Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies)

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This page has undergone changes recently as a result of a merge. The wording is still in flux, and some of its present content is disputed. Please see the relevant discussion on the talk page.

Note: this page is a result from a merger on February 3, 2007 of the guidelines for Companies and Corporations with the guidelines for Organizations -- please see the talk page.

The following proposal offers guideline criteria, as a tool to determine whether an organization (commercial or otherwise) is a valid subject for a Wikipedia article. The scope of this proposal covers all groups of people organized together for a purpose. This includes commercial and non-commercial activities. Examples are companies, partnerships, proprietorships, charities, institutions, centers of learning, social clubs, etc. Simply stated, a group of more than one person formed together for a purpose.

Notable means "worthy of being noted" or "attracting notice". It is not synonymous with "fame" or "importance". Please consider notable and demonstrable effects on culture, society, entertainment, athletics, economies, history, literature, science, or education. By nature large organizations are more likely to be notable; however, smaller organizations can be notable just as individuals can be notable.

Special note: advertising and promotion

Advertising is prohibited as an official Wikipedia policy of long standing. Advertising should be removed by one of four methods:

1. Cleaned up to adhere to the neutral point of view
2. Delete advertising content from the article
3. Delete the article, by listing it at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion.
4. If an article is blatant advertising, it may also be tagged for speedy deletion.

Primary criterion

See also: Wikipedia:Notability § The primary notability criterion

A company, corporation, organization, group, product, or service is notable if it has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works, the source of which is both:

• independent of the company, corporation, organization or group itself, or of the product's or service's manufacturer or vendor, and
• reliable.

This criterion includes published works in all forms, such as (for examples) newspaper articles, books, television documentaries, and published reports by consumer watchdog organizationsTemplate:Fn except for the following:

• Press releases; autobiographies; advertising for the company, corporation, organization, or group; and other works where the company, corporation, organization, or group talks about itself — whether published by the company, corporation, organization, or group itself, or re-printed by other people.Template:Fn
• Works carrying merely trivial coverage; such as (for examples) newspaper articles that simply report meeting times or extended shopping hours, or the publications of telephone numbers, addresses, and directions in business directories.

Alternate criteria for specific types of organizations

The following sections discuss other alternate methods for establishing notability in specific situations. However, the text of the article must be supported by independent sources, and avoid primary research. Note that failure to meet these criteria does not disprove notability if it can be otherwise demonstrated.

Non-commercial organizations

Organizations are usually notable if the scope of activities are national or international in scale and information can be verified by sources that are reliable and independent of the organization. In other words, they satisfy the primary criterion above. Other criteria are:

1. Individual chapters of national and international organizations are usually not notable enough to warrant a separate article unless sufficient notability is established through reliable sources. However, chapter information is welcome for inclusion into wikipedia in list articles as long as only verifiable information is included.
2. Organizations whose activities are local in scope are usually not notable unless verifiable information from reliable independent sources can be found.

Commercial organizations

Note The term "company" varies slightly in meaning among the English speaking nations. Corporations, LLC's, and various types of partnerships are types of companies. An organization is automatically notable if it meets any of the following criteria:

1. The commercial organization is listed on ranking indices of important companies produced by well-known and independent publications.Template:Fn
2. The commercial organization's share price is used to calculate one or more of the major managed stock market indices.Template:Fn Note this is not the same as simply being listed on a stock market. Nor is it the same as being included in an index that comprises the entire market. The broader or the more specialized the index, the less notability it establishes for the company.

Recommendations for products and services

See also: Wikipedia:Notability § Dealing with non-notable topics

Information on products and services should generally be included in the article on the company itself, unless the company article is so large that this would make the article unwieldy. In that case, the discussion of the company's products and services should be broken out from the company article in summary style.

If the product or service is notable, it can be broken out into its own article. If it is not notable, it should not be broken out into its own article but should have whatever verifiable information about it that exists presented within an article that has a broader scope, such as an article that deals with all of the company's products and services.

If a non-notable product or service has been written about in its own article, be bold and rename, refactor, or merge the article into an article with a broader scope, such as the company's article, creating it if necessary.

Chains and franchises

Many companies have chains of local stores or franchises that are individually pretty much interchangeable—for instance, your local McDonald's. Since there is generally very little to say about individual stores or franchises that isn't true for the chain in general, we should not have articles on such individual stores. In a few rare cases, an individual location will also have architectural peculiarities that makes it unique and notable, such as the Winston-Salem Shell gas station or the Vinita, Oklahoma McDonald's. However, a "List of Wal-Marts in China" would be informative. Also, an exception can be made if some major event took place at a local store (however this would most likely be created under an article name which describes the event, not the location (see San Ysidro McDonald's massacre for an example).

Notes

• Template:Fnb Three examples:
  • Microsoft Word satisfies this criterion because people who are wholly independent of Microsoft have written books about it.
  • All cars that have had Haynes Manuals written about them satisfy this criterion.
  • The Oxford Union satisfies this criterion for having two books (by Graham and by Walter) written and published about it.
• Template:Fnb Self-promotion and product placement are not the routes to having an encyclopaedia article. The published works must be someone else writing about the company, corporation, club, organization, product, or service. (See Wikipedia:Autobiography for the verifiability and neutrality problems that affect material where the subject of the article itself is the source of the material.) The barometer of notability is whether people independent of the subject itself (or of its manufacturer, creator, or vendor) have actually considered the company, corporation, product or service notable enough that they have written and published non-trivial works that focus upon it.
• Template:Fnb Examples of company ranking indices: Fortune 500 and Forbes Global 2000 (which has replaced the discontinued Forbes 500). Companies listed on such indices will almost certainly satisfy the first criterion. However, this criterion ensures that our coverage of such rankings will be complete regardless.
• Template:Fnb Examples of such managed stock market indices: Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, S&P 400, and S&P 600, CAC 40, Nikkei 225, FTSE 100 Index, FTSE 250 Index and Bombay's BSE Sensex. See list of stock market indices for more. Companies that form the bases for major stock market indices will almost certainly satisfy the first criterion, but this ensures that our coverage of such indices will be complete regardless. Being in a broader index such as the Russell 3000 is a weak indication of notability and should be supported by other sources, particularly for the smaller members of such indices.

See also

• Wikipedia:Naming conventions (companies)
• Wikipedia:Autobiography (for companies that are creating articles about themselves)