Suggestion: Anyone planing to follow all those broken wiki-links in the page? I am giving it a shot but would appreciate help as it is a tiresome job. Thanks, askewmind 00:29, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
Q: Are there any direct connections over optics and information theory? It is listed at 'Other optical fields'. -- HarpyHumming 19:27, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)
In my work, We design various optical systems within our product. The EEs design the electronics which cause the LED to illuminate. They also design the circuits which senses the current passing through the devices which react to light. Everything in between seems to be mechanical. Light pipes, Prisms, Lenses, Mirrors, angles, Textures and materials. I've always considered Optics to be everything that goes on in between the source and the detector. The medium itself may be electromagnetic in nature but MAKING IT USEFULL requires mechanical manipulation. Light is whats there, Making it useful is optics. Any reason why the mechanical aspect of optics has been missed in this wikipedia entry?
There is a redirect to this page from the article Optical, which describes an important musician within electronic dance music (referenced on a fair number of pages) - does anybody know how to fix this (and recreate the original article) or set up a disambiguation page? I'm quite new to this and haven't worked it out yet. Will Lakeman 13:06, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
I am not much on these details, but I think I have seen Physical Optics in capitals. I am not sure about Gaussian optics. Quantum mechanics is not capitalized and maybe not born approximation, but Physical Optics is a less common approximation and tends to be confusing in lower case, because on can so easily take it literally.
Per my discussion with User:Srleffler on the Talk:Nodal_point page, it seems wikipedia needs a discussion of geometric optics, and I think it should perhaps be separate from this article. Any thoughts on that?
Specifically, my interest is to see it explained somewhere in wikipedia why all light passing through a central shutter is evenly distributed over the entire image frame that results (as opposed to the wrong idea that light which passes through the center of a central shutter ends up in the center of the image frame, light that passes near the edges of a central shutter ends up at the periphery of the image frame). — Severoon 19:57, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Optics was pretty much classical even after Planck's famous explanation of blackbody spectrum in terms of quantized radiation, and Einstein's explanation of photoelectric effect interpreted as implying that light itself is quantized. Instead of arguing over them, I just pinned to the rise of quantum optics. OK? Dicklyon 03:55, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
It would be nice to have a section discussing the training one needs to pursue a career in optics. I would have found this incrediby useful back when I was looking at grad schools. Here is some stuff to put in it: -Most people obtain undergraduate degrees in EE, ME, Physics, Math, etc. then go on to pusue graduate degrees or training in optics. -List of "top" schools in optics (University of Arizona, University of Rochester, University of Central Florida, etc
Aren't ion optics a type of optics and thus shouldn't they bear mentioning here? If this is the case, the intro has to be changed to include more generality about any particle rather than just photons. Wikipedia brown 21:38, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
I reviewed this article for Version 0.7, and I don't think it should be rated as B-Class, especially considering the breadth and importance of the topic. Much of the content consists of lists rather than prose, and I don't think the article is very comprehensive (what about a history section, for example). Also, the referencing is weak. I would suggest expanding with prose then using of the Wikipedia:Summary style where appropriate. Walkerma 07:53, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
[Copied from User talk:Oli Filth]:
i notcied u changed my small edit to optics as being branch of physics. Am thinking we should not call it a branch since its merely based on electromagnetism, i mean there are no fundemental laws of optics, there all based in electromagnetism(thats what light is). Lastly, even on the physics page its not listed as a branch of physics or a core theory but merely a sub-branch of electromagnetism. Am thinking we should call it a branch of physical science since thats how its listed on encyclopedia encarta. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.36.181.171 ( talk) 03:06, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
I like the change from "is a branch of physics" to "is a science". -- Srleffler ( talk) 03:09, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Removed the following:
Ibn al-Haytham is regarded as the father of optics for his influential Book of Optics, which correctly explained and proved the modern intromission theory of vision, and for his experiments on optics, including experiments on lenses, mirrors, refraction, reflection, and the dispersion of light into its constituent colours. He studied binocular vision and the moon illusion, speculated on the finite speed, and rectilinear propagation of light, and argued for the corpuscular theory. Due to his formulation of a modern quantitative, empirical and experimental approach to physics and science, he is considered the pioneer of the modern scientific method and the originator of experimental science and experimental physics, and some have described him as the "first scientist" for these reasons.
The claim that al-Haytham "is regarded as the father of optics" would need a citation, and would need to say who regards him as such. (I don't doubt the truth of the claim, but it is not suitable for WP as-is.) The same is true of the statements involving "he is considered" and "some have described". Wikipedia requires such statements to specify who holds that point of view, and may require a citation.
I removed the whole paragraph because it doesn't belong in the introduction and the article doesn't currently have a history section. (See History of optics.) If someone wants to expand the article to give a summary of History of optics including a discussion of al-Haytham's work, that would be great.-- Srleffler ( talk) 21:42, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
The alternate version of the article discussed below is at s:User:ScienceApologist/Optics workshop.
I am concerned about this edit for the following reasons:
I have not yet reviewed the text itself, but intend to. My concern is not related to the merits of the new text. It might be best to revert the article and discuss it further here first.-- Srleffler ( talk) 18:45, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
Correction to the above: ScienceApologist is banned from Wikipedia for three months. Attempting to write articles elsewhere and have others insert them is almost certainly a violation of the ban. See Wikipedia:Banning policy.-- Srleffler ( talk) 19:04, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
I think we disagree on the policy. We have time to settle this since Durova and SA are going to work privately some more.
SA was banned for incivility / POV pushing with regard to attacking minority viewpoints. He wasn't banned for say copyright violation or something that throws his independent work into question. If there controversy on optics, like minority viewpoints then absolutely that requires much more care. The policy does not prevent them from making suggestions, This does not mean that obviously helpful edits (such as fixing typos or undoing vandalism) must be reverted just because they were made by a banned user, but the presumption in ambiguous cases should be to revert. And this has to do with an editor who has directly edited in violation of his ban. I believe that all that is required is:
As far as reciprocal projects, As such, bans issued by the Wikipedia community or by the Arbitration Committee are not binding on other projects.
Anyway, as I stated my goal was notification of this group. jbolden1517 Talk 19:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
This passage does appear to allow an established editor to post material written by a banned editor. Strictly, you should have read the entirety of the text you are posting, and be satisfied that the text is verifiable and that you stand behind it. I doubt that anyone contemplated that such edits would include rewriting an entire article, however. Replacing an entire article this way may be against the spirit rather than the letter of the policy.Wikipedians are not permitted to post or edit material at the direction of a banned user, an activity sometimes called "proxying," unless they are able to confirm that the changes are verifiable and have independent reasons for making them. Edits which involve proxying that have not been confirmed to that effect may be reverted. Wikipedia's sock puppetry policy defines "meatpuppetry" as the recruitment of new editors to Wikipedia ...
This is no way to revamp an article. Is SA wants to work on it, incrementally, allowing others to be involved, when his ban is up, that will be great. Hopefully we'll be able to talk him into a summary style instead of an 89 KB article at that time. Dicklyon ( talk) 04:02, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
KP I've looked briefly over the last 4 years. I don't see any evidence of more than a single edit or two of fringe vs. mainstream science. I may have missed something but I think this is a non issue. I also read through the article and nothing in it struck me as controversial. These formulas are right out of a good freshman college level treatment of optics. Are there any alternate theories that he would be failing to represent? jbolden1517 Talk 01:01, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
There's no issue with using SA's article here, except of course, giving him credits for the issue, according to arbcom. (See link above.) Therefore, I propose that we add it in section by section and edit it here. It's significantly better than the article here in many ways, appears to be generally well researched, has the correct depth more so than this article, and someone above is already willing to edit the math part, and the article would serve the users on an important major encyclopedia topic. -- KP Botany ( talk) 00:31, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Actually, I was talking about Durova's comment, but it's a bit hard to follow:
Upon what basis could they possibly decide? Must he violate his siteban and refute you here himself? The port was a license violation, done in good faith but unauthorized. We seek to improve the encyclopedia in compliance with policy, and without disruption. This request is becoming counterproductive. DurovaCharge! 00:06, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Yes, I think using it instead of this section by section, starting with the lead, then the most important sections, rather than in strict order, would be useful. Add his user name here in the edit history when uploading his work, would be nice, also, to indicate the particular en.wiki editor who was the primary author. I can't see any issues with giving him FA article credit if that's his primary purpose for editing, also.
Can we just post and discuss here section by section to include as many editors interested in this article as possible? -- KP Botany ( talk) 01:03, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
moved text to Talk:Optics/WS1. I think this is likely to spawn a bunch of comments and pages.... jbolden1517 Talk 01:26, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
I suggest an immediate decision that could be very simple. Set aside the question of absolute verification of sources, which will take time. On the face, which article is better, the one at Wikisource or this one? If it is this one, then we should resist the port. If it is the Wikisource article, then the most efficient thing is to replace this article with the Wikisource one, en masse, i.e., encourage those working on this to port the while thing immediately. Going over it section by section is something that we would do at leisure.
Now, about the sourcing. Worst case scenario, assuming nobody finds some glaring trap in the article. He's done some tricky thing with sources, referencing, say, some anti-fringe web page, which will only be found by following the links. I find this highly unlikely, after all, his stated goal, and it is believable, is to be the first banned editor to contribute an FA. It would be quite stupid to put a little bomb in, given that once found, it would be gone in a flash, and, while technically it would not be his responsibility, politically he'd be dead meat. And it would be found, enough people mistrust him that there is going to be a fair amount of examination of the article. If people want to, I'd suggest listing all the new sources, after the port, here, and then editors can check off that they have verified that source, making it easy and efficient; and then the editor checking it off would be considered responsible for that source as if they added it in. Having dozens of editors looking over all the sources without any organization would be a huge waste of time. Don't trust a verification by some editor you suspect of being in cahoots with SA? Well, check what that editor checks.
The point is to take conflict and turn it into cooperation in creating a thoroughly verified page.
(Because SA is banned here, he can't work on the article here, so the article will, I presume, remain there until he's finished. If you think the port is likely to happen, and you'd like to work on the article immediately, I'd suggest going to Wikisource. I have a global account, it's easy, I just go there and log in with my wikipedia user name. It's worth setting that up, takes practically no time, I did not have to create a special Wikisource account. (It's in the user profile, under preferences.) That doesn't work if there is another account there with the same name, but that would be rare at Wikisource, I think.)—Preceding unsigned comment added by Abd ( talk • contribs) 20:29, 7 April 2009
Hi, and apologies for being a bit tardy in coming here. Hadn't noticed this discussion was ongoing. Our goal is to raise the article to FA. Due to SA's editing status that means a few things need to be worked out. Now to settle any misgivings, yes the Committee is aware that he's drafting improvements. People at other wikis draft work based upon Wikipedia articles all the time (think Citizendium etc.). And before we port this we'll be handling the proxy issue legitimately. The GFDL issue also needs to be addressed. Rather than get too deeply into the mechanical details, let's talk about how to move forward in the most productive way.
Everyone is welcome to improve the draft article here. When the porting gets done your changes will come over here along with everything else, and more eyes and hands on that draft are really valued. A key thing to remember though is that once it forks over here the primary author won't be able to work on it directly anymore. So the overworked mentor (that means me) will have to proxy edit each new change he makes from that point onward. Please be accommodating in that regard: I have other commitments on deadline.
The general plan at this point is to put the page on article review shortly, keeping it at Wikisource until late in the review so that SA can make major revisions directly. During the latter part of that review we'd port it over here, with all the policy and licensing i's dotted and all the t's crossed. Once the active editors and reviewers agree that it's ready for FAC we take it there. SA doesn't own the article; no one does. Yet right now everyone can edit the draft at its current location. That's an advantage, so please make yourselves at home at the Wikisource draft and treat it like a wiki. Durova Charge! 04:47, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
On the copyright issue, I've asked for a second opinion from someone who has commented before on the issue. [1] Part of my concern, Coppertwig, is the issue that Durova has raised, that editing it at wikisource gives it a GFDL edit history that has to be transfered in full. However, the article at wikisource contains material from this article--it's not all new. So, will more editing at wikisource create a bigger problem? If that's the case, then all discussions about what we allow SA are off, because the article may not be transferable, if the copyright issue exists, with additional editing at wikisource. The wikisource article already doesn't have associated with it a list of everyone who has edited it, because some of it was copied from here without its edit history. -- KP Botany ( talk) 23:20, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
"I see that not all of the edits on the history list come from SA's account. The GFDL requires all previous authors to be attributed, and all changes to be logged. It's not clear to me how one does that in this case. Conversely, if the argument is that those contributions and changes can be handled by reference to this page and its history, then the same would be true of SA's contributions."
This whole thing is a scam. It is a scam intended to make it look like SA is invaluable to Wikipedia and to showcase his “abilities”. And it is a scam that was actually dreamt up by Durova and SA prior to SA’s ban with precisely this in mind. The problem (what makes it a scam) is that the current article is in no way representative of SA’s contributions to Wiki. As such it is a meaningless charade at best and at worst a devious and deliberate deception.
The point is this: over the past few years, SA has made virtually no attempt to improve straight science articles in the way he has attempted here – if that was what he did most of the time then he wouldn’t be banned, and if that was what he planned/pledged to do in future then nobody would object to his speedy return. However, SA’s contributions to Wiki are very different and consist mainly of badgering and abusing people at fringe science and paranormal articles. Note that I do not say that his contribution is to articles on those subjects, for his contribution is directed mainly at people rather than content, with his stated aim being to drive editors away from Wiki if they do not share his scientistic fundamentalist attitude – the only attitude, in SA’s eyes, that editors should be allowed to hold and articles should be allowed to present. That this is totally antagonistic to the aims of Wiki goes quite unnoticed by SA and his supporters who share the same blinkered view and exclusionist agenda.
One further point. SA apparently now has the stated goal of trying to be the first banned editor to produce a featured article. Never mind the fact that he’s too late; the article he is working on is lifted hugely from already existing articles and thus represents the work of many editors. It is therefore not in any sense his contribution, but this, like all things collaborative, seems quite lost in the solipsistic world he inhabits. With regard to this whole business, I am reminded of a line from the Shawshank Redemption:
“The colossal prick even managed to sound magnanimous!” Molto Cipolle ( talk) 13:35, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Just found this (very tardy). If anyone is going to accuse me of concocting a scam, please contact me so I'm aware of it. If I'm honest I deserve a chance to set the record straight, and if I'm dishonest then (durnit) I wanna find an angle that gets me money. ;) Durova Charge! 18:25, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
I support replacing this article with ScienceApologist's version at wikisource. Durova, ScienceApologist's mentor, has indicated that ScienceApologist is ready to have the material copied over. [2] The ScienceApologist version is longer and contains a great deal more information, and has a lot more in paragraph form rather than lists. After copying it over, people might want to incorporate back in any information from the current article that they might find to be missing, and possibly shorten the article by moving some information to subarticles.
I've gone through the whole article (except the list of references) and it looks fine to me, to the best of my knowledge up to the level of detail to which I checked it, except for the minor comments I've made on the talk page, many of which have already been fixed. I didn't read the references to verify the information, but (except for those minor comments) found no significant conflicts with my own prior knowledge or the information on Wikipedia pages when I followed wikilinks. This is not the type of contribution that ScienceApologist's ban was intended to prevent.
The actual copying over should be done in a way that respects GFDL. I'm not sure, but I think the best way to do it is for an administrator to transwiki it, then merge the page histories. Alternatively, if it's done by copy-and-paste (which might be the wrong way to do it, though), I think it would be a good idea to at least list the contributors in the edit summary. Note that the Wikisource version may only be there until it's copied to here; we can't rely on a link to the page history there as a way of attributing the work to the contributors under GFDL. (Involved editor; have helped edit the Wikisource version). ☺ Coppertwig ( talk) 20:54, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
(outdenting) Moonriddengirl. First off, thanks for finally presenting a good case rather than an argument by assertion! I also agree transwiki is the best way to copy this over and should be done as soon as possible. Now onto the meat:
As for Wikipedia:Copyrights regarding wikimedia not assuming copyright as per free software they are right this is very common in free software licenses (like KDE and the Linux kernel). So no disagreement there, but I would point out the courts have been iffy about the standing of anyone with regard to large blocks of texts. In the lawsuits involving the kernel the only successful ones have involved blocks of code for which standing is clear (i.e. a single contributor and unpatched). The courts have generally thrown out the mixed blocks as having any protections because of issues of standing. This is quite unlike the MySQL or GCC where people assign dual copyright, where there seems to be little difference in enforceable blocks between free software and commercial. Now the optics article is mainly composed of stuff from other wikipedia articles integrated and connected. The integrator (Science Apologist) has indicated again and again an intent to push this over to wikipedia (thus laches would apply to SA). All the rest of the contributors went over to his user page to work on an article for the purpose of porting back to wikipedia optics, so again laches for all of their content. So I see at least two reasons that there is not any protected content at all on S:User:ScienceApologist/Optics workshop. Whose copyright are you asserting is violated and on what block of text if you are asserting an actual violation occurred? If you aren't asserting a violation occurred and that transwiki is simply preferable then we are in full agreement. jbolden1517 Talk 13:08, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
(outdenting) MRG -- OK that makes sense regarding merge policy But given that you would think the redirect would then have to be protected from deleting, immune to AFD. I also agree on a notification being sufficient, that was my point back in April. There is no GFDL transwiki requirement for a history page. Merged from "ABC" which is a URL where that document has a history is sufficient.
As for you Sam1 and Sam2 it depends. If I engage in a process knowing that such a violation is likely to occur then I have slept on my rights. For example that's why you see bible publishers explicitly assert what is the degree of copying which is legal since they is a long tradition of copying large chunks of the bible around and they want to prevent laches from attaching. The German Bible Society (holder of the copyright for the UBS) has had some challenges based on exactly this sort of attachment. I understand wikipedia is being more conservative here, and they aren't wrong to be conservative. But I'm trying to keep this strictly on points of law since the practical problem is obvious.
Anyway regardless, the article in question here wikisource optics actually the kinds of merges I was discussing above, in fact that is a large percentage of the article. Most of it is encumbered this way. So the question I'm raising is I can't find any unencumbered text. That being said I still happen to agree that transwiki certainly makes the most sense and we are being theoretical but there have been some rather serious and baseless claims made about law.
As for the DMCA takedowns they don't mean much, since they weren't challenged but they would provide some interesting information. I'd love to hear more. Is there any place these are listed or shown? jbolden1517 Talk 23:53, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
jbolden1517: Please stop being disruptive. This is not a new issue. We've been handling GFDL imports and copyright issues for years. The people you are arguing against know what they are talking about, so please try to listen instead of just reasserting your position. First of all, your assertion that SA has no effective copyright in the rewrite is wrong. SA rewrote the article from scratch. There is certainly enough creative input there to attract copyright protection. Sit back and relax for a minute. The proper way to do this, regardless of any legal issues, is to have SA make the edit. It is his work, so it should be readily apparent to anyone looking through the history that he did the rewrite. The only way to assure that for perpetuity is to have him actually make the edit. If you'll hold on for a little bit the issue will be moot. Kaldari ( talk) 22:08, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
Setting aside (for purposes of this question) copyright issues, ban issues, and what procedure to follow, and just comparing the content, the SA version is preferable.
Copying the SA version into this article one section at a time, rather than all at once, so that there can be discussion about each part. (Based on suggestion by Dicklyon here.)
Setting aside the quality or usefulness of the content, as far as copyright issues and ban issues are concerned, it's OK for someone to transwiki the article to this project, perhaps putting it in user space for now until it's decided how much to incorporate into this or other articles.
It's better for an admin to transwiki the article and merge the page history, in order to show the contributions of individual editors who contributed at Wikisource, than for the material to be brought here by a cut-and-paste move.
First, it is important to note there there are two very different transwiki processes, one is manual and one is automatic. Only the automatic method copies over the article history. The automatic method relies on using Special:Import, which unfortunately is disabled on the English Wikipedia (not sure why). Kaldari ( talk) 16:40, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
There have been three basic impediments delaying the importation of optics improvement drive:
The basic idea is to free things up enough so that good content progress can occur smoothly without going so far that chaos or drama result. If we're fair, then no matter what we think of ScienceApologist personally (positive or negative) we can all agree that this article improvement drive is a good thing for Wikipedia's readers and a difficult thing to undertake while the primary editor cannot edit directly. Cooperation is essential, so let's put the project's best interests foremost and interact collaboratively. Durova Charge! 00:55, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
The old Optics article was such a shameful crap (lists only, not nearly an overview of the field, and starting with an image of historic interest only), that I can't imagine a content issue why it shouldn't be replaced by the new version. In fact, on dewiki we just discussed the same thing and would happily take SA's version as a base for our replacement article.
In fact, writing from scratch is a good method to get rid of very sub-standard articles which just existed way to long. The old article just had no content that suggested building upon it instead of doing a full replace.
Can please everybody arguing about the author of the replacement version stand back for a while (unless they want to qualify for making sanctionable personal attacks) and the content issue be focused on?
Suggestion: Anyone planing to follow all those broken wiki-links in the page? I am giving it a shot but would appreciate help as it is a tiresome job. Thanks, askewmind 00:29, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
Q: Are there any direct connections over optics and information theory? It is listed at 'Other optical fields'. -- HarpyHumming 19:27, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)
In my work, We design various optical systems within our product. The EEs design the electronics which cause the LED to illuminate. They also design the circuits which senses the current passing through the devices which react to light. Everything in between seems to be mechanical. Light pipes, Prisms, Lenses, Mirrors, angles, Textures and materials. I've always considered Optics to be everything that goes on in between the source and the detector. The medium itself may be electromagnetic in nature but MAKING IT USEFULL requires mechanical manipulation. Light is whats there, Making it useful is optics. Any reason why the mechanical aspect of optics has been missed in this wikipedia entry?
There is a redirect to this page from the article Optical, which describes an important musician within electronic dance music (referenced on a fair number of pages) - does anybody know how to fix this (and recreate the original article) or set up a disambiguation page? I'm quite new to this and haven't worked it out yet. Will Lakeman 13:06, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
I am not much on these details, but I think I have seen Physical Optics in capitals. I am not sure about Gaussian optics. Quantum mechanics is not capitalized and maybe not born approximation, but Physical Optics is a less common approximation and tends to be confusing in lower case, because on can so easily take it literally.
Per my discussion with User:Srleffler on the Talk:Nodal_point page, it seems wikipedia needs a discussion of geometric optics, and I think it should perhaps be separate from this article. Any thoughts on that?
Specifically, my interest is to see it explained somewhere in wikipedia why all light passing through a central shutter is evenly distributed over the entire image frame that results (as opposed to the wrong idea that light which passes through the center of a central shutter ends up in the center of the image frame, light that passes near the edges of a central shutter ends up at the periphery of the image frame). — Severoon 19:57, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Optics was pretty much classical even after Planck's famous explanation of blackbody spectrum in terms of quantized radiation, and Einstein's explanation of photoelectric effect interpreted as implying that light itself is quantized. Instead of arguing over them, I just pinned to the rise of quantum optics. OK? Dicklyon 03:55, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
It would be nice to have a section discussing the training one needs to pursue a career in optics. I would have found this incrediby useful back when I was looking at grad schools. Here is some stuff to put in it: -Most people obtain undergraduate degrees in EE, ME, Physics, Math, etc. then go on to pusue graduate degrees or training in optics. -List of "top" schools in optics (University of Arizona, University of Rochester, University of Central Florida, etc
Aren't ion optics a type of optics and thus shouldn't they bear mentioning here? If this is the case, the intro has to be changed to include more generality about any particle rather than just photons. Wikipedia brown 21:38, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
I reviewed this article for Version 0.7, and I don't think it should be rated as B-Class, especially considering the breadth and importance of the topic. Much of the content consists of lists rather than prose, and I don't think the article is very comprehensive (what about a history section, for example). Also, the referencing is weak. I would suggest expanding with prose then using of the Wikipedia:Summary style where appropriate. Walkerma 07:53, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
[Copied from User talk:Oli Filth]:
i notcied u changed my small edit to optics as being branch of physics. Am thinking we should not call it a branch since its merely based on electromagnetism, i mean there are no fundemental laws of optics, there all based in electromagnetism(thats what light is). Lastly, even on the physics page its not listed as a branch of physics or a core theory but merely a sub-branch of electromagnetism. Am thinking we should call it a branch of physical science since thats how its listed on encyclopedia encarta. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.36.181.171 ( talk) 03:06, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
I like the change from "is a branch of physics" to "is a science". -- Srleffler ( talk) 03:09, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Removed the following:
Ibn al-Haytham is regarded as the father of optics for his influential Book of Optics, which correctly explained and proved the modern intromission theory of vision, and for his experiments on optics, including experiments on lenses, mirrors, refraction, reflection, and the dispersion of light into its constituent colours. He studied binocular vision and the moon illusion, speculated on the finite speed, and rectilinear propagation of light, and argued for the corpuscular theory. Due to his formulation of a modern quantitative, empirical and experimental approach to physics and science, he is considered the pioneer of the modern scientific method and the originator of experimental science and experimental physics, and some have described him as the "first scientist" for these reasons.
The claim that al-Haytham "is regarded as the father of optics" would need a citation, and would need to say who regards him as such. (I don't doubt the truth of the claim, but it is not suitable for WP as-is.) The same is true of the statements involving "he is considered" and "some have described". Wikipedia requires such statements to specify who holds that point of view, and may require a citation.
I removed the whole paragraph because it doesn't belong in the introduction and the article doesn't currently have a history section. (See History of optics.) If someone wants to expand the article to give a summary of History of optics including a discussion of al-Haytham's work, that would be great.-- Srleffler ( talk) 21:42, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
The alternate version of the article discussed below is at s:User:ScienceApologist/Optics workshop.
I am concerned about this edit for the following reasons:
I have not yet reviewed the text itself, but intend to. My concern is not related to the merits of the new text. It might be best to revert the article and discuss it further here first.-- Srleffler ( talk) 18:45, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
Correction to the above: ScienceApologist is banned from Wikipedia for three months. Attempting to write articles elsewhere and have others insert them is almost certainly a violation of the ban. See Wikipedia:Banning policy.-- Srleffler ( talk) 19:04, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
I think we disagree on the policy. We have time to settle this since Durova and SA are going to work privately some more.
SA was banned for incivility / POV pushing with regard to attacking minority viewpoints. He wasn't banned for say copyright violation or something that throws his independent work into question. If there controversy on optics, like minority viewpoints then absolutely that requires much more care. The policy does not prevent them from making suggestions, This does not mean that obviously helpful edits (such as fixing typos or undoing vandalism) must be reverted just because they were made by a banned user, but the presumption in ambiguous cases should be to revert. And this has to do with an editor who has directly edited in violation of his ban. I believe that all that is required is:
As far as reciprocal projects, As such, bans issued by the Wikipedia community or by the Arbitration Committee are not binding on other projects.
Anyway, as I stated my goal was notification of this group. jbolden1517 Talk 19:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
This passage does appear to allow an established editor to post material written by a banned editor. Strictly, you should have read the entirety of the text you are posting, and be satisfied that the text is verifiable and that you stand behind it. I doubt that anyone contemplated that such edits would include rewriting an entire article, however. Replacing an entire article this way may be against the spirit rather than the letter of the policy.Wikipedians are not permitted to post or edit material at the direction of a banned user, an activity sometimes called "proxying," unless they are able to confirm that the changes are verifiable and have independent reasons for making them. Edits which involve proxying that have not been confirmed to that effect may be reverted. Wikipedia's sock puppetry policy defines "meatpuppetry" as the recruitment of new editors to Wikipedia ...
This is no way to revamp an article. Is SA wants to work on it, incrementally, allowing others to be involved, when his ban is up, that will be great. Hopefully we'll be able to talk him into a summary style instead of an 89 KB article at that time. Dicklyon ( talk) 04:02, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
KP I've looked briefly over the last 4 years. I don't see any evidence of more than a single edit or two of fringe vs. mainstream science. I may have missed something but I think this is a non issue. I also read through the article and nothing in it struck me as controversial. These formulas are right out of a good freshman college level treatment of optics. Are there any alternate theories that he would be failing to represent? jbolden1517 Talk 01:01, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
There's no issue with using SA's article here, except of course, giving him credits for the issue, according to arbcom. (See link above.) Therefore, I propose that we add it in section by section and edit it here. It's significantly better than the article here in many ways, appears to be generally well researched, has the correct depth more so than this article, and someone above is already willing to edit the math part, and the article would serve the users on an important major encyclopedia topic. -- KP Botany ( talk) 00:31, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Actually, I was talking about Durova's comment, but it's a bit hard to follow:
Upon what basis could they possibly decide? Must he violate his siteban and refute you here himself? The port was a license violation, done in good faith but unauthorized. We seek to improve the encyclopedia in compliance with policy, and without disruption. This request is becoming counterproductive. DurovaCharge! 00:06, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Yes, I think using it instead of this section by section, starting with the lead, then the most important sections, rather than in strict order, would be useful. Add his user name here in the edit history when uploading his work, would be nice, also, to indicate the particular en.wiki editor who was the primary author. I can't see any issues with giving him FA article credit if that's his primary purpose for editing, also.
Can we just post and discuss here section by section to include as many editors interested in this article as possible? -- KP Botany ( talk) 01:03, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
moved text to Talk:Optics/WS1. I think this is likely to spawn a bunch of comments and pages.... jbolden1517 Talk 01:26, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
I suggest an immediate decision that could be very simple. Set aside the question of absolute verification of sources, which will take time. On the face, which article is better, the one at Wikisource or this one? If it is this one, then we should resist the port. If it is the Wikisource article, then the most efficient thing is to replace this article with the Wikisource one, en masse, i.e., encourage those working on this to port the while thing immediately. Going over it section by section is something that we would do at leisure.
Now, about the sourcing. Worst case scenario, assuming nobody finds some glaring trap in the article. He's done some tricky thing with sources, referencing, say, some anti-fringe web page, which will only be found by following the links. I find this highly unlikely, after all, his stated goal, and it is believable, is to be the first banned editor to contribute an FA. It would be quite stupid to put a little bomb in, given that once found, it would be gone in a flash, and, while technically it would not be his responsibility, politically he'd be dead meat. And it would be found, enough people mistrust him that there is going to be a fair amount of examination of the article. If people want to, I'd suggest listing all the new sources, after the port, here, and then editors can check off that they have verified that source, making it easy and efficient; and then the editor checking it off would be considered responsible for that source as if they added it in. Having dozens of editors looking over all the sources without any organization would be a huge waste of time. Don't trust a verification by some editor you suspect of being in cahoots with SA? Well, check what that editor checks.
The point is to take conflict and turn it into cooperation in creating a thoroughly verified page.
(Because SA is banned here, he can't work on the article here, so the article will, I presume, remain there until he's finished. If you think the port is likely to happen, and you'd like to work on the article immediately, I'd suggest going to Wikisource. I have a global account, it's easy, I just go there and log in with my wikipedia user name. It's worth setting that up, takes practically no time, I did not have to create a special Wikisource account. (It's in the user profile, under preferences.) That doesn't work if there is another account there with the same name, but that would be rare at Wikisource, I think.)—Preceding unsigned comment added by Abd ( talk • contribs) 20:29, 7 April 2009
Hi, and apologies for being a bit tardy in coming here. Hadn't noticed this discussion was ongoing. Our goal is to raise the article to FA. Due to SA's editing status that means a few things need to be worked out. Now to settle any misgivings, yes the Committee is aware that he's drafting improvements. People at other wikis draft work based upon Wikipedia articles all the time (think Citizendium etc.). And before we port this we'll be handling the proxy issue legitimately. The GFDL issue also needs to be addressed. Rather than get too deeply into the mechanical details, let's talk about how to move forward in the most productive way.
Everyone is welcome to improve the draft article here. When the porting gets done your changes will come over here along with everything else, and more eyes and hands on that draft are really valued. A key thing to remember though is that once it forks over here the primary author won't be able to work on it directly anymore. So the overworked mentor (that means me) will have to proxy edit each new change he makes from that point onward. Please be accommodating in that regard: I have other commitments on deadline.
The general plan at this point is to put the page on article review shortly, keeping it at Wikisource until late in the review so that SA can make major revisions directly. During the latter part of that review we'd port it over here, with all the policy and licensing i's dotted and all the t's crossed. Once the active editors and reviewers agree that it's ready for FAC we take it there. SA doesn't own the article; no one does. Yet right now everyone can edit the draft at its current location. That's an advantage, so please make yourselves at home at the Wikisource draft and treat it like a wiki. Durova Charge! 04:47, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
On the copyright issue, I've asked for a second opinion from someone who has commented before on the issue. [1] Part of my concern, Coppertwig, is the issue that Durova has raised, that editing it at wikisource gives it a GFDL edit history that has to be transfered in full. However, the article at wikisource contains material from this article--it's not all new. So, will more editing at wikisource create a bigger problem? If that's the case, then all discussions about what we allow SA are off, because the article may not be transferable, if the copyright issue exists, with additional editing at wikisource. The wikisource article already doesn't have associated with it a list of everyone who has edited it, because some of it was copied from here without its edit history. -- KP Botany ( talk) 23:20, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
"I see that not all of the edits on the history list come from SA's account. The GFDL requires all previous authors to be attributed, and all changes to be logged. It's not clear to me how one does that in this case. Conversely, if the argument is that those contributions and changes can be handled by reference to this page and its history, then the same would be true of SA's contributions."
This whole thing is a scam. It is a scam intended to make it look like SA is invaluable to Wikipedia and to showcase his “abilities”. And it is a scam that was actually dreamt up by Durova and SA prior to SA’s ban with precisely this in mind. The problem (what makes it a scam) is that the current article is in no way representative of SA’s contributions to Wiki. As such it is a meaningless charade at best and at worst a devious and deliberate deception.
The point is this: over the past few years, SA has made virtually no attempt to improve straight science articles in the way he has attempted here – if that was what he did most of the time then he wouldn’t be banned, and if that was what he planned/pledged to do in future then nobody would object to his speedy return. However, SA’s contributions to Wiki are very different and consist mainly of badgering and abusing people at fringe science and paranormal articles. Note that I do not say that his contribution is to articles on those subjects, for his contribution is directed mainly at people rather than content, with his stated aim being to drive editors away from Wiki if they do not share his scientistic fundamentalist attitude – the only attitude, in SA’s eyes, that editors should be allowed to hold and articles should be allowed to present. That this is totally antagonistic to the aims of Wiki goes quite unnoticed by SA and his supporters who share the same blinkered view and exclusionist agenda.
One further point. SA apparently now has the stated goal of trying to be the first banned editor to produce a featured article. Never mind the fact that he’s too late; the article he is working on is lifted hugely from already existing articles and thus represents the work of many editors. It is therefore not in any sense his contribution, but this, like all things collaborative, seems quite lost in the solipsistic world he inhabits. With regard to this whole business, I am reminded of a line from the Shawshank Redemption:
“The colossal prick even managed to sound magnanimous!” Molto Cipolle ( talk) 13:35, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Just found this (very tardy). If anyone is going to accuse me of concocting a scam, please contact me so I'm aware of it. If I'm honest I deserve a chance to set the record straight, and if I'm dishonest then (durnit) I wanna find an angle that gets me money. ;) Durova Charge! 18:25, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
I support replacing this article with ScienceApologist's version at wikisource. Durova, ScienceApologist's mentor, has indicated that ScienceApologist is ready to have the material copied over. [2] The ScienceApologist version is longer and contains a great deal more information, and has a lot more in paragraph form rather than lists. After copying it over, people might want to incorporate back in any information from the current article that they might find to be missing, and possibly shorten the article by moving some information to subarticles.
I've gone through the whole article (except the list of references) and it looks fine to me, to the best of my knowledge up to the level of detail to which I checked it, except for the minor comments I've made on the talk page, many of which have already been fixed. I didn't read the references to verify the information, but (except for those minor comments) found no significant conflicts with my own prior knowledge or the information on Wikipedia pages when I followed wikilinks. This is not the type of contribution that ScienceApologist's ban was intended to prevent.
The actual copying over should be done in a way that respects GFDL. I'm not sure, but I think the best way to do it is for an administrator to transwiki it, then merge the page histories. Alternatively, if it's done by copy-and-paste (which might be the wrong way to do it, though), I think it would be a good idea to at least list the contributors in the edit summary. Note that the Wikisource version may only be there until it's copied to here; we can't rely on a link to the page history there as a way of attributing the work to the contributors under GFDL. (Involved editor; have helped edit the Wikisource version). ☺ Coppertwig ( talk) 20:54, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
(outdenting) Moonriddengirl. First off, thanks for finally presenting a good case rather than an argument by assertion! I also agree transwiki is the best way to copy this over and should be done as soon as possible. Now onto the meat:
As for Wikipedia:Copyrights regarding wikimedia not assuming copyright as per free software they are right this is very common in free software licenses (like KDE and the Linux kernel). So no disagreement there, but I would point out the courts have been iffy about the standing of anyone with regard to large blocks of texts. In the lawsuits involving the kernel the only successful ones have involved blocks of code for which standing is clear (i.e. a single contributor and unpatched). The courts have generally thrown out the mixed blocks as having any protections because of issues of standing. This is quite unlike the MySQL or GCC where people assign dual copyright, where there seems to be little difference in enforceable blocks between free software and commercial. Now the optics article is mainly composed of stuff from other wikipedia articles integrated and connected. The integrator (Science Apologist) has indicated again and again an intent to push this over to wikipedia (thus laches would apply to SA). All the rest of the contributors went over to his user page to work on an article for the purpose of porting back to wikipedia optics, so again laches for all of their content. So I see at least two reasons that there is not any protected content at all on S:User:ScienceApologist/Optics workshop. Whose copyright are you asserting is violated and on what block of text if you are asserting an actual violation occurred? If you aren't asserting a violation occurred and that transwiki is simply preferable then we are in full agreement. jbolden1517 Talk 13:08, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
(outdenting) MRG -- OK that makes sense regarding merge policy But given that you would think the redirect would then have to be protected from deleting, immune to AFD. I also agree on a notification being sufficient, that was my point back in April. There is no GFDL transwiki requirement for a history page. Merged from "ABC" which is a URL where that document has a history is sufficient.
As for you Sam1 and Sam2 it depends. If I engage in a process knowing that such a violation is likely to occur then I have slept on my rights. For example that's why you see bible publishers explicitly assert what is the degree of copying which is legal since they is a long tradition of copying large chunks of the bible around and they want to prevent laches from attaching. The German Bible Society (holder of the copyright for the UBS) has had some challenges based on exactly this sort of attachment. I understand wikipedia is being more conservative here, and they aren't wrong to be conservative. But I'm trying to keep this strictly on points of law since the practical problem is obvious.
Anyway regardless, the article in question here wikisource optics actually the kinds of merges I was discussing above, in fact that is a large percentage of the article. Most of it is encumbered this way. So the question I'm raising is I can't find any unencumbered text. That being said I still happen to agree that transwiki certainly makes the most sense and we are being theoretical but there have been some rather serious and baseless claims made about law.
As for the DMCA takedowns they don't mean much, since they weren't challenged but they would provide some interesting information. I'd love to hear more. Is there any place these are listed or shown? jbolden1517 Talk 23:53, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
jbolden1517: Please stop being disruptive. This is not a new issue. We've been handling GFDL imports and copyright issues for years. The people you are arguing against know what they are talking about, so please try to listen instead of just reasserting your position. First of all, your assertion that SA has no effective copyright in the rewrite is wrong. SA rewrote the article from scratch. There is certainly enough creative input there to attract copyright protection. Sit back and relax for a minute. The proper way to do this, regardless of any legal issues, is to have SA make the edit. It is his work, so it should be readily apparent to anyone looking through the history that he did the rewrite. The only way to assure that for perpetuity is to have him actually make the edit. If you'll hold on for a little bit the issue will be moot. Kaldari ( talk) 22:08, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
Setting aside (for purposes of this question) copyright issues, ban issues, and what procedure to follow, and just comparing the content, the SA version is preferable.
Copying the SA version into this article one section at a time, rather than all at once, so that there can be discussion about each part. (Based on suggestion by Dicklyon here.)
Setting aside the quality or usefulness of the content, as far as copyright issues and ban issues are concerned, it's OK for someone to transwiki the article to this project, perhaps putting it in user space for now until it's decided how much to incorporate into this or other articles.
It's better for an admin to transwiki the article and merge the page history, in order to show the contributions of individual editors who contributed at Wikisource, than for the material to be brought here by a cut-and-paste move.
First, it is important to note there there are two very different transwiki processes, one is manual and one is automatic. Only the automatic method copies over the article history. The automatic method relies on using Special:Import, which unfortunately is disabled on the English Wikipedia (not sure why). Kaldari ( talk) 16:40, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
There have been three basic impediments delaying the importation of optics improvement drive:
The basic idea is to free things up enough so that good content progress can occur smoothly without going so far that chaos or drama result. If we're fair, then no matter what we think of ScienceApologist personally (positive or negative) we can all agree that this article improvement drive is a good thing for Wikipedia's readers and a difficult thing to undertake while the primary editor cannot edit directly. Cooperation is essential, so let's put the project's best interests foremost and interact collaboratively. Durova Charge! 00:55, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
The old Optics article was such a shameful crap (lists only, not nearly an overview of the field, and starting with an image of historic interest only), that I can't imagine a content issue why it shouldn't be replaced by the new version. In fact, on dewiki we just discussed the same thing and would happily take SA's version as a base for our replacement article.
In fact, writing from scratch is a good method to get rid of very sub-standard articles which just existed way to long. The old article just had no content that suggested building upon it instead of doing a full replace.
Can please everybody arguing about the author of the replacement version stand back for a while (unless they want to qualify for making sanctionable personal attacks) and the content issue be focused on?