Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stevie Awards (3rd nomination)


 * 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. This seems to be a borderline issue, and the discussion yields no consensus about the notability of the topic.  Sandstein  11:10, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Stevie Awards
AfDs for this article: 
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This award is largely sourcable through winners writing their own press releases. I suspect it is a pay-for-play scam. We either need sources that document that it is a signficant, notable award based on our policies, or that it is a significant, notable scam, or, on the third hand, delete it. The last AfD closed no consensus, and I'm still seeing articles kept based on the putative notability of this award. Let's get this figured out. j⚛e deckertalk 18:13, 27 May 2014 (UTC) (Note that I moved to neutral at near the bottom of the discussion.)
 * Delete I'm not the most impartial observer as the nominator of the last AFD, but my opinion hasn't changed. It might be arguable that the article meets the letter of WP:N, but certainly not in spirit. Every piece of coverage for this award is manufactured, either through a PR push or by its winners. And it's apparent that there's very little interest in maintaining this article. Mosmof (talk) 18:55, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 19:20, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 19:21, 27 May 2014 (UTC)


 * comment (as nom) I see a few sources have been added (hat tip to Arxiloxos, nice work), I tried to do some article cleanup and balance. There's still a lot pulled from primary sources. I'm sticking by delete, but I think it's more arguable. I think I'd say "keep" if I were to apply GNG naively.  But here's the thing: The NY Po and WaPo articles predates the first awards, are interviews as much as articles, and end with a "go check it out at this URL", which read like press releases as a result. The WaPo is generally a very reliable publisher, to be fair.  The NYT blurb was pulled in from an independent journalist, may be an interview, but again, the NYT is generally a great source--if only they'd known that the founder's name, who they allegedly talked to, was Michael, not Steven. (To be fair, they did correct it ) And then nothing for eleven years. How am I supposed to write an article that neutrally summarizes the weight or quality of an award when nothing reliable is written on it for the ten plus years following its creation? --j⚛e deckertalk 23:47, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep. The article is much improved by 's edits, which have gotten rid of most of the cruft and excessive detail.  I appreciate the expressed concerns about PR abuse, and we can stipulate that winning one of these doesn't automatically convey notability on the winner.  But I still think this is worth keeping. The creation of these awards was the subject of coverage in multiple reliable sources, including top-quality sources like the NYT and the Washington Post. Since then, literally thousands of references to these awards have appeared in reliable sources, as shown, for example, by HighBeam Research: .  I agree with Joe Decker that the vast majority of these references are not independent; many read like straight press releases. In other cases an award is mentioned in connection with a profile of a particular winner. Then there are some like a recent contribution to Forbes.com where the columnist comments that he had "flown down to The Stevie Awards at the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas because our company was in the running for an award" and then bemoans that his company didn't win 1st place. There are so many search hits that it's hard to wade through all of this to find discussions of the awards in more general terms.  But I still think that it's better to provide interested readers with some verifiable information (especially now that the article's POV has been neutralized) than to leave them in the dark. --Arxiloxos (talk) 00:53, 28 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete: Counting the number of awards granted by this organization is extremely difficult. In the "American Business Awards" department, here are ten categories of awards, and about 10 subcategories. In each subcategory there are three levels of award (gold, silver and bronze) and at each level there are one to 5 recipients - say 2 as a conservative average. In other words, it grants 600 awards per year in this department alone. Other departments include International Business Awards, Asian Business awards. Women in business awards - six departments in all, This suggests a total of about 3,600 awards per year.


 * While details of the costs of participating in this "contest" are unclear, the possible ways that a "contestant" can spend money are myriad. The application fee is $230. Then there are options for sponsorship, participating as a judge, including display ads in the program, buying tickets for the award banquet... I am guessing there are a lot more, but without actually applying myself and spending money on this sham operation it is hard to tell. What is also unclear is the correlation between the amount a company spends and the quality of the award it receives, but it is hard to believe that such a correlation does not exist.


 * There is absolutely no information about who is behind this organization. Is it a nonprofit (apparently not)? Is it a registered business? Does it publish any guidelines about how winners are selected, about criteria or the selection process? Of course not.


 * All of the references provided here to establish notability are simply press releases by the award "winners" flakking their own virtues. No serious source refers to this award. Have you ever seen it mentioned in a New York Times article? In a Business Week article? in a Wall Street Journal article? No, of course not. Because every serious editor on this earth - excepting, apparently, the patsers writing for Wikipedia - knows that this is a sham.


 * Let's wise up and get rid of this embarrassing article. --Ravpapa (talk) 10:08, 15 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Later: Sorry, I was wrong in my estimate of the number of awards. I was looking only at the "Sales and Customer Service" supercategory. Now I realize that this is only one of a whole bunch of supercategories. In the "Management Awards" supercategory, for example, there are 21 categories. So, the total number of potential awards is much more than 3,600 that I originally estimated. And, if you really need an award and don't find a category suitable to you, I'm sure Mr. Gallagher (the founder of the Stevie awards, who is variously referred to in sources as "Michael P." or "Steven" and has disappeared entirely from Google search) will create one for you. Gold medal for Pasta extrusion machines, anyone? --Ravpapa (talk) 13:57, 15 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Later still: I don't like making unsupported allegations, and felt uncomfortable about my speculation that there is a correlation between the amount of money a company spends and the quality of the awards it receives. So I did a spot check. All of the award "sponsors" that I checked (CallidosCloud, Engility, John Hancock, Lycamobile, PetRays and SoftPro) won at least two gold Stevies in 2013. --Ravpapa (talk) 06:25, 19 June 2014 (UTC)


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


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Go  Phightins  !  01:43, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

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


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, NorthAmerica1000 10:49, 16 June 2014 (UTC)




 * And, I guess I'm neutral (as nom). I think there are some salient reasons to have an article, I think there are some to not.  I think the question that probably should really bea asked is has the article gotten to a point where it's neutral and verifiable.  Given that I did a fair bit of that editing, perhaps I'm the wrong person to judge, so, I'll switch my nomination/delete to neutral at this time.  --j⚛e deckertalk 07:12, 24 June 2014 (UTC)


 * You forgot notable. If it is notable, there should be independent, third-party sources that discuss it. There aren't. I discount the three references before 2003 - that was before the true nature of the Stevie Awards business was apparent. And I discount the three references given at the end ("Applying for Stevie Awards has been recommended by multiple authors... "). First of all, the sentence is a classic example of WP:SYNTH; second, the first two references are unverifiable (at least by me), and the third is patently wrong ("It costs nothing to apply for these awards", the source says). That leaves the only references being press releases issued either by award winners or by the Stevie Awards organization itself.


 * Find me one - just one - source that discusses the Stevie awards in a way that sources discuss the Oscar, or Emmy, or the English Petanque competition award. Find me one profile in the New York Times, or the Sandusky Reporter, that says, "Joe Blow, winner of the prestigious Stevie Award for management, ...", and I will grant that this award is notable. --Ravpapa (talk) 07:50, 24 June 2014 (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.