Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/VendAsta

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. Mark Arsten (talk) 15:56, 22 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

VendAsta

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

minor awards; promotional article of non-notable or borderline notable company, that manages to list all the vice presidents in the infobox not once, but twice. DGG ( talk ) 08:34, 1 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000^(talk) 10:14, 1 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000^(talk) 10:14, 1 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000^(talk) 10:15, 1 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've fixed the infobox to remove all names but the CEO's in "keypeople". I have also tried to be very careful in writing this page to avoid any promotional language, and anything that may sound like an achievement for the company is backed with a reputable 3rd party source. However, if you can highlight any specific problem areas, I'll work on them to improve the quality of the article. As to the company being borderline notable, VendAsta is a significant company for the Saskatoon tech community -- due to the heavy hiring it does and the amount of community participation it has, including sponsoring events with national and international reputation, such as the Mobile Social Conference (mosoconf.com), where Brendan King was also asked to speak as part of a panel of veteran entrepreneurs. If the notability doesn't come across very well in this article, please suggest how it can be improved, and I will absolutely work on those suggestions. Kushalsharma83 (talk) 00:20, 2 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Michaelzeng7 (talk) 19:26, 8 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

~~Keep~~. As currently written this does not seem overly promotional to me, especially for a business article. While perhaps borderline I also think the subject comes down on the side of notability. Stronger third-party sources would be nice, but they aren't always available for corporate subjects. The external links and content of the press releases are enough to establish notability in my view. There is core encyclopedic knowledge here, and fixing the (possible vanity?) company officer listings in the infobox did not require nominating the entire article for deletion. -Thomas Craven (talk) 20:07, 8 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree it's no longer promotional, unless an article sourced to company's own press releases is promotional, and considering that's the state of our articles on even clearly notable companies, it's not fair to go entirely by that. The question now is notability. First, selling one's product to notable companies is not notability. Then,

Looking at the awards: 1/ is "The Next 50 Canadian ICT companies", next = the next ones that might become notable. 2 is business builder, similarly, and only a finalist. 3/ is also only a finalist 4/ is one of 14 categories, only for the province, not nationally 5/ is another "up and coming" 6/ is most promising new. By the same logic we don't count farm teams or junior teams in sports, 1, 2,3 , 5, & 6 do not count, & 7 is not national.

Looking at the references, Refs 4,5,6,7,8 are either the company's web site or straightforward Press releases labelled as such; Ref 1 is the founder talking about himself, Ref 2 is a dead link, but it seems to be an announcement that they raised a few million ; the others are announcements of the non-notable or local awards. Ref 3 might be usable, if the correspondent is reliable, but it's less than we normally use as proof of notability. DGG ( talk ) 23:23, 8 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That all makes sense to me except for the bit about farm teams; there seems to be plenty of articles about minor league teams on Wikipedia (e.g. Arkansas RimRockers, Iowa Cubs, Brooklyn Cyclones), and those teams would seem to be notable to me. I suppose the counterargument would be that the fact of the company's raising money and the content of its own press releases justify it as notable. It's not ideal, but there may be subjects of interest to an encyclopedia that might not be of regular interest in the popular or academic press. That said, I get the impression that there is a consensus standard which remains unmet for the VendAsta artcle. I'm striking out my Keep vote, although I won't change it to delete because I'm not confident enough of the standard to apply it yet. Appreciate your sharing your views. If there is a WP page with guidelines or thoughts on notability for businesses and you don't mind sharing the link that would help me tremendously as well. -Thomas Craven (talk) 00:41, 9 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes,we do accept the highest level farm team, and it might have been more likely to be notable if the distinctions had been actual awards at a national level, but they are all either finalists rather than winners, or placements of a list rather than actual awards, or provincial rather than national. And of course in any paerticular case there may be other evidence for notability . DGG ( talk ) 18:29, 14 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - Lacks significant indepth independent coverage to establish notability. Independent sources that I could find were routine business news announcing money had been raised. -- Whpq (talk) 16:53, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Mark Arsten (talk) 20:36, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - The google news links reveal coverage of recent funding from the Houston Chronicle and The New York Times. Coverage is minimal, but sufficient to establish notability as per WP:GNG. CooperDB (talk) 20:58, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Nothing notable about company. The "coverage" that keeps being talked about is nothing but routine company announcements/company PR. An announcement that a company has got funding does not lend to notability. Caffeyw (talk) 21:36, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, insufficient notability. About half the current references are blog sites, including the company's own. That some local newspaper has chosen to print a press release or two is just background noise. It doesn't help that the first sentence is totally incomprehensible, either. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 21:47, 16 August 2013 (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.