Talk:Virtual synchrony

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Contents 1 External Links 2 Help needed for the illustrations 3 Article "okay" as is? No. 4 More detail, please 5 Protocol for removing tags?

[edit] External Links

The references currently in the article are as follows, but of course I'm a co-author on a few of them. Just to head off any kind of flaming, I don't have anything to sell, not even the book -- I did write it, but I don't get a penny of royalties on this book. Springer has a deal under which they will cut the price of a book quite deeply if the author declines royalties, and a book like this never makes much money anyhow, so I took the deal. And indeed, the book is cheaper as a result.

• Reliable Distributed Systems: Technologies, Web Services and Applications. K.P. Birman. Springer Verlag (1997). Book, covers all of the replication technologies in question.

• Distributed Systems: Principles and Paradigms (2nd Edition). Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Maarten van Steen (2002). Book, famous authors; also covers all of the replication technologies in question.

• "The process group approach to reliable distributed computing". K.P. Birman, Communications of the ACM (CACM) 16:12 (Dec. 1993). Easiest single article to read, for general audiences.

• "Group communication specifications: a comprehensive study" Gregory V. Chockler, Idit Keidar, Roman Vitenberg. ACM Computing Surveys 33:4 (2001). A relatively mathematical treatment but very clear and rigorous.

• "Practical Impact of Group Communication Theory." Andre Schiper. Future Directions in Distributed Computing. Springer Verlag Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2584 (July 2005). Talks about the history of data replication and fault-tolerance; very balanced and suitable for a non-expert.

• "The part-time parliament". Leslie Lamport. ACM Transactions on Computing Systems (TOCS), 16:2 (1998). Introduces the Paxos protocols, one of the three main classes of replication techniques. Some may find this hard to follow; the mathematical notation is a bit dense.

• "A review of experiences with reliable multicast" Software, Practice and Experience. 29:9 (July 1999) K. P. Birman. Describes some case-studies including stock exchanges, air traffic control systems.

• "Exploiting virtual synchrony in distributed systems". K.P. Birman and T. Joseph. Proceedings of the 11th ACM Symposium on Operating systems principles (SOSP), Austin Texas, Nov. 1987. First use of the term, but not necessarily the easiest source for learning more.

-—Preceding unsigned comment added by Ken Birman (talk • contribs) 08:14, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Help needed for the illustrations

Can anyone help with the formatting of the 3 figures in the section that illustrates virtual synchrony using time-line diagrams? These seem too small in the gallery format, but are too large to include in-line. I'm happy to do the work if you want to suggest a particular way of doing this but don't feel like doing it yourself. Ken Birman 16:33, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article "okay" as is? No.

This article has numerous problems. First of all the editor who created the artice, User:Ken Birman has a conflict of interest (WP:COI) in that he is the developer of Virtual synchrony software, as he has stated. The article does not contain in-line citations. Its tone is inappropriate for an encyclopedia, a casual discussion in some areas, abruptly introduced technical language in others, sometimes both in one, so the article seems like a casual discussion among insiders or buyers in places, and unfocused run on descriptions of the process without any concept of the reader of Wikipedia articles ("Developers of distributed computer systems often need a way to replicate data for sharing between programs running on multiple machines, connected by a network. Virtual synchrony is one of three major technologies for solving this problem. The key idea is to create a form of distributed state machine associated with the replicated data item"). The examples are awkwardly introduced (probably due to COI), the prose needs thoroughly edited. The sections need cohesively structured, with internal order, for the reader of the article--WP:MOS. I have tagged these articles with requests for this clean-up in case there are interested Wikipedia editors who can improve these articles, in particular starting with structure and pose before moving on to technical accuracy. Ken Birman has made it clear he does not want me to edit the articles. KP Botany 18:23, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

On the OR: I included this tag because of the COI between the primary editor and the topic and the failure to include in-line citations, coupled with the disorganized structure of the article, that altogether make difficult the direct verification of information and original research. KP Botany 18:33, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

In addition the complete rewrite is more appropriate at this point than the clarity tag due to the overall unstructured nature of the article and the lack of direction internally on sections. The clarity tag may need to be re-added at some point if the technical jargon is not dealt with at an appropriate for Wikipedia level. KP Botany 18:37, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Sure. Just to point it out, though: I did edit the article to address the concerns you raised, and you then chose not to comment further. Under the rules as I understand them, you need to do more than sort of glare at the article with unarticulated issues. Your role is to explain, in as clear a way as you can, what issues concern you -- "I don't like it" not being a good way to express those concerns, whereas "I read this, but I honestly can't understand it" being an example of something that would be acceptable under the Wiki rules. Given that I had revised the article and you then remained silent, after two weeks, I assumed that your objections had been addressed. This is a reasonable assumption, since you didn't express your concerns.

With respect to your concerns, I'll simply reiterate that hundreds of people have worked with virtual synchrony as a model, and while this does create a point of view, it isn't obvious to me that it implies a conflict of interest. You say that I am "the developer of virtual synchrony" but the actual fact is that (nearly 20 years ago) I was one of the first people to work with the model... and by now, this is a model with an industry standard behind it, used in systems and products developed independentally all over the world, by companies as large as IBM and Microsoft and by researchers in places as widespread as Israel, Switzerland, Italy, Norway, and France (and the US too). I don't have some sort of monopoly on the model. As a general matter, it can be difficult to write the initial version of a technical contribution if one lacks the necessary insight into the area as a whole. Necessarily, any Wiki article strikes a compromise between technical detail and readibility. It is a misunderstanding to assume that the point of the COI/POV rules is to ensure that only people lacking technical background can write Wiki articles. The goal of those rules, as written, is to prevent people from using Wikipedia for self-promotion (especially for marketing products). As you know from prior dialog on this, I have nothing to sell here. Moreover, while you seem not to accept that, I'm not trying to promote myself.

In fact my main reason for adding the article is that in the past six months or so, at least a dozen people have commented to me that a Wiki entry of this sort was lacking, and suggested that I would be the natural person to write the first version.

You've said "I don't want you to edit the article". Actually, I never said that. Feel free. But something else troubles me about this comment: this is actually the second time you've put words in my mouth (the previous time being on the Articles for Deletion discussion). Will all due respect, it would be helpful if you could stop doing that. If you want to quote people, you really should try and do that with cut-and-paste.

As indicated previously, I would be happy to see one of the editors tackle this. In fact I'm quite interested to see what they come up with. Ken Birman 23:03, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

No, I don't need to do any more as when I articulated my ideas you made it clear for me to keep away from your article. That means, the responsibility is yours, as it's about the articles, and you don't want me near them, so there is no point in us discussing anything more here, other than for me to note as I did that the articles don't go anywhere near being wikified or being okay. The tags may alert other editors to this, hopefully you won't chase them away, too. You could try reading WP:MOS until someone comes by to help. 05:17, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Reading your talk page, I can see that you've had a history of these very aggressive interactions with people on Wikipedia. Under the circumstances, I think that waiting for a Wiki editor who has the time and inclination to work on this makes sense. Now, I never once said that you should keep clear of "my" article. But let's not go there. You seem to feel a need to (mis)characterize what others say, and I can see now by browsing your history that I'm not the first person to run into this sort of thing. So: When a Wiki editor takes interest in the question, I'll be happy to assist in any way they request. Ken Birman 15:36, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More detail, please

As with gossip protocol, I found this entry useful and informative. Granted, I already have a fair bit of knowledge of networking, but I can't see someone without CS networking experience wanting to learn about this topic anyway (and if they do, they'll need to catch up on prerequisites first.) I thus find KP Botany's comments unreasonable and over-the-top. The article could certainly benefit from some copy-editing, but a rewrite? No. Nor do I see any conflict of interest.

I do however think the article could use some more detail on how these protocols work. I was following along with the basic principles, and then the article ended without giving me a sense of what type of messages the hosts need to exchange in order to implement this type of synchrony. Obviously this article shouldn't give full details, but something more is needed. JensAlfke 00:00, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

The article is improperly formatted, disorganized in outline, written in variable and largely incorrect tense, is disorganized, and is unneccesarily filled with poorly explained jargon, and is not written for a general audience. Write a sentence, an introductory sentence to a concept, then elaborate within the paragraph, place these sentences in a logical order, developing the concept, use the introductory paragraph to introduce the concpet in the same order as the entire article develops it. The initial paragraph starts out stong then gest bogged down in specific details that are poorly elaborated, yet don't belong in an introduction which should include an outline of the article. For a Wikipedia article, if you read the introductory paragraph you should come away with knowledge, not with confusion. There's a lot more missing than what type of messages the hosts need to exchange. If you want to see what it should and could look like, check out these articles Sei Whale, El Greco, WP:MOS. If you have a specific example of how my comments here are "unreasonable and over-the-top," please do quote directly from the article, and one of my comments, and Wikipedia MOS, and show precisely how my comments are incorrect. But coming here and piling on me after Ken decided the two of us should just cool off, and I agreed is no place in this article discussion--without specific examples, your complaint about me is simply a complaint about me, so take it to my talk page or omit it, and get to the article. KP Botany 17:54, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

JensAlfke, I could definitely add that sort of detail but I'm worried that it might take the article a bit beyond what one normally expects in an encyclopedia. Could you suggest some examples of comparable articles that I could look at, to see how this was handled? It seems to me that there is a delicate balance between explaining the basic idea and departing into a very detailed discussion. Also, with "models" of this sort, there are always multiple possible implementations, so you get a whole issue of which one to present and how to explain the existence of other options.

KP Botany, seems to me that less than a week ago we agreed that I wouldn't react to your comments, and you would focus on pages unrelated to these two. I just want to urge you to follow your own posted decision to stay away from these pages. Let other people get involved. Cool off. Focus on other things. There is an actual WP policy on conflict and you just aren't abiding by it. Ken Birman 19:11, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Ken, it seems you didn't actually read what I wrote.[1] These articles remain deeply problematic in their style, in their accuracy, in their choice of material. I will be monitoring them until they get cleaned up. I suggest you delete your comments about me from this talk page, so others won't think that open-season-on-KP Botany is needed to support the article. It is either a well-written and appropriate article for Wikipedia or not. KP Botany 01:14, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

KP Botany, as we've discussed at some length, you and I have a history of ending up in conflict. WP:conflicts expresses a policy on precisely this sort of thing. That policy makes it clear that none of us is critical and that the simple and best solution when conflicts arise is for both parties to cool off by not interacting at all. You and I agreed to cease interactions, but now you are ignoring your own statement that you had other articles to focus on an would keep yourself scarce. At any rate I did read your comments and I am not ignoring them. However, I do not plan to revive the senseless argument that characterized our previous round of interactions. I'll be more than happy to discuss things with anyone who wants to do so in a polite manner, but I'm really not interested in being treated abusively, misquoted, etc. And I don't plan to resume a debate with you over this either. We clearly have personality issues with one-another, and Wiki has a zillion other people who can edit these pages. I'll help any of them out (if they approach things constructively). But you yourself said you had no plans to do so, or to post anything further here. And I think that's exactly right: give it a rest and pursue some of the other topics of interest to you... Ken Birman 11:07, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Protocol for removing tags?

For about six months now, this page has been tagged for Point of View, Original Research and Factual Accuracy. After a brief period of discussion and editing activity, nothing has happened for six months.

Here's my question: as a matter of policy, do such tags remain on the page forever, or is there some procedure for agreeing to remove them? It seems safe to assume that KPBotany, who placed them there, would not consider the matter resolved, since nothing substantive changed during this period. However, perhaps that particular reviewer will never find comfort with this material -- such things do sometimes happen. Ken Birman (talk) 18:03, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Ken, such tags are a matter of local consensus. As most of the text has been contributed by one person, namely you -- the author of Virtual Synchrony, the OR, POV, and FA tags should probably remain. Its too bad that no one stepped up to the plate to help with the editing. Perhaps you can attract attention of editors on the Paxos algorithm page as they might be interested in the topic and would probably do a good job as that particular article has become much better over the last year or so.Bestchai (talk) 03:26, 25 January 2008 (UTC)