User talk:Allan McInnes/Archive3

Archive of User talk:Allan McInnes covering 2006-07-01 through 2007-02-17

Structural Engineering matter

Hi Allan,

i wonder why you keep trying to delete the "Structural engineering" as a main branch of engineering. Do you really understand what is structural engineering ? I think you are just simply follow the listed provided by the ASEE. In reality, structural engineering is not really similar and also not really a sub-discipline of civil engineering. It covers the structural design and analysis of all civil, mechanical, aerospace, material, architectural, naval architecture and even biomedical's structures. I am a structural engineer, I don't agree structural engineering is belong to any other engineering branch, it is an independent engineering disciplince. The design and analysis of buildings and bridges, we called it civil structures but not structural engineering. Structural engineering means anything related to the design and analysis for structural compenents and systems. This is the point i need to clarify with you. Besides, although the ASEE does not list out structural engineering as main branch of engineering, this doesn't mean that structural engineering is not a main branch of engineering. In many U.S. states, structural engineer requires different license to civil engineer in order to practice as a structural engineer and the license for structural engineer does not really require undergraudate degree in civil engineering as the minimum education requirement, but with architecutral engineering background also can sit for the structural engineer licensing exam. We are here to help to editing the wikipedia, ASEE standard is only for American people but not for the whole world. --Hwachang82

I am sure that you believe that structural engineering is a separate branch of engineering. I even agree with you - I've worked with a number of structural engineers on spacecraft design projects. As such, I think it is perfectly valid to list structural engineering in the Fields of engineering article. However, in order to support the claim that structural engineering is a major branch of engineering it is necessary to provide some kind of reference for the claim (personally, I would include software engineering as a major branch of engineering, but my opinion doesn't matter, only what I can provide a reference for). See Wikipedia's policy on verifiability for more information. The current version of the list in the Engineering article contains the 19 branches of engineering explicitly identified by the National Society of Professional Engineers as "major branches of engineering" (feel free to check the reference - that's the point of having references). As I said before, if you can provide an alternate reference which lists structural engineering as one of the "major branches of engineering", then by all means do so. But please stop adding unreferenced items to the list. --Allan McInnes (talk)

20:29, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I think I understand what u try to point out. Anyway thank for that. Hwachang82

Thanks for cleaning up FBP!

Thanks for cleaning up FBP! I note that Visual programming languages have been removed, but this is implied by Data flow languages, so I guess it was redundant. Is it OK to mix footnote references in with References - could you take a look? It looks a bit odd to me!

I wasn't sure about the companies, but I wanted to convey a sense of the maturity of the technology - any suggestions? Thanks in advance. Jpaulm 18:55, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I removed "visual programming language" from the "See also" section because there is already a wikilink to it in the leader section. Typically the "See also" section should only contain relevant wikilinks that don't appear elsewhere in the article.

I agree that mixing notes and references looks a little odd. My personal preference is to make every reference a footnote - that makes it clear which references were used as a resource in the creation of a specific piece of text, and ensures that the reference list doesn't become cluttered with references that weren't actually used in preparing the current incarnation of an article. In the interim, I have created a separate "Notes" section to hold the footnotes.

Regarding the conveyance of a "sense of the maturity of the technology", you might try adding something to the history section that discusses current use of FBP. That would be a reasonable place to mention the companies that implement FBP-based tools.

Is my attempt OK? I am not sure if "current" is right - should I specify a month and year, or just assume that, if things change, an editor will pick it up? Jpaulm 20:29, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Beautiful! However, this leads to the question whether my other web site references should use "cite web", including accessdates? I suppose the difference is that a company may change its products, whereas a research paper is unlikely to change the foundations it is built on... Jpaulm 00:32, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The "cite web" template is a good idea IMO. As for the use of access date: although it's true that a paper won't change its foundations, where a research paper has been published as html I personally prefer to include an access date as well, simply because websites have a habit of being revised. But that's just personal preference, rather than Wikipedia policy. It's up to you whether or not you want to include access dates. --Allan McInnes (talk) 05:22, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

As an aside, I just took a look at your userage, and realized who you are. First of all, allow me to welcome you to Wikipedia! I have no doubt that you can make some great contributions here. Secondly, I want to caution you to be careful that your contributions are not seen as self-promotion (a danger when you are the one responsible for the work you are writing about). You may want to review the arbitration case at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Carl Hewitt, which was sparked by the problems arising out of Carl Hewitt's editing on topics involving the Actor model, and should give you some idea of the kind of concerns that have been raised in the past. Please note that I am not suggesting that what you have contributed so far is problematic. I simply want to make sure that you aware of the potential pitfalls, and can avoid them. --Allan McInnes (talk) 19:23, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Allan! Yes, since I posed the question, I realized that I should try to make every reference a footnote, as you suggest. I'll look at the Hewitt thing - I am aware of some of the pitfalls, and have been working hard at NPOV, so an actual case study should be useful... PS It seems that there is a real problem on Wikipedia with stuff that a person knows, but is not in published documents - I have run into this one on a totally different topic. Regards. Jpaulm 20:13, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

The problem with things people know, but that are not published, is that Wikipedia has policies of avoiding "original research", and ensuring that articles are verifiably correct. Both of these policies exist for very good reasons, which are described on the respective policy pages. --Allan McInnes (talk) 20:26, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

After much wheel-spinning I finally used a "cite journal" for one of the articles, and used Citeseer references for some others. a) Did I do that right?, and b) the Citeseer tag doesn't seem to have an accessdate - is that because it's not needed, or can/should it be added? And, if so, how? And, by the way, can you give me a definition (or place to look) for the difference between "functional" and "applicative"? TIA Jpaulm 17:19, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Wow! The references section in FBP looks much better. Nice work! The use of {{cite journal}} looks fine (although I did tweak it to use "lastname, firstname" for the first author.

I'm not really familiar with the Citeseer template. From a quick glance at the template definition it doesn't appear to include fields for anything other than the title and Citeseer-level URL. If you prefer a more fleshed-out reference (with authors and other info), you might consider using the relevant Citeseer bibliographic info to construct a {{cite journal}} citation that has provides the full Citeseer URL in the "url" field.

I'm not sure there is a difference between functional and applicative programming. I've seen the two terms used interchangeably in a number of venues. This (albeit brief) thread on the excellent Lambda the Ultimate programming language weblog may be helpful. --Allan McInnes (talk) 20:38, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Allan! I thought maybe "applicative" was a purer form of "functional" - bdenckla seems to be saying something like that too... So it looks like I don't have to worry. Also, I thought maybe Citeseer conferred a higher degree of "confidence", but if it's interchangeable with {{cite journal}}, maybe I'll go back to that...? Jpaulm 00:01, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

The advantage of using {{cite journal}} (perhaps with a citeseer url) is that it provides readers of the article with more information than just a link to citeseer. It gives them a full citation that they can , for example, use to find the cited article in their library. Providing full citations is also a good idea because Wikipedia isn't intended to be an online-only encyclopaedia. --Allan McInnes (talk) 00:15, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks again! This is quite a learning experience! I am still undecided about which articles to reference, but, when I decide, I will follow your advice! Does Citeseer confer any more confidence? I find its search mechanism unreliable... I am also trying the "ref name=..." convention - I would appreciate it if you could look at the section I have just added to FBP, and see what you think... TIA Jpaulm 14:51, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

The use of "ref name=" looks good to me. As for Citeseer, I don't really have any opinion one way or the other. I personally use Citeseer quite a bit, but not as my only source of papers. One advantage that Citeseer does have (unlike say the ACM portal) is that it is freely accessible to all. --Allan McInnes (talk) 22:57, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Just added a quick summary para to 1st section of FBP - is this too much like selling? Perhaps you might try rephrasing it... Thanks. Jpaulm 19:22, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I tried going the GA route as Peer review didn't get any feedback, and I failed miserably! (I also tried GA/R and got a bit more feedback.) In a way this result does not surprise me as I haven't had much success over the years in getting articles published - not academic enough, I guess! Could we get some kind of collaboration going to improve the article - perhaps via the Wikiproject on Computer Science...? Thanks in advance. Jpaulm 19:10, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it's been my experience that the Peer Review process doesn't tend to generate all that much useful feedback. Glad to hear that the GA/R netted you some comments though. WPCS would certainly be a good venue to solicit for help with the article. I'm afraid that I don't personally have the time to help out with the FBP article right now, although I may stop by and try to do some copy-editing and style tweaks from time to time. --Allan McInnes (talk) 19:26, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Allan, I know you're pretty busy! I am trying WPCS - maybe that will net some keener who can spot what the fundamental problem is! I got a whiff of it from the GA(/R) comments, but I am really not sure how to integrate the suggestions... Any style tweaks you can do would certainly be welcome! Jpaulm 15:02, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Nobody has stepped up to WPCS - yet! There is an area that I could really use some help or direction in, and it's fairly specific: I am confused about references, links, etc. FBP is being referenced fairly extensively in blogs and wikis, and also, as I said in the article, on the web sites of 3 companies that I know of. I tried to convey a sense of this in the list of articles, but User:Ideogram removed what I viewed as a key sentence explaining this. WP:REF seems to imply that references are either to support the concepts or for further reading, but I want to show how people are building on FBP. Could you give me some tips, or suggest a structure and wording. Or maybe I'm totally off base vis a vis WP. TIA. Jpaulm 14:51, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

The paragraph that Ideogram removed was pretty vague. I think you'd be better off having a paragraph or section that explicitly discusses different implementations of FBP ideas, and makes reference to the relevant company websites. As for links to blogs and wikis, these are generally discouraged on Wikipedia. And trying to use a range of blog and wiki references to infer something about the popularity of FBP ideas would, IMHO, amount to original research. If you want to discuss opinions about the value or popularity of FBP you really need to be able to provide some kind of external reference (such as an article that discusses such things). AS for WPCS, you might have better luck posting something on the project talk page, which I think more people track than the "articles needing attention" page. Hope that helps. --Allan McInnes (talk) 16:00, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Software architecture & system engineering...

Allan - I had posted on talk:software architecture my question about the "To Be Engineered" casing, then saw that you have corrected that. Thanks.

I've been watching the software & system engineering articles & see that you've contributed quite a bit; so, thanks, I appreciate your work. -- Bwefler 23:07, 13 July 2006 (UTC) talk (somewhat of a renegade software engineering grad student...)

You're welcome! I appreciate receiving a personal message of thanks :-)

I wish I could spare more time to really beat those articles into shape, but... well... you know how it goes.

--Allan McInnes (talk) 23:34, 13 July 2006 (UTC) (something of a renegade grad student myself...)

Thanks for the welcome

Thanks for the welcome message Allan. I am a newbie in wikipedia with little spare time but I am intending to at least contribute to the discussions. Takhisis 01:32, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

New Zealander-Israeli relations

I noticed you identified yourself as a Wikipedian in New Zealand. You may be interested in New Zealander-Israeli relations. Respectfully, Republitarian 23:33, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

'peacock words'?

Hi Allan,

Reference to your last edit comment for Career domains in computer science, you have used phrase 'peacock words'. From the 'diff', I can make out what you mean. However, when I looked up the phrase at www.m-w.com, could not find it. Is it a local lingo/ slang? Just curious... --Raanoo 08:42, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

It is indeed local (i.e. Wikipedia) lingo. See Wikipedia:Avoid peacock terms. --Allan McInnes (talk) 04:35, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Formatting in Eiffel programming language

I wonder if I could get your input at Talk:Eiffel programming language#What code formatting convention should be used?. It turns out that Bertrand Meyer has been doing a lot of work on the article, which seems to be mostly a good thing—the content has certainly been enhanced significantly. However, it's still a bit of a mixed bag. There is lots of good content he's added, but the tone of him writing about "his baby" is slightly off. Not terrible though.

The narrow issue I would like your opinion on is the article use of what is apparently an idiosyncracy about how Eiffel documentation formats code samples. Meyer takes the somewhat silly position that doing it differently than his company, Eiffel Software, does would "misrepresent the language". I personally would really like it to follow conventions of other PL articles, at least as a direction... well, you can seen the discussion at the link (I put an narrow article RfC to try to get comments on the issue too). LotLE×talk 07:14, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome

I've been listening in on the Functional Programming entry for the past couple months now. You'll probably see more contributions in the future. Just to fill you in on my own background. I've been working with the storage and analysis of time series data for the past 15 years or so. My interest in functional program stems from my initial attempts to learn K about four years ago. I found the language incredibly hard and completely alien to the way I'd been programming. That's when I began to do research into Lisp, APL and later functional programming in general, which was essential to gaining a clear understanding of what K was about. More recently I've been creating materials for teaching a course in K and consequently been doing more extensive research into functional programming.

I have some strong opinions which I'm guessing differ a bit from your own take as well as LotLE, but I think it will be productive all around. Abcarter 19:17, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

No doubt :-) That's the beauty of the Wikipedia system - we all get to contribute (and as a result, we all get to learn as well). I've never had cause to use K, since it's application domain is pretty far outside the scope of my activities (both in research and in industry). But I'm looking forward to learning the K perspective from you. So welcome aboard! the FP article :-) --Allan McInnes (talk) 19:58, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

So how does this work

I'm a bit confused at the process. I explained what my proposed changes were, answers objections and waited for replies. After getting none I went ahead. Six minutes later LotLE complete reverts. He objects to my intro sentence. He may well have a point, but I did give an explanation in the discussion section and wondering why he doesn't simply make a change rather than revert the entire set of changes I made. This isn't a complaint so much as a query about whether this is the usual procedure. Abcarter 17:47, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I can't speak for LotLE. However, there is some difference between making some general pronouncements about what kind of changes you wish to make, and actually implementing specific changes. It's not uncommon to find that other editors will agree with the general approach you wish to take, but object to the specifics. I've often seen the cycle: large change; reversion; discussion about specific changes; consensus. I couldn't say whether or not it's "the usual procedure" - I'm not sure Wikipedia has one. But it is common enough to have it's own guideline. I wouldn't get too concerned about it. Now that everyone can see exactly what it is you had in mind we should be able to reach some kind of consensus version that everyone's happy with. --Allan McInnes (talk) 19:32, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

your WSN edits

I have a few objections to your WSN page edits. It seems like you have cleared up the external links (which is a good thing), but i think that you have cleared up a bit too much. The commercial companies links had to go - i agree. But why are the following links removed?

• TinyOS Website
• The Sensor Network Museum (Resource on Sensor Network Hardware)
• MAC Protocol Soup (listing and comparison of sensor MAC protocols)

The reason you are giving is "rm commercial links, blogs, foreign language links:"

TinyOS is a non-commercial open-source operating system and that website is NOT a blog. TinyOS is the basic building block of sensor networks. tinyos.net is the FIRST website that a person not familiar with sensor networks is reffered to and it has a lot of very helpful resources.

The Sensor Network Museum is an effort to collect information about various sensor node hardware platforms. Its the most extensive resource available on sensor network hardwares (not pertaining to any one specific platform but doing a nice breadth and depth wise search of ALL platforms proposed so far). There is a section on "hardware" in the WSN article and this resource is the natural next step for readers interested in further links on sensor network hardware.

MAC Protocol Soup: Again, the most comprehensive listings of MAC protocols in sensor networks. There are a *lot* of MAC protocols for sensor networks outthere and this is the most extensive study done on MAC protocols in "trying to make sense out of it all".

I am a sensor networks researcher and been working in the field for around 3 years now. All the above three links are the most important, impartial, and very useful links which are compiled after years of efforts from various research groups. I am of the opinion that the wikipedia readers should be given links to them (if they want to look for further information).

Please reply on MY talk page as I am sure that I would forget to check this talk page. and thanks for your clearing up effort on the WSN page.

 Muneeb.ali 02:03, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Replied at User talk:Muneeb.ali --Allan McInnes (talk) 16:27, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the wellcome message, i appreciate it. Regards. Addicted2Sanity 04:50, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

more to come on software architectures

Allan,

I'm new to Wikipedia, from editor's point of view, and I hope I'm correct in editing this page to communicate with you. I will be working actively to update the software architecture page over the next few weeks. Then I'll work on updating other relevant software architectures sub-topics. I was surprised to see the page in such primitive stage. I'm still learning the tools of trade, so I will seek your guidance on proper formatting, etc.

Thanks for communicating and keeping an eye on this page. FirebrandCK.Firebrandck 05:17, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

You're doing just fine :-) I'm glad to see someone doing some work on Software architecture. I agree that it's in a very primitive form. I've tried to do a little work on it but (a) I don't have time for in-depth work on the article, and (b) while I have an interest in software architecture, my knowledge of it is mostly limited to having studied Allen's work on the Wright ADL and my background in systems architecture in general. So it's great to see someone knowledgeable in software arhcitecture making significant contributions. I'm certainly more than happy to help out with formatting and any other questions you might have. Please don't hesitate to ask. --Allan McInnes (talk) 17:43, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Looking forward to working with you in the near future ... Firebrandck 18:13, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for formatting my edits. I will use your augmentation of my references as examples as I move forward. I'm also planning to introduce new sections down the line... Thanks again! Firebrandck 20:49, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

Hi there! Thanks for welcoming me to WikiProject CS! NerdyNSK 18:02, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

RE your post Counter Machine:Reference Model

wvbailey here: I don't know what to make of what has been going on relative to that article. Probably in response to "anonymous", "Krauss" created the page yesterday, then I corrected the English and added to it -- all of the in-line citations, plus the syntax, the justification for the mnemonic-choice etc. (RE the article history). But all of this has been going on because of "anonymous"'s insistence. Go to the discussion on the Register machine discussion page to see what a mess this has been since "anonymous" appeared. (Recently I split the Counter machine page off from Register machine so most of the talk appears on the reg-mach discussion page.) Some of what "anonymous" suggested is a good idea -- to define a simple syntax so a comparison of the models is easier. But, for example, the creation of the "RefLib" strikes me as (maybe) going too far in the NOR direction, I can't tell. Because of his persistence it feels like "anon" is having me write chapters in his wiki-book, or something. I need a bit of perspective here: any advice or suggestions would be welcome. Thanks, wvbaileyWvbailey 13:51, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

"RefLib", sans any kind of reference, strikes me as being very much original research. Other text in the article comes across more as an essay rather than an encyclopedia article. Having some conventions for presentation makes sense to me. Trying to use those conventions to make comparisons that haven't already been made in the literature starts to get into OR terriitory in my opinion. --Allan McInnes (talk) 03:34, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

This is my worry too. But the syntax thing has been very helpful, i.e the stuff that looks like:

[ r ] + 1 → r

This is verbatim from the text Boolos-Burgess-Jeffrey (2002) and very close to Minsky (1967). But whether we can use this syntax to explain, for comparison purposes, the models on Counter machine models, I dunno, would the use of this syntax be OR? And also helpful has been Krauss's insistence on a standardized use of mnemonics as functions such as INC(r) or JZ(r,z). Please comment.

I don't see a problem with using some kind of standardized syntax for presentation. Where I see problems arising is in the transition from standardized presentation to presenting some kind of comparative analysis, if that comparison or analysis has not been previously presented in the literature. That's when the use of the "reference model" starts to seem like OR to me.--Allan McInnes (talk) 18:20, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

For sure it is true that many examples in the two texts are there -- how to build new functions from the base functions, in a manner similar to the table. But I am uncomfortable with the RefLib. Krauss will put up a fight and be disappointed, I think. Is there some way around this? I know in the past other wiki-folk have tried to come up with a standardized computer "language" (some sort or other), and failed. If you know of a "successful article" in this regard, please point me there. Or if you know of some other advisors who can render opinions, please do. (I don't know of any). We could vote, for example. Thanks.

I don't know of any successes. User:Deco proposed something called WikiCode a while back, as a kind of standardized pseudocode. It was strongly opposed from some quarters. The approach eventually taken by WikiProject Computer science was to provide some style guidelines (see here) for describing algorithms and writing pseudocode, but to leave things fairly flexible (necessary in part because of the differing levels of abstraction in different algorithm presentations). You could try asking at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computer science to see if anyone else has ideas on how to handle this issue. --Allan McInnes (talk) 18:20, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

This OR thing is hard: we can never know all "the literature", often what I think is OR turns out to be out there somewhere. But I've had a lot of experience with patent law, and there is a similar problem there too -- lawyers make fortunes off the disputes.

Also, given that the article survives, how do we fix its name? Thanks, wvbaileyWvbailey 15:21, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, what it boils down to is that if something isn't OR, then the editor submitting the material should be able to provide a reference. Just saying "there's probably some literature on this out there somewhere" doesn't cut it, because we have no way of knowing if (a) that's actually true, or (b) whether or not what the editor is submitting is in agreement with the literature. Wikipedia has a policy of verifiability for good reason. If material looks useful, but doesn't come with references, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia. WP is simply the wrong venue for material that hasn't been previously published elsewhere.

As for fixing the name, probably the easiest thing to do is to move the article to something like Wikipedia:Counter machine reference model (analogous to Wikipedia:Algorithms), and then get Counter Machine:Reference Model deleted (the colon in the name is definitely a problem, since colons are supposed to identify namespaces, which "Counter Machine" is not). --Allan McInnes (talk) 18:20, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Re:Welcome to WikiProject CS

Hey thanks! Good to see another UC alumnus on Wikipedia!--James Bond 22:29, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Question about characterizing KDB

Allen, I've been doing some work on the K language entry. Based on a suggestion I've merged the entry on KDB into the K entry. No problem with any of this, and in general have a fairly clear idea of what I want to add in regards to KDB. Here's my problem. Is KDB a relational database? I have two opposing arguments and I consider both problematic. Kx Systems and Arthur Whitney say that it is. I think this is mostly marketing and think that it is not. I have my reasons which I can articulate, the core point being that KDB has no data model, there is no distinction made between a logical description of the data and the way it's physical stored. I know this is my opinion, even if I'm right it's more original research than reference. That's fine, I don't have a lot invested in this, but do I simply take the vendor's word? Understand that I don't think I can simply duck the decision here. Abcarter 22:44, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmmmm... I don't really know anything about KDB. From a cursory glance at the Kx website I see that they decribe it as a "relational database". Without digging further, it's hard to know how valid that claim is. The best approach is probably to avoid stating what KDB is directly, but rather to rely on vendor quotes. Statements like

Kx Systems describes KDB as a "...relational database architected for scalable high performance as data volumes grow..."

are totally factual. The reader can choose to take them at face value, or to dig deeper on the Kx website. But unless you can find some kind of published analysis indicating that KDB isn't a database I don't think you can justifiably add anything that explicitly states that KDB doesn't meet the criteria to be a database - you're correct that doing so would cross in to original research. Anyway, that's my opinion of the matter, for what it's worth. Hope it's helpful. --Allan McInnes (talk) 02:39, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

A minor correction: KDB is most definitely a database, just not a relational database. But your suggestion is clearly the way to go. Thanks. Abcarter 12:58, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

AfD for John_Paul_Morrison

Hi Allan,

You were very helpful in the area of WP conventions before - I am wondering if you could give some guidance: I have been told that I can improve this article by adding citing articles to Talk:John_Paul_Morrison, so I have added quite a few there (my hand got tired!). There are also several on Flow-based programming. My question is how to tie them together...? My other question is whether you would be willing to add a section on how FBP relates to Actor theory. Thanks. Jpaulm 19:17, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your vote, Allan. I understand and agree that I should not edit the article myself - do you have any ideas about what should be done with the references in Talk:John_Paul_Morrison... and who might do it? Also, my request about Actor theory still stands! Jpaulm 02:20, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. I'd suggest leaving the references on the talk page for now, and perhaps asking some of the users who voted in favor of keeping the article to take soem time to review the reference and add any they think are appropriate to the body of the article. I'll try to make a little time myself, but I'm kind of swamped at work right now, so my WP activities are somewhat limited.

Thanks - I'll do that... and if you do have the time later, that would be just great!

As for Actor theory, I'm afraid that I may not be the best person to contribute such a section. Although I've edited the Actor model some (and argued with Carl Hewitt a lot :-) I'm far from an expert on Actor theory and the relevant literature. I have no idea if anyone has written anything on the relationship between FBP and Actors. I do recall seeing some traffic on one of the Communicating Sequential Processes mailing lists discussing FBP. But I'm not sure if it ever got beyond an email exchange. --Allan McInnes (talk) 02:27, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I've seen some stuff on the blogs - maybe I can entice one of the authors to contribute some words:-) All the best for the season! Jpaulm 17:26, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Auckland Meetup 2 Scheduled - Feb 10 2007

You are invited to Auckland Meetup 2 on the afternoon of Saturday February 10th 2007 at Galbraith's Ale House in Mt Eden. Please see Wikipedia:Meetup/Auckland 2 for details. You can also bookmark Wikipedia:Meetup/Auckland to be informed of future NZ meetups. - SimonLyall 06:46, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Blocking a User

How can I recommend that a particular user be blocked? Tparameter 05:34, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

That kind of thing usually takes place on the Administrators' noticeboard. You may want to read over the policy on blocking first. --Allan McInnes (talk) 19:02, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Take for instance, this entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=0.999...&diff=103344522&oldid=103116194 by USER:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/204.52.215.96

Would you say that justifies blocking? I read the policy, and it's kind of vague. It seems to me that once someone does a blatant vandalism that they should probably be blocked. What say you? Tparameter 14:35, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

You might consider sticking a warning template on User talk:204.52.215.96 first. Something like {{blatantvandal}} or {{Uw-vandalism3}} would be reasonable. Assuming that doesn't stop the vandalism (which I suspect it won't) then I'd say it's probably worth bringing this up on the noticeboard. The user in question certainly seems to engage in a lot of vandalism, at least based on the sprinkling of edits I took a look at. --Allan McInnes (talk) 03:54, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Software Quality Assurance

Regarding this edit: [1]...please don't mark an article that's clearly bad or designed to create a link to a website as a copyvio. Mark it as bad or spam above all else. Copyvio only causes the source to provide us with an email permitting its use, and then we have to go through the motions of getting rid of the garbage all over again. Thanks! Bastiq▼e ^demandez 15:48, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

My apologies. I didn't think that the article was necessarily bad (although the style could use some work). But it did seem to be a violation of copyright from SQA.net. --Allan McInnes (talk) 18:28, 17 February 2007 (UTC)