Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/DeSilva+Phillips

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. Other than from the article's primary author, there is unanimous agreement that the sources, while numerous, are largely first-party and/or trivial mentions. Therefore, WP:CORPDEPTH has not been demonstrated. -- RoySmith (talk) 11:28, 4 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

DeSilva+Phillips[edit]

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Nominating for deletion, does not meet WP:NOTE, WP:CORPDEPTH and is poorly sourced. Some sources cited [1] [2] [3] quote employees of the company, but only briefly describe the company and these articles concern other topics. Oaklins source [4] describes the company, as DeSilva+Phillips is owned by Oaklines, and as such is not third party. Final source [5] mentions Oaklines but does not mention DeSilva+Phillips. Deletion and possible redirect to Oaklines would be best. SamHolt6 (talk) 03:47, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Propose to Keep. Have reviewed comments on proposed deletion. To simplify page, removed reference to Oaklins — a global membership organization of several dozen affiliated firms, not a parent company for DeSilva+Phillips. Additional references for the company were added to the entry. Deaconbluesx 16:06, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Companies-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 07:06, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 03:26, 19 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete References provided are either routine company announcements or company-produced information. Fails WP:CORPDEPTH and WP:ORGIND. -- HighKing⁺⁺ 16:13, 19 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. With respect to my editorial colleagues, I will limit my comments to this second entry. First, if you examine the 21 references included with this page, 19 are produced by independent third-party respected journalists (e.g., AdAge, Bloomberg, Business Insider, Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, The New York Post). Only 2 references are routine company announcements that contain company produced information. In addition, there is a link to the website. Holding those details aside, from my perspective if (a) our Wikipedia community agrees to have and maintain a category of Investment banks listed on Wikipedia; and if (b) that list and associated pages already includes profiles of more than approximately 200 banks of various sizes and stature by my count; and (c) that each of these firms have wide variance on external references, then this begs the question as what is our framework and criteria for deciding which investment banks are notable and which are not notable, and/or which have sufficient depth of coverage? Is it brand reputation? Size of firm? Scale of activity? Sheer number of journalists writing about the firm? To place this in a broader context, private professional firms (e.g., accounting, consulting, law, investment banks, executive search firms) are somewhat less visible to journalists because they put the spotlight on their clients and often have to sign confidentiality agreements, which prevents or at least diminishes coverage from journalists. In this particular case, DeSilva+Phillips has been operating in New York for 20 years and it is widely viewed as a leading expert in serving the media industry, and for 10 years their annual Summit has attracted a "Who's Who" of the industry and has attracted external coverage that validates their place in the ecosystem. Thanks to everyone for taking the time to review the page and for providing comments. I appreciate it. ---Deaconbluesx 02:42 20 July 2017 (UTC)

In response to helpful counsel from fellow users, have added additional external references that speak to firm's ranking within the investment banking community and external coverage of the firm's launch of a new restructuring practice, and more independent external coverage of their events. ---Deaconbluesx 01:32, 28 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In response to feedback, added additional reference that provides coverage about the Firm, published in 2006 by The Deal (a print magazine since acquired by The Street). "The Media Bankers" Here is sample text extracted from the article: “...At DeSilva & Phillips LLC, which also has a partner from JEGI, there's an even split between consumer media and business-to-business media....By Late 1995, when Phillip’s agreed over lunch and on a handshake to co-found his own media investment bank, new partner Roland DeSilva had been in media's burgeoning M&A game for more than a decade. Phillips...said he'd rather build equity in his own M&A advisory firm. Desilva immediately saw the potential of teaming with Phillips, but others also recognized how powerful their pairing could be. 'You've got a real Mr. Inside and a real Mr. Outside there,' Edmiston says, 'whereas Wilma and I were about the same at each. And neither of us was good at math, so we always hired number crunchers.'...Elaborating on this theme, a former DeSilva & Phillips managing director confirms a productive balance between Phillips' analytical skills and DeSilva's being "into people issues - and people issues are half of what doing deals is about." Giving those issues as much weight as financial matters would later become a hallmark of the partnership, compelling it to retain a business psychologist—a woman who specializes in stress management—as a senior adviser. 'We don't bring her into the deals themselves,' DeSilva says of a practice unique among media banks, 'but she helps us through the shoals you have to navigate in any transaction. Getting past seller's remorse can be especially tricky...By her actions, anyway, Jordan also sensed a formidability about the partnership that would become her biggest competitor. Through JEGI, she filed a complaint against the partial breakaway, charging Desilva with tortious interference and Phillips with violating a non-compete agreement. Her firm would wind up vacating the action, Desilva says, but only after the judge let on that JECH was 'crazy for bringing suit.' Adds Phillips, 'We were flattered that she thought we'd be that competitive ...complementary skills sets like those credited to DeSilva and Phillips weren’t new to investment banking...' --- Deaconbluesx 06:46, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Content (even from a "reliable source") that exclusively (or almost exclusively) relies on company-produced material does not meet the criteria for establishing notability. GNG states "Independent of the subject" excludes works produced by the article's subject or someone affiliated with it. This is further explained in both WP:CORPDEPTH which excludes reliable sources relying on "quotations from an organization's personnel as story sources" and all of WP:ORGIND which is self-explanatory. For example, you say that this article from adage is produced by independent third-party respected journalists - and yes it is! But it relies almost exclusively on quotations from company officers and therefore fails the criteria for establishing notability. (Note: when a topic is notable, article like these can be used to flesh out the topic). The sources in the article, without exception, all fail the criteria for establishing notability. If sources can be found that are from reliable secondary sources and don't rely on company-produced material as the basis for the story/article/book/whatever, then I'm happy to change my !vote. -- HighKing⁺⁺ 17:29, 20 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. -- HighKing⁺⁺ 13:34, 27 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Companies-related deletion discussions. -- HighKing⁺⁺ 13:34, 27 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. -- HighKing⁺⁺ 13:34, 27 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Onel5969 ^{TT me} 21:48, 27 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete -- an excessive amount of references do not make up for lack of notability. Content is largely trivial, as in:

The firm hosts an annual DealMaker's Summit and other related conferences for the media and entertainment industry. [14][15][16][17][18][19][20] !

If such content is removed, the article will retain a couple of sentences to confirm that the firm exists, but that's about it. WP:NCORP specifically discourages such directory-style entries. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:37, 28 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: spewing out references doesn't mean they give WP:SIGCOV. As it happens, the ones provided above do not, and the article fails WP:NOTDIRECTORY. DrStrauss talk please use {{ping|DrStrauss}} when replying 11:54, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"spewing out references" is neither a fair nor accurate assessment after countless hours of work on this article to address feedback, after 2 rounds of re-listing because there wasn't a clear consensus opinion. The ~20 references are curated from hundreds of citations that are available online. As the primary author, there is no way of knowing (nor expectation) if everyone has taken the time to read all of the articles, watch of the videos, do independent searches etc. to come up with a fair and balanced assessment, but I would hope that comments would at least be sensitive to the amount of work that goes into thoughtfully creating an article. Deaconbluesx 04:08, 04 August 2017 (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.