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Place for folks to post notes to me and for me to post notes to self of recurring items or works in slow crawl progress

Software engineering



Starting talk to give notes to myself .... re Margaret Hamilton (software engineer) ↗ claim she invented software engineering, or the term ...
Think she was the team lead for Apollo modules software (team grew up to 'have almost 100 software engineers' so not trivial but ...)

But the term popularized and developed concepts come as separate development, no sign Hamilton spread the term outside of NASA.
- no papers, no conference, no books

Also credited to Oettinger's 1966 letter as President of the ACM
President's Letter to the ACM Membership ↗ -
"We must recognize ourselves-not necessarily all of us, and not necessarily any one of us all the time-as members of a engineering profession, be it hardware engineering or software engineering, a profession without artificial and irrelevant boundaries like that between "scientific" and "business" applications."

Anthony Oettinger ↗ - President 1966-1968 of the [Association for Computing Machinery], founded the Computer Science and Engineering Board of the National Academy of Sciences and chaired it for six years starting in 1967.
In Dec 1966 ""The notion of software engineering is, thank goodness, beginning to be heard of more and more". and "Unless economic and engineering criteria are brought into the picture, sterile monsters result."

NATO Software Engineering ↗

The Roots of Software Engineering ↗, Princeton CWI quarterly 1990 (325-334)
(An expanded version of a lecture presented at CWI on 1 February 1990. It is based on researchgenerously supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.)
Begins wanting the context not just listing names, dates, and places of firsts.
So trying to determine what people thought when they first began to talk about "software engineering".
- one writer suggested originated 1965
- first came into common currency in 1967 when the Study Group on Computer Science of the NATO Science Committee called for an international conference on t he subject
- As Brian Randell and Peter Naur point out in the introduction to theiredition of the proceedings, "The phrase 'software engineering' was deliberately chosen as beingprovocative, in implying the need for software manufacture to be [based] on the types oftheoretical foundations and practical disciplines[,] that are traditional in the established branchesof engineering."

-Michael S Mahoney, "The History of Computing in the History of Technology", Annals of the History of Computing 10, no. 2 (April 1988):113-125
"To emphasize the need for a concerted effort along new lines, the committee coined the term “software engineering”, reflecting the view that the problem required the combination of science and management thought characteristic of engineering. "

-Andrew L. Friedman and Dominic S Cornford’s 1989 book Computer Systems Development: History, Organization and Implementation. ...
- Martin Boogard’s 1994 thesis, Defusing the Software Crisis ...
- 1996 Martin Campbell-Kelly and William Aspray published their overview of the history of computing, Computer: A History of the Information Machine
- two conferences on the history of software held in Germany around this time. The first, at Scholss Dagstuhl in 1996, was dedicated to the history of software engineering and included veterans of the 1968 conference

History of software engineering ↗ has
"Early usages for the term software engineering include a 1965 letter from ACM president Anthony Oettinger, lectures by Douglas T. Ross at MIT in the 1950s, and Margaret H. Hamilton as a way of giving it legitimacy during the development of the Apollo Guidance Computer. "

Software engineering ↗ had
"The term "software engineering" was coined by Anthony Oettinger and then was used in 1968 as a title for the world's first conference on software engineering, sponsored and facilitated by NATO. "

The origins of the term "software engineering" have been attributed to various sources. The term "software engineering" appeared in a list of services offered by companies in the June 1965 issue of COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION ↗ and was used more formally in the August 1966 issue of Communications of the ACM (Volume 9, number 8) “letter to the ACM membership” by the ACM President Anthony A. Oettinger, it is also associated with the title of a NATO conference in 1968 by Professor Friedrich L. Bauer ↗, the first conference on software engineering. Margaret Hamilton ↗ described the discipline "software engineering" during the Apollo missions to give what they were doing legitimacy.

Springer History of Software Engineering ↗ by O'Regan starts
"This chapter presents a short history of software engineering from its birth at the Garmisch conference in Germany, and it is emphasized that software engineering is a lot more than just programming. "

IEEE, N. Wirth "A Brief History of Software Engineering"
https://people.inf.ethz.ch/wirth/Miscellaneous/IEEE-Annals.pdf here]
The difficulties brought big companies to the brink of collapse. In 1968 a conference sponsored by NATO was dedicated to the topic (1968 at
Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany) [1]. Although critical comments had occasionally been voiced earlier [2, 3], it was not before that conference
that the difficulties were openly discussed and confessed with unusual frankness, and the terms software engineering and software crisis were coined.
1. P. Naur and B. Randell, Eds. Software Engineering.
Report on a Conference held in Garmisch, Oct. 1968, sponsored by NATO
2. E.W. Dijkstra. Some critical comments on advanced programming. Proc. IFIP Congress, Munich, Aug. 1962.
3. R.S. Barton. A critical review of the state of the programming art. Proc. Spring Joint Computer Conference, 1963, pp 169 – 177.

Grady Booch The History of Software Engineering ↗
The Origins of the Term
Many suggest it came from the 1968 NATO Conference on Software Engineering, coined by Friedrich Bauer.
Others have pointed to the 1966 letter by Anthony Oettinger in Communications of the ACM, wherein he used the term “software engineering”
to make the distinction between computer science and the building of software-intensive systems.1
Even earlier, in the June 1965 issue of Computers and Automation, there appeared a classified ad seeking a “systems software engineer.”
All the data I have points to Margaret Hamilton as the person who first coined the term. Having worked on the SAGE
(Semi-automatic Ground Environment) program, she became the lead developer for Skylab and Apollo while working at the Draper Lab.
According to an (unpublished) oral history, she began to use the term “software engineering” sometime in 1963 or 1964 to distinguish her work
from the hardware engineering taking place in the nascent US space program

A Brief History of Software Engineering — Part 1 ↗ mentions him

IEEE post The Origins of the Term ↗ says
"Many suggest it came from the 1968 NATO conference on Software Engineering, coined by Friedrich Bauer. Others have pointed to the 1966 letter by Anthony Oettingger in Communications of the ACM wherein he used the term "software engineering" to make the distinction between computer science and the building of software-intensive systems. Even earlier, in the June 1965 issue of Computers and Automation there appeared a classified ad seeking a "systems software engineer." "

1968 Report on the NATO conference ↗
And pg 13 background
"The phrase ‘software engineering’ was deliberately chosen as being provocative, in implying the need for software manufacture to be based on the types of theoretical foundations and practical disciplines, that are traditional in the established branches of engineering"
and pg75 mentions others already at
"In the United States National Academy of Sciences Research Board one education committee being formed is precisely to study software engineering
as a possible engineering education activity."

Princeton in Finding a History for Software Engineering ↗ starts
"Dating from the first international conference on the topic in October 1968, software engineering just turned thirty-five."

John W. Tukey, a chemist and statistician, is credited with the first printed use of the term "software" when he wrote a scientific article in 1958.
Elsewhere saw
"From soft +‎ -ware, by contrast with hardware (“the computer itself”). Coined 1953 by Paul Niquette;[1] first used in print by John Tukey 1958."

his blog post titled The origin of “software engineering” ↗ Bertrand Meyer writes that the term was not coined in 1968 during the famous NATO conference […]

A different blog The Beginnings of Software Engineering ↗ has
"The term “software engineering” was first coined in 1972 by Dr. David Parnas when he published the paper, “On the Criteria To Be Used in Decomposing Systems into Modules.” This paper — and the dawn of software engineering — was the result of several notable innovations that happened years prior."


Slideshare ↗ History of Software Engineering includes
"Margaret Hamilton became the lead developer for Skylab and Apollo while working at the Draper Lab. According to an (unpublished) oral history, she began to use the term "software engineering" sometime in 1963 or 1964 to distinguish her work from the hardware engineering taking place in the nascent US space program."
Though elsewhere
History of Software Engineers ↗ also says 1963 "In 1963, Margaret Hamilton, coined the term software engineering while working on developing the software for the Apollo spacecraft." (though this is flawed by there was no Apollo program in 1963)

Niklaus Wirth wrote A Brief History of Software Engineering ↗ (2008) which includes "The term
Software Engineering became known after a conference in 1968, when the difficulties and pitfalls of designing complex systems were frankly discussed."
...
"In 1968 a conference sponsored by NATO was dedicated to the topic (1968 at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany) [1].
Although critical comments had occasionally been voiced earlier [2, 3], it was not before that conference that the difficulties were
openly discussed and confessed with unusual frankness, and the terms software engineering and software crisis were coined. "
1. P. Naur and B. Randell, Eds. Software Engineering. Report on a Conference held in Garmisch, Oct. 1968, sponsored by NATO
2. E.W. Dijkstra. Some critical comments on advanced programming. Proc. IFIP Congress, Munich, Aug. 1962.
3. R.S. Barton. A critical review of the state of the programming art. Proc. Spring Joint Computer Conference, 1963, pp 169 – 177.

- but I didn't see the topic or SE term in the IFIP abstracts of papers ↗ (Aug 27-Sep 1)
The session list ↗
.. I do see Barton in 1963 ↗ found here ↗
and criticism of the term 'software' but no mention of 'software engineering'

Grady Booch wrote The History of Software Engineering ↗
"Many suggest it came from the 1968 NATO Conference on Software Engineering, coined by Friedrich Bauer4. Others have pointed to the 1966
letter by Anthony Oettinger in Communications of the ACM wherein he used the term “software engineering” to make the distinction between
computer science and the building of software-intensive systems5. Even earlier, in the June 1965 issue of Computers and Automation, there
appeared a classified ad seeking a “systems software engineer” 6
.
All the data I have points to Margaret Hamilton as the person who first coined the term. Having worked on the SAGE program, she became the
lead developer for Skylab and Apollo while working at the Draper Labs. According to an (unpublished) oral history, she began to use the term
“software engineering” sometime in 1963 or 1964 to distinguish her work from the hardware engineering taking place on the nascent US space
program7"
4 Naur, Peter and Randell, Brian. Software Engineering: Report on a conference sponsored by the NATO Science
Committee. Brussels, Belgium: NATO Scientific Affairs Division, January 1969.
5 Oettinger, Anthony. “President’s Letter to the ACM Membership.” Communications of the ACM, Vol. 9, No. 12,
1966.
6 Computers and Automation. New York, New York: Edmund Berkeley and Associates, June 1965.
7 NASA. Margaret Hamilton, Apollo Software Engineer, Awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom. 6 August 2017.



Maybe the ngram corpus helps, at least it shows that Software Engineer peak (in print) in 1990, here ↗

History of Software Engineering (lingq.com) ↗ says
"The term software engineering first was used in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Programmers have always known about civil, electrical and computer engineering and debated what engineering might mean for software." Markbassett (talk) 22:32, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

The Beginnings of Software Engineering: A Timeline ↗ says The term “software engineering” was first coined in 1972 by Dr. David Parnas when he published the paper, “On the Criteria To Be Used in Decomposing Systems into Modules.”

Stackexchange discussion ↗ mentions Hamilton and a lot of the early pioneers plus: The first discussions of software engineering began in the mid-1950s, which places it around the same time as the SHARE user group previously mentioned in a now-deleted answer.

Medium ↗ meh - "The term "software engineering" was first introduced at the 1968 NATO Software Engineering Conference." not great RS as got other things wrong ...

NIH ↗ Milestones in Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering History: A Comparative Review which says "Software engineering (SE) is a discipline that has evolved since it was originally proposed [1]" citing to 1.Naur P, Randell B. Garminch, Germany: NATO Science Commitee; 1969. Software engineering. link to google scholar now deadlink

Course slides ↗ Say The term 'software engineering' was originally used by a joint NATO conference which met in 1968. The group met to discuss what was known as the 'software crisis', which was a term
they used to describe many of the issues in software development at the time

Software Engineering: As it was in 1968 ↗ B. Randell Published in International Conference on… 17 September 1979 - an ACM listed paper that semantic scholar.com found. Mentions NATO Software Engineering Conference of 1968 in Garmisch. "The conference title "was deliberately chosen as being provocative" " the phrase, and the implied need, were it is claimed (23) discussed by Eckert at the 1965 Fall Joint Computer Conference, but the term 'software engineering' still had considerable novelty" - Cite 23 is to R.M. Gordon. Review of 'The Management of
Computer Programming Projects', by C.P. Lecht. Datamation 14,4 (April 1968) pp. 200, 202, 204.

Datamation 1959 ↗ shows some issues archived, and for ↗ 1953-98 shows many, but searching for 1968 ↗ shows not much saved for that 1968.

The History of Software Engineering ↗ by Grady Booch, IEEE September 2019. The Origins of the Term "Many suggest it came from the 1968 NATO Conference on Software Engineering, coined by Friedrich Bauer. Others have pointed to the 1966
letter by Anthony Oettinger in Communications of the ACM, wherein he used the term “software engineering” to make the distinction between
computer science and the building of software-intensive systems.1 Even earlier, in the June 1965 issue of Computers and Automation, there appeared a
classified ad seeking a “systems software engineer.” All the data I have points to Margaret Hamilton as the person who first coined the term. Having worked
on the SAGE (Semi-automatic Ground Environment) program, she became the lead developer for Skylab and Apollo while working at the Draper Lab. According to an (unpublished) oral history, she began to use the term “software engineering” sometime in 1963 or 1964 to distinguish her work from the hardware engineering taking place in the nascent US space program."

While I see the hardcopy of the 1965 proceedings is out there ↗, it is 1000 pages of not want to have that

So finding afips ↗ I do find a 1965 bit from Eckert here ↗ talking management but not the phrase.


Looking at the Apollo Guidance Computer ↗ led to googling and found Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) ↗ which mentions " MIT Instrumentation Lab awarded a $2.89 million contract in 1961," . That wiki cite 1 "History of the Apollo Guidance Computer" led to A deep dive into the Apollo Guidance Computer, and the hack that saved Apollo 14 ↗ from ArsTechnica, and Journey to the moon: the history of the Apollo guidance computer ↗ - so the effort started in August 1961 ...

Tube showing a "The Real Story Behind the Apollo 11 Computer Error | WSJ" interviews Dan Eyles as programmer doing the Appollo coding ... no mention of Hamilton at all nor SE phrase. Also saw mention of him in book Apollo to the Moon: A History inh 50 Objects, as making a software patch for Apollo 14. It also has a mention "In 1963, as Hamilton was preparing to enter graduate school at Brandeis University for a degree in abstract mathematics, MIT earned a contract from NASA to deisng the guidance and navigation computer (AGC) for the Apollo spacecraft."

Dating varies - cite 23 Putting the Eagle on Course ↗ (Boston Globe 1/11/1972) includes "In 1965, she learned of the Apollo program." and "She was assigned to a small group which was preparing hardware and software for unmanned flights." cite 24 Margaret Hamilton Led the NASA Software Team That Landed Astronauts on the Moon ↗ (Smithsonian Magazine, 14 Mar 2019) says "Thanks to the success of her work at SAGE, she was the first programmer hired for the Apollo project at MIT." and that she "popularized" the term (but they have links back to wikipedia so meh) and they have link to hackreactor history of coding and software engineering ↗ saying 1963/1964 ...

Youtube also has footage from the MIT vault, and CuriousMarc or bits about the apollo core rope memory from listings such as Apollo 12 listing with 1202 'bug' fixed, saved by Don Eyles, a coder on the software'


Summary


The origins of the term ''software engineering'' have been attributed to various sources. The term appeared in a list of services offered by companies in the June 1965 issue of "Computers and Automation"<ref>{{cite web |title=Computers and Automation: The Computer Directory and Buyers' Guide, 1965 |url=http://www.bitsavers.org/magazines/Computers_And_Automation/196506.pdf |website=bitsavers.org |access-date=15 July 2023}}</ref> and was used more formally in the August 1966 issue of ''Communications of the ACM'' (Volume 9, number 8) in "President's Letter to the ACM Membership" by Anthony A. Oettinger.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://bertrandmeyer.com/wp-content/upLoads/ACM-1966-Presidental-letter.pdf |quote=We must recognize ourselves -- not necessarily all of us, and not necessarily any one of us all the time -- as members of an engineering profession, be it hardware engineering or software engineering, a profession without artificial and irrelevant boundaries like that between 'scientific' and 'business' applications. |title=President's Letter to the ACM Membership |access-date=27 February 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Oettinger |first1=A. G. |year=1966 |title=President's Letter to the ACM Membership |publisher=Association for Computing Machinery |volume=9 |number=8 |issn=0001-0782 |doi=10.1145/365758.3291288 |journal=Commun. ACM |pages=545–546 |s2cid=53432801 |doi-access = free}}</ref><ref>{{cite web
| url = https://bertrandmeyer.com/2013/04/04/the-origin-of-software-engineering/
| title = The origin of "software engineering"
| date = 4 April 2013
| access-date = 17 November 2017}}</ref> It is also associated with the title of a NATO conference in 1968 by Professor Friedrich L. Bauer ↗.<ref>{{cite web
| url = http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/brian.randell/NATO/NATOReports/
| title = The 1968/69 NATO Software Engineering Reports
| last = Randall | first = Brian
| access-date = 17 November 2017}}</ref> Margaret Hamilton ↗ described the discipline of "software engineering" during the Apollo missions to give what they were doing legitimacy.<ref>{{cite web |title=Margaret Hamilton: First Software Engineer |author=Lori Cameron |website=Tech News |url=https://www.computer.org/publications/tech-news/events/what-to-know-about-the-scientist-who-invented-the-term-software-engineering |date=October 5, 2008 |publisher=IEEE Computer Society ↗}}</ref> At the time there was perceived to be a "software crisis ↗".<ref>{{cite book
|title= Software Engineering
|author=Ian Sommerville
|publisher=Pearson Education Limited
|date= March 24, 2015
|edition=10th
|isbn=978-0-13-394303-0}}</ref><ref>{{cite conference|author-first1=Naur|author-last1=Peter|author-first2=Brian |author-last2=Randell|author-link2=Brian Randell| title = Software Engineering: Report of a conference sponsored by the NATO Science Committee| publisher = Scientific Affairs Division, NATO| date = 7–11 October 1968| location = Garmisch, Germany| url = http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/brian.randell/NATO/nato1968.PDF| access-date = 2008-12-26}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url = http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/brian.randell/NATO/NATOReports/index.html| title = The 1968/69 NATO Software Engineering Reports| access-date = 2008-10-11 | last = Randell | first = Brian | author-link = Brian Randell|date = 10 August 2001| work = Brian Randell's University Homepage| publisher = The School of the Computer Sciences, Newcastle University| quote = The idea for the first NATO Software Engineering Conference, and in particular that of adopting the then practically unknown term "software engineering" as its (deliberately provocative) title, I believe came originally from Professor Fritz Bauer ↗.}}</ref> The 40th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2018) celebrates 50 years of "Software Engineering" with the Plenary Sessions' keynotes of Frederick Brooks ↗<ref>{{cite web
| url = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StN49re9Nq8&t=67s | title = ICSE 2018 – Plenary Sessions – Fred Brooks | author = 2018 International Conference on Software Engineering celebrating its 40th anniversary, and 50 years of Software engineering | website = YouTube ↗ | date = 31 May 2018 | access-date = 9 August 2018}}</ref> and Margaret Hamilton ↗.<ref>{{cite web
| url = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbVOF0Uk5lU | title = ICSE 2018 – Plenary Sessions – Margaret Hamilton | author = 2018 International Conference on Software Engineering celebrating its 40th anniversary, and 50 years of Software engineering | website = YouTube ↗ | date = 31 May 2018 | access-date = 9 August 2018}}</ref>

It depends on context



For RSN discussions - always seeing these asks to declare little-known pubs as 1/2/3/4 forever without much about why asking or what edit in question at which article ...




Markbassett (talk) 17:15, 29 November 2023 (UTC)






Academic accreditation



Note to self -- like many things, answer #3 - it's complicated ...

I input at a RFC for Ralston college over accreditation here ↗
: Many do mention it in the first line, though to me that does not seem per WP:LEAD ↗ guidance or any distinct WP policy ... just a c ommon choice
:Some do not mention it at the start, e.g. going thru the WP List of unaccredited institutions of higher education ↗
::Did input that seems could see that being part of a category or list - and there seems some flux or gaps in categorization running about
::BTW noted Ashford became UAGC ... which now is but seems shouldn't be ...
::And BTW is online new/separate topic? MOOCs accreditation in the US is Distance Education Accrediting Commission ↗ but that list of accredited and List of MOOC providers ↗ seem an alignment challenge. Plus -- it's just cannot use the same evaluation criteria, plus available RS markedly change in tone pre-2013 vs post-2022 as the field was rapidly altering. There is obvious prior comparison to degrees from by-mail or equivalency/evaluation programs such as University of the State of New York ↗ Regents College, evolved into Excelsior University ↗...


Googling various, seeking unaccredited good schools

apparently Michigan had a list but discontinued as burden
:scholero Unaccredited Universities ↗
:awalis ↗ shows some reasons why might not be accredited
:::e.g. - religious so exempt ; too new; financial difficulty;

googling 'unaccredited colleges that are good' and 'list of unaccredited colleges and universities'

And looking at 'best online colleges of 2024' seems loosely interesting too

... Update
Looking at general google what is said about realston college
.... mmm mostly own posts, some from Savannah Morning News ↗ copied at MSN ↗ and NECHE.org ↗ about accreditation


AND - theer is informal usage of the word "university" for
:*Open University ↗ - both British online and USA social courses company (e.g. how to juggle, tennis 101, massage, meditation,...)
:*Singularity University ↗ - focusing on Kurzweil ideas



WP:POVPUSH ↗ on Margaret Hamilton (software engineer) ↗



https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Margaret_Hamilton_(software_engineer)&diff=prev&oldid=1274985221

You have been slowly trying to push your POV on this page for years. Editors have the page on watchlist so your edits will eventually always be noticed. Stop wasting our time trying to circumvent consensus. Other editors ↗ have also already pointed this out to you. This is your last chance to stop on your own as far as I'm concerned or I will be forced to report you for edit warring.

Thanks. <span style="color:#AAA"><small><nowiki>&#123;{u&#124;</nowiki></small><span style="color:darkGreen;font-weight:bold">Gtoffoletto</span><small><nowiki>&#125;}</nowiki></small></span>  <sup>'''talk'''</sup> 12:55, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

:User:Gtoffoletto Thank you for a quick response to the ping. I will try to put more at the article TALK in an organized fashion. While I understand you think it should be another way, please assume good WP:FAITH ↗ that there are content and phrasing questions. For perspective, you might try looking for or at the sources crediting other people with coining the term, popularizing the concept, and developing the field. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 13:35, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
::The reason I am writing to you here is because I assume your good faith. But please consider that further editing the article without/against consensus may be considered WP:DISRUPTIVE ↗. <span style="color:#AAA"><small><nowiki>&#123;{u&#124;</nowiki></small><span style="color:darkGreen;font-weight:bold">Gtoffoletto</span><small><nowiki>&#125;}</nowiki></small></span>  <sup>'''talk'''</sup> 21:56, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
:::I think you are perhaps seeing a consensus that doesn't exist as I look at evidence of past TALK from many editors about this topic, and perhaps not viewing consensus as about showing all the POVs per WP:NPOV ↗ to be "representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." Again, I may get more organized at the article TALK on this at a later date. No guarantees though - it has been a tangle for years now. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 02:35, 14 February 2025 (UTC)


Vague exclamatory items...



Long ago disliked the use of vague pejorative "pseudoscience" -- starting with an opinion makes the article look biased and emotional, and how you gonna cite to support that ?
Pseudoscience is a vague pejorative because it labels certain beliefs or practices as unscientific without a clear, universally accepted definition of what constitutes science versus pseudoscience.

The problem with pseudoscience (nih.cov, Michael D Gordin)


Also dislike vague exclamatory "greatest of all time" (GOAT) in sports articles -- RfC at WT:NBA ↗.

I'd say give the emphasis to objective facts, avoid WP:SENSATIONAL ↗ opinionated bloviating outcries from sportswriters that have no specific meaning or weight. Stating the career history, their personal records, when and which Halls of Fame they were inducted to -- those are documented facts that should be present and should be meaningful to the reader as representing the level of recognition for the player. Setting some WP criteria level for saying many call them GOAT is just a crafting of WP:OR that no one else uses, no better than a pub argument over what constitutes a GOAT. GOAT would be WP:PUFFERY ↗ and WP:NPOV ↗ if said in wikivoice, but is WP:OR ↗ when declared "often" said. While conveying it only as a third-party attributed 'something said' (i.e. not someone saying it, but someone noting that many others say it) is not invalid, that seems obviously not as important as formal recognitions and should be reserved for those unable to do better than that. Simply stating the objective fact of NBA75 listing has much more authority than 'john doe in sports illustrated said many consider him one of the greatest players of all time'. If it's going to be based on NBA75, then just saying NBA75 is simpler and more understandable.

Generally judgemental phrases are difficult and absolutes or comparatives are more so. Markbassett (talk) 04:45, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
- - - - -

Also said something similar in Gaza Genocide RFC - Genocide in wikivoice/opening sentence

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LLM/AI ??? guidance still in works



Getting into it from Floppy Disk RFC where a review request was (IMHO invalidly) rebuffed on basis of WP:HATGPT ↗ - and later discussion at Wikipedia talk:Large language models - Wikipedia ↗.

Tha led to LLM/AI having been involved in a number of interesting places and still unsatisfactory positions. I noted guidance being all negative so started a discussion thread asking for positive suggestions on where/how to use such (and so far got only negatives).

Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_205#LLM/AI_generated_proposals? ↗

Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 199 - Wikipedia ↗ was intteresting -- I tend to agree more with

Don't know where it is all going, but list of LLMs and List f chatbots are in external use -- and the first thing people see now, so I'm thinking WP can either figure out how to use them or get replaced by them. Markbassett (talk) 16:03, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

WEIGHT and other meh



There is an internet media problem about WEIGHT vs sane content ... Sensational makes news, sensible gets steamrollered.
:Lots of coverage for a celebrity re their dating life, rumored scandals, etc - not much retraction when it's shown untrue.
:Lots of coverage for a violent minor faction, not much about the non-violent factions and their positions even when they are the vast majority.
:Lots of coverage for dramatic footage - not much on explanation nor 'boring' material.
::: e.g. Casio F-91W ↗ saw bit removed
:::: Removed section per WP:WEIGHT. Associating a mass-produced consumer item with terrorism based on 20-year-old military intel creates undue stigma. It is a marginal use case that violates NPOV and doesn't reflect the item’s primary encyclopedic value.) Tag: section blanking

TALK issues here mirror same in outside RS.
:Folks in bubbles often don't converse seriously about positions - too much reward from fellow travelers for smart snark or tricky misrepresenting the other positions
:Now all sources are somewhat biased, but maybe we could say advocates are inherently spinning and lying or at least selectively portraying things for their benefit, ditto politicians or businessmen, and basically take all others with a grain of salt for self-interest. (Caveat folks want to say *their* side advocates are 'truth' and others should be banned - e.g. many of the WP:RSP ↗ proposals that were not 'perennial' questions)

This is separate from the issue that RS is often mistaken for 'correct'. A RS may be moderate to strongly biased toward one side of causes through story selection and/or political affiliation. They may utilize strong loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by appealing to emotion or stereotypes), publish misleading reports, and omit information that may damage liberal causes. e.g. GroundTruth Project is rated by mediabiasfactcheck.com as left-biased based on consistent emphasis on progressive themes such as racial equity, climate justice, and anti-authoritarian framing, particularly in opposition to right-wing political figures. It earns a High factual rating due to transparency, strong sourcing practices, and the absence of failed fact checks.

WP tries to have civil discussion on contentious issues and editing consideration when facts and their importance are in doubt ... welcome to dealing with the world isn't always clear. So maybe some discussion aids would be helpful.
Other than 'let's keep it constructive' or 'I understand you're frustrated, let's keep it productive' or 'lets resume when things are calmer' may not be options.

- - -

First, include mention of the existing WP content, such as [[WP:AC/CT ↗ and WP:CTOP ↗; the Introduction to contentious topics
When editing a contentious topic, Wikipedia's norms and policies are more strictly enforced, and Wikipedia administrators ↗ have an expanded level of powers and discretion in order to reduce disruption to the project.

Within contentious topics, editors should edit <strong>carefully and constructively</strong>, refrain from disrupting the encyclopedia, and:

<p><strong>Additionally, you must be logged in, have 500 edits, and have an account age of 30 days ↗, and you are not allowed to make more than 1 revert within 24 hours on any page within this topic.</strong></p><p>Editors are advised to err on the side of caution if unsure whether making a particular edit is consistent with these expectations. If you have any questions about contentious topics ''procedures'', you may ask them at the arbitration clerks' noticeboard ↗ or you may learn more about this contentious topic here ↗.

Then offer ways to maybe help the discussion for such items.

There are phrases to encourage CIVIL - here are 10 phrases that lower tension for difficult conversations
# Lets take a breath for a second - even a single slow breath calms, and emotional contagion calms everyone
# You might be right - humility and openness in self and try just they might; conceding even a little may reduce stress and resistence to hearing your side too
# Help me understand what you mean - replace your judgment with curiosity; questions restore connection, inviting cooperation rather than escalation (Still a case of 'I see things differently' adding 'but I want to understand your view')
# That's fair - this phrase tells people they're heard and treated respectfully and acknowledged- people want fairness perhaps more than agreement
# Lets slow down a bit - tension builds on speed, doing a pace is mindfulness; take a breath before finishing a sentence even...
# 'I hear you' - recognition and acknowledgement - it doesn't mean you agree or the issue is resolved, just that their side is heard
# 'Let's find a way thru this together' - turn the conflict into teamwork, shift focuss from problem to work, and that they will be part of the solution
# I could be wrong - mindful act of ego release, create room for truth to emerge; tells others you value clarity more than dominance
# Lets come back to this later - cooling off period postponement buys time for everyone to regain emotional control
# I appreciate you bringing this up - gratitude also helps neutralize tension; it reframes confrontation as connection
All of these are ways to give safety for conversation to go forward...
Basically discussion should acknowledge others can have points you do not - not that you agree with the conclusion per se, just that there is stuff to talk

Perhaps wider essay is needed offering suggestions on how to open discussion
# I'm curious about that (signal openness and focus of interest), please (polite, request) help me to understand (rather than make assumptions, seek info and willin to listen)
# I see things differently, but I want to understand your point of view
# I'm sorry for my part in this (to back off and tone down conflict ... start by accepting some blame)
#


There are phrases that help communication
Phrases that help communication include active listening starters like "Help me understand," validating statements such as "That makes sense," and collaborative phrases like "Let's find a solution together". Other helpful phrases include showing appreciation ("I appreciate that") and clarifying statements ("Let me make sure I understand").


The C's of communication - the 7 C's or 3 C's ...
# Clear : The message should be easy to understand, using simple language and a clear purpose to avoid confusion
# Concise: Be brief and to the point, eliminating unnecessary words to respect the audience's time and maintain their attention.
# Concrete: Use specific facts and details to paint a clear picture for the reader, avoiding vague language.
# Correct: Ensure that the information is accuate and that the communication is free of errors in grammar, spelling, or facts.
# Coherent: The message should be logical and well-organized, with points that flow naturally from one to the next.
# Complete: Provide all necessary information so the reader can understand the message and take action if needed, without having to ask follow-up questions
# Courteous: The tone should be polite, respectful, and empathetic, considering the audience's perspective

There are negotiation techniques that apply in general life also
# Active listening. Being heard and understood so giving attention and responding thoughtfully cam e;iminate unecessary frustration.
# Building rapport. Finding common ground helps everyone be more open and cooperative and clear about where the dispute is and where cooperation is possible.
# Emotional control. Staying calm helps you think more clearly and keep the situation from escalating. Remember that the goal is to resolve the issue, not to "win" the argument. By staying composed, you can focus on finding a solution that works for everyone.
# Asking Open-Ended Questions. Use questions like "What do you think about this?". Open-ended questions invite more detailed responses, fostering a deeper understanding.
# Empathy. Demonstrating empathy doesn't mean you have to agree with everything the other person says. It's about acknowledging their feelings and showing that you care about their perspective. Use phrases like "I can see why you feel that way" to convey empathy. This approach can soften defensiveness and make the other person more receptive to your ideas. Remember, it's not about who is right; it's about understanding each other better.
# Patience.
# Clear Communication. Encourage the other person to ask questions if they're unsure about something you've said. This openness shows that you value their understanding and are committed to a productive conversation. Always be willing to clarify or rephrase if needed.
# Flexibility. Stay open to new ideas and suggestions that might lead to a better outcome. Recognize that the other person also has needs and wants that are just as valid as yours. Keep the focus on finding a resolution, but adaptable and open to alternatives or compromise that might satisfy everyone.
# Problem-Solving. Approach conflicts with a problem-solving mindset. Instead of focusing on the problem itself, shift your attention to finding a solution, working with the other person to identify the core issue and the shape of what a solution would be, then brainstorm possible solutions together. Practice breaking down issues into smaller, more manageable parts. This makes it easier to address each aspect of the problem individually. Encourage the other person to share their ideas and be open to suggestions.
# Establishing Boundaries.
# Building Consensus. Aim to create an environment where all parties feel heard and valued. Encourage open discussion and be willing to consider alternative viewpoints. This approach fosters a sense of teamwork and collaboration. When people feel included, they're more likely to support the final decision. Encourage input from all parties and be open to compromise.
# De-escalation Techniques. If emotions are running high, take steps to calm things down. Respond calmly and use neutral language. Acknowledge the other person's feelings and express your willingness to find a resolution. This approach can help diffuse anger and prevent the situation from escalating further. Use phrases like "Let's de-escalate this a bit".
Sometimes a simple pause or a change of scenery can help reset the conversation.
# Seeking Win-Win Outcomes. Strive for outcomes where both parties feel they've gained something. This approach fosters goodwill and encourages continued cooperation. Start by identifying shared goals and work towards a solution that benefits everyone involved. Be open to compromise and willing to adjust your expectations. Remember, the goal is to find a solution that meets both of your needs as much as possible.

- - - -


More to come Markbassett (talk) 04:40, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

RfC - Airport destination lists



Hi, for your information, as you were involved in the previous discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Airport destination lists ↗ or the RfC on consensus of WP:DESTNOT ↗ at WT:NOT ↗, I wanted to let you know that the discussed broader RfC has been opened at WP:VPP#RfC - The inclusion of destination lists in Airport articles ↗. If you wish to contribute, please feel free. Many thanks! <span class="nowrap"><span style="color: RebeccaPurple">Danners430</span> <sub>tweaks made ↗</sub></span> 21:08, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

:User:Danners430 Thanks for the ping, I will go look. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 02:53, 8 December 2025 (UTC)
:: p.s. Looked, concluded no change at this time as insufficiently founded and widely applicable plus lengthy blathering about it. I'd consider it in the light of smaller airports, as well as how routes are handled for other transportation hubs like Port of Vancouver ↗, Port of Spain ↗, Port of Panama City ↗ / Colón Free Trade Zone ↗ / Port of Cristobal ↗ ; Times Square–42nd Street station ↗, Washington Metro ↗,, Cheers Markbassett (talk) 09:14, 8 December 2025 (UTC)
:::"Western" airports are absolutely far better sourced. However, just as an example... this ↗ is the most recent removal of unsourced content I've done on an airport article. Many, many articles are horribly sourced - mostly in areas that get less attention by English-language editors. <span class="nowrap"><span style="color: RebeccaPurple">Danners430</span> <sub>tweaks made ↗</sub></span> 13:24, 8 December 2025 (UTC)
::::User:Danners430 Yes, though I would say many are also 'humbly' sourced and could wish for some reality restraint on what one wishes or demands for sourcing. I tend to agree with WP:BESTSOURCES ↗ "best respected and most authoritative reliable sources helps to prevent bias, undue weight, and other NPOV disagreements",an explained urging to get the best you can. I could wish it also gave more preference indications -- my own bias would be to prefer open greater prominence, openness and substance -- works such as published books-length works, peer-reviewed journals, and open web over deep web content behind a paywall, PhD thesis, and short reaction pieces. Not going to get much of that in the context of an airport, so maybe could use some consideration of general principles when/how/if to present first-party/biased sources. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 19:36, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

Problematic practices ...quoting and characterisation of source



From a RFC in Reform UK

Option D - None of the above -- avoid both as a quote and having any characterisation as problematic and unecessary practices. And likely not at all. The question presumes in a couple of areas and problematic presentation that doesn't seem at alll the way to go, if the content is mentioned at all.:
:#First, using a quotation format presumes that the quote as exact wording is WP:DUE a mention. If so, then the same wording will be widely mentioned as a quote from DeSmog, one that has had significant coverage and impact in the context of this article topic of Reform UK. Being available at DeSmog.com alone is not a great WEIGHT of readership, and quote format seems to me often a problematic and unnecessary practice as it gives the particular framing of the phrase prominence instead of a paraphrased content. I did find some mention of 2.3 million funding by 2024 elections at New Internationalist and The London Economic, but that's all and it did not mention DeSmog as a source nor use this phrasing. It seems Reform UK funding in general has some coverage -- at the NYTimes for example -- but not this quote and generally not to the level of detail this article is going into. So I say certainly not in a quotation format, and likely no mention at all. One can read the essay WP:QUOTE for more about quotation, but please just do a close paraphrase and not a quote.
:#Second, it presumes that DeSmog is a WP:RS where WP:BIASED applies, and so it's content may need an WP:INTEXT attribution with some characterisation. I would agree that DeSmog is a respected information source in the area of investigative journalism for climate change policy and finance, so is a WP:RS, and that it's self-description plus outside views make it an advocate and so inherently WP:BIASED. But nothing in WP:INTEXT or WP:BIASED requires anything more than naming the source, and the WP:BIASED examples use a wikilink such as DeSmog to present statements of opinion as fact of that source's opinion rather than objective fact. Characterisation or labelling of the source seems to me another problematic and unnecessary practice as it gives a framing of the source prominence which would affect the text and would have to be separately supported by third-party RS commonly making that characterisation whenever they mention the source. Please just make no characterisation at all about the source.
Markbassett (talk) 00:27, 22 December 2025 (UTC)

" The sources do not show a consensus amongst "genocide scholars" that there is genocide. And furthermore, it's irrelevant to the lead; reliable sources rarely mention the opinions of genocide scholars on the Israel-Hamas War, and reliable sources have almost never claimed that genocide scholars agree there is a genocide. This is WP:OR to manufacture some consensus via an agglomeration of niche sources, whereas reliable sources that synthesized these niche sources do not claim there is consensus of a genocide. Not a single source mentioned in the RfC is a newspaper article or academic paper. The sources are niche because they're all press statements from little-referenced organizations or websites. Hence inclusion of the supposed consensus among genocide scholars violates the core tenants of WP:RELIABLE. Bill Williams 07:34, 9 December 2025 (UTC)"



Actually, this article does mention Orgel in the History section as a prior use of the term. Perhaps it could be phrased more clearly -particularly in the lead - that this article is about where Dembski means a particular approach of calculation for the concept which had previously been mentioned in discussions of what heredity is, and applying that into a design inference. And perhaps a line could be added to the history to mention Crick use of the term about heredity information. (for example see here) But honesty here may not be possible - editors are humans and so are limited by cognitive filters, and usually have difficulty even allowing contradictory messages to appear.
Also, the article doesn’t lead with it as Creationism. It instead leads with a vague pejorative “pseudoscience”. I actually think a branch of “Creationism” is what it should say instead, as ID was listed as a type of such in texts, and as fitting the definition because it is supporting a view of creation versus evolution. In the end I’m reassured by the thought that starting with an obvious judgemental insult serves as fair warning of bias in a situation of two wrongs make almost-right. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 15:54, 11 December 2023 (UTC

Classification



Hi, i would like to briefly clarify the point related to the reverted ↗ edit. For your information, Tabasarans ↗ are one of the Lezgic peoples ↗, and the Tabasaran language ↗ belongs to the Lezgic branch. (In the same way, Kaitags ↗ are Dargic ↗, although each of these groups has its own distinct language.)

The term Northeast Caucasian peoples ↗ refers to a broader grouping that includes all Lezgic peoples, as well as Andic ↗, Dargic ↗, Tsezic ↗ and other groups. If needed, I would be glad to discuss this further, otherwise, I kindly ask you to reconsider this point. Thank you for your contribution. Rawfour04 (talk) 12:14, 26 December 2025 (UTC)

:You can certainly go again - I reverted because " Lezgic e ethnic group", particularly " e ethnic" looked like a garbled misentry. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 14:59, 27 December 2025 (UTC)

p.s. I commonly check the Recent edits entries that WP has flagged for 'Likely has errors' and/or 'Likely bad faith' and that perhaps got flagged for the grammar of " e ethnic". Cheers Markbassett (talk) 15:03, 27 December 2025 (UTC)

Airport destination lists sourcing RfC


Hi there,

I'm leaving this message because you contributed to the recent RfC regarding the inclusion of airport destination lists. As promised, now that that RfC has closed, I've initiated a further discussion about the sourcing standards to be applied to these lists.

If you wish to contribute to the discussion, please do so at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Airport destination lists - sourcing requirements ↗.

Cheers! <span class="nowrap"><span style="color: RebeccaPurple">Danners430</span> <sub>tweaks made ↗</sub></span> 15:30, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

Understandability guideline feedback



Hello Mark. I've picked up the project of rewriting our understandability guideline again, based on the feedback from the initial RfC. I was wondering if I could pick your brain on this, perhaps at the workshop talk page ↗.

You indicated ↗ that you found the priority numbering for dealing with jargon confusing. I've now simplified from 5 to 4 items, and created an image (see section ↗). Curious to hear if that makes things clearer. (as an aside, the number of items didn't go down to 5, I split the suggestions into two categories: dealing with jargon and writing clearly more general).

You further mentioned the distinction between plain English and plain language. I'd been struggling with finding a good heading that means 'don't use overly complex or verbose language', so calling this plain language rather than plain English was a useful suggestion. Another alternative is to say use plain prose, to further emphasise this is about the text surrounding jargon, not about the jargon itself. What do you think? —Femke 🐦 (talk) 18:08, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

:I didn’t think that proposed priority numbering was confusing, I thought guidance was different coverage than the existing guidance, and that the phrasing had removed prioritizing coverage. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 23:14, 27 March 2026 (UTC)
::I'm referring to this comment, where I read confusion about the choice of 5 numbered points rather than bullet points. I wonder whether my simplification and addition of an image has made that choice clearer to you, given that it's now more clearly a sequence of options to consider first / later.
::The section "Avoid overly technical language" currently uses a presentation format of seven bullets, and the proposal uses a numbered list of five items with two paragraphs of text before and one after. I felt that bullets are more appropriate than numbering ''since that's less intrusive and the list is a collection and not a sequence of steps nor a construction with totality 5 parts.'' As an unrelated aspect, I also felt having the more guidance items was desirable. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 07:47, 28 March 2026 (UTC)
:::I don’t think I am confused about a shift of formatting with numbered versus bullets. What I noted was the change between numbering and bullet format dropped prior content and added different content. It’s not just shifting how the guidances are grouped, it’s changing what the guidances are.
:::For example, “Avoid jargon” just is not the same as “Use jargon and acronyms judiciously”.
:::Cheers Markbassett (talk) 13:20, 28 March 2026 (UTC)