Wikipedia:WikiProject Companies/Guidelines

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This section provides editors with guidelines regarding the structure and content of company articles. It's intent is to provide some element of consistency throughout Wikipedia, while allowing flexibility as needed by specific industries. The overall goal is for these guidelines to receive consensus from the project & community, becoming part of the Manual of Style.

During these early stages please feel free to provide your input into these guidelines directly.

Contents 1 Matters dealt with in detail elsewhere 1.1 Notability 1.2 Article Naming 1.3 Infobox 2 Format/Content Guidelines 3 Article Categories 3.1 All companies 3.1.1 Year of Establishment 3.2 All active companies 3.2.1 Company Location (Country) 3.2.2 Company Location (City) 3.2.3 Stock Exchange Membership 3.2.4 Industry 3.2.5 Industry and Company Location (Country) 3.3 All defunct companies 3.3.1 Year of Disestablishment 3.3.2 Company Former Location (Country) 3.3.3 Former Industry and Former Company Location (Country) 3.4 Article Lists 3.5 Stub Templates 4 Article Importance 5 Notes and cross-references

[edit] Matters dealt with in detail elsewhere

[edit] Notability

Main article: WP:CORP

The most common reason for a company article to either be nominated for deletion or to actually be deleted appears to be not meeting the specific notability guidelines that have been crafted for organizations and companies, usually abbreviated as WP:CORP.^[1] Ideally before an article is released into the main Article space, you should review it in the context of this notability guideline.

[edit] Article Naming

Main article: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (companies)

There are both general naming conventions and company-related naming conventions; the former carry the weight of policy, while the latter are guidelines that build on the core policy. The most common naming problem appears to be the inclusion of "Inc.", "LLC" and other legal status addenda (don't include).^[1]

[edit] Infobox

Main article: Template:Infobox Company

All company articles should have an infobox with as much available/relevant information included as possible.

• For active companies, use Template:Infobox Company
• For defunct companies, use Template:Infobox Defunct Company
• If there are multiple articles related to the same company, Template:Navbox Company is available for use; typically only the largest of companies will need to be treated with this template

[edit] Format/Content Guidelines

While this project works to establish it's own guidelines, the current widely accepted version can be found at Wikipedia:Companies, corporations and economic information.

With regard to company logos, which can be included in the Company Infobox, consult WP:LOGO for guidance.

[edit] Article Categories

There are various categories set up in order to help users navigate through Wikipedia, which should be added to company articles.

[edit] All companies

[edit] Year of Establishment

[[Category:Companies established in xxxx]] where xxxx is the year the company was established.

[edit] All active companies

[edit] Company Location (Country)

[[Category:Companies of xxxx]] where xxxx is the country within which the company is based.

[edit] Company Location (City)

[[Category:Companies based in xxxx]] where xxxx is the city within which the company is based.

[edit] Stock Exchange Membership

Use a ticker symbol template to add a company to the relevant stock exchange category.

If not already included companies on a stock exchange should be included in the [[List of members of xxxx]] where xxxx is the name of the stock exchange.

[edit] Industry

See [[Category:Companies by industry]] for a listing of the currently available industry categories.

[edit] Industry and Company Location (Country)

See [[Category:Companies by country and industry]] for a listing of the currently available Industry and Country combinations.

[edit] All defunct companies

[edit] Year of Disestablishment

[[Category:xxxx disestablishments]] where xxxx is the year the company was acquired or liquidated

[edit] Company Former Location (Country)

[[Category:Defunct companies of xxxx]] where xxxx is the country within which the company used to be based

[edit] Former Industry and Former Company Location (Country)

[[Category:Defunct xxxx companies of yyyy]] where xxxx is the industry and yyyy is the country within which the company used to be based

If the category needed for a particular country, city or industry does not exist it, feel free to create it so long as you follow the above naming conventions. Also note that these are the minimum categories as established by this task force, it is possible that other categories are added to a company article by other projects or random editors. It is important that these categories remain in place on the article unless their relevance to the company is questionable.

[edit] Article Lists

There are currently several different lists within Wikipedia grouping companies by country, stock exchange, oldest etc. A discussion is underway on the talk page to reach consensus upon which of these the project should support/adopt. Please join the discussion and add your views!

[edit] Stub Templates

Any article which meets the criteria of a stub should be tagged with an applicable template. Currently available stub templates are listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types#Companies. If a new stub type is required it should be discussed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals prior to it's creation

[edit] Article Importance

There are custom guidelines in place to help you determine what "importance" to rate an WP:Companies article. Please note that importance refers to the company's or article's relative importance in the global economy, lifestyle, or a major industry. Importance should not be used to bolster visibility on Wikipedia for a gain or to promote products.

See Guidelines here: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Companies/Assessment

[edit] Notes and cross-references