Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Parallel (operator)


 * 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 as improved. bd2412 T 03:32, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Parallel (operator)

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This doesn't seem to be in any sort of wide use as a term or a notation; all I could find were forums pointing back here, or to either of the two sources that seem to use it. This sort of fails the mathematical version of WP:NOTDICT, and I don't think it's even worth including as a note in the article on Resistor because of the extreme lack of adoption of this as a notation. On a side note, this is especially confusing because while it's appropriate for resistors, it's completely backwards for capacitors. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon &bull; videos) 17:34, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon &bull; videos) 17:34, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon &bull; videos) 17:34, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Technology-related deletion discussions. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon &bull; videos) 17:34, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon &bull; videos) 17:34, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: Relisting since there seems some legitimate discussion on the scale of usage and whether it warrants either in-article mention or its own article
 * Redirect to Series_and_parallel_circuits, where it is mentioned. This notation is used at times in electrical engineering, but is not common. The notation is verifiable and worth a mention. Redirect to the indicated target section places it in context with what I consider due weight. The parallel operator works fine for capacitors and inductors as well, as long as they are represented as complex impedances, as mentioned in this book. Per our policy WP:ATD, I think redirect is a reasonable alternative to deletion for a verifiable, if uncommon, notation. This follows common practice in our math articles, where if an uncommon notation shows up in multiple RS, especially in textbooks, it is considered to have enough impact to be worth briefly documenting. -- 19:55, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep Niche application is not the same thing as non-notability. This is somewhat archaic, as we don't design passive filter networks as much as pre-war (read Blumlein's work), but where such networks are being described, there is a significant saving of verbosity by using it and so the operator's use was popular. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:16, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep Per Andy Dingley; I'd also note it is sometimes while coming across older offline resources that the definition of the like of this can be useful even if it doesn't get used much nowadays. Djm-leighpark (talk) 08:49, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Redirect per Mark viking. It's a thing, it's worth mentioning, but it doesn't seem to be worth an article of its own. The target section both clarifies use and derivation, and places the reader in the midst of coverage of the application. All sorted. -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 19:04, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Nosebagbear (talk) 18:00, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Note that ∥ currently redirects to an unrelated thing. Both ∥ and Parallel (operator) should redirect to Parallel (symbol) explaining that the character U+2225 is used not only for parallel flats in geometry, but for some obscure arithmetic shorthand as well. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 07:48, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Redirect to a redlink? That doesn't seem particularly useful.  Nor would it be to redirect to an article on the glyph alone, rather than its meaning as an operator. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:23, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Parallel_(operator) should redirect to Parallel_(symbol), not “one has to overwrite the current revision of Parallel_(operator) with ”. How to make Parallel_(symbol) into existence? Hopefully en.Wikipedia has enough people capable to make some not-very-trivial inference. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 11:49, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   07:29, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Engineering-related deletion discussions. IntoThinAir (talk) 11:33, 6 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep. This notation is widely used in electrical engineering, and thus quite notable. Can be found in many EE books. I see ways how to expand this stub into a full blown article. I for one would be interested to learn something about its historical background. There are also RPN scientific calculators implementing it as an actual operator on the keyboard (very handy!) - including the WP-34S and some further derivatives.
 * The operator is also used in computer sciences (process algebra) where it is known as "merge" operator (German: "Paralleloperator").
 * --Matthiaspaul (talk) 14:24, 9 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment. I have now added various bits, links and refs to the article to make it worth an article of its own. To me this looks enough to let it pass WP:GNG, but, of course, more sources and contents are always welcome. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 16:50, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep. As Matthiaspaul mentioned, it is widely used in Electronics engineering. It is taught in undergraduate courses for MIT and University of Utah, and used in datasheets for current electrical products . Regarding the usefulness of this page vs. a redirect to Series_and_parallel_circuits, I think the redirect might be acceptable, but the parallel operator page contains a lot of useful mathematical information that would be inappropriate for the Series_and_parallel_circuits page. For instance the associativity and commutativity of the operator. And finally the parallel operator section on the Series_and_parallel_circuits may be incorrect regarding the use of the operator, and will need clarification or correction.Russetrob (talk) 20:05, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment With the additions by Matthiaspaul and the other sources mentioned by others, and in the interest of consensus, I think it is now reasonable to keep the article as an alternative to my redirect recommendation above. Thank you all for the education on this operator. -- 21:32, 13 July 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.