Any policy against Product Placement?

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Wikipaedia articles suffer from a lot of non-notable people's names inserted into articles as academic references: could we please have a policy against product placement, such as showing Starbucks in an unrelated article (especially one which appears on the front page? Jezza (talk) 14:51, 28 June 2010 (UTC)Reply

Non-notable people's names inserted into articles? They're simply the authors of the publications which have been used as references. Also, I don't see a particular problem with using Starbucks in an example. I'm simply using the same example as the one given in the scientific publication and besides that, it is a well-known coffee shop. If I have an example about someone who "wants to buy fast food", should I avoid mentioning McDonald's? It just gives the article some flavor rather than "to visit a fast food restaurant". Suggesting another policy for this type of trivialities is what drives new people away from Wikipedia. Let me be clear that I am against obvious advertising but I don't see a problem with using well-known names in examples.
If we do introduce a policy for it, what purpose would it serve? For those cases where someone is pushing their own company/product? We already have policies for that, in the same way that we have policies against linkspamming your own website. - Simeon (talk) 00:27, 29 June 2010 (UTC)Reply

Difference between preference-based planning problems and weighted constraint satisfaction problems?

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Well ... how do problems in preference-based planning differ from weighted constraint satisfaction problems? —Kri (talk) 21:58, 5 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

I think it's mainly the area of research: WCSPs are approached as a CSP with their algorithms and techniques whereas preference-based planning is more about planning a sequence of actions that satisfies preferences. So a WCSP is solved best (according to the constraints) based on its evaluation and a planning problem with preferences is solved best when the planning solution adheres to the preferences as best as possible (according to some formula). So there are similarities but a planning problem (needs sequence of actions) is not necessarily the same as a CSP (needs satisfying solution to constraints). - Simeon (talk) 22:48, 7 October 2014 (UTC)Reply