Evaki1972

Speedy deletion nomination of RL Leaders

Hello Evaki1972,

I wanted to let you know that I just tagged RL Leaders for deletion, because the article doesn't clearly say why the subject is important enough to be included in an encyclopedia.

If you feel that the article shouldn't be deleted and want more time to work on it, you can contest this deletion, but please don't remove the speedy deletion tag from the top.

You can leave a note on my talk page if you have questions. Kavdiamanju (talk) 03:39, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Hello Evaki1972. I took another look at the RL Leaders page you created, and the biggest issue, to me, is that the page reads like a press release for the company. If you want to work on an article for this company, I strongly recommend that you create it in draftspace. In the draftspace you can work on an article and get feedback and less scrutiny than in the main encyclopedia space.--Mojo Hand (talk) 15:02, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Hello again. One of the challenges we have at Wikipedia is that people are constantly trying to promote things (companies, bands, websites etc). Maintaining neutrality of content is one of the pillars of the encyclopedia and keys to its viability. So, I can assure you that you are not being picked on or targeted. I'm sorry, but the page you wrote reads like a pamphlet for the company, rather than a neutral encyclopedia article. For example, the lead sentence is what I would write to sell the company: "RL Leaders is a company known for joining creative thinkers of the entertainment business with the more logically and scientifically inclined government entities, to solve issues concerning National security." The sentence doesn't actually say what the company does, though it does promote itself and flatter its customers.--Mojo Hand (talk) 15:44, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

I see you re-created the article in draftspace/userspace, which is definitely the way to go if you want to keep working on it. I think the most glaring thing that the article needs is a solid lead sentence that explains what RL Leaders is and what it does. As I read through the page, I still don't really understand what it is in a sentence. Take a look at a good article and get ideas from how it is structured. See, for example, NeXT; I picked it more or less at random - it's a company article that has been promoted to "featured article" status. I hope that helps.--Mojo Hand (talk) 01:58, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

April 2016

Hello, and thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. This is just a note to let you know that I've moved the draft that you were working on to Draft:RL Leaders, from its old location at User:Evaki1972/sandbox/RL Leaders. This has been done because the Draft namespace is the preferred location for Articles for Creation submissions. Please feel free to continue to work on it there. If you have any questions about this, you are welcome to ask me on my talk page. Thank you. /wiae /tlk 02:06, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: RL Leaders (April 27)

Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by SwisterTwister was:  The comment the reviewer left was: Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit when they have been resolved.

• If you would like to continue working on the submission, go to Draft:RL Leaders and click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window.
• If you need any assistance, you can ask for help at the Articles for creation help desk or on the reviewer's talk page.
• You can also use Wikipedia's real-time chat help from experienced editors.

SwisterTwister talk 22:12, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Discussion about RL Leaders

This discussion has been moved from SwisterTwister's talk page (permalink) because he deleted it prematurely.

• Evaki1972 (talk · contribs)
  • Draft:RL Leaders (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Instead of just deleting my page, can you actually offer some advice on how to write it or fix it. It's not promotional. I don't work for the company. This is a company that works with the CIA, FBI, Dept of Defense and National Counterterrorism Center to ensure American's safety. Not sure how that is not a relevant subject matter, but Selena Gomez and Offspring Entertainment are. I have used both NY Times (which is as good as it gets for a press reference) as reference, and official government documents as reference. Are official government documents from the Clinton administration and the 911 Commission not real enough for you? It said on wikipedia's rules that you are supposed to use real references in addition to external links. So how are my references not adequate? Yet the references on other approved pages that are very similar that I have in fact submitted to other articles, ok'd? I was told draft space is where people are nice and help you develop your article by giving you feedback. I have spent over 3 weeks writing this article and researching it and it's founders. And I just get a note saying it's deleted because it's promotional. Please advise on how you would fix this article...Evaki1972 (talk) 02:17, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

@Evaki1972: I'm not SwisterTwister, but I'm going to interject here anyway. First, your draft hasn't been deleted; I'm not sure why you think it has, but it's clearly still there, the deletion log says it's never been deleted, and SwisterTwister doesn't have the power to delete it.

SwisterTwister told you what was wrong with your draft: it reads like promotional copy: it's mealy-mouthed, full of "weasel words" like "disrupt" and "methodology," vague statements like "Since its formation, the company has worked alongside numerous government agencies and social organizations to solve and analyze problems and issues of national concern" or "Over the last decade, RL Leaders has worked with various offices of the United States government," and marketing baloney like "Chief Executive Officer, John Rogers, professional life has centered on politics and policy." (As an aside, that sentence needs to be axed, but, if you kept it, it should read: "Chief Executive Officer John Rogers' professional life . . . .") Volunteers like SwisterTwister will give you pointers, but they aren't here to teach you how to write. Writing's hard—believe me, I know; I struggle with it too, but that's no excuse.

If you want my advice—and you may not at this point, but I am trying to help you here, so you'd be wise to take it: Cut your draft by three quarters. Discard everything that isn't essential to your point. Remove every phrase that isn't specific. Less is more. Then take what's left and make it more pointed. I read the article, and I still have no idea what RL Leaders is. (And don't tell me here; tell me in your article.)

Two specific things that stood out to me: don't capitalize things that aren't proper nouns. "National security" and "Government" aren't capitalized. And remove those navboxes at the bottom of your draft: They're only appropriate when your article is listed in them, which it isn't. Best.  Rebbing  03:09, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. I'm not quite sure how to word it any other way....If 3 CIA agents were paired with a Director of Photography and and editor, to analyze terrorist snuff videos and propaganda videos to determine what machines they are editing on and what cameras are being used and where the cameras were bought, that would be pairing govt officials with creative people to work on issues of national security. How would you word it without getting too in depth? Clearly this is an important company, but much like the CIA, they don't disclose a lot of what they do. Also, I read about 5 dozen wikipedia pages that talk about their CEO's and their CEO's history and how they ended up running the company that they run. There doesn't seem to be much consistency on wikipedia's rules? I am getting all kinds of advice, yet all the advice I am given, I've seen on other approved wikipedia pages, that I have in fact modeled mine after. I will continue to try to work on the draft, as I said, I don't give two shits about promoting something. I'm tryign to talk about a company and who formed it. Who runs it. and their history before ending up working for an arm of the CIA. Please do respond if you can think of a clearer lead sentence to explain what they do. Thank you much. Also, when it comes to capitalizing "National security" it is because I'm linking it to the wikipedia page for National security I thought when linking to other pages, you are supposed to write the page exactly as wikipedia writes it, correct? Please advise. Trying to learn wikpedia is like trying to learn new language as an adult. It's not easy, and I don't do wikipedia for a living. So any advice is appreciated. Evaki1972 (talk) 20:31, 29 April 2016 (UTC)Evaki1972 (talk) 20:25, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

As a quick note, the initial letter is autocapitalized in a link, so both red and Red point to the same place. And as for the initial sentence, I would go with something like

RL Leaders is a company that was formed in 2004 to allow for the addition of people and technology from the entertainment industry to government counter-terrorism efforts.

Then *explain* in the second sentence why given the 9-11 commission report it was viewed as needed (and include creative there).Naraht (talk) 20:49, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

@Evaki1972: Hello, Evaki. First, I'd like to say that I'm sorry if I sounded bitchy yesterday. Thanks for explaining: I think I now understand what RL Leaders does; I'm intrigued by the company's work, although I would have guessed the intelligence community had its own internal experts for these kinds of issues.

You're right that there are plenty of problematic articles on Wikipedia. It's not so much that rules are applied inconsistently as that some articles slip through the cracks for one reason or another. Since you're going through Articles for Creation rather than straight-up creating your article, you're getting feedback about these issues right off the bat, which, while frustrating, is in your best interests: fixing these things now makes it less likely your article will go poof! three months from now, and it also helps your article be more useful to our readers. If you're looking at other articles for examples—a good idea—stick to our "good" and "featured" articles: they've been selected by the community as exemplary content; Wikipedia:Featured articles § Companies would be a good place to start.

I like Naraht's suggested lede. Another option would be something like:

RL Leaders is a company that provides consulting and staffing services for the intelligence community concerning multimedia technology with a focus on counterterrorism and video analysis.

I feel you on learning Wikipedia. I began my editing career in earnest just a few months ago, and I've had to study so many things: Wikipedia's formatting and markup, our standard templates, our house style manual and referencing conventions, our content guidelines and policies, editing norms and policies, and the conventions for discussing and resolving content disagreements, to name a few, and that's not even counting all of our internal processes! I could have learned Russian with less effort.  Rebbing  06:01, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback! And to answer your confusion about the agency having internal people who do things like this, not all govt agencies have in-house everything. Also, this company is essentially an arm of the agency in question but can't really come out and say that! I will keep working on my draft and thank you for your feedback. The Video analysis was only one of dozens of jobs they have worked on for national security. Evaki1972 (talk) 23:10, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

One obvious red-flag is referring to intelligence agencies as "the intelligence community". Any time the word "community" is used in reference to a target market, it is marketing. Intelligence and law enforcement agencies are not a "community". Los Altos, California, is a community. Intelligence agencies are a market segment this company specializes in. Don't use marketing language in encyclopedic writing, and you'll meet much less resistance.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:26, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

I took your advice, Rebbing, on your suggestions for a lead sentence. And also, thanks to SMcCandlish ☺ I also took out any "bell and whistle" words. I also found more legit references from govt websites to 2 news articles by BBC news and the NY Times. I think it's getting there. Any more suggestions before I submit it again? Thanks Rebbing. Evaki1972 (talk) 02:26, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

It looks a little better, but I think it's still somewhat "dense." I didn't go over it closely, but a few simple issues stood out to me:

1. I'm not sure it's mandatory, but "bare URL" references are strongly discouraged for a number of reasons. (You want your references section to look like this.) The easiest way to fix that is to replace all of your refs with citation templates, which is a pain, but someone's got to do it. The template takes parameters for the resource's authorship, title, date, publisher, URL, access date, page number, archive URL, and several other things, but you can get started just by adding the author, title, work, date, and URL (as applicable):

   <ref>{{cite web |last=Dao |first=James |title=Simulators Prepare Soldiers for Explosions of War |date=January 22, 2010 |work=The New York Times |url=http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/us/23simulator.html?hp&_r=2}}</ref>
   

   In your reflist, that'll show up as:

   Dao, James (January 22, 2010). "Simulators Prepare Soldiers for Explosions of War". The New York Times.

   I strongly encourage you to do this before submitting your draft.
3. You're not allowed to cite Wikipedia. However, if you find relevant references, you can copy the <ref>s and use them yourself.
5. Relatedly, except in limited cases, a subject's website isn't a permitted source for facts about itself. This prohibition derives from our verifiability policy.

I hope this helped.  Rebbing  04:05, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: RL Leaders (July 2)

Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by Robert McClenon was:  The comment the reviewer left was: Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit when they have been resolved.

• If you would like to continue working on the submission, go to Draft:RL Leaders and click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window.
• If you need any assistance, you can ask for help at the Articles for creation help desk or on the reviewer's talk page.
• You can also use Wikipedia's real-time chat help from experienced editors.

Robert McClenon (talk) 02:31, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Hello! Evaki1972, I noticed your article was declined at Articles for Creation, and that can be disappointing. If you are wondering why your article submission was declined, please post a question at the Articles for creation help desk. If you have any other questions about your editing experience, we'd love to help you at the Teahouse, a friendly space on Wikipedia where experienced editors lend a hand to help new editors like yourself! See you there! Robert McClenon (talk) 02:31, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

AfC notification: Draft:RL Leaders has a new comment

I've left a comment on your Articles for Creation submission, which can be viewed at Draft:RL Leaders. Thanks! Robert McClenon (talk) 01:43, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

AfC notification: Draft:RL Leaders has a new comment

I've left a comment on your Articles for Creation submission, which can be viewed at Draft:RL Leaders. Thanks! Ⓩⓟⓟⓘⓧ (talk) 13:13, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: RL Leaders (August 24)

Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by Primefac was:  The comment the reviewer left was: Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit when they have been resolved.

• If you would like to continue working on the submission, go to Draft:RL Leaders and click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window.
• If you need any assistance, you can ask for help at the Articles for creation help desk or on the reviewer's talk page.
• You can also use Wikipedia's real-time chat help from experienced editors.

Primefac (talk) 03:32, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: RL Leaders (September 17)

Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by SwisterTwister was:  The comment the reviewer left was: Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit when they have been resolved.

• If you would like to continue working on the submission, go to Draft:RL Leaders and click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window.
• If you need any assistance, you can ask for help at the Articles for creation help desk or on the reviewer's talk page.
• You can also use Wikipedia's real-time chat help from experienced editors.

SwisterTwister talk 17:12, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Your draft article, Draft:RL Leaders

Hello, Evaki1972. It has been over six months since you last edited your Articles for Creation draft article submission, "RL Leaders".

In accordance with our policy that Articles for Creation is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been nominated for deletion. If you plan on working on it further, or editing it to address the issues raised if it was declined, simply and remove the {{db-afc}} or {{db-g13}} code.

If your submission has already been deleted by the time you get there, and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion by following the instructions at this link. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thanks for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. Boomer Vial^{Holla! We gonna ball!} 10:53, 1 April 2017 (UTC)