Talk:Groupon/Archives/2013

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Censorship or NPOV?

See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Groupon&diff=prev&oldid=325085128. This text has been added and removed twice. Despite being wrongly called a vandal, I tried to start a conversation, with the edit summary asking discussion to be brought here.

The content is : "San Francisco at 50% to 90% off!", claims the site's main (SF) page, however the recent deals page shows some highlighted deals have a lower discount, e.g. 37.5% off the Oct 28, 2009 deal, with no deals approaching 90% off.

Negative facts can be presented in a neutral way. If I'm not doing so (I think I am.) I'd like to know what I'm doing wrong. I don't think the article is filled with negativity. It says nothing negative at all at the moment. At Hitler, we say "The racial policies that Hitler directed culminated in ... the Holocaust." --98.248.113.11 (talk) 09:33, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

If you want to comment on the "false advertising" from Groupon.com, we'll need to find a reliable source that makes this claim. (Perhaps, there is a news article discussing their false claims?) Otherwise, linking to the claims on their site and calling them "false" would be considered original research, and definitely not be WP:NPOV. The content of this article should be encyclopedic, and presented without bias. Jwesley₇₈ 15:07, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Here's the Wikipedia policy on verifiability. Jwesley₇₈ 15:17, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Let me quote the first paragraph of that page:

The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true. Editors should provide a reliable source for quotations and for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, or the material may be removed.

Jwesley₇₈ 15:18, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

You're the one using the word 'false', and the phrase 'false advertising'. Please don't misrepresent what I've said or done. Leveling a false advertising claim without a reliable source for it would be OR. That's not what's happened here. Company websites can be and are used here as sources, in order to respect WP:OR, and WP:NPOV. The info certainly is verifiable. Would an archived copy of the provided sources meet the verifiability criteria, in your view? What's your relationship to the company, if any?

Third Opinion

Hi, I found this on WP:3. User:Jwesley hit the nail on the head: the statement in question, while it may be correct, is pretty clearly original research, which is not permitted on Wikipedia. In order for something to be included in the article, it needs to have been covered by a reliable source such as a major news organization or academic journal. Mildly Mad^T_C 18:50, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Would an archived copy of the provided sources meet the verifiability criteria, in your view? The statements are sourced. There's no question that they're accurate. That makes them reliable. You're oversimplifying the definition of RS.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.248.113.11 (talk • contribs)

If a fourth opinion helps, let me point out that we can't take pieces of information like deals on a company's web page, put them together, and draw our own conclusions. That is considered synthesis which is expressly disallowed on Wikipedia. Essentially, you can't claim in the article that Groupon has engaged in false advertising, you have to cite someone in a reliable source who has done so. Now, looking at the information you added, you haven't gone quite so far as to explicitly make the claim, but you certainly imply it in your edit. I maintain that the edit was still a poor one to make, for two reasons. First, you are using two web pages that are highly dynamic as a reference; that "Recent Deals" page in particular changes constantly. That's definitely not a source that can be considered reliable; what if next month almost all of the deals on that page are almost 90% off? Secondly, I see that kind of edit as trivial. Certainly it isn't an example of false advertising, almost every advertiser fudges the numbers a bit when talking about percentage deals. And the main page doesn't say that every single deal is at least 50% off, it says that you can get deals between 50-90% which the Recent Deals page verifies. I don't see a justification for the edit. -- Atama頭 19:38, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) If the sources you are referring to are the URL links in your proposed edits, then no, that statement does not conform to policy. WP:SYN (a part of WP:OR) states:

"Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources."
"'A and B, therefore C' is acceptable only if a reliable source has published the same argument in relation to the topic of the article." Mildly Mad^T_C 19:45, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Atama makes some valid points. Which is why I ask again: "Would an archived copy of the provided sources meet the verifiability criteria?"--98.248.113.11 (talk) 20:30, 11 November 2009 (UTC) If they do, I can work on addressing the other points Atama raised, in order to create an edit that merits keeping. (Feel free to help.) --98.248.113.11 (talk) 20:30, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

No. "A and B, therefore C" is acceptable only if a reliable source has published the same argument in relation to the topic of the article, as per WP:SYN. Since Groupon has not accused themselves of false advertising, neither can you. Mildly Mad^T_C 20:45, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

No what? I haven't done any accusing. But Atama is right; it is implied. I believe it is false advertising, prosecutable as a violation of, e.g. § 12024 of the B&P code of CA. But an accusation would need an RS. If even an implication does (and I'm not convinced that's policy) then I don't see a way to salvage the edit. --98.248.113.11 (talk) 21:45, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

WP:SYNTH, which is part of the "no original research" policy, does say that even implying something is a violation. To be perfectly honest, I didn't even realize that point until today. But it does make sense, I suppose. -- Atama頭 21:59, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Ditto. I stand corrected. I don't see a way to salvage the edit w/o new sources. Encyclopedic content must be verifiable, not just true. --98.248.113.11 (talk) 22:31, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I think that as Hotmail can use Microsoft as a source 5 times, then this article can use quotes from Groupon.com as sources as well. I just removed some unsubstantiated puffery from that article.--98.248.113.11 (talk) 04:23, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Speedy Deletion

Groupon is a quickly growing online company. Notability is evident from the "Significant coverage" given to it by "reliable sources":

This article does not even come close to qualifying to "speedy deletion". G11 states: Pages that are exclusively promotional, and would need to be fundamentally rewritten to become encyclopedic. Note that simply having a company or product as its subject does not qualify an article for this criterion. I do not see how this article matches the required criteria for "speedy deletion". Jwesley₇₈ 17:15, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Criticism

Has the article been sanitized? Having read an article about a month ago, I know there is some dissatisfaction from Groupon users that their patronage of some merchants gets "2nd class citizen" treatment. And that some merchants are simply not prepared to handle the onslaught of business that results. RoyBatty42 (talk) 18:35, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a tech blog - where such complaints are often aired. All businesses have satisfied and dissatisfied customers and partners. I suspect that the complaints you mention are endemic to all deal-of-the-day services, and are complaints about the merchants rather than the promoters, so they are probably more apt for that article than as criticisms of one company or another. There have been a number of news articles about local merchants who got more business than they expected through groupon. I'm not totally convinced that these articles have any insight - they sound like either PR plants (it's a backhanded promotion to say that they're so successful they broke the system) or else just a journalistic meme. At the end of the day does it really matter that a cupcake business got 500 orders in a day when they could only handle 200? It just sounds like a matter of planning and working out some kinks. - Wikidemon (talk) 06:08, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I was scratching my head trying to remember where I read it, but here's a source I found a while back for this so-good-it-hurts meme.[1] It was intriguing but I didn't want to add it because I thought it was undue praise for Groupon. - Wikidemon (talk) 06:14, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

The word "market" is vague and should be replaced

The word "market" is repeated several times but never defined: "major markets", "the first market", "more than 150 markets", etc. I think by "market" they mean geographical regions, but it's hard to be sure. Let's make the language more clear. Otherwise it sounds like ad copy not suitable for an encyclopedic entry. Rahul (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 12:13, 29 November 2010 (UTC).

I've clarified by changing the first instance to "geographic markets" rather than "markets", although I think that was clear from context. "Market" is a term of art within some business circles to mean a distinct group of consumers sharing a common geography, e.g. a television market. It sounds like ad-speak because that's what it is. I guess the tone that creates is that the article is written from within the world of business rather than an outsider point of view. - Wikidemon (talk) 15:39, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the follow-up. If "market" as you described it does have a well-defined meaning as a term of art, can we either correctly Wikify "market" or add a dictionary citation for "market"? (I suspect not, as the Wikipedia entry for "market" includes no relevant meaning, and I can find no relevant meaning in the online dictiories either.) Terms of art should be directly defined or cited. Rahul (talk) 21:04, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Following up to myself--I see now that Wikipedia does have an entry for a term Media market that means "market" in the sense you mentioned, e.g., TV viewers who can receive the same or similar offerings in a geographical area. Although that entry also mentions Internet content, all the citations refer only to TV and radio.

So it seems to me that "market" can refer to a geographical area in the TV or radio sense. But its extension to the Internet is questionable, not supported by reliable references, and in my opinion also illogical. A TV or radio station has a limited geographical reach, so everybody who regularly watches/listens to that station naturally constitutes the "market". But there is no such limited geographical reach for a website so no analogous "market" exists. If we cannot find any reliable definitions of "market" used in the sense of referring to a well-defined geographical region that accesses a certain website, then we should avoid using the word "market" in the sense of a radio or TV market when describing a website.

Even if we can find a reliable definition of "market" in this sense, still, talking about a website-based company's growth in terms of how many "markets" it serves will make sense only if we also in some way specify the average size these "market"s. E.g., number of regular buyers or monthly revenue. Otherwise it conveys no useful information to the reader.

Rahul (talk) 12:14, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Replacing "similar sites" section

I've removed the "similar sites" section, and replaced it with a new category, Category:Deal of the day services. That lets us keep a complete list of all of these services, instead of a separate list on each one of the sites that some users choose to add because they think they're similar... I hope that also reduces the need to clean out the redlinks and spam every few days. I'm not 100% sure that the category should be that narrow, perhaps we should have a category for all group buying, coupon, and other social shopping sites. But anyway, it's good to have a category so if anyone is interested they can find a list of all the Wikipedia articles on these companies. Thoughts? - Wikidemon (talk) 07:45, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you and think that this is a good idea. There are so many Groupon-esque sites out there and I imagine that there will be a good deal of turnover as some go out of business and new ones start. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrewman327 (talk • contribs) 15:03, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Revenue

The revenue is listed as 760 million, but the source does not contain the number on the page and list the yearly revenue as 350 million per year. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sdmitch16

Article editing/ layout

Can stuff like this,

'The idea for Groupon was created by now-CEO and Pittsburgh native[7] Andrew Mason.'

...go in the history section, so the introduction to the Wikipedia entry isn't a huge block of text, with all sorts of irrelevancies included. I suggest a precis for this section, and include all these details, such as 'Andrew Mason', 'Pittsburgh native', 'now-CEO' in their respective sections, e.g. 'History' section. The same goes for all the other stuff in the start of the article. It's just not clear and takes too long to read.

Can the intro section be left for addressing the simple question of ' what is Groupon? '— Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.41.251.230 (talk) 18:40, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Spamming problems

This 'article' reads like an advertisement for Groupon company. The criticism section is weak and ad hoc. There is no mention, for example, of the millions of articles that address the problem of spam (Unsolicited Bulk Email, UBE) from Group and its affiliates. Much of the discourse reads like public relations spin, not an encyclopedia article. The article needs substantial revision and someone to monitor it for advert abuse. Benefac (talk) 09:18, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Concern on both IPO and Groupon Business Model

I for one am very concerned about Groupon’s business model and value proposition and will personally stay miles away from Groupon stock if it indeed ever IPOs. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse underwriters for Groupon’s IPO totally missed the double fake that was being used to misrepresent Groupon’s revenues. The IPO was withdrawn and substantially downrated from $30 billion to now estimated to be $12.5 billion (or under $10,000). Groupon’s rapid growth reflected a) initial signup of repeat customers and b) misrepresentation of revenues based on the volume of client sales flowing through the transactions instead of using only Groupon’s take on the Groupon – client transactions.

I am betting the IPO is dead. In the Dealbook, New York Times (http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/the-missed-red-flags-on-groupon/?scp=4&sq=groupon&st=cse) “A series of accounting and disclosure gaffes have brought the attention of the Securities and Exchange Commission, raising questions about the company’s credibility …(t)he history of Groupon’s chairman, Eric Lefkofsky, was also unearthed, showing a lawsuit-prone entrepreneur who flipped a dot-com company in 1999 only to have it lead to bankruptcy a year later for the firm he had sold it to. Groupon’s filing shows that when the company privately raised $950 million in a pre-I.P.O. round in January, it paid out $810 million of that to its investors and employees, a red flag for any investor. Mr. Lefkofsky and his wife took home about $319 million of the total.”

This also goes back to the focus of the dotcom model dating back to the buildup and collapse of the dotcom bubble... on what is the sustainable business model and how do you do the valuation. What indeed is the contribution of a store virtual coupon aggregator to the wealth of nations. I have been involved with several dotcom entrepreneurs whose aim was to develop a startup, IPO and flip but with no real sound sustainable longterm business models.Danleywolfe (talk) 15:55, 20 October 2011 (UTC)