Contents 1 Recreation of a deleted page 2 Copyvio 3 Query about Stripedfox's connection to ATN 4 Current state of play

[edit] Recreation of a deleted page

The article was created yesterday, and deleted:

(Deletion log); 21:13 . . Athaenara (talk | contribs) deleted "American Technologies Network Corporation" (WP:CSD#G11: advertising/promotion. Created by Stripedfox, tagged by JamesBWatson.)

The only difference that I can see is that the images are no longer in this article. It is still promotional, and still does not have independent, reliable sources showing its notability, and I was unable to find any. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 11:16, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

After yesterday I tried to re-write this page in no-promotional style, not using advertising. Help me with reliable sources, I don`t understand what does it mean? Could you pleas watch it again and show me my mistakes? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stripedfox (talk • contribs) 11:19, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Also I have found some articles about this company and found magazine reviews collected at their web-site. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stripedfox (talk • contribs) 11:19, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I have already looked for reliable sources of information about the company. If you read Wikipedia's General Guidelines on Notability, Wikipedia's Guidelines on the notability of Companies and Wikipedia's Guidelines about reliable sources, you will see that this company does not meet the criteria for notability, and that the sources in the article (which are similar to many other sources I found) are not counted as reliable from Wikipedia's point of view. As I say, I have already looked for reliable sources and wasn't able to find any. Also, information found at their own website is in no way counted as reliable - if you can find online links to the articles on those magazine's websites, that might help. I can't do any more at the moment, as I'm off out, but I will be back later so if this article is still here, I'll look at it again, but I don't see any convincing reason for it to stay at the moment. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 11:32, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I gave a link to the page where the articles from different magazines about the products produced by this company are collected. I gave links to the pages where you can find the videos shot by PoliceOne TV for ATN. Also I gave a link to the page about the ATN awarding by General Services Administration (GSA). There you can find the official info about this company from General Services Administration (GSA). We also can provide scanned verified document about this. Is it rather reliable source? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stripedfox (talk • contribs) 11:19, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Copyvio

Be aware the bulk of this article is still a copyright violation with large sections of text lifted directly from the ATN website without permission. See WP:Copyright.Canterbury Tail talk 13:51, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I signed the source of the text below the article, can it help? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stripedfox (talk • contribs) 11:19, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

No, that just proves it's a copyright violation. The website is copyrighted, and text was lifted directly from it. Canterbury Tail talk 16:13, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Query about Stripedfox's connection to ATN

Stripedfox, you said above: "We also can provide scanned verified document about this." - can we infer that you work for ATN? If so, you have a Conflict of Interest (COI), and we can advise you about how to improve this article in a manner which will overcome that COI -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 22:29, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Stripedfox has already admitted on my talk page that they work for ATN. Canterbury Tail talk 02:48, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

I have left the standard uw-coi notice on stripedfox's talk page - even though you have mentioned it on your talk page. I still think this article is too promotional, but I will give it a couple of days to improve. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 04:11, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Current state of play

Could you please check it again? I have changed it and there is no any sentence taken from the company web-site, so I hope that it is ok now. Also, I wanted to ask is it still too promotional? I tried to find verified information and sources to make this article more informative. Thank you for your attention. cc 16:21, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

You need reliable sources confirming that they are notable. Quoting from the guidelines:

Material from mainstream news organizations is welcomed, particularly the high-quality end of the market, for example The New York Times in the United States and The Times in Great Britain, as well as widely used conglomerates such as The Associated Press.

I feel that the references currently provided appear to be more commercial (most of them are either obviously from press releases or material obtained from the company themselves, or have an overt link to the company "for further information").

• I see no indication that Tactical Life magazine (or its owners Harris Tactical Group) could be counted as a reliable source from Wikipedia's point of view.
• The same goes for "Police One" which (on their own website) is "primarily advertising supported", which puts a question over how independent they are.
• I'm not in a position to decide how reliable/independent Officer.com or Hunting Rifles Reviews are, but I'm not convinced they meet the criteria for reliable sources.

I have looked for reliable sources of information, but not been able to find any. I found 5 items on the Googles News Search archives:

1. "Press Release: US FAA: FAA proposes civil penalty against American Technologies Network Corporation"
2. "Loislaw Federal District Court Opinions - Loislaw - Mar 12, 2003 2003) AMERICAN TECHNOLOGIES NETWORK CORPORATION, Plaintiff, v. HI-TECH OPTICS, an unknown business entity, KEITH OLIVER, an individual, and DOES 1 THROUGH ..."
3. "Loislaw Federal District Court Opinions - Loislaw - Mar 31, 2006 AMERICAN TECHNOLOGIES NETWORK CORPORATION, and DMITRY ROCKLIN a/k/a Dmitry Naroditsky, Defendants. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Intervenor."
4. A story in the Roanoke Times saying "although Gen 4 equipment from companies such as American Technologies Network Corporation"
5. "Aftermarket Business - Dec 1, 2000: Muth Mirror Systems has reached an agreement with American Technologies Network Corporation for the exclusive marketing rights to American's back-up safety"
6. Today's Press Release "ATN Receives Five Nominations for OpticsPlanet Brilliance Awards".. and that's it.

Out of those 6 news search items, 2 are press releases (i.e. from the company, so not independent); 2 are court decisions which I couldn't access, and two minor stories - this is not significant coverage in independent, reliable sources as required by the guidelines.

If some reliable sources of information can't be found, then I would propose that this article should be deleted, as I can find no evidence of the company's notability. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 14:57, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

So, that fact that the company has a contract with General Services Administration (GSA) till 2012 year is not rather reliable? As I know this is a public institution. Stripedfox (talk)

Is there any reference that you can give for that (other than the company's press releases?) - any mentions in reliable sources? I can find mentions in Wikipedia mirrors, and on the company's own websites, but I can't find independent mentions - and I can't find a mention on the gsa.gov site (Google search for ATN site:gsa.gov or Google search for "American Technologies" site:gsa.gov.

Without independent verification, this means nothing. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 16:21, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Further, ATN would not appear to be a public institution - it is not run by the state. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 16:23, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

http://www.gsaelibrary.gsa.gov/ElibMain/contractorInfo.do?contractNumber=GS-07F-0169M&contractorName=AMERICAN+TECHNOLOGY+NETWORK%2C+COR&executeQuery=YES here is a link to GSA web-site where the information about our company is. Stripedfox (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:33, 4 November 2009 (UTC).

• That does indeed show that ATN have a contract until 2012 with the GSA - but then again, so do thousands (tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands) of companies - that in itself does not make the company notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia. Getting a GSA contract is not that unique - if it were, it would be covered by the national newspapers. I think we need a lot more than that to show that the company is notable. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 16:47, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
  • I would also like to point out that the references you have just added are "Press Releases" - they come directly from the company itself, and so cannot be used to show notability. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 18:39, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

I have found some news and press releases about our company. I think that there is enough information now. Info from military and police magazines, articles from different sources are offered. The magazines I signed are not very well-known magazines maybe but are rather reliable sources, because they are the specialized military publications and are popular among certain group of people. The nomination for OpticsPlanet Brilliance Awards is also rather important, because these awards are significant quality factor for any Night Vision Optics manufacturer. This is not a unique company but it has a many-years experience and many people are interested in finding information about it, I think. I hope, this explanation will make you sure that this article is useful and satisfies all requirements of Wikipedia. Stripedfox (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:48, 4 November 2009 (UTC).

• Hi, Stripedfox! I know that you are going to think I'm being picky, but... (you just knew there was a but) - as I have already said above, Press Releases are not counted as reliable, and I am not sure that the publications you have listed would count as reliable for our purposes. As for the OpticsPlanet Brilliance Awards, they are voted for by purchasers of equipment, right? Not industry experts, or such like, but anyone who buys products in the categories. This means that it would not be counted as the kind of award that would count towards a company's notability, impressive though they may sound! It isn't a major award.

Please don't be disheartened - the research you have done, and the sources of information you have found are impressive - it's just that they don't meet up with our criteria for reliable sources! But you do need to find some significant coverage as per the guidelines that I've given you (also, if I haven't already suggested it, read through the Wikipedia Guidelines for Notability and the Wikipedia Guidelines for the Notability of Companies), I feel that I will need to nominate this article for deletion. Looking at those guidelines, I don't feel that the company meets the criteria for inclusion.

If you want to be prepared, read the deletion policy. If I do propose this article for deletion, I will use the Proposed Deletion method - but as I said before, I'll give you a couple of days to improve the article. I have looked and not been able to find suitable sources of information, but that doesn't mean that they aren't out there! Regards, -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 19:18, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I will try to find something more reliable. As for OpticsPlanet Brilliance Awards, here is the info about them and about win conditions www.opticsplanet.net/brilliance-awards.html . Stripedfox (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 10:17, 5 November 2009 (UTC).

I read that webpage (which is on the blocked list for Wikipedia, so can't be linked to directly) - and that is why I know that anyone can vote. I placed 3 votes just now (2 from one e-mail address, 1 from a non-existant e-mail address). There is no checking of eligibility to vote, no checking (at least from my end - maybe they check at their end) of multiple voting from a single e-mail address (and yes, I know that the deadline for votes was November 1st 11:59 P.M. CST, and so my votes won't be counted - but the page shouldn't allow voting after this time). If I wanted to, using a combination of my personal domains, hotmail (US and UK) and MSN address, I could easily place 100 votes for a particular item - and that's ignoring the fact that I could create unlimited e-mail addresses on my personal domains, and use them. In theory, it would be very easy to place thousands of votes for one item - and if you can get several other people to do that, you'd be laughing all the way to the awards Please note I am not saying that this has ever been done, merely that theoretically it could be done. The fact that it is completely open voting, to anyone anywhere in the world means that this award (though impressive-sounding) can't be counted as a 'major' award (or even, from out point of view, a 'reliable' one) - and so can't count towards the company's notability. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 10:57, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I have one more question if you do not mind. I have found "Night vision device" page and there is a list of companies that produce night vision. I have carefully explored articles about them and found out that many of them also don`t have rather reliable souces or give links to unexisting pages. Why do they exist till now if they do not satisfy Wikipedia requirements? Stripedfox (talk • contribs) 13:27, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

In general, the argument "other things exist" doesn't carry much weight, I'm afraid! Just because they exist doesn't mean that this article has to exist. It could be that if they were looked at, an editor may put them up for deletion. If I get a chance to, I will have a look at the manufacturers' articles and see if any of them should be proposed for deletion. Regards, -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 12:10, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

And the last one: if you will nominate my article for deletion, does it mean that other editors will check it and leave their comments before it's full deletion? Stripedfox | Talk 14:28, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

If I nominate it for deletion under the Proposal for deletion (PROD), then the tag remains in place for a week, when the article will be deleted. If the tag is removed (i.e. the PROD is contested), then the next stage is to go for an Articles for Deletion (AfD). During an AfD, there is a week for interested editors to make comments for or against the deletion, and can leave their recommendations. It's not a vote but a consensus - what's important isn't how many editors say delete and how many say keep, but the arguments used. I'm guessing that should I go for the deletion of this article, you would probably remove the PROD tag anyway - so I'd probably have to go to AfD anyway.

As I said, I'm giving you a couple of days to find reliable sources - I couldn't find them, but that doesn't mean that they aren't out there. Even if I do take this to AfD, that does not mean that the article will be deleted - a discussion will ensue. I have nominated articles for deletion in the past, and then withdrawn my nomination as I have been persuaded by the arguments presented (for example, see Hans Beckert AfD, Avesthagen AfD, Davis Granados AfD). Even if I am not persuaded, if the concensus is to keep, the article will be kept. Regards, -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 15:10, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I have found all references I could ever find. Here are collected articles from specialized publications, articles from specialized web-sites, video reports and even the GSA contract with this company. But I wanted to explain some details for you could rethink your opinion about this article. ATN Corp is a rather highly specialized company that manufactures only certain branch of goods. These products are used in law enforcement, military and SWAT operations and some kinds of sports like paintball, climbing or outdoors. So this production cannot be so popular among population like Coca-Cola or McDonalds. Moreover, there are not many Awards for such products sector, so I provided the information about its nominations on OpticsPlanet Brilliance Awards; however you think that this is not enough reliable source. As for publications, New York Times has no article about this company, and it is not very surprising as I already told. The specificity of manufactured production is not very interesting for New York Times` readers I think. Because of that only highly specialized publications write about such companies and their production for that category of people that are strongly interested in this subject.
So, summing up I wish to tell that maybe this article will not be interesting for everybody, as I am not interested in the article about Subject-Oriented Programming, for example, as I am not very interested in programming at all, but this article will have value for certain readership and therefore it will have value for Wikipedia, I think. This company maybe is not very well-known to everybody, but it has certain achievements and merits in its branch, so I think it deserves to be in this encyclopedia.
I added some links during last two days and I hope you can review them all again. Maybe you will decide that some of them are quite reliable due to the specificity of the company. But if you still stay on your point of view, I have no another way as to wait for your deletion proposal, for we could deal with this question with the help of another editors.
I sincerely hope that my article will stay in Wikipedia and maybe I could make it more informative as for the company history later. Stripedfox | Talk 13:00, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

A quick response (I'll do a more detailed comment if I get a chance on Monday, as I've family commitments for the rest of today and the weekend): my initial thought is that if it is such a specialised company, it may not be counted as globally notable. Obviously, in its field it may well be notable - but this is not the military wikipedia, or the law enforcement wikipedia - it is the English Wikipedia, and as such there has to be a global notability. I appreciate your point that there are subjects on Wikipedia that you may not be interested in - but those subjects do have a global interest, and a global notability. As I said, I cannot give a detailed comment, but I will read the article again carefully on Monday, and read your comments on this page - and then I will give a further comment. As you will have seen, I am not dismissing this article out of hand - I am trying to find sources of information etc. Other articles I have been sure are not suitable for inclusion - on this one, I am still not totally convinced. I will be back in touch on Monday - have a good weekend -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 14:02, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. Waiting for Monday then. Stripedfox | Talk 14:10, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Hallo. I have an idea again. I thought about that fact that Wikipedia is not specialized encyclopedia, so essentially, it is a collection of all possible encyclopedias, as I understand. There are many encyclopedias that gather facts about different companies, so it is one more arguement for this article to stay here.
Moreover, while I was categorizing my article, I have found a category named "Companies based in San Francisco, California".
As for your last message, I have read Wikipedia:Notability, and found this: "A topic is presumed to be notable enough to merit an article if it meets the general notability guidelines below. A topic can also be considered notable if it meets the criteria outlined in one of the more subject-specific guidelines: Academics, Books, Criminal acts, Films, Music, Numbers, Organizations & companies, People, and Web content." So if I am not wrong, I have a chance to remain here, because, as I understand, my article is rather notable for Wikipedia as it corresponds to the category "Organizations & companies".
I also found this: "Sources may encompass published works in all forms and media". So, If you will be so kind and watch my links again, you will find that there are some links to magazines that published not press releases, but, for example described different optics, and mentioned ATN products among another items produced by another companies. Some of that publications are reliable enough, as Armada for example, that is rather popular and authoritative magazine. Also, for example this link doesn`t give any info about product's cost or they don`t even give link to our web site or our adress. And this article is written by "Todd Burgreen is a freelance writer with work published in a variety of firearms and weapons publications." And there is no adress info about us in that article too. So I hope, that it is not very self-promotional.
Also, if you will not change your opinion, I wanted to ask if I can place here

This article is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. [[Wikipedia:WikiProject {{{1}}}|WikiProject {{{1}}}]] may be able to help recruit one.

tag for other people can help me with this article? Maybe this would help? Stripedfox | Talk 08:08, 9 November 2009 (UTC)