Talk:Homer Jacobson

NYT link
Someone should fix that New York Times link. It's badly formatted and the NYT is wrong about the retraction. And it's not really a reference because it is not used in the article. I can't fix it because of an ArbCom kangaroo court. (SEWilco 21:12, 25 October 2007 (UTC))

Crackpot claims
Jacobson may be a crackpot or a crank, but such claims need to be carefully substantiated by reliable third-party sources, especially for a living person. Can you provide any published references for recent edits? I have reverted them until they can be made "suitably encyclopedic". (I know nothing about Jacobson's work or reputation myself, so am "neutral", I guess.) Wwheaton (talk) 19:14, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Self-Replicating Model Train Set reference
The Main Article says, "In the 1950s he illustrated basic self-replication in artificial life with a model train set.[citation needed] A seed "organism" consisting of a "head" and "tail" boxcar could use the simple rules of the system to consistently create new "organisms" identical to itself, so long as there was a random pool of new boxcars to draw from.[citation needed]" That concept and the model train itself are described in "On Models of Reproduction," American Scientist 1958, 46(3), 255-284. There are several photographs of the train set and circuit diagrams for the controllers. The Main Article can be updated with that citation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AdderUser (talk • contribs) 15:21, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Update birth/death dates, fix dead links

 * Proposed new first line: Homer Jacobson (November 27, 1922 - April 21, 2014 ) was a chemistry professor at Brooklyn College, New York City.


 * Update dead links in Articles section (first, and last two articles) to these working links:
 * "Virustat, a Device for Continuous Production of Viruses," Applied Microbiology, 14(6): 940–952 (1966 November) with Leslie S. Jacobson.
 * "The Informational Capacity of the Human Eye," Science 113:292-293 (March 16, 1951).
 * "The Informational Capacity of the Human Ear," Science 112:143-144 (August 4, 1950).

Dovetail83 (talk) 14:54, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Reason: I am trying to update this page to add the death (and birth) dates of Homer Jacobson (who was my father). I have a copy of his death certificate, which I cited, but such information is not directly available online without making an application for a copy, so the edits keep getting reverted.  I cannot find any obituary online, but I think it is better if his page lists him as no longer living, so I wish to update at least that.  Also, the links seem to have gone dead.  I tried replacing them with working links to online sources of the publications, but these too were reverted.  Can someone override these bot reversions so that at least the page contains his death date and working links?  Let me know if there is anything I can do to facilitate this.  I can provide a partial image from his death certificate, with certain personal information redacted, in case this helps (can I upload this image to this talk page?  I don't know if I need "rights" to the image- it is not "my own work" so I didn't upload it, but can do so if it is okay).


 * , the links of the academic papers have been updated. Submitting the death certificate to Wikipedia Editors won't work much in this case if you ask me. Wikipedia works mainly based on secondary sources. So, its better if you can get Brooklyn College publish a memorial article about him where if they mention his death date, we can incorporate that. Otherwise, some Reliable Source must publicly state his death news to update the article as what you are wishing for. I am closing the edit request. Once you have a citable reference, you may raise another edit request Chirota (talk) 01:37, 27 September 2021 (UTC)


 * It would take a lot of effort to get the College to publish a memorial article at this point. If editors are unwilling to add the birth/death dates, can they at least change the text to no longer suggest that he is living ("was a chemistry professor" instead of "is a former chemistry professor")?  I don't see how the original author is allowed to say "former" without a published secondary source for this information, nor "is" without any evidence that he is still alive, and yet I can't make this update with primary evidence (which is more than the original author had to say "is" or "former").  I have been a reliable supporter of Wikipedia throughout the years, but I feel like I do not want to support any more if they will not correct wrong information in the face of credible evidence against it. Dovetail83 (talk) 17:06, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
 * , I don't think you got my point properly. There is a policy following which Wikipedia works. For making any changes, you need to follow that. To be frank, no one can verify your claim that the subject of this article is dead. I asked for a credible source so that I can aid your edit request but from what you are saying, there isn't any. In Wikipedia, pages are created for notable persons and there should be some news about the demise of a notable person. But if there isn't any such news, I think the notability of the person needs to be reexamined and if this subject isn't notable we can discuss if this article should be removed altogether. Lastly, Wikipedia encourages anonymity so its very easy for anyone to push wrong information and thus verifiability is a must criteria. For your supporting Wikipedia or withdrawing it I am afraid, no Wikipedia Editors will be really caring about it, as almost all Wikipedia Editors are volunteer and any support/donation made goes to Wikimedia foundation, which has little or no role in editing Wikipedia directly. Chirota (talk) 20:10, 4 October 2021 (UTC)