Talk:Forbes/Archives/2016

Reply to Request for Info: Forbes Competitors

Hurun Report is a competitor to Forbes. Both have the same target audience and both come up with the same type of lists.--Akikarti (talk) 05:45, 20 March 2014 (UTC)Akikarti 20 March, 2014

• The only difference is that nobody in the Western World has heard of them. Maybe that is why some would question your inclusion of that publication as a competitor... Stevenmitchell (talk) 19:13, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Forbes 30 Under 30

Article lacks substantial coverage of list itself, which is mostly used for PR or in passing. Grayfell (talk) 23:32, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Hi, page creator here. I respectfully, strongly disagree with this characterization of the available sources and as I said in the edit history, I am in the midst of adding many more citations. I apologize I did not add an in-use template to indicate this more firmly--I'll do that now--but please give me a chance to finish working here before this is decided. Innisfree987 (talk) 23:59, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Sure, it's easy enough to revert and discuss, and the content is still available either way. I strongly recommend at least some independent sources about the list as a whole, not just examples of people who have been listed. Otherwise it's hard to neutrally assess what the list signifies, and it will likely degrade into an advertising problem. Having looked in the past, I've been underwhelmed with sources I found, but I'm sure there's a lot more out there. As the article had been untouched for a couple of weeks when merged, Template:in use and Template:under construction wouldn't have been appropriate, by the way, as those are for hours or a few days, at most. Grayfell (talk) 00:09, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

To be clear, I meant that I should have added an in-use template when I undid your merge, because I went directly to start working to add more sources, as I indicated in the edit history, and wound up with an editing conflict. But FWIW, for the sources, I don't think it's a problem of their existence so much as there are so many sources at Forbes itself that it makes it harder to locate the independent ones. But certainly not impossible, and I'm happy to continue working on producing them. Innisfree987 (talk) 00:14, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

An update to say I'm going to pause in my editing for tonight, so if anyone else has more to add, please hop on in.

In the meantime there are now 22 references, each to a different outlet. I suppose for awards like this the promotional thing is a bit complicated since, obviously, promotion is why awards exists in the first place! But it seems to me that when so many independent outlets take note of the announcement of an award (and year after year, for the lifetime of the award), that's the definition of our notability standards. I'd underscore the independence aspect: I have refrained from using sources where an institution, including a usually-reliable secondary source like a major newspaper, is announcing the honoring of its own employees--I agree that those articles are unreliable promotion. But all the sources I have used are outlets covering 30 Under 30's honoring of third parties. If for instance, Billboard thinks it's newsworthy to report on which musicians 30 Under 30 has honored, I think that's a straightforward indication that Billboard has assessed 30 Under 30 as noteworthy. I suppose some might disagree with Billboard's judgment but our weighing in on that would def be WP:IDONTLIKEIT, in my eyes. Innisfree987 (talk) 02:13, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm not proposing that the content be removed from Wikipedia, but I'm still of the opinion that this belongs here, in truncated form, rather than at its own article. Again, comments about the list itself, such as how its vetted, or what it actually signifies beyond Forbes' editors preferences, should be clearly explained, and I haven't seen that from any sources yet.

This issue comes up a lot with awards, and each have to be judged on their own merits. One of these days I might try and revive Wikipedia:Notability (awards). Anyway, some awards, like the Stevie Awards, are clearly promotional, but those are very easily sourced because they're repeated by PR people often enough that it sometimes 'sticks' and gets mentioned by reliable sources. I'm concerned that's what's happening here. When a source mentions that someone won an award, but nobody explains what that award means, it's not informative to readers. The Billboard source is very routine, very brief, and almost certainly entirely derived from a press release which doesn't establish due weight at all. I'm quite confident this wouldn't hold up to WP:RSN. Comments about the summit seem to be WP:ROUTINE, and its not clear that they reflect on the list, or the magazine, or they are their own thing. Another example of sourcing problems is this compared with this. Both have basically the same headline, hit the same points, use the same quote from Forbes' editor. This is a strong indication of churnalism derived from a single press release, which is very poor for meeting notability. If we can't find at least something with more depth, I still think the list article fails WP:GNG and should be merged here, but I'm hoping for additional comments from other editors. Grayfell (talk) 04:15, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

To start with things we agree on! I'd also be happy to see some clarification toward community consensus at Wikipedia:Notability (awards). I have some concerns about the present language--for instance, I think it muddies the waters about what I consider two at least potentially distinct matters, A, the notability of the award for a standalone Wikipedia entry, and B, whether the award has power to confer notability on its winners. I don't think an award being ineligible to confer notability on its winners (e.g. if the winner basically awarded it to himself!) necessarily implies that the award itself is not notable--an award may have garnered a great deal of coverage precisely in investigating that it is a sham! And that could certainly be a legitimate Wikipedia entry--to me, GNG (that is, secondary source coverage independent of both the winner and the awarding institution) should decide whether an award has an entry, without attaching additional specifications on the independence of the award from its honoree. In any case, I definitely see the utility of sorting out the matter. Ping me if you want help working on it--the awards standards have been on my mind since this sort of interesting AfD, where an award one might've guessed was a big deal--TED Fellows--turned out to have virtually no independent coverage at all (let alone, any independent coverage of it being awarded to the subject in question).

Meanwhile, for this entry. I agree it'd be good to have more editors' opinions because I'm not sure we're likely just between the two of us to reconcile your sense that the entry might not meet WP:GNG with mine that it meets it unambiguously as the entry stands, with coverage from not just many outlets but at least four continents, over many years (WP:SUSTAINED); plus there remain still many more at-yet unmined sources; and further the press continues to cover each associated development. It seems to me pretty plainly a case where a standalone entry makes sense, as something sufficiently notable and still growing. Unless we were to say all Forbes lists should only be on the Forbes page--or really, that all awards should be described on the same page as their granting institution? But I trust we'd agree sometimes a separate page is warranted as the best way to lay out the information for readers--and sometimes even that different categories of the award warrant different pages. I certainly think that, for instance, at this juncture it would not make sense to have, e.g., a separate "30 Under 30 Music Honorees" entry at present. (Well actually, perhaps someone more motivated for me than I (ah typos) will find the sources for it; I'm not certain they don't exist!) But when we have so many outlets taking note of the winners; registering criticism of certain aspects of the award; reporting on the various adjunctive operations spun out from the original feature--to me that's the stuff of a dedicated Wikipedia entry, in the spirit of the guidelines as well as the letter. So yeah, more than two divergent opinions would prob really help! We could ping the other editor who worked on it but to be clear that person sent me a Barnstar in thanks for creating it, and I don't want to canvas (!) so I'll leave it up to you whether that'd be helpful input or where else we might best get feedback. I'll tag some Wiki projects into the 30 Under 30 talk page, at least. Innisfree987 (talk) 22:35, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

I disagree with merge proposal. --Obsuser (talk) 08:29, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Okay. It's been long enough, and I don't feel motivated to do a RFC or anything, so I'm closing it. The sources about the award itself are weak in my assessment, but they do exist. The award is what it is, and the article reflects that. Grayfell (talk) 00:11, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Regressive position on climate change?

Forbes publish a lot of articles about climate change that come under fire from the climate science community, might this be worth mentioning? Here's a bunch of examples http://climatefeedback.org/outlet/forbes/ and one more http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2013/02/14/james-taylor-misinterprets-study-by-180-degrees/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.41.131.253 (talk) 16:02, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Only if reliable secondary sources point such articles out as examples of "regressive position on climate change". Otherwise, they're just examples of two several among many articles published by Forbes on climate change topics. To identify this as a trend seems beyond this article's scope. See WP:OR and WP:NPOV Haploidavey (talk) 16:20, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

@Haploidavey: There are several secondary sources that describe Forbes.com's position on climate change. Jarble (talk) 01:12, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't think any of those could be described as a reliable secondary source; they all seem to be self-published or forum-style opinion pieces with a partisan interest. None of them would be sufficient to identify a statistical trend in Forbes' coverage of climate science. Haploidavey (talk) 10:06, 8 December 2016 (UTC)