Talk:LexisNexis/Archives/2020

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Challenging poorly written edits by User:Jack4576

User:Jack4576 has rewritten what was a clear, coherent, and neutral narrative into a poorly written, incoherent mess that is extremely difficult to follow. User:Jack4576 is claiming that my text violates WP:NPOV, which is flatly untrue.

It looks like User:Jack4576 has not actually read any of the sources cited. Most of those sources are readily available online. For example, the Hahn and Bellardo book is available from both Google Books and the Internet Archive.

Here are the major flaws in User:Jack4576's edits:

1. "The enterprise later to be known as LexisNexis originated in western Pennsylvania." This is so wrong. As my text clearly indicated, the creation of LexisNexis was merely inspired by Horty's research across the state line in Pennsylvania but LexisNexis itself did not begin in Pennsylvania. (The really amazing thing is that John Horty is still alive and still practicing law, although that fact is too tangential to include in the LexisNexis article.)

2. Removing any mention of comparative hospital law. That is essential because it is what drove Horty's early CALR research: he was shocked to discover the mind-boggling diversity of hospital law in the United States and had to resort to using computer databases to keep track of it all.

3. Removing any mention of Jerome Rubin's contributions to the creation of LexisNexis. The Hahn and Bourne book explains how Wilson was marginalized by Mead Corporation's fed-up management because he wouldn't implement his own study's recommendations, then Rubin was given a clear mandate to carry out those recommendations and therefore it was Rubin who actually created LexisNexis and in turn created modern CALR. Without Rubin, there would be no LexisNexis. So a narrative of the company's history that avoids mentioning Rubin's role makes no sense.

4. Rewriting everything in the passive voice to avoid crediting Rubin.

5. Moving Hahn and Bourne's observation about the importance of Lexis to the very end. It belongs in the middle because one normally writes history in chronological order; in this case, that passage properly contextualizes Lexis among its 1970s peers. (I majored in history as an undergraduate in one of the top history departments in the world.) Putting that observation at the end makes zero sense because then you're pulling back the reader from the present back to the 1970s. That's how one writes experimental literature or an X-Men film, not an encyclopedia.

Any objections before I revert this back to the last good version? --Coolcaesar (talk) 06:22, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

I disagree with your descriptions of my edits. A reversion is unnecessary. The reason I made those edits was because as someone else has flagged, this article reads like an advertisement because of the amount of superfluous detail it currently contains.
1. Why is it wrong? Yes it was inspired by Horty's research, but the work that eventually resulted in the systems created by the Ohio bar; and then the acquired by what eventually became lexis, originated in Western Pennsylvania. Perhaps a better wording is 'has its origins in western pennsylvania'.
2. I don't see why the mention of comparative hospital law is essential to an article about lexisnexis. If an article was to be created about John Horty, and he seems worthy of his own article; it would seem that it would warrant mentioning there.
3. The mention of Rubin by name is unnecessary. Why doesn't 'an executive' suffice? The reader doesn't have any context as to who Rubin is, why he is important, or why he is notable, other than the fact he is an executive of the subject company.
4. Its not to avoid crediting Rubin. Its because Rubin isn't notable or important to the typical reader, so using an executive by name is unusual.
5. Why doesn't it belong at the end? Every other paragraph in the section refers to issues of chronology; whereas Hahn & Bourne explain the overall historical significance of Lexis. Having Bourne's observations appear halfway through the article is abrupt, in my view. Jack4576 (talk) 08:59, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
All that said Coolcaesar, you have written a great article, and I don't mind if things get reverted. My only concern was to reduce unnecessary detail for a reader who is not already deeply familiar with LexisNexis, while retaining the original information. Points 1-4 i'm happy to concede, but point 5; I think the article reads less abruptly with the statement of significance at the end of the chronology; rather than just abruptly appearing in the middle. Jack4576 (talk) 10:12, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
In response to 3 and 4: The point is that in my original text, I was attempting to make it clear that Rubin was notable because OSBA really didn't know what the hell they were doing (it was a terribly amateurish Mickey Mouse operation), Data Corporation didn't know what the hell they were doing (by trying to adapt a text-search product originally made for a completely different purpose to legal research), and for that matter, neither did Mead Corporation or Wilson. OBAR was a floundering, barely usable disaster out in the cultural and technological wasteland that is Ohio (I have never been there but we have many Ohio refugees in California) when Mead Corporation brought in a team of slick New York City consultants with fancy Ivy League degrees to tell them what they had bought when they acquired Data Corporation and if there was anything commercially useful in it. Despite OBAR's critical flaws, Rubin correctly realized that OBAR hinted at the possibility of a future in which CALR was commercially viable if done right. Once Wilson had been pushed aside for moving too slow, Rubin moved swiftly to capitalize on the lessons learned from OBAR's flaws in order to build a superior information service that Mead could actually bring to market. If that wasn't already clear enough in the previous article text, the reason is that I was trying to carefully paraphrase the Hahn and Bourne book in order to avoid a plagiarism accusation and also to stay neutral.
On the last point, the more I think about it, you have a point that the historical significance of Lexis should be highlighted and should not be buried in the middle of the historical discussion. But the more I think about it, it should come first at the top (i.e., to explain to readers up front why LexisNexis is worth reading about), rather than at the bottom (to recapitulate why they just waded through all this tedious corporate history).
So I am proposing to revert back to the last good version, but then (1) move the discussion of Lexis's historical significance to the top and (2) more clearly highlight why Rubin is important in that he was the prime mover in building a new service on the ashes of OBAR's failures which became LexisNexis. --Coolcaesar (talk) 20:52, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
Sounds good to me Coolcaesar Jack4576 (talk) 04:16, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

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