Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sebalu & Lule


 * 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 no consensus. (WP:NPASR). North America1000 17:31, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Sebalu &

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

I prodded it with the following rationale: "The coverage (references, external links, etc.) does not seem sufficient to justify this article passing General notability guideline and the more detailed Notability (companies) requirement. " It was deprodded by User:Doncram under following edit summary: "Appears to be a significant law firm in the country. Sources included. Not obviously bad. There's at least one other in the category at AFD, related, will comment there." Being a significant foo-ian firm is not related to notability. Sources, in my view, are bad, because they discuss the company only in passing, are self-published, or come from some trade/professional publications/websites of dubious visibility. Let's discuss, Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 09:23, 31 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep. [was SK=Strong Keep or Speedy Keep, changed as no longer timely -doncram] Some Ugandan law firms should be covered in a list-article only (and their names be redirects to their row in the list-article), or not at all, but Sebalu & Lule is actually one of the very top law firms in Uganda.  See Draft:List of law firms in Uganda, which I started developing in early February.  Its history shows it started long ago, but that's because it was deleted and I requested the previous version to start from.  I'd rather discuss sources at Draft talk:List of law firms in Uganda, but Legal500 and IFLR and Wells and Partners seem to be the major sources available country-by-country, and they seem to be valid sources.  Piotr, that was during/following Articles for deletion/Birungyi Barata, in which we both participated.  The pretty obvious need for a list-article to link, to prioritize and to manage development of articles in this topic area.  Another editor pointed out the previous existence of a list-article, and that it was a mistake for it to be deleted during 2014.


 * I'd rather proceed by developing positively about the top/biggest firms working from the list-article, rather than proceeding by AFDs that are fundamentally negative. :) Also I was figuring out that developing general knowledge of sources, by working on article(s) about them, e.g. Wells and Partners (currently a red-link), should be perhaps the highest priority.  And I think after positive development of the U list-article, it will become obvious which separate U firm articles are justified or not. :)


 * Anyhow, about Sebalu & Lule, it is identified as being in the top 2, top 4, and top 5 (the "Band 1") firms, by Legal500, IFLR, and Wells and Partners, respectively. Per my summary at [[Draft talk:List of law firms in Uganda.  And "Katende,Ssempebwa,Sebalu & Lule, MMAKS and AF Mpanga named Uganda’s top law firms" (November 14, 2013), by Mark Muhumuza, a review of top 4 law firms per 2014 IFLR rankings, has a lot more specifics about Sebalu & Lule's big cases and ends with praise about the firm.  So this is probably the worst choice to nom for deletion, out of Uganda law firm articles. :) -- do  ncr  am  17:59, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I strongly agree that we need to develop either articles about sources, or list of notable sources for given fields. I'll ping User:Margin1522, who created a article on Ius Laboris (and successfully defended it's notability). Unfortunately, nobody took up my proposal at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Law for starting work on project-guidelines for notability of law firms. Without such expert input, I am not convinced that inclusion in Ius Laboris, Wells and Partners, Legal500, IFLR and such is sufficient. I am open to that possibility, but this is not my field, and I just don't know. Discarding them, I am relying on coverage in other sources (newspapers, books, academic articles). And that I am not seeing here. I am, however, more than happy to put any further AfDs of the law firms on hold if we can start developing such criteria - they would certainly help save the time of those of us who find ourselves coming back here. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 01:29, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay, I've joined discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Law, and posted there about notability for law firms. At a minimum, I think it's obvious we all have to agree that at least some firms in Uganda, at least whatever can be defined as the very top tier firms in Uganda nation, should be covered.  And Sebalu & is one of those few.  I'll participate in the general discussion.  But could you possibly please withdraw your nomination here? -- do  ncr  am  09:18, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Africa-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:31, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:31, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:31, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Natg 19 (talk) 00:01, 9 April 2015 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spirit of Eagle (talk) 03:30, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment / update I notice this AFD on my Watchlist again because of its relisting.  This AFD did cause someone -- me -- to join the above-mentioned general discussion about notability of law firms, and then with some activity there between Piotrus and me, at least one more editor joined, and there has been useful discussion.  So in that sense let's note "Mission Accomplished" for this AFD.


 * Above, Piotrus expressed discomfort about whether "inclusion in Ius Laboris, Wells and Partners, Legal500, IFLR and such is sufficient" to establish notability here, although he is "open to that possibility, but this is not my field". However as I noted at the more general discussion, no one is suggesting that every firm therein (thereins?) listed is Wikipedia-article notable.  With Sebalu & Lule, there is a consensus of sources that it is a very top firm.  According to the three sources that appear to me to be reliable, Sebalu & Lule is either tied with one other for being the top firm in Uganda, or tied with three others for being top, or tied with four others for being top.  This is not mere inclusion in the sources.


 * Also Piotrus at the general discussion offers that they're willing to drop efforts to do AFDs on law firm articles of third-world countries (where to me it seems there generally is zero- or under-coverage), and to shift attention to areas like U.S. where there is tons of coverage of law firms, pretty clearly too much, and with the coverage being very uneven, including wp:ARTSPAM (articles that are merely spam). So that implies Piotrus is willing to let this AFD drop if there's no further interest, though P has not returned to withdraw this AFD and P may still be curious if any interest would show up here.  Since this has been open long enough and there has been no more substantial discussion, I think this AFD is ready to be closed easily with either "Keep" or "No consensus".  I feel that "Keep" is the fairest summary of merits of the discussion here. :) -- do  ncr  am  05:03, 16 April 2015 (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.