Talk:Three utilities problem/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: The Most Comfortable Chair (talk · contribs) 09:01, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Hello. I will begin the review shortly. — The Most Comfortable Chair 09:01, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

@The Most Comfortable Chair: Ten days later, any progress? —David Eppstein (talk) 18:53, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Lead

• Something that stands out to me is the size of the lead. The lead accounts for around 20% of readable text in the article. While it does a decent job of covering all the important aspects in the body of the article, it is somewhat overdetailed and could use some pruning.
• The crossing number — which is one — should be mentioned in the lead. And that the problem is very old perhaps.

Puzzle solutions

• "Kullman, however, states that" — "Kullman" should be linked when mentioned first, like it is in "History" (up to you if you want to link it again in that section) — "Kullman (1979)".
  • Linked. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:43, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
• "In the utility graph, $E=9$ and $2V-4=8$, violating this inequality, so the utility graph cannot be planar." — "violating this inequality, so the utility graph cannot be planar." could be phrased better.
  • To violate an inequality is standard language, but I reworded to remind readers what the inequality is, in the process also using different wording here. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:43, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

Changing the rules

• "K_3,3" — Shouldn't it be consistent throughout the article, as $K_{3,3}$?
  • Thanks for catching this; fixed. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:43, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
• "K_3,3 is a toroidal graph, which means it can be embedded without crossings on a torus, a surface of genus one, and that versions of the puzzle in which the houses and companies are drawn on a coffee mug or other such surface instead of a flat plane can be solved." — Instead of "is a toroidal graph", wouldn't "as a toroidal graph" be more grammatically accurate, considering the whole sentence? Or the sentence could be broken down in two or three sentences if you would prefer that.
  • No "is" is the main verb here; everything after "which" is a dependent clause. Changing "is" to "as" would leave the sentence unverbed. But your comment made me notice that the sentence was unnecessarily long (impeding readability) so I broke it up into smaller sentences. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:43, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

Properties of the utility graph

• "3"; "4" → "three"; "four"?
  • Ok, done. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:47, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
• "and obviously they are equal." — Using "obviously" should be avoided. You can either edit it out or rephrase that part.
  • Usually I think it should be avoided, as a tell that someone is handwaving because they don't know how to explain why something is true. In this case I think it really is obvious, (both sides have three vertices; 3=3) but I reworded it anyway. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:47, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

References

• Reference 3; 26 — Can the page range be more specific?
• Reference 17 — Use the full-form of "IFToMM". Also, could it be as a separate parameter instead?
  • Huh? The full form is "12th World Congress in Mechanism and Machine Science (IFToMM 2007)", as already given. IFToMM happens to be an abbreviation for the organization that sponsors the conference (the International Federation for the Promotion of Mechanism and Machine Science), but it is also the abbreviated name of the conference. Many academic conferences have both long names ("World Congress in Mechanism and Machine Science") and short names ("IFToMM"). It is also standard to number the long names and to disambiguate the short names by the year of the conference, as here. The short name is still really the conference name and is the version of the name more often used in informal contexts. In formal contexts like bibliographies one would more typically either use only the long name or both names together like this. WorldCat gives the parts of the title in a different order, but again with both: https://www.worldcat.org/title/iftomm-2007-proceedings-of-twelfth-world-congress-in-mechanism-and-machine-science-besancon-france-june-17-21-2007/oclc/493899300 . This variation in the ordering of long names and short names is also common; compare DBLP for SWAT 2018 with the publisher page for SWAT 2018. I have seen bibliographic metadata styles that put the short name in a |series= parameter but I think that's actually less accurate, for one reason because (as in the SWAT example) conference proceedings often belong to a bona fide book series that should be listed in that parameter. I can add the organization name as publisher, I suppose. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:03, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

I apologize for the delay. I had almost finished reviewing the article when my laptop crashed, and then it took me a while to do it again. It was an interesting read and it should pass. — The Most Comfortable Chair 17:03, 28 November 2021 (UTC)