Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Norman Technologies

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Delete. Naconkantari 21:02, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Norman Technologies

Tagged for importance, and author not able to come up with much, except that they work in international trade and have international clients. IT consulting company with 26 employees, 134 unique GHits, and reads like an ad. Doesn't look to me like remotely meeting WP:CORP. Thousands of IT consulting companies this size or larger. Fan-1967 03:43, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom. --Cassavau 04:08, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. -- Gogo Dodo 04:25, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete spam, spam, spam, spam, spammity spam, spammity spam --Xrblsnggt 06:19, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: "unique" Google hits are a fallacy, and have no bearing on the importance of a given topic. Under no circumstances will any imaginable topic, no matter how notable, return in excess of 1000 "unique" hits. The article topic is still a non-notable corporation though. — Adrian~enwiki (talk) 09:16, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Response My understanding is that "unique hits" are filtered from the first 1000. In a case like this, where the total is 793, the unique hits are accurate. When the total goes over 1000, the unique hits are no longer reliable. Fan-1967 13:23, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Keep because it's obvious that too few Delete-advocates even read WP:CORP when they cite it as a reason for deletion. So, let me copy it here, so you don't have to click the link and read it:

A company or corporation is notable if it meets any one of the following criteria: 1. The company or corporation has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the company itself. This criterion excludes: o Media re-prints of press releases, other publications where the company or corporation talks about itself, and advertising for the company. o Trivial coverage, such as newspaper articles that simply report extended shopping hours or the publications of telephone numbers and addresses in business directories. This criterion includes published works in all forms, such as newspaper articles, books, television documentaries, and published reports by consumer watchdog organizations.

Now, with that being said, if you look at the article Norman Technologies, you will see that the Charlotte Business Journal has written about Norman Technologies on two different occasions. You will also see that the company is unique in two different ways -- it's the ONLY American I.T. consultancy engaged solely in international financial transaction initiatives; and it is the ONLY non-bank representative on an important committee of the International Chamber of Commerce, which is an organization that has been around since 1919. If you intend to delete perfectly acceptable articles such as this, then where is the action on articles such as: Intrada, Coney I-Lander, Force Fed Records, and Kiessling, to cite just a few? Remember, the "Wikipedia exists to bring knowledge to everyone". So, ask yourself, Delete-advocates, why are you going after this particular article with such vigor? Is it because you know more about restaurants and record labels than you know about international transaction software (which is responsible for processing billions of dollars of trade every day)? I guess it's not notable if you don't understand it. -- MyWikiBiz 13:38, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comments (1) Many companies are featured in a local business section or paper. Articles from non-local sources would have more weight. (2) Unique is not the same thing as notable. Is a company your size that works in international trade somehow more notable than one of the same size that works domestically? Sorry, don't see it. (3) There are a lot of articles here that don't belong. Doesn't justify keeping others. Fan-1967 13:54, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Response I don't see that WP:CORP says that newspaper articles must be "non-local". Maybe you should propose a re-write of WP:CORP, rather than invent new criteria of your own design on an AfD page. -- MyWikiBiz 14:03, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - Response There's also the question of "multiple" and "non-trivial". You have two references, and one is a six-paragraph article of "news and notes", with one paragraph (the last one) that says Norman rented new office space. I'll let others be the judge on their value. Fan-1967 14:12, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    - Comment I'm not yet prepared to weigh in on the discussion, but it should be observed that WP:CORP is only a guideline, such that it doesn't necessarily command the consensus of the community and in any event is not dispositive relative to any AfD and should not be adduced as categorically controlling. Whilst essays, guidelines, and policies that represent the deliberative consensus of the community writ large exist, every editor uses, of course, his/her own judgment—at least to some extent—in interpreting WP:5P, especially WP:NOT, and pronouncing as to the encyclopedic nature of a given subject, in order, inter al., that such pronouncements might be synthesized toward a propitious encyclopedic outcome. Joe 17:07, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      - The "only a guideline" argument doesn't hold water. Several of our notability "guidelines" have seen steady and almost universal use for years, now. They all, in one form or another, embody the primary notability criterion. A few years ago, this discussion would have had editors giving their personal opinions of how "famous" or "well-known" or "important" the company is, or centring the discussion around the author of the article. Now, as a direct consequence of WP:CORP, you'll notice that editors have gone looking for books, news articles, and the like (i.e. sources), and are basing their rationales upon the extent and nature of those sources. Uncle G 02:31, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        I employ WP:CORP in evaluating AfDs, but many do not, and there is surely no compulsion that they do so. Remember, there are some who think notability ought not to be a consideration in any AfD discussion (with which propisition I disagree quite strongly), and we do not summarily discount their participation here. The role of AfD is to synthesize the views of many editors apropos of the encyclopedic nature of a given subject, such that the criteria used by editors might be conflated toward the production of a consensus, irrespective of guidelines that reflect the views of most editors. I find WP:NN and its progeny to follow directly from WP:NOT, such that the former ought, IMHO, to be tagged as policy, in order that some frequently-repeated AfD discussions should be avoided, but in the absence of such tagging, it's not reasonable to dismiss cursorily any argument that relies on an uncommon interpretation of WP:CORP or on criteria wholly different from those of WP:CORP. Joe 22:03, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Verifiable. Notability, by the way, is not even a guideline, much less official policy. I prefer to based my decisions on WP:V, WP:OR, and WP:NPOV. They do the job quite nicely with no need to refer to nebulous concepts like notability. --Ginkgo100 ^{talk · contribs · e@} 14:34, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- No, they don't. Uncle G 02:31, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete unless the claims of notability are verified. The footnotes verify that the company has a board of directors with external members, and moved its headquarters, but "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", have no verification. But verification for claims of importance is far more important than verification for what is basically trivia. Having a couple of references is not the same as being verified. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 14:41, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Delete. Clearly fails any sensible reading of WP:CORP. Small; privately held; non-disclosure of financial information. Logo displayed with "permission". How do you spell advertisement? Unverifiable claims to uniqueness of its market and role. It's not even possible to verify a claim that they are the ONLY American I.T. consultancy engaged solely in international financial transaction initiatives (as if that's something that even matters outside the company) unless a really reputable source makes the claim (and not a press release reprint-mill like so many small publications). -- Slowmover 16:09, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Response Another non-read of WP:CORP. Nothing in criterion #1 says anything about the company's size, nor whether it is privately-held. Cargill is privately held. Should we delete that article? Cerritos Auto Square claims it is "the largest and most financially successful auto mall in the world", but offers no financial proof. Should we delete that article? TQ Digital Entertainment is really nothing but a POV advertisement. Should we delete that article? I think many of you are confusing criteria for IMPROVEMENT NEEDED with criteria for DELETION. We all know why this article is being singled out for such rabid scrutiny, and it has nothing to do with WP:CORP. -- MyWikiBiz 16:22, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Really, and why is that? First, the company is not notable (that they paid money to someone to write an article for them to improve their exposure simply means that they paid money to someone to write an article for them), it certainly does not reflect on their notability. Also, as noted in the nom, the article reads like an advert. Jim62sch 14:15, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Response - One reason the article reads like an advert is that its "importance" was questioned. In order to communicate the importance of a company, one often looks to superlatives such as "the biggest", or "the only". Personally, I thought that the fact the company lists among its clients such notable institutions as Barclays, BB&T, PNC Bank, SunTrust, and Wachovia, would serve as enough indication that the company is important. Would each of these gigantic banks be comfortable working with an unimportant, non-notable vendor? Seems coincidental or lucky for Norman Technologies, if that were the case. Either that, or they lied on their website about their client roster. Take a look at the first few paragraphs of Sun Microsystems. Doesn't read like an advertisement, because you "assume" that you know Sun to be notable and not needing to defend its importance. On the other hand, read the first six sentences of Coca-Cola. It very much reads like an advertisement. Just so we understand, is it okay for an article to read like an advertisement only if it is a delicious drink that many Wikipedians enjoy, but that articles about drab businesses in the information and financial transaction software implementation category may not read as an advert? -- MyWikiBiz 19:50, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So what you're saying is that if I knock on the doors of a few large companies, and some employee there hires me for a day for my expertise in whatever, that I can become as important as Norman Technologies. Sounds great. I'll be back here with a self-aggrandizing article next week. -- Slowmover 21:01, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but the fact that the company is small, privately held, and doesn't disclose financial data, is the reason that it does fail all three of the WP:CORP criteria. Nobody is paying attention to it, because it doesn't rate any attention, and Wikipedia should ignore it. Finally, I reiterate the comments by Fan-1967. -- Slowmover 16:44, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Response - The first criterion of WP:CORP has been satisfied by the article. A company only need meet ANY ONE of the three criteria to qualify. Using WP:CORP as a reason for deletion is only hurting your case, unless you feel that the Charlotte Business Journal is "trivial". -- MyWikiBiz 19:59, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly not trivial. But hardly important, and not where people go for encyclopedic information. And no corroborating sources. Pretty lame stuff. -- Slowmover 21:01, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Someone explain to me clearly how deleting this article is a net benefit to humanity. It's a good little synopsis of an IT firm, and it explains two interesting things about them, particularly their representation to the international chamber of commerce. I honestly don't care if it *is* advertising in some vague twisted sense. It's extremely likely that some day someone will want to know more something about this company before they do business with them, and they're going to look for that information on the web. And guess what, if this article survives, Wikipedia will actually be able to inform them! Fancy that, Wikipedia informing someone who needs factual, unbiased information! If there are "thousands of IT consulting companies this size or bigger", please write articles about them - "thousands" out of 1.3 million articles is hardly excessive. Have we lost sight of our mission somewhere? Stevage 16:17, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment. This is a strange interpretation of the WP mission. By definition, advertising and self-promotion (eg, autobiography, and this is essentially corporate autobiography) fails WP:NPOV. Articles which are sponsored by self-interested parties do positive harm to the mission of an encyclopedia. That's why it should go. If it was possible to objectively write the thousands of articles you mention in an objective and unbiased manner, I could agree. But it's not possible. If articles like this aren't deleted, WP will become a big yellow pages saturated with disinformation, lies and distortions, and will only serve the over-inflated egos of the authors. It will not be providing anything close to information (q.v.) -- Slowmover 16:31, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - Comment. Check out the first one-and-a-half paragraphs of the article Coca-Cola. Put some musical accompaniment behind it, and you'd have yourself a great 60-second advertisement. Delete Coca-Cola? -- MyWikiBiz 16:37, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    - Noting problems with other articles doesn't really fix this one. You're an editor: please improve the Coca-Cola article as you see fit. You don't really think Norman Technologies is up there with Coca-Cola or Cargill, do you? -- Slowmover 16:48, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Nothing about this business making it a encyclopedic. Wikipedia is not a business directory. We need to aggressively monitor this user's other contributions for more of the same. FloNight ^talk 16:58, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Looks like he has a vanity bio page at Gregory Kohs. -- Slowmover 17:03, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Weak delete - While well-written and informative, it does not yet meet WP:CORP criteria. What exactly has this company done that is notable? Offering unique services does not in itself make a company notable. How have those services been used to do notable things? Any innovative work that was mentioned in major trade magazines/journals? Has there been *any* notable news to come from this company that was reported by major trade/national/international publications? --mav 17:28, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as spam. Leuko 18:06, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Regardless of what we think of MyWikiBiz, this clearly falls under our guidelines: "The company or corporation has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the company itself" - local pulications are not excluded by this policy. ed g2s • talk 18:44, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep; seems to meet WP:CORP (mention is non-trivial in a newspaper). Could be improved to address minor POV, but I don't see that as a reason to delete. --Spangineer^es (háblame) 18:53, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. 26 employees and the only sources are a local business journal. This doesn't add up to encyclopedic to me. Gamaliel 19:12, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete unless the claims of notability are verified. WAS 4.250 20:20, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Jimbo just made a deal with the author who was paid to write this article. Jimbo says:"He agreed not to edit Wikipedia articles when he is being paid to write by the subject of the article, and to help the companies he works with understand that it is probably not a great idea for them to edit their own articles as well. He will write articles and post them on his own site, under the GNU FDL, and to ask trusted prominent and independent Wikipedians to add the articles, on their own independent judgments of the merits of the articles." [1] because "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." [2] WAS 4.250 20:20, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Thank you for that. Fascinating reading. Fan-1967 20:24, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. WP:CORP explicitly says that "This criterion includes published works in all forms, such as newspaper articles, books, television documentaries, and published reports by consumer watchdog organizations." The newspaper coverage does not fall into the prohibited category, so policy says to keep this. It's a pretty well done article, verified, not a copyvio, and almost NPOV - so there is no reason to delete. --Rhwawn (talk to Rhwawn) 00:37, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment The criterion also says multiple, non-trivial. There's one actual article and a note about them renting an office. Fan-1967 01:52, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, this article does not meet notability requirements, and this is a bad precedent to allow people to be paid to write articles, meaning they have a vested interest in creating the article and making sure it's kept. If a writer is being paid, what's to keep the writer or his employers from paying for "keep" votes? User:Zoe|(talk) 01:48, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment. If a writer is being paid for it, what's to keep his opposition or his employer's opposition from paying for "delete" votes? What if there is a magical teapot in Mercury orbit mind-controlling every editor who votes "keep"? --Rhwawn (talk to Rhwawn) 02:40, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - If there is an issue of credibility for any reason then the solution is to insist on trustable sources (ie the verifyability POLICY) which this article lacks for its elements of noteability. WAS 4.250 03:20, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. The newspaper coverage is from a local-business paper, which as far as I'm concerned puts it on a par with college papers and only a step above press releases as far as its ranking on the reliability scale. In other words, it fails the "not non-trivial press coverage" -- and since both articles are in the same paper, arguably the "multiple" threshold. --Calton | Talk 02:12, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. per Stevage. And I see nothing wrong in someone being payed to write articles. As long as the content is factual and NPOV I don't care who, or how someone, payed for it. Shanes 03:36, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep meets WP:CORP and I don't care if people get paid to write stuff as long as it is verifiable & neutral --Trödel 05:44, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- The trouble with this argument (and the one immediately above) is that the important parts of the article are not verifiable (and may therefore not be factual). --Sam Blanning^(talk) 22:18, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - Then remove that material as not being verifiable - that is not a reason to delete the article - that is a reason to edit the article --Trödel 09:29, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as it appears to meet WP:CORP and is verifiable. --Aguerriero (talk) 23:01, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep meets WP:CORP. --CFIF (talk to me) 00:55, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
~~Delete~~ two unimpressive sources don't meet CORP's requirement of "multiple..." and the claims to uniqueness have more modifiers than I care to count.--Kchase T 07:45, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep After bouncing around my head a few days, MyWikiBiz's arguments about uniqueness have stuck. Some of the material is still unverified, but not unverifiable.--Kchase T 21:59, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Does not appear to meet WP:CORP and yes, I was involved in that discussion so I have read it. Vegaswikian 01:56, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Why not? Its not nn. Matthew Fenton (Talk | Contribs) 13:43, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. The article contains no citations or references for most claims (all except two fairly minor facts). Therefore it fails the WP:OR and WP:V policies. —xyzzy_n 15:12, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete : not notable. Poppypetty 17:20, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep It doesn't appear to be an ad, the company is a leader in financial IT technologies, and is well-known throughout the finance/IT world. Mugaliens 19:01, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Facinating. Remarkable, even. Fan-1967 01:03, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: appears to meet press notability guidelines. Advert-ness can be tidied up as necessary. Stephen B Streater 15:22, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. I agree with Calton. Plus the uniqueness claims seem rather artificial and undisclosed revenue makes it always hard for outsiders to assess the company's position in the marketplace, especially with smaller companies like this. regards, High on a tree 05:29, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Any company can make a claim to uniqueness if it's phrased carefully enough.--MichaelMaggs 06:21, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per other comments above. While the article could probably do with a cleanup, it doesn't violate any policy that I can determine. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 08:27, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, spam. —Kjetil_r 09:25, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - private not notable company--A Y Arktos\^talk 11:14, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, as per nom. Lincher 13:33, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as spamish, nn company. Sarah Ewart (Talk) 13:35, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom, xyzzy_n. --Craig Stuntz 14:25, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per User:Ginkgo100. The article does not appear to fail deletion policy. The violations of editorial policy (verifiability, et al) need to be corrected. --Dystopos 15:01, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That would reduce the article to one paragraph, which would at best barely fail to meet CSD A7. —xyzzy_n 15:23, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Verifiability is the first and foremost criterion of deletion policy. Fan-1967 15:25, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That would depend on how the editorial problem is addressed. Things that cannot be verified must be deleted. Things that could be, but lack proper citation, need not be. --Dystopos 16:04, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Keep per Gingo100 and the five pillars. I wonder when I see someone arguing against any well written article whether the person(s) have some pov agenda of their own outside the main mission of this project being a repository for knowledge and quick reference.
At the least an article like this gives wikipedia visibility due to web searching —a good thing for the other million plus articles—believe it or not there are still a great majority of people out there who have never heard of any wiki including wikipedia.
As to notablility, any concern that as in the relatively brief history of this company that can grow a new enterprise to 26 employees in such a short time is undergoing explosive growth. By rough rule of thumb assuming unskilled labor that indicates annual sales of well over three million and since they're IT and professionals (taking into account benefits, retirement, medical and such derivative overhead costs needed to maintain a company) we can safely posit well over five million per annum, even in the cheaper labor market of the south US. That they are privately held and capitalized (!) vice being a public corporation is far more to their credit and notability by some significant exponential factor than some market funded enterprise. Try your business plan on the local bank and see how easy it is to get loans and lines of credit to spread out operations costs. Not!!!
Ask your local mayor if he'd like a company like that on his tax base. Huh! We're not discusing your local retailer with three-quarters of it's employees in a part-time/non-benefits hiring category.
Not every product can be easily described or packaged, especially when corportate confidentiality and overall security become major peices—ask your local Law firm or CPA for a list of services for examples—but don't doubt that such intangibles are important or necessary to many if not all service businesses. That would be extremely niave. // FrankB 17:40, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I also have wondered about agendas. I see an advertisement (not an article) for a tiny company, created by a paid agent of that company. Vanity/advertising articles on companies of this size are routinely deleted all the time, yet I see a sudden onrush of defenders. I am, frankly, mystified. Fan-1967 18:00, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I am curious, Fan-67, whether you have checked out the articles about Intrada, Coney I-Lander, and Force Fed Records? What were your thoughts on them? Do you feel they have more merit than Norman Technologies to be included in Wikipedia, the same merit, or less? If the same or less, why haven't you AFD'd them? While you're looking, check out Force Fed Records' own website for news on why the latest release from the Dead Sea Fuckin' Scrolls is taking more time than thought: "Still further delays with this record, the pressing plant have somehow lost the master...looks like another couple of weeks." Is that verifiable, or not? Maybe we could ask User:Afxp, who wrote the Force Fed Records article. He has a ton of contributions to Wikipedia -- one -- Force Fed Records. (And, yes, I know that this doesn't have any bearing on the acceptance of Norman Technologies or not. I just think it's equally mystifying to me.) -- MyWikiBiz 21:45-50, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

You're right, it's not relevant to your company. My general impression would be that the record store and hot dog stand do not deserve articles. When it comes to indy record labels, I have no idea, as I've never heard of most bands formed this century. Fan-1967 21:53, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify, as I know you know, Norman Technologies is not "my" company. Plus, I added more hilarious commentary above, re Force Fed. -- MyWikiBiz 21:59, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - I am interested in this article because of its relationship to Wikipedia:Conflicts of interest. I spent about 15 min researching on the internet and found support for some of the statements, and reworded a statement regarding being "the only US..." to being "a US..." - since the reference I found didn't support for "only." I request those discussing the deletion of this article soley because it isn't totally referenced yet - reconsider since eventually it will be, or the unsourced material will be deleted. --Trödel 17:52, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Per nom.--Zxcvbnm 04:20, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Per nom. Brookie :) - a will o' the wisp ! ^(Whisper...) 04:46, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per non Jim62sch 10:20, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. *drew 12:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep Arguably meets [{WP:CORP]]. JoshuaZ 14:11, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.