Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Word-representable graph

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This article was written by a user with no other contributions who is a name match for Sergey Kitaev, the person who coined the term. The literature cited appears to be close to 100% of the published literature, and pretty much all of it is by him and his immediate collaborators. Google finds around 60 hits for the exact term. Google Scholar finds under 50, again with little or nothing outside Kitaev and his immediate collaborators. Every point of proof in the article that seeks to establish the existence, meaning or significance of the term, is a primary reference to Kitaev. Either this is a WP:NEOLOGISM, or it is very much WP:TOOSOON. Guy (help!) 18:12, 2 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions. JBL (talk) 18:23, 2 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comment there was a discussion about the article at WikiProject Math last month; I've pulled it out of the archive here. --JBL (talk) 18:23, 2 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Delete If there's a notable topic here, it is better served by WP:TNT-ing it. The problems of this versions are too deep to keep. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:47, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: There are two issues (1) COI and (2) TOOSOON. For the COI, what is needed is to make sure the neutrality of the article. I don’t think the fact that the article is written by the originator of the topic itself is necessary problematic and is a ground for the deletion. In fact, we should feel fortunate that he took time to write a Wikipedia article as he must be the best person to give a survey. Again, we absolutely need to watch out for biases but otherwise no need for the deletion. As for TOOSOON, it’s hard to decide; but for me, a quick Google search tells there are sufficient literature. Note some subjects like computer science develop much faster than the others (like algebraic geometry). So, it is possible that as a graph theory topic, the subject is old enough for the Wikipedia treatment (but of course, it’s Wikipedia editors to make judgements). —- Taku (talk) 12:08, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
TakuyaMurata, we're not "fortunate" that someone is here to promote an idea that is not discussed by anybody else int he literature other than himself and a few co-authors. Check the literature. No paper with more than one degree of separation in the authors: avery one I have seen has at least one author who is a co-author with Kitaev. Guy (help!) 14:56, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
"No paper with more than one degree of separation in the authors: avery one I have seen has at least one author who is a co-author with Kitaev." This is not true as the article cites 9 papers not having me as a co-author. And this is not a complete list of such papers as mentioned below by TakuyaMurata. Also, "a few co-authors" not a very accurate phrase when referring to a couple of dozens of co-authors. S. Kitaev

"is not discussed by anybody else". No, that's not true. Try Google with "Word-representable graphs -Kitaev". You can find several papers that do not have Kitaev an author. E.g., [1] [2] [3]. We definitely need to keep promotors of non-notable topics from Wikipedia; as far as I can tell, I DO NOT think that's the case here. -- Taku (talk) 15:50, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
TakuyaMurata, As I said, each one I checked has either Kitaev, or a Kitaev co-author, as author. Kitaev and Jones write one, Jopnes and Smith write another, but Smith without Jones does not.

"Kitaev and Jones write one, Jopnes and Smith write another, but Smith without Jones does not" This is not an accurate example. Indeed, Kitaev and Zantema write one, Zantema and Broere write another, and Broere without Zantema writes yet another. S. Kitaev
That's a non-example, since the only thing that Broere wrote about the subject not co-authored by Zantema is his master's thesis advised by Zantema. Master's theses aren't considered very reliable, and it's not quite independent of Zantema. — MarkH₂₁^talk 07:30, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It's almost as if nobody outside his group actually cares about it. Guy (help!) 16:16, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
As I hinted below, in some sense, that’s what a mathematical field is like: if you are an outsider to the field, you usually don’t publish a paper on the field. “nobody outside his group actually cares about it”; many math fields are like that. Each field is a niche. —- Taku (talk) 17:11, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I might be more persuaded for deletion if there is some clear agenda to use Wikipedia as a platform to promote his theory. I’m voting keep essentially because I’m not seeing that; there is already a survey article by Kitaev; he doesn’t need Wikipedia for promotion. —- Taku (talk) 17:15, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, often in mathematics, some field has strong presence of the originator of the field; many work in the field know the originator. That's just how some mathematics research go. What we need is to watch out for people trying to promote fringe topics that are really not part of math literature. -- Taku (talk) 15:53, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. It should be noted that beyond the strong presence of the originator, the article mentions a few dozens of researchers and key contributions of such world-leading scientists in mathematics and computer science as Gi-Sang Cheon, Ian Gent, Magnús M. Halldórsson, Vadim Lozin, Artem Pyatkin, Jeff Remmel, Akira Saito, Steve Seif, and Hans Zantema. The presence of all these people justifies the importance of the field, and the number of publications achieved so far shows that it is definitely not TOOSOON. S. Kitaev

Keep. I understand why this got Guy's hackles up, but it seems to me that this is a real topic. It is fairly new (introduced in the last 15 or so years) and Kitaev has been heavily involved in studying and promoting it (along with a varied group of coauthors), but glancing through MathSciNet I see a dozen or more papers about this topic in non-spam journals by sets of authors that do not include Kitaev. This to me is a good sign that this is an idea that has "caught on" in the community, i.e., that it passes WP:TOOSOON. (Probably I should give a COI notice that Kitaev wrote a letter of recommendation for me 10 years ago when I applied to post-docs, although we haven't had significant contact since.) --JBL (talk) 01:12, 7 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: Per what I said in the WikiProject Math discussion, Not spam, but very new topic (mostly developed in the last five years) with limited literature as a result. It's not WP:FRINGE, but probably not mature or well-cited enough to be considered WP-notable as an article subject yet. Plus, almost none of the literature is independent of Kitaev in the sense that JzG mentions. Taku brings up that mathematical fields are niche, but there are varying degrees of niche-ness. In this case, it really does seem WP:TOOSOON. — MarkH₂₁^talk 07:30, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I would disagree with the claim about "limited literature" (48 appearances in MathSciNet and 89 appearances in Google Scholar, which includes a Springer book dedicated to the subject and a couple of comprehensive survey papers). Also, the area is around for 15+ years, and more importantly, as I said above, a number of high calibre researchers (at least 10) have contributed to it, which should justify importance of the field, and the fact that many of the publications have a repeated name in them could be ignored. S. Kitaev
Those aren't numbers that indicate notability to me (keep in mind as well that those are appearances, not articles focused on the subject). Plus, most of the articles on the subject were published in the last 5 years. — MarkH₂₁^talk 08:28, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 06:49, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: I agree with TakuyaMurata that the COI isn't really an issue (it's hard not to be neutral in math articles), and I believe that the fact that there are multiple papers on the subject indicate that it's at least notable enough not to be instantly deleted. Also, if this article really must go, I'd highly recommend it's copied to a user page. This article is decently written, and let's all remember that WP:TOOSOON expires after it's no longer too soon. – OfficialURL (talk) 04:17, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The standard of there are multiple papers on the subject would easily result in thousands of articles on really obscure topics, many of which would be incredibly WP:FRINGE. We definitely apply a higher standard than that, although this also meets a higher standard than that. — MarkH₂₁^talk 12:18, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I just want to point that there is a quite similar AfD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stereotype space. I agree with MarkH21 that the standard cannot be too low; for me, "stereotype space" is an example that, while is not a fringe and comes with multiple papers, is probably not notable enough for Wikipedia. (He and I differ only on how soon is too soon and there is no good answer.) -- Taku (talk) 13:52, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I'm Caleb Ji, and I am an author on one of the papers on this topic (not with Kitaev), and I recommend this article for deletion. Those of you who haven't actually looked into what this field is like will be amazed at the triviality of it if you actually take the time to learn about it, which I would discourage. Having worked on it on a whim at the end of an REU, I found that this topic is not only unworthy of an REU; it would hardly be worth a high schooler's time. That being said, let me address some of the reasons others have listed for keeping this article.

A few people have argued that there seems to be sufficient literature around this topic to justify its existence on wikipedia. However, this is a combination of three phenomena: 1) the catchall nature of combinatorics, which allows for a virtually infinite number of spinoffs from any topic, 2) pressure on researchers to publish, regardless of quality, and 3) lack of sufficient motive for referees to reject a paper based on its subject alone, given that other papers in the subject already exist. The combined effect of these factors makes it possible for a single researcher to begin with a combinatorial topic, write a few papers on it and publicize it, get co-authors to help, and eventually have other people writing and submitting these papers to journals, regardless of the quality of topic itself. This is what I perceive to have occurred in this case. I think we can agree that numbers alone (which in this case aren't impressive anyway) do not necessarily justify a topic, and in this situation I am confident they do not. There is another argument that like this field, mathematical fields are all niches. However, this particular area is so devoid of content that I do not even consider it mathematics to begin with. Even if you take a very specific subfield in mathematics, there are phenomena and problems in it which make you understand that it is real math; this even occurs in combinatorics which is generally considered as somewhat separate from the major structural pillars of math. It simply does not occur here. It is nothing but a random assortment of facts which have no meaning either individually or taken together. One can make as many empty citations to other papers in graph theory or semigroup theory, but that doesn't change the fact that if you take an honest, unbiased look at it, there is simply nothing here. If there was, it would have appeared within 15 years. Finally, I would like to address the argument that there are high caliber researchers working on this. This is already partially addressed by my first point. I will not dispute whether or not the people referenced are high caliber researchers. However, the nature of combinatorial research is twofold: researchers may publish very often, and sometimes they may work on a problem just because they want to, or a colleague mentions it. Thus, if a high caliber researcher in these fields spends time on a topic I deem uninteresting, I do not think any worse of the quality of that person's research. However, I do not think any better of that field itself.

      Cyclicduck (talk) 00:11, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]