Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aplus.Net (2nd)

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

The result was delete. W.marsh 01:51, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Aplus.Net

Aplus.Net (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

This article was deleted back in August per a previous AfD nomination. The article was recently recreated, but the content has changed. The author opposes its speedy deletion, so I am putting it up on AfD for reconsideration. Tangotango 07:01, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

• Keep seems to meet WP:CORP now. Has been mentioned multiple times in independent reliable sources. Kavadi carrier 07:17, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
• Delete I agree the company may meet WP:CORP, however:
  • the article is clearly Wikipedia:Conflict of interest it has been created and predominately written by the company sockpuppets: USER:216.55.131.77 and USER:Dnate76
  • This is not a company that anyone other than itself has seen fit to add.
  • Checking the history list, this article was recreated less than a week after the last WP:AFD (with only a trivial name change)
  • Neither of these sockpuppets have made other useful changes to other parts of the wikipedia
  • the sockpuppets have however unnecessarily been wikilinking it around as in: [1] [2] [3] [4] (presumably as a form of cheap advertising)
  • then they renamed it with the comment '(moved Aplus.net to Aplus.Net: Company name was capitalized incorrectly.)' back to the original article. It all seems a bit slimey to me. Personally, I've got nothing against companies in general, but in this case, I'm unclear what the advantage is for the wikipedia for having this article, and allowing this kind of stuff.WolfKeeper 17:49, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
• Delete and salt. Absolutely not. See WP:SPAM, "Advertisements masquerading as articles". There is nothing substantive or encyclopedic here, just a laundry list of accomplishments and awards. Look at the author's contributions - they are all either working on this article, or spamming other articles with links to this one. --Aguerriero (talk) 17:34, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
• I would say KEEP. This simply an informational page about a company that is large enough and has created enough notable products to be featured in Wikipedia. The fact that the company has been featured in such large publications means that they are doing something important that will benefit the Wikipedia community.

I would disagree with the “Conflict of Interest” point. I do not see exactly what part of that policy the articles breaks. I am assuming some users may think this is self promotion but the wikipedia policy is

Examples of these types (self promotion) of material include:

1. Links that appear to promote products by pointing to obscure or not particularly relevant commercial sites (commercial links).

2. Links that appear to promote otherwise obscure individuals by pointing to their personal pages (vanity links).

3. Biographical material that does not significantly add to the clarity or quality of the article.

I do not think the article breaks any of the above rules.

This is the first and only edit for Wiki-enforcer (talk · contribs) - isn't that weird? --Aguerriero (talk) 20:46, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

• Delete - Everything I've seen here leads me to believe this is spam. While maybe someone will start a legitimate article on this eventually, this isn't it. Wickethewok 20:36, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

• Keep - It cleary states in the Wikipedia policy page that

When an article on an otherwise encyclopedic topic has the tone of an advertisement, the article can often be salvaged by rewriting it in a neutral point of view.

to me this article is written in very neutral point of view. Wiki-enforcer

there are some curious omissions however, it strangely doesn't cover the sleezoid google bombing techniques that push the company way up in the google ranking, described here: [5][6][7] Under the wikipedia rules, this would clearly need much more coverage in the article, including detailed description of how this works and why this means that the very high google ranking may be unjustified for the company. It's unclear that the article would end up in a positive light at the end of the day for the company.WolfKeeper 21:42, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I do believe the artcile has encyclopedic value. The company is in the top 25 web hosts in the world http://www.webhosting.info/webhosts/tophosts/Country/US?pi=2&ob=RANK&oo=ASC. There are many smaller web hosting companies listed on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Web_hosting .

apparently another decisive opinion by Wiki-enforcer WolfKeeper 21:42, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Wiki-enforcer (talk · contribs) is a likely sock. Only 2 edits, both were to participate in this debate. Ohconfucius 03:12, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

• Delete as spam. This is one of the better written advertisements I've seen, but it remains nothing more than an advertisement none the less. Few of the links under "recognition" actually talk about the company itself. The rest are included because an employee of the company got a one line question/answer in an unrelated article. The entire section is basically nothing more than name dropping in an attempt to add legitimacy. The blatant linkspamming does not help their cause at all. Resolute 00:17, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
• Delete: Notability seems to be better established, but I still don't see this meeting WP:CORP. The citations provided are rather trivial - just a one sentence blurb from the marketing director. In order to keep, I would like to see articles featuring the company and their contributions to the web hosting industry. With all the awards that they claim on their website, I would think this would be easy. I tried searching CNET, but found no mention of the Editor's Choice award and didn't go further than that. Keep if the awards can be verified. I'd also support Speedy Delete under G11 unless it is substanstially rewritten in a NPOV manner since the article seems rather spammish to me. Leuko 00:48, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
• Delete:Agree with Resolute and Wickethewok. The page may be able to be encyclopedic, but certainly not in its current incarnation (or last). Unless a neutral editor completely redoes the article, it needs to be removed, IMHO. --Benwildeboer 02:24, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
• Speedy Delete as WP:SPAM. This is all very distasteful. Clearly the author's intentions are dishonest per research by WolfKeeper. It's a possible that the company could conceivably meet WP:CORP, but the author no favours by using tactics like what we have witnessed. Dnate76 (talk · contribs) has made no other meaningful edits apart from this article and associated spam links. The subject's website ranks a healthy 1,105th, and the Tophost award checks out. Curiously tophost ranks 22,111th (lower than the subject), As pointed out aplus consolidates hits belonging to many of its clients by googlebombing. pcmag (1 & 2) and cnet searches all reveal zerohits other than directory listings. the links to about.com and Hostreview are but infomercials, as is the Tophost article, which is completely written by the company's PR department. Also curious for someone who appears to be so well acquainted with wiki's policy on speedy deletion, the author is nevertheless guilty of WP:NPOV, using weasel words: I take issue with the unjustified use of terms such as "regularly profiled" and "drew national attention" when many of these articles linked to are clearly "trivial" (ie only mention the company fleetingly or where one of its officers is merely supplying a quote). I find that even the use of the word "Recognition" as a paragraph title is NPOV. "Ranked by" doesn't mean squat if you're not ranked #1 in a basket of important criteria, judged againts solid competition: so what if it's ranked by Netcraft? What is more, the Tier 1 Research ranking is unimpressive. I strongly suspect if we re-wrote the article and added references to the google bombing (which although are from blogs, are objective and easily reperformed), the author will beg us to delete the article ;-) Ohconfucius 03:05, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Amusingly, I did track down the CNET 'favourite web host' award[8] and it is sponsored by the top two recipients of the award. :-) It wasn't clear what they did to deserve it, but I speculate that the award goes to the CNET's favourite web hoster, which I would guess would be the ones that pay them the most money.WolfKeeper 05:07, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Comment: Not a dumb marketing move - create a category you know you can win, and sponsor a prize for it. The CNet site says the winning criteria are "based on how many visits per week they get from CNET Internet Services". Some expert can probably explain how they managed to click-bomb or link bomb CNET for 322 consecutive weeks. Ohconfucius 13:24, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

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