Talk:Mu Dynamics

Marketing

This article is blantant marketing, not even close to an encyclopedic article. I don't think excuses such as "other companies get away with worse" is particularly motivating a reason to not be such Peacock-try. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Facepuncher2k (talk • contribs) 21:56, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I put the page up for speedy deletion due to blatant advertising and deletion was declined. (See my talk page for the response from the reviewer.) There is also an issue concerning conflict of interest by the editor that created the page and provided most of its copy. Please feel free to propose the page for deletion with {{prod}} or {{ad}}. — Dgtsyb (talk) 01:03, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I've been trying to direct the development of this page to be more encyclopedia-like for some time, but the primary author's perspective... hasn't been quite objective. If folks are amenable, I can take a pass at making the page more NPOV. Jokeboy (talk) 01:29, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I've been tempted to do the same, but reading the existing comments below and what Dgtsyb mentions, it may be problematic. I don't personally think deletion is in order, since the existence of a company/product is often encyclopedic, however IMO the tone of the article should be improved for the integrity of both wikipedia and the company. I certainly think appearing peacock-ish isn't in anyone's best interest. If an objective rewrite can be fashioned... that would be most excellent. Facepuncher2k (talk) 16:34, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to take a pass at it. It's going to be a severe edit, though. In the worst case, someone can simply revert it. But I'm hoping it'll be the basis for a proper page. Jokeboy (talk) 19:49, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Much better! — Dgtsyb (talk) 05:33, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I like it. Thanks for taking the time to make this a better page. tmaufer (talk) 18:46, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Thumbs up Facepuncher2k (talk) 21:56, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Context tag

A copy of what I just wrote in my personal talk page:

Sorry to be a bit late getting back to you. With Summer weather I've been busy with my new hobby of Wikiphotography, running around town taking pictures of everything that doesn't move and some things that do and putting them into articles. Yes, your improvements obviate the context tag and are in accordance with Wiki rules far as I see. Congratulations; you've been studying and learning things that can be useful in other articles. Umm, except we should not be discussing a particular article in a personal talk page, This material properly belongs in the talk page of the article in question, so ..... Jim.henderson (talk) 02:32, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

A bit more. As it happens, this article is a bit outside my ken; I know nothing of the company and am not intimately involved in its field. That's one of the reasons why the discussion belongs here in the article's talk page where people who do know might see. Hmm, I didn't look at the record to see what I may have done months ago and forgotten about, which would have prompted you to write in my talk page.

Ah. Yeah, that was me. The darn thing made no sense to me, a month and a half ago and my ignorance in the field is not so deep that it ought to be incomprehensible. Now the article pretty much tells me, and I hope others, what the company is about. Maybe it leans a bit towards an informal tone rather than the pedantic, even stiff style that marks many of the best "encyclopedic" articles in Wikipedia but that's apretty minor matter and I have to say you did good work. Jim.henderson (talk) 02:32, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Rather than try to describe what we do in our language, we have been gradually evolving our language toward the problems we are solving for people, rather that how we solve those problems. We aren't there yet, but we actively maintain our web presence and are always revising to try and improve the clarity of our message(s). Thanks very much for the feedback. It was well received and the result was clearly an improvement. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tmaufer (talk • contribs) 18:24, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

This entry is nowhere near NPOV and reads more like a press release than an encyclopedia entry. Compare this page with the one for Ariba. It needs to be dramatically rewritten, not to mention reduced in size. A 3-year-old company with only 50 employees doesn't warrant the level of significance that this page implies. Jokeboy (talk) 23:19, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

With respect, the Ariba page gives me NO idea of why they are unique or stand out in the market, or really what they do. I personally never look at company size as any reflection of importance. What we do may be a bit esoteric, but our message is simple: Next generation network services based on IP and other open standards are fundamentally more difficult to assemble, integrate and manage (compared to services offered on single-vendor proprietary platforms). Yes, we are few people, but we are evolving rapidly and our customers are using what we have today and are begging for more. They can't get what we are selling from anyone else, regardless of size. At least, not at the level of sophistication and ease of use. Some people really need to see the big picture to understand why the problems they are facing are not product-specific but systemic. That's what this article tries to state and clarify. As I wrote below, perhaps it would be possible to write a larger article that is stand-alone, but I need to have support from relevant parts of the wikipedia that can link to the purported article. Tmaufer (talk) 05:22, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Bigger not always better

Edited from something on my talk page:

Sorry to bother you, but we have a warning on our page again. I don't know where it is coming from, or how to remove it. I previously added clarification text according to the suggestions provided, and the warning went away. Please tell me how my page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_Dynamics has less "clarity" compared to the pages for BreakingPoint Systems, Codenomicon, Spirent, Ixia, etc. In the meantime, I'll try again. I find this frustrating...why don't I get alerted when these status messages appear? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.85.18.250 (talk) 19:11, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jim.henderson"

Eek! Our page? Goodness, I'm carrying 3700 pages on my watchlist and this one is certainly not among my most cherished or most intensively worked. For the simplest question about watchlist, see help:watchlist. There's a lot to learn about Wikipedia methods and customs, and everything comes easier to those who spend hours studying them in Wikipedia Help (see the "interaction" toolbox at left). Few will want to do much studying unless they're also editing a lot of articles. That's me, and many other editors with a shallow interest in multiple broad topics. Studying the methods puts us at a big advantage over those who care deeply about a few narrow topics covered by a few articles.

Removing a warning is in one sense easy but what's easy is often not right, and the right way is after discussion with a few different parties here in the talk page. Far as I see, our critic is correct and all the articles that eigher you or he mention are better than this one. For one thing, all of them are shorter. Most of them start with the right stuff, which is simple stuff. This one starts with abbreviations and jargon which only insiders will know. Then it goes on to an explanation that I at least find difficult to follow, written more in the style of a sales pitch to people who already know what they want, than of an encyclopedia article for the ignorant.

So, no, this is a poor article, though those others also suffer to a lesser degree from the same defects, particularly WP:POV, that this one does. Well, except for Ixia which seems to be biological rather than commercial. And alas, my broad and shallow interests keep me too busy to study this particular little company enough to do much more than add some perhaps constructive criticisms and suggestions. Particularly, I suggest signing every Talk Page post with four tildes at the bottom. Jim.henderson (talk) 01:50, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Marketing Overdose, Then?!? :-)

Reading your comments, I can see the problems. I'll work on it tomorrow and we'll see what you think. I appreciate the constructive criticism. Also, nice tip on the four-tildes thing. I edited my posting on your talk page. I'm learning! Tmaufer (talk) 04:24, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Try this on for size

I tried to draw what Mu Dynamics does as part of a larger market transition -- our customers tell us that this is really why they are buying what we are selling. Can you see if the warning can be removed now? Thanks in advance, Tmaufer (talk) 20:22, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Procedural matter: Comments in my talk page don't do much good, due to traffic there on other matters. This article should be discussed here in its own talk page where anyone interested in the article can see, while questions that are not relevant here can be put in your talk page, which I will put on my watchlist. Thanks. We're still learning the wikipedia mores and folkways. Tmaufer (talk) 20:00, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Getting down to the form of this article, it sure does look a lot different, mainly more organized due to sections and bullets. This is a great improvement, with the minor caveat that the section structure has too many layers with all substantive text in one section having sub- and sub-sub-sections. Flattening structure is easily done. Glad you liked the improvements. One layer of half a dozen or fewer sections is probably better for this relatively small article. Thanks (again) for the suggestions for improvement! Tmaufer (talk) 20:00, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

And despite being smaller than many articles on other topics, it is still a bit large for the smallness of the company. With respect, we may be small, but we're solving a big problem and our customer list would be the envy of much larger companies. Much text goes to explain the traffic problems Internet companies have. This material is pretty clear, especially due to a lesser jargon fraction, but lacks the formality or stiffness of encyclopedic prose. That's a fairly minor problem. It's a fine line to walk, especially considering that Codenomicon and BreakingPoint Systems, two of our competitors, seem to have very little of the "context" that we've been encouraged to add, and they manage not to have warnings on their wiki pages. Tmaufer (talk) 20:00, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be better if some of the technical explanations of traffic problems could be moved into articles that are not about any particular company, since there seem to be a few competitors in the field. Alas, I don't know enough about the topic to identify the technical articles that ought to be thereby beefed up and linked. As you can imagine, I'm not inclined to do work that casts our competition in a broader context and helps them market themselves better. If they want to write more on their pages, that's up to them.

And definitely there ought to be links among articles about relevant competitors, in their various See Also sections. I fear that any "independent" article about the difficulties of deploying multi-vendor networks based on open standards would be rejected because of who wrote it (as being too partisan) -- even though it is a real problem! If such an article existed, I'd be happy to have it link to us as a "see also." I am very sensitive to not abusing the wikipedia and don't want to be perceived as creating pages that benefit only us. I'd be happy if that benefit was confined to our page. Tmaufer (talk) 20:00, 24 September 2008 (UTC) Jim.henderson (talk) 16:18, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Fundamental flaw - target of discussion

In reading over the latest version of this page, I finally hit upon why it just feels wrong. The vast majority of this article really doesn't discuss Mu Dynamics at all. There are four detailed discussion paragraphs - "Market Trend: Adoption of IP-Based Technologies", "Consequences of These Trends", "Implications for Test Equipment", and "Monitor Services While Sending Real-World Traffic". Mu Dynamics is not mentioned once, either directly or indirectly, in these four paragraphs.

It would be much more appropriate and fitting with the general structure of Wikipedia if those four paragraphs were moved elsewhere, into one or more pages devoted to a general concept topic (either newly-created or already existing), leaving only the first and last paragraphs, which really do discuss Mu Dynamics. Then to provide context, the text of the second paragraph should be expanded just a bit, to include links to those other concept pages. It's incorrect to define concepts in depth in the middle of a page devoted to another (albeit related) topic. Someone wanting to learn about Mu Dynamics certainly wants that information. But someone wanting to learn about just those concepts will be out of luck, unless they somehow think to look at the Mu Dynamics page for that information. Jokeboy (talk) 23:23, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I tried to do this here Challenges in developing and deploying open standards-based protocols but it was marked for deletion as "original research." I have been in this industry for 20 years and while, yes, this page is a collection of observations, that fact doesn't make them less true! I am working on finding citations. My plan was to have that page point to the Mu Dynamics page as an example of how to test systems based on open standards protocols. I would of course also point to Codenomicon and BreakingPoint Systems. Can you help give me advice on perhaps changing the tone to be more encyclopedic while I research citations and references?

Great suggestions...HELP!

I have trouble seeing how I can implement them without "polluting" a page on, for example "open standards" or "the TCP/IP protocol suite" (to name just two possibilities) without running afoul of the page watchers. I mean, other companies do (at some level of abstraction) what we do, but have not really latched onto the megatrend that is driving the need for what we do. Shhhh. :-) If I were to create an independent page, thereby not polluting some existing page, would that be ok with the wiki gods? I honestly don't know how to go about that without seeming completely self-promotional. I have heard that is frowned upon. With the right guidance, I am sure I can do a good job of separating the stuff about the market trends and modifying the Mu Dynamics page to only talk about how we help people navigate these unfamiliar waters. Tmaufer (talk) 05:23, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

As usual I've been busy with other matters but took a little look at this one. First a strictly stylistic matter; you went too far with dropping the sectionalization and replacing it entirely with non standard bolded titles. No, there's supposed to be a WP:TOC generated automatically when you make section heads the standard way with equals signs.

Second, as for your new article with the long "challenges" title, some people like to draft an article on their personal page or one of its subpages and invite other editors to examine it, rather than insert a not yet ready article directly into the public encyclopedia. I suggest that you copy that article into your personal page before the article gets deleted. For that matter, after copying it, you might be the one who should agree that it was premature and should be deleted pending rework and preparation to reissue under perhaps another name.

Third, umm, what was I thinking....oh, just another thing about how articles are spawned. Most of my new articles are not new at all, rather they are WP:SPLITs of sections that have become large or tangential to their current article. That might be a better way to create the more general article I and our other discussant have been hinting at. Yeah, it ain't easy for a newby when more experienced participants keep coming up with long established customs, rules and guidelines you never heard of.

Oh, that's right; I'll make it fourth. The general discussion of the problems this company was created to solve certainly is relevant to a lot of articles. Remember, your material, including old versions available through the History tab, is subject to being pasted into articles all over Wikipedia. I won't do that, but that's only because

1. I know little of the topic, and
2. you wouldn't think it fair, but if you write good stuff, someone will probably do that. That's one of the difficulties of trying to maintain fairness.

Well, gotta run along now, but I'll look again during the weekend. Jim.henderson (talk) 17:08, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

That is all very helpful. I am thinking that I will withdraw that other article (agreed...premature) and develop it as a sub-page off the Mu Dynamics page. Are sub-pages subject to the same deletion rules? For now, I'll just copy the wikicode of the "challenges" article and withdraw that page completely. I am also going to radically shorten the Mu Dynamics page to get the warning removed. But I am not going away! :-) I think this content does belong in wikipedia. It's a real issue, and is bigger than Mu. Tmaufer (talk) 22:34, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I removed the link to the "challenges" page and I have edited/shortened this page. I brought the info on what Mu does much closer to the top, and tried not to make it a sales pitch. If it needs to be reduced further, please let me know here. I am ok with that, I just didn't want to cut more than was necessary to remove the warning. ;-) Tmaufer (talk) 23:14, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Oof, the brain is tired after a long day of editing. Normally on a weekend I go out bicycling and photographing for local geography articles, but poor weather and an especially long backlog encouraged me to stay indoors and banging on the keyboard. Having banged mostly thoughtfully, here I'll hit more keys but perhaps with less thought per keybang.

So, now the article is shorter, and the section heads are visible in TOC. There are still three levels of them, which is two too many. Actually the words under the first header are highly informative in a summary way, and shouldn't be under a header at all. That header should disappear to make the text part of the lead. Besides being stacked when they shouldn't, the other headers are far too long, as though intending to convey the meat of the information rather than merely help the reader find it.

Well, that's not what's wrong with the "consequences" header. That one should say something that suggests the problem, like "Living with diversity"? "Diversity as adversity"? No, those are not right, but something more informative... maybe "Ripple effects"? I mean, a section head doesn't have to be totally explicit, and half a dozen words are almost always far too may. The other title should be similarly short, like maybe "Service analyzer". Short and explicit. And there's no need for more than a pair of equals signs on each side of these headers because there's no need for a subsection structure. There; that gives you two paragraphs of lead, two meat sections, and one EL section with umm, a subsection though I said this article shouldn't do subsections. Maybe a subsection is okay in this context.

As for how a subpage works, article pages don't have them but user pages do. See User:Spinningspark/Work in progress for a sample. This fellow has several articles in the oven; no telling how soon any of them will be fully cooked and ready to pop out and feed the great reading public. Oof, as I said, that's not a lot of thought I'm giving in all these paragraphs, but my meager thinking power got used up earlier in the evening so that's how much you get this time. Better thinking next time. Jim.henderson (talk) 03:50, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I just finished (I think) morphing the page according to your very helpful suggestions. I'm in Las Vegas at the moment. Just had a few moments to work on this and now I think it might be close to passing muster. Please let me know if it doesn't, and if it does, what do I have to do to get the warning removed? As always, many thanks! Tmaufer (talk) 04:14, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

What stays in Vegas

All rightie; the context has become pretty clear, at least to me, though others will review it with a mind less prepared than mine and thus apply a more stringent test. Several less severe problems remain, including too many unnecessarily bolded terms and the excessive use of questions. Why? An encyclopdia ought to be more about answers, right? The infobox is too long with its "Industry" heading going into why the products are necessary, and its "Products" heading listing details that ought to be in the body of the article. Oh, and the "External links" section contains a subsection that's all internal ones. That's not merely poor style; it's plain wrong... let me open another window and fix that... There. Umm, except the section structure has acquired a level because one section or another was made with an incorrect number of equals signs. The only appropriate number of equals signs for a section header in this kind of article, far as I see, is two. Anyway I dislike editing the same article multiple times in a short time, so I'll fix it some other day if nobody else does it meantime. Anyway progress has continued, slowly, and I'll look at it again tonight after taking care of some railroad matters in Wikimedia Commons and other matters. Jim.henderson (talk) 16:58, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, the warning is gone. That's a huge milestone! However, your other comments are valuable and I'll work on them over the weekend. I am delighted with the results, and I really appreciate the critical eye that wikipedia editors maintain. I have much more respect for wikipedia now that I have gone through this process. I can easily remove the more conversational aspects (the questions) and remove some of the excessive usage of boldface. Again, many thanks for your continued suggestions and for helping me make this page fit in with the expectations of the wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tmaufer (talk • contribs) 21:04, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Darn-it! I always forget to sign my talk postings! :-( I think I fixed most of your most recent suggestions. Tmaufer (talk) 22:46, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I was going to answer last night but had to trot across the north end of Midtown to grab a grid board to bring to the south end to repair a few hundred phone lines, hence was busy, then away from Internet, then tired. Yes, it's a different kind of writing. I mentioned in my personal page that it's not as difficult as poetry, but still it does have difficulties. Many of the tricks we use in other writing, such as catechismal responses and metaphor are condemned as wp:peacock terms or otherwise not allowed. It comes out bland and flat, unless we take the thought to produce lively prose without those tricks, and generally we don't bother. And it's got to be formal WP:TONE so a lot of gimmicks like "a lot of gimmicks like" and "it's got to be" have got to be eliminated; we can't use "like" to indicate an example because "like" denotes similitude, not exemplitude, while "got" is a verb, not a grammatical particle, and "a lot" cannot be an indefinite plenitude but must be a definite allotment.

You might want to broaden your horizons a bit, looking into articles about related business and technical matters which you understand, or hobbies or local geography or whatever else you know, to see how other editors handle those topics for good or ill. Some of them are likely to show examples of good work to be emulated, and others will surely show you how not to do it. Jim.henderson (talk) 14:41, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

As always, good advice. This whole process has given me a great respect for the wikipedia. I still plan to create a sub-page where I can develop the ideas that have, frankly, been crystallized in this process. I know now that an encyclopedia is not the place for original research, so what I need to do is explain a topic that is not well understood within the computer networking community, and create the necessary citations and references, so that I can eventually contribute this to the wider community. Tmaufer (talk) 04:21, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Another week

So, I've busied myself with other things including Kearny New Jersey, but see that the work here has progressed by multiple little edits. The "about" paragraph is really about who uses the analyzer and how, so doesn't need its own header which can simply be eliminated, tbus putting the paragraph into the previous section. Its subsections can be promoted into sections, or perhaps a section with one subsection. All the work you've been doing merely upgrades a formerly intolerably substandard article into an acceptably mediocre one. That's generally what I do. I know editors who like to upgrade articles to a WP:GA but only one article per 300 is at that level or higher, and any article that comes within shouting distance of that standard is one with which I've long since become bored. There's always a million horrible articles, well maybe not quite that many, awaiting the effort to upgrade them to mediocrity.

I do hope you find time to write materials that present your understanding of the industry, starting of course with carefully reading all relevant existing articles with an eye to filling their gaps and gaffes, and making connections to other articles that you understand to be relevant and most readers won't. It's an odd hobby, but rewarding in its own way. Jim.henderson (talk) 02:42, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I do plan to develop some of that content and to help improve articles in this space. I have my own projects (blogging about whisky, of all things) and plan to do this work in my spare time -- after all, it's more in line with the books I've written than anything to do with the company for which I currently work. Tmaufer (talk) 21:32, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Persistent Vandalism

Someone in the 88.x.x.x IP address range has been periodically defacing this wikipage. I appreciate the efforts of the editors in rolling back these changes. Given the IP address, we suspect it is one of our competitors. Thanks again to the wiki editors for preserving the integrity of this page. tmaufer (talk) 23:32, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Suggestions for improvement

We've had several edits to this page that may or may not have been from people with malicious intent. I think the most recent edits are not malicious, and I think earlier ones were. With that said, I want to make this page better and hope that this section can collect suggestions for improvement. For a first step, and as a gesture of good faith, I will revert *much* of the changes made by the most recent editor. I'll do this over the next day or two.

Am I wrong to be offended when people edit a page and don't do it from a logged-in account? When I see changes made by an IP address it feels like someone is trying to hide their true identity by not logging in. If that's an incorrect assumption, please tell me. tmaufer (talk) 18:41, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

It's a valid suspicion but a wrong assumption. When I see something like that, I check the editor's talk page and revision history. If I don't find anything, it may be a hit-and-run. If I do find something, it's usually a sign that the person may be new, but may otherwise be operating in good faith. But more than anything, I look at the actual edits and try to get a sense of the reasoning behind them. Someone whose edits include spot changes throughout a paragraph is more likely to be legit, because vandals don't usually take that kind of time or care. Jokeboy (talk) 21:26, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough, and noted. I followed through on my promise to make edits that I believe follow the spirit of the person from 88.x.y.z while preserving my voice. tmaufer (talk) 20:16, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I need to state something a little more plainly, I think. "Preserving the voice" of edits done specifically by you violates WP:NPOV in a pretty major way. It also violates WP:Outing for me to explain specifically why, without your permission, but a quick visit to your talk page and one of the link there makes the conflict clear. Jokeboy (talk) 21:09, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I didn't mean anything more than correct grammar. I still strive for NPOV. I do know what that is.... tmaufer (talk) 22:01, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Nice to see that the problems have been relatively minor while I was out photographing the South Bronx and otherwise engaged. Yes, WP:COI and WP:OWNER have some relevance to the present questions. I go a bit beyond the ideas of COI, and generally avoid writing, and especially am ready to run away from disputes about, matters in which I have great interest. Safer to concentrate on that wide variety of topics in which I am only mildly curious. And of course when disagreements arise I preface many remarks with comments like, "The article obviously doesn't belong to me but...."

I also wish Wikipedia:Anonymous user#Reputation and privacy were a little more forceful in warning that anonymous editors get little respect when it comes to disagreements. The majority of anonymous edits are useful ones, and some anonymous editors do a considerable amount of good work, but most vandalism is anonymous, and careful thoughtful work is less commonplace among the anonymous even when destruction is not intentional. That's why I'm generally quicker and harsher in reverting anonymous contributions than ones from logged in editors. There are occasional proposals to forbid or restrict anonymous edits, but considerations of being friendly to newbies always prevail and we just have to keep watching out for anonyms who mess up deliberately or ignorantly. Jim.henderson (talk) 07:43, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

In retrospect, I don't classify the recent episode with the anonymous editor as a disagreement. I think the suggestions ended up improving the page. I've been very busy lately and have a bunch of travel coming up, but I am pondering various re-writes that will make this article shorter still and will further "neutralize" the POV. I greatly appreciate the fact that editors with far more experience take the time to correct me when I stray from the acceptable standards of the wikipedia. 74.85.18.250 (talk) 01:04, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Hilarious -- I had forgotten to log in before I made the last edit. How ironic! tmaufer (talk) 01:05, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

This is not a vanity page

While I admit that I started this wikipage, several (perhaps 4) have contributed and most of the contributions have been from non-Mu people. What do I have to do to fix this warning on this page? A group of people that have no ties to Mu have made significant efforts to make sure that this page is appropriate in the context of wikipedia. Many other companies have pages so the very fact that this is about a company is not reason enough to flag this page with a warning.

It would have been nice if Kbrose had discussed his objections here. It would have been even better if he had made some editing suggestions. The more editors, the merrier. I can't respond to his specific suggestions because he didn't make any. I'll try to add some references, but company information is almost by definition going to have a marketing flavor.

I'm not sure what the review process is when wikiusers unilaterally put flags on pages. If I make a good-faith effort to respond, can I remove the violation marker/tag from the page?

tmaufer (talk) 19:04, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I added three references and cut some remaining marketing-flavored statements. Not sure if this is what Kbrose intended. tmaufer (talk) 19:42, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

As this appears to be a situation of WP:COI, please discuss changes before editting. I have reverted these references because: they refer to Mu Dymamics website, which is not a proper (reliable and verifiable) source, and secondly because of WP:COI. — Dgtsyb (talk) 20:37, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, ok. I am putting in an effort, and I *did* talk about my response to the flags on this page before I edited. I wanted to act quickly to demonstrate appropriate responsiveness to the stated concerns. As I said above, the flags on this page say it needs references. Any idea how I can add references that *aren't* links to our page? I want to help make this page better. How is this little page any more company-specific or non-NPOV than say the page for Honeywell or Verizon. Isn't a corporate page almost by definition part of a self-creating reality? tmaufer (talk) 20:56, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Please see WP:COI#How_to_avoid_COI_edits for tips on how to use the talk page to avoid COI edits. — Dgtsyb (talk) 21:02, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I already understand about COI. That's why I was so happy that other people have helped edit this page. I just interpreted the warnings that just recently appeared on this page as requiring urgent editing and I can't depend on anyone else to do that. However, I won't object if someone else does jump in and help here. tmaufer (talk) 22:13, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Please sit back and let other editors have a chance to address the tags. Feel free to discuss them here on the talk page. It often takes a day or two for editors to look over changes (the addition of tags) from their watchlists. It might even take weeks or months for a neutral editor to get around to improving this page, as did the significant improvements made by Jokeboy. — Dgtsyb (talk) 22:27, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Ok...good advice. If someone has a better set of edits, I'm more than happy to let them make them. The changes I made today should be viewed as an attempt to remove marketing verbiage and clarify language, but again -- if someone reverts them, I'm not going to object. tmaufer (talk) 22:35, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Just a quick remark, since I tagged the article, but have not enough time to fix the problems at this time as I am working on other things currently. But you should review the editing suggestion of WP for establishing notability for company articles. What's essential is that there are independent SECONDARY source in the press or trade journals, books, etc. that discuss the company or their products in some depth. You can't use the company's website or any solicited article, marketing, etc. The references that I saw in the article all seemed connected with the company. The article could be flagged (as has been done before) for speedy delete, but in general I don't want to delete or cause deletion of effort by well intending editors, so I flagged it in a way that I thought was close to appropriate and rather harmless and non-threatening, but simply so that it would get the attention that's needed, so someone else won't come in and simply ask for speedy delete. I think the advice to let it rest for a bit is good perhaps, but make small improvements to that the article is clearly not left without attention and in the meantime collect secondary sources. Getting past this point at the beginning of such article can be tough, but an encyclopedia should set high standards, or else it will be just junk mostly. Kbrose (talk) 03:02, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Great discussion here. 2 points about this, #1 being that the most recent undo reads like a step backward. I hear you on WP:COI but these edits look more factual (at least the language reads more fact-based than the company's web site!). I'd support reverting to teh most recent edit by tmaufer. Any volunteers to help with a re-write to be less COI'd? My hand is up but i am prtty busy these days. I am very familiar with test tools and know enugh to help. Point #2 is that this page is perhaps under-referenced because of the company's youth. Is the lack of references really that big a deal (compared to COI issues)? I'm new to wikiland. T0pgear09 (talk) 06:28, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

The reality of this company is that it's a small start-up, only four years old, with only 50 employees and a valuation likely around $50 million. The argument that it warrants a Wikipedia page is a flimsy one at best. The company I work for is eleven years old, has twice the head count, twice the valuation, and products purchased by several Fortune 500's and used by tens of millions of people each day - and *we* don't have a wikipedia page. Spending a lot of time to add content to this page and track down references is overkill in this case. I'm fine with it the way it is. I'm fine with the most recent edits that were reverted. But I think beyond that, we're giving the company more credit, significance, and time than it warrants. Jokeboy (talk) 18:27, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

By your logic, because your company has no wikipedia presence, neither should twitter. It has about the same number of employees as Mu Dynamics does, according to this page. Oh, and twitter has no revenue at all (according to nearly every article about it that I see). So apparently neither size nor revenue is a barrier to having a page on wikipedia. In my limited experience, I think the only criteria for whether or not any company should be in wikipedia is whether there is a way to make its page "encyclopedic" and not marketing. I'll see if I can find some external non-company-sourced references for this page in the near future and add them here. I also support reverting the most recent "undo" if there is no objection. I'll wait a few days for consensus. Informationh0b0 (talk) 17:26, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Feel free to revert the undo. Alas, I searched for non-company sourced information on this company to no avail. I hope that you can find even one source. — Dgtsyb (talk) 09:51, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

This is my point. The criteria here should be whether or not the topic satisfies WP:NOTE. twitter clearly satisfies WP:NOTE simply due to the overwhelming press coverage and huge user base that it currently enjoys (although it's still possible that it is a short-term fad). So I'll repeat my question in Wikipedia terms - in what way does this page satisfy WP:NOTE? Like I said, I'd consider employee base, financial base, or customer base to be satisfying criteria in the absence of independent verifiable citations - even though WP:NOTE specifically discounts them - but Mu Dynamics doesn't even have any of them. Jokeboy (talk) 17:51, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

So, I had a few minutes and looked around a bit. Found a few things:

• SC Magazine award says very nice things
• IDC is devoting resources to cover them
• InfoWorld also says nice things
• NetworkWorld used them in a review

Some of these mention its old name (Mu Security) or maybe "mu-security-analyzer" is an old product name? I'm confused. When did the name change? I will look later. When I specifically looked for Mu Dynamics I found some more:

• NGN Magazine just last month gave them an award for being an innovator
• BT using Mu on a UK Ministry of Defence contract

So it does seem like they have customers! I have no real point here, just wanted to investigate whether there were or were not any mentions of them on other sites. Are any of these references worth including on their page? T0pgear09 (talk) 04:31, 8 May 2009 (UTC)