Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Systems/Archive 1

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Welcome at this archive of talk pages of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Systems. This pages stores closed discussion, so pleace don't edit here. These discussion will be stored thematical and historical. For questions en remarks, contact Mdd.


Contents

About this initiative

Greetings, the first initiative about this project started here User talk:Jpbowen#The System-s under attack - Mdd 00:34, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Great, many thanks for starting this. I have added myself to the list and will support this as much as I can. I guess a message in the talk page for all those that supported the Systems category would be worthwhile. Can we put the systems category backup under this project? I made my own copy (User:Jpbowen/Back up - Category Systems) of your backup copy (User:Mdd/Back up - Category Systems). I will continue working bottom up on systems categories and hopefully we can meet in the middle. If we get enough support, a portal would be worthwhile too. I might have a go at this if so! Very best wishes, Jonathan Bowen 02:12, 20 April 2007 (UTC)


WikiProject Systems editorial - week 18, 2007

This initiative started 20 april 2007, see also: Archive 1

This WikiProject is going into his second week. Most of the work done here in the first week, is archived to make room for new discussion and new action. New points brought in are:

  1. Clarification of the new category:systems
  2. Further discussions about the article Physical system
  3. A possible System (disambiguation) article
  4. The design of Templates

Some other efforts are being made, which are open for feedback and suggestions. In short:

  • The announcements: Editorial rewriting are made to give this news a content, more populair and open for outsiders.
  • The assessment: All project categories necesary for automated assessment are created right now. The first moves are made to tag articles with the WikiProject Systems-template. This needs some more work.
  • The to-do list: A procedure should be developed to work together on ths to-do list. Untill then this adminstration remains with Mdd.

There lot's to be done to get this show on the run? With a talk starting about the physical system first contact is made with an other WikiProject. Contact with other WikiProjects with whom we share common interests could be consider. But all in good time. A priority this week is to get our own organization going.

Last updated by - Mdd 19:24, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Active editing

This talk has an active editing. All talk-items are open for debate, but closed and inactive items will be stored as sone as possible in the archive. Recent items stored at the beginning of this second week are:

  • First idea's about Working together in this Wikiproject Systems, see Archive 1
  • First idea's about the design of a Portal:Systems, see Archive 1
  • Previous talks about Systems categories, see Archive 2
  • A first discussion about The technical meaning of "system": a Suggestion, see Archive 3.

If you want to continue talking about this items, please make a new talk item here and continue. We come back to you as sone as possible. - Mdd 10:23, 1 May 2007 (UTC)


WikiProject Systems editorial - week 19, 2007

This initiative started 20 april 2007, see also: Archive 1

This week we welcome three new editors Kenneth Burke, Allan McInnes and Childhood's End. Discussions have started to get to know each other and try to explore and initiate some forms of cooperation. Preparations have begon to work on the systems engineering article and it's surroundings.

Last update: Mdd 14:11, 9 May 2007 (UTC)


Working together in the Wikiproject Systems

Editors, Informants, Participants, Supporters and Users

There are many ways people can contribute to this WikiProject Systems:

  • Contactpersons in different fields of study, fields of applications and or countries.
  • Cooperating other Wikipedia WikiProjects
  • Editors: People frequently contribute to systems articles can use the project pages to store, retrieve and discussed editorial information
  • Informants: People in the field willing to share some information on an individual basis.
  • Participants: People who want to be informed, to talk, to decide and to work in the organization of this project.
  • Supporters: People and organizations who share similair interests.
  • Users: All mentioned and last but not least: the editors to come, who seek information and inspiration to contribute in this field.

Getting this show on the road means building relations here. So where do we start? - Mdd 22:51, 20 April 2007 (UTC)


The design of a Portal:Systems

The idea of the creation of a Portal:Systems has been brought up here. With the recent attacks on the Category:Systems and Category:Complex systems we should make good preparations before we go life here, or we will be deleted before we get this even started. - Mdd 13:50, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

For better survival we could name it Portal:Systems science. And there are other alternatives like Portal:System or Portal:Systemics. - Mdd 15:18, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Softly, softly, I guess. We need to get a few people to sign up here. Have you contacted or can you contact systems category supporters, or would you like me to do this? — Jonathan Bowen 17:06, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
It's not my intention to start the Portal right now. First I want to organize this project some more... Gather some more information... Build some relations... and then I will discussed further options. Starting up this WikiProject was for me the way to get acquainted with this matter. - Mdd 22:51, 20 April 2007 (UTC)


Wikipedia active editing

The term Active editing is created to indicate an initiate a new form of maintaining talk-pages at the Wikipedia. Hereby all talk-items are open for debate, but temporary inactive and closed items will be stored as sone as possible in the archive. If people want to continue talking about this items, they have to make a new talk item at the talk page to continue.

More details about archiving are to be found at:

Active editing for the moment is an experiment in new forms of cooperation. It's created because in lot's of talk pages, things remains unarchived for years. There is still little know-how and explicit ideas on how to act in these circumstances. By creating and using this term, we like to initiate discussion and improvements at this point. - Mdd 10:53, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Active editing on your own User talk page

One form of active editing is being used for quiet some time in User talk pages of more experienced wikipedians. They someting also have a warning about this on there talk pages. They often mention:

  1. that discussion about items concerning article, should be made an the articles talk page as much as possible
  2. that discussion started on other talk pages should procedeed over there
  3. that new discussions started on that own talk page, will be answered on that talk page only.

Active editing in other talk pages

Editoral editing in other talk pages is still a relatively unkonwn. One should only do this for a very good reason, and act with care.

Comments

If people want to respond please do so over here - Mdd 11:22, 4 May 2007 (UTC)


The assessment of categories and articles

A start is made with the assement of categories and articles in the field of Systems. From this information a bot every day updates the article statistic shown on the WikiProject Systems page.

The rating of quality and importance

The rating of quality are made according to general assesment rules. The importance rating however is made from the WikiProject Systems point of view. So this important rating is relative. It tells about the importance the article has in the field of Systems. This rating in fact tells about the place the article or category has in the global structure in Systems, Systems theories and Systems scientists.

For further questions ask here, or ask directly to Mdd 21:55, 1 May 2007 (UTC)


The relation between chaos theory, systems and systems theory

This talk originaly started on the Talk:Chaos theory page

The importance rate of this article ((chaos theory)) for the WikiProject Systems has been uprated from high to top allready two weeks ago on 10 June 2007. I could have referted it because importance rates are set by the WikiProjects themselves and these rates have a particular objective meaning: The importance rate is not about the objective importance of the article, but of the relative difference from the article to the hart of the WikiProject. Now formaly the hart of the WikiProject Systems is in a way the category:systems. The items in this category get a top-importance, the items in the first subcategories are of high-importance.

Instead of referting this I kept wondering about the relation between chaos theory and systems and systems theory. Is or isn't chaos theory in the first place about chaos and not about systems. And aren't systems in the first place about organization and not about chaos? I know a bit more about systems theory, a little about chaos theory but even less about the role of systems and systems theory in chaos theory. Can somebody explain this to me? - Mdd 19:41, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I can't really answer the question, and would encourage others to do so, because it is an interesting and important question, but I should make some comments about changing the ratings.
  • First of all, I shouldn't have changed the systems theory importance rating, because this is the importance of the article for WikiProject Systems, and I don't know how that project assigns these ratings. Please change it back to "High" if you think it is appropriate: different projects can of course have different ratings for the same article.
  • Second, some background. At the Mathematics WikiProject, we are finding that too many articles are getting Mid and High importance ratings compared to Top and Low. In particular, this makes it harder to prioritise which Stub and Start-Class articles at the top end most need expansion. So we have been trying to improve the situation, and have developed more detailed importance criteria to help us.
  • Third, my changes here. I uprated the Mathematics importance from High to Top (by the above reasoning). Now, WikiProject physics is rather inactive right now, and I figured this article is at least as important in physics as maths, so uprated the physics importance too. Then I went a bit far by thinking "Well, if it is top for maths and physics, it probably is for systems too"!
  • Fourth, a comment. From what you have said, I understand that WikiProject Systems assesses importance in an absolute sense, i.e., only the main items in Category:Systems can hope to be top priority and so on. We discussed this quite a lot at the mathematics project, and have come to the conclusion that:
    • it is more helpful to assess the importance of an article within context rather than in absolute terms
    • Wikipedia 1.0 actually recommends this approach.
Now I am very impressed that your response to my mistake was not to revert it, but to think about it and raise such interesting questions. Maybe you might want to take some of the maths project thoughts on importance ratings back to WikiProject Systems and initiate a debate. All the best, anyway. Geometry guy 20:19, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

More about assessment of articles

I moved the above discussion here, because it offers some interesting thoughts about the assessment of articles. First of all thanks Geometry guy for your explaination and some explaination of how the WikiProject Mathematics works. I can imagine that those problems are much bigger at Mathematics, not at the least because the WikiProject Mathematics holds about is ten times more article then our WikiProject. And I can image that this brings the needs a more detailled assement. I however also experienced some things you mentioned about little top and low priority articles. To be through... I've been very carefull with the top-priority articles. And I avoid assessing articles to a low priority, because I think that the name low priority is demotivating. I wish they think of a better name for it.

I also experienced, that rating articles is not as easy as it seems. You need a clear set of rules to make it make any sence. I made an announcements about it on 1 may 2007, see [1]. Here I explained the rating of importance a little different then above:

  • The rating of importance is an other story. You can rate the articles from None, Low, Mid, High to Top. This rating is however made from a WikiProject Systems point of view. So this important rating is relative. It tells about the importance the article has in the field of Systems. In fact, this rating tells about the place the article or category has in the global structure in field of Systems, Systems theories and Systems scientists.

For the moment this works for me... This is however not a rule, but more a kind of guideline. With the WikiProject just starting, assessment remains interesting but is also one of the least of our problems. The reason I started this talk in the first place was the opportunity the small incindent gave to look at these things in an other perspective. - Mdd 22:59, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

A few further comments from me.
  • You have made a good start! One of the best ways to assess articles is to compare them with other assessed articles, so starting up is the most difficult bit. It is quite good that one person has rated the first batch, because this means there should be some consistency: the "precedent" has been set.
  • I can see that there are very few low importance articles at the moment. I would not worry too much about this to start with, because of selection bias (i.e., the most important articles get rated first).
  • Assessing importance within the whole systems category is also fine to start with, but as the project grows, discrimination is lost between articles in more specialized subcategories.
  • At mathematics, we've tried to make it easier to rate articles as "low" in a couple of ways: first we have switched from using "low importance" to "low priority"; second, we've modified slightly the WP 1.0 importance criteria, so that the description of "low" is a bit more encouraging, and the description of "mid" is a bit stronger.
Keep up the good work! Geometry guy 13:29, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I am not sure that systems and systems theory can be said to have a role in chaos theory. I think it is rather the other way around; chaos theory has a role in systems and systems theory (from chaos emerges order and/or a system). In economics, notably, this is exposed through the concept of spontaneous order. See also Complex system#Complexity and chaos theory which has some info, although probably not perfect. --Childhood's End 13:56, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Childhood's End, I copied your contribution to the Talk:Chaos theory page, and give an respons over there. I want to keep this talk item here specific about the assessment of articles. - Mdd 14:40, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

@Geometry guy. It's interesting what you say about switching from using "low importance" to "low priority". But I don't understand it. If I use the low-rate in the WikiProject Systems-template, for example Talk:Manufacturing Execution System: the template show low-importance and not low-priority. Now I found an example of what you mean at Talk:Infinite monkey theorem. This looks kind of nicer. Do you know if there is an easy way to change our template as well? - Mdd 14:49, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

This discussion is tempory proceeding on the WikiProject Systems talk page

Relations to WikiProject Organizations

As this project is quite new, that might be the reason why this relationship hasn't been established. I'm just mentioning Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide/WikiProject as a resource for nascent WikiProjects (as well as established ones). It would appear to me that this project would be a natural parent to WikiProject Organizations which was established last October. This means both projects are still quite fresh, but some cooperation should be initiated, in my opinion. __meco 19:56, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Per the scope of WikiProject Organizations (The project generally considers articles about any incorporated, registered, or otherwise legitimate organization to be within its scope. The term "organization" is applicable to any active or historical association, society, union, foundation, or corporation as well as any related and notable conferences or events.), I cannot see how these two projects can be considered related. --Childhood's End 20:16, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Hi Meco, I thought about the parents relations of this project when I first started this project and wrote about it in the first draft of this project, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Systems - First draft. I then determined three (possible) parents: WikiProject History of Science, WikiProject Philosophy and WikiProject Science.... and further listed ten possible collaborations, see [2]. Uour WikiProject Organizations was one of them.
In that time I came to about the same conclusion as Childhood's End here, that the WikiProject Organization seems to be little about the theory of organization and it's fundamentals. This WikiProject Systems has a formal scope of its own to look at all systems in science and society. We hereby build on a solide theoretical developement in the past 50 years in systems theory.
With the developement of the WikiProject Systems in the current state (a WikiProject Based on the Turnkey Project) I didn't think about parents relations any more. They didn't seem to fit in the Turnkey profile. That's why there are no parents right now.
One thing however does interact on a theoretical level: organization and the idea of organization is an important theoretical concept in systems science. And the systems approach, systems thinking, systems analyses and systems methodology are important concepts in the organizations/management science theory. But this alone doesn't seems enough to become family!?
I'm possitive however about initiating some kind of cooperation. Like you said this WikiProject is quite new and we still have lots to learn: including cooperation with other WikiProjects. I hope this explains something. Greetings. - Mdd 22:33, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I also responded on the Category talk:Conceptual systems talkpage. - Mdd 23:38, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


wow, you guys are brave!

i just stumbled upon this nest of wikis on systems, complexity, chaos theory, emergence, cybernetics etc... what a nest of vipers. i been trying myself to write about these topics (organize them) on and off for 2 decades and finally settled on NO organization, but simply a list of 60 or so lab exercises. one for each specific system or concept.

perhaps it is best organized by field? i.e. strictly mathematical results, like chaotic dynamical systems. cellular automata and networks. engineering topics. computer organization and software. biology. economics.

each field has its own way of exploring results and describing them.

let the readers make the connections.

i'll keep perusing, maybe i can be of some help. my background is in mathematics, computer science, and biology. Wikiskimmer 05:58, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi, after what you say here I wonder if you have had any experience with Wikipedia before? If you spend 2 decades trying to write about systems theory and ended up with a suitable set of 60 lab exercises, this probably fitted the purpose you wanted to fullfill... presumably inside a college or a lab. We are working here for some seven years and created our own ways of doing things.
Now Wikipedia is also not the place to propose new organization of the field. We try to give a representation of the state of the art in theory and practice... given our own neutral perspective and our own tradition. Given your background and interests you can contribute all you like, like the welcome message on your talkpage yesterday tells you. I've seen you started on different talkpages yesterday. Good luck with it. The only thing I also want to ask you is to communicate in simple plain English. - Mdd 19:10, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

hi, thank you for your comments

don't worry, i have no intention of coming into a 7 year old project and restructuring it. yes, i am new to wiki. it is a very fascinating project.

thank you for pointing out to me to use simple english. i realize now that english is not the first language of some editors here.

I will wait for a few weeks, just reading and commenting in discussion pages to see what the previous writers have done before i make any edits. the first thing i would need is a printer and print out the 10 or 30 or so wikis that are involved. all for no pay! alot of work!

i hope my comments on the relationship between chaotic dynamical system and systems in general were useful? Wikiskimmer 21:48, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank for switching to simple English. I come from Holland and I'm not very good at speaking and reading to complicated English. As you say, Wikipedia is a very fascinating project and different from any other source. As you already mentioned, lot's of text is divided into a lot of small articles. If you get to know Wikipedia you will see that there is a lot of dynamics around it. Articles get merged, articles get split, article get rewritten, articles get redirected ... I will take some time to get use to. A combination of reading, commenting and editing is a good way to get acquainted. All depends on what you want to accomplice yourselve. Good luck. - Mdd 22:02, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


Wikipedia:WikiProject Conceptual Jungle

The Wikiproject Conceptual Jungle is in some respect related to this WikiProject. Conceptual Jungle is aiming at a scientific nomenclature, among others by creating an overview of sciences/scientific adjectives. Any help is much appreciated in this project, best regards --Brz7 12:43, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Systems theory and systems science has been called a terminological jungle from the beginning in the 1950s. I believe some Dutch guy refered to it as being a systems jungle I guess you could also see them as a conceptual jungle as well. You define this as the big diversity of names for concepts without coherence and comprehensiveness.
The thing we want to do about it is, to clearify these concepts one at the time and to put them in perspective. Now I read that the Conceptual Jungle project in short aims at a scientific nomenclature. It wants to make overviews, tables and qualifications. I very much doubt one can do this in a generalistic way. But I wish you all the best. - Mdd 21:14, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Hi mdd, thanks for your thoughtful reply! Clearification of concepts can be done in various ways and - as I implied above - I see the merits of systems theory/WikiProject Systems as a way to help achieve this goal. The current overviews and tables are a first important step (mapping the jungle) towards qualification of the (names of the) concepts, as what you call clearifying concepts one at the time and putting them in perspective. Concepts are all interrrelated, the challenge is to see how they are interrelated and how to properly name these concepts. Both projects (and more) contribute to this. Best regards, --Brz7 13:42, 8 July 2007 (UTC)