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, with the caveat that serious concerns have been raised about the tone of the article. If these issues are not addressed, deletion on the grounds of its promotional nature becomes a more justifiable option. Vanamonde (talk) 07:18, 10 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

OurCrowd[edit]

OurCrowd (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)

Extensively informed PROD removed with an overpersonal comment yet I clearly and staunchly stated my concerns in that not only is everything listed here PR, but the searches such as this one are exactly finding PR itself, simply because a major news source publishes something is not actually saying the contents themselves are convincing; because in this case, not only are there actually press releases, there's then other trivial and unconvincing news such as what funding and financing the company has and how it's seeking additional funding and investors-clients (there's even such blatant PR as the company then talking about its locations and offices!), and as past AfDs have shown of course, that's a classic sign of a company, not only not being actually notable, but they haven't even established themselves with financing. Once we start accepting such blatant PR and advertisement "articles", we're completely damned as an encyclopedia because of such trivial sources being passed as "news", the article itself only ever actually focuses with things the company would only say of itself, not what an actual encyclopedia publishes. SwisterTwister talk 07:36, 1 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Companies-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 08:30, 1 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Israel-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 08:30, 1 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 08:30, 1 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. It's notable. The coverage I found shows it's notable: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13]. The prod rationale may have been a lot of things but it showed no evidence of finding easily available coverage from a Google search. --Michig (talk) 08:57, 1 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • uh, those sources are not good, and are precisely the sort of thing the nom is talking about. [14] is a promo piece for the Wired Money conference (and just read the text), [15] is a Forbes Blogs piece by a random blogger and not an RS, [16] is a reprinted press release ... are the rest actually any good? Please reread the objections in the nomination - David Gerard (talk) 10:00, 1 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Sorry, I don't see it. Are most if not all of these reliable sources? Are we going to second guess every article to try to find promotion everywhere? If someone has put their name to something copied from a press release, fair enough, we can discount it, but I don't see all of these falling into that category. --Michig (talk) 10:28, 1 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Some relevant sources:
  • OurCrowd Raises $72M for Crowdfunding Gambit in The Wall Street Journal. It's behind a paywall, but there's a copy online here if anyone wants to read it.
  • Israeli equity crowdfunding platform OurCrowd launches in Australia in The Australian Financial Review.
  • With Plans of Investing $100M Next Year, Israel’s OurCrowd Forges Its Own Path in Equity Crowdfunding in TechCrunch.
  • OurCrowd, Bayer set up $15 million agtech fund in The Times of Israel.
  • OurCrowd draws 3,000 to Jerusalem Global Investor Summit in The Jerusalem Post.
  • Singapore's UOB and Israeli crowdfunding company team up in CNBC.
  • Israel’s OurCrowd Raises $72 Million to Boost Crowdfunding Deals in Bloomberg News.
  • UOB partners Israeli startup OurCrowd for equity crowdfunding, in The Straits Times.
  • OurCrowd: Crowded house on investment, in The Australian.
  • Forget Brexit, this startup is eyeing "Brentry" with London expansion plans, in City A.M.
  • OurCrowd has closed Australia’s largest ever equity crowdfunding round for $1.5 million, in Business Insider.
• WP:GNG says that notable articles should have "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". All of these articles have OurCrowd as the primary subject of their writing, so their coverage is substantial. All of them are from large, well-known, professional media outlets, so they're reliable sources. And I went and looked up every one of the authors on LinkedIn, to confirm that they were serious, experienced, professional journalists, and not "bloggers" or "contributors" or OurCrowd marketing people who weren't independent. Nevertheless, I'm sure people will be able to make up some excuse for why they don't count. Sigh. 2602:306:3A29:9B90:218F:3CEA:6D46:D5E9 (talk) 10:57, 1 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - It's quite noticeable that the sources consist of mere republished PR, including the ones above where the company is talking about their business plans and thoughts about funding and financing, something that is clear to be PR and that alone, because no one else knows better about the company's plans....than itself. Now, as the for the comment above as "LinkedIn shows these journalists are honest and serious", thst means absolutely nothing because not only are these their own websites and job listings, a PR agent is going to be as surreptitious as they can about PR actions, in attempts to make it so obvious. It's happened here at AfD Deletions thst then closed as Delete, with that. None of the Keep votes are actually substantiating themselves by what I said aboce, including where I explicitly noted these concerns, and this shows by the fact they are simply tossing links and calling them news, yet they are as my analyses and comments had shown, they are simply churnalism PR, certainly not PR-immune (again given the closeness of stating the company's own funding, financing and business plans). Despite that I explicitly showed where the sources are unacceptable, but then stating they are acceptable, is completely contrary. These Keep votes were so quick to list these links, it's clear, looking at them, there was republished PR, so then stating Keep because of sources, is not the same thing. The IP then actually states how "if they are significant news", yet this automatically means nothing if they are, again, republished PR; thisbalso shows by then stating "but someone will make excuses about these sources" is thin in itself since, again, the IP simply tossed some links but never either acknowledged and considered the concerns listed above, or, the PR concerns that laid in those listed sources. Once we start accepting PR campaign articles, we're damned as an encyclopedia. SwisterTwister talk 16:48, 1 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Clearly notable, but joins the big basket of "notable article invaded by advertising PR agent" type ones we have.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:47, 1 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@ SwisterTwister. I agree completely with "Once we start accepting such blatant PR and advertisement "articles", we're completely damned as an encyclopedia because of such trivial sources being passed as "news", the article itself only ever actually focuses with things the company would only say of itself, not what an actual encyclopedia publishes." We should not accept such PR and advertising. But we also can't throw out any article which gets edited by a PR agent. It's a big problem because we lose a lot of notable content because on the surface the articles look like non notable cruft. What we need really is an official team supported by Wikimedia to patrol the site looking for advertising or articles threatend with deletion and get them to rewrite the articles and salvage them.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:51, 1 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment - That's exactly the thing: accepting articles that were touched and overall contributed by the company and its PRvagents itself, is then actually hosting said advertisements, and it shows the need sources above clearly simply republished the company's own contents, therefore unacceptable. There is no compromise to accepting advertisements. SwisterTwister talk 17:53, 1 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment When the RSes are clearly running churnalism, I have no problem calling that "promotional" and not considering it reliable sourcing to base an encyclopedia upon. While it's possible to interpret our RS rules such that things that are clearly barely-processed press releases would be treated as A+ first-class carefully-verified information you can absolutely rely upon, that does not mean that doing so is a good idea, and I really don't see that we're obliged to do so - David Gerard (talk) 00:46, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep  Lots of sources from around the world listed here.  Note that rewarmed press releases are secondary coverage, carrying the reliability of the secondary source.  Churnalism or not, attention to the topic occurs when a rewarmed press release is printed.  Newspaper's corporate lawyers remain just as responsible for what gets published, churnalism or not.  And Wikipedia's verifiability should never be confused with Truth^TM.  Unscintillating (talk) 03:27, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - There is no "truth", especially not an encyclopedia, if we accept press releases, which are essentially contents all by the company itself, simply stating there are sources, yet not specifying which ones are the ones which would be used, considering the consensus above shows and states otherwise, also "rewarmed press releases are secondary coverage, carrying the reliability of the secondary source" is not the case at all since republished PR is still PR, no matter where published, that's what exactly we should not be accepted, not finding excuses to actually use them. If any attention to churnalistic PR occurs, it's because it's been carriaged as PR, and that's still nothing we would actually accept. In the case of "verifiability", that is exactly why we would not accept PR because we are simply using the company's own words, not what an encyclopedia should use itself. SwisterTwister talk 03:42, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Our policies and guidelines are not "excuses", they are the rules by which we operate as a community.  Unscintillating (talk) 05:09, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• • Yes, and one of the best policies we have is not accepting advertisements, and this is something we will always use should we continue as an encyclopedia, that's exactly why the sources above are unacceptable, because they consist of PR. SwisterTwister talk 05:24, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • WP:NOTADVERT is a policy, but where does it say anything like what you suggest?  Some specific words are "content hosted in Wikipedia is not for:".  So your claim that "notadvert" applies to sources has a direct refutation.  Unscintillating (talk) 13:51, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep – Meets WP:CORPDEPTH per a review of available sources. Some sources provide coverage that is a bit on a routine level, but others provide more in depth information, such as overviews about the company, its history, present activity, etc. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 05:50, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment When the RSes are clearly running churnalism, I have no problem calling that "promotional" and not considering it reliable sourcing to base an encyclopedia upon. While it's possible to interpret our RS rules such that things that are clearly barely-processed press releases would be treated as A+ first-class carefully-verified information you can absolutely rely upon, that does not mean that doing so is somehow a good idea, and I really don't see that we're obliged to do so - David Gerard (talk) 09:08, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Coverage like this [17] profile/interview in Forbes make this Keep a slam-dunk. Notability is supported by coverage in RS. It just is.E.M.Gregory (talk) 18:37, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Addendum I hit that article by running a google news search on "Jonathan Medved" + "Our Crowd" as a way of checking whether coverage is as shallow as a user above asserts. in addition to that Forbes article you get stuff like this in Fortune (magazine): "OurCrowd, based in Jerusalem, has helped 100 companies raise $300 million since 2013. It has a network of 15,000 investors from 110 countries, about 2,000 of which are active in deals, says Jonathan Medved, the platform’s founder. Half of the site’s investors are based in the U.S.Not only has OurCrowd helped startups raise hundreds of millions of dollars, it’s enabled many to do so quickly. For example, Medved says OurCrowd helped one fintech company raise $4 million in 48 hours about two years ago. While that’s not the norm, Medved says, it isn’t unusual for companies to raise large sums of money in a matter of weeks, or a few months.“We can consistently raise millions of dollar for companies,” Medved says.Much like a venture capital firm, OurCrowd has created four investment funds that focus on sectors, regions, or the phase of a company’s growth. When investors invest, they also do so through so-called special purpose vehicles, or SPVs. Those are limited partnerships that gather together the investors as a single entity, which solves the problem of having too many stray investors in your company.OurCrowd also rejects 98% of the companies that come to it for financing, Medved says, and its vetting process plus its investment structure has garnered the interest of VCs. Well-known venture capital funds, including US Venture Partners, Spark Capital, Menlo Ventures, and Charles River Ventures, have invested alongside OurCrowd in its platform companies.“My biggest concern, and reason for not doing [Title III raises] is that in its current format, it does not allow for the SPV structure,” Medved says. “When you can aggregate everyone and represent them, you can act like a VC investor." [18]. This is not mere recycling of press releases. Next I searched "Jonathan Medved" in the Wall Street Journal [19]. Just keep and tag for improvement.E.M.Gregory (talk) 18:46, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• That Forbes link is not an edited RS Forbes article, it's one of their third-party blog posts. It's just a blog post, not RS coverage of any sort. See Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Has_anyone_written_up_something_referenceable_on_the_problem_with_Forbes_blogs.3F for a discussion of the Forbes blog problem. If the writer is a notable expert whose opinion is relevant, then the source should be judged under WP:SPS - however, anything on forbes.com/sites that doesn't explicitly say "Forbes staff" or "From the print edition" is just a blog - David Gerard (talk) 19:18, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• I did not realize that, I asssumed that it was akin to being a "contributor" on a number of other reputable publications where a number of "contributors" are invited to post, but invitations to beocme a contributor only go to a limited number of recognized authorities in various fields. In this particular case, of source, Amy Guttman is a highly regarded journalist, not at all akin to the individuals who post on Huntington.E.M.Gregory (talk) 19:35, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Note the other sources that I brought. I am still firmly persuaded hat this topic passes WP:GNG.E.M.Gregory (talk) 19:35, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment and analysis - The Forbes is not an independent source because it's not only a mere interview where he is going to specifics, which of course includes what he wants to advertise about the company, the "journalist" is not n actual staff employee, she's a "contributor" from another place, so if she's not even an actual employee, there cannot be confidence of substance and convincing, therefore that's not a "Slam Dunk", because both people (the CEO and journalist) could be said to be a paid position to find and obtain PR, especially since she lists herself as a freelance journalist, a job that is noticeably heavy with PR. The own questions simply consist of "What's the company? How's it work? How can people invest? "What number of people can invest? What's the minimum a client can invest (of which they then list exact numbers of money (clear)), How's it work (a repeated question), etc. " This actually goes to continue for 4 pages, that shows the passion and efforts of advertising the company, therefore it's not guaranteed to be non-PR, especially considering the CEO saying everything. SwisterTwister talk 19:59, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Im honestly not impressed by this article. The language written itself does not show proper notability. It reads as if it is a new startup who just got funding. Regarding its sources, 2 are of its own site and 1 is in Hebrew. sigh. the others are weak. Pyrusca (talk) 20:23, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• WP:Notability is defined outside of Wikipedia.  Articles don't have to show any evidence of notability for the topic to be notable.  Unscintillating (talk) 21:09, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• For more information, see WP:NEXIST, "The absence of sources or citations in an article (as distinct from the non-existence of sources) does not indicate that a subject is not notable. Notability requires only the existence of suitable independent, reliable sources, not their immediate presence or citation in an article." North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 23:26, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete -- per WP:PROMO and no indications of notability or significance. With content such as:

• As of November 2013, OurCrowd raised over $25M for its 30 portfolio companies.^[1] Contributions were raised from accredited investors in over 19 different countries. In January, 2016, OurCrowd brought together 3,000 investors and entrepreneurs for their annual summit in Jerusalem.^[2] In March, 2016, OurCrowd raised $10 million from Singapore's United Overseas Bank, with the stated goal of expanding into Asian markets.^[3]

this article is not in compliance with WP:NOT, and only serves to promote the company, rather than provide encyclopedic content. Sources brought to the AfD are equally unconvincing. They are only about funding, partnerships and corporate events, with no indications of why this company is significant:

• OurCrowd, Bayer set up $15 million agtech fund in The Times of Israel.
• OurCrowd draws 3,000 to Jerusalem Global Investor Summit in The Jerusalem Post.
• Singapore's UOB and Israeli crowdfunding company team up in CNBC. Etc

The statement "Note that rewarmed press releases are secondary coverage, carrying the reliability of the secondary source.  Churnalism or not, attention to the topic occurs when a rewarmed press release is printed is very odd, for two reasons:

1. Wikipedia requires reliable secondary sources, not just any secondary source. When publications redress press releases, they lose their reliability on this topic.
2. I completely disagree that "attention to the topic occurs when a rewarmed press release is printed", given that Wikipedia has a policy on WP:PROMO. When companies run ads in the same publications, this would also attract "attention", but we don't base articles on ads, do we?

Likewise, the Fortune article extensively quoted above is based on the interview with the founder. This is not an acceptable RS for the purpose of establishing notability. Note how many quotes from the founder are there. These are all potentially unverifiable claims, such as:

• "Medved says OurCrowd helped one fintech company raise $4 million in 48 hours"
• "“We can consistently raise millions of dollar for companies,” Medved says"
• "OurCrowd also rejects 98% of the companies that come to it for financing, Medved says"

We'd literally be able to use nothing from the article as far as encyclopedic content is concerned. I thus advocate deletion. K.e.coffman (talk) 22:25, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep as per numerous sources such as this one and per Michig and EMGregory.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 22:28, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: Wikipedia is WP:NOTNEWS to be basing its article on uncritical news coverage. K.e.coffman (talk) 22:35, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment and analysis - To ensure there was a consensus about all this, I will note that the source above is exactly unconvincing since it merely lists the company's own plans including how it's achieving and planning to get money, that's not news, that's an attention listing for clients and investors, and is what happens to any company, particularly the staunch ones that are avid about money. The first sentence itself goes to actually then state what the company's plans are and the second paragraph goes to a quote before taking patterns between interview and funding quotes again, that shows alone it was not genuine journalism, if the company itself is occupying the space. SwisterTwister talk 01:34, 3 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Some editors have becomes notorious for unwillingness to reconsider their initial opinion on notability, doubling down even in the face of evidence like "OurCrowd Aims to Widen Pool of Angel Investors to Main Street," Wall Street Journal article by Yulia Chernova, a journalist on tech and venture cap employed by the Journal [20] I linked to it above, but many editors only consider articles that support their own intransigent position. Here is the link again, although WAJ is password protected [21].E.M.Gregory (talk) 15:11, 5 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. Sources provided in this AfD show that it meets WP:CORPDEPTH. Any concerns with promotional tone should be fixed by editing, not deletion. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 01:59, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment – I agree with the above notion about tone, which can often be corrected by copy editing articles. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 02:09, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment -- if the article were copy edited to remove intricate detail of no interest to the general public, as well as promotional content, it would be reduced to one or two paragraphs, resulting in a WP:DIRECTORY listing, which Wikipedia is not. K.e.coffman (talk) 02:20, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• • As the extensive analysis has shown here, we cannot actually improve an article whose sole intentions were advertising to begin with, claiming it can be fixed when it in fact cannot is simply making an excuse to say "well, we can see if it can be fixed" instead of actually facing the facts and seeing it's not, because it's an advertisement with advertising sources therefore there are no sensible solutions to that. Also, it is not the same thing to literally say "There are sources! That must be enough for WP:CORPDEPTH" if the specific analyses here have explicitly shown they are all still trivial and unconvincing PR. As a note, the Keep votes here themselves have either tossed in some sources but not responded to actually substantiate themselves especially after the sources were found to be trivial and unconvincing PR, the other ones that have then commented are in fact acknowledging they are still PR and "puffery". When we start making compromises and keeping blatant advertisements, we're completely damned as a serious website. SwisterTwister talk 02:31, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per WP:SOAPBOXⓏⓟⓟⓘⓧ (talk) 02:33, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Here is the only place in WP:NOT that discusses "soapbox":

3. Opinion pieces. Although some topics, particularly those concerning current affairs and politics, may stir passions and tempt people to "climb soapboxes" (for example, passionately advocate their pet point of view), Wikipedia is not the medium for this. Articles must be balanced to put entries, especially for current events, in a reasonable perspective, and represent a neutral point of view. Furthermore, Wikipedia authors should strive to write articles that will not quickly become obsolete. However, Wikipedia's sister project Wikinews allows commentaries on its articles.

Unscintillating (talk) 04:57, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The article does not read as an opinion piece, in my opinion. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 05:33, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The article indeed reads like a promotional WP:SOAP for the company. Hence, I advocated deletion. K.e.coffman (talk) 05:38, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Closure comment - I'd closed as Keep however the nom disagreed so am reopening. –Davey2010^Talk 04:04, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep: per WP:SIGCOV in Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg, as well as other sources listed above. Safehaven86 (talk) 05:15, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

These are news pieces that talk about what the company aspirations are "OurCrowd Aims to Widen Pool of Angel Investors to Main Street" and how it raised money: "OurCrowd Ltd., a website that connects investors to a pool of mostly Israeli and U.S. startups, said it raised $72 million to expand its operations and invest in other businesses." This is routine coverage of venture capital deals and does not rise to the level of encyclopedia notability. K.e.coffman (talk) 05:40, 9 October 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.