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Michel Talagrand wins Abel Prize for work wrangling randomness

quantamagazine.org

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Re: Michel Talagrand wins Abel Prize for work wrangling randomness

#11

Post by yau8edq12i »

epgui wrote: post #7
wslh wrote: post #4

Ironically, the Wikipedia pages about him in French [1] and English [2] are, currently, super short. It will help if Wikipedia (just giving them as an example) could handle the focus on certain people and topics in an smarter way and not after the facts. Wikipedia has a special opportunity about handling this because it is the canonical general reference on Internet. Hallucinated or not I found a better starting poin…

> [...] and not after the facts Wikipedia is an encyclopedia , they intentionally only cover topics retroactively, and preferably after the dust has settled. They're intentionally not intending to be many things, including a source of up to date news: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_no...

The point is that his work (and by extension himself) was encyclopedia-worthy long before he got the prize. Or he wouldn't have gotten the prize. Wikipedia doesn't wait until after the oscars to include movie.

Re: Michel Talagrand wins Abel Prize for work wrangling randomness

#12

Post by captn3m0 »

wslh wrote: post #4

Ironically, the Wikipedia pages about him in French [1] and English [2] are, currently, super short. It will help if Wikipedia (just giving them as an example) could handle the focus on certain people and topics in an smarter way and not after the facts. Wikipedia has a special opportunity about handling this because it is the canonical general reference on Internet. Hallucinated or not I found a better starting poin…

His homepage has this interesting snippet:

> If you are desperate to get my books and your library can't afford them, try to type the words "library genesis" in a search engine. I disagree with piracy, but this site saved me many trips to the library, which unfortunately does not carry electronic versions of older books.

Re: Michel Talagrand wins Abel Prize for work wrangling randomness

#13

Post by tptacek »

wslh wrote: post #9
epgui wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] and not after the facts Wikipedia is an encyclopedia , they intentionally only cover topics retroactively, and preferably after the dust has settled. They're intentionally not intending to be many things, including a source of up to date news: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_no...

No pun intended. We all see (right?) that one of the cultural topics of the XXI is about focus. In a relative past people could study and/or read "all" texts and be intellectuals or feel like that. It is obvious that the focus economy always existed but now there are zillions of potential content to consume (good or not, doesn't matter). Wikipedia, as an example, has the opportunity to add layers (not many) of conten…

Wikipedia is premised on being a tertiary source, and pays a price for every "layer" of content they add in volunteer time needed to correct inaccuracies, which are constantly being added. People have all sorts of ideas about things Wikipedia could be besides an encyclopedia, but the project is (wisely) not receptive to any of them. Meanwhile: if you're right about this, you can just fork and track Wikipedia and do your own site.

Re: Michel Talagrand wins Abel Prize for work wrangling randomness

#14

Post by epgui »

yau8edq12i wrote: post #11
epgui wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] and not after the facts Wikipedia is an encyclopedia , they intentionally only cover topics retroactively, and preferably after the dust has settled. They're intentionally not intending to be many things, including a source of up to date news: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_no...

The point is that his work (and by extension himself) was encyclopedia-worthy long before he got the prize. Or he wouldn't have gotten the prize. Wikipedia doesn't wait until after the oscars to include movie.

All of us were always free, and are still free, to contribute to making his wiki page better!

Re: Michel Talagrand wins Abel Prize for work wrangling randomness

#15

Post by yau8edq12i »

epgui wrote: post #14
yau8edq12i wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that his work (and by extension himself) was encyclopedia-worthy long before he got the prize. Or he wouldn't have gotten the prize. Wikipedia doesn't wait until after the oscars to include movie.

All of us were always free, and are still free, to contribute to making his wiki page better!

Wikipedia editors delete pages about people not deemed notable enough. Especially women: https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/wikipedia-bias-1.6129073 Meanwhile, a list of supplemental roads and rural secondary highways in Kentuck (3000-3499) is encyclopedia-worthy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Kentucky_supplemental_...

Re: Michel Talagrand wins Abel Prize for work wrangling randomness

#16

Post by teddyh »

yau8edq12i wrote: post #15
epgui wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of us were always free, and are still free, to contribute to making his wiki page better!

Wikipedia editors delete pages about people not deemed notable enough. Especially women: https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/wikipedia-bias-1.6129073 Meanwhile, a list of supplemental roads and rural secondary highways in Kentuck (3000-3499) is encyclopedia-worthy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Kentucky_supplemental_...

If we assume that there is a group of people giving a concerted effort to acknowledge women in general, would that not lead to more articles about women being created? And, purely statistically, would not this in turn lead to more articles about women being rejected for being insufficiently notable? There is no need to assume bias in Wikipedia editors, the bias could just as well lie with those people who create the many rejected articles.

Also, one criteria which Wikipedia must, by necessity, use, is “published articles in other media about the subject”. If other media are, in general, biased, this would lead to a dearth of articles in other media, which in turn would lead to Wikipedia rejecting new WP articles.

Re: Michel Talagrand wins Abel Prize for work wrangling randomness

#17

Post by wslh »

tptacek wrote: post #13
wslh wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No pun intended. We all see (right?) that one of the cultural topics of the XXI is about focus. In a relative past people could study and/or read "all" texts and be intellectuals or feel like that. It is obvious that the focus economy always existed but now there are zillions of potential content to consume (good or not, doesn't matter). Wikipedia, as an example, has the opportunity to add layers (not many) of conten…

Wikipedia is premised on being a tertiary source, and pays a price for every "layer" of content they add in volunteer time needed to correct inaccuracies, which are constantly being added. People have all sorts of ideas about things Wikipedia could be besides an encyclopedia, but the project is (wisely) not receptive to any of them. Meanwhile: if you're right about this, you can just fork and track Wikipedia and do y…

Even, beyond that, Wikipedia, again, as an example, has faults on its own merits: I keep reading about Michel Talagrand and find this entry [1] which mentions his work first but there is no link in [2] to [1] (at least now).

I will try to restate this, for the sake of an interesting discussion, in a completely different direction but using Wikipedia as an example: in software engineering we create different kind of tests for our software systems, I think Wikipedia should add "unit tests" and other tests to augment, fix, and link their current content.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majorization

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Talagrand

Re: Michel Talagrand wins Abel Prize for work wrangling randomness

#18

Post by shnock »

teddyh wrote: post #16
yau8edq12i wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia editors delete pages about people not deemed notable enough. Especially women: https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/wikipedia-bias-1.6129073 Meanwhile, a list of supplemental roads and rural secondary highways in Kentuck (3000-3499) is encyclopedia-worthy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Kentucky_supplemental_...

If we assume that there is a group of people giving a concerted effort to acknowledge women in general, would that not lead to more articles about women being created? And, purely statistically , would not this in turn lead to more articles about women being rejected for being insufficiently notable? There is no need to assume bias in Wikipedia editors, the bias could just as well lie with those people who create the…

What evidence is there for said concerted effort?

Re: Michel Talagrand wins Abel Prize for work wrangling randomness

#19

Post by teddyh »

shnock wrote: post #18
teddyh wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we assume that there is a group of people giving a concerted effort to acknowledge women in general, would that not lead to more articles about women being created? And, purely statistically , would not this in turn lead to more articles about women being rejected for being insufficiently notable? There is no need to assume bias in Wikipedia editors, the bias could just as well lie with those people who create the…

What evidence is there for said concerted effort?

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiPro...>

Re: Michel Talagrand wins Abel Prize for work wrangling randomness

#20

Post by epgui »

yau8edq12i wrote: post #15
epgui wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of us were always free, and are still free, to contribute to making his wiki page better!

Wikipedia editors delete pages about people not deemed notable enough. Especially women: https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/wikipedia-bias-1.6129073 Meanwhile, a list of supplemental roads and rural secondary highways in Kentuck (3000-3499) is encyclopedia-worthy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Kentucky_supplemental_...

How is this statistical problem (which I’m prepared to acknowledge) an actual barrier preventing you from improving any given article?
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