Talk:El Paso Chamber of Commerce

Notability

To begin, the subject of this article will be, as of November 2024, a 125-year-old industrial and commercial association for the 22nd-largest city in the U.S.

As this draft was immediately declined on the the basis of WP:GNG without discussion on this talk page, I've opened this topic ("Notability") for purposes of engaging in such discussion with the original reviewer and others who wish to chime in. Note first and foremost that I have not attempted to revert or resubmit; I am inviting discussion of the issues presented by the reviewers and myself, as well as any others that might be raised. I did subsequently engage the reviewer and another editor at AfC. The current status of that discussion is my question on two matters from the WP:GNG guidelines: WP:NEXIST and WP:NPOSSIBLE:

Editors evaluating notability should consider not only any sources currently named in an article, but also the possibility or existence of notability-indicating sources that are not currently named in the article. Thus, before proposing or nominating an article for deletion, or offering an opinion based on notability in a deletion discussion, editors are strongly encouraged to attempt to find sources for the subject in question and consider the possibility that sources may still exist even if their search failed to uncover any.

Wikipedia articles are not a final draft, and an article's subject can be notable if such sources exist, even if they have not been named yet. (WH: My bolding)

As the subject is both an historical and currently active organization, a third and fourth matter respectively concern the use of citations from a newspaper of record, as discussed at WP:PRIMARYNEWS; and factual website copy for an organization as a primary source for non-promotional, factual content in the article.

With regard to the former of these, the declining reviewer has invalidated a newspaper reference because the cited newspaper story for a reported rebranding of the organization had consulted "a representative from the Chamber explaining why they've rebranded (again, not independent, and in any case just routine business reporting)." Yet this citation was needed to document and date the rebranding of the organization, which included a name change.

According to WP:PRIMARYNEWS, most newspaper accounts ought to be considered primary sources. Mainstream newspapers, which certainly include the newspaper of record in a city the size of El Paso, are listed among the most reliable sources in the WP:NOR guidelines, specifically WP:STICKTOTHESOURCE:

In general, the most reliable sources are:

• Peer-reviewed journals
• Books published by university presses
• University-level textbooks
• Magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses
• Mainstream newspapers

An organization's website copy that presents unvarnished facts about the business also ought to be treated as primary source material, according to WP:PRIMARYCARE:

An article about a business: The organization's own website is an acceptable (although possibly incomplete) primary‡ source for information about what the company says about itself and for most basic facts about its history, products, employees, finances, and facilities. It is not likely to be an acceptable source for most claims about how it or its products compare to similar companies and their products (e.g., "OurCo's Foo is better than Brand X"), although it will be acceptable for some simple, objective descriptions of the organization including annual revenue, number of staff, physical location of headquarters, and status as a parent or subsidiary organization to another. It is never an acceptable source for claims that evaluate or analyze the company or its actions, such as an analysis of its marketing strategies (e.g., "OurCo's sponsorship of National Breast Cancer Month is an effective tool in expanding sales to middle-aged, middle-class American women").

This is where things stand. I will continue to gather new sources for other encyclopedia-worthy content as needed to validate the article.

WilliamEHillis (talk) 20:55, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Hello @WilliamEHillis,

I don't know what I can say that hasn't been said already in the extensive discussion at the WP:AFCHD, but since you invited me to comment, I will do so again, even at the risk of repeating my earlier remarks.

No organisation is exempt from notability requirements, as laid out in WP:ORG. It is therefore futile to repeat the points about how old this organisation is, or how large a city El Paso is, or anything along those lines, as such factors are simply not relevant under any definition of notability in the Wikipedia context.

The point about requisite sources possibly existing somewhere out there, even if they haven't yet been cited here, applies in the context of deletion of existing articles, not in that of pending drafts undergoing review. A draft must contain within itself all the evidence of notability: it is neither enough to suggest that other sources might be available somewhere, nor reasonable to expect reviewers to go searching for such sources; it is squarely the responsibility of the authors and/or other proponents of a draft to carry out the necessary research to identify the sources they wish to rely on.

The sources currently cited in this draft are simply insufficient for satisfying WP:ORG. I will analyse them again here, one-by-one:

1. The Chamber's own website, in other words a close (ie. non-independent) primary source: can be used to verify purely factual, non-contentious statements (eg. date of founding, location of HQ, names of senior leadership, etc.), but does not contribute anything towards notability.
2. I don't know what sort of publication Password is. If it's entirely independent of the Chamber, including if the article "The El Paso Chamber of Commerce: Looking Backwards" was written without guidance, commission, or other input from the Chamber, then it could be a useful source for notability purposes. If, on the other hand, it is eg. the Chamber's newsletter, or the article was commissioned by the Chamber, then it clearly wouldn't be.
3. As 2.
4. As 1.
5. Although the publisher, El Paso Times, is undoubtedly a reputable and reliable secondary source (albeit a local one), this particular piece does not provide significant coverage of the Chamber, as it only covers the matter of their rebranding. Moreover, it is a representative of the Chamber talking, which means it is not independent of the Chamber.

Even if one gives source #2 the benefit of the doubt and assumes it is acceptable per WP:ORG, that is only source here meeting the WP:GNG standard, and we require at least three. Therefore notability has not yet been demonstrated, and the draft cannot be accepted at this time.

I wish you luck in finding more and better sources.

Best Regards, -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 08:07, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

@DoubleGrazing

Thank you for your kind wishes for success, I've already identified another dozen or so sources to document other events and particulars, and plan to move on from here. I don't think that these sources are "better," as I see no qualitative deficiency among the current ones relative to their purposes; I do concur that more are needed. I'm glad that we've agreed that an organization's website copy can be used to source "factual, non-contentious statements."

However, I am going to add one last word on my end to the matters of independence that you've raised, both generally, and as it pertains to newspapers of record. I aim to set these matters aside unless raised again by other reviewers. You've said,

I don't know what sort of publication Password is. If it's entirely independent of the Chamber, including if the article "The El Paso Chamber of Commerce: Looking Backwards" was written without guidance, commission, or other input from the Chamber, then it could be a useful source for notability purposes.

"The El Paso Chamber of Commerce: Looking Backwards" is a 60th-anniversary article wholly devoted to the Chamber's history, and Password is a scholarly publication of the El Paso County Historical Society, which is wholly independent from the Chamber. My concern is with your requirement that any such secondary source must exclude "other input from the Chamber" to be independent.

The word input is nowhere to be found in WP:ORG, WP:NORG, WP:CORP, WP:NCORP; nor is it to be found in WP:IS, WP:INDY, or WP:INDEPENDENT, comprising the explanatory essay about the policies and guidelines on independent sources. This is presumably because input is overbroad for this purpose. Its definition includes not only opinions and direction, but facts and other authoritative information without which reporters and investigators would be compelled to rely upon conjecture and hearsay.

This brings us to the matter of newspapers as sources, and how Wikipedia guidelines treat their reporting. You wrote the following about the report on the rebranding/name change, which I've already provided was only meant to document and date the organization's name:

Although the publisher, El Paso Times, is undoubtedly a reputable and reliable secondary source (albeit a local one), this particular piece does not provide significant coverage of the Chamber, as it only covers the matter of their rebranding. Moreover, it is a representative of the Chamber talking, which means it is not independent of the Chamber.

First, the slight "albeit a local one" is not relevant to WP guidelines. The guidelines' requirements of newspapers are only that they be "well-established" and "reputable":

• WP:NEWSORG declares, "News reporting from well-established news outlets is generally considered to be reliable for statements of fact (though even the most reputable reporting sometimes contains errors)."
• WP:SOURCE/WP:SOURCES likewise name newspapers among reliable sources, requiring only that they be "reputable."

The El Paso Times is a newspaper of record with a Sunday circulation of 117,000 copies, and a cross-border (U.S.-Mexico) readership in a market of 2.9 million residents.

Your remark that "it is a representative of the Chamber talking, which means it is not independent of the Chamber" runs counter to the WP guidelines, as well as common practice in fields relating to reporting and investigation. It does so by misrepresenting the work of reporters, as if they sacrifice independence by quoting an authorized inside source in their reports. WP:IIS uses a newspaper reporter as an example of an independent third party: "A third-party source is one that is entirely independent of the subject being covered, e.g., a newspaper reporter covering a story that they are not involved in except in their capacity as a reporter." Interviewing staff of subject organizations is a central task in the capacity of a reporter, as it is one means by which they obtain and verify information before reporting it through their newspaper, whereupon it becomes an independent report.

Thank you for your contributions.

friendly regards, William

WilliamEHillis (talk) 19:16, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Notability first

WilliamEHillis, the above very lengthy discussions go into multiple separate areas of policy, and right now anything but notability is irrelevant. Focus on what's important right now, and leave the rest of policy (which I can tell you, you are misunderstanding; you are basically the intern who started yesterday explaining to coworkers with two decades' experience how the business actually works) for after you've addressed the only thing that matters right now: supporting a claim to notability.

Without a credible claim to notability, there can be no article. Period. No organization is inherently notable because of its age or because it's in a large city or because its local historical society or newspaper has covered it. For now, stop even worrying about things like whether "Interviewing staff of subject organizations is a central task in the capacity of a reporter, as it is one means by which they obtain and verify information before reporting it through their newspaper, whereupon it becomes an independent report" somehow means an article based on a press release and a short interview counts as independent coverage. We'll go over the policy on that once we've got notability out of the way.

What you need, as I said at that AFCHD discussion, is three sources, each of which meets all three of these criteria:

1. Reliable
2. Independent
3. Significant coverage

At least two need to be non-local. Here's what we have so far (click show to see the table):

Source assessment table

Source	Independent?	Reliable?	Significant coverage?	Count source toward GNG?
El Paso Historical Society Password	Probably not affiliated	Scholarly article	6 page article about organization; this is a local source	✔ Yes
Something non-local				? Unknown
Something non-local				? Unknown
This table may not be a final or consensus view; it may summarize developing consensus, or reflect assessments of a single editor. Created using {{source assess table}}.

What we need now is to fill in the other two rows with significant coverage in reliable sources that are indepenent of the organization and are not local sources. Valereee (talk) 11:36, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

@Valereee, firstly, I will again state that this is a work in-progress and that rather than rush to resubmit, I have engaged in discussion to reach consensus as WP advises.

Secondly, for me to properly and insightfully respond to your concerns, please reply with all WP guideline references to "local" or "non-local(ity)" in relation to this proposed article, as one of the subjects that I've addressed above is that this is a major region of the U.S. and Mexico which has received international notice and reporting; that that reporting in newspapers of record in different locations has been published over more than a century; and the guidelines state clearly that well-established and reputable newspapers of record are a reliable source. Again, I'm politely asking for the relevant guidelines in this case. That's what an experienced reviewer would provide.

Thirdly, as explained at the top of the article in its current form (and I can clarify this if needed), the Chamber is a non-governmental organization according to WP:NONPROFIT/WP:NGO:

Organizations are usually notable if they meet both of the following standards:

1. The scope of their activities is national or international in scale.
2. The organization has received significant coverage in multiple reliable sources that are independent of the organization.

With regard to #1, the Chamber qualifies as internationally engaged on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border in a region co-developed by U.S. and Mexican nationals, and indigenous nations, and the Chamber's clients and principals continue to reflect that rich history. As for #2, the Chamber has by my count received coverage in the New York Times, El Diario (the widest-circulating paper in Ciudad Juarez), of course the El Paso Times, and other El Paso newspapers of record over 125 years.

Fourthly, I have replied with citations from the guidelines because the questions that you and the other reviewer first raised had both addressed those guidelines. Time or experience using the platform, however, is not a guideline. So respectfully, remarks like these ("you are basically the intern who started yesterday explaining to coworkers with two decades' experience how the business actually works") are not helpful and are not likely to lead to a consensus outcome. I will add that there do happen to be professional areas of work and education that do bear on matters of investigation, documentation, and reporting. These are not unique to WP, and I have observed that WP guidelines appear to have been wisely informed by those kinds of experience.

Finally on this reply, I'll note that this article was declined within hours of posting the first draft; so the following from WP:DONTBITE seems relevant:

A newcomer may save a tentative first draft to see if they are even allowed to start an article, with plans to expand it if there is no backlash. If, within a few minutes, the article is plastered with cleanup tags, assessed as a "stub" or even suggested for deletion, they may give up. It is better to wait a few days to see how a harmless article evolves than to rush to criticize.

WilliamEHillis (talk) 14:40, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Hey, WilliamEHillis! So, a lot to dig out here.

1. Many if not most articles are works in progress. We don't expect an article to be complete before it's submitted. We just need it to meet the minimum standards. When you submit a draft, the assumption is that you believe it is ready for publication -- that is, meets those standards. You are free to continue to work on it until you believe it is.
2. The relevant policy for notability is at WP:NORG, WP:NGO, WP:NONPROFIT. The relevant information about local is at WP:AUD, but as I've said, I do not consider coverage of an organization by its local paper, even if that paper is arguably regional, to be non-local coverage, and especially not when it's routine business coverage. The NYT doing routine business coverage of a NYC business does not mean that business is notable.
3. The fact the El Paso Chamber, which is in a city on the border, does work in the areas right across the border in Mexico doesn't really convince me. An organization isn't notable for doing its job. It would be strange if it didn't cooperate across the border.
4. You haven't added the NYT or El Diario as sources, but when you do, I'm happy to take a look. I apologize that my commenting on your level of experience vs. your understanding of the policy you were explaining to us felt bitey. Our policies, like everything else here, were written in a collaborative environment, and that means that we don't always get to enumerate in the actual text exactly what a point of policy means or doesn't mean or list every exception in detail because it encourages people to wp:wikilawyer; we are expected to use our judgement and try to explain why we're interpreting a certain policy in a certain way. We're also expected to accept it when others' interpretation of policy differs from our own.
5. Your draft (it wasn't an article) wasn't plastered with cleanup tags, assessed as a stub, or suggested for deletion. It was declined in its present form, with an explanation of how to improve it so it would qualify to be moved to article space. The reason it was declined within hours was likely that DG figured the reason you'd submitted it was that it wasn't simply a first draft. We don't publish first drafts until they're...well, ready to be published. When I write an article, I keep it in draft until I've proven to myself that the subject is notable: three instances of sigcov in reliable, independent sources, at least two of which are not local or industry niche. I don't move it to article space until then.

Valereee (talk) 16:28, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

@Valereee

Consistent with WP:AGF and the advice under WP:BAIT/WP:GOAD, I'm going to make this my final word; you are free to carry on if you wish. I accept that you have interpreted the P&G differently than I. Since you've already raised the matter from the relevant advice, I will just this once point out, not for you, but for anyone, that WP:LAWYERING includes

Applying a portion of a policy or guideline to achieve an objective other than compliance with that policy or guideline or its objectives. Particularly when doing so in a way that is stricter, more categorical or more literal than the norm.

This seems relevant, as it appears that a challenge to notability of any potential subjects located in the Paso del Norte region is being prophylactically raised by questioning the reliability of the region's newspapers, both historically and to the current day, such as The El Paso Times and El Diario de Juarez, and to cast doubt on secondary sources such as Password. I will be glad to be corrected if I have misunderstood or misinterpreted.

For example, as I've hopefully made clear, I was narrowly using my citation of the El Paso Times in reference to the rebranding of the Chamber to document that newsworthy decision as content relevant to an article on the Chamber, not to establish notability of the Chamber. The response has in part comprised a challenge to the reliability of the El Paso Times, asserting that it is only a local paper, and so not useful as a source either for content or notability of any subject. Yet the EPT is not at all a "weekly newspaper for a small town," the counterexample to a regional paper provided in WP:AUD. (A similar challenge has been raised as to the notability of the Chamber, discounting its international engagement as somehow not reaching a qualifying level for a notable organization under WP:NONPROFIT/WP:NGO).

As I anticipate further assertions about reliable sources in relation to future articles as well, I've addressed these more thoroughly on my user page: User:WilliamEHillis#Sources and subjects in the Paso del Norte.

friendly regards, William

WilliamEHillis (talk) 01:22, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

@WilliamEHillis, it's fine if you want to stop discussing this, but since you asked to be corrected if you'd misunderstood or misinterpreted, yes, you have. I am not questioning the reliability of the El Paso Times at all. Local has nothing directly to do with reliability. The minimum standard for reliability is evidence of editorial oversight, which pretty much any US city daily has.

We can totally use El Paso Times coverage of an El Paso subject, for instance for the rebranding of the chamber, although as much of the story is the chamber talking about itself, we'd do it carefully. For instance, we could say, "The organization rebranded from Greater El Paso Chamber of Commerce to El Paso Chamber in 2018" and source to the EPT. Perfectly reasonable.

I'm very sorry you feel like I'm goading you. That isn't my intention at all, but your feelings are your own to describe. Valereee (talk) 12:17, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Linked pages

This draft page is as of 2024-06-16 linked with (to/from) the following pages:

• El Paso, Texas
• Kate Moore Brown
• Star on the Mountain
• Stanton Street Bridge
• El Paso County Historical Society (also a draft as of 2024-06-16)

WilliamEHillis (talk) 17:38, 16 June 2024 (UTC)