Comment by atribecalledqst
13 hours ago
I used to judge myself for not understanding everything in math articles on Wikipedia, but as time has gone on I've realized that their purpose isn't really to be an introduction, but a reference. Especially as the topics become more esoteric. So they're not really there for you to learn things from scratch, but for people who already understand them to look things up. Which is why you'll sometimes see random obscure & difficult factoids in articles about common mathematical concepts.
(don't have any examples on-hand atm, this is just my general perception after years of occasionally looking things up there)
I've heard that and I think it's silly. They handwave away why nothing should ever be explained. Wikipedia doesn't work like that for any other topic.
You'll see something like a mathematical proof with no explanation and it's end of article. The edit history will have explanations aggressively removed.
The equivalent would be the article for say, splay tree, to have no diagrams and just a block of code - feeling no obligation to explain what it is or if you looked up a chemical and it would just give you some chemical equation, some properties and feel no obligation to tell you its use, whether it's hazardous or where you might find it... Or imagine a European aristocrat and all that is allowed is their heraldry and genealogy. Explanations of what the person did or why they're important are forbidden because, it's just a reference after all.
Nope, these math people are a special kind of bird and I'm not one of them.