Wriging

I don't see it being subjective, but I suppose it all depends on how wikipedia defines "advertisement". Does any introduction of commercial businesses consider as "advertisement"?

It is informative, but there's also a Wikipedian movement to remove pages about blogs (and that read like blog's about pages). This seems like an about page to me ... nothing wrong with that.

It's not an advertisement. But I suppose adding something against the company (like competitors, possible obstacles, anything negative) would help shut that wikipedian up.

Thanks guys!

BubbleGum — yeah, I thought that as well. Any information about a company can be considered an advertisement, in a sense.

I think you're right Shadow, I should add some criticism on the company. The person who tagged the article has refused to make any further comments and tell me what he'd like to see revised (weird). So maybe that'll be enough.

I contacted a Wikipedian editor for help, who basically said the same as you guys; there are some things that could be added, but that the article doesn't deserve the tag. I'm going to try removing it after some modifications.

Points go to both of you.

I disagree with shadowsun. Neutrality doesn't necessary equal equal amounts of positive and negative bias. And, for what it's worth, I don't think the article deserves the advertisement tag either.

I think shadow just meant that it might help calm the Wikipedian who tagged the article, rather than that it was the right thing to do. I agree with both of you. Thanks for pitching in Rich!

@hthth - to challenge you a bit. If you have criticisms about the company why didn't you include them initially? Wikipedia is a live environment so it's not like your entry was a draft. Doesn't that in itself show bias? Not to say it should be tagged as advertisement - I think that's the wrong tag. Unless you don't have proof to substantiate your criticism (they can't be opinion I wouldn't think).

edit: This sounds marketing like "Despite secrecy regarding their first product, Radar Networks is amongst semantic web startup companies that received significant media coverage in the years 2006-2007"

Has no business in there actually. Combine that with the fact they are in stealth and the product you speak of doesn't come out until Fall...it's obvious it was written by someone with intimate knowledge which almost always included bias.

Understandable challenge.

The answer is that I didn't have any criticism — as most of the things I wrote in the article were basic facts and summaries of what had been published by others in news articles (field of research, date of founding, etc.). The company hasn't released any software and as such it's very hard to write anything beyond those kinds of facts.

After getting the message that someone considered it "advertisement like", I made an effort to find something to add (if I was biased before, this is bias in the other direction). The best I could do was writing that the lack of critical coverage was a downside in itself, so I included that in the article:

The company remains in stealth mode but their research and development has been covered to some extent in interviews and on the founder's personal blog. Although general information on the usage and purpose of their first product has been revealed (see below), and the company's founder has described their work as enabling next generation social software and search [5], the company has remained very secretive with regards to technical aspects of their systems. As the company has not released software to the public, statements made by the company's representatives on the potential of their systems have only been independently verified by a few, closed in-house demonstrations.

I think its a fairly good addition, even though I had to "force it" into the article through pressure from a Wikipedian that didn't want to give any reasons for his opinion. And even so, this isn't really criticism as much as a matter of fact (and that's the way it should be, of course). The article already stated that their products were unreleased and untried. I just stated it more explicitly via the text above.

Edit: On your edit, yeah, you're probably right. I'll remove it! Thanks.
Edit: Removed. But reading your comment again I disagree with your suggestion that there's something negative regarding people with intimate knowledge writing Wikipedia articles — that would be like saying experts shouldn't write articles about the fields they're experts in. I agree with what you're saying with regards to this particular example, but not in general.
Edit3: No point in giving you points, queen of the universe, so you just get my thanks :)

Honestly, it does read like a press release.

Thanks for the input malitic.
Any chance you could elaborate on that? Encyclopedia articles sometimes read like press releases as that's basically what they are — a compilation of facts and information about a certain phenomena. An important difference is that Encyclopedia articles are supposed to be a neutral account.

@hthth - Usually people who have the intimate knowledge and like what they are writing about are not unbiased. Add to it that the majority of your links (resources) do not meet the qualification of Wikipedia's reliable resource requirement. 3/7 links would be considered 3rd party.

Look at this entry about Microsoft and compare it to yours. When I see they received 10M in funding I expect to see a 3rd party footnote so I can scope it. Look at the difference between the type of press release that is linked to on Microsoft and the one you linked to. Microsoft's is factual (company earnings) or realignment (future goals of the company). The one you linked to is self-serving more than factual, which goes against Wikipedia's guidelines. Looking at the Internet News link there is a very brief mention - based on quotes from the guy that owns the company. It's not an article written by a 3rd party about the company.

I could see why it was tagged for advertising but I would have tagged it as non-factual, unsubstantiated data...along those lines. It's very clear the article was written by someone with an intimate knowledge of the company. You probably would have been better of doing something short, sweet and to the point. There just isn't enough "reliable source" information to substantiate a lengthy article for that company yet...unless there is more you aren't linking to.

Usually people who have the intimate knowledge and like what they are writing about are not unbiased.

Yeah, I wasn't opposing that they were probably biased. I was saying I didn't agree that it was always negative to have knowledgeable people write — as those who like what they are doing are usually experts (e.g. a biologist), and that those expert individuals are often the most credible. But, to underline what I said before, that doesn't necessarily apply here because biology experts still require credible sources/experiment results. Off-topic comment on my part.

Add to it that the majority of your links (resources) do not meet the qualification of Wikipedia's reliable resource requirement. 3/7 links would be considered 3rd party.

Well, now this is an unfair statistic. Most of those links are merely references for easily verifiable things such as [2] & [5] that reference who works there. As is nr. [9] that references the company's affilation.

I think you're mistaken. Wikipedia's reliable resource agenda is not a requirement, it's a guideline. The Verifiability page states that reliable sources are only required for things that are likely to be challenged or have been challenged already. I doubt that company employees fall under that category, and it would be a bit silly if it did. If I needed a 3rd party published reference for every employee for every company in the world, there wouldn't be many company profiles on Wikipedia (maybe there would be, but you get my point).

Looking at the Internet News link there is a very brief mention - based on quotes from the guy that owns the company. It's not an article written by a 3rd party about the company.

In this specific case I'm talking about claims made by the company's founder: "the company's founder has described their work as ... [ref]", and therefore reference the article where his claims were published. But, nevertheless, I understand your point. Especially with regards to the 10M funding.

Edit: Actually, I think you looked at the wrong link and that I misunderstood what you were saying for that reason. The Internet News link was a reference for the quote I mention above and is a 3rd party article. The 10M funding quote was from Radar Networks' press release. I've changed it now to reference a CNN article instead (see below).

There just isn't enough "reliable source" information to substantiate a lengthy article for that company yet.

I'm making some revisions, mainly adding the CNN article as reference for the 10M funding claim (that's a reliable source, wouldn't you agree?), and removing some other references which are reduntant.

If 3rd party sources were a hard-boiled requirement and the article was making some kind of wild claims, I'd definitely agree with you and flesh out the article. But I don't see reason to change anything else because the article contains information that's non-controversial, easily verifiable, and unlikely to get challenged — which shouldn't require 3rd party references. Do you still disagree or think that I should make more changes?

Thank you Tyme.

Edit: I think it's worth mentioning that I'm not as intimate with the company as one might think. Everything I know about it comes from news and press releases. I've never met any employees, for example, and my brother cannot tell me anything as he's signed a NDA (he takes it seriously, as do I). Of course, I can't prove it, just FYI to those of you here who know me.

Good thing I looked at your article first before responding lol. See the difference? Much better! Props to you. :)

This is what I meant by stealth: reading our original article one is left with the impression of "this company is working on really cool stuff, can't talk about what it is because it's in stealth, but it's so cool I'm adding it to Wikipedia" and in your "enthusiasm" you wrote your piece without properly documenting what you wrote. Something must have gotten you excited. :)

In the 2nd piece you substantiate things, it you made it more clear why there isn't more information available. It's more impartial. The first one seemed like you were trying to make the company sound good. The 2nd one is more accurate and factual (more impartial).

That's why I said it's hard to write objectively about companies/things we have like, support, etc. It bleeds through into the writing and it takes practice to step back and be objective.

Well done. :)

Great! Phew. Glad we agree — I was a bit worried I hadn't explained myself properly in the last comment and would come off like a stubborn jerk.

See the difference? Much better! Props to you. :)

Definitely looks better. And somebody came along and removed the tag without the original tagger acting up, so I think the current version is acceptable by all now.

That's why I said it's hard to write objectively about companies/things we have like, support, etc. It bleeds through into the writing and it takes practice to step back and be objective.

Yeah. I'm somewhat used to writing objectively which is I why I dared write the article despite my enthusiasm. But of course, it takes "Minutes to learn, lifetime to master!"™, so thankfully I've learned to ask for second opinions :)

Thank you again, and everyone else who helped.