Wikibooks:Requests for deletion/Mathematics Fundamentals

Mathematics Fundamentals
Following up on a discussion from the reading room I think this book has serious problems. Starting with the least sever, the book is exceedingly broad and poorly scoped. The spelling, grammar, and content contain quite a few mistakes. For example one page is called Trigonometry Identyties and the real numbers are defined as A set of number 1 - 9. There are also more fundamental mathematical issues that violate our policy on original research such as defining parallel lines as those lines which cut each other at the infinity.

In addition I feel this book represents plagiarism, many of the pages are copied from vi.wikibooks and vi.wikipedia. These copies in large part remain untranslated, but the author clearly states his, and only his, name in at least 5 places in the book. In addition because of the untranslated sections what amounts to most of the text of the book is not in English. Thenub314 (talk) 09:13, 27 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Symbol delete vote.svg Delete It would have been worse had I not seen the page creations right away and moved them into the proper structure, else the pages would have violated the naming policy as well. The page names would have been even worse had I not rapidly corrected errors as I saw them.  But I'm not a math major, so that's about all I can do to salvage this book.  In looking at our policy on deletion, however, I would say this book is covered under no meaningful content. -- Adrignola talk contribs 12:36, 27 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Symbol comment vote.svg Comment English may not be easy for the main contributor which might explain the mistakes. Maybe finding a motivated person that knows Vietnamese and English is the way to get the rest of the work translated. Could also create a template for this purpose to encourage anyone that comes along to do it. Parallel lines being described as a line that cuts each other at the infinity sounds similar to descriptions I've heard before. Maybe that is how parallel lines is described in Vietnamese. In English this might be "A parallel line is a line that never crosses paths at the infinity." I think stating only his name in 5 places is a problem that could be solved by removing his name in the 5 places, and creating an About page with "Translated to English by X from vi.wikipedia and vi.wikibooks works". --dark lama  13:11, 27 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Symbol comment vote.svg Comment In fact the link should legally be there, but this is probably not considered a big issue by other people.  The difficulty with placing the link is actually tracking down the articles is far from easy.  I was trying to do it today with similar problems at Physics Handbook, and it took me a while to find the links I did.  It is made more difficult by that fact that in some places different sections come from different pages.  In other places the text seems to have been translated before being uploaded. (He starts his work at vi.wikibooks, see for example Physics_handbook ).  Once it is translated it is very difficult to find the original source.  Unfortunately for this book there is not a semi-translated version at vi.wikibooks I can follow back to the original source. Thenub314 (talk) 15:43, 27 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Symbol delete vote.svg Delete I've attempted to contact the presumable author editor and got no reply. --Panic (talk) 18:54, 27 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Symbol comment vote.svg Comment Shouldn't there be an RFD notice on the book itself? As far as I can tell, it has only had an NPOV notice so far. Recent Runes (talk) 16:30, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, there should; and now there is. --Pi zero (talk) 16:39, 28 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Symbol comment vote.svg Comment That was my mistake. Apologies. Thenub314 (talk) 17:15, 28 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Symbol delete vote.svg Strong Delete Even if I ignore the technical issues (copyrights, non-English passages) I can't see how this can be salvaged. The scope is too broad (just compare the table of contents to Category:Mathematics and see how many books one might make on the proposed subjects), the approach to the topics is inconsistent (for instance, it provide elementary school-level definitions of the shapes at the same time it attempts to discuss calculus) and of course the actual content is very thin and full of mistakes. The only way a book like this could make sense is as a lightweight "Mathematics for the layman" overview - but such a project would require excellent planning, brilliant prose and careful maintenance, and there is no reason why this book should be a starting point for that. Finally, the signature in the front page (Quach Trung Thanh . B.Sc.E.E . 1984 - 1988 . University of Manitoba . 69.20.234.76 (talk) 18:49, 17 April 2010 (UTC)) makes it feel like a "vanity" page - or book, if you prefer. --Duplode (talk) 15:42, 4 May 2010 (UTC)