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March 31

Category:Women developmental biologists

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: delete/merge. Good Ol’factory (talk) 00:46, 8 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale This violates the rule against creating last-rung ERGS categories, because we have no full diffusion of this category. I also doubt we could create a referenced, non-list article on women in developmental biology. We don't have to upmerge to the Developmental biologists category, because the one article is already there.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:06, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Musicians of Assam

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: rename. Good Ol’factory (talk) 23:32, 8 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: Either of the two primary conventions found in Category:Indian musicians by state, Fooian musicians and Musicians from Foo is preferable to using "of Foo". "Of" denotes formal belonging, which is inaccurate in this case, whereas the former indicate identity (Fooian musicians) or residence (Musicians from Foo). (Category creator not notified because: inactive) -- Black Falcon (talk) 20:14, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Exclaves in Kentucky

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: delete. Good Ol’factory (talk) 00:45, 8 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: Delete. Read Enclave and exclave: the correct form is either "enclaves in KY" (for pieces of other states surrounded by KY) or "exclaves of KY" (for pieces of KY surrounded by other states). No enclaves are located in Kentucky, and the only Kentucky exclave is the Kentucky Bend. We have no need for a category that can't contain more than one article. Nyttend (talk) 14:49, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Category:Amateur mathematicians

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: No consensus DavidLeighEllis (talk) 01:34, 8 April 2014 (UTC) (non-admin closure)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: Delete. Rather pointy category created following a discussion at Talk:Vi Hart#Vi Hart is NOT a mathematician. Outside of the main tree at Category:Mathematicians overlaps several sub cats Category:Recreational mathematics experts, Category:Mathematics educators‎, virtually empty. It also mirrors a list List of amateur mathematicians. Potentially awkward as many of the great L'Hopital were technically amateurs. Salix alba (talk): 07:27, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am in the process of categorizing the appropriate articles from List of amateur mathematicians so the the category is not "virtually empty." Morever, L'Hospital is not an amateur. His work is referenced by every math teacher, student, and researcher today. Everyone considers him an expert in his theorems. Jay Gatsby(talk) 08:08, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • L'Hospital is considered to be amateur.
  1. "Guillaume François Antoine Marquis de L'Hospital, amateur mathematician, borth in 1661 in Paris, died February 2, 1704, in Paris, France." Paultre, Patrick (2011). Dynamics of Structures. Wiley. p. 76. ISBN 9780470394137.
  2. "The Marquis de L'Hospital was an amateur mathematician who had become deeply interested in the new calculus...." Hirsch, Christian R. (1985). The Secondary School Mathematics Curriculum. Vol. 47. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. p. 435. ISBN 9780873532174.
  3. "John Bernoulli's bitterness increased when a French nobleman and amateur mathematician, the Marquis de L'Hospital (1661-1704) published under his own name..." Burton, David M. (1995). Burton's history of mathematics. Wm. C. Brown. p. 430. ISBN 9780697160898.
  4. [Chapter 12 is devoted to L'Hospital.] Collidge, Julian Lowell (1949). "12". The Mathematics of Great Amateurs. OxfordUP.
  5. "As for science, we note that we need not go very far back in history to find successful amateurs, such as L'Hospital, Schliemann, or Galois." Puu, T (2006). "Changing Attitudes" (PDF). Springer. p. 53. ((cite book)): Missing or empty |title= (help)
Your proposed definition doesn't match how the term "amateur" is used in reliable sources. If you want to come up with your own definitions, that's fine, and there are several peer-reviewed journals that will publish your musings. But it's not appropriate here. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 13:15, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. List of amateur mathematicians has existed since 2004 and there's no reason not to have a category for these articles. Moreover, It is not appropriate to have List of amateur mathematicians to be a sublist of List of mathematicians. Mathematicians are by definition experts in their field, and therefore NOT amateurs. David Eppstein would rather change the definition of mathematician to "anyone who does math" so that first-graders, cashiers, homeowners, and anyone with a 401K can be considered mathematicians. Jay Gatsby(talk) 09:05, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. I agree with the nominator's statement and would add that, despite the apparent purpose of the new category being to hide Vi Hart somewhere away from the other mathematicians, it does not fit her. She is not an amateur as she has earned a living (paid by the Khan Academy among others) for her mathematical work. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:35, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • It is inappropriate to have List of amateur mathematicians to be a sublist of List of mathematicians. Mathematicians are by definition experts in their field, and NOT amateurs. Furthermore, Vi Hart is not professional mathematician. She is a professional entertainer (via YouTube) and arguably a professional educator (via Khan Academy) but absolutely NOT a professional mathematician. Jay Gatsby(talk) 08:08, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • PS The category's creator, Jay Gatsby, is now removing other prominent mathematicians such as Martin Gardner from other categories as well as adding them here. Undoing this damage will require more than simply automatically upmerging this category. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:55, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am merely sorting out the categories so as to address your complaints. I do not nominate new content for deletion, nor do I ask other users to stop editing, simply because I am unhappy with the wording. No damage is being done; if anything, I am improving the articles so as to make the terminology more accurate. Jay Gatsby(talk) 09:05, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, yes, a few vandals aside, everybody thinks they are improving articles. The trick is convincing other people that you're correct. I'd recommend you back off a bit from editing and spend a bit more time establishing support for the changes you want to make. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 11:29, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete – this seems very pointy as Jay Gatsby is using 'amateur' in a pejorative sense. 'Amateur' means unpaid, not non-expert. Oculi (talk) 11:22, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't mean it to be pejorative. I agree with you that "amateur" means unpaid and non-expert. The root cause of this issue is whether Vi Hart is an amateur or expert mathematician. I want to develop criteria by which we can judge someone to be an expert. But nobody has addressed this so far. Jay Gatsby(talk) 11:28, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Whether or not a term is seen as pejorative has very little to do with your intent. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 11:52, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Catagorizing an article does not receive the same level of scrutiny as a controversial claim in the article proper, and claiming "amateur" status for contemporary women mathematicians is likely to be controversial. From Women in Mathematics: The Addition of Difference,[1] p. 94:

[M]any women find it difficult to be accepted by the mathematics community if they are not seen as professional. While the label "amateur" mathematician may have been an honorable one when women were not expected to do anything other than domestic work, it is no longer a label that would meet with such acceptance. Such a designation would now have negative connotations, and would make it difficult, for example, to receive grants, awards, jobs, and recognition.

If we can source a claim for mathematical "amateur" status then (assuming notability and other guidelines are met) we have a perfectly good list article where that can be recorded. Let's leave it at that. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 11:25, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. And leave as a subcategory of mathematicians. Amateur does not mean they are not mathematicians. They can be very good ones just that it isn't a major job they do. There are a lot of mathematicians and they need subcategorization, I think this is a good subcategory. Dmcq (talk) 13:24, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. To address some of the objections others have raised so far:
  • That there already exists a list on this topic is not a reason to delete this category. See our guideline Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates.
  • Whether or not the term "amateur" is controversial, offensive, or dismissive is irrelevant. What matters is whether the mathematicians in question are commonly described as such in reliable sources.
  • The issue of where to categorize Vi Hart and L'Hopital is irrelevant (unless it can be shown that neither they nor anyone else can be properly placed in this category). The proper list/category placement of any one individual is a content dispute, not an argument for keeping or deleting an entire category.
  • Whether the category's creator is engaging in WP:POINTy or otherwise disruptive behaviour is similarly irrelevant. Disruptive editing should be dealt with by warnings and discussions in the first instances, and topic bans, blocks, or other administrative remedies in the last. Again, nothing to do with CfD.
I think that, though the classification of mathematicians as "amateurs" can be somewhat woolly, most cases should be clear-cut, and even those that aren't can be properly discussed and referenced on the corresponding articles. Failing this, the wording of the definition could be tightened or loosened as necessary to better reflect usage in reliable sources. Unless and until these options have been explored I don't see that it's necessary to leap to deleting the entire category. —Psychonaut (talk) 13:50, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Something that seems to be unclear to me from the above discussion is the exact meaning of "amateur". I would think this means someone who is not a professional: that is, someone who is not compensated monetarily for their mathematical work. Presumably this would include people like L'Hopital (who was not paid) and exclude people like Martin Gardner (who was what might be called a "professional recreational mathematician"). But an any rate, the lack of agreement among editors here certainly suggests that this material is best handled in list form, rather than category form, where the dubbing of a mathematician as amateur can at least be attributed to some source other than the whims of editorial discretion. Presumably there are potential BLP issues involved in this categorization as well. Sławomir Biały (talk) 14:07, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, but remove Vi Hart and add Fermat, Boole, Pascal, Kronecker, Heegner, etc. An amateur (in the modern sense) is someone who pursues some activity, but not professionally. A child practicing arithmetic cannot be called an amateur mathematician unless she is pursuing it voluntarily. A grocery store cashier cannot be called an amateur mathematician unless he pursues mathematics outside the scope of his job. Vi Hart, on the other hand, has been paid by Khan in part for her expertise in mathematics (do you think she would be able to make those videos if she were clueless about math?) and so she is (or has been) a professional mathematician. It might be appropriate to distinguish her from research mathematicians, since she doesn't seem to have done much research in the past and does not seem to be currently engaged in it. But "mathematician" does not mean "research mathematician" (no matter what some of my colleagues think). Ozob (talk) 14:11, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
She is currently engaged in "research", to the extent that this means publications in mathematics journals. She has solo publications in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, and 2013. Chaveyd (talk) 18:07, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment we are closer to potential category. One question is whether this can be called a Wikipedia:DEFINING characteristic: "one that reliable sources commonly and consistently define the subject as having". I'm not sure about the commonly as until today I did not know several of those mentioned were amateurs. Outside of sports and ham radio I've found only one equivalent category Category:Amateur astronomers, it has a head article Amateur astronomy and could be regarded as field in its own right, perhaps more akin to our Category:Recreational mathematics experts.--Salix alba (talk): 15:56, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. It's often easy to determine whether someone is *not* an amateur (i.e. they have done something that would almost certainly have caused them to be paid for their mathematical work, such as being a teacher of mathematics, a professional researcher, or an author of mathematics books). It is much harder to prove a negative: how do you show that someone has not been paid for their work? A case in point: Leon Bankoff (primarily a dentist) was until recently listed in this category. He was also for many years an editor for a mathematics journal. Some journal editors are paid for their work, others do it on a volunteer basis. How do we know whether he was a paid or unpaid editor? And how much pay would be needed to push him from the amateur to non-amateur class? For another example, Leopold Kronecker did much of his academic work unpaid, but eventually became a professor: do we define an amateur to be someone who once did unpaid mathematics (in which case, does everyone who published research as an undergraduate qualify?) or someone who has never been paid as a mathematician?—David Eppstein (talk) 22:41, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Good point, but the problem can be resolved by changing my criteria. We can put people here who are (1) known for mathematical work, and (2) never engaged in mathematics as a career. For a good example (not mathematics, but similar), see Charles Ives, a famous composer of music. He was always a professional in just one field — insurance — and many other professionals in his field had no clue that he was at all musical. This category can embrace mathematicians comparable to Ives (Bankoff sounds rather comparable), as well as gentleman mathematicians such as l'Hopital. Nyttend (talk) 00:27, 1 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Mathematics is a field where someone can be recognized for contributions in the field without being compensated for it. This is true in a a way that you wouldn't find in a field like Architecture.Naraht (talk) 10:21, 1 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. How much payment does one have to get for mathematics before one becomes a so-called professional? For example, was Euclid paid for his work? Maybe his main job was scribe, and he did his math at night on sheets of papyrus. A list is a much better solution here, where we can source and detail the extent of their work and have some more specific criteria for inclusion (and even say "Yes, Joe was paid once for a paper, but most of his important work was done while he was waiting tables"), but a category that is binary in/out doesn't work.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 17:56, 3 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
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