JTrier

Outline for proposed article about Pharma Nord. Published as article Pharma Nord on 18th of March 2008

Welcome to wikipedia (and comments)

Latest comment: 16 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

Hi JTrier, and welcome to wikipedia.

Your proposed article is basically looking good. I do have a few comments though:

Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks), we format trademarks as closely as possible to standard English, regardless of the preference of the trademark owner. That is, without ®-symbols and generally not in all capital letters.
Your reference link to the article in Børsen only leads to their front page which doesn't seem to link to the relevant article any more. Could you replace it with a direct link to the article?
Maybe I am showing my own ignorance here, but isn't "selenium product" a bit vague? Would it be accurate to write "selenium dietary supplement" instead?
At least without the article from Børsen, all your references discuss the products and give fairly little coverage to the company itself. A "deletionist" is likely to argue that without reliable references that give significant coverage to the main topic, the article does not establish the notability of the company and should therefore be deleted. I am not so worried about the notability here, but it would still be preferable if you could find an article discussing the company or two and use them to reference for example the history-section.
I may be showing my own ignorance once more, but regarding the good manufacturing practise, a thought this was a legal requirement? Your choice of words makes it sound as if it is voluntary.

Thank you for your comments, Hemmingsen. Please see my response to the individual remarks below.

The Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks) mentions, that the use of ®-symbols and special spelling can be used in special cases, such as to distinguish between generic and trademarked drugs. Though the products mentioned are dietary supplements and not drugs, I feel that the same argument can be applied in this case, especially in regards to the mention of SelenoPrecise, which is used in the PRECISE study because of qualities that distinguishes it from other selenium supplements. However, since my experience of Wikipedia formatting and style is limited, I will follow the guidance from more experienced users if this interpertation is wrong.
The article from Børsen is only accessible to subscribed users through login, so I'm afraid that a direct link is not possible.
I have changed selenium product to selenium dietary supplement in several places.
I have added some additional references to mention of the company by independent, notable sources (Ingeniøren, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, TCM Denmark). Hopefully, this should eliminate any doubt in regard to notability.
GMP is mandatory for all registered medicinal drugs, but not for dietary supplements and other food products. These are covered by the HACCP regulations. Since Pharma Nord manufactures both, all products are manufactured using the strictest rules from both. I will clarify this in the text.

I have a few further questions/comments:

Once the draft has been edited to bring it up to spec, is it OK for me to publish it as a real article myself, or should you or someone else do it?
The article contains information that I know because I work for Pharma Nord. As such, it is hard to reference properly. For instance, some of the info in the History section. The only reference for this would be the Pharma Nord website. Is this OK?
I will upload a copy of the Pharma Nord logo, as soon as I read through all the info about image uploads, fair use rationales etc.

First, the replies to your replies:

If we needed to distinguish between for example a generic SelenoPrecise product produced by an unnamed company and SelenoPrecise as produced by Pharma Nord, then the ®-symbol could be useful. However I think in every case here, it is either specified directly or implied by the context that we are talking about Pharma Nord's products. Also, I think that a reader will expect any products mentioned in this article to be Pharma Nord's unless we specify otherwise, and therefore if you do wish to add some text that compares to the products of other companies, it would be handled more elegantly by using phrases like "SelenoPrecise as compared to other selenium supplements" (just like you do in your reply to me). So in short, the ®-symbols don't seem to me to be serving any purpose.
With regards to case, I don't object to for example "SelenoPrecise", and I can understand if you prefer "PRECISE" to "Precise" to set it apart from "SelenoPrecise", but "Q-SYMBIO" should probably be "Q-Symbio".
OK, leave it as it is then.
OK.
Yes, I believe this does eliminate any doubt in regard to notability.
OK.

And then to your questions:

Yes, I think, it is okay for you to publish it as a real article yourself. Having a rule that it must be someone else posting the exact same article, would just be red tape.
Good question, facts that aren't referenceable to any published source should not be included, but the company website can be used if done carefully. It will have to be a judgement call for each specific statement. For hard facts that aren't really debatable (e.g. "founded in 1981"), I don't see any problem in using the company website. The statement about being the first to introduce a coenzyme Q10 dietary supplement to the European market, is probably the one that is closest to being problematic, but acceptable in my point of view. (On one hand if another company publishes a similar claim on their website, then whom do we trust? But on the other hand, as regulated as this market is, it doesn't seem likely that Pharma Nord wouldn't know for a fact whether they actually were the first.)
You are probably perfectly aware of this already, but as fair use images are strictly for articles, the logo cannot be used on this talk page, but with a fair use-rationale, it'll be a perfectly fine addition to the real article. For an example of a decent fair use rationale for a logo, see e.g. this image.