[WikiEN-l] Notability of commercial organisations

[David Goodman]

The obvious solution is for more volunteers to write the articles. But
those who try get very discouraged when
their articles on clearly notable businesses get  sent for deletion
because people think the notability
standard should be even higher than it is .

I doubt that  making the standard even higher will produce more
editors; it is much more likely to chase away those we do have.
We need to make it easier to write articles--not just to write them
technically, but to get them accepted.


On Sat, Apr 28, 2012 at 8:44 AM, WereSpielChequers
<werespielchequers at gmail.com> wrote:
> A more neutral way to put it would be "is there a need to review the
> notability requirements for commercial organisations". Tighten up rather
> skews the debate.
>
> As for why we should be discussing this, a lobby group for paid editors has
> published a somewhat flawed report dissing Wikipedia and Wikipedians,
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/2012-04-23/Investigative_reportand
> the whole issue of COI and paid editing is somewhat topical. Whilst I
> normally consider myself one of the more inclusionist members of the
> community, I'd concede that we have an unusual situation re business
> related topics, and that a more deletionist approach might be helpful. In
> my view:
>
>
>   1. The ratio of volunteers whose hobby it is to write about business to
>   hired hands operating covertly is probably not as healthy for Wikipedia on
>   general business issues as it would be re hill forts, classic cars or
>   hurricanes.
>   2. Some businesses have annoyed people, and I suspect that articles on
>   businesses in general get more hostile unbalanced editing than do articles
>   on extinct megafauna, asteroids or mathematical formulae.
>   3. There are areas where our coverage is, or aims to be, comprehensive,
>   and there are areas where we merely cover the most notable. with crinoids,
>   cathedrals and corsairs this doesn't bring up a fairness issue. But with
>   business it does. If we only create articles for the "main players" in a
>   market then we are potentially giving them an advantage over smaller or
>   newer rivals, especially if those articles emphasise the positive.
>
>
> In my view it would be fair and reasonable to respond to the existence of
> paid editing in business related articles by upping our minimum requirement
> for referencing new articles on businesses. So following on from the sticky
> prods we introduced for BLPs, we could introduce a BizProd; Any article
> created after 1st June 2012 where the subject is a currently trading
> business needs at least one independent reliable source. This would be a
> tougher and simpler standard than for BLPs, but that reflects the reality
> that some of these authors are actually paid to edit, and if our rules
> clearly state that they must be able to cite a reliable source such as a
> newspaper then it is reasonable to expect them to do so. It doesn't
> directly address the fairness issue, but IMHO there is more of a
> responsibility on the community to keep business articles neutral than
> there is for articles on waterways or wrestlers, and requiring a reliable
> source is a step in the right direction.
>
> If we did this then we would not need to simultaneously review the
> notability criteria. Also the NoIndex until patrolled feature that is
> likely to be implemented would take away some of the incentive for
> businesses to create articles knowing they would only be up for a few days
> to take advantage of search engines
>
> WSC
>
>
> On 27 April 2012 05:17, Alan Liefting <aliefting at ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>
>> This is a bit of a straw poll.
>> Is there a need to tighten up notability guidelines for commercial
>> organisations?
>> Yes/No/Maybe?
>>
>>
>> Alan Liefting
>>
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-- 
David Goodman

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