Talk:Darwin Information Typing Architecture

Debate response for request to delete sourceforge link:
I think this link should remain because it is the implementation of DITA that OASIS seems to endorse (provides a link on their page). It is not simply a toolkit, rather the actual DTD's and Schemas. Though it might be a little redundant because, as I said, the OASIS TC on DITA provides the same link. 216.201.228.115 21:07, 20 June 2006 (UTC)Brett
 * Hmm... the toolkit contains the official DTDs and schemas, but do they actually develop them in partnership with the other DITA developers, or do they just use the DTDs and schemas in the toolkit? I'm trying to get a feel for how notable and important this toolkit is in the grand scheme of DITA (obviously, for example, the CMSes were not). --Deathphoenix ʕ 21:21, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Yea on second thought I am not sure if the toolkit uses the actual OASIS implementation of the DTD's and schema or not. Definitely something to be looked in to. 216.201.228.115 21:49, 20 June 2006 (UTC)Brett

The Toolkit does use the official DTDs and schemas, and it's an important aspect of DITA. The article should have a section discussing the Toolkit.Clayoquot 00:50, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, it uses the official DTDs and schemas, but so do a lot of other applications. Just because something is open source doesn't necessarily make it notable. What would make it notable is if the Toolkit group also have a hand in developing the official DTDs and schemas. It's not too difficult to do, I'd just like confirmation that they actually do it. --Deathphoenix ʕ 03:36, 21 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I've added a section that I hope clarifies the historical and practical significance of the Toolkit. Clayoquot 06:19, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Ah, yes, most excellent, your addition certainly makes a very strong case for the notability of, and therefore keeping, the open toolkit link. --Deathphoenix ʕ 14:04, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

External link policy
Something should be done to bring this article in line with External links, which says to normally avoid including "Sites that primarily exist to sell products or services." I've added subheadings to at least distinguish these sites from more informative websites, but they should perhaps be removed altogether in accordance with Wikipedia guidelines. Comments? Clayoquot 20:07, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I think only the primary DITA organisations should be listed. In terms of other types of pages, only those that actually offer extra information on DITA without selling anything should be listed. In particular, "Introduction to DITA: A Basic User Guide to the Darwin Information Typing Architecture" doesn't give any real information, and instead is offering that book for sale. If this was actually a guide that contains information on the web site about DITA, it can be kept, but as it is, it's definitely grounds for removal. I'll look at the other sites and remove them if they're blatantly commercial without offering any real additional information. --Deathphoenix ? 13:47, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for doing this, Deathphoenix. I've responded to a couple of things below. Clayoquot 00:42, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
 * No problems. It was nice to actually apply some of my industry knowledge to Wikipedia. I usually just come to Wikipedia to do light, non-work related things. :-) --Deathphoenix ʕ 03:41, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I would disagree. Unfortunately DITA world is still small and finding information in it proves to be difficult. I find many of the deleted links useful. Even if it is a vendor FAQ or commertial tool I would like to read about it. Lets get picky when there is someting to pick from. Alex Kaban --24.63.3.76 07:18, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
 * On the contrary, the fact that the DITA world is small is the very reason why there should be very few external links. Wikipedia is NOT a database of commercial links. Only if the sites are very notable and of higher traffic is it appropriate for inclusion here in Wikipedia. --Deathphoenix ʕ 11:48, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Then I would say lets remove XMetaL editor. There are comparable products (e.g. Arbortext and Altova) which many not be less functional then XMetaL. Either let all vendors add information about their products or none of them. Alex. --24.63.3.76 03:01, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
 * That's fine by me. --Deathphoenix ʕ 03:27, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I've deleted all the debateable and debateable deletes except for the above "DITA Open Toolkit" while we are still discussing the merits of this one. I'll mark down below what I've deleted. --Deathphoenix ʕ 14:13, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Evaluating these links
I took a look at all the links, and I'm going to remove some immediately, and leaving some up for debate. I'm not giving the links so I don't artificially bump up their GoogleRanks or anything, but here's what I think of each link, whether I'm deleting it immediately, or whether I'm keeping it up for debate. Basically, I'm immediately deleting anything marked with Delete. Anything I marked with Debateable delete, I'm definitely deleting if I don't see any disagreements. Anything else I am either keeping or am still thinking about keeping (and may delete). --Deathphoenix ʕ 14:43, 20 June 2006 (UTC)


 * 1) DITA XML.org Focus Area
 * 2) *Keep. Official DITA community area.
 * 3) OASIS DITA Technical Committee
 * 4) *Keep. OASIS is one of the primary drivers of DITA. They can stay too, but I'm changing this to the primary home page, not to the Technical Committee.
 * 5) DITA World - Comprehensive list of DITA resources: articles, vendors, user groups and more
 * 6) *Debateable keep. Contains links to other resources. This is iffy, but it does provide a lot of articles on DITA, so I'll let it stay for now.
 * 7) Planning for DITA Success - Deleted
 * 8) *Debateable delete. One specific DITA provider (Rockley) providing links to whitepapers and articles that are already mentioned above. Rockley isn't DITA developer: they implement DITA for clients. I don't think they need a link here. I'll probably end up removing this, but I'll leave it in while we discuss this.
 * Whether or not they're a DITA developer, if they can write a good article why not keep it? The article itself is a PDF file, so that's probably why the link is to a list of articles. Links to PDF files are kind of annoying. User:Clayoquot 00:42, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Most of their links actually go to other articles that have already been linked to from the first two "official DITA organisations" (XML.org and OASIS). Does Rockley have useful articles that contain information that the two official organisations don't have? If so, that would probably make them more worthy of inclusion. --Deathphoenix ʕ 03:45, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
 * OK, I see what you mean. You can get to the articles in two clicks from Wikipedia. User:Clayoquot 20:45, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

--Deathphoenix ʕ 14:43, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) DITA - What you need to know - Deleted
 * 2) *Delete. This is actually the same link as above.
 * 3) The Role of Content Standards in Content Management - Deleted
 * 4) *Delete. This is actually the same link as above.
 * 5) Introduction to DITA
 * 6) *Keep. A link to an IBM introduction to DITA. IBM was the original developer of DITA, and this provides good information.
 * 7) Adobe Systems Uses DITA to Create Product Documentation - Deleted
 * 8) *Debateable delete. One specific case study on how Adobe is using DITA. Adobe is huge in the technical communications industry, but in terms of DITA, they're mainly just an implementer, not a developer. This is a specific article about a specific case study, and can be removed.
 * 9) DITA Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) - Deleted
 * 10) *Debateable. This is a DITA FAQ by a good DITA editor (XMetaL), but I don't think this FAQ actually contains any useful information not mentioned above. XMetaL is good, and fairly well-known among the DITA community, so that might be an argument for keeping this thing. I'm leaving this up for debate.
 * 11) Subsetting and Modifying DITA (Simplifying DITA by removing elements) - Deleted
 * 12) *Debateable delete. I've met the author a couple of times, and he's a good guy who knows his stuff, but this is a very specific article about customising and optimising DITA. I don't think a Wikipedia article about DITA really needs an article about such a specific part of DITA.
 * 13) Astoria Software DITA, XML Content Management, Dynamic Content Publishing Blog - Deleted
 * 14) *Debateable delete. I've also met the person who writes most of the articles here, and he's an Astoria employee. Astoria isn't even a primary DITA provider. They provide content management solutions that have support for DITA. And this isn't even their web site, this is a blog.
 * 15) Lessons From The Trenches: DocZone.com Is Doing It With DITA (Interview in The Rockley Bulletin) - Deleted
 * 16) *Delete. This is yet another link to a Rockley site. This article is an interview with someone in a company that decided to implement DITA, and this company looks to be a Rockley client.
 * 17) Introduction to DITA: A Basic User Guide to the Darwin Information Typing Architecture - Deleted
 * 18) *Delete. This is just a web site selling the above book. It provides no real information on DITA. I'm nuking this post haste.
 * The web page itself isn't informative, but the book is. This is the kind of thing that a "Further Reading" section is for: WP:CITE. I've formatted it as a proper book citation, which I hope makes the intention is more clear.Clayoquot 00:23, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I think Wikipedia generally frowns upon linking to "purchase" sites. If the book is good as a further reading, it can be placed into a "further reading" section without linking to a purchase site. The "URL" attribute is for if the content of the book is available online for reading without having to pay. I'll tweak the headings appropriately. --Deathphoenix ʕ 03:45, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see what you mean! Cool. Clayoquot 20:45, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Astoria Software DITA Content Management System - Deleted
 * 2) *Delete. As mentioned above, Astoria is a provider of a content management system that has support for DITA. They are a decent company, but this just amounts to a spamlink. It provides no useful information on DITA not already mentioned above.
 * 3) DITA Open Toolkit Project Home
 * 4) * Debateable delete . This is a sourceforge community that is working on a DITA toolkit. I don't know how notable an open source community working on a toolkit for DITA is, but I don't think they provide information necessary to DITA that isn't already mentioned above.
 * 5) **I'll leave this kept per Clayoquot's most excellent edits that show its notability. --Deathphoenix ʕ 14:09, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 6) DITA Getting Started Workshop - Deleted
 * 7) *Delete. This is just a commercial link to JoAnn Hackos classes/workshops. I've met her, and while Hackos is fairly notable in the technical communications field, she's also very aggressive in hawking her workshops. I'm not saying she's the one who put this in (and she probably didn't, since she really doesn't need to), but I don't see how it's necessary (or helpful to this article or Wikipedia in general) to give her yet another avenue to hawk her workshops.
 * 8) WorldServer OpenTopic (Move to XML publishing) - Deleted
 * 9) *Delete. Not only is this just an XML provider, but this particular link leads to a 404 page.
 * 10) Browser-based DITA Editor Prototype by LogPerspective - Deleted
 * 11) *Delete. A DITA/XML editor, currently under development.
 * 12) XMetaL Author DITA Edition, industry's first DITA-based authoring solution - Deleted
 * 13) *Debateable. As I mentioned above, XMetaL is notable XML editor, and they're one of the first to provide full support for DITA. As such, they may deserve mention here, but I don't know if we want to provide them with free advertising.
 * 14) IXIASOFT CMS/DITA solutions based on TEXTML Server - Deleted
 * 15) *Delete. This looks to be an XML content management system. Woop-de-doo. Even less notable than Astoria. If Astoria is a spamlink, this sure is.
 * 16) Mekon CMS/DITA solutions and consultancy services - Deleted
 * 17) *Delete. Another XML content management system. See my notes for IXIASOFT, above.

Copyright infringement?
The beginning of paragraph three of this article is This text, is remarkably similar if not identical to the following text, found at http://www.xmetal.com/en_us/products/xmetal_author_dita/index.x (paragraph three on the linked page also): ''Unlike book-oriented approaches that are based on chapters and pages, DITA uses topics - small chunks of information that can be easily reused across various contexts and deliverables. DITA also has built-in extensibility support, meaning you can customize document type definitions (or DTDs) without breaking compatibility with existing applications and processes.'' 70.247.165.73 18:19, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I only started looking at this article recently, but I'll definitely remove the copyrighted text. Thanks for the catch. --Deathphoenix ʕ 18:30, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I edited the above text that you mentioned with "DITA divides content into small, self-contained topics that can be reused in different deliverables." A quick hack, and not quite perfect, but good enough to convey the same message that the above text tried to convey. --Deathphoenix ʕ 18:34, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

DITA compliant products
A list of DITA compliant products would be very helpful in helping readers better grasp DITA. For exampe, are Flare, RoboHelp, or Help & Manual DITA compliant?LCP 17:44, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
 * None of the above products work with DITA, as far as I know. I'm not sure if a product list would be much help by itself. It would end up basically being a bunch of XML editors and content management systems, and would attract spam like crazy. Is there something the article sould cover better? Kla'quot 01:37, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I've added a brief section on creating content which I hope addresses the question. Kla'quot (talk | contribs) 19:54, 12 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks!LCP 22:39, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi LTC. Would a URL that maintains a comprehensive listing of DITA-related products comply with Wikipedia guidelines? I have such a page on my new DITA News website. See ditanews dot com/tools/ which is the landing page. We also will be publishing a monthly DITA Newsletter at ditanewsletter dot com. These are two more projects associated with our DITA Users member organization (now nearly 400 members in 20 countries). Cheers. Bobdoyle 01:13, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Updating links to latest DITA Releases:
OASIS has approved DITA version 1.1. IBM has released DITA Open Toolkit version 1.4. I will update the links to point to the new versions, which supercede and are backwards compatible with v.1.0. Bobdoyle 01:03, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

OASIS has approved DITA version 1.2 and IBM has released DITA Open Toolkit version 1.5.2. I have updated the links and given a summary of the list of changes after consulting with Robert Anderson. Simalot (talk) 23:24, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Product listings again
In the past few months this article has gained several new mentions of products that work with DITA. Could editors who do not have a COI with respect to particular products please step in and clean it up? I would prefer that no editing tools be mentioned at all, either in the body of the article or in external links, because any product mention on Wikipedia attracts fifty more. If we do mention products, I think there need to be clear criteria as to which ones are included and how to give them due weight. Frankly, I believe the placement of Syntext Serna first amongst DITA editors is blatantly undue weight. Simple solution: Nuke all product mentions. Cheers, Walk Up Trees (talk) 01:44, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Product listings are a problem and, as you say, a spam magnet. My opinion is that unless there is a really good reason (explained here) there should be no product mentions in the article. However, it is useful to have a small number of helpful links in "See also" and "External links". I suggest that links in "See also" to products that are sufficiently notable to have a Wikipedia page are ok. Such links should be in alphabetical order unless there is a verifiable reason to do otherwise. I haven't yet read this article, but surely there do not need to be so many external links? And ditanews.com does not need to be mentioned more than once in the entire article. There are three domain names mentioned twice in EL; the deep links should be cleaned out. Sometimes dmoz is used to reduce the number of external links. Any thoughts? Johnuniq (talk) 02:16, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
 * It's great that the External Links section has been cleaned up. The body of the article still says the following, which I find problematic: "DITA-compliant XML editors (such as Syntext Serna, Oxygen XML Editor, XMLmind, and XMetaL)." It is sourced, yes, but to an article that reviews 9 editing tools and gives, no indication that Syntext Serna, Oxygen XML Editor, XMLmind, and XMetaL are the four most noteworthy. If anything, some fairly good sources indicate that the top 3 DITA editors are Arbortext, XMetaL, and FrameMaker. Also please note that the list of editors with Serna at the top was added by . If nobody provides a good reason for keeping the list of four "examples" of DITA-compliant editors, I'll remove them in at the end of the week. Regards, Walk Up Trees (talk) 18:55, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I removed the following. I just noticed that its statement about validating against multiple schemas and DTDs is also oddly worded. DITA editors don't have to validate against "multiple" DTDs/Schema; what they have to do is validate against DITA DTDs and schemas, which tends to be a result of validating against arbitrary DTDs/Schema. "DITA-compliant XML editors (such as Syntext Serna, Oxygen XML Editor, XMLmind, and XMetaL) validate documents against multiple schemas and DTDs." Walk Up Trees (talk) 18:14, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Criticisms section?
Should a section be added to list the criticisms that exist of DITA? These include limitations to the specialisation mechanism, the permissiveness of the DTD (lists allowed inside paragraphs!), and so on. I think it would add some balance to the article. This article reads like its been written by a cabal of DITA tool vendors and consultants! lol —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.138.183.122 (talk) 21:17, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
 * No, not really (not very encyclopedic). However, suitable comments should be integrated into the article. Also, any puffery should be removed from the article. Johnuniq (talk) 02:37, 23 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree with the above assessment: the article appears to be intended to promote DITA, rather than objectively describe it. JamesBWatson (talk) 14:37, 23 July 2009 (UTC)


 * The article needs to be more balanced and puffery should definitely be removed. It is generally better to weave criticisms throughout the article than to segregate them all into a separate section. I've made a start in this direction, retitling the "Features" section to "Features and limitations" and adding some counterweight there. Cheers, Walk Up Trees (talk) 19:11, 29 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Walk Up Trees has made a good start on this. I don't know enough about DITA to feel I can do much to help, but more could be done. JamesBWatson (talk) 11:04, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Code samples too long
Propose shortening the length of the samples. This is an article, not a tutorial. Typically something along the lines of how to generate "hello world" is considered sufficient. --Cornellier (talk) 19:07, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Done 15 Oct. --Cornellier (talk) 01:02, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

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Technical content & team structure
Teams often assemble and collaborate around specific content types. Technical writers in the technical publications department will often focus on tasks, engineers will often focus on the specifications, while training often focuses on the concepts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mic sm (talk • contribs) 14:16, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

"Concept" information type?
The paragraph on the Concept information type needs to be rewritten.

"Concept information is more objective ..."

1. "More" objective than *what?* The preceding "Topic" information type is not described as subjective in any way.

2. Does "objective" mean the opposite of "subjective"? Or, is it used in the sense of "goal"? (If so, say "goal.")

I simply have no idea what this paragraph means. I'm trying to learn about DITA and whether to use it, so I'm not qualified to make changes. Elbmc1969 (talk) 08:20, 2 October 2021 (UTC)