Talk:Blackboard Inc.

message: Advertising. This whole page reads like it was copied from the company's "About:" page. User:Zoe|(talk) 22:42, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: Was it a lawsuit or just a complaint? --Gbleem 03:43, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  cupcake lawsuit 

message: The link alleging close ties between Federated and the Republican party appears to go to a strongly partisan web site. To maintain NPOV, it would be better to justify the claim that "some of the Donahues are among the biggest individual donors to the Republican National Committee and to the Bush family" with a link to a better source, such as the Federal Election Commission.
Update: I went back and added POV-check-section to this section. It seems like there are a lot of unsourced/questionably-sourced, and perhaps non-NPOV compliant statments in there.
----
--141.156.144.132 12:34, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: partisan politics

message: I think this article should be here --69.250.70.141 03:15, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Blackboard patent 

message: Why is this article so absorbed in the litigation stuff? It seems really unbalanced, given how little actual information about Blackboard's products is provided. Back to Google, I guess.
Product information does not belong in Wiki unless it is truely notable. Legal stuff appears to be the main reason why the company is significant -- as its impact on clients, other companies, and the US patent system for software patents is noteworthy. Bw022 (talk) 20:34, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well - looking at Slashdot and TechDirt today I see a long article calling BlackBoard Inc a "patent troll" - comparable to SCO. We look at SCO's article and we see a major legal issues section too - and the community appears to have accepted the content on the former. -- Tawker (talk) 15:09, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

text: Could we at least have it written in real paragraphs instead of this retarded bullet-outline format? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.167.45.203 (talk) 03:42, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Why all the legal stuff?

message: Coursesites is a service being advertised by Bb . . . does anyone know any more about it?
How does Bb make $$ from it? What about the intellectual property issues so very much ballyhooed throughout the discussion pages?
Really. Could someone please put some info up on WPedia about it?
### —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.90.178.244 (talk) 07:43, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Coursesites ? What is it? 

message: No question, this article requires a lot of work before it conforms to Wikipedia's guidelines, and I plan to do just that. I rolled back a spot of vandalism to the article recently and have just added it to a handful of relevant WikiProjects, but before I go any further I should disclose that I have a financial relationship with Blackboard Inc. Ever mindful of abiding by Wikpedia's conflict of interest provisos, I'll make sure all direct edits to the live article are non-controversial, and I'll first seek consensus in proposing more substantive changes. If you see this note and are interested in helping to improve the page, please join in. Cheers, WWB Too (talk) 18:52, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I've gone ahead updated the logo, updated the infobox with current figures, added Mobile to the list of products and included some third-party references for information already contained. That said, the article is still a mess: the introduction is too short, the History section is under-developed, the Products section is in need of prosification, and the legal issues section especially should be considered very carefully. It's my goal to come up with some better alternatives for each. Might take me awhile, but I'll see what I can do. WWB Too (talk) 19:42, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

text: Just a quick follow-up note: I've asked for input at WikiProjects Companies, Education and Universities, with some constructive discussion so far at Education. WWB Too (talk) 23:03, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: With assent from an editor at WikiProject Education, and no dissent (or any other reply) from the others, I've copied it over. And that editor offered some constructive criticisms, which might be a starting point for anyone interested in improving it further. Cheers, WWB Too (talk) 18:59, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Working to improve this article 

message: It's been a while since I posted here to say that I'd be working on improving this article, but in that time I've put together a completely new draft as an intended replacement for the current article. My draft addresses all of the problems with the current version, particularly with regard to missing or outdated information, weak structure of sections and over-reliance on lists.
In the proposed draft, I have:
*Extended the introduction to provide a better summary of the article, with key information about Blackboard.
*Rewritten the History section to include more information about the history of the company following its foundation. In particular, I've added details about the company's growth and its acquisitions. At the moment, the History section does not cover the full history of the company and, in particular, skips over the development and growth of Blackboard from 2004 to 2011.
*Added an "Operations" section to provide an overview of the company's structure, business model, key employees and financial results. Currently there is next to nothing about this included.
*Renamed and rewrote the "Products" section to include Blackboard's services. This section is named "Products and services" in my draft, and includes subsections to describe the product platforms and a subsection summarizing the details of Blackboard's service offerings. In the current article this section is a bulleted list of products, and does not provide a full summarized explanation of the products offered. It also does not mention the services that Blackboard provides. Note also that I've endeavored to keep this encyclopedic, and not an advertisment for the company's products and services, following Wikipedia:Companies, corporations and economic information fom WikiProject Companies.
*Added a section named "Development of education software", which outlines Blackboard's involvement in the development and growth of the use of education software.
*The final major section is a renamed "Legal matters" section, dealing with the events following the award of U.S. Patent 6,988,138 to Blackboard. Since the current section is a blow-by-blow of events in a bullet list, which is not the preferred format for information such as this, I have rewritten the section as prose. The section has been summarized to include only the most important events, and I have removed the information about Cupcake Patrol and the security research, as neither of these were particularly major events and did not have a significant effect upon the company. This is likely to be the most contentious section, and I am happy to discuss it in specifics.
*In the "See also" section I have added a couple of new links to related articles that are not linked in the draft.
As much as possible I have used third-party sources to provide reliable sources for information in the article, however in places I've also used Blackboard's website to verify straightforward details, such as dates of acquisitions.
For anyone who may have this page watchlisted, please take a look at this draft and let me know if you have any feedback, or if you think this would be OK to move into place as is. If you think the draft mostly represents an improvement but have some small edits to suggest, I would recommend that the draft be moved into place and then any edits can be made or discussed. If there is no response here, I'll seek feedback on relevant WikiProjects, but if after a week or so there are no serious disagreements, then I'll probably move it.
Note also that in my userspace draft, I have commented out the company's non-free logo and disabled categories as well. These will need to be restored if and when this new draft goes live. Cheers, WWB Too (talk) 15:16, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Just a quick follow-up note: I've asked for input at WikiProjects Companies, Education and Universities, with some constructive discussion so far at Education. WWB Too (talk) 23:03, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: With assent from an editor at WikiProject Education, and no dissent (or any other reply) from the others, I've copied it over. And that editor offered some constructive criticisms, which might be a starting point for anyone interested in improving it further. Cheers, WWB Too (talk) 18:59, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed rewrite

message: The whole section has no sources! the last sentence is certainly not encyclopaedia worthy: "Blackboard's near-monopoly in the internet education suite has seemed to slow their innovation in the products, and it shows."...i'm a noob, but should that part at least be removed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.26.85.6 (talk) 13:35, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Student Opinion 

message: In the current, recently added Criticism section, only one of the sources is a reliable independent source: the TechCrunch article. One source is a website that collates information from social media sites (Amplicate), and the other is blog post on a website focusing on offering tips for college students (HackCollege). I've focused my revision just on the criticism from the TechCrunch article, which offers an opinion on the "feature creep" in Blackboard's learning management software. I've added this into the Blackboard Learn section, since the criticism is about the software. Although the source doesn't specifically mention Blackboard Learn, the criticism is clearly about the company's learning management software. With these changes, I think my full draft (here) now addresses this material properly. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 22:09, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's OK, and I'm moving it to mainspace to replace the current contents. to the best of my own knowledge of the subject, it's a reasonable presentation of the material.   DGG ( talk ) 02:56, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Update following addition of ''Criticism'' section

message: Hi, a few weeks ago I helped to create an article for Blackboard's co-founder and former CEO Michael Chasen. I'm reaching out here to see if anyone would be able to add in a wikilink to this article, linking where Michael Chasen is mentioned in this article to the newly created article. Though I feel like this is an appropriate, neutral edit to make I'll refrain from doing so myself, since I have a COI: my work on the Michael Chasen article was on behalf of his new company, SocialRadar. As with all COI projects I work on, I like to avoid direct edits to live articles. (In the interest of full disclosure, I'd like to note that I work with WWB Too who offered a new version of this article for review recently.)
As Chasen's full name is only used in two locations in this article — once in the introduction and once in the Early history section — I would suggest adding a wikilink to both of these occurrences, though I'm open to other suggestions. Thanks in advance for reviewing this. I'll be keeping an eye on this talk page so please reply here if you have any questions or can help with this small edit. 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI)  00:47, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The links have been added, so my request is complete. 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI)  21:43, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adding link to new Michael Chasen article 

message: Hi folks, I've been asked by Blackboard to request some updates to a few areas of this article, as there have been some changes at Blackboard recently. Because I have a financial COI, I will not be making any direct edits to the article. Instead, I'll propose the updates here on the Talk page so other editors can review them and then implement them if they look okay. I should also note that I am a colleague of editors 16912 Rhiannon and WWB Too, who have posted here previously.
*The first request is for "Blackboard Learning System" in the introductory paragraph to be changed to "Blackboard Learn," which is supported by this source.
*Secondly, I'd like to propose including additional recent events under the Buyout heading of the History section. I've prepared new language to follow information about Blackboard's acquisition of Moodlerooms Inc. and NetSpot.
*Finally, I'd like to request recent leadership changes be reflected in the Operations section of the article. I've revised the entire last sentence of this section below. Please note that the final two SVP's titles can only be verified via the company Leadership page.
I may be back with some additional update requests later, but I hope an editor can take a look at these in the meantime and, if they look okay, go ahead and implement these changes. Let me know if you have any questions! Cheers, ChrisPond (Talk · COI) 14:51, 7 February 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I finished making these changes; I hope that the way that I implemented these is satisfactory.--ɱ (talk) 20:58, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks perfect, thanks so much! ChrisPond (Talk · COI) 22:26, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I've removed the info about the WP:NN executives.  While you have sources, it's not clear that the information there does anything other than promote the executives that have hired you.  There's no indication that they've done anything that needs to be noted in an encyclopedia.  Sure they have the roles now but this isn't Linkedin.  The info about the CEO is presented in other areas of the article.  The Dissident Aggressor 16:24, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requesting a few updates 

message: Hi to anyone watching this page! Blackboard has made several new acquisitions this year and has undergone significant changes to the company and its products since this article was last updated. To help bring it up-to-date, I've been working on behalf of Blackboard to prepare some edits to this article. Some editors may remember me from a previous message here about adding a wikilink to the Michael Chasen article. This time around, I'm requesting changes to the infobox and introduction, and the addition of a new subsection to the Products and services section. I'm also working on some larger suggestions for the History section that I will share later.
I've revised the introduction to include a few updates. Blackboard's CEO, Jay Bhatt is currently not mentioned at all. What do other editors think about adding the sentence: "The company's CEO is Jay Bhatt, who has led Blackboard since October 2012" following the first sentence? Additionally, the last sentence of the introduction is a bit outdated. I found some more recent stats from 2014 that can added. The slightly reworked introduction is below:
In July, Blackboard announced that it would be offering its products in scalable packages called "solutions." This is a big shift from its previous model of licensing individual products. I've drafted a short subsection covering the basics of this change to follow the other sections in Products and services. The draft, as well as the markup are below.
Along with the change to the Products and services section, the infobox "Products" field should also be updated to include these new solutions. The Higher Ed and K-12 solutions are as follows: Learning CoreLearning EssentialsLearning InsightLearning Insight & Student RetentionCommon CoreInnovative ClassroomOpen LearningParental EngagementK-12 Central Mobile AppTipTxt for Anti-bullying
The infobox currently only mentions Jay Bhatt under Key people, but the article mentions several more staff members that could be included. I'd like to suggest the following people be added to this field: Bill Davis (Chief Financial Officer), Mark Strassman (Senior Vice President of Product Management), Gary Lang (Senior Vice President of Product Development), Katie Blot (Senior Vice President of Education Services), Tracey Stout (Senior Vice President of Marketing).
As I have a conflict of interest, I will not make any of these changes myself. Instead, I hope an editor here will review these requests and make the edits if they agree with them. Thanks for taking a look. 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI)  20:21, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Did most of the things; not the last one. Business articles only list the founder and the current CEO/chairman/president, not all the VPs, CFOs, COOs, CCOs, etc. unless there's some really obvious reason to. Let me know what you think of my edits based on your suggestions.--ɱ (talk) 05:40, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Ɱ, thanks so much for making these edits. I understand about the list of company officers and I'm fine with leaving those out if it's not generally done. To be honest, the guidelines for company articles can be so vague and a lot comes down to what's typical, so I figured I might as well ask! Regarding the "Products" field in the infobox, in retrospect my request wasn't clear but I'm wondering if the new solutions should entirely replace the list that was there previously? This is another one of those gray areas, since the products haven't gone away, but now they're offered as part of these bundled solutions instead. Interested to hear your thoughts. Thanks again! 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI)  14:24, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I was surprised to even find that WikiProject Companies actually has its own guideline, but I wasn't surprised that because companies can take many different forms, it's hard to establish one guideline for all of them, and thus the guideline is fairly vague and unhelpful. In comparison, WikiProject Cities has an excellent guideline for writing and formatting municipality articles. Back to the topic on hand, if those former individual products have still retained their names and are just marketed and sold together, then it's probably okay to keep them; the list is auto-collapsed anyway, so I don't have a problem listing too many products there.--ɱ (talk) 18:01, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for getting back to me so quickly! That makes sense to me about the products list. Like you say, having the auto-collapse means there's no worry about the list being too long. I've got some other updates for the article that I'll be proposing a bit later this week. I hope you'll be able to help with those, too! Thanks again, 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI)  19:14, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Updates for introduction and Products and services 

message: Hi again. As promised, I've returned with a few more updates for this article. These are more significant edits than last time and include new drafts for two sections. The first is for the History section. It's been a few years since the majority of this section was written, so it's in need of some maintenance. For instance, it includes a Recent expansion subsection that covers details that are no longer recent. I retained much of the wording and information in the current draft, but re-evaluated how the information is grouped. The new draft divides company's history into three sections: Early history, Expansion and buyout, and New leadership. The New leadership section includes the most new information and focuses on Blackboard under Jay Bhatt. I also trimmed down the details about individual acquisitions throughout, which I'll explain the reasoning for further down (though you can probably guess from this Talk section heading!). The text and markup for the new History section is below:
My second request is for a new section to follow the History section. Blackboard has a reputation for acquiring companies—and rightfully so, it has gained four companies in the last year alone. Including the details of each one of the acquisitions in the History section makes that section very long, however, and perhaps takes away from its readability. I think information about Blackboard's acquisitions is important to keep in the article as it is a major part of the company's strategy, so I'd like to propose having a separate section about mergers and acquisitions which will allow readers to find information they're interested in more easily. I've written a draft for this section below:
Just a quick note about both drafts: because I've used material that's already in the article, in several places the citation is the short version, rather than the full one as the full cite is given elsewhere in the article.  This means there's some gaps in the reflists in this request. Hopefully this won't be a problem since the material in question is already in the article, so does not need to have its sources spot-checked.
I realize this is quite a bit of new material, so I invite editors to take their time reviewing it and let me know if there are any questions. If there are no questions, I would appreciate if another editor could make the edits if they agree with them. Thanks. 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI)  20:40, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: With many thanks to, ChrisGualtieri, this request is now complete. The sections have been moved into the live article. 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI)  12:34, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Updates for ''History'' and new ''Mergers and acquisitions'' section 

message: In the context of my statements above, the first reference I checked came up with failed verification and has been tagged as such.   
I think this article needs to be gone over very carefully.  I'm afraid that this smacks of corporate manipulation.  The Dissident Aggressor 14:41, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: So both claims where the company has zillions of customers failed verification - they were switched.  I fixed it.  In doing so, I found the Empson article that said the company's software was "infamous" for negative qualities.  Odd that the COI editors failed to mention that.  I've added it to the lede.  If the company becomes infamous for other things, that should go there too.  The Dissident Aggressor 15:07, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I have buckled to the pressure from the paid editor and removed the  negative info about the company from the lede.    The Dissident Aggressor 05:47, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Look, I want to keep this civil and polite, but that's a complete mischaracterization. I did not ask you to remove the criticism. As I explained above, it seemed POV to have such criticism as the second line of the intro and I asked what you thought about moving it into the second paragraph. I'm fine with you removing it, but I dislike intensely the insinuation that I applied any pressure for you to make an edit you didn't want to. That's not how I work. 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI)  00:12, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Dissident Agressor asked me to comment. I have some experience of my own with the product and therefore I do not want to make any evaluation or substantial edits. I did make some copyedits. But the best way in general of resolving disputes about emphasis is to look for additional sources.  DGG ( talk ) 05:35, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Claims in this article need to be verified 

message: Hi to anyone watching this page, also pinging , , ,  and  who have either reviewed my suggestions here before, or with whom I had discussed this article late last year. I'd like to follow up on DissidentAggressor's previously noted concerns about the use of press releases in this article, also the length of the material discussing Acquisitions and the details included in the Criticism section, to see if we can work towards some improvements we can all agree upon. 
Starting with (hopefully) the simplest of the above, the use of press releases, I'd like to propose some independent sources that can be used to replace the four press releases currently used in the article:
*The first source to replace is #10, a BusinessWire source used in the Early history and Blackboard Learn sections. Below are the lines of text the reference supports, with suggested replacement sources:
**Text:The combined company was renamed Blackboard Inc. and its first line of e-learning products was branded Blackboard CourseInfo
**
**
*The second source to replace is #28, used under Company expansion and buy-out, where it supports just the final clause of the sentence (confirming the completion date of the buyout):
**Text: On July 1, 2011, Blackboard agreed to a $1.64 billion buyout by an investor group led by Providence Equity Partners, completed on October 4, 2011.
**
*The third press release source to replace is #30, used in Company expansion and buy-out, Mergers and acquisitions and Other products to support the detail about Edline being renamed to Blackboard Engage. As the new source below doesn't mention the date of the renaming, in the second instance, I recommend removing "June 2012". Also, seeing these details listed out, it strikes me that it's rather repetitive, so perhaps could just be mentioned the one time--either in the History or in Acquisitions?:
**Text: Following the sale, Providence Equity Partners merged Edline, its K-12 learning system, with Blackboard. Edline was later renamed Blackboard Engage.
**Text: Edline was renamed Blackboard Engage in June 2012.
**Text: In October 2011, following Blackboard's merger with Edline, a provider of online learning products for the K-12 market, Edline's products became known as Blackboard Engage.
**
*Finally, source #57 for the company locations under Operations:
**Text: The company's headquarters are in Washington, D.C. and it has offices in Asia, Australia, Europe and in several locations in North America.
**
While I was reviewing the citations, I also noticed that there's currently a Blogspot blog used in the Other products section to support a detail about Blackboard Collaborate being used by the Open University. I don't think this information is crucial, so it (and the citation) could be removed. 
Due to my conflict of interest with this article, since I have been working as a consultant to Blackboard Inc., it would be best for others to review the above and make the changes if they are appropriate. I hope that editors will be able to help with this. Thanks in advance, 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI)  21:05, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I do not see these changes to be controversial and have implemented the same. Anyone is free to revert. Regards - NQ (talk) 01:46, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks NQ! Much appreciated. I'll be back here soon to discuss the Criticism and Acquisitions sections, til then, if anyone has any questions, feel free to ping me here or on my Talk page. 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI)  21:07, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Replacing press release citations 

message: Hi again! As I mentioned above, I'd like to help resolve the tag on the Mergers and acquisitions section of the article. The current section is, admittedly, quite lengthy. I think this speaks to Blackboard's history of growth being driven heavily by acquiring competitors and related companies—something that is frequently mentioned in the company's media coverage. Considering that the company is well known for its aggressive acquisition strategy, I do feel that the section should be retained. However, I can understand that it may come across as being a lot of detail that many readers may be less interested in. 
Below, I've put together a more condensed draft for the section. What I've tried to do here is to give more context to the mentions of the acquisitions, while paring down the detail about individual acquisitions. That way, the impact of the acquisitions for the company's development and offerings is more clear: ie. readers are getting a better understanding of how these acquisitions have led to the Blackboard that exists today. I've also weeded out some of the smaller acquisitions that are perhaps less interesting to readers or impactful on the company's development. Can folks take a look over this and see if it would be a reasonable replacement for the existing section? I'm hoping that this draft will resolve the tag, or at least be a starting point towards it.
I've mentioned previously, but just to be crystal clear: I'm here as a consultant to Blackboard and due to that COI I will not make any edits to the article. Instead, I hope to discuss the draft here and I'm very much open to feedback and / or additional suggestions for improving this section. Please let me know if you have any questions or thoughts on how best to address the Mergers and acquisitions information. Thanks, 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI)  19:37, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks to NQ for reviewing this suggestion and making the update in the article. 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI)  15:18, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Addressing tag on ''Mergers and acquisitions'' 

message: Hi again, all. In my previous post above, I'd noted that I'd like to discuss the Criticism section of the article, and I'm now returning to that topic. Generally, I'm of the opinion that criticism or controversy sections should be avoided, per WP:CRITS, and wonder if editors would be in favor of integrating the information from the Criticism into sections of the article where it might best fit.
If so, here is my suggestion for placing the material within other sections:
*The details in the first paragraph could be included in the History section in the Company expansion and buyout subsection or start of the New leadership section, since their sources are from 2012 and 2011, respectively 
*The sentence about the user interfaces could be added to the Blackboard Learn section (I also have an update to suggest to this information, see draft below)
On the other hand, I understand if other editors feel that a dedicated section is the best place to collate criticism of the company and its products. If it is preferable to retain the Criticism section, then I'd like to suggest a small addition and a few adjustments to the existing text:
*I've found a couple of recent sources that note that the user interface, which was a key area of criticism, is being updated
*Currently, the section gives no indication in the text as to when the noted criticisms are from. I'd suggest adding in the source dates to the text to give readers more idea of when each criticism arose. This would help show, for example, that it wasn't a really early criticism that is no longer relevant
*Also, there are direct quotes not attributed in the text of the article, although WP:MOSQUOTE would indicate they should be in cases such as these where opinions are given, so I'd suggest adding in a brief attribution
The below shows the section with my suggestions in :
Once again, I won't make any of these edits myself due to my COI, so I encourage others to review, offer their thoughts and make such edits as are most appropriate. Thanks, 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI)  22:07, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Quick ping note for editors who've discussed this article with me before, and / or reviewed my edits here: , , ,  and , as well as pinging  who added the current Criticism section. Your input would be most welcome here. Thanks in advance! 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI)  19:12, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that a criticism section is usually not desirable, as WP:CRITS explains. However if another thought it is, then that probably warrants more discussion. However, I did make the wording additions you suggested.--ɱ (talk · vbm) 19:29, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, Ɱ. Likewise, I'm curious to hear others' thoughts on this. Just a quick note on your edits: I see you added an  template into the new final sentence of the section, which is helpful, but looks like it needs to have the lowercase parameter added. 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI)  20:05, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah you're right.--ɱ (talk · vbm) 20:23, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi again, just checking in here to see if anyone else had thoughts about the Criticism section and how it should be handled? Are any other editors in favor of splitting up this information into relevant sections, rather than retaining a standalone Criticism section? 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI)  21:38, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've merged the criticism into the body of the article. - NQ (talk) 20:33, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discussing ''Criticism'' section 

message: It looks like the market share statistics are from the techcrunch article that's a few years old now, and which was likely from a company press release. While BB likely peaked at around 75% marketshare, the best market data I can find seems to indicate that their higher ed market share has steadily declined and is now closer to 34% (rather than 75%). This source is only counting institutions with over 500 FTE - http://edutechnica.com/2016/10/03/4th-annual-lms-data-update/
Not sure on K12 data, but I imagine that it's now similarly out of date. You can see the longer term higher ed trend here http://mfeldstein.com/state-higher-ed-lms-market-spring-2016/  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.162.246.204 (talk) 23:28, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Market share details