Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Images of Julia and Mandelbrot sets


 * 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 but not really. Article has been moved w/o redirect to User:Gertbuschmann/Images of Julia and Mandelbrot sets for further work or reference in creating the author's Wikibooks project. I see no reason to erase the history. Deletion has been requested by the original author, below. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 13:24, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Images of Julia and Mandelbrot sets

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

Unsourced textbook-style article that appears to be mostly OR and a showcase for the author's fractal images. Have tagged article and explained issues on talk page, but author (User:Gertbuschmann) shows no intention of adding sources or addressing other issues. Gandalf61 (talk) 09:33, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I want my article Images of Julia and Mandelbrot sets deleted (Gertbuschmann (talk) 16:23, 30 April 2010 (UTC))


 * Delete big ol' HOWTO article, full of inappropriate tone ("We will state all the definitions..."), NPOV issues ("All other Mandelbrot sets are more or less ugly in their entirety") and more. Also, there are already plenty of images and info on the Julia set and Mandelbrot set articles, making this one even more superfluous. Andrew Lenahan -  St ar bli nd  14:17, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I disagree about the inappropriate tone.
 * "If there are more than two Fatou domains, we can infer that..."
 * etc. Superficially, "we" means the author and someone else.  But one cannot construe this "we" literally.
 * "If there are more than two Fatou domains, it can be inferred that..."
 * says the same thing without the "we". Some of these "we"s&mdash;maybe all of them&mdash;can be similarly rephrased.  Even if there are some that can't, a metaphor is a metaphor.  In mathematical writing, one often encounters "We assume that the function &fnof; is continuous and bounded", etc., and it's not meant literally.  It means that whatever statements follow are valid in cases where that assumption is true.  That said, possibly some of the images should be put into the "Julia set" and "Mandelbrot" set articles rather than having their own article. Michael Hardy (talk) 02:26, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
 * How can it be considered a "how to" article? A "how to" article explains how to do something.  That's not what this article does. Michael Hardy (talk) 02:31, 1 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep, at least for a few weeks to allow time for improvement. The article does have several problems as pointed out above, but these are mostly minor and could be fixed by sourcing and copyediting. The topic itself seems a legitimate subject for a wikipedia article. Much of the article is fairly standard stuff rather than original research, and could probably be sourced with a little effort. The pictures may be "original research" but this is not a big deal as they are quite similar to other published pictures. r.e.b. (talk) 05:28, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment Obviously, if you know of reliable sources then please add them to the article. I have never seen sources for most of this material - it goes beyond anything in Peitgen & Richter for example; discussions with the author indicate that it is based on the author's own unpublished work ; and the author has ignored several requests to add their sources (which is how we got here). Gandalf61 (talk) 08:10, 1 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment is there a wikibook to move this to, or wikiversity topic? 70.29.208.247 (talk) 12:22, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment there is Fractals. Gandalf61 (talk) 13:25, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Well then, TRANSWIKI to WikiBooks. 70.29.208.247 (talk) 03:57, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep per r.e.b. I don't see any glaring original research problems.  Clearly some sources need to be added, and perhaps the author should be approached about that.  A merge or smerge with fractal art, as suggested by User:Radagast3, might be another possibility.  At WT:WPM, I had suggested a transwiki, although this suggestion did not generate any further input, and I honestly don't know enough to make a compelling proposal&mdash;but the suggestion still stands.   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 12:31, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment The author has been asked to provide sources - see Talk:Images of Julia and Mandelbrot sets. They have not done so. That is why we are here. Gandalf61 (talk) 13:25, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, you yourself provided a source above. That clearly indicates the notability of the topic, no?  If it is just a matter of adding this reference to the article, then I really don't see what the problem is.  Sławomir Biały  (talk) 14:18, 1 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment No, no, no, exactly the opposite. My point is that this material is not in Peitgen & Richter - it is not a source for this article. We already have an article on fractal art that covers the general topic adequately. Gandalf61 (talk)
 * I rather disagree that fractal art covers this topic adequately. I should think that some if not most content can be both sourced and merged by someone with the time and inclination to do so.  Sławomir Biały  (talk) 21:17, 1 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment the author now wants the article deleted - see their comments on the talk page and here.-- JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 13:41, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
 * delete It seems to be a mix of stuff: maths on fractals that's covered well in the relevant articles already, and the authors opinions on what makes a "nice" ("atractive", "striking", "surprising" or "extraordinary") image of a fractal, with overlong exposition on how to make such images, badly laid out, written largely in the first person and unsourced. So a poorly written content fork with some OR mixed in. Nothing that I can see worth keeping.-- JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 13:00, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The claim that it is "written largely in the first person" is specious at best, as I have already pointed out above. Michael Hardy (talk) 13:52, 2 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Visual arts-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 19:18, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 19:19, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep at least until the language can be cleaned up and other improvements done. In particular, specious arguments claiming the article is written largely in the first person are playing a noticeable role in this discussion and thereby getting in the way of discussion of issues that can be taken seriously.  There is actually a community&mdash;in the sense of a mutually inter-communicating group of people&mdash;who incite each other to this sort of behavior: instead of looking for articles existing only to express personal points of view, they look for articles that use personal pronouns, and tag them as "essays", etc., without looking at the context or meaning.  Thus someone writes "We can then deduce that..." when they could have written "It can then be deduced that...", and it gets nominated for deletion on the grounds that it's an "essay or personal reflection".  Instead of tagging it, they could have slightly rephrased the sentence, or just recognized that a metaphor is a metaphor and is not to be taken literally.  Those who do this should be opposed.  Wikipedia should be protected from them. Michael Hardy (talk) 14:11, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
 * comment There is a big difference between writing "we can deduce that" in e.g. a mathematical proof and the text here which uses it to quite different effect. Try re-writing "we can get a nice play of colours" without using the first person in an encyclopaedic way. This tone is a problem from the first paragraph, and apart from the bits that replicate the content of Mandelbrot set and Julia set the whole article draws from the author's personal views on what makes an attractive image. It doesn't just need the language fixing as the whole premise of the article is flawed, and needs reliable sources but as it's largely original research they will be difficult to find. -- JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 15:32, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment Problems with style can indeed be addressed by rewriting, and if they were the only problems with the article then I would not have brought it to AfD. But style problems are a side issue here. The central issue, which no-one seems willing or able to take any practical steps to address, is that the article is entirely unsourced and the author has more or less admitted that it is mostly original research. Gandalf61 (talk) 16:37, 2 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Transwiki: to Wikiboooks. This seems to be a guide to creating images; it may have a place but it's not Wikipedia. Rewriting or fixing individual problems would not change the fundamental issue here which is there is not a notable subject for the article. The M set is notable but that does not imply images of it are; Barack Obama is notable but that doesn't mean we need an article called "Pictures of Barack Obama". Gandalf61 brings up a good point about sourcing, but it may be possible to find sources for this material. But even sourced material is inappropriate for an encyclopedia if it's in the nature of a how to guide.--RDBury (talk) 19:18, 5 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment The author has started to copy the contents of this article into a Wikibook at Pictures of Julia and Mandelbrot sets. Gandalf61 (talk) 08:23, 7 May 2010 (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.