6ee37704c67835d227c5b66f046f1ba9142be3" class="mwe-math-fallback-image-display" aria-hidden="true" style="vertical-align: -2.338ex; width:8.168ex; height:6.176ex;" alt="{\displaystyle \int _{0}^{3}x\,dx}"/></div>
</p>
And Firefox even highlights the last </p> in orange fore-color as if it is errant (because it is). -- Izno ( talk) 02:24, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
<ref>
s with block display, which admittedly can be a problem.) —
67.14.236.193 (
talk)
03:50, 26 July 2018 (UTC)Proposal: Recommend using <math display="block">…</math>
when a block-level effect (with indentation) is desired. Recommend putting any explanatory text and citations in a paragraph before or after the math, because you can't use block display inline with other text. Stop recommending the use of
description lists where no list is called for. —
151.132.206.26 (
talk)
00:28, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
I’m surprised <math>
doesn’t have that formula-numbering capability itself, but display="block"
appears to work perfectly well with {{
NumBlk}}. (Edited 23:14, 2 August 2018 (UTC) to display the table borders. We really shouldn’t be using code [or templates] that use tables this way.)
Markup | Renders as | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
{{numBlk||<math display="block">x=3</math>|eq. 1|Border=y}} |
Sample text.
| |||
Equation number’s on the same line, math’s properly indented with no colon lists. Actually we could probably edit NumBlk to use block display and ignore the first param. The template doesn’t seem to play well with lists, though. Wonder if that’s fixable… — 67.14.236.193 ( talk) 07:34, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
Would it be possible to enable the equation
environment in <math>
? Then we’d be able to use \tag
in the math markup itself rather than a template kludge that fakes it with tables (which is notoriously bad web-design style, by the way). —
67.14.236.193 (
talk)
22:49, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
Looking over what is currently Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Mathematics, I see numerous ways that the way the page can be rewritten, as well as content changes, that would substantially improve it. Starting with the "Suggested structure" section, I have set up my first sandbox so that a version of my proposed changes can be seen. A link to the difference between the current version of the section and my proposed changes can be found here. Some of the meaningful content changes that I am proposing include:
"establish[ing] why [the subject] is interesting or useful"as part of the purpose of a lead.
"A person editing a mathematics article should not fall into the temptation that "this formula says it all"."means.
Since the differences between the current section and what I am proposing are significant, I am looking for feedback from other users regarding what they think of my proposed changes and how they could be better and more accurately reflect consensus. If agreement can be reached on what changes should be made to the section currently titled "Suggested structure", I will likely propose future substantial changes to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Mathematics under this section. — The Editor's Apprentice ( talk) 04:40, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
A manual of style should be written cleanly and sparely. I have tried to cut useless words without changing the content. (In trying to clarify vague phrases, I might have introduced some of my own meaning.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Magyar25 ( talk • contribs) 19:00, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
How about "whenever" as a standard phrase in definitions?
Just writing "if" seems logically incomplete, leaving open the possibility that some numbers might also be even, though they don't satisfy the condition. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Magyar25 ( talk • contribs) 19:04, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
In
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Mathematics#Font formatting, it is written: "As TeX uses a
serif font to display a formula (both as PNG and HTML), you may use the {{
math}}
template to display your HTML formula in serif as well." But as I can see, LaTeX markup with the <math>
tag actually uses a sans-serif font. This makes pages that use a mix of LaTeX markup and {{
math}}
templates rather ugly. So there's something wrong with this guideline.
Vincent Lefèvre (
talk)
20:47, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
<math>
tag actually uses a sans-serif font. Can you give a specific example? The PNG rendering that I see has a serif font (except where suppressed using \mathsf
), and as I am under the impression that the PNG is generated by the Wikipedia servers, I expect this to be be independent of the browser. Maybe there are
personal preference settings involved? —
Quondum
19:34, 15 August 2020 (UTC)beamer
package has is set up to use one), but that's not really applicable here. It would probably help if you could throw a screenshot up somewhere of what you're seeinng. –
Deacon Vorbis (
carbon •
videos)
19:38, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
<math>
tag uses italic (as usual in LaTeX math mode), while {{
math}}
templates use slanted serif (I think I got confused by the fact that italic looks more like sans-serif than like serif):{{math}}
doesn't use italic by default (although {{
mvar}}
does), so you have to specify that (as you've done here). What you've got here isn't identical of course, but it's reasonably similar. So what's the problem? –
Deacon Vorbis (
carbon •
videos)
22:00, 15 August 2020 (UTC)<math>
tag, a {{
math}}
template, and plain text. —
Vincent Lefèvre (
talk)
23:26, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
(
edit conflict) Yeah, that's definitely not what it should be doing. The appropriate styling for stuff in in {{math}}
should be:
.times-serif,
span.texhtml {
font-family: "Nimbus Roman No9 L", "Times New Roman", Times, serif;
font-size: 118%;
line-height: 1;
}
Either of the first two should produce more reasonable results, and Times New Roman is pretty standard. Even a default Times should be fine as far as I can tell. If it's falling back to a default "serif", then that might be what's getting you. What OS, browser, and skin are you using? (Disclaimer: this is really getting to the point where I'm not that comfortable diagnosing this stuff; it might be better to take this to WP:VPT). – Deacon Vorbis ( carbon • videos) 23:50, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
Note that being able to override a web page's font choice is important, in particular on Wikipedia, whose default font is horrible.
You can do so with with some custom CSS. I'm not sure exactly what you'd have to change or what font(s) you're going for, but it would have the advantage of your browser not clobbering every font on every site you visit. As for dynamically changing variables in {{math}}
to equivalent unicode symbols with JS...well, I'm really not too knowledgeable with this stuff, but I suspect it's possible, but difficult due to a lot of edge cases and variations in how you expect to find stuff marked up in the source. It's also a pretty heavy-handed, esoteric solution for this situation. In either case, if you want more info, I'd suggest
WP:VPT. –
Deacon Vorbis (
carbon •
videos)
17:41, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
FYI, there's an RFC open at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics#Improving rendering of radical symbol which asks:
<math>...</math>
like where technically possible instead of with {{
radic}} like 4√3 (which uses √+{{
overline}})?...and related questions. If there is consensus, text would be added to Manual of Style/Mathematics. Please respond there if interested. Thanks! -- Beland ( talk) 05:46, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
Latex-type should be used, the other method with \overline looks ugly, is unacceptable in almost all professional math-environments, and is hopelessly outdated. LMSchmitt 05:46, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
Hello, please excuse me if this is addressed somewhere in guidelines elsewhere but I haven't been able to locate it. For math that is parenthetical to text but contains tall formatting elements (i.e., a fraction), what is the preferred way to wrap it? Normally in tex I prefer to use "\left(" and "\right)" parens to ensure that they are the same size as the expression in question, but this does not look great when the rest of the text is not in tex, as in wiki articles. Specifically I'm encountering this issue with Squid giant axon, which has some tall exponents and fractions inline in paragraph 2. Currently they look like this:
But I wonder if it looks better for the parentheses to match the expressions more like this:
Or is there a better third option? (just occurring to me: would it be preferable to move large expressions like this onto their own lines/perhaps their own section devoted to the math?) I really dislike how bold the tall parentheses look w/r/t to the text, but I also feel like the math expressions far taller than their parenthetical is suboptimal. Thank you! Mehmuffin ( talk) 12:53, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
The real numbers should be rendered as . This is today's standard in typesetting math books from major publishers and journals which are using LaTeX. The standard using was popular in 1960's and 1970's books. But now it's hopelessly outdated. The section about rendering should be rewritten. LMSchmitt 05:57, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
Should we specify that the convention is for functions to be written to the left of their arguments, as in f(x), not (x)f or xf, even in geometry? I wouldn't have thought this was necessary, but I seem to be arguing this point with Rgdboer at Talk:Real projective line. Ebony Jackson ( talk) 06:52, 31 December 2020 (UTC)
There seems to be no uniformity in the use of a·b = ·
= ·
(Unicode MIDDLE DOT) and a⋅b = ⋅
= ⋅
(Unicode DOT OPERATOR (Mathematical operators)). Even the WP "Insert" edit toolbar seems to confuse them. There are some contexts where a centered dot has a well-defined mathematical meaning:
I imagine that the Unicode symbols each are intended to have a preferred meaning, and that it makes sense to outline in WP:MOSMATH relating to which symbol is to be preferred in each context, or whether they are to be considered interchangeable, rather than having no guideline. Opinions? — Quondum 14:56, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
<math>\cdot</math>
also produces the dot operator. Both give tacit approval of their proper use. I think a bullet point noting this would be appropriate. There is probably a lot for a bot to clean up, though. —
kwami (
talk)
16:08, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
U+2022
gets used as well? In my experience, the WP guideline do try to draw a line somewhere; some level of uniformity of presentation (especially in mathematics) has some benefit. You are suggesting that nothing be said; I am suggesting that if the distinction is unimportant, that the guideline might suggest that either U+22C5
or U+00B7
may be used; alternatively it could put a slight preference on the first. —
Quondum
18:59, 19 November 2012 (UTC)Coming from the page on Operator_(mathematics), the subject's difficulty, and the reader, indirectly, is frequently judged, I feel, perhaps without need, and possibly without substantiation. Certainly without giving helpful indications of why the author's claim (It's easy!) might be true, or on what scale. Do such didactic phrases belong in an encyclopedia at all?
When an author claims that something is easy to see, then he/she should be able to at least indicate in some helpful way why this is actually the case. Maybe by referring to some standards of wikipedia and/or to empirical evidence that have shown people see this with ease; or by referring to some accepted results of the theory of learning. I doubt, though, that this is generally the intent of writing these statements—imitation seems a more likely cause, or a confusion of self's felt ease/difficulty or peers' felt ease/difficulty with a reader's, the latter being unknown.
“It is trivial to show” is another phrase; it could indicate that there exists a well defined set of commonly known trivia, i.e. pieces of knowledge from the trivial arts, Trivia, so that by referring to this set, “It is trivial to show” can actually mean something to a reader of the article. When the phrase is used without thinking about the Trivia (and its methods), I'd still expect an encyclopedia to speak in defined terms. This means, it should be able to hint at a method of proof/seeing. I think that an article in wikipedia is not a homework assignment, testing a readers ingenuity, or mathematical knowledge.
There should be better—systematic—ways of classifying the difficulty of a subject than to sprinkle an article with “It is X to see that ...”.
I must emphasize that I am not at all complaining about the difficulty or ease I felt reading the particular article. This is intended to be a comment on style, the page on operators is just an example. GeorgBauhaus ( talk) 17:40, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
See also Talk:Differential_of_a_function#Detalic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikispaghetti ( talk • contribs) 19:33, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
'The most well-known functions—trigonometric functions, logarithms, etc.—are often written without parentheses.' Shouldn't that be 'best-known'? Sorry if this sounds WP:SOFIXITish, but copyediting the MoS is a weird thing... Kayau ( talk · contribs) 12:10, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
The MoS currently says
I think this is incorrect. sin and cos are not set upright because they are common; instead they are done that way because they have multiple letters. If I defined a new function foo by foo(x) = sin(x) cos(x) then that should be upright too, otherwise it looks like f×o×o(x). A good example of this is the Hermite polynomials, which are commonly referred to as Hn (should be italics) or Hen (should be upright). For example the MathWorld page on Hermite polynomials displays Hn and Hen this way. You could argue that Hen are standard functions just as sin is, but then Hn would be too. Quietbritishjim ( talk) 19:59, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Please, help to classify and compare all types of math typesetting known to be used in Wikipedia. It will make a foundation of this MoS more solid. Incnis Mrsi ( talk) 15:36, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
The section about so named "HTML" formatting does not mention the thin space ( ), which looks pretty good in situations like (x, y) and n × n. Instead, the MoS recommends such forms as “f(x) = sin(x) cos(x)” and “(−π, π]” with U+0020, resulting in over-extended spaces. Incnis Mrsi ( talk) 16:03, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
I recently created these templates for use with {{ math}}, so faults are my responsibility. Are they discouraged by WP:MOSMATH? Thanks in advance for feedback. M∧Ŝ c2ħε Иτlk 17:25, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
Yet another round of flamewar is ongoing, but there is some appearance of WP:consensus about two partial questions. Those who are unwilling to read the entire thread can skip to proposed amendments. Incnis Mrsi ( talk) 20:19, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
Why is this a convention on wikipedia?
This seems just to be designed to confuse those that haven't read the manual of style in-depth - ring should mean ring, not associative unital ring.
I have found differences in styles used to reference (via links and mentions) mathematicians. Also I've seen many links within articles navigate to CITEREFs... Is this acceptable? Ex. Barnette's conjecture#Equivalent forms — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.97.221.98 ( talk) 18:22, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
I would like to add a line to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Mathematics#Terminology conventions: "The ring with one element is called the zero ring." I believe that this is the most common name for it in the mathematical literature, so ideally Wikipedia should reflect this. Any objections? Ebony Jackson ( talk) 01:32, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
I don't know if this is the right discussion page to address this, but I have been noticing the strange lack of infoboxes at the top of a lot of articles about distinct geometrical bodies. Especially I would like something with a headline to contain the first visual representation for the article, and then if possible the simplest form of the equation of the object and/or that which requires the least mathematical preknowledge (say slope-intercept or standard form for Line (geometry) and ax + by + cz = d for Plane (geometry)). Then maybe some historical data, if available. I see a lot of different infoboxes spread around in some part of series of articles ( Category:Mathematics_templates), but nothing unified. And a lot of the most basic articles haven't got any. I think to get this kind of overview at the start would help the average math interested person immensely. Is this a thing that is already being worked on? Cheers -- Anjoe ( talk) 18:36, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
I would like to add the convention that a non-unital ring is called a rng. Currently, the Wikipedia page for this concept is called pseudo-ring even though some of its text refers to "rng". After investigating a little, my feeling is that "pseudo-ring" was a terminological invention of Bourbaki that mathematicians rarely use (outside of Wikipedia). Worse, the term "pseudo-ring" has been used to mean at least three different concepts: see Patterson, "The Jacobson radical of a pseudo-ring", Math. Z. 89 (1965), 348–364 and Natarajan, "Rings with generalised distributive laws", J. Indian Math. Soc. (N.S.) 28 (1964), 1–6 for the other two. "Rng" is a little more common, and has only one mathematical meaning, as far as I know. If "pseudo-ring" had one meaning, then I would want to make it a redirect to rng, but perhaps it should be a disambiguation page instead? Suggestions would be welcome. Ebony Jackson ( talk) 02:12, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
This appears in the same section about rings. A *-algebra is a complex vector space, not a (something) of operators anywhere. May I delete it? Incnis Mrsi ( talk) 13:59, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
Could there be a seperate "Manual of style" for Geometry pages
Many geometry articles are much to much about analytic or higher dimensional Geometry, and would hope that having a seperate Manual of style for Geometry would help to get it right (or at least have a place to link to when the article doesn't follow the style) For many laypeople geometry is about geometrical construction, while (real? professional?) geometers are much more about algebraic, higher dimensional or differentional geometry
I would suggest that after the introduction there is a part
- explanation in plane geometry or 3 dimensional geometry where possible.
- an drawing on the subject (if possible)
- analytic geometrical parts (and all the other specialised geometry parts that look more algebra than geometry) should be in a seperate (last?) section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.205.230.37 ( talk) 14:38, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
With FireFox 26.0 and Wikipedia.Preferences.Appearance.Math=MathJax, I see the examples illustrating the value of \textstyle in
Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Mathematics#Using_LaTeX_markup as identical, with limits after the sigma.
I tried adding \scriptstyle to the example, but it did not change.
In
Help:Displaying_a_formula I found no explanation of these elements.
I searched for them in Wikipedia: and MediaWiki:, but found no documentation (but a great deal of what in this situation was noise) in the first 100 hits, though I did find “\displaystyle” – which helps, but adds to the confusion – (and “:<math>
”) in
Wikipedia:WikiProject_Mathematics/Typography.
I suspect that the introduction of MathJax has something to do with all this.
In case the page changes, the examples of rendering – which I see as identical with the exception of \displaystyle — are:
<math>\sum_{n=1}^\infty 1/n^2 = \pi^2/6</math>
”:<math>
: :
The lead of
Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Mathematics refers to
meta:Help:Formula, which says it is outdated and looks rather like
Help:Displaying_a_formula, though it does not refer to that.
It would be helpful if someone (or ones) could:
:<math>
, if that is supported (but say it is redundant if it is default).And if experts do not know, then state that honestly in the documentation! PJTraill ( talk) 22:37, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
The old motivation for why explanations of symbols in formulae (see article section Explanation of symbols in formulae) should be written as prose, was simply because the list "has no reason to be bulleted". This is simply incorrect — there are probably several reasons for why the list should be bulleted, although the only good reason I can come up with for the moment is that it makes it much easier to quickly find the variable you want to read about. I therefore rewrote the sentence so that it now only says that lists should be written in prose.
Now, however, the statement lacks motivation for why the list should be written in prose, and such should therefore be added. Otherwise, we should probably revise the statement altogether and make it generally acceptable to list explanations of symbols in formulae as bullet lists, as an alternative to as in prose. — Kri ( talk) 21:24, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
For what it's worth this section may be useful, at least it's recent and relevant, possibly one motivation behind this thread.
I agree that lists are good for easy and quick reference, and also that prose allows symbols to be explained in brief detail. Using both is too much explanation, so we just have to decide which one or the other is best for any particular situation. M∧Ŝ c2ħε Иτlk 17:54, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
Hey, Dave! What are your objections to my rewrite?
Duxwing ( talk) 06:37, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
I have edited the first sentence to say that some aspects of this manual apply not only to articles on mathematics but also to the use of mathematical notation in articles on other subjects than mathematics. It would be absurd to say that because an article using mathematiacl notation is on chemistry, it should be exempt from standard conventions when it uses mathematical notation.
The article titled Duckworth–Lewis method begins by saying:
But someone is saying on its talk page that WP:MOS does not apply to it since it is not a mathematics article, so that one should write things like 3<5 instead of 3 < 5 or 3 x 5 instead of 3 × 5, etc. Michael Hardy ( talk) 12:06, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
There are two different ways to include the phi symbol:
a wrong φ ampersant phi semicollumn
and
a right math phi math
and in some articles they both appear for example in Angle of parallelism is it not possible to make a script that automaticly change the wrong form into the right form? (for beginners it can be unclear that they have the same meaning)
see also Phi the page about the symbol — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.205.230.28 ( talk) 10:49, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Do we need an admonishment to avoid using the same variable name for multiple unrelated meanings? This has come up in Closed subgroup theorem. (There doesn't seem to be any disagreement there that this is a bad idea, but it happened because one contributor was following the style of a reference that did this.) — David Eppstein ( talk) 16:49, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
Is this still true? -- Unverbluemt ( talk) 11:27, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
I just came across the following [[Green's relations#The H and D relations|''H''<sub>1</sub>]], rendering as H1 which somehow struck me as unsatisfactory. Would it be a good idea to suggest that as a matter of style one should not wikilink to formulae unless they happen to be the actual article title, such as E8 (mathematics) or Ζ(3)? Deltahedron ( talk) 21:35, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
I am not a member of this group, and came here looking for specific advice that could be given at a Edit-a-thon so I am loathe to make any changes without starting a discussion first and listening to the opinions of the subject experts- but I do get the feeling that this page is very dated, inaccurate and wishy-washy. The formating is not consistent etc- it is heavily dated. If I can't stimulate anyone else to do the work- I give notice that I want to bring this advice upto date to reflect current good practice.-- Clem Rutter ( talk) 11:41, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
Lastly, a well-written and complete article should have a references section. This topic will be discussed in detail below. Which refered to
It is quite important for an article to have a well-chosen list of references and pointers to the literature. Some reasons for this are the following:
Compare that with WP:REF. WP:CITEHOW- Where is the strong statement that
This is a MOS not an essay on the history of maths publications- so where is the statement that various methods of citation are supported but WP:WPMATH advises to use Harvard or Vancouver- or sfns. See the comment in the FARs eg Wikipedia:Featured article review/Infinite monkey theorem/archive2.
Should we just add a sandbox page here and knock together a tougher version. I have gone from looking at MOS pages for advice- to using them to teach post-graduate newbies the ropes. I see from the history that this is basically a 2002 page that that has been cp'd in 2005- and then tweaked. It still feels like the musings of 2002 (Magna Carta- rather than Criminal Justice Act!).
Even changing this line to:
Would be make the page factually accurate. Looking to include material from Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines might be be more beneficial.
It has examples- but choices and no firm advice about current practice. This is a major confusing area for academics- and the editors I am training want firm advice here- newbies are not encouraged by doing wild wikilink chases. They have a message, which they want to put on wiki- correctly reference it and format it (and they have two hours).
What section headings are required, in what order and what sections always occur? So I look at Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Mathematics#Suggested_structure while bearing in mind Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Chemistry#Article_types and Wikipedia:WikiProject_Computer_science/Manual_of_style#Structuring_different_kinds_of_articles.
Briefly looking at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Mathematics#Good_articles we have four types of article.
What are the sections that we would hope to see in a GA/FA for each of these, and how does the MOS help us to write one?
So what do we have at the moment
That is not about structure but a POV on writing pitfalls- though of course very true. (This sentence was copied across to the CompSci MOS and tweaked suggesting how they wrote theirs).
This is advice on the writing process- not on the contents or structure or style of a WP:WPMATH approved article. A possible easy alternative is to take the table from Wikipedia:WikiProject_Mathematics/A-class_rating#Criteria To achieve a well structured article that fulfills the objects of Wikipedia and WP:WPMATH articles should attempt to follow a common structure. There are four principal types of article that have achieved FA status, and their advised structure is considered separately.
We then follow the method used at CompSci giving proformas for each of these article types. In my POV- study links to FAs and GAs for each type of article work.
Not Typesetting- please- there is no hot lead or Linotypes involved. For a maths article this is critical. My first question was- Do I centre a formula, right justify, left justify or put in inline in a sentence? That is what a newbie will ask me- that is what a MOS says. We don't. The essay on LATEX is complete and fun to read- but is addressing the wrong audience. To put it bluntly it reads as if a group of editors have finally understood the intricacies of the markup and demonstrating their mastery. It does not say:
To summarise- there is nothing wrong with the mathematical consensus on this page- but it is not an adequate MOS page as it is not written for the potential user- particularly the brilliant time-poor mathematician who wants to get an article up and running.
I propose we open a sandbox page here and knock together a tougher version. And we focus that version from the point of view of a wiki-newbie who comes with a strong Mathematical background and the tutor who is mentoring her/him -- Clem Rutter ( talk) 11:49, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
I have just posted the page Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Mathematics/sandbox. I made several pointed remarks above- so I felt it was appropriate to rejig the whole page, trying to address some of my criticisms. Yes it was a major job. I feel that this was important as we wont get articles to FAC- unless they are MOS/Mathematics compliant- so having a tightly constructed page is a service and a duty to all FA hopefuls.
I tried not to add a single word- and certainly not change any existing decisions- through out the document I have left notes on the task and problems. Discovering an advised structure for the articles is an incomplete task. I have added a few suggestions. Unfortunately, no FAs or GA seem to follow the previous pattern. Exceptions- yes- but 25 out of 25!
Which brings me to the question of the structure of this MOS. Following other subjects- I detected a vague order, and have re-ordered the sections here to come into line. If this new order is accepted I feel it opens up the article to further improvement. At the moment we have hit a brick wall.
The second brickwall is there were three ways of presenting good/bad text. Obviously a C&P of three peoples work. When combined it was irritating to see first an example of bad text, a criticism then good text. Then the next paragraph- the convention was reversed! There are templates to help so I used them cf {{xt|----}} and ((markup|---|xxx}}.
What make this page unique is that we try and talk about good/bad text at the same time as trying to demonstrate <text> and html markup. I see no need to demonstrate bad text or bad markup here. (But it is essential to do it elsewhere in a tutorial page- or as a {{efn| ---}}
Let the discussion commence--- Clem Rutter ( talk) 17:36, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
There seems to some dispute whether the "d" should be upright in integrals and derivatives:
Any comments. I have no personal preference, except it should be consistent within articles. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:12, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
Recently I've seen a use of \text in <math> tags update< incorrectly >, like Planck units#Base units:
If you are using MathJax renderer, it doesn't look harmonious at all, as MathJax renders \text as sans-serif like the surrounding text. I've been in the process of changing some articles to use \mathrm, so it looks like this (please switch to MathJax in order to see the difference):
For me at least it looks a lot better, so I went ahead and changed some of them. However I just want to ask here the community's opinion before proceeding further. What do you think about the tag used?
Some other options that don't work in MathJax:
\textrm
\mathsf (shows sans serif in PNG too)
Timothy G. from CA ( talk) 02:17, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
Also not working in MathJax but working in PNG:
\mbox
So it seems that only \mathrm works in all setups, others just look plain weird.
Timothy G. from CA ( talk) 02:21, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
Also works for all layout engines: \rm
Timothy G. from CA ( talk) 23:32, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
Note that I do not want to change every single \text
to \mathrm
, only ones appropriate should be changed. Some of the circumstances I can think of where \text
is appropriate is prose labels or anything that does not strictly need mathematical notations, like some equations on
Navier–Stokes equations#Incompressible flow.
Timothy G. from
CA (
talk)
01:10, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
Also I found out about a similar discussion on TeX StackExchange. It suggests to use \textnormal which is not available in MathJax at least; \mathup, but it is with a custom definition; and then \mathrm. So, I guess mathrm it is. Timothy G. from CA ( talk) 23:32, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
\text \mu_\text{e}
, where the subscript is literally a text label ("e" for "of the electron"), not a mathematical symbol such as a specific element of a set, for which I would prefer \mathrm
.\text
being rendered as the way it is a bug, therefore I don't want to go to village pump for this. It is by definition rendered to the styles of surrounding text, which it is. It is just that many usage of \text
is inappropriate on a semantic level as well. An appropriate use of \text
IMO can be found on
Navier-Stokes equations#Incompressible flow, reproduced below:
\text
is not appropriate and should be changed to \mathrm
, but \text
is still useful in many cases where non-mathematical/prose text is required, and I am happy with the way it is rendered as-is.
Timothy G. from
CA (
talk)
01:10, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
\text
renders as a serif font in every context that I can test at the moment (MathML and PNG), and I'll check tonight (when I have a different computer) whether it is the same on MathJax for me; this is already makes your "I am happy with the way it is rendered as-is" inapplicable. It is sounding as though your entire argument is based around rendering on a single browser+configuration+installation+MathJax. —
Quondum
01:50, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
In the International System of Quantities, mathematical constants, like e, i and pi are always upright. The MOS advice is to italicise, which means they can be mistaken for variables. What is the benefit of departing from the international standard? Dondervogel 2 ( talk) 17:08, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
Unlike what happens in chemistry, astronomy, and biology, mathematicians have no authorities who decree standards. Rather, standards evolve from conventions. And they are sophisticated and precise. Crowdsourcing vindicated yet again. Michael Hardy ( talk) 20:14, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
I am still concerned about the use of "π" rather than "π" in many articles ( Pi not among the offenders). In the font that Wikipedia normally uses for mainspace text, π is quite ugly and does not look like π as displayed in any textbook whether it's math, physics, or engineering. Shouldn't π be replaced with π everywhere, unless the default font is somehow adjusted? 173.48.62.104 ( talk) 00:02, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
An anon editor of Simple linear regression is under the impression that using "scriptstyle" for <math>ematical symbols in normal running text, such as or , is some sort of convention in math articles. I don't see any evidence of this. Am I missing something? Interested parties may consider discussing this at Talk:Simple linear regression#Scriptstyle. - dcljr ( talk) 05:50, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
Are mathematical algorithms "inventions" or are they "discoveries"? -- 82.132.234.81 ( talk) 18:09, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
I'm looking for some info on this equation box (for instance, parameters, etc.):
I have been perusing a lot of the WP:math type articles without much luck. All I know is that it exists, obviously. Tfr000 ( talk) 16:57, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
I think it would make sense to have a style guideline for the use of ":" and "\colon" in the <math> tags. Namely, only "colon" should be used for expressions like , while the use of ":" should be limited to the cases where the colon is to be treated by the math engine as a relation, like in set notation: . The creators of LaTeX never intended ":" to be used in map notation, and hence "," which is found in many articles, can be regarded as bad practice encouraged by Wikepedia.-- Ørsted ( talk) 14:02, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
I would like opinion on the mixing of indistinguishable notations for, for example, dx in Leibniz's notation for infinitesimal and in the differential of the exterior derivative when both are used within the same article. I am aware that Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Mathematics § Typesetting of mathematical formulae §§ Font usage §§§ Roman_versus_italic is deliberately non-prescriptive. There are also instances where a distinction would be immaterial, such as to distinguish whether ex refers to the exponential function or to use of the constant e in exponentiation in an article on real analysis (though we've seen people tie themselves into knots in complex analysis when conflating them). Is there value in recommending distinguishing notations for distinct concepts within an article through no less than a typeface difference? — Quondum 18:17, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
Another example of the problem is the polynomial notation: in many textbooks, and some of our articles, P(X) denotes a polynomial P in the indeterminate X, while P(x) denotes the same polynomial with the indeterminate substituted for x. Moreover, the polynomial is denoted indifferently by P of by P(X). Although this may be confusing for the reader, this is mathematically perfectly correct: if the functional notation is clearly defined as representing the substitution/evaluation operation, the substitution of the indeterminate by itself results in the polynomial itself, and this allows writing P = P(X). IMO, the clarification of the notation for polynomials is important, and I have tried to make it explicit in Polynomial § Notation and terminology. This has been reverted as unhelpful by this edit. I have not reverted this edit, because I am unable to provide a reference, but I think that this deserves discussion. D.Lazard ( talk) 10:12, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
Is there any way to see formulas with higher resolution? The PNG formula images are quite low res, and they look really ugly on a high resolution screen such as an iPad. Is there any way to use SVG or higher resolution PNG? -- IngenieroLoco ( talk) 17:26, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
Hi, all. I'm finding issue with this MoS' recommendation that "when displaying formulae on their own line, one should indent the line with one or more colons (:)". While this is visually correct and sets the formula inside the body, semantically it is incorrect. In wikitext, the colon is supposed to be used as part of definition lists, like so:
;Wikipedia :An online encyclopedia ;Britannica :A print encyclopedia
which forms the HTML:
<dl> <dt>Wikipedia</dt> <dd>An online encyclopedia</dd> <dt>Britannica</dt> <dd>A print encyclopedia</dd> </dl>
and the final result:
A problem arises when only the colon by itself is used for indentation:
Pi is the constant :3.14
which form the html:
<p>Pi is the constant</p> <dl> <dd>3.14</dd> </dl>
and results in:
Pi is the constant
It's still forming a definition list when in reality we were merely trying to use the colon to indent formulae. This is a violation of semantics and creates incorrect HTML, since it creates a definition list without terms.
What we are actually attempting to do with using the colon is to inset the formulae. So instead, I propose that we use <blockquote>
instead:
Pi is the constant <blockquote>3.14</blockquote>
which form the html:
<p>Pi is the constant</p> <blockquote> <p>3.14</p> </blockquote>
and results in:
Pi is the constant
3.14
While this results in a lot of whitespace, it is actually semantically correct. Thoughts? Opencooper ( talk) 04:18, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
|display=block
option for the math tag. So, e.g., the markup <math display=block>(L^-\oplus R^-)\Cup(L^+\oplus R^+)</math> shows up looking like this:
|display=block
option, I just tested it and indeed it works. I'm glad to see there is a solution built in. So how about we change the wording of the MoS to recommend using that parameter instead of the colon? It won't fix past uses, but at least it could prevent the problem in the future.
Opencooper (
talk)
06:27, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
|display=block
valid ways of indenting equations, but only under the condition that both are seen as valid and that mass conversions from one to the other are not permitted. If necessary, we could reassess this decision later.
Ozob (
talk)
12:46, 20 August 2016 (UTC)The correct way to indent in wikitext is with a colon. The fact that this colon may be rendered as a definition list is an implementation issue in the Mediawiki software. Tomorrow, or any time in the future, the developers could change the way that the colons are rendered. So the fact that colons are currently rendered as definition lists is not incompatible with the fact that colons are the correct way to do simple indentation in wikitext. The issue of indentation goes far wider than just mathematical formulas, and I think that it is better for us to continue to follow the general practice of wikitext (i.e. use colons) than to try some other system which will be different than other article or other types of indentation within the same article. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 12:53, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
Formula:
Formula:
What is the (intended, official) semantics of : in wikitext? Please notice that I am not asking about the semantics of definition lists in HTML. Mgnbar ( talk) 16:15, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
The original post in this talk page section claims that : is intended for definition lists, but I'm wondering whether this is an official policy, what the rationale is, etc. Because the general use, at least for my 11 years here, has been indentation, which is formatting not semantics. Mgnbar ( talk) 16:24, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
^: *<math>
to <math display="block">
, and I'd be happy so long as they don't presume to yell at me.is a letter
Regardless of the objections to Opencooper's specific proposals, his/her desire to make Wikipedia accessible (through proper use of web semantics) is admirable. I've inspected the HTML generated from display=block a bit, but I'm not familiar enough to tell whether it captures the semantics correctly. Does it? If not, then does anyone have a solution to the semantics problem? Mgnbar ( talk) 21:31, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
Here's another idea. Perhaps the developers can be persuaded to introduce a <dmath> tag that is simply a synonym for <math display="block">. This is as easy to type as :<math> but doesn't have problems with special characters the way a template would. And the string of characters <dmath> is so unlikely to appear anywhere that there shouldn't be compatibility problems. Ozob ( talk) 15:09, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
A {{ why}} tag has been in Explanation of symbols in formulae since 2014. My impression is that the question was answered in this discussion, so I propose removing the tag and modifying the statement to read:
In Wikipedia, prose is preferred to lists. Therefore, a list such as ... should be written as prose:
RockMagnetist( talk) 17:07, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
I have occasionally seen articles in which some of the notation within a formula is wikinked, e.g. O(n) or log2 n. This only works in html or {{ math}}-formatted formulas, not in <math>. Should the MOS include guidance on such links?
My own preference would be to say not to do this. The color changes distract from reading the formula. If a piece of notation needs explanation for its expected audience to be able to understand it, then a link hidden inside a formula won't be visible enough to be adequate as an explanation; instead, the notation should be explained in the actual article text. And if a piece of notation doesn't need such explanations, what is the wikilink for?
I am not talking about wikilinks on an entire formula, to an article that is about the object described by that formula like SL2(R). Nor am I talking about wikilinks or external links in references whose title contains a formula. Those are separate issues and I think they are non-problematic. This is only about links on proper subunits of a formula.
But this seems like the sort of thing that might be controversial, so maybe we can have a discussion to see whether the MOS should be changed in this way. — David Eppstein ( talk) 22:30, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
I strongly prefer using parentheses with standard functions: etc. It makes it absolutely clear what the argument to the function is. I have been burned by this before, when a writer was sloppy and didn't include them with a complicated argument. At the same time, I realize that and have a long tradition, and with just an in there for the argument, it's no big deal. Therefore, I propose adding the following text to the Functions section:
"If you are typing an argument more than one character long for a function, consider adding parentheses around the argument to make it clear what is inside the argument, and what is not."
Ackbeet ( talk) 16:20, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
I'm reposting the following comment here to hopefully get some feedback. I'm not sure where I should bring this up, so I'm trying here now:
I just "fixed" a formula that was using \operatorname* -- WP seems not to support the starred version, so the only thing I could really do was to remove the star. This improved the appearance, but it still falls short of the intended typesetting. Is there any way to add support for this feature? Where does one bring up this sort of request anyway? One other missing bit of support that seems crucial is for \genfrac. This is needed a lot, and the workaround(s) are usually less-than-desirable LaTeX. Deacon Vorbis ( talk) 19:36, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
The "punctuation inside the <math></math> tags" rule seems to put rendering before logic.
But the cited rendering fault (line wrapping from breaking between the formula and the comma) doesn't occur in modern browsers (Chrome version 58 and Firefox version 53) — with a few exceptional cases where breaking is actually saner than not breaking.
It messes up when you want to copy & paste just a formula, without inadvertently taking in any surrounding text. Which is exactly what I was trying to fix with edit 778770928, which was reverted citing this rule.
This seems similar to the rule about putting punctuation inside quote marks for purely aesthetic reasons, but in this case, without the benefit of "looking better"; indeed it looks quite a lot uglier to my eye, to have punctuation in a different font from the surrounding text.
Can we have this rule removed or even reversed, please? Martin Kealey ( talk) 10:46, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
There doesn't seem to be a standard for styling the names of vectors across the whole of Wikipedia, and i'd love to see a group consensus on a standard for formatting them. For example, in the Linear algebra article, many scalar and vector variables have no visual distinction between them, which is confusing.
The many options available seem to be:
Markup | Result | Notes |
---|---|---|
<math>\vec{a}</math> |
||
{{math|{{vec|''a''}}}} |
a→ | As described on Template:Vec there are additional options for this template. |
{{math|'''a'''}} |
a | The essay WP:Rendering math mentions this option. |
<math>\mathbf{a}</math> |
Used on the page Vector notation. | |
'''a''' |
a | Super simple, but not the best. |
I think it is essential to modify any vector that is not bold or "arrowed" into one of the styles above. Of course, we can't be expected to change every existing variable to one single format -- if someone is using the math template, we shouldn't convert it to LaTeX -- but moving forwards it'd be great to choose one method and have that on this Manual of Style.
I personally prefer the bold italics serif version from the ISO Standard used in Vector notation by User:Adelphious but they couldn't use LaTeX to reproduce the standard, so they used CSS instead. - Boanus ( talk) 17:56, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
Symbols tend to look quite different, making it harder to relate the math to the text. A common example are column vectors denoted as and x vs. X and referring to matrices with the xT as rows. The way most math articles on Wikipedia are written, it's already difficult enough to follow without having to do a double-take every time a variable comes up in inline text.
We should introduce a new guideline: Use uniform font styles to refer to the same variables.-- 2A01:E35:8B11:FA90:1E6F:65FF:FE3E:10A9 ( talk) 11:43, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
Is there any reason *not* to replace the Delta in ΔABC with something that actually is a mathematic symbol? And secondly, what should it be replaced with? Naraht ( talk) 15:32, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
I saw that the unfortunate "^T" is adopted as transposition operator instead of the much better "^\top". Is there a reason? (Also, it's my first time using these talk pages, and I'm not sure I'm doing it right.) Atcold ( talk) 19:55, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
According to the main page, LaTeX won't render in section headings, but this seems not to be the case anymore. Whether or not it's a good idea otherwise is another issue, but it seems like we should update this. Thoughts? -- Deacon Vorbis ( talk) 14:55, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
#LaTeX_(like_%7F'"`UNIQ--postMath-00000001-QINU`"'%7F)_in_section_headings
, wikilinks formed using it do actually seem to work. -
dcljr (
talk)
05:47, 2 December 2017 (UTC)I chased down the time when colons were adopted as the Wikipedia system for indenting displayed mathematical content. Although the WP:MOSMATH page appears to be created in 2005, the actual style for indented equations was documented as early as 2002 [4]. The fact that guidance on indentation was included so soon illustrates how indenting displayed equations is fundamental to the presentation of mathematics - it is not a side topic for this page. The page history also shows that this page was not "forked" from any other MOS pages. Indeed, any other MOS page which describes formatting of mathematics is likely to have been written after this page, and could be viewed as a fork of this page. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 16:28, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
<math>
markup, or wikimarkup in general, in the first place. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<
19:47, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
"Various templates are available for indentation, including(at MOS:INDENT, a new shortcut created just for you :-), and see the lengthy quote below from MOS:INDENTGAP, they key material from which is{{ block indent}}
, and (for inline use){{ in5}}
.
"Colons (:
) at the start of a line .... produces broken HTML .... The result is ... confusion for any visitor unused to Wikipedia's broken markup. This is not ideal for accessibility or semantics."
And at
MOS:DLIST: "When wikimarkup colons are used just for visual indentation, they too are rendered in HTML as description lists, but without ;-delimited terms to which the :-indented material applies. Use indentation templates in articles, e.g.(recently updated to refer to the same templates instead of different, older ones, but substantively unchanged). "[I]t is purely advisory" – Um, everything in all guidelines is purely advisory, including this one you're so protective of/controlling over. Even policy material can be viewed as advisory, in light of WP:IAR and WP:COMMONSENSE, other than legal policies imposed on WP as hard requirements by WP:OFFICE. So, the "advisory" point you're making is not a real point. No one said anything at all about anything being "mandatory or controlling"; this has never been about anything other than MOS:MATHS recommending a practice deprecated in favor of more accessible practice specified by the main MoS page and the accessibility page and the list-markup page. The material in question has nothing at all to do with mathematics and{{ in5}}
or one of its variants for one line, and{{ block indent}}
for more than one line (even if misuse of description list markup on talk pages is too ingrained to change at this point)."
<math>...</math>
markup, only with good versus awful ways to shift content to the right. I think we've been over this at least 5 times now.. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<
12:55, 13 December 2017 (UTC)Until this edit (which was even reverted) WP:ACCESS said the following:
Colons (:) at the start of a line mark that line as part of an HTML definition list. The visual effect in most web browsers is to indent the line. This is used, for example, to indicate replies in a threaded discussion on Talk pages. This is not ideal for accessibility or semantics, but is currently in wide use. Blank lines should not be placed between indented lines of text, as they are interpreted by the software as marking the end of a list and the start of a new one. If a blank line is needed, place the same number of colons on it as those preceding the text below the blank line, for instance: : Text here. :: :: More text.
which is not in conflict with the MSM guideline. So pardon me if I disagree that an edit that is just a few days old has a higher CONLEVEL than a guideline that has existed since the early days of Wikipedia. As far as I am aware, the only place where this issue is being formally discussed (the pump) also does not reveal any consensus to change the existing guideline, contrary to the claim being advanced here that there is some larger consensus to change the established guideline for the indentation of mathematical equations. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 22:43, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
:
by itself for visual indentation causes validation failure, problems for screen readers,
WP:REUSE issues, and other headaches. Just give it a rest, man. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<
17:58, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
:
markup for visual indentation and deny that MOS and MOS:ACCESS and MOS:DLIST have identified a more accessible way to get the same effect. That denialism's not okay; it's a PoV fork of the advice here against three other guidelines (which are actually relevant to indentation and list markup accessibility while MOS:MATHS is not). This is a
WP:CONLEVEL failure (MOS's lead: "If any contradiction arises, this page has precedence over all detail pages of the guideline"). There is no defensible basis for the idea that it can be forbidden in MOS:MATHS to recommend and illustrate the less problematic markup, even if you and Sławomir Biały and whoever else prefer personally to use the more problematic
:
markup. That really is all there is to it. A couple of you have made a drama mountain out of a technical molehill that has been considered controversial by precisely zero other people on all of WP for years. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<
12:55, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
@
SMcCandlish: I object to
using {{
in5}}
, which uses multiple nonbreaking spaces to indent what follows, for indenting displayed math content. Unfortunately, the "obvious" <math style="margin-left:2em">
doesn't seem to be supported (perhaps a Phabricator task should be opened about this?). A simple TeX-based solution would be to start the math content with an initial "\quad\
" (a
quad followed by a space):
There might be a better (if not more convenient) TeX-based solution if I thought about / researched it a bit. Opinions? Suggestions? - dcljr ( talk) 06:19, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
{{
in5}}
approach. Look at the HTML it actually outputs: "<p>     
" (alternating non-breaking and regular spaces). This means long math content can actually be bumped to the next line, resulting in no indenting at all. In any case, I'm glad you see my suggestion as a viable alternative. What say other users? (In the meantime, shall we revert your change, SMcCandlish, until a better approach is found?) -
dcljr (
talk)
06:46, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
{{
in5}}
to fix the wrapping issue. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<
08:35, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
{{
blockindent}}
. Just tried that, and it works fine. No blank line needed, either. (I created this originally as a {{
blockquote}}
replacement for material that isn't a quotation). —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<
08:38, 2 December 2017 (UTC)The standard way to indent in mathematics articles is to use colons, and this page should reflect that. I am not sure I know of any math article that uses templates for indenting displayed math formulas. The HTML generated is irrelevant to this point - "colon" in wikitext means "indent", not "dd", and at any point Mediawiki could switch from "dd" to anything else that achieves an indentation. It is not in any way an abuse of wikitext to use colons to indent content. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 15:08, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
Depends on what you're trying to do. For what we've been talking about:
{{
block indent|1=Your math here.}}
{{
block indent|{{
block indent|1=Further-indented math here.}}}}
emits:
For simple stuff (but requires either a blank line or a <br />
preceding it, and indents less by default):
{{in5}}Your math here.<br />
{{in5}}{{in5}}Further-indented math here.<br />
or
{{in5|10}}Further-indented math again.<br />
yields:
Your math here.
Further-indented math here.
or
Further-indented math again.
Neither of these produce bogus list markup, but the {{
in5}}
stuff can wrap such that the math is non-indented, as someone noted above, if the math content is long (or the viewport is tiny). There are also other indentation templates, but they are also space-based like {{
in5}}
. The most robust is the {{
block indent}}
approach. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<
06:50, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
PS: You can also use {{
block indent|left=X}}
where X is an value in em units, to change the indent spacing (e.g. to make it match regular list indentation instead of blockquote indentation, or to indent further instead of using a block indent nested in a block indent. Another approach to the first example would be to open a block indent, put the first math, then do another block indent, do the extra-indented math, then close both block indents. That would be "cleaner", unless you need some non-indented text between the indented and extra-indented material, e.g. to introduce the second example.
I'm not sure why you'd want to have math examples indented to different levels in the first place, though.
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<
06:54, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
<math display="block">
is exactly what we've been looking for. Getting it to be generally accepted by editors is, of course, a totally different matter. I agree (with the implication of SMcCandlish's last comment) that indenting displayed math beyond one level is probably a relatively rare requirement in articles, but I imagine there are probably several legit examples lying around. In those cases, {{
block indent}}
looks like an acceptable approach:{{
block indent}}
has an em
parameter to control how far to go (in ems, of course):
{{block indent|em=4|<math>f(x)=|x|</math>}}
{{
in5}}
template/module). As for developer-involved solutions, I think a more realistic approach (rather than deprecating or reimplementing colon-indenting) may be to work towards a <math>
-only solution for indenting mathematical content in particular. I've opened a new subsection for this below. -
dcljr (
talk)
11:36, 4 December 2017 (UTC)Please see:
Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RfC: Accessibility versus convenience in indentation
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<
13:37, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
Like I said above (although not to this level of precision), just using display="block"
seems to give exactly the same indenting as a single colon (does anyone see otherwise?):
These are, respectively, coded as:
:<math>|x|</math>
<math display="block">|x|</math>
This tells me that it is not unreasonable to consider implementing the indenting of math content with the display="block"
approach. (Again, as I suggested above, having the option and requiring it are two different things. Here I'm discussing having the option to indent in the math element itself. Also remember that MediaWiki features are used in wikis other than those hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. Mathematically oriented wikis may actually like the idea of colon-less indenting of math content.)
Unfortunately, the way display="block"
is currently implemented appears to result in bad HTML: paragraph opened before a <div>
element then closed after it. Given this, I'm not sure I understand what the thinking was when the feature was originally proposed/implemented (since "displayed" math [in the TeX sense] almost always occurs inside a paragraph, yet a <div>
element cannot). Perhaps someone knows where this was discussed? The only thing I've been able to find is
mw:Extension:Math/Displaystyle, which doesn't have any real discussion.
Another, more serious, problem is that the page I just linked to reveals that on the MediaWiki wiki, display="block"
results in centered displayed math (just like in TeX), not displayed math indented to the level of one colon! (Waaah…)
Notwithstanding all of the above, indenting to the level of however-many colons could be implemented in the <math>
element with new syntax. This very idea came up back in December 2008 (
phab:T18829) and was quickly nixed (within 14 hours!) by a developer (
Brion, the only other user to comment on the bug), but opinions can change in 9 years, so maybe the idea would not be dismissed out of hand if some kind of consensus were reached about what the syntax might look like.
The proposer in 2008 seemed to be suggesting:
<math indent=number>
where number is the number of "colons" of indenting to apply (0 would mean no indenting, which the proposer said would be the default and mean inline display — I would lean toward having 0 mean non-indented but still "displayed" math [i.e., after a line break]).
Another possibility is to put it inside the display
attribute:
<math display="indent">
for displayed math with one-level indent;
<math display="indent:number">
for displayed math with number-level indent (0 or more, 0 meaning aligned to left margin).
I could probably come up with other possibilities, but I've been typing this up for an insane amount of time already. I need to go to sleep. - dcljr ( talk) 11:36, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
<dmath>
<math display="block">
, an approach I think is particularly promising. Someone else (in the task) objected to creating a new tag, but I think it's a pretty neat solution. The new tag could then be used along with sitewide style sheets to style displayed math as either indented or centered, as desired by the wiki (IOW, whichever alignment is chosen as the "default default", a wiki could change it to the other default alignment in their site's CSS).<imath>
display="inline"
), and no already existing uses of <math>
would need to be changed to get the benefit of the kinds of "logical" changes people have wanted to make to the behavior of <math>
(e.g., that inline math should use inline styling by default, and displayed math should use display styling — this change would bring wikicode math much closer to the way TeX/LaTeX does it, which many technical folks would likely welcome). All current math content would continue to work the same way it does now, and instances of <math>
could be slowly changed to <imath>
or <dmath>
, as appropriate, in the normal course of editing. (The <math>
tag would remain a viable option into the future.) Unfortunately, I have no idea whether having three different tags as "entry points" to the same underlying code would cause any kind of problem from the developers' side. I would hope not. (Note that the display="block"
and display="inline"
functionality already exists. The change would be the use of the new tags and having different defaults for the two situations.) -
dcljr (
talk)
23:25, 4 December 2017 (UTC)margin:left
) rather than by changing the content type to a block element, since we can't guarantee the context; a block element wouldn't be valid inside an inline element like <span>...</span>
. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<
08:14, 11 December 2017 (UTC)imath
solution because it a) adds tags for the same semantic information and b) because the solution should work with chem
as well as math
without an even larger number of tags. --
Izno (
talk)
12:47, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
<math>
and <chem>
adjusted. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<
15:52, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
:
Phabricator ticket for the first time in years but they keep saying, basically, "it's hard" which generally translates to "WONTFIX", either formally or through perpetual inaction. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<
19:47, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
<math display="block">
is the way to go. It gets centered by default, but this was
changed on common.css (see
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive/2015/Sep#Styling of block mode display of math formula).
Helder
12:59, 26 December 2017 (UTC)Hello.
I propose/request that the MOS be amended to include explicit guidance regarding the use of markup versus special characters when editing mathematical formulas.
The MOS currently gives guidance for specific cases of similar situations. For example, it prefers <sup>2</sup>
instead of ²
. It does not, however, address the possibility that an editor might directly enter the "special" character itself: ²
. This markup-versus-special issue is the subject I request be addressed.
By providing the "Special characters" toolbar, which directly inserts hard-to-type characters into the wikitext, Wikipedia seems to favor that approach over markup. I find this problematic.
The "toolbar" method requires the editor to search for and identify the desired character by eye alone. This effort is difficult.
The consequence of this difficulty is editor fatigue, and therefore editor carelessness. Editors who want beta will just use ß (Eszett) if they find it first. In the long term, I am concerned that "emojification" of Wikipedia's mathematics content will create ambiguity and decrease the value of articles. (See Emoji#Emoji_communications_problems.)
The alternative to the "toolbar" method is markup using one of the supported languages such as HTML or <math>
. This eliminates the ambiguity problem (ala β
), but has the disadvantage of a
steep learning curve. I suppose that my preference for the direction of guidance is clear, but my aim in writing today is to gain clarity for myself and other editors, not to promote my particular opinion.
To summarize, I request that the MOS
Thank you,
Christopher Ursich ( talk) 00:31, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
A discussion on this topic from 2010 is in the archive, but no conclusion seems to have been reached, there's nothing in the article, and I'd think there ought to be a consistent guideline here. I would propose , , and always be used for their respective meanings, with the bare being reserved for contexts such as asymptotic behavior. Mathematicians might object to the foremost, but this being Wikipedia, I'd imagine even quite advanced topics would be found by a fair share of readers likely to read "log" and infer "common log"; similarly, although I'd imagine most of those with the sort of background to assume the natural log would catch on from context in most circumstances, the lay usage of the bare symbol to mean the common log should probably also be avoided for the confusion it might cause, as should the niche . Regardless, even if all of that is rebuked, I do strongly believe we need some community-wide standard. Thoughts? 50.252.247.245 ( talk) 19:37, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
It's more important from our perspective to maintain consistency with sources rather than between articles. In some articles it will be more natural to write or or or . To impose order on this would be for Wikipedia to decide that certain matters of notation are better than others. That is incompatible with our objectives. So we simply stick with what prevailing sources use in a given context, and if there are no dominant conventions, we follow MOS:RETAIN. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 21:45, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
Several authorities recommend italic be used for all variables, whether Greek or not, and whether uppercase or not: IUPAC, NIST & ISO (referenced by NIST). In practice this is not always followed, although those 'contraventions' are not necessarily because of an opposing view. Sometimes the use of roman for variables is founded on the type of application (e.g. to represent a tensor), and very often it is due to defaults built into the software — which may or may not be appropriate.
The current MOS page claims that Greek capitals should (always!) be set roman in order to follow TeX's default setting!
First off, I personally think that they should be set italic if they represent variables; roman would be fine by me if they represent a function. But that's just my opinion.
More importantly, it seems like a terrible justification to say that the default of some typesetter is to be followed with no other reason given. Although there is a lot of discussion of the MOS in the archived talk page, there was no evident discussion of or consensus on this particular matter.
I am not confident of a consensus being reached on this matter. If my own preferences aren't adopted, then I hope some flexibility will be allowed in the MOS to allow for different applications (scalar variable versus function, say) and different contexts (pure mathematics versus engineering, say). But at the least there should be be a better justification presented — if not in the MOS page itself, then here on its Talk page!.
—DIV (
120.17.228.105 (
talk)
12:47, 9 July 2018 (UTC))
<math>...</math>
sections, and it's what people use in practice to write. –
Deacon Vorbis (
carbon •
videos)
13:18, 9 July 2018 (UTC)Γ
or {{math|Γ}}
(Γ or Γ), not ''Γ''
or {{mvar|Γ}}
(Γ or Γ). In this respect, I think this is a fine thing to keep. If there really is a rare exception needed for an italic capital Greek latter, it would be fine to do so, provided that it would be done correspondingly in a <math>...</math>
block as well. –
Deacon Vorbis (
carbon •
videos)
14:46, 9 July 2018 (UTC)The reason that TeX does not do it by default is the most mathematical publishing does not do it - TeX was specifically designed to emulate the best quality hand-typeset mathematics. On the other hand, ISO and NIST are pretty much irrelevant to mathematics publishing. The idea that Greek variables are italicized but not Greek functions is challenging to reconcile with variables that range over functions. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 20:47, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
I think it is also curious that we have a number of IP editors arriving on an MOS page. Perhaps it would be a better idea to establish oneself as an editor, get experience editing mathematical articles, and then discuss the manual of style later. It's not productive for inexperienced editors to make random MOS suggestions. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 20:47, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
From § Indenting ( permalink) as well as various other MOS pages, it seems like using colons solely for indentation within articles is Bad, and using LaTeX’s block display mode does exactly what we want. Is there a reason the article doesn’t advise that over misusing colons? — 67.14.236.193 ( talk) 05:12, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
|display=block
syntax is still pretty new. But also, it doesn't work properly for text that is already indented (for instance in bulleted lists, and yes, I have seen bulleted lists with displayed equations in them). And if your goal is semantic cleanliness, it's just as broken as indenting with colons; for instance, your comment above nests a div (actually two nested divs) inside a p, something that is forbidden in proper html. Finally, the idea of avoiding colons for indentation is based on what is arguably a bug in Wikimedia rather than an actual semantic problem; colons are widely used with the intended meaning of indenting something, so the semantics of the wiki-markup is clean enough. The actual problem is that the Wikimedia engine renders the "indent something" semantics as a piece of a definition list even when there is no surrounding definition list to be found. So avoiding : is just working around a bug rather than making your intent clearer. —
David Eppstein (
talk)
05:25, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
<p>
after the math, so the text underneath isn’t even in a paragraph, so there is that bug.) And colons (and semicolons) still function exactly as originally intended, and wikimarkup still lacks a simple indent. That’s not a bug in the colon; that’s us misusing definition/description/glossary lists purely for aesthetics. —
67.14.236.193 (
talk)
06:11, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
:
) was, frankly, shameful and an embarrassment to the project. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼
06:21, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
<math display="block">
in its own paragraph (with a blank line above and below), and if we just use list markup instead of block in lists, wouldn’t that avoid these issues? Is there any reason not to use display="block"
on its own between two blank lines? —
67.14.236.193 (
talk)
06:32, 28 June 2018 (UTC)Let’s see.
Well, there’s an empty paragraph (<p></p>
) above and below the math, so that’s weird, but otherwise no reason not to use it in typical cases. —
67.14.236.193 (
talk)
06:32, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
<p><div>latex{x=3}</div></p>
.
mw:Remex (via use of the parser migration edit tool) will add apparently empty p elements at some point in the near-future rather than allowing that bad behavior, but that still doesn't explain how you are getting the source you are. Maybe because you are unregistered? The math source I get is because I have the option set for the MathML. Do you receive a PNG? --
Izno (
talk)
12:49, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
There was a formal RFC in December, which concluded with an outcome keeping the current guideline [6]. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 12:56, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
|display=block
would be to decouple that sort of stylistic decision from the semantic content. As for codification of the markup to use: LaTeX is codified and is the defacto standard. Based on it, most mathematicians would expect \[ ... \] or $$ ... $$ for displayed equations (and \( ... \) or $ ... $ for inline ones), so anything else (like our math tags) will take some getting used to. —
David Eppstein (
talk)
01:09, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
:
for simple indentation outdated? Because this contradicts them. —
67.14.236.193 (
talk)
15:00, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
If any contradiction arises [between the main MoS and other MoS pages], this page always has precedence." The MOS:MATH policy-fork is invalid on its face both by MoS's wording and by CONLEVEL policy. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 15:20, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
Moving on: MoS, like other guidelines, doesn't "mandate" anything. But that rules/winning/control approach to the matter sure explains a lot, as does the implication that because you "won" last year no one's allowed to question the matter ever again. You also more directly suggset that the result of the RfC hasn't been "accepted"; yet no one is editwarring to change the wording, going around editing in contravention of what it says, or even opening a new RfC on it (I generally wait at least a year before I seek a broader consensus re-discussion of something, and I may never get around to this one; someone else is likely to do it before I do). You're not in a position to try to forbid people from saying at a guideline talk page that one of the guideline's line-items is wrongheaded, why, and why the process at which was got to it was faulty. Such discussions are what a guideline's talk page exists for.
Speaking of straw men, I've nowhere suggested that your or anyone else's input into process (RfC, etc.) is less legitimate, only that some of the facts and assumptions are demonstrably wrong; that too many of the arguments are off-topic, subjective preference, dismissiveness of standards that aren't maths standards, and/or grounded only in editorial convenience; and dominated by a particular bloc of (canvassing-confused) editors from one wikiproject.
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼
15:07, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
What this is going to continue boiling down to is what it boiled down to in the previous discussion. I'll just quote (with minor contextual revision) what I said then (and moving those discussions into /Archive 1 isn't going to sweep the issue under the rug): What's happened here is PoV policy-forking – of what a maths-topical MoS subpage says about an accessibility matter about which the maths page is not authoritative, from what the main MoS page and the accessibility MoS page (among others) say about the exact same matter. Contrary to reality-denying claims in these discussions, there absolutely is general MoS material on indenting all kinds of content (regardless of topic) – lots of it, and all consistent except at MOS:MATH. All emphasis is as in the original; these are direct copy-pastes from the pages in question:
Various templates are available for indentation, including{{ block indent}}
, and (for inline use){{ in5}}
. For more information on the accessibility problems of using:
( description list markup) for visual indentation, see [the next page quoted below].
An accessible approach to indentation is the template{{ block indent}}
for multi-line content; it uses CSS to indent the material. For single lines, a variety of templates exist, including{{ in5}}
(a universal template, with the same name on all Wikimedia sites); these indent with various whitespace characters. ... A colon (:
) at the start of a line marks that line in the MediaWiki parser as the<dd>...</dd>
part of an HTML description list (<dl>...</dl>
). The visual effect in most Web browsers is to indent the line. ... However, this markup alone is missing the required<dt>
(term) element of a description list ... this results in broken HTML ... which is confusing for any [screen-reader-using] visitor unused to Wikipedia's broken markup. This is not ideal for accessibility, semantics, or reuse....
When wikimarkup colons are used just for visual indentation, they too are rendered in HTML as description lists, but without ;-delimited terms to which the :-indented material applies, nor with the list start and end tags, which produces broken markup (see WP:Manual of Style/Accessibility § Indentation for details). More accessible indentation templates can be used, e.g.{{ in5}}
or one of its variants for one line, and{{ block indent}}
for more than one line (even if misuse of description list markup on talk pages is too ingrained to change at this point).
[Need for indentation] is fixed by increasing the default indentation ... and it can be done in multiple ways: ... use an explicit CSS margin spacing of [tech details elided]. Though not the simplest, this is the cleanest and most versatile method, as it does not rely on any peculiarities of the parser, nor on abusing any semantic markup for purely visual purposes. ... A list of one or more lines starting with a colon creates an HTML5 description list (formerly definition list in HTML4 and association list in draft HTML5), without terms to be defined/described/associated, but with the items as descriptions/definitions/associations, hence indented. ... Deprecated method: [this] technique ... produces poorly formed ... markup and abuses the semantic HTML purpose of description lists for a purely visual effect, and is thus a usability and accessibility problem. It will work in a hurry, but should be replaced with cleaner code....
This has never been about anything other than MOS:MATHS recommending a practice deprecated in favor of more accessible practice specified by the main MoS page and the accessibility page and the list-markup page and the list-coding instructions. That's four against one, so we know where
WP:CONLEVEL policy goes on this, especially since the main MoS trumps MoS subpages, and it explicitly defers to
MOS:ACCESS on this matter. The indentation-related material at
MOS:MATHS has nothing at all to do with mathematics and <math>...</math>
markup, only with good versus awful ways to shift content – of any kind – to the right.
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼
23:42, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
[7] —
67.14.236.193 (
talk)
23:34, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
So what exactly is the problem with using <math display="block">
when on its own line? The only technical issue that’s been mentioned is the empty paragraph before the div, which really seems like a non-issue (though it seemed to cause some confusion: under HTML5, which we use, <p>
is self-closing; it’s functionally identical to <p></p>
<div>...</div>
, so there is no nesting). —
67.14.236.193 (
talk)
15:50, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
<math>
significantly differently? Do we not know? —
67.14.236.193 (
talk)
00:35, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
It may, or may not, change where that deviant p element ends up, or whether the div ends up inside the p--and while I trust the parser migration gadget to find issues with future rendering, I don't really trust it to output the exact rendering. If it ends up outputting as empty and closed paragraphs (well-formed but meaningless), then the use of display=block shouldn't be blocked on that issue. (There may be other technical or non-technical issues which block moving to display=block--the solution which I think is clearly the superior one.)
What one could do is go to a wiki where Remex is already enabled and test how display=block outputs. I'm a bit lazy on the point ;), so feel free to report back, IP67. -- Izno ( talk) 01:26, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
or whether the div ends up inside the p—You can’t have a
div
inside a p
. I don’t mean it’s invalid; you literally can’t, it just
doesn’t work that way. If you try, the p
ends right there, and all you get is the div
interrupting the p
. Otherwise, agreed. But I’m not at all familiar with Remex, and have no idea what wikis may or may not use it. —
67.14.236.193 (
talk)
15:31, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
AIn other words, if there’s ap
element's end tag may be omitted if thep
element is immediately followed by [a] […]div
[…] element, or if there is no more content in the parent element […].
<p>
, and then there’s a <div>...</div>
, the div
follows the entirety of the p
with no need to explicitly close it. This is also why <p>...
<p>...
<p>...</p>
results in one paragraph after another rather than nonsensically nested paragraphs. That’s how HTML5 works, and Wikipedia uses HTML5. The language provides no mechanism to alter this behavior. I think you’re focusing too much on the orphaned </p>
. That tag is nonsensical; there’s nothing left to close. It’s like if a recipe said to put the pan in the oven, bake, let cool, serve, and then take it out of the oven—it’s already out! —
67.14.236.193 (
talk)
02:13, 3 July 2018 (UTC)<math display="block">
when on its own line? " - several issues have been mentioned, not all of which I can remember, but one is that this is not sensitive to existing indentation, such as:
- List item 1
- List item 2
- List item 1: math display=block on its own lind
- List item 2
- List item 1: math display=block on its own lind
- List item 2
- List item 1: math display=block on its own lind
- List item 2
A colon without a definition list does have a specific meaning, which is to indent.Not according to what the markup actually does, and has done since its inception: it creates a description list. See MDN’s page about the Description Details element. We’re arguing semantics here, but semantics matter (and if you don’t believe so, I’d ask what you’re doing in the MOS part of Wikipedia). If you want pure indentation markup, the colon is not what you’re looking for. On talk pages, for instance, discussions have long been threaded by means of nested description lists, which are actually better suited for the task than pure indentation. Doesn’t work so well when they’re broken up by things like blockquotes as above, but that’s getting off topic. — 67.14.236.193 ( talk) 01:45, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
References
What I was actually trying to ask at the top of this subsection was whether there were any issues with using block-display independently of list markup—under circumstances where it would make stylistic sense to have the math alone on its own line with no other markup on the same line as it.
Regarding indentation, it works just fine in blockquotes:
Markup | Renders as |
---|---|
Quote: <blockquote> blah blah <math>x=3</math> blah: <math display="block">\int_0^3x\,dx</math> blah </blockquote> |
Quote: blah blah blah:
blah |
(Note: I use {{ blockindent}} above since I’m not actually quoting anything, but the result is the same.)
It also seems to work inline, with no line breaks of any sort, even in lists. Like so:
Markup | Renders as |
---|---|
* … * Another example of an integral is <math display="block">\int_0^3x\,dx</math> which resolves to <math>\frac x4</math>. * … |
|
— 67.14.236.193 ( talk) 03:10, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
With the block’s use of div
, though, it’s still not technically correct to use it in the middle of a paragraph of running text (it actually terminates that paragraph). But that seems to be the only real issue, and it’s a fairly minor one. The issues illustrated above in lists all seem like user error, adding unnecessary line breaks and the like. —
67.14.236.193 (
talk)
03:57, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
... \text{ or} ...
which would render in a different font than plain text. —
67.14.236.193 (
talk)
01:43, 4 July 2018 (UTC)With RemexHtml having now been in play for weeks, where do we stand on this? — 67.14.236.193 ( talk) 01:59, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
What does this do?
^ I see in my source:
<p><div class="mwe-math-element"><div class="mwe-math-mathml-display mwe-math-mathml-a11y" style="display: none;"><math display="block" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="{\displaystyle \int _{0}^{3}x\,dx}">
<semantics>
<mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD">
<mstyle displaystyle="true" scriptlevel="0">
<msubsup>
<mo>∫<!-- ∫ --></mo>
<mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD">
<mn>0</mn>
</mrow>
<mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD">
<mn>3</mn>
</mrow>
</msubsup>
<mi>x</mi>
<mspace width="thinmathspace" />
<mi>d</mi>
<mi>x</mi>
</mstyle>
</mrow>
<annotation encoding="application/x-tex">{\displaystyle \int _{0}^{3}x\,dx}</annotation>
</semantics>
</math></div><img src="https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/media/math/render/svg/4f6ee37704c67835d227c5b66f046f1ba9142be3" class="mwe-math-fallback-image-display" aria-hidden="true" style="vertical-align: -2.338ex; width:8.168ex; height:6.176ex;" alt="{\displaystyle \int _{0}^{3}x\,dx}"/></div>
</p>
And Firefox even highlights the last </p> in orange fore-color as if it is errant (because it is). -- Izno ( talk) 02:24, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
<ref>
s with block display, which admittedly can be a problem.) —
67.14.236.193 (
talk)
03:50, 26 July 2018 (UTC)Proposal: Recommend using <math display="block">…</math>
when a block-level effect (with indentation) is desired. Recommend putting any explanatory text and citations in a paragraph before or after the math, because you can't use block display inline with other text. Stop recommending the use of
description lists where no list is called for. —
151.132.206.26 (
talk)
00:28, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
I’m surprised <math>
doesn’t have that formula-numbering capability itself, but display="block"
appears to work perfectly well with {{
NumBlk}}. (Edited 23:14, 2 August 2018 (UTC) to display the table borders. We really shouldn’t be using code [or templates] that use tables this way.)
Markup | Renders as | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
{{numBlk||<math display="block">x=3</math>|eq. 1|Border=y}} |
Sample text.
| |||
Equation number’s on the same line, math’s properly indented with no colon lists. Actually we could probably edit NumBlk to use block display and ignore the first param. The template doesn’t seem to play well with lists, though. Wonder if that’s fixable… — 67.14.236.193 ( talk) 07:34, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
Would it be possible to enable the equation
environment in <math>
? Then we’d be able to use \tag
in the math markup itself rather than a template kludge that fakes it with tables (which is notoriously bad web-design style, by the way). —
67.14.236.193 (
talk)
22:49, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
Looking over what is currently Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Mathematics, I see numerous ways that the way the page can be rewritten, as well as content changes, that would substantially improve it. Starting with the "Suggested structure" section, I have set up my first sandbox so that a version of my proposed changes can be seen. A link to the difference between the current version of the section and my proposed changes can be found here. Some of the meaningful content changes that I am proposing include:
"establish[ing] why [the subject] is interesting or useful"as part of the purpose of a lead.
"A person editing a mathematics article should not fall into the temptation that "this formula says it all"."means.
Since the differences between the current section and what I am proposing are significant, I am looking for feedback from other users regarding what they think of my proposed changes and how they could be better and more accurately reflect consensus. If agreement can be reached on what changes should be made to the section currently titled "Suggested structure", I will likely propose future substantial changes to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Mathematics under this section. — The Editor's Apprentice ( talk) 04:40, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
A manual of style should be written cleanly and sparely. I have tried to cut useless words without changing the content. (In trying to clarify vague phrases, I might have introduced some of my own meaning.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Magyar25 ( talk • contribs) 19:00, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
How about "whenever" as a standard phrase in definitions?
Just writing "if" seems logically incomplete, leaving open the possibility that some numbers might also be even, though they don't satisfy the condition. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Magyar25 ( talk • contribs) 19:04, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
In
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Mathematics#Font formatting, it is written: "As TeX uses a
serif font to display a formula (both as PNG and HTML), you may use the {{
math}}
template to display your HTML formula in serif as well." But as I can see, LaTeX markup with the <math>
tag actually uses a sans-serif font. This makes pages that use a mix of LaTeX markup and {{
math}}
templates rather ugly. So there's something wrong with this guideline.
Vincent Lefèvre (
talk)
20:47, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
<math>
tag actually uses a sans-serif font. Can you give a specific example? The PNG rendering that I see has a serif font (except where suppressed using \mathsf
), and as I am under the impression that the PNG is generated by the Wikipedia servers, I expect this to be be independent of the browser. Maybe there are
personal preference settings involved? —
Quondum
19:34, 15 August 2020 (UTC)beamer
package has is set up to use one), but that's not really applicable here. It would probably help if you could throw a screenshot up somewhere of what you're seeinng. –
Deacon Vorbis (
carbon •
videos)
19:38, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
<math>
tag uses italic (as usual in LaTeX math mode), while {{
math}}
templates use slanted serif (I think I got confused by the fact that italic looks more like sans-serif than like serif):{{math}}
doesn't use italic by default (although {{
mvar}}
does), so you have to specify that (as you've done here). What you've got here isn't identical of course, but it's reasonably similar. So what's the problem? –
Deacon Vorbis (
carbon •
videos)
22:00, 15 August 2020 (UTC)<math>
tag, a {{
math}}
template, and plain text. —
Vincent Lefèvre (
talk)
23:26, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
(
edit conflict) Yeah, that's definitely not what it should be doing. The appropriate styling for stuff in in {{math}}
should be:
.times-serif,
span.texhtml {
font-family: "Nimbus Roman No9 L", "Times New Roman", Times, serif;
font-size: 118%;
line-height: 1;
}
Either of the first two should produce more reasonable results, and Times New Roman is pretty standard. Even a default Times should be fine as far as I can tell. If it's falling back to a default "serif", then that might be what's getting you. What OS, browser, and skin are you using? (Disclaimer: this is really getting to the point where I'm not that comfortable diagnosing this stuff; it might be better to take this to WP:VPT). – Deacon Vorbis ( carbon • videos) 23:50, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
Note that being able to override a web page's font choice is important, in particular on Wikipedia, whose default font is horrible.
You can do so with with some custom CSS. I'm not sure exactly what you'd have to change or what font(s) you're going for, but it would have the advantage of your browser not clobbering every font on every site you visit. As for dynamically changing variables in {{math}}
to equivalent unicode symbols with JS...well, I'm really not too knowledgeable with this stuff, but I suspect it's possible, but difficult due to a lot of edge cases and variations in how you expect to find stuff marked up in the source. It's also a pretty heavy-handed, esoteric solution for this situation. In either case, if you want more info, I'd suggest
WP:VPT. –
Deacon Vorbis (
carbon •
videos)
17:41, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
FYI, there's an RFC open at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics#Improving rendering of radical symbol which asks:
<math>...</math>
like where technically possible instead of with {{
radic}} like 4√3 (which uses √+{{
overline}})?...and related questions. If there is consensus, text would be added to Manual of Style/Mathematics. Please respond there if interested. Thanks! -- Beland ( talk) 05:46, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
Latex-type should be used, the other method with \overline looks ugly, is unacceptable in almost all professional math-environments, and is hopelessly outdated. LMSchmitt 05:46, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
Hello, please excuse me if this is addressed somewhere in guidelines elsewhere but I haven't been able to locate it. For math that is parenthetical to text but contains tall formatting elements (i.e., a fraction), what is the preferred way to wrap it? Normally in tex I prefer to use "\left(" and "\right)" parens to ensure that they are the same size as the expression in question, but this does not look great when the rest of the text is not in tex, as in wiki articles. Specifically I'm encountering this issue with Squid giant axon, which has some tall exponents and fractions inline in paragraph 2. Currently they look like this:
But I wonder if it looks better for the parentheses to match the expressions more like this:
Or is there a better third option? (just occurring to me: would it be preferable to move large expressions like this onto their own lines/perhaps their own section devoted to the math?) I really dislike how bold the tall parentheses look w/r/t to the text, but I also feel like the math expressions far taller than their parenthetical is suboptimal. Thank you! Mehmuffin ( talk) 12:53, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
The real numbers should be rendered as . This is today's standard in typesetting math books from major publishers and journals which are using LaTeX. The standard using was popular in 1960's and 1970's books. But now it's hopelessly outdated. The section about rendering should be rewritten. LMSchmitt 05:57, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
Should we specify that the convention is for functions to be written to the left of their arguments, as in f(x), not (x)f or xf, even in geometry? I wouldn't have thought this was necessary, but I seem to be arguing this point with Rgdboer at Talk:Real projective line. Ebony Jackson ( talk) 06:52, 31 December 2020 (UTC)