Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Elie Khouri

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 no consensus. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:12, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Elie Khouri[edit]

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Promotional bio of advertising executive. Full of adjectives of praise, but no evidence for them, except inclusion on a number of lists. Merely being placed on these specialized lists is not notability. DGG ( talk ) 01:07, 3 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete non-notable advertising executive.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:08, 3 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
SNOW Delete as WP:NOT policy is violated here considering the article is blatantly being used as an advertising job listing, and such policy is not negotiable not should we make it so; any attempts at advertising are unacceptable and this is the case here. SwisterTwister talk 01:13, 3 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Not delete He is notable. "What a difference two decades make". Gulf Business. May 2016. p. 46. — Preceding unsigned comment added by WorldDedWin (talk • contribs) 05:36, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - I do see that there is a tone issue in places, and that the author of the article didn't always select the best sources, but I am also seeing: 1) 19 articles in HighBeam, 2) 898 in Google news (realizing some of these are likely other Eli Khouris and/or unreliable sources), and 3) some books. It seems that in the Middle East he is considered influential and powerful by Forbes and Arabian Business. It may be that the subject has not been explored enough to draw out the information about what makes him influential and powerful - and there are plenty of sources to draw from.

If there is something that I am not understanding, though, about how this is detrimental to WP, that would be helpful to know.--CaroleHenson (talk) 05:29, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, st170e^talk 01:29, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The article has been written more like a bio than an encyclopedia article. I'm copyediting for tone and formatting the citations to see how it seems after that.--CaroleHenson (talk) 04:57, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I worked on the article. Many of the sources were not reliable and secondary sources - some were bios or profiles posted that were likely originally written by Khouri or someone close to him / worked for him. There was what appears to be some original research and there was some failed verification. The article is now cited with secondary sources. Where I could not find sources, I moved text to the Article rewrite comments section on the talk page.

Comment ~~Keep~~ I don't know how we know why an article is created, but the editor is interested in this subject, based upon their contributions. The point is whether it meets WP:N, WP:GNG, and other key reasons in WP:DELREASONS. IMO, the subject of the article meets both, based upon his experience as an early leader of the media industry (one source called him a pioneer in the media industry in the Middle East region), particularly moving beyond print and television advertising campaigns to digital, social networking, based upon data. He is also a leader in equality of sexes among business executive positions, making it an award-winning best place to work, and in corporate social responsibility.--CaroleHenson (talk) 22:39, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, —UY Scuti ^Talk 17:14, 19 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, MBisanz ^talk 03:03, 27 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The reliable and verifiable sources about the subject meet the notability standard. Any issues regarding promotional language or "adjectives of praise" should be addressed by editing, not deletion. Alansohn (talk) 15:44, 27 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 22:39, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United Arab Emirates-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 22:39, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment to closer - There's no amounts of improvements to be made here since our policies against advertising allow this to be removed, and especially since improvements would actually mean restarting the article altogether, hence not any actual improvements. As it is, this AfD has been affected by SPA accounts as has the article's history itself so that alone violates policy, regardless of "But there's sourcing" or "But he exists". SwisterTwister talk 02:23, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

SwisterTwister I am not always sure where you are coming from—if you are basing your comments on the version when it was nominated or after a lot of edits have been made to the article, which in this case increased the article by 50%. Based on my experience here, I am a little confused about how this is purely an advertising article and beyond improvement - but do concede I may need to made edits for tone and am happy to do so.

Most importantly, and this may help me in the future if I am misunderstanding things, I thought that the issue was whether an article if viable or not, per guidelines and considering WP:SAVE. When I look at guidelines to cite for deletion debates, I don't see anything about the original author. Somewhat new to the AfD process, I wonder: Am I missing something?—CaroleHenson (talk) 02:59, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at the history and seeing how there was no other account involved except the author and how they only used the account for this one article and starting links to this said article, it's enough to show it was an advertising-only account, and quite likely chances of a paid advertisement (and thus enough for deletion); especially in the fact this article is entirely formatted as a personal PR listing. SwisterTwister talk 03:03, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What guideline says that if it was started under those conditions, it must be deleted - and is beyond repair?

For the short run, I'll post a {{COI editnotice}} on the talk page and add a comment to the user's page - although based on what you say, they may not be back.—CaroleHenson (talk) 03:14, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I just caught "this article is entirely formatted as a personal PR listing" - what do you mean?—CaroleHenson (talk) 03:23, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Because it only focuses with what his own PR agents and even the subject himself would put at his own job listing and websites, and since this article itself cares to focus in specifying every single business fact of his. The policy allowing such PR removal is WP:NOT. SwisterTwister talk 03:41, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This may be coming pretty darn close to "beating a dead horse", but just a couple of final thoughts:

It seems to me that for Because it only focuses with what his own PR agents and even the subject himself would put at his own job listing and websites to be true, it would seem that all or most of the 24 secondary sources, mostly news sources, were churnalism. That may be true, I don't know. But I wonder how one would know that.
Regarding since this article itself cares to focus in specifying every single business fact of his - if that's true, that's more my fault than the original author. I didn't use all the sources that were out there, though, there are 798 news hits, perhaps 9 or so of 17 books published since 1984 that are applicable, 19 HighBeam hits, and other items on the internet that would qualify as reliable, SSs.
WP:NOT says that editors should avoid self-promotion and follow WP:COI guidelines, whether writing about themselves, a subject with a close connection, or a subject they are paid to write about. I don't see anywhere that articles should be deleted because they were started by a user with a close connection or conflict of interest.
In WP:PAID, WP:COI, and guidelines to cite for deletion debates — I don't see anything that says that the article that a COI contributor creates will be subject to deletion, solely because they created it.—CaroleHenson (talk) 04:40, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

To specify, removal is supported by the part "What Wikipedia is not: A PR webhost or collection of company information, listings, etc." and since that's our policy for removing such PR listings, it's sufficient and we would even apply WP:IAR as needed. SwisterTwister talk 05:59, 5 January 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.