Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Philosophy of probability


 * 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, possibly merge pending discussion. Despite the numbers !voting delete, I don't think I've ignored consensus closing this AfD the way I have. Around the 5th/6th November the original research essay was removed, and replaced with the beginnings of an encyclopedic article. Many of the earlier !votes were based on the OR essay which no longer exists. There appears to be agreement that this is a subject worthy of an entry in an encyclopedia, and the article may need to be reduced to a stub and built up again with the content from Philosophy of probability/temp, or merged into Philosophy of mathematics or elsewhere. But that's a discussion best left to the article's talk page. -- Steel 01:12, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Philosophy of probability
Essay / original research. I am prepared to accept the claim on the talk page that this is not a copyvio. Also would need a lot of work simply removing the HTML markup. -- RHaworth 12:25, 2 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete Wikipedia is not a free web host, this IS original research. --SunStar Net 12:26, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete per above. MER-C 12:40, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete per above. --Fang Aili talk 14:12, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
 * How could you say so firmly that is original research? Could you say what research is about? What is its subject? And what are the obtained theoretical results? It is in fact just an expanded definition of "philosophy of probability". The philosophical concepts can not be presented just like the mathematical ones - simply stated and in a standard manner. Any definition or presentation would look like an essay. I could give you all the bibliography for finding all ideas of the article in works of classics. It is nothing original there. --infarom
 * Oh wow. Delete. Danny Lilithborne 20:34, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete but userfy at User:Infarom for the time being. I think that an article on the philosophy of probability (the meaning of statements cast in terms of probabilities, the epistemology of probability) is a valid subject.  This reads too much like an essay for main encyclopedia space for the time being, but the author says that he has a bibliography he's prepared to add.  I'd let him work on it a while longer and try again once he's done a bit more with it. - Smerdis of Tlön 17:08, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I have started a very brief proposal for a text to replace this one at Philosophy of probability/temp. I would happily invite Infarom and any others to continue to work on this.  Not really my field, so others' contributions are most welcome. - Smerdis of Tlön 15:40, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

infarom Guys, I made a brief from the article in question, I tried to put it in encyclopedic style. What else?
 * Delete per WP:NOR. This would appear to be original research per the author's own contention that the single source for this is his/her own website.  A userfy would be fine (if the author creates a Wikipedia user) and would perhaps allow them to get some outside help in creating an article instead on an essay, complete with external reliable sources.--Isotope23 17:12, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete per above. -- Kf4bdy talk contribs 23:59, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep for now and give the author a chance to improve the arcticle from an essay into an encyclopedic article. No need to be trigger happy since it does indeed appear that there is not a copyright violation at issue here.  Give him a couple of weeks and then review whether it merits deletion. —Doug Bell talk•contrib 01:13, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Userfy Absolutely legitimate topic for an article, says someone who got a B.S. in Mathematics from a reasonably well known science/engineering school with eight courses in prob/stat plus did their humanities concentration in philosophy. There are multiple philosophies of proability that generate different understandings of probability.  But this isn't the article we need right now; too many bullet points, too little prose.  Userfying seems like the right thing to do.  GRBerry 02:14, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
 * The only issue I have with userfying the article is that it makes it harder for it's development to be collaborative. Since the issue doesn't seem to be with the merits of having an article on this topic, why not leave it in article space while it is improved?  Certainly, there are worse articles in article space on less useful topics than this...why the rush to move it out? —Doug Bell talk•contrib 02:27, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete per OR. Arbusto 08:21, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Try to set out the basic different philosophies. Start either with the oldest (Classical definition of probability) or with the one usually encountered first, which I think is now Frequency Probability, then discuss the others (like Bayesian probability) in some logical fashion.  Wikilink generously, to build the web, and make use of existing content.  GRBerry 04:24, 6 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Keep with modifications --- such as, adding Bayes, and others, plus tie better into the more non-mainstream elements on the Philo of Math discussions. As an aside, 'encyclopedia' is to be both broad and deep (that is comprehensive and complete). Now, as one who regularly uses 'wiki' as a pedagogical tool (yes, even for my own periods of pursuing edification), I cringe when I think that some want to limit what threads unravel within this environment. Some of the pages on 'wiki' are priceless in terms of collecting, aggregating, and presenting information - then, providing a launch point for further study. Now, this article is apropos to several items addressed on the Philo of Math page, such as this one and this, too. jmswtlk 15:13, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Move/Merge - perhaps the content ought to be put into this page (Probability_theory) or be the method to expand upon that topic. jmswtlk 18:09, 7 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete - Original research, as above. Rray 18:51, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Request for math skills editors... or whatever. The user who created the article has created or edited several similar articles (like Probability-based strategy and Mathematics of gambling ), adding links to his own website. This site may be brilliant in its math, or not, but I wouldn't know.  So perhaps someone technically skilled could look at other edits.  Additions are original research and should get a delete as such, or perhaps a total stubbing of this article as it seems to merit an article, just not this one. 2005 20:28, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete agree with 2005, topic deserves an article, but this qualifies as OR and ought to be deleted. I have no problem with author rewriting new encyclopedic article on topic using reliable sources etc, in the future. Pete.Hurd 05:48, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Userfy. Needs more work, but there may be references somewhere for the presently original research.  &mdash; Arthur Rubin |  (talk) 06:44, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
 * The 'deletes' and 'userfys' are growing. I haven't seen anything about what 'userfy' means or how this might be done. However, I do see that GRBerry has a link to a recent essay that seems pertinent. Is the stub and develop method now not in vogue? I thought that one great characteristic of the 'wiki' way was collaboration and its potential. Will that benefit carry over to the 'userfy' mode? jmswtlk 14:48, 7 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment This page was created by a new user, User:Infarom, and then listed for deletion a scant five hours later.  Infarom has responded to this AfD reasonably and has worked since its listing to accomodate the issues that have been raised.  There seems to be general agreement that the subject of the page is a valid topic, so what is at issue then is the current content.  I don't see any attempt to push a point here even if the initial creation contained original research by Infarom.  Neither deletion nor userfying seems to me to be warranted—this can all be handled by the normal article development process.  It would be a better use of people's time here to put the effort into improving the article instead of debating whether to delete it.  Let's not bite the newcomer and give him and others a chance to work this into an article. —Doug Bell talk•contrib 21:27, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Vote summary
I've not participated before in a deletion process, however I have experienced the 'deletion' event. Is it a simple majority vote? If we take 'userfy' as stronger than delete and allow that comment content overrides a 'delete' vote (meaning, the vote is dependent upon changes being made to the page), then the count (at the time of the time-stamp of this comment) is 7 deletes and 6 nots. Who mediates the controversy? This suggestion (Philosophy of probability/temp) by Smerdis of Tlön would be a very good starting article. jmswtlk 16:06, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
 * There are a bunch of administrators who close AFD discussions. Sometimes they get closed early, if the article is shown to meet a criteria for speedy deletion or a criteria for speedy keeping, or the outcome just becomes totally obvious.
 * AFD is not a vote, although it sometimes gets treated as one. AFD is meant to be a discussion to measure consensus as to whether an article adheres to our policies and guidelines, or could be cleaned up to do so, or if instead it is unsalvagable and needs to be deleted.  If everything was running on time, the clear closes would happen on the sixth day after the AFD discussion began, so November 8 in this case.  AFD closure is a process that is normally backlogged, and it isn't unusual for the discussion to run a few days extra.  This article is definitely evolving to be better.
 * Both the temp page and the current draft of the article have their points; they ought to be combined. I'd now say that this is far from being original research.  It does need further work, but so does almost every article here.  GRBerry 19:51, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Note to administrators - The /temp page could be altered with content from the main page and be of value. Comments related to 'original research' may have applied to the initial contents; they cannot apply to the concept or its importance. Adding to my remark from above, I've noticed that 'wiki' now doesn't seem to allow time for evolution. No page, that I know of, manifested itself with 1 edit for which there was never a change. I can see jumping on vandalism. Why jump on someone proposing a topic even if the approach seems self-serving initially? By the way, when something is deleted, are the contents gone or are they still accessible in some log? jmswtlk 21:07, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Administrators can review deleted articles and/or undelete them. Regular users can't, except by making a request, the central spot for which is at  deletion review.  (Minor caveat; a few super admins can remove specific edits from the deleted history; it it is intended for use to eliminate visibility of private information such as home phone numbers, etc...  In this special case even admins can't see the deleted history.)  GRBerry 20:51, 7 November 2006 (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.