Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Masterpapers

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 ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:23, 7 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Masterpapers

I'm a former Masterpapers employee, and when I was sent the URL of that article, I knew right from the start what to do. While I have no qualms against the company itself, and I left it on good terms, it's clearly just not notable enough to be included in Wikipedia - being just one of the generic and semi-legal countless paper mills there are. I want Wikipedians more senior than I am to express their opinion, and if need arise, I will state my arguments further later. Lucinor (talk) 22:51, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. The Times article offers a modicum of notability, but of the other five sources two are press releases, two give mentions in passing and the BBC report doesn't mention them at all. Can't find anything else significant on the web. Gr1st (talk) 23:24, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Gr1st. WP:NOTABILITY says two reliable secondary sources, not articles about the subject of cheating in question that needed to pull someone out of the woodwork for a soundbite. Ironho lds 23:37, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete for lack of suitable reliable sources. DreamGuy (talk) 20:55, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Times is sufficient. The prior editing of this article has been a succession of people inserting poorly sourced negative comments, and ditto for positive. Suggest checking the history before concluding there is nothing more to say. I will check for further sourced.
- WP:NOTABILITY requires (preferably) multiple reliable sources asserting notability. In addition, the timesonline article is not "lets write about Masterpapers" it's "let's write about cheating; who can we get in for a soundbite?" Ironho lds 06:51, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- DGG, you're not a beginner editor – please sign your comments. In any case, Times mention is not sufficient. There are dozens of term paper mills just as “notable” as my former employer, with the same amount of mainstream “coverage” (being mentioned in anti-academic fraud articles hardly counts as being covered) – yet we don't start articles about them, as we don't start articles about all generic viagra dealers or casino affiliates. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a directory of term paper mill sites. --Lucinor (talk) 10:02, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Rename, redirect or merge If there's a need for an article on this subject, and the only reputable source is an article about cheating/essaywriting services in general, perhaps we should have a generic article, that could use this content as a starting point? Hopsyturvy (talk) 14:39, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Here we go: Essay_mill. Hopsyturvy (talk) 14:42, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Merge or delete per Hopsyturvy, and Ironholds. As the latter writes, the Times article isn't about Masterpapers, it's about essay mills, Masterpapers is an example mentioned in passing therein, it doesn't say anything there to indicate it's in any way an unusually notable essay mill in itself. --GRuban (talk) 17:48, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I have reviewed the history of the article once more. This was at first an interesting hybrid between spam and an attack article based on very unsatisfactory sources. In response to complaints from the company I tried to remove them, and the article was then subject to numerous attempts at deletion -- either because it was considered preferable to have none rather than critical, or none I point out that the major contributors to the article, including myself, were not notified about the AfD, which is sometimes just careless, but sometimes means something more.

As for the issue involved, of the various players in this area, this is among the more prominent, and some of the controversy about it is a little different from some of the others. I think these organizations deserve some effort to be included, just as non-accredited colleges do. The Times does not merely mention it: it's the only one they discuss specifically, and for several paragraphs. DGG (talk) 15:51, 7 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually Masterpapers is only covered in the second half of paragraph four and the first half of paragraph five, which constitutes roughly 1/6 of the article as a whole. Gr1st (talk) 16:00, 7 August 2008 (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.