Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Talk:Cantor's diagonal argument/Arguments

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 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the discussion was: keep. Consensus indicates that although unorthodox, it serves an encyclopedic purpose and should be kept. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 05:20, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Talk:Cantor's diagonal argument/Arguments


Runs afoul of WP:NOTFREESPEECH. This page was being used as a forum, and Wikipedia's not a forum at all. Requesting deletion on this page ►К Ф Ƽ Ħ◄  12:49, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment; I asked about this at WP:AN since I also agree that it's not really suitable for Wikipedia per WP:NOTFORUM and WP:NOTWEBHOST. However, I think 's comment about archiving the page, perhaps by using historical or archived, might be worth discussing. The page appears to have been created back in 2008, and some of the posts may be relevant in some way to the current Cantor's diagonal argument article. However, the page shouldn't remain live if it's not deleted. -- Marchjuly (talk) 13:04, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Hi User:Marchjuly &mdash; reading the above makes me think you may not quite have grasped the purpose of the page, which admittedly isn't explicitly stated. So let me say it now. The purpose of the page is to have a place to dump crank arguments.  This is a topic that attracts lots and lots of mathematical cranks.  They keep discovering the same objections, think they're the first person ever to have noticed them, and post over and over again.  It can make the talk page hard to use for its intended purpose, namely discussing improvements to the article. So we move their comments to the Arguments page and let them be, no muss no fuss.  Whoever wants to can engage them there.  The rest of us mostly ignore the Arguments page and enjoy the peace and quiet. Now, the hard-liners would say, you don't have to do that.  If the cranks' arguments are not directed to improving the article, you can just remove them, and eventually block the authors if they yell loud enough.  And it is true, you can do that.  But it comes across as authoritarian, it uses a lot of time, and it requires summoning up your stern side that not all of us enjoy channeling.  Also it can be a judgment call about whether the comments really are about improving the article (that could also apply to moving to the Arguments page, but in practice the authors mostly seem to accept that, whereas they wouldn't if you just blanked them), so you get into meta-arguments which are even further removed from the purpose of the talk page. This page is a harm-reduction strategy.  It really does seem to work, mostly, and I can't see the harm.  So I think it's a very clear case of IAR. --Trovatore (talk) 19:59, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I believe I get the idea for the page; I just don't think there needs to be such a page, at least not any longer. This page is giving people a forum to post their theories, objections, or whatever else they want related to the Cantor's diagonal argument that really don't have anything to do with improving the Wikipedia article. Mathematical cranks don't need such a forum and instead of catering to them, people should be telling them that is not what Wikipedia is about. The page may have some historical value making archiving it more appropriate than deletion, but the page no longer needs to be live. If this makes me sound "authoritarian" or "stern", then so be it. It's not Wikipedia's job to provide a venue for others to spout off; so, if they post content inappropriate for an article talk page, they can be politely advised that such a thing is not allowed. If they continue to do so even after being warned, they should be treated like any other disruptive editor who doesn't listen. If you feel this page is so necessary to give these cranks a place to post, then there are now plenty of alternatives to Wikipedia available. You can recreate the page there and direct people there for their theorectical discussions, rants, personal musings about the argument. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:26, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I really am not that interested in whether they find a place to debate it or not. I just want to keep them off the talk page (and the reference desk), without having to engage in unpleasantness.  I don't see what skin it is off your nose.  --Trovatore (talk) 02:29, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep This is a summary of content that has appeared on the talk page in the past that can serve as a sort of FAQ for future arguments against the diagonal argument when they appear on the talk page. It is not essentially different in nature from archives of talk pages, just more convenient. &mdash; Charles Stewart (talk) 14:31, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
 * A FAQ? That page is loaded with OR on it, sorry, that can in no way serve as a faq. ►К Ф Ƽ Ħ◄  16:05, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't mean a mainspace FAQ, I mean a resource for the talk page. It is in talkspace, so OR doesn't apply. &mdash; Charles Stewart (talk) 16:22, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Really? Take a look at WP:OR, in the box This page in a nutshell.  It's saying that all material in Wikipedia needs to be attributable to an RS.  Note the "all material" part of it.   I think OR does apply on talk pages as well. ►К Ф Ƽ Ħ◄  17:44, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The first sentence of WP:OR says "Wikipedia articles must not contain original research", which means that it is a policy that applies to mainspace (See WP:COFAQ for a discussion of the differences between articles and pages). It does not talk about arguments on pages outside mainspace. &mdash; Charles Stewart (talk) 18:02, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Of course. Paul August &#9742; 00:09, 21 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Weak keep There's a few pages like this around the place. I don't think they contribute much to improving the associated article. They are forums. However I do think they are helpful in presenting a friendlier face to people with a bee in their bonnet who might otherwise start thinking of Wikipedia as a place they should oppose. We can explain that the article has to be the way it is because that is what reliable sources say and that's how Wikipedia works, and maybe try explaining the problem with what they say though that is rarely successful. I'm not sure that deleting will improve the encyclopaedia. Dmcq (talk) 16:57, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
 * There is an IAR case I think for it, helping directing discussion to somewhere where it can be handled better etc Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:58, 19 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep but Archive - Many of the arguments are fringe, but the fact that they have been made over and over again may prove useful in the future if disruptive editing of the article has to go to WP:ANI or Arbitration Enforcement. Whether the crummy arguments against the validity of the proof should be mentioned and dismissed in the article is another question, not being considered here.  Robert McClenon (talk) 17:42, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment - Archive would just mean to mark as closed discussion, I guess. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:44, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Closing the page to further discussion would defeat the purpose. Please see my explanation in response to Marchjuly (my post of 19:59, 19 April 2018 (UTC)). --Trovatore (talk) 20:06, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep. NOTAFORUM (like most of WP:NOT) is mostly about article space.  This page implements a working harm-reduction strategy.  If you don't want to see it, take it off your watchlist; problem solved. --Trovatore (talk) 19:27, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep per Trovatore. Paul August &#9742; 00:07, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep but refactor. Per Trovatore's stated rationale for the page and objections to archiving, it seems to me that a kind of compromise could be reached where "crank" arguments can still be moved to the subpage and responded to there, but after some appropriate amount of time the resulting discussion threads could be removed and replaced by summaries of the main objections raised and brief refutations of them (these summaries could be accompanied by links to the diffs that removed the original discussion threads, to facilitate interested parties in finding them later, if desired). In this way, over time, the page could develop into a compact list of common objections and refutations rather than a (historical) wall-of-text discussion forum. (Easier said than done, I know.) I hope people understand what I'm trying to describe here. Perhaps I could ty to begin that process on the page itself, so others could see what I'm suggesting and possibly continue it. - dcljr (talk) 22:07, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't have any huge objection to that, but I don't really understand the point. It seems like a lot of effort to clean up something that doesn't really need to be cleaned up.  Why not just ignore it? --Trovatore (talk) 22:11, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep as a talkpage supplement. I'm convinced it has a use. Interested editors can police it by closing discussions or ignoring them. Legacypac (talk) 22:52, 21 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep. Disruptive deletion proposal by the now banned User KoshVorlon. Having such an 'harm reduction strategy' is a great thing in areas where cranks are otherwise time consuming to contain. Pldx1 (talk) 15:27, 25 April 2018 (UTC)
 * For the record, though I obviously disagree with the nomination, I see no reason to think it was intended disruptively. --Trovatore (talk) 20:29, 25 April 2018 (UTC)
 * For the record, "disruptive proposal" doesn't means "proposed with a proven intent to disrupt". Indeed, most of what happens in the Internet is not caused by a conspiracy of some kind. It remains that suppressing an "harm reduction tool" would result into more harm: the usual rule of signs, maybe... Pldx1 (talk) 07:39, 26 April 2018 (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 page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.