Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Out Now Consulting

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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 as follows: I took into account the arguments to delete, and at first glance, this looked like a clear "delete". However, having also (obviously) taken into account the arguments to keep, and given the circumstance that the article has been edited so that it is not plainly advertisement, I see no consensus either way. --Ezeu 17:18, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Please note the the version that I based my descision on was edited extensively while I was writing the above basis for my decision. --Ezeu 17:27, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Out Now Consulting

blantant advert Kungfu Adam (talk) 13:47, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

  • keep. I'm afraid I disagree that the listing is a "blatant advert" Adam.
  • I note too that the AfD guidelines state "Companies directly reported as significant players in major news events are generally notable is a reason for a listing in wikipedia."

    The Pink Pound Conference in June 2006 UK featured Out Now Consulting MD as the Keynote Speaker.

    Time magazine today covers the organisation. This year has seen Out Now Consulting covered in other media and in fact over 15 years Out Now Consulting has been frequently covered in news media in relation to the company's leading role in what is a new development in marketing - developing strategies to target gay consumers.

    Some of these publications include: The Independent (UK) The Times (UK) The Guardian (UK) The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) The Australian (Australia) Business Review Weekly (Australia) Het Financieele Dagblad (Netherlands) De Morgen (Belgium)

    TV appearances by Out Now Consulting staff have been many and include: BBC TV (UK) Jim TV (Belgium) TCN 9 (Australia) Nederland 1 (Netherlands).

    There has been much other media coverage of Out Now Consulting's role in this development during this period.

    In each case, Out Now Consulting is reported upon as a "significant player" in the "major news event" of - the emergence of a visible gay and lesbian consumer market. Perhaps to you that isn't a major news event but today's issue of Time magazine obviously does as the story about the emergence of gay advertising in Europe quoting Out Now Consulting's work is the one item from the current issue that Time magazine has chosen to highlight at the top of their homepage http://www.time.com/time/europe/ and see also the article at http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/article/0,13005,901060807-1220477,00.html

    Other media events include the coverage in much UK media of the revelation that 49% of lesbian and gay people feel unable to come out at work. http://www.sundayherald.com/53693 (Scotland) and http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article341714.ece - again media coverage of gay community research that Out Now Consulting was the significant player in.

    I again request undeletion of the Out Now Consulting page.

    Thanks for your attention,

    Ian - 31 July 2006 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Outnow (talk • contribs)

  • Note: the preceeding comment coincidently enough was made by the articles author. --Porqin 15:49, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Who also coincidentally enough has the same name as the company being described in the article... Dark Shikari 15:59, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
  • And whose only edits are either a) editing/creating this article, b) linkspamming other pages with links to this article, c) editing this AfD page, and d) leaving messages on user talk pages. Morgan Wick 03:57, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
  • I did not think that was hidden from anyone at all - and was not the point of the post. Forgive my relative unfamiliarity with wikipedia technical aspects - I had thought that logging in as outnow was what was needed to identify myself as the poster and creator of the article. I repeat that that does not invalidate my belief that the entry is notable. If that is not decided by users then so be it, but please do forgive my unfamiliarity in the previous post outnow Outnow 16:18, 31 July 2006 (UTC) Ian Johnson, Managing Director Out Now. outnow on wikipedia. Now I hope those reading the article will let the content itself determine whether this company's work falls within the AfD guidelines mentioned by me above. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Outnow (talk • contribs)
  • Keep if a neutral third party volunteers to rewrite it. The various media mentions might make it notable per WP:CORP, but it's hard to be certain given the source of these claims. The current text of the article in fact is very POV to me (eg. "Out Now Consulting has been frequently covered in other news media in relation to the company's leading role in what is a major new development in marketing"). It needs to be filtered for encyclopedic content that is carefully cited with verifiable info from reliable sources. Willing to consider a relist in 4 weeks if someone volunteers to do this (thankless) task. — Kaustuv Chaudhuri 17:26, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per nom. This article is publicity material for this organization, and cannot be reasonably used as the basis of any neutral article on the topic, if the subject even meets the WP:CORP or WP:ORG standards in the first place. Mangojuicetalk 20:13, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per nom and Mangojuice. --Bigtop 00:10, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per above --Wafulz 00:18, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per nom, WP:CORP, and WP:V - at first look it seems as if it could be saved, but I've been unable to find if any of the articles listed are about the company (rather than quoting them or their research). Yomanganitalk 00:33, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep I don't think it advertising. Article just states the fact and also cites a lot of websites. Also per outnow--Ageo020 02:14, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. Company with major-media news coverage and that stands out in its industry/segment. —C.Fred (talk) 02:25, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete This is ordinary, everyday SPAM. --Xrblsnggt 03:14, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete. Rule of thumb: If it gets fewer google hits than I do (admittedly some of mine are irrelevant), it's not notable. Morgan Wick 03:58, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep only if a neutral third party volunteers to rewrite it per Kaustuv Chaudhuri. --Chris Griswold 05:29, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Speedy Delete - I just took a look to see if I could make something of the article. You'll see what I found useable. Out Now conducted a survey in 2005, and most of the links briefly mention data, which, from my work experience, was sent to them by Out Now in a bid to be mentioned in an article. The article is nothing but PR: It has nothing to do with being created by a new editor, it's a loosely related collection of references to brief mentions of the survey. --Chris Griswold 06:14, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Please keep

    I left this comment days ago when the article was much fuller, there is so little info on gay marketing available, that students like myself previously found this article of great use. It is not SPAM when it helps me do an assignment.

    Original comment follows....

    Hi There,

    I am a mrketing student in the Netherlands, and have found the article on Out Now Consulting to be most helpful and of exceptional interest on the gay marketing phenomenon.

    It was quite hard for me as well as other students to find the information that we needed, though there was plenty to say on the subject.

    Keep up the good work and it may be worthwhile keeping the article here. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.87.154.90 (talk • contribs) 09:39, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

  • Speedy delete Recreation of previously deleted content [1] Dlyons493 Talk 12:35, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Weak keep. The current version is a stub whose history suggests that a great deal of promotional cruft was stripped out of it, and which seems objective and verifiable enough. The niche market this business is in suggests that it may be unusual enough to be more interesting than other firms of similar size; whether being interesting is enough to pass an article that otherwise probably fails WP:CORP is not something I have strong opinions about. Smerdis of Tlön 14:12, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


  • Keep - I have obviously followed the various input with great interest as the author of this article. Some observations. With respect to Morgan Wick, Morgan it is not really so simple as your rule of thumb suggests. For example, if Out Now Consulting gets more Yahoo hits than you yourself do and MSN search which also has far more Out Now entries than Morgan Wick entries verifies this, then that seems to refute your logic for justifying deletion. 'Ask.com' also yields similar results - showing far more listings for Out Now Consulting than for Morgan Wick. Dare I say it, but this would, on your logic therefore seem to turn your 'delete' into a 'keep'. Without being disrespectful Morgan, I suspect that if you try applying that logic to much of what is in Wikipedia you could delete tens of thousands of entries right now. Many of the Morgan Wick entries that do come up actually seem not to relate to you, whereas all of the "Out Now Consulting" ones do seem to relate directly to the subject of this article. Even allowing all the Morgan Wick entries in these three main search engines to tally up towards you - we are left with a tally of just 834 listings for "Morgan Wick" (many of which seem not to actually be you), compared to 1368 web search entries in the four main search engines for "Out Now Consulting". That is just using the US engines. If we play the same game with other countries you see even more marked differences where your entries are much less. For example, in the UK web on Ask, there are no entries for Morgan Wick and 43 entries for Out Now Consulting, including entries from many of Britain's leading publications. For the record and for Chris Griswold too, some media coverage that results in much coverage of any organisation results from media releases put out by the organisation, that is hardly news to anyone. But much of the items deleted by him/her this morning should not have been as they fail to recognise several things. Out Now Consulting was established by Ian Johnson who is also the founder of the parent company Significant Others in Australia. As the firm's own website makes clear, the organisations function in concert and Out Now is a continuation of Significant Others work in non-Australian markets.

The fact that Out Now is the only gay marketing agency with offices in more than one country is a fact unique to the entity and increases the organisation's notability.

The deletions by Chris Griswold did far more than remove entries related to one survey. S/he removed many third party media reports of Out Now Consulting covering a range of issues, some related to Out Now's many different reports, some where the journalist sought Out Now Consulting as a notable source of expertise in its specific area. Given the extent to which s/he removed items and the little time it took for this user to do so I am somewhat concerned that s/he did not have time read through all these removed references sufficiently to see that they were clearly not just "a loosely related collection of references to brief mentions of [a single] survey". 37 minutes were spent deleting over 35 separate news articles, third party references and other citations from a range of sources. The article as left by this user this morning leaves only a single reference - to UK research from 2005 and removed everything else. There was also other research included previously. there was much more than reporting on research. For example, there were third party publications such as the Belgium Marketing Foundation, the Pink Pound Conference (UK), the Dutch marketing textbook "Principes van Marketing" (Principles of Marketing) also removed by this user - none of which was related to the British Gay Times and Diva research as s/he seemed to contend when removing it. On that point, where an esteemed newspaper such as the Sunday Independent - a leading national UK newspaper, devotes a double page spread feature article based primarily on, and extensively quoting research by, Out Now Consulting discussing a major workplace discrimination issue, which is also supported by remarks from other industry groups in the UK unrelated to Out Now Consulting, all commenting on the work of Out Now Consulting - does that not as C.Fred says: show Out Now Consulting to be a "company with major-media news coverage and that stands out in its industry/segment"? That seems to fall squarely within the Wikipedia guidelines as to notability for article's on companies being included.

For that matter, why would Time magazine this week in Europe choose to quote Out Now Consulting's opinion about the state of gay advertising in Europe if the company is not notable for readers of Time? That seems to fall within Wikipedia guidelines. That comment had absolutely nothing to do with the British research mentioned above. We were relied upon by the journalist of Time as a notable authority in the area of gay marketing. The magazine includes a photo of Out Now Consulting's campaign for the German National Tourist Office in their print edition as an example of gay advertising.

I note also that the comment made by the student 86.87.154.90 talk is a relevant one. Each week we usually receive several inquiries from students wanting our help. I agree our article is not SPAM to these students. Just today we received the following email -

"My name is Katharina and I study in Germany and have to write en essay for my university on gay marketing.It would be really helpful for me if you could send me some information, because it is such a new and present topic and I could not find any books so far. I would be really pleased if you could help me. Thank you very much, Katharina"

That sort of thing is fairly common here - if any of the Wikipedia editors wishes to contact me direct I would welcome them doing so to obtain more information about the similar student emails we regularly receive requesting assistance from Out Now Consulting with research about the gay market and other gay social issues. There really is a uniqueness to what we do - which is why media, students and others contact us. It is also why we are noted in such a leading textbook as Kotler's Principles of Marketing textbook in section 4 about niche marketing. That has nothing to do with our research - it features a full page discussion of advertising we created for Lufthansa and South African Tourism in the Dutch market. It also seems to fall squarely within Wikipedia guidelines for inclusion.

Any of the above factors taken alone should make you think our firm is notable but when taken in concert, - and in respect of so many third party citations about the company (removed today by Chris Griswold) I believe firmly that such a combination of factors renders this article well worth keeping and Out Now Consulting notable as per Wikipedia guidelines. To delete everything in the previous entries down to just what was left there this morning seems not in keeping with the Wikipedia principles. Finally, just in case you did not pick up on it above I am the author of the article and am the MD of the firm, so you might be tempted to discount all I say trying to believe that our article is SPAM however it is not just me saying it.

The search engines, the students such as 86.87.154.90, users such as C.Fred and Ageo020 and many media publications around the world seem to concur that our business has a unique industry position in a major new development in marketing. I would much prefer that there be restored some of what was deleted this morning from the article with a NPOV, and where third party items where the work of Out Now Consulting is the major aspect of the citation. Ian Johnson -- User:outnow

Comment - To meet the notability criteria the the company should have been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the company itself. From what I saw yesterday the vast majority, if not all, of the included references were about other subjects with Out Now's research or comments being quoted for information. If there are works in which the company is the subject of the article by all means put them back in to reinforce your claim to notability. Yomanganitalk 14:37, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Delete. The largest piece of the text is "specialised gay marketing services to large companies by researching gay lifestyles and using the information to develop strategies to target gay consumers", which strikes me as a rather obvious or self-affirming statement and sounds like it was lifted directly from a PR or ad copy. Some arguments for keeping an article on this specific company don't compel me: they often speak of interest first in gay marketing not specifically in this company, just that they happen ask this company directly for info about the general field. I see the existing page on the topic does have a section for listing of the major companies (a common and reasonable thing to have in such articles) and that does link to Out Now. DMacks 16:03, 11 August 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.