Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Factoriangular number

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. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 23:20, 29 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Factoriangular number

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This mathematical article is based on four recent articles (2015) by the same author, published in the same journal. The journal is not a reliable source, as it has not mathematics in its topic, and is not reviewed by Zentralblatt MATH nor by MathSciNet. A Scholar Google search shows that the title of the article is a neologism that appear only in these four articles, and that these articles are not cited by other authors. Thus the topic is non-notable WP:OR. D.Lazard (talk) 09:14, 22 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep – Searching the term gives these three links: [1]; [2]; [3]; from an unrelated website. There is also this, this, and a .edu site here, here and here. The sequence also appears in the OEIS and it cannot be OR because the article is referenced. How do you define notability of a mathematical concept? Also, why did you put a COI tag on the page? Laurdecl ^talk 10:23, 22 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Comment – There is a paper in the IJST, which is peer reviewed (here), so there is fact a reliable source in the article. Laurdecl ^talk 10:32, 22 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This confirms that this is WP:OR: Except for the last comment, all non-anonymous links that are provided by Laurdecl (the author of the WP article) are authored by the same author, and either not published or published in the same journal. About the question of notability, a common criteria is that a mathematical concept cannot been notable, if it has never been mentioned in an article reviewed by MathSciNet or Zentralblatt. The reference provided in the last comment is by the same author, in a journal which is not reviewed by MathSciNet nor Zentralblatt (source: the site of the journal itself). D.Lazard (talk) 10:50, 22 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@D.Lazard: Sorry, but I don't know what "MathSciNet" or "Zentralblatt" are and I don't see any policies that mention them. This integer classification has been detailed in peer-reviewed journals which are certainly reliable sources. How is this OR if there a five references on the page, PR journals among them? Laurdecl ^talk 11:09, 22 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sigh, delete – when I created this (it was at Requested Articles), I assumed that more work on this would exist. This doesn't seem to be true, so perhaps this article is too soon. Sorry to D.Lazard for removing the PROD. Laurdecl ^talk 07:17, 24 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. The article cites five recent papers, but they are all by the same people — I would need to see papers from at least two independent research groups before I think there can be a plausible claim of having the multiple independent reliable sources requested by WP:GNG. In addition, and perhaps even more seriously, all five are (or maybe rather were, since the list is down) on Beall's list of predatory open access publishers (APJMR as a standalone journal, IndJST from its publisher), so they are not reliable and we cannot use them as sources. That leaves only OEIS, and although I do consider OEIS reliable (any change there has to be reviewed by an editorial board) I don't think we should have articles whose only sourcing is from OEIS. And also note that OEIS omitted their "nice" tag, which they use for non-boring sequences. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:39, 22 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. The notability criteria require the existence of secondary sources. The cited papers are primary sources. The links provided above by Laurdecl are to services that index journal articles, so they aren't secondary sources either. The OEIS has much looser criteria for inclusion than Wikipedia (see the FAQ, which says you should submit "Any [sequence] that actually show[s] up in your research.") so it does not establish notability, either. As long as there are no reliable secondary sources, this topic is not presently suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia. Ozob (talk) 19:02, 22 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 20:28, 22 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Fails notability for the reasons mentioned above. Not being aware of MathSciNet and Zentralblatt is a clear indication that one is not in a position to judge reliability of mathematical sources.--Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 20:37, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment: excellent point on judgment, Bill. Arcfrk (talk) 02:55, 29 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as noted by above editors, and because it seems to have been discussed only by one mathematician, and makes no mention of why these numbers are significant. (I am thinking of the paradox of the first uninteresting number.) Robert McClenon (talk) 01:02, 24 January 2017 (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.