Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Constant

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 merge to Mathematical constant, redirect to disambig. --Salix alba (talk) 13:11, 11 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Constant

Two users have expressed their doubts (see talk page or below) as to the legitimacy of the existence of this article. Also, I think this article may need to be deleted.

"I have not really thought about it, but it might be best to have a disambiguation page here instead of an essay "constant" about concepts that are not really that related to eachother. Some constants are defined, others are mathematics, others are measured, etcetera. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 23:53, 10 December 2007 (UTC)"

""I really do think that the scientific concept of a constant can be dealt with as a whole". Here we clearly disagree; I think the various notions that are called "constant" are too diverse and disparate to be amenable to a meaningful joint treatment. --Lambiam 13:12, 11 December 2007 (UTC)" Randomblue (talk) 22:06, 7 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Merge to Mathematical constant, which is what I think that you three guys have been talking about on the article's talk page. Most of the recent edits have been done by the three of you, though there have been some minor edits for form, and some vandalism that is being policed appropriately. I hope that you can accomplish the merger smoothly, then do the appropriate redirect. Mandsford (talk) 22:25, 7 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy keep on procedural grounds: AfD is not the appropriate forum for this discussion. No-one's suggesting that if someone types "constant" into the search box and presses return they should only get a page of search results. The argument is not over whether there should be an page on "Constant" but whether it should be a disambiguation page or an article. There's already a separate Constant (disambiguation) page. The question seems to be over whether to merge and if so whether the page should be a full article or a disambig. Suggest you read and follow WP:merge and WP:DISAMBIG. Qwfp (talk) 10:13, 8 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete (or userify, if requested) this indiscrimate collection of information. Whether the dab page should be moved here, or a redirect made to it, or whatever, is (as Qwfp says) another question. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:06, 8 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Either keep or merge. If this is deleted, most of the information in it should get merged into one or more other articles. And constant (disambiguation) should then get moved to this title. Michael Hardy (talk) 16:40, 8 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Most of it does appear to be in the linked articles; the only omission I can see is the claim from here about Apery's constant and the gyromagnetic ratio. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:36, 8 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. It's a vital article, and it's at AfD. I have no opinion here other than that.-h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 17:37, 8 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- That says more about WP:VA than anything else; but a redirect to Variable, as an antonym, would be one possibility. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:36, 8 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The real problem with this article is its first sentence, the article would be improved if it were replaced by "A constant is a number which is frequently referred two by a name related to a formula or equation which references it." And that's a really bad sentence. The problem is that the concept is so intuitively clear that it's hard to find a verbal way of expressing the idea. But just because fixing a problem in an article is difficult doesn't mean we should give up and delete the article. Minos P. Dautrieve (talk) 02:30, 9 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Censure nominator for wasting AFD's time - it says right there on the front page that you only nominate stuff for deletion - you've brought AFD an editorial matter you could have solved yourself with a bit of WP:BOLDness - David Gerard (talk) 13:20, 9 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Response "wasting AFD's time", that's nice of you. As you can see, the issue isn't that trivial. Indeed, I would have gone for redirecting the constant article to the disambiguation page and merge the article in mathematical constant, but out of the 6 who have replied (not counting you), only 2 have proposed merging, which isn't an overwhelming majority. I think consensus should be reached before I waste my time doing anything that doesn't please the community! Randomblue (talk) 13:46, 9 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I do not understand the nomination by Randomblue (talk · contribs), who created this article. He can merge the content into mathematical constant or into the articles about the different constants listed there, if he wants to. As I suggested on talk:constant, this article can be made a disambiguation page. There is no need to delete it. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 18:48, 9 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Split/merge generally I prefer this article to Mathematical constant which is just a list. Adding some explanation to the individual constants gives a lot more context, whereas the list only fits the needs of mathematicians who already know what these constants are. --Salix alba (talk) 21:08, 9 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Merge with Mathematical Constant. This should definitely not be deleted. J.delanoy ^gabs _adds 23:08, 9 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - or merge or rename or refactor or whatever - but why is this even on AfD when (almost) no-one is suggesting that this page or its contents should actually be *deleted* ?? Gandalf61 (talk) 10:40, 11 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I'll redirect the article to disambig page and merge content to mathematical constant How do I close this AfD? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Randomblue (talk • contribs) 12:41, March 11, 2008 (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.