Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Equidistribution of Lattice Shapes of Rings of Integers of Cubic, Quartic, and Quintic Number Fields


 * 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 no consensus. There were some good policy-oriented contributions to this discussion, on both sides, and some average ones, again on both sides. There is no agreement around how independent & significant the coverage is. Thus, no consensus. Daniel (talk) 21:50, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

The Equidistribution of Lattice Shapes of Rings of Integers of Cubic, Quartic, and Quintic Number Fields

 * – ( View AfD View log )

I am creating this AfD on behalf of an IP editor who requested it at Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion; I have not yet formulated an opinion on the case myself. The IP's rationale is: "Fails WP:NB, next to no relevant coverage. Page was made in place of the recently deleted Piper Harron article.195.50.217.92 (talk) 21:22, 24 June 2021 (UTC)" The recent AFD discussed in the rationale is Articles for deletion/Piper Harron. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:50, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:53, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 19:59, 29 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Clearly the notability of the book is entangled with that of the author, for whom the article was recently deleted through the appropriate process. I would restore that previously deleted article to draft, merge this article into it (and delete from mainspace), and let it gestate there in case additional coverage can be found or develops. BD2412  T 20:12, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Notability of any work will be entangled with notability of the creator of the work. Nevertheless, there are notable books by non-notable authors and non-notable books by notable authors.  Your suggestion doesn't seem to relate to the particular case of this book at all. --JBL (talk) 02:26, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Question Is anyone able to tell how much detail Phillips and Kara (2021) has about it? The Google Books preview I'm getting is not so helpful. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 20:13, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I have access. Phillips and Kara write about her doctoral dissertation, but not the book. They are fundamentally different publications, and so it really can't be considered significant coverage of the book.4meter4 (talk) 20:23, 29 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete. Fails WP:NBOOK and WP:SIGCOV. The publications by Anastasia Kamanos, Julia Molinari and Evelyn Lamb are about her doctoral thesis and not the book. They are fundamentally different publications, and notability is not inherited. The Philip Ording publication is a one sentence name drop and has mo mention of the book. The article by Amber Dance also makes no mention of the book. The Springer Nature Switzerland source is the publisher and seller of the book and is not an independent source. The two journal articles by Piper Harron  and the University of Toronto bio by Piper Harron are also not independent as she is the author of the book. The only significant source is the review from MAA Focus. On its own, it is not enough to meet the multiple reviews requirement of criteria one of NBOOK, and none of the sources provide any substantiation for any of the four other criteria at NBOOK. Likewise 1 quality source is not enough to meet WP:GNG.4meter4 (talk) 20:21, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * The book and the thesis are essentially indivisible. According to the review published in MAA Focus "The wise people of Birkhäuser ... will be publishing Piper's thesis, in its entirety, as one of their volumes." That is, the book is the thesis and the thesis is the book. pburka (talk) 20:26, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I disagree, because the best reviews of the work as a dissertation are in context to creative writing in dissertation format as opposed to being a text for mathematics. There are key differences in publishing format which matter in the way the text is being discussed. I am not convinced that blurring the lines between essentially two different publications is appropriate.4meter4 (talk) 20:48, 29 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep Meets WP:BOOKCRIT; introducing a distinction between the book and the dissertation is splitting a hair that none of our sources split, and which would be at odds with how mathematical publishing works in general. Publishing a thesis as a book produces a book-version-of-the-thesis, not a wholly separate entity. At most, the distinction is between two editions of the same text, and nothing in our guidelines for wiki-notability of books indicate that all the sources have to pertain to the same edition. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 20:29, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I fundamentally disagree with that assessment of academic publishing, as I actually have personal experience in that area. For one, dissertations go through a local faculty panel process of review, where the panel usually knows the author personally. Books are put through a much more thorough and professional degree of editorial oversight and scrutiny where reviewers are completely independent of the author. Further, typically dissertations get transformed to some extent when they move into book form;; either through additions of new material or whittling down of extraneous material more appropriate for a dissertation than a book. Rarely, do dissertations get published as they are. Ultimately, it's too far of a leap to claim transference of coverage of the dissertation to coverage of the book. Lastly, the best review of the dissertation is specifically using it as a way to advocate for more creative writing in future doctoral dissertation writing. A clear distinction is being made here in publishing format in the cited sources.4meter4 (talk) 20:35, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Editions can be "transformed" by the addition and/or removal of material, too. In the absence of sources drawing a distinction, we shouldn't do so either. Indeed, the best source we've got (MAA Focus) tells us to identify the two. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 00:34, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Again, I disagree. I fundamentally think taking sources reviewing the dissertation in the context of its impact on doctoral dissertation writing, and merging it with another source reviewing the later book as a mathematics book is veering too closely into WP:Original synthesis. This wouldn't be such a problem if we had just one more quality source on the book itself.4meter4 (talk) 00:53, 30 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep. It is clear that the thesis meets WP:BKCRIT(1), with in-depth discussion in several RS independent of the author.  The argument that a PhD thesis and a book that share the same author and the same title, and that are described as a single work in reviews of the book, are completely different works from the point of view of notability is just silly.  (4meter4, it is not necessary for you to repeat your argument in response to this comment, the closing administrator will be happy to only read it thrice.) --JBL (talk) 02:22, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I won’t. But you didn’t need to be a jerk either. 4meter4 (talk) 02:30, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Fair enough; I have struck it. --JBL (talk) 02:32, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Struck mine as well. Let’s keep it civil.4meter4 (talk) 02:35, 30 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Weak keep. I believe the WP:BOOKCRIT argument.  Slightly weak due to WP:PROMO and WP:NPOV concerns, combined with slightly marginal review sourcing.  (Note that the Ording source is not a review, and I don't think it belongs in the article; the Lamb and Salerno sources certainly are reviews sufficient for WP:BOOKCRIT; the Molinari and Kamanos sources, while not per se reviews, I do find to contribute to notability.) Russ Woodroofe (talk) 09:52, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete. For anybody who wonders whether the author is a legitimate scholar of any kind: Her CV.195.50.217.92 (talk) 13:15, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * (1) You're the nominator, you don't also vote. (2) "Let me show off what an asshole I am" is not a valid deletion rationale on WP. --JBL (talk) 13:17, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Until further notice, I think that both of your rebukes are baseless. Also, ironic, given that this is the second time you've picked a fight on this page. 195.50.217.92 (talk) 01:18, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * A CV page with a trace of personality may be unusual, but it's not a crime. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 20:49, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
 * ...and indeed, as the current discussion regards the book, the CV of the author is not particularly relevant. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 10:36, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Gosh, you guys, isn't that what I said? ;-p. --JBL (talk) 11:09, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
 * No, that is not what you said. 195.50.217.92 (talk) 12:30, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Let's all try to stay on topic here. 195, if you have questions about notability criteria, please feel free to ask me on my talk page; you could also try the tea house.  (Meanwhile, WP:AADD and WP:GOODARG both have good advice.)  JayBeeEll, there might've been a more constructive way to phrase your intended message. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 12:55, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete Books are clearly different than dissertations. If we do not have enough about the book itself to show that the article is notable, we should not have the article.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:27, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep Unusually, it seems like the dissertation version meets NBOOK even though the book version may not. (Not able atm to search thoroughly for a second book review). It strikes me as extremely rare for a dissertation to even be read by anybody beyond the supervisory committee, so having any published sources about it is impressive; the range of coverage is also enough for notability. Why not write the article about the notable diss and then mention it was also published as a book? ~ L 🌸  (talk) 09:35, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Just throwing my two cents in - my personal recommendation here would be to create a page about the author, Piper Harron, and then have a section devoted to the thesis and book. This way it covers a wider span of information. Just based on a very short glimpse of the sourcing it looks like they're discussing her as much as her work itself. Part of this is also because I don't really like having an "about the author" section in an article, as it just feels too much like a publisher page. ReaderofthePack (formerly Tokyogirl79)  (｡◕‿◕｡)  18:39, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * That would also help to give a landing page to other work she puts out, as many academics will put out work that would warrant a mention on their article (if they have one) but might not justify its own article. ReaderofthePack (formerly Tokyogirl79)  (｡◕‿◕｡)  18:40, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see that the page for her was deleted. I still think that if this is notable, then it would be best to have an author page than a page about the single work (so to speak). ReaderofthePack (formerly Tokyogirl79)  (｡◕‿◕｡)  18:45, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * We just had an AfD determining that the author is not notable but that her dissertation might be: Articles for deletion/Piper Harron. This article was created as a response to that outcome. So I think changing back to having an article about the author is a non-option. Having a page about someone who has a single notable work usually falls under WP:BIO1E. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:46, 1 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep, the sourcing here is clearly enough to pass the GNG. I wouldn't go as far as ReaderofthePack but the current "About the author" section is too short and misplaced, it should be near the top (e.g. "Context") and give a bit more detail from some of the sources. Clearly if that material is in the deleted bio article then a merge from the recovered article would be sensible. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:30, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep I reviewed this article for DYK and one of the questions I asked myself was whether it’s about a book, a thesis, or both. In the end, I concluded that it’s both and when you look at it that way, sourcing is adequate.  Schwede 66  19:33, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep: it seems very pedantic/anti-common sense to me that we would consider coverage of the dissertation and book to be unrelated. With the two together, GNG is met; that this level of coverage for a PhD is unusual makes it more notable, not less. It looks like Articles for deletion/Piper Harron had the right outcome, but we're assessing some different sources with a different lens here. (I've not had much number theory education, but Harron has certainly captured what the inside of a mathematician's head looks like better than anything I've ever seen.) — Bilorv ( talk ) 20:01, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep. I participated in the previous deletion discussion where it was determined that the author failed WP:NPROF. That's where I first heard of Harron, and I created the current page as I believe that her thesis (which was also published as a book) is notable as it has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works (as demonstrated in the article). As noted above, no sources distinguish between the contents of the thesis and the book, and even if they did the thesis would be notable on its own. I intentionally kept the "About the author" section minimal, as I did not want it to appear that I was trying to recreate the deleted biography, but if there is a consensus to expand that section I wouldn't object. That this page, too, would be nominated for deletion came as no surprise—Harron's message clearly upsets some people—and grumbles about the "legitimacy" of her scholarship are, frankly, amusing, since she herself writes that she "doesn't do math the 'right way'". pburka (talk) 23:58, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep. Normally, a textbook is not notable, but this seems to be the exception. Bearian (talk) 00:26, 8 July 2021 (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.