Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Foerster + Rutow


 * 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. v/r - TP 01:46, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Foerster + Rutow

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 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions.  — • Gene93k (talk) 20:51, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions.  — • Gene93k (talk) 20:51, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions.  — • Gene93k (talk) 20:51, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Small law firm (15 lawyers) of little importance. Non-existent in media coverage. Overall the article smells like WP:SOAPBOX, most of the contributors are single-purpose accounts. bender235 (talk) 20:01, 4 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. Regarding the comments made by the user who initiated the deletion process:
 * (1) Number of lawyers: Irrelevant. Comment: The number of lawyers a law firm has does not affect nor influence the relevance or importance of the legal work done by that law firm.
 * (2) Media presence of a law firm: Not applicable: Comment: It is fairly untypical to find German law firms mentioned in the newspaper or on TV when a particular case is being written about or discussed. This is due to Germany's strict laws regarding the professionalism of German attorneys which regulate how and when a lawyer and a law firm shall be mentioned (i.e. (Bundesrechtsanwaltsordnung (BRAO) and anwaltliche Berufsordnung (BORA))).
 * (3) WP:SOAP: Unfounded. Comment: This page meets the requirements of WP: Notability (organizations and companies).
 * (4) Single-purpose account: New users. Comment: Although the contributors are relatively new, they have made many edits to various pages on Wikipedia EN and DE.


 * Comment: The Foerster and Rutow law firm is well known in legal circles for its research with universities, pro bono work and its international cases involving government administrative offices. These are areas that would not turn up in a Google search. However, these are areas that are known to academics, other international/European/German lawyers and to international/European/German government administrative personnel. --Ryan.germany (talk) 12:23, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
 * (1) The size of the firm matters, not just for law firms, but any firm on Wikipedia. A firm has to be one of the largest in its industry, or ...
 * (2) ... be notable for its media coverage. But F+R isn't. And by the way, it is not true that German law firms don't appear in the media. For instance, try Hengeler Mueller, or Freshfields. --bender235 (talk) 17:15, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Reply
 * (1) I respectfully disagree. I would like to refer you to WP:BIG where it states "Notability isn't determined by something's quantity of members, but rather by the quality of the subject's verifiable, reliable sources."
 * (2) I respectfully disagree. I wrote "untypical". I did not write "never". Furthermore, the articles that your link calls up regarding Hengeler Mueller are when Hengeler Mueller is itself the news. Also, Freshfields is registered as an English law firm, therefore not regulated by the Bundesrechtsanwaltsordnung (BRAO) and anwaltliche Berufsordnung (BORA) and as such Freshfields can be displayed, used, mentioned, and portrayed etc... in any form of the media. --Ryan.germany (talk) 17:45, 7 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment My find sources tag in this discussion has been removed by Bender235 without any explanation. Personally, I do not remove parts of discussions without explanations. --Ryan.germany (talk) 18:03, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete (a) I smell a rat in that all their stuff appears to be in German, yet there is no transwiki link; (b) there's lots of stuff they've done, but it's not clear how much of it is about them as required by WP:GNG. Stuartyeates (talk) 10:17, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Reply The fact that much of their "stuff" appears to be in German is irrelevant. "Sources may encompass published works in all forms and media, and in any language." - WP:GNG --Ryan.germany (talk) 14:42, 8 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Revisited due to new references being added: Still not seeing independent third party coverage, many references go to pages which don't mention the topic by name or give it significant coverage. Stuartyeates (talk) 08:10, 9 September 2011 (UTC)


 * More Sources Added
 * e@rbeit F+R partnered with the German government agency called the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung) in a project called e@rbeit. I have added four more independent sources from the of Kassel, of Heidelberg, Chamber of Commerce and a technology publication called Report verifying as such. Partnering with a Government agency in a tax payer project is notable. It is notable not only to the tax-payers but to the society it services in general.--Ryan.germany (talk) 10:41, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Found another press release talking about e@rbeit.
 * Publications I added another publication to their publications list titled Product Recall, Liability and Insurance: A Global Guide (Foerster, Foerster, Pahl. Product Recall, Liability and Insurance: Germany Chapter). The total number of publications is 24. Google books lists 7, Google Scholar lists 6., Audible.de lists 1 audiobook.--Ryan.germany (talk) 10:41, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Research in conjunction with universities I found another source of a research project between the University of Bamberg and F+R titled: IR-basierte Unterstützung der Vertragsanalyse (ARGUS). The goal of the project was to create an information retrieval system to quickly analyze the risks of a contract before it is signed.--Ryan.germany (talk) 14:17, 8 September 2011 (UTC).


 * I found another collaboration between F+R and the University of Hannover regarding computer law.
 * I found another source establishing a collaboration between F+R and the University of Erlangen about the and training law students about the CISG.--Ryan.germany (talk) 15:41, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

@Ryan.germany: Are you, by any means, affiliated to Foerster and Rutow? --bender235 (talk) 16:08, 8 September 2011 (UTC)


 * @Bender235: I am of the opinion that your question is an attempt at getting me to reveal private information about myself and is considered by me to be tiptoeing the line as an attempt at "outing" me (see WP:OUTING). This would be a direct violation against the guidelines set by Wikipedia.--Ryan.germany (talk) 07:30, 9 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Actually I'm not trying to reveal private information. You don't have to tell who you are, just whether your affiliated to the subject. Just so we know whether you're in a conflict of interest. --bender235 (talk) 09:43, 9 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Your direct question regarding any affiliations that I may or may not have is what I would consider border-line harassment. And I am asking you kindly to please stop. Any answer I provide either be it affirmative or negative reveals pieces of my identity. Here is a quote directly from WP:COI "When investigating possible cases of COI editing, Wikipedians must be careful not to reveal the identity of other editors. Wikipedia's policy against harassment takes precedence over this COI guideline." Furthermore WP:COI states "Conflict of interest is not a reason to delete an article..", therefore this AfD debate is not the forum for investigating a COI. This AfD debate is for discussing the quality of the sources that are submitted and if they meet Wikipedia's standards. If in the end this entry is deleted because the sources are lacking, then so be it. But leave me out of the debate.--Ryan.germany (talk) 10:37, 9 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete. Running through Google News Archive, Google Books, and Google Scholar, I can find no significant third-party coverage supporting notability. Neutralitytalk 20:09, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  DGG ( talk ) 01:22, 12 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment The articles was changed sufficiently that I relisted it for further discussion. Myself, I have no firm opinion--I regard law firm articles as an unsolved problem, because in many cases, including this, the references are a little more than trivial and a little less than significant.  DGG ( talk ) 01:24, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment 2. Asking if there is COI is not outing--COI could be from any of the partners or associates, or hired staff, or a pr firm, or for that matter a close relative. Normally, if there is truly no connection, but the ed. just knows of the subject, the ed. says so. If the ed. is associated, they can say so frankly without saying in what manner, and frankness is often appreciated. It's wrong though to judge on the basis of the failure or refusal to answer, or to press someone to answer. But in any case  people will actually judge COI on the basis of the article: if it is the sort of promotional article usually written with COI, then COI will be assumed. If the article is sufficiently well documented and properly written, then COI doesn't matter. Perhaps it should never matter in itself, but in practice it gives a certain presumption of at least the need to look at the article very carefully.   DGG ( talk ) 01:31, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Rewrites I have rewritten parts of the entry and added more sources in the hopes to make a better WP article. What I see here is a law firm engaged in research with government agencies and universities, published notable books on many different areas of law and worked on cases that recieved international attention (do a Google search on Xcell Center). --Ryan.germany (talk) 14:08, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
 * There are dozens of law firms (each much more notable than Foerster + Rutow) who are engaged in academia. That is nothing that merits notability on its own.--bender235 (talk) 17:15, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I think that you are actually proving my point and if you have a source for your claim that only dozens of law firms are engaged in academia, I would be interested in linking to it. However just assuming that your facts are correct, that only dozens of law firms out of tens of thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) law firms in the world are in engaged in academia is quite notable. Many folks have the opinion that law firms are profit driven/focused entities (I am choosing my words carefully not to offend); I could imagine that these folks would be surprised to learn that dozens of law firms are engaged in academia. --Ryan.germany (talk) 07:02, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I was talking about the big and notable German law firms, like Hengeler Mueller, Noerr, Gleiss Lutz, Beiten Burkhardt, Görg, or Taylor Wessing. Foerster and Rutow is not even close to these in terms of notability. --bender235 (talk) 16:26, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
 * the usual objection to a listing like this, is that they should have articles also.  DGG ( talk ) 04:34, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
 * You mean Hengeler Mueller, Noerr, Gleiss Lutz, Taylor Wessing? These are notable, Foerster + Rutow is not. --bender235 (talk) 07:31, 18 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete Does not appear to satisfy WP:ORG. Edison (talk) 20:09, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete fails WP:ORG. nothing in gnews . you would expect at least a passing mention. LibStar (talk) 08:51, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete as it lacks significant coverage thus fails WP:GNG and/or WP:ORG. If this does get kept, I am going to remove large sections, such as "Awards" as none of the awards seem to be that notable (ie have own WP article) and the same with "Notable Publications" as none of them have own WP article. Mt  king  (edits)  07:08, 18 September 2011 (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.