Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/La Madeleine (restaurant chain)

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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 Keep — Caknuck 03:43, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] La Madeleine (restaurant chain)

La Madeleine (restaurant chain) (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Non-notable restaurant chain. No non-trivial secondary sources found to confirm notability. --ROGER TALK 05:50, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment Thanks for the links but I saw those earlier. They do not really establish national notability. WP:CORP talks about significant indepth coverage. The Washington Post articles are both from 1994 and are essentially local news. The Dallas Post is more recent but again is local news as La Madeleine corporate HQ is in its area. --ROGER TALK 20:54, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Speedy keep Per WP:OSTRICH. This is one of the largest 200 chains of restaurants in the United States. If you spend three seconds looking for sources you'll find dozens of them easily. According to Nexis, there are over a thousand.
Comment I did look and for rather longer than three seconds. The vast bulk of the articles are rehashings of press releases, syndicated fillers and trivial local items. All-in-all, the depth of coverage is not very substantial and large does not automatically mean notable. However, if you added some of the material you've found into the article, I'm sure you'd improve it no end. --ROGER TALK 20:54, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep per above links establishing notability Corpx 16:39, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Food and drink-related deletions. -- the wub "?!" 17:09, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep Zidel333 18:47, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete I'm not convinced about notability, more sources are likely needed. Rackabello 20:40, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep I'm the creator of this page, so perhaps my vote doesn't count, but here are my thoughts on the subject. I know it's not much at the moment. It definitely needs expansion and addition of sources. But I feel it deserves an article. This chain of restaurants is notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia. La Madeleine is a well known and reputable chain in its area that's starting to spread across the U.S., yet so many one-location burger bars scattered across America are included, perhaps because of an interesting history or location. A glance at, for example, Category:Restaurants in the United States shows that over 100 restaurants have articles, many of them a full page long or longer, yet the majority aren't even chains. Consider Nickerson Farms. This restaurant doesnt even exist anymore, and yet it still has an entry. La Madeleine serves high quality food with authentic decor, drawing many people, and so has gained a reputation, with more than 60 locations! The number of locations should itself be a reason for inclusion. Its owner is Louis Le Duff, founder of La Brioche Dorée, one of the largest bakery café chains in Europe. It's received attention from a major local newspaper, the Dallas Morning News; perhaps not anything like the New York Times, but still press attention. Non-notable? I disagree. Please, keep this article. La Madeleine deserves a place here. --BackToThePast 16:39, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Conmment Sure, but this is the classic WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS argument. The WP:CORP guidelines are very clear about what is notable: significant indepth coverage in reliable independent sources. It doesn't fulfil that. --ROGER TALK
  • Delete: I don't usually !vote in when I've nominated, but I will here to !cancel out the page creator's !vote. --ROGER TALK 03:41, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep A restaurant chain with 60 franchises across a wide area (Dallas-Fort Worth to Washington DC) is notable. I don't know how long this one has been in existence, but a growing corporation is just as worthy of an article as your favorite TV show. Save it to your hard drive, just in case the "businesses are boring" mood prevails, and keep working on it. Mandsford 02:11, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Comment This is an encyclopedia we're trying to build not a collection of personal favorites.--ROGER TALK 03:41, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Response You're right, this is an encylopedia we're all trying to build-- and everyone has a right to suggest what to add and what to subract. I understand that your personal preferences, about what you think an encylopedia should be, are different than mine. Please, let's all try to stay civil here. Both the nominator (Roger) and the author (Back To) have a right to voice their opinions. Please note that this is not entirely a vote (or at least, it should not be). Generally, one assumes that the nominator would vote delete, and that the author would vote to keep, and the opinions of both persons are equally worthy of consideration as the opinions of everyone else. Mandsford 14:41, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Reply I see the AfD process as essentially win/win. Either a questionable article is improved to a point where it's no longer questionable (win) or it gets deleted (win). It's not even slightly personal. --ROGER TALK 16:22, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Response Not even slightly personal? Roger, we are humans! Wikipedia is a world-wide collaboration, involving hundreds of thousands of people. Living, thinking, people, not mindless drones inputting data. Deletion or addition of articles will have an effect on one or many people. It is personal.
I see AfD as not completely win/win (but of course it's always a win for the nominator). For one, it's a loss for the author of any work to see it deleted. The whole process seems to me like elite users running around trying to scare the author/s into improving it, rather than putting recommendations on the talk page or stepping in themselves. AfD should, in my opinion, be a last resort, not the first thing to do when one comes across an article they consider sub-standard or out of place. --BackToThePast 18:47, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Comment We see things very differently then. The advantage of AfD is that it takes the personal component out of things. I don't have time to improve every article that seems lacking to me so AfD is a good alternative. Other people get involved, often turn up all sorts of useful things, and frequently convert a prime candidate for deletion into a good start article. This really isn't about elitism and I'm truly sorry if you feel that way about it. --ROGER TALK 19:05, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Comment Thank you, Mandsford, my thoughts exactly. It was founded in February 1983 [1]. Here's some additional information: [2]. I'll do that. With work this article may live... --BackToThePast 04:46, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Comment. I'm not here to argue for the sake of argument. If you get the article up to meeting the basic requirements and reflecting a 20-year 60-restaurant chain, I'll withdraw the nomination. There's nothing to stop you editing during the AfD process. --ROGER TALK 16:22, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
BackToThePast, Roger's comment sounds like a good idea. As he says, nothing to stop you from editing (and, in fact, improving an article while deletion is being debated can be a factor in whether it stays or goes). Looking at this as the history of a successful business enterprise, and not about what's on the menu, the questions that come up are the standard who-what-when-where and how that any good article follows. We know some of the when--founded in February 1983, and it appears to have started in Texas before spreading eastward. Is it publicly-owned (i.e., are shares of stock sold to investors)? Who founded it? What sets it apart from other chain restaurants, such as Applebee's or Cracker Barrell? You might not be able to answer all of those at once, but do some googling and find out what you can. This can be win/win for everyone. Mandsford 18:34, 28 July 2007 (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.