Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/RisingTide


 * 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. Courcelles 00:54, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

RisingTide

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

Fails WP:NOTABILITY:No significant coverage. Mentioned in StorageMojo.com and StorageNewsletter.com. Celestra (talk) 22:55, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete - fails WP:CORP. Eddie.willers (talk) 23:28, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 23:54, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 23:54, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete. Associated with Marc Fleischmann, which is a WP:AUTOBIO also up for AfD. I put the original COI message on his talk about this. Raymie (t • c) 23:27, 16 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I disagree and respectfully request to keep the RsingTide page. I have added more references, including from Tom's Network Guide, Linux Magazin (the German one), and Linux Journal - which named an old release of our open source version "best visual of show" back in 2004. I also added a few product references. The RisingTide page now seems to contain more references, more substance and more notable mentions than quite a few other entries on Wikipedia. Please consider - from fall 2010 on, if you use Linux, you might be using a part of our software. Regards, Marcfl (talk) 05:42, 17 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Could anyone please comment on my revised page w.r.t. the AfD process? Thanks much. Marcfl (talk) 23:59, 17 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment for Marcfl. There are several issues here. Firstly, you are the article's author but also, as Marc Fleischman, the company's founder - this is a clear conflict of interest as set out in WP:COI. Secondly, your own company website, blogs, and internet forum postings are NOT considered reliable sources as per WP:RS and cannot be used to support the article's assertions. Thirdly, I cannot find evidence that the company is notable as your references (those that are in English and are reliable) don't seem to establish this as per WP:CORP. While your efforts at contributing to the global knowledge field in an obscure corner of computing are highly admirable and worthy of respect, there does not seem to be sufficient, independent, reliable, third-party, non-internet sources to back this up. Eddie.willers (talk) 23:36, 19 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your comments, Eddie, and for educating me. Please allow me to address your concerns in turn.
 * First, regarding WP:COI, in academia, usually one's own work is published, because the creators tend to know it best; quality is assured via verifyability, peer-reviews and references. Through that process, most academic publications are still considered more reliable than Wikipedia, although some articles here are fantastic. So perhaps focusing on that process might have some merits here, too. On the other hand, just waving the WP:COI moniker seems to also encourage counter-productive behavior, like fake third party contributions, etc. For these reasons alone, I hope alleging WP:COI doesn't suffice to have an article deleted.
 * Second, regarding WP:RS, I removed all but one references to the company website, blogs and open Internet forums (except for a pointer to the LIO WiKi, which I hope you agree is more helpful than "self-serving"), so I hope this addresses WP:RS. If you prefer me to just remove all such references without any thought regarding possible usefulness, I'll be happy to oblige.
 * Third, regarding WP:CORP, you might have noticed that I have added an english Linux Journal article that has coverage on our open source version as the "best visual demonstration" at Linux World, already back in 2004, which seems quite notable to me. I also cannot find strict rules prohibiting all foreign language articles, which would be unfortunate, as the Linux Magazine and Tom's Hardware/Networking serve as reliable sources to a rather large audience. Lastly, please also allow me to encourage consistency with your own standards - how can RisingTide not be acceptable, but, just e.g., Arteli (no references, very little information) is deemed adequate? The only differentiating argument here seems to circle back to WP:COI, which then might to doing a bit of a disservice to the quality of Wikipedia content in some cases. Perhaps WP:COI should therefore be used more sagaciously.
 * Last, while iSCSI might addmitedly seem a bit "obscure" to non-storage folks (e.g., see Talk:ISCSI itself), there are good reasons that, just e.g., HP acquired LeftHand (iSCSI cluster storage) for $360M (2008), Dell acquired EqualLogix (iSCSI SANs) for $1.4B (2008), and HP and Dell just recently fought over 3PAR (scalable IP SANs, notably with iSCSI) up to $2.4B. Evidenced by increasing valuations in this area, iSCSI is a technology ripe for mainstream, e.g., IDC projects iSCSI storage alone to be a $10B market in 2011 - with 70% (!) CAGR, so having an article in Wikipedia that covers its standard implementation in Linux doesn't seem entirely unreasonable (or "self-serving") to me.
 * Respectfully, Marcfl (talk) 18:30, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment: Conflict of interest is not grounds for having either an autobiography or an article about one's company deleted. I have worked with COI editors in the past to help them create more neutral articles. I think the reason notability and COI become confused is that subjects which are less notable (which have less significant coverage) are unlikely to be created by an independent editor. The problem with this article is simply notability as measured by significant coverage in independent, reliable sources. Arguments around other articles with less notability or how notable this company will be in the future aren't really helpful. Anything which doesn't address the lack of notability, based on Wikipedia's established standards for notability, isn't likely to affect the outcome of the AFD discussion. If you are aware of any significant coverage of RisingTide, please share it with us before the discussion is closed in two days or so. Thanks, Celestra (talk) 20:32, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I am glad you clarified that we can eliminate WP:COI as a reason for deletion. I am amazed how quick you are to admit that Wikipedia doesn't consistently follows its own standards - that seems to make its quality rather unstable, which is exactly what you are trying to avoid. That said, let's focus on the alleged issue(s) at hand, WP:NOTABILITY as defined in WP:CORP.
 * First, let's examine the "Independence of Sources" per WP:CORP. The sources I referenced are (in alphabetic order):
 * Linux Journal
 * Linux Magazin (2 references)
 * LWN.net
 * Storage Newsletter (2 references)
 * StorageMojo
 * Tom's Networking Guide
 * Could you please kindly illuminate me/us which of those sources fail your independence criteria, and for which reason? Thank you very much.
 * Second, let's evaluate the "Depth of Coverage". WP:CORP defines the criteria for failing it as follows; I annotated each of them with a brief reason for meeting it:
 * "Sources that simply report meeting times, shopping hours or event schedules" - clearly n/a
 * "The publications of telephone numbers, addresses, and directions in business directories" - clearly n/a
 * "The season schedule or final score from sporting events" - clearly n/a
 * "Routine communiqués announcing such matters as the hiring or departure of personnel" - clearly n/a
 * "Brief announcements of mergers or sales of part of the business" - clearly n/a
 * "Simple statements that a product line is being changed" - clearly n/a
 * "Routine notices of facility openings or closings (e.g., closure for a holiday or the end of the regular season)" - clearly n/a
 * "Quotations from an organization's personnel as story sources" - clearly n/a
 * "Passing mention, such as identifying a quoted person as working for an organization" - clearly n/a
 * Again, could you please kindly illuminate me/us why you think RisingTide might be failing one or more of these criteria, and for which reason? Thank you very much. Or, please kindly let me know what else I might be missing.
 * Lastly, since you confirmed that there are accepted articles on Wikipedia that are already of lower notability and/or quality than RisingTide, I'd love to work with you, like you have worked with other (COI) editors in the past, to help me (us!) create a "more neutral" article. Perhaps that would be more constructive for everyone. Thank you very much. Regards, Marcfl (talk) 21:37, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * At a glance, it appears most of the press is either for LIO (great, create an article about LIO instead of RisingTide) or are blog posts/industry posts guessing about RisingTide due to it being in "stealth mode". tedder (talk) 21:41, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * @marcfl: You are engaging in a practice that resembles what we call wikilawyering. You have not presented a source with significant coverage about which we might discuss reliability and independence and I'm not going to waste time evaluating the reliability or independence of sources which are not useful for establishing notability. The list you enumerate and refute concerning depth of coverage are examples of trivial coverage, it is not presented in the policy as being comprehensive and refuting those examples has no meaning. It should be fairly obvious looking at a source  whether that source is merely mentioning the company in passing or if the source is providing substantial coverage. Please present a source which provides substantial coverage of your company. Thanks, Celestra (talk) 22:42, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh, and I'm sorry if I wasn't clear before - I have worked with editors who had COI issues to help them make more neutral articles. Those articles did not have notability problems, the editors had COI issues(leaving out derogatory facts, including unsourced details). Neutrality isn't the critical issue here, notability is. Celestra (talk) 23:03, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It sounds like the answer to my question which specific WP:CORP criteria the article is failing, is "none." Regards, Marcfl (talk) 23:32, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * @Celestra, please note that you first asked for "an independent source which talks about the company". When provided, you brought up WP:COI. Meanwhile, I have been improving the article, and included a number of references, expanding on your request. When I was trying to understand the Wikipedia guidelines and evaluate the article against them, to make sure I follow them, you are bringing up WP:Wikilawyering. It seems you might be more interested in finding arguments for deletion rather than trying to be helpful and improve the quality of an article that is already better than quite a few other ones here. If you helped improving the article, perhaps you might feel less like you are "wasting time." That said, some details:
 * Storage Newsletter, covers the key company facts, key people, key products, key partners and some results. That is not substantial coverage? What else are you looking for?
 * StorageMojo has some analysis on the company, it's background and market. Again, it seems to easily pass Wikipedia's own criteria.
 * Tom's Netwroking Guide covers our partnership with CPI and a high-availabilit product presented at CeBit 2010. Ditto.
 * One of the Linux Magazine articles was pretty exclusively about LIO (our open source version) on the PS/3, plus some background on RisingTide.
 * The Linux Journal named us (or LIO/PyX) as "best visual demonstration" of LinixWorld 2004 - how can that not be notable?
 * @Tedder, if LIO has sufficient coverage, I'd respectfully maintain RisingTide has too, as it is also covered in the articles. Plus, people might look for more background information on LIO... But if you feel an LIO article might be helpful, I'd gladly add one. However, it would not be nice to not go through that and then argue against some new lack of notability. Please advice. Thanks much! Regards, Marcfl (talk) 23:41, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * First, the answer to your question of "which criteria" is: those aren't criteria. Second, I started this AFD due to a lack of notability and I continue to ask for you to provide evidence of notability. I mentioned COI only to explain that it wasn't an issue so that you could focus on notability. I brought up wikilawyering because it distracts from our discussion of notability. I don't know how you came up with the understanding you have, but it doesn't matter - we are discussing notability, as shown by significant coverage in independent, reliable sources. Celestra (talk) 00:06, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It still sounds like the answer to which specific WP:CORP criteria the article is failing, is "none". Just, now "those aren't criteria"; yet you keep quoting WP:CORP - and I am trying to interpret it somehow. Look, clearly RisingTide is less notable than other companies (yet, we hope). Clearly, it is more notable than quite a few other companies on Wikipedia (I hope we at least agree on that one). It seems to me it's now, after adding 6 independent sources with 8 references (including a best demo of show), passing WP:CORP as it is spelled out, at the very minimum more so than many other companies here. If it still isn't, then please help me understanding why/where these sources are inadequate, specifically. Just asking for WP:CORP conformance and dismissing its own criteria (ok, "those aren't criteria") is really confusing. Thank you. Regards, Marcfl (talk) 00:25, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Like I said, other stuff exists has no bearing on this. Of the five sources you mentioned in your previous post, two (StorageNewsletter and StorageMojo) are the ones which were there when I nominated the article for deletion. I think both are less-than-significant coverage and the other editors to look at them so far seem to agree. The third, Tom's Networking Guide, as far as I can tell with a babelfish translation is a notice for some storage convention event. The fourth one, based on your summary, just has "some background". The last one was written four years before your company was founded, so it obviously doesn't provide significant coverage. The closest thing to significant coverage is the StorageNetworking.com article, 237 words, which mentions the founding year and the fact you are San Ramon based and includes some amount (94 words) of background on you. It doesn't mention how many employees you have or any other "key people", it doesn't go into your financial information or talk of your customers or competitiors. It does mention two partners. Overall, it seems to just tease the fact that you are coming out of stealth. The StorageMojo piece is longer, 489 words, but it is more about the technology than about the company. (The StorageMojo piece also may not be a reliable source, being an industry blog controlled by the author, but since it isn't significant coverage, that's moot.) Just for reference, this reply is 250-some words long. Regards, Celestra (talk) 03:27, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete - there is a lack of any significant coverage in independent reliable sources. Much of teh sourcing in the article that I reviewed discusses LIO. -- Whpq (talk) 15:21, 22 September 2010 (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.