Talk:Office Open XML/Archive 13

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Trivia

The article, and the lede is full of trivia. You can pick the trivia easily, by both sides of the debate, because it is always referenced by a primary source, rather than a reliable source. An example is that the format can be downloaded from a website. Did any of the major media / news reports on OOXML say this? No. Why not? Because it's trivia. On the ODF side, the bit about it not being entirely compatible is also too trivial for the introduction, is referenced by the Open Document website, and therefore should not be in the lede. Show me a reliable source for this, or it must be deleted. One of the reasons to use reliable third party sources is because if the fact wasn't covered by the mainstream press, it's probably too trivial to include.--Lester 03:26, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I disagree on principle. We are aiming to build an encyclopedia, and that means that we aim to build something where a subject is covered at some level of detail. Sometimes we need to use primary sources because they fill out holes in the media coverage; sometimes the primary sources show that details claimed by media sources are in fact false, or no longer valid. The guideline should be what WP:PRIMARY says: "a primary source may be used only to make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is verifiable by a reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge". I also think that an encyclopedia should aim to provide information that's useful - the fact that you can get the spec and check its content for yourself is both useful and verifiable.

That said, I agree that some pieces of information are trivia, and that we should be more critical of what's put into the introduction; much stuff ended up there because someone placed a statement in, someone else thought it was misleading and expanded on it, providing a citation, and the usual back-and-forth happened, making the paragraph longer and more heavily over-cited each time. We need to be able and willing to cut out the resulting cruft - but still, I'd take care when deciding to remove useful information. --Alvestrand (talk) 05:54, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I think the first three paras of the opening are okay; the fourth is kind of speculative (and is an example of the MS-obsession which haunts this article). Maybe it should be removed, or moved to the Office Open XML software article?

More generally, I agree with Alvestrand on his reading of WP:PRIMARY. Alexbrn (talk) 07:56, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

The introduction should be an overview of the whole OOXML story. Being a general overview, why would it not be possible to find references from the news media? That way we are reflecting what has already been published. Otherwise, it's going to end up the crazy fight it was up until recently. The rule should apply to both sides. I don't mind primary sources for the minute details about the format's make-up, but not for the introduction.--Lester 09:35, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

The subject of this article is not "the whole OOXML story" (a Rashomon-like narrative in any case), but primarily OOXML as a format (check out the article category). Perhaps it would help to understand your concerns if you could single out one thing in the opening three paras that you object to? Alexbrn (talk) 10:07, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

The intro and the article needs to sum up the whole OOXML story. Not just the format. There are sub-articles, such as standardization of OOXML, but this article is the umbrella article that must sum up the whole story. For example, the standardization needs 2 or 3 paragraphs in this article, and a link to the expanded sub-article. The intro should have 1 or 2 sentences about standardization. Shoving all text about the standardization process into another article is a content fork.--Lester 11:09, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

But we already have three sentences on standardization in the opening section. I don't agree about pulling paragraphs in from the standardization article: the wiki has links, we should use them. There would undoubtedly be some trolling about which things were to be pulled-in, don't you think? Alexbrn (talk) 11:52, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

We can't adjust content according to what trolls may or may not do. This main article should have a section on the standardization process, with a brief summary of the sub-article on standardization. The standardization includes the controversy over the standardization. It needs to be summarized in this article. I'll do it soon if I get time.--Lester 13:17, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that this looks like it is, and really should be the overview article. If it is in categories that says it is a file format, that is only part of the story and not a restriction on what may or may not be covered. The WP process is that as articles grow in size, significant sections should be branched off into sub-articles with {{main}} links. Here this one has had a difficult history, but there's nothing that should stop us from trying to achieve the best. One day there might be an Office Open XML file formats article that takes all the detail that is currently in sections 5 (Container), 6 (Document markup languages) and 7 (Foreign resources). I think that day may be close. When bulky material is moved out like that, a summary is written to replace it here - not far different from the lede of the child article, possibly, to begin with at least. In the same way, as Standardization of Office Open XML has already been moved out, it should have a small section here (possibly based on the lede of that article) with a {{main}} link to it. It is valid to say that, if this isn't here, extractions and omissions from this article look like POV forks. So my action plan would be:

1. Categorise this article as an full discussion of the subject in its title
2. Create something like Office Open XML file formats and move sections 5, 6 and 7 into it, leaving a short summary here
3. Create a similar short summary for Standardization of Office Open XML and put that into the middle of the article too.

The article is already 67 kilobytes long and so starting to generate warnings that it needs dividing up.--Nigelj (talk) 13:42, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

That sounds good, Nigelj. --Lester 21:03, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Good idea. Thelennonorth (talk) 16:56, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Poorly cited trivia to be removed

I'm going to remove references from the intro that are from minor sources, and those that are primary sources from organizations embroiled in the OOXML controversy. There is no reason for primary sources to be in the introduction, The introduction is an overview, and ample references can be obtained from the mainstream media. Switching to major media sources is a way to avoid POV edits.--Lester 20:23, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

It has been discussed one this page before. The sources you just removed are not primary sources. !! Primary sources are sourc es close to an [b]event[/b]. A document format is not an event.

And even it it were primary sources that does not mean anything as primary sources are allowed as a primary source may be used only to make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is verifiable by a reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge (which is all the case here). This has stated here by several people. After some consensus was created on the lead you are now obviously vandalising the article. You removed a ton of objective descriptive and verifible sources from the article even after you have been informed on this talk page that those sources are correct and usefull sources. You seem purposly intent on wrecking the article. I strongly suggest you reverty these edits yourself ASAP !!!! hAl (talk) 21:00, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Changing the primary-source reference to fact tags was step #1. Step #2 is removing the text. What's the reason that this Wikipedia article cannot reflect the mainstream media coverage on the subject of Open Office XML (OOXML)? Why should this article put a different slant on the subject than the way it was covered in the mainstream press? The event is the creation of the OOXML format (eg what kind of a format is it), how it is used, and the controversy that surrounds it. That is the event. Citations coming from the participants are primary sources because they are close to the event of the format's creation, and the event of its controversy. Removing primary sources from the intro will weed out the trivia and the POV. It also should be applied to both sides of the debate. --Lester 21:35, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

You are referring to the Standardization of Office Open XML. That is an event which has it's own article. You seem purely intent in trying to insert controversy from the standardization process to enter the article about the format. This article is not about the standardization proces. Go to Standardization of Office Open XML for your coverage of an event. Stay here if you intent to contribute to the encyclopedic information on the document format itself. hAl (talk) 22:21, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Keeping positive information in this article, while moving negative information to Standardization of Office Open XML has become a content fork. This article must be the umbrella article that covers all aspects of OOXML. Other sub-articles are there to add extra detail, but not to replace this article as the parent article. HAl, you also didn't answer my question as why you think we should not reflect the mainstream media coverage of the subject. Especially in the intro.--Lester 22:59, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I see user:HAl has reverted it again, placing his primary sourced references back into the intro. The article has become an advertisement for the ISO and Microsoft.--Lester 23:13, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Lester, it IS acceptable to use primary sources for facts that don't need interpretation. Replacing those sources with {{fact}} tags just looks provocative. If you think those facts don't belong in the lede, move them to the body of the article, or the relevant other article (such as the standardization article). If you think those facts belong in the lede, keep the sources or replace them with better ones. --Alvestrand (talk) 16:11, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Splitting the article?

(Starting a new section to invoid indent madness)

We already have a link to the Standardization article here. This section would be better titled "Standardization" I think.

Nigelj's plan to split the article up seems sound, and may be an opportunity for some major de-crufting. So long as we can keep a lid on POV pressure which will mount over how each sub-article is characterized in the hub, I think this will lead to an improvement. I also think we need to avoid the knd of problem we see with the ODF article which doesn't seem to know whether it's a hub for satellite articles or a container for details in its own right. Alexbrn (talk) 15:42, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Good idea for the OOXML article, do something similar for technical information about it. (The highly technical information.) And you're always free to improve the odf article the same way as the ooxml article. Thelennonorth (talk) 16:32, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, all the comments received were favourable, so I have gone ahead and split the article as described above, creating Office Open XML file formats. There is more work to do.

1. There are no categories attached to the new article, and maybe too many now attached here.
2. I may have broken the re-use of one or more named references.
3. Maybe we don't need the large "Infobox file format" template here - just in the new article.
4. Even with those three sections removed this article is still generating 'oversize' warnings (at 43 kilobytes long) when you click 'edit this page', so another piece could probably be split out before we start adding any serious new material here. Perhaps the Variants section is a candidate?

Some of the wording in the new article may need to be improved now that it has a new context - the sentence, "These are defined in clause 17.5 of Part 1." stood out. It probably just needs, "...in the standard document" or something, adding. The summary in the new lede and in the stub section here can certainly be expanded and these two may of course diverge as time goes by. I haven't done any specific 'de-crufting'.

I hope this is a start on a useful piece of work. --Nigelj (talk) 18:43, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

I moved 3 more sections over; I believe those all belong to the file format. I'm not much worried about a 43-Kbyte warning, but the two articles are now 39 and 31 Kbytes, respectively. --Alvestrand (talk) 17:44, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Good stuff. I moved the short 'File formats' section back. That was the one that I just wrote to provide the link from this main article to the new satellite one. It's just a copy of the first bit of the lede in the other article, repeated where it was. You're right about the rest, though. --Nigelj (talk) 18:50, 31 October 2009 (UTC)