Talk:Number theory/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: David Eppstein (talk · contribs) 01:23, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

I note that nominator appears never to have edited this article,  This is not a rule violation, but it is a bit of a red flag for caution that improvements needed to reach GA status may not be forthcoming. Additionally, it means the nominator probably did not conduct an informal review for what improvements might be needed to reach GA and then perform those improvements. In particular, the article has a valid "Section needs expansion" tag dating from March 2016.

This is a very broad topic, one that I would expect an article to hit the highlights of and leave the details of for other articles. Roughly half the article is devoted to the history of number theory and another half to the subfields of number theory and their major results. This is reasonable, but I don't understand why half of the subfields are grouped into "Main subdivisions" and half into "Recent approaches and subfields". There is also a stub of an Applications section but this is inadequate and tagged as inadequate.

The history section is generally well sourced but the remaining sections are not. The references appear to be generally consistently formatted but Sachau 1888 is missing, the undated Apostol citation has an error message because of the use of a template in its series parameter, and Milne 2014 uses a bare url, not properly formatted with the template.

The images appear to be relevant and appropriately licensed but the Plimpton 322 image is associated with article text that takes only one specific and contentious interpretation of the meaning of that tablet.

Because "It has, or needs, cleanup banners that are unquestionably still valid", it meets the quick fail criteria in IN:GAFAIL.

—David Eppstein (talk) 02:22, 3 March 2019 (UTC)


 * It was a surprise to me that someone nominated the page now. It is clear that there were some minor issues that absolutely had to be addressed first (the section that needs expansion, the errors in citations) and some broader issues that needed more work (sources for the second half of the article -- though that's a bit of a tough issue, since many of the statements are second nature to a professional, and hence hard to source). Still, it is very helpful to have feedback.


 * Two issues:
 * What do you mean precisely by "one specific and contentious interpretation of the meaning of the tablet"? The :tablet does contain a list of what is conventionally called Pythagorean triples, and they are labelled as such. As :for applications, the field is indeed wide open, but we mention at least two opposing views. We could also include a :more recent response to Robson - is that what you imply is missing?
 * As for why "half of the subfields are grouped into "Main subdivisions" and half into "Recent approaches and :subfields"" - it is more or less clear that some subfields are much newer and well defined than others (the name :"additive combinatorics" is less than 20 years old, though the field has been around since the 1960s, or in some :sense for longer). Does the division seems too arbitrary or unnecessary? If so, we can talk about removing it, but I :am sure I am not the only one who wonders where exactly the problem lies.
 * Also: wouldn't nominating the article for a B-class review be a logical first step, once the issues above are addressed? Garald (talk) 03:25, 19 March 2019 (UTC)


 * "The references appear to be generally consistently formatted" - I would hope so - I went through every single reference in the article as it stood in April 2012 and formatted the lot with consistency uppermost in my mind. Since then, additions have been made by others who apparently just don't care. Would you like me to have another go? I was randomly looking through my previous "achievements", fixed the Milne cite and then wondered how the article was doing, hence this... PS I used to think there was only one infinity until I came across Aleph-null in around 2007. PPS Still hung up on that old cow problem...