Marino9813

Nomination of Corporate Insight for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Corporate Insight is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Corporate Insight until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. DGG ( talk ) 08:33, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Your recent edits

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Welcome to Wikipedia

Hello,

The first thing you have to do is declare your conflict of interest on your user page, openly and honestly. Next, you need to understand that Wikipedia doesn't exist to promote your employer. If there is any chance that we will keep your article, it will be only because of coverage in reliable, independent sources. Don't waste your time trying to tell us how you've structured the article to resemble articles about larger, indisputably notable consulting firms. We don't care about that. In this debate, we only care about whether your company is notable by our standards. Study our standards and make your best case based on a complete understanding of those standards. Arguing against our established standards in this debate is a waste of your time and ours. Please don't mistake my abrupt tone for hostility. I am trying to cut to the chase, and haven't yet decided whether I consider your company notable or not. I am open to be convinced. Give it your best shot ASAP. Feel free to discuss things on my talk page. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:00, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi Mr. Cullen,

I appreciate this post, and thank you for open-mindedness. I just posted a long rant on the discussion page but I am happy to try to convince someone who is open-minded. I'm sorry for whatever norms of Wikipedia I have violated or annoyed people with but I ask you to take a step back as a new user and understand how frustrating this is.

I made this page because I follow the financial world as well as the “tech” world (in the most generic sense) closely. I’ve noticed these guys because they’re always quoted on stories that relate to the financial world’s interaction with, again, in a generic sense, “tech” developments. This is why they are important – they are looked to as the authority on these issues and are treated as such by the media. Perhaps there is some competitor both I and the media are unaware of but they seem to be the only one who is the source on these issue. It's as simple as that. In comparison to what other pages Wikipedia has determined to be notable (more on that in the rant) this seems to be no-brainier, hence I am frustrated.

So when I searched them I found that there’s a bunch of cluttered results and when you look at their company page they have the typical corporate BS that is meaningless. The same information that I don’t really care about that the company’s webmaster guy copy/pasted for his introduction. And I thought to myself, hm, these guys should really have a Wikipedia page for who they are. Then I joined Wikipedia, attempted my first page, and now I am… here.

I tried to just make a straightforward description similar to comparable pages but that obviously didn't go well. I AM VERY HAPPY TO RE-WORD if there is something you would specifically like me to change. What stands out? Is “notable publications” section unnecessary? It makes sense that you’re suspicious of anyone and there is no real way for me to prove that but I don't work at this company that dginsight guy does.

I admit that I feel a tinge of anger when I see this sentence "Don't waste your time trying to tell us how you've structured the article to resemble articles about larger, indisputably notable consulting firms. We don't care about that." If this was a courtroom and not a Wikipedia discussion page that kind of statement about a double standard would lose an argument for you. Also, I made those statements not out of a desire to "argue against your established standards" but rather to try to refute specific accusations that seem to hold no wait in comparison to what your established standards (based on comparable pages) are.

Outside of my frustration (which probably makes me seem like I'm some angry buffoon for people who are more experienced at Wikipedia) You have to admit that this company is definitely worth a page!

I would be happy to address any questions other open-minded people like Cullen have.

Thanks!

--Marino9813 (talk) 17:18, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Ps - I would have posted on your profile like you suggested but I'm not good enough at this yet and I'm worried I'd mess it up somehow.

I had assumed that you were an employee or subcontractor of Corporate Insight, so I apologize for my error. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 01:37, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Notability

Getting angry won't help your case. The first threshold is the question of notability. We expect you to put forward two or three good solid independent reliable sources that give significant coverage to this company. No one will be impressed if you dig up a few other articles that have problems. We call that reasoning "other stuff exists" and hear it all the time. We don't keep a new article about a non-notable topic just because we might have poorly referenced articles elsewhere. We either improve or delete those other articles.Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 18:24, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

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Hi everyone,

@Cullen gave me some good recommendations on how to pitch this along the lines of what your Wikipediers are looking for. I'm not sure if it is also necessary to respond here as well but I thought I would anyway. For the full dialogue go to the page I guess?

Conflict of interest statement:

I am a…

• Male, currently living in the mid-Atlantic region.
• 26 years old. Until recently I had been employed in the financial industry. I worked at the same firm for three years, but on the private wealth management side with no connection to these guys.
• I am the kind of person who reads three newspapers each morning… a news junkie if you will.
• I am also one of those guys who other people would call a “techie.” That one should be self-explanatory.

I’m not sure what else there would be to disclose but if anyone else wants to know what I ate for breakfast today I’ll be happy to tell you. Any biases I may have should be clear.

My thought process behind making a page for this generically-named company & reasoning for why they are justified in a page:

I made this page because I follow the financial world as well as the “tech” world (in the most general sense) closely. I’ve noticed these guys because they’re always quoted on stories that relate to the financial world’s interaction with, again, in a generic sense, “tech” developments like online banking and investing social media, apps, mobile, whatever. This is why they are important – they are looked to as the authority on these issues and are treated as such by the media. Perhaps there is some competitor both I and the media are unaware of but they seem to be the only one who are the source on this in the most general sense.

So when I Googled them I found that there’s a bunch of cluttered results and when you look at their company page they have the typical corporate BS that is meaningless. And I thought to myself, hm, these guys should really have a Wikipedia page for who they are and it would certainly make things easier. I also realized for the “techie” that I am I have no idea how Wikipedia works. So I joined Wikipedia, attempted my first page, and now I am… here.

I’m sure when you read this, my other posts, or this Wikipedia entry you jumped to whatever stereotypes you have (this guys is an angry buffoon, maybe you saw a name like Corporate Insight and thought that’s clearly some hole in the wall consultancy being written by a PR person) that have been reinforced over the countless times you have probably had to deal with something like this. But just think about this from a new user perspective – instantly shot down – went looking for recommendations or suggestions for a process I don’t yet understand – didn’t get recommendations – then went to look other pages for guidance and instead very different standards across the board and got very frustrated. Think about what it would be like to be a confused new user receiving a hostile reception, and then finding a page like cat organ… anyway big thanks to @Cullen for reaching out to me.

Sources:

Thank you again to Cullen – I was using quantity of sources to show that these guys are always quoted. I thought that would be better but I obviously I was off. As you suggest, here are 3 sources with detail.

Source #1 - What it is: an article about lie detecting technology in Russian ATM’s in the New York Times. Why I included that: To me, them being quoted in this article is a pretty straightforward example of how they are the informal authority on all things tech and finance. Ask yourself – why would Corporate Insight be quoted if they don’t do anything regarding ATM technology or lie detections. Like I said before, it’s because they are the informal authority on all things tech in the finance world. Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/09/business/global/09atm.html?pagewanted=all

Source #2 - What it is: A CNBC article called “financial services get social” discussing the findings of a Corporate Insight report on how social media is changing the financial industry. Why I included that: Again, it seems like a straightforward example of how the financial world looks to this company for its opinions on tech, in this case social media. Link: http://www.cnbc.com/id/39764810/Financial_Services_Get_Social

Source #3 - What it is: A Wall St Journal video of an interview with the President of the company regarding Brokerage reports. Why I included that: It seems like a straightforward example to back up the sentence that they are frequently quoted in financial news agencies. Link: http://online.wsj.com/video/spicing-up-adviser-report-cards/565CAAA8-43E9-4299-9E19-8AC14E7733C5.html?mod=googlewsj

Note: I obviously didn’t use a specific citation style. Does Wikipedia endorse one style? Chicago? MLA? Also, if that’s not the kind of details you were looking for let me or you simply need more detailed sources let me know.

There is no standardized style for references, although a consistent style within an article is preferred. There are many ways to do it. I use citation templates which I copy and paste into reference tags, like this:

<ref>{{cite book | last = | first = | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = | publisher = | series = | volume = | edition = | date = | location = | pages = | language = | url = | doi = | id = | isbn = | mr = | zbl = | jfm = }}</ref>

Then, it's just a "fill in the blank" process. If the author has a Wikipedia article, add the article name to the "authorlink" field. If the published has an article, you can Wikilink that. For URLs, I use a Google Books search displaying as much relevant information as possible. You can leave some field blank - I don't even know what "zbl" means, but fill it out as thoroughly as possible. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 01:39, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Closing thoughts:

These sources clearly meet the standards of being prominent, reliable, and independent etc. That much shouldn’t be in question. If you accept my reasoning that they are often quoted and in the news as the informal authority on how the financial world interacts with tech developments that this should be a no-brainier.

At this point, the only angle that I can see somewhat eye-to-eye with you guys is if you think that because none of the sources contain something like a quote from the Wall St Journal saying something like “The Wall St Journal considers Corporate Insight to be the authority on all things finance and tech etc. etc.” That is understandable since my word doesn’t mean anything in an impersonal forum like this.

But I don’t agree that that’s necessary. While there are obvious exceptions like government agencies, prominent news outlets like the New York Times, Bloomberg, the Wall St. Journal, etc. don’t tend to make statements like that. When was the last time you read something from a respectable publication outside of the food section that dubbed an entity something like “the official authority” on X. This is especially true when X is something as large as the financial world and tech. In the back of your head you know that’s true. Hence I did not make a statement like that when I made this Wikipedia page, instead opting for a general one noting their frequent press coverage.

If that is really the issue I could probably do some more Google News trolling… but I’ve already put way too much effort into this and I’m not really motivated to do that... nor does that seem necessary. Hopefully the long list of other sources they’re quoted is enough for you to believe me. @dginsights guy you work at the company right? Go ask your press person and find something along those lines.

Let me know if you have any questions. After reading this you may not see eye-to-eye, but hopefully you can see how someone with eyes in my head would see these guys as worthwhile and would initially get very frustrated with this whole process. I am open to any all suggestions or recommendations while I learn this process.

~Marino9813

Where do you go looking for work?

So a question to everyone...

Anytime you log into Wikipedia looking for something to do... where do you start? I assume there's got to be categorical forums or lists of pages that need more work? Or do you just troll?

Also, thank you to the user above who gave me that tip on citations! I'm probably missing something but I can't really tell who did that. Whoever you are, thanks!

Best,

Marino9813

Where do you go looking for work?

So a question to everyone...

Anytime you log into Wikipedia looking for something to do... where do you start? I assume there's got to be categorical forums or lists of pages that need more work? Or do you just troll?

Also, thank you to the user above who gave me that tip on citations! I'm probably missing something but I can't really tell who did that. Whoever you are, thanks!

Best,

Marino9813

That was me, but I made a minor error (explained below). There are many ways to find things to work on. Whenever you visit a page that really interests you, add that page to your watchlist by clicking the little white star on the second line of each page. That will turn the star blue which means it is on your watch list. You can click "My watchlist" at the top any page you are one, and it will display recent changes on those pages. You can make a list of pages to visit on your user page - either articles you've contributed to, or policies and guidelines, or various Wikipedia projects. Take a look at my user page and other editor's user pages for a few ideas. You can join a WikiProject that interests you, and get ideas there. You can search for stubs in areas that interest you. A stub is a very short article that needs lots of work. You can get involved in an administrative area like Articles for Deletion. You will find a list of the articles nominated for deletion each day at WP:AFD/T. Following these debates will help teach you about what is and isn't considered notable, and what kind of sources are accepted as reliable. With almost 3.8 million articles and a complex structure behind them, there are many ways to get involved and find work to do. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 01:35, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Any thoughts on why when I try to start a new section it shows up in the previous discussion???

Thanks!

Hi, the reason things were displaying wrong was because you had an open markup tag a ways up - when you used the nowiki tag, you forgot to close it, so Wikipedia was reading everything that came after it on the page as nowiki'd text. I've fixed it for you. Cheers! A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 19:03, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I apologize Marino9813. I left out a slash in the nowiki tag when I was trying to demonstrate referencing to you, and messed up your page display. Fluffernutter did a good thing by correcting my little error. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 01:22, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

.... Sweet Wikipedia ....

Hi all,

Sigh. I figured that page was going to get deleted… but still.

What pisses me off is not any concern for that specific company, but rather the feeling of being slighted. It’s hard not to feel like you’re at the mercy of the arbitrary judgment of whatever editors make this decision.

Why? Because after someone was nice enough to reach out to me I gave the response I would have gladly given in the first place. I stated my conflict of interest and laid out three sources from undeniably notable sources that easily meet Wikipedia’s guidelines. Then the arbitrary judgment comes in and someone (or several people?) determines that a company that is an unofficial authority on how technology intersects with the financial industry isn’t notable by their standards.

Why arbitrary? Because if you had a room full of people who follow the finance or tech world or both they would without question consider this “notable.” But instead it’s up to some random group of people and who knows what they do in real life. These editors see this page, immediately blow it off based on its name and because of my frustrated and persistent defense of it… which you’ll know for certain must mean I work there and not that I’m a new user confused by a hostile reception. But why this feeling of unfair judgment is so frustrating is looking at any of the numerous examples that give Wikipedia its reputation such as this page: List of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition monsters. If you put the vast majority of the 300 million+ Americans in this country in front of that page and asked them if you think the subject matter is notable enough for an encyclopedia what would they say? They would say that page is unnecessary, that it should be deleted, that it certainly does not count as notable, and/or that it is so unnecessarily long that it must have been written by someone who works at that company. Sound familiar???

I don’t pretend that I understand Wikipedia enough to be able to figure out how that page got there. But since it hilariously doesn’t even have any of those headers (like the “this page may be too long” or the “this page may need cleanup to meet etc etc”) I can guess the reason that page exists is because it’s the judgment of the likely many Dungeons and Dragons players out there who are also seasoned Wikipedia editors that keep it that way. And please… don’t make yourself sound silly by trying to prove to me how that page is not a glaring example of the vastly different standards across Wikipedia.

In the back of your head you know that’s a fair point and a fair criticism of Wikipedia’s current process. If you actually read my last post on the sources for this now deleted page somewhere in the back of your head you probably also know that those sources and reasoning should qualify as notable. The front of your head, however… says hey fuck this guy I’m just going to give him some cute term we use to address similar criticisms to make myself feel enlightened and not that there’s an underlying issue.

I really don’t want to deal with this kinda of BS. Guess this attempt at joining Wikipedia was a failure.

--Marino9813 (talk) 19:43, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I take your concerns seriously, so will try to address them. You've said that the three strongest sources available to show Corporate Insight's notability are the following:

From the New York Times: "'We don’t know of any major U.S. financial institutions doing things along those lines, such as trying to gauge whether somebody is lying,' Daniel Wiegand, a senior analyst at Corporate Insight, a company that consults with banks on consumer technology, said in a telephone interview."

From CNBC: "Financial services' social media activity has exploded over the past two years, according to a new report by Corporate Insight that analyses the activity of 70 brokerages, banks, credit card companies and asset management firms." and "Michael Ellison, president of Corporate Insight, tells me he predicts that social media investment will eventually have a direct correlation to success. While it's hard to measure the success of investment in social media, companies have no doubt that they have to be there."

From a Wall Street Journal video: Michael Ellison is introduced as president of Corporate Insight, "which does a lot of research and analysis on how advisors can better the client experience." Ellison is then interviewed.

What exactly have we learned about Corporate Insight as a company itself from those sources? When was it founded? How many employees does it have? Where is its headquarters? Does it have other offices? How many employees does it have? Who, specifically, are its customers? Who are its competitors? What are its annual revenues? Is it a private company or is it publicly traded? Is it a corporation itself, or a partnership, or a sole proprietorship? Although it may not be necessary to learn all of that from coverage in the three best sources, we have learned none of that from these three sources.

You selected these as the best three sources but they tell us very little about Corporate Insight as a company, except that financial journalists sometimes interview people who work for them and sometimes discuss the findings of their research reports. As I think you know by now, the general notability guideline requires significant coverage, which "means that sources address the subject directly in detail, so no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention but it need not be the main topic of the source material." It is really hard to argue that the three best sources you've provided rise to the level of "significant coverage" of Corporate Insight as a company as needed to meet the general notability guideline.

Your article got deleted, and I understand your frustration and disappointment. You state that the decision was "arbitrary". My response would be that the article was deleted because of a fair application of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. You state that the article was deleted by "some random group of people". My response is that the people who discussed you article are not "random" but rather part of a dedicated group of Wikipedia volunteers who do their best to deal with a flood of new articles every single day. Some of these new articles are complete garbage and are deleted immediately. Others such as yours are borderline issues, and are debated in detail for a week or more. I have participated in roughly 1000 such debates. I recommend keeping articles about 46% of the time, deleting them about 52% of the time, and occasionally merging or redirecting. So I am not dedicated to deleting articles. The administrators who close these debates are experienced enough to recognize policy-based arguments and to disregard frivolous arguments. It is not vote counting, but a process of building informed consensus.

On to List of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition monsters. You don't like the article and I don't much like it myself. I've never played the game, don't really know what it is, and wish that Wikipedia didn't have so many articles about it. But there is one thing that is indisputably true about Dungeons and Dragons that is not true about Corporate Insight: Dungeons and Dragons is notable by Wikipedia's standards. It has been successful for 37 years. Dozens of books have been published about it, including many that are completely independent of the game company. It has been covered in great detail by a wide range of reliable publications. As for the specific article, it has been on Wikipedia for about 3-1/2 years. It has had well over 500 but not quite 1000 edits. Dozens of different editors have participated, and roughly five have made many edits to the article. I see no evidence that any of the most active editors of the article are employees of Dungeons and Dragons, although their user pages confirm that they are interested in fantasy, comics and so on. One of the editors discusses the shortcomings in Dungeons and Dragons articles, how controversial they have been on Wikipedia, and efforts to improve such articles.

Wikipedia isn't perfect. It needs lots of work. Perhaps you and I can agree that it has too many Dungeons and Dragons articles. However, this English encyclopedia has nearly 3.8 million articles, and has more far more original and informative content that any other website. Last time I looked, it is the sixth most popular website in the world, and Google, the number one website, displays Wikipedia articles at the very top of millions of search inquiries. Roughly 15% of all internet users worldwide will visit Wikipedia on any given day. So, perhaps, we are doing some things right?

You wrote, "In the back of your head you know that’s a fair point and a fair criticism of Wikipedia’s current process. If you actually read my last post on the sources for this now deleted page somewhere in the back of your head you probably also know that those sources and reasoning should qualify as notable. The front of your head, however… says hey fuck this guy I’m just going to give him some cute term we use to address similar criticisms to make myself feel enlightened and not that there’s an underlying issue."

I welcome fair criticism of Wikipedia and to the extent that our current policies and procedures have led to excessive coverage of relatively trivial aspects of popular culture, then I agree with you. On the other hand, those of us who care little or nothing about Dungeons and Dragons or Transformers or anime or Marvel Comics or Miley Cyrus or gangster rap do not have to read those articles. Those are all indisputably notable topics, and notable topics are what we cover on Wikipedia. But for many reasons, including the high visibility of Wikipedia articles online, most experienced Wikipedia editors are extremely sensitive about using Wikipedia as a vehicle to publicize any topic which is not yet notable, especially an article about any sort of commercial venture.

In conclusion, my response is not to say "fuck this guy" and instead of throwing out a "cute term", I have taken a hour of my time to try to explain my point of view as an experienced editor who has created dozens of new articles and expanded hundreds more. Feel free to discuss these matters with me, and I hope that you will decide to stay around on Wikipedia. We can use your help. I wish you well. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 03:21, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Marino9813. You have new messages at TParis's talk page.
Message added 20:27, 19 October 2011 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

v/r - TP 20:27, 19 October 2011 (UTC)