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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Richard's principle

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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. — Aitias // discussion 14:11, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Richard's principle

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Richard's principle (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

The term Richard's principle appears to be entirely the invention of the page originator. It is possible that someone in the literature, in a notable fashion, has made the same argument as the page originator, and that might be written up somewhere in WP (if it isn't already), but not under the name Richard's principle, unless a source can be found for that term. This is one case where it is important not to leave a redirect. WP is not supposed to be used to make up nomenclature Trovatore (talk) 20:02, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Query: has the nominator reviewed the book cited by the article as the source of Richard's principle - Les Principes des Mathématiques etc. by Jules Richard? Unless the answer is yes, I have to vote keep for the time being. I don't have any access to that text, in either french or english, and I don't see how we can delete an article on the basis that we haven't read a cited source that may well fully support the article. Wikipedia requires that its content be verifiable - not that you have verified it. - Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 22:26, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Response. Um. This is sort of a fair point, formally — no, I haven't reviewed the book. However it seems extremely unlikely that there is any such "principle" there -- CBM looked up the letter in which the paradox was elucidated and found no such principle. I think if Eckerslyke asserts that such a thing appears in the book (I do not believe he has made any such assertion), then he should state this explicitly, and quote the passage. If he does that, and if the passage in fact justifies the things claimed, then I would allow that the burden would shift back to me. But I can't agree that it's sufficient simply to name a reference that no one has handy, without saying in what way it supports the claims made. --Trovatore (talk) 22:44, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I have reviewed the letter by J. Richard (1905) cited in the article. I have it beside me as I type. Richard does not propose any principle. At best, one could try to infer a general principle from the specific argument Richard gives, but this would not be easy. I am unaware of the principle claimed by the WP article ever being called "Richard's principle" in the literature (or even existing in the literature). — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:47, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Oh, right, and that brings up another point: I think we can assume that, even in the unlikely case that Richard proposed such a principle somewhere, as opposed to in this 1905 letter, he did not call it Richard's principle. Therefore my main point, which is that the article must be deleted (and not redirected) as a neologism, would apply with full force. --Trovatore (talk) 22:56, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • Did Thomas Gresham name Gresham's law, or did someone else name the principle for him? How about Mike Godwin, did he, in that seminal work, declare "for I am Michael of Godwin, and henceforth, the following shall be known as 'Godwin's law'"? How about Newton's law of gravity? It seems to me that it is commonplace for a theory or principle to be named for someone who was not so immodest as to do so themselves.- Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 23:03, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • Exactly — that's my point. There is no evidence that that has happened in this case.
          • To justify the name Richard's principle we need evidence that this name exists and has some significant diffusion in the literature. No such evidence has been provided, and is extremely unlikely to come from something written by Richard himself. We need to see these other authors that have used the phrase (with the meaning ascribed to it by the article). I do not believe they exist. --Trovatore (talk) 23:11, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well, the article cites a source that neither you nor I have read, but that the author of the article has presumably read. I would almost certainly feel differently in the context of a BLP, or some politically charged topic, but this article just doesn't tingle my spidey sense; perhaps the citation doesn't support the article, creating a WP:SYN, WP:OR, or WP:NFT problem, but to my mind, the article cites a source, and I'm not comfortable voting to delete this article on the basis of speculation about what the cited source may nor not contain by people - me included - who haven't read it. - Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 22:56, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. The article as amended has no value and will enlighten nobody. W J Eckerslyke (talk) 11:42, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. -- Fabrictramp | talk to me 00:33, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. No evidence has been found that the term is used in the literature, and it is unlikely that Jules Richard coined it himself. Even if he did, that doesn't make it notable per se. Geometry guy 10:25, 8 February 2009 (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.
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