Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Numbers

Requested move at Talk:One half#Requested move 17 May 2024

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Interesting properties

Edits on the article 1234 (number) recently were disliked and questionable by some users; backgrounds can be seen in Talk:1234 (number)#Mock rational and WT:WPM#1234 (number). This curiosity leads me to question what are the facts not included in "interesting properties"? Do we have some guidelines or manual styles about this, or to put it plainly, how to distinguish between properties of a number that are very interesting? There are several articles, one of which is 59 (number) talking about the number of polyhedron classes or polytopes, each of which is 59 in total. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 10:36, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at WP:ANI

The ongoing discussion at WP:ANI#User:Radlrb in WP:WPM, spawned from WT:WPM#1234 (number), is relevant to members of this WP, as User:Radlrb is responsible for a very large amount of the content on number pages. Mathwriter2718 (talk) 13:16, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Help remove WP:CRUFT on number articles!

Hi, I'm looking for editors who can help me clean up some of the more problematic number articles and format their mathematical properties in a standard fashion, for an example, see 2, (before: [1] after: [2]). As this is a rather big task, I would love some help! Allan Nonymous (talk) 20:36, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

@Allan Nonymous: Why did you rm the etymology of two? I am thinking it remains relevant until we get to at least 13 (to explain the whole -teen suffix and why 11, 12 are unique). ❧ LunaEatsTuna (talk), proudly editing since 2018 (and just editing since 2017) – posted at 20:42, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Never mind I am blind, pardon me. ❧ LunaEatsTuna (talk), proudly editing since 2018 (and just editing since 2017) – posted at

Although while I have you, what is your opinion on 69 (number), the only integer with GA status? ❧ LunaEatsTuna (talk), proudly editing since 2018 (and just editing since 2017) – posted at 20:44, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Most of the information in the article is WP:DUE but is not always presented in the cleanest way (there are a lot of redundant statements). Some parts of the section on mathematics probably don't belong there. Allan Nonymous (talk) 21:30, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Not a fan of the bullet points TBH, it looks too unencyclopaedic for WP. Also, everything in the lead is meant to be mentioned in the body as well, so it is not redundant to repeat it. IMO said article is a more preferred example of what the other integers should look like, at least having been through a peer-review and some editors have said so too – I think we should open a discussion on making any major changes/standardisations to our articles on integers first. We have no policy on what aspects of a number should count as being noteworthy so it might be worth discussing that first – I think a criteria is ultimately needed so we can better improve them :) ❧ LunaEatsTuna (talk), proudly editing since 2018 (and just editing since 2017) – posted at 22:20, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

What is the justification and what is the big idea about changing all of those prose into bullets? The section in mathematics about 69 is already well-known divided into elementary properties as a natural number, properties of its factor and its classes, numerical systems, and its classes in geometrical visual. I think article 69 is presented well, from which we should treat other number-topic articles. The fact that GACR1b stated the article complies with MOS, one of them is about the list embeddings (see MOS:EMBED). A somewhat relatable MOS can be seen in MOS:PROSE. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 02:28, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

I will say, whether the articles are in prose or in bullets is not terribly important to me. I would be fine with people rewriting them in prose if that's the general consensus (I'd be willing to put in the work to change them myself, even!) My main concern is the accumulation of mathematical trivia, not really the format of the articles. WP:NNUMBER WP:1729 all provide pretty good guidelines for this sort of thing. Allan Nonymous (talk) 04:08, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

That's ridiculous and reckless given myself and others have made extensive efforts converting bullet points into high quality prose, which you have subsequently deleted. We are aware of the issue with trivia but what you are doing is a backwards step. You are deleting high quality encyclopedic content. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater! Polyamorph (talk) 12:08, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose I disagree that the information you're removing is cruft, and I wish you would get consensus before making such large changes to so many articles at once. Also, as Dedhert.Jr said, I prefer prose to bullet points. Davey2116 (talk) 03:15, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

  Mass reverting edits, particularly from an individual editor is generally frowned upon per WP:HOUND as for the reasons behind those edits, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics#Cleaned up the article 7 where a general consensus on the mathematical worthiness of the content in question was established. As to whether the information ought to be presented in WP:PROSE I feel it would be better to have it in large paragraph bulleted lists, but would be perfectly fine with prose paragraphs. Allan Nonymous (talk) 03:45, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

You brag on your user page that you are a BOLD editor. If you make bold edits to more than a dozen articles in rapid succession you do not get to then complain when they are reverted. I do not think HOUND applies here because the edits in question are all directly pertinent to this issue, as opposed to unrelated edits reverted as part of some personal vendetta. BRD is more relevant in this case than HOUND, and really, you shouldn't be redoing this many bold edits after you know that someone has objected to them.

I assure you that I do assume AGF on your part, I simply disagree with what you're doing here. Overall, I find that most of the contributions in question are interesting, informative, and above all, useful; the reader who searches for individual numbers on Wikipedia is looking for exactly this kind of information. There can be discussions about how much weight to give the more specialized facts, but the wholesale indiscriminate deletions you've been doing are not helpful, in my opinion, and should be reverted.

As for the "consensus" you cite, while that is a lengthy discussion, there are only a handful of editors present, and some comments read like objections to your BOLDness (e.g. An edit removing that much material deserves a thorough review to ensure there is not any rescueable content that was deleted). As to your response to that particular comment (I 100% agree, feel free to go in and add back (in a more clear and concise way) some of the facts deleted if there is a consensus to do so): deleting 20,000+ worth of content is effortless; to put the burden on someone else to sift through all of it or else let your deletion stand is very unreasonable. That is why I attempted to revert your deletions; it is not that I think every single fact I restored should ultimately be kept, just that if we're going to delete things we should do it small steps at a time, with dedicated discussions on each article's talk page to deal with things on a case-by-case basis, rather than all at once in some obscure backroom discussion that didn't even get a RfC. Davey2116 (talk) 05:26, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree 100% with you Davey2116 and is along the lines of how the wikiproject members have been operating. Polyamorph (talk) 12:33, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

• This is disruptive. Please stop removing content on mass. Several of us have been actively improving these articles, removing what you might consider to be WP:CRUFT, and improving the prose. You are removing this prose and replacing with lists, which is not an improvement and contrary to the GA standard we've been working towards. Your edits are disruptive and you must stop immediately. Polyamorph (talk) 11:54, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

@Radlrb, Certes, and Barnards.tar.gz: your attention is requested. Polyamorph (talk) 12:00, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

I haven’t had a chance to look at the edits in question in detail, but after a very brief spot check of a few removals I find myself agreeing that they are crufty. However, huge sweeping changes are difficult to assess so I understand the concern. Since there does not currently appear to be consensus, let’s discuss here. Perhaps some principles could be agreed, e.g. that a number appearing in an OEIS sequence is not sufficient for that to be a significant fact about the number. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 12:34, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Compare this with this. Completely removing the extensive prose in the "In mathematics" section (which incidentally I wrote) and replacing with an inferior list. Polyamorph (talk) 12:39, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree that wasn’t an improvement. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 13:18, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Hi, I wish to introduce myself. I am Mathwriter2718, a relatively new editor to Wikipedia. I have worked at WP:WPM for a bit but I have been dragged towards this project, particularly from the Radlrb discussions, and I am joining it now.

I gently disagree with Allan Nonymous's style of making blowtorch removals, though I understand the motivation to act this way given the very large amount of cruft. I certainly agree that many number articles have large amounts of cruft on them. I personally believe the correct way to deal with this is to remove smaller amounts at a time, so that if edits are reverted, we can discuss the merits of specific content instead of getting into a spat about whether a 77,000 byte removal was a good change or not. I have recently made some (relatively) small, conservative removals from 5 and 7 that I hope the other editors will review.

Perhaps some of the chaos of the past week (or even months) could be minimized if this project's guidelines were expanded. Mathwriter2718 (talk) 15:29, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Here are some relevant threads to this one:

• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics#Cleaned_up_the_article_7
• Wikipedia_talk:What_Wikipedia_is_not#WP:NOTOEIS

Mathwriter2718 (talk) 15:37, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Hi Mathwriter2718. I missed the drama at WP:WPM and so only just became aware after the reverts on my watchlist! Other relevant recent threads are:

• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Numbers/Archive_8#Move_trivia_and_disambiguation_content_out_of_number_articles
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Numbers/Archive_8#Guidelines_for_entry_qualification

There is consensus that there is a lot of trivia that needs to be removed, and I have removed entire sections from articles myself previously. The ultimate aim of this project is to improve the articles on numbers. I worked a fair bit on 1 previously with the intention to improve the prose to GA standard, I think I was making progress. I think a systematic approach, starting with an overhaul of WP:WikiProject_Numbers#Template_for_integers for consistency with WP:Manual of Style/Trivia sections -Polyamorph (talk) 15:49, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

There was so much drama at WPM across many threads. Several comments were reverted and aren't visible anymore. I suspected things have been brewing for a while, and it seems from those threads you just sent that it goes back even further than I thought! I confess to being a fan of some trivia on articles, though the content on some of these articles is not even related to the article's subject. Specifically, the stuff that bothers me the most is "number X (the subject of the article) is related to Y, and now I am going to tell you several paragraphs about Y". Examples of this were removed in https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=744_%28number%29&diff=1238550872&oldid=1230509719. Mathwriter2718 (talk) 16:05, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Proposed update for integer guidelines

Polyamorph suggested that the inclusion guidelines at Wikipedia:WikiProject Numbers#Template for integers need to be updated. It does seem there's a big gap between what's recommended by the guidelines and what the most inclusive editors have been de facto keeping in articles. It also seems like there is material that inclusive editors have been restoring that they might agree can be removed, so it would help to get specific, and maybe the article conflicts can be resolved simply by following some new agreed-upon criteria. So, open question: what are the most important and interesting properties about integers that are missing from the guidelines? -- Beland (talk) 19:32, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

• For me, the Template for integers is fine for creating a brand new start class article, but most/all of these articles already exist now. For developing GA or FA quality content we should be using prose, not lists, and there are other important sections that would be expected in a GA, including etymology and history of symbols / representation etc. Polyamorph (talk) 19:44, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

  Would you say everything in [3] is covered by the existing guideline, then, other than that it uses prose instead of a list? It doesn't include etymology or history of glyphs - I assume that's only relevant for digits and numbers with irregular names (which the guidelines might want to say, and we also have English numerals to explain construction patterns). -- Beland (talk) 20:12, 7 August 2024 (UTC)