Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Medium (company)

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. Euryalus (talk) 11:53, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Medium (company)

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Article is written only for promotional and advertising purposes. References are very poor. 25 Employee strength. Not Public listed company. No significant coverage by independent media. Nothing significant or notable about the company to be here. does not meet notability criteria. Light21 13:34, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Companies-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 13:51, 18 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 13:51, 18 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Advertising-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 13:52, 18 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Tennessee-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 13:52, 18 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete All the RSes are dead links or fail to mention the company at all. Note also not to confuse this company with the much more famous Medium (website), which is the one with all the blogs - David Gerard (talk) 15:53, 18 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: Company got a fair amount of press under its former name, Coptix. Coverage in RS includes this and this. Safehaven86 (talk) 20:48, 19 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment -- the above sources are unconvincing. The first link is coverage of a publicity stunt by the company. The second link is coverage of the same, appearing in Washington Times which is not considered RS. K.e.coffman (talk) 06:00, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)
(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)
Delete per WP:PROMO and my note above. The article is largely built around the publicty stunt by the company and the rest is advertorial content. K.e.coffman (talk) 19:21, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per the significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources.
1. Gary Jr., Bob (2006-08-19). "Coptix touts service in Web site design". Chattanooga Times Free Press. Archived from the original on 2016-09-25. Retrieved 2016-09-25.
  The article notes:
  
  Jeffrey Cross majored in computer science at Covenant College and worked in software development before starting a company that designs and runs Web sites for clients.
  ...
  But computers clearly like Mr. Cross, now president of Coptix Inc. He said his company's sales have grown by an average of 30 percent for each of the last eight years and are on track to hit the $1 million mark this year.
  Mr. Cross said he started Coptix after four years at Olan Mills and one at UnumProvident, all in software development.
  ...
  Mr. Cross said that as he added to his company's payroll - Coptix now has a payroll of 17 - he also broadened its focus.
2. Smith, Ellis (2011-06-09). "Geeks gather to share knowledge, build network in Chattanooga". Chattanooga Times Free Press. Archived from the original on 2016-09-25. Retrieved 2016-09-25.
  The article notes:
  
  The timing of the conference roughly coincided with an ownership shakeup at Medium, a Chattanooga-based web design and development company, and long a leader in the local technology market.
  Josiah Roe, founder of medium and of DevChatt, said it had been "an eventful week," with some of the partners splitting away to pursue other ventures and some workers leaving.
  "There just wasn't something like DevChatt in Chattanooga," he said. "We wanted this one to be by geeks, for geeks, we wanted it to speak to that culture, and be sort of representative like that."
  Others took the reins from Josiah this year, a development he calls "a good thing," as he was busy spinning off a number of divisions from the company to form new entities.
3. Trevizo, Perla (2010-01-02). "Local companies thrive, listed among state's hot 100". Chattanooga Times Free Press. Archived from the original on 2016-09-25. Retrieved 2016-09-25.
  The article notes:
  
  Other local companies include Medium, previously known as Coptix, which recently opened an office in Chicago and also announced a partnership with Chattanooga's EPB and Alcatel-Lucent for a $226.7 million Smart Grid project in Southeast Tennessee.
  "Medium is really, truly, duly humbled to be on BusinessTN magazine's Hot 100 companies for the second time," said Medium President Josiah Roe.
4. Davis, Michael (2007-04-07). "Morphing a conspiracy?". Chattanooga Times Free Press. Archived from the original on 2007-04-06. Retrieved 2016-09-25.
  The article notes:
  
  A Chattanooga Internet firm doctored a photo of White House aide Karl Rove to show him holding a folder with the company's logo, fueling speculation in the blogosphere that the president's top adviser is running White House correspondence through a nongovernment e-mail system.
  "It's easy for people to plant disinformation and misinformation out there," said Josiah Roe, executive vice president of Coptix, based in St. Elmo.
  Mr. Roe said the company altered the photo and placed it on the Internet after bloggers implied that Coptix was involved in a "vast right-wing conspiracy" because the company -- along with another local firm, SmarTech -- provides an Internet service for the Republican National Committee.
5. "Rove 'e-mail scandal' makes April fools of blog readers". The Washington Times. 2007-04-05. Archived from the original on 2016-09-25. Retrieved 2016-09-25.
  The article notes:
  
  Josiah Roe, an executive vice president at Coptix, said a small group of Coptix executives doctored a photo of Mr. Rove and, using computer software, placed the folder under his arm. They then planted the photo on a local Chattanooga blog, they said, and allowed the conspiracy to disseminate.
  ...
  Coptix is tangentially associated with the Republican National Committee (RNC) and had become a topic of interest to left-wing blogs even before this prank. Coptix is affiliated with another Chattanooga-based Web company named Smartech, which is employed by the RNC.
  Mr. Rove and other White House officials do use outside e-mail accounts, owned by the RNC, which are hosted on Smartech’s Web servers. Coptix backs up some of Smartech’s information, which is called “backup DNS hosting.”
6. Walker, Alissa (2007-04-07). "The Little Design Firm That Caused a Big Political Scandal". Adweek. Archived from the original on 2016-09-25. Retrieved 2016-09-25.
  The article notes:
  
  For the Washington-clueless, it’s recently been suggested that Karl Rove and other administration officials were doing business via email hosted by Chattanooga company Smartech, rather than on federal servers. Bloggers began blasting Smartech as some underground right wing computer network and also implicated Coptix, a nice little graphic design and web development company that provides backup DNS hosting for Smartech.
  But it was this photo of Rove leaving a Chattanooga restaurant, with the Coptix name tucked under his arm, that got people really riled up. Since the image was originally posted on a right-wing blog, it couldn’t have been Photoshopped, reasoned bloggers. It got picked up everywhere from Wonkette to DailyKos as proof of Rove’s direct link to Coptix.
  The whole thing, however, was a cleverly executed April Fool’s joke, orchestrated by Coptix (if you squint, you’ll see a still from the show “Land of the Lost” superimposed on the TV in the upper right corner). The Chattanooga Times Free Press covers the story from beginning to end, and Coptix VP Josiah Roe comes clean, and gives us this follow up report:
7. Gewirtz, Gewirtz (2007). Where Have All the Emails Gone?. Palm Bay, Florida: ZATZ Publishing. p. 91–100. ISBN 0945266200. Retrieved 2016-09-25.
  The book discusses Coptix's Karl Rove hoax on pages 91–100. Here is a snippet from page 91:
  As the report shows, TRESPASSERS-W.net appears to be operated by Jeffrey Cross, who is listed as the registrant with Cross Computer Consulting (at CROSS-CC.com) and with Coptix Inc. (at COPTIX.net). Coptix, it turns out, is a Web development firm, also located in Chattanooga.
8. http://web.archive.org/web/20090414125220/http://rove.thisismedium.com/ contains more sources about Coptix's Karl Rove hoax such as articles from The Telegraph and The Chattanooga Pulse.
There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow Medium to pass Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject".
Cunard (talk) 03:46, 25 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

- I find these sources unconvincing per SisterTwister's analysis - David Gerard (talk) 09:42, 25 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - What's listed above is bare-bone thin of actual significant information and substance; what is listed as an example are simple and thin mentions, there's no actual substance and anything that is actually mentioned of the company is shown to simply be the business talking themselves or simple name mentions, including of other companies. Then we also have to consider that any information too closely about the company would be company-supplied PR of course. The WashingtonTimes link offered earlier is nothing but a simple one-time mention by that news, nothing at all else than a simple article about an event, nothing actually largely about this company; the next link, the TimesFreePress only mentions them (a simple one-time 7 times each, it never goes beyond basic mentions) because the company was involved with those political events, that's hardly actual focused substance about the company itself. Considering this is close to either relist or close, it seems clear to say that the Keep vote have not substantiated themselves with actually better sourcing, because one thing is clear and it's that none of the above links are close to significant or convincing coverage. It says something that a company has existed nearly 20 years and has not gained any actual coverage apart from simple mentions. The article itself is then only about the basic company information, the clients and then the largest item of all, the political event. SwisterTwister talk 05:43, 25 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per the above analyses of SwisterTwister and David Gerard. It's a smallish, obscure company and the article is more about a silly hoax than the company itself. The coverage is all routine, run of the mill stuff, and far less substantial than the extensive use of space-hogging block quotes would suggest. Reyk _YO! 10:36, 25 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Comment -- the above listed sources are unconvincing as they mostly serve to emphasize how insignificant the company is, such as:

"Trevizo, Perla (2010-01-02). "Local companies thrive, listed among state's hot 100". Chattanooga Times Free Press", or
"Mr. Cross said that as he added to his company's payroll - Coptix now has a payroll of 17 - he also broadened its focus".

So I'm not changing my delete !vote. K.e.coffman (talk) 21:15, 25 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - I'm going to buck the trend and find Cunard's sources to be valid. If this was just about the business, I could possibly agree, but the hoax appears to have been found a notable event and gained significant coverage. In the articles about the hoax, they mention, even emphasize, that it is notable that such a small company made such a big ruckas with their photoshop. This, backed up with some coverage about the business itself, should be enough, combined, to establish notability. I have read ST's arguments and disagree with them... I don't find the sources to provide purely routine coverage, but rather targeted, and focused on the subject. The "silly hoax" may be a "silly hoax", but Wikipedia covers silly hoaxes that have been reported on in the media. I might consider a rename to reflect this, except that there is some reporting on the business itself, so I think that justifies keeping the current name. Fieari (talk) 01:49, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment -- not every hoax warrants an article in an encyclopedia, and especially not when it was executed as a publicity stunt. With content such as:

Medium gained attention throughout the design community when in January 2007 it produced and distributed via YouTube a series of video spoofs of the Cahan & Associates promotional video featuring noted designer Bill Cahan.^[1]

References

^ Alissa Walker, Billy Cahan, Keymaster of Gozer?, Unbeige, January 04, 2007

... this article is not in compliance with WP:PROMO as the content shows that the page exists to highlight this company's successes in garnering media coverage. The page also attempts to WP:INHERIT notability from the better known subject (Bill Cahan), while informing the readers about a non-notable entity of Cahan & Associates.

Wikipedia aims to work to an academic standard, and accepting thin sources and promotional articles is not in the best interest of the project, IMO. Wikipedia is WP:NOT a collection of indiscriminate information, which this article appears to be as it stands. K.e.coffman (talk) 04:08, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

not every hoax warrants an article in an encyclopedia – I agree. Only hoaxes that pass Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline should be included in the encyclopedia.

especially not when it was executed as a publicity stunt – I disagree. If sources like The Telegraph cover the publicity stunt, then it is notable and suitable for inclusion.

I do not consider minor promotional issues in the article to be sufficient to violate WP:PROMO. Wikipedia:Editing policy#Wikipedia is a work in progress: perfection is not required and Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions#Surmountable problems.

The article does not violate WP:INDISCRIMINATE because it not "Summary-only descriptions of works", "Lyrics databases", "Excessive listings of statistics", or "Exhaustive logs of software updates".

Cunard (talk) 04:33, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - I want to note that the Delete votes, including myself, have been staunch and clear with what, where and why the concerns exist here, I'll even note that some of the Keep votes have been as thin to simply contain the mere essence of "Hey, there's sourcing, that's enough, and other Keep votes think so too!" without actually substantiating themselves especially after such analyses have been listed. What still stays about what this article actually is, an advertisement and only that, and if we should at all start compromising to accept such blatant articles, will be when Wikipedia became a PR webhost. SwisterTwister talk 04:46, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Merely being responsible for a possibly notable hoax, and one done as a PR move at that, doesn't give the kind of foundation needed for a good page. Yes, the hoax got mentioned by some publications. That doesn't really give that much to go on for detailing things about the organization itself. I also question to what extent this one event has any lasting relevance. CoffeeWithMarkets (talk) 11:50, 1 October 2016 (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.

[1] Alissa Walker, Billy Cahan, Keymaster of Gozer?, Unbeige, January 04, 2007

[1]