Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Levitron

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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 per no consensus/article cleanup during AfD.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:52, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Levitron[edit]

Levitron (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

This article is being used to assert a trademark rather than describe the subject. Following discussion, the majority of notable material in this article was moved to Spin stabilized magnetic levitation. The original article was made a redirect to the new page, because the individual instance of the toy in question is not notable. This has been continually reverted by editors who wish to use the article to discuss Creative Gifts' trademark on a particular instance of the toy, even thought the information therein is covered adequately at other articles. per WP:COATRACK, we shouldn't use articles on subjects to discuss issues which are tangential to the subject themselves. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 07:47, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep. Looks like notable product, and the trademark litigation is a notable historical event. LotLE×talk 07:51, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Get rid of that advertisement quickly! Alexius08 is welcome to talk about his contributions. 08:36, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - as it is, this is advertising. Perhaps if someone started over. LonelyBeacon (talk) 09:43, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment: Well, "Perhaps if someone started over" is pretty much WP:ATD, but how exactly does "Trademark litigation history" qualify as an ad anyway? Looks to me like at least some of the article is just fine in its current form--all the more reason for WP:ATD. Cosmic Latte (talk) 09:46, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: The "Trademark litigation history" section is unique to the brand. Besides, plenty of brands have uncontested WP articles, even when the generic products also have their own articles. Cosmic Latte (talk) 09:46, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The trademark issue is well covered in Trademark, but the history of this article shows that it is non neutral over a long, long period. Notably, the current article fails to cover prior patents even though the various academic reliable sources say that that's the original/same invention... so there's a business/ego reason that the makers do not want it being there- it looks very much like they keep removing it (that's the only explanation I have). But the device itself is covered adequately in spin stabilized magnetic levitation.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 14:48, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - a shame it was nominated at AfD first, instead of CSD. It clearly violates WP:CSD#G11. It might be that this company could be notable - you'd really have to dig through those hits to properly assert notability - but this article doesn't assert it in the least.  Frank  |  talk  12:43, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    • Comment: If it's potentially notable in a manner that could be expressed through revision, then it's not WP:AFD and most definitely not WP:CSD, but rather WP:ATD. Still not sure how "trademark litigation history" is going to promote the product, which would have been the aim of an advertisement. Cosmic Latte (talk) 13:03, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      Comment - Note that the company name is the same as the product. This article is about the product, and is purely advertising. The links I provided are about the company which might be notable. I was calling attention to the fact that a quick search for notability might pull something up, but it's the company, in a different context.  Frank  |  talk  13:23, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No it isn't a company name. This is just a trademark of Fascinations that they use for a few of their products.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 16:42, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for keeping me honest. The search I did came up with "New Orleans-area companies Textron Marine & Land and Levitron LLC are teaming up to design eco-friendly oil and gas exploration vehicles known as hoverbarges and hovercrafts." and I made an incorrect logical leap. Seems it is a different company, and, interestingly, the referenced Levitron LLC is the oil & gas part of that duo and not the levitation part.  Frank  |  talk  23:16, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep but clean-up so it doesn't sound like an advertisement, and so that it has a neutral point of view. D.M.N. (talk) 13:06, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect to spin stabilized magnetic levitation and lock (otherwise Delete and salt). The trademark legal issues are well covered elsewhere, and there's nothing else of importance that isn't covered elsewhere. The article is far from neutral, and the history shows that this isn't going to change; this article isn't fixable.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 14:40, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Article does not improvement and needs clean-up to show a neutral point of view, but I think the article should be allowed to develop. LakeBoater (talk) 16:29, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Article was created almost 4 years ago, and has seen significant attention, if it's not neutral now, it certainly won't ever be.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 16:38, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Spam: non-spammy article already exists and a redirect achieves nothing ukexpat (talk) 19:34, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Delete as per Ukexpat. Gorgonzola (talk) 20:20, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Wikipedia is not a place for anybody to assert their trademark. Ugh. Ray Yang (talk) 22:06, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete or redirect this spam. Antelantalk 22:49, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete I don't think the trademark is notable. The court case might be, and the device might be, but if this article is actually about the trademark itself, it should go.gnfnrf (talk) 04:52, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. -- Fabrictramp | talk to me 12:33, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - seems notable as per sources. It's got a lot of ghits, from which I'm in process of finding some reliable sources. The Albuquerque business journal article reports they sold 750,000 units in 1994-1999, and it's still going strong, so it's a fairly significant toy line. The article just needs some TLC...I'm in process of de-spamming it. It looks like someone wrote it not as an advertisement but as a way of asserting their intellectual property. For Wikipedia, the point is that it's a popular line of toys, not that they own a trademark or patents or the details of how they won a trademark suit. Those are worth a brief mention though. Wikidemo (talk) 15:49, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm pretty sure I said all that in the summary. The point is that the toyline discussion was moved to a generic title (spin stabilized magnetic levitation) to avoid the trademark talk, so at the moment the Levitron article is just a POV fork with extra trademark discussion. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:55, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm editing it. This is clearly notable stuff. Levitron is a notable product - plenty of sources. If necessary we could downplay discussion of the device to talk about the product: the phenomenon is physics. The product is the top, the world globe, the spinning space shuttle, the company history, the litigation, etc. The generic article may be a content fork, but maybe not. It's not unusual to have an article about a thing, and another article about a brand it's marketed under. See, for example, Paracetamol and Tylenol, or Hypotrochoid and Spirograph. The more I get into this, the more fascinating it becomes - it looks like one of the Net's early trademark wars / attack litigation pages. Obviously, someone has been squatting on the article to try to turn it into an advocacy piece for the company that markets the product against the obvious fact that it's only a minor improvement on an earlier-patented device. There are some serious WP:COI, WP:OWN and WP:SOCK issues here. I see from your comments on the talk page that you nominated the article in frustration after attempts to manage the situation failed. I appreciate the effort to keep Wikipedia orderly but the best remedy here is to deal with those problems head-on and insist on our ability to treat things encyclopedically, not just to delete a page because it's contentious. Your nomination, and the discussion to date, have pretty much missed the point. Wikidemo (talk) 17:00, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as rewritten (changed from delete, above).  Frank  |  talk  20:08, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per Frank. The rewrite seems to be heading in the right direction. Cosmic Latte (talk) 17:43, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
We've had rewrites before though. And it seems unlikely that the improvement will remain, given the long history of the article.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 17:56, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: So basically, past versions were bad; therefore future versions will be bad, even though the present version is good? Not sure I follow the reasoning here. Cosmic Latte (talk) 18:09, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Because we're supposed to be voting on the likely final state of the article. The fact that the article has been majorly non neutral over almost 4 years is a bit of a clue that not enough neutral contributors are around for it to overcome the commercial pressures to make it read like an advertisement. In other words, the final state is likely to be poor, even if right *now* it may be OK.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 20:06, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: We're supposed to be voting on whether the article meets WP:DP, and I don't see anything in there about some "final state" (whatever that's supposed to mean). We're supposed to be considering whether the article can be improved, and by your own admission there is already an "improvement," albeit one that might not likely "remain." I'm not sure how the latter speculation has anything to do with the article's history, as new editors and ideas can come along all the time. And if there's a problem with future edits, then we revert and/or discuss. That's how Wikipedia works, aye? Cosmic Latte (talk) 09:54, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - whatever former issues it may have had appear to have been cleaned up --T-rex 23:11, 18 July 2008 (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.
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