User talk:WWB Too/Mindjet

Looking good. But it's a bit one-sided. The company can't be perfect, surely. How about adding some balanced comments from the reviews? Not critical necessarily, but serious. Examples: Something about the Buzan controversy, or comparison of feature vs the competition. e.g. RWW's "It would be nice, I think, if Mindjet's organic interface view was more loosey-goosey like Buzan's."

Good luck!

PS Are you planning to submit this to DYK? If so I'll add some suggested hooks here.

Woz2 (talk) 12:32, 5 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Interesting comment. Could you point to anything you think is one-sided? Do you mean like the last two paragraphs of Products and services? If you think anything is overmuch, let me know which points. What I've included I figured to be significant names and numbers, but I'm open to specific suggestions.


 * I didn't go into much detail about specific software aside from basic information about their flagship software products. My aim was to focus on the company's history and operations, as reported in third-party sources. And I've endeavored to write as neutrally and encyclopedically as I could.


 * As for the specific example you give, Marshall Kirkpatrick at RWW offering the opinion that Mindjet's software could stand to be "more loosey-goosey" like that of another industry thinker not directly associated with the company) doesn't strike me as a key aspect of the company's history. Kirkpatrick's comments might well be relevant to an article about that software program, if one existed. And I don't know what you mean by "Buzan controversy"; I don't believe he has any formal connection to the company in any case.


 * Likewise, I haven't found that Mindjet itself to be particularly controversial: using the admittedly unscientific method of searching for "mindjet" and "controversy" or "mindjet" and "criticism", I find the results are, if anything, neutral-to-positive. If there is something significant out there, I am not opposed to its inclusion, but I don't know what that might be.


 * Anyway, I would be interested in taking this to DYK once it's ready. Please share your thoughts on the above, plus hook ideas. Hope my disagreement doesn't offend. Cheers, WWB Too (talk) 23:08, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Maybe an example will help? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubspot#Criticism_and_controversy It seems to me that no company is perfect so there must be some notable counterpoints to be made in an encyclopedia article. Otherwise it's just the company brochure. Woz2 (talk) 00:16, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

By the "Buzan controversy" I mean the RWW comment "Complicating the situation is the connection between mind mapping, and Mindjet in particular, and a man named Tony Buzan. Buzan claims to have created mind mapping..." and so on... Woz2 (talk) 01:26, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

DYK hook suggestion:

...that Mindjet's organic interface view to a mind map was criticized by one reviewer for not being "loosey-goosey" enough? Woz2 (talk) 01:30, 8 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Certainly no company is perfect, but it doesn't necessarily follow that every notable company has a significant controversy in its history. Based on the research I've done, I think that is the case with Mindjet. I'm certainly no stranger to writing about controversies involving clients when they are clearly warranted, but as you surely know, proving a negative is a tall order.


 * As your suggested hook indicates, Marshall Kirkpatrick at RWW seems to indicate a preference for Tony Buzan's style of mindmap, although I'm not even sure I quite understand his comment. But it's not really a straightforward critique, let alone a controversy, and it isn't necessary to balance positive reviews, because there are no software reviews here at all.


 * As far as I'm aware, there's no requirement that an article include a criticism section, and it seems like a stretch to include one here. Just to check I didn't miss anything, I've carried out Google searches for "Mindjet + criticism", "Mindjet + issues" and "Mindjet + problems". In each case, there were no critical secondary sources to be found. For the second search term above, the primary results were from Mindjet's own forums, where users were reporting software issues (a fact of life for any software company), which I don't believe can be used as a reliable source. I noticed that the Hubspot criticism section tends to cite primarily self-published sources, and one is even a Twitter account, but I wouldn't feel comfortable using that type of source for this purpose. If you're able to point to reliable secondary sources discussing criticisms or controversies related to the company, I would be happy to add these, but I haven't seen any myself.


 * This is intended to be a basic company profile, written strictly according to Wikipedia's guidelines, particularly this one from WikiProject Business. Perhaps additional sections could be added later, for instance if there are later secondary sources that provide criticism (or praise, I suppose!) but I do believe this is mainspace-worthy as it is now.


 * I appreciate the time you're spending on this, and I do not mean to argue for its own sake, but to make it a better article. If we still see this differently by this point, it may be time to seek a third opinion. WWB Too (talk) 16:18, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

OK Thanks for your diligence. I guess if there's no notable criticism then the article is OK. I'll move it over and tld the Requested edit. Cheers! Woz2 (talk) 16:37, 8 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Hey, thanks a lot Woz. I appreciate the close read and even the tough questions. Glad we were able to work through them. Oh, and the DYK nom looks good to me. Cheers, WWB Too (talk) 21:10, 8 May 2012 (UTC)