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Tim Russert

Timothy John Russert (May 7, 1950 – June 13, 2008) was an American television journalist and lawyer who appeared for more than 16 years as the longest-serving moderator of NBC's Meet the Press. He was a senior vice president at NBC News and Washington bureau chief, and also hosted an eponymous CNBC/MSNBC weekend interview program. He was a frequent correspondent and guest on NBC's The Today Show and Hardball. Russert covered several presidential elections, and he presented the NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey on the NBC Nightly News during the 2008 U.S. presidential election. Time magazine included Russert in its list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2008. Russert was posthumously revealed as a 30-year source for syndicated columnist Robert Novak.

Early life
Russert was born in Buffalo, New York, the son of Elizabeth "Betty" (née Seeley; January 9, 1929 – August 14, 2005), a homemaker, and Timothy Joseph "Big Russ" Russert (November 29, 1923 – September 24, 2009), a sanitation worker. Elizabeth and Joseph were married for 30 years, before separating in 1976. Russert was the only son and the second of four children; his sisters are Betty Ann (B.A.), Kathleen (Kathy) and Patricia (Trish). His parents were Catholics, and he had German and Irish ancestry. He received a Jesuit education from Canisius High School in Buffalo.

He received his Bachelor of Arts in 1972 from John Carroll University and a Juris Doctor with honors from the Cleveland State University College of Law in 1976. Russert commented on Meet the Press that he went to Woodstock "in a Buffalo Bills jersey with a case of beer." While in law school, an official from his alma mater, John Carroll University, called Russert to ask if he could book some concerts for the school as he had done while a student. He agreed, but said he would need to be paid because he was running out of money to pay for law school. One concert that Russert booked was headlined by a then-unknown singer, Bruce Springsteen, who charged $2,500 for the concert appearance. Russert told this story to Jay Leno when he was a guest on The Tonight Show on NBC on June 6, 2006. John Carroll University has since named its Department of Communication and Theatre Arts in Russert's honor.

Political
Prior to becoming host of Meet the Press, Russert ran one of U.S. Senator Daniel Moynihan's five major offices, based in Buffalo, New York. He later served as special counsel and as chief of staff to Moynihan, a Democrat from Hell's Kitchen, New York. In 1983, he became a top aide to New York Governor Mario Cuomo, also a Democrat.

NBC News: Washington bureau chief and host of Meet the Press
Russert joined NBC as an executive, and did not expect to appear on television. He was hired by NBC News's Washington bureau in 1984 and became bureau chief by 1989. Russert became host of the Sunday morning program Meet the Press in 1991, and was the longest-serving host of the program. Its name was changed to Meet the Press with Tim Russert, and, at his suggestion, expanded to an hour in 1992. The show also shifted to a greater focus on in-depth interviews with high-profile guests, where Russert was known for extensive preparatory research and cross-examining style. One approach he developed was to find old quotes or video clips that were inconsistent with guests' more recent statements, present them on-air to his guests and then ask them to clarify their positions. With Russert as host the audience grew to more than four million viewers per week, and it was recognized as one of the most important sources of political news. Time magazine named Russert one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2008, and Russert often moderated political campaign debates.

Political coverage and debates
During NBC's coverage of the 2000 presidential election, Russert calculated possible Electoral College outcomes using a whiteboard (now in the Smithsonian Institution) on the air and memorably summed up the outcome as dependent upon "Florida, Florida, Florida." TV Guide described the scene as "one of the 100 greatest moments in TV history." Russert again accurately predicted the final battleground of the presidential election of 2004: "Ohio, Ohio, Ohio." In the course of the debate leading up to that election, Russert used February 2004 interviews with the two candidates to home in on the paradoxical fact (and the possible consequences for democracy) of their both apparently having been members of Yale University's Skull and Bones secret society. On the MSNBC show Tucker, Russert predicted the battleground states of the 2008 presidential election would be New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona and Nevada, saying, "If Democrats can win three of those four, they can lose Ohio and Florida, and win the presidency."

Red states and blue states
According to The Washington Post, the phrases red states and blue states were coined by Tim Russert, although in that same article Russert states that he wasn't the first to use the terminology. This term refers to those states of the United States of America whose residents predominantly vote for the Republican Party (red) or Democratic Party (blue) presidential candidates, respectively. John Chancellor, Russert's NBC colleague, is credited with using red and blue to represent the states on a US map for the 1976 presidential election, but at that time Republican states were blue, and Democratic states were red. (How the colors got reversed is not entirely clear.) During the 1984 presidential election, between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale, ABC News used a map which showed Republican states as red and Democratic states as blue. According to David Brinkley, that was because Red = R = Reagan. Mainstream political discussion following the 2000 presidential election used red state/blue state more frequently.

CIA leak scandal
In the Plame affair, Scooter Libby, convicted chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, told special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that Russert told him of the identity of Central Intelligence Agency officer Valerie Plame (who is married to former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson). Russert testified previously, and again in United States v. I. Lewis Libby, that he would neither testify whether he spoke with Libby nor would he describe the conversation. Russert did say, however, that Plame's identity as a CIA operative was not leaked to him. Russert testified again in the trial on February 7, 2007. According to The Washington Post, Russert testified that "when any senior government official calls him, they are presumptively off the record," saying: "when I talk to senior government officials on the phone, it's my own policy our conversations are confidential. If I want to use anything from that conversation, then I will ask permission."

At the trial, the prosecution asserted that a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent had called Russert regarding Russert's phone call with Libby, and that Russert had told the agent that the subject of Plame had not come up during his conversation with Libby. Russert was posthumously revealed as a thirty-year source of columnist Robert Novak, whose original article revealed Plame's affiliation with the CIA. In a Slate.com article, Jack Shafer argued that "the Novak-Russert relationship poses a couple of questions. [...] Russert's long service as an anonymous source to Novak...requires further explanation." In a posthumous commentary, the L.A. Times wrote that, "Like former New York Times reporter Judith Miller, Russert was one of the high-level Washington journalists who came out of the Libby trial looking worse than shabby." The article's author, Tim Rutten, argued that although Russert and NBC had claimed that these conversations were protected by journalistic privilege, "it emerged under examination [that] Russert already had sung like a choirboy to the FBI concerning his conversation with Libby—and had so voluntarily from the first moment the Feds contacted him. All the litigation was for the sake of image and because the journalistic conventions required it."

Iraq War
In the lead-up to the Iraq War, Meet the Press featured interviews with top government officials including Vice President Dick Cheney. CBS Evening News correspondent Anthony Mason praised Russert's interview techniques: "In 2003, as the United States prepared to go to war in Iraq, Russert pressed Vice President Dick Cheney about White House assumptions." However, Salon.com reported a statement from Cheney press aide Cathie Martin regarding advice she says she offered when the Bush administration had to respond to charges that it manipulated pre-Iraq War intelligence: "I suggested we put the vice president on Meet the Press, which was a tactic we often used. It's our best format." David Folkenflik quoted Russert in his May 19, 2004, Baltimore Sun article:

"I don't think the public was, at that time, particularly receptive to hearing it," Russert says. "Back in October of 2002, when there was a debate in Congress about the war in Iraq—three-fourths of both houses of Congress voted with the president to go. Those in favor were so dominant. We don't make up the facts. We cover the facts as they were."

Folkenflik went on to write:

"Russert's remarks would suggest a form of journalism that does not raise the insolent question from outside polite political discourse—so, if an administration's political foes aren't making an opposing case, it's unlikely to get made. In the words of one of my former editors, journalists can read the polls just like anybody else."

In the 2007 PBS documentary, Buying the War, Russert commented:

"My concern was, is that there were concerns expressed by other government officials. And to this day, I wish my phone had rung, or I had access to them."

2008 presidential debate
At the February debate, Russert was criticized for what some perceived as disproportionately tough questioning of Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton. Among the questions, Russert had asked Clinton, but not Obama, to provide the name of the new Russian President (Dmitry Medvedev). This was later parodied on Saturday Night Live. In October 2007, liberal commentators accused Russert of harassing Clinton over the issue of supporting drivers' licenses for illegal immigrants.

Enthusiasm for sports
Russert grew up as a New York Yankees fan, switching his allegiance to the Washington Nationals when they were established in Washington, D.C. Russert held season tickets to both the Nationals and the Washington Wizards and was elected to the board of directors of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York in 2003.

A lifelong fan of the Buffalo Bills football team, Russert often closed Sunday broadcasts during the football season with a statement of encouragement for the franchise. The team released a statement on the day of his death, saying that listening to Russert's "Go Bills" exhortation was part of their Sunday morning game preparation. He once prayed publicly on the show with his father when the Bills were going for the Super Bowl for the fourth consecutive time before Super Bowl XXVIII. On July 23, 2008, U.S. Route 20A leading to the Bills' Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park, New York was renamed the "Timothy J. Russert Highway".

Russert was also a Buffalo Sabres fan and appeared on an episode of Meet the Press next to the Stanley Cup during a Sabres playoff run. While his son was attending Boston College, he often ended Meet the Press with a mention of the success of various Boston College sports teams.

Russert, then a student at the Cleveland–Marshall College of Law, attended Ten Cent Beer Night, a promotion by the Cleveland Indians which ended in a riot at the stadium. "I went with $2 in my pocket," he recalled. "You do the math."

Author
In 2004 Russert penned a best-selling autobiography, Big Russ and Me, which chronicled his life growing up in the predominantly Irish-American working-class neighborhood of South Buffalo and his education at Canisius High School. Russert's father Timothy Joseph Russert, "Big Russ", was a World War II veteran who held down two jobs after the war, emphasized the importance of maintaining strong family values, the reverence of faith, and never taking a short cut to reach a goal. Russert claimed to have received over 60,000 letters from people in response to the book, detailing their own experiences with their fathers. He released Wisdom of Our Fathers: Lessons and Letters from Daughters and Sons in 2005, a collection of some of these letters. This book also became a best-seller.

Cameo television appearance
Russert made a cameo appearance in 1995 on the critically acclaimed police drama, Homicide: Life on the Street. He played the cousin of fictional Baltimore homicide detective Megan Russert. He was mentioned by name again on the show in 1996, when it was said that he had introduced his "cousin" to a French diplomat, with whom she then went abroad. Homicide executive producer Tom Fontana attended the same Buffalo high school as Russert.

Awards
During his career, Russert received 48 honorary doctorates and won several awards for excellence in journalism:
 * Paul White Award from the Radio-Television News Directors Association (2009),
 * John Peter Zenger Freedom of the Press Award
 * American Legion Journalism Award
 * Veterans of Foreign Wars News Media Award,
 * Congressional Medal of Honor Society Journalism Award
 * Allen H. Neuharth Award for Excellence in Journalism
 * David Brinkley Award for Excellence in Communication
 * Catholic Academy for Communication's Gabriel Award
 * 2005 Emmy Award for coverage of the funeral of former President Ronald Reagan.
 * 2005 Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member Michael Bloomberg.

Minor planet 43763 Russert is named in his honor.

Personal life
Russert met Maureen Orth at the 1980 Democratic National Convention; they married in 1983 at the Basilica de San Miguel in Madrid, Spain. Orth has been a special correspondent for Vanity Fair since 1993.

Russert delivered the 2007 Washington University in St. Louis commencement speech.

Their son, Luke, graduated from Boston College in 2008. He hosts the XM Radio show 60/20 Sports with James Carville, and was an intern with ESPN's Pardon the Interruption and NBC's Late Night with Conan O'Brien. On July 31, 2008, NBC News announced that Luke Russert would serve as an NBC News correspondent covering the youth perspective on the 2008 United States presidential election.

The Russert family lived in northwest Washington, D.C., and also spent time at a vacation home on Nantucket Island, where Tim served on the board of several non-profit organizations. In an interview in the 2010 documentary Mister Rogers & Me, he spoke of his admiration for his friend Fred Rogers, host of the iconic PBS children's program "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" whom he and his family met on Nantucket.

Russert, a devout Catholic, said many times he had made a promise to God to never miss Sunday Mass if his son were born healthy. In his writing and in his news reporting, Russert spoke openly and fondly of his Catholic school education and of the role of the Catholic Church in his life. He was an outspoken supporter of Catholic education on all levels. Russert said that his father, a sanitation worker who never finished high school, "worked two jobs all his life so his four kids could go to Catholic school, and those schools changed my life." He also spoke warmly of the Catholic nuns who taught him. "Sister Mary Lucille founded a school newspaper and appointed me editor and changed my life," he said. Teachers in Catholic schools "taught me to read and write, but also how to tell right from wrong."

Russert also contributed his time to numerous Catholic charities. He was particularly devoted and concerned for the welfare of street kids in the United States and children who died from street violence. He told church workers attending the 2005 Catholic Social Ministry Gathering that "if there's an issue that Democrats, Republicans, conservatives and liberals can agree on, it's our kids."

Russert's favorite beer was Rolling Rock, and, at his funeral, friend and fellow anchor Tom Brokaw brought and raised a Rolling Rock in Russert's memory.

Shortly before his death, he had an audience with Pope Benedict XVI.

Death
Shortly after 1:30 pm on Friday, June 13, 2008, Russert collapsed at the offices of WRC-TV, which houses the Washington, D.C., bureau of NBC News where he was chief. He was recording voiceovers for the Sunday edition of Meet the Press. In a speech he gave at the Kennedy Center, Brian Williams said that Russert's last words were, "What's happening?" spoken as a greeting to NBC Washington bureau editing supervisor Candace Harrington as he passed her in the hallway. He then walked down the hallway to record voiceovers in the soundproof booth and collapsed. A co-worker began to perform CPR on him. The District of Columbia Fire and Rescue service received a call from NBC at 1:40 pm, and dispatched an EMS unit which arrived at 1:44 pm. Paramedics attempted to defibrillate Russert's heart three times, but he did not respond. Russert was then transported to Sibley Memorial Hospital, arriving at 2:23 pm, where he was pronounced dead. He was 58 years old.

In accordance with the American journalistic standard established in the 1950s, the public announcement of Russert's death was withheld by the wire services and his network's competitors until Russert's family had been notified. Retired NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw then delivered, live on NBC, CNBC, and MSNBC, the breaking news of his death. NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams was on assignment in Afghanistan and could not anchor the special report. CBS and ABC also interrupted programming to report Russert's death. Armen Keteyian reported the news for CBS and Charles Gibson reported for ABC. Russert had just returned from a family vacation in Rome, Italy, where he had celebrated his son's graduation from Boston College. While his wife and son remained in Rome, Russert had returned to prepare for his Sunday television show.

Russert's longtime friend and physician, Dr. Michael Newman, said that his asymptomatic coronary artery disease had been controlled with medication (LDL-C was <70 mg/dL ) and exercise, and that he had performed well on a stress test on April 29 of that year. An autopsy performed on the day of his death determined that his history of coronary artery disease led to a myocardial infarction (heart attack) and ventricular fibrillation with the immediate cause being an occlusive coronary thrombosis in the left anterior descending artery resulting from a ruptured cholesterol plaque.

Russert is buried at Rock Creek Cemetery. The Newseum in Washington, D.C., exhibited a recreation of Russert's office with original elements such as his desks, bookshelves, folders, loose leaf papers and notebooks. In August 2014, the exhibit was disassembled at the Newseum and transported to the Buffalo History Museum. The exhibit entitled "Inside Tim Russert's Office: If it's Sunday It's Meet the Press", opened in October 2014 with Luke Russert and others giving opening remarks. The exhibit can be viewed during the normal business hours of the Buffalo History Museum.

Reaction
On the evening of his death, the entire, nearly commercial-free half-hour of NBC Nightly News was dedicated to Russert's memory. Bill and Hillary Clinton released a joint statement saying Russert "had a love of public service and a dedication to journalism that rightfully earned him the respect and admiration of not only his colleagues but also those of us who had the privilege to go toe to toe with him." Many of his colleagues in both newspaper and television reporting also offered tribute to Russert in this and other programs. Other major news agencies, including CBS, ABC, CNN, Fox News, and the BBC spent large segments of their programming on June 13 reporting about Russert's life and career. President George W. Bush stated in a news conference with French president Nicolas Sarkozy: "America lost a really fine citizen yesterday when Tim Russert passed away. I've had the privilege of being interviewed by Tim Russert. I found him to be a hardworking, thorough, decent man. And Tim Russert loved his country, he loved his family, and he loved his job a lot." Bruce Springsteen, a friend of Russert's, gave an on-stage tribute to him while performing in Cardiff, Wales, on June 14 and again at Russert's televised Kennedy Center memorial service, calling him "an important irreplaceable voice in American journalism" and offering condolences to his family. On the June 13, 2008, episode of Late Night with Conan O'Brien, O'Brien simply walked onto the stage at the start of the show. Instead of his usual upbeat antics and monologue, O'Brien announced that he had just received news about the sudden death of his good friend, fellow NBC employee and frequent Late Night guest Tim Russert. O'Brien proceeded to show two clips of his favorite Russert Late Night moments.

Some journalists criticized the amount of media coverage that Russert's death received. Jack Shafer of Slate called NBC's coverage a "never-ending video wake." Washington Post writer Paul Farhi also expressed disapproval, noting that a print journalist would likely not have received similar attention. Chicago Tribune columnist Julia Keller questioned the volume of coverage as well as the labeling of Russert's death as "a national tragedy."

Mark Leibovich of The New York Times Magazine wrote in his book, This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral—Plus, Plenty of Valet Parking!—in America's Gilded Capital, about how Russert's funeral in many ways became a spectacle of some of Washington's worst cultural characteristics, largely centering on self-interest and posturing, while feigning remorse for the loss of the deceased. Some attendees even went as far as handing out business cards and vying for good seating. Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC's Morning Joe dubbed the scene "a new low, even for Washington tackiness".

Career timeline

 * Political career
 * 1977–1982 – chief of staff to Daniel Patrick Moynihan
 * 1983–1984 – counselor to Mario Cuomo

 * Broadcast career
 * 1984–1988 – senior vice president of NBC News' Washington operations
 * 1995 – Homicide: Life on the Street (cameo appearance as self, but as fictitious cousin of Captain Megan Russert)
 * 1988–2008 – Washington bureau chief of NBC News
 * 1991–2008 – moderator of Meet the Press
 * 1992–2006 – co-anchor of NBC News' election night coverage

 * Debates moderated
 * 1991 – Ex-Gov. Edwin Edwards and State Rep. David Duke, candidates for Governor of Louisiana
 * 1994 – Gov. Lawton Chiles and Jeb Bush, candidates for Governor of Florida
 * 1998 – Sen. Bob Graham vs. State Sen. Charlie Crist, candidates for U.S. Senate from Florida
 * January 2000 – in New Hampshire involving Republican candidates for President
 * January 2000 – in New Hampshire involving Democratic candidates for President
 * 2000 – Bill McCollum vs. Bill Nelson, candidates for U.S. Senate from Florida
 * September 2000 – in Buffalo Rep. Rick Lazio and First Lady Hillary Clinton, candidates for U.S. Senate from New York
 * October 2000 – involving candidates for U.S. Senate from Florida
 * 2002 – Bill McBride and Gov. Jeb Bush, candidates for Governor of Florida
 * 2002 – Shannon O'Brien vs. Mitt Romney, candidates for Governor of Massachusetts
 * 2004 – Betty Castor and HUD Secretary Mel Martinez, candidates for U.S. Senate from Florida
 * October 2005 – A.G. Jerry Kilgore and Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine, candidates for governor of Virginia
 * November 2006 – in Orlando Sen. Bill Nelson and Rep. Katherine Harris, candidates for U.S. Senate from Florida
 * September 2007 – in New Hampshire involving Democratic candidates for U.S. President
 * October 2007 – (co-moderator) of debate in Philadelphia involving Democratic candidates for U.S. president
 * January 2008 – in Boca Raton, Florida, involving Republican candidates for President
 * January 2008 – in Las Vegas, Nevada, involving Democratic candidates for President
 * March 2008 – (co-moderator) at Cleveland State between Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama, Democratic candidates for U.S. President

title: Tim Russert


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Pokhara Premier League

Pokhara Premier League (पोखरा प्रिमियर लिग) is a franchise Twenty20 cricket tournament held in Nepal. The tournament is managed by Queen's Event Management.

The league is an auction-based tournament where players will be sold based on different price ceilings.

Led by the board member of Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN), Chhumbi Lama, the idea of organizing it in Pokhara is mainly to create a benchmark for domestic cricket, initiate sports tourism mechanism within the region and establish it as one of the cricketing hubs within the country. All matches are shown be live on Himalayan TV HD. This is the third largest national level league played in Nepal. Before this, Everest Premier League and Dhangadhi Premier League were two national level hitting leagues.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Pokhara Premier League


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Cheque clearing

Cheque clearing (or check clearing in American English) or bank clearance is the process of moving cash (or its equivalent) from the bank on which a cheque is drawn to the bank in which it was deposited, usually accompanied by the movement of the cheque to the paying bank, either in the traditional physical paper form or digitally under a cheque truncation system. This process is called the clearing cycle and normally results in a credit to the account at the bank of deposit, and an equivalent debit to the account at the bank on which it was drawn, with a corresponding adjustment of accounts of the banks themselves. If there are not enough funds in the account when the cheque arrived at the issuing bank, the cheque would be returned as a dishonoured cheque marked as non-sufficient funds.

England
Cheques came into use in England in the 1600s. The person to whom the cheque was drawn (the "payee") could go to the drawer's bank ("the issuing bank") and present the cheque and receive payment. Before payment, the drawer's bank would check that the cheque was in order – e.g., that the signature was that of the drawer, that the date was valid, that the cheque was properly set out, etc. Alternatively, the payee could deposit the cheque with their own bank who would arrange for it to be presented to the issuing bank for payment.

Until around 1770 an informal exchange of cheques took place between London banks. Clerks of each bank visited all of the other banks to exchange cheques, whilst keeping a tally of balances between them until they settled with each other. Daily cheque clearings began around 1770 when the bank clerks met at the Six Bells, a tavern in Dove Court off Lombard Street in the City of London, to exchange all their cheques in one place and settle the balances in cash. The first organization for clearing cheques was the Bankers' Clearing House, established in London in the early 19th century. It was founded by Lubbock's Bank on Lombard Street in a single room where clerks for London banks met each day to exchange cheques and settle accounts. In 1832 Charles Babbage, who was a friend of a founder of the Clearing House, published a book on mass production, The Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, in which Babbage described how the Clearing House operated:

"In a large room in Lombard Street, about 30 clerks from the several London bankers take their stations, in alphabetical order, at desks placed round the room; each having a small open box by his side, and the name of the firm to which he belongs in large characters on the wall above his head. From time to time other clerks from every [banking] house enter the room, and passing along, drop into the box the cheques due by that firm to the house from which this distributor is sent."

Beginning at 5 pm, a clerk for each debtor bank was called to go to a rostrum to pay in cash to the Inspector of the Clearing House the amount their bank owed to other banks on that day. After all of the debtor clerks had paid the Inspector, each clerk for the banks that were owed money went to the rostrum to collect the money owed to their bank. The total cash paid by the debtor banks equaled the total cash collected by the creditor banks. On the rare occasions when the total paid did not equal the total collected, other clerks working for the Inspector would examine the paper trail of documents so that the numerical errors could be found and corrected.

During the Second World War, the Bankers' Clearing House was evacuated to the Trentham Estate in Staffordshire.

The clearing operation is now operated by the Cheque and Credit Clearing Company, the United Kingdom's clearing house.

United States
The Suffolk Bank opened the first clearing house in 1818 in Boston, and one was incorporated in New York in 1850. A clearing house for bankers was opened in Philadelphia in 1858.

The Americans improved on the British check clearing system and opened a bankers' clearing house, the Clearing House Association, in the Bank of New York on Wall Street, New York in 1853. Instead of the slow London procedure in which each bank clerk, one at a time, stepped up to an Inspector's rostrum, in the New York procedure two bank clerks from each bank all worked simultaneously. One clerk from each bank sat inside a 70 foot long oval table, while the second clerk from each bank stood outside the table facing the other clerk from the same bank. Each of the outside clerks carried a file box. When the manager signaled, all of the outside clerks stepped one position to the left, to face the next seated clerks. If a seated clerk represented a bank to which money was owed or from which money was receivable, the net amount of cash would change hands, along with checks and paper documents.

Thus several such transactions could be conducted simultaneously, across the oval table. When the manager signaled again, this procedure was repeated, so that after about six minutes, the clerks had completed all their assigned transactions and were back to their starting locations, and holding exactly the amount of cash their papers said they should be holding. Clerks were fined if they made errors and the amount of the fine increased rapidly as time passed.

The Federal Reserve System check clearing system was established in the United States in 1913 to act as a central, well-capitalized clearing house. The objective was to prevent the occasional panics, where banks would refuse to accept cheques drawn on banks whose solvency was uncertain. The Federal Reserve can physically accept and transport cheques.

Operation
When a bank customer deposits a cheque, which may be drawn on any bank, the bank would credit the depositor's account with the amount of the cheque. However, the amount so credited is "not available" to the depositor until the cheque has been cleared by the paying bank.

For cheques drawn on a customer of the same bank, the bank would, usually on the next business day, ensure that the cheque is in order and debit the account of the drawer, and the cheque would be taken to have been cleared. A cheque is not in order if, for example, the date is invalid, the drawer's signature is not like the one held by the bank, the wrong number of signatories have signed the cheque, etc. There must also be sufficient cleared funds in the account before the drawer's account is debited.

Cheques drawn on another bank (termed "the issuing bank" or "paying bank") need to be "presented" to the other bank before the deposit bank receives payment to cover the amount credited to the depositor's account. In the absence of the paying bank notifying the deposit bank of the "special clearance" of the cheque, for example, following a request from the deposit bank, the funds become available after the passing of an agreed "clearance period", commonly three business days, when the depositor's account is described as comprising "cleared funds".

If the cheque is not in order, or if there are not enough cleared funds in the account when the cheque arrived at the issuing bank, the cheque would be returned as a dishonoured cheque marked appropriately, such as "non-sufficient funds" or "present again".

All banks might have clerks to take cheques drawn on other banks to those banks, and wait for payment. Clearing houses were set up to streamline the process by collected all cheques drawn on other banks, and collecting payment from those banks for the total to be cleared.

Cheque processing
As volume grew, more efficient sorting methods were developed. Approaching the 1940s, two popular methods were Sort-A-Matic and Top Tab Key. Sort-A-Matic involved a set of metal or leather dividers numbered 00 through 99, operated to implement a form of radix sort: cheques would be sorted by hand according to the first two digits. The cheques would be removed, and each stack sorted into the same dividers by the third and fourth digits. The process was iterated until the cheques were completely sorted. Top Tab Key used a physical mechanism: holes were punched in the top of each cheque representing the values of various digits, and metal keys used to physically move them until sorted.

Magnetic ink character recognition (MICR) was developed and commercialized in the 1950s, and enabled computers to reliably read routing and account numbers and automated the sorting of paper cheques.

Electronic clearance
Cheque truncation was introduced in various countries, starting in the 1990s, to allow electronic images to be made of physical cheques, for electronic clearance.

The legalisation of remote deposit made it possible for businesses and bank customers to deposit cheques without delivering them to their own banks. In the process, a depositor would make an image of the physical cheque with a smartphone or other device, and attach the image to a deposit. The deposit bank would use the cheque image in the normal electronic clearance process, though in this case MICR data would not be available.

Electronic payments
As the automation of cheque processing improved, fully electronic payment systems obviated the need for paper. Two methods were developed: the Automated Clearing House (ACH) for smaller payments which complete in two business days, and Clearing House Interbank Payments System (CHIPS) for larger value same day payments.

 * "In 1974, ACH Associations from California, Georgia, New England and the Upper Midwest region formed NACHA within the American Bankers Association. Following that, the initial ACH rules were approved, which made Prearranged Payment and Deposit or Direct Deposit, the first ACH transaction type, effective. By 1978, it was possible for two financial institutions located anywhere in the U.S. to exchange ACH payments under a common set of rules and procedures."

 * "The automated clearinghouse (ACH) system is a nationwide network through which depository institutions send each other batches of electronic credit and debit transfers. The direct deposit of payroll, social security benefits, and tax refunds are typical examples of ACH credit transfers. The direct debiting of mortgages and utility bills are typical examples of ACH debit transfers. While the ACH network was originally used to process mostly recurring payments, the network is today being used extensively to process one-time debit transfers, such as converted check payments and payments made over the telephone and Internet."

"CHIPS is the largest private-sector U.S.-dollar funds-transfer system in the world, clearing and settling an average of $1.5 trillion in cross-border and domestic payments daily. It combines best of two types of payments systems: the liquidity efficiency of a netting system and the intraday finality of a RTGS." Organized in 1970 by eight New York banks who were members of the Federal Reserve system, CHIPS competes with the Federal Reserve for high value payments. Until 2001, CHIPS settled at the end of the day, but now provides intraday payment finality through a real-time system.

title: Cheque clearing


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Talk:Six Sigma/Archive 3

Another external link
Jobs program for management consultants. I think the article The Six Sigma Revolution should be added to the external links. It provides a good overview of Six Sigma from a well known author. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by TucsonTom (talk • contribs) 18:13, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Looks more like an opportunity for Pyzdek Consulting to advertise. Before adding your company's link, please read WP:Spam and WP:External_links.  I notice that the proprietor of Pyzdek's first name is Tom and the company is located in Tuscon.  Coincidentally your user name is User:TucsonTom.  Any relation?  --DanielPenfield 20:11, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Six Sigma is not trademarked
The article stats Six Sigma is a registered service mark and trademark of Motorola, Inc ... This is not correct. I personally spoke with Motorola and learned that they have trademarked only their stylized Six Sigma logo. The words "Six Sigma" are not trademarked. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by TucsonTom (talk • contribs) 18:04, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

6Sigma101
We added this site several times and it has been removed. I would like to put forward a case for its inclusion:

The site contains a very comprehensive glossary that includes an extensive discussion of about 300 terms and methods associated with Six Sigma:

http://www.6sigma101.com/glossary/index.htm

These include all the statistically based terms in the American Society for Quality Certified Six Sigma Black Belt Body of Knowledge.

If you look at the site, and I hope you do, you will see that it includes illustrations, formulae and worked examples. The glossary concentrates on the statistical terms, and is most detailed on those that are hardest to find in general books on statistics and quality assurance.

The site also includes a Flash-Based calculater that converts sigma level to PPM, it includes statistical tables that contain the various factors and values often used in Six Sigma. It also includes books and non-commercial links (the site does not accept paid advertising).

I have to compare this to the existing links on the Wikipedia Six Sigma entry:

- General Electric is a commercial organization. The link is to a one page, very promotional general brief on Six Sigma.

- Motorola University is a commercial training organization. The site is devoted purely to advertising its courses. It includes minimal information on Six Sigma

- Tregna is an informative site. However it contains paid advertising.

- Discover 6 Sigma looks to be non-commercial and useful

- isixsigma is a very useful resource, but it is a portal with extensive commercial advertizing. The glossary is far less comprehensive and detailed than 6sigma101.com in the statistical methods area.

I would ask you to spend a few minutes on the www.6sigma101.com site before commenting. Go through the various sections, not just the home page. If you are interested in Six Sigma I believe you will agree that it is relevant and useful, particularly for anybody who wants to go beyond the basics.

I welcome input from all contributors to this discussion.

Glen Netherwood —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Glen netherwood (talk • contribs) 01:50, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

 * I oppose the addition of this link. GE and Motorola are linked because they were forerunners.  The other three are good resources, two of which have advertising.  There's a difference between that and actually being a commercial organization that does Six Sigma training.  Having a glossary and a few other useful tools is nice, but it's ultimately part of an effort to sell training materials.  On the other hand, isixsigma, though full of ads, is simply a Six Sigma resource. --Spangineer[es]  (háblame)  11:40, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

 * I have nothing against Michael Cyger, he is doing an incredible job, but you may be missing the existance of the iSixSigma Magazine that is where the profits from iSixSigma are. It is advertized everywhere, just look at the site again. Again, nothing against Michael, just your argument is flawed and biased towards GE and Motorola. Just look at the advertizing mileage they both get from the Wikipedia.

 * Maybe it would be a good idea for the contributors to this discussion to disclose their affiliations.

(Goskan 11:51, 9 July 2006 (UTC))

 * Sure; I'm an industrial engineering student with no affiliations to any six sigma organizations. --Spangineer[es] (háblame)  12:04, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

 * So what gives you the right to decide on Six Sigma resources if you are not an expert in this area? Have you looked at our glossary at all? What do you base your opinion on? Have you evaluated other glossaries and compared them with 6sigma101 glossary? I am concerned here about jumping into conclusions. Have you looked at Motorola Category with entries like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connected_Home_Solutions Is that really more suitable for Wikipedia than a link to: http://www.6sigma101.com/glossary/topics.htm

 * Please visit the site and let us know why you consider it less relevant and useful than the above Motorola entry. (Goskan 12:30, 9 July 2006 (UTC))

 * If we want to use the "expert" argument, "what gives you the right to decide" which links should be added to Wikipedia? I've been contributing here for nearly 2 years and have participated in extensive debates over external links in the past.  However, that argument is flawed because it's ad hominem.  Also, just because I don't have affiliations doesn't mean I don't have experience.  I have a better understanding of statistics than what is provided in a typical six sigma course, and am currently crunching numbers and assisting with several green belt projects as part of my summer employment.  I agree that the glossary is well done, but let's compare apples with apples.  Wikipedia has tons of pathetic articles, but that's not the point.  The point is to compare external links.  Motorola university has two things going for it--it is from one of the first companies to implement Six Sigma (enough reason to include it) and it provides some basic resources (a small dictionary, and some short lessons).  6sigma101 has a great glossary, but it's rare to link directly to a subpage.  The site itself doesn't deserve a link (because it's one of many companies selling 6σ training).  As for isixsigma, I get the impression that the magazine is a supplement to the site, not the primary focus.  With 6sigma101, I get the impression that the glossary is a supplement to the site, not the primary focus.  My opposition stands, but let's see if anyone else cares to opine. --Spangineer[es]  (háblame)  13:09, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia has clear procedures that cover the addition of links and spamming, and commercial sites. I believe that objections on those grounds should relate to those clear procedures, and not be the opinion of individuals. Otherwise it is not a fair system.

The procedure on links refers to sites that 'contain an objectionable amount of advertising'. The site in question does not, there is no advertising on the linked page and only one link from that page to 'courses'. It also refers to sites where there is 'payment to view' the relevant resources. You do not have to pay to view the material.

There is nothing in the procedures that prohibits commercial sites or links being included. I have to say I think it would be better if all links were banned, and hope that will become the case some day. In the meantine I would like a level playing field where everybody plays by the same rules.

If you can point to any way in which the proposed link conflicts with Wikipedia procedures, please let me know so we can discuss it.

(Glen Netherwood 12:50, 9 July 2006 (UTC))

 * Number 4, WP:EL, "primarily exist to sell products or services". --Spangineer[es] (háblame)  13:09, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

The passage you refer to is in the section "Links normally to be avoided" and below the heading it says "Except where noted the below do NOT override the list of what should be linked to". The list of "What should be linked to" includes "Sites that contain neutral and accurate material not already in the article". I believe the link is clearly in the spirit of section 5 of "What should be linked to" and therefore should stand.

If you look through 6sigma101 and consider the amount of work involved in creating it then you will understand that there is no way it could be justified as a marketing activity. It is a free resource to the six sigma comunity, with some peripheral spinoff benefits to our separate commercial site. My mission in life is to educate people on the benefits of applying statistical methods to process improvement, and the 6sigma101 site supports that mission. I would be very surprised if anybody who saw the link on this page went on to do one of our courses; there might be some small advantage in increasing the amount of traffic but it is fairly marginal.

Note that there is no direct marketing on the 6sigma101 site, and it is a different site to our training course site. It does have a link to our separate commercial site, but there are no advertisements in the site at all.

In any case doesn't the isixsigma site primarily exist to sell products or services. The procedure does not distinguish between promoting your own products and those of others; or to put it another way isixsigma primarily exists to sell its advertising service. I don't see how you can argue for one and against the other.

(Glen Netherwood 13:47, 9 July 2006 (UTC))

Commercial links

 * Discover 6 Sigma is a personal website that appears intended to promote Sanjaya Kumar Saxena.
 * Six Sigma 101 appears to be operated by and intended to promote MiC Quality and consultant Glen Netherwood
 * TreQna is just a web forum; no internal review, no assurance of reliability, and has conspicuous advertising
 * i Six Sigma, as I write this, sports three animated banner ads at the top, five at the right side, eleven at the bottom, and one in the middle of content that consists only of links... and for all I know those links are paid ads, too.

Dpbsmith (talk) 20:20, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

 * This was thoroughly discussed previously, so let's leave the previous consensus as is until we reach a new consensus. I'll respond shortly. --Spangineer[es]  (háblame)  21:02, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

 * And Motorola University is NOT a commercial site? What do you see when you follow the link? (Goskan 22:47, 9 July 2006 (UTC))

 * A blatantly commercial site. You're right. It should go, too. As developer of the methodology, I assumed the link was to something less promotional. My mistake. Perhaps there's something better at that site? But Six Sigma Articles also has a regrettably low signal-to-noise ratio. Dpbsmith (talk) 23:41, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I have been removing the 6sigma101 link because it is being gratuitously spammed, but have made no comment yet regarding whether 6sigma101 should be added to the article or not. At this point though I must weight in. It appears to me that we have one editor (or a husband/wife team) here using sockpuppets or meatpuppets to disrupt Wikipedia by repeatedly adding the link, adding inappropriate hidden comments to the articles regarding the link, removing portions of talk pages he/she disagrees with. This behavior alone would likely be enough to keep this link off the articles. However it has been revealed above that the site seems to be primarily to promote, guess who, Glen Netherwood. The link additions have violated nearly every criteria of "how not to be a spammer" in WP:SPAM. I recommend against adding this link to any article unless enough neutral third parties feel it is useful. --AbsolutDan (talk) 00:25, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

 * Calling me a "sidekick" or "sockpuppet" is highly offensive and sexist. Could someone eblighten me what Wikipedia policy stands against this? (a simple search in Google would reveal existance of TWO people, I am also the business manager, NOT a "sidekick") There must be also a Wikipedia policy against people like AbsolutDan ("absolut" for "absolute power"?) exceeding their authority and willingly discrediting others in a public forum. (Goskan 01:02, 10 July 2006 (UTC))

 * I didn't invent the terms "sockpuppet" or "meatpuppet"; if you would follow this link WP:SOCK you'll see they are Wikipedia-accepted terms for the editing behavior we see here. Sexist? How do you figure? And, for the record, the word "absolute" and the vodka brand "Absolut" are not the same. Please note which one is part of my username. --AbsolutDan (talk) 01:20, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

 * Assuming women having inferior positions is SEXIST. Vodka explains a lot. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Goskan (talk • contribs) 01:35, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

 * I could say that assuming the Vodka has any particular influence on my editing is an attack as well. However, in the interest of keeping this from turning into a flame war, I won't worry about that. Instead, I offer my apologies for the way that my comments were interpreted. I was inferring that Mr. Netherwood began this debate, and that you came in afterwards to back him up. I can assure you that there was no assumption of inferiority of any kind. Again, I apologize for the misunderstanding. --AbsolutDan (talk) 01:48, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

 * They should all go, except the GE link. I'm undoing my last edit because I've let myself get angry and that last edit may have violated the three-revert rule, but all of the links I mentioned above fall under the guideline External links, point #4: Links that are added to promote a site, that primarily exist to sell products or services, with objectionable amounts of advertising. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:51, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

 * I second that. According to the rules of consensus (as I understand it being a novice to Wikipedia) that makes it 2 to 1 and only GE link should stay till any other consensus is reached.(Goskan 01:43, 10 July 2006 (UTC))

Hi all, I am yet to go through the 101 site but how will removing the motorola link serve any purpose? Did you see how many times it is linked in the references section? Goskan, here's the guideline on consensus as seen in wikipedia.

Its good to hear fresh comments on the external link debate. Without giving my inputs to begin with, I would request the new contributors to the past discussions regarding these and other external links. Then lets continue the discussion further. -- Lost 03:48, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

 * I can't believe how much time has been wasted on this issue. First of all, any Six Sigma website is going to be either ad supported or selling something.

 * Then none of them should be mentioned in the article. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:06, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

 * Let me know when you find an independent, foundation supported, non-profit organization teaching businessmen Six Sigma for free. I wouldn't waste too much time looking. If you'd like we can scrap the entire External Links section and get on with life.

 * Sounds like the right thing to do. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:06, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

 * Or, we can include good, but not perfect, external links that serve our readers. ISixSigma does have alot of advertising, and I wouldn't mind removing it.  It appears high on google anyway.  Treqna is a good resource, it's free, and there isn't that much advertising.  It's "unverified", but really so is everything else.  Discover6Sigma is a good resource as well, but is a blog.  I'm not too attached to it either, but I will point out that the author politely suggested that it be added here and did not repeatedly spam this article. 6Sigma101 should not be added, as a result of its own merits and the fact that its creators have spammed the article with no respect for Wikipedia guidelines on consensus.  May I suggest the following links:
 * GE
 * Motorola (even if it is commercial, they were pioneers)
 * ASQ certification
 * IQF certification
 * ASQ magazine (good resource, no ads, probably the only link that qualifies as a "reliable source")
 * Treqna
 * Talk amongst yourselves; last time I participated in a debate over the external links of this page I wasted hours and hours of my time, and I'm not going to do it again. I'm sick and tired of spammers being allowed to come in and disrupt everything.  The current consensus isn't perfect, but has anyone ever heard of the law of diminishing returns?  I have, and I'm not going to waste ten more hours trying to get from good to slightly better. --Spangineer[es]  (háblame)  12:18, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

 * Do not include links to home pages whose primary purpose to promote or sell commercial Six Sigma consultation services. If there are internal deep links to articles on these sites that contain valuable, non-promotional information, they could be included. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:06, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

 * Just a concept ... by removing ALL, without exception, commercial links, the discussion could revert back to the topic. Most everyone knows how to search using their favorite search engine for six sigma. This topic has now grown large enough with enough information that perhaps commercial external links are no longer required. What do you think? (Jim Winings 24 July 2006)

Final Message from 6sigma101
We made additions to Wikipedia with good intentions of providing links to good quality content (visit http://www.6sigma101.com/ for proof of that, the glossary is very comprehensive and useful for anyone involved in Six Sigma). We had NO INTENTION to do anything wrong as all links were to DIFFERENT, RELEVANT content. 6sigma101 has only FREE, accessible resources. It has NO ADVERTIZING, just menu links to our courses on http://www.micquality.com/ site (we thought that our courses could be also useful although only Introduction to Statistics module is free). In some cases 6Sigma101 glossary has much more content than Wikipedia and we were considering to move some our copyrighted content into articles in Wikipedia. However, with the relentless hunting and putting bad label on us we no longer have plans to contribute to Wikipedia. We believe that the efforts of Wikipedia spam police should be focussed on people contributing links to advertizing and sites with no free, relevant and useful content. We have tried to remove all our contributions and our accounts but, unfortunately, they were all restored against our will. However, as we have nothing to hide, and our entries have argued for the suitability of our content for Wikipedia, we will not go through the lengthy process of having them removed. We plan no longer to make any contributions. The founders and managers for MiC Quality and 6Sigma101.(Goskan 02:56, 10 July 2006 (UTC))
 * I am sorry to hear this. I am sure nobody intended to drive you away from here. I request you to be patient. Please allow time for consensus to build. - Lost 04:22, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

 * I concur. Though discussion can get heated at times, we value the knowledge that every editor has, and hope that you will stay and make useful contributions to this project. --AbsolutDan (talk) 04:45, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

 * This is Sanjaya Kumar Saxena. I am removing http://www.discover6sigma.org/ as my intention is not to promote myself & I am sincere wikipedian; my objective is to serve the quality community. Just to highlight that I had even revamped the 6 sigma article to wikify it. I request the community to kindly do not add this link again. Thanks a lot! --Sanjayaksaxena

More criticism than definition
The article as it is written seems more of a criticism than a definition. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 131.107.0.72 (talk • contribs) 16:51, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
 * probably written by a motorola employee :o) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 172.201.31.222 (talk) 18:51, 15 April 2007 (UTC).

The "Application" section
While I appreciate that most of the subsections are cited, they seem to read like a list of corporate testimonials and not serve any real purpose in the articel. I'm wary of just ripping ½ the articel out, but don't have any ideas how to rework it. Anyone else think this way? 68.39.174.238 23:45, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong
To my knowledge, one of the application of the six sigma is for Operations Management
 * Well you are right. Six sigma can actually be used in all disciplines that entail a process -- Lost (talk) 03:55, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Yah, it can be used on the toppest level of UN operation to the lowest level of toilet cleaning, right? :-)

Test for Normality
I reckon this tool needs to be addressed extensively to include Histogram in six sigma 164.67.226.59unknown

"Unfortunately, there are no means for proving that data belong to any particular distribution. One can only assume normality, based on finding no evidence to the contrary." While technically correct, this is a bit misleading. It's very easy to prove data do not belong to a particular distribution, and the assumption of normality only makes sense under some circumstances. I suggest there be at least a sentence to elaborate, explaining testing normality. 164.67.226.59 20:48, 6 September 2007 (UTC)bagsc

One of 5 why's
Why were hypothesis testing methods not included?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothesis_testing

Did the front page break these techs down to individual method?

shouldn't Process Maps be hypertexted?
It has the concept at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_Maps

I suggest...
Process Capability Analysis needs to be listed directly on the front page instead of displaying it via Statistical Process Control

Also the content from the external link at

http://www.statgraphics.com/capability_analysis.htm

should be integrated

I've gonna to list the tools alphabetically

Software for Six Sigma
I have added one section of Software for Six Sigma. Please make comments and review it critically —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.59.220.210 (talk • contribs).

 * Removed the inline external links, this isn't a directory to software company websites. It will suffice to list the names of the software and use internal links where applicable. Femto 13:57, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

minitab software is specific for 6 Sigma. Gustavo BArroca lgbarroca@estadao.com.br

-- Sorry, but unless something radical has changed minitab is not specific to 6 Sigma. It's statistical software that at least up until v13 required a plug-in for Six Sigma specific calculations (there aren't that many, most are standard stat stuff). The six sigma community has adopted minitab as a useful tool that depending on which org trains you and what the company adopts is more or less standard, but it's not specifically designed for it, nor exclusive to it. -- LaylahM 6/23/2007

Hospital slashers
Why do I somehow feel bothered by the imagery suggested by the language
 * "...A Six Sigma process improvement team charged with getting heart attack patients from the Emergency Department into the cardiac catheterization lab for treatment faster slashed 41 minutes off the hospital's mean time?"

Yes, I know the hospital wasn't being mean to its patients, and I know they were slashing time, not catheters or arteries, but it still seems like an unfortunate choice of words.

It always trips my BS detector when I see things like "slashed 41 minutes." Does anyone believe that they have enough statistical data to measure the mean time with a standard deviation of less than a minute? Are they sure it wasn't 40 or 42? False precision always suggests the involvement of marketeers, not statisticians.

As I finally get to the real point, how do we know that the Six Sigma methodology, as such, deserves any credit for this? How do we know that just as good results might not have been obtained had management had given the same backing to a group of people and told them just to rethink the process using common sense?

I think this is propaganda, and doesn't belong in the article... unless someone can cite a published research study in a peer-reviewed journal about this hospital, which shows that the claimed results were really attributable to Six Sigma. Dpbsmith (talk) 13:05, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

 * See "Application" above. This "quote farm" has irked me in the past and honestly seems totally useless to the articel while occupying the space people would expect be used to explain exactly what this thing (6S) is. Since I now know I'm not the only one who takes issue with this bad formatting, I'm going to remove that section and see if it helps out any. 68.39.174.238 02:44, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Tagging
I don't believe that the article is unbalanced; the only criticisms of Six Sigma are included in one paragraph, clearly labeled. Perhaps the article has been corrected from its original unbalanced nature? The tag should be removed.

Gloriamarie 13:57, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

 * I think that the intro needs balancing, it reads a bit too much like an ad: "The two companies have reported to have saved literally billions of dollars" Come on... yandman

 * This article looks to me like it's cut-and-pasted from a brochure. Unless someone wants to rewrite this as a neutral discussion of the methodology, I'd recommend it for deletion.

 * I must say that I tend to agree with the statement that this article may be unbalanced. I missed the criticisms, balanced discussion of the feilds that it have been more or less successfully applied in and any mention of competig methedologies.  This article should be improved to include this. Mark 16:03, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

 * "Literally" billions of dollars? As opposed to what, metaphorically billions of dollars? Figuratively billions of dollars? 216.198.93.222 14:16, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Today's Dilbert
Today's Dilbert makes a reference to Six Sigma saying "already been widely discredited" and "Fortune magazine says... blah, blah... most companies that used Six Sigma have trailed the S&P 500". Does anyone know where Scott Adams can have got that from? If there is a good source for it, that kind of statement should go into this article. Mlewan 08:10, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Here's the fortune link . But I'd advise against putting it in the article because:

 * It is taken out of context
 * It is based on research by someone who advocates a competing methodology.
 * There are no details given as to how it was arrived at nor any data accompanying it.

 * Cheers — Lost (talk) 09:09, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

 * That may be, but it is a verifiable statement from a reliable source. It should go in the article. If you have a verifiable statement from a reliable source that attacks the Fortune article on the basis you mention, that should go in, too. Dpbsmith (talk) 21:31, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

 * I just put it in, and attempted to be as neutral as possible. I point out that Fortune attributes the statement to a competitor, and also point out that the gist of the Fortune article is not that Six Sigma is discredited or ineffective, but that it is focussed on improving existing processes and therefore does not help companies if that is not what they need to do. Dpbsmith (talk) 21:47, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

 * I agree with Dpbsmith above, but more to the point there are two threads of legitimacy here.  I think something about perceptions of Six Sigma in popular culture could suitable in the article, and Dilbert has certainly made references to it before.   The the more scholarly arguments and rebuttals should also be presented as Dpbsmith suggests.   - PhilipR 21:08, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

 * Yep. I see no problem the way Dpbsmith puts it — Lost (talk) 02:17, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Here's the comic link until it expires. Femto 14:19, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

 * I must learn to read the talk page! Have just added a reference under trivia - but of course you are right the reference will quickly die.  I should probably revert it myself before someone else does.  Springnuts 21:15, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

criticisms
Could somebody who is knowledgable put a better criticism section? Currently there is nothing, except for what is mentioned under triva. Mathmo Talk 13:57, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

 * I do not know how much well referenced criticism is available, but I do not like the speed with which criticism has been removed from this article. It seems someone with interest in the methodology is defending it. I can accept that the Dilbert references were removed, but it is very disappointing that it happened without comments and motivation. Mlewan 05:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello I have written a criticism here:

Six Sigma critics: Shewhart/Deming Statistical Process Control vs Six Sigma

but don't know how to include it on wikipedia as it seemed locked.

Dilbert
I've reinserted it. Please discuss here before removing it. This is Wikipedia. The appropriate policies are WP:V and WP:NPOV. This means that, particularly in a criticisms section, we do not attempt to judge "truth" or to remove critical material because we judge it to be invalid.

In a criticisms section, the questions to be asked are the same as those about any opinion:

 * Is the opinion properly sourced? That is, do we know the specific person who voiced the opinion, and are we sure they really said it? (As opposed to weasel terms like "many think" or "some hold" which leave open the possibility that the opinion is merely that of the contributor)

 * Does the opinion accurately describe an opinion held by a reasonably important group of people?

For the Dilbert cartoon, the answer to both is "yes."

As WP:NPOV says, we don't assert opinions, but we do assert facts about opinions. The Dilbert cartoon and the article to which it refers are indeed "facts about opinions." An appearance in Dilbert is reasonable as an indication that the opinion that "Six Sigma is a discredited fad" does exist within the business community.

If someone has in turn published something that convincingly undermines the Dilbert strip, under the neutrality policy the appropriate thing would be to add a reference to the published source of the opposing opinion, not to remove the Dilbert material. Dpbsmith (talk) 21:50, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I disagree. Firstly, who's opinion does the dilbert cartoon reflect?  Its not sufficient to say that it indicates that its an opinion that exists within the business community, because that doesn't tell me anything specific of who holds the opinion, or how prevalent it is.  Also, how do we know this indicates that the opinion is prevalent in the business community?  The author of the comic strip may just have a bias against six sigma.  Or, he may just have thought it would make for a funny comic.  The point is, a comic strip cannot be reliably used in this way to infer anything specific about anyone's opinions about six sigma.  I also think it is a notability issue.  The magazine article is worth citing, but the fact that it was referenced in a single dilbert cartoon hardly seems notable.  Should we mention dilbert comics that focus on a given topic in every wikipedia article to which there exists such a comic?

Remainder of Criticisms section
As a matter of fact, the Dilbert mention and the Fortune article it refers to are the only things in the section that are sourced. The remainder of this section should be sourced or removed. Dpbsmith (talk) 21:53, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

http://www.qualitydigest.com/may00/html/sixsigmacon.html I don't know how to add footnote links, but here's a good article that substantiates much of the criticism section, which incidentally, could stand to be expanded rather than shortened. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.225.141.201 (talk • contribs).

Which is it?
The opening sentences read:

 * Six Sigma is a business improvement methodology, originally developed by Motorola to systematically improve processes by eliminating defects. Defects are defined as units that are not members of the intended population.

The next sentence states something totally different:
 * The objective of Six Sigma is to deliver high performance, reliability, and value to the end customer.

If the objective of Six Sigma to improve processes by eliminating defects? That is very different from delivering high performance, as one can have defect-free low-performance produccts. It certainly is different from delivering value to the end customer, as customers may place widely differing values on defect rates; customers that do their own testing of 100% of incoming parts, for example, might well value cheaper products with a higher defect rates over more expensive products with a lower but non-zero defect rate. It isn't even the same thing as reliability.

So, which is it? Which is the correct definition of Six Sigma? If there are two widely different definitions, they should be stated separately and it should be explained which organizations use which definition.

Personally, I suspect the first definition is correct, and that the second is just marketing talk intended to promote the methodology. Dpbsmith (talk) 21:30, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

 * I agree, Six Sigma is all about internal operations and has nothing to do with the customers. I think we can safely remove the sentence from the intro. -- Emana 00:10, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

 * D00D, you really should strive to understand the subject before commenting. Quality improvement efforts such as Six Sigma are all about the customer, whether internal or external.  See the ISO definition under Total Quality Management, Quality function deployment, or the original Mikel Harry paper, "The Nature of Six Sigma Quality," which states
 * In order for an organization to survive, it must provide its customers with a quality product, at the right price, on time.
 * Having said that, IMHO, the first definition is better since it actually mentions elimination of variation (defects), though it still comes up short on customer focus. The second definition is misleading for the reasons cited by the original poster:  the focus of Six Sigma is elimination of variation, not the optimization of features (e.g., performance). --DanielPenfield 13:13, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Daniel, thanks for your comment, and I must apologize for the extreme statement that I have made that Six Sigma has "nothing" to do with customers. I should have said that, "the objective of Six Sigma is not to quantify or measure customer satisfaction but rather compare results to customer demands or specs". And I should have noted that the second statement is actually pointing to the organization itself that has implemented Six Sigma, not the end product. So maybe it could be reworded as, "The implementation of Six Sigma can help an organization to deliver products to its end customers at a higher performance level, reliability, and value"... although that is a side benefit that may not be realized any time soon. It very much does sound like marketing. Also, I am too old and frail to have somebody exclaim "D00D" at me :) -- Emana 18:48, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

"Or put another way"
The article first defines Six Sigma as "a methodology to reduce defect levels below 3.4 Defects Per (one) Million Opportunities (DPMO)" and then continues with a portion which I've snipped:
 * or put another way, a methodology of controlling a process to the point of plus or minus six sigma (standard deviations) from a centerline (for a total span of twelve sigma).

The first part is supposed by the cited source, which says "A metric of Six Sigma equates to 3.4 DPMO."

I see two problems with the "put another way" portion. One has to do with the ("goofy") definition of Six Sigma. It is correct to describe Six Sigma as having the goal of reducing defect levels below 3.4 DPMO, because that is the definition that practitioners use. But it is incorrect to talk about it as being connected to an actual value of six sigmas, because 3.4 DPMO corresponds to 4.5σ, as discussed later in the article.

Second, "controlling a process to the point of plus or minus six sigma (standard deviations) from a centerline (for a total span of twelve sigma)" just can't be right. It would imply that a process controlled to three sigmas would be under tighter control than one controlled to six! As the article explains later, "sigma refers to the number of standard deviations between the process mean and the nearest specification limit, rather than the standard deviation of the process." Dpbsmith (talk) 20:49, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Unsourced "Six Sigma" companies
I'm moving these here. They shouldn't be reinserted without source citations. Without a source, among other things, how do we know how deep or how wide the commitment is? Do these companies, themselves, call themselves "Six Sigma companies" in so many words? Is all of Honeywell (say) using Six Sigma? Or just a department or a pilot project? (Personally, I've certainly run into situations where a vendor or consultant brags that its products or services are used by a long list of big, famous companies, when, on examination, the truth is that one small department in the big, famous company is using it...)

Sources shouldn't be too hard to find, since companies are usually eager to publicize their quality initiatives. I'll be taking a look myself and will put them back if I find sources, but, of course, finding sources is the job of the editor who inserts the material. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:23, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Ford
 * Honeywell
 * Dow Chemical Company

Protection
Regarding the spam/vandalism from various IPs, adding links to
 * treqna.com
 * isixsigma.com
 * (and recently isixisigma.com, whether it's a deliberate hijack, or a result of simple stupidity, blindly reverting to an older version with a typo, I don't know.)

I think it's safe to assume we're dealing with a single but very persistent person.

 * Interesting to note that treqna.com is registered to Kashif Razzaqui, Gurgaon, Haryana, India, same location as several of the IPs below, which surely can't be a conincidence.

IP ranges involved:
 * 59.144.188.0 - 59.144.192.255 : BTNL Delhi - location: Delhi, India
 * 61.246.11.0 - 61.246.11.255 : BTNL Delhi - location: Delhi, India
 * 61.246.65.0 - 61.246.65.255 : BTNL Delhi - location: Delhi, India
 * 61.246.80.0 - 61.246.80.255 : BTNL Delhi - location: Delhi, India
 * 125.23.21.0 - 125.23.21.255 : Bharti Televentures Ltd. - ABTS - location: Delhi, India
 * 125.23.54.0 - 125.23.54.255 : Bharti Televentures Ltd. - ABTS - location: Gurgaon, Haryana, India
 * 125.23.61.0 - 125.23.61.255 : Bharti Televentures Ltd. - ABTS - location: Gurgaon, Haryana, India
 * 125.23.84.0 - 125.23.84.255 : Bharti Televentures Ltd. - ABTS - location: Delhi, India
 * 203.109.64.0 - 203.109.127.255 : Iqara Telecom India Pvt Ltd - location: Gurgaon, Haryana, India
 * 219.91.128.0 - 219.91.255.255 : Iqara Telecom India Pvt Ltd - location: Surat, Gujarat, India
 * 122.160.0.0 - 122.175.255.255 : BHARTI INFOTEL LTD., Delhi, India

Their relevant edits:
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 * "There are 4 links in all. GE, Motorola, Treqna and isixsigma, so idiot called Femto keeps reversing this!!":
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 * (diff)  location: Denver, Colorado, US. Perhaps unrelated, not the usual pattern. Seems to be a shared access node of Qwest Corporation.
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 * "Adding one website, I found useful." - sneak it in as innocent passer-by, nice try:
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 * "I think this site should be on, its a tome of information, I don't give a fuck about the stupid discussion going on abt external links..." - first sign of open disregard of consensus process:
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 * A series of "screw the debate its one sided" reverts, leading to 3 days semi-protection. Blindly overwriting any subsequent edits, a behavior that will be continued in later attacks:
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 * "The battle continues - femto fu":
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 * "Havent you heard of dynamic IPs or TOR - retard who thinks he owns this page will get owned." - An open threat for edit warring with proxies, which I took seriously enough in order to protect the page again for a week.

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Unlike our friend from India, I'm still open to consensus on including these links, however I fail to see how they meet WP:EL, and it remains my personal opinion that this article doesn't need any external link section at all.

This has been going on long enough. One option, aside from letting abusive spammer IPs have their way, would be to blacklist treqna.com, though I don't think it would be appropriate yet for isixsigma.com. The edits come from dynamic IPs, individual blocks are not a feasible option. Since this activity is persistent and long-term, and apparently limited to this article, I'm feeling justified to semi-protect for a longer period, say 9 months. If anyone wants to review, be my guest. Femto 20:48, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

--- I'm new and apologize for it, having just read the thread on the whole to-include not-to-include link arguments, I'm not really anxious to continue it, but did at least want to point out as a Six Sigma practitioner something about iSixSigma (no I don't sell Six Sigma, train, or have any affilitations with the companies that do -- I'm a consultant who does Six Sigma projects for companies that need my help). Yes, the site is heavily promoted and has lots and lots and lots of advertising on it, but think of all that crap like bilboards on the highway, the reason it's that way is because Six Sigma professionals (especially new ones) go there to get information and take advantage of the job shop and discussion forums. So advertisers flock to and use it to take advantage of the really high volume of their target audience that goes there, but it's original intent and puropose is not really to advertise those services. With the relatively newer iSixSigma magazine (big, glossy, and commercial) it's focus may have changed since I frequented it a lot. Don't know if this helps with applying any criteria to whether or not to include it. My own opinion is no. Though I love the site and find it very useful, I would direct someone I was mentoring to the site and tell them to jump into the discussions to get peer perspectives and help, but not to someone who just wanted to learn more about it. --LaylahM 21:26, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Roles required for implementation
The "Roles required for implementation" section says there are 5 roles, yet lists 6. I considered simply changing the "5" to 6, but then that number may disagree with the referenced book. Does anyone know if the book defines 5 roles or 6?

 * Dunno about the book, my guess is that greenbelts are not required. Writing as a greenbelt that is certainly my experience. Greglocock 10:47, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

 * Unfortunately, the problem is that the roles are not standardized in terms specifically of what roles are necessary at any given organization or what definition they all use. I mean there are the five fundamental basic ones you'll find nearly everywhere but maybe called different things;  CEO/Deployment Champion, Champion, Master Black Belt, Black Belt, & Greenbelt.  (Experts are sometimes the same thing as the Black Belt or the Master Black Belt or the Champion, just depends.)  It is going to depend on what your organization looks like and what they *choose* to implement.  (A major reason for the wonky results and mixed results of six sigma is really bad stupid decisions about how to deploy it by company executives that just don't get it -- i.e. they want to take the diet pill not do any exercise eat bacon burgers every day and still lose 100lbs in three months.)  Different six sigma deployment companies, for lack of a better way to define them, will have their own recommendations and standards that they advise their client company to adopt, but there is no one STANDARD definition of what roles are required.   I could give my own experience and opinion, but they'd be just that, opinion.  If you can find a way to phrase this section to indicate that there are different make-ups and here are the definitions of the various roles, instead of here are the roles one has to have.... Because honestly, a lot of organizations are also implementing a Yellow Belt role that, when I was getting certified, was thought of as a joke.   On a side note, as a Black Belt, I have to say that greenbelts are critical, but that's my own opinion.  --LaylahM 21:39, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Incredibly shitty article
This article is drek. It reads like a brochure for Six Sigma. It's vague, full of corporate jargon and completely unhelpful at explaining just what the hell Six Sigma IS to a layman who's not already familiar with it or with things similar to it. I started looking at how I could improve it but gave up in disgust after realising the article in its current form is NOT salvageable. Jesus Christ, this entry makes me feel embarassed as a USER of Wikipedia, let alone at someone who writes for it.

Utterly worthless
I could not agree more. No sane human could read this mishmash of gibberish and come out with any idea of what Six Sigma is actually about (beyond vague handwaving about "eliminating defects", which are barely even defined), or how it works, or what the alleged benefits of it are, or how well it actually works. While ambiguous, vapid, shady nonsense may be exactly what Six Sigma is about, the article itself need not reflect that.

This Article Sucks
I think I'm dumber after reading it. This article immediately screams that it's selling Six Sigma. Anyone ever work on a proposal for a government contract? You know, the basic stuff, like working resumes? It sounds a lot like that: says a lot that sounds impressive, but doesn't actually say or do anything. Maybe that's not a good analogy if you've never worked on one.

 * Ye, but I think many of these concerns could be answered by expanding the "criticisms" section. After all, many substantive criticisms of Six Sigma (as opposed to criticisms of this article on that topic) involve claims that it is little more than a marketing ploy that lacks substantive benefits.  Although expanding the "criticism" section should only be the first step...the rest of the article probably should be cleaned up at some point too. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.225.141.201 (talk • contribs).

 * I agree with previous posts, it needs a rewrite. Expanding the cirticism is going to just slant the article or make it more confusing, because the primary thing the criticism would be about hasn't been explained well.  At a minimum a big overhaul.--LaylahM 21:58, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

More Criticism
Existing criticism is weak at best. This crap is just a jobs program for management consultants disguised as nonsense.

A Religion?
I'm a medical research and development person and reading this out of curiosity. This 6-sigma movement seems to have the traits of a religion. I agree with the stark criticism above. There is so little meat. All the acronyms like DMAIC, DMADV, etc. are just words. The whole idea of measuring outcomes of interventions is so obvious to medical professionals and all these empty words made around it don't seem to do anything. The key questions are: How much variance is good enough (those numbers 6, 4.5, 1.5, whatever are irrelevant)? Are your variance measurements valid predictors of target outcomes (e.g. customer satisfaction, bottom line, not the same thing)? How do you measure those target outcomes? How do you reconcile divergent target outcomes (e.g., customer satisfaction vs. bottom line). How do you change the process? These are just the naive questions. This article answers none of them despite all the words that it makes. Gschadow 21:25, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

 * After trying to read the article, I have _less_ of an idea what Six Sigma is supposed to be than before I came here. It does sound like a quasi-religious cult of some sort. I wouldn't be surprised if it possesses several of the attributes that the French government considers indicative of a dangerous cult. The article itself is worse than worthless. I think it should be rewritten completely, but for that we need someone who actually knows anything about it. Krum Stanoev 17:38, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

> The basic precepts of six sigma really are as simple as 1) figure out what your customer wants before you try to deliver it, 2) figure out what the problem really is before you decide what the solution is, 3) make sure the solution (or fix) actually fixes the root problem before you implement it, and 4) make sure you can sustain the improvement once you do implement it. Or if you are designing something new then design it so it doesn't have preventable problems. And yes, most people will say "well that's just common sense!" but when you actually deal with the people managing the real world businesses and processes or doing the work, forget it. As a professional, working in the medical industry for years, no it isn't universally or even commonly accepted to approach business decisions and problem solving this way, not even close. I've got the scars, gray hairs, and stress disorders to prove it. And have seen good people get villainized for attempting to approach problems with this and many other "common sense" approaches.

My point is, this article does not say what Six Sigma is and it does use all the gobbeldy-gook catch-phrasing that muddles the whole thing. But, all the statistical analysis components of this article that need to be cleaned up and put into better context currently just side-track understanding... At the time Six Sigma emerged, anchoring the way you solve a business/manufacturing problem with statistics was a very revolutionary way to approach business/manufacturing/design problems, because so few people actually did (do) it and because of the way in which those analytical tools get applied, and when. But the statistical analysis is only one part of a multifaceted methodology. And though nearly all of the principles and tools already existed, what Six Sigma attempts to do is apply an interpretation of the rigor and order in which the tools get applied to achieve a 1) nearly perfectly operating process/service/product that 2) meets the customer's requirements, 3) can be delivered effectively and efficiently 4) at the least (hopefully a significantly reduced) cost to the company or organization. --and yes, I have seen it do that. But honestly most businesses, and health care is one of the worst, could see an improvement from just applying any methodology consistently to what they do. I read IT and medical papers all the time and don't debunk them just because I don't know the terminology or just because they sometimes (as a layperson) seem to glory in using so much of it. This article just failed to make it accessible for the layperson, that doesn't mean the whole concept or methodology is junk.

I am a professional who has been lucky enough to see it work and also seen it fail miserably, but Six Sigma is no perfect idol and I certainly don't worship at it's altar and aside from the momentary vigorous defense of it here I don't prostheletize it either, it's just a set of tools I can use to help solve problems. Like with anything, it's what people do with it that either make it brilliant or a waste of time; groundbreaking or a lot of hot air.--LaylahM 02:41, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

University of Michigan link
I would like to respectfully propose the addition of a link to the University of Michigan College of Engineering's Six Sigma Black Belt page, [http://cpd.engin.umich.edu/website/proedinfo.htm?id=22&itemid=57. This is a new website, to be up next week, with links to numerous six sigma programs including transactional-focused six sigma, (not described on the current Wikipedia page), short descriptions of the techniques used, and bios of well-known researchers. I am an affiliate of the College of Engineering here at U of M. (Jessicahullman 20:36, 9 April 2007 (UTC))

 * Far as I see, the main purpose of this site is to sell educational courses. I also see no immediate content that would warrant inclusion in an encyclopedic article. Femto 12:31, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

 * Well put, should be omitted. DanielPenfield 17:41, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Internal Wiki Links
in the section on Quality approaches and models there are no internal wiki links even though there are lots of pages that could be linked to for example Process Mapping- can we add some of these? Shanzu 17:58, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Merge from Defects per million opportunities
I suggest merging the single-sentence definition for defects per million opportunities into this article. It doesn't justify a separate Wikipedia article. --SueHay 11:08, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose Six Sigma is a cost cutting program much more than a quality improvement program. Six Sigma does not often get defects down to the claims of ist name.  Rlsheehan, June 5, 2007 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rlsheehan (talk • contribs).

 * I disagree with the reason for opposing stated above, but not necessarily with the opposition to consolidating it, though am not really sure it does warrant a separate entry. My reason for not merging primarily is that the concept of defects per million opportunities is not exclusive to Six Sigma. --LaylahM 22:06, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

 * I agree to disagree. DPMO should be kept separate so that it can be expanded rather than merged. DanielPenfield 15:01, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

TRIZ and Six Sigma
While one academic is pushing these two bandwagons in the same direction, in the hope they'll collide and produce some useful offspring, is there any sign that this is a significant trend rather than the usual suspects trying to squeeze a few more dollars out of a dead paradigm? I'm in a mixing metaphors sort of a mood. Greglocock 02:36, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

The front article needs to be improved....
to integrate the information at http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalCODE=ijssca —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.62.138.34 (talk) 10:57, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

 * Does it really? Looks like the same old twaddle to me. Greglocock 11:16, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

This article is nonsense
Ive read this page several times and still have no idea what 'six sigma' is meant to be; the article is just a string of quasi-meaningless management consultancy jargon and fashionable corporate buzzwords. Could someone rewrite the article with all the bullshit removed, in a format suitable for wikipedia rather than an inane powerpoint presenttion.

GordonRoss 14:11, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I second that motion. 134.173.86.207 12:18, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

 * WP:SOFIXIT. Dicklyon 15:01, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

 * Better yet, consider marking the B.S. parts with comments like —that might help others focus on the most problematic sections.  -- DanielPenfield 20:11, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

This article is a bit crap - Six Sigma has been proven to be diasterous for companies! They need to add to the anti - Six Simga! 198.138.41.69 15:31, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

 * WP:SOFIXIT. Be sure to cite sources for this viewpoint. Dicklyon 17:11, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Process Out of Control
As a 25 year practitioner of the quality sciences, a certified Quality Engineer, Reliability Engineer, and Six-Sigma Black belt I feel I have some experience in this area of discussion. One thing I do know for sure is that I don’t know it all. And with that said, I would like to briefly comment on the article and the process of improving the article.

The article can be improved but for the most part has integrity and worth. Not being an expert on the rules of engagement for Wikipedia I can see some value in the constructive criticism placed within the article for citations and the like and understand that there may be justified reasons for the exclusion of some links. I will not comment on the latter as it has been done ad nauseum.

I do think that the articles length is too short to do justice to a very pervasive and deep subject but that is easily correctable with contributions from practitioners knowledgeable in the art. I hope to see more soon. Perhaps in the future (assuming there will be one) if I am convinced that the Wikipedia project can survive the onslaught of inane and insane argument and bickering I to will contribute to this article.

As to my second and most important point… If there was ever a process that was in need of a six-sigma overhaul it is the Wikipedia process of article editing and improvement. It is by all empirical evidence out-of-control and inefficient to the point where almost 2 years later this subject (article) is still unresolved.

I could offer many obvious suggestions as to how to proceed to improve this editing process but they are most likely already known, so I will not. I will, however, suggest in the strongest terms that all interested in the future of Wikipedia and articles like this one (Six-sigma) to study and fully understand the acronym DMAIC with special attention to the ‘DM’ part for in that lies the solution to all your ills. Respectfully Statman45 (talk) 19:25, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

title: Talk:Six Sigma/Archive 3