User talk:137.99.122.27

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I don't understand why I am getting messages about advertising, especially since these messages are repeatedly misspelled "advertizing". I am trying to enlighten the wikipedia community about MathScriptor, a government NSF-funded program that is attempting to provide, free-of-charge, Mathematica and MATLAB functions. This is not advertising because there is no product for sale. Please stop deleting my edits, especially since you are not checking the validity of my statements. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.99.122.27 (talk) 21:46, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
Hi. I have copied your comments here. Please reply here; I will get notification when you do and be able to reply.
Firstly, thanks for deciding to contribute to Wikipedia. Please have a look at some of the principles we espouse here, including:
Your edits were reverted because they were an obvious attempt to draw attention to a product you are associated with (MathScriptor) be adding a reference to it in a much more popular product. That is advertising, and is not permitted here. You provided no references to back up your claim, except one by the program's author, who is not considered a neutral or reliable source. It is also clear to anyone simply reading the feature list for MathScriptor that it is not a competitor to any professional symbolic math package. I suggest you try editing some other areas of Wikipedia before coming back to this issue. DJ Clayworth (talk) 22:00, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

A simple read of the MathScriptor page in fact reinforces my statement that MathSciptor offers Mathematica and MATLAB functions. As a member of the academic community I have long feared sites like wikipedia where false information maybe published. However, I've recently come to see the incredible value in sites like wikipedia. I don't understand your merits for deleting my edits but, because reposting my comments will not help in validating wikipedia as an information source, I will not engaged in an "edit war". What can I do to convince you, and the wikipedia community, that MathScriptor is a program similar enough to Mathematica and MATLAB that it deserves to be mentioned on those sites? Would you like me to site NSF documented sources? I am new to wikipedia and have difficulty with the process so I welcome help. I hope we can reach an agreement on this issue. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.99.122.27 (talk) 21:58, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Many features that are basic to MATLAB and Mathematica are obviously missing from MathScriptor. However if you can find references from a neutral and reliable source to say that they are comparable the matter will be reconsidered. DJ Clayworth (talk) 22:04, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Well firstly I assert that I have no more of an affiliation with MathScriptor other than I have used the program in science and engineering courses at the University of Connecticut. I realize that Mathematica and MATLAB are more popular currently but that is because they are commercial products backed by commercial advertising.

Secondly, if you have ever used Mathematica or MATLAB and if you proceed to download MathScriptor (which I'm sure you've never used) you will find that, while the programs are obviously not identical, they do share many similarities. MathScriptor is free to download and I encourage you to explore the program if you doubt that statement. Few textbook sources cite similarities and differences in programs such as the aforementioned and unfortunately I think the only way to prove to anyone that the programs are very similar is to have that person use all three. To someone in the sciences, the short-comings in MathScriptor when it comes to symbolic math are trumped by MathScriptor's ability to do CHARMM molecular dynamics, fast fourier transforms, generate computationally-predicted Infrared spectra and Terahertz spectra, legendre and laguerre mathematics and many other impressive routines that I won't list here. Perhapse the MathScriptor page falls short of fully describing all the the program's features?

Lastly, you should know that "drawing attention" to MathScriptor in no way benefits me. I simply want students in academia to recognize that there are alternatives to over-priced programs such as MATLAB and Mathematica. MathScriptor is one such alternative with a much shallower learning curve.

Clearly you have more time on your hands to monopolize control over wikipedia than I do so I'll cease posting edits, updates, or information from this point on since it is obviously a futile effort. However, it saddens me that you've stood in the way of sharing a useful fact with others.

You are free to share useful facts with others, but Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and not all facts belong there. Thank you for deciding not to continue with this line of editing. The very fact that you write about "the short-comings of MathScriptor" makes it obvious that it is not an equivalent of Mathematica. Additional features do not make it 'equivalent', any more than the additional features of Emacs make it an equivalent of Microsoft Word. DJ Clayworth (talk) 16:49, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

As I said, I did not claim that the programs were identical but as far as their contribution to the science and engineering community they are most certainly equivalent (if it is not the case that MathScriptor is the more powerful of the two). Because I used the term "short-comings" when it comes to one feature in MathScriptor does not mean that I could not use the same term to describe the short-comings Mathematica and MATLAB posses when considering the "additional features" of MathScriptor. Again, I feel mention of MathScriptor in MATLAB and Mathematica pages is warranted but you've bullied me out of making these appropriate edits. I feel that in time the wiki-community will overpower you.

I'm happy for you to write about MathScriptor; however your edit tried to imply that MathScriptor was an equivalent of MATLAB and Mathematica, when the differences clearly indicate that they are not. 'Equivalent in terms of contribution' is not the issue. Postscript and Powerpoint may have made equivalent contributions to the world of computing, but nobody would claim they are equivalent programs. DJ Clayworth (talk) 18:57, 12 December 2007 (UTC)