User talk:EdJohnston/Archive 4

Update
Hi Ed, thanks for the update, interesting. You may have seen that I have done a more extensive run of ISBN formatting, which has picked up a significant number of "too long" or "too short" ISBNs. I have also done the same for ISSNs, including dynamically checking the check-digit. Luckily there are only a handful of errors. Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 10:40 2 December 2006 (GMT).

This month's winner is RNA interference!
– ClockworkSoul 14:31, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Idea: Category:ISSN not found in Worldcat
There is already a category Category:ISSN needed. As we gradually progress in looking up ISSNs, it's possible that we will find more journals like the Indian Journal of Medical Informatics, that have a valid ISSN but don't seem to be held in any Worldcat libraries. The argument would be that citations to such journals should be avoided, for verifiability reasons. (Unless Worldcat can be supplemented with some South Asian OPACs that can be found on the web). EdJohnston 05:42, 3 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Ed, this is a great idea; it sounds like a natural progression. The big question is _how_.  As I see it, we need someone to regularly export a complete list of all ISSNs used on WP into a flat file, so it can be used in various ways.  At present, I dont know how to extract that type of information efficiently (maybe Rich can help?), but once such a list is available, I can write scripts to perform most of the checks that we have considered so far.


 * btw, Im not (yet?) 100% behind the idea of a policy that indicates that journals that cant be found in WorldCat should be avoided (or any combination of wonderful extensive catalogs). I've been quite surprised at how extensive the worldcat database is, but I am no-where near ready to assume that it has _all_ of the useful information catalogued. John Vandenberg 07:32, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Your Changes to Paul Gourley
Your changes to Paul Gourley's article were unhelpful; You say, in your own words, that certain contents were "unsourced."

In fact they were sourced within the article's very text ('from bio on the College Republican National Committee website'), an unacceptable oversight. Please read said biography or refrain for any further changes. 69.249.195.232 10:04, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Fine idea
I would be fine with withdrawing from editting Tifft for one week. --ScienceApologist 19:11, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Talk:William_G._Tifft
Now that ScienceApologist has made an extensive statement, would I be entitled to a fair comment, or would you rather I didn't? --Iantresman 20:13, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your question; I'd prefer you didn't. Send me email if necessary. My concern is that other editors who might have ideas will hide out until the uproar subsides. The tone of the discussion between you and ScienceApologist was too hot for an actual consensus to emerge. EdJohnston 20:20, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I have left comments on this article on the talk page. Please note that I prefer the current version of the page to the 7 Dec 2006 revision by Iantresman. Dr. Submillimeter 08:35, 8 December 2006 (UTC)


 * A couple of points on Dr. Submillimeter's suggestions to the article:
 * Dr. Submillimeter suggests that "to represent scientific viewpoints accurately, 50% or more of the article's information should be on mainstream scientific viewpoints.
 * In an article about a mainstream scientific viewpoint, Dr. Submillimeter is accurate. But the article in question is Tifft himself. NPOV Undue weight tells us: "None of this is to say that tiny-minority views cannot receive as much attention as we can give them on pages specifically devoted to them.". We are under no obligation to explain the mainstream viewpoint in someone else's biography; however, we should note that there is a mainstream viewpoint, and link people to it. When we explain the Flat earth theory, we don't give 50%+ to the mainstream theory.
 * Dr. Submillimeter notes that "Scientists' POV should be regarded more highly than popular journalists' POV"
 * Absolutely. But that does not rule out a popular journalists' POV, especially if they are not discussing the merits of a scientific theory.
 * Dr. Submillimeter writes: "Tifft's model is largely disregarded as invalid (or ignored) by the majority of the astronomical community "
 * "Disregarded or ignored" is quite different to "invalid". Verifiable reliable source should be used to clarify this. My quote from Napier noting that Tifft's work was "controversial" was the best criticism I could find. --Iantresman 10:06, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Tifft
Please give me a couple of days to work on a rewrite of some of the material. (It will probably be only a single paragraph.) It also seems appropriate to cite that Tifft's work is used by critics of the Big Bang theory, such as Halton Arp. Would that be OK to include in a rewritten paragraph? Dr. Submillimeter 20:00, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't object at all! See what you can come up with. EdJohnston 20:21, 12 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not a subject matter expert, but in the past five minutes I looked briefly at the Tifft article and the Redshift one. They seem to be good articles. Tifft's biography is brief but fair. The redshift article seems to discuss its subject fairly and in reasonable depth, and to mention Tifft's contributions in an appropriate way. (It could all be wrong, or right, or witchcraft, for all I know, but it seems to be a proper encyclopedic coverage of a scientific subject.) Lou Sander 02:39, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your analysis. It sounds like we should now wait for User:Dr. Submillimeter to finish his rewritten paragraph and see what we think. EdJohnston 02:45, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Here is a first draft of my revision. This seems to treat Tifft negatively, but it is well-referenced. (References are currently indicated in parentheses; I can insert these later.)

Dr Submm's draft
(Heading added 16 Dec. by EdJohnston )
 * Based on observations of nearby galaxies, Tifft has put forward a theory that the redshifts of galaxies are quantized, or that they occur preferentially as multiples of a set number. These theories were originally published in 1976 and 1977 in the Astrophysical Journal (Tifft 1976, Tifft 1977a, Tifft 1977b).  The ideas were controversial at the time; the editors of the Astrophysical Journal included a note in one of the papers stating that they could neither find errors within the analysis nor endorse the analysis.  Since the initial publication of these results, Tifft’s theory has been used by other individuals, such as Halton Arp, as an alternative explanation to the Big Bang Theory, which states that galaxies are redshifted because the universe is expanding (Arp 1986, Arp 1987).  Tifft himself, however, has conservatively stated that he is not necessarily claiming that the universe is not expanding (Sobel 1993).


 * Today, Tifft’s redshift quantization, as well as other intrinsic redshift theories, are largely ignored, as the vast majority of observational evidence suggests that redshifts are indeed related to the expansion of the universe and are not intrinsic to the galaxies themselves (Peebles 1993). Tifft’s papers themselves have received few citations in recent years (ADS Abstract search).  Tifft’s research and other astronomers’ research into redshift quantization have also been criticized for their inconsistent results.  A review of the subject shows that the claimed periodicity of redshifts has ranged from 5.76 km/s to 72.5 km/s (Salpeter 2005).  Some of the smaller periodicities claimed to be found by Tifft are difficult to measure accurately (Salpeter 2005).  Moreover, the description of the quantization and the techniques for measuring it vary depending on the extragalactic objects (i.e. dwarf galaxies, spiral galaxies, superclusters) being observed (Salpeter 2005).

Note that the ADS Abstract Service can be used to quantify the number of citations to individual papers. Please suggest revisions as is appropriate. Also, if you have any questions about the science, feel free to ask. Dr. Submillimeter 12:06, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the thorough job! Your conclusions are stronger than in the current version, so the references will need to back what is asserted. Give me a bit of time to look at the references. I'll also leave a note for Lou Sander to study your version. EdJohnston 14:55, 14 December 2006 (UTC)


 * According to the article, this guy was ...influential in the development of the first redshift surveys and was an early proponent of manned space astronomy, conducted at a proposed moon base for example. Compare the coverage of that with the coverage of what we're talking about here, which is too much detail about non-notable stuff, IMHO. The guy, a qualified scientist, put forth a speculation. Some people printed it, with reservations. Over time, people haven't accepted it. End of story.


 * If you want to describe Tifft's non-notable theories/speculations (but I don't know why you would), keep the first paragraph. The second paragraph isn't about Tifft at all--maybe put it in the Redshift article.


 * Also, its stuff about "largely ignored," "vast majority," and "few citations" aren't as well-sourced or neutral as wp:blp would like them to be. Calling them as I see them, they look like original research in an attempt to smear poor old Professor Tifft. Maybe there's a personal vendetta here, or professional jealousy, or some editors trying to show each other how much they know about redshift theory. Whatever is behind it, IMHO, it's unbecoming to an encyclopedia.


 * All involved should step back, take a look at Tifft's life and his article, and edit the article accordingly. Lou Sander 15:30, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Although Tifft has made contributions to other fields of astronomy, Tifft's work in the past 30 years has focused on redshift quantization. The Sobel article, which was the subject of the first debate on this article's talk page, clearly focused on the redshift quantization work, not Tifft's other contributions. An author search for W. Tifft using the ADS Abstract Service shows that most of Tifft's first-author papers have been about redshift quantization, not other research topics. Redshift quantization is a major fraction of this man's work, and it deserves a place in the article.

Similarly, criticisms of Tifft's results also belong within this article. Note that these are not attacks on the individual's character but criticisms of the individual's results. Moreover, most of the citations are specifically about Tifft's research. The Salpeter article repeatedly cites Tifft specifically, including citing Tifft as the source of the 5.76 km/s and 72.5 km/s redshift periodicity values. If the article is going to discuss Tifft's contributions to redshift quantization, then it should also address criticism of Tifft's results. Simply stating that Tifft produced a new theory on redshift quantization with no critical discussion of the man's research does not present a balanced viewpoint of the man and his work and is therefore dishonest.

Here are some quick links to papers (which will be rewritten in footnote form when appropriate): The Peebles reference is a scientific textbook that does not mention Tifft specifically but does address the intrinsic redshift issue in general. This is the only reference which may have questionable relevance to the Tifft article. However, the book does succinctly address the general issue better than any other reference, and it is only used briefly within the suggested paragraph. Dr. Submillimeter 19:31, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Arp 1986
 * Arp 1987
 * Salpeter 2005
 * Tifft 1976
 * Tifft 1977a
 * Tifft 1977b


 * An additional note: It is possible to use the ADS Abstract Service to track citations (although the ADS Abstract Service does state that its citations are not necessarily complete). Nonetheless, it is possible to see how frequently these articles have been cited.  Tifft (1976), for example, has received 10 citations since 1 Jan 2000.  Nonetheless, if these statements about his citation count are too strong, perhaps they should be removed.


 * However, it still needs to be noted that Tifft's theories on redshift quantization are not accepted by the majority of the professional astronomical community. Although the policies of Biographies of living persons do apply, the guidelines of Fringe theories also need to be applied here.  In other words, neutrality needs to be balanced with fact.  Dr. Submillimeter 19:47, 14 December 2006 (UTC)


 * One more comment: The proposed text was supposed to be an addition to the Tifft article. It was not supposed to completely supplant the existing text within the Tifft article. Dr. Submillimeter 21:31, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Your draft contains a lot of science, and that makes it more persuasive to me. I don't share Lou's objections to including a paragraph on redshift quantization. I also would need considerable time to check the references properly if you want to keep the claims that Tifft is ignored.  I guess Lou Sander thinks that too much space has been devoted to debunking Tifft, and he doesn't warrant such a long presentation.  Do you want to write directly to Lou next?  I think I will probably be comfortable with what you two come up with, and so will ScienceApologist (probably), but Ian will expect to see all the claims very well-referenced. Which they don't quite seem to be yet.  For example, give the actual numbers of citations to Tifft's work, without saying that he is ignored. EdJohnston 21:47, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
 * FWIW, the SASTPC web site seems to have been shut down. The phone for the SASTPC computer at Tifft's university has been disconnected. (SASTPC seems to be Tifft's baby.) Lou Sander 23:57, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

The statement on the citations can be removed if desired; this may be difficult for the average reader to understand anyway. At this point, I would rather see someone modify my draft paragraphs (without removing them altogether) rather than attempt smaller revisions myself based on feedback. Dr. Submillimeter 06:46, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

See also User talk:EdJohnston/Tifft draft

Please let me know when I should contribute. I can also look up additional references supporting the mainstream cosmology viewpoint. I would recommend adding a section header to the redshift quantization section. Dr. Submillimeter 19:14, 16 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm trying hard not to get too deeply involved in this article or all the redshift stuff. But when somebody asks my opinion, I try to oblige. As an encyclopedia reader, a lot of the stuff in the proposed article seems to be overkill, or protesting too much, or unnecessary detail about unimportant theories of the past.


 * Specifically, I don't much like the crossed-out part of this:


 * ''Today, Tifft’s redshift quantization, as well as other intrinsic redshift theories, are largely ignored, as the vast majority of observational evidence suggests that redshifts are indeed related to the expansion of the universe and are not intrinsic to the galaxies themselves (Peebles 1993). Tifft’s papers themselves have received few citations in recent years (ADS Abstract search).


 * "Vast majority" is unsupported, and even if it were, the words aren't very encyclopedic. And Tifft's papers were from a quarter century ago. One would think that hardly anything that old receives more than a "few citations in recent years."


 * I also wonder who is Halton Arp?


 * And this stuff seems to belong in one of the redshift articles:


 * A review of the subject shows that the claimed periodicity of redshifts has ranged from 5.76 km/s to 72.5 km/s (Salpeter 2005) Some of the smaller periodicities claimed to be found by Tifft are difficult to measure accurately (Salpeter 2005). Moreover, the description of the quantization and the techniques for measuring it vary depending on the extragalactic objects (i.e. dwarf galaxies, spiral galaxies, superclusters) being observed (Salpeter 2005).


 * That's it. (And who the hell is Halton Arp? ;-) Lou Sander 22:02, 16 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Removing the comments on citations to Tifft's papers is appropriate at this point.


 * However, it is still appropriate to note that "the vast majority of" observational evidence supports the link between redshift and the expansion of the universe. For example, see the Peebles book, which is effectively a review of hundreds of papers on cosmology.  If the exact phrase "vast majority" is disfavored, then something equivalent should be used.


 * Halton Arp is a major proponent of the theory that objects appear redshifted for reasons other than that the universe is expanding. He has frequently cited Tifft's work, and Tifft has apparently been influenced by Arp's work.  I have also seen both individuals listed as conference speakers together.  (Halton Arp also developed the very useful Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, but that atlas is not directly related to Tifft's research.)


 * I agree that the comments on redshift quantization should be in a redshift article. However, as they address Tifft's research disrectly, they also belong in this article.  Dr. Submillimeter 10:12, 17 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for responding. Once again, just trying to help, after looking at this stuff again: "Vast majority" is original research, isn't it? Who has printed this evaluation, and where? The more I think about it, the more I'm thinking that our assessment of the obsolete nature of Tifft's redshift stuff has the sound of original research (I may be very wrong on this, since I haven't looked at the citations). Have people said "Tifft was wrong," or have they just noted his research, shaken their heads, and moved on? Probably Halton Arp needs his own short article, or (maybe better) a brief description in this one, such as maybe "Halton Arp, an astronomer from X who is a major proponent of blahblah." Oops! Just Googled Arp, and he has a Wikipedia article. It should be linked to in the Tifft one. I'm still wondering why we are including so many technical details of discredited research. (I've heard that Thomas Edison tried thousands of light bulb filaments before he found one that worked. I've never seen a list of the failures.)


 * Also the more I think about it, the more I'm wondering if I'm wrong about Tifft's work merely being discredited/ignored. Maybe it's still some sort of controversial subject among astronomers. If so, that should be spelled out: "Tifft's stuff, though out of the mainstream, still has a small group of followers" or something like that. Lou Sander 13:43, 17 December 2006 (UTC)


 * The "vast majority" phrase is a paraphrasing of what is written in the Peebles book, which, as I stated earlier, reviews cosmology (including all research papers published up to 1993) thoroughly. If necessary, I can get newer cosmology books that will effectively say the same thing.  It is not original research.  If the phrase "vast majority" itself is offensive, then please propose an alternative rather than asking for the phrase's deletion.


 * Tifft himself does not really have a following, but he is one of the notable supporters of Halton Arp's theories, and Arp and the steady state theory of cosmology still has a small group of supporters. (However, the major proponents of these theories tend to be old people.  I expect the controversy to go away in another 10 years when all the major proponents have passed away.)  It is also worth noting that Tifft (and a few of these other people) still publish papers occasionally, although they only receive 1-2 citations/year.  Dr. Submillimeter 17:06, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Dr. Submm did an excellent job. By the way, Tifft doesn't really have any "followers" in the mainstream community. It is important to make it clear that his proposals have been ignored/rejected. --ScienceApologist 15:38, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

EdJohnston has suggested moving some of the discussion on redshift quantization to redshift quantization. That seems feasable, but I am not interested in either personally revising the redshift quantization article or revising the Tifft article much further. I would suggest leaving a summary of the redshift quantization material within the Tifft article but ensure that it stays mostly focused on Tifft's research (including criticism of his research). General support and criticism of redshift quantization should be mentioned briefly, but most details should be deferred to redshift quantization.

I would prefer just to finish with the Tifft article and move on in life. I will add references to the draft Tifft article and make comments on future drafts, but I am not interested in writing on this subject further. (To be honest, this kind of conflict of viewpoints churns my stomach.) Dr. Submillimeter 10:16, 18 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I made some minor changes to the text to improve the flow and made the link to the ADS Abstract Service an "external link". I would prefer to see the book referenced in footnote style.  Otherwise, I am happy with the draft. (I am sorry if I no longer have the endurance to work on this subject further.) Dr. Submillimeter 18:20, 18 December 2006 (UTC)


 * The article looks pretty good to me at this point (but remember: all I know about redshift is what I read in Wikipedia). I put in a link to Big Bang Theory and did some minor rewording to a sentence. I'm probably even more tired of this than Dr. Submm, but what the heck, it's all working toward improving the encyclopedia. Lou Sander 20:12, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for finishing this process. Dr. Submillimeter 22:09, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism
I just tried to add a page with an image to wiki and you called me "Vandalism" & "Spam". I just start to learn how to use Wiki. Anybody can make mistakes. Don't jump to label people. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tenwiki (talk) 18 December, 2006

Checksums
SmackBot can now warn about checksum errors on the fly, and hence label the offending ISBN. Yay! Rich Farmbrough, 22:49 13 December 2006 (GMT).
 * Thanks for the update. I saw your note that the number of invalids had gone up to around 1,500, though I don't remember the reason. Perhaps we should start recruiting ISBN-fixers? :-) EdJohnston 03:59, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
 * You seem to be quite good at that! I started a fresh run, it's changing one in five articles, but most are just formatting edits. However it means that about 12,000 ISBNs are added or changed a month!  (Not counting the correctly formatted, valid ones!) Rich Farmbrough, 12:58 14  December 2006 (GMT).

Sleuth
Could you have a look at this one: William Mathew Hodgkins & his Circle. Dunedin, NZ: Dunedin Public Art Gallery. ISBN 0-473-00263-0 (checksum comes out as 9). Quick search has confirmed this invalid ISBN at NZ. Quoted in Dunedin Public Art Gallery and W.M. Hodgkins. Rich Farmbrough, 23:40 14 December 2006 (GMT).
 * Found in NZ national library: correct ISBN 0-473-00263-9. See . I updated the two articles you mentioned. Curiously the NZ national library has it correct (with '9' as last digit) but the Auckland library has it wrong. Did you see Peter Entwisle's name in the edit history of one of the articles? I think we know who to tell.
 * On another subject, I was looking at your Talk archives for August, and saw how much grief you received for the first round of corrections. I wonder if it would help to put something about ISBNs in the Manual of Style, so that people whose articles are corrected aren't too shocked. I imagine that a lot of people have never heard of the ISBN magic, for example, or the hyphenation system. EdJohnston 04:53, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks. User:Grutness had removed the tag from Dunedin art gallery and Ortega Peninsula back in August, convinced (partly by the fact that Peter wrote most of the article) that SmackBot was wrong.  I noticed this becasue I ran the new code against the list of articles with checksum errors, which User:Phil Boswell had asked about. Rich Farmbrough, 09:45 15  December 2006 (GMT).

Muldoon "Rise and Fall" was published with an invalid ISBN
I've replied at my talk page.- gadfium 08:09, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Barnstar
P.S. I haven't kept up with who else is doing the work on ISBNs so if you can distribute any other appropriate barnstars where they deserved, that would be good. I have a small sack of them here, for just such a purpose.) RF. P.P.S. I gave Jayvdb one. R.

Tifft draft
Hi Ed, I'm not sure I've understood what you want. Do you want me to delete the draft? In this case no problem. If you want to keep it, neither is there any problem (and don't worry about the computer memory). Just tell me what's your preference.--Aldux 20:29, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Discussion at User_talk:Aldux. EdJohnston 20:53, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

A Certain Woman
If is works - how is the ISBN invalid. I understand the check digiting idea and assume it falls foul of this if nothing else. but if the book was published with this isbn and can be found by the isbn what really is the problem. In fact if it is published with the faulty one - that "is " its ISBN surely. :: Kevinalewis  :  (Talk Page) / (Desk)  09:06, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
 * When we put an ISBN in a reference list, it provides a kind of 'seal of approval' of the reference, certifying that the book really exists and is known in the world's cataloging systems. Not clear how it is beneficial to include an ISBN that would be certified as bad by the issuing authority (isbn.org), since the book can anyway be searched using conventional book details like author and title. Experience shows that publishers do make mistakes when releasing their books, even make misprints in book titles, so it's not a shock that they mishandle ISBNs. By excluding the invalid ISBNs, we are raising the quality of the data to be found in Wikipedia and hopefully increasing our reputation as a reference source. If you do decide to keep the invalid ISBN, I hope you'll include an appropriate disclaimer so that readers are aware it has problems.  For instance, readers can't order a book using that number at booksinprint.com or abebooks.com, because it will be rejected. EdJohnston 13:38, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Cat:invalid
Good. I put the cat in the backlog group at Dragonsflight Category tracker, which may have raised awareness. I've been fixing a few thematic ISBNs which recur. Rich Farmbrough, 19:47 20 December 2006 (GMT).

monobook.js and ISBN-checking
Hello Ed, If you need to repeatedly check ISBNs, since the SmackBot template is not always there when you want it, there is a slightly tricky way of doing it. It requires you to modify a special file in your user area called User:Ekotkie/monobook.js. Assuming your browser supports Javascript (which most do) then it should allow you to check every ISBN for validity using *one click*. Here are the lines that would need to be added: (you could compare to User:EdJohnston/monobook.js). After adding these lines to your monobook.js file, you would need to 'reload', which is explained to you on the screen when you do the edit. This code comes from User:Lunchboxhero/monobook.js. He discusses it on User talk:Lunchboxhero/monobook.js and occasionally on Wikipedia talk:Book sources.

function externISBN { for (var i = 0; i < document.links.length; i++) { if( document.links[i].href.match(/isbn=(.*)/) ) { document.links[i].href='http://www.isbn-check.de/checkisbn.pl?isbn='+RegExp.$1; } } } addOnloadHook(externISBN);

EdJohnston 20:02, 20 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi Ed, I'm also an Ed. I may have confused the issue a bit.  On the faulty ISBN's, sometimes the template also cites the bad ISBN.  This is handy since I will drop the correct ISBN into the slot where it belongs and then I can do a side-by-side visual compare as to what went wrong in the first place.  Most of the time a leading or trailing number has been dropped.  My bigger concern is where the replacement might be from a reprint, new publisher etc and has made a significant change.  Then I make sure that dates, author names and publishers still jive.   So I was curious as to why some of the templates did and did not show a copy of the bad ISBN.


 * BTW, I use Firefox and am Javascript current. I'm not real sure after reading your response that I understand The Smackbot application well enough to need this feature (much less understand the value of this feature).  I typically keep two windows open and just go from the bad ISBN location over to Abebooks to locate the appropriate book.  Curious, where do you go for book ISBN data?


 * You guys really know your way around this place much better then I do so I am reluctant to try something new and fall on my sword.  Thanks for the assit though.Ekotkie 20:56, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
 * It seems you are the most active fixer of ISBNs currently working, so it's clearly in our interest to help you out whenever you run into an obstacle. I believe that  your instinct is correct, to make a minimal correction, whenever you see more than one way to fix the problem. However I think you should boldly substitute a more current reference if the earlier reference is actually defective. Generally if I change the edition I try to update the reference to the correct publisher and date.  You may get a variety of reactions when you fix an ISBN, so I think the key is to be diplomatic.  Looking at your recent edits, you're clearly going in the right direction! I'm generally willing to do a Google search for author and title, and often find ISBNs on Amazon. A search on www.worldcat.org is often revealing. Let me know if you have other questions. EdJohnston 21:28, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Hi Ed, I tend to agree with your method and have, in fact, used it on one location where things were really close. Some folks take an overly liberal approach to using ISBNs.  I think that as long as the date is shown (where it was there before or not)is the key to keeping the data complete.  I also saw your comment, just now about that one page that had so many ISBN errors.  Yep, thats the best way to approach the solution.  I don't want to make this hard but I want to make sure it is done right. I will follow suit with these same solutions.  There is too much work to do to nitpick.  I do wish we could move the ones that have been looked at to a different location.  I don't give up easy but some do need to be taken off the prime loccation.  I would really like to get out of the "A" row but SmackBot is a tough guy to get past.Ekotkie 03:25, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I hate to say this, but at one time, we were into the "C" row! Then we fell back again. Must be a doomed venture... EdJohnston 03:42, 21 December 2006 (UTC)