Requests for Comment/Banning pages about "business practices"

{{ClosedRfC|This conversation has died down and clearly there is ambiguity on the best path here. Support to not use this naming system slightly outweighs the opponents, but that alone isn't the answer. I think the answer is fairly semantic and we shouldn't worry too much. So here's my plan, which I advise admins to consider for this.

The bigger question is if the company is appropriate for a wiki, at least, that seems to be how the whole 'business practices' affair started. That should be discussed before the page is even made, and how to address it should be settled. By default, being on a wiki means just using the company's name and leaving it at that. Slapping 'business practices' or any other name on top should be a decision agreed upon by the community through talk page discussion (ie, as a compromise if only certain parts of the company are the real issue). This is not a ban, but it does mean that using the name should not be the first option and admins should enforce the regular naming until decided otherwise. Existing 'business practices' pages should be returned to their default name and if there is any issue from this, there should be a discussion. Any questions with this ruling may be asked in the comments. --Raidarr (talk) 13:26, 30 January 2022 (UTC) | In the past, pages about a company's "business practices" have been quite controversial among the wikis. This is for good reason, as these types of pages have proven from time and time again to be a bad idea. Here's my reasons for wanting these pages wiped off the wikis:
 * 1) Perhaps the biggest reason is how irrelevant adding "business practices" to the title of a page is. All of the pages about companies mostly go over their business practices anyways since they're what mainly affects the quality of a company. What doesn't help is that if you remove all mention about the page being about a company's business practices, that page will play out no differently than a page that isn't about "business practices". Since only some pages about companies have this title, this brings me to my next point.
 * 2) Downplaying: Adding this phrase to the title of a page comes across as unfairly defending the company and downplaying their bad actions. As mentioned before, a lot of what makes a company good or bad is their business decisions anyways, which brings up this question: Why do some companies get special treatment on the wikis? Most other pages lack the "business practices" in their titles, which comes across as inconsistent at best, and hypocritical at worst. If we went by this flawed logic, then that means even godawful companies like Activision or EA will also have to have their respective pages be about their "business practices".
 * 3) Because of the above-mentioned bias, these pages tend to have poorly written content that's absent in normal pages about companies. All of the pages I've seen contained finger-pointing at some point or another, with no evidence whatsoever. A few examples include blaming all of Nintendo's problems on Doug Bowser and NOA or pinning all of ViacomCBS Domestic Media Networks' problems on a few key people. There was even redeeming qualities on these pages that claim that most of the problems are to be blamed on these certain people, which doesn't even make any difference whether or not they're a bad company or not.
 * 4) Troubled history: The idea of making pages about "business practices" was suggested by a user who had a long history of causing drama just for the sake of it, as well as being biased and opinionated when it came to editing, which is always a red flag. There have been plenty of users who showed opposition to these pages, providing similar arguments to what has been mentioned, and there have been users defending these pages, claiming that these companies are still good. This of course leads to recurring drama and conflict over the title of these pages, something that normal company pages have almost never spawned.

The red flag has been ignored for too long at this point, and it's about time we do something about this nonsense (preferably stopping it for good). Let me know what you think about this, whether it be more reasons for support, or reasons to counter this RfC. To clear up confusion, the current pages about "business practices" won’t be deleted, they will be moved and rewritten.

Support

 * 1) Doesn’t make sense. By majority, you can just dump the reasons in the main page. JrStudios (talk) 19:55, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Supporting by default since I'm the proposer. --Blazikeye535 (talk) 04:24, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 1) Absolutely yes. This only makes us look like bunch of fanboys who still consider a certain company as good, only blaming business practices, which, oh irony, is a large part of company's reputation and affects on its managment. Never again do that stupid decision like this "business practices" excuse. —A llistayrian  (💬) 22:51, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Because you said that business practices are part of a company's reputation, Does this mean that articles like "Disney's business practices" on Awful Movies will have to be renamed simply "Disney" if it has more bad qualities than good? FrankInHD2010 (talk) 02:59, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Unless adding Disney themselves to the wiki stirs up backlash the same way adding Nintendo themselves to CGW did, maybe. SuperStreetKombat (talk) 02:59, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 1) Yes, because just as what Allistayrian said, business practices are part of a company's reputation, and having the "business practices" name in a title while considering the company good makes us look overdefensive, in fact, most of the companies on the negative wikis mainly talk about their business practices, yet their pages are still titled to just the company. Dragonite (talk) 23:05, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 2) You won't get an argument from me. SuperStreetKombat (talk) 23:05, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 3)  The downplaying must be put to an end. Marxo Grouch  (talk) 23:47, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 4) Either we critique the whole company or don't. Don't use business practices only. If they suck, they suck. Even if their games rocked. 23:16, 25 December 2021 (EST)
 * 5) I think it's best to just have a small note on the company's page, like 'Notable Events'. Very rarely would I think a company deserves an entire page on one single act. ZeusDeeGoose (talk) 04:27, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 6) This makes us look biased toward the companies that have such pages, which makes the wikis look less reliable and more unprofessional as a result. It also looks incredibly inconsistent with companies that don't have their pages like that on the negative wikis. Plus, their business practices are exactly why a company went downhill in the first place, so having the page as "business practices" looks odd. Wing Commander confed star.pngTigerBlazer  05:03, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * How does having articles specific to a company's business practices make the wiki look biased or have anything to do with professionalism? If anything that is being specific. Bad business practices are additionally a much easier way to justify than a company with an obvious combination of bad behavior and yet good games that people can enjoy regardless, and not buy if they don't want them. Downplaying is a style of writing, not a formula to build a page as this RfC suggests. --Raidarr (talk) 11:26, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 1) Yes, we can just label them to the Bad Qualities section of the company. The Dunkman (talk) 07:07, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 2) * Sure. Let's shove all of the good company's paltry practices, questionable and atrocious decisions and all their evidences from a separate page on Crappy Games Wiki into the BQ section. That way, readers will notice that this good company has more bad qualities than good ones. What an "ingenious" idea. WikiEditing KATSUMI  Talkrise n' Progrise  10:37, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 3) Almost every major video game company has engaged in bad business practices. Bad business practices lead to decisions generally bad for consumers. In some cases, companies like EA are notorious for this. It would be a good idea to just merge it into the main article. Except for pages about a specific topic that is big enough to deserve it’s own page, such as Sony’s censorship, which in this case Sony Computer Entertainment is not a terrible business but that is one major bad quality.ᗩTOᗰIᑕᔕTᗩᖇ 💬 ⌨ 13:46, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * This is an RFC that, if successful, bans the use entirely including exceptions for reasonable cases as you mention. Failure of this RfC does not preclude the existing practice of 'entirely' bad companies having entirely dedicated pages. --Raidarr (talk) 14:35, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * changing to abstain ᗩTOᗰIᑕ</b>ᔕT</b>ᗩᖇ</b> 💬 ⌨ 04:58, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 1) Feels redundant when we have bad qualities page or a dedicated article to the company which covers their business practices. Techsupport Agent 05 (talk) 28/12/21
 * 2) I think changing the title would be good enough. Also, Atlus makes good games, but is on only crappy games wiki for their business practices. Nintendo, is like the same, however they have a business practices page and a AGW page. I think this shows bias in favour of Nintendo. Nintendo should have a CGW page and AGW page, so should Atlus since they are in the same situation. This should be the new format, change then page titles and that should fix all the down playing.

Oppose

 * 1) I oppose that.
 * Explain why exactly. Plus, use  when you answer for RfC. —A llistayrian  (💬) 22:54, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Who wrote that oppose and why are they against this idea? SuperStreetKombat (User talk:SuperStreetKombat) 23:54, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * According to the page history, the opposer is FrankInHD2010. Now we wait for their reason for opposition. <span style="background:linear-gradient(90deg,crimson,indigo, #ADD8E6); -webkit-background-clip:text !important; -webkit-text-fill-color:transparent;">Marxo Grouch (talk) 23:49, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The reason why i oppose this is because, Sometimes a company can have good products but management is bad. FrankInHD2010 (talk) 02:56, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 1) The rationale behind this RfC I believe to be far weaker than the pages it seeks to address.
 * Making a page that paints a company as outright bad which can just as easily have a mix of good things and good/decent games when the business practices themselves are the true controversy is biased and narrow minded thinking. There is nothing downplaying nor fanboyish about naming something what it is. This does not defend using it for a page that is substantively justified by more than the business practices, though I would still argue the practices themselves and how they pertain to gaming is far more significant as a focus anyways. The games will have been covered. Company wikis exist. Companies aren't even the point of any particular QP wiki. It's the practices that have an actual impact on the end user experience.
 * Nothing about the name inherently creates bias. It's because the creators were biased. So fix the pages and the invalid rationale, like you would for any page.
 * The person who suggested it is not pertinent to the value of the idea.
 * The problem isn't the pages, it's that people don't know how to do them, and the nature of this issue is no different from any other page that simply hasn't been written properly. Therefore, that's my stance. Fix the issue, without defaulting to 19th century surgery. --Raidarr (talk) 01:05, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 1) I don't want the business practices page to be banned. If it true that it was made by a bias user yes but at the same time we need to add a rule about the business practices instead. Here is my take on it.
 * 2) * If the company was well received but was criticized for its behaviour in the business (e.g Disney, Nintendo, Illumation) then it will be called X business practises.
 * 3) * If the company is being negative crticized for poor product's along with the business practise and also treating their customers, actors and/or stuff like trash (e.g EA, Activision, Funimation) then it will be called X. (date when they gone down hill-now/or when they redeemed themselfs)
 * This is basely my take on it as for and you can add the Average Company catagory for their business practise. --CrusaderPrime (talk)
 * 1) I had to return here to QP only to comment on this - the wiki was made partly to hold companies accountable for their anti-consumer practices, and to document related terrible moments in gaming history. To delete these pages and possibly ban them would be a betrayal of this wiki's purpose. Pages can't be biased - only the user who created the biased page in question can. Criticizing a company and its business practices are not mutually exclusive things, though I believe that the two types of page should have a different focus - the company pages focus on the general picture, while the business practices pages go further into detail and focus on truly egregious cases. -- User:Danetheheroofworlds (talk) 09.19, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 2)  Bukkit (talk) 16:46, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Care to explain the reason for your opposition? <span style="background:linear-gradient(90deg,crimson,indigo, #ADD8E6); -webkit-background-clip:text !important; -webkit-text-fill-color:transparent;">Marxo Grouch (talk) 18:52, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 1)  If a beloved company's infamous and controversial decisions overshadow their reputation, and it's hated because of these decisions more than loved, decisions are deemed too controversial (that they deserves being mentioned on CGW) but do not overshadow their overall reputation (like mh:awesomegames:Nintendo or mh:awesomegames:Square Enix) then perhaps we could keep the pages about them. WikiEditing KATSUMI   Talkrise n' Progrise  01:59, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 2)  I'm really worried, that all does, to make companies (regardless of what their products are good or not), ugly immune to bad criticism (as long they're justified or constructive). Just because toxic customers/fans (which I'm guilty of doing this sometimes) don't like to see the truth. As I think we do this for a rotten person(s) for a few wikis. Chad The Gman (talk)

Abstain
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 * 1) I don't know much about this topic myself, but I do believe users have criticised this idea, so maybe. FatBurn0000 (talk) 22:11, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 2) Hmmmm, I'm not quite keen on this, but then again, this would pretty much paint an entirely different portrait (if you know what I mean by that). --DarkMatterMan4500 (talk) 03:24, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 3) It's kinda a mixed bag. I've seen okay articles about business practices. The7Guy (talk) 11:13, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 4) I don't know whether I should support or oppose. Some articles about business practices are okay. Fortdicted (talk) 14:39, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 5) Yes the term "business practices" may sound like we're downplaying things and may have caused drama in the past, but maybe we should do what Raidarr said above: take a better look at the way the page is handled. It's the editors who should be held accountable for bias, not the pages. Just fix invalid rationale and things will be fine. <span style="background:linear-gradient(90deg,crimson,indigo, #ADD8E6); -webkit-background-clip:text !important; -webkit-text-fill-color:transparent;">Marxo Grouch  (talk) 15:39, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * It's both really in that the pages ought to be fixed for the impacts the editors have on them, but yes. I do think the problem and the solution lies in how the pages are written, not how they are named. Bearing in mind as well that this proposal proposes an outright ban of the title's use, precluding exceptions or judgement for reasonable cases where it may be used. --Raidarr (talk) 16:27, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 1) As much as I hate the word "business practices", I still don't know whether I should agree or disagree. :P NewAccountLOL (talk) 15:34, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 2) I am changing my stance to abstain because I think we should ban pages entirely focused on business practices, but such content should be merged into the page about a company. Almost every major video game company has engaged in bad business practices. Bad business practices lead to decisions generally bad for consumers. In some cases, companies like EA are notorious for this. It would be a good idea to just merge it into the main article instead of having a separate article about business practices for neutrality, as OP mentioned.ᗩT</b>Oᗰ</b>Iᑕ</b>ᔕT</b>ᗩᖇ</b> 💬 ⌨ 04:58, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 3) While I'm tired of all the disscussion around them, I think the staff in general has to decide. King Dice (talk) 23:58, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
 * 4) * then you won't believe me if i tell you the purpose of this RfC o.o  to decide it lol, staff included   Yonydesk (talk) 00:55, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
 * 5) It doesn't seem to change much. YellowFrogger (talk) 02:56, 19 January 2022 (UTC)