Delirium wrote:
It would be somewhat more effective if we didn't accuse everyone of acting in bad faith and advertising, as well. Nearly *every* article I've created on a company, none of which I've been personally involved with at all, and all of which are fairly large companies whose articles I've referenced to third-party print sources, has been tagged with something or other suggesting it be deleted. This sort of resistance to having articles on companies is one reason, I suspect, that our coverage of the area is so embarrassingly bad.
It could be helped by the new-page patrollers being a little more discerning and looking specifically for crappy, unreferenced, promotional type articles on companies, rather than just tagging every article on a company indiscriminately.
It seems that those interested in a "bright line" are more interested in quick fixes than real solution about how to deal with companies. They've taken their anti-corporate biases and admittedly bad experiences with the advertising industry, and blown them out of all proportion into a prejudicial view that anything from corporations is evil. What real experience have these critics ever had with corporations? Do they ever read the financial pages of the newspaper? Have they ever looked at the public reports which these companies are legally required to produce? When your only exposure to a company is its advertising campaigns you are bound to have a very distorted view of the company. There has to be more to our treatment of companies than ivory-tower idealism. The lowly cubicle jockey writing about his company is unlikely to have his personal fortunes thereby advanced, and the CEO has better things to do with his time.
Strong biased attitudes on either side of the fence help to perpetrate myths about companies. Maybe a food product company understates the amount of salt in its product contrary to objective consumer testing. We do better to highlight such discrepancies (with verifiable sources from both sides) than to dwell on fatuous arguments to the effect that a company is not notable if we only have its side of the story. If some statement is company propaganda we identify it as such, and welcome alternative views instead of pretending that by suppressing information we are doing a great service to neutrality.
Those blinded by their own bright lines need to stop deceiving themselves.
Ec