- The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
The result was keep. After extensive cleanup by User:Nick-D and the consensus reached. I'm closing as keep. (non-admin closure) — Nnadigoodluck 🇳🇬 10:00, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Xero (company)
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This is essentially an advertisement for a dubiously notable firm. The references are almost all press releases, notices of funding, notices of new products, notices of trivial awards, and promotional interviews DGG ( talk ) 00:27, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
- I've started a source assessment table. Anyone may edit it. Dear admins: The accuracy of the table is disputed; it may not reflect consensus here. — Unforgettableid ( talk) 06:47, 9 August 2020 (UTC); edited 21:45, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
Source assessment table:
| ||||
| Source | Independent? | Reliable? | Significant coverage? | Count source toward GNG? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New Zealand Listener article: Xero aims for the data revolution (Tina Morrison; 21 May 2015) | 
|
|
Very detailed article about the company.
|
✔ Yes |
| New Zealand Listener article: From Xero a hero (Ruth Laugesen; 16 Oct 2013) |
|
|
While the article is mostly about Xero's founder,
Rod Drury, there is a lot of detail about the company itself present.
|
✔ Yes |
| WSJ article: "Is Xero the Hero for New Zealand Stocks?" Accessible using ProQuest on the Wikipedia Library Card platform. |
|
|
? hako9 says it passes WP:CORPDEPTH. Unforgettableid says maybe not. | ? Unknown |
| New Zealand Listener article: 80 years of technological innovation in New Zealand (Peter Griffin; 13 Aug 2019) |
|
|
? Not a very long write up. The value of the article is that it lists the most significant innovations in New Zealand over the last 80 years. Hence, Xero is in rather good company. | ? Unknown |
| https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/11/technology/intuit-sheds-its-pc-roots-and-rises-as-a-cloud-software-company.html |
|
|
? Please see WP:CORPDEPTH. | ? Unknown |
| This table may not be a final or consensus view; it may summarize developing consensus, or reflect assessments of a single editor. Created using {{ source assess table}}. | ||||
- Comment: Why don't you plaster that decorative table all across this afd. One at the bottom too perhaps? Subsequent comments go to the bottom, by convention, you should know. I'll just leave a note for the closing admin to decide whether or not, both those nyt and wsj articles (and others like forbes, smh, stuff, techcrunch cited in the article currently), are so trivial that they fail corpdepth. A superficial reading like you may have likely done can give an impression of trivial coverage. But it doesn't take a lot to comprehend that the articles include commentary, analysis and overview of the business environment in which it operates along with the news of capital raises (not expansion, as you write) done by the company. In case someone has access to credit suisse plus, they can check the analyst reports for Xero. Thankfully the policy allows analyst reports
WP:LISTED. -
hako9 (
talk)
08:52, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
- Dear
hako9: I've left the decorative table at the top, but moved my !vote towards the bottom of the discussion. If you wish, feel free to move the table to a new section at the very bottom of the discussion. Optionally, you may move my comments as well. I've edited the WSJ table row to mention raised capital too. Kind regards, —
Unforgettableid (
talk)
20:23, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
- @
Unforgettableid: Without being too verbose, and I don't feel I need to tell you this, dear sir, but the source assessment table is "your" assessment. It should form part of your own !vote. Don't try to use it as a collaborative tool to imply that everyone here has reached a consensus in that assessment, or impose that assessment on others. Would it not be disingenuous dear sir, if I changed the wsj, nyt entries to indicate it passes sigcov and gave my own reason? You have messed up this discussion by placing that table at the top, like you are superseding other votes, and by commenting all over the place, you have forced me to do the same. -
hako9 (
talk)
20:59, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
- Dear hako9: You've made good points which I didn't think of. (I've never used a source assessment table before this AfD.) I've now tried to edit the table to reflect our differences, but I dunno what to do about the table now. We could move it to the middle or bottom of the discussion, or collapse it by default. Whatever you want. Kind regards, — Unforgettableid ( talk) 21:48, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
- @
Unforgettableid: Without being too verbose, and I don't feel I need to tell you this, dear sir, but the source assessment table is "your" assessment. It should form part of your own !vote. Don't try to use it as a collaborative tool to imply that everyone here has reached a consensus in that assessment, or impose that assessment on others. Would it not be disingenuous dear sir, if I changed the wsj, nyt entries to indicate it passes sigcov and gave my own reason? You have messed up this discussion by placing that table at the top, like you are superseding other votes, and by commenting all over the place, you have forced me to do the same. -
hako9 (
talk)
20:59, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
- Dear
hako9: I've left the decorative table at the top, but moved my !vote towards the bottom of the discussion. If you wish, feel free to move the table to a new section at the very bottom of the discussion. Optionally, you may move my comments as well. I've edited the WSJ table row to mention raised capital too. Kind regards, —
Unforgettableid (
talk)
20:23, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
- Delete. i have seen ads for this company but other than that..... literally nothing. Clone commando sev ( talk) 01:05, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
- Keep. The company is quite large and well known in Australasia. However, parts may need to be rewritten especially the History section which has too much emotion. For example: "Xero was founded in a Wellington studio apartment in 2006 by Rod Drury and his personal accountant Hamish Edwards when they felt that traditional desktop accounting software had become outdated and decided to create a modern cloud-based product." Khronos1 ( talk ) 08:14, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
- Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Technology-related deletion discussions. Lightburst ( talk) 01:08, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
- Note: This discussion has been included in the list of New Zealand-related deletion discussions. Lightburst ( talk) 01:08, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
- Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. Lightburst ( talk) 01:08, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
- Keep. This is a well known + notable company, this article needs tidying up -- Devokewater @ 11:09, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
- Keep. One of the more notable companies to come out of NZ. Operates around the world. Very surprising nomination; I really suggest this should be withdrawn. Schwede 66 15:41, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
- Comment. agree with Schwede 66 surprising nomination -- Devokewater @ 15:54, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
- Comment. Tho I think notability is borderline, as least judged by WP:NCORP (and notable ≠ well-known), the primary problem with the article is the pervasive promotionalism. That would justify removal no matter how notable.
DGG (
talk )
17:20, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
- Borderline notability is simply not true. Not by a long shot. The guy who founded the company is now a billionaire; he came from a middle class background. A self-made billionaire through a company founded in 2006. Those companies don't come with "borderline notability". Schwede 66 06:44, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
- Comment. this company has come from nowhere over the recent years + has taken the accounting industry by storm, outdoing the erstwhile market leader Sage. -- Devokewater @ 17:45, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
- Keep. Per
WP:LISTED.
Editors coming across an article on such a company without such references are encouraged to search (or request that others search) prior to nominating for deletion, given the very high (but not certain) likelihood that a publicly traded company is actually notable according to the primary criterion.
The nomination would have atleast made some sense if somehow this listed co. had no reliable sources before nomination. But the sources were already present in the article before. Citations include significant independent coverage from SMH, Forbes, Business Insider, Stuff, WSJ, among others. It's apparent that the nominator has not followed WP:BEFORE and, from the edit history of the article, the first two steps of WP:ADPROMO too. - hako9 ( talk) 18:05, 3 August 2020 (UTC) - Let's delete or draftify the article, unless we find three sources which pass
WP:CORPDEPTH.
- Hako9: You linked to one source. I don't have WSJ access, so I can't check for WP:CORPDEPTH, but we'd need more sources anyway. Could you please give us links to exactly three more sources — preferably which I can easily view?
- Khronos1, Devokewater, and Schwede66 claim that Xero is large, well-known, and notable, which is sort of like claiming that there WP:MUSTBESOURCES. Please support your claim: please show us your WP:THREE best sources only, so that we can assess them.
- Kind regards, —
Unforgettableid (
talk)
08:54, 6 August 2020 (UTC); edited 20:23, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
- There's a reasonable amount of coverage of this company in
this NY Times story, though it's focused on another company. More usefully, the NZ Herald's awful search tool also returns lots of coverage of this firm:
[1] and the NZ 'Stuff' news website's much better search tool returns heaps of coverage
[2].
Nick-D (
talk)
09:51, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
- Dear Nick-D: The NYT story looks good. Please don't ask us to sort through heaps of additional stories: please give us links to two more stories which you think pass WP:CORPDEPTH. Kind regards, — Unforgettableid ( talk) 06:47, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
but we'd need more sources anyway
. Hahaha. Says who? You? According to me, coverage in SMH, Forbes, Business Insider, Stuff, TechCrunch, WSJ (not my concern if you don't have access to it) is more than enough to pass ncorp. The burden of proof is on you if you take the position of dismissing all these sources. Please show us how each of the sources fail either independence, reliable source or sigcov. - hako9 ( talk) 16:26, 7 August 2020 (UTC)- Dear hako9: I got access to the WSJ story using the Wikipedia Library Card platform; I added a link in the table above. The story probably fails WP:CORPDEPTH as "routine coverage, such as ... of the expansions ... of the business". I'm not sure which SMH, Forbes, Business Insider, Stuff, and/or TechCrunch stories you're referring to. Please give us direct links to exactly two stories which you think pass WP:CORPDEPTH. Kind regards, — Unforgettableid ( talk) 06:47, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
- There's a reasonable amount of coverage of this company in
this NY Times story, though it's focused on another company. More usefully, the NZ Herald's awful search tool also returns lots of coverage of this firm:
[1] and the NZ 'Stuff' news website's much better search tool returns heaps of coverage
[2].
Nick-D (
talk)
09:51, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
- Keep. I've just edited the article to remove large amounts of spam and claims referenced only to the company. I've also blocked an editor with a partially disclosed COI with the company who seems to have added much of this rubbish. While many of the sources remaining in the article are not of high quality, with some probably being unreliable and/or recycled media releases, this firm seems to have received sufficiently significant and sustained coverage in genuine reliable sources to meet our notability guidelines. As Schwede66 and others note, this is also a fairly large and moderately well known firm, especially for a company based in NZ so I think it's reasonable to assume that there's more coverage in RS which can be drawn on here. Nick-D ( talk) 07:54, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
- Strong keep. Clearly notable – market capitalisation exceeded NZ$10 billion in September 2019, giving it a rank of third in the list of most valuable New Zealand publicly listed companies, as reported by Stuff. Moreover, the book Xero for Dummies, published by Wiley, is in its 4th edition, and per WP:CORPDEPTH, "an extensive how-to guide written by people wholly independent of the company or product (e.g. For Dummies)" is an example of substantial coverage that would generally be sufficient to meet notability. Paora ( talk) 10:30, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.