Wikidata:Property proposal/Alexander–Briggs notation

From Wikidata
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Alexander–Briggs notation

[edit]

Originally proposed at Wikidata:Property proposal/Natural science

Descriptioncommon notation of abstract knots
RepresentsAlexander-Briggs notation (Q55960283)
Data typeMathematical expression
Domainknot (Q1188853)
Allowed values/[0-9] _{?[0-9] }?/
Example 1unknot (Q1188344)
Example 2trefoil knot (Q168620)
Example 3three-twist knot (Q7797291)
Sourceen:List of prime knots or http://katlas.math.toronto.edu/wiki/The_Rolfsen_Knot_Table
Opensofias
Tobias1984
Arthur Rubin
Cuvwb
TomT0m
Physikerwelt
Lymantria
Bigbossfarin
Infovarius
Helder
PhilMINT
Malore
Lore.mazza51
Wikisaurus
The Anome
The-erinaceous-one
Daniel Mietchen
Haansn08
Xenmorpha
John Samuel
Jeremy Dover
Toni 001
Bocardodarapti
Duckmather
HTinC23
fgnievinski
Paul-Olivier Dehaye
uni
Dexxor
慈居

Notified participants of WikiProject Mathematics

Motivation

[edit]

It is a standard notation of abstract knots, see enwiki. It consists of a number and a subscript: maybe, there is a better way to fill it than with <sub>subscript</sub>? Wikisaurus (talk) 14:35, 4 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

[edit]
To the extend that unicode gets rendered in a way that's looks less aesthetic then other formatting that's a problem of the formatting engine and not one of the format. If unicode gets more widely used, there an incentive to get it to be rendered more aesthetically as well. On the same token, actual using unicode symbols outside of ASCII also encourages development of easier ways to input them. ChristianKl08:27, 10 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Any system that supports unicode can automatically display the unicode value - that's really not true: a glyph for the unicode character needs to be in the font used, and if it's not the system falls back on some sort of default glyph that may not look good at all. Since we're talking about subscripts, what does en:Superscripts and Subscripts look like to you? The 2095-209C characters all show as strange boxes on 3 browsers I tried. Yes, unicode is nice for many uses, but it's actually probably not the best way to handle subscripting or other special notations of this sort. ArthurPSmith (talk) 16:43, 10 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Apart from that, the mathematical community is totally familiar with TEX-like typing of formulas and for instance typing formulas in MS-Word works that way. So for mathematical properties, the mathematical expression datatype is a very convenient choice. Lymantria (talk) 09:25, 11 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It seems that the MacOs doesn't support the 2095-209C characters but those are distinct from the subscripts for numbers and mathematical signs.
While I still prefer unicode strings, I think it's okay to use Mathematical expression and by default expect from every data-user to treat data from Mathematical expression to be treated as MathMl formatted. ChristianKl10:09, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Wikisaurus: Just checking - are you ok with this proposal using "mathematical expression" datatype as above? ArthurPSmith (talk) 17:55, 11 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Wikisaurus: Actually there is a need in this case because strings displayed in Wikidata (including labels and descriptions) do not support wikitext, so "<sub>" would just display straight as that string here, it would not show as a subscript. Only the mathematical expression datatype can handle any mathematical notation correctly within wikidata. You can try the string format at Wikidata Sandbox (Q4115189) for yourself. Unicode as Christian suggests would also work. I'm not sure how either would work when pulled into other wikipedias though. ArthurPSmith (talk) 17:50, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • What I meant by overkill is the plain text like "2_3", not "2<sub>3</sub>" (this format is really used sometimes). But I agree that in the long-term math format is better. Unfortunately, now there is no way to use it at least in Russian Wikipedia and Wikipedias using its module Wikidata. Wikisaurus (talk) 19:02, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Okkn, ArthurPSmith, Physikerwelt, Wikisaurus, Pigsonthewing: ✓ Done: Alexander–Briggs notation (P6432)Pintoch (talk) 08:30, 2 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]