User talk:Cafedot

Why did you revert my change to Electronic news gathering, restoring the linkspam that Hautespot (talk · contribs) added? —Caesura ^(t) 03:44, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry about the confusion; wasn't sure that you were the same person as Hautespot. Thanks for changing your username.

There are really three separate problems. The first is that linking to a company Web site from within an article, as you did on Electronic news gathering and Outside broadcasting, is almost always inappropriate, no matter what the company. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and not a collection of links, an advertiser, or a way for people to find companies to serve their needs.

The second problem is notability. A big difference between HauteLine and Motorola is that Motorola is an incredibly well-known, established company. We have a notability guideline that makes this more concrete; see Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies). This describes what a company needs in order to be considered "notable" and hence suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia. In short, the company needs to have been covered substantially in reliable secondary sources. If you can cite articles about HauteLine in respected newspapers, that would go a long way to establishing notability.

The third problem is conflict of interest. Editors are strongly discouraged from writing on topics in which they have a personal interest, such as companies they work for or own. Wikipedia:Conflict of interest describes the reason for this guideline and provides details. If editors with a conflict of interest fail to take a neutral point of view, they cross the line into spam.

In short, you are more than welcome to contribute to articles in which you have special expertise. However, adding content on your own company is problematic for a number of reasons. If you insist on doing it, you should at least exercise extreme caution to make sure to abide by the policies I have cited. I hope this clears things up. —Caesura ^(t) 04:06, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Question about notability

In the article that I edited there were references to the following companies with links to their web sites: Sat-Comm, Bickford Broadcast Vehicles, E-N-G, Frontline, Wolfcoach, SES Americom, and IntelSat. With the possible exception of IntelSat, I would hardly say that any of these companies are notable. There is no referencing, no articles to substantiate their viability as a notable company. Seems pretty arbitrary to me to allow their links but not mine.

I will go back and rewrite my articles so that we take out all references to the company.

If you had to describe Jell-o when it was first released as a product, or iPod what would you title the article? How do you describe it in a familiar way without referring to the brand name? Just because something is well advertised, would it qualify here? If I had $100M to spend on a Superbowl ad to create awareness of our protocol's brand name would it qualify. As a small company our good idea is relegated to an obscure technical description which nobody will be able to find. How would you know to search for "sweetened gelatin based dessert product" when you knew that it was Jell-o you wanted to find? How would you know to search for "highly asymmetric OFDM wireless protocol for streaming high definition video" when you wanted to learn about HauteLine?

I guess I am trying to move Gibraltar. Seems that the rules are stacked against innovation by small companies.

Thanks for you input.

Sure enough, you're 100 percent right about the other companies. I didn't even notice them when I was reverting your changes. This is not preferred practice, but now I understand why you felt it was appropriate to add your own link. Per Wikipedia:External links#Points to remember: "External links should typically not be in the body of an article." I'm going to bed right now, but I may take a look at this article tomorrow to see if I can bring it closer in line with the guidelines (by getting rid of those links or at the very least pushing them out of the body).

To answer your hypothetical question about Jell-O and iPods: Wikipedia does not report on products or technologies that are so novel that they haven't even been covered in reliable secondary sources. The saying around here is that Wikipedia is not a crystal ball; state-of-the-edge research and development is not really suitable for an encyclopedia until it is widespread and notable enough to be covered in reliable secondary sources. (Another relevant policy may be Wikipedia:No original research.) If Wikipedia had been around in 1845 when Peter Cooper was patenting the first gelatin dessert, we would not have allowed him to create an article on it, because it just wasn't notable. Instead, we would have told him to wait a few years until the company became genuinely notable.

No, a Superbowl advertisement would not (in my mind) qualify as a reliable secondary source. But an article (not a press release) in a reputable newspaper (preferably multiple articles in multiple newspapers) would.

Wikipedia is not here to promote businesses, but to give people information on topics that are already notable. I really would recommend you don't think of Wikipedia as a way to promote your company, because if you do, you'll just get frustrated by the policies that are designed to confound exactly that. —Caesura ^(t) 04:57, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I've removed all external links from Electronic news gathering (since they were all inline links to company Web pages). I've also restored the text you wrote, minus the promotion of your own company. Thanks for pointing out the inconsistency. —Caesura ^(t) 17:21, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Spectrum Diveristy Link Aggregation

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

If you can indicate why the subject of this article is not blatant advertising, you may contest the tagging. To do this, please add {{hangon}} on the top of the article and leave a note on the article's talk page explaining your position. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would help make it encyclopedic, as well as adding any citations from reliable sources to ensure that the article will be verifiable. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you have any questions about this. Cheers,Je t Lover (Report a mistake) 03:54, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy deletion of Spectrum Diveristy Link Aggregation

A tag has been placed on Spectrum Diveristy Link Aggregation requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section G12 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article appears to be a blatant copyright infringement. For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material, and as a consequence, your addition will most likely be deleted. You may use external websites as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences. This part is crucial: say it in your own words.

If the external website belongs to you, and you want to allow Wikipedia to use the text — which means allowing other people to modify it — then you must include on the external site the statement "I, (name), am the author of this article, (article name), and I release its content under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 and later." You might want to look at Wikipedia's policies and guidelines for more details, or ask a question here.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the article (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the article's talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the article meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. —Travis ^talk 04:00, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]