Wikipedia talk:Companies, corporations and economic information

message: moved from main page and replaced there with a more formal introductory statement
The articles on companies on wikipedia seems to be fairly shallow. I think that is an interesting use of wikipedia to actually describe the companies we are dependent on for so many of the things we use in our lives. People do have very strong feelings about things they buy. But we often fail to connect those things to the companies, and then the people, that bring them into the world.
For example, I added a little note to the Pepsi page in which I referenced that it was an SIC 2080 company, as classified upon its incorporation in the United States. This then led to a list of US SIC 2080 companies.
It seems that there can be a standard bunch of information, such as the boxes that go with some other types of pages, that would show an entity's ownership, employees, geographical reach and other important information. I am not an economist, but I believe it is important to document these market forces.
Does anyone have ideas about good ways to do this? RayKiddy 06:40, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Project beginnings

message: The current guidelines for content seem too limited. They are confined to the kinds of categories of most interest to a business person or investor and not to a general audience. There is no coverage on the social significance of a corporation or its relations to consumers, employees, the communities in which it is located, and the governments of those places.
I would like to propose a set of categories for content that address that kind of information. These can perhaps be grouped under just a few major category headings (input here is what I am hoping for), but the following is a more comprehensive list:
;Political Influence and Affiliations
:lists of PACs, levels of contributions in recent election cycles, associations with polititians and groups or parties (advisory positions), major governmental subsidies or contracts, sponsered legislaiton or legislation that effects the company, etc. 
;Environmental Record
:green policies or environmental disasters, treatment of animals, etc.
;Human Rights Record
:episodes of violations or contributions to, fair trade, etc.
;Litigation
:involment in IP cases, labor, disputes with other entities, anti-trust, etc., tort, consumer protection
;employee relations
:employee participation in management decisions, conflict and grievance resolution, trade unions and collective bargaining, compensation,
number of employees, work conditions, work locations, healthcare, pensions, contracts, outsourcing, discrimination, domestic partnership policies, etc.
;Corporate Governence
:should include compensation
;Competition
:list compeditors, anti-trust, unfair competition
;Complaints and controversies abuses scandals
:I am uncertain about these sorts of categories. On the one hand, they give a place for things which exist discoursively, as accusations against a company which have a real place in the media (whether eventually proved to be true or not), but on the other, it can be a way to marginalize actual events which are part of the history of a corporation. The Bhopal disaster, for example, is part of Union Carbide's history as a company and not simply a "controversy". 
--BradB 19:09, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Trying to reignite this discussion in Project companies talk. I think some proper content guidelines would help make developing articles related to companies a lot more painless. --Icerat (talk) 12:16, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article composition guidelines 

message: moved from main page
From now on, use Template:Corpbox. Instructions are described on Template:Corpbox. Guanaco 02:43, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, I didn't know this existed. I based the Template:Infobox_Company template on the universities template which I think is better organized. Still needs work though. Adraeus 03:13, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template 

message: Could interested parties please take a look at the current debate on Template talk:Infobox Company and weigh in with your opinions? --Goodoldpolonius2 14:14, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Your thoughts on Infobox?

message: I have a concern that a conflict of interest arises when Wikipedia editor writes about a company he or she works for. I proposed a guideline for how to deal with this situation: Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. Please take a look and let us know what you think. --Yannick 03:30, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it ain't going to get expanded, not if we stick within the wikipedia guidelines.  I can just write stuff down without citations, or blog an article containing the company history and cite that.  But ultimately putting these expand-this stub links everywhere when it's impossible to make it good enough has got to be unhelpful.Goatchurch 10:02, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed guideline: conflict of interest 

message: One under-mentioned problem is how little of corporate history gets written down.  Sure, the buying and selling of controlling stakeholdings is recorded somewhere, but a lot of this is quite meaningless.  Far more important events occur which do not get documented, though everyone connected with the company knows about them.  My previous employer was NC Graphics.  It's necessary to dig into some very obscure references to find citations for the events I can report.  Even then I have to leave a lot of stuff out because it's not written down in any document which I can disclose.  
The information doesn't have to be confidential not to make it.  Business tends to live in the present.  History is not important to them, and just gets forgotten without a care.
This represents a challenge, not a conflict of interest -- I don't care about this company one way or another, beyond curiosity value; I just happen to know the story.  Like many company wiki pages, it's been graced with the following banner:
:
Well, it ain't going to get expanded, not if we stick within the wikipedia guidelines.  I can just write stuff down without citations, or blog an article containing the company history and cite that.  But ultimately putting these expand-this stub links everywhere when it's impossible to make it good enough has got to be unhelpful.Goatchurch 10:02, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Sparsity of documentation

message: I found this article on VfD the other day. I'm posting here in case case someone with more business knowledge/interest would like to improve it. — Bcat (talk | email) 00:01, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Help with [[IonIdea]] article 

message: The following business topics are currently nominated on Wikipedia:This week's improvement drive: Subsidy, Developing countries' debt, Grameen Bank and Spice trade.You can support these articles with your vote if you want them to be improved!--Fenice 11:25, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Improvement Drive

message: Hi folks,
I just wanted to let you know about a list of votes for deletion on articles related to business.  You can find the list here:  Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Business.  Note that this includes sublists of businesses and businesspeople for deletion.
Since you're interested in improving Wikipedia's coverage of business-related topics, you might want to monitor this list.
If you find the list useful, please also help to maintain it by adding new items and archiving old ones.  Thanks!
Cheers,
-- Visviva 16:04, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deletion list 

message: Hi, I'm a member of the Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper.  We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-Class and good B-Class articles, with no POV or copyright problems.  Can you recommend any suitable company articles?  I would expect WP 1.0 when it comes out to have a lot of company articles, as your topic is pretty important. Please post your suggestions here. Thanks a lot! Walkerma 21:09, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project 

message: I'm in the process of going through and adding sections on Corporation pages for Corporate Governance, and building basic pages for the various Directors.  I've started with the DJIA.  Chadlupkes 23:07, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Corporate Governance 

message: I just wanted to draw attention and comment to on a draft poll to determine naming convention for companies and businesses.  I have looked around a number of places and have only seen comments to the effect of "we should have a convention" or "do we have a convention" on how to name a XXX company.  This has either the effect of drawing a few uninterested comments or a stirring up a heated debate.  In either case the net result is generally zero.  Your comments to help clarify this poll and later corresponding vote would be greatly appreciated.  --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 16:01, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Naming conventions (companies)|Naming convention for Companies and Businesses]] 

message: Voting has begun and will continue until March 5.  Please resolve this lagging issue.  --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 22:36, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Wikipedia:Naming conventions (companies)/poll]]

message: A brief survey of the Company Index to the September 15, 2005 issue of the biotechnology trade magazine Genetic Engineering News shows that of the ~190 names listed in the index, 31 are associated with separate articles in Wikipedia as of March 3, 2006, or ~16%.  I didn't specifically keep track of how many were mentioned in lists, but memory of the hits suggests that would about double the hit rate to around 30%.  I thought this statistic might be of interest to members of this WikiProject.  Regards, User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 16:02, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Coverage (Genetic Engineering News Sept 15, 2005 Company Index) 

message: Perhaps someone would like to go and support an award for this wikiproject on the award proposal page? The idea is about to be archived.--evrik 17:41, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Award

message: Beginning cross-post.
:See Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team#Stablepedia. If you wish to comment, please comment there. ★MESSEDROCKER★ 00:04, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stablepedia 

message: I'm interested in setting up what could be a sub-project or task force of Wikiproject Business and Economics and would be focused on improving the consistency & quality of articles on Companies, taking these guidelines as its starting point.  Please take a look at my blurb for this idea on the Wikiproject proposal page and sign up there if you are interested so that I know I'm not the only one.  Cheers!  Richc80 04:08, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed WikiProject - Companies 

message: When it comes to providing the economic information, what should be used? I feel that annual net income & annual revenues would be appropriate, preferably sourced from the annual report filed with the SEC, but I have come across some editors that feel it should be quarterly adjusted net income and revenues, sometimes based on a 'preliminary' press release. Is there any consensus on this?
I base my own views on the fact that all the companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average use annual data (unless an editor has recently changed it to quarterly). This also prevents frequent maintenance (yearly is reasonable, IMHO), and allows fair, apples-to-apples comparisons between companies.--Scottr76 22:38, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Economic Information 

message: See discussion (if any) at WT:WikiProject Companies.  This page had an older template for .  I'm fine with this being a style guideline if it's going to get regular maintenance and input. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 13:49, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Working on some additional ideas for a style guideline in Project companies talk. As much input as possible appreciated! --Icerat (talk) 02:02, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is it a style guideline? 

message: I was wondering if there were any style guidelines for detailed timelines such as this one in NIIT. This seems overly detailed to me, and some of this seems like overt advertisement (e.g., "1999: Achieved the status of best training partner in Asia" with no citation). Are there good examples of timelines in other articles I could review for comparison? WeisheitSuchen (talk) 12:59, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: You can adapt , as done at RISC OS development graphical timeline. While in this case it relates to software development, I don't see why it couldn't also be used for company histories. --Trevj (talk) 10:46, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Timelines 

message: Do we want to provide financial data? This type of information could be very useful - and is already provided in part in some articles. If we do want to provide this type of information, it would be most useful if we did so using an infobox for formatting. Thoughts? Rklawton (talk) 02:15, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Financials