Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Economy of Things


 * 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__EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__. Spartaz Humbug! 05:26, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Economy of Things

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Now here's the thing: this whole construct/concept is a piece of IBM 'thought leadership', and a phrase coined by IBM - and promoted by the company - in the pursuit of commercial goals. So I nominated it for G11, and it was then sent to draft. Now it's back and it's STILL problematic. I'll quote here from the G11 template, "This article may meet Wikipedia's criteria for speedy deletion because in its current form it serves only to promote or publicise an entity, person, product, or idea, and would require a fundamental rewrite in order to become encyclopedic." (my bold)

So here we have an article about an idea and associated catchphrase that solely serves IBM - sourced to IBM, the opinions and/or op-eds of its staff and a couple of non-IBM sources dealing with tangential concepts that have been accepted into the mainstream. It's promotion, plain and simple.

If speedy is declined and the draft mainspaced by its author without addressing the fundamentally IBM-centric nature of the whole idea (hard to do - again from G11, "would require a fundamental rewrite in order to become encyclopedic.") then I would suggest the only possible outcome is deletion. You could redirect to IBM but then that gives IBM effective ownership of the phrase on Wikipedia... Alexandermcnabb (talk) 04:11, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Companies, Computing, Internet,  and United States of America. Alexandermcnabb (talk) 04:11, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I would agree at least that this falls under "other content not suitable" at the moment . Alpha3031 (t • c) 05:00, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete. I do not believe any of the content currently in the article is suitable to merge into internet of things, however, I would not object to a redirect with history kept if a mention is worked into that article without being contrived. With regards to anti-corporate bias, I believe it's reasonable to take a harder line against commercial promotion versus the "I'm a fan of this" type of promotion, and I believe that this is supportable by the spirit of our PAG. See the difference between COI and PAID or GNG and CORP for example. Alpha3031 (t • c) 10:48, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete. The whole article is just an IBM promotional piece. The sources are weak too - two are primary sources directly from IBM, a Forbes article that turns out to be sponsored content by IBM, a press release and a promotional brochure by Vodafone, a blog post by whatever the hell Peaq is, and pieces by other businesses that aren't reliable sources. Delete the whole thing. No redirect either, because as Alexandermcnabb correctly pointed out, there isn't enough independent coverage to grant IBM ownership of this phrase on Wikipedia. Cortador (talk) 09:20, 26 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Keep As said in this article - Not really a G11, but not mainspace ready either; reads more like an essay than a summation of references. Will move to draft. I did a total rewrite of the article as recommended to me. Certainly this article cannot be classified as a promotional article, as it comes from reliable sources and is a viable wikipedia topic.--Zytty (talk) 09:50, 26 September 2023 (UTC)


 * What reliable source? Cortador (talk) 11:46, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Sources available in the article, including the following Techradar,Techtimes, Rcrwireless,, , Thesundaily, Businessinsider...and many other newspapers, books mentioning the name of the article. Zytty (talk) 12:18, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
 * There's no consensus on TechRadar, RCR Wireless News, or The Sun Daily, TechTimes was deemed unreliable, Economic Times was deemed unreliable as they apparently don't always mark sponsored content, and Business Insider also apparently doesn't always mark syndicated content as per Wikipedia's lost of perennial sources. The single reliable source here is Sensor. Cortador (talk) 13:19, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't get 'Sensor'... sorry, slow bear... Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 13:43, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Presumably Sensors (journal), which is the source for the PubMed link. Being a MDPI journal, reliability is... debatable. Alpha3031 (t • c) 15:55, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Ah, PubMed - gotcha. Thanks. Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 16:27, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Sensors is the journal the PubMed article Zytty linked to above is in. It's peer-reviewed, so that is one actually reliable source in a group of dubious ones. Cortador (talk) 15:55, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Considering Alpha3031's comment above, I did have a closer looks at MDPI. Their Wikipedia article is 75% controversies. Wikipedia is not a source, of course, but maybe we should have a second look at what they publish, as MDPI has been alleged to be a predatory publisher, and have some level 0 journals. Cortador (talk) 16:04, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
 * In reference to I did a total rewrite, I have to say when people say total rewrite, they do not usually mean going through 6 of the 20 paragraphs with a thesaurus while keeping the semantic meaning of each clause nearly identical (or at least, substantially similar). If there is any appropriate redirect destination, it would probably be internet of things rather than IBM, which I hesitate to suggest as such while it does not mention the concept. Alpha3031 (t • c) 13:15, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Relisting comment: I'm relisting this discussion on the chance that there is some content here that is worth Merging. I have no opinion on the ultimate fate of this article, I just don't want to be quick on the delete button here. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 05:03, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete Buzzwordy and promotional; all sources I could find were either not independent of IBM/Peaq or were breathless opinion pieces that made me instinctively cover my wallet. WeirdNAnnoyed (talk) 14:32, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
 * That'd be you practising the economy of things, right there... Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 15:06, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Merge a brief summary into internet of things. A search found a couple of papers section 2, The digital economy of things and, and a chapter in a book, The Economy of Things. These in addition to the Sensors article mentioned above show discussion of the concept independent of the original IBM source. IMO the sources confer marginal notability, but as a concept discussed in reliable sources, the topic is solidly verifiable. As the EoT concept is discussed in the context of IoT and indeed depends on them, a brief summary in the internet of things seems the appropriate target. That preservation of verifiable material is preferred over deletion is our Wikipedia policy (see WP:ATD and WP:Preserve). I also think we need to be sensitive to systemic bias in Wikipedia, in this case an anti-corporate bias. If an academic had first come up with the concept of EoT, I suspect we would not be having this discussion. -- 13:14, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, but an academic wouldn't be leveraging the coinage of the concept for commercial advantage, would they? And the issue I see - 'anti-corporate bias' apart, is that using a Wikipedia article to help mainstream/cement a 'thought leadership concept' driven by a corporation is an abuse of Wikipedia. Getting back to the nomination, "...it serves only to promote or publicise an entity, person, product, or idea." In other words, it's "Unambiguous advertising or promotion". Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 15:47, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Of course an academic would leverage the coinage of a concept for personal gain! Such leverage would increase their reputation or notoriety and increase citations, leading to better chances of success in getting grants, corporate funding, and promotions at work. With respect to the nomination, the origin of a topic doesn't matter--if a topic is discussed in enough depth in reliable sources, that is verifiable information, possibly notable, and is suitable for inclusion into Wikipedia. My suggestion of merging a brief summary from RS both preserves verifiable information and can easily remove any advertising and hype problems. -- 17:14, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
 * BTW, 'The Economy of Things' book you linked to is a) self published and b) by a gentleman called Enamul Haque who, we would fervently hope, is not the same Enamul Haque employed by IBM India. So we're really back to square one - find a reliable source that does not originate with IBM and this attempt to coin a phrase to use in a 'thought leadership' campaign. We come back to the same basic point - this article has G11 splashed all over it in nice, blue lettering... Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 13:47, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Good find on the book source, agreed it isn't independent. But not back to square one at all--the other three sources (the two articles and the Sensors article) are independent RS (AFAICT) and are fine for verification of basic facts and merging a brief summary. I still see no compelling argument for deletion. -- 18:31, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm a little skeptical on the conference proceedings by the way. Leaving aside for the moment whether AWK AACHEN is fully peer reviewed for the moment, it doesn't seem to be on the same topic as what IBM proposes? Alpha3031 (t • c) 04:44, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Merge an article that must be on wikipedia.--Tristancr (talk) 23:54, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Relisting comment: Still no consensus here. Just editors with very different assessments of this article and its sourcing. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 07:14, 10 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep: More than enough hits in Gscholar discussing this thing, I would give it a pass. Oaktree b (talk) 15:17, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Delete the newly-created article does too much repeating of IBM marketing claims in Wikipedia's voice to be kept. Also, I don't see any good references; when I did a Google Scholar keyword search, most of the hits were unrelated to the IBM-coined topic. Walt Yoder (talk) 14:40, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep however the material in the article is easily verifiable by the sources present, fully supporting Mark viking idea.--Nimorinka (talk) 13:16, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete (or merge per Mark viking) it seems like this is somewhere between an IBM promo and WP:CRYSTALBALL. ~ Argenti Aertheri (Chat?) 04:14, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete It is far too early to tell if this new buzzy phrase will be adopted or where precisely the "Characteristics" section really comes from. There are no independent sources and we should be deeply suspicious of topics where the content is provided by companies invested in the success of the topic. The topic is simply promotional and even if it is destined to take off as a separate industry segment, WP:TOOSOON and WP:CRYSTALBALL applies.  HighKing++ 21:50, 17 October 2023 (UTC)


 * 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.