Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Residual income

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 and clean up. Espresso Addict 18:51, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Residual income

Residual income (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

So many reasons. The article reads like an advertisement for network marketing, a practice of questionable legality in many countries, it does not cover information worthy of its own article, plus it violates WP:WINAD. Not to mention it is ugly as sin, although that doesn't really count as a reason for deletion. Gorman 11:03, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

• Delete Spam, spam, spamity spam. Fails the dictionary clause and seems like something that would be found in an informational pamphlet. NASCAR Fan24^{(radio me!)} 11:30, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
• Keep I don't see how this is spam all, since not a single real company is mentioned in the examples. Residual and override income are hardly unique to network marketing (insurance agents often earn commissions over the life of the policies, and sales managers typically earn overrides on their subordinates' sales). To me this article seems to go beyond a dictionary definition to explain the concept in more detail. It should be tagged as a stub, perhaps, but I see no need to delete on that basis. Finally, the argument on the questionable legality of network marketing is a non-starter. Even if this article were about network marketing (it isn't), that a practice is not legal does not exclude the documentation of that practice in an encyclopedia. All encyclopedias I know of cover murder, for example. --Clubjuggle ^T/C 12:30, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
• Very strong keep. This is a legitimate accounting / financial term and there is certainly a lot to say about it. We have articles on return on equity, dividend yield, and interest rate risk, which, in my mind, are comparable financial terms in terms of encyclopedic value. Clearly this article is in bad shape and needs a rewrite. But it's a very important concept in finance today. Unfortunately, I don't have the expertise to actually write this article. Gut this article and stub it, sure. But this is very far from spam. - Che Nuevara 13:28, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. I would recommend removing all the references to multi-level marketing, since they're only confusing the issue. But in the film industry, such income is called "residuals"; similarly with writing. I believe this is a legitimate term, it's just being approached from an unusual direction. Accounting4Taste 14:51, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

• Keep, definitely a real accounting term, but with a really bad article that needs a major rewrite. I wondered if it had been vandalized but apparently it's been this way from creation. The term has been hijacked by MLM and work-at-home schemers but has legitimate uses and you can barely glean that from what we have. --Dhartung | Talk 19:13, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

• Keep, per my comments on the talk page, but trim to sub-stub. Remove all present MLM content as {{hoax}} or as "in-Universe" statements. Remove the "accountancy definition" is severely incorrect; I don't even know the name of any schools of economics which use that definition. In other words, keep the first sentence, add a reference to "residuals", and start from there. (If that's considered a "delete and re-create" !vote, I could accept it.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 20:48, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

• Keep but fix. I've come across this one before and given up. But it's a very important accounting / financial / business concept that Wikipedia should cover. There's enough in here for a 1-2 sentence article and it can build from there. The MLM info can stay in some form because MLM is a real and widespread phenomenon and its terminology is encyclopedic; however, it should not be the primary thing used to illustrate this article. Wikidemo 14:02, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
• Very strong keep. The Wikipedia definition of Residual includes the following: "In business, a residual payment is one of an ongoing stream of payments for the completion of past achievements. ..." In MLM, a distributor gets paid an ongoing stream of payments for recruiting, training and supporting a new distributor and the new distributor's organization. There were an estimated 14 million Americans selling over $30 billion in this legitimate marketing channel in 2005 (see http://dsa.org/aboutselling/). The World Federation of Direct Selling Associations estimated that there were nearly 60 million direct sellers in 2004 who sold over $100 billion in 2005. In my opinion, outright deletion of this reference would be due to bias, not inaccuracy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Drstrategy (talk • contribs) 21:21, 10 October 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.