The worth or futility of factorizations relating to OPNs

[akruppa]

Read my first paragraph of posting #23.

[em99010pepe]

The Golden Rule or ethic of reciprocity is a maxim,[2] ethical code, or morality[3] that essentially states either of the following:

• (Positive form): One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself.[2]
• (Negative/prohibitive form, also called the Silver Rule): One should not treat others in ways that one would not like to be treated.

The Golden Rule is arguably the most essential basis for the modern concept of human rights, in which each individual has a right to just treatment, and a reciprocal responsibility to ensure justice for others.[4]

Taken from here.

[R.D. Silverman]

Originally Posted by akruppa

Read my first paragraph of posting #23.

"Your "opinion" has the sole effect and, since you are not stupid, I must assume the purpose of starting yet another flame war. I consider that well over the line towards trolling and I will act on it. You think you're the only mathematician here qualified to decide what can and cannot be posted. You are quite wrong there. Since you don't have actual moderator powers, you try to enforce your ideas by sheer obnoxiousness."


The fact that my opinions have the effect of starting a flame war does not
mean that a flame war is my intent. And I treat your "opinion" that this
is trolling with total contempt. Attempting censorship based on your
"opinion" is a clear abuse of moderator opinion. Furthermore, we have seen
posts that are clearly either trolls (or essays posted by people who truly are
cretins), yet you do nothing about those. It is clear that you do have a
double standard.

And the fact that people may find my opinions "obnoxious" is their problem.
Go read the court decision in Underwood vs. Dudley. The court held
that for example, labelling someone a 'crank' (or other similar insult) was
something that belonged quite properly to the public court of CONTROVERSY
and was not libel in any sense. The fact that my opinion is disliked and
causes controversy is not a reason for moderator abuse of power by
practicing censorship. If people do not like my opinion that certain
computations are pointless, they are free to debate the matter.

Your entire paragraph amounts to: "I have moderator power and
you don't. I can enforce censorship whereas you (meaning me) try to
enforce your ideas by means that others see as 'obnoxious' ".

Talk about abuse of power!!!!!

[fivemack]

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

So you want an academic (or semi-academic) arena in which there is no
controversy. Indeed. You want one in which controversy is forbidden!!!

This is not an academic arena; if you want one, I recommend Terence Tao's blog, though it is full of discussions at so elevated a level as to be entirely incomprehensible - I can't even figure out which area of mathematics they are in, I think it's somewhere between analysis and the theory of infinite groups but could readily be entirely wrong.

I am happy with controversy. But I am unhappy with tumult, and feel it is reasonable to forbid it. You're welcome to have opinions, you're welcome to state them once in the right place, but if a flame war has started (whether you started it or not) then everyone should withdraw until it stops.

[fivemack]

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

Clearly not, since the question of whether a computation has value IS
an academic subject

No, it isn't. The question of the probability of a computation resolving a conjecture, or of the ability of a computation to resolve a conjecture, is an academic one. The question of whether people should perform computations which don't have the ability to resolve a conjecture is not an academic one, and you seem incapable of talking about the first question without insulting people who don't share your opinion on the second, causing commotion. So it's best if you talk about neither.

[R.D. Silverman]

Originally Posted by fivemack

No, it isn't. The question of the probability of a computation resolving a conjecture, or of the ability of a computation to resolve a conjecture, is an academic one. The question of whether people should perform computations which don't have the ability to resolve a conjecture is not an academic one

So you claim. But this is pure opinion.

[Christenson]

Bob:
You are sometimes difficult to distinguish from a pure crank. I can't recall your admitting an error. And you do get tumults started quite well, often over small issues of mathematical precision, and never (or almost never) with a smile. The words that have been told to me when I have been in a situation similar to yours are that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. I don't always succeed in the applying that.

This forum is, by and large, a hobby forum...admittedly, a very strange and sophisticated hobby, but a hobby nonetheless...we only have 4 or 5 or maybe a dozen "real" mathematicians amongst the regular posters, and they have no illusions that mersenneforum should be like some sort of idealized sci.math. Only you would jump on me for not saying "the extended reals" in conjunction with the definition, the real numbers plus infinity.... anyone else would have simply reminded me that that was the definition and that I should have said it more clearly!

And if you think free speech truly applies to this forum, it might behoove you to re-read the user agreement, which almost certainly gives the moderators the sole discretion to decide what is inappropriate for the forum.

What is actually accomplished here, certainly for me, is a sense of social community -- that is, contact with like-minded people. The people (nominally engineers) I work with from day to day have zero idea of or interest in what a mersenne prime is, and hardly remember what a derivative is. Mersenneforum is a welcome alternative, a place to do things because I want to rather than I have to.

[Zeta-Flux]

The problem is that R.D. Silverman's opinions are confrontational, aimed at discouraging others from helping in our projects, and often patently false. When he says that factorizations are pointless, he neglects to tell the reader that those factorizations are a part of peer-reviewed, professionally published mathematics papers. They may play a very minor role, in that the authors could have instead said "If we desired, we could do some straightforward computations, and we estimate that a bound of .... could be established." Instead, the papers can read "We'd like to thank so-and-so for helping push the computations to their reasonable limit. The bounds we find are..." or "Thanks to the diligent efforts of so-and-so, these computations helped us finish proving the following result..."

[imwithid]

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

A moderator wants to practice censorship because he doesn't like
my suggestions thaqt certain computations are pointless, then calls
me a control freak??? And tells me that I can not 'exercize
authority'? Since when has expressing an opinion about the value of
certain reserach constituted 'exercizing authority'?

This is total hypocricy. You are trying to ban
the posting of a point of view simply because you don't like that point of
view. Who is the control freak here???

Hypocricy.

Perhaps. You are most often right on the side of math. When it comes to civil discourse, you should take some of the medicine that you prescribe to others and take a lesson or two. It is the role of the moderators to allow fair exchange of ideas by ensuring that coercion does not prevent participants from voicing their opinion.

You stand on a platform high above many with respect to your level of knowledge and confidence from experience. The expectation that moderators hold against you should be much higher with respect to self restraint unless you enjoy roasting ants with a magnifying glass. It is, perhaps, why some may pick on you to argue with you for the sake of argument.

[science_man_88]

Originally Posted by Zeta-Flux

The problem is that R.D. Silverman's opinions are confrontational

judge = Prime95
jury = mods
defendant = anyone else but RDS
prosecution = RDS

judge: how do you plead
defendant: not guilty.
judge: state your case.
prosecution: they're guilty because ...... and they don't do it the way I would.
defendant: objection your honor !
judge:sustained, jury how do you find.
jury : not guilty.
prosecution ( to jury): if you walk out of here without overturning the verdict I'll ______ you!

seems to be what I find seeming to happen, sometimes it happens for a reason ( like in my case of acting stupid). others it just seems RDS wants to play the role of judge directing the case.

[R.D. Silverman]

Originally Posted by Zeta-Flux

The problem is that R.D. Silverman's opinions are confrontational, aimed at discouraging others from helping in our projects, and often patently false. When he says that factorizations are pointless, he neglects to tell the reader that those factorizations are a part of peer-reviewed, professionally published mathematics papers.

If you refer to the Ochem paper (not papers), it as you point out
would have stood on its own WITHOUT the factorizations. It was quite
publishable without the added computation.

The reverse is not true.

Indeed. Speaker purely as a referee the paper would have had more
value if we could have seen how far the new mathematics could have pushed
the bound [i]without any new computation[/b]. That is to say, let the
math stand on its own.

"The purpose of computing is insight, not numbers". The math in that
paper added insight. The new computations did not add any insight.