Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Selina Tobaccowala

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. The nominator actually sought a selective merge, and there are some legitimate questions raised as to the overall quality of the sourcing. Nevertheless, there is consensus to keep the article. Xymmax ^{So let it be written} _{So let it be done} 03:05, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Selina Tobaccowala

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Selina Tobaccowala (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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Page exists as WP:RESUME - minimal SIGCOV exists that are not interviews/primary sourcing. Proposing a merge of relevant aspects of this page to various company pages (Evite, Ticketmaster, SurveyMonkey, Beachbody). Attempted PROD, it was removed by Thilsebatti. 30Four (talk) 20:50, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Businesspeople and Women. Shellwood (talk) 21:35, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

  Keep - as the person meets the requirements of WP:GNG 1keyhole (talk) 02:58, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

• keep She meets WP:BASIC with existing articles and in additions she was featured in INC and there are these additional articles: NPR, Club Industry, Popsugar and Geek Wire.Royal88888 (talk) 00:35, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

  • NPR link is summary of a podcast: “How I Built This Podcast with Guy Raz, Evite: Selina Tobaccowala, Episode 182”
  • INC magazine is quite literally Selina’s words told through an author. ("As told to Yasmin Gagné" per article)
  • Club Industry contains no true author/byline, creating a profile of her for the Club Industry Executive Summit advertised by this article, a Summit she spoke at: “Tobaccowala’s presentation will be a general session at lunch on Nov. 9 and will be attended by all three tracks of the event: the Club and Studio Summit, the Not-for-Profit Summit and the CEO Summit (the invitation-only portion of the event for the highest revenue-generating club companies in the country).”
  • PopSugar, while not in the traditional interview format, presents their bio of Tobaccowala before a Q&A. It’s fairly easy to argue a Q&A is an interview.
  • Geekwire is the only source here that establishes something outside a company bio/interview, although the main piece from this article is that Tobaccowala joined the board of Redfin. If you consider this to be notable, I really question if I know the guidelines surrounding notability on Wikipedia at this point. It seems ridiculous to me. This source also already exists on the page, citation 10. 30Four (talk) 06:10, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

• Keep (edit conflict) New sources: Trip to India changed her life, article about her as a high school student; 2015 Women in tech (paragraph feature in Elle); Selina Tobaccowala/Gixo: How losing my mentor inspired a business interview feature in Inc.; The Inside Story on How SurveyMonkey Cracked the International Market is largely about her, largely based on interview but seemingly not entirely (but I'm not sure how reliable we see the source); there seems to have multiple paragraphs about her in the books Masters of Scale and Blitzscaling (which seem pretty related books so probably counts as a single source); Join Our Board: Companies Hotly Pursue New Wave of Women in Tech passing mention in NYT. Those plus the existing sources seem to meet WP:GNG, even more so with a somewhat higher number of interviews with higher profile podcasts. Skynxnex (talk) 01:25, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

  • Newspaper article “Trip to India changed her life”: builds out early bio but doesn’t establish her notability within her space. There are tons of exceptional high schoolers, which is great, although this again contains the same WP:RESUME issues that I posted this AfD with.
  • ELLE feature helps for GNG, although contains the very same WP:RESUME info that is all held in the article. It addresses none of the concern that this could easily be held in the company pages which already exist, not to mention the use of quotation within the article, implying that this was partially based on an interview.
  • Inc interview feature (I do not have access to Wikilibrary, but I see the feature from the direct link): Tobaccowala's words are being told through an author - "As told to Yasmin Gagné", who is the author of the article. This serves as an interview, as you've pointed out.
  • The Inside Story on How SurveyMonkey Cracked the International Market: “largely based on interview” - your own words. It seems as though this is more of a presentation of SurveyMonkey’s operations, giving credit to Tobaccowala for her work. While that’s great, the main presentable piece of info from this source is Tobaccowala was the CTO of SurveyMonkey.
  • NYT - a passing mention of Tobaccowala “who runs the start-up Gixo” and the 2014 addition of Tobaccowala to Redfin’s board of directors.
  • As for the books Masters of Scale and Blitzscaling, they each detail aspects of her career per the page previews you’ve linked. Is this not the same WP:RESUME issue? Each of these details can be held by the respective company page, stating that she led the company at one time. (This doesn’t change the outcome of the AfD/source listing, although the Masters of Scale podcast attempted to spam links to their podcast with Tobaccowala, which can be seen in the edit history of Tobaccowala’s page here) 30Four (talk) 06:47, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

    I don't think WP:RESUME is on-point as you are claiming since it seems primarily about auto-biographies, which this doesn't seem to be, even if there has been some promotional editing. The sources covering her do lean heavily on interviews so the primary reason I voted keep is because, in general, co-founding a company like Evite and then continuing to be in the similar space while getting interviewed across many platforms is often a sign of notability. I was leaning between a weak and normal keep, but ended up on a normal keep because I think the totality and length of coverage (even on the edge because of interviews) makes me think that she meets the spirit of WP:N and basically the letter. Many of the sources are: significant coverage, reliable, partly secondary, and independent of the subject.

    I don't quite understand your issue with the book coverage: if a person is significantly covered, as opposed to their company with occasional mentions of the person, it is considered a source counting toward notability. Skynxnex (talk) 21:16, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

    Masters of Scale was published in 2021 and is a summary of each episode of the mentioned podcast per the books description. "Behind the scenes in Silicon Valley, Reid Hoffman (founder of LinkedIn, investor at Greylock) is a sought-after adviser to heads of companies and heads of state. On each episode of his podcast, Masters of Scale, he sits down with a guest from an all-star list of visionary founders and leaders, digging into the surprising strategies that power their company’s growth. In this book, he draws on their most riveting, revealing stories—as well as his own experience as a founder and investor—to distill the secrets behind the most extraordinary success stories of our times."

    Blitzscaling (co-written by Reid Hoffman, the same author as Masters of Scale) I have less of an issue with, although it seems to speak to the same job title-based language. The book itself may establish itself as a good source, however I don't believe it covers anything outside of WP:ROUTINE, that being routine coverage of Tobaccowala's jobs (which to me, boils down to WP:RESUME). I believe the same of the good sources used on her page currently. 30Four (talk) 18:01, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

• Keep: There is also in-depth coverage from [1] along with additional sources listed above. She passes GNG. Thilsebatti (talk) 11:28, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

  See my replies to the comments above which have also posted the same source you've linked. 30Four (talk) 06:48, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

• Leaning keep, or move to draft for further development. Given the prominence of Evite, I would expect sources supporting the notability of the co-founders to be findable. The sources cited thus far in this discussion are on the edge, but there are thousands of search results to consider. BD2412 T 00:24, 18 April 2023 (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.