Talk:A Guide to the Classification Theorem for Compact Surfaces

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Notability[edit]

(How or why) is this book notable enough to have an article on its own? Jakob.scholbach (talk) 08:01, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Through WP:GNG. It has five published reviews, easily meeting the requirement of GNG that there be multiple reliably-published in-depth sources about the subject. See also WP:NBOOK #1, which clarifies that only two reviews are needed. NBOOK also says that we should be even more inclusive for academic books but I don't believe that; I think the usual GNG standards work well enough for this type of book. Many more-advanced and technical mathematics books get only one or two reviews (on MathSciNet or Zentralblatt, when those sources don't get lazy and just reprint a publisher blurb or copy each other) so five is more exceptional. Also, I forgot to mention in the article that this book has been included on the Mathematical Association of America's Basic Library list; I'll add that. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:29, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I see. Jakob.scholbach (talk) 14:21, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the original question of @Jakob.scholbach:. This article can be replaced by adding the book as a reference to [[1]]. 73.89.25.252 (talk) 06:27, 17 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The book could be used as a reference to that article. That doesn't have anything to do with whether an article about the book, based on other references, meets Wikipedia's notability guidelines, which it obviously does. The article about the book is not intended as a replacement for the article about the classification of finite surfaces, of course just as for instance our article on the M. C. Escher artwork Castrovalva is not intended as a replacement for the article about the town of Castrovalva. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:29, 17 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Capsule reviews are not "multiple in-depth reliable sources" to establish notability, are not significant.[edit]

4 of 5 sources are short mini-reviews a few sentences long.

3 of the 4 are completely un-notable in that they are in sources that try to cover the entire mathematics literature. If Springer-Verlag publishes it, a review will probably appear.

These are not multiple independent reviewing events due to the book being notable. They are not "in depth". There was probably no editorial fact checking or peer review of the contents of the brief reviews.

This is run of the mill academic indexing, not academic review articles as in the AMS Bulletin.

Nothing notable. Article is WP:PUFF.

73.89.25.252 (talk) 06:04, 17 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what version of the sources you're looking at, but for me the MAA review is roughly 577 words long, the Zbl review is roughly 716 words long, the MR review is roughly 497 words long, and even the two shorter reviews in EMS and Choice are 191 and 215 words long, far more than "short mini-reviews a few sentences long". To put it baldly, your description of these reviews is a lie. Yes, some books get longer reviews in the Bulletin. Those reviews are mostly descriptions of the same mathematics described in the books and not of the books themselves, though. Other books get a copy-and-paste of the publisher's own blurb in MR and zbl and nothing in other sources of reviews. I have a collection of many book titles I'd like to create articles for, but haven't because there are too few reviews, or the reviews are too short to say anything about the book. This book wasn't one of them. It wasn't even one for which I thought notability was borderline but enough. The reviews are more than enough. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:43, 17 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That the reply is that quick and that hostile (plus an instant revert and threat on an unrelated edit I just made) further illustrates the point. WP:VEST and WP:OWN apply here.
You are probably right that the "4 of 5 ..." statement is incorrect; I cannot access all the reviews and while there are some correct 4-of-5 statements of the same type that do follow from what I did access, the posted one does not so follow, and should have been written more carefully. For example,
"4 of 5 of these (nominal) reviews are either in pro forma academic indices (MR, Zbl) or cursory mini-reviews of which only a few sentences (5 in Choice, 4 in EMS) are specific to the book."
Happy now? I guess getting an actual review in MR or Zbl rather than an abstract counts for something, but it does not have the features of either Notability or Reliable Source as defined by Wikipedia. Significance, independence (vs automatic indexing), fact checking, substantial editorial oversight on content. 73.89.25.252 (talk) 07:58, 17 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The EMS Reviews, for example, are user-submitted content that anyone can send in, essentially a moderated self publication system. It's an honor system that probably works, much like MR and Zbl, despite the minimal oversight, but different from something like the Bulletin where the reviews are treated similar to articles. Indexing versus "real" reviewing is a topic for WP:RSN so maybe not worth debating at length here. 73.89.25.252 (talk) 08:14, 17 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Speaking of what the reviews do and don't say, the MR and Zbl reviews are paywalled, which makes some of the citations to them in the article non WP:V. 73.89.25.252 (talk) 08:43, 17 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see the point of continued discussion with you, except to note that your understanding of WP:V is incorrect. It is not and has never been a requirement that sources be online, let alone free online. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:01, 17 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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