Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Colm O'Shea

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. Most seem to be of the view that Mr. O'Shea doesn't (yet) quite meet our notability standards. If that changes, as seen in substantial coverage in reliable sources, the article can be recreated. Sandstein 17:37, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Colm O'Shea

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Blatant advertising, which fails WP:NOTADVERTISING, WP:BIO and WP:GNG. This is one of a series of articles, categories: [American hedge fund managers] and [English hedge fund managers]

which assert Zero notability for each entry. Even though there are sources, all the do is confirm the factual content, about how much money they make, education etc and working institution, (working correctly I suppose) of the article, but no real assertions of notability, apart from the fact that they are hedge managers. I would like to take into account the deletion of articles in:

[Category:American hedge fund managers] and
[Category:English hedge fund managers]

scope_creep talk 17:53, 25 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: This piece is about an important British business man who manages one of the largest hedge funds in the world. He has been written about in numerous notable news publications which are linked to in the article, and a chapter in the best selling book Hedge Fund Market Wizards was devoted to him by Jack Schwager. He certainly meets the standards for notibility. There are hundreds of other hedge fund managers listed on wikipedia, many of whom manage significantly smaller funds than Colm O'Shea does, and many of whom are considerably less famous. Here is a link to the categories showing very similar profiles to the one I wrote. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_hedge_fund_managers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:English_hedge_fund_managers. There is nothing promotional about the piece that I have written it is objective, well sourced, and in no way suggest that anyone should invest in his fund.

scope_creep claims that the piece is a blatant advertisement. Could he elaborate on what good or service is being advertised in my piece? Could he compare this piece to the other articles linked to above, such as the American Fund Managers and explain how my piece differs from those pieces? Picking some at random Richard Chilton David Kabiller Martin Shkreli

It would appear based on scope_creep's comments above that he does maybe not approve of the hedge fund industry. While that may be his opinion, these people are still notable under wikipedia standards, and wikipedia would not be improved by people deleting articles about people who work in industries that certain people disapprove of. Religious people could delete the profiles of Mick Jagger explaining there is no real assertions of notability, apart from the fact that they are Rock Musicians and that they are wealthy. If scope_creep does not read the financial press, or disapproves of the financial industry, maybe he should edit articles on topics that he has some knowledge of and appreciation of.

There are probably 50 hedge funds based in the UK that manage over $1 billion, (These are large profitable businesses and important drivers of the UK Economy) I plan on slowly starting wikipedia pages on the most important ones over the next few months. As you can see from my above links the American Fund managers are better represented on Wikipedia than the British ones, even when London is as big a finance hub as New York is. It is neither productive nor helpful having these pieces nominated for deletion. If people feel they are badly written or promotional, they are welcome to edit the article. I based the writing style on other Wikipedia profiles of famous hedge fund managers, and I can not see how my pieces are any different than the existing pieces linked to above.) --Hedgefunding

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:29, 25 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:29, 25 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I have sampled about perhaps 19 of these articles, and they follow roughly the same format. To me, they seem just to be a directory of hedge fund old boys club and business directory on WP, without asserting any notability. scope_creep talk 29:35 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Comment I have sampled about 25 of these articles on English Footballers [[1]] and I have found that they follow a similar format. To me they seem just to be a directory of football old boys club and business directory on WP, without asserting any notability. Hedgefunding (talk)

To be clear, when you google "Colm O'Shea COMAC" The first page of results includes articles in The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The Sunday Times, EFinancial News, Reuters, The Irish Independant, Forbes and Institutional Investor. https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=colm+o'shea+comac This would seem to establish notability. scope_creep seems to have an axe to grind about the finance industry, as he also attempted to delete my article on Ewan Kirk. I would suggest that he should maybe put some effort into writing a few articles himself rather than deleting the work of others. Hedgefunding (talk)

Hi Hedgefunding (talk). I really don't have an axe to grind, on these articles, I can assure you. This is just one of many articles, I looked at today, as part of New Page Patrol. Personally I don't think these articles as they stand, are sound, i.e. legitimate as regarding WP policy of WP:BIO and WP:GNG. If they are notable, the WP:AFD will legitimize them, and they will stay in. Personally, I think most of the articles in those categories, break the Spirit and Letter of WP. scope_creep talk 01:45 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, –Davey2010 • (talk) 05:15, 2 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete -- I would expect WP to have a page on COMAC Capital LLP before it was appropriate to have one on its CEO. I see no indication of the scle of funds under management. Peterkingiron (talk) 17:18, 5 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete other than a brief mention of his income, these are mostly blogs and related sites, and a book review. The Forbes profile is all of three sentences, hardly in depth coverage. The most substantive coverage seems to be an interview in Jack D. Schwager’s book Hedge Fund Market Wizards. See WP:PRIMARY Note #3 about interviews. --Bejnar (talk) 16:13, 9 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: I respectfully disagree with some of the reasoning offered above, on both sides of the debate. "a page on COMAC Capital LLP before ... its CEO" is a classic negative case of WP:OSE ... why not go write the article on COMAC Capital? "Blatant advertising" - the article has so many typos that I think we can be sure that it wasn't written by the guy's PR flack. "Important British business man"? Come on, the guy is a hedgie who probably manages fewer people than a boy scout patrol leader. That said, when I googled COMAC, the first thing that came up was a WSJ article "Comac Capital Trims Staff Amid Losses, Redemptions", Juliet Chung, WSJ, Sept. 6, 2013 - that on its own arguably passes WP:SECONDARY for the guy. There's a bit of a problem with hedge funds and private equity shops which is that, to comply with US securities laws, they limit access to information about the firms, their investments and their strategies (they also do it to add mystique, but that's a debate for another place). This means that a lot of the reliable information is limited to a handful of source like the FT or WSJ or Aust Fin Review plus trade rags. Therefore, at some point we may have to consider a general policy for defining "big league" finance industry figures - like WP:BASEBALL/N but for hedge fund managers. Fiachra10003 (talk) 02:08, 11 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So what I hear you saying is that WP:NOTEBLP and WP:GNG should not apply to hedge fund mangers. Is that correct? If they are "big league" finance industry figures won't there eventually be books written about them? --Bejnar (talk) 03:03, 11 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No, my last point was that it may be in the future be desirable to come to a consensus that considers objective criteria for the notability of executives of private financial management businesses, as applies to other individuals like athletes. This might perhaps take account of assets under management and seniority within their company. Fiachra10003 (talk) 12:54, 11 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As you indicate, we are not there yet, and this is not the proper forum for that discussion. Still fails WP:GNG and WP:NOTEBLP. --Bejnar (talk) 18:42, 11 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Can you please explain your evidence for the assertion "still fails WP:GNG and WP:NOTEBLP"? WP:GNG is like pointing us at the bible. WP:NOTEBLP presumes notability if the subject has received significant coverage in reliable independent secondary sources - and the article now cites the WSJ, Institutional Investor, Sunday Times - even the Irish Independent, which I've cheerfully added. The cited sources discuss O'Shea's career in varying degrees, from briefly to a fair amount of depth - certainly enough to pass WP:NOTEBLP. Fiachra10003 (talk) 21:49, 11 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, SpinningSpark 02:25, 12 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - This is a hard one because you have to ask: what does it take to be notable in business? Just being successful and earning a lot of money can't be enough, or we'd have hundreds of thousands more people in Wikipedia than we do. I would say that one has to have done something unusual, something that no one else has done, to be notable. For example, Jeff Bezos invented an entirely new way of doing business with Amazon; Henry Ford invented the assembly line; for George Soros wikipedia says "He played a significant role in the peaceful transition from communism to capitalism in Hungary". So the question for the supporters of this article is: what has this person done that makes him unique among the many thousands of investors we could name? LaMona (talk) 04:11, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- A fair point because it raises the general question of notability in financial services. What's notable about him O'Shea has made billions of dollars/Euros/pounds for his investors putting him in the top 50 or so European hedgies. We either need to kick out all hedge fund managers who haven't become notable for some other reason (like saving the planet, or even a small Central European country) or accept that the top 50 or so in each of the US/Europe/Asia-Pac pass WP:GNG. Fiachra10003 (talk) 14:54, 18 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Right, I agree that making money, even lots of money, is what hedge fund managers do. The references here are weak, too weak IMO, for notability. The first one is a blog post; not a reliable source. The second one is a single photograph among photos of 40 investors; no content about O'Shea. The next 3 are fairly routine news articles about the company (behind paywalls, so I can't see if they say much about him). 6 is another short news article about the company, with a mention of O'Shea. Since there isn't much about him as a person, it might make more sense to have an article on the company that lists him as CIO. That is, if the company itself is notable. LaMona (talk) 15:37, 20 August 2014 (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.