Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Erdős–Bacon number (3rd nomination)

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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. -- Patar knight - chat/contributions 04:54, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Erdős–Bacon number

AfDs for this article:
Erdős–Bacon number (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Last AfDd in 2011, and this is an ongoing RfC on Natalie Portman, I think it is a HOAX and per BJAON should be redirected to Erdos. That Bacon number is a joke thing anyway. L3X1 (distant write) 04:30, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions. IsaacSt (talk) 22:39, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Incidentally, I take it from your comment, L3X1, that if this AfD fails, you will cease nominating articles for deletion? An honourable gesture, and one that brings much needed levity to this grim business. --pmj (talk) 14:37, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Individually the numbers are OK, but combined really seems silly. Pmj No, I'm not planning on stopping AfDs. I've been accused of being an unserious editor so that is why I'm stamping not-a-joke all over the place. Only about a third of my nominations don't go through, and most of that is good news for me, as I am an inclusionist. L3X1 (distant write) 14:59, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I broadly agree with your aims, but criticism of that nomination was on point. Substandard articles should be improved first, nominated for deletion only if improvement is impossible. That takes actual effort though. --pmj (talk) 22:56, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: It's not a hoax or a joke - it's real! More editors will say here that it's been covered by reliable sources, and they'll all be correct. However, this is simply an example taken from Six degrees of separation that has gained popularity, and popularity is not the only criteria for a WP article. However popular, this particular example (which is one out of billions of possible examples) doesn't have any scientific significance or encyclopedic value. Einstein's IQ is 54 times more popular on Google than the number we are discussing here - including reliable sources (check it out: [1] vs. [2]), yet we don't start an article Einstein's IQ or similar, containing an arbitrary list of celebrities and how their IQ compares to Einstein's. This is because IQ merits its own article, but a particular example, even when very popular - only deserves a mention in the main article and in the article about the person used in the example. -- IsaacSt (talk) 16:35, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - WP:Notability is established by in-depth coverage, not incidental mentions or cobbled-together WP:SYNTH arguments. I will admit that I was at first I was lead to suspect a notable topic here, by virtue of the sheer number of sources and the title of the second source employed in the article. Someone clearly went through a lot of trouble to compile these sources and arrange them to suggest notability (without, I assume, understanding how and why such synthesis is discouraged on this project and cannot constitute notability in itself). However, once I dug a little deeper, it became obvious that this is not really an independently notable topic. Many of the sources employed in this article mention a Bacon number or an Erdős number. A couple mention both the concept of the Bacon number and the Erdős number. Exactly one source mentions the tandem "Erdős–Bacon number", and even then, it does so only incidentally, in one line.
However, the vast, vast, vast majority of the sources (about 95 of the more than one hundred sources currently used here) mention neither the Bacon number nor the Erdős number, nor the tandem concept, but are in fact just links to things like IMDB pages of various actors. In other words, blatant WP:Original research based on the synthesis of WP:Primary, non-WP:Reliable sources in order to compile a list of "Erdős–Bacon numbers" into sections which themselves would be WP:Trivia even if this concept abstractly qualified for notability in itself. In other words, this article is a massive tangle of OR, SYNTH, and Notability violations. Respondents to this AfD should definitely dig into the sourcing and contemplate the depth of the coverage in even that small handful of sources which actually reference this concept; I'm an old hand at AfD's and I nearly let this one sneak past me by not looking closely enough. Snow let's rap 21:27, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions. pmj (talk) 22:56, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Clearly not a hoax, seems to be plenty of mention of it, is there a rule that says AfDs need to be repeated every five years or so? Smmurphy(Talk) 23:16, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Smmurphy, There is no ruler requiring an AfD to be repeated, but not all AfD result in a permanent establishment of notability. Take a look at the prior AfDs for this subject, and you'll see that there were plenty of delete votes and unconvincing keeps, so I decided to run the bulls again. L3X1 (distant write) 23:58, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
In 2006, at the first AfD, it was a much newer concept, practically a neologism (and I'm not sure if WP:NEO existed at that point, although WP:NOT did]] and it still got a strong majority of keep !votes. In 2011, at the second AfD, there was an even stronger majority. The reason I ask your opinion about repeating AfDs is that you didn't give any reasoning for giving the article a new AfD beyond possibly being a hoax (clearly not), a bad joke (it is funny), and that the last AfD was in 2011, and I didn't see why having a previous AfD supported having another one given the consensus in both previous AfDs was keep. Smmurphy(Talk) 13:37, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy keep for lack of a valid deletion rationale. Frivolity, uselessness, or "lack of scientific value" are not adequate reasons for deletion, and no case has been made that this is in any way a hoax. The Telegraph and USA Today articles already in the article give a clear case for WP:GNG notability, and the additional sources found by Clarityfiend only strengthen that case. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:25, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
David Eppstein Would you care to address Snow's argument? L3X1 (distant write) 23:58, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@L3X1: Snow is ignoring the small number of very good sources in the article (which establish notability) and arguing based only on the large number of not-so-good ones (which contribute nothing towards notability but are useful for the many individual factual claims in the article). That's not how notability works. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:53, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I thought I was pretty clear from the very outset of my comments (and throughout) that my !vote was predicated on the fact that even in that very small number of sources that directly treat this subject (actually, there is exactly one which uses the actual term "Erdős–Bacon number" which is the supposed nominal topic of this article, and it does so once), there is insufficient depth of coverage. I agree that even a very small number of articles can establish notability, even if the larger proportion are poor or even entirely unacceptable. Despite what you seem to be suggesting, I do not espouse the opposite view and can only suggest that you re-read my comments if you took that impression. However, note also, the very first criteria listed under WP:GNG: "'Significant coverage' addresses the topic directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content." None of the sources I have seen thus far really qualify for significant coverage in my mind. I also disagree that the other sources I made reference to "contribute nothing towards notability but are useful for the many individual factual claims in the article"; I was clear that I was specifically referencing sources that are A) WP:PRIMARY, B) clearly non-WP:RS, and/or C) being used in a pretty obviously WP:OR/WP:SYNTH fashion. Those aren't valid for "contributing" to WP:verification (or anything) on this project, and they represent the lion's share of sources currently appearing in the article.
Of course it may be that the article gets retained and those issues get addressed individually, in a scale back of the content. I don't think this thing passes notability, but my opinion is not that strong on the matter. However, I do feel you've rather misread my original comments. I don't mind coming to different conclusions, certainly, but the argument you suggest I made, I did not in fact make. For what it's worth though, I agree that L3X1 left a lot to be desired in how they approached the opening to this discussion. I'd have !voted keep on the proposal if I had based my decision just on that proposal alone. In fact, I almost did. But when I looked closer at the sources, I came to a different conclusion. Snow let's rap 03:24, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
In fact, all three of the sources I linked to specify the "Erdős Bacon" or "Erdős–Bacon number". There are more, including "Actress/Mathematician Danica McKellar Explains What Her "Erdos/Bacon Number" Is" and professors bragging(?) about their numbers (5, 6, 8). Question #273 of the Buzzfeed quiz What Level Geek Are You? is Do you have an Erdős-Bacon number?Clarityfiend (talk) 06:14, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Meaning no offense, but I don't think I've ever before seen a collection of sources put forward in a content discussion that collectively better represent what a WP:Reliable source is not. "Three professors mention it for yucks on their university webpages" is not a standard for notability, nor is "Buzzfeed references it in their version of a Cosmo quiz for geeks". We need independent, significant coverage in reliable sources that speak to its relevance as an encyclopedic topic, not WP:Original research that it "must" be notable because Buzzfeed made a crack about it, and it shows up on a random faculty page or three. The first batch of sources you initially referenced were better than the ones immediately above, but I still am not seeing the "significant coverage", which is what WP:GNG requires. I will grant you, it's a near-borderline case, but I gotta come down on the side of non-notable here. Snow let's rap 08:33, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The fact that it is so widespread, apparently some sort of badge of honor to university professors and well-known enough to be included in a quiz without further explanation seems to me to signify its notability. Clarityfiend (talk) 09:08, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not following the argument that there are not reliable sources here. Google scholar, Google news, etc. give, in my opinion, plenty. Here are a few examples:
  • As with the rest of Wikipedia, this page could use some cleanup, but Erdős numbers, Bacon numbers, Erdős–Bacon numbers, and even Erdős–Bacon-Sabbath numbers are all subjects of many reliably sourced published works and all, in my opinion, are suitable subjects for articles for inclusion in wikipedia. For what it is worth Erdős–Bacon number gets about 400 views per day, almost as many views as Erdős number.[3] Smmurphy(Talk) 16:35, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - the individual indices stand up on their own but combining them smacks of something made up one day. The extent of references that combine these measures is minimal, so the long list of names and scores is original research and/or synthesis.Glendoremus (talk) 06:01, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep with clean-up: Although the concept of the Erdős–Bacon number appears to meet our criteria of significant coverage by reliable sources, some effort should be taken to reduce the amount of WP:SYN in the reporting of individual scores.--TriiipleThreat (talk) 15:28, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes, I would support trimming it back to only those entries for which we can find the E-B number itself mentioned in a reliable source. The sources should be publications that describe the E-B numbers of the subjects, not the publications and movie credits that led to them having those numbers. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:59, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep A somewhat silly instance of the underlying principle, but a well-known and widely referenced one. Kinda like Pi Day. Science is allowed to have fun every so often. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 11:02, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: sources seem reasonable and this is a concept I have encountered "in the wild" a number of times which says something (albeit something modest) about its cultural relevance. Porphyro (talk) 12:50, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep--Easily passes WP:GNG.And it's not a hoax!Winged Blades Godric 15:33, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - significant coverage in reliable sources; definitely not a hoax article; "is a joke" is not a valid reason for deletion, as Wikipedia has many articles on *notable* jokes and parodies. Gandalf61 (talk) 10:17, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep—It's silly and made up, but not unnotable (and Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon and Erdős number themselves are silly and made up and qualify as notable). For that matter Erdős–Bacon–Sabbath number isn't being suggested for deletion here even though it's clearly more contrived than Erdős–Bacon number is on its own. The impetus of this seems to have been argument happening at the Natalie Portman wiki page, but this page's notability and the worthwhileness of mentioning it on another wiki page are unrelated (plenty of things not notable get mentioned on other wiki pages, and plenty of wiki pages don't mention other pages that link to them). There's not really a reason to remove this page other than frustration over an unrelated edit war. Dylan (talk) 02:10, 25 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete This is not a widely used term in the sources, so it basically adds up to original research to write an article on the subject.John Pack Lambert (talk) 04:57, 26 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: Clear GNG and hypothetical deletion rationale. Yes it's a silly concept. So what? — Gamall Wednesday Ida (t · c) 12:39, 26 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge with Erdős–Bacon–Sabbath number, covering both in the same article (whichever one) and making the other one a redirect to it. It seems what is interesting and notable about these inventions is the way they demonstrate small-world interconnectedness across different domains, and the discussion that has occurred around them (i.e. as a cultural trope). In any case, it does seem perplexing that right now, unless I'm mistaken, they don't even refer to each other? Martinp (talk) 03:33, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - a well-attested concept, somebody has to keep nominating this. What the hell is the point? Bearian (talk) 03:44, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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