Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of United States companies by state


 * 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 Keep. A complex debate with no clear consensus in my view to delete. Arguments for retaining the work and improving it on a day to day basis were particularly relevant. Concerns over notability of companies included in the list are met by normal WP:nn management of created company articles. I will also undelete all sublists related to this list (and then await the masses of messages on my talk page). I should also make the suggestion that the main list can be reduced in page size by creating more sub-lists for the larger company populated states.-- VS talk 07:18, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

List of United States companies by state

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

This was prodded in June, see discussion on talk; no one disagreed with deletion but it was suggested that it be discussed. This seems redundant with the set of categories Category:Companies of the United States by state as is (there is no additional information other than an alphabetical list of names); many of the sublists for states have been deleted by various means which makes this master list rather useless. It was suggested this is a target for COI editors promoting their company, and is harder to keep updated than a category would be. Redlinked companies have been periodically removed (many were of articles since deleted for notability) so it's not useful as a requested articles list. Rigadoun (talk) 23:10, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment. If keep all is consensus, can the closing admin undelete all the sublists, which were deleted via prod. They're obviously needed for the article to work and basically have the same merits/problems as this article. If delete is the consensus, the ones that still exist can probably be prodded. Rigadoun (talk) 16:12, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment. I say, undelete them all anyway. PROD is not an appropriate way to deal with the sub-lists of this list. It's clearly and self-evidently NOT uncontroversial. AndyJones (talk) 18:45, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
 * keep this list and its sublists. It is not redundant with the categories.  It contains redlinks which cannot be captured by the category structure.  If it needs help, then improve it. Hmains (talk) 05:36, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Strong Delete: list is not encyclopedic, it appears to have WP:COI and Wikipedia is not lists or repositories of loosely associated topics, which is exactly what this list is. Mh29255 (talk) 06:03, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep the whole list, including sublists - First of all, redundancy between lists and categories is a good thing, and deletion of one in favor of the other is discouraged, according to the guideline WP:CLS. Second, just because the sublists have had problems and were deleted, isn't a reason for abandoning the main list. It can be rebuilt and expanded again to sublists as is normal for lists.   Third, lists are much easier and less time consuming to maintain than categories.  Categories require tagging or untagging potentially hundreds of different pages, with server and download delays for each and every page.  Updating the items on a list do not have those delays because they're all on the same page.  For a comparison of the benefits of lists and categories, see WP:CLS.  Lists are superior to categories in many ways, and are increasingly being used as tables of contents and indexes of Wikipedia's articles.  Fourth, almost any page on Wikipedia could be the target for spam/self-promotion.  The only way to prevent COI completely is to erase all of Wikipedia, but that would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  The same principle applies to any subject.  We shouldn't decline to cover a topic just because it might be spammed, or might be vandalized, or might be POV'd.  We fight those things directly by reverting or correcting specific instances of them.  We have thousands of volunteers/editors for this very purpose.  And once such problems have been identified, we deal with the source of the problem, by going after the spammers/vandals/POVers themselves, either blocking them or confronting them via Wikipedia's dispute resolution system.  Fifth, lists are still very useful as requested article lists even when some of the redlinks lead to an "already been deleted" notice.  Besides, links to deleted pages should be delinked when those pages are deleted.  If they aren't, then whoever runs into them should finish the job.   Th e Tr ans hu man ist    06:56, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep per Transhumanist, who makes a great argument per WP:CLS. Bearian (talk) 16:04, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. Transhumanist said it all. AndyJones (talk) 18:45, 3 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Strong delete This list could grow to have millions of entries, not encyclopaedic Computerjoe 's talk 19:35, 8 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete. The category is sufficient and the list redundant. Keeping redlinks is not a good reason to keep a list. If the article is a redlink, it means that the company is not notable for wikipedia or hasn't been created yet. If the former than it shouldn't be in the list either if the later, use a project collaboration page instead to list companies that deserve an article but don't have one yet. Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 04:11, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Strong delete. This is listcruft at its best. There are SO many companies out there, there can not be any potential encyclopaedic value in such constructs. --Gi m lei (talk to me) 13:57, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete This is not a manageable list. Companies open and close every day. It is not possible to maintain the list. It could never be a factuall list. There will always be errors.  Gtstricky Talk or C 17:00, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.   —UnitedStatesian (talk) 17:59, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. I've been looking at these lists, and have prod-ed a couple of the sublists slowly over the past few weeks. My reasoning behind the prods is based on a couple of things. First off, all of these lists are nothing more than an alphabetical list of names; there is no other information provided. If the lists were a table with Net income, or other anything else I could see keeping the lists. As current, they are nothing more than a duplication of the categories. Next, these lists are very hard to complete and keep free of conflicts. The basic requirement is that the company be headquartered in that state/country. There are thousands of companies that could be included in each of these lists. If we want to keep it limited to notable companies, then there should be references for each company to establish notability. These lists also seem to have many red-links to companies that were removed for various reasons. A list shouldn't contain a red-link to a company that doesn't have a page on Wikipedia; the company doesn't have a page for a reason (usually because it isn't notable). As a side note, this list was included in a previous AFD along with a lot of other lists. They all ended up being kept but the one of the main arguments was that the lists provided some information not captured in the category. For example, some of them included what sector or industry the companies were a part of, others included the market cap; which none of these list contain. Ank329 (talk) 22:44, 9 January 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.