Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fish Information and Services


 * 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   no consensus. BJ Talk 01:08, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Fish Information and Services
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The company does not meet the notability guideline for companies and organisations. It is small, privately owned, and rated as a small internet site by Alexa. The creator of the article appears to be spamming wikipedia by creating articles about the company, here, on Simple and on Spanish wikipedia. Matilda talk 22:38, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Websites-related deletion discussions and also at  list of Business related discussions plusWikiProject Fisheries and Fishing.   —Matilda talk 00:10, 17 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Notability

In this debate, the notability of the website is being called into question. I think that if I can show that this company is the market leader in this sector, than this would no longer be an issue (just as Google and yahoo! are leaders in their sectors and thus have articles). I know that sometime in the next week, an article is being printed in a Norwegian financial magazine (for those who do not know, Norway is one of the biggest fishing/seafood exporting nations in the world) that will show FIS to be the market leader and therefore proving its notability. Since this would be an external and independent source, the validity of that would not be questioned. I shall post that on this discussion page and on the list of sources as soon as it arises. The fact that FIS has a traffic rank of 300 000 doesn’t effect the notability since this is only proportional to the market in which it is in (This figure does not take into account the fact that the Japanese FIS is on a separate domain so the figure is actually closer to 200 000). Ferrari on the world car market has no real significance (less than 1% of the total market), however on the LUXURY car market it is much more significant. This is a similar case here, on the overall view of the World Wide Web, FIS is small, but within its market its huge.
 * Removed Tag - There is sufficiant coverage now and the statistical information is now well sourced.Spindoctor69 (talk) 20:30, 23 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Written Like an Advertisement

The second issue raised is that the article appears to be written like an advertisement. This is no reason for deletion since this contradicts the spirit and philosophy of Wikipedia. If an article is not up to encyclopedic standard, then it is modified and updated until it is up to that standard. Simply deleting an article because you don’t like it or understand the sector in which it talk about is a complete contradiction of the very concept of Wikipedia and the fact that it is written like an advertisement should give people encouragement to carry on improving Wikipedia. The competitors of this website are not listed and this is open for anyone to do if they think that this would add balance to this article.


 * Removed Tag - I think I have now solved the major part of the problem by removing the talk about competitors. --Spindoctor69 (talk) 13:04, 17 September 2008 (UTC) — Spindoctor69 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * Accusations of SPAM

In response to this accusation on "spamming" Wikipedia, this is again nonsense. The site has three languages: English, Spanish and Japanese as well as a large majority of the English users not having English as their first language. It is therefore equally significant to have articles for all three languages as well as a simplified English version since those are all of equal importance on the site. This also calls into question if we should be discussing this on the English Wikipedia site since each language has different administrators and log-ins.

If Wikipedians continue like this, Wikipedia risks becoming an organization similar to Académie française (French Academy) or the Real Academia Española (Spanish Academy). This is something for the people who take part in this debate to consider. --Spindoctor69 (talk) 02:16, 17 September 2008 (UTC) — Spindoctor69 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Comment. When adding sub-heads on AFD, please make sure to make the header a level below the main AFD subject line otherwise it messes up the indexing on the page. I've made the repair. No opinion on this AFD. 23skidoo (talk) 02:36, 17 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment in reply re accusations of Spam etc - this user: is a single purpose account here and on at least two other wikipedias (Simple and Spanish) having put up this article on those projects too.  Per Spam: There are two types of wikispam. These are advertisements masquerading as articles and external link spamming.  In my view this is an advertisement masquerading as an article.  There are no reliable sources to establish notability per WP:COMPANY.  I do not think deleting articles on non-notable companies puts us at risk of becoming like  the Académie française - in fact we run the opposite risk if we do not have some criteria for inclusion - hence our development of the notability guideline for companies and our policy against advertising. Essentially if this company is as notable as claimed, including a market leader in its segment, that fact will be reported by reliable sources, those sources can be cited and our guideline on notability will be met.  Without those sources to support the claims, I stand by my accusations of spam and advertising - the use of wikipedia to promote a non-notable company. --Matilda talk 23:28, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Spindoctor69 (talk) 21:02, 18 September 2008 (UTC) — Spindoctor69 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Delete - fails the notability guidelines for companies and web content as it has not been the subject of significant coverage in reliable secondary sources. What coverage there is is either advertising or trivial references as a collater of fish prices (example). Re the above comments - a future article in a Norwegian newspaper might qualify as a secondary source, but as it has not yet been published its content cannot be assessed. If reliable sources are expected soon perhaps userfying the article might be worthwhile until those sources are available. I agree Alexa rankings don't indicate much, and that apparent advertising can be rewritten. But these are side issues - the key point is the absence of independent sources to verify notability. Euryalus (talk) 03:00, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Weak keep, based on my being almost undecided. Googling it produces few results, but http://www.fis.com/fis/mediakit/2007/overview-e.html shows a not insubstantial organisation, though I do appreciate that this may contain trade puffery.  The putative Norwegian article will be enough to tip me into a simple keep.  I do recommend that the article is "de-advertorialed" and that other reliable sources are found for it.  If the consensus is to delete I recommend temporary userfication to allow more work to be done before republishing.  Just losing the article seems to me to be silly.  Fiddle Faddle (talk) 07:15, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - there are no reliable sources cited to support the claims - the organisation's own web site is not sufficient. It is not a matter of other reliable sources - it is a matter of any sources.--Matilda talk 07:21, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - I think that "no source" is an exaggeration, the Alexa information and the information from the web directory are a start. As soon as this other article is printed, I shall post it here and add it to the sources on the article. --Spindoctor69 (talk) 12:15, 17 September 2008 (UTC) — Spindoctor69 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Comment - we have a guideline on reliable sources - the Alexa information and the information from web directory do not meet that guideline. To clarify my comment above - what I should have said is sources cited - I have inserted that word above in italics to make clear--Matilda talk 21:51, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep - This issue simply comes down to whether or not a suitable source, external to the company, can be found. You keep offering Alexa, Spindoctor69, but Alexa is not the sort of source we are after. Alexa just reports on the traffic statistics of any website. Nor do I necessarily agree with your claim, Matilda, that "there are no reliable sources", and I wonder why you would think that you can so categorically assert that. The organisation is known as FIS, and FIS, unfortunately, is an acronym widely used for other purposes. Google shows over 20 million hits. This makes its very difficult to filter out references for the FIS we are after. Also, the site seems to get most of its traffic from non English speaking areas. The other difficulty is that this is a specialist site, aimed at managers in the seafood industry. It is a tool that insiders know about, rather than a site that is the subject of interest in the general media. What turned me round to thinking the site is notable was examining the link for "User comments" which can be found on the left sidebar of the main page of FIS, towards the bottom. If you actually check these organisations out, to see if they exist as notable companies, together with the names of their claimed managers, then for the most part they check out. Clearly FIS could not get away with these claims if they are false. It was this fact that decided me, some time ago, that the company was indeed notable. However, this somewhat indirect evidence is not in a form that can be cited in Wikipedia. So my position is that the company is notable, but there remains the task of finding an appropriate supporting citation. You say, Spindoctor69, that sometime in the next week, an article is being printed in a Norwegian financial magazine. That may do it. --Geronimo20 (talk) 18:27, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment in reply - as per my annotation above - what I meant to say is no reliable sources have been cited - I have clarified above. If sources exist then they should be cited and we can then assess the article against the notability guideline: "A company, corporation, organization, team, religion, group, product, or service is notable if it has been the subject of significant coverage in secondary sources. Such sources must be reliable, and independent of the subject."  As far as I can see there is nothing that supports FIS meeting that guideline - some yet to be published article is not significant coverage in secondary sources (note the plural). --Matilda talk 21:51, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * With some quite diligent searching I have found a passing mention in the New York Times - it is not a significant coverage in a secondary source though - Whenever you're curious, go to fis.com, click on Market Prices, select Tokyo-Chuo under Far East Prices, and scroll down to Bluefin . All other links I found were back to the company's own web site. --Matilda talk 00:22, 18 September 2008 (UTC) - PS You can't follow the NYT reporter's suggestion anly lionger unless you are a signed-up member. --Matilda talk 00:30, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. The lack of citations from reliable sources in this article leads me to conclude that the article is not in compliance with the verifiability policy. Stifle (talk) 18:39, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep - I have found sources which establish notability. I have put them on the article. There are various sites noting fis.com as the market leader or the leading news company. I think this should be enough to end this discussion and now add more information on the company citing these sources.
 * Thanks for your work on fixing the "advertising" issue - its much improved. However there remains a problem with notability - you've added additional links but all of them are either trivial mentions (eg simply lists of information providers including FIS) or advertising by FIS on other websites. None are significant mentions capable of meting the notability requirements. This problem isn't unique to FIS - a news provider can have a worldwide audience but no coverage of the provider itself. Is there anything in financial press anywhere, about FIS operations or structure (that is, actual articles on FIS by organisations not directly associated with it)? I can't find any but you might have better resources than I. As it stands there's still not much here to meet the notability guideline. Euryalus (talk) 22:02, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The other relevant guideline is Notability (web) which requires
 * The content itself has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the site itself.
 * This criterion includes reliable published works in all forms, such as newspaper and magazine articles, books, television documentaries, websites, and published reports by consumer watchdog organizations. except for the following:
 * Media re-prints of press releases and advertising for the content or site.
 * Trivial coverage, such as (1) newspaper articles that simply report the Internet address, (2) newspaper articles that simply report the times at which such content is updated or made available, (3) a brief summary of the nature of the content or the publication of Internet addresses and site or (4) content descriptions in Internet directories or online stores.
 * The website or content has won a well-known and independent award from either a publication or organization.
 * The content is distributed via a medium which is both respected and independent of the creators, either through an online newspaper or magazine, an online publisher, or an online broadcaster
 * perhaps these criteria are more helpful --Matilda talk 23:07, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * - but the organisation doesn't seem to meet any of these 3 criteria these either :-( --Matilda talk 21:35, 21 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Rjd0060 (talk) 23:06, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

   Some other places simply list it as a source, which, of course, doesn't say too much, but is worthy of mention.     Jjamison (talk) 23:40, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Question on 17 September User:Spindoctor69 wrote sometime in the next week, an article is being printed in a Norwegian financial magazine - has it been published yet?--Matilda talk 23:38, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep importance in the industry is demonstrated, though the sources could be better. However, even clearly notable information services are difficult to get information on. The supply information, but nobody thinks to write about them. Seems descriptive to me, not like an advertisement. DGG (talk) 00:27, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep I looked around, and it appears that the company is used as a reference site.  Here are three sites that do so.
 * Keep Hi, I'm new to editing wikipedia, but from what I can see there is very little reason to delete this article. It's probably quite difficult to find other media companies who write articles about competing media companies but these sources appear to show that the site is used and widely recognised. Organisations such as NAFO are notable sources and if they are using this site then it shows that this site is worthy of an article. Redgator5 (talk) 14:18, 23 September 2008 (UTC) — Redgator5 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Further comment The company appears to meet the third criteria listed by Matilda "he content is distributed via a medium which is both respected and independent of the creators, either through an online newspaper or magazine, an online publisher, or an online broadcaster". Redgator5 (talk) 14:25, 23 September 2008 (UTC) — Redgator5 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

What Wikipedia is Not i was looking around Wikipedia and found this article: What Wikipedia is not. There is a section which is called 'Wikipedia is not a Beurocracy'. I think this section fits this article well since it seems to be a specific case. There are no internet publications which have significant coverage on this site, however I think that notability has been established since it has been used as a source by some very notable organizations. What Wikipedia says in its guidelines for a case like this is that we must 'ignore the rules for the sake of improving Wikipedia'. Having this article benefits Wikipedia despite it being short of sources. Although what Spindoctor69 says about Wikipedia turning into the French Academy is a little extreme, I think he is correct and this rule was created to combat that so I think we should abide by it. Redgator5 (talk) 16:26, 23 September 2008 (UTC) — Redgator5 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * Delete as per WP:SPAM. I note a considerable amount of POV pushing related to this indicating possible conflict of interest. Michellecrisp (talk) 03:56, 25 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment - While I note that is a new account (and one that has contributed almost exclusively on this topic), notwithstanding that he is new to wikipedia, I regard the following interactions with me as inappropriate:
 * removing referenced information I added and anotability tag with the edit summary Deleted Vandalism by User:Matilda
 * requesting me to close the debate
 * Instructing me that I should have ignored all rules and inferring that I had disrupted Wikipedia to make a point (presumably by nominating this article for deletion) - I find this last interaction particularly inappropriate - even from a new user!
 * I am raising these interactions here so that the community can be aware that I have been accused of disrupting wikipedia to make a point and to state that I most vehemently refute the motivation implied. --Matilda talk 04:29, 25 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment in response - Asking you to close the debate was a missunderstanding, I believed that you were responsable for that, but was obviously mistaken. After recieving a rude and obrupt comment (not the first) from you, I could see that you don't want to assume good faith. The ignore all the rules referance was actually a suggestion that you SHOULD ignore the rules from time to time instead of blindly following them. 190.246.1.14 Spindoctor69 (talk) 19:19, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete A SPAM article at best - this article does not provide notability in any of the references (I have checked through them all and they are either self-referencing or adverts). Wikipedia is not an advertising service. Indeed the Alexa comments make the article look directly like spam (please, your average porn site will have a ALEXA rating in the 10,000 or less but there not notable either).  Reference to Google Hits obtained at the bottom of the page is also a dead give away. Put simply this is a fishing information service (there are several in my town alone - indeed my brother in law writes for one) what however makes this one notable? Nothing detailed at this time.  Finally I note Michellecrisp's comments above and thus for the reference of the admin closing (although I am sure you will see it yourself immediately) it appears clear to me that there is at least one SPA and plenty of COI or similar editing by the main article contributor contained in this debate.-- VS  talk 05:35, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
 * comment- Alexa does not establish notability, especially if you're talking about member only sites. Sources in notable organisations establish notability and this article now has them.Spindoctor69 (talk) 19:19, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Strong keep. Well-referenced article about notable organisation. Spurious nomination by disruptive, single purpose account. Delete nominator . --Gene_poole (talk) 05:43, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
 * You have not demonstrated how it meets WP:CORP? Michellecrisp (talk) 05:48, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Excellent Gene - always a joy to get your sarcastic comments - brings a certain light relief. Thanks again.-- VS  talk 05:51, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh I get it, sarcasm! Michellecrisp (talk) 05:54, 25 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment Sockpuppet accounts are strictly forbidden in deletion discussions. See SOCK Michellecrisp (talk) 05:48, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Additional comment sockpuppet suspicion officially raised and new evidence that an editor has tried to split one keep vote to keep into two has been provided.-- VS talk 12:45, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

IP user - I accidentaly made some comments while I was not logged in, my computer had logged me out. I have re-instated the comments under my name. I'm sorry about that and I hope we can assume good faith with this and move on. Spindoctor69 (talk) 19:21, 25 September 2008 (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.