Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Language systems international

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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 delete. Arkyan 17:23, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Language systems international

Language systems international (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (delete) – (View log)

Conflict of interest in non-notable article:

The vast majority of edits have been done by Lsiryan and IPs from the same block (AT&T Internet Services).

LSIryan was created with the sole intention of creating and managing "Language systems international."

IP from the same block SPAMed several Los Angeles Community College pages for LSI (69.233.93.191).

Main page at "http://www.languagesystems.com/home.asp" uses Wikipedia to validate its status, i.e. "Read about us on Wikipedia". Article reads like an advertisement; Not-notable. Wherewithal (talk) 01:40, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Delete per nominator. Excellent research. Duncan1800 (talk) 01:56, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete - the company seems to misunderstand notability criteria in Wikipedia. Pundit|utter 02:55, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete the sources in the article do not demonstrate notability. I have also searched Google, news and scholar and not found evidence of notability. Which surprises me a little, given the size of the school. I wonder if there are non-English-language sources. Ryan Paddy (talk) 03:51, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Note I do not know if you consider this, but if you search for English School in google, this school is in the #3 position. That is the top position of all ESL schools in the world. Again, not sure if that is considered, but if it is, it seems to imply some notability. lsiryan 12:55, 23 May 2008
    • Actually, LSI is nowhere to be found in the first 10 results on Google. — Wenli (reply here) 04:13, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Comment I hope comments by people such as Wenli will be ignored. Clearly he is just trying to cause trouble. Please see this link Listing on Google. Again, I don't know if that is considered, but my post was correct. lsiryan 18:45, 24 May 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.233.93.191 (talk)
        • I've looked at your link and I can't see the school listed. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 19:28, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
          • Strange. When I go to Google it is listed 4th in the organic results (previously it was 3rd, now it is 4th). Perhaps you can just go to Google directly and search for "English School"? It is there, I promise! Lsiryan (talk) 22:04, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete. I just found another instance of the spam. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 06:23, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Do not delete. I really do not understand these comments at all. The article does not read like an advertisement. No where does it say if the school is good or bad, nor does it encourage enrollment. It simple states the history, and what classes are offered. I went out of my way to make it not an advertisement. Almost no esl schools are listed on wikipedia, I simply tried to add this one. I know its details very well. Someone else can add another that they are familiar with.I did not spam area colleges. I added useful information to the thousands and thousands of ESL students in southern California. I added, at the bottom of their listings, a short section "International Students". I then put there the school's policy as stated on their website regarding transfer for international student without taking the TOEFL. This information is HUGELY important to international students as I can attest from personal experience! If the school listed all the schools it had an agreement with, I copied all the school's info. If it did not, I only put the schools which I know. Anyone with further information is welcome to add it. Finally, this is the largest ESL school in the USA, and probably the world. If that is not notable for this category, what is? Or is it just that ESL schools are not notable at all? Why? lsiryan 11:43, 23 May 2008
Comment You need to find news articles about the school, or something similar, to demonstrate that it is notable. I can't find anything. Can you find an independant source saying explicitly that it's the largest ESL school in the US? Ryan Paddy (talk) 22:44, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment Good point. Here is a link to US government stats: SEVIS by the numbers, as you will see, LSI is ranked #25 of all schools in the nation. The 24 above LSI are universities, thus we can say LSI is the largest ESL school by student volume in the USA. lsiryan 5:03, 23 May 2008
What does this document actually represent? It doesn't actually say. It lists active students - what are they? It's hosted by the US dept of immigration and customs enforcement. Which seems strange to me. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 19:12, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment Unfortunately, regardless of what this list is and where it comes from, being in a list doesn't not count as "significant" coverage in the sense used in the General Notability Guideline. Being in a list or directory is considered "trivial" coverage, which doesn't demonstrate notability. What you need is an article specifically about the school, or several articles that all cover the school in a more than trivial way. Ryan Paddy (talk) 20:23, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment Understandably most of you seem to know nothing about international students in the USA, or ESL schools. That is typical and understandable. This document is from the US immigration depts SEVIS (Student and Exchange Visitor Information System) that tracks all F-1 visa students in the USA. Every international student in the USA is tracked by this system. This is their list of where the students are. Nearly 3000 are at LSI. That makes LSI the largest ESL school in the USA. ESL schools and foreign students are rarely tracked by the media. That does not make them unimportant or non-notable. Probably almost no Americans knew anything about international students or F-1 visas or any of that until 9/11. Even after that, I guess probably 98% of Americans do not know much about it. Nevertheless, around 100,000 foreign students come to the USA every year. They send billions of dollars from their countries into the US economy. To say something is not notable simply because the media has failed to pay attention to it does not seem correct to me. LSI is the largest ESL school in the USA, that alone seems to be notable. Perhaps if more people knew about ESL schools, F-1 visas, SEVIS and the like, it would be more notable. Perhaps Wikipedia can be allowed to do what it does very well, spread that information. Lsiryan (talk) 22:06, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete per nom. lsiryan, please don't make up "facts" to try to sway the consensus. Tavix (talk) 18:57, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment What is going on here? Tavix, what facts do you claim I am making up? Please do not make unsubstantiated and general claims. Please state why you said delete, and repost lsiryan 12:46, 23 May 2008
  • Delete per the nominator's excellent explanation. — Wenli (reply here) 22:19, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Sites already rebuffed reasons. No personal explanation or reasons given. Unprofessional and not necessary. Please resubmit with detailed reasons. Thank you. lsiryan 4:46, 23 May 2008
    • Please don't delete other people's comments. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. — Wenli (reply here) 04:13, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
      • I did not delete anyone's comments. I used strike out tags to get your attention. I want to hear reasons why your voted for deletion. It seems to me that you are all just "deletion happy", with no justification. If that is the case, then your opinion should not count. Some people have posted good points, such as Ryan Paddy, but most of you just seem to have voted DELETE for the pure sake of it. That is not helpful or useful to people who use Wikipedia. lsiryan 13:45, 24 May 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.233.93.191 (talk)
Comment lsaryan, editing other people's comments is very bad form. Editors have the right to post here, and you should assume good faith that they have given due consideration to the arguments presented here and done research if they felt it necessary. Antagonising people will not help. Please help by finding substantial articles about the school, or accept that it's likely to be deleted. Ryan Paddy (talk) 20:27, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment I consider it very bad form to vote "delete" arbitrarily an with no good reason given. However, I take your point. I only struck out their comments to get their attention, I did not change or delete anything. Anyway, I won't do it any more. Deleting this article, IMHO, would be wrong, and I would not accept it. Why should I?Lsiryan (talk) 22:09, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment If this article is deleted, it will be because it doesn't meet Wikipedia's policies and guidelines for inclusion. Accepting the result would indicate that you abide by the guidelines for inclusion created by the concensus of the Wikipedia community. There are two main reasons for the notability guideline's general criteria of significant independant coverage, and in my opinion they are both very good reasons. Firstly, there has to be a way of gauging whether subject matter is of interest to people at large, because wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Significant independant coverage demonstrates this: if an author or journalist has taken interest in the subject, then it presumably has some level of general interest. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, if there is not significant independant coverage of the subject then where will the article get verifiable information about the subject from? Wikipedia is not supposed to consist of the original research of the editors, information should be sourced from reliable sources. My advice, if you want the article to stay, is to use your time wisely by looking for coverage of the school rather than debating core policies and guidelines. That's the best help I can offer. Ryan Paddy (talk) 22:47, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. -- Fabrictramp (talk) 16:28, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
  • No Delete My friend showed me that you plan delete this page. I am a student at LSI. When I was in Japan I made a lot of research to find school in California. I searched Google.com and Wikipedia in English because in Japan many agents provide only the information for most expensive schools, but not all informations. I found LSI because of Wikipedia. Wikipedia helped me a lot to find out about LSI, but also Los Angeles area and where to live and more. Now I am asking all my friends who used Wikipedia to find this information which was helpful to make the account and post here. Please do not delete this page. It is very useful for many foreign people! RyokoN (talk) 18:51, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment Please don't send people here, it is frowned upon as canvassing. This is not a vote, it's editors providing good reasons to keep or delete. Instead, use your friends to search for an article about the school in the media: newspapers, magazines, journals, etc. Perhaps you can find an article about the school written in Japanese? It can't just be an advertisment paid for by the school, it has to be independantly written by a journalist. It has to be from a reliable source (e.g. not a high school magazine written by students). If you can find something like that, you will save this Wikipedia article. Otherwise, it's likely to be deleted. Ryan Paddy (talk) 20:25, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
For the record I did not send this person here. I don't know if their user name is reflective of their real name, but Ryoko is a womans name, and common, but I have not mentioned this page to any Ryoko, and I cannot think of any Ryoko who I know. However, some students a few weeks ago started working on a Japanese language translation of LSI's page, because they wanted to post such a page on Wikipedia Japan. This was incorporated into a class activity for some advanced level students, I think on how to use "Reported Speech". Thus they may have discovered that the English language page is being considered for deletion. But I do not know.Lsiryan (talk) 22:14, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment My comment was directed at RyokoN, asking her not to go through with her stated plan of sending people here. Ryan Paddy (talk) 22:51, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
I see. I understand that. If I can find this person, I will ask them not to do that. Lsiryan (talk) 23:02, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete The conflict of intrest part is problematic, but if that had been the only problem I would have advocated keeping and cutting down to a stub. However, the article does not include any proof of notability. It fails WP:N, plain and simple. --Bonadea (talk) 20:08, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment Just wanted to add, the research done by the nominator was great. Thank you, Wherewithal! --Bonadea (talk) 20:14, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep This school is very famous in Japan. I don't know about USA, because probably Americans dont go to ESL school!! Some links [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]. These are just one I can find quickly. Also many people post about this school on MIXI. Some famous Japanese pop star went to this school, and many gossip kids follow it. Thx to you!!!! KazGuy :) (talk) 01:17, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment Thank you. Could someone who reads Japanese and knows the Wikipedia notability policy please have a look at these? To me they look like commercial profiles or directory entries, not substantial independant coverage, but my high-school Japanese is totally insufficient to be sure. Note that a famous person going to the school doesn't make the school notable, unless the school itself has received substantial coverage as a result. Forum postings are not reliable sources for the purpose of establishing notability either. Ryan Paddy (talk) 02:19, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment I've run all of these Japanese pages through Google translation. They're all essentially advertisements, except the last one which is about some dance thing and doesn't mention the school. They don't demonstrate notability because they don't appear to be from independant reliable sources. Ryan Paddy (talk) 00:30, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment "Read about us on Wikipedia" has since been removed, but still persists in google cache and non-english versions of the homepage. Additionally, I forgot to mention that this article had a notability tag which was removed by 69.225.132.176(Again, AT&T Internet Services) ~5 months ago in defiance of the talk page.--Wherewithal (talk) 02:48, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • For the record I informed the school to take the link to Wikipedia off. They (and I) did not know that was some violation of Wikipedia rules, or a bad thing. But when I emailed them the comments on this page, they decided it was better to take off. I guess they did not go to the secondary language pages. I will ask them to. As for the notability tag you mention, I am not sure what exactly that was/is, but students from the school have edited the entry, indeed it was part of the work they did in the school (BTW: Way to disappoint them everyone!), so they may have edited or changed something... in fact they probably did. Probably they didnt know what they were doing or that it was wrong (if we give them "the benefit of the doubt", it is an interesting concept some of you might want to look up). Lsiryan (talk) 18:33, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete advertisement, as shown by the somments supporting it. DGG (talk) 22:23, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Speedy Delete as spam. Fails WP:CORP and, I think, every proposal for WP:SCHOOLS. Vegaswikian (talk) 02:19, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comparison A competitor to LSI is Kaplan, Inc.. I have been reviewing other school entries and wondering whether they deserve deletion or not. Perhaps Kaplan, Inc. does, but if it does not and LSI does, I would appreciate an explanation why. Lsiryan (talk) 18:42, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment That's a separate issue to this discussion. However, I've done a quick Google news search and found several independant articles about Kaplan, Inc. that I think would cause it to survive a deletion discussion. Ryan Paddy (talk) 20:15, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks Could you list those articles here or on my talk page so I can see examples of what you are looking for? Lsiryan (talk) 20:19, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment A potential list. -Wherewithal (talk) 21:50, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment The link provided above by Wherewithal has numerous articles from independant reliable that demonstrate notability for Kaplan, Inc. If LSI had that sort of coverage we wouldn't be having this discussion. Bear in mind that even if LSI is deleted now, if it can later demonstrate notability there's no reason it can't be created again. Ryan Paddy (talk) 22:01, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete: Fails WP:ORG. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 19:51, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Question Is a ranking on Google's organic search results considered for notability? I guess you could make an argument either way, but it seems that Google is pretty good at determining the relevance and importance of things (hence the billions of dollars they have earned). Anyway, LSI is the top rated school when you search for "English School" on Google. It is in the 3rd or 4th position on the organic results, behind lists of schools and the Wikipedia entry. Combined with US government published reports (previously mentioned) showing that LSI is the largest ESL school in the USA, and this Google listing indicating that Google considers LSI the most relevant school-site to "English School" in the world (in English Google)... well? Does that count for something? Lsiryan (talk) 20:42, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment Search ranking is not mentioned in any of the relevant notability guidelines: WP:N, WP:CORP, or WP:SCHOOL. Personally, I think that's for the best as I see search rankings as both transient and open to manipulation. If someone independant and reliable writes an article about you, that's forever. If you manage to get your school highly-rated in Google this year, that's a temporary commercial achievement. Ryan Paddy (talk) 22:10, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment I can understand why a Google ranking would not be included. But honestly, I could ask a friend at a small paper/publication to write an article on me or my company. Heck, most small magazines will do so if you advertise in them. However, if you think you can manipulate Google to list your site in the top 5 organic spots for a 2 word key phrase such as English School, you should quit whatever you are doing and get into Web SEO, you will make millions... :-) Lsiryan (talk) 22:18, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment Most small magazines would not be considered reliable sources. A better comparison is whether you can get a journalist at the LA Times to cover your company in some depth. That will also provide a source of verifiable information, unlike a Google ranking. Ryan Paddy (talk) 02:48, 28 May 2008 (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.