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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/InternetReputation.com

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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. J04n(talk page) 02:17, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

InternetReputation.com

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InternetReputation.com (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Notability is not established and the links given in the article are predominantly press releases, which cannot establish notability. ComehereYou (talk) 06:24, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

ComehereYou (talk) 06:06, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Notice to closing administrator: Please be aware that two of the keep votes are single purpose accounts started after this AfD was in progress. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 11:36, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

*Comment: We need a rationale for deletion... Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 06:19, 5 April 2013 (UTC) rationale given! Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 07:39, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment: Predominantly is a rationale? You could all try to help this article to be better, instead. The company was "involved" in arrests.org controversy, offering a solutions for the people listed on that site. They got awards for their work? That is not notable enough? User with no Wikipedia background says that it should be deleted and you immediately comply.. Help me if you think this needs improvement --BiH (talk) 08:11, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Colorado-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:25, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:25, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:25, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • As long as they give a valid rationale for deletion, the AfD will progress as given until its natural close, whether that is after a 7 day period (barring anything being held over) or through enough editors giving valid keep rationales that are backed up by RS and policy. The thing is, you have to show that the awards won help show notability. Not all awards are equal and not all go towards notability. The other thing is you'd also have to show that the controversy with Arrests.org is notable and that this website played a major role in the part. If that's the case, then it might be better to write an article for Arrests.org and redirect this to a section in that article. It doesn't help that the sources on the article are predominantly PR. At least five of them are PRs, and the ones that are left either don't mention the article (the Stanford study) and the others are from sites that aren't really considered to be RS. I did do a bit of a search and I'm finding it very hard to find any sources that aren't primary in some format and no amount of primary sources (such as PR) will show notability for a subject, regardless of where they're posted. While anything by a new editor should be looked over, we can't close an AfD simply because they're made by a new editor. If they leave out a rationale (and don't provide one soon after being warned about this) then we can, but the editor did in this case. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 06:50, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Here's a rundown of the sources:
Extended content
Listed by how they show up on the article:
  1. [1] This is a review, but it's by a site that's not really what Wikipedia considers to be a RS. It doesn't help that it reads like it came from a PR.
  2. [2] This is a press release, and as such, cannot show notability regardless of the claims made within it.
  3. [3] This is another site that wouldn't be usable as a RS and it also reads like a PR.
  4. [4] This is a study by Stanford, but this isn't actually about InternetReputation.com. They're not even mentioned once in the study.
  5. [5] This looks to be your typical nn blog entry. Like 1 and 3, this reads like it was lifted from a PR or written specifically by the IR.com themselves. It's written by an internet marketer, so there's a definite possibility that this was something that the company paid for.
  6. [6] Another press release.
  7. [7] While this was posted on NBC news, it's a reprint of a press release.
  8. [8] Another press release.
  9. [9] Another press release.
Basically restating above, these are almost all press releases with a few that look to be blogs written by people hired by the company. Even if they weren't, none of them are on sites or by people that would be considered to be a RS by Wikipedia's standards. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 07:00, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: Although some references are PR, they somehow show involvement of this company in arrests.org affair by providing service of mug shot removal, a very open question and problem in US. Perhaps place ref improve tag and improve/rewrite the article itself? --205.168.220.137 (talk) 21:16, 6 April 2013 (UTC) — 205.168.220.137 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]
    • The problem here is that the more I look, the more I'm finding that neither InternetReputation.com nor Arrests.org are particularly notable. Most of what I'm finding that discuss the websites are press releases and those can never show notability. Events can make things notable, but those events are only notable if they're reported upon in reliable sources and aren't merely reprints of press releases. I've found only about three sources so far that comment upon Arrests.org and of those, one is only a trivial mention and the other two are more about the idea of mugshot websites rather than the specific website of Arrest.org. [10], [11], [12] Mugshot websites might potentially be a notable subject, but that doesn't automatically mean that every mugshot website inherits notability from being associated with a notable topic. Now even if we assume that we could find a depth of coverage for Arrest.org, that still doesn't mean that InternetReputation.com would inherit notability from being associated with the site. (WP:NOTINHERITED) To show notability for the site you have to prove it by things that aren't press releases that actually discuss InternetReputation.com in specific and not other websites. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 07:16, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • I understand that references are not the best, but I strongly support that this article has to be given a chance. Look at this article; references are no better than these we have here, but nevertheless, article has some notability which can be built during the time. I agree that references must be better, but I have to emphasise that this article is not nearly done and still requires major build-up.. That is why I ask for ref improve tag, to call others that might do this better than me, maybe there is someone that is willing to help and improve this article. EDIT: Another thing, this is something new and there are not so many available sources for now, but it will surely be in the near future. In my opinion, these two articles can bring a basic insight to this matter for users that would browse Wikipedia for it --BiH (talk) 16:02, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • Arguments such as WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS and WP:ITSUSEFUL aren't really valid arguments here on the English Wikipedia. If you don't think that the other article has notability established, then feel free to nominate it. The existence of other articles does not have any weight on this AfD because the article could either be kept for different reasons or it could just be that it hasn't been nominated for AfD yet. It could also mean that it passed an older AfD, but wouldn't necessarily pass guidelines that are now far more strict for websites. We also cannot keep articles based on the idea that more sources could become available. That's crystal balling and we cannot guarantee that the website will receive any notice from sources that Wikipedia would consider reliable. You can, however, WP:USERFY a copy and work on it there until those sources become available and then later move it back into the mainspace. That's always an option, although I'd recommend getting someone from Wikipedia:WikiProject Websites to look over it to ensure it passes WP:WEB. No sense bringing something to the mainspace, only to have it deleted again via AfD or otherwise. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 17:02, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. It's really too early to worry about whether any source establishes that this is a notable business. The current article is pure advertising (an award-winning internet reputation management company), focusing entirely on the need for its service, how wonderfully they do them, and how much better it is than its competitors. At any rate, it's an online business in a crowded field of self-promoting startups, and nothing in this text establishes the kind of enduring significance that would make it an encyclopedia subject. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 22:43, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Multiple secondary sources could be used to potentially embark on a quality improvement drive for this article page, including some accolades listed at http://www.internetreputation.com/about/ in addition to the Sun Sentinel and The Miami Herald, among others. Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 05:09, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • If you have found any secondary sources, please list them. Until then, we cannot keep articles based on secondary sources that are not visible or provided and will have to assume that they do not exist. You've listed newspapers, but not any links to show that they actually covered the company rather than relisting press releases or merely trivially mentioning them. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 05:40, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The other thing I'm slightly concerned about is that I'm not entirely sure that these sources exist. We have an image of a known site/newspaper/etc next to a quote, but when I search in the sites I can't seem to find any of the quotes. A search for the quotes bring up a lot of press releases, making me wonder exactly who made those quotes. For an example of what I mean by this, the site has a quote by an image of the Boston.com logo. A search brings up an article... that is ultimately a press release. ([13] In other words, the website quotes are entirely likely all or solely the website quoting press releases that were reprinted on other sites. This is essentially why primary sources are never usable and should never be used to argue for an article to be included on Wikipedia. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 07:51, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I posted this above, but I want to stress this because this is essentially the reason why primary sources cannot and should not be used as an argument for notability. I'm finding that several of the "media quotes" on the company's website are actually reprints of quotes from press releases printed on various websites. In other words, what looks like coverage is actually them quoting themselves. It seems like none or very few of the websites listed on the company's website actually covered the company and just reprinted press releases. This is not coverage and while it's not exactly like I could send in a PR about clowns eating babies, it's not that hard to get PR printed on the bigger websites as long as you have a connection and enough money. There is no coverage out there and this is actually making me more certain than ever that the website does not pass notability guidelines. It's pretty sleazy to misrepresent quotes on your website. Again, it does not appear that any of these websites have actually covered the company. There is a huge difference between merely reprinting PR and actually giving coverage of the company. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 07:56, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment: Perhaps the author used sources from the company as well as the text he wrote himself about the event he is writing about? Two more pages are found that can be used for referencing, together with two existing, and I think we can incorporate these links as sources and achieve general notability guidelines requests, minimal, I agree, but it is there. It is shown that the company is in mugshot removal industry, again, a very "hot" topic in the United States and the rest of the world. --BiH (talk) 08:07, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, press releases are solely and entirely written by the company. In other words, they were written by InternetReputation.com. The thing about notability is that primary sources are never, ever, EVER usable as reliable sources when it comes to the English Wikipedia. Also, the notability of another subject does not mean that this website is notable. (WP:NOTINHERITED) I hate to sound redundant, but several editors have cited this again and again. No amount of primary sources or association with notable concepts will change this. This goes against several of Wikipedia's core rules and concepts. Sometimes these differ on the other Wikipedias, but in the English language Wikipedia we need reliable sources to show notability and we cannot say "oh, well, we all need food to eat so by relation my aunt's restaurant in Queens is totally notable". I don't know how many times we have to say this in order to get the point across. What you're suggesting here is so wrong in so many ways. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 09:08, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with your comment about the PR releases and that they were probably manufactured by InternetReputation.com's website content (or their press releases written internally), there are four credible references on the page, with the potential of a couple more. Rather than discussing the PR releases that we all seem to agree on should have been removed (or at least viewed as poor references), can we move this conversation forward and look at the active references on the article and also other potential references? HawkWatcher (talk) 09:58, 11 April 2013 (UTC) — HawkWatcher (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]
  • Delete: Lack of substantial coverage in multiple independent secondary sources. The sources used rely heavily on the companies own promotion materials and press releases, and thus cannot be considered independent. What coverage there is in independent sources is minimal or tandential. Falls far short of fulfilling hte requirements of our notability guidelines. There's a great deal of puffery and self-promotion going on here. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 09:17, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Doesn't help. The Reviewharbor source looks like a paid advertisment, and the Miami Herald contains a tiny, tangential mention. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 11:04, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry but that is a very long way from being a reliable source. Mcewan (talk) 01:54, 12 April 2013 (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.
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