Talk:Complex Event Processing

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Archive
Archives
Archive 1.


Contents

[edit] Academic Research

In line with and to be with consistent with the "not mentioning products" debate above, if 3rd party products are to be removed then so should the academic research sections (which are information for research projects that are often closely related to products, or may be made available as research products). PS: I don't actually believe this, but academic research is funded work and therefore a type of commercial product by academia, so it makes little sense to mention academic R&D and not "commercial" R&D (products) in the debate above. 207.59.166.194 11:42, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Academic research is not the same as commercial products. Commercial products exist to make money, and often the underlying Intellectual Property is not disclosed and cannot be freely used by other entities. The aim of academic research is to further knowledge. It's always funded, but the results of the research are not "owned" by the funder. If the research results were not available to the general public, or were subject to restrictions, then I would agree that an academic link should be questioned and probably excluded. Bardcom 01:51, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
Bardcom, you seem to be associating "links on Wiki" with "public domain information on details of implementation". For this comment to be valid, please point out the appropriate Wiki policies for this association? By counterexample, I point out ERP and RDBMS Isvana (talk) 08:47, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Isvana, I'm arguing the inclusion of academic links on the grounds that in most cases the research is fully available to the public, and the links to the projects to not exist to sell a product or services. Vendor links are against wikipedia policy - this is not an "interpretation", it's the policy. Other pages can sometimes breach policy, please feel free to clean other pages too and help make Wikipedia the best source of neutral encyclopedic articles Bardcom (talk) 10:52, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Bardcom: can you explain further why it is necessary for Wikipedia references to an entity to require "[their] research is fully available to the public"? Seems this would remove all links to ANY company (and possibly by extension an academic institution that advertises research to encourage paying students to attend, etc). Also, do you not agree that the links to vendors sites are not to "order pages"? I'm having difficulty understanding the difference between your stance and what can be construed as anti-commercial bias. But you know of a policy statement akin to "there shall be no link to a website associated with a commercial ie paid-for product" on Wiki - so please point it out to me with the text, 'cos I haven't found it yet (which could well be myopia!). Thanks in advance! Isvana (talk) 23:55, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Isvana, Wikipedia allows an article on *any* subject, so long as the subject is notable. For that reason, it's perfectly legit to have an article on a commercial company, or to compare a list of features of products from commercial companies, etc. So long as all statements can be verified and are attributable. But when an article is about a subject, WP:EL makes it very clear what you can or cannot link to, backed up with WP:NPOV. So you can't link to a website where the primary purpose is to sell or promote stuff - that's clear policy. Wikipedia is intended to be an encyclopedia, not research, or opinion. Getting back to your question - academic references are nearly always pointing to freely available research, and in the case of the CEP article, are very relevant to the underlying founding thoughts and ideas. They are often referenced in CEP-related articles and discussions and many found the basis for some of the commercial products today. It's background information on the topic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bardcom (talk • contribs) 11:55, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Thanks Bardcom: for sure WP:EL para1 states that external research is acceptable links (although I was thinking less of links, more of references in text). For example: if I mentioned companyX did original research into conceptY, but did not link to X, would WP:EL apply? WP:NPOV implies that of companyX and universityW did the research into conceptY jointly, then they should both be mentioned. A case in point here for example is the IBM Amit R&D project. This is research, creating what may have been the 1st ECA-rule CEP system. Why isn't it mentioned? Do IBM competitors object to the "fact"? IMHO one is *breaking* WP:NPOV by not crediting commerical (as well as academic) institutions. Or have I missed / misread the appropriate policy? Isvana (talk) 16:58, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Hi Isvana, it's OK to mention the names of companies, so long as it is relevant and neutral. No links to commercial websites where the purpose of the website is purely commercial. If IBM's Amit R&D Project has a webpage, and it doesn't exist primarily to sell products and services, then in my opinion I don't see why it would be an objectionable link. Post a link here if you like... Bardcom (talk) 16:39, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Alphabet Soup - CEP, EDA, BAM, BPM, SOA, WSM, BI, DW, etc

As time goes on, and more and more people add and extend the CEP article, we will find that sometimes it might seem that a strong association exists between CEP and another concept such as BAM or EDA. In my opinion, CEP may be related to any and all other concepts, but it stands on it's own feet and does not relies on (or is even very strongly associated with) any other concept. For example, a recent edit to this article (now reversed) attempted to strongly associate CEP with EDA, to the point where CEP relied heavily on EDA in most cases. Without references, these types of edits are opinions, and will be reversed, but I would love to encourage discussions on these topics in order to reach a concensus. Discussion like this can either be done here, or to reach a bigger audience for more opinions, please debate these topics on dedicated complexevents websites. Bardcom (talk) 19:03, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Badly done Bardcom - the edits DID reference EDA, but not strongly IMHO, and also you seem to have undone all the other edits! Could be I need to suggest *any* changes in Talk? PaulV 85.211.128.242 (talk) 22:03, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
PaulV, I deleted the edit because you started a heading entitled "Associated with EDA architecture" and made it the first heading on the page. To deal with the subject matter fairly, it might have been better to list all of the areas of computing that CEP also is associated with. I considered adding to your original article and moving it down into the main body, but I felt that starting a list to debate the associations that CEP has with other areas of computing would result in a very long list. The reason I deleted your examples is that we already have examples - both the "conceptual description" and the "systemic example" all describe examples of CEP. In addition, your examples are arguably examples of Stream Processing (shame on you! :-). Apologies for not explaining my reasoning at the time, but there's only a teeny box to type in - so thank you for this opportunity. Previous edits were completely in line with wikipedia policy - I've included reasoning for all my edits, please see above.
Bardcom - thanks for the explanation on EDA. Not sure where the other suggested changes (previous heading I added) disappeared to - will check other notes. The CEP entry in Wiki could probably do with mentioning associations with the other TLAs you mention. And certainly starting with entering one of these (EDA) makes sense unless you think that all articles should be pre-edited offline? To facilitate the latter, I added some sections below.Isvana (talk) 08:14, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Bardcom - thanks for the explanation on additional examples being deleted. The existing examples are very poor IMHO. And stream processing examples are valid for CEP given that it is widely accepted that ESP isa subset of CEP. Will move this comment / discussion to one on examples.Isvana (talk) 08:14, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Association with EDA

An early attempt at this was removed by Bardcom (see above). This section suggests a rationale for including or excluding this in the CEP article.Isvana (talk) 08:14, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Inclusion

1. EDA implies no explicit control structure; CEP implies no implicit control structure for the events being fed into it. Therefore any CEP app can be considered EDA for the event feeds it uses.Isvana (talk) 08:14, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Exclusion

1. Academic or commercial references for points made in Inclusion? Isvana (talk) 08:14, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikivandalism and Way Forward

The debate in the sections below indicates that there are a number of different interpretations of Wiki policy and practices on Wiki pages (eg if-in-doubt-delete, vs if-in-doubt-discuss). Contributions that might add value to an on-line encyclopedia are deleted without discussion. The end result is a particularly poor CEP entry for Wikipedia.

Isvana, I've moved this topic to the bottom of the page. Please add new comments to the bottom of the talk page - as per WP:TALK. Bardcom (talk) 10:41, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the heads up (and useful discussion below) Isvana (talk) 20:25, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Below are some suggestions for revitalizing this entry.

Isvana, I believe it is more a case that some people have read the policies, and others have not. The main issue is that people continue to attempt to place vendor links and references into the main CEP article. This is against policy = see discussions above for relevant links. An article on CEP can be complete without referencing vendors, or product features, etc. It takes a while to read the policies, but they're there for a reason. Bardcom (talk) 10:41, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Barcom - I think you are referring to an interpretation of policy :) - but even so, this entry sux IMHO compared to many other (eg vendor-provided, academic-provided) definitions, and provides very poor information for Wiki readers. For one, I now avoid linking to this page on the blog I contribute to (although I do link to many other Wiki entries) Isvana (talk) 20:25, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Isvana - you know, I don't think it's that bad. It's not brilliant. But it can be made better! I firmly believe that when vendors try to push their references into the article, there are usually two types of reaction - either other vendors feel obliged to do a land-grab too, or we remove the link. IMHO, the second option is best. So, if you feel you can add to the article, I will help too! But let's try to leave vendor references out of it...

1. Remove commercial products to a separate page. Much of the discussion below is concerned with whether Wiki content should exclude all or any vendor references or not. This is solved by putting vendor lists to another page. However, it is generally accepted (citation needed?) that commercial vendors have been major contributors in this space, with academic research being quickly commercialised. So certain "inventions" in CEP (eg in a CEP History section) would validly mention an associated vendor name

Each company listed in the "List of CEP Vendors" page could have a separate page for their company and their product, features, contribution to the CEP field, reasons why their product is the best, revenues, amount spent on CEP research, etc. Bardcom (talk) 10:41, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Actually a few do already (I linkified the company names in the List of CEP vendors table to Wiki pages). But Wiki is I believe meant to be an encyclopedia, so doing cross reference tables of information scattered elsewhere would work. An example is: what open source CEP tools are there? Open source tools are not necessarily academic research, and are commercial in a different way to other vendors, but its an interesting piece of information for some people. (I removed the other data like tool relationships - which ones cross license others, and types of event processing provided - perhaps these could be added back in later if anyone is interested) Isvana (talk) 20:25, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

2. Revise examples. Ideally these should be replaced by real-world examples; however such examples are usually involving a vendor so ideally a 3rd party reference should be used rather than a vendor web site (also possibly corroborates the example). Synthetic examples from texts could also be used.

In general, real-world CEP use cases are very hard to find. Most use cases are ESP use cases.
  • I have to say I disagree. :) But that would be another reason to list them on Wiki, no? Isvana (talk) 20:25, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Hey Hey! Let's throw down that Gauntlet! There's a use case working group set up - I'll challenge them to find a good CEP use case!

3. Include History of CEP from a computer science perspective. This would include minimal references to academic projects and commercialization efforts. Additional details (eg vendor start date) can be added to the vendor list page.

History from a computer science perspective sounds great! Although references to commercialization efforts usually ends up becoming a race for every vendor to justify their place in history...adding a start data in the vendor list page is a better idea Bardcom (talk) 10:41, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Good point. Isvana (talk) 20:25, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

4. Relationships between CEP and other IT topics. Cover the relationships between CEP and BPM, EDA, BAM etc. These could be covered in separate pages eg Relationship between CEP and BAM, and simply indexed here.

I disagree with this idea because CEP is arguably related to any number of topics. Better to add a category to create a implicit relationship, or to simply add a link in the "See Also" section.
  • Maybe, but lack of information in this area is part of the problem. So *why* do some people mention CEP and EDA in the same breath? What is the difference between a CEP process and a BPM process? etc etc. However, it might be better to do separate pages on these associations and link them as you suggest.Isvana (talk) 20:25, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
  • My biggest fear is "land-grab". I do feel that some are more strongly related to others. Perhaps it should be included in the article, in context of a better explanation of where CEP fits. PaulV, come back!

As IANAWE (I Am Not A Wiki Expert) some of the self-appointed editors might want to comment on whether this is useful / inline with their understanding of Wiki policy and practices. Isvana (talk) 09:12, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Way Forward (2)

Given the fundamental disagreements between some editors here, the thought occurs that perhaps the editors are looking at different perspectives... for example, there is stingent disagreement about mentioning vendor names in this article - a perfectly valid response for a "concept" discussion, and perfectly invalid response for a "technology" discussion. The only problem with this idea is that the author of the term describes it (see The Power Of Events) as "a defined set of tools and techniques". So really the concept is subservient to the technology. So a proposal here would be:

  • Rename this entry Complex Event Processing (Concept)
  • Reference it in a new entry Complex Event Processing (Technology and Tools)

A bit radical I know, but this way both camps can be accomodated, while updating Wikipedia to match the current literature. Isvana (talk) 08:48, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I am NOT of the opinion that "vendor names" NEED to be in a technology discussion; however they should not necessarily be banned. However, entries like references to List of CEP vendors are clearly technology related. Isvana (talk) 08:52, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Mentioning vendor names adds nothing to most articles, and quickly turns into a race for each vendor to use wikipedia as a marketing platform - from "Let's rename our old stuff" companies to "Next hot thing" companies and everything in between. All you have to do is look at the article before it was cleaned up - it was a joke! Before mentioning or including a vendor name, ask yourself whether it adds anything to the article. Can the information be imparted without mentioning vendor names? (Hint: for the main CEP article, the answer is "Yes". ) Your idea to create a "Technology and Tools" page is just one more effort to try to reward and facilitate the inappropriate behaviour of vendors to hijack Wikipedia articles. Can you write an article on "Technology and Tools" without mentioning vendors? Absolutely! But if you want to create a "platform" where vendors put in their claims, and try to compare "favorably" in the general market - essentially position the article to act as a poor mans substitute for some real research, then this suggestion will be jumped on by a certain type of vendor. I think it's "interesting" to note that ever since the article has been cleaned up, very little has been added or extended - one might jump to the conclusion that vendors only contribute when they see their own name.... Bardcom (talk) 12:13, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Lots of good points raised here so lets go through them, hopefully retaining context Isvana (talk) 00:46, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
  • "Mentioning vendor names adds nothing to most articles"
    Agree Isvana (talk) 00:46, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
  • "...and quickly turns into a race for each vendor to use wikipedia as a marketing platform - from "Let's rename our old stuff" companies to "Next hot thing" companies and everything in between"
    Thats a valid fear. Luckily this is a wiki so such rubbish can be edited out easily. Isvana (talk) 00:46, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
  • "All you have to do is look at the article before it was cleaned up - it was a joke!"
    There were certainly some references to "associated technologies" as opposed to CEP tools, for example. But that was my point: someone, even maybe a marketing bod, but possibly an end-user, contributed something to the Wiki page. Looking at some of the entries, like caching technologies, it seems to me that this should have been REPLACED with a link to Cache technology for events (side comment - looks like a hole in Wikipedia here), ideally with an explanation as to why (or why its dubiously) connected to CEP. In other words some thoughtful editing would improve this article much more than boolean cuts. IMHO. Isvana (talk) 00:46, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
  • "Before mentioning or including a vendor name, ask yourself whether it adds anything to the article. (Hint: for the main CEP article, the answer is "Yes". )"
    Fully agree. Isvana (talk) 00:46, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
  • "Your idea to create a "Technology and Tools" page is just one more effort to try to reward and facilitate the inappropriate behaviour of vendors to hijack Wikipedia articles. Can you write an article on "Technology and Tools" without mentioning vendors?"
    That seems like a baseless accusation, but regardless, the goal of splitting the subject would be to add structure, and try and provide concensus. For example: technologies include queries, processes, rules, caches, event middleware etc etc. These should be discussed, and examples given. But in a separate page? Could be a bad idea. The only rationale I have at present is that vendor names might be more easily agreed as verboten in a conceptual discussion, but might be more difficult to avoid in a technologies and tools discussion. Having said that, the ideal scenario would be that the vendor implementation details would all be deferrable to the List of CEP vendors page - if you like, the details discussed here could form the columns for describing available tooling. That way everybody should be satisfied. Isvana (talk) 00:46, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
    I'd say it's the only way you'd get it past the aggressive editors - and even then many will disagree... Bardcom (talk) 12:02, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
  • "But if you want to create a "platform" where vendors put in their claims, and try to compare "favorably" in the general market - essentially position the article to act as a poor mans substitute for some real research, then this suggestion will be jumped on by a certain type of vendor."
    No, that isn't the intent. Note that the worst fate a vendor can ensure for itself is to make provable exaggerated claims in a public forum! Isvana (talk) 00:46, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
  • "I think it's "interesting" to note that ever since the article has been cleaned up, very little has been added or extended - one might jump to the conclusion that vendors only contribute when they see their own name...."
    Another valid interpretation is that aggressive editing has dissuaded any academic and commercial experts from contributing to Wiki. From some of the comments seen on the Yahoo CEP group (and private emails I've received - including non-vendors and end-users), indicate lots of frustration with past discussions on this page - partly my motivation for commenting(/and hopefully contributing) here, of course. Isvana (talk) 00:46, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
    Editting wikipedia articles is a thankless job. All edits are done in line with policy. Many comments also support the "aggressive" editting as you call it, and I believe that there are more supporters than detractors. Most detractors from the "aggressive" editting stance are transparently trying to get their employers names mentioned..... :-) Most detractors haven't bothered to read the wikipedia policies. Bardcom (talk) 12:02, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
    Bardcom, I believe that you may be confusing "have not read" with "disagree on interpretation". The policies use phrases like "probably should not" because the primary goal is to promote complete and clear content, not to strictly adhere to a list of what should not go on the site. In this case, it is not easy to find a complete list of CEP cendors vis usual sources like Google, so there is value in providing one in this article. P.S. I've never worked for a vendor and I have written many posts on my blog about CEP. Hgilde (talk) 14:12, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Hi Hans, unfortunately the page entitled "List of CEP Vendors" was deleted by a wikipedia administrator. There was a discussion beforehand where people could contribute their views. Bardcom (talk) 16:50, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • In terms of aggressive editing, we are not even able to put a link to the only open source CEP product (Esper/NEsper) because, although it is available under GPL, the company also offers paid support. Editing may be thankless, but that is still going too far. Hgilde (talk) 13:35, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Hi Hans, it's unfortunate that many people disagree with the external linking policy and are using the term "aggressive editting" to imply that the editting is being done somewhat improperly. I encourage anybody that feels strongly on this matter to make a request for arbitration. It's a simple process, and I'd personally welcome it. Bardcom (talk) 16:50, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
If I may offer my input (which is easily ignored), I'd counsel that WP:RfAR is considered the last step in dispute resolution. They will generally expect that other steps in dispute resolution have been attempted first. There are two issues - first, I believe that User:Bardcom has concerns regarding the closure of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of CEP vendors and the subsequent deletion of List of CEP vendors. The first step for that issue would be to seek a review of this closure. This can be done at WP:DRV. The second issue is a little more broad, and has to do with WP:EL policy in general and whether it is being applied properly here. First, I would ask that all parties become familiar with WP:EL so the discussion can begin from common ground. Then, I think the next step to pursue would be to seek a third opinion, or, possibly, to seek mediation. I believe an immediate appeal to ArbCom is not appropriate until a more serious effort at dispute resolution is attempted. Ronnotel (talk) 17:02, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks Ronnotel. Its useful to get a concise process definition with links. Isvana (talk) 12:10, 8 February 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Deletion Review for List of CEP Vendors

An editor has asked for a deletion review of List of CEP Vendors. Since you closed the deletion discussion for this article, speedy-deleted it, or were otherwise interested in the article, you might want to participate in the deletion review. Bardcom (talk) 21:53, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

  • Sorry I missed that debate [1] . Interesting to see that few if any of Bardcom's questions re policy were answered. Can't say I feel very encouraged to contribute further edits on this topic (heh - although might be a good idea to link to the Rulecore wiki copy of list of cep vendors...). Isvana (talk) 12:57, 29 February 2008 (UTC)