Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sets of sets

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 of the debate was delete. There was an easy consensus that the content wasn't worth keeping. With the delete done, anyone can redirect to where they think is appropriate. —Cleared as filed. 02:37, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sets of sets

This article is an explanation of a linguistic convention that, if it were correct, could only properly go in the article set (mathematics). Since it's not, it should go to the dustbin. -lethe ^talk 08:03, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

• Rewrite. Properly changing the content of this article can leave us with a useful one. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 08:09, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. Article is very confused. This material is covered much more carefully and correctly elsewhere (Russel's paradox, class (set theory)). -- Fropuff 08:33, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• Merge and redirect to hypergraph. Charles Matthews 10:27, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

  A redirect from sets of sets to hypergraph could be a bit jarring. In any case, the current content is more related to the "class of all sets" notion than anything like a proper "set of sets". -- Fropuff 16:09, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

• Delete, but possibly merge some of the text into something like naive set theory, or other locations e.g. suggested by Fropuff. Dmharvey 13:40, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• delete as per Fropuff. Perhaps a sentence or two can be added to class (set theory). Aleph4
• Delete material already included in other set theory articles. --Pierremenard 17:43, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per Lethe and Fropuff, though I'm not deathly opposed to Charles's suggested redirect as a second choice. --Trovatore 21:36, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete: I don't think anything in this article is useful, correct, and unique to this article. First, the author doesn't know whereof he speaks, since a set cannot contain itself in the modern axioms of set theory. The point of the article seems to be to expound on Russell's paradox, but in such an unsophisticated way that it is entirely superceded by that article. Second, he doesn't understand his terminology and seems to think it makes an essential difference to talk about sets, families, collections, etc. The distinction between set and class is important, but he doesn't even mention the word (even where it would be correct). This article is half in error, half in ignorance, and half in over its head. Ryan Reich 14:29, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
• Redirect (without merge) to von Neumann universe hereditary set. Should have thought of that the first time. --Trovatore 14:41, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. The article itself could be a reference to Russell's paradox, but there's no content, and an inappropriate name. Arthur Rubin | (talk) 05:50, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
• Redirect, perhaps to Naive set theory. deeptrivia (talk) 04:17, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment when redirecting without merging, the target article should be determined by the title, not the content, because the content won't be there anymore (except in the history). I don't think it makes much sense to have "sets of sets" pointing at naive set theory (which by the way is a problematic article for other reasons, but that's not important right now). Von Neumann universe on the other hand talks about sets that consist only of sets. A more specific target would be hereditary set, if we had such an article. --Trovatore 18:13, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Update I went ahead and wrote a brief article at hereditary set (I haven't called it a "stub" because I'm not sure how much more we really want to say, though there is an interesting philosophical sidelight to mention if I could find the reference). I think it would be a good target for a redirect from sets of sets. --Trovatore 18:53, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, but add to set (mathematics) a note that a set may sometimes contain itself, which is not intuitive. RayGates 22:49, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment Actually, in set theory as usually studied, a set can't contain itself as an element. (That is, no sets in the von Neumann universe are elements of themselves.) There are alternative versions of set theory in which it is possible; see Non-well-founded set theory. I'm not convinced that discussion belongs in set. --Trovatore 23:21, 29 January 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.