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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 no consensus. Filest (aktl) 08:58, 1 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Petrolsoft Corporation[edit]

Petrolsoft Corporation (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)
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Contested speedy deletion. This is a non-notable business. While it appears to have a large number of references, the vast majority of them are unreliable, self-published internal links or press releases (e.g. [1]). The best of them is a paragraph of coverage from a list of "Brief Profiles of Inc. 500 Companies"[2], and inclusion on that sort of list does not confer notability on each business included. One reference is apparently an unreferenced personal comment from the founder, suggesting further conflict of interest issues.

  • Note : The preceding comment no longer applies. The article has removed the suspect link and additional references have been added to support the reliability of the information presented. Mathteacher69 (talk) 23:28, 24 March 2010 (UTC)Mathteacher69[reply]
  • Note - Just for the record this isn't a contested speedy deletion. I was the nominator for CSD but removed the nomination after sources were provided. - Stillwaterising (talk) 19:31, 27 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Google News Search finds only press releases and acquisition or hiring announcements. This business was a supply chain management software company with a focus on the petroleum industry; in other words, a non-consumer business that's unlikely to receive notice in sources with a sufficiently broad or general interest audience. Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 14:58, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Response: This company changed the way a major industry (Petroleum) runs its business operations, and made new inventions in the field of operations research, inventory management, demand forecasting, and transportation optimization. It's technology also enabled vendor managed inventory to be practiced in the industry for the first time effecting the way tens of thousands of businesses were run across the United States and internationally. Smerdis of Tlön may not find this interesting, but it is interesting and important to many thousands of people whom it affected and, as such, is notable. It played a part in the history of the Petroleum industry that is indisputable. -Mathteacher69 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mathteacher69 (talk • contribs) 19:00, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment - A company is notable if it is has significant coverage in reliable sources. There is no mandate for the sources to be of interest to a sufficiently broad audience. Most peer-reviewed academic journals are of interest to a very small population yet we don't hold that against them. Morbidthoughts (talk) 21:28, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. The business notability guideline says that "local media, or media of limited interest and circulation" --- i.e. with no readership outside the trade --- are not enough to confer notability on a business. The point would appear to be moot in any case, since there aren't really any non-self-published sources with substantial coverage anyways. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 22:16, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm just concerned whether this means companies covered by only specialist sources would never be adequate for wikipedia. I didn't know you had to be somewhat mainstream to qualify as a company. Morbidthoughts (talk) 03:21, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - This company's technology solved the problem of gas stations running out of gas; prior to Petrolsoft [i.e. 1970's and 1980's], this problem was commonplace; now, you rarely if ever see a station out of gas due to this technology. The technology also had the effect of lowering transportation and carrying costs in an industry very sensitive to price; therefore, this lowered the price to the consumer compared to the what the price would be with higher costs built in. Petrolsoft's technology is effecting the mainstream person by insuring they can always get gasoline when they need it at a lower price than they would otherwise pay. Petrolsoft pioneered this technology and was a leader in its space becoming an industry standard ; what they did was groundbreaking and industry-changing, and in at least a small way, effected everyone.Mathteacher69 (talk) 04:14, 17 March 2010 (UTC)Mathteacher69[reply]
  • Comment - are there any reliable sources that make this case for importance? I looked at Google Books, Scholar, and News, and did not find them. They may exist; the Internet is not the world. But I looked, and could not find anything that was not coverage of routine events or press releases. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 21:23, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - The fact that nearly every major oil company on the planet employed this company's technology in order to manage their downstream supply chain should be significant enough. The press releases that you refer to are joint releases by both companies, are factual, and reliable; you can't release a false statement about what Exxon or Arco or Amoco or Chevron is doing without it bankrupting you...I agree that there is a shortage of internet-available information about the effects of the technology on each oil company's operations; this is primarily due to the fact that such information would have fallen under a confidentiality agreement. Many industry journals are subscription only, and not published on the internet during the 1990's. There were also a number of reports by third-party analysts such as AMR Research[3] and Gartner[4] that spoke to the positioning and strategic advantage of Petrolsoft's solutions compared to what had previously been done; you had to buy these reports and they were not published on line at that time. The fact that all of these enormous companies converted to this new business process and technology one after the other should be evidence of its value.Mathteacher69 (talk) 00:58, 18 March 2010 (UTC)Mathteacher69[reply]
  • Comment. For what it's worth, investment analyst firms like Gartner don't really do much for notability, even if (I hope) they're reliable. The problems are first, limited readership; and more importantly, they are driven by client and market demand, and report on broad sectors. Coverage by such firms is not really an independent, editorial judgment of significance, and not every firm in each sector has the kind of notability needed for an encyclopedia subject. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 14:01, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment -Much of the initial criticism of this article occurred when it was barely a day old, and still under construction. References for this article have been improved; much of the initial criticism regarding references no longer applies. Mathteacher69 (talk) 03:39, 18 March 2010 (UTC)Mathteacher69[reply]
  • Delete, no evidence of notability. Does this company even have a webpage? Pretty much all the hits I found online for this company was from user generated content, from online encyclopedias and press-release archive pages. If there's anything worth saving, it can go on the page of the parent company. Hairhorn (talk) 04:42, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep This is a defunct company, therefore no working website. Petrolsoft.com is in archive.org however it there's some kind of problem with it. This company seems to meet the Primary Criteria of WP:ORG, however coverage is sparse. No promotionalism or financial benefit seems possible from covering a defunct company. The software this company made was used by several notable petroleum companies so it seems that coverage of this company is essential for a complete picture of the industry. - Stillwaterising (talk) 16:51, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, but the sources linking this company to Chevron, Mobil, Exxon et al are from press releases and user-submitted content, which raises, to greater or lesser extents, notability and verifiability problems. Hairhorn (talk) 21:00, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Mike Cline (talk) 20:20, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Stillwaterising makes some interesting points, but they do not go to notability. --Bejnar (talk) 20:36, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Why is the notability standard being applied so much more harshly to Petrolsoft than to other Wikipedia companies? Choose a random industry (for example trucking). You will find (in some cases many) companies with their own wikipedia entries. Ask yourself, did any of these companies change the way their industry operates? Did they change the business process or business model for their industry? Did they invent a new business process for their industry that was widely adopted? Did they invent a new technology for their industry that became the industry standard? I think you will find that the answers to all of these questions for most of the companies will be NO. The answer to all four of these questions for Petrolsoft is YES, making Petrolsoft a significant company in both the Petroelum industry, and in the supply chain software industry. Nearly all of the most notable petroleum companies implemented Petrolsoft's technology in order to change the way they do business; this is well documented in the entry. Petrolsoft may have a limited amount of internet-available press, but it is still very significant in its industry. Do not throw away a company that is more significant than the vast majority of Wikipedia companies who have uncontested listings, companies who may be large, or public, but have done nothing more than business as usual. That would be hypocritical, and Wikipedia's coverage would be incomplete.Mathteacher69 (talk) 22:49, 24 March 2010 (UTC)mathteacher69[reply]
  • Your argument about the lack of notability of other companies is proven invalid by WP:WAX. Please post the companies that you believe to be less notable than Petrolsoft Corporation so that they, too, can be evaluated for notability. Cunard (talk) 05:45, 25 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Did you follow the trucking example I gave and lookup the companies listed? I just asked Wikipedia for a random article, and what I got was The Bicycles, a current music quartet from Toronto. I certainly do not want to direct your wrath at them, but please...there are so many. Mathteacher69 (talk) 03:38, 26 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete vote withdrawn due to the list of sources presented below. I have doubts about the depth of the sources though so will remain at Neutral. Cunard (talk) 02:38, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - I truly don't see the non-notability of this company at all. A company like Maui Jim somehow passes no problem, but the company whose software controls the majority of the gasoline being distributed in the world is not? And yes, while I see that there is no single source that provides substantial coverage, many sources provide more than trivial coverage which passes GNG. If this software had a bug that shutdown the world's oil supply I'm certain it would be a household name, but because it worked quietly behind the scenes and received little media attention I guess it's unworthy of having it's own article. Also, this article was nominated for deletion one day after good-faith creation while displaying the newpage tag and sources which is extremely bitey. - Stillwaterising (talk) 15:50, 25 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You mistake "absolute importance" for notability. "Absolute importance" depends upon point of view, notability is a culturally measurable quantity, based primarily upon people writing about things. --Bejnar (talk) 02:41, 26 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Are you saying that Wikipedia is limited to being a depository for pop culture, and absolutely important topics are not allowed in? It doesn't seem that way to me. People seem to be using Wikipedia to look up important stuff. If everything that is important, but not culturally popular, gets deleted, Wikipedia will be less useful.Mathteacher69 (talk) 03:38, 26 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This has gone beyond the bounds of a typical Afd into a more philosophical area. I do believe that the eventualist long-term historical perspective needs to be taken here. Being that this company existed before the modern Internet we also recognize that much of what has been written about this company is not available on the Internet. Also absolute importance, as a concept, would differ from relative importance which is dependent on the observer while the former is not. Regarless, as per the second paragraph of WP:GNG, notabilty may be established by satisfying either GNG or COMPANY and there seems to now be multiple independant non-trivial sources which as a whole do provide adequate coverage of the topic. Unfortunately a decade has gone by and some sources are now lost and it seems to me if this article is deleted, as time goes on even more knowledge will be lost or become unavailable to the everyday person. - Stillwaterising (talk) 14:50, 27 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. No significant RS coverage; fails Wikipedia:Notability (companies). Qrsdogg (talk) 04:39, 26 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Third party references support facts presented in the article. Meets notability guidelines. The company is objectively important to keep based on its influence.Mathteacher69 (talk) 04:48, 26 March 2010 (UTC)Mathteacher69[reply]
  • Delete - If this technology was so effective, so far reaching and so significant then why is no-one writing about it? Oh and BTW Mathteacher69, I realise that maths may be a source of interest to you but racking up a score of "keep" !votes is not the way to go to impress and influence people around here. You get one !vote and that's yer lot. Please stop producing them every time you start a new paragraph. Thanks. --Fred the Oyster (talk) 02:45, 27 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Most of what was written about Petrolsoft was not published on the internet; this company lived a decade ago when most industry publications were still on paper. Do you really doubt its effectiveness if most major oil companies use it? You might try reading the argument thread first, as this has been addressed in prior comments.Mathteacher69 (talk) 15:42, 27 March 2010 (UTC)Mathteacher69[reply]
  • I didn't mention "written on the Internet". It doesn't have to be available on the 'net to be able to reference it. Many WP articles use dead tree sources to reference their facts. If indeed this producJt/company is notable then where are the articles/theses/journals/reports? Surely something this revolutionary got in the papers at some point? Into motoring magazines? If it did then all you have to do is reference them. So long as they are in some way publicly accessible for checking then they can be used... if there are any of course. --Fred the Oyster (talk) 18:37, 27 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Response - These should give you a start if you can find them:
  • Crama, et al.; A Discussion of Production Planning Approaches in the Process Industry CORE Discussion Paper, 2001.
  • Ronen, David, Dispatching Petroleum Products Operations Research, May-Jun. 1995, vol. 43, No. 3, pp. 379-387.
  • Lason, Leon S. et al., Survey of Nonlinear Programming Applications Operations Research, Sep.-Oct. 1980, pp. 1029-1073.
  • Enterprise Profit Management for the Chemical Value Chain Accenture, Dec. 6, 2001.
  • Korzeniowski, Paul et al., Trading Exchanges Have the ‘Big mo’, But Users Should Proceed with Caution SupplyChainBrain.com, Jun. 2000.
  • Fransoo, Jan Cornelis, Production control and demand management in capacitated flow process industries Technishe Universiteit Eindhoven, 1993, AAT C320771, Abstract.
  • Petroleum Refinery Planning and Optimization Using Linear Programming Che Plus, Retrieved from www.cheresources.com/refinery—planning—optimization.shtml Jan. 31, 2007.
  • OSHA Technical Manual—Petroleum Refining Processes Section IV: Chapter 2, Retrieved from Osha.gov Jan. 31, 2007.
  • Supply chain technology Hydrocarbon Processing, vol. 80, No. 9, Sep. 2001.
  • Weitzel, Dale, How to manage your refining supply chain from E-to-E World Refining, vol. 10, No. 10, Dec. 31, 2000.
  • Supply chain technology (refining) Hydrocardon Processing, vol. 80, No. 9, Sep. 2001.
  • Aspen Announces Availability of eSupply Chain Suite to Optimize Flow of Knowledge and Materials for Process Manufacutring Industries, PR Newswire, Aug. 3, 2000.
  • Dempster Mah et al., Planning Logistics Operations in the Oil Industry Journal of the Operational Research Society, 2000, pp. 1271-1288.
  • Escudero, L.F. et al., CORO, a modeling an alogrithmic framework for oil supply, transformation and distribution optimization under uncertainty, European Journal of Operations Research, Vo. 114, 1999, pp. 638-656.
  • Loos, P. et al., Application of Production Planning and Scheduling in the Process Industries Computers in Industry, vol. 36, 1998, pp. 199-208.
  • Bolander, S. et al., System framework for process flow industries Production & Inventory Management Journal, vol. 34, No. 4, 1993.
  • So what does make MRP II software suitable for process industries? Control and Instrumentation, Oct. 1991.

Mathteacher69 (talk) 01:04, 29 March 2010 (UTC)Mathteacher89[reply]

I'm unsure what this long list of sources is supposed to represent. Do all of these cover Petrolsoft in a non-trivial manner? - Stillwaterising (talk) 03:40, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've done what I can with the Internet tools I know how to use. I've requested a Subject Matter Expert to review it however 2-3 days isn't long enough to get a response. As far as I can tell an industry expert has not given an opinion yet. This is a specialized behind the scenes small corporation that may have had a world changing product but got aquired while still pretty small. Nobody has looked into it's notability after being adopted by Aspen Tech and I'm not sure that's going to accurately portray the original product either. I'm just a volunteer assisting a newcomer, I've done all I can for this article. - Stillwaterising (talk) 19:09, 27 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've long been of the opinion that we'd have a lot less friction if we put together some kind of notability guideline that explained more clearly than the current ones do that "a specialized behind the scenes small corporation" is not really a good candidate for an encyclopedia article. Verifiable historical importance is what we really need here, and I don't see that coming for this one. I looked before nominating this article, and found very little other than notices that this business had been bought out. Were its products truly as influential as has been argued in this discussion, I'd expect somebody to have taken some kind of note of it. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 20:29, 27 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
All of the specific notability guidelines are supplemental to the general notability criterion. They are meant to add articles, not take them away. What has zero historical importance are the video games we see plastered on the Main Page every other week. Wnt (talk) 17:53, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fred the Oyster: This is supposed to be a discussion, not a vote at all. In a proper discussion, all parties involved speak from time to time. Mathteacher69 did nothing at all wrong in that respect. Perhaps they don't understand sourcing and notability on WP, but they have the right of it when it comes to commenting/replies. No only is discussion not prohibited, it's actively encouraged. I'm somewhat discouraged to find an experienced Wikipedian such as yourself suggesting otherwise. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 04:30, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Huh? My comments were regarding the use of the emboldened "Keep" at the start of the new paragraphs and nothing more. Mathteacher69 has now corrected it. I'm still not sure how you came to the conclusion I was attempting to stifle discussion. I even pointed out that refs do not need to be restricted to online sources. So I'd be very grateful if you found a dark place for your patronising, and erroneous, lecture. --Fred the Oyster (talk) 10:18, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, while I have no doubt this company existed and was later bought I don't see any evidence that it had any real impact on the area it claims to have had an impact on, and 75 gHits don't help the case, and a Bing search turned up less. Darrenhusted (talk) 00:54, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep. This company is mentioned in the New York Times and quite a few other good industry references that the author has added. The we-are-but-poor-peasants-we-must-not-think-about-the-shiny-things-in-the-massas-house mentality some have expressed is truly pathetic - even worse than I've seen regarding medical information. Wnt (talk) 17:50, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: The New York Times is a single paragraph from a column on "Company News", noting the acquisition. "COMPANY NEWS; ASPEN ACQUIRES ANOTHER PETROLEUM SOFTWARE COMPANY". [5] - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 11:48, 31 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep based on the current suitable sourcing. I can't see what is the sturm und drang. Bearian (talk) 19:25, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Mixed:
    • Notability: I think the key argument is the idea that Petrolsoft significantly impacted the way the petroleum industry managed its retail supply chain. If that is true, it is worth covering. The question becomes one of verification. I'm not familiar with the subject matter, and the sourcing of that particular concept in the article is currently weak. Weak does not mean non-existent, though; there is a start. I'm somewhat inclined to give editors a chance to improve the article, with an eye towards establishing significance by citing reliable sources. If there's no improvement in time, it can always be re-nominated. But there may be mitigating factors; see below.
    • In the above discussion, web search engines (Google, etc.) are mentioned multiple times. The fact that you can't find the information you're looking for on the web doesn't mean it doesn't exist. There is still more information not on the web then on it.
    • The article section entitled "Significance" cites a single source, a PhD thesis by a Mr. Louw. I don't see how the source supports the assertions in the section; it does not mention Petrolsoft beyond citing their corporate website as a source. Could Mathteacher69 please comment on what the Louw paper is supposed to establishing?
  • Response - The Louw thesis repeatedly cites Petrolsoft's business process and white papers in discussing how the supply chain process can be run to gain efficiencies, indicating Petrolsoft expertise in this area.Mathteacher69 (talk) 04:49, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm somewhat suspicious of the format of the "Further Reading" list (also copied above). The pattern "Retrieved from [URL fragment] [date]" appears more than once. What are these dates of retrieval? Who retrieved them? Why are the dates from several years ago? It looks a lot like a list copied from some other article/work. Could Mathteacher69 please comment on that?
Respectfully submitted. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 04:14, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Question: Since this article now easily satisfies the requirements of WP:GNG and therefore is presumed to be notable, why is there an apparent division of consensus? The aquisition of Petrolsoft by Aspen was covered by the New York Times, AMR Research, numerous press releases, and the recently added TEC Newsletter which was in-depth substantial (447 words). This seems pretty significant for a small (50 employee) company with a global presence. It would seem that some editors aren't bothering to read the article (and sources) but instead are typing the article name into Google and looking at the first ten "Ghits". - Stillwaterising (talk) 07:07, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Leaving aside the question of whether 447 words is in-depth or not, I still don't see this even passing WP:GNG. The sources are all to insubstantial one-paragraph notices or press releases about the acquisition. The rest is self-published material. All of the "Business Wire" sources are press releases. No independent source that's been added substantiates the claim that this business revolutionized the oil industry. I also looked at the Louw paper (it's huge and takes a while to load). It mentions Petrolsoft three times; it's website was used as a source for general information about oil industry supply chains. This is not substantial coverage either. It is a sad truth that people who really want publicity from Wikipedia articles about non-notable businesses are willing to lawyer on endlessly and forum shop.[6] I've tried to stay focused on the issues here, but frankly it's getting a bit ridiculous. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 16:07, 31 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Reply: There's no way this article could be motivated by promotional objectives. The company was aquired by Aspen Technologies in 1990. It has no stock to sell, no product, and no employees. Unless the creator has a warehouse full of Petrolsoft keychains and coffee mugs I can't see how he could gain from this financially. I don't have any connection to the petroleum industry and got involved in this as a way to help a newcomer and promote the aims of Wikipedia and expand the coverage on energy related topics. I wouldn't have worked on this article unlesss I believed it was both created in good faith and had educational value.

You seem to have a personal vendetta against contributors who use Wikipedia to promote thier companies. I also find it repugnant. Regardless of your personal opinions you need to comply with policy and guidelines and consider alternatives to deletion. - Stillwaterising (talk) 23:25, 31 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Per Stillwaterising. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:02, 1 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Note I fixed the url on the source #18. A free registration is required and I will gladly email the article to anybody who does not wish to register. It's contains substantial coverage of the merger as to how it applies to the industry and software users that is not a rephrasing of the press release. Some excerpts:
"The scope of Petrolsoft's product suite covers two primary activities, those involved in terminal-to-retail customer and refinery-to-terminal workflows. These segments complement Aspen PIMS crude selection and refinery operations planning and execution capabilities."
"The acquisition will offer Aspen another product to sell to its vast customer base in the petroleum refining industry."
"Users who make their business in retailing or distributing petroleum products should not change their perception of Petrolsoft with the recent acquisition, although few changes will be apparent in the short term" - Stillwaterising (talk) 03:50, 1 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note I found a good on-line summary article in Inventory Management (on-line) regarding the Mobil implementation of the Petrolsoft technology. Reference added. Mathteacher69 (talk) 04:40, 1 April 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.
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