Martin Sleziak's room

There are a number of questions (I've raised a few myself) about a source work which appears to have a mistake. One possibly useful function of MSE might be to assemble a repository of errata in published works based on such questions. Worth at this stage adding a tag for "errata"?

Does this answer your question? Can Matematics S.E. be used to report errors of a text book? — José Carlos Santos 4 hours ago

@PrimeMover Maybe you could ask Daniel McLaury about the registration problems? He is a user here on Stack Exchange - and, as far as I can tell, he created that wiki. — Martin Sleziak 2 hours ago

@MartinSleziak How does one go about contacting another user? I didn't know it was a possible option. — Prime Mover 12 mins ago

@PrimeMover Neither of them are certainly optimal, but you could try a comment on some of their posts. Or you can invite the users into a chatroom - I'll try to do that here, as an illustration.

I have sent you an invite - just as a test, to see whether it works and whether you get some kind of notification.

This is basically the same advice that I posted here - but in more detail:

Q: How to contact a MathOverflow user?

Occasionally it might happen that I want to contact some user, although the thing I want to say is not directly relevant to one of their posts - which makes me think that this would be not really suitable for a comment under one of their post (where they would be notified). What can be done in si...

support communication

A: How to contact a MathOverflow user?

Probably first you should spend some time thinking whether it is really needed - but in cases where you decide that contacting the user is useful, there are a few options what can be done. It is worth mentioning that there is no system for posting private messages here. Relevant thread on Meta S...

Prime Mover

While Math Book Notes Wiki is a great idea, I can't get into it. It's part of "Fandom", in which I have an account dating back to 2011 when I was in collaboration with Arided. I can't get back into it, I've asked for a password reset, had nothing at the registered email address I had for Fandom, tried to set up another account, and all the time it refuses me access.

Martin Sleziak

@PrimeMover Ok, so I guess Daniel McLaury can't help you with this - even if he's the person who started this particular wiki.

In that case, forget about my suggestion to contact him.

Prime Mover

I am already assembling a library of errata of published works on another site I have access to (amusingly the count of errata in David Wells's Curious and Interesting Numbers is over 170), and it would be nice to be able to merge my errata list with his.

Martin Sleziak

I guess I should deleted my comment suggesting that...? Probably I'll leave it there.

Or maybe you can still try...? It's up to you.

Prime Mover

The main reason for wanting to start a tag dedicated to discussing errata is because one is never certain whether what one perceives to be a mistake, is actually a mistake. A second pair of eyes, so to speak, is often a useful thing to offer. Once one has got confirmation that there is a mistake, then one can take it forward to "officially" documenting it on Math Book Notes Wiki or ProofWiki or wherever else.

Martin Sleziak

3:11 PM

Well, we'll see what others have to say about the question.

If you had a look at the discussion from 2011 that I linked to, you saw that there were different opinions: Would a new tag for mistakes/typos/errata for books be useful/appropriate?

Prime Mover

It's disappointing, but I would have thought it was exactly the sort of thing MSE would be perfect for. But no, it seems there is a marked tendency towards gatekeeping. Is there a serious limitation in memory quota or something? Wikipedia suffers from the same sort of sickness: people with admin privileges decided whether something should be included or not, and making decisions.

Yes, I read the pages, there were a few, and while there was indeed considerable support for such a tab, it was decided against. Disappointing, as I say.

Martin Sleziak

I am not sure whether MSE would be suitable for that - and if you browsed a bit through the past discussions, you saw some counterarguments.

By "tab" you mean "tag", right?

Of course, there is a substantial difference between a post which serves only to collect typos and a post which asks whether something is a typo or not.

Prime Mover

Yes, I saw the counterarguments, and I disagree with those counterarguments. Tab, tag, whatever, yes, tag. I have little patience with jargon.

Martin Sleziak

I will quote from my post on meta - although you probably saw this.

Prime Mover

A post that collects typos is also a good thing to have. Then if someone else is studying from the same book and reach the same stumbling block, they can see that yes, it is indeed a mistake.

Martin Sleziak

3:16 PM

> You are not sure whether it is an error in the book or whether you misunderstood something. You need help with correcting a possible error, filling in missing steps, explaining some details, etc.

> ....

> The problems of the first kind lead to questions which are valid (on topic) on math.SE. I think that we had plenty of questions asking for a clarification of some problems when reading a textbook or a paper. Some of such post in fact revealed an error or a typo in the original text.

> You can find a few examples in this question (and in answers and comments posted there).

In short - asking whether or not something is a typo is certainly a valid question.

Prime Mover

I have domestic commitments that demand my attention, I am afraid I am going to have to abandon this session. Many thanks for your time and communication.

Martin Sleziak

@PrimeMover Of course, you can try to create such a post and see have it goes.

Maybe you saw the Atiyah-MacDonald post on MO that I linke as an example. (Of course, MO is a different site. And importance of that book gives that post a lot of weight, too.)

See you later and have a nice day!

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