Re: Comments on a wikipedia article on a Timeline of Category theory

[selinger@mathstat.dal.ca (Peter Selinger)]

I was intrigued by the question of who composed this Wikipedia
"timeline of category theory". A closer look at the article's history
shows that the list of entries was almost entirely created by a single
user, "Fotino", between September 2008 and July 2009. There was one
other user from Sweden (IP address 83.233.242.29) who contributed a
large number of entries in May 2009. That might have just been Fotino
having forgotten to log in that day. Only three entries (on Brower,
Heyting, and Serre) were later added by other people. Although many
other users contributed changes, all of them just edited existing
entries in the list.

I think that Fotino, whoever he or she is, should be commended for
what was obviously a non-trivial amount of work. He or she hasn't
contributed anything else to Wikipedia besides this one article, so it
must have really been a work of passion.

Of course, any such list will be subject to criticism and possible
improvement. I completely agree with Ronnie and George that the
article would benefit from references, as per Wikipedia's
policy. Also, no survey or timeline written by a single person will
include everything that should be included, or exclude everything that
should be excluded.

Ironically, Fotino him- or herself had a similar gripe with another
article, "Timeline of mathematics", where he/she wrote on the
discussion page in June 2009:

  "There is no name of grothendieck and hence the list is not
  serious. [...]. the list has to be removed completely. [...] In my
  oppinion almost everything in modern mathematics is missing, not only
  category theory, but also for instance analysis. But the blame can
  not be put wholely on the creator of the timeline but on all who
  could include these things but don't. [...]. Yes, i have some entries
  to include, but i don't have the time."

I guess we can deduce from this that Fotino would be very happy for
others to contribute to his article. -- Peter

Ronnie Brown wrote:
>
> We would like to draw the attention of readers of this list to the article
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_category_theory_and_related_mathematics
>
>
> We feel that this entry is slanted, unbalanced, and in many cases wrong.
> It gives credit to work at a given time often presented in the form of
> vague ambitious titles or conclusions that give no information on the
> actual theorems the authors either claimed or published at the time.  It
> fails to give credit to many authors for their contribution to the
> development of category theory and its wider applications, and fails to
> describe many developments in the area.
>
> It also fails to give references, which is usually a requirement for
> wikipedia articles, and the `discussion' makes it clear that the
> author(s) of this entry have no intention of so doing, and have not done
> so since the entry was made in 2009.
>
> The anonymity of the entry is also a handicap.
>
> One of us has tried to make a correction, but this is using a sticking
> plaster on too great a problem. The entry fails to come up to the
> standards of wikipedia in scholarship, accuracy and presentation, is not
> really possible to correct,  and should therefore be removed.
>
> We would be grateful for comments on this matter, and for agreement to
> support this proposal to wikipedia.
>
> Ronnie Brown
>
> George Janelidze
>
>
>
>
> [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]
>



[For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]