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Linkspam on Wikipedia by someone affiliated with the NetValley site

I've noticed that someone has inserted quotes in several Wikipedia articles (including this one) which are cited to the NetValley site self-published by Gregory Gromov. That site is clearly not a reliable source because (1) it is poorly written by an amateur with no training in basic historiography and (2) it is self-published. About half of the incoherent garbage on there is (barely) sourced but half of the more speculative and wild ramblings are not. It's clear that someone affiliated with that site (perhaps Gromov or someone else) is inserting citations to it to boost its visibility and probably its prominence on Google's PageRank algorithm as well. I'm going to start purging those quotations soon. Any objections? --Coolcaesar (talk) 14:43, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Haha, some condos also tried to do that to the San Jose article a few years back. I have no objection to removing the content. Gamer9832 (talk) 04:10, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
Okay, no objections, I am purging that garbage from this article now. --Coolcaesar (talk) 19:30, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Coolcaesar pretends that he is talking in behalf of the community of IT history experts, but is not true. He wrote at his Wikipedia user page: "I am a young lawyer... My interests include transportation, healthcare, law, and various cities in California. In other words he has zero clue as to what he is talking about here.

So, his above opinion is not relevant and does not change the facts that US leading historians and academics from the editorial boards of the encyclopedias, scholars and America's most respected publishing houses consider NetValley as reputable source of information about Internet History and in other fields of study in IT trends & history:

See also:


Now let us talk about some of the Internet most prominent organizations that are referring to NetValley :

- The Internet Society (ISOC) is a nonprofit organisation founded in 1992 to provide leadership in Internet related standards, education and policy. The ISOC is referring to NetValley from their List of reputable sources of the Histories of the Internet


- The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international community … Led by Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee. W3C provides the following List of the 4 reputable sources at their A Little History of the World Wide Web that was created circa 1995 by Robert Cailliau:


- Encyclopedia Britannica - online edition: Internet History is referring to "Roads and Crossroads of the Internet History".

Coolcaesar disagrees with all of them, because as a Young Lawyer he knows everything about anything. So, he removed the second paragraph from the following section of Silicon Valley - Silicon transistor and birth of the Silicon Valley:

      In 1953, William Shockley left Bell Labs in a disagreement over the handling of the invention of the transistor. After returning to California Institute of Technology for a short while, Shockley moved to Mountain View, California in 1956, and founded Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory. Unlike many other researchers who used germanium as the semiconductor material, Shockley believed that silicon was the better material for making transistors. Shockley intended to replace the current transistor with a new three-element design (today known as the Shockley diode), but the design was considerably more difficult to build than the "simple" transistor. In 1957, Shockley decided to end research on the silicon transistor. As a result, eight engineers left the company to form Fairchild Semiconductor. Two of the original employees of Fairchild Semiconductor, Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, would go on to found Intel.[1] - -

      "Thus, over the course of just 20 years, a mere eight of Shockley’s former employees gave forth 65 new enterprises, which then went on to do the same... Conflicts between creative teams and their veteran leadership were of course common in all American industrial parks, both before and after the aforementioned disagreement at Shockley. However, the crux of the matter is that, with the exception of California, all across America there are many different agreements signed between business owners and their employees that restrict the employee’s right to quit and join competing firms or, even worse, go on to create his or her own company in direct competition with their former employer. These non-compete agreements, which new recruits are required to sign ... play the role of graphite rods in a nuclear reactor, slowing the chain reaction of creation of new start-ups all over America"[2]

I intend to restore the above content that was vandalized by Young Lawyer.
--PrqStar (talk) 08:43, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Funny, you must either be Gromov or someone very close to him. No one else would have the time or motivation to spend so much time on Google Books collecting sources for a Wikipedia talk page as opposed to supporting a Wikipedia article's content. Ever heard the phrase, get a life?
Anyway, I grew up in the West Valley area (where my commute to school involved segments of De Anza Boulevard), majored in history at the most prestigious public university in the United States (guess), specialized in the history of science and technology, and wrote my senior thesis about a major topic in the history of the Internet. I've twice visited Stanford Special Collections at Green Library to paw through Doug Engelbart's personal papers, and I've visited academic and public libraries the length and breadth of the state (including both NRLF and SRLF) to find and photocopy sources. For example, I know that the library at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo has a terrific collection of materials on publishing, including markup languages, and I know my way around ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, ProQuest, Gale Infotrac, LexisNexis and dozens of other databases. So I know a thing or two about the history of Silicon Valley and the history of technology.
Getting back to the point, you're confusing quantity with quality. Gromov's site is full of sensationalist, unsupported speculation which is methodologically unsound. Any professional historian can see that, which is why none of the items you just cited was written by a professional historian. For example, the books The Internet: A Historical Encyclopedia and the Gale Encyclopedia of Science are clearly intended for the reference section of public libraries, for the use of K-12 students trying to churn out essays. (If you're unaware that there are publishers that specialize in producing hack works for public library reference sections for that particular purpose, that's just sad.) I don't see professionals of the caliber of Janet Abbate or William Aspray citing Gromov's site, because they can see at a glance how terrible it is.
Furthermore, the particular article at issue, "A Legal Bridge Spanning 100 Years: From the Gold Mines of El Dorado to the 'Golden' Startups of Silicon Valley," is absolutely atrocious from my perspective as a lawyer. The sole source cited is California Business and Professions Code Section 16600, which Gromov couldn't even cite properly. From that single section, he extrapolates several thousand words of speculative garbage, none of which is supported by a citation to any source, such as a court case or a law review article. (I guess he was too lazy to visit the local county law library.) While Gromov's style of wild speculation may be appropriate for a close reading exercise in an English course, it is totally inappropriate for a site that purports to provide the history of Silicon Valley. That is why the article cited is not a reliable source, and therefore I deleted the quote from this article and will do it again. --Coolcaesar (talk) 08:33, 2 September 2011 (UTC)



Dear Young Lawyer : Ever heard the phrase, copy paste? Do you know the tools you can use to adjust HTML page to Wiki-markup? It took me a half minute to copy paste here the Citation index of NetValley. In other words: you constantly show your incompetence in every post you make...

You can call me Confucius, or you can call me Pope, you can call me Ray, or you can call me J,..., and every time you break the rules: Users who post what they believe are the personal details of other users without their consent may be blocked for any length of time, including indefinitely. Do not ask for another's personal details. Do not impersonate other editors.

You continue to break the wikipedia rules because you don't have any other choice. You don't know anything about IT industry. Everyone can get it from your past posts in the archives:

- 25 September 2006 Coolcaesar wrote: "Terman did not participate in the early development of the industrial park and only grasped its importance to the university when it was already filling up with tenants"
- 25 October 2006 Coolcaesar wrote: "The only other major research center in the world that even comes close to Silicon Valley in terms of innovation is Redmond, Washington, but that's only because Microsoft is headquartered there, and Microsoft is still doing a decent job at innovating to keep up with the competition."

There are lots of them. The sad side of the story is that you dominates in the discussion about ... Silicon Valley.

Back to the topic. Let me bring to your attention that you didn't write a word about the quote that you removed. I suggest you don't have any clue whatsoever what this qoute is about. This is a reason why you prefer to talk about NetValley, about article, about yourself, about myself, ..., about all kinds of things...

You are bragging: "I know a thing or two about the history of Silicon Valley." Yes, I'm sure, you do know. That was a reason why I've quoted above these "two things" because I wanted to emphasize what exactly you do know "about the history of Silicon Valley."

What you don't know is how the scholars and publishing houses in US and Britain keep their standards of quality high.

According to your understanding, the above listed University Press of America, Association of College and Research Libraries (American Library Association), Judge Institute of Management (University of Cambridge), Routledge (British publishing House), ..., Encyclopædia Britannica can publish a book that "is full of sensationalist, unsupported speculation which is methodologically unsound".

Go out of your way to learn about topics that you don't know anything about. Then please come back and we will have an opportunity to continue this conversation.

It seems you seriously think that as a Young Lawyer you can better evaluate the quality of publications about IT history than leading experts of Internet Society (ISOC), World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and all other above listed scholars and publishing houses including editorial board of the Encyclopædia Britannica.

Let me admit that I really admire your self-confidence, you are a true inspiration. As it was told by Mark Twain, All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure. --PrqStar (talk) 17:16, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Actually, the first statement of mine about Terman was and is still correct. Rebecca S. Lowen, in her book Creating the Cold War university: the transformation of Stanford, specifically states at page 131 that "Terman was not involved in the initial planning stages of Stanford's land development program or what became the industrial park." On page 136 she describes Terman as "opportunistic." You can easily locate Bowen's book on Google Books. I happen to know it quite well because it was assigned reading in a course I took in college on the history of American science in the post-WWII era. So that shows how much you know about Silicon Valley.
The second statement was true at the time it was made, although after Bill Gates retired in 2008, Microsoft began floundering and continues to flounder to the present, when it failed to put out decent operating systems for mobile phones and tablets (Windows Mobile and Windows XP for tablets were both atrocious), and Apple then conquered those segments by releasing the iPhone and iPad.
Anyway, to be more specific about what's wrong with quoting from NetValley, please see the Wikipedia policy on quoting self-published and questionable sources. Specifically, "Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for checking the facts, or with no editorial oversight. Such sources include websites and publications expressing views that are widely acknowledged as extremist, or promotional in nature, or which rely heavily on rumors and personal opinions." Under this policy, NetValley is not a reliable source. It is a site with no editorial oversight (e.g., it is simply Gromov's personal views, with no additional layer(s) of editorial filters), is promotional in nature (in the sense that it attempts to promote itself), and relies heavily upon personal opinion. It is essentially a very large blog.
I also note that all of your arguments in response are tangents and non sequiturs, which in and of itself highlights the weakness of your position. You do not even attempt to defend the indefensible---that is, Gromov's failure to cite to any sources other than the statute itself. Indeed, Gromov apparently did not even attempt to make any inquiry into the history of Business and Professions Section 16600 (former Civil Code Section 1673), or he would have realized that it was not an invention original to California. In less than five minutes of searching through Google Books, I was able to figure out that it was actually based on Section 833 of the proposed New York Civil Code, which was never enacted in that state but did inspire the drafters of the California Civil Code in many respects.
Also, your position that the number of sources that cite a source are indicia in themselves that the source is reliable is incredibly immature and simply wrong. For example, a lot of people initially believed the Bush administration's representations about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq---those nonexistent weapons of mass destruction. The reliability of a source is determined not by who cites it, but whom it cites.
Turning to the quote itself, no one disputes that Shockley alienated his co-workers, and in turn, Fairchild Semiconductor spawned a huge number of companies both directly and indirectly. The problem is that (1) the rest of the quote consists of bizarre speculation that the use of noncompete agreements in other states poisons the growth of their economies (which is only partly true as to some, not all states); and (2) the NetValley article cited consists of Gromov's wild (and most likely incorrect) attempt to link the world of Gold Rush California to present-day Silicon Valley through a single statute. Gromov cites no source for that flimsy connection. A professional historian trying to make such a difficult connection would cite to and analyze actual primary sources to show the express intent of the statutory drafters, or in the absence of such sources, specifically identify the drafters by name and analyze each of their personal backgrounds. Gromov does none of these things.
The article consists of the kind of pie-in-the-sky speculation which may be appropriate for a creative writing class, but not for history writing which is supposed to be based on drawing connections between actual facts. That is, the article looks like the kind of thing one would write for a creative writing exercise in a community college English course where the text of Business and Professions Code Section 16600 was given as the essay topic. --Coolcaesar (talk) 04:04, 8 September 2011 (UTC)



Dear Coolcaesar, it’s amazing. You’ve read an above list of the editorial boards of world’s leading publishing houses and top level universities that constantly cite the publications NetValley as one of the most reputable sources and call it “a site with no editorial oversight” . So, let us conclude here:

1.Your initial statement was that NetValley “is clearly not a reliable source” and someone who provides link to it is “affiliated with that site … to boost its visibility and probably its prominence on Google's PageRank algorithm as well”.
2. Your previous eye opening statement was that Fred Terman actually was not a Farther of Silicon Valley. And you even brought to our attention a book you were looking for to prove this your point.
3.Then you went even further with the nonsense and have shown that you don't have any knowledge about US high-tech areas at all. You stated that patent-wise Microsoft can be comparable to the Silicon Valley companies all together .

Have I got a little bit more news for you?

1) IT industry top level organizations like World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Internet Society (ISOC) as well as editorial board of Encyclopedia Britannica and lots of other reputable sources have cited to NetValley before the “Google's PageRank algorithm” was invented and Google was even founded.
The citation index is a well known objective criteria for evaluation of reputable sources . What you are talking about is your opinion and nothing more than that.
2) There were tons of most reputable sources that were referring to FRED TERMAN, THE FATHER OF SILICON VALLEY a long time before you begin to learn how to read.
3) Your statement: "The only other major research center in the world that even comes close to Silicon Valley in terms of innovation is Redmond, Washington, but that's only because Microsoft is headquartered there,” - was not true “at the time it was made” , because … it was always wrong and you know that you can't prove your point.
Your suggestion that the situation with patents among US high-tech areas was significantly changed “after Bill Gates retired in 2008”, because “Microsoft began floundering and continues to flounder to the present, when it failed to put out decent operating systems for mobile phones and tablets (Windows Mobile and Windows XP for tablets were both atrocious), and Apple then conquered those segments by releasing the iPhone and iPad” just additionally demonstrates that you are absolutely out of touch with reality. After all, did you hear how long does it take to register a patent?

Let me be clear about this. I don't care what you know and what you don’t. This is your personal problem. The topic I am discussing here is a Wikipedia’s loophole that provides some of the ignorant people with an opportunity to determined the content of important articles like for instance the Silicon Valley.

Look, what’s going on. The Silicon Valley is a worldwide capital of IT industry. For many years you (!) have been a judge over the content of the article about the Silicon Valley.

What you are doing here is one of the best illustrations to the well-known motto: "the highest form of ignorance is to reject something you know nothing about." You have demonstrated again and again that you can’t understand even a word of the quotation:

Thus, over the course of just 20 years, a mere eight of Shockley’s former employees gave forth 65 new enterprises, which then went on to do the same... Conflicts between creative teams and their veteran leadership were of course common in all American industrial parks, both before and after the aforementioned disagreement at Shockley. However, the crux of the matter is that, with the exception of California, all across America there are many different agreements signed between business owners and their employees that restrict the employee’s right to quit and join competing firms or, even worse, go on to create his or her own company in direct competition with their former employer. These non-compete agreements, which new recruits are required to sign ... play the role of graphite rods in a nuclear reactor, slowing the chain reaction of creation of new start-ups all over America

As long as you don't understand it, you prefer to talk instead about Bush, … WMD, … WW2 … and lots of different versions of Business Code that you were so happy to find out. I still don't think that this discussion is a good place to talk about politics , but … I have more news for you. Whatever version of the California Business Code you prefer to quote it does not change anything in the meaning of article in hand. Needless to say about WMD, WW2, Bush and list of your college courses …

Again, it is not about you as a young lawyer who decided that he can edit an article about Silicon Valley. Worries me that anyone with no knowledge at all can highjack the Wikipedia’s most important articles. As it was quoted above: “all you need … is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure”

PS. One of my colleagues was very excited by this discussion and he is not alone in his desire. Many other researchers are looking for more effective solution of handling the forums and conferences, because the problem is real, it's pervasive, and it's growing.
--PrqStar (talk) 00:08, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, you just rambled around and around in circles without responding to the core issues I already raised. Namely, you refuse to confront the issue that regardless of how many sources cite NetValley, that doesn't change the fact that it is not a reliable source within the definition of a reliable source in Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources. What matters is whether a source fits the Wikipedia definition of a reliable source (i.e., it has editorial filters and cites to reliable primary sources), not how many people cite to it.
I note that you simply dismiss and ignore that point because you have no response to it (probably because you know you lose on that point). That blind spot on your part indicates that you probably have not taken any courses in philosophy of knowledge.
Going back to the "crux of the matter": Does NetValley have a professional editorial staff? No. You have cited nothing to that effect, because it doesn't. Does NetValley cite reliable primary sources in support of the bizarre inferences it draws? No. Does NetValley cite a single source in support of its bizarre assertion that there is a connection between the world of Gold Rush California and modern Silicon Valley? No. Does NetValley cite a single source in support of its bizarre assertion that other states have less startups than California because they enforce noncompete agreements? No. (In fact, considering the economic situation in Texas and Virginia nowadays, NetValley's assertion is simply wrong as a matter of fact.) And under core policies Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, NetValley cannot be cited here on Wikipedia, Q.E.D. Simple as that.
Also, I note for the record that you have not denied any personal connection to the NetValley site, or for that matter, Gromov. Indeed, your taking offense at my pointing out that possibility is telling in and of itself. If you are Gromov (or a close relative), the Wikipedia policy on Wikipedia:Conflict of interest clearly disqualifies you from adding citations to NetValley to Wikipedia (specifically the portions against self-promotion and self-citation).
Besides, I fail to see how Gromov would have any particular insight into the history of Silicon Valley. Public sources show him to be a 70-year-old retiree stuck in Folsom, of all places. (It's the 7th or 8th hit that comes up on Google.) Folsom's main contribution to California history is Folsom Prison Blues.--Coolcaesar (talk) 21:42, 17 September 2011 (UTC)



Dear Coolcaesar,

1. As you've shown above I was perfectly right when I refuse to answer your question about myself. Now everybody can see what you are doing with this kind of information, when you can get it.
2. Perhaps sometimes in future somebody will help you to understand that Wikipedia founders wonted to be sure that the level of quality of it’s content will be as close as possible to reputable encyclopedias. Then you probably understand that your above opinion that Wikipedia definition of the reputable sources can contradict requirements of Encyclopædia Britannica (as well as other reputable encyclopedias listed above that cited to NetValley as a reliable source of information about IT history & trends) was completely wrong.
3. You wrote: "Does NetValley cite a single source in support of ... ?" No, it does not. You are right. Absolutely. Perhaps there will come a time when you will begin to understand gradually, little by little, the IT industry trends. Then you will try to read the article again and think about what you have just written. You will probably understand that there are some articles than does not need any links, and this is one of them. You can't get it now, because the topic itself is a Terra incognita for you.
4. The current level of your understanding of the IT industry trends & history should not be allowed to hinder the quality of content of one of the most important articles of Wikipedia.
5. Who knows when it will happen, but I still hope that you will enjoy this discussion. The more you read the more you will begin to understand the topic and also yourself.


--PrqStar (talk) 20:46, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

You made a fatal admission with the sentence: "You will probably understand that there are some articles than does not need any links, and this is one of them." Wrong. That amounts to an admission that the citation/quotation to NetValley violates Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, and Wikipedia:No original research. So if I see any edits putting the disputed text back in the article, I will countermand them immediately.
This is not an article on something as frivolous as a Justin Bieber song. An article on a topic as important as Silicon Valley needs to be supported by citations to reliable sources published through reputable academic and commercial publishing houses, in conformance with the aforementioned core policies of Wikipedia---as distinguished from citations to wild uninformed speculation on the personal Web site of a retiree stuck in a prison town three hours away from Silicon Valley. (To be fair, Folsom's largest employer is the Intel campus, but Folsom is not home to a huge number of startups like Silicon Valley cities.) Anyway, unless you have any additional substantive points to make, I don't see any point in continuing this discussion. --Coolcaesar (talk) 03:56, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

As I wrote (see above PrqStar20:46, 18 September 2011), "the current level of your understanding of the IT industry trends & history should not be allowed to hinder the quality of content of one of the most important articles of Wikipedia". You disagree. I understand it. We did not have any chances to understand each other, but hopefully the above text itself will clarify a lot to the next generations of the Wikipedia developers. --PrqStar (talk) 06:01, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

OTRS notice: OTRS has received notice that the discussion on this page is showing signs of incivility. Please refrain from personal attacks or the use of alleged personal information. The editors are also asked to assume good faith and recognize the rights of others to make relevant edits and voice their opinions on the discussion page. In particular, editors are requested to abstain from any possessive attitudes towards the article subject. Thank you. Asav | Talk (Member of the OTRS Volunteer Response Team) 21:37, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Goodheart July 2, 2006
  2. ^ A Legal Bridge Spanning 100 Years: From the Gold Mines of El Dorado to the 'Golden' Startups of Silicon Valley by Gregory Gromov 2010.

Notable companies

An earlier edit removed Siebel and Veritas because they were "non-notable". I think that "notable" is hard to define. These are certainly large silicon valley companies with influence in their markets, so I put them back in. Elf | Talk 18:31, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

"Notable" is hard to define, but I want to prevent the list from getting too long. I personally, a software engineering professional, have never heard of either company. The addition of them looked like an advertisement to me, something we discourage here (as you probably know, being a WikiVeteran and all). However, everyone, inside and outside the industry has heard of Intel, Adobe, Apple, Google, etc. How significant are the markets these companies have influence in? As an example of the insignificancre of these companies, Siebel Systems doesn't even have an article yet and VERITAS Software's article is just a stub. I don't think they deserve to be on the list. However, I will refrain from removing them without further opinions. — Frecklefoot | Talk 19:10, Jun 25, 2004 (UTC)
Re "getting too long"--how's that go, Wikipedia is not paper? ;-) I know what you mean, though, then it turns into a list rather than an article. Both companies deal in products that are used by corporations, not individuals (unlike, say, Apple or Intuit), which probably means that not as many people have heard of them. But I don't think that means they're not notable. They have large customer bases. In the Silicon Valley 150 list referenced in the External Links, Veritas ranks higher than 7 of the 21 that *are* listed in this article. :-) Siebel is not far below it. I'm also in the software business & I encounter these products installed at many companies. You could do an internet search for either of these and find zillions of references. Failing to have an article here by no means means that something is insignificant. It just means the right person hasn't shown up to write it yet.
And back on what makes a company "notable"--now having browsed through the top 50 on the 150 list (see, you should never have gotten me started!), I'm surprised that whoever constructed the list didn't include Calpine, Ross Stores, National Semiconductor, LSI Logic, and E*Trade, all of which I'd guess many people, even nontechnical, have heard of, and KLA-Tencor, Cadence Design, VeriSign, and Network Associates, which I would hazard a guess are better known and of more interest certainly to technical folks (which this encyclopedia is bursting with, based on the slant of articles) than, say, Knight Ridder, BEA, or Novellus. (Huh--is E*Trade really in SV? Hmmm...) Elf | Talk 20:09, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for not getting combative. I get a lot of that from my responses when I, personally, am not trying to start a flame war. :-) Back to the list, you do make some good points. For example, Ross Stores is a well-known name, but it doesn't have an article. I just wanted to keep the list concise. For a full-blown list, I'd like to break out a seperate article (just a list). For the in-article list, I think less is more. Keeping names that are well-known to most of the general public was the right approach, IMHO. But I don't "own" this article. I'll go with the will of the masses.
That being said, there are more names that I think should be trimmed from the list:
  • Applied Materials: I added this back when the list was tiny and I wanted to beef it up a bit. Real company, real big, real important, not well-known to general public
  • BEA Systems: Probably only well-known among Nerds Like Us
  • Novellus: Who are these guys?
  • Silicon Graphics: Not very important anymore, but probably still recongnizable to general public; I'm on the fence about this one. Could go either way. Historically significant.
  • Solectron: Never head of 'em.
Anyway, this is all just MHO. — Frecklefoot | Talk 21:01, Jun 25, 2004 (UTC)
Both Vertias and Siebel are on the NASDAQ-100 and GSTI Software Index. Does that help tip them to the notable category? --ChrisRuvolo 00:38, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
No worries, they're there. Peace. :-) — Frecklefoot | Talk 14:34, Jul 14, 2004 (UTC)
I'm changing PalmOne to PalmSource. PalmOne is now Palm again, which is already on the list. Feel free to delete PalmSource if you feel it isn't notable. (not joking -- what've they ever done other than lose money?) --Steven Fisher 22:25, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Was the original Excite based in the Bay Area too? All I know is that Excite@Home was in Redwood City. We could consider adding Excite to the list, since it was once a portal rivaling Yahoo!. Gordeonbleu 18:35, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I propose to add Varian Associates to the second part of the list for its great historical importance, and Varian Medical Systems, one of its successor companies, to the main list. Cullen328 (talk) 16:47, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
Varian Medical Systems is on the Fortune 1000. Cullen328 (talk) 17:02, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I propose to add MobileIron, a leading Mobile device management company.

Citrix has a large operation in Santa Clara... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.46.184.132 (talk) 01:28, 12 February 2012 (UTC)


edit the article!

It says it's in Pakistan ! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.19.21.98 (talk) 20:31, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Menlo Park

As someone who's been living in Silicon Valley (narrowly defined) almost without interruption since 1972, Menlo Park is the only community outside of Santa Clara County that I believe should be included as a definite part of Silicon Valley (presently there are none, which frankly came as a pleasant surprise, although like I said, I do think Menlo Park should be included). KevinOKeeffe (talk) 16:55, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

The boundaries of sub-regions are difficult to document for Wikipedia's purposes. There are usually some "I've never/always heard...", "Nobody/everyone says...", etc statements which are in complete conflict with each other. There are constantly questions popping up over definitions of Silicon Valley, the San Francisco Bay Area, Upstate California, Central California and Northern California - if something isn't bound to a county line which is set in state law, people have different perceptions across this vast and highly-populated state. Often Wikipedia can't find comfortable/stable documentation so the solution is to list alternatives as neutrally and inclusively as possible. Menlo Park is outside Santa Clara County. But since Atherton makes a green-line type divider in the peninsula, Menlo Park associates more closely with Silicon Valley than up the peninsula. Also, the Venture Capitalist and financial specialization along Sand Hill Road firmly plants Menlo Park within the economic cycle of Silicon Valley. Yet another perception takes the fringe of Silicon Valley up to Oracle's HQ in Redwood Shores. It's a valid option to list all of these - it is not Wikipedia's job to pick one and discard others. Ikluft (talk) 18:53, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
It is Wikipedia's job to draw some lines with respect to the definition of the term "Silicon Valley," however, or else the article would serve no purpose (suffice it to to say that Crescent City, California, or, say, Council Bluffs, Iowa, or Moscow, for that matter, are indisputably not part of Silicon Valley, just as it is indisputably clear that Mountain View is a part of Silicon Valley). My suggestion that Menlo Park is more firmly part of Silicon Valley than, say, Santa Cruz and Morgan Hill, is simply a part of that ongoing process. KevinOKeeffe (talk) 03:22, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
How can I convince you that the article should be more flexible than any one person's perception of it? There are a lot of perceptions of the boundaries of Silicon Valley (or any region that doesn't have a border defined as clearly as lines on a map). It isn't as simple as saying it's Santa Clara County. Documentation fails to provide clean references for a border - but we certainly can't just give up and delete the article either! For example with Morgan Hill, there are people who would include it because of the proximity to San Jose and because there are tech businesses there, indicating it is a participant in the Silicon Valley economy. And it's in the county. In a situation like this where we know there are differing perceptions, the best that's likely to be possible for consensus is to be flexible and accept a discussion of the observed definitions which we can live with. Perfection is far too much to expect. I strongly suggest being tolerant of outlying cities being listed in the article as sometimes being associated with Silicon Valley. It's the only way there was/is to get consensus on this. Ikluft (talk) 07:50, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
Please look at Wikipedia core policies like WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, and WP:NOT. Wikipedia is not a publisher of original research, it's not a soapbox, and it's not a collection of random information. Wikipedia is supposed to be conservative and trail trends rather than set them (that's what blogs are for). Is this frustrating? Yes. Is it negotiable? No. The point that KevinOKeeffe and I are trying to get across is that only the incorporated cities in northern Santa Clara Valley are universally accepted as part of Silicon Valley, while Menlo Park is debatable due to its proximity to Stanford and the presence of SRI International (where Douglas Engelbart invented the mouse and hypertext). Many other surrounding cities (Fremont, Redwood City, Newark, Pleasanton, Santa Cruz, etc.) have historically demonstrated a lot of peripheral interaction with the Silicon Valley community (along with Berkeley and San Francisco) but are not in Silicon Valley and are not universally accepted as part of it. It's like how Vallejo is right next to Napa County but is not accepted as part of the Napa Valley region, or how Santa Rosa is next to Sonoma (and is actually the county seat of Sonoma County) but is not part of Sonoma Valley. Think about how astounding it would be if Williams-Sonoma ever renamed themselves Williams-Santa Rosa. --Coolcaesar (talk) 10:57, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
If you guys want to play lawyer and cite policies, find some citations for an authoritative definition of Silicon Valley. Have fun with that. WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, and WP:NOT can be tossed right back to you... See, that's the whole problem. I personally agree with that definition of Silicon Valley as a long time resident. But by NPOV, I don't count my views or yours as citable sources. This is a tough one to define. It's a waste of time to argue a strict definition when there is no authority in the real world to make one - it's WP:OR to try to force one. The argument has proven to be neverending. Neutrality dictates documenting that there is some variability in the definitions that are in use. Ikluft (talk) 09:43, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

This article seems to have been "cardinal washed" to make it seem like Stanford University was more influential in the development of the Valley than it was. SJSU also seems to be involved in a pissing contest with Stanford, what with the introduction of the SJSU section (which is hardly appropriate in the article).

This article should be revised to reflect the importance of higher education in general in the development of the valley--with Stanford, UC Berkeley, and SJSU leading the way--but not forgetting that many of the Valley's founders were actually transplants from major East Coast engineering universities looking. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.75.31.146 (talk) 06:14, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Really? San Bruno but not San Mateo? 50.196.145.34 (talk) 02:13, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

HEADQUARTERS Asus is headquartered in Taiwan and Logitech in Switzerland.--83.57.49.196 (talk) 02:03, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

use of article before silicon valley

I've never contributed to a wikipedia talk page before, but I felt the need to chime in here (sorry if I do something wrong).

As a life-long san francisco resident, I've never heard anyone from the bay area call it "The Silicon Valley", with an article in front of the name. "Silicon Valley" or "the valley" are both common, but I'd venture a guess that "The Silicon Valley" is either archaic or not indigenous. It's not the most common form in the article, but there are half a dozen uses, including one in a subheading, and it stuck out to me like a sore thumb. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.251.192.150 (talk) 21:30, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, such uses are relatively rare (but there are a few, like here). But I only saw one place in the article to fix, so I did. Dicklyon (talk) 01:33, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Silicone Valley?

"For many years in the 1970s and 1980s it was also incorrectly called Silicone Valley, mostly by journalists, before the name became commonplace in American culture." Is this really true? It sounds pretty bizarre to me. I can see the term used mockingly for someplace like LA with a lot of plastic surgery, but I've never heard anyone think silicon was a misspelling of silicone. KarlM 07:09, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I remember it happening, and its not at all unlikely. Prior to the advent of home computers and breast augmentation surgery (which became common around the same time), the average person very seldom heard, or needed to use, either the words "silicon" or "silicone." They were both fairly obscure terms that were spelled and pronounced very similarly, so it would actually be odd if people hadn't confused them back around 1980 or so. KevinOKeeffe (talk) 10:10, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

The confusion of silicon with silicon is prevalent among non-geeks---that is, anyone who didn't learn chemistry at a good high school. --Coolcaesar 05:08, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Encylopedia's shouldn't be making value judgements ("incorrectly") so I'll revise that sentence a bit in a manner that makes it clear it was journalists and not locals calling it that. Joncnunn 15:47, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Part 2

There is a user who has been persisting in posting a template comparing Silicone Valley (referring to San Fernando Vally in SoCal where a large amount of pornography is produced) to the subject of this article. I'm treating it as vandalism and have warned the user. Aside from the fact there is no reference that validates the use of the term Silicone Valley (with regard to San Fernando Valley), anyone else care to comment? --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 18:36, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

 Done, finally resolved with a Disam page and redirects. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 21:56, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Hatnote

I've restored the hatnote because Silicone Valley does now redirect to this article per the consensus at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2013 December 25#Silicone Valley that it was most likely a misspelling of "silicon" but that some people would be looking for the San Fernando Valley. It's not about notability at all, but allowing readers to find the content they are looking for. Thryduulf (talk) 22:48, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

We do not need a hat note every time there is a redirect. I think the redirect itself is fine but I see no need to mention the porn industry at the very beginning of this important article. I think that the chances for confusion between the two valleys 350 miles apart and the two unrelated industries are so small that the note adds no value to readers and is instead a "headshaker". Cullen328 Let's discuss it 02:17, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
The consensus at the RfD was that most people searching for "Silicone Valley" were misspelling "Silicon" and so wanted content about the technology industry, hence the title now redirects here. However the consensus also was that there were some people who were not misspelling it and are looking for the Adult Entertainment industry so we need a hatnote so they can find the content they are looking for. It is nothing to do with the "importance" of either article, and nothing do with people calling one by the other name, it is all about people misspelling "Silicon" and enabling readers to find the content they are looking for. It may be possible to change the wording of the hatnote to make that clearer, but in all cases like this it is very important that there is a hatnote. Thryduulf (talk) 09:47, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

As the hatnote has again been removed without discussion, I have invited every participant in the RfD discussion and users watching the SF Bay Area and California WikiProject talk pages to offer their opinions here about the hatnote. Thryduulf (talk) 23:55, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the notification, Thryduulf. At RfD I recommended that Silicone Valley be made into a disambiguation page. It's very common as a misspelling, but I've provided several citations (indeed, a cite-bomb) which show the intentional spelling is also notable. One commenter at the RfD performed a "cursory Google search"; Google excludes pornography-related results by default, so that the reference to the San Fernando Valley may appear less common than it really is. I do have the impression that the misspelling predominates; Thryduulf's action implies that he has assessed it as the primary topic; while I'm not certain it is, I concede that it may be. The hat note causes a slight bit of clutter for everyone who reads this article, whereas a disambiguation page would only cause inconvenience for visitors who enter the site via the ambiguous term. However, such pages are normally not made if there are exactly two uses of a term, and one is the primary topic. It could only be made if someone can show that the Santa Clara Valley is not the primary topic for the term "Silicone Valley."
Just deleting the hat note is not proper, because reliable sources attest to the San Fernando Valley being a meaning of "Silicone Valley". Another way out for those who prefer not to see pornography mentioned at the top of this article would be to create an article about the Silicone Valley brassière [1]. Then WP:TWODABS would no longer apply, so the hat note could discreetly say Silicone Valley redirects here. For other uses, see Silicone Valley (disambiguation). All the nastiness about porn and bras could be hidden away on the dab page. —rybec 00:57, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
I agree a disambiguation page would be better than a hatnote on this article. John Vandenberg (chat) 02:09, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
I'm okay with a hatnote. --Lenticel (talk) 05:18, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Oppose - I'm not OK with the hatnote and here's why. I don't dispute that San Fernando Valley has been referred to over the years as "SiliconE Valley" by the locals (I used to be one), the porn industry, and the porn industry press, BUT I've yet to see anyone make a case that anyone confuses Silicon Valley with the porn capital of the world. There's barely a mention of the nickname (one of several I might add) in the San Fernando Valley, but somehow there is enough confusion that this particular one must be emblazoned at the top of the article for the area where the term originated. I call BS on the part of anyone trying to confuse the two subjects. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 20:18, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Oppose – In spite of the discussion that led to redirecting the redirect, I support making Silicone Valley a disambig page instead as rybec and John Vandenburg suggest above, so that readers of this article won't always see that distracting minor usage "emblazoned" at the top of article, as Scalhotrod says. Dicklyon (talk) 20:59, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

  • I agree that turning Silicone Valley into a dab would be a more sane solution than the current setup. Despite the (low turnout) vote in the RfD, nobody produced sources that "silicone" valley might refer to silicon valley, so WP:TWODABS is being ridiculously misapplied here, besides the fact that it's just a guideline and NPOV/UNDUE is policy. (Thryduulf, who closed the RfD, appears to have simply done a head count rather than evaluate the arguments based on policy; even then, there were 3 votes for this present retargeting, one for deletion, one for keeping as it was (to the Fernando valley) and one for dab. At best that's a 3 vs 3 vote so a no-consensus situation. Also two of the three "retarget" votes said that "'Silicone Valley' is not mentioned at the target" and "There is no content at the redirected site which refers to 'Silicone Valley'", i.e. at Fernando valley, which now does happen to mention "silicone", rendering those votes' rationale moot.) Someone not using his real name (talk) 21:09, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
(ec) In the RfD, multiple people said explicitly that "Silicone Valley" is common as a misspelling, and no one disputed that it is. One person stated that it is very much more common as a misspelling, and no one attempted to refute that claim. When one use is much more common than all others combined, it is the primary topic and readers are normally directed to the article about that meaning; a hat-note is normally supplied to let them navigate away. Wikipedia:REDIRECT and Wikipedia:Disambiguation are the guidelines which explain this. Although I don't especially like Thryduulf's assessment, it is a correct one. What's needed for Silicone Valley to be a disambiguation page is some evidence that the misspelling is not far more common than the San Fernando meaning. Demanding sources for the misspelling, when it's been mentioned that they can be found with a "cursory Google search", is not constructive. —rybec 23:02, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Thank you - I'm glad that reasoned and cooler heads could prevail on this. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 21:55, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

 Done

Scalhotrod posted while I was composing my comment (time-stamp 23:02). —rybec 23:12, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

@Scalhotrod: do you intend that this should be closed now, and the hat-note removed from this article? —rybec 23:45, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Scalhotrod has already removed the hatnote from the article. Personally I don't see that this discussion has reached a consensus for or against the hatnote, so removing it is premature at best (even ignoring the attempted forum shopping to ANI). The talk page notifications were listed less than 24 hours ago!
It wasn't me, someone else removed it and created the Disam page. Check the History --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 22:20, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
I stand by my arguments that as long as Silicone Valley redirects to this article there needs to be a hatnote pointing to the other uses of the term. Whether that is a disambiguation page (which wasn't suggested at the RfD) or the San Fernando Valley article doesn't matter, but readers arriving here who haven't misspelled "Silicone" are being disadvantaged for no reason. Thryduulf (talk) 23:52, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
At the RfD, John Vandenberg had written "Maybe a dab page could be justified?" I see that I didn't specifically recommend a disambiguation page, but that was a possibility I had in mind when I wrote "disambiguate". For your assessment to be properly overturned, there should be a consensus (preferably one supported by evidence) that the misspelling is not the primary topic. If the correct spelling is "damn obscure", then a disambiguation page is not justified. —rybec 01:15, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
Silicone Valley doesn't redirect here anymore. It redirects to Silicone Valley (disambiguation). Arguably that page could be moved over Silicone Valley itself. Someone not using his real name (talk) 03:11, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

I have reverted the change in the redirect, as this is not the proper venue to resolve an RfD issue, and a "Foo" title can not redirect to a "Foo (disambiguation)" title. The RfD resolution stands until another discussion in an appropriate venue yields a change. Please note that any proposal to move Silicone Valley (disambiguation) to Silicone Valley must be done through Wikipedia:Requested moves, as it is already clear that such a move would be controversial if done without discussion. Such a move request is now underway at Talk:Silicone Valley (disambiguation)#Requested move. bd2412 T 19:28, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

That move is in progress. See Talk:Silicone Valley (disambiguation). I see no good reason to preserve an incorrect redirect in the mean time, which was created largely under the mistaken assumption that there are no other valid targets, and which really lacked actual consensus even under that assumption. I see no reason to send that RfD to DRV, but I will do so if the redirect to here is restored again. Someone not using his real name (talk) 11:38, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Pseudonym?

The article says that Silicon Valley is a pseudonym. This word means fake name, not generally assumed name. What is the right word? Alexschmidt711 (talk) 02:45, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

It said "nickname" until a recent change by Scalhotrod [2]. I would call it a nickname. —rybec 04:45, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
Knock yourself out coming up with something else, I'm not married to the use of "Pseudonym". But nick name isn't appropriate since Silicon Valley does not have a formal name that its goes by. A nick name is used in lieu of a formal name. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 05:02, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
How about "name" or "term"? —rybec 06:41, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
Or "moniker", as here. Dicklyon (talk) 07:43, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
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