User talk:Informedskeptic

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Hooper: You were on the Indianapolis?

Brody: What happened?

Quint: Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte... just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in twelve minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. Thirteen footer. You know, you know that when you're in the water, chief? You tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail. Well, we didn't know. 'Cause our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent, huh. They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, chief. The sharks come cruisin'. So we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know it's... kinda like 'ol squares in battle like uh, you see on a calendar, like the battle of Waterloo. And the idea was, the shark goes to the nearest man and then he'd start poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark would go away. Sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark, he looks right into you. Right into your eyes. You know the thing about a shark, he's got... lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eye. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be livin'. Until he bites ya and those black eyes roll over white. And then, ah then you hear that terrible high pitch screamin' and the ocean turns red and spite of all the poundin' and the hollerin' they all come in and rip you to pieces. Y'know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men! I don't know how many sharks, maybe a thousand! I don't know how many men, they averaged six an hour. On Thursday mornin' chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player, Bosun's Mate. I thought he was asleep, reached over to wake him up. Bobbed up and down in the water, just like a kinda top. Up ended. Well... he'd been bitten in half below the waist. Noon the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us, he swung in low and he saw us. He's a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper, anyway he saw us and come in low. And three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and start to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened? Waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went in the water, three hundred and sixteen men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.

from Jaws

As an aside
Collaboration is the only way things get done here, and one of the ways to help that along is to take care that you're a bright, helpful, and most of all clueful human being. The "Silence of the Lambs" quote, while interesting, unfortunately leaves the impression that you think killing women is kinda cool. I'm going to assume that wasn't at all your intent, but you might want to replace it with something that's a little harder to misinterpret. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 17:56, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
 * So it seems like you're saying that if I borrow a quote from Jaws, people will assume I that advocate shark attacks? I'll clarify the reference to avert misunderstandings... Informedskeptic (talk) 18:05, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Patents and notability
First, read and understand WP:NOTABILITY, then WP:V, and then WP:SPS, from which I quote: Anyone can create a personal web page or publish their own book, and also claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published media, such as books, patents, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, personal or group blogs (as distinguished from newsblogs, above), Internet forum postings, and tweets, are largely not acceptable as sources.

Then check out Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_160 and Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_125.

With that out of the way, what I understand you're trying to do is argue that citations to a patent can be used in part to establish notability of the inventors on the cited patent. The closest analog is to WP:ACADEMIC where someone's h-index can be used to establish notability. I am a scientist who has had a few brushes with the patent system in the US, and while I'm sure there are plenty of folks with more expertise than me I think I have enough to guide you here.

The idea you have is perhaps not plausible, but neither is it ridiculous. Here are the objections I would expect to see raised.

1) An h-index is innately tied to peer-reivew in a way that patents are not.  We are quite concerned with people gaming the system here to manufacture notability.  Publishing 20 academic papers that all cite each other (and thus generating an h-index of 20) is not impossible, but it is difficult, and we have plenty of experts here who know how to look out of that kind of thing.  Generating 20 patents that all cite each other seems to be more a question of paying a sufficient amount in patent fees:  the standard of review is much lower.

2) There are clear relationships between a high citation count and the notability of the paper, and the notability of the paper and the notability of the author(s).  It's my understanding that the relationship is much less clear with patent citations.  The inventor need not be the name listed on the patent, and a company may make a strategic decision to mention [repeatedly cite] a certain set of patents that they want to highlight as valuable (regardless of their underlying notability).

3) It's not obvious to me what the cutoff for patent citations should be in order to establish the subject as notable.  For the systems side of CompSci, there's an expectation that one should have a h-index of around 20 before going up for full professor.  Do you have any cites that discuss a similar ranking of inventors?

Overall, I'd strongly recommend working on other articles for now as well as hanging out at WP:RSN and WP:AFD. You'll have several opportunities to watch other people make bad arguments (so you know not to make those yourself in the future) as well as observing what kind of arguments work well. After a few months of this, you might want to put a proposed "request for comment" (WP:RFC) up at WP:RSN and ask for feedback. If it's positive, then make it an official RFC and see what the community thinks. As a tactical matter I wouldn't mention Boyd Bushman and all; that's just going to bog the conversation down. Instead, see if you can find inventors who are independently notable and their citations counts as well as a second set of inventors with similar citation counts who would not currently be considered notable. Then make your argument that, as with academics, we should include both.

Good luck!

Lesser Cartographies (talk) 18:31, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm in your debt, Lesser Cartographies - thank you for your constructive thoughts and suggestions! I'm following up on your reading suggestions and working on a reply, which, I hope, will be worthy of your thoughtful assistance.  Sincerely, Informedskeptic (talk) 00:11, 27 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Lesser Cartographies provides valuable guidance, IS. You may want to consider it in light of your "Keep" !vote for Nick Cook on the basis that Cook qualifies as WP:ACADEMIC. Also, on a somewhat related topic, a request I be blocked indefinitely has been filed here. As you've previously requested similar actions against me in your posting at the Boyd Bushman deletion review, I wanted to let you know about that (in a spirit of total transparency) to give you the opportunity to join in that discussion as it may be a more effective avenue to secure my blocking than via the deletion review. Best - BlueSalix (talk) 20:24, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
 * That user has expressed a desire that the conversation in question not be continued on their page, so I would avoid posting there. Artw (talk) 22:02, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Correct, you should not join the discussion at that venue; my Wikilink was to direct you to context so you could better format your calls for my blocking. You should, however, feel free to express your opinion (albeit, as ArtW notes, not there). BlueSalix (talk) 23:38, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't remember making any overtures to "block you" BlueSalix. I'm only here to try to make fair and substantive contributions, and to enjoy the process.  Let's agree to focus on the content we have to offer, and try to have a good time. Informedskeptic (talk) 02:28, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Boyd Bushman
Not sure if you or someone else is working on reintroducing the Boyd Bushman entry. I'm also not sure if you've come across this | list of patents referencing Bushman's 1996 patent #5542247.

The | sixth listed patent has two U.S. Airforce contracts; | F49620-98-C-0038 and | F49620-00-C-0005 with many independent source citations.

It is interesting how other deleted pages usually have a trail of information, but Boyd's has nothing. I didn't get to read what the final verdict was ( other than obvious deletion ). --HafizHanif (talk) 21:46, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * It's good to hear from you HafizHanif. I think the way that you rewrote and argued Bushman's page played a big part in its deletion, but I also realize that you felt that you were doing the right thing.


 * I've been absorbed in investigating Boyd Bushman lately - the scraps of useful information are sparse, but the picture that's emerging is very alarming. I feel that we need additional RS to represent an argument for a new page about him.  I've only found a couple of morsels that I feel are still insufficient to win the next debate.  I'll represent when we can make a solid case.


 * One of the primary problems with the WP guidelines pertains to patents. Current policy completely disregards the meaning and value of forward citations which are cited by the USPTO, an independent and credible third party.  But I expect that arguments to reshape this oversight will be difficult and take a lot of time.  The shortest route requires more good RS.  You've gotta hand it to the counterintelligence services - they've so completely poisoned the subject of advanced propulsion concepts that anyone associated with them gets no big news coverage anymore - it's all relegated to tabloids and other pabulum that isn't admissible at Wikipedia.


 * The reasoning behind the Deletion was given as this (and reflect my earlier statements about inadequate reliable sources):
 * "The result was Delete. Randykitty (talk) 07:27, 19 November 2014 (UTC) Note I apologize for not including a more detailed closing rationale, which I should have done given the contentiousness of the debate. As per request at the DRV, I am adding the following rationale: The debate has clearly established that Bushman existed and was a researcher with Lockheed with a number of patents to his name. While laudable, this in itself does not establish notability, just as publishing books does not make an author notable. WHat is needed are independent sources about Bushman's accomplishments and I do not really see those. As for the alien claims, some editors seem to be arguing that these claims are true, hence Bushman is notable. This is incorrect. Whether or not the claims are true or not is irrelevant here. What we need to establish notability is whether those claims have generated sustained and in-depth coverage in reliable sources and, again, that does not seem to be the case here. In sum, while taken together the "delete" !votes are solidly policy based, the "keep" !votes either use irrelevant arguments or fail to show sustained in-depth coverage. Therefore, although numerically there may not seem to be a consensus here, I remind the participants that AfD is not a vote and close this as delete. --Randykitty (talk) 15:20, 22 November 2014 (UTC)"
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Boyd_Bushman


 * None of your links worked for me - you can try just dropping them into your text and they'll link themselves, but like I said, Wikipedia guidelines don't recognize the value of forward citations at present. If you find any RS please pass it along so I can add it to my on-going collection and represent the case when we have enough solid ammo.  Good luck!  Informedskeptic (talk) 08:00, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

I did become a bit adamant in editing the entry and hadn't read the litany of do's and do not's prior. I was a bit apprehensive to initially apologize for my zeal... and I did realize I made things worse. The thing is I KNOW that everything he shared was 100% true. That's as far as I can go with that.

As for the RS, yes, not much was written about his work other than the documentary and the mentions in the documentary author's book. The RS guidelines / qualifications can be somewhat appealed, maybe we can both find out who exactly to write suggestions to regarding contributions in patents that lead to other real-world inventions.

It is very telling what RandyKitty says here "Whether or not the claims are true or not is irrelevant." This speaks volumes in what society accepts and rejects. The opened mind can see propaganda in place of news, opinion in place of facts and fallacies in place of sound argument.

I always found things which are outside of society's acceptance somewhat interesting, and when looking at this particular subject and what I know, it is understandable why it is ridiculed, feared and difficult for folks to accept. The faith of many could be affected, for they wouldn't be able to understand and look past all the wild goose chases on the internet, which I see are there to disprove what some have testified to. But all things happen for a reason, even this issue with Boyd's testimony and the hiding of the facts.

Imagine if mankind wouldn't be so stubborn, proud and arrogant... they may be growing together instead of competing with one another and withholding knowledge. We all have this struggle with ourselves, so go figure.

Here are the links:

( list of patents referencing one of Bushman's patents - # 5,542,247 ) http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=0&f=S&l=50&d=PTXT&Query=5542247

( two US Airforce contracts followed which include the citation of Bushman's patent ) http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=6&f=G&l=50&d=PTXT&S1=5542247&OS=5542247&RS=5542247

( 1st contract's search result ) https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=F49620-98-C-0038

( 2nd contract's search result ) https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=F49620-00-C-0005

I happened to find your response looking through some other things, so please be sure to tag my name next time so I can be alerted! --HafizHanif (talk) 03:21, 4 December 2014 (UTC)