Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Monsanto public relations activities


 * 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 redirect to Monsanto. OK, consensus appears to be clear on the fact that this article is not suitable as a standalone, mainly owing to redundancy and NPOV concerns. There is apparently some content that could be merged but I also see some questions about NPOV and BLP compliance. I'll thus redirect (so that the article goes) and leave the history so that discussion can be had on what if anything to merge. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:33, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Monsanto public relations activities

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Blatant WP:POVFORK from recent WP:SNOW keep AfD by same editor at Articles_for_deletion/GMO_conspiracy_theories. The "but Monsanto" argument often comes up in WP:FRINGE topics related to GMOs, and is covered by some degree by the conspiracy theories article already in parallel to "but government conspiracy" claims with climate change denial. We already have the Monsanto article where other non-fringe details about PR should be fleshed out first before saying it's a standalone topic. Otherwise, this is a mixture of WP:OR stringing together POV forks from content already covered with appropriate weight at other articles such as Kevin Folta. Kingofaces43 (talk) 21:00, 18 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Merge some parts of the page into Monsanto. First of all, the Kevin Folta section is unbalanced to the point of having WP:BLP issues, and should be entirely deleted, whatever else may be decided here. However, the other sections are encyclopedic and deal with issues that have attracted sufficient notice that they are worth covering, and doing so is not inherently POV. I'm actually rather surprised that the Monsanto page does not already have a section about PR, and so some of the material here would be very appropriate to merge into a dedicated PR section there. But I agree with the nom that, as a standalone page, this is a POV fork. The only rationale for splitting out a standalone page about Monsanto PR would be to attribute to the company's PR activities a greater notability than exists for the PR activities of so many other large corporations, and objectively that does not exist. Basically, the argument that Monsanto should be treated by Wikipedia as a special case comes down to "Monsanto is bad" POV-pushing. I've looked through Category:Public relations, and the nominated page stands out as the only page in the category that is about a single company (other than PR firms, of course). The closest thing is Public relations of high fructose corn syrup, but that is about a business sector, not an individual company. Nothing about PR activities of tobacco or fossil fuel companies, for which there would be far better rationales. So what we have here is a POV fork that contains some material that can usefully be merged into the parent page. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:06, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
 * OK, I am willing to write a shorter version for the main page on Monsanto, but there is so much information out there—this is only a start—I'm concerned that it won't all fit at the main article. Hence the need for a sub-article.
 * Can you be specific about what you think is wrong with the section on Kevin Folta? I put what I read in the New York Times article.
 * I also noticed that there aren't many articles overviewing corporate PR operations. I see this as part of the general deficiency in coverage of public relations on Wikipedia and I hope to correct the situation over time, having recently put a lot of work in to improve the article on Edward Bernays. However, there are of articles about public relations campaigns, such as Torches of Freedom and Nayirah testimony. Public relations of a whole company comes in at a higher level of generality, but I think it makes a lot of sense in this case especially, given the extent of coverage on the subject, and the fact that the sources in this case discuss ongoing campaigns which are bigger than any one person or group. groupuscule (talk) 15:11, 19 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Trypto, I initially considered a partial merge like you mentioned at first, but I don't think there's anything worth preserving after more perusing (which is why I'm leaning more delete, but don't have a huge problem with this eventually redirecting otherwise). The 2010 section can pretty much go as undue weight violations (singling out Monsanto on GMO Answers is stretching it) and BLP violations. The 2000s section is also sourced to the World According to Monsanto, a blatant fringe source that we wouldn't expect anyone to reasonably even consider (and Monbiot with some pretty fringey claims making those sources unreliable).


 * That leaves the 1980s and 90s section that don't immediately fail the sniff test.


 * The 1980s stuff is on agent orange. The topic is always a mess to present content on in terms of weight because the U.S. government ordered Monsanto and eight other companies under the War Powers act to make the formulation under a specific manufacturing process that had the dioxin contaminants that primarily led to the health issues. Monsanto and others actually warned the government back then, but they were ordered to anyways. Assigning due weight to Doll's involvement pretty much means it needs to be treated within the Agent Orange article (i.e., was the formulation itself a problem or the contaminant factors into weight on what Doll specifically was commenting on) and then considering how it fits into the Monsanto article. As it stands right now though, this section is also a BLP violation to some degree as the Folta section because the sources also go out of their way to say there was no evidence his work was biased either (could be addressed at the AE case, but I'm leaving that for now). Better to start from scratch on that one. This is also a bit of a coatrack in that consulting scientists aren't necessarily PR.


 * The 90s stuff is more fringe Monsanto controls the seed market stuff parsed to The World According to Monsanto again. The only thing I see that would be worth mentioning at a Monsanto page PR section is this source talking about how the public initially didn't react well to GMOs and Monsanto didn't really handle it the best. That's another that can be written without attribution to this page though since the current section is more coatrack than talking about actual PR.


 * That's enough from me though. Tl;dr, there's nothing really to use here in developing content in other articles, especially with WP:GEVAL policy in mind that the author seems to still to not understand. Kingofaces43 (talk) 17:16, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
 * @Groupuscule and @Kingofaces43: There is a lot that you each bring up there, and to some extent your comments each serve as the replies that I might give to the other editor. I rather doubt that anything that I can add would really alter where this AfD discussion is clearly going. But I'll be happy to discuss these details at article talk pages, where the questions of what content to write after this AfD can best be addressed. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:41, 19 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep. Quite simply this article meets all criteria for inclusion. It uses high-quality sources and presents them neutrally. Critically, unlike a contrasting article mentioned by the nominator above, there is nothing pejorative in the title "Monsanto public relations activities". Public relations is a major part of corporate activity, and Monsanto's public relations operations have been widely reported on. To respond to some of the nominator's concerns:
 * The article is not a POV fork, defined on the linked page as "a content fork deliberately created to avoid a neutral point of view (including undue weight), often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts." If someone wanted to do this, they would create a fork of this article called "Monsanto dirty tricks" or something like that. The fact is, nothing stops the addition of positive material about Monsanto's public relations efforts, some of which they've been very open about, and I've encouraged people to add to the article or supply me with sources to use. I did simple web searches on the topic and brought out what I found. "GMO conspiracy theories" is a POV fork of "Genetically engineered food controversies"; "Monsanto public relations activities" is not a POV fork of anything, much less, as nominator suggests, of "GMO conspiracy theories", with which it barely overlaps.
 * The article is not original research, defined on the linked page as "material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist." I don't see how Kingofaces43 can even suggest this. Please, what part of the article is original research?
 * Kingofaces43 writes: "The 'but Monsanto' argument often comes up in WP:FRINGE topics related to GMOs" and connects this with "climate change denial". Frankly I don't see the relevance to a deletion discussion, except to somehow suggest that people might misuse the information contained within. In my opinion this is not a good reason to delete an article. Perhaps I misunderstand and if Kingofaces43 would care to clarify the point, I will be happy to reply again.
 * Although the article overlaps with some others, there is information that's not found elsewhere. And, it makes sense to connect these related facts under this umbrella, since its a topic of interest to many people. Someone looking for information about on this topic might want to read about Monsanto's connection with Richard Doll, but we might not expect them to read all the way to the bottom of Doll's biography to find it.
 * Once again, if people feel this article is written in a way that's unfair to Monsanto, they can highlight how it's unfair, and ideally bring forth other sources that will add balance. Thanks, groupuscule (talk) 15:11, 19 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Merge A disruptive advocacy article if ever I saw one. You can't just cherry pick all the negative press for one company and put it into an article and claim neutrality. The best sources should be merged back into the Monsanto one, maybe in its own section where it can be balanced. Then if it grows to a size that justifies a split it can then be pulled out. Outside of what is presented here there are many notable donations that Monsanto makes, which due to the companies public image get their own protests (see this blog complete with scare quotes around donates and the poisoning the world conspiracy theory). AIR corn (talk) 17:26, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete A proper WP:CFORK should be done by adding to the Monsanto page and, if it is found that the public relations activities of the company are over-burdening the parent article, the right way to spin-out a new article can be handled with the appropriate summary style and links back. Right now, this is a distraction made by an editor with a chip on their shoulder. jps (talk) 19:35, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete as CFORK per jps above. Theoretically, if the content on Monsanto were developed into a few dozen articles, there might be grounds for a full article describing all the advertising and public relations the company has ever engaged in. But this isn't that article and the topic isn't that developed yet. John Carter (talk) 21:00, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete There really doesn't seem to be anything of value in this article, and there's definitely nothing that wouldn't be better in the main Monsanto article. On top of this, the article currently focuses entirely on controversies or negative coverage, instead of giving a broad overview of the company's public relations activities, which is implied by the title. There's no organizing principle over what should be included, and the topic in general does not warrant an article of its own. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 08:05, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Additional comment. Just dropping a note in case there is any additional conversation relevant towards the author of the article; they have recently been topic-banned and will not be able to reply. Kingofaces43 (talk) 20:30, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Merge into Monsanto and make this page a redirect. My very best wishes (talk) 04:25, 25 November 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.