Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2006 September 26

Traditional Observance (TO) → Traditional Observance Masonry
The nominated redirect was Deleted (db-redirnone). -- JLaTondre 03:16, 27 September 2006 (UTC) Not only is the article itself a likely AfD, this particular redirect is far too ambiguous a usage considering what it redirects to. I would expect it to redirect to something about styles of religion, not a non-notable approach to modern American Freemasonry. MSJapan 03:17, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Article was AfDed, thus the redirect is a dead link. MSJapan 03:03, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

'The above is preserved as the archive of an RfD nomination. Please do not modify it.'

Wikipediholic → Wikipediholic
The nominated redirect was deleted. —Centrx→talk • 23:52, 3 October 2006 (UTC) Cross-namespace redirect created this month, no useful history. However, it does have several incoming links. Khatru2 03:52, 26 September 2006 (UTC) Additional note: This redirect was previously deleted on August 9, see. Khatru2 03:56, 26 September 2006 (UTC) 'The above is preserved as the archive of an RfD nomination. Please do not modify it.'
 * Weak Delete. It is a cross-namespace redirect, but there is no possibility of confusion.  &mdash; Arthur Rubin |  (talk) 23:56, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
 * meh. Whatever. 82.25.23.173

Jacoby's method → Durand-Kerner method
The nominated redirect was Re-targeted to Jacobi method & tagged as  . There are not sufficient, independent sources as an alternate name for the Durand-Kerner method. -- JLaTondre 13:21, 6 October 2006 (UTC) The title of the redirect refers to User:Bo_Jacoby. He initially wrote the article thinking the method was of his invention but later editors pointed out this was the Durand-Kerner method (also known as the method of Weierstrauss). See, for example, Talk:Jacoby's method (also preserved at Talk:Durand-Kerner method). Mr. Jacoby has provided references to his own work on the method, but has not cited anyone else referring to the method using his name. Lastly, there's a small chance that someone looking for the Jacobi method might mistakenly find this article instead. Lunch 04:15, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * It might also be useful to see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics/Archive16. Lunch 01:34, 28 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Keep (for the moment) . According to Bo Jacoby at Talk:Root-finding algorithm, Agnethe Knudsen called the method "Bo Jacobys metode" in her lecture notes "Numeriske Metoder", Københavns Teknikum. The redirect is useful for students reading about something called "Jacoby's method". The last point (scope for confusion with the Jacobi method) has some merit, though. What do you think about making Jacoby's method a disambiguation page, saying that it may refer to Durand-Kerner, or be a misspelling for Jacobi's method = Jacobi method. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 20:59, 28 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Sure, a disambiguation page would be fine by me to resolve the confusion issue.


 * With regards to notability/vanity, if someone else has referred to the method as "Jacoby's method", and it was not Bo Jacoby who named it so, that'd be fine by me. However, I have a few questions.  Is Agnethe Knudsen a close colleague of Bo Jacoby, or someone unrelated that read his conference proceedings (or attended his talk) and decided to use the name "Jacoby's method"?  I would give more weight to the latter.  Also, have the lecture notes been published (by a "reputable" house or in a "respected," refereed journal)?  My expectation would be that material meeting that qualification would have a literature review (since it was a then-thought new method), but that would have turned up Durand, Kerner, and Weierstrauss' work...  Lunch 00:14, 2 October 2006 (UTC)


 * As another measure of notability, what libraries have copies of these lecture notes? Lunch 02:20, 2 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't know the answers. I'm working from the hypothesis that both Knudsen and Jacoby work at Københavns Teknikum, and that the lecture notes are intended for internal use (meaning that they are not officially published, nor available at any other library). -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 06:12, 2 October 2006 (UTC)


 * When you said, "the redirect is useful for students reading about something called 'Jacoby's method'," what students do you have in mind? That is, who is reading these notes?  If it's just a local use of the term, does it belong in an encyclopedia?


 * For the heck of it, I did a quick search of the MIT and Harvard card catalogs and came up empty. WorldCat and MathSciNet didn't have anything either.  They're also not even published on the web; at least Google doesn't turn up anything.  Lunch 16:28, 2 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I guess the notes are read by something like hundreds of students, all in Copenhagen. It's quite possible that none of them will bother to look it up on Wikipedia. Hopefully, the notes will be amended to mention the name "Durand-Kerner".
 * "If it's just a local use of the term, does it belong in an encyclopedia?" — this is the essence of the discussion. I think a redirect is okay for such a local use, you apparently disagree. The aversion caused by Bo Jacoby's actions here make it harder to stay objective, at least for me.
 * On the other hand, I have to admit that the redirect Jacoby's method → Durand-Kerner method is not very helpful by itself. I fear that students who look up "Jacoby's method" and are redirected to "Durand-Kerner method" will have a hard time understanding what's going on. This can be fixed by mentioning explicitly that "Jacoby's method" is an alternative term for Durand-Kerner, but that might be too much.
 * So I'm not sure what's best in this case. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 01:58, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

(No worries about the delay. These things don't move too fast anyway.)

Yeah, "local use". I guess that's the nuts and bolts of it. I'm of the opinion that one doesn't get to name things after oneself; no refereed journal would allow such a thing so I don't think it belongs here. (And along the same lines, I don't think that it's an acceptable alternative term for Durand-Kerner/Weierstrauss.) I think we do a disservice to those students who think of the method as "Jacoby's method" when we reinforce that misnomer.

Yup, it is particularly galling that it is Bo Jacoby. If it were someone else, I probably wouldn't have made the RfD. But, then again, someone else might've in which case I would've agreed with them. This one's really gotten my goat, and I can't say I'm happy that I haven't been able to let it go. But I think I have a good idea: we can leave the conversation here, punt, and let the closing admin make the call. ;) Lunch 03:30, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

'The above is preserved as the archive of an RfD nomination. Please do not modify it.'
 * Delete. A set of lecture notes, used at one school and not commercially published, does not give the name of this method sufficient notability for a redirect. Also, what can we do about verifiability if the notes are not in any library that most readers will have access to?..  The whole issue of the alternative name will have no documentation anywhere on the entire web except in Wikipedia, and here we have only a discussion, no actual verification.  (The name Weierstrauss should be Weierstrass in the above comments). EdJohnston 13:33, 5 October 2006 (UTC)