Wikipedia:WikiProject Companies

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Welcome to the Companies WikiProject, a collaboration area and group of editors dedicated to improving Wikipedia's coverage of Companies.

Introduction

Goals

Our goal is to improve the depth and breadth of coverage in Wikipedia of notable companies and to bring as many of these articles to good / featured status as possible.

Scope

Notable for-profit companies, businesses & corporations, no matter where based, whether public or private, existing or merged/liquidated.

Self-Promotion/Conflict of Interest

As Wikipedia's popularity has increased there have been instances of companies or individuals working at companies creating or modifying articles in order to make their company appear more favorably. This practice is in violation of Wikipedia policies and is frowned upon by the community in general and this WikiProject. If you are one of those persons you are asked to read WP:BFAQ which will help you to understand why this practice is an issue.

In addition, please read rating criteria guidelines when adding a page to the WP:Companies project to ensure that you do not appear to be trying to boost a company's visibility on Wikipedia for a gain.

Milestones 2004: page Wikipedia:Companies, corporations and economic information emerges from Wikipedia:Village pump discussion 2004: Template:Infobox Company created 2005: Canadian Pacific Railway, Bank of China (Hong Kong), BC Rail, Pan American World Airways and Microsoft become first five company featured articles 2007: El Al, Biman Bangladesh Airlines and BAE Systems become featured articles 2007: WikiProject Companies established; WikiProject Banner created 2007: monitoring starts (193 articles) 2007: Dell and Blue Network designated as Class-A articles 2007: WikiProject reaches 1000 articles 2008: Oliver Typewriter Company, Holden and Elderly Instruments become featured articles 2008: WikiProject reaches 2000 articles 2008: List of acquisitions by eBay becomes the project's first featured list 2008: WikiProject reaches 3000 articles

Companies pages by quality Quality Total Assessed 0 Total 0

Guidelines

Further information: Wikipedia:WikiProject Companies/Guidelines

A set of guidelines regarding the content and structure of articles about companies was put together in mid-2007. This is currently only a rough draft, so please feel free to contribute your thoughts so that consensus can be reached.

Open tasks

Primary Task

Right now we need to concentrate on massive and aggressive growth, this is a relatively new project with a vast amount of articles to cover. There are possibly tens of thousands of company pages out there. Please go through and tag as many as you can, taking care to edit the importance and quality of the tag. It would be a good idea to start off by going down the Fortune 500 list and tagging every company on it. If you come across a company, tag it. If you see a company in the wikinews, tag it. If you know someone who would be useful to us, ask them to join our project. Mostly, tag, tag, tag, and when you done tagging, tag. Happy editing! Paco8191 06:11, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Task Forces

Some editors have established task forces in order to focus efforts on a particular industry. Please support those that you have an interest in by signing up!

Private Equity

Further information: Wikipedia:WikiProject Companies/PrivateEquity

This new task force will work with other WikiProjects to improve coverage of private equity firms and other private equity related topics. As this initiative evolves, we hope to improve coverage of private equity aspects of companies broadly but will focus initially on improving the quality and depth of coverage of the industry itself.

1. |► ϋrbanяenewaℓ • TALK ◄|

State-Owned Companies

As a new member to the WikiProject, I realize it's a bit early for me to be working on a task force. However, I believe it would be beneficial for us as a group, and for wikipedia in general if someone went around and put most state/nation owned franchises and companies into one blanket category. This project would cover any corporation or otheriwse in which a government is either the majority shareholder, or a major figurehead.

1. Ennui2778 (talk · contribs)
2. Paco8191 (talk · contribs)
3. Shanbhag.rohan (talk · contribs)

Health industry

Further information: Wikipedia:WikiProject Companies/Health Industry Task Force

Many articles about health care companies seem to be more like brochures than proper encyclopedic entries. Further, in the wake of the film Sicko, enhanced/expanded coverage of the global healthcare industry, from managed care to pharmaceuticals to hospitals would seem timely as well as beneficial to our readers. Also, this project could cover health services, such as spas, and over-the-counter health products, such as diet pills (if we cover products as well).

1. Stevietheman (talk · contribs)
2. Ceyockey (talk · contribs)

Record Labels

Further information: Wikipedia:WikiProject Companies/Record Labels Task Force

There are many articles about active and defunct record labels that need to be cleaned up and need references, this task force will also help to categorize the articles for different record labels. Please see the Task Force page for more.

Related projects

• WikiProject Oregon/Companies – Sub-project of WikiProject Oregon dedicated to companies based in that state.
• WikiProject Retailing – Project dedicated to retail company articles.

• WikiProject Business and Economics – Project that previously included companies within their scope. It is likely you will find their banner on many company talk pages.

• WikiProject Organizations – Project that indicates that its scope includes all organizations.

• WikiProject Cooperatives – Project about cooperatives, often considered to be a type of company. There is probably no need to tag an article for both company and cooperative projects. Project also includes general articles about cooperatives, cooperative economics, and notable writers and business people.

Active Participants

See also: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Companies/Member information and Category:WikiProject Companies participants

There is also a list of Inactive/Infrequent Participants

Please feel free to add yourself here, and to indicate any areas of particular interest. You may also be interested in adding the WikiProject Userbox, {{User wikipedia/WikiProject Companies}}, to your User Page (see #Userbox for more details).

addition of "^A" indicates the member is an active admin

1. Richc80 (talk · contribs) (founder, specifically interested in financial services companies)
2. Stevietheman (talk · contribs) (interested in enhancing coverage of the global health industry)
3. JRWalko (talk · contribs)
4. Arsenikk (talk · contribs) (mainly working on Norwegian companies, otherwise mostly transport, finance, media and industry but also others)
5. Aeons (talk · contribs) (Primarily corporations involved in technology, but also a general interest in other types of companies)
6. Saganaki- (talk · contribs) Interested in data aggregation and credit companies
7. PhilKnight (talk · contribs)^A
8. elcobbola (talk · contribs) (interested in US companies with origins around the turn of the 20th century and companies with ties to Germany)
9. Pocopocopocopoco (talk · contribs) (Interested in companies privatized from the former soviet union, also dabble in other areas)
10. Basketball110 (talk · contribs) (Interested in W. European companies, and North Texas)
11. Pearrari (talk · contribs) Financial services, IT
12. Susanlesch (talk · contribs) mainly inactive
13. FSX High Flyer (talk · contribs) Creating articles for little-known companies (eg foreign)
14. UnitedStatesian (talk · contribs) Pretty much roam everywhere.
15. Antandrus (talk · contribs) Energy companies, royalty trusts, investment firms, REITs, various other things. I like to start articles from redlinks, and like to copyedit to annihilate corporate cliches and promo-speak.
16. ilikepie2221 (talk · contribs) Badicly roaming on anything needing help
17. Ceyockey (talk · contribs)^A Formerly involved in WP:AFD monitoring related to this WikiProject, though this activity has now dropped to near zero based on questionable benefit for WikiProject participants; currently working small amounts here and there without a real focus. Most of my wikinergy is spent on the Anthroponymy WikiProject.
18. Russavia (talk · contribs) Will attempt to build up companies in the former USSR, and also other more forgotten about countries. A member of WP:AIRLINES, so will also concentrate on bringing these more inline with the fact they are companies also.
19. Shanbhag.rohan (talk · contribs)
20. Wikidea (talk · contribs). Company lawyer. Wasn't attracted by the ad saying 'Like Capitalism? Join Wikiproject Companies!' But I mean to help anyway!
21. Guy1423 (talk) 13:58, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
22. DiamondElusive (talk · contribs) (talk) 15:06 14 April 2008 (UTC)
23. |► ϋrbanяenewaℓ • TALK ◄| Working on building out section of notable private equity firms under the scope of the Private Equity Task Force
24. dgrizzell (talk · contribs) Financial Institutions interest.
25. Gr1st (talk · contribs) Western European companies of particular interest.
26. Leejweb (talk · contribs) Technology companies in the U.S.
27. Luzdanoite (talk · contribs) I personally find the "like capitalism?" ad a bit ludicrous but nonetheless... I work corporate media monitoring/summarising. Geographically specialist in the UK.
28. Itemirus (talk · contribs) I contribute once in a while
29. Henry Park (talk · contribs) Mobile products and IT companies.
30. BulldozerD11 (talk · contribs) UK companies, Construction, Engineering, mainly with a Yorkshire,& Derbyshire connection
31. Buyoof (talk · contribs) - At the moment interested in Russian companies, as well as investment firms and the financial sector.
32. Colliff (talk · contribs)Non-profits

Templates

Userbox

Several editors have contributed to the creation of a WikiProject Companies Userbox that you can add to your User Page to indicate your affiliation with this project.

Code for the Userbox:

{{User wikipedia/WikiProject Companies}}

How the Userbox appears:

This user participates in
WikiProject Companies.

Company Infobox

Further information: Template:Infobox Company

This is an infobox template that has been under development since November 2004. It contains fields for most major summary and overview data for a company.

Defunct Company Infobox

Further information: Template:Infobox Defunct company

This is a relatively recent infobox development, created in May 2006. Documentation remains poor and there are only four fields presently: fate (text), foundation (date), defunct (date), location (text).

Project Banner

See also: Template:WikiProject Companies

Several editors have contributed to the creation of a WikiProject Companies Project Banner that can be affixed to the talk page associated with an article to indicate that it is in-scope for this WikiProject.

Code for the Banner:

{{WikiProject Companies}}

     or, when assigning class and importance parameters

{{WikiProject Companies | class = | importance = }}

     parameterized for most common usage

{{WikiProject Companies | class = stub | importance = low }}

How the Banner appears ... with class and importance not assigned:

How the Banner appears ... with class = stub and importance = high:

The "class" and "importance" scales are explained in more detail below. These parameters are common across many WikiProjects; in the case of this WikiProject, generic meanings for the Class scale values are used while WikiProject Companies-specific values and meanings are used for the Importance scale. Remember that only particular values are useful for each of these parameters; values other than those listed below will be interpreted as if no value were provided at all:

For "class"

only values ... stub, start, C, B, GA, A and FL or FA are allowed

For "importance"

only values ... low, mid, high and top are allowed

Class scale

WikiProject article quality grading scheme

Class	Criteria	Reader's experience	Editing suggestions	Example
FA	The article has attained featured article status by passing an in-depth examination by impartial reviewers from WP:Featured article candidates. More detailed criteria The article meets the featured article criteria: A featured article exemplifies Wikipedia's very best work and is distinguished by professional standards of writing, presentation, and sourcing. In addition to meeting the policies regarding content for all Wikipedia articles, it has the following attributes. It is: well-written: its prose is engaging and of a professional standard; comprehensive: it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context; well-researched: it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature; claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by inline citations where appropriate; neutral: it presents views fairly and without bias; stable: it is not subject to ongoing edit wars and its content does not change significantly from day to day, except in response to the featured article process; and compliant with Wikipedia's copyright policy and free of plagiarism or too-close paraphrasing. It follows the style guidelines, including the provision of: a lead: a concise lead section that summarizes the topic and prepares the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections; appropriate structure: a substantial but not overwhelming system of hierarchical section headings; and consistent citations: where required by criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using footnotes—see citing sources for suggestions on formatting references. Citation templates are not required. Media. It has images and other media, where appropriate, with succinct captions and acceptable copyright status. Images follow the image use policy. Non-free images or media must satisfy the criteria for inclusion of non-free content and be labeled accordingly. Length. It stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail and uses summary style where appropriate.	Professional, outstanding, and thorough; a definitive source for encyclopedic information.	No further content additions should be necessary unless new information becomes available; further improvements to the prose quality are often possible.	Cleopatra (as of June 2018)
FL	The article has attained featured list status by passing an in-depth examination by impartial reviewers from WP:Featured list candidates. More detailed criteria The article meets the featured list criteria: Prose. It features professional standards of writing. Lead. It has an engaging lead that introduces the subject and defines the scope and inclusion criteria. Comprehensiveness. (a) It comprehensively covers the defined scope, providing at least all of the major items and, where practical, a complete set of items; where appropriate, it has annotations that provide useful and appropriate information about the items. (b) statements are sourced where they appear, and they provide inline citations if they contain any of the four kinds of material absolutely required to have citations. (c) In length and/or topic, it meets all of the requirements for stand-alone lists; does not violate the content-forking guideline, does not largely duplicate material from another article, and could not reasonably be included as part of a related article. Structure. It is easy to navigate and includes, where helpful, section headings and table sort facilities. Style. It complies with the Manual of Style and its supplementary pages. (a) Visual appeal. It makes suitable use of text layout, formatting, tables, and colour; and a minimal proportion of items are redlinked. (b) Media files. It has images and other media, if appropriate to the topic, that follow Wikipedia's usage policies, with succinct captions. Non-free images and other media satisfy the criteria for the inclusion of non-free content and are labeled accordingly. (c) Accessibility. It uses proper formating to be accessible to all readers. Bulleted and unbulleted lists and tables are structured correctly. Visual media, if included, utilize alternative (alt) text. Stability. It is not the subject of ongoing edit wars and its content does not change significantly from day to day, except in response to the featured list process.	Professional standard; it comprehensively covers the defined scope, usually providing a complete set of items, and has annotations that provide useful and appropriate information about those items.	No further content additions should be necessary unless new information becomes available; further improvements to the prose quality are often possible.	List of dates predicted for apocalyptic events (as of May 2018)
A	The article is well organized and essentially complete, having been examined by impartial reviewers from a WikiProject or elsewhere. Good article status is not a requirement for A-Class. More detailed criteria The article meets the A-Class criteria: Provides a well-written, clear and complete description of the topic, as described in Wikipedia:Article development. It should be of a length suitable for the subject, appropriately structured, and be well referenced by a broad array of reliable sources. It should be well illustrated, with no copyright problems. Only minor style issues and other details need to be addressed before submission as a featured article candidate. See the A-Class assessment departments of some of the larger WikiProjects (e.g. WikiProject Military history).	Very useful to readers. A fairly complete treatment of the subject. A non-expert in the subject would typically find nothing wanting.	Expert knowledge may be needed to tweak the article, and style problems may need solving. WP:Peer review may help.	Battle of Nam River (as of June 2014)
GA	The article meets all of the good article criteria, and has been examined by one or more impartial reviewers from WP:Good article nominations. More detailed criteria A good article is: Well-written: the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct; and it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation. Verifiable with no original research: it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline; reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose); it contains no original research; and it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism. Broad in its coverage: it addresses the main aspects of the topic; and it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style). Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio: media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content; and media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	Useful to nearly all readers, with no obvious problems; approaching (though not necessarily equalling) the quality of a professional publication.	Some editing by subject and style experts is helpful; comparison with an existing featured article on a similar topic may highlight areas where content is weak or missing.	Discovery of the neutron (as of April 2019)
B	The article meets all of the B-Class criteria. It is mostly complete and does not have major problems, but requires some further work to reach good article standards. More detailed criteria The article is suitably referenced, with inline citations. It has reliable sources, and any important or controversial material which is likely to be challenged is cited. Any format of inline citation is acceptable: the use of <ref> tags and citation templates such as {{cite web}} is optional. The article reasonably covers the topic, and does not contain obvious omissions or inaccuracies. It contains a large proportion of the material necessary for an A-Class article, although some sections may need expansion, and some less important topics may be missing. The article has a defined structure. Content should be organized into groups of related material, including a lead section and all the sections that can reasonably be included in an article of its kind. The article is reasonably well-written. The prose contains no major grammatical errors and flows sensibly, but does not need to be of the standard of featured articles. The Manual of Style does not need to be followed rigorously. The article contains supporting materials where appropriate. Illustrations are encouraged, though not required. Diagrams, an infobox etc. should be included where they are relevant and useful to the content. The article presents its content in an appropriately understandable way. It is written with as broad an audience in mind as possible. The article should not assume unnecessary technical background and technical terms should be explained or avoided where possible.	Readers are not left wanting, although the content may not be complete enough to satisfy a serious student or researcher.	A few aspects of content and style need to be addressed. Expert knowledge may be needed. The inclusion of supporting materials should be considered if practical, and the article checked for general compliance with the Manual of Style and related style guidelines.	Psychology (as of January 2024)
C	The article is substantial but is still missing important content or contains irrelevant material. The article should have some references to reliable sources, but may still have significant problems or require substantial cleanup. More detailed criteria The article cites more than one reliable source and is better developed in style, structure, and quality than Start-Class, but it fails one or more of the criteria for B-Class. It may have some gaps or missing elements, or need editing for clarity, balance, or flow.	Useful to a casual reader, but would not provide a complete picture for even a moderately detailed study.	Considerable editing is needed to close gaps in content and solve cleanup problems.	Wing (as of June 2018)
Start	An article that is developing but still quite incomplete. It may or may not cite adequate reliable sources. More detailed criteria The article has a meaningful amount of good content, but it is still weak in many areas. The article has one or more of the following: A useful picture or graphic Multiple links that help explain or illustrate the topic A subheading that fully treats an element of the topic Multiple subheadings that indicate material that could be added to complete the article	Provides some meaningful content, but most readers will need more.	Providing references to reliable sources should come first; the article also needs substantial improvement in content and organisation. Also improve the grammar, spelling, writing style and improve the jargon use.	Ball (as of September 2014)
Stub	A very basic description of the topic. Meets none of the Start-Class criteria.	Provides very little meaningful content; may be little more than a dictionary definition. Readers probably see insufficiently developed features of the topic and may not see how the features of the topic are significant.	Any editing or additional material can be helpful. The provision of meaningful content should be a priority. The best solution for a Stub-class Article to step up to a Start-class Article is to add in referenced reasons of why the topic is significant.	Lineage (anthropology) (as of December 2014)
List	Meets the criteria of a stand-alone list or set index article, which is an article that contains primarily a list, usually consisting of links to articles in a particular subject area.	There is no set format for a list, but its organization should be logical and useful to the reader.	Lists should be lists of live links to Wikipedia articles, appropriately named and organized.	List of literary movements

Importance scale

Article importance grading scheme

Label	Criteria	Examples
Top	Companies of top importance are major, international corporations that are usually found on the Fortune Global 100. Their actions influence the global economy on both a longterm and day to day basis. These companies are both famous and established, oftentimes spurring major cultural shifts and changing the way people run their daily lives. Some companies may not have achieved the global scale of these companies, yet have heavily influenced our way of life and set the standard for a particular field of business may also be included as top companies, Example: Southwest Airlines. These may also include defunct companies such as Bell.	Walmart, Ford, Coca-Cola, and Microsoft
High	Companies in the high category are still very important, and are usually found on the Fortune Global 500 list. These companies are less international then many top companies, but are still very well known and extremely influential on a national level.	Walgreens, Halliburton, EA Games, Jet Blue, and Hallmark
Mid	Companies of a mid-level importance are large, profitable corporations which exist on a regional level; Or they may be national companies which mainly function in the background and aren't commonly known outside of financial circles.	Wegmans, Buffalo News, and Conrail.
Low	Companies in this category are minor subsidiaries or local small businesses.	Mighty Taco

New, current, and defunct companies should all be tagged and ranked. Some of the companies above are of mid importance, some high, and some top. Just because the final, current company is of top importance (att), does not make all of its predecessors such a level.

Article templates

Stub templates are listed: Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types#Companies

Portal Banner

{{Portal}} can be affixed at the bottom of an article to indicate that it is in-scope for the companies portal.

Code: {{Portal|Companies|Factory.svg}}

How it appears ...

{{British Royal Warrant holders}}

Series navigation box for the bottom of articles of companies with current British Royal Warrants

Add this code {{British Royal Warrant holders}} to get this:

Resources

WikiProject subpages

There are a number of subpages associated with WikiProject Companies. These are enumerated in this All pages with prefix search for Main space and this All pages with prefix search for Talk space.

Articles nominated for deletion

Further information: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Companies § Articles nominated for deletion

Notes to Editors

Brand Names

Please do not banner-tag notable brand names (e.g. Crest toothpaste, Vaio computers, different models of car, etc.), rather tag the company that owns said brand. Record labels and book imprints may either have the status of a brand or a company. In other words, a company may have many record labels or it may have a single label and the label and company identity may be inseparable; in the latter case, it would be suitable to banner-tag the article.

Establishing Notability

• Google News news.google.com - There is also the Archive section for less recent news articles.
• The {{find}} template could also be useful.

Company Statistics/Financial Information

The website of most companies is typically a good place to start to find out about the company itself. Generally financial reports, investor information and press releases are available.

For publicly traded companies in the US:

• SEC EDGAR Database www.sec.gov/edgar
• Google Finance finance.google.com
• Yahoo! Finance finance.yahoo.com

For publicly traded companies in Canada:

• Canadian Securities Administrators SEDAR Database http://www.sedar.com/ (English)

For publicly traded companies worldwide, Corporate Information provides basic financial data for free for more than 31,000 corporations.

(For more information on WikiProjects, please see Wikipedia:WikiProject and the Guide to WikiProjects).