Ventana software support forum

Posted by Ralf Lippold <ralf_lippold@web.de>

Dear fellow system dynamicists!

Bringing the field into the open public seems to be hindered by our own
actions (endogenous!) as I could learn just minutes ago.

There are already some pages at wikipedia (in English and other languages)
and this afternoon I added the link to the WikiSD in the German page of the
wikipedia on system dynamics.

..and was quite astonished to find everything erased with the following
comment ""Links u. Literatur aufgeräumt. Die angegebene Wiki ist so gut wie
leer, nicht jede SD-Gruppe muss genannt sein und Literatur soll die Quellen
angeben)"" (in English: ""Links and Literature straightened out. The mentioned
wiki doesn't contain much, not every SD group has to be named and literature
has to mention only the books"").

A rather harsh reply -as I think- that should make us wonder, what could be
changed by ourselves to change the perceiption of system dynamics in the
public.

Without any notice there will be almost no chance to tap into the curiousity
of people who are overwhelmed by other methods, approaches and consulting
ideas that try to use partly system dynamics but not the whole picture.

How can we use this little story to get our very own mental models on the
table in order to bring system dynamics to where it could/ should be found
in
the public view?

Best regards

Ralf
Posted by Ralf Lippold <ralf_lippold@web.de>
posting date Thu, 10 Jul 2008 23:48:33 +0200
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Posted by Tom Fiddaman <tom@ventanasystems.com>

The comments Ralf cites sound to me like the actions of an overzealous
editor
with limited knowledge of SD and a strangely narrow conception of wikis.
There's probably not much value in getting into a flame war with such an
individual, who might be hard to displace. The obvious solution is to beef
up
the SD wiki, then try again.

To make your contribution, visit
http://www.systemdynamics.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Think of the power you can wield. Define stocks and flows! Determine whether
systems thinking is a subset of system dynamics, or the opposite! Settle the
discrete vs. continuous debate! Of course, your contribution may be
fleeting,
but this is clearly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Tom
Posted by Tom Fiddaman <tom@ventanasystems.com>
posting date Wed, 16 Jul 2008 09:06:08 -0600
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