Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Zenni Optical

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the discussion was: delete . ♠PMC♠ (talk) 19:37, 23 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Draft:Zenni Optical

This is unambiguous advertising, an attempt by the company to place a paid advertisement in Wikipedia under the guise of a Wikipedia article – i.e., precisely the sort of misleading native advertising which is illegal in the United States under rules published by the Federal Trade Commission (see Wikipedia:Deceptive advertising). Wikipedia is governed by United States law; it does not tolerate promotion of any kind, and certainly cannot allow promotion which might be against the law.

The draft was tagged for speedy deletion as G11 by Legacypac, but the tag was improperly removed by the creator of the page. As the AfC comment from DGG makes clear, this has no prospect of becoming a viable encyclopaedic entry. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 10:45, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(Note: Although I am not tied to the company, I am supposed to receive a payment for the article which is yet outstanding.) Zenni Optical, the article in question, was previiusly deleted for reading like an advertisment, and I was independently contacted by the company to rewrite their article. I received no prior information except for some infobox information, because of which every detail is taken directly from secondary sources. Obviously, due to the paid nature of the article, it easily has the taste of a native advertisment, as stated above, but ultimately this was not my intent. The reason I removed Legacypac's CSD notice is because he tagged a version of the draft I restored out of a deleted version of the article with the intention to rewrite, which happened shortly after. If the effort I put into the draft still feels 100% like unabigous advertising, I must apologize, even though I cannot see how anything but the 'Sales' section could be of too much ad-y detail. The topic should be notable given multiple in-depth sources, especially in the 'Reception' section. Because of this, I am hoping that I could collaborate with someone more experienced in the field of COI editing to un-advertise the draft instead of having out-right deleted. Lordtobi (✉) 11:09, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I think they might be notable, and the promotionalism is removable. However, the draft remained advertising after several attempts at it. I gave advice at first, and it was followed to some extent, but not adequately. I still will sometimes help an honestly declared paid editor, as I did here, but I had given as much help as made sense in the situation, and was not willing to work on it further. But I do not think it is at all hopeless. DGG ( talk ) 15:26, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as promotion. Not obvious or blatant, just clever and careful. This source, https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/05/technology/05money.html is a New York Times infomercial. There are not respectable publishers left. Look at the language, ignore the publisher, this is non-independent advertising, whether paid directly or not. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 16:07, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@SmokeyJoe: How would I easibly be able to identify reliable sources then? NY Times is generally considered a good and reliable source, but given your statement, we cannot include any source on the internet because it might have potentially been paid for, even if that doesn't make their contents any less valid (just written more pleasingly). In the meantime, I have removed the source. Lordtobi (✉) 16:22, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Do you understand “neutral” and “critical”? Critical does not mean negative, but means drawing direct attention to the negatives even more so than mentioning the positives. The author should sound disinterested, or interested only at a higher level. That article glossed the negatives, repeated reminded the positives, and encouraged the reader to look into the product. That is not neutral criticism. This sort of source analysis is important. A neutral critical review is much more plausible if the article compares and contrasts a range of products. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 16:36, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I see where you are coming from and as I stated the source has been removed. I fear that this affects some other sources too? I wrote the article with care using only sources to avoid as much ad-likeness as possible. Lordtobi (✉) 19:11, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - This could be tagged for G11. The previous G11 was removed by the author, not by an an admin. However, since this is at MFD, let's give this the finality of a deletion discussion. This is good-quality spam. A high-class prostitute is still a prostitute. Good-quality spam is still spam. Therefore:
Delete and Salt. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:50, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Thank you, User:SmokeyJoe. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:51, 15 May 2018 (UTC) :> --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:08, 16 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Come back when you have reliable sources, published by individuals with reputations for reliability in the field of business, not news media who are hustling to meet a deadline. Nyttend (talk) 11:37, 16 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I feel the writer is being open here and has also listened to responses and removed articles that are problematic. The draft can be improved. Egaoblai (talk) 09:08, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I know this company - they have been buying paod blog posts for years across multiple platforms. They might be more notable as a paid native advertising pioneer then anything around selling glasses. Legacypac (talk) 10:42, 17 May 2018 (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 page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.