Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Water retention on mathematical surfaces


 * 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. Article appears to have been improved since nomination and meets notability guidelines. Some discussion on merging has taken place but a merge discussion can take place on the article's talk page. v/r - TP 15:06, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Water retention on mathematical surfaces

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Contested PROD. The topic is one problem from a programming contest. The contest itself seems non-notable (the website is down so difficult to be sure), and one problem certainly is. No reliable sources, just unreviewed papers and unreliable web sites. COI issues the page by a contest participant and an author of one of the sources. JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 05:48, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Author replies: The article was posted in a very preliminary state - much is being added to it, but to gain input from colleagues interested in it, I am posting it as I go. Evidently Al Zimmerman's webpage went down and he has not time to get it back up. But in the computational community, it is considered to be one of the top programming competitions, and is discussed in numerous places on the web, a few of which are cited here. Of course, magic squares are among the most studied objects in the area of recreational mathematics, and there is a Wikipedia page devoted to that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rziff (talk • contribs) 06:02, 12 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete - the article essentially rests on a single source, a competition, with two primary sources of mathematical research on water retention models (not on magic squares). This is a typical pattern of sourcing for Original Research (WP:OR). There is interest here for a mathematical column in New Scientist or Scientific American, perhaps, but not for Wikipedia, at least not until the topic is reviewed in "reliable, independent" secondary sources. Fails Notability. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:33, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete per Chiswick Chap. --Legis (talk - contribs) 09:18, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 14:08, 12 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. This doesn't seem like a non-notable problem, but more sources should be cited. Michael Hardy (talk) 04:19, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment - The question is certainly interesting and it would be a pity to lose it on a strict construction of notability. Something needs to be done about the title, though; I've never heard of water pooling on an abstract object before. --Trovatore (talk) 04:24, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete - Water retention on magic squares is one among millions of combinatorial problems which may be considered. In this case, it seems that the provided solutions involve only brute force and, may be, clever programming. Thus there is nothing to put this problem among the notable problems. On the other hand, water retention on random surfaces is a part or an extension of Percolation theory. As water retention theory seems not well established (no true application, not really a new theory), it deserves, at most, a mention of a few lines in Percolation theory and a redirect to this mention. — Preceding unsigned comment added by D.Lazard (talk • contribs)
 * Weak Delete:The magic square problem is basically an exercise in computer programming and this is reflected in the nature of the sources given. The material on random surfaces may have a bit more traction though. Mandelbrot talks about the boundaries of watersheds (very briefly) in his book and there seems to be sporadic research interest in the subject since then; the Fehr article is an example of this. I don't think Arxiv.org should be regarded as reliable, not only is the material unreviewed but it seems to be a haven for amateurs wanting to self-publish. That leaves the Tetzlaff paper but it only seems to be used to support a more or less self-evident statement on the nature of hydrology, so it may be a reliable source but it I don't see how it supports notability of the subject. When all the unreliable and unencyclopedic material is removed there is only a sentence or two of material from a primary source remaining, not enough to justify an article. I'd suggest, if there is someone with some expertise in area, creation of a 'Mathematical modelling' section in the Drainage basin article as an alternative.--RDBury (talk) 13:06, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Merge to Watershed (image processing). —David Eppstein (talk) 17:06, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
 * ??? Relationship?  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 09:13, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Huh? They're both about the same problem, computing watersheds on discretized elevation data. In the case of the present article the elevation data is synthetic but so what? —David Eppstein (talk) 17:06, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep, seems to meet notability guidelines. The article isn't in great shape but it's new; give it some time to develop. This isn't the first time I've seen these problems. CRGreathouse (t | c) 20:50, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep (for now at least). I agree with Michael Hardy, Trovatore, and CRGreathouse.  This problem is notable (although more work is needed on both sourcing and writing).  Some kind of merge with the article Watershed (image processing) seems possible, but that would require generalizing the subject of that article I think.   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 11:52, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Note about sourcing -- Ref. 12 has been accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters, so that should address the notability questions. Rziff (talk) 19:04, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Maybe merge per David Eppstein. Both deal only with discrete surfaces.  There should be results on smooth surfaces.  Maybe the article title should reflect the fact that this is only about the discrete case. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:33, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, the article as it stands concerns a discrete surface, though the heights can be continuous. However, the basic water retention question can be asked for a continuous surface as well.  I will clarity that in the article.    Rziff (talk) 19:04, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Merge. The article has been improved since it was nominated, and there seem to be enough sources to establish notability.  But it seems to be substantially the same subject as Watershed (image processing). Jowa fan (talk) 01:40, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
 * There are some relations to the Watershed (image processing) page but I don't think results on magic squares, percolation, watershed fractals, etc. would fit in there. I have added a link to that page, as the algorithm that is used is similar to one that is discussed there.  I (and perhaps others) are planning to make this page substantially longer which would also argue against merging.   Rziff (talk) 19:04, 16 December 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.