Talk:Circuit bending

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[edit] External links

Some of these links are not notable at all, and the ordering of the links is extremely questionable. I think this page somewhat violates the "Wikipedia is not a repository of links" guideline... I would clean it up, if I weren't involved in bending-for-profit myself... iw

So wouldn't you want to remove your competitors? :-)
This article seems quite biased and borderline publicity/commercial. Maybe Ghazala is the only person worth mentioning, but I doubt it. It needs to become more balanced and neutral. I took out some obvious promotional bits. — Omegatron 00:23, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
The original comment was in regard to an older version of the page that was really out of control. The recent versions have been more reasonable, but I'm not gonna be the one to decide which links go in and which do not.  ;) Hey, I learned how to date stamp! Iw 14:23, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I have restored the links so that someone with time (perhaps me) can whittle down the links to the necessary ones. Removing them ALL was excessive. --Wayn3w 17:35, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

A LOT of the external links were pure advertising or were forums or blogs, which I removed per WP:LINKS#Links normally to be avoided. I have tried to retain the links to sites which looks like they might actually contribute to the reader's knowledge of circuit bending and not just try to sell them something. Phaedrus86 12:42, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
I editted even further. To ensure this will not be link farm, I kept the external links to be historic in nature.--Wayn3w 16:06, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Looks to me like a fairly shameless attempt to sneak a spam link in, a site filled with advertising. Removed per WP:LINKS. Phaedrus86 23:42, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
You are mistaken; compare the changes and you'll see I removed stuff, not added to it, and reorganized what was there. I've put my changes back. I'd be happy to discuss these changes at any time. --Wayn3w 13:12, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
No, I am not mistaken. You removed external links to Bendwiki, Overdrive Spider DS-1 Circuit Bends and Storm's Corner, which looked to me to be fairly informative sites on the subject. You added a link to GetLoFi.com, which is a commercial looking site which is full of advertising. We call this spam. I see that you describe GetLoFi as a Blog. Please read WP:LINKS, particularly the section Links normally to be avoided. This says blogs should not normally be linked to unless written by a recognized authority. GetLoFi appears to be nothing of the sort. In short, you are adding spam, if you persist in adding spam then eventually you will be blocked from editing. Phaedrus86 04:57, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I have sent you mail asking how we can arrange a chat to explain the changes that need to be made to the article. Until we chat I will withhold further changes. I hope we can discuss this soon. --Wayn3w 17:19, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi Wayn3w, here is just as good a place to discuss it as any. Better in fact, because it is directly relevent to other editors. So....discuss away! I am quite happy to discuss changes, provided they are not too far outside the Wikipedia policies and guidelines such as WP:LINKS. Wikipedia is not a place for advertising, and any external links need to be to sources that help the reader, not the owner of the site linked to. Phaedrus86 21:17, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Okay. I advocate adding back GetLofi, leaving the OddMusic site, and removing the rest for the following reasons.

GetLofi is the news source for the circuit bending community, and has been one for over two years. It has often been quoted in the Yahoo news groups, Make Magazine, and the DIY Synth sites. GetLofi is not a commercial site although he does have links to help defray costs (even Wikipedia has to do that [1]). Please do not be thrown by the lead article at GetLofi telling the circuit benders that there is a keyboard sale at Sears. Circuit Benders NEED cheap hardware, and he is not making money by bringing these deals to people's attention.

Getlofi is the first site most benders remember being informed by! There is no other webpage that brings as much info or catalouges/stores info of the art. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.73.38.228 (talk) 14:31, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Alternatively, BendWiki has almost no traffic, and really is not a resource to the Circuit bending community. It might someday, but nothing to warrant an entry on Wikipedia yet. If you search Google for links to GetLofi, you see they are a lot more than the number of links to BendWiki (700+ to 2). If you do a similar search at Make Magazine, you'll see more links to GetLofi than BendWiki (7 to 0). You'll find a similar ratio at Hackaday.com and Engadget.

I advocate adding back GetLofi and removing BendWiki.

We agree the Oddmusic site should stay; it is of historical significance. As to the remaining ones they contain very specific information and not of a general nature to the Circuit Bending community, and as such I cannot recommend them being included. There are better, more comprehensive sites of information, such as:

  • Casper Electronics -- a "luthier" of circuit bending who catalogs all sorts of electronics knowledge for others
  • Anti-Theory.com - Reed Ghazala's site, the 'father' of circuit bending as well as its first published author. It is a comprehensive website on circuit bending.

Note that I'm not advocating the above two should be added, but rather since they are more general more useful and of more historic interest, they set the standard for what should be included. The other two sites (Storm's Center and the Boss DS-1 page) do not meet this standard.

So I wish to see the following two external links on the page for now:

I, myself, have been circuit bending for two years, and I have participated in the community through the Yahoo groups, the LiveJournal community, submissions to Make and GetLofi and actively performing. I feel qualified to speak about this artform and what are the vital sources of information about it.

--65.78.29.100 04:01, 22 February 2007 (UTC)Wayn3

Hi Wayn3w. OK, I buy the arguments about GetLoFi being significant (63,200 Google hits) and Bendwiki, Overdrive and Storms Corner being insignificant (less than 500 Google hits each), so I have changed the list accordingly.
I don't agree with Anti-Theory. It looks like an artistic statement rather than an information site, and it is very difficult to find out where there is any information. This looks very much like a site for insiders, not for someone wanting to find out what circuit bending is about. Caspar Electronics I can see has a good collection of well illustrated projects that would be a good resource. I don't know whether it should be included or not, but I won't argue if you put it in.
Where I am coming from is that we want to avoid turning Wikipedia into a directory. This is well documented in WP:LINKS. Think about it: if someone can't type "circuit bending" into a Google query box then there is something wrong with them. Google does this sort of thing very well. I see you get Anti-Theory and Oddmusic on the first page of hits for that search. If someone can't get masses of information on circuit bending from that first page of hits then again, there is something wrong with them.
Ideally a Wikipedia article gives a concise but thorough explanation of what the topic is. External links are where the user can go if they want further information, but ideally, there should be only one external link which really means "here is where you go to find out everthing else about this, because we aren't going to tell you!". The purpose of the article is not to act as a recruiting station for hobbies. If readers get interested, it is up to them to go find futher information using the external links in the article as a starting point. The more links we put on an article, and the lower the usefulness of the links, the harder it is for readers who want further information to work out which links they should look at.
Phaedrus86 06:20, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
Thank you considering my opinions. I agree with you (and the Wikipedia guidelines) that external links should be both minimal and authoritative, and I agree that the 40+ links originially on this page were wrong. I also agree with you regarding Reed Ghazala, even though his is a major (the "Father") figure in Circuit Bending. With Reed Ghazala, and in a sense, Pete Edwards (Casper Electronics) it seems a good way to to handle entries for them is to have both of them put up their own Wikipedia articles and have them put links to their websites in these articles. This Circuit Bending page would then link to the Wikipedia pages (not unlike the Minimalist Composers section in the Minimalist music article). This then leaves the responsibility up to them, not us.
I am happy we were able to resolve this amicably. --Wayn3w 13:38, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
OK <looks at floor, shuffles feet> I apologise for being too quick to misjudge your contribution. I sometimes patrol new links for spam at irc://irc.freenode.net/wikipedia-en-spam which is how I came across yet another junk link being added here. You wouldn't believe the junk people try and slip in, but I must make sure I don't get too right wing about it :-) Phaedrus86 22:00, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I reverted the external links section to one similar to what Intgr had earlier. This is not supposed to be a list of list of lists, or a collection of all things Circuit Bending, but rather, an encyclopedic article. I've put Intgr's comments in there, too. If anyone thinks I've gone too far, post here first before adding new links. --Wayn3w 23:32, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

We should provide relevant videos for referance...Not all projects, but also actual establishing refrences, but some basic video how to's would rock too... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2_nbkLL3WE

[edit] Possible copyvio

http://www.theblackboardfreepress.com/200512/music2.html — Omegatron 19:08, 8 April 2006 (UTC)


I have made substantial alterations to this page in an attempt to make it more technical and less of a first person narative or advertisment. This process is used by lots of folks that do not sell or publish their work and I though that should be emphasized, instead of referencing one of the only people who does publish extensively on the subject. I hope that this works better for overall verifiable information, and I have left all of the quite impressively comprehensive websites, so people can get all of the info that was omitted from this page. If anyone has any suggestions for improving this page more, I would be happy to colaborate or otherwise follow leads for better public info on a cool practice that I wish more people tried! Ego138 04:40, 22 May 2006 (UTC)


Somebody should put up some kind of picture, maybe just like an open circuit board or a bent keyboard. Just a suggestion.

[edit] Aphex Twin

I've removed Aphex Twin from "See Also". You could also place a link to Autechre, LFO or whatever glitch artist. Slowgaze 19:40, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Circuit Blasting

The Circuit Blasting addtion looks more like an advertisement for a new recording and doesn't fit the goals of the section of "Innovators," which is about important historic developments. I reverted to an older version. --80.67.64.10 13:42, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd recommend focusing on what circuit blasting is: how does it derive from circuit bending and how does it differ? From what I learned using Google, this is something Strange Attractor (Mark Pilkington) and Disinformation (Joseph Banks) does, and I 'm not sure there's enough of a following to call it an innovation. I'm not saying it isn't worth a mention -- you may find it more appropriate to have a separate article for it, and reference it here in the See Also section, not unlike Glitch music, which has a larger following. Please feel free to discuss! --Wayn3w 12:12, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Power Supply

"As a general rule, areas around the power supply or large capacitors are avoided to prevent damage to the electronic system."

Isn't it fairly common to add variable resisters around the power supply, to lower the power input to the circuit (known as a "voltage starve") ?

Yes, you're right. Starving the voltage is a common technique, but short circuits in this area are more likely to cause damage to the circuits than shorting other areas. It would be good to a little more about electronics before attempting this. Perhaps this should be edited to be made more clear. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wayn3w (talk • contribs)
I've removed that part because its inclusion made it sound more like a tutorial rather than an encyclopedia article. I think the best thing thing to do in this section is to briefly describe the process and be sure external links include a good tutorial. --Wayn3w 16:40, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Citations

This article has been flagged for not using citations or footnotes. Where do I begin to use citations? What parts really need the citations/footnotes? --Wayn3w 01:16, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

NVM, I've taken care of a bunch. --Wayn3w 15:47, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Releases

I don't like the way Releases has become the External Links of yore -- a section of links. This will have to be edited to make more like an encyclopedia article (using seminal works only). --Wayn3w 15:47, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

That's it -- Releases will NOT be for promoting your own album. Instead, it should have research. At least a reference to the whirlygigs album should be included, since it influenced other benders. --Wayn3w 04:03, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Style

"Since chance is key element to the practice of circuit bending, there is always a chance that short circuiting may result in undesirable results, including component failure. Never bend any device that gets its power from the mains (household current) to avoid the chance of electrocution." how many times do you use the word chance here and throughout the article? are you having a laugh??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.43.66.87 (talk) 16:46, 21 November 2007 (UTC)