Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Joseph Schmidt Confections

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 weak keep. The article needs to be cleaned up. —Doug Bell ^talk 19:25, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Joseph Schmidt Confections

Joseph Schmidt Confections (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Deletion nomination San Francisco chocolate maker of questionable encyclopedic notability. Fails WP:CORP. Possible corporate spam too. Bwithh 05:27, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

• Weak keep. Actually, they're well-known enough to have opened a Tokyo outlet (no reliable source yet, but you'll have to take my word for it as I bought some truffles from it a couple of Valentine's Days ago), but I'm horrified to discover that, like Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker of Berkeley, they were bought by Hershey last year (see 7th graf of this story. This explains why I can't find the damned outlet any more. --Calton | Talk 09:41, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Of course I believe you bought the Schmidt chocs, though perhaps the Tokyo outlet is a franchisee or perhaps its been closed down? The Schmidt website currently only lists 2 retail stores, both in California [1]. Bwithh 09:50, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I KNOW they're closed down because they weren't there LAST Valentine's Day, damnit -- though every other confectioner in Belgium and France seemed to have a store in the neighborhood, I swear. My point is, they WERE, at least briefly, international. And as for franchising, that's pretty much the only way into the Japanese market, as I understand it. The Japanese branches of the Doughnut Plant -- yes, the New York City doughnut maker -- and Nathan's Famous, for example, are clearly not run by native English speakers, given the prose I see at their locations: the menu at Nathan's describes the chopped onions with the phrase "you can enjoy hard" -- as opposed to the soft grilled onions, is what they presumably mean.

As for media mentions, they seem to be name-checked frequently (is in this New York Times travel article, "Where to Get a Chocolate Fix" -- the third place mentioned is very good, by the way -- or this LA Times story.) --Calton | Talk 01:00, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

• Weak keep Torn on this one, because the article reads like a blatant advertisement, and the article's author also contributed some pretty ridiculous spam to the chocolate truffle article (crediting the company's founder with the invention of the chocolate truffle(!), accompanied, of course, by a link to their website). However, they do appear to have some notoriaty [2], and are somewhat in line with the Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker company, which (obviously) has an article and doesn't appear to be any more or less notable, and they have both been recently bought out by Hershey. Wavy G 14:02, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

• Hmm, the Los Angeles Times story above claims, in passing, that "Joseph Schmidt set up shop in 1983 in San Francisco and popularized the 'American truffle,' big, egg-shaped chocolates differentiated from more traditional confections by their bold, bright designs", so the claim as actually rendered in the chocolate truffle article ("Joseph Schmidt, a San Francisco chocolatier, and founder of Joseph Schmidt Confections, is credited with the creation of the 'American truffle' - a half-egg shaped chocolate coated truffle") doesn't seem too off-base -- subject to verification, of course. --Calton | Talk 01:00, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

• Yeah, I kinda see what they're saying now--He created (or popularized--still fuzzy on that one???) that particular type of truffle. It just came off like your typical, run-of-the-mill "So-and So is credited with the invention of teh Intarnets, w00t!" Afd nonsense to me at first. I retract that from my comment. Wavy G 02:32, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

• Keep and expand/clean up AfD is not cleanup. They sell these at my local gourmet grocery store. They're actually good, but the article needs improvement too. TTV (MyTV|PolygonZ|Green Valley) 21:33, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Uh, do you have an argument for keeping the article? Bwithh 22:08, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

The implication, I believe, is that they have distribution outside the two retail stores. --Calton | Talk 01:00, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

• Weak keep per Wavy G and Calton. --Oakshade 00:39, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. Company has no independent existence, and wasn't notable when it did exist; at most, merits a couple of sentences in the Hershey entry. WMMartin 18:24, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

• Kiwi, Playtex, and Brylcreem have no independent existence, either (all being owned by Sara Lee), and yet, blue links. And inventing the American-style chocolate truffle, if verifiable, is no small thing. --Calton | Talk 00:44, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

• keep please the company is notable and invented the american chocolate truffle Yuckfoo 02:23, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per above.  ALKIVAR™ ☢ 08:13, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
• Weak keep per Wavy G and Calton. bbx 09:13, 28 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.