Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics

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 speedy keep. Unanimous concensus.Nomination withdrawn. (non-admin closure) Winged Blades^Godric 04:16, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics

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While this seems that it would be notable, per source searches, this organization has not received enough coverage in independent, reliable sources to qualify for a standalone article; does not meet WP:ORGDEPTH. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 10:38, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. ^{Babymissfortune} 10:49, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions. ^{Babymissfortune} 10:50, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Pennsylvania-related deletion discussions. ^{Babymissfortune} 10:50, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - this article does have considerable content and is followed by twenty references. Point of information - if this article is deleted, we may need to delete the article on SIAM journals, as Wikipedia has a separate article on SIAM journals. Vorbee (talk) 11:14, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment – Below is a summary of the references presently in the article as of this post (link). Thus far, only source #19 has a potential to demonstrate notability. All of the other sources are not usable to demonstrate notability. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 11:23, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

References

1. Primary source from SIAM
2. Primary source from SIAM
3. Primary source from SIAM
4. Primary source from SIAM
5. Primary source from SIAM
6. Primary source from SIAM
7. Primary source from SIAM
8. Primary source from SIAM
9. Primary source from SIAM
10. Primary source from SIAM
11. Primary source from SIAM
12. Primary source from SIAM
13. Primary source from SIAM
14. Primary source from SIAM
15. Primary source from SIAM
16. Primary source from SIAM
17. Primary source from SIAM
18. Primary source from SIAM
19. Secondary source
20. Passing mention/announcement

Keep -- The article is horribly self-referential and a replica of its website. That can be fixed. The organization is notable. There are several subsidiary articles and categories -- list of publications and fellows, whose members are mostly notable (have their own articles). I understand the guidance that a group does not inherit the notability of its members, but I choose to ignore it in this case. SIAM is more notable than a chain of biscuit restaurants. Rhadow (talk) 12:32, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment – If you feel that the topic is notable, can you provide any independent, reliable sources that provide significant coverage to qualify the assertion? This necessary coverage to qualify a standalone article does not appear to exist. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 12:36, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hello North America. we can argue about significant coverage is, but the article has had independent reliable sources for a few hours. Rhadow (talk) 15:21, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. the society is the leading international one in its special field ; we even have a category Category:Fellows of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, because fellowship in the society is considered enough to show notability under WP:PROF. . Like most articles on Societies of all sorts here, the article needs editing for promotionalism and to improve sourcing, DGG ( talk ) 16:41, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. This is the major international society for its discipline, with over 500 article-space links. As well as the Fellow category pointed to by DGG, I would also point to Category:SIAM academic journals as evidence of the significance of this society as the publisher of several major and well-respected academic journals. It has nontrivial coverage in independent sources including [1] [2] [3] [4]. An important subject for the encyclopedia to cover, and one that passes WP:GNG. This is the kind of AfD that makes Wikipedia look ridiculous to the outside world: it's obviously a significant subject, so why are we even considering deleting it? Significance is not notability and that's especially true in general for academic societies but this one passes notability as well. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:27, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- Another offline reference that I found (just the reference, not its content): Auerbach, Isaac L. (1976), "Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM)", in Ralston, Anthony; Meeks, Chester L. (eds.), Encyclopedia of Computer Science, New York: Petrocelli/Charter, pp. 1282–1283. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:33, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  - Yet more sources: [5] [6] [7] [8]. The difficulty of finding sources for this kind of topic is not so much in their existence, but that searches are swamped by the many many hits that involve SIAM but are not independent and about SIAM. So it takes careful crafting of search terms to find the ones you want among all the chaff. But the fact that there's so much chaff should itself make it clear that this is a significant organization. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:32, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    - I've used the third source in the yet-more-sources list to augment the "Books" subsection a little. Thanks for finding it! I'm going to take a break now. XOR'easter (talk) 02:16, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, and don't be ridiculous. If this article must be deleted, then one must delete the articles about other academic societies and associations that have a similar notability, such as American Mathematical Society, Association for Computing Machinery, International Mathematical Union. As SIAM is also a publisher, one should also delete the articles about scientific publishers with a similar notability such as Springer Science. D.Lazard (talk) 20:48, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Comment – I've considering withdrawing, but this is not a "ridiculous" nomination, and stating such is sophomoric. Herein, some, but not all of the arguments for the article to be retained are rather subjective relative to notability guidelines. Since this is an important organization, one would think that many reliable sources providing significant coverage would be easily and readily available relative to this importance, particularly since the organization exists to this very day. Where is the significant coverage? I checked out the sources provided above by David Eppstein, which is appreciated: The first one is all right being sourced from academia and providing a brief summary, but, the second appears to only have passing mentions and is limited to one page (430), the third is a bit amgiguous with snippet views, and the fourth appears to only be a passing mention on page 10. Now, I understand that notability guidelines are just that, guidelines, and exceptions exist, but again, if this is so notable, where is the significant coverage? North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 21:04, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, obviously. One of the world's most important mathematical societies and an important scientific publisher. AFD is not cleanup. —Kusma (t·c) 21:07, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's important, but where is the significant coverage in reliable sources? ~~This could be merged to Joint Policy Board for Mathematics, even verbatim, which would retain the content despite the organization potentially not actually meeting Wikipedia's notability guidelines.~~ North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 21:12, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It may be difficult to find sources about the organisation, but that is mostly because they are eclipsed by thousands of hits about SIAM conferences and publications. Also, it does not help that "Siam" also has other meanings. But "SIAM conference" is usually something related to the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. Your merge target is ridiculous for a publisher. —Kusma (t·c) 21:16, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I like my functional merge target. Are you suggesting that the provision of a valid WP:ATD is some sort of joke? I don't find that particularly amusing, but I tend to take notability seriously. Please consider providing sources that provide significant coverage of the topic herein instead. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 21:20, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I am only telling you that it is not a valid target. If you believe it is, you are misunderstanding what SIAM does. Here, by the way, is SIAM's entry in the main online history of mathematics resource, the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive. —Kusma (t·c) 21:28, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'll reiterate: please consider providing reliable sources that provide significant coverage of the topic. Do they exist? North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 21:31, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Your merge target is almost as ridiculous as this AfD. SIAM is widely known and organizes many important activities (conferences, journals, awards) for its discipline. It belongs to this small and unimportant umbrella organization with half a dozen of its friends among the society world and that's what you think it should be merged to? It's like saying a famous scientist should be merged to an article about his weekly poker game. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:37, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I struck my merge suggestion above, but it is viable. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 21:48, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy/snow keep completely ridiculous nomination. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:37, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If I nominated this lazily as "advertising" would the nom be better then? Regarding keep !votes with no other rationale, see WP:JUSTAVOTE. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 21:49, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment from nominator – As I stated above, I'm well aware that there are exceptions to notability guidelines. Despite this, it will be amusing if this article is automatically retained based upon a simple !vote count. I am also amused about the chain-effect repeated use of the term "ridiculous" regarding this nomination, particularly when this is used as a primary rationale for retention of the article without any other qualification. I'm much more impressed by the work of User:XOR'easter, who has significantly improved the article, despite having not contributed to this discussion as of this post. Happy holidays! North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 22:10, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Perhaps the mathematician editors here are too shocked by the proposal to engage seriously with the impetus, which is that it's surprisingly hard to find notability evidence for SIAM. Here is my weak attempt:

Keep An important publisher and scholarly society. Finding historical details about SIAM is irritating, because you have to sift through the heaps of publications from SIAM and citing articles printed by SIAM. But I've managed to do a bit, and in my opinion, the WP:PRIMARY concern no longer applies. XOR'easter (talk) 00:02, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- An example of what I mean: the JSTOR search link in the list up top yields 11,906 results. That in itself is an indication of the sheer presence of the organization — but it's not light reading. XOR'easter (talk) 00:51, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination withdrawn. Not quite convinced per some of the arguments herein, but not interested in wasting people's time with a nomination that will likely be kept regardless of whether or not the topic is actually notable or not, or even worse, via a simple !vote nose count. Perhaps we should merge content from WP:IMPORTANT to a notability guideline page, seriously. Happy holidays. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 02:05, 11 December 2017 (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.