Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/American Micro Devices

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 keep. Article completely rewritten during the AfD. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:45, 30 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

American Micro Devices[edit]

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The coverage (references, external links, etc.) does not seem sufficient to justify this article passing Wikipedia:General notability guideline and the more detailed Wikipedia:Notability (companies) requirement. Deprodded by creator who said "at least as notable as j. random soccer player - deprod, let it marinate for a bit,. Still looking for more data. Notable confusion with the later better known AMD". Sigh. WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, and no, we don't have WP:NOMARINATE but anyway, if you cannot find good sources, don't create such articles per WP:GNG. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:39, 22 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Minnesota-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 10:47, 22 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Companies-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 10:48, 22 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Commenting that I think it is fine the poster made a starter page, even without solid referencing. We can help. The age of the company of course means digitized newspaper articles are somewhat lacking. That doesn't mean press doesn't exist, just that some additional scrounging behind paywalls may be necessary. I did find an excellent New York Times article from 1961, and various other shorter mentions.
- - "NEW CONCERN FORMED; American Micro Devices to Make Electronic Items". www.nytimes.com. New York Times. 1961. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

The research I brought back to page is confusing unfortunately. Some reports say the company ceased to exist in 1980, but other articles cite it as a powerhouse in the 1990s. Either the company was rekindled, or those journalists are ragingly incompetent and are misspelling Advanced Micro Devices. Until we've clarified, hard to argue the company is not of note. If someone with paywall access in Minnesota or California looked through local newspapers, perhaps we could find some clarification. Articles describe the company having offices in Minnesota and Silicon Valley.MidwestSalamander (talk) 14:40, 22 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Unless such sources it's find it's an invalid argument, per WP:THEREMUSTBESOURCES. Also, keep in mind WP:AUDIENCE - if coverage exists only in local newspapers, new or old, that's not enough. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:48, 25 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Local may have been a foolish way for me to say it, I know it can be sort of a dirty word in AFD. Of course small city rags or regional trade publications are typically low-profile and local, but major city newspapers like the Star Tribune or Mercury News are notable and read throughout their states, and even nationally. They could help us quite a bit, but the availability of their older articles is dodgier than other newspapers. MidwestSalamander (talk) 13:05, 26 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Those would qualify for being regional and if we can find coverage of this company in them that does not look routine/press-release like, it would be a good source for keeping the article. So, now that we agree on what makes for a good source, can we find any? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:35, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'll do another research round this afternoon, maybe I'll get lucky. If not, then so be it. One New York Times article isn't enough for GNG much less WP:CORPDEPTH, and I can unfortunately can't think of a good redirect or merge location. MidwestSalamander (talk) 15:28, 29 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I did a little bit of digging at newspapers.com, since I have an account there. The most reliable articles seem to indicate that American Micro Devices incorporated in Minnesota in 1961 but did most of its business in Phoenix, Arizona. They made rectifiers for a while, but went out of business in 1965 after Sylvania Electric Products stopped selling American Micro's products. Then, in 1966, American Micro Devices bought Standard Rectifiers of El Monte, CA in 1966, and refinanced and reorganized the company. After that, there's no further news about American Micro Devices except for a couple letters to investment advice columns in 1988 asking if American Micro's stock was still worth anything. The investment advice columnist(s) said that the company went out of business in 1980. So, I'd think that any mentions of American Micro Devices after 1980 are probably confused with Advanced Micro Devices. Based on the fairly minimal coverage I've seen of the 1961-1980 company, they don't look all that notable, so my advice is delete. --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 16:01, 22 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the helpful research! MidwestSalamander (talk) 13:08, 26 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Article creator says KEEP, naturally. Thanks to all those who've dug up som any references and additional material on this formerly obscure company, much more than it had when nominated. There does seem to be a lot of confusion between this company and the later AMD. It would seem to be a fine thing for an encyclopedia to resolve this confusion. Gosh, can we spare 7 1/2 kilobytes for this tiny article? --Wtshymanski (talk) 05:36, 23 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Please see WP:GNG. It's not our job to collect information on stuff that's too obscure to be notable. See also WP:MERCY, WP:ITSUSEFUL. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:48, 25 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Probably better argument is WP:NOHARM. – The Grid (talk) 17:19, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. I bit the bullet to get behind the Newspapers.com paywall, easily found enough coverage from the 1960s to argue WP:CORPDEPTH is met. Adding to the page now. MidwestSalamander (talk) 19:47, 29 March 2019 (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.