Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2014 December 24

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
< 2014 December 23
2014 December 25 >

24 December 2014[edit]

  • Computer Economics' – Endorse, Relist at AfD. There was clearly nothing wrong with the original close, given the material available at the time, so endorse. The deletion was due to a lack of reliable sources, and sources have been presented here which are claimed to solve that problem. As always, AfD is a better forum to evaluate the quality of sources, so I'm going to restore this for now and relist on AfD where it can get a clean evaluation. – -- RoySmith (talk) 23:49, 31 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Computer Economics (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

Research firm in business over 30 years, quoted widely in trade press and business press. Sample of notability quotes can be found at http://www.computereconomics.com/page.cfm?name=inthenews. Fscavo (talk) 18:13, 24 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment from closer. "Notability quotes" is not a thing. User:MelanieN's comment in the AFD directly anticipated the argument you are making now, as does WP:CORP, which expressly says that "quotations from an organization's personnel [used] as story sources" do not constitute coverage of the organization and so don't count towards notability. Can you point to any sources that are about this company? postdlf (talk) 18:49, 24 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Response to LaMona. Thank you, LaMona. Yes, I am the third owner of the firm. I did not create the original Wikipedia entry for the firm, but I have maintained it (along with others, I notice) to ensure it's accurate. Because I do have this relationship, I am relying on your judgment and that of other editors that have no relationship with the firm. By the way, please note the new first link that I just added to the list above, concerning the Gartner lawsuit, as that may be more of what you are looking for. Also, we do have mentions in the Wall Street Journal and NY Times, and other major publications, if you want me to dig those out. Thanks again. Fscavo (talk) 01:00, 25 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Are you aware of Wikipedia's Conflict of Interest policy? As owner of the company, you should have make your position clear immediately. It is generally considered inappropriate for company owners and employees to edit the article for the company. The preferred way to ensure accuracy is to provide reliable information to non-conflicted editors via the talk page for the company. As an interested party your motivation for keeping the article probably relates to using WP to raise the visibility of your company. Right? LaMona (talk) 01:44, 25 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse but restore. postdlf (talk · contribs) correctly assessed the consensus in this discussion. But the discussion was defective in that it failed to unearth reliable sources about this notable 35-year-old research firm.
    1. Freeman, Mike (1999-09-29). "Computer Economics wants to hear your cyber beefs". Standard-Speaker. Archived from the original on 2014-12-25. Retrieved 2014-12-25 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon

      The text of the article is also available hereWebCite

      The article begins:

      Few firms go out of their way to hear people complain, but Computer Economics Inc. of Carlsbad is doing just that.

      In the name of research, the company hopes to become a shoulder to cry on for disgruntled cyber shoppers.

      The 20-year-old firm recently established a toll-free telephone hotline so miffed cyber shoppers can vent about bogus billing, effusive e-mail or poor product delivery in purchases made over the Internet.

      ...

      Computer Economics' motivation isn't altruistic. As a consulting company, it sells research services to information-technology firms, including Web-based retailers.

      By setting up the hotline, Computer Economics hopes to set itself apart from competitors. "We were looking for a way to do something different that other research firms weren't doing," Erbschloe said.

      The company, with its 26 employees, has been collecting customer satisfaction information through focus groups and surveys, but it wanted to take a more gritty approach.

      Thus this masochistic marketing scheme.

    2. Delio, Michelle (2002-01-14). "Find the Cost of (Virus) Freedom". Wired. Archived from the original on 2014-12-25. Retrieved 2014-12-25.

      The article notes:

      To estimate the damage, media organizations nearly always turn to Computer Economics -- a California-based research firm whose primary business is to advise companies on technology investment and marketing strategies.

      But many industry experts wonder how the company arrives at these seemingly exorbitant figures. Some antivirus firms and industry watchdogs said that Computer Economics is less than forthcoming about the specific data, sources and processes that it uses to tabulate the economic impact of viruses.

      Some experts say that lack of documentation renders any virus-damage statistics from the company all but useless.

      ...

      Rosenberger lists Computer Economics in his site's "Hysteria Roll Call" list, a who's who of people feeding the flames of computer virus hysteria.

      Based on http://archive.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2005/05/67428, other articles by Michelle Delio had issues with their being unable to confirm quotes from anonymous sources. But this article does not cite anonymous sources, and it was not retracted by Wired, so I consider it reliable.
    3. Leyden, John (2002-01-16). "Lies, damned lies and anti-virus statistics". The Register. Archived from the original on 2014-12-25. Retrieved 2014-12-25. {{cite news}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; 2008-07-26 suggested (help)

      The article begins:

      Computer Economics has published its assessment of the damage worldwide caused by malicious code attacks in 2001 - the figure comes in at a whopping $13.2 billion.

      This is 23 per cent less than 2000, the year of the Love Bug, when damages from viruses were estimated at $17.1bn. In 1999 the cost to the world was $12.1 billion in 1999, Computer Economics says.

      The research firm has totted up the damage wreaked by viruses each year since 1995, But the results are controversial.

      Critics in the antivirus industry dismiss Computer Economics assessment of the damage caused by the combined effects of Nimda ($635 million), Code Red variants ($2.62 billion), SirCam ($1.15 billion) et al last year as a "guesstimate".

    There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow Computer Economics to pass Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject".

    Cunard (talk) 05:29, 25 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Cunard - Thanks! I'll accept 2 & 3 as reliable sources. #1 is a small, local paper (Hazelton, PA). So we could reinstate, but I will want to make sure that these articles are included, along with their content. However, does it make a difference that there are no recent articles of substance? This is an existing corporation, so basing the article on two references from 2002 may seem odd. Also, both of these references are critical of the company, so the WP article could take on a negative tone. That would be correct based on the sources we have, but the information may also be out of date as the company has changed management. LaMona (talk) 16:32, 25 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Concerning the two critical articles you uncovered, Computer Economics stopped publishing malware damage assessments in 2007.
  • Concerning more recent articles to establish notability, here are articles from major news publications that have reported on the firm's research in recent years.
Forbes: Customers Gripe About Oracle Service But Unlikely To Switch
New York Times: Maybe Microsoft Should Stalk Different Prey
  • Major technology trade publications frequently report on the firm's research (e.g. IDG News Service's Computerworld). From this year:
IT hiring rises where it counts
The IT freelance economy is growing but not at large firms
Companies that go all-in with SaaS can save big. Fscavo (talk) 16:18, 26 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wikipedia:Conflict of interest#Non-controversial edits says:

    Editors who may have a general conflict of interest are allowed to make certain kinds of non-controversial edits (but note WP:NOPAY above). They may:

    1. remove spam and revert unambiguous vandalism,
    2. remove content that unambiguously violates the biography of living persons policy,
    3. fix spelling and grammatical errors,
    4. revert or remove their own COI edits,
    5. make edits where there is clear consensus on the talk page (though it is better to let someone else do it), and
    6. add reliable sources, especially when another editor has requested them (but note the advice above about the importance of using independent sources).

    If the article you want to edit has few involved editors, consider asking someone at the talk page of a related Wikiproject for someone to make the change.

    If another editor objects for any reason, then it's a controversial edit. Such edits should be discussed on the article's talk page.

    Fscavo (talk · contribs), as long as your edits to the article are non-controversial, you are allowed by the Wikipedia guideline to make them.

    Cunard (talk) 05:29, 25 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Yes, but the guidelines also say that anyone with a potential conflict of interest must let other editors know. And there was no such information included with this deletion review request. If I hadn't actually asked, we might not have known. I believe that asking for a deletion review is worthy of a COI declaration. I also suspect (although it's no longer visible) that COI was not made clear on the article's talk page. Should the page be restored, anyone editing under COI should make that clear, even if the edits are considered by the person making them to be "non-controversial." LaMona (talk) 16:32, 25 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree that it would have been best for editors with a potential conflict of interest to declare it. As summarized in the essay Wikipedia:Assume no clue, we should expect that a new editor (or in this case, an inexperienced editor who has had an account for some time) would be unaware of these best practices. I agree with your suggestions about COI declarations on the article's talk page. Cunard (talk) 04:11, 26 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • To LaMona, Cunard As you have suspected, I am an inexperienced editor (I can barely figure out the text editor), but I have gotten a little crash course here on some Wikipedia policies and best practices. As a first step to improve anything I do on Wikipedia, I have updated my talk page (talk) with information on my two companies. I will also refrain from making changes to any page in which I have a COI and will rather use the article's talk page to submit change requests for consideration by other non-COI editors. Fscavo (talk) 16:18, 26 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Fscavo Thank you so much for being a quick study! And welcome to the complex world of Wikipedia. LaMona (talk) 17:24, 26 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have temporarily restored the history for purposes of the discussion. DGG ( talk ) 18:38, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Relist or restore seems clear to me that we now have identified sources that meet WP:N. I can easily imagine a debate about those sources (not being about the company per se) and so wouldn't object to a relist rather than a restore... Hobit (talk) 11:40, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Can we relist without a restore? The article needs to be available. At this point, I don't remember much of what it said, and we have uncovered new data. LaMona (talk) 15:18, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2014_December_24&oldid=1039542576"