Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nova fractal


 * 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. No consensus to delete. Malinaccier (talk) 20:45, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Nova fractal

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Article on non-notable fractal without reliable sources, which consists of unsourced OR claims and pretty pictures. Variation on the Newton fractal, on which we already have a substantial article. Author removed prod tag and promised to provide evidence of notability over a week ago, but has failed to do so. Gandalf61 (talk) 12:03, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

author's response
I would like to see some more input about the lack of notability of nova, why did you decide it wasn't notable? is it just because it didn't google very well?

I don't feel that just one objection should be enough to have the article removed, just as no doubt you don't think that my own input is enough to show nova's notability. So, how do we ultimately decide whether the article is kept or not?

I genuinely felt that I was adding something that is really out there when I created the article, it is not a selfish thing in any way, it's not advertising, I don't gain anything from sharing this information, it's just a formula after all. I do feel that it is relevant information about fractals and that others could benefit from it.

I would be willing to accept that this article be reduced, my interest in nova could be argued to be original thought. But the fact remains, that Nova is out there: there are implementations of it in most major fractal rendering applications, it has been explored quite a lot by the fractal art community, and I think that this is enough to make it a distinct entity of its own that is just as notable as its relative the newton fractal.
 * This article is not in violation of NPOV.

I'd love to hear your thoughts, Danwills (talk) 14:00, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Decision on whether the article is kept or deleted is made and implemented by an uninvolved closing admin who determines the consensus of a 5 day period of discussion between interested editors at this page - see Guide to deletion and Guide to deletion. If you have reliable sources that support your assertions of notability, you still have an opportunity to add them to the article. Gandalf61 (talk) 14:17, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep It is not a variety of the fractal newton it is very much it's own fractal, that is like saying that phoenix is a type of the Mandelbrot fractal. If you don't like the article then tidy it up, It does have notability, it is used prominantly in prahaps the most notable of fractal software Ultra-Fractal and in the less known fractal extreme Alan2here (talk) 13:18, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete due to lack of reliable third-party coverage establishing notability. A short mention in another article about fractals may be appropriate, however. Arkyan 16:37, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete per Arkyan Ron B. Thomson (talk) 18:19, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete per above.TheRingess (talk) 23:50, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge with Newton fractal, it seems like it is worth mentioning, but not notable enough to warrant its own article.  J kasd  05:49, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment: It seems notability, if any, would come from it being well-known in the fractal art community, not from mathematicians.  Dan Wills has said that it is implemented in most of the fractal rendering programs.  I'd like to at least ascertain if it's implemented in the most popular ones.  How do we tell which is the more important fractal rendering program?  I'm guessing Dan will say UltraFractal is a pretty important one.  But since fractal art enthusiasts seem to be basically hobbyists who do this in their spare time, it's difficult to determine these things.  They don't have a peer-reviewed journal (I think).  Are there any famous fractal artists who say, yeah nova fractals are notable?  Who are the famous fractal artists anyway?  That's the problem with this kind of thing.  I don't wish to come off sounding like I think the professor in some Ivy League math department who writes about some arcane math formula is somehow "better" than the hobbyist who putters around with some fun computer program.  I don't think that at all.  But it's certainly much easier to figure out if that arcane math thing is considered notable in that professor's academic community.  They have journals and well-documented standards.  Wikipedia has pretty clearly established standards also that says part of its mission is to preserve such academic knowledge.  Is it part of Wikipedia's mission to also preserve whatever some group of people think is fun and cool?  It'd be nice if that were so, but unfortunately the answer is "no".    --C S (talk) 12:53, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge. It is less than a variation; it's a special case of the Newton fractal. (It has an obvious symmetry, when the power is rational; that's nice.) The section on UltraFractal need not be merged; it reads like spam, as does that article itself; we are not an advertising service, even for pretty products. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:53, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge or Keep As I said on the talk page there are quite a few fractal articles that have similar notability problems, but I still agree with merging this article into the Newton fractal article and making a redirect. Thanks for the comment CS, I agree that it's hard to establish notability for this type of thing. It does seem a bit unbalanced sometimes when you see how certain video games get such massive articles up about them - as they are similarly just "what some group of people think is fun and cool". I also agree we should reduce the references to UltraFractal, though I think the main reason for this objection is that UF is not free software. All the same, I think UF is the software that has the biggest community of fractal art practitioners around the world at the moment, so it should at least be mentioned. Danwills (talk) 02:37, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep - it is a class of matehmatical formulae, which should be per se notable. It has some cites, but could use more. Bearian (talk) 18:19, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep or Merge. – viciarg &#5800; 11:09, 6 June 2008 (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.