Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jeff Wellemeyer


 * 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 delete. There appears to be a rough consensus that there is insufficient coverage of the depth required among RS sources to establish notability. Ad Orientem (talk) 23:59, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Jeff Wellemeyer

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The subject of this article appears to fail our notability requirements outlined at WP:BASIC. Most of the sources (which tend towards press releases anyways) provided do not even mention Wellemeyer, and those that do mention him only in passing - he does not inherit notability from the subjects of those articles. A WP:BEFORE search didn't turn up anything better.

Further, this article still reads like a resumee 8 years after its creation. Even if the subject were found notable, WP:TNT applies. VQuakr (talk) 22:35, 27 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment You are absolutely correct with the outdated references, I will work with some people down here and see if we can get it updated. There is a lot of news about what he is doing in Antigua and Barbuda.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.83.82.132 (talk) 18:25, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment. Can you review WP:SHAREDACCOUNT and WP:COI, and clarify who "we" is? VQuakr (talk) 18:37, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment. Sorry, I should have clarified that. I live in Antigua in the West Indies, and I run a IT integrator.  I met Mr. Wellemeyer at a fundraiser a couple of years ago and know about some of the technology he developed in hosted PBX technologies, but I don't know him personally.  He also built a resort here in Antigua.  By "We" I mean by me and wife who is an English major and much better at writing and research than myself.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.83.82.132 (talk) 16:49, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment. I updated a bunch of the media citations, there are quite a bit more that I will do as I can.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.83.82.132 (talk) 16:49, 1 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 02:09, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ad Orientem (talk) 00:12, 4 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment. Just stumbled across this while doing a presentation on the history of VoIP. Wellemeyer pretty much invented the hosted PBX business. In full disclosure, I used to work in the NOC at Teledvance, and I doubt he remembers who I am (maybe he does) but we essentially made the commercial VoIP industry as it exists today.  We (he) essentially created the business of hosted IP telephony.


 * I went through the citations and they all seem to be active from what I can tell. I didn't know about a lot of the other stuff he has done since Teledvance and I am no expert on Wikipedia requirements but from a technology perspective it would seem to me that anyone who starts a technology from scratch and sells it for $120m, and has international development projects where he is doing press conferences with the Prime Minister of foreign countries, qualifies for a Wikipedia page.  No?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.188.116.19 (talk) 02:02, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   07:43, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete Admirable professional accomplishments aside, not enough coverage to meet WP:BIO notability requirements. OhNo itsJamie Talk 17:10, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep I guess maybe from a United States perspective there are more notable people, but certainly from an Antigua and Barbuda perspective he is quite important. I went through and updated the citations, I think if you take the time to read the articles you will agree he is quite notable on a number of fronts.  Much more than typical business accomplishments 208.83.82.132 (talk) 20:08, 11 February 2019 (UTC) — 208.83.82.132 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Keep I’m sorry but I respectfully disagree. I believe this guy does meet the meet WP:BIO notability requirements and a lot of that which he has done with wireless connectivity and VoIP is very notable.   Not sure if you went through and read the articles but the notability is confirmed by other very reliable ie. Yankee Group as well. 96.31.200.13 (talk) 02:43, 12 February 2019 (UTC) — 96.31.200.13 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Delete Fails WP:GNG. I'd also like to note that IP's @96.31.200.13 and @208.83.82.132 have never edited outside the subject of this article and their votes could very well be a case of WP:SOCK. Best, GPL93 (talk) 17:15, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment First, you are absolutely correct. I have never participated in a conversation in Wikipedia and have never been part of any of the discussions as I have never had the need to.   I stumbled across the “Deletion” of the article when I went to reference some information on the new resort opened here and I had a print out of the former Wikipedia article that no longer existed.  I am not sure how many people that are normal Wikipedia editors are familiar with the work what Wellemeyer has done in the IT industry and certainly not on the Island of Antigua.  I was not aware that I had to be a normal editor to provide feedback on an article.  I explained my interest in the article when I made my first comment and while I don’t know him personally, I would like to think it is important that his life’s work is not diminished.  Note per the comment on WP:SOCK, I described this to VQuakr above on my first comment.
 * I read the WP:GNG in detail and I have to disagree. WP:GNG requires "Significant coverage" addresses the topic directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention, but it does not need to be the main topic of the source material.   There are 23 citations all to external publications.  There are a large number of additional publications, but those citations were removed as some were duplicates of the same information.  Should these be added back in?  I am happy to do so if that is appropriate.  I am not sure where the concept of having too many citations for a particular statement comes in.  Of the 23 sources, 21 of them are “secondary sources” and meet the “reliability” requirement as they are major independent news organizations including Gannett, the Courier Journal, Crunchbase, American City Business Journals, the Wall Street Journal and the two main news sources here in Antigua and Barbuda ABS-News and The Antigua Observer.  They also include major IT publications CRN, TMC and Crunchbase.  Additionally, only 2 of the sources could be considered primary as they are press releases and information from wire services.  I would encourage you to look at and read the source material in its entirety, I have learned a lot more about him over the last couple of weeks and I think you will find the article far exceeds WP:GNG requirements. 208.83.82.132 (talk) 23:00, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment. No, spamming references does not help establish notability, and can lead into WP:TNT territory which I mentioned in this nomination. Think quality, not quantity. Can you link the best 3 sources that discuss Wellemeyer in detail? And refs, regardless of reliability, that merely mention the subject do not constitute significant coverage. VQuakr (talk) 01:57, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment Thanks VQuakr I just went through and updated all of the references, no wonder no one could see the sources/citations they were non-existent, I had added some additional a couple weeks ago but didn't go back to look at the old ones, many of which for some reason no longer pointed anywhere. I went through and updated them all manually.  I think I did it correctly and I did not duplicate them when it was the same or similar content simply republished at another source. 208.83.82.132 (talk) 02:21, 13 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment. Ok here goes nothing. This is my first real discussion based on the WP:GUIDELINES so take it easy on me.  Per your request VQuakr I have assembled the most important references and I am confident these exceed the notability requirements outlined in WP:BASIC


 * An overall summary biography can be found published in "Bloomberg Executive Profile". Bloomberg WP:RS by S&P Global is Company proxy information which includes Executive Profile information on directors and officers of large public and private companies. This summarizes the companies Wellemeyer founded and explains how he is credited with “creating the concept behind a centralized delivery of PBX services”


 * Even though notability is not temporary WP:NTEMP as per WP:SUSTAINED his first article in a WP:RS WP:IIS The Courier-Journal, appeared on March 16, 1991 (28 years ago) when he was a Senior in High School. In August of the same year, a second feature article WP:RS WP:IIS was written in Home Office Computing Magazine.  The technology that he developed was exhibited at the Consumer Electronics Show which typically hosts the premier new products and technologies in the consumer electronics industry (Wellemeyer was 18 years old at the time)


 * The articles in major independent publications continued through his career WP:SUSTAINED, covering his “inventions” and first to market technologies. In 1996 with “High-tech firm invents wireless technology for Internet access” Rick Redding, an WP:RS WP:IIS independent feature writer for American City Business Journals details Wellemeyer’s creation of the wireless technology and sourced additional, independent industry experts, including Roberta Wiggins, director of wireless mobile communications at the Yankee Group a Boston-based marketing research group said, “no one in the industry has combined the high bandwidth available through ViperLink with wireless technology.  Some leading computer vendors have plans in development," she said. "What is available has much lower speed."  There are other articles that verify the importance of his technology, but the best is probably the fact that his technology was acquired by Microsoft Co-founder Paul Allen


 * In 2005 Business Wire in a Press Release WP:PRIMARY from the Chicago based VC, MK Capital announced Wellemeyer had raised $15 Million in funding.  In April 2009, Mark Miller of Enterprise Networking a Ziff Davis publication details the significance of Wellemeyer’s Smoothstone company in Part 5 of a technical article on Hosted IP PBX Services and credits the company as being the first Managed VoIP services company in the US (noting they don’t discuss Wellemeyer in this article they do discuss the company and the unique technology he developed). In 2011, there were many major WP:RS [WP:IIS]] that announced the sale of Smoothstone to West Corp. for $120 million and many articles featuring (and picturing) Wellemeyer.


 * In January 2017, Luxury Lifestyles Magazine wrote a feature article on Awakening Antigua Northern Soul featured Wellemeyer and his $120 Million oceanfront Development here in Antigua. In addition, the story complete with the discovery, design and acquisition of the project was covered in detail by both the Antiguan Observer and the Antigua Barbuda TV-10.  Additionally, his press conference with our Prime Minister is televised and archived online.


 * In addition to these direct articles there are some that it appears at one point existed online, but now 20-25 years later, the former links were no longer functioning. While most of these have been removed, in reality under WP:SOURCEACCESS they do not need to be available online to be included as a source.


 * There are dozens of additional articles where Wellemeyer is not the main topic of the article, but is more than a trivial mention, thus meeting the guidelines of WP:SIGCOV however, many of these articles were professional opinions and interviews on a host of technical topics not on Wellemeyer himself. Another group of articles chronical issues with the development(s) in Antigua and while they don’t cover article in full they are much more than a trivial mention WP:BASIC.


 * In summary, after studying all the guidelines in terms WP:BIO requirements, now that the citations are updated appropriately, the article more than meets the WP:GNG requirements.	208.83.82.132 (talk) 06:37, 14 February 2019 (UTC). FYI I now have a Wikipedia Account Dmastic0101 (talk) 21:56, 17 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Strong Delete. There are almost no sources that meet WP's GNG criteria of a significant independent RS "on this subject".  There is no article, independent book (or chapter of a book), tv, or other media that ran a piece "dedicated" to the subject.  The references quoted in his article are mostly the only ones available, and the few that actually mention his name are either passing references  or are linked to the sale of his company (which had 120 employees ).  His claims of notability around technology development are junk, and he appears nowhere in any research of technology books, technology research articles etc. in his area.  He simply took existing tech to sell voicemail systems to local businesses in his area (why most of the references to his company are localised).  It is not even clear how much money he made personally from the sale of his business as investors funded it.  Any references to him in real estate are passing references regarding construction projects in low-grade RS, but again, nothing on him as a notable figure. It is not possible to even make a "glass half full" case that could make WP GNG.  He is just not notable.  Very good spot by . Based on the above WP:SOCKs, I'm guessing we will be seeing a 2nd AfD for this subject, so it is worth doing this AfD properly as record. Britishfinance (talk) 01:49, 18 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment. Britishfinance I respectfully disagree with your assessment.  I am not sure if you are seeing the same citations and talking about the same person or not.   Let me take each one of your statements and respond accordingly.


 * You state there are almost no sources that meet WP's GNG criteria of a significant independent RS "on this subject".


 * This is simply untrue. The sources defined in WP:GNG as WP:RS is very clear, “Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy.”   I will say the two articles you referenced are some of the weakest sources in the articles.


 * The sources of the citations are:


 * The Courier Journal, founded in 1826 is the largest news organization in Kentucky, the paper is the 48th-largest daily paper in the U.S. It has received 9 Pulitzer Prizes and is currently owned by the Gannett Company.


 * Bloomberg Executive Profile, with information provided by S&P Global Intelligence. S&P Global Intelligence is an American publicly traded corporation headquartered in New York City. Its primary areas of business are financial information and analytics and is the majority owner of the S&P Dow Jones Indices.


 * American Cities Business Journals, founded in 1985 is an American newspaper chain based in Charlotte, North Carolina. ACBJ publishes under 6 brands, which reach 4 million readers and has 1900 employees.


 * You further state, "The references quoted in his article are mostly the only ones available, and the few that actually mention his name are either passing references ([1]) or are linked to the sale of his company (which had 120 employees"


 * The information you are stating is not correct as it appears you are getting companies and the articles confused. You cite a story about the voicemail system from 1991 which there is also a second article from the Courier Journal specifically about Wellemeyer.


 * The article [2 ] you reference saying that the company has 120 employees when it was sold is not accurate, as this article is from 2009, when the Smoothstone company was not sold until 2012. There are conflicting information on the number of employees at the time of the sale with one publication saying 320 and another one stating 420.


 * I would suggest you use this article as reference instead, “High-tech firm invents wireless technology for Internet access”


 * Your assertion, “There is no article, independent book (or chapter of a book), tv, or other media that ran a piece "dedicated" to the subject” is completely untrue. Business leaders and entrepreneurs live their lives through their products, technologies, companies and inventions and every news article is going to contain information about more than just the subject themselves.


 * Additionally, you seem to have skipped over the sale of Harlow’s Casino to Churchill Downs for USD$138Million and the sale of Viperink to Paul Allen, or his purchase of the defunct Hodges Bay property here in Antigua.


 * Even though your comment, “It is not even clear how much money he made personally from the sale of his business as investors funded it” should really not apply under WP:GNG I will go down that path with you. In November, the VoiceTimes, which from what I can tell is the local newspaper in Louisville, ran an article on his personal residence describing it as a 13,000sf estate, a door signed by frequent guest Muhammad Ali and a 13 ½ car garage. Obviously, he made a dollar or two from the time he was a senior in high school with his “just selling existing tech to sell voicemail systems to local businesses in his area” as you claim.  Fast forward to 2016 and a little more about what I know of Wellemeyer the article in Luxury Lifestyles and the TV clip from ABSTV-10 describe him and his US$100Million project here in Antigua, despite your characterization of the national newspaper of Antigua & Barbuda and our television station as being “low-grade RS”.  The only way to publicly know what someone is worth (at least in the US) is if they have achieved a Fobes rating of some type which obviously Wellemeyer is not close to , but I think the fact that there are very clearly demonstrated sales of multiples of his businesses in the hundreds of millions of dollars and to publicly traded and sophisticated tech buyers makes your statement that all that, “He simply took existing tech to sell voicemail systems to local businesses in his area” irrelevant.  (I will point out that the Voice Mail business you are referencing in that statement was from 1991 when he was a senior in high school.


 * As far as your accusatory comments with respect to WP:SOCKS. I now seem to be the only one continuing to comment on this discussion. I have been totally upfront about myself and my intentions since the very beginning of this discussion.  Antigua is not the UK and it is not America, there are very few people from this country that are involved in Wikipedia editing or that have a lot of experience with Wikipedia, but that doesn’t mean that we have bad intentions and does not mean that we are doing anything wrong WP:CIVIL.


 * This is really not an argument on opinion or what how you feel about a few select citations in the article, it is a reality that once you look through all the facts, it is clear the article meets the requirements under Dmastic0101 (talk) 03:40, 18 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment. You are under the impression that writing long blocks of text will make up for having no suitable material that supports notability.
 * For the record for future AfDs on this subject, let us go through your argument above:
 * 1. There is no article in The Courier Journal on the subject; however, it there was, it is too local to demonstrate national notability. We delete well-referenced articles to local journals for town mayors, politicians, public servants, some of whom have over 10 full bios in their local/regional papers, but they get deleted.
 * 2. Bloomberg Executive Profile lists names. It supports existance not notability.  I appear in this, but it would not support my BLP.
 * 3. The American Cities Business Journals is a PR article for your firm launching a new product; ViperLink turned out to be a non-notable technology (if it even ever was a new technology), and would never get a WP article as such. A review of WP:GNG sources for Viperlink is just as blank as for this subject.
 * 4. Selling a business or asset does not give you notability when your name is mentioned in passing (and sometimes not at all).  This is not by accident.  For example, it could be that you only owned 1% of these assets, and hence the reason why your name is only mentioned in passing (and sometimes not at all) is because RS knew this, and thus it emphasizes your lack of notability.  None of these transactions ever (ever) prompted an RS to do a piece on you (as the subject). Ever.
 * 5. There is an odd section where you "go down that path" re wealth, but it gives nothing that supports a BLP. It does however strongly imply that you are the subject with WP:COI
 * 6. Regarding WP:SOCKS, you are now confident that "the only one continuing to comment on this discussion". Reflect on that.
 * 7. And after all that text, we are still left with the same fact-base, which does not support WP notability for your BLP.
 * Britishfinance (talk) 10:51, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Comment. First, you are arguing with me as if this is an argument, I am taking on for myself personally. It is not. This guy doesn’t know me and given how low of a profile he keeps, I don’t know if he would even want this article. This is me arguing for a guy that is well known in the VoIP industry and well known on the Island of Antigua. I really feel you need to look at this coverage holistically, on his contributions and notoriety, as opposed to trying to poke holes in individual 20+ year old articles. Second, I am not under that impression that long responses make up for anything. I wrote the long response in hopes of you reading through the materials in their entirety. You are back to an argument that does not make sense or effect WP:GNG.

Let me again provide a constructive response to your statements: 1.	''There is no article in The Courier Journal on the subject; however, it there was, it is too local to demonstrate national notability. We delete well-referenced articles to local journals for town mayors, politicians, public servants, some of whom have over 10 full bios in their local/regional papers, but they get deleted.''

I don’t understand why you are alleging there is no article in the Courier Journal. Please following this link. There is no requirement of which you speak in WP:GNG and town mayors, politicians and public servants are deleted because they are not notable for anything other than for one thing in a small geography.

2.	''Bloomberg Executive Profile lists names. It supports existance not notability. I appear in this, but it would not support my BLP.''

I agree with you this supports existence not notability, but it does show Wellemeyer was an officer of a publicly traded company and it provides an independent background from a third party.

3.	''The American Cities Business Journals is a PR article for your firm launching a new product; ViperLink turned out to be a non-notable technology (if it even ever was a new technology), and would never get a WP article as such. A review of WP:GNG sources for Viperlink is just as blank as for this subject.''

I don’t believe you are reading all the articles in American City Business Journals on his company. This is the first article which is not a press release, it contains third party interviews and information including an interview with Roberta Wiggins, director of wireless mobile communications at the Yankee Group, a Boston-based marketing research group, said “no one in the industry has combined the high bandwidth available through ViperLink with wireless technology”. That article is followed by this one a year and a half later, where more details of the rollout are confirmed and indicated Wellemeyer’s 50% ownership in the business. In September of the following year this article discusses that ViperLink is now available in five cities and details the sale of the business to Paul Allen’ Darwin networks.

Again, in your analysis you are taking one business and one technology. This is a lot bigger than that and I think you need to look at it holistically. Wellemeyer’s main notoriety, and how I know of him, came from his work in the hosted/cloud VoIP services business and Smoothstone. I would encourage you to explore those articles.

4.	''Selling a business or asset does not give you notability when your name is mentioned in passing (and sometimes not at all). This is not by accident. For example, it could be that you only owned 1% of these assets, and hence the reason why your name is only mentioned in passing (and sometimes not at all) is because RS knew this, and thus it emphasizes your lack of notability. None of these transactions ever (ever) prompted an RS to do a piece on you (as the subject). Ever.''

I completely agree with you. However, there are multiple businesses here and obviously he owned a significant chunk of them or he would likely not be buying $100 Million resorts in the Caribbean. I would encourage you to re-read the articles on some of the transaction as not only is he talked about in the sale transaction but is pictured in a couple of the them.

5.	''There is an odd section where you "go down that path" re wealth, but it gives nothing that supports a BLP. It does however strongly imply that you are the subject with WP:COI''

I don’t know what you are talking about. You were the one that was making the argument that he did not meet the WP:GNG because he did not own enough of the businesses. I was simply stating in the “going down the path” that according to WP:GNG wealth does not have to play a part in determining WP:GNG. I don’t think anyone would argue that the fact that Jimmy Wales is not worth hundreds of millions of dollars does not change his notoriety.

6.	''Regarding WP:SOCKS, you are now confident that "the only one continuing to comment on this discussion". Reflect on that.''

I am very confused. I would imagine most people would say “who cares?”, this is not worth my time to fight, and I am honestly about at that point. One person decides to get involved and stand up for someone that they barely know and feel strongly about and the community of Wikipedia just slams them for it? Accuses them of WP:COI

7.	And after all that text, we are still left with the same fact-base, which does not support WP notability for your BLP.

Forget it. I’m out. You win. It’s not worth the fight and I don't even have a dog in this one. Do what you want. Obviously, you know more than everyone else. Dmastic0101 (talk) 18:37, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete - The sources are a collection of articles which mention Wellemeyer but none of which actually are about him. No significant coverage. shoy (reactions) 18:59, 18 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Note. I just placed a request for this discussion to be close here. Thank you all! &#8213; MJL -Talk-☖  21:17, 18 February 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.