- Thresher & Glenny (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)
The Thresher & Glenny article was deleted during the BP COI Investigations. HJ Mitchell, the user who deleted the article, failed to cite any reason or arguement for it's deletion. The article was historically factual and referenced a number of reliable sources. If the case could please be reviewed. Thanks BePoWiki (talk) 13:40, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Can someone temporarily restore it please, so we can make an assessment? --Pontificalibus (talk) 17:16, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Done. Secretlondon (talk) 22:15, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- No I don't think so You got paid for writing that article and it was deleted while we were removing your promotional material from Wikipedia. Tough luck I say. If an editor with no COI chooses to recreate the article from scratch then that would be a good thing, but giving you a free pass on paid editing? I don't think so. Spartaz Humbug! 06:10, 17 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse deletion The BePoWiki group account (are such accounts even permitted?) claims here that "the article was originally created by an independent Wikipedian". However that is not the case, it was created by the blocked user Biggleswiki and HJ Mitchell did give a reason for deleting it (G11: Unambiguous advertising or promotion: see Wikipedia:Bell Pottinger COI Investigations). So, I agree that the article was properly deleted and should not therefore be restored.--Pontificalibus (talk) 10:32, 17 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment: it is disingenuous, to the point of deceit, for BePoWiki to say that "the article was originally created by an independent Wikipedian who had no connection with Thresher & Glenny." It was created, and all the content added, by Biggleswiki (talk · contribs), confirmed at the BP SPI to be a Bell Pottinger account. It seems that BP have learned nothing and that we cannot trust anything they say. JohnCD (talk) 22:56, 17 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- re-delete it and indef block BePoWiki as a WP:ROLE account. Alarbus (talk) 11:02, 17 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- That content is not irretrievably promotional. It's fixable. Did the community ever come to a consensus about paid editing, and if so could someone please link it?—S Marshall T/C 11:43, 17 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I was originally inclined to endorse deletion per WP:G5 but then realized that WP:G5 is not retroactive. And I get the feeling that WP:G11 seems mainly to be for blatant spam that does not cite to reliable sources. Because of the argument advanced by User:S Marshall, I suppose that we should list it at WP:AfD instead; the article produced by the firm was better-written than many new articles. Furthermore, speedy deletion of paid content "on sight" may drive other paid editors (of whom I think there are probably many, particularly in today's tough economy) further underground. Way better to do it out in the open. An AfD listing may also allow broader input into a possible consensus about (or against) paid editing, as well. (There are likely some Wikipedians who frequent XfD discussions without visiting Deletion Review. And I myself would never have even heard about this Bell Pottinger scandal had I not come here.) By the way, I think the ban on role usernames is not a ban on role editing; rather, professional editors may edit from their IP address if they like, and in my (humble) opinion, IPs should be allowed to create their own userpage so they can openly disclose any COI. Bwrs (talk) 17:44, 17 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Send to AfD No speedy criterion applied. Jclemens (talk) 00:21, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Restore and optionally send to AfD or rewrite; with a little rewriting, it would make an acceptable article. It is perhaps our fault, actually that we didn't have an article on it earlier--a serious effort to cover historic businesses would decrease the opportunities. There will be only one problem: we do not normally cite from unpublished archives, however authentic, because although in principle someone could check, in practice it is unreasonably difficult. There are a number of other articles deleted similarly, and these need to be checked also. I notice that the other people who checked articles either sent them to AfD or corrected them, not speedy deleted them outright. DGG ( talk ) 03:42, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Restore and send to AfD. It is very tempting to delete, in order to send a message that paying spin-doctors to exercise their "dark arts" on Wikipedia can permanently damage your reputational health, particularly when BP are still trying to pretend that this was written by "an independent Wikipedian"; but we should consider the article and not its source. JohnCD (talk) 13:21, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Since what I'm about to say is more or less my opinion and is not supported by any current guideline or policy, I won't bold a !vote. In my view, the first indication that a subject may be notable is if a neutral editor with no connection to the subject "takes note of" the subject and elects to write an article about it. One cannot take note of oneself and one cannot pay somebody to take note of something. If an article on a company already exists then I would have no problem with a representative of that company participating in its development, preferable by making suggestions on the article's talk page but the issue of whether or not we should have an article on a subject should be made by a neutral editor. Thresher & Glenny should not have hired Bell Pottinger to create this article and Bell Pottinger should not have used a sock puppet to create it. That being said, what I would recommend at this point is for the article to be incubated until it has been edited and checked for neutrality by independent editors. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 04:56, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse deletion If the article is going to come back it needs a clean break from the previous material and a fresh start from editors completely free from COI. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 19:31, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Um... why? Nothing in policy requires such a thing. COI is a reason to closely examine NPOV and fix content accordingly, not a poison that irrevocably taints all contributed content. Jclemens (talk) 04:01, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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