User talk:Zazpot/EOMA68

Author of EOMA68 also editing page

Unusual circumstances: very few people at the moment have the technical knowledge to provide clear and accurate information on this page (non-technical editing of course welcome and completely desirable). Therefore the author of the standard, in order to ensure technical accuracy, feels compelled to edit the page. Already several misunderstandings and confusion have been clarified (belief that EOMA68 is a physical product / device, restricted to "linux", or "free software" or "linux embedded devices", and several others as shown in the History).

Normally a "conflict of interest" would be declared. However, "normally" a standard would be prorietary, closed, restricted or require membership. It would certainly not be openly developed on a wikimedia web site (elinux.org) running exactly the same source code as wikipedia and having exactly the same Creative Commons License as wikipedia!

Looking through the Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest#Declaring_an_interest definitions, none of the examples show what to do if:

• the page of text on wikipedia being edited is *already on* a Creative Commons Licensed page of another wikimedia-based web site (in this case elinux.org).
• the page being referred to on Wikipedia (which is an open participation and community-accurate knowledge aggregation site) is about a Standard that is itself open-participation and is based around pretty much exactly the same principles as Wikipedia!
• a technical editor has a 20+ year track record (longer than Wikipedia's existence) of working in the public eye on Software Libre
• there *are* no other possible people who exist in the world who are more qualified to ensure that the information in the article is accurate (although there do exist a large number of people with a 5 year track record who could, over a significant period of time and with some help, *verify* its accuracy)
• the technical author has a track record of dramatically improving (completely rewriting) other highly-technical wikipedia pages directly related to Software Libre (such as Lightning_Memory-Mapped_Database).

The definitions make it clear that it's not about "personal bias" but is more about perception. However, those "perceptions" apply correctly to examples given such as "proprietary standards" or "information about a band, written by the band's manager"... I'm having a hard time (Lkcl (talk) 20:30, 26 August 2016 (UTC)) working out how those "perceptions" could be applied to another *Creative Commons* page that specifically describes a clearly-declared *OPEN* standard that's clearly written by someone with a 20+ year track record and committment to the exact same principles on which Wikipedia was founded.

help appreciated! Lkcl (talk) 20:30, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, Lkcl. Your long-standing efforts within libre culture are appreciated. To be clear - and apologies if you already understood this - the "interest" in "conflict of interest" refers to "interest" in the sense of "stake", not "interest" in the sense of "intellectual curiosity". To quote the relevant Wikipedia article:

A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial interest, or otherwise, ... which could possibly corrupt the motivation of the individual or organization. The presence of a conflict of interest is independent of the occurrence of impropriety.

As the author of the EOMA-68 standard, and as a co-creator of a crowd-funding campaign around several implementations of that standard, you have both a legal interest (as the primary author and copyright holder of the standard) and an economic interest (as an implementor) in the entities that this article is about. Therefore, if you edit this article, a conflict of interest is created: as a Wikipedian, you have an interest in making Wikipedia as good as possible, but as a stakeholder in EOMA-68, you have an interest in promoting the success of EOMA-68. I fully understand that those are not necessarily incompatible goals, but a conflict of interest exists even if they are compatible:

Determining that someone has a COI is a description of a situation. It is not a judgment about that person's state of mind or integrity.

Therefore, for the sake of propriety, it is important that the existence of conflicts of interest are disclosed. In your case, this would avoid other editors assuming you are not an interested party. Thank you therefore for your informal disclosure above! When you have a moment, it would be helpful if you could add the {{connected contributor}} template at the top of this page as described at WP:DISCLOSE:

If you become involved in an article where you have a general COI (including a financial COI) that does not involve being paid to edit Wikipedia, place the {{connected contributor}} template at the top of affected talk pages. Fill it in as follows, and save:

{{Connected contributor|User1=Your username |U1-declared=yes| |U1-otherlinks=Insert relevant affiliations, disclosures, article drafts or diffs showing COI contributions.}}

Thanks again! zazpot (talk) 22:33, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

okay. so. aware that this is not about "a person't state of mind or integrity", it's about the "roles". but again: i'm only going to add something that's *actually true* about those "roles". i refuse to lie (or make any kind of false declaration) about my "role". so. "do i have an interest in promoting the SUCCESS of EOMA68?" no i do NOT. i am the guardian of an open standard: i am its PROTECTOR, **NOT** its *PROMOTER*. also you will need to define "success". do you believe that i am focussed on profit-maximising success, to the absolute pathological extent such that i would *LIE* about, destroy information about, or otherwise manipulate wikipedia? because the answer's a resounding "absolutely not". a "normal" profit-maximising entity would wish to hide facts that were detrimental to profit-maximisating: a guardian of an *open* standard wishes to ensure that the good *and* the bad are recorded accurately for posterity so that people can learn from it (cross-reference the openpandora project and many others). so no - no conflict between the two roles yet detected, therefore no signature added. any other examples? Lkcl (talk) 01:39, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

I am sorry if I wasn't clear. Let me address your main points.

also you will need to define "success". I'm not sure that it is necessary for me to define "success", but let me illustrate what I meant by it. The success of a standard might be measured in various ways. For example, the extent to which the standard is adopted might be considered a measure of the standard's success. In the case of a standard for physical objects, like the EOMA-68 standard, adoption might be measured by the number of items produced that implement the standard. In short, more items => more adoption => more success.

do you believe that i am focussed on profit-maximising success, to the absolute pathological extent such that i would *LIE* about, destroy information about, or otherwise manipulate wikipedia? You have already deleted several contributions to the EOMA-68 article, and made numerous other changes. I personally doubt that this was from a pathological devotion to maximising profit, but certainly it involved manipulating Wikipedia. I am not suggesting your edits were dishonest or dishonourable. Nor am I suggesting that they were driven by a profit motive. But that does not mean a conflict of interest is absent here. A profit motive related to the topic of the article is not a necessary condition for a conflict of interest to exist.

"do i have an interest in promoting the SUCCESS of EOMA68?" no i do NOT. i am ... **NOT** its *PROMOTER*. I see it differently. Here is a video of you promoting the EOMA-68 initiative. Here is another. And here is an interview, in which you say, in relation to EOMA-68 and its implementations, things like, "Let me tell you a little bit about why I'm doing this and why people should buy these products." Those products (i.e. EOMA-68 compliant products) happen to be ones you are now selling. Here is the crowdfunder, in which you promote the EOMA-68 standard with wording like this:

"For the first time, the EOMA68 is a standard to work off for building freedom-friendly, privacy-respecting, and secure computing devices."

"The goal of this project is to introduce the idea of being ethically responsible about both the ecological and the financial resources required to design, manufacture, acquire and maintain our personal computing devices. This campaign therefore introduces the world’s first devices built around the EOMA68 standard, a freely-accessible royalty-free, unencumbered hardware standard formulated and tested over the last five years around the ultra-simple philosophy of “just plug it in: it will work.”

"This project is the beginning of a mass-volume OS-agnostic standard, EOMA68, where we recognise that it’s only going to make a huge environmental difference if it becomes mass-volume rather than niche."

Regardless of whether the enterprise turns out to be profitable, you clearly have a substantial financial interest in producing devices that implement the EOMA-68 standard. There is nothing wrong with that in itself. Nor is there anything wrong with you making good faith, accurate edits to the EOMA-68 article. But combine the two, and I believe a conflict of interest exists here.

actually i have NO such "substantial financial interest": that is FALSE and MISLEADING. not only is the money NOT going to me (it is going to the SPONSOR), but it turns out that the money raised is NOT ENOUGH. This can be verified by checking the PUBLICLY AVAILABLE RECORDS made available ONLINE. i'm actually having to take on ADDITIONAL CONTRACTS to be able to SUBSIDISE the promises made as part of the crowd-funding campaign. not only that but there is the issue of Trademark / Certification. EXTREME CARE has to be taken when applying for a Certification Mark, because it is NOT PERMITTED under UK Trademark Law to be both an IMPLEMENTOR of a Certified Standard and also the LICENSOR of a Certified Standard. if you had ASKED ME instead of ASSUMED (or done due diligence by researching this on the publicly-available resources) you would have known about these things. Lkcl (talk) 00:55, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Please accept that this is sufficient evidence that a conflict of interest exists, and let me re-iterate that I am not imputing any ill intentions to you whatsoever. If you would like, we could ask for a third opinion? Thanks again, zazpot (talk) 07:26, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

no ill-intent taken: i fully understand that this is about "roles" not about "people". so you are implying that there are (third person) conflicts between the *roles* "Truthful Editor Of Wikipedia" and "Truthful Guardian Of The EOMA68 Standard". we have to step *very carefully* here so as not to imply that any person (primarily me) is "unfit" for one OR either of those roles, and be even *more* careful not to bring EITHER of those two roles into disrepute. Lkcl (talk) 21:28, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

first thing: crowd-funding is not a "shop". there is no "contract of sale". there is no "warranty". it is a common mistake that a lot of people make. crowdfunding is a gift economy. unfortunately i had to keep it very very simple during the videos. in a 3 minute video there's absolutely no possible way i can go into the 5 YEAR background which includes a full software libre publicly-run infrastructure and ethic as well as that inspired by professor muhammed yunus's "Social Business". if you go over the mailing lists (thousands of messages) instead of looking at specific videos from the recent (massively-simplified hugely misunderstood gift-economy-based) crowd-funding campaign, you'll find evidence of my committment to open-ness. even the fact that there *is* a five-year track record (as well as a publicly-tracked irc channel with a bot that publicly records every single message http://ibot.rikers.org/%23arm-netbook) should tell you what you need to know. so. if you look carefully, you will see from the archives that in 2010 i invited people to collaborate. the goal was: i set up the standard, other people do manufacturing. nobody stepped up, because they didn't believe in it. so i had to take on that additional role myself (teaching myself CAD design, component sourcing, manufacturing and everything else). as a software libre advocate i used software libre principles and ethics. throughout all of this the intent has ALWAYS BEEN to "back out" at the earliest opportunity, because i have TOO MUCH ELSE TO DO. even the role of "Guardian of the EOMA68 Standard" i intend to hand over to a Foundation of some kind (actually probably a "Social Business" as described by Professor Yunus - just have to see how that goes, not entirely made up my mind which is more suitable yet). so no. despite "evidence" which says that this is "products" and that there are "sales" and "business interests to protect" and "profit maximisation that SHALL BE PLACED BEFORE ALL OTHER CONSIDERATIONS IN AN UTTERLY PATHOLOGICAL MANNER", such impressions are totally wrong. i am disgusted and outraged by the damage done by the proliferation of cancer-like global pathological profit-maximising corporations, and have set up the EOMA68 initiative to UNDO that damage, not cause more of it!! Lkcl (talk) 21:28, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

clarification - to give you some idea that the "personal profiting impression" is completely and utterly false: all of the money from the crowd-funding campaign is going directly to my sponsor's bank account. my sponsor has absolutely no relation to, connection to or even knowledge *of* this wikipedia page. Lkcl (talk) 22:41, 30 August 2016 (UTC). oh. which reminds me, to remind you that this has NEVER BEEN RUN AS A BUSINESS. i have *ONLY* used my own personal funds (not even to invest into a "Corporation", but paying directly out of my own personal bank accounts. i do not *HAVE* a business bank account), and i have *ONLY* ever been "sponsored" - by various individuals (from their personal bank accounts) and by one company (thinkpenguin) who are the main sponsor of the laptop housing. this is NOT A PROFIT-MAXIMISING BUSINESS. there is a CLEAR DELINEATION which you need to understand and appreciate has absolutely NOTHING to do with the role "Truthful Guardian of the EOMA68 Standard". Lkcl (talk) 22:52, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

While this is interesting to know, and I appreciate your taking the time to lay it out, I think the your points about profit are addressing a straw man. That is, they refute allegations that I have not actually made (and that, as far as I can see, are not required in order for a CoI to exist). zazpot (talk) 16:48, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

if there are several potential roles, and one of those roles can be demonstrated to be false, it is eliminated from the list of possible sources of conflict. thus it IS important to go over each role, individually and comprehensively, to verify whether they each, separately and individually, first exist and second contain conflicts. i appreciate that this is well beyond what would normally be carried out, because CoIs are normally black-and-white. i *did* say to you that the wikipedia CoI page is wholly inadequate and incomplete to cover this particular and specific scenario: dismissing what i have said above cannot therefore be done out-of-hand using the logic that you've used, as the logic is itself false Lkcl (talk) 00:55, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

second thing: you say "you clearly have a substantial financial interest" - this indicates to me that you are confusing "me (personally)" with "the role of Guardian of the EOMA68 Standard"! so yes, let's find a suitable *public wikipedia mailing list* - certainly not a third individual - on which to discuss this, as it's a unique example that is going to require clarification of the rules of wikipedia COI. that's something that's simply too big for one individual to make an arbitrary decision on. Lkcl (talk) 21:28, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

you are confusing "me (personally)" with "the role of Guardian of the EOMA68 Standard"! I am sorry if I came across that way. I do appreciate the distinction you are making between a person and a role. However, you are, at present, the person in that role, according to what you have written above.

let's find a suitable *public wikipedia mailing list* - certainly not a third individual - on which to discuss this... OK, I'll look into this. zazpot (talk) 16:48, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Done. It isn't strictly speaking a mailing list, but it is a public Wikipedia discussion forum ("noticeboard") in which this matter appears to be on-topic. That's the most appropriate venue I could find. Hope it's adequate! Thanks for understanding :) zazpot (talk) 17:30, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

it's not, as i trust it's now possible to see with hindsight, as i knew it would not be (from experience of having had to deal with complex discussions for a number of years using wikipedia). Wikipedia is failing, and it's not your fault. Lkcl (talk) 00:55, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

third thing - clarification about the request: you are asking me to make what could be false declaration, which IN AND OF ITSELF would call into question both my fulfilment of the first role as a suitable "Truthful Editor of Wikipedia" but also would call into question my ability to fulfil the seconnd role as "Truthful Guardian of the Open EOMA68 Standard"! hence the reason why i am taking extreme care to clarify. Lkcl (talk) 21:28, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

you are asking me to make what could be false declaration... I am certainly not asking you to make a false declaration. For the reasons I have given above, and based upon my understanding of the meaning of "conflict of interest" within the context of Wikipedia, I do not think that for you to declare a conflict of interest in this case would require you to express a falsehood. zazpot (talk) 16:48, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

yes, you are, by definition. if the declaration is perceived to be false, and you continue to request that i make it, then through logical equivalence, you *are* asking me to make a false declaration. the qualification statement used "based on my understanding of the meaing of CoI within the context of Wikipedia" is itself also not relevant (or is the wrong way to phrase it), because it's incomplete. what you *should* have said is, "based on the review and on the facts so far" - that would have been more accurate. However, as we are aware: Wikipedia itself so badly mangles information when it is utilised as a "Discussion Forum" that it is flat out IMPOSSIBLE to ascertain and keep track of the facts. Again: this is a failing of Wikipedia, and is NOT YOUR FAULT. but please bear in mind that that does not absolve you (or me, or anyone else) of the obligations to actually properly carry out a thorough and proper review with adequate due diligence! Lkcl (talk) 00:55, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

• I have added the connected contributor template. When the creater of the standard is heavily editing the article page, and amongst other things, including claims on ecological benefits sourced to the company they are employed by, there is a clear conflict of interest. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:10, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Only_in_death, you've made a false delcaration based on an incomplete review, which was not carried out with due diligence, did not adequately answer or acknowledge the questions and concerns that were raised, and contained (and still contains) several misunderstandings involving the use of incorrect words and phrases. even in the above sentence you have declared that you are adding the CoI notice based on "employment" when, if you had done due diligence, you would have found that i am not an employee, there is no "company", and many other facts and circumstances which you've completely ignored. sorry to have to point this all out to you: it's important to emphasise that it's NOT YOUR FAULT. in essence this is a total failure of Wikipedia itself to be able to cope adequately with this type of scenario. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lkcl (talk • contribs) 00:37, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

The idea of deleting the page because it got too political is ridiculous. Whom does that serve? There's nothing wrong with having the author of a standard help to document it. And the idea of collaboration is to make the page more accurate over time, rather than less.

Editors: please quit meddling so that the actual work can be done.User:ecloud —Preceding undated comment added 10:58, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

ecloud, thanks for your time and your comments above. You said, The idea of deleting the page because it got too political is ridiculous, and I agree. So does Wikipedia policy: "It is ... inappropriate to request deletion because of an editorial dispute. Such disputes are not resolved by deleting the whole page; instead, use dispute resolution." That dispute resolution process has been followed, however, and I'm afraid there was consensus among other editors that a CoI exists between Lkcl and the EOMA68 article. That does not mean that the article will be deleted, but it does mean that while it would be great to have Lkcl's assistance in keeping the EOMA68 article accurate, Lkcl should probably not go beyond uncontroversial edits to the article itself. I hope this seems reasonable :) zazpot (talk) 13:25, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

zazpot, you say "a CoI exists between Lkcl and the EOMA68 article" - that is in and of itself a false and misleading statement, because it is a totally invalid comparison! can you see why that is? basically you have confused the ROLES with the ENTITIES... and then come to a conclusion that is demonstrably false as a result! this is part of why i said that the entire "review" was mismanaged and that due diligence was not properly done in its execution. Lkcl (talk) 00:30, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Scope of article

The discussion below is copied from User talk:Zazpot#EOMA68_page. Essentially, the question is: should the EOMA-68 article only cover the EOMA-68 standard, or also notable implementations of that standard?

hi zapzot - i'm the author of the EOMA68 standard. i was in the middle of basing a more appropriate version of the page on the Qseven wikipedia page. i noticed that you added some categories such as "linux computer" and "libreboot". these are NOT RELEVANT to the EOMA68 standard. EOMA68 is totally processor-agnostic and OS-agnostic. it has absolutely nothing to do with libreboot. there happens to be the *first* computer card in the series and there happens to be a "passthrough" card - both of these are EOMA68 compliant. if you use a passthrough card, there *IS* no operating system, there *IS* no "boot" process. sorry, i get a hell of a lot of misunderstandings about what EOMA68 actually is. Lkcl (talk) 18:49, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for this. It's still a stub, and I'm sure we Wikipedians will improve its accuracy pretty swiftly! zazpot (talk) 18:51, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Incidentally, the Linux-powered devices template is entirely appropriate here, as the device is available bundled with GNU/Linux. zazpot (talk) 18:54, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

sorry, zapzot: it's not appropriate. i'm the creator of the standard, the person who has been working on this for five years, and the person who has run the crowd-funding campaign. the *first in the series* - the EOMA68-A20 - is a linux-based computer. however EOMA68 is a *hardware standard*: it is *NOT* a computer, it is *NOT* even a *computing* standard. so there *IS* no "device" named EOMA68 that is bundled with GNU/Linux. plans include an FPGA Card (which of course will not even be able to run an OS), Corporations are welcome to put RTOSes onto EOMA68-compliant modules, they're also welcome to create Windows-only or MACOSX-only Computer Cards. whilst the editing and general layout is something that wikipedia editors can help with (which will definitely be needed), like all extremely highly-specialist technical areas there are only a handful of people in the world (most of them on the arm-netbooks mailing list who have been following this for 5 years) who are qualified to handle the "technically informative" aspects of this page. sorry! so... reverted again, as it is totally misleading to call this hardware standard a "computer" or even to imply that it is one. now, if we create a *separate page* describing the EOMA68-A20 Computer Card, *that's* a differen't matter: that page *would* be appropriate to put a Category "linux computer", and other categories that are *directly* related to a specific computing device. if that's not easy to understand, consider that if you'd added "Linux computer" Category to the ITX or PCI standard page!!! wouldn't last very long, would it? :) Lkcl (talk) 19:18, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

I do see where you're coming from. I hope you can see where I was coming from, which is essentially that the EOMA68 article was covering not only the standard but also the only publicly-available physical implementation of the standard. I prefer the latter approach, because I think that in the short term it would make for a more informative article, but I'm not set on it. Perhaps if the Libre Tea receives RYF certification and/or adequate press coverage, then that would make the EOMA68-A20 notable enough for its own article, as you suggest. I'd be happy to revisit this at a later stage, e.g. when the FSF has made its certification decision. zazpot (talk) 19:30, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

yeahyeah no that's a great idea, argh there's gonna be a lot of sub-pages over the next 10 years. one thing at a time, anyway. it is really important to keep this page accurate and restricted to the standard itself. i've mentioned the specific two EOMA68-compliant modules (the pass-through card and the EOMA68-A20) in passing (so that people understand it's *not* a "single physical device"). i'll fill those out later or hopefully someone else will cover it.... will keep an eye on things. Lkcl (talk) 19:36, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. Please keep in mind WP:N and WP:COI. zazpot (talk) 19:41, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

ok so clarification / summary of the above: EOMA68, being a standard (like ITX or COM-Express) should be separate from *compliant devices* with that standard. when we get some notable devices (e.g. the Libre Tea) then we can re-evaluate. Lkcl (talk) 04:30, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Compliant devices are not just the cards. They are also the host devices (is "card" and "host" the right terminology?) Tzafrir (talk) 07:55, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

specifies the main CPU

lkcl reverted my recent edit. HE rightly pointed out that the standard does not specify that the CPU must reside on the card. Indeed I confused between the standard and the common use (that should help clarify the rationale). It's nice writing that it is supposed to help reduce waste, but nowhere in the article did you explain how it was supposed to happen. I pointed out explicitly in that edit that this does not have to be the case. I changed my edit to note that it is the common use case. I'm not sure I have a specific source for it, besides almost all the cards built so far (IIRC) have been CPU cards in that sense with only a single pass-through card designed (but not yet built) and an FPGA card is mostly an idea (right?). Tzafrir (talk) 07:52, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

there have been five computer cards designed, three of them have made it to prototyping (jz4775, ic1t and a20). the fourth card is "Pass through" which has absolutely no CPU at all, it's just a USB Hub IC, a TFP410 and some power regulators. it's simple enough that i was happy to include it in the recent crowd-funding campaign even though i've not made one yet. anyway: appreciate the effort but this page has to be kept technically accurate. btw, what did you mean by "but nowhere in the article did you explain how it was supposed to happen." what is "it"? Lkcl (talk) 17:57, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

It was not clear (IMO) from an initial reading why the standard promotes e-waste reduction. I tried explaining why modularity should reduce waste. Tzafrir (talk) 18:47, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

i saw you added some "use cases" to the "what is EOMA68" section at the top - i've moved these to a separate section and expanded them. i moved them because it's confusing the "what" summary paragraph. later on i might separate the "use cases" out into "Cards" and "Housings" so that it's clearer about the modularity, which then can lead naturally into the cost-savings and e-waste bits. right now there's nothing in the page which explains why modularity should reduce e-waste, although it's explained right there in the eco-computing paper (but we can't drop 17,000 words into a wikipedia page). Lkcl (talk) 21:27, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Yet another example of yet another person editing the page putting factually misleading statements in it

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=EOMA-68&diff=738050214&oldid=738048344 - this is happening an awful lot. in the two short weeks since the page was created, this is the SIXTH example of someone adding false and misleading information into the page. EOMA68 is *NOT* a "CPU Board Standard" (four separate people - so far - have tried to add statements claiming that it is). EOMA68 is *NOT* a "computer" (two separate people - so far - tried to add statements claiming that it is) now, Nagle, i appreciate that you're trying to help - in this instance you'd like to see the page be "less promotional"... but you can't go replacing stuff on a wikipedia page that's still under construction with factually totally inaccurate statements! please read the standard, please do some research into the background, and if you're not sure what you're doing PLEASE ASK, okay? thank you. Lkcl (talk) 17:11, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

• Here's a suggestion for you. Instead of hysterical rhetoric, why not propose changes in the format:

In section foo, change old wording to new wording based on reliable independent source.

That works, in a way that your angry posturing will not. Do be sure to familiarise yourself with the essential parts of WP:RS, namely reliable and independent. Guy (Help!)

JzG: please stay away from this page: your input has been 80% abusive. you cannot be trusted to adhere to Wikipedia policy and basic ethical behaviour to respect and trust other people, having violated it several times, and have abused your position of power to threaten and intimidate. Lkcl (talk) 13:29, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Constructive Measures

A general response to most of the above is that Wikipedia admins should police the edits a bit more (the ubiquitous "citation needed", for instance), rather than be too surprised when the EOMA68 specification's author weighs in on people making stuff up. Last time I edited this page, I actually added and fixed up citations to avoid "citation needed", which can be something of a bane when reviewing other pages I have contributed to (or know something about), but I guess everyone was too busy arguing on the talk page instead of helping to curate the content in that way. I've already noted elsewhere that external sources need to be more robust so that this page summarises the topic properly, and so I'd suggest that the more enthusiastic contributors of unsourced edits develop such content elsewhere. PaulBoddie (talk) 20:22, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

So, I spend a fair while adding citations and then some bot just does an epic revert. Nice way to encourage constructive Wikipedia editing! If you don't want references to "primary sources", how about making the citation plugin look up the page's supposed primary sources, if they are even defined anywhere, and report the fact there and then? PaulBoddie (talk) 22:04, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, you were reverted by JzG, not a bot. clpo13_(talk) 22:11, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Indeed, because at some point the usual suspect had reverted to the version claiming this is a standard, rather than a proposed standard (hint: reliable independent sources). The OP has not edited for months, and is a proponent. As it appears everybody is, who tries to add anything of substance to this article. Guy (Help!) 22:32, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Well, if people want to encourage constructive contributions to Wikipedia in general, may I suggest that they indicate issues with edits rather than go revert-happy? It is entirely possible that I added citations referencing sources that are not deemed acceptable. The way to deal with this is to refine the content and use those sources to discover acceptable ones, which is effectively something I would have done had I wanted to use/waste even more of my own time chasing down things that random editors of this page should have done themselves. Instead, we see one faction adding random, unreliable, unsourced stuff, another trying to correct it, and a third getting upset about the other two. When Wikipedia has "recently improved articles" on its front page every single day, I now wonder what some people think are the best ways of improving content when the one they prefer to use, in the face of good-faith edits, is to revert pages to broken and apparently factually-incorrect revisions. Consequently, I've now recommended to the author of the proposed standard that he advocate this page's deletion, just as some people presumably wanted from the start. PaulBoddie (talk) 12:18, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

PaulBoddie, I can see where both you and Guy were coming from on this. I appreciate that you resent Guy's reversion of your edit(s), but please do not advocate deletion based upon your feelings about that. The question of whether a subject merits inclusion in Wikipedia is orthogonal to whether someone has reverted your edits, and should be assessed on its own, distinct set of criteria. Thanks zazpot (talk) 12:34, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Side note: having looked more closely at the edit history, I see that JzG performed 5 edits within a 24-hour period: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. The last of those edits was to nominate the article for deletion, but as far as I can tell, all of the other 4 edits were reverts as described by WP:3RR, and none of them fell under the 3RR exemptions. In particular, while JzG might have felt that PaulBoddie's edit constituted spam external linking and that its reversion was exempted under WP:3RRNO's "obvious vandalism" exemption, that exemption points to WP:Vandalism which in turn is explicit that "Adding or continuing to add spam external links is vandalism if the activity continues after a warning. A spam external link is one added to a page mainly for the purpose of promoting a website, product or a user's interests rather than to improve the page editorially." (My emphasis.) As PaulBoddie had been given no such warning, and was apparently attempting to provide citations for the claims in the article, PaulBoddie's edit was not, it seems to me, covered by that "obvious vandalism" exemption. It therefore seems to me that, on the face of it, JzG broke WP:3RR.

I also see that Lkcl appears to have broken WP:3RR on 6 September: [1], [2], [3], [4].

I am not going to do anything about either of these WP:3RR violations right now, because I believe that all involved were editing in good faith. But I think it does show that editing became too heated on 6 September, and evidences the sense of frustration that appears to have led JzG, PaulBoddie and Lkcl to advocate deleting the article.

Thankfully, things have cooled down. Let's try to keep them that way. And I ask that we keep the article, too, for good measure :) Keeping the article is justified anyway, IMO, but if any of the three of you (JzG, PaulBoddie, or Lkcl) would like to express having changed your view to keep rather than delete, there would be no shame in that and I would welcome your vote of confidence in the article's existence. Thanks for your time, folks. zazpot (talk) 04:45, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

it's complex - i am aware of the rule (and am not stupid). what i did was part of a complex set of procedures learned from using git revision control. each reversion was done in reverse-order so as to ensure that there were no "conflicts", followed by manual restoration of the parts (in the middle) that were actually correct information. if you read the comments associated with each "undo" you would see that i clearly documented exactly what i did, how i did it, and why i did it. i'm not an idiot: i'm an experienced software engineer. Lkcl (talk) 13:36, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

the only reason that they've "cooled down" is because i feel too intimidated by JzG's abusive behaviour as Systems Administrator of this site, so much so that i am AFRAID to contribute to this page, for fear of reprisals including but not limited to deletion of my wikipedia account. Lkcl (talk) 13:36, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Before I made the comment, above, that you appear to have broken WP:3RR on 6 September, I carefully reviewed both the content and summaries of the four edits of yours that I linked to in that comment. I appreciate that your actions may have been performed out of habit; but whether you learned your procedures from Git or not seems to me to be a matter unrelated to the question of whether WP:3RR applies or was breached.

Also, I believe your comment was made in good faith, but please note that I have not intimated that you are "stupid" or "an idiot". I would therefore be grateful if you would refrain from using language that could easily be misread as implying that I did do so. Let's keep things cool, and clear, regardless of JzG. Thanks. zazpot (talk) 15:18, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

good grief, this is becoming almost kafka-esque in its zen-like "i am aware of you, aware of me, aware of you being aware of me" recursive complete misunderstanding of the English Language! zazpot: i used the words above to describe *MYSELF*, as a clarification of *MY* state of mind, *NOT* as a way to indicate or imply any implication that you *might* have implied, by implication expressed or implied, that i was implicating that you implied through misunderstanding my words that you believed i heard that you had said by way of implication that *i* was "an idiot" or "was stupid".... without actually saying so. is that about as possibly as ridiculous and as sufficiently deliberately clear as mud so as to indicate the extent and level to which what i said has been misunderstood? coming back to reality, it boils down (as you say) to "intent". you can see (particularly from the context as well as the timeframe) that i was clearly acting logically, rationally, and in good faith (which is why i said "i'm not stupid / an idiot"). you already picked up on that. once again, this is nobody's fault: it is down to the inherent breakdown of Wikipedia's design, as context and content is so convoluted as to be flat-out impossible to determine. Lkcl (talk) 02:02, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Open standard?

Wikipedia's open standard article notes that there is no canonical definition of the term "open standard". Rather, there are numerous competing definitions. As far as I can tell, EOMA68 meets at least the following notable definitions of "open standard" as listed in that article:

• Bruce Perens' definition;
• Danish government definition;
• New Zealand official interoperability framework definition.

Do other editors concur? Does my conclusion above violate WP:NOR, i.e. does Wikipedia need a reliable, independent secondary source to state that EOMA68 is an open standard, before that statement would be justified in Wikipedia? Let's try to find consensus :) Thanks! zazpot (talk) 14:34, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

The New Zealand Definition says: “Be documented in all its details”. On the COI discussion noticeboard, John Nagle seems to disagree: “It's not even fully defined yet; the configuration EEPROM format is "yet to be defined.[5]”

Is EOMA68 really not patent-encumbered? This question can probably not be confirmed for any standard that’s younger than 20 years and other standards on Open_standard#Examples_of_open_standards do not mention patents either, but most articles listed there do not mention openness either. The list of example open standards explicitly says that the listed standards may fail some definitions of an open standard. It would still be nice to have a source that Rhombus Tech or other contributors (are there any?) do not believe there to be such patents or at least do not have patent claims of their own. Are there any restrictive patent claims to the required interfaces?

Another option is to not call it an open standard/open specification but instead explain the aspects of an open standard that EOMA68 fulfills. CC-BY-SA is mentioned already. Pelzflorian (talk) 04:22, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback :) I take your point about the New Zealand definition, and retract my conclusion that EOMA68 currently meets that definition. Considering this point has made me come to view EOMA68 as a draft standard that is, despite being only a draft, in the process of being implemented by at least one vendor. That makes it reminiscent of early HTML5, if you are familiar with the history of that. (As a side note, My recollection is that at least some of the authors of HTML5 (e.g. Ian Hickson) were being employed by vendors, so for a connection to exist between an author and a vendor would not, I think, prevent that author's work from being validly considered a standard or, if appropriate, an open standard.)

As for patents, I have no idea whether EOMA68 is patent-encumbered. As you note, this is really hard to determine. It is especially difficult to know whether any relevant submarine patents exist. (Cf. HTML5 again.) I would welcome any detective work you are able to do on that front within Wikipedia's guidelines, and I expect other editors would feel similarly grateful for such efforts.

I like your proposal to explain the aspects of an open standard that EOMA68 fulfils, but this would of course have to be done in a way that did not violate WP:NOR. Thanks again. zazpot (talk) 05:38, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Card size and resolution

Currently, the article states, "Type I is reserved for computer cards which support up to 1920x1080 RGB/TTL video output; Type II is reserved for computer cards which support up to 1366x768 RGB/TTL video output, on the basis that a Type I 3.3mm card may fit into a Type II 5.0mm socket but not vice versa. Thus, a module with a lower-capacity video output will physically be prevented from being used with incompatible higher-resolution devices, preventing any possible confusion about interoperability." This does not make sense; at least, not to me. It would, however, make sense if the maximum resolution for Type I cards was less than or equal to that of Type II cards. As this information is sourced directly from the EOMA68 specification, it seems to me that there is a bug in the spec. It is obviously not Wikipedia's job to point out such bugs, but I think that perhaps Wikipedia should couch the rationale by pointing to it simply as being the stated intention of the spec, rather than parroting that intention. I.e. without using wording authoritative but potentially wrong information like "Thus, such-and-such a situation will be physically prevented from arising." That is because if the spec is buggy, and the devices are produced to spec, then such a situation would not be prevented, even if the intention of the spec was that it would. I will think on this and may edit the corresponding part of the article accordingly. zazpot (talk) 10:58, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Tidied up that section a bit, so that it just summarises the physical requirements given by the spec. Removed the exposition of rationale for the time being. People who want further details or rationale/history, etc in the meantime can always consult the spec or the EOMA68 mailing list archive, after all. zazpot (talk) 11:33, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

it's mostly correct, except that the resolution limit on the Type III cards hasn't been added to the spec (rather, it can be logically deduced from the "rules" and it comes out to be 1366x760, not 1920x1080. reason: if you take a 5mm card (which only supports 1366x760) and put it into a Type III 8mm slot, and the Type III housing says "LCD is 1920x1080" it isn't going to work, is it? i'll update the spec accordingly so it's clear - thanks for highlighting that. you'll need to update the page here as well. i'm not editing it: JzG hasn't apologised for his abusive behaviour (and we still have not yet completed the COI review to demonstrate that a conflict exists when there isn't one) Lkcl (talk) 13:40, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for spotting this. I have changed the cell showing maximum output resolution for Type III cards from "1920x1080" to "Unspecified".

Out of curiosity, is there a reason why the Type I cards are required to support a higher maximum output resolution than the Type II cards? I would have expected this to be the other way around, as Type II cards have more physical volume available and this extra space could presumably be used at least partly to provide Type II cards with more powerful graphics chips than would be possible for Type I cards.

the fact that it's "possible to utilise the extra space" has absolutely nothing to do with and absolutely no bearing on the absolute top-precedent top-priority requirement to be fully interoperable. or, it does... but only inasmuch as the lowest common denominator resolution takes absolute top precedence. Basically the case where an 8mm HOUSING was ONLY capable of accepting 1920x1080 resolution would cause 5mm Cards (which can only go up to 1366x768) to fail to operate. Therefore, quite simple: 8mm is forced to become "Lowest Common Denominator" down to the level of 5mm Cards. The alternative would be to FORCE Housings Designers to add in some sort of "LCD Conversion IC" which permits conversion from 1920x1080 to 1366x768 "on demand". such conversion ICs are incredibly expensive, and actually require their own DDR RAM. This would be a completely unacceptable technical burden, so the simplest answer is to set 8mm resolution at the same as 5mm resolution.

About the WP:COI, I feel I have already said everything I can think of to say on that subject, so will refrain from saying anything more here. That's not to dismiss your perspective, just to avoid repeating myself or going off-topic. zazpot (talk) 14:47, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

as you can see from the records, critical and key questions have gone completely unacknowledged let alone answered, the "review" was not actually a review it was more of a "witch hunt" (which i did warn you in advance would be extremely likely to happen), followed by turning into a general "free-for-all" as people completely ignorant of what EOMA68 is thought that their knowledge of how Wikipedia works somehow conveyed them with knowledge and information about EOMA68, as well as the authority to do as they pleased with blatant disregard for facts, the consequences of their actions, and Wikipedia's own policy and guidelines. so whilst i appreciate that you feel very uncomfortable about answering, the fact remains that there has been enormous damage done and it needs to be corrected. silence and acquiescence is therefore not an option: entropy - the law of thermodynamics - REQUIRES that we face up to this and deal with it... *properly*. Lkcl (talk) 23:54, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Yet more false and misleading information on the page

the very first paragraph is almost 90% false and misleading facts and statements (in under 30 words there are no less than SIX false and misleading statements!). the reason why this false and misleading information is here is because a "review" was carried out by people who are experienced wikipedia editors but have absolutely zero technical knowledge. during the "review", a blatant violation of wikipedia policy (to trust contributors) was made, which allowed them to dismiss out-of-hand edits being made by people that are experienced in the technical subject matter (but not in wikipedia policy). efforts to revert the false and misleading facts were reverted not once but TWICE by administrator (JzG), who is directly responsible for ensuring that the page now contains false and misleading facts.

• EOMA68

true

• (also spelled EOMA-68)

false.

• is a proposed technical standard

false.

• for plug-in CPU boards.

false.

• It uses the old PCMCIA form factor and connector,

misleading.

• but is not electrically compatible with it.[1][2]

misleading by being critically incomplete.

• The standardization effort has received international media coverage,[3][4][5][6] and crowdfunding for at least one implementation has been successful.[7]

wow! something that's true! wait... no, it's misleading. the standardisation effort has *NOT* received international media coverage: the FIRST CAMPAIGN which has five DESIGNS that are COMPLIANT with the eoma68 standard have received international media coverage.

• However, the specification has not been submitted to a standards organization yet.

and it won't be - ever. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lkcl (talk • contribs) 23:43, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

I have now addressed all these points. zazpot (talk) 15:25, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

a review of the new paragraph that replaces the old previous misleading one is below, and indicates that it is still, unfortunately, inadequate and misleading (by omission, mostly). i don't know what "wikipedia policy" applies to this scenario, i don't even know how to look *up* what "policy" might apply, therefore i won't try, i'll just start a new section below Lkcl (talk) 02:05, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Still false / misleading statements in the first paragraph

• EOMA68 is a technical standard

true but misleading and incomplete. misleading, as it's an *open* technical standard, it's an open *computing* standard, and many many other adjectives which are completely missing, thus giving a false impression. requires clarification and expansion

• for modular computing

true

• appliances

false / misleading by way of being incomplete. it's not limited to "appliances": it can be used as part of designs intended for engineering purposes and many others. thus, mentioning *only* appliances is misleading.

This first paragraph requires an enormous amount of care to ensure that it's comprehensively correct. The problem stems from the fact that it's not actually a noun. Imagine trying to say "Hello, I'd like a USB please", or "Hello, I'd like a PCI Express". if you went into a store and said that, they'd think you were trying to use those as a euphemism for drugs or kinky sex or something.

Basically it is necessary to do a comprehensive review of at least the following pages before going any further, and analyse them (and others) carefully for appropriate phrases:

• Qseven - slightly misleading to use as the basis (but better than the current paragraph)
• ETX_(form_factor) - slightly better
• PCI_Express - note how this page doesn't say what it is, per se, it says what it is for as well as what it can do, by listing its capabilities
• USB - really good example! says what it is by defining its constituents, describing the purpose of the same, as well as mentioning who's responsible for it, and linking to the article Technical_standard through adding in the text "Industry Standard". all in the first 2 paragraphs.

remember: this was the original text that was destroyed by the witch-hunt aka "review":

• "EOMA68 is an open technical standard for low-power modular computing, authored by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton. EOMA68 is designed to save money long-term for end-users, reduce e-waste and promote green computing by facilitating "Computing module" re-use, and is also designed with low space requirements and low power consumption in mind.[1][2] EOMA68 is an "interface-aggregation" standard that is not restricted to processors or to general-purpose computing at all: a pass-through card[3] or FPGA Card is permitted by the standard. EOMA68 is based around re-use of legacy PCMCIA. Unlike many single-board computers, EOMA68 cards would therefore have all the benefits of the slim form factor and robust protective housing from legacy PCMCIA cards."

this paragraph (preserved before the witch-hunt) was still a work-in-progress but is a hell of a lot better and is closer to the (much better) example of USB, by way of describing its intent, purpose, who wrote it, who's responsible for it, why it was designed, and many other aspects which give a far more comprehensive, accurate and complete picture of what EOMA68 is actually about.

look at the corresponding paragraphs for USB:

• USB, short for Universal Serial Bus, is an industry standard developed in the mid-1990s that defines the cables, connectors and communications protocols used in a bus for connection, communication, and power supply between computers and electronic devices.[4] It is currently developed by the USB Implementers Forum (USB IF). USB was designed to standardize the connection of computer peripherals (including keyboards, pointing devices, digital cameras, printers, portable media players, disk drives and network adapters) to personal computers, both to communicate and to supply electric power. It has become commonplace on other devices, such as smartphones, PDAs and video game consoles.[5] USB has effectively replaced a variety of earlier interfaces, such as parallel ports, as well as separate power chargers for portable devices.

does that make sense? can you see how similar those are, and how much better (despite containing some incomplete statements)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lkcl (talk • contribs) 00:18, 27 September 2016 (UTC)