wikipedia

[conradin]

I have entered and did a major rewriting of the Bachmann entry in Wikipedia.  I have basically rewrote it entirely from scratch.  When I have time I will work on Bachmann UK, China, and Liliput.  Feel free to do corrections if you see fit.

[Summertrainz]

im very impressed!
you sure do know a lot about bachmann...
i learned some stuff there...

[SteamGene]

First of all,

"I have basically rewrote it entirely from scratch"

would not get past any editor in the world. 

You have a major verb error,  are redundant, use a cliche, and are verbose. 

"I have completely rewritten it," is what you mean. 
Gene

[Woody Elmore]

I looked over the Wikipedia article. It contains a lot of paragraphs that have subjective clauses as a lead in. This makes the writing very verbose and hard to follow.

Encyclopedia writing, like technical or journal writing, should contain simple declarative sentences written in active voice with a minimum of clauses.

The name of the state of Louisiana is also misspelled.

Are the facts correct? There is no listing of primary sources or references to back up the claims in the article.

Wikipedia is to encyclopedias as the Yugo was to automobiles.

[SteamGene]

Woody is being kind. 
Gene

[conradin]

As I said, go ahead and change it if you want.    

It is far from perfect.  All I have are 40 years of catalogs, old magazines, being able to read German English French Italian Chinese and Japanese, (hence can read all reports and catalogs from Liliput, Bachmann, Tomy, Kader, Jouef, Bachmann China, etc.); plus 10+ years of annual reports in Chinese.

My household mostly speak Spanish..and it is the least fluent language that I can speak, strangely.

Let the editors deal with the grammar and stuff, I just put in the facts...without getting too much details.   1500 pages of financial reports from KPMG is quite a lot to read.

The Branchline article actually listed the products..that's something which I will never have the time to list them. 

English is not even my second language...

Anyway, this is way off topic.  The original Bachmann wiki entry had lots of error.  That was why it was almost a total rewrite.

Can anyone track down the agency in Bologna and France?  I *know* the company in Bologna has a Chinese connection for quite awhile.  (nice city!), and I know that Italy was the first agency..just not sure whether it was 82 or 83.  France probably was next be it in Corcieux, or later Nancy.  I think when Palitoy fell, they saw the opportunity and took it, and moved the operation to England, from a distributor/dealership to an actual manufacturer.

[conradin]

I looked over the Wikipedia article. It contains a lot of paragraphs that have subjective clauses as a lead in. This makes the writing very verbose and hard to follow.

Encyclopedia writing, like technical or journal writing, should contain simple declarative sentences written in active voice with a minimum of clauses.

The name of the state of Louisiana is also misspelled.

Are the facts correct? There is no listing of primary sources or references to back up the claims in the article.

Wikipedia is to encyclopedias as the Yugo was to automobiles.

Good point, I'll list the source later.  But I definitely would need help for someone to polish the writing up for me.

[conradin]

I have put down all the references as best as I could.  Suggestions please?

[SteamGene]

I was not aware that you were not a native English speaker.  That taken into account you have done a good job.  But it does need editing and I will work on that.  The question is, who put up the original if it had a lot of errors as you say. 
This is, of course, one of the major dangers of Wikipedia.

[conradin]

There was no authorship of the original article. (ie. anonymous).  It seems to be written by someone who is into model trains, but probably not a Bachmann US person.  There were more discussions about Bachmann UK in the discussion area than the discussions about the actual content of Bachmann USA.

Please go ahead and clean the article up and make it readable, thanks.

[Woody Elmore]

The Wikipedia article is informative; perhaps telling more than anyone needs to know. Maybe some stuff was copied from an annual prospectus.

As I wrote earlier, some types of writing require a certain expertise. Since I didn't read the original posting I cannot tell how much Conradin may have improved it.

I give him credit for taking on a rather laborious task with English not being his native language.

[Paul M.]

I, for one, liked it. It's very good considering that he's not a native English speaker.

[conradin]

This is the original version:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bachmann_Industries&oldid=116698719

[Woody Elmore]

conrdin - thanks for the link to the original.

I tend to be over critical about English writing because, as a graduate school professor, I get to see lots of mangled English written by people with college degrees.

I again commend you for taking on the editing task - something I would never do. Your English is very good for a second language.

There are people who have made careers out of doing technical editing. I , for one, would rather look at grass grow than do that job.