Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Squarespace


 * 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. Despite concerns about the promotional intent of the article creator or their sources, consensus here is that there is sufficient coverage in reliable sources, in terms of quality and quantity, to support an article about the company, and that problems with promotional content should therefore be addressed through editing.  Sandstein  11:43, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Squarespace

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Entirely PR for a company that would of course be willing for PR itself since that's the environment it comes with, everything listed here is simply trivial and is not actually consisting of significant substance, all of the sources themselves listed simply list PR information and triviality such as the "hopeful companies to watch" and "best local companies of [this or that]" so none of it means anything but to advertise what the company is about and what its involvements are; my own searches are not finding better than the same essentials listed here which are listing what the company is about, its services and other information that is surely guaranteed to come from the information itself especially if it is close information about it such as what the business plans and activities are. I'll note the history logs themselves since this was in fact speedy deleted as it should have, regardless of the AfD since it was thin and unconvincing, especially coming from 2013 which was still rather questionable about substance and actually considering the consequences of such questionable articles like these, so technically, we have to renominate again considering that 2013 AfD. Something else I will note is the fact this has been restored, again enough times for noticing, but the company article has yet been touched by quickly-passing SPAs and IPs, nothing being changed of actual significance, and with what's listed, it's quite not surprising it would all be for PR campaigning; seriously, going to specifics about funding, clients, services and other company information is a flashy business listing and that alone. SwisterTwister  talk  05:37, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Please also note Articles for deletion/Anthony Casalena. SwisterTwister   talk  05:41, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Articles for deletion/Log/2016 October 4.  —cyberbot I   Talk to my owner :Online 05:48, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Companies-related deletion discussions. North America1000 07:08, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. North America1000 07:08, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of New York-related deletion discussions. North America1000 07:08, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. North America1000 07:08, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

 References
 * Comment – Below are some sources. North America1000 07:16, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Fox News
 * CNBC
 * Wired
 * Fast Company
 * 360 pages.
 * 392 pages.
 * The Huffington Post
 * TechCrunch
 * TechCrunch
 * New York Business Journal
 * VentureBeat
 * New York Observer
 * Tech Republic
 * New York Business Journal
 * Time
 * Mashable
 * Adweek
 * Adweek
 * Gazette Review
 * The Oregonian
 * Comment - All of these links shared the same things in common and that is that the sources are all filled with interviewed information, especially focusing with what the company wants to say about its company history, the blatant parts so far are "The domain names it wants to sell you!" and "The ads say follow your dreams, you should!" The absolutely blatant ones are "The goal of Squarespace is to empower anybody to be able to build, maintain and grow a beautiful, smartly-branded website. Prices start at $5 a month to maintain a simple cover page, an ecommerce page costs $26 a month to maintain and more complicated websites cost as much as $70 a month....Squarespace walks customers through every stage of the process from layout design to search optimization strategy, ecommerce features and post launch website analytics resources. In case the online instruction leave a customer feeling confused, however, live Squarespace support is available 24-7. To provide live support around the clock, Squarespace opened offices in Dublin, Ireland and Portland, Ore., in addition to the New York City headquarters. About two-thirds of the current employees at Squarespace are devoted to customer support....Growth at Squarespace hasn’t slowed. In 2015, revenues topped $100 million. There are 550 employees working at the private company....The success is nice, but Casalena only celebrates milestones because he knows it’s good for team moral. He’s already looking at where he wants to grow further. “Last year we crossed 1 million paid customers,” says Casalena. “Let’s celebrate. Goooooood. I am supposed to do that. But there is no reason that can’t be 10 million. There is no reason that can’t be 20 million, 30 million...." That's all that not only had he said himself, but then it's blatant advertising about what the company itself wants and hopes to achieve with the help of clients and investors, by showing them what and why the company offers. The article literally continues by consistently keeping close interviewed information and other advertised information about its business. The TechCrunch, which has become explosively PR-navigated, is simply stating trivial information about company activities and what has happened from those. The TIME article is literally simply focused with an advertisement the company, which is following along with what the other articles are insinuating and establishes with the contents. The TechRepublic, also a PR-minded and navigated website, is simply stating once again what the company would say (with the immediate "An interview with the...."), and there are no actual journalism efforts since everything was company-supplied. Some of them are quite notorious for paid-PR such as the BizJournals which are essentially no longer actually acceptable as they are simply repeating what the company says itself, it's one of the best and worst places for PR, it's the best because it's largely and frequently used for this, and the worst is that it's essentially showing that's the best attempts it can make, hence it's not actual news, and then because it's so obvious. Literally none of this actually came close at all for substance and non-PR, and that's not happening because of the sole basis of PR-minded and motivated efforts. SwisterTwister   talk  07:30, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

 References
 * Comment – Here are some more sources. North America1000 07:44, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Entrepreneur
 * The Drum
 * The Wall Street Journal
 * Forbes
 * The Oregonian
 * The Oregonian
 * Adweek
 * Crain's New York Business
 * Fortune
 * Mashable
 * TechCrunch
 * Mashable
 * Portland Business Journal
 * Mashable
 * Gothamist
 * I think the company might actually be notable, but at this stage you're just doing linkdumps and ignoring the detailed response to your previous linkdump. Please go through that list of sources and tell us how it convinces you of the topic's notability and how it's an encyclopedic source rather than churnalism - that is, I'd like you do the same amount of work you're expecting of others. (Unless you don't ectually expect others to go through your links, of course, in which case please stop throwing up chaff.) - David Gerard (talk) 08:07, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The term "churnalism" doesn't appear anywhere in Wikipedia policy. It looks like it's just an excuse to dismiss any source that covers business and entrepreneurship, even if it's the New York Times (more Pulitzers won than any other news organization) or the Wall Street Journal (#1 newspaper in the US by circulation). Almost every company in Wikipedia is big enough to have a PR department, and when anything newsworthy happens, the PR department will put out a press release, because that's their job. The press release will talk about whatever facts are most likely to interest journalists, because that's the point of a press release, so it'll almost certainly overlap with article content. Virtually every story covering a company will use the company and/or its employees as sources - except in rare cases, where eg. the company is being sued and has to produce documents for discovery, where else would the press get its information from? Most stories covering a company, even very negative coverage, will quote the company's employees or spokespeople, because that's considered good journalistic practice. And of course, the spokespeople will try to make the company sound good, for obvious reasons. All this applies even when the reporter is very hostile to the company - look at., eg., the Wall Street Journal's expose of Theranos, and count how many times it quotes Theranos or its employees, or uses them as sources.


 * In scientific terms, the "churnalism hypothesis" appears to be unfalsifiable - it's defined in a way that would cover virtually all business news, so it's impossible to disprove. I'd suggest advocates of the term "churnalism" write an essay, maybe at WP:CHURNALISM, that clearly defines the term, and gives several examples of business news coverage that both is and is not "churnalism". That still wouldn't be Wikipedia policy, but at least it would be more than a cheap excuse to dismiss sources people don't like. 2602:306:3A29:9B90:608C:C2F8:2526:C3A4 (talk) 09:29, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Churnalism is essentially advertising as churnalism's article will show so in the fact the sources clearly show it's simply for capital gains and that's why the coverage only includes what the company would want to say about itself, it is a known fact that the news media has changed significantly and articles now consist of simply republished company information and this is obvious when the journalist either never actually says anything or quite minimally. Simply stating one instance of a WallStreetJournal being "hostile" is not what applies to this specific article here, and nor should it be, since they are completely and are not similar in any forms or contents, the other matter is that there's no actual significant amount of such "hostile" coverage for this specific article here at AfD, and it's not surprising since it's still a fact it was a company PR campaign, and so that's naturally not going to happen, as they only want to advertise what they want to say. Stating that the company PR agents hand what interests the journalists is not actually so and that's because it would still only be PR, and the actual meaningful viewers are the news viewers so involving journalists is the same thing, and we all know and as AfD has established, these companies intently and staunchly out whatever they can to seek clients and investors, especially when they go to specified about the current ones they have or the company's own plans to seek said clients and investors. Simply stating that our analysis is nothing is not actually noticing and acknowledging the concerns mentioned here.  SwisterTwister   talk  15:54, 4 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep – The company passes WP:CORPDEPTH, as per the source examples I have provided above. Promotional tone can be addressed by copy editing the article. North America1000 08:57, 4 October 2016 (UTC) (Addendum: Per a request for clarification herein, the sources I provided provide ample evidence of the company's notability. They all address the topic directly, provide a reasonable depth of coverage about various aspects of the company, and none provide trivial mentions. Sources that provide positive coverage about topics are not automatically "pr" as a default. Furthermore, the sources I provided are not press releases, as evidenced in part by utilizing Google searches using the titles of these article, in which links are only present for these articles themselves, as opposed to press releases, which typically have the same article hosted on many various websites. North America1000 21:25, 4 October 2016 (UTC))


 * Comment - It means nothing to merely copyedit an advertisement and an advertisement solely existing for advertising, because the only expectations from that is that there are no benefits to thus encyclopedia, in fact it causes things worse, as it is the links above mean noting for actual substance, and they are not coming close to convincingly suggesting otherwise of my extensive analysis. The fact this is entirely focused with PR and then the fact this was clearly submitted as a PR campaign, that is something unacceptable and therefore not open to simply making cosmetic changes. Simply publishing the company's words and republishing it multiple times means nothing because it's actuslly emphasizing what the commentd say above, it's not significant, substantial or convincing and suggesting then otherwise is actually also emphasizing there's only exactly that. Once we become a PR web host by satisfying company and business choices and anticipations of hosting advertisements, we are damned for anything that is otherwise acceptable because of the damages caused by said PR articles. SwisterTwister   talk  09:06, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
 * In your view, what sort of coverage of a business would qualify as not "advetising" or "PR"? Consider a company that we are absolutely 100% sure is notable, say Facebook or Twitter. Can you give examples of Facebook or Twitter coverage that you think is not "advertising" or "promotion"? If so, could you explain the specific differences between that coverage, and the coverage Northamerica1000 cited? If not, then it seems like any coverage of a company would be "advertising", in which case the term becomes meaningless. 2602:306:3A29:9B90:608C:C2F8:2526:C3A4 (talk) 09:40, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Promotional sources are written at company suggestion; actual journalism is not. I'm actually surprised you're confused about the difference - David Gerard (talk) 10:08, 4 October 2016 (UTC)


 * per above, still waiting for you to explain each of your claimed evidences of notability, rather than just linkdumping - David Gerard (talk) 13:21, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Comparing what Facebook and Twitter has is not the same thing as this one comoany because if the sheer fact it's not only not established independently yet but thst it still needs to advertise their needs of having money and investors, that explains it all clearly, which then fuels the needs of attention with PR. SwisterTwister   talk  15:49, 4 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep. This is a well-known company whose coverage appears to unambiguously pass WP:CORP. I'm befuddled that anyone could read this article and find its tone promotional -- it seems blandly informative to me.  A  Train talk 10:52, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Yet my concerns are still exact in that this article was part of a PR campaign as it is by not only the history but also the contents, my anaylsis has also included why and where the sourcing concerns exist. It is certainly not the same thing to merely state "there's available sources!" if they are simply republished company PR and not substantial news. SwisterTwister   talk  15:49, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I hope you don't think I'm being flippant,, but I'm a little concerned about you. Your posts lately are walls of text that make only the most tenuous sense. I sort of get the gist of what you're saying: that the articles used as sources only exist because of a PR effort on the part of the subject. This point is, to be very blunt, naive. Almost everything you read in any newspaper or magazine has been influenced in one way or another by PR. You can take it from me, because I work in the media business. What you're essentially asking for here is that we disregard WP:CORP and use our psychic powers to determine which sources have been tainted by PR. That's ludicrous. This article is about a well-known company (I take it you don't listen to many podcasts) and the references meet our standards for depth of coverage and reliability.  A  Train talk 17:01, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
 * "Almost everything you read in any newspaper or magazine has been influenced in one way or another by PR." That does not oblige us to treat it as good sourcing for an encyclopedic article. Simple test: was the reporting due to a PR approach to the outlet, or was it due to the paper scenting news and investigating and reporting on it? You seem to be making out that the latter literally doesn't exist. Per the George Orwell quote: "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations." The first sort makes for RSes, the second sort makes for Wikipedia as advertorial.
 * Also, I strongly suggest you strike your personal attack, it really doesn't become an admin - David Gerard (talk) 17:06, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
 * David, if you think that I was making a personal attack and not a genuine assessment of SwisterTwister's quality of contributions, I invite you to scroll up. The first sentence of the AfD nomination is nigh-unintelligible. "Rambling" is a fair description, I think. It gets worse from there.
 * I have deleted dozens of advertorials and other PR fluff articles over the years. This is unequivocally not one of them. I would love for everything on Wikipedia to meet the standards of the Orwell you're quoting at me. The guideline for inclusion (today, at least) is not an Orwell quote: it is WP:CORP. This article meets the depth of coverage criterion of CORP and it meets the independent sources criterion. You are entirely welcome to keep supplying me with Orwell quotes, because I have a lot of time for you and a lot of time for Orwell, but in the matter of deleting this article he is not relevant.  A  Train talk 18:54, 4 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment: there are assertions above that all of the coverage relating to this company is "blatant advertising" and "promotion", and that it does not represent "actual journalism" because it has been placed or paid for by PR agents working on behalf of the company. That seems an odd assertion given sources like this, which is entitled "Former Squarespace employee alleges ‘overt’ racism," and which contains extensive allegations about racism at the company. Unless a PR person for this company really went rogue, it seems highly unlikely, to say the least, that such an article would have been "placed" by the company. Safehaven86 (talk) 21:46, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep: NorthAmerica has done a good job of listing a sampling of the many reliable examples of significant coverage this company has received. Examples of coverage that show that this company meets our notability guidelines are in Fortune, Entrepreneur, The Atlantic, and and CNBC. These are bylined articles by professional journalists in reputable sources with editorial oversight. They provide more than trivial coverage, as they discuss the company's founding, history, operations, leadership, etc. Safehaven86 (talk) 21:57, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep - Per NA1000's list o' links. THIS for example is first class coverage on the website of The Oregonian, the biggest newspaper in Oregon. Carrite (talk) 01:50, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment -Let it be known these sources have been listed as it is, the mere fact that The Oregonian is a major newspaper is not meaning anything if the article (which I had found myself while searching) is merely advertising how the company moved between masses of interviewed quotes from start to finish, and of course all listed only consists of company information and business plans (not independent or convincing), and clearly that's only to interest clients and investors. It is unfortunate is AfD beginning to become overpersonal with unnecessary attacks of not only users but analysis as it is, and that's not only choosing to not acknowledge and consider the concerns about this article, it's blowing it completely. Blatancies include: The Fortune article literally begins with the businessman himself talking which then goes from quotes, to his career life history to then his company plans, all of this information literally comes from him and only him, therefore it's not substantial, significant or convincing, and merely stating "It's a news source!" means nothing if the contents themselves are unconvincing. Take for example, "Customers are attracted by Squarespace’s ease of use. Its tools allow anyone to quickly build a professional-looking website, and there are no upfront costs. Customers pay between $8 and $30 a month to host their sites on Squarespace. “They have figured out a way to build professional, high-quality, beautiful websites that people are proud of and that customers really love,” Braccia says. “What used to cost $10,000, $20,000, or even $30,000, now for you can do for $20 a month....Not surprisingly, Squarespace is hardly alone in the business of helping customers build and host slick websites on the cheap. Competitors include various blogging and publishing platforms, as well as startups like Wix and Weebly, one of the hottest companies to come out of the Y Combinator incubator in Silicon Valley. “For any business, having a place on the web that defines who you are has become ever more important,” Braccia says. “The market is so large.” which are not only named mentions of other companies, but actually specifics about business numbers and "how to use the company", which again is surrounded by quotes and information by the man himself. The last paragraphs are split between quotes again, so there was literally no actual words aside from the man. The Atlantic only merely mentions the company 6 times, and the CNBC is simpy a financial listing about the company finances yet again so that's no actual substance and it's not surprising it's not since it's simply a fill-time-also-advertise "article", literally starting again with his career and life story about where he took the company and what his plans are, "Investors are paying attention. In April 2014, Squarespace announced it had raised a $40 million round of venture capital from the investment firm General Atlantic. That followed an earlier, Series A round in 2010, led by Index Ventures and Accel Partners, in which Squarespace raised $38.5 million. After introducing a modernized version called Squarespace 6 in July 2012 and adding e-commerce capabilities for users' sites in early 2013, Squarespace saw dramatic sales growth, according to Casalena" is another blatant and that's not saying everything considering the entire article is still far from independent, by consisting of literal quotes and self-supplied information. Therefore, saying that any analysis here is "rambling" is yet another attempt of not actually acknowledging the concerns here, and these listed sources exactly follow my nomination as it is when I said this article itself was only started as a PR campaign, and that's why the founder's own article was also started, since it was only ever actually contributed by quickly-coming-and-going accounts, never focusing with anything else but this. With the CNBC, note again one of his own quotes is bold and enlarged with color to emphasize the effects; after going through masses of interviewed quotes yet again, it finally ends with a "lessons list". As with these AfDs, it's one thing to simply list sources and say they come from here or there, but it's another to actually acknowledge the trivial and unconvincing parts lest the entire comment simply be taken as an attempt to cause a linkstorm without any actual analysis. We've been stormed enough as it is by blatant PR and advertising and this is yet another example, the fact these 2 articles came along with other similar advertisements at the time, so that says enough as it is; no mere claims of "but there's sources" compromises the staunchness of actually considering the damages this causes to not only articles, but the website itself. SwisterTwister   talk  03:09, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep - per the huge lists of sources discussed above in the existing keep !votes. Review of those lists show notability via significant coverage in reliable sources.  Article is a keeper. --  1Wiki8 ........................... (talk) 11:11, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment WP:ITSNOTABLE is not the same thing as an actually extensive comment, including both the genuine comments and then the concerns that affect the article, because simply restating the comments even after they have been analyzed, is basically ignoring the actual analysis and concerns listed here, every single said analysis and comment has been clear about this, especially if simply restating "it's significant and a news source" is not the same thing as actually going through it and weighing and comparing the concerns such as if it's a "freelance journalist"-supplied article, heavily focused with PR and company achievements, interviewed information, etc. none of that is substantial or independent, and we should not be mistaken to think otherwise. SwisterTwister   talk  16:07, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Your analysis is not being ignored, it is simply unconvincing and seems to show a bias that is inappropriate at AFD. --  1Wiki8 ........................... (talk) 18:20, 5 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment: still waiting to hear how "Former Squarespace employee alleges ‘overt’ racism" is advertising or PR. Not all coverage of businesses can be unilaterally dismissed as PR. Safehaven86 (talk) 16:16, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep per Webbys, Fortune listings. -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:52, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete. even if there is a chance of notability, the inclusion of such absurd sources as a fox reprint of a PR release for entrepreneuyr.com shows promotional intent. The first thing to do with subject like this is to delete the promotional  articles; then, if someone wants to make a proper article, it should be done from scratch instead of trying to help out the incompetent promotional editors who should't be here in the first place. Otherwise what   lwe're doing is help those who want to corrupt WP for money.   DGG ( talk ) 03:51, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Flaws in content are an editing matter, we are here to discuss notability — which you well understand. Carrite (talk) 23:14, 11 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep. Pick your favourite three to five sources from Northamerica1000's lists; there're plenty of independent, reliable sources thereon offering substantive coverage of the company, which is enough to satisfy WP:CORP or WP:GNG. As an aside, deleting and restarting this article due to the spectre of promotionalism strikes me as an exceedingly bureaucratic idea. /wiae /tlk  14:01, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The sources have been analyzed noticeably above as it is, and if it wasn't for the fact this was clearly paid and influenced advertising as shown by the history and contributions, that therefore establishes a No-Compromising to any such suggestions of keeping otherwise lest we actually be damned as a PR webhost encyclopedia. As it is, I have noted above that the advertising-only accounts clearly only focused and came to contribute for both the company and businessman articles. For the sake of this encyclopedia, we can and have made any choices whatsoever to delete advertisements. SwisterTwister   talk  23:18, 9 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete as corporate spam. With sections such as "Awards", "History" (which also includes an office locator: "Headquartered in New York City, the company also has offices in Portland, Oregon, and Dublin, Ireland"), "Funding", etc, this is a typical advertorial on an unremarkable company. Created by Special:Contributions/Pixelgirl_(usurped) with no other contributions so paid editing is about 100% certain, which is against policy. See WP:BOGOF: let's not encourage the spammers by keeping this article. K.e.coffman (talk) 18:48, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
 * If kept, the article would need to be reduced to a couple of paragraphs to trim it off intricate / promo detail, which would result in a WP:DIRECTORY listing, which Wikipedia is not. K.e.coffman (talk) 18:57, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

AfDs for this article: 
 * Keep. Clearly notable company/product. If it was created (9 years ago!) by an editor with a COI (which is far from apparent looking at the article's original state), we shouldn't ignore all the edits since on that basis. The 'everything is PR' argument is getting out of hand at AfD, and perhaps those people who see PR everywhere should get consensus that coverage about companies in reliable sources should always be discounted because it's 'all obviously PR', rather than flooding AfD with dozens of nominations making the same argument that totally ignores the real world significance (i.e. notability) of said companies. --Michig (talk) 08:19, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep - The deletion arguments here seem to be more than willing to see their nose in the sink drain than let their face have the last laugh. Clearly notable company. Parabolist (talk) 21:44, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Infobox Adding infobox for previous AfD identified in the nomination:
 * 05:26, 12 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep Encyclopedic coverage of a porn actress is not pornography.  Encyclopedic coverage of a for-profit is not advertising.  Encyclopedic coverage of a church is not religion.  Yet if readers find no content about nudity in a pornbio, and no commercial viability (advertising) in a for-profit article, and no religious viewpoint in a church article; we are not presenting a neutral point of view.  I agree with Michig.  Unscintillating (talk) 06:00, 12 October 2016 (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.