Testwiki:Articles for deletion/Quadruple product

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 no consensus; I will add that merging can still be discussed locally on the articles' talk pages. –MuZemike 21:54, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Quadruple product

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Recreation of article just deleted after deletion discussion here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vector quadruple product. The content is the same but with trivial working (e.g. AD - BC can be also calculated with a 2D determinant, replacing the products with trig expressions) and definitions from other articles (a convoluted way of writing the triple product out) added. The title is confusing as it invites "quadruple product of what?", not just the many possible products of vectors, and is not given in the only inline source. JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 13:38, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

• Delete / Merge - While I am impressed by the sourcing and formatting -- the article is pretty useless. First of all, as was pointed out earlier, there are many ways to calculate the "product" of a number of vectors -- so listing two of the ways, and for such a specific case of exactly 4 vectors seems odd. Moreover, given that we have an article on the interesting base case, triple product, this article seems unnecessary and a trivial extension of triple product. Would we consider having Quintuple product? Also, consider the fact that the quoted phrase "triple product" returns ~800,000 hits on google, while "quadrupal product" returns < 2,000. I wouldn't be opposed to seeing a "extensions of the triple product" section in the triple product article (although I'm not sure its necessary) if the material is a nonobvious extension -- but it seems to me as if it is. jheiv ^{talk contribs} 08:23, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

• Merge: with triple product. The sourcing is an improvement over the previous version of the article. I agree that we don't need to explore new ways to compute products with more and more factors, but I think the coverage in Gibbs & Wilson, not to mention the coverage in MathWorld and the references it gives, establishes that the material here is encyclopedic.--RDBury (talk) 12:43, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

• Keep: scalar and vector quadruple product are real terms in the engineering literature. Just a few example of their usage:
  • Slides from MIT's vector calculus class.
  • Slides for a robotics course at Oxford.
  • Book on mechanics

In my opinion, they're stupid terms, since obviously there are zillions upon zillions of ways to define quadruple products, but sadly the job of Wikipedia is to reflect usage, not my taste in terminology. If they're using the terms at MIT, Oxford, and in published textbooks, then that establishes sufficient notability. -- Walt Pohl (talk) 13:35, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

• Comment: In this case, would a redirect to say, "Triple product#Extensions" not suffice? jheiv ^{talk contribs} 17:04, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
  • I think it would detract from the triple product page. What's the virtue of putting it all in one page? -- Walt Pohl (talk) 02:13, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
• comment from the previous discussion the identities are (also) already here: Vector calculus identities#Addition and multiplication.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 17:24, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
  • What's important isn't the identities, but the term. I don't know why engineers named these products, but they did. If someone creates a quintuple product page, I'll be the first to vote to delete. -- Walt Pohl (talk) 02:13, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 14:14, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
• Delete per AfD on previous article; material already exists on Wikipedia per JohnBlackburne. -- Radagast3 (talk) 21:47, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I think this is unfair on two counts. First, this is a different article and a great improvement over the previous version. Second, imo there was no consensus for 'Delete' in the previous AfD, though the person who closed that debate apparently saw it differently. Water under the bridge now but citing the previous debate as if there were no dissenting opinions seems a bit misleading.--RDBury (talk) 04:00, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I see what you mean, but I was one of the editors who !voted "delete" there, and my redundancy concerns expressed there still apply -- I haven't changed my mind. -- Radagast3 (talk) 08:11, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

• Delete per jheiv, and JohnBlackburne. Merge what is relevant, but I don't see much to be saved.Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 00:20, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
• Redirect: to Vector calculus identities#Addition and multiplication. Not really enough on its own to justify an article. It is a possible search term so a redirect should be left behind.--Salix (talk): 06:02, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

If a redirect is to be used, and I don't support that, it should be to Vector algebra relations, not to the calculus related Vector calculus identities; the misplaced material in Vector calculus identities#Addition and multiplication repeated from Vector calculus identities should be deleted, as per the RfC on its talk page. Brews ohare (talk) 15:14, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

• Keep: It's a definite search term. It came up on google before I had even finished typing it in fully. 'Vector Quadruple Product' and 'Quadruple Product' both showed up by the second letter of the second word in 'Quadruple Product'. Besides that, why all the fuss? What's the problem with the article? David Tombe (talk) 23:27, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

• Comment - IMO, the question is not whether it is a possible search term, but whether the material is most appropriate as part of a larger article or in its own. If you ask me, the material is most appropriate in a larger, more comprehensive page for two reasons. 1) So that editors can focus their watchlists and maintenance efforts on one page, rather than two, and 2) so that readers who are unfamiliar with exactly what they are looking for, will be able to easily find the information on a single page rather than having to open every link they don't understand. Also, multiple articles tends to result in inconsistency -- inconsistent nomenclature, inconsistent terminology, inconsistent thoroughness -- repetitiveness, and ambiguity. These are often readily apparent in a single article, and summarily fixed. In my mind, there is no question this does not warrant a separate article. jheiv ^{talk contribs} 03:41, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree that there is an unfortunate tendency, especially in math articles due to MathWorld influence, toward several stubby articles where a single high quality article is possible. Some care is needed when trying to counter this tendency that sourced, encyclopedic material is not lost in the process.--RDBury (talk) 22:40, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

• Comment -- Why is this issue on AfD? I think at this point it has been established that the terms scalar quadruple product and vector quadruple product are notable enough to be mentioned somewhere in Wikipedia. This should have discussed on the content talk pages as an ordinary topic of organization, rather than the extraordinary process that article deletion. The votes that call themselves delete votes are in fact keep votes. A vote to merge is a vote to keep. This article should never gone to AfD. The previous article should never have gone to AfD (though that case was more understandable, since it was hard to figure what the article was about), and given that it went to AfD it should have been redirected, not deleted. If someone had just redirected the original article to vector calculus identities, then we could have hashed it out on the talk pages. jhev and others could have made their reasonable points there, and we could have worked it out. Now we have to wait for an adminstrator to count noses, rather than just discussing a solution in the ordinary way. This is not the kind of dispute that AfD process is for.

Now if this article gets deleted, what's going to happen? If I redirect quadruple product to triple product, or vector calculus identities, is someone going to submit the redirect to speedy deletion? How many more rounds of process are we going to go through for two paragraphs of content? -- Walt Pohl (talk) 09:07, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

The question (at least in this case) is not whether the material is appropriate for Wikipedia, but whether it is appropriate for it's own article. Or perhaps, "where is the most appropriate place for this material?" This is a common debate at AfD: "I realize the material should go somewhere -- but should it go here?" And that is exactly what the point of this AfD is. So to correctly view the AfD process, you should understand that a vote to merge is not a vote to keep. Lastly, if you review WP:RFD#DELETE, you'll note that the redirects that you mention would, most likely, not fall under those criteria. jheiv ^{talk contribs} 06:44, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Right, sometimes AfD's turn into that, when it turns out that something is notable after all. But that's not where an AfD should start. On the policy page, Wikipedia:DEL, it lists merging and redirection as alternatives to deletion, and that doing either falls under “being bold” in a way that deletion does not. If every dispute about how content should be organized goes to AfD, then the process will break down. And I understand that those redirects don't meet the grounds for speedy deletion, but this topic doesn't meet the grounds for deletion either, and yet here we are, with everyone voting for delete. -- Walt Pohl (talk) 15:00, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

• Keep. A tidy little article. It gives the identities, and physical motivation for why these formulas come up. In the form it is, it makes a nice self-contained capsule of information. Losing that information somewhere at the bottom of a big article mostly on something completely different would help nobody. Jheald (talk) 10:21, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
• Keep per Jheald. We should answer the reader's question: "What is the quadruple product this text - or that WP article - mentions?" That's what we're for. The answer is too long and has too much content for Wiktionary; the information will get boiled out (and cease to answer the reader's question) if inserted in Vector calculus identities.
• On the procedural question: No, a vote to merge is a vote to keep, because merging doesn't require admin intervention. Whether the topic benefits from an article of its own doesn't need to add to AFD's backlog. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:49, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

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Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, -- Cirt (talk) 02:05, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Comment: This Google link indicates what the point of the article is: to summarize references like these. For more detail see Talk:Quadruple product. Brews ohare (talk) 05:16, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Whether a miscellany of topics under a broad heading like Products involving vectors is an easier place to find results than a number of accurately named more specialized sections (appropriately cross-linked) such as Triple product and Quadruple product may be difficult to decide: what organization provides easier information retrieval?

What strikes me as equally pertinent is whether there is enough said about Quadruple product and Triple product to warrant separate articles. Originally there was a section in Quadruple product on the connection to Geometric algebra, paralleling the mention of the 3-fold exterior product in Triple product. That is, the relation to $𝐚\mathbf{\wedge }𝐛\mathbf{\cdot }𝐜\mathbf{\wedge }𝐝$ and so forth (the vector cross product a × b is closely related to the bivector). However, it was deleted in its entirety along with its sources. IMO a merge of the two articles would force inclusion of this connection in some form. If that were done now, a separate Quadruple product would be a stronger stand-alone article. Brews ohare (talk) 15:32, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

• Keep The topic is obviously notable. See Elementary geometry, for example. Colonel Warden (talk) 17:51, 30 September 2010 (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.