Talk:List of systems engineers

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WikiProject Systems
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This article is within the scope of WikiProject Systems, which collaborates on articles related to Systems science.
Systems rating: List Class High importance  Field: Systems engineering
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Note: this list is very incomplete. Recommend adding those individuals that have made significant contributions to the field of System Engineering.

Contents

[edit] Additional rules of engagement

I suspect we have entries here that are consultants that may be self promoting. Please: do not self-nominate to this list, see INCOSE instead. This list is meant to inform newcomers to the field of notable SEs (with a national or international rep.) that have either notably published a book, etc., or were SE leads on major/significant system efforts.

Last edit will soon be reverted unless the author (4.249.6.126) establishes a Wiki login account, and certifies that this is not a self-promotion.

Cask05 18:20, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pruning the list

I have just gone through and purged the list of "non-notable" people who's names had somehow crept into the list. Since the entire list is basically unreferenced, this was necessarily a somewhat subjective purge. I removed anyone that:

  1. Was redlinked
  2. I'd never heard of
  3. Had an entry that didn't suggest notability even if I hadn't heard of them (several Ramo medal winners made the cut, even though I've never heard of them)
  4. Didn't actually appear to be a system engineer (several software developers seem to have got onto the list somehow).

As I said, this was a fairly subjective pruning, so I may well have removed some folks who truly deserve to be on there. If that is the case, then by all means, let's add them back. But this time with some kind of reference which demonstrates their notability (those folks I left on the list need similar references). --Allan McInnes (talk) 02:40, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for all the adjustments. I'm going to take a better look at the persons you skipt from the list. It seems to me already, that there is an overall question, about whom to add to the list. Should it be.
  1. Only living and practicing systems engineers
  2. Some older engineers, who worked kind of as systems engineers,
  3. Professors in SE
  4. Authors in SE
  5. Pioneeers and founders of the field
It seems that you skipt the third group or am I mistaken?
I added a new reference to the list, but couldn't get them as one reference yet... In that INCOSE article itselve every reference has an one (do you call it) cross-reference. It would also be nice if that's working. Because then we have 9 unique references. But I have found how I could make adjustments here? Could you take a look at it? - Mdd 08:48, 9 May 2007 (UTC)


[edit] This list should consist of...?

In my opinion, this list should consist of notable systems engineers. That excludes most of the consultants and other people who had added themselves to the list. I don't personally think that just being a professor of SE is particularly notable (there are lots of professors in the world). However, if a professor of SE has done something notable (such as authoring one or more texts on SE, or won an SE award) then they're worth including. --Allan McInnes (talk) 02:13, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I do agree that this list should be restrickted. I wish however that this list shows the best people in the field of Systems Engineering: Old and young, proven and promissing, man and femal, technical and eductional, scientific and managers... even if this means some emancipation here and there. For every person mentioned an article should be writen (soner or later). This list is the face of systems engineering. - Mdd 00:33, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
I was not suggesting any kind of restriction or discrimination based on gender, race, professional area, or experience. The only criteria I care about is notability. Since the Wikipedia guidelines on biographies explicitly state that articles should only be written about people who meet the notability criteria, and you eventually want to have articles about everyone on the list, then only notable people should be included in the list. --Allan McInnes (talk) 03:13, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Further development

I have some more questions:

  1. Can't we remove the missing citations and footnotes tag?
  2. Should't the former presidents of INCOSE be listed in one footnote? Why did you remove them?
  3. How far do we want this list to expand? One two dozend happy few or at least some hunderd people?
  4. How should we proceed?
  5. (Maybe this is part of the forelast item) Shouldn't we look for more reliable sources besides the INCOSE website?
  6. Shouldn't we put all IEEE Simon Ramo Medal winners in the list here?

- Mdd 00:33, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

  1. The article is still missing many citations. In fact, over half the entries on the list appear to be uncited. Do you object to the tag on aesthetic grounds?
  2. I'm sorry, I don't understand the question. Most of the former INCOSE presidents appear to have no citation associated with them at all. Several of the entries are "INCOSE Pioneers", and the citation for them is still in the References section. I didn't remove it, I simply collapsed it into a single citation, instead of having duplicate entries in the reference list.
  3. I have no good answer to that question. In general, I'm not in favor of lists in Wikipedia at all. However, they seem to be popular, and I'd rather that if a list such as this exists, it be of reasonably good quality. As for the length, I can see no good reason to exclude any notable systems engineer.
  4. Perhaps we could start by looking for existing articles about systems engineers who are not yet on this list.
  5. Possibly. Although I'm not sure where else you're likely to find such information in aggregate form. But if there are bios about specific engineers that we can include as references, then we should certainly do so.
  6. Probably.
And in answer to the question you didn't ask: the Wikipedia Guide to layout recommends that the See also section not repeat links that are already contained in the text of the article.
--Allan McInnes (talk) 03:38, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The missing citations and footnotes tag

About the missing citations and footnotes tag? Wikipedia has 10 list of engineers, and only 1 list has 1 footnote and non have the tag. In Holland we have the expression (translated) that you don't have to be hollier then the pope. Why do we have to have every tinny bit secured? - Mdd 01:48, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps the tags should be added to all of those other articles. It's not a question of being "holier than the pope". It's a question of complying with Wikipedia policy, and ensuring that the articles related to SE are of good quality. --Allan McInnes (talk) 17:50, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry Allan, I was just back and not right on track. The big difference between this Systems Engineers List and the other engineering lists is the overflow of red links in this list. The other list have in general meanly blue links, or names with an article in the Wikipedia. The reasonthey don't need reference-tags is, because the blue links are the references.

A second difference is, that this list gives an explanation with every name. Form example:

  • James Brill: past president in 1995 of INCOSE.

In my opinion this doesn't need a reference as well, because the explanation gives here the reference. In this particular case the INCOSE article mentions these presidents as well. This is also why I made all the links to INCOSE bleu in the article. I think this is also an elegant solution besides all the different references, already given. - Mdd 00:45, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid that internal Wikipedia links are not generally considered a sufficient source for factual statements (WP:CITE specifically says Note: Other Wikipedia articles may not be used as sources.). Citations are supposed to be to reliable third-party resources. If the INCOSE article provides a reference for the list of past-presidents, it should be easy enough to transfer that information over to this article. If people in the list are redlinked, then IMHO their notability is debatable, and certainly requires some kind of supporting citation in order for them to remain in the list. --Allan McInnes (talk) 02:34, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Red links

Some of the red links here are obviously people about whom articles can be written, based on the material given. I have removed the others. If anyone wants to add them back, great, but include some information showing why.DGG (talk) 23:27, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Maybe we should remove al the people with red links from the listing. Put theme in a list of nominees here on the talk-page. This will maybe stimulate editors to actually write articles about the people listed. - Mdd 22:14, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of people removed from the List of systems engineers (since 1 May 2007)

  • William Adams (Systems engineer) PhD. is an American professor. Worked in Systems architecture, SE management at IBM, Unisys, Raytheon, U.S. House of Representatives, DoD, taught at the University of Maryland, George Mason University.
  • James Dufuex; United concel of people who engineer (UCPWE)
  • Christopher Eastman; EIT - Systems Engineer, Lockheed Martin Corporation
  • Howard Eisner; Research Professor and Professor of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering, The George Washington University, Washington D.C.
  • M. Alejandro Fernández; Universidad Privada del Norte, SE Educator, author of texts on Systems Engineering and related disciplines and, atomic use. Currently working for Virtual Technology Corporation. Professor of Systems Engineering and Systems Science. 2004 Simon Ramo Medal for significant contributions to systems engineering and technical leadership of control systems design for the orbiting space station Mir.
  • A.M. Fincher; National University, U.S. Naval Academy, SE Practitioner. Currently working for Northrop Grumman Corporation and providing SE expertise to the development of tactical communications and data systems.
  • Dr. Maheen Hasib; (Queen Mary University of London)
  • Thomas Huynh (Systems Engineer) Associate Professor, Systems Engineering Department, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA, USA.
  • Michael C. Hogan; University of Southern California 2006
  • Laney, Mark— Senior Systems Engineer with Comcast cable. Developer and integrator of Video on Demand and Digital Advertising systems (patent pending). [[1]].
  • Lerdorf, Rasmus (1968) is a Danish-Greenlandic programmer and the creator of the PHP programming language. He authored the first two versions.
  • David Long (Systems engineer); Pioneer in the field of systems engineering.
  • Lyon, Douglas—Author of 3 books and numerious articles [[2]].
  • Carlos Mozzati; Santa Fe, Argentina. Computer Systems Engineering (Universidad Tecnológica Nacional, Santa Fe)
  • Ali Raza (systems engineer); American systems Engineer, Vitech Corp.
  • Dr. Ali Raza(systems engineer); American systems Engineer, Motorola Ltd.
  • Bruno José Rovagnati; Systems Engineer, Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires
  • Muyoyeta Simasiku; Thales Australia. Computer Systems Engineering (University of Technology, Sydney)
  • Silvina Suárez; Santa Fe, Argentina. Computer Systems Engineering (Universidad Tecnológica Nacional, Santa Fe)
  • John Tufarolo; Practicing Systems Engineer since 1985. Currently working for Raytheon Virtual Technology Corporation in systems engineering of complex distributed simulation systems.
  • Shenda K. Vasquez; Graduated from the University of Chiclayo in Perú with a degree in Information and Systems Engineering.
  • Edward Jr. Whitacre; Chairman and CEO of SBC

Listing by - Mdd 22:06, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Further people removed

  • Hans-Joerg Pospieszczyk called "Pospie"; chief systems engineer for the European contributions to NASA space programs Spacelab and COLUMBUS at ERNO resp. DASA in Bremen / Germany.
This looks like self promotion. The notability here is not clear. - Mdd 19:15, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Mdd,

I am not sure if it is not "enough noteable" to having had the responsibility for two well-known space elements complete system engineering teams i.e. leading more than 120 system engineers at the prime contractor and many others at subcontractors (got many NASA and ESA certificates for that so no self promotion is needed).-

- I would consider it fair that you make your e-Mail address public so that discussions about system engineering could take place. Hjpospie 10:50, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Hjpospie. Wikipedia has very specific guideliness regarding notability, see Wikipedia:Notability and further.
My email adress is available, if you look at my user site (see user:Mdd) there are to external links given, which links to two sites where my email adress is given. But I do all the talking about wikipedia on wikipedia talk sites like here. And If you have anything to talk about in general, you could also try the Wikipedia:WikiProject Systems talk site. - Mdd 13:40, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
Hi Mdd. Thanks for the fast response though I do not fully agree with it. After having read the guidelines for notability I consider many of the list entries as not compatible with the guidelines. For instance knowing some of the INCOSE presidents I cannot see the "noteability" for being president for one year especially as some got the position only due good relations and not because of verifiable, outstanding performance as system engineers.
So in summary I propose You just to point to the list of INCOSE presidents already contained in the INCOSE article (it is in any case not a good documentation approach to have same entries at two locations) and list here only system engineers with the main products being developped under their leadership e.g. Wernher von Braun - Saturn, Korolev - Sputnik etc. With such a rule You can get objectivity for judging when a system engineer should be added to the list; already some other above comments express their concern about the present approach Hjpospie 12:48, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
If you are interested in adding Hans-Joerg Pospieszczyk to this list, just write an article about him in Wikipedia and add him to the list.
And about this list: There are a lot of ins and out about it's current form, which is connected to the representation of systems engineering in Wikipedia. If you want to discuss improving this, then you are welcome to join the Wikipedia:WikiProject Systems and it's initiatives, and then I fill you all in. - Mdd 21:22, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Further people removed

  • Rudolf Emil Kalman (1930) is an American-Hungarian mathematical system theorist, who is an electrical engineer by training.
The reason is that, according to Hjpospie, Kalman was an excellent mathematician but no system engineer. - Mdd (talk) 21:40, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
In Wikipedia Kalman is categorizes as a systems engineer zo I will putt him back -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 20:31, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Alain Faisandier is a French engineer and scientist. Founder of MAP System, the first French Systems Engineering Consultancy Firm.
This scientist and its characteristics (MAP Systems) are not yet in the Wikipedia. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 20:31, 23 May 2008 (UTC)