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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 00:07, 17 May 2008.

NeXT

[edit]
previous FAC | 2nd FAC | 1st FAC

I worked on this article a lot quite some time ago. It has been nominated for Featured Article status three times, but has failed all three. As the article is now, I believe it definitely meets all the FA criteria. — Wackymacs (talk)

Comments

Issues resolved, Ealdgyth - Talk 04:15, 17 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
All links checked out as good. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:03, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I will update the access dates now. — Wackymacs (talk) 16:30, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Refs 2/4/9/20/30/34/35/36 have been fixed. — Wackymacs (talk) 16:45, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Issues resolved, ЭLСОВВОLД talk 22:17, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Items addressed. Karanacs (talk)
  • I think this needs a citation "but was a major boon for Next's image in the computer industry."
  • Need citation for "At the time, most workstations and high-end personal computers shipped with a hard drive between the size of 10 and 40 MB. "
    • I looked into this, and found that some workstations which competed with the NeXT (which were also released in 1989), didn't even have hard drives as standard. So, I reworded it, and I have added a citation. — Wackymacs (talk) 17:20, 15 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Need citation for " This was becoming a problem, as the user needed to swap between floppy disks to load an ever-growing number of applications. " (the problem part, not the fact that they had to swap disks)
  • Need citation for "At the time, a 640 MB drive cost approximately US$5,000. "
  • Need citation for "These drives were relatively new to the market, the NeXT being the first computer to use them. They were much cheaper than hard drives but they were slower and made it impossible to move files between computers without a network since there was only one magneto-optical drive on the cube"
  • 20% of the words in this phrase are "large" -> "BusinessLand, a large office-supply chain which had a large sales force that targeted large companies " (please fix)
  • "Canon invested US$100 million in 1989, a 16.67% stake" - Okay, I assume this means they invested in Next, but that ought to be made more clear
  • Need citation for "At the time Jobs was concerned that the market was quickly stratifying and the window of opportunity to introduce any new platform was rapidly closing."
  • Need citation for reason Ross Perot resigned from the board of directors
  • Need citation "The magneto-optical drive was expensive and had performance and reliability problems despite being faster than a floppy drive."
  • Need citation for "After a few years, most of the magneto-optical drives had failed and become useless"
  • Need nonbreaking space between a number and the word million. I fixed a few but there are a lot more
  • Need citation for "the lack of success by other new desktop platforms (such as the BeBox) suggests that the age of unique hardware designs was over, it is an open question as to whether the systems would have been more successful had they avoided the performance and price problems by including a hard drive in the first machines, and had found a more cost-effective RAM setup."
  • Need citation for "Although these ports were not widely used, NeXTSTEP gained popularity at institutions such as the National Reconnaissance Office, Central Intelligence Agency, First Chicago NBD, Swiss Bank Corporation, and other organizations due to its programming model."
  • Need citation for "At the insistence of existing Mac developers, Apple included an updated version of the original Macintosh toolbox that allowed existing Mac applications integrated access to the environment without the constraints of Blue Bo" (the fact that the existing Mac developers insisted)
  • Need citation for "The payroll schedule was also very different from other companies in Silicon Valley at the time. Instead of getting paid twice a month at the end of the pay period, employees would get paid once a month in advance."
  • This sentence needs context or should be removed "The announcement of the first NeXT release occurred at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco with the usual Jobsian fanfare which characterizes Apple events."
  • Need citation for "Other companies started work to duplicate the "top to bottom" OO system of the NeXT, which was considered by many in the industry to be the "next big thing"

Oppose Apart from the quality of the sources that Eagldyth brought up, large portions of this article are uncited, including statistics, quotations, and attributions of motive. I've tried to list the sentences/phrases that need citation here.

  • There is a citation needed tag in the sentence "The NeXT Computer was slower than many Unix workstations becoming available at that time, but cost about half as much"
  • Need a citation for "Meanwhile, a typical PC included 640 KB of RAM, the 8086, 8088, 286 or 386 CPU, a 640×350 16-color or 720×348 monochrome display, a 10 to 20 megabyte hard drive and no networking capabilities."

Karanacs (talk) 15:36, 15 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Karanacs (talk) 14:30, 17 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support, much improved. Hopefully you address Awadewit's concerns below. --Laser brain (talk) 18:14, 2 May 2008 (UTC) Comments: Still some outstanding minor issues below. --Laser brain (talk) 16:04, 2 May 2008 (UTC) Oppose, 1a, organizational problems, and other issues. This article definitely would have benefited from a peer review before coming here again.[reply]
Issues resolved. --Laser brain (talk) 20:59, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • The fair use rationale used for Image:NeXTSTEP desktop.jpg is not complete. Please use {{Non-free use rationale}} to ensure you get the required fields.
    • The writing in the lead is clumsy.. poor word choices in places:
    • "The division failed to release upgraded versions of the Macintosh and most of the Macintosh Office." Hm.. "failed to release" connotes something other than "did not release". What, exactly, are you implying?
    • Stylistic but ungrammatical commas proliferate the article. Do not use commas to segregate clauses that do not stand on their own.
    • Many sentences are excessively wordy - please get an uninvolved copyeditor to go through the whole text.
    • "In his role as chairman, Jobs visited university buying departments and faculty members to sell Macintoshes." Prose.
    • Re: "Freshmen" running PCs in their dorm rooms.. I'm the least politically-correct person you'll ever meet but that term is plain anachronistic now. It links to a disambiguation page.
    • "In 1987 he invested $20 million in exchange for 16% of NeXT's stock, pricing the company at $125 million." So, was NeXT public or private? You don't mention that up to this point and it seems like a key detail. It's not in the infobox either.
    • "By mid-1986, it was clear that no existing operating system (OS) would be able to meet their tentative specification for an object-oriented programming environment and user interface." Who made this determination?
    • "The Motorola 88000 RISC chip was originally considered, but the needed quantity was not available at the time." What was the needed quantity? What is Newsbytes, a PR wire? If so, need to find a different source.
    • "Uniquely, the NeXT Computer used a removable-medium 256 MB magneto-optical drive (MO)..." You've already wikilinked and defined the "MO" acronym in the previous paragraph.
    • "By 1989, the machines were in testing, and NeXT started selling limited numbers to universities with a beta version of the OS installed." What OS? You haven't written about NeXTSTEP yet, except in the lead. You're trying to be chronological but not succeeding, because you've only described the hardware. You might be better off having separate headings under this section that describe the hardware and OS development.
    • "In 1988, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates commented on the NeXTcube..." What's the NeXTcube? You haven't told us about that yet. In the last paragraph, you said "NeXT Computer". Are those the same?
    • "BusinessLand was an office-supply chain that had a vast sales force selling..." A sales force selling?
    • "Compaq could not equal IBM's sales force, so BusinessLand abruptly stopped selling the brand." I don't know what this is saying, or what brand it is referring to.
    • "This was a drastic change from NeXT's original business model..." Avoid beginning sentences with "This..." in reference to previous concepts. Restate the concept.
    • "The machines were finally released on the retail market in 1990..." Which machines? NeXT Computers? NeXTcubes?
    • Jargon alert: "Color graphics options were also available for these models in the form of the NeXTstation Color and the NeXTdimension graphics processor board for the NeXTcube."
    • "Pre-production motherboards and enclosures were produced, but the NRW did not enter production before NeXT exited the hardware market." More passive voice and excessively wordy. Couldn't you just say, "NeXT pre-produced some motherboards and enclosures but exited the hardware market before full production."
    • "Publication was ceased in 1994, after four volumes had been released." Why passive? Either "Integrated Media ceased publication..." or "Publication ceased..." No comma.
    • "NeXT sold 20,000 computers in 1992 (controversially, NeXT counted upgrade motherboards on backorder as sales), a small number compared with their competitors." Controversially according to whom? Does the citation at the end of the paragraph cover that statement and claim?
    • "Several developers used the NeXT platform to write programs that would make them famous." This could be interpreted in two ways.. they wrote the programs thinking it would make them famous, or they incidentally became famous after writing the programs. I know which one it is, but not every reader will.
    • "A number of programs shipped for NeXT computers..." The term "shipped" is software industry jargon.
    • "In 1993, NeXT dropped their hardware business and re-named to NeXT Software, Inc., laying off 300 employees of 540 total employees;" Prose, wordiness.
I haven't the constitution to make it through the rest just now, but the issues should be clear. One or more serious copyeditors needed before further consideration. --Laser brain (talk) 19:42, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose for now I agree with Laser brain. The article needs some serious copy editing. If a good copy editor sat down with the article for a day, they could improve it markedly. There are areas that need some explanation for the lay reader and wordy sections. There are also some grammatical errors and paragraph arrangements that could be improved. Awadewit (talk) 03:47, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have been alerted that the copyediting pass by Gusworld is complete, but I see a long list of questions on the article's talk page created by Gusworld as s/he was copyediting that has not yet been fully dealt with. It looks like an excellent list of points. When that list has been fully dealt with, I will look at the article again. Awadewit (talk) 16:53, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • They are suggestions for how to improve the writing and questions about missing content. If you do not feel that they need to be addressed, it is a good idea to explain why not on the talk page so that other editors like myself can understand your rationale. Awadewit (talk) 17:00, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I disagree. I see those as suggestions on what to add, in terms of context. Gusworld has already improved the writing (that is the whole point of a copy-edit). — Wackymacs (talk) 17:07, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ok, I'll reread the article now, but as a copyeditor myself who creates the exact same kinds of lists as Gusworld, I wonder if they appreciate having their comments ignored without explanation or having their comments struck out (this is against talk page guidelines). Thinking about an article in such depth requires a lot of time. It is a courtesy to copy editors to respond to their comments. Awadewit (talk) 17:14, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • After rereading the article, I am still opposing. The prose of the article still needs to be improved. I have drawn all of my examples from the first section of the article, but these are pervasive problems throughout the article.
  • There are several one-sentence paragraphs that should be incorporated into other paragraphs or expanded into full paragraphs. Ex:
  • In 1984, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was the head of Apple's SuperMicro division, which was responsible for the development of the Macintosh and Lisa personal computers.
  • Several times in the article, ideas and things are not fully explained to the reader. Ex:
  • As chairman, Jobs visited university departments and faculty members to sell Macintoshes. Jobs met Paul Berg, a Nobel Laureate, at a luncheon held in Silicon Valley to honor François Mitterrand - Silicon Valley should be linked; Berg should identified as a Nobel Laureate in Chemistry; Mitterand should be identified as the President of France
  • The first major outside investment was from Ross Perot, who originally saw NeXT employees and Jobs featured on the television show The Entrepreneurs. - Identifying Ross Perot in a phrase would help the reader
  • The article does not explain its jargon very well. Ex:
  • "Berg suggested to Jobs that he use his influence at Apple to create a 3M workstation, featuring more than one megabyte of RAM (hence the name), a megapixel display and megaflop performance." - "megapixel" is not linked or explained nor is "megaflop" (a word I grossly misinterpreted until I asked my geeky roommate about it)
  • There are still basic errors of grammar in the article. Ex:
  • "Apple CEO John Sculley ousted Jobs his day-to-day role at Apple, replacing him with Jean-Louis Gassée in 1985"
  • There are areas of vagueness: Ex:
  • "The board of directors sided with Sculley, while Jobs toured Europe and the Soviet Union on behalf of Apple." - What was Jobs doing?

I hope that these suggestions help. Try to look for the same problems throughout the article. Awadewit (talk) 17:33, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • I apologize, but I do not have time to read this article again right now. A family issue has very suddenly arisen that requires my attention. I may be able to read it again in about a week. I'm very sorry. Awadewit (talk) 15:25, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, I am still opposing on prose (now everyone knows how my students feel!). I have reread the article again and I still think that the problems I outlined above remain. The two most serious issues are the explanation of jargon and organization. Let me try to describe these issues in more detail.

  • The article does not explain its jargon very well.
  • Example: Berg suggested to Jobs that he use his influence at Apple to create a 3M workstation for higher education, featuring more than one megabyte of random access memory (RAM) (hence the name), a megapixel display and megaflop performance. A megaflop denotes the computer performance in flops (FLoating point Operations Per Second), which are used to measure computer performance. - A technical explanation has now been added (thank you!), but it is not seamlessly integrated into the prose and an explanation for why these components were brought together is not in the article. Why would these particular components have made the 3M ideal for the wetlab environment, for example? I feel like some pieces of the explanation are missing. Throughout the article, I just could not get a handle on the underlying reasons for many of the details offered. This is one of the hardest parts of writing about any technical subject. All of the connections seem obvious to the writers because they know them, but someone like myself who has only a passing familiarity with computers can't see all of those connections. They need to be explained to me. :) I need to learn.
  • There is less information now, unfortunately. As I have tried to explain, when I read the article much does not make sense to me. I have listed problem areas below. Awadewit (talk) 15:08, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Organizational issues.
  • General comment: At times the article adheres too rigorously to its chronological structure which makes it difficult for the reader to understand the topics being presented. This has also resulted in short, stubby paragraphs.
  • Laser brain was the one who suggested sticking to a chronological structure, and now you want me to do something completely different. I think it's extremely readable as it is, especially now that it has been reorganized a bit again. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 07:39, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not suggesting something completely different. I'm saying that at times the chronological structure gets in the way of understanding the topic. I'm not asking you to restructure the entire article - I'm asking you to rethink paragraph and sentence order, for example. Awadewit (talk) 15:08, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Example: In the first two paragraphs of "First generation", the specifications of the computer are not grouped together. For example, the CPU sentence comes well after the first description of the specs and next to the description of the case (it is my understanding that the CPU and the case have nothing really to do with each other). Then, there is a discussion of factory production followed by a return to a discussion of specs. To me, this doesn't make much sense. Details of sales are also split between the beginning and the end of the section. I think it would make more sense to describe the Next Computer and then its production, grouping together similar ideas into topical paragraphs: description. production, sales, etc.
  • Example: The "Next Software" section discusses two major topics: porting of software and the changes in Next's business model. However these two topics are spread out confusingly between several paragraphs. Again, I would explain everything about the porting in one or two paragraphs and everything about the changes in the business model in another set of paragraphs. It is hard for the reader to really figure out what is going on here, especially a reader like myself who is not all that familiar with computers.
  • Example: "Corporate culture and community" - Here again there needs to be some paragraph reorganization. For example, there should be an architecture and building paragraph. The information on these topics is too diffuse.
  • I would like to see an expansion of the "Impact on the computer industry" section. To someone who is not familiar with the details here, I am still struggling to understand what Next contributed. This section in particular needs to be explained in plain terms to the lay person, I think.
  • The prose is also a little wordy and choppy at times, but these problems are much easier to fix than the above. I feel that if the above problems could be solved, one sweep by a good copy editor would resolve any other minor issues.
    • It has been copy-edited 3 times already. List the exact problems, with justification of why it means this article doesn't meet FA criteria 1a for engaging prose. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 07:39, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Two examples where the sentences don't flow into each other yet:
        • 1) NeXT changed its business plan in mid-1986. The company decided to develop an object-oriented programming environment, hardware, and a Unix-like Mach-based operating system instead of just a low-end workstation. A team led by Avie Tevanian, who had joined the company after working as one of the Mach engineers at Carnegie Mellon University, was to develop the operating system. The hardware division, led by Rich Page, one of the cofounders who had previously led the Apple Lisa team, designed and developed the hardware. NeXT's first factory was completed in Fremont, California in 1987.[7] It was capable of producing 150,000 machines per year.[7] NeXT's first workstation was officially named the NeXT Computer, although it was widely referred to as "the cube"[19] because of its distinctive case designed by frogdesign.[20]
        • 2)Jobs found office space in Palo Alto on Deer Creek Road,[53] occupying a glass and concrete building, which featured a staircase designed by I. M. Pei, a Chinese American architect.[53] The first floor used hardwood flooring and large worktables where the workstations would be assembled. To avoid inventory errors, NeXT used the just in time (JIT) inventory strategy.[53] The company contracted out for all major components, such as mainboards and cases, and have the finished components shipped to the first floor for assembly. The second floor was the office space, which had an open floor plan. The only enclosed rooms were Jobs' office and a few conference rooms.[53] As NeXT expanded, it required new office space. The company rented an office in the San Francisco Bay in Redwood City.[51] The new office was designed by I. M. Pei. It was dominated by a floating staircase with no visible supports. The open floor plan was retained, although it was now very luxurious, including $10,000 sofas and Ansel Adams prints.[51]

Jargon:

  • The company decided to develop an object-oriented programming environment, hardware, and a Unix-like Mach-based operating system instead of just a low-end workstation. - What does this mean? I don't know.
  • Eventually, Canon released a NeXTstation which used the Intel GX processor. - Why?
  • The magneto-optical drive was replaced with a 2.88 MB floppy drive. - Why?
  • However, 2.88 MB floppies were expensive and did not succeed the 1.44 MB floppy. Realizing this, NeXT utilized the CD-ROM drive. - This is a little confusing - it is separated from the previous sentence. Did not succeed in the computer industry at large? Just in Next computers? Why did Next choose to use the CD-ROM? Were there other choices available?
  • NeXT's long-term aim was to migrate to a RISC architecture. - What is RISC? Why would they want to migrate to that?
  • NeXT started porting the NeXTSTEP operating system to PC compatible computers using the Intel 486 processor in 1992. - Could we link or explain "porting"? I had to look it up.
  • Why was Next ported to the platforms it was? Were they the poplar ones at the time? Was Next contracted to do so?
  • Apple favored this option over others, which included continuing development of the Copland operating system, and purchasing BeOS - Could "BeOS" be explained in a parenthetical?
  • Object-oriented programming and user interfaces became more common after the release of the NeXTcube and NeXTSTEP in 1988. - Was this caused by Next, though? The sentence after this seems to indicate a causation but this one does not.

Here is an example of a good explanation:

  • The magneto-optical drive manufactured by Canon was used as the primary mass storage device. These drives were relatively new to the market, and the NeXT was the first computer to use them.[25] They were cheaper than hard drives but slower (with an average seek time of 96 ms). The design made it impossible to move files between computers without a network, since each NeXT Computer had only one MO drive and the disk could not be removed without shutting down the system. - It explains what a magneto-optical drive is (I didn't know) and why they were used. Awadewit (talk) 15:08, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I hope these suggestions help. On a practical note, sometimes it helps to make a little outline of what you want each section to cover. The outline can help you organize the information because you can see the larger topics more easily. Awadewit (talk) 17:16, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Comments
  • I think the lead needs some work...it doesn't seem to mention the impact, despite there being a section on that.
  • I agree that the lead needs some work. I would further suggest reorganizing the paragraphs - one for the chronological history of the company, which removes some of the excess details (e.g. how much money the company sold for), and one for a description of what the company did. The current arrangement is a little confusing. Awadewit (talk) 16:22, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Short paragraphs like "In total, 50,000 NeXT machines were sold" stand out as needing attention

The prose is generally good overall, just these minor things. dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 01:43, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support - All seems OK now... dihydrogen monoxide (H2O)

I have made numerous little edits, mostly to the intro and history. I've removed any "expose" that was better left in articles on that topic (FLOPS for instance). It's nice to see how this article has evolved, I wrote the initial version some time ago, and I see broad strokes of it in there even though practically every single word has changed! Maury (talk) 21:04, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment (minor) The intro says that WO was not very successful, but the body says it was very successful. Both of these statements could be considered true, but they are confusing. I would suggest removing the "successful" in the intro entirely, and slightly expanding the section below to note that it was initially successful but was later crowded out. Maury (talk) 12:23, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Citation formatting resolved. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:02, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • All of the citation formatting needs cleanup. Because two styles were mixed, there is inconsistent page numbering and inconsistent date formatting, resulting from mix of citation and cite family templates. All of the citations need cleanup to one, consistent style and format, including page numbers and date formatting, and removing citation templates. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:35, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think I got it. I have removed the 'pg.' from the page=part of every citation. Anything else? — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 20:44, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • (edit conflict) Listing them shouldn't be necessary: first, do a search, find within the text on citation, and replace them all to cite templates (unless you want to migrate the other direction). Then, when you're finished with that, scroll to the bottom and look at your citations. You'll see some have pg. some will have p. some pp. etc; make them all consistent, one style or the other. Then notice all the unlinked dates in citations as a result of the citation template, which handles dates differently than the cite family. Yes, I know Ealdgyth didn't notice; she's been traveling and has been busy (that's no explanation for why subsequent reviewers didn't at least glance at the citations). When you're finished, there should be only one type of citation style used, no citation templates, the same kind of page number formatting on every citation, and consistent date formatting and linking. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:48, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I left you plenty of samples, there's plenty more to do. Just to be sure you understand, see WP:CITE#Citation sytles. The {{citation}} template returns a completely different format than {{cite book}}, {{cite news}}, {{cite web}}, etc., so the two styles can't be mixed within an article, or inconsistent formatting results. You have to pick one: either citation or the citet family. Once you have picked one, you have to handle dates and page numbers consistently. I hope this helps; there's much more to do still. Editors and reviewers should scroll through the citations and notice the inconsistencies. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:59, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(undent) They look fine to me. But I don't see any examples to check. Maury (talk) 22:56, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Look at the edit history for about a dozen examples, and compare the page number formatting in these citations:
  • Stross, Randall (1993). Steve Jobs and the NeXT Big Thing. Athenium, 80. ISBN 0-689-12135-0.
  • Stross, Randall E (1993). Steve Jobs and the NeXT Big Thing. Maxwell Macmillan International, pp. 289–374. ISBN 9780689121357.
  • Linzmayer, Owen W. (2004). Apple Confidential 2.0. No Starch Press, 323. ISBN 1-59327-010-0.
Different templates handle page numbers differently; they need to be consistent. The first and third citation need a p. There are other examples in edit summary. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:21, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Comment nextstep is sometimes written NeXTSTEP, but other times NEXTSTEP. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.55.16 (talk) 12:46, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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