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 (NAC) RMHED 23:25, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Shawn Baldwin[edit]

Shawn Baldwin (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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AFD was created by IPs, I will add their rationale below. Please WP:AGF with the rationale, but I think they have a point. tedder (talk) 16:25, 8 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Tim Song (talk) 00:07, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, \ Backslash Forwardslash / (talk) 04:32, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Addendum: I'll clean up the article within the next few days. Cunard (talk) 23:23, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hang on: two within that list of four articles are actually the same as each other. The longest treatment I noticed was this one, which suggests that our man was, at the time of writing, a kind of faded business sleb notable for looks and one or both of incompetence and bad luck. If he's notable for having screwed up (or for having been screwed), then it's as the boss (or "CEO" or whatever's the current jargon) of a company that, rightly or wrongly, hasn't got its own article in en:WP. Famously, the lack of an article in en:WP on something article-worthy is no reason not to have an article on something less article-worthy. However, there's something odd about all of this: whether or not the article was a puff piece when it was nominated for deletion, it seems very society-pagey now. If this man was/is a businessman, readers should be told about his business; as it is now, there's more emphasis on such matters as who his fair-weather pals were. I'm not "!voting" yet but in the meantime I'll say that I'm unconvinced of his notability; further, I worry that if this survives it will be a magnet for one or other kind of BLP violation. -- Hoary (talk) 02:27, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The sources in the article fully establish notability. There is a lengthy article about his meeting with the Emir of Qatar by Anna Owens. The article subsequently discusses a conference that Baldwin held in Qatar when the Emir asked him to get more involved in Qatar's economy. There are six paragraphs of coverage about him in Money Magazine; this article discusses his firm and the other ventures he has undertaken. There are seven paragraphs of coverage in this Black Enterprise article and some history about him and his company in this article from the same publication. He has been named one of the top 40 bankers under 40; see this article from Investment Dealers' Digest.

    The depth of coverage in the above articles prove that Shawn Baldwin passes WP:BIO. The coverage in the above articles do not discuss him as having "screwed up"; these articles discuss his successes in the business world.

    Yes, I know that save for the two paragraph about Baldwin's conference in Qatar, the article does not cover much about business. I am not knowledgeable enough in business to write a decent summary of his business undertakings. Using the sources mentioned in the first paragraph of this response, I ask that you aid in making the article less "society-pagey". The shortfalls of the article should not mean deletion. Everything is sourced, so the article is not a BLP violation. All BLPs are magnets for BLP violations, so that argument does not apply here. The sources provided above prove that Baldwin is notable, not marginally notable, so this article should be kept for fully passing the notability guidelines. Cunard (talk) 06:26, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • After having to register (which I did with a fake name), I looked at the article that comes via docstoc.com. Actually it appears to be from something titled "NV". This seems to be the business equivalent of a "society" magazine. Sample: Baldwin is now contemplating a new fund, which has [a conveniently vague verb] the three top finance professors from Harvard, Wharton and Oxford [I hadn't realized that these were rated, like pop records or tennis players]. The initial investor is one of the 50 wealthiest families in the world [etc]. Aside from this uncritically recycled and unverifiable boasting, which to me reduces the credibility of the whole thing, the article is shot through with peacocquerie ("struck an emotional chord with", "prominent", "800-year-old Oxford University's Said School of Business"). I realize that much of the "editorial" content of newspaper business pages is little more than recycled press releases, but nevertheless it might be better than this. Does it exist? (Has he been written up in the FT or WSJ or similar?) -- Hoary (talk) 06:59, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • As far as I know, he hasn't been written up in The Wall Street Journal or Financial Times.

    Even if you were to discount the article on docstoc.com, what do you think about the depth and quality of the other sources I mentioned above? These articles are well-researched and are definitely not recycled press releases. Cunard (talk) 07:11, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • They don't appear well researched to me; rather, they're gushy or uncritical or both. Still, once the flimflam has been stripped away, there might be enough remaining for the construction of an article. I'm open to persuasion. Good luck working on it. -- Hoary (talk) 07:46, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I guess we must disagree on this. I can't see how the articles are "gushy". They objectively present the facts about Shawn Baldwin; they do not promote him. Generally, the vast majority of news articles from reliable news organizations attempt to be — and are successful at being — uncritical - this is the same case here. There is one article that is critical of the subject and is a reliable source that presents significant coverage about the subject. You discounted this source in your initial analysis, but I do not see what is wrong with it.

    This is a valid article; the information that is currently in the article is sourced and encyclopedic. The sources clearly demonstrate notability. Cleanup/expansion issues should not be discussed at an AfD. Cunard (talk) 08:02, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Yes, there is indeed some content in that FW article. My worry about it wasn't that it was unreliable, it was (and is) that its main point seems to be that Baldwin came a cropper. (Of course plenty of notable businessmen come a cropper and perhaps are now best remembered for this -- Robert Maxwell, the people at Enron, etc.) -- Hoary (talk) 08:23, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • True, but the article does call him "handsome", so he hasn't become a complete cropper. ;) Cunard (talk) 08:41, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for the copyediting work you did on the article. By the way (even though this is not related to the AfD), what should be done when the sources contradict each other? This source says he founded Capital Management Group, while this one says he purchased Capital Management Group. (I think that Capital Management Group = Capital Management Group.) Both sources are from Money Magazine, so this discrepancy is very confusing. Cunard (talk) 08:41, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • My help was very minor indeed; you should get the credit for resuscitating the article. ¶ Nobody seems to have disputed the claim that Baldwin ran/runs the company, so the question is of whether he founded it as well. The article now doesn't say that he founded it. I'd just bring up the question on the talk page (complete with source for the additional claim), and see if somebody knowledgable pipes up to present either additional, independent confirmatory evidence or clear evidence that he didn't. -- Hoary (talk) 14:41, 25 October 2009 (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.
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