Talk:Foundation Medicine

Expanding and updating the article

Hi there. I’m an employee of Foundation Medicine who is interested in improving this page. I understand that my job creates a conflict of interest, so in lieu of editing myself, I’m posting here to find another editor to help. I’ve also posted the required disclosure at the top of the page—let me know if you have questions about my intentions/efforts here.

I’ve already drafted an updated article for consideration—take a look here. Ideally, I’d like someone to review what I’m proposing, give feedback, and, once the draft is in good shape, move the new material to the live article.

My main goal is to provide more detail about the company’s history and products, since there is quite a bit of information out there about the company that is not currently reflected in this entry.

I made sure to familiarize myself with Wikipedia's content policies before writing and I tried to maintain a neutral point of view and use only verifiable, published sources. If there are are areas where editors think I can improve, please let me know. In particular, I’d love to help making sure scientific concepts related to Foundation Medicine’s offerings are stated as simply as possible while remaining thorough and accurate.

I’m very open to collaboration and excited to work with the community to contribute to the project. Thanks in advance for your help! Fmidan (talk) 20:45, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Reply 09-FEB-2018

Here are seven tips to start out with.

1. There needs to be a clear delineation between the company Foundation Medicine and their product, Foundation One. As it stands now, the article makes mere mention of the product. The draft version expands this coverage exponentially. Despite however counterintuitive it sounds, the article's focus should be on the company itself, and not its products. There should be, in one sense, the company-only page. Then, in another sense (if necessary) you would have the product-only page, and the twain should never meet. If the products require their own page, this information ought to be placed in a draft version and sent to WP:AFC.
2. No less than half the draft version is information on products and partnerships. The company's own actions, taken irrespective of developments with either its products or its partnerships, should be the focus here. Any partnerships, like the products mentioned in point no 1, should be given only a minimal summary. More on that in point 3.
3. Merely being true, or even verifiable, does not automatically make something suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia. An article should not become a complete exposition of all possible details, but rather, a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject. Verifiable and sourced statements, like the ones in your draft, are always judged according to the reference's appropriate weight. This means that references are judged on their individual contributions to the article, and whether or not those contributions are necessary.
4. I would discourage the use of Forbes as a reference.
5. In journal articles where more than 3 authors are listed, the use of et al. is suggested.
6. Journals given as references with page ranges rather than one specific page number. The page numbers where information is to be found should always be communicated first and foremost. The page range parameter in citation templates is rarely used or required in Wikipedia, and when they are, it's usually because the page itself was not given.
7. As the company is majority owned by Hoffman-La Roche, it might be a good idea to differentiate in the article how Foundation Health continues to be distinct from its parent organization.
8. When you're ready, please be sure to change the template's answer parameter from yes to no. This will notify editors that you and your draft version are both ready to proceed.

Spintendo ᔦᔭ 02:44, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

References

Thank you so much for the thorough review and guidance, Spintendo. Before I revise the draft, I have a few follow-up questions and thoughts that I’d love to get your responses to:

• The company has several products, not just Foundation One, which is why I felt the expansion was necessary. How would you feel about just trimming the description of each product to just a sentence or two?
• The company’s actions have primarily centered around product development and partnerships. Does this mean you’d like this article to only be a History section? Or would it work to simply streamline the information in those sections a bit?
• I can change the journal citations—thanks for the feedback. I just used a generator I found linked on the Help:Citation_tools page.
• Are there specific details or references that you take issue with?
• Is there a reason you discourage ‘’’Forbes’’’ as a source?

Thanks! Fmidan (talk) 22:21, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Reply 28-FEB-2018

1. Trimming the product description to one or two sentences (depending on the length of each sentence) is the way to go. It's good to keep in mind that these should be summarized descriptions of what the products are, not detailed recountings of their development, developers, or other trivial matters such as patient usage statistics or the like.
2. If the company partnerships are varied and numerous, they may be mentioned through the use of a cladogram, which is used specifically to describe relationships.
3. Some of Forbes' authors are professionally vetted and, in some cases, may have credentials that allow the specific author to qualify under the self-published source criteria (established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications). That being said, much of Forbes content also contains articles by paid contributors, similar to a content farm. In the end, much of Forbes' reliability comes down to using only particular authors from them, and never using them for things such as third-party citations on statements regarding living people, for example.
4. As far as references, I and other editors would have problems with source's connected to the company, such as itself or its partners. Publications which cater to the biologics/pharmaceuticals industry (MedTech Boston, MedCityNews, HemOnc, Genome Web, GEN, etc.) are also to be avoided, as are publications which cater only to the business industry (Boston Business Journal, Forbes, 4-Traders) since the readership for those publications is mightily different than Wikipedia's, which are broader and more generalized. Pieces written in those publications also tend to originate from the company itself, with little to no fact checking done from the outside.

Regards, Spintendo      01:26, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

New thread for updated draft review--plus infobox request

Hi there!

After submitting an article draft earlier this year and receiving great feedback, I've reworked my draft (trimming info, updating sources and citations, moving sections to make it easier for readers to understand what Foundation Medicine does) and I'm posting here to see if an editor can review. Also during this time, the company has had some major news (acquisition by Roche, CMS approval of FoundationOne CDX) that I included in this update. See above for background on my first draft.

Updated draft is here.

For those new to this page, I am an employee of the company, so I'm putting forth these updates for others to make if they think they're an improvement. In following the COI guidelines, I won't directly edit the article.

If the draft still needs some work, would it be possible for an editor to update the infobox in the meantime? In particular, some of the key staff listed are no longer with the company, we have more employees, and the products are different. Updates are in the collapse box (and in my draft).

infobox

Foundation Medicine, Inc.

Headquarters	Cambridge, Massachusetts , United States
Key people	Troy Cox (CEO) Jason Ryan (CFO) Tom Civik (CCO) Vincent Miller, M.D. (CMO) Melanie Nallicheri (CBO)
Products	FoundationOne FoundationOneHeme FoundationACT FoundationOne CDx Foundation Insights FoundationSmartTrials
Owners	Roche
Number of employees	501-1,000 (July 2018)
Website	Official website

References

I appreciate anyone taking the time to read this note. Let me know if you have questions. Thanks! Fmidan (talk) 15:34, 21 July 2018 (UTC)