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. There is a clear consensus not to keep the article. There is no obvious article to redirect to and reasons not to merge. Pax:Vobiscum (talk) 18:41, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Structure (category theory)[edit]

Structure (category theory) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

It is unclear what the actual topic of this page is intended to be, and why the content is significant in any way. Any important stuff could easily be moved to other pages on category theory. Jordan Mitchell Barrett (talk) 21:13, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions. Jordan Mitchell Barrett (talk) 21:13, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Delete per WP:INDISCRIMINATE. --BonkHindrance (talk) 21:15, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• keep Another one for WP:MATHISHARD 8-(

This is a 2003 article, written to the typical sourcing standards of the time. The fact our standards have improved since is reason to improve it, not delete it. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:39, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Even if it were sourced properly, the article still doesn't seem to substantively cover the idea of structure, let alone any other idea. It seems to be a "subjectless" article. Perhaps it could be saved by elaborating on its assertions (e.g. giving a rigorous definition of structure in a category, as is claimed to exist in the 3rd paragraph). --Jordan Mitchell Barrett (talk) 22:09, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge with Mathematical structure. I’m not convinced that there is a need for a separate article; but the solution is a merger not deletion. —- Taku (talk) 23:12, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. A note: WP:INDISCRIMINATE is a completely invalid delete reason here. But what's here is beyond repair. This article is written like a personal reflection essay. At best, according to nLab, it seems to be a historical approach that Bourbaki was developing as an alternative to the category theory of today, but it didn't catch on. As such, it doesn't seem to be notable. If this is merged anywhere, it should be to Category theory, but I would still recommend deleting – there's nothing here of sufficient quality to merge. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 00:56, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect to concrete category, where the concept is discussed in some detail. Insofar as structure in the categorical sense is associated with a pair of categories and a faithful functor, this concept is fairly well described in the concrete category article. I don't think anything needs to be merged, as the target article has better examples and the more general concept is covered in the Concrete_category#Relative_concreteness section. --((u|Mark viking)) {Talk} 03:45, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• DeleteRedirect to Category theory#Categories, objects, and morphisms (not convinced about the target though), nothing in the article worth saving, but the title is a reasonable search target. It's not clear to me what the redirect target should be. I'm not sure that Concrete category is the right place, since it's about a particular type of structure. Similarly, Mathematical structure is focused on structures imposed on sets. At first I was going to suggest Abstract structure, but that article has basically the same problems as this one! For now, Category theory#Categories, objects, and morphisms is of the right generality but is perhaps missing some details. — MarkH₂₁^talk 04:00, 27 February 2020 (UTC); revised !vote 06:38, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge. I wrote this in 2003, when WP was a very different place, and am rather surprised it is still around. I think it should be merged into Nicholas Bourbaki#Works. Bourbaki used category theory ideas rather sparingly, by 21st century standards, and the point of the article, really, was to calibrate that historical usage. Charles Matthews (talk) 05:15, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. This article is written as an essay, and even as an epistemological essay. The title is misleading, as suggesting that "stucture" is a concept of category theory. This is not the case, as said in the second paragraph ("In category theory structure is discussed implicitly"). The epistemologic idea that is presented can roughly be summarized as: In mathematics, some structural properties are similar in very different contexts, and some major progresses originated in recognizing these similarities; category theory is often useful for explaining and formalizing these similarities. Personally, I agree with this epistemological assertion, but, as there are few reliable publications and rarely a consensus in epistemology of mathematics, this must be considered as WP:OR. Also, the main concepts of category theory that are related to this epistemological idea are not mentioned in the article (functor and equivalence of category). So there is nothing in the article that can be used in WP. I oppose also to a merge, as it could be done only in an aticle about epistemology of mathemtics, and we do not have any such article. D.Lazard (talk) 08:54, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  You make a fair point. It seems that Equivalent definitions of mathematical structures#Structures according to Bourbaki does give a place for the Bourbaki point of view. So the article could be redirected there, and that section improved. I don't insist on a merge. If the article is deleted, redlinks will arise in history of topos theory, for example. Charles Matthews (talk) 12:42, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Not merging nor redirecting per WP:LEAST: the title wrongly suggests that "structure" is a technical term in category theory. As this is not the case, any target would be confusing. D.Lazard (talk) 11:26, 6 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment: The fact that nobody can agree on a redirect target suggests that there is no obvious one (and demonstrates how imprecise this term really is to D.Lazard’s point). In this case, deletion is a reasonable option. — MarkH₂₁^talk 06:38, 16 March 2020 (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.