Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Criticism of Wal-Mart

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

The result was kept without prejudice against a consensus merge/redirect. Zetawoof(ζ) 07:02, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism of Wal-Mart

The very nature of this article violates WP:NPOV. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 04:38, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

  • Note that "merge and delete" is not a possible option, since the history of the original page must be preserved for GFDL reasons when merging into another page. --bainer (talk) 11:10, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep. Critical commentary does not necessarily equal NPOV, and there is far too much information here to merge with Wal-Mart. In addition, this subject has been the focus of films (Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price) as well as numerous print articles and TV shows (just look at the references!). - Runch 04:47, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep While I agree that it's a challenge to maintain a neutral point-of-view on such an article, objectively chronicling verifiable and nationally-covered controversy or criticism of an international corporation is perfectly encyclopedic. A better solution would be to watch the article and try to neutralise any ranting or POV that may surface, but the topic itself has merit. — NMChico24 04:51, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep While I too feel that NPOV is tough to achieve in an article that basically just slams a company, it is needed to keep the overall NPOV, and a deletion and merge would make the wal-mart article far to long. EnsRedShirt 04:54, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
I find that the sheer amount of coverage of the topic is also a form of POV bias. The main points need to be presented in Wal-Mart, and the rest needs to find another home. We aren't the BBB or Consumer Reports and we shouldn't try to be. The fact that this has become nearly as large if not larger than the main article is a problem. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 05:14, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Obviously the POV of this article has to walk a fine line, but the concept itself is well-established, and the potential length warrants seperation from the main Wal-Mart article. It's certainly as notable as Criticism of World of Warcraft, and the decision was to keep that. Or you could pick the GWB article and put the criticism and praise together if you wanted NPOV. FrozenPurpleCube 05:07, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
Hmm.. maybe the GWB article is next... I think just in the length we are showing bias though. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 05:14, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
There's a lot of criticism of Wal-Mart. It's not bias to include it. But if you're objecting on the grounds that Criticism of X articles themselves are unacceptable, well, I think that would best be taken at the policy level, not on the individual article. FrozenPurpleCube 06:28, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep All of the Wal-Mart articles are being tendentiously manipulated by the company. Stand up and put a stop to it. Abe Froman 05:12, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
I don't like their practices either, but this article is one-sided. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 05:14, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
If it cannot be merged because of article length, why does that merit deletion? It makes no sense, to me. Abe Froman 05:19, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Article length should not be a concern here since the article length issue is only a guideline (not a set-in-stone policy). The Wal-Mart article is only 42Kb, some articles on WP are 200-250Kb.
  • Keep per above. VegaDark 05:49, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Merge and delete. —ExplorerCDT 05:52, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Note that "merge and delete" is an impossible option, since the history of the original page must be preserved for GFDL reasons when merging into another page. --bainer (talk) 13:36, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep as we all know that criticism of Wal-Mart is non-trivial and would overwhelm the parent article. Either that or make it History of Wal-Mart or something. --Dhartung | Talk 09:21, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep as many users have said, Criticism of Wal-mart is well documented from a variety of sources. I would say that it is more POV to delete the article then it would be to keep it since by doing so you eliminating an important coverage aspects of Wal-mart. As for merging and article size, there is certainly ideal article sizes and content forks such as this serve a purpose to maintain readability. 205.157.110.11 09:36, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep. The idea that an article critising an entity must therefore violate WP:NPOV is abhorrent. It is clearly beholden on editors to maintain a neutral point of view, but to delete it because it might contain something awkward for Wal-Mart? Nonsense! Markb 12:42, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Per Manticore and MarkB. JoshuaZ 13:30, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Merge and redirect to Wal-Mart, it makes alot more sense to keep this material together, and it avoids any potential problems of NPOV. There's no problem with the length, since both articles are already very well structured with subheadings, so that individual sections are not too long. Note that if it would "overwhelm" the parent article as suggested, then it is too long and needs editing, or is given too much weight, or (and this is the most likely) the remainder of the article ought to be expanded. --bainer (talk) 13:36, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
  • I've just noticed that there are several criticism articles which are children of this article (such as this and this). Logically it would make more sense to merge the main criticism article back into Wal-Mart, so that there is only one level of children, rather than two. --bainer (talk) 13:44, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep per others. I note there's concern that Wal-Mart employees/agents/whatever are unfairly manipulating the Wal-Mart related pages. What is the actual evidence on this? - CNichols 20:00, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment A few months ago there was repeated editing of the article that pushed all the criticism to the criticism page and then managed to somehow get the criticism link taken off the article. JoshuaZ 20:18, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep per others. --Charlesknight 20:02, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep What about Criticism of Wikipedia? Several topics have articles on criticism. Some P. Erson 20:41, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong keep. A really notable topic. This article should definitely be kept. However, a simple fix of POV issues should help the article (even though it should negative, since it's titled Criticism of Wal-Mart). --Nishkid64 21:32, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment, yarrr Shouldn't this nomination consider all articles on the criticism of Wal-Mart? Last time I checked, there were four of them counting this one. They are as below: Tuxide 18:16, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
    Criticism of Wal-Mart
    Wal-Mart employee and labor relations
    Wal-Mart workforce diversity
    Wal-Mart product controversy
  • Comment, yarrr Much criticism from Wal-Mart comes from union funded campaigns/organizations such as Wake Up Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart Watch. It is in my opinion that such criticism rationale should go into the articles about the organizations criticising Wal-Mart, not in an article about Wal-Mart itself, with links provided from the main article. Specific lawsuits should go in separate [[whatever v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.]] articles, with links again to the main. Everything directly related to Wal-Mart should go in the main article, while criticism that is common to big-box stores in general should go to big-box store. Avast, Tuxide 19:35, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I think there is some backwards logic here in regards to moving to the criticisms to the union pages. You want to keep information as centralized and relevant to the topic as possible. When the New York Times Book Review makes a comment about a book, should we include the comment in the Literary criticism section of the book's article or on the New York Times page? When President Bush criticised Trent Lott for his Strom Thurmond comments should those criticisms go on the GWB page or on Lott's? The normal "ideal situation" would be for this information to be in the main Walmart article, however the breadth of criticisms would makes that cumbersome and unfairly tilt the POV in the main article. Hence, the reason for this article's existence and a strong reason to keep it. 205.157.110.11 10:49, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
The difference between the New York Times Book Review and Wake Up Wal-Mart is that the purpose of the latter is to exclusively criticise Wal-Mart; hence such criticism is more directly related to the campaign. The problem with this nomination is what is not realized here: Not only is Wal-Mart's criticism considered a notable subject by a lot of people, but so is the very existence of this article on the English Wikipedia. Despite we still can't decide how the hell to resolve the disputes in this article, it is amazing to see this much energy into keeping an article with so many problems around. Obviously, you work for Office Depot but I don't know if it's unionized or affiliated in any way with Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. It makes me wonder where this energy is coming from, for it is either the Pro-Wal-Mart side or the union-funded Anti-Wal-Mart side. Or maybe just Wal-Mart bashers in general. Regards, Tuxide 23:47, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
LOL, actually I don't work for Office Depot. I just gladly leech off of their wireless network. :P (Seriously, it's 2:30 in the morning here. Do you think they're open?) As for the example, the purpose of the New york times book review is to criticized books (positive or negative). I agree that the article needs some clean up but AfD never has and never will be a substitute for clean up. Personally, I like Wal-mart. I am actually a small business owner and from a cost perspective, they are valuable. However, I recognize that criticism about this company is notable and commented on by a variety of reliable sources--not just those union organizations. As I noted before the deletion of a notable and encyclopedic topic just because you disagree with it, is more POV then this article will ever be. 205.157.110.11 07:42, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong keep per all the above keep votes. Prolog 15:59, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong Merge Verified and sourced criticisms should be merged into a critics section of the main article. We do not need an article on every notable company, and then a separate article on the criticism of every notable company. The position that a merge would tilt the POV of the main article is pure nonsense. Facts are facts, and if a company has earned a poor reputation then stating so in Wikipedia when verifiable sources are provided is proper. Wal-Mart has made their bed, they ought to lay in it now. We are here to provide a non-biased presentation of the FACTS. Not to whitewash corporate America or help them look good to their customers. The subject is Wal-Mart. Therefore, an article on that topic would present any favorable and any disfavor able information on the same page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shortfuse (talk • contribs)
Ah yes, not sure why I forgot to sign that, but it is mine. Shortfuse 14:57, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment we do have articles on Criticism of McDonald's, Criticism of Lockheed-Martin, Criticism of Exxon-Mobil, Criticism of Haliburton, Criticism of CNN, Criticism of CBS, Criticism of Hewlett-Packard, No. But we do have Criticism of Microsoft? Where among these does Wal-Mart fall? Carlossuarez46 02:03, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
    In capitalism, as far as I know there has always been one company considered to be the "evil empire", or the most evil/hated out of all in the general public. That company used to be Microsoft Corporation due to its monopolistic business ethics, now it is Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. due to its business ethics again. Tuxide 02:29, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
    • As fashions changes and the fickle finger of frustration points at a new company, we then will create an article about all those criticisms? And, depending on what your POV is, some would charge that any of the above companies are the evil empire of today... Carlossuarez46 20:04, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Merge. WarriorScribe 10:01, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Note that "merge and delete" is not a possible option, since the history of the original page must be preserved for GFDL reasons when merging into another page. --bainer (talk) 11:10, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Merge and redirect to Wal-Mart as outlined in my above comments, and the suggestions on the essay Wikipedia:Criticism. Resulting article should be marked as {{cleanup}}. Also having numerous Wal-Mart articles around is just Wal-Mart cruft. Tuxide 21:31, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Well sourced articles, which are matters in public discourse are wiki-worthy. Due to its size, this is a content fork, not a POV fork. It does need some POV clean up, but it is no reason to delete. Arbusto 02:06, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Just because it's a criticism article doesn't mean it volates NPOV.

Crumbsucker 12:16, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

  • Strong Keep Informative, Well defined subject and content. Does not violate NPOV.

Wikiace 19:58, 22 September 2006 (CST)

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.