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. I see a consensus to Delete this page. I'm less sure about a future DAB page but since on the current page "improper" is being used as an adjective to modify a noun and not article subjects, I think that potential is dim. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:46, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Improper[edit]

Improper (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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WP:NOTDICTIONARY applies This is not a disambiguation page though it looks like one at first sight.The draft was accepted at AFC by a sockpuppet - see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Harttyny which is rather disappointing all round. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 23:29, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Disambiguations-related deletion discussions. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 23:29, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as unambiguous WP:NOTDICTWP:PTM. There's no plausible reason for those article titles to be included in a disambiguation page. This could also be a borderline WP:A3, since it could be argued that the "disambiguation" links function as a "See Also" section. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 01:31, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Comment Updating my vote since PTM is more applicable per Joy. I could have sworn I made this edit earlier, but it must have been swallowed up by an edit conflict. There's no need to have a disambiguation page here, since it isn't ambiguous and nobody would look up the word "Improper" expecting to find any of these articles. The only thing someone searching is likely to be looking for would be the dictionary definition. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 18:32, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  I wouldn't presume to know what readers want. This page was created recently, so we don't have any meaningful data yet, but you can compare it with the similar case of Proper: it was viewed 200 times last month [1], and the two entries that received the most clicks were for the two very involved maths topics of Proper space and Proper map [2]. – Uanfala (talk) 11:49, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  The existence of the page doesn't preclude comparison to the search results, though, they're still visible at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?fulltext=1&search=improper&title=Special%3ASearch&ns0=1 --Joy (talk) 08:43, 19 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep a not-unreasonable disambiguation page. Why is NOTDICT relevant? There's no definition anywhere on the page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:38, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. I can't see why NOTDIC is relevant here. WP:PTM, on the other hand, may look applicable, but that's only apparent (this happens often with dab pages that are more naturally cast as disambiguating an adjective; it will become a bit clearer why PMT doesn't apply if you reword the entries so that they describe nouns, e.g. instead of "Improper integrals" you have "the characteristic of an integral that is improper"). – Uanfala (talk) 12:59, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• We need someone to properly (heh) analyze whether the list entries use "improper" in a way that would satisfy WP:PTM or not. In some cases it's the "new" in "New York" and in some cases it's the "york". For example, improper input validation is a case of the former, because nobody would be searching for "what's improper" and expect to see this - rather this list item would be more appropriate at input validation instead. --Joy (talk) 14:34, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  I went through and removed some of the more obvious cases, and tagged one redirect for discussion. The rest seems potentially dubious as well. --Joy (talk) 19:07, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep It's not formatted properly as a disambiguation page, but that's easily fixable and obviously what the creator was going for. This is a disambig page regardless of current structure and, considering the amount of potential articles for it to point to (which I suspect what's there currently is only a portion of the total possibilities), it's a disambig page that is sorely needed. Silverseren^C 18:05, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  This was created as a set index in 2007, someone tried to blank it in 2010, and in 2013 someone dropped everything as partial title matches and converted it to a redirect. That redirect was deleted in 2015 through Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2015 December 29#Improper. Then a set index was re-created this month. If it was completely non-existent for far longer than it has been in existence, then it can't be sorely needed. Maybe the search engine was serving the average readers well enough. --Joy (talk) 07:16, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep per above. NYC Guru (talk) 12:30, 19 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Can anyone give an example of a reasonable search where you would type "improper" alone and expect to be shown any of these options? Most of them aren't even bold text on the page they link to. For example, "improper noun" links to Proper noun, but that article uses "common noun" as the other category. "improper motion" links to a bit of historical trivia on Proper motion. Then there's Improper rotation, which is indeed an article title, but "improper" isn't the key part here - all the other names for this are words like "rotation-reflection". "Improper part" is found nowhere on Mereology; it looks like the useful term is "improper subset", and I hope we can agree that no one using set theory is likely to remember the word "improper" but forget the word "set". It looks like this is a disambiguation page set up to house a bunch of links that would not likely survive an RfD. -- asilvering (talk) 23:19, 19 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  This parallels the case of "Proper" noted above: it seems implausible to us that readers would be using such a search term, but it turns out that they do in fact use it when seeking several involved maths topics. – Uanfala (talk) 15:45, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete: WP:PTM... there's no reason to expect to use this to search for these terms. UtherSRG (talk) 13:19, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - not a reasonable search term by itself.Onel5969 ^{TT me} 19:24, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - asilvering has expressed the argument better than I could. Springnuts (talk) 20:30, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Timothytyy (talk) 00:44, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• delete Impropriety is everywhere and does not require a long list of partial match "disambiguations". Mangoe (talk) 03:08, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Create Impropriety as a dab like User:Drapetomanic/Impropriety and redirect there Drapetomanic (talk) 03:43, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  But that really is WP:DICTDEF. -- asilvering (talk) 04:24, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  If it only meant one of the linked things you'd redirect there, right? But it means more than one, so a dab is appropriate Drapetomanic (talk) 06:02, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  No, we don't make an exception to WP:DICTDEF for words that have multiple meanings. Given the variability of the English language, that would mean we'd be duplicating a significant proportion of wiktionary. -- asilvering (talk) 10:39, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Please provide evidence of "we don't make an exception for words that have multiple meanings" Drapetomanic (talk) 15:33, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  How could I possibly do that? There is no stated exception, so there is no evidence of not having the stated exception. There would only be evidence if we did have an exception. -- asilvering (talk) 19:48, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  DICDEF applies to articles, not redirects. A dab is what happens when there are multiple possible targets of a redirect. Drapetomanic (talk) 21:07, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  What multiple targets? Maybe Etiquette (which is the target of Propriety), but that's about it. Clarityfiend (talk) 18:10, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  I think vulgarity/obscenity, unethical or immoral conduct, and the property of a complex random variable being correlated with its conjugate. Drapetomanic (talk) 21:02, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Also misconduct Drapetomanic (talk) 03:40, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete, ASilvering and Onel5969 put it well, it's not a useful redirect because it's just a common adjective that no reasonable person would use alone in a search. Elemimele (talk) 22:14, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per WP:PTM. The same problem exists with impropriety: there are no bands, songs, places, etc. with that name alone. Clarityfiend (talk) 18:09, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Shawn Teller (talk) 02:47, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete without objection to creation as a redirect should a suitable target be found. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:18, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Violates WP:PTM. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 06:30, 5 March 2023 (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.