im going to bed

goodnight everyone

@pourjour 2011 is prime, just use little fermat

@WhitAngl It turns out that is a way to contact mods

what's up?

hi!

(sorry for the delay - I've been at a meeting)

oh, that was fast

I would like to acknowledge PavelM / 5pm in a paper, but apparently he has left the site and I don't know his name....

oh, what an interesting problem

;)

if you can't disclose the information directly, maybe you could drop him an email asking whether he is ok that I contact him directly ?

If I recall correctly, he removed his account, right?

yep

in that case, all his information (including his contact information) is lost now. Account removal is very permanent

but I'll see one more thing. Do you know a question/answer that was written by him?

yep : the answer I want to acknowledge : math.stackexchange.com/questions/264405/…

user53153

someone suggested he could be Leonid Kovalev but according to some google search, somone already mentioned on the chat a while ago that this was unlikely

Nope, none of that magic works either.

I think his identity is lost forever

@Expert something something something dark side something something something complete

@mixedmath do you know someone that might know him ?

@WhitAngl Since he explicitly wanted his contributions to be anonymized (which seems to be the only real reason for deleting his account), I don't see how anyone could fault you for citing him as simply as "an anonymous user of the website math.stackexchange.com".

wut

I would treat it as a user who chooses to not give his real name unless you can think of something more clever. Perhaps use a mixture of this and whatever comes up from the \cite functionality

I agree with Henning.

@WhitAngl I'll ask the other mods, and see if something comes up

@Henning I guess that's what I will end up doing ; but that doesn't really make him justice

@mixedmath thanks!

(but don't have high hopes)

@Expert how you a very clever boy, I'll let you find out what it is

@WhitAngl Since it's what he explicitly wanted, what more justice could he possibly get?

Exposing him by name would be an injustice then.

@Henning he might want to remain anonymous from math.SE but it doesn't mean he doesn't want to remain anonymous for everything (which includes publications) ;)

I guess he still signs his papers ;)

@WhitAngl But that particular thing he wrote on MSE, that he does want to be anonymous. If you learned his identity and publicly revealed the author of the person who helped you on MSE, his anonymity here would be blown.

in any case, I'd like to ask him before whether he is ok

@WhitAngl Even if somebody here knew 5pm, how would they know you're not her crazy ex who wants to track her down?

lol :p

@Henning this is the question I'd like to acknowledge: math.stackexchange.com/questions/264405/… which is authored by me. Of course, his crazy ex gf could also have written the question and created a fake account years ago to track him down ;)

@WhitAngl That's three months ago. Some people burn through relationships quickly. Perhaps not even an ex -- what if you communicated in person after that exchange and you developed a crazy stalkerish obsession with her that she had to change her phone number and burn her account on the site to escape?

I am now very intrigued by this scenario. Yes, what then?

@Henning hehe :) At best I can send a version of the paper lacking his name. The paper has been accepted last week (that's quite fast : this is a conference in computer science, and dates can be checked). Contrary to mathematics, I guess in such circumstances only clues can be given rather than proofs ;)

@mixedmath My point is just that when people deliberately and explicitly decide to disappear, other users who might know who they are can be argued to have a moral duty not to reveal this information to random people who ask for it in chat.

@WhitAngl Do note that I'm of course not accusing you of anything that fantastic.

I understand :)

@HenningMakholm Indeed, I largely agree. I think part of the reason I would not be against contacting him is because I do not think the main reason he left the site was for anonymity. Even then, I'd send him an email asking permission before having WhitAngl contact him

@HenningMakholm that's why I proposed that the moderator (or whoever knows his name) directly contact 5pm asking whether he is fine talking to me.

yep

But I think it's almost certain that he's lost forever as it is

:s

It's a conflict between the anticipated anonymity of having removed oneself as a user vs. being properly cited for help given

Maybe this is all a pathological test, and we're all to bear witness to my current struggle to get published

or maybe not ;p

you can still switch to computer science if you want more papers ;)

@mixedmath Shh, don't tell anyone. The ratings will be much better if you act as if you don't suspect.

Anyway, I'm afraid I'm off to help at a math resource center for desperate undergrads who didn't touch their homework until the night before it's due.

:p good luck!

But now I know that anyone can ping a mod, regardless of whether or not they've been in the chat recently

@mixedmath Isn't that MSE?

@HenningMakholm oh... clever... sad...