Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Scranton Manufacturing

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. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:17, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Scranton Manufacturing (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Slightly self-promoting article about a company with no sources other than several self-published ones — can't see how this could possibly be notable. Nyttend (talk) 13:15, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep I agree with your criticisms that this is a self-promoting article and doesn't have sources. But I think you need to argue more than this--that it CANNOT be sourced and CANNOT be cleaned up. This is harder to argue. I think this is an example of an article that could not easily be made into a clean, full article, but could be. A very quick search yielded the following: [1], not all are about the company, but some are. Many of the articles are not public access but some of them, such as this one: [2] are written about the company in detail. It appears to be a notable manufacturer of garbage trucks. The company has a number of mentions in publications like "Waste Age" and "Recycling Today", as would be expected for such a company. These links aren't terribly useful but some of them do establish that municipalities are buying this company's products: [3] Personally, I think articles on topics like this, even if they are difficult to piece together, enrich wikipedia. I would like to see this kept as a stub, at least. I think we could gut the page and write at least a couple paragraphs based on the sources I gave here alone. Cazort (talk) 15:57, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Whether this is a notable business or not, this text is so relentlessly promotional in tone that this text ought not to be allowed to stand, and its presence only masks the fact that we still don't have a real article about it: Co-Founder and CEO, John H. McLaughlin has used the philosophy of Henry Ford to surround himself with people who know their job. "I have motivated and instilled my own ethical values, attitudes, outlook and philosophy into the best team possible... a team of highly qualified, educated people who respect God and Country and like the lifestyle and values of small town America." - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 14:46, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm completely in agreement that the blatant advertising needs to go. But in that case I think the proper response is to delete the offending material, and if there is a problem with it being re-added, contact an admin about banning users, semiprotecting the page, etc. WP:Deletion is pretty clear that deletion of the page is only to be used as a last resort, if the page cannot be improved. Many pages on businesses are started essentially as spam, but then later grow into full pages when editors cut out the spam and write a real page. I think it's important for you to argue here about why this page cannot be improved. I'm open to discussing that. But arguing that the current state of the page is misguided. Cazort (talk) 16:08, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment I just gutted the article, removing all promotional material and reducing it essentially to a stub. I also started searching in a bit more depth, for example, searching for Scranton Manufacturing's brands. Porta-vet seems to have attracted some attention: [4]. The K-PAC brand seems to have some coverage but I can't find a reliable source (anything other than the company's site) documenting that Scranton Manufacturing now owns that brand. Cazort (talk) 16:22, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:17, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak delete. Cazort has done a good clean-up on this, but I still don't see any solid evidence that this company meets the threshold of WP:CORP. Athanasius • Quicumque vult 19:02, 19 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.