Talk:John Rainwater

John Rainwater is immortal

Rumors of Rainwater's demise are unfounded:

Where does John Rainwater go from here? It would be a shame if he were to die. [...] It is to be hoped that someone will be able to help John Rainwater carry on, so that in the future people won't ask "Who killed J.R.?"

Quoting from Phelps (2002) ( Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 17:33, 2 April 2011 (UTC)). 17:03, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Coda

This very serious comment responds to the change in assessment status from "living=yes" to "living=no"!  Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 14:35, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

We don't really have a code to indicate a pseudonym of living or non-living people. Perhaps a note to Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography would help. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:32, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Done!  Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 15:54, 3 April 2011 (UTC) 17:01, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Clarification

Currently the text is a bit confusing and it's hard to figure out whether he was fictional or not. The infobox and categories present him as a real prototype, yet the text suggests he is fictitious. Brandmeister^talk 21:36, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

You're right. I have trimmed the infobox, removing birth date and nationality and residence, for that reason. I think the whole infobox should go, actually, unless it can be altered to show immediately that Rainwater is fictitious. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 00:31, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

You can learn by recognizing confusion, if you want to know the truth and can be honest about being confused.

Removing an information box is less drastic than an auto-lobotomy, but does suffice to remove the irritation about confusion.

Perhaps you can contact Math Reviews and ask them to remove the "confusing" entry about John Rainwater?

 Kiefer.Wolfowitz 10:05, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Math Reviews and wikipedia are different publications (using the term loosely) and have different standards. What is done by one doesn't necessarily weigh on what is done by the other. A similar debate, by the way happened at P.D.Q. Bach, another article about a fictitious person who has done real work - albeit humerous rather than serious. IT once had an infobox and, after much discussion, no longer does.

Do you think Nicholas Bourbaki should have an infobox with a "birth date" and the like? (I see that Peter Orno does have one, with the same silly, IMHO, "born" and "nationality" listings.) - DavidWBrooks (talk) 10:55, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Phelps discusses his moment of creation, and life. I don't want to debate your OR or discuss whether you were confused by an infobox. Tough. Life is confusing if you have a brain.

Since you have so much to add to Wikipedia here, I suggest you render similarly sage advice as to whether "Yes album covers" should be recategorized as "Yes (band) album covers".

 Kiefer.Wolfowitz 16:43, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, that was helpful. (I'm also indenting your comment an extra space, so it's not lined up with mine and doesn't confuse - sorry, that word again - anybody.) - DavidWBrooks (talk) 17:13, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Sorry David, I'm irritated that the Peter Orno DYK was not on the April Fools page. This article and PO's were always paired, and this has meant that a year's efforts were wasted on PO, mostly because of inane busybody objections by persons who don't know what they are talking about, especially when they think they do.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 20:44, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, you lost me. DYK? PO? I seem to be acronym-deficient. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 01:25, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Bourbaki et al

To serve the casual reader who stumbles across this article, I would like to add in the introduction a short reference to Bourbaki and the fact that this weird process (fake person does real mathematics) is not unique, because I think that is surprising to non-mathematicians. Any objections or thoughts? - DavidWBrooks (talk) 15:46, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I like the idea, if it's no more than a short mention. The article's already in Category:Pseudonymous mathematicians, which demonstrates the phenomenon. Ntsimp (talk) 16:16, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Bourbaki has been a collective pseudonym of the leading French-writing mathematicians in the world, where John Rainwater has been notable but much less important. Bourbaki was mentioned briefly by Phelps, as noted in the article. Thus, a short note of N.B. in the lede is plausible.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 16:32, 13 April 2012 (UTC)