Talk:Patricia Billings

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 29 September 2020 and 18 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Pompquine. Peer reviewers: Anonymous user22144.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 02:09, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Mstou001.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 02:09, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Just google "Geobond"....

Just google "Geobond" and you will see how widespread this product is globally. The market for it is alive and well, it is used for many applications in many countries, and now has offices in several countries.

Umm...no. To begin with, Google is not some oracle that reveals Big Tee Truth, it is a marketing system that attempts to find the cites that the seeker wants. If someone has just done one search, that factors into the next one.

More importantly, though, there are a good many products, completely unrelated, that share this name. When I did a google search of “geobond”, the first three pages had only one hit for Ms. Billings’ product aside from listicle glurge. All the others were for an unrelated roofing system from Sherwin-Williams, and an animal feed additive. Qwirkle (talk) 20:56, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

PS:From 2013, here hello does anyone know where one can get Geobond cement that Patricia Billings invented way back then,,the Geobond company that mrs Billings had is no longer around, This Geobond cement is allegedly fireproof to 6000 degrees, I ve tried googling but couldnt find any info... thnx. Does that strike you as proof that it’s widely avaiable? Qwirkle (talk) 21:13, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

@Qwirkle: While you may feel a sense of disappointment or even frustration that your AfD on this woman inventor was closed as unanimously Keep (and many Speedy Keep !votes), it is kindly requested that you please refrain from adding nonsense-words and incomprehensible edit summaries that are bordering on derogatory, and deleting so many citations that can be useful for context. This is especially important at this time when the article is currently a part of the Wikimedia Foundation's educational initiatives. Nonsense edit summaries are abstruse and battlegroundish antics can be intimidating; neither set positive examples for newer or first time editors. Please be more thoughtful in the future. Thank you. Netherzone (talk) 21:17, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Please display a basic level of competence in selecting suitable cites, and you will do less to cause the Wikimedia Foundation’s educational initiatives painful embarrassment.

More importantly, the reader will note that none of the factual observations made above are addressed, let alone answered. Qwirkle (talk) 21:24, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

The reader may also wish to ask why there isn’t any meaningful coverage of this product after 2000 in newspapers.com, and whether a vibrant, ongoing firm would have abandoned all their trademarks by 2002... Qwirkle (talk) 04:21, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Again, googling “Geobond”....

Here was the "best alternative to asbestos in decades," said the Journal. People magazine, CBS' 48 Hours and NBC's Dateline picked up the story. Crews of firefighters ignited a bonfire inside a Geobond shack, which refused to burn. Billings turned down a $20 million buyout offer. Perhaps $80 million was enough, she said. Maybe someday, she mused, "this old lady can go off and just do art."

Someday has come, and Billings has plenty of time to sculpt. But she isn't any multimillionaire. Once the hype died down, buyout offers ceased and so did sales of Geobond. Billings' staff has shrunk from 13 to 3. She'd have a hard time filling orders these days, if there were any.

The problem: Geobond isn't the whizbang stuff the media wanted it to be. Cement and gypsum can be mixed together, no secret "catalyst" necessary. "It's just a matter of knowing the chemistry of the cement and mixing it right," says Paul Shipp, a senior associate in USG's research department. USG even makes such a mixture, called Duracal, used to repair roads. "We could plaster a wall with it," Shipp says, but why bother when brick, cement, ceramic and plaster are cheaper or more widely available and just as fireproof.

Whither Geobond? There may be uses for it, albeit obscure —say, a coating that could be used for telephone poles in wildfire districts.

Qwirkle (talk) 23:30, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

From here. Note that it was published in 2001, before Fitch left Forbes..i.e., it appears to be “reliably sourced”, in WikiSpeak Qwirkle (talk) 23:33, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

(Indeed, note that it was published in print, February 5th, 2001.) Qwirkle (talk) 02:45, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

The accuracy of the BLP is not disputed by anyone but Qwirkle, who is suggesting it is incomplete but not doing the work to complete it... So add the source already. DiamondRemley39 (talk) 17:36, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Of course the accuracy is disputed; we have a bunch of crap sources suggesting the firm is a world-beater, and a good one stating it is moribund for almost twenty years now. Qwirkle (talk) 17:57, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

It is news to me that the following are a "bunch of crap sources": Wall Street Journal, Kansas City Star, National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, People Magazine, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, CBS News, Popular Mechanics, and several books. And yet a snarky short article in Forbes trumps these? Netherzone (talk) 18:29, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Of course. Whether these were once good sources isn’t the question. Twenty-some year old sources talking about possibilities, sourced obviously to press releases and the subject, mean very little at this point. The Forbes source and a possible later bankruptcy mean more. Qwirkle (talk) 19:02, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Enough with the "see talk page" business, Qwirkle, when you've already been addressed by us here. It is immaterial to me, and indeed to the existence of the biography, whether Geobond changed the world or was a load of doo-doo. The details of her biography, career, and patents are not disputed. You are simply saying it is incomplete because the Forbes articlette isn't present. So add it. Add the Forbes source and stop the reversions that add that inappropriate tag. DiamondRemley39 (talk) 19:14, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

And a 2018 book from the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine; a 2002 book published by Wiley; a St. Louis Post-Dispatch article from 2007, a 2017 book on Women designers, craftswomen, architects and engineers; a 2020 Popular Mechanics piece, and other additional news and book sources beats the Forbes 2001 short (and rather snarky) article any day. Netherzone (talk) 19:18, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Which illustrates why we should avoid sourcing to listicles, even in book form. Ordinarily, these’d probably be pretty good cites....and yet they vector the obvious doo-doo, to use your word, that this was a significant invention. Qwirkle (talk) 23:36, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Qwirkle, it's silly to violate Wikipedia policy by reverting the article, what is it now, 5 times today? The more you pick at it, the more we'll patch it up. DiamondRemley39 (talk) 00:21, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Ahh, tendentious editing and tag teaming! Kewl. Qwirkle (talk) 00:27, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

To what "agenda" do you refer in your recent edit summary? DiamondRemley39 (talk) 00:30, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

” O, wad some Power...” Qwirkle (talk) 00:37, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Stop removing references, such as the Wall Street Journal article. That is not constructive. Netherzone (talk) 10:25, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Quit making false claims about what references say. That is neither honest nor constructive. Qwirkle (talk) 12:08, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Inaccuracies

“Does not support combustion” is not the same as “fireproof”. It is not remarkable, at all, that a piece of rock does not burn, rather the exceptions coal, brimstone and some shales are. Qwirkle (talk) 01:03, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

You removed three more citations. Stop the destructive editing. Netherzone (talk) 02:18, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Stop misrepresenting the cites, and there’s no reason to remove them.

More to the point, any actual use of the cites elsewhere in the article is restored by bot; there is no “destruction” involved here. Qwirkle (talk) 02:33, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Qwirkle, please stop your disruptive deletions. The magical bot-elves never arrived to restore the citations you deleted. You are wasting several other editors time here. Netherzone (talk) 21:38, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Forbes article from 2001 should not be presented as the "last word"

This article is about an inventor, one of whose inventions was Geobond. There have been many non-RS publications about the inventor and the product, and it makes sense for the article to prune out poor sources while relying on good ones.

In 2001, a financial columnist at Forbes wrote an unflattering article about the company manufacturing the product Billings invented. The columnist also made unflattering comments about the product Geobond that are directly contradicted by other RS more likely to have expert knowledge concerning building products, such as MIT. I agree that the 2001 story should be in this article, but it needs to be given due WP:WEIGHT and presented in context.

For example, the 2001 magazine story should be placed in the article in chronological order, before the RS stating that in 2006 the product was still widely used and sold.

It also violates NPOV to use expressions such as "points out," which implies that this 2001 article presents the REAL truth overlooked by other RS. HouseOfChange (talk) 21:37, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Looking again at the Forbes article, the source of the negative comments about Geobond is the manufacturer of a rival product ("Paul Shipp, a senior associate in USG's research department. USG even makes such a mixture, called Duracal, used to repair roads.") Shipp is also the source of the claim that "brick, cement, ceramic and plaster are cheaper or more widely available and just as fireproof." So if we want to include negative remarks about Geobond, by all means give the actual source of those comments--don't present them as facts in Wikipedia's voice. HouseOfChange (talk) 21:47, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

@HouseOfChange: Thank you for pointing that out, I agree with what you have written above. However the editor who insists that the former Forbes writer is the sole purveyor of the truth has been deleting citations and content that they don't agree with. Netherzone (talk) 21:53, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

MIT, and others, certainly should have a wealth of sources about this product, if it isn’t a flash-in-the-pan. There should be cites about actual material science, there should be cites about the business aspect, there should be cites about manufacturing issues, and significant projects using the material....and yet there are none. Using a gee-whiz glurge listicle as a starting point isn't always bad, if the wikiteur uses it as a starting point rather than a destination, but every single cite claiming this is significant -is- either preliminary and severely outdated, obviously sourced to the inventor, or citeless, and possibly based on sources that are preliminary, citeless, or sourced to the investor. There are no decent cites provided, and many of the claims made are laughable for people with a relevant technical background: it is not remarkable that gypsum wouldn’t support a flame, for instance. Qwirkle (talk) 21:54, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

This is a BLP about a person, it is not an article about Geobond. Your argument has no merit. Netherzone (talk) 22:01, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Nonsense. If the product has no merit, the inventor is not significant, except as an example of, to give one of the respectable possibilities, folklore. Qwirkle (talk) 22:04, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Qwirkle, She has been written about in numerous reliable news sources including the Wall Street Journal, CBS News, Popular Mechanics, St. Louis Dispatch, National Academy of Sciences, Kansas City Star as well as in several books, and has an entry in the Historical Encyclopedia of American Women Entrepreneurs. The AfD was closed unanimously as keep, I am sorry if that was disappointing to you. The article was vetted during the process by experienced editors. The citations in reliable sources exist. Netherzone (talk) 22:18, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

@Qwirkle: Quoting the Wall Street Journal, "Independent labs have tested GeoBond, a harmless mixture of cement, gypsum and a secret compound of off-the-shelf ingredients, and found it to have remarkable properties...No new fireproof material has shown so much promise since the downfall of asbestos..." Whether or not this product became a long-term commercial success, whether or not USG and others were able to duplicate its properties and market their own rival formulations, Patricia Billings invented something that got a lot of RS coverage and she is notable. The 2001 article that is sourced only to somebody selling a rival product should not be presented as the last word on the value of her invention. Not many people drive a Model T these days, but we still have an article about Henry Ford, and it does not conclude with a paragraph about how much better a Cadillac is. HouseOfChange (talk) 22:10, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

No...on so many levels. To begin with, the WSJ cite appears to be from the bottom section of the front page, which is to say it is from the usual comic relief/hum interest article. Such articles often contain hyperbolic claims, and are sometimes meant to be taken with a grain of salt.

Next, the WSJ article begins with a rather ptominent “supposedly” which somehow seem to have managed to get lost before reaching the article.

Claims of “promise” have a shelf life, and 25-odd years seems well past that.

Duracal was developed well before this, and was in actual use in the early ‘70s, as three minutes with a search engine will tell anyone interested in fact instead of fantasy. Unless you are adding time travel to Ms. Billings’ remarkable claims, the idea that it was developed in response is laughable.

Duracal was in pretty common use for rapid repair for at least 30 years, and decent technical cites for it aren’t difficult to find.

Rapid repair of transportation facilities, especially roads, airports, and tunnels, is a real priority for many companies and government agencies. Why aren’t there hundreds of cites for it, instead of...one, by look of it? Qwirkle (talk) 22:39, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

@Qwirkle: The part of the WSJ article I quoted does not include the word "supposedly" and was undoubtedly fact-checked. Certainly there has been "hype" about Geobond, but there were also factual statements about its properties and, as you say, its "promise." But this is not an article about Geobond, or about the company that manufactured it. It is a BLP for a person who is notable because multiple RS considered her notable even if you do not. Find something more valuable to do with your expertise. HouseOfChange (talk) 23:01, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Yet the article does say “supposedly”, to wit:

In front of two dozen firemen and onlookers at the Kansas City Fire Department's Test Station, two miniature homes have been set ablaze. One is made of standard construction: drywall, vinyl siding and shaker shingles. The other has the same wood frame, but its walls and roof shingles are made with Ms. Billings's invention: a cement- like, supposedly fireproof material she calls GeoBond.

Why is it so important to you to suppress this?

Leaving aside the belabored point that only on Wikipedia is any sign of expertise used as an insult, I’d say that preventing glurgers from lying to our readers is a most valuable use of anyone’s expertise. Qwirkle (talk) 00:17, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Qwirkle, Your argument has no merit. This is not an article about the product Geobond. It is a biography of a living person. Whether or not you "like" the product less than Duracal is irrelevant. The truth is that there was an article about her on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. That you personally believe it was placed there for "comic relief" is your personal opinion. It is certainly not a reason to delete the citation. Netherzone (talk) 23:09, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Forbes article and WP:FORBESCON

That 2001 Forbes article, identified as being submitted by a "former contributor" is not RS for a BLP. Quoting WP:FORBESCON: "Most content on Forbes.com is written by contributors with minimal editorial oversight, and is generally unreliable. Editors show consensus for treating Forbes.com contributor articles as self-published sources, unless the article was written by a subject-matter expert. Forbes.com contributor articles should never be used for third-party claims about living persons." HouseOfChange (talk) 01:42, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

As looking at the cite in the article will show, this is from the print edition. As a review of the print edition will show, the writer was a senior member of staff.

Why you are so bent on impeaching good cites is left as an exercise for the reader. Qwirkle (talk) 01:50, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

@Qwirkle: I was quite content to include the Forbes material in the bio, asking only that it be presented in a less POV way, and in context. But speaking of impeaching good cites, your quibbles about the WSJ article's reliability are ... but my speculation must be constrained by WP:AGF. HouseOfChange (talk) 02:12, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Interesting that Stephane Fitch's other article in February 2001 is ALSO promoting the company USG, as does his criticism of Ms Billings's rival product. Articles in published Forbes magazine are considered "generally reliable," that is "Generally reliable in its areas of expertise: Editors show consensus that the source is reliable in most cases on subject matters in its areas of expertise." The statements that the company is failing would be within his area of expertise; statements about what a crap product they were selling are sourced solely to one rival representative. There are many reasons for small startups run by inexperienced people to fail besides that they were trying to sell people garbage. HouseOfChange (talk) 01:53, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Ahh, you now accept that this was a small startup that failed rather than a world-shaker found on every inhabited continent.

Progress. Qwirkle (talk) 02:09, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Qwirkle Do you have me confused with someone else? My first edit to this article was at 15:01 today. I have never proposed that the company or the product was world-shaking. I still contend that the Forbes article is basically an opinion piece based on one suspect source, and that your description in the bio of what it says is even more POV than the article itself. HouseOfChange (talk) 02:19, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

I did, actually. I mistook you for one of the above. For that, I apologize. Qwirkle (talk) 02:30, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Edit War

Qwirkle, HouseOfChange, you are both in violation of WP:3RR (although HouseOfChange might be okay because of the BLP clause, but it's a marginal case). Please don't edit war on this issue and instead resolve it here on the talk page, or on WP:BLPN where you are already discussing it. Gbear605 (talk) 03:02, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Reliable sources: propose separating out tertiary sources into "Recognition" section

Billings's notability rests on in-depth coverage by fact-checked reliable sources, which should be the backbone of this article.

There are also multiple sources that praise Billings and Geobond in the context of recognizing women's achievements. These are suitable for showing evidence that her work was recognized as important, but for facts in the article, we should be using the RS cited above, which are based on independent testimony from groups such as UL, Edwards Air Force Base, and the KS Mo Fire Department. HouseOfChange (talk) 18:31, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Commenting here on Qwirkle's edit removing relevant quotes with edit summary saying that tests cited by RS were 1) publicity stunts and 2) unremarkable.

I see no policy-based reason this article should conceal from our readers what RS say about tests that were done on GeoBond. Is it because Billings, like any business owner, sought to publicize the favorable result of tests by respected groups such as UL.org? Both WSJ and Kansas City Star reference professional testing done by Underwriters Laboratories; the Star goes on to quote a UL engineer on that testing. And why should we doubt the results reported in RS as having been done by a lab at Edwards Air Force Base or the KC Fire Department?

The claim that other materials could pass such tests is irrelevant to this article, which is based on what reliable sources say about Patricia Billings. HouseOfChange (talk) 03:00, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

There are a whole battery of formal test protocols from several reputable testing organizations. Building and torching a couple of sheds doesn’t seem to mentioned by either ASTM or UL, last I checked. Qwirkle (talk) 05:49, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

The protocols used are described in the RS, including the protocol used for UL testing. Wikipedia editing is based on reaching consensus, not on repeated reverts to your own favored version.diff

diff diff diffdiffdiffdiff

It is also very bad form to refactor without explanation comments made by others on Talk pages as you did here to Morbidthoughts and on this page to Netherzone. HouseOfChange (talk) 14:32, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm responding to a ping. Thank you to the editors who have volunteered to work on this article, in particular DiamondRemley39, HouseOfChange, Morbidthoughts, Gbear605, and others. I thank you for your research into the citations and article improvements. I don't have much to say at this point, as I feel intimidated and POV-railroaded by the editor who originally brought this article to AfD. In the nearly nine years I have been editing I have never been belittled so many times in edit summaries, and was even hauled off to ANI for the first time ever, for aleged lack of "competence" and "canvassing" in relation to this article (the claim was inactionable.) Quite frankly I am fearful of retaliation from them if I continue to work on the article. Netherzone (talk) 16:30, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

I really felt for you, Netherzone, and those accusations were absurd. I had to step back from this toxic environment for a while because I can't let one user's negativity burn me out. Thanks for staying in the battle longer than I did. I am concern that it isn't over. We'll see. DiamondRemley39 (talk) 17:21, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

References

STOP removing content and citations

@Qwirkle:, Stop repeatedly removing content and verifiable citations in reliable sources that I have added, such as the 2017 book on Women designers, craftswomen, architects and engineers, and others. Netherzone (talk) 23:52, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Templates

The article has been substantially improved since the templates were added. I am removing them. Anybody who wants to re-instate them should explain on the talk page what elements in this bio are non-neutral or false. HouseOfChange (talk) 04:36, 20 November 2020 (UTC)