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Compositionality

I think the section titled "Compositionality" needs some work. It states: 

  Compositionality, i.e., the ability to compose Actor systems into larger ones,

This is not really the typically accepted definition of compositionality, at least in the formal semantics sense. The definition provided here corresponds more closely to Composability, i.e. the ability to compose subsystems to form systems (or subterms to form terms, etc.) Compositionality, on the other hand, states that the meaning of the whole is given by the meaning of the parts, or that the behaviour of a composite is uniquely determined by the behaviour of the components. This already assumes composability, but it is not the same. It is possible to define, for example, a language where terms are composable (a syntactic or structural operation,) but is not in fact compositional (a semantic or behavioural property.) Furthermore, compositionality is strongly related to the algebraic notion of congruence; having a compositional semantics is essentially the same as having a congruence relation over the language. I am not too familiar with the Actor model. I understand, from the statement above, that it supports composability, but is it truly compositional? If so, what is the semantic domain, the semantic map, or the congruence over Actors?

--Eposse (talk) 18:42, 11 January 2008 (UTC)User:Eposse

Hello Eposse, you are right: what is described here is not about compositionality in the sense of the article on that topic. I think you'd be justified in changing the heading to "Composing actors", and removing the link. Does this sound reasonable to others? Sam Staton (talk) 21:54, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree that the text in the article, as it stands, isn't all that clear. However, Agha's dissertation (which is referenced in the discussion of compositionality) does actually use the term "compositionality", and indeed discusses equivalences between actors and actor systems based on what Agha calls "Asynchronous Communication Trees" (which appear from a cursory reading to be a form of labelled transition system). Agha prescribes a set of rules for combining actors in a compositional manner. --Allan McInnes (talk) 01:05, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Hmm. I've not read the thesis thoroughly, but it seems that Agha uses "compositionality" in his thesis to mean "matters pertaining to composition". This is (perhaps subtly) different from compositionality as described on that page. There is no syntax, he is just describing how to join several semantic objects together. He is not saying "the meaning of a compound phrase is determined by the meaning of its subphrases", because there is no syntax and hence no "meaning" and no "phrases" to speak of. For another example, I think it would be wrong to use the phrase "the compositionality of a car" to refer to the way that the behaviour of the car can be derived from the behaviour of the steering column, the gearbox and the engine.
Another thing: it seems that his later article, written with Mason, Smith and Talcott, uses the word "composability" instead. Perhaps Agha later changed his mind about terminology. Sam Staton (talk) 13:43, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
It's true that Agha's dissertation doesn't seem to address the technical meaning of compositionality directly. However, he does define a "syntax" (the composition operator defined on page 159 and page 160) for composition, and further defines (in the appendix) how the "asynchronous communications tree" for a composite system may be arrived at from the trees of its component parts.
As for the later paper, it seems to me that Agha et al. (in section 3.3) define "composable" to mean that the two actor configurations to be composed are compatible (in the sense that they don't share actor names, and that they have what amounts to "compatible ports"). They then define "composition" as an operation on composable actors, and that form of "composition" seems to be pretty much the same as the one in Agha's dissertation (again giving meaning in terms of the composition of computation trees).
Having said all of that, I'm hardly an expert on formal semantics or the precise technical meaning of compositionality, and I'm more than willing to defer to your (and Eposse's) opinion on this -- particularly since (as you point out) the more recent paper doesn't actually use the term "compositionality" anyway.
--Allan McInnes (talk) 22:30, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
I haven't read Agha's thesis either, but from your comments it does look like he describes a semantic map into asynchronous communication trees, which presumably is compositional in the standard sense. I do agree that as long as you define a composition operator you have syntax. Defining syntax is not necessarily done by means of a grammar. If you talk about "semantic objects" and how to "join" them, then you can define a signature for these objects. Every signature has an associated set of terms. This can be thought of as "abstract" syntax. It does sound like there is an "abstract" syntax of Actors, with at least a composition operator.
Having said that, it is quite possible that Agha's terminology in his thesis did not correspond to what most people call now compositionality. So the question would be whether to use Agha's original terminology, or the more recent terminology. Personally I'd go for the latter, and maybe add a footnote on terminology. This section could then describe both composability and compositionality (w.r.t. asynch. comm. trees.)
--Eposse (talk) 00:11, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Using the more recent terminology sounds good to me. --Allan McInnes (talk) 07:59, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Buffering in Milner's early model

Previously, the section Not sequentiality, not buffering, not synchrony and not fixed topology claimed that CSP involved buffered communication, which contradicts Hoare's paper on the subject (Hoare explicitly rejects "automatic buffering" of communications). I am now wondering if the claim that Milner's original work (in Processes: A Mathematical Model of Computing Agents) involved buffering is accurate, especially given Milner's later preference for unbuffered synchronous communication. However, I haven't been able to get a hold of a copy of Milner's paper. Can anyone else shed any light on this issue? --Allan McInnes (talk) 23:04, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I see that an anon user has removed the mention of buffering in Milner's early concurrency work. Should I take that to mean that someone has checked the paper in question, and verified that mention of buffering was incorrect? --Allan McInnes (talk) 16:28, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Actor model and process calculi history

The article Actor model and process calculi history seems to contain a lot of material that duplicates information found in the Actor model article. Any objections to simply merging in what little material isn't already contained in Actor model? --Allan McInnes (talk) 23:12, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

The Actor model article is already too long. We might think of merging it with Actor model and process calculi. But that article is also quite long. In due course, someone will probably expand the history further. For example, they might include the history of the Aarhus summer schools in which Hewitt, Hoare, Milner, Nygaard, etc. participated.--71.204.129.151 (talk) 03:52, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Since the merger proposal was first put forward, an anon editor (you?) has cut out much of the duplicated material, and expanded the remaining text. So perhaps a merger doesn't make as much sense now. But let's give it a few more days, to see if anyone else wants to weigh in. --Allan McInnes (talk) 04:37, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Languages vs. Libraries

The article already cites programming languages which implement the Actor Model. However, it does not cite any libraries. Are there any libraries or frameworks that allow the implementation of the Actor Model in “ordinary” programming languages? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.129.31.156 (talk) 13:56, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Confusing term "behavior"

Rather late in this article the term "behavior" is defined not as it is defined in ordinary usage, i.e. what actually happens, what somebody actually does, but as a function mapping from the currently received message to what actually happens in response to that message, what the actor actually does in response to the message. IMO this is confusing terminology. In a technical textbook for students who are taught the meaning of the term before reading the text that uses it, perhaps it's fine to use terminology in that way, but in WikiPedia I'd prefer to somehow clarify such jargon whenever it doesn't have the meaning a first-time reader would expect it to have.

Below are two examples of text earlier in the article to which I composed a correction because the example-text seemed more or less wrong before I had read the later section defining what "behavior" is supposed to mean here.

"in response to a message that it receives, an actor can make local decisions, create more actors, send more messages, and determine how to respond to the next message received."

What I wrote in response to reading that text: An actor can't decide how it will respond to the next message until after it receives that next message. The best an actor can do in response to the current message is to modify its internal state so as to affect the way it might respond to various possible next mesages.

What I wrote later, after reading the later section on "behavior": Perhaps what the author really meant is that the behavior (function), not the actual behavior (action) is determined. See the section on behavior being a function that is applied to an incoming message to determine what happens at that time and also what the new behavior (function) will be for the next message after that.

"An actor is a computational entity that, in response to a message it receives, can concurrently:

    * send a finite number of messages to other actors;

    * create a finite number of new actors;

    * designate the behavior to be used for the next message it
      receives."

What I wrote in response to reading that text: Again, the best it can do for item 3 is to modify its internal state in order to effectively modify the algorithm it will use to decide what behavior to use for the next message it receives.

Text added after reading the later section on "behavior": Although technically the word "behavior" in this theory actually means the function mapping message-input to what-happens, perhaps the term "behavior function" or "behavior" with parenthetial (function) immediately after, instead of just "behavior" by itself, should be used throughout this article when that meaning is intended?

Side remark, not a correction, but related to the definition of "behavior", so I'm including it here rather than starting a whole new talk/discussion section: Note that for efficiency, the behavior function would usually be implemented as a combination of a fixed algorithm (execute-only constant) and a state which is mutable pure data (no directly executed code) that is referenced and modified by the algorithm, thus following the Harvard model rather than the Von Neumann or interpreted-Lisp model.


"(But see Synthesizing Addresses of Actors.)"

Target label doesn't exist, so this jumps to top of article. I know we're supposed to be bold in editing, just fix the problem instead of posting a bug report, but I don't know where the intended target might be. Most likely is in a section that was deleted and can be found only in the history of past versions, and I'm a newbie here so I have no idea how to find it and figure out how to make the link valid now. So please forgive me for leaving the fix to an expert, OK?

198.144.192.42 (talk) Robert Maas, tinyurl.com/uh3t for contact info

In "Kilim - a message-passing framework for Java", Kilim is linked to a wikipedia page describing kilim rugs, not a message passing framework. It is obviously referring to http://www.malhar.net/sriram/kilim/index.html. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.128.15.200 (talk) 01:49, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Relation to Active Object?

Active_Object links to this page. However, neither that page nor this page discuss the other. I am confused about the relation between the terms "actor model" and "active object"; do they refer to the same concept? I feel either/both pages should discuss/clarify this point. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.128.15.200 (talk) 23:27, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Scala

Scala Actors are not part of the language, but are in the standard library. AFAIK it doesn't implement all aspects of the Actor model. Perhaps it should be noted that Scala's implementation is incomplete? --79.206.217.192 (talk) 10:06, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

What about previously created Actors?

"addresses for Actors that it creates while processing the message"

What about Actors that it created during the processing of a previous message? Do they continue to exist and be addressable? - Dougher (talk) 03:46, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't this depend on what you mean by "exist" and "addressable"? Does actor semantics support the concept of an actor that used to exist but no longer does so? And can there exist an actor that is not addressable? If not then this sounds like an implementation detail: if all actors that know anything about actor A cease to exist, then there should be no problem if actor A also ceases to exist. On the other hand if an ActorScriptTM debugger needed to run a scenario backwards to diagnose a problem, the debugger would need to be able to raise the deceased actor from the dead like Lazarus, raising the question of just how dead the actor really was. Does actor semantics worry about these things? --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 02:05, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Scheme

Sussman and Steele produced the first version of Scheme on Maclisp in the mid-1970s in an attempt to relate the Actor model at the time to more familiar programming ideas. They soon decided that the code they had written to implement actors was identical to the code to implement procedures, and ended up with a novel version of Lisp. However the influence of the Actor model on Steele and Sussman's thinking at the time was considerable, as they have widely acknowledged. Possibly the development of Scheme, which in turn has had a great influence on the subsequent development of modern Lisp from Lisp Machine Lisp to Common Lisp, was one of the more glaring and obvious influences of the Actor model. --TS 13:29, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I reverted this sequence of two edits because I think it makes a huge meal out of something that is quite trivial in the context of the Actor model. Sussman and Steele's fundamental insight was that their models of actors and functions--as Sussman and Steele understood it in 1973--was identical, both being grounded in lambda calculus. Nobody in a million years would claim that Scheme--a language lacking anything resembling concurrency--had anything to say about the Actor model.
I think if we mention Scheme in the article we should follow Sussman and Steele's lead and emphasize that the earliest Scheme was simply an attempt to relate the innovative concepts of the Actor model to the familiar concepts of Lisp-based AI.
Of course modern Scheme contains no remnants of that, and you'd have to be insane to describe it as a language for controlling concurrent systems, but their struggles led to an insight about non-concurrent systems: that the lambda calculus is pretty good at generating control structures in a way that was not widely appreciated at the time. --TS 21:00, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
Heads up: the above edits might be involved in Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/CarlHewitt. —Piet Delport (talk) 2009-10-21 02:44

We learned that the name Scheme come from Sussman and Steele "scheming" against actors. They thought they had made an important discovery that actors were just the lambda calculus.63.249.108.250 (talk) 20:04, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

ActorScript cleanup

I removed a bunch of stuff about the ActorScriptTM language, which was 1) referenced to an unpublished preprint; b) was written like advertising ("the current definitive language..."); 3) gave undue emphasis to the Actorscript product given the weak sourcing; 4) devoted too much space to stuff about JSON and XML for an academic topic like this; 5) was inserted by an anonymous editor ([1] sequence of edits) in apparent contravention of restrictions against autobiographical editing by Carl Hewitt that I'm sure are known here. 66.127.55.192 (talk) 04:41, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

The section has been unblanked because it is useful to Wikipedia to have the material. The work on ActorScript is quite well know and has been referenced in other publications and in blogs. Fortunately, not all academics are as ignorant as you imagine about XML and JSON. Also, there are other programming languages that use XML and JSON as data types.98.210.236.129 (talk) 23:35, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
I have removed it again based on the longstanding bans. Editors in good standing not under restriction are welcome to restore all or part of the material as they see appropriate. In the event of what appears to be further reversions by restricted editors, I will open an ANI thread to request application of blocks and article protection as needed. 66.127.55.192 (talk) 07:00, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
It's too late to try to suppress ActorScriptTM because it is all over the Internet. 98.210.236.39 (talk) 12:23, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
The amount of space now devoted to it in the article is ridiculous, and if ActorScript was really all over the internet, you'd be able to cite some publications describing real-world systems that use it. I actually hadn't intended to remove it from the list of languages in the article and I'm fine with it being mentioned there, but this isn't an advertising venue for the voluminous description currently in the article. I will open an ANI thread as mentioned. 66.127.55.192 (talk) 19:01, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Maybe you should make it into a separate article. 69.110.144.119 (talk) 19:05, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
The article would have to be written by an unrestricted editor and notability of the topic would have to be documented by reliable sources. 66.127.55.192 (talk) 19:06, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
And it would have to NOT be a blatant copyvio of http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0907/0907.3330.pdf. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:37, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

The material in the article clearly qualifies as fair use.98.210.236.39 (talk) 20:43, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

(recycled from ANI:) There is currently a list of languages in the article, and I think re-inserting a mention and cite of ActorScript into that list is all that can really be justified given the current weak level of sourcing. It should be enough to paste the line about ActorScript from this version, into the section now labelled "Later Actor programming languages". I actually hadn't intended to remove that mention when I edited the article, but I made a somewhat complicated merge and apparently lost that line somehow. Even that brief mention is a slight stretch, given that the citation is to a self-published arxiv preprint. 66.127.55.192 (talk) 21:43, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Once again, Wikipedia is deliberately publishing incorrect information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.249.91.253 (talk) 04:16, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

ANI

I have opened an ANI thread, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Carl_Hewitt. 66.127.55.192 (talk) 19:11, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

It's kind of crazy for Wikipedia to try to maintain an obsolete version of ActorScriptTM: Industrial strength integration of local and nonlocal concurrency for Client-cloud Computing. When do you give up and admit defeat? 98.210.236.39 (talk) 20:41, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Who is 66.127.55.192? 65.106.72.229 (talk) 21:08, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

ActorScript censorship

The following information on ActorScript was censored.

copyright information removed

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.106.72.229 (talk) 21:03, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

The information above is under copyright, and by posting it here you are breaking the law. It is too detailed for a general article. It also contains a doubtful and unreferenced claim. If you think something about ActorScript belongs on WIkipedia you could try making a separate article for ActorScript - but first be sure it satisfies Wikipedia:Notability. You will also need to write the article in your own words, not copy it from elsewhere. DJ Clayworth (talk) 21:10, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Just tell people to read ActorScriptTM: Industrial strength integration of local and nonlocal concurrency for Client-cloud Computing 65.106.72.229 (talk) 22:42, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
I'm sure they will. DJ Clayworth (talk) 14:15, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
It's great that you *agree* about something for a change :-) 171.66.32.133 (talk) 23:50, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Important reference deleted

For some reason, the most important reference keeps getting deleted from this article, namely ActorScriptTM: Industrial strength integration of local and nonlocal concurrency for Client-cloud Computing|pub. This paper is the most complete and up to date published paper on the Actor Model. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.249.112.62 (talk) 21:15, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Latest publications on Actor Model

The latest publications on the Actor Model are:

171.66.51.237 (talk) 20:26, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Also see

Someone should add the above references to the the article.99.29.247.230 (talk) 23:22, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Standard reference censored by User:CBM

The standard published reference for this subject is Actor Model of Computation which is published in the electronic journal ArXiv that in computer science ranks higher than most refereed conference proceedings.

Unfortunately, partly because ArXiv is somewhat of a competitor to Wikipedia, the editor User:CBM keeps censoring these references.67.169.144.115 (talk) 15:22, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Who is User:CBM and why is computer science being censored? 99.29.247.230 (talk) 22:51, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
I'm an editor here. Nothing is being "censored". Contrary to what 67.169.144.115 claims, the Arxiv is a preprint server which holds unpublished papers. The purpose of this article is to give an encyclopdic account of the Actor model, not to serve as a forum to link the latest preprints in the area. The article presents completely uncensored information about the Actor model. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:09, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
The identity of User:CBM is a deep dark secret. He is at odds with the students around here which is why the reference to the article on the Actor Model publshed in arXiv was deleted. His story about arXiv is just camouflage. 64.134.223.22 (talk) 03:09, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
A quick glance at the Wikipedia article on arXiv reveals that there is more to this than User:CBM admits. The articles in arXiv really are published and indexed, e.g., in Google Scholar. Generally, they are of higher quality than many refereed conferences and journals. So it looks like he is indeed engaged in a ploy.63.249.91.253 (talk) 03:54, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
It looks like arXiv is the only published source for most of the material in this article. So it’s really funny that user:CBM wants to ban all references to articles in arXiv! 63.249.91.253 (talk) 05:23, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I have protected this page from editing by non-logged-in editors for a period of three months. The rationale has been laid out here. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:27, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Why does Wikipedia allow User:CBM to censor references to ArXiv? This is a black mark on Wikipedia’s reputation. Does it permit the censorship because it views ArXiv as a competitor? 171.66.108.149 (talk) 19:38, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

User:CBM seems not to be a computer scientist and does not understand the publishing standards in computer science. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.198.220.76 (talk) 22:48, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Hopefully the identity of User:CBM will eventually become known and we can find out more about the motivation for the censorship. 71.198.220.76 (talk) 19:02, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Censorship of reference to the article Actor model of computation illustrates severe political problems in governance of Wikipedia. 70.137.165.34 (talk) 21:53, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, it's a community, there is an escalation process. Looking at Actor model of computation I'd say it's a reasonable history of the area, by one the main players in the field for 40 years. That'll lead to bias, but at least it's well-informed bias. Actor Programming Languages is a different matter as it is now "revoked", the PDF not there. That could be the reason for User:CBM's concerns, that arxiv is not just a place for published papers, it's for work in progress without peer reviews. FWIW I am a computer scientist, and know that while we are a bit lazier about peer review than other subjects, there are well-known publishing organisations (Association for Computing Machinery, IEEE, etc. Perhaps if there was a stable, peer-reviewed paper then the vetoes would go. At the very least, someone could go through the citation list of Hewitt's work, and make sure some of the references in there are referenced off this article. SteveLoughran (talk) 22:32, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
It looks like most of the material in this Wikipedia article on the Actor Model is sourced from Hewitt's ArXiv article by the same name. Also the ArXiv article Obsolete Actor Programming Languages is an indirect pointer to the ArXiv article ActorScript(TM) extension of C sharp (TM), Java(TM), and Objective C(TM) because the two articles were combined. (There is a PDF available for the old article before combination because ArXiv does not delete published papers.)
As is now standard in physics, it is becoming common in computer science for leading scientists to publish first in ArXiv. Usually, more care is taken for ArXiv articles than for most refereed conference proceedings because the reputation of an author relies more strongly on ArXiv articles. Also, ArXiv articles are often updated making them more reliable, which never happens in journals or conference proceedings.171.66.86.197 (talk) 22:30, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
I've caught up with the CoI issues between Hewitt and Wikipedia, and now understand why both citations of him are viewed with caution, as is anonymous praise/editing of articles related to his work. In this case, even if CBW doesn't think that the 1008.1459/Actor model of computation paper can be treated as rigorously as a reference, we should link to in external links, because it is a good history. I'd be reluctant to do the same for the other work (especially ActionScript coverage) because that gets more controversial. SteveLoughran (talk) 15:17, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
This sounds like a good idea. Why don't you do it? 63.249.112.62 (talk) 20:24, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Please add the external link suggested by User:SteveLoughran (above). Much of the content of the Wikipedia article is source only in this publication. 98.210.236.94 14:13, 8 February 2011 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.210.236.94 (talk)

This article is unfair to Professor Hewitt

I understand that reference to Professor Hewitt's article Actor model of computation has been banned from this article because it is published on ArXiv. This is unfair because references to ArXiv are allowed elsewhere on Wikipedia. 71.198.220.76 (talk) 19:50, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

A coed said that there is some kind of vendetta going on. 21:56, 12 December 2010 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hiphoppedtothemax (talk • contribs)

Links to ArXiv articles and even blogs are allowed elsewhere on Whikipedia. See Arsenic in nuclei acids. Looks like personal bias on part of Wikipedia adminstrators to exclude Hewitt's article here. 70.137.144.129 (talk) 19:02, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

New video available

There is a new Stanford video available at How to Program the Many Cores for Inconsistency Robustness with the slides available at slides and published paper available Actor Model of Computation.171.66.104.10 (talk) 01:15, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Was some text mangled in "Computational Representation Theorem"?

I'm having trouble parsing this, and am wondering whether some text has been deleted/misplaced: "The mathematical denotation denoted by a closed system S. is constructed increasingly better approximations from ...." — Preceding unsigned comment added by AmigoNico (talk • contribs) 22:27, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Anonymous user CBM (who is engaged in a public controversy with Professor Hewitt) has been censoring this article

It needs to be pointed to that anonimous user CBM (who is engaged in a public controversy with Professor Hewitt see Continuing Opposition by Classical Logicians) has been censoring this article by removing relevant references and thus he has degraded the quality of the article. This personal bias on the part of CBM is hurting Wikipedia.75.18.230.159 (talk) 20:18, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

The back story is that classical logicians are angry at Hewitt for his publications opposed to the party line they have imposed on the article Incompleteness theorem. In retaliation, they have removed the references Actor Model of Computation and ActorScript(TM) extension of C sharp(TM), Java(TM), and Objective C(TM) that are indispensible for understanding the Actor model.75.18.225.9 (talk) 06:17, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

I'd dispute the actorscript citation as it does seem self-interested. The other one could go it. Yes, arxiv isn't a referreed publication, but perhaps we could have enough people with technical background to review it. Being a Computer Scientist, I may have a read. Regarding the allegations about CBM that are referenced to on the Knol article; it's hard to claim that an article written by Hewitt that includes a big piece of the wikipedia talk article (and wraps it in a non-CC copyright, no less), can be considered unbiased. I don't think either of these people are in a position to provide unbiased coverage of the issue. SteveLoughran (talk) 09:50, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
Professor Hewitt is an acknowledged expert on the subject. (He is Program Chair of Inconsistency Robustness 2011.) In fact, Hewitt wrote most of the stuff in Wikipedia articles on the Actor Model; so he owns copyright. (Of course, Wikipedia has a license to what he contributed to them.)
I'm confused now. There's a claim that he's being censored, and then that he wrote most of the content of the articles. This appears inconsistent. SteveLoughran (talk) 09:26, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
Hewitt wrote the Wikipedia articles related to the Actor Model and then he was banned by Wikipedia. See Corruption of Wikipedia. Untalker (talk) 11:45, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
One more thought. Someone should contact Milner and get his opinion on this article and on the Hewitt Papers. I'd trust his work, (CoI declaration: I was never one of his students as I chose different modules at college) SteveLoughran (talk) 10:00, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
Unfotunately, Robin Milner (who was a friend of Hewitt) is deceased. In his Turing address paper, Milner gave a nice acknowledgment to Hewitt for the Actor Model.
I didn't know about Milner's death. He was a nice person. Even gave his students free printouts of his books, rather than make them buy copies. SteveLoughran (talk) 09:26, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

For the back story, please see This arbitration case. — Carl (CBM · talk) 10:47, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, Wikipedia has undertaken a vendetta against Professor Hewitt. It even went so far as to secretly instigate the Guardian to write a libelous article about him! See Corruption of Wikipedia.
It's hard to accused "Wikipedia" of having a vendetta against Hewitt when many of his edits were removed on the grounds of being inconsistent with current mathematical and scientific thought, and when there there is no single entity as "Wikipedia". I've offered to review that one article related to the actor model, and to see how it is viewed in the rest of the space. That doesn't mean that there is any validity the rest of Hewitt's work or assertions, which I opt not to care about. SteveLoughran (talk) 09:26, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
The interactions between Wikipedia and Hewitt are a fascinating story of how things can go badly awry in social media. See Corruption of Wikipedia.
Since Hewitt is a prominent and highly-respected academic, it's not clear why you believe that his work is inconsistent with current mathematical and scientific thought. Do you have any examples of his errors?
There is not just one article related to the Actor model. The article Actor Model of Computation: Many-core Inconsistency-robust Information Integration referenced a huge literature spanning almost 4 decades. Untalker (talk) 11:45, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
Untalker, if you're going to give me hard time I'm not going to review the papers. Like I said, I don't care about the other issues, so don't go on about them to me, otherwise I will back off from any work on this article. SteveLoughran (talk) 12:32, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
Steve, I don't think that Untalker was tryng to give you a hard time. He was trying to provide you with some background information. Wikipedia's censorship from the article of these two crucial references has been cited as further evidence of the limitations of Wikipedia. Consequently, it is in Wikipedia's own interest to include them. 171.66.161.20 (talk) 20:29, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Why is it that Wikipedia tolerates censorship of this computer science article by the anonymous logician user:CBM who most famously objects to the work of Professor Hewitt? 192.12.5.153 (talk) 00:54, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Nothing is being "censored"; I count over 20 references that list Hewitt as an author or coauthor in the References and Further Reading sections of this article. However, there is an arbitration decision that forbids Hewitt, and unregistered editors editing on his behalf, from adding material to Wikipedia articles. The decision is visible at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Carl Hewitt. The IP address 192.12.5.153 geolocates to Menlo Park, California, and is covered by that decision as well. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:31, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
User:CBM says that the rules of censorship must be followed because the authorities have so decreed. This case harks back to the case of Galileo versus the Church with user:CBM acting the role of Cardinal Bellarmine, So, as censor, user:CBM has removed crucial recent publications from the article using the justification that there are plenty of older more obsolete articles! 71.198.220.76 (talk) 17:04, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
It might be worth pointing out that Cardinal (now Saint) Bellarmine himself was not prepared at that time (1616) to take a position either way on whether the Earth moved round the Sun. Today we know we can look at it either way: whereas astronomers generally find heliocentrism more convenient, everyone else from meteorologists downward (in scientific ability) continue to find geocentrism perfectly natural. This might be in part because the Sun takes only 24 hours to circle the Earth whereas the Earth takes about 365 days to circle the Sun. Those who plan from year to year are a rather different breed from those who plan day to day. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 06:21, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
Bellarmine had no doubts about the correctness of the Church's censorship of references to Galileo's publications. So are you endorsing the censorship of the references by user:CBM? 75.18.217.244 (talk) 11:28, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
The Catholic Church gave Galileo the choice of death for heresy or house arrest. Wikipedia is doing neither of these or stopping Hewitt from publishing articles in journals or self-publishing. What is happening is that self-published articles are being viewed as less valid than refereed-journal articles. To conflate the two cases is ridiculous. I hereby opt to stop monitoring this article and will not bother to read the Hewitt papers and judge for myself whether they should go in, as the people claiming that wikipedia is the equivalent of the pre-reformation Catholic Church are clearly ignorant of European history or exceedingly biased. Either way, not my problem. SteveLoughran (talk) 12:03, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
It looks like the students are baffled how this censorship can be happening now.
Presumably, we will eventually learn the identity of User:CBM and more about why he is acting this way. As for Wikipedia, does anyone know why it is continuing its vendetta against Professor Hewitt? 75.18.222.201 (talk) 05:19, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
If I were Carl Hewitt I'd be embarrassed to have all these anonymous IP addresses in the SF Bay area asking other anonymous editors to reveal their identity. I expect to see Carl at a July 4 party, I'll ask him about this then. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 06:21, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
Perfhaps greater accountability is required from the official censors of Wikipedia?

Definitive publication on Actor Model

Newly published article "Actor Model of Computation: Scalable Robust Information Systems".at Inconsistency Robustness 2011 216.1.177.100 (talk) 00:08, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but that does not help in the overall problems Wikipedia has on these topics, staring with the more general Message passing article that is itself pretty low quality. This article is in bad shape too. I do not see an immediate solution to any of these right now - given the scarce resources available. A month or so ago I suggested on that page to use the Wikipedia Ambassadors program to get some students to fix that. If that gets fixed, then this page may get some attention and get cleaned up too. But as is there are not enough resources to fix any of these. History2007 (talk) 06:06, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
Students could improve this article if it were unlocked so they could edit it.
The current article was originally written by Hewitt before he was banned by Wikipedia. However, it has gradually become out of date since then. So it would be helpful to put in the reference to his more up-to-date published article (above). 75.18.216.123 (talk) 16:14, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
Please do give us a break IP 75.18.216.123 in Oakland. Students can improve the more general Message passing page - there are no restrictions on it. Believe me, everyone has "got the message" here. This is just too obvious and non-productive. There are two cases here:
  • Either Hewitt has more groupies than Mick Jagger, in which case he should just use his time to date them as Mick does and leave this Wikipedia issue alone.
  • Or many of the groupies are Hewitt himself as puppets, in which case the same remedy applies.
I have only met Hewitt once and on that occasion he seemed normal. But what I do know is that in order to get blocked from Wikipedia one needs to act in a really irrational manner. So I think Hewitt and his groupies should stop this and do something else. One day I will get around to cleaning this page up, after the Message passing page has been fixed (that gets priority) and someone probably should clean up Hewitt's own page too. There is no tag in Wikipedia called "illusions of grandeur" else it would need to be applied to that page. This has to stop.
Someone (maybe Vaughn Pratt) should sit Hewitt down, have a nice talk and tell him that if he is "looking for respect", he is going about it the wrong way. This is not the way to get respect. And this is not the way to improve an encyclopedia. Enough is enough. This should stop. History2007 (talk) 16:36, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

The actual history of all this is fairly interesting. See Corruption of Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 171.66.170.99 (talk) 18:45, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

No thank you IP 171.66.170.99 in Stanford. I have more useful things to do. And I would add that most Wikipedia users do not care about the personal bickering issues. So the groupies should just stop, for they are wasting time. The accusations pf "corruption" of Wikipedia seem outlandish - I will not waste time reading them. There are other academics (such as V. Pratt) who edit under their own name, and have not been involved in incidents with accusations of irrational behavior, as far as I know. So I think Wikipedia is doing Ok, and those who do not like it can just ask for their money back and leave it. Enough said on this issue. History2007 (talk) 20:12, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

This looks like a major fail for Wikipedia. Have things become so bad that it cannot even add a reference to a published article? 64.134.223.212 (talk) 21:40, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes. This is not an ideal situation. And it is not just adding a ref - one needs to read the paper to make the ref fit in the article, make it consistent, and really do it right. It will take effort. I would have bothered if the situation had not been as is. But as is, I can not be bothered. And it seems that neither can anyone else. And I do not see it as a major failure for Wikipedia. The Actor model is just one of over 3 million articles. There are many other, more important articles to fix, e.g. Message passing itself. They will get attention first. History2007 (talk) 21:52, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
Since the Actor Model is becoming a standard for message passing, the article needs to be added as a reference to Message Passing. 14:21, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Some trolls keep deleting most definitive published article on Actor Model

Some trolls keeps deleting most definitive published article on Actor Model: Actor Model of Computation: Scalable Robust Information Systems. Do they have some personal animosity towards Hewitt?75.18.218.35 (talk) 02:36, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Hewitt is banned from editing Wikipedia; see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Carl_Hewitt. IP editors who appear to be editing for Hewitt are also prohibited. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:40, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Tutorial videos on Actor Model

Users of Wikipedia might be interested in the following tutorial videos on the Actor Model:

  1. Hewitt, Meijer and Szyperski: The Actor Model (everything you wanted to know, but were afraid to ask)
  2. How to Program the Many Cores for Inconsistency Robustness

75.18.218.35 (talk) 02:36, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

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