Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Martingale paradox

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. - Mailer Diablo 00:00, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Martingale paradox

This is Usenet kookery that has made it to Wikipedia, e.g. [1] Originally prod'd by someone else; the author has contested it (note the similarity of the author's userpage to the Usenet content). What makes sense in the article is either trivial or does not justify the rest of the article. Chan-Ho (Talk) 00:13, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

• Merge (hopefully by someone who understands math better than me) whatever is salvagable into Martingale (probability theory). Agent 86 00:18, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: There is nothing worth merging that isn't already in the articles on probability. Please excuse me if I gave an impression otherwise. --Chan-Ho (Talk) 00:30, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: I concur; there's nothing salvagable from the article. Gene Ward Smith 03:58, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete and redirect; I don't see anything worth merging. (The "redirect" part is optional; it's possible that someone might consider it a paradox that martingales don't let you beat fair games of chance, so it's a semi-plausible redirect, but borderline.) --Trovatore 00:25, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: I made sure to look up "Martingale paradox" on Google, Google Scholar, and MathSciNet, to make sure at least the term was not common; I found only one paper on MathScinet (which also turned up on Google Scholar) and few hits otherwise on Google. So I wouldn't really recommend a redirect, but I guess redirects are cheap, so that would be ok with me. --Chan-Ho (Talk) 00:30, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

• • Comment: Wikipedia works on a consensus, and I dissent from this deletion. Just because an article may need cleaning up, does not mean it isn't legit, and doesn't have references. Just look at the Sleeping_beauty_paradox, it is marketed as a fictional paradox, which is trivial and was posted to a usenet group by a kook claiming to go to MIT. At least my results are backed up by concrete mathematics, which as you say may be trivial. But the math behind the results is not. Why don't you debate marcov chains with me, and see how well you understand them? --User:AntiochCollege (Talk) 8:51PM, 14 September 2006 (EST)
    • Comment: Consensus is general agreement; it does not require unanimity. Furthermore, the Sleeping Beauty paradox is non-trivial and coherent (and I don't believe Jamie Dreier is a kook or a liar, either, at least not in this context). Your article is largely incoherent. More specifically, it's a series of attempted proofs that are invalid and/or severely under-specified, even though the statements being proven happen to be true. I'll outline what appears to be salvageable on the discussion page. Emurphy42 01:45, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
      • Comment:I posted a rebuttal to your argument, and don't understand why a conversation wasn't initiated before this deletion process as it is outlined under the guidelines for Consensus.--User:AntiochCollege (Talk) 10:12PM, 14 September 2006 (EST)
• Delete So obscure as to be practically unknown. It's not Wikipedia's place to publicize an unknown theory. Fan-1967 01:01, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
• Merge & redirect to Martingale (probability theory) --Infrangible 01:30, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete and do not merge. This has little to do with martingales, is not enlightening, and likely violates WP:OR. —David Eppstein 01:36, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete; do not merge. This article is quite simply wrong, as the discussion of the coin-flip game makes clear. The fact that there are three methods for A to win has nothing to do with the odds unless the methods are equally likely (which they are not). Septentrionalis 01:48, 15 September 2006 (UTC) and protect against recreation per Four Dog Night Septentrionalis 03:23, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete and certainly do not merge per nom and per Septentrionalis. Michael Kinyon 02:18, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete with prejudice; do not let an article by that name be recreated. Do not merge. Do not redirect. -- Four Dog Night 02:37, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete— Usenet kookery indeed. The opening sentince sets off alarms. Retain only if the references can be established as relevant and supportive. - Williamborg (Bill) 03:13, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete without prejudice. I consider it possible that a paradox involving martigales could occur, although I don't recall having seen one. But there's nothing here which resembles a paradox. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 03:30, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per Arthur. —Khoikhoi 03:48, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete Gene Ward Smith 03:58, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete my 2c --Darkfred ^{Talk to me} 04:57, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete: nothing in it seems salvageable at all. No "paradox" is described. Whoever came up with the "theory" needs an introductory course in probability. --Storkk 07:47, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete The bits that make sense are obvious to anyone with any knowledge in the field, the rest is incoherent and indecipherable. Dave 07:57, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete: Apparently the article was written in direct violation of Wikipedia policy: "[title:]Corey's Gravity Theory Featured On Wikipedia [text:]Read all about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martingale_paradox [...] So I can self publish my work in a journal or on a website like Wikipedia" - alt.magick,sci.physics,sci.math,sci.stat.math,sci.physics.relativity Harald88 08:52, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as per Dave and Harald88. Gandalf61 09:47, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete: This article contributes nothing to what is already included in Martingale (probability theory). The 'mathematics' is dubious. Assertions are unsupported. (Don't primary schools still require students to 'show your work'?) There is no 'Martingale paradox'. Martingale statistics simply leads to results that may not be consistent with a priori expectations - a common event in mathematics.Tadchem 13:22, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete Incoherent. Ergative rlt 15:12, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
• If you want to delete this you are going to have to catch me arrest me or kill me, because you can't ban me.*—The preceding unsigned comment was added by AntiochCollege (talk • contribs) . Moved from top of article back to correct location --Brian ^{(How am I doing?)} 17:51, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete Gibberish, Original Research, Not Verifiable. Delete the Article with a nuke (prejudice) and salt the earth with the ashes. Perma-ban the user for blant violations of Wikipedia policy. I assumed good faith at first but it's clearly not at this point. -Brian ^{(How am I doing?)} 17:51, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
• Crypts0141 (talk • contribs) has created stochastic paradox as a duplicate of this article, and has also nominated Sleeping Beauty problem (AfD discussion), mentioned above, for deletion. Uncle G 22:47, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete nonnotable crankery. Perma-ban is in order for the author. Wile E. Heresiarch 17:27, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. What is not WP:OR is trivial, and what is WP:OR is mostly incorrect anyway. There's nothing to merge here. It's not at all clear to me what the "paradox" is supposed to be in the first place. --- Deville (Talk) 18:45, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

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.