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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus to delete, default to keep. Sandstein 14:20, 1 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM) advertising controversy

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The Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM) advertising controversy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
  • This article does not satisfy Notability, as I understand it.
  • Also, it is based on a couple of blogs, by Gaurav Sabnis and Rashmi Bansal. Both of them are alumnus of competing institutions, which makes them biased. In addition, I dont see how 2 bloggers (both from IIM, which competes with IIPM), can come up with some unverfied accusation, and post them on Wikipedia, as part of some college student slander campaign. This reduces Wikipedia's integrity and credibility.
  • I also believe that since blogs are self-published, Wikipedia does not count them are verifiable sources.
  • Further, another source used in the article is Businessworld, a magazine where Rashmi Bansal is an editor, and therefore is also biased.
  • And finally, Rashmi Bansal, whose college newsletter JAMMAG published the first article, has a warrant for her arrest in relation to content on another issue in her magazine. that adds to the fact that she is not a credible source. You can read about her on Google News.
  • The article is largesly uncited, and significant portions are quoted incorrectly from sources that are in any case not conforming to Notability and Verifiability.
  • For those of you not from India, IIPM has over 5000 MBA students studying, and over 50,000 alumni in the past 30 years. It has 400 companies including FORTUNE 500 and India's largest firms recruiting. The institute publishes leading business magazines. The Director is a respected economist and professor. The Dean has recieved numberous awards and is a best selling author who has lectured widely in the EU and US. The faculty teach alongside Ivy League faculty.
  • Notability of the institute is clear from this Financial Times newspaper article and another earlier Financial Times article. In addition, IIPM's official site has an archive of press clipping here and here.
  • In fact, this article has been contentious for over a year, but because experienced bloggers were familiar with Wikipedia, they were able to keep adding to the article and reverting changes withouta discussion. I am trying to work on the main article on IIPM as well, which has been partially protect for now.

Thank you in advance for your help in this matter

Dear Hornplease, you have not addressed any of the issues in the Delete notice, which I will assume you have read. Please do so, sir. There are over 10 reasons, each of which is self-sufficient, for this article to be deleted. In addition, Wikipedia is not the place for this topic, which, as you describe it 'as it relates to blogs' and 'notable instance and precedent...especially for Indian bloggers'.
Allow me to quote from [Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not]:
Opinions on current affairs is a particular case of the previous item. Although current affairs may stir passions and tempt people to "climb soapboxes" (i.e. passionately advocate their pet point of view), Wikipedia is not the medium for this. Articles must be balanced so as to put entries for current affairs in a reasonable perspective. Furthermore, Wikipedia authors should strive to write articles that will not quickly become obsolete.
I urge you to consider creating an article in Wiki commons. or Wikinfo, which might serve your purpose better. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, and if we try to follow the KISS principle, and avoid instruction creep, Wikipedia should have an IIPM article with a criticism section that mentions this blog issue. It does. And thats a good article that we can make better. I hope you agree with me, or we can continue this dialogue.--Iipmstudent9 11:54, 27 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you wish to avoid lengthy criticism of Arindam and his institute taking up large amounts of the IIPM main page, it would be best to let this article stay; I address this to you if you are concerned primarily with their reputations. (Note that we typically try to avoid main articles that are mainly criticism).
Please note that none of the reasons given above indicate that the issue itself is non-notable; at best they indicate a content dispute. That is not grounds for deletion. The notability of the issue is unquestionable in that several mainstream sources -WP:RS will explain what they are - discuss the controversy. Hornplease 19:17, 27 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hornplease, what I wish matters little, no? Similarly, your advice on what is best, is, with all due respect, irrelevant. What does matter is Wikipedia's five pillars - and the Notability principle does not cover a topic such as this 'controversy'. Wikipedia is not meant for articles that cover current events. Please look at the sections into which Wikipedia is organised - there is no place for such a page. And with regard to Arindam Chaudhuri, it has been widly reported in the Indian press that IIPM is a society, and Arindam is not the owner-manager as you claim, and not even a trustee of the society. The IIPM website calls him honorary Dean. IIPM has over 5000 MBA students studying, and over 50,000 alumni in the past 30 years. It has 400 companies including FORTUNE 500 and India's largest firms recruiting. The institute publishes leading business magazines. The Director is an IIM Bangalore professor. The Honorary Dean has recieved numberous awards and is a best selling author who has lectured widely in the EU and US, and is the recepient of many awards, that you can see at www.arindamchaudhuri.com, including a recent press clipping i saw online about a Priyadarshini award from Maharashtra (Mumbai) Chief Minister. The faculty of IIPM teach alongside Ivy League faculty. Financial Times has recognised the IIPM as a innovative and visionary institute in the world.
The articles' existence is clearly unjustified by virtue of it being non-notable. That said, most everything in the article is cited from biased or non-citeable sources, well-explained above. Mainstream source (a total of 2 newspapers, one of which, DNA, issued a retraction) didnt discuss the controversy - they discussed how blogs were making noise in India for the first time. You asked me to look at WP:RS; I did, and I quote to you:

Bias of the originator about the subject—If an author has some reason to be biased, or admits to being biased, this should be taken into account when reporting his or her opinion. This is not to say that the material is not worthy of inclusion, but please take a look at our policy on Neutral point of view. Editorial oversight—A publication with a declared editorial policy will have greater reliability than one without, since the content is subject to verification. Self published sources such as personal web pages, personally published print runs and blogs have not been subject to any form of independent fact-checking and so have lower levels of reliability than published news media (e.g. The Economist) and other sources with editorial oversight, which is less reliable itself than professional or peer reviewed journal Age of the source and rate of change of the subject—Where a subject has evolved or changed over time, a long standing source may not be accurate with respect to the current situation. To interpret utility one must appreciate how the subject has changed and if that change has impacted any of the salient points of the source information. self-published source is a published source that has not been subject to any form of independent fact-checking, or where no one stands between the writer and the act of publication. It includes personal websites and books published by vanity presses. Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, and then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources.

You will note that Rashmi Bansal and Gaurav Sabnis are both bloggers, and both IIM alumnus, which makes them biased against IIPM. Further, JAMMAG is self-published by Rashmi. And finally, Rashmi is a contributing editor in Businessworld. And lets not forget, she's currently under arrest for libel in Bombay for comments in JAMMAG.

Further, from a Jimmy Wales memo:

If you see an unsourced statement that would be libel if false, and it makes you feel suspicious enough to want to tag it as {{citation needed}}, please do not do that! Please just remove the statement and ask a question on the talk page.

Here is an example from an article I deleted: "The most recent disaster that <name omitted> claims his organization has responded to is the 2004 South Asia Tsunami, although there is no convincing evidence that he or any of his team has been there.[citation needed]"

Now, I'm sure you'll see that the entire Controversy page is based on sources that are not verifiable by Wikipedia high standards, in any case. Do let me know ...Best, --Iipmstudent9 04:13, 28 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as a detail of the controversy, but I think we can clean this up a bit. Has relevant information about what happened. Current version of the controversy section on the IIPM page must continue in its current length to maintain NPOV. Deepakshenoy 12:54, 28 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • VERY STRONG KEEP with caps lock on. I am from India and this controversy is highly notable. The article is not based on couple of blogs as alleged by the IIPM student; it includes many reliable sources including Hindustan Times, Economic Times etc. The external links to blog appearing in the "References" section have not been used to cite sources; they have been used to point out the blogs of people involved in the controversy. Jyothisingh 14:27, 28 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
* Jyothisingh, the mainstream article were not about IPM, they were about blogs... --Iipmstudent9 17:12, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Moderate keep (count as half vote) Keep
I would just like to clarify a few points. In the following, "you" refers to whoever began this AfD request (i. e. Iipmstudent9).
About blogs used as sources: It is true that the blogs are being referenced in the article. However, as far as I can see, they are not being used to assert the blogwriters' statements as facts. Quotes are being attributed to their respective authors, and not put forth as information. They are being given as evidence, and I think Wikipedia does not frown upon such use of blogs. Still, maybe we could re-word many sentences to reach an NPOV consensus. In any case, blogs are certainly not the only sources on which this article is based, as explained below.
*There are no verifiable sources in the artilce which justifies the libelous statements aainst IIPM.--Iipmstudent9 17:12, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The "libelous" statements are not being put forth as facts. They're ascribed to respective people and publications. You can, if you have the references, mention the counter-statements made by IIPM to answer these claims. If you add these, you must also make sure that they are represented as IIPM's quotes and not assert them as actual facts.
Plus, I'm pretty sure Outlook, Businessworld, The Economic Times, NDTV and MoneyControl have been referenced extensively on Wikipedia and count as reliable sources. You're right, none of them justifies the contentious statements, but that's not the point now, is it? The article is just a description of an event, it is not there to prove or disprove anything. Max 19:37, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
About notability: Let us keep JAM aside for the moment since there is a debate on whether it is a reliable source or not. This controversy has been reported in the Indian media, most notably The Indian Express, and NDTV. It has been written about in national magazines such as Businessworld and Outlook (whose online editions require free registration, so I'm not providing links). It had been reported last year in other papers too (Hindustan Times, DNA, Mumbai Mirror etc.) but their online archived versions are either unavailable or absent. The problem of not finding enough references for this article is because Indian newspapers are lousy as far as maintenance of their online editions are concerned. Many don't even maintain archives. That is why a lot of older archive links don't work. But I think Wikipedia is not averse to offline references (i.e. actual hard copy references) as long as the original references are well-described (page number, section number, para number, ISBN etc. are properly quoted), and anyone who has a copy of the paper/magazine/book can easily look up the info. Anyway, there is a scanned paper clipping from Hindustan Times in this article.
* Max, if you followed the incident carefull,y you would know that there were no legal notices sent from IIPM. The whole thing was a scam cooked up by IIM alumni Rashmi and Gaurav... they wanted popularity for their blogs to skyrocket, so they decided to kill 2 birds with one stone. --Iipmstudent9 17:12, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That feels like your personal opinion. If you have the proof in terms of references that the legal notices were a scam, feel free to add that in the article. But attribute it to the source! Max 19:34, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As a side note, there is also the fact that IIPM is the largest spender for print ads in newspapers, and hence many newspapers may not have carried this story altogether (conflict of interest, anyone?) or removed the online version of articles pertaining to the issue, which makes it difficult to find "reliable" references. Of course, this is only a thought expressed by many as to why more mainstream sources are not being found, and no one can really do much about it.
* You're probably right. --Iipmstudent9 17:12, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Anyway, I think the notability can only extend thus far for an issue such as this. One cannot expect the controversy to be featured in The Washington Post or The New York Times. If you really want, here is someone from outside India taking cognizance: An article in the Online Journalism Review, part of the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication.


About this article being out of place in Wikipedia: Articles about incidents involving blogs are present on Wikipedia. Take a look at Killian documents. The scale of that issue was much bigger, but it was an exposé by bloggers. I would also like to point out that your statement (in your reply to User Hornplease), "Wikipedia is not meant for articles that cover current events", is incorrect. Hundreds of current events are well-documented on Wikipedia (2004 Asian Tsunami and 11 July 2006 Mumbai train bombings just to name a couple).
  • I think 100,000 people lost thier lives in the Tsunami, and over a 100 in Mumbai. Historic. Calamity. I'm not sure why you're putting a few youngsters taking potshots at an institute alongisde those... --Iipmstudent9 17:12, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I was merely trying to counter your point that Wikipedia is not meant for articles that cover current events, hence the examples. I mentioned those articles merely as current events covered in Wikipedia. I know they're not on the same scale as this one. Max 19:34, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Miscellaneous comments: There are enough sources to justify this article being present. Deleting the article and moving the stuff to Controversies on the IIPM main page is a possibility, but it will just bloat that section up. Probably a significant rewrite and trimming to shave off verbose sections is required by putting in only the reported facts, to ensure NPOV. If the article becomes short enough, then maybe we can move it to Controversies.
A note to User Jobjörn: No offence but just because you do not know about the issue, does not mean it is full of crap, as you so articulately described it. If deleting articles were the best way to get rid of an edit conflict, we'd lose a third of the articles on Wikipedia :-)
Regards, Max 14:03, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
* And finally, allow me to point out that there is, again, not verifiable source which confirms the ridiculous claims made by JAMMAG and BusinessWorld. ALl the other stories are about blogs and bloggers. And that is the bottom line. --Iipmstudent9 17:12, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The issue is not whether the bloggers' claims are confirmed as right or wrong. As I said earlier, the article is supposed to be a description of an incident. It is not there to prove anything. The claims are attributed to respective people and publications. They aren't being passed off as hard facts. I support re-writing the parts where it sounds biased or unfair but scrapping the whole article only because it doesn't suit your agenda is not acceptable.
Plus, I do not understand your animosity towards Businessworld. It has been quoted as a source on other Wikipedia pages. Are you against it only because Rashmi Bansal has written articles in it? Bansal has also written articles for Rediff. Will you oppose the inclusion of Rediff as a reliable source in Wikipedia articles too?
Regards, Max 19:34, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I see two short articles from about a year ago in the Hindustan Times about the controversy, plus a smaller mention in Thai Press Reports. Couple that with the OJR article, and I think there is enough notability for a mention in the encyclopedia. I actually would prefer this get a very small mention in the IIPM article with most of the content remaining in this article. I think the remaining points from Iipmstudent9 all relate to the content of the article and not whether the article deserves deletion. Note that the above keep vote reflects the fact that the existence of the controversy can be confirmed in multiple, reliable sources. It does not mean that I believe any of the statements made in the controversy are true are false. I might make some replies to some of the issues related to the 'content' of the article above, but disputes about the content should not influence the AfD - Aagtbdfoua 19:51, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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