Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Terrence Keith Ashwin

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Delete. Randykitty (talk) 13:27, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Terrence Keith Ashwin

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An inventor. References only contain mention of his patents or his product. No references given talk about him. Unable to find reliable references about him, only some social media and his products/patents. Bgwhite (talk) 20:01, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, No significant coverage to satisfy WP:BIO per nom. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 21:21, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of South Africa-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:27, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Technology-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:27, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:27, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Sorry, but I don't see sufficient, significant, independent, secondary sources here. The article shows that Ashwin has some patents and some products that won awards, but the article doesn't have any authority that tells us the significance of that work.

I am also concerned about WP:COI: Going to Ashwin's webpage lists several products; the most recent product is U+Link developed in 2014. Talk:Radio-frequency identification#Active RFID shows primary author is associated with [[1]]; that website sells U+Link.

The Radio-frequency identification page was recently edited to credit Ashwin with the invention of active RFID; it used essentially the same material as here: linking to patents and awards with unclear stature and no explanation. I have reverted those edits.

WP editors may use primary sources such as patents for details, but looking at a patent and inferring its importance is WP:OR or WP:SYN. Some of the innovative details, such as the use of a magnetic switch, do not seem significant; RFID is not using magnetic switches today. No secondary source is telling us the magnetic switch was important.

An award must have stature to convey notablity (e.g., an Emmy or an Oscar or a listing on the NYSE). One of the awards was for best new product at a convention in Las Vegas. It is not clear how big the contest field was.

The Net Insider on youtube is half an hour long, it is posted by Eureka Technology, and it had a total of 8 views when I opened it. It looks more like an advertising video about a product to secure a PC: Link It Orbiter/Wavetrend. It locks a laptop up unless the RFID is nearby. I stopped watching after a few minutes. It's not clear to me that Net Insider is an independent program; it might be an infomercial.

The claim to who invented active RFID may be an open question. Cardullo made such a claim in an article that he himself wrote. The big difference is that RFID Journal printed Cardullo's claim, so the editors presumably found his claim credible. Cardullo's claim is also repeated in books.[2] (Ashwin is not mentioned at all in that book.) The authors of those books presumably consider the claim credible. I found no similar sources crediting Ashwin with the invention of active RFID. Even Ashwin's webpage only claims generation 1 in 1978, which is six years after Cardullo's patent.

Given the amount of material about RFID, I'd expect it would be easy to find secondary sources covering the history of RFID. If Ashwin is mentioned there, then that would merit an article about him. WP cannot, however, do its own research and label Ashwin's inventions significant.

Glrx (talk) 05:27, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Ashwin has developed eighty products over a 35 year period. The author has access to a number of published and independent test results that are not currently on the internet but plan to add these content to make a number of claims that will make Terrence Keith Ashwin even more notable. Of these inventions there are a number that can prove that he either invented the product or was of the first in the world to work on the technology. Ashwin has inventions that is still not commercially available today but was implemented and tested with full independent reports. The author is new on WP and wanted to start small before and go through the acceptance process before he attempts to add more content with some not even available on the internet at this stage.

The WP:COI: is not relevant as the author has no interest in any of the businesses that still promote any of the mentioned products or technology. This is also true for Ashwin. The Link-IT product is still in the market today and is called Wavetrend. Ashwin is not mentioned as the inventor of Wavetrend and the intention was not to mention current products on the market today. Therefore the Wavetrend references was not used. U+Link however is a brand new next generation modular RF product that make sensor and device data available to the Internet of Things. This was also not mentioned on the page. The author is of opinion that the information on WP would be inaccurate and incomplete without mentioning this inventor. To claim that Ashwin cannot be mentioned as the inventor of a specific technology is the same as claiming that an inventor like Bill Gates can't be noted as he is still in business selling the next generations of his inventions. According to the comment above by user: Glrx Talk:Radio-frequency identification#Active RFID shows primary author is associated with [[3]]; that website sells U+Link. The author is transparent and use his real name and email address instead of a pseudo name to hide behind. Neither this article nor Talk:Radio-frequency identification#Active RFID has anything to do with U+Link.

The author of Radio-frequency identification page seem to not have a technology background as there is a significant difference between ACTIVE and PASSIVE RFID. The term RFID is not trademarked or owned by any inventor and is a generic industry term used to describe products that use RF (Radio Frequency) to transmit an Identification. The author of Radio-frequency identification reverted edits that contribute to the accuracy of a very inaccurate page where RFID in all its forms are discussed without keeping a clear distinction between the the various forms of RFID. This in my opinion creates the impression that all technology classified under this industry terminology is the same which is factually not true.

WP editors may use primary sources such as patents for details. Patents provide very accurate detail about the invention and is a reliable source to substantiate that active identification technology in this case was actually invented by Terrence Keith Ashwin and thus rule out WP:OR. The patents describe how this technology works and for a reader with technical ability it would differentiate this technology from passive RFID. Active identification technology or in short Active RFID do use magnetic switches to be programmed. Wavetrend is still one of the top selling Active RFID products globally and use a magnetic switch to be programmed and thus rule out WP:SYN as it was part of the core technology design. Finding a secondary source to verify the importance of the magnetic switch is not necessary as you can buy the product today with the magnetic switch. This was however part of the original design of this technology and therefore significant.

The author provided a reference to the official site of the SIA New Product Showcase that describes the criteria and the credence of the Security Industry's Finest New Product Showcase Award. The claim that it has no stature to convey notability is an opinion and not necessarily relevant.

The Net Insider on YouTube is half an hour long, and was specifically loaded by the author to provide an extra third party reference. In the video (9:40 minutes) Jeff Jarvis, VP Business Development of Access Corporation, USA, states "That it is new technology" and "It is the best I've seen for electronic commerce in the near term". (25:10 minutes) Don Small, VP Marketing and Business Development, HID Corporation, Irvine, California, Leaders in the Passive RFID world, provides an explanation about the difference between active and passive RFID and why HID is interested in the technology. The author uploaded the video under his Eureka Technology ID and is transparent about it. Net Insider is as far as the author could establish an independent facilitator obtaining a objective view using a panel discussion with company representatives and independent experts.

The USA, UK, South African and Australian Patent Offices among others granted patents for this invention. Each Patent Office does an independent search of similar inventions. Patents are only granted once the applicant can to the satisfaction of the Patent Office provide evidence to show that the invention is substantially different to anything that currently exist. A patent is therefore not WP:OR a original claim as it is verified, scrutinised and researched by the Patent Office. In this case a number of key markets globally. RFID is not trademarked as mentioned above and is a generic industry term describing radio frequency identification technology. The author of Radio-frequency identification page correctly claims that Cardullo invented what is known as modern RFID. The patent however as summarised (http://www.google.com/patents/US3713148) describes PASSIVE RFID "A novel transponder apparatus and system is disclosed, the system being of the general type wherein a base station transmits an "interrogation" signal to a remote transponder, the transponder responding with an "answerback" transmission. The transponder includes a changeable or writable memory, and means responsive to the transmitted interrogation signal for processing the signal and for selectively writing data into or reading data out from the memory. The transponder then transmits an answerback signal from the data read-out from its internal memory, which signal may be interpreted at the base station. In the preferred inventive embodiment, the transponder generates its own operating power from the transmitted interrogation signal, such that the transponder apparatus is self-contained." The author of this page claims with sufficient supporting evidence that Terrence Keith Ashwin invented the first battery operated identification system known as ACTIVE RFID using the generic industry terminology. The core technology is significantly different and therefore two separate inventions. Ashwin, as per the patent legal activities section on his patents, assigned these patents to Wavetrend. Wavetrend launched in the UK without Ashwin (http://www.sourcewire.com/news/10881/wavetrend-uk-ltd-unveils-its-unique-wireless-identification-technology-globally#.U7R6yPmSySo). The RFID Journal has referenced Wavetrend or published articles on Wavetrend in excess of a 130 times to date. The most significant being a Wavetrend paper delivered at the RFID Journal Live Conference in May 2006 (http://www.rfidjournalevents.com/live2006/PDF/WedBO_Bishop.pdf) where Wavetrend is introduced as the leaders in Active RFID technology. Articles on Wavetrend has been featured in the RFID Journal since 2002 (http://www.rfidjournal.com/articles/view?222).

The information provided is significant and makes Ashwin notable under WP:BIO as a creative professional. South Africa is a small market and by the time Wavetrend was launched in the international market the product was already sufficiently divorced from its inventor to the extent that the inventor was not even mentioned. This in the authors opinion does not make Ashwin less notable. gcmbotha (gcmbotha) 11:18, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.