Talk:Ed Seykota

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was move. —Nightstallion (?) 10:39, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Renaming Edward Seykota

Ed Seykota is known for his accomplishments in the field of money management and not so much physics.

The article should be renamed Ed Seykota as it is the name in witch he is most commonly referred to as !

The article should be renamed Ed Seykota and NOT Edward Seykota

When you do a search in Google for " Ed Seykota " you get the all the top 10 results relating to the subject of this article and when you do a search for just " Edward Seykota " none of the top 10 results are about the subject of this article.

Search results for Google :

  • ”Edward Seykota” results in just ‘’118’’ articles
  • ”Ed Seykota” ,results in as much as ‘’52,200’’ articles

Also do a search at newslibrary.com for "Ed Seykota" and you get 17 articles in major news publications related to the subject of this article. When you do a search for newspaper articles related to “Edward Seykota” at ‘’newslibrary.com’’ you get only one (1) article and the results of this one (1) single article are not related to the subject of this article.Trade2tradewell 00:59, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

  • Oppose unsigned request for move based on rudimentary Google results. Gene Nygaard 12:14, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose if Edward is his real name. In addition, we should redirect Ed Seykota to Edward Seykota. Typelighter 12:34, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Support on grounds of vast majority of usage. The first line of the article can give his given name, and a divert can be provided for "Edward Seykota" (but I would expect very few readers to enter this version of his name). Elroch 11:24, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. Though I can't find very many references to Seykota, the ones I did find, all listed him as "Ed". Wikipedia guidelines are to have the article use the "most commonly-used version" of the name. For example, President Clinton's article is titled Bill Clinton, though his full name is William Jefferson Clinton. --Elonka 18:37, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. I have confidence in Jack D. Schwager, the author of Market Wizards and in the paperback book from pages 151 to 174 is the chapter on "Ed Seykota", so I concur on the change based on that and on Trade2tradewell's confirmation. I have no confidence in Michael Covel, but I won't let that influence my decision.--Jma 16:08, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. "Ed" is clearly the name he is known by. The "Edward" form can be a redirect. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 18:25, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Renaming Edward Seykota

I contacted the subject of this article at info at seykota dot com and he confirms his name is Ed and Not Edward.Trade2tradewell 01:05, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

I wonder - how do we know he is or was actually successful at commodity trading? Perhaps his claimed performance is totally fabricated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.214.20.10 (talk • contribs)
Indeed, we must be wary of possible attempts to subvert the WP via guerrilla marketing/viral marketing ---CH 10:02, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
I believe that this entire article should be nominated for deletion. There are indeed a couple minor references to an "Ed Seykota" in a couple articles, but most everything else I saw looked like self-promotion. Also, the book "Trading Tribe" that was listed on the page, was not a real book. It's not on Amazon, and ISBN 0930083199 is invalid. --Elonka 21:15, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I would remove the "very" from "very successful" in the current version of the article, as that is too subjective. As to the Trading Tribe book, it seems it was specialty-printed by Jack Bacon & Co, so it's still "real" even if you can't get it from Amazon. The "ISBN" appears to be what Jack Bacon uses as "Item Number" in their catalog. --Jma 01:33, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

[edit] Reference

According to WP:RS and WP:CITE

Wikipedia articles should use reliable published sources so here is a collection of articles where Ed is referenced. Articles on the London Stock Exchange. The magazines Technical Analysis of Stocks & Commodities and San Diego magazine. The newspapers Christian Science Monitor, and Sunday Business Post. Ed's website is also recommended by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

Please follow the links below:

  • London Stock Exchange Article from the London Stock Exchange mentions Ed's performance record "Ed Seykota - turned $5000 into $15 million"
    • This isn't an official London Stock Exchange announcement. It's more of an editorial from an "Expert commentator", another trader. I question its reliability. --Elonka 20:10, 9 June 2006 (UTC)


  • Christian Science Monitor Ed is referred by the Christian Science Monitor as "the Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineer and investment luminary from Lake Tahoe, Nev"
  • Sunday Business Post Ed is referred to as "the phenomenally successful" by Ireland's Sunday Business Post
  • Yahoo Finance Ed is listed on Yahoo-Finance's Financial Glossary
    • I question the appropriateness of using this as a reference. It's just a short blurb in highly POV language, that appears to be a copy/paste from a speaker bio: Ed Seykota is interviewed by Jack Schwager in Schwager's book, Market Wizards. Seykota was graduated from MIT in the early 1970s, and went on to develop the first commercially sold commodities trading system. Seykota went into business for himself, and in the years 1974-1989, managed to grow a $5,000 trading account to over $15 million dollars. Mr. Seykota is a trading genius who has been able to identify robust patterns of price action that repeat themselves in different markets. His quantitative and systematic approach to trading has been an inspiration for many. Mr. Seykota is also a genius when it comes to understanding human psychology. If he's been an "inspiration to many", where's the mainstream press? --Elonka 20:22, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks
Trade2tradewell 13:42, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Header needs serious work

Why is this person note worthy. Can we come up with a header/into that isn't an infomercial and is sourceable?? Look at other bios for ideas and lets work on it in here. Thanks! --Tom 01:03, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree that I am uncomfortable referring to this individual as "very" successful, simply based on a profile in a book that's clearly promoting a particular point of view. If an individual is genuinely notable, there will be multiple sources of information about them. Other newspapers and magazine articles, and so forth. I would want to see an unbiased third-party source that used the language "very successful", before I could signoff on using that language in a Wikipedia article, and even then I would want to see it properly attributed, as in, "According to a March 2003 article in the New York Times, Seykota is one of the most successful commodity traders in the world." But as near as I can tell, non-book coverage of this individual is sparse, which leads me to believe that much of his biographical information is self-written. --Elonka 01:21, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Well said, Elonka. The only thing I would add is even IF alot of sources say he is a successful whatever, it seems that this is usually left out of the header. Think of the most/very successful err, take your pick, of people, and their bios usually DON'T mention that in the header. Its sort of assumed since that is why they are notable. Also, phrases like most/very/ect. tend to be POV. Unless their is some "special" reason to mention it there. It appears from limited research that this individual almost has a cult like following, so accurate/sourced material is especially important here. Just my ramblings. Thanks! --Tom 13:43, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MIT degree

After having read some of Seykota's physics ideas, and seeing the amount of other self-promotion going on, I am going to raise a flag and say that I'd like verification that he actually attended (and graduated from) MIT. Do we have an independent source that verifies his degree? --Elonka 20:02, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

  • The Tech (MIT's Student newspaper, the world's first newspaper on the web) has various articles that chronicle Ed’s life at MIT: His membership in clubs, candidacy for student union positions, schools he attended (fourth-year student in Sloan School) MIT Sloan School of Management etc.


1966 Articles


April 5 1966 - Sherman, Telson, James named subcommittee heads.
Ed Seykota from Sigma Chi was one of the three sophomores named to a six member committee.
http://www-tech.mit.edu/archives/VOL_086/TECH_V086_S0158_P001.pdf

October 14 1966 - Open House.
http://www-tech.mit.edu/archives/VOL_086/TECH_V086_S0383_P004.pdf


1967 Articles


January 6 1967 - Student workers sought by Open House Committee.
http://www-tech.mit.edu/archives/VOL_086/TECH_V086_S0606_P011.pdf

March 7 1967 - Open House, SCE, and JSO
http://www-tech.mit.edu/archives/VOL_087/TECH_V087_S0118_P007.pdf

April 7 1967 - Beaver Key adds twelve members.
http://www-tech.mit.edu/archives/VOL_087/TECH_V087_S0176_P005.pdf

April 18 1967 - Open House Chairman Ed Seykota '68 it would be nice to offer everyone...
http://www-tech.mit.edu/archives/VOL_087/TECH_V087_S0203_P004.pdf

April 21 1967 - 30,000 expected at Open House( Ed chairs Open House committee)
http://www-tech.mit.edu/archives/VOL_087/TECH_V087_S0210_P003.pdf

October 24 1967 - Who's who.
http://www-tech.mit.edu/archives/VOL_087/TECH_V087_S0400_P007.pdf


1968 Articles


February 13 1968 - Ed Seykota, a fourth-year student in Sloan School..
http://www-tech.mit.edu/archives/VOL_088/TECH_V088_S0047_P003.pdf

February 13 1968 - Seykota is an underdog.
http://www-tech.mit.edu/archives/VOL_088/TECH_V088_S0049_P005.pdf

February 23 1968 - Statements of UAP candidates ( Shows picture of Ed Seykota )
http://www-tech.mit.edu/archives/VOL_088/TECH_V088_S0087_P001.pdf

February 23 1968 - UAP candidates present views of issues.
http://www-tech.mit.edu/archives/VOL_088/TECH_V088_S0091_P005.pdf

February 23 1968 - While Ed Seykota and Maria Kivisild would undoubtedly make good UAP's..
http://www-tech.mit.edu/archives/VOL_088/TECH_V088_S0090_P004.pdf

February 28 1968 - Apology Box about campaign statement.
http://www-tech.mit.edu/archives/VOL_088/TECH_V088_S0101_P003.pdf

March 22 1968 - Footnotes ( 18 )
http://www-tech.mit.edu/archives/VOL_088/TECH_V088_S0168_P004.pdf

May 17 1968 - Students named to positions on special faculty committees (Committee on Placement Services)
http://www-tech.mit.edu/archives/VOL_088/TECH_V088_S0281_P007.pdf

December 6 1968 - Students participating on MIT faculty committees listed by administration.
http://www-tech.mit.edu/archives/VOL_088/TECH_V088_S0512_P008.pdf


Sigma Chi Fraternity


Ed's membership : http://sigmachi.mit.edu/brothers/brotherprofile.asp?sigId=854


Thanks

--Trade2tradewell 23:10, 22 June 2006 (UTC)


MIT's thesis collection goes back to 1868 and contains no thesis written by Ed. However, MIT's alumni connection lists:

Mr. Edward Arthur Seykota
MIT Information
Degrees:  • 1969, SB - Bachelor Of Science, Course 15 - Management
               • 1969, SB - Bachelor Of Science, Course 6 - Elec Eng & Comp Sci
Living Groups:  SC - Sigma Chi
Preferred Class Year: 1969

along with a PO box mailing address in NV and a phone number, last updated in 2002.

MIT's thesis collection contains all graduate theses, but only "selected" senior theses (such as would be written for Ed's Bachelor's degree). I will double-check that the degree information in the alumni directory is canonical (ie, not self-reported), but Ed's degrees look legit. C. Scott Ananian 19:50, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the doublecheck. :) --Elonka 20:18, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Radial Momentum

Seykota comments on WP entry on his website see his comments here:

[edit] Quoted in Books

Ed Seykota is quoted in other Books, here is a short list:


Trade2tradewell 00:21, 31 July 2006 (UTC)