Talk:Zemax

This article was nominated for deletion. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination:

Delete, 2005-10-28, see discussion.
Restore, 2008-05-29, see discussion.

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Undeleted on request

I have undeleted this per a deletion review request here. Friday (talk) 18:31, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

ZEMAX [copied from BenFrantzDale's user talk page]

See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks). We obey standard English formatting of proper nouns, regardless of the preferences of the trademark owner.--Srleffler (talk) 03:52, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So should MATLAB be changed to Matlab? —Ben FrantzDale (talk) 10:57, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, because "MATLAB" is an acronym. "Zemax" is not.--Srleffler (talk) 03:32, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't MATLAB just a blend of MATrix LABoratory? Similarly there's LAPACK, short for Linear Algebra PACKage, and FORTRAN 77 for FORmula TRANslating System (recent versions of which are branded as Fortran). I think SPARK doesn't stand for anything yet is all caps. There's a whole family of old software named in all caps. It just strikes me as odd that invented names for products would be capitalized differently from how their coiners capitalize them. It's one thing if a company prefers a stylized typesetting of a regular word (such as Macy^*s or TIME) that Wikipedia would remove that stylization, but as long as we have iPhone not Iphone or IPhone, I don't see why it's not ZEMAX. Reading Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks), I do agree with your reading; perhaps I should take this up on Wikipedia_talk:Manual of Style (trademarks).) —Ben FrantzDale (talk) 12:26, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, ZEMAX is named after the author's dog Max, with "ZE" added to make it not be the same as another optical-design program, and all caps because that was the style at the time for scientific/engineering software [1]. Interesting. —Ben FrantzDale (talk) 19:50, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Blend" and "acronym" are not mutually exclusive. From Acronym and initialism, an acronym is a specific type of blend. In standard English usage, acronyms are written in all caps, while other types of blend are not. I don't know if MATLAB and FORTRAN are best considered to be acronyms, or some other type of blend. One might take the fact that they are usually written in all caps as a sign that they were intended to be taken as acronyms :). There is some grey area here. If you wanted to restyle MATLAB as Matlab, I wouldn't object. Fortran is already in title case. LAPACK seems more like an acronym to me.

The guideline explains why we format trademarks differently from how their coiners style them: words in all caps jump out in a paragraph of plain text, drawing undue attention. This is not appropriate for an encyclopedia.

Another thought: FORTRAN is not a trademark, and SPARK and LAPACK probably aren't either. That would put them out of the scope of Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks).--Srleffler (talk) 04:22, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Notability

Re: this edit: User:Cantaloupe2 simultaneously removed references that establish notability and added a notability tag. I'll assume good faith here, but this seems like a strange thing to do. Listing a bunch of books that discuss something certainly is a way to establish notability, and having five references on a single sentence is not a problem, particularly when the question is whether the article topic is notable.

Cantaloupe2 complains that these references merely "mention" Zemax, but the first of the four deleted references is to a book that specifically focuses on Zemax, even to the extent of including it in the title. Another of the deleted references includes a quote, where the cited source says that Zemax is "one of the industry's standards". This is certainly relevant for notability. I don't believe that Cantaloupe2 has reviewed any of the references to determine the extent to which they support notability, which would obviously be a requirement for removing them from the article (especially when raising concerns about the notability of the topic.)

The same editor also removed the see also section entirely, for no obvious reason.

I have reverted all of these changes except for the addition of the notability tag. If no better arguments about the notability of this topic are raised, I will remove that as well.--Srleffler (talk) 15:10, 21 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It would appear that you were not able to establish WP:GNG either. I certainly was not. I removed these references, because these appear to only serve the purpose as citation bombing to create an illusion that it is more notable than it actually is to try to make it look more important than say competitive softwares. I think that to say "even to the extent of including it in the title" is fluffing it up. Clustering up a bunch of references that make trivial mention in one sentence is usually pattern of WP:BOMBARD. Using one quote that says what the page editor wants to say, then clustering up a bunch of references in order to support the specific wording is fluffing. (i.e. one article says "extremely popular") and editor who wants to put this company in favorable light finds other references that talk about this, then make the generalized claim "is an extremely popular...". I see that it had been deleted once in 2008 and perhaps the tag bombing was an attempt a reactive response to avoid deletion? The same user Srleffler has been persistently defending this page since 2008. I wonder if there's an underlying WP:COI. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 19:52, 21 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No conflict of interest on my part. I have been editing optics articles for years. This is one of many on my watchlist. I have no affiliation with the company. I am happy to discuss whether the article topic is notable, and the extent to which any given source serves as evidence of notability.

Nothing in the essay Wikipedia:Bombardment justifies removal of references from an article, particularly if you are challenging its notability. The essay correctly points out that a large number of references does not prove notability. The converse is not true however: large numbers of references or references that "look" like bombardment are not evidence of lack of notability. The references stand on their own; they either establish notability of the subject or they do not.

Yes, the references on the first sentence are there to establish the notability of the subject, because the article had previously been deleted because it didn't cite sources to establish its notability. There is nothing wrong with this. If the references establish notability, it is not "bombardment". If you feel that the references are more than sufficient to establish notability, and that some of them are superfluous, one could justify deleting the extras. You cannot however consistently both assert that the topic's notability is questionable, and delete references that provide some evidence of notability.

Regarding Geary's book: your objection is not well-founded. The existence of a book from a reputable publisher, which focuses on a topic, is evidence of the notability of that topic. (Not sufficient by itself, of course, but relevant to the decision on notability.) I will have to check some of the other sources to see whether they make only trivial mention of Zemax. Obviously if that is all that they do, they do not contribute. The quote that refers to Zemax as an industry standard is, however, direct evidence of notability. Selected quotes always say what the page editor wants them to say. That's the point in providing a selected quote.

I'll take a look at your changes to the article soon. I'm sure there will be much to discuss.--Srleffler (talk) 00:18, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have no objection to your removal of Astronomical Optics as a reference. It is a trivial mention.--Srleffler (talk) 01:09, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Edits 07/22/2013

I cleaned up the lede, fixing the typographical errors in some of the references. I restored the deleted Geary reference, since there is a notability question about the article. It is not acceptable to delete references to reliable sources while questioning the notability of the topic.

I added "commonly used", supported by the direct quote from Fisher ("industry standard" would also work, if you object to the wording change.) The Smith book also supports the claim that the software is commonly used. I fixed the error in the company name: the lede should give the current name of the company first. I removed the historical names from the lede. The history section is a better place for that. --Srleffler (talk) 15:31, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I also restored the distinction between imaging and illumination optical systems. These two types of optical system are designed very differently. Software that does one type of optical design is not necessarily useful for the other. Zemax does both.--Srleffler (talk) 15:54, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I restored some of the history material, which is relevant and properly cited. Note that WP:SELFPUB allows citing a company's publications about itself and its products, as long as the listed criteria are met.--Srleffler (talk) 15:47, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

~~I haven't dug into the features section yet.~~ Some issues that need to be fixed: the recent edits inappropriately emphasized analysis of optical coatings over ray tracing. Ray tracing is a primary function of this kind of optical design program; coating analysis is not. The separation between the "usage" subsection and the rest of the features section doesn't make much sense. The "usage" section lists some specific features of the program and the specific kinds of tasks for which those features are designed. A citation to the user's manual for the program may well be sufficient reference for this uncontroversial material. I will look into it when I have time.--Srleffler (talk) 17:01, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I ended up citing the Zemax website instead. (See WP:SELFPUB before you object that this is not a reliable source.) I'm not clear on why you thought these statements looked like "original research". The statement that the program includes these features, and a description of what these features are designed to be used for ought not to be controversial.--Srleffler (talk) 20:49, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Starting on the features section. I notice that some red links were inappropriately removed. In case you are not aware already, please see Wikipedia:Red link. In particular, diffractive optical element and non-sequential ray tracing are topics for which articles do need to be created.--Srleffler (talk) 20:05, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Back to notability

Canteloupe2, do you still feel that the article's notability is in question?--Srleffler (talk) 01:03, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take the lack of response as a "no".--Srleffler (talk) 05:46, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]