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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/History of commitment ordering Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/History_of_commitment_ordering

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Black Kite (t) 00:42, 18 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

History of commitment ordering

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History of commitment ordering (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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Appears to be an apologia for commitment ordering, bewailing its lack of recognition (for example, one entire section is entitled "CO continues to be ignored in database texts"). SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:18, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Commitment ordering needs no apologia. The History is about facts. I see no bewailing here. --Comps (talk) 23:20, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Commitment ordering is a very useful and thus important concept. Thus its quite complex evolution is important and of interest. This History article chronicles its evolution and utilization in several areas. --Comps (talk) 12:30, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. —Tom Morris (talk) 22:48, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Article is almost entirely written by a single user who appears to be the only editor with working knowledge of the subject. While also being written like an essay, it is also written in such prolific technical jargon that I don't even know how to begin cleaning up the article myself. In-line references are also missing, which means that none of the statements in the article can be attributed to a particular source. If the main editor of the article, Comps would like to weigh in here and respond to the concerns expressed here, that would be appreciated. I, Jethrobot drop me a line (note: not a bot!) 00:04, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to respond. Thanks. Pls see my main reply and vote (maybe earlier) in a separate section below.
1. Single editor: The group of experts in the area is relatively small. The subject though is important and has interested readers (~30 for CO, and ~10 History daily; I so many other with much less). Interest in subject is increasing as CO utilization increases. So, does this mean that the subject should disappear from Wikipedia? I think that it is positive that an expert is willing to put his time and energy to help Wikipedia with better coverage of important subjects. The key here is the lasting importance of the subject. 1 (expert) is better than 0.
2. Essay style: This is a description of event chronology (history). I cannot imagine a better style than here (essay?), but willing to get any specific advice for improvement.
3. In-line references missing: I use the legitimate in-line method Wikipedia:Citing sources#Parenthetical referencing. I did so since preferred refs grouped by sub-subject, and many links in article to. Willing to have advice.
4. prolific technical jargon: You cannot describe Concurrency control (CC) without its jargon. For any branch of Math or Physics or other science/tech you rely on jargon specific to the subject. This History article is in the framework of CC and its jargon. Many know Math and Physics jargon to some degree. Very few CC, and it requires effort and learning curve. The lead and intro sections have minimum jargon, and can be read almost independently of CC context.
--Comps (talk) 10:44, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - The article, in its current state, is so confusingly written, so poorly contextualised, and so arcanely referenced that I cannot see how it can possibly be usefully edited, improved, expanded or trimmed by other editors. In addition, much or all of the article appears to be original research (in several places, after citing a source, the author of the article then argues with the source or points out its errors). - DustFormsWords (talk) 04:35, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Please see my main reply and vote (maybe earlier) in a separate section below.
1. Quality: The article is very modular (by many well named subject sections) and with a logical chronological order of events (as expected in History). It should be read in the context of Commitment ordering (CO). It does not have independent life and rely on the content of CO (linked all over) in order to make sense. Once you are in it, you have no problem to edit. The sentences are English (Essay?). To get into meaning you have to get into the subject and understand it, as in any other new science/tech.
2. arcanely referenced: Uses the legitimate in-line method Wikipedia:Citing sources#Parenthetical referencing.
3. Original research: No. This is not original research. It exactly describes what exists (related to CO) in the referenced articles and possibly what is missing relatively to other references by different authors. No new material or facts out of the references at all.
I would love to get any general suggestions that will make the article more readable. --Comps (talk) 10:44, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do not delete. I am the author of the article. I never knew it was a candidate for deletion before (maybe as a stub; there was some criticism on too many references with a short article).
First and most, about the article's importance. I will later deal with shape, and reply to individual comments of others by writing below each. Commitment ordering (CO)is a revolutionary invention, utilized now in many areas of computerized technology where transactions find use. CO's utilization is increasing from day to day. This article well documents the CO concept evolution and utilization, and gives the related chronology. Many misconceptions have existed with both CO and its history. The history (~26 years) has been unknown to most people, and it seems that none of the experts in the area has had the full picture, including the CO inventor. This article is the first place where all the facts are gathered, and thus perfectly fulfills Wikipedia's goal as a center and source of knowledge to the public. I researched it and for this reason wrote it here. I have no doubt about the importance of the entry, which includes some tension, and I strongly believe Wikipedia is a good home, where everybody, not just academics, can read it and be inspired by it (and use CO freely when patents expire in two-three years).
Regarding shape and quality: I'll talk here in general and individually reply to each comment of other below the comment. Though the subject (CO) is mathematical, no math formalism is used in this article for general readership (as in other related articles I initiated or substantially rewrote and expanded in Wikipedia; specifically, in increasing difficulty and decreased generality, Concurrency control, Serializability, Global serializability, Two-phase locking, Commitment ordering; recommended to be read in this order). This article, History, is complementary to Commitment ordering, which deals with the tech material (Vs. History here). It links to various sections in the CO article. It is not an easy article (as well as the other Concurrency control articles and other scientific Wikipedia articles), but can be read by everybody who is willing to do some thinking effort. Like many tech Wikipedia articles it gives both the broad picture which requires no prior knowledge, particularly in the lead section and intro sections, and then all the details to an interested person and expert. It is well quoted and referenced (using the legitimate inline method Wikipedia:Citing sources#Parenthetical referencing). This article includes many quotes that are sometimes difficult to understand since they span two different Concurrency control theory schools with different terminology and formalism (as mentioned in lead database Concurrency control section). Each fact can be verified in the linked references. I'll be glad to get any comment for improvement.
--Comps (talk) 10:48, 10 November 2011 (UTC) --Comps (talk) 08:51, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Allow me to go through your arguments here:
Commitment ordering (CO)is a revolutionary invention, utilized now in many areas of computerized technology where transactions find use. CO's utilization is increasing from day to day.
Calling CO "revolutionary" is unnecessary. That said, it appears that, indeed, this concept has been used in the literature and in several applications. But you have presented it in a way that is completely unreadable and therefore inaccessible to the vast majority of users.
Calling it such in an article is unheard of unless a quotation. But this is my own opinion, offline. I cannot argue with you about inaccessibility. Believe me I have tried to make it as accessible as possible for years (see articles' histories). The subject is not easy. You have to look in the professional literature: My text is a simplification in orders of magnitude, even have been complimented (inside an article...Vandalism...).
Many misconceptions have existed with both CO and its history.
Maybe, but putting in statements saying that CO "has been largely misunderstood and misrepresented" is classic original research. There are several such portions of this piece that serve as a platform to basically complain about why this research has not gotten its due recognition. Unfortunately, that's not what Wikipedia is for.
I think you are right. I did not see this (got no feedback). It will be removed, and I'll look there for alike to remove. I already removed quite few pieces that looked to me opinion, rather than something that can be referenced as a fact, but possibly more exist, that I could not see as a single reviewer (not just editor).
I have no doubt about the importance of the entry, which includes some tension, and I strongly believe Wikipedia is a good home, where everybody, not just academics, can read it...no math formalism is used in this article for general readership (as in other related articles I initiated or substantially rewrote and expanded in Wikipedia; specifically, in increasing difficulty and decreased generality: Concurrency control, Serializability, Global serializability, Two-phase locking, Commitment ordering; recommended to be read in this order).
I can assure you that this style of writing is not inviting, period. You are writing about a highly technical subject at a level that assumes a researcher/professorial level of knowledge about the topic. Instead, you should try to write this to a level below, that perhaps a college student could understand. As it stands, the article is totally unreadable and therefore inaccessible to the vast majority of readers. One major problem is that people shouldn't have to read a series of articles to get the general idea behind a given article. Articles should be able to be read and understood generally without having to read multiple articles beforehand, even if they are on technical subjects.
Are quantum field equations in many Wiki articles are inviting? No. Most people even do not understand the specialized symbols, But not a word on this. People have respect to complicated math. But I write English, and going out of my way to avoid math formalism (whould be much easier to me to talk math), so everybody needs to understand in first reading. Right? Math and Physics background you get in school and possibly college. Still I assure you that many Wiki articles exist that we cannot understand beyond the intro without specific background. I see such regularly. Same here, and even simpler here since English, no math formalism. And the background is not high-school level: you have to deal with Math objects like graph, cycles in graph, schedule (article, my formal descriptions in English), Serializability, Recoverability. etc. and still be 100% accurate (I compromise on no less).
[the article] can be read by everybody who is willing to do some thinking effort. Like many tech Wikipedia articles it gives both the broad picture, particularly in the lead section and intro sections, and then all the details to an interested person and expert.
I respectfully disagree. The lead section is too long, it is laden with jargon, and the tone seems more applicable to a computer science conference or a scholarly journal article rather than a Wikipedia article. Even for someone putting in "some thinking effort" about this, this is bound to give them, at best, a headache. I, Jethrobot drop me a line (note: not a bot!) 09:34, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Now we are talking specifics, and this is good: my first real feedback. I'll try to see if this can be improved. You are talking about a subject not studied in first database course, and most people do not even get there. It is buried inside the systems though very important. Pls see my first in the hierarchy: Concurrency control. I know it is much more readable, and prepares you to the second: Serializability. This History article is in the bottom. Such hierarchy you see also in other sciences. But computers and databases everybody is supposed to easily understand. Is it easy? No. Is it a reason to drop it from Wikipedia.? No. If yes you have to drop, for example, Calculus of variation and Standard model, just to scratch the surface. Can this article be improved by feedback. I'm sure that yes.
--Comps (talk) 12:27, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would be greatly surprised if any sources written by parties unconnected to Yoav Raz actually discussed this subject, the "history of commitment ordering". Normally, we would only split a separate "history" section from an article if there were sufficient secondary sourcing to allow for a fully-formed sub-article. That doesn't appear to be the case here. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:09, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I can assure you it has been intensively discussed informally, and discussed briefly (with mistakes) in (Weikum and Vossen 2001). It is reference and quoted in the first section of History (after lead; I think Background section). Regarding "sufficient secondary sourcing", I quite do not understand since most of the refs in History are different from those of CO (almost all but Yoav Raz's CO papers). Most of them with different context. This is the reason to a separate History (or I completely misunderstood you) --Comps (talk)
  • Comment A big problem with this article is that it's written too much in the style of an academic article and not like an encyclopedic entry:
  1. The section "Beckground" contains statements, such as

    "The bibliographic notes, as well as other CO related text in the book, ignore the different ways the respective properties' definitions are utilized by the three evolvement threads (works), and the different results of each work (see below summaries of main results of each). Also, some theorems about CO given in the book are significantly weaker than what implied by the CO work, miss its essence, and again misleading."

    These would be appropriate in a personal commentary by Yoav Raz, but not in an anonymous encyclopedic article (without being attributed to some previously published source).
  2. The "Three threads of development" corresponds to a "Related Work" section in academic papers. But for an encyclopedia it has details that are perhaps better left in the corresponding articles. (Not to imply that these details would be appropriate in an academic article, the editors often enforce a page limit for good reasons.)
  3. The section "Later utilization of CO" could also be written much more concisely, without losing much of its usefulness
  4. The section "CO continues to be ignored in database texts" seems rather inappropriate.
  5. The "See also" section contain a link to a Wikipedia talk page(!). Academic articles can often contain self-references, but User:Comps seems to have some difficulty grasping the fact that they are not appropriate in an encyclopedia.
—Ruud 11:46, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Some people are used to use certain language, and see no problem until getting a comment. Thanks.
  2. The three threads also include the CO work itself, not just related work. I have to give the details to validate claims made. Can it be done better? Very likely. This page gives me the first serious criticism.
  3. I have to try.
  4. I wonder. It expresses wondering about what is going here. I have to think about it. If people feel it is inappropriate no problem to remove.
  5. I fully agree. This will be removed. I learned about this only this (or last) week from you. In Database. I understood the issue only after reading your pointed to article, and still a second place existed which was taken care of later.
--Comps (talk) 13:09, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • keep.(if vote will count - bouncing here quite long) Part of appear to be needed and useful. It is quite big but /find read it fast. (big +, not a problem) For few dozen people on Earth who may realty need it is worth to be preserved. Other voiced her concerns about references: beside superscripted contains plain text - what in this kind of art is need, useful and save time (more ref encouraged with quotes if possible). For writing such art more time have to be granted and 6 more month seem to be minimum. The delete at least should be postponed, but as vote let repeat keep. If by any chance delete may be planed, please say word, to allow dumping [special/export] of-line for arch purpose. 99.90.197.87 (talk) 12:57, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
99.90.197.87, This is the first time you have succeeded to surprise me for the better, and I thank you for this.
--Comps (talk) 13:18, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, but this rationale is mostly incoherent and sounds like a "keep it because I think it's important" rationale. I, Jethrobot drop me a line (note: not a bot!) 00:04, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Commitment ordering is an important subject with lasting value and increased utilization. The Commitment ordering article itself is too large (and should be; the subject is large) to accommodate also its quite complicated history of evolution and utilization. Thus this separate article is very important for providing a reasonable complete picture of the subject. If the article itself is problematic in several aspect, it can be considerably improved according to the Wikipedia guidelines. This very page already provides valuable advice for improvement. It will be pity to just erase an important article, developed with quite a lot of work. --Comps (talk) 14:53, 11 November 2011 (UTC) To some extent the articles are complementary, and the Commitment ordering article (and several others) link to this article and rely on it for some facts and examples. --Comps (talk) 20:50, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I want to note again that some of your arguments here are not doing you any favors. Articles are not kept simply because a lot of work has been put into them. It's unfortunate, but the whether an article should be kept is judged by how well it follows policy and guidelines, not how much time was put into them. Furthermore, you have repeatedly stated that because Commitment ordering is important, so is its history. Just because the history is long doesn't mean that the history is notable enough to merit its own article. Furthermore, while you keep inviting comments and revisions, the article is written in a way that makes it unapproachable. It is practically impossible to substantially rework the article because it can only be understood by experts like yourself, as you chose to write it this way. I, Jethrobot drop me a line (note: not a bot!) 22:47, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"work has been put into it" was not an argument for keeping, just a side comment, and if bothers you, I'll strike it out. As I said earlier, we cannot understand many articles in Math and Physics, for example, if we do not have the background. Same here. We can get a good idea if we know what concurrency control is, but we need to understand Commitment ordering in order to understand this one, which is orthogonal but complementary to CO. Thus as Math and Physics articles like this (in term of depth and needed background) exist in Wikipedia, no reason that such in Concurrency control will not exist in Wikipedia. Such articles need to be evaluated by experts for content (not necessarily for shape). As I also said before I think that it is good that at least 1 expert (I) rather than 0, bothered to cover this hole in Wikipedia (by several articles in increasing depth and difficulty). The approach of "I do not understand it, thus delete it" is mistaken to my opinion since by this I can offer many good articles in many areas to be deleted.--Comps (talk) 07:53, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I believe I have completed all my comments by now. I thank you all here for your patience and insight. I hope to see this article stays and being improved. --Comps (talk) 14:41, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The level of depth of this article is not higher than that of many Wikipedia Math articles. The theory of commitment ordering is just a specialized math, described here without Math notation. This is not an academic essay; the relevant academic articles are referenced in this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.69.203.254 (talk) 14:18, 16 November 2011 (UTC) --Comps (talk) 14:28, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. The subject does not have a long and varied enough history, nor enough significance, to warrant a separate "history of" subarticle. Google scholar finds only 117 articles that even mention the phrase; likely most do so in only a trivial way and some do so by coincidence to mean something else, so the actual number of significant works on the subject is even smaller. This is not the sort of number I would expect to see from a field of study worthy of having a history. Most of this is based on primary sources (the research papers that constitute the history itself); I think that sort of basis is ok for discussing technical subjects, but not for discussing the history of the subjects. Instead what is needed is secondary sources, independent of the primary authors of the works in question, that review the history, and we don't have such works, indeed the soapboxy article laments their absence. And merging into commitment ordering would be a mistake: what that article needs is a severe pruning, not yet more content. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:21, 15 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The subject is young, but has a quite stormy and interesting history, worthwhile being known widely, since Commitment ordering is now an important brunch of Concurrency control theory (described as one of the four major concurrency control methods in the book Bernstein and Newcomer 2009 (see in article). Searching Google scholar for the synonim ["commit ordering"] yealds 151 with many entried different from the search mentioned above and different from the source 6+ articles. Searching ["commit order" transactions] yealds 900+ with many relevant to CO, but also with some irrelevant to our CO subject. The lack of wider coverage is due to the long misunderstanding of Commitment ordering by many researchers. This is changing, and more and more it is referenced in academic articles and patents (sometimes with patent number only). The quite complicated interesting history accumulates to a quite long article. Merging is too long for a single article. The only additional history source I know is Weikum and vossen 2001, which suffers from some inaccuracies. What I find very attractive in Wikipedia is the ability to get into almost any subject and find detaled articles on it, with a wide coverage and key references. I do it daily. This article is not different, and provides a thorough coverage of the subject to interested people. --Comps (talk) 15:28, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
But many use CO, some with CO citation and some without. Thus the history is important, and ignoring it by some is highlighted. This has changed considerably in the last two years, and utilization and citation are increasing constantly.--Comps (talk) 00:19, 18 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.