Talk:Retrospect (software)/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

"Advertising" and "marketing" terms in Retrospect, and other disputed matters

I had to fix a whole bunch of stuff, again, yesterday, including taking out a whole bunch of the word Retrospect, and linking stuff that was previously linked. Leave the article as it is. No one cares who did what. Leave it. If you put more in, I'll revert it. scope_creep (talk) 07:51, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

I can’t find any Wikipedia standard that justifies scope-creep “taking out a whole bunch of the word Retrospect.” The use of a product name in itself is not advertising, marketing or public relations, so long as information about the product is “written in an objective and unbiased style, free of puffery"—which is true of what I’ve written. scope_creep’s editing-out of mentions of “Retrospect” has gone beyond adding clunkiness into adding inaccuracy in his/her editing of the last sentence in the “Success validation” item in the “Small-group features“ section of the article. I had written “Monitoring with 'Retrospect for iOS' is also available.”; scope_creep changed that to “Monitoring with an iOS client is also available.” [Here’s] the app on the iTunes store; it’s named "Retrospect for iOS" as the latest Retrospect Mac User’s Guide—which I used as a ref—says it is. The app is not a “client” in the sense of “small-footprint client applications running on the other computers being backed up” as the second sentence in the article’s lead says (it can’t be used to backup the iOS device on which it is running); instead—as will become crystal-clear if you click …More on the iTunes page—it is really a mostly-read-only version of the separate management console mentioned for Retrospect Mac in the first paragraph of the “History” section of the article—although it also connects to a Retrospect Windows backup server.

In the original article, before it 74 Retrospect words in the main article, and 21 or 31 in the refs. I think it was 21. Overkill and clearly violating WP:NOTADVERTISING. The number started to increase, which made it unreadable. Its now reduced to a readable level. Regarding the 'Retrospect for iOS'. No one cares what it is called. I made a mistake not classifying it as a client dashboard, which can be changed by yourself. Please don't add in extraneous details, which is not neeeded. scope_creep (talk) 21:24, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

In addition, scope_creep made—misled by JohnInDC—what is IMHO a legally-dangerous unsourced edit to the single-sentence second paragraph of the “History” section of the article. When I wrote “… resulting in the release of a version of Retropect Macintosh that was ‘not fully baked’ …”, my ref directly after those quoted words was to the TidBITS Adam Engst “Retrospect Backup Software Acquired by Sonic” article. JohnInDC, in his 00:11 7 October 2017 edit, did a “consolidate references” that eliminated that ref. Thus, when scope_creep did his/her 00:22 7 October 2017 “Minor fixes to remove weasel words” edit, he/she changed “not fully baked’ to “not correctly designed” without realizing that the “weasel words” were a quote from a third-party review. By the 8.2 release a year later Roxio had put back the PowerPC compatibility intentionally left out of Retrospect Mac 8.0 and developed a workaround for an OS X DVD-writing problem—things which IMHO as a programmer with 40 years experience they wouldn’t have been able to do so quickly if it were “not correctly designed”. scope_creep should be aware that many of the people who built Retrospect Mac 8 still work at Retrospect Inc. (of which JG Heithcock has been for several years the CEO), and Eric Ullman has moved on to become a CCXP-qualified Senior Customer Experience Improvement Leader at Adobe. IANAL, but people in their position could sue Wikipedia for professional libel for “not correctly designed”.

Unless scope_creep can give an acceptable explanation of why he/she is justified in making these edits, I’ll have to take this to Dispute Resolution. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 20:13, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

By Monday 18 October 2017 scope_creep must do one of two things: (1) Give an acceptable explanation of why he/she is justified in making the “taking out a whole bunch of the word Retrospect” edits based on Wikipedia rules—not his own, or (2) agree to follow Wikipedia rules in the future for articles in which I am involved. Otherwise I will have to (3) take this to Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution#Third_Opinion. The reason I have set this deadline is that I'm about to embark on writing the "Enterprise Backup Features" article. That article will inescapably consist of a lot of items of the form "Feature doing W: Retrospect calls this feature X, Tolis BRU calls this feature Y, NetBackup calls this feature Z etc.." Obviously I would have links to applicable documentation for each of the backup apps, but the "Enterprise Backup Features" article would be gibberish if I couldn't name the backup apps because scope_creep considers that naming to be Advertising. I've pointed out previously that the use of a product name in itself is not advertising, marketing or public relations, so long as information about the product is “written in an objective and unbiased style, free of puffery"—which is true of what I write. But scope_creep does editing based on his/her own rules, and doesn't bother to actually read the Wikipedia rules—or sourced material.

Here's an example of how scope_creep edits based on his/her own rules, taken from my personal Talk page. At 20:40 on 19 September 2017 scope_creep posted "... needed a copyedit, which I did, taking out all these pseudo statements, the dashes, which are not standard and don't conform to WP:MOS ...." I had to reply "First of all, you probably should read about 'Dashes' in the MOS yourself. That gives an example of using the em-dash .... It is exactly the way I use the em-dash ....", to which scope_creep replied at 21:51 on 19 September 2017 "Sorry, your right on that." Scope_creep had evidently invoked WP:MOS without bothering to read it.

Here's another example of how scope_creep edits based on his/her own rules, again taken from my personal Talk page. Also at 20:40 on 19 September 2017 scope_creep posted "Please don't put the dodgy language back, which is from the manual." Presumably by "the manual" scope_creep was referring to one version or another of the Retrospect User's Guide, but he/she never actually pointed to an example of "dodgy language" in the source—which IMHO means he didn't bother to consult the ref'd source and search for the "dodgy language". Even though I admittedly quoted the Retrospect names of features from the UGs because it would be tough to paraphrase those tech-writer-devised names, Dianaa had told me in October 2016 it was OK to do that so long as the quote was only a few words long and properly referenced. Instead I think scope_creep has created his/her own rule, in which words taken from sources should not be wrapped in quote marks. I've dealt with that scope_creep rule in my post of 01:17 13 October 2017 below. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 03:48, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Please don't issue ultimatums, particularly over trivial issues like how many times "Retrospect" appears in the article, or what another editor may do in connection with an article that hasn't even been drafted yet. Sometimes editors can't agree, or just don't get along. Rather than escalate issues that in the end, don't matter, it's better to learn how and when just to decide that it doesn't matter, and move on. Now, as for this future article, when you do get around to drafting it, I would emphasize yet again that you can't simply write down things that you know or believe or have concluded, and link to various sources supporting isolated statements, in connect-the-dots fashion. You will need to find third party sources that already say what you are saying, which already draw the conclusions or connections that you draw, otherwise - again, it's going to be OR, or Synthesis, and not acceptable encyclopedic content. Wikipedia is not a place in which to publish original essays, or new thoughts, or different or better ways of looking at things. We summarize things that reliable sources have already said. The idea of describing a backup concept, then tying it back to terminology used by different brands of software based on (presumably) your own assessment of those functions is already close to the edge and makes me despair of ever conveying this concept in a way that will reach you. JohnInDC (talk) 11:44, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

I think scope_creep has already given his/her response to my 03:48 13 October 2017 ultimatum in his/her 09:55 13 October 2017 post below. To the extent that I understand it (it is rather incoherent; I'll read it again), scope_creep is saying "Yes, I edit according to my own rules [not WP rules], one of which is that if it sounds to me [my italicized interpolation] like a marketing term I'll delete it or substitute something something else for it." That attitude IMHO calls for Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution#Third_Opinion, since the overall result of that attitude has not been a trivial issue. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 13:41, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

I don't have time at the moment to explain what I intend to do in the proposed "Enterprise Backup Features" article. Consider this prgf. a placeholder; I'll replace it later today if possible. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 13:41, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

You don't have to. Probably it'd be more productive and a better use of your time to start writing what you want to write in your Sandbox, and solicit comments from folks after you have something on paper (as it were). JohnInDC (talk) 15:00, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

No, it wouldn't be more productive, because—as I'll proceed to explain—drafting an "Enterprise Backup Features" article to the point where it would be minimally acceptable to others would be a lot of work. I'm not going to do all that work and then have it shot down, either by JohnInDC for good-faith reasons having to do with compatibility with Wikipedia standards or by scope_creep because he/she "doesn't like the cut of my jib"—which after a second reading of his/her 09:55 13 October 2017 post seems to his/her underlying objection.

As I implied in the second paragraph of my 04:36 27 September 2017 post, the major problem with my 04:36 27 September 2017 version of the article was that it was too long for an applications software article because it included too many "Main Features". Working more or less collaboratively we then cut that section down to 12 lines (on my screen) of "Small-group features" by eliminating (with the exception of Cloud Backup) any feature that chronologically followed EMC's insistence on expanding Retrospect Windows from a backup app for small groups to a backup app suited to at least medium-sized organizations. By my count tonight that eliminated 18 features while leaving 12 features in. What made it possible to describe those 12 features in 12 lines was the use of extensive links—for which I give scope_creep full credit—mostly to the Backup article.

The problem in my writing an "Enterprise Backup Features" article, which would be Retrospect-independent but would describe those 18 eliminated features, is that AFAICT there are no Wikipedia articles to link to that describe those 18 features. The Backup article certainly doesn't, which is not surprising considering that most of the writing in that article seems to have been completed by 2007 and discussed on the Talk page by 2008. (And, BTW, that article seems to have been written more based on somebody's IT knowledge than on the still-checkable refs; IMHO it's in many ways an excellent article, but it wouldn't have gotten past JohnInDC's eagle eye). So what I'd have to do to write the "Enterprise Backup Features" article is to find refs in the available online documentation of perhaps a half-dozen enterprise client-server backup apps other than Retrospect, such as Tolis BRU and NetBackup and others for Windows (about which I know nearly nothing). If I can do it, it would be IMHO a contribution to the world's knowledge approaching the usefulness of the Backup article—but it would be a lot of work.

Therefore I don't want to start doing the work until (1) I have the good-faith approval of the concept by JohnInDC and other readers of this Talk page and (2) I've dealt with what I consider to be the bad-faith objections of scope_creep. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 04:06, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

I'm not a gatekeeper so whether I approve of an article or not is kind of beside the point. And it's not easy to offer an opinion on an article that doesn't exist. What I can say, not at the risk of but in the certainty of, repeating myself, is that any such article will need to collect and restate observations that have already been made by reliable third party sources about the subject at hand. I get nervous when editors say that they're hoping to contribute to knowledge or bring a new point of view to people - Wikipedia articles by design and policy only reiterate knowledge that is already out there. We don't create; we compile. We're "editors", not "authors". So if there are articles out there, or books, or reliable websites, that describe the essential features of "Enterprise backup systems" and also connect up the different ways in which different products may describe these same core functions that each performs - then, well yeah maybe that's a worthwhile article. But if your intention is to mine a variety of sources to come up with a new, comprehensive list of features or characteristics of "Enterprise Backup Systems", and then march through the various applications in that market and translate each one's proprietary term into some kind of common terminology - well, that's all OR, it's all Synthesis, and likely a poor use of your time. I hope that's helpful. JohnInDC (talk) 15:02, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

The phrase ‘not fully baked’ wasnt clearly marked as being a quote. It is an ugly, rank phrase, the sort of thing an admin would say, instead of more accurately, prematurely released, which is nicer. Find another quote if you can, but if not, mark it as a quote. scope_creep (talk) 21:24, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Oh come on. The review said, "not fully baked". It hardly a compliment, and whether it's rendered here as "not correctly designed" - or perhaps more accurately, "prematurely released" or "not fully user-tested" or "without sufficient quality control" - it's merely repeating what the source said, which criticism I'd add has been sitting out there for seven or eight years without the threat of litigation. Put back in "not fully baked" with the quotes, and we can ask scope to let it stand. JohnInDC (talk) 19:56, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

"prematurely released" or "not fully user-tested" sounds better, than not correctly designed for sure. Put it back in, if it is a direct quote, but please say it is a direct quote. scope_creep (talk) 20:43, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

I've changed "not correctly designed" to "premature", with a ref directly after the quoted word. In addition I've put back in a brief "development was revived .. hired back ..." quote that does not increase the number of screen lines. I'm sorry to make such a big issue of these two items, but they are vital to real-world understanding of a historical problem, which is that many former customers of Retrospect Mac abandoned it—and still have bad words for it—because of a 2009 development glitch that was partly the consequence of EMC high-level management errors. Finally I have introduced the un-official term "flavor" throughout the article to distinguish between Retrospect Windows and Retrospect Mac—which have different UIs—without excessively using the "R-word". I can't use the term "version", because that term is officially used to distinguish new releases of the same "flavor" with additional features. I can't use the term "Edition", because that term is officially used to distinguish the number of server OS computers that a particular license permits a backup server to backup. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 08:00, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

flavor is not a recognised term in software, in any software, and is an artifical construct. Software versions, and is mac version, or windows or operating system version. I would suggest you use that, or product type, or something more useful to the reader. scope_creep (talk) 11:07, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

"Variety", "variant". "Version" also works because people understand that it can have a different meaning used even in parallel with its other use (i.e., "release number"). "Macintosh version" and "Windows version" is not confusing in context. I also question whether the use of the word version to describe release numbers is "official" or formal given that the entire industry uses the term in that way. (Retrospect's peculiar use of the word "Edition" is a bit different.) "Flavor" is colloquial and not IMHO the right word here. JohnInDC (talk) 11:45, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

I've changed "flavor" to "variant", a term I like and am sorry not to have thought of. In deference to scope_creep's sensibilities, I have not enclosed the term in quotes except for the initial definition. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 14:09, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Cool, I guess that it is finished then. Good work everybody. scope_creep (talk) 14:36, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

I'm afraid it's not finished yet, because scope_creep made an edit at 17:40 on 12 October 2017 to the article's "History" section after he/she posted the above that really raises a couple of questions about his/her following Wikipedia rules rather than ones he/she has made up. First, scope_creep removed the quote marks around "premature" in the second sentence of the second paragraph. Considering that "premature" is a direct quote from a third-party source footnoted immediately after the word, and that the word presents rhetorical language (fourth paragraph) that expresses someone's opinion, it is incomprehensible under WP rules—rather than scope_creep's aversion to quotation marks—to why scope_creep removed the quotation marks. Second, in the same edit, scope_creep moved the quote mark in the first sentence of the second paragraph in front of the word "until". The word "until" does not appear in front of "Development was revived ..." in the Macworld article referenced—it's my word, so I don't see why scope_creep shifted "until" into the quote—thus creating a minor misrepresentation of the argument in the source (third paragraph)—unless it satisfied some self-devised aesthetic rule. So scope_creep is still making up his/her own rules for quotations. IMHO this calls for a Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution#Third_Opinion; I'll discuss this above under my 20:13 11 October 2017 post. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 01:17, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

If he did it wrong then just fix it and explain what you did here. Then reconcile yourself to the fact that the article can be, and will be, edited in the future by scope, or me, or other editors and that no Wikipedia article is ever captured in a fixed state like a mosquito in amber. JohnInDC (talk) 01:59, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

That would work if you had made the edits, JohnInDC, but it wouldn't work for edits scope_creep has made—he/she would just revert my changes because he/she is operating under the compulsion of his/her own rules (read my post above yours). The latest edits scope_creep has made aren't really that significant in themselves; what is significant is that he made them after he/she wrote "I guess that it is finished then. Good work everybody." IMHO scope_creep has just demonstrated that he/she can't resist putting his/her final stamp on this article, to show that his/her rules override everyone else's—including Wikipedia's. I hope I'm not like that. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 02:30, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your article edit of 01:56 on 13 October 2017, ‎JohnInDC. However the fact that scope_creep has let your edit stand so far doesn't prove anything about what scope_creep would do if I did such an edit. As I said in my post of 03:48 on 13 October 2017 (UTC) above, what I want is one of two possible commitments by scope_creep, either to rationally explain his/her own rules or to agree to abide by Wikipedia's rules on articles I'm involved in. One thing you should consider is what scope_creep wrote in a 12:13 27 September 2017 post on my personal Talk page: "Hi DovidBenAvraham. I hope to find you working on other articles on Wikipedia. I enjoyed the cut and thrust." I don't want cut and thrust, I just want a reasonable way of working with or around scope_creep. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 09:48, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

DovidBenAvraham, Anybody who has a user account on wikipedia and is autoconfirmed can edit an article at any time. It is not a case of putting my final stamp on it. We are a collaborative effort here on Wikipedia. When I write an article, finish it for the most part, I dont care who edits, as long as they don't destroy the content, unless they are adding better content, which has happened. It is a fact of life. That is part of life on WP. There is a huge number of programs out there, in the 100s of millions, so people, IT people talk about what software is, particulalry a software version, or variant (which is not a word I recognize, but it is used in parts), they speak in generic terms, but very IT specific, as in computer science specific, which is acceptable to them, as that is what they are taught, and is common. IT companies, don't talk in computer terms. All the time, they are driven by branding and marketing. The software guys don't like it, but it is a fact of life. You come along, read the manual, and write an article that is completely outside the standard of acceptable writing on WP, and how things are spoken or written about. The way you write, is a direct way, in the way that is written by the branding guys, hence Retrospect for IOS. The software guys never wrote that. They would say something like, Dashboard release v1.0.2.9 for IOS. Branding guys come along - Retrospect for IOS, even though it is not Retrospect for IOS. Retrospect is the backup software, so how can it be the dashboard UI? So you are translating the marketing terms, doing the marketing guys a favour, their work on to WP, which is against WP:PROMO. And writing an article, which reads like a marketing skit. As regards the statement, the term used in this article, for lack of an official one I can't tell you how bad that is. Two people come along, tell you it is not acceptable to use branded language, and tell you what is normal and acceptable, but you still refer back to the language used in the manual, instead of searching for a term on WP, which explains it. The official term is version. On WP which is really a law unto itself, calls it revision (which has now been changed). Here is the link: Version control. Why do you insist on not looking for links? Version is the correct term, variant is acceptable as well. I've spent far too much time on this. I'm not a diplomat like JohnInDC. I need to get it finished. If I see any more marketing driven terms on it, when there is perfectly acceptable term on WP which can be used, or it starts to drift to back to what it was, I will revert it. Hopefully the Guild of Copyeditors will come along. Lets try it again: Cool, I guess that it is finished then. (in this time frame). Good work everybody. scope_creep (talk) 09:55, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

scope_creep, with the immediately-above post (to which I've stored the permalink elsewhere) you have confessed to tendentious editing. "Tendentious editing is editing with a sustained bias, or with a clear viewpoint contrary to neutral point of view." IMHO this absolutely justifies my immediately initiating the process for Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution#Third_Opinion, but I'll give you until Tuesday a.m. British time to realize that you have been editing the article under the grip of several erroneous concepts and promise not to do that again.

Let me first deal with some of your lesser erroneous concepts. First of all, it is true that "Retrospect for iOS" is a name thought up by Retrospect Inc. marketing people; I would have preferred "Retrospect Read-Only Console for iOS" but they didn't ask me because I don't work there (and my name wouldn't have a marketing ring to it). I just used in the article the name that's in an Appendix to the Retrospect User's Guides, one of which I used as a ref. However it is not true that "flavor" was a term devised by those marketing people (who IME actually like to gloss over the unusual-in-the-industry operating and terminology differences between Retrospect Windows and Retrospect Mac backup server apps); I devised "flavor" all by myself—it is not in any manual, and substituted "variant" as soon as JohnInDC suggested it. Second, before I retired I was an application software programmer for 40 years; applications software, as opposed to system software, is designed to be used by people who are not IT professionals—administrative assistants in the case of Retrospect as I said in my 03:08 7 October 2017 post. I happen to have a very-quickly-acquired degree (for which I returned to school 26 years after dropping out) in the Computer Science "field of concentration" from an Ivy League university, followed by a non-PhD-track (I'm really not that good in math) night-school Master of Science in Computer Science degree from the highly-reputed New York University. So I can speak that way and read such things as the Retrospect Mac 14 Release Notes, but I wouldn't dream of communicating in those terms to a Retrospect administrator user—or to a non-IT reader of the article.

Now we get to your really pathetic erroneous concept, which is that you don't seem to understand what the function of a technical writer is. "A proficient technical writer has the ability to create, assimilate, and convey [my emphasis] technical material in a concise and effective manner." Yes, technical writers are hired by marketing people, but they are hired because the marketing people know that it is essential to convey technical information to application software users—since the users will tell their bosses not to buy the software if they can't understand how to use it. The Retrospect Windows and Retrospect Mac User's [my emphasis] Guides were originally written by able technical writers, and I got Diannaa's permission in October 2016 to use short phrases of their language provided I enclosed it in quotation marks and ref'd it. Where necessary I paraphrased more of their language, which Diannaa said was OK; I do not have access to go behind the User's Guide language and read Retrospect Inc. internal technical documents. Please be good enough to point me to an article substantially written by you where you have done this for an applications program, scope_creep.

I think that erroneous concept justifies a guess on my part that you, scope_creep, have never written an production applications program despite your having "worked in the computer industry in the UK for 25 years" and having "a BSc and MSc" (I habitually View History of pages for which I'm writing) . Instead I think you have worked at some level in system programming, which "aims to produce software and software platforms which provide services to other software, are performance constrained, or both".

As far as links are concerned, I've already thanked you in my 11:22 4 October 2017 for insisting that I increase the number of them; "using links to various sections of the Backup article has enabled me to use WP-standard backup terminology in the items and not have to provide explanations." I don't think initially resisting using links, because some you originally provided were IMHO too general to increase the reader's understanding—combined with my other good-faith initial errors—justifies the hostility to my having written the article that permeates your immediately-above post. And that's tendentious editing. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 03:00, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

How about linking AFP/SMB as well. DovidBenAvraham, it is unwise to cast aspersions on WP, and it can get you permanently blocked. scope_creep (talk) 15:10, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

My 03:00 16 October 2017 post doesn't cast any aspersions on you generally, scope_creep; it just says you've been editing this article based on erroneous concepts. I notice you're not denying the only guess I made in that post. However it would not in any way be casting aspersions on you to say that your experience might have been exclusively as as a system programmer.

Thanks for the suggestion about links to AFP and SMB. I originally had such links, but the mentions of AFP/SMB were temporarily deleted from the article. I'll put the links back in tonight. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 19:35, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

For completeness in the Third_opinion request I am about to file, I am including here a link to the Retrospect section of my personal Talk page. I am including the link because IMHO the first paragraph spells out in the second and last sentences scope_creep's idea that I have lost any rights to edit the "Retrospect" article by virtue of the RfC decision to reduce its size, and also because the third-from last sentence in the first paragraph spells out scope_creep's idea that any language taken from the Retrospect User's Guide "manual" is ipso facto "dodgy".

I am also including here a link to the reversion scope_creep made to the article at 01:30 on 18 October 2017‎, because "No consensus for filing editor to update article" in the Edit summary essentially states his/her belief that—as per the last sentence in the preceding paragraph—I have no right to update the article without getting consensus from other editors. Nobody has told me that the results of the RfC imposes that requirement on me, and indeed JohnInDC has usually after-the-fact accepted edits I have made since his big edits on 27 September provided that what I do is consistent with the RfC guidelines for the article. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 04:00, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

scope_creep's reaction to this has been to create a new section (formerly with misspelled heading) two sections below this, and to post there. IMHO that may be an attempt to hide discussion from the Active disagreement I have already initiated. I doubt that anything enlightening to the Third Opinion is going to be posted there, just a lot of misstatements by scope_creep. However, before I comment succinctly there, let me emphasize here that I have never been shown any consensus resulting from the RfC—nor have I—except in one justified case noted in the next paragraph—rearranged any comments on this page (I just put in a new section header between existing comments). DovidBenAvraham (talk) 09:52, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

As noted below under "Consensus", I owe a slight apology to scope_creep. I forgot that I did move his/her 15:10 16 October 2017 post to this section. But that's where he/she should have put in the first place; it has nothing to do with "Favorite Folder". DovidBenAvraham (talk) 16:48, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

As a general matter you shouldn't edit others' Talk page comments even if it improves them. JohnInDC (talk) 17:04, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

OK, I certainly understand that. However this Talk page has a big problem that it didn't used to have, which is that since 6 September we all have continued to post chronologically under the last section until the length of text under that heading becomes ridiculous—at which point one editor creates a new section named according to what the editor wanted to discuss at that time. Why don't we try to get back to topic-specific sections with much fewer posts under them? We can all use View History to see any new posts, then use Compare Versions to see where the new posts are in the Talk page, and finally use the page's Table of Contents to get to each section that contains a new post.

Now I need to re-discuss another disputed matter from far above this section. At 15:34 on 20 September 2017 scope_creep wrote "Nobody talks about multi-machine network or mixed-platform networks. I think they are probably a hangover from the 90s, possibly left in the manual." I did another Google search yesterday on "multi-machine network", and found 5 Web pages discussing multi-machine network rendering using After Effects. The latest of these pages—a YouTube tutorial—was uploaded in early 2015, although—if you look at the History section of the Wikipedia article—you'll see that the capability was added to After Effects by Aldus in January 1994. After Effects is now a product of Adobe, a company scope_creep may have heard of. So I'd like to change the first occurrence of "heterogeneous network" in the article lead back to "multi-machine network" (even though scope_creep will be upset because there isn't an applicable WP article for the term to link to), which IMHO will again make the wider usefulness of the Retrospect software much easier to understand for non-IT readers of the article who don't habitually use the term "heterogeneous". I think the insistence on the change to using "heterogeneous network" could well have been a consequence of scope_creep's presumed systems programming background. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 21:20, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

All networks are "multi-machine". Use "multi-platform". It's accurate and immediately comprehensible. See if you like what I did. JohnInDC (talk) 22:31, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

I guess the right term is "mixed platform". Adjusting accordingly. JohnInDC (talk) 22:32, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

 Note: A request for a third opinion has been declined since multiple users are involved in this discussion. Users are recommend to pursue dispute resolution or to file a Request for Comment. Nihlus 02:22, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

I guess the "multiple users" must have been deemed to include JohnInDC. I have now filed a Request for mediation, since IMHO the disputes seem no closer to resolution. That Request basically re-states the two disputes between scope_creep and me that were in the Request for Third Opinion; I've just put the WP "handles" of the disputants in. I have included JohnInDC as an additional party; however I have said that his concern only seems to be that I don't do anything that would expand the article again—I have not said that JohnInDC has taken any position in the disputes between scope_creep and me. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 04:29, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Is there a reason you went with Mediation and not another request for comment? JohnInDC (talk) 10:44, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Hell, yes. First, the RfC was a Kafkaesque process of which—as I stated in Issue 2—I still have never seen any written result, only scope_creep's assertion that I've lost all editing rights. I hope the Mediation process will be fairer. Second, the essence of Issue 1 is that IMHO scope_creep has come up with his/her interpretation of WP standards relating to the article by pulling it out of his/her posterior (possibly because of an inability/unwillingness to read at a university level). I hope the Mediator will engage in a dialog with scope_creep that will convince him/her that his/her interpretation has been incorrect. BTW, JohnInDC, if you can see your way clear to doing it I hope you will promptly enter your Party's Agreement to Mediation. Getting scope_creep's Agreement may be a more painful process. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 13:21, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

I don't agree with your framing of the issue between you and scope; I think the particular issue you've identified is trivial in relation to the article at large; and as between you and me, there's nothing really to mediate. TBH these matters are way below something that a mediator should spend time on and, bearing in mind that Wikipedia operates by consensus, not by fiat, I think an RfC would be far more appropriate - all we need is another couple of editors to weigh in. If my assent is the determining factor in going forward with the Mediation process, I won't withhold it, but I'm not going to hop right onto the train. In the meantime perhaps it would help all of us if rather than speaking in generalities you'd describe the precise edits you want to make. I'm still sort of a third voice here and maybe we can just work through it. JohnInDC (talk) 18:44, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

First, as I'm sure both you and scope_creep know, my Request for Mediation was rejected this afternoon, so that process is now moot. Second, work on this article is now pretty well finished; I only want permission to make this change in the "History" section—which scope_creep reverted—and the one I have requested in my 20:35, 19 October 2017 post below. Third, as I've said below in my 12:17, 18 October 2017 post under Consensus, I'm mainly concerned now about the "Enterprise Backup features" article I proposed above. I now think it's feasible, as I'll discuss below in more detail in a new "Preliminary Discussion of 'Enterprise Backup features' article" section. However it definitely won't be feasible if scope_creep believes he/she has the right to edit "advertising" and "marketing" terms out of that article as he/she has done for this article. I maintain scope_creep's criteria for these terms are not based on a correct reading of any WP standard, and we need to come to some resolution—with your help and/or help from outside editors. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 22:18, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Also, given the stunningly opaque way the previous RfC for this article was done, I don't have any confidence in the RfC process any further than I could physically throw you and and another couple of editors in one effort (not that I want to physically throw anyone, but IMHO it's the appropriate metaphor). However I hope that scope_creep's announced departure from editing the article implies an end to the issue of scope_creep's idiosyncratic interpretation of the WP rules on Advertising. If OTOH he tries to apply that same interpretation to the "Enterprise Backup features" article, we'll have a real dispute on our hands again. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 00:46, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

I realized the other day that the Comments in the Survey sub-section of this Talk page were in fact the "written result" of the RfC. However my Internet was down for 3 days as a result of Verizon stupidity, so my apology had to wait until it was back up. I'm sorry, the way the RfC was done was not opaque; I'm just dense. However, in those comments nobody said I should not be allowed to edit the article without prior consensus, which is what scope_creep has been recently claiming in reverting my edits. DovidBenAvraham (talk) DovidBenAvraham (talk) 14:41, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Wrapping this up

The discussion was endless and not productive. I decided to take the bull by the horns and reduce the article to a manageable and appropriate size. I might've deleted one or two (one or two) important "selected" features - if so, let's discuss. I acknowledge that I broke a bunch of refs - I'll get to fixing those, but of course anyone who wants to get started on it sooner is welcome to. Thanks. JohnInDC (talk) 01:34, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

I've fixed the refs. I'll also note that I didn't do anything yet to the "Editions and Add-ons" section, which is probably too much as well. JohnInDC (talk) 01:40, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

I think JohnInDC took the bull by the horns about an hour before I would have posted a proposal to guide the bull through a chute to a mutually-acceptable pasture. What I realized earlier this evening is that we have all been suffering from a conceptual problem. I agree that the "Main features" section was too big for an article on a particular backup app. Instead most of the items describe features that distinguish an enterprise backup app from a personal backup app. Look—one-by-one—at the "Main features" described in this permalink of the article before JohnInDC's edits tonight, and see if you can find them in the Backup article. In most cases you won't be able to, because they are not features required in even a full-featured personal backup app. They are instead features required by an administrator responsible for keeping an entire multi-computer installation centrally and thoroughly backed up (including rapid-recovery off-site storage—which IMHO doesn't include cloud unless you are budgeted for an AWS Snowball—see 10/2015 and 11/2016).

What should have occurred to me at least a week ago is that there needs to be a separate article named "Enterprise Backup" or something similar. It would contain those "Main features" that aren't in the Backup article. I would initially write the new article using Retrospect terminology—because I don't currently know any alternative, but would otherwise mention Retrospect as little as possible. Because I did some research on Tolis BRU a few months ago, I could write an article on that backup app—which greatly resembles a Mac/Linux Retrospect clone feature-frozen around 2006—with links to the "Enterprise Backup" article. I would then write an email to Tolis Group telling them I'd started a WP article (which they don't already have) about their app, and inviting them to improve it. This would start a terminology and completeness battle about the "Enterprise Backup" article, which IMHO is what we need. At some point or other, subject to your OK, I would enhance the Retrospect article so that its "Main features" section would also refer to the "Enterprise Backup" article. Hopefully we'd get knowledgeable editors to write about Windows and Linux enterprise backup apps in the same vein, which would undoubtedly unleash further helpful terminology and completeness battles over the "Enterprise Backup" article.

All in all, I'm not too unhappy about what JohnInDC did tonight. The only thing I'm rather annoyed about is his deletion of the last paragraph and the translation table in the "History" section. That's fundamentally unfair, because it conceals the fact that modern Retrospect Windows and Retrospect Mac are two different apps—with different user interfaces and different modes of operation that happen to share 99% of their underlying code (in answer to scope_creep's challenge, Retrospect Windows can write to "superfloppies" and has an Immediate mode—facilities that Retrospect Mac has dropped). However, at the time he did the deletion, JohnInDC had not seen my reply to his claim that the last "History" prgf. contained "unsourced claims, OR, synthesis or opinion"—it doesn't. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 04:36, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Hi JohnInDC, DovidBenAvraham, I see you have done it. Although I think it would have been worth keeping the history section as it provides additional context for the articles, and names the manufacturer, which had some historical and could have done with an article. Scope creep (talk) 12:08, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

I've now implemented Phase 1 of what I proposed in the first two paragraphs of my 04:36, 27 September 2017 post. The "Selected features" section has been renamed the "Small-group features" section, and I've combined a couple of items in it to make room for two new items. Thus the number of items and the number of lines in that section has not been increased, although the byte-count has gone up slightly because I used each line more fully and added 4 more refs to provide complete referencing. Thank you, scope_creep, for insisting that I increase the number of links; using links to various sections of the Backup article has enabled me to use WP-standard backup terminology in the items and not have to provide explanations. Later substituted Proactive script feature for "Script Hooks" feature; Proactive scripts are widely-used and have been in Retrospect so long that Dantz's U.S. patent expired in 2016, whereas "Script Hooks" were only officially announced in March 2017—although they may have quietly been added to Retrospect Windows in 2015. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 11:22, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Phase 2 will be, as I said above, to create the separate "Enterprise Backup" article so the the "Retrospect (software)" article can link to its items. The creation of the basic contents of the "Enterprise Backup" article is not so daunting, because it will be built from those items from the "Main features" of the old "Retrospect (software)" article that were left out of the new "Small-group features" section. The daunting part will be my searching of Web documentation for other enterprise backup apps, in order to provide the refs and alternate terminology that will turn the "Enterprise Backup" article into something that is not Retrospect-specific.

I too am unhappy, scope_creep, that there isn't an article on Dantz Development Corp.. But AFAIK the material to write such an article simply isn't available. However it occurred to me the other day that the "Retrospect (software)" article could be significantly improved by rewriting the "History" section with an extra paragraph. I realized that what evidently happened after EMC bought Dantz is that EMC management (EMC being an enterprise-oriented corporation) put pressure on the Retrospect developers to upgrade it from a small-group backup app to a true enterprise backup app. That's why new enterprise-oriented features appeared in Retrospect Windows 7.0, and why more such features appeared in Retrospect Windows 7.5 and 7.7. And then Microsoft put a severe kink in the effort, by adding security features to Windows Vista that made it impossible for the Retrospect developers to add the free-standing GUI Console that the developers felt was necessary. So, after layoffs and re-hirings, the Retrospect developers focused on Retrospect Mac 8 to show what they could really accomplish. Because of lack of time, since they were bucking EMC management, the developers released a version that had lots of bugs—especially in the Console—and was incapable of running on the older PowerPC hardware that a lot of Retrospect Mac administrators used for running "backup servers". This is not speculation; the third-party articles I used as refs for the old version of the "History" section support this interpretation. If it's not too scary for you folks, I'd like to do that "History" rewrite. Please comment. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 04:08, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

If the articles directly state what you've summarized about the history of these companies then a couple of new sentences wouldn't be bad. But if the sources merely support, or are consistent with, this interpretation as you say, then that's SYNTHESIS and not proper. You can recast & rephrase a reliable source's research and conclusions on a matter but you can't collect information from a variety of sources, construct a story that appears to knit it all together (even if the pieces seem to fit together in only that one way) and add it. Editors' own understanding, their own interpretation of facts, aren't permissible. I hope that's helpful. JohnInDC (talk) 11:43, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

I reviewed today's addition and little by little realized that nearly every assertion in it was an inference drawn from the source material, or an interpolation of facts. This is not a narrative that appears in any of the sources and is inappropriate SYNTHESIS, and so after a couple of cleanup efforts, I restored the prior version. JohnInDC (talk) 00:24, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

I may have picked the wrong sources for the section, but the assertions themselves are not inferences or interpolations. For instance, I have belatedly discovered a 2014 Retrospect Inc. Knowledge Base article that directly confirms the main assertion of my second paragraph—that starting with Windows Vista "when Retrospect auto launches [via the Retrospect Launcher service] Windows puts Retrospect into a protective desktop environment where the user will not be able view and control Retrospect". However, if you won't accept that as a reference, I can simply use JG Heithcock's December 2009 Retrospect Developers' blog post about the just-released Retrospect Windows 7.7; he mentions "others unhappy it wasn't going to be the full-blown new User Interface as the Mac product got" and then states that "Given the resources we have today, not putting a brand-new UI saved us a lot of time, both in development and testing." So in that case I can simply make a well-supported assertion that EMC developers chose to delay implementing the same GUI in Retrospect Windows as in Retrospect Mac; Eric Ullman's September 2009 blog post says the same thing. If you don't like my Release Notes reference showing that Retrospect Inc. was still trying in September 2017 to provide a workaround for the Windows Vista "protective desktop environment" problem, I'll leave that assertion out.

As for my third-paragraph assertion about the EMC developers' success in splitting the Retrospect Macintosh backup server into separate separate communicating GUI Console user-space and server root processes, I have several third-party references I can include for that. As for the terminology change in Retrospect Mac 8, the latest edition of the Joe Kissell book (the one I paid $15 plus tax to download so I could view it freely) directly says the terminology was changed in Retrospect Mac 8. And as for the assertions about EMC layoffs/rehirings and customer dissatisfaction with Retrospect Mac 8, I used to have those in the old version of the article—and can easily put them back in.

I don't want to get into a revert war with you, JohnInDC. Therefore please reply as to whether you would accept the "History" section additions as I have re-proposed them in the two prgfs. directly above. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 03:14, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Retrospect developer blog posts are not reliable third party sources. They are first-party sources, the opinions of one or two individuals with (apparent) knowledge of particular circumstances at a particular point in time - they may be right, or wrong about why the company was doing what it did; others within the same company with equal knowledge (but no blog) might've disagreed. They might've had extrinsic reasons for posting the things that they did, or for the spin they put on them. We don't know. I don't think that, as a general matter, those posts can be used to construct an otherwise unpublished, insider's view of the history of the software and the firms that owned & developed it. Find a third party reliable source that tells this story from start to finish and summarize that. Otherwise - the lack of any such sources are a strong indication that this is not sufficiently well documented to include at all. JohnInDC (talk) 03:32, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

In this case the developers who blogged were Eric Ullman, Retrospect product manager at the time who previously worked for Dantz from 1992-2004, and JG Heithcock, director of software engineering for Retrospect at the time who had been working for Dantz/EMC since 1998. Heithcock has now been CEO of Retrospect Inc. for several years, so we know he must be a master of spin. And in fact I don't necessarily believe Heithcock's December 2009 explanation, but the "blog" was evidently EMC's semi-official way of communicating with Retrospect customers less formally than with press releases.

But I don't have to use the "blog" as a ref. at all. I just mentioned the "blog" above in case—for some reason—you have a problem with my proposed official first-party refs. from Retrospect Inc.'s website: a 2014 Knowledge Base article, and Release Notes accompanying the September 2017 version of Retrospect Windows. All I'm trying to newly establish in the second paragraph of the "History" section is that EMC/Roxio/Retrospect Inc. has still not implemented a split between the Retrospect Windows GUI and "backup server engine" processes, and as a result Retrospect Windows requires special administrator operating procedures as of 2017. All I'm trying to establish in the third paragraph of the "History" section is that EMC did in 2009 implement for Retrospect Mac a split between the GUI and "backup server engine" processes, a change to a more Mac-like GUI, and a change in terminology. That justifies the statement I made in the last sentence of the third paragraph: "Retrospect Inc. has continued to sell two flavors of backup server software that, while having nearly identical non-GUI code, are operated differently by the administrator and have different terminology." I can justify that with official first-party and third party refs. without using any "blog" posts, and I propose to do so unless I hear from you to the contrary. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 11:53, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

First, this level of detail is excruciating and I object on that basis alone. Second, you need to find a third party source that pulls all this together for us. Not your observations tying together different statements or observations by internal sources at Dantz or EMC or wherever. Finally it seems to me that if you want to mark a difference in functionality or code between the Macintosh and Windows versions, the place to do it is not in the History section but at one of the locations where you describe the different flavors of software: "Retrospect for Windows has nearly identical non-GUI code as Retrospect for Macintosh but they are operated differently by the administrator and have different terminology." (If that captures the distinction properly.) The fact of the difference seems reasonably well sourced. How and why it came to be, and why it persists, is not. JohnInDC (talk) 13:13, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Almost certainly no such third-party source exists; I've searched. Since reviewing publications are usually targeted to particular OS platforms, why would any reviewer bother writing a review that covers what—on the surface—appear to be two differently-functioning "backup server" apps that run on two different OS platforms and simply share the same name? As to how and why the difference came to be, and why it persists, the Knowledge Base article will make that crystal-clear for the technically inclined: it's because of security features added to Windows Vista that aren't in macOS. And as for the "excruciating" level of detail, I think I can cut my additional 11 lines in the "History" section down to 6 lines. The result will be very terse, and will be festooned with refs like a Christmas tree, but that shouldn't bother you zealous Wikipedia editors. After I've written the 6 lines, you can decide where they should be moved to in the article. However I don't think they belong in the "Editions and Add-Ons" section; that distinguishes between various pricing levels of the software, not the macOS-vs.-Windows "flavors" (as I have termed them). DovidBenAvraham (talk) 21:30, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

I don't know how many times I need to say it, but if you are not repeating or summarizing what a third party source has said, then you are contributing original research or synthesis, which are not how the encyclopedia is written. Editors here edit other independent, reliable material down into Wikipedia articles; they don't connect the dots among disparate sources to devise interpretations of their own. I'm sorry you think my concerns are extreme, but this discussion has dragged on for weeks and I'm tired of making the same points over and over. Again: If a third party has written up a history of Retrospect, and that history examines the different architecture of the program on the two platforms and how they came to be, then include it; but otherwise, please don't. JohnInDC (talk) 21:59, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Here's the Retrospect Inc. Knowledge Base article "Auto Launching Guide for Retrospect for Windows". If I simply reference that single source in a brief quote, where's the inference and connecting the dots that I'll be supposedly making? I guess I must be really stupid not to understand your concern in this case. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 01:17, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Since I must be really stupid, here's a Really Stupid Procedure for Resolving This: (1) I clone the existing article into a "Retrospect (software) for Windows" article; there'll be less than 2 dozen words difference between the two articles. (2) A shill (possibly I myself) suggests that the two articles be merged. (3) Some kind of online committee forms to consider this question; I testify that I'd be happy to merge the two articles, but JohnInDC won't let me because of a crucial 6-line difference between the articles. (4) I may come out with egg on my face, but somebody else may come out with egg on their face instead. How about it, JohnInDC, are you ready to put your WP reputation where your mouth is?

"Due to mandatory Windows security settings starting with Windows Vista/Server 2008, Retrospect when auto-launched does not interact properly with the user. The program must instead be launched manually and be minimized, or another workaround employed." The cited source goes into more detail, but this is not a user manual, and the foregoing captures the gist of it. It still doesn't read like "history" to me, but it's only a line and a half and fairly straightforward and if you want to include that, or something like that, I won't object. JohnInDC (talk) 02:10, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

I did not intend for you to add back in all of your synthesis along with that sentence. The sentence was it. I'm going through the material that you've restored and checking it against the sources. If the sources don't say what you cite them for then I will remove it. JohnInDC (talk) 23:38, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

I pared the material down a bit, leaving in the main points (sold to EMC, Windows 7.5 good, EMC hoped to make more improvements to Windows but were frustrated by Vista, didn't focus on Macintosh, v.8 sucked) but eliminating obscure / proprietary technical terms as well as recommended "fixes", which are, in the end, entirely beside the point. Now it's reads like a story - supported by the sources - and much less a how-to. The only not-purely-sourced inference now is to say that the hopes for Windows were to make it more like the Mac version (no one really says that) but it's a small point and helps the narrative flow. JohnInDC (talk) 00:19, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

No, the hopes for Retrospect Windows were—and still are—to give it a capability that EMC management had already determined is needed for any client-server backup system designed for use in enterprises larger than 20 people; that capability is complete two-way data interchange between the backup server and another computer running a Console app. For you to understand that, I must get you to look at the way modern larger offices are administratively structured. The last office I worked in before I retired had 60 people; of these, only 3 IT people were allowed access to the locked (and fire-hardened) server room. Once multi-client backups started being done to large-capacity hard disk drives instead of to tape drives, bosses everywhere realized that they could delegate administration of daily backups to an administrative assistant (who used to be called a "senior secretary")—not a scarce and highly-skilled IT person. The actual backup server, with its attached HDDs, can be kept in the locked server room, but the administrative assistant (referred to as the "administrator" by Retrospect Inc.) needs to be able to change schedules for backup scripts and monitor scripts for correct operation. To do that conveniently, the backup administrator really needs to be able to do two-way interaction with the backup server app from another computer that is not in the inaccessible server room. Under macOS that turned out not to be a problem; the Console-Server split was successfully (although buggily) implemented in Retrospect Mac 8 at the beginning of 2009. However the security enhancements in Windows Vista basically made it impossible to implement the Console-Server split in the planned Retrospect Windows 8 at the end of 2009, because complete two-way communication between two user-space processes is no longer allowed. So, as the Heithcock December 2009 blog post said (without giving the real reason why this was done), EMC instead decided to bring out a Retrospect Windows 7.7 version (for which they charged extra despite its being nominally a "point release") without a Console-Server split. Not having a separate Console makes it impossible for an administrator to do full two-way interaction with the backup server, unless the administrator is allowed physical access and account access to the backup server machine—which in most offices the administrator is not allowed. The two sentences JohnInDC deleted in my second "History" paragraph were an attempt to mention the only two practical operating alternatives for Retrospect Windows, and to say—briefly and relatively-non-technically referenced to the Knowledge Base article—that both these alternatives are unsatisfactory. If JohnInDC lets me put that statement back in, I can give a ref to the Preferences section of the Retrospect Windows User's Guide that demonstrates that "launch[ing] the program manually, leav[ing] it open, and minimiz[ing] it ... [also] causes administrator problems". As I've said above, Retrospect Inc. tried to implement one-way communication between the backup server and a stand-alone view-only Retrospect Dashboard app in 2014, botched the implementation, and refused to officially document the stand-alone Retrospect Dashboard app through 2017—although they claim to have finally fixed the implementation in September 2017 (as shown in the Release Notes ref that JohnInDC left in). BTW, note that—in order to keep as close as possible to my promised 6 additional screen lines—I've left out any mention of the differences in GUI and terminology between current Retrospect Windows and current Retrospect Mac. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 03:08, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but all of that is far beyond the scope of this article, which is about the existence, basic function, and general history of a piece of retail software; on top of which, none of what you've just laid out, really and truly none, is in any of the sources at hand. What EMC or Dantz was trying to do, the needs they were seeking to meet, and your highly technical descriptions of appropriate backup architecture as manifested in Retrospect (or not) - that's all your own inference, based on your own understanding of the industry, and how mid-sized enterprises work and what their needs are; and the material about how users should work around these limitations are precisely the kind of how-to guide that Wikipedia is not. Please stop now. The article, and its history section, are now comprehensible, they line up with the sources, and they're appropriate to the subject at hand. JohnInDC (talk) 03:21, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

OK, but you should be aware that all the client-server backup apps I've looked at so far have Consoles. NetBackup has one. Tolis BRU looks like it has more than one type of Console. Just sayin', but you'll be able to read more about this cross-app feature when I write the "Enterprise Backup" article. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 03:52, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

"Favorite Folder"

This is an OS X-specific word for the more general and commonly understood term, "subvolume". Retrospect (for both Mac & Windows) backs up subvolumes. On OS X these subvolumes are called "Favorite Folders". The function is the same, just the word is different. You don't need to introduce the Mac-specific terminology, define it in terms of the common word, so that you can use it a single time later in the article. It adds nothing to the understanding of the functions of the software. Again - again, again - this is not a user manual, it's not a glossary or lookup table. "Retrospect can be configured to back up subvolumes." That's all that needs to be said. Please stop making this change. JohnInDC (talk) 15:09, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

You're wrong in this specific case, JohnInDC; Favorite Folder is not an OS X term—I've Googled it. Instead it is an EMC-coined term for a subvolume that is defined and distinguished only within Retrospect. It is therefore distinct from a Btrfs subvolume, which AFAICT is—once it has been defined—more generally visible within the filesystem. I'm pretty sure that's why EMC changed the terminology for Retrospect Mac 8; subvolume is the older Retrospect term that is still used within Retrospect Windows. That's why I used the term Favorite Folder, and took pains to put in a ref to the Joe Kissell book—and improved that ref to show the page number corresponding to the definition for Favorite Folder (the actual ref is for "subvolume", because the only copy of the Kissell book that is freely accessible on the Web predates Retrospect Mac 8). DovidBenAvraham (talk) 16:13, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

I didn't mention that I'd also searched for "Favorite Folder" in posts over many years to the Ars Technica Macintoshian Achaia forum. I found none. I did the same search in all Ars' Operating System and Software forums; it found 5 posts with the phrase, all in the Microsoft OS & Software Colloquium. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 21:25, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

If it's a Retrospect term then it's only worse. It's simple: Restrospect can back up a volume, or a subset of that volume (aka a subvolume). We don't need the special Retrospect name to convey that concept. It's not necessary and it clutters the article with proprietary terminology that adds nothing. Better without it. JohnInDC (talk) 22:14, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

OK, but if scope_creep mindlessly tries to link "subvolume" to Btrfs subvolume I'm going to edit the link out as soon as I see it—because it's misleading in the article. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 23:50, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Right after the word "subvolume", I've added a link to the latest version of the Retrospect Mac User's Guide. If anyone tries to find "subvolume" in that, they'll be taken straight to a Glossary of Terms entry that says "In previous versions of Retrospect, a folder you designate as an independent volume for use within Retrospect. Retrospect uses the term Favorite Folder." DovidBenAvraham (talk) 09:48, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Consensus

DovidBenAvraham, we have consensus, which came about from the Rfc, to simplify the article, to remove what was essentially a manual, and create a new article, which JohnInDC did, to keep it simplified, salient and linked to WP. We updated the article to put in salient sections in history, which provided additionall context, linked it per WP:MOS for those terms that needed it, and removed all the advertising per WP Terms of Use. You now seem to adding more more stuff, which is outside the consensus, which nobody wants, and is breaking the article again. It is almost 6 weeks now since the Rfc, and you are still not sticking with it. If you continue to work on the article, against concensus, and adding more more detail which is well beyond what is required, its going to an administrator to sort, likely to WP:ANI. Also please stop reordering these comments, it is bad form and i'm sure it is illegal on WP. scope_creep (talk) 08:23, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

First, I have never been shown any consensus (I, at least, know how to spell "consensus" consistently) resulting from the RfC, and I prefer to see it as pointed to by someone other than scope_creep. Second, my article edits from 00:25 through 01:17 on 18 on 18 October added no detail except the two words "overly complicated" (with ref for the quote); everything else was actually a clarification of what was already in the "History" section—namely attempts to clarify (without adding a single screen line) that Windows Vista's changes prevented EMC from creating a fully-interactive console for Retrospect Windows. Third—as I have already stated above, there never was any "advertising" in the article except by scope_creep's definition—which as I have noted above is not Wikipedia's definition. Fourth, I have never rearranged any comments on this page; I just put in a new section header between existing comments. Finally, I posted an Active Disagreements entry at 04:28 on 18 October 2017, and then clarified its last sentence (while changing the date) at 05:18. Let's wait until that concludes before proceeding to any WP:ANI. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 10:24, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Cleaning up this article has been long and laborious and exhausting. DBA, you've been communicative all along and I appreciate that but progress throughout has been so slow, and so incremental, with so much back-and-forth and with oh-so-many-words that when you come back and make just one small change back in the direction we're trying to move the article away from - well, I can appreciate scope's losing patience. We'll see what the Third Opinion request produces as regards this latest episode but really the best thing would be for you to turn away from this article and see what you can contribute to one of the other 5.5 million articles that are here on English Wikipedia. JohnInDC (talk) 10:45, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

That good. Some more progress. Let's get the Third opinion sorted out. I not sure what it is, but it has got to be better than this. I would like to draw your attention to JohnInDC suggestion about working on other articles. There is over 200k articles on WP, which don't have sources. They desperately need some help. scope_creep (talk) 11:24, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

First of all, JohnInDC, I'd appreciate it if you would show me the written consensus reached by the RfC. It's customary in the English-speaking world to give the defendant a copy of the judgement against him/her. The WP:ANI surely can't blame me for violating a judgement I never saw.

Second, as I said four paragraphs above this, my only "one small change back in the direction we're trying to move the article away from" was adding the two words "overly complicated" in my attempted first edit. My attempted second edit was entirely to clarify what was already in the article; in fact it was enough of a clarification that IMHO I now think the link to application isolation would enable me to eliminate the ref to the Retrospect Knowledge Base article—which is mostly an overly-technical description of how to get around the lack of a fully-interactive console in Retrospect Windows. I believe scope_creep wasn't thinking properly when he/she reverted that second edit.

Third, the only other Wikipedia article I want to contribute to at the moment is the "Enterprise Backup features" article I proposed above. But there's no point in my starting to draft it if scope_creep later decides that it is a pure extension of the "Retrospect" article, and that therefore he has the right to apply his non-WP standards on "advertising" and "marketing" to it. That's why I requested the Third Opinion, not that I enjoy the fight.

Fourth, I have a suggestion for something scope_creep can do in the meantime. By my count there are 31 occurrences of the phrase "Time Machine" in the article Time_Machine_(macOS). That is surely a "marketing" term ("Time Machine" certainly has a marketing ring to it, and everyone is a marketer over at Apple) in a backup app article by scope_creep's standards just as much as "Retrospect" is. Why doesn't he/she edit out most of those phrases, changing them to "the program" or something similar? I think the resultant reaction among Apple fans on Wikipedia would justify the phrase "came down on him like a ton of bricks".

Finally, I owe a slight apology to scope_creep. I forgot that I did move his/her 15:10 16 October 2017 post to the preceding section. But that's where he/she should have put in the first place; it has nothing to do with "Favorite Folder". We are all of us capable of using View History to see what changes have been made to a page, even if a new post was added to a section other than the last one. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 12:17, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

I realized the other day that the Comments in the Survey sub-section of this Talk page were supposed to be taken together as the "written result" of the RfC. However my Internet was down for 3 days as a result of Verizon stupidity, so my apology had to wait until it was back up. I'm sorry, there was no other "written result" that JohnInDC should have shown me. However, in those Comments nobody said I should not be allowed to edit the article without prior consensus, which is what scope_creep has been recently claiming in reverting my edits. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 14:43, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Please, may I have consensus to add the words "GUI-scripted" (with a link—which I think was previously deleted from the article—to the GUI article) in front of "backup" in the last single-sentence paragraph of the lead? The article as it is has no hint that operations must be scripted (Retrospect Windows kept Immediate operations, but Retrospect Mac 8 replaced those with equivalent GUI buttons that create scripts and immediately run them) until the last three items in the "Small-group features". The word "GUI-" in front of "scripted" is my sneaky single-word way of inserting the fact that Retrospect (both variants) has a GUI for creating scripts. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 20:35, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Since I hadn't heard any approval or objection in two days, I have made this edit—which included a link for GUI. I then did two more edits re-arranging the single sentence, for clarity. I've also made "Consensus" a section on the same level as "Favorite Folder" in this Talk page, since the discussion in this section has nothing to do with Favorite Folder. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 19:06, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

I assume that the consensus allows me to clarify or add mentions of features, so long as this doesn't add to the number of screen lines in the article and doesn't go into any more detail about a feature than what's already there. In conformity with that assumption, I have today squeezed in brief mentions of three additional "Small-group features": non-Desktop Editions can simultaneously backup to multiple destinations using different scripts, backups can do file exclusion, and there can be separate MD5 validation scripts. In addition I have today clarified that the Windows Add-On for Dissimilar Hardware Restore automatically adjusts drivers, and clarified for what kinds of tape library the Advanced Tape Support Add-On is required and for what kind it isn't. These edits have completed putting into the article all "Small-group features" that don't belong in the forthcoming "Enterprise Backup features" article; all of them happen to be features that—with the exception of Cloud Backup—were all present in Retrospect Windows before the release of Retrospect Mac 8. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 19:56, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Please make sure that by adding detail you are not rendering the prose more technical and harder to follow. I'm not convinced, for example, that adding the sentence, "Using non-Desktop Editions of the backup server, multiple scripts can simultaneously backup to different destinations" really tells the reader anything that they need to know. Here as in so many other instances, detail is not good simply for its own sake. At some point it just becomes clutter. JohnInDC (talk) 21:46, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Similarly, "clarifying that Windows Add-On for Dissimilar Hardware Restore extends the Emergency Recovery CD" is a matter for a user manual, not a high-level overview of a particular piece of backup software. This is not the place for that kind of stray - indeed trivial - observation. JohnInDC (talk) 21:50, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

I've since clarified the language of the last sentence of the Backup Destinations "Small-group features" item to say "If run on non-Desktop Editions of the backup server, multiple scripts can simultaneously backup to different destinations." That says in non-techncal language that those Editions are multi-threaded, which is an announced 2016 feature of the Arq personal backup app. (Actually multi-threading works in the Desktop Edition too, but you have to reset a Preference each time you start the Retrospect backup server to use it.)

The article used to have one item saying "Retrospect Emergency Recovery CD—a single generic boot disc that uses WinPE to provide bare metal recovery of most Windows computers ...." It used to have another item saying "'Dissimilar Hardware Restore Add-On'—giving Retrospect Windows the capability of restoring an entire machine to a completely different computer—including after-the-fact automatic adjustment of drivers to account for differences in the hardware." Imagine you are Sam the manager of a small office, and the hard drive on Suzy's ancient Windows computer suddenly dies. So you pull a new computer out of the office closet and put it on Suzy's desk, but it isn't even the same brand as Suzy's old Windows computer. Wouldn't you like to use a combination of these two features to re-establish a bootable hard drive with all of Suzy's files on it? DovidBenAvraham (talk) 19:13, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Sure. And Retrospect can tell us all about it in their ads. JohnInDC (talk) 20:17, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Is there any reason I shouldn't add the Windows Emergency Recovery CD as an item in "Small-group features"? It's certainly not an "Enterprise Backup feature", even though it's available only for Retrospect Windows, and as such it has just as much right to be listed as any other "Small-group feature". And is there any reason not to put the Windows Add-On for Dissimilar Hardware Restore back in "Editions and Add-Ons", where it used to be until you removed it, JohnInDC? I added the feature to the Add-On in "Editions and Add-Ons" because they are related, and it would save an item screen line in "Small-group features". The terse language I used was so as not to add an extra screen line to "Editions and Add-Ons". DovidBenAvraham (talk) 03:59, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

I'll make my last comment, as it has been 6 weeks to the day since the Rfc went in and I'm not committing any more time to this article. Lastly, no one uses the term GUI. The last time I heard GUI being used was about 2007. It is now UI and if it is mobile it is UX. Also console. The last time that word being used in action was the early 1990's. Anybody under 40, will think it is games console, your talking about. Truly. Your manual hasn't been updated for many years, perhaps 20+ years more It is woefully out of date. Anyway do what you want. Some other editor can deal with it. scope_creep (talk) 23:45, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Ah, scope_creep, how kind of you to leave us with another of your justly-famous "nobody ..." statements (for which other editors can search the Talk page). You may be right; only one of the two doormen I have surveyed knew what GUI meant (a third doorman may—since he has a side business doing video recording and editing, but he's in the hospital with 5% kidney function). However GUI goes straight to the Wikipedia "Graphical user interface" article, and UI goes straight to a disambiguation page from which in two steps you can go to user interface types—which lists GUI as the second bulleted item. UX, on the other hand, goes to a disambiguation page which says "UX refers to user experience[my emphasis], a person's behaviors, attitudes, and emotions about using a product, system, or service" at the very top.

As for "console", all the enterprise backup applications whose reviews/documentation I have surveyed have what some of them more fully term an "administrative console". EMC introduced its Retrospect Console with Retrospect Mac 8, which was released in early 2009. I guess lead developers of enterprise backup applications in the late 2000s—many of whom must have been in their 40s by then—spent too much time imitating each other, and not enough time playing video games with their kids.

I'd love to know the sociological profile of the people you associate with in your job as a presumed system programmer. However, thanks for your help on the article. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 03:25, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Preliminary discussion of "Enterprise Backup features" article

As I've explained above, creation of the new article would be a substantial amount of effort. The article would be built around a discussion of the 18 features that we eliminated from this article, but presented in a fashion that would not favor Retrospect or any other enterprise backup software application. It would be based on my realization that, starting around 2004, a number of makers of what were conceptually personal backup applications that had been expanded to handle small groups decided to expand them to be able to handle larger groups in enterprises. The expansion process required the developers to talk to potential users, and also impelled them to keep close tabs on what their competitors were developing. Thus a constellation of enterprise backup applications emerged in the mid-to-late 2000s that had essentially similar new features, even though in some cases the terminology for those features varied from seller to seller. If I'm to write an article discussing those new features that will be acceptable on Wikipedia, the article will have to mix refs to user manuals with refs to what reviews exist for these enterprise backup applications. Before starting to write the article, I need to get confirmation that—if written according to generally-accepted WP standards—the article would be acceptable to such editors as JohnInDC. That's why I've started a discussion on this Talk page. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 01:10, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

This really isn't the place to discuss this. Not too many editors follow this Talk page. I have no particular expertise in the area and haven't got much inclination to gain it; plus TBH I'm tired of trying to convey the same basic points again and again. You should go visit WP:HELP and follow the links about your first article, and where to ask for assistance. WP:Teahouse perhaps. You need a broader audience, who doesn't bring any preconceptions to the process, I think. JohnInDC (talk) 01:39, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

I do now understand "the same basic points again and again" that JohnInDC mentioned directly above. In particular, one thing I did yesterday is to look for reviews of other competitive enterprise backup applications. Of course the first problem was to identify them, since I haven't used Windows since I retired in 2004 and there doesn't seem to be another competitive enterprise backup application for Mac (Archiware seems oriented toward tape rather than disk, and Tolis BRU seems oriented toward media production enterprises). I decided that Retrospect Inc. must know who its main competitors are, and therefore looked at its "Competitive Analysis" Knowledge Base articles to identify those competitors. To my pleased surprise there are some real Web reviews (not just repeats of press releases) of the competitor products. Of course the information in those reviews will have to be supplemented with information from product user manuals (some of these manuals are behind "signup walls", so I guess I'll be deleting myself from e-mailing lists for a while), but that's the kind of thing I've already done in the Retrospect article. So I now think I'll just go ahead and create a sandbox version of the new article, and let other editors take a look at it at some point. I hope I don't have to put in too much work before getting a verdict. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 08:47, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I expect the new article to be revised and added to by other editors more familiar with primarily-Windows enterprise backup applications—indeed I welcome that. I just don't want the new article to be revised in the way that scope_creep tried to, with spurious interpretations of Wikipedia rules. All I want to be left with is an article I can link to from a brief new section in this article, saying something like "Retrospect has most of the Enterprise Backup features, excepting only ...." DovidBenAvraham (talk) 10:33, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Just by way of reminder, again - whatever article you wind up writing can't be your own compendium of features you deem important to the class. Find articles that say, "these are the important features of Enterprise Backup Software" and summarize the lists they provide. And bear in mind, again, that Wikipedia articles aren't buyers' guides - it isn't the place to list a bunch of features alongside a list of products with checkboxes "yes" or "no". That's for Consumer Reports or Computerworld or whoever is helping consumers decide what software is best for them. And finally I'll state my original suggestion a little more strongly. The Talk page for Retrospect is not the right place to develop a related, but entirely separate, article. Please find a more suitable place for the discussion than here. You'll likely get better input at that spot too - you can always direct them back to these discussions for a primer. JohnInDC (talk) 12:05, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Good point about articles that say "these are the important features of Enterprise Backup Software", JohnInDC. There's a 2016 Gartner report that sounds from the title as if it might be promising; there was a problem with the Gartner site as of this morning, but I've just looked at the 2017 version courtesy of a vendor that's mentioned in it. As for a buyers' guide, there's already one for backup software on Wikipedia (Retrospect is there; many of the competitors aren't) but I've no wish to enhance it. I took a brief look at WP:Teahouse last night, but I'm not sure I'd find the kind of editors I need frequenting it. Thanks to your past guidance on this article, for which I'm extremely grateful, I actually think I know what I've got to do to make the new article acceptable. Speaking of "articles that say, 'these are the important features of ... Backup Software'", the WP article Backup has proven extremely useful for links in writing this article,but (as I've said above) it seems to have been written based more on editors' knowledge than ref'd sources and probably wouldn't pass muster with you. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 16:22, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Following a Teahouse discussion, I've followed a suggestion from Nick Moyes and replaced the former "In society" section at the end of the Backup article with a new "Enterprise client-server backup" section. As you can see from my initial comments in this section of that article's associated Talk page, I've been faithful to the lessons I've learned from JohnInDC and scope_creep. I've now added a one-line section to this article, linking to the new section in that article. Thanks, folks. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 01:14, 16 November 2017 (UTC)