World's largest life insurance company Options

[thekohser]

In terms of stock market capitalization (slightly bigger than size-cohorts Pfizer, Oracle, and H-P), the world's largest life insurance company is China Life Insurance Company.

Wikipedia has devoted 240 words to it (2,821 bytes).

Another Wikipedia "Proportional Coverage" WIN !

[thekohser]

Meanwhile, a company with annual revenues of $2.4 billion, net earnings of $275 million, a product that is used in every one of the 50 largest U.S. banks, and nearly 9,000 employees...

no article in Wikipedia.

I won't name them, because I don't want some Wikipediot taking it out on them with some new defamation platform called an unwatched article.

[Milton Roe]

In terms of stock market capitalization (slightly bigger than size-cohorts Pfizer, Oracle, and H-P), the world's largest life insurance company is China Life Insurance Company.

Wikipedia has devoted 240 words to it (2,821 bytes).

Another Wikipedia "Proportional Coverage" WIN !

They are making progress, though. The finally rid themselves of the abominable [[List of Chinese people]]. But they retain List of Chinese British people (people from China who've moved to the UK) . However, no list of British Chinese people. Perhaps people don't GO the other way. If they do, en.wp, at least, takes no notice.

[Eva Destruction]

no article in Wikipedia.

Translation: Nobody cares, or they'd have written one. Have you suddenly become possessed by the spirit of Blofeld and now think Wikipedia needs a shitty little stub on every damn thing in the world?

[Ottava]

Size has nothing to do with the article. It is Chinese company and there is very little in terms of media coverage than, say, a well-known New York based company. Just because you made it to the top doesn't make you interesting to people, especially when you are based in a country that has an iron grip on the media.

[gomi]

As much as I like to beat up on Wikipedia, I'm not on board with this one. Greg's position buys into the notion that more is better when it comes to this kind of online resource. More is not better, more is worse. I'm pretty sure (I'm not home, so I haven't checked) that Encyclopedia Britannica does not have an article on China Life, nor probably on Arch Coal.

Should there be a comprehensive online business resource? Probably yes. Should it be an "encyclopedia"? Probably not.

I'm sure that many will accuse me of silly semantics, but I think there is something quite pernicious is this dumbing-down of the terminology. The issue here is that the requirements for a business directory are different that those for a science review, which are different from those for "Who's Who", and yet still different from a history text or a review of current events. Yet in Wikipedia, all of these things are lumped into one (broken) process, and the resulting massive Pile O' Trivia, Facts, and Cruft is called -- misleadingly -- an "encyclopedia".

So I think "Wikipedia Review" is actually a great idea -- as a comprehensive business directory. But let's not pretend that it is a repository of critical and/or negative information about business practices, an investment guide, or a recipe book. Similarly, an open, opt-in biography site like WikiPeople probably has a place -- not to gather salacious information about Tiger Wood's trysts or to further defame the victims of Internet memes, but to satisfy the vanity buzz of those with that itch.

But fer Chrissake, keep it out of my "encyclopedia"! Everyking and other wiki-apologists will no doubt cry "OldThink", but there is value in the concept of a broad but comparatively shallow review of settled science, history, biography (mostly of dead people) and similar topics, written by scholars and assembled by a largely unbiased editorial staff. But I don't want a group of (e.g.) Apple iPad partisans, or Microsoft partisans, or Israel/Palestine partisans, or Irish partisans, or Scientology partisans, or Aveyuridic medicine partisans or anyone else duking it out on the pages of an "encyclopedia".

The message is this: one of the central things that is broken about Wikipedia gets talked about this least: this "sum of all human knowledge" crap. Data is not knowledge, and an unorganized melange of reliable and unreliable data is of no more value than its least reliable component.

Someone once said it here, I forget who: "Add one drop of sewage to 100 gallons of wine, and you no longer have wine, you have 100 gallons of sewage."

[Somey]

Someone once said it here, I forget who: "Add one drop of sewage to 100 gallons of wine, and you no longer have wine, you have 100 gallons of sewage."

I think that was me. The complete saying is, "Add a spoonful of wine to a barrel of sewage, you get sewage. Add a spoonful of sewage to a barrel of wine, you get sewage"...

Anyway, I'm not sure how I feel about this particular issue myself. Wikipedia's coverage of businesses and corporations is probably the most uneven, inconsistent, and generally inadequate area of the whole website, in terms of both coverage and quality, and that's saying a lot. Nevertheless, in the case of China Life, it seems logical enough to me that the article on them should be somewhat proportional size-wise to the number of policyholders in English-speaking countries, as opposed to overall/globally. And if you look at the articles on, say, Aviva (T-H-L-K-D) or Liberty National (T-H-L-K-D), they're not much bigger than the one on China Life.

Meanwhile, the article on synthesizer-maker Korg (T-H-L-K-D) is still bigger than any of them, and even after we noticed this about 6 months ago, it still contains sentences like: "Improving on the almost perfect Pa1X Pro/Elite was a difficult challenge, that Korg faced with the usual, savvy sense of adventure." I doubt you'd see something like that in an insurance company article, like, ever.

[everyking]

But fer Chrissake, keep it out of my "encyclopedia"! Everyking and other wiki-apologists will no doubt cry "OldThink", but there is value in the concept of a broad but comparatively shallow review of settled science, history, biography (mostly of dead people) and similar topics, written by scholars and assembled by a largely unbiased editorial staff.

Well, you've already got Britannica. Are you unhappy with it? Do you think Wikipedia needs to fill that role?

The world has already got resources like you describe. What it does not have, with the exception of Wikipedia, is an information resource that is vast and detailed in scope, up to date, and organized in an encyclopedic format.

[Eva Destruction]

Wikipedia, is an information resource that is vast and detailed in scope, up to date, and organized in an encyclopedic format.

[Theanima]

Wikipedia is not a site to host an article on everything that ever existed. It's intended to be an encyclopedia.

If it has been written about significantly in multiple reliable information sources, it is probably worth an article. Otherwise, we aren't missing it. Wikipedia is at the stage where it's not really a big deal if there's an article missing.

And as Gomi said, more is worse. It's more to maintain and keep up to date.

[Milton Roe]

I think that was me. The complete saying is, "Add a spoonful of wine to a barrel of sewage, you get sewage. Add a spoonful of sewage to a barrel of wine, you get sewage"...

But it's wrong. If you add a spoonful of sewage to a barrel of wine, you merely get a barrel of fake aged Gamay...

[Kelly Martin]

In terms of stock market capitalization (slightly bigger than size-cohorts Pfizer, Oracle, and H-P), the world's largest life insurance company is China Life Insurance Company.

One of my clients is one of the top twenty reinsurance companies in the United States; they have no article at all on Wikipedia. I imagine they're perfectly fine with that. (They are, of course, listed in most major business directories.)

[EricBarbour]

Meanwhile, the article on synthesizer-maker Korg (T-H-L-K-D) is still bigger than any of them, and even after we noticed this about 6 months ago, it still contains sentences like: "Improving on the almost perfect Pa1X Pro/Elite was a difficult challenge, that Korg faced with the usual, savvy sense of adventure." I doubt you'd see something like that in an insurance company article, like, ever.

I know that Korg employees edit that article.
They go around joking about it at trade shows, in fact.

Suck it, Everyking. There's your "open encyclopedia" in failure.

[thekohser]

no article in Wikipedia.

Translation: Nobody cares, or they'd have written one. Have you suddenly become possessed by the spirit of Blofeld and now think Wikipedia needs a shitty little stub on every damn thing in the world?

I guess you missed the part about: "a company with annual revenues of $2.4 billion, net earnings of $275 million, a product that is used in every one of the 50 largest U.S. banks, and nearly 9,000 employees..."

I guess Elonka Dunin is a more important damn thing than that.

P.S. I also agree with Gomi. Except that Wikipedia Review is also a repository for recipes.

This post has been edited by thekohser: Sun 18th April 2010, 1:36pm

[BelovedFox]

In terms of stock market capitalization (slightly bigger than size-cohorts Pfizer, Oracle, and H-P), the world's largest life insurance company is China Life Insurance Company.

One of my clients is one of the top twenty reinsurance companies in the United States; they have no article at all on Wikipedia. I imagine they're perfectly fine with that. (They are, of course, listed in most major business directories.)

Why would you want a Wikipedia article for that? It just gives people a place to either post incorrect and malicious things about your company, or entirely true things about your company you'd rather keep hidden. The right people can find you, as you point out; why would you gamble time and energy on something you can't keep control of in the best of circumstances.

[Ottava]

Well, you've already got Britannica. Are you unhappy with it? Do you think Wikipedia needs to fill that role?

Yes. Britannica did a piss poor job. We need to beat them at their own game. For starters, Britannica doesn't give sources for their information with inline citations. That allows them to mix verified academic information with fantasy, which happens often. My pages are more appropriate for students, researchers, and people who care about scholarship than the equivalent Britannica pages.

[A Horse With No Name]

Except that Wikipedia Review is also a repository for recipes.

Really? Would you want my octopus stew recipe?

[Milton Roe]

Except that Wikipedia Review is also a repository for recipes.

Really? Would you want my octopus stew recipe?

Every great cooking-culture has an octopus stew recipe.

-- Anthony Bourdain

[Shalom]

Meanwhile, a company with annual revenues of $2.4 billion, net earnings of $275 million, a product that is used in every one of the 50 largest U.S. banks, and nearly 9,000 employees...

no article in Wikipedia.

I won't name them, because I don't want some Wikipediot taking it out on them with some new defamation platform called an unwatched article.

Annaly Capital Management?

[CharlotteWebb]

Annaly Capital Management?

They should hire the goatse man to do commercials. Couldn't be more annoying than what Geico and Capital One have to offer.

This post has been edited by CharlotteWebb: Sun 18th April 2010, 10:52pm