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Talk:Matt Williams (Internet entrepreneur)

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I removed a 'resume' tag posted by an anonymous user. Given this article is about a public figure in business/tech, it follows that his page would adhere to the same structure of other business bios: namely, they follow the arc of the individual's career, focusing on the positions of public interest. Not sure how else to structure it.Wintertanager (talk) 15:05, 6 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Tag was not retaliatory. Tag is to do with issues on the page. The explanation is contained within the tag: Namely, the article is written like a resumé. I am less anonymous than you are. 79.97.226.247 (talk) 21:25, 6 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but I disagree. Can you cite specific issues with the page?Wintertanager (talk) 21:54, 6 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Welcome to the club 79. Wintertanager thinks I'm retaliating too (for agreeing with him on an AFD). The Dissident Aggressor 23:18, 9 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

RFC

[edit]

Does this article read too much like a résumé, and should it be tagged as such until it is brought up to standard? 79.97.226.247 (talk) 19:26, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for taking this approach, a better way of resolving.Wintertanager (talk) 21:24, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it reads too much like a resume. And in case there's any doubt as to why I edited this article, 79.97 mentioned that Wintertanager has been puffing this article the way he has many other tech exec articles on the WP:AN3 discussion that resulted in a restriction on Wintertanager and I followed the links in the discussion here. The Dissident Aggressor 23:15, 9 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
All I ask for is for someone to identify the specific problems with this page, which I don't believe is promotional at all. What specific sentences or areas are problematic? What should be structured differently? If there are peacock terms or puffery, can you identify them? Wintertanager (talk) 00:47, 10 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"diving team coached by Olympic medalist diver Cynthia Potter" - really? Was there a need to do the gratuitous name-dropping? No. PR agents couldn't do better (assuming you're not one, which I'm still skeptical of). The Dissident Aggressor 03:56, 10 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - summed by request bot. I agree this article has very puffy peacocks ie stylistic promotional tone in addition to what is clearly WP:OR as there is info on here that is not coming from a cited source, and some things that are cited are unnecessary. I'm not going to look over the history as to who has done what or whatever is causing the snarkiness above. You asked for a specific issue, so I will give you several:
  • "Williams also served as "shadow" to Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos, a role requiring him to accompany Bezos throughout all day-to-day activities and confer in an advisory capacity." - Sketch. The source article (about the shadow thing Bezos does) very plainly states that in the early days "shadows came and went quickly" and that back then "the role was usually filled by an executive who had joined the company in an acquisition and was struggling to find his place at the rapidly growing online retailer"; the sole reference to Williams is that he and two others "spent brief periods shadowing Bezos" in the early days before it became an official thing. Most telling is, he is not included in the "take notice" listing at the end of "the executives who spent the most time with Jeff Bezos, who had the seat closest to his unconventional leadership style, and who have been trained in his peculiar way of thinking." There is no explanation or source that explains any further about why this is notable or significant in a biography, whether this was for six hours or six months, etc.
  • "He inherited a number of challenges: the technically marred release of site redesign Digg v4 had resulted in a decline in customer usage and an alienation of the site's core audience; at the same time, changes in the internet milieu - most particularly Google's search algorithm - had made Digg's news aggregation model less relevant" — this is blatant massaging of words/weasley phrases to put him in a great light (I read this and my mind interprets it as, "Then our protagonist bravely and heroically rose up to overcome first-world obstacles, all caused by other people and circumstances beyond his control.") Meanwhile, this is what the actual source (the Dow Jones tech site) writes: "Williams was appointed CEO in October 2010, on the heels of a redesign that wasn't technically sound and alienated the Digg community." As far as I can tell, the other information is not referenced. So where is the other info coming from? For example, that it was Digg v4.0 or that it had anything to do with Google's search algorithm? (The less said about the phrase "changes in the internet milieu" the better off all mankind will be.)
  • "Under Williams direction, Digg's metrics began to rebound through improved communication with the Digg community, corresponding product enhancements, and a Facebook Open Graph integration. Site engagement increased significantly: Diggs and time on site by 20%, while the total number of comments submitted per day experienced a 50% lift.[15] Despite these improvements, the company's burn rate remained high, resulting in layoffs of 40% of staff and cuts in operational costs in order to approach cash flow positive in 2011.[15][16]" - Fail fail fail as unreferenced; the citation is to an article that is merely a copy/paste of a blog entry from Williams, ie in which he himself supplies these statistics. He is not a secondary source as required.
  • Jargon that is OK over breakfast at Buck's but not an encyclopedia: "sought additional VC funding for the 20 person company, receiving offers for blue-chip backing"- no explanation of what VC stands for nor is it linked to the term venture capital; nor is there an explanation of what "blue-chip backing" is. Not the worst problem, but it overall puts the tone of the article in a questionable light and hints that it was written by someone who is highly familiar with these kinds of dealings.
  • "Williams' tenure at Amazon.com lasted more than a decade." Just no. This phrasing implies inherit prestige of an officeholder or tenured professor. "He worked for Amazon from 1999 to 2010" or "From 1999 to 2010, Williams worked at Amazon.com in xyz capacity" is perfectly sufficient.
  • That's about all I have time for. Hopefully this helps. —МандичкаYO 😜 11:02, 10 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Q.E.D. The Dissident Aggressor 15:39, 10 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough, helps me understand the issues. Wintertanager (talk) 16:54, 10 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Summoned by bot I think that this does not read like a resume but only tells the reader the significance of what the particular company relates to him. I think that there need to be lots of improvement within this article, but overall, I do not see the article written as a resume. Nick2crosby (talk) 00:18, 1 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Despite the many improvements by DissidentAggressor, this remains promotional, like most executive bios here. The proper tags would be "news release" and "npov". 'responsible for " is in this context an extremely vague phrase,meaning only that the things happened while he was there, and, as as an executive, he approved them or took the credit. This applies in particular to the section on digg. What would be useful is some information on the success of Procom, his latest venture. But, following the suggestion of the people above, rather than placing the tags, I am going to fix the article right now,in the same way I have fixed so many others. Local business journals are sources of the most dubious notability; they mostly reprint PR. . DGG ( talk ) 21:05, 28 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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