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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3→Archive 5

Note: Companies and Corporations was merged with Organizations (notability) on 2-3-07 per consensus reached that date at talk for the former, with redirected discussion from the latter. Please comment here prior to making large changes. However, please fine tune to remove obvious gaffs by the editor who combined the topics. Thanks! --Kevin Murray 17:27, 3 February 2007 (UTC)


Older discussion moved to the archive.

WP:CORP, Take Two

Given the sheer amount of controversy on the talk page, I have rewritten the proposed guideline from scratch to make it shorter, more common sensical, less complex, and more tolerant. Also, I've added a section on local chapters of global chains, and made the suggestion for merging articles on products if there's little information available about the product. I hope people find this more acceptable, and now yield the floor to more discussion. Radiant_>|< 22:17, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

I much prefer the old version, warts and all. The main differences that I see are that the examples and clarifications are gone, nearly all products are to be merged into an incomprehensible, user-unfriendly mishmash in their companies' articles, and the "company holds more than a 20% share in the market area that it competes in" and "company has more than one million customers" options are missing entirely. —Cryptic (talk) 00:10, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Examples and clarifications welcome. I find it highly unlikely that a company would have 20% marketshare or 1M customers without having some kind of media coverage or stock market presence. Also note that arbitrary numerical cutoffs are unwiki. And please read again what I said about merging because you have not understood it - I specifically said not to merge if it makes the main article too large or unwieldy. The idea is to prevent dozens of permastubs; this approach has worked well for WP:FICT. Radiant_>|< 00:37, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
Market share is tricky. Who defines the market? Research firms like Gartner? Markets are being redefined all the time and there's a lot of "fuzzy" there. What about companies that are defining a new market? Before the iPod, did Apple compete with Sony? What happens when Apple comes out with a phone? Anyone could claim significant share by claiming they are defining a new market. Dgray xplane 04:19, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion

I would like this reworded a bit to be less verbose. In particular point one ("excluding anything printed by the company itself, or directory-like information" would cover it, I'd say), and point three probably doesn't need six examples of what stock indices qualify. Radiant_>|< 00:09, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Too restrictive

There should be more tolerant and less arbitary criteria. The largest U.S index I know of only includes 500 companies and there are already several times that many articles about U.S. companies. In Germany the main index has thirty companies, but in the Japan it is 225. The Japanese economy is not 7.5 times the size of Germany's. But then the UK has both the FTSE 100 and the FTSE 250, while the main French index has 40 companies. Most of the companies with articles are nowhere near these indices and there must be at least a thousand articles about defunct companies. Also, there are vast numbers of articles about private companies and subsidiaries (I've been categorising some of the U.S. companies). I suggest that any company with 500 employees should be eligible, as well as any company which has a high profile with consumers or has produced innovative products or been involved in newsworthy events. Wikipedia has many articles about small record labels for example. Rhollenton 12:41, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

  • You are completely ignoring the primary notability criterion, even though it's right up there first on the list. Please read criterion 1 as well as criteria 2 and 3. "been involved in newsworthy events" is covered by the primary notability criterion. (Radiant!, this bizarre selective blindness is why we need the footnotes against criteria 2 and 3.) Uncle G 13:50, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
    • That criteria is very badly worded and unclear. It can mean anything you want it to mean. And who is going to know whether it applies or not in most cases? If a clause needs footnotes, what it actually needs is complete rewriting. Rhollenton 14:10, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • By the way, Wikipedia shouldn't be a simple corporate directory of all companies that have 500 or more employees. That's a bad idea for a criterion. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia. A big company will very likely qualify under the primary notability criterion, as will companies with large numbers of customers, large annual turnovers, or other numerical metrics, simply because other people write and publish stuff about such companies by their very nature. Uncle G 13:50, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

It seems that it is being suggested that all major companies will be covered by clause 1, in which case clauses 2 and 3 are redundant. But clause 1 is not something people can assimilate easily. It can be interpreted in such a way that it applies to a million companies, or only to a few thousand. How many users will know what sort of media coverage say a Korean company which operates only in Korea has had? What about defunt companies, of which there are probably a few thousand with articles? The criteria is as clear as mud and less useful. We definitely need some straightforward qualitive criteria, and subjective criteria defined in every day terms. Rhollenton 14:17, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

  • It's not as easy as some other metrics to apply. That's not a problem. The easy metrics are, quite simply, wrong, and don't end up producing an encyclopaedia. How many users will know what sort of media coverage say a Korean company which operates only in Korea has had? — We have a Korea-related topics notice board, and we've asked Korean Wikipedians for help in such matters before. (See the noticeboard's talk page.) We definitely need some [...] subjective criteria defined in every day terms. — No, we do not need subjective criteria. Uncle G 05:04, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I have to agree that these criteria are way too restrictive. In an encyclopedia that now includes every Beatles song, every Wacky Races character, every small town in America, every lake in Michigan, every character in fantasy roleplay games, every rumor about Michael Jackson, anyone who plays in a professional sports league, etc. we should at least be able to find information about medium to large sized corporations. Wikipedia can be a place for a neutral point of view about large companies, and I mean something beyond Fortune 500. And by the way, there are a half dozen or so other indexes and listings, such as the Wilshire 5000 (which actually includes about 6500 companies right now) and the Russell 3000. Any publicly traded company with an SEC 10K report on Edgar (the database) should be here. What should the criteria be? How about 1) publicly traded, with active and daily trades 2) national presense 3) 500 employees or more 3) significant market share in an industry, or market capitalization above 10M$. Information that is easily accessible such as SIC classification belongs here. We ought to be able to find out about things like 1) involvement in land use controversies 2) mergers and acquisitions 3) public affairs issues, including labor or legal controversies that the company has been involved in 4) important patents that the company owns. In particular, this can be a source for tracking down corporate interconnections ... who owns what, who controls what. --Metzenberg 11:27, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
    • Can you give a single example of a company which would meet your proposed criteria yet does not meet the "non-trivial coverage" criterion and for which there are enough reliable sources to write a verifiable, neutral article without violating the no original research rule? Rossami (talk) 22:04, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
      • I'm not sure if it might fit as "notable" under the stock-market indices criteria, but Lilleborg would not be worthy of an article if you people get your way.--TVPR 08:33, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
        • What makes you think that? Have you done any research to actually check whether the criteria would be satisfied? I suspect that you have not, based upon experience. Most of the editors who make such statements about their pet articles turn out not to have actually tested the criteria to see whether they are satisfied. Do the research first. For starters: What sources did you use when creating that article? Were they non-trivial published works that are sourced independently of the company? Uncle G 11:43, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
          • Yes, despite your experience. As for pet articles; I have no link to the company apart from it being Norwegian, but felt their lack of even the slightest note on WP was strange. Hence I decided to create it, to improve the 'pedia. Due to lack of sources - not many books are independently released on the subject of soap manufacturers - I brought all of it from their website. What newspaper clippings you'll be able to find on the company would regard their building of factory, moving factory and so forth, as well as possible tidbits on their earnings. Now, if you're going to slap unreferenced-tags on companies without in-depth sources from outside their own material, go right ahead. I'm sure the List of oldest companies would be only too happy to present candidates. At least the companies with their own articles, which aren't too many - seeing as we're all living in Amerika, after all. --TVPR 15:06, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
            • Which question are you answering "yes" to? See Wikipedia:Autobiography (already mentioned in a footnote) for the reasons that using company press releases and web sites as sources is problematic. For books on soap companies, see ISBN 0671897810 and ISBN 0385178069. Note that nowhere are the criteria restricted to newspaper clippings. Indeed, the criterion is explicitly inclusive of published works in all forms. Finally, if there are no sources outside of a company's own material, what justification is there, say, for thinking that the company is of historical importance? A company that is of historical importance will have historians writing about it, after all. (I'm not saying that this company isn't. I still think that you haven't looked hard enough to see whether non-trivial published works sourced independently from the company exist. In fact, I'm confident that if you look hard enough you'll be surprised, both by what exists and what the company's "official history" omits.) Uncle G 18:17, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
        • A quick google search for this company returns some 236,000 hits. A spot-check of the first several pages showed that many (though not all) of them referred to this company. The "multiple non-trivial mentions" criterion would appear to apply. However, few of those links were for pages in English, making them difficult to verify. I also note that the Norwegian Wikipedia does not yet appear to have an entry on this company. If the people living there (all of whom presumably can read the relevant webpages) don't consider the company important enough for inclusion, I'm not sure we in the English encyclopedia should disagree with them.
          To be blunt, if we can not find reliable sources, this page will have to be deleted as unverifiable regardless of the topic. It does not matter whether the article is about a company, a new animal or a theory of physics. Without external sources, we do not keep articles. The criteria of WP:CORP don't even enter into the question. On the other hand, if we can find reliable sources (even if they have to be translated), then the article certainly could be kept - but that's already part of the criteria. Rossami (talk) 18:39, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

I am requesting that notability guidelines use a central naming scheme similiar to WP:MoS. Please discuss at Wikipedia talk:Notability#Requested moves.—jiy (talk) 01:51, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Suggested change to criterion #1

Regarding this phrase: "The company or corporation has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the company itself." The word "non-trivial" in this sentence could use some elaboration. For example, I interpret it as excluding small industry publications. The alternative interpretation would make thousands or tens of thousands of additional companies eligible for inclusion, since industry publications typically cover a very small number of companies, meaning everyone gets his fifteen minutes. This came up in a recent (still open right now) AfD for a small consulting firm. Therefore, I am suggesting that we add a sub-bullet to the exclusions in criterion 1, saying something like, "Articles in small industry publications not widely available to the public are not sufficient evidence of notability." That's just an idea on the wording, of course. I look forward to comments. | Klaw ¡digame! 21:28, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

  • It's not the nature of the publisher that is being referred to, but the nature of the work itself. A simple business directory style listing, even if it gives lots of addresses and telephone numbers, shouldn't count, for example, and shouldn't count irrespective of whether it is in an industry publication or in the New York Times. Conversely, a detailed "in depth" magazine article, where the journalist has independently researched and presented in detail the company's history, organization, products, and so forth, should count, even if it is in an industry publication. The questions raised in the aforementioned AFD discussion are more whether the magazines cited constitute reliable sources, whether the articles are actually the product of independent journalism or simple parroting of materials sourced from the subject itself, and whether the mentions (particularly the one that is "in the Careers section" of a report on schools) are longer than mere mentions in passing (i.e. whether they provide substantial information that could be used to create an encyclopaedia article). Uncle G 21:55, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Thanks for the reply, sorry I'm late in returning to it. The case that you outline, where a substantial article in an industry publication is sufficient for notability, sets a fairly low bar for inclusion. If that's the consensus on notability for corporations, great. I would like to see a higher standard for inclusion than that, but I may be in a small minority on that one. I think the potential for a lot of short advert-y articles on small companies is significant. Thanks. | Klaw ¡digame! 01:58, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
      • It's a broad criterion, yes. But it is far from being all-encompassing. (Contrast Wikipedia with Yellowikis, for example.) Moreover, one thing to note about "short advert-y articles" is that a consequence of their subjects satisfying the criterion is that there will be enough secondary source material to expand the articles, so that they are no longer short, from sources that aren't the company itself, so that they are no longer "advert-y". Uncle G 20:45, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Rename to Notability (companies, corporations, products and services)

... since this apparently covers products and services, too. Unless there are objections, I'll move the page in a week. -- Perfecto 00:59, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

That is a ridiculously long name. What about Wikipedia:Notability (businesses and products) or simply Wikipedia:Notability (business)?—jiy (talk) 01:32, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
I'd almost be in favor of moving it directly to WP:CORP. Does anyone really ever refer to it in any other way? —Cryptic (talk) 23:40, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

An other suggestion

I would say that an important (but subjective) criterion for inclusion of a company, service, product or whatever in WP is that the reader should feel that this inclusion benefits WP, i.e it brings usfeul information to WP and the reader and not the other way around it bring advertising to the included company, product or service.--Khalid hassani 17:06, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Chains and franchises

I'd like to expand Chains and franchises by adding:

'Individual hospitality hospitality related businesses that have earned the highest rating from an accepted rating group would generally merit an article.'

I'm suggesting this since it should be clear that these establishments are notable and this is not always clear to some editors. I had one case where what is now a 4 diamond hotel had to be merged into another article. We could footnote the ratings that are accepted and in some cases in might be only the highest rating and in others the top two. I was thinking for hotels and restaurants we could use:

I'm sure there are other guides that could be added to provide more extensive coverage. Vegaswikian 18:42, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

  • If individual franchises are rated highly, they will have non-trivial works published about them, by Michelin et al., and will satisfy the primary criterion without need for an explicit criterion to cover them. Conversely, if the only thing that Michelin et al. have to say about them is their location, star rating, and telephone number(s), then such an inclusion criterion would end up creating a business directory (with articles that contain only locations, star ratings, and telephone numbers), not an encyclopaedia. Uncle G 13:55, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Some tag?

Is there some tag or place to list pages like TBO Solutions B.V.? --Error 01:22, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikicompany

It would be great if the people who create or delete these 'not notable' company articles could also move it to Wikicompany using the web form. The wiki text can simply be copied into the description textfield. Wikicompany also strives to be NPOV-compliant, but is less strict when this is not the case. Thanks, Walden 13:52, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

The company criteria are biased against subsidiaries

Subsidiaries can only meet 1 out of 3 criteria, but there are some very important companies which are subsidiaries. Osomec 23:17, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Please review criteria - suggestions for improvement

The current criteria is very vague and disqualifies many notable companies. Here are some proposed changes.

  1. If a company/product is a world leader in a certain market/industry, it should be definitely included. (E.g. Microsoft, Yahoo!, Google, AOL)
  2. If a company/product has played a significant role in the history of a certain market/industry, it should almost definitely be included. (e.g. Acorn Computers, Netscape, Lycos, Excite)
  3. If a company/product is well-known and notable for:
    • Having a cult following,
    • A certain aspect of the company/product which is unique to the company/product (e.g. AOL users' reputation),
    • Being widely regarded as a superior alternative to another more well-known/well-used but inferior product (e.g. OpenOffice.org, Apple Macintosh),
    • Being involved in a famous/notorious event/incident (e.g. BeOS for its lawsuit with Microsoft, G&R for their lawsuit with Gmail),
    • Attracting massive controversy among users and experts in that market/industry (e.g. Norton AntiVirus)
    • etc. etc.
    it should probably be included (open to discussion).
  4. If a company/product is a medium-sized competitor (or is growing fast) in a market/industry but is notable for offering a superior product to the main competitors and/or meets any of the above criteria, it should probably be included (open to discussion). An example would be 30gigs.com.
  5. If the market/industry is relatively small and obscure, whether to include the company/product is open to discussion.
There have been proposals to delete articles about web hosts such as Bravenet. Bravenet currently has the largest market share in free web hosting, and is listed first under Free Web Hosts in the Yahoo! Directory. Webhosting is a large and major market in the Internet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hildanknight (talk • contribs)
  • Your suggestions seem to be rather subjective. I'm not sure that would make it any easier for getting included, it could cause more problems as editors argue over issues like is this product really unique. Vegaswikian 21:26, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
  • I guess the discussion is a bit outdated by now but the examples that you give do not show that the guidelines are two restrictive. All of the above have their own article in Wikipedia and all were given plenty of media coverage from reputable independent sources. Pascal.Tesson 19:47, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Question/comment regarding notability Criteria #1: media coverage

  • I have seen recently many spam-ish articles for businesses lately that have been asserting their notability with brief mentions or articles in small local publications. Shouldn't there be some sort of notability level required for the media sources? Because I'm sure almost all local businesses have been written about in a local paper at least one or two times. Additionally, many otherwise non-notable online businesses will have short articles in web publications. For example, does a 4-sentence paragraph on [http:www.eweek.com eWeek] and a paragraph-long article in a local online publication count as notable? Wickethewok 21:02, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Your example would not generally qualify as a sole basis for inclusion. That's why the criterion specifically says "has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works". Short articles in the business section of the local paper do not qualify. Sidebar mentions of the company even in large press is also not sufficient. The company must be the primary subject of the article. You might want to read the discussions in the archive of this Talk page. That would give you a better sense of the expectations which were set when that clause was drafted. Rossami (talk) 22:28, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Thanks for clearing this up for me! Wickethewok 23:18, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
I was just about to ask the same question. It might be worth it to explicitly note that local business section articles don't qualify as "non-trivial". On a similar note, where would product reviews fit into this rubric? --Lee Bailey 22:21, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Company critiera 1

I believe this clarification to criteria 1 should exclude such organizations as the Better Business Bureau:

  • This criterion includes published works in all forms, such as newspaper articles, books, television documentaries, and published reports by consumer watchdog organizations.

-- Robocoder 23:30, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Student Newspapers - copied from old organizations talk page:

Placing the "bar of notability" OK, I've excluded student newspapers as a means of assertion of notability, how can I do this for local (small town) newspapers. Do we make a requirement that the newspaper needs to subscription over a certain amount? Also, do you think I should delete the "Inclusion in third party published materials" line? I'm starting to think I should, but you input is most welcome. 12 June 2006—Preceding unsigned comment added by Dspserpico (talk • contribs)

I'd use the same bar for gauging periodical importance that other areas (CORP, MUSIC, BIO etc) use... ++Lar: t/c 17:38, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
It isn't so much about the size of the newspaper (or other source), or the locality of it, but whether notability is provided. Even major national news sources run what are called "human-interest" stories, of events and people which aren't really notable but still interesting to the reader or viewer for other reasons. So counting subscribers or viewers is pointless. Let's put it this way: Media coverage is good proof of notability, but isn't notability by itself. If that doesn't make sense at first, let's think of it in terms of examples.
(1) Let's say Tom Hanks wins the Best Actor Oscar next year, and the next morning a story about the win is on the front page of the New York Times. Hanks is certainly notable, but why? For getting in the newspaper? No, for winning the award, appearing in major motion pictures, etc. The newspaper verifies notability, but the newspaper doesn't grant notability.
(2) Imagine that, through a printing error or other happenstance, a news story which was supposed to go in page 19D of the Podunk County Herald ends up on the front page of the New York Times instead: "NEIGHBOR RESCUES CAT FROM TREE". Ok, there it is in black and white, seen and read by millions of people. But neither the neighbor, the cat, the tree, or the rescue itself would become any more notable as a result, and it would still be the same ho-hum everyday occurance that it would have been if it had never been reported at all.
The bad thing about this proposal is that unlike accepted guidelines like WP:MUSIC, this one seems to be all about media coverage, and that's it. That isn't good enough. Newspapers report on some stunningly non-notable things. If you don't believe me, run out and grab a copy of a newspaper. Any one will do. Read it from cover to cover, then ask yourself whether all the people, places, groups, and events you just read about should have their own encyclopedia articles. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 19:27, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
But media coverage is not the only notability criteria listed. We're also considering the scope of activity. Democratic Party (United States) is notable because the scope of their operations is nationwide while the Ohlone Area Democratic Club is not because their scope of activities is just Fremont, California. Perhaps we should add a "notable membership" requirement. The Bohemian Club is notable, among other things, for having numerous political and business heavyweights in its membership. I do agree that media coverage is legit way of asserting notability but it can't be the only way. Dspserpico 22:37, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Um, if the page 19D story made the front page of the NYT, it WOULD be a notable story, not inherently, but because the NYT added notability. I see your point though. If this proposal currently isn't quite right, I suggest you try refining it! I feel that a guideline for organisations is very important, and would be a good thing to have, and would reduce some scuffling and confusion in AfD discussions. I don't think the originator, or any other participant so far actually disagrees with that, do they? The criticism seems to me to be about what criteria are used. {{sofixit}} !!!! ++Lar: t/c 19:50, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Is an organization notable because the newspaper/magazine is notable, or is it because of the number of subscribers who might have seen the subject matter? And is an organization notable merely because one high profile media source mentions a subject one time in an article? Or is it more likely that some organization is not-notable because it hasn't been mentioned in the press in over five years. Sensationalism sells newspapers, magazines and television programming. That in itself does cause some notability, for a period of time for some, but for others, they were notable in the first place. I think something should be said regarding the longevity as well as if the source was about the organization, or simply mentioned the organization in passing at the bottom of an article about some other topic entirely. example: "Michael Jackson donated $100 to the Smallville PTA." -- (1975) mentioned in passing by the Chicago Tribune in an article about reorganization of bond issues and school districts. Just some thoughts. Ste4k 04:33, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't believe that notability is equivalent to notoriety, which is often the reason that organizations receive press. Other criteria should be considered, including membership totals, charitable activities, and longevity as a viable institution. WBardwin 04:10, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I have removed the language arbitrarily excluding "student run newspapers." A campus paper may be a more reliable and independent source than the corresponding town newspaper. Each source should be judged on its merits. There might be a campus paper at Yale, Harvard or Columbia which has an editorial board, a large print circulation, stated policies of journalistic integrity, a long record of publishing, and which may have won journalism awards. At colleges I attended, the campus paper was not an uncritical endorser of campus arts groups, professors, the administration, or the sports teams, and loved to criticize them. Granted, at some small colleges, the president may dictate the paper policy and content. In high schools or lower level schools, I would not expect independence on the part of the school paper. But in some towns, the Mayor or business and commercial leaders dictate the paper's editorial policies and news coverage. A town paper or even the Chicago Tribune or major New York City or Washington DC papers or TV news networks may be run at times by political extremists and may have famous cases of publishing blatantly untrue stories. The Chicago Tribune is famous for claiming that President Franklin Roosevelt got his marching orders from Stalin, and for defending the police after they shot some Black Panther militants in their apartment by showing "bullet holes" in the door to prove the militants had shot at the police, but in fact the "bullet holes" were nail heads where clothes had been hung. The Chicago Tribune has endorsed only Republican Presidential candidates since 1872. CBS News ran stories about Bush's National Guard service based on documents which were fakes. Yet most would consider the paper or the network news department a verifiable, independent and reliable source. The papers owned by William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer invented "yellow journalism." The New York Times had a reporter, recently had a reporter who simply made up stories. There is no basis for arbitrarily excluding a campus paper any more than for arbitrarily excluding in including a town newspaper as a source for notability of an organization in that town. Edison 17:36, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I've reverted due to lack of consensus to remove it. I think it's pretty much common-sense that any article whose notability relies on being mentioned in, say, a high-school newspaper is a guaranteed delete. That's not to say that every word in the New York Times is true, but at least it's got the name of a professional journalist attached to it, and by extension a professional editorial team. It's tough to expect the same standards of reliability from 13-year-old Kristi who writes all her articles during the five-minute gap between study hall and lunch. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 18:00, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Did you read the discussion about CAMPUS PAPERS AT UNIVERSITIES in the previous paragraph? Please address the arguments made there that campus newspaper can be sources to support notability and do not rely on strawman arguments about "13 year old Kristi." I am once more deleting the section about campus papers until a rationale is presented here why they all inherently unreliable or nonindependent or nonverifiable, with being judged on their merits. There was never any consensus for them to be excluded. Explain why The Harvard Crimson and Columbia Daily Spectator have no credibility. Edison 00:41, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure Starblind read it and I can assure you that I did. 13 year old Kristi is a rhetorical example but definitely not a strawman. I can't even begin to count the number of discussions where users have misunderstood or deliberately misinterpreted our standards and attempted to claim that something's been "published" or is "verified" because it was published in their high school paper. Those are not the standards which we can build the encyclopedia upon. Furthermore, I will tell you from personal experience that most college-level newspapers are little better. They are run by students with little time, less experience and inconsistent oversight.
Your point that small-town newspapers can be equally unreliable is taken but with some qualifications. First, I'll point out that small-town newspapers are themselves deeply discounted when used as sources. However, even a small-town paper is generally run by a staff with financial accountability for the accuracy of the paper's contents. If they are found to be wrong too often, readers switch sources. College papers, even major ones like Harvard, are staffed by students who will shortly move on.
None of this guarantees that a major paper is always right nor that a college paper is always wrong. However, it does create a probability that we must consider. The general rule that student-run newspapers do not meet the standards of reliable sources has been a net positive for the project.
By the way, some of your allegations of bias among major papers are irrelevant for our situation. For example, endorsements of political candidates are decisions limited to the editorial pages. Others of your examples are historical and predate the controls that have been instituted by major papers (controls which, by the way, are generally lacking in student papers). Can they still be mistaken? Lie? Certainly. But the fact that you know about the cases you cited and can describe them so easily is evidence that their controls are largely working and that misrepresentations are caught and disclosed by the competition. The kinds of events which are "sourced" by student-run papers are not going to be covered by any other entity, making verification functionally impossible.
Sorry for the long, rambling response but you raised a complicated issue. It's a question of judgment about the net benefits and costs of the rule. On balance, my experience in deletion and sourcing debates confirms my opinion that we are better off with the clean rule to exclude student-run papers as sources. Rossami (talk) 04:50, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Please state where you find the policy "The general rule that student-run newspapers do not meet the standards of reliable sources has been a net positive for the project." I have not seen that as a Wikipedia policy. Please stop dragging in the strawman of the high school paper, which I have from the first discounted. I am referring to college papers with independent editorial boards and policies of editorial review. These papers have had such editors as Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was never "13 year old Kristi" when he wrote for his college paper. College papers to which I refer do have financial accountability. You agree that town newspaper used to have problems, but you claim that the fact I can cite flaws in their reporting proves that now they have good editorial control. The flaws were rarely disclosed by their own editorial controls, and were more often exposes by their competitors, a control which also keeps college papers on their toes. The lapses at usually reliable big city newspapers have not stopped yet. The Chicago Sun Times was criticized within the past month for going very easy on Macys, a store which had purchased lots of ads, such that the Sun Times said little about declining sales compared to the coverage of consumer discontent, declining sales, and management changes in the Chicago Tribune. I will match my experience in deletions against yours cheerfully, I want reliable college papers included as sources for notability and as sources about things on campus, just as we would use a town paper as a source for events in the town. You have not stated a policy or a rational basis for excluding them. I want to assume good intentions, but the only real rationale I can see is that if they are excluded, it will be easier to delete articles about organizations on college campuses for lack of sources. Please look at WP:RS and see if it excludes college papers. Please do not try to lump them in with high school , grade school, or kindergarten papers as all being "student run papers" which is a pretty meaningless term. Edison 17:56, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I can't honestly think of a single article supported only by student-paper sources that was kept at AfD, ever, even before WP:ORG existed. Student groups at a single school are virtually always deleted, and even those at multiple schools need coverage from non-school sources. This isn't some evil Wikipedia bias against student papers, just an acknowledgement that student papers don't make good sources for serious research. I know if I had handed in a paper in college (or even high school) that relied on student-newspaper sources, I would have gotten it back with nasty red-pen remarks that it isn't reliably sourced. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 04:20, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I for one did not say I wanted articles whose notability was attested ONLY by the local college paper. If we want MULTIPLE reliable, verifiable, and independent references, and if one of those is, say, the Atlantic Monthly and one is the Harvard Crimson, I would say we had 2 references, not 1. Having ONLY campus paper articles would be comparable to having ONLY hometown (not talking major metropolis) articles. The source closer to the subject is likely to have more detail, which contributes to an article. I myself would like to see more than just articles in a small town paper, but I would not exclude them all arbitrarily. I just would like to see an acknowledgment that all sources have to be judged on their merits, meaning that not all non-college campus papers are reliable and independent, and not all campus papers are unreliable and dependent. This seems the less doctrinaire and capricious policy. I would be happy to exclude highschool/grade school papers as attesting to notability because they are never independent of the Principal. I would in general like to see more than articles in the campus paper, just as I would like to see more than articles in the small hometown paper. I would go along with a criterion that more than coverage on the college paper is required, just as I would like to see more than coverage of something in the small town paper to prove it is notable enough for an article. But I would be fairly comfortable witha couple of regional or national articles and a college paper or small local paper to show notability. Edison 05:21, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

section break to facilitate editing

If a college campus student-run newspaper has an independent editorial review board and a policy of editorial review of stories, which are written by identified reporters, it should not be arbitrarily excluded as a reliable source. It can be an independent, verifiable, and reliable source to satisfy WP:V and WP:RS. It can partially satisfy WP:N by showing that something on campus is notable within the college community (which might total 40,000 people), the same as the noncampus town paper or the local TV station could furnish verification and attestation of local notability for similar groups off campus. A city newspaper, even in London or New York City, is subject to withdrawal of ad revenue by merchants or to withdrawal of city hall and police dept sources by the Mayor. I see campus papers as "notability-supporters" for things on a campus. For a campus arts group, I would like in addition to see 1 or 2 noncampus reliable, independent and verifiable sources. If they have only local(on campus) notability, then per WP:LOCAL the key facts in the article could be greatly condensed and included in the University's article. There is no statement in WP:MUS orWP:ORG that campus groups are inherently non-notable. They must be judged on their own merits the same as anything else. A lengthy story about a group or a review of a performance is not inherently trivial, unreliable, or dependent just because it is in a campus paper any more than if it were in a comparable city paper in a comparable sized community., We have thousands of articles about rock/pop/rap bands which lack sources even as good as a high quality college campus paper, and rely on only online coverage and their own websites, and editors seem comfortable keeping those. Notability should not be a matter of “ILIKEIT” but rather of whether the thing has been “noted” in MULTIPLE reliable, verifiable and independent sources. Could we compromise on language such as “2. Independent student-run college newspapers can be cited as sources to show that campus organizations exist and as sources of information about them. While stories in such a campus paper with a campus organization as their primary source can help to demonstrate notability, additional independent sources are needed to fulfill WP:N.” Edison 21:29, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I can live with the intent of that clause. It would be nice if we could say the same thing in fewer words. I would also like a footnote clearly establishing the standards that you have described for an "independent" student newspaper and listing the Harvard paper as an example of what we expect for a student newspaper. Thanks. Rossami (talk) 21:34, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Please do wordsmithing if the thing can be said more succinctly. The intent is to include campus sources for campus organizations, because they are likely to have more detail IF the thing is judged notable. But I would generally like to see coverage in a regional or national paper, magazine, or TV show in addition to however many articles in the campus paper. I suppose the bare minimum would be campus coverage plus at least one good nontrivial national sources where the group is the (or a) primary subject. This acknowledges the statement above that organizations with nothing more than coverage in a campus paper have not been surviving AFDs. That would be more than most Wikipedia articles presently have, since in random article searches I find so many with no sources or sourced only to their own website. Edison 21:45, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

(outdenting) Proposed re-wording below. I think that it preserves Edison's proposed meaning. Please edit. Rossami (talk) 21:51, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

2. Independent student-run college newspapers may be a source for information on campus organizations but additional independent sources are needed to fulfill WP:N. 1
^1 "Independent" student-run newspapers are characterized by an independent editorial review board and a policy of editorial review of stories which are written by identified reporters similar to the practices and standards used by The Harvard Crimson or Columbia Daily Spectator. Papers without such standards do not meet Wikipedia's standards as reliable sources.
Bolded proposal in above. Edison 23:51, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Sounds good. So a college paper where the president dictates what appears in the paper, or which acts like a blog where anyone can put anything in it anonymously or without editorial review does not qualify.Edison 21:54, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
So one or more articles in a campus paper like the Harvard Crimson, plus at least one in a good non-campus paper, could be considered "MULTIPLE?"Edison 22:43, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I think it would depend on the content of those articles-if only two, they'd have to both be very in-depth in order to provide enough source material for a decent article, especially if the group made the school and "other" paper for the same reason or due to the same event. On the other hand, if it's something that different aspects of have been catalogued in-depth by a school paper and some other paper, that might be enough. Personally, I'd hinge toward "very likely not except in exceptional circumstances" in terms of just the school paper and one other though-a school paper mentioning a school organization is a pretty trivial mention. Seraphimblade 06:44, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
I think we're making this far too complicated. WP:ORG, like WP:MUSIC and the rest, is supposed to be an at-a-glance guideline that simplifies WP:N WP:V and WP:RS in the context of a certain type of article, in this case groups, clubs, guilds, etc. I think Edison has a very good point that some student papers are better than others, but I'd also say that an article that relies on student-newspaper sources to establish its notability doesn't stand a snowball's chance in heck to pass an AfD vote, and there's miles of precedent to back that up. Any organisation whose scope is so limited that it can't manage two articles in non-student publications is outside the reach of what we can reasonably cover as a general-interest encyclopedia. That's not just my opinion, that's years of consensus on AfD, and that's what any notability guideline should reflect. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 16:36, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
OK, let's try another viewpoint: If it is the subject of 2 articles in non-stident publications, and its notability is judged marginal since there are only 2 independent references (again, this is way better that most Wikipedia articles found by random search) would a third (or more articles) in the campus paper (Harvard, Colunbia, Penn quality) add something to the groups notabiliyt, and sometimes push it over the edge? And again I am not talking about a "mention" or a directory type coverage of "the following 45 arts groups exist on campus," but an in-depth profile? I have seen claims in AFD debates that "A campus paper cannot contribute at all toward notability" which seems an extremely arbitrary position. Edison 17:57, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
If something is the subject of 2 articles in non-student publications, then an AfD could really go either way, and I'm not sure adding a student-newspaper source would help one way or another. I think AfD commenters recognise that there's an inherent tendency in student newspapers to report on school activities, and indeed that's one of the very reasons school newspapers exist. It's may not be a "payola" sort of situation, just the general effect of school spirit and the fact that many of those working at student newspapers may have friends in the clubs and activities on which they report. AfD commenters expect sources to be wholly independent/unconnected from the subject, and that makes quite a lot of sense to me. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 18:43, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
But the same desire to promote local organizations or friends of the reporter or publisher exist in all newspapers to varying extents. So this claim needs some reliable source showing that a good campus paper (Columbia, Harvard) is in every case more subject to this than a newspaper not on campus. Can you find a book on hournalism which says that the Chicago Tribune, the Hearst newspapers, the New York or London papers never have "town spirit" akin to school spirit, and that the reporters and publishers of such papers do not have friends in the organizations, clubs, and activities on which they report? Or that reporter at city papers do not get favors such as expensive meals or cases of their favorite booze or vacation trips provided by those on whom they report favorably? You have not provided any evidence whatsoever that reporters and editors at high quality campus papers are more corrupt that their counterparts off campus. A campus arts group does not have the deep pockets of an entrepeneur and his publicist, nor can they cause much fear with threats to pull their pages of advertising. You have still not given any non-subjective reason for the total exclusion of campus papers as signs of notability, so the text must be changed until you can furnish more of a rationale than hand waving and "IDONTLIKEIT." (added)Is there a consensus to allow some or to allow no contribution toward notability of campus organizations on the part of campus papers?Edison 21:54, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Notability of English football clubs

This is an issue for us because of the very large number of small clubs putting articles on Wikipedia. This is presently being discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football#When is a club notable?. I invite anyone who is interested to join in the discussion. To avoid splintering the discussion may I ask that this specific case be delegated to this forum. I will bring the conclusion we reach back to here with a request to add it to the project page. BlueValour 18:15, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

The discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football#When is a club notable? has now concluded and we have reached unanimous agreement that: English football clubs in Levels 1-10 are deemed to have inherent notability. Since virtually all football clubs are companies it is appropriate to this project. I am, therefore, proposing to add this criteria to the project page. BlueValour 00:04, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Just for additional clarification, BlueValour is referring to Levels 1-10 of the English football league system. Qwghlm 12:38, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
The wording on this page was a little vague, so I have updated to it to more closely reflect the wording of the agreed proposal. Hope that's OK. Qwghlm 14:51, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, it was fine as it was. The phrase 'is deemed to be inherently notable.' duplicates the line above and 'Clubs that fall outside this criterion must prove notability by other means.' is not needed as that is a pivotal point of all notability guidelines. I doubt the need to add 'mens' but on reflection I have included it for absouletly precision. BlueValour 15:10, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
The word 'inherently' is not in the current wording here; as it is, it implies only clubs in levels 1-10 are allowed, which was not what was agreed upon. Can I suggest removing the leading line, and the following rewording in the bulletpoint: "English men's football clubs are considered inherently notable if they play in Levels 1-10 of the English football league system." Qwghlm 15:16, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
The formulation follows that of the other sections. For example companies are notable if they meet the relevant criteria but it is open to any company to demonstrate notability by other means. The reason for the leading line is so we don't have to duplicate wording for each league we agree. However, to move things on I have put 'inherently' in the leading line. If this is OK, I intend to move on to Welsh clubs next! BlueValour 17:08, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
OK, keep the leading line. I've expanded the bulleted point into a full setnence and included the word "inherently" in it as well, it makes it grammatically correct, and it means people can copy & paste and quote the rule directly in a single line in AfDs and suchlike. Qwghlm 17:11, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, there is no need for it; it simply duplicates the leading line. BlueValour 17:14, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Notability of company subsidiaries, divisions, and brands

This issue has emerged with regards to Anthropologie, (see relevant AfD). I would like to start a dialogue to determine what corporate subsidiaries are notable. See Lockheed Martin, General Electric, Cendant, Yum! Brands, and Gap (clothing retailer) for examples. I feel that the 'ad hoc' system that exists now is adequate for companies that have a very direct relationship to the general consumer population, like Gap, Cendant, and Yum!, where the subsidiaries are advertised independently. But for GE, how familiar are customers with the products of GE Industrial, GE Infrastructure, or even GE Healthcare? And it's much worse in the defense sector; contracts may be won by Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems & Solutions over Boeing Integrated Defense Systems and Northrop Grumman Mission Systems, and that's how it will be written in a press release. But when newspapers outside of defense & government write the story, they will omit the division names. How important is it for Wikipedia to make these distinctions; for example, was the F-35 Lightning II won by Lockheed Martin Aeronautics or simply a Lockheed Martin? Sertrel 00:37, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Other necessary criteria?

It strikes me that the list of criteria is somewhat lacking, or at least biased towards more developed countries. A large, private company that garners little press in a country with a different model for corporations or without a significant stock exchange could still be encyclopedic. Other criteria that should be a factor in the encyclopedic value of a corporation are the size of the company (either number of employees or volume of business) and the scope of operations (i.e. operates internationally or has a significant number of non-franchised locations). The criteria also overlooks other business models, such as government owned companies, partnerships, joint ventures, and so-on. Agent 86 01:19, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Strongly agree. I came here because I was puzzled by a proposed RfD for an Afghan company and discovered criteria that are extremely First World centric. Something broader would be welcome. Williamborg 01:34, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
And the suggested change is... Vegaswikian 02:21, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Such a challenge, directed to one who believes that policy pages should be minimized, not expanded!
A DRAFT suggestion follows:
===Criteria for first-world companies and corporations===
A company or corporation is notable if it meets any one of the following criteria:
  1. The company or corporation has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the company itself.
    • This criterion excludes:
      • Media re-prints of press releases, other publications where the company or corporation talks about itself, and advertising for the company.
      • Trivial coverage, such as newspaper articles that simply report extended shopping hours or the publications of telephone numbers and addresses in business directories.
    • This criterion includes published works in all forms, such as newspaper articles, books, television documentaries, and published reports by consumer watchdog organizations.
  2. The company or corporation is listed on ranking indices of important companies produced by well-known and independent publications.
  3. The company's or corporation's share price is used to calculate stock market indices. Being used to calculate an index that simply comprises the entire market is excluded.
===Criteria for second and third-world companies and corporations===
  1. Meeting first-world criteria is sufficient.
  2. Alternate criteria include:
    • Private or government owned companies which:
      • Controls over 10% of any category of natural resources for which a nation is known, or
      • Is a major employer (>5% of the working population) in a metropolitan area, or
      • Has signficant operational scope (i.e. operates internationally or has a significant number of non-franchised locations).
Williamborg 03:01, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

The existing criteria are neither lacking nor biased. In stark contrast, the above suggestions are exceedingly biased and based upon outdated and downright false ideas about many countries, as our article on Third World explains. The above suggestions introduce a bias to what are currently unbiased criteria. There are no restrictions in terms of countries on what constitute published works. Newspaper articles in The Age, The Hindu, The Financial Gazette, and The Independent (Bangladesh) for examples, are just as satisfactory as newspaper articles in The New York Times or The Guardian. The above suggestions are based upon the highly erroneous notion that "third world" countries don't have newspapers, or that the newspapers that they do have don't report on companies that are government-owned, major employers, or major controllers of the country's resources. (That such companies will be of significant interest to the readerships of those newspapers implies that, on the contrary, there will be a lot of coverage of those companies.)

Size of a corporation and number of employees have been discussed before on this talk page. I refer you to the prior discussion. It is a wholly unnecessary additional criterion, and indeed a criterion that leads to a business directory (of companies with N or more employees) than to an encyclopaedia, which is exactly what we don't want.

In general, when editors express problems with the primary notability criterion, it is not the criterion that is the cause of the problem. It is editors not looking hard enough that is the cause of the problem. In the Afghan company case, for example, I suspect that looking at some Afghan newspapers (see Category:Afghan newspapers) would have found non-trivial published works that could have been cited to demonstrate that the primary notability criterion was satisfied. Uncle G 09:28, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

You say that:
"non-trivial published works that could have been cited to demonstrate that the primary notability criterion was satisfied."
What is wrong with just focusing on actual policies. The matter could have been settled instead by simply looking for verifiability of claims, instead of worrying about the ill-defined, non-consensus notion of notability.
I know i am the n^th user to say things about the notability case but it is still in my opinion a total waste of time and people could contribute so much better by focusing on the actual policies instead of trying to make up new rules all the time. Ansell 09:50, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Requested move or name change

I noticed the {{move}} template that, until now, was on the top of this talk page and I was interested in participating in the discussion (I did not find the proposed new name to be an improvement). However, I was completely unable to find the discussion at WP:RM. That's when I looked into the edit history and learned that the template had been there since last December. If I have been overly bold in doing so, I do not object to being told I've gone too far. However, given the lonnngggg time it has been there, I don't think that was too unreasonable. If anyone thinks there ought to be a move or name change, I think an entirely fresh discussion is in order. Agent 86 01:39, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

List of Wal-Marts in Germany

As per recent news [1], would anyone get ticked if I changed the name of the country to something else? Tuxide 21:56, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Sounds cool; to what do you suggest Germany should be changed? :-) BlueValour 00:08, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Uh, *cringe* Canada??? God forbid...oh well, it would have to be from this list, and I would rather choose a country where the only Wal-Mart owned stores in it are Wal-Marts and SAM'S CLUBs (like no ASDA/Bodega/whatever else). Tuxide 02:15, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Logical relationship between exclusions and inclusions

Criterion 1 is not, it seems to me, laid out as logically as it should be. The first bullet point lists things that are excluded, while the second bullet point, at the same level, lists things that are included. But what is actually meant is that those inclusions are subject to the exclusions of the first bullet point. The hierarchy should be made clearer, perhaps as follows:

  • This criterion includes published works in all forms, such as newspaper articles, books, television documentaries, and published reports by consumer watchdog organizations except for the following:
  • Media reprints of press releases, other publications where the company or corporation talks about itself, and advertising for the company.
  • Works carrying merely trivial coverage, such as newspaper articles that simply report extended shopping hours or the publications of telephone numbers and addresses in business directories.

--MichaelMaggs 14:07, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Not totally sure what the etiquette is when making changes to WP Guidelines, but I'm just being bold here. Nobody's commented adversely on the suggestion I made above nearly a week ago, so I'm now going to make the change on the main page. No doubt someone will revert and comment below if I'm being too bold.--MichaelMaggs 19:29, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Question about criteria #3: stock index calculation

Criteria 3 is The company's or corporation's share price is used to calculate stock market indices.

I don't know enough about stock markets to evaluated this criteria. Is it enough (as one editor has suggested to me) that a company be listed on a stock market index (i.e., all public companies are notable), or does calculate refer to something more exclusive than this? Regardless of the answer, I think it'd be good if a footnote explaining what "used to calculate stock market indices" means was added to that criteria. — Saxifrage ✎ 19:17, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Notability of CEO vs. notability of company

I nominated SCG International Risk for deletion -- discussion is here. The creator posted quite a few media links, but many of them were interviews with the CEO (who appears to be the article creator) in his capacity as an expert. For example, he was interviewed on NPR about air marshal training, but his knowledge of that predated his position at SCG. At the end of the piece, the interviewer says "Jamie Smith is now CEO of SCG International". I assume this does not count as media coverage of SCG.

A slightly less clear-cut case appears to be a Virigina-Pilot article which mentions Jamie Smith having been hit in the arm with a bullet while working in Iraq for SCG. The article is not available online, but the coverage is of the injury, not of SCG -- it might serve to make Jamie Smith notable, but not SCG, I would think.

I think the case for the article about this company to be deleted is borderline; it depends in my mind on the depth of some of the cited print coverage. I'd be glad of opinions on how to apply WP:CORP to situations like this. Thanks. Mike Christie (talk) 22:21, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm too late to comment on the overall AFD decision but I will comment on some of the evidence presented in the discussion. Please excuse me while I take them out of order:
  • I have to disagree with your comment in that discussion that the NPR interview counts as coverage for the purposes of WP:CORP. The criterion requires that the "company or corporation has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the company itself". (emphasis added) Casual mentions of a company in a story on a different subject do not qualify under this clause. In this case, the subject of the news story was the general business of security - the subject was not specifically this company.
  • The Chicago Tribune article fails to qualify as evidence for this company, though it clearly would qualify as evidence for Blackwater USA. The fact that one person served in both companies does not create an inheritance of coverage even if that one person was the CEO. They are separate companies - separate legal entities - and must be judged independently.
  • The ABC article on air marshal training definitely would not qualify. The subject of the article has nothing to do with the company.
  • The Virginia-Pilot article definitely does not qualify as coverage of the company. As you say above, it is coverage about the man. The company is mentioned only tangentially.
  • Without reading the book, it's hard to evaluate the Amazon article but I'm deeply skeptical. The editorial review specifically mentions Blackwater but does not mention SCG. I suspect that this may be another example of the CEO blurring the lines between the different legal entities he's led.
For most of the others, I agree with you that there was not enough detail provided to evaluate the alleged coverage. In short, I can't say that the company fails to qualify under WP:CORP but none of the references cited would have convinced me that it qualifies under the "non-trivial coverage" clause. Rossami (talk) 21:57, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Other countries?

Well, I would like to know what about the notablility criteria for football clubs in other countries such as Italy, Germany or Spain? These nations have also a strong non-league footballing culture. Are these nations excluded from the criteria? --Siva1979Talk to me 19:58, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I think that very specific criteria should be removed entirely. Football clubs, or sports clubs, in general should not receive special treatment. Fresheneesz 20:31, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Company with notable products

Would a company that has products that qualify as notable under the guidelines for products automatically qualify as notable itself? If not, should it? I think the advantage is clear: if a company has, say, 3 marginally-notable products, we'd be much better off with just one article about the company, with redirects from those products, than multiple individual short articles. JulesH 13:37, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

This should continue to be decided on a case-by-case basis. While your solution is probably a good idea in the scenario you describe, I would not want that to be any automatic conclusion. There are a few cases of very private companies where we have independent, reliable sources on the product(s) but not on the company that makes them. Those cases are rare but happen just enough to make me think that the status quo is better. Rossami (talk) 00:03, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Is this a guideline?

Hi, I'm wondering if the editors of this page consider this to be a full guideline. The tag at the top is different from more accepted guidelines, and that makes me wonder. One thing i'm proposing is that you use the Template:guideline, rather than the tag you have now. Please discuss it here (i'll be posting this message on other pages that have this same tag). Thanks! Fresheneesz 20:34, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

  • I don't really see the point of having this as a guideline since the main point of the entire article is that a company needs to be listed by multiple reliable sources exactly equal to WP:V. The only thing it adds is to allow the inclusion of "English men's football clubs competing in Levels 1-10 of the English football league system" - which sounds like a totally random inclusion, and is probably someones POV rather than a consensus. Fresheneesz 04:17, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Do interviews count as non-trivial?

Just wondering if in "The company or corporation has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the company itself." interviews with say, an owner of a company (about the company) counts towards this requirement or not (assuming it meets all other criteria (published, independent source). Thanks, VegaDark 23:10, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I would say that it depends very much on the nature of the interview. Some interviews are puff pieces full of soft-ball questions and are practically indistinguishable from company press releases. Such an interview should not count. Other interviews are strongly independent with aggressive, even adversarial questions. Those come closer. Unfortunately given the frequency of the former type of interview, I'd recommend a stance of "when in doubt, find another source." Rossami (talk) 04:01, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Advertising

Is there a policy pertaining to companies creating articles to advertise their product?

For example Simdex

See Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not and Wikipedia:Spam. — Saxifrage ✎ 22:21, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

This is a Lousy Thing

If an article is objective and verified, who cares? Wikipedia is where people comes to get the nooks and crannies of information of the world. If Wikipedia thinks it's better than any information, than it's no different than those big encyclopedias it says its more inclusive than like Brittanica. People Powered 15:09, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

My significant other is personally incorporated. Should I write an article about that company? The answer there is very much "no". Obviously, there needs to be a cutoff line somewhere. The line that the community of editors at Wikipedia has settled on is reflected in this guideline. It can change, of course, but I can't imagine that it could be dispensed with entirely. — Saxifrage ✎ 22:26, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
There are a lot of comanies are just not notable. I suppose that if we ever get most of the notable companies included, then editors would be more willing to move the bar lower to include more companies. Vegaswikian 00:02, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
We use verifiability to make sure that we aren't spouting lies. Another part of verifiability is that if its verifiable, that means that some trustworthy publishers cared enough to write something about it - which basically automaticaly makes it notable. Fresheneesz 21:47, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Remove the sports clubs section

The sports clubs section is obviously biased - because it only contains english football league clubs. Are there any objections to either removing this section or making it more general? Fresheneesz 21:48, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

  • It's definitely systemic bias, which could be resolved by adding similar criteria for other countries. However I'd like to know where it came from and what the basis was for adding it; it may be inappropriate as part of the guideline. >Radiant< 22:35, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
  • I'd love to see a more general section on sporting clubs. IMHO, it should be in the "organizations" section, but I looked here, too, for it, since there's a proposal to merge these two sections.Kathy A. 16:06, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Companies and corporations

Is "companies and corporations" really any clearer, or any more general, than just "companies"? Ken Arromdee 04:55, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion

Would it be useful, if we added a comment about the potential of an article to look like those of say, Firefox, Youtube, and Google? If the artice written on a company has little potential to be edited from a broad base of users, then it is likely something to be excised from Wikipedia. Thoughts? --HappyCamper 16:08, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Comments on Forbes Global 2000 & Fortune 1000

I did not originally add either Forbes Global 2000 or Fortune 1000 . But after consideration, I rather agree with the anonymmous Wikiuser who did. My rationale (subject as always to overturn by concensus) follow:

  • We have articles already which meet these criteria.
  • Making this list assures that the company or corporation has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the company itself, making them elgiable by the first criterion.

Hence, even though I'm less than enthusiastic about anonomous Wikipolicy edits, whis one made sense. Williamborg (Bill) 05:00, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I am dubious that this change is useful. The first reason is certainly not grounds—the existence of an article doesn't establish that we should have that article, only that someone created it and it hasn't (yet) been deleted. The second reason is a little more compelling, but before we change the core metrics of an entire third of the guideline I'd like to see some discussion on whether it's a good idea. — Saxifrage ✎ 08:25, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
Can you give an example of a company which would be includable under this expanded criterion but which would not have been includable under the previous criteria?
While it's probable that a company on the larger lists will have been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works, I'm not yet convinced that is always the case. Merely being on the list confirms only the company's existence and total revenues. A privately held company can make the list and not release any other details about itself. I would prefer to leave the criteria the way they were until we have evidence that the older criteria weren't sufficient. Rossami (talk) 13:47, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
Good points all. Alas, this is an important discussion, & I'm running to catch a plane. But here are some quick and not well thought through thoughts:
  • Yes this was WP:BOLD. Not an idea I came to myself—but inspired by the anon edit. Bad timing, but that it Wikipedia.
  • Unlike Encyclopædia Britannica (EB), which is constrained by physical size and number of editors to a limited number of broad articles and must focus on big topics, Wikipedia can cover both the big topics and the niches, helping people find their way to that relatively obscure material that they are actually interested in.
  • Wikipedia is, in spite of those who suggest otherwise, a relational database which can link diverse topics in ways that EB and kin can not.
  • Expanding this standard may allow inclusion of some dross & fairly minor articles, but there are diamonds too, and among those diamonds, insight awaits for the researcher.
  • Agree that merely being on the list confirms only the company's existence and total revenues. Privately held companies routinely make the list and may not release any other details about itself. But that doesn’t make them unimportant. The Bechtels of the world are clearly significant. Some of the lesser companies on Category:Privately held companies are clearly significant to an economist’s research, even if a stock investor doesn’t much care. If they simply make the list & are that closely/privately held, they will have short articles at first.
  • Think the requirement ought to ultimately hinge on Wikipedia is a neutral and unbiased compilation of previously written, verifiable facts.. And the criteria from WP:8W that are relevant are:
  • Compilation: Wikipedia is not a simple collection or list of facts. There is a process of summarizing, grading, organizing and collating involved, to ensure that the resulting articles are as useful as possible for readers seeking both detail and overview.
  • Verifiable: Information must be realistically verifiable, including being cited from a reliable source.
Once more, my wife has announced that she's sick and tired of my spending all my time on Wikipedia; so farewell. I’ll rejoin the discussion when I next get to a computer. Skål - Williamborg (Bill) 15:12, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
I've never seen the WP:8W essay before but it describes my understanding of Wikipedia's core policies exactly. WP:CORP has always been intended as an elaboration on those core principles - translating them into more tangible rules that are easier for new users to understand. Notability stands as a proxy for our general ability to find enough independent sources so that we have a reasonable chance of writing the neutral, verifiable article that essay describes. Experience has generally shown us that topics which do not meet these criteria tend to get sub-standard and unverifiable articles which ultimately get deleted - a process which causes much frustration and disillusionment among all concerned. Having rules of thumb like this tend to preempt some of the frustration. We really do need to keep the dross under control. Remember that the diamonds can always be included on other criteria.
Good luck with your trip. Rossami (talk) 19:14, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Pleased you like WP:8W; although it is “policy” it is relatively an unknown. Even though policies like what Wikipedia is not have value, they are a strange way to define an encyclopedia. Positive descriptions of what it is (like WP:8W) are far more intellectually satisfying. But on to why I supported the proposed extension (I’ll couch as a formal recommendation & post to the Pump as well to solicit more participants)…

Recommendation: Expand Notability—companies from Fortune 500 & Forbes 500 to Fortune 1000 & Forbes 2000

The English Wikproject has 6,929,614 articles today. An English Wikproject Articles progress summary follows:

Date Milestone Comment
January 2001 100 articles
April 2001 1,000 articles
October 2001 10,000 articles
January 2003 100,000 articles
February 2004 200,000 articles
July 2004 300,000 articles 155 days since the 200,000th article.
Nov 2004 400,000 articles 130 days since the 300,000th article.
March 2005 500,000 articles 117 days since the 400,000th article.
June 2005 600,000 articles Approx. 93 days since the 500,000th article.
August 2005 700,000 articles 68 days since the 600,000th article.
Nov 2005 800,000 articles 68 days since the 700,000th article.
4 Jan 2006 900,000 articles 64 days since the 800,000th article.
1 Mar 2006 1,000,000 articles 58 days since the 900,000th article.
26 Apr 2006 1,100,000 articles 56 days since the 1,000,000th article.
19 June 2006 1,200,000 articles 54 days since the 1,100,000th article.
6 August 2006 1,300,000 articles 48 days since the 1,200,000th article.
24 September 2006 1,400,000 articles 49 days since the 1,300,000th article.

The point— the English Wikproject continues to expand. There are a number of main articles that need to be written still (e.g., all Fortune 500 companies do not yet have articles); none-the-less much of the current expansion is coming in the form of specialized articles in relatively narrow fields based on individual contributor’s interests. Wikipedia is an important research tool because it provides depth in areas that traditional encyclopedias don’t; it becomes more important as it expands. The trend to more specialized articles is not only acceptable; it is desirable. May first come to Wikipedia when they note that “Googles” on obscure topics turn up Wikipedia answers. Many stay because there is information in the Wikipedia that can’t be found anywhere else (at least in English). The English Wikproject becomes ever more valuable as a research tool as it goes into ever more specialized topics.

At some point we will fill out all the Fortune 500 and Forbes 500 companies. At that time it makes sense to continue down to the : Fortune 1000 and Forbes 2000 companies. Although I’d like to see creation of a Wikiproject:companies and corporations with a concerted effort to complete the articles on the Fortune 500 and Forbes 500, articles on Wikipedia are normally contributed in piecemeal fashion and someone later comes along to systematize the structure with a Wikiproject. Hence this is just a continuation of the normal process. I strongly support extension of the criterion.

Let the debate & consensus building continue! Skål - Williamborg (Bill) 04:38, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Isn't this a no-brainer? What arguments are there against including Fortune 1000 and 2000 companies, assuming proper sources can be found? Catchpole 13:08, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
See comments in the discussion immediately above this one for several arguments against. Williamborg (Bill) 13:21, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Per Catchpole, this really is a no brainer! Just went through some randomly selected examples. Eurotunnel, 1901 on this years Forbes 2000 list is an article. Markel which is 2000 on the list is an article. In 5 minutes I can't find a company of the Forbes 2000 that isn't already an article. 130.20.3.179 15:07, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
I support this. Being in the top 1 or 2 thousand companies is definitely evidence of notability, and in the rare occasions where we don't have information on a privately held company other than revenues, we can either skip that company and come back to it later or just elave it as a stub. Neither of those options will hurt Wikipedia. --tjstrf 18:04, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm strongly opposed. If someone showed me a company that was on the Fortune 1000 and didn't already belong at Wikipedia by satisfying the first criterion (having multiple non-trivial independent publications cover it), I'd be pretty certain it doesn't belong here. As far as I'm concerned the 2nd and 3rd criteria are there to catch the few important companies that "fall through" the net cast by the first criteria by somehow not getting written about independently.
The question I have to pose is, are we really missing any companies that criterion #1 should be catching, but somehow inexplicably isn't? If not, we really don't need to increase the size of the "safety net" provided by criterion #2. For those arguing that Wikipedia is expanding and so we should relax our standards to be more inclusive, I take strong exception to that argument. As Wikipedia expands, so will the number of companies that get written up multiply, non-trivially, and independenly. If a company, as time goes on, doesn't get written up like that then it's obviously a shortcoming of the company's importance, not Wikipedia's standards. — Saxifrage ✎ 18:16, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
I strongly support going to Forbes 2000 and the Forbes list also. The top 2000 companies are definitely notable enough for an article. This doesn't mean they all have to get written in a day or that they all have to be equally complete. There is nothing inherently wrong with a decent stub. Johntex\talk 17:47, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
I support the Forbes and Fortune lists, but think there's another issue here which has to be addressed, which is the public perception of Wikipedia. There's a somewhat schizophrenic process going on, in that on the one hand, founder Jimmy Wales is out there saying that he wants Wikipedia to have "all human knowledge," but on the other hand, we have squadrons of Wikipedia editors deleting any article that doesn't meet notability requirements. In other words, some of the press about Wikipedia is actively encouraging corporations and smaller entities to post information about themselves, plus there's legitimate confusion out there as to whether or not Wikipedia is a similar social networking site such as Orkut or LinkedIn, which encourages maximum participation with no bar to entry. Has anyone else had a similar perception of conflicting goals, that we're both encouraging and discouraging participation at the same time? --Elonka 22:02, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
An interesting topic, for sure. I personally perceive Jimbo's statemetn that he wants Wikipedia to contain "the sum of all knowledge" to be purely a marketing statement. It is useful to energize people, but it has no literal meaning. If we really wanted to be the sum of *all* knowledge then we would not have a giant list of things we are *not*. For example, we would let in recipies and dicdefs and phone book listings and... Jimbo is great at what he does, but we shouldn't take all his statements literally. Johntex\talk 22:21, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Just one comment: the Forbes 500 is no longer produced by Forbes, and hasn't been for over 3 years. The replacement list, the Forbes Global 2000, has almost exactly 500 American companies, and so changing the criterion from the F500 to the F2000 does not materially change the definition of notability for U.S. companies, and makes WP more global in outlook (non-U.S. centric). Since the current criterion refers to a dead list, I second the part of the proposal to change it to refer to the Forbes Global 2000.

Recommendation - Expand to include all NYSE listed companies

Currently, WP:CORP says that a company is automatically notable enough for inclusion if the stock is a component of an index. I would like to expand this. The NYSE has very strict requirements for allowing a company to list with them. Companies that pass those requirements are bound to be notable enough for inclusion here. Therefore, I recommend we expand the criteria to include any company listed on the NYSE.

I do not mean to be US-centric here. There may be other listings in other countries that are equally rigorous in their criteria, I simply don't know enough about those to include them in my recommendation. Johntex\talk 17:44, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

What are NYSE's criteria? — Saxifrage ✎ 21:15, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Great question!
Overview of requirements for US company for initial listing on NYSE are here
Steps in application process are here
Required fees overview is here
Once listed, requirements to remain listed are here
Process to be delisted is here
It is not so easy to summarize, because in some places there are things like "You must either meet A+B or B+C or C+D" but essentially, they have to be fairly big companies, have been in business for a few years, pass an examination that they are engaged in legal business pursuits, have their financial records audited each year... Johntex\talk 21:37, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Reading through those, I can't really determine the class of company that such an expansion would cover in terms of notability. Here's a second question then: could you give one or a few illustrative examples of companies that adding this criteria would count as "notable" that the current notability criteria would not? Such cases that sit in the borderland between the current and proposed notability guidelines would be useful to get a handle on what sorts of companies will be affected by the change. — Saxifrage ✎ 23:05, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
One advantage of this expansion is that it is an objective criteria. That means there is no need to discuss if a company meets the criteroa and is easy to check on and include in the article text. Even if it allowed a handful of companies that would not meet any other criteria is that enought of a concern to not make this change? I don't think so. Let's make the change. Vegaswikian 02:37, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Objective criteria aren't Wikpiedia's concern, only reasonable-determinable criteria. Wikipedia very strongly relies on the editorial judgement of many people. Introducing criteria that short-cuts this is not, in my view, the way to go. Besides, the criteria as they stand are pretty clear as-is. — Saxifrage ✎ 06:18, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
This hasn't been answered yet. What companies would this proposed change actually affect? — Saxifrage ✎ 22:40, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
The current list is focused on large companies. That list was compiled from (first crierion below) but could logically be expanded to (second criterion below):
Skål - Williamborg (Bill) 04:31, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Interresting, I am currently looking at a company that has books written about it and is a market leader, but is of a subsiduary of a company that is only on FTSE All-Share Index Agathoclea 09:22, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
  • In general, in order to comply with the requirements to be listed on NYSE, a company must be fairly large in terms of revenue, have been in business for several years, and be well-run enough to meet the NYSE's accounting requirements. These companies typically employ several hundred people and have international offices. Adding this requirement would be similar to the Forbes/Fortune requirement in that it would be selecting "large-ish" companies. Johntex\talk 12:33, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Propose closing discussion

I'm prepared to change the notes as follows based on the discussion above:

Last call - Williamborg (Bill) 01:25, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I still think it's unnecessary. I have not yet found a single example where this new standard would encourage the creation of a verifiable, properly sourced article which would not have already been allowed under the existing standards. Rossami (talk) 13:47, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

As I pointed out under "Too restrictive", Lilleborg still does not satisfy any criteria for notability. Despite the doubts of a certain admin, I checked, and found that it does not match the stock market indices test either. However, take a stroll through any Norwegian grocery store, and you'll find at least half of their product lineup on the shelves. They are a very much notable company, which does not fit any of the proposed criteria.--TVPR 14:36, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
As you said, your counter-example is not relevant to this question about the expansion of the stock market indices. Rossami (talk) 18:34, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Does it meet WP:LOCAL? Vegaswikian 22:05, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't think it's necessary, and I don't see any consensus to go ahead. Certainly there is support, but there are few commentors in the first place and objections exist. I would suggest that this be advertised at the Village Pump, WP:N, and other places in order to get more views to hopefully develop a consensus. (I'm much happier seeing something I oppose happen when there are a lot of people on the other side of the fence rather than just a handful. ;-) — Saxifrage ✎ 19:02, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Add my voice to the "please expand this criteria" chorus. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:18, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
I too think that the notability requirements are too strict for companies. A privately held company that has thousands of employees and has been in business for decades is notable in my mind, even if there is little to no academic writing on the company. People come to Wikipedia because they know they can find well-organized unbiased information on just about anything, and it doesn't make sense for someone to search for a company they've heard about and find nothing here. I think the notability of a company can be determined by how many different Wikipedians edit a given company's article over the course of a few months. If an article is created as a stub and then modified just a handful of times in three or four months, it can probably be deleted. — Jonathan Kovaciny (talk|contribs) 17:10, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
That's not a good measure. Wikipedia is a chaotic system and two equally-(non)notable companies can have articles created, with one getting a lot of attention (say, because it was vandalised by the same IP that vandalised George W. Bush and people followed the vandal there) while the other gets no attention. Not only that, but our criteria really should be based on the outside world, which is what we're documenting. — Saxifrage ✎ 17:15, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
If there is "little to no academic writing on the company", what are we supposed to use for our sources when writing the article? How can we possibly comply with the requirements of WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR in that scenario? Can you give us a counter-example of a company which fails to meet the requirements of this page but where we could write an non-stub article that meets the requirements of those three non-negotiable policy pages?
I agree that people come here because we have a reputation that they will be able to find well-organized unbiased information. Without independent sources (which is really what this page requires), we can't live up to that promise. Rossami (talk) 20:31, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
If a company makes the news periodically, can that be used as a source? Most news about companies comes FROM the company in the form of a news release. Can the company's own site be used as a NPOV source? A lot of companies are too small to merit academic study but still are very important to the communities or regions where they operate, or important for other reasons such as their contributions to their field or industry. I think that it's important for Wikipedia to have a stub--even an unsourced stub--about any company that is likely to be searched for. If it's common knowledge within a given region that a company exists, Wikipedia should at least acknowledge that it exists and give basic factual information about it, such as what the company does and where it is located.— Jonathan Kovaciny (talk|contribs) 16:12, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
"News" which is based on company-issued press releases can not be considered a reliable source for the purpose of writing an encyclopedia article. It suffers from too many inherent conflict of interest problems. Self-published information will never tell a truly NPOV story. The company's press releases can be confirming sources for non-controversial elements of the article but can never support an article alone.
I have to disagree with the assertion that an unsourced stub is better than nothing. The cusp has been passed for Wikipedia. We are no longer desperate for expansion of our topics. We are now being asked by the Foundation's leadership to focus on quality and verifiability.
As for the "common knowledge" data like company name, industry and address, it's long-established policy that Wikipedia is not a directory. That information may be useful but it's not part of our mandate to assemble or present directory-like information. Rossami (talk) 18:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
A lot of the companies in Category:Privately held companies would make good examples. Should most of these be deleted? — Jonathan Kovaciny (talk|contribs) 16:16, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
If a company is private, it could be difficult to get NPOV information. In Nevada there are many private companies that we can write about because they do have public information. All casino sales, openings and approvals are made by a state board which has public meetings, so information is made available. Our problem is does the company meet the criteria in the guideline? A good current example would be a company owned by Bill Richardson and members of John Ensign's family. A company they own, Generation 2000], sold a casino to another private company. At first blush, this comany does not meet the criteria. However since the control board and gaming comission do publish the results of an extensive backgroud check on the individuals and the companies plans, they probably do meet criteria 1. Remember this is not as simple as walking into a city office and getting a license to operate after paying a few dollars. Vegaswikian 17:51, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I didn't check every company in Category:Privately held companies but the first one I looked at (Bain & Company) is clearly includable. They were "named by Consulting Magazine as one of the Best Firms to Work For in 2005". They come up in comparative analyses by research firms like Gartner Group and Forrester Research. While the article could use some balance, they rather easily meet the first inclusion criteria - multiple non-trivial published works. Can you be more specific in your counter-example? Rossami (talk) 18:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Maybe it's just that articles are nominated for deletion simply because no one cares enough to dig for sources. Shaklee, for example, is a well-established company that was founded 50 years ago and operates in a number of countries. A Google News search for Shaklee reveals a number of recent articles, but finding "multiple non-trivial published works" on Shaklee would be a significant task. I don't think we should be deleting articles just because no one has done the work to meet this standard yet. If a former employee of Shaklee happens by Wikipedia, (s)he is much more likely to expand a small, just-the-facts article than they are to create a new article and make it great right away, especially if (s)he is new to editing. I support keeping this type of article for year or more, except in cases where it's obvious that the company is of little importance in the business world. If Wikipedia can have a gazillion articles on sex positions or school districts in Wisconsin, then it should have a few paragraphs about any company that's made a sizable contribution to the economy, culture, or region. — Jonathan Kovaciny (talk|contribs) 20:40, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Add "primary"?

I like the published works guideline for people, where the person must be the primary subject of multiple published works etc., etc. Thoughts from anyone on including that same qualifier to "subject" in this criterion?

Reading the talk history further, it appears that the consensus is to require that the company be the primary subject, so I'm even more inclined to make this change. More thoughts?

That's how I already read the guideline. Maybe it's just me, but when something says "the subject of..." (emphasis mine), I take it to mean that it's the primary subject (otherwise, I figure, it wouldn't be the subject, just a subject). I might be taking the word "the" more literally than some people might, so if that's the intention of the guideline I would support making it more explicity by including "primary". I'd suggest making the change and seeing if anyone objects, and discussing it further here if there are objections. — Saxifrage ✎ 21:14, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
That is how the guideline was originally intended and how it has been consistently interpreted. If adding "primary" to the clause will reduce ambiguity, then please be bold. Rossami (talk) 05:43, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Agree Wikipedia wants to avoid business promotional material. But the primary subject of multiple published works is rather too bold unless you define published works relatively broadly (magazine articles?, books?, reviews by morningstar?, newspaper articles?). 72.255.99.100 03:39, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

How does the definition of "published works" have anything to do with whether it's the topic or not? — Saxifrage ✎ 05:37, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
I think the shy 72.255.99.100's point is that your proposed change limits the number of companies by requiring it be the subject of multiple PRIMARY PUBLISHED WORKs. I read it that 72.255.99.100 wants to know what we mean by a PRIMARY PUBLISHED WORK. Since I can't answer that question myself, I reverted the anonymous policy page edit until we resolve here. Please clarify.
Skål - Williamborg (Bill) 17:03, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
I can't find any reading of the change or the anon's question that interprets it to refer to something called "primary published works" (as in "published works" with the additional adjective "primary" attached). Rather, it's pretty straightforward that "primary" is attached to "subject". Beyond that, "published works" is defined quickly but clearly in the guideline right after its use. — Saxifrage ✎ 20:07, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
In our AfD discussions, what articles will now be deleted that the old wording would have allowed? Thanks - Williamborg (Bill) 22:23, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't understand why you're asking: this isn't proposing a change in meaning, this is proposing that the meaning be made more explicit. Read Rossami's comment above. — Saxifrage ✎ 22:38, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Late night thoughts on anonymous edits

Fellow editors—please be proud of your insights/perspectives. Please sign them so we can include you in an open, honest, productive debate and reach a productive solution. Here are some late night thoughts on the recent cluster of anonymous edits:

  • We’ve had quite a few anonymous edits on this topic recently.
  • I'm bothered by anonymous edits because it’s hard to tell if they are serious comments, if they are "hit and run" edits by some newby wandering through, or if they are socks and we actually have fewer folks involved in the discussion than it appears.
  • And when "hit and run" editors make a change you can't get them involved in sorting out the questions raised (see Saxifrage's legitimate question just above on Add "primary"?).
  • What's worse, this entire chain of discussion was started by an anonymous edit (which I agreed raised an important point & which was brought here for discussion).
  • Anonymous edits do have value and I'd not discourage them if you feel you must do it that way.
  • We'll work to be civil in this debate so you’ll not feel the need to be anonymous.

Skål - Williamborg (Bill) 16:52, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Application of this guideline

In recent nominations of deletion such as in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jurong Point Shopping Centre, we have the nominator and some others saying this guideline is appliable to shopping malls, based on the first statement in this guideline which goes "a product, company, corporation or other economic entity". I arent sure if this is a fair conclusion, because from my prior understanding, this guideline is primarily targeted towards countering rampant advertising for commercial gains. But when it is applied towards a piece of real estate, I wonder how relevant this is then? Since just about any building or entity is a site for any form of economic activity, then I suppose this applies to practically every building built by man, including even parks?

Should the first line of this guideline be reviewed if its intent becomes less focused, and deviates from its primary intent? Or was I wrong in my interpretation of this guideline?--Huaiwei 16:14, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

  • Your understanding is wrong. These criteria pre-date the recent push to ensure the exclusion of advertising from Wikipedia, by a fair margin. And it is false to say that "just about any building or entity is a site for any form of economic activity". No business operates from my house, or from the sheds in my garden, for example. Whereas the word "shopping" in "shopping mall" is a significant clue as to the primary function of shopping malls. As to whether these criteria are relevant to buildings, they are in that the same need to prevent an encyclopaedia becoming a directory applies to buildings as it does to businesses. The goal of this project is no more to list "every building built by man" in the world (which includes my house and sheds, remember) than it is to be a business directory listing every business in the world. Uncle G 16:57, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
I have participated in that deletion debates; the point of this enquiry is that User:Huaiwei states that WP:CORP does not apply to shopping malls. As User:Uncle G has pointed out, there seems to be some confusion, so here are my two cents. WP:CORP deals with notability criteria for economic entities; on the other hand, it is WP:SPAM that, as you say, is "primarily targeted towards countering rampant advertising for commercial gains". These overlap, but have different focus. In other words, it is possible for an article to deal with a non-notable economic entity, and yet not be spammy. It is equally possible for an article to deal with a notable economic entity, and yet be spammy. (Both tend to get deleted, by the way.)
As for shopping malls, if an article limits itself to describing the building(s), its structure, how it is laid out, how the architect was selected, the artistic/architectural relevance, what other projects were presented initially, etc., that would be an article centred on a piece of real estate, not the domain of WP:CORP. On the other hand, if the article describes the commercial activities of the mall, which vendors are available in it, how many visitors it attracts, that means the article includes content on business activity, which falls within the domain of WP:CORP.
As for parks, articles about them normally do not describe business activities. Therefore, they do not concern WP:CORP. --Nehwyn 17:03, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
It is worth noting that shopping malls are almost always operated by a company of some kind that does not have a public face apart from the mall. As such, it's entirely possible (as you say) for such a company to try promoting their product (the mall) to clients (other companies). I think it's fair to treat articles about malls the same as articles about companies except that the building/place may be notable separately from the commercial entity. Thus, (as you point out) the article must focus on the notable part of the mall, if any. — Saxifrage ✎ 19:46, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
A better term would be "business entity," as that would exclude non-business economic entities like homes, farms, etc. Christopher Parham (talk) 18:41, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

For discussion of the notability of shopping malls, see the ongoing development at WP:MALL. Your input is welcome to create a good guideline which can help get beyond the usual well reasoned AFD arguments "All malls are important and notable" and the other view "Malls are boring and non-notable," and to have guidelines to help decide which are and which are not. Thanks. Edison 22:03, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Problem with Note 2

The example of the Mavalli Tiffin Rooms in note 2 apparently opens Wikipedia to being a comprehensive restaurant guide. The little, totally ordinary, mom and pop diner across the street where I live in Manhattan can likely claim to have been reviewed by multiple sources. Bwithh 16:17, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Shopping malls

I am finding an increasing number of articles popping up about shopping malls, with no references aside from the organization's own website. Has there been some discussion that I missed, about how we want an article on every shopping center in the world? Or should these be flagged for deletion/expansion? Please note that I'm not talking about the chain as a whole, but about articles on each and every location in that chain, large and small. --Elonka 05:11, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

  • Depends on the level of sourcing; if no source exists besides the organization's website, then it should probably be merged into a broader article, either on the larger firm or the relevant community. The organization itself isn't likely to be a reliable source for enough information to write a complete article. Christopher Parham (talk) 07:27, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm talking about articles like Bayside Shopping Centre and Highpoint shopping centre. --Elonka 18:07, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
You haven't missed anything. There just appears to be a sudden influx of dubious mall articles. See Talk:The Centre at Salisbury for an example. — Saxifrage ✎ 01:26, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
I have edited a few mall articles. A couple were speedy deleted this past week citing spam and notability factors. You may have seen my comments on DRV and VPP. To me, guidelines are one thing, policy is another. I feel there is no problem with the better-sourced articles, but anyone can make the argument that the mall s/he is editing is notable - and come up with "reliable secondary sources". In my opinion, Wikipedia needs to decide as a matter of policy whether or not 1) articles on individual malls are even allowed whatsoever and 2)if so, under what concrete, specific criteria (arrived at by using several historical examples from DRV, maybe?). That would save semi-newbies like myself - who are innocently editing these articles in complete good faith and no desire whatsoever to willfully violate policy - MUCH frustration. If I had known the articles I edited were technically "not allowed", I would have possibly taken the initiative and at least nominated them for deletion myself. Perhaps an addendum/amendment to WP:CORP would be in order?--Msr69er 18:52, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

US bias

The criteria here seem to be biased towards the US. What criteria would a company in Korea have to meet? --Gbleem 03:50, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the fact that en:Wikipedia is English-language–biased would present more trouble for a Korean company than any US bias in these guidelines. Due to the requirement for verifiable independent publications covering the subject for them to pass any notability guideline, most Korean companies (and software projects) that I've seen at AfD get deleted because there's no English-language coverage.
Apart from that note, what US-centricism are you seeing in the guidelines? — Saxifrage ✎ 04:17, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Ok the note 4 includes London, Tokyo and the CAC. Maybe it's an issue of any other companies will most likely be smaller and it's an issue of small company criteria. --Gbleem 04:13, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Adding Smaller Company Criteria to Notability

I have been involved with editing Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Precedents where it has been suggested that a detailed discussion of criteria for evaluating smaller companies is more appropriately conatined here. In comparing the two articles I found inconsistency, quite frankly smaller companies aren't even considered here. I think this sends the wrong message, trhat unless a company meets the criteria stated it automatically fails as notable.

Companies which are not large enough to meet the current guidelines at this page can be notable if they have a large impact on a particular industry or market. Consider whether the company is significant in monetary sales, but also consider whether it is significant in effects on an industry or society. A person is considered notable in Wikipedia whose work is ... widely recognized (for better or worse) and who are likely to become a part of the enduring historical record of that field.

My major concern has been developing over several weeks where I am seeing a lot of short-time wikipedia editors, some applying for admin status after just a few months at Wikipedia, running rampant citing these sections for reasons to remove articles about small organizations without thinking through the importance of the contributions, especially to smaller facets of life.

I'm not advocating a specific solution, just some more comprehensive guidelines for our editors.

Thanks.

[[User:Kevin Kevin Murray 04:48, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

These guidelines aren't prescriptive, rather they represent the current state of affairs in what the community deems to be notable for companies. You're welcome to discuss proposed changes, but you have to build consensus and make the community change its standards for any changes to stick. When the community's standards for companies' notability changes in a clear way, then anyone is welcome to come along and make the guidelines reflect that new state of affairs. Doing it the other way around is putting the cart before the horse and will annoy the passengers. — Saxifrage ✎ 05:10, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure that the current guidelines reflect any consensus. My experience thus far is that aggressive editors will persevere in promoting their opinions, but let's get some discussion going here. Kevin Murray 08:27, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
  • As far as I'm concern, I tend to oppose the proposed addition. It sounds like a way to "tone down" WP:CORP, and I still think small companies have no place in an encyclopaedia (as opposed to a directory), unless of course they have a peculiar claim to notability that is specific to a single company. --Nehwyn 11:29, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I concur. The dominant clause in this standard is the call for "multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the company or corporation itself." If a small company has had a "large impact" on an industry or market, then there will be multiple independent sources demonstrating or discussing that impact and we can clearly write the article. On the other hand, if there has not been such coverage, then we have no reliable sources on which to base the article. Softening the wording would tend to encourage spam and the gaming of our system in order to drive up the company's google-ranking. (And, yes, the management of that spam is an urgent problem right now.) Rossami (talk) 12:47, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I'd tend to agree with Rossami and Nehwyn. Unless it can be demonstrated beyond a doubt that Wikipedia is losing something important to its goals by excluding the economic entities that it currently does, I don't see how making this guideline more liberal will be a benefit except to the companies in question. — Saxifrage ✎ 17:10, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

The current corporate notability guidelines don't seem to jive with a lot of the content that's on Wikipedia right now. That may be because Wikipedia is currently too lax in notability enforcement overall, but I feel that this Notability guideline is far too strict. We have articles, for instance, on dozens of insignificant software programs that have made no real impact on the world or even in their field. See List of text editors for dozens of examples. A company like Jenzabar with hundreds of employees may not be well known, but it is certainly more significant than a tiny freeware program like Metapad which was authored by a single person. Yet Jenzabar's article was deleted because of these guidelines, while Metapad and a gazillion others like it remain. Do I think these articles should be deleted? Certainly not. A traditional encyclopedia's notability requirements are much higher because of production costs. Wikipedia should not try to match a traditional encyclopedia's requirements. I support softening these corporate notability guidelines immediately. — Jonathan Kovaciny (talk|contribs) 17:15, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

That has more to do with the fact that there are more people adding non-notable software than there are people to review and remove it. The content of the encyclopedia will always be out-of-sync with the goal of the project even, let alone the guidelines and policies that help grease the wheels toward that goal. You'd have to argue that there's a change in what people believe should be in the encyclopedia without referring to such pages as evidence, because the will to spam from outside the project is a reason for their existence that completely overshadows the internal consensus. — Saxifrage ✎ 18:16, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Also, I don't think that mixing WP:CORP reasoning with arguments based on WP:SOFTWARE is really helpful here. Apart from that, I agree with Saxifrage in saying that the fact that non-notable articles exist is no reason to lower notability criteria. --Nehwyn 21:43, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Here is a case demonstrating my specific concern. I wrote an article on a yacht design team whose work includes a boat which won the America's Cup, and a prolific body of work over about 25 years. I made no mention of a corporation, just the men and the name of their team (their last names Nelson - Marek). The following was cited as the reason for deletion: "Non-notable yacht design group; fails all three of WP:CORP's criteria because 1), there aren't multiple, non-trivial published works about it, 2), the company is not "listed on ranking indices of important companies," and 3), its stock price is not used to calculate market indices. Add to that, less than 500 ghits." These guys individually qualify under the guidelines for personal notability, but their cooperative efforts do not. To me this is ludicrous!
I’m not seeking lower standards, just better clarification of ambiguity in our published policies. Kevin Murray 02:20, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
People can give any reasons they want for starting a deletion debate. If those people turn out to be wrong, how does that mean that our criteria are bad? They're not criteria for starting discussions, they're criteria for ending them. The article you mention hasn't even been deleted, so I don't see how you can cite these criteria as somehow failing. — Saxifrage ✎ 00:32, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Small companies are rarely notable, and if they are there will have been multiple non-trivial cases of coverage of them in the media. The current guidelines are fine.--Srleffler 05:06, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

If you have any suggestion to improve Wikipedia, do so! I will not be a part of it tho. And NOTHING is fine. You all should always improve upon the next or something like that. —SolelyFacts
The above user has been making a number (like around a 100!!!) to WP:WEB and leaving all sorts of friendly messages like this, this or this. As Milo below can testify, it would be best to not pay too much attention to his ramblings. Pascal.Tesson 05:28, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
(personal attack removed) —SolelyFacts
I dislike the above user, as he or she has continuously attack me in the past, which has cause me to strike back, and his or her hassling me endlessly, even to the extent of wikistalking as proven by the above has caused me to never speak to that thing again. —SolelyFacts

Wikipedia:Notability (web)

Over the last day or so, there has been fairly extensive editing to Wikipedia:Notability (web). I noticied that it used to be pretty similar to this page - any additional opinions on the new revisions there would be appreciated. --Milo H Minderbinder 22:17, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Sports teams clause

Srleffler just made a significant change to the clause about sports teams. While I am not absolutely opposed to this change, it strikes me as a very significant expansion of the criteria - one which deserves more careful discussion about the exact wording before we go live with the change. Pending a decision here, I've temporarily reverted the change.
Please also scan the related discussions at #Notability of English football clubs and #Remove the sports clubs section above. Thanks. Rossami (talk) 06:01, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Old version

2. It is an English men's football club competing in Levels 1-10 of the English football league system.{{fn|7}}
  • {{fnb|7}} This is a secondary criterion. Clubs that satisfy this criterion will almost certainly satisfy the first criterion. However, this criterion ensures that our coverage of the the leagues will be complete regardless.
Proposed version
2. For sports teams that play regular games against one another in a league or division, if most of the teams in a league are notable under the other criteria, then all teams in that league are notable.{{fn|7}}
  • {{fnb|7}} This is a secondary criterion, intended to ensure that our coverage of the league will be complete.
Actually, I'd rather see the whole thing scrapped. Certainly the "english club" formulation is overly specific. But even the proposed change is meant to handle one specific case which we should try to avoid IMO. If we start going down this road we'll have a 100kb guideline. I think this criterion clashes with the rest of the guideline which is much more generic in its approach. Pascal.Tesson 15:41, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
This criterion doesn't clash with the rest of the guideline as much as you may think. The intent is the same as the "stock market indices" rule for companies: Most companies that are included in a major market index will be notable for other reasons. Just in case there are a few exceptions, though, we say that any company so indexed is notable so that Wikipedia's coverage of the market index will be complete. The same logic applies to sports leagues. If most of the teams that play against one another in a league are notable (due to media coverage of the games, etc.), then we probably want to make all the teams in that league notable by definition, so that our coverage of the league is complete. This also makes the rule easier to interpret and enforce, since you make notability decisions on a league by league basis and then don't have to fight in AfD over each team.
My phrasing of the criteron is not necessarily optimal. I'm sure there are better ways to phrase it. I am absolutely opposed, however, to having a special rule for English football teams. I do not believe that criterion has consensus, and propose to remove it immediately, to be replaced by a generic formulation (or not) as soon as we develop one that is acceptable.--Srleffler 00:03, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
I see. But then I would prefer to have a wider note on notability by association for such cases. This is likely to be relevant in other contexts. Pascal.Tesson 17:36, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
For those of us who aren't soccer-literate, but are routinely running into football club articles on New Article Patrol, is there a quick litmus test that can be used? For example, many of the articles that come in have no references whatsoever. Should I be immediately flagging them as {{nn}}, or is there some other template that can be used? --Elonka 19:17, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Can a policy be developed once and for all re: shopping malls?

(portions repeated from a comment posted above) I have edited a few mall articles. A couple were speedy deleted this past week citing spam and notability factors. You may have seen my comments on DRV and VPP. (Tonight I noticed another mall was speedied, not one of mine but from another editor).

To me, guidelines are one thing, policy is another. I do agree somewhat with the need to make sure all articles on Wikipedia are suitable for an encyclopedia. What I disagree with is a general prejudice I am sensing against shopping malls. I will always maintain, as others have done from what I have read, that the shopping mall in general, and many specific shopping malls in particular, have:

  • cultural significance
  • economic significance
  • social significance

within their local market area and in the larger sphere (regionally and nationally).

Such factors of significance in my eyes automatically imply inherent notability. Furthermore, such notability can be and in many cases has been proven, as per the primary criterion for notability, with "reliable secondary sources" of a non-trivial nature, most often in the form of newspaper and magazine articles locally produced on each mall. From the primary criterion;

"...* What constitutes 'published works' is intentionally broad, including published works in all forms, such as newspaper articles, books, television documentaries, published reports by consumer watchdog organizations and government agencies...

...The independence qualification excludes all self-publicity, advertising by the subject, autobiographies, press releases, and other such works directly from the subject, its creators, its authors, or its inventors (as applicable)...

... Triviality is a measure of the depth of content contained in the published work, exclusive of mere directory entry information, and how directly it addresses the subject..."

I would argue that at least two or three sources satisfying most or all of the above criteria can be found on almost any shopping mall in the USA if a couple of hours of research in a local public and/or university library were undertaken. Some can be found on the archives of newspaper websites.

It is not always possible to find scholarly books or peer-reviewed journal articles on every mall, nor should that be (again, IMO) a requirement to establish notability. Shopping centers are not universities, skyscrapers, government buildings or sports stadia - but arguably just as important to the lifeblood of a community (and I don't see many articles on these categories being speedied).

Articles on shopping malls are relevant to the scholars of architecture, urban planning, economic geography, social and economic status, retailing, psychology, and many other related fields.

I noticed an above comment on a different article, which I agree with, that the notability requirements themselves are not always consistently enforced - indeed, cannot always be consistently enforced when there are 1.5 million articles to review and counting - and probably need to be envisioned as different from such guidelines that would govern article suitability in publications such as Brittanica or World Book, as Wikipedia, by its very nature as an online resource not limited by traditional page and/or volume restrictions, can be so much more inclusive than either of those traditional print encyclopedias - and STILL provide completely valid, notable, useful and verifiable information to the reader on an incredibly vast range of subjects of interest.

In my opinion, Wikipedia needs to decide as a matter of iron-clad, consistent policy whether or not 1) articles on individual malls are even allowed whatsoever and 2)if so, under what concrete, specific criteria (arrived at by using several historical examples from DRV, maybe?). Gathering guidelines from several different places is not enough, because this has become an issue of contention not only for myself but also for several other Wikipedians.

That would save semi-newbie laypeople like myself - who are innocently editing these articles in complete good faith and no desire whatsoever to willfully violate policy or to be a source of frustration for admins - MUCH frustration (and this whole thing is beginning to negatively color my own experience as a Wikipedian). If I had known the articles I edited were technically "not allowed", I would have possibly taken the initiative and at least nominated them for deletion myself.

Perhaps an addendum/amendment to WP:CORP would be in order? If you feel the existing guidelines are enough, can you please help me out as to why you think so? Thanks very much.--Msr69er 22:22, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Unclear language

Criterion 3 states:

"The company's or corporation's share price is used to calculate stock market indices. Being used to calculate an index that simply comprises the entire market is excluded."

What is meant by "the entire market"? Is this referencing an index that only covers a particular industry? (For instance, an index of publishers.) It isn't clear; please reword the criterion so it is understandable. Thanks.—Nicer1 (talk • contribs) 21:03, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

This clause discusses managed stock indices such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average (30 large-cap companies selected by the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal) or the S&P 500 (500 US companies selected by McGraw-Hill). It is designed to exclude such unmanaged "indices" as the Russell 3000 or the Wilshire 5000 which attempt to establish an average value on essentially the entire market.
That's not to say that the Russell 3000 and Wilshire 5000 aren't useful indices - only that they're not useful in this context. Since no editorial judgement is exercised in the creation of the list, the list is not a good predictor of whether any particular company on the list is or is not sufficiently notable to justify an encyclopedia article here.
More importantly, we would never attempt to create an encyclopedia article which lists the current companies on the Russell 3000 or Wilshire 5000. We do, on the other hand, have all the current members of the DJIA listed in that article.
By the same logic, a managed index which selectively included publishing companies could be an appropriate guide to notability. An unmanaged "index" attempting to capture all publishers would not be a useful indicator of the notability (or lack thereof) of any one company. So in that sense, "the entire market" should be interpreted both ways. Non-exclusive lists simply can't be used as evidence of notability.
Hope that helps. Rossami (talk) 22:15, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation; I think I understand, but I'm not very familiar with stock indices or how they function. I think some sort of change needs to happen to the language in the guideline itself to make the concept clearer. Would something like the following be better language for the guideline?

"A stock market index based on the share prices for a selected set of companies includes the company or coporation in that selected set. Being used to calculate an index that includes all the companies in the market is excluded."

This seems clearer to me if I've understood what you've explained correctly. A valid index in this context is one that is managed and chooses a set of "indicator companies" on which to base its index. An invalid index in this context is one where no selection is made; every company in the market is used to factor an average. Thus the inclusion of the particular company being considered here would be meaningless, as the index is not based on importance, but membership in the market.

Is that about it? —Nicer1 (talk • contribs) 23:07, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Can a policy be developed once and for all re: shopping malls? (part 2)

In the interest of preventing advertising, part of the policy should state that a minimum number of outside non-trivial reliable sources (maybe 3-5) be used in a mall article, and that sources from the mall owner/developer be limited to an external links section, not a "references" section. The article should follow a suggested standardized format in which there is some discussion of the mall's cultural, social and economic impact on the local market area, as supported by these outside sources. Newspapers and magazine articles count as reliable secondary sources based on my understanding of the guidelines for notability.

Any mall article not meeting these standards should be candidates for the AfD process, but not speedy deleted unless, after careful review of the page and its history, intent can clearly be deduced to spam, advertise, vandalize or otherwise committ major violations of policy. In the case of a speedy delete, the article should be immediately placed in DRV by the deleting admin and the last editor notified on his/her talk page and given a chance to argue his/her case and/or rewrite/resubmit the article.--Msr69er 22:43, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Malls in general are not more notable than your average McDonalds. They have little or no greater impact on society, history, etc. I find it unfortunate that people try to make articles on them, although in general I think this entire guideline is poorly thought out and hurts the project. Don't expect people to pay attention to it on AfD/etc etc --Improv 23:57, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) Msr69er has put a lot on the table for discussion but I'll take a crack at responding. I'm going to break my comments into a few separate sections so we can discuss them separately instead of interweaving comments. Please correct me if I've misstated your position on any of these points.
    First, I have to say that I don't take your starting premise as a given. In the section above you claim that shopping malls have inherent cultural, economic and social significance. While I would agree that the concept of "shopping mall" has such significance, my experience leads me to believe that the vast majority of individual shopping malls have no particular significance. They are (hopefully) profitable for the developer and the retailers and convenient for the customers but for the most part are frankly indistinguishable from each other.
    As to their economic significance, remember that the revenue of the mall is defined by the rent received from the tenants, not the cumulative sales of the tenants. If the mall didn't exist, the stores would still be in business somewhere (mostly). The mall itself employs only a few people - generally management, security and housekeeping/maintenance. The vast majority of people working in a mall are working for the tenant stores. When measured in real economic terms, most malls are pretty small businesses.
    Second, you claimed that notability can be easily demonstrated by "non-trivial coverage" in local newspapers and magazines. Again, that has not been my experience. I generally find that I can easily find sources to verify the existence of a mall and some trivial details like who developed it, what hours they're open, etc. I can also generally find articles about stores or special events at the mall. But I can almost never find in-depth coverage about the mall itself other than articles which trace back to the company's own press releases or announcements.
    The exceptions to that observation are the articles you always see when the mall is first being developed (full of hype and hope about the economic resurgence that the mall's developer promises) and the inevitable articles about the lost economic dreams when a mall closes. But every mall is opened once and every mall shuts its doors at some point. I consider those articles to be the equivalent of birth announcements and obituaries - locally interesting but not unique. Maybe appropriate for WikiNews but not enough to support an encyclopedia article.
    Having said all that, some malls truly are notable - either because they were first, biggest, have truly unique architecture, etc. But those malls in my experience have been discussed in scholarly books or peer-reviewed journals. We don't need to rely on purely local sources to write verifiable, neutral articles about those malls.
    Taken together, my experience leads me to believe that Wikipedia is best served by comparatively high inclusion standards for individual malls. Rossami (talk) 00:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
It sounds as though we disagree sharply on the very relevance of the shopping center, and also on the "non-trivial" nature of press coverage on such malls. To reiterate my position would not be helpful here.--Msr69er 16:49, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Second major topic: Having said all the above, I do not think that you will ever see a single, concrete set of inclusion standards. The issues are too complex and the community too diverse to draw bright lines or strict criteria. The nature of Wikipedia is that we work together and seek consensus as we argue and debate on these topics. We try to learn from precedent but have to be mindful that consensus can change. I often share your frustration at the inherent inconsistencies that this creates and I will extend my regrets that you put in good-faith work which was ultimately deleted. I've done the same on other topics. The problem, I think, is that when we try to get "sufficiently detailed" in our standards and processes, we fall into the trap of instruction creep. I don't know that there is an easy solution other than to learn as best we can. Rossami (talk) 00:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
I would consider the process suggested to me and started with WP:MALL to be an attempt in such a spirit of acheiving consensus, It is not my intent to contribute to instruction creep, but the debate on the suitability of mall articles for Wikipedia is one extremely worthy of having. These issues will continue to arise, and some clarification of standards - be they of the existing guidelines or adoption of expanded ones such as I have proposed, IMO should alleviate some of the issues I have seen the last few days. I am a relatively new Wikipedian and I consider myself still "in training" as regards to procedure, but I will not back away from making suggestions I think will solve a problem or make a positive contribution.--Msr69er 16:49, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Third major topic: For those malls where the community agrees that we ought to have an article, you proposed a standard format and set of topics. I think that would be a great idea. I would encourage you to look into the process for setting up a dedicated WikiProject and recruiting other interested editors to help bring the mall-related articles up to standard. Rossami (talk) 00:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
I would be most interested in such a project and I can think of at least two other editors I have encountered through this very process who would share such interest.--Msr69er 16:49, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Fourth (last?) major topic: You propose deletion of articles which fail to reach the desired standards and recommended some limitations on the speedy-deletion of mall-related articles. Spam has been an almost overwhelming problem lately for Wikipedia. Calls have been made for very draconian solutions to spam-control. The community and the Foundation leadership are very worried about spam. But if you want to change the speedy-deletion standards, you should recommend it at WT:CSD.
    The suggestion that an admin carrying out a speedy-deletion should open an immediate appeal on WP:DRV would defeat the entire purpose of speedy-deletion. I don't think you'll find support for that suggestion.
    The issues around notification of the "author" of articles has been extensively discussed on other pages. In general, it is considered courteous to notify an article's creator but explicitly is not required. Among other operational concerns, the principle of WP:OWN applies. (How do you notify the article's "owner" when no one is allowed to "own" any article? In a page edited by more than one person, how do you decide who is the "owner"?) If you'd like to participate in that discussion, you should probably see WT:AFD.
    As you've noted, any deletion may be appealed at WP:DRV. And any speedy-deletion may be reversed if it is contested in good faith. Such speedy-deletions are then sent to AFD for full discussion by the community. In my experience, those controls are sufficient to make sure that good articles aren't deleted inappropriately. Rossami (talk) 00:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Again, I am a relatively new Wikipedian and I consider myself still "in training" as regards to procedure. Thanks for the clarification.--Msr69er 16:49, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Rossami fundamentally misses the point on this issue. This is not a question of commercial spam or attempts by these entities to advertise - it is very clear that most, if not all articles here are being created by regular editors who feel they are notable. That it keeps being cast in this light instead of an issue of notability is utterly misleading. It is also why most of the attempts to have mall articles speedied are quite simply breaching the speedy deletion criteria - they are unilaterally expanding G11 from "spam" to "stuff of a vaguely commercial nature I don't think is notable", which is just not on. Rebecca 04:23, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Change to footnote 3

Could someone please change Forbes 500 to Forbes Global 2000 in FN 3? The Forbes 500 has not been produced for four years, having been replaced by the Forbes Global 2000. I attempted to make this change, and got reverted. Thanks! 68.160.221.170 06:04, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it's only being used as an example of a company ranking index, it doesn't matter whether the index is currently in use or not. To ward off any further argument, however, I've added the reference to the newer index.—Nicer1 (talk • contribs) 08:44, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Historical notability versus current notability.

The section "Criteria for companies and corporations" says that one thing that makes a company notable is that it is used to calculate some kind of stock market index.

What about companies that were once huge and notable under this guideline - but which have faded to a mere shadow of their former selves - or perhaps have disappeared completely.

I think it's worth saying that if a company was ever notable under any of our criteria in the past - then it is still considered notable now - even though bad things may have happened to it since.

If we don't apply this change to the rule then historical records of notable companies could disappear - which would be a terrible thing. (I'm thinking specificially of Silicon Graphics which was spectacularly notable 10 years ago - but which would not meet notability guidelines today - but I'm sure there are others).

SteveBaker 15:51, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

But this is the huge structural problem with the concept of notability. Anything that is not of interest to the majority of current editors is called non-notable, and deleted, regardless of it's importance to others. Trollderella 16:00, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
If there are truly good sources on a topic, it will not be deleted, regardless of editor interest in it. Most people don't care about random historical figures or mathematics, or whatever traditional subject, but these articles are never nominated for deletion, and they are never deleted; there are mounds of reliable sources on them. —Centrx→talk • 16:42, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
It is generally agreed upon that something that was notable in the past remains notable in the future - so something that was used for stock market indices at one point but not any more remains important, just like any historical figure that happens to have died since. Note that as a result of systemic bias, we tend to overemphasize contemporary and recent things (for instance, a contest to find the "10 greatest people of the last century" tends to focus on people of the last ten years or so). So something that is hyped up now and forgotten a month from now (e.g. the average internet meme) is not notable now or in the future. But a company that used to be important? Certainly. (Radiant) 16:31, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
If the company was in the past actually notable, then there would be reliable sources about that past. If they have done nothing notable recently, then the article would not contain much information about recent events, with only a gloss summary, but the topic and the article would still remain. —Centrx→talk • 16:42, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Companies and corporations

Again: Is there anything served by the phrase "companies and corporations" that is not by just using one of those two words? Sure, there's the off chance that someone could claim that the guideline doesn't apply because their corporation isn't a company. But in practice those two words will be redundant almost all the time, and including both of them is an example of instruction creep. Or at best, legalese. Anything you gain from using both words you more than lose from encouraging Wikipedia guidelines to be worded like legal documents. Ken Arromdee 18:22, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

There's actually a merger proposal which would suggest that the right name for this page ought to be "organizations". The original scope of this page included both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. I think that with some minor tweaking that merger could be achieved, streamlining the name and our policy-set even more. Rossami (talk) 22:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I concur on merging this with WP:ORG and renaming to "Companies and Organizations" or something similar. Companies and Corporations is a bit like saying Simians and Apes. Also, for the Notability notice template, we need to be able to provide an {{Notability|organization}} argument. Y'all think? — David Spalding ta!k y@wp/Contribs 18:20, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
This proposal makes sense. I think that having separate guidelines leads to ambiguity, unless both are carefully cross-checked frequently. I like "Companies and Organizations." Whether an entity is a corporation, partnership or proprietorship seems irrelevant to our purposes. How does this proposal get action? Kevin Murray 23:34, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Radio programs

Are radio programs considered under these notability guidelines? I'm looking specifically at Ace & TJ Show, but I wasn't able to find specific guidelines for this type of thing. Any pointers in the right direction would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! --Brad Beattie (talk) 06:25, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Interpretation of "published"

This may seem like a stupid question, but does "published" imply in print; that is, is a (non-trivial) mention or review on the internet by a site that does not publish its works in print sufficient to satisify criterion 1? Neonumbers 05:39, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

In my experience, print is not strictly required but web-only publications are held to a very high standard. Very few qualify as reliable sources for the purposes of building an encyclopedia. Do you have a specific example in mind? Rossami (talk) 21:37, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I disagree ... web-only publications used IAW WP:V#Sources and WP:RS need to exercise editorial control, fact-checking, and many do. It ought not to be hard to determine if a publication online meets that standard. (Many people think IMDb does, though their inability to review all submissions thoroughly makes me skeptical.) Things that I look for are author name on a byline, editors listed on the site, regular publication schedule, and longevity of the site. Also, ownership of the domain is a factor I consider (media organization versus individual, media corp versus corp selling a product, etc). David Spalding (☎ ✉ ✍) 14:44, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
I see, that makes sense. I asked when I was trying to figure out if the company Blue Microphones (www.bluemic.com) would satisfy the notability criteria — not with the intention of creating the page, but rather, to see if it would merit entry on the disambiguation page Blue (disambiguation). The general attitude towards redlinks on dab pages (as a disambiguator) is that they shouldn't be there unless there's a very good chance of a good article being written on it (and if in doubt, don't — especially if the dab page is as long as that one). But I'm not really in a position to say that the company hasn't been in a print publication, so I won't say that's the example I was after — it was really just a question of interest (so don't find me a specific answer if it involves any work, unless you know it will get a good article). Thanks for your answer. Neonumbers 10:09, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Proposed text for a merged and simplified page - Organizations & Companies

NOTABILITY OF ORGANIZATIONS & COMPANIES

An organization or company, as defined below, is notable if it meets one or more of the following criteria:


1. The organization has had a substantial and demonstrable effect on culture, society, entertainment, athletics, economies, history, literature, science, or education.

  • Please consider not only the importance of the organization, but also the importance of its effect including how it affects a culture, discipline or industry.
  • By nature large organizations are more likely to be notable; however, smaller organizations can be notable just as individuals can be notable.


2. The organization has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works. In all cases the neutrality, independence, and credibility of the source should be considered.

  • Examples of Published Works can be in many forms of media, such as newspapers, periodicals, books, television, published reports by governmental and other organizations, and credible web-sources.
  • Specific Exclusions of Published Sources are: press releases, advertising and quotes of press releases or advertising in independent articles. Interviews or other sources where the organization talks about itself are not to be considered independent. Published notices, such as articles or lists that simply show: shopping hours, telephone numbers and addresses are considered trivial.


DEFINITION OF ORGANIZATIONS & COMPANIES

These guidelines should be applied to any group of people interacting for a purpose commercial, charitable, social, or otherwise constitute an organization, this includes: charities, religions, clubs, companies, corporations, partnerships, societies, chains, franchises, etc. 

 Please note that I would move discussions of products and services, and issues of special cases to other pages (if there is merit to the special case).  There is already
 a separate page which displays and discusses precedents; I believe that examples discussing specific criteria such as indices etc.
 should be featured there, otherwise we have potential for redundancy, conflict, and confusion.  I believe that this format is simple, clear, and concise; furthermore it
 allows the combination of two somewhat redundant pages: "Companies and Corporations" and "Organizations."

Kevin Murray 21:15, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I really disapprove of extending this in any way, because it's such a bad way of establishing notability, especially, as WP:CORP is often used, to try and do so at gunpoint. This encourages people to put articles about organisations they do not know about on AfD, and finding good sources to fulfil the "published works" criteria (as opposed to any old crap which might just sway some voters) takes time, especially if offline research is required. It's also really bad for systemic bias, as references are going to be a lot easier to come by for a US company or organisation than they are for, say, an Algerian one. I realise it's trying to create a universal standard, but it's really just arbitrary - stuff that shouldn't get kept gets kept if a decent newspaper article or website happens to be easily available, where stuff that should be kept gets deleted if no one happens to be around that week with access to a decent library and the time to go through it. Rebecca 21:32, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
I wholly agree with Rebecca that the notability guidelines are often poorly applied; however, I'm hoping that simplification and clarification makes it a lesser evil. Since there are already guidelines for Organizations, this is not extending, just condensing. Kevin Murray 21:46, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
I realise that, but this guideline is a bad one, and I'd rather its damage be limited to corporations only. Rebecca 23:10, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
I think you're overreacting, Rebecca ... ANY article that I read here, I'm going to look for some WP:V and WP:RS fodder to back it up. If someone wants to start work on an article that has no references at hand (not even print ones), then it ought to be under their user namespace until they can "back it up." David Spalding (☎ ✉ ✍)
I'm not talking about articles where the content itself is disputed - I'm talking about cases where there is no real dispute over the content, but where - as here - sources are being requested to "prove" notability. And I'm getting sick of certain areas being singled out for disproportionate attention in this area - a vast majority of articles on Wikipedia are unsourced, but it's only those that certain deletionists can't get a consensus to delete on notability grounds that seem to get targeted in these witchhunts. Rebecca 23:10, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
I started to really sniff at the criteria under 1., as I don't see how an objective criteria -- yardstick -- can be found to determine if a company, corporation, or organization has had "a substantial and demonstrable effect on culture, society, entertainment, athletics, economies, history, literature, science, or education" without any reliable sources or citations. Granted, you let criteria 2 suffice, as well, but I think 1 needs some work, or demoted below 2. A good test is Jennifer Ann's Group which has had questional "effect" but has been at least mentioned in teh news twice. Is it notable? Good question.... Other than my complaint about #1, I like your text, and concur with the merge effort. David Spalding (☎ ✉ ✍) 21:51, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
David, I agree with you about the fallibility of item 1 as being too subjective – maybe we can find a solution together. I originally had it as number 2; however, I thought that moving it to number one created a better opening to emphasize that editors can use some judgment. One of my concerns is that some novice editors, with the best of intent, are applying the letter of the rules without looking at the spirit of the rules. Kevin Murray 22:04, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Exactly my concern, a lot of editors -- and not just the li'l sprouts -- are pointing at policies and guidelines and using them for mayhem and censuring. Examples: wholesale page moves of film/tv pages, refusal to allow links to certain sites, blah blah blah. I think an easier criteria is your second, ("got cites? you got an article. no cites? welcome to CsD, population: you"), since a citation or two or three are easier to check than someone's alleged claims of notability or "impact." Again I point at that page where the author is the founder of the group, the father of the victim and of course an expert authority in how much impact his group has had (and he's effectively oblivious to those who cited WP:COI). Citations and third party references have been much, much, much (yawn) slower in coming. I'd move our "easy criteria" up to #1. David Spalding (☎ ✉ ✍) 23:02, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
We're still getting caught up in trying to tie notability in with referencing, which really are two separate issues. If you want to know how notable, say, a church in one state is, asking people in another state is a good way of roughly ascertaining the impact of that particular church. On the other hand, tying verifiability into it means that people who have no clue whether something is notable or not are making a very bad guess depending on what someone manages to frantically turn up during the deletion period. Rebecca 23:10, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Magnificent and tactful job of condensation. I assume these are guidelines, because there are exceptions in both a positive and negative sense. For example an interview with a particular important trade publication may be independent, reliability coming from the reputation of the interviewer. (I am NOT suggesting this as a specific change to the text above, just as an example. )
What I do suggest is that we need some guidelines for notability of parent vs. branches, as quite a lot of fighting takes place over this. and perhaps you will be able to do this next in such a way that it will have general applicability. DGG 04:02, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Note, these two comments have been copied from the parallel discussion at Notability Organizations. --Kevin Murray 00:32, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Looks good to me, but I think it would be useful to take a look at WP:FICT and add a paragraph to state that (depending on article size, amount of avaible information, and resemblance to similar articles) information about products by some company may be best represented in merged list articles, rather than separate articles for each product or type. >Radiant< 16:12, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Good start, but because different forms of organizations have different charateristics, allowances must be made for criteria that are broad, but not universal. One size does not fit all. For example, a corporation might be listed on a major stock exchange, whereas a charity will not. Because of that, it would be appropriate to include criteria that might be specific to a corporation but not a charity, and vice versa. Consideration also ought to be given to the size of the organization (be it membership, employees, number of branches, etc.); length of operation (longevity); size of budget; whether or not a charitable-type organization is registered with its national tax authority as a charity (or similar); notable "alumni", sponsors, or chairpeople; acheivements; nature of operations; size of events it operates, sponsors, or organizes; role in historical events; etc. Credence also ought to be given to the impact or notability of an organization within a region of significant size or population (i.e. a subdivision of a federal state; a major world city; etc.). Agent 86 19:36, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I'll repeat my earlier objection to the page name: don't use redundant legalistic phrases like "organizations and companies". Considering that the text defines organizations to include companies anyway, and considering the unlikeliness of someone claiming that their company is exempt from the rule because it's not an organization, the name should refer to "organizations" only.

This gets even sillier considering that the section "definition of organizations and companies" has companies as part of the definition; you can't define something in terms of itself. Ken Arromdee 17:46, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Conclusion of Discussion It seems this topic has been well discussed in theory, it is time to make the choices: (a) merger or not, and (b) simplify or not. I propose that we wrap up the discussion by end of January and begin preparing the specific text with a goal of posting at the merged site by January 15. --Kevin Murray 14:52, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Stock market index criterion suggestion

This currently reads:

The company's or corporation's share price is used to calculate stock market indices. Being used to calculate an index that simply comprises the entire market is excluded.

This seems to be widely misread or misunderstood. Several AfDs quote a company as being listed on a stock market and reference this criterion as being sufficient to establish notability. Also, overly broad indices (still not necessarily full market indices) may be brought up as justification. With this is mind, I'd like to reword as so:

The company's or corporation's share price is used to calculate a major, managed stock market index. {{fn|4}}. Note: this is not the same as simply being listed on a stock market. The broader, or the more specialized, the index the less notability it establishes for the company. An index that simply comprises the whole market does not establish notability.

Thoughts? Akihabara 06:20, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Proposed tweak made above. See diff. Rossami (talk) 15:25, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I've updated the text as discussed above, as I believe it is merely a clarification of existing policy and not particularly controversial. However I've kept the original first sentence instead of adding "major, managed". I'm not sure what managed means in this context (reviewed regularly perhaps - aren't they all?), and I think major is redundant with the clarifications added. Further such wording may exclude specialized yet narrow indices; say an index of 25 companies from the technology sector, which I am not sure we should exclude. Akihabara 22:55, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

"Managed" in this context has a specific meaning. The DJIA and S&P500 are "managed" in the sense that an editorial board researches and deliberately selects the stocks in the index. There are explicit selection criteria and the members of the index change with some regularity. An "unmanaged" index is one whose members do not change (other than through IPO or delisting of the stock) and is composed of essentially all members in that class. Specifying "managed" indices is part of ruling out the overly broad indices you first mentioned.
The intent of including the word "major" was to limit the list to only the reputable publishers of stock market indices. We should not expose ourselves to gamesmanship just because someone gets themselves listed in the Bob's Bait Shop & Brokerage Index.Rossami (talk) 04:31, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification. Please update the text if you feel it is appropriate. Akihabara 09:58, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Criterion #2: Ranking Indices

A recent AfD has me questioning how people should interpret the second criterion for notability. The primary question I came up with is: What ranking indices count towards notability? The specific instance is that "the third largest law firm in the country" was given as argument for keeping an article that made no other assertion of notability. This was based on a reliable source that ranked law firms in that country based on employee count. The question that rose to my mind is that even the smallest firm could be ranked on that scale and therefore meet Criterion #2 (be listed on a ranking indice from a reliable source). When the rank is based on a criteria that does not filter notability, then is it notable just to exist and be counted? That's hardly the point of having notability criteria in the first place, right? Clearly this criterion was intended to encompass more notable rankings (such as Fortune 500 or the Best Places to Work list) that garner the attention of news organizations and the general public. I feel the wording for criterion #2 needs to be better stated or it's going to be used to draw in even the most mind-numbing corporations so long as reliable sources continue to index everything for public searchability. ju66l3r 21:21, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

See the discussion immediately above this one (which is resulting in some minor tweaks to the wording on the third criterion). As you note, any ranking by size is a listing of essentially all organizations in that class. It's presence on the list verifies the existence of the company but is a very poor argument for notability or for our ability to write a proper encyclopedia article. Criterion 2 was intended to refer to the major published rankings such as you describe and in fact, Fortune is listed as the primary example in the footnote to that criterion. I would argue that the qualifier "produced by well-known and independent publications" would probably exclude the minor indexes that you describe. On the other hand, we're always working to improve the wording of the page. Do you have a recommended improvement?
In this specific case, being third largest may be an indicator of notability regardless of the exact wording of the criterion. Being big is generally associated with having lots of news coverage. Unfortunately, rankings based on size have always been problematic for us - particularly size measured by employee count. As you note, any organization can be the largest in its class if you define the class narrowly enough. There is a great deal of difference between the third largest company in the world, the third largest retailer in the US, the third largest sporting goods store in the SouthWest US and the third largest bait shop in downtown Phoenix, AZ. (I'm not even sure there are three bait shops in Phoenix.) We've never been able to draw a clear line that gave any workable guidance based on the size of the company. I would consider "third largest" to be a reasonable argument to consider in a deletion discussion but not a definitive argument one way or the other. Rossami (talk) 22:33, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Do I have a recommended improvement?: I didn't off the top of my head, but I have been giving it some thought. I would like to see something in the criterion or the footnote mention that the ranking indices should entail something more than a simple attribute (i.e., an attribute that simply existing bestows upon the company... like size, rather than an attribute the company has achieved...like market share or happy employees). If criterion#2 is reasonable but not definitive for something like "third largest" then maybe it might be clearer if the guideline spoke to the idea that #2 is less important than meeting #1 or #3 for notability. One idea may even be to switch #2 and #3, since forming a stock market index seems much more establishable and concrete an index than just "a ranking index". ju66l3r 05:40, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

BALLOT: Merger to Organizations & Companies

The ballot idea has been cancelled as a consensus of editiors feel that voting is not the WP way. I stand convinced. Please see discussion below. --Kevin Murray 16:21, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

In December I began a renewed discussion to merge Organizations with Companies and Corporations, and delete the term "corporation" from the title as it is a sub-class of company. In my mind a company is sub-class of Organization, but people seem to equate organization with non-profit, so "Company was kept for clarity.

In mid-January I suggested closing the discussion at the end of January '07 and move to a consensus, with the next goal being developing the text for the new combined page by mid-February.

BALLOT: Please express your opinion under the appropriate category.

  • Merge the pages:


  • Do not Merge the pages:
  • Six of One, Half Dozen of the Other I do not have a strong preference, as long as either solution results in and provides clearer criteria and recognizes that not all "organizations" are the same. If I have to pick, it may be easier to have separate policies for the larger groupings (i.e. one for corporations/businesses/companies, one for charities/non-profits, another for social/fraternal/community groups). It would help avoid the pitfalls of a "one size fits all" policy and would help avoid having a really long policy/guideline page. That said, there's no reason it could not be covered off in a single page as long as it's well organized and recognizes the differences. (And whatever the result, I'd like to see better criteria than over-reliance on external media.) Agent 86 20:44, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
  • It seems that from this comment and others you have a concern about the external media criteria as being too restrictive. In a way I agree, but without external source material, how can we avoid the issue of "primary research"? I have no problem with specific inclusion criteria, but for example if a company qualifies because it is Fortune 500, how do you write the article without (1)citing independent sources, (2) rely on non-independent sources, or (3) performing primary research? --Kevin Murray 21:31, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I think that we disagree only slightly in the "one size fits all" issue. While I agree that special circimstances need to be acknowledged, I'd prefer that we have "precedents" page(s) rather than an overly detailed notability criteria page. --Kevin Murray 21:31, 1 February 2007 (UTC)


Note: The ballot has been modified to address the concerns of Agent86 and TheronJ (below).

Note: I've been contacted by the coordinator for the Organizations Project. I am pasting his comments here:

  • Hi Kevin. I've not yet read into this merger thing you've been talking about with Companies & Organizations, but I think it definitely falls within the scope of the Organizations WikiProject. I need a few good coordinators to help me, if you pardon the pun, organize the project. Oldsoul 18:30, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Hey thanks for your in-depth reply. After reading through some of those pages you've talked about, I realized how superfluous a lot of those debates have become. Instead of focusing on the micro analyzation of policy, we should all be focusing on the meta-framework for all organizations on wikipedia. Which is exactly what I aim to foster over at the WikiProject mentioned above. I hope you'll find time to read through some of our discussions there, and consider join as a project coordinator. Best, Oldsoul 20:26, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Do I consider corporations to be a subset of organizations? Yes. In my mind, they are by definition, a type of business organization. Yourself? Oldsoul 21:04, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
  • It's good to know that there is some consensus on that. Thanks, and look forward to working with you on the Project. Oldsoul 21:23, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

END OF QUOTE

Discussion

  • No Vote. I do not think it is appropriate to have a "vote" on this matter. First, it is not clear what we are "voting" on, although I assume that this is the form proposed. There are several suggestions posted above and in the talk page for Wikipedia talk:Notability (organizations) that are not reflected in the proposal. The proposed wording that I think we are "voting" for is too broad and vague in the first section and has too much emphasis on external publications. I do not think we need to restrict the guideline to language that covers anything that could be considered an organization or company; in fact, it should reflect the fact that a charity is different from a company is different from a society is different from an institution. Agent 86 03:32, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
  • The vote is to accept the proposal to MERGE: "with the goal of developing the text for the new combined page by mid-February."
  • It seems like we have stagnated in the discussion and need some division between discussing the IF and the HOW. Perhaps I have been to vague and will try to make the issue more clear. Thanks! --Kevin Murray 03:59, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
  • To clarify I made the choices "merge ..." or "do not merge ...". Is this better? --Kevin Murray 04:03, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment. If the merge happens the name should be 'Companies and organizations'. If consensus is that companies are a subset of organizations, then just use organizations in the title and explain that it includes companies and corporations in the introduction. Vegaswikian 00:20, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

No vote I favor merging, but if the discussion "stagnated," then it's time for an admin to call it a draw, win, lose, whatever. WP policies are clear, we do not vote here, we reach consensus. In cases where no clear consensus is reached, the action is to leave it be. Calling for a vote just is not the way. Just my two cents. David Spalding (☎ ✉ ✍) 14:32, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Ballot idea - Bad idea! Sorry. Now several people here and at my talk page have said that taking a "vote" is not the WP style. I feel that the participants in the discussion have had adequate opportunity to comment and the comments run from "just do it" to "Six of One, Half Dozen of the Other," so lets do it since there seems to be no clear objection and the merge tag has been at Organization for months. --Kevin Murray 15:42, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

  • I believe the merge is a good idea, and that such editing actions need not be voted upon. Be WP:BOLD. >Radiant< 15:43, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I said above that the merger was probably a good idea. Haven't changed my mind. As Radiant said, be bold. Rossami (talk) 23:32, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Undo the merge It was performed without a consensus 2 days after the discussion was opened. Many editors (such as myself) might have had input if a reasonable time such as five days had been provided for comment, I see some support for the merg, by the proposer Kevin Murray, by David Spalding, by Radiant, and by Rossami. Agent 86 sounds doubtful and I am doubtful. So far, there is clearly no consensus, so it should be left unmerged for at least a five day discussion period. Edison 22:50, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
  • You had plenty of opportunity to be heard: (a) the merger tag was added to the article in Sept. 2006, (b) discussion has been ongoing since then, (c) discussion was combined to one location in December to avoid redundant debate, this was noteda t the other talk page, (d) notes were put at both articles in mid January that a decision would be called for at the end of January, (e) notices were sent to all editors who participated in the merger discussion (f) a consensus was formed among the recent participating editors, with only moderate objection from one participant. I believe that we had prior objections from one editor Rebecca, who did not respond recently; her objection seemed to be to having either page, rather than protecting the separation. --Kevin Murray 00:33, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Merger Perfomed

I merged the proposals. I tried to eliminate redundancies between the articles and among the included sections by having one section at the beginning which states the common criteria, then stated the specific conditions for automatic notabiliyt etc. in special sections referenced from the table of contents. I treied to simplify but strengthen the note regarding advertising in the preface. Of course I understand that my attempt will be limited by my frame of reference and understanding. Cheers! --Kevin Murray 17:34, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Notability of Wineries

Editors of the Wine Project are having a discussion over on the talk page of WP:WINEGUIDE about the notability of wineries that would merit an article. One editor proposes that all wineries are notable, while another editor and myself do think that WP:CORP tempers that though I don't think we can do a cut and dry application at least with the way that WP:CORP is written. We would appreciate any input or additional perspective by editors who are more familiar with dealing with this guideline and business articles to chim in with their views. Thanks Agne 19:54, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

  • In California, where I live, wineries are more prolific than body shops, though some people think that the use of one product can lead to demand for the other. To the point, why should wineries receive notablility greater than any other company? On the other hand, wine is a topic of broad interest and WP can provide a meaningful service by providing verifiable information, without being overly restrictive on the notabillity criteria. --Kevin Murray 22:07, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I've added the section on notability to the essay itself. In dwelling on WP:CORP, I honestly think it is too lax in regards to wineries since many of what I would consider distinctly non-notable wineries could merit an article based on being written about in multiple non-trivial sources. So I proposed some more defined parameters and I would like to get some input. Thanks! Agne 22:20, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

  • I think your comments about the laxity of the guideline isn't limited to wineries. This is one of the many things I am trying to put my mind to in the broader scheme of the guideline; hopefully, others are too. Agent 86 22:34, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't think there is a general "overall" problem of laxity but rather the difficulties in the cookie-cutter approach to all types of businesses and organizations. As a baseline level of notability, it is okay but I think when you have a case of a lot of businesses doing the same thing (like wineries), you need a finer criteria to distinguish the notable ones from the non-notable ones. When you have an area that is very specialized in a niche sort of way, then there needs to a different level of criteria that takes into account the notability of the specialized area as well as the individual business.Agne 22:45, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Changed to proposed guideline

While there was consensus to merge the two separate guidelines, I do not think that there was consensus as to the content of the guidelines. There is still a lot of discussion to be had as to the acceptability of the criteria, as was set out in the talk pages of both guidelines before the merge. Agent 86 22:45, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

  • 86, I agree; however, it was impossible to merge without modifying the text in some way. I agree with the tag you added though; thanks. --Kevin Murray 22:53, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I tried to reduce redundancy but still keep all of the information and include the spirit of the streamlined text from December (popular), without eliminating the old text, so where there was an overlap, I left the old text. It seems as though we needed some starting point. --Kevin Murray 22:53, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I don't think it's all that impossible to set out the criteria (assuming this merge remains). Generally speaking, I find the current criteria far too broad and far to easy to meet. The current criteria leave out a lot of concerns and a lot of suggestions as to objective criteria. I am also always sceptical of "automatic" notability. There must always be room for intelligent consideration of the specific circumstances of any case. Agent 86 23:07, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Can you be specific about criteria which are too broad? Did I delete something that should have been included? --Kevin Murray 23:54, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I don't like the "automatic" criteria either. I think that if notabillity can't be demonstrated by independent sources, then the verifiability can't either. I think that allowing unsubstantiated information from the organizations' own documents as sources contradicts other WP guidelines. --Kevin Murray 23:54, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Are you now in opposition to the merger? Your prior comments seemed neutral "six or half dozen" --Kevin Murray 23:54, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I never opposed merger. However, the contents of the guidelines, merged or unmerged, have always been a concern. I have always been consistent in that regard. Agent 86 00:37, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
    • It also seems the merge came a little too soon and a little too quick. The former [[WP:CORP]] pretty much had consensus as a guideline, while there was never a consensus on Wikipedia:Notability (organizations). It seems, with hindsight, that consensus should have been reached on the notability for organizations before merging it with notability for companies. Agent 86 00:40, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
      • Regardless of the timing, which we could talk about for months, why don't we agree that despite your concerns over logistics of the merger, the bigger issue is content. Can we get a better picture of what you would like to change, add, subtract. I might agree and so might others if you would state your case more specifically. --Kevin Murray 00:54, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
        • That's what I've been saying - content is the key issue, not merging or the timing. I've pretty much stated my concerns in the talk pages of both pages over the last few months, I don't think they need repeating. Agent 86 10:14, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Sorry, I'm trying to be difficult. I'm just trying to understand your concern, It seems that while the attention of so many people is focused here due to the merger, this might be a good time to handle some of the lingering issues. I will read what you've written. --Kevin Murray 16:21, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I disagree the merge was at all premature. In fact it was discussed for months. Rather, we should discuss what people disagree to regarding the present wording, and fix that. >Radiant< 11:55, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
    • I've added a "disputed" tag instead; that seems to be more appropriate than the reasoning that it's not a guideline since it was modified recently. Indeed, most guidelines are modified regularly. >Radiant< 12:00, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
      • Fair enough with the "disputed" tag; however, this was more than a modification. I still disagree with labelling this as a "guideline", given that half of the "new" unified set of criteria were never a guideline. To me, that's like saying if you pour tap water into distilled water, the result is distilled water. However, there's little to be gained flipping between templates. Hopefully this can be sorted out quickly. It would be unfortunate if AfDs were being determined on what are marked as "guidelines" despite being "disputed". It would also be nice if there was greater contribution to developing the synthesized guidelines, instead of the very few that are. (It would also be nice if I won the lottery, lost weight, got more sleep...). Agent 86 22:43, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
        • That's a good point, but a significant part of the page merged here was rather similar, and one of the reasons that page was not a guideline is overlap with this. Please tell us what sections you object to, so we can discuss, edit or remove them. >Radiant< 10:48, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Notes on merger logisitics

Listing on major stock exchange

I know that this has been discussed before without reaching consensus, but companies listed on a major stock exchange should be notable, because they will have passed a review by the exchange, and must have audited financials, thereby creating two sources of WP:V information independent of the company itself. So does anyone have objections to adding:

Public ompanies listed on a major stock exchange that maintains standards for listing, and enforces these standards by delisting are generally notable. This notability is persistent, and applies even if the company is subsequently delisted.Dhaluza 12:15, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Since, as you say, 'notability is persistent', then you only need to add:
    Public companies listed on a major stock exchange that maintains standards for listing, and enforces these standards by delisting are generally notable.
    Right? Vegaswikian 19:24, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree that listing on a major exchange make the company notable, but why does this have to be a special case. For these companies to meet the proposed criteria, they would already qualify as being notable under the general standard. I object to adding superfluous rules that leave room for greater misinterpretation and/or greater misapplication to clog-up the XfD processes. You also get into wrangling over whether an exchange is major, so that would need to be defined. The instruction creep will grow and grow.
  • On the audited financial this is not much of a barrier, since non-notable companies have audited financials.
  • I am uncomfortable with most "automatic" notability critera, because without verifiable information you can't populate the text of the article, and if you have the verifiable information from acceptable sources, you generally prove the notability. Instruction creep adds little benefit, and is just a greater source for debate.
--Kevin Murray 19:46, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree with Dhaluza's proposal. I don't see this as superfluous at all - it is perfectly conceivable for a company to carry on business without a lot of fanfare and media attention, so it is reasonable to look to other criteria of notability. I don't think we need a lot of definitions or rules beyond what is proposed; it's certainly more clear than a number of the otherwise vague general criteria, and it still leaves room for independent critical thought so that notability is not "automatic" (which I agree is not desirable). The suggestion says "are generally notable", not "automatic". Purhaps one could rephrase things to say, "Indicia of notability include (criteria x, y, z). An organization meeting any of these criteria may be generally notable, but failure to meet any of these criteria is a strong indication of no notability". I'm just winging it there, I still have to find the time to give the "big picture" more thought. Agent 86 20:00, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I have a major objection to; "failure to meet any of these criteria is a strong indication of no notability"
  • I think that the proposed criteria are addressing non-issues. Perhaps the proposers could cite a couple of example of companies where the criteria would apply and we can do a case study or two to analyze the concept further, to see whether my premise is correct that in a practical manner you can't have independent verifiable content without establishing notability.
--Kevin Murray 20:07, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm confused. If an organization fails to meet any of the criteria of Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies), how does that not suggest the organization is non-notable? Doesn't that just defeat the purpose of having notability guidelines? Does rephrasing it to say "failure to meet any of the following criteria is an indication that the organization might not be notable" help clarify?
  • I oppose this recommendation strongly (and have done so in previous discussions where it's been proposed). While it is very likely that a company on a major stock listing wll have the kind of coverage that we would need to write a fair, balanced and properly sourced article, merely being listed on a stock exchange is not a guarantee that this is true. If a company has flown so far under the radar screen that there is no independent coverage of the company, it doesn't matter how nice they are or how well they work, we simply don't have the sources with which to write the article. Audited financials tell very little about a company and it's impact on the world - certainly not enough to write an [WP:NPOV|]] article on the topic. Despite being audited, they do not qualify as an independent source.
    The last time this suggestion was made, I asked for an example of a company which met the proposed criterion but which failed all the other criteria on the page and for which sources existed with which to write an article which meets all our required standards. No counter-example was ever found. I'll propose the same challenge again. If anyone can find such a company, I'll change my mind. Rossami (talk) 22:03, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
    • As a side note, I also challenge the assertion that "notability is persistent". Notability is merely a proxy for our expected ability to find reliable, independent sources by which a balanced article can be written and for our expected ability to find the necessary critical mass of informed reader/editors to maintain the article over time. If an article fails those criteria in the future and can not be reliably repaired based on the sources available then, we will have no choice but to delete that future article. What was notable in the 1911 Encyclopedia Brittanica is not necessarily what is notable today. Rossami (talk)
      • Have a look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fairpoint Communications. Here is a US$680M company spun off from Verizon, publicly traded on the NYSE, that generates multiple news items every day, and it is put up for deletion based on these notability guidelines. I think the present guidelines probably made sense when WP had 10,000 or even 100,000 articles, and there was a perceived need to focus editor's attention on higher priority subjects. But they are no longer reasonable now that the en:WP has passed 1,000,000 articles, and will be completely irrelevant when it passes 10,000,000. Dhaluza 23:29, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
        • this is a good example of a poorly constructed article on a notable topic. The AfD was inappropriate as well; the nominator should have cited this for not having references and contacted the author with a suggestion to read the guidelines. Too bad the nominator took a short cut in the process. Now after some collaboration from AfD participants it almost makes the verifiability standards with one non-trivial mention at Hoovers, and a marginaly significant reference in an article about telecoms in the Midwest. This will pass AfD if someone does minor research. --Kevin Murray 23:56, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
        • I'm afraid I have to agree with Kevin. It did not take me very long to find more than a few examples of non-trivial independent coverage of this company. I also found a few online mentions under their predecessor name YCOM Networks though those were somewhat more trivial. Rossami (talk)
      • On the side note, notability is persistent--what you correctly point out is that verifiability may not be. My main point was to prevent a misguided editor from turning the guideline on its head by arguing that delisting a stock is evidence of non-notability. Because delisting is unusual and newsworthy, it would actually improve notability not negate it. Dhaluza 23:42, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I provided a recent example of how these arbitrary guidelines were causing harm, so now I pose a counter-challenge: Can anyone provide an example of how they do good by posting the ticker symbol of a company listed on the NYSE, that is not notable enough to have an article with enough WP:V information from WP:RS to create an article that meets WP:NPOV? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dhaluza (talk • contribs) 2007-02-08 11:32:13

  • No you didn't. You provided an example of an AFD nomination where the nominator apparently didn't do any research to see whether the criteria were satisfied. Indeed, you provided an example that showed that the criteria do good, because in discussing notability editors discussed sources, rather than arguing over subjective criteria as they would have done some years ago. Uncle G 13:32, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone have an example of a non-notable company listed on the NYSE, or is it safe to assume that companies listed on a major exchange like this are notable?Dhaluza 00:30, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure that you've proposed a fair test. A responder would have to find a listed company that they somehow knew about but that didn't meet the criteria. Since few of us are securities professionals and all of us have other obligations in our lives, you're going to have to be very patient before insisting on a negative proof. Rossami (talk) 16:00, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Proposal to remove paragraphs from the guideline

Based on the discussion above as to why we should not increase the guidelines to include members of stock exchanges, I propose that we delete the following as being redundant in practice to the general guidelines:

  • The commercial organization is listed on ranking indices of important companies produced by well-known and independent publications.3
  • The commercial organizations share price is used to calculate one or more of the major managed stock market indices.4 Note this is not the same as simply being listed on a stock market. Nor is it the same as being included in an index that comprises the entire market. The broader or the more specialized the index, the less notability it establishes for the company.

This may seem like a way to disinclude more companies, but I don't believe that is the case practically speaking. And I don't see how the removal would protect non-notable companies either. Truly I think that the removal would mostly benefit us by reducing the ongoing debate about hypothetical instances with no empirical basis. --Kevin Murray 20:19, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

  • I'm all for reducing instruction creep, but I wasn't WP:BOLD enough to suggest the shock treatment. I think the present standards for notability are outdated, and in need of a complete overhaul, and since the page content was recently merged, this is a good time to address it. The stock listing is just the most obvious example. Setting an arbitrary standard that limited notability to a few thousand companies probably sounded like a good idea at some time in the past, but that time has passed. Dhaluza 23:33, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
    • You don't understand these criteria, and are focussing upon the secondary criteria, putting them ahead of the primary criterion, despite the explanatory footnote on the page, and the very deliberate ordering that this page has always had. You have no basis whatsoever for thinking that "a few thousand companies" will satisfy the primary criterion. Please remember that the primary criterion exists. Uncle G 13:46, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Those two secondary criteria have been here from the start. There are reasons for their inclusion, which have been discussed many times on this talk page. Please read the prior discussions. As the footnote on the page itself explains, they are safety nets, for those (exceedingly) rare cases when the PNC fails. They make Wikipedia business-directory-like in some specific, narrow, areas, so that our articles on the various stock market indices and ranking indices can be simple lists with bluelinks. They are consequences of how we want to lay out certain specific parts, our coverage of stock market indices and ranking indices, of Wikipedia. Uncle G 13:46, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

  • I can't agree that a couple of special purpose lists merit the inclusion of specific circumstance guidelines here. It seems that the examples you give are articles which would stand alone as notable as do other prominent lists. This argument could be used to support Dhaluza's proposal that it is needed to protect a list of NYSE companies, and the the NFL, to the NHL, to the National Association of Grocers, etc. until the page is just one big bloat
  • My concern is misapplication and an implication that ony big companies are notable. Personally I think that big, medium or small, they should only be included if notable by the general definition.
  • Because something was in the original draft, does not make it right. Since WP is organic in its development, the rules need to be flexible as well.
--Kevin Murray 17:58, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
The distinction is that Wikipedia would never tolerate a "list of all NYSE companies" article. It would be utterly unmaintainable and a duplication of information which is freely available and better maintained other places. We don't even allow the Russell 3000 article to attempt to list all the companies. We do, however, tolerate list-pages of the more significant (and more selective) market indices like the DJIA. Rossami (talk) 22:57, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Is it really primary?

I ask because it's becoming awfully misleading awfully fast. The guideline itself acts as a pointer to the individual subject-specific guidelines, and, contrary to the wording here, "nearly all" of them do not, in fact, share the criterion. The section should probably be reworded to reflect this. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:43, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

  • The words "nearly all" do not occur anywhere on this page. You appear not to be reading the correct page. As for whether it is primary here: It has been listed first since the very first version of this page, has always been intended to be the primary criterion, and has been discussed as such on this very talk page since September 2005. Please read the talk page archive. Uncle G 15:00, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Subsidiaries

Is the any chance that a section on subsidiaries could be added, to clarify the notability requirements - after reading the page I have no idea whether:

  • A subsidiary of a notable company is automatically considered notable
  • A subsidiary of a notable company is not automatically considered notable, but will not have to provide as much evidence of notability if this has already been done for the parent
  • A subsidiary of a notable company must meet the same notability requirements as any other company or organisation

For some idea of context, it may be useful to see my comments at User talk:70.23.226.191#Proposed deletion of Greenbee

Cheers, Davidprior 16:49, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

  • David, please look at the primary criteria. If the organization makes the grade, then its notable. Why would the notability of the ownership have a bearing here. If a football star owned a McDonald's franchise, the franchise location would not be inherently notable, though it might be an interesting piece of info at the article on the football star. A further parallel would be children of famous parents etc. Why would we need a specific rule for this case? --Kevin Murray 17:08, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Good analogy, makes sense to me - would it not be worth including something specifically stating this though, if only to save people like me who were too dense to realise this at first reading from asking stupid questions on the talk page :-) ? Davidprior 19:12, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
  • David, I did a Google search which yielded 10 hits on greenbee, most of which were links to its site, and none of which looked to be independent verifiable sources. This by itself does not refute notability, but indicates that it would be a difficult chore to demonstrate. Good luck! --Kevin Murray 17:22, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't actually consider the subject of this article particularly notable, and have updated my comments at the talk page of the user who prod-ed it. Davidprior 19:12, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
As it happens, this {prod} has been removed by User:Cordless Larry. I've let the {prod}-er know. Cheers,
Having said that, am I right to assume that the GHits you quote are from Google.com? A UK Google for "greenbee john lewis" gives 937 results [2] (simply searching for "greenbee" gives around 97k [3]), a quick look suggests that roughly 50% come from www.johnlewis.com, www.waitrose.com, www.greenbee.com or www.johnlewispartnership.co.uk. There are also 9 results on Google news [4] including 2 different broadsheet newspapers. Of course, you said that you weren't using Ghits to disprove Notability, I wouldn't attempt to use it to prove notability either. Cheers, Davidprior 02:44, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
  • The section on Chains and franchises is where we tried to answer that question. Some subsidiaries might be notable (and if so, there will be multiple independent sources demonstrating the fact) but most are not. Re-reading the section and seeing how the examples have slowly been changed, we could probably make the wording clearer. Any suggestions? Rossami (talk) 19:29, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I would have to say that A subsidiary of a notable company must meet the same notability requirements as any other company or organisation. This is because of the nature of corporations (depending on jurisdiction) and their structure. For example, XYZ Co. could be a notable seventy year-old manufacturer and marketer of WidgetBall(TM), with annual sales of mulitiple hundreds of millions of dollars and stores in eleven countries. Amongst its assets, XYZ Co. owns 100% of all the shares of ABC Co., thus making ABC Co. a wholly-owned subsidiary of XYZ. In most common law countries, ABC Co. would be considered a separate legal entity from XYZ (like they were separate people, if corporations were living beings). However, just because XYZ owns all the shares does not mean ABC is notable. ABC could simply be a holding company or it could be an active business itself, being a major distributor of Thingamajig Sockets (TM). ABC might not be a separate company at all. It could be XYZ operating a subdivision under the trade name ABC, in which case one needs to consider whether ABC ought to have its own article or be a part of the XYZ article. The guideline needs to be flexible enough to account for the many possibilities and allow for a critical analysis. Agent 86 21:29, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
  • The above makes sense - if it'd been in the guideline, I'd not have had to ask for clarification. The only thing I'd add to it is a comment that a subsidiary not worthy of an article in its own right may still merit a mention in the article on its parent company. Cheers, Davidprior 22:45, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Have you two ever heard of Who's on First? But who wants to be Abbott? --Kevin Murray 00:56, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
I only recognise it 'cos it's referenced in Rain Man - I've had a look at the Who's on First? article, but still don't "get" your comment - am you saying I'm misinterpreting User:Agent 86? - if you are, I'd like to apologise. Cheers, Davidprior 01:13, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, what I'm saying is that 86 is being a bit windy, and you're not getting the point of the primary criterion. Talking in circles is the meaning of Who's on First. We don't need more rules, just better understanding of how the existing rules work. Yes, in this case a rule might cause no harm, but multiply it by a thousand special cases and we will have the US Tax Code. I guess you have to be an old-person to get the Abbott & Costello reference --Kevin Murray 01:22, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Sorry to be "windy" on your parade. The A&C ref was lost on me, too, despite having seen the routine countless times. The only implication I was able to take from the analogy is that that only one of us - myself or Davidprior - knows exactly what we're talking about, while the other does not. You seem to think I am advocating more rules. I am not. I never said anything about a tax code sized compendium of rules. All I did was answer a question requesting an opinion on three options. I chose the latter option, and explained my choice. I do not oppose a concise statement of criteria in plain english; however, I do not want to see an oversimplified set of criteria over-stretched to suit all circumstances. Clarity cannot be sacrificed for the sake of conciseness or simplicity, and I remain convinced that it is possible to balance both. Agent 86 01:39, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Relax Max, I'm just bustin your balls. Have a great weekend. Kevin --Kevin Murray 01:49, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, I could have phrased that comment better, my bad. I think it's time to have a weekend. In fact, I think I will. Hopefully I can spend that $0.02 I keep talking about. Agent 86 02:20, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
(Oh, joy of joys - edit conflict) Hey, if Kevin was suggesting I didn't know what I was talking about, he'd have been right :-) What i was getting at was that if the line that User:Agent 86 includes in italics above was included in the guideline, I'd not have wasted your time querying this here. Cheers, Davidprior 02:24, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Example nit question

In note 1, one of the examples given relates to cars with Haynes manuals. Since this is only one published work, and the criterion requires multiple published works, isn't it true that cars with Haynes manuals are only halfway to meeting the criterion? Can we find a better example than this, or delete this exmple? UnitedStatesian 21:35, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

  • I agree this is a poor example and can be a bit misleading as a service manual is a poor example of the notability of a product. I see no real value to this third example. --Kevin Murray 21:44, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Exception standards - seking consensus

Does anyone else think that Note 4 sets a completely arbitrary standard?

To add to the confusion Note 3 says that the Forbes 2000 is notable while note 4 says the Russell 3000 isn't. Where is the borderline? 2100? 2500? 2999?

  • ^3 Examples of company ranking indices: Fortune 500 and Forbes Global 2000 (which has replaced the discontinued Forbes 500). Companies listed on such indices will almost certainly satisfy the first criterion. However, this criterion ensures that our coverage of such rankings will be complete.

All of this index based notability is an arbitrary set of criteria which is sacrosanct because it's been here for a while. --Kevin Murray 03:34, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

  • 2 Comments: 1) the Forbes Global 2000 is a GLOBAL index, with (if memory serves) only about 700 or so U.S. companies. The Russell 3000 is all U.S. companies, so on an apples-to-apples basis the Russell 3000 is >4 times "broader" than the Forbes list. Yes, the cutoff is arbitrary, but not as close as Dhaluza's comment implies. 2) To Murray's comment, I thought there were only 3 things sancrosanct on WP (WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, and WP:V), and the index-based notability was not one of them. I for one would not mind if BOTH exceptions (published lists and stock indices) disappeared: IMHO they are a window for lazy article writing by folks who want to add companies without tracking down sources for their notability. UnitedStatesian 04:39, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I would like to see them go for the opposite reason--I think they are an excuse for lazy deletionists to AfD articles without doing research on notability. I also think that these arbitrary standards are not compatible with the growth of WP, which is most "sacrosanct." Dhaluza 11:30, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Wow, three people agree! Is that sound I hear the far off rumble of consensus building? Dhaluza, I changed the title of this comment section to try to attract more contributors to the discussion and see if we can move forward. UnitedStatesian 12:30, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Please see Uncle G's comments above about what those exceptions are listed for. Is it an "arbitrary" cut-off? Not really. We have articles which list all the current members of the DJIA. This clause ensures that those lists will always be able to be blue-linked. We would never tolerate an article which attempted to include all the companies on the Russell 3000. Such a list would include many companies which would not survive an AFD discussion. Others have already said this better than I am doing. Please read the archives. Rossami (talk) 16:04, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I read UncleG's comments (and yours, and the others) before making my post, and have just gone back and reread them, and I think I was not clear in making my initial point. To retry: I am NOT proposing that footnotes 3 & 4 should be expanded to broader lists/indices. Instead, I propose the two subcriteria be deleted completely, along with footontes 3 & 4, becasue I think the primary criteria stands on its own. So what if one of the DJIA names is red-linked (very unlikely in my opinion): I can't imagine this situation lasting for more than a few hours. At the same time, a number of the S&P 500 companies are red-linked, have been for a while, and footnote four has not helped that situation. To sum: these two sub criteria do nothing to make WP a better encyclopedia, and I think often make it worse. Why? Becasue 1) editors of a number of the index/list companies have done nothing to demonstrate their notability, relying instead on the "they're in the index/on the list, case closed" argument, and 2) editors (all of us included) spend time debating/adjusting these arbitrary cutoffs that the primary criterion actually makes unnecessary, instead of doing the more valuable (to WP) work of writing well-sourced articles on notable companies. To summarize: The subccriteria are a distraction and should go - the primary criterion is sufficient. UnitedStatesian 19:41, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Thank you. I now understand your point much better. I'm neutral on the specific suggestion. On the one hand, you are right that the criteria are functionally redundant to the "primary" criterion. On the other hand, they do provide some supplemental commentary which helps new readers to interpret the "primary" criterion more clearly. I'm uncertain where the balance lies. I can probably live with either answer. Rossami (talk) 19:53, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Proposal to delete section on sporting groups

"Sporting groups English men's football clubs competing in Levels 1-10 of the English football league system are notable."

  • wholheartedly agree Hey, I love football, and am proud of the breadth of WP's coverage on same. But this is an arbitrary criterion that elevates that sport, in that country, above all others. It is thus geographically biased: what about the equivalent levels in Nigerian football? This criterion has to go. UnitedStatesian 12:30, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I too thought this was an oddly specific criterion. As a sporting group is an organization, the existing proposed criteria should suffice, as I cannot think of a sports team that would not pass. In fact, it might be too easy to pass. I know in the past that there have been discussions in the various sports-related wikiprojects and AfDs of sports teams that relate to the notability of minor league and junior sports teams (altho only the briefest consideration in the talk for WikiProject Sports itself). I'm sure that it wouldn't be hard to find media coverage of most pee wee, minor league, junior, or other otherwise non-notable teams. (I was also surprised to learn just now that WP:SPORT links to Portal:Sikhism.) Agent 86 20:06, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I quite like that it's stated, Levels 1-10 (about 900 teams) are the leagues most likely to have professional players, their own pitch or ground and also regular non-local press attention. Levels 11-24 (somewhere between 6-15,000 teams) are not and are more likely to be made up of Pub teams or other groups of non-professional players.
And since every team that plays in an English league gets local newspaper coverage of some description[5] (albeit in some cases only for the score of a match), entries in national football journals and sporting yearbooks and plays in Football Association sanctioned league; there is the potential to create an article on every team playing football in England from school sides to Sunday league. With that would come the 50-150,000 instantly killable articles on non-notable players who are plumbers during the week and Beckham on Saturday.
For instance; there are 28 professional or semi-professional football teams in the town of 180,000 people that I live in. Only one is in the Football League, yet 3 others currently qualify for Wikipedia articles. There are at least 112 amateur teams in the town and surrounding villages of all ages, with teams playing either in the regional FA Amateur competitions, the local town league, the school leagues or playing friendly games only. With no notability criteria except the primary it would be allowable for my local primary school (5-10yr olds) to have an article for their three football teams with references from the local papers.[6][7][8]
I think there needs to be some sort of over-reaching notability criteria for sports teams in addition to the basic "been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works", especially since by that criteria I can add my local pub's darts team (a team of 4 people pulled from whoever was in the pub at the time and who play in one of the 11 darts leagues in the town and regularly get a paragraph in the paper to report their results and news) onto Wikipedia. - Foxhill 20:43, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
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