Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/London Mint Office


 * 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. Eddie891 Talk Work 21:57, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

London Mint Office

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

The London Mint Office is a predatory mail-order company selling collectible coins. The London Mint Office confuses customers by connoting some official status. Whereas the Royal Mint is the government mint of the UK, the London Mint Office is a private company established in 2006. The London Mint Office is not a notable company, and by having an article there is a risk that Wikipedia is lending credibility to their questionable business.

I have not been able to find reliable sources clearly documenting the questionable nature of the business. However, this is more likely a reflection on their non-notability than the probity of the business. A quick Google search will return many online forum discussions describing the London Mint Office as a scam or a misleading business.

Reads like an advertisement. The article is written in a way that reads like an advertisement. It contains various platitudes about the business, including a list of its various marketing stunts under the ‘promotional events’ section.

Conflict of interest editing. The article reeks of COI editing. The promotional-sounding article about the London Mint Office is the only contribution made to Wikipedia by User:Johnnyp176. Various accounts subsequently making substantial contributions to the article, including User:JPRobin and User:JustinPRob, were blocked for sockpuppetry.

Not noteworthy. Per WP:CORP, a company is notable if it “has been the subject of significant coverage in multiple reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject”. Although 24 sources have been cited, none of them can be described as significant coverage in independent reliable sources. The sources which have been cited include the company’s own website, PR newswire sites, the website of its parent company, the website of their PR agency, and various fleeting and incidental references in newspapers, some of which have obviously confused the London Mint Office for the Royal Mint.

‪雞蛋仔 eggwaffles (talk) 19:09, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Companies and United Kingdom. Shellwood (talk) 19:27, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Weak delete: Per most of the nom, although "having an article there is a risk that Wikipedia is lending credibility to their questionable business" is not a valid reason. Wikipedia has thousands of articles on businesses about which questions have been raised. As long as the business is notable, that is not an issue. Also the allegations that it may be a scam or misleading does not preclude an article as long as those allegations are reflected. Attempts should be made to address those issues (and the advert-like nature) before deleting. But it does fail WP:CORP IMO, hence my weak delete. Lard Almighty (talk) 05:27, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete. I will confess that I initially found it slightly odd that this article was nominated and that the emerging consensus seemed to be to delete. Every few months I get bombarded by their ads so I assumed they were notable. I thus decided to make a thorough source assessment table (see below) to look into whether they were actually notable. The inescapable conclusion is that they are not. As can be seen from the table below, 24 sources were analysed in depth of which 21 were still accessible (3 had WP:ROTTED away). The vast majority fell at the hurdles of independence or reliability. Some were particularly egregious like press releases and financial accounts. While I was surprised to conclude that this company fails WP:SIRS, there seems to be no single independent, reliable and significance coverage out there, let alone multiple such sources. There were two sources that were closer(er) to meeting the guidelines and which merit a particular mention here to head off any possible argument. These were the Times Colonist Article and The BBC news article . While these sources could arguably be independent and reliable, their coverage is woefully trivial. They merely mention LMO in passing and cannot be said to represent significant coverage. I also searched for more sources and could not find any. Please let me know (by pinging me) if more sources appear of if you disagree with the assessment I made. For clarity, per Lard Almighty I also disagree with the statement that just by LMO having an article there is a risk that Wikipedia is lending credibility to their questionable business such that we should delete it. What matters is meeting WP:SIRS and this fails it.
 * Jtrrs0 (talk) 17:26, 10 October 2022 (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.