Talk:Proportion

This "article" appears to be basically copy-pasted from the very first hit for 'proportion' on google. FiftyNine 05:11, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Not anymore. Mikus (talk) 00:58, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

Proportion vs proportionality
Yes, proportion is related to the concept of proportionality, but it is a separate concept by itself, just like percents is a separate concept despite that percents are nothing more than decimal fractions. So, please stop removing content from this page and take time to learn about proportion if you haven't at school.

This book is a decent school-level source, I will look for some more if needed: https://books.google.com/books?id=cSYKAAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA549&dq=proportion%20(main%20OR%20major%20OR%20fundamental)%20property%20cross%20product&pg=PA549#v=onepage&q&f=false

Here, the complete page from the above textbook in case you cannot see it when following the above link: https://ibb.co/jUHdWH

And please, do not flaunt your "I am mathematician" badge, I studied enough analysis, theoretical mechanics, probability and statistics, linear algebra and functional analysis to consider myself a bit of a mathematician as well. Proportion is basic concept introduced in middle school along with cross-product formula. Mikus (talk) 23:40, 4 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Your edits have been reverted by three editors now,, and  so consensus is clearly against you. We already have an article on this topic, at Proportionality (mathematics), a much better article in many ways. Yours is poorly written and a worse introduction to the topic, omitting entirely some fundamental concepts. There is no point trying to improve it though, as we already have an article on precisely this. Please stop edit warring over this redirect.-- JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 02:33, 5 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Well, the three editors, at least one of whom claims to be a mathematician, seem to be not knowledgeable in middle-school math. When one wants to solve a proportion and goes to Wikipedia, where are you going to direct the young mind? To the article about proportionality? The Cartesian plane, functions and graphs are the material that is one-two years ahead of proportions. Did you look at my links? One of them is a legitimate school textbook, other are reputable dictionaries. So stop removing this article, as its content is clearly different from the one that you say is "much better in many ways". It is not better, it is on a different topic. Yes, these topics and concepts are closely related, but if you read the sources you realize that for Ancient Greeks proportions were about ratios of natural numbers, they were not numbers by themselves, hence they did not think about y/a=x/b as y=(a/b)x or y=kx. The whole concept of function is rather modern, several hundred years old, while proportions go all the way to the Ancient Greece and maybe even earlier. Please, read more on the subject, compare the articles, before snapping into removal. If you indeed a mathematician you should know better. Mikus (talk) 03:39, 5 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Here is Italian Wiki, it folds information about proportion into the page on Proportionality, which may be another way of tackling the concept: it:Proporzionalità (matematica) Here is a Spanish version, talking about making tables of four squares: Proporcionalidad, they too have it folded in the article about proportionality. Here is a Korean page, a separate article: ko:비례식 Here is the Japanese wiki, a separate article on the topic: jp:比例式. Here is the Russian page about proportion: ru:Пропорция (математика).


 * Comment The disambiguation page Proportionality states "In another mathematical context, a proportion is the statement of equality between two ratios." This is separate to "Proportionality (mathematics), the relationship between two variables whose ratio is constant." has a valid point. Polyamorph (talk) 06:17, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Restored the page
Check the refs provided on the page, read the PDFs while they are still there, don't blame me if they are gone, for not providing reference. Google for more. Read the Korean, Japanese, Spanish and Italian links above, use Google translator, do not be lazy. Do not remove the page simply because your teacher in middle school did not explain you what proportion is, and you are too stubborn now to navigate the links. Mikus (talk) 03:31, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * No, the consensus is against you. Your edits were reverted by four different editors, before you were warned for edit warring. So there is clear consensus against this being an article, for the reasons given in the above section.-- JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 06:49, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * As I mentioned in the section above, has a valid point. They are different concepts.Polyamorph (talk) 06:57, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Even if you agree four other editors disagree, having restored the redirect. so there is still consensus against it being an article. We have articles on proportionality (mathematics) and ratio that cover this adequately and well. We do not need this, which is a poorly written fork of those articles and stops readers finding a properly written article on the topic.-- JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 07:03, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * OK, but you also must gain consensus on talk pages before reverting. Saying consensus has been achieved by editing is not a valid argument, we all have a responsibility to discuss and engage assuming good faith. There is a valid argument that Proportion and Proportionality are different concepts. So where in these articles is this adequately addressed? It is mentioned in the disambiguation page. Polyamorph (talk) 07:11, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * In ratio, it is written the proportion expressing the equality of the ratios A∶B and C∶D is written A∶B = C∶D or A∶B::C∶D. This latter form, when spoken or written in the English language, is often expressed as A is to B as C is to D.. So I agree this is addressed. But is it adequately addressed. Introducing the concepts of Arithmetic proportion or Harmonic proportion are useful, but perhaps merging to Ratio is a valid action? Or if it is addressed elsewhere in another article, please explain where so I'm more inclined to agree with you. Best Polyamorph (talk) 07:22, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Consensus through editing is common and a normal way consensus is achieved. See WP:EDITCONSENSUS. In this case yes, this ended up in dispute and discussion but the outcome of that dispute and discussion was a restoration of the redirect, per the consensus. As for where this is covered, see Ratio for the mathematical definition, Ratio for the history. In both cases Ratio is the much better article. This is just a pointless, badly written fork.-- JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 07:27, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'm not convinced it's pointless and I believe that Mikus was editing in good faith, but it may be that sections in the Ratio article could be clarified? Polyamorph (talk) 07:47, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * See comments here by, who is currently unable to edit this page, on their motivation for creating a new page and comments regarding cleanup needed at ratio.Polyamorph (talk) 07:50, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

is blocked, and cannot edit, cannot contribute to this discussion, and so there is no point trying to engage them here. I don’t think ratio needs clarifying. It is already a much better article than this one, properly explained and in depth, written in proper paragraphs like an article should be. This reads more like a lecture handout, just a list of points, not a proper article at all. There is nothing here that would improve ratio.-- JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 08:00, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I restored the redirect. I think any further work could be made on improving Ratio (there are few articles on wikipedia that don't need improving!). Polyamorph (talk) 08:35, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Certainly if you see anything that could be added to improve ratio then do so.-- JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 09:01, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

The saga continues
User:JohnBlackburne, you keep saying that the article cannot be improved. You were saying that Proportionality already exists and it is better than this article. Now you are saying that Ratio is a better article than this one. How can you compare them? These are on different subject. I said it and I will tell you again: these are different things. Proportion is a concept, which is presently not represented with its own page on Wikipedia. Yes, my page is rather dry and clean, that is the purpose. The Ratio page with "proper chapters" as you say is an incoherent mess and needs a serious clean-up. In any case, have you looked at the updated references? Have you seen the wikis for other languages? You haven't answered these questions, you just keep saying that article is not good. Mikus (talk) 17:50, 26 April 2018 (UTC)


 * It looks like to me proportion can be discussed at ratio, as I don’t see much a difference between proportion and ratio. —- Taku (talk) 21:56, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Ratio is a relation of two (sometimes more) values using division/multiplication (apples). Proportion is an equality of two ratios (boxes of apples). Ratio usually has two values (bicycle) proportion has four (car). Sorry for crude analogies, but I don't see why boxes of apples should be discussed in the articles dedicated to apples. Mikus (talk) 22:04, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
 * No no there is a difference; the question is does it matter enough to have a separate article? In other words, do students learn them at the same time or not? -- Taku (talk) 23:57, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, yes. Normally, proportion goes right after ratio in the textbooks. But when they search for proportion, where should they be taken to? Ratio? Why not having a separate page just like they have a separate chapter in textbooks? Have you followed my references? I provided page numbers. Mikus (talk) 00:48, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Because Wikipedia is not a textbook. Also, it is more useful for the readers to have a closely-connected concept discussed in one place than separate pages. Sometimes having a separate page is useful when the page gets too long; ratio doesn't seem to suffer from this. The point is that you can still discuss some concept without having a page with the title that is the name of the concept. I'm not seeing compelling reasons for the separate page. (Unlike the others, I'm not worried about the quality of your page since it can be improved.) -- Taku (talk) 02:56, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Taku, irrespective to whether I agree with you or not, I appreciate your calm and measured replies. Thanks! I shall think on whether I can incorporate my edits into Ratio page, despite that I still cannot understand why a clearly separate topic cannot be given its own entry, with further references to Ratio. Isn't the point of hypertext in hyperlinks? This makes Everypedia different, they allow any entry as long as it is referenced. Anyway, I appreciate your comments. Mikus (talk) 17:07, 27 April 2018 (UTC)