Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wikborg Rein

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. – Joe (talk) 16:22, 26 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Wikborg Rein[edit]

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Failure to meet WP:NORG. There are quite a few passing mentions in online English news related to the Fishrot Files (summarized: an Icelandic fishing company bribed ~~Nigerian~~ Namibian officials to obtain fishing quotas, Wikborg Rein was hired to investigate afterwards) but notability is not inherited.

Brought to my attention on the Help Desk (suspected paid editing). Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 09:19, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 13:22, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Companies-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 13:22, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Norway-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 13:22, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment It was Namibia, not Nigeria. I don't see how the context is relevant, especially since you found no substantive coverage. I also don't understand what the editor has to do with it. Are you saying that you brought this article to AfD because you suspected an editor had a conflict of interest? Please explain. Yappy2bhere (talk) 10:22, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
COI editing is not in itself a reason for deletion, but I just wanted to mention how I got my eyes on the article (through the help desk); that is indeed irrelevant to the nomination. The Fishrot mention (thanks for the correction btw) was to ward off people from bringing in sources based on that (or at least, have them explain why those sources are not passing mentions/inherited notability). Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 10:50, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

OK, so it was meant to be helpful, not prejudicial. Yappy2bhere (talk) 23:12, 9 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I find a unique "biography" for each of the firm's five offices at The Legal 500 (except Bergen's which is essentially Oslo's with different lead partners) [1] ff. I find WR used as an authority on offshore acquisitions [2] [3]. I find WR interviewed for its perspective on merger regulation [4] and for its role in a funds merger [5]. I find a "spectrum" of WR employees (well, a new associate and a departmental lead) interviewed about the peculiar challenges presented by WR's practice area [6]. That's sufficient to establish notability per WP:GNG and WP:NORG, and the likelihood that enough such references are available to write a reliably sourced article. Yappy2bhere (talk) 00:04, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Interviews are not independent sources, unless there is a significant top blurb or comments etc. that go beyond printing what the firm said. In your links [7] has a blurb but it is pure routine. The Legal 500 page is a "firm profile", which means from their "how it works" page (section "the profile package") that it is a bought ad space. Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 09:14, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

First, the interviews are primary-sourced statements published in a secondary source. Primary-sourced statements can't support the notability of the subject ("we are a notable firm"), but independent publication of them does ("we think they're worth listening to"). WP:GNG requires that the publication be independent of its subject: "Independent of the subject" excludes works produced by the article's subject or someone affiliated with it. It doesn't require that the content be independent of the subject. So yes, interviews in independent publications support notability.

Second, the profiles in The Legal 500 clearly demarcate the company's prose with, yes, quotation marks. It's disingenuous therefore to represent them as full-page ads (it is a bought ad space). You're right that they don't support notability, since they wouldn't have been published without payment, so I'll offer the rankings [8], which are independent of the firm per your source [9], in place of the profiles.

Do you have issues with the other sources I provided, or those in the article itself? Yappy2bhere (talk) 22:36, 9 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Since this is a company/organization, WP:NCORP applies. WP:ORGIND actually explicitly says "Independent Content" is required. So .. if all the in-depth information about the company comes from an interview/quotes/announcements/PR and the journalist/publication does not introduce their own, then the reference in question fails the criteria for establishing notability. HighKing⁺⁺ 20:07, 20 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ✗plicit 12:11, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

WP:SECONDARY: A secondary source (...) contains an author's analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis of the facts, evidence, concepts, and ideas taken from primary sources. Secondary sources are not necessarily independent sources. They rely on primary sources (...) making analytic or evaluative claims about them. Interviews do not contain "analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis" (unless they contain a starting or finishing blurb, or particularly detailed questions, which none of those do). "Journalist/newspaper X decided to interview Y" (i.e. "we think they are worth listening to") does not meet WP:GNG’s criteria of "in-depth coverage"; this has been the practice for a long time at AfD.

For the Legal 500, if I understand correctly, you are arguing that the paragraph Praised for its 'commercial and efficient approach'... on casualty matters. is written by the Legal 500 and not the firm itself. Well, I do not know about that, and even assuming so, it would be difficult to know if this paragraph would have been written if the firm did not pay for the other paragraph (Shanghai is an international business and trading hub... in English or Norwegian law.), so at best it is a shaky source. The rankings are most likely independent, but that fails the in-depth coverage test (unless you want to argue that a listing in Legal 500 is a highly significant or selective award, and make an analogy with NMUSIC or similar WP:SNGs). Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 15:35, 15 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Again, do you have issues with the other sources I provided, or those in the article itself? Did you read them?

The GNG doesn't mention "in-depth coverage". It requires more than trivial mention in sources with editorial integrity that are independent of the subject. It recommends secondary sources as the most objective evidence. The rankings, which are not "awards" and are entirely independent of WR, qualify on all counts. It's disingenuous to suggest that the rankings aren't significant coverage. The Legal 500's 8,000-word article lists the practice areas in which they excel and their particular strengths in each area; their top advocates in each area, their particular strengths, and which are top-tier in their own right; and important clients and representative client opinions of the firm. Chambers and Partners' global rankings [10] are similarly detailed but distributed over several pages.

I've already stipulated that the firm profiles would not have been published without payment and chastised you for misrepresenting them as unedited advertisements [11] (profiles [are] based on information provided by the participating firms ... profiles [are] approved by the firms prior to publication--your citation, my emphasis). Yappy2bhere (talk) 22:24, 15 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I did misquote WP:GNG - it does not say "in-depth coverage", it says "significant coverage". Same thing, if you ask me. It also says addresses the topic directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content.

Let us assume for the sake of the argument that the Legal 500 blurb constitutes significant coverage. (I do not think it does for the reasons outlined above but I have nothing to add to my previous posts.) That is one source. WP:GNG says that multiple sources are generally expected, so we need at least another one.

The rest of the sources you have provided either here on your September 7 post or in the article in the current version (if there are others, please point them out) fall under two categories:

Rankings, such as the Legal 500 ranking and Chambers (once you exclude the "about paragraph" which starts by a disclaimer This content is provided by Wikborg Rein Advokatfirma AS.). You also provided Universum global but (1) I do not Wikborg Rein on the list and (2) even if they had been #1 for five years straight the following argument would still apply.
Interviews; or articles about a related topic, where someone who works at Wikborg Rein is quoted (with more or less length) as an expert of the topic.

For rankings, the only content you can extract is "X was ranked in position N by Y", so this is not going to help meet GNG by itself. Now, I do think they could count under some circumstances. Some SNGs list rankings (or award, which is similar since "number 1 in some ranking" is functionnally equivalent to an award by the ranking-maker) as a presumption of notability - for instance WP:NACADEMIC #2/3, WP:MMABIO #3, etc. WP:NORG does not; yet, if the ranking/award was highly selective and significant within the field, it would certainly be a decent argument for keep. However, I suspect that Legal500/Chambers rankings are not highly selective or significant within the legal profession, but could be convinced otherwise.

For the interview-like sources, if I understand correctly, your position is that giving speaking time to a person/firm does constitute significant coverage in the form of "this person/firm is worth listening to", even if the quoted text itself is not independent and hence not usable. I do not believe this argument is correct with respect to policy. Please point to one example at AfD where that argument has been made and accepted within the last five years. On the contrary, I looked through Wikipedia:WikiProject_Deletion_sorting/Business/archive_3, the most recent discussion that contains "interview" in the text was Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Panorama9, with the comment The article contains an interview with the company's CEO but has enough independent coverage to contribute to notability (which implicitly acknowledges that "regular" interviews do not constitute independent coverage). Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 09:45, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Since this is a company/organization, the relevant guideline is WP:NCORP. The references all repeat information provided by the company and/or executives and there is nothing to meet WP:CORPDEPTH remaining. Happy to look at any new references but as it is and based on what I can find, topic fails WP:NCORP. HighKing⁺⁺ 20:07, 20 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A misstatement of fact. Only [1] simply repeats information provided by the company, and even that source writes company-provided information into its own narrative, quoting company-provided information to demarcate it. Yappy2bhere (talk) 21:10, 20 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose it depends on how much weight you put on the Legal500 organization especially seeing as how they require "submissions" from legal firms to apply to be included and then have a sales team to help those firms "market themselves and to drive business development" with a variety of marketing solutions such as "face-to-face sponsorship, research and thought leadership" through to "online and print profiles". If there were other references outside of Legal500 I'd be more inclined to take this seriously but there isn't. HighKing⁺⁺ 15:36, 21 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There are six other references [2]-[5],[8] besides the one you've fixated on [1], and four more in the article itself. You either misconstrue or misstate The Legal 500's editorial policy [9]: firms pay a fee for inclusion in the directory and the directory is produced from descriptions provided by firms, but rankings and editorial content are independent. That could be a lie, but I don't think they're less independent than, say, AllHipHop.com. Yappy2bhere (talk) 10:29, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

And a couple of Tigraan's "passing mentions" of the Samherji investigation [12] [13] [14].

Delete- promotional article, does not meet WP:NCORP. MrsSnoozyTurtle 07:43, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per HighKing.4meter4 (talk) 16:03, 26 September 2021 (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.