Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Numbers

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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)

  The key guideline is that the subject of the article is the number — that is, the mathematical object — and not the numeral(s) that represents the string of characters or character commonly used to represent the number. To be honest, I think most of the content does satisfy that criteria. It could be written more accessibly or concisely, with some aspects like "concatenation of digits" section removed as it's not particularly relevant, but I don't see a justification for mass removal of content from this article making it a stub. Note, the PIN code that is in the current version fails these criteria since that is simply a string of characters and has nothing to do with the number as a mathematical object. Polyamorph (talk) 20:35, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

  I wonder if one reason the existing guideline envisions a list is that this encourages very short notes, deferring background information to linked articles. The preference for shortness may also be why editors who have been doing blowtorch trimming have been switching to list format sometimes? It sounds like small-article advocates are open to prose if it's focused on interesting properties. Is the level of detail for each factoid a matter of dispute? Or alternatively, what should the guideline say about prose? -- Beland (talk) 20:59, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

  The level of detail should be consistent with the GA guidelines in that it is broad in its coverage, covering all main aspects of he topic, mathematical or otherwise, without going into unnecessary detail - i.e., avoid straying too far from information about the number itself. Polyamorph (talk) 12:12, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

  It would be sensible to discuss how to deal with content such as 7#Religion and mythology. It is simply a list of factoids, most of which are uncited. There is provision for extra-mathematical associations in the guideline, but I'm certain most editors would consider this "cruft" ( I don't like the word but it is the one others are currently using). Yet this content was retained in the mass deletion event. Polyamorph (talk) 20:45, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

  Perhaps the detailed per-religion lists can be offloaded to detail articles if they seem a bit much for the number-article scope? We already have Significance of numbers in Judaism but it might be interesting to have a similar article for Christianity or other cultural domains. One argument for doing that is that it's interesting to compare how different numbers are considered in a given culture. One argument for not doing that is that it's interesting to see how different cultures have similar or conflicting views of the same number. -- Beland (talk) 21:30, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

  These sections should absolutely exist, but not as a long list of random factoids. Where a number is a key element of a religion or culture then it is of course important to include in the interests of breadth of coverage. Polyamorph (talk) 12:15, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

• The key guideline is that the subject of the article is the number — that is, the mathematical object — and not the numeral(s) that represents the string of characters or character commonly used to represent the number."

I do not think this is a good idea. I have said this before (in archive 8; please read) - just because something is a "mathematical fact" does not make it notable. Perhaps a good guideline to add would be "The presence of a number in an OEIS entry does not in itself give notability." OEIS is meant to be completely comprehensive; no-one is reading it as prose. Or again "A number x may not be cited as the nth member of an OEIS entry unless there are similar WP entries for the mth member of that sequence, for every m < n." Clearly there is a "cruft" problem with cultural stuff (football shirts and the like); I think some specific guidelines (not "rules") would help, like "No telephone numbers", "No bingo calls", "No billiard balls", "No age of majority stuff". (The last is a good example: pretty much any integer from 14 to 23 is available to pretty much every government in the world for age restriction more or less any sort of fun.) But there is also clearly a "cruft" problem with mathematical bits. Imaginatorium (talk) 03:39, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

• I'm not entirely clear on your objection to that existing guideline, I think it is that you feel it's too broad? I agree introducing a guideline as to what does and does not make a mathematical concept relating to a number notable for inclusion would be sensible. Polyamorph (talk) 11:53, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

  Sorry, I wasn't clear. I mean the "mathematical only" idea is too restrictive. Yes, the subject should obviously be the number, rather than just some connection to random other information. But significant facts about the number as a numeral should not be rigidly excluded. Imaginatorium (talk) 15:59, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

A concrete proposal

I think it would be good to have a concrete first draft proposal that people can attack, modify, and affirm.

Number articles should typically have these sections in this order. All sections will be written in prose with subsections as necessary and will not be bullet lists.

1. History: history of the concept/symbol/word. Should only exist when there is something interesting to say.
2. In mathematics/In geometry: see below.
3. List of basic calculations: contains 1 row for multiplication, 2 for division, and 2 for exponentiation. Should only be on articles 1, 2, ..., 13.
4. In (some area other than math, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, science, technology, etc): I have no comments at this moment on what belongs in these sections.
5. Endmatter (see also, references, etc).

For the section "In mathematics", here is how I propose weighing facts. Facts should be frowned upon for being:

Routine. Routine means also being true for nearly every other number upon a slight modification.

Examples that are routine:

• On the page for 5: "the Collatz sequence for 5 is 5, 16, 8, 4, 2, 1".
• On the page for 9: "nine has the even aliquot sum of 4".

Examples that are non-routine:

• On the page for 3: "3 is the first odd prime".

Not about the subject of the article. Facts on the page for number X should be as much as is reasonable about number X and not about number or object Y, even if X and Y are related. It is fine to say that X and Y are related, but this doesn't mean we should go into tons of detail about Y.

Examples that are about the subject:

• On the page for 5: "5 is also the first of the three known Wilson primes 5, 13, 563".
• On the page for 9: "nine has the even aliquot sum of 4".

Examples that are not about the subject:

• On the page for 5: "the factorial of five 5! = 120 is multiply perfect".
• On the page for 5: "a magic constant of 505 is generated by a 10 × 10 normal magic square". (The connection here, I think, is that 505 contains two 5's in its base 10 representation.)

Only mentioned inside OEIS. Indicator of interestingness.

About a property or sequence that does not have a Wikipedia page. Indicator of interestingness.

Facts should be smiled upon for being:

Interesting, nontrivial, surprising, striking, or cool, as measured by editors' reactions.

Examples:

• On the page for 5: "In graph theory, all graphs with four or fewer vertices are planar, however, there is a graph with five vertices that is not: K₅, the complete graph with five vertices, where every pair of distinct vertices in a pentagon is joined by unique edges belonging to a pentagram."
• On the page for 777: "777 is the difference between the number of diagonals and edges in a regular 42-gon."

Non-examples:

• On the page for 1234: The infamous 1234 fact said that the square root of 1234 is approximately 35.128336140500 which, when you take the floor, is the first in some unspecified sequence to be composite.

About a connection to an important object

Example:

• On the page for 9: "A polygon with nine sides is called a nonagon".

Mentioned outside of OEIS. Indicator of interestingness.

About a property or sequence that has a Wikipedia page. Indicator of interestingness.

Facts should be thrown out right away for being:

WP:OR or WP:SYNTH: every fact should be stated somewhere other than Wikipedia prior to its inclusion in this section.

Mathwriter2718 (talk) 14:09, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Support this is a great proposal. My only tiny concern is that "777 is the difference between the number of diagonals and edges in a regular 42-gon." doesn't strike me as a terribly interesting fact, as its about an arbitrary n-gon. Allan Nonymous (talk) 14:20, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

It's great to have your support. Shortly after you posted your response, I edited that criterion to make it clearer that it is the most subjective criterion (there are other more objective measures of interestingness I included). I personally find the 777 fact striking, but it is ok if we disagree. Mathwriter2718 (talk) 15:02, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

I incorporated your proposal into the draft Wikipedia:WikiProject Numbers/Guidelines. Allan Nonymous (talk) 19:22, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

• Comment All sections will be written in prose with subsections as necessary and will not be bullet lists. I think the important thing here is to note that prose is preferred. Lists can have their uses and for short articles with little content may even be a better way of organising the content. So it's just a matter of making clear prose is the preference where possible. The existing template in the guidance lists the following in the In mathematics section. Which of these if any are consistent with your proposal?
• A polygon with N sides is called an n-gon.
• N is part of the first few, or part of the last, members of a specific sequence.
• N is a Mersenne prime, or a Fermat prime, or a special and well-studied other prime.
• There are exactly N of (special groups, platonic solids, or other objects).
• There is a prominent mathematical object with N number of subobjects.

  Polyamorph (talk) 14:35, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks for your comment. I agree with what you said about prose.

  A polygon with N sides is called an n-gon.

  This would be included for all N up to whenever people stop thinking that an N-gon for fixed N is an "important object". I personally think that 1-gons through 20-gons are probably important enough to merit inclusion, but 21-gons and higher are not very significant.

  N is part of the first few, or part of the last, members of a specific sequence.

  It is hopeless to decide this in general without knowing what the specific sequence is. My proposal intends to list criteria for how we would decide whether this sort of fact is included.

  N is a Mersenne prime, or a Fermat prime, or a special and well-studied other prime.

  This would definitely be included. It satisfies both "About a connection to an important object" and "About a property or sequence that has a Wikipedia page" and is not "Routine" or "Not about the subject of the article".

  There are exactly N of (special groups, platonic solids, or other objects).

  There is a prominent mathematical object with N number of subobjects.

  This is on the boundary. Again, I think we need to think about how important or interesting the specific fact is. For example, the fact "there are five platonic solids" is extremely widely said, but it is not interesting when S₂ has 2 subgroups, even though S₂ is definitely a "prominent mathematical object". Fwiw, its a bit bizarre that "object" links to Category theory and not Mathematical object. Mathwriter2718 (talk) 15:19, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

  Category theory objects are the most abstract (and thus inclusive), I think? Allan Nonymous (talk) 15:32, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

  OK Mathwriter2718, I've created Wikipedia:WikiProject Numbers/Guidelines using the existing text, feel free to blank and start from scratch but I thought this could be a good way to hack at the guidelines and come up with something we can all agree on. What do you think? A useful way to proceed? Polyamorph (talk) 15:36, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

  That might be a good way to proceed. At the moment, I've spoken enough, and I want to give others some time to share their opinions. Mathwriter2718 (talk) 15:44, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

  I think this is a good idea if we want to make more drastic changes to the guidelines here, which I think is a consensus that has emerged here and at WP:WPM. Allan Nonymous (talk) 16:50, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

• I think this is all a good idea. Please stress these are "guidelines", not rules, to be broken when clearly appropriate. I also suggest some neat "exclusion" reasons, which can make quick edit summaries when removing. E.g. "no phone numbers", "no road numbers", "no pool balls" etc etc -- please see my comment in the thread above.
• @Allan Nonymous: The examples you added in the "Assessing number facts" section are very helpful. I was a bit confused, though, about which number you intended to say that the examples were on-topic or off-topic for? -- Beland (talk) 20:48, 8 August 2024 (UTC)