Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Rich Shapero

Closer's follow-up
This was an unusual debate and close, because of issues that were missed in the debate but which a closer must take account of. The result based upon the debate and communal norms is clearly "delete". However in my mind the debate itself was defective (though not enough to stop a close being possible) because many participants discussed the right issues but didn't check the evidence they cited carefully - and it didn't stack up. Given a clean slate, a better nomination might have read as follows:


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 * Rewritten "from scratch" rationale

This is a BLP of a businessman, also the self-pub author of a book. There is little or no evidence of notability. Online hits for "Rich" or "Richard" Shapero include Google and Google News, but a closer examination shows that most of these are in the role of spokesman for his employer company and/or in connection with a single event, his book launch.

Excluding the spokesman tag from news hits, cuts the Google news hit count down to just 17 items of which some are coverage of a lawyer of the same name and most of the rest are "speaking as a venture capitalist" such as in this article. The coverage in these articles is not significant of him (as a subject and individual), but merely as a Venture Capitalist giving a view on the market to the media. The media is unlikely to have discriminated in choosing him (many other VCs would have done just as well). In sum, Google News does not actually show any significant coverage of Rich Shapero himself. It contains two minor "transient" hits about the book launch.
 * Google News and web search

Google web search's results speak for themselves too. There are almost no clear sources that are not related to his book "Wild Amicus", and such mentions as the book does get are mostly on sites like Amazon and self-pub or non-reliable sources. As with News, there are no clear signs of significant independent coverage of the man himself.

Other possible sources of notability include his book release (a self pub venture that got some coverage but fails in any way to meet WP:EVENT or GNG beyond the attention given to any other book release, and a very minor bomb scare when a box of books was mistaken as a possible bomb . Neither of these seem to be a good source of notability for the man or for the events.
 * Other possible bases for notability

The sources cited in past debates and the article itself are: (Article references cited) - his page on his employers website, brief coverage related to his book launch , and in student publications. Additional evidence cited at AFD was - another student publication and unsupported claims related to Google News and notoriety (said to be related to the book's extravagant self-promotion).
 * Sources suggested in the article and AFD

In other words the entirety of actual evidence from all sources are one employers' page, 3 student publications and a couple of mainstream "brief/transient coverage" mentions connected to his self-pub book launch and a university scare (that clearly fails WP:EVENT).
 * Summary of evidence

In addition to the problems of notability or evidence of significant coverage, there is also a BLP issue. Articles - especially BLPs - require high quality sources to work from. There needs to be significant coverage of the subject (Rich Shapero) himself in reliable independent sources for a BLP. None has been proposed. BLP is an overriding policy.
 * Other problems (BLP)

The only other possible sources of notability cited by anyone so far are the book launch and Yale scare, both non-notable events. WP:NOT states as policy that "Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events" (worded as "historical notability" until recently), and the more specific notability guideline for events (WP:EVENT) makes clear that neither of these are likely to be notable events.
 * Conclusion

Accordingly unless actual good evidence of the subject himself can be found, this article probably needs to be deleted.
 * }

Administrator AFD guidelines state clearly that ''""Consensus is not determined by counting heads, but by looking at strength of argument, and underlying policy (if any). [Core] policies [which include NPOV, CITE, V, and should probably include BLP] are not negotiable, and cannot be superseded by any other guidelines or by editors' consensus... Where it is very unlikely that an article on the topic can exist without breaching policy, policy must be respected above individual opinions."''

Hopefully this makes clear the basis of the close. Communal norms emphasise product (correct result) over process. It seems extremely likely that delete is correct, and the AFD has provided a basis for the usual 7 days for the community to consider sources and notability. As shown above, they simply were not provided (despite claims made). The additional issue related to BLP (which no user mentioned but takes overriding priority) made the conclusion inevitable. This would be without prejudice to recreation if better sources arise. FT2 (Talk 15:56, 19 May 2010 (UTC)