Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Glossary of areas of mathematics (2nd nomination)


 * 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. I just can't find any rationale for deletion. Article quality and/or content and ways to improve thereof can be discussed on the talk page or at WT:MATH, in this case there's no need for TNT. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 03:18, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Glossary of areas of mathematics
AfDs for this article:


 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

A glossary requires that the entries are well defined. This is not the case of subareas of mathematics.

The relationships between areas of mathematics are very complicated (inclusion, common subareas, etc.), and are completely hidden by the glossary structure. This glossary is exactly as meaningless as would be a flat list of Wikipedia categories.

Moreover, most item descriptions are WP:OR or WP:NPOV, when they are not blatantly wrong.

So, I suggest to delete this article D.Lazard (talk) 14:24, 24 May 2022 (UTC) Comment I forgot that, six months ago, I submitted already ⋅this article for deletion, and the result was keep. However, I do not withdraw this nomination, because Mathematics has been written since the previous discussion, and this section may change the result of the discussion. D.Lazard (talk) 14:35, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions. D.Lazard (talk) 14:24, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep The value of a glossary is not given by the relationship between concepts referred to in the glossary, no matter how complicated those relationships are. The alphabetic structure of a glossary is standard for a glossary to avoid conceptual disputes. Glossaries are standard on Wikipedia, and are useful for their linguistic features such as diachronic phenomena, semantics, pragmatics etc. There are definitions of areas of mathematics in existence, and areas of mathematics have been talked about for hundreds if not thousands of years, so conceptually they exist too. If we're able to speak about the glossary contents within corresponding articles, then we're able to speak about them in the glossary too. A lack of interest should not be a reason of deletion. Brad7777 (talk) 12:59, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
 * comment In contrast to physical books, if there is a term someone don't understand in an article, it should be wikilinked. But I think this list can find mathematical objects X that don't even know their names. That said, if someone accesses an article on the list, it doesn't mean that they can always understand the article they visited, so this list meets WP: technicall. That is, each term in this list should be given a summary. --SilverMatsu (talk) 23:52, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Not only "each term in this list should be given a summary", but this summary must not contradict the linked article (presently, there are many such contradictions), and the summary must make explicit the relationship between areas (inclusions and partial inclusions). This latter functionality would better be fulfilled with a Wikipedia category Category:Areas of mathematics. So, I incline to add to my !vote delete the recommendation of creating such a category. D.Lazard (talk) 07:36, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment A category would not encompass many types of relationships between terminology used as areas of mathematics. For example, categories do not include synonyms. Also, about 10 years ago a category for areas of mathematics was found to be problematic by the mathematics community for reasons such as the choice of word "area" over others such as a "branch", "subdivision", as well the inclusivity criteria. The advantage a glossary has, is the opportunity of explanation with inclusion. It should be consistent with the articles too. Brad7777 (talk) 07:32, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: The dispute was about Category: Subdivisions of mathematics, with Category: Fields of mathematics persevering. The dispute consisted of inclusivity criteria; fields of fields were deemed unworthy of inclusion, with indirect links being "decided" as sufficient. Brad7777 (talk) 08:01, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep: I don’t think just deleting the article is a good way to go. I agree that there is some difficulty writing the article like this because of various ambiguities. The deletion, however, is not an answer. —- Taku (talk) 18:06, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Star   Mississippi  02:11, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment IMHO we should have some canonical listing of areas of mathematics, so as to help readers navigate the field. Right now, unfortunately, we have several such listings, which are fairly different from each other:
 * Mathematics (which of course can't be a comprehensive listing because that would be undue)
 * Glossary of areas of mathematics (the article currently being debated; in addition to possibly having some OR, it is alphabetically sorted, making it unusable for helping readers figure out which fields are bigger and which are smaller)
 * Outline of mathematics (which I think is the best candidate right now, despite again possibly having some OR)
 * Areas of mathematics (which used to be a list article until User:D.Lazard BLARed it a week ago for again having too much OR)
 * Category:Fields of mathematics (which is nice, but not user-friendly due to being... a category)
 * ... maybe I'm missing some more
 * Though I think the first and last should be kept as neat navigational tools, I think we should all merge the other three into Outline of mathematics or some title like that and accept for now that the resulting article will contain some OR. Maybe if someone wants an alphabetized listing we can keep Glossary of areas of mathematics as an article, but its usefulness as a redirect to the canonical list is sketchy.
 * Duckmather (talk) 00:23, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Keep: I agree with User:TakuyaMurata: I don't think deletion/redirection would resolve or clarify existing ambiguities as much as allowing it to evolve via more comprehensive (but emminently doable!) organization would. I vote keep. Gnomatique (talk) 08:35, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment 2 What do you think about moving to the draft space until the article is improved ? I would suggest it, but it is often considered the backdoor way of deleting (AfD). --SilverMatsu (talk) 06:06, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Sadly its how it is, I rarely ever see content actually improved in draftspace.★Trekker (talk) 16:25, 5 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Keep - unconvincing repetition of a delete rationale previously shown to be weak. No reference was made in the nom to the fairly recent keep consensus of 's last AfD; I commented then on the weakness of that nomination, although I did not !vote. If I was to summarise the consensus of that AfD, I would say that participants found that it was not shown that the glossary was useless and several editors thought it was in fact useful, that Wikipedia benefits from a plurality of ways of finding material, and that the claimed arbitrariness of the inclusion criterion was not borne out by the reasonable quality of the glossary. This nom essentially ignores that previous discussion, starting with a sentence that contradicts the consensus of the previous AfD without observing that fact, which is poor practice. Don't renominate an article for deletion unless you are able to make a stronger case and willing to it properly. &mdash; Charles Stewart (talk) 11:37, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Please read the discussion before accusing other editors. The previous afd is mentioned in my comment done immediately after the nomination (9 minutes later). I explained there the reason for not withdrawing the nomination, namely that there is now a better description of the areas of mathematics, at Mathematics. This section has been completely rewritten since the first afd. D.Lazard (talk) 13:51, 8 June 2022 (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.