Wikipedia

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Number cruncher

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 soft redirect to wikt:Number cruncher. Jujutacular talk 01:02, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Number cruncher

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Number cruncher (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log) • Afd statistics
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Contested WP:PROD. Prod reasoning was that Wikipedia is not a dictionary of slang or jargon. As another user noted on the talk page, this is a term not a topic. Article has been edited since then but still lacks even a single source. While sources can be found that use this term, it is doubtful there are sources that actually discuss the term itself. Wiktionary has an entry on this already, and since this is unsourced transwiki is not a good option anyway. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:52, 16 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As I said, as this material is not verified by sources so transwiki is not a good option. We shouldn't dump our garbage in the neighbor's yard. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:41, 16 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Improve or Delete without prejudice against subsequent recreation. This is undoubtedly a crap article - it's just awful. I have no problem with removing it on grounds of being crap. However, I strongly believe that this is a perfectly good title/subject for an article - and Wikipedia definitely needs a decent article with this title. So if we do remove it, I want to be quite certain that we do not use that as a precedent for removing some future article of the same name. This is not (as some have asserted) a WP:NOTDICT issue.
The phrases "Number cruncher" and "Number crunching" are technical terms that are widely used in the computer industry and which have been around in common an frequent use over at least three decades. It is argued that the term is 'slang' or 'jargon' - but that's true of so many words and phrases used in this young industry that we can't just say "NO JARGON!" - if we did that then we'd have to delete byte, nibble, floppy disk, netbook and hundreds of other articles that take their title from a jargon word for some object or concept that has become mainstream. Nobody calls a "floppy disk" a "flexible media diskette" - they use the jargon word because it's easier. A number cruncher is a class of computer that's optimized for large-scale arithmetic processing - and we have no other word that describes such machines ("Supercomputer" comes close - but not all supercomputers are number crunchers...and vice-versa). We should have an article that describes notable number crunchers - what makes a number cruncher special - what attributes it needs. "Number cruncher" should be considered as a phrase of comparable significance to "Web server", "Netbook" or "Laptop" - who's articles are never likely to be nominated here.
Similarly, the phrase "Number crunching" describes what a computer program is doing when it's doing a lot of purely arithmetic work ("Steve, why has your program stopped running?" "It hasn't stopped, it's just doing a lot of number crunching.") The phrase is comparable to words like "sorting", "rendering" or "parsing" - which have articles about their root words. Once again, there is no other word or convenient phrase that precisely conveys the meaning of "number crunching" - and we could certainly write an article about the nature of this activity - why some applications are heavy number crunch processes, etc. As our article points out, the term is also used outside of the computing industry (as in "Let's go crunch the numbers before we present it to the CEO") - and in that case, it probably should be considered slang. But the phrase has a precise meaning in computer science and it's a part of the mainstream vocabulary of that industry. SteveBaker (talk) 02:37, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Floppy disk has 35 references cited. Netbook has 93. This article has zero. Therein lies the difference. Honestly I was only aware of this term as slang for an accountant, similar to bean counter, but if it is as widely used as you say for a specifically modified computer then sources verifying that should be available and the article can be fixed through editing it to reflect the information in the sources. I never mind being proved wrong at AFD and seeing a crappy article turned in to a good one, but some actual proof is going to be needed. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:49, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree - the article sucks and should probably be removed/redirected/whatever'ed. As I !voted, I'm not averse to removing it on grounds of general crappitude - so long as it is not done on WP:NOTDICT grounds which would mitigate against future recreation of a much better article. SteveBaker (talk) 13:11, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comparisons to byte and the like fall flat because those are literally jargon and incomprehensible to outsiders. "Number cruncher" is trivially worked out through its axioms, and is used in so many different contexts that it does little more than connote heavy calculation work. Figures of speech which are not examined in detail by multiple independent reliable sources don't need their own articles. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 06:20, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Imagine an article that described specific computers that were designed to be good number crunchers and listed the properties they collectively have. Such an article (which I wish we had) would be as appropriate as (say) netbook or web server. The present article isn't that - and should probably 'go away' - but that doesn't mean that a perfectly reasonable article on this topic couldn't be written in the future. SteveBaker (talk) 13:11, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not really. "Number cruncher" is a fairly genericised label applied to a disparate collection of things to carry a general connotation. "Web server" and "netbook" are specific categories of actual products, and indeed are the primary names for their respective subjects. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 15:03, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - We already have an article on the class of computers used for number crunching. It's called a supercomputer. However, the appellation of "number cruncher" to this class of machine is unsubstantiated. -- Whpq (talk) 15:07, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I still think that is probably not appropriate. I'm not real familiar the the policies over there but I assume they require some form of verification, which this article is entirely lacking having never had a single source. I don't object to deleting the article and immediately recreating it as a soft redirect, but I don't think we should look at Wikitionary as a dumping ground for unsourced material. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:13, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, by all means if Wiktionary rejects the transwiki then deletion is fine. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 14:03, 18 November 2010 (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.