First, you should not have been citing Wikipedia in a thesis paper. (It makes you look lazy.) Second, you should have been looking for better sources than Web sites---they're called books. Try a library. --Coolcaesar (talk) 14:39, 20 August 2011 (UTC)Reply

First, you should not have been breaking Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines and more specifically please keep in mind Wikipedia:No_personal_attacks rule. Second, please do your homework before you decide to edit an article. Suppose your goal was to improve it. --Studentusa2011 (talk) 19:22, 20 August 2011 (UTC)Reply

If you actually look at those books, NONE are by historians, let alone historians of computer science. That's because historians are specifically trained to cite to reliable sources, as in either (1) primary sources or (2) secondary sources by competent professionals who actually understand the historical trends they are commenting on. So your position is invalid because you're focusing on books that are citing the NetValley site to prove tangential points. That is, the NetValley site is an amateur site that's only being cited by amateurs (in terms of the ability of those writers to write history), but it's not being cited by historians, who can actually see how poorly written it is. --Coolcaesar (talk) 08:26, 23 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
I just came back from vacation and checked out various version of my thesis. All of them need the chapter of SV that was cut by you. So, let us go back to the discussion we began last time, when you started talking about historians. It's not an ancient rome/greece thing... We are talking about IT industry trends & history. Historians you are talking about would look back on the time when IT industry appeared in the United States. Their sources will be the stories that were written by IT insiders and we are talking about one of the most reputable of them. Can You admit when you make a mistake? Please go ahead and repair whatever is needed.--Studentusa2011 (talk) 07:59, 7 September 2011 (UTC)Reply
I can't figure out what the heck you're trying to say. Professional historians (as well as amateurs attempting to write professional-quality work) always implement rigorous methods of research, citation, and analysis regardless of the era they are studying.
To be specific, two issues with your statement: (1) who is the IT insider you are talking about, and (2) why is he or she reputable? Neither is obvious from the quote I deleted from the article. If you're saying that Shockley himself was the insider, that doesn't make any sense; if I recall correctly, the NetValley site does not cite to Shockley's own writings as the source of those statements. If you're saying that Gromov, the writer of NetValley, was the insider, that makes no sense because there is no indication on the NetValley site that Gromov was actually an IT insider. In fact, if you Google him, he appears to be based in either Sacramento or Folsom, meaning that he lives far from Silicon Valley. In contrast, I actually grew up in Silicon Valley and attended school with classmates whose parents were top executives at Lam Research, S3, and Apple. --Coolcaesar (talk) 03:16, 8 September 2011 (UTC)Reply
I'be heard that some of the Twitter accounts were suspended for violating the terms of service by posting the private information of people they don’t like. As I see it from your post, you do the same things. Can you do me a favor? Please do it on your wikipedia page not mine. Thank you for understanding.
Now, back to the topic that I originally commented on. You asked me, "who is the IT insider...'? Generally speaking, an industry insider is characterized by a long time spent in a particular field of the industry. An IT Industry Insider uses hard won knowledge as well as in-depth research in the IT trends to identify the relevant key industry challenges.
Your first suggestion was that anyone who lives about a hour away from Silicon Valley can't be considered as an IT industry insider. It sounds funny, but your next statement was that you consider yourself an IT industry insider because you "grew up in Silicon Valley and attended school with classmates whose parents were top executives at Lam Research, S3, and Apple." OK. I'm sorry, but I don't get it. Do you really, so desperately need to imitate an IT industry insider? Do you really need to play this role anymore just to feel a sense of belonging? There are lots of other topics around here that does not related to the IT industry. Please, please tell us it was a joke, repair the article and we will smile and laugh together and ... that's it, happy end. --Studentusa2011 (talk) 01:11, 19 September 2011 (UTC)Reply
Funny, you write a lot like User:PrqStar, have the same objective as him/her, and edits on both accounts are directed primarily to this one issue. (Lawyers are trained to specifically detect suspicious correlations in documentary evidence.) Trust me, you're doing a terrible job of acting like a student; I have three cousins on Facebook who are college students.
Please keep in mind that using multiple Wikipedia accounts is known as sockpuppeting; see Wikipedia:Sock puppetry. The admins can catch it with a simple IP address trace using the CheckUser tool. It is grounds for an immediate ban of all accounts of the editor involved.
I also note that this is not the first time a suspicious pattern has arisen with regard to the NetValley.com site. There was a discussion in March of this year at the WikiProject Spam page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam/2011_Archive_Mar_1#netvalley.com.
It seems to me that Mr. Gromov, or a close relative or friend of his, is trying to promote NetValley on Wikipedia. That is totally inappropriate and a violation of the conflict of interest policy in addition to the sock puppetry policy. All references to NetValley will have be purged at some point from Wikipedia and Mr. Gromov or his enterprising affiliate will have to be banned, once overwhelming evidence of that pattern has been developed. (It's almost there.)
Also, there is nothing on the NetValley site to show that Gromov was an IT insider, in the sense of being a top engineer or executive at a Silicon Valley firm. He doesn't even hold any patents---I just checked. For all we know Gromov could have been a dentist, accountant, or high school teacher in the Valley. --Coolcaesar (talk) 04:20, 19 September 2011 (UTC)Reply
Something like this can be expected. As I was warned about it by TJRC (see below): "Don't waste your time with Coolcaaser. He's demonstrated that he is not interested in civility toward other editors." You proved this point. --Studentusa2011 (talk) 05:12, 19 September 2011 (UTC)Reply

It took me a while, but finally I have double checked the data about the person of your interest (see above your post: Coolcaesar 04:20, 19 September 2011). I followed your instruction and “Googled him” a lot. Actually he lived in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma and worked there as a Yoga Teacher, a Personal Trainer in a gym and a Holistic Nutritionist. His patent license strategies are under investigation yet. So, I was not able to prove your statement:"He doesn't even hold any patents" so far. Yesterday I got an official apology from one of the public record administrations that I've contacted last week. They wrote that it was a mistake, and they are so sorry for miscommunication. Unfortunately they have provided you with a bunch of wrong information ("a dentist, accountant, or high school teacher ") ...

Also I've contacted with the Chief of your team of the private investigators and provided him with the list of books, articles (the Wikipedia articles including) and other publications that unlawfully citated or provided links to the Web site which you decided should be banned. Now you can bring to the table of this discussion more detailed personal information (date and place of birth, bank account, mother maiden name, ... etc) about any of the writers, editors and their “close relative or friends” (as well as relatives of the friends and friends of the relatives) that have citated NetValley or provided the links to it's site without your written permission. --Studentusa2011 (talk) 23:51, 22 September 2011 (UTC)Reply

Citing Wikipedia edit

When you cite Wikipedia in a document outside Wikipedia, whether a thesis, web page, whatever, the best way to make sure the statement you're citing remains available (absent deletion of the entire article) is to document the date retrieved, and, if using a URL, providing a URL to the specific version.

The easiest way to get a cite is to click on the "cite this page" link under the toolbox in the left-hand margin. For example, if I look at William Shockley and want to cite it in its present form, clicking on that link leads me to [1], which provides formatted cites in most common citation formats.

WP:Citing Wikipedia has a lot of helpful information on this subject.

You cannot, unfortunately, expect Wikipedia articles to remain static; and can't use the external citation to the article as a basis for inclusion of material in the article.

Don't waste your time with Coolcaaser. He's demonstrated that he is not interested in civility toward other editors. TJRC (talk) 21:27, 7 September 2011 (UTC)Reply