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He is back!

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For those of you who remember the "Gagniuc episode" (where several accounts were spamming a poorly-written error-filled book on Markov chains by Paul A. Gagniuc). Well, a news user had been writing a dithyrambic review of the book... and spamming another book by Gagniuc on Wikipedia: see this contribution list.

(I like the claim that before 2017 Markov chains were not really used in practical applications)

This time the book isn't about mathematics, so this is not directly relevant to this project... And it also means it would be harder for me to know whether the new book in question is a legitimate source or trash. However, I do feel bad knowing that someone is still using Wikipedia as a platform for the mass-promotion of their — or someone else's, let's not make assumptions ;) — book. Should I report this somewhere? I think @MrOllie has already been looking into this. Malparti (talk) 13:15, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I imagine WP:SPI would be the place, since all of these accounts and IPs are pretty clearly the same person evading the block on MegGutman (talk · contribs) MrOllie (talk) 13:29, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have filed a new sock-puppet report at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/MegGutman and also alerted the most recent helpful administrator Daniel Quinlan on their talkpage. --JBL (talk) 20:18, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Now my evening is ruined, because I've been nerd sniped, and I'll have to look up Gagniuc's book on Markov chains to see if it really is as bad as everyone says. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 20:34, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For your own sake, please don't. –jacobolus (t) 04:35, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I couldn't get through the first page of the text before wondering, "Was this even copy-edited?" There was an "ie" that should have been an "e.g." And two pages later, "JavaScript" was written as two words. The history in section 1.1 starts with some incredibly garbled claims; either the author didn't understand the sources he cited, or he was not capable of writing correct summaries of them. I gave up by page 5. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 14:20, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Citations to Gagniuc's book on Google Scholar: 8 in 2017, 60 in 2018, 126 in 2019, 161 in 2020, 187 in 2021, 167 in 2022, 150 in 2023, 156 in 2024, and 39 so far in 2025. Gagniuc's book was added to the article in October 2017 and removed in June 2024. Over the first half of 2025, it has been accumulating citations at maybe half the rate it did during the last full year it was prominently featured in the Wikipedia article. Some of those 2025 papers were actually written in 2024, too. By "some", I mean 8 out of the first 10 Google Scholar results (after which I stopped checking). Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 03:26, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, he figured out a "cute hack": list your own mediocre book as the very first reference in a bunch of random Wikipedia pages in contexts where it makes no sense to cite, and watch the money lazy citations from other (mostly mediocre) sources roll in. –jacobolus (t) 06:18, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I also looked at those numbers yesterday! :)
Anyway, his "cute hack" worked well for him: I happen to know the Romanian academic system a bit (having spent 6 months there for an academic visit), and with a book cited more than a thousand time, he is probably untouchable there. Malparti (talk) 20:30, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

DOI Wikipedia reference generator is dead

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I loved DOI Wikipedia reference generator in the past, but it no longer exists. I want to format some references to be used in a new section at a math/physics article, but it's extremely boring to do that manual formatting with templates. Is there any other automatic tool? P.S. I want to format these references: User:MathKeduor7/sandbox#References. MathKeduor7 (talk) 16:04, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I looked up the first entry on your list in Google Scholar, copied the DOI and pasted it into Wikipedia:ProveIt which created a ref tag containing this content:
  • Azzouni, Jody (1997-10-01). "Applied Mathematics, Existential Commitment and the Quine-Putnam Indispensability Thesis†". Philosophia Mathematica. 5 (3): 193–209. doi:10.1093/philmat/5.3.193. ISSN 1744-6406.
Johnjbarton (talk) 16:30, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you so much! MathKeduor7 (talk) 16:45, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Math of cylindrical mirrors

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I've started this draft about cylindrical mirrors. Everyone is welcome to help improving it so that it can be moved to the mainspace someday. MathKeduor7 (talk) 04:09, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Looking for a co-reviewer for Alhazen's problem

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I am reviewing Alhazen's problem at Talk:Alhazen's problem/GA1. Does anyone understand the math at the section Alhazen's_problem#Algebraic? It's beyond me. Please, I need help on this (checking if it's right). Best wishes. MathKeduor7 (talk) 04:06, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Noting that it appears that Gramix13 is helping with this now. --JBL (talk) 21:55, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
 Done Alhazen's problem has been promoted by MathKeduor7 to Good Article status. Gramix13 (talk) 00:21, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Russian translation of Sphere Packings, Lattices and Groups

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I've been working up a little article about the book Sphere Packings, Lattices and Groups. According to Neil Sloane's website and John Conway's bibliography, there was a Russian translation of what must have been the first edition in 1990 [1][2]. Does anyone have more information about this than the article already contains, e.g., some kind of catalogue number? Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 00:42, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The book is 2 volumes, vol 1: ISBN 9785030023687 MR1148591; and vol 2 ISBN 9785030023694 MR1148592. Here's metadata for the first volume, from the Russian State Library:
Упаковки шаров, решетки и группы : В 2 т. / Дж. Конвей, Н. Слоэн ; При участии Э. Баннаи и др.; Перевод с англ. С. Н. Лицына и др. - М. : Мир, 1990-. - 22 см. Т. 1. - Москва : Мир, 1990. - 413 с. : ил.; ISBN 5-03-002368-2 (В пер.) : 4 р. 30 к.
You can find a reference to it from Russian Wikipedia's article about Conway, ru:Конвей, Джон Хортон.
If you do a web search for "Упаковки шаров, решетки и группы" you can also find links to pirated copies, from which you can probably find whatever other metadata you need. –jacobolus (t) 04:03, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, thanks! I had gotten as far as looking up the Russian article for sphere packing, but not their article about Conway. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 15:11, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Continuation for Addition

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Can someone tell me what the purpose of C's syntax is in the computer section? Dedhert.Jr (talk) 08:24, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This C program must be removed. Indeed, it describes how the binary addition could be implemented in C. This says nothing more on the algorithm than what is already in the article. It is not intended to be used, since binary addition is hard-coded in computer hardware. So it is only a student exercise, whithout any encyclopedic value. D.Lazard (talk) 09:41, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The code listing doesn't seem very relevant. Someone interested in this type of tangential sub-topic can click through the wikilinks to e.g. Adder (electronics) or Binary number § Binary arithmetic. –jacobolus (t) 17:01, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Chinese-speaker needed at a GA review

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As explained in Talk:Vorlesungen über die Entwicklung der Mathematik im 19. Jahrhundert/GA1. Best wishes! MathKeduor7 (talk) 05:30, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@慈居: Hi! Please, could you help there? MathKeduor7 (talk) 05:36, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
With pleasure! Never done a GA review before. :| I'll see what I can do. 慈居 (talk) 05:54, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much! MathKeduor7 (talk) 06:34, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Help please? Draft:Otis Chodosh

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Title. MathKeduor7 (talk) 07:26, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Gumshoe2: Please help? MathKeduor7 (talk) 07:28, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure there is enough here to establish wiki-notability. Gumshoe2 (talk) 16:50, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, thanks for the assessment (I agree with you after discussing it with David Eppstein). It may be WP:TOOSOON. MathKeduor7 (talk) 17:27, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. Also, the "excellence in teaching" is not really relevant for notoriety. PatrickR2 (talk) 04:37, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Codenominator function" proposed for deletion

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wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Codenominator_function

I have no opinion one way or the other at this point, but it seems to me that the proposer failure to post here was improper. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:09, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]