Talk:Peter Nordin

Verifiability

To comply with the very important verifiability rule, make sure that every fact is cited to an independent, secondary reliable source (like a biographical newspaper article, say). Info that isn't backed up by outside sources can eventually get deleted, especially in biographical articles. Also, I still am waiting to hear from Jan-Olof Yxell about whether the image can be released under a free license. Most Wikipedia editors will not be satisfied with the current situation. I'm going to wait a couple more days and then put it up for review. Sorry about that.. nadav (talk) 21:47, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, I've been keeping an eye on this article and I agree more sources are needed. How does this contributor relate to the subject of the article?

/ Mats Halldin (talk) 22:35, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure how they know each other. Have you also been following the discussion about the picture on Rogerfgay's talk page? And yes, it's always good to keep an eye out. nadav (talk) 23:08, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

No, I did notice there was something with that image, but I didn't follow that discussion. However, the article is under development, so lets just wait and see...

/ Mats Halldin (talk) 11:24, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I have written to the photographer (Jan) but haven't heard back yet. I hope he hasn't left for vacation. Here in Sweden, that might mean that he won't be back on the job for 6-8 weeks. The country almost closes in the summer. The photographer is a university employee - so I know that one hurdle is crossed. If he was an outside photographer, he might claim some rights. The only thing that's got me wondering is the cultural difference between Sweden and the US. They often treat things very formally (bureaucratically) that we (Americans) are informal (efficient) about, and things we take formally, they often treat very informally. I asked if he's willing to grant a free use license, but if he's not interested, then I think that fair use makes perfect sense. "Just go ahead and use it," is more Swedish - especially from a government source like a university. I'm not a Swedish lawyer, so I don't know if it's in the public domain like US Government stuff is. But it might be, and a government employee might not be someone who grants licenses. Rogerfgay 15:43, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Re: verifiability and the use of references. Hadn't I included the publications list when that comment was made? I'm a little at a loss regarding finding citations for things like his birth date or the name of his wife, etc. But the publications provide very strong published (peer reviewed even) verification of what he's been up to. Rogerfgay 15:43, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Let's hope circumstances regarding that image will be straightened out. However, the article's Reference section remains empty. Readers will want to know where the information in the article comes from. Additionally, creating articles such as Institute of Robotics in Scandinavia AB and Men's News Daily, IMHO, increases the risk this article and other of your contributions will be regarded as pure old spam. Rogerfgay, what is your personal relation to Peter Nordin and to robotics? As far as I can tell, Peter Nordin really deserves an article, but the structure of the article and your contributions make me doubt.

/ Mats Halldin (talk) 18:43, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Hej Mats. You seem like a guy who likes to live dangerously, right on the edge of personal attack sorts of things. I copied the structure of the article from another well-established roboticist on Wikipedia Rodney Brooks. Why not try answering the questions instead of sitting back and being judgmental? Are you really interested in challenging the guys birth date, his wife's name, or his town of residence? The reference section doesn't have anything in it yet, but I'll probably add something, as soon as I decide what looks like it needs a citation. Are alma maters often verified with a citation? I've met Peter a few times but he lives on the other side of Sweden, in Gothenburg. I live near Stockholm. I founded my own AI company back in the late 1980s and some of my stuff is being applied in robotics. I have also spent time as a journalist and commentator. Regarding your lack of interest in other information, such as Men's News Daily, etc. I know there's an audience that not every entry is of interest to every person but the subjects are well within the scope of existing Wikipedia subjects. So what's up? Why have you chosen to take a threatening posture with me?

(Edit conflict) Hej, hej!

My intention was not to be threatening and, no, I'm not a dangerous person. However, there are still no sources in the article and Men's News Daily actually looks like spam, and only that. For an idea what I mean with using references, please have a look at my own article Drevviken. I don't claim the article is great but it is easy for anyone (understanding Swedish) to find out where what piece of information stems from.

I can see several facts in the first sentence that are not referenced: "Drevviken is a lake in southern Stockholm, Sweden, shared by the four municipalities Stockholm, Haninge, Huddinge, and Tyresö." http://www.natur.huddinge.se/sjoar/drevan/drevvik.htm Rogerfgay 08:58, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

The state of the MND article is known in Wikipedia-språk as a stub. I have no doubt that MND exits and that the description given in the stub is accurate. I will probably have some time to get back to that later. In the mean time, I'm sending out some email to people who are familiar with the publication, hoping they might have an interest in contributing. I'm not trying to write the whole Wikipedia encyclopedia myself. Rogerfgay 09:00, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Again, I respect the "work in progress" sign in the article and hope you will develop it in the right direction. But please explain even Alma mater, a simple citation is often more than enough to make others understand the subject of the article is of general interest and not a Tabula rasa.

Aside from the bizarre use of the term tabula rasa, I think you're being silly here. Both universities are linked to their Wikipedia entries. Rogerfgay 09:05, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I hope your knowledge to robotics will prove handy on Wikipedia. / Mats Halldin (talk) 20:07, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

From what I can see, there's a bunch of updating that needs to be done on Wikipedia. There are certainly many more external citations to science and technology stuff than personal stuff; so that's no problem. The basic technology (machine learning, evolutionary algorithms, genetic programming ....) is already on Wikipedia, but not so much about its application in robotics. There is already an entry for Evolutionary robotics, but I've been eyeing that for more editing, along with Humanoid robot, among others. This is an area where much has been happening. Governments all over the world have been pouring money into robotics R&D. We are at the beginning of the age of robots. BTW: I haven't found a Wikipedia entry for "Robot era" or "Age of robots". This should be a non-fiction entry, explaining factually what's going on and its relation to the general evolution of technology. Technological singularity is related.

Once you become more experienced as an editor, you should consider starting a robotics Wikiproject to coordinate efforts with others who have knowledge in this field for the purpose of expanding Wikipedia's robotics coverage. nadav (talk) 09:22, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I have to say that a Wikiproject is quite tempting. I actually like this sort of thing. But I'm unfortunately not in a position to make Wikipedia editing into a major part of my life's work right now. What I have in mind is a bit more focused on just making contributions to update material to include stuff that I know about. Rogerfgay 11:32, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

If there is no source about his life details, you don't have to include them. You can stick to what is in sources: discussions of his research, university positions, publications, etc. The verifiability policy is very important for Wikipedia. If there is any conflict of interest here, and I'm not saying there is, then it should be disclosed per WP:COI. Men's News Daily is probably notable. I've restructured that article and added a secondary source. nadav (talk) 19:57, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your help on MND page. The Website-stub tag puts it in the proper perspective. I recall the article you referenced. It, or something quite close to it, appeared in major newspaper article somewhere and was on the web. I remember that got enough attention to up his traffic considerably, not long after he started the site. Rogerfgay 12:04, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I've been looking around at other entries for scientists, and find that references in the summary section are quite rare. Challenges may come from other people who know the person / subject involved, based on what they know. But I don't see examples in which every detail is referenced to an external source. As an experienced writer and editor (even though I'm new to Wikipedia), I know that is not normal practice anywhere; and from my survey of other entries, I can see it's not normal on Wikipedia. I am checking facts, which is why it's taking so long to get out of construction mode. I've made some detailed changes to the text these last couple of days after finding more information. I am putting my normal effort into assuring that the facts are accurate and correct. Some details may not have a ref cited, but everything is being checked. Rogerfgay 08:58, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

(remember to sign comments with four tildes) Many Wikipedia articles are bad, to put it mildly. More optimistically, they are in a continual state of improvement. Citations should be added for pretty much everything in biographical articles especially (see Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons). nadav (talk) 08:52, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I read somewhere that a chief concern in writing biographical material is the risk of being sued for libel. There is nothing contentious in the article. Perhaps this is why there are not so many references to biographical material in other scientists' entries. Backgrounds are just summaries of things that other people who are familiar with the person know and may be documented in obscure or hard to reach ways - for example, scientific accomplishments are documented in scientific publications, material too obscure for the general public, and not focused enough on the summary point to be of use. Special participation in workshops and conferences are / were documented in conference material in ways that are not accessible on the web, etc. Rogerfgay 11:42, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Again, I think you're over-doing the explanation. I've met his wife. I know she exists and the name is spelled correctly. I'm sure there's a record of their marriage somewhere, but it would be silly to cite it. Everyone knows that marriages are recorded. Universities also have records of who graduated, etc. It's common knowledge. Rogerfgay 09:17, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Wow! Now here's an amazing coincidence. I looked deeper into the background of the article on Rodney Brooks. It was started by User:Matthew Stannard, who also did journalism and published a lot of stuff on family breakup and the importance of fatherhood.

Image - Fair Use accepted

I have received a response from the photographer. He accepts "fair use" of the image, but will not authorize a "free use" license. This conforms to the stated policy at the Chalmers image archive website, as I understand it. What this means, is that Wikipedia does not face any legal problem for "fair use" of the image. The rationalle for fair use is valid. There is no problem in the absense of challenge by the source.

Lead section

A lead section should be added to the article in accordance with the manual of style guideline. This will also prevent the table of contents from appearing in the wrong place. nadav (talk) 12:08, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I've looked at other articles about people and found that they either have very short lead paragraphs or none. Some take the text of the article and treat it as the lead paragraph, which I just don't like very much. It puts the table of contents below the primary text -- a very odd place that seems much less convinient as a way of getting quick information about what's on the page. I'll reformat in the pattern of the Ralph Waldo Emerson page ... but return to my use of "Profile" instead of "Life" because the subject isn't dead yet.

Headers

I've removed the "ToC" link and added a proper section header to the top debate. Remember that new discussions should have their own section header, and the page will automatically create a table of contents once it reaches 4 headers. -- Kesh 17:07, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Category Changes

Cyde - I noticed the category changes you made, from entrepreneur to businessperson. (These terms are sometimes used as synonyms.) I looked at the discussion (CFD) for the change, and did not see a clear indication that the change is official; only a vote to save the discussion. So, I do not know if the entrepreneur categories are actually being eliminated and that the changes you made are necessary. Also - it is clear to me that there is a difference between businessperson, entrepreneur, and inventor (maybe the comment re: inventor in the CFD was an illustration rather than ... ??) Anyway - not all business people are entrepreneurs. A business manager at a McDonalds restaurant for example, is not an entrepreneur. Peter Nordin is an entrepreneur who has very little to do with actually managing the businesses that he's been involved in creating. Rogerfgay 08:18, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Cyde just runs a bot that implements CfD decisions. You will want to bring this up with either the admin who closed the discussion on the category (User:Kbdank71) or the editor who nominated it (User:Pmanderson). You can open a deletion review if they disagree. nadav (talk) 08:42, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Does the fact that you included User:Kbdank71 and User:Pmanderson links mean the they will be automatically informed of this discussion? --Rogerfgay 09:25, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Automatically informed? I don't know what you mean...You have to post a message on their talk pages. nadav (talk) 09:27, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'll do that. But I've received messages several times now when people have used my link on other pages. I get the notification in red at the top of my page -- something like "You have new messages." I click on it, and it takes me to the page where a link to my user name exists. There is an automatic listing of pages where links to any other page (including user pages). I assumed that when a new link to a user page is created, that the system also automatically generates the message. --Rogerfgay 09:33, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

That list is generated as you click on the Special:Whatlinkshere/User talk:Rogerfgay link. The only time a user is "automatically informed" is when someone adds a comment on that persons talk page (i.e. I got a "red notification" when you dropped a message on User talk:Mats Halldin). To stay tuned you (and everyone else) have to use Special:Watchlist, a list which is individual.

/ Mats Halldin (talk) 18:56, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the details. I really wanted to understand that clearly. --Rogerfgay 11:02, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Page Not a Resume

The page contains a profile, just as many other pages of notable people contain profiles that focus on material related to the reason the person is notable. I am removing the Resume template once again, and want to warn against vandalism if it returns. I am involved in dicussions about the biography classification, even though the biography classification is not problematic just now. I'm doing it because I believe it could help improve classification. Seeing that discussion and then placing a resume template on the page just to irritate me, is just rude. --Rogerfgay 18:09, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

• Most of the article is just a list of publications and bulletted accomplishments... basic resume stuff. It should be mostly prose to be a proper encyclopedia biography. --W.marsh 18:13, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Rogerfgay, on Wikipedia all articles about individuals are biographies. That template is not intended to irritate you, it is a request to have the article confirm to general Wikipedia guidelines. If you manage to reach a consensus concerning a new classification of biography articles, feel free to remove the tag at that time. Meanwhile, please allow others to edit the article in accordance with present guidelines.

Please also note the link "like a resume" in that template leads to the page Wikipedia:Conflict of interest.

/ Mats Halldin (talk) 18:36, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

The term profile is found on the biography page, which is used by the Biography project in defining the scope of their project. This project is where the biography tag / classification is handled. According to definition, a profile is not a biography. AND BTW: I think you've gone too far in classifying this as a resume with conflict of interest. If Peter Nordin created the page, you might have a case. The fact that the article is not so complete as a full-blown biography may suggest to some that it should be expanded - but labeling it as a conflict of interest appears to be harassment. If harassment is not what you intend, and you are trying to make objective judgments, please consider that negative information in a biography is against the rules completely unless there are very solid references / citations to support negative claims. (More generally then, one should be certain of information about a person.) Peter Nordin is included as a notable person because of his work in AI and robotics. That's why a Wikipedia entry has been created. Information related to his work is available and well documented. The information presented is reasonably scoped - "reasonably" scoped regardless of whether there is a preference to expand it. I am not against expansion, but the information that is available is limited. I do not have his life story. No one has produced that yet. Some consideration must be given to what is practical and appropriate for coverage of the subject. Wikipedia is an ongoing project along with every page. As this guy becomes more famous and more information becomes available, the article can be expanded. --Rogerfgay 09:25, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

The question of whether biographies ("profiles" is Rogerfgay's preferred word, though biography is the Wikipedia jargon) of academics should contain complete lists of works has proven controversial on Wikipedia. Some opinions at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lists of works) hold that the list should be complete (with the article body explaining which publications are the more notable ones) and others agree that a full list is "unencyclopedic" or resume-like. In practice, DGG (who is an expert on this) tells me that the latter opinion has usually won out. Interestingly, for artists or deceased individuals this has been less of an issue. nadav (talk) 22:36, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

The term profile - explained just above in my response to Mats Halldin. The work of this scientist in this particular field is the second most cited in the world by other researchers in peer reviewed journals. Every one of his published articles (some of which have won awards) is a gem. As his profile explains, he was one of the earliest researchers to jump on the Genetic programming band-wagon. (The most cited in the world is the guy who created the band-wagon.) If you google Peter Nordin robot genetic or some such thing, you'll find thousands of entries. I don't have such a philosophical position on the number of articles that should be included. I just don't see reason for excluding any of them. I'm not sure which side of the general argument I'd be on. What I see when I look at Nordin's list, are closely related works that make up a whole - kind of like a book or two in which the only description is by naming all the chapters. --Rogerfgay 09:25, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Sections

The "Profile" sections, which is basically the only substantial section of the article, should be broken down into logical subsections. This large monolithic block of text is difficult to deal with. nadav (talk) 22:44, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

(Side note: Now that I have a better grasp of how to get around at Wikipedia and find things out, I have discovered that it was Quadell who carried out the disruptive campaigning exercise related to the fair-use image discussion. I apologize for thinking that it was you; I note that you were disturbed at one point that I appeared to be demonizing you. That was a mistake on my part. I honstely thought it was you simply because I did see that you had asked for other opinions. I also note that you did not seem to have had any part in the disruptive behavior of N. BTW: N is still stalking me (and seems to have been joined by W.marsh) making it more difficult to participate in Wikipedia. User:Kviki is still blocked as a sockpuppet, even though the facts never warrented blocking.) --Rogerfgay 09:57, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Warning to N

User:N - Thanks to you, I've studied Wikipedia rules regarding Wikipedia:Harassment more closely (as well as the one's on sockpuppetry, and even understand how sockpuppetry accusations are used in harassment). I want you to know that I'm keeping a record, related to your stalking behavior and other disruptions. It would be better for all concerned, if you would stop; that includes adding tags in order to follow up with destructive editing on pages that I've worked on. --Rogerfgay 10:14, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

• WP:RFC is ---> that way if you wany to accuse me of anything. Yes, I do keep this article on my watchlist. Making the article comply with guidelines and policy is not destructive editing. If you believe otherwise feel free to report me! -N 10:21, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

My guess was that you'd fight it. That's why I'm keeping a record. --Rogerfgay 10:39, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Embedded List

User:N - You seem to be acting on any excuse you can find to destruct and disrupt. Such also seems to be the case regarding your most recent deletion (containing comment with more to come threat) from the article as well, claiming a Wikipedia:Embedded lists argument. May I suggest that if you want to become a productive editor, spend more time studying the rules and trying to follow them rather than simply going for quantity. The article is constructed in prose rather than in embedded list form. --Rogerfgay 10:44, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

N is correct in that articles should not be composed mostly of lists. It would be better to turn the important parts of the list into prose and integrate that into the body. nadav (talk) 11:33, 28 June 2007 (UTC)