Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Royaldutchshellplc.com


 * 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.  Majorly  (o rly?) 17:39, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Royaldutchshellplc.com

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

The article poses all sorts of problems with WP:COI and WP:OR because it was written by the website owner. It is also an attack site. However, in my view the test is notability. The URL has some notability because Shell went to court to try to obtain it and lost, which was reported widely. Does this mean that the WEBSITE on the url gets automatic notability and inclusion? Problematic: on one hand it had to have some content to win the court case, on the other hand I cannot see much discussion of the website itself as opposed to the URL case. Opinions welcome: especially if we keep this article advice on whether it should discuss the site the URL or both! BozMo talk 20:08, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I am the co-owner of the website and author of the article which is the subject of this proceeding. The website, its owners, and the domain name have been mentioned or the subject of numerous news or feature reports by major news organisations and news publishers e.g. The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Times, MSN Money, Yahoo, Reuters, The Gulf Times etc, plus many other publications and major websites around the world operating in many languages. The site has also been recommended by Fortune Magazine/MSN Money as one of two websites for information about Royal Dutch Shell Plc: the other site being shell.com. I will supply links tomorrow. The reports and the content of the Royaldutchshellplc.com article provide information on which a judgement over notability can be made. A further extensive article about the website and its owners is due for publication in a global specialist magazine within days, hopefully in time to be taken into account. It appears that the site will receive over 2 million hits this month. I will provide the exact figure on Thursday and will be able to provide proof on request. The website is also involved in multiple High Court Injunctions brought collectively by eight Royal Dutch Shell companies against a Shell reserves whistleblower Dr John Huong in respect of articles published under his name on our website. The defamation and other proceedings are not against us. However, a High Court hearing is due on 8th February when an application will be heard for my war disabled father, Alfred Donovan, who will be 90 in April, to travel to Malaysia to be cross-examined. The hearing will also deal with an application by Shell for Dr Huong to be imprisoned for contempt. I am not sure if the court proceedings are relevant, but I thought it best to disclose this in view of the imminent hearing. The vast majority of articles about Shell posted on our website are from major news organisations. I will try to calculate a percentage figure but it is probably above 97% overall. We have a Live Chat box which is used frequently by site visitors. Some Live Chat postings are anti-Shell. Some are anti-Donovan. All remain on display. Shell has an open invitation to supply rebuttals to any articles authored by us which we have promised to publish unedited. The site is entirely non-profit with no adverts, no subscription or any other fees; no donations are sought. We have operated websites relating to Shell for many years and have never approached them to sell domain names or anything else. Even if much of this information is not directly relevant, it might be of some assistance in considering issues. User JohnaDonovan: 23.55, 29 January 2007.
 * Delete - Kudos to John for his persistance but only one news article I can find that is ABOUT rather than just mentioning the site (Rise of the gripe site Prospect Magazine, UK - 23 Jan 2007). Nothing except the domain battle ( of which there are a great many ) seems to have caused a great stir and that is more worth an entry in the Shell article than a separate one . Site allegedly created as the founder had a grudge against shell where he has accused them of stealing business ideas and appears to be using the site to carry on a vendetta. No one reliable seems to be talking about the site, and also given the conflict of interest issue, not an article for here. - Peripitus (Talk) 00:05, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your friendly way of dealing with this matter. I had returned just to mention for the record that we publish all news stories about Shell, positive and negative. However, I will briefly respond to some of the points you have made. I will later today provide links to other articles mentioning or focused on the website. With regards to alleged stealing of ideas, Shell settled our first three UK High Court actions against them for 260,000 UK pounds plus costs. We also received a letter of apology from a Shell Chairman, Dr Chris Fay, for the way we had been treated. I doubt if you want to know more, but I will happily supply further information on request regarding why we still feel aggrieved and continue to exercise our right to criticise Shell on our website. Unfortunately it is a long drawn out saga stretching over a decade. Shell is free to sue us for libel if anything we allege on our website is without foundation. User: JohnaDonovan: 00:40, 30 January 2007.
 * John, that would be good - If you can show that the site satisfies the WP:WEB requirements particularly with verifyable references from reliable sources I'm happy to revisit my opinion during the 5 days of this discussion - Peripitus (Talk) 03:08, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

As the record on the article discussion page shows, I was up front from the outset in June 2006 in admitting bias and have on at least two occasions requested that someone else should redraft the article. There was mention at that time of it being deleted. I do not recall how far the process went. If it did go to a vote, that presumably is on the record somewhere. I said that I would accept a decision to delete without rancour and that remains my position. I will post the promised links later today. User: JohnaDonovan. 08.44, 30 January 2007.
 * weak keep. Subject appears notable, because it's an exception, and due to the outside mentions referred to in the article. However, the article is largely (but not exclusively) puffery, and needs serious editing by an uninvolved editor before it begins to meet standards. Argyriou (talk) 01:41, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
 * keep Agree with most of the comments of Argyriou, the subject does appear to be noteable, in terms of both content, and the actual domain name itself.--Cloveoil 03:54, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Sure. I think it didn't go for a vote then: there was a mal-formed request for comment and I have hesistated a long time on an AfD.--BozMo talk 09:36, 30 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete The refererence to Mr Donovan's initiative with his royaldutchshellplc.com website on Wiki entry Royal Dutch Shell Environmental and reputational issues could perhaps be expanded a little. However I see no case for a separate entry which is clearly being used by Mr. Donovan primarily as a campaigning tool. Stephen Parnell 11:08, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

This is an extract from the comments of "Stephen Parnell" on 27 January: "I am not a Wiki editor and am relatively inexperinced as a contributor so I will leave further comment and action to those who are. But I would hope and expect that those who run this excellent website would remove your trivial and prejudiced entry as soon as possible." It appears that he has decided - assuming he is a male - that it was not safe to leave it to more experienced contributors. Of course he is perfectly entitled to vote, but anyone who has read his less than diplomatic comments on the Royaldutchshellplc.com discussion page would have no doubt about how he would cast his vote, no more than they would about how I would vote. It is regrettable that he has still not had the good grace to apologise for his ill-tempered accusations against me which he now knows were completely untrue. I find it very disappointing in view of the universal good tempered, often constructive dialogue which I have previously found in encounters with all other Wikipedians. It seems fair to say that he and I do not get on. User: JohnaDonovan. 13.15, 30 January 2007.

Rather than clutter up this page with a list of links, I have compiled a list on a separate webpage. Apologies at the time taken to provide the links promised above, but other events intervened, coincidentally including a long interview with a journalist from a quality national newspaper. The contact results from the Prospect article. The intention is to publish a story about the website and the Sakhalin-2 connection this weekend. I have the emails confirming this development. However, on past experience the story could be spiked for any number of reasons, so both this and the other pending article mentioned above should obviously be entirely discounted from consideration at this time. I assume that if a collective decision to delete is made, then I could resurrect the article at a later date and provide evidence of further publication of major articles to support the claim of notability. If on Thursday the preparation of the weekend article is progressing and is likely to be published, I may ask for a delay in the decision process until Monday so that the article can be taken into account. User: JohnaDonovan. 22.00, 30 January 2007.
 * Weak delete, arguably .  I largely agree with Argyriou above, that this is somewhat notable, but the article is so fraught with conflict of interest and non-neutral point of view problems I see no harm in deleting and starting over, for the same reason we don't insist on rewriting every intractable  article, we just delete and start over.  - Aagtbdfoua 01:36, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
 * keep It is notable, there are enough sources, but if people really want to start over, it can best be done by stubfying.DGG 03:47, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Promised website stats for January 2007: Traffic viewed: Pages: 1,211,211: Hits: 2,046.347. Articles about Shell and related matters from independent news sources published on website since its inception: 12,800 approx. Articles authored by the Donovan’s which could therefore be considered biased: 300 approx. I estimated that our articles accounted for 3% of all articles published on the site. That was about right. User: JohnaDonovan. 16.15, 1 February 2007.


 * keep It's notable, clean-up would be better than deletion. Hgebel 04:10, 3 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep - requires a rewrite and more sources. Addhoc 15:28, 4 February 2007 (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.