Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Yamnuska Mountain Adventures

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus‎. Star Mississippi 02:06, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yamnuska Mountain Adventures[edit]

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Non-notable mountain guiding company in Canada (per N:CORP). There are some scraps of articles in local old Canadian newspapers, but nothing nationally or internationally (and zero SIGCOV anywhere). Some famous Canadian climbers have worked there, but the company never appears in any of main climbing RS (per WP:NCLIMB). Article had a lot of unreferenced promotional material, which I removed, but ultimately it has no future on Wikipedia. Aszx5000 (talk) 10:16, 28 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Companies, Sports, and Canada. Aszx5000 (talk) 10:16, 28 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Very little of the content in the article is referenced or supported by reliable sources. Of the 6 references provided, 3 of the links are broken or the original articles have now been taken off-line. It fails on the basis of verifiability Sadly what is little sourced material is left does not qualify as WP:SIGCOV. Dfadden (talk) 12:45, 28 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What content do you believe should be referenced? Jdemontigny (talk) 02:18, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, for starters, the entire Sponsorship and Community Involvement section contains only 4 refs, 2 of which are dead links, another points only to a homepage for the John Lauchlan award and makes no mention of Yamnuska Mountain Adventures and the final one makes only passing reference to the organisation sponsoring a $500 prize in a local book contest - hardly in-depth, significant coverage!

The list of issues is a very long one - history section talks about changes of ownership and board appointments with no sources cited; guides section makes generic, unreferenced claims about pioneering new routes through the Rockies; a throwaway line after a referenced claim that they were the second largest employer of certified guides in 1993 that says "it is expected that this is true today" - really? How do we check this anyway as the original source is a 30 year old off-line newspaper article that you'd likely need a Canadian library or subscription to an archive service to verify.

There is a large amount unencyclopedic promotional content throughout the article that likey violates WP:PROMO (eg. "The very exacting standards to which Yamnuska Mountain Adventure's guides are held should not obscure the fact that the guides are the heart and soul of the company." or "Individuals, groups, corporations and military organizations from all over the world continue to choose Yamnuska Mountain Adventures as their provider. Yamnuska Mountain Adventures has become known as the leader in the industry with excellent program delivery, high levels of risk management and excellent customer service." Once again, neither of these statements are supported by any sources, let alone reliable ones. Dfadden (talk) 13:51, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'd love to see this stay up as I think Yamnuska has a long (47 years) history and has had many touch points within the Canadian mountaineering community that are worth knowing about. You're right it needs some work with the references. Here is one for the John Lauchlan award with Yamnuska listed to start: https://www.alpineclubofcanada.ca/community/financial-grants/john-lauchlan-award/

How do you suggest I reference or find sources that we have military contracts?

You seem pretty motivated to delete this content but I would suggest that working to bring this to the right level would be in Wikipedia's best interest. Jdemontigny (talk) 02:12, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate you feel strongly about the importance of this company. I don't have any personal investment either way. Im not motivated to delete content arbitrarily, but afyer objectively assessing it against wikipedia's content policies, the case to delete it far outweighs the case to keep it in my view. The link you provided to the John Lauchlan award doesnt actually mention the company, but has its logo as a sponsor. Under Wikipedia's General Notability Guidelines that are the basis for what should and should not be included in the encyclopedia, "Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention, but it does not need to be the main topic of the source material." I'm failing to see how the inclusion of the company's logo on a list of award sponsors is anything but trivial.

As to your question about finding sources related to military contracts, if you cannot locate any, this fails the general notability guidelines of WP:Verifiability - if you cannot find a reliable source that supports a claim, then that claim shouldn't be published in an encyclopedia. There are many companies with Defense contracts and partnerships all over the world that are well documented in industry publications (for example this article, which provides independent, significant coverage [1]).

If you think you can fix the article to an standard that satisfies the notability guidelines, you can request it is moved to the draft space where you can edit it, however I'm slight concerned that you said "How do you suggest I reference or find sources that we have military contracts?" This implies you have some connection to this company that may represent a Conflict of Interest. If this is the case you should declare it upfront and click on the blue link to familiarise yourself with the policy around COI edits. Dfadden (talk) 03:08, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to know why Yamnuska Mountain Adventures would be considered a non-notable mountain guiding company in Canada? It is still Canada's largest, non-mechanized Guiding company. I think this company should remain on Wikipedia and not be deleted. Jdemontigny (talk) 02:17, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For a company to be notable on Wikipedia, it must meet the criteria of WP:NCORP, which requires quality independent sources to give significant covergage on the subject (ad not people who worked for the subject etc.).
The issue is that I could find no such sources - not even in main line climbing media (per WP:NCLIMB). If such sources exist, you can paste them here (just put the web link inside hard brackets like this), and they can be considered. Aszx5000 (talk) 08:17, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(https://mountfitnesstraining.com/learning-climb-not-just-young-people/)

(https://explore-mag.com/Mountain-guides-the-investment-you-cant-afford-not-to-make/)

(https://calgaryguardian.com/wild-jobs-mountaineering-guide/)

(https://www.wildly.ca/articles/7-women-only-adventures-in-the-canadian-rockies)

(https://achatscanada.canada.ca/fr/occasions-de-marche/contrats-octroyes/w3666-19h003/001/cal-003)

(https://www.landrovercalgary.com/made-for-the-mountains-week-2.html)

(https://www.instagram.com/seanisaacguiding/p/CiiPUHAJ7ht/)

(https://www.banfflakelouise.com/blog/summer-itineraries-4-days-adrenaline-pumping-adventures-banff-national-park)

(https://outpostmagazine.com/what-exactly-is-mountaineering-heres-how-yamnuska-defines-the-sport/)

(https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/novice-back-country-skiers-boarders-and-snowshoers-learn-avalanche-safety-1.5193000?cache=mxzpofjaup%3FautoPlay%3Dtrue%3FclipId%3D89530)

(https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/spring-avalanche-conditions-1.4637376)

(https://www.ctvnews.ca/lifestyle/banff-national-park-s-mount-temple-a-taxing-terrific-trek-1.4429713?cache=%3FclipId%3D64268&src=sdkpreparse)

(https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/the-mountains-are-unforgiving-climber-deaths-a-reminder-of-scrambling-risks-says-mountain-guide-1.4793259)

(https://www.thecragandcanyon.ca/opinion/columnists/bubba-smoke-and-politics)

(https://www.mountainviewtoday.ca/beyond-local/caf-conducts-adventure-training-around-canmore-mountains-3444173)

(https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/peak-perfection-alberta-rockies-rise-as-popular-ice-climbing-destination-1.6361832)
(https://globalnews.ca/news/945924/k-country-avalanche-sparks-call-for-caution-on-ice-climbs/) Jdemontigny (talk) 02:15, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Having read and considered the links provided above, I am starting to form a view that this company is at least somewhat notable. However, it needs a lot of work by an experienced editor (with no COI or connection to the company) to address the many issues it has and ensure it folows the WP:NPOV guideline.

Most of the articles linked provide only trivial coverage, or are focussed on employees and directors, rather than the company itself, but I think this speaks to @Jdemontigny's lack of familiarity with Wikipedia content policies (and potential COI). Things like Instagram and blog posts by anonymous users are hardly WP:RS. That said, I feel the 2x CTV articles and the Outpost Magazine article do provide considerable depth and verify some of the Yamnuska article's claims. It will take a lot of work to bring the article up to standard and this probably should be done in the draftspace. I would support Draftify although I'm not familiar enough with the subject matter to volunteer and it's not a particular area of interest for me. Dfadden (talk) 21:40, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Most businesses (and corporations) generate an online presence as part of their commercial activities. That is why WP:NCORP requires "significant coverage (addressing the subject of the article directly and in depth)" on the corporation. None of the above references are about the "Yamnuska Mountain Adventures" as a significant topic (and many are not really sources that would be acceptable to Wikipedia), but rather mention them in relation to other topics. Aszx5000 (talk) 22:04, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In an effort to give this one the benefit of the doubt, I went searching for further RS... I found an academic publication on google scholar here: [2]

Co-author of this document is Jesse De Montigny, of Yamnuska Mountain Adventures. Noting that a significant contributor to this article who has also contributed to this AfD has the username user:jdemontigny and their total contribution to Wikipedia has been edits to this article or the AfD, I feel there is a clear conflict of interest and I am now firmly in favour of delete! While I do think there may be enough out there to prove the company is at least somewhat notable and salvage a very basic version of the article, I feel the only fair way to achieve that now would be with WP:TNT and a robust, consensus driven AfC. Dfadden (talk) 01:36, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Every company will easily meet WP:NEXIST, by the nature of their activities. Therefore, because of the promotional aspect of companies on Wikipedia (and this article has a lot of promotional material on it when I came to it), the notability of WP:NCORP is stringently applied imho. Having gone through the sources above, it is clear that in this case, a Wikipedia article for 'Yamnuska Mountain Adventures' would be the biggest plank in its notability (hence the conflicted editor working on it), which is the wrong way around. ( Aszx5000 (talk) 09:25, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for doing a bit of digging into it. I didn't write the original content but did do a bunch of edits to add some more modern content given my knowledge of the business. This was the first time I had contributed to a Wikipedia page so clearly some learning needed. Could the article not just be reverted to the original, removing my edits if having me write them is a conflict of interest? 2604:3D09:2384:900:3D76:98E:C35A:6AC2 (talk) 02:36, 4 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Star Mississippi 14:57, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.