Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Determination of the day of the week


 * 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. postdlf (talk) 07:01, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Determination of the day of the week

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Wikipedia is not a venue for instruction manuals ElKevbo (talk) 12:46, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the Article Rescue Squadron's list of content for rescue consideration. Northamerica1000(talk) 14:35, 17 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Comment - while I agree the first third of the article is written in the form of general instructions and falls under WP:NOT, there is useful information in the second half. If someone was prepared to re-write it to explain how mathematicians have found various solutions to the problem (properly sourced), the article could be salvageable. With the original research and without sources, the article is just going to remain a difficult battleground for edit wars! Sionk (talk) 15:11, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep The topic seems to be notable. I can't make any judgement on the quality of the information given since I am a member of the 99.9% of people who are not that mathematical. :-) Of course the article should be improved, if possible. -BigJim707 (talk) 20:49, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * With all due respect, the discussion is about the article as it is currently written and not about a hypothetical article about the same or a similar topic. I, too, imagine that an encyclopedia article could be written on this topic - but this isn't it. ElKevbo (talk) 21:48, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Deletion discussions are never about how the article is written, they're about how the topic could be potentially presented using the sources available. If there are references that describe more than a how-to approach, turning the article into a stub and keeping those references is a valid outcome for the discussion. Diego (talk) 11:58, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:NOTHOWTO. - Presidentman talk · contribs (Talkback) 21:52, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * This is a weak argument since this isn't really a "how-to" article. Michael Hardy (talk) 18:28, 19 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom.  GregJackP   Boomer!   22:48, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep - just one of the algorithms, the Doomsday rule, is the subject of an article with several relevant citations (it's also not incorporated into Determination of the day of the week yet). RockMagnetist (talk) 19:53, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * One should give one's arguments; one should not simply say "keep" or "delete". Michael Hardy (talk) 18:26, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep While Wikipedia is not an instruction manual, descriptions of algorithms are perfectly acceptable; this is an article on day of week algorithms. Day of the week is a notable concept and so are algorithms for calculating the day of the week; such algorithms are needed for most calendrical calculations, manual or computational. Because the topic is notable and AfD is not for article cleanup (see WP:NOTFORCLEANUP for details), this article should be kept. That said, the article does have weak points; the lead and Useful concepts section are essay-like and need cleanup. But the subsequent sections, with concise descriptions of various algorithms, along with some references, seem fine. Mark viking (talk) 23:33, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:PRESERVE. In this case, copy editing to simply remove/reword the how-to content in the article into encyclopedic style is superior to outright deletion. Also, a significant amount of information in the article is not comprised of how-to content. Northamerica1000(talk) 05:49, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I've been thinking the exact same thing. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 06:00, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment - Here's a couple of book sources that contain the term "calculating the day of the week", found from cursory searching:, . Northamerica1000(talk) 05:53, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment - the issue does not appear to be the notability, but that WP is not a "how to" site or an instruction manual.  GregJackP   Boomer!   12:52, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment - Certainly. However the article has significant content that is not in how-to format, and sources were provided based upon alternate search terms to suggest that alternate search terms are providing hits for this topic. This article can be rewritten so that it does not run afoul of WP:NOTHOWTO, and it appears that additional sources are available to aid in doing so. Northamerica1000(talk) 00:15, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep WP:AfD C1 says that an article should only be deleted if it's not possible to improve it. It's obviously possible to improve this and people (Mark viking, Northamerica1000) have set out how to do that. Even the proposer accepts it's a notable encyclopedic topic. --Colapeninsula (talk) 12:54, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Given the history of the article and its editors, it's extraordinarily unlikely that normal editing can turn this into a good article. This is one instance in which we need to start over from the beginning. ElKevbo (talk) 13:23, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. — Frankie (talk) 17:40, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. — Frankie (talk) 17:40, 18 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep Completely invalid deletion rationale, which I conjecture is purely based on the on the title of the article. The existence of several algorithms, such as Zeller's congruence, demonstrates this is unquestionable an encyclopedic topic. —Ruud 17:57, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I read the article before nominating it so your conjecture is false. Further, I fail to see how the existence of other articles about algorithms argues for the quality of this particular article.  Finally, this discussion is about this specific article and not the general topic; it's article for deletion, not topic for deletion.  I agree that the topic is likely notable but this article isn't about the general topic but is focused on specific sets of instructions. ElKevbo (talk) 19:20, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * No, sorry, despite its name this forum really is about whether the topic is notable or not. Broken article get fixed by editing, not deletion. —Ruud 20:13, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep, basically per what Mark viking said. The whole field of algorithms is "how to"; that doesn't make descriptions of notable algorithmic problems off-topic for Wikipedia. WP:NOTHOWTO is misapplied in this case: it's more aimed at keeping out game walkthroughs, troubleshooting guides, and recipes than descriptions of mathematical algorithms. And in this case, the attention to this specific problem given by such famous mathematicians as Charles Dodgson and John Conway makes it clearly notable. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:04, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep T0 ElKevbo: Did you know how to determine the day of the week? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 183.250.0.247 (talk) 06:23, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep Flawed deletion rationale because the issue is really only about part of the content. Instead of AfD, boldy rewriting to not read like a how-to would be first choice. Second choice would be deletion of how-to part or posting at talk raising concern about it. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 06:30, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep - need rewriting not deletion. Claritas § 15:47, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep. This article is not an instruction manual or a "how-to . . . .".  Rather, it is a general discussion of the problem, that includes some history of thinking on the problem and, among other things, some of the techniques.  And if it were simply a "how-to" article on this problem, the remedy would not be deletion, but would be be further editing to make it into something else. Michael Hardy (talk) 18:25, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep. The article is not a howto, and the subject is a valid encyclopedic topic.  Incidentally, I remember reading about this in Conway, Berlekamp, and Guy's "Winning ways for your mathematical plays".  I see that is not referenced in the article, but probably should be.  Sławomir Biały  (talk) 18:42, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * It's in the see-also section, in the link there to Doomsday rule. I agree that it would make sense to mention it in the main text of the article, though. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:20, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep. The topic is clearly notable: there is ample evidence of reliable sources for the history and analysis of various methods for carrying out this calculation.  Of course an article on ways of computing something is likely to explain, analyse and compare ways of computing that thing: this is very far from being an instruction manual, the key difference being an analysis as opposed to mere recitation of the methods.  The article does not appear to me to be in such bad shape that it would be impossible to improve it by normal editing.  Deltahedron (talk) 18:53, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep - algorithms are a recognized subject of Wikipedia articles with their own style guidelines (MOS:ALGO), so they aren't covered by WP:HOWTO. The subject is clearly notable - there are already pages on Zeller's congruence and the Doomsday rule with enough citations each to establish notability (the Doomsday rule still needs to be incorporated into this article). RockMagnetist (talk) 19:53, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep especially the section of A tabular method to calculate the day of the week61.154.208.12 (talk) 04:00, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * This article does not contravene Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research! If it should be deleted, then should be the article of Doomsday rule. Q5968661 (talk) 09:17, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep - Especially as most articles that cover specific events don't state the day of the week, and some of us might like to know that. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:23, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep and improve the old version of this article. Q5968661 (talk) 02:33, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep and rewrite the old version of this article. That version is needlessly complicated. Also, note that this deletion discussion was the result of an edit war between me and several IPs (see the talk page of the article for details). Pokajanje &#124; Talk  16:55, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep Does not fall under WP:NOTHOWTO. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 01:01, 23 December 2012 (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.