Talk:R/GA/Archives/2012

No speedy deletion
This article probably needs work but it ought not to be a candidate for speedy deletion. I didn't write this article, although I have contributed to it. Also, I am not an employee of R/GA or Interpublic -- in fact I work for a competing agency -- but R/GA is probably one of the most influential digital agencies in the world today and certainly worthy of an article. I don't understand why every article about an advertising agency must be considered spam. Greyfedora (talk) 01:43, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Forthcoming Substantial Change
Planning a substantial change to the page, being careful to adhere to the editorial policies. Please let me know if I need to provide further details. Also - the official name is R/GA Media Group Inc., but the commonly-used name is R/GA. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rgaarmy (talk • contribs) 19:29, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

R/GA Changes
R/GA (the subject of the article) has proposed a substantial change to their article. We've tried to adhere to all policies (e.g. neutral point of view, stating conflict of interest)and have included extensive references. Please review and publish the proposed content onto the article page if it's acceptable. 15:11, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

request edit Below is a substantial change to the R/GA article. As noted on my bio page, I work for R/GA, and have collaborated with my colleagues to try to present a useful article that complies with Wikipedia's COI, neutrality, and other related editorial policies. Please review the proposed change below and, if it meets Wikipedia's standards, would you please publish it on the main page? Many thanks!

199.2.242.199 (talk) 15:11, 24 February 2010 (UTC)rgaarmy


 * I've taken the liberty of moving the draft to User:Rgaarmy/draft as it is easier editing it on a separate page rather than here. Smartse (talk) 14:06, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Comments on proposed major change
Here's my 2¢ worth: Remember, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It is not the place to market your organisation. Please read our policy on the notability of companies. Astronaut (talk) 03:10, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Seems way too long for the subject. Part of the reason is the extensive list of honors and awards going back over 14 years.  Is it really necessary?  Why not list a few of the more notable ones.  The same goes for the extensive list of past and current clients.  Come to think of it, the clients, honors and awards seem to be handled sufficiently well in the first couple of pragraphs.
 * 2) The list of creative works sounds more like a resume/portfolio. The kind of thing you might hand to prospective future clients.  Slim it down and leave just a few notable examples.
 * 3) The entire "Agency Model & Offerings" section reads like a mission statement. Again the kind of thing you might find in a resume/portfolio.
 * 4) Wikipedia does not use the ™ character at all. Nor do we use © or ®. Such symbols will be quickly removed if they continue to appear.
 * 5) Rather than providing in-line links as references, please use and put reflist at the end of the article. Take a look at pretty much any other article to see how it is done.
 * 6) The list of external links is just a list of back-slapping spam (with the exception of the official site).


 * Oppose. To quote 67.163.54.4/Rgaarmy "I work for R/GA, and have collaborated with my colleagues to try to present a useful article".  Please see WP:NOR and WP:NOTADVERTISING.  If R/GA is as notable as you assert then you should be able to find a number of independent write-ups on your company in WP:RS.  Base any changes that you suggest on these, but sticking to WP:V.  Also remember that if you only pick the good bits and omit the negative, thus changing the bias of such content then you open yourselves up to failure to conform to WP:NPOV and other editors may choose to redress this balance. -- TerryE (talk) 15:08, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * A very minor improvement, but there's much further to go. Remember, Wikipedia is not for telling everyone how great your employers are.  Astronaut (talk) 00:46, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Do we simply need to reduce the list of awards to only the most noteworthy? What kind of content are you asking for us to add - or is this a case of addition through subtraction? User:Rgaarmy —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.185.105.185 (talk) 05:08, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

With the exception of the formatting for the references, I feel that we've addressed the feedback above. Please feel free to make whatever other modifications to the article that you think are appropriate. Thanks again :) User:Rgaarmy  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.185.105.185 (talk) 14:45, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but no. You have not gone anywhere near far enough in addressing my feedback.  When I get a moment, I'll show you whatI mean.  Astronaut (talk) 15:23, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I also agree that the proposed draft is inappropriate, wikipedia is not a vehicle for promotion. Passages like "operates under a new advertising agency model that emphasizes collaboration across teams, disciplines, and offerings. The agency partners technologists, copywriters, designers, analysts, and planners to create a mix of marketing campaigns and brand platforms for its clients" are totally inappropriate for wikipedia per the core policy of presenting a neutral point of view of a subject. Listing of awards is also not something that should be done unless the award itself is particularly notable. I've worked on a few other PR company articles and to be perfectly honest there seem to be so many awards out there that they are pretty irrelevant. The section "Notable creative work" needs to be referenced by independent sources to demonstrate that this work was actually notable, only the Nike campaign seems to be so as far as I can see. Make some more edits and I'll be happy to take another look. Essentially use independent sources to verify everything and there should be no problems. Smartse (talk) 11:35, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I forgot to say thanks for posting the draft here rather than putting it straight into the article. Smartse (talk) 11:37, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your patience - I've reduced the volume of awards to the most significant, rewrote the Agency Model section, and cut back on the Notable Creative Work.User:Rgaarmy —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.185.105.185 (talk) 02:56, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
 * To show you the kind of changes I think are needed, I have trimmed the awards even further and removed the excessive backslapping spam in the external links. The history could be beefed up a little with content from the current article and the references would need to be converted to citations and appear in a references section.  Astronaut (talk) 15:12, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your help! If you're comfortable with the current edit, can we please migrate it to the article page? User:Rgaarmy —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.2.242.199 (talk) 15:44, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
 * It still needs a fair bit of work. Namely the history section and client section are unreferenced at present - remember that all information needs to be verifiable and not based on your personal knowledge. A link to a list of clients on the RGA website would do for that section, but the history section will need to be independently sourced. Smartse (talk) 16:01, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I've taken the liberty of moving the draft to User:Rgaarmy/draft as it is easier editing it on a separate page rather than here. Smartse (talk) 14:06, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I noticed that the NYT article used as a reference in the current article isn't used in the draft. It looks like it could be used to reference a lot of the history section. Smartse (talk) 14:09, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

How can we make that reference in the simplest, most effective way? User:Rgaarmy —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.2.242.199 (talk) 16:05, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I've added references to the NYT and Business Week articles to the draft at the start of the history section. Where a sentence or paragraph can be verified from the article, add either (for the NYT article) or  at the end of it and it will be referenced. Does this answer your question? Smartse (talk) 16:59, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks again for your help. Please see the updated article draft page - I've added a bunch of properly-formatted citations - I hope they satisfy the various criteria. User:Rgaarmy —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.185.105.185 (talk) 05:14, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I've moved it to mainspace now, it isn't 100% perfect but it is a great deal better than the previous version of the article. Good work on adding the references. Smartse (talk) 12:04, 4 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Per the discussion above, it seems this request was completed (although I had some trouble following the conversation.) I have disabled the request edit tag. If it is still needed, feel free to undo this. Avic enna sis @ 09:48, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks Avicennasis. The proposed new version was originally here in this talk page, but Smartse moved it to a subpage.  Some of the discussion above still refers to the proposal as if it was still here.  Astronaut (talk) 18:01, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Advert
It looks like Ukexpat added an "advert" tag to the article. Given the review and revisions above, is that unreasonable? The article is well cited and we complied with all the edit requests. User:Rgaarmy


 * It still reads like an advert albeit a sourced one. And who is "we"? If you are sharing an account that is not permitted. Abundant COI and WP:CORPNAME issues here. – ukexpat (talk) 03:20, 14 April 2010 (UTC)


 * In what way does it read like an advert, particularly in relation to our competitors? "We" is myself and my R/GA colleagues, but rest assured that only I have access to my Wikipedia account. User:Rgaarmy
 * As for COI, we've taken all the recommended steps to declare bias, cite our sources, and use neutral language. Please modify any specific language that you think violates those guidelines, rather than slapping an "advert" tag to the whole article. Please remember that this article went through significant editing as compared to the original draft, incorporating changes from the contributors above. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.2.242.199 (talk • contribs)
 * Please remember to sign your talk page messages, and rather than use an IP address to evade your username block, please register a new account, or ask for an unblock so you can request a change of user name. – ukexpat (talk) 16:23, 14 April 2010 (UTC)