User talk:User A1/Archive 1

Welcome

 * Your edits are fine. I thought you were new... just being friendly. You can take down the template if you so desire. --Dylan Lak e 03:09, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

You helped choose Rosetta Stone as this week's WP:AID winner
AzaBot 16:35, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

fair use
if you are unhuppy with situations like this please consider to visite from time to time Wikipedia talk:Fair use,where this insane policy was made and participate in the votes.Please also trie to atracte others to the isue.--Bootstrapping 14:04, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Pitch drop
Yes, the professor in charge of the Pitch drop experiment was not very happy that WP planned to remove the picture of his experiment, and they wrote to give us permission to use the picture. Instead of having a huge row and discussion here, it was far easier to just alert the University of Queensland about the problem. --14:30, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Request for clarification
I need to know how you construed changing "orange" to "object" diff was in any way vandalism?

Per vandalism

Vandalism is any addition, removal, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia. Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism.

I'm at a loss how the diff could even qualify as "misguided or ill-considered". (My wan 11:45, 25 February 2007 (UTC))

P.S. I see in the diffs at the time you were having trouble with graffiti. I understand You being upset by that. I have enquired about clearing my name.


 * I have replied to this on your talk page. Clearly my warning was in error. Sorry about that. User A1 14:00, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Link in McCabe-Thiele method
Hello,

I undid your edit to McCabe-Thiele, i think the link is questionable as it points to demo-type software. Do you know of a precedent in wikipedia for either direction? Corporate linking is too easy to go astray, please comment. User A1 12:38, 5 March 2007 (UTC)


 * If you will look at the History page of the McCabe-Thiele method article, you will see that I wrote almost all of that article.


 * I completely agree with you that most corporate linking is simply spam. I have deleted many such links myself. But in this case, after completely going through all of the article, I found that it had a great deal of useful and relevant content. Especially in the book section and the Content tab. I therefore felt it deserved a link. I would also point out that the consortium offering the software are mostly university academics.


 * However, if you still feel the link is inappropriate, I won't contest it with you. I only ask that you take a good long look at all of that website, as I did. Best regards, - mbeychok 19:40, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Pipe.svg
Hi! I’ve uploaded a modified version of Image:Pipe.svg. Does it look OK now? I’m not sure I got the gradients and lines right. —xyzzyn 19:06, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I managed to stuff up the diagram entirely before i uploaded it, the gradient on the centre cylinder has gone, it should look like one "plug" :( I'm at work and will look at it later. Cheers though 129.78.64.102 01:15, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * No problem. To make the arrows show up, I used the ‘Stroke to Path’ function. Also, I saved the file as plain SVG, rather than Inkscape SVG. (Be sure to do these things on a copy of your file/use ‘Save as’.) I didn’t like the white-filled path on the right (it doesn’t look well when the background isn’t white), so I subtracted it from the paths underneath; then I turned off those paths’ stroke and made a copy of one of them in which I removed the segments of the right side, turned off fill and left stroke enabled. This has the effect of having stroked lines only where desired, while leaving the resulting image otherwise unchanged. Hope this helps. —xyzzyn 02:23, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I see what you mean by having to stroke to path beforehand. Interesting as i tested it in firefox before uploading, but without stroke to path, as you say, the arrows do not show up, Does wiki auto-render them to png or something?


 * Mediawiki uses rsvg to render SVG images to PNG, but rsvg doesn’t seem to be able to handle Inkscape’s arrow markers yet. Inkscape puts marker elements into the file which simply contain paths which define the arrow shapes; ‘Stroke to Path’ copies the marker paths as ordinary paths to the places where they are actually displayed (and also converts segments of the converted path to paths, simulating stroke by fill). So after ‘Stroke to Path’, rsvg only needs to render ordinary paths. The image looks good, by the way. —xyzzyn 14:16, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Rubik's cube
Idiot, the term Rubik's clock is already a link a bit more up... so, it's a double link in the same section... are you a bot, or something???
 * I am not a bot, and have replied to this on your talk page. I recommend creating an account and signing your posts using 4 tildes User A1 01:52, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok, apologies, there... I'm sorry... I can't say I didn't mean to insult you, but it was just my temper... Too many things to do... I'm sorry... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 155.207.253.194 (talk) 02:56, 10 April 2007 (UTC).

- You're right, my indication of the specific Simpson's moment being referenced in the article only added unnecessary depth and clarification. It's a good thing you removed it. We wouldn't want anyone to learn more than they should. This comment by 72.187.173.223 at 23:36, 11 April 2007, Sig added by User A1 08:27, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Am i safe to assume that you are being sarcastic? Please persuade me to undo my actions, or alternately find other editors who also can dissuade me from the edit. I believe a quote "use your main finger" whilst funny, doesn't help explain the Rubik's Cube. In order to argue I must supply reasons for this, otherwise it is simply me contradicting you (see the Monty python argument skit). So my reasoning is that whilst the reference to the rubik's cube in this episode is definitely a popular reference, the qoute itself does not represent a popular reference in and of itself. Finally please remember to sign your quotes with 4 tildes  Thankyou User A1 08:27, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Fork join.jpeg
I’ll have a look, if you send me the file; however, your version of rsvg is a bit old and miscellaneous Google hits suggest that newer versions handle whatever causes the error better. (In fact, the 2.16.1 sources do not seem to have this error message anymore.) Try updating your rsvg/librsvg. —xyzzyn 07:11, 23 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Problem solved, I presume? Image:Fork join.svg looks good, but can you make the text a bit larger? There is enough space and it’s currently hard to read when the image is scaled down. —xyzzyn 12:36, 24 May 2007 (UTC)


 * 1) Sorta. I had some problems with random black boxes appearing for no good reason. I played for a while and the problem went away, dont know why. Anyway, ask and recieve, now with bigger text. I really wish that i could just upload my inkscape svgs without having to check them under rsvg. :( User A1 14:16, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

PID Integration
I notice you added the following to the PID controller article
 * Although mathematically the integral starts at $$t=0$$, it is often the case that the integral will be windowed, to prevent errors no longer considered to be relevant to the system from being accounted for. In that case, the lower limit of the integral is changed to $$t-t_{window}$$, where $$t_{window}$$ is a specified constant.

Frankly, it sounds like a bad idea. If the controller were to recover from a transient at time $$t=t_0$$, all would remain quiet until $$t=t_0+t_window$$, at which point the large $$e(t_0)$$ values "no longer considered relevant" would start dropping out of the integration, causing the integral term to change. It seems like every disturbance would be followed by an "echo" $$t_{window}$$ later. Do you have a reference showing this technique is really in common use?

I ran across a similar technique on the job, where instead of a box-car window, the integral was made to decay slowly. Effectively, it was converted from a true integral into a low-pass filter. No big downside, but still I couldn't see the purpose so I disabled it. I'd be interested if there were some justification backed up by math. Spiel496 14:15, 13 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I no longer work where I did some control stuff, but I do recall it in a book somewhere, when I have time i will check it out. The windowing values were always very large with respect to the process times. Perhaps the box car was simply for computational expedience (when good CPU cycles were expensive)? Or alternately I have made it all up, which would be bad. User A1 00:48, 14 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I cant seem to back up my statement, so i have removed it. Anyway, i have also (once) seen the decay technique, so i put that in. It concerns me that I can't find a ref for the window technique. User A1 16:00, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

This IP is owned by the University of Sydney, and shared by up to 20,000 people. User A1 08:50, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Shell tube flow.png
Thank you for uploading Image:Shell tube flow.png. However, it currently is missing information on its copyright status. Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously. It may be deleted soon, unless we can determine the license and the source of the image. If you know this information, then you can add a copyright tag to the image description page.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them at the media copyright questions page. Thanks again for your cooperation. NOTE: once you correct this, please remove the tag from the image's page. STBotI 12:32, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Coords
Ah cool - will have a look and see if we can get something more reliable for it. :) I got the coords off http://www.ga.gov.au/map/names - note the degree-minute coords there are unreliable, that's why they provide the decimal ones. However it's not infrequent for them to have chosen some completely random point that happens to be near the locality - I see on the Google Maps click for example that the point selected is in the river much closer to Dangar Island. Orderinchaos 23:39, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I sometimes visit little wobby; If we can't find a better set of co-ords, next time i am there i will take my GPS with me. User A1 03:48, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Unblock again
Hi,

You have blocked an IP belonging to University of Sydney, probably one of the web proxy servers, which is used by "45,966 students and 2,300 academics". Please unblock.

Dangar Island
I have fixed the image in the Dangar Island Island article so that it does not overlap the info box, I also inserted a wide image template. As for the gallery for that image, well becuase I have cut the top, bottom and sides of the image, it would come out so tiny as to appear as a spec. I plan to go back out to the island in future some time and take more photos on the island, then I will add a gallery. As for the image I like it where it is--Ad@m.J.W.C. 00:22, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi, It's much better than it was, which browser are you using? With firefox 2.0, i found that the image overlapped the text and made the page unreadable. When playing with images it might be an idea to have a look with a few browsers once you have a good looking setup. As for the article, I think we have enough pictures at the moment. We don't want to make a coffee table book from the article ;) User A1 04:07, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Thats alright, I will be replacing the images that are already there and adding a gallery with much clearer images example--Ad@m.J.W.C. 05:01, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Dougong Image
I am 99.99% positive that since the image that I took with my camera is an original diagram from a book written 900 years ago (featured in Neehdam's book published back in the 1960s) then it belongs under GFDL, because I am the author of the photograph (that I took), and regardless of it being featured in a book first published in the 1960s (which I used), the image and artwork itself was drawn hundreds of years before the 60s. Needham did not create the image himself, he merely featured it, therefore he holds no copyright on it (or rather, "held" instead of "holds", since he is no longer alive, died in 1995). That's like him hanging the 2D image of the building diagram up in a museum gallery, while I take a picture of it. The photograph becomes my property, since the copyright holder died hundreds of years ago (lol).-- Pericles of Athens  Talk 19:49, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * It depends on your legislation. My understanding is that in USA and Australia, this is not the case. . Thanks User A1 23:17, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * From the first site you linked to, it says: "The International Berne Copyright treaty (Paris text 1971) states that copyright lasts until 50 years after the death of the author -- for countries that signed this treaty." You are aware that Li Jie, the man who created the image and holds copyright of it, died in the year 1110, don't you? Lol.-- Pericles of Athens  Talk 00:37, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
 * So a more proper licensing of it should be "PD-art" or Public Domain art? Since he no longer holds copyright, and neither do I, even though I am the creater of the photograph?-- Pericles of Athens  Talk 00:44, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
 * As far as i can see the concept is that you are the creator of the photo, yes, but not the work contained therein. In contrast if it was a 3D work, then you would own it, as the photo is a perception of the 3D object, not a duplication. So public domain, whereby you are not the author is correct as far as i see it. User A1 00:59, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I believe that Image copyright tags/Public domain has tags for this scenario. Yay for the confusing world of copyright law User A1 01:01, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok, here comes another tricky question, what if the image in the photograph that I am photographing is a 3 dimensional work of art? For example, me taking a photograph of another photograph of a three dimensional statue that has fallen into public domain.-- Pericles of Athens  Talk 01:17, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I am not a lawyer ;) but i think because the photographer of the 3D image does have copyright on their image, then your photo of that would be considered a duplicate of the photo of the 3D object. Not professional advice, merely ill considered opinon ;) User A1 01:40, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Gender-neutral language proposal at MOS talk
Hi, thanks for your support for the proposal. You raised three issues:
 * disruption to the flow of language (this is covered by the caveat in the guideline "where this can be achieved in reasonably tidy wording and without loss of precision")
 * retro-editing for GNL alone (if it does occur, people are armed with good reasons to reject it where it's not smooth, precise, tidy; three of the four bulleted examples also contain caveats for this purpose)
 * mixture of GNL and the opposite in a single article (this is covered by the overarching policy of consistency within an article, just as for Br vs US spelling. It's in the lead para of the MOS).

Does this information satisfy your mild misgivings? Tony 06:35, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you for being so thourough in this matter as to contact me via my talk page. Reading the draft as of 6:48 sept 6, i have the following comments, being the pessimist i am, i will start with disapproval (actually there is another reason for that, the approval section depends upon the disapproval section ;) )

Disapproval:


 * My personal opinion has not changed, I think that fireperson is wholly difficult to read and furthermore is not found in US-english nor UK-english dictionaries. We should not be inventing words to satisfy gender neutrality, this will cause the flow of speech to become stilted. Fireman to me should be read as gender-neutral as should most -man suffixes, huwoman being the most extreme example I can think of. We could add a clause saying "don't make words up just to avoid gender-specific constructions, such as fireperson would be", the reasoning being if it is not in the OED or collin's or webster's, don't use it, unless the article is specifically about a word or idea that would not be in a dictionary fancruft f. ex.


 * I disapprove of the use of the singular they, as one of my pet-peeves in the english language is my inability to differentiate between you plural and you singular, and enjoy being able to make the distinction in the third person.
 * The comment about business owners substituting for businessman is not right. This example would be an example where you have changed the meaning by attempting to avoid gender specific comments

Approval:


 * I approve of the aversion to the use of "he" in the pilot example.
 * I approve of the final remarks in the draft as to use the appropriate gender suffix if it is known, provided it matches up with something that is in existence in the dictionary

Personal opinion:


 * I think the section "Please consider the use of gender-neutral language" would be better (and its meaning significantly altered) if it was rephrased as "When creating new sections(or information or whatever), please consider the use of ..." otherwise we will start revert wars on edits purely for or against gender-neutrality.

Summary of thoughts:

Wikipedia should not invent terms for the satisfaction of those who consider gender-specific constructs to be a form of sexism; however we should strive to use them naturally when editing. We should not go back and alter articles for this and the draft could use a statement to reflect this. Finally I find a few items in the draft to be internally conflicting.

If you got this far, thanks for reading. User A1 08:15, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, I think the standard term is fire fighter, but that's best left up to consensus on individual talk pages. Would you be happier with "police officer" as opposed to "policeman"? That's pretty standard, isn't it, and certainly not ungainly? And if an editor made up an ugly word, it would breach the spirit and wording of this recommendation ("tidy" and no loss of "precision").

Singular they, I think, is going to have to go: too many people are against it. But this will happen later in the process. The ST has strong proponents, but they'll have to compromise.

I'll remove "business owner" and think of a better example.

Revert wars can occur over any issue on WP, and fear of them could stymie the introduction of any point in MOS. I've introduced GNL into a few articles (such as chess) without any resistance. Where it occurs, people can argue as they might now over GNL. For every possible solution in the guideline draft (except rewording), there's a caveat that can be used by those who object (provided it's on the basis of being not "tidy", which is pretty broad). Tony 09:27, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Fightin' Texas Aggie Band
Suggest you take a look at the POV discussion at Talk:Fightin' Texas Aggie Band ThreeE 20:26, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately I am a little pressed for time at the moment, and there seems to be a lot of disussion to understand before I can comment User A1 01:00, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

SVG Images
Thanks for your message. My understanding is that the aim is economy of server space, in which case jpg would seem to be the most appropriate for what has originated as a bit image rather than a vector graphic. I'm not however familiar with the SVG format. Chevin 08:27, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
 * In this case the aim is not economy of server space, rather adaptability of the data. The SVG format allows one to resize the data to any given size you wish, as all it is is a mathematical description of the image. However to do this we cannot simply apply an algorithm to convert your image effectively. The plan would be to retrace the images of the rail and reproduce the information that the figure conveys, much like drawing the outlines of a photograph, then save and upload that, so you can make the final image poster size or stamp size, or anywhere in between without losing the quality of the iamge. Attempts to make the image poster size in the existing format would simply end up with large rectangular regions of colour. User A1 09:19, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes but that isn't going to work if the image isnt expressed as a series of vectors surely. SVG is a new system so I'll have to do some research. 15:16, 15 September 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chevin (talk • contribs)
 * I traced the outlines of the image to create an example, which I don't have on me now, but when I get them I will upload them to see what you think. If you want to have a play, when i do my editing i use Inkscape. User A1 03:45, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Uploaded to Image:Rail.svg User A1 06:18, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok. Many thanks. I'm happy to try it out. I found VectorEye on the web which converts the line drawings OK but not the fonts. I'm aware that scaling up is necessary in view of the drive towards accessibility by visually impaired people, so long as it does not affect accesibility by people in remote areas of the world withold equipment or slow connections. Chevin 06:53, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Engineering Learning Wiki
Earlier, I saw that in at least one case you too removed an article's link to Engineering Learning Wiki. Since then, I have been in a discussion with the sponsor of this wiki and have come to the preliminary conclusion that Wikipedia articles linking to ELW would be appropriate. Would appreciate your second opinion. Thanks. -- Iterator12n   Talk 03:38, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

PDF (disambiguation)
(→Probability density function and Probability distribution function - rm slightly cynical, but true, comment) Could I impose upon you to explain why you made this change please?

FYI, there has been absurdly lengthy discussion on this topic in several places, (an abridged version of which appears on the talk page), and what's there has been achieved by consensus. Further, what's now on the page explains why one can never be quite sure (without looking) just which article Probability distribution function is currently redirecting to. If you really don't like that sentence in the body of the page, then it could be put in a footnote. I'm also open to having someone reword it. But I object rather strongly to having the sentence completely removed. Cheers, Pdfpdf 11:53, 6 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Hello, you are not imposing at all. I removed under the following reasoning; I thought that it is not important what individual editors believe or what opinions they hold, and wiki should not reflect these opinions as far as possible. Rather the factual nature of the matter should be considered. To state that "depending on the opinion of the last person who edited the redirect link" makes the implication that the subject matter is decided not by what the world outside of wiki believes, but by what editors believe.The subject matter is independent of wiki, and wiki contributors, however that the redirects may keep changing is quite true, and some comment needs to be made that there is no clear consensus in the real world. I do not believe that the existing statement aids this, but rather seems to be a lightly bitter comment on the wikipedia process, not on the lack of clarity in the subject matter. The discussion of the redirect link being funneled by opinion is not required (IMHO) and purely underlines issues that naturally occur from the editing process, rather than the ambiguity in literature. Regards, User A1 00:53, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Changed it again, maybe that is better? User A1 00:58, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Damn you A1!! Not only is your response reasonable and rational, it's logical and sensible! But worst of all, I completely agree with you. I've changed the two pages (PDF (disambiguation) & Probability distribution function) accordingly. Please advise if you think these changes are an improvement (or not). Thanks for the feedback. Regards, Pdfpdf 10:40, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

P.S. Just to clarify: As a result of your response, I've changed my POV; I no longer "object rather strongly to having the sentence completely removed". Thanks again, Pdfpdf 10:40, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

P.P.S. but rather seems to be a lightly bitter comment on the wikipedia process - Yes, right again. I guess I'm becoming a bitter, twisted and cynical old man. (Having teenage children will do that to you ... ) Pdfpdf 11:18, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Please advise if you think these changes are an improvement (or not). - Awaiting your reply. Pdfpdf 09:30, 8 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Err, yes of course. The changes seem to be much better, thankyou. User A1 11:00, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Ummmm. Errrrr. Sorry. This is your talk page. (I shouldn't be quite so pushy.) Pdfpdf 12:38, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

VerdaTech AfD?
How's it going? I saw this edit. It took me a while to come back to it... what's the story? To delete? To not delete? Misfire? :) -- Swerdnaneb 17:18, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I had plumb forgot about this one. Let me track it down and come back to you. User A1 22:55, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay, It appears that for some reason, which i have entirely forgot, I removed the AFD tag. I have re-instated it to open discussions regarding the deletion of this article. Thanks User A1 11:54, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Your User page
''Hi. Making my name blue!''

Errr, yes. But not particularly informative .... Pdfpdf 13:00, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Functional, and uninformative. User A1 13:59, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

comment
dear user a1. you have sent me a message and have deleted much of the material that i have added to various entries. i don't think that it is spam to add information from scientific publications to articles like web 2.0, social software, etc. why should this be a problem? i kindly ask you to readd the information that was deleted in order to guarantee the representation of scientific sources. if many people proceed as you do, simply deleting references to scientific sources, then wikipedia will forever maintain unscientific and scientists won't add their knowledge, which would be a great pity. the articles without my information contain hardly any references to scientific sources. i have not only added my own scientific references, but as you can see from the passages in question, i have also always quoted the works by others who have competing, opposite views. so the neutral point of view is guaranteed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Crscrs (talk • contribs) 19:31, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Hello Crscrs, thankyou for contacting me in regards to this, much appreciated. The work that you have created has been posted, almost word for word into several articles. If you read WP:SPAM you will find that this is a form of spamming, published work or not. Adding your own scientific references is a little like citing yourself too many times in your own journal article; Always a bad look if every second reference reads "myself et al" as it is more (in the scientific worl) a way of trying to increase your own impact factor than actually ensuring your work stays within the literature. In wiki it is somewhat similar, posting scientific work from yourself is questionable, especially in such "soft science" topics. Furthermore a neutral point of view is not simply one biased point of view balanced by another biased point of view, this is made clear in WP:NPOV.


 * The difficulty that you have in this regard is attempting to promote your own work, which may or may not be relevant, into topics that are considered to be new and not factual topic in nature. As it relates more to sociology than it does to computer science such work is bound to be both opinionated and inherently biased, regardless of how much the author tries to evade it. By its nature it will be difficult to promote your own research, whilst simultaneously avoiding a conflict of interest (COI). Had you simply posted such an analysis to one article I probably would have ignored it, but the breadth of articles that it was posted to was what triggered my response. I highly recommend carefully reading WP:COI to see where I am coming from here. Regards User A1 00:11, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

if you read carefully, then you see that i for each article there is a specific focus of the argument, e.g. one specific quotation for youtube, myspace, etc so it is not spam. in the social sciences there are always different opinions, so a "neutral" point can only be acheived by showing how the opinions differ. that is what i did and that is why i always first cited tapscott/williams. if i follow your argument that all of this is opinionated, then you have to ban/delete all social science from wikipedia. your deletion has decreased the quality of the articles, because now only tapscott's/williams' view is presented, no other ones. my suggestion would be that you take whatever you find useful from my entries and again post it, or you further expand the specific sections. just deleting passages is not a good tactic. i don't find that useful and constructive. concernign conflcit of interest: it were a conflict of interest, if i only posted my own views. but i don't do that. i invested much time to show the contrasting views of others. therefore in my point of view it is not a conflict of interest, it is the representation of a specific scientific discourse in wikipedia. if you don't want that scientific discourse here, then please delete all passages, also those that i have added from tapscott/williams. this would furthermore decrease the quality. if only tapscott et al are presentet, then this makes no sense, then it is really opinionated. so either add additional material, or delete tapscott etc. otherwise i will. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Crscrs (talk • contribs) (UTC)


 * Hello again Crscrs. I believe the reason for random deletion may have arisen from my technique for searching for paragraphs to remove potentially deleterious material. As you have kindly taken to discussing this, rather than simply undoing my reverts, I will refrain from making further edits until we have reached some conclusions here.


 * Firstly, if i may, I would make a comment about the nature of wiki (as i see it anyhow) in this context. On wiki, it is not so important whom the scientists are as it may be as for in journals. It is not necessary to say "John and jane (1999) believe that X is better than Y, whereas Jim & Ray (2000) believe that Y is better than X", it would be better worded with some level of interpretation of the literature (even if it is self-produced), say

"There exists some disagreement among scientists as to whether Y or X are better than one another" .


 * As for COI, saying that you have provided both sides of the story confuses WP:COI with WP:NPOV. COI is about having alternate/ulterior interests aside from simply improving an article which may detract from your ability to approach editing with suitable clarity.


 * I am greatly concerned with COI, you are in the dilemma of trying to integrate work which is published and therefore has some level of peer review, but at the same time one doesn't want to go around using wiki as a promotional vehicle. I think with care this can be done. Linking to (your?/a) biography is not a good way to avoid COI, nor is including your reference multiple times to an article (I can provide diffs here to illustrate my point if you feel that it is required). Furthermore by providing this pattern to multiple articles in a short space of time has the appearance of attempting to promote one's self.


 * For NPOV I acknowledge that you have provided two sides to an argument, complete with quotations, but I feel that the content could be better presented to readers without simply stating two opposing views. The NPOV content here is minimal, but block-quoting two views with references, whilst important in sociology is not so important for encyclopaedic work. Moreover the encyclopaedia should attempt to provide a reference summary of the field.


 * So in summary: It is not so much the content that I am concerned with, but rather the presentation of such. Hopefully this clarifies my position, without overly repeating myself.


 * 1) Referring to (presumably) yourself, especially with linking to a (auto?)-bio page that is most likely not going to pass an WP:AFD is dubious, especially when considering that it was posted to at least seven pages relating to internet sociology. It comes across to a casual observer of your edit history that you are not trying to improve the article, but rather promote the person in question.
 * 2) Further to the previous point, adding the same reference (albeit different sections of that reference) to seven articles, especially when referring to the author in text/by name, which are associated with the aforementioned teeters on WP:SPAM.
 * 3) Presenting two arguments by block quotes does not remove NPOV by balancing it. It is better to be factual and precise, not requiring the readers to form an opinion based upon presented comments, but rather informing them that two points exists. This is great for journals, less great for a quick and (cited) factual reference such as wikipedia.

Thank you again for taking time to discuss this with me.

P.S., please use the four tilde symbols ( ~ ) after your name to insert both your name and a date stamp. It helps to improve the flow of conversations, as it is clear whom is saying what, especially when more than two editors are involved.

Regards User A1 15:07, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

the comment that troubles me most is that you argue that it is not important on wikipedia that scientific sources are cited as such, but that only the arguments count and that it is unimportant to present the diversity of scientific discourses. if that is really a rule in wikipedia, then it is highly questionable. my own intent is to bring a more scientific quality to wikipedia within a specific field, which requires adding much references to scientific work. you can agree or disagree with that, i don't think it makes sense to simply link to some rules and say that these rules apply here. if the rule of wikipedia is that scientific sources should be avoided, that quotes from scientific works should be avoided, that no bibliographies, direct and indirect quotations from scientific works, etc shall be used, then i really will prefer a scientific encyclopaedia in the future. i think there is a great potential for scientific peer-production in wikipedia. but if the rules that you are so fond of and that you continue to permanently cite really say that a scientific approach is not welcome in wikipedia, then i will stop using, reading, contributing, promoting (to) wikipedia instantly. is wikipedia really that dogmatic anti-scientific??? i hope not. what do the wikipedia rules say about scientific quoting, citing, etc? does it exclude that? do you have a constructive suggestion of how to co-operatively solve that conflict? talk Crscrs 16:58, 14 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The "rules" that I have linked to apply for good reason, they have been agreed to by a large number of editros as a good way to best improve the encyclopaedia. However at this point I think you may be inadvertently constructing a straw man argument. Firstly, I have not said that the scientific approach is not welcome at all. I have said that wikipedia is not a journal. Futhermore I do not represent wikipedia, I merely am a single user out of many, many users, and naturally I bring my own WP:BIAS to this. Not everything I say is agreed by all authors, however these rules (which are usually referred to as policy) represent a consensus among many users.


 * I am not against scientific content in any way, but biographies are only for notable scientists, for example Nobel prize winners, inventors of major devices or major theories that shape the way scientists think. It would be pointless to list everyone with a PhD, there are far too many of these people to make such an endeavour fruitless.
 * Scientific content is not simply to be dumped wholesale from journals. Journals contain a lot of theory and speculation based upon results or observations. For people not accustomed to a particular field or even a particular journal this could be confusing. Encyclopedias are meant to provide a "ready reference" (britannica micropaedia). It is far better to link to a review paper than to try to turn an article into one.
 * I am unclear what you mean by scientific peer-production. Wikipedia is not a place for Original research. Wikipedia role (again as I see it)) is to document of people, places, events and ideas.
 * Scientific citation is extremely important in wiki. Journals provide peer reviewed information, so you can be assured of the reliability of the work. This is a separate argument to my previous one about wholesale quoting.

I highly recommend that you read the policies I have linked to, otherwise you are merely seeing my perception of these, which may be incorrect. If you like, later I will attempt to re-word some of your work into what I feel is an encyclopaedic tone. Perhaps this will aid our discussions.

Thankyou for continuing to hold this discussion.

Regards User A1 01:01, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

An additional comment - please don't take what I say too close to heart. I do not wish to discourage users from wikipedia. User A1 01:08, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Dear A1, thank you for the continued discussion. I have read some of the rules (I must admit that I have thus far not been so familiar with them). My view concerning the material that I have added now is the following one:

COI: "Editing in an area in which you have professional or academic expertise is not, in itself, a conflict of interest. Using material you yourself have written or published is allowed within reason, but only if it is notable and conforms to the content policies. Excessive self-citation is strongly discouraged. When in doubt, defer to the community's opinion". The material added was balanced out by adding the views of other authors in the preceding paragraphs. Therefore it is not a commercial spam, but a contribution to the representation of the state of the art in a specific field of research.

Guideline on citing oneself: "This policy does not prohibit editors with specialist knowledge from adding their knowledge to Wikipedia, but it does prohibit them from drawing on their personal knowledge without citing their sources. If an editor has published the results of his or her research in a reliable publication, the editor may cite that source while writing in the third person and complying with our NPOV policy." This rule says that an editor is even required to cite his own sources if he includes his knowledge. That is what I did. I not only included my own publications, as you will find if you take a look at the article's history and my additions.

NPOV: Concerning the specific passages in question that were described as spam by you and repeatedly by others, first the views of other authors (Tapscott, Williams) were added by me. Then the other views in question that include my own source were added in order to allow the reader to compare these different views. The style of presentation wasn't biased. Probably it would be good to have a moderator mediating in this conflict. Crscrs (talk • contribs) 21:11, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Crscrs, I have "remastered" one of your diffs - its pretty rough, but I hope it highlights the idea. Thanks User A1 (talk) 16:26, 17 November 2007 (UTC)