Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/William Saito


 * 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 and clean up. ansh 666 06:42, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

William Saito

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Having worked through the references, finding archive versions of those that were broken, and following all of the recent additions based on the resume controversy, the page is in serious need of cleanup, but also it seems that when the unverified statements are stripped away there is little left here that supports notability. Many of the statements regarding his business achievements and early life are difficult to verify and the veracity of his own autobiography and resume have been called into question. Looking back at earlier versions of this page it seems to be largely self-promotion material. The recent controversy and accusations are largely churnalism based on a blog post, and in his response to the controversy the subject published a few corrections. However there has been little in the way of proper research into the facts. I would suggest that since this article has so many issues requiring significant research and editing to fix and that it has and may continue to be the subject of attacks, it should either be deleted or moved to incubation while it gets the attention it needs. ER8-8mvm (talk) 12:01, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk &bull;&#32;mail) 12:26, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions. Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk &bull;&#32;mail) 12:26, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Japan-related deletion discussions. Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk &bull;&#32;mail) 12:26, 22 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep. Deletion is not cleanup. Article was created in 2009 (by a SPA), and was edited by many editors until December 2017 when a scandal (regarding academic credentials) was added. Then in January 2018 ER8-8mvm, a new account, tags the article for issues and nominates for deletion. The subject of the article is clearly notable from a cursory BEFORE - on sources prior to 2017 - even just on English coverage. He is covered amply in news sources, e.g. this BBC piece on him (and coverage goes back to the 90s - computerworld. Besides his autobiography (, not an indication of notability) he has quite a few book mentions (e.g., ). As for the resume scandal, besides Japanese language sources I assume that exist, this report - seems like a RS in English. In any event, the existence of a scandal that forced this highly notable individual to resign recently, is not something that detracts from notability - if only it increases it. The article could use a tone-down in puffery, and better sourcing.Icewhiz (talk) 12:56, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep Article with WP:SIGCOV and, as Icewhiz writes, a recent attempt to discredit and delete the page. This reminds me of Matthew C. Whitaker, an academic plagiarist whose page was subject to a series of mass deletions of material, attempts to discredit editors and the WP:RSes they cited, and an AfD.    In addition to the recent coverage of fake diploma scandal, there is coverage going back years, some of it WP:INDEPTH:  BBC:  The entrepreneur teaching Japan how to take more risks; How the crazy talented Saito brothers are giving back to Japan’s startup scene.  I see no valid argument for deletion.E.M.Gregory (talk) 23:40, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep. This guy was quite a prominent Japan economy/society pundit before his downfall. The article needs cleanup but does not need to be deleted. Sekicho (talk) 18:24, 23 January 2018 (UTC)


 * comment - he is notable but this page was not a WP article. I looked at the history and a bunch of badly sourced, POV stuff was dumped in starting in December and I reverted back to just before there.  The page at that point was mostly unsourced promotional crap, so I trimmed it back to what existing sources could support, and added one high quality ref about the falsifications.  It is a stub now that needs to be built back up carefully, being mindful of NPOV especially with regard to WEIGHT and RECENTISM.  Jytdog (talk) 18:58, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep It needs a lot of material - the baby has been thrown out with the bathwater, it seems. The person has been interviewed by a number of reliable sources, and is clearly notable. BBC News etc. seems more than sufficient. Collect (talk) 21:59, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Problematic No one has mentioned the fact that Jimbo asked for En Wikipedia editors to fix his friend's page here -- which to me is a huge issue and conflict of interest on many levels. Then also problematic is the fact that the content on this page has been completely destroyed. It is ridiculous that there is so little information, especially given the fact that there is a full version on Japanese Wikipedia. This issue here with this current version -- which I will not touch or assist with because JYTdog is doing the editing -- is that however notable this person might be, their notability is not established adequately to justify an entry on En Wikipedia. I routinely do these types of rescue BLPs but I won't help Jimbo and I won't edit if JYTdawg has his mitts on this page. No way. No how. But really, this entry exemplifies all the worst problems of BLPs -- and shows how En Wiki and its editors often do a huge disservice to entries. This editing represents deletionism, problematic in the extremis. So yeah. Majorly problematic. -- Erika aka BrillLyle (talk) 23:02, 24 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Two things. First, Wales post is quite right, "something should be done but not by me" is the way to go here (for him) for the reason he states. Second, while the jap-WP article may or may not have sources we can use (they use Tokyo Reporter, doesn´t seem like a en-WP-BLP-source), its existence says nothing about if en-WP should have an article or not. WP:s have different rules etc. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:11, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Notability is not temporary - he was clearly notable prior to the scandal. The existence of the recent scandal itself may be sourced (in English) - to in The Japan Times which should be reliable for BLP. His bio (or at least his claimed bio - probably need to add "said" prior to multiple statements there due to later developments) is for 1990-November 2017 amply covered by RS (pre-scandal publishing).Icewhiz (talk) 09:23, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
 * That source is used in the article, seems unproblematic. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:39, 25 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Initially I had thought that since the earlier sources had been proven to be mistaken in at least some aspects that meant that they could no longer be counted as reliable sources, leaving only the coverage of recent allegations which were all rehashes of a blog post and some fairly trashy tabloid coverage. But I have since learned that Wikipedia relies on what is verifiable in secondary sources, and that even if some information in source articles has been proven to be false the remainder is still considered valid. That said, the article was a disaster as a BLP, and during this week it has become much more biography-like thanks to the efforts of several editors here. I was not confident that the article could survive cleanup, but it has. Thank you for contributing your skills and experience to turn this disaster around. Many new references have emerged that clear up a lot of the sourcing issues, the article has a better structure and has a more balanced point of view. While there may be a couple of issues to be addressed among the new information added here, overall, it has perhaps become worthy of being a Wikipedia article, and I have also learned a lot about Wikipedia (policies, guidelines, and community) through observing the process. ER8-8mvm (talk) 10:55, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I am really glad to hear this. A well-curated set of citations that establish facts to support notability to me is key. Sources are tertiary. And Wikidata can establish the skeleton upon which pages can be built and improved, again establishing notability. Of great importance are the Identifiers which are often partially reflected in the Authority Control template at the bottom of Wikipedia pages. The fact that this person had published books that meant he had multiple identifiers also supported notability — as did the citations. It’s probable that there are other good citations that are in the page history and might need to be searched via Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine — and no longer show up in the multi-page Google search — so going back through the page History and also working through the Japanese page’s citations (if that hasn’t been done exhaustively) might also be other strategies to improve the page and further establish notability. Notability is the key with BLPs. As I said on my talk page if you get stuck or have questions let me know. I encourage you to BE BOLD and edit the page. As long as you don’t have a Conflict of Interest with the subject. But definitely take on improving the page if you have time. You have good instincts and that is so important as an editor. Best. — Erika aka BrillLyle (talk) 15:01, 29 January 2018 (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.