Talk:Ginsberg's theorem

move request

 * 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 not moved per discussion. - GTBacchus(talk) 01:50, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Ginsberg& → Ginsberg's Theorem –

It was originally coined as a proper name. In google books almost all sources capitalize it, which means that they treat it as a proper noun. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:27, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose In Wikipedia style the term "theorem" is not capitalized — FoxCE (talk | contribs) 12:39, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
 * According to our manual of style, Manual_of_Style_(capital_letters), proper names are capitalized following common usage. The common usage is capitalized. --Enric Naval (talk) 22:56, 29 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose—the capital T would make it look awkward; and the relationship between our house style and external sources is not simple. Tony   (talk)  12:54, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Uh, do you have any actual policy-based or guideline-based reason? (Myself, I am arguing WP:LOWERCASE, which says to capitalize proper names, and this is clearly a proper name). Also, I changed the link to google books because I had forgotten to close a quote, you ca3DDiscovery, innovation,*ll books use capitalization. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:29, 31 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose – if the usage was consistently upper case, I'd consider it, but it's not. The guideline on what's a proper noun doesn't have any good criterion for concluding that this is one; other theorems are not.  Dicklyon (talk) 05:25, 4 September 2011 (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.

Wikiquotes
I have added the quotation to Wikiquotes, Allen_Ginsberg. There really seems to be nothing to be said more than the ""theorem"" itself. I'm planning on redirecting this article there. Nothing else here seems worth saving. Any objections? Dingo1729 (talk) 05:31, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I object. Most people said to keep the article, not eliminate it by a delete or a redirect.  Its fine the way it is.   D r e a m Focus  02:27, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
 * By my reading, most people said to keep it but merge it or turn it into a redirect and I didn't see anyone objecting to Dingo's proposed action in that discussion. If you disagree, please provide a summary of the positions of those participating. (I'm not taking a position on Dingo's bold move yet.) Joja  lozzo  02:48, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Four of us said keep before his final comment which he said to redirect it, and no one posted after him. Lack of a response doesn't mean people agree with you, they just see no reason to repeat what they already said before.  One delete other than the nominator, and one merge, with four saying keep, and he then saying keep but redirect.  It closed as no consensus.   D r e a m Focus  02:54, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that's pretty much what I see except Grappler concludes with "delete" at the end of his post, making it three deletes and four keeps, plus a merge and Dingo's redirect, total nine participants.  Joja  lozzo  03:54, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

If we decide to use this redirect is there a way to get it to act like a proper redirect and transparently go to the wikiquoite page instead of hanging up on the redirect page? Joja lozzo  02:51, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I think that the ability to make a redirect which goes immediately to another wiki (a hard redirect in wiki-speak) has been disabled and we can only use one which displays the redirect page first (a soft redirect). Dingo1729 (talk) 04:30, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Does anyone see anything other than a quotation here? I don't see any analysis or commentary in the references. Just a quotation. I don't really see how anything much more can be said about it. That's why I put the suggestion here and then waited for a few days before actually making the redirect. Dingo1729 (talk) 04:44, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The article is fine, as already explained in the AFD. I don't see as how it needs anything else.  Its fine the way it is.   D r e a m Focus  06:08, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

The AfD was closed as no consensus, meaning that other attempts to attain consensus regarding this article are not barred. The other participants in the AfD neither objected nor supported redirection to Wikiquote. Therefore, I am inviting them to comment here and starting an RfC to solicit uninvolved editors' opinions. Goodvac (talk) 23:00, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

RfC: Should this article be redirected to Wikiquote?

 * ''The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The recent AfD for this article resulted in a "no consensus" closure. Towards the end of the discussion, suggested that this article be redirected to the Wikiquote entry of the author of this theorem, stating that "There really seems to be nothing to be said more than the ""theorem"" itself.... Nothing else here seems worth saving". One editor has objected, so I am starting this RfC to gain other editors' opinions on this issue. Goodvac (talk) 23:00, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I would not object. Bearian (talk) 00:37, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I would support the redirect if it really took the reader to the theorem at wikiquotes. The current version a) is not transparent (you have to select the link on the redirect page), b) doesn't take you to the theorem but to a page of Ginsberg quotes (without headers that the redirect link could anchor to) where you have to look around for the theorem and even then c) there's just a sentence that says that one of the quotes is the theorem. If that's how it has to be then I oppose it. Joja  lozzo  00:47, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I have addressed B—Allen_Ginsberg now links to the Ginsberg's theorem quote. Your concern C has also been addressed. Now indented below the Ginsberg's theorem entry is the sentence: "These statements are known collectively as "Ginsberg's theorem", a restatement of the three Laws of Thermodynamics." Hard redirecting the page to another wiki is not technically possible. The Wikiquote redirect provides a way to soft-redirect the page. Goodvac (talk) 01:11, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I worked at this also and added headers on the quote page to make it easier to locate the theorem. I'm not seeing the anchoring working using your link or mine. So C is well satisfied anyway. Joja  lozzo  01:57, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The anchoring does work because it goes as far down the page as it can. If the Wikiquote page were longer, the page would display with Ginsberg's theorem at the top. Goodvac (talk) 02:08, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * With the headers I added there's enough length to the page you can see it's not working. Joja  lozzo  02:24, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I meant that if there were more content after Ginsberg's theorem, the anchor would work. I have now moved the Ginsberg's theorem section higher up on the page. Now this link will work. Goodvac (talk) 22:54, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * That's not "working". You just moved it up to the top where it goes when the anchoring fails. If the anchor worked with the text at the bottom of the page it would scroll down and show the anchor at the bottom of the page. I wonder if it would work if we created a redirect in wikiquote and used that. I'll give it a try... Joja  lozzo  02:24, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Oops. I just figured out that I needed to allow scripting (using NoScript) for Wikiquotes to get the anchor to work. My apologies for extra time spent on this. Joja  lozzo  02:36, 7 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose for reasons I mentioned in the previous section.  D r e a m Focus  01:12, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * What reasons? All I see is a vote count of the AfD. This RfC has nothing to do with the AfD now. Goodvac (talk) 01:14, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * "Its fine the way it is" and I stated there was no consensus to delete the article, and of course replacing an article with a redirect is virtually the same thing is deleting it. Also pointed out there was no reason to repeat what I and others already said in the AFD.   D r e a m Focus  01:22, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * No consensus at AfD does not mean that redirection is prohibited. RfC and AfD are different venues. How is the article fine, considering that the theorem itself and its attribution to Allen Ginsberg are the only verifiable facts in the article? These two nicely fit into the scope of Wikiquote. Goodvac (talk) 02:08, 6 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Support, as the original suggester. The only substance in the article is a quotation and examples of it being quoted. That isn't enough to sustain an encyclopedia article, but it fits well as a redirect to a wikiquote. Simply repeating "it's fine the way it is" does not in any way address this. Also, deleting and redirecting are very clearly different. Redirecting preserves all the useful content. Dingo1729 (talk) 03:01, 6 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose - Doing so would significantly reduce the encyclopedic content of the article within the Wikiquote formatting and style. Adding the information to Wikiquote would be functional. Leave the article in place to be expanded and improved. Northamerica1000 (talk) 12:41, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * There is little encyclopedic content in this article. As Dingo1729 states, "The only substance in the article is a quotation and examples of it being quoted." And there is no possibility for the article to be "expanded". No substantial information is available about this theorem. Goodvac (talk) 22:54, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The content is encyclopedic. No reason for it to be expanded.  It is notable because of how often it is quoted and referenced.  You don't need any additional information, it fine the way it is.   D r e a m Focus  04:27, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The second half of the article is a copy of a non-notable remark by a non-notable individual. So far as I can tell, H. Freeman's qualification to comment is that he used to be a sysadmin at NASA. In addition, the remark is itself rubbish. In what universe is capitalism described as a philosophy that attempts to make life meaningful? Just try reading the remark before defending it. The only reason I haven't deleted it yet is that deletion would be moot if we redirect. Encyclopedic?? It's this kind of random garbage that gives wikipedia a bad name. Dingo1729 (talk) 15:50, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
 * This is the type of article that people formerly came here to read and still do. If you don't like it, then you won't be likely to find it anyway.  We're not here to impress any snotty elitist anyway.  Mindless destruction of valid content is the only thing I see giving Wikipedia a bad name these days.   D r e a m Focus  19:23, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

In response to the RFC: this looks to me like a case of forum shopping. It's already been discussed at Afd, the discussion didn't give the answer that some people wanted, so it's being raised again in a different forum. I don't see new information or new arguments not already presented in the Afd discussion. I suggest that some time should be allowed to see if anyone improves the article, before reopening this discussion. Jowa fan (talk) 23:55, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Strong support - I think this is the closest that the AFD came to consensus and would be a superior alternative to deletion. As the AFD discussion seemed to point towards, there is nothing in here that is encyclopedic content. The Freeman stuff either needs elucidation or needs to be removed. That leaves us with the quote itself, plus the context (it's a parody of the laws of thermodynamics). That's it - two facts, one of which is a direct quote, one of which gives the content of the quote. For those people who are worried about "snotty deletionists" (which seems unnecessarily invective) can I suggest attempting to take a "wikimedianist" perspective instead? (Indeed, if I was in invective mood I'd criticize those who don't as "small-minded 'pedia-nists". There's no monopoly on invective, which is why it's such an ineffective argumentative technique!) Now, there is a place in the Wikimedia collection of free-content projects, for interesting, notable factual content that consists of a quote plus the context of the quote. It's called Wikiquote. That's where this content belongs (for instance, because that project has more consistent rules for the formatting, curation and categorization of such content), but people who try looking it up in Wikipedia ought to be offered a soft redirect to the correct place. TheGrappler (talk) 10:10, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, no, the proposal to redirect was made at the AfD, but there was no discussion of it. I don't know whether you checked the history of the article, but there has been no substantial improvement since it was created two years ago. And, as User:Dream Focus said "You can't have a page of text talking about three sentences either, and they are self explanatory." Dingo1729 (talk) 01:36, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

I think the topic is too big for the article. I am familiar with both the quote (though I did not know, or may have forgotten, that it is called anyone's theorem) and a couple of similar quips, such as that: you cannot do better than breaking even -- you can only break even at absolute zero -- and you can't reach absolute zero. Real thermodynamicists tend to get itchy about the accuracy of such pronouncements, but I consider that the quips are of didactic (possibly even philosophical, and to the suitably diseased mind, of entertainment) interest. I take the point that as it stands the article is a bit light, though no lighter than some others on topics of modern folklore. However, I suggest that instead of the proposed deletion, some of the interested parties might consider incorporating it into a larger, more coherent article on related concepts. I would be willing to help, but cannot at the moment undertake it all myself. JonRichfield (talk) 06:30, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Without sources this idea is DOA. Could you offer some? Also some idea of a new title would provide focus. Are you thinking of broadening the topic to something like "Laws of Thermodynamics (generalizations)"? Joja  lozzo  13:56, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm... My apologies. I hadn't visited WQ:Thermodynamics. I still haven't been properly through all the material on thermo (surprised?) but I suspect that I am not the only one. I suggest that instead of what I said before, any non-redundant material in this article be moved to WQ for now, and that those suitably equipped get together and consider producing an article that, if not a definitive guide, at least offers a perspective on the various aspects of ramifications of thermodynamics and related material, including in particular Wiki articles dealing with the various aspects, including info theory and cultural (mis)conceptions etc. At the moment it is a jungle out there, even just in WP! Any naive reader of just one article will be lost without even knowing he is lost. I don't offhand see anything of the kind mentioned in Requested articles/Natural sciences or WikiProject Physics. JonRichfield (talk) 15:06, 15 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose redirect. Yes, it is true that a failed AfD does not proscribe redirecting but that is just wikilawyering.  It happens far too often that those that did not get their way at AfD try to circumvent the result with a redirect.  "No consensus" defaults to keep.  I am especially opposed to a redirect going off-wiki.  Having said that, I agree that it is not much of an article and would not be opposed to a merge which kept all the existing information on Wikipedia.  There could be a List of technician's adages for example.  A good beginning for such an article could be moving all the junk that accumulates at the bottom of the Murphy's law article and periodical gets thinned out as trivia.   Spinning  Spark  16:53, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
 * ''The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.