Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Holvi

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 merge to E-Residency of Estonia. Some portions may be better merged into Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria; I'll leave the details up to whoever does the merge. Please read through the whole discussion here to understand the options, then use your best judgement. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:38, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Holvi

Holvi (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Non-notable company that fails WP:NCORP and more specifically WP:CORPDEPTH. Nothing seems to be individually notable about Holvi, nor is a case made for why it is distinctly different from other banks or why it should be included in an encyclopedia. Though it was founded in 2011, as of April 2017 it was featured on a list of start-ups, so WP:TOOSOON may apply. The article also suffers from a lack of in-depth sources (note the new NCORP guidlines) and from the fact that the company was bought out by a larger, more notable company Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria. Delete or redirect in my view. SamHolt6 (talk) 13:52, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Companies-related deletion discussions. The Mighty Glen (talk) 14:34, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Finance-related deletion discussions. The Mighty Glen (talk) 14:34, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Finland-related deletion discussions. The Mighty Glen (talk) 14:34, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

• Keep I've added some extra relevant info to the stub. The government partnership makes the company distinctly different from other banks, in my view. From what I can find it's the only such e-residency banking partner of the Government of Estonia. Coverage by multiple reputable secondary sources. MinotaurX (talk) 15:36, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the Article Rescue Squadron's list of content for rescue consideration. MinotaurX (talk) 16:33, 27 March 2018 (UTC).

Note: The above listing was not worded neutrally. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:33, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Your view is that its not neutral because they said "in my view" in their request. My view is that saying "in my view" does not make it not neutral. At any rate, you can discuss it in the proper place, no need dragging that argument here. Dream Focus 18:37, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

That's not why I said that. I'll let other editors judge for themselves. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:46, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Could you expand a little on your suggestion? I wrote 'in my view' as I commonly use this phrase in real life discussions, especially when I'm not an expert on the topic. My interpreation of the notibily rules is that the goverment partnership makes Holvi distinctive. MinotaurX (talk) 19:12, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm not going to take a position in this AfD. My concern is not that you said "in my view". It's that you described the page subject with such terms as "unique" and "distinctly different from other banks". --Tryptofish (talk) 19:18, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

'...distinctly different from other banks' is the exact wording used by the the editor who tagged the article, I was simply replying to that opening comment reflecting the same langauge. MinotaurX (talk) 19:24, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm sure that you said it in good faith. And those are appropriate arguments (I guess) to put forth in this AfD. But they do not constitute a neutrally worded notice to other editors to come here. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:28, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

I just realized that you are a new editor, so I hope that it does not come across like I'm finding fault with you. I'm really not. Wikipedia has a guideline about WP:CANVASS, which is what was on my mind. When you post a message asking editors to go and take part in a discussion somewhere else, it can sometimes be a problem if it's worded in a non-neutral manner. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:36, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

UPDATE to my original comment: Back to the topic of the AfD, I would argue that the cited articles in ERR (a national, public broadcaster - a smaller BBC or PBS), Newsweek, Computer Weekly, and ZDNet add up to significant coverage in independent, multiple, reliable, secondary sources. MinotaurX (talk) 10:21, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

• Keep Toosoon does not apply since they've been around since 2011. Wired magazine calling them startup of the week back in December 2012 and interviewing them counts towards their notability. [1] Reading through other reliable sources referenced in the article, this clearly meets the notability guidelines for an article. Dream Focus 17:05, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
  • That fails the new and improved WP:NCORP, and the closer should take that into account. In particular, it is not a secondary source as understood by NCORP. Interviews explicitly do not count towards notability anymore. They are not intellectually independent and they are not secondary. You may not like the new standards, but this is the community consensus on what sourcing means for corporations. The GNG is not the relevant guideline, NCORP is, and this fails that. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:03, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
    • For notability, yes interviews count. Whether the news source feels them important enough to write about them or interview them, same thing. For referencing information in the article, its a different story. And WP:NOTABILITY clearly states an article is notable if it passes GNG or a subject specific guideline. Dream Focus 18:29, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
      • NCORP is a standard by which the GNG is to be judged for organizations: it defines what it means in relation to these groups. See WP:ORGCRITE. It is intended to be stronger. To the point about interviews, as you don't appear to have followed the links to the new guideline, I'll reproduce what it says about primary sourcing where it explicitly mentions interviews as an example of something that does not count towards notability (emphasis mine).

        A primary source is an original material that is close to an event, and is often an account written by people who are directly involved. Primary sources cannot be used to establish notability. In business setting, frequent primary sources include:* corporate annual or financial reports, proxy statements,* memoirs or interviews by executives,* public announcements of corporate actions (press releases),* court filings, patent applications,* government audit or inspection reports,* customer testimonials or complaints, * product instruction manuals or specifications.

The new criteria was the standard consensus in AfDs, but was put to the community so it could be codified as a guideline whenever these type of disagreements that we are having now come up. The source you cited above was an interview with the co-founders of the organization. As such, it is a type of source mentioned by name in the relevant guideline as not counting. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:45, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

History shows you did a lot of editing and arguing about that secondary guideline, lot of people reverting each other. Anyway, the general notability guidelines are met, so the article should be kept. Dream Focus 22:57, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

No. I implemented the proposed text per the close of a community wide RfC. I and several other editors then tweaked the text to comply with the caveats of the close. These tweaks actually narrowed the scope so that the guideline would affect less organizations. Even if that weren't the case and I had personally written the guideline (I didn't, I just clicked the button to implement it), that wouldn't matter as the community has vetted this as the standard that it wants. Crying that something meets the GNG when it fails NCORP is no longer acceptable. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:56, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

• Redirect to Banco_Bilbao_Vizcaya_Argentaria#Mergers_and_acquisitions, and pick up anything useful (one or two sentences) from the article history. I don't see it meeting WP:CORPDEPTH stand-alone, based on available sources. Working with the gov of Estonia is hardly a claim of significance, and there's nothing better. K.e.coffman (talk) 22:35, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
• Redirect to Banco_Bilbao_Vizcaya_Argentaria#Mergers_and_acquisitions per above. Fails the new and improved WP:NCORP. Any arguments based on the GNG alone without analyzing it according to the relevant standard are not based on our policies and guidelines and should be discounted by the closer. In addition to the Wired source that doesn't count towards NCORP, the rest of them don't either: it is primarily trade press or other churnalism/non-intellectually independent sourcing, and NCORP is clear there is a presumption against the use of coverage in trade magazines to establish notability as businesses frequently make use of these publications to increase their visibility. Nothing here overcomes that presumption. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:03, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
  • FWIW, I think it makes more sense as a target to send it to the parent company, but I'm fine with the alternate redirect target suggested below, and don't want my suggestion here to keep this as an article for longer than needed. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:26, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

  What nonsense is this? You want the closing administrator to ignore the rules of WP:notability just because you decided your guideline was more important than the General Notability Guideline? Ridiculous. And how exactly is Wired magazine "non-intellectually"? Its a tech nerd magazine. Dream Focus 23:02, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

  This nonsense is called a community consensus following an RfC that was advertised on WP:CENT and posted at the village pump. NCORP defines what the GNG means for corporations (again, see WP:ORGCRITE). The community intended it to be a check on the ambiguous language of the GNG that can be gamed very easily at AfD in a field where crap sourcing such as that Wired piece exists in abundance. Even if you don't think it isn't intellectually independent, it doesn't matter: as I quoted above, interviews with executives are excluded by name from counting toward notability. Your argument literally has zero policy backing. The community has rejected your view here, and the closer should as well based on the current guideline. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:56, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

  A very small percentage of Wikipedia editors noticed and participated in the discussion, and this did not change what WP:NOTABILITY says about the General Notability Guidelines. So unless you get consensus to change that, nothing you say matters. Dream Focus 23:18, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

  You are quite simply wrong. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:24, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

• There are other reliable sources in the article proving it passes GNG, such as the one from Computer Weekly. Anyway, as far as the interview discussion goes, I started a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Notability#Can_a_subject_specific_guideline_invalidate_the_General_Notability_Guideline? about it. Dream Focus 00:43, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

See my quote in green in my !vote. There is an explicit presumption agains their use as they are trade publications, and NCORP assumes that they are not independent of the subject. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:24, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

• WP:Reference bombed CORP articles are so tedious. Let's look trough the sources in order for notability-attesting sources:

ref1 Three mere mentions. No good

ref 2 An interview. Not an independent source. No good.

ref3 Prominently mentioned, but no depth on the Holvi, the aticle is about International Bank Account Numbers (IBANs). No good.

ref4 "Holvi is a payment institution authorised by Finland’s Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA), giving it the freedom to operate across Europe. The service is, therefore, independent of old-fashioned banks; the company is independently regulated and can open accounts without depending on third parties." OK, looks like direct introductory commentary, but the next paragraph being an uncommented CEO quote and the one after "The company is accepting invites for the 19 new markets right now. You can register your interest via holvi.com" means that this is non-independent promotion. No good.

Ref 5 BBVA buys Holvi, only descibes it as a "yet another online banking startup". This is very shallow coverage of Holvi. No good.

Ref 6 "Holvi, an online bank for small businesses, is slowly expanding across Europe. It touts itself as a banking sector disruptor, which it just might be if it continues along the same path. What sets it apart from traditional banks is its simplicity - with it only taking a couple of minutes to set up an account. From there you’ll have a range of tools available to run your business that are traditionally only offered by online accountancy services. There’s no monthly fee, but Holvi does take €0.90 for every incoming/outgoing transaction. It’s also completely independent of typical banks and is independently regulated. So far, Holvi has raised $2.7m." Reads like an introductory secondary source describing the topic. OK, that's one count to notability. As pointed out by TonyBallioni below, this source is not a Forbes-proper article, but a Forbe's user-supplied article. Not a reliable source, not if the author is not a reputable journalist. modified SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:36, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Ref 7 Good. Many direct statements describing Holvi. That's Two. That's one supporting "Keep". Need two. modified SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:36, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

I wish ... that authors and proponents for WP:CORP articles should be required, should have the onus, to present the best two to three notability-attesting sources. I found two acceptable sources, number 6 & 7. Why should I have to examine 1-5? Shouldn't the authors and proponents of WP:CORP articles know what is an independent secondary source that comments directly and with depth on the topic? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:57, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Continuing to review the last two referenced:

Ref 8. "... a collaboration with Finnish fintech company Holvi, which allows e-residents ... Holvi rose to prominence by offering a smart banking service for small-scale entrepreneurs, integrating digital banking, bookkeeping, and invoicing. " This looks like it is right on the minimum for direct coverage with depth. I think it is better suited for supporting the mention of Holvi at E-Residency_of_Estonia#Partner_services

Ref 9. Seems maybe OK.

With ref 6 discounted, I find refs 1-6 not supporting notability at all, and refs 7, 8 & 9 making a weak case. For these three sources, the focus of the source is E-Residency_of_Estonia. I am thinking Merge and redirect to E-Residency_of_Estonia#Partner_services, as barely notable, and if notable notable for only one thing, and that is the topic at E-Residency_of_Estonia. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:48, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe, source 6 is by a Forbes contributor, not from Forbes itself. Forbes contributors are not considered reliable sources because there is not editorial oversight from Forbes staff: they are contributions from the public that self-publish using the Forbes platform and where one article a week is required to maintain use of the platform. Forbes contributors program is roughly equivalent to a blogging platform, and the minimum publication requirement often means that the contributors themselves reach out to companies seeking PR to help use to meet the requirement, and some are even paid by the companies themselves to write the pieces (that is allowed). The bio of this contributor makes it clear that he is a freelancer, and those are typically more suspect in terms of RS standards when we are dealing with publishing platforms like the Forbes contributors model.

WP:NCORP addresses Forbes as a source twice as an example (Ctrl+F for Forbes.) I think source 7 has some more standing, but it does read a but like churnalism, but it isn't the worst. On the whole, if we're basing the notability off of sources 6 and 7, I don't think they give that much. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:51, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

You appear correct. Strike Ref 6 as useful. I will need to look at Refs #8+ ... —SmokeyJoe (talk) 19:37, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Refs 7 8 9 are maybe OK, not to be rejected, but not great. As they are all in the context of E-Residency_of_Estonia, I have !voted above "Merge and redirect to E-Residency_of_Estonia#Partner_services". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:50, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

• Comment: I would assume most potential sources to be in other languages than English, given where Holvi has had most of its activities. I'm pretty certain I'd consider it relevant, but it has to be verifiable as well. The first few hits when I search is this profile by Kauppalehti and this article by German Business Insider, but they aren't great. A search for Holvi in a nordic media database (mainly newspaper articles) gives some thousand hits to go through, a fair amount of them not relevant at all as "holvi" means "vault" in Finnish and thus turns up as a normal noun, too. /Julle (talk) 11:05, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
• Merge into Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria. It seems to be a very small part of the bank. On its own it fails WP:NCORP. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:52, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
• Having thought about this, I think the suggested redirect is a rather unsatisfying solution, for a couple of reasons. BBVA didn't acquire Holvi until 2016, which means that for the majority of its existence, it had very little to do with BBVA, and that article shouldn't go into any details about what happened to smaller companies before they were bought, so it can't be much longer than the short sentence currently is in the BBVA article. There's also the fact that we have competing suggesting targets for a redirect – E-Residency of Estonia#Partner services. I've done a couple of small fixes, I'll try to find the time to dig up more non-English sources, and hopefully keep it as separate article. /Julle (talk) 17:25, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
  • I support converting to a redirect to E-Residency_of_Estonia#Partner_services, with more information merged to there, and some recent business information merged to Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria. A selective split, but I think that the most interesting information will be found at the e-Residency_of_Estonia article. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:40, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Comment: I've added some additional info with non-English sources. [3] in paricular covers only Holvi, no aquisition or e-Residency connection, in a well-known newspaper. There is now without doubt enough to maintain a standalone article. A split into multiple separate articles as suggested above would be a mess. MinotaurX (talk) 20:28, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Google Translate suggests that is a minor blurb that doesn't give us significant coverage. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:26, 3 April 2018 (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.