Norman Technologies AfD

[Steve Bennett-8]

One of MyWikiBiz's client's articles has been picked up by AfD. It's
obviously going to be a pretty significant test case for the future of
this kind of business, so it's worth while discussing it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Norman_Technologies

My position is that Wikipedia's mission is absolutely not served by
deleting this (or similar) articles. It's informative (could be more
so!), it's neutral, and there are people out there looking for this
kind of article. I would like to hear any arguments for deleting it.

Now, is it just me, or do we have a serious bias against corporations?

Steve
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[Rob-24]

On 8/9/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp@...> wrote:

> One of MyWikiBiz's client's articles has been picked up by AfD. It's
> obviously going to be a pretty significant test case for the future of
> this kind of business, so it's worth while discussing it.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Norman_Technologies
>
> My position is that Wikipedia's mission is absolutely not served by
> deleting this (or similar) articles. It's informative (could be more
> so!), it's neutral, and there are people out there looking for this
> kind of article. I would like to hear any arguments for deleting it.
>
> Now, is it just me, or do we have a serious bias against corporations?

Well, there's a natural reaction to anything that looks like corporate
advertising, but I wouldn't call it a "bias against corporations".

I don't see anything inherently wrong with MyWikiBiz, esp. since they
are pretty open about what they're doing.  But I also don't think
Wikipedia's mission is served by cluttering up the place with articles
on every small consulting firm in the US. This corporation has only 26
employees and the only citations are a local business journal.  Is
this really a significant enough company to make it into an
encyclopedia?
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[Steve Bennett-8]

On 8/9/06, Rob <gamaliel8@...> wrote:

> Well, there's a natural reaction to anything that looks like corporate
> advertising, but I wouldn't call it a "bias against corporations".
>
> I don't see anything inherently wrong with MyWikiBiz, esp. since they
> are pretty open about what they're doing.  But I also don't think
> Wikipedia's mission is served by cluttering up the place with articles
> on every small consulting firm in the US. This corporation has only 26
> employees and the only citations are a local business journal.  Is
> this really a significant enough company to make it into an
> encyclopedia?

That definitely depends on what your definition of "significant
enough" is. If we had room for only 10 corporations, I would say no.
But we're not pressed for space, and unlike pure vanity articles (my
name is Jim and I have a dog called Nelly!), this type of article
meets a genuine need.

I think there is a valid viewpoint that says "Wikipedia is the sum of
human knowledge, except for a bit of total dross that doesn't interest
anyone". However, a genuine company with 26 full time employees that
has been around for 5 years and does some interesting things at the
global level is not such dross.

Purely and simply, is Wikipedia better off *with* this information
than *without* it? If the answer is "without", then why? Because we
saved a couple of kilobytes?

Steve
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[Rob-24]

On 8/9/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp@...> wrote:

> On 8/9/06, Rob <gamaliel8@...> wrote:
> > Well, there's a natural reaction to anything that looks like corporate
> > advertising, but I wouldn't call it a "bias against corporations".
> >
> > I don't see anything inherently wrong with MyWikiBiz, esp. since they
> > are pretty open about what they're doing.  But I also don't think
> > Wikipedia's mission is served by cluttering up the place with articles
> > on every small consulting firm in the US. This corporation has only 26
> > employees and the only citations are a local business journal.  Is
> > this really a significant enough company to make it into an
> > encyclopedia?
>
> That definitely depends on what your definition of "significant
> enough" is. If we had room for only 10 corporations, I would say no.
> But we're not pressed for space, and unlike pure vanity articles (my
> name is Jim and I have a dog called Nelly!), this type of article
> meets a genuine need.
>
> I think there is a valid viewpoint that says "Wikipedia is the sum of
> human knowledge, except for a bit of total dross that doesn't interest
> anyone". However, a genuine company with 26 full time employees that
> has been around for 5 years and does some interesting things at the
> global level is not such dross.
>
> Purely and simply, is Wikipedia better off *with* this information
> than *without* it? If the answer is "without", then why? Because we
> saved a couple of kilobytes?

A case could be made that this is just as much a vanity article as a
personal bio.  It's not just the number of employees that makes it
insignificant for encyclopedic purposes.  If it was indeed doing
things interesting enough to be of encyclopedic note, someone other
than the local Charlotte Business Journal would be writing about them.
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[Jimmy Wales]

I have indef banned MyWikiBiz from English Wikipedia.

If he wants to do something like this, he should write his articles
independently, post them on his website, and see if interested
Wikipedians who are willing to vouch for the articles... WITHOUT
FINANCIAL COMPENSATION... want to include them.

Getting paid to add entries to Wikipedia by the subject of the entries
is a serious serious no-no because of the obvious conflict-of-interest
issues.

--Jimbo
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[Death Phoenix]

On 8/9/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales@...> wrote:

>
> I have indef banned MyWikiBiz from English Wikipedia.
>
> If he wants to do something like this, he should write his articles
> independently, post them on his website, and see if interested
> Wikipedians who are willing to vouch for the articles... WITHOUT
> FINANCIAL COMPENSATION... want to include them.
>
> Getting paid to add entries to Wikipedia by the subject of the entries
> is a serious serious no-no because of the obvious conflict-of-interest
> issues.
>
> --Jimbo
>

He put in a request for {{unblock}} on his talk page. Since it is highly
unlikely someone would want to undo your official action, I reviewed the
unblock and asked him to contact you instead.
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[Jimmy Wales]

I have his phone number and will try to talk to him today.

Death Phoenix wrote:

> On 8/9/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales@...> wrote:
>  
>> I have indef banned MyWikiBiz from English Wikipedia.
>>
>> If he wants to do something like this, he should write his articles
>> independently, post them on his website, and see if interested
>> Wikipedians who are willing to vouch for the articles... WITHOUT
>> FINANCIAL COMPENSATION... want to include them.
>>
>> Getting paid to add entries to Wikipedia by the subject of the entries
>> is a serious serious no-no because of the obvious conflict-of-interest
>> issues.
>>
>> --Jimbo
>>
>>    
>
> He put in a request for {{unblock}} on his talk page. Since it is highly
> unlikely someone would want to undo your official action, I reviewed the
> unblock and asked him to contact you instead.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l@...
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>  

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[Maru Dubshinki]

On 8/9/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales@...> wrote:

> I have indef banned MyWikiBiz from English Wikipedia.
>
> If he wants to do something like this, he should write his articles
> independently, post them on his website, and see if interested
> Wikipedians who are willing to vouch for the articles... WITHOUT
> FINANCIAL COMPENSATION... want to include them.
>
> Getting paid to add entries to Wikipedia by the subject of the entries
> is a serious serious no-no because of the obvious conflict-of-interest
> issues.
>
> --Jimbo

(Note that this screed is independent of any deal Jimmy and MyWikiBiz
may've come to).

This is an absurd block. He was writing perfectly fine, well-written,
*referenced* articles and has so far as I know scrupulously followed
the notability guidelines; would to God that we had a thousand more
like him, and could ditch the bottom thousand editors.  And you are
banning him because the conflict of interest *might* lead to POV? Have
the project abandoned AGF and the notion that one can write in a NPOV
fashion even if POV oneself?

Over Wikipedia's existence, there've been how many articles submitted
by people being paid or who might conceivably have a conflict of
interest?

Then let's get rid of anything politics related by  Katefan0 (who
you'll remember is a professional journalist covering politics - clear
conflict of interest there) or any of our resident academics who edits
articles relating to their expertise (I'd mention Carl Hewitt here,
but he's already banned for being incorrigibly self-centered). Or
closer to home, let's get rid of [[Fujiwara no Teika]], as the
Encyclopedia Project paid me to edit that article, or [[Encyclopedia
of the Brethren of Purity]] and [[Brethren of Purity]] (ditto). If we
require yet more victims for this witch-hunt and to feed our paranoia,
any article ever listed on the Bounty Board is suspect.

What I see here is a double standard: there's  a tiny wiff of a
problem and a user is indef banned, while vastly worse problems like
vandals and copyright violators at least get the courtesy of the
{{test}} templates.

~maru
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[Kirill Lokshin]

On 8/9/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki@...> wrote:
> This is an absurd block. He was writing perfectly fine, well-written,
> *referenced* articles and has so far as I know scrupulously followed
> the notability guidelines; would to God that we had a thousand more
> like him, and could ditch the bottom thousand editors.  And you are
> banning him because the conflict of interest *might* lead to POV? Have
> the project abandoned AGF and the notion that one can write in a NPOV
> fashion even if POV oneself?

I would argue that this goes back to that whole "bringing the project
into disrepute" thing that's come up a few times now.  It may very
well be that his articles are perfectly fine (although I suspect that
many are quite borderline in terms of either reliable outside sources
or notability); but the issue is the *appearance* of impropriety more
so than the contents of the articles themselves.  We cannot afford to
leave the public with the impression that certain articles are in
Wikipedia only because money has changed hands to keep them there; the
way MyWikiBiz was being advertised gave precisely that impression --
regardless of whether he was actually following notability guidelines
or not!  (Indeed, promises like "If your organization is deemed
non-notable, your payment will be immediately refunded" are probably
*more* problematic, as they are likely to be interpreted as giving a
pretty obvious motivation to make sure that the article sticks
around.)

--
Kirill Lokshin
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[Maru Dubshinki]

On 8/9/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin@...> wrote:

> I would argue that this goes back to that whole "bringing the project
> into disrepute" thing that's come up a few times now. It may very
> well be that his articles are perfectly fine (although I suspect that
> many are quite borderline in terms of either reliable outside sources
> or notability); but the issue is the *appearance* of impropriety more
> so than the contents of the articles themselves. We cannot afford to
> leave the public with the impression that certain articles are in
> Wikipedia only because money has changed hands to keep them there; the
> way MyWikiBiz was being advertised gave precisely that impression --
> regardless of whether he was actually following notability guidelines
> or not! (Indeed, promises like "If your organization is deemed
> non-notable, your payment will be immediately refunded" are probably
> *more* problematic, as they are likely to be interpreted as giving a
> pretty obvious motivation to make sure that the article sticks
> around.)
>
> --
> Kirill Lokshin

But this is a poor argument for indef blocking a user, appearances is.
If we cared about appearance more than substance, Wikipedia'd never
have been a wiki in the first place.  I really doubt that the public
cares whether certain articles may've been kept because of money when
they are more concerned about the quality of articles to begin with
(and then about stability and then about features or aspects of the
community or then... heck, when it comes to appearances, people are
far more concerned about vandalism - now there's something that really
can change the apperance of Wikipedia, quite literally).

~maru
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[Erik Moeller-3]

On 8/10/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki@...> wrote:
> What I see here is a double standard: there's  a tiny wiff of a
> problem and a user is indef banned, while vastly worse problems like
> vandals and copyright violators at least get the courtesy of the
> {{test}} templates.

Then let's not have a double standard, but a general mechanism to
submit new articles where conflicts of interest may exist for
community review prior to publication, and ask editors (including
yourself) to follow that process. Here's a quick proposal:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflicts_of_interest

Erik
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[David Gerard-2]

On 10/08/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence@...> wrote:
> On 8/10/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki@...> wrote:

> > What I see here is a double standard: there's  a tiny wiff of a
> > problem and a user is indef banned, while vastly worse problems like
> > vandals and copyright violators at least get the courtesy of the
> > {{test}} templates.

> Then let's not have a double standard, but a general mechanism to
> submit new articles where conflicts of interest may exist for
> community review prior to publication, and ask editors (including
> yourself) to follow that process. Here's a quick proposal:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflicts_of_interest


Or they could, um, note it on the talk page? Rather than put yet
another procedure in place which will have the effect of "why bother."
Unless that's the purpose.


- d.
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[Steve Bennett-8]

On 8/9/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales@...> wrote:
> I have indef banned MyWikiBiz from English Wikipedia.
>
> If he wants to do something like this, he should write his articles
> independently, post them on his website, and see if interested
> Wikipedians who are willing to vouch for the articles... WITHOUT
> FINANCIAL COMPENSATION... want to include them.

Oh, dear. We have just sent out a clear message: "If you wish to get
paid to write on Wikipedia, please do not use a transparent process.
Please do not attempt to engage with the community, and please,
whatever you do, do not tell us that you actually got paid for the
article. If anyone asks, deny, deny, deny".

This guy was approaching this in exactly the right way, and the
outcome was good.

Meanwhile, I'm sure lots of big companies *do* edit their own
articles, but they *don't* tell us what they're doing, and we're ok
with that?

Steve
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[Erik Moeller-3]

On 8/10/06, David Gerard <dgerard@...> wrote:
> Or they could, um, note it on the talk page? Rather than put yet
> another procedure in place which will have the effect of "why bother."
> Unless that's the purpose.

On what talk page? This is for articles which do not yet exist. How
would you bring those to the attention of the community without
posting them directly?

Erik
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[Steve Bennett-8]

On 8/10/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence@...> wrote:
> On what talk page? This is for articles which do not yet exist. How
> would you bring those to the attention of the community without
> posting them directly?

AfC.

Steve
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[David Gerard-2]

On 10/08/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence@...> wrote:
> On 8/10/06, David Gerard <dgerard@...> wrote:

> > Or they could, um, note it on the talk page? Rather than put yet
> > another procedure in place which will have the effect of "why bother."
> > Unless that's the purpose.

> On what talk page? This is for articles which do not yet exist. How
> would you bring those to the attention of the community without
> posting them directly?


Write the article and note involvement on the talk page. I've done
this for articles where I have some link to the references. This lets
the article stand if it's OK and there's a flag on the talk page for
an NPOV check.


- d.
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[Erik Moeller-3]

On 8/10/06, David Gerard <dgerard@...> wrote:
> > > Or they could, um, note it on the talk page? Rather than put yet
> > > another procedure in place which will have the effect of "why bother."
> > > Unless that's the purpose.

> > On what talk page? This is for articles which do not yet exist. How
> > would you bring those to the attention of the community without
> > posting them directly?

> Write the article and note involvement on the talk page. I've done
> this for articles where I have some link to the references. This lets
> the article stand if it's OK and there's a flag on the talk page for
> an NPOV check.

That doesn't seem to work, given that MyWikiBiz has just been told by
Jimmy not to do this.

Erik
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[Alphax (Wikipedia email)]

Steve Bennett wrote:

> On 8/9/06, Rob <gamaliel8@...> wrote:
>> Well, there's a natural reaction to anything that looks like corporate
>> advertising, but I wouldn't call it a "bias against corporations".
>>
>> I don't see anything inherently wrong with MyWikiBiz, esp. since they
>> are pretty open about what they're doing.  But I also don't think
>> Wikipedia's mission is served by cluttering up the place with articles
>> on every small consulting firm in the US. This corporation has only 26
>> employees and the only citations are a local business journal.  Is
>> this really a significant enough company to make it into an
>> encyclopedia?
>
> That definitely depends on what your definition of "significant
> enough" is. If we had room for only 10 corporations, I would say no.
> But we're not pressed for space, and unlike pure vanity articles (my
> name is Jim and I have a dog called Nelly!), this type of article
> meets a genuine need.
>

Does it? How are they unique? The following,

"Norman Technologies is the only U.S.-based private-sector I.T.
consultancy focused solely on global trade initiatives. The company is
also unique in that it provides the only non-bank representative to the
International Chamber of Commerce's Committee on Banking Technique &
Practice. The firm is also a member of the International Financial
Services Association."

uses a heap of weasel words/buzzwords/business jargon ("global trade
initiatives") which don't really mean much; and what is the
International Chamber of Commerce's Committee on Banking Technique &
Practice anyway?

> I think there is a valid viewpoint that says "Wikipedia is the sum of
> human knowledge, except for a bit of total dross that doesn't interest
> anyone". However, a genuine company with 26 full time employees that
> has been around for 5 years and does some interesting things at the
> global level is not such dross.
>

You're wrong. /Nobody cares/ about J. Random Company, manufacturer of
Gnomovision, which makes passes about compilers, even if Gnomovision is
notable[0].

> Purely and simply, is Wikipedia better off *with* this information
> than *without* it? If the answer is "without", then why? Because we
> saved a couple of kilobytes?
>

Because it's just one more article which people are going to edit war
and email OTRS about, and it's not particularly interesting or
informative; the aim of an encyclopedia is to be factual, informative
and interesting.

[0] Guess the reference...
--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP



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