Wikipedia talk:Notability (organizations and companies)/Archive4

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Directories

Over in the AFD for the York School, there's a discussion about the validity of using directory entries to establish notability. My essential argument is that directories typically either include everything they can, or charge a fee, and in the absence of evidence to the contrary it can be assumed to be one or the other; given that, they aren't really a good source for establishing notability.

I don't mind speaking in general or in this specific case, but could anyone weigh in and/or give some guidance to applying policy in this sort of situation? SamBC 14:59, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Directories are primary sources and are not secondary sources. They are primary because they are co-temporary with the subject and simply repeat facts. To be secondary, they would have to make comment, analysis, criticism, provide alternative perspectives or otherwise transform the information. As directories are generally primary sources, they do not generally demonstrate wikipedia’s threshold of notability. Where a directory provides information on the basis of a fee paid, it cannot be considered independent and so for this reason additionally it does not demonstrate notability. --SmokeyJoe 06:00, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Companies associated with multiple notable products

What is the status of a company that is the developer, producer, and/or distributor of multiple notable products, but does not itself meet WP:CORP's primary criterion? Such companies may attract multiple incoming wikilinks and may be common search terms due to their association with notable products, but they don't have a clear redirect target. Possible ways to handle these companies that occured to me:

  • leave as redlinks until such time as the company meets the primary criterion
  • create a place-holder stub with a {{notability}} tag
  • remove redlinks

How do other editors suggest dealing with this sort of company? --Muchness 22:26, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

It is often possible to merge the products as sections into an article for he company, with redirects to those sections. But have you some example in mind? DGG (talk) 03:56, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Remove redlinks. As such companies are not in themselves sufficiently notable, they should not ordinarily have their own articles. --SmokeyJoe 05:51, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
This is a situation where Notability gets in the way. If the product articles are short, it may make editorial sense to merge them all with the company. But if the articles are long, or more specifically if they are of widely varying length, or are separately merged with related products, then it may make sense to keep the product articles separate from the company. In this case, the article on the company that makes the products should be separate as well, to avoid duplication of the information in each individual article, regardless of what Notability says. Dhaluza 10:49, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
I too would love to hear the specific example or examples. I think a case-by-case approach is superior to a hard and fast rule. UnitedStatesian 13:40, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Me too. This seems like and obscure problem. Can we get some examples? Frequently the inability to establish notability is due to incomplete research, not poor guidelines. --Kevin Murray 17:48, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
The specific example that inspired this question was Red Ant Enterprises, a stub I created to fill a redlink that was subsequently (and justifiably, in my opinion) tagged for notability. Red Ant is the sole distributor of a large number of notable games in the Australia and New Zealand markets and is mentioned fairly frequently in gaming-related media ([1]) but has not been the subject of any independent articles that I can locate. While looking for sources to substantiate the company's notability, it occured to me that this situation may not be unique, and I thought I'd get some input from other editors before listing the article at AFD. --Muchness 04:57, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
If the article were to be expanded to contain brief sections for their products, it might show notability very well. DGG (talk) 06:23, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Red Ant Enterprises looks like it is just a distributor. It does not make products, let alone notable products. Why is it the “sole distributor”? Is that a claim of notability? Is it part of an international network connected to the creator of the notable products? In the articles about the individual notable products, is it normal to list distributors for individual countries? Is there any conceivable reason for a reader to follow a link from a game to this distributor except to use the services of the company. If not, then it is spam and the redlink should be deleted. --SmokeyJoe 08:09, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Actively demonstrating non-notability

The guidelines state that articles must demonstrate notability of the subject. Is it possible to achieve the reverse in a dispute - to demonstrate non-notability?

For example, imagine there are a couple of mentions of the website example.com in the online press which are being used to demonstrate notability of the website. Is it legitimate to use statistics from Alexa showing extremely low usage of the website example.com to actively demonstrate non-notability? Will this carry weight in a notability dispute? TreveXtalk 13:20, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

yes, but the example you give have possible problems. If there are evidences of notability, it will trump the statistics-- for example, if there have been published articles about it. And if a site has formerly been important, it might have a very poor alexa rank--or even none, if iti s no longer on the web--and still be important. But if someone just asserts "widely used" without supporting it, page rank is an argument.
similarly, that very few libraries hold a book, as determined on WorldCat, is an argument. But it can be trumped by book reviews in major RSs, or if it is a book in a language you would not expect to find in many American libraries--WorldCat has only very sketchy coverage outside the US. But for minor modern -day religious or political tracts, its an argument, and I have sometimes used it. (I say modern-day because older historical works might have been important, yet now present only in a few research libraries).
For an professor to write articles that almost nobody cites is a demonstration of non-notability--if they are the sort of articles that might be expected to be cited in recent years in places covered by the citation indexes, and if there are no other evidence of notability, such as writing a widely used textbook
So it can be used, but not in a mechanical way--just like everything else, it needs to take account of the actual subject of the article. DGG (talk) 15:21, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

what is a published work ?

Hello, I recently nominated many software articles for deletion, that contained no third party sources, claiming they failed WP:NOTABILITY. Some of the users who contributed to the AfD discussions, gave links to websites, as asserting notability.

Hopefully someone who knows more than me about this can answer my questions.

  1. Does software fall under this policy page ? I'm guessing yes as one of the examples is Microsoft Word.
  2. Is a web page a published work ?
  3. Is it acceptable to give links to an web site selling articles (can't view if you don't buy), is this not a form of spam ? As far as I can see it is not the same with books and newspapers because you can borrow them from the library (for free in most places if you have limited revenue ex:student or unemployed).
  4. How can one tell if a third party source is not simply a form of hidden advertising (thus not third party in reality).
  5. How can it be that an article on internet is being used to prove the notability of a product, but the website is itself not notable enough to have an article on wikipedia ?
  6. Why do wikipedia users have to bow to a company and find third party sources for the product article ? If the company wishing to write about their software on wikipedia, can't be bothered to provide proof of notability, even after having being asked to do so, why not simply delete it ?
  7. Why do people count the number of hits on google, when trying to assert notability ? Which part of the policy mentions this ? (this goes especially if a web page is not a published source).
  8. If an AfD, with WP:NOTABILITY closes as Keep on the grounds that the article subject is notable, but still nobody adds the third party sources to the article, then what gives ? Is WP:NOTABILITY, in fact not enforced ? Jackaranga 13:19, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
A web page is certainly a published source, and it may or may not be a reliable source. SamBC 13:40, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  1. Yes, software is a product and is covered by this page.
  2. Yes, a webpage can be a published source. As Sam notes, however, it may or may not be reliable. The independence of the publication and the reach of the media counts for a lot. CNN's webpage is independent. The company's own webpage is not.
  3. Yes, you can provide links to for-fee articles as evidence in an investigation about an article but the other participants in the discussion have a right to weight those citations lower because they can not be independently verified by the average reader. Likewise, you can cite physical books even though most of us don't have the resources of a university library to personally confirm the content. The reputation of the user offering the citation counts for a lot here. Established editors with long and courteous contribution histories tend to be granted the benefit of doubt. Citations by new and/or hostile users tend to be viewed with suspicion.
  4. It can be quite difficult to determine if a "third party" source is really independent. There have been a number of media scandals when the relationship was discovered. One indicator is the brand name - which is a proxy for the professionalism of the reporter. Again, we generally assume that CNN is independent. We have a right to be much more skeptical of Joe'sBlog.com. This is why the number of sources is far less important than the quality of the sources. Two independent, highly-reliable sources are enough to qualify under this policy. Ten questionable sources would not.
  5. Not sure what you meant with this question. Could you give a specific example?
  6. Not sure what you meant here either. If we can't find independent evidence of notability, it get's deleted. The company's wishes don't enter into it at all. By the way, I would not expect a company to provide data to Wikipedia and would be extremely skeptical of any company that did. If they're important/big enough to be covered here, they should have much more important things to do than respond to us. And companies should never be writing about their own products.
  7. Google hits are a deeply flawed measure (see WP:GOOGLE for more) but can be a measure of popularity. If used appropriately, the google test can be a datapoint worth considering. In particular, it can document the existence of something. And a lack of google hits can be a reliable negative indicator (that is, high google hits may not prove notability but low google hits about a pop-culture topic may be proof of non-notability). Regardless, google hit counts should never be the only factor considered.
  8. It could be that the community decided to give the article a chance. If the article remains unimproved after a reasonable period of time (months at least), it can always be renominated for deletion and the lack of improvement should be a factor considered in the follow-on debate.
Those are my opinions, anyway. Rossami (talk) 18:01, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks a lot Rossami for your time and insight, these answers really help. What I meant by #5 was, that it is strange that a page hosted on siteXYZ.com can be a source of notability for an article on software for example, and yet siteXYZ.com is not notable enough to have an article dedicated to it (ie siteXYZ doesn't exist as a wikipedia article). It is strange how a non-notable site, can assert the notability of an article. Jackaranga 21:41, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
A source doesn't have to notable, just reliable. To think of it another way, a solid scholorly book is generally an excellent source, but it is unlikely that there will be a Wikipedia article on the book itself. For the book to be notable, there would have to be other articles (or whatever) written about the book - then you could ask whether the articles about the book were notable - and then off we go down the rabbit-hole.--Kubigula (talk) 22:01, 23 August 2007 (UTC) (p.s. excellent answers, Rossami).
That makes sense, thank you. Jackaranga 18:34, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:CORP is dead?

Can two minor press release republications in mid-size media count as notability verifiers, like here eComXpo? If they do, then WP:CORP is dead. If any company who gets two articles is notable, there is no reason to have this special section: WP:N would do. Thanks!--Cerejota 01:24, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

It would appear that that article has references beyond re-published press releases. I haven't reviewed every single one, but the variety of titles seems to make it unlikely that they're all press releases. SamBC(talk) 03:44, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
If they are press releases, then such sources specifically don't count towards establishing notability.--Kubigula (talk) 03:47, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes clearly excluded. --Kevin Murray 04:26, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
except to the extent that their republication in truly responsible RSs might verify them. The chicago Tribune and the Washington Post may partially base their info on press releases,but they do not rely on them. The other sources in that article however, are useless for showing notability. DGG (talk) 00:57, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Then why is the community insisting on keeping the article? I have been accused of tendentious editing in the DRV for insisting this article doesn't meet verifiable notability per WP:CORP. I take the accusation seriously, however, I do not feel I am being tendentious but defending policy. The article also has a lot of un-sourced material. I have seen companies with more sources get deleted, and the editor admitted to COI (even thought he denies that there is COI if he is unpaid). I am confused, and this is why I ask. I am looking for arguments as to why I should stop trying to remove what I feel is spam. Thanks! --Cerejota 02:05, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Spurious accusations of "tendentious editing" are far from uncommon, you should probably just ignore that. The simple answer to your question is that guidelines have exceptions, and apparently the community has decided that this is one. >Radiant< 11:17, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Cerejota is misrepresenting the issue here. There is no issue here just whining about a lost AfD and review. I resent him wasting my time with this concoction. --Kevin Murray 02:46, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Why the personal attack that is un-called for? I haven't mis-represented anything: I am asking why the community doesn't consider eComXpo spam. I am trying to make sense of why is that the result not seem to fit policy. What do I misrepresent? Thanks!--Cerejota 04:16, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
There are many more citations at that article than you claim. It's been through AfD and you are being defeated now at the deletion review. Your initial statement above is pure crap and I resent having to spend the time to research through this to discover your deception. The truth is only a personal attack to a flawed personality. --Kevin Murray 04:20, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Even in the initial version, the one that included the press releases, there are exactly two sources that are reliable sources, and only one is directly related to the company. The other are from non-notable "industry portals", and a Microsoft blog. The sources are there, and you haven't done any research or are being disingenuous. I ask you to please apologize for your ongoing personal attacks and incivility. Thanks!--Cerejota 13:23, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Nope! This conversation is over. Cheers! --Kevin Murray 14:52, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Wow, you launch a bunch of personal attacks, unfounded accusations and then want to slip out like that? Talk about flawed personalites... Thanks!--Cerejota 15:54, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Anyone interested

In working on a specific set of guidelines for charities/non-profits please drop me a note. --BozMo talk 05:55, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

  • This has been discussed in detail before at this page. The conclusion was that there is no significant difference to the non-profit status which calls for special treatment in the guidelines. Also the objective of an organization (charity, profit, religous, athletic) is not relevant to its notability. There is no reason to cause further complication and rule creep. --Kevin Murray 15:00, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Agreed. Please help refine the guidelines here rather than re-fragmenting the guidelines. We had very serious problems with consistency and reader-confusion when we tried to have separate guidelines for non-profits. Thanks. Rossami (talk) 17:36, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Yeah, there is no difference, in the end non-profit corporations are capable of spam, which is why we have WP:CORP. Thanks!--Cerejota 00:41, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Agreed, but we should probably be more specific about this, which will make it easier to explain to the spammers. DGG (talk) 05:00, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
Okay on fragmentation but boy are you guys ready to assume the worst... someone else complained to me in the first place but I know there was orginally a merger with WP:ORG. In part also there is a US/UK definition problem: for example in the UK "non-for-profit" includes government, local government etc.
BUT I think there is a difference between organisations which sell products and services for whatever reason (profit or non-profit) and organisations which collect money for particular causes not connected to the donor. For example in practice an organisation which collects a few million dollars from the general public will always have some sort of public profile (in local papers at the very least) whereas for a company turnover has no practical relevance at all. Again I know in the US this is massively skewed by religious and other organisations. But at present Wikipedia's coverage of mainstream charities is about where it was on companies when I joined in 2004: dire dire dire. It would be nice to start with any kind of approximate list of which main charities we ought to include and for example when we include by country and when only the whole thing. At present there is no way of doing this. --BozMo talk 07:14, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
agreed about mainstream charities, but in practice the way to go is to put in such articles and defend them successfully. In practice I have often found it difficult to find adequate 3rd party RSs for these. If you can do so, start right in. DGG (talk) 05:56, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Products and services, again

The text of WP:CORP deals with companies as well as their products and services. However, as a user has pointed out to me here, this is not reflected in the introductory sentence. I propose to change it to:

The following is a tool to help determine whether an organization (commercial or otherwise), or any of its offerings, is a valid subject for a Wikipedia article.

Any objections? --B. Wolterding 16:16, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I support but prefer: "The following is a tool to help determine whether an organization (commercial or otherwise), or any of its products and services, are a valid subject for a Wikipedia article." --Kevin Murray 21:51, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

  • Fine for me. I will add this to the guideline. --B. Wolterding 09:15, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Proposal

I have proposed that the notability subguidelines be deprecated with the salient points being merged into the main notability guideline and the remaining subguidelines merged & deprecated to essay status. Please join the centralized discussion at Wikipedia talk:Notability#Merge proposal. Vassyana 01:03, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

The discussion has been closed, I'm removing the Merge tag. --Elonka 18:29, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Shopping Centres guidelines outside of WP:CORP?

Are there any specific guidelines for notability for shopping centres outside of those of WP:CORP)? For Afds, I often based it on size, nb of stores and sometimes the popularity or special aspects of it? I had seen sometimes in some discussions that size doesn't give immediate notability,, or that 50-100 or more stores makes it immediately notable.--JForget 18:46, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Just the general WP:N. You might check with Wikipedia:WikiProject_Architecture, since there are folks there who are focused on the buildings-aspect. --Lquilter (talk) 17:08, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Scope terminology too broad

The intro statement "The scope of this guideline covers all groups of people organized together for a purpose" makes this guidleline conflict with other guidelines that cover more narrow topics, such as WP:BAND. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 15:57, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I added the exception to the text. UnitedStatesian 04:23, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I twinkled with the language for writing style and to make the language slightly broader, so that if other projects come up with specific notability criteria for other types of orgs, the new language can accommodate without revision. MUSIC is still expressly mentioned. diff. --Lquilter (talk) 17:12, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Title

Forgive me if this has been brought up before. Since companies are organizations, why are they both mentioned in the title? Seems to me like this should be renamed to Wikipedia:Notability (organizations), where part of the content was before the merge, to avoid redundancy. Picaroon (t) 02:01, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, your thought expresses my original preference when we began the merger or CORP and ORG, but it seems that the word "organization" brings to mind not-for-profit, charities, etc. and many editors thought that this title would add clarity. I think that it is a minor redundancy to a worthy purpose. --Kevin Murray 04:10, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
Agree with Kevin Murray -- there's nothing wrong with a minor redundancy that adds clarity so that people understand this guideline applies to all manner of orgs. --Lquilter (talk) 17:03, 22 January 2008 (UTC)