The wikipedia entry on Lotus Notes

April 9 2006

A couple of weeks ago, a nice guy (thanks, Paul) pointed out to me that the Wikipedia entry on Lotus Notes isn't all that wonderful.a representation of Notes.  It has a bit of a technical go around programming, but nary a word on the types of applications built with all that stuff.  The screenshots are out of date.  There's a whole section dissing it as an e-mail client (unsurprisingly bringing in the Notes Sucks site for good mesure).  There's little information about what's new in version 7, and nothing about future plans.

Anyone interested in helping update this entry?  I know Wikipedia tends to frown on edits to a page like that from IBMers, but the community could probably make vast improvements in a very shorrt period of time.  Suggestions, anyone?

Ed Brill Highland Park, IL USA Category:  Lotus  Add/View Comments [24]

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  1. 1  Anonymous  | 4/9/2006 11:39:19 PM

    add the history of notes link to start, or even the whole content....

  1. 2  Thilo Hamberger  | 4/10/2006 3:15:40 AM

    Translate the entry of the German wikipedia. It is a perfect description of the product.

  1. 3  Erwin Verstraelen  | 4/10/2006 4:49:44 AM

    Use the document, a history of Lotus Notes. It clearly outlines how LN started, grew and became what we all have come to love ! Regarding the future, I've seen very clear documents over the last 6 months from IBM, so take your pick :-)

  1. 4  Richard Schwartz http://www.yellowisthenewblack.com | 4/10/2006 6:38:52 AM

    I've contributed pieces of the article in the past but hadn't checked in in a while. Looks like there's been a lot of activity in the last few weeks, including a bit of a revert war going on regarding the list of so-called "common criticisms".

    I will edit these criticisms to remove expression of opinion and add objective facts, but to avoid a revert war I'm not going to remove them entirely.

  1. 5  Philip Storry http://www.not-so-rapid.com | 4/10/2006 6:40:16 AM

    And lo, the page looks much better already!

    I was going to correct a number of things here, but decided to do it at lunchtime. It's lunchtime, and the page has already had much of the corrections applied by kindly people:

    { Link }

    Nicely done! :-)

  1. 6  Axel  | 4/10/2006 6:57:38 AM

    If I were believing in wikipedia as a reliable source for product information, I would add a few points to the german wikipedia entry.

  1. 7  Richard Schwartz http://www.yellowisthenewblack.com | 4/10/2006 7:06:14 AM

    BTW: I don't think that mentioning future plans is appropriate in Wikipedia. An encyclopedia deals in facts, not predictions.

  1. 8  Philip Storry http://www.not-so-rapid.com | 4/10/2006 7:21:47 AM

    @7 - I'd sort of disagree.

    Specifics should not be mentioned, certainly. But the fact that IBM is committed to both providing future versions AND providing significant improvements (in TCO, in usability, etc.) does warrant a mention.

    The trick is to mention is subtly, - probably after the Versions section, I suspect.

    I do agree that specific predictions should be mentioned, however. Just a cautious re-statement of the commitment. :-)

  1. 9  Richard Schwartz http://www.yellowisthenewblack.com | 4/10/2006 8:05:25 AM

    @8: First of all, I wrote that in a rush to close up, get out the door and get to my day job. I do see your point. And rather than saying "facts, not predictions", I probably should have said that it deals in "the past and present, but not the future" in order to avoid a derisive tone. (Sorry, Ed.)

    The committment to Hannover is the present, but the features are the future. Although I'd personally like to see mention of Hannover, I don't really see how to mention it in a poisitive way without talking about features. I'd really like to have the Linux implications mentioned in the article, but I think it crosses the line.

    Of course, other contributors might disagree with me, and I don't check the entry all that often ;-)

  1. 10  Roger Hintz www.isr-in.com | 4/10/2006 8:37:38 AM

    Also check the Wikipedia entry for 'Collaborative Software' - it mentions Lotus Notes as the pioneer.

  1. 11  Jerry Glover http://www.jerryglover.com | 4/10/2006 8:43:26 AM

    I've been on a Wikivacation for several weeks, so although I've edited the article and itss on my watchlist, I wouldn't have seen recent changes like Rich said have occured. Just realize that you won't be able to remove all criticism of the product, because of the NPOV policy at Wikipedia. You can certianly mitigate criticisms, however, especially if they are out of date or not fact-based.

    As Rich also mentioned, "future plans" can be troublesome as Wikipedia should be dealing in facts/history and not speculation. So while Hannover generally could be mentioned, specific features are probably best left unmentioned, especially as (no offense) there is some track record of certain features being dropped before Gold ship when they were in previous betas.

  1. 12  Mike Brown  | 4/10/2006 8:49:02 AM

    I see no problem with including Hannover, as long as it's plainly marked as to what it exactly is; i.e. planned stuff that may change, or may not even appear at all.

    After all, the equivalent entry Exchange { Link } has had a "Future" section for ages, and nobody has ever quibbled about it or reverted it.

    Cheers,

    - Mike

  1. 13  Richard Schwartz http://www.yellowisthenewblack.com | 4/10/2006 9:34:51 AM

    @11: I wish I could get an RSS subscription for my watchlist. Kind of surprised it's not there. Or is it and I've just not found it?

  1. 14  Richard Schwartz http://www.yellowisthenewblack.com | 4/10/2006 9:38:58 AM

    @12: If Exchange can do it, so can we. Good point.

  1. 15  Scott Gentzen http://www.scottandmargo.net | 4/10/2006 10:41:21 AM

    Glad to see that this is getting visibility and getting done. I noticed this a while ago (late February) and meant to do something about it.

    Since then I've decided that my writing isn't up to what I'd be comfortable with posting on Wikipedia. Not saying that all of the writing on Wikipedia is that great, but I have (too) high expectations of myself.

    Thank you Ed for posting and thank you the rest of y'all for making the changes.

  1. 16  Jerry Glover http://www.jerryglover.com | 4/10/2006 11:35:44 AM

    @13 Wikipedia doesn't do RSS for watchlists (yet?) or at all that I know of. Coincendently, I was toying with adding that sort of functionality to OpenNTF's DomWiki for a special project idea I've been considering.

  1. 17  Turtle http://www.weightlessdog.com/shell.nsf | 4/10/2006 2:48:13 PM

    I added a paragraph to the beginning of the "programming" section laying out the distinction between "email with an API" like GroupWise and Exchange and "full-service programming environment that happens to include email," which is more to the tune of Domino, and a couple of other minor edits.

  1. 18  Gregg Eldred http://www.ns-tech.com/blog/geldred.nsf | 4/10/2006 2:53:42 PM

    /rant on

    This, to me, is another example of the problem with wikipedia. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea. But when people use it to slam products or people, or to re-write history, then I have a problem. I find myself staying away from it more and more, as I just can't trust the content.

    /rant off

  1. 19  Philip Storry http://www.not-so-rapid.com | 4/10/2006 4:26:26 PM

    Right, I've thrown in a rough draft of a Future section. No technology promises, just the strategy ones that IBM have made. It's vaguer than a Microsoft shipping date, and just as likely to change.

    Feel free to edit it whilst I'm asleep, folks. Enjoy! :-)

    @9 - No derisive tone detected, I assure you. I just wanted to make sure that the Wikipedia page addressed the old "Notes is dead" myth, and a Future page is needed for that.

  1. 20  Andrew Tetlaw http://tetlaw.id.au | 4/10/2006 7:40:16 PM

    I've always though someone should do a screencast of setting up a simple Notes app from scratch ALA those Ruby on Rails screencams.

    Just the basic, create a form, create a view, enable full text index... See it in the Notes client and look now its a website... and so on.

    This sort of thing has gone a long way with selling Rails because it illustrates the basic concept of the framework.

    Notes is this enourmous lump of things that is very hard to break into when you have no experience with it.

  1. 21  Richard Schwartz http://www.yellowisthenewblack.com | 4/10/2006 8:19:43 PM

    I've re-worked the History section. First I raise the fact that the "Notes is dead" meme is being promoted by competitors, then deal with it from both a historical and present perspective using facts and figures (Wikipedia likes verifiable facts!). Then I get specific, referring to Hannover by name, general description and I mention the Linux support. I also mentioning Ken Bisconti by name, referring to his statements about Domino 8, 9, and 10 (again, verifiable!).

  1. 22  Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net | 4/10/2006 10:00:51 PM

    @20, There are some demos available that you may not be aware of. They are located on the IBM DemoNet site { Link } but they are more about "what's new in 6.5 and 7" than "Here is how you create a form and a view". I agree there is a need for Designer 101 demos. I will look into it, and maybe if we can't do it officially on IBM's site, I might make some on my blog.

  1. 23  Richard Schwartz http://www.yellowisthenewblack.com | 4/10/2006 10:08:35 PM

    OK... I've added screen shots of Notes 7 and Domino Designer 7, too.

    I think that's enough for me for now.

  1. 24  Dan the-technocrat.blogspot.com | 4/12/2006 12:33:21 PM

    looking great! I added the following to the 'criticisms' section...not sure if it should go elsewhere.

    "The Notes client provides fuctionality that reaches far beyond a traditional email client, acting as an instant messaging client (Sametime), browser, notebook, calendar/resource reservation client, as well as a platform for interacting with in-house applications. Supporters of the Notes client regard the easy interoperability of all of these roles a major advantage in multiple-application business environments."

    I think this is an incredibly-overlooked aspect of Notes. People (in my history) have seen it as a complex email client, not a well-designed collaboration tool, stretching across many, many roles other than email...but still interoperating with email very well.