Talk:Eric W. Weisstein

Untitled

About MathWorld, the article states, "It is regarded as an important resource for both professional and student mathematicians."

I regard this with skepticism as I don't know any mathematicians that consider this an important resource for them. The mathematicians I know prefer to look up their information in standard books in their subject. --C S (Talk) 05:37, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I've removed that sentence. Even if I were to have replaced it by saying "...important resource for students", the problem remains that it is only an editor's opinion and doesn't explain by whom "it is regarded...". Not only that, but I don't really see the point of having this sentence anyway. --C S (Talk) 02:01, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

NPOV problem

"displayed a propensity to document that which he has learned in an extremely rigorous manner"

Gimmie a break. --CKL

Yes, there are some NPOV issues with this article; also, the beginning sentence doesn't even make any sense: "encyclopedist in several technical areas of science and mathematics"? MathWorld, for example, is a general mathematics work and the more technical articles are written by contributors, not Weisstein. Well, anyway, I'll go through and see what I can do quickly. --C S (Talk) 09:29, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

He does have other Treasure Troves (in music, chemistry, etc.). --CKL

Well, depending on how you parse it, you could read the statement to mean "...of science and mathematics". My overall point, though, is that when Weissten writes a general astronomy, chemistry, or mathematics reference, to say he is an "encyclopedist in several technical areas of science and mathematics" makes it seem as though he is writing a technical reference, which is quite different than writing a general reference. Anyway, I removed the statement. --C S (Talk) 21:24, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

CRC Lawsuit

I'm probably too late on this issue, but I just heard of it. I read the detailed explanation by Eric and I have to say that I am appalled. The first thing that shocked me was the seemingly unsatiable desire for money expressed by the people that sued Eric. The second thing was the fact that they actually won! I can not possibly be the only one who sees how absurd this is. How can such an injustice pass by as if it was an ordinary day-to-day happening? A man was sued for content he created WITHOUT ANY HELP from the plaintiff, BEFORE any contract was ever signed, not to mention the fact that there is nothing in the contract mentioning any kind of copyright transfer! You don't need to be a judge to see the party that is in the right for this "case." It is common sense. I definitely won't be buying any books from such an idiotic ... err ... entrepreneurial ... company any time soon. I urge you to do the same.

As a side note, I also noticed that Mathworld still contains a link to purchase the book at the end of the sidebar. I don't care how much in royalties Weisstein gets, it is unethical to promote the book as far as I'm concerned. I just wanted to say that. 68.183.189.47 00:20, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

After submitting the message above, I had one more predominant thought: How do these people sleep at night? Ok, this time I'm done. Really. 68.183.189.47 00:44, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I just read the commentary and I see nothing wrong whatsoever with what CRC did. Did Weisstein actually believe that CRC would pay to print a book that anyone can read online? Weisstein mentioned that the book was selling "well." That doesn't mean anything to business majors like me. If your product is available for free, then chances are you'll have to lower your price to sell it. Sales will doubtlessly fall, also. He raised another straw-man argument about preventing large-scale downloads. As an avid e-book reader, I never download books that are easily accessable online. Weisstein never stated his cut of the revenue, so it's very possible that CRC actually lost money on the venture. I don't know much about printing, but I'd assume that CRC had to make new rollers to print the books, proofread the books, design the pages, and design the brochures. Weisstein didn't even say whether CRC was actually able to sell all of its books. My guess is that CRC gave up trying to sell them.

This matter came to my attention when I was reading about the book on Amazon.com. I was trying to find out how many entries the book has, but instead I got an earful about how this Weisstein guy is supposedly being persecuted. I'm about 99% certain all of those reviewers were him. I'm also 99% certain you're him. Wikipedia forbids users to edit their own biographies, and I stongly believe every one of Weisstein's sockpuppet accounts should be blocked here and on Amazon. I find this spamming very offensive. I've seen companies go after people wrongly before. Cases which people never hear about. Yet, this guy has managed to make a lot of noise about this, even though CRC was obviously the victim.--67.165.207.21 04:09, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Did Weisstein actually believe that CRC would pay to print a book that anyone can read online?

What planet are you from? Of course there are people who buy stuff you can get online. Becaause the one is online, and the other one is an actual book that you can read in your bed, on the toilet, and in the train. In a nice format and an nice medium. And you can support the author. Of course this is worth some money. Choose a right price, try to be profitable, and you have a business. I think you can easily be profitable with such a thing.

So stop spreading the indoctrination of the media industry. It is well-proven, that having the stuff avaliable online does not kill the distribution, packaging and marketing business. You just have to actually adapt to the market. Huh? Who would have thought that? :P -- 88.77.154.63 (talk) 22:47, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Dead Links

The link "Weisstein's Commentary on the CRC Press Lawsuit against MathWorld" (in References) seems to be dead. HowiAuckland (talk) 01:15, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Also the link "Update on the CRC Press Lawsuit against MathWorld" seems to be dead also. HowiAuckland (talk) 01:16, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Also the link "# FAQ on the CRC Press Lawsuit against MathWorld" seems to be dead. HowiAuckland (talk) 01:17, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I've corrected all of these links. Kevin Carmody (talk) 10:17, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Copyright of MathWorld

The article states "Among these benefits are the inclusion of a copyright notice of the CRC Press at the bottom of all webpages in MathWorld and legal rights to reproduce MathWorld in book format again." But a quick check of a couple of MathWorld articles shows the notice "© 1999-2010 Wolfram Research, Inc." Is the sentence out of date? Since the copyright notice dates itself all the way back to 1999, was the above statement ever correct? Duoduoduo (talk) 00:31, 28 May 2010 (UTC)