Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Otrium


 * 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. Consensus is clear that sourcing isn't sufficient for a company Star   Mississippi  22:08, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

Otrium

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

Fails WP:NCORP. Routine startup coverage.  scope_creep Talk  10:49, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Companies and Netherlands. Shellwood (talk) 11:41, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete The article is very little more than a list of funding rounds. Zero notability and clearly fails WP:NCORP. Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 14:00, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
 * User eyeballed the article instead of analyzing sources per WP:NEXIST and WP:BEFORE. gidonb (talk) 00:47, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
 * You have no idea what the user did. Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 09:29, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I see the results ;-) gidonb (talk) 20:41, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Yup, and the results is a delete vote. Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 05:52, 24 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Keep As part of WP:BEFORE, always check to make sure a large chunk of properly sourced info wasn't removed before the nomination was made. You may be voting on a weakened version intended to support the nomination. I restored the info about the business model, renamed simply as business. It's an entire section with nothing about funding. After rereading and trying to see things in the eyes of the nom, I rewrote the business section so nobody could claim it's a manual. Future participants and closer, please review with this new info in mind. The multiple independent sources that are there demonstrate that the organization has received significant independent media coverage, meeting the critical requirements of WP:NCORP. I'll point out that the media reports that the organization has 3 million customers, which clearly makes it notable. TechnoTalk (talk) 18:28, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep. Meets the WP:GNG and WP:NCORP per . Nomination is a WP:BEFORE failure. Removal of information was improper. gidonb (talk) 00:49, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Adding to these five WP:RS, WP:V, and WP:SIGCOV sources, I will introduce a sixth . All six articles were written by fine journalists. gidonb (talk) 23:51, 1 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Keep after reviewing the above citations provided by gidonb, I agree that there is good coverage on them and they are notable.Zeddedm (talk) 02:57, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
 * This editor is virtual SPA.   scope_creep Talk  20:33, 1 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Comment An overnight conspiracy with a virtual WP:SPA turning up, particularly since it doesn't meet NCORP.   scope_creep Talk  06:03, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete. Even the removed material and its citations don't really meet the requirements of WP:NCORP.  It's just routine business stuff, not the impact I describe in WP:SERIESA.  User:Technotalk's argument about the number of customers is irrelevant for notability; we need some kind of in-depth coverage in reliable secondary sources.  And it's all like: won this award; raised that amount of money; profiled in Forbes again; is in business.  FalconK (talk) 08:55, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
 * That is a handsome article. I've not seen it before but I will need to start using it now.   scope_creep Talk  09:04, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Seconded. Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 09:30, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Inserted comment - I went to your essay and there's a section about significant coverage that says it should "contextualize the impact the company had on the history of its field of industry, its community, or society". Wouldn't having 3 million subscribers suggest that there's an impact on society, just like you wrote you'd like to see? TechnoTalk (talk) 00:40, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
 * No. - Aoidh (talk) 07:14, 3 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Comment Lets examine the references:
 * Ref 1 Receives 750k funding Fails WP:CORPDEPTH, of a capital transaction, such as raised capital
 * Ref 2 120milllion raised Fails WP:CORPDEPTH, of a capital transaction, such as raised capital
 * Ref 3 Partnership Fails WP:CORPDEPTH of the expansions, acquisitions, mergers, sale, or closure of the business
 * Ref 4 Raises 102.3m raised Fails WP:CORPDEPTH of a capital transaction, such as raised capital
 * Ref 5 raised a €7m Series-A round PR.Fails WP:CORPDEPTH of a capital transaction, such as raised capital
 * Ref 6 Invests 7million Fails WP:CORPDEPTH of a capital transaction, such as raised capital
 * Ref 7 Tech Crunch. Raises 26million. Fails WP:CORPDEPTH of a capital transaction, such as raised capital

You start to see how banal these refs are and its more of the same. Routine annoucements, startup news. Fails WP:NCORP, WP:SIRS.  scope_creep Talk  21:41, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
 * You just said a lot and really nothing. Notability is judged by sources, NOT by references. I provided 5 sources, all in independent, nationwide media. All but one proudly signed by journalists. The fifth is sourced from the Dutch independent prime press agency. gidonb (talk) 23:45, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for finding those sources. Unfortunately the Dutch seem to be following our lead with paywalls. Hopefully someone will add more info from them. There's also significant non-financial related coverage in this Forbes article. The writer lists 20 years of retail journalism experience on her bio but I've seen others question the "Forbes contributor" (senior contributor in this case) byline and use that in their deletion arguments, so I left it out. But once this is kept, I can use that coverage to improve the article. TechnoTalk (talk) 01:10, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I managed to read all with my free subscription of Het Financieele Dagblad and Google's own paywall workaround ;-) 01:24, 24 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Comment I managed to miss the references at the top. Looking at each of one of them.
 * European Off-Price Designer Marketplace Otrium Launches In U.S. Low quality Forbes ref. Routine annoucement of company launching in the US.Fails WP:CORPDEPTH Standard notices from a press-release. of a product or a product line launch, sale, change, or discontinuance The 120million Series funding press-release.
 * Paywalled. Unable to read it.
 * Paywalled A March 2018 article, when they got a 750k funding round, so probably a press-release.
 * Paywalled Growth of designer outlet webshop Otrium positive for XL Business Park in Almelo
 * Paywalled. The url states. 120-miljoen-dollar-op. Press-release.
 * Paywalled. The url states. 7million raised. Press-release.

Assuming AGF and taking the 3 press-releases as typical of the five, they are extremely poor references that fails WP:ORGIND and WP:NCORP. IThey are all from company news, PR. This whole article is native advertising, for a shop. As cool as its a shop, its completly typical coverage of a startup. The article fails WP:NCORP.  scope_creep Talk  08:29, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment Nom has made several statements that show WP:BEFORE was not done, and that this is a bad faith nomination. Since he says he's a new page patroller, I'm also concerned about his ability to understand what he's reading, or at least the haste with which he's reviewing and nominating articles. He writes above that this article is about a furniture store, and describes the furniture as "cool" and the company as a "shop", but it's a multinational online clothing retailer. I can only assume he saw a picture of their office in one of the Dutch articles and didn't do a translation. He claims to have read the Forbes article but brushes it off as a repurposed press release. Anyone can click on that link and see that's not true. I posted a link to the Forbes writer's bio above. He mentions WP:SPA, which I don't see. He even calls a personal essay an article above, when it's clearly marked as an essay. Finally, as I also pointed out above, he deleted a big chunk of info with sources, since trimmed and restored, before nominating this for deletion, instead of letting the nomination play out.  TechnoTalk (talk) 14:01, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
 * If you keep making personal attacks like this WP:NPA, I will need to make a report at WP:ANI and cut out the bludgeoning per WP:BLUDGEONing. It is deeply uncool.   scope_creep Talk  18:22, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
 * None of what I posted is a personal attack. I'm simply repeating what you said and did, and explaining why it makes me question your ability to fairly monitor and review articles. You on the other hand accused me of being a paid editor once this started to go the wrong way, and said you're going to go after my other articles, so that's grounds for me to take you to ANI.  Feel free to save me the trouble of opening a case, and watch for WP:BOOMERANG once your previous block for similar targeting and harassment is brought up. You'll also get another one-way IBAN.  TechnoTalk (talk) 20:02, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I routinely received the same threats from the same user. Maybe his way to cover up WP:BEFORE failures? He does seem to try to jam through his plentiful, poorly researched nominations. I don't care, I look at the data, not at the people. If nominator one day comes up with a nomination that does make sense, I would support it. It's the best strategy for sanity at Wikipedia. Keep focus on the data at all times. gidonb (talk) 15:29, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Relisting comment: There is a fundamental disagreement over whether or not there are adequate reliable sources to prove notability. It would be nice to see fewer comments on contributors and some consensus on the sources or this could go "No consensus". Also, it is unwise to remove large well-sourced sections of an article before it is nominated for deletion. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 21:58, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete This is a company/organization therefore WP:NCORP guidelines apply. There are particular criteria for establishing the notability of a company. As an aside, unless blatantly obvious (e.g. Blog posts, no attributed journalist, Forbes contributors, etc), I'm assuming all the sources are reliable and the publishers are corporately independent from the topic organization - but there's more requirements than just "RS" for establishing notability.
 * NCORP and WP:SIRS make clear that we require references that discuss the *company* in detail. WP:SIRS says *each* reference must meet the criteria for establishing notability. The takeaway here is that the quantity of coverage is irrelevant - what we require are multiple sources (at least two) of deep or significant coverage with in-depth information *on the company* and (this bit is important!) containing "Independent Content".
 * Some editors don't fully look at the definition of "Independent content". It says that content, in order to count towards establishing notability, must include original and independent opinion, analysis, investigation, and fact checking that are clearly attributable to a source unaffiliated to the subject. This is usually the criteria where most references fail. References cannot rely *only* on information provided by the company. Articles that are essentially copies of a basic company description, quotations, press releases, announcements, interviews, etc and without some other in-depth content, fail ORGIND.
 * Several sources were included by an editor above, claiming that those sources meet GNG and NCORP. I disagree and there's not much point in berating/accusing the nom for not carrying out BEFORE and then producing regurgitated announcements and press releases with claims that they meet GNG and NCORP. All of the sources fail as follows:
 * This from fd.nl headlines with "Dutch online clothing outlet Otrium raises million in investment" regurgitates the company's announcement of the same day. Just like the other articles covering the news of their new investment like this is WWD and this in TechCrunch. None of these articles contain any "Independent Content" and fail ORGIND
 * This next from fdl.com is a "puff piece" based *entirely* on an interview with the founders. It contains much of the usual format we're used to seeing with puff pieces (Background, Problem, Initial Idea! and solution, investment, problems overcome, vague future-looking statement) and also has the obligatory "cool" photo of the founders. It has no "Independent Content" and fails ORGIND
 * This in ad.ml (and also carried by a couple of other publications) cannot be viewed without a subscription but from the summary I can see, I cannot find any reasons to believe it might contain in-depth "Independent Content". The article appears to be focused on the topic company's logistics within Europe which is handled by "Bleckmann Fashion & Lifestyle Logistics" and says that the popularity of the brand has been positive for the area (Twente/Almelo). It goes on to interview Bleckmann's Commercial Director (who is a supplier and not unaffiliated to the company). I'm not seeing sufficient CORPDEPTH nor "Independent Content". If someone else has access to the rest of the article and finds something, let me know.
 * This from rd.nl deals with the same topic as the first two sources above - the raising of 120m. This article refers directly to the announcement in the Financial Times but it is significantly shorter. There's nothing in the rd.nl article that isn't contained in the longer ft.com article which in turn is based on a valuation provided by an "unknown source" (so not RS) and quotes from the company. It has no "Independent Content" by way of analysis/opinion/etc and fails ORGIND.
 * This from nu.nl says in the first sentence "the company announced on Thursday". It's about the company raising €7m in 2019 and contains a summary of the Press Release from the investment company on the same day. Fails ORGIND
 * None of the references meet the criteria for establishing notability of the company, or come close. Topic fails WP:NCORP.  HighKing++ 21:11, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Comment I'll get on my soapbox here and defend the sourcing, as requested above. A recurring argument with this nomination and other AfD nominations of company articles is that funding announcements don't make a company notable. But when we see a funding announcement, particularly one that values a company as a tech unicorn, doesn't that tell us that an experienced investment company or investor has carefully studied a company's business model and has faith in their management team? They have access to private information that we as editors do not have. Significant repeated funding rounds tell us that someone has done the background checking for us. Until there's consensus at Wikipedia that I'm mistaken, these sources all help with determining notability. Also, the funding announcement is often the first time the media hears of the company, and it then spurs them to do additional coverage of the company.  That's why there's more info in the article than just funding. It's just being ignored. If it's because the source is paywalled, I'll be happy to send it to any reviewer. TechnoTalk (talk) 18:43, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Our guidelines should be viewed as the encapsulation and solidification of consensus over many years and by many editors. While we also acknowledge consensus can change and even Ignore all Rules, there has to be some justifiable reason, perhaps even an extraordinary one. There's nothing you've said above that hasn't already been considered in likely hundreds of other AfDs - and yet NCORP still hasn't decided that funding announcements can be used to establish notability. NCORP also requires in-depth (CORPDEPTH) "Independent Content" (ORGIND) and funding announcements that simply regurgitate the same announcement is churnalism. I've provided a fairly detailed breakdown of the sources and reasoning for why they fail NCORP. If you're going to convince the community that there are special reasons for keeping an article on this topic company, it will be more convincing to refer to reasons contains within our guidelines and sources where you can argue and point to that meet NCORP.  HighKing++ 20:06, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Your notability challenge has focused on funding news, and I defended it, but there's more info than just funding info here, and it's all properly sourced with reliable independent sources. Clearly meets WP:NCORP. And anyone who does a WP:BEFORE can find more info, in multiple languages. And I'll keep an eye out for more sources with a Google alert, ensuring this will keep getting even better. TechnoTalk (talk) 19:58, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
 * You're raising a very important point! Recently, I wrote on this very issue in this failed attempt to delete the article of Ahmed Salman, a professional Arab-Israeli footballer, who plays for Hapoel Jerusalem: The mixed herring and salami approach, this article is about this and this about that, is an old AfD strategy and is quite boring. For example: this article is not about the company, it's only about who leads it, who invests in it, what they produce, and how much they make. Not recommended because it pointlessly prolongs discussions where Wikipedians could be working in the article space. gidonb (talk) 23:59, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I'll add here that the guidelines are very, very clear on this, and nearly everyone seems to agree (and has for a while): investment does not establish notability. The results of the consensus are documented at WP:FUNDED et seq., and you can see them even here.  The private information that some investor might have indicating the company is the next world-changing unicorn is completely irrelevant to us here, because there's no deadline (so we can write the article when it actually does change the world), and we're writing an encyclopedia with reference mostly to citable secondary sources (said confidential information is neither citable, nor secondary).  Once the press starts reporting on the company beyond interviewing the founders, cataloguing funding rounds, and reprinting press releases, we can have an article.  For nearly all companies, that never happens.  FalconK (talk) 06:58, 3 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Delete Fails WP:CORPDEPTH per scope creep's source analysis. Per precedent in the application of that policy at AFD, funding announcements are not considered RS towards proving the notability of corporations. Perhaps this should change, but that would require an RFC. As such, lacks enough significant independent sources of the company itself to pass WP:NORG.4meter4 (talk) 21:22, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment can you share diffs that funding announcements are considered routine, per policy.  We have an article about the companies that secure unicorn funding rounds List of unicorn startup companies, and the term unicorn itself is notable. Otherwise, it suggests WP:IDONTLIKEIT. TechnoTalk (talk) 19:55, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't need to share differences because it's actually in our written policies at WP:FUNDED under "examples of trivial coverage" in the section "standard notices, brief announcements, and routine coverage" where it lists "capital transaction, such as raised capital" as trivial. In other words, it's an official guideline adopted through broad community input of how to view these kinds of sources. It's policy. If you want to change the policy you will need an RFC consensus to overturn it. Best.4meter4 (talk) 20:07, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Gotcha. Thanks for sharing.  I think that the guideline as interpreted is overly broad, for the reasons I mentioned above.  Unicorn funding is major news. It dominates business coverage. If all I had was routine funding, I'd not write an article about the company. TechnoTalk (talk) 20:18, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I can sympathize with this perspective, and as I said above this might be a policy worth revisiting at an RFC. However, we have to follow notability guidelines as written not as we wish they would be.4meter4 (talk) 20:22, 3 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Delete Routine coverage that fails WP:NCORP which is more stringent than WP:GNG. Slywriter (talk) 21:24, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment Per WP:NCORP, A company, corporation, organization, group, product, or service is presumed notable if it has been the subject of significant coverage in multiple reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject. All coverage is significant and all the sources are independent. It's a literal reading of the policy. Media coverage covers the business, its history and of course the funding. TechnoTalk (talk) 19:51, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
 * See WP:BLUDGEON. No need to repeat yourself for the nth time especially with a position that has been thoroughly dismissed by previous editors. Slywriter (talk) 05:29, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete - Fails WP:NCORP, and it's borderline with WP:GNG but I would say the absolutely routine nature and scope of the references does not show notability for even WP:GNG. I am in complete agreement with Scope Creep's analysis of the sources in his comment above. I have read through this AfD discussion to see if there were any points made that would influence the notability of the subject, but I personally find the arguments defending the article's sourcing to be unconvincing. - Aoidh (talk) 02:44, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete - per WP:NCORP. GoodDay (talk) 14:49, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete - recent additions to the article, e.g. the advertorial Elite Traveler, the similarly-promotional Forbes profile , and the obviously promotional I amsterdam ("As the official foreign direct investment agency of the Amsterdam Area, we can help you set up, succeed and expand your business here.") appear to further support deletion per the WP:NOTPROMO policy as reflected in the WP:NCORP guidelines. WP:NCORP notability does not otherwise appear adequately supported by independent and in-depth coverage. Beccaynr (talk) 17:20, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete per Scope's excellent source analysis, which was obvious just looking at the sources but good job on making it easier for everyone to discern! PRAXIDICAE🌈 20:45, 4 July 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.