Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Semiotics of the structure


 * 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. Ron Ritzman (talk) 01:12, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Semiotics of the structure

 * – ( View AfD View log )

The article is pure WP:OR. Very few of the references seem to be actually available anywhere. (It seems likely that they are self-published.) The rest of the references do not directly address the subject of the article. A Google scholar search for the exact phrase "Semiotics of the structure" turns up nothing relevant. Sławomir Biały (talk) 13:56, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete. The combination of references -- which on first sight appear to be either about mathematics or about semiotics, but not about "semiotics of the structure", what ever that is -- looks very suspicious. The entire article doesn't make any sense to me and reads like pseudoscience. Exactly in the same way as Transgressing the Boundaries or most 'legitimate' (and presumably some legitimate) semiotics work also read like pseudoscience to me. The article, or at least parts of it, appear copied from this source. I can see no indication that anyone other than the author is interested in this stuff. Most likely it's not even wrong. Even if this were a notable topic (under a different name), the article would still be a case of WP:JUNK and of at most dubious copyright status. Hans Adler 14:27, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete: I tried to find some evidence of notability for this last summer but nothing came up. The article engages in a lot of definition by example, i.e. mentioning some mathematical fact and then claiming that "semiotics of the structure" will reveal some profound hidden meaning behind it. Then somehow the reader is supposed to infer the importance of the idea without knowing what it actually is. A clear indicator of pseudoscience is when something described as having great generality and importance but somehow no one has heard of it; I see no evidence that this ia an exception.--RDBury (talk) 15:31, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Ask philosophers/linguists for input. This is not really material that can be reviewed by mathematicians.  Thus, mathscinet has no books by Anderson on semiotics at all.  Meanwhile, the book "A semiotic perspective on the sciences: Steps toward a new paradigm. M Anderson, J Deely, M Krampen, J Ransdell… - 1984" seems to have a respectable response at google scholar.  Tkuvho (talk) 16:29, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
 * From the very beginning of the debate, this has been cross-listed at WikiProject Deletion sorting/Philosophy.  Sławomir Biały  (talk) 20:17, 20 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Harary's Graph Theory, also cited in the article, is clearly legitimate and just as clearly irrelevant to the article. I suspect it's the same with the legitimate philosophy or semiotics works. You may have missed that the article is just a version of this unpublished stuff, whose author is a co-author  of Ashay Dharwadker, on whom see his separate AfD. The two of them appear to have joined forces, making each other members of their respective self-founded 'research' institiutes in Indian and Estonia, respectively. I really don't think we need philosophers or semiotists here. (Let alone serious linguists, who are very similar to mathematicians in approach and have nothing to do with postmodernism.) Hans Adler 16:45, 20 November 2011 (UTC) PS: From the abstract of their joint, self-published work: "We present a new polynomial-time algorithm for determining whether two given graphs are isomorphic or not. We prove that the algorithm is necessary and sufficient for solving the Graph Isomorphism Problem in polynomial-time, thus showing that the Graph Isomorphism Problem is in P. The semiotic theory for the recognition of graph structure is used to define a canonical form of the sign matrix of a graph." Let the two return when their sensational mathematical results proved by means of semiotics have gone through peer review. Hans Adler 16:49, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The page, if it is to survive, clearly needs to be pruned of WP:OR and unpublished stuff. I agree with your analysis almost entirely, but have the following question.  Where in wiki is M. Anderson's apparently legitimate work on semiotics covered?  If it is not, perhaps this page can evolve in the direction of covering legitimate work on semiotics rather than the OR you mentioned. Tkuvho (talk) 16:58, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Turning a fringe article into an article about a legitimate topic is asking for trouble. It's an introduction to the fringer(s) to disrupt that article. Maybe it's worth trying instead of an AfD, but once we have an AfD we need a clear result that can't be used for gaming of the type: "The original article on the topic was at AfD and was kept. Some rogues hijacked it for a different topic, so it's legitimate to recreate it. Notability was already established at AfD." Hans Adler 17:04, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete as per Hans Adler's critique. Tkuvho (talk) 17:06, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete - google returns exactly 15 results, nearly all irrelevant; 1 by Tevet, 1 a wiki. Article seems entirely WP:OR and very close to pure bafflegab, WP:NONSENSE. Since it has few or no reliable independent citations (Anderson, M., Merrell, F., 1991. On Semiotic Modeling. is real but doesn't support the article's theory), delete seems unavoidable. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:07, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
 * This article appears to have been badly translated from Estonian, so I checked the Estonian search string ("Struktuurisemiootika") as well. Doesn't help: this still looks like a big steaming pile of WP:SYN to me.— S Marshall  T/C 17:14, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete. I haven't completely analyzed the available sources, but Chiswick Chap seems to have the right of it.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 17:23, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete. The phrase "semiotics of the structure" has no significant appearance in the academic literature and the article uses sources dishonestly to make this topic appear much more significant than it is. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:38, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete as OR by WP:SYNTH. None of the checkable references support the statements in the article (for example, Harary does not say "The system theoretical concept of position coincides with the concept of orbit in graph theory"; similarly category theory, which I have some knowledge of, is not relevant to the article). The handful of GB and GS mentions of the term refer only to semiotics of the structure of a building. The article seems to rely heavily on papers by Tevet which (in spite of the citation) are not online and appear to be unrefereed technical reports not cited by anybody. Furthermore, either Tevet is the author of this article (WP:COI) or it copies verbatim from his website as noted by Hans Adler (WP:COPYVIO). Nothing here seems to be worth salvaging. -- 202.124.73.78 (talk) 09:51, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
 * COPYVIO (I already voted Delete by the way) - yes, large parts of article are copied from Graphs so we could simply have done a Speedy Delete on this. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:38, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I suggest we keep that argument out of the discussion as it doesn't make a difference. The outcome should be a clear "delete because it's not notable", with no chance to misunderstand it as "delete because it's a copyvio, no prejudice against recreation". Or, given that the person who posted it here is almost certainly identical with the author, he might feel encouraged to officially release the material under an appropriate licence, under the misconception that this can save the article. Hans Adler 11:09, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. It looks as if we already have enough Delete votes on that basis (including mine). Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:12, 21 November 2011 (UTC)


 * suggestion: It would be helpful if a closing administrator could specifically mention that this AfD is not meant as a vote of no confidence in the work of M. Anderson and others in semiotics, which may merit its own page, being notable. But this particular version of such a page is not a step in the right direction.  Tkuvho (talk) 13:24, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
 * This is a bad suggestion. Semiotics is a notable subject, and no reasonable person would question that.  But why should this article get special treatment?  It's like arguing that the closing admin to a deletion debate of mathematics of Boubaker polynomials (recalling the infamous history of Boubaker polynomials) should mention that there is no prejudice to adding content to mathematics and polynomials.  It just invites more original research from doggedly persistent single-purpose editors.  See Hans' remark above: what we need is a clear "delete" here.   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 13:59, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
 * But Semiotics is already covered by an article, and there could be articles on other semiotics topics where these are justified by reliable, independent evidence. The issue here is that evidence from sources not connected to the one institute is currently lacking. This is the same treatment afforded to every Wikipedia article, there is nothing special here. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:06, 21 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions.  — Frankie (talk) 19:31, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions.  — Frankie (talk) 19:31, 21 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete. Reads like babble. No reliable sources. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:09, 22 November 2011 (UTC).
 * Keep. For God's sake people, Wikipedia obviously needs more daring and innovative content like this — White Gay Man (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * I'm all for daring and innovation, but Wikipedia demands reliable, independent sources, and we can't find them for this article. Speaking of independent, do you have a Conflict of Interest to declare here? Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:35, 22 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete: Originally I thought this should be a delete under WP:NONSENSE, but now I see that I was incorrect and it should be deleted under WP:HOAX instead. CRGreathouse (t | c) 18:52, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I think I see what you mean. It looks as if our Indian friend simply invented his Estonian colleague: "John-Tagore Tevet" doesn't sound exactly plausible, the guy is unknown in Mathematical Reviews and Zentralblatt, there is precisely one image on the net and it's a painting that doesn't really fit the name. The person who registered the domain graph.ee actually has a different first name but the same last name, and also maintains information about an Australian family with a noble sounding name on a genealogy website. Hans Adler 19:12, 22 November 2011 (UTC) Oh, and a real professor of Indian and South Asian literature at a genuine US university, who happens to share our Indian hero's last name, supposedly co-authored a physics paper with him ("Space, Time and Matter"). It does appear that he simply makes up his coauthors. Hans Adler 19:22, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't deny that the person exists (though I don't promise it, either). But the article does not appear to correspond with anything in reality or in (legitimate) scholarly research. CRGreathouse (t | c) 21:21, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete as nonsense masquerading as sense. Cusop Dingle (talk) 20:35, 24 November 2011 (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.