Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of surveillance technology companies

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 delete.  Sandstein  19:56, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

List of surveillance technology companies

List of surveillance technology companies (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Rather random list full of links to disambiguation pages. I have checked several articles that do not refer to any type of surveillance. Unsourced. In this state fails WP:LISTCOMPANY. The Banner talk 19:36, 31 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

As the creator of the list, which I got from the organisation Privacy International, I believe that someone erroneously added links without checking if they were correct. I have removed the incorrect links but left the names of the companies to encourage others to create articles for surveillance technology companies which do not currently have them. Many of the companies which do have pages are full of non-neutral corporate language, and I believe the page should not be deleted as it provides a source for people who want to improve articles on these companies to reflect the controversial nature of the business they pursue. Jwslubbock (talk) 22:19, 31 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Companies-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 19:58, 31 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 19:58, 31 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete as this should really be "List (...) according to Privacy International". I would suggest to the article creator to perhaps add a section on this project to the main article. K.e.coffman (talk) 02:22, 14 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well no, because I'm not a part of PI, and the whole point of putting it here is so that others can go and check whether the companies on their list are surveillance companies. If they're not, then individual companies should be removed, rather than deleting an entirely useful list of articles, some of which need to be created. Look at some of the pages for some of the companies; they're awful articles put there by people working for the companies themselves. They're not neutral, they violate many of the 5 pillars, and need to be improved. Why delete a meta list which is trying to organise work to improve Wikipedia? If you want to delete something, look at some of those shoddy articles, rather than playing whack-a-mole with useful work that's being done to improve Wikipedia. Jwslubbock (talk) 11:20, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What I would like is for those who believe this list should be deleted to explain which one of the deletion criteria the list has violated. So far the person above says it should be deleted because I got the list of companies from an NGO who specialise in tracking surveillance companies. To me, that's a pretty good source, so I'm unaware as to why that should be a cause for deletion. If someone would like to make a case in reference to the deletion criteria, perhaps we could have a productive discussion about this. Deletion Policy Jwslubbock (talk) 11:30, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Right now the article fails WP:V as no sources are listed to substantiate the claim that these are "surveillance companies". That's why I recommended including such as list in the Privacy International article. Lists are not generally created to provide a roadmap for improvement; that's not the reason why list articles should exist. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:35, 16 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Would the Electronic Frontier Foundation count as a reliable source for this? I can't find the 'Who's Who' referred to on that page, but maybe Archive.org has a copy. Nev1 (talk) 19:34, 16 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I would consider EFF to be a reliable source. If this is added, then I suggest moving the article to Mass surveillance technology companies according to EFF (to match how they position it). K.e.coffman (talk) 20:09, 16 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That can be worked into the article then. I think the list would benefit from an explanation of what surveillance technology is (I don't think Wikipedia has an article does it?) and how the companies on the list were decided on, namely EFF or PI say so though ideally there would be a more detailed explanation. As for title if the article was to incorporate information from both EFF and PI the current title would work for simplicity's sake. Nev1 (talk) 21:01, 16 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Then I would recommend Mass surveillance technology companies -- the privacy advocates are mostly concerned about mass surveillance, as I understand it. It would also be nice to ses the PI list; I don't think it's been linked yet. K.e.coffman (talk) 21:12, 16 Novmber 2016 (UTC)

• Comment -- This AfD discussion is pertinent: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of organizations designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as hate groups. I suggest seeing how the linked discussion closes and then deciding on this one. K.e.coffman (talk) 20:44, 26 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as trivial article for a trivial and specific field, this is why categories and other articles exist, not for to one to exist itself. SwisterTwister talk 23:19, 26 November 2016 (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.