Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/World Patent Marketing


 * 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. Seraphimblade Talk to me 01:57, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

World Patent Marketing

 * – ( View AfD View log )

The company was only in business for 3 years and is one of many scam start-ups in the "invention/patent" industry. The company is only notable for its choice of advisors who were high profile individuals, and now those individuals are noncompliance issues per WP:GUILT as none were mentioned in the FTC action against the company.  Atsme 💬 📧 12:25, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Adding that it unequivocally fails WP:ORG, WP:NOTNEWS and WP:10YT. It's only claim to notability is non-compliant with GUILT.  Atsme 💬 📧 12:39, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Added reasoning to SPEEDY DELETE: WP:ATTACK PAGE, and at minimum fails WP:COATRACK, WP:NOTSCANDAL, WP:RECENTISM, and WP:NEGATIVESPIN. The following diffs support the aforementioned concerns as follows:
 * On Nov 7, 2018 the “WPM news" was added and rewritten in the Whitaker BLP - it is not in any of the other high profile BLPs of advisory board members, including the scientist or the occupy Democrats founder, even though other high profile people were on the advisory board.
 * The high profile names were originally listed when Smartse first created the article, but were later removed.
 * On Nov 7, 2018 Trump announced Whitaker would assume the role. (It was added to the Whitaker article on that date - the same day the WPM article was created.
 * My edit to add back names was reverted by Smartse. ::I'm of the mind that there is enough evidence to demonstrate what appears to me to be an attack page. This article should be deleted considering the large number of marketing/patent company refunds the FTC handles. All mention that is noncompliant with WP:GUILT should be removed from our BLPs. There is no mention of WPM in Ronald Mallett, there is mention in Brian Mast, a Republican, and no mention in Occupy Democrats that associates the founder, Omar Rivero.  Atsme 💬 📧 14:54, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions.  Atsme  💬 📧 12:25, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions.  Atsme  💬 📧 12:25, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions.  Atsme  💬 📧 12:25, 24 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep comprehensively referenced article, don't see issues with verifiability, notability or other sourcing concerns. Acousmana (talk) 12:30, 24 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Speedy keep since no policy based argument is made for deletion. WP:CORP is clearly met per the references I'd included in this version. SmartSE (talk) 12:37, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep folders full of RS meeting the GNG and CORP. Hard to understand the logic for AfD here. --Goldsztajn (talk) 01:55, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Draftify for re-editing to. ensure NPOV coverage. The article as it is seems grossly over-detailed. The various named people can just be listed with their professions, and linked to the WP articles. The details of their practice are unnecessary. From the way this has been written, I think it was indeed intended as an attack page, and is therefore unsuitable for mainspace. But since the firm is actually a notable scam, we can justify an article, but not this article.  DGG ( talk ) 00:47, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
 * , you state that this "is indeed intended as an attack page." I don't agree.  It should be noted that this is not a run-of-the-mill scam--this scam is so bizarre that it takes a fair amount of space to report the company's ruthless activities, and the article contains only a fraction of them.  For example, not one patent was ever brought to be profitable after the thousands of dollars that trusting people spent--actually one was but it was dropped by the company after a time and then the owner took out a patent on it for himself.  Or for example you believe that the so-called board members need only their names listed.  This would really be an egregious fault of us as editors because the board members, other than Whitaker, appeared to have no idea that they were taking part in a scam.  That is not to say that they should have followed up on their initial agreement to check the company out, though, other than Whitaker they all returned and money they had made. Gandydancer (talk) 16:28, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I think it a sufficiently notable scam for an article, but it was nothing sensational. This sort of exploitation of naïve people applying for patents was not their invention. It is possible that much of the notability is due to the fact that they were able to enroll or pretend to enroll a particularly high number of notable people as members of the board. W. was just one of them. His notability and their notability overlap, but do not depend on each  other.   DGG ( talk ) 05:50, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Keeping in mind, of course, that we do not conflate the company's advisory board with their board of directors. The advisory board provides non-binding advice, it is very informal in nature, and has no authority to vote on corporate matters or bear legal fiduciary responsibilities. Readers who don't know or may not understand the capacity/duties of an advisory board could easily misinterpret the role Whitaker played, and the manner in which this article has been presented is part of what makes it unacceptable.  Atsme 💬 📧 14:58, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
 * There is, of course, no evidence whatsoever that Whitaker had any more idea of the scam than any other board member; the actual investigation resulted in no finding of wrongdoing on Whitaker's part, and it is therefore just as likely that he was scammed as any other board member. DGG's point is well-taken. This article is being used more as a vessel of highlighting board member affiliation than in examining the company itself. BD2412  T 03:16, 28 March 2021 (UTC)


 * No evidence? Please read this Forbes articles:


 * "Documents in the FTC’s docket show that Whitaker, who served on the World Patent Marketing board from 2014 to 2017, was not just a paid advisory board member -- he threatened at least one victim who complained."


 * "The emails the FTC obtained, in fact, suggests Whitaker used his background as a U.S. attorney to try to silence customers who claimed they were defrauded by the company and sought to take their complaints public."
 * Gandydancer (talk) 19:42, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Forbes cites Telegram who cites WaPo where there is political bias. Read the Telegram article that Forbes cited. They quoted other advisory board members, as well as the court receiver: There was no evidence that Whitaker knew company salespeople were making false promises to inventors, court receiver Jonathan Perlman said in an interview. “I have no reason to believe that he knew of any of the wrongdoing,” Perlman said. To imply otherwise in this article or Whitaker's BLP is noncompliant with WP:GUILT. It's not always easy, but our job as editors is to avoid the tempation to RGW.  Atsme 💬 📧 00:08, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Again, it has not been demonstrated that Whitaker's alleged behavior would have been any different whether or not the company was in fact scamming people, and whether or not Whitaker was aware of that. This could just as easily be interpreted as Whitaker confronting a would-be extortionist on behalf of the company because he believed it was legitimate, and that the customer complaint amounted to an effort by the customer to concoct a smear against the company. That sort of thing happens with regularity—Michael Avenatti is sitting in prison right now due to such an extortion attempt against a company. To be clear, the sources do not hesitate to say that the WPM's founder, Scott Cooper, was aware that it was a scam. There is not a single source that says that Whitaker in fact knew that the company was a scam, or provides information that could not as easily be explained by Whitaker believing that he was defending a legitimate enterprise from extortionists. BD2412  T 00:37, 29 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Draftify is a reasonable outcome pending determination of whether the article has been constructed so as to highlight roles of some parties while diminishing that of others in order to present a biased narrative. BD2412  T 03:27, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep Keep per Goldsztajn.  If BD2412  has any RS that supports favorable conduct of any parties that have been diminished it should be presented at the article talk page where discussion is ongoing.  Gandydancer (talk) 19:53, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Draftify per DDG. The talk page of the article and the way the article is written certainly make it appear this is an attempt to smear a person rather than to actually talk about a business of questionable notability.  Springee (talk) 18:08, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep. We do not have a BLP1E equivalent for companies: if they only become notable as a scam, then they're still notable and that's how we report on them. It's not Wikipedia's fault that secondary sources have tied Whitaker to WPM, and any debate about the mention in his bio needs to be had on that talk page, not here. There was coverage before Trump's pick of Whitaker, so this was not simply a blip of reporting related to Trump: Courthouse News, Portico (discusses Brian Mast), NBC Miami (discusses Brian Mast), NBC Miami, NBC Miami, Clarion Ledger, TCPalm, Lexology, Miami New Times (mentions Whitaker), Sun Sentinel. However, it's no surprise that the surge of reporting in late 2018 was what brought the company to the article creator's attention and there is no evidence of ill-intent. Since then, many reliable sources have prominently discussed Whitaker's role at WPM, including that he was aware of and involved in responding to complaints (e.g.Reuters, Washington Post, New York Times, Slate, ABC News). The FTC have a FOI page specifically on his involvement, and the House Oversight Committee highlighted the connection. Wikipedia is only following the reliable sources. On the other hand, I doubt other advisory board members should have quotes from WPM press releases included - that seems WP:UNDUE if there's no secondary sourcing. Creizman's role was noted by the Wall Street Journal, but any other advisory board member for whom we cannot find secondary coverage should only be listed, nothing more. See Theranos for an equivalent situation.  Fences  &amp;  Windows  18:05, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep, no-brainer. Policy states unambiguously that an organization is notable "if it has been the subject of significant coverage in multiple reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject" (emphasis in original). World Patent Marketing has been the subject of such coverage; see Washington Post, WaPo again, New York Times, New York Times again, Bloomberg, Fox News, The Guardian, Vanity Fair, Miami New Times, etc. This one isn't even close, and to claim as the nominator does that it "unequivocally fails" WP:ORG shows&mdash;to be charitable&mdash;a complete lack of familiarity with relevant policy.The nomination lists a context-free alphabet soup of other policies. Citing WP:ATTACKPAGE suggests a deep lack of understanding of that policy&mdash;and constitutes a completely unsupported aspersion against the creators and editors of the article, as well as a massive and inappropriate assumption of bad faith. Bizarrely, WP:NEGATIVESPIN is cited as a reason to delete, when that policy actually states that an article spun out of a BLP "is not necessarily an attack page, even if the content in question reflects negatively upon its subject". In other words, the cited policy directly contradicts the point the nominator is using it to advance.Moving the article to draftspace is inappropriate. Draftspace is intended to develop articles that don't yet meet notability or other criteria, but this article is already amply sourced and comprehensive. It can of course be improved, and issues of weight can be hashed out, but in that regard it is no different from hundreds of thousands of other mainspace articles. Policy states that draftifying "is not intended as a backdoor route to deletion", but that seems to be exactly how it's being employed here.As best I can tell, the underlying complaint seems to be that the article reflects negatively on a Trump-Administration figure. First of all, an article describing a scam that bilked people out of large amounts of money will&mdash;if neutrally written&mdash;sound "negative", because most people perceive scamming people out of money negatively. I don't see any actual BLP violations identified or even posited, just vague waves at irrelevant policies and WP:IDONTLIKEIT. The kindest explanation for this nomination and the support for deleting or hiding an article that clearly meets notability criteria is that there's been a collective, hopefully temporary, collapse of competence on the part of several experienced editors. I mean, this borders on a disruptive AfD nomination, given how patently obvious it is that this subject meets WP:ORG. MastCell Talk 18:31, 1 April 2021 (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.