Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/37signals

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 of the debate was no consensus. This AfD page was rather hard to follow, and I think that the article was changed part way though. So if anyone still wants it deleted, then this closure should not preclude a second nomination. Thryduulf 22:13, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

37signals

A company with seven employees, not publicly traded, whose major claim to fame is apparently a blog. No evidence of meeting WP:CORP . Just zis Guy you know? 16:54, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Note: apparently at some point this was vandalized to the version below. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 14:42, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

A company with seven em ployees, not publicly traded, whose major claim to fame is apparently a blog. No evidence of meeting WP:CORP as I can't be bothered to go to their website and follow the link to a mighty impressive array of press articles [37 signals press]Just zis Guy you know? 16:54, 12 April 2006 (UTC) with sentence completed by Davebrooky

At least I have the wit not to add snide meta-comments to the article itself. Seems that you couldn't be bothered to follow the links to the style guide. Oh, wait, it's only us rouge admins who have to follow links, isn't it? Meanwhile the company still only has seven employees, of whom only one is notable. Just zis Guy you know? 22:16, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

• Edit change to say only that this is the company that originated ruby on rails.
• Delete per nom. Joe 17:49, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, fails WP:CORP.  RasputinAXP  c 19:21, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. --Ed (Edgar181) 20:31, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep or failing that, severely trim and merge to somewhere. This company does have a claim of fame, though it's kind of outside of WP:CORP: 1) They originated Ruby on Rails, a widely used application framework (though its primary inventor, David Heinemeier Hansson, is also covered here), and 2) Their products (Basecamp, etc) may meet the software notability criteria, and they don't so far have articles of their own... The company does have some name recognition if you look at Rails circles. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 09:23, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

We already have articles on Heinemeier and RoR. This can be treated encyclopaedically in the Heinemeier article, I'd say. Just zis Guy you know? 18:26, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep Ruby on Rails is replacing Java in some areas. If you delete this page you need to delete Sun Microsystems as well. Only reason for deleting them would be bitterness or jealousy. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Davebrooky (talk • contribs) .

• What a ludicrous statement. If I use a text editor I wrote myself instead of Notepad does that mean that either I must have an article or Microsoft must be deleted? Just zis Guy you know? 08:02, 17 April 2006 (UTC) - NO the fact there are several articles every week on java.net about whether Ruby on Rails will replace Java, and a whole book 'Beyond Java' on the subject then it does. What a ludicrous analogy. 'ruby rails versus java' (don't put the quotes in the search box as it will treat it as one phrase dear) brings up almost a million hits on google. How could you possibly be so ignorant if you work in IT? It must be bitterness. Davebrooky

• • But we aren't voting on Ruby on Rails article, now are we? RoR is important sure enough, and as a result, their maker should be mentioned. We can cover their makers under that article too. The question here isn't that. The question is whether or not we need a separate article for this small company. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 08:50, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Yes you do. As they have several widely known products and technologies, and who is producing them and how is relevant, and it is better to link to one page to describe this company than reproduce it on the page for every one of their technologies and products. A basic principle of hypertext is to seperate out duplicated information into its own page, and include a link to it. Davebrooky

• For values of "several" and "widely known" that may encompass "a few" and "widely known to a small number of poeple" :-) Just zis Guy you know? 08:03, 17 April 2006 (UTC) - um errr WRONG ... look at this list of press articles [37 signals press]. Presumably to qualify as an adminstrator you need enough common sense to follow the link from their home page to the press articles page :) Davebrooky

• Keep Just because they're not a huge company, does not mean they are unimportant. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.75.210.122 (talk • contribs) .
• Deleting a company because it is small is not democratic. I think Just zis Guy you know? should be deleted, let him take his bad temper illness out somewhere else. I have read dozens of press articles about 37 signals, in independent publications such as the Financial times. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Davebrooky .
  • Wikipedia isn't "democratic" in the way you describe, because we do have notability criteria. We regrettably can't include every small company... I agree 37signals has got some recognition though, and as such should probably be kept in some form (at least discussed briefly in either Rails or Hansson articles, or something like that). And I can hardly say JzG is having a "bad temper" here - they're just saying what the article says and then stating the company fails the notability criteria we have... --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 08:50, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
    • It doesn't fail WP:CORP as it has been mentioned in the press many times. Even so WP:CORP is just a guideline, and in its current form not appropriate for emerging technologies and the small agile companies that produce innovation. What notability criteria are you referring to? and who is we? If Wikipedia isn't democratic and doesn't serve to be better than conventional encyclopedias by including more current and new information then its significance will diminish. And why can't we include every company? Is server space running out? If inappropriate links to an article appear in other pages then it is detracting from wikipedia. If a page is only linked to from relevant places then how can it be deemed to be detracting? I do think there must have been an element of jealousy, bitterness or temper in the attempt to delete a company which in the technology community is regarded as perhaps the most significant up and comer of 2006. I looked on JzG's page before making the comment, and it said he worked in IT , so he must have been aware of their significance. It seems very unlikely to have been an honest mistake. Davebrooky
      • OK, if it doesn't fail WP:CORP, the article should be made to point out the reasons the subject is notable. Lots of stuff gets nominated for deletion because it doesn't explain its significance (which may be hasty, agreed, but at least it hopefully get concerned people off their butt and do something about the article), which then gets added during the deletion discussion period, and in the end, everyone agrees the site is notable enough and shouldn't be deleted. The CORP criteria was what I was referring to, "we" as in "Wikipedia". Hope this clears things up.
        As for reasons why there is a notability criteria, one of the reasons is that there's awful lot of stuff out there that just gets in the way. In the end, the really important stuff gets shadowed by tons of stuff that some kids invented one day. (Really, hang around the AfD, you see a lot of Things Kids Made Up One Day getting nominated and ultimately deleted...) Would you really want an article for every two-minute shell script MP3 tagging hack, for example? Or every school club? Because if you don't draw the line somewhere, that's what you get for articles, too.
        As for WP:CORP being a guideline, yes, it's not a policy, but it is a thing that gets considered during deletion and it does represent the opinion of quite a many editors, and as such it does carry a lot of weight - if you disagree with the criteria, voice your objections and discuss about it, though.
        As for jealousy, please assume good faith. Some AfD nominations do get shot down because they are bad faith nominations, and it's okay to point them out; if they truly are and you can tell why if it isn't obvious. But if you can't demonstrate it, it's shaky. I, for one, think JzG's point was well argued (in which case it doesn't really matter whether or not it was in bad faith or not), and haven't seen JzG going around doing too many frivolous nominations, but don't listen to me, I need a coffee to tell for sure.
        And then, what jealousy and bad faith? Almost everyone I've seen seems to agree RoR is the best thing since sliced bread, and are glad to provide facts to those who disagree, and not resort to accusations of jealousy - the things speaks for itself! I'm a rabid Rails user (one of the primary authors of Rails article, in fact), and I agree 37signals is a small company. I think it's borderline notable, but not much hotter than that - a couple of interesting products and some media mentions and awards. But if I told them "hey, you're a small company", I don't think they'd say "you're just jealous". --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 15:17, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
      • I agree. Some links to press articles might have helped. I am not sure I agree JzG's point was well argued. The top paragraph seems like a rant, not a carefully considered opinion. However there is one point I want really press you on. How does stuff get in the way, unless there are superfluous links to it? The people that weren't interested would never see it. Thats the beauty of an electronic encyclopedia as opposed to a paper one. So if an article about an mp3 hack of extremely limited application was only linked to from a page discussing that limited application area, what harm would it do? The debate should focus on linkage policies, not page deletions. If a page about fibre optics had links to loads of manufactures sites that would get in the way. If a page about fibre optics had a link to a page listing university research departments and leading manufacturers, then only those seeking that would find it. A policy focussing on linkage policy and polluting general interest articles would also solve the spam problem, as the search engines work on a linkage principle. So you could have full coverage, serving the needs of those interested in the leading edge and idiosyncratic detail, without problems. Does that make sense? Davebrooky
        • The problem would still be how to find the appropriate topic from the sea of links, most of which are kind of related to each other. You need to pick what to do: spend time picking what's notable, or spend time arranging stuff. (Kind of like my experiences with MySQL and PostgreSQL manual tables of contents, but that's another tale.)
          Anyway, I think this discussion isn't the perfect place to discuss WP's notability and linking criteria; there are better places for that. Like the talk pages of the notability and linking, or something? Also, believe me, your ideas are hardly new =)
          And still back to JzG's point - the AfD nominations tend to be to-the-point and blunt. You see this a lot. It's probably intimidating, and may not be the most friendly way to get the ball rolling, but it does its job. There's a couple of hundred deletion nominations every day; few people want to read gigantic nomination texts, especially if shorter text does the trick. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 00:22, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
        • JzG was hasty, to the point, blunt, and incorrect. It doesn't fail WP:CORP. There is nothing in WP:CORP to say the article has to include the links to the independent press articles, it only says these independent articles need to exist. So unless WP:CORP is changed, the onus is on the editor to do his research before recommending an AfD. If JzG clearly admits his mistake, i.e. not doing his research, I'll believe that the process is objective. He need only have visited their website and followed the link to press articles [37 signals press]. Its a pretty impressive list, including front covers, businessweek, wall street journal etc etc. With a list like this JzG has made a laughing stock of the deletion process. Whata mistaka tomaka Davebrooky
          • Actually JzG was correct: The article doesn't have any evidence of the company's notability. In its current state, it makes the whole company look like a two-guys-in-the-basement New Media operation. Please add the mentions of the articles, etc to the article now that you've pointed out the notability in the AfD debate. Please improve the article and tell why the company really matters.
            And don't vandalise AfD nominations. That makes you look very silly. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 14:42, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
          • IT DOESN'T NEED EVIDENCE WITHIN THE ARTICLE FOR WP:CORP. Please read WP:CORP. The criteria you are INVENTING would mean every article being strewn with links to press articles to justify its existence, and press articles often get deleted after six months. Following a link from a companies home page to press articles is not rocket science. I'll repeat it in case you didn't get it IT DOESN'T NEED EVIDENCE IN THE ARTICLE FOR WP:CORP. The company satisfies WP:CORP. However so as not to look as lazy as JzG I have added a compliance note to the bottom of the 37 signals article. I suggest you go about adding a similar note to every other page on wikipedia. Guilty until prooven innocent right? Davebrooky
            • Of course no article needs evidence of notability in article. However, if an article lacks any such information, it's more likely to get nominated for deletion for exactly that reason, and if such information doesn't materialize during the deletion period, it's likely to also get deleted. Of course, it might have been nicer if JzG would have tagged the article with {{notability}} for some period of time, but it's too late to argue about that now that the article is on AfD. We wouldn't be having this discussion if the article had had such information in the first place, now would we? I'm not saying "guilty until proven innocent"; I'm saying "The subject looked really insignificant and without knowing better, I would have arrived to that conclusion, too". Just because stuff gets nominated for deletion doesn't mean it will get if people can present evidence against that.
              Now please calm down and handle the case a little bit less hot-headedly, okay? It's not making the case look any better, you know. Over the time, I've seen a lot of people get leaning toward deletion also because of inappropriate behaviour by proponents of keeping the article. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 16:24, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
            • Would you have looked at the company homepage? Would have done any research before nominating the article? Bad behaviour is not having the decency to say 'It was a mistake. Sorry. We'll be more careful in future'. People can clearly see I signed the extension, so people will judge for themselves whether it was vandalism or humour, and whether the bad behaviour is on your part for not just admitting the mistake, or mine for insisting that the mistake is admitted to and hopefully won't happen again. If you start inventing a moral code and declaring it universal as well as inventing criteria I will get hot-headed. People have seen many a false argument propped up with statements like 'I've seen' and 'a lot of people' and 'Now please', so you aren't helping your case by resorting to hand waving. However I was young once too, and I remember assuming ones own opinions to be universal truths was a characteristic of the age. Anyway I'm done. I have already had to repeat myself. Davebrooky
              • I would have tagged the article with {{notability}}. Or first used {{prod}} to see if anyone really contests its notability (and take some workload off the AfD). You can dismiss my comments as handwaving for all I care. I'm just stating something I've learned from watching the AfD discussions over the past six months or so: Specifically, there's a lot of behaviour that isn't going to work in AfD discussions. Excessive arguing about policy rather than the subject's notability isn't working too well, I've seen, nor are accusations of other users working too well either. Don't worry, AfD sure looked a lot more confusing back then to me too... =)
                Also, believe it or not, people do get picky about the talk page and AfD protocol. It's difficult to converse if someone is literally twisting what you've said previously, now isn't it? Thusforth, we have a thing called talk page etiquette. Specifically, the rules about not touching other people's comments (aside of refactoring/reformatting, and perhaps simple spell/link fixes, even when some people get upset if you do the latter), and not modifying the AfD nomination text, which should only be amended by the original nominator. Technically, you didn't sign your comment either (please use "~~~~" in future, or use the signature button on the page edit toolbar. People who don't get their morning coffee might view "Finishing someone else's sentence" not that funnily and revert it with anger coursing through their brain, and tell you under no circumstance ever do that again. Others just laugh and revert it back and tell you not to do that again, with a friendly smile. I tried to do the latter. I hope I succeeded to at least some extent.
                Believe me, over this discussion, I've just trying to give helpful advice on how I've seen the AfD process works. I had a hunch that you didn't know too much about the AfD process - now it turns out you have got the account only a few days ago, and nobody even gave you the usual newbie sermon. I hope the comment I added to your talk page is sufficiently informative.
                And all I'm saying right now, as a hopefully helpful advice, is that we Finns have a lot of weird folk sayings, one of which happens to be "it's too late to cry when the milk has already been spilled all over the floor". The article got to AfD. It's time to fix the article and voice your concerns. It's no use to argue about validity of the nomination unless there's clear evidence we're dealing with a bad faith nomination. There's no need to apologise after AfD nomination either, because AfD nomination is not a personal attack, it's a voice of concern. View this AfD as a last-resort call to improve the article to meet the quality criteria. Not sure if this article will be kept, but keep this in mind for future in either case. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 21:47, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
              • Do you accept not visiting the company website (linked to from the article) before nominating for Afd was sloppy? Is this likely to happen again? Davebrooky 07:39, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
                • It might have been sloppy not to do so. I did. I saw a list of product which have recently been linked (often incorrectly) into very spam-prone lists. Like basecamp, for example. I fixed the links to point to the company article, did some basic checks, n oted that one user had added it in a blitz to a load of other articles, and decided to let AfD have a look at it. Right or wrong, my experience of AfD is that it usually results either in confirmation of my judgment or in a speedy fixing of the content (which {prod} and {notability} don't in my experience, but things change over time of course). As pointed out above, life is much easier if people go the extra mile (well, the extra coule of yards, really) and tell us what the company is supposed to be famous for. It is a very small firm, after all, and not publicly traded. Just zis Guy you know? 22:26, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
                  • Agreed - prod & co. are along the lines of saying "we'd really appreciate this would be fixed, you know, no hurry though", afd is like saying "please fix this mess and explain why it's existence is justified, or we need to take out the big guns. You have a week." For better or worse, it gets people moving fast if there's, in fact, no question about the real notability. (I know it got me running around like a headless chicken when someone AfD'd an article I had been working on, like, "Where do we get the numbers? And speaking of which, where the heck did the nominator get the idea there's only a handful of users?"... Nom withdraw. Keep. =) And in case of this particular AfD, apparently the single person who cares about pointing out the notability hasn't bothered to do much constructive stuff. A shame. Looks like there'll be some bits of merges and in my schedule in near future... --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 23:07, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
                • In a purely hypothetical case, yes, it might have been nicer to tag the article before hand, but now that it got AfD'd, it's too late to complain. From my experience with AfD discussions in general, it happens, say, quite a few times every week and every day, so I believe the answer to your second question is a resounding "yes". Again, I restate that I personally believe in {{prod}}ing rather than bringing articles to AfD straight away, because AfD is overcomplicated as it is.
                  Why are you asking me all this stuff, though? Never done such thing in my whole life, and I certainly was well aware of the company's significance, which is why I voted Keep or failing that Merge. Perhaps you should not try to argue with almost completely unrelated passers-by who already agree with you, and instead either divert your energies to fixing the article (now that the information is there, it isn't apparent, and is whiny in tone - for examples of two articles whose notability concerns I've cleared up, see PlaneShift and Legend of the Green Dragon), or complain to the people actually responsible if you really want things done. Go on. If you get the nominator to reconsider the thing, that's good for you. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 16:17, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
                • Interesting you should say that. A lot of cultures have trouble with the British sense of humour. Even closely related cultures have trouble. The Aussies call us 'Whingeing Poms' and the Americans have to have all our comedy shows like 'The Office' translated into American versions. The British have a stereotype of Finns as having no sense of humour, but what that probably indicates is that the Finns have a particularly hard time understanding the British. Probably better on an international site if you preceed your comments about tone with 'As a Finn it comes across to me...' rather than 'the tone is'... I probably ought to use more :) signs ... again as you get older and experience more things you'll become less absolute... Your vandalism annotation at the top is hysterically funny to someone versed is stereotypes about Finns Davebrooky 20:22, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
                  • I actually do have a sense of humor. I merely try to conduct myself in a manner appropriate for a serious, somber occassion (which an AfD discussion is, in theory, supposed to be), and I don't want to be spewing out quasi-humorous stuff in front of a newbie who is obviously misreading my intentions. Seriously, if I got an almost hostile response for just trying to give helpful advice, I was terrified about the idea of even imagining what effect humour might have had! I had an irresistible urge to add "...but this usual newbie welcome template message is obviously unnecessary since you already know everything about Wikipedia policies" to the message I left on your talk page, but I backed down - after all, injecting some Sarcasm to an already tumultuous topics might have bizarre results. I wouldn't want the admins to go all Ironic on my rear.
                    By the way, we Finns are also funny in the way that we have this intriguing concept of "old jokes", and the proposed EU-wide prohibition of them is one of the positive side effects of Lex Karpela. Some government ministry somewhere tracks down and lists all jokes that, in the immortal words of one of our notable humorists, "so old that even the Pharaohs found them ancient." Your little bit of editing tomfoolery to the deletion nomination was, when passing through the FICIX router somewhere, automatically filed under "this has so been done before".
                    In other words, if you thought you were a veritable source of utter hilarity, you failed to account for the fact that someone might have beaten you in this little game of yours. Please, please consider the implications of that. If you try to be funny in Wikipedia, at least be familiar with what's not considered the height of hilarity.
                    Now let's not talk about me. We're Wikipedians. We have no identity or personality. We're all just impartial Editors of neutral, objective Collection of Information. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 21:37, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
                  • Well, by saying it is likely to happen again, you have admitted that the wikipedia policies don't include following the link to the homepage before complaining about an article. So how can you claim they are to be taken seriously? By not simply having the honesty to say 'Yes he should have followed the link to the homepage' you have shown your lack of character, beyond all reasonable doubt. My character isn't wonderful, but at least I don't take myself seriously, unlike you who continually goes on in a self righteous and sanctimonious manner even after having been clearly shown to be in the wrong, and making futile attempts defend the indefensible. One minute you say you would have done the same thing as JzG, you gradually back off from that by saying you would have done something slightly different, and then eventually say you agreed with me all along anyway. Why not just have admitted he was wrong right way? And all jokes are old jokes, because human nature never changes. And humour is just our way of dealing with the failings of human nature. A country without old jokes is therefore a country with no jokes. Is that Finland? Davebrooky 09:56, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
                    • In Wikipedia, everyone's entitled to nominate an article for deletion if there's severe doubt about the notability of the subject, whether or not groundwork for that has been done - though to bolster the deletion claim, it's always nicer to show that they've done some groundwork (as in in a purely hypothetical example, "the company is privately held and has seven employees"). Personally I see deletion proposal part of verification: If an article has been nominated for deletion and survived, it's a precedent about the subject's notability. If it has been deleted, it's a precedent against. "Follow a link to homepage" doesn't mean damn; the article is supposed to give all interesting information about the company, and that by definition includes all important achievements and all unique features. And I am, by the way, pretty sure JzG did visit the company's home page and still thought the company was not notable. Or maybe he didn't.
                      If you want people to take you seriously, behave seriously. (Some wise guy somewhere probably said that. I couldn't possibly be bothered to find a proper quote so here's a random paraphrasing from a random moron.)
                      And let's make something clear: There's one thing I agree you with, and it's that the company may be borderline notable. It may grow in future and as such meet the notability criteria at later time. Right now, perhaps not. Personally, I think you should do some more research on how Wikipedia's notability rules are practically applied and how the deletion process really works, since you don't seem to have a clue. Go on, do that - it's quite interesting, really. One day, you'll see this discussion and laugh about how clueless you seem in retrospect.
                      And I didn't mean to say Finland has no old jokes. What I meant to say, we know an old joke when we see one, and we don't automatically dutifully laugh at them. There's a big difference. We may even consider people who tell old jokes major bores and even, horrors, Annoying.
                      In closing, please consider other people and, I might add, also try to find out about this "logic" thing that's all the rage these days. The AfD discussion will probably be closed soon; when an article you care about will be AfD'd next time, I really hope you rather fix the darn thing rather than spending time pointing fingers and diverting discussion. And also, it might be a good time for you to finally learn to sign your posts properly. Would this also be a bad time to note that in AfDs, newbie votes get less weight? (Surely you knew that, being a veritable veteran of AfD debates...)
                      And since the AfD is closing soon and it's already triggering length warning, I'm not going to comment further on this AfD. Please reply on my talk page if you really want to continue this debate. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 15:59, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
                    • The case is not borderline. It is irrefutably in compliance with WP:CORP clause 1. The article should never have been complained about if the Wikipedia procedures had been properly adherred to. They are available for all and sundry to read. You do not need experience. You just need to be able to read the policies. The WP:CORP policy says that a company need to meet one of the criteria, not all. So meeting 'independent press articles' is a legally sufficient condition. I have edited the article as logically as I can to point this out. Davebrooky 21:21, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
• Merge and redirect to Ruby on Rails. The nominator is quite correct that this little company does not merit their own article. Davebrooky should be careful with his rhetoric or he will be found to be in violation of WP:CIVIL and sitting out a block while this discussion continues. Johntex\^talk 22:23, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Change vote to keep. The original nomination was completely proper since the article made absolutely no claim to notability. Davebrooky wasted a lot of peoples time by complaining and trowing uncivil accusations rather than fixing the problem. The article now makes a proper, verifiable claim to notability and it should now be kept. Johntex\^talk 19:25, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep per product coverage in Salon.com, Business Week, Wall Street Journal, and others. That said: The article needs to make its own point for notability, instead of relying on the reader to visit the web site to check on the company's coverage and notability. If I had created Seventh Street Improvement Arches by saying, "It's a cool stone arch bridge in St. Paul. See the MNHS article for more.," it would have made a prime candidate for deletion -- despite the fact that it's notable for being on the National Register of Historic Places. Also, Davebrooky, you aren't making any points by being extra-litigious and violating the standards for civility. --Elkman - ^(talk) 23:01, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. --Mais oui! 23:40, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
• Merge or redirect to Ruby on Rails-- you don't need a vote for that. Ashibaka tock 00:41, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete and redirect to Ruby on Rails. Tijuana Brass 01:46, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
• Strong keep per Elkman. (Ignoring Davebrooky's bad behavior above.) 37Signals was fairly well-known before Basecamp, Ta-Da list and Ruby on Rails, with major media coverage. Now it's an important organization in the Web 2.0 thing, which, regardless of whether one thinks it's hype or not, is clearly notable, and independently of Rails. · rodii · 03:32, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete or merge. Company doesn't seem to be particularly notable on its own. --Carnildo 06:50, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Small but remarkably influential. The article fails to assert notability, but this is a failing of editing. --Dhartung | Talk 07:51, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I have edited the article to create a stronger narrative about the company and included links to outside assessments that have considered the company notable. --Dhartung | Talk 09:41, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

*clapclapclap* Bravo. Would have done this sort of stuff myself but didn't care enough and thought it would have been better to merge in any case. But in current state, this is definitely keepable material. A high time we had a sane response. =) --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 11:32, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

• Now Keep the current content. Kudos to Dhartung for fixing the article - much more productive than simply argufying about it. Just zis Guy you know? 10:17, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
• And everyone, my sincerest apologies for arguing above. What started out as an attempt to give a hint to a newbie got a little bit out of hand.. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 11:36, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
• Well done Dhartung. However I do still contend your are creating a sad situation if every article has to justify its own existence. In its current form the article reads like a company press release or the back of a book cover. What if people want to do some intelligent and objective critical analysis? I'll stick to the Britannica personally. Good luck all. Bye.Davebrooky 11:56, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

• Every article does have to justify its existence. It has to be verifiable from reliable sources, it must not be a random factoid, there needs to be some evidence of significance. Without these there is little or no chance that we can ensure the subject is covered neutrally, since there will be too few sources to eliminate bias. If you want a situation where anythign can be included without needing evidence of encyclopaedic notability you are probably in the wrong project. Just zis Guy you know? 12:17, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

• I understand your reasons, but the result is a bit of a tradegy. Within the current structure of Wikipedia I can't think of a way of eliminating spam without the result that every article reads like a piece of self-marketing. So yes, my brief experience has convinced me this isn't the project for me. Maybe the approach now being taken by the Wikipedia founder, his Digital Universe project, where there are expert editors to keep everything in order will work? They will know if something is notable, so the contributors will feel free to write a balanced critique. Anyway, good luck. When you have all had time to think, maybe you will accept some of my points were valid, even if not expressed in a manner to your tastes. Davebrooky 12:29, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

• Sorry you feel that way, Davebrooky. I think notability per se is not objectionable as a policy. I had not previously seen the WP:CORP guidelines and I think they are a bit too strict, which is a different issue. You may want to read up on wikipedia:deletionism and wikipedia:inclusionism and see why this is pretty much an unavoidable source of tension on Wikipedia. I know I'm more inclusionist, and sometimes the deletionists get on my nerves, too, but see how I chose to improve the article and address its deficiencies. Even if the article is still deleted, I know that I've done the best thing I can to make the article, and Wikipedia, better. --Dhartung | Talk 19:22, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
• Dhartung, I understand fully you were doing your best to save the article in the circumstances, and a mighty good effort it was. I hope I did not imply any criticism of your efforts, just the circumstances that forced you into such efforts :) Davebrooky 20:10, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

• • Déjà vu all over again. I really should turn that into an essay or something. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 13:49, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per WP:CORP and WP:ASR. Stifle (talk) 13:16, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. What is the point of this fascistic policy of anti-information? Do you actually want Wikipedia to contain as little as possible? It is completely obvious that 37signals should be mentioned on Wikipedia, so the only real issue is whether it needs its own article. If you don't think it needs its own article, be bold and merge it. Don't piss around with these retarded deletion polls, please. You people are fucking up a great project. --Mikael Brockman 18:23, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep Ask anyone within the web application community; 37s is without a doubt notable. For a small 7-man firm they do seem to give their share of seminars and attract their share of attention. If you're going to go around AfDing articles on useless criteria like "company has 7 employees, not notable" while failing to do even the most basic background checking, you are nothing but an irresponsible editor. If you don't go ahead after this and AfD every worthless anime fancruft article on grounds of nonnotability, you are also a hypocrite. -66.92.130.57 18:32, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. The last two comments are completely unnecessary. This is a discussion, not an inquisition. The nominator put something out there for people to comment on, and people have commented. Nominating something for deletion isn't an attack, it's a proposal, and as long as we're willing to abide by the results of the discussion--which JzG, having been on both sides of lots of these discussions, no doubt is--everything is copacetic. It appears that the discussion is moving in the direction of keep; the process is working fine. Flinging around accusations of fascism and hypocrisy is more damaging to the project than an otherwise civil AfD discussion. · rodii · 18:49, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete or if there is anything not covered in RoR article, merge as applicable. KillerChihuahua^?!? 18:38, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep I hate 37 signals so much. I hate web services. I hate their smug attitude. I hate their retarded rants about simplicity. But do you know what I hate more? Wikipedia's idea of web site notability. In 10+ years when people do actual research about websites do you want them reading a bunch of blogs? Wikipedia can be so much better if you just drop this deletionist attitude. Wikipedia is about what people know and what they want to record and inform others about. For instance I wanted 3rd party objective information on the American Nihilist Underground (anus.com) (hell I've had admins reverting my requests that such a page be made), but I checked wikipedia and couldn't find any object information because it was subject to some anti-troll anti-website circle jerk of admins. This is crap, I want objective NPOV information about websites and blogs I visit. Websites are notable, especially this one. Use all your lame google and alexa metrics you want. 37signals pisses people off and is notable enough to be the object of hatred and trolls. Stop with website deltionism. --ReptileLawyer 18:49, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

There is room for a Controversy section. I have not added one, but you are right that there are people who don't like them or disagree with their philosophy. That would provide needed balance to the article. --Dhartung | Talk 19:22, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

As I've said above in reply to your comments about notability, you are the one person that comes out well from this. Your efforts were heroic, and you are still thinking about what is best for the article. Amongst all the egotists (I'm in that category) there are selfless people. Davebrooky 20:23, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Those words are truer than you think. But you really are investing this subject with vastly more significance than it has. It is, after all, only an article about a small firm in an online encyclopaedia. It's not like it's important or anything. Just zis Guy you know? 21:22, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

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.