Misplaced Pages:Companies, corporations and economic information: Difference between revisions

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	==Companies, Corporations and Economic Information==

	The articles on companies on wikipedia seems to be fairly shallow. I think that is an interesting use of wikipedia to actually describe the companies we are dependent on for so many of the things we use in our lives. People <b>do</b> have very strong feelings about things they buy. But we often fail to connect those things to the companies, and then the people, that bring them into the world.

	For example, I added a little note to the ] page in which I referenced that it was an ] company, as classified upon its incorporation in the United States. This then led to a list of US SIC 2080 compnaies.

	It seems that there can be a standard bunch of information, such as the boxes that go with some other types of pages, that would show an entity's ownership, employees, geographical reach and other important information. I am not an economist, but I believe it is important to document these market forces.

	Does anyone have ideas about good ways to do this? RayKiddy 06:40, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

	==Table style, colour, and content==

	:I suggest creating a template html table. We already do something similiar for battles - see Battle of Cisterna. I think at the very least, it should list the official name, stock symbol, yearly revinues, # of employees, owners (or major shareholders). ?Raul654 06:53, Feb 1, 2004 (UTC)

	By the way, I do not intend this to be US-centric. I would be interested in how other standards, for instance, relate to the SIC identification scheme. ] 08:17, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

	If you guys are interested in standarizing company articles, you could make a ] of it. ]. ]

	:I think that I am. I probably have to create a link in the WikiProjects page to do this. I wanted to see what kind of discussion occurred. ] 03:47, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

	I'm not sure exactly whay you have in mind, but here is a chart you can play around with. ] 08:57, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

	<!-------------------------CHART WITH COLOURS------------------------------->
	<table border="1" cellspacing="0" align="right" cellpading="2">
	<tr><th align="center" bgcolor=lightgreen>'''Company Information at a glance'''</th></tr>
	<tr><th align="center" bgcolor=lightyellow>''']'''</th></tr>
	<tr><th align="center" bgcolor=lightgreen>2003 Data</th></tr>
	<tr><td>
	<table align="center"><tr>
	<td>Ticker symbol: </td><td> IBM </td></tr>
	<tr>
	<td>Total capiltalization: </td><td> 100,000,000 USD </td></tr>
	<tr>
	<td>Industry class / SIC code: </td><td>Computer products - SIC 564 </td></tr>
	<tr>
	<td>Head office location : </td><td> Nervana </td></tr>
	<tr>
	<td>Number of employees : </td><td> 10000000000 </td></tr>
	<tr>
	<td>Dividends (12 months): </td><td> $200 per class A share </td></tr>
	<tr>
	<td>Current C.E.O. </td><td> King Kong </td></tr>
	</table>
	<tr><th align="center" bgcolor="lightgreen">'''See also ]'''</th></tr>
	<tr><th align="center">''more stuff in this line'''</th></tr>
	</table>
	<!------------------------------------------------------------------------->
	<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>


	* Here's one that uses the new (prefered) wikipedia style of tables. It's a lot easier to edit, and a lot less obtrustive. ] 13:05, Feb 1, 2004 (UTC)

	{\| border=1 cellspacing=0 align=right cellpadding=2
	\|- align=center bgcolor=lightgreen
	!Company Information
	\|-
	\|
	{\| align=left bgcolor=white
	\|-
	\|Official name: International Business Machines
	\|-
	\|Stock Symbol: IBM
	\|-
	\|President/CEO: King Kong
	\|-
	\|Number of Employees: 2
	\|-
	\|Revenues:
	\|-
	\|Headquarters in:
	\|-
	\|Incorporated in:
	\|-
	\|Owner/controlling interest:
	\|}
	\|}
	<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>
	The first one matches the style used in the scientific pages. We may or may not want to be consistent with them. I have not researched it in detail but I think animals are using red (see ] or ]), chemicals are using yellow (see ]), and plants are using green (see ]). Rocks and minerals are using all different styles and colours. ] 19:30, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)
	:Plants are already using the same light green as the above templates. I recommend switching, though the amount of duplication found at ] is rather depressing, so maybe it doesn't matter after all. ] 08:19, Feb 5, 2004 (UTC)

	==Table maintenance==

	My only misgiving about this project is the amount of ongoing maintenance it will entail. Much of the info will only last for a year (such as annual revenue, dividend, number of employees, capitalization, controlling interests). We have articles on hundreds of companies. Do we really want the nonstop maintenance of updating these things? ] 19:50, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

	In my table (the 2nd one), I consciously tried to avoid year-to-year stats (the only one I included was revineues). Even then, I was only looking for approximate values. ] 22:16, Feb 1, 2004 (UTC)

	:I think you'll find that revenue, number of employees, controlling interests, and current CEO will have to be updated at least every year. Controlling interests much more often, since controlling blocks shift with every new alliance or aquisition.

	::The only constants are ticker symbol and HQ location. ] 23:30, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

	If we chose to limit the fields to constants (no table maintenance), what could we put in them other than ticker symbol and location? ] 10:28, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

	It probably makes sense to go with the simpler form of the tables. It is easier to make sense out of the data when one looks at it in source. As far as maintenance, we should have the year the data represents. The data need only be an estimate. Also, it definitely makes sense to have a bot that keeps track of this data. There are many sources to pull it from and put it into a database. Then, a bot can handle updating the wikipedia table. The information in the table can be kept standard, so that it can be safely edited by a bot. ] 03:47, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

	Regarding what style and colour of table to use, we might be wize to see what conclusion, if any, comes out of the discussion going on ]. ] 08:02, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

	----

	Ok, as I see it, there's basically three types of information:
	# Stuff that (almost) never changes: Name, stock symbol, HQ, incoperated in
	# Stuff that changes once in a while: CEO, controlling interest (if any)
	# Stuff that changes often: Revenue, number of employees

	I suggest our template include all three (we can approximate the stuff that changes often), and "updated", the year that the information is relavent to.

	As to the color, how about 44FF44?
	] 22:08, Feb 5, 2004 (UTC)

	{\| border=1 cellspacing=0 align=right cellpadding=2
	\|- align=center bgcolor=#44FF44
	!Company Information
	\|-
	\|
	{\| align=left bgcolor=white
	\|-
	\|Official name: International Business Machines
	\|-
	\|Stock Symbol: IBM
	\|-
	\|President/CEO: King Kong
	\|-
	\|Number of Employees: 2
	\|-
	\|Revenues:
	\|-
	\|Headquarters in:
	\|-
	\|Incorporated in:
	\|-
	\|Owner/controlling interest:
	\|-
	\|Updated: 2004
	\|}
	\|}
	<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>

	I like the idea of a bot gathering the data and doing the maintenance. I didn't realize that could be done reliably. However, I do not like the idea of using approximations. What you are calling approximations, I would call misinformation. When a fact or statistic is stated on an encyclopedia, people expect it to be true. How are we going to calculate these "approximations"? I would much rather see an empty field than an incorrect one. ] 06:16, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)
	:Well, I think you misunderstand. When someone says Microsoft has 55,000 employees, I'll bet you that Microsoft has around 55,000 employees, but not exactly 55,000 employees. ] 06:21, Feb 6, 2004 (UTC)

	::Number of employees are usually published once a year in a companies annual report. That would be accurate enough for me. My problem is inserting approximations where we don't have a good source.

	::By the way, I like the bright green colour. Does it bother anybody that a very similar colour (I think it is 80ff80) is already being used? (See ]) ] 06:28, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

	::As for style, I still prefer a box similar to the ones already in use. I feel the one we have selected has too much white space and is too hard to read. This is just my personal opinion, but when I look down the page with the examples of all the boxes ]) , ours is by far the ugliest! ] 06:56, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

	::OK, the "numbers" infobox is uglier than ours. ]

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