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Wal-Mart

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Wal-mart should be elected as a feature article, it lists both the bad and the good of the corporation, in an encyclopedic way. Travb 00:14, 27 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose. There is an ongoing POV fork between Wal-Mart and Criticism of Wal-Mart. Assuming those two articles are eventually merged, Wal-Mart needs work on the criticism section. Specifically, critcisms used to be logically grouped into categories (eg, labor relations, supplier relations, community impacts, globalization & outsourcing). In the article now, the criticisms are a shotgun approach with minimal organization. The article also has sourcing problems re: pro- and anti- statements. Feco 00:18, 28 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Note that it's only a POV fork if the Wal-Mart article doesn't have criticism. The "criticism" section is clearly long enough to merit its own article, with the "criticism" section on the Wal-mart page itself serving as a summarized version of that page (and, of course, just because there's a criticism section doesn't mean that criticism can't be mentioned elsewhere in the article!). Compare with Criticism of Pope John Paul II, Criticisms of Mozilla Firefox, Criticism of Christianity, etc. The trick is to use those pages for more in-depth coverage of (and responses to!) criticism, rather than as POV forks—which the above page very well may be, but then I think the solution is to change it to the preferred version, not simply to merge it in its entirety into an already-huge page. -Silence 18:20, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oh, absolutely. I wasn't suggesting that the article is OK as-is; it seems pretty obvious that this article needs some work. I was just responding to the current way that people seem to be trying to fix the article (merging, rather than just integrating and making consistent). Wal-Mart has had some of the most significant and diverse criticism of any organization in years; that merits both an in-depth section and an even more in-depth daughter article. -Silence 19:27, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Extremely well referenced, lots of detail, a lot of work has been put into this article. Certainly deserves to be a featured article. — Wackymacs 16:39, 29 November 2005 (UTC) Object. Not sure what I was thinking before, but based on what Silence, Feco and Johnleemk have said, I have decided there is still a lot of work to be done on this article. — Wackymacs 19:48, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose -- A "Criticisms" section does not make an article NPOV, and frankly I don't think that the best organization for criticising material is in a separate section. There could easily be a top-level section on Wages, Worker Rights, and Union Activities; a section on Environmental Impact; a section on the impact that Walmart has on other businesses. Covered individually, these topics could be much more neutral; start with the factual information, and then move on to various peoples' interpretations and opinions and scholarship. A "criticisms" section should cover the criticism, not factual information about the store -- at the moment, half of the Walmart-related information in the article is filed under "criticism".
On an unrelated side note, none of the pictures in the article really seem to capture the interior scale very well; an interior picture that showed as much of the store as was visible would be really cool. But that's a comment, not an opposition. -- Creidieki 01:59, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object - Interesting to read (because it's Wal-Mart), and seems quite comprehensive on the areas it covers, but not nearly a well-rounded article, instead, a business profile with a big criticism section. Six specific problems, including five major holes in the coverage:
    • No history - The History section offers a timeline, but the timeline itself doesn't even offer much historical background. Needs "started in a garage..."-type coverage of the start-up years, with some mention of the what the founders were up to, the business climate, etc. And then, at least the major stages in corporate evolution.
    • No "consumer experience" However it's treated, there should be a section that covers the Wal-Mart formula: basic store set-up (layout, greeters, all that), the products, the in-house promotion media, etc.
    • No marketing - For the world's largest retailer, a reasonably detailed discussion of promotional and advertising practices is required: how do they do TV? flyers? And the larger marketing approach, like product selection, etc.
    • No pricing - Wal-Mart's low pricing strategy is a big deal, a passing mention of "discount" and "supercenter" doesn't do it, needs detail somewhere on this aspect, whether in a marketing section, or elsewhere.
    • No location development - With over 1,700 supercenters alone, how Wal-Mart selects and develops locations requires coverage, probably its own section.
    • Criticism section too long - After reading all that, it's hard to recover from the sheer range and volume and get back into any sort of balanced consideration of the company. Definitely needs significant coverage, but organized into a few broad sections and severely summarized, with reference to a separate article.
Several of the above areas will probably require sub-articles in the end, but they certainly have to be here. --Tsavage 04:18, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • OPPOSE. The Wookieepedian 13:04, 2 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Your opposition is invalid without a reason. =Nichalp «Talk»= 13:23, 3 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Excessive focus on complaints makes unbalanced article + i agree with above comments. Enochlau 13:32, 6 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • OPPOSE. It's impossible for the top level article to remain NPOV while criticism about is treated as a subtopic. Only a PR person would divide a topic on that axis. Would anyone write an article about the Manhattan project and not mention Hiroshima except in the subarticle Criticisms about the Manhattan project? I should hope not. It would be quite reasonable to have an article Effects of the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki without severing the main Manhattan project article from its direct effects. If Walmart needs a full length article on Walmart and labour relations I can understand that. However, the nucleus of the criticism toward Walmart and it's labour practices must remain in the main article. Anything less constitutes POV. MaxEnt 07:34, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment

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