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Just a comment, I mostly have seen k-invariant, with a lower case k. Does anyone have ‘strong’ feelings about this?
My tuppence worth: if this is the cohomology class k-invariant, I’ve only seen it lower case, and I’d regard it as a mistake to use upper case.
I do, and I mentioned it to Urs in person :-)
You do what? Have strong feelings? Agree should be lower case?
I do think it should lower case, though perhaps ’strong’ feelings is overstating it. I’ve never seen the capital used and it just looks wrong.
Urs has changed it.
had changed it, before you all noticed (or before I noticed that you noticed).
Maybe in the future don't invest a whole lot of energy into worrying about an un-unnounced entry that is obviously still in the making. I may fire off a whole bunch of stubs when working on something else just as to have the link structure established right away. Since there are other tasks in life besides editing the nLab, I cannot guarantee that every entry is meant to be publically seen the moment you see it appear on the "recently revised" list. It is meant to be seen the moment that I announce its creation here.
On the other hand, if you do see a new entry appear with an evident uncontroversial typo, say referring to something standard in all textbooks, then by all means, please just fix it. We don't need to have long discussion about standard facts that the traditional textbook literature has long settled. I think. Especially if it's all about conventions of terminology and not about anything substantial. It saves us all quite a few keystrokes.
Dear Urs: both your irritation and your proposal make a certain amount of sense (although maybe Tim wasn’t absolutely sure and was just checking). As for myself, I was just responding to the question, without knowing where it was coming from.
I think I might feel similarly if I were in your shoes. (Also, I saw your response at the “light” thread before this, which helps to contextualize your remark at the light thread.)
To quote Todd: although maybe Tim wasn’t absolutely sure and was just checking<- 100% correct. There may be sometimes very good reasons for a small change in notation, so this leads to a hesitation on behalf of the reader (in this case me). Because of that the two actions that seem appropriate in such a case are (i) include the old notation as well or (ii) check that it was intended and not a typo, then act. The second seemed safer. This avoids a large expense of energy on anyones behalf.
For the ’and was just checking’, I seem to remember that I was wanting to see if I was using an old fashioned term in something. In a monograph that I am writing I like to have a fairly standard cross reference to terminology and notation, (so as to stay fairly ‘fashionable’) and I often use the n-Lab just for that whilst writing. :-)
I am not a traditionalist when it comes to terminology, but neither am I an anti-traditionalist. Changes will often be worth making (or at least trying out) to standard but ill conceived terminology, for instance the fashion for the use of ’space’ as meaning ’simplicial set’ (without any comment at the start of a published article). This leads to lots of difficulties in what I am writing.
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