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.
KeepWP:NOTGALLERY refers to articles "with no text". This article contains text and, if we should want more, this is best done by further editing in accordance with our editing policy, not by deletion. The topic has a clear and coherent theme and so is quite proper. Warden (talk) 20:25, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep This is a visual index of articles. As each image has an associated article, it is clearly not a "Mere collections of photographs or media files with no text to go with the articles" and WP:NOTGALLERY obviously does not apply. Gandalf61 (talk) 21:11, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep on the grounds that there does exist at least one book which contains a list of interesting curves (no sniggering at the back, naughty boys), but unfortunately I haven't actually seen the book I'm thinking of for over 30 years and can't remember what it's called. No way can it be a unique compendium - it's just a matter of finding them.
I'm also looking at Murray Spiegel's Mathematical Handbook which contains a small compendium of "special plane curves" - oh, and let's not forget Abramowitz and Stegun. So if we wanted to cite the fact that there are lists out there containing graphs / curves / whatever, they're out there.
Strong keep I have found this article very useful for my work. If I find a symmetry structure related to a graph, I use it to check "Does the graph have a name?" If it does, I can google for more information about it. It's not just a gallery, it's a lookup table: find your graph, and discover what it's called. I have probably consulted this article more times than any other single article in Wikipedia. Maproom (talk) 21:31, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Word of warning: having recently been party to the AfD on the List of Important Books of Mathematics, I learned that "because it's useful" is not a good argument to use for keeping anything (and in fact it can weaken a "keep" argument as it indicates bias, and the deletionist lawyers are apt to invoke WP:USEFUL and WP:ILIKEIT. A shame, but there you are - forewarned is forearmed. --Matt Westwood21:37, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Not all useful things on Wikipedia should be deleted, and not all galleries are bad. For example, Gallery of sovereign-state flags is good. It is even touted at Wikipedia:Gallery as an example of a good gallery. This gallery is indeed extremely useful as a navigational aid. Assisting navigation is one of the stated purposes of lists, and galleries can also serve that purpose, in particular for items whose primary representation is visual. As it is, for many people the primary representation of graph-theoretical graphs is visual, and Gallery of named graphs serves a navigational purpose. --Lambiam22:45, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Snowball Keep: WP:Gallery is not applicable here. The article organizes the graphs by type and there is explanatory material included. This is more of a list with illustrations than a gallery.--RDBury (talk) 01:27, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Such galleries of math objects allow visual identifications and helps people to find what they are looking for without knowing the time beforehand. Also such tables are not uncommon in reference works.--Kmhkmh (talk) 04:37, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Clear keep. Unquestionably, this list is useful as a source for browsing articles. It goes far beyond beyond being a mere gallery with no text. Sławomir Biały (talk) 12:13, 9 October 2011 (UTC) Metacomment: What is it with the fascistic interpretation of the WP:RULES that seems to dominate deletion discussions these days? First it was Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of important publications in mathematics and now this? There should be some guideline that discourages this kind of boneheadedness: "if your deletion rationale of a group of articles is less than two sentences long, consider that maybe you haven't really thought the thing through enough." Sławomir Biały (talk) 12:24, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think there are people who are philosophically opposed to the concept of a list (or just hate mathematics and the sciences), and are doing everything within the minutely-studied rules to get rid of them. Every statement that is made in favour of a keep is counteracted by an interpretation of a rule which is a direct counter-attack against that keep statement. Unfortunately the majority of people who are in favour of keeping stuff seem to be those who are more interested in adding material - which means they tend to spend more time on contributing to content than studying the rules for loopholes.
The worst offence against decency that I've seen is to say "I see you've quoted a source, but that source can not be included because I haven't seen it or read it, so how do I know I can believe you when you say it exists? Delete!"
I'll bite I nominated List of important publications in biology for deletion and someone else came along and (probably) said, "Well, if that merits deletion, seems like List of important publications in mathematics should, too" and nominated it. Similarly, I nominated 200_Greatest_Israelis and thought, "If that's being deleted, seems like a spate of similar articles should be, too." The actual deletion requests read something like "See this discussion" or "Look at WP:POLICY", but those discussions and policies/guidelines/etc. took a long time to make themselves. The actual rationale may be two lines long, but they appeal to much more substantial discussions. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:46, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Our one and only purpose here is to build an encyclopedia. The policies are meant to help us in that sole objective. Wielding them like a blunt instrument in this way is counterproductive to that aim. Yes, we have a "policy" that Wikipedia is not an image repository and there are very good reasons for that. But a list such as this that contains images is also helpful in organizing the information for browsing, and should clearly be retained. Mindlessly applying the WP:RULES is never what we've been about. Editors participating in absolutest rhetoric like this are remanded to revisit the WP:PILLARS and meditate on their meaning as a whole. Sławomir Biały (talk) 18:15, 9 October 2011 (UTC) Also, as an afterthought, I find the claim highly dubious that the deletion discussion of List of important publications in biology somehow sets a precedent for this sort of thing. Sławomir Biały (talk) 18:15, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The proposer gives no argument for deletion except a link to a policy page! This is not simply a "gallery"; this is a reference work useful to mathematicians both for navigation among Wikipedia articles and for browsing, and probably for other purposes as well. The cited policy repeatedly refers to "mere collections of" this or that. The word "mere" means "only". If it's only a collection of whatever, then the policy applies. That's not what this is. It almost looks as if the proposer saw the words "gallery of" in the title and slapped this AfD together without looking further. That would explain why the AfD proposal consists only of a link to that cited policy. There's a comedy movie titled How to Murder Your Wife. There's a Wikipedia article about it. The proposer may next propose that for a deletion, citing the policy that "Wikipedia is not a how-to". Michael Hardy (talk) 04:04, 10 October 2011 (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.