I believe that the number one ingredient of a soft drink is very pertinent to the introductory paragraph about that particular soft drink. It is as important as stating that it is carbonated. While high fructose corn syrup never does flow well it would be inaccurate to claim it is high in sugar since high fructose corn syrup is neither a sugar nor is it corn syrup. Moreover I find it offensive that you labeled my comment as being vandalism when it was neither obscene, inaccurate, or irrelevant to the subject matter. While reasonable men may disagree as to whether my comment belongs in the opening paragraph I find it outrageous that it has been classified as vandalism.{{unsigned|Laspakis}}
I believe that the number one ingredient of a soft drink is very pertinent to the introductory paragraph about that particular soft drink. It is as important as stating that it is carbonated. While high fructose corn syrup never does flow well it would be inaccurate to claim it is high in sugar since high fructose corn syrup is neither a sugar nor is it corn syrup. Moreover I find it offensive that you labeled my comment as being vandalism when it was neither obscene, inaccurate, or irrelevant to the subject matter. While reasonable men may disagree as to whether my comment belongs in the opening paragraph I find it outrageous that it has been classified as vandalism.{{unsigned|Laspakis}}
:I did not mean for my edit summary to suggest your edit was vandalism. I was refering to the edits by [[User:67.173.72.143]], who deleted a large section and replaced it with "Coke was made cause people copied it from Pepsi." I removed the edit because its tone did not fit with an informed, succinct, intro for the layman. - [[User:Trevor MacInnis|Trevor]] [[User talk:Trevor MacInnis|MacInnis]] <small>([[Special:Contributions/Trevor MacInnis|Contribs]])</small> 04:02, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
:I did not mean for my edit summary to suggest your edit was vandalism. I was refering to the edits by [[User:67.173.72.143]], who deleted a large section and replaced it with "Coke was made cause people copied it from Pepsi." I removed the edit because its tone did not fit with an informed, succinct, intro for the layman. - [[User:Trevor MacInnis|Trevor]] [[User talk:Trevor MacInnis|MacInnis]] <small>([[Special:Contributions/Trevor MacInnis|Contribs]])</small> 04:02, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
== Drink of the south ==
you might be shot and lynched if you try to drink a pepsi in rural parts of the south with the exception of north carolina and Texas.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject South Dakota, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the U.S. state of South Dakota on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.South DakotaWikipedia:WikiProject South DakotaTemplate:WikiProject South DakotaSouth Dakota articles
I add a section from the criticisms of Coke page about acusations of labour abuses in Coke bottling plants in Colombia. I will work on finding NPOV sourc. If any one could help it would be nice, English isnot my first language so I have a difficult time doing the research. malatesta00:05, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Coca-Cola drink vs. Coca-Cola company... again
Here are some parts of this article that I think should be removed from this article. I haven't removed them because I want to know what other people think:
1. The reference to "shrewd marketing tactics" in the second paragraph doesn't seem to be a neutral POV.
2. The first paragraph under "The Inventor of the Coca Cola" doesn't seem relevant to the drink. By the way, I just noticed, it should read "The Inventor of Coca-Cola"
3. The "World War II" section doesn't seem relevant to the drink. I think this should only be on the Coca-Cola company page.
4. I think the bullet points in the "Business practices" don't need to be listed here. I would leave this section, but end it after the first paragraph and remove the bullet points. Philbert2.7182819:35, 15 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I removed the paragraph on Pemberton and renamed the section. I also clarified the importance of WWII for the drink -- without it, many people would never have been introduced to Coke by grateful husbands, fathers, brothers, etc. I'm not sure about the neutrality of "shrewd marketing tactics", because from what I can tell, nobody has ever questioned that Griggs Candler was shrewd in marketing Coke. He was very influential in its popularity during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Feel free to be bold and remove the bullet points. I think the section as a whole needs rewriting to keep the parts relevant to Coke the drink (i.e. the boycotts are relevant, but we needn't digress into discussion of what the Coke company does; I'm about to remove the stuff on the company's employment practices, etc.). Johnleemk | Talk19:45, 15 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'd just like to note that the word shrewd should probably never appear in a wikipedia article; it's just too vague. Successful or controversial (or both) might be better. Vessenes05:12, 26 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
iCoke
218.189.141.202 has added a link to http://icoke.hk on this page twice, and I removed it both times. He/she added it to the Coca-Cola company page now too. The site is in a foreign language and looks like it's just a promotional site for Coca-Cola. Even if we wanted to link to something like this, there are English language versions like http://icoke.ca. There's an http://icoke.com but the main page doesn't have anything much on it. I don't see any reason to link to these kind of sites anyway. Philbert2.7182818:34, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Benzene update?
Should new benzene info be added following this FDA press release (and various similar international stories)? Stories moved on national wires the same week, but I haven't found them yet. http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2006/NEW01355.html ... Posted May 3, 2006
npov check
read this coca-cola article and tell me it doesn't sound like the company could have edited it itself to make it sound rosy and fine? anyway, i think criticism of this and The Coca-Cola Company articles combined can be found on each talk page. i just don't have time to argue with people about why these two articles are POV. Guppy12:57, 5 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You've been constantly griping about this without ever attempting to provide a solution other than one that runs contrary to the consensus we reached on clearly defining Coke the drink as separate from Coke the company. You've also been accusing editors (namely me) of being biased Coke-lovers. Until you come up with something more substantial than "I want to conflate the drink and company because otherwise it's biased" (incidentally without ever proving why this is so through actual facts), I don't think you can hope to see the articles merged. If people are abusing the distinction between the drink and company to bias either or both of the articles, call them out on it and fix the bias. Don't bring up a peripheral issue (the distinction between the Coke and drink) and argue that the only way we can fix the neutrality problem is to merge articles on two separate entities. Johnleemk | Talk13:10, 5 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Irn Bru Update
Cheers for the clarification on the sales figures of Irn Bru. I had no idea what the actual figures were so I had to tred very lightly! :) Pudduh08:57, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Mecca Cola
I plead for the removal of Mecca Cola from the 'Related product' list. This brand is not nearly as well known and can surely not be considered as a serious competitor. 165218618:41, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm for the removal of Open Cola but not Mecca Cola. Mecca Cola appears to at least be a "related product," as it was created in large part as an alternative product to Coca-Cola for political reasons. Since the label isn't "competing products," just "related products," it seems like Mecca Cola deserves mention. Open Cola, being mentioned nowhere else in the article, should probably go. Lemonsawdust06:36, 4 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Then the label should be changed to "Competitors". And Coca-Cola sells 100 times as many servings per day in the US alone as Mecca Cola has sold worldwide ever, so it probably shouldn't be listed. --Jkonrath20:02, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've substantially downgraded Mecca Cola's importance on the page, and put it under "Coca-Cola and Islam." I think that's a good place for it to go. We could now commence on whether or not we should have a Coke and Islam section. If we do want it, it should go near the bottom. Vessenes05:59, 26 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
New article on varieties of Coke?
Some articles about varieties of Coke are pretty short, and it seems like there's just not much to say about them. Also, apparently Coca-Cola Lemon (in addition to Coke Light Lemon) is available in France or will be soon (see the French Wikipedia's Coca-Cola article), and there's no mention of it anywhere on the English Wikipedia. Should we make a new article listing every variety of Coke, and linking to the pages for individual varieties that have enough content to warrent their own page? Caffeine-free varieties are hardly mentioned anywhere at the moment, and we could list those on the new page too. There's also Kosher for Passover Coke, which is sort of a variety of Coke, but isn't mentioned anywhere except somewhere in the middle of the Coca-Cola page, where it's hard to find. We could list all the varieties on the main Coke page, but that page is getting long already. I would be willing to create a new page titled something like Varieties of Coca-Cola, unless someone has a better idea for where to list the varieties of Coke. Philbert2.7182807:05, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Featured article?
The whole article is a big mess, in my opinion. The article has too many red links, uses improper citations and is formatted irregularly. And to top it all, a neutrality distpute tag has been on the article for many days now. Certainly not what one would expect from a featured wikipedia article.This notice is as per the wikipedia guidlines listed under the featured article removal nomination procedure. -- thunderboltza.k.a.Deepu_Joseph |TALK14:05, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Somebody deleted the first paragraph, and now it seems to start abruptly without any kind of lead-in. Someone needs to put that paragraph back. (JDK77590)
Split New Coke Discussion Off?
I'm quite new at Wikipedia, but I have to say that the New Coke section is just too darn long for the Coca-Cola page.
It's mostly about the company, not the drink
It's a turning point for the COMPANY, but a sidenote in the drink's 100+ year history
Can I suggest the current section get drastically trimmed, and the whole long, sordid tale get moved to a New Coke Page where it can get the attention it deserves? Vessenes05:21, 26 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Second Update: Okay, the deed is done, and I'm tired now. The section reads much better in my humble opinion. I wish I had time to do something similar to some of the other sections on this page. I don't think we lost any essential information in my edits; the one exception might be the discussion on the formula changing from sugar to high fructose corn syrup. I think it's confusing to talk about the New Coke launch and the HFCS switch at the same time, and I'd say it would be better to talk about this under the formulation section. Everything else I cut should be available on the New Coke page for those who love New Coke. Vessenes06:01, 26 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Coca-Cola Bears
Why aren't there any articles on the Coca-Cola Bears?!
[[User_Talk: WPDude123 8:28, 6 June 2006
It's really very simple. Edit for POV language, then isolate any and all criticisms to its own section called "Criticisms" and then demand verifiable sources. If the criticisms section is long enough isolate it further to its own article. This is not to say critics of coke should not have exposure, but they should also not be so severe as to taint the credibility of the rest of the article - this is an encyclopedia article, not an activists site. -- Stbalbach03:36, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I moved the criticisms section to Criticism of Coca-Cola which already existed because of similar problems in the The Coca-Cola Company article. So now we have a single place for all criticisms instead of being replicated across multiple articles. I also got rid of the opening paragraph per Wikipedia:Lead section which says the lead paragraph should be a summary of the article contents, repeating in summary high-level format what is contained in the article body. It currently doesnt do that, but at least it's not an out of proportion bashing of Coke as it was before. -- Stbalbach03:54, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I take exception to the claim that the lead was non-neutral. As far as I can tell, it did accurately represent the status of Coke the drink, in that it is undeniable that there are many urban legends (which is exactly what the lead called them) concerning Coke, and also that the rollout of New Coke was met with widespread denunciation. Was the lead imbalanced? Probably - it wasn't a good summary. But it was a start, and with a few more sentences added, would have been a decent lead.
More than anything else, this article needs someone with an eye on it. I've been sporadically monitoring and maintaining this article since 2004, but I can't do it alone or indefinitely. There are just too many additions to the article for one person to keep track of, and often a few slightly biased edits add up to a quickly very hugely-slanted article.
I also find it a bit ironic that (as the MSNBC article notes), people continue to claim this article is biased in favour of Coke when it is plainly not. The content is neutral, in my opinion - there is little that could be added in to balance it out. The main issue is style - because of Wikipedia's collaborative nature, as I mentioned earlier, a few only slightly biased edits can quickly turn an article into a cesspool of clear slant. (As an aside, I think that the advertising section is disproportionately big, and will be trimming some excess detail from it soon.) Johnleemk | Talk09:49, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
See Wikipedia:Lead section on how to write a lead section. It should be a summary of the entire article - in balance with the article contents - it should repeat what is in the article, but in a summary format. The old lead section contained original material found no where else in the article, and it did not summarize the article at all. -- Stbalbach13:39, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Huh? Are we looking at the same lead? The New Coke bit was there. So was the urban legends. Those are the only two things that were removed. And yet both were covered by the article! :{ Johnleemk | Talk16:47, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I'm about to rewrite the criticisms section. I'm a bit annoyed by this, actually, because I did a lot of work referencing and factchecking the claims there, and they seem to have been chucked wholesale (except for adverse health effects, which is in the main article). For example, there's nothing at all on one of Coke's major competitors in the Araba world, Mecca Cola, but this appears to have totally vanished, despite being backed up with a reliable source. Still, I'll dig stuff up from old revisions and try. (Btw, DJR, sorry to intrude, but could you please remove the images from your signature? It violates the signature guidelines, and can be a bit distracting at times, which is why we have the signature guidelines in the first place. :)) Johnleemk | Talk10:12, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, you're right. I must have missed that. My bad. Anyway, I've readded the bit about New Coke to the lead again because it is a defining moment in Coke's history. All accounts of Coca-Cola history that I've read devote a substantial portion to New Coke and the Cola Wars, so it's simply irrational not to mention it in the lead. The lead should be capable of standing alone as an article (the original rationale for lead sections was so we could produce a half-decent print version), and any self-respecting encyclopedia article on Coke would mention the Cola Wars and the New Coke debacle. I've since restored the apparently deleted bibliography section, and added a number of HTML comments in the history section referring to the Pendergrast book. I currently don't have it, so I can't cite the precise page numbers yet. Johnleemk | Talk16:47, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Why is there no clear mention of its sugar content?
Approximatelly 10% of Cocacola is sugar, i.e. in 10litres you get 1kg of sugar. This is common to most soft drinks. I recall reading that the World Health Organisation has been threatened by the US if it continues to investigate and publish articles about the adverse health effects of sugar. This threats would entail the loss of US contributions and are a result of lobbying in washington by the fast food industry. I will try to get the appropriate references.
In Super Size Me we meet an obese man who claims to drink between 6 and 8 liters a day! And his wife claims she buys about 52l a week for both of them, though she only drinks about 2l. Not surprisingly this man is in a hospital bed awaiting stomach surgery as a last resort to his obesity and associated diabetes.
In my own POV I feel that just as cigarettes have a warning about its health effects (in Spain) there should also be similar warnings in Soft drinks about their considerable sugar content. In this sense I would like to see a warning to its sugar content clearly mentioned in this article.Cgonzalezdelhoyo15:57, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
dear johnleemk, I will try to get the references regarding the WHO.
I AM ASTONISHED!!!! I just put "World Health Organisation Sugar" into google and this is the first result I got: [[1]] it is the Guardian online paper and let me please quote some extracts (I hope that this does not violate any laws):
Sugar industry threatens to scupper WHO
The sugar industry in the US is threatening to bring the World Health Organisation to its knees by demanding that Congress end its funding unless the WHO scraps guidelines on healthy eating.
The threat is being described by WHO insiders as tantamount to blackmail and worse than any pressure exerted by the tobacco lobby.
The industry is furious at the guidelines, which say that sugar should account for no more than 10% of a healthy diet. It claims that the review by international experts which decided on the 10% limit is scientifically flawed, insisting that other evidence indicates that a quarter of our food and drink intake can safely consist of sugar.
It seems that my memory served me right. The soft drink industry and the fast food industry is part of the sugar industry and they are the first to be adversely affected by the WHO studies. I have not looked much further into this, for one I am still a newbie and rather restrict myself to the talk pages. Please do let me know if you will support me in including a researched section on the sugar content in CocaCola and its worrying concerns in the scientific community.Cgonzalezdelhoyo23:02, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's also worth mentioning that the letter was written to the WHO by a sugar lobbying group, while most Coca-Cola is sweetened by HFCS, a corn product, which is not sugar. Yes, it's a form of sweetener, and may also be bad for you, but the sugar industry lobbies for the corn industry about as much as the gun industry lobbies for the auto industry. --Jkonrath14:37, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(...)if people followed those guidelines, a huge proportion of the sugar industry's market would disappear, so of course it fights it. It fights using the strategy that was pioneered long ago by the tobacco industry, and later copied by the industrial interests that wanted to deny the phenomenon of global warming. Set up one or more institutes with misleading names to throw doubt on the evidence — the International Life Sciences Institute, founded by Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, General Foods, Proctor and Gamble, and Kraft, is now accredited to both the WHO and the FAO — and use the Washington lobby system for all it's worth.
The association, together with six other big food industry groups, has also written to US Health Secretary Tommy Thompson asking him to try to get the WHO report withdrawn. The coalition includes the US Council for International Business, comprising more than 30 companies, including Coca-Cola and Pepsico. (...) the International Life Sciences Institute, founded by Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, General Foods, Kraft and Procter and Gamble, has also gained accreditation to the WHO and the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation.
This are the result of a quick search in google, I agree that we could find more reputable and definite source, but as you say there is probably little point in including this information in the article.
Sugar and sweetened foods may taste good and supply energy, but most people eat too much of them. Sugar, corn syrup, and other refined sweeteners make up 16 percent of the average diet, but provide no vitamins, minerals, or protein. That means that a person would have to get 100 percent of his or her nutrients from only 84 percent of his or her food. Sugar and other refined sugars can promote obesity, tooth decay, and, in people with high triglycerides, heart disease. It also carries the following warning: Cut back on this. Not toxic, but large amounts may be unsafe or promote bad nutrition.
I think I am bringing up a good case for including a section about Cokes sugar content, where we would give details with links as to its sugar content (10,6g per 100ml http://citizenship.coca-cola.co.uk/active_lifestyle/nutrition.asp) and mention the controversy about sugar in the diet, with an emphasis on what seem to be the 3 key numbers: 10% as the WHO recommended maximum sugar content in the diet, the 16% of a current average diet in the US and the Sugar industry / lobby that 25% should be the maximum. We should also mention that sugar only provides energy and is void of other nutritional elements, and that in as far as a healthy diet equates energy spent with energy intake, the more sugar we take the less food there is to meet our nutritional needs. I dont think we should mention Coca Colas part in the sugar lobby here, but possibly it should be mentioned in the article about the company.
Please do comment and lets see if we can agree on appropriate wording and references. I have not edited and will not edit the article unless we meet a consensus first. I specially would like to hear from DJK and Johnleemk. Regards Carlos Cgonzalezdelhoyo08:49, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sugar content in Cocacola
By the way, if it were 10%, then that'd be 1kg of sugar in 10kg of soda (if that figure is correct). You're mixing liters with kilograms though, which is inaccurate considering that sugar isn't measured in liters (even though one liter of water weighs about one kilogram). --Cyde↔Weys16:56, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Dear Cyde, you are right, I am asuming that 1litre = 1kg and I do say that "approximately" 10% is Sugar, so, as you say, there is approx 1kg of sugar in 10litres of Coca Cola.
Actually it seems that adding sugar to water increases its density rather than its volume. So saying that there is approxiamtely 1kg of sugar every 10litres may be the right way to report it.Cgonzalezdelhoyo08:49, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
CocaCola in its Coca Cola Zero advertising campaing has been caught spamming and worse of all, creating a false blogg. This deceitfull, cheating and degrading behavoiur on the part of Coca Cola means we can expect anything and everything from them, and Wikipedia, with its open edit policy and its huge following (16th most visited website in the world) is a prime candidate for their vandalism. I strongly recommend administrators to take this appaling behaviour into consideration and take drastic action, possibly blocking the open edit on this article.Cgonzalezdelhoyo16:09, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Presumably this is what was referred to as "people thinking that this article is biased towards Coke"? If there's any danger in this article's balance, it is that it is being hijacked by anti-Coke protestors to make a point. Remember that we are attempting to get a neutral point of view - that is one the does not favour any side. Anything that is not verfiable and referenced is not wanted. DJR (Talk) 16:46, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Dear DJR, this information I cite is arrived at via a WP article, in particular a referrenced link that leads to an "anti-coke" blogg. In this blogg it is mentioned that the blogg created by Coca Cola lied in that it claimed to have started in June, whereas a WhoIs, shows that it was started in November. [[2]]Im not australian and had not heard of Zero Coca Cola until I stumbled on it by accident in WP. Following the links in the article I have found a huge number of bloggs and pages critizising Coca Colas Astroturf campaign, abusing the confidence we place on bloggs.
In my books, once caught lying makes you a liar, and hence my warning on this page as a company that is willing to fake logs will be tempted to edit WP articles in their favour.
You may consider me as Anti-Coke, even a protestor, but I am just a normal guy in Spain with no particular agenda other than to spread the word on this shamefull behaviour in the hope that their reputation will (justifiably) suffer so that in the future Coca Cola and other companies think twice about trying to manipulate the online community. This is simple retrobution to condemnable behaviour.
In fact, I am now drinking a diet coke and it is my favourite drink, though I normally buy Safeway Diet Cola which has a nice taste and is much cheaper. Regards Cgonzalezdelhoyo22:40, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
All well and good, but none of it matters as it infringes WP:VERIFY and WP:RS. Blogs are not even close to being a reliable source of information and an accusation of lying, regardless how many blogs suggest it, does not constitute lying unless proven as such. Furthermore, the example you state seems to be unimportant, especially in the grand scheme of things. Lying over a date? If all companies were called to task for this then the world would not exist as we know it. "Following the links in the article I have found a huge number of bloggs and pages critizising Coca Colas Astroturf campaign, abusing the confidence we place on bloggs" - this just sums it up. A blog is not a reliable source. Criticism does not equal lying. Dodgy advertisment campaigns do not abuse "the confidence we place on blogs", because as Wikipedians, we place no confidence in blogs. It is that simple. DJR (Talk) 22:51, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunatelly many people do not place any confidence on Wikipedia either.Being flawed does not mean it is exempt from telling the truth and being right. Though I agree that a blogg is not an acceptable source for wikipedia, it does nevertheless provide clear testable information i.e. that a WhoIs on the fake blogg contradicts what is stated in the blogg and that there is no record of significant activity by blogg search engine Technorati.
Furthermore, this is the talk pages and the restrictions that apply to writting an article do not have to be met here (though there are other restrictions i.e. code of conduct). I am not trying to edit the article, but I do want to point out that if Coca Cola is willing to fake a blogg they will also be interested in shaping their WP articles which most likely have more repercusion than their fake blogg in Australia. Neither am I a multibillion company whose success lies in it marketing skills.
Feel free to delete what you consider infringement, as far as I am concerned you guys are currently overseeing the page and my point has been made. Maybe you can tell me in my talk page exactly how I have violated policy, as I am still a newbie and did not think such strict restrictions where applicable to the talk pages. Regards Cgonzalezdelhoyo08:57, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Simplify Logo?
I was wondering if we could do with a direct, white-on-red, version of Coca-Cola's logo, without the image file with the beads of water on it. I wasn't aware that Wikipedia considered it appropriate to reiterate a company's subliminal marketing schemes. I have to give credit where it is due, though: at least we aren't using the ubiquitous command "Enjoy" commonly seen above the company name. Thank heavens for small favors. Kasreyn07:19, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I ditto the above - I don't see anything that wrong with the current image but if it really is a major issue then feel free to change it. DJR (Talk) 14:44, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
File:Big coca-cola.PNGThe coca-cola basic logo. Lenny08:14, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply] Well before I had even saw this I created this picture. It is the correct dimentions but because it doesn't have a shadow like on its products it seems thnner than normal. I made it myself so I can credit myself only. I also created the Coke version of the logo. Lenny12:44, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I will change it. I think it is is a very good idea. The more generic coca-cola logo is more appropriate then an outdated promotional image.
Since it's been agreed that we won't be including any criticisms of the Coca-Cola Company that are unrelated to the drink, I don't see a point in listing Criticism of Coca-Cola as a main article for the health concerns section. The article's tone and content are obviously confined to Coca-Cola the company, not Coca-Cola the drink. (The few exceptions are material that was initially expunged from this article.) Also, I will strenously oppose any attempt to cut down the section on health issues as Stbalbach implied he planned to do in this edit summary. The content of the article at the time I write this is not excessively detailed, and avoids delving into the obscure concerns of Ashkenazi Jews and other similar excess detail that was pruned from this article. There is no reason to reduce the size of this section when it has already been trimmed of irrelevant cruft, and deals broadly with the most common health concerns related to Coke. On another note, for the last time, please don't add {{fact}} to the introductory paragraph of health criticisms. An introduction does not need footnotes when the same material is dealt with in greater depth (with complete referencing, I might add) a few paragraphs away. Johnleemk | Talk18:32, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Although Pemberton intended it to be mixed with still water, it was sold at soda fountains (popularized at the time by the belief that carbonated water was good for the health). It was first mixed with carbonated water when a customer at Jacob's pharmacy came in with a bad headache and bought some Coca-Cola syrup and asked Willis Venable, the soda fountain man, to mix the syrup with (regular) water so the customer could take it immediately. The tap water faucet was at the other end of the counter, however, so Venable recommended carbonated water instead of plain and the customer agreed and said it tasted much better, and within weeks several other drugstores began mixing Coca-Cola with carbonated water. --Espoo14:26, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose that if we provide good enough summaries of the respective articles it would be ok. I dont think that the article is too long per se, given that coke is the most popular commercial drink world wide. By the way, I'm about to rewrite parts of the Criticism - Health section to briefly but clearly note its high sugar content, 106g/litre, the WHO recommendation of limiting sugar content to 10% of the diet which means that we should not drink more than one can 330ml of Coke a day. (2 cans would be 660ml, equivalent to 277,2 sugar Calories, that is more than 10% of the recommended dayly calorie intake of 2000/2500 calories for women and men respectively). I have sources for all this information.Cgonzalezdelhoyo20:50, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This article is currently featured, so I'm hesitant to split it up unless theres more than enough content for those indiivdualarticles to stand on their own. I say sandbox the dinivudal articles first and then split--larsinio(poke)(prod)21:01, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think the article length is ok as it is. It seems like it was pretty long a couple months ago, and if it grows too long again, we could perhaps split the history to its own page. I don't think there's enough information about production of Coke to warrent a separate page for that at the moment -- the section is only a few paragraphs long. Philbert2.7182801:54, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it should be split, the article is featured, it's supposed to be long. If it is split than I would seriously question its featured status, the main material would be gutted along with most of the footnotes. -- Stbalbach03:37, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Three charged with stealing Coke secrets
This has been recently in the news. It's basically a story on three people who stole secret files from Coke and tried to sell them to Pepsi.[3] If it hasn't been added to the article then I think that it should be added. Mr. C.C.15:54, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Whitespace
I think that there is some unnecessary whitespace in this article, caused by right-aligned images pushing text sections down the page. Specifically, I'm referring to the first section (the introduction) and the "Advertising" Section. Can this be resolved without editing any actual content, or would the pictures have to be resized? It just looks less clean than I think it should.
James Somers 19:24, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
This might seem insane, but I'm looking for a song. It is featured in a Coca-Cola commercial sometime back in May 2004 and I cannot find it anywhere. I've been looking for it for awhile now and the best info I could come up with is from this website's archives.
http://www.geminigirl.net/archives/000324.html#comments
Check that out and see if you recall any such exchange and get back to me. :) TommyBoy7623:50, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, no not that one. I know that tune already-- Harry Belafonte, isn't it? Plus it was at the end of Reservoir Dogs; the credits, I mean. I thought the articles above might have helped... Thanks, though. I'm glad someone responded, at least. I'd appreciate it if anyone else knew anything. Even a no is fine. --00:24, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Does anyone else think that this talk page should be archived? Some of the discussions are over two years old, and the page is currently too long for certain Internet connections. Does anyone else feel the same way? Ajwebb23:02, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As mentioned in this article, "extracted cocaine ... is used in the creation of many of the common drugs whose names end in "-caine" (such as Procaine and Lidocaine)".
-caine drugs ARE NOT cocaine derivatives! Those drugs are artificial substances, and only their action as local anaesthetics was the reason of calling them Pro-caine (also known as Novocaine), Lido-caine, and so on.
Procaine is made of paraaminobenzoic acid and dimethylaminoethanol. If any source approves that Cocaine is used in this process, this source is doubtful. Student BSMU15:21, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm a little skeptical of the claim that Coca-Cola still contains cocaine. If a source other than a book about baseball could be cited, it might have more weight.Tybo0917:50, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Coke contains trace amount of cocaine because there is no method to extract all the cocaine from coca.
Why is Coca Cola one of the most well known and popular sodas? If you ask me it's also one of the worst tasting ones... DR. PEPPER IS THE KING.--Tainted Drifter01:38, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Haven't we been through this a million times already? It's not a "POV fork", it was done for practical reasons 1) The length of the criticism section far outweighs its importance in the main article, it had taken over the article, its length is a distortion making it POV 2) the criticisms are easily long enough to warrant its own article 3) multiple articles discuss the coke critically, this aggregates them all into one location, before we had a mess of duplications across multiple articles 4) There was a very public article in the newspapers about how the Wikipedia Coke article was majority negative material attacking Coke. The "POV fork" people have not provided a rationale for why it is a POV fork, or even what that nebulous term means, and have not addressed the pragmatic reasons why this was done, nor the public embarrassment Wikipedia suffered as a result of the previous version of the article and how to prevent that from happening again. Basically, it looks like a bunch of anti-coke activists who are unhappy about being segregated. Wikipedia is not a site for activists to take over articles with negative material, it needs to remain a balanced set of articles. -- Stbalbach14:36, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Criticisms should be integrated into the body of the article rather than segregated into a specific section or a different article. This is our POV policy. Please don't remove the tag. 72.60.227.11817:28, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I oppose the merger for all of the reasons that Stbalbach already listed. The Coca-Cola article already has a section on criticisms. The full list of criticisms is just too long to have in the Coca-Cola article. Besides, this article is supposed to be about the drink itself, not the company. The criticisms article deals with criticisms of the company, not the drink. Philbert2.7182817:51, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Too difficult, it is not that clear cut. Can't talk about one without talking about the other. A single place to talk about criticisms of the product and the company makes the most sense. In fact the way it was before was split, and that record shows a mess of duplications. -- Stbalbach19:25, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I will echo the comments I made on the talk page of Microsoft. It's not against NPOV policy, please read WP:POVFORK. There is a proposed guideline for the removal of criticism articles and even there, the discussion has been moving to keep them so long as they meet NPOV themselves (by allowing rebutting points and discussing the fact that notable criticism exists and not participating in the criticism directly itself). As you will quickly see from the consensus on Microsoft and this article, these articles do not violate policy and will most likely stay in place as they are. Please do not continue adding merge headers to every article with a "Criticism of..." splitout. It would be considered vandalism to edit an article to prove a point. ju66l3r18:27, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I had a look at Criticism of Coca-Cola and it seems to me that criticisms of the product and corporate practices directly related to the product should be in this article. Criticisms of other corporate practices such as hiring, employee mistreatment etc should be at Coca-Cola Company. There should be no Criticism of Coca-Cola article - that's a POV fork pure and simple. Stevage08:37, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Too difficult, it is not that clear cut. Can't talk about one without talking about the other. A single place to talk about criticisms of the product and the company makes the most sense. In fact the way it was before it was split like you suggest, and that record shows a mess of duplications (ie. trying to talk about the India problem from only the perspective of the coke product and not the coke company results in a mess of duplications and confusion of material across different articles - basically an explosion in the amount of criticism material). Besides, we have a summary section in each article of the criticisms, it's not a POV split, it's simply a way of keeping the article in balance in terms of sheer mass of material. -- Stbalbach15:44, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Product placement
Regarding the below section, moved here from the article. I don't think it is appropriate for an encyclopedia article. It is trivia and of unending scope. All we need to say is something along the lines of, Coke does product placements, and give a few examples. A paragraph at most, 2 or 3 sentences. More interesting would be Cokes policies on product placement, how much money it makes, it's history, when it started, etc.. but listing every product placement is irrelevant and lengthy trivia in an article that is already very long. In addition the way this is worded is clearly a criticism "had its share of product placement". -- Stbalbach13:48, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
==Product Placement==
Coca-Cola has had its share of product placement in the entertainment industry. Some notable examples include:
In the film Superman II, while battling the Phantom Zone villain, General Zod, Superman throws the General into a large neo Coca-Cola logo sign that dominates the downtown Metropolis skyline. The sign is, of course, destroyed.
In the original film adaptation of Nevil Shute's On The Beach, a classic green-glass Coke bottle is used as a counterweight to secure a Morse Code key to a window shade pull string, allowing the wireless radio to transmit random Morse signals which are believed by the last survivors in Australia to be evidence that there were other survivors in North America.
In the Monkees feature film, Head, Mickey Dolenz destroys a Coke bottle vending machine with an Italian tank, a statement against the particular model of vending machine's penchant for taking a customer's change and refusing to vend its products.
In A Charlie Brown Christmas, in the "Snowball" scene, where Charlie Brown, [[Lucy] Van Pelt]], [[Linus] Van Pelt]] and Schroeder are attempting to knock a can off a fence with snowballs, the can was a Coke can in the original broadcast. All subsequent airings of this special have had the Coke can replaced with a generic, non-labled can.
In Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, Keenan Wynn's character, Sgt. "Bat" Guano, is ordered by Peter Sellers's character, Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, to shoot the lock off a Coke machine in order to secure the change inside so that Mandrake can make a collect call to the President of the United States. When shot, the machine begins dispensing large amounts of change, but as Sgt. Guano kneels to collect the change, the machine begins spewing Coke product through the bullet holes into the Sergeant's face, much to his obvious dismay.
In Alan Moore's Watchmen graphic novel series, the hero Rorschach, laments in one of his diary entries as how "Coke no longer comes in green glass bottles". At the time the graphic novel was released, Coca-Cola was primarily being bottled and sold the United States and Canada in plastic bottles and cans.
Further debate for wikipedia
Should lobbyist content be in a separate section of wikipedia, if in any? This surely would not be an unbiased opinion. Authors who confirm they do not work for lobbyists, yet do, could be considered frauds.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.38.153.29 (talk • contribs) .
Stbalbach i think you must be one. This article reeks of lobbying. Coke is healthy great. I am sure in a few years coke will be a health drink. Phosphoric acid will actually be good for you.
I still believe that somewhere on this page it should be mentioned that coke is bad for health.
You can search google and you will find lot of coke activists dead and murdered. I dont think putting that up wil be POV.
Even if you have a seperate page for "criticisms"( I call it truth) There should be a link (the size of a headline) on the top of the page directing people to visit the link for information on health of the drink.
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.101.54.184 (talk • contribs) 19:12, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
Removed text on proported use as a pesticide
I removed the following as 1) revealed to be a publicity stunt in June 7, 2005 WSJ article 2) Not in main text (this section is just a short summary)
But worst of all several Indian newspapers reported that in the state of Andhra Pradesh several cottonfarmers use colas as pest a pest control devise citind they are cheaper than teh regular pest control chemicals.[4][5][6][7][8].This piece of news was published in all major Indian Newspapers including the news agencyReuters even prompting the Atlanta based Coca-cola's spokesman to give a press brief.Jvandyke16:50, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Frank Robinson
Just noticed that clicking the Frank Robinson link under history in the main article leads to baseball player Frank Robinson who I doubt was the one and same the article's refering to.
Well, I seemed to have figured it out anyway by just removing the link tags around it. I don't know if Wikipedia has a page dedicated to the real Frank Robinson that the article refers to, but yeah, the one it was directing to wasn't it.--Hunter8501422:32, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Coca-Cola and Christmas
I moved: "Reportedly, Coca Cola has been credited/blamed for the commercialization of Christmas and for the invention of the modern day Santa Claus, as a picture of Santa Claus was featured on an advertisement for Coke sometime in the 20s, and it continued up until they sponsored the Peanuts special A Charlie Brown Christmas. Coca-Cola still, to this day, sells memorabilia featuring Santa Claus." as Coca-Cola's role with Santa is already detailed in the 'Advertising' subsection.Jvandyke06:31, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
the coke penny test
im quite surprised no ones made a posts about leaving a penny in a glass of coke to clear all the grim off. i dont know the exact statistics or the times of the experiment. maybe someone else can source some information?
Coca-Cola and Colombia
I'm moving the following as it is incorrectly sourced (killercola.org doesn't exist; I suspect the author meant the anti-Coca-Cola site killercoke.org), misleading "20000 bodies" or more appropriately addressed on Criticism of Coca-Cola as has been detailed here previously:
Listed below are union leaders at Coca-Cola's Colombian bottling plants who have been murdered. Hundreds of other Coke workers have been tortured, kidnapped and/or illegally detained by violent paramilitaries, often working closely with plant managements.
1989 Avelino Achicanoy 4/8/94 Jose Elaseasar MancoDavid 4/20/94 Luis Enrique Giraldo Arango 4/23/95 Luis Enrique Gomez Garado 12/5/96 Isidro Segundo Gil 12/26/96 Jose Librado Herrera Osorio 6/21/2001 Oscar Dario Soto Polo 8/31/2002 Adolfo de Jesus Munera Lopezsource- www.killercola.orgThere also have been mass graves with upto 20000 bodies in, these were carried out by paramilitaries with links to coca colasource-Channel 4 newsJvandyke03:40, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm... I doubt this is viable. An issue just to start is what size/packaging does your question refer to? Fountain or prepackaged retail? Cans, PET bottles, glass bottles? 12oz, 20oz, 1L or 2L? AUTiger ʃ talk/work16:09, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Good point...shall we make it a 340ml/330ml can?
'Classic' removed in Canada
According to 2L bottles in Canada, they now only say Coca-Cola, instead of Coca-Cola Classic. Is this the same elsewhere, namely the US?
Dear Whoever, in Australia it's all just Coca-Cola. I happened to be in the US when the New Coke / Classic thing occurred and was mightily amused (the 'New Coke' tasted like Pepsi to me, but I don't claim to be an expert). In fact I'm struggling to recall 'New Coke' and/or 'Classic' ever being used in Oz... Cheers, Ian Rose04:04, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry about forgetting the name, but Canada had New Coke as well, and the drink was called Coca-Cola Classic since 1985. I have found Canadian bottles without the Classic labelling, and it might be the same in the US. I am guessing that it is back to Coca-Cola in these countires. 24.78.100.2822:26, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
criticisms NPOV summary added; wikiturf warning
i haven't been following this page much, but looking at the July 2006 wikipedia (en) mailing list discussion starting here and the wikiturfing neologism, it's clear that some people are concerned about propaganda companies, a.k.a. public relations companies, trying to remove and/or hide criticisms of corporations. As is mentioned above, criticisms of an organisation should best be integrated into the article, not separated.
However, given that in this case a separate Criticism of Coca-Cola article exists, the minimum we can do to retain NPOV is to include a summary of that article here - a summary of a few paragraphs as a section here, and a one or two sentence summary in the article summary. So that's what i've tried to do. Essentially all the content i've just added is links to the headings of Criticism of Coca-Cola but converted into summary/sentence form. If someone thinks that one or more criticisms are less valid and not important for summarising, then please NPOV that on the Criticism of Coca-Cola article rather than here. Boud22:40, 4 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you read through this talk page and the talk page for The Coca-Cola Company, you'll see that this has been discussed more than once before. There are not many criticisms of Coca-Cola the drink, other than the health concerns which are already discussed in the article. Criticism of Coca-Cola relates more directly to The Coca-Cola Company. I removed the paragraph you added to the introduction to this page, because I don't think that criticisms of Coca-Cola's business practices relate to the drink itself enough to be listed so prominently on this page. Philbert2.7182823:01, 4 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In that case, there needs to be a disambiguation warning - most people will not immediately realise that this article concerns the drink rather than the company. Done. Boud16:37, 5 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
WRONG!
"In Norway they have a very big competitor to Cola. Tissemann Cola. This is an old formula, used by generations."
This if certanly not right, probably somebody have just wrote it for fun, because there is no such thing as Tissemann Cola in Norway. "Tissemann" itself actually means a bad word...
Somebody's had fun here!
I remember doing an experiment on this at school, and it *did* dissolve a tooth overnight. Now, they were milk teeth and smaller than adult, or perhaps the teacher removed it as an 'example' of how bad fizzy drinks are supposed to be?
I suspect that your teacher (or someone else) removed the tooth. It wouldn't be hard to repeat the experiment, though, if anyone happens to know someone who is expecting to lose a tooth soon. I don't know of anyone though. Philbert2.7182814:05, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Something is missing
The Great Depression, however, also saw a setback for Coca-Cola with the arrival of new competitor Pepsi; by offering twelve-ounce bottles for the same price (five cents) as Coca-Cola's six-ounce bottles, as well as a musical jingle in its advertising campaign, PepsiCo succeeded in becoming a challenger to Coca-Cola's dominance of the American market, with its profits doubling from 1936 to 1938. [HERE] to enter the(...)
I believe that something is missing in that paragraph (where noted with HERE). Maybe it would be good to check previous versions of the article and find it.
This article is SO advertising Coca-Cola. It's full of how Coca-Cola is so damn popular and it's got a great shape, and I just got a damn warning for editing a sentance at the top - okay, I was a little bit bad, but it wasn't like I replaced the article with a picture of a huge ass, which I might as well have done for the reaction I got. 86.17.163.3717:39, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I removed the following speculation from the page:
There are many people today who believe the entire "New Coke" marketing campaign, was engineered by Coca-Cola executives from start to finish. To combat rising sugar prices and increase profits and stir up interest in their product, executives suddenly took traditional pre-1985 Coca-Cola off of the market and replaced it with "New Coke" which was a product they knew was inferior because it lacked a critical ingredient. They then waited for several months for the store shelves to sell off any remaining real Coca-Cola and also for the public to forget exactly what real Coca-Cola tasted like. Then they introduced "Coca-Cola Classic" which was reformulated to use corn syrup sweetners. The interim product, "New Coke" had been a red herring and was never meant to be a success so it was gradually withdrawn from the market.Also, while purely speculation by many, this was believed to be a daring marketing ploy by Coca Cola to invigorate America's love affair with Coke once more.
Feel free to provide some credible citations.Jvandyke03:20, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This "change" is mentioned several times in this article, while in reality, Coca-Cola used both corn syrup and cane sugar(in different batches) prior to 1985, and still used both for many years after 1985. I added [citation needed] to all of these mentions I found.
If you know it to be false you should remove it, and add the correct information. Add a fact tag only if your not sure and don't know what they did. Fact tags are not free rides to have bad information in the article. -- Stbalbach15:09, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
High Fructose Corn Syrup
I believe that the number one ingredient of a soft drink is very pertinent to the introductory paragraph about that particular soft drink. It is as important as stating that it is carbonated. While high fructose corn syrup never does flow well it would be inaccurate to claim it is high in sugar since high fructose corn syrup is neither a sugar nor is it corn syrup. Moreover I find it offensive that you labeled my comment as being vandalism when it was neither obscene, inaccurate, or irrelevant to the subject matter. While reasonable men may disagree as to whether my comment belongs in the opening paragraph I find it outrageous that it has been classified as vandalism.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Laspakis (talk • contribs)
I did not mean for my edit summary to suggest your edit was vandalism. I was refering to the edits by User:67.173.72.143, who deleted a large section and replaced it with "Coke was made cause people copied it from Pepsi." I removed the edit because its tone did not fit with an informed, succinct, intro for the layman. - TrevorMacInnis (Contribs) 04:02, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Drink of the south
you might be shot and lynched if you try to drink a pepsi in rural parts of the south with the exception of north carolina and Texas.
(Talk) 16:51, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
