Talk:Complex network

Title
Just want to mention that maybe the title Complex Networks is more proper than Complex network.

assortativity hyp. link is shoving to the article about assortative mating in biology. This two thigns dont have anything in common except name therfore I will move this hyper link. If I find a time I'll write an article about assortative mixing!

copy edit 20061218
Changes include: Any comments or feedback? Thanks! dr.ef.tymac 16:27, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
 * replaced ambiguous "real world" terminology with specific examples and links
 * copy edit for tone, clarity, redundancy and continuity
 * separate out content made redundant by copy edit and move to central article
 * temp link for "hierarchy" until a more specific network-theoretic one is created
 * temp link for "clustering" until a more specific network-theoretic one is created
 * wikify and link related content

Random Networks not complex?
I don't agree with classifying random networks as non-complex or simple. And the literature on the subject doesn't either. Indeed, just as an example, the main reference on the topic, the review by Albert and Barabási in Rev. Mod. Phys. vol. 74, 2002, includes random graphs as the first example of complex networks. These networks are indeed complex in the sense that any process taking place on them would be embedded in an extremely complex topology, and thus in great contrast with lattices, which even when they might be high dimensional, they would still be regular. Tariuk (talk) 13:37, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Criticism
I am adding a criticism section, unless anyone has serious objections. There has been relevant criticism of the methods used to characterize degree distributions as power laws. In particular, these criticisms show that contrary to popular belief, the degree distributions of many real-world networks (e.g. weblogs) do not follow power-law distributions. The power-law fit results from erroneously using least-squares regression on the log-transformed data. The importance of this lies in the fact that generative models are used to link preferential attachment to these networks explicitly, via the (incorrect) argument that the degree distributions of the model and the data are the same.

This is not, of course, a criticism of complex networks as mathematical objects, which doesn't make sense. But in a page largely about the application of complex network theory to science, it is important to point out those misapplications, particularly when they lead to widespread erroneous beliefs. Octochimps (talk) 08:33, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Given recent criticism of "scale-free" and "small-world" networks (e.g., doi: 10.1002/bies.20294, or the editorial and Keller's essay in Nature's 2007 "Connections" collection) as a conglomerate non-predictive toy-models, it would be fair to have at least one sentence to say about that.

I am happy to start a Criticism section with content, where the points of criticism are briefly summarized along with relevant literature. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.89.179.144 (talk) 13:07, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I disagree: for the moment at least, this is an article about the networks, not about the people who study them or about the sociology of the field. Criticism of the people or of the field is certainly reasonable, but it should be in a separate place or article from discussion of the science. Fox Keller's article in particular was explicitly not a criticism of the networks, but a criticism of the approach physicists have taken to studying them. If there are specific widely-held misconceptions or scientific errors in the field, those would be appropriate to put in this article. ("It is widely claimed that X is true, but in fact Y." Stuff like that.)  But I agree with the previous editor who thought that vague criticism of the type "not everyone likes everything in this field" is not appropriate. Nog33 (talk) 18:39, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

List of researchers and scientists?
This seems a very odd section to have. It also lacks Paul Erdős and Alfréd Rényi, who may not be currently active but co-authored one of the most cited papers in complex network science. Also needs Béla Bollobás (Scholar search reveals two relevant books each with thousands of citations) and potentially more! My personal feeling would be that this section should be removed. --Ts4079 (talk) 14:09, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Merging network topics
There is a discussion about merging and spinning out network-related articles including this one at Talk:Social network. Madcoverboy (talk) 19:10, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Picture
Having some real pictures of the mentioned complex networks would be nice --Lbertolotti (talk) 14:38, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Complex Networks (company) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 18:02, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Missing information
Dear Editor/Mr. Ollie MrOllie (talk), This page of complex network does not represent various critical contributions made by Prof. Shlomo Havlin and his co-authors. I will share here some examples: Resilience of the Internet to Random Breakdowns (PRL 2000)– 2731 citations: Demonstrated the ability to develop an innovative approach to immune a complex network. Book: Complex Networks: Structure, Robustness and Function (Cambridge Press 2010) – 1206 citations Efficient immunization strategies for computer networks and populations (PRL 2003)– 1276 citations: Critical for the development of vaccination strategies for the control of disease. These were applicable during COVID-19. (see WIRED 2020: https://www.wired.com/story/covid-19-vaccine-super-spreaders/) Scale-free networks are ultrasmall – (PRL 2003) 1095 citations : Fundamental theory of distances in real networks. Each of these papers affected dramatically the theory of complex networks, paving a way for new avenues in science. I saw that these papers were referred in this page and removed in February this year (2022). I suggest to edit this page and would appreciate if you will be willing to review it. Coming from the field of network science it is very weird to me that these fundamental papers published in the top journal in physics (Physical Review Letters (PRL)) are not referenced. Looking forward for your reply. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Orrl (talk • contribs) 13:26, 13 October 2022 (UTC)


 * S Havlin has been the beneficiary of an extensive citespam campaign by numerous sockpuppets. Wikipedia is not a venue to promote this person or their work. Especially not from a user such as yourself, who has an obvious conflict of interest. - MrOllie (talk) 13:57, 13 October 2022 (UTC)