Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Maths, science, and technology

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The following discussions are requested to have community-wide attention:

• User talk:ScienceApologist (RfC: Is List of Cosmologists a "Fringe science article"? ) — Is List of cosmologists a "fringe science article"? Members of the arbitration committee are having a hard time deciding. ScienceApologist (talk) 00:13, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
• Category talk:Discrete distributions (RFC) — Community feedback is requested regarding the pros (informative and encyclopedic value) and cons (potential for platform/browser specific behavior) of external links listed at the bottom of Wikipedia probability distribution articles. Such external links typically point to Java applets, which provide interactive graphical and computational interfaces for exploring the concrete probability distribution of interest, but may introduce browser specific appearances. Iwaterpolo (talk) 19:01, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
• Talk:SIG SG 550 (Request for Comment: Article Accessiblity ) — Is this article accessible to the average reader? Would this article benefit from structural or organizational changes? Some guy (talk) 20:43, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
• Talk:Heckler & Koch MP5 (Request for Comment: Article Accessiblity ) — Is this article accessible to the average reader? Would this article benefit from structural or organizational changes? Some guy (talk) 20:43, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
• Talk:White people (RfC: images) — Shall this article include images, and if so, under what conditions? Erik9 (talk) 18:54, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
• Talk:Wavelength (RfC: Should the classic analysis of waveforms and wavelength be included in article Wavefunction? ) — The sub-section below is proposed to replace the present subsection of the same name in Wavelength. Comments are solicited on the advisability of its inclusion and any emendations that would improve it. Brews ohare (talk) 20:56, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
• Talk:SETI (RFC on whether the article should state SETI is "widely viewed as hard science by the scientific community" ) — I'm supposed to place a neutral summary here, but since I don't understand Eye.earth's point, I'll do the best I can. The argument, so far as I understand it, is that the above phrase "widely viewed as hard science by the scientific community" is POV, and should be "variously viewed" or "variously endorsed". This is because Eye.earth claims that the lack of public funding of SETI means that somehow its status as a hard science has diminished. I claim that its perception as a hard science has not diminished, and am justified by the two citations so far in the article (one of which was added by Eye.earth). See the section immediately above for the discussion. --C S (talk) 02:58, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
• Talk:Comparison of BitTorrent clients (RFC: Should the list contain clients that don't have articles? ) — Should the list contain BitTorrent clients that don't have articles? Discussion can be read at Talk:List_of_BitTorrent_clients#Notice_to_editors.--Otterathome (talk) 11:58, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
• Talk:IPhone/Archive 15 (Request for Comment ) — (trying to maintain neutrality here) The issue is that I (Dario D.) think this article (and IPod Touch, in an almost identical situation) have criticisms that warrant a Crit section (actually I'm only focusing on the IPod Touch article at the moment, because I haven't finished the IPhone Crit section yet (I posted this IPod Touch crits section (this is an edit, not the actual page)), but a few other editors think the Crits section (for both pages) should be dissolved into snippets scattered across the article, because having a Crit section would draw undue weight, and imply that we want readers to see flaws. I argued that any article about products more than warrants a Crits section if there are the sources to back it (and if they themselves say the issues are weighty), but they argued (not sure if they still do - they never mopped up on many of their refuted points) that Wikipedia policy is against having Crit sections, and posted a self-edited FAQ at the top of both the IPod Touch and IPhone discussion pages (see top of this page) that says: "Why isn't there a criticism/controversy section in this article? While reliable sourced criticisms and controversies can be included in this article, criticism sections themselves are generally discouraged." This was later proven to be a false statement, but the war rages on. See the discussion on this page for more details (Call For Criticisms section, and Third Opinion section below it). --[ Dario D. ] 02:00, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
• Template talk:Psychology sidebar (Subtitles for sidebar for main areas of psychology ) — In the sidebar to differentiate between main areas in psychology:#We are having difficulty coming up with a division/categories for the sidebar which includes all the major areas of psychology. Should we use (a) "Basic science" / "Applied science", or (b) "Research" / "Applied"? ----Action potential ^{discuss contribs} 07:51, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
• Talk:Vector space (RFC: Length of 99,022 bytes? ) — Length of 99,022 bytes? Is this an article of an encyclopedia, or a single article encyclopedia of almost anything what is somehow related to the title of the article? prohlep (talk) 17:46, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

• Talk:Glass transition Request for input at Glass transition. This article has been protected over an edit war that seems to have been building for some time apparently based on disagreement between 2 versions. (The current version is the one that happened to be live at the time of protection: no preference implied). Input is required from editors who are familiar with the subject to bring the article back on track. Please discuss on the Talk:Glass transition page. Thank you. Exploding Boy (talk) 02:11, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
• Talk:Wavelength#RfC:_Is_the_section_More_general_waveforms_relevant? A dispute has arisen in the article wavelength over the relevance of discussion of wavelength for general waveforms. This dispute has enveloped even rather trite matters, such as the caption of figures and the inclusion of figures.

(i) There is consensus that wavelength can be defined for general periodic traveling waveforms. However, the caption provided in the reverted version is under dispute, as is the reference cited to a figure that shows a similar waveform.

(ii) Objection is raised to use of the standard mathematical expression for a traveling wave, f(x - vt) despite references to sources that use this form, and despite links to other Wiki articles employing this form.

(iii) Objection is raised to presenting the standard Fourier expansion of such a general waveform, with Wiki links to appropriate articles and full citation of sources, with the intent of showing that a general waveform necessarily involves shorter wavelength components, and therefore places restrictions upon the dispersion of an allowed medium.

(iv) The proposal is made that only allusion to a simple example of surface water-waves should be provided, and all discussions bearing upon linear media be omitted, despite the fact that wavelength is a property of all waves regardless of their physical origin.

Please suggest whether you think this material is relevant to the article wavelength. Brews ohare (talk) 05:44, 19 June 2009 (UTC)