Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Beckett Media

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 keep. -- Cirt (talk) 10:29, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Beckett Media

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Created this article in January 2008. While it has some content, almost all of the sourcing is from press releases, showing little actual verifiable notability for the company, despite its claim at being a "leading authority on sports memorabilia cards". It was tagged for CSD as spam/advertisement, which was addressed on the talk page and a notability tag added instead. Since that time, all the coverage I've been able to find continues to be press releases and random quotes from Beckett employees in articles about sports card. As such, it continues to fails WP:COMPANY and I am prodding it as it is not CSD eligible as author deletion as others have done at least some minor edits to it. Was prodded but an IP that likely heralds from Beckett Media itself, considering it geolocates to them,[1] requested it be undeleted at WP:UNDELETE and so an admin restored. Their reason was "Anyone who knows anything about sports cards and memorabilia knows the place that Beckett holds in the hobby -- and that's just one part of Beckett Media's publishing scope. While the page was out of date, it is a privately owned company so much of the information sought wouldn't be public knowledge, anyway. Today, beckett publishes countless magazines every month, all of which can be seen at store.beckett.com" - which is of course no reason to undelete it. The company still has no actual notability beyond its own publicity from press releases and its employees occasionally being quoted during interviews about sports stuff. If all primary sources were removed, it would have no real content at all. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 21:36, 20 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 01:08, 21 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment A discussion about deleting this entry because of irrelevance is preposterous. The company publishes nearly 40 magazine issues a year on trading cards alone -- as well as several books every year, too. You can walk into any card shop or Walmart in America and find a Beckett magazine (or two or three) and those facts say more than any link from any source would. There is NO other company that covers sports cards and memorabilia to that degree and Beckett has been around for 30-plus years. If you read what is on the Beckett Media entry, what is outlandish that it's credibility is questioned? Facts are stated -- not sales pitch. This wreaks of some wanting to have fun with the image of a company by suggesting deletion based on press release mongering and irrelevance that aren't seen in that entry. The fact that a blog with just a dozen followers is writing a "story" about it -- http://www.sportscardreport.info/2010/03/award-winning-wikipedia-contributor.html -- just reinforces this. Just because some story can't be found online doesn't mean something doesn't exist or isn't relevant. If Beckett is a privately owned company, a LOT of the info about it will never be made public.

Better yet, ok, so you can only find quotes from editors or whomever talking about sports content in stories. Why would they call them? Why would the NY Times call for this story? http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/technology/09topps.html They call them because they're the leading media publisher on the subject. Why would ESPN have their editorial director writing items about cards for it? http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=hackler/100317

In addition, the founder of the company has a wikipedia page which has plenty of known information -- but only a pair of citations. If it were all irrelevant why would Beckett -- and its founder -- have had wiki pages for years? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Beckett

It's also worth noting that Beckett's only competition in the card publishing area, a monthly magazine called Tuff Stuff (which is actually out of date) has a page as well. And it's got a whopping two citations -- both of which are self-generated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuff_Stuff —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.190.59.30 (talk) 17:15, 21 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As you appear to be a newer editor, I'd recommend reading Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion#How_to_discuss_an_AfD, as your current argument appears to primarily consist of your liking the company. Might I also recommend you actually make yourself knowledgeable about the events around this article's deletion before making such (hopefully unintentionally) insulting statements? I am not some "blogger", I'm the one who created and wrote the Beckett Media article originally, and I am the one who prodded it. It has nothing to do with "having fun" with Beckett, nor is a company's "image" at all relevant to a Wikipedia notability discussion. The number of magazines it publishes also does not make it notable, nor does its years in business. Wikipedia requires verifiability and notability for its articles on companies. Basically, there MUST be significant coverage of this company reliable, third-party sources, not just its own press releases, backing up any claims of notability. Beckett being a private company is irrelevant. Many private companies are notable and have coverage in third-party sources. As for some random blog posting about its being deleted, considering the incorrect statements made in the post( and that it is someone's personal blog, I fail to see how it is relevant. (I also note you failed to mention the post that was its source, which called the Beckett article spammy...even if he incorrectly stated that the article was Beckett spam). As the article creator, I'm the one who originally prodded it after two years of trying to establish real notability for the company, not just repeating its press releases. It was deleted per Wikipedia guidelines as no one objected. That you came after it was deleted and then objected, meant it was restored and now must go through AfD where, obviously I hope it will be deleted again. Also, considering where your IP resolves to, I'd ask that you please honestly disclose any connection you yourself have to Beckett. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 23:36, 21 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. This is a really difficult one to decide, because at face value it seems like a straightforward keep. WP:COMPANY, however, states that for an organization to be notable, it must "be the subject of significant coverage in reliable, independent secondary sources." I have looked at the sources in the article and other sources online, and it is clear that Beckett Media is very, very rarely the subject of the articles. It is certainly mentioned from time to time and some of its employees are quoted, but the sources themselves are almost always about some other subject. I can't, based on this evidence conclude that the article is notable if the guideline is applied as it currently defines notability for organizations. Wikipeterproject (talk) 19:55, 21 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep – Searched for this on Google News, and though a lot of press releases and such showed up, I found some interesting hits nonetheless: [2] (already used as a source, but it appears to be a useful one), [3] (looks like reasonably substantial coverage to me), [4] (not as substantial as the above two, but proof that their sale was mentioned in something other than a press release), [5] (not sure of the reliablity or how much is on Beckett's, but worth throwing out there), [6] (little something on the demise of a magazine of theirs). Overall, I think these links are just enough to get the article over the notability hump, though the number of primary sources and press releases used should be lowered. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 03:15, 22 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Giants2008 has it, I think - there appear to be sources that show notability. I do find the lack of coverage surprising, though, given the importance of the beckett lists in the industry, but there's enough to pass notability - barely. UltraExactZZ ^Said~ Did 14:11, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, JForget 00:53, 27 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As luck would have it, I ran into this excerpt of a recently published book on the history of baseball cards after commenting above. While perhaps not substantial coverage, the book (which I purchased) does have some info on Beckett's background and place in the industry, not all of which is in the excerpt; the relevant part is 2+ pages. I'll add some bits from it later, but more importantly for AfD purposes, the book lists its sources, and among them is an August 5, 1991 Sporting News article titled "Beckett helping guide sports card industry". If someone could find this, it may further strengthen the case for this article; unfortunately, it doesn't appear to be freely avaliable online. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 19:44, 27 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. There seem to be enough sources to justify keeping this article. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 21:49, 27 March 2010 (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.