Talk:ω-automaton

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Page moved. Ucucha 15:37, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

---

Omega automaton → ω-automaton — This is the correct name. I tried to move the article myself, but apparently the correct title matches the blacklist. Hans Adler 17:28, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose I think this is a styling issue and frankly omega is more likely search entry ω. Who on earth even knows the code ω off by heart anyway. Even the article for Omega is not Ω. --Labattblueboy (talk) 19:21, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Have you heard of redirects? Of course there would be no reason to delete the redirect that remains after the move. In normal text nobody writes "omega automaton", at least I haven't seen it anywhere in the literature. (I just googled it and got an extremely small number of hits after excluding Wikipedia from the search.) It doesn't even appear anywhere in this article.

The article for Ω is probably Omega for consistency with Omicron, an article that cannot possibly be at Ο because visually it is (almost) indistinguishable from the Latin letter O. (Yes, the last two links were different.)

We do have σ-algebra as a redirect to sigma-algebra, and not the other way round, but that's mostly because until a year ago or so it would have appeared as Σ-algebra. That is no longer the case. If we rename the article it will appear as ω-automaton, not Ω-automaton. (I have already added the necessary code for that.) Hans Adler 20:30, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose it is frequently spelt out as "omega", and omega has the advantage of being in English. 76.66.194.32 (talk) 04:15, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Irrelevant. We're not talking about the word omega. We're talking about the word ω-automaton. Bethnim (talk) 12:25, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

• Support Redirects can be used for Omega. People just don't spell out 'omega' for things like this like they sometimes do 'aleph'. Putting 'omega' in the name would be to use a contrived name, search the page and you won't find any occurrence of 'omega' except the title. This is no stranger than putting in '0' for a title rather than 'Zero' Dmcq (talk) 10:44, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
• Support, It is spelt ω-automaton. It is NOT frequently spelt omega-automaton. I searched for this very term yesterday by copy-pasting ω-automaton from another source. If someone manually types omega-automaton then that's what redirects are for. Bethnim (talk) 12:23, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose the move. This is an example of excessive precision, and would only result in a difficult title. How is the average user supposed to write ω-automaton? The letter ω doesn't even appear in the English/Latin alphabet (and keyboards) at all. The article should use the name more commonly used by the users. IMHO the users will always write 'Omega automaton' or something similar. Flamarande (talk) 03:27, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

This is amazing. I am beginning to think I am never going to request a move again. Nobody is expected to write the ω. Some will just copy it from the text that they are reading, and some will enter "omega automaton" and get a redirect. What's the problem with that? Hans Adler 07:27, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Comment. This is amazing. Where do all these uninformed users come from who don't know what a redirect is and don't bother to read the previous posts? Based on the theory that this is connected to the redlinked move target I have now created the move target as a redirect. Serves me right for not reading WP:RM properly and not noticing that there is a different section for totally uncontroversial, obvious moves like this one. Hans Adler 07:27, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

It never would have passed as uncontroversial. It would have been flagged as debatable rather quickly simply because it attempts to apply a symbol (blacklisted) instead of text. --Labattblueboy (talk) 20:06, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

If that is true then something is seriously wrong with the WP:RM process. Perhaps too many clueless busybodies there? Hans Adler 22:38, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

I especially don't like Omega because it implies Ω to me rather than ω. If we're going to be stuck with this silliness can we have a small 'o' at the beginning of the title? Dmcq (talk) 13:54, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

I could support a small 'o' if the principle concerns is confusion between the upper case and lower case of Omega.--Labattblueboy (talk) 20:06, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

No, that's not the principal concern. The principal concern is that the present article title is incorrect because it is trying to "transliterate" something into English that is English in the first place. The ω isn't (part of) a Greek word and it isn't a creative misspelling for a trademark. It is a symbol for the set of natural numbers. The majority of those English speakers who actually use it are used to entering Greek letters, and they simply don't transcribe the ω in this context if there is any way to avoid doing that.

The purpose of WP:TITLE#Foreign names and anglicization/WP:ENGLISH and of WP:TITLE#Standard English and trademarks/MOS:TM is to make our titles good English as it is (or would be) written in the relevant community, not to make them incorrect. Your refusal to accept the correct name of this subject as a title seems to be based on either on a simplistic understanding of policy (such as "no foreign letters in titles, ever") or just on completely irrelevant personal preference. Hans Adler 07:04, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I just had a look and the redirect ω-automaton actually has Ω-automaton as the title, I'll see if I can fix that. Dmcq (talk) 13:58, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

I can't fix the redirect, there seems no way to force lowercase on a redirect because the redirect has to be first on the page. Dmcq (talk) 14:27, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that's a well known restriction of the software. We can make the title itself lower case, but not the redirect message. Hans Adler 15:40, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

• Support the move. The technically correct term is ω-automaton, the spelling "omega automaton" usually appears only in cases where we have resort to ASCII symbols. I suggest looking into standard textbooks on the topic, such as:

G. Rozenberg/A. Salomaa: "Handbook of formal languages", Volume 3, Springer 1997.

E. Grädel, T. Wilke and W. Thomas: "Automata, Logics, and Infinite Games - A guide to current research." Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2500, Springer, 2002.

D. Perrin and J.-E. Pin: "Infinite Words - Automata, Semigroups, Logic and Games", Elsevier 2004.

The same applies for the related terms ω-word, ω-language, ω-semigroup, and so on, so I also support the move of potential articles on the topic. Hermel (talk) 14:08, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

• Support. We should use standard mathematical terminology when possible. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:07, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
• Support. I don't see an argument for giving articles titles that are incorrect other than being forced to by technical limitations. We do have an article with the title "ω-consistent theory", so there is no technical restriction on such titles. If someone searches for "omega-consistent theory" they simply get redirected there.  --Lambiam 22:53, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
• Support. The page ω-consistent theory was moved to that title in November 2006, which is nearly four years ago. The technology is in place for using the correct title. In the case of the present article, the topic would usually be spelled by mathematicians as ω-automaton. In the past, people might have worried about using Greek letters in titles due to indexing and cataloging issues. But Google has no trouble with such letters. EdJohnston (talk) 02:08, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
• Support. ω-automaton is the correct and fully English name for this concept. Naming the article anything else is silly. Ozob (talk) 13:19, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose. Special characters are discouraged in MOS:TM#General rules. I've recently moved all the Sony α cameras for the same reason - See Talk:Sony Alpha 230#Requested move.  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 21:11, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Strong trouting: There is a policy-based reason for spelling "Sony α" as "Sony alpha", and it can be found in WP:TITLE#Standard English and trademarks: "Article titles follow standard English text formatting in the case of trademarks, unless the trademarked spelling is demonstrably the most common usage in sources independent of the owner of the trademark." There is also a policy-based reason for spelling Greek names in a latinised form. It can be found in WP:TITLE#Foreign names and anglicization "Names not originally in a Latin alphabet, such as Greek, Chinese or Russian names, must be transliterated."

There is no such policy-based rule against spelling scientific and technical terms correctly, which is what this requested move about. In fact, the common principle behind the two rules cited above is that we spell names the way that the majority of English sources spell them, or, if no such sources exist, the way they would presumably spell them if they existed. In this case "ω-automaton" is how the majority of English sources spell the name. It's not a Greek word in need of transliteration, and it's not a trademark. Hans Adler 20:24, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Footnote

Can we move footnote one into formal definition? Formal definition says "acceptance 'depends' on....." which is very weak verb to have in introductory definition. I would suggest to define Acc as subset of all possible runs in the main definition. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ashutosh y0078 (talk • contribs) 13:04, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

I think you are right. I changed it and it looks much better now. I was afraid it would be harder to understand, but I guess it's easier. Hans Adler 14:09, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Acceptance conditions - undefined symbol

In the Rabin acceptance condition it reads 'pairs (E_i,F_i) in Ω', however Ω is not introduced. I think it should be introduced to make clear what E_i,F_i are (states, letters etc..) --Sefie11 (talk) 08:50, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

And here I am three years later pondering the same question: what is Ω? Wvxvw (talk) 10:03, 6 December 2015 (UTC)