Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/WorkXpress

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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 delete. clear consensus of established editors, and I will salt as suggested. DGG ( talk ) 00:53, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WorkXpress[edit]

WorkXpress (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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Advertising article about a non-notable business. The "references" supplied look impressive; what they show is that some would-be advertisers have become more adept at gaming the system, and that hardly any of them have this business as a major subject. Google News coverage shows one local paper interview with the CEO; other mentions are trivial, non-substantial, and in passing. The attempt to claim minimal importance is rather amusing, but this local award fails the business notability guideline:

  • earned the Fab 5 award in 2006, which was presented by the Harrisburg Regional Chamber and CREDC.[5] The Fab 5 was a competition to find the "Top 5" companies in the region who had been in business two to five years and were headquartered in Cumberland, Dauphin or Perry counties Pennsylvania.

This has already been deleted three times as making an insufficient claim of importance, or as obvious advertising[1]; taking this to AfD to establish a precedent for protection against re-creation. Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 17:38, 2 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 17:43, 2 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Abstain - I took exception to this article, tagging and/or prodding it a while back, and chastised them for abusing Wikipedia. They seemed genuine (if not necessarily verifiably notable) so I spent some time helping them to improve the quality of the article. I'm sitting on the fence for this one but just wanted to give you the background - they're not your average wikispammer. -- samj inout 10:29, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just saw the logs and it turns out they were speedy deleted twice for CSD A7 and once for CSD G11 only weeks apart before being AfD'd. How does that translate to good faith editing, not to mention the WP:COI, WP:V and WP:NPOV issues? -- samj inout 19:40, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Tim Song (talk) 00:40, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I am a founder of WorkXpress, and I appreciate your goals and efforts in regard to keeping Wikipedia free of blatant advertising. Please allow me to make a couple of comments. First, it is true we have been deleted on several occasions, however, each time we have made an effort to understand the cause, and to rectify the cause with facts and evidence. The truth of the matter is that WorkXpress meets the requirements for listing on Wikipedia as we have grown in our understanding of them. For example, WorkXpress is notable; it is at the forefront of a significant shift in technology known as Cloud Computing, and has been recognized by analyst firms like Gartner, Forrester and the 451 Group as such. Second, this notability is verifiable; there have been numerous secondary source articles on WorkXpress, multiple awards and wide range of other validations. Our vision is to make all aspects of business software deployment ranging from development to systems administration even to marketing accessible to the ordinary IT worker, and to empower them to do incredible things. Please, give us the opportunity to provide the supporting documentation that you need prior to deleting this article...we are happy to do so. In conclusion, I believe that what WorkXpress is doing belongs on Wikipedia, not as an advertisement, but as an important part of the emerging historical story of Cloud Computing. This history is still young, and I hope that you can consider the fact that its still being written; albeit with the help of smaller, innovative firms like WorkXpress. Firms like WorkXpress have a part in this story just as important as the Microsofts, Google's and Salesforces of the world. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.235.62.205 (talk) 16:06, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment - thank you for your response. I am probably the wrong person to address the claim that your business "is at the forefront of a significant shift in technology known as Cloud Computing" to. At any rate, I would expect that claim to be verified in sources; I looked, and I'm afraid I found very little there. The deletion template more or less automates the process of looking; you will find what I found.

    Investment analyst firms like Gartner and Forrester generally do not confer notability unless their reports are made available to the general public. Their clients are their "editors", and while I hope their facts are reliable, most of their work is circulated only to paying customers, which makes them of "limited interest and circulation", and as such unhelpful to establish notability. The same is true of local and trade publication coverage, which I mentioned I did find when I looked.

    Ultimately, what you need to show is that your firm has the kind of historical importance that makes it, out of all its rivals, a subject that belongs in a general coverage encyclopedia. I nominated your firm at the same time I did a number of similar articles about small tech firms, in part because I want to see the inclusion policies applied even-handedly. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 19:47, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - According to its founder, Wikipedia's goal is to contain "the sum of all human knowledge", not a "general coverage encyclopedia". Regardless, there have been numerous articles meeting the requirements of a regional secondary source, numerous national/international reviews, etc, and they are listed. The guideline clearly states that "Evidence of attention by international or national, or at least regional, media is a strong indication of notability", and certainly WorkXpress has received plenty of evidenced regional media attention. Further, the guideline states that Notability in general "means "worthy of being noted" or "attracting notice." ", which again, is well evidenced. I think if you give an article like this the benefit of the doubt, in 6-12 months time the answer will present itself...either the company will grow, or it will fail. Is it such a difficult thing to include this article into "the sum of all human knowledge" during the formative years of an entirely new industry (cloud computing), especially given the fact that a reasonable argument can be made for notability? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.235.62.205 (talk) 21:01, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Just a quick note: a link to the public portion ("...generally do not confer notability unless their reports are made available to the public", as per Smerdis of Tlon above) of the article by Gartner entitled "Whose who in Application Platforms for Cloud Computing" and other regional press has been added to the article. Just like many other news agencies, Gartner does collect money from its readers. However also like a news agency, its role is as a trusted advisor on new technologies and trends; if its advice is not accurate and factual, CIO's will not pay for future analysis - but yet they do. WorkXpress to date has never had a financial relationship with Gartner; Gartner analysts chose to include WorkXpress in this report on its merits. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.235.62.205 (talk) 17:55, 10 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, –Juliancolton | Talk 17:05, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note I was just contacted by a reporter from the Central Penn Business Journal about this debate following "a notice" from the company who claim to have been "fighting" with editors over the deletion. I explained how & why wikipedia works, referring them to deletionism and inclusionism in Wikipedia for more information. I sincerely hope the resulting article presents a balanced view of Wikipedia processes rather than a hatchet job. -- samj inout 00:29, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note. I was contacted by probably the same reporter. This would appear to be a rather unusual form of canvassing. They've also added material to the page, mostly aimed at arguing notability by linking to developer's blogs or local TV shows covering tech businesses in Pennsylvania. I am not yet convinced that these sources make this business a topic for the ages, but I do recognize effort. More of the article in its current state seems to be arguing that media mentions make it notable, than that something it made or did was remakable enough to be noticed and that made it notable. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 17:12, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note. I reached out to this reporter asking him to post on this board regarding their coverage of our firm as a verifiable and notable source. After we conversed, he and his editor expressed surprise at this entire experience we were having with Wikipedia...they had no idea Wikipedia was so tightly controlled by such a loose group of individuals. They contacted another regional authority who confirmed that in his experience, small businesses have a very difficult time with Wikipedia. They made the decision on their own to initiate a story (I have zero control over that) simply because the story is interesting. Will it be a "hatchet job"? I seriously doubt it will, but if our experience is any guide, I suspect it will be accurate and quite interesting to most readers.

Despite an admirable set of rules and guidelines, there remains a significant amount of opinion and gray area in Wikipedia, and human interpretation of those gray areas has a significant impact on real people. For example, what relevance does the existence of this reporter and this potential story have to do with the notability discussion of WorkXpress? As another example, the Cloud Computing article which is extremely important right now in shaping an emerging industry leads with an image that is inaccurate, unhelpful and arguably biased towards a limited set of vendors. When we as 7 year experts on the subject commented as such to the author, the reply we received was that this "was just our opinion". However, is not the image just that authors opinion? That content is vital, and important and affects real people, but the truth is that real people (even industry experts) have little obvious power to influence it.

Humorously (or not), the original attempts at describing WorkXpress notability focused on it as being (at least according to our claim) "the worlds only 5GL Platform as a Service", and the support therein. If true, that is a very important piece of notability. However, based on the many criticisms from editors, it's also true, the nature of the article has changed to focus more on the publicity that has been received. The more important claims about WorkXpress have intentionally been edited out, so as not to "offend".

Still, we feel Wikipedia is an important chronicle of this newly emerging Cloud Computing and Platform as a Service space, and we feel we are a part of that story. It is my hope that we can be given the benefit of any doubt that still exists and be given another six months to continue developing the article, the sources etc. I would prefer to add significant content around the true notability of WorkXpress, however, we remain afraid of alienating editors. Do we now have permission to add that content back in? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.235.62.205 (talk) 22:09, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not a "chronicle" of anything that is "newly emerging". Yes, our guidelines do favor that which is older, established, and that has received coverage out of state. Basically, what we need is something from a neutral source of relatively broad and general circulation (i.e. not IT related, and circulated outside of your area of Pennsylvania), announcing that being "the worlds only 5GL Platform as a Service" makes your business a subject that belongs in the history books. I looked, and looked again today; the news, scholar, and book results I saw did not make that case. You're welcome to continue to try, of course. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 23:11, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Some questions: As we understand it, you require "not IT". Are IT Sources only "of limited interest"?
  • Also, you are saying "not from Pennsylvania"? Why does the state of Pennsylvania not qualify as a Region according to Wikipedia? Why does the well established and documented region of Central Pennsylvania not qualify as a "region"? Here where I live, there is a clear distinction between local, regional, national and international media, awards, etc., and those organizations document that reach in their names; this is widely accepted I believe in most other regions of at least this country and I'd guess many others. Further, in looking at the actual definitions of the words local and regional, and without redefining them, the WorkXpress news sources clearly are not local, and clearly qualify as regional. Are coverages by "at least Regional" media not notable according to Wikipedia?
  • I also have questions about why the subject of the article must be, in order for us to be notable, along the lines of "Why the worlds only 5GL platform as a service is historically important"? I thought the definition of notability according to Wikipedia was the much more forgiving standard of "worthy of being noted", which WorkXpress certainly qualifies for.
  • My last question, why do you rely on your Google News search when clearly just from the references on the WorkXpress page it shows that Google News search is not adequate? Is a reference only notable if it appears on a Google News search? We've provided many articles that don't appear on Google News search that you are choosing to ignore. And of course, the public Gartner mention, although small (it's not a trivial mention, just a short excerpt identifying the full articles subjects), is also important and relevant to anyone who would be searching cloud computing, platform as a service, etc...and it certainly meets the definition of national/international. It clearly identifies "Who is who", and Workxpress is clearly on the list...which of course speaks of notability.
  • You can obviously hear the tone of frustration, and for that I apologize. Previous flags on the WorkXpress article by Nawlinwiki and Samj clearly explained the Wikipedia guidelines that weren't being met, and we were easily able to point to sources that met them. It may be that if you extend your search beyond the Google News search, you will find what you are looking for. However absent that, we are simply confused as to exactly what we could point to that would satisfy you, and that was reasonable given the guidelines we read. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.235.62.205 (talk) 18:00, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - not notable. Racepacket (talk) 23:08, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment regarding the claim above:

As another example, the Cloud Computing article which is extremely important right now in shaping an emerging industry leads with an image that is inaccurate, unhelpful and arguably biased towards a limited set of vendors. When we as 7 year experts on the subject commented as such to the author, the reply we received was that this "was just our opinion". However, is not the image just that authors opinion?

The image is intended to serve as an example of verifiably notable providers such that users can, based on existing experience with those providers, infer what cloud computing is. It is not meant to advertise relatively unknown providers, as was the case when it was [ab]used by WorkXpress (who in the process downgraded it from a vector to a bitmap and created another file that had to be cleaned up). While there may well be any number of "better" images out there, none of them meet Wikipedia's licensing requirements so one was created from scratch. Are you really going to claim that WorkXpress is a better example than Google, Yahoo, Salesforce, Zoho, Rackspace, Amazon, Microsoft, or any number of other well-known cloud providers? Or that "my opinion" is somehow biased or unfair (e.g. that there are more notable examples)? Do you really expect that we try to include all of them? Given I'm quite sure I've explained this to you repeatedly I'm finding it increasingly difficult to assume good faith. Running to the media with the "story" doesn't help your case either. -- samj inout 19:28, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • CommentAs I mentioned clearly above, we did not run to the media with a story, we contacted them seeking their assistance in communicating to you why their regional, non-IT affiliated newspaper met Wikipedia's guidelines for notability. They sensed a story, and pursued it on their own, and any insinuation to the contrary is flat out false. The story exists because of the perceived surprise of this Afd proceeding, NOT because of something we did.
  • The image you are defending does little to explain cloud computing, as I've tried repeatedly to discuss with you. Communication is a two way street but your "explaining this to me repeatedly" demonstrates clearly your unwillingness to dialogue or to improve your content. Here are some specific criticisms of the image: Exactly which Microsoft Cloud offering have you been referring to, the just-now-released Azure? (how does any other previous product from "Microsoft" allow a visitor to infer what "cloud computing" is, as per your rationale?) Why did you put Rackspace in there but not GoGrid (I can tell you first hand GoGrid has had a more evolved "cloud" offering)? Why is Zoho in there at all (there are a number of vendors of their size and stature who are more then just SaaS, which is all that Zoho is)? Which offerings of Google or Yahoo are you referencing as providing the "cloud" experience (Google does a LOT of things more prominent then their cloud offerings, which could mislead visitors)? What does the image even mean (not much)?? To lead a page visited by many people looking to learn about Cloud Computing with this image is exactly why the media are so skeptical of Wikipedia to begin with; its not in any way encyclopedic. I'm sorry if you don't like to hear dissent, but I have a lot of experience in this space; your image, and your rationale are flawed. I will take this discussion to the cloud computing page.
Back to this Afd discussion: the bottom line is that WorkXpress has "been the subject of significant coverage in reliable independent secondary sources". It has clearly been "worthy of attracting notice". We have demonstrated evidence of attention by "at least regional media". These are the guidelines, and WorkXpress meets them. I apologize to everyone for the tone of this discussion, and thank you all for your legitimate, unbiased consideration and conclusion, whatever form that may take. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.235.62.205 (talk) 20:22, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
While this is not the forum to discuss which providers are and are not included in one of a number of images in another article, it is telling of your attitude towards Wikipedia, its policies and other editors. The NYT were writing about Microsoft's cloud strategy over 2 years ago, Rackspace have ten times more "cloud+computing" news articles than GoGrid (and are quite probably at least 10x their size), Zoho is (or at least was) generating a lot of press as an alternative to Google (who are the quintessential cloud provider) and Yahoo! have been "cloud+computing"&btnG=Search+Archives&hl=en&ned=us&scoring=a generating news the whole time too. FWIW the image shows the origin of the cloud in network diagrams and illustrates the separation of servers (which appear as a loosely aggregated point source) and clients at the periphery. I think it does a pretty good job and I note the absence of a better alternative from you. -- samj inout 22:46, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Delete and Salt: In terms of the AfD, a quick google news search returns 3 syndicated posts and a name drop in an article about moving, all of them from the same regional journal. In consideration of the questionable reliability of your main source, the fact that the article logs show a long history of speedy deletions, the spamming of other cloud computing article(s) and image(s) with this one, various quality, WP:COI, WP:N, WP:V, WP:NPOV and other policy issues, and constant interference with process (e.g. the essays above) I think this article should be deleted and salted until such time as you can demonstrate verifiable notability by way of non-trivial references in multiple reliable sources. -- samj inout 22:29, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Fences&Windows 23:57, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I relisted this before seeing that there having already been two relistings - I looked past the first. If any admin wants to close this now, please do so. Fences&Windows 23:58, 24 November 2009 (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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