Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sparse representation of a number


 * 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.  Sandstein  19:39, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Sparse representation of a number

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Original research. Largely unsourced and searching turns up nothing. The sources seem to be on another system, e.g. the one described at skew binary number system, and are only associated with one section; the main body of the article is unsourced. See also the talk page for a discussion after it was Proded and de-Proded. JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 18:18, 8 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 00:08, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 00:08, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete The first example given in the article is basically run length encoding for the digits of a binary number. RLE for binary strings is well known and has been used in some compression schemes. While figuring out arithmetic algorithms for the RLE representation is an interesting academic exercise, I was unable to find sources (other than the section of the paper discussed above) discussing this representation either as a sparse number or as a run length encoded number. It leads me to believe that the article, while well-intentioned, is original research. Without multiple in-depth reliable sources per WP:RS, this topic fails notability thresholds as described in WP:GNG. Given the mention in the paper above, this could be selectively merged into Skew binary number system, but just a single section of a single primary paper is a thin foundation for a merge. Deletion, until multiple sources become available that discuss this number system, may be the best course. --Mark viking (talk) 00:26, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete. Sparse representations of bitvectors are definitely important, and there has even been some interesting research on algorithmic problems of arithmetic with sparse binary numbers (those with few 1's in their binary representation; see Plaisted, "New NP-hard and NP-complete polynomial and integer divisibility problems", FOCS 1977). That said, this article doesn't touch on any of that, its references are useless for establishing notability of this topic (they're on something peripheral to it), and to the extent that what it says is non-obvious it appears to be original research. So, per WP:TNT, if this were to be turned into a usable article it would need to be completely rewritten, and there's no point in keeping the present version while we wait for that to happen. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:49, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Indeed, since it is an unrelated subject. The only common things between both of those topics is that the adjective sparse appear in them and they are used for data structure Arthur MILCHIOR (talk) 06:40, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not going to vote. I think I can find more sources, but not after the end of the summer holiday, when I'll be back in my university. Since it's going to take at least a month, and that I understand very-well that there is no easy way right now to assess notability, I understand that it will be deleted. But, no original research, even if I clearly see that there is no way to distinguish OR from non-OR without sources. Even if it is not merged to Skew binary number system, if (when) this page is deleted, the Skew page will need to be edited in order to explain how sparseness can be used on numbers presetend in a Skew binary system. Arthur MILCHIOR (talk) 06:40, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  MBisanz  talk 00:30, 16 August 2016 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, — UY Scuti Talk  19:03, 23 August 2016 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: Final relist. Seeing as sources may be forthcoming in the future, might as well do this. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 07:43, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 07:43, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Well... there's two refs. The one I can read uses "Sparse representation" and describes it and its benefits (some). So it's not like the article creator just made this up. On the other hand, that's about all Google can find... JSTOR finds nothing... "Sparse representation" by itself mainly refers to other things, such as signal processing and stuff. As far as I can tell the authors of that one paper made up the term and its description. My guess is that they didn't, so keep the article is my gut feeling. Math is hard. I tagged it as being poorly referenced. Herostratus (talk) 18:55, 31 August 2016 (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.