Template talk:Infobox Company/Archive003

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Contents

[edit] Industry name length

See Autodesk. Some industry names are too long for the infobox.

  • Do we cut the names down to specifics and provide an external link to a site like Hoover's?
  • Or do we extend the width of the infobox to include the complete industry name? Adraeus 19:16, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Employees?

I am somewhat neutral on the issue, but is there a reason why you removed number of employees? It seems useful for those looking at companies with an eye towards sociology rather than pure economics. Otherwise, looking good. --Goodoldpolonius2 01:17, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The number of employees isn't generally useful or relevant to many companies. You can go ahead and add it back if you want, but I'm no longer going to research revenue or # of employees data when editing or adding company articles. Adraeus 05:16, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I think it's very relevant. The number of employees is very important to whether it's a small or large company. I vote for it to be readded to the template. --Sleepyhead 20:21, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
There is neither a ballot nor a vote. Read the archives for the decision by consensus. Adraeus 19:06, August 27, 2005 (UTC)
I went ahead and put it back in, since you said we could. Looking through the archives, I couldn't find any real discussion of it. In fact, the only people to mention it at all in either archive were you and Goodoldpolonius2, who above indicates neutrality. The number of infoboxes that still use it and the number of people who have popped in here to ask about it indicates a demand, though, so in the absence of any consensus against it I think it should stay. Aquillion 19:57, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
I actually said "you can go ahead and add it back if you want"... I must have been really tired that day. Oh well. Adraeus 11:02, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
Just to put in my two bits, my position is that we should put number of employees back into the box. I believe Aquillion's recent change was the right decision. --Coolcaesar 06:24, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
I am going to put it so that number of employees doesn not HAVE to be shown if the user wants it not to be there TorontoStorm 21:15, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] new parameters: revenue, industry

Adraeus, when you added these new parameter to this infobox, you need to then add to every single page that uses that template, even if it it just blank (eg revenue = |). otherwise it will appear on the page as {{revenue}}.

it should be the responsibility of whoever adds a parameter to the infobox to do this, just as it should be the responsibility of somebody who moves a page to ensure there are no broken or double redirects. clarkk 11:25, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

ok, sorry, i see in the comments above that adraeus is aware that this is necessary, i assume that somebody is now systematically working through the list of "what links here" and fixing them, but just hasn't reached BHP Billiton, is that right? oh, for a bot... clarkk 11:27, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Yes, a bot would be nice. See Archive001 for the discussion regarding these new parameters. I originally opposed their implementation given that I know that updating every company page that uses the infobox would require updating. There are around 300 pages that need to be updated; however, Goodoldpolonius2 convinced me with a diffusion of responsibility-ish argument. If you find an article that needs fixin', fix it. :) Adraeus 18:44, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I have begun working (slowly) through the Fortune 500 listing. Do the tags need to be placed in a particular order so that they are recognized? --Goodoldpolonius2 20:09, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I'm going to start helping out too. If anyone doesn't like the work I'm doing let me know. I guess I'm a sucker for tedious tasks nobody wants to do. Just promise not to get rid of these parameters after I'm done. haha. — oo64eva (AJ) (U | T | C) @ 03:20, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)
I don't think so. You can always experiment. By the way, if we had an offline software application for creating company infoboxes, that would increase our productivity. Adraeus 22:16, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
/me can't wait for ubiquitous XBRL. What do you mean by an offline software app? It would be easy to put together an app that generates company infoboxes based on manually-entered data. A little harder to load in an existing infobox and modify it. And harder still to automate some of the data entry, such as pulling revenue info from the web. As I said, XBRL will make that kind of thing simpler. Rhobite 22:48, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)
Visualize this: an offline software application that you load from the desktop, rather than from the Web. With it, you can store company information, just like you can store contact information in Outlook; however, you can export the company entries to plain text formatted for injection into Wikipedia. That way, you don't have to continually type or copy/paste the infobox structure, and you don't have to focus on editing one article per infobox. It's a simple database-enabled application, and it could be created as a Web application but I am definitely not a fan of Web-based database-applications. Adraeus 00:29, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Style changes

I see user User:HappyDog has completely changed the style, without even a note in the discussion page. I've said this before, but it's worth repeating: I like User:Adraeus' original style, and I'm guessing lots of others did as well, which is which it was so popular. I know the Wikipedia motto is 'be bold', but template changes impact many pages. I preferred the old style. If others feel the same, can we change it back again? Crosbiesmith 23:21, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The new style is slightly redundant (e.g., "company information"), but I like both the old and the current. Be bold. ;) Change it back if you want. Adraeus 01:19, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I thought Company slogan was pretty useful... Maybe put it back? WB 05:43, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)
See Archive001 for information regarding the addition of Revenue, Industry, and the removal of Slogan. Adraeus 06:58, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Hey! Some anonymous idiot (on the history page, no account, just an IP address) got rid of the background color on the cell for the company name! Can someone put that back (I liked it). Having the company name just "floating" in the whitespace above the logo looks awful, in my opinion. --Coolcaesar 19:02, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I liked the older style too, which is why I didn't change it. Adraeus 06:13, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Please look at Infocom. This was the reason I changed the box layout. The infobox on this page says 'Infocom' on the first line then 'Infocom' in a slightly different font on the next line, and then has 'type: private'. Type of what? Why is this information private? I originally started to edit the page to change 'private' to 'text adventure games'!
In my view the box needs to:
  1. Clearly state what is showing (this is particularly relevant where there is more than one infobox on the page).
  2. Differentiate between the company name and the logo, e.g. by background colour.
Apologies that I didn't leave a note about the change here, but I left details in the edit history that I thought would be sufficient. Clearly it wasn't.
--HappyDog 14:56, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
1. What the infobox is showing is obvious.
2. The company name and logo are differentiated. The company name is textual. The logo is graphical.
Adraeus 15:51, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
This is clearly not the case for all users, else I wouldn't have come to this page and made the changes in the first place. Please recheck the reasons I give above and the Infocom article. If you do not have a problem with this, please accept that other people do. --HappyDog 18:40, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
Of the 352 business organization articles currently using this infobox, one user — you — has complained about the presentation of the name, logo, and business type. I think a fair analysis of the situation would conclude that one user complaining is not enough to upset thousands of readers with an ugly and redundant infobox. Adraeus 00:03, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
Good point about company type. It isn't obvious what this is referring to. We can't assume that all readers will figure out that it means "company type". I don't think it will be too wide to make the infobox say "company type". I'm going to be bold and change it. Rhobite 02:27, May 9, 2005 (UTC)
Yes, we can assume that most readers will understand what "type" means in the context of "What type of business is it?" We assume that readers understand what "company" means too. I'm going to be bold, and revert your change. Adraeus 05:20, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
I don't know why you fight every change made to this template. You have some sort of ownership issue here, and any time someone tries to improve this template you turn it into an ordeal. You are a detriment to Wikipedia. Congrats, I don't have time for this, you won. I'm taking the template off my watchlist. Hopefully you'll throw another tantrum soon and get banned. Rhobite 13:32, May 9, 2005 (UTC)
  1. I don't "fight every change made to this template". Hence, /Archive001. I think Goodoldpolonius2 would say that I have been reasonably cooperative.
  2. Please don't use propaganda to attempt to make yourself (and other editors) look like victims of the evils of Adraeus. That tactic is so obvious. Changing "Type", which is contextually self-explanatory, to "Company type" is a significant change to widely used template that yields no extraordinary benefit to readers, and disrupts the template's visual consistency. If readers want to know what "Type" means, they can do what's usually done on Wikipedia to learn more: follow links.
  3. Simply spectacular. You throw a "tantrum", turn this issue into an "ordeal", and describe me as a "detriment to Wikipedia" who will "hopefully get banned". Oh, the irony! If I recall correctly, you introduced yourself to this discussion by scolding me for using the NYSE stock exchange template on articles about NASDAQ-companies, claiming that somehow usage of a specific template suggests that some public companies switched exchanges. This, of course, was subjective trumpery.
  4. By the way, I did create this template, which has since been developed by many valuable editors, so I think that neither your claim that I am "a detriment to Wikipedia" nor your claim that I have "some sort of ownership issue" is substantial. Adraeus 18:14, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
I have to disagree. The strength of this particular template is its lack of extraneous detail. The info-box should present essential information without becoming a distraction. In fact, I think User:Adraeus has been quite conservative in rolling back stylistic fiddling by other users. There have been a lot of ugly edits to this page, and I'm grateful to those editors with the conviction to remove them. While in an article, more is usually better, each addition to a template risks reducing the space and scope available to the users of that template, and the principles behind this particular template have been expressed well and extensively debated. If Adraeus has been the one to roll back many changes, it is probably because the other users have deferred to his good judgement before acting. I'm quite sure other people would have done the same if he had not first taken the initiative. This is a very useful, very well used template, and each change taken without an understanding of its history risks breaking lots of other peoples' careful work. Crosbiesmith 23:01, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
'Company Type' was a good compromise. It made the template's intent clearer, and took up no extra space. Why was it reverted? Also, please do not assume that because I was the only person who took action I am the only person who would be confused by this. That is statistically ridiculous. --HappyDog 15:31, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
Changing "Type", which is contextually self-explanatory, to "Company type" is a significant change to a widely used template that yields no extraordinary benefit to readers, and disrupts the template's visual consistency. If readers want to know what "Type" means, they can do what's usually done on Wikipedia to learn more: follow links. This infobox assumes readers of business articles have, at least, some knowledge of business terminology. Google "Type of company" and you shall be enlightened. Or just follow the Type link in the template. Adraeus 16:56, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
You are making a false assumption to assume that the context is known. It is known to you because you know what the box is and you are looking at it from a business viewpoint. The infobox should not assume that readers of 'articles about businesses' are interested in reading 'business articles'. For example, I have read the articles about Infocom, Apple and Microsoft due to an interest in computing history, with little interest in business per se, and under that context 'type' implies the type of computer company they are (software/hardware/games/etc.). Other reader's contexts will yield different assumptions about what 'type' means. Why not avoid this ambiguity altogether? --HappyDog 19:40, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

I am with Happydog on this -- it doesn't confuse me, personally, but I can easily see this confusing others. Just because only one or two people mentioned it doesn't mean it isn't a problem. Further, clicking on type doesn't even take you to an article - it takes you to a catagory listing that doesn't even mention the way types are used in the infobox, there is no "Public" or "Private" for example. The argument against "Type" alone is further bolstered by doing exactly what Adraeus suggests ("Google "Type of company" and you shall be enlightened" - from above). The first link describes legal set-ups (C-class, S-class, LLP), the second uses "type" to mean industry, the third is a marketing page for a 3G telephone company, and the fourth is a typesetting firm! Not very enlightening, and it seems like a good argument that this is not common usage.

Adding in "Company type" does no damage to the template that I can see, but even if it does I would suggest just eliminating the confusing word "type" all together - and just having the public or private designation floating under the name and logo, as that should be self-explantory. --Goodoldpolonius2 20:10, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Is this discussion over? Do people care which change is made? --Goodoldpolonius2 20:59, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
The opinions seem to be 3-2 in favor of changing it. I still think it should be changed to "company type" but I won't push it. Rhobite 21:03, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not in favor of its change. I think it's fine the way it is. Adraeus 22:10, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

I see that someone changed the background color once again, without first reading and commenting the previous discussion, so I reverted it. I do agree, the white logos against an off-white background do look really bad. However, I think the proper way to fix this is to use transparent PNG files - see Nokia. Note that this will only work if your browser supports these properly, that is, if you're using any other browser than IE. However, I understand the forthcoming IE 7 will have fixed this problem, and we can all enjoy beautiful transparent logos against an off-white background. In the meantime, I suggest everyone upload their logos in transparent form so that we're ready when it comes - Crosbiesmith 6 July 2005 20:58 (UTC)

[edit] EUR symbol

For revenue, should we use only the € symbol, the € symbol and the EUR acronym, or only the EUR acronym for revenue in euros? I suggest using both the symbol and the acronym to maintain consistency with the dollar style. Adraeus 10:19, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Most currency names, such as the pound and the dollar, are not unique. While the Euro is unique (and has its own symbol), we should be consistent with other currencies. Rhobite 06:17, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Infobox Best Practices

I just wanted to float some interesting ideas I had seen in various incarnations of the Infobox:

  • Thanks to User:Oo64eva companies like Electronic Data Systems and General Electric now have a nifty arrow to indicate directional trends in revenue. You can find the arrows at and . Perhaps everyone should do this, if possible?
  • Some infoboxes use different standards for products and industry in different infoboxes (see, for example DaimlerChrysler, Nissan, and Ford Motor Company. I would reccomend that editors check a competitor to make sure that there is at least consistancy within industries. Adraeus seems to use the Hoover's standard descriptions. Perhaps we can make this a general guideline.
  • Any thoughts on how to signal an out of business company, say Infocom?

Feel free to respond, or add your own best practices. --Goodoldpolonius2 20:26, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Currently I use the Yahoo! Financial standards for what the industry is. As for the revenue formatting, I use ISO 4217. This is how I'm adding revenue data:
$2.223 billion USD (2004)
Now i'm curious as how you all feel the fiscal year should link. Should it link to the year such as 2004 or should it link to the word fiscal year? Should it link to anything at all? — oo64eva (Alex) (U | T | C) @ 20:35, May 10, 2005 (UTC)
The year seems to be Wikipedia convention... --Goodoldpolonius2 02:52, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Just popping back in here to get a consensus on how many significant digits we should use in revenue. I've been using 3 or 4, as in $288 billion for Wal-Mart, $36.15 billion for Archer Daniels Midland, etc. Before I changed it Wal-Mart was listed with $287.989 billion in revenue. I think 6 significant digits is too much. Thoughts? Rhobite 20:46, May 15, 2005 (UTC)

I think revenues should always be reported to the millions place if possible. Any place lower than the millions place is meaningless in terms of annual revenues for large corporations. As for the Wal-Mart revenue, we know the revenue to the millions place... so why not include it? It may be helpful to someone. That's just what I think. — oo64eva (Alex) (U | T | C) @ 23:56, May 15, 2005 (UTC)
Rounding numbers results in the display of inaccurate data. I much prefer the $0,000,000,000,000 form. Adraeus 01:02, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
$287.989 billion and $287,989,000,000 are the same thing, how would either result in the display of inaccurate data? Doesn't it just come down to formatting preference? — oo64eva (Alex) (U | T | C) @ 02:02, May 16, 2005 (UTC)
...except that such revenues are more like $287,989,123,456. D&B (Hoovers) publicly displays the value this far, "$285,222.0" million (2005). And Wal-Mart's P&L statement reports "$258,681" million (2004). While I prefer extreme accuracy over generalizations, I'm in favor of whatever data that is easiest for editors to procure. Adraeus 02:12, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
ADM reports 9 significant digits. Do we really want to put "$36,151,394 thousand" or "$36,151,394,000" in the infobox? I think that's excessive. For our purposes, additional significant figures are meaningless. It's not as if people are making investment decisions based on our spotty, sometimes outdated coverage of a single financial. There is no benefit to knowing $36,151,394 thousand over $36.15 million. And it's especially puzzling that someone who frets so much about widening the infobox wants to include every significant digit. You want Wal-Mart's box to say $287,989,000,000? BTW almost nobody reports to the dollar. Most companies use thousands or millions. If the data isn't in the annual report, it isn't available anywhere. Rhobite 02:13, May 16, 2005 (UTC)
See above response. By the way, I thought you left? Adraeus 02:17, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
I don't enjoy having to interact with you but I do value the opinions of other users interested in improving Wikipedia's coverage of business. As I said, I'm just getting some opinions. I had little doubt that you'd disagree with my suggestion, no matter what it was. Rhobite 02:20, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

I added revenue definitions and style guide to the syntax descriptions page. Review, please. Adraeus 02:53, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

I don't see how any company can calculate its revenue down to the dollar. Not only is it virtually impossible for a company whose revenues are in the millions or billions to calculate to the dollar... even to the thousands of dollar but is that information of any use? All it would take would be a dishonest cashier ripping off 20 bucks at a middle america walmart for that revenue calculated to the dollar to be skewed. That's what Rhobite was talking about when he said significant figures. — oo64eva (Alex) (U | T | C) @ 04:19, May 16, 2005 (UTC)
Calculating revenue to the dollar, and to the cent, is quite possible, simple, and easy. Sometimes that information isn't provided publicly because it doesn't mean much externally. Internally, however, is another matter. Adraeus 08:01, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
Simple and easy? Yeah maybe for a company like Google where all they have to worry about is selling advertising space or B2B search appliances. Depending on the complexity of the business, calculating revenue can either be straighforward or an utter nightmare. McDonalds has over 30,000 restaurants in 80 countries. Do you honestly think that 30,000 restaurants have their earnings kept accurately to the cent? My point is, calculating revenue is often tricky business. If calculating revenues and other financial numbers were so easy, why do large corporations drop millions on huge accounting departments? There is no way you're going to convince me that highly discrete and gigantic corporations such as GE, McDonalds, or Walmart have an easy or a simple time calculating revenue. Let's indulge the idea that many corporations do calculate their revenues perfectly to the dollar or cent. What benefit does this have to them "internally"? — oo64eva (Alex) (U | T | C) @ 08:40, May 16, 2005 (UTC)
I think this discussion has veered a little. It doesn't matter whether or not it's possible to record revenue to the penny, because most companies will never report numbers that detailed, due to the materiality constraint. Since that level of detail is immaterial, it isn't reported. As I said above, if the data isn't in the annual report, it just isn't available to external users. Rhobite 16:09, May 16, 2005 (UTC)
Why would we need to mandate significant digits down to the dollar, or even the hundred thousand dollar mark? For billion+ companies, down to tens of millions make sense, otherwise, down to the millions figure is fine. --Goodoldpolonius2 19:57, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
I agree completely. — oo64eva (Alex) (U | T | C) @ 20:03, May 16, 2005 (UTC)
  • I wrote on May 16, 2005, "While I prefer extreme accuracy over generalizations, I'm in favor of whatever data that is easiest for editors to procure." I think we should move on. Do you disagree with Section 2 of the /Syntax Descriptions? Adraeus 07:14, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
Yes, I agree, but I haven't been leaving a space between the arrow and the dollar sign. Do you think that a space makes it look a lot better?
 $2.223 billion USD (2004)
  $2.223 billion USD (2004)

Either one looks good to me, I think it's too subtle to push for standardization. — oo64eva (Alex) (U | T | C) @ 08:37, May 17, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Revenue data from Hoovers

Please don't use revenue data from Hoovers. It appears that their "Annual Sales" number is NOT the same as total revenue from the income statement. It looks like Hoovers only shows operating revenue in their "annual sales". For example, Exxon Mobil's actual 2004 revenue was $298,035 million [1], but Hoovers shows $263,989.0 million as annual sales aka "revenue" [2]. I recommend using Yahoo Finance's "Total Revenue" number, or better yet look at the actual income statement. I had to change this on Exxon Mobil. It would be helpful to get a sense of which articles use Hoovers data, they need to change. Rhobite 05:19, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

I've been using Yahoo Finance thus far. — oo64eva (Alex) (U | T | C) @ 05:24, May 16, 2005 (UTC)
Yahoo's revenue data appears to be correct, but sometimes it isn't updated from the annual report right away. Rhobite 06:13, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Fiscal year designation

If a company's fiscal year ends in January 2005, would the fiscal year be 2005 or 2004? What if it ends in March of 2005? Even though 3/4 of the fiscal year was in 2004 would it still be considered FYE 2005? or FYE 2004? I'm confused on this. — oo64eva (Alex) (U | T | C) @ 20:14, May 18, 2005 (UTC)

I've thought about this too. Many retailers have a FYE 1/31/2005. I've been putting this in as 2005, but maybe we need to rethink it. I can't think of a way to do it that isn't ambiguous, though. I'm also worried about instruction creep. This infobox seems to be accumulating guidelines, although many of them are necessary. Rhobite 20:55, May 18, 2005 (UTC)
Okay, I'm going to be blunt: whining about instruction creep is like whining about software bloat; it's useless and mere opinion. (I'm sorry but the last few discussions in which I've been involved had at least one "know-it-all" complaining about "instruction creep". So, I really couldn't care less about "instruction creep".) Now let's get to the subject. I think we should mention the fiscal year somewhere as it would make dating/reading revenue, etc., a lot easier. Adraeus 22:48, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
At least I know how to add the revenue to an article without fucking up the numbers by several orders of magnitude, Mr. $1.6 trillion. Rhobite 23:17, May 18, 2005 (UTC)
Yeah well, it wasn't my decision to add the written form of an order of magnitude to the revenue data. That's all oo64eva's doing. Adraeus 23:31, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
That's because it's easier to work with. When one works with triplets of zeros, it is easy to make mistakes when it comes to reading and writing. Also room on that revenue line is precious. The written form saves room in the revenue line keeping it from occupying an extra line and making the infobox longer. $435.5 billion takes up less room than $435,500,000,000. I hate it when I see a revenue line that takes up two lines. — oo64eva (Alex) (U | T | C) @ 23:42, May 18, 2005 (UTC)
The plain numerical revenue data takes up less than 3/4 of the infobox's width using the monobook skin. Adraeus 00:03, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
And the written value takes even less width. — oo64eva (Alex) (U | T | C) @ 00:49, May 19, 2005 (UTC)
Have fun converting almost 400 company infoboxes. I'd rather use abbreviations like... $100bn, which is even shorter. Adraeus 00:55, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
I have been converting them anyway because nobody else is filling in the {{{industry}}} or {{{revenue}}} information. Also, maybe i will start using B or M instead or maybe even 109 or 106. — oo64eva (Alex) (U | T | C) @ 01:05, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Up/Down Arrow Formatting Suggestion

I stumbled across image:green up.png on Wal-Mart and removed it because I felt it was ambiguous. Revenue was up against what? Prior year? Prior quarter? Year-ago quarter? My hunch is that business/finance/economic readers will be confused by what exactly the arrow is indicating. I think a format like this would be better:

Revenue: $288 billion USD (image:green up.png$30B FY 2005)

This format gives a revenue number, shows its change over a prior number, and identifies the time frames being compared... in this case, FY 05 rev is up $30B over FY 04 rev). This seems a lot less ambiguous to me. This format also gives flexiblity to use Quarterly data where that's more appropriate. It also allows for the usual wiki link to a year, as well as an link/explanation of what a fiscal year is.Feco 00:12, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Go for it. I agree that the arrow needs clarification. Adraeus 00:39, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
Well, I'd start implementing the new changes but what's stopping someone else a week from now suggesting another change that needs to be implemented. I'm not going to keep implementing over and over, there are almost 400 companies. — oo64eva (Alex) (U | T | C) @ 00:48, May 19, 2005 (UTC)
my two cents is that there's a compelling reason to modify the current (recently agreed upon) standard... it's confusing and ambiguous. I think the suggested format removes ambiguity and offers flexibility. Perhaps if we all work on making sure that any new standard is well-thought out, there will be less of a chance of future revisions being needed. Feco 00:54, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Revenue template

So I've been thinking of ways to make the revenue field easier to manipulate and accept changes. I am proposing the use of a special template I'm using to facilitate and streamline entering the data in a format proposed by Feco as well as make small changes easy to implement by just changing the Revenue template. See this for usage. I propose that the information be always entered as M for Million B for billion, who knows maybe one day Tr for Trillion. This way, if we one day decide we want the "illion" in there, we can just change the revenue template. What do you all think? — oo64eva (Alex) (U | T | C) @ 05:09, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately nested templates cause significant load on the servers, so this probably isn't an option. I agree that parameterized revenue would be best. The only way I can think of integrating this with the infobox is to add parameters to the infobox again. Which is only feasible if we can figure out a way to get them to be blank by default. edit: hmm, now that I think about it more this isn't really a nested template. It's just passing a template as a parameter to another template. We should still ask on the village pump tech section, but this may be feasible. Rhobite 05:21, May 19, 2005 (UTC)
Sounds good, I'm not going to make any new changes to company infoboxes until we all agree on something. Thing is... who is all? This doesn't seem as organized as say a project. I just came here to fill in the missing industry and revenue data but that is turning out to be more work than I thought. — oo64eva (Alex) (U | T | C) @ 05:32, May 19, 2005 (UTC)
Template changes are always work, because they affect a large number of articles. A disproportionate amount of disputes on Wikipedia seem to arise from changes to templates. I think your changes have improved Wikipedia's coverage of companies, you should be glad. Work on this infobox isn't really organized, and I wish we had more opinions here. Guess there are sexier topics to work on. Rhobite 05:37, May 19, 2005 (UTC)
There's so much to do on Wikipedia... which is why I love it. I'll definately continue working on this template, no doubt about it, but it's just annoying when I get through 1/4 of them and a change is made. Oh well, I'll get used to it. — oo64eva (Alex) (U | T | C) @ 06:08, May 19, 2005 (UTC)
I've found that it's sometimes best (for sanity's sake) to ignore formatting inconsistency across related articles. Trying to harmonize the presentation of revenue across hundreds of individual company articles will likely drive you batty. When I've forced myself to do similar things in the past, I found some of the bot owners to be a great resource. They can write a bot to do the grunt work for almost any task imaginable. Feco 15:24, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Need a company article to work on?

With the help of Plunkett's Advertising & Branding Almanac, I've compiled a list of advertising and marketing companies which need articles. Many do not exist. Enjoy. :) Adraeus 22:13, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Industry Classification

Is there an established source for industry names? Yahoo Finance (they might license DJ data), Dow Jones/WSJ, S&P, and NAICS all provide good data. I was going to harmonize the listings of a few companies I'm familiar with, but I'd like to make sure I'm using the same industry names as everyone else. Feco 17:54, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've been using Yahoo Finance. — oo64eva (Alex) (U | T | C) @ 19:24, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)
ok... you changed the industry in Wal-Mart to "Retail (Department & Discount)" ([3]). Yahoo Finance has the industry "Discount, Variety Stores" for WMT ([4]). Can you verify that I'm looking at the correct industry listing on Yahoo? Feco 19:38, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] <caption>

Changed to use <caption>, as used by Template:Radio Station, Template:Infobox Country etc. — Marknew 11:19, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, I don't like it but I never like any of the changes to this template. I think the caption floating above the infobox looks quite untidy. Crosbiesmith 09:54, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
I agree. I like using correct markup, but this is ugly. — Bcat (talk | email) 02:31, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Slogan's gone?

Out of curiosity - why? Andre (talk) 00:26, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

/Archive001 | Adraeus 01:14, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Key people

The 'key people' title is a bit vague, it's not clear if it should refer to important people in the history of the company, or current people who're key (I know it's being used for the latter at the moment) - is there a better title for it that we could come up with? -- Joolz 23:22, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Company officials? Noisy | Talk 11:15, August 6, 2005 (UTC)
The vagueness of Key people is intended in order to allow the inclusion of people key to, say, the establishment of a firm, or the engineering of a major product line. For example, Fredrik Idestam founded Nokia in 1865 as a wood-pulp mill, and John Carmack is the lead programmer of the DOOM series from id Software. A company's executives are occasionally irrelevant (e.g., Johnson & Johnson.) Adraeus 05:36, August 9, 2005 (UTC)
  • This vagueness is useful in the sense you've noted, but it also invites some wrangling about who should be listed ... a fair trade-off, I think. Courtland 04:07, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikilinking titles

What are thoughts on wikilinking titles in the Key People section? For instance, given the example syntax, there are two main options for present discussion:

vs.

Regards, Courtland 04:07, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Adding Operating Profit?

I want to add an operating profit part to the infobox because revenue just isn't good enough to show the company's finances. Just because a company has a large revenue it could mean the expenses are larger than the revenue, thus making a loss and just because a company has a small revenue it could mean the expenses are smaller, thus turning a profit. So could people tell me if this is a good or bad idea and why. TorontoStorm 22:55, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

I don't think such data is needed for the infobox. The infobox is designed to provide readers a quick overview of the article (and editors an easily maintainable infobox). A discussion of operating profit and that which affects operating profit relevant to each company within their respective articles, rather than within the sitewide infobox, seems more appropriate and useful. Adraeus 03:24, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
I get what you mean but then revenue should also not be there for the same reason as for operating profit not to be there. TorontoStorm 13:43, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
I am against including operating income, because I don't want this infobox to grow out of control. No single number gives a complete picture of a company's financial condition, it's true. Neither do two numbers, or three numbers, etc. In order to understand a company's financial condition you need to read their financial statements. Revenue and NOI still aren't enough to support any decision. Pretty soon someone will come along and want to add gross margin (which isn't even available for all companies), or EPS, or net cash flow. But there is no reason to remove revenue, since it's already filled in for most companies. Revenue gives a decent picture of a company's size. Rhobite 17:06, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Increasing the width of the section heading column?

How do we increase the width of the section heading column? Key people appears on two lines in Johnson & Johnson, yet Key people remains on one line in the template. If we can increase the width of just the section heading column to fit the section headings each on one line, we can finally reduce the width of the entire table. Adraeus 20:11, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

If all you wanted was to see Key people on one line, I fixed it. You can go look at what I did and I do that to all articles that I add Company Infoboxes to so that Key people is on one line. TorontoStorm 20:12, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "Location" -> "Headquarters"

i think the label "Location" should be changed to "Headquarter(s/ed) or Registered Office/HQ" as pretty much all large companies (the ones which usually have frequently accessed wikipedia entries) don't operate out of thier HQ. (i.e. employ large number of people there, manufacture products there, cater to the local market, pay bulk of taxes at locality(?) ... etc). the hq is mostly a legal formality (which is suggested by "HQ" better than "location"). while "Regd. HQ" is longer in length, i think it can be suitably shortened if the need for changing to it is agreed upon. -- Doldrums 15:30, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

But we don't list the "legal formality", we list the actual location of their headquarters. e.g. Wal-Mart is a Delaware corporation but its headquarters is correctly listed as Bentonville, Arkansas. Large corporations employ thousands of people at their corporate HQ (Wal-Mart employs 12,000 in the Bentonville "home office"). I don't mind changing the caption to say "Headquarters" but we should continue to list their principal offices, regardless of where they are incorporated. Rhobite 16:17, August 22, 2005 (UTC)
Nonsense. Adraeus 19:10, August 27, 2005 (UTC)
The 10-K for Wal Mart uses the phrase "Address of principal executive offices". I think Headquarter would be a clearer presentation than just "Location". Shawnc 01:12, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
What about "Major Locations" or "Significant Locations"; a new entry for "geography" might help in cases like Wal Mart where the geography would be "global" but the "Major locations" might be the headquarters and their North American routing hub (I don't recall where that is). Courtland 01:56, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
Whether a location is "significant" might potentially lead to POV problems though. When I read "major locations", what comes to mind is the major areas of operation. Shawnc 02:41, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
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