Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-04-27 Funeral Homes

Mediation Case: 2006-04-27 Funeral Homes
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Request Information

 * Request made by: JesseG 20:25, 27 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Where is the issue taking place?
 * I have been working to add articles on individual funeral homes to Wikipedia, something that I just started this afternoon.


 * Who's involved?
 * Myself and ES2


 * What's going on?
 * I started by adding the Hoffmann-Schneider Funeral Home article to Wikipedia after finding that there didn't seem to really be any funeral home articles on Wikipedia. I thought that with the history of some funeral homes - especially long established ones - that having articles on funeral homes would add to the history of an area, and be a useful source of information for those wishing to learn more about a particular area.  Shortly after I got started on this, a request to delete all the article came in, with the complaint being that these were non-notable businesses and the entire category seemed to be based on funeral homes based in Dubuque, Iowa.


 * The reason the category only had funeral homes from eastern Iowa, northwestern Illinois, and southwestern Wisconsin is because that's where I happen to live, so it became a starting point for me. I was hoping if people felt that the funeral homes category was too centered on a particular area that they would expand it out to include funeral homes from other areas of the country instead of deleting it out of hand.


 * Also, I find myself wondering if the funeral home articles are being singled out for deletion because of the type of business they are involved in, that being death. I get the feeling that no matter how famous a particular funeral home is, no matter who was buried from that funeral home, no matter how long a funeral home has been in the area, no matter who the owners were or what contributions they made that the article would still get singled out for deletion because it's dealing with death.  There are probably thousands, if not tens of thousands of articles in Wikipedia that deal with businesses that a person 150 miles away may never heard of, but have not been challenged, nor will be challenged.


 * ''What would you like to change about that?
 * I want to have some clairifacation about whether or not funeral home articles have a place in Wikipedia. I think that especially older and more established funeral homes do have a place in Wikipedia, even some of those that are relatively new have a place here as well.


 * If you'd prefer we work discreetly, how can we reach you?


 * Would you be willing to be a mediator yourself, and accept a mediation assignment in a different case?


 * This is, following the Categorical Imperative, the idea that you might want to do
 * what you expect others to do. You don't have to, of course, that's why it's a question.



Mediator response
I've contacted both users, but I am unclear as to whether or not this conflict has been resolved. I've placed a status request on both talk pages. &mdash;Viriditas | Talk 06:08, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Evidence
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Compromise offers
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Comments by others
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Discussion
As I mentioned on my own talk page to the mediator, I'm not certain that there's a conflict here any longer. I brought the articles to AfD; the result was keep; I'm cool with that.

Jesse, I wasn't intending to single out the articles because of the subject matter; I was looking more at the boundaries of WP:CORP. You established notability for at least a couple of the funeral homes afterwards, and seeing the tendency in the AfD toward keep, figured I'd drop the issue. I'm sorry it caused you distress.

I wish you luck getting more of these up; the only suggestion I have is to make certain the articles you post aren't as stub-like as the ones I saw originally, or you may find others bringing them to AfD.

So far as I can tell, the issue is resolved. As for clarifying WP:CORP as regards smaller businesses... I'll leave that to the admins and the community at large. --ES2 14:48, 5 May 2006 (UTC)