Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of important publications in cryptography
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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 delete. Owen× ☎ 21:21, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
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- List of important publications in cryptography (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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Inherently original research. Compare WP:Articles for deletion/List of important publications in computer science (2nd nomination). Was previously kept at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of important publications in networks and security but I think this is worth a reevaluation a decade later. * Pppery * it has begun... 17:13, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
- Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Science, Mathematics, and Lists. Spiderone(Talk to Spider) 18:30, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
- Delete such a list can never have a policy-compliant WP:LISTCRIT because "importance" is subjective. BrigadierG (talk) 18:46, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
- Comment: One alternative is a move to List of publications in cryptography without "important", while applying Wikipedia notability as the WP:LISTCRIT.Also, the same discussion is applicable to List of important publications in science, List of important publications in chemistry, List of important publications in medicine, List of important publications in mathematics, List of important publications in physics, List of important publications in statistics, List of important publications in data science, List of important publications in geology, List of important publications in economics, List of important publications in philosophy, and List of important publications in pedagogy. — MarkH21talk 19:27, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
- This is not workable, few individual publications have an article so it would be unclear what should be listed. Reywas92Talk 20:34, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Reywas92: I see dozens of the entries in these lists with standalone Wikipedia articles. That's more than enough and is a clear criterion. See List of important publications in mathematics, List of important publications in physics, and List of important publications in economics for example. — MarkH21talk 21:03, 7 June 2024 (UTC) Oh sorry! If you meant cryptography specifically, then yes there are too few. — MarkH21talk 21:05, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
- It seems like pretty much all of these date from the really early days of Wikipedia, well before the project had clearly defined guidance for list criteria. I don't think any of them are very good articles and probably would be in favour of a healthy dose of WP:TNT. I think List of publications of X with a notability criteria is the way to go - but that can't happen without blowing up all of these articles and starting over. BrigadierG (talk) 21:11, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, I meant the nominated article but most others are also short on wikilinks. Even those that have articles, though, are almost all books or very old or written by the most famous scientists. Practically no journal articles would ever have an article. I don't think a list of primarily textbooks would be good content for a list of publications. However, if the criteria is simply being a publication with a WP article, that could also end up including books that aren't important yet someone happened to find some reviews and write and article. While I agree that "important" is subjective, are there actually any problems with these lists? Have people been arguing about what should be on them at all? Reywas92Talk 22:36, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
- I think a book can meet the relevant wiki-notability standard and deserve an article without being epochal. XOR'easter (talk) 21:50, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Reywas92: I see dozens of the entries in these lists with standalone Wikipedia articles. That's more than enough and is a clear criterion. See List of important publications in mathematics, List of important publications in physics, and List of important publications in economics for example. — MarkH21talk 21:03, 7 June 2024 (UTC) Oh sorry! If you meant cryptography specifically, then yes there are too few. — MarkH21talk 21:05, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
- There's a separate article at Bibliography of cryptography (which I moved from Books on cryptography). * Pppery * it has begun... 22:47, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
- This is not workable, few individual publications have an article so it would be unclear what should be listed. Reywas92Talk 20:34, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
- Keep. If the intent is to delete based on the reasons above then there needs to be a broader discussion on lists like this in general. Picking them off one by one is not the way to go. That said, we HAVE criteria to determine if an article is notable and belongs on the list. If there is a reliable independent secondary source that says that it is notable then it should be on the list. Otherwise no. Simple as that. Cryptology is a mature and distinct enough field of study that it absolutely warrants a list like this if lists like this are deemed worthy to exist based on broader discussion. Epachamo (talk) 14:52, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think that one source saying that a publication is noteworthy will always be enough. Plenty of books, papers, etc., get recommended as "further reading" at the end of textbook chapters. That's a degree of recognition, for sure, but it's a long way from "this paper won the authors a Nobel Prize". XOR'easter (talk) 21:43, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
- > If the intent is to delete based on the reasons above then there needs to be a broader discussion on lists like this in general.
- This /is/ the discussion. If the outcome of this discussion is to delete, it creates precedent that makes the deletion of others more likely. The reverse is also true. Usually what happens if you try to open a broader discussion about deleting a larger set of articles in one go is people also beat that down with cries of WP:TRAINWRECK. It leads to a catch-22 keep vote - if you try to delete one at time, that's not acceptable because other similar articles exist and there needs to be more discussion, and if you try to delete more at a time that's also not acceptable because it's too many articles to evaluate the notability of in one go. BrigadierG (talk) 10:53, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
- Comment As written, this list is under-sourced synth-cruft based on personal opinion. I'd be inclined to delete it. However, I think we
needcould maybe have a more broad discussion (an RfC or something of that sort) about whether lists like these are feasible and how to do them correctly. XOR'easter (talk) 21:47, 8 June 2024 (UTC) - Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. — MarkH21talk 03:10, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
- Delete OK, I went away, thought about it, read the list again, considered the comments here... and have settled on deletion being the way to go. Taken by itself, the page is just no good: ancient synth-cruft from a bygone age. Workable inclusion criteria have not emerged from the discussion here, so fixing the page (presuming that anyone is even willing to volunteer the time and effort) is not a viable option. A more general discussion about how to do historical bibliographies of technical fields still sounds like it could be useful, but there's no way that this list represents the right method. XOR'easter (talk) 17:59, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
- Delete: The list fails to have a clear selection criteria following WP:LISTCRIT and is largely personal opinion / WP:SYNTH. The alternative option of "renaming the list without 'important' and using a Wikipedia-notability criterion" doesn't work for this particular list because there is only one entry in the list with its own Wikipedia article. — MarkH21talk 20:17, 11 June 2024 (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.