Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shelby Bryan

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. - Bobet 13:44, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Shelby Bryan

The subject matter is someone who is quite obscure. Though I understand certain colleges may like to showcase their alumni in order to enhance institutional prestige, some of these entries resemble press releases. Gold Gloves? Cad to a fashion magazine editor? Worked for Ralph Nader? Good grief. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by EdwardG (talk • contribs).

• Keep. The business biography part of the article interests me. Senior telecom company executives are usually notable. The rest of the article doesn't really interest me. TruthbringerToronto (Talk | contribs) 21:02, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per Truthbringer; seems like a significant early player in the telecom business. Feel free to edit out some of the minor details (though the affair with Wintour should stay in). NawlinWiki 21:04, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
• Keep with cleanup required per Truthbringer and Nawlin. Some of the details (e.g. what his kids are doing) are superfluous. Paddles ^T_C 03:28, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
• Keep the collapse of ICG cost stakeholders 100s of millions if not billions. This was a key bankruptcy of the internet era and there was some issue over investors reaction to it (no citation comes to mind). I remember meeting him surrounded by young acolytes who couldn't get enough of his vision.
• Delete On further research, I question whether this article was written by a blood relative (ackabryan), which may explain the public relations tone. I agree that the ICG collapse was notable, though for sake of precedence, have other failed telecom CEOs (other than Ebbers) been given a Wiki entry? Last, though Millicom did provide cellular service to developing countries, they were in fact a pager network provider. The Bells and overseas PTTs were the cellular service pioneers, for better or worse.
• Reply If its the same Millicom I'm thinking of, its still extant; it is indeed one of the largest international wireless operators. Just because the article is banal does not mean there should not be an article on this man. I was there. The billions lost - peoples' entire nest eggs wiped out. This wasn't just a small start-up. It was one of the big ones. And it should be remembered lest we forget our folly at the time. Just because some others have not had a write up doesn't make it less relevant that his biography should stand. There are plenty of wikipedia articles yet to be written...
• Reply I am sorry that you were at a company managed by Shelby Bryan. I never implied that Millicom or ICG were minor failures, rather I mentioned that I wasn't aware of other less-than-notorious telecom CEOs making it to Wikipedia. Millicom was already a wireless player, having made their first cellular license applications a good 2 to 3 years prior to Shelby's arrival. During his tenure, most of their revenue was derived from being a pager network provider. He left Millicom in rather shaky financial condition, though they have since survived after a restructuring under new management. Thus the failure of ICG was presaged by a smaller scale disaster at Millicom. If you advocate having this article survive deletion, then you are implicitly stating that it should serve as a dispassionate cautionary tale. This entails a major rewrite, as the current article falls short of that goal.
• keep. Seems to be notable enough. If the ICG collapse was elaborated, it would be more interesting and unbiased. Downplaying the collapse as "in part to be the result of Bryan's overspending" is clearly NPOV by omission. Who cares if his two sons are still in college, and who cares where his daughter works??? Ohconfucius 06:09, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
• Keep There's enough there to demonstrate notability.--Runcorn 20:03, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

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.