Zendoodles

Speedy deletion nomination of EthosCE

A tag has been placed on EthosCE, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia for multiple reasons. Please see the page to see the reasons. If the page has since been deleted, you can ask me the reasons by leaving a message on my user talk page.

If you think that the page was nominated in error, contest the nomination by clicking on the button labelled "Click here to contest this speedy deletion" in the speedy deletion tag. Doing so will take you to the talk page where you can explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. You can also visit the page's talk page directly to give your reasons, but be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but do not hesitate to add information that is consistent with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, you can contact one of these administrators to request that the administrator userfy the page or email a copy to you. ŞůṜīΣĻ¹98¹^Speak 05:37, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

In response to your feedback

I am sorry to hear that your article requests are being rejected but Wikipedia needs to have standards to keep it clean and user friendly. I'm sorry the notes on the article made you sad. There's a couple of reasons why we prefer articles to reference reliable secondary sources. Firstly, primary sources or sources affiliated to the subject are more likely to contain bias and less likely to contain a balanced point of view which Wikipedia seeks to maintain. Secondly, the existence of secondary sources about the subject helps to demonstrate that the topic is noteworthy. If nobody who isn't affiliated with the subject has written about that subject, then chances are that nobody not affiliated with that subject would want to read about it either, so the article isn't noteworthy enough to warrant its own article on Wikipedia. In order to add some references to the article, why not try running a Google search for it and see what comes up? Or read more on the links given in the notices on the article.

Don't be discouraged. These notices are given to help improve articles, not to shut them down. Keep trying and maybe you will produce an excellent article.

Cheers,
Riley Huntley _talk No talkback needed; I'll temporarily watch here. 07:11, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

 

My reply to Riley

Thanks for your kind words Riley.

I spent a couple of hours sifting thru information for that article. Worked really hard to make it objective. I provided references to external sources and the project manual. But the article is marked for deletion. That sounds exactly like shutting it down to me, and not just deletion, but speedy deletion. They even tagged it as spam. That's downright hurtful. In my opinion, if it were really intended to improve the article, it would have been marked for improvement. I know such tags exist. I've seen them.

Seriously, compare my article, EthosCE to an article in the same category of software, Absorb_LMS. I work in the industry. I've never even HEARD of this application, and this article is probably copy-pasted directly from their marketing materials. I don't see it being marked for deletion or even improvement. My association with EthosCE is peripheral. I just chose to start with something I already know something about and I fully disclosed my relationship. The only thing I can conclude is it is because I'm a new contributor. I'll keep working on it, but if it actually IS deleted, I can't say I'll be chomping at the bit to do it again.

Zendoodles (talk)

You are quite right about Absorb LMS, and I have proposed it for deletion. Thanks for pointing it out. However, the existence of one unsuitable article does not justify the existence of another one. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:04, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

A few more thoughts. Some years ago I tried to get the word "spam" dropped from various Wikipedia templates, because it is clear to me that very often we are dealing not with spam, but with good faith editors who are inexperienced in editing Wikipedia, and are unaware of our standards. I am sure this was so in your case, and I do understand why you felt the "spam" tag was "hurtful". Unfortunately, I failed to get consensus for my proposed changes. The best I achieved, in fact, was getting {{db-promo}} available as an alternative to {{db-spam}}as a speedy deletion tag, but it seems that most people still use the "spam" one. You can perhaps understand, then, that I do sympathise with your very negative experience. Having said that, there is no doubt in my mind that the article did qualify for speedy deletion under Wikipedia policy, both because it was promotional in nature and because it failed to indicate that its subject was significant enough to be the subject of an article.

From my experience, if you are interested in contributing to Wikipedia then your best approach will be to start by making small improvements to existing articles, and leave writing new articles until you have gained some experience and learnt how things work here. That way, any mistakes you make on the way will be small ones, and you will not lose substantial amounts of work. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:16, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Please restore the EthosCE article

JamesBWatson (and cc Suriel1981 who marked it for deletion)

I did do some minor edits to other articles before starting this one. Furthermore, my earliest formal education, while many years ago, was in journalism, so I think I understand objectivity and a neutral point of view. I even read the pages on article creation, conflict of interest and notability before creating the article. Based on those guidelines I strongly disagree with the decision to delete the EthosCE article.

On deletion, there were no specific examples from the piece pointed out to demonstrate it's 'promotional nature', and I pointed out the reasons I believed EthosCE demonstrates notability on the article's talk page. I was also in the process of adding more documentation when the article was deleted. Those points about notability were not refuted in any way. The article was not tagged for more or better references, nor was it moved somewhere to be improved. This took a few of hours of my work, called it spam and deleted it. In retrospect, I really wish I had saved the page somewhere locally when it was marked for deletion.

Zendoodles (talk) 03:03, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

My apologies. Due to some confusion on my part whilst editing in several windows simultaneously I accidentally deleted my response within seconds of leaving it. To it I will add that the text from the article is possible to retrieve but an administrator may have policy-guided reasons for not doing so. It's not my call so I would suggest approaching the deleting admin JamesBWatson. ŞůṜīΣĻ¹98¹^Speak 07:11, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

• I advise against creating or editing upon any article related to a business to which you're connected in future. Per WP:Conflict of interest: "Do not edit Wikipedia to promote your own interests, or those of other individuals or of organizations, including employers. Do not write about these things unless you are certain that a neutral editor would agree that your edits improve Wikipedia." I, as a neutral editor, did not feel creation of the EthosCE article improved Wikipedia as it didn't (in my eyes) appear to credibly indicate why its subject was important or significant. I assume the closing admin shared my judgement.
  Now, you've stated several times you wouldn't directly benefit from EthosCE having a Wikipedia article. But given the long, unfortunate history of people and organisations self-promoting on this site (see Conflict of interest editing on Wikipedia) I, and many other editors, err on the side of caution and seek deletion material we believe to have been created by someone with a conflict of interest.

Regarding notability concerns on the EthosCE article, I recommend reading WP:NSOFT#Inclusion which has clear guidelines on inclusion criteria. It is true that there are other similar articles which exist and probably shouldn't. However, inclusion is not an indicator of notability, or quality because any individual may edit a page. ŞůṜīΣĻ¹98¹^Speak 05:00, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

More details about deleted EthosCE article

The reasons cited for deletion of EthosCE are listed as G11 and A7

According to Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion, A7 is for "individuals, animals, organizations or web content". EthosCE is software. This criteria does not apply. Furthermore, the criteria description goes on to say "This criterion applies only to articles about web content and to articles about people, organizations, and individual animals themselves, not to articles about their books, albums, software, or other creative works." Specifically excluding software.

G11 Describes "Pages that are exclusively promotional." Exclusively is "without any others being included or involved"| While I can no longer reference the full article due to it's deletion, I am quite certain there was a significant amount of content that was not promotional at all such as information about the development history, integration with other applications, and distribution methods to name a few. These were all modeled after other software articles marked with the {{good article}} flag.

Zendoodles (talk) 06:03, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

As far as speedy deletion criterion A7 is concerned, you are quite right, and it was careless of me not to remove that from the deletion log. I have corrected this error, and the latest deletion log entry does not mention that criterion. As for G11, "Pages that are exclusively promotional, and would need to be fundamentally rewritten to become encyclopedic", how exclusive is "exclusive"? Certainly there are individual sentences which, taken out of context, might not seem to be promotional, but I cannot see a single paragraph which, taken as a whole, does not read to me as promotional in tone. However, the article, at least in its final version, was not such blatant spam as many that get created, so I will ask another administrator to give a second opinion. The administrator I have in mind can, I am convinced, be trusted to give a genuine independent assessment, and if he disagrees with my opinion I will accept that.

One last point. The article did not demonstrate that its subject satisfies Wikipedia's notability guidelines. Nor have I found, on searching, evidence that it does so. If the speedy deletion is overturned then the article will be taken to an articles for deletion discussion. Of course, I cannot know what will be the outcome of that discussion, but on present evidence it looks to me unlikely that the article will survive. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:58, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

• The administrator I asked for a second opinion has very kindly given one, and I have read his comments carefully. I have restored the article, and userfied it at User:Zendoodles/EthosCE. Some of the comments the other admin made may be helpful to you in terms of how you may like to improve the article, so for review of speedy deletion here is a link to his advice. Best of luck with improving it. JamesBWatson (talk) 16:36, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia: check out the Teahouse!

Hello! Zendoodles, you are invited to the Teahouse, a forum on Wikipedia for new editors to ask questions about editing Wikipedia, and get support from peers and experienced editors. Please join us! heather walls (talk) 07:19, 26 May 2012 (UTC)