Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 08:13, 21 March 2004

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 do 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 Pepsi page in which I referenced that it was an SIC 2080 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. RayKiddy 08:17, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

If you guys are interested in standarizing company articles, you could make a Misplaced Pages:Wikiproject of it. Misplaced Pages:Wikiproject Companies. Poor Yorick

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. RayKiddy 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. mydogategodshat 08:57, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

• Here's one that uses the new (prefered) wikipedia style of tables. It's a lot easier to edit, and a lot less obtrustive. →Raul654 13:05, Feb 1, 2004 (UTC)

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 platypus or grouse), chemicals are using yellow (see calcium carbonate), and plants are using green (see ginkgo). Rocks and minerals are using all different styles and colours. mydogategodshat 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 Misplaced Pages:Taxobox is rather depressing, so maybe it doesn't matter after all. Tuf-Kat 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? mydogategodshat 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. →Raul654 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. mydogategodshat 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? mydogategodshat 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. RayKiddy 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 here. mydogategodshat 08:02, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Ok, as I see it, there's basically three types of information:

1. Stuff that (almost) never changes: Name, stock symbol, HQ, incoperated in
2. Stuff that changes once in a while: CEO, controlling interest (if any)
3. 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? →Raul654 22:08, Feb 5, 2004 (UTC)

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. mydogategodshat 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. →Raul654 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 Misplaced Pages:Taxobox) mydogategodshat 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 here) , ours is by far the ugliest! mydogategodshat 06:56, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

OK, the "numbers" infobox is uglier than ours. mydogategodshat

Has development stopped on this? I mean, yeah, you have a good draft, but neither of the mentioned company pages - IBM or Pepsi - have any form of the table on it. Can it be seen in practice on any company page? Also, I note that while the SIC code was present in the first draft, it's missing from the latter two, without comment. And, finally - stock code is mentioned, but not the stock exchange the code is on; is that relevant? Is this the proper place to put these comments? --Golbez 08:13, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)