Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Biotech and pharmaceutical companies in the New York metropolitan area

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 no consensus. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:39, 7 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Biotech and pharmaceutical companies in the New York metropolitan area[edit]

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Fails WP:GNG, WP:ORGIN, WP:ORGSIG. Reliable sources WP:RS and the article references do not support the extensive list of companies on this list. The initial four references appear to be population census data which are unrelated to this list. The final six references are company websites. The claim is these are all notable companies. Sources do not support this contention. This appears to be a case of WP:UNDUE by claiming notability where it does not exist, and by giving prominence where it is not due on Wikipedia. This project is not a directory WP:NOTDIR, not an advertising platform, and not a platform for promotion WP:PROMO. --- Steve Quinn (talk) 19:54, 23 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think you're overthinking this. This is simply a list article (like many others on Wikipedia) that could easily moved to "List of biotech and pharmaceutical companies in the New York metropolitan area", although I'm not sure that's really necessary. The refs are there simply to prove the existence of these as biotech companies, there's nothing more notable than that, nor does the article claim them to be – as is also true with other List articles. The article is written in a pretty staid manner and doesn't come off as spam in any way, IMHO. In fact, for a List article, it's actually cited quite well, don't you think? If this article were not allowed to exist, that would topple the entire domain of List articles on Wikipedia. Castncoot (talk) 02:40, 24 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep and improve. We should have a real article here, not a listicle. The majority of the largest pharma firms in the world are headquartered in the New York area. We should be able to muster more sources than Ohio bioscience sector. Trade association example: [1]. Will come back with better WP:RS when I have time. Chris vLS (talk) 02:46, 24 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You seem like an insightful editor and perhaps an expert on this topic, Chris vLS – it would be fantastic if you could buff it up just a bit... Castncoot (talk) 03:13, 24 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Rename to a "list of..." to be an accurate title. Per MOS:LIST the 3 failures cited for an article do not apply to this list and lists are valid. My opinion, the present list is a valuable resource list to keep.CuriousMind01 (talk) 13:42, 24 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. Lemongirl942 (talk) 04:33, 25 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. Lemongirl942 (talk) 04:33, 25 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. Lemongirl942 (talk) 04:33, 25 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of New York-related deletion discussions. Lemongirl942 (talk) 04:33, 25 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep and improve - Agree that article should be renamed "List of ....". As a list, WP:GNG doesn't really apply (since "List of ..." is not going to be a topic covered substantially in secondary sources). The topic of this list is likely useful. Companies on a list don't necessarily have to be notable, but we will have to scrub the list of WP:OR and find refs to back up whatever remains. I understand the concern per WP:NOTDIR, but I think a useful article could be crafted from this topic. Ajpolino (talk) 18:46, 25 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Wikipedia is not the phone book. SW3 5DL (talk) 02:59, 27 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Companies-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 03:38, 28 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep -- the last two mayors, and the current governor, have made the expansion of this sector to be major initiatives. There are plenty of available sources online. Bearian (talk) 19:09, 28 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by the nominator. The topic itself is not notable. There is no coverage in reliable sources for this topic and stand alone lists must satisfy Wikipedia's core content policies per the following page and section:

Stand alone lists and the section entitled content policies - WP:V, .WP:NOR, WP:NPOV. There must be reliable sources available to satisfy these core content policies - and no reliable sources seem to be available.

And none of the companies are shown to be notable. The references do not support notability of any of these companies and the references do not support this as a notable topic. I haven't found any sources that do this either.

WP:MOS has no bearing on WP:N, verifiability, no original research and nuetral point of view. So trying to base inclusion on WP:MOS does not work.

Also, there has been no improvement in the references since the opening of this AfD by the author or anyone else. The author (above - first comment - indented) simply makes arguments that have no bearing on this article's relationship to core content policies - of which there is no relationship. As stated above in the original nomination, some refs are merely websites - and these do nothing to indicate notability or satisfy core content policies. The other refs are population statistics and these have no relationship to the topic or the listed items - and therefore fail notability and core content policies.

This means most of the listed items have no support from the references, not even proof they exist. The effort for creating this article and showing that it merits inclusion seems to be much less than minimum. The references appear to be window dressing and gives the appearance of actual referencing - when at least half the referencing has no relationship to this article. This seems to indicate that point of view for this article is not neutral and therefore, ultimately, the article serves as a directory or promotional piece. ----Steve Quinn (talk) 03:24, 29 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

delete - Most of the lead is about NYC per se and not the biotech industry there; the lead does not establish the notability of the topic as required per WP:LISTN. Additionally, WP:LISTCOMPANY specifically says that for a company to be included in a list article, there must be independent, reliable sources for it. If you look at the sourcing (which is very badly formatted), this is mostly sourced to directories (which is getting pretty close to copy/pasting) and where it isn't sourced to a directory, it is sourced to company websites (not independent). So... this fails the relevant notability guidelines and runs afoul of WP:NOTDIRECTORY Jytdog (talk) 04:07, 29 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, – Juliancolton | ^Talk 03:53, 31 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep and improve (forgot to actually !vote above). Isn't it ironic that User:Jytdog is the one who suggested that I start this article ([2]) ?! Rather than trying to improve it, he all of a sudden wants to delete it to perhaps give him some much-needed leverage in the discussion on Talk:Silicon Alley. Most of the lede is about the NYC metropolitan area per se and not the industry? NOT! Not good faith. Castncoot (talk) 14:30, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I thought you could make a decent list article out of the topic. but this is not a policy/guideline-compliant list article (please actually read the links in my !vote) and would need to be completely reworked to make it one. and i didn't object when you created it. finally, the rfc is going fine, no need for "leverage" whatever you mean by that. Jytdog (talk) 18:11, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

So what you're saying is to keep and improve this by adding other references. Castncoot (talk) 18:18, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Rather, it seems the Jytdog has aptly noted that this article does not qualify for inclusion per WP:LISTN, WP:LISTCOMPANY, and WP:LSC. In fact, this appears to fail WP:LISTCOMPANY and WP:LSC because none of the references are reliable sources. Also, in contrast to what the author initially claimed above, the intro of the article clearly makes the claim that this article is a "partial and growing list of notable New York metropolitan area biotechnology and pharmaceutical corporations" - (please see diff [3]) - and this is not the case as demonstrated by the lack of reliable sourcing in this article. Steve Quinn (talk) 04:11, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The topic is appropriate for a standalone list and the sources are here to back it up. I have my own opinions on Silicon Alley, but that's irrelevant here. If there's editing or cleanup to be done that's a matter to be discussed at the talk page, not an excuse for deletion. Alansohn (talk) 05:20, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand, why is the topic appropriate for a standalone list? Which sources back this up as a topic that merits inclusion? I don't see any, and in particular the references in the article don't seem to demonstrate this satisfies the core content policies I noted above. The references refer to one subject, while the topic is a different subject. I am willing to review the references or sources to which you refer - which ones are they? ----Steve Quinn (talk) 08:01, 6 January 2017 (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.