Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Boolean logic

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was speedy keep. With ten people saying "keep" and nobody supporting the nomination, it's clear where this is heading. – Jitse Niesen (talk) 22:10, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Boolean logic

This page is self-admittantly "an intro to [... various loosely-related topics]", in other words: a textbook, not an encyclopiedia article. There is no clear definition of what "Boolean logic" actually is, only attempts to teach it. It duplicates content from Set Theory, Boolean Algebra, and Truth Table. In my opinion, the only section of this article that doesn't either duplicate an existing article or belong in a text-book is 'Applications', which could easily be re-worded to fit into Boolean algebra. Also, it is my understanding that this article was created because of edit wars over accessibility and accuracy concerns in Boolean algebra - in which case, the optimal solution would be to fix that article (which is already a lot better thanks to the work of KSmrq and others), rather than fork it into a non-article on a poorly-defined topic. LVC 12:14, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

• Are you kidding?? AfD is certainly not the place to work out internal differences on a page. Extensive work has gone into the article and if the editors (you the nominator perchance?) are locked into some kind of impasse, there is mediation. As a mere formality, I will note also that Boolean Logic absolutely deserves an entry. This is bad faith and I assume the nom is a pretty obvious sockpuppet for one of the principals on the talk page. Speedy Keep. Eusebeus 13:33, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

• Keep. This looks to be a complex and fraught issue. There is also Algebra of sets and other articles. I'm not really qualified in either the subject or the history of the articles, but I looked them over, and if I may make a few comments?

1. On such an important and technical subject, my personal inclination is to have information that is accesable to people at various levels of baseline knowledge.
2. The article "Boolean algebra" looks to be a good, technical article. I couldn't understand it.
3. The article "Boolean logic" looks to be a good article with good diagrams. I was able to understand it. The sections "English language use of Boolean terms" and "Applications" seemed to me to be useful information well presented, on much more layman level than the other articles have. This info doesn't seem to exist anywhere else. I'm not sure where you'd merge it to, and it would seem a shame to just delete it.
4. The article "Set Theory" is a short article that is almost a kind of disambig page pointing to various places for more info.
5. The article "Truth tables" shows many different kinds of truth tables, while "Boolean logic" only has a short section on truth tables.

I don't see what's broken here. True, the article "Boolean logic" is didactic and needs a minor rewrite for tone; that doesn't look to be too hard to do. And perhaps the articles should have different titles, I don't know.

I also note that the article "Boolean algebra" contains a note at the top that says basically "Go look at 'Boolean logic' for a more basic intro to this stuff". That works for me. "Boolean logic" could have a similar note placed at the top pointing to "Boolean Algebra"

You COULD Merge the first five sections -- "Algebra of sets and Venn diagrams", "Terms", "Example", "Chaining operations together", and "Use of parenthesis" -- FROM Boolean algebra TO Algebra of sets and delete all or most of the rest of the article. I don't see how that would be an improvement, though. My inlincation would to make sure all the articles were peppered with links to the other articles and leave it at that. Herostratus 14:06, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

• Keep; I'm convinced there need to be separate articles for the algebraic structure (currently at Boolean algebra) and the kinds of manipulations taught to many as "Boolean algebra" in which algebraic structures are never mentioned (currently at Boolean logic). I'm not sure what the content of the latter article should actually be; I do think that needs to be clarified and the article should be reworked to have less duplication (part of the problem is that the author of Boolean logic was convinced he was writing a simple version of Boolean algebra, so he may have intentionally written a parallel article to the latter's "simpler" content). BTW I don't think LVC is a sockpuppet. For whom? --Trovatore 15:36, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
  • P.S. I also don't think the nom is bad faith. There is a serious problem figuring out what the article is really supposed to be about; I personally don't really know, beyond that it's about a subject taught in school as "Boolean algebra" that never defines a Boolean algebra. But given the number of people looking for exactly that, I don't see how we can avoid having an article about it. --Trovatore 16:14, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. 437,000 Google results for Boolean lgoc with first page full of references from University sites, Howstuffworks so it is both notable and with a wide variety of verifiable sources. see [1]

Article seems in reasonable shape. Plenty of results in Google Books [2] and over 87000 Google Scholar results see [3] convinces me that this is a notable field with plenty of verifiable material to base an article on. Capitalistroadster 16:33, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

• Keep. In the long run, transwikiing this to wikibooks may be the best thing, but there is no editor consensus for this. I'm against using AfD to force decisions better achieved on the talk pages. --- Charles Stewart 16:55, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
• Speedy keep a notable math/computer science topic. Bring your cleanup battles to WP:3O or WP:RFC/MATH, not here. ESkog | ^Talk 17:13, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
• Strong Keep — Important mathematical topic. — RJH 17:28, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep as important topic that should be addressed. 02:25, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

• Emphatic keep - important concepts taught to college and university students. Boolean logic crosses the boundaries between traditional Greek logic and algebra. This article does quite a bit in its relative brevity. B.Wind 21:47, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.