Talk:Katzenbach Partners

This article provides an objective description of Katzenbach Partners' history, intellectual property and publications. We look forward to engaging the wiki community on how to develop this page over time, however we respectfully believe that it meets content standards in its current form.


 * The article seeks only to promote the company, whose notability is not otherwise asserted. By the "we" in the message above, I assume that the article was posted by someone associated with the company, which runs afoul of conflict of interest guidelines.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Realkyhick (talk • contribs) 17:50, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Realkyhick, thank you for your prompt response.

Apologies for the previous use of "we:" nycperson and I are now using different IDs. We are both associated with the firm. I don't believe that this disclosure, which we are happy to make, precludes us from adding this page to the index although we understand that it creates a high bar for objectivity in our edits.

Katillery 18:58, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Any specific detail you could provide with regards to your assertion of the article's promotional nature would be helpful as we work through this process. I am happy to address any of your specific concerns either through this forum or through edits to the page itself.
 * We are happy to provide documentation of our firm's notability, both through the "External links" section of our article and through the addition of more citations in the article's text.
 * You may be interested in looking at the articles for our major competitors, linked under the section titled "Competitors." We have based much of the structure of our article on these entries.

''The following message was sent to me (Realkyhick) by e-mail. I urged the sender to keep these discussions on the article talk page where they can be viewed buy the entire Wikipedia community. Here is the text, followed by my reply:''

Dear Sir or Madam,

Thank you for your recent comment on the Wikipedia article about our firm, Katzenbach Partners. We would like to better understand your reasoning behind marking our article for deletion.

While our artile could serve a promotional purpose in specific contexts, we belive that our article is primarily informational and a relevant resource for parties interested in learning about our history, publications, etc. Similar articles exist for many other consulting firms, including McKinsey & Company.

Other than the fact that the topic of our article is a corporate entity, we are unure how the article qualifies as advertising. We would appreciate any comments on how to prevent the deletion of our article as we are new to the wiki community and want to be upstanding citizens in this domain.

Thanks in advance; we look forward to hearing from you.


 * The message was signed by Nycperson. My reply via e-mail was:


 * First of all, are you associated with Katzenbach in any way? If so, you are likely violating Wikipedia's conflict of interest guidelines. Any article about a company which is written by those employed by that company is almost automatically assumed to be promotional, no matter how much the wording of the article is created to avoid that appearance. Wikipedia policy specifically forbids any article which promotes anything, be it a company, group of any sort, belief, anything at all. We have a staunch "neutral point of view" policy. Furthermore, the conflict of interest policy stipulates that someone with direct ties to an article's subject is not in a position to take a clear-eyed view as to whether the subject is notable by Wikipedia standards.


 * The fact that articles about other similar firms has no bearing on the notability of Katzenberg; each subject must stand on its own.


 * We greatly prefer that these discussions take place in the open on the discussion pages of the articles themselves, or the user-talk pages. Conducting discussions such as this via private e-mail is *strongly, strongly* discouraged. I will move this discussion to the article discussion page so that all may see and comment.

By the comments added to this page previously, it is obvious that two employees of this firm are collaborating in this article, which violates WP:COI. Realkyhick 19:46, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

COI issues again on re-posted article
This article has been re-posted after a speedy deletion. The author is different from the first time around, but I'm still concerned that this was posted by an employee or associate of the company. I'm tagging it with a coi until I find out otherwise.

Additionally, the Jon Katzenburg linked to in the article is not the one connected to this company. It redirects to John Katzenburg (note the "h" in the name).

The Vault.com link is not specific. The claims of company size and future office in London are not sourced; they are what lead me to believe someone in the company wrote this. Realkyhick 16:24, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Response to Realkyhick
With regards to your message:


 * I created this article. I assert that I do not have a conflict of interest of any kind with regards to this topic.  Kindly instruct me as to the proper process for removing the  tag from this page.


 * With respect to Jon Katzenbach, I believe that there is confusion on two fronts. Firstly, you have incorrectly referred to the gentleman as Mr. "Katzenburg" (emphasis added). Cursory examination of the topic title as well as the contents of the article reveal that there is no (and never was) any reference to any Katzenburg.  Rather, I believe the two men you have in confusion are Jon Katzenbach (consultant, author) and John Katzenbach (fiction author).  Secondly, this confusion may have been amplified by a pre-existing redirect that was sending some requests for "Jon Katzenbach" to John Katzenbach: I have corrected this error (certainly someone typing "Jon Katzenbach" (note the lack of "h" and the "bach" in the name) is trying to find the business author whereas someone typing "John Katzenbach" (note the "h" and the "bach" in the name) is trying to find the fiction author.  Perhaps further disambiguation is required, but I believe this to be outside the scope of this discussion.


 * I have revised the Vault citations to reference specific pages.


 * I have added a citation for the company's size. This figure is widely available from multiple sources.


 * I have removed the reference to a London office pending a citation.


 * I read the Wikipedia Notability guideline in its entirety.  This guideline states that "a topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." (emphasis added).  "Significant" refers to sources that "address the subject directly in detail" : you will find that each of the articles referenced treats Katzenbach Partners in detail.  I would find this assertion difficult to dispute.  "Reliable" refers to "authors or publications regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand." : again you will find that each of the articles referenced is from a source widely regarded as authoritative: Fortune Magazine is a national business publication with readership near 4 million, Fast Company is a national business and entrepreneurship publication, Consulting magazine is an industry standard, published since 1970 and Vault is a recognized leader in the production of career guides.  I would find the assertion that the sources referenced are "trustworthy or authoritative" difficult to dispute.  "Independence" "excludes works produced by those affiliated with the subject." .  To my knowledge, none of the sources cited for facts or used to assert the topic's notability are in any way affiliated with Katzenbach Partners, excepting the company web site which is cited to reference the firm's stated mission.  To this end, this topic is within both the letter and the spirit of Wikipedia notability guidelines, both generally and as specified for organizations and companies.  Kindly instruct me as to the proper process for removing the  tag from this page.


 * I understand that this article may still require work to meet the high standards of Wikipedia. For this reason, I suggest that the  tag remain attached to the topic until further additions and/or modifications can be made.  I have, however, clearly asserted this topic's notability and refuted your assertion that I have a conflict of interest; to this end I firmly believe that both the  and  tags should be promptly removed.

Thank you for your contributions to this topic.


 * Given your assertion that you have no connection to the company and with no evidence to the contrary, I will remove the coi tag. The notability warning will remain for now; this is a relatively low-level warning that merely says, "There are problems here," but does not initiate any deletion process on its own. You've already set forth what needs to be done to bring the article up to standards, and I agree. - Realkyhick (Talk to me) 03:00, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

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