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 keep. Non-binding recommendation to move and rework the material in Resilience engineering. (non-admin closure) Spartaz Humbug! 03:47, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Resilient control systems

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Resilient control systems (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • Stats)

After surviving one deletion discussion six months ago, this article continues to have multiple serious issues, including tone, notability, acceptable sourcing, conflict of interest in its primary author, and above all, clarity on the subject treated. What's more, there no longer seems to be any contributors willing to even try to rehabilitate it. Issues are well-documented on talk page. Snow (talk) 06:39, 13 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: With respect, I disagree on one point in particular; notability cannot be established solely by a glut of sources. The content also has to be presented in such a way as validates the usefulness of the article. At present the article is so steeped in the professional idiolect of the author that it fails to adequately establish its argument and thus its notability. The vagueries of the language employed are covering for the fact that little is actually defined in the article. The entire thing basically boils down to saying that modern technological infrastructure is complex and interconnected and presents challenges in maintaining stability their stability under stress. The problem is that this is a statement of perspective, and outlook presented through the narrow context of particular theories on the resilience of such systems, but it doesn't actually define any subject in the manner that Wikipedia article should. The article is not titled "approaches to resilient control systems" because that would highlight instantly why the article isn't working, but honestly that's the most honest title for the article as it's content is presented now. The page reads exactly like the conference presentation from which it was adapted and lectures/presentations are just not the purpose of Wikipedia. This, in my opinion, breaks the article as it fails to constrain itself to, or even adequately define, its own subject matter. Snow (talk) 12:07, 13 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Notability doesn't depend on the article's content, but on the article's subject ("Notability is a property of a subject and not of a Wikipedia article" - WP:N). But even if it's notable, deletion might be justified if it was beyond repair. I agree it needs serious work, but there might be notability behind it. --Colapeninsula (talk) 12:52, 13 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That's a good distinction to make and a point which gives me an opportunity to clarify my position here further; I think the subject of a Control system meets the notability standard -- that's why we have that article. What I feel does not meet the notability standard is the concept that some control systems are going to be more resilient than others or one man's speculative perspective on how such systems can best be achieved. That's not encyclopedic content. An article on widespread technology is entirely appropriate. Opining in the vaguest way imaginable upon design priorities for future iterations of that technology is entirely not. Snow (talk) 06:36, 14 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Technology-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 14:30, 13 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The benign human has an ability to quickly understand novel solutions, and provide the ability to adapt to unexpected conditions. This behavior can provide additional resilience to a control system, but reproducibly predicting human behavior is a continuing challenge. The ability to capture historic human preferences can be applied to bayesian inference and bayesian belief networks, but ideally a solution would consider direct understanding of human state using sensors such as an EEG. Considering control system design and interaction, the goal would be to tailor the amount of automation necessary to achieve some level of optimal resilience for this mixed initiative response. Presented to the human would be that actionable information that provides the basis for a targeted, reproducible response.
It doesn't even concern itself with existing technology or principles, bur rather is speculation on a new approach that the author is advocating. The whole article is like that, speaking in terms of "challenges," "goals," and "advantages" moving forward. Only the awkward, overly-wrought language is somewhat obscuring the fact. If someone wants to try to extract some of the content, parse it into something more intelligible and add it to control system, I say have at it. But the current article is self-promotional, and instructive/speculative in nature. It can't really be salvaged as a whole because it's basic purpose is at odds with policy on what a Wikipedia article is allowed to be. Snow (talk) 00:51, 14 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: The wikipedia article on control systems is far from comprehensive, has serious omissions, and different scales of depth. The networked control systems article has similar challenges, as are the 20+ other directly related articles that are all referenced from the control system article. Regardless, when considering resilient control systems, which is an aspect of cyber-physical, multi-disciplinary research that is primarily only being funded by fundamental science/engineering agencies such as NSF, the issues go far beyond control theory and control engineering. What has been laid out within the resilient control system article is a definition for resilience, as contrasted to reliability, and perspective on the human aspects that shape research within this area. It was not intended to be definitive, as it is not a mature research field, but a characterization of research area that can be enhanced as the research goes forward. The (IEEE Technically Co-sponsored) International Symposium on Resilient Control Systems, as well as other related conferences (CPS Week 2012) are defining and shaping this research area based upon these common precepts and a shared view by a number of organizations and people. --Crieger (talk) 12:56, 14 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Crieger, it's good to see you're still around afterall - even if we are on different sides of this debate, your presence can bring some clarity to some issues and perhaps save the content in one form or another. To address your immediate comments, let me start by saying that I appreciate you're coming from a complicated position; you're in an emerging field of research which has yet to establish it's fundamental principles and terminology, but you feel the developing perspectives are useful information. Here are my concerns: First, and most prominent in terms of the AfD, I don't think that a definition of resilience vis à vis control systems justifies an independent article. There are hundreds of thousands of articles with content where "resilience" in one sense or another is a relevant factor, but it's impractical allow a separate entry for this qualifying term, just as it would be inappropriate to have articles for "Efficient solar panels", "Effective algorithms" or "Powerful hydraulic presses". Qualifying discussions of existing technologies and what makes for a practical variant should be included in the article for said technology.
Comment:Unfortunately, you are comparing the generic use of a noun (adjective) modifier (good, nice, advanced) with a multi-organization research program that has both an IEEE symposium (now in its 5th year), many other conference venues and a load of papers moving forward under this definition and design. --134.20.11.89 (talk) 21:22, 14 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
My second concern is that the findings of this field so-far seem to be rather vague, and thus it may not qualify for notability on those grounds as well. Several section of the article at present boil down to statements like "networked control systems are more vulnerable to cyber attack." and "cyber attackers will attempt to circumvent protections by exploiting vulnerabilities" (my paraphrasing), which are statements that should come as surprise to no one. In fact, most of the existing paragraphs could be reduced down to just a sentence or two once the excessive field-specific jargon is stripped off them (that's not a criticism of you or a suggestion that you're actively trying to inflate the content's significance, by the way -- I've been in academia and know how that stylized manner of writing can end up permeating your discussions with even non-experts, but Wikipedia demands an approach that is more accessible and plainly worded). But I just don't see much in terms of concrete findings or concepts in the current content. There are a couple of exceptions, including several mentions of novel technologies (EEG's or other sensors that report on the status of the control system operator, for example). But for each such piece of solid new information, there's a whole lot of filler in terms of vague speculation. On the whole, I just don't feel the article passes muster on WP:Notability. But since you have arrived back on Wikipedia just in the nick of time, I have a proposal for you. Suppose we merge this article with Control system, creating a section within that page titled "System design and resilience" (or something along those lines, I'm sure you can come up with something appropriate). We could reword the content a little to be more appropriate to a mass audience (you have to remember, the average Wikipedia user has never attended a scientific conference and may not have read so much as a single peer-review article) and trim the fat just a little. I happen to agree with your assessment that that existing Control system article is flawed in it's own right and I can't help but think it could benefit from the attention of an expert such as yourself. But regardless, it seems the most appropriate home for this content. Snow (talk) 19:59, 14 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment:I do not believe your suggestion is a good one, and I also believe you missed the intention of my comment. The current article on control systems discusses of a few methods of control, a few algorithms of control with one computational technique expanded on (there are many) and many system architecture types, followed by links to 20+ control system articles, many of which could be combined under this one article, or tied in some more logical fashion than what you are suggesting for resilient control systems. The point is that the control system article is about, for and of interest to one discipline, control engineers. The resilient control system article considers a much broader context of modeling humans, malicious and benign, as well as delineating for those in technical fields what the research aspects are, and how they might be considered and include many disciplines. The notability issue was clearly already covered above by Chiswick, as the wikipedia article itself doesn't even match the original paper in a line by line comparison (only in the sections and definition), and is now littered with plenty of references and sources to address this concern. If it is suggested that a further discussion on developed technologies be provided before it is "viable" in your mind, one can be accommodated, but that will not address the ability of understanding the material. The idea of using the descriptive information in the wikipedia is to give some understanding of the research area to readers with some background. This is important as most of the technical articles, such as Bayesian Network, provide the ability to gain some level of understanding of the why/how/what, given you have some familiarity with the science to start.--134.20.11.89 (talk) 21:22, 14 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
But this need has to be balanced against the need (considered policy), to word all articles in a manner that is accessible to the average user. I understand that you redrafted the page from the original research document, but it still very much reads exactly like you'd expect research to be related at a symposium, and that's just not what we're going for here. It's not citing the relevant technical innovations that I'm talking about - that's entirely appropriate. But the entire article is couched in a very insular field-specific idiolect that's just going to be unapproachable for the average user. And I'm sorry, but if you can't see that, you're spending too much time at those conferences!
Now as to the much more relevant issue of notability, Chiswick has not responded to my concerns as I detailed them after his commentary. You make a point that noun and modifier are not the same as an established idiomatic term pertaining to a distinct field of study. This is true in principle, but it's a higher burden of proof if you're claiming this is now an established sub-discipline of industrial engineering; the sources which support individual points within the article don't necessarily also satisfy the WP:Notability requirements, though, having looked through those references, maybe you could make the argument. But even then, the article would be "Control system resilience theory" or something along those lines and would necessitate a different approach to the content entirely. All of that being said, you have offered to add content concerning more concrete examples of the technology involved to contextualize things. To answer your implied question, yes, that absolutely would go a ways to mitigating what I feel is lacking in the article. That would put some meat on the bones, since this article, as it's title and lead present it, is supposed to be about a trend in technology, not technological speculation. That, and the fact that you seemed to be gone, are the only reason I brought it to AfD, and only after waiting for comment on the talk page for a while. The problems with tone can be slowly refined, but the more immediate bar that the article has to meet is relevant content that satisfies the articles title topic and some solid specific examples of the technology in practice are exactly what that content should be, imo. And I understand that a big part of the subject of the article is the feedback loop between the operator and system and that theory is by necessity wedged in there, I just think the technology should be front and center so the article is consistent in what it's subject is. Snow (talk) 03:16, 15 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment:Control Engineering in general is not a sub-discipline of industrial engineering, let alone the multiple disciplines involved with resilient control systems. Most of the technical articles, such as I mentioned about Bayesian Network, are beyond the normal non-technical user, but you clearly don't make that distinction, nor do you look at the serious omissions and overlaps of the other articles within all the series of links in the control system article. The networked control system article, for instance, specifies systems features that are common to all digital control systems (of the last 30 years) and specifies briefly that the distinction is the communications network and its impacts on the feedback loop. There are a number of papers and compiled volumes that discuss this, but only research into how to possible address latency with no certified solutions. This article says little to even characterize the breadth of communications-related issues that can impact the control loops, nor even much of the more promising research that has been performed to find theories and solutions. However, I do not see you comment on this article or any of the other plethora of control system related links and similar so-called issues, only the resilient control systems article. With this said, I will look to enhance the article with additional content regarding the system technology framework, which I think is most applicable.--Crieger (talk) 04:22, 15 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I'm sure many of the others are flawed or limited but, with respect, we're not discussing the failings of other articles here. Actually, I am going to do some editing on Control system, which has some of its own issues, and would be happy to have your knowledge and assistance in that task, but that really should be discussed elsewhere and can wait. Snow (talk) 05:10, 15 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think it is quite relevant, as it relates to what your root motivations are, as clearly all technical discussions are going to be somewhat (as a minimum) foreign to the non-technical, but that doesn't limit the benefit, and the complaints you oddly have about this article, are consistent with attributes of other articles discussing technologies of similar maturity.--Crieger (talk) 13:56, 15 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well, my motivations are also not at all relevant here (other than to say that you should assume good faith). I can't even recall under what context I came to the article, to be honest with you, but I saw it had some significant issues and here we are. Regardless, the failings of other articles and how the present one stacks up next to them is not the focus of this process. I can't edit all of the technical articles on Wikipedia (well, give me time, we'll see ;), but I can attempt to address issues when I come across them. It's an iterative process. As to your point that all technical discussion are going to be somewhat foreign to those uninitiated in the relevant field, this is true, but the current article does not even approach language which represents a minimum barrier to understanding while still maintaining accuracy. The relevant policy for that can be found here (the sections of particular relevance are items number 7 and especially 8).
You don't remember how you arrived here, although you have been passionate enough to write extensively about what is wrong with this one of actually hundreds of control related articles? Okay. It doesn't come close to the concepts you are familiar, perhaps. However, I would submit it does come close for the majority of people that would even care about such things as resilient control, human systems and cyber security. It also provides an introduction that is very straight forward for most, as per the guidance you referenced. Compared to academic papers, this is a very high level read. I am concerned you admit there are similar issues with other subject area articles, but yet as an honest broker, I don't see you go through them and mark them all for deletion (not suggesting in any way that is an appropriate response, but certainly consistent for you). Note that I have added some additional text and a figure, as it was fairly quick to do, and will add more as I get time. While it adds more "meat," I doubt it will make any strides to be more understandable for you.--Crieger (talk) 02:44, 16 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You've made quite a few accusations there, so let me address them in parcel:
You don't remember how you arrived here, although you have been passionate enough to write extensively about what is wrong with this one of actually hundreds of control related articles? However, I would submit it does come close for the majority of people that would even care about such things as resilient control, human systems and cyber security.
I wouldn't say I'm passionate about this particular process; rather this is the kind of routine work that needs to be done to maintain the quality, integrity and tone of the project. Not that I'm under circumstances required to impart to you my motivations here -- these issues should be decided on the merits of the content and the facts, not motivations, real or imagined -- but for the record, let me assure you there's no particular driving passion at work here. I've been trying to be polite about the quality of the content, but if you want me to be frank, I found a horribly (for Wikipedia's purposes anyway) written article of questionable notability and substance which I felt should be deleted. In the interest of consensus and not excluding another contributor's efforts summarily (and because AfD's have many times surprisingly turned an article that was felt useless into something of value), I have tried to work with you in this discussion and on the page itself. You'll notice that I placed a tag at the top of this page to mark my endorsement of keeping this discussion open and your article -- and we rarely use possessive language to refer to articles here, but it seems inappropriately accurate in this case -- from being deleted. I've also tried to help adjust the wording of sections to be more consistent with encyclopedic tone and even fixed some formatting issues. This despite the fact that A) I still have serious misgivings about the value and appropriateness of the content in general and B) my only help in the process is an inexperienced editor with a serious conflict of interest concerning the article's subject matter who shows little interests in taking time to understand Wikipedia policy and process and who views me with open suspicion. It's a pretty ballsy move to question the motivations of another editor when the article in question is basically a transcription of one of your personal research papers, with your own name and work cited prominently (aside from this article, you've contributed in only three others and in each case only to reference your own work or talk up the institution you work for). In any event, your making insinuations that I've decided to go after this subject matter out of sheer vindictive zeal for some reason is not helping your case here. And doesn't make much sense, for that matter, unless maybe you think a resilient control system killed my brother?
Comment:Actually, I believe you are disregarding that a number of other people and organizations are part of the effort. In general, you have also not been polite about the content. I started questioning why you wanted it deleted, as the type of content was consistent with others in the area, but you seem to concentrate on this one. Resilient control systems is an area I understand about, and both the definition and aspects presented lay the ground work for further enhancement by other editors.
Okay. It doesn't come close to the concepts you are familiar, perhaps.
It's not my area of professional expertise, no. But Wikipedia's contributor's are not required to be credentialed experts on the subjects which they contribute to. In fact, the popular view is that being too intimately associated with a subject can be a serious obstacle to objectivity (a premise you ought to be familiar with as a researcher, even if you are in a field of engineering) and level-headed editing and that, as such these topics should be avoided or at least approached with extreme caution -- hint, hint. Even experienced editors have to be careful of this, to say nothing of editors who created an account for no other apparent purpose than to write about their own research. But if you meant to imply that I don't understand the subject matter, then the answer to your question is "hardly". The subject of your article is not that difficult to grasp, nor is the technical complexity that high. The only reason it is difficult to digest is the convoluted (for the average reader, I imagine almost nonsensical) researcher's idiolect that you have presented it in. The only reason I don't have that much difficulty with it is because I come from an academic background initially by way of a social science; there's no abstract, overly-wrought, field-specific-buzz-term-laden, needlessly unapproachable mess of academic psuedo-speak that anyone can throw at me that years of daily exposure to sociologists and anthropologists didn't prepare me to parse! You're not nearly as bad as some I've seen, but the fact remains that the writing style you have applied to this article is completely inconsistent with the tone we strive for here. I have several times directed you to relevant policy pages which signify the kind of language that is expected in a Wikipedia article and which also explain why we use this standard, but you have shown no interest in acclimating yourself to those standards. Instead you continue to insist that your approach would be superior to the people you feel would get the most use out of the article, oblivious to the fact that we intentionally try to write articles in a fashion such that their content can be understood by virtually anyone -- including someone without technical knowledge in the broader field which the subject belongs to and even someone who can't or won't follow a single link on the page to a related article.
Comment:The standards you reference are a guideline, and seeing the resulting products in a related technical area, I see no issue to this and it appears that you are the only editor that really has.
It also provides an introduction that is very straight forward for most, as per the guidance you referenced.
I'm not sure if you are referencing the lead, or the section actually labelled "introduction" (which is redundant to the lead on a Wikipedia article, by the way). If you're referring to the lead, then the reason it is so much more plainly worded is because I added it, as an attempt to point you towards the type of language you might use elsewhere in the article which informs clearly upon the subject without compromising the accuracy of the concepts; unfortunately, it seems it did not have its intended effect, seeing as the content you've added since continues to employ the same inaccessible language you've used in the rest of the article.
Comment:I was referring to the Introduction, but I have since edited the lead that you added as I don't believe it quite reflected the intent. I appreciate your thoughts behind rewriting it, however, as it seems you got enough out of the article to be close.
Compared to academic papers, this is a very high level read.
See, that's a problematic viewpoint for Wikipedia. I'd say most of us here are of the opinion that even extremely complex subjects can be explained to the lay-person if they are broken down and imparted in the right fashion. If you are not capable of doing this for a given subject matter, then you probably shouldn't be a contributor on it's article, let alone basically the sole editor. We have articles ranging from cosmology and mathematical methodology to sitcoms and obscure footwear; the authors of each of those articles had to find a way to reconcile the complexities and context of the subject matter with formulating articles that are accessible to everyone (it's kinda the mission statement, in fact). I'm not saying that this balance is always easy -- sometimes it takes years of collaboration and consensus-building to get it right. What I am saying is that you're miles off from that mark at present and you're proving unwilling (or as-yet incapable) of leaving behind the context in which you usually discuss these concepts and adapting yourself to the requirements of this project, which is one of many reasons why editors are discouraged from contributing where they have a conflict of interest. Here, let's try something -- detail for me, in brief, the ten major statements of fact that you find most relevant to your article, only word them as you would explain them to a highschooler, using no (or at least the smallest amount feasible of) terminology that only a person who works in or near your field would know. If you, apparently a leading authority in the subject, can't do that, then I submit that either A) you are not the ideal person to be participating on this article, let alone being more or less its sole driving force or B) the article 's subject lacks sufficient substance to justify its existence. Or do you believe the complexity of your article is so much more vastly demanding than, say Enumerative combinatorics or Big Bang nucleosynthesis that it defies this approach? Because once I got past the cryptic semantics you employed, I didn't find the content of the present article particularly hard to digest, if I'm to be honest.
Comment:I don't believe this is a complex article, and is not written that way. Unfortunately, it is tough to parse all the terms consistent with the field and still maintain the relevance of the content to an audience that would care, and the extreme examples you mention (and there are plenty more where that came from on Wikipedia) are beyond most high schools or liberal arts college graduates. For those that just want to see what it might mean, they are covered as well, as they don't have to read past the introduction. There is credible of substance to substantiate this article's existence, including several symposia proceedings available on the web, research project results for 5+ years, and engineering documents from a number of organizations and participants.
I am concerned you admit there are similar issues with other subject area articles, but yet as an honest broker, I don't see you go through them and mark them all for deletion (not suggesting in any way that is an appropriate response, but certainly consistent for you).
Actually, yes it would be consistent for me to mark articles with similar issues, and I do, when I see them. But, and I'm not sure how many different ways I can explain this to you -- I'm only one editor. The fact is, I came across this article and it and only it is relevant to the present discussion. You seem to be of the impression that I should only nominate articles for deletion which I am familiar with through some particular context. Perhaps you are unaware that we have many dedicated editors (essential to the operation of this project) who spend the bulk of their time involved in tedious, repetitive tasks involved with removing inappropriate content who rarely ever participate in adding their own. There's no degree of previous level of involvement required -- either with regards to the subject or the article itself -- to make a change to page here, even a deletion. All that is required is that you follow policy and make an effort to form a consensus with other editors. Of course, sitting back and familiarizing yourself with the process before making assertions about how things should be doesn't hurt. Also, it would perhaps benefit you to recall that this is not the article's first AfD, nor am I the first editor to find fault with your fundamental approach to it.
Comment:Understood. The former AfD was more widely debated, and boiled down to use of open content. Although there were people on both sides of the debate, I conceded and rewrote it.
Note that I have added some additional text and a figure, as it was fairly quick to do, and will add more as I get time. While it adds more "meat," I doubt it will make any strides to be more understandable for you.
These additions have done nothing to address the systemic issues with the article, nor do they remove the overriding notability issue raised above. I was actually preparing to dig in for the long haul and spend the next couple of weeks parsing your material into something a little more understandable and seeing if the we couldn't save the article after-all, but given your refusal to do any research regarding Wikipedia process and policy and your outright paranoia about my motivations, I now view this level of collaboration infeasible.
Comment:I, in fact, did read the few references you pointed me. I believe my discussion is on practicality of doing so and consistency with articles of a similar subject matter, which prompted the other discussion.
And shortage of editors, however regrettable, is no reason for deletion either. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:07, 14 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think this idea has potential. Snow (talk) 04:46, 17 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I would agree that the (benign) human interaction role is quite similar, as evidenced by at least one reference to a noted text in this research area. However, there are a number of aspects that are not well covered from normal resilience engineering standpoint, including cyber security. As noted, it is also broader topic (I suggest quite a bit, and know personally one of those leading this area), but certainly very notable and deserving its own project in its own right. Cyber-physical system research also is a related area, and referenced in this article.--Crieger (talk) 13:41, 17 June 2012 (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.
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