Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Help desk/Archives/2016 July 28

= July 28 =

Request on 08:06:16, 28 July 2016 for assistance on AfC submission by Kristofhorvath
Hi Wikipedia reviewer community,

After realizing that a particular subject area that I'm familiar with was insufficiently covered by Wikipedia articles, I set out to fill in the gaps by writing articles about Application Lifecycle Management (ALM), ALM software & developer/vendor companies, and related subjects that help understand these software solutions and how they are increasingly becoming fundamental in modern product development. It seemed like a good idea, as there are a few relevant pages missing, and a few other pages that read a bit like advertisements. Overall, coverage of the entire subject area can be considered insufficient. A few examples just to help you understand without going into the details: Atlassian, a leading ALM company, and its product JIRA have separate pages, whereas a similar vendor company, Jama Software has a short company page that reads a bit promotional, but there's nothing on the product itself. The page is marked with concerns of COI / advert, yet is published on Wikipedia. An equally important player in the field is Polarion, which is missing from Wikipedia altogether. There also seems to be some confusion in the ALM article itself (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_lifecycle_management), which is missing a comprehensive explanation of how ALM is supposed to help software product development, and how current trends are pointing towards ALM and PLM merging and becoming essential in the development of modern system of systems products. In addition, this ALM page has a variety of software providers listed, regardless of whether their products are actually considered Application Lifecycle Management tools. Some other vendors that are recognized in the latest industry analyses as important or market leading are missing from this list. In summary, it seems like this area of software development is covered only by self-written pages (by these companies) that either read promotional, or are simply written in a way that is not suitable for Wikipedia. As a disclaimer, I have to add that I am also employed by a similar company, which is why I can claim to have a certain level of understanding of related topics. Granted, this may have affected my sense of neutrality, even though I was trying my best to stay objective – which is why I chose not to rely on my own judgement at all. Let me explain.

My first attempt at resolving this problem was to create a page for a player in this field (Intland Software) that is recognized as one of the 4 most important ALM developer companies, yet was missing from Wikipedia. As I didn't want to start out editing an established page of central importance (that of ALM itself), and since it was my first article on Wikipedia, I chose to create a simple company page largely similar to an already existing page, hoping this would allow me to get the hang of things. Unfortunately, my article about a German software provider (Intland Software) entirely based on Jama Software's page was not approved due to claims that it read like an advertisement. While I'm willing to agree that I have yet to develop the skills needed to write unbiased and informative pieces to Wikipedia, this particular article was an almost identical reproduction of Jama Software's page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jama_Software), using a similar structure and language to inform about a company operating in the same field. The explanation for the article's rejection called for a neutral point of view, which is a fair and fully understandable requirement if one aims to maintain the quality of this encyclopedia. However, it seems like the same level of neutrality and quality passes for an article that has already been published (although with references to multiple issues: COI Advert, while a newly written one faces more stringent requirements.

Can the community please help me understand how it tends to handle neutrality and COI/advert concerns while vowing to give an objective overview of subjects? How do I make sure my future articles satisfy all the requirements of Wikipedia / its editors? Am I to review, edit and possibly delete existing articles for advert concerns, or create new ones and call the reviewers' attention to the fact that similar articles are currently published on Wikipedia?

Thanks in advance for any insightful answers.

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Kristofhorvath (talk) 08:06, 28 July 2016 (UTC)


 * WP:TL;DR. There's a lot of rubbish in Wikipedia. See "Other stuff exists". Turn it into something that follows policies and guidelines or, if that is not possible, nominate it for deletion, but don't use it as a pattern or an excuse for creating more. If an article is about your company or its competitors, make constructive suggestions on its talk page (with a disclosure of your connection), and leave it for disinterested editors to deal with. --Worldbruce (talk) 16:17, 28 July 2016 (UTC)