Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rishon Blumberg


 * 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. A consensus of editors find that the sources offered do not satisfy the requirements necessary for notability. Barkeep49 (talk) 03:37, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Rishon Blumberg

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Unremarkable biography, I'm not seeing many sources add up, getting a sniff of COI    Kadzi    (talk) 21:39, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions.     Kadzi    (talk) 21:39, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Adding sources User:kbaker121 —Preceding undated comment added 23:11, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete a non-notable businessperson.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:28, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of New York-related deletion discussions. North America1000 23:21, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Objection - I refer you to The New Yorker article cited. It’s a long feature article, and given the speed with which the Kadzi green sign posted its nomination for deletion, I find it hard to believe that it was read with due consideration before that step was taken. Please correct me if I’m wrong, because this article is the most exceptional source cited in terms of demonstrating why Blumberg’s career and the company he co-founded, 10x Management, are both notable and remarkable - and thus worthy of deeper consideration by the Wikipedia community. The New Yorker is not a business publication but a cultural magazine with a longstanding worldwide reputation - it’s remarkable in itself that the magazine devoted a feature article to spotlighting a company in the tech world like 10x. The article documents a major shift in the realm of tech which the author argues is having a profound impact on our culture as a whole (key quote: “The world is being rebuilt in code.”) Virtually every issue she investigates can be cross-referenced with the other sources cited, which include articles, interviews and quotes by Blumberg about the shortage of tech talent and the resulting “tech wars”; gaps in education, business skills, and interpersonal skills among the very programmers who are rebuilding our world in code; pay inequity; and more. The New Yorker writer fact-checks her findings against opposing viewpoints, and circles back to how these viewpoints stand up on closer inspection of the 10x model. See for yourself, but in my book it’s clear that the writer characterized the solutions that 10x has come up with to address these issues as remarkable. I would think that the Wikipedia community would be especially well-placed to assess the achievements of an individual whose work has led to such breakthroughs in elevating the position of talented coders in our culture and workplace. I await a full assessment and welcome suggestions for improvement. User:kbaker121 —Preceding undated comment added 4:33, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
 * How much did they pay you to write that? The source you have given seems very one sided, I would almost say it is an opinion piece from Lizzie Widdicombe of the New Yorker.    Kadzi    (talk) 20:58, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Note You can clearly see this page is unambiguously advertising for these '10x' companies as well, just look at the direct links in the opening paragraph    Kadzi    (talk) 21:04, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
 * To reiterate - I welcome suggestions for improvement. Do you have any? User:kbaker121 21:48, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spartaz Humbug! 06:30, 11 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep - This article satisfies the criteria for Biographies of living persons. Most importantly, the article cites several reliable secondary sources including several high quality sources of direct relevance to the person’s notability in Forbes, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Bloomberg, CNBC, and the BBC. The article also cites a co-authored book published by HarperCollins as well as four articles written by the subject published in reputable outlets including the Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, Nasdaq, and Talent Quarterly, along with TV appearances on CNBC, Bloomberg Television, and BBC News. It also satisfies the criteria for writing style and privacy concerns. User:kbaker121 (talk) 20:08, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment Just picking out some of your examples, the Forbes article reads like an opinion piece written by a contributor (not forbes published), the BBC video is part of a bbc magazine not a news piece, and the self-published sources cannot be used to assert notability as they should be independent of the subject which those are not. This person to me has no notability. The whole page read likes an advertisement from a non neutral point of view.    Kadzi    (talk) 17:33, 15 June 2020 (UTC)



You have made it abundantly clear that, in your opinion, the subject has no notability. But the evidence you have provided does not hold up.

The author of the Forbes article referenced (more than one article is cited, I had expected each to have been given due consideration before any consequential decision was made) is Jon Younger. Among many other achievements, Younger is the co-author of the book “Agile Talent”, and discusses some of the book's concepts in a 2016 article for the Harvard Business Review. The article opens with the sentence “We see big changes ahead in performance management”. That is an opinion, but one that is based on Younger’s experience (detailed in the bio linked to above as well as at the foot of the HBR article) and which focuses on the rapidly growing importance of freelancers in the business world. This is the man who called Rishon Blumberg an early mentor. The opinions of Younger, Blumberg and others are clearly of value to the business community, otherwise they would not have been invited to provide articles and perspectives to such high-quality media outlets.

I’d also like to challenge your implied assumptions about the status of Forbes contributors. In 2018, Forbes’ chief content officer and editor wrote an article entitled “Why Forbes Is Investing Big Money In Its Contributor Network” in which he states “More than seven years in [after introducing the Forbes contributor network], we’re strengthening the contributor platform, implementing several important changes that reinforce quality content, our commitment to contributors and our goal for our expanding full-time newsroom”. He then outlines a new policy of having paid contracts for every contributor, increasing the pay rates for contributors, and introducing new perks for contributors. Even if the articles cited in the article were technically “not forbes published” (sic), not only does this new policy demonstrate the increasingly high value Forbes has been placing on its contributors (note the mention of some contributors who had been paid over $200k per year), but substantiates Younger's opinions - which were formed while being mentored by Blumberg - that freelancers make vitally important contributions to business success, yet this only gained wide recognition in the business world years after those opinions had been expressed.

Regarding the BBC source, the link I provided goes to a page with the clear title "News". Immediately below the video there is a text link that says “Why you can trust BBC News”. The only mention of the word “magazine” I could find was in the URL, where it appears as a subcategory (“www.bbc.com/news/av/magazine", which does not itself link to an active page). All of which provides strong (if not overwhelming) evidence that it is indeed a news site - and that the average Wikipedia user would likely come to the same conclusion (as would the tens of millions of people across the globe who watch or listen to BBC News virtually every day, and for whom the BBC is virtually synonymous with high quality news - including me, who grew up and started my career in England watching the 9 o'clock news on BBC1 and listening to it on Radio 4 and on the World Service).

Regarding the self-published sources, you have once again made it patently clear that, in your opinion, these are unacceptable additions. Yet according to Wikipedia's own guidelines, they are indeed acceptable. To quote from the relevant section on the Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons page: “Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, and tweets—as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the article (my bold). "Self-published blogs" in this context refers to personal and group blogs. Some news organizations host online columns that they call blogs, and these may be acceptable as sources so long as the writers are professionals and the blog is subject to the newspaper's full editorial control (my bold).”

Finally, I propose that any actionable opinion must explain how the subject's book deal with HarperCollins - one of the Big Five English-language publishing houses - does not establish notability when considered alongside the subject's other achievements.

I look forward to a broader perspective being brought by additional members of the Wikipedia community. User:kbaker121 (talk) 22:11, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Be careful with WP:WALLOFTEXT, I am making no further comment as I have put my case forward.    Kadzi    (talk) 22:27, 15 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Comment I've been giving some more thought to Dr. Kadzi's claim above that the BBC webpage linked to in the article was a magazine and not a news site. The only plausible explanation I can come up with, after having a closer look as described above, is that Dr. Kadzi read the URL and not the article. Dr. Kadzi has said he is making no further comment. Can someone clarify? Does Wikipedia categorize citations on the basis of words included as subcategories in URLs or through an assessment of the target site itself? More importantly, how thoroughly does an AfD designation need to be conducted in order to meet the standards of the Wikipedia community? I respect those standards and have been abiding by them for a decade now. For example, I have freely contributed to the Almeida Theatre page both under my current user name and under TrillionsinBaikal. For all the reasons outlined above, I am left with little confidence that Dr. Kadzi has fairly applied those standards in this instance. User:kbaker121 (talk) 16:05, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

<div class="xfd_relist" style="border-top: 1px solid #AAA; border-bottom: 1px solid #AAA; padding: 0px 25px;"> Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: It would be really useful if the creator of this article stopped posting to allow more uninvolved editors to chime in.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spartaz Humbug! 07:46, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Comment A couple of points of clarification. 1) I've been paid my entire career to write mission-related grant proposals for non-profits. This is the first time I've been accused of a conflict of interest for being paid for a mission-related writing project i.e. to advance Wikipedia's mission. 2) The key issue here is the notability threshold. My central thesis is that the work of Blumberg and 10x have uniquely disrupted the way our data, which is now more valuable than oil, is handled by elevating that to a status akin to that of an art form - and that our world is all that much better for it. User:kbaker121 (talk) 14:02, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete Pure PR page written by an admitted paid contributor. Emeraude (talk) 11:36, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
 * The author of this page needs to take account of the principle, "the lady doth protest too much". If it takes so many words to defend this page then people will come to the conclusion that it can't be notable. We get that you probably won't get paid if this is deleted, but that is not among our notability criteria. Phil Bridger (talk) 10:52, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete — if you have to pay someone to create an article for you that per se is indicative of the obvious. Anyways, subject of the article fails to meet our general notability criteria. Celestina007 (talk) 11:59, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete The consensus is clear here... the only person defending this is the creator of the article. --Micky (talk) 17:33, 20 June 2020 (UTC) Blocked sockpuppet Malcolmxl5 (talk) 03:29, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete as per nom./consensus -Hatchens (talk) 04:48, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete - Non-notable. Nonsensical references. Fails WP:NBIO and WP:GNG. Wikipedia is not for promotion. --Jack Frost (talk) 08:23, 27 June 2020 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. <b style="color:red">Please do not modify it.</b> 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.