Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chiliagon

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 keep. ‑Scottywong | communicate _ 17:09, 25 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Chiliagon[edit]

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Redirect to Polygon. The content of this article has stood well in Polygon for some time. The arguments for keeping (at Talk:Chiliagon) were that "the article was not particularly short, had a citation for the facts that make the chiliagon notable, and other wikipedias have parallel articles". The third is not a good reason (just because another Wikipedia has an article on this topic does not mean we have to), and there is only one fact that makes the chiliagon notable (its use in Descartes' sixth meditation) as the rest of the information can be deduced easily from the formulas in polygon and regular polygon. When this information is removed, the article is quite short and can be merged into Polygon#Naming polygons. Also, this article claims that Descartes also used the myriagon in his sixth meditation, but the myriagon does not have its own article. Double sharp (talk) 02:51, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am also nominating the following related pages. Megagon is being nominated for similar reasons. The Petrie polygons can be covered in the main Petrie polygon article: ~~I am not nominating heptadecagon as it is notable for its constructibility:~~

Double sharp (talk) 02:53, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2012 April 15. Snotbot t • c » 03:04, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If an article has only standard angle / perimeter /area formulas worked out for a particular polygon, then it could easily be deleted -- however, a number of these articles (such as Chiliagon itself) appear to have relevant information going beyond this, and so should be Kept. -- AnonMoos (talk) 05:05, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The information can easily be merged into the table at Polygon#Naming polygons. Chiliagon was merged there and was later recreated with the reasons "the article was not particularly short, had a citation for the facts that make the chiliagon notable, and other wikipedias have parallel articles". I have mentioned above why I do not agree with these reasons. Double sharp (talk) 05:58, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. The chiliagon example in Descartes is of great importance in the history of philosophy, and indeed for topics in contemporary philosophy of mind, perception, and cognition. It was taken up, after Descartes, by such central figures as David Hume and Immanuel Kant. The matter is not about the general polygon, but a very-many-sided polygon: and the detailed development of the idea depends, in fact, on the exact number one thousand. This could be worked up into something more substantial in the article; if it is kept, I will be inclined to do some of that work myself. Noetica^Tea? 06:30, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- There is a column in the table at Polygon#Naming polygons for "Remarks". Previously, the chiliagon example was covered in the "Remarks" column for the "chiliagon" row. It fits well in the table and would be better than having a very short article with only one piece of information in it. Double sharp (talk) 06:52, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment someone should transfer the definitions to wiktionary. 70.24.248.211 (talk) 06:43, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

keep Chiliagon, Megagon and myriagon (a redirect) are notable because of their philosophical implications. These are important and would be lost if merged into polygon, or requiring a new section in an already over long article. Week keep others these have lesser importance but do have some properties of note, constructability, use in tilings. --Salix (talk): 06:58, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Do you think myriagon should be recreated? Double sharp (talk) 07:49, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Also, couldn't these properties be merged into polygon, or perhaps into a new article called list of regular polygons that would include the notable properties of each regular polygon that does not have enough notable properties to justify its own article, like the lists at 1000 (number)? (WP:1729 states that a number should have at least three notable properties to deserve its own article, and I think the same should apply for polygons.) Double sharp (talk) 12:08, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wondering if the best solution would be to have an article on ploygons with very large number of sides where the philosophical implications could be discussed at length. Only problem is I can't thing of a good name for the article.--Salix (talk): 13:06, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What do you think of List of polygons, which has been proposed before (see Talk:Polygon#I recommend a "list of polygons" as a compromise)? Double sharp (talk) 13:39, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect to section s in regular polygon. I can't see anything in them that can't be covered better by a sentence in regular polygon which I think is a better target for them than polygon. Wikipedia isn't a dictionary. Chillagon and icosagon are marginally more notable than mere dictionary entries but really chillagon has no separate notability - it is just a random large regular polygon that was needed for the purpose of argument. It is the topics that are notable not the names. Dmcq (talk) 10:28, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
~~Triacontagon~~, Chiliagon and Megagon redirect to "polygon". Don't merge all polygons for $n \leq 20$ – the content is not trivial, and redirects would cause a considerable havoc in interwiki links. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 11:15, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure about triacontagon, there is some non-trivial information. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 11:33, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think regular polygon is what they really should redirect to. For instance a random polygon with a large number of sides would not look almost like a circle. The meaning is what one wants not just what's given by the etymology. Dmcq (talk) 11:22, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, no. Redirect to a narrow topic (to regular chiliagons and so) may suggest that the term "chiliagon" implies regularity, which is not the case. Even deletion would be better than creating such redirect entries which will promulgate confusion and misconception. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 11:33, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It does imply regularity. Look at Meditation VI. No word 'regular' needed there. Same with the rest. Only a few of the lower ones don't always imply regularity and even for them most of time the regular form is meant. Dmcq (talk) 11:51, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Although it technically does not imply regularity, it usually is taken to imply regularity. I think chiliagon and megagon should definitely be redirected back to polygon, but I would not mind if the others were to be kept. (I would rather have a redirect to polygon than regular polygon because the former has a large table under the "Naming polygons" subsection with a column "Remarks" where all this information can be entered.) Double sharp (talk) 12:24, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, it does not. Neither place of Descartes' text imply that angles, or even edges, are equal. Thank you for this counter-example. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 14:18, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"redirects would cause a considerable havoc in interwiki links" Is that a problem? Many other Wikipedias have many articles about non-notable undiscovered period 8 elements which we don't. In fact, we have a similar situation here, in which we have many articles about polygons that are not notable by themselves that could stand better merged into Polygon after removing the trivial boilerplate information (the perimeter and area formulas and the star polygons) and merging the actual content (special characteristics that only apply to the polygon in question - there are not many of these - can be merged into the table at Polygon#Naming polygons, and the Petrie polygons can be merged into the main Petrie polygon article). The undiscovered period 8 elements also used to have articles here; they had only boilerplate information and sometimes some material specific to the element in question. These were all merged to extended periodic table. Why should we not do the same for these polygon articles, merging them into Polygon#Naming polygons, which already has a place where the actual content in these articles can be placed? Double sharp (talk) 13:32, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

BTW extended periodic table was actually quite bad choice for a target. Some months ago I changed several of that redirects to superactinide, but it is also not what we need, because put an emphasis to chemical properties (as well as "extended periodic table" does, certainly). Incnis Mrsi (talk) 14:18, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is going off topic, but what do you think would be a suitable target? Double sharp (talk) 15:11, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep all. Strong keep for chiliagon and megagon due to the sourced philosophical material. Keep for the others due to the nontrivial mathematical information (if we follow the principles in WP:NUMBER, they would pass). I see no reason for deleting the useful information in these articles, which would not fit into the table in polygon. Furthermore, the nomination doesn't seem to have any argument for these polygons failing notability guidelines. -- 202.124.74.111 (talk) 12:57, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- What information are you referring to? The information about the Petrie polygons can be put into the Petrie polygon article, the philosophical material has fit into the table in polygon for about 3 years (from 2008 to 2011), the formulas for perimeter, area, etc. are simply trivial derivations from the general formulas at polygon and regular polygon, and star polygons can exist for any number of sides. If we remove the trivial formulas, the articles are extremely short, having only one nontrivial property each: either the Petrie polygons or the philosophical information. Hence they are not notable enough on their own and could be better merged into polygon. Double sharp (talk) 13:22, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - I don't think the information would fit in the table, and in the case of the philosophical information, it would be much harder to find there. In the case of both chiliagon and megagon, the mathematical information sheds light on the philosophical information; removing it makes the article less comprehensible to philosophers. Furthermore, these polygons are all discussed extensively in the literature, thereby satisfying WP:N. -- 202.124.74.111 (talk) 13:34, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    - Anyone searching for chiliagon would still be brought to the right place (the place with the relevant information, in this case the philosophical information). This information has fit in the table before: see this old revision. Note how short the chiliagon article is when all the trivial information is removed. This old revision shows all the content in the chiliagon article that could be merged. Double sharp (talk) 13:38, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      - (1) The information on the megagon was never in that table. (2) The mathematical properties and the images are necessary context for the philosophical material. (3) All these articles are potentially expandable, given the material in the literature, and then even your suggested cut-down version would not fit in that table. -- 202.124.74.111 (talk) 13:43, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        (1) I have just merged the information in the megagon article into the table. It fits even better than the chiliagon article does, being shorter. (2) The only context is that these polygons have so many sides that the mind cannot accurately visualize them (this was not deleted, as it forms part of the actual content) and that regular polygons (which is already wikilinked) converge to a circle as the number of sides they have increases. (3) Could you give examples of the information you would want to expand the articles with? Double sharp (talk) 13:47, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        You have not merged the mathematical information on how close the regular chiliagon and the megagon are to a circle, which is necessary to the philosophical material, nor have you merged the images. As to expansion, there is extensive literature even just on Descartes and the chiliagon (or indeed Kant and the chiliagon) which would allow for massive article expansion. I'm beginning to suspect you failed to do a WP:BEFORE check. -- 202.124.73.129 (talk) 15:06, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        Regular polygon already includes the material on polygons converging to a circle, although I can insert that into the polygon article if you want. The images need not be merged; the megagon image is really just a circle (its file name describes it as a circle), and the chiliagon image was not merged the last time chiliagon was redirected. All these sources simply support the same philosophical point about the chiliagon; they don't add more content to the article. All they add to the article is that Descartes wasn't the only one to make this point. I'm going to log out now, so I may not see further comments for some time (perhaps until tomorrow). Double sharp (talk) 15:20, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        Well, I think the mathematical material on how close the chiliagon and the megagon are to the circle is essential to understanding the use of the example in the philosophical material. It's one thing to say "a megagon has 1,000,000 sides" and another to say "for a circle the size of the Earth, with a circumference of 40,000 kilometres, the difference between the perimeter of the megagon and the circumference of the circle comes to less than 1/16 millimetre." Also, I've begun an expansion of chiliagon, so your entry in the polygon table is already outdated. -- 202.124.73.129 (talk) 15:32, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        I already updated this yesterday. If you insist on adding the mathematical material, I will only add the statements about the differerences between the area/perimeter of the polygon and the area/perimeter of the circumscribed circle, because it is the only relevant information that might help in understanding (but I think it could be solved better with a sentence in polygon or regular polygon stating that as the number of sides of a regular polygon increases, it becomes closer and closer to a circle. Such a statement is already in Regular polygon.) Double sharp (talk) 08:06, 16 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The article appears to be more of a philosophy article than a math article. I really just question the wisdom of delete/merging it. I see no need for that. Greg Bard (talk) 18:33, 15 April 2012‎ (UTC)[reply]
- What are your opinions on the other articles (megagon, triskaidecagon, tetradecagon, pentadecagon, hexadecagon, octadecagon, enneadecagon, icosagon and triacontagon)? Double sharp (talk) 13:01, 16 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The megagon article has about two sentences of interesting content, all of which pertains to a regular megagon and could easily be included in regular polygon. Chiliagon maybe is worth its own article, I don't feel strongly. The others seem to me completely worthless and basically all the material on them amounts to special cases of things better covered in other articles. --Joel B. Lewis (talk) 21:13, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I agree. IMO the 13-gon to 20-gon (except the 17-gon) are not notable enough, and the 10⁶-gon could easily be merged. I don't feel as strongly about the 1000-gon, but I would prefer it to be merged as it is quite a short article (after removing the trivial information). Double sharp (talk) 08:08, 16 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Surely these don't deserve articles of their own. These obscure polygons with large numbers of sides might collectively make a good single article. Rschwieb (talk) 13:25, 16 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- This has been proposed before; see Talk:Polygon#I recommend a "list of polygons" as a compromise. Double sharp (talk) 14:13, 16 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I've added some more material on this highly notable polygon. There's masses of material out there, passing WP:GNG by an enormous margin. The important issues for AfD is surely not what the article looks like now, but what the potential state is, given the existing reliable sources. -- 202.124.72.231 (talk) 01:46, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment All your sources are supporting the same philosophical point about the chiliagon about the difference between the intellect and the imagination: that the chiliagon cannot be imagined clearly, but our intellect can tell us clear things about it. Double sharp (talk) 07:19, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - Yes, and that's a notable use of the chiliagon, with literally hundreds of reliable references. -- 202.124.75.138 (talk) 09:01, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    - Since you have only one notable use of the chiliagon (which could be merged), why would you need hundreds of reliable references? One or two would be enough. Please see Wikipedia:Citation overkill. Double sharp (talk) 12:03, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      - Because the different philosophers are referring to the chiliagon to make several quite distinct philosophical points. Are you ~~somehow trying to make the chiliagon seem less notable, to justify your rather dubious nomination?~~ completely ignoring the fact that hundreds of reliable references are an indicator of strong notability? -- 202.124.73.237 (talk) 12:41, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

To the IP editor: Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith --Joel B. Lewis (talk) 12:49, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How many different philosophical points are there? I see only two in the Chiliagon article: the one I noted above, and "intuition is not necessarily founded on the evidence of the senses". Double sharp (talk) 12:21, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Descartes talks about intellect vs imagination. Hume is talking about the process by which one comes to know properties of the chiliagon. Poincaré is saying we have an intuition which does not depend on the senses. -- 202.124.72.81 (talk) 06:24, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Among the smaller polygons in this list, the Triskaidecagon seems to have some notability in relation to its constructibility, which is referred to in a number of books. The Pentadecagon is also notable because of its appearance in Euclid. -- 202.124.73.237 (talk) 12:51, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Have a look at WP:Notability (numbers)#Integers for the sort of thing one should be looking for. Do they have three unrelated interesting mathematical properties? Or even one very interesting property? Do they have a cultural significance? Are they listed in a book about such things? The Triskaidecagon most definitely does not satisfy notability. As for the Pentadecagon, it has slightly more to say for itself but still doesn't make the bar that I can see. I'm happy for them to be included with other pentagons but that's about it. Basically they are just words for various numbers and angle. practically everything in those articles is just made up by some editor here as far as I can see. Dmcq (talk) 14:32, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Made up? Surely not! It is a fact, for example, that construction of a regular pentadecagon is Proposition XVI of Book IV of Euclid's Elements (you can easily find a copy online). There are also theorems on (not necessarily regular) pentadecagons in extremal polygon theory (see e.g. Charles Audet, Pierre Hansen and Frédéric Messine, Isoperimetric Polygons of Maximum Width, Springer, 2009). The construction of the regular triskaidecagon is discussed in detail in the article "Angle trisection, the heptagon, and the triskaidecagon" (AM Gleason, Amer. Math. Monthly, 95(3), 1988) which I think is also enough to satisfy WP:N. I'm sure a WP:BEFORE check would find similar evidence of notability for all the other polygons on the list. -- 202.124.75.208 (talk) 09:45, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Do we even have reliable sources on the precise names of these polygons? The experts disagree, which prompted the move discussion at Talk:Triskaidecagon (which later led to this AfD). You have not answered the other questions Dmcq posed: "Do they have three unrelated interesting mathematical properties? Or even one very interesting property? Do they have a cultural significance? Are they listed in a book about such things?" If not, they could be merged into a single list of polygons or perhaps into Polygon#Naming polygons. (In fact, I feel that even one very interesting property is not enough to justify a separate article, and that at least three properties would be necessary.) Double sharp (talk) 12:21, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The closest to a single very interesting property amongst them would I think be the 17 sided regular polygon and I think the content for that property is better handled in constructible polygon and referenced from regular polygon and polygon. The philosophic bit about the chiliagon is better handled in Meditations on First Philosophy - in fact I'd redirect chiliagon to that instead of polyygon as it is of zero interest in a mathematical sense. Dmcq (talk) 18:36, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the chiliagon is completely uninteresting mathematically. Philosophically, it seems to have some interest, but there is still the list of polygons solution that would have the merged articles for all the n-gons with n > 12 and have brief summaries for those with n < 13. I have no strong opinions about merging the 17-gon, but if it is merged, I would prefer it to redirect to constructible polygon (and for the construction animation to be kept). Double sharp (talk) 12:16, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Handling the philosophy in Meditations on First Philosophy is a TERRIBLE idea, given that several different philosophers use the polygon to make slightly different points (about epistemology, about the nature of thought, and about mathematical intuition). I'd also note that it's perfectly within the rules for an article to include both mathematics and philosophy. Indeed, it's essential in this case, since the philosophical reader needs to know what a chiliagon actually is. If it makes you happier, you could remove WP:WikiProject Mathematics endorsement of the chiliagon article, but the literally hundreds of book and journal sources for it's use as a philosophical example make it highly notable. As to naming, I'd say the Amer. Math. Monthly article is a WP:RS for both name and notability of the triskaidecagon. For the pentadecagon, the 3 interesting properties are: (1) construction by Euclid, (2) vertex property, (3) theorems in the book Isoperimetric Polygons of Maximum Width. Several other polygons on the list also have interesting vertex properties, constructibility properties, and Petrie properties, again making three in each case.-- 202.124.72.81 (talk) 06:18, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The "vertex properties" are all covered in Tiling by regular polygons#Combinations of regular polygons that can meet at a vertex. Even then, they are not really interesting as the polygons can fill one vertex but cannot tile the whole plane. The constructibility properties are all handled in constructible polygon. Finally, the Petrie polygon properties are all covered in Petrie polygon, and with the exception of the 18-gon, 20-gon and 30-gon, which are Petrie polygons for the exceptional E_n or H_n families (the only F_n polytope has the dodecagon as its Petrie polygon, and the only G_n polytope is already a polygon - the hexagon), all these properties are not interesting; every polygon can be a Petrie polygon for a simplex, and every even-sided polygon can be a Petrie polygon for a hypercube, orthoplex or demicube. So there are only two interesting properties for the 15-gon. The Amer. Math. Monthly article is a reliable source, but does it make the 13-gon notable? How many interesting properties of the 13-gon does it give? It seems to give only one (construction using angle trisection). (There is no agreement on whether to call the 13-gon a "triskaidecagon" or "tridecagon", BTW. One source, however reliable it may be, would not be enough; you would need to cite sources on both sides, and then select the name that is more widely used as the article title.) I still think chiliagon could be merged into a list of polygons that would cover all the n-gons with n > 12, and have brief summaries for those with n < 13. Double sharp (talk) 12:16, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Also, the 13-gon is constructible with compass, straightedge and angle trisector simply because 13 is a Pierpont prime. If you think the "vertex properties", constructibility properties and Petrie polygons in all these articles is sufficient to make the article notable, what do you think of creating an article for the 24-gon or 42-gon? Both of these can fill space around one vertex (3.8.24 and 3.7.42, respectively); the 24-gon is constructible with compass and straightedge, while the 42-gon additionally needs an angle trisector; and the 24-gon is a Petrie polygon for the A₂₃, BC₁₂ and D₁₃ families, while the 42-gon is a Petrie polygon for the A₄₁, BC₂₁ and D₂₂ families (the A_n, BC_n and D_n families are all infinite). By your criteria, they are both notable; however, they do not seem notable enough to me. Double sharp (talk) 12:31, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Also, you referred to WP:NUMBERS above, saying that these articles satisfy the principles there. Dmcq is referring to the same page and is saying the exact opposite. I would be interested to hear why you think they do satisfy the principles, since Dmcq has already stated his reasons above. Double sharp (talk) 13:21, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

These facts could easily be included in the table at Polygon#Naming polygons. Double sharp (talk) 12:21, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but why would you want to cram dozens of articles into polygon, which is already lengthy? -- 202.124.72.81 (talk) 06:18, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What content? The stuff in them is just computer generated puffery in the main that nobody is ever going to want to actually use in any way and anything of worth is already somewhere else already. The pictures and formulae are nearly all purely decorative. Dmcq (talk) 09:00, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Since there is no actual content in these articles that isn't already somewhere else, why should we not merge them? There is nothing to merge anyway, so a redirect to the chosen target article should be enough. Double sharp (talk) 12:16, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with your WP:IDONTLIKEIT, but de gustibus non est disputandum. -- 202.124.74.106 (talk) 13:10, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I must confess that I am unable to understand how my or Dmcq's comment qualifies as WP:IDONTLIKEIT. The examples listed there do not seem to be similar to the comments we have posted above. Could you explain your rationale for classifying our comments as WP:IDONTLIKEIT? Double sharp (talk) 14:24, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Subsidiary keep for the Heptadecagon added to this AfD on 19 April 2012, highly notable for its construction (see these books). Closing admin: please delay closure till 7 days after 19 April. -- 202.124.74.106 (talk) 13:10, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment That is the only interesting property of the 17-gon (and only applies to the regular 17-gon anyway). It could easily be merged into constructible polygon, along with the other basic constructible polygons that are not notable enough for their own article (the 257-gon and the 65537-gon: articles for these two don't even exist on the English Wikipedia, but do on the Italian Wikipedia). Double sharp (talk) 14:21, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - BTW, I would accept the existence of the heptadecagon article iff it is brought up to the standards of the Italian article (it:Eptadecagono), where the one interesting property is elaborated upon greatly. Before this is done, the current content could and, IMHO, should still be merged into constructible polygon. (The same applies to the 257-gon and 65537-gon potential articles. I am curious as to why you do not propose that they be created, even though I agree with you that the 17-gon article could reasonably exist.) Double sharp (talk) 14:33, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I have a few process issues with this nomination.

First, my talk page comments were invoked as though they were a rationale for not deleting. While I will stand by my arguments for notability and length in this discussion, my third point would have been precluded by WP:OTHERLANGS. This was my argument that, if notability for the article holds, because of the length and the fact that other language articles exist, merging was not appropriate. I also would have appreciated some notice that this discussion was occurring, especially since my arguments were being used.
Second, the mass nomination of this article, which has a long history in philosophy and metaphysics, with other articles which do not have this background or well-referenced text, seems disingenuous. It seems like an attempt to put this particular polygon in the same category of notability as, say, the 30-gon. Note, I am not conceding here that the other polygons are not notable, only that they have different properties and that the notability of one is not dependent on any other. Except for cases where the articles have nearly the same structure and content, these articles should not be listed in the same discussion.

To address some of the other arguments above

The fact that the myriagon article is a redirect is not relevant here; see WP:OTHERSTUFF. The chiliagon is the object that has become notable and cited in other works. It is like other gedankenexperimenten that have been invented over the years that gained their own independent notability.
The text existed in the polygon article because, as was within any editor's right to be bold, the original article was merged there. Having edited this article some time before that, and then coming back to it afterwards, I found the solution (insertion of all the philosophic text into a table in a mathematics article) cumbersome, and removed the redirect. This article has more than enough text and references to stand on its own, so there needs to be a strong rationale to re-merge it.

Finally, I do not see any arguments about why this article should be deleted, only why the content could be moved to other articles. This makes me wonder why this is at AfD at all, and why this couldn't have been resolved at talk.

This discussion seem to be striking a nerve for some editors. I wonder if it is due to the form of this article, rather than the content. Perhaps if this wasn't styled like the other regular polygon articles, this would read more like a philosophy article. I propose removing the infobox, keeping the illustration, and moving the mathematical details to the end of the article—it is still a real mathematical object, so there is no sense in removing it altogether. Cmprince (talk) 14:50, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Subsidiary keep for the chiliagon article itself. It has zilch maths interest but I guess if philosophers use it as a general example like Russell's teapot then it has some general notability in itself. The lead should be updated to reflect its particular interest and that teapot article shows how. Dmcq (talk) 15:20, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. 202.124.74.111 (talk) 13:04, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions. 202.124.75.97 (talk) 23:09, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. I don't really care about the individual notability of geometric figures, but the article content in each case appears to be suitably encyclopedic and bundling them all together would create an overlong, inconvenient-to-navigate article. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 19:42, 22 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment The "vertex properties" could go into Tiling by regular polygons, the Petrie polygons could go into Petrie polygon and the constructibility could go into Constructible polygon. The remaining content (and there would be not much remaining) could then be merged into List of polygons. The end result is that the material is separated into many different articles, but the material would always be moved to articles where it has greater relevance. Currently, these polygon articles seem like a collection of random trivial information with a few interesting properties scattered within. A centralised list of polygons would not only allow the interesting properties to be found more easily (because the specific polygon pages would redirect to that list), but would also not be overly long (as all the properties that can be covered elsewhere are moved elsewhere). The list of polygons would naturally include links to Tiling by regular polygons, Petrie polygon and Constructible polygon wherever necessary, but the actual material relevant to those articles would be moved to those three articles. Double sharp (talk) 11:12, 25 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep up to heptadecagon, Weak keep up to icosagon, No opinion for the others. The heptadecagon is notable for the reasons given above, and to the detractors that say that the umptiumpthagon would be included as well, I reply by saying that I am explicitly and shamelessly advocating a double standard here. The precedent is there in WP:NUMBERS, the very pseudo-legalese that has been invoked above, wherein it is admitted that we ought to have a complete initial series, even if, say, 38 is less interesting than the others. So, decide the others on their own individual merits, but for the "initial series", decide on a stopping point. Of course it's going to be a dodgy judgement call no matter what, but, as I argue, heptadecagon should be in. Now, I admit octadecagon and enneadecagon are duds, but icosagon is half-decent and is a very natural stopping point. --192.75.48.150 (talk) 17:56, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Actually, if all the articles under this deletion discussion were merged and redirected (which was what I proposed), we would have an initial series from the 1-gon to the 12-gon. This series already includes the most interesting and widely used polygons, so I don't see why we need to go beyond it. The polygon navbox would then have "1-12 sides" as the first row, "Others" for the apeirogon (which is a very special case that does not fit into a general series, being an infinite-gon), and "Star polygons" for the regular stars from 5- to 12-sided. Also note that the articles for the star polygons stop at 12 (the dodecagram), so it would make sense for the articles for the convex polygons to also stop at 12 (the dodecagon). Double sharp (talk) 11:12, 25 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Also, the precedent in WP:NUMBERS for a complete initial series assumes that there is a number n which is somehow so much less interesting than the numbers less than it that it normally would not deserve a separate article, but some numbers greater than it are more interesting and are in fact interesting enough to merit articles. However, consider the 13-gon. It is definitely less interesting than the polygons with fewer sides. Are there any polygons with a greater number of sides than it that are more interesting? The closest claim to this is the 17-gon, which however only comprises of one major point (its constructibility), which could be merged into Constructible polygon. Hence, merging and redirect the 13-gon would not produce any gaps in the initial series. The same argument applies to the 14-gon, 15-gon, etc. Hence, we could reasonably stop at the dodecagon (12-gon). (The main purpose for an unbroken initial series is for the reader's convenience; however, for a similar example from a different field, note that we do not have articles for element 123 and element 125, even though there is an unbroken initial series of articles up to element 122, and elements 124 and 126 are also notable enough to have articles. Readers do not have problems with this, due to the presence of a navigational template that provides links to all the elements with articles: {{Compact extended periodic table}}. Since there is also a navbox here, not having an initial series should not be a problem either.) Double sharp (talk) 11:21, 25 April 2012 (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.