Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bright Scholar Education Group

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. Spartaz ^Humbug! 10:57, 13 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Bright Scholar Education Group[edit]

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Based on my WP:BEFORE search, I don't think this meets WP:NCORP. In fairness I don't speak any dialect of Chinese, so I can only search in English, but what I found and what's presently on the article doesn't inspire confidence. Generally my search turned up business/stock listings, blogs, and articles based on press releases, none of which are reliable under WP:CORPDEPTH.

The article has some interesting history; it was first created in 2017 by JonathanHynes, a sockpuppet of BrightScholarJonathan (see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/BrightScholarJonathan). It was deleted as G11 by Jimfbleak (courtesy ping). In May 2017, it was recreated by PariahFrog, another BSJ sock, and G5'd by me.

A couple days ago Leedade showed up on my talk page and asked to see the deleted content. Their only other edits aside from that request are at Draft:Meten English, a similar English-teaching company. They claim they are not paid or employed by either company, but I have my doubts, given the history and their choice of subject matter. After I declined to restore the content, they recreated the article and removed the thread from my talk page.

I don't believe the references in the article are sufficient under CORPDEPTH, as follows:

Teach Away is a teacher-placement startup whose purpose is to make money by placing teachers into jobs. It is therefore not an independent or reliable source for information on the companies it partners with.
The company's own website is not independent for the purpose of notability.
Same as above.
Seeking Alpha is a crowd-sourced blog site, so it is not reliable for a notability claim.
CNBC is not unreliable, but a stock listing is not an in-depth source for the purpose of supporting notability.
The Wellesley News is... sketchy looking, to say the least. If it's the best independent source available, that says a lot about the company.
See point 1 for Teach Away.

Long story short, I'm not convinced, and I'd like to see some opinions from the community. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 10:50, 4 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of China-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 10:57, 4 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Education-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 10:57, 4 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Schools-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 11:01, 4 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 11:02, 4 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Companies-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 11:02, 4 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Hmm, this is a tricky one. On the one hand, I think you're right about the independence of the current sources, and the sockpuppet history is concerning. On the other hand, any organization or district that ran this many schools in the US would almost certainly end up passing the notability threshold, so I'm concerned about regional bias and source language bias. If the organziation really is the largest network of international schools in China, as the article claims, that's further evidence of notability. Further, the company is valued over $1bn, and is publicly traded on the NYSE. From NCORP / WP:LISTED:

Consensus has been that notability is not automatic in this (or any other) case. However, sufficient independent sources almost always exist for such companies, so that notability can be established using the primary criterion discussed above. Examples of such sources include independent press coverage and analyst reports. Accordingly, article authors should make sure to seek out such coverage and add references to such articles to properly establish notability. Editors coming across an article on such a company without such references are encouraged to search (or request that others search) prior to nominating for deletion, given the very high (but not certain) likelihood that a publicly traded company is actually notable according to the primary criterion.

I'll try to follow up on this over the next few days. MarginalCost (talk) 11:25, 4 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Weak keep - I've done some substantial digging into this, trying to find sources that focus on the financial side. The results are unimpressive to say the least, but I think they just barely pass the threshhold established by NCORP and detailed at WP:LISTED. There is a lot of coverage out there that totally fails ORGIND and WP:ROUTINE, so it's difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. Here's what I'm hanging my hat on: MarketWatch lists 8 analyst reports from 4 companies (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, and Deutche Bank), and CapitalWatch references an analysis from China Renaissance. (There are also references to a Frost & Sullivan report in other places, but this seems to have been commissioned by BEDU, so I omit it.) NCorp specifically lists "analyst reports" as an acceptable source of establishing notability. All of these, of course, are paywalled. But notability depends on the existence of sources, not their accessibility.

The only non-paywalled sources that I'd consider are South China Morning Post and China Daily (pulling off the Bloomberg Newswire) writing about the company under its old name. I think they pass WP:ROUTINE, but just barely.

So we're left with publicly accessible sources that are mediocre, and paywalled reports no one has seen that are more reliable. For a previous AfD that touched on these points, see Cominar, though in that case the publicly accessible sources were a bit stronger. I am voting weak keep, but will shed no tears if things go the other way, especially if the sockpuppet/undisclosed paid editing claim can be proven. MarginalCost (talk) 06:21, 5 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Delete regardless of notability it's a obvious promo by a likely sock Jimfbleak - talk to me? 12:37, 4 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I can promise you that i am not a sockpuppet, i started editing only a few months ago, and i have only ever used this wikipedia account. Its true i've only edited these two articles but i plan to edit and contribute much more when i have sufficient time. The other guy that was accused of sockpuppetry did so in 2017, a full 2 years before i ever tried to edit any wiki article.

Delete as unambiguous WP:PROMO. WP:NOT is policy: Wikipedia is not a place to promote things. Bakazaka (talk) 04:27, 11 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That is such a stupid stance, if you actually read the article you would see it is clearly not just promotion, its simple information about a company. By your logic we should delete all pages about companies or businesses. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Leedade (talk • contribs) 09:58, 11 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

What are the three best examples of significant coverage of the company (not the founder) in independent, reliable sources (not from press releases, routine financial coverage, or business partners)? Bakazaka (talk) 18:10, 11 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

NASDAQ, CNBC, China Daily, South China Morning Post, all fully reputable and reliable sources, obviously western news sites wont have coverage of this fully chinese company but these are just fine. In fact its much better coverage than many other articles ive read lately. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Leedade (talk • contribs) 04:05, 12 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If those are the best sources, then the company fails WP:CORPDEPTH. NASDAQ and CNBC provide routine financial information and profiles based on information provided by the company. The China Daily and SCMP articles are brief coverage of a possible financial transaction, and they are clearly (and admittedly) assembled from company-provided information. That's what makes this Wikipedia article WP:PROMO: it is entirely assembled from information provided by, or from sources directly related to, the company itself, and is therefore an extension of the company's PR/marketing efforts. Wikipedia is not a platform for promotion. Bakazaka (talk) 04:59, 12 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

KEEP as the article now has enough quality sources to be considered reliable and the article is clearly about a very notable subject, plus im not a sockpuppet and nobody has any evidence that i am, the article should be left up. Also anyone saying its promotion has clearly not read the article or needs to reread the definition of an advert. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Leedade (talk • contribs) 10:03, 11 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Did anyone check Chinese language sources yet. Here's a few for starters: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7].----Pontificalibus 14:31, 12 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The first one has less than 2 paragraphs about the company, and repeats financial information and quotes. The 2nd one is "coverage" of the company's own promotional event, including extensive responses from company officers. The first news.sina.com.cn article contains only a passing mention. The China Daily story is a repeat of the others listed in previous comments, and similarly draws information from the company itself. The second news.sina.com.cn is a slightly reworded press release. The Sohu.com "story" is literally just stats from the company's financial reports, next to stats from another company's financial report (e.g. "x has 5% in this area, while y has 7%"). The NBD article is the closest thing to counting under WP:CORPDEPTH, but it's still mostly the financial report + quotes from company officers. I still think policy outweighs guidelines in any event, but I'll walk away at this point so other editors can weigh in. Bakazaka (talk) 18:57, 12 April 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.