Talk:XBRL/Archives/2015

NPOV

This is blatant publicity. Wikipedia should not be free advertisement web space.Lancet (talk) 12:34, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

""Free Advertisement"" for a freely open standard? This is an awareness page designed to educate readers about XBRL. XBRL is a freely available open standard specifically designed to enhance business reporting processes. This article "ROI on XBRL", written by UTC may help in that regard: http://www.aicpa.org/PUBS/JOFA/jun2007/stantial.htm User: MikeWillisX9 Jan 13 2008

The format (would be standard) may be free as well as the consortium in itself is "non profit" but that's simply the way this consulting product is marketed. XBRL is being pushed for the money and there nothing wrong about that. Wikipedia is not a free advertising outlet for any product (as "free" as it may be), it's an encyclopedia and as such it has to be objective and balanced.The XBRL Consortium may enhance awareness and educate about its format through other means than Wikipedia.Lancet (talk) 13:57, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

The introduction sounds more like an advertisement. This passage is not neutral:

"The U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), in coordination with the Federal Reserve Board and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, launched a large and very successful XBRL project ..." (emphasis added) User: MikeWillisX9 Jan 13 2008 The large and very successful description was removed and replaced with the conclusions reach in the FDICs own white paper. When project results includes a process spaning 5 independent government agencies, a data error rate reduction from 68% to under 5%, a processing timeline decrease from 45 to under 2 days and the redeployment of over 800 individuals; many would consider it fairly large and successful. These adjectives ("large and successful") have been removed. How did XBRL enable these results? XBRL provided the semantical platform or standardized language to articulate not only the Call Report disclosures, but also the related validation rules and analytical concepts. These standardized rules enabled the consumers (Banking Regulators) to share them with the preparers (Banks) so that the data, validation rules and analytical formulas and related explanations could be applied by the preparers when they prepared the reports rather than weeks later after the consumers validation and analysis processes were applied to the reported data. XBRL enabled the preparers to provide higher quality data the first time and also the accompanying explanations to common analytical fluctuations. The ability to standardized the Call Report disclosures as well as the related business rules was a critical part of the overall process change enabled by the XBRL Standard. User: MikeWillisX9 Jan 13 2008

This project is described in the Note [2] at the end of this paragraph which includes a useful explanation of this project. Also, within the FDIC's 2006 Annual Report they cite this project in the following paragraph:
"Central Data Repository The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC), which includes the FDIC, won a 2006 award from Government Computer Newsfor outstanding and innovative use of IT in government for the successful launch of the new Central Data Repository (CDR) to collect Call Report data using XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language). The CDR project was also awarded the Chief Information Officer’s Top 100 award for its outstanding work using XBRL for financial reporting."

The FDIC Annual report is here: http://www.fdic.gov/about/strategic/report/2006annualreport/section1.pdf

The following passage should be rephrased to state facts instead of conclusions, or at least documentation should be provided.

"This coordinated U.S. project has proven that XBRL can provide real business value by reducing burden and duplication, improving data transparency and enabling more timely analysis."

I have added the following recognitions of this project:

1) Government Computer News (GCN): http://www.postnewsweektech.com/awards/Agency_Winners_Fax.pdf

Information about the award in general is here: http://www.postnewsweektech.com/awards/main.html

2) The Computer World Honors Program info is here: http://www.cwhonors.org/case_studies/FederalDespositInsuranceCorp.pdf

3) CIO 100 Award: Description of award: http://www.cio.com/awards/cio100/index.html List of recipients: http://www.cio.com/archive/081506/winners.html

I second that the first part of this entry sounds like an advertisement for XBRL; it sounds like this entry was written by the XBRL group. I suggest making this page more factual by using more clear and concise non-sided statements. Many in the industry know/agree that certain people are pushing for XBRL, which again, sounds like they are the ones that wrote this entry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.124.190.125 (talk) 22:09, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

User: MikeWillisX9 Jan 13 2008This article is attempting to provide general awareness on this freely available open standard for business information. The FDIC project is one example of how it can be used to streamline analytical processes. There are other case study examples on the XBRL.org site. The purpose of sharing one or two here is that unless there are specific examples of how XBRL enhances business reporting and analysis processes, then there is little market interest in adoption, only skeptics who may not fully understand the detail process problems that XBRL was specifically designed to address. Suggestions on how to explain that standards are specifically designed to address pervasive supply chain process problems would be greatly welcome. User: MikeWillisX9 Jan 13 2008

What follows is a short description and justification of the edits I've done on User: MikeWillisX9 (who should create himself a real user) contributions:

• "emerging" is not an objective term.
• It's not yet a standard it's a format.
• The consortium in itself is legally "not-for-profit" but the infomediaries and software vendors are in it for the money.
• "Even Starkman concedes that with more work and information dedicated to developing XBRL, "it could hold some promise."

Why "even Starkman"? Is Starkman a comic strip arch enemy of XBRL? Nobody is disputing that XBRL could hold some promise (what doesn't?). The dedication of more work and information to XBRL is exactly what the XBRL Consortium is pushing for, others may think that more work and information should be invested in more simple and cost efficient options.Lancet (talk) 13:57, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

A solicitation for clarification:
1. Is the objection here related to the inclusion of an example (the FDIC example)? or the overall topic of XBRL? Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MikeWillisX9 (talk • contribs) 18:46, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

MikeWillisX9,

Maybe the best way to understand the objections would be to put yourself in the position of a college student that is doing some research on IT and accounting techniques and has to inquire about what XBRL is and how it works.

Do you think that the FDIC adoption and the awards it has been granted for it is a relevant information that could fill up most of his enquiry?

Or do you rather think, as I do, that more technical information on how XBRL is made and how it interacts with users and softwares at different levels should be provided, including some real life examples with excerpts of taxonomies, linkbases and instance files.

The article should not seek to convince people to use or not to use XBRL but to give factual information. "It's an emerging standard that has been adopted by the FDIC and received lots of awards" won't do this.Lancet (talk) 10:31, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarifications. Here are some additional Questions:
1. What specifically would you remove from the article to be 'neutral' according to your perspective?

I would make the introduction shorter, summing up to this or something in kind:

XBRL (Extensible Business Reporting Language) is an XML-based format to define and exchange business and financial performance information.

XBRL is a standards-based way to communicate business and financial performance data. These communications are defined by metadata set out in taxonomies. Taxonomies capture the definition of individual reporting elements as well as the relationships between elements within a taxonomy and in other taxonomies.

The format is governed and marketed by a international consortium (XBRL International Incorporated) of approximately 600 organizations, including regulators, government agencies, infomediaries and software vendors.

XBRL International is supported by its jurisdictions — independent bodies, generally organised on a country-specific basis — that work to promote the adoption of XBRL and the development of taxonomies that define the information exchange requirements of their particular domains. XBRL is being adopted around the world to replace paper-based and legacy electronic business information collection by a wide range of regulators. Its adoption has been quicker in Europe and Asia than in the U.S., where it is just now starting to be voluntarily pilot-tested for the disclosure of SEC filings.

The U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), in coordination with the Federal Reserve Board and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, launched an XBRL project in October 2005 involving the collection of quarterly bank financial statements (Call Reports) from over 8300 U.S. banks. Use of XBRL is mandatory and the data is posted on the Internet for public use and analysis.

The first European project for the Dutch Waterboards, and additional XBRL projects in Europe including Spain, Belgium and others, have given Europe a leading role in implementations. Currently a major project of the Dutch Government for XBRL reporting by all businesses as well as (semi-)government organizations like cities and health institutes will make it the first nation-wide implementation.

Lancet (talk) 16:11, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I revised the introduction today using the langauge provided above with a few minor clarifications.

2. Would you allow me to edit some of your 'facts'? For example, the taxonomy example you provided is absent any elements and is incomplete as it is only includes one of the XML Schema files and doesn't include other related files (e.g. calculation, defintion, reference, etc.) that are all part of XBRL Taxonomy structures. It may be better to point readers to existing taxonomy sites rather than try to portray them here.

Sure, you are as free to edit as me or anybody else is (that's what Wikipedia is all about!).

Maybe it was not a good idea to insert the samples, they are also quite old.

However it would be useful to show with examples how Items, Tuples, Contexts, Scenarios, Footnotes, etc. are coded in XBRL.(It would be maybe more instructive than long apologetic quotes of white papers).Lancet (talk) 16:28, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

3. Would you advise on where in the November XBRL International November Progress report you include as support (footnote 8)for the listing of countries who have definitively decided not to adopt XBRL? For example, Denmark or Sweden?

On page four, right side, in the middle , in the map: Austria, Czech, Denmark, Eesti, Latvia, Portugal, Slovak, Sweden, UK are listed and painted in brown (that's no very fair) as countries having Definitely Other Format.Lancet (talk) 16:38, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MikeWillisX9 (talk • contribs) 15:35, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome! Lancet (talk) 16:38, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Neutrality dispute

So far as I'm concerned the neutrality dispute is now closed. Therefore I removed the corresponding tag.

However I think that the article is still far from being perfect and that its technical aspect should be improved and enhanced.

In my view, some links to companies that sell XBRL based software but don't give information about the standard itself should be removed. —Lancet (talk) 14:40, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

"See also" section removed

These are commercial links to Microsoft products: Open Financial Exchange (OFX) and Quicken Interchange Format (QIF) that can do without free advertisement. Lancet (talk) 10:55, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

COREP

For example, CEBS, the Commission of European Banking Supervisors, has developed XBRL taxonomies for use in Basel II reporting for COREP and FINREP. Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Spain have decided upon optional or compulsory adoption of XBRL for COREP.

Actually each European country has its own COREP taxonomy, thus there is no way to compare COREP instance files from different European countries. Moreover, the COREP taxonomy is unfinished because the Bank of Spain that was charged with promoting its development stopped funding it. So there never has been a stable version of a COREP taxonomy proposal. For the time being, that is, since two years, the COREP project is going nowhere. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lancet75 (talk • contribs) 22:41, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

This material is reworked from from your own quotation of a recent XBRL progress report, edited to make it clear that it was about the adoption of specific XBRL taxonomies, not of XBRL as a whole. I think your point that COREP is actually a family of taxonomies is a valid point of discussion with respect to the design of the COREP taxonomies, and should be included this discussion. I don't think it is helpful to delete the reference entirely. I don't think mentioning the existence and adoption of COREP taxonomies is "promotional", nor should notable taxonomy adoption be pushed entirely off this page.Dvunkannon (talk) 04:18, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

SPAM

I removed this 2 entries by user "Colcomgroup":

17th XBRL International Conference: "Evolution in Business Reporting - XBRL in Action" in Eindhoven, Netherlands, May 5-8, 2008. Conference details, registration and sponsorship information found at http://conference.xbrl.org.

• The official XBRL International conference site - Visit here for the latest details about the upcoming XBRL International conference. Next: 17th International Conference: "Evolution of Business Reporting - XBRL in Action" in Eindhoven, Netherlands, May 5-8, 2008

This are blatant advertisements for a commercial event, it's almost vandalic to add such material to an article that is supposed to be encyclopaedic, though sadly it is not.

For the same reason I marked the article with the spam-cleanup tag. Lancet (talk) 09:13, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Colcomgroup did again post this advertisement. I undeed it again. Lancet (talk) 14:24, 29 February 2008 (UTC) And again Lancet (talk) 14:51, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

If Lancet75 were a member of the official organization that develops XBRL globally, he might understand that the international XBRL conferences are in fact education forums that occur twice a year that all the stakeholders attend to learn more about XBRL.Colcomgroup (talk) 15:16, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

• This forum, as educational as it may be, should not be advertised on Wikipedia. This is an encyclopedia article and not the XBRL website. Cheers Lancet (talk) 15:27, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

The 17th XBRL Conference is an official conference by the global consortium to educate more stakeholders about XBRL. this is not an advertisement. Colcomgroup (talk) 14:50, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

• Advertisements may be about official or unofficial products or services. This event is a service and is clearly commercially oriented. Even if it where non-profit or charitable it should not be advertised on Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lancet75 (talk • contribs) 15:20, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

General cleanup

I removed all the material that was outside the article's scope: That is, the technical description of an XML based technique for tagging financial statements. The material about The XBRL Consortium and its national branches is not relevant to this subject. By the way the "non profit" XBRL Consortium was created by employees of the consulting company PricewaterhouseCoopers and all the "independent" national XBRL "jurisdictions" are controlled by PricewaterhouseCoopers employees.

Just to give an indication on how this "non-profit" organization works in France, to be able to enter in the French XBRL website and to have the right to attend French XBRL regular meetings, you have to pay a yearly membership fee of 6000€.

Nor is relevant the process of this standards adoption or the resistance to adopt it. Having, as I hope, removed most of the promotional material, the Criticisms section is no longer relevant.

This are the removed portions:

The XBRL format is governed and marketed by a international consortium (XBRL International Incorporated) of approximately 600 organizations, including, companies, regulators, government agencies, infomediaries and software vendors.

XBRL International is supported by its jurisdictions — independent bodies, generally organised on a country-specific basis — that work to promote the adoption of XBRL and the development of taxonomies that define the information requirements of their particular domains. XBRL is being adopted around the world in order to migrate business information process from paper-based and legacy electronic proprietary formats more fully onto Internet oriented processes (both for external and internal reporting processes).

The U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), in coordination with the Federal Reserve Board and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, launched an XBRL project in October 2005 involving the collection of quarterly bank financial statements (Call Reports) from over 8300 U.S. banks. Use of XBRL is mandatory and the data is posted on the Internet for public use and analysis. A case study prepared by the banking regulators can be found here.

The first European project for the Dutch Waterboards, and additional XBRL projects in Europe including Spain, Belgium and others, have given Europe a leading role in implementations. Currently a major project of the Dutch Government for XBRL reporting by all businesses as well as (semi-)government organizations like cities and health institutes will make it the first nation-wide implementation. The 'Dutch Taxonomy Project' is outlined here.

Criticisms
"XBRL is not an accountancy product . It is a consulting product. It is a product in search of a market, and they found it in government mandates. The consulting firms that promoted it are drooling at the fee potential, which is huge.

....R. Corey Booth, the SEC’s director of information technology, painted a sombre picture, admitting that the SEC received just 22 XBRL filings from nine companies in 2005, most of which were involved in promoting XBRL, that there was no investor demand for XBRL information, and the difficulty of rendering XBRL documents in human readable format." [1]

"If it was really that great, it wouldn't have to be mandated...It's being pushed by the people who have an interest in pushing it." [2]

Adoption of Taxonomies and in applications
Adoption of XBRL means choosing to use XBRL taxonomies as the basis of a shared understanding of the data exchanged in XBRL instance documents. XBRL International is not the source of most XBRL taxonomies, instead they are developed by authorities with standing, such as the banking regulator for a banking taxonomy. For example, CEBS, the Commission of European Banking Supervisors, has developed XBRL taxonomies for use in Basel II reporting for COREP and FINREP. Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Spain have decided upon optional or compulsory adoption of XBRL for COREP.

Other European banking supervisors differed: Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Portugal, Slovak Republic and Sweden have also definitely decided not to adopt this format while Hungary, Estonia, Greece,Lithuania, Bulgaria and Italy remain undecided and Switzerland is not even considering the matter.[3].

In November 2006 the FSA decided not to adopt this standard in the United Kingdom[4]. However, in the UK, online filing of company accounts and tax computations in the format will become mandatory on 1st April 2011[5] following on from the recommendations made in the Carter Report. Ultimately, the filing deadlines set by Companies House and HMRC will be aligned thereby requiring only one online submission to made. The XBRL tagged data obtained in this way will be shared by both agencies.

Another perspective is to look at a jurisdiction and see how many different uses of XBRL exist within the jurisdiction, which will lead to leverage for companies reporting the same data to multiple regulators. In countries such as Spain and Japan, the national tax authority, the central bank, the financial supervisory agency, and the principal stock exchange have all begun pilots or announced the use of XBRL.

There can also be adoption of XBRL for the purposes of internal reporting within a company, or as part of an informediaries business model.

Cheers Lancet (talk) 10:05, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Lancet75, I would urge you to reconsider such a large change to the content of this page, for example it may be more considerate of other people's opinions if you pursued discussions of the appropriateness of individual sections independently. I have tried to do this in my previous edits.

The scope of this page is your opinion. Other pages have a Criticisms section, so you create Critics. Other pages don't have a Financial Message section, so you delete that. What about Adoption? You are being arbitrary in how you think (or justify) how you want this page structured. Please talk (on the Talk page) about deleting sections which you created and other people are editing before doing so.

• • "Other pages don't have a Financial Message section, so you delete that."
    David,
    Financial Message was listed on this article as a category, the link was red because this category does not exist. If you think that this category should exist then you should first create it and then add it to this article.
    Cheers Lancet (talk) 11:59, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

There are other pages about technical standards that discuss both the standard itself and the organization that supports the standard, such as HL7. I suggest that if you feel strongly about the matter, you should create an XBRL International page and move material there, rather than deleting material completely. Similarly for XBRL jurisdictions and taxonomy projects. However, I think you will see that such pages will tend to be rather small, and generate suggestions to merge them back into a central XBRL page.

The position of PricewaterhouseCoopers within the XBRL community is not what you believe it to be. The national movements in Japan, Spain, the NTP, and the Australian SBR project are the major places where XBRL is advancing around the world, and none of them has significant PwC participation. PwC has been one of many subcontractors to XBRL US in the US GAAP Taxonomy Project inthe US. PwC does not dominate XBRL Japan, US, or any other jurisdiction I am aware of.

• • I'm aware that PwC dominates the France jurisdiction.

The choice of fee structure varies among different XBRL jurisdictions. If XBRL US or FR have high fees, XBRL Japan has very low fees, and very high numbers of members as a result. If it surprises you that non-profit organizations charge membership fees, you need to do more research. The W3C charges far higher fees. The financial report of XBRL International is available on their web site. If your firm feels disenfranchised by the fee structure of XBRL France, that is not a reason to complain by manipulating this page.

• • I'm not complaining nor manipulating and it's indecorous from you to suggest this.

I'm proud of the contribution of PwC partners and staff to the growth of XBRL. But I am more proud of the international and cross company cooperation that has made XBRL a success. If XBRL was perceived in the marketplace of ideas as a PwC proprietary product, it would not have 600 other companies and government bodies supporting it around the world.

• • XBRL is not perceived as a PwC proprietary product but that is exactly what it is behind the XBRL International and independent jurisdictions façade put up for that purpose allowing it to "have 600 other companies and government bodies supporting it around the world".

In the interest of full disclosure, I had a hand in writing a large number of the core documents of XBRL. I currently work for PwC, and previously worked for KPMG, LLP when people voiced concerns that that firm had a hegemony over XBRL. But my edits to this page have not been attempts to promote either firm. I rewrote the Criticisms section to expand it and make it clearer, because after eight years, I am more familiar with criticisms of XBRL than anybody, inside or outside of the consortium. However, by bringing up PwC in this discussion, and the fee structure of XBRL France, I question your neutrality and your ability to edit this page constructively. Please reconsider you actions, and why you have camped out on this page.

• • "However, by bringing up PwC in this discussion, and the fee structure of XBRL France, I question your neutrality and your ability to edit this page constructively." I could likewise put forward the argument that you, being an employee of PwC, there is a COI that impedes your ability to contribute to this article with objectivity and neutrality.
  • "why you have camped out on this page" Because this page does belong to me as well as to everybody else. This is far from being the only article where I "camp out". Did you think this article is another concealed PwC product?
    Cheers Lancet (talk) 11:29, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Dvunkannon (talk) 03:18, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

• David,
  I proceeded to a general cleanup because the article was an ugly, inharmonious and confusing patchwork. I don't think it could be in anybody's interest to leave in that state.
  I did my best to edit the article to make it as informative, coherent and neutral as possible without reflecting my opinions on the standard and the organisations that are pushing it.
  If a reader finds the information about XBRL interesting enough he will surely go to linked Official XBRL website where he will learn all there is to know about XBRL International and is jurisdictions.
  I'm sure that you could make a much better article, in line with the job you did forKPGM. But, whatever you do, remember that Wikipedia is allergic to all sorts of advertisements and promotional materials.
  My edits are based on articles like XSLT that are descriptive of their standards and don't contain verbose descriptions about WC3's aims and functioning nor about the standards adoption.
  I find indeed appropriate your suggestion of creating an article for XBRL International, even if it eventually ends up being merged with the XBRL article.
  Cheers Lancet (talk) 10:34, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Peacock language and enticement

I changed and moved

XBRL's Global Ledger Framework is a set of taxonomies that is unique in being the only taxonomy developed and recommended by XII and falling under the XII licensing and free-use policies.

to

XBRL's Global Ledger Framework is the only set of taxonomies that is developed and recommended by XBRL International, Inc.

XII (what is this?) replaced by XBRL International, Inc.

• As is clear throughout the XBRL web page, XII is how XBRL International refers to itself in shorthand. A casual glance at the news items (e.g., "XII Board of Directors reaffirms the stability of the XBRL 2.1 Specification") show this to be the case. Rather than remove the reference, it may be more appropriate to clean up the entry by providing the full reference, introduct the short hand, and then use that short hand consistently throughout.
  • Thanks for your answer ip 74.69.77.163, I xii what you mean. Cheers Lancet (talk) 20:07, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Please remember that this is an encyclopaedia article and not an advertisement outlet.

Don't bother to say thanks, you're welcome.

Cheers Lancet (talk) 11:05, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Spam "Reporting Estandar S.L."

Tags have been placed accordingly.

Reporting Standard XBRL processor provides an API to let applications read and write all the information in an XBRL DTS (Discoverable Taxonomy Set) without having to worry about the underlaying XBRL syntax.

Don't worry about the underlying syntax just give us your money and we do that for you. Anyway you don't have a choice because if you try to master the syntax by yourself, we at XBRL Inc. and its associates, will add layers of complexity to the standard as to ensure that you're always going to depend upon our services.

This is the XBRL business model.

Cheers Lancet (talk) 10:16, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

XBRLS

I've added today some contributions regarding XBRLS. Before undoing them and engaging in an Edit war please try to state on this page your objections to XBRLS being refered to in this article.

Lancet (talk) 13:45, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I think the most telling reason for deletion is the strict definition of the purpose of this page which you yourself have been so careful about previously - this page is about the standard itself, not the organisation, not taxonomies, and not application profiles. If XII maintained a Profiles Registry, that would be something for this page. A single profile proposal that has no official standing as part of the standard does not fit the criterion you have previously applied. As an example of why, let me point out that as part of the motivation for creating the Link Role Registry, Geoff Shuetrim and I wrote a proposal for a long list of useful roles and arc roles that did not exist in the core spec. I think you would agree that adding that list (or a description of that list) to this page would be inappropriate. Yet, that list has the same standing (proposal by two random guys, no official status) as XBRLS.

If you really, really want to include content about XBRLS on this page, I think the best thing to do is bring back the Criticisms section (you deleted it, remember?) and refer to it under a discussion of complexity and simplification. The text that exists now is in the wrong place (XBRLS is not part of the history of the standard) and contains peacock language. I'm sure you can do better. Dvunkannon (talk) 15:32, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

proposal by two random guys, one of these random guys is the initial creator of the XBRL standard. XBRLS is not part of the history of the standard, Who is to be the judge about this? You think it is not, I think it is. As I see it XBRLS represents an evolution of the XBRL standard that may be of interest to all those that may be interested in the standard. Maybe the Link Role Registry you have worked on would also fit into this article. Cheers Lancet (talk) 16:43, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Dvunkannon, XBRLS does not add to the content of this article about XBRL enough to warrant the amount of coverage it has. I would expect the first paragraphs to contain something about XBRL itself, not a dialect. I think the paragraph could be moved lower in the article, if it is even kept. XBRLS may not even pass the notability test that is tagged on its own page. If it catches on, then keep it, but I think it may be to early right now.

By the way, it might be helpful to disclose any interests we have in the subject. Sometimes there are people who have a vested interest in business articles. --Glennfcowan (talk) 23:57, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

XBRLS does not belong on this page. No more than an internal XHTML profile used by a browser company belongs on a page aboout W3C. If someone can point to a project that is using XBRLS, or an application that talks XBRLS, and (more to the point) a set of requirements that are being met by XBRLS, rather than the vague and hugely inaccurate assertion that it simplifies XBRL (no matter how attractive that idea is to many of us), then *perhaps* a link might be interesting. Try populating a form with XBRLS - now that would be complicated. The consortium has a group looking at profiles. No doubt, XBRLS, suitably modified and constrained to some very limited (and limiting) use cases, will end up in that group. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.172.100 (talk) 09:27, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

---

I've have just undone edits by 202.81.18.30 who thinks that XBRLS doesn't belong to the standards official history nor that its links belong in this article. Readers who want to know the official history (whatever that means) of this standard have access to the The official XBRL web site which Wikipedia is not. I don't think that Wikipedia's policy is to be official about anything else than Wikipedia itself.

Having said this, I would like to address Glennfcowan question about people who have a vested interest in business articles. Lets assume that Dvunkannon, Glennfcowan and 87.194.172.100 and 202.81.18.30 (whoever the persons hiding behind this IP's are) are right in thinking that XBRLS should not be talked about in the XBRL article (and maybe they are right indeed). My question is the following: Why does it bother that XBRLS be on this page? Is the presence of XBRLS on this page hurting somebody's interests? Why do some seem to feel that XBRLS has to be urgently removed from this article even by engaging in edit wars through anonymous users?

To answer Glennfcowan's question in a straightforward manner I can assure I have no vested interest in this article. I'm a psychology consultant in operational risk specialized in Human Error Assessment. I came to know XBRL some years ago while learning about the mandatory formats of operational risk reporting for which there is a XBRL (COREP) proposal. I've got absolutely no stake in XBRL nor in XBRLS and whatever happens with this article won't affect my interests in any manner. I do this editing on my free time and as a means of distraction from harder chores.

Cheers Lancet (talk) 09:51, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Richard, you're right about "official", but when the difference between verifiable and notable and what someone puts up on a Wikipedia page is clear, consensus is going to go against the poster of that material.

If you are going to make the claims on your user page that you are a "true Wikipedian" and have a near native fluency in English, please use the word 'history' in the same sense as the rest of the planet. XBRLS is not part of the history of XBRL (the standard). Nor is it in any sense a proposal for the future history of XBRL, a putative XBRL 3.0.

Richard, you have been silent on my observation that you seem to have abandoned the criteria you previously (as documented on this talk page) used for controlling the content of this page - that this page be strictly about the standard itself. XBRLS is not an activity of XBRL International. If you'll admit your criteria have changed, we can work together towards locating XBRLS content on this page in the most appropriate place.

To answer Glenn Cowan's question, my name is David vun Kannon. I've worked on XBRL since it's inception in 1999. During that time I've worked for KPMG Consulting, BearingPoint, KPMG LLP, and PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP. I am a member of the XBRL Standards Board. Everything that I have contributed to Wikipedia is my personal contribution and does not represent the opinion of any firm I have worked for, or any organisation in which I participate.

As an editor of the XBRL 1.0, 2.0, and 2.1 specifications, I do have a technical understanding of XBRL. I've also worked on several implementations of XBRL for regulators.

Richard, since Glenn's question interests you, perhaps you'd like to be clearer about your name and the name of your company so that your claims of disinterest can be verified. I could mention them for you, since they are easy to discover from links you provide and Google, but here's your chance to do it yourself. Your posts and the responses to them are easy to find of the xbrl-public and xbrl-dev mailing lists.

Before you ask the negative question if anyone's interests are hurt by the inclusion of XBRLS material, ask the positive question of who is helped by it. Is XBRLS notable? Is it in use? Is it anyone's official policy? As a counter example, let's say a guy from Metametris and a consultant to Metametris issued a proposal to simplify XBRL COREP reporting and added it to this page. I'm sure you would have no problem seeing this as advertising for their company and consistently deleting attempts to add it. So why do a guy from UBMatrix and a consultant to UBMatrix get a free pass from you? Why do you add their proposal for them? Until XBRLS is adopted by XII or a regulator, it fails on notability but does qualify as advertising. Please apply your own standards consistently, Richard. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dvunkannon (talk • contribs) 15:35, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

XBRLS is not an activity of XBRL International. Nobody is saying it is. The article is about the open source standard XBRL and not about the XBRL International consortium that promotes it.

Try no to make this personal, there is nothing to get angry about. XBRL is not going to change the world or save the planet. It's just an IT standard, so try to be aloof in this debate. I insist that neither me or my little company have any stakes for or against this standard or the people who promote it. Indeed I would like this standard to succeed and have always believed that it would only do so if it gets simplified. I think that XBRLS is the first meaningful step in this direction but I tell you again, whatever happens with XBRL won't make me or my little company, win or loose money or anything else.

It's maybe natural that the consortium you work for aims to control everything regarding XBRL, it may consider XBRL like its very private property. However the XBRL Wikipedia article and Wikipedia are not under the sole control of XBRL International or any other organization than Wikipedia itself. You, me and anybody else may participate in this article but it does not belong to any of us.

My name is Richard Preschel, I am psychologist, webmaster, IT consultant, amateur puppet master and anthropologist and I own a small IT consultant company called Metametris and located in Paris, France. Cheers Lancet (talk) 17:04, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I think the simplicity/complexity of XBRL itself should be discussed on this page via reference to sources such as critical essays/documents filed with the SEC, and blog entries that discuss the issues in more detail. I would welcome content that moved in that direction.

XBRL is free to use. Like many open source projects, the core IP is controlled by an organisation. Many OSS projects have insular old boy networks at the top with no clear governance procedures or transparency. The control of the IP of XBRL is better than that. Be that as it may, this is irrelevant to XBRLS, except to emphasise that XBRLS is not part of the XBRL standard and therefore should not be mentioned as it currently is on this page.

Should I understand by this insistence that the page is about the standard that you want to stand by your previous criteria for page content here? I think you've done a great job cleaning up this page and helping other contributors come to grips with the encyclopediac nature of Wikipedia content, trimming spam and advertising. This page is better for it. I was really quite surprised that you of all people introduced this material.

Can you explain why you think XBRLS is notable, worthy of mention on this page about the standard? "I feel it is notable and anyone can edit Wikipedia" is not an answer. It would really help this discussion go forward if you could explain your reasoning.

(Sorry about not signing my previous comment!)Dvunkannon (talk) 18:17, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Can you explain why you think XBRLS is notable, worthy of mention on this page about the standard?

David,

I think that XBRLS is worthy of mention because it addresses what I find to be the main difficulty in the implementation of XBRL: It's ever increasing complexity that in the case of COREP, the only one I have been concerned with, has gone completely out of hand and frankly become chaotic. Parting from a matrix COREP taxonomy that has never been fully debugged, every European country has created its local version (with the birth defect bugs and some locally added) without regard to the other countries versions. In its present state no COREP taxonomy is functional, and even when debugged there would be no means for mapping between taxonomies of different countries, so one of the main initial purposes of XBRL has been defeated.

When three years ago I saw this problem coming, I didn't have to be a prophet to see it, and tried to alert the COREP community about it, I was thought Tesler's Law of Conservation of Complexity: complexity is never created or reduced it is only moved from one location to another and told to accept complexity as an unavoidable fate.

The Egmond and Hoffman XBRLS paper addresses Tesler's Law in this way:

Clearly, it will not be the case that every business user becomes an expert in XBRL. This means that we have to hide the complexity, exposing only as much as what really needs to be exposed to the business user. Complexity can never be removed from a system, but it can be moved. The key, however, is to give software a chance to accept the responsibility of handling this complexity. To do that, certain things must be done. The primary thing is to give the software the information it needs in the form of rules that it can enforce…

The Egmond and Hoffman initiative has the merit of acknowledging that complexity is a problem and that in the least it has to be reduced for the final user if XBRL is to be widely accepted. They state that XBRLS aim is to simplify (reduce) the syntax of XBRL while preserving as much as possible its semantic richness:

The premise on which we build this approach is that by giving up some of the flexibility (read complexity) in the way of expressing syntax in XBRL, but none of the features and metadata richness of XBRL semantics, the language becomes usable by a much broader audience than is currently the case.

These are, roughly speaking, the main reasons for which I would like that any user looking for information on XBRL on Wikipedia should be informed by the case for simplicity (XBRLS) made by the "father" of this standard, keeping in mind the words of Joseph C. Giarratano:

it's much easier to make something more complicated than easy, since people are more impressed by complexity than simplicity

I want to thank you for acknowledging the maintenance I have done on this article trimming spam and advertising. I have always admired the XBRL tutorial you made a few years ago, the best of its kind, and would like to cooperate with you (everybody else is invited) to improve the quality and readability of this article for the general public.

Cheers Lancet (talk) 20:44, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

First let me correct your impression that I was responsible for the KPMG tutorial, which I agree was very good. It was built by Phillip Engel, now an independent consultant, under the XBRL team leadership of John Turner, now CEO of CoreFiling. My only involvement was inventing XBRL itself, and a small amount of editorial review. Phillip really deserves all the credit, and it is sad that this tutorial still has not been surpassed.

Thank you for your thoughts on XBRLS. I think you have put together a good argument for why XBRLS is an answer to a long standing criticism of XBRL - its complexity. If I can summarise your position, content on XBRLS is worthy of inclusion because of its source (a notable XBRL person), and the significance of problem the proposal is attempting to address. In light of this, I will plan on re-introducing a Criticisms section to the page and work this material into it. If you feel this is a good compromise approach, take a shot at it yourself. Dvunkannon (talk) 22:34, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

David,

As I see it, the main defect of the article in it's present form is that is a compromise, it looks like a compromise and it reads like a compromise. This applies even to the article before my inclusion of the XBRLS subject.

Compromises are essential for social life and even nature, compromises make the world go round but compromises don't make good encyclopaedia articles and the XBRL article isn't a good Wikipedia article.

It will be much easier for us to reach a compromise, I would say it's already well underway, than to write a good Wikipedia article.

What would make a good Wikipedia article?

It should address the general reader more than to the potential adopter of this standard. A general reader that has some idea of what XML is and what accounting is. Find a way to explain to this public that XBRL puts together XML and accounting techniques to allow companies and institutions to communicate and exchange their accounting data in a standardized way that would allow a fast automated analysis and comparison of these data on the widest scale possible.

Then describe in the clearest way by what technical and design means XBRL tries to reach this goal.

Describe the process from the initial financial statement -> its XBRL treatment -> the final output.

I don’t thinnk that the 'Criticisms' section would be the right place for XBRLS. I believe that XBRLS is a solution, it solves some XBRL problems pointed out by criticisms, the main criticism, is a silent one, the market's reluctance to adopt the standard.

I sincerely ignored that XII and Ubmatrix where not working together, in France they where and Ubmatrix with PWC where the main players in XBRL France.

I think XBRLS is a solution, a good step in the direction of making XBRL a widely adopted standard. Instead of ignoring it, I think that XII should rather inspire itself from the XBRLS initiative and put forward some others that head in the same direction.

The easiest part of the job has been done, making complex standards and difficult articles, the hardest part of the task stands before us, reduce the complexity of the standard to a level that will allow the market to widely adopt it, and writing for the general public articles about XBRL that are clear, appealing, informative and didactic.

Remember that it's much easier to make something more complicated than easy, since people are more impressed by complexity than simplicity.

Cheers, Lancet (talk) 08:47, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

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Undid edit by anonymous user 80.37.205.25 who added to the external link XBRLS the following:

[Note: There is no agreement about the content of this XBRLS documents in the consortium. Some members considers parts of this documents may be included in best practices documentation but other parts of this document are really bad design or unnecesary limitations]

The claim of the anonymous user is unsourced and in the wrong place (it's odd to add a comment to an external link). This note as such fits as comment in this discusion page or in the discussion page of the XBRLS article. Cheers Lancet (talk) 19:18, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

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Restored links and references to XBRLS errased by anonymous editors see differences here Lancet (talk) 15:28, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

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There is an ongoing edit war on XBRLS. Anonymous 155.201.35.68 user edited all refernces to XBRLS without stating any reasons for doing so. Lancet (talk) 15:13, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• same thing today Lancet (talk) 16:21, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

SBR is not a Versioning Specification

Re: the statement included in the article that "Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands have jointly developed and adopted a proprietary XBRL versioning module named SBR (Standard Business Reporting) Versioning Specification."

Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands have not jointly developed, and much less adopted, a proprietary XBRL versioning module. Google the words "SBR - or Standard Business Reporting - Versioning Specification" and the only result you will get is this post on Wikipedia and a couple of references to it. As an additional support to my statement, which is based on direct knowledge of the SBR initiative, the Australian SBR website linked in the paragraph does not even include the word "versioning".

I had deleted the paragraph, but the deletion has been undone. I will not touch it again, the author can undo it if convinced by my statements above. If requested, I will also be happy to provide more details on this topic. --Ggarbellotto (talk) 23:26, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

• The information on this versioning module was on this link, it's no longer there. So I undo my edit. Cheers Lancet (talk) 12:23, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

85.144.196.92's comments about History section (XBRLS and SBR)

In a revision (as of 19:15, 5 August 2009) user 85.144.196.92 wrote:

"Neither SBR nor XBRLS make any sense in this section. They are not XBRL specifications (see http://www.xbrl.org/SpecRecommendations/). SBR is a project that makes use of XBRL. Considering SBR a XBRL specification is like considering Xerces a W3C XML specification."

"XBRLS is a set of practices proposed by Charlie Hoffman regarding the use of XBRL, but it is not any XBRL International material. Best practices are being discussed as part of working groups like the taxonomy architecture WG."

This article is not restricted to XBRL International material. People looking for official XBRL International information will find it in the XBRL International website

Cheers Lancet (talk) 15:39, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Recommend Clarification of the 22 filers referenced in the study

The Voluntary Filing was meant as a shakedown (think 'beta') of filing XBRL with the SEC in the U.S. As a result, these should not be considered as benchmark for the quality of XBRL filings. The test suite used to check the quality of the XBRL filings was flawed in that it did not take into account that the SEC's test suite (validation) was not on-line when the first filings were submitted. That allowed for these filings to be accepted by the SEC when in relation to the EDGAR Filing Manual they contained errors.

This is more an issue of poor guidance than poor quality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cie lab (talk • contribs) 20:12, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Hype by "user" Dinoshim

XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) is freely available, market-driven, open, global standard for exchanging business information. According to the XBRL International website, "The idea behind XBRL...is simple. Instead of treating financial information as a block of text - as in a standard internet page or a printed document - it provides an identifying tag for each individual item of data. This is computer readable. For example, company net profit has its own unique tag. The introduction of XBRL tags enables automated processing of business information by computer software, cutting out laborious and costly processes of manual re-entry and comparison. Computers can treat XBRL data "intelligently": they can recognise the information in a XBRL document, select it, analyse it, store it, exchange it with other computers and present it automatically in a variety of ways for users. XBRL greatly increases the speed of handling of financial data, reduces the chance of error and permits automatic checking of information. + XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) is freely available, market-driven, open, global standard for exchanging business information. XBRL allows information modeling and the expression of semantic meaning commonly required in business reporting. XBRL is XML-based. It uses the XML syntax and related XML technologies such as XML Schema, XLink, XPath, and Namespaces to articulate this semantic meaning. One use of XBRL is to define and exchange financial information, such as a financial statement. The XBRL Specification is developed and published by XBRL International, Inc. (XII).

Companies can use XBRL to save costs and streamline their processes for collecting and reporting financial information. Consumers of financial data, including investors, analysts, financial institutions and regulators, can receive, find, compare and analyse data much more rapidly and efficiently if it is in XBRL format. XBRL can handle data in different languages and accounting standards. It can flexibly be adapted to meet different requirements and uses. Data can be transformed into XBRL by suitable mapping tools or it can be generated in XBRL by appropriate software."

XBRL allows information modeling and the expression of semantic meaning commonly required in business reporting. XBRL is XML-based. It uses the XML syntax and related XML technologies such as XML Schema, XLink, XPath, and Namespaces to articulate this semantic meaning. One use of XBRL is to define and exchange financial information, such as a financial statement. The XBRL

Specification is developed and published by XBRL International, Inc. (XII).

Why not "XBRL is the greatest achievement since the invention of the wheel" or "With WBRL you will get rich while you sleep"? Lancet (talk) 15:29, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Edit war by "user" Dnoshim

Articles in Wikipedia have to be objective and balanced. "user" Dnoshim makes exagerated and unsourced claims about the fantastic virtues of XBRL. If XII wants to apply used car salesman techniques to promote its standard it may do son anywhere else than on Wikipedia. Cheers Lancet (talk) 08:49, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Contribution by "user" 24.161.154.179

The idea behind XBRL...is simple (but the implementation is complex and complicated). Instead of treating financial information as a block of text - as in a standard internet page or a printed document - it provides an identifying tag for each individual item of data. This is computer readable. For example, company net profit has its own unique tag. The introduction of XBRL tags enables automated processing of business information by computer software, cutting out laborious and costly processes of manual re-entry and comparison (these are replaced by even more laborious and costly processes for which the company has to form employees and develop specific software or hire existing external XBRL vendors and consultants). Computers can treat XBRL data "intelligently": they can recognise the information in a XBRL document, select it, analyse it, store it, exchange it with other computers and present it automatically in a variety of ways for users. XBRL greatly increases the speed of handling of financial data, reduces the chance of error (XBRL adds errors of its own) and permits automatic checking of information. Companies can use XBRL to save costs (the adoption of XBRL carries a considerable increase of costs) and streamline their processes for collecting and reporting financial information (which has litte or no added value). Consumers of financial data, including investors, analysts, financial institutions and regulators, can receive, find, compare and analyse data much more rapidly and efficiently if it is in XBRL format (that is not true, XBRL only adds complexity and opacity). XBRL can handle data in different languages and accounting standards (in its present state XBRL cannot compare data entered in different languages and accounting standards). It can flexibly be adapted to meet different requirements and uses (if big investments are done to achieve this). Data can be transformed into XBRL by suitable mapping tools (that don't exist) or it can be generated in XBRL by appropriate software (that, besides being expensive, changes from vendor to vendor and has no cross-compatibility).

I hope this makes clear what my problem is with 24.161.154.179's plain language explanation.

My comments are in red

Cheers Lancet (talk) 05:47, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you that this quote contains marketese, focuses more on the theoretical potential of XBRL than its application, and that it should probably not be included in this page. But please understand that this text is (allegedly) a "plain language explanation" of XBRL on the site of the organization that maintains the XBRL standard. A lot of people — any "user" — might not expect to find bias on such a site.
--Gyrobo (talk) 14:32, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Gyrobo, Wikipedia has a neutral point of view. I don't see why it should be a free advertisement outlet for some merchants (under the cover of an "non profit" organisation) that make inconsiderate and overstated claims about the virtues of the stuff they are pushing. I think that it is morally wrong that they do this on their site but nobody can prevent them from doing so. Accounting opacity is a very serious matter that led to the collapses of Enron and Lehmann. I think that in its present form XBRL adds to this opacity and this should be a sufficient reason for not considering it harmless. Cheers, Lancet (talk) 10:45, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Is XBRL an open standard?

Hi, I reformulated the section title to XBRL is an atypical open standard so that it does not sound as a matter of opinion. The section is properly sourced in a University of Waikato paper that was published in the European Accounting Review

Cheers, Lancet (talk) 09:03, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

MikeWillisX9 Published materials does not make them factual, correct, complete or balanced. The language here is simply misleading. Let me provide a few examples:

"the governance structure of the XBRL consortium is significantly different from a model open source approach because of the barrier to participation that is created by requiring paid membership" The XBRL governance model is very similar if not identical to the model followed by other Internet standards bodies such as the W3C or OASIS or OMG. This paid membership idea is a common governance model for Internet standards bodies.

"and a focus on transacting business at physical conferences and meetings." This is a partial truth; while XBRL International conducts business when the community comes together at conferences: XBRL working groups, committees, boards, and jurisdictional groups routinely conduct business via virtual methods (e.g. conf calls, webcasts, special face to face meetings, etc.) all of which are open to observers. The incompleteness of the comment is misleading.

"XBRL International requires its paying members to advocate its use" As a collaboration of diverse organizations working to solve common business inforamtion supply chain problems, the XBRL community is commonly motivated to promote the use of common standards which also routinely include other standards such as ACORD, SWIFT, RIXML and others which serve to promote process enhancements.

"many XBRL conference attendees are vendors" and many XBRL conference attendees are government regulators, academics, companies, press representatives, etc. The omission of other relevant conference participants implies a motivation that could be perceived by some as misleading.

"much of the published material makes claims for compatibility and standardization that have yet to be achieved" Given the number of projects that are published with documented benefits and case studies available on the XBRL.org website, this 'fact' may be somewhat dated at this point. Suggest that more current observations and facts be considered.

Please, provide a reason why the governance structure of XBRL (which intentionally mirrors other international Internet standards bodies) is atypical. The sitation of an incomplete, inaccurate published paper is not a valid reason for including this section/comment. Hi, I reformulated the section title to XBRL is an atypical open standard so that it does not sound as a matter of opinion. The section is properly sourced in a University of Waikato paper that was published in the European Accounting Review

Cheers, Lancet (talk) 09:03, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

MikeWillisX9 says:

Published materials does not make them factual, correct, complete or balanced. The language here is simply misleading. Let me provide a few examples:

"the governance structure of the XBRL consortium is significantly different from a model open source approach because of the barrier to participation that is created by requiring paid membership" The XBRL governance model is very similar if not identical to the model followed by other Internet standards bodies such as the W3C or OASIS or OMG. This paid membership idea is a common governance model for Internet standards bodies.

"and a focus on transacting business at physical conferences and meetings." This is a partial truth; while XBRL International conducts business when the community comes together at conferences: XBRL working groups, committees, boards, and jurisdictional groups routinely conduct business via virtual methods (e.g. conf calls, webcasts, special face to face meetings, etc.) all of which are open to observers. The incompleteness of the comment is misleading.

"XBRL International requires its paying members to advocate its use" As a collaboration of diverse organizations working to solve common business inforamtion supply chain problems, the XBRL community is commonly motivated to promote the use of common standards which also routinely include other standards such as ACORD, SWIFT, RIXML and others which serve to promote process enhancements.

"many XBRL conference attendees are vendors" and many XBRL conference attendees are government regulators, academics, companies, press representatives, etc. The omission of other relevant conference participants implies a motivation that could be perceived by some as misleading.

"much of the published material makes claims for compatibility and standardization that have yet to be achieved" Given the number of projects that are published with documented benefits and case studies available on the XBRL.org website, this 'fact' may be somewhat dated at this point. Suggest that more current observations and facts be considered.

Please, provide a reason why the governance structure of XBRL (which intentionally mirrors other international Internet standards bodies) is atypical. The sitation of an incomplete, inaccurate published paper is not a valid reason for including this section/comment.

Lancet (talk) 09:42, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Text supressed by MikeWillisX9

- While XBRL is an open data standard in terms of access to the equivalent of its 'source code', the governance structure of the XBRL consortium is significantly different from a model open source approach because of the barrier to participation that is created by requiring paid membership and a focus on transacting business at physical conferences and meetings. XBRL International requires its paying members to advocate its use, many XBRL conference attendees are vendors, and much of the published material makes claims for compatibility and standardization that have yet to be achieved.

Lancet (talk) 16:47, 12 April 2010 (UTC)