Talk:ColumbiaSoft

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Oregon Portal
This page is part of WikiProject Oregon, a WikiProject dedicated to articles related to the U.S. state of Oregon.
To participate: join (or just read up) at the project page, or contribute to the project discussion.
PSU stuff & Applegate Trail are the current Collaborations of the week.
Stub This page is rated as Stub-Class on the quality scale.
Low This article is rated as Low-importance on the importance scale.

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the ColumbiaSoft article.
This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject.
Article policies

Contents

[edit] Notability

Currently tis article does not meet notability criteria. Pleas introduce thrid party, reliable sources that cover the subject, for instance coverage in The Oregonian or Portland Business Journal is likely being a Portland based company. The one industry article does help, but alone it is not enough.Aboutmovies 18:06, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Note that this article was apparently created by Anvil Media, of whom ColumbiaSoft is a client. The article currently is written from a neutral point-of-view, but please be sure to read our conflict of interest guidelines and business FAQ for more suggestions about how to contribute to an article about a subject with which you may have some association. Katr67 18:49, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question

I have heard that Columbiasoft has fired its resellers and the company is in a difficult time. Anyon know if they are a sound company? Are they financed through investors? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.11.95.242 (talk) 22:53, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Please note that per the above talk header that this page is for dicussing how to improve the article on ColumbiaSoft. It's not a forum for discussion about the subject. You might be better off asking your question elsewhere. Thanks! Katr67 00:08, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notability of company, and a sales figures

Continuing a discussion from User talk:Katr67:

I tend to think this company is not sufficiently notable for an article. One thing that would help is if the lead paragraph contained a claim of notability: that is, if it asserted exactly what makes this company worthy of note. The Wikipedia guideline for company notability has this to say: "Please consider notable and demonstrable effects on culture, society, entertainment, athletics, economies, history, literature, science, or education." I do not see anything approaching that standard; most companies above a certain size will get written up in a local publication devoted to business (like the Portland Business Journal) or a journal specific to their industry; but such articles do not address that general concern. I think a company without any news coverage that ties it to an event, another organization, a movement, or something along those lines is probably not notable enough to need a Wikipedia article.

Leaving that aside, there was some discussion of the inclusion of the largest order and typical order sizes. These strike me as the sort of information a company will provide for its shareholders, who have some basis for comprehending the information. In a comprehensive article like the one quoted, it also may make sense, where the industry as a whole is broadly treated. But in this article, I find those figures confusing. The reader doesn't have any knowledge of how the company packages its services, what its goals are, etc; thus, the numbers don't really communicate anything of value. -Pete (talk) 04:07, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Notability

In defense of the article's notability, I've pulled the following directly from the Wikipedia guidelines and the user discussion thus far. I've made corresponding notes that are denoted by italics.

User talk: I do not see anything approaching that standard; most companies above a certain size will get written up in a local publication devoted to business (like the Portland Business Journal) or a journal specific to their industry; but such articles do not address that general concern. I think a company without any news coverage that ties it to an event, another organization, a movement, or something along those lines is probably not notable enough to need a Wikipedia article.

Wikipedia Guidelines: Notable means "worthy of being noted" or "attracting notice." It is not synonymous with "fame" or "importance."

The articles used as references are from a separate entity, The Portland Business Journal. The PBJ is a local authority in the Portland business community. The fact that it wrote a feature article about ColumbiaSoft and another about its owner, in direct relation to ColumbiaSoft should indicate that it is indeed notable to the Portland small business community.

Wikipedia Guidelines: Please consider notable and demonstrable effects on culture, society, entertainment, athletics, economies, history, literature, science, or education.

ColumbiaSoft is relevant and notable to the Portland business community and small business economy.

Wikipedia Guidelines: Large organizations are likely to have more readily available verifiable information from reliable sources that provide evidence of notability; however, smaller organizations can be notable, just as individuals can be notable, and arbitrary standards should not be used to create a bias favoring larger organizations.

Just because ColumbiaSoft is small and local does not mean that it is not notable. If the company was not notable, it would not be written about in Portland's top business journal (PBJ) twice. Determining that the company is not notable because, as Pete wrote, "a company without any news coverage that ties it to an event, another organization, a movement, or something along those lines is probably not notable enough to need a Wikipedia article" is arbitrary which is contradictory to the Wikipedia notability guidelines above. It was written about in PBJ.

Wikipedia Guidelines: A company, corporation, organization, team, religion, group, product, or service is notable if it has been the subject of coverage in secondary sources. Such sources must be reliable, and independent of the subject. The depth of coverage of the subject by the source must be considered.

Portland Business Journal is in no way affiliated with ColumbiaSoft and is an established local resource. The coverage was specific to ColumbiaSoft, its origins, its products, and to a lesser extent its industry.

With all this being said I believe that the ColumbiaSoft meets the notability guidelines as outlined by Wikipedia. Mrtriviamaniacman (talk) 19:27, 10 January 2008 (UTC)Mrtriviamaniacman

I'd suggest rather than trying to convince us of the company's notability here on this page that you simply introduce a couple other citations from other publications to the article, then everything should be fine. Notability is shown by using the standards at WP:CORP, not told on the talk page. I still worry about COI here, do be careful. Katr67 (talk) 20:10, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
The view I expressed above is my interpretation of the Wikipedia guideline, and not intended to be arbitrary. Please note that "the Portland business community and small business economy" are not listed in the Wikipedia guideline.
There's a reason for that. "Notability" as understood by Wikipedia is a fairly broad kind of notability. While every human being on the planet is notable to his/her mother, not everybody is sufficiently notable to need a Wikipedia article. Being notable to a small, local organization is similar. I firmly believe that this company is not sufficiently notable to need a Wikipedia article. I personally have no plans or intentions to initiate a deletion review, but please be advised that Katr, Aboutmovies, and myself all have an extensive familiarity with how things work on Wikipedia, from something like a collective 5-6 years of editing. Speaking from that experience, I would advise you that it's very unlikely this article will survive a deletion review if somebody should choose to initiate one. Katr's suggestion is a good one; if there is broad notability to be demonstrated, your best bet is to draw it out to your best ability. But also keep in mind, no amount of effort in improving the article will guarantee its survival of the article, if it's insufficiently notable to begin with. -Pete (talk) 02:30, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
So for my understanding then, how is it that Questys Solutions has no discussion of notable when the page is roughly the same as this one? The sources are similar, the pages are similar. I won't go into a debate about the scope of relevance but please explain that. ColumbiaSoft is a global brand that happens to get the most press from local publications. It is a company that changed the way traditional software is packaged and completely altered the common ECM user interface. As a result, Microsoft adopted its structure. I'm trying to give its place on Wikipedia because to many it is notable and relevant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrtriviamaniacman (talk • contribs) 16:50, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Questys Solutions may have no such tag or discussion, simply because nobody has taken an interest yet. When comparing articles on Wikipedia, unless an article has reached featured status, it doesn't prove anything about what Wikipedia's standards are.
It's also possible that Questys is somewhat more notable than ColumbiaSoft. I am not really familiar with the industry, but a quick glance at the article seems to show a slightly broader selection of publications used as references, including the Boston Herald -- even though the company is in California. I don't really know if Questys would stand up to scrutiny, and personally I keep most of my focus on Oregon-related articles, so I probably won't pursue that too far. Hope that helps, -Pete (talk) 18:18, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
And if all your friends were jumping off the bridge, would you too? Please see WP:OTHERSTUFF on why nobody here cares about Questys. Then try to address the concerns via policy. The arguement: well officer I was doing 85 in a 65 was because everyone else was does not mean you will not get the ticket. Telling them you were on the way to the hospital for an emergency might. If you feel Questys is not notable, start a discussion there. There are thousands of artricles on Wikipedia that are not notable and should be deleted, it just takes time to work through them all as it seems every little company (and every person too) wants to get listed on Wikipedia. Just add reliable sources from sources that are independent of the company and there is no problem. If you cannot, its OK, being deleted from Wikipedia does not mean the world will crumble. Aboutmovies (talk) 18:26, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
I've added relevant sources from independent publications. When you asked for the Portland Business Journal, I gave you the Portland Business Journal. I've addressed policy by explaining that just because ColumbiaSoft is not famous, that does not make it not notable. I've explained why it is notable. Please see its impact on EMS systems (the first to incorporate mainstream systems like Windows into the UI), it's customer base, and its coverage in local business and niche industry media. Wikipedia specifically states that there should be no bias against small companies, please keep that in mind. Mrtriviamaniacman (talk) 18:49, 11 January 2008 (UTC)Mrtriviamaniacman
MrTrivia: Your work since the above exchange has been very good, I want to retract the doubts I expressed earlier about the company's notability. There's still room for improvement of course, but this major concern is addressed, from where I sit. -Pete (talk) 01:09, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A suggestion

While this article may or may not last on Wikipedia, there are other wiki-based sites where information like what is presented here would be welcomed. AboutUs.org is a web directory; if you simply type documentlocator.com into its search box, it will auto-generate an article by pulling small quotes off the web site, etc; then you can edit to your heart's content. Making an article there has the added benefit of increasing your site's performance on search engines; Wikipedia doesn't allow web crawlers to index sites it features, but AboutUs does. Hope this helps. -Pete (talk) 04:12, 9 January 2008 (UTC)