Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Operational drag


 * 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.  MBisanz  talk 01:54, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Operational drag

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Icky middle-management corporatespeak term with no (as far as I can see) evidence of common usage. Saying that it is 'used in the hedgefund community'=slight evidence of notability. Saying in the next sentence that it was first used by an author in a book less than a year ago = kicking the chair out from under the article. The references are all to do with Operational Risk rather than Operational Drag. Delete. Ironholds (talk) 07:40, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions.   -- • Gene93k (talk) 11:01, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I would have to respectfully disagree with the comments from Ironholds on the following grounds: 1) He begins his objection by stereotyping all so called "middle-management corporatespeak" as "Icky". To me this shows a pre-determined bias against any and all such terms which he lumps into this category. As such, it is clear that he has no rational basis for the rest of his objections and is solely stereotyping this term in an emotional manner

2) There is evidence of common usage of this term. I referenced the website of a hedge fund operational due diligence firm (Corgentum) which speaks in detail about the term Operational Drag. Furthermore, the term has been used in several subscription only hedge fund magazines which are unfortunately not linkable via the web

3) He cites that the fact that the term was first used by an author less than a year ago does not seem a logical grounds for automatic dismissal. Would wikipedia have not allowed a separate entry for the term "Value at Risk" until more than a certain minimum amount of websites or people used it? If so can you please cite me where in the wikipedia guidelines it states that a minimum threshold of people/websites must acknowledge a term before it is acceptable. Clearly by the fact that this term is utilzied in a book, on a consulting firm's website, used by practicioners and in hedge fund journals there is critical mass for this term within the hedge fund community, it is just outside of the Ironholds knowledge base and social network so he dismisses it.

4) Finally Ironholds goes on to criticize the references having to do with operational risk rather than operational drag. It is unclear to me the point he is making here. Operational Drag is a risk management metric used to evaluate the level of operational risk present in a hedge fund. As such, a definition of Operational Drag necessarily must contain references to opertaional risk. That's like saying I can't create an entry about peanut butter because it contains too many references to peanuts. The two terms are necessarily related. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrmiyahi274 (talk • contribs) 17:32, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) so me not liking corporatespeak automatically invalidates the rest of my argument?
 * 2) then provide evidence of this use.
 * 3)My point is rather that it is unlikely to be 'common speak' as you so claim if it was first used less than a year ago, not that this is grounds for automatic dismissal. If it was the page would have been deleted by now.
 * 4)References are designed to show where you got this information from; as such they must be to do with operational drag rather than operational risk. If the article about peanut butter only links to references that describe peanuts rather than peanut butter than yes, that would be an issue. Ironholds (talk) 20:16, 24 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete. No independent sources. Jason Scharfman, who coined the phrase in his book is managing partner of Corgentum. These are the only two sources I could find that use the phrase. The Risk Glossary entry on operational risk, given as a source, does not mention operational drag. Aymatth2 (talk) 19:57, 24 January 2009 (UTC)


 * 1) No that wasn't my point. But I admire your honesty and frankness in ackowledging that you do in fact not like corporatespeak


 * 2) As stated, the vast majority of the evidence I have seen of this term is copyrighted material which is in print and not on the web. Further, a subscription is required to receive this material. In such a situation does Wikipedia not publish articles which refernce such sources?


 * 3) It is unclear to me what expertise you have to judge the common speak of the field of hedge fund operational risk. I am not claiming to be an expert but merely that I read journals on such subjects. As I stated above, the coverage of this seems not to be via a media such as the web but in academic journals. I cannot scan such material and publish it as a refernce because it is copyrighted. So my question again is what are the Wikipedia guidelines for such issues? Deletion of items which cannot be verified as common-speak via the web. Seems a bit discriminatory to me.


 * 4) I understand your point but once again do not see a proper analogy in this case. The Corgetnum link seems to be a viable external resource for me. I do not see how the author working for a particular firm invalidates the reference.

Mrmiyahi274 (talk  —Preceding undated comment was added at 23:34, 24 January 2009 (UTC).
 * It causes a conflict of interest. The author working for the firm undermines the value of that firm using that phrase; they may be using it as a result of him being there, for example. See below for the results of searching 'academic journals'. I've got subscriptions to the ATHENS system that allows me access to a large number of journals; I'll go off and do a search now. Ironholds (talk) 01:43, 25 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Alright, A search for the term 'operation drag' through all the journals indexed by Cambridge, Oxford, Wiley and Blackwell-synergy finds a grand total of 0 results in either title or the full text of articles themselves. Ironholds (talk) 01:46, 25 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete The easiest approach to phrases that might be used in contemporary academic articles is Google Scholar. lt will find at least some of the articles using the term, though it may not lead to any easy way to get to read them except to go to a library. Searching for the phrase such search finds zero articles using it in a business context, and one possible book: "The Five Literacies of Global Leadership" By Richard David Hames, which uses it once. Scopus, a more reliable source to academic journal articles, finds zero. DGG (talk) 01:20, 25 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the input DGG. I do not have access to those databases. My question about those databases would be that since the journals/articles I have read recently are more of the hedge fund media type not sure if either they would fall into those databases or may be too new to be listed. It seems interesting to me that another author has utilized the work as well. A quick google search shows the terms has ammunition bag applications as well. It seems with these varied uses might be worth including with multiple entries. Mrmiyahi274 (talk  —Preceding undated comment was added at 03:34, 25 January 2009 (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.