Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of important publications in theoretical computer science (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 delete. Randykitty (talk) 12:49, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

List of important publications in theoretical computer science
AfDs for this article:


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

It is quite possible that such a list could be encyclopedic - I wouldn't be surprised if it could be shown that this topic, in theory, meets WP:LISTN (which is likely true for many, if not all, fields of science). But the proper way to create such lists is to start with sources listing, well, "important publications in theoretical computer science".

Instead, what we have here is pure WP:OR, a mostly random and unreferenced list of works that are "important" according to random editors and unclear inclusion criteria. What few references there are go to show the notability of some works cited, but not the notability of such list as a grouping.

There are problems with structure - for example, "Arora & Barak's Computational Complexity and Goldreich's Computational Complexity" are added as a single entry (despite being separate works) because of a single review that reviewed both works.

Worse, the inclusion of some works here is pretty bizarre, demonstrating OR nature of this list and not respecting even the vague inclusion criteria that are mentioned in the lead. To name just two problematic examples, the last position on the list, Hehner's Practical Theory of Programming doesn't appear particularly influential in my BEFORE at all (GScholar shows ~350 citations, no reviews and no indication of any awards). Even worse is the inclusion of the paper Proving Assertions about Parallel Programs Ashcroft, Edward A. (1975), which even the very list nominated here describes as " It did not receive much attention" and GScholar shows it has just a ~200 citations - this pretty much looks like just an "average" paper. Putting such works in the same list as Turing's  On computable numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem (i.e. the work that introduced the concept of the Turing's proof and has a 5-digit citaiton number according to GS) seems, well, very ORish.

To conclude, if anyone can find some sources that demonstrate this topic meets LISTN, maybe it could be rescued after some major pruning/referencing, but IMHO the current mess deserves only WP:TNTing. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 10:16, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Computing and Lists. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  10:16, 31 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Keep. There are indeed sources that list the most important papers and books published in computer science, which would cover this article and its siblings List of important publications in computer science and List of important publications in concurrent, parallel, and distributed computing.  (And as you surmise, there are articles like this for other sciences, such as List of important publications in mathematics, List of important publications in chemistry, List of important publications in physics, etc., all of which share the same Topic creator/Breakthrough/Influence set of criteria.)  One list is found in Harry R. Lewis, Ideas That Created the Future: Classic Papers of Computer Science, MIT Press, 2021.  There is the ACM Classic Books series, the result of a poll of ACM members.  There is the Communications of the ACM 25th anniversary edition in 1983, which reprinted famous papers that had appeared in it.  And I'm sure there are others.   Wasted Time R (talk) 12:10, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
 * WP:THEREARESOURCES is great, but that doesn't invalide the issues that the current list is pure, 100%, WP:OR. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 04:21, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Here are couple more books that can be used for this: Great Papers in Computer Science, Phillip A. Laplante, ed., IEEE Press, 1996; and Software Pioneers: Contributions to Software Engineering, Manfred Broy, Ernst Denert, eds. Springer, 2012. And there are also university course materials that list these, such as: Great Works in Programming Languages, collected by Benjamin C. Pierce, Professor at University of Pennsylvania. If you look at these lists, certain names and papers keep popping up over and over ...   Wasted Time R (talk) 12:30, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
 * But Great Papers in Computer Science obviously implies relevance to the List of important publications in computer science, not the subtopic discussed here. I certainly agree we should keep and improve the former, but why do we need sublists? Where is a work on Great Papers in Theoretical Computer Science? And likewise, software engineering =/= theoretical computer science. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 03:53, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
 * They were split up for length reasons in 2009, see Talk:List of important publications in computer science. I agree that the split itself can be hard to source sometimes; for instance, I expected to see E. F. Codd's foundational paper in relational database theory in this article, not the other one.  Wasted Time R (talk) 11:52, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
 * PS. Also, the sources you cite are arguably related to List of important publications in computer science, and the list here, plus others you list, likely need merging or redirecting... Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 12:32, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep If the only complaint are certain entries, then they can be discussed on the talk page, and determined what should remain as is, be changed, or be removed.  D r e a m Focus  12:29, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @Dream Focus This is not the only complaint. The main complain is that 100% entries there are WP:OR. The topic is arguably notable, but it needs to be rewritten from scratch, into "list of important publications in this field according to reliable sources which call them important" instead of what we have now which is "list of publications in this field that random Wikipedia volunteers consider important". Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 07:06, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Just need a better inclusion criteria. Won notable awards, was required for college students, is listed as notable publication in textbooks, or is mentioned as significant in a notable publication.  I am currently looking through search results for "history of theoretical computer science" and seeing some potentially good results.   D r e a m Focus  12:15, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Right - and then this needs to be WP:TNTed and rewritten from scratch, as I said in my OP. Realistically, a few entries from the current list may likely end up being shown to be notable, and if someone does a major rewrite during this AfD, we may end up not even "deleting" this formally. Good luck rescuing this; as I said, the underlying topic is likely notable - it's just the current execution is so bad this needs to be reworked from start. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 12:31, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Doesn't need to be destroyed, just find references for things. https://eds.s.ebscohost.com/eds/resultsadvanced?vid=4&sid=fb04b3de-8987-41be-b10b-c7b51a2c6313%40redis&bquery=%22Proceedings+of+the+London+Mathematical+Society%22+AND+%22Alan+Turing%22+AND+%22theoretical+computer+science%22&bdata=JnR5cGU9MSZzZWFyY2hNb2RlPUFuZCZzaXRlPWVkcy1saXZlJnNjb3BlPXNpdGU%3d for instance.  Searching for what is listed and the exact phase "theoretical computer science" shows results.  Someone familiar with this topic can look it over hopefully.  This website is on the Wikipedia Library https://wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org   D r e a m Focus  13:06, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete Inclusion criteria are arbitrary, with a seemingly random assortment of papers included. Hemiauchenia (talk) 04:34, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete as unsourced WP:OR. The "inclusion criteria" are partial ("Some reasons why a particular publication might be regarded as important"), and what is present is vague and arbitrary. A list of landmark papers could conceivable be created (and properly sourced), but this mess needs to be WP:TNTd. Clarityfiend (talk) 13:13, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete What is the inclusion criteria? As an article it serves no purpose. The academic community would never use it as at first appearence it seems to be mish-mash of WP:OR entries. The average reader won't read it, so who exactly is it for? Who maintains it? It is an ill-thoughtout mess, with no value to anybody really. Everybody in own their specialism, knows what the best journals-articles are already.   scope_creep Talk  21:50, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the Article Rescue Squadron's list of content for rescue consideration.  D r e a m Focus  18:26, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Lean keep. Seems to meet WP:NLIST. Sources that deal with books on theoretical computer science:
 * 1) http://people.seas.harvard.edu/~madhusudan/courses/Fall2020/book.pdf (search inside for "books")
 * 2) https://bookauthority.org/books/best-theoretical-computer-science-books
 * I recognise this list is not the most robust, but also seems like nominator agrees this is probably a notable grouping of things, so have not delved deeply, assuming people won't dispute this.
 * Seems also that the article needs major improvement, including on the inclusion criteria and to remove the original research, but that is not a reason to delete. WP:DINC CT55555 (talk) 18:58, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Your first source doesn't even remotely deal with the topic of important theoretical computer science publications. A search for "books" revealed 15 results, none of which are any kind of survey of important publications (why not just give us a page number?), and even if it were, this would be one random author's opinion on the matter, not enough to sustain such a list.  Your second source is WP:UGC.  Type in any topic and you'll get a list of "The 20 best books on &lt;insert random topic here&gt;"...lists which contain a lot more than 20, and are just random book recommendations from random people, sorted by topic.  This is wholly non RS, and you should know better.  35.139.154.158 (talk) 15:36, 7 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Delete subjective, arbitrary, perspective-laden thing that lacks clear inclusion criteria. The word "important" defies specificity. Kill this. Doczilla  @SUPERHEROLOGIST 17:29, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Move to draft. If a rewrite can fix this, even if it needs to be a complete rewrite, then there should be a chance for that to be done before the content is deleted altogether. BD2412  T 03:52, 8 February 2023 (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.