Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Leadership of the Walt Disney Company

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. I see a consensus to Delete this article. If an editor wants to work on the article in Draft space and submit it for review to AFC, contact me or make a request at WP:REFUND. It's unfortunate that no improvements were made to the article over the course of the past week but if it is draftified, it will need substantial work to be accepted back into main space. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 05:43, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Leadership of the Walt Disney Company

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I find it rather concerning that this article (which is arguably just an extensive list) was made as an undiscussed WP:CONTENTFORK and duplication of the Walt Disney Company#Leadership section, as well as other sections of people at the specific company units (ie Marvel Studios#Key people). I will note that, while the major shareholders are notable given the highly-profiled proxy fight, they do not suit major positioning that warrants a separate article for corporate leadership in a list and would be more beneficial in a section on the main article and in its infobox. Much of this list is comprised of unsourced or poorly formatted contents which seem like a cut-and-paste of the official Disney websites' hierarchical structure listings as opposed to providing any actual input or information as to who all of these people are and why they are all relevant to the leadership of a multinational conglomerate with millions of assets. Surely not all of them have an impact on the leadership. WP:PEOPLELIST states: "Because the subject of many lists is broad, a person is typically included in a list of people only if both of the following requirements are met:
The person meets the Wikipedia notability requirement.
The person's membership in the list's group is established by reliable sources.
There are some common exceptions to the typical notability requirement:

If the person is famous for a specific event, the notability requirement need not be met. If a person in a list does not have a Wikipedia article about them, a citation (or link to another article) must be provided to: a) establish their membership in the list's group; and b) establish their notability on either WP:BLP1E or WP:BIO1E. In a few cases, such as lists of people holding notable positions, the names of non-notable people may be included in a list that is largely made up of notable people, for the sake of completeness."

I find it incredibly hard to believe that the vast majority of these persons included in this list are remotely notable, let alone relevant, to the company's overall and general leadership. They're not unit heads, on the company board, shareholders, or top-ranking/important execs. And for those that are notable, they are covered with more relevance at each individual unit's article, and ought not to all be compiled in this list, which is essentially looking for a purpose when everything relevant is already covered elsewhere. And if the notable persons are not mentioned, such content ought to be split to the relevant articles, not stockpiled here. If this were an article discussing Disney's history with leadership and succession issues, that would be a different story, though such splitting ought to be discussed at the main talk first to avoid such lists like this and AfDs from happening. There may be some merit in crafting an article on the highly-publicized proxy fight in which leadership and succession has been addressed, though this list is not the answer to that. Trailblazer101 (talk) 05:12, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Businesspeople, Disney, and Companies. Trailblazer101 (talk) 05:12, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete – As per WP:NOTDIRECTORY MaskedSinger (talk) 20:29, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hey @Trailblazer101,

This being a brand new article and myself being a relatively new editor, I understand my mistakes in my writing of this article and I'd like to thank you for pointing them out. You have brought to my attention a series of issues that I believe CAN be solved without a necessity for deletion or merging.

This article was intended to provide a visualization for the organization of one of the most written-about and complex organizational structures. It was not intended to provide a list of people working for the Walt Disney Company, as you brought up, but rather to detail how the company's business units were organized and provide a central location for Wikipedia articles regarding the Walt Disney Company's subdivisions and business units (as seen in how the article has been implemented into Portal:Disney, Category:The Walt Disney Company, Category: Disney Executives and WikiProject: Disney). After bringing up these concerns, I understand that it would be better to show this by focusing more on the business units and their descriptions rather than simply an organized list of the units and the people who run them.

Going forward, I believe some changes are in order.

1) We will clean up the article by deleting insignificant sections that are not worthy of being in an encyclopedia, per Wikipedia:Notability.

2) We will reorganize the article to shift its focus from being a list of people to being more fixated on the structure of the company. That way, it will be more clear that this is not intended to be a list of people, but rather a list of positions and units of the Walt Disney Company.

3) We will add more descriptive information so that this article fulfills its purpose of explaining the organization of a notable corporate structure.

4) We will add more references and more links to showcase how well-documented and notable this subject is from multiple trusted media outlets.

I believe this topic, after much revision, will merit its own article, rather than to be compiled into a main article because of how heavily the structure of the Walt Disney Company (and changes of such) is reported in the media.

Essentially, this is a new article and needs a lot of work. You are correct that this article, as a list of people, does not necessitate its own article. However, were we to revise the article and shift its focus to discuss the in-depth structure of the Walt Disney Company so that it serves its intended role, this article would be attractive to readers interested in corporate structure, business, and The Walt Disney Company. As a new editor, I know mistakes are bound to be made, so I appreciate you all for catching them. Please help me out with any suggestions on how we can revise this article to serve a purpose that would be notable and attractive to readers. However, I do not believe deleting this article is the right solution.

To answer your concerns directly in case there was any confusion:

"would be more beneficial in a section on the main article and in its infobox"

The structuring of The Walt Disney Company is quite complex at this depth and wouldn't fit well into the main article.

"Much of this list is comprised of unsourced or poorly formatted contents which seem like a cut-and-paste of the official Disney websites' hierarchical structure listings as opposed to providing any actual input or information as to who all of these people are and why they are all relevant to the leadership of a multinational conglomerate with millions of assets"

Regarding the sourcing, you're right. Much of the sourcing came from the same websites, especially when positions were a part of the same unit. What we need to do is copy the references to every instance that they apply to, rather than noting them once. Regarding the formatting and cut-and-paste claim: could you clarify what you mean about the formatting? Being much more experienced than me at Wikipedia editing, you likely know more about how to better format such an article. I'd be open to any suggestions you have. This article was not a copy-and-paste from the company's website outside of the top executives in each business segment. Disney business websites do not detail the structuring of their company below the business segments. A lot of in-depth research was done to find information about organization levels below the top executives.

Regarding your claim about WP:PEOPLELIST notability requirements

You're correct again here. I hadn't read those entirely yet, and you provided good information for me. I've now read Wikipedia's notability requirements, which influenced my idea to shift the focus of this article to the organization of the company rather than a list of people, also providing a description explaining the structure and role of certain positions. Such a change would give this article so much more value, and I hadn't thought of that before your message. So thank you for the link to WP:PEOPLELIST.

One final note, I've been working on linking this article with Wikipedia:Wikiproject Disney and the relevant categories surrounding this article. The purpose of this is to link the article with the relevant editing community so that I can get help from them as to how best to improve this article. I'd like the chance to work with them as well as more experienced editors, such as yourself, to fix these concerns and turn this article into one of notability and attractiveness.

Thank you for your concerns, and I look forward to hearing any suggestions you, or others, have. Investor Day (talk) 00:40, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Investor Day, it never hurts to work on improving the article under discussion during this week-long period to address the concerns of the nominator. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:10, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Investor Day: Precisely, you are free to improving this article based on the concerns I raised while this discussion takes place. I would highly suggest working on this in the WP:Draftspace or your own WP:Userspace, such as a WP:Sandbox, if you wish to perform further work in case of deletion so you can retain a copy of your current work. I have tagged the article's talk page with the relevant WikiProjects and notified each of them regarding this nomination. I would love to see a strategic analysis on the company's history of structural and leadership changes discussed in a more thorough and critical article as opposed to a staunch list, and I'm glad to hear your willingness to improve this into something more! And hey, if this does go to the draftspace or is deleted, that is okay, too, as you can always work on it as a draft or in your userspace and then submit it through our WP:Articles for creation team which would be happy to assist you in article creation endeavors. Our WP:Teahouse team is also here to assist you. I'm glad to hear you have a vested interest in the Walt Disney Company and its leadership structure, and commend your for your thorough research. Trailblazer101 (talk) 15:26, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, I'll get to work on that. Honestly, I would be more interested in writing that kind of article anyway.

And thanks for the tips, I've been exploring a lot of the WP help pages and different WikiProjects because of your comments! Investor Day (talk) 02:06, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Delete WP:NOTDIRECTORY. Much of this information does not interest most readers. This is not Investopedia. InfiniteNexus (talk) 05:36, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Per NOTDIRECTORY. Any leadership that is relevant can be placed in the infoboxes of the respective Wikipedia pages. --CNMall41 (talk) 01:34, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have moved this page under my User space in order to keep it as a reference for myself and give myself a space to rework it (as discussed above) and re-publish it into the mainspace after review from the relevant WP communities. I'm not sure that I'm allowed to remove the AFD nomination, so please let me know how to proceed or take action yourself. Hopefully this is a valid solution. Thank you all for the suggestions and consideration. Investor Day (talk) 03:18, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Investor Day, do not move an article being discussed at an open AFD discussion until it is closed. If you want the article userfied or draftified, state that as your desired outcome. But you can not usurp this discussion by moving the article under discussion. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:36, 8 April 2024 (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.