http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecma_Office_Open_XML http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ecma_Office_Open_XML
I've spent this evening working on press stuff relating to this. The article is now at a much better (IMO) title. (I compare it to [[JavaScript]] being the article about the Netscape/Mozilla version of the language, but [[ECMAScript]] being the article about the standardised version.)
Now it needs clueful editors who both know the subject area and understand NPOV to keep it in order. We need to recover it from advocates and anti-advocates and make it something informative for the readers. You know how it is.
Mathias Schindler and I have been doing press about this, and also talking to the Microsoft OOXML guys. Doug Mahugh from MS is on the talk page, and does understand that editing the article himself would be a conflict of interest and the talk page is the right place to edit from.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument also needs a similar degree of attention.
With the amount of press attention this is getting, I expect both articles to be features in a month ;-)
- d.
On 1/24/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
talking to the Microsoft OOXML guys. Doug Mahugh from MS is on the talk page, and does understand that editing the article himself would be a conflict of interest and the talk page is the right place to edit from.
So we've definitely settled on the idea that interested parties can't edit articles? In this case, I wouldn't actually see a problem: any person with a reputation to protect isn't going to be stupid enough to write blatantly partisan material in the spotlight of thousands of readers.
Steve
On 24/01/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/24/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
talking to the Microsoft OOXML guys. Doug Mahugh from MS is on the talk page, and does understand that editing the article himself would be a conflict of interest and the talk page is the right place to edit from.
So we've definitely settled on the idea that interested parties can't edit articles?
Or that it's probably a really bad idea. We worked this out as a useful way to go forward in this case.
In this case, I wouldn't actually see a problem: any person with a reputation to protect isn't going to be stupid enough to write blatantly partisan material in the spotlight of thousands of readers.
You'd think Microsoft would know better than to think this was a good idea in the first place, but ah well. We all learn as we go.
- d.
On 1/24/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
You'd think Microsoft would know better than to think this was a good idea in the first place, but ah well. We all learn as we go.
I'm curious whether you mean that in terms of public perception, or whether it would actually work. I sort of feel that for any article which has not achieved some state of perfection (ie, complete NPOV coverage), then anyone paying someone to add material is probably not that harmful. If the article *was* bad, and biased, than the other side paying someone to "correct the balance" is probably a good thing, isn't it? Even if they overshoot the mark and make the bias point the other way, the article probably ends up closer to where we're trying to get to than it was already.
But I accept that public perception of conflict of interest is a sensitive issue and shouldn't be treated lightly.
Steve
On 1/24/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/24/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
You'd think Microsoft would know better than to think this was a good idea in the first place, but ah well. We all learn as we go.
I'm curious whether you mean that in terms of public perception, or whether it would actually work. I sort of feel that for any article which has not achieved some state of perfection (ie, complete NPOV coverage), then anyone paying someone to add material is probably not that harmful. If the article *was* bad, and biased, than the other side paying someone to "correct the balance" is probably a good thing, isn't it? Even if they overshoot the mark and make the bias point the other way, the article probably ends up closer to where we're trying to get to than it was already.
But I accept that public perception of conflict of interest is a sensitive issue and shouldn't be treated lightly.
Steve
I'm not sure if this will even end up getting us closer to NPOV. There are already people calling (at least on IRC) for the deletion of some Microsoft related articles, saying they're astroturfing (though of course they have no proof or even reason to think that MS is paying anybody besides Jelliffe, and they're not talking about XML related articles. I fear that we'll lose some good content in a backlash against Microsoft because of this.
On 24/01/07, Rory Stolzenberg rory096@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not sure if this will even end up getting us closer to NPOV. There are already people calling (at least on IRC) for the deletion of some Microsoft related articles, saying they're astroturfing (though of course they have no proof or even reason to think that MS is paying anybody besides Jelliffe, and they're not talking about XML related articles. I fear that we'll lose some good content in a backlash against Microsoft because of this.
This would be an instance of "arseclowns abound" and of "'the community' is frequently on crack, particularly the bits making most noise."
- d.