Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/I-O Data


 * 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.  A  Train talk 20:49, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

I-O Data

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 * Delete Unremarkable company, fails notability requirements. Fails WP:CORPDEPTH and GNG. -- HighKing ++ 11:56, 18 July 2017 (UTC)  -- HighKing ++ 11:56, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Companies-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 12:07, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Japan-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 12:07, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Keep - The company is listed in the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (which is reserved for large corportations). As WP:LISTED states, the consensus is that public listing by itself is not sufficient to establish notability, "However, sufficient independent sources almost always exist for such companies, so that notability can be established using the primary criterion....Editors coming across an article on such a company without such references are encouraged to search (or request that others search) prior to nominating for deletion, given the very high (but not certain) likelihood that a publicly traded company is actually notable according to the primary criterion." A search of Japanese business and IT news sites finds plenty of coverage of both the company and its products:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , etc. Michitaro (talk) 13:38, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment The criteria for establishing notability for corporations such as WP:CORPDEPTH and WP:ORGIND provide in-depth explanations on which references can be used to establish notability. Specifically, articles that rely on publishing interviews or repeating facts relayed by the company are not acceptable as they are not considered "intellectually independent". In my opinion, of the sources you have listed above, this one from itmedia meets the criteria. The others appear to be interviews or company announcements. -- HighKing ++ 12:47, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
 * First, of the articles I provided, which I only accumulated in a few minutes of searching,, , , , all can easily be considered independent, significant and reliable sources per WP:GNG. None of these fit the examples of trivial coverage in WP:CORPDEPTH. They are from major news sources such as the Nikkei, the Mainichi, ASCII, and Nikkan Gendai. We can argue about interviews (which I included because they are easy to find), but WP:INTERVIEW summarizes the plusses and minusses with interviews, including how they can indicate notability in themselves. It is not hard to find more reliable sources if you take the time. A search of the CiNii article index finds a number of long feature articles on the company in the print business press over the years , including one in Nikkei Venture, one in Jitsugyokai, one in Modern Entrepreneur, one in Business Law Journal, etc. Sites like this and this give a number of regular stock and financial reports and analyses on the company (as one would expect given that it is a major corporation traded on the highest level of the fourth largest stock exchange in the world). These are all examples of what are considered sufficient in WP:LISTED. Any reasonable person would see this company very easily passes notability requirements. Michitaro (talk) 12:15, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Winged Blades Godric  04:33, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete - as a listed company there should be information available that supports notability, but it doesn't look like there is. I looked for 15 minutes including many of the links included above and found absolutely nothing. It's been tagged for 5 years for a lack of sources, and nothing has shown up.  There's only 1 ref, and 2 external links - all to the company's website.  Smallbones( smalltalk ) 02:39, 30 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Can you explain why you think the many reliable sources from major news media that I provided above are "nothing"? Michitaro (talk) 22:56, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: Would like to see people do a more careful analysis of the sources presented by Michitaro

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, -- RoySmith (talk) 01:58, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment As I noted on the other AfD for Elecom, if you could pick three or less references that you believe meet the criteria for establishing notability (as opposed to 10 or more), you'll find editors are more inclined to look at them. Also, from my analysis of the sources you provided at Elecom and here, it is very clear that you have not grasped what is required (and therefore what editors here are looking to see) for the purposes of establishing notability which are slightly different criteria that determining whether a source is a reliable source or whether facts provided by a company source or through an interview can be used in the article on a topic. That said, I would have expected a company as large as this one, listed on the Tokyo stock market to boot, to easily meet the criteria but this has been difficult and even with all the sources you have listed, not one source that meets the criteria for establishing notability has been found.
 * You've listed 3 unique references from nikkeibp.co.jp which all fail WP:ORGIND as they are company announcements and/or the article almost exclusively uses material created by the company. You've listed 1 unique reference from mainichi.jp which is also company material (and unattributed) and fails WP:ORGIND. This excite.co.jp reference is likewise unattributed to an author ("author YK" is all we have) and is a forecast for the future stock price but it fails as a reliable source since we don't know who wrote it or their credentials. Other editors might argue that it also fails WP:CORPDEPTH. You've listed two unique references for impress.co.jp - the first is a company announcement complete with powerpoint slides, product photos, photos of company execs doing a weird handshake thing and extensive quotations and material from company sources and therefore fails WP:ORGIND and WP:CORPDEPTH. The second reference along with this ascii.jp reference, this nikkan-gendai reference, this stereosound reference, this itmedia.co.jp reference, this advertimes reference, this weekly-economist.com reference and this itmedia.co.jp reference all fail WP:ORGIND as they are mostly transcripts of interviews with company officers and rely exclusively on company sources for the facts and material presented (and also not independent or third party because of that).
 * There is nothing in any of the sources that meets the criteria for establishing notability. My !vote to Delete remains the same. -- HighKing ++ 15:58, 6 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Comment- Sorry for the delay in responding. I have been quite busy and this response required time I really didn’t have. First, I have been rather frustrated with this AfD. From the nominator to some of those voting, I have seen a distinct failure to either perform what should be done WP:BEFORE nominating, or afterwards, to look beyond the existing article per WP:NRVE and perform one’s duty to consider the evidence presented in the AfD or to search for evidence on one’s own. Having participated in hundreds of AfD’s, this is nothing new to me, but I still feel the need to remind participants of what is necessary to participate in an AfD.
 * That is one reason I am not offended by HighKing’s comments in this AfD, even though I strongly disagree with them. At least HighKing has largely been doing what is necessary.
 * But HighKing is wrong on most of the points and reveals lack of knowledge of both Japanese media and the corporate world.
 * First, for High King offers no evidence for saying this is corporate material. Yes, it is an introduction of a new product, but are all introductions to new products corporate material? I might remind you that the Mainichi Shimbun is one of the major national newspapers in Japan, in line with the NY Times or the Washington Post. Second, as for this, HighKing clearly doesn’t know that the majority of articles in Japanese major news sources do not provide a byline. That is standard in Japan: it is the news agency that is the author and that is responsible for it. To reject all Japanese news sources because of this is to commit cultural WP:BIAS. Third, this  certainly is a report on a company announcement, but HighKing here failed to notice that it actually does name the reporter and anyone who reads it can see it is basic reporting, complete with multiple quotes, on a major collaboration between Japanese and American companies. (How much can HighKing read Japanese?) Fourth, again HighKing has not read closely the sources I provided, calling them all interviews. This , for instance, is not an interview, but reporting that quotes multiple people. By HighKing’s standards, is any news article that quotes people from, say the Trump administration, not independent reporting because of those quotes? That is absurd. This  is reporting on working conditions at the company and again includes independent reporting. As I said above, we can argue about the others that are in fact interviews (and interviews are common in business reporting in Japan), but WP:INTERVIEW summarizes the plusses and minuses with interviews, including how they can indicate notability in themselves.
 * So of the articles I found after only a brief search of the net, I believe I have already provided you with the three articles you ask for. But there are more.
 * I might add you did not address and, which at first might look like just providing stock market data for the company, but if you scroll down you can see that these are really just a top page that links to dozens of articles on the company’s stock and profits. In toto, they provide a wealth of detailed, independent reporting on the company—quite a lot for a free site. You also did not address any of the articles from major business magazines I cited from the CiNii database . To give people a sense of the articles, here are a few (with my translations):
 * “A Steadily Advancing Company No. 4: I-O Data,” Nikkei Venture no. 142 (July 1996), 46-49.
 * ”Suffering from Triple Problems: The Plight of I-O Data,” Jitsugyokai no. 813 (Nov. 1996), 52-55.
 * ”The Elaborate Legal Strategies of Local Companies: I-O Data,” Business Law Journal v. 2 no. 7 (July 2009), 84-86.
 * ”Let’s Learn from this Company: I-O Data,” Kindai Chusho Kigyo vo. 35 no. 7 (May 2005), p. 43-51.
 * Note that all are multiple page reports on the company that go back over 20 years.
 * Next, HighKing’s statement that s/he expected more reporting on a company listed on the Tokyo market also reveals s/he doesn’t know much about Japanese media. Most of the articles older than a week or two in the major national newspapers plus most of the major magazines are behind pay walls. This has been a major problem for all of us working on Japan-related articles on Wikipedia. To me, the amount I found in just a few minutes produced the opposite reaction: “Wow, there’s this much on open sites.” By experience, we know that is a very good indication there is as much or more behind the paywalls.
 * This time, to get just a sense of it, I spent a couple of hours (I didn’t really have) checking the library databases of a few of the major newspapers.
 * To start with, I checked The Nikkei, Japan’s equivalent of the Wall Street Journal. A search of the database produced 2153 articles in the Nikkei and its related publications that mention the company. Clearly many are incidental mentions, and quite a number are short reports of 200-300 words on the company’s quarterly reports and personnel changes (though the Nikkei of course only reports those if the company is a major company). I didn’t have time to check 2100+ articles, so I tried a few other keywords to get some samples. I am sure I missed many. Here are just a few of the substantial articles solely on the company I found:
 * ”I-O Data: Strengthening Sales to Small and Medium Sized Companies, Expanding Security Functions,” Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 2016/4/14, p. 8
 * ”Profiles of Rising Companies: I-O Data,” Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 2015/5/21, p. 9
 * ”Turning Point for 3 Major Ishikawa IT Companies: I-O Data,” Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 2007/12/22, p. 8
 * ”I-O Data: Ratio of Corporate Sales to 60%,” Nikkei Sangyo Shinbun, 2007/12/3, p. 10
 * “I-O Data: Profits Rise as Deliveries of Personal Computers Recover,” Nikkei Kinyu Shinbun 1999/2/19, p. 16.
 * “I-O Data: Projected 4.5% Rise in Profits, First in 3 Terms,” Nikkei Kinyu Shinbun 1998/2/20, p. 17.
 * ”I-O Data: Releases Self-Assembly Computer,” Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 1997/5/27
 * ”Profiles of Newly Introduced Stock: I-O Data,” Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 1991/3/19, p. 17
 * etc. etc.
 * I also tried some of the regular newspaper databases. Such business articles are rarer in these (each averaged about 40-60 articles mentioning I-O), but there were still a few substantial articles on the company:
 * ”Cyber Attack, Aiming for IoT? Major Company Routers Infected,” Asahi Shinbun, 2016/11/3, p. 38
 * ”The Genealogy of IT 1: The Pioneers,” Yomiuri Shinbun, 2010/8/12. p. 27
 * ”Healthy Companies, Expanding Companies: I-O Data,” Mainichi Shinbun, 1994/5/11, p. 9
 * Again, this is what I came up with in the limited time I have using databases that, frankly, are rather clunky. But just this makes it very clear that the company passes the requirements for notability on Wikipedia. Again, with experience participating in hundreds of AfDs, I cannot see any justification for deleting this article. Michitaro (talk) 03:01, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
 * , just like in the other AfD, this is way too long for an AfD and frankly most won't read it. My points remain the same. You're still insisting that company announcements printed in reliable sources (doesn't matter if its the Wall Street Journal or the Nikkei) meet the criteria for establishing notability. It has been already pointed out to you that references such as those fail the criteria. Producing more of the same doesn't help your argument. Listing references (such as "A Steadily Advancing Company No. 4: I-O Data,” Nikkei Venture no. 142 (July 1996), 46-49") with no links or ISBN references doesn't help your argument. I tried to assist you previously by asking that you simply produce three references that meet the criteria. That is probably, still, your best response. Until then my !vote remains the same as "Delete". -- HighKing ++ 14:18, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Your response is very disappointing and frankly difficult to comprehend. I provide loads of sources and evidence and you essentially ignore them. You say these are "company announcements" as if it is a fact but you have offered not one shred of evidence that these are company announcements and not--which is what they are--independent reliable reporting of the news. The burden is on you to prove it and you have failed, and you deny that failure by refusing to engage in constructive argument. I have shown that your argument is full of holes and misunderstandings. I have provided your three sources online and many many off-line sources. No where on Wikipedia is there a requirement that sources must be online. You can always go to the library to check these sources (I provided issue and page numbers). Now if you read WP:COLLAB and WP:AGF, you would try to work with me on this if you can't access these, but your attitude is not helpful here. I think that attitude undermines your argument here. Michitaro (talk) 14:40, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I can be any clearer than I have been but I'll give it one last go. If a reference uses phrases like "The company announced" or uses extensive quotations from company sources, it probably fails WP:CORPDEPTH and/or WP:ORGIND. I would normally be happy to accept references that aren't available online but have been vouched as good, but given that the references you've provided fall foul of WP:CORPDEPTH and/or WP:ORGIND and you insist that they are good references, it isn't enough for me to change my !vote. Finally, just because I disagree with your references (and have pointed out why) and tried to give you pointers in order to help you make a good case (write less and to the point) doesn't mean I'm not trying to help. Also, pointing out COLLAB and AGF to any long-standing editor is usually taken as an insult. My final advice for you is to read very carefully what I have written and you'll find you've misinterpreted quite a bit, both my tone and my willingness to assist. -- HighKing ++ 18:28, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: Number 3.
 * Comment - I was asked to provide ISBN numbers, but ISBN numbers are for books and none of my sources are from books, so here are the links to the CiNii entries:, , , . Michitaro (talk) 00:43, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, L3X1 (distænt write)   )evidence(  18:25, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep: I admit to being a bit more on the fence about this one, mostly because I don't understand exactly what they do, but articles like ”Suffering from Triple Problems: The Plight of I-O Data,” clearly aren't press releases; they are independent critical commentary on a company, which is a pretty good indication of notability. The Ja.wiki article for this company is pretty long and is badly cited, but footnote 2 is independent and critical reporting of a controversy over a large scale redundancy, published by the Chunichi Shimbun. Both of these imply a notable company. Furius (talk) 00:23, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Any links? Because this link gives me a 404 - Page Not Found. Also, is it possible you can provide the opening two sentences from "Suffering from Triple Problems" reference? -- HighKing ++ 18:37, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid I don't have access to either of them, as it seems that they aren't online and they are not in my university library. The latter appears to be in the National Diet Library, if anyone is in Tokyo. Furius (talk) 22:26, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm therefore curious why you !vote Keep when you haven't been able to access either of the references you mention. -- HighKing ++ 18:03, 15 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The same reason that I'd vote keep for a topic which had had a book written on it that I was unable to access. My access to sources (relevently in this case, Japanese news media and business magazines) is not perfect. Furius (talk) 00:42, 16 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Comment - I do apologize to others for the burden caused by providing so many sources. I just felt that some on this AfD were not looking properly at the sources I provided, so I erred on the side of volume (though not on quality). The problem, as I stated above, is that the Japanese media is protective of its content, and thus the major companies put their older material behind paywalls. That is what happened to the Chunichi article (they even prevent the Wayback Machine from archiving them--I just checked for that one). So the majority--and in many cases the best (because you have to pay for the best)--coverage is either in print or in for-pay databases. So what to do? In previous AfDs where I have cited off-line sources, most participants have taken it in good faith that I am not making them all up and have used them as indication that RS exist (I don't recall an AfD where the article was subsequently deleted in such a case). We are, after all, not determining whether the article should be promoted to feature article status, but rather seeing if the weight of coverage tends towards WP:GNG. I sense that some here are not willing to assume good faith, so those participants may want to see the articles. I did provide the relevant bibliographic information for those who can use the databases or go to a library (which is what I did). The databases of all the newspapers I cited can be searched at any library in Japan and at many major research and even public institutions abroad. If there is a problem with not knowing Japanese, I suggest one solution: that someone neutral to this AfD or who has not yet participated make a request at WikiProject Japan for some members to check on the Japanese sources I have given to determine if they help satisfy WP:GNG, and/or to make additional searches to determine if those also help satisfy WP:GNG. I cannot guarantee a quick response (WPJ members are few in number and overburdened as it is), but this seems a reasonable option. Michitaro (talk) 02:44, 14 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete this AfD is several times larger and better-sourced than the article. Based on their website, the company is unlikely to meet any size-based presumption of notability, and there are no sources presented that prove notability. Power~enwiki (talk) 22:07, 14 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Please read WP:NRVE. The current state of the article is not to be the basis of judging notability. And can you give your reasons for stating that "there are no sources presented that prove notability," especially after you say that the sources in the AfD are better? You seem to be contradicting yourself, since the sources in the AfD are sources to be considered when determining notability. Finally, can you cite Wikipedia policy that makes size an important factor in judging notability and that gives a guideline about judging size? Michitaro (talk) 01:17, 15 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Redirect to Electronics industry in Japan. If the subject were notable, after several weeks of discussion the article would describe how the topic is notable. In this case, simply being a brand name in one country isn't sufficient for being notable.  However, it is a perfectly valid search term, so I support a redirect. Power~enwiki (talk) 01:26, 15 August 2017 (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.