User talk:Doctorfree

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[edit] Endomorphism

Howdy, I backed out your recent change to Endomorphism because it violated a few guidelines for wikipedia, WP:EXT and WP:COI. Roughly speaking, you should avoid adding links to external sites and avoid adding information about yourself or your friends.

Definitely do not link to external sites related to you personally, WP:EXT#Advertising and conflicts of interest.

You probably want to fix Lyapunov exponent as well -- perhaps just keep the mention of XScreenSaver, as an indication that Lyapunov exponents (or logistic equation, or chaos, or fractals) impact popular culture, such as screensavers.

Your User:Doctorfree/Campbell article seem good so far; it could probably be moved to the main article namespace already. You may want to include in the opening a clear assertion of notability (WP:N), but the article seems well referenced, and wikilinked, so it may not matter. JackSchmidt (talk) 03:30, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Good Afternoon Dr. Free

Very interesting collection of subjects in one brain, keep writing. Stratford LeoBC (talk) 17:51, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Web desktop

Left a message at the Talk:Web desktop. --Pmedema (talk) 15:42, 9 April 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Deth Specula notability

I see that you've added a notability tag to the article on Deth Specula. I cited references from the New York Times, Newsweek, MediaCast, and other 3rd parties establishing notability. Specifically, the first live music concert with audio and video broadcast over the Internet. This, to me, seems to satisfy both the notability and citation requirements. Could you provide me with some better understanding of why you feel otherwise or how the article could be improved wrt notability? Ronald Joe Record (talk) 21:09, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

If you'll refer to the Wikipedia Guidelines for notability of a band, you'll note that the reliability and verifiability of a source are certainly important, however the quality of a source is just as critical. The reputable sources you've provided are either self-promotional or are trivial in nature. Specifically, the references from New York Times and Newsweek both make a very brief mention of Deth Specula; neither article is in any way about the band or the event for which you claim notability. The references from the Deth Specula website are self-promotion and therefore do not qualify for notability. Finally, the MediaCast reference doesn't provide anything more than an improperly formatted and dead link.
My motivation for the notability tag is that I dislike Wikipedia clutter by non-notable sources. It is my intention, in reasonable time, to submit this article as an AfD. Ultimately, I hope that the lack of any real notability, notable references, or any other qualifying criteria for notability of a band will sway enough people that Deth Specula is non-notable and should be removed from Wikipedia. If you can provide any further information which would be a non-trivial reference and enough to convince me of Deth Specula's notability, I'll gladly refrain from moving forward with my intentions. —  X  S  G  04:51, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
And, a note: I'm aware that I'm not a judge regarding notability. If you're unfamiliar with the AfD process, you'll find that it is generally fair; if it goes that far, you'll get the opportunity to make a case for notability. If you're confident that Deth Specula is notable, the AfD process shouldn't be a big deal. —  X  S  G  04:35, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm moving this discussion to the Talk:Deth Specula talk page.
Which is precisely where it belonged. Good work! —  X  S  G  03:28, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] COI

Howdy, It is fine to move the discussion to the article talk page, but the COI problems are only tangentially related to the endomorphism article. Let someone else add the links if they think they improve the article. I'll only talk about the COI problem here, so I am not talking about the future edits of the endomorphism article, just a general wikipedia thing.

I didn't respond earlier, basically because I cannot seem to respond in an encouraging way. I don't want to discourage you, since it seems like the majority of your edits are improving the encyclopedia. I mostly just hope that you yourself will recognize the conflict of interest.

There are many thousands of dissertations on endomorphisms (and many tens of thousands of journal articles). Many of them happen to be much more relevant than yours to the article, but it would not improve the encyclopedia to link them (except perhaps one or two of historical importance). On the other hand, from those dissertations it may make sense to link to an encyclopedia article on endomorphisms, so one might feel that a two-way link is a good idea. I think however that one is most likely to think this when it is one's own work being linked, and this is the danger of the conflict of interest. Whether you are right or wrong, hopefully it is clear that you are not applying your logic evenly to the entire landscape of endomorphism dissertations, and choosing precisely as many and which dissertations to link as would most benefit the encyclopedia. You might check how many of User:R.e.b.'s papers that user has linked into wikipedia articles, or User:David Eppstein or many of the other notable mathematicians who edit here. Some of their papers are linked of course, but by other editors. Wikipedia is not a vanity press, but if many editors add their own accomplishments to it, it becomes one in the eyes of the world. Notice that it does not matter if the editors themselves viewed wikipedia as a vanity press at the time. The opinion is formed elsewhere, and degrades the work of everyone who contributes. It does not matter whether those edits may have been objectively worthwhile, only that they present wikipedia as a sea of autobiography and self-promotion. JackSchmidt (talk) 14:36, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for replying. Yes, I could see how linking every single dissertation on endomorphisms would be inappropriate. I'm quite content to allow other editors to decide whether linking to either my dissertation or the endo software laboratory is appropriate. My main motivation for linking to my dissertation was due to the fact that it is largely a manual for the use of the software. It's the software which is really, in my opinion, relevant and it was this software laboratory exploring new algorithms for determining the basin boundaries of iterated endomorphisms that was at the heart of my dissertation.
At any rate, I do appreciate your assistance in helping me to better understand the Wikipedia guidelines and, in particular, COI. However, even with COI, there seems to be ample wiggle room. For instance, "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". So, it would seem that COI really comes down mostly to notability. Is a link to a software laboratory exploring iterated endomorphisms notable and does it conform to the content policies? I thought it was but, it seems, the question will be left to other editors to decide. Ronald Joe Record (talk) 17:07, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I think we are on the same page. There is wiggle room, but no need to wiggle.
Thanks for rephrasing what the package does. I had tried previously to figure out where to put your contribution, but failed. I tried to put it at XScreensaver, but couldn't get it to fit. I would say that the software package is objectively notable, but not terribly relevant to the endomorphism article (which barely mentions their most common incarnation as square matrices! the article is just about the abstract nonsense category version, and such concrete things as the real plane are just not in the same theme). However, once you mentioned attractor basins and iterated functions it was much easier to find a decent first try: I added them to Attractor basin.
I mean the words "endomorphism" and "iterated function system" are in some technical sense synonyms, but the connotations are so different, as can be seen in the articles about them. I tend to think "eigenvector" and "attractor basin" are basically synonyms (like the eigenvector of eigenvalue 1 for a nice markov process), but again different connotations. Let me know if the attractor basin text is wrong (feel free to fix it too, but I don't mind fixing my mistakes), and let me know if it is relevant to the the IFS article too. JackSchmidt (talk) 17:32, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree Attractor basin seems appropriate. Thanks for the leg work and a fruitful discussion. The "mathrec" package contains several programs I wrote to explore a variety of mathematical iterations. In addition to "endo" it includes "gasket" (generalized Serpinski gaskets) and "hop" (iterated systems of parametric equations) which arguably could be relevant to the Iterated function system article. However, there's nothing new in the IFS software included in mathrec and there is probably much better IFS software to link to. So, I wouldn't suggest linking to mathrec on the IFS article unless no other freely licensed and superior software can be found.
Thanks for the discussion and please feel free to continue to raise concerns wrt Wikipedia guidelines, style, content, etc. I'm thus far encouraged by people's willingness to work issues out in a polite and reasonable manner. Although at times it might seem tedious, in the end it seems justified and educational. Ronald Joe Record (talk) 18:45, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm glad we finally found a good place for it. It was actually a bit of a thorn in my side that I had let it go so long, since I knew there had to be a simple way to include it. I had delayed because it felt stupid saying "let someone else do it" rather than saying "let me do it" (since I'm sure you are familiar with how long it takes "someone else" to do anything). At any rate, my thanks to you for working it out so smoothly. JackSchmidt (talk) 18:54, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] wikispot interwiki

Hi. Regarding Santa Cruz, California, the wiki that would need to be added to Interwiki is http://www.scruzwiki.org/, not wikispot. —  X  S  G  01:50, 30 May 2008 (UTC)