Hello, Kevincook13! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. You may benefit from following some of the links below, which will help you get the most out of Wikipedia. If you have any questions you can ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking or by typing four tildes "~~~~"; this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you are already excited about Wikipedia, you might want to consider being "adopted" by a more experienced editor or joining a WikiProject to collaborate with others in creating and improving articles of your interest. Click here for a directory of all the WikiProjects. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field when making edits to pages. Happy editing! DVdm (talk) 16:48, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] Getting Started Contributing to Wikipedia The five pillars of Wikipedia • Tutorial • Your first article How to: edit a page • upload an image Getting Help Frequently Asked Questions New contributors' help page Where to: ask questions • make requests Tip of the day Request administrator attention Policies and Guidelines Neutral point of view • Reliable sources Verifiability • Citing sources • No original research What Wikipedia is not • Biographies of living persons Simplified Manual of Style • Three-revert rule Copyrights • Non-free content • Image use policy External links • Spam • Vandalism • Sock puppetry Deletion policy • Conflict of interest • Notability The Community Community Portal • Adopt-a-user program Assume good faith • Civility • Etiquette No personal attacks • Resolving disputes Build consensus • Village pump IRC channels • Mailing lists Discover what's going on in the Wikimedia community (The Signpost) Things to do Be bold in editing • Help develop an article Maintenance • Peer review • Requested articles Join a WikiProject • Translating articles Cleaning up: General • Spam • Vandalism Miscellaneous Categories • Disambiguity • Stubs User pages • Talk pages Useful templates • Tools • User scripts

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. I wanted to let you know that I removed one or more external links you added to the 0.999... article, because they seemed to be inappropriate for an encyclopedia. You may find our linking guidelines helpful in this regard. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you! Materialscientist (talk) 11:48, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Why does my link seem inappropriate? Kevincook13 (talk) 12:15, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See wp:ELNO, item 11. Cheers - DVdm (talk) 12:24, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I read the policy. The policy refers to things that are normally to be avoided. I assume that means that the policy is flexible. Kevincook13 (talk) 13:01, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please use proper talk page indentation, as outlined in wp:Talk page formatting and wp:THREAD. Thanks.

It is not a policy, but a guideline, and yes, guidelines can be flexible.

Now, note that our article 0.999... says:

A sequence (x₀, x₁, x₂, …) has a limit x if the distance |x − x_n| becomes arbitrarily small as n increases. The statement that 0.999… = 1 can itself be interpreted and proven as a limit:

The first two equalities are in fact definitions: the symbol is shorthand for which in turn is shorthand for , which can be proven to be 1.

On your personal site you say: "In order to make sense of the question, it is necessary to define the term "0.999..."." Yes, the term is defined as , which can be proven to be 1, so the remainder of your page is just a waste of your time. Most—if not all—things ultimately get decided here by wp:CONSENSUS (a policy), and, by experience, I can assure you that you will never find a consensus for inclusion of your wp:original research proposal in Wikipedia articles, unless of course it is mentioned in the established literature, in wp:secondary sources. Hope this helps. - DVdm (talk) 13:21, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

All I wrote on Wikipedia was "Kevin Cook's proposal". That is verifiable, and is not original research of any kind. I am simply telling the interested reader where to go to see my thoughts on the subject. I am not giving the reader the impression that my thoughts are standard. However Wikipedia policy may result in giving the reader the false impression that the standard thinking enjoys greater consensus than it actually does. Also, I am curious about possible conflict of interest for academic authorities. Their success depends upon acceptance of their ideas, yet they play a key role in determining whose ideas are accepted. How does Wikipedia guard against such potential conflict of interest, in mathematics? Kevincook13 (talk) 16:07, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

All you wrote, was an external link to your personal website, containing your personal (non-authority) fringe view on some subject—see wp:FRINGE. So it was removed.

Indeed, reporting standard thinking is precisely what Wikipedia is about. Any view that deviates from the standard view, can be, perhaps briefly, mentioned in proportion to its importance, notability, and coverage in the literature—see wp:DUE. As your thoughts are nowhere mentioned in the literature, they do not get mentioned in Wikipedia—see WP:NOTFORUM . So again, as far as Wikipedia is concerned, your thoughts are a waste of your time.

Anyway, I have added a little menu here on top of your user talk page. Please take some time acquainting yourself with how things work here. Cheers. - DVdm (talk) 16:48, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! That was helpful. I have learned more about Wikipedia, looked at what you wrote, and still believe that my link should be included. Lots of people think of the term 0.999... in the way proposed by the author of the article, which fact is well-documented. Kevincook13 (talk) 20:28, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You are of course free to believe that, but I don't see any relevant documentation in Google Scholar and Google Books that would warant including the link.

By the way, note that the word sequence is already taken—see our article Sequence. Unlike your website, the standard meaning includes an infinite number of members, whereas according to you "an infinite sequence does not have an end and is therefore not a sequence. An infinite sequence is a sequence variable." You could just as well call it a monkey and then add an external link to your web page in our article Primates - DVdm (talk) 21:40, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the link should be included because as the 0.999... article now stands, it fails to inform the reader that the proposal has been made. The article as it now stands is misleading, because it gives the false impression that people who espouse the idea of the term 0.999... referring to a variable approaching one as nines are added, are unschooled children. Kevincook13 (talk) 19:38, 12 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The standard view on the matter seems to be that this kind of proposal is junk: the string "0.999..." is simply defined as something that is proven to be equal to 1.

Wikipedia is the place where the reader (—including unschooled children—) are informed about the standard view—see WP:WEIGHT. Wikipedia is not a place where we inform the reader that certain proposals are made—see wp:NOTFORUM: "Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought." You clearly have come to the wrong place: Speaker's Corner is over here, so to speak. - DVdm (talk) 22:01, 12 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

My link is not original thought. The article it links to publishes original thought, which article is not on Wikipedia. Your refusal to allow the link violates the spirit of the neutral point of view policy. Kevincook13 (talk) 15:59, 13 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please have a thorough review of wp:ELNO item 11, wp:FRINGE, WP:WEIGHT, wp:NOTFORUM, and perhaps wp:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. Note that your addition was originally removed by user Materialscientist. If our refusal to allow the link violates the spirit of the neutral point of view policy, then by all means report us at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard. Good luck! - DVdm (talk) 16:26, 13 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks again for helping me to better understand how Wikipedia works. I see that there is a mechanism for contesting what you have decided. That is good to know, although I am not sure I am interested in a contest. It does not appear to me that you are very interested in a neutral point of view. Kevincook13 (talk) 07:32, 15 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

1. Wikipedia is not a WP:BATTLEGROUND, so your seeing this as a contest suggests—again—that you might have come to the wrong place.
2. I have decided nothing. All I have done is explain why your edit was reverted by someone, and why I think, based on our policies and guidelines and on my experience, that it will never be accepted here.
3. if you are convinced that I am not very interested in a neutral point of view, then do go to the noticeboard to get a fourth opinion. Make sure you point to this talk page thread.

DVdm (talk) 09:43, 15 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I believe you about the culture here. I believe I have come to the right place. Before I start a conversation with other people about the point of view of this article, could we talk about it briefly? Can you see why I believe that the article currently does not take a neutral point of view? Kevincook13 (talk) 17:08, 15 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

At this point I can't help you anymore. The place to go is Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard. - DVdm (talk) 17:12, 15 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

OK, will do. Thanks for your help! == Notice of Neutral point of view noticeboard discussion ==

Hello, Kevincook13. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is 0.999... Academic and common sense POV.The discussion is about the topic 0.999.... Thank you. Kevincook13 (talk) 19:03, 16 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed. Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by KylieTastic was:

This submission reads more like an essay than an encyclopedia article. Submissions should summarise information in secondary, reliable sources and not contain opinions or original research. Please write about the topic from a neutral point of view in an encyclopedic manner.

Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit after they have been resolved.

• If you would like to continue working on the submission, go to Draft:Finiteness and click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window.
• If you do not edit your draft in the next 6 months, it will be considered abandoned and may be deleted.
• If you need any assistance, or have experienced any untoward behavior associated with this submission, you can ask for help at the Articles for creation help desk, on the or use Wikipedia's real-time chat help from experienced editors.

KylieTastic (talk) 18:41, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Kevincook13! Having an article draft declined at Articles for Creation can be disappointing. If you are wondering why your article submission was declined, please post a question at the Articles for creation help desk. If you have any other questions about your editing experience, we'd love to help you at the Teahouse, a friendly space on Wikipedia where experienced editors lend a hand to help new editors like yourself! See you there! KylieTastic (talk) 18:41, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed. Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by Samoht27 was:

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and not a dictionary. We cannot accept articles that are little more than definitions of words or abbreviations as entries. A good article should begin with a good definition, but expand on the subject. You might try creating a definition for this instead at Wiktionary, which is a dictionary. Please only do so if it meets that sister project's criteria for inclusion. These require among others, attestation for the word or phrase, as verified through clear widespread use, or its use in permanently recorded media, conveying meaning, in at least three independent instances spanning at least a year.

 The comment the reviewer left was:

This is a dictionary definition of finite

Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit after they have been resolved.

• If you would like to continue working on the submission, go to Draft:Finiteness and click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window.
• If you do not edit your draft in the next 6 months, it will be considered abandoned and may be deleted.
• If you need any assistance, or have experienced any untoward behavior associated with this submission, you can ask for help at the Articles for creation help desk, on the or use Wikipedia's real-time chat help from experienced editors.

-Samoht27 (talk) 17:58, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed. Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by KylieTastic was:

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and not a dictionary. We cannot accept articles that are little more than definitions of words or abbreviations as entries. A good article should begin with a good definition, but expand on the subject. You might try creating a definition for this instead at Wiktionary, which is a dictionary. Please only do so if it meets that sister project's criteria for inclusion. These require among others, attestation for the word or phrase, as verified through clear widespread use, or its use in permanently recorded media, conveying meaning, in at least three independent instances spanning at least a year.

 The comment the reviewer left was:

Partly this is a dictionary definition - which is not the purpose of Wikipedia.

Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit after they have been resolved.

• If you would like to continue working on the submission, go to Draft:Finiteness and click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window.
• If you do not edit your draft in the next 6 months, it will be considered abandoned and may be deleted.
• If you need any assistance, or have experienced any untoward behavior associated with this submission, you can ask for help at the Articles for creation help desk, on the or use Wikipedia's real-time chat help from experienced editors.

KylieTastic (talk) 12:24, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your recent article submission has been rejected and cannot be resubmitted. If you have further questions, you can ask at the Articles for creation help desk or use Wikipedia's real-time chat help. The reason left by Robert McClenon was: This topic is not sufficiently notable for inclusion in Wikipedia. The comment the reviewer left was: This draft has been resubmitted without any visible improvement, or with very little improvement. If you do not know what is needed to improve this draft, please ask for advice rather than making minor improvements and resubmitting.

You may ask for advice on how to improve this draft at the Teahouse or on the talk pages of any of the declining reviewers. (The declining reviewers may advise you to ask for advice at the Teahouse.)

If this draft is resubmitted without any improvement or with very little improvement again, it is likely to be rejected, and it may be nominated for deletion, or a topic-ban may even be requested against further submission by the responsible editor.

This draft has been Rejected by a reviewer in the Articles for Creation review process. DO NOT resubmit this draft or attempt to resubmit this draft or prepare or submit a draft that is substantially the same as this draft without discussing the reasons for the rejection. You may request a discussion with the rejecting reviewer, or you may request a discussion with the community at the Teahouse. A discussion will not necessarily agree to a resubmission.

It should be noted that the reviewer has not decided that the topic is not notable. An article on the topic may be accepted in the future. However, there is no reason to think that this draft will become an article, and there is evidence that this draft will never become an article. If there is to be an article on this topic, this draft must first be blown up and started over.

If this draft is resubmitted without discussion and without starting it over, or if an attempt is made to resubmit this draft or an equivalent draft, without addressing the reasons for the Rejection by starting over, a partial block or a topic-ban may be requested against the submitting editor.

You may ask for advice about Rejection at the Teahouse.

Robert McClenon (talk) 05:01, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It appears that you posted to my user talk page after your discussion at the Teahouse had been archived. That is unfortunate, because I would have taken part in the discussion. Sometimes I follow the Teahouse, and sometimes I don't, but I always participate in discussions of articles that I have reviewed if I am aware of the discussions. It isn't anyone's fault that I wasn't notified. I rejected your draft because it was resubmitted without substantively addressing the previous declines, and because I agreed that it is more an expanded dictionary definition than an encyclopedic article draft. I am aware that you disagree. I think that it is likely that it will be deleted at AFD if it is nominated for deletion. Rather than engage in lengthy and inconclusive discussion, I am willing to make a deal, and that is that I will accept your draft with the caveat that I am not estimating that it will pass AFD. The process will be as follows:

1. You make any further changes to the draft, and then notify me that you are ready. Do not remove the Rejected template.
2. I will remove the Rejected template.
3. You will resubmit the article.
4. I will request that the blocking redirect be deleted.
5. When the blocking redirect is deleted, I will accept the draft.
6. We will see whether it is nominated for deletion. I am not making a commitment as to what I will do in the AFD.

Do you have any questions, or do you agree to the procedure? Robert McClenon (talk) 05:13, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for telling me why you rejected the draft. Why didn't you just say so in the rejection itself? Kevincook13 (talk) 15:38, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I did try to substantively address all reasons for previous declines.

I also tried to make it clear that the article does (and can in the future) go well beyond a dictionary definition, while still including such definition. Kevincook13 (talk) 21:30, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What I mean is, why did you reject it for not being notable? Kevincook13 (talk) 15:40, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is a lot that has been written about finiteness which could eventually become a part of this article. I am planning to take things one step at a time. I can see how doing so provides feedback needed to move forward productively. Your feedback is very helpful. If you think it will be deleted, then I am anxious to address the root cause of that belief so that there is no longer any motivation to delete it. Kevincook13 (talk) 16:18, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Do you think that the first paragraph is OK? Kevincook13 (talk) 16:22, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you think the first paragraph is OK, then I'll keep it. I like it. It is little more than a dictionary definition, but I think that is a great place to start. The reason I ask is that in your rejection you wrote that I should scrap everything I had already written. Kevincook13 (talk) 17:54, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If the first paragraph is good, then the entire article cannot be deleted, in good faith. Kevincook13 (talk) 20:25, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I do have faith in Wikipedia as a whole, though factions may not be so trustworthy. Finiteness is a broad topic, not constrained to just one facet of life or academic pursuit. All efforts to determine the appropriateness of this first paragraph (and the article as a whole) should involve a correspondingly broad group of volunteers. Kevincook13 (talk) 21:55, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have any further changes to the draft right now. Please go ahead with your plan, except don't accept it unless you actually do accept it. Thank you. Kevincook13 (talk) 15:24, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I will try to answer your questions, and to ask at least one question. You ask why I didn't explain in the rejection why I rejected the draft. I did explain. I said:

This draft has been resubmitted without any visible improvement, or with very little improvement. If you do not know what is needed to improve this draft, please ask for advice rather than making minor improvements and resubmitting.

Perhaps you would have preferred if the accompanying warning was shorter, but the standard message that I provide with a rejection is meant to be unambiguous and forceful.

You ask why I rejected your draft as not notable. Your draft did not establish notability of the topic as being more than a dictionary definition. A reviewer has two options in rejecting a draft, that it is not notable, or that it is contrary to the purpose of Wikipedia. Your draft wasn't contrary to the purpose of Wikipedia. I rejected it because you were resubmitting it without significant improvement, and it did not satisfy notability.

If I had known that there was discussion at the Teahouse, I would have taken part in the discussion. If you want to discuss at the Teahouse again, I am willing to discuss with you and other experienced editors. We don't need to refer or un-archive the previous discussion, which was inconclusive.

You wrote: I don't have any further changes to the draft right now. Please go ahead with your plan, except don't accept it unless you actually do accept it. What does that mean? I set forth the steps. Do you have any questions about the steps? What do you mean by don't accept it unless you actually do accept it.? Maybe you expect that I can accept the draft in a way that exempts it from being nominated for Articles for Deletion, but that is not how Articles for Creation works, and is not how acceptance of a draft works.

Do you want another discussion at the Teahouse? If we have another discussion, I will ask for an answer to what you mean by don't accept it unless you actually do accept it. Do you want me to accept the draft, subject to AFD? Robert McClenon (talk) 04:41, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Another discussion at the Teahouse sounds great. I'll start it. Kevincook13 (talk) 18:35, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Teahouse#Draft:Finiteness Follow up Kevincook13 (talk) 19:18, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Kevincook13! The thread you created at the Teahouse, Draft:Finiteness, has been archived because there was no discussion for a few days. You can still read the archived discussion. If you have follow-up questions, please . See also the help page about the archival process. The archival was done by lowercase sigmabot III, and this notification was delivered by KiranBOT, both automated accounts. You can opt out of future notifications by placing {{bots|deny=KiranBOT}} on top of the current page (your user talk page). —KiranBOT (talk) 03:24, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Kevincook13! The thread you created at the Teahouse, Draft:Finiteness Follow up, has been archived because there was no discussion for a few days. You can still read the archived discussion. If you have follow-up questions, please . See also the help page about the archival process. The archival was done by lowercase sigmabot III, and this notification was delivered by KiranBOT, both automated accounts. You can opt out of future notifications by placing {{bots|deny=KiranBOT}} on top of the current page (your user talk page). —KiranBOT (talk) 03:15, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]