Talk:SRI International/Archive 1

Archive 1

Early documents

I have some early (1946) documents on the Dibble General Hospital which many of the original SRI buildings came from. (the current cafeteria was the chapel). I've got a 60 page non- copyrighted document (Recorder - sunset press california) that I thought about adding to SRI... Most of the original SRI buildings were originally a part of Dibble General Hospital which served the war efforts.

Would this be of value? I have the whole thing scanned in pdf if anyone would like a copy.

Wikiclarkco (talk) 20:20, 17 October 2009 (UTC) Hi, sorry to be anonymous, why is there no discussion of the book "changing images of man" ?

Hi, I'm a random user who clicked on the link in the paragraph about technologies invented in the 70's. I noticed that there is LaTeX listed there. The LaTeX page says it was invented in 1984. Who is right?

LaTeX certainly came later than TeX (version 2) which came out in 1983/84.

--Erp 02:25, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

File:Siri iOS.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion

An image used in this article, File:Siri iOS.jpg, has been nominated for speedy deletion at Wikimedia Commons for the following reason: Copyright violations What should I do? Don't panic; deletions can take a little longer at Commons than they do on Wikipedia. This gives you an opportunity to contest the deletion (although please review Commons guidelines before doing so). The best way to contest this form of deletion is by posting on the image talk page. If the image is non-free then you may need to upload it to Wikipedia (Commons does not allow fair use) If the image isn't freely licensed and there is no fair use rationale then it cannot be uploaded or used. If the image has already been deleted you may want to try Commons Undeletion Request This notification is provided by a Bot --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 10:29, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

---

Hi, NightMonkey -- I'm not sure how else to get in touch with you. Sorry you don't like my "vanity edits" -- I just tried to provide an accurate, up-to-date entry about SRI with lots of links. While you include many interesting things in your version of our company history, there are a few inaccuracies I'd like to address. Perhaps we can work together on this. Mainly, my issue is that your article doesn't include much detail as to what SRI's working on *today*, and I think this would be of interest to readers. For example, while the remote viewing work of the early 70s might make for an interesting footnote, it's not at all relevant to our current work (and hasn't been for decades). I don't think it's important enough to be the second paragraph. Also, as you may have previously noted, we do not have more than 10,000 patents to our name. The number may be in the thousands, but I'd have to check. And lastly, we are not a "think-tank" as they are defined elsewhere.

Thanks for your ongoing interest in SRI International. I hope to hear from you via this platform.

Best regards, Marty at SRI

Vanity edits

OK, while I wish the article was better written, Wikipedia has policies against vanity edits, and an edit from an "anonymous user" from the SRI International's NetRange just ain't gonna cut it. I'm reverting the edits from 128.18.82.107.

Here's the whois output:

$ whois 128.18.82.107

OrgName: SRI International OrgID: SRIINT Address: 333 Ravenswood Avenue City: Menlo Park StateProv: CA PostalCode: 94025 PostalCode: 94025 Country: US

NetRange: 128.18.0.0 - 128.18.255.255 CIDR: 128.18.0.0/16 NetName: SRINET NetHandle: NET-128-18-0-0-1 Parent: NET-128-0-0-0-0 NetType: Direct Assignment NameServer: NS.SRI.COM NameServer: NS1.SRI.COM NameServer: NSF.ALGX.NET Comment: RegDate: Updated: 2003-03-25

OrgTechHandle: LS732-ARIN OrgTechName: Serrano, Louis OrgTechPhone: +1-650-859-5687 OrgTechEmail: louis.Serrano@sri.com

1. ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2005-01-07 19:10
2. Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS database.

--NightMonkey 12:03, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)

MICR?

I was always under the impression that the check-sorting machine was called ERMA, not MICR. My grandfather was part of this project, and he always talked about ERMA. Perhaps MICR refers to something else, in which case it may be important to clarify and/or expand the information on this project. Thanks! Romarin 02:01, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

MICR refers to magnetic ink character recognition, which was used by ERMA. -- Beland 20:10, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Section rewrite?

Any suggestions about how to rewrite the Research Projects section? As (correctly) tagged, it does indeed read rather like an ad, and somewhat echoes the history timeline on the official SRI website. Perhaps someone could consider rearranging the more noteworthy items into a breakout by discipline rather than the current historical mish-mash. Thoughts? JXM 01:30, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Merge

This page has been subject to an official merge decision by an admin (see history). Content from that merge might not be to everybody's taste, but rather than deleting it outright it's probably best to take it up with the admin as they decreed that the contents of another page should be merged into this one and deleting the content will potentially put users in breach of the decision.

perfectblue (talk) 14:50, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

MOS

As per manual of style, paragraphed text should not be rendered in bold.

perfectblue (talk) 21:03, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Move 'outside the mainstream' elsewhere

SRI International's activities are described in 2281 words. Of these, 907 words are under the headline "Research outside of the mainstream". The only other headline on the same level is "Research History".

The 'research outside of the mainstream' section may be relevant for people with special interest in ESP and Clairvoyance. It is a VERY minor part of SRI, and is vastly overrepresented in the Wikipedia entry on SRI International.

I therefore suggest the following: 1. The section 'research outside of the mainstream' is merged into the Wikipedia entries for ESP and Clairvoyance 2. The section is replaced in the SRI Wikipedia entry by MAXIMUM ONE SENTENCE, which links to the entries which the section has been merged with.

This should go in effect within a few days. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dnordfors (talk • contribs) 23:01, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

This is the section I just removed (and added a fraction of to the history section), for future reference. —Disavian (^talk/_contribs) 05:43, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Research outside the mainstream

Clairvoyance and ESP

In 1972, Harold Puthoff and Russell Targ initiated a series of human subject studies to determine whether participants (the viewers or percipients) could reliably identify and accurately describe salient features of remote locations or targets. In the early studies, a human sender was typically present at the remote location, as part of the experiment protocol. A three-step process was used, the first step being to randomly select the target conditions to be experienced by the senders. Secondly, in the viewing step, participants were asked to verbally express or sketch their impressions of the remote scene. Thirdly, in the judging step, these descriptions were matched by separate judges, as closely as possible, with the intended targets. The term remote viewing was coined to describe this overall process.

In order to explore the nature of remote viewing channel, the viewer in some experiments was secured in a double-walled copper-screened Faraday cage. Although this provided attenuation of radio signals over a broad range of frequencies, the researchers found that it did not alter the subject's remote viewing capability. They postulated that extremely low frequency (ELF) propagation might be involved, since Faraday cage screening is less effective in the ELF range. Such a hypothesis had previously been put forward by telepathy researchers in the Soviet Union.

The first paper by Puthoff and Targ on psychic research to appear in a mainstream peer-reviewed scientific journal was published in Nature in March 1974; in it, the team reported some degree of remote viewing success. One of the individuals involved in these initial studies at SRI was Uri Geller, a well-known celebrity psychic at the time. The research team reported witnessing some of Geller's trademark metal spoon-bending performances, but admitted that they were unable to conduct adequately controlled experiments to confirm any paranormal hypothesis about them.

Electroencephalography (EEG) techniques were also used by team to examine ESP phenomena. In these investigations, a sender, who was isolated in a visually opaque, electrically and acoustically shielded chamber, was stimulated at random by bursts of strobe-light flickers. The experimenters reported that, for one receiver, differential alpha block on control and stimulus trials were observed, which showed that some information transfer had occurred. In contrast, this person's expressed statements of when the stimulus occurred were no different than that which would be expected by chance. The researches were unable to identify the physical parameters by which the EEG effect was mediated.

Psychokinesis

Another series of experiments in the early 1970s focused on psychokinesis, which concerns how human consciousness may influence the behavior of external physical systems. In these studies, the support came from NASA on a contract administered by JPL. They involved building an electronic apparatus that would randomize images presented to an individual, who was asked to predict them in advance. By coupling the randomizer with encouraging feedback and reinforcement for successful predictions, the system was intended to measure how individuals develop their clairvoyance or other telepathic powers. The entire data-gathering process was supposed to be automated, in order to limit the potential for experimenter interference. However, this part of the protocol had been violated for several experiments. A JPL review of the final report noted that, when these parts were omitted from analysis, no evidence of ESP performance could be identified. NASA concluded that there was no basis for further support of this work.

Replication studies

After the publication of these findings, various attempts to replicate the remote viewing findings were quickly carried out. Several of these follow-up studies, which involved viewing in group settings, reported some limited success. They included the use of face-to-face groups, and remotely linked groups using computer conferencing.

The various debates in the mainstream scientific literature prompted the editors of Proceedings of the IEEE to invite Robert Jahn, then Dean of the School of Engineering at Princeton University, to write a comprehensive review of psychic phenomena from an engineering perspective. His paper, published in February 1982, includes numerous references to remote viewing replication studies at the time.

Controversy

The descriptions of a large number of psychic studies and their results were published in March 1976, in the journal Proceedings of the IEEE. Together with the earlier papers, this provoked an extended debate in the mainstream scientific literature. Numerous problems in the overall design of the remote viewing studies were identified, with problems noted in all three of the remote viewing steps (target selection, target viewing, and results judging). A particular problem was the failure to follow the standard procedures that are used in experimental psychology.

Several external researchers expressed concerns about the reliability of the judging process. Independent examination of some of the sketches and transcripts from the viewing process revealed flaws in the original procedures and analyses. In particular, the presence of sensory cues being available to the judges was noted. A lengthy exchange ensued, with the external researchers finally concluding that the failure of Puthoff and Targ to address their concerns meant that the claim of remote viewing "can no longer be regarded as falling within the scientific domain".

Procedural problems and researcher conflicts of interest in the psychokinesis experiments were noted by science writer Martin Gardner in a detailed analysis of the NASA final report. Also, sloppy procedures in the conduct of the EEG study were reported by a visiting observer during another series of exchanges in the scientific literature.

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:SRI International/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Viriditas (talk · contribs) 08:04, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Infobox

• Use {{Infobox company}} recommendations for industry parameter listing. Viriditas (talk) 06:01, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
  • Is it necessary to list anything other than science and technology? Viriditas (talk) 06:10, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
    • I agree that the others are somewhat redundant to that one. They also have a significant presence in Economics, I believe, which isn't listed there. Disavian (talk) 06:18, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
    • I went ahead and made that change using their suggestion of {{ubl}}. Disavian (talk) 06:20, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Dab

Resolved

• Not to be confused with SRA International or SwRI
  • Would a user confuse SRI with either of those two? In other words, is this hatnote necessary? Viriditas (talk) 09:59, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
    • Unknown. I'm okay with removing it if you don't think it's needed - it's been there as long as I've been editing this article. Disavian (talk) 23:39, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
      • I'll bring it up with the dab project first, and see what they say. Viriditas (talk) 10:06, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
        • The only thing that would mandate it from a dab project perspective is consensus here to include it. Not knowing the topic space, it certainly appears to be unneeded. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:33, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
          • SwRI seems a stretch to me; but it is easy to imagine that a reader who doesn't know what the acronyms mean could mix up SRI and SRA. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 14:45, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
            • Per you guys, I removed the dab to SwRI. Disavian (talk) 05:31, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Lead

Resolved

• SRI International (SRI), founded as Stanford Research Institute, is one of the world's largest contract research institutes. SRI, based in Menlo Park, California, was established by the trustees of Stanford University in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic development in the region. It was established as a nonprofit organization under U.S. and California laws.
  • Several encyclopedic style issues here. Organization leads will generally start out indicating the type of org (nonprofit), its location (Menlo Park), and its establishment date (1946). Then, the lead will indicate why it is notable (world's largest contract research institute). As you can see, you've got this reversed, which is probably acceptable, but IMO, it disrupts the expectations of the reader. If you prefer to keep this style, then switch the second sentence around to avoid repeating SRI at the start of the second sentence (Based in Menlo Park, SRI was...) and avoid repeating the word "established" twice in a row in the third and fourth sentences (It was created as a nonprofit). Otherwise, look at several FA org. articles and see what you can find. Viriditas (talk) 09:59, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
    • Is this what you have in mind? SRI International (SRI), founded as Stanford Research Institute, is a nonprofit organization and one of the world's largest contract research institutes. SRI was founded in 1946 in in Menlo Park, California by the trustees of Stanford University to support economic development in the region. Disavian (talk) 23:34, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
      • Yes, that's the general idea. Viriditas (talk) 10:07, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

• SRI's headquarters are near the Stanford University campus.
  • What about adding "located"? "SRI's headquarters are located near the Stanford University campus." Viriditas (talk)
    • That does sound better. Implemented. Disavian (talk) 05:32, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

• Lead is OK, but still too "listy" for my tastes. I'll come back to this when I've finished the review. Viriditas (talk) 05:57, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Foundation

Resolved

• The idea for a research institute located in the Western United States was originally proposed in the 1920s and promoted (until SRI's eventual creation) by Robert E. Swain.
  • Question: did Swain originally propose the idea? If not, who did? If he did, use the active voice: "Robert E. Swain originally proposed the the idea for a research institute located in the Western United States in the 1920s." Viriditas (talk) 10:51, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
    • Yes. I implemented your proposed wording. :) Disavian (talk) 05:34, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
• Swain...proposed the the idea for a research institute...in the 1920s.'
  • This is sourced to Nielson, however, Lowen (1997) says it was in the 1930s.[1] Could you take a look at this discrepancy? Viriditas (talk) 11:28, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
    • From Nielson, page 1-1: "Informal discussions about a research institute at Stanford University were held on campus as early as the 1920s. But it wasn't until 1942 that a serious proposition was made, and that initiative had to await the end of World War II before enough momentum could be gained to pursue it to completion." Disavian (talk) 05:45, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
    • And in Gibson, The Founding Years, page 1: "THIS HISTORY OF THE STANFORD RESEARCH INSTITUTE - later to be known as SRI - begins in some respects in the 1920s when a Stanford University professor conceived the idea of a research center dedicated primarily to work in chemistry, physics, and biology. Dr. Robert E. Swain soon found support for his proposed venture from the University's president, Dr. Ray Lyman Wilbur, and also from a distinguished alumnus, Herbert Hoover." Disavian (talk) 05:49, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
• Herbert Hoover, a trustee of Stanford University, was a strong proponent for such an organization, but became less involved after he was elected president of the United States.
  • Did he lose interest or was he just attending to more important duties as president? How was he a strong proponent? Did he donate money? What made him a proponent as a trustee? Viriditas (talk) 11:18, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
    • I may have glossed over his involvement a bit. According to Gibson, The Founding Years, pp. 5-6, Hoover was a personal friend of Dr. Robert E. Swain and was particularly involved with Stanford University; his contributions to that point included the founding of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford's Food Research Institute, and the Hoover Institution. So, Hoover discussed the concept (in person) with Swain in 1926 and 1927, but in 1928 Hoover announced he would run for president. I'll quote these paragraphs directly:
      "After getting a 'green light' from Wilbur to develop some sort of plan, Swain was eagerly looking forward to further talks with Hoover. But early in 1928 Hoover announced he would run for president. This came on the heels of President Coolidge's famous statement - 'I do not choose to run -.' From then onward, Hoover had no time to work with his Stanford friend on the institute idea. He did not, however, lose interest in the concept he had helped set in motion. Several times during the 1928 campaign and even into his presidency, Hoover asked Swain how the idea was being received and urged him to keep up his good work. Many years later, Hoover said to a group at Stanford that Swain was the man with 'an early vision' for a research institute at the University."
      Disavian (talk) 05:59, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Early years

• SRI's first research project began in 1946: the investigation of improvement of the guayule plant as a source of rubber.
  • Prose is a bit choppy here. "investigation of improvement" doesn't sound right. Who was investigating what and why? Viriditas (talk) 03:23, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
    • From Gibson, The Founding Years, p. 98: "For about four years ending on June 30, 1946, the U.S. Department of Agriculture had supported a project on developing a domestic source of natural rubber. The guayule plant, native to Northern Mexico and Southern Texas, was by far the most promising source. But in mid-1946 Congress cut off all project funds on the basis that the post-war need for a domestic rubber source was not great enough to justify the cost. The military services did not agree with this position and the Office of Naval Research (ONR) entered the picture temporarily. A grant-type contract was assigned to SRI. The USDA staff at Salinas transferred to SRI. In due course, Congress changed its stance and appropriated funds for the USDA to resume its work. This took effect on August 1, 1947. Thus, the SRI project came to an end; most of the team except for Bill Rand (the manager) and Benedict went back to the Department of Agriculture." Disavian (talk) 06:11, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
• SRI's investigation confirmed the potential of dodecyl benzene as a suitable replacement, and later Procter & Gamble used the substance as the basis of their successful laundry detergent, Tide.
  • Could you add a source to this, please? Viriditas (talk) 03:24, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
    • I've looked previously and was never able to find a source for that part - I commented it out for now. Disavian (talk) 06:14, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
    • In the four hours of reference work I did today, I came across a(n admittedly SRI-published) reference for this. I about punched my desk when I found it, given the amount of time I've looked for a reference for that in the past and here I come across it accidentally. Disavian (talk) 06:09, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
• On November 10–11, 1949, the First National Air Pollution Symposium was sponsored by SRI...SRI also co-sponsored the second and third Symposia in Pasadena on May 5–6, 1952 and April 18–20, 1955.
  • Why are these dates important to note? Viriditas (talk) 03:28, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
    • They're not. I think the point of the section was that SRI was a leader in early climate change research, in particular by hosting the first large discussion thereof. Disavian (talk) 16:21, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
    • I made them less specific per your request below. Disavian (talk) 23:00, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Description

• In 2010, the United States Department of Defense consisted of 67% of awards by value
  • The wording is odd and the link is dead so I can't verify or change it. The paragraph is again, very listy. Viriditas (talk) 04:00, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
    • SRI just launched a complete redesign of their website, I learned this morning reading twitter. I basically put my phone down when I read that and thought of all of the references that I'll need to update. :-/ Disavian (talk) 07:26, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
      • Well, I would really like to finish up this review, but if I can't verify the content, that makes it very difficult. I recently failed an article for depending too heavily on self-published sources, and I'm a bit concerned that my previous attempt to verify material about the initial founding discovered conflicting material in secondary sources (discussed above). It's a shame the further reading section isn't incorporated into the article, as that would solve this problem. Viriditas (talk) 11:29, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
        • That's understandable- I certainly don't want to depend on primary sources. I'm spending today working on fixing all of the issues in the checklinks tool, so hopefully I'll get all that resolved ASAP. I see that some secondary sources that I found not all that long ago have also moved, so I'll get those taken care of as well. Disavian (talk) 22:46, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
        • I took care of all of the dead links today. That's not to say that sections of the article couldn't do with additional references, but one step at a time here, I suppose. :) Disavian (talk) 06:11, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
    • Anyway, back to the original point - I believe that it basically means that 67% of SRI's revenue in the year cited came from projects sponsored by the United States Department of Defense. Disavian (talk) 01:36, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Spin-off companies

Resolved

• notable spin-offs
  • What makes them notable? Is there a specific product or service they are known for? Viriditas (talk) 06:16, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
    • I judged that the ones with existing articles were notable. There have been quite a few spin-offs, as you see by that list, and as such it's hard to know which ones deserve mention. It seemed like a reasonable standard to follow, even if it is limited by Wikipedia's own coverage biases. Disavian (talk) 06:03, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

• Many companies have come from computing and computer science-related efforts
  • Do you mean to say that many companies have been created from research in this field? Viriditas (talk) 06:19, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
    • Yes, that's the idea I was going for. Disavian (talk) 06:03, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

• This section is OK, but it would be helpful to talk more about the spin-off process and what makes SRI so unique or special in that they can produce results. As it stands, the section is too "listy". Viriditas (talk) 06:25, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Checklist

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

   Minor prose issues (to be listed above)

   Prose still needs work.

   Still a bit "listy" in some places; lack of a directed, coherent narrative tying the sections together internally

   Excellent layout and table usage; the article is pleasing to the eye and designed to be read easily. Topical section headings help the reader follow the text to any chronological point in the narrative and facilitate understanding of the text while enhancing comprehension

   I just want you to know I worked so hard on pulling indiscriminate lists out into tables and in a couple cases, sublists (and back into the articles as summaries of those lists); in particular, List of SRI International people and List of SRI International spin-offs. :) Disavian (talk) 23:36, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

   Helpful further reading section split into history and topics

   External links looks good; infobox repeats official site, but this is OK for me, however, other reviewers might not like it

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   Citations missing in some areas. Will verify...

   14 dead links. I can't verify dead links.

   Issue with date verification in "Foundations" section (see above)

   "Early years" section has unsourced material (see above)

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   Broad coverage

   Why mention specific dates for symposia in "Early years" section?

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

   Neutral

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

   Stable as she goes

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

   Good use of images and captions

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   The lead should summarize the most important points in the body. It's reversed in the case of the "Split and diversification" section, which doesn't explain why the organization split due to the Vietnam War, but does explain it in the lead. Try to expand this in the body, or move it from the lead to the body and summarize in the lead. "Early history" doesn't explain why SRI was investigating the guayule plant as a source of rubber, but as a reader I assume it was part of the war effort. You should explain the reason and indicate the importance. It's still not clear why you list the dates for the Air Pollution Symposium and the Symposia in Pasadena. If necessary, put it in a corresponding footnote. Viriditas (talk) 01:07, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

   I copied the content about the separation from the lead to the body. diff. Disavian (talk) 01:03, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

   Since you copied it in whole, I removed it from the lead. There might be a way to briefly summarize it in the future, but for now I think it is fine, unless you decide to change it. The issue is highly complex as Leslie (1993) explains in detail. Viriditas (talk) 02:28, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

   Yeah, the section in the article itself could do with some expansion, but that's one of those subjects where you stare at the source text and wonder where to even start, given the complexity. Unrelated, I like the copyedits that you've made so far. Disavian (talk) 23:10, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

   I expanded the section on guayule. diff. Disavian (talk) 01:16, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

   And here's my attempt to remove specific dates from the air pollution bit. diff. Disavian (talk) 01:33, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

   I removed the paragraph on remote viewing that was placed in between a history of communications technology in the "rapid expansion" section. The material was poorly cited, presented only one POV, and does not best represent SRI. Anyone wishing to add this back should use any number of secondary sources about SRI to do so, in the context of the organization. As it stands, the SRI website does not mention it, and it appears to be undue weight to mention it in this context. What might work is a future section on secret or failed projects, as long as strong sources about SRI are used. Viriditas (talk) 01:46, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

   After extensive copyedits intending to link indiscriminate list entries as prose narrative, I'm passing this article, however, a quick look at the article history shows that this article was originally a list of entries sorted by decade that was later turned into "prose" form and there are still artifacts of this previous structure in the current article. For example, the "recent history" section includes content that should be merged into relevant sections since 1) a heading named "recent history" is time sensitive and likely to become outdated, and 2) there is overlap between related subjects, such as medicine and technology, speech recognition, etc. that are found in the previous section ("Split and diversification"). You might want to consider reviewing the secondary sources to find a more solid structure that reflects the narrative above and beyond list entries by date. I'm afraid that I might be overly sensitive to ongoing problems with the prose as the most recent peer review failed to detect any problems. Even though I'm passing this article as meeting the current GA criteria, I recommend rewriting it with a stronger emphasis on incorporating the secondary sources listed in the further reading section and focusing more on the relationship between the organization, its people, and its research, with a consistent narrative that eliminates the remnants of the listy prose. Viriditas (talk) 12:09, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

   Thank you for your help, you have done an AMAZING job copyediting the article. I agree with your points, and I'm going to continue improving the article, preferably using additional secondary sources. Disavian (talk) 17:29, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

   Many thanks indeed to BOTH of you for this work! Everything is way way better now. Here are a couple of small comments for your consideration. The list of spinout companies includes a number of entities that were founded by ex-SRI people, but otherwise had no connection with SRI. Although the heritage is impressive, do they really count as "spinouts" per se. Maybe a different label might be appropriate. Also, per the comment above on remote viewing, I'd like to consider adding a small NPOV statement about that project, citing one or two reliable secondary sources of course. Given the intriguing/controversial nature of this project, it seems appropriate to acknowledge that the work was actually carried out, rather than ignoring its existence. Any thoughts or comments on these items? jxm (talk) 16:23, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

   The source I used to build the majority of that list didn't distinguish whether each was an official spin-off or whether they just happened to be SRI personnel that took their research and turned it into something commercial. From what I've read, the system is more organized now, under the name SRI Ventures. And I'm definitely not opposed to a couple sentence summary of the ESP work; for what it's worth, the article's (generally POV) fork is still at Talk:SRI International/Archive 1#Research outside the mainstream in case you feel like attempting this. I'm more interested in figuring out how to make the prose less listy - after about 1960 or so, SRI expands into several different directions. I've tried to move similar subjects together (military, medical, artificial intelligence, etc) but it's not an especially compelling narrative. Disavian (talk) 01:26, 23 July 2012 (UTC)