Talk:Standardization of Office Open XML

Rick Jelliffe
I request community assistance with the Australian section of 'Complaints about the national bodies process'. Australia sent a guy called Rick Jelliffe to the ISO. Jelliffe was previously involved in a scandal where Microsoft paid him to edit Wikipedia articles on OOXML in it's favor. Jelliffe was also paid by Microsoft to help Microsoft through the ECMA standards process. Because of this, Standards Australia was widely criticised for not sending someone more independent. Some people keep repeatedly editing the article to make it falsely appear that the criticism came from only a single person (see diff here), when in fact the criticism was widespread, as the reference stated. We need to watch that the criticism of the standards process doesn't get diminished in this article. Thanks,  Lester  12:47, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Don't mince words; this is about User:hAl's edits and reverts. The source you added (and HAl deleted) mentioned 2 more names, so I added them in by name - but in Norway, for instance, more than 20 names are readily available; the article will look a mess if all of them are mentioned. So at what level do we agree to say "some" and let people look at the references, rather than mentioning them all by name in the article? --Alvestrand (talk) 20:27, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks Alvestrand. There are already too many organizations and individuals who criticized the Australian process to mention each one. Same with Norway. If we just mention one or two, then it gives the impression that it was just one or two people who criticized the process. It's a worry that any references get deleted, such as in the above example. I'm also concerned that the section 'Complaints about the national bodies process' is growing smaller by the day, as many points have been deleted. And some people are changing each section to say things like "According to Linux.com..." and "An article in Ars Technica said...". This casts doubt on the authenticity of the information. Either it is a reliable source, or else we don't use it. But we shouldn't cast doubt on every piece of information that criticizes the process. Linux.com is a reliable source. Ars Technica is a reliable source. The Sydney Morning Herald reference (which someone deleted) is a reliable source!  Lester  20:56, 20 April 2008 (UTC)


 * The issue is whether the sources are biased. Take a look at the where the criticism comes from:
 * An Ars Technica article that just sources the Groklaw blog which is extremely anti-OOXML
 * An Open Source Initiative board member
 * New Zealand Open Source Society president and director of an open source consulting firm
 * The Open Source Observatory
 * Andy Updegrove, whose ConsortiumInfo.org blog is extremely anti-OOXML. For example, the current "quote of the day" is, "I didn't think OOXML needed to be a standard; getting it that designation is like vanity-press publishing"
 * Take a look at the above sources of criticism. Do you think that it goes without saying that they are not biased?  Or do you think they are potentially biased?  Potentially biased statements can be attributed like they are in the article. WalterGR (talk | contributions) 22:01, 20 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Lester, you need to substantiate your claims. Rick Jelliffe's "scandal" was initiated by Rick himself when he openly disclosed Microsoft's offer. Microsoft's offer was to compensate for Rick's time spent on correcting factual errors. In the end no money changed hands, so your claims are false. Do you have additional information on this matter? If so, please, share. 71.112.94.166 (talk) 21:07, 11 May 2008 (UTC)


 * So what the hell does "offer was to compensate for Rick's time" & "no money changed hards" mean. What did Microsoft do, bend the fabric of space-time to let Rick have his time back.  By the way did Microsoft compensate for your time 71.112.94.166?  After all you are posting from a IP in Seattle WA, US  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.168.219.175 (talk) 13:17, 12 June 2008 (UTC)


 * In the end, I did 4 days work that I charged for. And then about two months at my own cost trying to catch up with morons claiming there was something underhand going on.Rick Jelliffe (talk) 19:39, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I am that Rick Jelliffe. I would ask Wikipedia editors to be very careful not to repeat the lies and distortions about me. What happens, unfortunately, is that people Google to the most popular sources which are often the early, sensational Slashdotted articles, and not the fact-checked later ones. In fact, there was no "scandal" in the sense of there being any substance to the story: MS didn't want to edit the article because of COI, and I wrote on my blog about their legitimate approach to me to get the article improved, which I did by doing things the way they should be done in that situation and with the kind help of various Wikipedia editors: through the edit pages. So at no time was anything wrong done, nor was there even any offer or idea of doing anything wrong, and yet this is still quoted as a "scandal". So when my names comes up again, it is not "Oh, Rick Jelliffe, the guy we made idiots of ourselves about last time" but "Oh, Rick Jelliffe, the guy who always seems to be involved in scandals". Rick Jelliffe (talk) 19:39, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

The Australian section is not as bad as it could be. However the sentence that 'Late in the process, Standards Australia broke a previous public pledge to send two internal employees to the ISO.' is 1) not substantiated in the quoted sources, and 2) false, because in fact no such pledge had been made that I am aware of: what happened was the initial team (consisting of 1 Standards Australia employee and 1 experienced long-time standards expert not an employeee) which had been announced and agreed by the Technical Committee had to drop out at the last moment and Standards Australia had to put together a new team literally hours before the deadline, which again consisted of 1 Standards Australia employee as Head of Delegation and 1 experienced long-time standards expert i.e. me). The controversy around me was fostered by IBM (IBM VP Bob Sutor publicly blogged a call to "do something about" me) and I believe the excuse was some strange idea that I could not represent the Technical Committee's views to the BRM or that I would not be diligent in pushing for resolution of the Australian comments...this was strange since I had submitted most of the Australian comments in the first place. To resolve this, Standards Australia and I agreed on a very limited brief for the delegation (we would vote abstain on issues we did not have explicit positions on from the Technical Committee.) I have not been paid by MicroSoft for any work relating to Standards Australia or at ISO SC34 or at the BRM. Rick Jelliffe (talk) 19:39, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

As it has been 11 months since I requested the changes that affect me, and since there has been no editorial or other response or discussion, I will be editing the material directly to correct the innuendo. I believe this is fair and the changes I make will comply with Wikipedia policy in that I regard the material as tending to defame me, and because it lack references, and where it has references these do not support the material. Rick Jelliffe (talk) 11:37, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Merge from article "Office Open XML Ballot Results"
I'd like to discuss the proposed merge of Office Open XML Ballot Results into this article. My position on this is to remove all non-notable and unverifiable content and then Merge. I don't think the current content justifies an extra article. Ghettoblaster (talk) 15:19, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
 * That won't leave much than the the ballot results. hAl (talk) 22:11, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
 * That page was moved to Office Open XML Intermediate 5 Month Ballot Results. I think that the ballot results should be described in this article about the standardisation, and it does not warrant its own article. John Vandenberg (chat) 22:11, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Support You may proceed with merge per WP:SILENCE. Fleet Command (talk) 14:56, 1 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Sure, it's history now, but don't trim too many of the juicy points. The subversive trick to preserve a provisional listing of the hilarious pack: URI scheme by submitting the same Internet Draft again and again was entertaining. –89.204.152.53 (talk) 07:28, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

"Extremely" contentious
I do think it's fair to say that this standardization process was not only contentious, it was extremely contentious. I've added one citation that uses that exact term. --Alvestrand (talk) 07:39, 30 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I think it is a ridicolous way to phrase en encyclopedic comment. It is pure POV because the amount of controversy is is not quantifiable and if you want to cite some POV information then put in in the article but not in the lead of the article as it it were some absolute truth. I also completly disagree. In reality if was a small group of mainly Microsoft competitors and the useual anti-MS OSS followers that very loudly objected to a format that originated from Microsoft. Most people even in ICT could not care less. They just keep using the old binary format as they have been doing for ages anyways. It mostly had significance in the very small world of people dealing with standardization processes and amongst some fanatical oss followers. As you were actually part of at least one of those groups you might see things from a very different but not very neutral perspective. hAl (talk) 12:25, 30 September 2009 (UTC)


 * The other view of the world is that it was Microsoft, people paid by Microsoft, and people from companies and organizations who said what Microsoft wanted them to say on one side, and everyone else who cared on the other side. More people cared about this one than about any other IT standard in recent memory. Even the chair of the WG (Alex Brown) says that the process was messy. "Extremely contentious" is a correct description. --Alvestrand (talk) 13:27, 1 October 2009 (UTC)


 * You yourself were a part of this standardization proces oppising the standardization. You lost and it seems like felt agrieved by that. I do not think your point of view is very objective on the matter. Extremely is not encyclopedic by any means. It has no value as such in the lead of the article. If you want to change "contentious" by "messy" I have no objections however I think that would not be an improvement either.hAl (talk) 14:50, 1 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Perhaps you guys could agree on "controversial"? Alexbrn (talk) 19:27, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
 * It seems that hAl and I rarely agree on anything. I'd agree that it was messy, though. --Alvestrand (talk) 17:56, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

The controversy is as big as the rest of the article. I'm surprised it was not a section in this article. What type of sources would be necessary for the controversy to be encyclopedic?166.137.101.48 (talk) 16:06, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Controversial paragraph
The paragraph ''There have been reports of attempted vote buying,[13][14][15][16] heated verbal confrontations, refusal to come to consensus and other very unusual behavior in national standards bodies.[17][18][19][20] This is said to be unprecedented for standards bodies, which usually act together and have generally worked to resolve concerns amicably. '' is not NPOV or substantiate by the citations.

It would be better to have ''There were claims of attempted vote stacking or vote buying [14] in Sweden, heated confrontations, confusion or disagreement about ISO and national body procedures[18][19][20]. This is said to be unprecedented for standards bodies, which usually act together and have generally worked to resolve concerns amicably.

Vote buying would connote, to me, that there were existing voters who Microsoft paid. It seems in Sweden Microsoft tried to arrange new companies, & did not promise to pay the companies instead giving some vague promise quid pro quo' later, asked them to act in good faith by participating in more than just the vote meetings. (And Microsoft withdrew and disavowed it as soon as it was pointed out that it was a bad look.) So I think "claims of vote stacking or vote buying" is better. I would remove [13] because it is an earlier version of [16] and not in the Wayback Machine. I would remove [16] too, because it is not on the topic of vote buying. I would remove [15] because an IBM exec is hardly NPOV.

I would remove refusal to come to consensus as entirely polemic. There was a plurality of voting national bodies reached, with only a few not joining a consensus. So even failure to come to consensus is too much.

It seems that [17][18][19] are all about disagreements on what subject matter was appropriate to discuss at the BRM. These are just wild claims which ISO, when it reviewed the BRM, threw out as being ignorant: only technical not economic issues could be discussed.

[20] is about that the Microsoft representative at the Dutch standards committee voted Yes, causing the vote to go to Abstain. This kind of thing happens: it is not suspicious or devious, it is why the rule exists. So I would get rid of [20] as not supporting the text, which means the phrase other very unusual behavior in national standards bodies is not justified by any citation.

I will not make any changes myself.Rick Jelliffe (talk) 11:26, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 2 one external links on Standardization of Office Open XML. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20080330033545/http://www.egovcom.de:80/srvinclude/4/1/inews_daily.asp?opt=archiv&red_nr=18255 to http://www.egovcom.de/srvinclude/4/1/inews_daily.asp?opt=archiv&red_nr=18255
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090306062707/http://www.xmlopen.org/ooxml-wiki/resources/BSI_OOXML_2007_05.pdf to http://www.xmlopen.org/ooxml-wiki/resources/BSI_OOXML_2007_05.pdf

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Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 18:04, 23 February 2016 (UTC)