- 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 no consensus. Nja247 13:19, 15 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- A-dec (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)
Non-notable organization (per WP:ORG); references are insufficient to ascertain notability Chzz ► 11:41, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Delete, a non-consumer business unlikely to attract much notice in widely circulated sources: designs and manufactures dental office furniture and equipment, including chairs, stools, delivery systems, dental lights, cabinetry, and a full line of accessories, such as vacuum pumps, water sprays, and controls. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 16:55, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep - Per the deletion policy, did the nominator look for sources before nominating this article? If so, what sources did you find? I found this, this, this, this, this and this all online. And that's just a quick search, a search through The Oregonian archives would likely double or triple that number. Ditto if we could find some sort of dentists magazine. As to the above editor with their personal essay, seriously? Notability is notability, not notability to everyone. Really, even WP:CORP itself in the lead speaks to this: "smaller organizations can be notable, just as individuals can be notable, and arbitrary standards should not be used to create a bias favoring larger organizations." (emphasis added). There is nothing about trade magazines not being sources for notability, they are perfectly fine as long as they do qualify as RS and are independent. If you want to change this, fine, but take it to the CORP talk page and work it out there, as that guideline has consensus, and your essay does not. And AfD arguments and decisions should be based on existing policies/guidelines, not personal opinions. Aboutmovies (talk) 18:14, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment, While I wrote that essay mostly to avoid having to repeat myself on points that have arisen more than once -- and I cheerfully admit that it sets out in more detail my own interpretation of the guidelines and policies at issue -- your response suggests the reasons why I wrote it.
Most of your sources are from "portland.bizjournals.com" - i.e. "attention solely by local media". Your nature.com - actually, British Dental Journal - source carries the disclaimer: "Trade news is provided as a service to readers using text and images from the manufacturer, supplier or distributor and does not imply endorsement by the BDJ." In other words, a copy of a press release. I don't see either of these sources as making a case for notability here. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 19:51, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I guess we have different views of what local media is then. Local media here to me means the local paper, which is the Newberg Graphic, whereas the Portland Business Journal is the regional business paper covering most of Oregon and SW Washington. Which if you disagree, what then would be "regional" and "local" media to you (keeping in mind there is differentiation in CORP between national and regional)? And this goes to the person below as well as to local coverage. As to the below argument about substantial, true, but remember that it only takes one substantial, OR "If the depth of coverage is not substantial, then multiple independent sources should be cited to establish notability", thus the multiple listed. But the main point was that I did a qucik search, and it doesn't appear the nominator did any search, which is required prior to AFD per the deletion policy. Aboutmovies (talk) 20:37, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment, While I wrote that essay mostly to avoid having to repeat myself on points that have arisen more than once -- and I cheerfully admit that it sets out in more detail my own interpretation of the guidelines and policies at issue -- your response suggests the reasons why I wrote it.
- Delete. I have to say I agree with Smerdis on this one. I checked out all of the articles that Aboutmovies posted, but the first 5 are all from the same publication which covers A-dec because it is local, and I would say that only the 5th on the list arguably qualifies as substantial coverage - I just don't think, for example, that a 100-word blurb under the heading "A-dec to cut 100 jobs" is substantial. The 6th reference above, from www.nature.com, is a press release. They do have a lot of Google hits, but it's all ads, units for sale on ebay, and the websites of distributors of A-dec products. No substantial coverage in independent sources = notability fail. Dawn Bard (talk) 20:01, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Delete per Dawn Bard. It will not be uncommon for a non-notable subject to turn up in lots of places on the internet. Markdsgraham (talk) 20:54, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Note: This debate has been included in the list of Oregon-related deletion discussions. —Katr67 (talk) 22:43, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep and I'd encourage folks to revisit the article as multiple citations have been added to it. Passes WP:CORP with multiple independent non-trivial sources in regional (the Oregonian is regional, not local) publications as well as coverage in multiple national trade publications. Katr67 (talk) 22:43, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep. Company in business since 1964 with at least one government contract, a brush with the epa, and a British Dental Journal entry establishes enough notability. Maybe the article needs expanding but deletion of this decently-referenced start-class article would be a shame. Zab (talk) 22:49, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment. The EPA and British Dental Journal mentions are both press releases, which, per WP:NOTE don't demonstrate notability. In my opinion, neither does the fact that they have had a gov't contract - many, many non-notable companies get gov't contracts. It doesn't mean that they are bad or unimportant, just not notable per Wikipedia's guidelines. Dawn Bard (talk) 04:43, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I would agree to some extent, especially concerning government contracts. With press releases though, I disagree to some extent. Many news stories are simply press releases re-hashed by newspapers, that's how they learn about what businesses/organizations/law enforcement are doing much of the time (especially for businesses). With that in mind, I personally discount the self-published press releases, but do give some credence to those published by third parties, but that's me, and I don't expect many to follow that. My thought is that the publication took the time and effort (i.e. editorial control) to go ahead and publish the thing, but again that's my thoughts on it, but I have never tried and never will try to assert notability in that way. However, and I don't know if this is where Zab is going, but it was my point with posting the above sources: when you can quickly find that many on the internet (four do pass as RS, and each of those provides more than trivial coverage Examples: The 360-page book by Sobel and the 528-page book by Black on IBM are plainly non-trivial. The one sentence mention by Walker of the band Three Blind Mice in a biography of Bill Clinton (Martin Walker (January 6, 1992). "Tough love child of Kennedy". The Guardian.) is plainly trivial. Though not substantial either, its in between and thus the multiple sources.) then taking into account that they do around $250 million annually and have around 1000 employees, this means that there are more than likely enough sources out there to demonstrate notability. And I do not think the nominator searched for any sources, normally you mention that in the nom, and if they did not, then that goes against the deletion policy that specifically tells nominators to do a search prior to nomination, a common error in AFDs (see the sixth bullet here). Now, back to the sample I did provide of sources and the $250 million annually and 1000 employees. A quick and not thorough search that yields that many sources is a good indicator that there are plenty more out there. This is why for the notability for people (see WP:BIO) there are the automatic inclusion criteria such as certain politicians such as state legislators. We do this (same for WP:MUSIC and songs that have charted as well as other notability criteria) partly because these indicators in 99% of situations bare out that there are enough RS out there to demonstrate notability. But, these sources are not always available via Google, and often are not even available via the Internet. We are not limited to Google searches nor to online searches. Realistically, Google probably has indexed less than 10% of the information available in the world. How many books and newspaper articles have ever been created in the world, and how many of those do you think you can access via Google or the Internet? This is where common sense comes into play and we think about things like this, and see that a company has four decent sources from a single newspaper and over 3 million Google hits for "A-dec" and maybe we we think that there could be more. And there certainly were if you have seen the article lately. There are 21 sources, and at most one of the above provide was used, and not a single source from the local Newberg paper was used. And that is only the sources available online via Lexis that had more than trivial coverage (they even have a paragraph in a book that I didn't use). If the news archives went back further (few go back further than the mid 1980s and most only go back to the mid 1990s) there would in all likelihood be many more for this company that is one of the largest in the entire world in their field. In other terms, $250 million in annual revenue is more than most US sports franchises generate, though slightly below the Dallas Cowboys estimated $269 million and likely less than say the NY Yankees. So what does this all mean? It means they have a significant economic impact, which means the media will take notice and will write about the company, as they have as demonstrated by the plethora of sources now in the article. And that is notability by Wikipedia standards. That is notable, not notable via Google only. In general you mind find Wikipedia:Search engine test informative. Aboutmovies (talk) 06:41, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I still disagree. First of all, the 3 million Google hits is not a useful metric, because when you just search "A-dec" most of the results are not for this A-dec. Just look at the first 10 results for that search - 4 of them are not for the A-dec in question - they are for American Distance Education Consortium, an art marketer at adec.com, a page on how to file a Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) report, and another on how to apply for a NYS Dept of Environmental Conservation (DEC) permit. Click farther through the rest of the results, and you see that the deeper you go, the less likely it becomes that any given hit is actually about the A-dec being discussed here. I searched "A-dec" dental, which I think is a fair search to pinpoint the correct A-dec, and found 439 unique hits, or 42,000 with duplicate results included, but it's certainly not millions. At the WP:Search engine test link that you suggest, it is pointed out that "search engines cannot guarantee that the results reflects the uses you mean, rather than other uses," which is pretty clearly demonstrated in the example I just gave. WP:Search engine test also states that search engines "cannot guarantee why something is mentioned a lot, and that it isn't due to marketing, reposting as an internet meme, spamming, or self-promotion, rather than importance." If you look throug the links at Google you see that they are from press releases, ebay, vendors who are authorised resellers of A-dec's products, networking sites like LinkedIn, etc., which do not demonstrate notability.
- We disagree about the press releases, too - the dental journal actually published a disclaimer saying they don't vouch for the contents of the release, so they didn't, as you say, take the time and effort to publish it - they say right in the disclaimer that they use A-dec's words and images, and they don't endorse them. And the EPA thing is just a standard release from the EPA, because they have to disclose this sort of thing, not a 3rd party publication. Press releases are specifically mentioned in WP:NOTE as not adding to notability. There's nothing in WP:ORG that says that annual revenue contributes to notability - the Cowboys and the Yankees obviously meet notability guidelines for reasons other than their incomes.
Another point from WP:NOTE is that "significant" coverage is required. Most of the new sources added to the article don't seem to be online, but the titles point to incidental coverage, rather than substantial, coverage. From the titles, it seems these articles probably aren't about A-dec, but mention them only in passing: "Web ServicesOpenPortalDoors; Industry standards make for easier access and application integration", "The new accounting environment: companies face a paradigm shift in how they conduct business", "Quality Management; Quality leadership 100: Quality's survey reveals that these companies know quality makes a difference", "Metro Southwest Neighbors: In Brief - SW-Tigard", " "Big donors give tax petition a push; Ballot Measures; Nearly half ofthe $600,000 it cost to put it on the ballot came from five companies", etc.
- I still son't think that the burden of "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject" has been met. Dawn Bard (talk) 15:47, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Whatever, you obviously did not understand what I was saying about Google hits and the related point about the search engine test. Read the whole search engine test thing, but specifically read the Wikipedia:Search engine test#Search engine limitations - technical notes which is why I talked about the limitations of what Google does (i.e. the vast amount of information in the world that Google does not index). The only point with Google hits specifically (and your searches actually demonstrate this) is that there are lots of hits on Google (at least 439 hits and that's only with one option for a word as others might use dentist or orthodontic or other related words) compared with say your local coffee shop. That is to say, when you get 20 hits on Google for something, then generally speaking the topic is likely not notable (generally speaking), but when you have more than 100, then generally speaking the topic more than likely can be shown to be notable (again generally speaking, and this is where more focused searches come into play including looking outside of Google). With the 3 million initial hits, again more likely to be notable even though many are not going to be for this company (again, this is where common sense comes into play at you take those initial results and then find actual sources, as I did), as would be with just about any one term Google search. Search for my name in Google and you will get 183,000 hits, and no one with my name has a Wikipedia article, despite it being a fairly common name combination.
- Next, re-read CORP, please, here is specifically what I have now mentioned several times concerning your "significant coverage" argument: "If the depth of coverage is not substantial, then multiple independent sources should be cited to establish notability." (emphasis added). So unless you want to debate the multiple sources part or discount what the guideline actually says about significant coverage in sources, please refrain from trying to argue that point here, take it to CORP to get the guideline changed. There are a multitude (that is multiple) of sources in the article.
- With the press releases, again, I'm not arguing they make this company notable, as I hope would be obvious from my previous statements above: "[concerning press releases] but that's me, and I don't expect many to follow that." and "but again that's my thoughts on it, but I have never tried and never will try to assert notability in that way." In a related note, unless the Dental journal has an automatic thing where A-dec sends them an email and an automated system then automatically receives that email and adds it to the journal, then a human is involved and makes the decision to re-publish the press release, thus editorial control (not over the content of the "article" but over the content and selection of what goes into the journal). With the EPA, I have never argued any of their press releases conferred any notability, in fact I'm not even sure where an EPA press release comes into this debate as it is not a source in the article and I didn't provide an EPA press release. But again, this is neither here nor there for this debate, as there are multiple, non-trivial sources covering the topic.
- Lastly, with your take on the sources, unless you actually read the sources, you might want to assume good faith, as I said above "the sources available online via Lexis that had more than trivial coverage". Which means these sources provide more than trivial coverage. And as I said, I used Lexis, which means they are online, feel free to sign up with an account at Lexis and verify that in I think every instance there was at least a paragraph on the company. And you might want to read the Oregon Stater source which has a link where you can read all about the company and the founders, which is pretty substantial coverage, since if I recall correctly the original print version was like 10 pages (I believe it was also the cover story), but its been a few years since I saw that version. And with what is significant, remember that it is simply more than trivial coverage, where the example for trivial is a one sentence mention in a book about an entirely different topic (it also does not need to be exclusive coverage). In the sources used in the article, the campaign contributions was only a sentence or two and would be trivial (however it was covered in about 20 articles), but all the others cover A-dec specifically in at least a paragraph and in most cases many paragraphs, but you can check if you like via Lexis. Aboutmovies (talk) 21:28, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Okay, I struck the stuff about the "trivial coverage," but please don't make any assumptions about what I "obviously" have or haven't read or what I do or don't understand, or tell me to "refrain" from making arguments from WP:CORP. There is no need to make this personal. Thanks, Dawn Bard (talk) 22:12, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I wouldn't take it personally if you followed what was being argued. The fact that you continued to discuss the lack of "substantial" coverage in the multiple sources demonstrated to me you were not reading what I wrote nor had a good comprehension of WP:CORP. And I did not ask you to refrain from making arguments from CORP, quite the opposite, I asked you to respect what CORP actually says about significant/substantial coverage in a source (I asked you to stop making arguments that do not exist in CORP as demonstrated by me quoting the guideline itself), further demonstrating the problem. Aboutmovies (talk) 07:08, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Okay, I struck the stuff about the "trivial coverage," but please don't make any assumptions about what I "obviously" have or haven't read or what I do or don't understand, or tell me to "refrain" from making arguments from WP:CORP. There is no need to make this personal. Thanks, Dawn Bard (talk) 22:12, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I still son't think that the burden of "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject" has been met. Dawn Bard (talk) 15:47, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep - The Portland Business Journal is a perfectly good source, although the reliance on it exclusively is problematic. the British Dental Journal is a rehashed press release and isn't an independent reliable source and certainly isn't one for the purposes of notability. However, the company has also received coverage in http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-7101659_ITM Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News], and Oregon Live which in conjunction with previous sources are enough to establish notability with multiple independent sources covering the subject. -- Whpq (talk) 16:35, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment The Portland Business Journal is not relied on exclusively. There are also references from the Oregonian, the Register-Guard, etc.... Be sure to look at the article as it stands now. Katr67 (talk) 18:36, 11 May 2009 (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.