Talk:History of IBM

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the History of IBM article.
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[edit] POV check

POV check tags added for passages pasted in from external source without consideration of Wikipedia's content policies. Gazpacho 18:26, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

The tagged sections don't appear to be copyvios. Other than some minor tone issues ("surprisingly", "amazingly", and some hyperbole), the article seems fairly well sourced and balanced. Do you have any specific concerns? Right now, so much is tagged that its hard to see what exactly the concern is. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 13:28, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
I don't think I agree. For example, the cited document has this text (http://futureobservatory.dyndns.org/9065.htm#Plug_Compatible); note stressed sections:
Plug Compatible…the second, more important, problem was that of the 'plug compatible' manufacturers. In the 1970's these became IBM's most direct form of competition; on the principle if you can't beat IBM then look just like it (and charge a lower price). These plug took sales directly from where it hurt IBM most. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but where it cut into sales and profits IBM could not afford to be sanguine about it. At first the competition was in the area of 'peripherals'. In particular companies such as Memorex and Telex challenged IBM's hold on storage products (disk, tape and memory). IBM's reaction, to shake off these gnats, was simply to let loose its most advanced technology and suck its competitors into a crushing race to produce ever more advanced equipment....
And here's what we have:
A more important problem was created in the 1970s by the 'PCMs'—plug-compatible manufacturers—working on the principle that if you can't beat IBM, then look like it but charge a lower price. Initially, they competed in the area of peripherals—disk, tape and memory. IBM's response, to shake off the likes of Memorex and Telex, was to release its most advanced technology.
This article seems to have been lifted pretty systematically, with some rewording. The simple fact that the topics seem to be structured and presented in the same way is striking. I'm quite willing to stipulate that whoever did this thought the text was sufficiently changed to meet Wikipedia goals. But I believe it really needs to be rewritten (or perhaps I should just say "written") – unless the person who wrote the referenced text was in fact the submitter, and was in a position to contribute the material.
This (IBM's history) is an important topic, and deserves the attention of an historian rather than a transcriber. Trevor Hanson 23:39, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Duh, I somehow missed the prominent first post on this page. So I guess my copyvio comment is kind of irrelevant. Sorry. Trevor Hanson 00:41, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
      1. Hi, this is Michael (mpauliks@yahoo.com): I think it is important to support the 0 and the # by taking a look on following url too: Julius E. Pitrap

http://it.sohu.com/03/96/article15209603.shtml

[edit] Rewrite

I've just suggested that this article needs a rewrite - it's ungrammatical, huge and confusing, the chronological order is messed up, there's barely anything on the history of IBM's PC and PowerPC ventures (2 of the more important aspects of the company) and the flow of the article has clearly been messed up by various cuts (eg. Watson, the 1st President, is referred to without being introduced). I'll get to work on some of these issues when I have time, but if someone else could help out with this mammoth task that'd be much appreciated. Thomas Ash 16:20, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree. I am an ex-IBM'er and I found this articule to be particularly confusing and poorly written (for example the dealing with competition section). The history seems technially accurate (at least it lines up with my own personal knowledge), and the analysis seems to also be correct (although I'm not sure how much of it is appropriate, as helpful as it may be). The major problem is, to me, the poor grammar and organization. I was going to copyedit the article (as I am in the process of doing for IBM, however after reading 70% of this article I'm of the opinion that it needs to be started over from scratch. Any takers? /Blaxthos 22:27, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
This is such a major undertaking. We're essentially asking for a volunteer who will author a short book on the subject, and then (as author) release all or part of the content through Wikipedia. Another approach might be for someone to write a very abbreviated history – essentially just a framework – which could then be used by the community to structure topic-by-topic rewriting. (Few will take on "The History of IBM"; but many would consider tackling "The 1956 Consent Decree" or "Early IBM Research".) As I noted in an earlier post, I see (at least on a cursory glance) a good deal of material in the current article that apparently was transliterated from http://futureobservatory.dyndns.org/9065.htm; much of that in turn seems to be based on a book by David Mercer: IBM: How the World's Most Successful Corporation Is Managed. (A sign of this is in the somewhat curious section headings: "Selling the family silver", "Lowest cost producer", "Buying in".) We clearly need multi-sourced, original text. Trevor Hanson 00:42, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, starting from scratch might be the best thing to do... Thomas Ash 16:21, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
I suggests that we use the text before text based on the book by David Mercer was inserted, when history was a section of the main IBM article, as a start for this article instead of starting from complete scratch. Good idea or bad? - David Björklund (talk) 01:12, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Very good idea. Go ahead - I'll try to add back in some of what's good in the current article when you've done so. Thomas Ash 09:50, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm. My first reaction also was "great idea"; but reading over the old text is a bit deflating. The various events and facts cited seem to be an almost random sprinkling of detail. (Of course the topic is huge.) So what Kesla proposes is a good idea, but by all means take a blue pencil and edit the heck out of it. In particular, if the two of you can restructure the outline, so that it reflects the salient events in IBM's history, that could help guide others in filling in the gaps. Trevor Hanson 19:30, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. However, I feel that I do not have the knowledge of IBM's history to make such an outline. Maybe that is the next thing to discuss. - David Björklund (talk) 00:44, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
See below. Trevor Hanson 06:47, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I've reverted the text to the one that I suggested earlier, and added some text from the previous article. I also used the proposed timeline. There's quite a lot of cleanup to do, but at least it's a start. Please add more things from the previous article you found good, so that it don't get wasted! - David Björklund (talk) 15:58, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Recent changes by 220.233.221.252 removing exclamation marks

A systematic edit was just made replacing exclamation marks with periods. However, this resulted in many instances of incorrect punctuation (e.g. double periods, or mid-sentence periods), and it also retitled Feynman's book Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman! I have fixed the errors that stood out. I can understand 220.233.221.252 wanting to get rid of some of those exclamation marks; but the underlying problem would seem to be in the sentences where they were used, rather than in the punctuation. This article is, after all, flagged for rewrite. Trevor Hanson 19:41, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New outline for History of IBM article

Discussion above suggests that the rewrite effort begin by a) reverting to an older version of the text, viz. the text here, and b) expanding the outline to include salient events and issues that should be addressed in subsequent revisions. Some of that material might be taken from the later updates to the article; other material should be written anew.

I suggest that we use this thread to start assembling a list of major topics that should be covered. A good reference source for significant events would be http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/documents/index.html, which is IBM's corporate take on what has happened.

As a starting point, I will paste in a list of topics for consideration. This is essentially a random list of issues that come to mind, grafted onto an edited version of the current structure. I'm sure I've omitted many key issues but we must start somewhere. I suggest we jointly edit this directly, adding and reorganizing topics, to see if we can come up with something that looks workable. I expect we'll add lots and lots of detail, which we'll need to cull out (or preferably insert as subheadings) to produce a reasonable top-level structure. A key question will be: Which topics should be segregated into sub-articles, so we can keep the main article to a reasonable length? (I should add as an aside that I believe many of these issues need to be addressed here separately from an historical perspective, distinct from their treatment in subject-matter articles. Thus I think the history article and its subarticles need to address aspects of the S/360 and S/370 that do NOT belong in their primary articles. At least, I think that's what I think. I don't see how we stitch perspectives on what the S/360 project did to IBM into an already-full article about the wires-and-pliers aspects of that system. I need to think more about this, however.)

The following is merely a suggestion; feel free to butcher it, or replace it with a different approach. Sorry for using <pre> but I thought this would probably be easiest for hackery. Trevor Hanson 06:47, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Timeline
    * 1880s–1911: Herman Hollerith and The Tabulating Machine Company
    * 1911–1924: Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation (CTR)
    * 1924–1938?: Between the wars 
    * 1938-1949: World War II and Holocaust period
    * 1950-1959: Postwar recovery and the rise of business computing
    * 1960-1969: The System/360 era
    * 1970-1979: The System/370 era
    * 1980-1989: Information revolution, rise of software and PC industries
    * 1990-1999: IBM's rebirth
    * after 2000: Recent trends

Major historical events and trends
    * Non-computer lines of business
    * IBM service organizations
    * IBM Research and academic relations
    * Air Force and airline projects in the 50s
    * Scientific computing in the 50s and 60s
    * Federal Systems Division
    * Antitrust: 1959 consent decree, 1969 litigation, 1982 dismissal
    * Unbundling of software and services in 1969
    * Evolution of IBM's computer hardware
    * Evolution of IBM's operating systems
    * High-level languages
    * IBM and AIX/UNIX/Linux/SCO

Competition and market forces

    * In the 1950s/1960s: 
        - Evolution of the computer industry
        - IBM's competitors
        - IBM's response to competition, and eventual industry dominance

    * In the 1970s/1980s
        - Dominance of the mainframe, and its transformation of organizations
        - Evolution of ADP/MIS departments into IT organizations: changing roles, goals, and methods
        - Emergence of departmental computing and minicomputers
        - Emergence of time-sharing and the "Information Center"
        - Emergence of software industry versus "bespoke software"
        - Leasing Companies
        - PCMs (Plug-Compatible Manufacturers)
        - IBM's response to competition

    * After the PC revolution
        - Rise of the "knowledge worker"
        - Computing becomes utility/commodity
        - IBM PC versus Apple
        - IBM versus PCMs
        - IBM's responses to a changing marketplace

Critical projects/technologies in IBM history
    * The IBM S/360 project
    * OS/360 and the Mythical Man Month
    * CP/CMS and VM
    * Key software technologies: COBOL, CICS, IMS, DB2
    * The canceled IBM FS project
    * 3270 display terminal family
    * IBM PC
    * IBM PowerPC and RISC technology
    * AIX

I continue to believe that, in addition to the straight timeline headings currently present in the article, a number of "major events and trends" headings should be included. One example is "Unbundling of software and services", which is referenced as a subheading in a link (now broken) in another Wikipedia article. Other topics such as those listed above also seem important, independent of their slots in a chronology, and could be useful for reference from other Wikipedia articles. I will resist adding such headings unless I feel like taking on the larger project of shepherding the article; but if others agree, perhaps at least creating some placeholders would help encourage contributions. Trevor Hanson 21:15, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rotten Apple

Anybody know what year IBM was #4 in sales, but #1 money-loser? (That's business management...) Trekphiler 07:24, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Holocaust comments

The section History of IBM#1938–1949: World War II and Holocaust era begins with a hard rap to IBM based on Edwin Black's book. Not to minimize the role of IBM and other large corporations in abetting Nazi buildup, but is this really the salient fact about IBM in the period 1938-1949? It seems that many other important things happened at IBM before, during, and immediately after the war.

Moreover, the following observation strikes me as hyperbole:

"...knowing that the [tabulating] machines could help the Nazis conquer Europe and destroy European Jewry."

Again, accepting IBM=bad and all that, I find the equation tabulating-machines = Nazi victory + Holocaust a bit strong. (I mean, they were tabulating machines. There was a LOT of equipment and materiel sold to the Bad Guys before and during the war. Selling tabulating machines doesn't strike me as particularly egregious, on the face, compared for example with armaments and their precursors.) At any rate, I would think one can condemn war profiteering without considering the sale of tabulating equipment a premeditated war crime. I haven't read Black's book, but this Wikipedia paragraph citing it strikes me as POV. Again, please, I am not an apologist for profiteering, but I do think we need to keep an historical perspective. This was a complex period, and reducing it to polarized blame mongering doesn't seem to add to our understanding of IBM's history, which is the topic at hand. Trevor Hanson 06:25, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] recent edits by anonymous user to 1933–1945: IBM and the Nazi and Holocaust era

These anonymous edits come from an IP address (68.33.193.207) that has also been used to edit the article on Edwin Black, whose book is cited in this article. The edits from this anonymous source appear to slant this article strongly in favor of Black's POV. The neutrality of these edits is therefore in doubt. Paul 02:19, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I have edited the section and added an NPOV tag to point readers to this discussion page. My edits were as follows: first, to move the paragraph about rifles back to the top where it was before the anonymous editor moved it to the end, and to clean up the language a bit. I have tried to slightly soften the "slant" that I detect in the text without removing any of the facts asserted there. I welcome further discussion of these changes but I urge prospective editors to discuss proposed changes here before making more changes to the section.

In particular I will watch this page for attempts by the above-mentioned anonymous editor, who may be Edwin Black himself, to revert changes. I hope that we can reach a negotiated, compromise version of the text after open debate by editors who are not afraid to publish their names. (Mine is on my user page.) Paul 02:48, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Without debating the merits of Black's position and the accuracy of his specifics, let me raise the issue of its relative importance. We are talking about a very significant period -- 1933-1949 (although this section was retitled 1933-1945 – why? and what about the period 1946-1949 that was removed from the timeline?). Naturally, Nazism dominates the period before, during, and just after the war; but I find it hard to accept that the most significant fact about IBM during this period, as measured by column-inches, is its participation in the sale of tabulating equipment to the Nazis. (I made this point under the previous discussion heading, though it prompted no comment.) IMO this section lacks topical balance. One grants that the History of IBM article needs to mention this important and contentious issue; but perhaps the entire discussion of Black's thesis needs to move to a separate article. Trevor Hanson 03:08, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I hope it is permissible to edit this Talk page and add remarks. Several people use this computer, some for a short time and not a few once and never again. None of us are skilled contributors--not me at least. The material on IBM was changed to add historical correctness. The era between the wars was incorrectly stated as 1924 to 1938 when it should be 1918 to 1939, called "the Time Between the Wars" or Zwieschen Krieg. WWI ended in 1918. WWI started in 1939. Beginning the section with IBM production of rifles was chronologically incorrect since that action did not start til 1942 or so, long after WWII was underway, not until after Pearl Harbor in December 1941, when the US joined the war. But the IBM-Nazi relationship began years before in 1933. Hence, that change was chonologically correct. The reversion was in error. I do not know Wikopedia protocol and do not know what questions to even ask, nor am I regular contributor. I was just trying to crrect errors and add fact. I was editing when the page changed before my eyes. The subhead "WWI and the Holocaust period" is erroneous since the Nazi era began on January 30, 1933 and continued until May5-6, 1945. The 12-Year Holocaust began in 1933 with 6 distinct phases: Identification, Excluson, Confiscation, Ghettoization, Deportation and Extermination, all of which were organized by IBM. The Shoah or physical destruction phase was 1941-1945. Playing with and blurring the dates and chronology is more than historically inaccurate and the attempts to revert the incorrect dates and chronology are not fair to unknowing users and readers. I wish I could upload pictures I have seen, but I do not know how to upload or position photos of punchcards, documents and so foreth that are available. May I suggest please www.ibmandtheholocaust.com and http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/comments.php as a starter. It is important not to fudge the facts and chronology. IBM has never denied the facts in the books, the many articles and various videos you can search on You Tube and elsewhere. Those who tried to subvert the truth often issued public retractions and paid money damages and otherwise admitted their error, despite hiring libel attorneys. See www.nizkor.org and Histoiry Network News at www.hnn.us. I realize it is hard for technical experts to grasp the historical timetables and facts, which is why those with experience in the history of technology in genocide, and the use of Nazi technology and science such as Robert Wolfe, just retired chief of Nazi documentation for the National Archives, Hollerith expert Willliam Seltzer of Fordham University, Robert Urekew of University of Louisville, or Marek Orski, senior historian of the Stutthof concentration camp be the gold standard. I hope this comment is helpful. Now I see as I ended this that someone has again inserted the wrong date for the end of WWII and the Nazi regime. It was 1945 not 1949. This is elemental history. Every time I try to add a comment to this talk page it is excised. Perhaps I am doing something wrong with the save button.

  • Your comments made it in this time. Why do you not sign your name to them? The paragraphs just above this comment are by the same editor who has made many recent edits to this page and the page on Edwin Black. (Compare IP addresses on page histories). You will see that the ONLY edits made from your address are to these pages. So your initial comment about "others" using your IP address isn't credible. Paul 03:21, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't really understand. I am using the computer now. Other people use it other times. What is an IP address? There are several computers here--all at the same address. I tried to write remarks and correct the date errors and my corrections were changed moments later. WWII ended in 1945 not 1949. I tried to comment on the Talk page and those comments were removed as I was saving them. I don't understand why you want to change the date WWII began and ended, and confuse the Nazi period, the Holocaust period, and WWII era. I don't think you want facts, you just want to argue against the Holocaust and change the facts. So, I think I will not try to fix your errors any more because you are very argumentative. Good bye. Betty

  • for your information, an IP address is an numerical identifier that is sent by one computer to another, like a postmark. All edits made on Wikipedia are labelled by either an IP address (in your case) or a user name (in my case). Your IP address shows a list of edits made by you or your computer. The only edits that show up in the list for your computer are to the two pages in question. It may very well be true that many people use the same computer, but if all the edits from that computer appear on just these two pages then that strongly implies that one person with an agenda has made those edits.

It is possible that your edits may be lost if two people try to edit the same page at the same time. Wikipedia does warn you when this happens, but one of these edits will be lost. Paul 03:39, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the dates: This is not an article about warfare, nor about the history of Germany. The dates comprise the timeline of IBM's history, and as such I believe they need to cover the entire period of 1888 to the present, without gaps. Thus I see a problem with the first three intervals (1888-1924, 1918-1939, 1933-1949), which overlap. The section headings (e.g. "Between the wars") were intended, I believe, to alluded to the major events during the periods, rather than to demarcate the starting and ending points of those events. From this perspective, it makes sense to me to refer to 1933-1949 as dealing with the events of WWII. This obviously does not mean that WWII spanned those dates.
Perhaps, since the selection of headings led to confusion, it would make more sense to remove the descriptions, and just use date intervals, viz. 1920s, 1930s, etc.
Regarding to the frequency of updates occurring, and which computers make updates, please realize that many thousands of people see these pages, and all of them can make changes to any text at any time. Nobody was attempting to "subvert the truth" nor to censor your updates; but please realize that the goal of THIS article is to provide a timeline of IBM's overall history. This is a very high-level review, meaning that many details must be omitted or simplified. No individual topic, even one as important as IBM's relationship to Nazi Germany, should dominate a given section here, to the exclusion of other major events and trends. (At least, that is my feeling.) Instead, such topics deserve their own Wikipedia articles. Do feel free to create them. Please read the Wikipedia Help pages, such as Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia for details. Trevor Hanson 07:00, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please Stop Faking the timeline of IBM history related to the Nazi and Holocaust era

These computers are used by several people from time to time. That was written by Betty and is correct. Paul was cruel and bullying to her. But her information was correct and Paul's was just silly in error. He has a link to IBM on his Wiki-advertised home page, obviously has a slanted POV, an agenda to obscure the truth and minimize IBM's uncontroverted involvement in mass murder, and rewrite the history and timeline of WWII and Nazi Germany. I think Paul should refrain from making statements that are poorly sourced or imagined about persons living or dead. Moreover, this project might benefit if you refrained from his contributing WWII and Holocaust information since I doubt from his self-described credentials on your web that he has any expertise in this History. I am going to change the false statements on IBM and if he changes them back, he may risk being reported as a vandal. It seems that Wiki is very concerned about libel and poorly sourced, based on its prominent warnings, and based on the many examples of libel and falsity archived on the sites. This is I becginning to understand. I suggest you consult with IBM's legal department since you seems to be engaged in activities they will be interested in. Please stop vandalizing NPOV, properly sourced information, and please stop falsifying the timeline. As for Trevor's suggestion about a timeline, decade by decade does not work because certain phases of IBM's history--like any company--transcend decade markers. Also, there is much false information in this history that has nothing to do with the Nazis. Thomas Watson is identified as the founder of IBM. That is false. Charles Flint founded IBM laregly but not exclusively based on Hollerith technology. I will make the correction soon, so proper notice is being given. As an afterthought, Wiki is an anarchistic traffic jam without traffic lights that has almost no legal standing and no real legal precedent. The rules are being written by everyone moment to moment. But when people meddle in settled history and uncontroverted fact, the topics of contentious litigation, other dynamics come into play.


I just edited the section to inject NPOV, proper sourcing, and excise agenda. I also removed the request to Merge as my contribution to the discussion but I don't know if that is permitted. So if I erred, please put back this Merge icon. No one knows the rules so I hope I did not break one since who the heck knows what goes on in this cacophonous attempt to achieve clarity. That said, Paul should refrain from changing this edit without proper sourcing, or I will request he be reported as a vandal.

Please don't make more edits without a discussion first. I will follow that rule, even if you don't. At this time I have nothing to propose, but I will study the changes you have made. I am sorry that you found my comments hurtful. I promise to be more considerate in the future. Paul 15:35, 25 January 2007 (UTC)


So you want a posting here, waiting, and then a change--I thought I did that... how long is the suggested wait time--an hour, a day, a month... not that things should move at the speed of light... I reiterate, do not change the facts... BTW, I do not know who posted the original paragraph, but perhaps it should be reworded with the facts first and the attribution to Edwin Black after. Just a thought. One more thing... please do elevate this project to authenticate intellectual exchange. This is just a free for all that due to search engines has become prominent. I have seen it before. I predict one day soon, one of the billionaires or determined individuals being libelled will sue or threaten to sue and things will come crashing down. I guess that may have already happened in part judghing by the Seigenthaler episode and the manyn others chronicled in this frightening Orwellian descent into intellectual lawlessness.

SInce we obviously disagree about how to present the facts that you have contributed, I would ask you to wait for a reply from me before you make your recommended changes. I will wait for a reply from you before I make any changes to the page. You can expect me to respond within a day. I'd also like to point out that this page has been edited recently by only three people, as far as I can tell, so it's not a "free for all" like the rest of Wikipedia. Paul


I hope you won't mind if I don't take direction or instruction you on editing as page that has been filled with obvious errors--unless you have been appointed owner of this page. When you can get the true founder of IBM right without being told, the right year WWII ended without being told, I might look to you for guidance. Right now, I am correcting your errors. If I want to know about your childhood Heath Kit, you rule. If I want to know about WWII, IBM's founding history, the Holocaust and related info, I go the uncontroverted, verifiable public record. Make no changes to my material unless I see verifiable fact, not fiction or assumption. Or you risk being reported as a vandal and perhaps others may do so as well. Some of us find Holocaust and WWII public fallacy and public fuzziness very offensive. And the next time someone like Betty is nice enough to correct you egregious factual mistakes, please don't think bullying her is the best path. It is not. Not everyone can be bullied. Be a little nicer and listen to uncontroverted historical fact. BTW, does anyone know how to upload pictures or documents? Also, how does one indent a paragraph with that green bullet Paul used.


you wrote: "please do elevate this project to authenticate intellectual exchange" and that is also what I would like to do. It is not clear that you agree. I have already promised to leave "your" material alone and to propose changes rather than make them unilaterally. I would like to discuss any further changes to this page before they are made by either of us. Is that acceptable? Paul 17:23, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Charles Flint

Flint is identified as the founder of IBM by Thomas Watson, Jr. himself in his book Father Son & Co. I do agree with that proposed change. Paul


Paul, it is not a proposed change. It is a must change. Einstein declared the "right to know" commands the "right to inform."

I agree that this is a fact and that the change is not controversial. The change had not been made at the time I made my comment, so it was "proposed" and not manifest. Paul

[edit] Loaded with Historical Errors

The more I look at this accretion of fallacy, the more concerned I am that people with no facts are assembling it. International Business Machines was named after the company's 1924 idea for a new global newsletter--not for Canada. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.33.193.207 (talk) 16:53, 25 January 2007 (UTC).

Please continue to find and list these inaccuracies here, but please wait for comments before you edit the page. Paul
Paul, you can take your time fixing errors of fallacy and rumor on IBM's early corporate history. But I do not take instruction or even suggestion from you on WWII or the Holocaust. I fix our errors when I see them not when you approve. You have no primacy on the Holocaust history, no supervision rights, and I hope you are not a spokesman for IBM or acting on their behalf. Please just give truth a chance Paul, it won't hurt. BTW I think the colon indents a comment.


I removed text that stated the MAPICS product was sold in the late 1980s. MAPICS was sold by IBM to Marcam in 1993. 66.156.73.36 01:04, 28 October 2007 (UTC)PWM

[edit] Will everybody kindly calm down

This exchange is becoming far too acrimonious. I don't think anybody here wants to begin arbitration or mediation steps, but that is where we are going. See Wikipedia:Resolving disputes. May I please make a few general comments?

  • This article is well-known to have serious problems. That is not news. It has been substantially revised in recent months, to try to remove some of the more egregious issues, but there is obviously much work still needed.
  • What it needs most, IMO, is for a serious author to do a comprehensive rewrite. The history of IBM is a huge topic, and it needs more than cursory editing and sniping. However, until somebody steps up to that project, we are going to have to make do through civil and well-meaning attempts to correct the problems. Please, let us refrain from ad hominem attacks, which, I assure you, will not survive in the Wikipedia community. I might add that, recent derogatory comments notwithstanding, there is a strong community of dedicated Wikipedia editors working constantly to improve and expand this resource. They use appropriate academic standards for research and presentation. Some parts may seem cacophonous; but there are many well-written and well-sourced articles. (This doesn't happen to be one of them...yet.)
  • I think that citing detailed sources has become an absolute requirement here, especially given the recent exchanges. We must not say "It is a well-known historic fact that X". We must back up claims here with specific citations to reputable publications. We must also use multiple sources – Edwin Black's work presents one view, but we need a broad basis of factual sources, and we need to cite them properly (including page numbers, etc.). See Wikipedia:Citing Sources.
  • I also agree that discussing changes before making them would be a civil, collegial way to proceed with fixing up this troubled article. I don't think it helps to say "I fix our errors when I see them not when you approve." There is a normal process for the collaborative editing of Wikipedia articles; why not use it? What's to be gained by escalating this to a battle of editors? This does not help the article, and the community will eventually stop it.
  • I continue to be uncomfortable with the level of emphasis that the WWII conflict is receiving in this discussion and this article. In what must be a high-level review of 120 years of corporate history, we need editorial balance regarding the topics and positions covered. I repeat my suggestion that some of these important matters need their own articles, to be cited on this history page rather than to dominate it.

Finally, let us all please assume the good faith of other editors here. I see no attempts being made to rewrite history or seize ownership of this article. I see editors trying to make small improvements in the time they have available. Trevor Hanson 23:12, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Trevor, I agree that no one is trying to rewrite history, but it seems to me that someone has asserted ownership of one section of this article. It's hard to see how we could make progress on these terms.
I do believe that administrative advice, at least, is called for. Paul 23:46, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] help on the way

A request for informal mediation has been made, see: Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2007-01-25_History_of_IBM. It may be a few days before a mediator arrives. I will not comment until then. Paul 01:21, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Kindly see if my recent reorganization improves matters

I have attempted to reorganize this material, both to improve its presentation and to simplify discussion here. I hope this is seen as constructive. If anybody is violently opposed, feel free to revert the text to the previous version.

Here is what I did:

  • I removed these headings:
1.2 1918–1939: Between the wars
1.3 1933–1945: World War II, Nazi and Holocaust era
  • I replaced them with the heading:
1.2 1925-1949: IBM's early growth
  • I added a new section in "2 Major events, trends, and technologies":
2.1 IBM's role in WWII and the Holocaust
  • I moved the associated Edwin Black citation and related material into that new section. This text was moved without modification.

I felt that this topic was important enough to stand on its own, under its own heading, rather than being crowded into its proportional slice in a 125-year timeline.

In the process of editing, I also attempted to clarify Watson's role in the founding of IBM. (I believe that what the original author meant by calling him the "founder" was that modern IBM, i.e. post-1924, was ushered in by Watson. I have used IBM's Archive website for the early dates and details. Clearly we need better sources, but presumably IBM's archives should be accurate enough for this basic information.)

Again, this is an attempt to address the different positions recently stated. I have not removed any substantive content.

If you feel that a different approach would make more sense, please add your thoughts. Trevor Hanson 07:02, 26 January 2007 (UTC)


Trevor, thank you for restoring the timeline and for the addition of the reference to Social Security. The new section for Edwin Black's work is also an improvement, in my view. Paul 14:18, 26 January 2007 (UTC)


The following was being typed prior and during Trevor's good and useful re-org, literally at the same time. It was intended to follow his 7:02 post... I see some improvement has occured. I now add my comments in--again made at the sdame time Trevor was doing his thing.

Here is my thought and please excuse typos this early in the morning. >> First: this exchange is about one thing, the correct date of the end of WWII. That date is 1945 and the whole world knows it. Paul Geffen tried to fake the date to be 1949 for some reason I cannot fathom, perhaps simple stubbornness. A nice person Betty tried to innocently correct the date to 1945, and she was bullied and sent off, and her date correction was changed back several times by Paul, and even her discussion was deleted by someone. I got into the scene the next day and refused to bullied on universally accepted fact. I fixed the date back to 1945 and added content which can be deleted if you are afraid of too many facts. >> Second: Cabal, Mediation, Negotiators, Wiki-overseers, Wiki-bullies, Geeks on Call, and the Jimbo himself have no authority over anyone, surely not me, and have nothing to say about settled facts of history. Zip. Neither Jimbo or his supporters have the right to change the date of WWII's end from 1945 to 1949, or to fake or fog any WWII or Holocaust history. Nor do they wish to. Indeed, in some jurisdictions, it is a prosecutable crime and not a few people have been prosecuted (Iran exempted) and even jailed for deliberate falsification. This is especially the case in Europe where the wounds and scars are everywhere visible. Remember, Wikipedia displays in Europe and is subject to European laws. >> Third: Content and organization, groupings by decades or years or themes, this is the option of the Wiki contributors and editors and I am sure you will disagree forever on it and enjoy the disagreement. No one in my group really cares if you have the gumption to mention IBM's role in WWII and the Holocaust. Include it, exclude it. Your choice. I personally removed it from the Edwin Black bio because I thought it was out of balance compared to the single sentence that now stand. I do not know who wrote those original WWII, Nazi and Corporation contributions in the IBM essay. Once they were visible, my group and I did try to add clarity, meat, and detail from time to time. But feel free to exclude the whole topic. That said, if you do mention WWII, the Nazis or the Holocaust you MUST get the dates right. If you mention the American revolution you must make it 1776, the Chris Columbus sail thing is 1492, the twin tower attacks were 2001. There is no choice, no debate, no Jimbo, no Jumbo, no nothing. If someone makes an innocent dating mistake, Wiki society allows for a helpful fix and that is a blessing of the Internet. But Paul needs to back off once that fix is made and be grateful not resentful. There were of course other important fixes involving Watson, Flint, the IBM name launch etc. My group doesn't think much of the Wikipedia process as it stands anyway, it includes so much junk intellect that is not reliable, we just ignore it and many other knowing people do too. So we did not make those corrections, although we did call a few to your attention. I think someone is seeing to that. However, we do care about WWII, the Nazis and the Holocaust and if you choose to include that content, get the basics right. Trust me, there is enough to legitimate debate on the details, but at least the dates must be right. I and my group have no intention of permitting Wikipedia to change the end date of WWII to 1949, and if you continue, you will be laughed off the Internet. Please cc Jimbo himself, the correct date is 1945. The call for mediation or medication, not sure which, included a call to a journalist to get involved. Any journalist in the world would laugh at this attempt to reinvent the history of the WWII timeframe. >>Fourth: Trevor has a sensible idea. The real problem here is the organization of the article in addition to its shocking factual sloppiness. I have no vote, but if I had one, Trevor has my vote to do the re-org. IBM did a lot of great things and employed a lot of wonderful people in its century plus. The company also consciously assisted in war crimes and worked with war criminals. I would personally like to see NO IBM and the Holocaust reference, or a brief sectioned off reference as Trevor seems to suggest. I say No reference because I believe Wiki is incapable of getting the facts right, and I know lawyers will get involved if false light, libel by implication or other issues are raised. Many libel defense lawyers have been hired by those who tried to fuzz the information on IBM and the Holocaust, and there are many public retractions. See them somewhere on the internet. Just found one: http://www2.ca.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/people/b/black.edwin/Baumel_Retraction.020211 . Wikipedia is already very sensitive to libel on living persons, and requires poorly sourced, false, etc etc to be removed immediately without waiting or passing GO.

>> Fifth and Last: Wikipedia is a great Internet opportunity. It can revolutionize the proliferation of knowledge. The 1911 Britannica and many other encyclopedia were placed on line, but Wikipedia could blow them all away. The problem is it stinks, it thrives on people without expertise, posting junk and falsity, and ignores the experts and their expertise. The process becomes more important than the product. Reread that last sentence. If Wikiheads really want to make a contribution to society, they will allow the best and brightest to contribute their ideas and knowledge to a compendium that will battle the stars for glitter and gleam. But as long as we allow people to write fairy tales about important topics such as IBM and WWII, where they can't get the name of the founder right, the year and manner of the name launch right, and the end of WWII right, and then act wounded when they are corrected, then Wikipedia continues as a miasma.

>> Sixth and Really Last: Who am I and who are we. My group is about several dozen strong, and from time to time as many as 7 or 8 of us are gathered in one location using a network of wired and wireless computers. Hence they all have the same IP. We don't care about Wikipedia. We laugh at it between sips of coffee. But we do care about facts. We are deadly serious about precision, verifiable, publicly replicable, easily confirmable, bulletproof facts. Not just the Holocaust but also slavery, the birth of civilization, genocide, music, globalization, the environment, the advancement of science and culture, the interplay of the powerful and the powerless. We have a flawless record. We are fighters for factuality and have literally gone to the corners of the globe and the recesses of obscurity to extract and shine light on the some of the worst and best secrets of mankind. Other people care about their pet topics, be it Heathkits, stamps, trains, or magneto hydrodynamics, and they are passionate. We are passionate about a few things too. If you don't get it right, you don't get it. But once we get to it, it will be fair and accurate. That's a promise.


Trevor--good work. How does anyone upload pix?

For the record, I (not Paul) changed the heading from 1933-1945 back to what it had been previously: 1933-1949. (Or perhaps we both did, independently.) As I have stated earlier, this was not intended to mean that WWII spanned these dates. (I would have said "obviously" but apparently this was not obvious.) The heading had originally referred to a sixteen-year time period that was dominated by WWII, as well as other worldwide events.
You continue to refer to this particular 1933-1949 heading as a sign of factual error, or worse, some kind of "questioning the Holocaust" revisionism via "faking the dates". I really think you misinterpreted the intent of the heading as it stood, which again was simply a time span that included WWII. At any rate, I believe you agree that the new headings and structure improve the situation.
You heap scorn on Wikipedia. ("Wiki bullies"? Good heavens, you characterize Wikipedia volunteers as a bunch of storm troopers. Mediation is a good-faith process – a well established and successful technique for resolving conflicts. Look through the comments on this page, and see which ones strike you as aggressive or insulting.) Fartig...I see no point in trying to sway your opinion. I do believe that, if you looked more widely in the enormous corpus of Wikipedia material, you would find a large amount of very well-written, well-sourced, and well-edited articles. History of IBM is NOT currently a good example; it indeed has some of the problems you identified. You will note the many "please expand" and "needs correction" templates.
If you choose to contribute, by correcting factual errors and adding material – something that is very helpful and appreciated, by the way – I think you would find a better reception if you were to create one or more Wikipedia user names. Unsigned contributions are always viewed with some skepticism. You do not need to reveal your actual identities -- many Wikipeidans use anonymous 'handles' as names -- but this aids in discussion, and helps seeing the continuity of a particular user's edits.
It would also be very helpful if you would provide clear citations when making corrections. It is not enough to say "This is established historical fact." As I'm sure you know, facts can be tricky. There are plenty of historical events for which good sources are in conflict. In such cases, the goal of Wikipedia is to be sure all mainstream positions are reported fairly and in balance. I have seen many articles which have legitimately swung one way and another as well-intentioned editors have brought citations to bear in support of one or another version of events. Ultimately, this process yields a balanced and scholarly result, as poor sources are winnowed out and good sources are scrutinized. Any time you can add good documentary sources, this will help improve the quality of the material here. I agree that, in ten years, the corpus of material in Wikipedia could become the greatest body of accurate information ever assembled. We aren't there yet, but despite your skepticism things move steadily in the right direction. Responsible editors, paying attention to detail as you do, are making this happen. But again, this works through collegial and open discussion. Confrontation really does not help improve things.
Finally, about uploading images: On the Wikipedia main page, you will see a bunch of navigation links and a toolbox. One of the entries in the toolbox is "upload file", which will take you to this page: Special:Upload. Please note that there are definite copyright issues involved in placing files in Wikipedia. The instructions should make this clear. Another place for uploading material is WikiCommons, a repository for original source material such as historical documents. Again, be sure to review the copyright issues.
I hope this is helpful. Please take my comments and suggestions in the spirit intended. You seem to be perceiving bad faith in situations where frankly I don't think it exists. There are people who seek to disseminate false information; but I haven't found many who are regular Wikipedia contributors (and those who persist in spreading demonstrable falsehoods eventually get banned from contributing). I think all of this recent heartburn and misunderstanding could have been dealt with through a few days of civil discussion on this talk page. Trevor Hanson 21:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Answers in a day or two

[edit] new comment from Paul

As I said above, I'm happy with the article as it stands and see no reason to change it. It's clear that we have editors who can (better than I can) ensure that the page is both accurate and well-organized. It can stand to be expanded with more details but what's there today is a good start. Paul 15:22, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Founding date discrepency

In the article, it's stated that IBM was founded in 1888; however, the earliest date mentioned for one of the merger companies is 1896. So, which is it? Anakinjmt 18:24, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Good catch. The text at one time had mentioned 1888 for...something. Anyway, I have revised the heading, and added details to include Hollerith's earlier work from his time at the Census Bureau; this played a big part in establishing the IBM milieu. Trevor Hanson 19:35, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Employee relations

Someone with more expertise than me should write something about IBM employee relations as its history unfolds. In the 60's when I worked there as an electronic engineer their benfits were legendary but later when things took a turn for the worse the situation was reversed. Their policy of no layoffs was eliminated and many were "retired" early. Recently a lot of outsourcing of jobs to India has taken place. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.144.208.127 (talk) 23:57, 23 April 2007 (UTC).

Watson copied NCR practice, right down to the country club. Whoever does this will have to write about Patterson. In his time he was thought eccentric for finding spectacular ways of firing top associates. But he was among the first to value employees and create safe, for their time, plants, etc. He wasn't eccentric; if you think about it, he trained disciples, then fired them to spread his message. 24.33.80.192 17:30, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More (sorry) IBM and the Nazi and Holocaust era

Would someone more experienced than me please place the appropiate "disputed" flags on the Thomas J. Watson article which has the same problems as discussed above. Thanks, 24.33.80.192 17:30, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Timeline: 1880s–1924: The origin of IBM

Why not just point to the CTR article? Having a summary here makes work for both contributors (who have to work with both) and readers (do the two articles agree?) Or merge the CTR article into this article. 24.33.80.192 17:41, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

The summary here seems useful to me – it presents enough facts to put the relationship of CTR and IBM in context. The CTR article has the details. Most of what's in the CTR article should not be in the IBM article, and vice versa. They should, of course, be consistent. It doesn't seem likely that, once reconciled, there would be many subsequent changes that would bring them out of sync. Anybody editing the relevant material would naturally want to check both articles anyway. I guess I don't see a problem as it is, again providing that somebody does the initial work of reconciling and sourcing what's there. Trevor Hanson 19:43, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Agree. Place an inline editors comment in both places, if needed. /Blaxthos 05:30, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of Biased Reviews and Already Retracted Contents

Trolling around, I see some absolutely slanted bias against Edwin Black in this and other Wiki entries. Confining myself to this entry, looking at IBM’s role in the Holocaust, someone added one paragraph citing two book reviews which are not only absurd on their face, they are potentially libelous and one of them has already been publicly retracted by the publication and from media accounts it involved lawyers. In accordance with stated Wikipedia policy on immediately removing potentially libelous information about living persons, I have deleted the entire paragraph. Here is my thinking and I hope others concur: The first review cited is the NY Times which is famous for book reviews featuring false information and extreme bias. In this case, Mr. Black is identified as a “science fiction writer” by the pop-culture reviewer, Gabriel Schoenfeld. Obviously, Mr. Black is not a science fiction writer, has never written a science fiction work and a quick check of his biography and what appears to be a multitude of references in the media shows that he has spent recent decades as a hard-edged investigative reporter and, by the time the IBM book came out, his reputation was already established as an investigative reporter, especially based on his first best-selling Holocaust economics book, The Transfer Agreement. Mr. Black did write a book of Holocaust fiction involving spiritualism and Kabala and messianic themes, but so have many Holocaust scholars such as Simon Wiesenthal and Elie Wiesel. No one knows Black as a science fiction writer and repeating a falsehood in the New York Times is libelous since it is well established that repeating libel is a libel.

The second review is Lars Heide in the Annals of the History of Computing who claimed, among many other things, that no such alphabetical machines existed in Germany during the Holocaust. First of all, Black has gone on TV and in movies and shown large posters of the actual transfer documentation on the alphabetical machines and given the exact day in September, 1939 that these alphabetical machines were transferred to Nazi Germany on the instructions of Thomas Watson in New York. Black published and quoted from all these documents in Chapter 7 of his book, IBM and the Holocaust, on Pages 180 to 184 beginning at footnote 43 and I have found after a little digging the actual serial numbers of these first dozen or so machines and here they are taken from his published book and articles.

  • Alphabetical Summary Punch…serial #517-10674-D9
  • Alphabetical Summary Punch…serial #517-10072
  • Alphabetical Duplicating Printing Punch…serial #034-11722-M8
  • Alphabetical Duplicating Punch…serial #034-11252
  • Alphabetical Duplicating Punch…serial #034-11253
  • Alphabet-Interpreter……………..serial #552-10494-C9
  • Alphabet-Interpreter……………..serial #552-10495-C9
  • Alphabetical Printing Tabulating Machine…serial#405-13126-D9
  • Alphabetical Printing Tabulating Machine…serial#405-13127-D9
  • Alphabetical Printing Tabulating Machine…serial#405-13128-D9
  • Alphabetical Printing Tabulating Machine…serial#405-11332
  • Alphabetical Printing Tabulating Machine…serial#405-11000
  • Alphabetical Printing Tabulating Machine…serial#405-10206
  • Collator……………..………………………serial#077-10577-D9

This review by Heide was apparently so false and misleading on the actual content of the book, including what appears to be ignoring a complete one-third of the book’s content about Dehomag, that the Annals of the History of Computing issued a rare public retraction and apology for the Heide review. I have found that retraction in its signed PDF form along with several other retractions in various places on the internet and in the media, but you might find them best in one location as shown below. Here are several of them. I myself had trouble accessing all the web pages from time to time and hope that they are still visible.

Apparently, there are numerous public apologies, retractions and monies paid visa vis false statements about IBM and the Holocaust and some of Edwin Black’s other works. These retractions are stunning in as much as they are issued by some of the world’s leading historians, reviewers and publications. I can’t help but wonder why a someone posted the Heide article and note that this is a profoundly obscure article with a restricted circulation limited to a tiny group of computer experts. I hope no one with an agenda might have chosen to support IBM over the true history of its activities during the Hitler era…. Why choose this obscure review from among a handful of other negative review in place of the hundreds of publicly available laudatory reviews by historians, reviewers and researchers. I will name a few.

Newsweek: Backed by exhaustive research, Black's case is simple and stunning: that IBM facilitated the identification and roundup of millions of Jews during the 12 years of the Third Reich.

Washington Post: Black clearly demonstrates that Nazi Germany employed IBM Hollerith punch-card machines to perform critical tasks in carrying out the Holocaust and the German war effort. He goes on to document that IBM managed to profit from Hitler's state throughout its existence. ...Black establishes beyond dispute that IBM Hollerith machines significantly advanced Nazi efforts to exterminate Jewry.

Harvard International Review: Black's meticulous documentation constructs an undeniable fact: the IBM corporation knew where each of its leased (not sold) machines was in Europe...with the knowledge, fuller than most, of the purposes for which his machines were deployed. . . . Now, let me be clear, I do not believe that IBM’s history should be judged or recorded by literary criticism but by provable facts. Thus far, after 7 years, not a single fact or quoted document of “IBM and the Holocaust” has ever been sustained as false or exaggerated. On the contrary, the retractions show that, after exhaustive efforts to find fault with the documentation, none has been found. I do not want this entry muddled up with book reviews…pro or con…but just explaining why my eyebrows were raised when the only reviews cited were from a handful of negative reviews even though 99.9% of the reviews have been laudatory.

Let’s stick to the facts about IBM itself and leave the literary criticism for someone else.

Lark (—Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.147.71.29 (talk) )

Just to be sure I'm clear here (and setting aside the substance of the discussion and the various citations) – we're to dismiss The New York Times book reviews as encyclopedic sources, because of their record of bias and unreliability? Trevor Hanson 21:04, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Notwithstanding the urgent prose that follows below, I was reacting to this statement: "The first review cited is the NY Times which is famous for book reviews featuring false information and extreme bias." Perhaps that didn't strike anybody else as it did me. I was not suggesting that we accept any source blindly. Yet this blanket dismissal seemed curious.
I must also react to this statement: "But the best question is this: why is an entry about what IBM knowingly did with its machinery to help the Nazis kill millions been diverted to book reviews about the author? I think it sounds like bias, and I agree completely with Lark." If I read this correctly, it is accusing me of bias for participating in the present discussion, and for scratching my head about the suitability of Black's book as a reliable source. If so, I resent this. Don't tell me what questions I'm permitted to ask.
Moreover, where else would we discuss the quality of a cited (and historically disputed) source, other than on this page? This is NOT a page about "what IBM knowingly did with its machinery to help the Nazis." It is a page discussing the History of IBM article and its sources; and Black's book is a source. Having read the retractions, some of which I agree are eye-opening, I remain personally unclear about the extent to which Black's work faces legitimate skepticism by scholars. (At any rate, I have always been suspicious of grand organized conspiracies, usually finding more plausible explanations in individual and aggregate stupidity, incompetence, bigotry, and venality.) At the end of the day, I guess I should realize that this entire thread trembles on the edge of breaching Godwin's Law. Trevor Hanson 20:27, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
It seems more than a little obvious that the reason to exclude that information is because it is false. Repeating an obvious idiocy or falsity just because it is in the NYT book review does not make it any truer, unless you subscribe to the Goebbels adage that the more you repeat a lie, the more it becomes true. The record of falsity and bias and falsity in NYT reviews merely explains why so profoundly a false statement would be the norm. One review of Susan McDougall's book about Ken Star declared that at least she was found guilty of defrauding conductor Zubin Mehta. The book said the obvious, that she was found not guilty. Had the NY said Edwin Black a dentist or cattle rancher would that also be quotable. Edwin Black is not a science writer and never has been. Not is Gabriel Schoenfeld a Holocaust scholar--an interview on TV and I think articles in some media journals cited the explanation that the Times was denied an advance copy of the book which was a first for such books, and they then assigned it the review to a gadfly.

Remember, that section of the NYT is a non-journalistic enterprise. Nothing is ever checked out or verified, and the authors are not journalists and frequently partisan writers. The better question is this: who added that review in? Why was that review selected over 100 other positive reviews? Why was the obscure Annals of the History of Computer added in, especially since it was publicly retracted? And why when several eminent historians albeit errant on their review sign public statements which have been linked above that they have been unable to find any errors or exaggerations in the documentation, that is not a good enough to bolster the mountain of endorsements, good reviews and never contradicted detailed facts? Why not add in the Washington Post, Harvard International Review, Newsweek, Jerusalem Post or any of the other reviews that constitute the majority. But the best question is this: why is an entry about what IBM knowingly did with its machinery to help the Nazis kill millions been diverted to book reviews about the author? I think it sounds like bias, and I agree completely with Lark. If you read those amazing retractions carefully, you will see the scope of the retractions. Apparently leading publications such as Nature and Jerusalem Report and others did not willingly or easily issue that retractions and a careful vetting of the true facts took place. What's more, I have seen or read about other retractions, possibly including a correction on this NYT article. Let me echo Larks' view: keep the IBM history to IBM history, and this is a perfect time to follow the Wiki policy to immediately remove potentially libelous data on a topic where retractions and libel have cleared been common.


Further to Trevor's question: "we're to dismiss The New York Times book reviews as encyclopedic sources, because of their record of bias and unreliability? Please see Wiki policy linked from "Verifiability" at the top of the IBM History discussion page which in part states: "Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Sources should be appropriate to the claims made: exceptional claims require exceptional sources. All articles must adhere to Wikipedia's neutrality policy, fairly representing all majority and significant-minority viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in rough proportion to the prominence of each view...As a rule of thumb, the greater the degree of scrutiny involved in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the evidence and arguments of a particular work, the more reliable it is." I do not completely endorse this policy as I believe it is vastly too limited since it also claims in its first sentence that third-party verifiability is the objective as opposed to "truth." Hmm, so why not go to 10 leading Creationism science publications to certify that the Earth and universe was literally formed in 7 days each of 24 hours in length, or use 10 top university eugenic sources to certify that prostitution is an inheritable genetic trait, or we can cite the Bush Administration on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Sorry for the digression but there should be a standard higher than mere repetition of a falsity and indeed Wikipedia causes that very thing, IMHO.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.33.194.77 (talk)
Cleaning out the sock drawer, are we? /Blaxthos 15:20, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Apparently those who claim to be "Wikipedians" or those who frequent it are rife with what you allude to. I wonder what it is about Wikipedia that creates this atmosphere. Then again, for some it's always more convenient to substitute a distraction or an accusation in place of facts themselves. Anyway we can stick to the facts about the History here or is that just an inconvenient truth? And yes, I subscribe to the growing recommendation that Wikipedia improve itself by using known experts who privately vet a topic before allowing it to be published. Does that makes us all socks? BTW, I love Wikipedia's endless list of formal denigrations and combative terms. Quite a loving environment.
Good news for sock puppet accusations... It turns out that several thousand staffers at the House of Representatives share the same IP, as do all the students at one dorm at Harvard, as does everyone at NOAA. They can all be accused of being sock puppets if they agree on an obvious point. Better news... people from all across the world who may agree with each other on one issue, every though hailing from thousands of miles away from each other, can also be accused of sock puppetry. Now anyone who wants to deny who facilitated the Holocaust can avoid the discussion by accusing just about anyone of being an small article of clothing. Much easier than establishing the facts.

[edit] Trying to follow this discussion

Trying to follow this discussion is like trying to chase bats through a forest on a dark night.

Being about 90% of the way through Edwin Black's book, I do realize this is a complex and difficult subject to deal with.

It would help a bit if the unsigned contributions in the discussion were dated and signed. At this point, looking at the last few contributions, I can't tell if the discussion ended in July or is still going on.

Wanderer57 01:23, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

It's been quiet for a few months. Adding to the confusion: many of the unsigned contributions were made by different people using the same IP address. As you can see, there was a good deal of strident commentary. The core tension seemed to stem from the fact that a group of editors pretty much took Black's position as established fact. Theirs may be the valid position, for all I know, but they were bumping up against other editors who regarded parts of Black's thesis with skepticism, in light of other historical sources.
Black essentially says "much of what has been said in the past on this topic is wrong," making it hard for a non-expert reader to decide what represents a balanced position. Was IBM a completely, scandalously terrible company, with direct top-down responsibility for Nazi atrocity? (Perhaps.) Or was it more a question of omissions, inaction, bureaucratic inertia, and choosing to look the other way, as IBM's German subsidiaries followed the rest of their country's new priorities? (Perhaps.) There was certainly plenty of blame to pass around for the bad things that happened in that period. But striking a fair historical balance is difficult, when faced with a scholar who says "you must discard everything else you've read on this topic." And it's harder to sort these things out when some parties are dogmatic, and are unwilling even to entertain discussion of the different points of view found in the literature.
I hope this is a useful summary of how we got here. Trevor Hanson 08:18, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for this insight.
I must say Mr. Black's book did not give me a message to "discard everything else you have read on this topic." Rather the impression that connections between IBM and the Holocaust have previously been very little researched, or at least very little reported.
To quote from the introduction to the bibliography, "The Holocaust literature is virtually devoid of references to Hollerith technology with several notable exceptions." (Hollerith technology was the IBM technology for information processing using punched paper cards and machinery.)
Five exceptions are then listed: a German language study from 1984, and four English language publications from the 1990s. (details are on page 495.)
It is difficult to be certain about something like this. However I found that the amount and nature of the documented information presented was very compelling.
Wanderer57 01:36, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, I misstated Black's position in my simple-minded summary, which was more geared to describing the role of certain contributors who were quoting Black here. During some phases of this discussion, much vitriol was spent on the political correctness of questioning or even discussing Black's views. I personally found it easy to see that the Nazi war machine would exploit available technology, and easy to see that large corporations like IBM would be willing sources to a large industrial consumer like Germany in the 1930s. I found it harder to accept that IBM was an active, conscious partner in deliberate genocide. I don't find it impossible to believe, but hard to believe. I do know that, in IBM's huge organization, there were many patriotic, anti-totalitarian employees and executives, people would would not have stood for such practices. So the whole story is troubling, particularly as characterized by some of Black's proponents, who seem to describe IBM as a branch of the Wehrmacht. There is no question that Black has plenty of uncomfortable facts, and that, even in their most lenient interpretation, they must give pause to any of the people involved, especially anybody actively involved in supporting IBM's German partners and subsidiaries. It is still not clear, to me anyway, how much this bears on decisions being made at IBM headquarters in 1941-1945. In other words, does IBM get a gold star for supporting the U.S. war effort, or was it a sham? I have tended to distrust conspiracy theories, at least until the last few years. I hope this personal opinion is helpful. Trevor Hanson 07:10, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Trevor, I suggest you read the book. The enormity of the undisputed, uncontradicted fact is compelling. It has been I guess six or seven years since this news hit worldwide and yet IBM has never denied that it deliberately helped orchestrate Nazi genocide, and did so from its New York offices, something I suspect any company would be eager to do. Instead, they have stayed mum hoping the passage of time will encourage doubt by those who have not read the book or the many articles. The book is heavily documented with thousands of footnotes. That said, the present entry seems to do the trick. Enough said. Eli —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.150.94.62 (talk) 11:18, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

That is simply opinion and synthesis, and certainly does not adhere to a neutral point of view -- "enormity of the undisputed, uncontradicted fact is complelling", "hoping the passage of time will encourage doubt", etc.. Not what we're going for in an encyclopedia. /Blaxthos 16:57, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Stating in the talk page that: "they have stayed mum hoping the passage of time will encourage doubt by those who have not read the book or the many articles." does not violate the NPOV policy. Editors are allowed to state opinions in talk. Wanderer57 17:37, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Talk pages are not a forum; as such it is my assumption that the commentor in question was suggesting using such statements either in the article (WP:NPOV) or as a justification for a similiar change (WP:OR). If the purpose of the comment was just to espouse his feeling on the matter then it has no place here at all. /Blaxthos 23:10, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Citation needed

In the article “History of IBM”, the section “IBM's role in WWII and the Holocaust” ends with this:

”IBM has never contradicted any of the evidence or facts in the books or the many documentaries, but claimed it has no real information on the period. IBM and the Holocaust has been featured in hundreds of news articles, magazine stories, TV shows and documentaries, virtually none with rebuttal from IBM. The company has stated that Black's "case is long and heavily documented ... yet he does not demonstrate that IBM bears some unique or decisive responsibility for the evil that was done."[citation needed]

The “citation needed” note, recently added, sent me to look for a citation. It turned out a bit complicated. Here is what I found.

I found this review of Edwin Black's book. http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Holocaust/ibm.html

The closing words of this review are the same as above, but they are given as the reviewer's words, not as a quote from an IBM source.

(The review is also on the New York Times website at: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E06E6DD113BF934A35750C0A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2

The reviewer was Richard Bernstein. Review published: March 7, 2001. This I think is about 12 weeks after the book was published. (Wrong - book was published in February.)


According to this source, which is an interview with Black, http://www.news.com/2009-1082-269157.html

‘IBM is circulating a review by The New York Times that argues you (Edwin Black) failed to "demonstrate that IBM bears some unique or decisive responsibility for the evil that was done." ‘

If this source is true, the “failed to demonstrate...” sentence is not an IBM statement per se, but a quote selected from one of the many reviews of the book.

- - -

A source is given in Wikipedia article Edwin Black for the “failed to demonstrate...” statement:

http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/828.wss

This item seems to have a gap in the text. Part of the quote is missing.

This page in turn links to another IBM page with the note: "Click here to see the original statement."

http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/1388.wss

Will someone else please check this? Thanks. Wanderer57 20:03, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Man, excellent job Wanderer57! I've followed your trail to the same document. I added the {{fact}} tag originally, and so I've taken the liberty of restoring the original quote, citing it with the source you found, and inserted the appropriate [sic]. /Blaxthos 23:14, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] First Party Content Creation

I am the corporate archivist for IBM, and would like to add my expertise to making this article (and others about IBM that have an historical component) more useful. I am cognizant, however, of how strongly Wikipedians discourage this kind of participation (COI, NPOV, V, etc.). While I fully understand that position is necessary and prudent, it is flawed to the extent that it can preclude those who are most familiar with a topic from participating. So I'd like to ask the editors if there's room for first parties, those who are subject matter experts within their organizations, to contribute content on this page (or elsewhere) about what they know best without creating a firestorm? If there is, I'm happy to discuss how you think I can best assist in improving this article. Is it enough just to follow established policy guidelines? Or are there other behaviors/procedures that you would recommend that I follow?PCL (talk) 18:07, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

In a perfect world, yes. In this case though, our conflict-of-interest guidance largely exists for your own protection... your boss might not like that you're writing publicly about a past controversy or criticism of IBM, for example, which may well be something you need to do to make this article accurate and in compliance with the spirit of our neutrality policies, which call for mentioning both the good and the bad, if of encyclopedic relevance to a topic. That said, we do welcome contributions like you've described... it just kind of makes us a bit nervous, not that you'll screw up the article, but that you could get yourself in trouble, for lack of a more tactful way of putting it. Not everyone's boss can be trusted to really understand what Wikipedia is, and what an employee editing it might mean. However, if you understand all of this and proceed... I don't think your position will be a serious hindrance to your work here. It's tricky, but with full disclosure, and as long as you don't just seem to be trying to whitewash IBM's corporate history (which I'm not accusing you of being here to do) I think you should be okay. Dealing with these situations is not our strong suit yet, and I'm not speaking in any official capacity, but I do think you should be able to improve these articles if you want to. --W.marsh 17:11, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
I would advise you, Mr. Lasewicz, on the one hand to be bold, but on the other hand, detail each edit you make on the talk page of the article to be as transparent as possible about what you are doing, especially given your position with the conflict of interest guideline. I think that we can trust that you will try to follow Wikipedia's policy of neutrality, but if you open each change you make to explicit review, and ask for review when unsure, I believe that it is likely that you will have few problems. :) Nihiltres{t.l} 17:30, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
It might help to remove the potential impression that you are concealing the "CoI" if you'd put some information about the possible conflict on your user page (rephrasing the question you ask would be sufficient), and put a "hello" on your talk page. Even with a CoI I see no reason you can't contribute to the talk pages about IBM matters (I'll warn you that there are some editors for whom no possible disclaimer could ever have been sufficient, and who will insist that you should never edit any article that contains any of the letters "I", "B", or "M" -- please attempt to be patient with them.) Welcome to Wikipedia. htom (talk) 18:27, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Folks, this input is all very much appreciated. I look forward to working with y'all on this. PCL (talk) 15:10, 26 November 2007 (UTC)


material deleted

Please advise what "investigation" you are referring to. Wanderer57 (talk) 02:46, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

material deleted


Thank you for adding clarification. However, I'm going to be picky and suggest that further clarification is needed to change this discussion from innuendo into factual statements that can be discussed and looked into.
We have that accusations are believed to have been published somewhere. NOT who published them or where.
We have that people obstructed an investigation by an author and his team, something to do with a book published in 2001. WHAT investigation, WHAT author and WHAT book? Wanderer57 (talk) 21:24, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I have thought about it further after reading further but before seeing the last post or two. I changed my mind completely. I have withdrawn all my remarks and comments (and edited them out from yesterday), and also withdraw any objection to Lasewicz posting here. He should be afforded every encouragement. I think it would be especially beneficial for a senior IBM personality to go on the record about IBM's role in the Holocaust. In fact, I think his remarks could be so valuable, they be left unedited and uncorrected to stand on their own. So I support waiving the rule and allowing Lasewicz full access unfettered. That would be best IMHO. Freddie

Note - I have restored most of the Talk page which Freddie deleted for some reason, possibly by mistake. I have not restored his comments which he deleted. My above questions no longer make sense, as they refer to material that has since been deleted. This is very confusing. Wanderer57 (talk) 03:05, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] selling of Hdd division to Hitachi is missing

Does somebody have a source and the year when IBM sold its storgage division to Hitachi? Andries (talk) 21:06, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Ibm 7090.jpg

Image:Ibm 7090.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 23:08, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Snow White?

The article says:

"On February 14, 1924, CTR changed its name to International Business Machines Corporation, or IBM. "

I don't think the acronym came into use till much later. Is there some way to be sure when?


Also the article says, "People in this business would talk jokingly of "IBM and the seven dwarfs,"

I believe it was much more usual to call them Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Can someone confirm this?

Wanderer57 (talk) 12:41, 1 May 2008 (UTC)