Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Almaz Capital


 * 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 keep. Randykitty (talk) 18:13, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Almaz Capital

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

A hedge fund with not much in the way of sourcing beyond press releases, created by a paid editor. A WP:G11 was contested, but even after removing large amounts of promotional material, I still can't see how we could improve this so the man in the street would understand the encyclopedic importance. I appreciate the article has been round the houses and improved at AfC, and has been on the Russian Wikipedia for a long time, but there must be something there I just don't get, unfortunately. So let's discuss it. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  16:45, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for starting this conversation . I am the person who nominated it for G11, which I stand by. While it was accepted at AfC, I think it was promotional. I also have some concerns about the AfC reviewer given that they also accepted Nyotron. Following the G11 decline, I then removed a substantial percentage of the promotional aspects. In looking at what remained, as the very start of my BEFORE, I came across two existing Russian language sources  for which I didn't attempt to fully ascertain that they were RS but which definitely suggested the company had received substantial independent secondary coverage and so stopped me from nominating for lack of NCORP notability. So if this concludes we should delete because of PROMO, well I think that's a good outcome, but also think it is likely that this firm would, in a neutrally written version would meet our notability standard. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:24, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. Ceethekreator (talk) 18:45, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Companies-related deletion discussions. Ceethekreator (talk) 18:45, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. Ceethekreator (talk) 18:45, 9 July 2019 (UTC)


 * The question is whether the organisation is notable, not whether it's a good article. Rathfelder (talk) 19:27, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Actually the question is should the article be deleted. Deleting because of lack of notability is the most common reason but that does not, in my way of thinking, preclude deletion (or alternatives to deletion) for other policy based reasons. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:42, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Finance-related deletion discussions. North America1000 20:08, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. North America1000 20:08, 9 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep: 1) The sources mentioned above: forbes (staff written) and vedomosti are definitely RS and prove the WP:NCORP. The article as accepted by me had over 40 citations, and was mostly a direct translation of the Russian version of the article that has been around since 2008. When  has removed what he refers as "promotional content" he also removed more than 2/3 of citations. Alamaz is one of the biggest / successful venture funds in Russian (post Soviet) Eastern Europe, that is a significant corporation and has massive influence. I am puzzled how can a man from the street not understand the encyclopedic importance of that. In my opinion when dealing with subjects that have majority of coverage in a foreign language and there is an existing established page we should almost defer to the editors on that Wiki when it comes to questions of notability. But we don't have to, here is a Wiki list of Notable Venture Capital firms i just clicked through 10 of them and many of them include similar info to the one deleted by Barkeep49 (history of recent exits for example) and the ones that don't list the history of exits have less RS sources and news coverage than Almaz. So if you AFD Almaz why not all those other ones, this makes no sense.
 * P.S.( is your reference to Nyotron questioning my motives? Otherwise i don't see how it's relevant to this AFD) Shemtovca (talk) 01:22, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * You're right that this is not the right forum for any concerns I might have about you and I have stricken the comment. However, the idea that a whole string of press releases and/or churnalism helps convey notability and isn't promotional is one I disagree with. I also think the other stuff exists doesn't change whether or not the content for this article was promotional. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:43, 10 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep I agree with the sentiment expressed by Shemtovca; is there a mechanism for notifying the editors of the Russian version of this entry about this AfD? Looking at search results in Yandex (Russia's top search engine) and narrowing it down to the year of launch (2008), I'm seeing many articles that are probably independent, but I'll be the first to admit I don't know these publications. Examples: 1234. Of course sustained coverage is necessary, and these refs only show proof that the company's launch and early activity was notable, but I'm pretty sure that if we sifted past all of the brief mentions (founder said this, partner said that) we'd find plenty more examples of substantial independent coverage between 2008 and today, between Yandex and Google. Pegnawl (talk) 18:57, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Three important notes:
 * 1) Let me quote my own reasoning from AfC. I will try to show, that Almaz Capital's notability for venture capital market is reflected in publications that suffice for reliable sources. The history of the fund has received significant coverage in multiple, independent, reliable publications in leading business and technological mass media. The oldest Russian business newspaper Kommersant extensively covered activities of Almaz Capital including transactions (2009 - investment in Parallels, 2015 - investments in data centers) and its internal life (2012 - detailed publication about the conflict between its founders). The second major Russian business newspapear Vedomosti also covered events that took place in Almaz Capital. There were publications about the establishment of Almaz Capital, fund raising, internal conflict, and numerous investments. In particular, the publication about purchase a stake in Yandex  called the fund “one of the largest IT investors in Russia”. Forbes published a huge editorial article devoted to history of the fund entitled “How the Alexander Galitsky Foundation became the leader of the venture capital market”. It covers the history of the fund, its organization and principles, partners and most notable deals. The links proviced clearly indicate that Almaz Capital complies with WP:NCORP.
 * 2) Before the nomination  removed a section of article that covered Almaz Capital's invesments and exits. The uncut version of the article is avaliable through the revision history. Investments are the core activity of venture capital (VC) firms, so a short representation of fund's portfolio is as important as corporate history. I looked through the Category:Venture capital firms of the United States and found out that most of them have short lists of invesments (even with short descriptions of portfolio companies' businesses!). Check the following articles: Accel, Silverton Partners, Index Ventures, Balderton Capital, Union Square Ventures, Valar Ventures, Tenaya Capital, Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst, and others.
 * 3) The version of this article submitted for AfC additionally included the Almaz Capital's general and managing partners. Core teams are important for VC firms and that's why some of them carry partners' names, i.e. Andreessen Horowitz. I believe Bloomberg profiles generally suffice as RS for such a list 'cause they are basically a in-deepth reviews provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence and not the Bloomberg itself. You can see the list of partners in articles such as Kleiner Perkins, TechOperators, Founders Fund, etc. Gruznov (talk) 13:13, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep per Shemtovca, Best - Blake44 (talk) 22:38, 15 July 2019 (UTC)


 * 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.