how about writing an article about ThinkPad?

[rochestnut]

Is anyone interested in writing a permanent & citable article (i.e. approved by an editor) about the ThinkPad at Citizendium?

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/ThinkPad


I have a book about the ThinkPad, so I think this article will turn out to be much better than the one at Wikipedia.

Thank you.

[rochestnut]

This is what I have right now.

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/ThinkPad

Anyone who wishes to contribute, please do. All you need to do is register with your real name.

Unlike in Wikipedia, what you write will remain in Citizendium. No zealous users will come in and make unnecessary changes to make the article "his/her" own or waste a huge amount of time by arguing with you.

-----P.S.------

Does anyone know where to get a free photo of the first ThinkPad, IBM 2521? It was also called 700T. Thank you.

[RealBlackStuff]

Just some thoughts (mine only!):
until I saw this posting, I never even heard of Citizendium!
First thing I see when I go to your cited link, is the Lenovo Thinkpad logo, rather than the IBM Thinkpad logo, NOT what one expects...

[Harryc]

The licensing for the 'IBM Thinkpad' logo was pulled by IBM in 2007.

[rochestnut]

Well, I was going to talk about the switch in logo & show the IBM logo as well. The "Lenovo" ThinkPad logo was actually invented by IBM.

I guarantee this. Citizendium is better than Wikipedia b/c the former is friendly & expert-guided and the latter is chaotic & scholar-wannabe-RPG-game-admin-guided.

Take a look at these approved articles:

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Category ... d_Articles

Once Citizendium exits the beta stage (eh hem... been in it for like 3 years now), the approved articles are meant to be cited. They're different from Wikipedia's featured articles. Anyone can still change Wikipedia's featured articles anytime, anyhow. And many very good articles (as observed by some experts at Citizendium) deteriorate because a zealous WP-RPG-playing user will want to remake the article as his/her own, make unnecessary changes, etc. At Citizendium, the approved article's main view page cannot be edited. Only the draft version is open, and it must go through the approval process again for the draft version to replace the approved version.

At the end of the day, putting your real name on the article means whole lot more than how much RPG scores (edit counts, etc.) you may gain as an anonymous user in Wikipedia. It is whole lot more satisfying to see the article grow and eventually become a featured article.

Citizendium is also better in terms of organization. Instead of cramming everything (statistics, see also, external links, gallery, notes, bibliography) on one page & confusing the reader, Citizendium has adopted a subpage bar which links to those different pages.

Finally, I've never seen much [censored] in Citizendum as I have in Wikipedia because with these experts (who have the final say in disputes & of course they rarely quarrel among themselves - great minds think alike) you can't argue by throwing out a bunch of arguments & repeating things over and over again as ppl often do in Wikipedia. You could have just one great point about an issue & you only have to say it once. It is all about the content, not quantity.

[killer]

@rochestnut Your comments about Wikipedia have merit. The site was hijacked a few months ago due to a comment on the radio about Caroline of Brunswick. Her picture was compared to an Australian cricket team member. This led to lots of people looking up her name on the internet and finding most references being on Wikipedia. So there were lots of curious remarks left by people who edited the site ... because they could ... and the comments were (to use British litotes) less than helpful.

I thought I was alone in my concern about this. Maybe not?

[rochestnut]

No that view is quite widespread, especially among the professionals. The reason why Citizendium came into place was because of this general dissatisfaction with Wikipedia. But still whole lot more people use or edit Wikipedia because 1) they are very lightly involved & have not experienced its frustrating & time-wasting aspects 2) as you know 50% are below average (cough cough) 3) there are plenty of lonely jimmy neutron-wannabe high school and middle school kids who have nothing better to do so they decide to contribute to Wikipedia about subjects that they knew nothing about before and undertake extensive research.

If you agree with me, I'd seriously recommend that you simply create an account at Citizendium, even if you don't plan to contribute.

And if you do, I promise you that all of your time spent on it will be focused and without distraction. No one will come and mess up an article once you finish. And if you get an article approved, the approved version is locked from editing and can be replaced only by another approved version from the draft page, which does not show for the readers.

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Orchid

This is a new article bound to be approved today. You can see that everything about this article is superior to its counterpart or a featured article in Wikipedia. There is a sense of coherent connectedness and comprehensiveness that permeates through the entire article in terms of its wordings, grammar, and paragraph arrangements. It is not overfed with completely random hyperlinks that simply blind the readers (i.e. linking "Japan" in ASIMO article. sure I don't know where and what is Japan...). Wikipedia articles by contrast borderline fact-listing & people who write them have absolutely no idea about what an encyclopedia article should be like & are also unwilling to do serious research.

The best example? The ThinkPad article.

There are completely random sections such as "Criticisms," and the Lenovo purchase section simply lists Lenovo's changes made to the ThinkPad. It is filled with words like "were very successful, ""awards," "innovations," & "exceptional build quality." It sounds like a silly promotion.

Also did anyone see the 2 pictures of the ThinkPad R500 @ Wikipedia? They're most horrific in terms of quality, but guess who might have uploaded it? A terrific contributor named Porsche997SBS. "I created this work entirely by myself." Oh, entirely? by yourself? did you?
-------P.S.-------------
Aside from the book, these are the articles I have available for writing the ThinkPad article.

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/TECH/ptech ... .arch.idg/

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/07/19 ... page2.html

http://www.poandpo.com/small-devices-fo ... to-lenovo/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4780963.stm

http://www.businessweek.com/ebiz/9904/eo0408.htm

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=HY ... pple+tandy

http://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/03/busin ... arket.html

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/12/28/busin ... tably.html

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/05/05/busin ... gewanted=2

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/26/busin ... aptop.html

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/11/busin ... gewanted=2

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/06/busin ... -pc-s.html

http://www.businessweek.com/archives/19 ... 50.arc.htm

http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/hardware/ ... 533,00.htm\

http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/hardware/ ... 743,00.htm

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... -1,00.html

http://www.businessweek.com/archives/19 ... 01.arc.htm

http://www.businessweek.com/archives/19 ... 81.arc.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/1984/03/20/scien ... drive.html

http://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/15/scien ... m-ibm.html

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/17/scien ... again.html

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/03/26/scien ... aptop.html

http://www.nytimes.com/1984/03/13/scien ... wanted=all

http://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/16/busin ... ected.html

http://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/17/busin ... y-ibm.html

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1040-960927.html

[rochestnut]

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/ThinkPad

Anyone interested yet? It's very easy to register.

[qviri]

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/ThinkPad

Anyone interested yet? It's very easy to register.

You've an article and a half so far by my reckoning!

[rochestnut]

You've an article and a half so far by my reckoning!

? I'm like 1/5 done with the history part. Look, couldn't you register at Citizendium and help me write the article? It's not that I don't have stuffs to write with or that I don't have an overall plan. It's just I keep getting stuck with words. I think the article's pace could grow exponentially if maybe 3~4 people came and helped me.

We can get it to approved status after review by editors. That means that it can be cited, and the approved version which is locked and cannot be edited will show in place of the draft edit page.

[qviri]

Look, couldn't you register at Citizendium and help me write the article?

Nah thanks. I dislike the way Citizendium was founded, do not agree with its principles, think it is fundamentally a bad idea, and think and hope it will fail. Feel free to prove me wrong, however.

[rochestnut]

Nah thanks. I dislike the way Citizendium was founded, do not agree with its principles, think it is fundamentally a bad idea, and think and hope it will fail. Feel free to prove me wrong, however.

well wat exactly have u offered for me to prove wrong? you haven't been specific enough.

u sound like

"i fundamentally disagree with its principles because it's bad idea"

the very nature of citizendium makes it impossible to "fail" as you'd wish. Unlike Wikipedia articles that will disintegrate over time without constant oversight by its main authors, Citizendium articles only build up, and all approved articles are locked and cannot be edited except by replacing another approved version.

[killer]

Having viewed a few articles on Citizendium there are a few concerns. For example when viewing an article on Coventry it calls the "West Coast Main Line" a railroad system running from London to Glasgow. We don't have railroads in this part of the world ... they are called railways. We invented the things so please excuse the pedantry. Now I don't have a thing about railways but this mistake led me to key in a search of 'railways' at which point I was told that, "Railroads originated in England ...". Rubbish! Railways originated in England, not railroads. Someone else invented that word. Um, who could that be?

So, I keyed in Birmingham as a search item. It tells me that Birmingham is the second largest city in the UK which is complete tosh because Birmingham is actually the largest city in the UK. The city of London is tiny, roughly a square mile. Greater London is a collection of cities and boroughs. It is a metropolitan area rather than a city in its own right.

I hope you catch my drift when I say Citizendium is flawed.

[ajkula66]

And even The Beatles page has some wrong info, not to mention that my eight-year-old daughter knows more about them than that page presents...

[RealBlackStuff]

Once Citizendium exits the beta stage (eh hem... been in it for like 3 years now)

Grow up guys, and get your act together!
'nough said.

[moronoxyd]

the very nature of citizendium makes it impossible to "fail" as you'd wish.

When have I heard/read remarks like that before?
Ah, yes: usually 5 minutes before things started to fail...

NOTHING is perfect.
Assuming Citizendrum is proves that you're biased and a "fanboi".


Oh, and writing an article because you "have a book about the ThinkPad" shows that you don't understand how to write a proper, well adjusted article.

[Harryc]

Ok, enough of this nonsense. Thread locked.