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. J04n(talk page) 18:48, 8 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Alex Mashinsky[edit]

Alex Mashinsky (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Fails WP:GNG, WP:ANYBIO due to lack substantial coverage in multiple reliable sources that are intellectually independent from the subject. Rentier (talk) 17:27, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. Everymorning (talk) 17:46, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. Everymorning (talk) 17:46, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Israel-related deletion discussions. Everymorning (talk) 17:46, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Technology-related deletion discussions. Everymorning (talk) 17:47, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep: He has a very good number of references in Google News, Google Books and Google Scholar and definitely meets the notability criteria. He is also the winner of Einstein Technology Award from Israeli Prime Minister. More references added after the article was tagged for deletion.REMIAH (talk) 09:01, 13 December 2017 (UTC) — REMIAH (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]

• Weak keep - Not sure about the "very good number of references" REMIAH mentioned being of the non-trivial sort, but I did find this 1997 feature on Mashinsky in The Economist. The rest of the mentions of him in sources are mostly in conjunction with his companies, though a few provide a little information on his work within such companies (more than just a listing of his post as CEO), like this 1998 Business Week article and this MIT Technology Review article. Of questionable independence though potentially useful are a 2017 Forbes op-ed, this online article (and several others) from the editor-in-chief of CHIPIN.com, and this article from Light Reading Inc (it won't load for me so I cannot verify its usefulness). -Indy beetle (talk) 03:10, 17 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, The Economist article is also a trivial mention, its main subject is one of his companies. The coverage of him is limited to seven words: "Israeli with a background in commodity trading" [1]. All in all, the collection of brief mentions clearly fails the spirit and the letter of WP:ANYBIO. As far as I can tell, no independent reliable source has ever dedicated more than half of a sentence to Mashinsky. Rentier (talk) 12:34, 17 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There is no way to tell from Google Books snippets whether the coverage in the Economist article is significant or not. I have access to the full text via a university library and can confirm that there is very little coverage of Mashinsky himself - certainly none beyond the first paragraph, which contains the seven words quoted by Rentier and that he had the idea for his company's business model while lying in his bed in 1993 and had an office above a Manhattan disco. 86.17.222.157 (talk) 09:51, 27 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete Looks suspiciously promotional to me. Number 57 10:23, 19 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. No better source than the Economist article mentioned above has been found, and, as I have access to the full article, I can see that it only contains a tiny bit of trivial "human interest" stuff about Mashinsky himself. 86.17.222.157 (talk) 18:12, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, thanks for your insights. What do you think of the following references? I think the following references definitely makes him eligible for a Wikipedia page. Looking forward for your insights.

Listing in Internet Telephony Magazine(Top 100 voices of IP Communication) with one full paragraph dedicated to him[1]

A full article dedicated to Alex Mashinsky on New Jersey Journal[2]

Listed in Business Insider's list of Top Entrepreneurs of 2011[3]

A complete article on Crains New York about Alex Mashinsky[4]

Winner of Einstein technology award from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu[5]

Technology Foresight Award from the Wall Street Journal and WCA at the International Telecommunications Union’s Telecom ’99 event[6]

Alex received the “Star of the Industry” award from the Computer Telephony Magazine for building the world’s largest PC switch and the world’s first soft-switch[7]

Another article from LightReading that discusses about Alex Mashinsky and his achievements[8]REMIAH (talk) 05:13, 2 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm still not convinced. The awards and "top 100" and "top 35" listings are all the kind of thing that one gets if good at self-promotion, and kudos to Mashinsky for being good at that, but not the kind of thing that denotes real notability. The information in those sources all seems to come from Mashinsky himself, rather than any independent source. 86.17.222.157 (talk) 17:55, 2 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete: Per nom. Refbombing insignificant sources that provide passing mention, related topics (such as a company related sources), or PR sources, does not advance notability but does make the article "look" like it is well sourced and referenced. Consensus is starting to see through the Looking-glass effect (George Herbert Mead) of a savy person and good PR with an ability to portray the social interaction with others, and get it noticed, but generally only within a certain social circle that does not reflect the "significant" reliable sources required for article inclusion. Otr500 (talk) 15:07, 4 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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.