Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Geometry of roots of real polynomials


 * 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 delete. Per consensus that, to the extent there was proper encyclopedic content could be written on the topic, it was already better covered elsewhere. Indeed, even the keep !votes favored moving the article to a different title. I examined the merged material and agree that retention of this history is unnecessary for attribution. While it was not raised explicitly in the discussion, the arguments presented here necessarily implicated a lack of notability, so deletion is appropriate. Xymmax So let it be written   So let it be done  04:57, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Geometry of roots of real polynomials
AfDs for this article: * WP:Articles for deletion/Graphical methods of finding polynomial roots
 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

This page is an orphan.

The main section has been merged into Quadratic equation.

The content of the lead is better described in other articles.

The title is a misnomer, as it seems referring to the location of the roots in the complex plane, a subject that is studied in Properties of polynomial roots D.Lazard (talk) 11:52, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions.  ~Ruyaba~   {talk}  12:04, 14 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Articles for deletion/Log/2019 February 14.  —cyberbot I   Talk to my owner :Online 12:22, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I also fixed up the links to the prior discussion. Andrew D. (talk) 13:02, 14 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Speedy Keep as no reason to delete has been provided. Being an orphan is not a reason to delete as that's a deficiency elsewhere.  Merger of content is a strong reason to retain the content not a reason to delete it – see WP:MAD.  The leads of other articles point is unsupported by any evidence and, in any case, is still not a reason to delete.  The title might need work but is still not a reason to delete as that's best addressed by a move.  Note that the page previously had the title Graphical methods of finding polynomial roots, which seems clearer, so perhaps it should return to that.  Overall, the page looks quite reasonable and just needs some polish per our policy WP:IMPERFECT. Andrew D. (talk) 12:45, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
 * The old title was plural, and 10 years later, the article contains a single method, that is defined only for polynomials of degree two. So the content does not correspond better to the old title than to the present one. D.Lazard (talk) 14:32, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
 * That's an argument for expansion of the article, not deletion. See Beyond the Quadratic Formula, for example. Andrew D. (talk) 23:58, 23 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment. Is the issue WP:Duplicate article; or at least wrong title to text that is duplicated? If so, is this a WP:MERGE option? Britishfinance (talk) 13:04, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
 * The single section of this articles called "Complex roots of quadratic polynomials". It belongs naturally to Quadratic equation, and it is there that, normally, a reader would search the content of this section. This is a reason for adding this content to a section "Graphical solution" of this article. I have done that, which does not increases significantly the size of the article (733 bytes). This is not really a merge, as I have completely rewritten the text, and the only things that have been copied are the reference and the figure. Thus, now, we have now a content fork, and this is clearly in this article that the duplicate content deserve to be removed. D.Lazard (talk) 14:32, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Not 100% sure what you are saying there, but seems like you have already absorbed the useful parts of this article into another article and that this article is now not useful, and is out of sync with other articles on the same area? Would there ever be a reason to therefore have an article with this title? Britishfinance (talk) 20:47, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
 * You are right. If the title would have correctly described the content, I would have simply transformed the article into a redirect. As the title "Geometry of roots of real polynomials" does not correspond to any notable concept, and certainly not to Quadratic equation (where the useful part of the content has been absorbed), there is no natural target for a redirect. So deletion seems the best option. D.Lazard (talk) 21:10, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Comment I was expecting/hoping this article to be about this stuff. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 19:28, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep and move back to Graphical methods of finding polynomial roots. Although mentioned on a number of other pages, this is a separate subject which deserves a separate page. My very best wishes (talk) 00:51, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete, since the article, as it stands, has no content, justifying its existence, not even the title, which deserves a decent article, is meaningfully addressed. Purgy (talk) 07:53, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete Per nom (and discussion with proposer above}. Britishfinance (talk) 15:03, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep and move back. There are enough arguments that the current title is inappropriate, but there is no reason to delete the article at the old title. w umbolo   ^^^  22:24, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment Tree editors suggest to give back the title Graphical methods of finding polynomial roots to an article containing only a single method for the non-real roots of quadratic polynomial. What is the rationale for such a general title for such a particular case? and for having a specific article for this single method? and for having this method in two different articles, here and in Quadratic equation? --D.Lazard (talk) 01:48, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ad Orientem (talk) 03:04, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete Redundant with Quadratic equation, and not a good title for a redirect. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 23:32, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Not all polynomials are quadratic. w umbolo   ^^^  23:37, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * The brief mentions of higher-order polynomials are more confusing than illuminating, address topics better covered elsewhere and do not justify the existence of this article. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 01:51, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Mentioning higher-order polynomials is crucial to this article. It is not "better covered elsewhere" and it justifies "the existence of this article" because it is the article's topic. w umbolo   ^^^  09:20, 24 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete:
 * 1) This article has no mathematical content. Misleading title aside (which should really mean algebraic geometry in general), this article just briefly states simple techniques one would teach in a secondary school algebra or pre-calculus class (which calls WP:NOTTEXTBOOK to mind).
 * 2) The idea of plotting a polynomial with real coefficients on a two-dimensional plane over the real numbers is not a noteworthy concept that deserves its own article. It's just a technique one teaches students learning elementary algebra.
 * 3) There is duplication of the main section with Quadratic equation.
 * I'm surprised there is even a discussion about this. — MarkH21 (talk) 04:18, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
 * If this is a technique that one would teach to "students learning elementary algebra" then it is obviously mathematical content. WP:NOTTEXTBOOK is irrelevant as that's about a style which includes things like leading questions and exercises.  More relevant from that section is "A Wikipedia article should not be presented on the assumption that the reader is well-versed in the topic's field. ... the article should be written in plain terms and concepts that can be understood by any literate reader of Wikipedia without any knowledge in the given field ... Texts should be written for everyday readers, not just for academics."  An accessible graphical treatment is therefore more appropriate than advanced abstract algebra. Andrew D. (talk) 09:57, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
 * It is relevant, because much of the article as it exists sounds like one is trying to instruct the reader how to determine whether real roots exist by graphing. It's not that the material is somehow "too trivial". Nor was I saying that the problem is that the mathematics is written in an accessible manner. It's that it is teaching a simple technique, akin to having a passage illustrating how to find the x-intercept of a line of given slope passing through some given point. By all means I am trying to make math articles more accessible to general readers! — MarkH21 (talk) 10:40, 24 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Merge to Zero of a function. First off, the previous title of Graphical methods of finding polynomial roots is far better; if the article is kept it must be moved there.  The topic of examining graphs of a polynomial in the reals to find complex roots appears to be well-defined and covered in journal articles over a 100 year period.  However, there's nothing in this article apart from one method for quadratic equations, and some badly-worded ways of saying that plotting a graph of a function can find the real roots.  This doesn't seem to be a plausible stand-alone topic when there are other articles that can cover both the existing content and any new content that might be added (for example, on methods to find complex roots of a cubic polynomial through "graphical methods"). power~enwiki ( π,  ν ) 04:40, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete: Seems to be redundant. —- Taku (talk) 09:17, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete. As explained above, Quadratic equation and Quadratic equation more comprehensively describe the topic, whereas this article does not even talk about the geometry of real quadratic roots and includes no content not already found elsewhere, making it a WP:REDUNDANTFORK as it stands. A summary-style meta-article (WP:SPINOFF) describing various polynomial roots would only make sense if we had articles devoted to Geometry of roots of quadratic equations, Geometry of roots of cubic equations, etc.; likewise, this would not be a valid sub-article (WP:SPINOUT) if expanded because it would address too many unrelated cases (do we commonly use hatnotes to subsections?). Thus, it seems that reasonable content expansion of this article would create a mess of links and hatnotes (what would be the main article for the topic?) and/or require double the maintenance work if the same content is presented similarly in two different articles. On the other hand, keeping only the sections of quadratic equation, cubic equation, etc. will not misguide readers and enable us to polish those sections and avoid having scattered, lower-quality content spread across multiple pages. ComplexRational (talk) 21:30, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
 * more comprehensively describe the topic This is false, all quadratic equations have polynomials but not all polynomials are quadratic. require double the maintenance work if the same content is presented similarly in two different articles That's a complete non-argument, see WP:RELAR. w umbolo   ^^^  22:26, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
 * more comprehensively describe the topic Of course there are other polynomials (why else would I mention cubics?), though they are not currently discussed in Geometry of roots of real polynomials; hence, I clarify: the bulk of what is there now is more comprehensively described in Quadratic equation.
 * require double the maintenance work if the same content is presented similarly in two different articles I agree with WP:RELAR, though this discussion concerns the exact same content that is possibly presented in multiple places, not overlapping information that establishes context or draws connections between related topics. A brief summary in one article about the other is acceptable (per WP:SPINOFF), though I'm not so sure about several paragraphs (or sections) of nearly identical content when one article is not the main, detailed description of a topic – that is the scenario to which I am referring. ComplexRational (talk) 22:44, 24 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete. I'd suggest Merge somewhere, but the Quadratic equation article has everything that should be here, and the sentence on higher degree polynomials doesn't provide enough context to determine if it is interesting.  As a JSTOR subscriber (through Wikipedia), I could check some of the references, but there would need to be text which would be better placed in cubic equation.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 05:44, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete per pury and lazard for the articles current state, parts of the little actual content could be merged into other articles. Keeping it would imho require a complete rewrite and expansion.--Kmhkmh (talk) 06:44, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment: The title is very broad, and the lead section is a good lead for an article with that title, pointing to a variety of material that fits under its heading. However, the lead is not appropriate for the current body, which, as several commenters have noted, contains only one method and only for quadratic equations and that method is better treated elsewhere.  I do not know what is the right thing to do about the situation where there is an article with a reasonable title and reasonable lead but whose contents don't match either, but that seems to be the case here.  --JBL (talk) 20:08, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
 * The right thing to do is to improve the article, as per WP:ATD-E. w umbolo   ^^^  20:13, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Assuming that it can be improved and fleshed out into an actual article, then yes. But currently there is no content. If you or another editor is willing to write an article on the topic of Graphical methods provide a means of determining or approximating the roots of a polynomial, then please draftify this article, change the title, and proceed to do write an article. Right now, there is nothing except the relevant parts of the lead and a main content section on the simplest case that has been made redundant. — MarkH21 (talk) 00:28, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Procedural keep or redirect - According to the nom "The main section has been merged into Quadratic equation." In that case this article cannot be deleted and the appropriate merge-to and merge-from tags need to be added to the talk pages to preserve attribution. Rlendog (talk) 16:09, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Would the resulting redirect make sense? I think that redirecting a generic title to a specific section outlining only one case would be a WP:SURPRISE. To comply with WP:MAD, I would suggest renaming the redirect to something less confusing (perhaps Geometry of roots of quadratic equations as I stated above) and deleting the current title, or any other possible form of archiving the history without keeping a confusing article or redirect. ComplexRational (talk) 20:09, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
 * There is no problem of attribution after the merge, as no text has been copied. I have completely rewritten the description of the method (which was poor), and added a proof that was lacking. In other word, this was a merge of mathematical content, not a merge of text. As a mathematical content is not subject of a copyright nor of any license, there is absolutely no need of merge tags, and no procedural need of keeping any history. D.Lazard (talk) 22:44, 28 February 2019 (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.