The worth or futility of factorizations relating to OPNs

[xilman]

Originally Posted by Mr. P-1

Just to clarify, is this a time-limited ban? Or is it open-ended/permanent?

It's the five minute argument.

For the time being, anyway.


Paul

[davieddy]

Originally Posted by xilman

It's the five minute argument.

For the time being, anyway.


Paul

Sorry, but I can't go on arguing unless you pay me.....

[davieddy]

Originally Posted by science_man_88

easy way to avoid the conflict you don't want is to ignore people you think are doing pointless things instead of commenting with comments like : pointless which are usually in themselves pointless to make as people do as they like, regardless.

Already.

[cheesehead]

Mr. Silverman seems to want a certain type of forum that differs from mersenneforum.org in several ways.

He's been invited to start a subforum that's only for folks willing to follow his rules. He hasn't taken that invitation.

IIRC he's been invited to go off and start his own forum, entirely separate from mersenneforum.org, that he can run however he wants -- he hasn't done that either.

He's content to freeload on mersenneforum.org (perhaps because of its established name/fame?), without taking any of the suggestions that would allow him to have what he wants ... or, rather, would allow him to have what he claims he wants.

This suggests that what Mr. Silverman really wants has nothing to do with posters having done their homework or phrasing their questions in proper mathematical terminology, but instead satisfies his psychological desire to remain in a situation just like the one he has already had here, berating his inferiors, safe in the comfort of being a bmoc (Definition #1 here: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bmoc).

[Christenson]

Originally Posted by retina

I'm gonna miss RDS's posts. I didn't always agree with them but they were sometimes insightful, sometimes grating and other times condescending but overall still interesting from the perspective of social interaction study. Ooh, the amateur psychologist in me is just dying to say more but shall refrain.

Seconding Brian-E and Mr P-1....but have no fear, I think RDS will be back...for all the reasons given by Mr Cheesehead....

[philmoore]

I have to say that based on what I have read in these threads, I don't feel that banning RDS is right. Perhaps he made other, more incendiary posts which were deleted by the moderator(s), and the banning was in response to these, but if so, I would ask the moderator or moderators to clarify. I do feel that RDS has been persistently obnoxious on this particular issue, but as a result, we have some interesting observations by William and some well-written posts by Pace about the interplay between computations and mathematical thought that have quite effectively refuted Mr. Silverman's argument in my opinion. I don't see mere obnoxiousness as a valid reason for banning and, in the absence of any more serious charges, appeal to the moderators to lift the ban.

[Brian Gladman]

I too feel that the ban on RDS is a big disappointment and would like to find a way of removing it.

I would plead with Bob to simply ignore posts that he sees as pointless since the one sure way of guaranteeing that they will continue is to comment on them in a disparaging way.

I would also plead with people who post 'routine' factorisations to instead send them _privately_ to those who need them. If someone truly believes a factorisation is noteworthy and hence deserves posting, I believe its specific significance should then be spelt out as a part of the post.

And, of course, it would make sense for the moderators to act against the repeated posting of 'routine' factorisations published here without good reason.

[Mr. P-1]

Originally Posted by Brian Gladman

I would also plead with people who post 'routine' factorisations to instead send them _privately_ to those who need them. If someone truly believes a factorisation is noteworthy and hence deserves posting, I believe its specific significance should then be spelt out as a part of the post.

And, of course, it would make sense for the moderators to act against the repeated posting of 'routine' factorisations published here without good reason.

As Alex pointed out, these are the forums for the GIMPS project. Basically its all about mindless computation and routine factorisation and primality testing. I don't agree that the "Found a factor? Post it here" thread should be shut down. People who are uninterested can just ignore it, or, if their initials are RDS, complain endlessly about it.

[axn]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heckler%27s_veto

[Brian Gladman]

Originally Posted by Mr. P-1

As Alex pointed out, these are the forums for the GIMPS project. Basically its all about mindless computation and routine factorisation and primality testing. I don't agree that the "Found a factor? Post it here" thread should be shut down. People who are uninterested can just ignore it, or, if their initials are RDS, complain endlessly about it.

Nobody is asking for anything to be shut down. But if people cannot be sensible and ensure that they are publishing factorisations that are noteworthy, others will then waste their time by looking at a thread that might contain something of interest only to find that it doesn't. I would, however, be happy to see two threads - "Found a Noteworthy Factor - Post It Here" and "Found a Nondescript Factor - Post It Here" so I and others would know which thread to ignore.

And, of course, if this forum is truly _all_ about mindless and routine factorisations, it seems clear that those of us who want to push the state of the art forward are wasting our time here.

[Zeta-Flux]

Nobody is asking for anything to be shut down. But if people cannot be sensible and ensure that they are publishing factorisations that are noteworthy, others will then waste their time by looking at a thread that might contain something of interest only to find that it doesn't.

Why? The factorizations are posted on a thread titled "Odd Perfect Related Roadblocks 2". All they have to do is look at the title and not enter the thread.

I would, however, be happy to see two threads - "Found a Noteworthy Factor - Post It Here" and "Found a Nondescript Factor - Post It Here" so I and others would know which thread to ignore.

Just look at the title of the thread. They are usually descriptive enough to allow you to judge whether the factorization would be "noteworthy" according to any standard you wish.

And, of course, if this forum is truly _all_ about mindless and routine factorisations, it seems clear that those of us who want to push the state of the art forward are wasting our time here.

If one defines "state of the art" narrow enough, that doesn't happen on this forum. It only happens in peer-reviewed mathematical papers. If someone then writes up code to use those ideas, and that code is put to use to actually factor numbers, it is a fair bet that most of those numbers will be nondescript according to the definitions of some. (And quite useful, to the projects in which the factorizations are being utilized.)