User talk:MonteShaffer

Organicgirl

A tag has been placed on Organicgirl, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article seems to be blatant advertising which only promotes a company, product, group, service or person and would need to be fundamentally rewritten in order to become an encyclopedia article. Please read the general criteria for speedy deletion, particularly item 11, as well as the guidelines on spam.

If you can indicate why the subject of this article is not blatant advertising, you may contest the tagging. To do this, please add {{hangon}} on the top of the article and leave a note on the article's talk page explaining your position. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would help make it encyclopedic, as well as adding any citations from reliable sources to ensure that the article will be verifiable. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you have any questions about this. WhaleyTim 16:54, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Monte

The thing that troubles me about the article is that the text reads more like a press release for the company rather than disinterested, encyclopeadic material. For example, I refer to the free use of company slogans within the text, the logo-ised text whenever the company name is written, the use of generic information and references in conjunction with company specific information, the use of such constructs as 'OrganicGirl gives' and 'OrganicGirl feels' et al. It may be a fine work of marketing for a fine company with a great product but I believe that it does not stand as being encyclopedia entry about that company. You are, of course, free to disagree.

Cheers

WhaleyTim 18:26, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Your Organicgirl article

On Talk:Organicgirl you said:

I am a PhD student in marketing at WSU (see http://www.cb.wsu.edu/directory/profile.cfm?emp=Shaffer_Monte) -- as a project, I wanted to 'fairly' write an article for a company, meeting the Wikipedia guidelines.

I attempted in every way to follow the guidelines to present the information about this company clearly and objectively. Please let me know what and how it needs to be rewritten. I have read the SPAM guidelines and guideline 11 as you have suggested.

WhaleyTim, please take a moment to read the content and provide me with the appropriate feedback. I have used Wikipedia for many years, contributing occasionally and donating as I can. I have attended an Open Education Conference presentation made by Wikipedia, and like the concept. As my expertise increases, I plan on continuing to contribute.

I modeled my copy strategy from similar pages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_Foods_Market http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dole_Food_Company http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiquita_Brands_International http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Sword

I do understand that the content needs to be informational, not promotional. For that reason, I tried to clearly state them as "Promotional Claims" rather than stating them as facts. I followed patterns I saw in similar pages, as mentioned above. I even verified sources as possible.

My intention is to accurately provide the information about the company in an objective way. As a marketing student, I understand that promotional claims are not necessarily reality. This is a real company, and really is in the stores mentioned in the concise first paragraph.

There are a few problems with the article you wrote which is why I deleted it. I was fairly sure it could not be salvaged from these faults, and existed only as a form of advertising, whether you intended it to be or not.

1) The sources and footnotes were insufficient to support the article. YouTube is not considered a reliable source. Out of all the footnotes you supplied, none of them was about the company itself. Wikipedia requires independent secondary sources to substantiate the information in the article and they should be verifiable. The sources you supplied talked about organic food, not the company Organicgirl.

2) The tone of the article was not encyclopedic. Your use of the phrase "copy strategy" above indicates you don't quite understand the goals of Wikipedia or the writing style needed for a neutral point of view. Your basic text was full of promotional phrasing and positive spin.

3) While looking to other articles as examples can be helpful, before that you need to learn the core policies of Wikipedia. The most important are:

1. Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not summarizes what Wikipedia is, and what it is not.
2. Wikipedia:Neutral point of view Wikipedia's core approach, neutral unbiased article writing.
3. Wikipedia:No original research what is, and is not, valid information.
4. Wikipedia:Verifiability what counts as a verifiable source and how a source can be verified.
5. Wikipedia:Citing sources sources should be cited, and the manner of doing so.

Just because other similar articles exist on Wikipedia, this doesn't mean they are good examples of Wikipedia policy in action. What I (and others) are judging is how in line this particular article is with WP policy.

While your contributions are welcome, I strongly suggest you read the policies I linked above. If you have any questions, I would be happy to answer them on my talk page. Cheers, Pigman^what?/trail 19:35, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Some guidelines

The strongest help I can give you is tell you to read the five numbered items above. One thing you may not be clear on is not every company is notable enough to have a Wikipedia article. There are guidelines on this at Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies). Notability is difficult pin down which is why Wikipedia guidelines on it are only guidelines, not firm policy. However, what is important is that there be published sources about the company. An article in Business Week or the Wall Street Journal or any established newspaper will contain independent information about the company. "Independent" in this instance means from outside the company's control. Press releases don't count. This is what is meant when Wikipedia talks about verifiable and reliable sources. There are exceptions but, for example, MySpace and Yahoo Groups are not generally considered reliable sources. They are sometimes used in articles about, say, musical groups but they shouldn't be used as a source of WP article content. YouTube is even less reliable as a source. Like MySpace, anyone can post there. There is no evaluation of the information or its credibility.

Also, you should be aware that the sourcing bar on commercial entities, like companies and stores and even chain stores, is higher than other types of articles. Many, many people want to use Wikipedia as a form of advertising. Wikipedia has one of the highest profile sites on the internet. An article guarantees wide viewing and highly placed hits on searches. So there is a great deal of caution about including companies without documentation. I note that a google search I just did showed an Organicgirl hit on your Wikipedia userpage about 8th down from the top of over 18 thousand hits. It looks like you had the article on your userpage before you created the page for it.

So it's not just a matter of finding "the company information valid if I provide a newspaper article". The sources need to be reliable as well and support the information put on Wikipedia. For example, your sources in the Organicgirl article were mostly about organic food. None of them were about Organicgirl, the company. Look around Wikipedia and you'll probably find articles about organic food with some sources like some of the ones you supplied and that's appropriate. Your article was about Organicgirl and the sources should focus on Organicgirl, not other items.

One of the most important policies on Wikipedia is neutral point of view. For the most part the adjectives you used were not neutral. Calling something "special" or "unique" in advertising copy is normal; on Wikipedia, even if you were to prove the words were used in sources, such words are considered inaccurate, undescriptive and puffery. As a marketing major, you are probably encouraged to use happy and energetic descriptors. Wikipedia prefers descriptors which are non-emotional and which don't embody a specific POV.

I'm sure you could find plenty of article examples on Wikipedia that contradict what I'm telling you but using that as an argument for allowing the article you started to remain will not gain traction with most experienced editors on Wikipedia.

For example, you mentioned the Whole Foods Market article. I'm not going to look at it so what I'm saying is blind, just what I'm guessing. I believe Whole Foods is a publicly traded company whose stock has done very well. I'd be surprised if there were less than 6 reliable sources in the article from major publications. Like almost any company article on WP, I expect there is some puffery and overly positive words, but the majority will probably conform to the standards of WP I've described above. Let me look now. Not bad. If you look at the sources, you will see a few come from the corporation itself (the CEO's blog, annual reports) but the overwhelming majority come from places like the Austin American Statesman, Bloomberg and CNNMoney. These are good sources. Notice also that all the sources are directly about Whole Foods Market, its actions, its financial situation.

Perhaps this is a little more than you wanted and I'm not entirely sure I've answered your questions, but I guess I wanted to make sure you understood WP policies guide our judgments here. Please notice that several people came at the article from different directions but they mostly came to similar conclusions. No one called us to the article. (well, the speedy delete tag brought me to the article to evaluate whether it met the criteria so that's not entirely true.) If you have more questions, I'd be happy to answer them, probably at much less length than this post. ;-) Pigman^what?/trail 01:32, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Organicgirl

Hi Monte,

I see that Pigman has deleted the article, and given a much clearer and detailed explaination as to why than I could have done. Sorry to have pissed on your chips, but there are many, including myself, who try to be as vigilent as possible about getting advertising removed from Wikipedia.

If you still wish to continue with your project may I suggest that you create a revised article, observing the guidelines and advice given by Pigman, in a sandbox on your user page. I would be more than happy to look at it and give my comments, for what they are worth, as to its likelyhood of surviving as an article.

Good luck

WhaleyTim 10:05, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Monte,

First, I would like to make it clear that I have no administative or other special powers in Wikipedia - I am a just an ordinary user who makes occasional contributions in areas that interest me. I have a (weak) commitment to the goals of the Wikipedia project, but often intervene (as in the case of your article) where I think they are being compromised. I understand your pedagogical agenda, and am happy to assit in commenting on your article - but as you will understand my opinions are not grounded in any deep understanding of 'Wikipedia Policy' (whatever that is) or the processes involved in administrative oversight, but based on my limited experience of what the 'Wikipedia Community' finds acceptable.

You will of course understand that managing information on Wikipedia is potentially difficult. Any article you create can be edited by anyone. Negative information may be added, and, provided that there are reliable sources, this information may persist, despite the efforts of those with a vested interest to remove it. It would be interesting to know how much of a problem this really is, and how much effort commercial and other organisations make in maintaining their position. This is something that you, I am sure, will have a greater understanding of than I.

Best regards

WhaleyTim 11:33, 15 November 2007 (UTC)