Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Internet Explorer/Archive2

Internet Explorer

After many rewriting and reorganization, and run through peer review, this article is now quite informative, and much less biased as previous revisions. The article is now quite stable, with no current edit wars. P.S. FYI, the previous nomination can be found in this archive. --minghong 06:15, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

• Object

From the article: Comparatively speaking, the default Internet Explorer interface is less cluttered than some of the internet suites. Isn't this more a matter of opinion than fact? Can it be backed up anywhere?

Also from the article: Internet Explorer is derived from Spyglass Mosaic. What is Spyglass Mosaic? I had to read the Mosaic article to find out. I would recommend adding a brief description to that sentence, saying: Internet Explorer is derived from Spyglass Mosaic, a web browser developed in the mid 1990s. or something like that.

Finally, there is a section on criticisms of Internet Explorer. I feel that that would make the article somewhat POV- could there be a section for praise of Internet Explorer?

Otherwise the article is very well-written. Keep up the good work, Minghong and other editors, in making this article even better! Thanks for all your hard work. Flcelloguy 15:21, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

I have tried balancing the article with praise of IE or fair criticism of IE's competition. Unfortunately this kind of edit is quickly revoked, since most of the editors here are pro-Firefox or just anti-IE --Beachy 16:36, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Except the criticism section, most of the article is "praise"! And the criticisms are already very neutral. I think those are constructive criticisms that should stay. --minghong 19:01, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

• Weak Object for now. I'd like to see some more development on the criticisms part in relation to the rest of the article. There's a lot to be said about IE, including the bad stuff. I'm not being a biased Linux user; I'm being objective. Linuxbeak | Talk | Desk 20:52, May 29, 2005 (UTC)

Is there such thing as a neutral Linux user? I thought you had to make it your lifestyle - all that CLI/kernel hacking/shell upon shell upon shell etc? Are you guys comfortable discussing mature, high-performance graphical applications like web browsers? --Beachy 21:27, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, Beachy, I am. I'm a Linux user and I wrote a good proportion of the Windows 2000 article. Why don't you give it a break, huh? - Ta bu shi da yu 04:02, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Give it a break? Where's the fun in that? :-P --Beachy 05:03, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Don't want to put words in his mouth, but I'm sure Linuxbeak is comfortable talking about... Firefox.AlistairMcMillan 00:43, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Touché! Linuxbeak | Talk | Desk 03:28, May 30, 2005 (UTC)

If it's Firefox he wants to talk about then I'm afraid he's come to the wrong article! --Beachy 05:04, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

• Support, not sure what else needs to be covered in the "Criticisms" section. - Ta bu shi da yu 04:03, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
  • One further comment: this is the reason I asked whether we should refer to our own articles in the references section. The article has (quite rightly) turned into an umbrella article for many subarticles. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:10, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
• Support, definitely less overtly biased than it was. Worth keeping a watchful eye on though, especially with all these Linux/OSS fans on the loose --Beachy 05:03, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
• Strongly object. Even a brief look at the edit history reveals intense battling about POV, in large part instigated by Beachy. Take a look at this diff, for example, where he inserted a comment "The reason for IE decline is likely to be in part due to security hysteria caused by Firefox advocates and misguided OSS zealots. No reason to advertise other browsers here" into the article. His allegations of a media conspiracy against Microsoft are equally problematic. According to Beachy's user page, he has made it his personal mission to "balance POV" in this article, apparently by inserting his own. This does not bode well for the future of this article. In terms of the specific content, my main objection is not against the criticism section (which could, however, go into more detail), but against the "History" section, which, on the bundling of MS IE with the operating system, only has this to say: "The integration, however, was subject to numerous criticisms. See United States v. Microsoft for details." That is ridiculous, especially since we have literally hundreds of leaked memos that document Microsoft's strategy to dominate the browser market after it decided that Netscape could develop into an independent platform that might threaten its OS monopoly. These are not "criticisms", but facts which are not disputed by anyone and which belong, at least as a summary, into the History of Internet Explorer. As it is now, the reader is left in the dark as to the origins of Microsoft's domination in the browser market, which makes the whole article appear like the product of Microsoft's marketing division.--Eloquence* 16:36, May 31, 2005 (UTC)
  • Of course Microsoft is always trying to dominate the World. But Wikipedia may not be a right place to add this, as it would easily turn into flame/edit wars. --minghong 18:00, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
    • If the article is the way it is not because of any real factual considerations, but out of fear of edit wars, then I must object even more strongly to declaring it feature quality.--Eloquence*
      • Oh come off it you two. Everyone in the browser market would like to dominate it. Particularly Firefox, with its aggressive SpreadFirefox campaign, aided by the militant web standards evangelists. Then there's the Linux/OSS advocates who can't afford/stomach running Windows, and therefore protest about Internet Explorer being the dominant browser. Why can't you guys accept that IE walked all over Netscape in terms of code quality, featureset and usability? THAT'S the reason it beat Netscape, and we are ALL better off for this having happened. Of COURSE you'll get edit wars if you say the only reason that IE is successful is because of a corporate conspiracy. --Beachy 00:29, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • Oh, and one of my "problematic" edits that Eloquence refers to is the following:

        "After having fought and won the browser wars of the late 1990s, Internet Explorer began to see its usage share shrink. Having attained a peak of about 95.4% in 2002, it has been in a minor decline due mainly to media coverage of security concerns and a greater awareness of alternative browser choices for technology savvy users. Statistics indicate the current most significant competition comes from open source Gecko-based browsers, in particular Mozilla Firefox. The media has played an instrumental role in the decline of Internet Explorer usage and Its neutrality is questionnable. Some of the most outspoken critics of Internet Explorer are open source advocates. Much money and effort has been spent on a marketing campaign for Mozilla Firefox and on the Web, a widespread grass-roots campaign advertises this open source browser as an allegedly superior product."

        This is the truth, for f**ks sake! I know you guys don't like it.. but there's not one incorrect statement there. It's a ridiculous state of affairs to have an allegedly neutral encyclopedia run by OSS advocates who have a hard-wired problem with Microsoft. It seems to be your default behaviour.. none of you can see past your corporation hang-ups and conspiracy theories. I despair... --Beachy 00:33, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • And one more thing - how dare you accuse me of 'instigating' edit wars? Firstly it takes two to tango. Secondly, you obviously have not been watching the edits too closely. In a couple of cases, I was editing or removing information that was proven to be factually inaccurate, despite resistance from other editors. Therefore, without my intervention the page would have been misrepresentative. Eloquence, Minghong, et al: I know our opinions differ, and I know I am outnumbered here. This does not mean I am wrong, and that you can make attempts to discredit the constructive input I have put into this article. Eloquence, as a Wikimedia representative, you should know better than this --Beachy 00:58, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Support. --144.214.120.252 01:34, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Object. Although this is a fine article, I see two problems. In ==History== "The improvements were astounding" seems entirely subjective and I would prefer it to be an opinion ascribed explicitly to some source. In ==Usability and accessibility== "Comparatively speaking, the default Internet Explorer interface is less cluttered than some of the internet suites." involves a tautology that can be eliminated by deleting the first two words, and, more significantly, seems to be self-evident: either name the suites or lose the statement. It is not useful to know that IE does not have the most cluttered interface, which is all that this sentence tells us. --Theo (Talk) 21:22, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Fixed by changing "astounding" to "significant" and removing the paragraph about UI cluttering. --minghong 00:24, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Object. Beachy's conduct above is illustrative of the damaging and disruptive behavior which has harmed collaboration and the productive settlement of NPOV disputes on this article. The featured article standards require that an article be stable; this cannot be assured when active POV-pushing and abuse is disrupting it. --FOo 21:54, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • I love that FOo is claiming I'm biased in this very personal statement. Compare this to his statements from the IE discussion page:

    "accusations that your fellow editors are biased certainly do constitute personal attacks ...it is not acceptable behavior on Wikipedia ... When is it useful to say that someone is biased? I'm not sure it ever really is ....if you choose to behave in a manner which violates Wikipedia policy, you're not going to get to contribute it. That would be bad. Cut the personal attacks"

    -- practice what you preach, Fubar! And regarding your talk page observation ..KABOOM! :-) --Beachy 01:05, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • I don't want to go personal. But does that mean this can't be a featured article just because of one's disruptive behavior? You know, we did try to stop him, but it isn't easy to change one's mind. (see his talk page) --minghong 00:21, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Classic Fubar and Classic Minghong. --Beachy 00:22, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Pointing to one's talk page, eh Minghong? And why not - yours is certainly the biggest cracker of them all! "I've been spreading Firefox before the creation of Spread Firefox community site" I can't believe you left that on there... --Beachy 00:25, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Strongly Support. This is a very significant article. While I don't like IE one way that we can help fight it is if we know how it got developped and so on, after all the truth works better than myths or lies. CAPS LOCK 00:39, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree, and editors who happen to list "conspiracy theory" as one of their recreational activities (you know who you are) are probably not the best thing that ever happened to this article --Beachy 01:17, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Support. My objections have been addressed. --Theo (Talk) 08:49, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)