Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Witold Milewski (mathematician)


 * 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. -- Cirt (talk) 19:53, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Witold Milewski (mathematician)

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Unsourced and Google Books returns only trivial mentions stemming from being a school director. The Polish Wikipedia has more detailed version but the source seems to be from a privately published, non-independent source. Delete per notability criteria. RDBury (talk) 10:24, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Poland-related deletion discussions.  -- -- Lear's Fool (talk | contribs) 10:35, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  -- -- Lear's Fool (talk | contribs) 10:36, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
 * weak Keep director of a gymnasium. I think that this might be closer to college president than the current US high scvhool principal.    DGG ( talk ) 22:20, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
 * There is no position such as college president in India or China etc. It is principal. --ouieak (talk) 22:06, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
 * my meaning was, equivalent to the position of President of a US college, which is accepted as meeting WP:PROF.  DGG ( talk ) 21:00, 2 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Weak delete. Gymnasium is indeed equivalent to high school. Even afer reading the article in Polish Wikipedia, I still don't find the subject notable enough. — Kpalion(talk) 01:51, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
 *  Weak Strong keep. Changed weak to strong 17:20, 2 April 2010 (UTC) based on the entry in the Polski Słownik Biograficzny found below. The majority of these 87 Google Books search results appear to be about this Witold Milewski, but I can't tell from the snippets displayed whether any individually have significant coverage, but given the fifty-or-so books that mention him there should be enough coverage overall to warrant an article (and, yes, I do understand Polish and German). I would add that a Gymnazium/Gymnasium (high school) in Prussian-administered Poland in the mid-nineteenth century would be at least as important, in terms of the small percentage of the population that would have received that level of education, as a college in the present-day United States. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:09, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Have we used such ouputs shown above for others? or does such output contribute to our voting here? Thansk. --ouieak (talk) 19:49, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Raw Google hits make an unconvincing argument imo. Google books frequently has duplicate entries for the same book, or they could be different people with the same name, or it could just be a list of Gymnasium directors that got copied into a bunch of places. It would be more convincing to produce one reference that lists a lasting contribution he made to his field.--RDBury (talk) 20:08, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, there are only 9 hits on Google books, of which two are school year reviews. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nageh (talk • contribs) 15:17, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
 * That search is only for books written by Milewski, not which write about him, which are more relevant to notability. This is a better search. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:20, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, most of them contain just a list of people with his name included (e.g., "teachers of the year were..."), or point out that he was head of the gymnasium in those years. One possibly more interesting ref could be "Studia historica Slavo-Germanica", which includes a sentence starting with "A characteristic example is that of the Polish W.M." but then breaks off at the snippet view boundary. There is also one filed patent in metallurgy where his name occurs. So... I cannot find anything obviously notable, but, considering some other pointless articles on wikipedia... Can somebody add more stuff to the article so I can retract my vote? Nageh (talk) 17:16, 2 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Weak Keep This is a classic problem with using WP:PROF. However I would classify it as Weak Keep. --ouieak (talk) 19:49, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Weak keep per DGG. Gymnasia and academies in the mid-19th c. were much more rigorous than they are today, more akin to normal schools.  For examples, see the early hisotries of Albany Academy and SUNY New Paltz. Bearian (talk) 20:06, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Some 19th cent. academies may meet notability criteria but that does not imply they all do. WP:PROF allows some institutions besides colleges and universities, but I don't see anything there that would extend to pre-college level institutions.--RDBury (talk) 20:25, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that the problems what we solve now are more difficult than what 19th cent. academies did. Again it depends upon the subject and area within the subject. It might be one piece of work which could categorize someone as notable if that one piece of work has helped to develop or take it further. --ouieak (talk) 22:06, 27 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete, two-sentence article makes no claim of notability for this person, and contains no encyclopedic information. Just being the director of some institution is not sufficient for an encyclopedia article. Arguments based on hypothesized importance of things in the past are not supported by secondary sources; they are speculation and wishful thinking. I could just as well say that such a person is less important considering how much world civilization has advanced. Abductive  (reasoning) 09:04, 29 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Weak Delete changed to keep, see below 02:16, 3 April 2010 (UTC) .  I found his dissertation (in latin, unfortunately) here: .  Other than this, I can't find anything.  Searching is made somewhat difficult by the fact that there seems to be a materials scientist (author of these books: ) and an architect (see here: ) of the same name.  Most of the results in the Google books search appear to attest to the dissertation being given, but by itself this does not make Milewski notable.  Furthermore, a number of them could well refer to the either one of the other two Witold Milewskis that keep turning up.
 * If some sources turn up that attest to the veracity of the content in this article, I would be happy to change my !vote, but without any evidence of notability, I'm afraid I have to say delete. -- Lear's Fool (talk | contribs) 12:17, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
 * There is no evidence that the author of De ramis ordinis IV... and the subject of the article are, indeed, the same person. At any rate, it is merely a college thesis, a prerequisite to graduation. NVO (talk) 21:42, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure it is the same person, the article in the Polish Wikipedia about this mathematician mentions the thesis by name. I agree with you that the dissertation would not qualify for notability, and that's why I !voted Weak Delete.  However, I've changed now per Laforgue. -- Lear's Fool (talk | contribs) 02:16, 3 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment/Neutral Schools were less common in that era, so a high school principal in the early 19th century may well be equivalent to a small college president today. That said, sources and documentation from those earlier eras are also much more spotty, so there may not be adequate sources to write an article about him, other than to say "he exists." I think there's no harm to Wikipedia from keeping such an article, but I'm dubious about its prospects for ever expanding beyond a one-sentence stub. Ray  Talk 19:50, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment - he was also a translator of some mathematical textbooks (National Library of Poland). While it isn't crucial, stil in the 19th century there weren't as many didactic translations as now. With these translations, he seems to be outstanding as an educator. Laforgue (talk) 18:59, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Weak Delete . Just read the article on the Polish wikipedia. He might be a person of local interest in Poland, but given that there isn't even anything notable on the Polish wiki there doesn't seem to by anything of apparent notability for inclusion in the international wikipedia. Nageh (talk) 20:23, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Doctor of mathematics (19th century...), teacher in good gymnasiums (Ostrów, Trzemeszno; Maria Magdalena of Poznań - one of the most important in Poland), director of the Trzemszno Gymnasium, translator, member of a state comitee for the matura (in that period close to B.A.), activist in the fight against germanization of the Polish school (it's very important in the history of Greater Poland, and he apparently was very active in this field), activist in the Poznań Society of Friends of Learning (something like a small academy of sciences). Minor things, but still interesting. Laforgue (talk) 20:52, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree, but is he notable enough for inclusion in the international wikipedia as opposed to only the Polish one? I don't see it. Changed to weak delete. Nageh (talk) 21:59, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The only difference between the different Wikipedias is the language in which they are written, not in scope of topics that they cover. This is an encyclopedia about the whole world that happens to be written in English, not an encyclopedia of only the anglophone world. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:11, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I disagree. What stuff I can sometimes find in my native language wiki is really only of very restricted notability. Acceptable in that wiki for readers from a local area, but not of interest globally IMO. And I was not restricting this wiki to the Anglophone world but I was instead speaking of an international wiki, which in fact should cover both aspects. But looking at this article, I must assess: notability is not absolute, and what might be notable here might not be notable somewhere else. Nageh (talk) 07:31, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Incorrect. Local notability guidelines on other wikipedias develop independently (or don't develop at all, being replaced with ad hoc reasoning - they don't have the resource pool of en-wiki). Not to mention the world of unwritten cultural conventions. NVO (talk) 18:03, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, I shouldn't make any reference to inclusion guidelines on other language Wikipedias as I'm not familiar with them, but I do know that the guidelines here, at English Wikipedia, do not discriminate against non-Anglophone subjects, so notability in Poland is enough for us to have an article. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:12, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, NW ( Talk ) 15:04, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.


 * Keep - he has his own entry in the Polski Słownik Biograficzny, which I checked here: . I should check it earlier... While the article is very short and bad written, inclusion to PSB is a very clear sign of notability. After Easter I'll try to rewrite the articles (both Polish and English - if one will check my style and grammar), using PSB. Laforgue (talk) 17:05, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
 * As nom I'd have to agree that this is evidence of notability. I think at this point it's more important and easier to just add the reference than rewrite the article.--RDBury (talk) 10:30, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, I tried verify the entry myself but ran into the same problems as Lear's Fool. If someone could add a hard reference to PSB, meaning a page number or a link to a specific web page, then I'd agree that notability is satisfied.--RDBury (talk) 11:00, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * With some additional information from Laforgue I stubbed in a reference for PSB. It's based on PSB's article index and I haven't actually seen the entry, but it's apparent that the entry does exist.--RDBury (talk) 13:44, 4 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Weak keep as per Laforgue. Nageh (talk) 17:47, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Witold Milewski (mathematician) belongs to this page. thx.--ouieak (talk) 00:48, 3 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep per Laforgue. I can't seem to find how to read the Polish Biographical Dictionary on that site (I have to read the site in google translate because I'm pathetically monolingual), but coverage in a third-party source such as this would definitely satisfy the general notability guideline. -- Lear's Fool (talk | contribs) 02:16, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, the rule is non-trivial coverage in multiple sources, which has not been demonstrated. Abductive  (reasoning) 16:02, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * removed my comments ( fix the format --ouieak (talk) 01:08, 3 April 2010 (UTC)Unfortunately ) --ouieak (talk) 12:00, 3 April 2010 (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.