User talk:Willisfd
Hello, Willisfd, and welcome to Wikipedia! I'm replying to the message you left at User talk:DragonflySixtyseven, per his request. First of all, you (and possibly your PR team, depending if they're still involved) should read our conflict of interest guidelines before you continue trying to work with that page. Paid editing, or the edits you are making as an employee of that company, is strongly discouraged. Articles on Wikipedia should be written with a neutral point of view, which means the article must address both the positive sides of the company, but also any criticism/scandal/etc. Because companies usually do not want this included in the articles that they are paying their employees to write, I'm sure you can understand where the issue arises.
Now, the issue with the article that the PR team compiled is exactly that: a NPOV issue. The article was extremely promotional; it read like something you'd find in a pamphlet distributed at the office. A good way to get an idea of how your article should sound is to read other articles about similar companies. For example, the article on American Apparel is a pretty good example. It includes a brief overview of the company in the lead (the type of company and what it sells), a history of the company, information about how the company operates, an advertising and branding section, and information about the "corporate culture and employment". A very important part of that article are the sections on various scandals and criticisms. The section on advertising includes a bit about a lawsuit with Woody Allen, and his negative description of the company. The section on corporate culture includes information on sexual harassment lawsuits, poor hiring practices, etc. As you can see, the article discusses both the positive and negative aspects of the company, without giving either side undue weight. The article is also written in a more encyclopedic tone than your article. It doesn't, for example, include phrases such as "sold at an affordable price point", "with the convenience and comfort of shopping from home", "To maintain a fresh look and an enjoyable shopping experience", etc. The article your team wrote also contains a lot of what we call "puffery" or "peacock words": positive adjectives used to introduce bias, without citation. These include words such as "sexy", "fun", and "elegant".
So, regarding improving the article... In order for the article to be included in Wikipedia, you need to show that it meets the notability requirements. You'll need to provide reliable, independent sources to both verify the information you provide, and to show that the company fits the requirements I linked above. If you think this is possible, and that you can rewrite the article from a neutral point of view, I can userfy it again for you. Just let me know if you want me to, and I would be more than happy to do so. You will, however, need to fix it relatively quickly, or you'll run the risk of getting it deleted again for the same reason. Cheers, and please feel free to ask any questions you may have. – GorillaWarfare talk • contribs 20:22, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
- Thank you for your valuable help and information. I would of course be more than willing to revise the article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Nicoleseowhat/Ranowear to fit your guidelines. I do have one question. We hired an outside service simply because we are unfamiliar with Wikipedia procedures and our learning curve might slow things down. Would it still be possible to hire another writer as an editor with specific instructions to adopt a neutral point of view and follow the guidelines as outlined in your note specifically as regards to sourcing and inclusion of any relevant negative information? And of course I would like the article to be userfied again. However, as you mentioned a time factor once it is userfied, should we wait on that until we're ready to do proper edits? Thanks. Sorry if this is a duplicate. I'm still kind of unsure how communications work.
Willisfd (talk) 15:36, 16 June 2011 (UTC)willisfdWillisfd (talk) 15:36, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
- You can post responses here. I will watch the page, so I'll see if you respond. To facilitate reading the conversation, it's best to indent each response. You can do this by adding a colon in front of your response. I've indented your response to me by one space, and this one is indented two spaces by using two colons. The next one should be indented three spaces by using three colons, and so on.
- Regarding working on the page, the long and short of it is that the page will not be included if it does not meet the notability guidelines. I have done a brief Google search, and it really looks like the company is not notable enough for inclusion on Wikipedia. After reading the notability guidelines, do you agree?
- As for the rest of your questions, like I said before, paid editing is highly discouraged. Though not completely disallowed, it is generally quite a bad idea. If you decide to do this, the author should disclose xyr conflict of interest at a place such as xyr userpage. Regarding the userfication, there is no set "time", per se. However, the article in its current condition is speedy deletable as unambiguous advertising. If a user were to come across it, he or she could tag it and it would probably be deleted. I'd just suggest you request userfication closer to when you're actually working on it. However, I'd like you to show to me that there is a chance that the company is notable before I userfy. Thank you. – GorillaWarfare talk • contribs 19:14, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
- Search results only seem to be showing primary sources (including press releases) and stock information. There doesn't seem to be any significant coverage in reliable, third party sources. – GorillaWarfare talk • contribs 16:20, 17 June 2011 (UTC)