Talk:Civionics

Question of Notability
I have never heard of the term "Civionics." All of the references describe it as an emerging field, yet they seem to point in a circular manner as to establishing the notability of this term. Wikipedia is not a place to establish notability. So if this term is not widely used in the engineering field, it should not have an article here.

Civionic engineering seems to be a made-up term. There are only five google hits for the term (deducting the two Wikipedia hits).

The article says Civionics is the "application of electronics to civil structures" and compares itself to "structural health monitoring." Civionics only has 937 hits while "structural health monitoring" (with quotations) has 179,000. That implies that structural health monitoring is a prevalent term in engineering, while Civionics is not only an emerging field, but also an emerging term. - ¢Spender1983 (talk) 02:36, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Circular nature of references
Following the references listed in this version of the article, this is a discussion of the references.

Papers and Examples
 * The first is a paper with A.A. Mufti as a co-author.
 * The second quotes Dr. Mufti: "I call ...(it) civionics."
 * The third does not mention civionics in the title or abstract. (The paper is available by purchase only.)
 * The fourth does not use the term in the body of the paper. The term only appears in the reference section as part of a title of a paper by Dr. Mufti.
 * The fifth only uses the term where it says "ISIS Canada has...also developed...electronics for civil engineering applications..." This implies that the term is still in the development stage, nothing more.
 * The last again does not mention the term in the paper. The term only appears in the rteference section in the title of a paper by Dr. Mufti.

External Links
 * The first is a link to Dr. Mufti's resume (CV). This page establishes that Dr. Mufti is a civil engineering professor, which does give him credibility in the field of engineering. It also says that Dr. Mufti is preident of ISIS Canada and the first president of a society for structural health monitoring (ISSHMII).
 * The second is an announcement by ISSHMII about a new manual on the subject of Civionics. The link between Dr. Mufti and ISSHMII is established in his resume. Further, if your follow the link to the ISIS Canada site here, you will see that Dr. Mufti is credited as the sole author of this new manual.
 * The third says "ISIS Canada coined the word Civionics" and talks abouit how few google hits it gets. The link between Dr. Mufti and ISIS Canada is established above.
 * The fourth and fifth links lead to ISIS Canada pages. The relationship to Dr. Mufti established above.
 * The sixth and seventh links mirror smt-research.com, which is commercial website. Unless Civionics is a brand name, there should be many manufacturers with the term on their site. This does not seem to be the case. According to the website, the company is located at/near the University of Manitoba (where Dr. Mufti teaches).

Most of the reference pages point back to Dr. Mufti. How many other researchers have written papers using the term Civionics? Are there even any? Wikipedia should not be a location to create notability of a new term. If it is not already widely accepted in a technical field, it should not have an article here. - ¢Spender1983 (talk) 04:16, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Let's examine the references added here in response to the proposed deletion.
 * Papers:
 * The first here does not mention Dr. Mufti. However, the author defines the term Civionics in a different manner at the end of the article. This author says civionics is the "adaptation and transfer of aerospace technologies to Civil Engineering." This means that the word is a neologism without a clear definition.
 * The second is a newspaper article that quotes Dr. Mufti as saying this is a new term.
 * The third new reference is here is a paper by a graduate student. If you look here, you will see that this is (1) a shortened version of his thesis and (2) was presented at this conference (admittedly a reliable conference/source based on the number of universities participating on the program committee). This paper only says it is a "new" term. Since Dr. Mufti teaches at the university where this thesis was done, there is not much separation from him.
 * External links:
 * I note first that the link to Dr. Mufti's resume (CV) was removed. This doesn't really do anything to distance the article from the "inventor" of this neologism.
 * A link to here was added. This is a glossary of terms. However, Dr. Mufti is president of the ISHMII organization. So how does this not point back to him?
 * A link to a video was added (i will review in a few minutes).
 * A link to another university here provides ''best evidence that this word civionics is beginning to gain usage in the field of structural health monitoring. I could not find a relationship back to Dr. Mufti from this page. I am not familiar with the academic standing of this university, but it is certainly not an Oxford, Stanford or MIT. So, I must state that one other school's use of the term "civionics" cannot mean that it is not a neologism. (Can more references like this one be found? They better be if this article is to withstand a deletion review.)
 * Next is a second manufacturer here that actually uses the term civionics on their site. This is good. More will be needed to show it is not a neologism. (They can be provided on the talk page, because the External links section is not supposed to be a collection of links.)
 * The next is a link to here which I am not sure how it applies to this article. No explanation was given. The site does not use the term "civionics."
 * The last here is a spanish language website that is apparently dedicated to structural health monitoring and "civionics." This is another step to show that the word is progressing as a neologism.
 * In summary, a couple of these new links show that the word is beginning to be accepted beyond Dr. Mufti's circle. I don't think that the sum total of these provide the notability required for a wikipedia article. - ¢Spender1983 (talk) 14:26, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Proposed deletion
RHaworth has proposed the article for deletion. Please read Avoid_neologisms about the referenced reason for deletion. - ¢Spender1983 (talk) 01:46, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * For reference, that discussion is at Articles_for_deletion/Civionic_engineering_(civionics) Jminthorne (talk) 01:29, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Moved links from article to here.
I have moved the following links from the article here to the talk page because the article was in serious deviation from WP:LINKS. This guideline says Wikipedia is not meant to be acollection of links. That is what the article was becoming, so I moved the links here until their relevance can be discussed. - ¢Spender1983 (talk) 23:46, 13 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Links were restored by Pawels12345 without discussion or concensus. So I have deleted them from here. - ¢Spender1983 (talk) 14:56, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 8 external links on Civionics. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added tag to http://www.sedigest.co.in/pdf/2008/may%20june/health%20monitoring%20of%20civil%20infrastructures.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110706210540/http://www.engineering.ualberta.ca/news.cfm?story=70563 to http://www.engineering.ualberta.ca/news.cfm?story=70563
 * Added tag to http://www.isiscanada.com/Mufti/mufios-PDF.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20111005033835/http://www.technologyrail.org/pages/info/resources/opticalsensing_au.pdf to http://www.technologyrail.org/pages/info/resources/opticalsensing_au.pdf
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110217032529/http://www.gov.mb.ca/stem/ict_insight/facilities/isis.html to http://www.gov.mb.ca/stem/ict_insight/facilities/isis.html
 * Added tag to http://www.micronoptics.com/uploads/library/documents/Datasheets/os1100%20-%200808.pdf
 * Added tag to http://www.micronoptics.com/uploads/library/documents/Datasheets/si425%20-%200808.pdf
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20081011151259/http://www.specialtyphotonics.com/pdf/knowledge_base/sensor%20brochure%2005.pdf to http://www.specialtyphotonics.com/pdf/knowledge_base/sensor%20brochure%2005.pdf

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