Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Remarkable identities

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. It's pretty clear that the consensus is that this should not exist as is, it's not so clear what should be done with it. I've added a see also in Identity (mathematics) to Factorization. If anyone feels that this is not enough and wants a further merge, you are welcome to place a redirect to the desired merge target and I will undelete the history under it on request. SpinningSpark 10:43, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Remarkable identities

ATTENTION! I rename the article. Vorov (talk) 18:59, 18 June 2020 (UTC) [reply]

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The subject of this article is not a thing: the collection of trivial algebraic identities discussed here is not treated as a single topic in any sources, and is certainly not treated under the name "remarkable identities". The place one might find such a list is a textbook on algebra (perhaps in Russian, since the article is partly written in some language that uses the Cyrillic alphabet), but Wikipedia is not a textbook. JBL (talk) 12:57, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions. JBL (talk) 12:57, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This article exists in twenty Wikipedias. See French one or Spanish one. In a school textbook on algebra often exist chapters titled as "Remarkable identities". --Vorov (talk) 13:03, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Remarkable" is a common adjective in English; it means "worth noting" or "worth commenting on". In my own papers I have called things "remarkable formulas" but they do not belong in Wikipedia under that name. --JBL (talk) 13:14, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Merge a shorter version into Identity (mathematics)#Algebraic identities, with a redirect left. The suggested target contains other identities that are not less "remarkable" (see WP:PEACOCK), and the target section is much too short. A redirect must be left because the term is (or was) rather common. D.Lazard (talk) 13:57, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
maybe move to List of algebraic identities? This way it will be similar to List of logarithmic identities, List of trigonometric identities. --Vorov (talk) 14:01, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
And then there can be a link from Identity (mathematics), in the location D.Lazard suggested. I think this is a good proposal. I disagree with D.Lazard about leaving a redirect, however: I do not believe there is a common English-language meaning for the phrase "remarkable identity". --JBL (talk) 14:22, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Nice, can you move it without leaving a redirect? I can not do this. --Vorov (talk) 14:28, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as middle-school worksheet cruft. This is fundamentally ill-defined topic. Like all aspects of mathematical aesthetics, designating an identity "remarkable" is a subjective judgment call, and in this case, we've no indication that enough people have collectively made the same judgment call that we can regard it as a part of the culture. What is "remarkable" about squaring a binomial? Or the fact that squares are nonnegative? XOR'easter (talk) 17:09, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as a POV fork. "Remarkable" is an inherently subjective description, and the listings here were probably cherry-picked by someone based on their personal opinions of the identities. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 18:13, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. Clearly appears to be one editor's choice of favorite identities, this is not encyclopedic. Identity (mathematics)#Algebraic identities could be beefed up a bit with some of these, but a full merge would be going overboard. I do not think that a redirect is appropriate in this case.--Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 18:36, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to category:Mathematical identities. I was expecting the page to list famous equations like Euler's identity but it doesn't and so the category would be a better target for the page title. Andrew🐉(talk) 18:49, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment by nominator: the article has been moved to the new title List of algebraic identities by its creator. While it still would need serious cleanup of various kinds, this seems potentially viable to me. Pinging other participants @D.Lazard, XOR'easter, SNUGGUMS, Wcherowi, and Andrew Davidson: to see if this affects any views. —JBL (talk) 11:40, 20 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Striking my above comment. It now seems viable to keep under one condition: this should feature more than just what one person thinks are important identities, and should be expanded to be more inclusive if it hasn't been already. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 12:40, 20 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. This is a content fork of Factorization#Recognizable patterns. I suggest to merge the article there. D.Lazard (talk) 12:47, 20 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 09:16, 26 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Delete this looks like a collection of identities that one person found helpful or useful, which isn't an encyclopedic topic. If done properly, with a list of all algebraic identities which have been listed in an external source or have received some discussion from mathematicians, it would be extremely long and unworkable. Factorization#Recognizable_patterns does also duplicate a number of the formulas and a couple of them are trivially obvious. Hut 8.5 12:12, 26 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
But the same arguments can be used agains List of logarithmic identities and List of trigonometric identities. Do you agree? What is the difference then? --217.100.112.242 (talk) 12:38, 26 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not a massive fan of those articles either but there are a few ways they improve on this one:

List of trigonometric identities includes a large number of entries of identities which are sufficiently significant to have their own articles, e.g. Rotation matrix, Pythagorean trigonometric identity, Chebyshev_polynomials#Trigonometric_definition, Tangent half-angle formula, Weierstrass substitution etc. That's not the case here, apart from Difference of two squares.
There is no overlap with those articles and others, unlike the overlap here with Factorization#Recognizable patterns.
The formulas in those lists are a good deal less obvious than the ones here, e.g. this list tells you that $(a-b)^{2n}=(b-a)^{2n}$ , which isn't interesting to anyone who knows how squares work. Hut 8.5 17:25, 26 June 2020 (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.