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. Seraphimblade Talk to me 21:41, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

MySupermarket

[edit]
AfDs for this article:
MySupermarket (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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We're all too familiar with the concept of promotionalism, even when disguised in which this should be no different, see the sources:

Attempts to find other coverage only lead to this, of which only half of that is new since the last AfD. When there's such a dry desert of coverage, it shows us there's not actually any coverage, and the few existing are all pre-packaged from the company's own hands. As if it weren't worse, 1 of the "Keep" voters in the last AfD was compromised by the fact an undisclosed paid user participated, therefore bringing everything into question once again. As by our Terms of Use, that is immediate violation in anything, regardless of anything. The last AfD was labeled as "improve it, not delete" but the history shows no serious signs of this, nearly a year later, and a year before that, the company account was involved; improving something that either was pre-used by the company or after, shows nobody actually found the evidence of change. Ⓩⓟⓟⓘⓧ Talk 22:07, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the Article Rescue Squadron's list of content for rescue consideration. —Syrenka V (talk) 01:56, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. Ⓩⓟⓟⓘⓧ Talk 22:25, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. -- A local story about a local customer
  2. -- a local trade article about locally relevant information
  3. -- general business announcement in a local publisher
  4. -- generally also, but this time with clear emphasis by the company website's sourcing itself
  5. -- A local guide for locally interested shoppers
  6. (on second page) -- 2 articles that share the same nature, because they consist of the same advice for local shoppers
  7. -- Same article but now in a clearer press releases form
  8. -- a general announcement involving another subject ~~ As a summary, the next sources go back and forth to actually consist of either obvious or hidden similarities of all this
My conclusion of this was all actually also keeping in consistency with what the WP:Notability pages says: Significant, independent, reliable coverage that is independent of the subject and this obviously means exactly what it is: Coverage that is without exceptions independent; and so, because other sources may exist, this wasn't evidently the case since 2 pages quickly gave such primary-fueled sources. With or without the sufficient coverage, however, the weight of Foundation Policy is obviously a big factor here and it's one we shouldn't taken lightly in whatever circumstances of course. SwisterTwister talk 05:15, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – Regarding "the sources are all local and promotional": This Book Source, published by Springer Publishing, is certainly not local, nor is it promotional. North America1000 02:18, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I've looked through all the sources provided (except for the ones from TheGrocer.co.uk and Greylock, whose text was not accessible in my browser). Four, all already present in the article, were reasonably independent and reliable:
The others (from the article as it exists at present, from other participants, and a few I found on my own) all had serious problems:
  • The book Agent-mediated electronic commerce (David, Robu, Shehory, Stein, and Symeonidis 2013) at first sight looks like an ideal reference. Unfortunately, the actual material dealing with mySupermarket is from a chapter written by three programmers who actually built mySupermarket's electronic commerce system (see page 58 for this information), and is therefore not independent of the company.
  • The 2007 review in Money.co.uk by Ed Monk is apparently independent of mySupermarket, but is likely not a reliable source; it is owned by the same media group as the Daily Mail, a notoriously unreliable red-top tabloid.
  • The 2014 article in the Express by Nathan Rao is heavily sourced from mySupermarket's own director of marketing; also, the Express is owned by the same media group as the red-top Daily Star—and the Express itself, although not a red top, has had its own share of reliability issues.
  • The 2013 article in TechCrunch by Sarah Perez is almost entirely sourced to mySupermarket sources.
  • The 2016 article in Talking Retail is entirely sourced explicitly to mySupermarket.
  • The 2012 investment report in TechCrunch by Ingrid Lunden is mostly sourced from company sources, and much of it is speculative anyway.
  • The 2012 article in Campaign by Emma Powell is published by what amounts to an advertising agency.
  • The 2013 ABC 7 Los Angeles report by Ric Romero relies too heavily on mySupermarket as a source. (On the other hand, it should be considered regional, not local, by the standards of WP:AUD.)
  • The 2013 ABC 6 Philadelphia report by Amy Buckman likewise relies too heavily on mySupermarket as a source. (On the other hand, it too should be considered regional, not local, by the standards of WP:AUD.)
  • The 2016 review in MoneyHighStreet by "Diane" is apparently independent, but would likely count as self-published by Wikipedia's standards.
  • The book Net profit: how to succeed in digital business (Soskin 2010) is authored by the then Chair of mySupermarket!
  • The 2015 case study by Reblaze is from a company retained by mySupermarket to fortify their web security, and thus is not independent.
Despite all the sources that must be disqualified, the four that remain should allow a non-promotional, independently and reliably sourced article to be written. Another point worthy of mention: mySupermarket is used routinely as a data source (but not, unfortunately, as itself the focus of inquiry) in scholarly articles on web commerce, as a Google Scholar search will show. I intend to address deletionist arguments based on m:TOU, WP:NOT, and WP:AUD in a separate entry.
—Syrenka V (talk) 04:18, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
4 wouldn't be enough; but, remember, the other major concern here wasn't only the promotionalism or the sources, but in fact the repeated Terms of Use violations of undisclosed paid editing and the clear negligence of not complying; such ToU can and should be considered an unquestionably valid basis for deletion, because it means appeasing undisclosed paid activity as actually valid, when it's not at all. SwisterTwister talk 04:49, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
As noted, I'll address deletionist arguments based on m:TOU, WP:NOT, and WP:AUD in a separate entry; this includes the "appeasement" theory and the "unquestionably valid basis for deletion" claim. I'll also be attempting a clean-room rewrite of the article in my sandbox, keeping only the images and the four references identified above as independent and reliable. Often the easiest way to show that something is possible is to make it actual.
—Syrenka V (talk) 09:11, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
—Syrenka V (talk) 01:34, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
reinserted material follows,:
  • My rewrite merely reflects the focus and concerns of the independent, reliable sources I used. The historical significance of a company's products and services (in mySupermarket's case, the website and its functionality) forms a large part of the historical significance of the company itself; it has all the bearing in the world on notability. For example, it is notable that mySupermarket was providing features for customization of virtual shelves in 2006 that were not commonly available at the time on retailer websites; and it remains notable whether or not online retailers in 2017 now routinely provide those features. Even aside from this particular innovation, the sources make clear that mySupermarket's comparison service was highly innovative when it was introduced, and thus was of historical significance. The mention of special handling for Amazon Prime and Aldi illustrates the flexibility and sophistication of the website's comparison methods. The ability to order from online retailers without bothering with their individual websites appears to be a historical innovation, and remains of significance whether or not other online comparison sites now also integrate shopping functionality.
Likewise, providing favorable information does not in itself create a "promotional tone". The three consumer reviews among my four sources were all highly favorable to mySupermarket; that favorability does not make them, nor my article, promotional. I actually went out of my way to include the few unfavorable details in the sources (no fresh produce, no customer reviews of the retailers).
I would very much have liked to include another type of historical significance: the comprehensive comparison service offered by mySupermarket has been at least as much a useful innovation for academic researchers on web commerce as it was for consumers, as a glance at Google Scholar makes obvious. The reason I didn't include that observation in the Wikipedia page is that it is original research—specifically, WP:SYNTH. As far as I could tell, the academic articles and books merely use data from mySupermarket—none of them act as secondary sources by observing that other academic sources make the same use of mySupermarket's data. If I've missed a secondary source that does make that observation, it should definitely be added to the Wikipedia page.
—Syrenka V (talk) 21:38, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
end of reinserted material.

[insert begins here] @DGG: Your response is indented to appear as a criticism of my rewrite, not Syrenka V's rewrite.  Please clarify.  Unscintillating (talk) 03:19, 3 October 2017 (UTC) [insert ends here][reply]

Lookingat it, the second part of the SV version is details that would primarily concern those wanting to use the site. Such content is promotional. DGG ( talk ) 00:37, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

So, DGG, why did you write over Syrenka V's comment, all 4,000 characters, to say that the content was promotional? Rhadow (talk) 00:45, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Your removal of relevant argumentation—including HighKing's remarks to which I was responding, as well as my own remarks—is disruptive to this deletion discussion. Please restore all the deleted text immediately.
—Syrenka V (talk) 01:09, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@DGG: Looking at the page history, I just noticed that you also removed remarks by Unscintillating that immediately followed mine. Whether or not this was intentional, it too was disruptive, and I ask you to restore those remarks as well.
—Syrenka V (talk) 01:30, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

&Apologies, I did make an error in the editing. I'm restoring the deleted material in a minute or two. DGG ( talk ) 02:48, 3 October 2017 (UTC) Done. But I never do that sort of thing deliberately--any of you could just have restored it themselves as well. I always appreciate people correcting my errors. DGG ( talk ) 02:52, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

—Syrenka V (talk) 03:23, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
By calling the document m:TOU "Terms of Use", the Wikimedia Foundation reserves the right to deny use of its sites, including Wikipedia, to violators. But it does not thereby even mandate denial of use to violators, including repeat violators; it merely authorizes such action, subject to the discretion of policy enforcers (such as Wikipedia administrators) as to what response to a particular set of violations is in Wikimedia's best interest. Still less does m:TOU mandate, or even authorize, root-and-branch eradication of everything done in violation of the Terms of Use. In fact, deleting anything on the ground of Terms of Use violation requires reasoning not included in the m:TOU document itself. The relevant reasoning, implicit in several deletionist entries above, and made explicit in the comment that keeping this page would be "appeasing undisclosed paid activity as actually valid", is that anything less than page deletion would amount to rewarding the paid malefactors and endorsing their work. But a number of heterogeneous considerations go into decisions whether to keep or delete pages, or to retain or remove text from a page; and nothing in m:TOU even makes rewarding or punishing Terms of Use violators one of those considerations, let alone a consideration capable of overriding all others.
Similarly, WP:NOT is concerned primarily with the end result, with what Wikipedia should not be—not with how we should respond when someone creates something that violates its specifications. Its section WP:WHATISTOBEDONE sketches a number of options, and directs the user to look elsewhere for more specific information. Its section WP:PROMO likewise defers to guidelines, particularly the notability guidelines WP:N and WP:CORP, for operational details of appropriate response. (Incidentally, the guideline WP:COI, too, is short on concrete operational specifics of appropriate response to violators.)
So although the policies in question could overrule the notability guidelines, they don't. m:TOU is silent on the matter, and WP:NOT actually directs the user through links to those same notability guidelines. And the notability guidelines, far from making reward or punishment of m:TOU violators an overriding concern, indicate clearly that preserving pages on notable topics is the overriding consideration in responding even to blatant advertising.
—Syrenka V (talk) 04:51, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Also, a review in a national or international publication, about a company serving the entire UK or USA, does not become "local" just because the reviewer evaluated it from the perspective of where they happened to live. Such a review remains relevant to the company's services throughout its range.
—Syrenka V (talk) 05:58, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
What Consumer Reports does not do, is to publish biased reports. It even refuses advertising, specifically in order to avoid conflicts of interest that could lead to bias. I see promotionalism as a form of COI-driven bias; the most relevant Wikipedia policy is not WP:NOT, but WP:NPOV. That policy explains that the test for balance is reflection of what is in the sources, and WP:NPOV is clear that if the consensus of reliable and independent sources favors a particular conclusion, then the Wikipedia article based on them can and should favor that conclusion as well, and can do so without sacrificing neutrality. My rewrite of the present page portrays consumer functionality as the aspect of mySupermarket that contributes most to its historical significance and impact because the sources do. It's as simple as that, and it has nothing to do with promotion.
—Syrenka V (talk) 09:57, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Does anyone else endorse Syrenka V's rewrite as solving the initial concerns?
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:56, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "...described the site as easy to use, with better savings achieved when spending over $75.00 to avoid shipping charges..."
Does not meet WP:CORPDEPTH; wikipedia is not a directory. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:26, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hello @K.e.coffman: The notability of mySupermarket stems solely from its role as a web application. If for some reason a nonprofit or a government entity took it over and continued to provide the same services, its notability would be unaffected. As a money-making business entity, mySupermarket is unremarkable—I agree that $15 million in capitalization is peanuts by corporate standards, and when I found that the four sources that survived my independence and reliability checks contained no investment information, my reaction was "good riddance". But writing off the site's web functionality as devoid of interest is a serious mistake. Since "just a shopping web site" is a somewhat different charge than promotionalism, terms-of-use violation, or purely local interest, I decided to give the site's Google Scholar results a second look, and found the following:
Wan, Yun; Peng, Gang (May 2010). "What's next for shopbots?". Computer. 43 (5): 20–26. doi:10.1109/mc.2010.93.
This article is primarily about the influence of an earlier web shopping application, BargainFinder, but mySupermarket gets an explanatory box (Figure 4) on page 25, along with a paragraph in the main text on the same page. Since this is an independent and reliable source, it could have been included in my rewrite if I had noticed it earlier. More fundamentally, the entire article in Computer is a counterexample to the idea that the functionality of shopping sites is only of interest to those who want to profit from them or to be their end-users. And even the end-users deserve some credit for reflective thought. The consumer reviews I used in my rewrite don't just say that mySupermarket can save money; they give information as to exactly how it can save money, so that any given reader can judge for themselves whether, and to what extent, the site's capabilities will enable them to save money. That—and not investment information—is the kind of depth relevant to a description of a web shopping application. The sources provide it, and do not treat it as routine at all.
—Syrenka V (talk) 04:36, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I never denied that policy prohibits undisclosed paid editing. The point is that stating a prohibition is a different matter from saying how the authorities should respond when the prohibition is violated. None of the relevant policies or guidelines—including the portions quoted with emphasis above—say that a page created by an undisclosed paid editor must be deleted, or even that every word of the content they wrote must be removed. It depends on the notability of the topic and the merit of the specific content in question—not just on the illicit source of the page or its content. From WP:CORP#Special note: advertising and promotion:
Advertising is prohibited as an official Wikipedia policy. Advertising should be removed by following these steps, in order:
  1. Clean up per Wikipedia:NPOV
  2. Erase remaining advertising content from the article
  3. Delete the article by listing it at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion if no notable content remains. However, if an article contains only blatant advertising, with no other useful content, it may be tagged per Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion instead.
And from WP:G11 within WP:CSD:
If a subject is notable and the content could plausibly be replaced with text that complies with neutral point of view, this is preferable to deletion.
That is what I am advocating, and trying to accomplish. —Syrenka V (talk) 05:08, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Incidentally, I agree that AfDs cannot override policy (or guidelines, except insofar as the guidelines themselves authorize this via their "commonsense exceptions" clause). I have myself made this point in other AfDs against attempts to justify counterintuitive interpretations of certain guidelines. Even with relisting, the limited, short-term consensus of AfDs barely qualifies as consensus at all by the standards of WP:CONSENSUS. That is one reason why (with a few exceptions like WP:BLP) a very strong consensus for deletion in an AfD is needed to foreclose the ongoing consensus resulting from page editing, and a "no consensus" close results in the page being kept.
—Syrenka V (talk) 05:26, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
(1) it's been rewritten already (2) what "promotional nonsense"? Sionk (talk) 16:15, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Conceding that I have no idea what the evidence of this paid editing allegation is: in summary, you want a WP:DEL14 deletion for a problem that no longer exists, and you can't cite relevant text from WP:NOT?  And even then, why are you rejecting a "clean-room rewrite"?  Unscintillating (talk) 21:05, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I endorse protection of the page after rewrite. My arguments in favor of keeping the page (after rewrite—Unscintillating's or my own), on the basis of notability of the topic, should not be read as sympathy for allowing further contributions by the undisclosed paid editors who created the problematic versions.
—Syrenka V (talk) 19:19, 8 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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