[zarzavat]

I was researching a public company the other day and I open their Wikipedia page: deleted.

I get it, probably it had been massaged by their PR department. But deleting the article punishes the readers by removing the very space for critical discussion of a topic with good SEO. Now if you want information on this company you will likely end up on their website, it seems like a reward to me.

[LunicLynx]

Not if the perception of Wikipedia is „truthful“ and „reliable“.

I’m saying neither, but in that case the article on Wikipedia puts weight behind the statements on the webpage.

I do see your argument: „But it would be adjusted to reflect the truth about it“. Honestly I don’t know enough about Wikipedia to agree or deny it. But given the amount of articles on it, i would lean in the direction that the motivation of a single few would win over the curators. Which means applying a vector that cannot be influenced by those few.

[zarzavat]

They can just strip out any problematic content and protect it. At least leave the lede and the infobox and whatever else can be salvaged.

Deleting the article means you can't even see the edit history to see why it was deleted. Whatever good work was done by other editors is gone cannot be built on. It's extreme.

[amiga386]

> Deleting the article means you can't even see the edit history to see why it was deleted.

You can see why it was deleted without that. Picking an example deleted article; the very first line, in a red box, is the deletion log entry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xpanceo

> 00:57, 28 June 2026 .... deleted page Xpanceo (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Xpanceo (...))

Click on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletio... and you will see all the reasons why it was deleted.

Wikipedia still has the full edit history of deleted articles, they can be restored upon request. The "hard work lost" argument is moot.

It's more important to speedily remove spam; keeping non-notable articles available is a huge win for spammers who put them there, every minute of endorsement by Wikipedia by continuing to exist there is a blessing. Wikipedia should keep the lede and infobox of the "EWKRHEKWJ.COM VIAGRA SALES COMPANY" article about how EWKRHEKWJ.COM sells the very finest viagra and cialis at the lowest prices, and their address is https://EWKRHEKWJ.COM ... because think of the hard work they must've put in to the article? Just leave that up and protect it? No thanks!

[zarzavat]

The article was for a public company. There are not many viagra companies that go public, except for Pfizer.

Deletion should be reserved for cases where the entire edit history is worthless or must be deleted for legal reasons etc. Articles on notable subjects where editors have put genuine work into editing them at some point should not be deleted.

[shevy-java]

Agreed. I also noticed this myself.

I understand that Wikipedia does not want corporate propaganda or other forms of propaganda, but whether a company exists or not at the time is an objective yes/no answer. It is probably more work to correct propaganda though, so articles are deleted. Would be better to simplify an article down to the bare bone instead, though, so I agree with you here.

[amiga386]

That a company exists at all can be verified in business registries (e.g. Companies House in the UK). But clearly having a wikipedia page at all is a big positive signal for a company, it means that they are "known", the GP admitted they were searching to get that kind of understanding. So you can see why a company would want a wikipedia article, even if all it said was "Blahblahco is a enterprise software company headquartered in Bumfuck Nowhere, Alabama" and nothing else.

Hence why, to even be in wikipedia, the company has to be notable, otherwise every LLC and partnership would want to boost their reputation (while ruining wikipedia's): the barrier to entry is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_(organiza...