At the beginning of this century Nortel (predecessor of Avaya and others) was a giant multinational company employing close to one hundred thousand people all over the globe. As a 19th century establishment it seemed invincible. In Canada alone Nortel accounted for more than a third of the total valuation of all the companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The faces of company executives peered at us from just about every magazine cover, and the press was flooded with hero/success stories. But then in 2009 the whole house of cards came tumbling down in a most spectacular crash.

The financial fortune of Nortel was tied to that of millions. In Canada almost each and every Canadian owned a piece of the pie, either through direct share ownership, through mutual and pension funds, or through the Canada Pension Plan which is the equivalent of the American Social Security. When the pie disappeared many Canadians were left destitute, pensions of tens of thousands former employees were cut drastically and long term disability beneficiaries were left with no support whatsoever. Many were forced to relocate away from Ottawa as a result of this collapse.

How and why the collapse happened is still a mystery to this day. A mystery that is still winding itself through many courts around the world, a mystery that many books have been written about, a mystery that many individuals have a burning desire to unravel. Was it just bad luck, the result of incompetent management, or the direct consequence of actions by greedy executives? Unfortunately, either through the simple passage of time, or by a concerted effort, all the information that was widely available on the web about this company, its products and especially its leaders (executives and board members) is disappearing at an alarming rate. Soon nothing will be left behind for archeologists to piece together a coherent picture.

Deleting any information collected meticulously at Wikipedia about Nortel under the guise of “spam” is highly suspect. How can a bankrupt company be accused of commercial activity? Seems to me that if there are any suspicions thrown around they should instead center on those who have an interest in hiding what really happened at Nortel for their own financial gain by having stuff disappear from public view. No? Ottawahitech (talk) 20:13, 26 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ottawahitech, thank you for your comprehensive note. I am but only one of the people who had voted Delete in the associated articles for deletion discussions but you and I discussed this (at least the basics) on one particular AFD so I thought it might be worth responding here.

I think the problem some editors have is that by a strict (or in some cases quite lax) reading of WP:V and WP:GNG (or WP:CORPDEPTH for commercial entities, rather than products) many of the subjects fail, and not just by a little bit. Occasionally, a random product review or news article can be found and so a particular product is deemed notable. The temptation is to then say, "x is notable, therefore the very similar y must also be notable". This is obviously problematic. The reality is that Wikipedia is not a product catalogue, whether those products are historical or contemporary. Those articles probably shouldn't have been created in the first place. We obviously need articles to cover the companies themselves and their histories (including all of the history you mention above) and some of their major products (products notable in their own right). But I can't see how creating an article for a particular router or (as in some of the cases in question) every router - 4000, 4200, 4500, 4800, 5000, 5200, 5300, etc - could possibly represent a productive use of editor time. Because Wikipedia is not a catalogue or a how-to-guide, creating (or maintaining) entries for every single product is always going to draw attention from non-project editors, especially when some of them are so sparsely sourced. Whether it was intended that way, ignoring WP:BURDEN and WP:BASIC completely and creating a whole bunch of articles for such obviously non-notable commercial products will often be viewed as "spam".

Secondary to the above is the fact that no-one is suggesting that either Nortel or Avaya be deleted. In fact, most of the individual product articles that have been deemed to be non-notable have been merged or redirected to those articles (Avaya in particular in the cases we have discussed elsewhere). But I can't really understand the argument that keeping every non-notable product article somehow contributes to the wider historical record of a particular company in a way that complies with Wikipedia's manuals of style and other guidelines. If someone wants to keep a detailed record of every product with specs, price, availability, distribution, implementation, etc, then they should start a blog or a webpage with that specific goal. That really isn't the sort of information that would normally be kept by Wikipedia anyway, even for "the sake of the archaeologists". I mean, how does having an article about a non-notable router tell readers how or why the company collapsed? Stalwart111 23:00, 26 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• @Stalwart111, thanks for taking the time to respond. I will wait to see if anone else joins this discussion before replying to your points. Ottawahitech (talk) 01:18, 27 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• No worries, though just in terms of process, I'm not sure that continuing a discussion on the talk page of a to-be-archived MFD is a great idea. Perhaps create a sub-page to your talk page so it can be "noindex"-ed and the discussion can continue there (you are welcome to copy-paste this discussion as you see fit). Just not sure many people are going to "join" a discussion on an archived talk page. If you're not sure how to create such a sub-page, let me know; happy to do it. Stalwart111 02:08, 27 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• @Stalwart111 , Thanks for the warning and the offer to help. At this point I am not sure I have the energy to continue my drive to try and convince others that the type of content that is being deleted from Wikipedia has tremendous value. No one here appears to question the (to me) tedious amount of sports score-card results articles on Wikipedia, but when it comes to sketches of the inner workings of (say) a router, everyone is in agreement that it is not encyclopaedic, and it all goes to the garbage bin, no matter how long the article has been around and how many editors worked and contributed to it on their own time without monetary compensation (the type of work that people in the field are generously paid for). I don’t know how I will feel tomorrow, but today I feel I should throw in the towel instead of continuing to build articles on Wikipeidia that are not valued by thecommunity.

I am even starting to wonder what value Nortel has. For example I edited it yesterday and noticed later that I had introduced a spelling error, but no one has bothered to fix it yet – which to me indicates few are paying attention to the contents. So again I ask myself: is there any point in volunteering my time to continue adding and improving articles on Wikipedia? Ottawahitech (talk) 15:06, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose the point I would make (in the context of your sports-related comment) is that editors also make a distinction between Super Bowl XLVI and Washington Redskins vs. Dallas Cowboys, 29 November 2012 (which obviously does not exist). In the same way, Avaya exists but articles for each individual product (just like each individual NFL game) probably shouldn't. That's not to say there isn't scope for perhaps creating some over-arching articles like Avaya routers or List of Avaya products or something like that - a list of Avaya routers with some specs, a couple of pictures, etc. I don't know, maybe even that might run into trouble. I just think you might be coming at this from the wrong angle. Stalwart111 01:54, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• @ Stalwart111, the issue, to me at least, is not Avaya but Nortel. Seems to me that if the concern is promo-spam at wikipedia, a very easy solution would be to revert all edits made to all Nortel articles to where they were wiki-moved to become Avaya articles, since nortel is no longer in business. Let the Avaya Pushers build their own articles.

Why do you suppose there is such resistance to this idea? Ottawahitech (talk) 17:10, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Probably because of WP:PRODUCT which strongly suggests to editors that non-notable products should be merged into their parent company article. Effectively what you're advocating for is the creation of articles in a manner that is immediately contrary to existing guidelines. That's always going to struggle to gain consensus. Beyond that, Wikipedia is not a how-to guide so any information needs to be encyclopaedic. The problem with some of the articles we have discussed is that they seem geared towards technical descriptions and specifications, the sort you would expect to see in a how-to guide. To justify an article for a product in it's own right we really need more than that - history, development, inventors/developers, integration, sales history, controversies, etc - things that make the product notable. Articles that are limited to, "the XR5000is an x and has y and z features, here's a picture", is really of limited encyclopaedic value. If you want to create a database of all historical Nortel (or Avaya) products, start a blog or establish the freely-available Wiki software on your own server and create away. But creating those sorts of articles here will almost always run into trouble. It's also disappointing to spend lots of time creating something, only to have it deleted. But it's difficult for other editors when the most simple explanation is that it probably shouldn't have been created in the first place. Stalwart111 22:55, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have recently discovered, quite by coincidence, that one of the editors who was originally involved in the deletion of the Nortel wikiproject more than a month ago, has been busy proposing five articles from the suite of nortel product articles for deletion. First he tried to have articles deleted through a wp:prod, where articles are deleted automatically if no one objects. I objected.

Currently at wp:AFD are the following (keep an eye out for more please):

• Nortel Enterprise Switch Manager
• Nortel Communication Servers
• Nortel Proactive Voice Quality Management
• Nortel VPN Router
• Avaya Communication Manager

Ottawahitech (talk) 01:10, 27 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Four more on the chopblock[edit]

wp:Prods:

• Nortel Communication Server 2100
• Nortel efinity (AfDed)
• Nortel Secure Network Access

wp:AfDs:

• Avaya 1100 series IP phones ("Disputed prod a year ago, article is written like an ad and I am finding difficulty locating in depth coverage in reliable sources" Ottawahitech (talk) 16:55, 3 December 2012 (UTC)) Ottawahitech (talk) 15:54, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Lucent Definity ("Disputed prod, difficulty in locating RS to establish GNG, written somewhat as an ad" Ottawahitech (talk) 16:58, 3 December 2012 (UTC))Ottawahitech (talk) 18:58, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have not had time to thoroughly review each page on the chopping block, but at first glance most appear to be product spec sheets. I can see why they would have been flagged, but this does not mean I support their removal. For significant products invented by Nortel (or Avaya), I would expect those details to be in the main Nortel (or Avaya) article or for the product's article to cite specific details on how it changed the industry - such as by citing a patent or significant industry milestone. If I get some time over the next few days, I will try to provide input on each deletion proposal. I agree these stealthy blanket deletion attempts are not being handled properly... Pjhansen (talk) 02:24, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The use of the term "stealthy" here seems to imply that you believe the nominations are being performed in an inappropriate manner. Can you explain in what way the deletion processes were violated for these articles? VQuakr (talk) 20:10, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• @VQuakr, If you read the earlier section dealing with the removal of the Nortel wikiproject you will see why some think that stealth is involved. First the project was removed under very unusual circumstances using only vague accusations against its participants, and without notification on the main Nortell article page, and only notifying the founder of this project who have been inactive since July. In other words no one active on Nortel articles was aware of the pending deletion.

Further, once the wikiproject was deleted and the noise died down, user: Nouniquenames proceeded to methodically propose one article after another for a wp:prod, which as you know means that unless someone objects results in an automatic delete. He only notified editors he knew, or should have known, have already left (were driven off?) Wikipedia. I just happened to see one such prod but no one else involved with the Nortel suite of articles saw it (the project no longer existed, remember?), so is it surprising that we are wondering:

• Why the sudden interest in removing 15 Nortel articles that have been around Wikipedia for several years?
• Why similar articles of other companies are not proposed for deletion?
• Why are the two nominators (yes there only two behind these recent nominations) are using rationale such as spammers/SPAs/sock-puppets,etc. (without backing it up with evidence) in their nomination for deletions instead of using the usual policy statements?

(I don’t know if I said it all – but I am out of breath and time) Ottawahitech (talk) 00:11, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ottawahitech,

• I'm curious concerning your allegation that the two editors (which would seem to include me, as all of the AfDs above are my nominations) are using the particular reasoning you have suggested (socking / spa). I would ask that you point to evidence backing up your accusation. I propose and nominate articles for deletion due to concerns with sources, not concerns with editors.
• I've currently 2 Prods and an AfD for Cisco products, all completed before you posted this, which speaks somewhat against your point. OtherStuffExists. It may eventually be removed.
• I can play that game. Why not delete however many articles that have been around Wikipedia for several years that don't meet qrticle requirements? If they couldn't be fixed in all that time (because sources don't exist), why wait?
• That's a fun easter egg there where you linked my username.
• I already notified you on your talk page concerning several you apparently had not noticed or where you had not chosen to participate. It was intended as a one-off gesture of goodwill, but it hardly counts as "stealthy" (at least per my understanding of the term). I also pointed out that a Prod deletion gives you an easier method of recovery (WP:REFUND). --Nouniquenames 04:35, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• @ Nouniquenames, I do intend to participate in all the deletions talks you have initiated. However, as you must know that requires a lot of effort since you did not tell us which articles you have nominated, leaving this work to me. At the same time I must respond to a growing number of editors who are finding fault with my actions here. Ottawahitech (talk) 16:41, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Three Cisco articles also prodded[edit]

Here are the three Cisco articles prodded by User:Nouniquenames

• Cisco 12000 (Product does not seem independently notable)
• Cisco 7600 (Does not seem independently notable as a product)
• Cisco 1000 (Does not seem independently notable) AfDed

Ottawahitech (talk) 03:09, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This seems like a bizarre place to catalog Cisco product PRODs. We are now two degree of separation away from the purpose of this talk page, which is to discuss a specific MfD discussion. VQuakr (talk) 06:04, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Ottawahitech, if you want to highlight the issue take it to Wikipedia:WikiProject Computing. They would be biased though! -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 09:32, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this page is not a place to challenge the ourcome of the discussion. Nyttend (talk) 17:28, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• @VQuakr, why is "cataloging" Avaya and Lucent discussions OK, but not Cisco? Ottawahitech (talk) 14:11, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Cisco articles at AFD[edit]

• Cisco 837 (Does not appear independently notable)
• Cisco 1000 (Does not appear independently notable}Ottawahitech (talk) 16:19, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]