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Confusing Image Description
The image description for Visicalc says : "Screenshot of VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet.", however there are two other software products mentioned before Visicalc and have the word spreadsheet in their description. Perhaps a better image description would be required ? Or something more clear ? Signing to enable archiving. TNXMan13:11, 25 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It is not only confusing - it is WRONG!. The first spreadsheet was in fact created in 1974 at ICI Mond Division, in the UK on an IBMmainframe. It was known as "The Works Records System" and had rows, columns and formulae - all designed and entered by non programmers. It ran for 21 years until 2001. Formulae could not get accidntally overtyped (as they can with Visicalc/Lotus 1-2-3 and EXCEL etc) and there were many other superior technical innovations including automatic summations over time periods, database archiving, security, mult-user mode (as standard), The system may well have also been the first to use advanced just-in-time code snippet concatenation and control table techniques etc. The reason none of this is included in the Wikipedia article is Wikipedia's policy of "no original research" (which it seems excludes testimony from all relevant personnel involved - which seems a little extreme and results in many falsehoods being left unchallenged). The original ("status quo") claims are thus disemminated even more widely - through the very medium that seeks to educate the world. The (now archived) edit history of this article covers the systematic deletion of all of the relevant text and links to external sources for this information (see the youtube video "The true history of spreadsheets") for my recent testimonyken (talk) 09:16, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ken, please don't think that I'm trying to systematically remove your contributions to Wikipedia, most of which seem to be constructive and valuable. However, you are aware of Wikipedia's OR policy (and I assume that you understand it): if you want to publish your point of view, you'll have to do it in a medium that qualifies as a verifiable source (blogs, videos on youtube, etc. usually don't fall into this category), and you'll have to get someone else than you to add it to an article (if you do it yourself, it will get reverted). Remember that Wikipedia is not the right place to "uncover the truth". – Adrianwn (talk) 11:54, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I couldn't have put it better myself - "Wikipedia ...not a place to uncover the truth". Even if I published in a "verifiable source" my additions would, no doubt, be deleted under the other Wikipedia rule of "no self published material".
