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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Interesting number paradox (2nd nomination)

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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 was keep. Liz Read! Talk! 23:07, 20 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting_number_paradox

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Interesting_number_paradox (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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Why the page should be deleted Jmackaerospace (talk) 21:17, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Trying to type up reasons, just lost three paragraphs due to edit conflict, thanks for that pburka

SO apologies that this is the first time I have had to go through this rigamarole. the process makes you create the page before populating itJmackaerospace (talk) 21:28, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

going to post a line at a time nowJmackaerospace (talk) 21:29, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

ACTUAL REASON FOR DELETION

So this article is an unsourced Woozle.

  • The article cites only sources that postdate it's creation, and themselves refer back to wikipedia.
  • It appears to be an offshoot of a serious article that has just grown due to cummulative casual edits.
  • I dicovered when trying to list it that it had in fact already been listed for deletion back in 2006 before it had grown into the current mess, but because the editor had failed to follow procedure, the agreed decision to delete was not carried out.


thanks, this process is not intuative Jmackaerospace (talk) 21:39, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

So, now that I have actually typed things up pburka, feel free to actually contribute.Jmackaerospace (talk) 21:41, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • Speedy keep. Buried in the badly written nomination there is a claim that this article only exists due to WP:CITOGENESIS and that no sources predate its creation. This is false and would have been easily seen to be false if the nominator had attempted a competent literature search. The article was created in March 2004; Wikipedia itself was founded on January 15, 2001. The interesting number paradox can be found in plenty of sources from before that time (it is not necessary that they be cited, unless they can be used to trace the history of the topic). Here are just a few of the earlier ones:
    • Gardner, Martin (January 1958), "A collection of tantalizing fallacies of mathematics", Mathematical games, Scientific American, 198 (1): 92–97, JSTOR 24942039
    • Chaitin, G. J. (July 1977), "Algorithmic information theory", IBM Journal of Research and Development, 21 (4): 350–359, doi:10.1147/rd.214.0350
    • Gould, Henry W. (September 1980), "Which numbers are interesting?", The Mathematics Teacher, 73 (6): 408, JSTOR 27962064
Chaitin also calls attention to its relation to an earlier paradox of Russell on the existence of a smallest undefinable ordinal (despite the fact that all sets of ordinals have a smallest element and that "the smallest undefinable ordinal" would appear to be a definition):
  • Russell, Bertrand (July 1908), "Mathematical logic as based on the theory of types", American Journal of Mathematics, 30 (3): 222–262, doi:10.2307/2369948, JSTOR 2369948
Although Gardner himself phrased this as a fallacious proof rather than a paradox, Chaitin explicitly calls it a paradox (or synonymously an antimony). —David Eppstein (talk) 21:50, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, those certainly look like valid sources. Jmackaerospace (talk) 21:54, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Since the nominator removed my first !vote, I'll post again. The paradox goes back to at least 1986 when David Wells discussed it in The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers, but he claims simply to be repeating something already well known in the mathematical community. The nominator also misinterpreted the result of the first discussion, which was "speedy close", as the original nominator was proposing some sort of merge rather than deletion. pburka (talk) 21:53, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions. pburka (talk) 22:10, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. As noted above, humorous or not, this topic is discussed in legitimate scholarly sources. --Kinu t/c 22:14, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. If the wealth of citation examples provided by the prior commentators can be included to improve the article, I see no reason for it to be deleted, there are certainly less notable things on wikipedia. It was the lack of obvious backing that made it seem like WP:CITOGENESIS (and thank you for teaching me that amazing term)Jmackaerospace (talk) 22:39, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • You are, of course, welcome to make improvements to the article yourself (poor referencing is generally WP:SURMOUNTABLE). In the future, you may find it helpful to start a discussion on the article's talk page before going through the cumbersome and bureaucratic deletion process. pburka (talk) 22:46, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      Ok, I was trying to be polite. The subject is non-notable and unsourced and as such should be deleted. You claim to disagree and think it should be kept, but seem to be more interested in making snide comments here than improving the article. Much of the talk page consists of criticism of the concept itself rather than the quality of the article. All of this I took into account before listing here. I'm not a rampant Deletionist, hence my unfamiliarity with the process, but the obvious bad faith you have displayed in your communications from the very beginning inclines me to discount anything you have to say in defence of this article. I have little interest in trying to improve an article that I do not think is notable enough to merit inclusion here in the first place, and certainly none at all if it's primary advocates are themselves uninterested in improving it. Jmackaerospace (talk) 23:28, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      It's amusing to be accused of bad faith by the editor who removed my comments from this very discussion, blames me for edit conflicts, and demands work from other editors to fix easily surmountable problems. pburka (talk) 00:09, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy keep The article now has references from 1958, 1977, 1979, and 1980. So, we really don't have a reason to leave this discussion open for a full week and clutter up the listings: the citogenesis claim is unfounded, an article being an "offshoot" of another isn't a reason for deletion, and the first AfD was not actually closed as "delete". XOR'easter (talk) 14:49, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I've added a reference from 1945. XOR'easter (talk) 17:02, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy Keep as an erroneous nomination. PianoDan (talk) 17:51, 20 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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