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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Cimon Avaro (talk | contribs) at 08:23, 14 January 2004 (vote on inclusion). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Pages proposed for deletion

The following pages have been proposed for deletion. Material which has been considered relevant has been copied elsewhere. Factorizations of numbers are at factorization, atomic numbers at List of elements by number. Minor mathematical properties (prime number, composite number etc.) and cultural trivia ("101 appears in the movie title 101 Dalmatians") that remain are either considered irrelevant or discussed elsewhere. Please comment if you see some information that you think deserves to be kept.

Pages proposed to be kept

The following number pages have been edited and are considered valuable. Please comment if you think they should be deleted.

Information elements to keep

From the pages 100-112, the following elements should be kept in number articles, preferably in a standardized template or list. --User:Docu

  • link to previous natural number and following natural number
    • keep -- User:Docu
  • main highways with articles in Wikipedia and the same number
    • there are a few candidates
      • keep -- User:Docu
        • 66, definitely -- Wiwaxia 03:15, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)
    • there are many
      • delete -- User:Docu
  • 101: course number of basic or entry-level courses
    • Keep -- User:Docu, Wiwaxia 03:15, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)
  • Link to year
    • keep -- User:Docu, Wiwaxia 03:15, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I endorse this template proposal. To ellaborate on which highways are worth listing I propose this standard: for each country, the highways that go through at least two states, (or provinces). For product models worth listing, I propose this standard: only model numbers which have been influential on future products (i.e., the 8086 chip) or are important for historical reasons (the T-72 tank). User:PrimeFan
Well .. that wasn't exactly a template, but it could be a start for a Wikipedia:WikiProject Numbers (some pages are much further though) -- User:Docu

VfD discussion

  • Most of the numbers listed on List of numbers (not the list itself). Before you scream bloody murder, take a look at the actual information content. Most of these are trivia, such as "one hundred one appears in the movie 101 Dalmatians", and the little information that is there is already duplicated elsewhere (atomic numbers) or should be (factorisation table). These "articles" tend to become completely unencyclopedic free-for-alls where everyone can add every occurance of a number that is somehow verifiable and true. The ones we should keep are those that contain actual history or other useful information, such as zero. But "this is a prime number" (make a list of prime numbers instead) or "this number appears in movie XYZ" is not useful information.—Eloquence
    • Keep, but edit to remove the trivia (possibly after a full discssion of what does and does not constitute "trivia"). Besides which, any proposal to remove "most" of a set of pages cannot be decisive, since no definition of "most" is included. Andy Mabbett 20:57, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)
      • I've provided a definition. If I list all individual number pages we'll be arguing about them for months. This is a case where it's orders of magnitude more efficient to pick a trusted sysop and let them wade through the crap and delete everything that's not worth keeping and merge everything that is, then go through a round of Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion if that's necessary. I think you agree that much of the information here is useless. So let's do this quick and painlessly. In order to keep the process open, the sysop in question could blank all the pages he wants to delete and do so a couple of days later, so that everyone can check the history first.—Eloquence
        • Much of the trivia isn't bad in itself. And in the case of 101, it provides natural disambiguation for US Highway 101. Several numbers will be important because of religious significance - 3,7,40,666 for Christianity -I couldn't say what numbers for other religions. How would your "chosen sysop" decide? What does it hurt to leave them? Rmhermen 21:13, Dec 27, 2003 (UTC)
          • I doubt anyone looking for Highway 101 would enter "one hundred one" into the search box. In any case, disambiguation is an altogether different topic -- some of these number pages might become disambiguation pages (although in this specific case I think a short disambig notice on 101 would be more helpful). As for "what's the harm", what's the harm of having articles about my old buddies from high school in Wikipedia? What's the harm of adding dictionary entries? Poetry? It does not serve our purpose as an encyclopedia and in fact harms our reputation and usefulness. See Wikipedia is not.—Eloquence
          • Who would type "one hundred one" looking for US 101? How about someone who keeps seeing that sign in movies and tv but doesn't quite know how to look for it? How about someone who wonders if their is some deeper significance to that number? -- Anonymous User
        • You've mentioned The ones we should keep are those that contain actual history or other useful information,; but that's no definition, Unless you'd now like to define actual history and useful information. "Must" is your word; not mine. Andy Mabbett 21:27, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)
          • This is a vague common sense recommendation for a sysop who would actually do the job of determining what is useful or what is not for each individual case. In fact it doesn't even need to be done by a sysop, we could all do it collaboratively and blank all pages that are to be deleted.—Eloquence
            • Or we could do it collaboratively by making a new page and inviting people to discuss it there and hopefully come to a consensus. As I'm sure you know, there would be a lot of disagreement about what to delete and what to keep. Giving more decision-making power to one sysop than to anyone else is completely contrary to the wiki philosophy. Your suggestion of blanking the pages first is hardly a meaningful concession to the wiki way: you're sugesting doing the deletions "a couple of days later", giving people little chance to protest before the deletions are done, and pretty much ensuring an angry backlash on Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion. Five days is the bare minimum for discussing even single articles that are listed on Vfd; for a whole bunch of them, the time should be lengthened, if anything, not shortened. Even if the discussion time is lengthened to a something more reasonable, forcing people to go through the edit histories of blanked articles to see what content is being discarded would just make life difficult for them. Of course, any sysop - or any other Wikipedian, for that matter - can go through the number articles and decide what ones they want to go. But instead of blanking the ones they've selected, they could just list them on a single page for all to see. Disputing the list would then require editing only one single page, instead of going through a whole bunch of pages and blanking or unblanking them. If you think that "we'll be arguing about them for months", that should be enough to tell you why your idea is a bad one. Trying to force the deletions through by unconventional means won't make the arguments go away; it will only exacerbate them. -- Oliver P. 06:26, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)
              • I will proceed as described. Most of the pages in question have no meaningful content whatsoever.—Eloquence
                • I would like the chance to judge that for myself, and to allow others to have that chance, too. To save myself and others the bother of having to hunt through the page histories to see the content, I will revert your blankings. -- Oliver P. 06:37, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)
                  • You have not suggested a practical alternative, so your reverts are unacceptable. Checking the histories doesn't take more time than reverting my edits.—Eloquence
                  • Well, I thought that reverting your edits would only need to be done once. Checking the histories of blank articles would have to be done several times: once for each interested observer. And I have suggested a far more practical method than blanking pages. Namely to list those pages you don't like on a single page. That way, people can see at a glance what pages are being discussed. My reversions were perefectly acceptable, being merely to re-establish the state of the pages before this dispute started. Your reversions back again are nothing less than edit warring, and therefore a serious breach of Wikiquette. I will not repeat my reversions, since I have no wish to get involved in an edit war, but I would ask any uninvolved sysop reading this to revert back and protect the pages as a more civilised alternative. -- Oliver P. 07:07, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)
                    • Sigh. There's almost nothing worth salvaging on these pages. All this does is prolong the inevitable. I would appreciate it if you would trust me a little more.—Eloquence
  • You might want to edit the numbers one through ten, or develop a WikiProject to make it clearer if you'd delete everything past polygon at Eight (current version or not. -- User:Docu
  • Keep all which aren't (as good as) empty when time is up on this nomination. Onebyone 03:27, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)
    • I now vote keep all. Any individual bit of trivia clearly isn't worth an article, but once you can say 3 or 4 things about a number, you have the beginnings of a worthwhile resource on the properties of that number. But if 2 people each have 2 faintly interesting things to say, then that article will never get written if we keep deleting number articles with only 2 bits of trivia on them. Normally in this situation my inclination is to merge the articles into a single article "properties of numbers" and redirect the individual titles there, so that would also be fine by me. Onebyone 17:48, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)
      • I agree wit you completely, Onebyone. I've got little to say about 67. But I know their's got to be somewhere a sufficeintly large group of people to whom that number means something. -- Anonymous User
  • Keep. Some are usefull articles already; many others are stubs with potential for further development. -- Infrogmation 18:44, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)
  • To be counted as a "stub" there must be some non-trivial information. "120 is the number after 119 and before 121" is not useful, nor are basic mathematical properties such as "is a prime number" (just wait until someone creates a Primebot, that will boost our article count) or "occurs in the movie title XYZ". I've started with the blanking of non-useful articles, but I won't accept any ultimatums. Any help would be appreciated.—Eloquence
  • Why not just merge the articles on numbers greater than 99 into pages on blocks of ten integers each, like an article called Numbers from 100 to 109? Denelson83 06:52, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)
    • That's the way it had been done previously. Personally I'd kept them together, until they have the size of Number 111 -- User:Docu
  • Keep and edit. Blanking should not be done unless the article contains content that is so sensitive that keeping it could damage wikipedia, eg., libel, copyright breaches, unless there is a clear consensus behind the blanking and here there clearly isn't, let alone a consensus on their deletion. FearÉIREANN 04:30, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep and edit. I agree. A friend of mine works in an advertising consulting firm, and is an aspiring novelist in his time off. For people like him, it is extremely valuable to be able to look up somewhere in one place all the cultural associations of a specific number. You might not want to release a product called 'Tonic 88' to a Jewish community, for example. Nor would you want to draw a graphic novel showing a sign for US Highway 101 on an Interstate shield. -- User:PrimeFan
    • Good point. I had thought of that one. FearÉIREANN 22:03, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)
    • There's a near limitless number of cultural associations with numbers. The most important ones can of course be retained, but stuff like "101 appears in the movie title xy" or "250 is the number of years since .." is completely bogus. Bullet point lists encourage these games of free association. We should go through all numbers and leave cultural meanings of widely reognized significance in place, and remove all the pointless trivia. —Eloquence 22:12, Jan 3, 2004 (UTC)
      • If its so limiltless, why is their next to nothing for 67? -- Anonymous User
  • Keep and add to them. Don't be a destroyer, be a creator, an adder-to. Thanks to Docu, Oliver P. and FearÉIREANN for showing me I'm not alone in thinking Eloquence's aggressive edits are a violation of Wiki-etiquette. Maybe it would've made more sense to put 100 to 109 in one page, as was done with 80 to 89 (which, btw, now deserve there own pages). -- Anonymous User 1:04, 5 Jan 2004
  • Keep. These wonderful articles kindle my amateur mathematical passions and bring us closer to the ideal of making Wikipedia a complete and accurate encyclopedia. ShutterBugTrekker ShutterBugTrekker 19:50, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Only a couple of weeks ago I did not know that this excellent resource existed. With articles like this, Wikipedia shows itself capable of achieving a much greater degree of completeness and thoroughness than is possible of a paper encyclopedia. As more people become aware of these articles they will grow to be more usefu. Del arte 17:52, 13 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Further discussion

I still vote to keep all the below above. We have great numbers of shorter, less informative articles. I can see no harm in keeping them. -- Infrogmation 17:21, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC) Edit by Oliver P. after moving text

I will say this much, if they are kept then you can be quite sure that User:Primebot is not far in the future, maybe I will even write it myself to make the point. You can have an infinite number of these pages. They are NOT articles.—Eloquence
"Oh my God, their gonna make an article for each number!" Gimme a break. Most people have some sort of idea where the threshhold is. I only went to 114, though I can see value to going as high as 1001. But unlike you, Eloquence, I am not gonna blank out pages if someone disagrees with me about where the threshold is. If they got something to say about 1002, more power to them. I'll listen to what they have to say. -- Anonymous User, 141.217. ...
Hmmm. Creating pages to prove a point on VfD. Wasn't that part of the reason you banned BuddhaInside? ;) Angela. 06:24, Jan 4, 2004 (UTC)
You must be confusing me with someone else. I banned BuddhaInside because he vandalized the Main Page.—Eloquence
This is ridiculous - keep them - many of them might seem trivial to you, but looking up the facts about various numbers is potentially interesting and useful. 207.189.98.44 19:32, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I agree with you wholeheartedly, 207.189.98.44. User:PrimeFan
As do I. Also, they're useful for people who know the number but not quite where to look up what it means. A lot of times people use numbers as shorthand without bothering to check if everyone listening knows what is meant by the number. Below I list a few things I've heard over the years where I couldn't or didn't ask what was meant by the number. Sometimes I had some idea, other times I was completely clueless. User:Robert_Happelberg


  • Singer: "Your love is a one eight seven to heaven".
  • Photographer: "For portraits, I like a 50, without flash, wide aperture."
  • Carpenter: "When you're done with this, just take that 55 and set it over there."
  • Bookie: "You owe me a twenty."
  • U.S. Marine recruit: "I had my seven eighty two squared away, but he wouldn't get off my six."
  • Lawyer: "They have no case. It's a clear fifth."
  • Rabbi: "Thanks for the one hundred twenty talents."
Wikipedia is not a dictionary. At best, such explanations could be provided in an overview article elsewhere, and the number articles could link or redirect to them.—Eloquence

There's no such number as One hundred one anyway so delete them all for that reason and because they are not articles, and for slippery slope arguments like the infinite number of these that could exist. Redirecting any that are created to something like number might be an easier solution than listing them on VfD every time they occur. Angela. 06:24, Jan 4, 2004 (UTC)

I am the one responsible for completing the original series of articles from one through twenty last April. At that time there was a discussion as to the sillines of having articles for such dull numbers as twenty one, so we decided enough was enough, and stopped there. Some meant that even numbers over ten should not have articles. Looking at the number articles now, 8 months later, it is pretty obvious that there is no uninteresting number; see one thousand seven hundred and twenty nine for a good example. Wikipedia is not paper, and Wikipedia is surely the best way humankind has yet devised of collecting all sorts of interesting (and encyclopedic) properties of numbers. Really. So my concerns in this matter are two:

  • Make sure the spelling of these articles is consistent (i.e. use one hundred and one, presumably)
  • Make sure the layout of the articles is consistent. There really is a need for a standard layout.

-- Egil

It is questionable whether anyone would look up "taxicab numbers" or "Hardy-Ramanujan number" by entering the search term "one thousand seven hundred and twenty nine". Interesting properties of numbers, or sets of numbers, should have their own articles, but the number pages should at best redirect to them. —Eloquence
No, but if they see a reference to 1729 and don't understand it, they might conceivably enter the search term "1729". They ought then to be sent to the right place by the article for the year 1729AD... Onebyone 17:57, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Next time I make an amazon order, I'll be getting a copy of The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers to use as a source to improve various number articles. If anyone has a copy already, or is near an academic library, they could do likewise. IIRC it doesn't have articles on all the numbers in the 110s, and it lists 48 as being the first non-interesting natural number. Onebyone 17:55, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Onebyone, take a look at: What's Special About This Number? GUllman 22:08, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I've got that book! (Well, technically it belongs to my brother, but I'm in denial about that fact.) It's nice, but not very academic, because it's written for people who don't know much maths. A lot of the entires consist of just a single equation, without comment, leaving me scratching my head and thinking, "But why are we supposed to find that interesting?" However, many of the entries are interesting, so I'll go through it at some point and se what can be used... -- Oliver P. 02:39, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I would like to denounce User:Eloquence's rude and sneaky tactics. His rude edit warring has already been mentioned here, but did you know that he sneakily blanked out the article on 120 - 129, put "blanking per VfD" in the edit summary but FAILED TO LIST IT ON THIS DELETION PAGE!!??? Luckily someone had sense to undo the blanking. Apparently User:Eloquence thought he could get away with deleting that page if he got the votes to delete the others. User:PrimeFan

Denounce all you want. I announced the blanking on the VfD page, and the pages would only have been deleted if consensus had been reached there. This was a way to have a reasonably open process while avoiding the kind of endless discussion with people of questionable intelligence that this page is devolving into.—Eloquence
It's definately worth keeping pages that describe the properties and interesting facts about numbers, as well as redirects / disambigs from things like 'fifth', 'the fifth' etc to relevant pages - I can't comprehend the passion for deleting perfectly good articles that seems to be prevailing here. 207.189.98.44 22:50, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I have no objection to the deletion of pages about numbers for which the only available information is trivial, using the definition of "trivial" proposed by Anthony DiPierro below (the fact that it is a palindrome, its prime factorisation, and the preceding and following numbers). I'll extend that to cover all numbers for which the only available information is a set of numerical properties with no reference to any discussion of those properties in the existing literature. That would take care of the "bot" objection, I think. -- Oliver P. 02:39, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Suggestion for naming

Since many interesting numbers are comparatively large, may I suggest a new naming convention for numbers. The current one is pretty cumbersome for larger numbers, and also quite error prone due to spelling issues. Instead of forty-two, let us just use 42 (number). With redirects for the old versions installed where appropriate, and markup as [[42 (number)|]], which will appear as 42. -- Egil 12:09, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Vote on naming

Vote on inclusion

User:OnebyOne is absolutely right that we need to give these articles a chance to develop before rushing to delete them. Every number up to about 1000 has notable mathematical or cultural properties, but each article needs to start somehow. A dictionary definition is one way to start (and every article needs to have a dictionary definition at its core anyway). User:PrimeFan
What about two billion, one hundred forty seven million, four hundred eighty three thousand, six hundred forty seven? I vote for No Wikipedia articles about numbers, but I add that all non-trivial information must be moved before deletion. Trivial information is hereby defined as the fact that it is a palindrome, the preceeding and proceeding numbers, factorization (for numbers less than 10^3), and the fact that it is a composite number (but any primes already listed should be moved somewhere). As that information is moved, it should be marked as such or deleted. When only moved or trivial information exists, then the number can be deleted, except for base numbers (1-19, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, hundred, thousand, etc) which should be kept or moved to wictionary. Any disambiguation information should be moved to the year, except in cases where the disambiguation would likely be spelled out. So, that's my long-winded vote. Anthony DiPierro
Who are you to define what is and what isn't trivia? I'm not one to define what trivia is either. Factorization and palindromicity are extremely important to me. On the other hand, Cullen and Pell numbers aren't quite so important to me. Numbers occurring in the Bible or in Star Trek don't seem so important to me either, but try arguing that to someone who believes in either one of those two sources (and they can be extremely fanatical about it). If I imposed my view of triviality on others, I would delete the entire article on George W. Bush and replace it with simply "Puppet of Dick Cheney". The article on Dick Cheney is far more important, in my view. The point is, no one should be imposing their view of what trivia is on others. User:PrimeFan
I wasn't defining what is and what isn't trivia. I was merely stating my definition of "trivial" for the purpose of my suggestion. No more. Factorization of numbers less than 10^3 and palindromicity may be extremely important to you, but they are also extremely easy to calculate on your own. There's no need for that information in an encyclopedia, any more than there is a need for the solution to "52+78". I don't know what Cullen and Pell numbers are, but couldn't they be listed on a page called "cullen numbers" and "pell numbers," for those that are already contained on these pages? As for numbers in the bible or in Star Trek, those can be listed on the appropriate bible or star trek pages. Or maybe they could be eliminated. I'd leave that up to the people who care about the star trek and bible pages. As for your George W. Bush comment, my version of trivial is much more natural than that. My point is that factorization and palindromicity are easily calculated. Therefore an encylopedia entry, beyond explaining how to calculate factorization and palindromicity, adds no information whatsoever. Perhaps my use of the term "trivial" was inappropriate, but that's precisely why I defined the term. Anthony DiPierro 23:42, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Alright, I think I understand where you're coming from a little better. I agree with you that 52 + 78 = 130 is not so important, unless there was something special shared by 52 and 78. I think sums of consecutive primes are important. Consecutive composites, I don't know, but that doesn't even apply to your 52 + 78 example. I think factorization is important because it's like a fingerprint of the number. When you take mathematical facts like that about a number and put them together on a number page, you're creating a page about an entity with a personality all its own. And yes, that might duplicate information elsewhere, but we're probably already duplicating a lot of information in the pages about important historical figures. For example, the pages on Eisenhower, Churchill and Stalin all ought to mention their historic meeting at Yalta. Would it be better to make a page on Yalta meeting, excise the Yalta information in those three articles and replacing it with a link to the Yalta meeting article? I think probably not. I advocate treating numbers as persons. Integers up to a thousand are celebrities, and deserve their own articles. PrimeFan 19:01, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)
If you're going to have pages on numbers, then including factorization makes sense. But I don't think numbers belong in an encyclopedia. The rest of my argument basically follows from that base assumption, which I don't think we can do much more than vote on and if enough people want numbers, then we keep them, and it looks like that's what we're gonna have. Again, once we have a numbers page, might as well put just about anything in them. Anthony DiPierro 11:26, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Egil's renaming proposal. The main reason is that I see this case as being no different from any other case of disambiguation. The year 42 and the number 42 are identical in both speech and writing, so to disambiguate by writing the former in Arabic numerals and the latter in words is arbitrary and counterintuitive. The standard Wikipedia practice is to disambiguate with a parenthetical word or phrase, so I see no reason not to do that here. A second reason is that for numbers over a hundred, it would save a lot of time writing out the links! A third reason is that it would remove the silly debate over whether American English or British English should be preferred. If Egil's proposal is accepted, I hereby volunteer to move all the articles, but you'll need to remind me on my talk page that I've promised this, because otherwise I'll forget... -- Oliver P. 02:39, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I'll help move them, if it helps to keep useful content that would otherwise be deleted.The Fellowship of the Troll 19:54, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)
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