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 keep. Swarm ♠ 04:04, 11 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Exact couple (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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I saw this on deletion review as having been moved to mainspace from draft. I can't math, so I have no clue where to look for as to whether this is even notable, but: this is mostly unsourced definitions and proofs, which is either a WP:OR essay or copyvio from somewhere. And of course all of it is entirely impenetrable to laypeople, hence of very questionable usefulness to a general interest encyclopedia.  Sandstein  20:53, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Exact couples are mathematical objects used in spectral sequences in algebraic topology. We already have a section on them at Spectral_sequence#Exact_couples. These were created by Massey in the 1950's, Here is the article that first discussed them. Since then, they have become an integral part of spectral sequence development: exact couple in nLab, class notes, "An Introduction to Homological Algebra" textbook. The topic, while high level pure math, seems notable and a search of GBooks and GScholar shows multiple RS. The article could definitely use some work in improving exposition and referencing, but the basics seem in place. A notable topic and a salvagable article suggest keeping it. That said, I can fully sympathize with the nom's position that this sort of article is impenetrable. Such is the case for most articles in advanced pure math topics like homological algebra. --Mark viking (talk) 06:39, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. I too sympathize with the nom's frustration, but this rationale could be applied verbatim to any number of articles on advanced math topics. So, unless there is a movement to decimate the math pages, I'd suggest that these decisions be left in the hands of those who "can math." I agree with Mark's analysis of this page and think it should be kept. Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 19:35, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep as this seems convincing for an article, no serious needs for deletion. SwisterTwister talk 05:02, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions. SwisterTwister talk 05:02, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. To answer the question in the nominator's second sentence: the right answer is probably MathSciNet, but Google scholar works well enough and doesn't require a subscription. There you will find approximately 1000 publications mentioning this topic. MathSciNet has 20 with that phrase in the title, most or all of which are probably for this meaning of the phrase. That's easily enough for WP:GNG, the only relevant notability criterion for scientific concepts. And of course just because you can't math doesn't mean everyone else has to be handicapped to your level of ignorance — we all have some subject here that we don't understand, but that doesn't mean the encyclopedia should contain nothing. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:13, 10 February 2016 (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.