Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Colloquy (company)

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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. Much of the argument to keep is based on the number of sources and not the quality of those sources. The idea that any entity that can be considered a reliable source is therefore automatically notable seems dubious at best. While this organization's products are discussed and their staff is sometimes quoted in reliable sources, it seems there is a scarcity of substantive discussion about the organization itself, which is of course what is required to establish notability. No prejudice against recreation as a redirect to an appropriate target. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:50, 1 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Colloquy (company)[edit]

Colloquy (company) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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I found no significant coverage for this company. Fails WP:CORP. SL93 (talk) 00:56, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:10, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete I was not able to find significant coverage about this company from reliable sources. Folgertat (talk) 22:56, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep I was, but "Colloquy (company)" is indeed a dead end, try "Colloquy marketing" there are a s--tload of sources on this.LuciferWildCat (talk) 23:44, 23 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Week Keep – per coverage in reliable sources:
  • Johannes, Amy (July 1, 2008). "Stacking Up". Promo Magazine. Retrieved December 25, 2011. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
  • Belford, Terrence (April 10, 2008). "Good things for reward-point holders who wait". Toronto Star. Retrieved December 25, 2011. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  • Lieber, Ron (April 19, 2011). "All About Your Unused Rewards Points". The New York Times. Retrieved December 25, 2011. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  • "Web Sting". The Dallas Morning News. May 7, 2000. Retrieved December 25, 2011. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  • "Loyalty marketing is a matter of attraction". Star Tribune (Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN). December 21, 2009. Retrieved December 25, 2011. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
—Northamerica1000(talk) 00:57, 26 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – See below for more reliable sources I have added to the article. Northamerica1000(talk) 10:06, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Reliable sources have been found. Dream Focus 09:10, 27 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - References have been found and added to the article. All well and good - but where is the content? The article makes zero assertion of notability; are the 'references' anything more than trivial mentions? - The Bushranger One ping only 09:40, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The New York Times quotes their research for one of their articles.[1] Others surely consider them a notable group and a reliable source for information. Dream Focus 00:38, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You are correct in that the New York Times is a reliable source. However, the coverage of Colloquy in the article is incidental and thus does not meet WP:CORPDEPTH. I'd be very interested to see several articles from reliable sources for which the company is the central focus. -- Sailing to Byzantium (msg), 02:51, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Bryce (talk | contribs) 00:21, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • See my comment below, "Recent additions to the article include an assertion of significance". Also, the article is in an incomplete state at this time, and would benefit from expansion. Northamerica1000(talk) 08:55, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete- The overarching standard for WP:ORG established by WP:CORPDEPTH is that "A company, corporation, organization, school, team, religion, group, product, or service is notable if it has been the subject of significant coverage in secondary sources." I now consider whether the sources presented meet that standard. Per WP:CORPDEPTH, "trivial or incidental coverage of a subject is not sufficient to establish notability." Consider each source presented by Northamerica1000 in turn. The New York Times article is clearly incidental coverage. The article is about the study; Colloquy is mentioned in passing in one sentence and then never discussed. Colloquy receives more coverage in The Star, but is still not the focus of the article. The same goes for the Promo Magazine article. In all articles the focus is the survey produced by Colloquy, and per WP:PRODUCT, "an article on the product may be appropriate, and notability of the company itself is not inherited as a result." All coverage in these sources is incidental. Now I consider sources presented by LuciferWildCat. As SL93 pointed out, the vast majority of search results are press releases. Per WP:INDEPENDENT, we cannot accept press releases as WP:V. If this company does indeed meet the standard set out by WP:ORG, why have we not seen coverage in multiple independent sources in which the company itself is the focus? I have yet to see a single instance of coverage for the company itself that is both significant and independent. -- Sailing to Byzantium (msg), 02:46, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – Each and every source I posted above in my !vote to "keep" is entirely independent of the subject. They're not press releases, and are not published by the company whatsoever. Also, have you attempted to search for sources yourself, or just waiting to "see" what others do? Clarification would help this AfD discussion. Northamerica1000(talk) 09:01, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – I do not dispute the independence of your sources. Being independent of the subject is only one criteria for a source. As I noted in my vote to delete, WP:CORPDEPTH also requires that coverage not be incidental. All coverage in the sources you listed is incidental (i.e. the company is not the subject of the article and the company is not discussed at length). I also noted that per WP:PRODUCT, notable coverage of a product, in this case the survey, does not mean the company itself inherits notability. I have attempted to locate independent sources that cover the company itself, but I cannot locate any. If the company is indeed WP:N, it should not be that difficult to find coverage that is: (1) independent, (2) substantial, and (3) non-incidental. However I see no source that meets these criteria here. -- Sailing to Byzantium (msg), 19:44, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – Recent additions to the article include an assertion of significance: "The company touts itself as 'the most comprehensive loyalty web site in the world'". The article remains incomplete at this time, and in need of expansion, not deletion. Northamerica1000(talk) 03:24, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete – I agree with Byzantium's reasoning. This is in fact not the subject of significant coverage in multiple reliable sources to establish WP:GNG, and falls far short of WP:CORPDEPTH. The ample passing mention, company spokespersons speaking about the company or being interviewed about something else, and the overwhelming amount of press releases inure no notability to this subject. JFHJr (㊟) 05:14, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – This nomination for deletion is problematic, because it bases the rationale for deletion upon, "Fails WP:CORP." However, WP:CORP is an entire page of guidelines, and no specific guideline or guidelines have been cited by the nominator as a rationale for deletion. This equates to stating that an article should be deleted because of any reason on a guideline page. Perhaps the nominator could expound upon their rationale. Northamerica1000(talk) 09:07, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – Also of importance, people from Colloquy are regularly quoted in mass media, and as such, makes Colloquy authoritative regarding the topic of loyalty programs and loyalty marketing. This also contributes to this topic's notability. For example, from a new reference I just added to the article:
Which states (from a part of the article):

"Tracking customers through loyalty program account numbers offers companies an additional advantage. “If you don’t have a lot of information on your target audience and you need to get it, then you want to try to encourage people to enroll in as large a number as possible,” says Rick Ferguson, editorial director at Colloquy, a loyalty marketing firm. Once a company has more data, it can tailor the program further and aim at the most profitable customers with special offers. That’s what Starbucks will try to do now. Sales at stores open more than a year are actually falling, which has never happened to the chain before. The company blames the economy in part, and worries about consumers trading down from Frappuccinos to black coffee or simply caffeinating at home."

—Northamerica1000(talk) 09:27, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – Added another source, further demonstrating Colloquy's expertise regarding loyalty programs and marketing:
—Northamerica1000(talk) 09:40, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
—Northamerica1000(talk) 09:48, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This is coverage of a Colloquy product. Per WP:PRODUCT, the company does not inherit notability from a product. -- Sailing to Byzantium (msg), 19:48, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – Yet another use of Colloquy's resources in The New York Times, further demonstrating expertise and trust as a reliable source of information itself. Note how the article cites Colloquy research directly, and uses that research to draw conclusions in the article:

"A research company that tracks loyalty programs found that membership in credit card reward programs surpassed membership in frequent-flier programs for the first time in 2009. According to Colloquy, the company that conducted the research, the average household in the United States is signed up for 14 loyalty programs, ranging from grocery stores and gas stations to airlines and hotels, but actively participates in only six. The recession has diminished participation in multiple travel programs, said Kelly Hlavinka, a partner at Colloquy. She said this could bring about a return to the original premise of loyalty rewards: to cement a relationship with just one airline or hotel. “Savvy travelers may be saying, ‘I may not be able to spread my business out to two or three airlines, but I can consolidate my travel with one company,’ ” Ms. Hlavinka said. “The real opportunity for airlines is to try to keep that business with their airline.”"

—Northamerica1000(talk) 09:59, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – Yet another, clearly Colloquy has expertise, and is cited repeatedly in reliable sources, which makes it a reliable source; this serves to further confer topic notability:
An article's premise supported by Colloquy's statements:

"If someone gave you $600, would you throw $200 away? That's essentially what many consumers do since Americans earn approximately $48 billion in rewards points and miles each year through customer loyalty programs, yet about one-third of that amount -- or $16 billion -- goes unredeemed each year, according to a study by loyalty marketing information company Colloquy and global commerce firm Swift Exchange. Included in that total are unused credit card rewards, says Jim Sullivan, a partner with Colloquy. When such rewards go unredeemed, "the average household is throwing money out the window," Sullivan says."

—Northamerica1000(talk) 10:04, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – More...
—Northamerica1000(talk) 10:10, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
—Northamerica1000(talk) 10:17, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This is a final project that an undergraduate did. I do not agree that this is a reliable source. -- Sailing to Byzantium (msg), 19:56, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – Their research also provides the basis for market analyses (note, this also is not a press release)...
—Northamerica1000(talk) 10:27, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Requesting relisting – I request this AfD discussion be relisted, per the research I have performed that further qualifies this topic's notability. Northamerica1000(talk) 10:51, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, causa sui (talk) 00:24, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. A notable company with sources given. Expansion to the page is needed, not deletion. Tinton5 (talk) 02:48, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete I can't say I've checked every one of the ocean of sources listed above or in the article. I can say that every one that I did check is a passing mention or press release. It doesn't matter that the NYT or WSJ mentions, in passing, that "blah blah blah, according to market research firm Coloquy," because that's not coverage of Coloquy, anymore than "Five firefighters were injured, said Fire Chief Steve Smith" is coverage of Chief Smith -- regardless of how many nights he's quoted for the daily fire statistics. Please, stop wasting everyone's time and show us the coverage of this company, if such coverage exists. EEng (talk) 03:41, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete it's corporate spam for a non-notable agency with no sources but trivial mentions to prove the article's assertions Ohconfucius ¡digame! 05:46, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Multiple refs have been added with sufficient coverage to easilly pass GNG. Could be an interesting article for those who use loyalty schemes or who study consumerism. FeydHuxtable (talk) 10:12, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds good, but can you point out the particular refs which satisfy your assertion of "sufficient coverage"? If there's more than necessary to choose from, just pick out an arbitrary subset so those of us with short attention spans won't have to wade through all the dross to find the substance. EEng (talk) 12:42, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I echo EEng's request. I've looked through the majority of the references and I haven't seen a single one that makes a case for WP:CORPDEPTH, never mind multiple -- Sailing to Byzantium (msg), 14:19, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm slightly tickled by the editor who dumped a flurry of citations into the article that are used nowhere. I fail to see how any of these references do anything to demonstrate notability of the agency in question. At the same time the above was added, said editor added "notable" to the description, as if this somehow automatically removes the deletion threat. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 13:38, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I aree with you. The quality of some of the references is being misrepresented in some cases (i.e. the scholarly research is actually just an undergraduates final project). The problem is that this article has been targeted for rescue by the WP:Article Rescue Squadron. This is my first experience with them and it has been very negative. They've dumped a lot of substandard references and votes to keep without any fleshed out argument. It makes it very difficult to actually find sources that are notable, since there is now so much fluff to sort through. -- Sailing to Byzantium (msg), 14:19, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
All those saying keep have given arguments. Their research is cited its peers, giving ample coverage in reliable sources. So they are notable in their field. Dream Focus 14:49, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Again, bear with those of us who are slow and dense. Please, pick out just two refs which are actually about this company, not just 3-sentence quotes from something someone in the company said, and list them here. To make it easy, here's a little template to fill out:
Ref #1-actually-discussing-Colloquy-itself-not-just-saying-they-said-something is this: [fill in here]
Ref #2-actually-discussing-Colloquy-itself-not-just-saying-they-said-something is this: [fill in here]
Thanks in advance!
EEng (talk) 15:12, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If your work is cited, you are notable. That's how it works with people, and no sense not doing it with research companies or organizations. Why would anyone do an entire write up on a company like this? What would there be to say? They don't make any flashy products, they just do research. Dream Focus 15:37, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I don't know, maybe there'd be things to say such as those said about The_Gallup_Organization or Arbitron. EEng (talk) 00:55, 1 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This is explicitly not the case for WP:ORG. As has been noted previously, WP:PRODUCT states that "a specific product or service may be notable on its own, without the company providing it being notable in its own right... notability of the company itself is not inherited as a result.". -- Sailing to Byzantium (msg), 17:10, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Further comment As this agency seems to be a subsidiary of LoyaltyOne, an agency that seems quite a bit more notable, one possible outcome to be considered for this AfD is a redirect to this article, which already mentions this agency in one sentence. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 13:45, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete a large number of sources have been added to the article in an attempt to rescue it, but they do not demonstrate notability. Apart from the company website (which is not independent) they are all news articles which report on surveys conducted by Colloquy. Coverage of the company itself is limited to brief descriptions such as "a marketing consultant and publisher" and quotations from people associated with the company. WP:CORP requires that the coverage of the subject is significant and "passing mention, such as identifying a quoted person as working for an organization" is specifically excluded. [2] is an undergraduate report and thus not very reliable, and coverage of the company itself is limited to a passing mention of "a leading provider of loyalty-marketing information, consulting, research and education" in a paragraph about one of their surveys. A search on Google News produces a large number of hits, but on closer inspection they turn out to be brief quotes along the lines of those already in the article or press releases by the company itself. Based on this Colloquy does not satisfy WP:CORP. Hut 8.5 14:42, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. It is acknowledged that the NYT seems to enjoy using this company's products, but the standard for notability is coverage of the company itself, not just indications of wide usage of their products. In this case, such coverage has not been able to be located. Lankiveil (speak to me) 04:56, 1 January 2012 (UTC).[reply]
  • Redirect/Merge to LoyaltyOne. This seems an adequate solution in light of the concerns about the coverage of the company its self. May encourage some positive expansion of that article. Pol430 talk to me 16:37, 1 January 2012 (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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