How to create a great company article

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Here in ICANNWiki we are trying to bring ICANN related companies, such as Registrars, Registries and other related entities from all over the world together by creating an interlinked encylopedia. Whether you represent one of these companies or simply interested in writing something, you are more than welcome to create a company article.

In this article, we will be using MelbourneIT as an example to describe the process of creating an informative company article.

Getting Started

If you haven't already, please read the basic guideline Getting Started where the Neutral Point of View (NPOV), and other general guidelines are discussed.

Collect information

Our aim is to create an informative article for each company, with references which explain where we got the information. As you might expect, an Internet search via Google or another search engine is generally the most effective way to research and find information.

  • To create an article for MelbourneIT, we will be searching for information from three angles. We will perform:
    1. Basic search
    2. Keyword specific search and
    3. Chronological search
  • A basic search is when you simply search with the company name such as "MelbourneIT". This search will of course return the official website(s) of the company and other pages mostly containing the basic information such as a overview or profile for the company.

We will use this information as the base of our article.

Filling the Company Infobox

We can start by using this information to fill the Company Infobox Template.

  • You can collect the company's logo from the official website. Currently ICANNWiki only supports .jpg/.jpeg and .png formats so if the image is in any other format (such as .gif in this case) , you can use any simple image converter such as Windows Paint or Adobe Photoshop to convert the format.
    • Sometimes logos are well defined images and you can just "drag" them off, and other times you may need to "crop" it off the page. This is easy with a Mac, just use the keyboard shortcut (Command-Shift-4). Instructions for PCs can be found here.
    • When uploading a company logo, try to give it a name which includes the name of the company and the word logo, like "ABC-Logo.jpg". If you use just "logo.png" some logos will eventually overwrite others.
  • Most of the information needed for the info box, for example, type, industry, founded, purchase, ownership, headquarters, country, products, revenue, website, etc. you can find from the basic search results.
  • From the MelbourneIT’s official website, pages like "About Us", "History", and "Company Overview" can give us this information. Its always better if we can use sources other than the official websites to collect this information so websites that keep company profiles such as CrunchBase or Yahoo! Finance are of great help too.
  • For some companies, you may not find a profile page with all the information, in that case you can do a keyword specific search. For example, if you can not find when a company was founded from its official website or other sources when you search with only the company name, you can include the keyword "founded" or "established" with the search. Examples of these searches can be "MelbourneIT was founded" or "MelbourneIT" was established" etc.
  • Do remember to properly reference the sources of the information in the content. You can either do it in the inside the infobox or in the introduction part of the content because the introduction is basically an explanation of the facts given in the info box with some additional information.
  • When entering key people, try to get 2-5 key people. If there are 20 you don't need to list them all, that's probably overkill. Also, there is little space in the infobox, so shorten people's titles to make them fit better, so "Executive Vice President" becomes "EVP"
  • Add [[Category:Company]] to the bottom of the page to categorize the article as a company
  • If the company is a Registrar or Registry, then add [[Category:Registrars]] or [[Category:Registries]]

Introduction of the company

In the first part of the article you simply give an introduction of the company such as what kind of company it is, the kind of services it provides, information on the establishment of the company, its headquarters (locations), employees, pertinent statistics and if there is anything else you would like to mention about the company. There is no set rule, you can write about whatever you think is appropriate and would make a good introduction.

History

The topic that comes next is the history of the company. This part of the article mainly covers all the milestones of the company, from its establishment to the present.

  • Some of the companies, such as MelbourneIT, has a "History" page with detailed chronological information included in their official websites. We can use this information to create the history part keeping two things in mind. First, do not copy or paste anything, create your own content based on the information. Secondly, try to include as many references as possible. Typically the companies only use important newsworthy landmarks. So chances are, you can find a lot of references for these events on the internet.
  • Note: It is best to cite sources other than the company's own website and as many different sources as possible.
  • Lets take the first fact for example. It said, in 1996, the University of Melbourne created MelbourneIT. By simply searching with "1996 University of Melbourne MelbourneIT" we can find a viable reference to support that fact. For most of the cases, the history part of the official website will try to summarize every event and by searching for references you can find more detailed information on each event which can help you write more information on the company. In this case, this link has helped to write a whole topic on how MelbourneIT entered the domain registration business.
  • In this way, you can chronologically arrange all important milestones, events or any other information in the history with proper references. You may not find references to all of the points mentioned in the history page, you may not even need to cover all of the points in the first place. Just keep an NPOV policy and include whatever you find necessary and interesting.
  • For some companies, you may not find an organized history page. In that case, you can perform a chronological search starting from the foundation year of the company to the current. For example, MelbourneIT was founded in 1996 and if there is no pre-arranged history information, we could do a search like "MelbourneIT 1996", "MelbourneIT 1997", and "MelbourneIT 1998" to the current year "MelbourneIT 2010". It may sound like a lot of work, but for most of the companies, you will only find information for some of the years. In this way, you are simply making sure that you are not missing any important or interesting information or events.

Products and Services, Awards and other contents

After the history part of the content, you can cover the products and services provided by the company.

  • Collect the information from the company's website, but be careful about how your are interpreting them. As opposed to the company descriptions, you are not trying to sell these services. Cover the basic and keep the description as neutral as possible.
  • Another great part of the content can be awards and recognitions. As with the case of history, sometimes the companies will have a separate "Award" page. Just search with the award name and year and you can find a reference to go with it.
  • If there is no award page, you can search with the company name and the key word awards, for example "MelbourneIT Awards".
  • It's also possible to find information such as any special news like acquisitions, patents, any controversial news or simply anything that you feel does not belong in the previous categories or should be in a separate topic. You have a different topic for this information. For example, MelbourneIT has a separate section about how the company entered in the domain registration business.

And feel free to browse through the existing company articles for more ideas.


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