Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Companies

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PLEASE READ
  • If you are looking for assistance from this project with an existing article, please see if you can add it to the relevant section of the to do list instead
  • If you are looking for assistance from this project with creating a new article, please instead list it at Wikipedia:Requested articles/Business and Economics/Businesses and Organizations along with any supporting information you may have
  • If you are notifying us of an AFD, please add that to the Articles for Deletion section below instead of creating a brand new section

Contents

[edit] Lists of Companies Discussion

This section is for a discussion on which Lists that currently exist in Wikipedia for companies should be supported by this project

[edit] Guidelines Discussion

This section is for discusing any proposed changes to the guidelines outlined on the project's main page

[edit] Articles nominated for deletion

[edit] Deletion discussion template

{{subst:Delsort WPCompanies}}

(item below is transcluded)

[edit] Articles for deletion (AfD)

This section is for notifying the project of any articles within our scope that have been nominated for deletion. In order to facilitate prioritization of expending effort on these articles, the WikiProject Banner with class and importance parameters filled can be added to the talk page of the nominated article.

[edit] Resolved AfD discussions

Items below are listed in day-order of nomination; for items with the same day of nomination, those with later closing dates are listed first (i.e. two open on 01-04 and one closes on 01-09 and the other on 01-20, the 01-20 close is listed first). (section has not been discussed in detail)

[edit] Proposed deletions

Rather than discussing PROD-nominees here, it is better to contribute to the talk page for the article nominated for deletion. If you agree with the proposed deletion, you don't have to do anything or you may second the nomination. If you think the article merits keeping, then remove the {{prod}} template and make an effort to improve the article so that it clearly meets the notability and verifiability criteria.

[edit] AfD/PROD Archives

[edit] Industry focuses or task forces

I have a current proposal in the WikiProject Council for a health industry wikiproject. I'd be happy to fold that proposal into this project if there is a commitment to have some effort toward specific industry focuses or task forces. My issue with health-related companies is probably the same for all industries -- too many articles are written like brochures rather than proper encyclopedic articles. Further, I think it's important to cover both the positive and negative aspects of companies. Would a health industry focus be welcome here? Thanks. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 06:20, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Stevie - I think task forces for specific industries are a great idea for attracting participants to this project, and would encourage their creation. I'll add a section to the main project page for listing related task forces and then please feel free to sign up for the main project and start a health industry task force. Please note this WikiProject is just starting so any other comments or suggestions for improvements are more than welcome!! Cheers! Richc80 05:50, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Banner for Project

Image:Qxz-ad73.gif

Miranda 21:24, 13 August 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Taskforce for credit agencies and data aggregation companies

I was wondering whether the WP Companies team thought it would be worth starting a taskforce specifically focused on credit agencies and similar companies? My thought is that these articles need special attention for the following reasons:

  • Highly noteworthy attracting much media and regulatory attention due to the nature of their businesses, especially due to data quality and privacy/big brother issues. (See for example ChoicePoint, Experian.)
  • Are often started as POV articles biased against the companies
  • Seem to be more often edited by the companies themselves than other industries. See for example ChoicePoint, Experian, Equifax and possibly TransUnion
  • Are complex organisations whose articles could benefit from having a variety of editors working on them. For example see the problematic Florida voter section of ChoicePoint
  • Seem yet to have a common article structure (contrast LexisNexis which is written about from a product perspective against TransUnion, which is almost at stub status despite its large size).

Any thoughts? CheersSaganaki- 04:46, 13 September 2007 (UTC)


I'm in let me know what you need / where to start. I've already started searching the 'Big Three'. --Patrick Fleischman 19:30, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Project Proposal

I would like to propose a project, but I am not sure if I should propose it here on the Companies page or with the Wikiproject Council. Some advice would be greatly appreciated. Kpapadopoulos 15:26, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

If you are trying to see if others would be interested in joining your proposed project, my advice would be to propose it on the Wikiproject Council page first and then post a message on the talk page of related projects linking to that proposal and asking interested people to sign-up. Assuming that it is related to companies in some way, then one of those messages would be here. Alternatively if you are looking for feedback on whether your proposal will make a "good" project, feel free to tell us about it here and we can give you our thoughts. Either way, good luck! Richc80 13:52, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for you help!Kpapadopoulos 14:37, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merged companies

How are articles about merged companies managed? A user keeps on deleting the content of the Web.com article since the company has merged with Website Pros on Oct 1st. All other examples I can think of in the moment keep their own - updated articles - like Macromedia or Ulead. I think there are plenty of reasons to keep the Web.com article. It was traded on NASDAQ as late as last week and they are still selling products over their website. Please advice. --Peter Eisenburger 14:28, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Interesting question, and I don't believe there is any specific policy on this. My personal view is that if a company was notable enough for an article before becoming defunct (either through merger or liquidation) then continuing to have an article for it is valid, and information from prior to a merger / liquidation certainly continues to be encyclopedic. We also have {{an infobox specifically for defunct companies}}. Have you tried talking wih the editor in question about why they insist on a redirect? I'd also recommend reading Wikipedia's article on conflict resolution. Cheers. Richc80 00:53, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I had used the defunct template and also made some minor changes to the article. See my comment below.--Peter Eisenburger 07:13, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
I tend to agree with Richc80. The companies you mention all have existing product lines, which is the primary focus of those pages. This page that was merged is different in that it was part of the companies history. That company (and its' history) is now part of another company's page, which already makes mention of the prior company. I appreciate the dialogue as this does help.--Obgydd 17:55, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
I moved your comment to the right section. - I think you misinterpreted Rich's post. A merger can be no reason to delete an article altogether over night. There is much reason to keep the information for our readers as all the other examples show. And of course the history of a bought company is not part of the history of the buyer but stays in its own right. Wikipedia has lots of articles about history (things that are over). E.g. a country that has been incorporated by a bigger country once in time sure keeps its own article.
Please consider that a "redirect" in effect means a "deletion" that you made in a very unilateral way. However I am happy that you are open to dialogue. Let's give other readers the choice to read the text of Web.com too. For that purpose I will restore the article. Please don't delete again but take part in the discussion and hear what others say.--Peter Eisenburger 07:13, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
I'll add this here, rather than start a new section, since it is to do with merged companies. Is there a consistent way to deal with the foundation dates of a company that is formed from two or more with separate dates of their own. I've seen the latest date put (when A & B became A-B) and the earliest (A alone). What is the preferred method of giving this info? Cheers, Lindsay 10:17, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Lindsay, thanks for your post. I've brought this up over at the talk page for the Infobox Company template (see discussion here). My preference is that the foundation date should be the latest (when A&B became A-B). In my view there are a couple of benefits to that:
  • Consistency - uses the date the current entity (A-B) was actually formed, rather than whichever date & history the company chooses to keep (could be A's date, B's date or some other date that the company "traces its history to")
  • If prior entities are notable enough for their own article then the dates between articles will "flow" correctly (e.g. A's date would be 1911, B's date would be 1934, A-B's date would be 1975). Having that could even let us do something like with a band's discography in the artist infobox, where previous & newer entities are displayed)
Information on the other dates could be noted under a Corporate History section. I've had a couple of other editors agree with this suggestion. Hope this helps! Richc80 (talk) 12:15, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Ah, thank you. I knew that there must be a previous discussion of this matter somewhere out there, but a brief modicum of searching didn't bring me to it.
I think your suggestion certainly makes sense, and answers my question admirably. Thanks again, Cheers, Lindsay 12:20, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal for deletions

Reading your project page I see you recommend major companies with a billion dollar revenue and nearly two thousand employees for deletion because of lacking notability or importance. I deleted one template and wrote sth. on the talk page. I won't go in any further but you should explain your guidelines. And why not first ask for sources before giving them only 5 days? In the case of ABRY a simple Google search showed a lot of media coverage for this company.--Peter Eisenburger 19:36, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Peter, thanks for your message. To respond to your concerns, the articles that are posted on this talk page were not nominated for deletion by this project, nor are we making a "sight unseen" recommendation that they be deleted. We are asking users to post any company articles that they notice have been nominated so that our participants (as interested and hopefully knowledgeable editors) can review that nomination against our notability criteria and then provide an informed view. I would mention though that the Google search you provided does not demonstrate "a lot of media coverage", plus not all sources are considered reliable. A more relevant search would be of Google News, which produces far fewer results. 1 2 Cheers. Richc80 23:53, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
Sorry for misinterpreting your project, Rich. - In the case of ABRY I think even if you assess fewer sources as "reliable" as me there are hits for this company. However, what I was appealing for is to take care when deleting articles. The sheer size of this company is one argument in the first place.--Peter Eisenburger 07:25, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Web.com

Again I ask someone please look after what's going on with the Web.com article. See Talk:Web.com. I restored the article for the 3rd or 4th time now. The last edit contained many errors and was written in bad grammar also.--Peter Eisenburger 19:47, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dow Chemical Company

FYI - I've opened a Peer Review on the article Dow Chemical Company, which is rated as a GA on the Companies WikiProject. Feel free to comment on the article on its Peer Review subpage, here. Thanks, Rjd0060 (talk) 00:37, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Peer Review for Blackwater Worldwide, please help!

Blackwater Worldwide, an article under this WikiProject, is up for Peer Review to move to Featured Article status. Please help out and offer up reviews, advice, or edits to the article or review at:

Thanks! Lawrence Cohen 14:38, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Embarq

I'm pretty sure that Embarq falls into your project's scope, but its discussion page does not have a WikiProject Companies template. Is it true that general Wiki editors may place your template on articles or must an editor be a member of your project to use the template? GO-PCHS-NJROTC (talk) 03:10, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

...must an editor be a member of your project to use the template - absolutely not! We welcome input from all editors, so be bold and add it! Thanks for your interest in the project! --Gimlei (talk to me) 08:44, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
I second that - use {{WikiProject Companies| class= | importance= }} liberally and often. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 12:13, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Correct, and yes, Embarq does fall in the Companies scope. Basketball110 00:06, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Subpages

In the Resources section of the Main page, I have added a section containing a link to the subpages of the main WikiProject page. This is meant to eliminate the need for manually maintaining such a list and provides a ready reference for newly created subpages, regardless of whether they are discussed here or not. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:33, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Published Company Lists

Further information: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Companies/Published Company Lists

I have created a subpage for the collection of published lists of companies that might be useful in establishing notability. This was prompted by the deletion of C&H Distributors, which was listed 35th on the first list I have added to this page; a comment was made during the AfD that "35 is not ranked very high", which implies that perhaps 1st or 4th might have been garnered more support. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:38, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Wow. Hmmm. Notability is a vaperous apparition varying greatly depending on who is participating in the subject. Is Carver_Bancorp notable? How about C._K._Cooper_&_Company? --Pearrari (talk) 01:24, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion discussion notification template

notice of thread placed on four editors' talk pages

I have created {{Delsort WPCompanies}} (see #Deletion discussion template above), which can be affixed to ongoing xfD discussions in conjunction with listing those discussions here. I will not list this on the Main Wikiproject page until after consensus is reached about whether this template should be retained or destroyed and/or modified. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 12:39, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, as for me, I have nothing against this template, but I can see only marginal benefit in its use in the afd discussions either. If you could enlighten me, I'd happily support. Otherwise, I am pretty much neutral in this respect. --Gimlei (talk to me) 07:31, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
I've generally interpreted this type of addendum to AFD's as advertisement for the notification route and for the WikiProject in general, a different route to raising awareness of the WikiProject than placing banners on talk pages. Also, it provides closing admins with some information on whether or not a small number of responses in a discussion is due to lack or interest in the article's fate or lack of awareness of the article's nomination for deletion. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 12:07, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Indicating participants who are admins

I took a cue from Wikipedia:WikiProject Scouting which I implemented first in Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthroponymy and indicated who of the participants are admins in the Members listing. This information was gotten from quick consultation against Wikipedia:List of administrators (I wish there was a lookup tool implemented there). I did this without prior discussion, so please revert if you disagree and we can discuss here. Regards User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 20:02, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Looks ok. If anyone think its elitist, then we should revert, but otherwise fine. Addhoc (talk) 13:20, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
I didn't explain why I added this notation. It was primarily to let Project Participants know who among us can either restore deleted pages (either to main or user space) or peer into the history of deleted pages. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 17:05, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Brand names section on Main page - expansion

Regarding the section Wikipedia:WikiProject Companies#Brand Names, I have made an expansion of the text to explicitely refer to record labels and book imprints. Examples are needed to back up the text, but I thought it good to add these because I don't think the general public looks at these with the same level of recognition "that is a brand" as they do with the consumer goods mentioned earlier in the text. Please feel free to remove the text and discuss it here, or leave it in place and discuss it here. Thanks. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 04:06, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Agree this is a good idea on both counts. Examples would definitely be beneficial to ensure the distinction between label/imprint & actual companies/subsidiaries (such as the Big Four or Penguin Group) that should remain in project scope. Great work as always with improving the project! Richc80 (talk) 11:15, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Parentage statement

May I suggest that we state specifically on the Main page that parent of this WikiProject is Wikipedia:WikiProject Business and Economics? This parentage is already reflected in Category:WikiProject Business and Economics and at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Directory/History and society#Business and economics. The reason for doing this is to reflect the hierarchical organization in the text of the Project Main page, as is done for many other Projects. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 04:15, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. --Pearrari (talk) 01:00, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
Yep, helpful clarification. Addhoc (talk) 13:21, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Revisions to the Main Page

[edit] Banners & Templates section

I have made significant revisions to the 'Banners & Templates' section of the Main Project page, which is now called simply 'Templates'. The revisions include altered wording of instructions including more background text and links; "<pre></pre>" formatting for template code (allowing double/triple click for quick use); and significant re-sectionization. The content is not changed in a major way, and I hope it is clearer and easier to use than before. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 04:21, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Revision to opening inches

I felt that there was a great deal of white space at the opening of the Main page, so I've made a number of revisions that remove much of that white space. I've also added a 'milestones' listing that draws directly from the quality/importance bot-maintained table; this follows from a similar list I created for WikiProject Anthroponymy. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:41, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Looks nice. Addhoc (talk) 13:22, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Health Industry Task Force sub-page created

Further information: Wikipedia:WikiProject Companies/Health Industry Task Force

[edit] Infobox Discussion - Foundation Date

I've started a discussion on the Infobox Company talk page regarding what the Foundation Date should be. I'd appreciate the thoughts & contributions of other WikiProject Companies participants on this subject. Thanks! Richc80 (talk) 19:00, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

contributed --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 11:32, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] portal link

Template:Portal companies

The template above has been deleted. Unfortunately, the person who has deleted it has also been removing it from articles without replacing it. See these two items:

--User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:04, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Working replacement {{Portal|Companies|Factory.svg}} (see right margin):

Companies Portal
--User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:03, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Upload of company logo's

Can someone point me to the procedures for uploading copyrighted company logos to wikipedia? It seems like a low res image is uploaded. Do we take the image from the website and change it to a low res image somehow then upload it with the fair use justification? Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 03:02, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Have a look at WP:LOGO.--Addhoc (talk) 18:36, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
I have noted this cross reference in Wikipedia:WikiProject Companies/Guidelines#Format/Content Guidelines. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 18:50, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Inactive/Infrequent Participants

I've created a subpage to list inactive/infrequent participants and moved those struck out by Edibility to that page. I think this helps make the main page more readable without completely losing those users in case they ever come back to Wikipedia. If you have any concerns about this feel free to revert and discuss here. Cheers. Richc80 (talk) 20:10, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. I have moved myself to this new page and left an explanatory line there. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:57, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Redirects

There are many wikipedia searches that are not being appropriately redirected to companies, an excellent example is a search for "twa". A search for twa brings up an obscure african tribe. Please help me get this changed back to twa = Trans World Airlines. Thank you. Paco8191 (talk) 03:55, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

No, I think that Twa going to the tribe helps to counter the rampant systematic bias here. The vast majority of people who are looking for TWA will use 'TWA', all caps, in my opinion. Let's leave it as it is .. afterall, which is more important, a tribe or a multinational company - if the answer is not obvious, it is 'the tribe' (In my opinion). --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:46, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Looking at the talk page for Twa, Paco8191 has withdrawn his move request after being made aware that Wikipeda search can distinguish between 'Twa' & 'TWA'. Sounds like that makes everyone happy :-). Cheers. Richc80 (talk) 02:55, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Archive

Time to archive this page? Any objections? --Edibility (talk) 22:41, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I think that moving the deletion items to a subpage would drop the page size by ~50%. (I'm to blame for much of that content) If archiving is to be done manually rather than robotically, is there a way that we could archive so that topics can be found later? --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:44, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Whatever removes the inactive discussions and work lists works for me. This discussion page is just too long. Topics show up on the TOC of archived pages, so do what you can to shrink this page if you want. --Edibility (talk) 00:27, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Moving deletion-related items reduced the page size by about ¼. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 16:16, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Can we still proceed with the archiving of old and inactive discussions? --Gimlei (talk to me) 07:38, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Maintenance of Portal:Companies

Is there anyone, member or not, interested in maintaining the Companies Portal? Looks like the "Featured Article of the Week" has not been changed since August, and in general the Portal could do with some TLC. Any takers? Cheers Richc80 (talk) 02:06, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

It would be good to establish what the use cases for the Portal are so that requirements for maintenance and content can be to-do-listed. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 04:17, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Peer review request

Since the mission of this WikiProject is to get articles on companies up to GA or FA status, I thought I would post here asking for peer reviews on Elderly Instruments. I started this article from scratch and want to get it up to FA states. The peer review is here. In return for a substantive review, I will review or copyedit the article of your choice - just leave me a note on my talk page. Thanks! --Laser brain (talk) 04:09, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I have applied the Project Banner to this article's talk page with parameters 'class = B' and 'importance = mid'; I have not provided a rationale on the talk page for the class or importance assignment. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 04:21, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Just to clarify: Is that your review of the article or is that an intermediate step of some kind? --Laser brain (talk) 04:28, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Neither - the article was not tagged as being associated with this WikiProject - that is now rectified. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 04:47, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
That's a nice article! I left some comments on the talk page. --Edibility (talk) 14:56, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
FYI, the article is now a Featured Article candidate. --Laser brain (talk) 15:41, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
Congrats on getting this article to FA status! - Richc80 (talk) 04:44, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Franchises and trade names

What do we do about franshises and trade names? I came across Civic Video, which is a trade name and a franchise, but not actually a company itself. The company is Civic Retailing. Any guidelines on this? --Edibility (talk) 01:34, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I would put franchises & trade names in the same category as book imprints & record labels, which as discussed above would put them out of scope for this project. So I say tag Civic Retailing if it has an article, but not Civic Video. Richc80 (talk) 04:59, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm afraid I don't understand that short discussion. Civic Video is a well-known DVD rental store by that name. It's not a legal company name, but it's an active and recognized trade name. The company does not use its legal name as a trade name, and it franchises its trade name. Its trade is conducted via its trade name. I don't think the answer here is "this is not within the scope of this project". Companies create, claim, and control trade names. And those trade names are often what's seen by the general public (rather than an official company name).
I'll ask again: How do we deal with this in Wikipedia? --Edibility (talk) 03:03, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Sorry for any misunderstanding, but now I'm not sure what you are asking. What do you mean by "deal with this" if we are not talking about whether they are within project scope? Richc80 (talk) 03:13, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia naming conventions for companies with the same name

How do we deal with companies with the same name? [1] --Edibility (talk) 03:20, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Contributed my thoughts on the naming conventions talk page. Richc80 (talk) 03:33, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Changing importance guidelines

I think we should change the "Fortune 500" recommendation in rating the importance of a company to a "Fortune Global 500" recommendation. This is because wikipedia usually wants a global worldview in the article and also because the importance ratings directly correlate to global importance at the top two levels.--Finalnight (talk) 03:23, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Articles Content Guidelines

Currently, we have Wikipedia:Companies, corporations and economic information, a part of Manual of Style. I'd like to embark on a difficult and controversial mission of developing somewhat more detailed and thorough guidelines, basing of course on what is already in place. I would not want/dare to do that myself, but rather team up with some people, and collaborate to produce something, in my view, important and valuable to the community. Is anyone up for it? --Gimlei (talk to me) 07:56, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm in. Note that a start has also been made to put together something more comprehensive within the WikiProject, so maybe we could build upon that to start with. Cheers - Richc80 (talk) 03:30, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] State Owned Companies

I noticed someone is trying to create a state-owned companies taskforce. I was under the impression that we do not include state-owned companies. The reason being how do you distinguish between a state-owned company, a government institution, a nationalized company, or some weird mix (IE USPS or Amtrak)? Seems like this would only cause further complications and interfere with other WP projects. If we do include, I recommend that we create a special importance rating or limit it to "high" as I have seen possible nationalism from people adding a lot of their home country's companies as "top" or "high" importance when they are clearly not. I am also curious because I have been informally working on quality and importance ratings of the Fortune 500 and Global 500 since I started on Wikipedia and wouldn't mind further guidance--Finalnight (talk) 07:08, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

You raise a really good question here that I hadn't thought of before. Taking a look at a couple of articles it seemed to be clear to me whether or not they should be included (using the examples you gave, USPS is a government agency so is out of scope, Amtrack is setup as a company with stock owned by the government so is in scope) so my gut feeling is to continue including state-owned companies, but I'm willing to be swayed. If we do include those in scope then I think the taskforce becomes important in making those determinations, I even think we should look at ways indicate within the project banner (as I've seen happen in other Wikiprojects) that the taskforce is involved. Thanks for all of the work you are doing for this project! Richc80 (talk) 04:44, 1 April 2008 (UTC)


[edit] WikiProject Companies: Articles of unclear notability

Hello,

there are currently 66 articles in the scope of this project which are tagged with notability concerns. I have listed them here. (Note: this listing is based on a database snapshot of 12 March 2008 and may be slightly outdated.)

I would encourage members of this project to have a look at these articles, and see whether independent sources can be added, whether the articles can be merged into an article of larger scope, or possibly be deleted. Any help in cleaning up this backlog is appreciated. For further information, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Notability.

If you have any questions, please leave a message on the Notability project page or on my personal talk page. (I'm not watching this page however.) Thanks! --B. Wolterding (talk) 15:05, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for putting forth the effort to do this work to assist us in increasing Wikipedia article quality. I will endeavor to take a look at several over the next couple of days. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:55, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
As an aside - the optional parameter 'companies' may be useful to encourage use of; i.e. {{notability|companies}} (see Template:Notability/doc). --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:06, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Person vs. Company

I could use a little guidance (feel free to point where this has been discussed before)... Bringing SS Christopher Columbus to FA status, I and others de-redlinked every ref in it, including Samuel F. Hodge & Company which was created as a stub. This area is not really my wife's interest so I plan to give it a bit more. The company is notable enough in its field, having put the first triple expansion engine in service in the Great Lakes, in SS Roumania, but overall info is scant, so it's not likely to ever be much more than a start or at most B class article... Many 19th century companies were founded by individuals. This one outlasted the founder, with one of the sons taking over, but I don't think by much. Is it appropriate to put the bio of Samuel F. Hodge into this article? It seems he's notable for little else, and his story and the company story are intertwined. What do others do in this area? Thanks. ++Lar: t/c 17:12, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your post. To my knowledge this question has not been raised before, either within the project or the wider world of Wikipedia, so there is no consensus or example to follow. My feeling is, based upon the information you provided, that it would make sense to include information about the founder in the company's article. - Richc80 (talk) 04:44, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Parent company of Singapore Airlines

I have had a long, long dispute on Singapore Airlines with an editor over whether Temasek Holdings is the parent company. I have a long long long long list of sources stating this is the case, and have even quote the Singapore Airlines annual report, where it states Singapore Airlines Limited ("the Company") is a limited liability company incorporated in the Republic of Singapore which is also the place of domicile. The Company is a subsidiary company of Temasek Holdings (Private) Limited, incorporated in the Republic of Singapore., yet the other editor ignores this, says it does not mean that Temasek is the parent company, removes info, and then claims that Temasek is the parent of the "Singapore Airlines Group of Companies" (which we know is a different animal altogether). I have started the unknownth discussion on the talk page, and hope other project members can weigh in with their input. --Россавиа Диалог 21:07, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] INTO University Partnerships

I have created INTO University Partnerships. Can your good eyes see any improvements needed? Thanks! BusinessAsUnusual (talk) 10:47, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Conflict of interest is obvious, and notability needs to be asserted. My impression after a very brief look is that it is just on the borderline so far. --Gimlei (talk to me) 12:28, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
What conflict of interest? I don't and have never worked for them, if that is what you mean. Notability? I cite articles from British trade, regional, and national newspapers. The company says it has £400 million in venture capital behind it, and it is changing the way universities work and see themselves. If that isn't worthy of a Wikipedia article then I don't know what is. I was hoping for constructive suggestions of better categories to put it in, wikilinks to make, info I may have overlooked, etc. BusinessAsUnusual (talk) 22:34, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pool Re

Most of this article has been deleted as a probable copyright violation (the material was added in January 2006 and removed a couple of days ago). I'm not certain if it is within the scope of this project or not, but it could do with some attention and watchlisting. Thryduulf (talk) 01:06, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] style guideline?

Wikipedia:Companies, corporations and economic information was marked with "Template:Style-guide", but there were only a few pages that used that template and it's been deprecated. I'm wondering whether to include this page in the "Wikipedia style guidelines" category. It's shorter than other pages in that cat, and it's seen very little traffic over the last couple of years. Does anyone from this wikiproject want to go have a look and decide if it's a useful style guideline? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 18:08, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree in it's current form it is not much of a style guideline, but that there is some useful information there. I think it makes sense for this project to work on creating a more comprehensive guideline (a rough draft has been started) for inclusion in the category. A couple of project members have expressed an interest in participating, but we've yet to make any substantial progress. Thanks for bringing this to our attention! - Richc80 (talk) 09:12, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Okay, thanks Richc80. I'm going to un-watchlist; please either let me know or post a message at WT:MoS when you guys have something that you'd like included in the style guidelines category. There isn't any official process to be included, but we like to keep track. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 13:20, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Draft guidelines for lists of companies by country - Review Requested

I've created a draft set of guidelines for the various lists of companies by country. The quality of these lists varies greatly, and several have been subject to AFD discussions in the past. I think it would be good if this project could help facilitate improvements to these lists to ensure a minimum quality standard and consistency across all. Please review the draft guidelines, make edits as you see fit and discuss any major changes on the talk page. Thanks for your help! Richc80 (talk) 09:04, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Assessment Request

Myself and a couple of new editors just created an article about our favorite jigsaw puzzle company Stave Puzzles, we added it to this project and as this was my first article written about a company I would like to get an assessment of its quality and importance from an editor more familiar with company articles. Thanks in advance. --Captain-tucker (talk) 09:35, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Was this acted on by anyone? --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:35, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
No action so far, Thanks.--Captain-tucker (talk) 09:42, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New look for WikiProject Companies Main Page

I thought that the WikiProject Companies page could use a makeover to make it more user friendly and readable. To that end, I've put together a mock-up for a new page here. I'd appreciate any feedback, either by replying here or making constructive edits directly to the mock-up. Thanks for contributing to the success of this project and Wikipedia! - Richc80 (talk) 01:07, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I have no objection to a radical change such as that proposed. Sometimes a shift like this can breath new life into a project. I think that providing a far more succinct entry page than used by most WikiProjects is beneficial.
What do you think about using the brevity of the top-page to our benefit by emphasizing some aspect of the WikiProject on an occasional basis? I am thinking about a section box entitled "Quarterly Message for Q{#} 200{#}" with subtext "a message from the WikiProject to provide focus". This could be anything from a four-word highlighted phrase like "Companies are people too" followed by a paragraph on the application of BLP guidelines to companies (just a thought) to something like "Goal for the quarter: zero unassessed articles". No statement would be put up without ample (quorum) discussion.
This quarterly statement would be something that could encourage non-participants to act on the Project's behalf and, perhaps, draw at least one new member in per quarter (I don't know what the current addition rate is .. interesting thing to look into, though, across WikiProjects in general).
--User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
I think it's a great idea, thanks as always for the feedback! I've added your suggestion, along with my thought on the first quarterly message (it would be good to get all company articles tagged for the project). I'll keep working on the formatting and getting the remaining pages setup, and then unless there are any major objections will launch the new page before the end of this weekend! - Richc80 (talk) 04:22, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
I think the proposed layout would catch my attention more. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 10:15, 11 June 2008 (UTC)